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voluntary in the same sense as our habits: for we are masters of our acts from
beginning to end when we know the particular circumstances; but we are masters of
the beginnings only of our habits or characters, while their growth by gradual steps is
imperceptible, like the growth of disease. Inasmuch, however, as it lay with us to
employ or not to employ our faculties in this way, the resulting characters are on that
account voluntary.
Now let us take up each of the virtues again in turn, and say what it is, and what its
subject is, and how it deals with it; and in doing this, we shall at the same time see
how many they are. And, first of all, let us take courage.
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CHAPTER 6.
THE SEVERAL MORAL VIRTUES AND VICES.
6.
Of Courage And The Opposite Vices.
We have already said that courage is moderation or observance of the mean with
respect to feelings of fear and confidence.
Now, fear evidently is excited by fearful things, and these are, roughly speaking, evil
things; and so fear is sometimes defined as expectation of evil.
Fear, then, is excited by evil of any kind, e g by disgrace, poverty, disease,
friendlessness, death; but it does not appear that every kind gives scope for courage.
There are things which we actually ought to fear, which it is noble to fear and base not
to fear, e.g. disgrace. He who fears disgrace is an honourable man, with a due sense of
shame, while he who fears it not is shameless (though some people stretch the word
courageous so far as to apply it to him; for he has a certain resemblance to the
courageous man, courage also being a kind of fearlessness). Poverty, perhaps, we
ought not to fear, nor disease, nor generally those things that are not the result of vice,
and do not depend upon ourselves. But still to be fearless in regard to these things is
not strictly courage; though here also the term is sometimes applied in virtue of a
certain resemblance. There are people, for instance, who, though cowardly in the
presence of the dangers of war, are yet liberal and bold in the spending of money.
On the other hand, a man is not to be called cowardly for fearing outrage to his
children or his wife, or for dreading envy and things of that kind, nor courageous for
being unmoved by the prospect of a whipping.
In what kind of terrors, then, does the courageous man display his quality? Surely in
the greatest; for no one is more able to endure what is terrible. But of all things the
most terrible is death; for death is our limit, and when a man is once dead it seems
that there is no longer either good or evil for him.
It would seem, however, that even death does not on all occasions give scope for
courage, e.g. death by water or by disease.
On what occasions then? Surely on the noblest occasions: and those are the occasions
which occur in war; for they involve the greatest and the noblest danger.
This is confirmed by the honours which courage receives in free states and at the
hands of princes.
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The term courageous, then, in the strict sense, will be applied to him who fearlessly
faces an honourable death and all sudden emergencies which involve death; and such
emergencies mostly occur in war.
Of course the courageous man is fearless in the presence of illness also, and at sea, but
in a different way from the sailors; for the sailors, because of their experience, are full
of hope when the landsmen are already despairing of their lives and filled with
aversion at the thought of such a death.
Moreover, the circumstances which especially call out courage are those in which
prowess may be displayed, or in which death is noble; but in these forms of death
there is neither nobility nor room for prowess.
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7.
Fear is not excited in all men by the same things, but yet we commonly speak of
fearful things that surpass man s power to face. Such things, then, inspire fear in
every rational man. But the fearful things that a man may face differ in importance
and in being more or less fearful (and so with the things that inspire confidence).
Now, the courageous man always keeps his presence of mind (so far as a man can).
So though he will fear these fearful things, he will endure them as he ought and as
reason bids him, for the sake of that which is noble;* for this is the end or aim of
virtue.
But it is possible to fear these things too much or too little, and again to take as fearful
what is not really so. And thus men err sometimes by fearing the wrong things,
sometimes by fearing in the wrong manner or at the wrong time, and so on.
And all this applies equally to things that inspire confidence.
He, then, that endures and fears what he ought from the right motive, and in the right
manner, and at the right time, and similarly feels confidence, is courageous.
For the courageous man regulates both his feeling and his action according to the
merits of each case and as reason bids him.
But the end or motive of every manifestation of a habit or exercise of a trained faculty
is the end or motive of the habit or trained faculty itself.
Now, to the courageous man courage is essentially a fair or noble thing.
Therefore the end or motive of his courage is also noble; for everything takes its
character from its end.
It is from a noble motive, therefore, that the courageous man endures and acts
courageously in each particular case.*
Of the characters that run to excess, he that exceeds in fearlessness has no name (and
this is often the case, as we have said before); but a man would be either a maniac or
quite insensible to pain who should fear nothing, not even earthquakes and breakers,
as they say is the case with the Celts.
He that is over-confident in the presence of fearful things is called foolhardy. But the
foolhardy man is generally thought to be really a braggart, and to pretend a courage
which he has not: at least he wishes to seem what the courageous man really is in the
presence of danger; so he imitates him where he can. And so your foolhardy man is
generally a coward at bottom: he blusters so long as he can do so safely,* but turns
tail when real danger comes.
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He who is over-fearful is a coward; for he fears what he ought not, and as he ought
not, etc.
He is also deficient in confidence; but his character rather displays itself in excess of
fear in the presence of pain.
The coward is also despondent, for he is frightened at everything. But it is the
contrary with the courageous man; for confidence implies hopefulness.
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