Thomas Kuhn, in his brilliant 1962 treatise on the structure of scientific revolutions, proposed that the advancement of knowledge takes place more often in periodic surges than through slow, incremental linearity. He proposed that progress can best be understood as a sequence of “paradigms;” in his view, a paradigm was a kind of general consensus on how systems should be understood and interpreted.
Anger is an insidious thing. It can twine and wind its way around the soul, like ivy over some physical impediment, and slowly throttle our more beneficent instincts. This creeping control does not happen all at once; it happens gradually, imperceptibly, one gradus at a time. When speaking to someone on the phone, I often find my voice gradually rising with a surplus of emotion. You can barely notice it happening, but it happens still. Anger then finds a ready opportunity to intrude itself. Anger is also deceptive: it makes us believe we are taking action to solve some problem, when in fact we are doing nothing to solve the problem. Anger is a liar. He is a deceiver.
The Roman writer Aulus Gellius relates an anecdote about his discovery of the meaning of an old proverb. He tells us that he read the following line in one of the speeches of Marcus Cato Censorius:
Readers may be familiar with the Seinfeld television show episode where the George Costanza character resolves to do the opposite of everything he normally does. The idea actually has a legitimate pedigree, at least with regard to ancient medical science.
Quintus Curtius 
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