A sensible physician will always rather cure a sick man with sleep and feeding than with castor and scammony; and a right-minded friend, or a kind father or teacher, prefers to use praise [Sidenote: E] rather than blame as his means of moral correction. For a candid friend to cause least pain and work most benefit, there is nothing like showing the least possible anger and treating the offender with polite good feeling. We must not, therefore, sharply confute him if he denies a thing, nor try to stop him if he defends himself. On the contrary, we must help him to contrive some kind of plausible excuse; and, when he refuses to own to the more discreditable motive, we must ourselves concede him a less heinous one. Thus Hector says to his brother: _Not well is this wrath, foolish man, that thus thou hast stored in thy bosom_, [Sidenote: F] as if his retirement from the battle, instead of being a dastardly running away, was an exhibition of temper. So Nestor to Agamemnon: _Thou didst yield to the pride of thy spirit._ It is manifestly more courteous to say, ‘You did not stop to think,’ or, ‘You failed to perceive,’ than ‘You behaved badly’, or ‘You behaved unfairly’; to say, ‘Do not be hard upon [Sidenote: 74] your brother,’ than ‘Do not be jealous of your brother’; to say, ‘Flee from the woman’s seductions,’ than ‘Stop trying to seduce the woman’. This is the manner cultivated by curative [Sidenote: *] candour; the other belongs to vexatious candour. Suppose a person is about to do wrong and that we are called upon to check him—to stem the current of some vehement impulse. Or suppose that he is inclined to be unready in the performance of duty, and we wish to brace him up and stimulate him. We should do so by making charges which put the matter in an outrageously unbecoming light. For instance, in Sophocles, when Odysseus is working upon Achilles, he makes out, not that Achilles is angry at the affair of the banquet, but [Sidenote: B] _Now that thou hast the Trojan burghs in sight, Thou art afraid._ And when, in answer to this, Achilles is so enraged that he declares he is off home: _I know what ’tis thou flyest—not reproach: Hector is nigh, and ’tis not well to stay._ In inciting to high courses and dissuading from low ones, we may frighten a man with the reputation he will win: a man of courage and spirit with that of coward; a man of temperance and self-control with that of profligate; a man of magnificent generosity with that of miser and cheeseparer. Where a thing is past cure, we must show ourselves reasonable; our candour [Sidenote: C] must display more sorrow and sympathy than blame. But when we are preventing a misdeed or fighting against a passion, we must be vigorous, inflexible, and insistent. Then is the right moment for incorruptible affection and genuine frankness.