CHAPTER XXVII

LET NOT THE SUN GO DOWN UPON THY

ITS EFFECTS

WRATH

1. Anger is a confluence of all the irregular passions; there are in it envy and sorrow, fear and scorn, pride and prejudice, rashness and inconsideration, rejoicing in evil and a desire to inflict it, self-love, impatience, and curiosity.

2. Anger is a professed enemy to counsel; it is a direct storm, in which no man can be heard to speak or call from without.

3. It makes innocent jesting to be the beginning of tragedies.

4. It turns friendship into hatred; it makes a man lose himself, and his reason, and his argument, in disputation.

5. It turns the desire of knowledge into an itch of wrangling; it adds insolency to power; it turns justice into cruelty, and judgment into oppression. It changes discipline into tediousness.

6. The moment we feel angry in controversy, we have already ceased striving for truth, and begun striving for ourselves.

7. Keep as far as thou canst from that which provoketh thee. A man that is in danger of a fever must avoid that which kindleth it.

HOW

TO CONTROL
TEMPER

8. It is better to learn how to live without being angry, than to imagine one can moderate and control anger lawfully.

9. And if through weakness and frailty one is overtaken by it, it is far better to put it away forcibly than to parley with it.

10. For give anger ever so little way and it will become thy master, like the serpent, which easily works its body in wherever it can once introduce its head.

11. Thou wilt ask: how to put away anger? When thou feelst its first movements, collect thyself gently and seriously, not hastily or with impetuosity.

12. Remember that people seldom vex us on purpose, although prejudice very often makes us think that they do.

13. And let this truth be present to thee in the excitement of anger: that to be moved by passion is not manly.

14. He who possesses mildness and gentleness possesses strength, and not the man who is subject to fits of passion and discontent.

15. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

16. But if thou canst not quickly quench thy passion, yet at least refrain thy tongue; speak not reproachful or provoking words.

17. Talking it out hotly doth blow the fire, and increase the flame; be but silent, and thou wilt the sooner return to thy serenity and peace.

CHAPTER XXVIII

RULE THY SPIRIT

1. The well-subdued may subdue others; one's self, indeed, is hard to tame.

SELFSUBJECTION

2. I am at once the combatants and the combat and the field that is torn with strife.

3. Who hath a greater combat than he that laboureth to overcome himself?

4. Vice is the disease of the soul, its bad habit, its deformity. Is not he wretched who enslaves his soul to the unclean appetites of his body?

5. Virtue is self-subjection to the principle of duty, that highest law in the soul.

6. He who is not self-restrained has no steadiness of mind; nor has he who is not self-restrained, perseverance in the pursuit of self-knowledge.

7. And therefore, while so many think it the only valour to command and master others, study thou the dominion of thyself, and quiet thine own commotions.

8. Let anger walk hanging down the head; let malice go manacled, and envy fettered after thee. Behold within thee the long train of thy trophies.

9. Lead thine own captivity captive, and be Cæsar within thyself.

10. No man ruleth safely but he that is willingly

ruled.

11. No man speaks safely, but he that holds his peace willingly.

REASON

AND

WILL

12. As the waters are stored up and reabsorbed in the ocean which, though being filled with them, remains unmoved and tranquil, that man in whose mind the passions are stored up and dissolved, obtains perfect calmness; but not he who strives after the gratification of his desires.

13.

Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself! in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

14. Nature hath set the will on the throne of the soul: it is the sinful connivance and negligence of the will, which is the guilty cause of all the rebellion as the connivance of the commanders is the common cause of mutinies in an army.

15. If the reason and will had no positive inclinations to evil or sensual objects, yet if they have not so much light and love to higher things as will restrain the sensual appetite, it hath positive inclination enough in itself to forbidden things to ruin the soul by actual sin.

16. The bounds which separate what is allowed and forbidden, being almost imperceptible, it will always be dangerous to go to the utmost bounds of what is allowed.

CHAPTER XXIX

BEWARE LEST EVIL ENTER IN AT THE EAR

1. Know when the hearing of evil is thy sin :-When it is not out of any imposed necessity, but of thy voluntary choice; and when thou mightst avoid it upon lawful terms, and

WHEN HEARING IS EVIL

wilt not;

2. When thou hatest not the evil which thou art necessitated to hear, but thy heart complies with thy necessities;

3. When thou showest not so much disowning and dislike of the evil which thou hearest as thou mightst do, but makest it thine own by sinful silence or compliance.

THINGS

4. Be deaf unto the suggestions of tale-bearers or calumniators, who, while quiet men sleep, sowHEARD MAY ing the tares of discord and division, distract the tranquillity of charity and all friendly

CORRUPT

US

society.

5. Whoso hearkeneth unto whisperers shall never find rest, and never dwell quietly.

6. It is dangerous to thy fantasy and memory, which quickly receiveth hurtful impressions by what thou hearest.

7. If thou shouldst hear provoking words, even against thy will, yet it is hard to escape the receiving some hurtful impression by them;