[9] Aristotle, Rhetorica, i. 9. 24. Cf. Aeschylus, Choeophori, 309 sqq.; Plato, Meno, p. 71; Xenophon, Memorabilia, ii. 6. 35.
[10] Cicero, De officiis, iii. 19. iii. 19. Cf. ibid. ii. 14; but cf. also ibid. i. 25, where it is said that nothing is more worthy of a great and a good man than placability and moderation.
[11] Seeley, Ecce Homo, p. 273.
But side by side with the doctrine of resentment, we meet, among peoples of culture, the doctrine of forgiveness.
“Recompense injury with kindness,” says Lao-Tsze.[12] According to Mencius, “a benevolent man does not lay up anger, nor cherish resentment against his brother, but only regards him with affection and love.”[13] In the laws of Manu the following rule is laid down for the twice-born man:—“Against an angry man let him not in return show anger, let him bless when he is cursed.”[14] It is said in the Buddhistic Dhammapada: “Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule…. Among men who hate us we dwell free from hatred…. Let a man overcome anger by love, let him overcome evil by good; let him overcome the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth.”[15] According to one of the Pahlavi texts, we ought not to indulge in wrathfulness; wrath is one of the fiends besetting man, and “goodness is little in the mind of a man of wrath.”[16]
[12] Tâo Teh King, ii. 63. 1. According to Thâi-Shang, 4, a bad man “broods over resentment without ceasing.”
[13] Mencius, v. 1. 3. 2.
[14] Laws of Manu, vi. 48. Cf. ibid. viii. 313; Monier-Williams, Indian Wisdom, pp. 444, 446; Muir, Additional Moral and Religious Passages, rendered from the Sanskrit, p. 30.
[15] Dhammapada, i. 5; xv. 197; xvii. 223. Cf. Jātaka Tales, i. 22; Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 298.
[16] Dînâ-î-Maînôg-î Khirad, ii. 16; xli. 11; xxxix. 26.