, or was somewhat
tardy on some errand? And yet these are the very things for which we put
ourselves out and are harsh and implacable, immediately after they have
happened and are recent. For as bodies seem greater in a mist, so do
little matters in a rage. We ought therefore to consider such arguments
as these at once, and if, when there is no trace of passion left, the
matter appear bad to calm and clear reason, then it ought to be taken in
hand, and the punishment ought not to be neglected or abandoned, as we
leave food when we have lost our appetites. For nothing causes people to
punish so much when their anger is fierce, as that when it is appeased
they do not punish at all, but forget the matter entirely, and resemble
lazy rowers, who lie in harbour when the sea is calm, and then sail out
to their peril when the wind gets up. So we, condemning reason for
slackness and mildness in punishing, are in a hurry to punish, borne
along by passion as by a dangerous gale. He that is hungry takes his
food as nature dictates, but he that punishes should have no hunger or
thirst for it, nor require anger as a sauce to stimulate him to it, but
should punish when he is as far as possible from having any desire for
it, and has to compel his reason to it. For we ought not, as Aristotle
tells us slaves in his time were scourged in Etruria to the music of the
flute, to go headlong into punishing with a desire and zest for it, and
to delight in punishing, and then afterwards to be sorry at it--for the
first is savage, and the last womanish--but we should without either
sorrow or pleasure chastise at the dictates of reason, giving anger no
opportunity to interfere.

Sec. XII. But this perhaps will not appear a cure of anger so much as a
putting away and avoiding such faults as men commit in anger. And yet,
though the swelling of the spleen is only a symptom of fever, the fever
is assuaged by its abating, as Hieronymus tells us. Now when I
contemplated the origin of anger itself, I observed that, though
different persons fell into it for different reasons, yet in nearly all
of them was the idea of their being despised and neglected to be found.
So we ought to help those who try to get rid of anger, by removing as
far as possible from them any action savouring of contempt or contumely,
and by looking upon their anger as folly or necessity, or emotion, or
mischance, as Sophocles says,

"In those that are unfortunate, O king,
No mi