Roman Temperantia.—The Roman conceived this virtue under the term temperantia, which conveys the same idea, but accommodated to the Roman genius. It is connected with the word tempus, time, which is connected also with a root meaning divide, distribute; it suggests a consecutive orderliness of behavior, a freedom from excessive and reckless action, first this way, and then that. It means seemliness, decorum, decency. It was "moderation," not as quantity of indulgence, but as a moderating of each act in a series by the thought of other and succeeding acts—keeping each in sequence with others in a whole. The idea of time involves time to think; the sobering second thought expressed in seriousness and gravity. The negative side, the side of restraint, of inhibition, is strong, and functions for the consistent calm and gravity of life.
Christian Purity.—Through the Christian influence, the connotation which is marked in the notion of control of sexual appetite, became most obvious—purity. Passion is not so much something which disturbs the harmony of man's nature, or which interrupts its orderliness, as it is something which defiles the purity of spiritual nature. It is the grossness, the contamination of appetite which is insisted upon, and temperance is the maintenance of the soul spotless and unsullied.
Negative Phase:—Self-control. A negative aspect of self-control, restraint, inhibition is everywhere involved.[186] It is not, however, desire, or appetite, or passion, or impulse, which has to be checked (much less eliminated); it is rather that tendency of desire and passion so to engross attention as to destroy our sense of the other ends which have a claim upon us. This moderation of pretension is indispensable for every desire. In one direction, it is modesty, humility; the restraint of the tendency of self-conceit to distort the relative importance of the agent's and others' concerns; in another direction, it is chastity; in another, "temperance" in the narrower sense of that word—keeping the indulgence of hunger and thirst from passing reasonable bounds; in another, it is calmness, self-possession—moderation of the transporting power of excitement; in yet another, it is discretion, imposing limits upon the use of the hand, eye, or tongue. In matters of wealth, it is decent regulation of display and ostentation. In general, it is prudence, control of the present impulse and desire by a view of the "long run," of proximate by remote consequences.[187]
Positive Phase: Reverence.—The tendency of dominant passion is to rush us along, to prevent our thinking. The one thing that desire emphasizes is, for the time being, the most important thing in the universe. This is necessary to heartiness and effectiveness of interest and behavior. But it is important that the thing which thus absorbs desire should be an end capable of justifying its power to absorb. This is possible only if it expresses the entire self. Otherwise capacities and desires which will occur later will be inconsistent and antagonistic, and conduct will be unregulated and unstable. The underlying idea in "temperance" is then a care of details for the sake of the whole course of behavior of which they are parts; heedfulness, painstaking devotion. Laxness in conduct means carelessness; lack of regard for the whole life permits temporary inclinations to get a sway that the outcome will not justify. In its more striking forms, we call this care and respect reverence; recognition of the unique, invaluable worth embodied in any situation or act of life, a recognition which checks that flippancy of surrender to momentary excitement coming from a superficial view of behavior. A sense of momentous issues at stake means a sobering and deepening of the mental attitude. The consciousness that every deed of life has an import clear beyond its immediate, or first significance, attaches dignity to every act. To live in the sense of the larger values attaching to our passing desires and deeds is to be possessed by the virtue of temperance.
Control of Excitement.—What hinders such living is, as we have seen, the exaggerated intensity, the lack of proportion and perspective, with which any appetite or desire is likely to present itself. It is this which moralists of all ages have attacked under the name of pleasure—the alluring and distracting power of the momentarily agreeable. Seeing in this the enemy which prevents the rational survey of the whole field and the calm, steady insight into the true good, it is hardly surprising that moralists have attacked "pleasure" as the source of every temptation to stray from the straight path of reason. But it is not pleasure, it is one form of pleasure, the pleasure of excitement, which is the obstacle and danger.[188] Every impulse and desire marks a certain disturbance in the order of life, an exaltation above the existing level, a pressure beyond its existing limit. To give way to desire, to let it grow, to taste to the full its increasing and intensifying excitement, is the temptation. The bodily appetites of hunger and thirst and sex, with which we associate the grossest forms of indulgence and laxity, exemplify the principle of expanding waves of organic stimulation. But so also do many of the subtler forms of unrestraint or intemperate action. The one with a clever and lively tongue is tempted to let it run away with him; the vain man feeds upon the excitement of a personality heightened by display and the notice of others; the angry man, even though he knows he will later regret his surrender, gives away to the sense of expanding power coincident with his discharge of rage. The shiftless person finds it easier to take chances and let consequences take care of themselves, while he enjoys local and casual stimulations. Trivialities and superficialities entangle us in a flippant life, because each one as it comes promises to be "thrilling," while the very fear that this promise will not be kept hurries us on to new experiences. To think of alternatives and consequences is not "thrilling," but serious.
Necessity of Superior Interest.—Now calculation of the utilitarian type is not adequate to deal with this temptation. Those who are prone to reflection upon results are just those who are least likely to be carried away by excitement—unless, as is the case with some specialists, thinking is itself the mode of indulgence in excitement.[189] With those who are carried away habitually by some mode of excitement, the disease and the incapacity to take the proffered remedy of reflection are the same thing. Only some other passion will accomplish the desired control. With the Greeks, it was æsthetic passion, love of the grace and beauty, the rhythm and harmony, of a self-controlled life. With the Romans, it was the passion for dignity, power, honor of personality, evidenced in rule of appetite. Both of these motives remain among the strong allies of ordered conduct. But the passion for purity, the sense of something degrading and foul in surrender to the base, an interest in something spotless, free from adulteration, are, in some form or other, the chief resource in overcoming the tendency of excitement to usurp the governance of the self.[190]
§ 2. COURAGE[191] OR PERSISTENT VIGOR
While love of excitement allures man from the path of reason, fear of pain, dislike to hardship, and laborious effort, hold him back from entering it. Dislike of the disagreeable inhibits or contracts the putting forth of energy, just as liking for agreeable stimulation discharges and exhausts it. Intensity of active interest in the good alone subdues that instinctive shrinking from the unpleasant and hard which slackens energy or turns it aside. Such energy of devotion is courage. Its etymological connection with the Latin word for heart, suggests a certain abundant spontaneity, a certain overflow of positive energy; the word was applied to this aspect of virtue when the heart was regarded as literally (not metaphorically) the seat of vital impulse and abundant forcefulness.
Courage and the Common Good.—One of the problems of early Greek thought was that of discriminating courage as virtuous from a sort of animal keenness and alacrity, easily running into recklessness and bravado. It was uniformly differentiated from mere overflow of physical energy by the fact that it was exhibited in support of some common or social good. It bore witness to its voluntary character by abiding in the face of threatened evil. Its simplest form was patriotism—willingness to brave the danger of death in facing the country's enemy from love of country. And this basic largeness of spirit in which the individual sinks considerations of personal loss and harm in allegiance to an objective good remains a cardinal aspect of all right disposition.
Courage is Preëminently the Executive Side of Every Virtue.—The good will, as we saw, means endeavor, effort, towards certain ends; unless the end stirs to strenuous exertion, it is a sentimental, not a moral or practical end. And endeavor implies obstacles to overcome, resistance to what diverts, painful labor. It is the degree of threatened harm—in spite of which one does not swerve—which measures this depth and sincerity of interest in the good.