Page 193 sur 1391

On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is

indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the

Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It

is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the

government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter

term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation.

Although Aristotle has retained the word, yet we may observe that

'passion' (Greek) has with him lost its affinity to the rational

and has become indistinguishable from 'anger' (Greek). And to

this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws seems to revert,

though not always. By modern philosophy too, as well as in our

ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed

almost exclusively in a bad sense; there is no connotation of a

just or reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling

of 'righteous indignation' is too partial and accidental to admit

of our regarding it as a separate virtue or habit.