is the quality or merit of the action.
That man is brave, who both fears, and affronts without fear, what he
ought and when he ought: who suffers and acts according to the value
of the cause, and according to a right judgment of it. The opposites
or extremes of courage include (1) Deficiency of fear; (2) Excess of
fear, cowardice; (3) Deficiency of daring, another formula for
cowardice; (4) Excess of daring, Rashness. Between these, Courage is
the mean (VII.).

Aristotle enumerates five analogous forms of quasi-courage,
approaching more or less to genuine courage. (1) The first, most like
to the true, is political courage, which is moved to encounter danger
by the Punishments and the Honours of society. The desire of honour
rises to virtue, and is a noble spring of action. (2) A second kind is
the effect of Experience, which dispels seeming terrors, and gives
skill to meet real danger. (3) Anger, Spirit, Energy [Greek: thymos] is
a species of courage, founded on physical power and excitement, but not
under the guidance of high emotions. (4) The Sanguine temperament, by
overrating the chances of success, gives courage. (5) Lastly, Ignorance
of the danger may have the same effect as courage (VIII.).

Courage is mainly connected with pain and loss. Men are called brave
for the endurance of pain, even although it bring pleasure in the end,
as to the boxer who endures bruises from the hope of honour. Death is
painful, and most so to the man that by his virtue has made life
valuable. Such a man is to be considered more courageous, as a soldier,
than a mercenary with little to lose (IX.).

The account of Courage thus given is remarkably exhaustive; although
the constituent parts might have been more carefully disentangled. A
clear line should be drawn between two aspects of courage. The one is
the resistance to Fear properly so called; that is, to the perturbation
that exaggerates coming evil: a courageous man, in this sense, is one
that possesses the true measure of impending danger, and acts according
to that, and not according to an excessive measure. The other aspect of
Courage, is what gives it all its nobleness as a virtue, namely,
_Self-sacrifice_, or the deliberate encountering of evil, for some
honourable or virtuous cause. When a man knowingly risks his life in
battle for his country, he may be called courageous, but he is still
better described as a heroic and devoted man.

Inasmuch as the leading form of heroic