The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

their posts, and beat them if they
retreat, do the same, and so do those who draw them up with
trenches or something of the sort behind them; all of these apply
compulsion. But one ought to be brave not under compulsion but
because it is noble to be so.
    (2) Experience with regard to particular facts is also thought
to be courage; this is indeed the reason why Socrates thought
courage was knowledge. Other people exhibit this quality in other
dangers, and professional soldiers exhibit it in the dangers of
war; for there seem to be many empty alarms in war, of which these
have had the most comprehensive experience; therefore they seem
brave, because the others do not know the nature of the facts.
Again, their experience makes them most capable in attack and in
defence, since they can use their arms and have the kind that are
likely to be best both for attack and for defence; therefore they
fight like armed men against unarmed or like trained athletes
against amateurs; for in such contests too it is not the bravest
men that fight best, but those who are strongest and have their
bodies in the best condition. Professional soldiers turn cowards,
however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they
are inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to
fly, while citizen-forces die at their posts, as in fact happened
at the temple of Hermes. For to the latter flight is disgraceful
and death is preferable to safety on those terms; while the former
from the very beginning faced the danger on the assumption that
they were stronger, and when they know the facts they fly, fearing
death more than disgrace; but the brave man is not that sort of
person.
    (3) Passion also is sometimes reckoned as courage; those who act
from passion, like wild beasts rushing at those who have wounded
them, are thought to be brave, because brave men also are
passionate; for passion above all things is eager to rush on
danger, and hence Homer’s ‘put strength into his passion’ and
‘aroused their spirit and passion and ‘hard he breathed panting’
and ‘his blood boiled’. For all such expressions seem to indicate
the stirring and onset of passion. Now brave men act for honour’s
sake, but passion aids them; while wild beasts act under the
influence of pain; for they attack because they have been wounded
or because they are afraid, since if they are in a forest they do
not come near one. Thus they are not brave because, driven by pain
and passion, they rush on danger without foreseeing any of the
perils, since at that rate even asses would be brave when they are
hungry; for blows will not drive them from their food; and lust
also makes adulterers do many daring things. (Those creatures are
not brave, then, which are driven on to danger by pain or passion.)
The ‘courage’ that is due to passion seems to be the most natural,
and to be courage if choice and motive be added.
    Men, then, as well as beasts, suffer pain when they are angry,
and are pleased when they exact their revenge; those who fight for
these reasons, however, are pugnacious but not brave; for they do
not act for honour’s sake nor as the rule directs, but from
strength of feeling; they have, however, something akin to
courage.
    (4) Nor are sanguine people brave; for they are confident in
danger only because they have conquered often and against many
foes. Yet they closely resemble brave men, because both are
confident; but brave men are confident for the reasons stated
earlier, while these are so because they think they are the
strongest and can suffer nothing. (Drunken men also behave in this
way; they become sanguine). When their adventures do not succeed,
however, they run away; but it was the mark of a brave man to face
things that are, and seem, terrible for a man, because it is noble
to do so and disgraceful not to do so. Hence also it is thought the
mark of a braver man to be fearless and undisturbed in sudden
alarms than to be so in those that are foreseen; for it must have
proceeded more from a state of character, because less from
preparation; acts that are foreseen may be chosen by calculation
and rule, but sudden actions must be in accordance with one’s state
of character.
    (5) People who are ignorant of the danger also appear brave, and
they are not far removed from those of a sanguine temper, but are
inferior inasmuch as they have no self-reliance while these have.
Hence also the sanguine hold their ground for a time; but those