THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 571 



readers of BelVs Life in London would concur in this belief. More- 

 over, if he wants further sympathy to support him, he may find entire 

 races ready to give it ; especially that noble race of cannibals, the 

 Feejeeans, among whom bravery is so highly honored that, on their re- 

 turn from battle, the triumphant warriors are met by the women, who 

 place themselves at their unrestricted disposal. So that whoever in- 

 clines to adopt this measure of superiority will find many to side with 

 him that is, if he likes his company. 



Seriously, is it not amazing that civilized men should especially 

 pride themselves on a quality in which they are exceeded by inferior 

 varieties of their own race, and still more exceeded by inferior animals ? 

 Instead of regarding a man as manly in proportion as he possesses 

 moral attributes distinctively human, we regard him as manly in pro- 

 portion as he shows an attribute possessed in greater degrees by be- 

 ings from whom we derive our words of contempt. It was lately re- 

 marked by Mr. Greg that we take our point of honor from the prize- 

 ring ; but we do worse we take our point of honor from beasts. 

 Nay, we take it from a beast inferior to those we are familiar with ; 

 for the " Tasmanian devil," in structure and intelligence, stands on a 

 much lower level of brutality than our lions and bull-dogs. 



That resistance to aggression is to be applauded, and that the 

 courage implied by resistance is to be valued and admired, may be 

 fully admitted while denying that courage is to be regarded as the 

 supreme virtue. A large endowment of it is essential to a complete 

 nature ; but so are large endowments of other things which we do not 

 therefore make our measures of worth. A good body, well grown, 

 well proportioned, and of such quality in its tissues as to be enduring, 

 should bring, as it does bring, its share of admiration. Admirable, 

 too, in their ways, are good stomach and lungs, as well as a vigorous 

 vascular system ; for without these the power of self-preservation and 

 the power of preserving others will fall short. To be a fine animal is, 

 indeed, essential to many kinds of achievement ; and courage, which 

 is a general index of an organization capable of satisfying the require- 

 ments, is rightly valued for what it implies. Courage is, in fact, a 

 feeling that grows by accumulated experiences of successful dealings 

 with difficulties and dangers ; and these successful dealings are proofs 

 of competence in strength, agility, quickness, endurance, etc. No one 

 will deny that perpetual failures, resulting from incapacity of one 

 kind or other, produce discouragement ; or that repeated triumphs, 

 which are proofs of capacity, so raise the courage that there comes a 

 readiness to encounter greater difficulties. The fact that a dose of 

 brandy, by stimulating the circulation, produces " Dutch courage," as 

 it is called, joined with the fact well known to medical men, that 

 heart-disease brings on timidity, is of itself enough to show that 

 bravery is the natural correlative of ability to cope with circum- 

 stances of peril. But while we are thus taught that, in admiring cour- 



