Physical courage is not, therefore, a thing to be so easily set aside.  Nor is it, as our reformers appear sometimes to assume, a mere corollary from moral courage, and, ultimately, to be merged in that.  Moral courage is rare enough, no doubt,—­probably the rarer quality of the two, as it is the nobler; but they are things diverse, and not necessarily united.  There have been men, and still are such, leaders of their age in moral courage, and yet physically timid.  This is not as it should be.  God placed man at the head of the visible universe, and if he is to be thrown from his control, daunted by a bullet, or a wild horse, or a flash of lightning, or a lee shore, then man is dishonored, and the order of the universe deranged.  No matter what the occasion of the terror is, a mouse or a martyrdom, fear dethrones us.  “He that lives in fear of death,” said Caesar, “at every moment feels its tortures.  I will die but once.”

Having claimed thus much, we can still readily admit that we cannot yet estimate the precise effect upon physical courage of a state of permanent national peace, since indeed we are not yet within sight of that desirable consummation.  Meanwhile, let us attempt some slight sketch and classification of the different types of physical courage, as already existing, among which are to be enumerated the spontaneous courage of the blood,—­the courage of habit,—­magnetic or transmitted courage,—­and the courage inspired by self-devotion.

There is a certain innate fire of the blood, which does not dare perils for the sake of principle, nor grow indifferent to them from familiarity, nor confront them under support of a stronger will,—­but loves them for their own sake, without reference to any ulterior object.  There is no special merit in it, for it is a matter of temperament.  Yet it often conceals itself under the finer names of self-devotion and high purpose,—­as George Borrow convinced himself that he was actuated by evangelical zeal to spread the Bible in Spain, though one sees, through every line of his narrative, that it was chiefly the adventure which allured him, and that he would as willingly have distributed the Koran in London, had it been equally contraband.  No surplices, no libraries, no counting-house desks can eradicate this natural instinct.  Achilles, disguised among the maidens, was detected by the wily Ulysses, because he chose arms, not jewels, from the travelling merchant’s stores.  In the most placid life, a man may pant for danger; and we know quiet, unobtrusive men who have confessed to us that they never step into a railroad-car without the secret hope of a collision.