Courage
The Hero’s of history and poetry may be cruel, violent, self-seeking, ruthless, in-temperate, and unjust, but they are never cowards. They do not falter or give way. They do not despair in the face of almost hopeless odds. They have the strength and stamina to achieve whatever they set their minds and wills to do. They would not be heroes if they were not men of courage.
This is the very meaning of heroism which gives the legendary heroes almost the stature of gods. In the Homeric age they do in fact contend with gods as well as men. The two Homeric epics, especially The Iliad, are peopled with men who cannot be dared or daunted. In Tennyson's poem, Ulysses, now restive in Ithaca, remembering the years at Troy and the long voyage home, says to his companions,
Some work of noble note may yet be done Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods ...... and though we are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
In The Iliad, courage is the quality above all others which characterizes the great figures of Achilles and Hector, Ajax, Patroclus, and Diomedes, Agamemnon and Menelaus. The only other quality which seems to be equally prized, and made the subject of rivalry and boast, is cunning the craft of Odysseus, that man of many devices, and the cleverness in speech of Nestor. Yet the best speech is only the prelude to action, and except for the night expedition of Odysseus and Diomedes into the Trojan camp, the great actions of the Iliad are unplanned deeds of prowess - stark, not stealthy.
The heroes have boundless passions, and fear is among them. When they are called fear-less, it is not because nothing affrights them or turns their blood cold. Fear seizes them, as does anger, with all its bodily force. They are fearless only in the sense that they do not act afraid or fail to act. Their courage is always equal to the peril sensed or felt, so that they can perform what must be done as if they had no fear of pain or death. Such courage is exemplified by the title character of Hemingway's story The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber:
"You know, I'd like to try another lion," Macomber said. "I'm not really afraid of them now. After all, what can they do to you?"
"That's it," said Wilson. "Worst one can do is kill you. How does it go? Shakespeare. Damned good. See if I can remember... 'By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. "
Yet brave men often speak of courage as if it were fearlessness and mark the coward as one who is undone by fear. An ambush, Idomeneus says in The Iliad, will show "who is cowardly and who is brave; the coward will change colour at every touch and turn; he is full of fears, and keeps shifting his weight first on one knee and then on the other; his heart beats fast as he thinks of death, and one can hear the chattering of his teeth." The brave man, mastering fear, will appear to be fearless.
This is the courage of men of action, men in war, found not only in the heroes of Troy's siege, but in the stalwarts of all other battles— Leonidas at Thermopylae, Aeneas and Turnus engaged in single combat, the conquerors in Plutarch, the warrior-nobility in Shakespeare, the civilized Prince Andrew and young Rostov in War and Peace. It is the sort of courage which goes with physical strength, with feats of endurance; and, as signified by the root-meaning of "fortitude," which is a synonym for courage, it is a reservoir of moral or spiritual strength to sustain action even when flesh and blood can carry on no further. Such courage is a virtue in the primary sense of the Latin word virtus-manliness, the spirit, or strength of spirit, required to be a man.
There are other sorts of courage. The courage of the tragic hero, of Oedipus and Antigone, goes with strength of mind, not body. This, perhaps even more than being lionhearted, is a specifically human strength. Courage does not consist only in conquering fear and in withholding the body from flight no matter what the risk of pain. It consists at least as much in steeling the will, reinforcing its resolutions, and turning the mind relentlessly to seek or face the truth.
Civil no less than martial action requires courage. Weary of empire, Marcus Aurelius summons courage each day for the performance of an endless round of duties. "In the morning when thou risest unwilling," he reminds himself, "let this thought be present— I am rising to the work of a human being." How he conceives the work of an emperor, he makes plain. "Let the deity which is in thee be the guardian of a living being, manly and of ripe age, and engaged in matter political, and a Roman, and a ruler, who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life, and ready to go, having need neither of oath nor of any man's testimony." The burdens are heavy, the task difficult but not impossible, for a man "can live well even in a palace."
Civil courage is as necessary for the citizen as for the ruler. This virtue, in J. S. Mill's opinion, is especially necessary for citizens of a free government. "A people may prefer a free government," he writes, "but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they an more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even tons short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it.
The courage or pusillanimity of a people is sometimes regarded as the cause, and sometimes as the effect, of their political institutions. "The inhabitants of Europe," Hippocrates writes, are "more courageous then those of Asia; for a climate which is always the same induces indolence, but a changeable climate, laborious exertions, both of body and mind; and from rest and indolence cowardice is engendered, and from laborious exertions and pains, courage." This, according to Hippocrates, partly explains why the Asiatics readily submit to despotism and why the Europeans fight for political liberty. But the character of the Europeans, he adds, is also the result of "their institutions, because they are not governed by kings... for where men are governed by kings, there they must be very cowardly... and they will not readily undergo dangers in order to promote the power of another; but those that are free undertake dangers on their own account... and thus their institutions contribute not a little to their courage."
For Hegel, on the contrary, civic courage consists in undertaking dangers, even to the point of sacrifice, for the state. Moreover, for him true courage is entirely a civic virtue. ‘The intrinsic worth of courage as a disposition of the mind," he writes, "is to be found in the genuine, absolute, final end, and sovereigny of the state. The work of courage is to actualitse this final end, and the means to this end is the sacrifice of personal actuality." Though he admits that courage "is multiform," he insists that "the mettle of an animal or a brigand, courage for the sake of honor, the courage of a knight, these are not true forms of courage. The true courage of civilised nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many.
The work of man is learning as well as action. Man has a duty to to truth as well as to the state.The ability to face without flinching the hard questions reality can put constitutes the temper of a courageous mind. "The huge world that girdles us about," William James writes "puts all sorts of questions to us, and rests us in all sorts of ways. Some of the tests we meet by actions that are easy, and some of the questions we answer in articulately formulated words. But the deepest question that is ever asked admits of no reply but the dumb turning of the will and tightening of our heartstrings as we say, Yes, I will even have it so!' When a dreadful object is presented, or when life as a whole turns up its dark abysses to our view, then the worthless ones among us lose their hold on the situation altogether... But the heroic mind does differently... It can face them if necessary, without for that losing its hold upon the rest of life. The world thus finds in the heroic man its worthy match and mate ... He can stand this Universe." Not only in answering questions, but in asking them, courage is required. The story which Saint Augustine tells in The Confessions, of his persistent questioning of doctrines and dogmas, his refusal to rest in any creed which did not wholly satisfy his mind, is a story of speculative courage, capped by the fortitude with which he bore the agony of irresolution and doubt.
Learning is never an easy enterprise, nor truth an easy master. The great scientists and philosophers have shown the patience and perseverance of courage in surmounting the social hardships of opposition and distrust, as well as the intellectual difficulties which might discourage men less resolved to seek and find the truth. The great religious martyrs, as indomitable in their humility as soldiers are in daring, have been as resolute—never yielding to a despair which would have dishonored their faith.
In all these types of fortitude, different motivations are apparent, as diverse as the forms which courage takes under the various demands of life. Not all the forms of courage may be equally admirable, partly because they are unequal in degree, but also partly because the courageous acts themselves, or the purposes for which fortitude is needed, are not of equal moral worth. Yet the essence of courage seems to be the same throughout. It sustains the honor of Don Quixote and in some sense even of Sir John Falstaff; it burnishes the fame of Alexander and Caesar; it fortifies Socrates and Galileo to withstand their trials. Whether in the discharge of duty or in the pursuit of happiness, courage confirms a man in the hard choices he has been forced to make.
As virtue and vice indicate, the traditional theory of the moral qualities places courage or fortitude among the four principal virtues. The other three are temperance, justice, and either wisdom or prudence, according to the enumeration of different writers.
Plato names these virtues when, in The Republic, he compares the parts of the state with the parts of the soul. "The same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual," Socrates says, and "they are three in number." There is one "with which a man reasons... the rational part of the soul, another with which he loves and hungers and thirsts and feels the flutterings of any other desire - the irrational or appetitive, the ally of sundry pleasures and satisfactions." The third part is "passion or spirit" which "when not corrupted by bad education is the natural auxiliary of reason."
Corresponding to these three parts of the soul, there are, or should be, according to Plato, three classes in the state: the guardians or rulers, the husbandmen and artisans, or the workers, and the auxiliaries or the soldiers.The virtues which belong to the several parts of the soul also belong to the corresponding parts of the state. Wise is the man, Socrates declares, "who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims commands, that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole." Courageous is he "whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear."
Temperance, however, instead of being exclusively the perfection of one part, pervades the whole, and is found, according to Socrates, in the man "who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in which the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule." Justice" the only virtue which remains... when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted, "is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative." It is the virtue which "does not permit the several elements within a man to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others."
The political analogy finds justice in the well ordered state, where wisdom rules, courage defends the laws and peace, and temperance balances the economy. Wisdom would belong most properly to the guardians, courage to the auxiliaries, while all three classes would need temperance. Hegel also associates courage with "the military class" —"that universal class which is charged with the defence of the state" and whose duty it is "to make real the ideality implicit within itself, i.e., to sacrifice itself." But whereas for Hegel courage seems to be the foremost political virtue, Plato puts it last in the order of goods. "Wisdom is chief," the Athenian Stranger says in the Laws; "next follows temperance; and from the union of these two with courage springs justice, and fourth in the scale of virtue is courage."
In the context of a different psychological analysis, and a theory of the virtues which considers them primarily as habits, Aristotle's conception of courage differs from Plato's in a number of respects. It is most closely allied with temperance. These two virtues together belong to the irrational part of the soul-the passions or appetites-and are concerned with our attitude toward pleasure and pain. They discipline us, both in feeling and action, with regard to the pleasurable objects of desire and the painful objects of feat or aversion. Aristotle seems to think courage more praiseworthy than temperance, "for it is harder to face what is painful than to abstain from what is pleasant."
Just as the temperate man is one who habitually forgoes certain pleasures and seeks other pleasures moderately for the sake of achieving some greater good, so the courageous man is one who can at any time endure pain and hard. ship, or overcome fear of danger and death, in order to achieve a paramount end. Since death is "the most terrible of all things," Aristotle declares that "properly, he will be called brave who is fearless in the face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that involve death." But it must be "for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage directs."
The paramount end, the greatest good, which the moderation of temperance and the endurance of courage serve, is for Aristotle happiness. Yet through their relation to justice, which concerns the good of others and the welfare of the state, temperance and courage help a man to perform his social duties, whether as ruler or citizen, in peace or war. The man who acts lawfully will not only be just, but also courageous and temperate, for, in Aristotle's view, "the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man, e.g., not to desert our post nor take flight nor throw away our arms, and those of a temperate man, e.g., not to commit adultery nor to gratify one's lust." Not only may the law-abiding man be called upon to be courageous in the respects which Aristotle indicates, but it may sometimes take great courage to uphold the law itself against many temptations to the contrary. "After the death of Moses... the Lord spake unto Joshua," and said unto him: "Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left."
The fourth virtue with which courage, temperance, and justice are associated in the con duct of private or public life is prudence, or "practical wisdom." Though Aristotle classifies prudence as an intellectual virtue, consisting in the capacity for making a right judgment about things to be done, he also regards prudence as inseparable in origin and excecise from these other three virtues which he calls "moral" rather than "intellectual." Later writers call the four virtues taken together-courage, temperance, justice, and prudence the "cardinal" virtues in order to signify, as Aquinas explains, that the whole of moral life "hinges" upon them.
The theory of the cardinal virtues, and of their connection with one another in such wise that none can be perfect in the absence of the others, is treated in virtue and vice. Justice, temperance and prudence discuss the doctrine that each of these virtues is only a part of virtue, which must be integrated with the other parts.
The special role which prudence plays in relation to virtues like courage and temperance at least according to Aristotle's view that "it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral virtue" must be reserved for the chapter dealing with that virtue. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider here how its dependence on prudence may qualify the meaning or nature of courage.
The connection which some writers see between courage and prudence affects the definition of courage in two ways. The first involves the doctrine of the mean which enters into the consideration of all the moral virtues, but especially courage and temperance.
Aristotle originates the analysis of virtue as "a mean between two vices... because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions." It requires prudence to decide what things should be feared, when they should be feared, and how much; and so a prudent judgment is involved in fearing the right things at the right time and in the right manner-neither too much nor too little. "The coward, the rash man, and the brave man," Aristotle writes, "are concerned with the same objects but are differently disposed to them; for the first two exceed and fall short, while the third holds the middle, which is the right, position; and rash men are precipitate and wish for dangers beforehand but draw back when they are in them, while brave men are keen in the moment of action, but quiet beforehand."
Aristotle is not the only one to define courage as a middle ground between contrary extremes. Most writers who devote any attention to the nature of courage come to somewhat the same conclusion. Epictetus, for example, in declaring that we should "combine confidence with caution in everything we do," seems also to make courage a mean. He points out that such a combination at first "may appear a paradox" since "caution seems to be contrary to confidence, and contraries are by no means compatible." But this, he says, is only due to "confusion." There would be a paradox "if we really called upon a man to use caution and confidence in regard to the same things... as uniting qualities which cannot be united." But, as Epictetus explains, caution and confidence can be united because they concern different objects.
The difference in objects which he has in mind becomes clear in the light of the Stoic maxim, "Be confident in all that lies beyond the will's control, be cautious in all that is dependent on the will." Sharply distinguishing between what does and does not lie within our control, Epictetus tells us to look with care and caution only to those things in which we can do evil by making an evil choice. "In such matters of will it is right to use caution." But in other matters, "in things outside the will's control, which do not depend on us... we should use confidence."
By uniting caution and confidence, we avoid the extremes of foolhardiness and cowardice and achieve the mean in which Aristotle says courage consists. Both are necessary. Cowardice is not the only vice opposed to courage.
The man who acts without caution in the face of danger, recklessly disregarding what might be reasonably feared, is foolhardy rather than courageous; even as the coward is held back by fears which his reason tells him should be overcome.
Because he agrees that courage consists in avoiding both extremes, Spinoza writes that "flight at the proper time, just as well as fighting, is to be reckoned as showing strength of mind." These two acts are allied, since it is by "the same virtue of the mind" that a man "avoids danger... and seeks to overcome it." To determine at a given moment whether to flee or to fight, so as to avoid either foolhardiness or cowardice, obviously involves a decision of reason. Such a decision, according to Spinoza, demands "strength of mind," by which he means "the desire by which each person endeavours from the dictates of reason alone to preserve his own being." Without rational direction or, as Aristotle would say, without prudence, one may be fearless but not courageous.
Those who, like Hobbes, do not include reason or prudence as an essential element in their conception of courage, treat courage as an emotion rather than a virtue, and tend to identify it with fearlessness, making its opposite the condition of being over-fear-ful. "Amongst the passions," writes Hobbes, "courage (by which I mean the contempt of wounds and violent death) inclines men to private revenges, and sometimes to endeavor the unsettling of the public peace; and timorousness many times disposes to the desertion of the public defense." As Hobbes describes courage, it may be of doubtful value to the individual or to the state. Melville seems to have this meaning of courage in mind when he says that "the most reliable and useful courage is that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril" —the lack of which makes "an utterly fearless man ... a far more dangerous companion than a cow-ard." In the context of discussing dread-the existentialist's angst-Heidegger declares that "the dread felt by the courageous cannot be contrasted with the joy ... of a peaceable life. It stands... in secret union with the serenity and gentleness of creative longing."
If apparent fearlessness were courage, then certain animals might be called "courageous," and men of sanguine temperament, extremely self-confident or at least free from fear, would be as courageous as those who succeed in mastering their fears in order to do what is expected of them. But, as Aristotle observes, drunken men often behave fearlessly and we do not praise them for their courage. Plato likewise presents a view of courage which requires forethought and a genuine concen for danger.
"I do not call animals... which have no fear of dangers, because they are ignorant of them, courageous" says Nicias in the Laches. They are "only fearless and senseless... There is a difference to my way of thinking," he goes on, "between fearlessness and courage. I am of the opinion that thoughtful courage is a quality possessed by very few, but that rashness and boldness, and fearlessness, which has no forethought, are very common qualities possessed by many men, many women, many children, and many animals." According to this conception of courage, "courageous actions," Nicias says, "are wise actions."
In line with these considerations, the definition of courage would involve a reasonable, a wise or prudent, discrimination between what should be feared and what should be undertaken in spite of peril or pain. As the Parson declares, in his discourse on the Seven Deadly Sins in The Canterbury Tales, "this virtue is so mighty and so vigorous that it dares to withstand sturdily, and wisely to keep itself from dangers that are wicked, and to wrestle against the assaults of the Devil. For it enhances and strengthens the soul... It can endure, by long suffering, the toils that are fitting." To be able to make decisions of this sort in particular cases, a man must have some view of the order of goods and the end of life. For a man to act habitually in a courageous manner, he must be generally disposed to value certain things as more important than others, so that he is willing to take risks and endure hardships for their sake.
Freud seems to be skeptical of what he calls "the rational explanation for heroism," according to which "it consists in the decision that the personal life cannot be so precious as certain abstract general ideals." More fre-quent, in his opinion, "is that instinctive and impulsive heroism which knows no such motivation and flouts danger in the spirit of Anzen-gruber's Hans the Road-Mender: Nothing can happen to me.' " But Aquinas, who emphasizes rational moivation as much as Freud discounts it, insists that courageous men face the danger on account of the good of virtue, which is the abiding force of their will however great the danger be."
Courage as Aquinas conceives it, though only a part of virtue in the sense of being one virtue among many, nevertheless represents the whole moral life from one point of view.The quality of courage, he points out "overflows into the rest" of the virtues, as these in turn enter into courage, "Whoever can curb his desires for the pleasures of touch," Aquinas writes, "so that they keep within bounds, which is a very hard thing to do, for this very reason is more able to check his daring in dangers of death, so as not to go too far, which is much easier; and in this sense fortitude is said to be temperate.
"Again," he continues, "temperance is said to be brave because fortitude overflows into temperance. This is true in so far as he whose soul is strengthened by fortitude against dangers of death, which is a matter of very great difficulty, is more able to remain firm against the onslaught of pleasures, for, as Cicero says, “it would be inconsistent for a man to be unbroken by fear, and yet vanquished by cupidity, or that he should be conquered by lust, after showing himself to be unconquered by toil."
As the man who is temperate because he has rationally ordered his actions to a certain end can be expected to be courageous for the same reason, so, according to Aquinas, he will also be prudent, since both his temperance and his courage result from a prudent or rational choice of means to the end he pursues.
Writing as a theologian, Aquinas distinguishes what he calls "the perfecting virtues" of the religious life from "the social virtues" of the political life - the virtues with which the moral philosopher is concerned.
He holds courage to be inseparable from the other virtues on either plane - whether directed to a natural or supernatural end - because it is the sameness of the end in each case which binds the virtues together. "Thus prudence by contemplating the things of God," he explains, "counts as nothing all the thing. of this world" and "temperance, so far as nature allows, neglects the needs of the body; fortitude prevents the soul from being afraid of neglecting the body and rising to heavenly things; and justice consists in the soul's giving a whole-hearted consent to follow the way thus proposed."
Kierkegaard also takes a theological view of courage in Fear and Trembling, in which he repeats the Genesis story of Abraham, the biblical patriarch whom Kierkegaard describes as a "knight of faith." Faith, according to Kierkegaard, is incomplete without some degree of courage: "A purely human courage is required to renounce the whole of the temporal to gain the eternal ... But a paradoxical and humble courage is required to grasp the whole of the temporal by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith."
We are thus brought to the second qualification upon courage which arises from its connection with prudence, and through prudence with the other virtues. Does it make any difference whether the end for which a man strives valiantly is itself something commendable rather than despicable? If not, then the thief can have courage just as truly as the man who fears dishonor more than death; the tyrant can be courageous no less and no differently than the law-abiding citizen.
In his advice to the prince, Machiavelli seems to consider only the utility of courage.
Referring to the end which he says "every man has before him, namely glory and riches," he pone it chat me a proceed in various way force, another by skill; one by patience, another by its opposite; and each one succeeds in reaching the goal by a different method." For-tune, he thinks, plays a large part in their suc-cess, and for that reason he holds no method certain. Any method requires us to use fortune to the best advantage. This demands courage and even audacity.
"It is better to be adventurous than cautious," he writes, "because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her."
It would appear that Machiavelli recommends courage, or at least daring, to those who wish to succeed in great undertakings, whether the end in view is commendable or not. In either case, courage may improve the chances of success, and it is success that counts. According to their notions of courage as a virtue, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas sharply disagree with this, as we have already seen. So do Kant and Hegel.
"It is the positive aspect, the end and con-tent," Hegel writes, which "gives significance to the spiritedness" of courageous actions.
"Robbers and murderers bent on crime as their end, adventurers pursuing ends planned to suit their own whims, etc., these too have spirit enough to risk their lives." Because their ends are either malicious or unworthy, the mettle of a brigand and even the courage of a knight do not seem to Hegel to be true forms of courage.
According to Kant, "intelligence, wit, judge-ment, and other talents of the mind, however they be named, or courage, resolution, per-severance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many re-spects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good." If a good will is necessary to make courage virtuous, then the behavior of a scoundrel may look courageous, but it can only be a counterfeit. "Without the principles of a good will," such things as the ability to face dangers or to bear hardships, Kant thinks,
"may become extremely bad... The coolness of a villain," he adds, "not only makes him far more dangerous, but also makes him more abominable in our eyes than he would have been without it."
It may still remain true that courage can take many forms according to the variety of objects which inspire fear, or according to the types of action which men find burdensome or painful.
But if the truly courageous man must always be generally virtuous as well then many of the appearances of courage do not spring from genuine virtue. The conception of virtue as a habit adds the criterion of a settled disposition: even the habitual coward may perform a single courageous act. Nor should courage be attributed to those who by freak of temperament are utterly fearless. The merit of virtue overcoming fear cannot be claimed by them.
In the great political books, especially those of antiquity, the place of courage in the state and in the training of citizens receives particular attention. The constitutions of Crete and Sparta seem to make courage the only essential virtue for the citizen. Plutarch, in his life of Lycurgus, shows how "the city was a sort of camp." The training and education of all was directed to military valor, "Their very songs had a life and spirit in them that inflamed and possessed men's minds with an enthusiasm and ardour for action... the subject always serious and moral; most usu-ally, it was in praise of such men as had died in defence of their country, or in derision of those that had been cowards; the former they declared happy and glorified; the life of the latter they described as most miserable and abject." The result was, according to Plutarch, that "they were the only people in the world to whom war gave repose."
Both Plato and Aristotle criticize the constitutions of Crete and Sparta for making war the end of the state and exalting courage, which is only a part, above "the whole of virtue." Courage must be joined with the other virtues to make a man good, not only as a citizen but as a man. "Justice, temperance, and wisdom, says the Athenian Stranger in the Laws, "when united with courage are better than courage only."
Furthermore, military courage is not even the whole of courage. While recognising the need for it, Plato thinks that a wise statesman would put it in its proper place, if men are to be trained to be good citizens, not merely good soldiers. Arguing that no sound legislator would order "peace for the sake of war, and not war for the sake of peace," the Athenian Stranger suggests that a broader conception of courage than the Cretans and Spartans seem to have would recognize its use, not only in external warfare, but in the tasks of peace-in the struggles to lead a good life and build a good society. "What is there," he asks Megillus the Spartan and Cleinias the Cretan, "which makes your citizens equally brave against pleasure and pain, conquering what they ought to conquer, and superior to the enemies who are most dangerous and nearest home?"
Nevertheless, through the centuries the type of courage which the poets and historians celebrate has been the bravery of men who put their very lives in jeopardy for their fellowmen—the courage of the citizen doing his duty, or, what is still more spectacular, of the soldier confronting his enemy. This fact among others is one reason why many writers, from the Greeks to Hegel, have found a moral stimulus in war; or, like James, have sought for its moral equivalent. On this point they are answered not merely by those who see only degradation in war, but also by the many expressions of the insight that peace can have its heroes too.