"A scout is brave. He has the courage to face danger in spite of fear and has to stand up for the right against the coaxings of friends and the jeers or threats of enemies, and defeat does not down him."
Bravery or courage is stoutness or heart, or strength of will which overcomes obstacles at a personal risk; when a man is courageous or stout-hearted, he is willing to work unremittingly, sufferpatiently, or die cheerfully for the sake of carrying out his purpose.
Of course the question whether his purpose is good or bad must affect the quality of his courage; and although a burglar may display a high degree of fearlessness in committing a crime, which would be admirable if he were employed in an unselfish cause, the dishonesty of his motive must seriously impair our admiration for his courage.
The strength of will required by the best kind of courage is, like so many other human things, the result of a combination of admirable qualities. At its best, it is generous as well as strong; it is clear-headed and self-possessed; it is humble and confident in a higher power than its own from which it draws its life.
Because fear is a very common human trait, and because a weak yielding to the promptings of fear makes courage impossible, it is perhaps natural that by many people courage and the absence of fear should be regarded as being the same thing. But, if we reflect a little, we shall see how mistaken this idea is.
There are very few people in the world to whom fear in some form is unknown; and there is good reason to believe that those who appear most conspicuously brave, and who indeed are actually fearless now, have passed through a severe apprenticeship of temptation to cowardice, -- faced and overcome. If a person had no understanding of fear and ha never suffered from a temptation to yield to it, he could have none of the moral strength that comes from overcoming it. He would be like an animal who is ignorant of the sources of danger and who is brave merely from ferocity or the brutal desire to satisfy his personal appetite without considering any consequences.
There is a kind of human courage, similar to this, which has great value when it is controlled and directed to serve noble ends; it may, however, have no great depth in character and result from a mere love of fighting and the exercise of physical strength and skill for its own sake. The exercise of power is always a pleasure to the natural man; when that love of power is not chastened and controlled by a sense of right and moral obligation, it naturally finds and outlet in the exercise of brute force and primitive cunning.
The sensation of fear is the result of a sensitiveness which intuitively reflects surrounding conditions. When these conditions are full of apparent danger, -- especially when, on account of inexperience, the danger is unfamiliar, -- the effect of this sensitiveness is to produce a sensation of fear which the will should immediately react upon, and so produce courage. So long as fear is only a matter of feeling, it can do no harm; but, if it is allowed to affect the will enough to control it, it results in foolish cowardice and can bring nothing but disaster and disgrace.
A young soldier who had been under fire for the first time, and who knew what he had behaved well, was afterwards asked by his colonel:
"Well, how did you get on?"
"Why , Sir," said he, in his desire to appear modest, "I had no idea that I was such a funk, but afterwards I felt" --
"Never mind what you felt," replied the colonel. "What I want to know is what you did."
Courage, or stoutness of heart, or strength of will, express themselves in acts and not in feelings; whereas fear, excitement, depression, and all other useless things, express themselves in feelings rather than in action. The lesson we derive from this fact is that the less attention we pay to our feelings and the more we stick to the job in hand, the better.
As man progresses in the scale of civilization, he distinguishes more and more between mere feelings or emotions, and the deep affections which are the driving power of the will. Emotions are always liable to be reversed, from elation to depression or vice versa, under a sudden change of conditions, but the quiet and determined exercise of the will, in obedience to a principle or cause which is beloved, does not waste itself in excitement or emotion but works along with the utmost concentration and patience to the very end.
Because fear is such a difficult thing to deal with, when once it has been allowed to gather headway, we should be very careful never to slip carelessly into cowardly habits. If a little boy is afraid of the dark, he should be quietly told to walk through the dark place deliberately and if possible give some account, -- not of his feelings, -- but of anything he saw in spite of the dark. This should be done very gently and as a matter of course, without putting too much emphasis either upon the fear or upon the courage displayed. The main point to be emphasized is that when you walk up to anything you are afraid of, you usually find that it is perfectly harmless. When the will and the intelligence begin to work actively, the feeling of fear generally disappears. While physical courage is a good and valuable possession, it is by no means enough by itself to make a man brave. If, however, it is reinforced and supported by moral courage, it gains immensely in usefulness and dignity.
Physical courage is usually associated with fighting or the sports and avocations which carry with them an element of physical danger. It is this element of danger which gives the peculiar spice and attractiveness to manly sports, because they give an opportunity to rise above all undue anxiety for personal safety. It also gives much of the enjoyment found in the spirit of adventure which loves to face unknown dangers in reliance upon one's own resources.
A friend ounce confided to men that he spent his vacations in mountain climbing.
"When I find myself on a mountainside in such a situation that it would be impossible to retrace my steps and go down the way I came up, and yet I can see o possible way of climbing any higher, then," said he, "I have the keenest enjoyment in finding some method of working my way out."
This, in a measure, is similar to the "full tide of happiness" with which in Nelson's time the old sea-fighters would engage ships of the enemy far exceeding their own both in number and armament.
It is really this admirable quality that prompts a boy to do dangerous things until he has proved his courage and nerve. There is a certain time in every boy's life when, for the most part unconsciously, his chief aim in life is to prove his own manliness. Sometimes it results in foolish recklessness, but it is better that the mistake should be on that side than on the other.
While there is an important element of character required to produce valor of this kind, there is another sort of courage which works more quietly and more privately, and this we call the moral courage. It consists of being tenacious of the truth and being willing to meet loss, disapproval, or disgrace rather than to be faithless to a moral obligation. There are thousands of subtle ways in which we are tempted to excuse ourselves and protect ourselves from blame, when we might perhaps be entirely unwilling to do any outward act which would appear cowardly on its face. Physical courage is frequently strengthened by the fact that any failure will be known. Men who were otherwise brave have been known to refuse to fight collectively, when no single one would have dared to do such a thing without the support of his fellows.
Now, in our secret hears, we seem to ourselves to be alone; unless we have the conviction that we are always in God's sight, the temptation to cowardice in defense of our interests or our reputation has frequently to be faced and met alone; for, in many cases, it is possible to prevaricate or insinuate falsehood without being found out. Moreover, the greatest difficultly with this sort of cowardice is that if indulged in at all it usually becomes a habit; and the lying, excusing, and prevaricating go on half unconsciously to the person himself.
Excuses are the most fruitful form of this sort of moral cowardice, because they are the result of unwillingness to face facts as they are and to accept the full responsibility for our acts. Explanations of conduct are often useful, but these are so easily turned into excuses that even they are dangerous. If we have done wrong, the best thing to do is to acknowledge it fully, to express regret handsomely, and to make amends generously. This done, the less explanation or talk of any kind the better.
It is, of course, impossible to touch upon more than a few examples of moral courage and cowardice, because they pervade the whole of life and give their quality to every thought and act; just because they affect our judgments in ways that are not apparent on the outside, it is all the more important that we should keep our standards upright and true, at whatever cost or risk of loss.
The fact that Lincoln was great enough to act in a way that seemed disadvantageous to his own political interests and to the interests of his part, when he felt that faithfulness to moral principle and right demanded it, is probably the one which more than anything else, gives his character its peculiar dignity and has won for him the loving reverence of his countrymen.
In business, in social intercourse, as well as in politics, this kind of courage is greatly needed; for, when men congregate and organize for the sake of carrying out certain principles of action, the tendency is for these principles to be supplanted by conventional customs in the service of self-interest and expediency.
Although the paths of moral rectitude and practical expediency may frequently coincide and lead to the same course of action, though from different motives, there are times when they part company very sharply, although expediency usually continues to claim a righteous purpose.
In such cases, the path of expediency may be supported, as against the right, by all the forces of custom, precedent, and respectability, and it may take a great man, like Abraham Lincoln, to choose an unpopular course of action in obedience to plain principle. This is a high form of moral courage, and every one during the course of his life has opportunities of exercising it if he will only seize them in time. To stand up for a friend who is under fire often requires moral courage, and the fear of "getting one's self disliked" is frequently a source of dishonorable cowardice.
People who are especially bold in their manners and boastful in their talk often cover up a fear which they cannot control, and habitual bravado is to be regarded with suspicion.
A brave man does not carry a chip on his shoulder, but is patient of insult unless it injures some one else; revenge and retaliation have no place in his mind or in his habits, for he knows that all evil ultimately destroys itself, and that true vengeance can only be exercised by the hand of God.
Moreover a brave man does not give undue value to popularity and is willing to face popular disapproval or condemnation whenever his faithfulness to principle requires it. The excessive desire for popularity at schools or in colleges is a great weakness and often is the cause of disloyalty to friendship. The fear of being unpopular frequently amounts to cowardice and prepares a man for weakness and dejection when his popularity has blown over. It is enough to stand upon principle and to overcome the evil in one's own heart, knowing that, when this is done, the voice of conscience will guide our judgment truly, and the Almighty Himself will be our ample and sufficient protection. This is the courage of knighthood.