Denis Diderot on Seneca, On Anger

From Essai sur les rgnes de Claude et de Nron et sur la vie et les ecrits de Snque pour servir dintroduction la lecture
de ce philosophe, 1782, translated by B.F., 2016

Book II

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Of Senecas On Anger

LXV
It is necessary to know this passion, anger. We must tame it in ourselves. It should be avoided in others.
But what are its symptoms? What are their definitions? Is the angry man the only victim of his rage? Is
anger not set in our nature? Is it useful, sometimes even moderate? Does it not increase our strength or
fortify our courage? Are there no circumstances that excuse or justify it? Is anger the mark of a weak
soul, or a strong soul?
This treaty, De Ira by Seneca, is addressed to a very gentle man, to Annaeus Novatus, one Senecas
brothers
It was for a long time thought that the teacher had written it for the use of his pupil, Nero. I do not
believe it. The sage lessons that it gives are so general, that we can distinguish in them with difficulty any
ideas which might be particularly applicable to sovereigns, let alone the prince [the Emperor Nero] whom
Seneca had been entrusted to teach. These principles have the character of the Stoic sect, and the tone of
the Porch; they fit in no place, neither the palace of the emperor or the back of the cave of the tiger.
If Seneca, generalizing his precepts, had offered to instruct without offending Nero, he would have
shown prudence and finesse; but this circumspection is difficult to reconcile with the frankness of a
philosopher and the stiffness of a Stoic.
Seneca shows himself in De Ira (On Anger) a great moralist, a clear reasoner, and occasionally a sublime
painter of moral life. One reflection that indeed arises after reading his treaty is that it is perfect in its
way, and that the author has exhausted his subject.
If in what follows, the reader then encounters some critical opinions that I hazard here, they are
corollaries of an indignation at the philosophy Seneca embraces, not the man himself.
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"Anger is a short madness, a passing delirium ... Animals are thus devoid of anger ..."
Why anger instead of love, hatred, jealousy and other passions? ...

"Because anger arises only in beings capable of reason ... "

Say this also of memory and feeling! But why should animals be devoid of anger? I rather fear that in
this place and others, Seneca has assigned far too narrow limits to the intellectual qualities of our animal
friends.
"Animals do not know the virtues and vices of man ..."
I do not believe it any more than man is deprived of the vices and virtues of the animals. There are no
real differences here, except differences of clothing.
"Anger is not consistent with the nature of man ..."
I do not know any passion that is more consistent with the nature of man. Anger is the result of injury;
and the wisdom of nature has placed resentment in the heart of man, to supply the want of the law. It
was important that men avenged themselves in the long ages when there was yet no protective court of
his rights. Without anger and resentment, the weak would be abandoned, bereft of resources, to the
tyranny of the strong, and nature would gather about her most violent children innumerable multitudes of
slaves.
"But surely our virtue is to be pitied, if our reason needs the help of the vices [like anger] ..." (Book I, chapter x)
No: our passions are not vices: according to the use we make of them, they are either vices or virtues.
The great passions combat the imaginings born of frivolity and ennui. I cannot conceive how any sentient
being can act without passion. The magistrate should judge without passion, it is true. But it his taste or
passion that has made of him a magistrate.
What, Seneca? (Book I, chap. XII.) You say that "[t]he sage is not angered, if someone should kill his father or take
away his wife; or if a man violates his daughter before his very eyes? ..."
- No
- Then you ask the impossible; indeed, maybe the harmful. It is not a matter here of behaving just as a
man, someone more of less indifferent to the case at hand; but as a father for a child, or as a husband.
Socrates himself became angry when he cried out to his servant: I would strike you, if I was not so
angry!
"It is (Book I, chap. XIV) impossible that a good man does not become angry against the wicked, Theophrastus claimed
...
So what? replies Seneca: the angrier we get, the better we will become ..."?
You are mistaken, I answer Seneca. You forget the distinction you yourself make elsewhere between
the congenitally angry man, the hothead, and the man who gets angry. Say rather that indignation against
the wicked must be all the stronger to the extent that a man has more virtue: then, I will be with you.
For indignation against the wicked and care for the good of man are two kinds of enthusiasm which are
equally worthy of our praises.
"It is the sheer number of the wicked which should quiet the anger of the wise ..."
No: it is rather their sheer number which should most trouble him. If a single perverse man is sitting
amongst the judges, or finds a place amongst the clergy, or is doing business as a scandalous minister, I
shall hardly be surprised. But if the mass of a senate or the clergy is corrupt, how can I restrain my
indignation?

"But why trouble yourself about those who act badly? ..."
The wicked man is almost always wrong in his calculations, but almost never wrong in conceiving his
designs. To achieve his goals, he knows well that he must instrument the harm of others. If he was only
mad, I would pity him.
"If we had always to get angry at the wicked, the wise man would often have to be angry, even against himself ..."
Yes, this is what we do, and not as often as we should.
XLVI
Piso condemned to death a soldier for returning from patrol without his comrade (Book I, chap. XVI).
This soldier had offered his throat up to the Centurions sword, when his friend reappeared. The two
men embraced, and were conducted amidst the cheering of the camp to the tent of Piso. Yet Piso, filled
with rage, hardened his heart.
"You shall die, because you have been condemned to die, he said to the first; and then to the other:
You shall die, because you have caused the condemnation of your comrade! He then turned to the
Centurion who had relented, and likewise called down death: You: you shall die for not obeying my
orders ... "
Hearing this story, tell me, what happens in your soul? Do you not feel fury seize it? Do you not yell at
these three unfortunates: Cowards, what are you doing? What! Will you let yourself be slaughtered without resistance!
No: follow me: we will all four of us rush forward at this beast and put him to the sword! After this is done, let them do
with us what they will. At least we will not have died without being avenged!
I feel my blood boil.
I admit it: it's the passion of anger that moves me, and which carries me in this moment to the side of
three condemned soldiers, executed two thousand years ago! Yet: if I'm crazy, who is it who will dare to
condemn the madness?

True it is that each person has his own character. There are, doubtless, some men that vice revolts too
deeplysince they will never perform it. All their lives they feel deep indignation at the sight of injustice;
public or individual calamities move them to tears; they are sorely afflicted at the spectacle of suffering
virtue; they are deliciously softened at the sight of virtue rewarded.
Whether events are happening near to them, or whether they transpired two thousand years ago, it is all
the same to such men; their heart, intelligence moved by imagination, makes nothing of the vast distances
of time and circumstance

XLVII
Passion and reason do not always contradict each other. Rather, each sometimes commands what the
other approves.
Thus reason herself is either tranquil or angry.

The difference Seneca remarks between anger and cruelty is sage. An angry man is violent; the cruel man
is cold
Amongst all the ideas of Seneca, I confess that I like most to dwell upon those that show the greatness of
his soul, rather than those that show the beauty of his mind, because I am more fond of the one than I
am of the other; and because I personally would rather have performed a noble action than written a
beautiful page; and because it is the defense of Jean Calas [an innocent man unjustly persecuted for his
alleged Protestantism], not the tragedy of Mahomet [a famous play] that I envy Voltaire.
- But Muhammad is also a work of genius, and a good deed.
- I agree.
- And genius is rarer than charity.
- Also granted.
- It can happen on any one day that three hundred men are killed for their country, and that amongst
all these three hundred men, there is not one able to write a verse worthy of Euripides or Sophocles.
- I do not doubt it Yet these men saved their country.
XLVIII.

Prexaspe told Cambyses, murderer of his son, whose heart he had just pierced with an arrow: Apollo
himself could not have fired more truly!
Yet Harpagus conceded to his sovereign, who had served him the heads of his own children, and
compelled him to feed on their limbs: All dishes are pleasing to the table of kings ...
At this baseness, my philosopher, yes, anger fills your soul, and your mouth curses! I praise you for your
passion, but ask you also: do you not in raging thus forget your Stoic principles on anger?
When you cry out: A father who let the murder of her son pass without a proportionate vengeance for
the atrocity of the crime!, you feel as you speak, both trulyfor, Stoic that you were, you were also
made a man.

II XVII
Livy tells us the following of a Roman: "His was rather a great soul than a virtuous ..."
"Do not believe it, replies Seneca: a soul must be virtuous, or give up being great."
0 good Seneca, I am sorry for the preference you want to assign to the cruelty of a Democritus, who
laughed at the unhappy men about him over the compassion of a Heraclitus, when the latter rather wept
for the folly of his brothers (Book II, Chapter x).
Personally, I do not believe that there was ever a man less inclined by his own nature as you to the Stoic
philosophy: gentle, humane, benevolent, tender, compassionate. You were a Stoic from his head, as it
were: yet at every moment your heart pointed you beyond the school of Zeno.