Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

;ON ANGER, II. XV. 3-xvi. 2and love^and-Jiashfulness, are-fJound combined? jAccordinglyj I can often prove to you even by a man'sown e\'ils that his natural bent is good ; but thesee\'ils~'aTe~noneThe less \-ices even though they areindicative of a superior nature. Then, again, all thosepeoples which are, like lions and wolves, free by reasonof their very ^\ildness, even as they cannot submit to /servitude, neither can they exercise dominion ; forthe ability they possess is not that of a human beingbut of something v. ild and ungovernable ; and noman is able to rule unless he can also submit to beruled. Consequently, the peoples who have heldempire^ arelJDiOiSolily those who live in a rather mildclimate. Those who Ke toward the frozen north havesavage tempers—tempers which, as the poet says, areMost like their native skies."" Those animals," you say, " which are much givento anger are held to be the noblest." But it is -WTongfor one to hold up the creatures in whom impulsetakes the place of reason as a pattern for a humanbeing ; in roan reason takes the place of impulse. (But not even in the case of such animals is the sameimpulse equally profitable for all ; anger serves thelion, fear the stag, aggressiveness the hawk, cowardicethe dove. But what if it is not even true that itis the best animals that are most prone to anger ?Wild beasts which gain their food by rapine, I canbeheve, do so the better the angrier they arebut it is the endurance of the ox and the horse,obedient to the rein, that I would commend. Forwhat reason, however, do you direct man to suchmiserable standards when you have the universeand God, whom man of all creatures alone com-201'-•