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It must,

illustrate the articulate structure of habit.* of course, in the first place be admitted that moral action, in the proper sense of the word, is only possible on the basis of a tendency acquired by repeatedly acting in a particular way under the influence of the complex stimulus which we call a "situation." This tendency, as we have seen, has two poles. On the one hand it means the absence of temptation, distraction, friction, with the corresponding freedom to act as the situation requires. On the other hand it means the power thus acquired to meet the situation in a particular way—the way, namely, which Aristotle describes as aiming at the mean, and which we have interpreted as that which satisfies completely the requirements of the situation. But, in the second place, morality only becomes real in the actual meeting of character and occasion; in other words, in the proportionate or harmonious action. These two elements of habit, so far from being opposed to one another, are complementary sides of the same fact, standing to each other as the potential to the real, organ to function, body to soul. The formed tendency is that which makes prompt and precise adaptation possible; the precise adaptation is that which gives meaning and value to a tendency otherwise purely mechanical and inhuman.

If we hold these two sides of habit clearly before us, we shall have no difficulty in understanding what

*The mistake into which psychologists have here fallen is probably largely due to the class of illustration-mainly of the "collar and stud" type-to which they have confined themselves.

Aristotle means by calling virtue a habit, and in avoiding the opposite errors which consist in identifying it with knowledge (adaptation) without admixture of habit, on the one hand, and with the habit of resistance to impulse without intelligent adaptation to the circumstances or with a view to any positive achievement, on the other.

The twofold aspect of habit above emphasized can be strikingly illustrated from a field which is usually taken as exhibiting free choice at its highest level-I mean the field of tragedy. In such a case as that of Antigone the choice is represented as one between obedience to the unwritten and unfailing laws of heaven, and submission to the arbitrary decrees of Creon. But between these there is no choice for Antigone. Her character, i.e. her normal habit of willing, has bent her soul in one direction. The suggestions of Ismene in the contrary direction are to her meaningless. Her whole force is thus available for the act itself, the adjustment of her conduct to a situation which is new to the world—

the rival claims of king and conscience. The tragedy consists here, as elsewhere, in the inevitableness of the choice that springs from previous habits of action and of thought. In this sense all the great tragedies are the tragedies of habit.

NOTE.-The difficulty to which the above is an attempt to reply seems inadequately met by the current accounts of habit. Thus Professor Baldwin (Mental Development in the Child and the Race) is so impressed with the element of identity in habit that he tends to represent the element of difference and adaptation as a species of accidental variation. In this sense, to describe morality as a habit can only

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be an engaging paradox, and we have an odd echo of the above-quoted axiom of Rousseau in the description of morality as "the habit of violating habits" (Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development, p. 55). This of course is only true in the sense that every moral habit involves adaptation—but so does every other habit. Mr. Stout (Analytic Psychology, vol. i. p. 258 foll.), going further, draws a distinction between the habits that consist of movements that have become mechanical and automatic, and habits of thinking and willing. "Automatic processes," he says, 'may enter as component parts into a total process which, as a whole, is very far from being automatic. The inverse of this is seen in habits of thinking and willing. Here a comprehensive habitual tendency realizes itself on special occasions by means of special processes which are not habitual." It is not clear from Mr. Stout's account whether he regards these as separate kinds of habit, or only two elements which are present in varying proportions in all habits. The above analysis is directed to show that the latter is the true view.

CHAPTER VII.

COURAGE.

"And he is to be deemed courageous who, having the element of passion working in him, preserves in the midst of pain and pleasure the notion of danger which reason prescribes."

PLATO.

§ 1. The Platonic and Aristotelian Conceptions of

Courage.

IN a well-known passage in the Republic, Socrates is made by Plato to describe courage as a species of holding fast, and when he is asked what species, to reply holding fast to the true opinion as to the proper objects of fear and all other things. The citizen-soldier into whose soul this opinion has been dyed by law and education as a good colour is dyed into a properly prepared fleece of wool, holds to it, and keeps his head amid the temptations of pleasure, “mightier solvent far than soap or soda," and pain and fear and desire, "more potent washes than any lye." In this passage Plato makes no distinction between courage and temperance, and although afterwards he proceeds to assign one to the soldiers, the other to the

industrial classes, as the virtues that enable them severally to perform their function, he never loses sight of their essential unity.

In marked contrast herein to Plato, Aristotle starts from the point of view of the difference of these two virtues, explaining that while the field of courage is pain and fear, that of temperance is pleasure. This of course is true enough, but we cannot help feeling that with the advance of analysis we have lost an element of insight, and that Plato is nearer the truth when he represents both of them as having a common root in the self-command that is begotten of right principles worked into a ground of good natural disposition by good laws and good schooling.

While they are thus contrasted, there are many points which the Platonic and Aristotelian accounts of courage have in common; and that which strikes the modern reader most forcibly is the narrowness of the scope assigned to the virtue. In both of them the type of true courage is taken to be the soldier in the battle-field, and thus the emphasis is laid upon what to us is a comparatively insignificant part of it. This limitation of the virtue to the soldier type seems to create a gulf between ancient and modern ideas on this subject, and to obscure the application to modern conditions of what is here said. Closer examination, however, will, I think, show us that the difficulty is created by the illustration rather than by the analysis. For this reason it will be better, with a view to understanding the real scope of Aristotle's conception, to neglect meantime the illustration and confine ourselves

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