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Again, a man is more excusable for following such desires as are

natural, just as he is for following such Lusts as are common to

all and to that degree in which they are common. Now Anger and

irritability are more natural than Lusts when in excess and for

objects not necessary. (This was the ground of the defence the

man made who beat his father, "My father," he said, "used to beat

his, and his father his again, and this little fellow here,"

pointing to his child, "will beat me when he is grown a man: it

runs in the family." And the father, as he was being dragged

along, bid his son leave off beating him at the door, because he

had himself been used to drag his father so far and no farther.)

Again, characters are less unjust in proportion as they involve

less insidiousness. Now the Angry man is not insidious, nor is

Anger, but quite open: but Lust is: as they say of Venus,

"Cyprus-born Goddess, weaver of deceits"

Or Homer of the girdle called the Cestus,