Diogenes Laertius

Lives of the Philosophers

The Passions in General

    The main, or most universal passions, according to [the Stoics] constitute four great classes: pain, fear, desire and, pleasure.  They hold the emotions to be judgments, as is stated by Chrysippus  in his treatise On The Passions:  avarice being a supposition that money is a good, while the case is similar with that money is a good, while the case is similar with drunkenness and profligacy and all the other emotions.

BOOK ONE

The Horrible Effects of Anger

1.   You have asked me, Novatus, to write on the subject of how anger may be alleviated, and it seems to me that you had a good reason to fear in an especial degree this, the most hideous and frenzied of all the emotions.  For the other emotions have in them some element of peace and calm, while this one is wholly violent and has its being in an onrush of resentment, raging with a most inhuman lust for weapons, blood, and punishment, giving no thought to itself if only it can hurt another, hurling itself upon the very point of the dagger, and eager for revenge though it may drag down the avenger along with it.  

    Certain wise men, therefore, have claimed that anger is temporary madness.  For it is equally devoid of self-control, forgetful of decency, unmindful of ties, persistent and diligent in whatever it begins, closed to reason and counsel, excited by trifling causes, unfit  to discern the right and true-the very counterpart of a ruin that is shattered in pieces where it overwhelms.  But you have only to behold the aspect of those possessed by anger to know that they are insane.  For as the marks of a madman are unmistakable-a bold and threatening mien, a gloomy brow, a fierce expression, a hurried step, restless hands, an altered color, a quick and more violent breathing-so likewise are the marks of the angry man; his eyes blaze and sparkle, his whole face is crimson with the blood that surges from the lowest depths of the heart, his lips quiver, his teeth are clenched his hair bristles and stands on end, his breathing is forced and harsh, his joints crack from writhing, he groans and bellows, bursts out into speech with scarcely intelligible words, strikes his hands together continually, and stamps the ground with his feet; his whole body is excited and "performs great angry threats"; it is an ugly and horrible picture of distorted and swollen frenzy-you cannot tell whether this vice is more execrable or more hideous.  

    Other passions may be concealed and cherished in secret; anger shows itself openly and appears in the countenance, and the greater it is, the more visibly it boils forth.  Do you not see how animals of every sort, as soon as they bestir themselves for mischief, show premonitory signs, and how their whole body, forsaking its natural state of repose, accentuates their ferocity?  Wild boars foam at the mouth and sharpen their tusks by friction, bulls toss their horns in the air and scatter the sand by pawing, lions roar, snakes puff up their necks when they are angry, and mad dogs have a sullen look.  No animal is so hateful and so deadly by nature as not to show a fresh access of fierceness as soon as it is assailed by anger.  And yet I am aware that the other emotions as well are not easily concealed; that lust and fear and boldness all show their marks and can be recognized beforehand.  For no violent agitation can take hold of the mind without affecting in some way the countenance.  Where, then, lies the difference?  In this-the other emotions show, anger stands out.

2.   Moreover, if you choose to view its results and the harm of it, no plague has cost the human race more dear.  You will see bloodshed and poisoning, the vile countercharges of criminals, the downfall of cities and whole nations given to destruction, princely persons sold at public auction, houses put to the torch, and conflagration that halts not within the city-walls, but makes great stretches of  the country glow with hostile flame.  Behold solitudes stretching only for many miles without a single dweller-anger laid them waste.  Behold all the leaders who have been handed down to posterity as instances of an evil fate-anger stabbed this one in his bed, struck down this one amid the sanctities of the feast, tore this one to pieces in the very home of the law and in full view of the crowded forum, forced this one to have his blood spilled by the murderous act of his son, another to have his royal throat cut by the hand of a slave, another to have his limbs stretched upon the cross. 

    And so far I have mentioned the sufferings of individual persons only; what if leaving aside these who singly felt the force of anger's flame, you should choose to view the gatherings cut down by the sword, the populace butchered by soldiery let loose upon them, and whole peoples condemned to death in common ruin as if either forsaking our protection, or despising our authority.  Tell me, why do we see the people grow angry with gladiators, and so unjustly as to deem it an offence that they are not glad to die?  They consider themselves affronted, and from mere spectators transform themselves into enemies, in looks, in gesture, and in violence.  Whatever this may be, it is not anger, but mock anger, like that of children who, if they fall down, want the earth to be thrashed, and who often do not even know why they are angry- they are merely angry, without any reason and without being injured, though not without some semblance of injury and not without some desire of exacting punishment.  And so they are deceived by imaginary blows and are pacified by the pretended tears of those who beg forgiveness, and mock resentment is removed by a mock revenge.

What is Anger?

3.   "We often get angry," some one rejoins, "not at those who have hurt us, but at those who intend to  hurt us; you may, therefore, be sure that anger is not born of injury."  It is true that we do get angry at those who intend to hurt us, but by the very intention they do hurt us; the man who intends to do injury has already done it.  "But," our friend replies, "that you may know that anger is not the desire to exact punishment the weakest men are often angry at the most powerful, and if they have no hope of inflicting punishment, they have not the desire."  In the first place, I spoke of do so; moreover, men do desire even what they cannot attain.  In the second place, no one is so lowly that he cannot hope to punish even the loftiest of men; we all have power to do harm.  

    Aristotle's definition differs little from mine; for he says that anger is the desire to repay suffering.  To trace the difference between his definition and mine would take too long.  In criticism of both it may be said that wild beast become angry though they are neither stirred by injury nor bent on the punishment or the suffering of another; for even if they accomplish these ends, they do not seek them.  But our reply must be that wild beasts and all animals, except man, are not subject to anger; for while it is the foe of reason, it is nevertheless, born only where reason dwells. Wild beasts have impulses, madness, fierceness, aggressiveness; but they no more have anger than they have luxuriousness.  Yet in regard to certain pleasures they are less self-restrained than man.  You are not to be believe the words of the poet:

The boar his wrath forgets, the hind her trust in flight,                           

Nor bears will now essay the sturdy kind to fight.

Their being aroused and spurred to action he calls their "wrath"; but they know no more how to be wroth than to pardon.  Dumb animals lack the emotions of man, but they have certain impulses similar to these emotions.  Otherwise, if they were capable of love and hate, they would also be capable of friendship and enmity, discord and harmony; and some traces of these qualities do appear in them also, but the qualities of good and bad are peculiar to the human breast.  Wisdom, foresight, diligence, and reflection have been granted to no creature but man, and not only his virtues but also his faults have been withheld from the animals.  As their outward form is wholly different from that of man, so is their inner nature; its guiding and directing principle is cast in a different mould.  They have a voice, it is true, but it is unintelligible, uncontrolled, and incapable of speech; they have a tongue, but it is shackled and not free to make many different movements.  So in fineness and precision.  Consequently, while it forms impressions and notions of the things that arouse it to action, they are clouded and indistinct.  It follows, accordingly, that while they have violent outbreaks and mental disturbances, they do not have fear and  anxiety, sorrow and anger, but certain states similar to them.  These, therefore, quickly pass and change to the exact reverse, and animals, after showing the sharpest frenzy and fear, will begin after showing the sharpest frenzy and fear, will begin to feed, and their frantic bellowing and plunging is immediately followed by repose and sleep....

Is Anger Useful or Controllable?

7.  Although anger be contrary to nature, may it not be right to adopt it, because it has often been awful?  It rouses and incites the spirit, and without it bravery performs no splendid deed in war-unless it supplies the flame, unless it acts as a goad to spur on brave men and send them into danger.  Therefore some think that the best course is to control anger, not to banish it, and by removing its excesses to confine it within beneficial bounds, keeping, however, that part without which action will be inert and the mind's force and energy broken.

    In the first place, it is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than, after they have been admitted, to control them; for when they have established themselves in possession, they are stronger than their ruler and do not permit themselves to be restrained or reduced.  On the second place, Reason herself, to whom the reins of power have been entrusted, remains mistress only so long as she is kept apart from the passions: if  once she mingles with them and is contaminated, she becomes unable to hold back those whom she might have cleared from her path.  for when once the mind has been aroused and shaken, it becomes the slave of the disturbing agent.  There are certain things which at the start are under our control, but later hurry us away by their violence and leave us no retreat.  As a victim hurled from the precipice has no control of his body, and once cast off, can neither stop not stay, but, speeding or irrevocably, is cut off from all reconsideration and repentance and cannot now avoid arriving at the goal toward which he might once have avoided starting, so with the mind-if it plunges into anger, love, or the other passions, it has no power to check its impetus; its very weight and the downward tendency of vice needs must hurry it on, and drive it to the bottom.

The Subjection of Reason by Anger

8.    The best course is to reject at once the first incitement to anger, to resist even its small beginnings, and to take pains to avoid falling into anger.  For if it begins to lead us astray, the return to the safe path id difficult, since, if once we admit the emotion and by our own free will grant it any authority, reason becomes of no avail; after that it will do, not whatever you let it, but what ever it chooses.  The enemy, I repeat, must be stopped at the very frontier; for if he has passed it, and advanced within the city-gates, he will not respect any bounds set by his captives.  For the mind is not a member apart, nor does it view the passions merely objectively, thus forbidding them to advance farther than they ought, but it is itself transformed into the passion and is, therefore, unable to recover its former useful and saving power when this has once been betrayed and weakened.  For, as I said before, these two do not dwell separate and distinct, but passion and reason are only the transformation of the mind toward the better or the worse. How, then, will the reason, after it has surrendered to anger, rise again, assailed and crushed as it is by vice? Or how shall it free itself from the motley combination in which a blending of all the worse qualities makes them supreme? 

    "But," says someone, "there are those who control themselves even in anger." You mean, then, that they do none of the things that anger dictates, or only some of them? If they do none, it is evident that anger is not essential to the transactions of life, and yet you were advocating it on the ground that it is something stronger than reason. I ask, in fine, is anger more powerful or weaker than reason? If it is more powerful, how will reason be able to set limitations upon it, since, ordinarily, it is only the less powerful thing that submits? If it is weaker, then reason without it is sufficient in itself for the accomplishment of our tasks, and requires no help from a thing less powerful. Yet you say: There are those who, even though angry, remain true to themselves and are self-controlled." But when are they so? Only when anger gradually vanishes and departs of its own accord, not when it is at white heat; then it is the more powerful of the two. "What then?" you say; "do not men sometimes even in the midst of anger allow those whom they hate to get off safe and sound and refrain from doing them injury?" They do; but when? When passion has beaten back passion, and either fear or greed has obtained its end. Then there is peace, not wrought through the good offices of reason, but trough a treacherous and evil agreement between the passions.

Arguments Against the Usefulness of Anger

A.  Warfare

9.    Again, there is nothing useful in anger, nor does it kindle the mind to warlike deeds; for virtue, being self-sufficient, never needs the help of vice. Whenever there is need of violent effort, the mind does not become angry, but it gathers itself together and is aroused or relaxed according to its estimate of the need; just as when engines of war hurl forth their arrows, it is the operator who controls the tension with which they are hurled. "Anger," says Aristotle, "is necessary, and no battle can be won without it-unless it fills the mind and the soul; it must serve, however, not as a leader, but as the common soldier." But this is not true. For if it listen to reasons and follows where reason leads, it is no longer anger, of which the chief characteristic is willfulness. If, however, it resists and is not submissive when ordered, but is carried away by its own caprice and fury, it will be an instrument of the mind as useless as is the soldier who disregards the signal for retreat. If, therefore, anger suffers any limitation to be imposed upon it, it must be called by some other name-it has ceased to be anger; for I understand this to be unbridled and ungovernable. If it suffers no limitation, it is a baneful thing and is not to be counted as a helpful agent. Thus either anger is not anger or it is useless. For the man who exacts punishment , not because he desires punishment for its own sake, but because it is right to inflict it, ought not to be counted as an angry man. The useful soldier will be one who knows how to obey orders; the passions are as bad subordinates as they are leaders.

10.  Consequently, reason will never call to its help blind and violent impulses over which it will itself have no control, which it can never crush save by setting against them equally powerful and similar impulses, as fear against anger, anger against sloth, greed against fear. May virtue be spared the calamity of having reason ever flee for help to vice! It is impossible for the mind to find here a sure repose; shattered and storm-tossed it must ever be if it depends upon its worst qualities to save it, if it cannot be quiet without being afraid-such is the tyranny under which that man must live who surrenders to the bondage of any passion. Is it not a shame to degrade the virtues into dependence upon the vices? Again, reason ceases to have power if it has no power apart from passion, and so gets to be on the same level with passion and like unto it. For what difference is there, if passion without reason is a thing as unguided as reason without passion is ineffective? Both are on the same level, if one cannot exist without the other. Yet who would maintain that passion is on a level with reason? 

    "Passion," someone says, "is useful, provided that it is moderate." No, only by its nature can it be useful. If, however, it will not submit to authority and reason, the only result of its moderation will be that the less there is of it, the less harm it will do. Consequently moderate passion is nothing else than a moderate evil.  

11.   "But against the enemy," it is said, "anger is necessary." Nowhere is it less so; for there the attack ought not to be disorderly, but regulated and under control. What else is it, in fact, but their anger-its own worst foe-that reduces to impotency the barbarians, who are so much stronger of body than we, and so much better able to endure hardship? So, too, in the case of gladiators skill is their protection, anger their undoing....Anger, therefore, is not expedient even in battle or in war; for it is prone to rashness, and while it seeks to bring about danger, does not guard against it. The truest form of wisdom is to make a wide and long inspection, to put self in subjection, and then to move forward slowly and in a set direction.  

B.  Revenge

12.    "What then?" you ask; "will the good man not be angry if his father is murdered, his mother outraged before his eyes?" No, he will not be angry, but he will avenge them, will protect them. Why, moreover, are you afraid that filial affection, even without anger, may not prove a sufficiently strong incentive for him? Or you  might as well say: "What then? if a good man should see his father or his son under the knife, will he not weep, will he not faint?" But this is the way we see women act whenever they are upset by the slightest suggestion of danger. The good man will perform his duties undisturbed and unafraid; and he will in such a way do all that is worthy of a good man as to do nothing that is unworthy of a man. My father is being murdered-I will defend him; he is slain-I will avenge him, not because I grieve, but because it is my duty. "Good men are mad angry by the injuries to those they love."...

C.  Moral Correction

14.   "It  is impossible," says Theophrastus, "for a  good man not to be angry with bad men." Accordingly to this, the better a man is, the more prone to anger he will be; on the contrary, be sure that none is more peaceable, more free from passion, and less given to hate. Indeed, what reason  has he for hating wrong-doers, since it is error that drives them to such mistakes? But no man of sense will hate the erring; otherwise he will hate himself. Let him reflect how many times he offends against morality, how many of his acts stand in need of pardon; then he will be angry with himself also. For no just judge will pronounce one sort of judgment in his own case and a different one in the case of others. No one will be found, I say, who is able to acquit himself, and any man who calls himself innocent is thinking more of witnesses than conscience. How much more human to manifest toward wrong-doers a kind and fatherly spirit, not hunting them down but calling them back! If a man has lost his way and is roaming across our fields, it is better to put him upon the right path than to drive him out.

15.   And so the man who does wrong ought to be corrected both by admonition and by force, by measures both gentle and harsh, and we should try to make him a better man for his own sake, as well as for the sake of others, stinting, not our reproof, but our anger. For what physician will show anger toward a patient? "But," you say, "they are incapable of being reformed, there is nothing pliable in them, nothing that gives room for fair hope." Then let them be removed from human society if they are bound to make worse all that they touch, and let them, in the only way this is possible, cease to be evil-but let this be done without hatred. 

     For what reason have I for hating a man to whom I am offering the greatest service when I save him from himself? Does a man hate the members of  his own body when he uses the knife upon them? There is no anger there, but the pitiful desire to heal. Mad dogs we knock on the head; the fierce and savage ox we slay; sickly sheep we put to the knife to keep them from infecting the flock; unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal. Yet it is not anger, but reason that separates the harmful from the sound. For the one who administers punishment nothing is so unfitting as anger, since punishment is all the better able to work reform  if it is bestowed  with judgment. This is the reason Socrates says to his slaves: "I would beat you if I were not angry." The slave's reproof he postponed to a more rational moment; at the time it was himself he reproved. Will there be any one, pray, who has passion under control, when even Socrates did not dare to trust himself to anger?

The Path of Reason...The Only One Worth Taking

17.   Aristotle says that certain passions, if one makes a proper use of them, serve as arms. And this would be true if, like the implements of war, they could be put on and laid aside at the pleasure of the user. But these "arms" which Aristotle would grant to  virtue fight under their own orders; they await no man's gesture and are not possessed, but possess. Nature has given to us an adequate equipment in reason; we need no other implements. This is the weapon she has bestowed; it is strong, enduring, obedient, not double-edged or capable of being turned against its owner. Reason is all-sufficient in itself, serving not merely for counsel, but for action as well. What, really is more foolish than that reason should seek protection from anger-that which is steadfast from which that which  is wavering, that which is trustworthy from that which is untrustworthy, that which is well from that which is sick? 

    Even in matters of action, in which alone the help of anger seems necessary, is it not true that reason, if left to itself, has far more power? For reason, having decided upon  the necessity of some action, persists in her purpose, since  she herself can discover no better thing to put in her place; therefore her determinations, once made, stand. But anger is often forced back by pity; for it has no enduring strength, but is a delusive inflation, violent at the outset. It is like the winds that rise from off earth; generated from streams and marshes they have vehemence, but do not last. So anger begins with a mighty rush, then breaks down from untimely exhaustion, and though all its thoughts had been concerned with cruelty and unheard-of forms of torture, yet when the time is ripe for punishment it has already become crippled and weak. Passion quickly falls, reason is balanced. But even if anger persists, it will often happen that having taken the blood of two or three victims it will cease to slay, although there are more who deserve to die. Its first blows are fierce; so serpents when they first crawl from their lair are charged with venom, but their fangs are harmless after they have been drained by repeated biting. 

    Consequently, not all who have sinned alike are punished alike, and often he who has committed the smaller sin receives the greater punishment, because he was subjected to anger when it was fresh. And anger is altogether unbalanced; it now rushes farther than it should, now halts sooner than it ought. For it indulges its own impulses, is capricious in judgment, refuses to listen to evidence, grants no opportunity for defense, maintains whatever position it has seized, and is never willing to surrender its judgment even if it is wrong.

18.    Reason grants a hearing to both sides, then seeks to postpone action, even its own, in order in order that it may gain time to sift out the truth; but anger is precipitate. Reason wishes the decision that it gives to be just; anger wishes to have the decision which it has given  seem the just decision. Reason considers nothing except the question at issue; anger is moved by trifling things that lie outside the case. An overconfident demeanor, a voice too loud, boldness of speech, foppishness in dress, a pretentious show of patronage, popularity with the public-these inflame anger. Many times it will condemn the accused because it hates his lawyer; even if the truth is piled up before its very eyes, it loves error and clings to it; it refuses to be convinced, and having entered upon wrong it counts persistence to be more honorable than penitence.

BOOK II

The Need to Eradicate Anger

13.   It is not for us to seek a defense for ourselves and an excuse for such indulgence by saying that it is either expedient or unavoidable; for what vice, pray, has ever lacked its defender? It is not for you to say that anger cannot be eradicated; the ills from which we suffer are curable, and since we are born to do right, nature herself helps us if we desire to be improved. Nor, as some think, is the path to the virtues steep and rough; they are reached by a  level road. It is no idle tale that I come to tell you. The road to the happy life is an easy one; do but enter on it-with good auspices and  the good help of the gods themselves! It is far harder to do what you are now doing. What is more reposeful than peace of mind, what more toilsome than anger? What is more disengaged than mercy, what more busy than cruelty? Chastity keeps holiday, while lust is always occupied. In short, the maintenance of all virtues is easy, but it is costly to cultivate the vices. Anger must be dislodged-even those who say that it ought to be reduced admit this in part; let us be rid of  it altogether, it can do us no good. Without it we shall more easily and more justly abolish crimes, punish the wicked, and set them upon the better path. The wise man will accomplish his whole duty without the assistance of anything evil, and he will associate with himself nothing which needs to be controlled with anxious care.