moral courage, the courage of enduring pain, and of surmounting
intellectual difficulties, as well as of meeting dangers in war. Though
irrational, it inclines to side with the rational: it cannot be aroused by
punishment when justly inflicted: it sometimes takes the form of an
enthusiasm which sustains a man in the performance of great actions. It is
the 'lion heart' with which the reason makes a treaty. On the other hand
it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood,
but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision
of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in
the government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter term
having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle
has retained the word, yet we may observe that 'passion' (Greek) has with
him lost its affinity to the rational and has become indistinguishable from
'anger' (Greek). And to this vernacular use Plato himself in the Laws
seems to revert, though not always. By modern philosophy too, as well as
in our ordinary conversation, the words anger or passion are employed
almost exclusively in a bad sense; there is no connotation of a just or
reasonable cause by which they are aroused. The feeling of 'righteous
indignation' is too partial and accidental to admit of our regarding it as
a separate virtue or habit. We are tempted also to doubt whether Plato is
right in supposing that an offender, however justly condemned, could be
expected to acknowledge the justice of his sentence; this is the spirit of
a philosopher or martyr rather than of a criminal.

We may observe how nearly Plato approaches Aristotle's famous thesis, that
'good actions produce good habits.' The words 'as healthy practices
(Greek) produce health, so do just practices produce justice,' have a sound
very like the Nicomachean Ethics. But we note also that an incidental
remark in Plato has become a far-reaching principle in Aristotle, and an
inseparable part of a great Ethical system.