SN 



ridicule, as well a* where then it a scornful indifference or want of 

 respectful behaviour, the pain u caused by the undue assumption by 

 whwh an equal appear* to make himaelf a superior, and an inferior aa 

 equal. Hence it it (as an ancient historian ha* remarked) that men 

 > ire more for insult than injury ; a* the one teems to be the aggression 

 of an equal, for his own profit : the other to be the insolence of a 

 ..iperior, arising from spite or mere wantonness. On a similar reason 

 wa* founded the advice of Bemadotte to Louis XVIII., that France 

 wa* to be governed with an iron Aarf, and a tv/irf fflore a remark 

 capable of a much wider extension. In the case* of annoyance and 

 vexation, the pain <tf the person angered U caused by the feeling that 

 the object of the other party is purely to give pain, without any 

 advantage accruing to himself. 



The pain excited by the slight is instantly followed by a desire of 

 rtrrmyr. The desire of revenge is not a general desire that ill may 

 come to the person offering the slight, but a desire of personally 

 paining him, so that he may know by whom the pain is inflicted, and 

 the person angered may have the gratification of being himself the 

 executioner of hi* own retribution. The satisfaction of the desire of 

 vengeance is always pleasurable, and in brutal and uncultivated minds 

 is attended with all the marks of the most triumphant exultation. So 

 strong indeed is the temptation of gratifying this, craving after retalia- 

 tion, when the mean* of indulging it are in our power, and so great the 

 difficulty of foregoing the pleasure which it affords, that Shakspere 

 enumerate* among the rare instances of female perfection 



" She who bcing'tngercd, her reveng* being nigh, 

 Bids her wrong toj>, and her displeasure fly." 



No angry person, however, would feel his desire of revenge satisfied by 

 learning that the object of hi* anger has suffered some grievous 

 calamity, as that he has lost a near relation or a large sum of money : 

 he wishes that the pain should be inflicted in rf(r for the slight 

 shown to him, and by hi* oirn agency. Anger, therefore, is different 

 from hatred ; the one is a passion which is commonly extinguished by 

 the lapse of time, even if the desire of vengeance is not satisfied ; the 

 other is a settled habit of the mind which never varies : the one is 

 attended with pain, the other is without pain. Anger is always per- 

 sonal, and U felt only towards individuals : hatred is often general, 

 and embraces not only individuals, but whole classes, as murderers, 

 tyrants, heretics, Ac. 'There are even national hatreds, and misan- 

 thropy is a hatred of the whale human rare. Anger is often satisfied 

 with a slight infliction of pain, whereas hatred desires nothing less 

 than the extinction of the persons hated ; hence pity U consistent with 

 anger, but never with hatred. Anger seeks to inflict pain ; hatred 

 desire* to do harm. Anger requires a personal retaliation, hatred is 

 pleased that harm should come to the person hated, from whatever 

 quarter, and by whatever means. (See Arutot. ' Hhet.,' b. 2. c. 4.) 



As anger is a bad passion, the object of which is the infliction of 

 pain, it ought to be restrained ; and one of the most important parts of 

 moral discipline is the proper regulation of the desire of revenge which 

 characterises it. The proper government of this passion consists not in 

 altogether suppressing it, which is indeed impossible, as every person 

 must feel ]*ined at an undeserved slight, but in repressing the 

 desire of vengeance to which that pain gives rise. It is a rule, to 

 which every exception should lie questioned with the utmost jealousy, 

 that in a political society all vengeance for vengeance sake U im- 

 moral. This, however, does not prevent a person from showing la* 

 ilitfJratHrt at an improper slight : so that the reproof be given without 

 animosity, and arise from a desire of preventing future affront* or 

 vexation, not of satiating a thirst for revenge. 



Although anger is a bad passion, and in a state of civil society its 

 effecte are much oftener hurtful than beneficial, its UK (or, as it is 

 sometimes said, it* final rantf) is not the lees obvious. In a state of 

 nature, before the institution of government, if instead of men being 

 prompted by the constant and violent influence of a passion to 

 retaliate harm for harm, the retribution of wrongs had been left to the 

 irregular operation of cool reason, it may be doubted whether the 

 collision of interest and the mutual resistance which arose from each 

 man being the avenger of hi* own cause, and which were the origin of 

 political government, would ever have existed. Hence revenge (as 

 Lord Bacon has said) is a sort of wild justice ; that is, in a society 

 where there is no administration of law, it takes the place of legal 

 justice : and it is better that wrongs should be avenged than that they 

 should be done with entire impunity. In the barbarous states of 

 society which have prevailed at different times in Arabia, Greece, 

 Germany, Scotland, and other countries, the imperfect security of 

 penon which existed wa* owing chiefly to the duty of revenge im- 

 posed by traditionary feeling* and opinions on the family of a murdered 

 penon. But when the exercise of sovereign political power is once 

 firmly established, together with an efficient administration of law by 

 regular judiuitorie*, the use of revenge, as an instrument for the 

 suppression of wrongs, ha* ceased, and it must give place to a far 

 better eubetitute. The good, say* the French proverb, is the enemy 

 of the better ; and on this principle, a political society, both in its 

 legal and moral code, mu*t discard that instrument to which it may 

 indeed, in gieat measure, owe its trinnct, but which is incompatible 

 with ite amtnuunttt in a ctate of Imppimim and tranquillity. Th. 



AN.ilXA I'KtTORIS. 



private retaliation of wrong* is the scaffolding by means of which th.- 

 structure of civil society wa* erected, hut which disfigures it* beauty 

 and impairs its utility when completed. [Pi'HiiHNi 



NA PK'CTORia, literally, "a contraction or tightening of 

 the chest," a disease so named from the anguish felt in the chest. 

 This disease U characterised by a sudden attack of severe pain in the 

 lower part of the chest, commonly inclining to the left side ; th- 

 pain is sometimes so severe, that the patient feels as though he must 

 die : the pain generally extends to the left arm, and occasionally also 

 to the right : it is often attended with a sensation of fainting or of 

 suffocation, and with palpitation of the heart ; but frequently these 

 atter symptoms are absent ; the pulse is commonly quick, weak, 

 rregular, or intermittent, though sometime* it is little affected ; the 

 countenance in commonly pallid, and the expression anxious and de- 

 moted. This attack comes on in paroxysms, which last from a few 

 ninutoa to half an hour and more. There U no regular intern] 

 jetween the paroxysms, and no distinct warning of their return. They 

 usually come quite suddenly, from slight causes, and often when no 

 cause can be assigned. The health at first is tolerably good during the 

 interval*, but in the progress of the disease a great variety of uneasy 

 sensations distress the patient even when the paroxysm is absent, 

 chiefly thorn which indicate a disordered state of the digestive and 

 respiratory organs. 



Much investigation has )>een instituted to ascertain the -.. 

 nature of thin disease ; and although physicians are not yet unanimous 

 in their opinion in regard to cither, yet sufficient evidence has been 

 accumulated to determine both with a high degree of probability. It 

 seems upon the whole to be established that it is primitively a n. 

 affection, and that the nerves in fault are those which supply th. 

 and heart, the lungs, in consequence of the disease of its nerves, 

 being unable perfectly to decarbonise the blood, and the heart, in con- 

 sequence of the disease of ite nerves, not being duly nourished, and 

 consequently not being able to carry on the circulation with the ivqui- 

 site energy and regularity. On inspection of the orj; th of 



those who perish by this disease, in the immense majority of cases 

 appreciable disease is discoverable both in the lungs and in the heart, 

 but more especially in the latter. The most fn-|umt morbid appear- 

 ances in the heart are ossification of the coronary arteries (the nutrient 

 arteries of the organ) ; ossification of the valves of the heart : preter- 

 natural accumulation of fat on its external surface ; enlarg. 

 cavities ; and, alov<- all, change of structure in its muscular substance, 

 which becomes pallid, soft, flabby, thin, and r.-wily torn. This change 

 in the muscular substance of the heart is by far the moot constant 

 morbid appeerance; but even this, as well as the other organic 

 change*, must be considered as the effect rather than the . 

 disease, in whatever degree these organic changes may be the cause of 



Angina pectoris in most frequent at the meridian of life and be\on.l 

 it; it may occur in adolescence, but it is very rai-e at that period. It 

 is much more frequent in the male than in the female. Out of one 

 hundred cases, seventy were upwards of fifty years of age, and 

 nine were males. It in remarkably under the influence of mental 

 causes, if it be not in the first instance induced by them. When it 

 has once occurred, a paroxysm is readily produced by any emotion, 

 whether of a pleasurable or a painful nature, but more especially by 

 the latter. Anxiety of mind, any depressing passion, or anger, places 

 a person subject to this disease in the most imminent danger. Many 

 persons have died suddenly, instantaneously, under the iiitlu. 

 such emotions. There is conceived to be a close connection between 

 this disease and gout. Without doubt it is very often found in persons 

 who are subject to gout, and the less the gout affects the extrc: 

 in ite regular and decided form, the more frequently and severely 

 such persons suffer from angina pectoris. 



It is of the nature of this disease to proceed progressively from bexl 

 to worse. At first it is a temporary evil of short duration, recurring 

 perhaps only at distant intervals : but if it IH> neglected, the interval) 

 become shorter and shorter, and the paroxysms more and more severe. 

 Complete success often attends the early, active, and judicious treat- 

 ment of it. This, therefore, is eminently one of those diseases, the 

 first accession of which should excite serious alarm, and induce every 

 one to ailo|>t without delay, anil with the greatest regularity, the 

 means Wst fitted to prevent the recurrence of it. 



Those means are, in the paroxysm, absolute rest. The paroxysm 

 often comes on in walking or during some bodily exertion : the 

 patient has the feeling that the continuance <>( such exertion would 

 prove instantaneously fatal ; and it is really highly dangerous. Unless 

 in very severe oases, the paroxysm usually goes off spontaneously, in a 

 few minutes, on sitting perfectly still, or, which is often better, OB 

 lying down. If the pain .1" not quickly subside, vigorous friction with 

 a stimulating liniment should be applied over the whole chest, and the 

 patient should instantly take some warm antisposmodic ami stimulant 

 medicine, such an two ounces of the camphor julep, with a dram of 

 ether or of the aromatic spirit of ammonia. But much more active 

 measures may be necessary; and this is a disease so serious in its 

 nature, and requiring so much delicacy and skill in the manage- 

 ment of it. that the patient ought to place himself under the best 

 1 guidance he can procure as quickly as possible. It i- 

 the interval Hint tin- most effectual trc.itiu.-nt must be em- 



