Note 144 — Chapter XXIII · PROTAGORAS. (continued 2)

Compare, respecting Courage, a passage in the Republic, iv. pp. 429 C, 430 B, which is better stated there (though substantially the same opinion) than here in the Protagoras.

The opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be illustrated by a sentence from the funeral oration delivered by Periklês, Thucyd. ii. 43, fin. Ἀλγεινοτέρα γὰρ ἀνδρί γε φρόνημα ἔχοντι ἡ ἐν τῷ μετὰ τοῦ μαλακισθῆναι κάκωσις, ἢ ὁ μετὰ ῥώμης καὶ κοινῆς ἐλπίδος ἅμα γιγνόμενος ἀναίσθητος θάνατος — which Dr. Arnold thus translates in his note: “For more grievous to a man of noble mind is the misery which comes together with cowardice, than the unfelt death which befalls him in the midst of his strength and hopes for the common welfare.”

So again in the Phædon (p. 68) Sokrates describes the courage of the ordinary unphilosophical citizen to consist in braving death from fear of greater evils (which is the same view as that of Sokrates in the Protagoras), while the philosopher is courageous on a different principle; aspiring only to reason and intelligence, with the pleasures attending it, he welcomes death as releasing his mind from the obstructive companionship of the body.

The fear of disgrace and dishonour, in his own eyes and in those of others, is more intolerable to the brave man than the fear of wounds and death in the service of his country. See Plato, Leg. i. pp. 646-647. He is φοβερὸς μετὰ νόμου, μετὰ δίκης, p. 647 E. Such is the way in which both Plato and Thucydides conceive the character of the brave citizen as compared with the coward.

It is plain that this resolves itself ultimately into a different estimate of prospective pains; the case being one in which pleasure is not concerned. That the pains of self-reproach and infamy in the eyes of others are among the most agonising in the human bosom, need hardly be remarked. At the same time the sentiments here conceived embrace a wide field of sympathy, comprising the interests, honour, and security, of others as well as of the individual agent.