The account of Courage thus given is remarkably exhaustive; although the constituent parts might have been more carefully disentangled.  A clear line should be drawn between two aspects of courage.  The one is the resistance to Fear properly so called; that is, to the perturbation that exaggerates coming evil:  a courageous man, in this sense, is one that possesses the true measure of impending danger, and acts according to that, and not according to an excessive measure.  The other aspect of Courage, is what gives it all its nobleness as a virtue, namely, Self-sacrifice, or the deliberate encountering of evil, for some honourable or virtuous cause.  When a man knowingly risks his life in battle for his country, he may be called courageous, but he is still better described as a heroic and devoted man.

Inasmuch as the leading form of heroic devotion, in the ancient world, was exposure of life in war, Self-sacrifice was presented under the guise of Courage, and had no independent standing as a cardinal virtue.  From this circumstance, paganism is made to appear in a somewhat disadvantageous light, as regards self-denying duties.

Next in order among the excellences or virtues of the irrational department of mind is TEMPERANCE, or Moderation, [Greek:  sophrosynae], a mean or middle state in the enjoyment of pleasure.  Pleasures are mental and bodily.  With the mental, as love of learning or of honour, temperance is not concerned.  Nor with the bodily pleasures of muscular exercise, of hearing and of smell, but only with the animal pleasures of touch and taste:  in fact, sensuality resides in touch; the pleasure of eating being a mode of contact (X.).

In the desires natural and common to men, as eating and the nuptial couch, men are given to err, and error is usually on the side of excess.  But it is in the case of special tastes or preferences, that people are most frequently intemperate.  Temperance does not apply to enduring pains, except those of abstinence from pleasures.  The extreme of insensibility to pleasure is rarely found, and has no name.  The temperate man has the feelings of pleasure and pain, but moderates his desires according to right reason (XL.).  He desires what he ought, when he ought, and as he ought:  correctly estimating each separate case (XII.).  The question is raised, which is most voluntary, Cowardice or Intemperance? (1) Intemperance is more voluntary than Cowardice, for the one consists in choosing pleasure, while in the other there is a sort of compulsory avoidance of pain. (2) Temperance is easier to acquire as a habit than Courage. (3) In Intemperance, the particular acts are voluntary, although not the habit; in Cowardice, the first acts are involuntary, while by habit, it tends to become voluntary (XII.).

[Temperance is the virtue most suited to the formula of the Mean, although the settling of what is the mean depends after all upon a man’s own judgment.  Aristotle does not recognize asceticism as a thing existing.  His Temperance is moderation in the sensual pleasures of eating and love.]