The Essays of Francis Bacon/LVII Of Anger

by Francis Bacon

LVII. Of Anger.

To seek to extinguish Anger utterly is but a bravery^[1] of the Stoics. We have better oracles: Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger.^[2] Anger must be limited and confined both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit to be angry may be attempered^[3] and calmed. Secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or at least refrained^[4] from doing mischief. Thirdly, how to raise anger or appease anger in another.

For the first; there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life. And the best time to do this, is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith well, That anger is like ruin, which breaks itself upon that it falls.^[5] The Scripture exhorteth us To possess our souls in patience.^[6] Whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees;

. . . . . . animasque in vulnere ponunt.^[7]

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather to be above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

For the second point; the causes and motives of anger are chiefly three. First, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons must needs be oft^[8] angry; they have so many things to trouble them, which more robust natures have little sense of. The next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much or more than the hurt itself. And therefore when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much. Lastly, opinion of the touch^[9] of a man's reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger. Wherein the remedy is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont to say, telam honoris crassiorem.^[10] But in all ref rainings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time; and to make a man's self believe, that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come, but that he foresees a time for it; and so to still himself in the mean time, and reserve it.

To contain^[11] anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution. The one, of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate^[12] and proper;^[13] for communia maledicta^[14] are nothing so much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society. The other, that you do not peremptorily break off, in any business, in a fit of anger; but howsoever you shew bitterness, do not act anything that is not revocable.

For raising and appeasing anger in another; it is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed, to incense them. Again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt. And the two remedies are by the contraries. The former to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry^[15] business; for the first impression is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

1. Bravery. Bravado; boast.
2. Ephesians iv. 26.
3. Attempered. Tempered.
4. Refrain. To restrain.

   "And thou, O human heart of mine,
   Be still, refrain thyself, and wait."
   

   Arthur Hugh Clough. Poems on Life and Duty. In a London Square. ii.

5. "Ruinis simillima, quae super id quod oppressere franguntur." Seneca. De Ira. Liber I. 1.
6. "In your patience possess ye your souls." Luke xxi. 19.
7. And put their lives in the sting. P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Liber IV. 238. Bees were supposed to die when they lost their stings.
8. Oft. Often.
9. Touch. Censure; blame. "I never bare any touch of conscience with greater regret." Eikon Basilike.
10. A thicker web of honor. Consalvo is Gonzalo Fernandez y Aguilar, 1453–1515, commonly called Gonsalvo de Cordova, or El Gran Capitan, 'the Great Captain.' He commanded the armies of Ferdinand the Catholic, and took an active part in the conquest of Granada. "Consalvo would say: The honour of a soldier ought to be of a good strong web; meaning, that it should not be so fine and curious, that every little disgrace should catch and stick to it." Bacon. Apophthegmes New and Old. 180 (89). Compare also, Advancement of Learning, II. xx. 12.
11. Contain. Restrain.

    ⁠"We can contain ourselves,
    Were he the veriest antic in the world."
    

    Shakspere. The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. i.

12. Aculeate. Pointed; incisive; stinging.
13. Proper. Appropriate.
14. General reproaches.
15. Angry. Provoking anger; irritating.