Anger, according to Locke’s definition, is the disquiet or disorder of the soul that we feel after suffering some insult, and which is accompanied by an urgent desire for vengeance. It is a passion that casts us out of ourselves and, by making us seek a way to repel the harm that threatens us, or which has already reached us, makes us blind, and presses us to take revenge. Anger is an imperious and ungrateful master that ill rewards the service we have given it, and asks a high price for the pernicious advice it gives us.

I speak here of hidden, lasting  anger  matched with hate. Anger that is open, innocent, like a flash of light in the darkness, without ill intent, is a simple effect of a vigorous temperament, which can sometimes be laudable or at least should only be criticised because of the indiscretion or harm that might result from it. But such vehemence is very different from the violence that overcomes all affection, envelops us and hoodwinks us, to use an expressive term from falconry. Such was the anger  of Coriolanus, when he surrendered to Tullus in order to avenge himself on Rome, and to pay for the effects of his resentment even at the cost of his life.

What causes this disorder is an atrabilary humour, weakness, softness and sickness of the mind, a false delicacy, culpable sensitivity, self-love, a relish for trivial things, a vain inquisitiveness, over-eagerness to believe, and sorrow at being held in contempt and insulted. This is why a woman’s  anger  is so keen and so entire: it is also born in the refusal of the violence of desire.

This passion often has lamentable effects, according to Charron. It makes us act unfairly; it casts us into great evils by its inconsideration; it causes us to say and do unseemly, shameful, unworthy and sometimes fateful and irreparable things that are followed by cruel remorse. Ancient and modern history give us only too many examples of it. Horace was quite right to say:

Qui non moderabitur irae, etc (Whoever does not moderate his anger, etc.). Epistles Book I, Epistle II, verses 59- 65.

The remedies, says Charron, whose language I will borrow, are many and diverse, and the mind must be armed and well supplied with them beforehand, like people who fear they will be besieged, since afterwards it is too late. These remedies can be reduced to three headings. The first is to cut off the route to anger,  and close down all its avenues. We need to free ourselves from all the causes and occasions of anger  outlined above. The second heading is one that must be used when occasions for  anger present themselves. They are: 1. To pause, and hold our body in peace and quiet, without movement or agitation; 2. To be slow to believe or to take a resolution, and to give our judgement time for reflection; 3. To distrust our own judgement, to have recourse to true friends, and to mature our  anger  through their words; 4. To distract ourselves by means of anything that can calm us down, soothe us and cheer us. The third heading is one of those fine considerations that we must absorb and digest over a lengthy period: to reflect on the harmful actions and movements resulting from  anger;  the advantages of moderation; the esteem in which we should hold wisdom, which chiefly teaches us to master ourselves and hold ourselves back.

Yet we must not consider anger  as an emotion that is always naturally bad; it is not; nor does it dishonour anyone, provided our feelings are in proportion to the subject that moves us. Anger can consequently be legitimate only when taken to a certain point; from another point of view, however, it is never necessary: we can always – and this is even the surest way – maintain our dignity and rights on such occasions without losing our temper. If a desire for vengeance, which is a natural effect of this emotion, is joined with it, then since this effect is itself a vice, it unleashes anger,  and prevents its being contained within just limits. To allow vengeance born out of  anger  to redress an offence would be to correct the vice by itself: 

So those who claim that murder committed in anger  must not strictly speaking be ranked among the punishable injustices do not have a just idea of natural law, since it is certain that injustice consists chiefly in violating others’ rights. It does not matter that we do so through a movement of anger,  through avarice, sensuality, ambition,  etc. , which are the sources from which the greatest injustices generally derive: on the contrary, justice essentially means resisting all temptations through the sole motive of not making a breach in the laws of human society. Yet it is true that actions provoked by anger  are less odious than those arising from a desire for pleasure, which is not so violent, and which can more easily find the means to be satisfied elsewhere without injustice. On this subject, Aristotle remarks very well that  anger  is more natural than the desire for things that are superfluous and unnecessary.

But when this philosopher claims that this passion sometimes gives arms to virtue and bravery, he is very much mistaken. Concerning virtue, it is not true; and as for bravery, it has been quite wittily replied that it is, at least, a weapon of a new kind; since, says Montaigne,