Now the end of every separate act of working is that
which accords with the habit, and so to the Brave
man Courage; which is honourable; therefore such is
also the End, since the character of each is determined
by the End.
So honour is the motive from which the Brave man withstands
things fearful and performs the acts which accord
with Courage.
Of the characters on the side of Excess, he who exceeds
in utter absence of fear has no appropriate name (I
observed before that many states have none), but he
would be a madman or inaccessible to pain if he feared
nothing, neither earthquake, nor the billows, as they
tell of the Celts.
He again who exceeds in confidence in respect of things
fearful is rash. He is thought moreover to be
a braggart, and to advance unfounded claims to the
character of Brave: the relation which the Brave
man really bears to objects of fear this man wishes
to appear to bear, and so imitates him in whatever
points he can; for this reason most of them exhibit
a curious mixture of rashness and cowardice; because,
affecting rashness in these circumstances, they do
not withstand what is truly fearful.
[Sidenote: III6_a_] The man moreover who exceeds
in feeling fear is a coward, since there attach to
him the circumstances of fearing wrong objects, in
wrong ways, and so forth. He is deficient also
in feeling confidence, but he is most clearly seen
as exceeding in the case of pains; he is a fainthearted
kind of man, for he fears all things: the Brave
man is just the contrary, for boldness is the property
of the light-hearted and hopeful.
So the coward, the rash, and the Brave man have exactly
the same object-matter, but stand differently related
to it: the two first-mentioned respectively exceed
and are deficient, the last is in a mean state and
as he ought to be. The rash again are precipitate,
and, being eager before danger, when actually in it
fall away, while the Brave are quick and sharp in
action, but before are quiet and composed.
Well then, as has been said, Courage is a mean state
in respect of objects inspiring boldness or fear,
in the circumstances which have been stated, and the
Brave man chooses his line and withstands danger either
because to do so is honourable, or because not to do
so is base. But dying to escape from poverty,
or the pangs of love, or anything that is simply painful,
is the act not of a Brave man but of a coward; because
it is mere softness to fly from what is toilsome, and
the suicide braves the terrors of death not because
it is honourable but to get out of the reach of evil.
Courage proper is somewhat of the kind I have described,
but there are dispositions, differing in five ways,
which also bear in common parlance the name of Courage.
We will take first that which bears most resemblance
to the true, the Courage of Citizenship, so named
because the motives which are thought to actuate the
members of a community in braving danger are the penalties
and disgrace held out by the laws to cowardice, and
the dignities conferred on the Brave; which is thought
to be the reason why those are the bravest people
among whom cowards are visited with disgrace and the
Brave held in honour.
