section_path: Philosophical perspectives/Post-classical history/Control methods
section_name: Control methods
paragraph_text: Control methods
  
  Maimonides considered being given to uncontrollable passions as a kind of illness. Like Galen, Maimonides suggested seeking out a philosopher for curing this illness just as one seeks out a physician for curing bodily illnesses. Roger Bacon elaborates Seneca's advices. Many medieval writers discuss at length the evils of anger and the virtues of temperance. In a discussion of confession, John Mirk, an English 14th-century Augustinian writer, tells priests how to advise the penitent by considering the spiritual and social consequences of anger:
  
  Agaynes wraþþe hys helpe schal be, Ʒef he haue grace in herte to se How aungelus, when he ys wroth, From hym faste flen and goth, And fendes faste to hym renneth, And wyþ fuyre of helle hys herte breneth, And maketh hym so hote & hegh, Þat no mon may byde hym negh.
  
  'Against wrath his help shall be, if he has grace in heart to see, how angels, should his anger rise, flee fast from him and go and demons run to him in haste; hell's fury burns his heart and makes him so hot and high that none may stand him nigh.
  
  In The Canon of Medicine, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) modified the theory of temperaments and argued that anger heralded the transition of melancholia to mania, and explained that humidity inside the head can contribute to such mood disorders.
  
  On the other hand, Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi classified anger (along with aggression) as a type of neurosis, while al-Ghazali argued that anger takes form in rage, indignation and revenge, and that "the powers of the soul become balanced if it keeps anger under control".