For civilization, at its highest levels, allows very little excuse for heroism. Intelligent precaution minimizes risk. A few accidents of nature may create an occasion. But such events are necessarily unpredictable and increasingly rare -- a fact that works against the aspiring hero. Thus it is, in the most highly civilized societies, that the hero must create his own opportunities for heroism. And the greater part of valor, it often turns out, is a political instinct and the capacity for fearless exaggeration.