But perhaps Courage admits of being considered from a higher point of
view. The fear of death may in every case be traced to a deficiency
in that natural philosophy--natural, and therefore resting on mere
feeling--which gives a man the assurance that he exists in everything
outside him just as much as in his own person; so that the death of
his person can do him little harm. But it is just this very assurance
that would give a man heroic Courage; and therefore, as the reader
will recollect from my _Ethics_, Courage comes from the same source as
the virtues of Justice and Humanity. This is, I admit, to take a very
high view of the matter; but apart from it I cannot well explain why
cowardice seems contemptible, and personal courage a noble and sublime
thing; for no lower point of view enables me to see why a finite
individual who is everything to himself--nay, who is himself even
the very fundamental condition of the existence of the rest of the
world--should not put his own preservation above every other aim. It
is, then, an insufficient explanation of Courage to make it rest
only on utility, to give it an empirical and not a transcendental
character. It may have been for some such reason that Calderon once
uttered a sceptical but remarkable opinion in regard to Courage, nay,
actually denied its reality; and put his denial into the mouth of a
wise old minister, addressing his young sovereign.
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