=158. Courage.=--Yet if courage, in its most general sense, is virtue itself, usage has given it a special meaning which defines it in a more particular manner, and makes of it a certain distinct virtue, on the same conditions as all the others. As of all the assaults which besiege us in life, death appears to be the most terrible and generally the most dreaded, it is not to be wondered then that this kind of energy which consists in braving death and, consequently, all that may lead to it, namely, peril, has been designated by a particular name. Courage, therefore, is the sort of virtue which braves peril and even death. Then, by extension, the same word was applied to every manifestation of strength of soul before misfortune, misery, grief. A man can be brave in poverty, in slavery, under humiliation even--that is, a humiliation which is due to outward circumstances, and which he has not deserved. This courageous virtue seems to have been the particular feature of the ancients, and by dint of its excellence, still retains its hold on us, dazzling our imagination, as a privileged prestige. Yet is it only an illusion, and modern times are as rich in heroes as were ancient times: only we pay less attention to it perhaps; but, whether it be real superiority in this kind of virtue, or literary reminiscences and habits of education, nothing will ever erase that lively picture of ancient heroism so celebrated under the name of Plutarch's heroes, and which has always captivated all great imaginations. Stoicism, that original philosophy of the Greek and Roman world, is above all the philosophy of courage. Its character proper is the strength to resist one's self, to hold pain, death, all the accidents of humanity, in contempt. Its model is Hercules, the god of strength; all the great men of antiquity, whether consciously or not, were stoics: such were especially the ancient Roman citizens; they were austere, inexorable; slaves to duty and discipline, faithful to their oath, to their country;--Brutus, Regulus, Scævola, Decius, and thousands more like them. When stoicism came in contact with the last great Romans, it found material all ready for its doctrines; it then became the philosophy of the last republicans, the last heroes of a world which was fast disappearing. The courage which most impresses men is _military courage_. "The most honorable deaths occur in war," says Aristotle, "for in war the danger is the greatest and most honorable. The public honors that are awarded in states and by monarchs attest this. "Properly, then, he who in the case of an honorable death, and under circumstances close at hand which cause death, is fearless, may be called courageous; and the dangers of war are, more than any others, of this description."[122]