The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

those stronger people are actually afraid of. Also
those who have destroyed people stronger than we are. Also those
who are attacking people weaker than we are: either they are
already formidable, or they will be so when they have thus grown
stronger. Of those we have wronged, and of our enemies or rivals,
it is not the passionate and outspoken whom we have to fear, but
the quiet, dissembling, unscrupulous; since we never know when they
are upon us, we can never be sure they are at a safe distance. All
terrible things are more terrible if they give us no chance of
retrieving a blunder either no chance at all, or only one that
depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also
worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speaking generally,
anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or
threatens, others cause us to feel pity.
    The above are, roughly, the chief things that are terrible and
are feared. Let us now describe the conditions under which we
ourselves feel fear. If fear is associated with the expectation
that something destructive will happen to us, plainly nobody will
be afraid who believes nothing can happen to him; we shall not fear
things that we believe cannot happen to us, nor people who we
believe cannot inflict them upon us; nor shall we be afraid at
times when we think ourselves safe from them. It follows therefore
that fear is felt by those who believe something to be likely to
happen to them, at the hands of particular persons, in a particular
form, and at a particular time. People do not believe this when
they are, or think they a are, in the midst of great prosperity,
and are in consequence insolent, contemptuous, and reckless-the
kind of character produced by wealth, physical strength, abundance
of friends, power: nor yet when they feel they have experienced
every kind of horror already and have grown callous about the
future, like men who are being flogged and are already nearly
dead-if they are to feel the anguish of uncertainty, there must be
some faint expectation of escape. This appears from the fact that
fear sets us thinking what can be done, which of course nobody does
when things are hopeless. Consequently, when it is advisable that
the audience should be frightened, the orator must make them feel
that they really are in danger of something, pointing out that it
has happened to others who were stronger than they are, and is
happening, or has happened, to people like themselves, at the hands
of unexpected people, in an unexpected form, and at an unexpected
time.
    Having now seen the nature of fear, and of the things that cause
it, and the various states of mind in which it is felt, we can also
see what Confidence is, about what things we feel it, and under
what conditions. It is the opposite of fear, and what causes it is
the opposite of what causes fear; it is, therefore, the expectation
associated with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us
safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible: it may be
due either to the near presence of what inspires confidence or to
the absence of what causes alarm. We feel it if we can take
steps-many, or important, or both-to cure or prevent trouble; if we
have neither wronged others nor been wronged by them; if we have
either no rivals at all or no strong ones; if our rivals who are
strong are our friends or have treated us well or been treated well
by us; or if those whose interest is the same as ours are the more
numerous party, or the stronger, or both.
    As for our own state of mind, we feel confidence if we believe
we have often succeeded and never suffered reverses, or have often
met danger and escaped it safely. For there are two reasons why
human beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it,
or they may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea
people may feel confident about what will happen either because
they have no experience of bad weather, or because their experience
gives them the means of dealing with it. We also feel confident
whenever there is nothing to terrify other people like ourselves,
or people weaker than ourselves, or people than whom we believe
ourselves to be stronger-and we believe this if we have conquered
them, or conquered others who are as strong as they are, or
stronger. Also if we believe ourselves superior to our rivals in
the number and importance of the advantages that make men
formidable-wealth, physical strength, strong bodies of