There is no more notable phase of our active nature than Courage.  Great energy generally implies great courage, and courage—­at least in nine-tenths of its amount—­comes by nature.  To exhort any one to be courageous is waste of words.  We may animate, for the time, a naturally timid person, by explaining away the signs of danger, and by assuming a confident attitude ourselves; but the absolute force of courage is what neither we nor the man himself can add to.  A long and careful education might effect a slight increase in this, as in other aspects of energy of character:  we can hardly say how much, because it is a matter that is scarcely ever subjected to the trial; the very conditions of the experiment have not been thought of.

The moral qualities expressed by Prudence, Forethought, Circumspection, are talked of with a like insufficient estimate of what they cost.  Great are the rewards of prudence, but great also is the expenditure of the prudent man.  To retain an abiding sense of all the possible evils, risks and contingencies of an ordinary man’s position—­professional, family, and personal—­is to go about under a constant burden; the difference between a thorough-going and an easy-going circumspection is a large additional demand upon the forces of the brain.  The being on the alert to duck the head at every bullet is a charge to the vital powers; so much so, that there comes a point when it is better to run risks than to pile up costly precautions and bear worrying anxieties.

Lastly, the attribute of our active nature called Belief, Confidence, Conviction, is subject to the same line of remark.  This great quality—­the opposite of distrust and timidity, the ally of courage, the adjunct of a buoyant temperament—­is not fed upon airy nothings.  It is, indeed, a true mental quality, an offshoot of our mental nature; yet, although not material, it is based upon certain forces of the physical constitution; it grows when these grow, and is nourished when they are nourished.  People possessed of great confidence have it as a gift all through life, like a broad chest or a good digestion.  Preaching and education have their fractional efficacy, and deserve to be plied, provided the operator is aware of nature’s impassable barriers, and does not suppose that he is working by charm.  It is said of Hannibal that he dissolved obstructions in the Alps by vinegar; in the moral world, barriers are not to be removed either by acetic acid or by honey.

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[PREJUDICES DUE TO PERSONAL DIGNITY.]

II.  The question of Free-will might be a text for discoursing on some of the most inveterate erroneous tendencies of the mind.