Fear of the dark is one of the most basic of human fears, for the simple reason that you don’t know what you will find in the dark. I have always disliked the common cliche ‘people fear what they don’t understand;’ that seems to me a cop-out (“you just don’t like this because you don’t understand it”), similar to the idea that communication is the key to solving all conflicts. What people fear is not the mere lack of understanding, it is the potential for danger that cannot be foreseen. Lack of understanding only translates to fear if there is a felt potential for danger. Hence the dark is frightening because of what it might contain, from insects crawling about where you might unknowingly put your foot to hidden obstacles to…other things.
Courage is the most obvious of virtues, and venturing into the unknown one of the most obvious forms of courage. It is appropriate that it should be so, since all virtue amounts to stepping out into the unknown.
Virtue is focused primarily on the act itself: it tells us to do the straight thing regardless of what might come of it. Like Sam in The Lord of the Rings forcing himself to stay awake to keep watch over Frodo when they’re guests of Faramir. He knows perfectly well that if these men betrayed them there would be nothing he could do about it, but he also knows it’s his duty to keep watch and so he does it. Or like the Roman soldier during the Punic Wars (can’t remember his name) who was captured by the Carthaginians, then sent to deliver a message to Rome after promising to return when the message was sent. He went, advised the Romans not to accept the Carthaginian demands, then returned, knowing full well they would execute him horribly for it. He did it because he’d given his word to return and preferred to keep his word whatever the consequences.
It is the act itself, not the results, that matter in virtue. Now, since virtue means the proper operation of the human self, it does ultimately have positive results, even if not immediately obvious ones. But the results cannot be the chief reason for virtue, both because they are not obvious and we generally do not start out feeling the connection between the act and the positive result and because if we make the result our aim we are apt to seek it by the wrong means, which defeats the purpose (Consequentialism, therefore, is not only not virtue but is a kind of counterfeit to virtue, akin to cheating on a test without actually learning the material).
Virtue is a form of faith because it requires us to trust that the good results (happiness, confidence etc.) will follow if we sacrifice the present good of immediate indulgence. In order to achieve the desired results, we have to forget the results for a time and simply do what we ought.
This, I find, is one of the marks of the real and the good; that it cannot be reached if you make it your end, but only as a byproduct of a habitual process. A scholar does not arrive at the truth by first deciding the ‘right’ conclusion and then seeking evidence for it, but by following the evidence where it leads. A man does not fall in love by making love his aim, but by spending time with a woman. Nothing really worth having can be had by making it your aim, but only as a byproduct of habit.
In other words, everything that is genuinely good comes about by putting it out of our mind and focusing on doing the present actions as we ought. Which only means virtue, bringing us full circle. It is the mark of greater goods that they are a byproduct of the moment-to-moment enactment of duty. To try to reach them directly spoils them: they can only be coaxed out by doing as we ought moment to moment. To forget about them and trust they will come is a matter of faith.
Chasing Nobility 