Concerning the cure of anger: a dialogue (2)

FUNDANUS. This then, O Sylla, is one of those excellent rules given by Musonius which I bear in memory,—that those who would be in sound health must physic themselves all their lives. Now I do not think that reason cures, like hellebore, by purging out itself together with the disease it cures, but by keeping possession of the soul, and so governing and guarding its judgments. For the power of reason is not like drugs, but like wholesome food; and, with the assistance of a good natural disposition, it produceth a healthful constitution in all with whom it hath become familiar.

And as for those good exhortations and admonitions which are applied to passions while they swell and are at their height, they work but slowly and with small success; and they differ in nothing from those strong-smelling things, which indeed do serve to put those that have the falling sickness upon their legs again after they are fallen, but are not able to remove the disease. For whereas other passions, even when they are in their ruff and acme, do in some sort yield and admit reason into the soul, which comes to help it from without; anger does not, as Melanthius says,—

Displace the mind, and then act dismal things;

but it absolutely turns the mind out of doors, and bolts the door against it; and, like those who burn their houses and themselves within them, it makes all things within full of confusion, smoke, and noise, so that the soul can neither see nor hear any thing that might relieve it. Wherefore sooner will an empty ship in a storm at sea admit of a pilot from without, than a man tossed with anger and rage listen to the advice of another, unless he have his own reason first prepared to entertain it.

But as those who expect to be besieged are wont to gather together and lay in provisions of such things as they are like to need, not trusting to hopes of relief from without, so ought it to be our special concern to fetch in from philosophy such foreign helps as it affords against anger, and to store them up in the soul beforehand, seeing that it will not be so easy a matter to provide ourselves when the time is come for using them. For either the soul cannot hear what is spoken without, by reason of the tumult, unless it have its own reason (like the director of the rowers in a ship) ready to entertain and understand whatsoever precept shall be given; or, if it do chance to hear, yet will it be ready to despise what is patiently and mildly offered, and to be exasperated by what shall be pressed upon it with more vehemency. For, since wrath is proud and self-conceited, and utterly averse from compliance with others, like a fortified and guarded tyranny, that which is to overthrow it must be bred within it and be of its own household.