Rhetoric   

his friends, or through others at his request.
It will be plain by now, from what has been said, (1) in what frame of
mind, (2) with what persons, and (3) on what grounds people grow
angry. (1) The frame of mind is that of one in which any pain is being
felt. In that condition, a man is always aiming at something. Whether,
then, another man opposes him either directly in any way, as by
preventing him from drinking when he is thirsty, or indirectly, the
act appears to him just the same; whether some one works against him,
or fails to work with him, or otherwise vexes him while he is in this
mood, he is equally angry in all these cases. Hence people who are
afflicted by sickness or poverty or love or thirst or any other
unsatisfied desires are prone to anger and easily roused: especially
against those who slight their present distress. Thus a sick man is
angered by disregard of his illness, a poor man by disregard of his
poverty, a man aging war by disregard of the war he is waging, a lover
by disregard of his love, and so throughout, any other sort of slight
being enough if special slights are wanting. Each man is predisposed,
by the emotion now controlling him, to his own particular anger.
Further, we are angered if we happen to be expecting a contrary
result: for a quite unexpected evil is specially painful, just as the
quite unexpected fulfilment of our wishes is specially pleasant. Hence
it is plain what seasons, times, conditions, and periods of life tend
to stir men easily to anger, and where and when this will happen; and
it is plain that the more we are under these conditions the more
easily we are stirred.
These, then, are the frames of mind in which men are easily stirred to
anger. The persons with whom we get angry are those who laugh, mock,
or jeer at us, for such conduct is insolent. Also those who inflict
injuries upon us that are marks of insolence. These injuries must be
such as are neither retaliatory nor profitable to the doers: for only
then will they be felt to be due to insolence. Also those who speak
ill of us, and show contempt for us, in connexion with the things we
ourselves most care about: thus those who are eager to win fame as
philosophers get angry with those who show contempt for their
philosophy; those who pride themselves upon their appearance get angry
with those who show contempt for their appearance and so on in other
cases. We feel particularly angry on this account if we suspect that
we are in fact, or that people think we are, lacking completely or to
any effective extent in the qualities in question. For when we are
convinced that we excel in the qualities for which we are jeered at,
we can ignore the jeering. Again, we are angrier with our friends than
with other people, since we feel that our friends ought to treat us
well and not badly. We are angry with those who have usually treated
us with honour or regard, if a change comes and they behave to us
otherwise: for we think that they feel contempt for us, or they would
still be behaving as they did before. And with those who do not return
our kindnesses or fail to return them adequately, and with those who
oppose us though they are our inferiors: for all such persons seem to
feel contempt for us; those who oppose us seem to think us inferior to
themselves, and those who do not return our kindnesses seem to think
that those kindnesses were conferred by inferiors. And we feel
particularly angry with men of no account at all, if they slight us.
For, by our hypothesis, the anger caused by the slight is felt towards
people who are not justified in slighting us, and our inferiors are
not thus justified. Again, we feel angry with friends if they do not
speak well of us or treat us well; and still more, if they do the
contrary; or if they do not perceive our needs, which is why Plexippus
is angry with Meleager in Antiphon's play; for this want of perception
shows that they are slighting us-we do not fail to perceive the needs
of those for whom we care. Again we are angry with those who rejoice
at our misfortunes or simply keep cheerful in the midst of our
misfortunes, since this shows that they either hate us or are
slighting us. Also with those who are indifferent to the pain they
give us: this is why we get angry with bringers of bad news. And with