of these is the case, Fundanus, but oblige me by doing
as I ask.

Sec. II. _Fundanus._ One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I
remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet
themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason
as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but
we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For
the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which
co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those
by whom it is taken. But admonition and reproof, when passion is at its
height and swelling, does little or no good, but resembles very closely
those strong-smelling substances, that are able to set on their legs
again those that have fallen in epileptic fits, but cannot rid them of
their disease. For although all other passions, even at the moment of
their acme, do in some sort listen to reason and admit it into the soul,
yet anger does not, for, as Melanthius says,

"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,"

for it absolutely turns reason out of doors, and bolts it out, and, like
those persons who burn themselves and houses together, it makes all the
interior full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that what would be
advantageous can neither be seen nor heard. And so an empty ship in a
storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than
a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice,
unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who
expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of
relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far
and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up
in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy
task to import them. For either the soul doesn't hear what is said
without because of the uproar, if it have not within its own reason
(like a boatswain as it were) to receive at once and understand every
exhortation; or if it does hear, it despises what is uttered mildly and
gently, while it is exasperated by harsh censure. For anger being
haughty and self-willed and hard to be worked upon by another, like a
fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it[679] to
overthrow it.

Sec. III. Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces
an evil