LXXV

If you have given way to anger, be sure that over and above the evil
involved therein, you have strengthened the habit, and added fuel to
the fire. If overcome by a temptation of the flesh, do not reckon it
a single defeat, but that you have also strengthened your dissolute
habits. Habits and faculties are necessarily affected by the
corresponding acts. Those that were not there before, spring up: the
rest gain in strength and extent. This is the account which Philosophers
give of the origin of diseases of the mind:--Suppose you have once
lusted after money: if reason sufficient to produce a sense of evil
be applied, then the lust is checked, and the mind at once regains its
original authority; whereas if you have recourse to no remedy, you can
no longer look for this return--on the contrary, the next time it is
excited by the corresponding object, the flame of desire leaps up more
quickly than before. By frequent repetition, the mind in the long
run becomes callous; and thus this mental disease produces confirmed
Avarice.

One who has had fever, even when it has left him, is not in the same
condition of health as before, unless indeed his cure is complete.
Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of the mind. Behind,
there remains a legacy of traces and blisters: and unless these are
effectually erased, subsequent blows on the same spot will produce
no longer mere blisters, but sores. If you do not wish to be prone
to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend its
increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not
angry: "I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next every
two, next every three days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days,
sacrifice to the Gods in thanksgiving.