of the mind to study the phenomena of anger, and its attention is thereby transferred from the cause of the affection to the affection itself; and, so soon as its thoughts are withdrawn from the cause, the affection, as if deprived of its needful aliment, dies away from the field of observation. There might be heat and indignancy enough in the spirit, so long as it broods over the affront by which they have originated. But whenever it proposes, instead of looking outwardly at the injustice, to look inwardly at the consequent irritation, it instantly becomes cool."[1]
We have marked certain of these words in italics, because in them Dr Chalmers appears to account for the disappearance of anger before the eye of consciousness in a way somewhat different from ours. He seems to say that it dies away because "deprived of its needful aliment," whereas we hold that it dies away in consequence of the antagonist act of consciousness which comes against it, displacing and sacrificing it. But, whatever our respective theories may be, and whichever of us may be in the right, we agree in the main point, namely, as to the fact that anger does vanish away in the presence of consciousness; and therefore this act acquires (whatever theory we may hold respecting it) a moral character and significance, and the exercise of it becomes an imperative duty; for what passion presides over a wider field of human evil and of human wickedness than the passion of human wrath? and, therefore,
- ↑ 'Moral Philosophy,' pp. 62, 63.
