nce of it, so that the
action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. And they deny
that any man has ever been seen, who does not know what it is to be angry:
and they name what we call lenity, by the bad appellation of indolence:
nor do they commend only this lust, (for anger is, as I defined it above,
the lust of revenge,) but they maintain that kind of lust or desire to be
given us by nature for very good purposes: saying that no one can execute
anything well but what he is in earnest about. Themistocles used to walk
in the public places in the night, because he could not sleep: and when
asked the reason, his answer was, that Miltiades' trophies kept him awake.
Who has not heard how Demosthenes used to watch; who said that it gave him
pain, if any mechanic was up in a morning at his work before him? Lastly,
they urge that some of the greatest philosophers would never have made
that progress in their studies, without some ardent desire spurring them
on.--We are informed that Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato, visited the
remotest parts of the world; for they thought that they ought to go
whereever anything was to be learned. Now it is not conceivable that these
things could be effected by anything but by the greatest ardour of mind.

XX. They say that even grief, which we have already said ought to be
avoided as a monstrous and fierce beast, was appointed by nature, not
without some good purpose: in order that men should lament when they had
committed a fault, well knowing they had exposed themselves to correction,
rebuke, and ignominy. For they think that those who can bear ignominy and
infamy without pain, have acquired a complete impunity for all sorts of
crimes: for with them, reproach is a stronger check than conscience. From
whence we have that scene in Afranius, borrowed from common life; for when
the abandoned son saith, Wretched that I am! the severe father replies,

Let him but grieve, no matter what the cause.

And they say the other divisions of sorrow have their use; that pity
incites us to hasten to the assistance of others, and to alleviate the
calamities of men who have undeservedly fallen into them: that even envy
and detraction are not without their use; as when a man sees that another
person has attained what he cannot, or observes another to be equally
successful with himself: that he who should take away fear, would take
away all industry in life; which those men exert in the gre