That boasted middle way, and the calm virtues recommended in the Characteristics, are good for nothing but to breed drones, and might qualify a man for the stupid enjoyments of a monastic life, or at best a country justice of peace, but they would never fit him for labour and assiduity, or stir him up to great achievements and perilous undertakings. Man's natural love of ease and idleness, and proneness to indulge his sensual pleasures, are not to be cured by precept: His strong habits and inclinations can only be subdued by passions of greater violence. Preach and demonstrate to a coward the unreasonableness of his fears, and you will not make him valiant, more than you can make him taller, by bidding him to be ten foot high, whereas the secret to raise courage, as I have made it public in Remark on l. 321, is almost infallible. The fear of death is the strongest when we are in our greatest vigour, and our appetite is keen; when we are sharp-sighted, quick of hearing, and every part performs its office. The reason is plain, because then life is most delicious, and ourselves most capable of enjoying it. How comes it, then, that a man of honour should so easily accept of a challenge, though at thirty and in perfect health? It is his pride that conquers his fear: For, when his pride is not concerned, this fear will appear most glaringly. If he is not used to the sea, let him but be in a storm, or, if he never was ill before, have but a sore throat, or a slight fever, and he will show a thousand anxieties, and in them the inestimable value he sets on life. Had man been naturally humble and proof against flattery, the politician could never have had his ends, or known what to have made of him. Without vices, the excellency of the species would have ever remained undiscovered, and every worthy that has made himself famous in the world, is a strong evidence against this amiable system. If the courage of the great Macedonian came up to distraction, when he fought alone against a whole garrison, his madness was not less when he fancied himself to be a god, or at least doubted whether he was or not; and as soon as we make this reflection, we discover both the passion and the extravagancy of it, that buoyed up his spirits in the most imminent dangers, and carried him through all the difficulties and fatigues he underwent.