Courage does not depend on whether you save your life, or risk your life, or lose your life. A brave man may save his life in situations where a coward would lose it and a fool would risk it. The brave man is he who is so clear and firm in his grasp of some worthy end that he will live if he can best serve it by living; that he will die if he can best serve it by dying; and he will take his chances of life or death if taking those chances is the best way to serve this end.
The brave man does not like criticism, unpopularity, defeat, hostility, any better than anybody else. He does not pretend to like them. He does not court them. He does not pose as a martyr every chance that he can get. He simply takes these pains and ills as under the circumstances the best means of furthering the ends he has at heart. For their sake he swallows criticism and calls it good; invites opposition and glories in overcoming it, or being overcome by it, as the fates may decree; accepts persecution and rejoices to be counted worthy to suffer in so good a cause.
It is all a question here as everywhere in Aristotle of the ends at which one aims, and the sense of proportion with which he chooses his means. In his own words: "The man, then, who governs his fear and likewise his confidence aright, facing dangers it is right to face, and for the right cause, in the right manner, and at the right time, is courageous. For the courageous man regulates both his feelings and his actions with due regard to the circumstances and as reason and proportion suggest. The courageous man, therefore, faces danger and does the courageous thing because it is a fine thing to do." As Muirhead sums up Aristotle's teaching on this point: "True courage must be for a noble object. Here, as in all excellence, action and object, consequence and motive, are inseparable. Unless the action is inspired by a noble motive, and permeated throughout its whole structure by a noble character, it has no claim to the name of courage."
The virtues cannot be learned out of a book, or picked up ready-made. They must be acquired, by practice, as is the case with the arts; and they are not really ours until they have become so habitual as to be practically automatic. The sign and seal of the complete acquisition of any virtue is the pleasure we take in it. Such pleasure once gained becomes one's lasting and inalienable possession.
In Aristotle's words: "We acquire the virtues by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts too. We learn an art by doing that which we wish to do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and harpers by playing on the harp. And so by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous. It is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men that we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become courageous or cowardly." "The happy man, then, as we define him, will have the property of permanence, and all through life will preserve his character; for he will be occupied continually, or with the least possible interruption, in excellent deeds and excellent speculations; and whatever his fortune may be, he will take it in the noblest fashion, and bear himself always and in all things suitably. And if it is what man does that determines the character of his life, then no happy man will become miserable, for he will never do what is hateful and base. For we hold that the man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances, as a good general will turn the forces at his command to the best account."
This doctrine that virtue, like skill in any game or craft, is gained by practice, deserves a word of comment. It seems to say, "You must do the thing before you know how, in order to know how after you have done it." Paradox or no paradox, that is precisely the fact. The swimmer learns to swim by floundering and splashing around in the water; and if he is unwilling to do the floundering and splashing before he can swim, he will never become a swimmer. The ball-player must do a lot of muffing and wild throwing before he can become a sure catcher and a straight thrower. If he is ashamed to go out on the diamond and make these errors, he may as well give up at once all idea of ever becoming a ball-player. For it is by the progressive elimination of errors that the perfect player is developed. The only place where no errors are made, whether in base-ball or in life, is on the grand stand. The courage to try to do a thing before you know how, and the patience to keep on trying after you have found out that you don't know how, and the perseverance to renew the trial as many times as necessary until you do know how, are the three conditions of the acquisition of physical skill, mental power, moral virtue, or personal excellence.
VII
ARISTOTELIAN FRIENDSHIP
We are now prepared to see why Aristotle regards friendship as the crown and consummation of a virtuous life. No one has praised friendship more highly, or written of it more profoundly than he.
Friendship he defines as "unanimity on questions of the public advantage and on all that touches life." This unanimity, however, is very different from agreement in opinion. It is seeing things from the same point of view; or, more accurately, it is the appreciation of each other's interests and aims. The whole tendency of Aristotle thus far has been to develop individuality; to make each man different from every other man. Conventional people are all alike. But the people who have cherished ends of their own, and who make all their choices with reference to these inwardly cherished ends, become highly differentiated. The more individual your life becomes, the fewer people there are who can understand you. The man who has ends of his own is bound to be unintelligible to the man who has no such ends, and is merely drifting with the crowd. Now friendship is the bringing together of these intensely individual, highly differentiated persons on a basis of mutual sympathy and common understanding. Friendship is the recognition and respect of individuality in others by persons who are highly individualised themselves. That is why Aristotle says true friendship is possible only between the good; between people, that is, who are in earnest about ends that are large and generous and public-spirited enough to permit of being shared. "The bad," he says, "desire the company of others, but avoid their own. And because they avoid their own company, there is no real basis for union of aims and interests with their fellows." "Having nothing lovable about them, they have no friendly feelings toward themselves. If such a condition is consummately miserable, the moral is to shun vice, and strive after virtue with all one's might. For in this way we shall at once have friendly feelings toward ourselves and become the friends of others. A good man stands in the same relation to his friend as to himself, seeing that his friend is a second self." "The conclusion, therefore, is that if a man is to be happy, he will require good friends."
Friendship has as many planes as human life and human association. The men with whom we play golf and tennis, billiards and whist, are friends on the lowest plane—that of common pleasures. Our professional and business associates are friends upon a little higher plane—that of the interests we share. The men who have the same social customs and intellectual tastes; the men with whom we read our favourite authors, and talk over our favourite topics, are friends upon a still higher plane—that of identity of æsthetic and intellectual pursuits. The highest plane, the best friends, are those with whom we consciously share the spiritual purpose of our lives. This highest friendship is as precious as it is rare. With such friends we drop at once into a matter-of-course intimacy and communion. Nothing is held back, nothing is concealed; our aims are expressed with the assurance of sympathy; even our shortcomings are confessed with the certainty that they will be forgiven. Such friendship lasts as long as the virtue which is its common bond. Jealousy cannot come in to break it up. Absolute sincerity, absolute loyalty,—these are the high terms on which such friendship must be held. A person may have many such friends on one condition: that he shall not talk to any one friend about what his friendship permits him to know of another friend. Each such relation must be complete within itself; and hermetically sealed, so far as permitting any one else to come inside the sacred circle of its mutual confidence. In such friendship, differences, as of age, sex, station in life, divide not, but rather enhance, the sweetness and tenderness of the relationship. In Aristotle's words: "The friendship of the good, and of those who have the same virtues, is perfect friendship. Such friendship, therefore, endures so long as each retains his character, and virtue is a lasting thing."