He justly observes that we cannot directly control our passions: "We cannot," he says, "start or appease our anger as we can move an aim or keep it still." But, on the other hand, the power we exercise over our external members gives us also a very great one over our passions. It is, of course, but an indirect power, but it is no less efficacious: "Thus can I put away from me a disagreeable and irritating object, and when my anger is excited, I can refuse it the arm it needs to satisfy itself." To do this it is necessary to will it; but there is nothing so difficult as to will when the soul is possessed by a passion. The question is then to know how one may escape a ruling passion. To succeed in it one should not attack it in front, but as much as possible turn the mind upon other objects: it is with passion "as with a river which is more easily turned off from its course than stopped short." A passion is often conquered by means of another passion, "as in a State," says Bacon, "where a prince restrains one faction by means of another." Bossuet says even that it may be well, in order to avoid criminal passions, to abandon one's self to innocent ones.[159] One should also be careful in the choice of the persons he associates with: "for nothing more arouses the passions than the talk and actions of passionate men; whilst a quiet mind, provided its repose be not feelingless and insipid, seems, on the contrary, to communicate to us its own peace. We need something lively that may accord with our own feelings. In a word, to conclude with Bossuet, "we should try to calm excited minds by diverting them from the main object of their excitement; approach them obliquely rather than directly in front; that is to say, that when a passion is already excited, there is no time then to attack it by reasoning, for one drives it all the stronger in. Where wise reflections are of greatest effect is in the forestalling of passions. One should therefore fill his mind with sensible thoughts, and accustom it early to proper inclinations, so that there be no room for the objects of passions." =178. Improvement of character.=--Bossuet has just informed us how we are to conduct ourselves in regard to the passions, as diseases of the soul. Let us now see how character, namely, temperament, may be modified. The character is a collection of habits, a great part of which belong, unquestionably, to our natural inclinations, but which, nevertheless, are also largely formed under the influence of education, circumstances, indulgence of passions, etc. It is thus character, "this second nature," as it has often been called, gradually develops.