Resumo de Courage - e bectford

Write your abstract

here.How shall we define Courage? What do we
mean by

Courage? Let us seek the broadest expression possible
of

courage ? the bare notion of courage in itself. So

considered, may we not define it as the subordination
of

pain or fear to resolution or purpose? I can think of
no

more catholic definition in words of the notion than
this

one, or one that more completely excludes all debatable

matter as to the extent of the operation of will, or
the

degree of consciousness of the purpose, involved
in ?true?

courage, still less ulterior considerations of the
content

of the purpose. No one would call the indifference to

danger of an infant or an idiot, or the mere endurance
of

the man powerless to resist, courage, but some might
affirm

that certain animals could be said to have courage, or
that

the mere physical absence of fear would constitute a
claim

to the possession of courage, and many other such
things.

Again, no one would say that to jump over a precipice

without an object was a brave action. Let us take this,

then, as the primary abstract definition of courage per
se ?

the subordination of pain or fear to resolution or

purpose. The corresponding formula for cowardice will,
of

course, be the opposite of this ? the subordination of

resolution or purpose to pain or fear. But though there
is

a formal opposition here, there is no real opposition.

Courage and cowardice are absolutely indistinguishable
from

this point of view. Thus, a man, shall we say, fights
to

the death rather than runs away. But why does he fight

rather than run away? Is the doing so courage, or is it

cowardice? Does he fight because he is a brave man, and

does not fear death? Or does he fight the rather
because he

is a coward, and fears the derision of public opinion
which

would follow on his running away? It is conceivable
that, a

man of little imagination, he fears Mrs. Grundy, whom
he

knows personally, more than the ?king of terrors,? whom
he

does not. Or, take the case of the suicide. He does not

fear death, a great terror to many, but yet he is
called a

coward by the man of correct morals because he fears to

encounter the troubles of life. Of course, the man of

correct morals is here only making believe, he does not

really think the suicide a coward, but it is the proper

thing to say in the interests of conventional morality,
and

a rather nice doctrine for himself, too, inasmuch as he

probably fears the troubles of life less than death,
and

therefore he, Q.E.D., is a braveman. But even though he
may

be shamming, the logic of the man of correct morals is

unimpeachable. He has a perfect right, from a
theoretical

point of view, to take up the position he does.
Considered

in their most abstract expressions, courage and
cowardice

are indistinguishable. There is no outward mark by
which we

can affirm, on the strength of the mere abstract
definition

of courage or cowardice, that a particular action is

courageous or the reverse. In the case of the man who

fights and runs away, it is impossible to say that he
is

not actually showing courage ? i.e., subordinating fear
to

resolution in running away. He may run away from an

overwhelming sense of the duty of preserving himself to

fight another day. It may have cost him a stupendous
moral

effort to resolve to run away and face the ridicule and
the

contumely of his fellows rather than yield to his

inclination as a fighting man to hold on and die with

harness on his back. It may cost a man no effort to
fight

and much to run away, or it may cost no effort to run
away

and much to fight. There is possible fear on either
side,

there is possible resolution on either side. So that
the

bare abstract conceptions of courage and cowardice are,when applied to the concrete world, perfectly

interchangeable. We must first have a concrete and

particular case before us before we can determine
motive,

and hence before we can predicate courage or cowardice
of

any action. To fight is usually regarded as a brave
action,

to run away as a cowardly action, but, as we have
shown,

the reverse may just as easily be the case. All
action.

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