it is true, is wholly void of reason, but it is also an equivalent darkness of mind that possesses the other. So long as we are among men, let us cherish humanity, and so live that no man may be either in fear or in danger of us. Losses, injuries, reproaches, calumnies, they are but short inconveniences, and we should bear them with resolution. Beside that, some people are above our anger, others below it. To contend with our superiors were a folly, and with our inferiors an indignity. There is hardly a more effectual remedy against anger than patience and consideration. Let but the first fervor abate, and that mist which darkens the mind will be either lessened or dispelled; a day, nay, an hour, does much in the most violent cases, and perchance totally suppresses it; time discovers the truth of things, and turns that into judgment which at first was anger. Plato was about to strike his servant, and while his hand was in the air, he checked himself, but still held it in that menacing posture. A friend of his took notice of it, and asked him what he meant? “I am now,” says Plato, “punishing of an angry man;” so that he had left his servant to chastise himself. Another time his servant having committed a great fault: “Speusippus,” says he, “do you beat that fellow, for I am angry,” so that he forebore striking him for the very reason that would have made another man have done it. “I am angry,” says he, “and shall go further than becomes me.” Nor is it fit that a servant should be in his power that is not his own master. Why should any one venture now to trust an angry man with a revenge, when Plato durst not trust himself? Either he must govern that, or that will undo him. Let us do our best to overcome it, but let us, however, keep it close, without giving it any vent. An angry man, if he gives himself liberty at all times, will go too far. If it comes once to show itself in the eye or countenance, it has got the better of us. Nay, we should so oppose it as to put on the very contrary dispositions; calm looks, soft and slow speech, an easy and deliberate march, and by little and little, we may possibly bring our thoughts into sober conformity with our actions. When Socrates was angry, he would take himself in it, and _speak low_, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure. His friends would take notice of it; and it was not to his disadvantage neither, but rather to his credit, that so many should _know_ that he was angry, and nobody _feel_ it; which could not have been, if he had not given his friends the same liberty of admonition which he himself took. And this course should we take; we should desire our friends not to flatter us in our follies, but to treat us with all liberties of reprehension, even when we are least willing to bear it, against so powerful and so insinuating an evil; we should call for help while we have our eyes in our head, and are yet masters of ourselves. Moderation is profitable for subjects, but