=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. =Aspects of Interest in Execution.=--Certain formal traits of courage follow at once from this general definition. In its onset, willingness in behalf of the common good to endure attendant private evils is alacrity, promptness. In its abiding and unswerving devotion, it is constancy, loyalty, and faithfulness. In its continual resistance to evil, it is fortitude, patience, perseverance, willingness to abide for justification an ultimate issue. The _totality_ of commitment of self to the good is decision and firmness. Conviction and resolution accompany all true moral endeavor. These various dimensions (intensity, duration, extent, and fullness) are, however, only differing expressions of one and the same attitude of vigorous, energetic identification of agency with the object. =Goodness and Effectiveness.=--It is the failure to give due weight to this factor of morality (the "works" of theological discussion) which is responsible for the not uncommon idea that moral goodness means loss of practical efficacy. When inner disposition is severed from outer action, wishing divorced from executive willing, morality is reduced to mere harmlessness; outwardly speaking, the best that can then be said of virtue is that it is innocent and innocuous. Unscrupulousness is identified with energy of execution; and a minute and paralyzing scrupulosity with goodness. It is in reaction from such futile morality that the gospel of force and of shrewdness of selecting and adapting means to the desired end, is preached and gains hearers--as in the Italy of the Renaissance[192] in reaction against mediæval piety, and again in our own day (see _ante_, p. 374).