“Brave?⁠—Brave?⁠—” repeated the captain, with the air of one to whom such a question presents itself for the first time. “He who does what he ought to do is brave,” he said, after thinking awhile.

I remembered that Plato defines courage as “The knowledge of what should and what should not be feared,” and despite the looseness and vagueness of the captain’s definition, I thought that the fundamental ideas of the two were not so different as they might appear, and that the captain’s definition was even more correct than that of the Greek philosopher. For if the captain had been able to express himself like Plato, he would no doubt have said that, “He is brave, who fears only what should be feared and not what should not be feared.”

I wished to explain my idea to the captain.