may be he is shown to be more so because he chooses the honour that may be reaped in war in preference to retaining safe possession of these other goods. The fact is that to act with pleasure does not belong to all the virtues, except so far as a man realises the End of his actions.
But there is perhaps no reason why not such men should make the best soldiers, but those who are less truly Brave but have no other good to care for: these being ready to meet danger and bartering their lives against small gain.
Let thus much be accepted as sufficient on the subject of Courage; the true nature of which it is not difficult to gather, in outline at least, from what has been said.
Chapter XIII.
Next let us speak of Perfected Self-Mastery, which seems to claim the next place to Courage, since these two are the Excellences of the Irrational part of the Soul.
That it is a mean state, having for its object-matter Pleasures, we have already said (Pains being in fact its object-matter in a less degree and dissimilar manner), the state of utter absence of self-control has plainly the same object-matter; the next thing then is to determine what kind of Pleasures.
Let Pleasures then be understood to be divided into mental and bodily: instances of the former being love of honour or of learning: it being plain that each man takes pleasure in that of these two objects which he has a tendency to like, his body being no way affected but rather his intellect. Now men are not called perfectly self-mastering or wholly destitute of self-control in respect of pleasures of this class: nor in fact in respect of any which are not bodily; those for example who love to tell long stories, and are prosy, and spend their days about mere chance matters, we call gossips but not wholly destitute