Courage is so closely related to fear and anger that all are always associated in any discussion.  Courage is commonly thought of as the emotion that is the opposite of fear.  It would follow that courage meant simply inhibition of the adrenal medulla.  As a matter of fact, the mechanism of courage is more complex.  One must distinguish animal courage and deliberate courage.  Animal courage is literally the courage of the beast.  As noted, animals with the largest amounts of adrenal cortex are the pugnacious, aggressive, charging kings of the fields and forests.  The emotion experienced by them is probably anger with a sort of blood-lust, and no consideration of the consequences.  The object attacked acted like the red rag waved at a bull—­it had stimulated a flow of the secretion of the adrenal cortex, and the instinct of anger became sparked, as it were, by the new condition of the blood.  In courage, deliberate courage, there is more than instinct.  There is an act of volition, a display of will.  Admitting that without the adrenal cortex such courage would be impossible, the chief credit for courage must be ascribed to the ante-pituitary.  It is the proper conjunction of its secretion and that of the adrenal cortex that makes for true courage.  So it is we find that acts of courage have been recorded most often of individuals of the ante-pituitary type.  Photographs are obtainable of thirty-four winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary bravery in the War with Germany.  Of these twenty-three exhibited the somatic criteria or hormonic signs of the ante-pituitary type.  A prerequisite for adequate ante-pituitary function is a normal secretion of the interstitial cells of the reproductive glands.  Cowardice is said to be a feature of eunuchs.

THE PITUITARY AND INSTINCT

We have seen that, more than any other gland or tissue of the body, the post-pituitary governs the maternal-sexual instincts and their sublimations, the social and creative instincts.  A great deal of evidence is in our possession concerning the disturbances of emotion accompanying disturbances of this gland, and controllable by its control.  It might be said to energize deeply the tender emotions, and instead of saying soft-hearted we should say much-pituitarized.  For all the basic sentiments (as opposed to the intellectualized self-protective sentimentalism), tender-heartedness, sympathy and suggestibility are interlocked with its functions.  Its secretion must act upon the great basal ganglia, at the base of the brain, which contain the nerve cells and fibres that are the centers of emotional control and co-ordination.