It is possible, by good government, to keep a society always quiet in itself, but nobody can ensure peace from without for ever. The society may have occasion to extend their limits further, and enlarge their territories, or others may invade theirs, or something else will happen that man must be brought to fight; for how civilized soever men may be, they never forget that force goes beyond reason: The politician now must alter his measures, and take off some of man's fears; he must strive to persuade him, that all what was told him before of the barbarity of killing men ceases, as soon as these men are enemies to the public, and that their adversaries are neither so good nor so strong as themselves. These things well managed will seldom fail of drawing the hardiest, the most quarrelsome, and the most mischievous into combat; but unless they are better qualified, I will not answer for their behaviour there: If once you can make them undervalue their enemies, you may soon stir them up to anger, and while that lasts they will fight with greater obstinacy than any disciplined troops: But if any thing happens that was unforeseen, and a sudden great noise, a tempest, or any strange or uncommon accident that seems to threaten them, intervenes, fear seizes them, disarms their anger, and makes them run away to a man. This natural courage, therefore, as soon as people begin to have more wit, must be soon exploded. In the first place, those that have felt the smart of the enemy's blows, will not always believe what is said to undervalue him, and are often not easily provoked to anger. Secondly, anger consisting in an ebullition of the spirits, is a passion of no long continuance (ira furor brevis est), and the enemies, if they withstand the first shock of these angry people, have commonly the better of it. Thirdly, as long as people are angry, all counsel and discipline are lost upon them, and they can never be brought to use art or conduct in their battles. Anger then, without which no creature has natural courage, being altogether useless in a war to be managed by stratagem, and brought into a regular art, the government must find out an equivalent for courage that will make men fight.