Genre and place in the book. The therapy of anger toward an "offender" through the Socratic mechanism of error. The principal discipline is action (to teach, not to rage); the sustaining one is assent (to understand that a person is drawn toward an apparent good). Kin to 02-01, 06-06, 06-20, 06-26.

The impulse toward the apparent good (ὁρμᾶν ἐπὶ τὰ φαινόμενα). Every TERMimpulse (ὁρμή) is directed toward what appears (φαινόμενα) to a person "suitable" (οἰκεῖα) and "profitable" (συμφέροντα). To be angry that people are drawn toward their apparent good is to demand that they not do what every living being does. Hence the anger is "cruel" (ὠμόν) and self-contradictory: you would forbid them the very nature of impulse.

Error is involuntary (ἁμαρτάνουσι). They TERMerr (ἁμαρτάνουσι) not from malice but because the apparent good is false. To the objection "but it is not so [not really good]" (ἀλλ' οὐκ ἔχει οὕτως) there is one answer: then they are deceived — and one does not punish the deceived with anger. The Socratic thesis: no one errs willingly; error is a false impression of the good.

Teach, without anger (δίδασκε… μὴ ἀγανακτῶν). The conclusion: "teach and show them (δίδασκε καὶ δείκνυε), without vexation." The right response to error is not rage but instruction — to show that the apparent good is not a good. Anger here is doubly out of place: it both demands the impossible and forgets that error is correctable by explanation (cf. 06-06, 06-20, 06-26 — without returning anger).

Disciplines and parallels. The principal one is action (to teach the erring); the secondary is assent (to see the mechanism: the impulse toward the apparent good). Parallels: 02-01 (they err through ignorance of good and evil; born for cooperation); Med. 7.22 (to love even those who do wrong); 8.14; 7.26 (ask what opinion of the good moves him — and you will pity, not rage); 06-06, 06-20 (without returning anger).