Kitap 3
5
And it seems that the brave man is in general fearless, and the coward liable to fear; and that the latter fears things when they are few in number and small in size as well as when numerous and great, and fears violently, and gets frightened quickly, whereas the former on the contrary either never feels fear at all or only slightly and reluctantly and seldom, and in regard to things of magnitude; and he endures things that are extremely formidable, whereas the other does not endure even those that are slightly formidable.
6
What sort of things, then, does the brave man endure? First, is it the things that are formidable to himself or formidable to somebody else? If the things formidable to somebody else, one would not indeed call it anything remarkable; but if it is those that are formidable to himself, what is formidable to him must be things of great magnitude and number. But formidable things are productive of fearOr, emending the text, of corresponding fear. in the particular person to whom they are formidable—that is, if they are very formidable, the fear they produce will be violent, if slightly formidable, it will be weak; so it follows that the brave man’s fears are great and many. Yet on the contrary it appeared that courage makes a man fearless, and that fearlessness consists in fearing nothing, or else few things, and those slightly and reluctantly.
7
But perhaps formidable is an ambiguous term, like pleasant and good. Some things are pleasant and good absolutely,whereas others are so to a particular person but absolutely are not so, but on the contrary are bad and unpleasant—all the things that are beneficial for the base, and all those that are pleasant to children qua children.
