A CORRESPONDENT of the Times has raised the question whether or
not our courage as a nation is decreasing, and finds himself compelled to give a pessimistic answer. We want, he thinks, to get all the advantages of power and honour without paying the price for them. There were far too many surrenders in South Africa, far too much screaming out at an ordinary casualty-list, as if battles could be won by shaking hands with the enemy. Prudence has got us in its grips, and we are disposed to do things in the easier and baser ways, and at all costs to avoid death and pain. In politics, in civil life, there is the same complaint. We are not prepared to risk anything, even a very little, but are content to jog on as we are, because change involves .a trifling hazard. The writer in the Times, while believing that there is no permanent loss of courage, laments that a spirit is growing up which may lead us far astray, till it is purged from us in some dire catas- trophe. We think that he exaggerates the danger. Prudence as against the swashbuckling spirit is an ingredient in true bravery, and it has always been a mark of our national type of courage. We are familiar enough with the man who will humorously admit to constitutional timidity, and yet when the occasion arises will dare more than any fire-eater. The hunter who will face most cheerfully a wounded lion is gener- ally the man who is averse to taking needless risks ; and it is the best soldier who jealously seeks to preserve his life by taking cover, that be may sell it most dearly at the proper moment. There is no antagonism between courage and prudence ; indeed, courage of the highest kind, self-conscious gallantry, knowing all risks and taking them, is ruled, save in the last resort, by prudential considerations. Alan Breck disclaimed courage—" it is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs"—and all his bravery was founded upon the rock of common-sense. As for David Balfour, his " auld, cauld, dour, deidly courage" was believed by himself to be cowardice. The most formidable man is he who sedulously avoids un- necessary risks till the time comes, and then dares everything. He husbands himself for the final sacrifice ; while the " rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntary " may squander his all to little purpose.
At the same time, we believe that there is a certain truth in the indictment. It is to be feared that as a race we are becoming softer than our forefathers, partly in consequence of certain new creeds, and partly as a result of the conditions under which the life of the majority nowadays is lived. A .perverted ethical code is perhaps the chief cause, and, like all perversions in ethics, it arises from the -exaggeration of a truth. -If our age has one special advantage over its predecessors, it is that it is more merciful. Public cruelty is forbidden, and private ill-treatment is punished whenever it -is brought to light. . We have become more sensitive to the griefs of our neighbours, more sympathetic' towards weak things, whether children, or women, or lower animals. Our con- sciences are certainly less robust than our fathers% for what they passed by with scarcely a glance, we shudder at and seek to reform. We have abolished bear-baiting and cock-fighting, -we do not hang our criminals in public, and we give our horses sun-bonnets in hot weather. We have also become more reasonable, less ready to make the primordial appeal to force. Duelling has gone out of fashion, and we take our quarrels to the Law Courts,—but law has too much of the old Adam in it, and in time we shall settle them before a. tribunal of suave and sympathetic friends. It is, no doubt, a welcome change. Mercy • and kindliness are the finest- of human virtues. But since all ethics are a delicate equipoise, it is possible to incline the balance too far, and in overdoing a virtue to make it first-cousin to a vice. For mercy, if carried too far, becomes a shallow conception, a mere list of negative commandments, and the strong human blood which gives it its value may be so weakened as to become incapable of either vice or virtue. In attempting to make the path of life 'too smooth, in centring all our interest upon its smoothness, we may tend to forget that it is a path, and that our true business is not with the path, but with the goal at the end of it. If we overrate the terrors of death and pain, we shall drive out all discipline from life and make an end of courage. What boys' school would be of any value if there were no fights, no floggings ; if every one spoke in silky tones and spent his days in a rivalry of lovingkindness ? Let us advance by all means in the direction of mercy and charity, but let us remember that these cannot be secured by the sacrifice of strength, manliness, the old noble impulse to contend and conquer. An unfriendly observer might read signs of a failing courage in the carnival of false sentiment which arises whenever pain or death is involved. The abolition of capital punishment, attacks on field sports, abstinence from flesh foods on humanitarian grounds, the clamours of dreamers against war,--all spring from the false creed which sees only one half of morality, and finds in physical pain the chief of evils. There is another false doctrine working to the same end,—the belief that anything worth having can be got in this world without sacrifices. War, as we have seen,- is held to be evil because it involves suffering ; so many manly and honourable enterprises are killed at birth because they cannot be achieved without a certain price. The country, of course, must be made secure against aggression, but—you cannot ask the ordinary citizen to do anything. The Imperial power of Britain must be maintained, but—unless tangible profits are realised from the start it is not worth doing. British commerce must hold its own among the nations of the earth, but—it will all happen without the average man bestirring himself. Such a belief kills energy and self-reliance, and, if persisted in, will most effectually ruin any commonwealth. If ever the twin doctrines of sentimentalism and apathy gain any wide accept- ance in these islands, then our historic courage will be a tradition of the past.
Bat if we are growing softer as a people, the reason must be looked for equally in the physical conditions of modern life. Courage is, after all, largely a matter of temperament, of high spirits and a sound body. The most courageous soul may be ineffective if he has not physical force and endurance to support his spiritual energy. Something more is needed than mere good health. A man must be brought 'into contact with the powers of the natural world, by which his senses are sharpened, his nerves strengthened, and his self-confidence firmly established. We are too ready too look upon courage only as an instinct, a kind of gift from above, like an aptitude for music. To be sure, there must be a foundation of mental and physical sanity to build' upon, but after that much may be done by training and environment. A man who spends six years pioneering in the backwoods will be a far more courageous being at the end of it than if he had sat close for the same time at his desk. For this reason the physiCal training of our citizens seems to us of the very highest importance, for without such a basis there is no security for national character. A feeble indoor man will no more show the highest kind of energy in commerce or politics than he will in -the easier business of war. Moral and material progress, the safety of our shores, the permanence. of our Empire, and the development of our commerce are all linked to this simple question,—the health, and therefore, in a deep sense, the courage, of the individual. Sport can do much, and happily the national love of sport shows no sign of wavering, though we could wish that it sometimes took a manlier form. And even more than sport, the training of our youth to arms seems to us a vital safeguard. In some form of citizen-soldiering, where young men from shop or mill or bank could taste some- thing not unlike the life of the backwoods, and sharpen their wits and learn to trust themselves, there is the surest antidote against the decay of courage.
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