Anger is like Ruin, which breaks itself upon that it falls. The Scripture exhorteth us To possess our Souls in Patience; 3 whofoever is out of Patience is out of Poffeffion of his Soul. Men muft not turn Bees;

Animafque in vulnere ponunt.*

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 muft beware that they carry their Anger rather with Scorn than with Fear; fo that they may feem 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 Caufes and Motives of Anger are chiefly three. First, to be too Senfible of Hurt; for no Man is angry that feels not himself hurt and therefore tender and delicate Perfons must needs be oft angry; they have fo many Things to trouble them, which more robust Natures have little Senfe of. The next is the Apprehenfion and Conftruction of the Injury offered, to be in the Circumftances thereof full of Contempt; for Contempt is that which putteth an edge upon Anger, as much, or more than the Hurt itfelf: and therefore, when Men are ingenious in picking out Circumstances of Contempt, they do kindle their Anger much. Laftly, Opinion of the Touch of a Man's Reputation doth multiply and

3 Luke xxi. 19.

2 Senec. De Ira. i. 1.
4 Virg. Georg. iv. 238.

fharpen Anger: wherein the Remedy is that a Man should have as Confalvo was wont to say, Telam Honoris craffiorem.5 But in all refrainings of Anger, it is the best Remedy to win Time; and to make a Man's felf believe that the Opportunity of his Revenge is not yet come: but that he foresees a Time for it; and fo to ftill himself in the meantime, and reserve it.

To contain 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 and proper; for communia Maledicta are nothing fo 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 choofing of Times, when Men are frowardeft and worft difpofed, to incenfe 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 firft to relate to a Man an angry Business; for the first Impreffion is much and the other is to fever, as much as may be, the Conftruction of the Injury from the Point of Contempt: imputing it to Mifunderstanding, Fear, Paffion, or what you will.

5 See Adv. of L. II. xx. 12.

LVIII. Of Viciffitudes of
Things.

JOLOMON faith; There is no new Thing upon the Earth. So that as Plato had an Imagination that all Knowledge was but Remembrance; fo Solomon giveth his Sentence that all Novelty is but Oblivion; whereby you may see that the River of Lethe runneth as well above Ground, as below. There is an abstruse Astrologer that saith; If it were not for two things that are conftant (the one is, that the Fixed Stars ever ftand at like distance, one from another, and never come nearer together nor go further afunder; the other, that the Diurnal Motion perpetually keepeth Time), no Individual would last one Moment. Certain it is, that the Matter is in a perpetual Flux,3 and never at a Stay. The great Winding-sheets that bury all Things in Oblivion are two; Deluges, and Earthquakes. As for Conflagrations and great Droughts, they do not merely difpeople, and deftroy. Phaton's Car went but a day; and the Three Years' Drought in the time of Elias was but particular and left People alive. As for the great Burnings by Lightnings, which are often in the West Indies, they are but narrow; but in the other two Deftructions, by

1 Eccl. i. 9.

2 See Dedication to Adv. of L. and Plato's Phædo.

3 Adv. of L. II. v. 3.

4 See 1 Kings xvii. 1 ; xviii. i.

5

Deluge and Earthquake, it is further to be noted, that the Remnant of People which hap to be reserved are commonly ignorant and mountainous People, that can give no Account of the Time past so that the Oblivion is all one as if none had been left. If you confider well of the People of the West Indies, it is very probable that they are a newer or a younger People than the People of the Old World; and it is much more likely, that the Destruction that hath heretofore been there was not by Earthquakes (as the Egyptian Priest told Solon concerning the Island of Atlantis, That it was fwallowed by an Earthquake,) but rather, that it was defolated by a particular Deluge: for Earthquakes are feldom in thofe Parts. But, on the other fide, they have such pouring Rivers, as the Rivers of Afia and Africa and Europe are but brooks to them. Their Andes likewife, or Mountains, are far higher than those with us; whereby it seems, that the Remnants of Generations of Men were in fuch a particular Deluge faved. As for the Obfervation that Machiavel hath, that the Jealoufy of Sects doth much extinguish the Memory of Things; traducing Gregory the Great, that he did what in him lay to extinguish all Heathen Antiquities; I do not find, that those Zeals do any great Effects, nor last long; as it appeared in the Succeffion of Sabinian, who did revive the former Antiquities.

The Viciffitude, or Mutations, in the Superior

5 See Plato, Tim. iii. 24. fq.

6 Macchiavelli Discorsi fopra Livio, ii. 5.

Globe, are no fit Matter, for this prefent Argument. It may be Plato's great Year, if the World fhould laft fo long, would have some Effect; not in renewing the State of like Individuals (for that is the Fume of those that conceive the Celestial Bodies have more accurate Influences upon these Things below than indeed they have), but in gross. Comets, out of question, have likewise Power and Effect over the Grofs and Mass of Things: but they are rather gazed upon, and waited upon in their Journey than wifely obferved in their Effects; specially in their respective Effects; that is, what Kind of Comet for Magnitude, Colour, Version of the Beams, placing in the Region of Heaven, or Lafting, produceth what Kind of Effects.

There is a Toy which I have heard, and I would not have it given over, but waited upon a little. They say, it is obferved in the Low Countries (I know not in what Part) that every Five and Thirty Years the fame kind and suit of Years and Weathers comes about again: as great Frosts, great Wet, great Droughts, warm Winters, Summers with little Heat, and the like: and they call it the Prime. It is a Thing, I do the rather mention, because computing backwards, I have found fome Concurrence.

But to leave these Points of Nature, and to come to Men. The greateft Viciffitude of Things amongst Men is the Viciffitude of Sects and Religions; for thofe Orbs rule in Men's Minds moft. The true Religion is built upon the Rock; the Rest

7 Plat. Tim. iii. 28. fq. Cic. De Nat. Deor. iv. 20.