LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFOK-.'IA 
 
 SAN DIEQO
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD
 
 BOOKS BY 
 JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY FUNCTION OP 
 THE MODERK CHURCH 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 
 Is DEATH THE END? 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Being a Statement of Radical Pacifism in terms of Force 
 
 versus Non-Resistance, with special reference to 
 
 the Facts and Problems of the Great War 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 '1918
 
 CorvmiGHT, 1916 
 BT DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY. INC 
 
 First edition published June 8. 191 
 Second edition printed June 10, 1916 
 Third edition printed September , 1916 
 Fourth edition printed December 12, 1916 
 Fifth edition printed May 9, lur<
 
 TO 
 
 MY DEAR FRIENDS AND HONOURED COLLEAGUES 
 
 STEPHEN S. WISE 
 
 AND 
 
 FRANK OLIVER HALL 
 
 The one a Rabbi who perpetuates the prophetic 
 tradition of Israel 
 
 The other a Minister who perpetuates the apostolic 
 tradition of Christianity 
 
 Both wise teachers and brave exemplars of the 
 religion of Brotherhood 
 
 This Book is humbly Dedicated
 
 PREFACE 
 
 i 
 
 WHEN the Great War burst upon the world in August 
 1914, it was natural that affrighted and outraged men 
 should regard this disaster as a final demonstration of 
 the failure of Judaism, Christianity, the organised peace 
 propaganda, and international socialism. The tradi- 
 tion of Israel reaches back to a period antedating the ad- 
 vent of Christianity by more than seven centuries ; the 
 gospel of love, associated with the name of Jesus, has 
 been known to humanity for nearly two thousand years ; 
 the peace movement, led by able and distinguished men, 
 backed by abundant resources, well-organised and per- 
 sistently aggressive, has had three generations to im- 
 press its doctrines upon the modern mind; and during 
 the last half-century or so, we have seen a massing of 
 the forces of labour, in all countries, under the banner 
 of socialism, which seemed to constitute a sure protec- 
 tion against war. And yet, when the crisis came, no one 
 of these great forces proved of any avail. The tide of 
 conflict swept across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the 
 seven seas as swiftly and terribly as though no bul- 
 warks had ever been raised against it. What wonder 
 
 that men in their disappointment and fear, declared re- 
 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 ligion a failure, the peace movement a farce, and 
 socialism an arrant sham ! 
 
 That this indictment is rightly to be levelled against 
 Jews and Christians, pacifists and socialists, is to my 
 mind undeniable. Never has humanity been called upon 
 to witness a more tragic spectacle than that of the mil- 
 lions of Germans, Austrians, French, Russians, English 
 all of them pledged in one way or another to the 
 cause of peace marching away to the battlefront, at 
 the first sound of alarm, not only without protest, but 
 with enthusiasm. There were some Jews and Chris- 
 tians, we may well believe, who revolted inwardly, if not 
 outwardly, against the call to arms ; there were some 
 peace advocates, we know, who were distraught and 
 ashamed ; the attempt of the socialists, before the decla- 
 rations of war were made, to stay the flood of madness 
 then threatening the race, stands out as one of the few 
 glorious episodes of the dreadful days of July and 
 August, 1914. But that, when the actual moment of 
 dread decision came, these millions of religionists, paci- 
 fists, internationalists, abandoned their spiritual pro- 
 fessions and clung to patriotism as the one sure passion 
 of their souls, is a sober fact. Everywhere they gave 
 way at the very moment when, if ever, they should have 
 stood fast, and thus failed ! 
 
 That this failure of individuals, however, involves any 
 failure of the various churches or movements, to which 
 these individuals had pledged allegiance, is, to my mind, 
 the unfairest of charges. Judaism, Christianity, the 
 peace propaganda, socialism, a failure? When, let me
 
 PREFACE k 
 
 ask, has the world ever put into practical effect, in the 
 form of laws and social institutions, the moral principles 
 of Judaism or the spiritual ideals of Christianity? 
 Where is there a government which has heeded even the 
 simplest of the recommendations of the modern peace 
 movement, and placed any genuine pacifist in a posi- 
 tion of political responsibility? To what extent has so- 
 ciety, in any of its many fields of activity, ordered its re- 
 lations upon the basis of out-and-out socialism? 
 Christianity, pacifism, socialism when and where and 
 how have these had any chance? All have been pro- 
 fessed, but not one has been practised. Lip-service is 
 the uttermost of reverence which ever has been paid to 
 them. Other forces, of a wholly different character, 
 have controlled the movements and fashioned the organ- 
 isations of society and these forces it is which have 
 led us to the horror of the present cataclysm of uni- 
 versal disaster. Monarchical governments, founded 
 upon superstitions of divine right, secret diplomacies 
 which make falsehood a virtue and identify statesman- 
 ship with deceit, balances of power determined by 
 immoral rivalries for world empire and dominion, an 
 economic system based upon exploitation of labour at 
 home and consumers abroad, vast armaments of war 
 reared on the specious pretence of maintaining peace, 
 the barbaric idea of force as the safeguard of se- 
 curity 
 
 " The heathen heart that puts its trust 
 In recking tube and iron shard, 
 All valiant dust that builds on dust, 
 And guarding calls not Thee to guard "
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 these have failed ! But not those great movements of 
 brotherhood, goodwill, co-operation, which have 
 preached their message to ears that would not hear, 
 and knocked for admittance at portals that would not 
 open. This hour marks perhaps the hour of darkest 
 failure in all of human history. But it is the failure 
 not of Christianity but of civilised barbarism, not of 
 Christ but of Cassar, not of love but of blood and iron ! 
 
 n 
 
 And yet it is in this hour of universal ruin, that the 
 gospel of force is being preached with a vigour which 
 has never been known before ! On every side we are 
 being told that, in the world of men as in the world of 
 beasts, there is no security save " in tooth and claw." 
 Books and pamphlets are pouring from the presses in 
 an endless flood, to warn us of the perils of " defense- 
 lessness," by which is meant a reliance upon interna- 
 tional goodwill which scorns the mailed fist and the 
 clashing sword, and the need of " preparation," by 
 which is meant arming ourselves to the teeth against 
 our neighbours. We have even been called upon to 
 witness, during the last few months, the spectacle of a 
 group of men, gathered self-consciously in Independence 
 Hall, in the brave attempt to organise a movement for 
 the establishment of peace by force! Obsessed with 
 the idea that the security of the world is threatened by 
 one nation, namely Germany, and that peace can be se- 
 cured by the destruction of one militaristic machine, 
 namely the German army, we forget that militarism, in
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 its various political and economic aspects, is inwrought 
 in the very fibre of our entire western civilisation, and 
 finds embodiment not merely in one army of one nation, 
 but in all those vast armaments on land and sea which 
 characterise every great power of the modern world. 
 Nay worse we forget that, in attempting to destroy 
 Germany and to protect ourselves by force against 
 the menace that Germany represents, we are ourselves 
 taking up her weapons, reproducing her system, doing 
 her work. So that humanity actually finds itself face 
 to face with the very excellent probability that German 
 arms, in due course, will be destroyed, but that, by 
 the very process of victory, the German spirit will find 
 itself triumphant in France, England, Russia, America. 
 Kluck, Hindenberg, Mackensen, destroyed but Nietz- 
 sche, Treitschke, Bernhardi, world-conquerors ! 
 
 It is this situation which makes imperative an un- 
 faltering reaffirmation of the true gospel of peace, 
 which is none other than the gospel of righteousness 
 preached by Isaiah, the gospel of love proclaimed by 
 Jesus, the gospel of goodwill maintained by all the paci- 
 fists of the ages, the gospel of democracy and co-oper- 
 ation set forth by socialists everywhere in one word, 
 the gospel of non-resistance ! In the sturm und drang 
 of these terrific days, it is difficult for any one mind 
 to state this gospel with the poise and power which 
 should characterise its utterance. The very haste made 
 necessary by the threatening aspects of the time, pre- 
 vents that careful and reverent treatment which the 
 theme rightfully demands. But to get the word spoken
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 with some degree of clearness and persuasion at once, 
 is the challenge of the hour to those who are convinced 
 that " they that take the sword shall perish with the 
 sword." My humble and yet passionate desire to do 
 my part in meeting this challenge must be accepted as 
 the explanation of this book. In preparing its pages, 
 I have tried to do something more than produce one 
 more discussion of the issue presented by the Great 
 War. This conflict is, of course, the occasion, and 
 very largely the determining condition, of all that I 
 have tried to say. But my primary purpose has been 
 to penetrate to the very heart of the dilemma suggested 
 by my title, and open up, therefore, from the deepest 
 moral and spiritual viewpoint, the basic questions of 
 peace, security, and the law of life itself. This line of 
 thought has made it necessary for me to discuss, in the 
 course of my main argument, relations between indi- 
 viduals even more than relations between groups of in- 
 dividuals or nations. But the human problem is the 
 same in both cases, and leads therefore to the same con- 
 clusion. That my attitude toward the present crisis 
 may be unmistakable, however, and especially that my 
 thesis may receive the startling illumination provided by 
 the European conflagration, I have interpersed my dis- 
 cussion throughout with references to the Great War; 
 and in my concluding chapters have considered such 
 immediate questions as " Is War Ever Justifiable ? " 
 " Is Permanent and Universal Peace to be Desired ? " 
 and " The Duty and Opportunity of America To- 
 day."
 
 PREFACE xiii 
 
 ra 
 
 It is important, if the argument presented in this 
 book is to be read with sympathy, or even understood, 
 that certain facts should be particularly noted in this 
 place. 
 
 ( 1 ) First of all, let me give due warning against the 
 unfortunate suggestions contained in the word, non- 
 resistance. I have adopted this word, as the motif 
 of my argument, so to speak, with the greatest re- 
 luctance, and only because, in spite of diligent search, 
 I have been able to find no word in our English language 
 which was not even more inadequate and inaccurate than 
 this very misleading term. Let me state at once, how- 
 ever, and with all possible emphasis, that, in using the 
 word, non-resistance, I accept none of those unfortu- 
 nate and immoral implications of acquiescence, coward- 
 ice, feebleness, which the word seems inevitably to sug- 
 gest. Non-resistance, as I have set forth at great 
 length in my chapters on " What Non-Resistance 
 Means " and " Exemplars of Non-Resistance," means 
 to me an essentially positive and indeed aggressive state 
 of mind and attitude. The true non-resistant is 
 militant but he lifts his militancy from the plane of 
 physical, to the plane of moral and spiritual force. 
 This point I regard as so important to a true under- 
 standing of my argument, that I am almost tempted to 
 advise that Chapters IV, V, and VI be read before any 
 of the rest of the book is approached. This much at 
 least I will venture to ask that no reader reject the 
 book until these chapters have been perused.
 
 xiv PREFACE 
 
 (2) Secondly, I would point out that my argument 
 is, from beginning to end, almost wholly one of ex- 
 pediency. I have thus couched my lance, if I may so 
 express it, not because I am indifferent to the idealism 
 involved in my plea. On the contrary, I believe that 
 the law of love should be obeyed even though it lead 
 always to death, as it did in the case of Jesus. I take 
 it for granted, however, that this idealistic part of my 
 argument needs no advocacy. Everybody agrees that 
 the counsel of the spirit is right, but the question re- 
 mains, Will it work? Men balk because they are cer- 
 tain that this gospel will not stand the pragmatic test. 
 Just here, in this matter of workableness, is the " rub " ; 
 and just here, therefore, have I focussed my discussion. 
 From this point of view, my thesis may be said to stand 
 or fall, according as the arguments in Chapters III and 
 VII prove convincing or unconvincing. 
 
 (3) Lastly, I would point out that I have made no 
 attempt to discuss the economic aspects of the problem 
 of war. As a member of the Society for Eliminating 
 the Economic Causes of War, and as one who is pre- 
 dominantly socialistic in his thought, I am convinced 
 that war can never be abolished until the capitalistic 
 system of domestic and foreign competitive exploita- 
 tion is first abolished. But as a student of human his- 
 tory and of human nature, I am also convinced that war 
 can never be abolished, even under a socialistic regime, 
 until mankind is fronted right morally. These two 
 questions are of equal importance. They can be dis- 
 cussed separately or together. For my purpose in this
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 book, I have chosen to separate them, and have delib- 
 erately chosen the latter for my discussion. Economic 
 students, more competent than I, have discussed, and 
 will continue to discuss, the former. 
 
 IV 
 
 The material in this book has been used many times 
 during the past year, in sermons and addresses. Three 
 of the chapters namely, the eighth, ninth, and tenth 
 have previously appeared as separate pamphlets, but 
 have here been corrected, revised, and amplified. The 
 sections in Chapter V on Isaiah and Jesus have been 
 published as separate essays in " The Christian Regis- 
 ter " and " The North American Review " respectively. 
 The rest of the volume is published here for the first 
 time. 
 
 In closing, I beg to make acknowledgment of the 
 services of my Secretary, Miss Mary C. Baker, whose 
 patience, fidelity, and efficiency have been indispensable 
 in the writing of this book. 
 
 JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 
 
 Church of the Messiah, 
 New York City, 
 November 1, 1915.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I INTRODUCTION A STATEMENT OF THE PROB- 
 LEM 3 
 
 II THE LOGIC OF FORCE 39 
 
 III THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 69 
 
 IV THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE . . .113 
 
 V EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE (ANCIENT) . 143 
 
 VI EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE (MODERN) . 177 
 
 VII THE PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE . .211 
 
 VIII Is WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 265 
 
 IX Is PERMANENT AND UNIVERSAL PEACE TO BE 
 
 DESIRED? 297 
 
 X THE DUTY AND OPPORTUNITY OF AMERICA TO- 
 DAY 329 
 
 APPENDIX 351 
 
 INDEX , ....'. 355
 
 " War and peace resolve themselves into a mercury of the state 
 of cultivation. At a certain stage of his progress, the man fights, 
 if he be of a sound body and mind. At a certain higher stage, 
 he makes no offensive demonstration, but is alert to repel injury, 
 and of an unconquerable heart. At a still higher stage, he comes 
 into the region of holiness; passion has passed from him; his war- 
 like nature is all converted into an active medicinal principle; he 
 sacrifices himself, and accepts with alacrity wearisome tasks of 
 denial and charity; but being attacked, he bears it and turns the 
 other cheek, as one engaged, throughout his being, no longer to 
 the service of an individual, but to the common soul of all men." 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Lecture on War.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
 
 " The modern prophet, employing the methods of science, may 
 again proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. . . . And 
 what is this message of the modern prophet but pure Christianity? 
 not the mass of theological doctrine ingeniously piled up by 
 Athanasius and Augustine, but the real and essential Christianity 
 which came from the very lips of Jesus, ' Blessed are the meek, 
 for they shall inherit the earth.' In the cruel strife of centuries 
 has it not often seemed as if the earth were to be rather the prize 
 of the hardest heart and the strongest fist? To many men these 
 words of Christ have been as foolishness and as a stumbling-block, 
 and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount have been openly de- 
 rided as too good for this world. . . . The Master knew full well 
 that the time was not yet ripe. . . . But he preached nevertheless 
 that gospel which is by and by to be realised by toiling Humanity, 
 and he announced ethical principles fit for the time that is coming. 
 The great originality of his teaching, and the feature that has 
 chiefly given it power in the world, lay in the distinctness with 
 which he conceived a state of society from which every vestige of 
 strife, and the modes of behaviour adapted to ages of strife, shall 
 be utterly and forever swept away. . . . The future is lighted for 
 us with the radiant colours of hope. . . . Strife and sorrow shall 
 disappear. Peace and love shall reign supreme." John Fiske, in 
 The Destiny of Man.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 THAT the present age constitutes the most fateful 
 period of time " the world has seen since the records 
 of mankind began to be kept," was asserted by a compe- 
 tent student of public affairs as long ago as August, 
 1914. To many of us this assertion seemed exagger- 
 ated, even though the week which saw Germany's decla- 
 ration of war against Russia, France's declaration of 
 war against Germany, and at last, after days of heart- 
 breaking suspense, England's launching of great ships 
 into the storm of conflict, was the most thrilling and 
 terrible that we had ever experienced. As the dreadful 
 struggle has gone on, however, from month to month, 
 dragging in nation after nation, extending to every one 
 of the six continents and seven seas of the globe, and 
 piling up such a toll of shattered cities, wasted fields, 
 exhausted wealth, pain, death, misery, as baffles compu- 
 tation, it has become evident enough that humanity has 
 never in all its history beheld such a spectacle or faced 
 such a crisis. There have been universal wars before 
 this. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire in the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, the great struggles for im- 
 perial dominion in the Middle Ages, the campaigns of
 
 4 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Napoleon in the twenty years following the Revolution 
 all these were cataclysms which engulfed mankind in 
 ruin and despair. But no one of them is in any way 
 comparable to our own War of the Nations. Never 
 before have so many highly organised peoples been in- 
 volved in life-and-death struggle never before have 
 whole nations been martialled in arms for combat 
 never before have the lines of battle been so extended, 
 and the number of soldiers engaged so prodigious 
 never before have such mighty weapons been at the dis- 
 posal of contending armies never before have such 
 stupendous forces been let loose upon the world. Al- 
 ready there has been a refinement of efficiency, a thor- 
 oughness of destruction, a ruthlessness of attack, a 
 frightfulness of slaughter which has staggered the race. 
 And we are as yet only in the early stages of a combat 
 which must witness prodigies of horror, hitherto unim- 
 agined as well as unknown, before the end of the ghastly 
 business is reached ! What this end will be, no man at 
 the present moment can dare even so much as to sur- 
 mise. That it will involve the fall of dynasties, the ex- 
 haustion of nations, the wastage of vast stretches of ter- 
 ritory, the indefinite enslavement of future generations 
 to debts of incalculable proportions, the permanent 
 reversion of great peoples in wealth, activity, ambition, 
 physical strength, moral standards, is reasonably cer- 
 tain. That it will mean the tumbling of our entire eco- 
 nomic system, the extinction of whole areas of modern 
 civilisation, the return of Europe to the condition of 
 Germany in the years following the Thirty Years' War,
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 5 
 
 when bands of brigands roved unmolested through silent 
 wastes once crowded with fair cities and waving fields, 
 even the sweeping destruction of the modern world by 
 the terrific power of the engines of its own creation, as 
 Mr. H. G. Wells has not hesitated to suggest, 1 seems 
 not impossible. For the first time since the pyramids 
 were builded in the Egyptian deserts, men find them- 
 selves living in an age, and looking upon a situation, 
 wherein the forces of human life have passed beyond the 
 control of those who have madly created them and as 
 madly set them free! For the first time, perhaps, in 
 history, anything may happen ! 
 
 n 
 
 Not yet, however, in speaking of battles and cam- 
 paigns, wasted wealth and slaughtered men, have we 
 reached the heart of the situation which constitutes this 
 war the supreme crisis of the ages. Nor can this be 
 done by considering such isolated and comparatively 
 unimportant matters as the various military, political 
 and industrial phases of the struggle. In order to see 
 and understand in all its seriousness the exact nature of 
 the present crisis, we must pass beyond the particular 
 aspects of the phenomenon and come to the phenomenon 
 itself or rather we must gather together all these 
 different aspects into a single synthesis, and thus dis- 
 cover what is the single great problem which is involved. 
 And this process will hardly be begun, before it will 
 become evident that the present problem in its essence 
 i See his Social Forces in England and America, page 383.
 
 6 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 is none other than that most fundamental of all prob- 
 lems the nature of human existence, the law of human 
 life, the rule of human conduct. 
 
 For generations, indeed centuries, in the past, man 
 has been moving forward slowly but surely to the great 
 goal of a permanent civilisation, based upon the ideas 
 of reason, righteousness, and good will. Again and 
 again has progress toward this end been halted by acci- 
 dent, retarded by fear, turned aside or thrown back by 
 ignorance, stupidity, and sin. Sooner or later, how- 
 ever, the pathway has been rediscovered, the momen- 
 tum of advance resumed, and the line of progress there- 
 fore continued. Especially in recent times has this 
 progress, to all appearances at least, been rapid and 
 permanent. The mind of the world in the opening 
 years of the twentieth century was most emphatically 
 an optimistic mind. It beheld serious obstacles being 
 overcome, knotty problems being solved, remote ideals 
 being realised. It seemed to see humanity, after cen- 
 turies of wandering in the wilderness, now nearing the 
 borders of the promised land. Long a barbarian, man 
 had spoken as a barbarian, thought as a barbarian, un- 
 derstood as a barbarian ; but now, if the signs were 
 valid, man was becoming civilised, and lo, with his at- 
 tainment to civilisation, he was resolutely putting away 
 barbarous things. 
 
 Even in what had long seemed to be the most discour- 
 aging of all fields that of international and inter- 
 racial relationships was sure progress apparently be- 
 ing made at this time. To an almost astonishing de-
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 7 
 
 gree were the long-sought ideas of reason, righteousness 
 and goodwill taking form in definite institutions of 
 order and fraternity. Two Hague Conferences had 
 consummated the great achievement of assembling 
 " all the world in one room," as Dr. Frederick Lynch 
 has vividly expressed it. 1 The Hague Court had 
 been successfully established as a kind of supreme court 
 among the nations. Numerous treaties of arbitration 
 between great states had been signed, thus blazing a 
 pathway through the tangled wilderness of barbarism 
 to " the pleasant places " of understanding, sympathy 
 and co-operation. International societies of every pos- 
 sible description had been organised, and were year by 
 year bringing into ever closer personal communication 
 and fellowship the best minds of every country. Great 
 international movements, such as socialism, woman suf- 
 frage, universal religion, and the peace propaganda it- 
 self, were more and more tending to obliterate the arti- 
 ficial boundaries of nations, and thus to unite people 
 upon a basis not of geographical accident, but of those 
 sublime interests of human good which from their very 
 nature transcend all distinctions of language, creed, 
 nationality and race. In spite of blind and selfish 
 statesmanship, which still remained faithful to ancient 
 precedent in fostering national pride, in serving so- 
 called national interests in various quarters of the 
 world, in organising immoral alliances and ententes and 
 balances of power which had no higher object than that 
 of placing one group of nations in unfriendly array 
 
 1 See his The Peace Problem, page 15.
 
 8 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 against another, and especially in building stupendous 
 armaments on the specious plea that such preparations 
 for war are the only guarantee of peace in spite of 
 these facts, most forward-looking persons had come to 
 believe that, so numerous and powerful were the forces 
 making for peace, the old perpetual menace of inter- 
 national conflict had at last passed by forever. For the 
 first time in the history of the world, it seemed as 
 though we were beginning to realise outwardly the in- 
 ward truth of St. Paul's great dictum " God hath 
 made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell to- 
 gether on the face of the earth." For the first time, it 
 seemed as though Jesus's definition of love as the law of 
 life were going to be vindicated. 
 
 And then, in the space of a single night, as it were, 
 came the crash of ruin ! Without warning of any 
 kind, the whole fair structure of our hopes and dreams 
 came tumbling to the ground. Confident that we were 
 at last civilised, we awakened, as in the clutch of an 
 earthquake, to discover that we were still barbarians. 
 Believing that, after two thousand years of effort, 
 Christianity was at last imposing its divine law of 
 brotherhood upon the human heart, we were made to 
 behold that we were still, like any tiger of the jungle, 
 " red in tooth and claw with ravin." Trusting in the 
 conserving influences of education, industry, religion, 
 and the modern movements of international association, 
 we found ourselves hurled back into the early horror of 
 sheer brute struggle for survival. In an instant, the 
 realm of dreams was gone, and we were face to face
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 9 
 
 with the hard, cold, bitter facts of a world which we 
 thought had been conquered and subdued. In one fell 
 moment, hope was shattered, faith destroyed, courage 
 lost. A hundred ancient doubts rose up to plague us. 
 A thousand primitive questions challenged us anew. 
 The original and basic problems of life, solved as we 
 had thought forever, were again before us for consider- 
 ation. It was as though unnumbered aeons of time 
 were instantaneously wiped out, and we were back in 
 the days of primeval chaos when " the earth was with- 
 out form and void, and darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep," with no hope but that of a new day of crea- 
 tion, in some far distant time, when " the spirit of God 
 (would once again) move upon the face of the waters," 
 light be again divided from darkness, and the dry ground 
 of unfolding life again appear from out the waters of 
 desolation. 
 
 m 
 
 Just here, now, in this reversion to first moral prin- 
 ciples in this sudden conjuring up, in more terrible 
 form than ever before, of problems which we thought 
 had been laid once for all do we find the supreme 
 crisis, and tragedy as well, of this present hour. In 
 essence, these problems present but a single issue. Is 
 the flesh supreme, or may we still place reliance upon 
 the spirit ? Must we put our trust in " chariots be- 
 cause they are many and horsemen because they are 
 strong," or may we still, with Isaiah, have confidence in 
 God alone ? Is Bernhardi's doctrine, that " feeble-
 
 10 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ness is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost " 
 established, or may we still believe, with Jesus, that 
 "the meek shall inherit the earth"? In form, how- 
 ever, these problems are as various as the various re- 
 lationships and activities of men. Three at least are 
 of prime importance to us at this moment in our dis- 
 cussion of the general question of pacifism. 
 
 First of all, there is the perennial problem of the es- 
 tablishment of international peace. The idea of a 
 permanent condition of concord among the different 
 peoples of the earth, is as old certainly as the annals of 
 recorded history, and may safely be thought to be as 
 old, perhaps, as humankind itself. It appears in the 
 teachings of Confucius and Lao-Tse, which are among 
 the most ancient which have been preserved to the 
 modern world. It flames in lines of fire from the writ- 
 ings of Isaiah and the sayings of Buddha. It adorns 
 the pages of Thucydides as he tells the tale of ancient 
 Greece, and of Livy as he recounts the similar narrative 
 of Rome. It is the inspiration of many of the noblest 
 passages in the Annals of Tacitus and the Meditations 
 of Marcus Aurelius. It constitutes the warp and woof 
 of the fabric of Jesus's gospel; and marks predomi- 
 nantly the teaching and practice of all the early Chris- 
 tians from St. Paul to the last of the line of the so- 
 called Church Fathers. It glorifies the Middle Ages 
 in such a phenomenon as the Truce of God, and in such 
 a person as the sainted Francis of Assisi. It is a vital 
 part of the Reformation, as witness the steadfast testi- 
 mony of Erasmus, the early and as yet uncorrupted
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 11 
 
 doctrines of Luther and Calvin, and especially the 
 radiant visions of George Fox. Taught in the seven- 
 teenth century in the name of a revealed religion, in 
 the eighteenth century -in the name of an abstract hu- 
 manity, in the nineteenth century in the name of a very 
 practical science, industry and commerce, this idea of 
 peace had become in our time the predominant ideal of 
 the hour. 
 
 It is interesting, as well as pathetic, to recall, in this 
 moment of dissolutionment, the extent to which this ideal 
 of international harmony and goodwill had seized upon 
 the imagination of the modern world. Only a few 
 months ago, and everybody was cherishing the hope that 
 this vision of peace, which had so long been so far re- 
 moved upon the horizon of the future, was at last in 
 process of actual realisation. Militarists, with a few 
 exceptions like Lord Roberts, were pointing to the great 
 armaments of modern times and declaring that such 
 preparations for war were the surest guarantee of 
 peace. Scientists like the great Russian, Bloch, were 
 telling us that the armaments, with which all the great 
 nations of the world were so amply provided, had been 
 developed to a degree of such terrible efficiency, that 
 warfare between contending forces on land and sea had 
 been made to all intents and purposes impossible. 
 Economists like Norman Angell, were showing us, in 
 terms of trade, investments and finance generally, that 
 war in our age was as ruinous to the victor as to the 
 vanquished and was therefore already become an 
 anachronism to which kings and premiers could no
 
 12 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 longer make resort. Jurists and statesmen of all 
 countries were rejoicing in the Hague Conferences, will- 
 ingly referring matters of dispute to the Hague Court, 
 and competing with one another in the signing of 
 treaties of arbitration. Scholars were taking comfort 
 in the great international societies of learning, working- 
 men in the international labour movement, Christians in 
 the growing international consciousness and co-opera- 
 tion of the churches of many lands, peace lovers every- 
 where in the sweeping progress of the organised peace 
 propaganda. All the forces of the time military, 
 political, commercial, educational, industrial, religious 
 seemed to be moving straight toward the fulfilment 
 of the long-cherished dream of the prophets and seers. 
 The will to peace was already at hand the way was 
 very rapidly being found. Then, as we have seen, 
 came the war which, from the first day of hostilities, 
 was fought on a scale and with a fury never known be- 
 fore. And instantly the problem of peace was reduced 
 to its simplest terms, as though we were living once 
 again in the days of Cain. Is there any such thing as 
 peace? Is not man a fighting animal and war therefore 
 a permanent contingency of man's existence? Did not 
 Frederick the Great state the final truth of the matter 
 when he said, in one of his numerous letters to his friend, 
 Voltaire, " I study the pages of history, and see that 
 wars have always broken out at a period of every ten 
 years. I believe that there will be some abating of this 
 fever of conflict, but I also- believe that this conflict 
 will never cease."
 
 A second problem raised up anew by the outbreak of 
 the Great War, is that of security security for the 
 individual, for the nation, and for the great organised 
 body of society at large. This problem has its roots, 
 of course, in nothing less fundamental than that most 
 primitive and potent of all human passions, the instinct 
 of self-preservation. Every organism, from the lowest 
 form of animal to the highest type of man, yearns to 
 possess life and to pass on this life to succeeding gener- 
 ations. Nor is this yearning in any way confined to the 
 individual as such. On the contrary, it is as much a 
 sensation of the herd, so to speak, as of the isolated 
 organism so that groups of men, such as nations, for 
 example, are just as instinct with the desire to live as 
 any single member of the group. It is this which ex- 
 plains the passion for security, as we call it, which has 
 played so large a part in the military history of man- 
 kind. If any careful study of the wars of the world, 
 from the most ancient time down to our own day, should 
 be made from the standpoint of causes and results, I am 
 certain that it would be found that more wars had been 
 fought for the sake of security against barbarians, 
 heathens, enemies feared and hated for one reason or an- 
 other, than for all other purposes of revenge, conquest, 
 dynastic pride, or what not, put together. If men 
 have leaped eagerly into war in the past, it is very 
 largely because they desired to gain that supremacy in 
 drms which could alone guarantee them national se- 
 curity. If men have clung to war in our age, it is be- 
 cause they feared that there might appear at any time
 
 14 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 some crisis of last resort in which an appeal to arms 
 could alone protect them from destruction. If men 
 have ever consented to peace, it is because they have 
 felt, for some good reason or other, secure. And if 
 they have dreamed to-day of peace as a permanent con- 
 dition of good, it is because they have felt that the es- 
 tablishment of such a condition would bring to them 
 just that perfect assurance of security which has been 
 so eagerly desired, and never yet attained. 
 
 Now just exactly as the world had come to the point 
 of thinking, a few years or even a few months ago, that 
 the reign of peace was about to appear upon the earth, 
 so also, for the same reasons, had it come to the point 
 of thinking that security was about to be realised for 
 each and every nation in the concert of nations. It 
 made little difference whether the observer was a 
 pacifist or a militarist, he was in either case reason- 
 ably assured of a world organised, or very nearly 
 organised, for security as well as peace. The pacifist 
 saw the rapidly multiplying influences of international 
 goodwill, and the mechanism created and operated by 
 these influences, to which we have already made abun- 
 dant reference. The militarist looked upon a very dif- 
 ferent scene, but saw indirectly the same result. The 
 great nations of Europe were building and maintain- 
 ing armaments so terrible that no one of them would 
 dare to lift its sword against another. These nations 
 were arrayed in alliances or ententes, which formed a 
 balance of power and therefore an equilibrium of forces 
 which made a cataclysm impossible. Smaller nations
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 15 
 
 of Europe, like Belgium, for example, which were un- 
 able to protect themselves by force of arms, were 
 guaranteed security by treaties of neutrality, which 
 protected their territory from invasion by their more 
 powerful neighbours. Still others of these smaller na- 
 tions were protected by treaties of alliance or secret 
 agreements with the larger and more powerful states, 
 as Portugal with England, and Serbia with Russia. 
 In some way or other, all the European nations were 
 parts of a great diplomatic or militarist organisation, 
 the strength and completeness of which were the guar- 
 antee to each of safety. Every now and then, to be 
 sure, on the occasion of an Italian war in Tripoli, or an 
 outbreak in the Balkans, a dreadful fear would seize the 
 peoples of Europe, and for a moment the whole organ- 
 isation, built up with such infinite pains and held to- 
 gether at such enormous expense, would seem on the 
 verge of collapse. But the crisis would pass almost as 
 suddenly as it had appeared, and confidence would be 
 restored. 
 
 Then, as we have already seen, came the Great War, 
 and with it the discovery that, in the matter of security 
 as in the matter of peace, we were all of us living in 
 the land of dreams. The pacifist, to his consterna- 
 tion, saw his bulwarks against war swept away as the 
 swollen Mississippi, in flood time, sweeps away its 
 levees. The militarist, to his equal consternation, be- 
 held his armaments make war certain rather than im- 
 possible, his treaties of neutrality torn up as so many 
 " scraps of paper," and his nicely adjusted balances of
 
 16 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 power the perfect preparation and the potent guaran- 
 tee not of security for any nation or group of nations, 
 but of universal disaster for all. In other words, the 
 whole promise of security was nullified everywhere and 
 at once, and the whole problem raised anew for settle- 
 ment. Every nation in the war to-day is fighting first 
 to protect itself against extinction at the hands of its 
 enemies, and secondly to assure to itself, when the battle 
 is done, such a new order of affairs as shall render it 
 forever safe from future attack. And every nation 
 outside of the war to-day, from little Switzerland in the 
 very heart of the ring of flame to great America three 
 thousand or more miles away, is considering as the first 
 and foremost duty of the hour the question of how to 
 secure itself from all possibility of suffering such dis- 
 aster as has engulfed its combatant neighbours. 
 
 The third problem precipitated by the Great War is 
 more serious and significant than either of the two just 
 mentioned. Indeed, it is a problem occasioned and 
 presented by these two, and therefore as much more 
 important as the end is more important than the means. 
 For peace and security are certainly nothing in them- 
 selves. A man, or a nation, does not want peace for 
 the sake of peace, nor security for the sake of security. 
 The oyster, for example, enclosed within the granite- 
 like walls of its shell and buried away in the mud at the 
 bottom of the bay, undoubtedly is at peace with itself 
 and the world, and may be regarded as reasonably se- 
 cure. The African lion, pacing his cage in the zoo- 
 logical garden, is at peace when his meal has been de-
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 17 
 
 voured, and is at all times perfectly secure behind his 
 bars. The convict in his cell lives in a condition of 
 peace so undisturbed as to tempt him to insanity or 
 revolt, and enjoys a degree of security which is his day- 
 and-night despair. In such conditions as these, peace 
 and security are easy enough to attain, undoubtedly. 
 But what do they amount to when so attained? Who 
 of us desires them as ends in and for themselves? The 
 oyster, for all its peace and security, offers to us no 
 temptations. The lion, mere brute creature that he is, 
 would gladly rove the jungle, and battle in danger for 
 the necessities of life, if he could only escape the calm 
 security of his cage. And what convict does not break 
 his dungeon walls, when opportunity offers, in hungry 
 quest of that life which the peace and security of the 
 prison cell deny? 
 
 Peace and security, in other words, have no value, 
 nor even meaning, in themselves. They attain value 
 and meaning only as they lead to a higher, richer, more 
 abundant type of life. Life is the great thing the 
 essential thing. Hence the third problem, of which 
 peace and security alike, as I have said, are the mere 
 conditions ! What is life ? What is the goal of ex- 
 istence toward which the individual and the nation 
 should alike direct their powers? What is the ideal 
 plan of vital action in which peace and security should 
 be incorporated as means to ends? This is the final 
 question to-day, as in every day of the world's history. 
 And a few years nay, a few months ago, there 
 were few of us who would not have been ready to declare
 
 18 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 that we were beginning to understand this question and 
 approximate an answer thereto. We believed, with per- 
 fect assurance, that the gospel of life had been spoken, 
 in part if not in whole, by certain of the great prophets 
 of old, and that little by little, this gospel was begin- 
 ning to be accepted and practised by men. Our age, 
 we would have said, was pre-eminent in its endeavour to 
 fulfil the law of life long since laid down by those who 
 have lived the life of love. But now, forsooth, under 
 the stress and strain of an unforeseen international 
 struggle, we discover that this problem, like the others 
 of which I have spoken, is not yet settled. The gospel 
 of love is challenged by the gospel of power, the law of 
 service by the law of necessity, the religion of the heart 
 by the religion of the will. The whole issue of what 
 life is and how it is to be used, in other words, we find 
 to be no longer an incentive to action but a proposition 
 for debate. Existence is thrown back upon itself. 
 The whole order of human relationships is cast into the 
 melting pot of war. After centuries of development 
 and struggle, we are face to face to-day with exactly 
 the same question that baffled the hairy cave-man as he 
 gnawed his bone and plotted evil against his neighbour. 
 Not merely how to establish peace, nor yet how to gain 
 security, but how to live this is our question. With 
 the return of the world to chaos, as I have said, life be- 
 gins anew! 
 
 IV 
 
 Here, now, are the more important of the problems 
 which have been raised by the outbreak of the War of
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 19 
 
 the Nations. And here, by the mere statement of these 
 problems, do we find ourselves taken into the very 
 heart of the question which we are proposing for dis- 
 cussion. For whatever may be the various answers 
 which are offered to our problems, these are all to be 
 classified, in the last analysis, under two separate heads. 
 In other words, our attempts to settle the issues raised 
 by the stupendous spectacle of a world in arms bring us 
 at once face to face with two perfectly distinct and 
 mutually exclusive doctrines of life. 
 
 On the one hand, we find the doctrine which I shall 
 call, for our purposes of discussion in this book, the 
 doctrine of force. This doctrine finds its ultimate 
 justification, as we shall see at some length further on, 
 in an interpretation of all forms of activity in terms 
 of the great phenomenon of the struggle for existence. 
 All life, say the supporters of this doctrine, is a process 
 of struggle. The grass blades in the pasture struggle 
 against one another for the ray of sunshine and the 
 drop of rain. The insects flitting about in the open 
 air of the harvest field, battle for the means of sub- 
 sistence which can be enjoyed by but a few. The wild 
 creatures of the jungle rend and tear in one long, bloody 
 and powerful contest not merely for dominance but for 
 survival. And what is true of leaf and fly and animal is 
 true also of man, in both his savage and civilised stages 
 of existence. 
 
 But the doctrine of force bases itself not only on this 
 great and undeniable fact of struggle, but also on 
 what it regards as the further fact that this struggle is
 
 20 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 always pursued on the level of physical energy. 
 Whether it be the plant or the insect, the animal or the 
 human which is battling, it is always the physical 
 weapon which is used ; always the organism which can 
 gather up within itself the largest amount of sheer 
 material strength and direct this strength most ef- 
 fectively against the enemy, that is the one which wins 
 out in the contest for survival. Exemplars of this 
 struggle run all the way from the hawk and the wolf to 
 an Alexander, Napoleon, and von Hindenberg. The 
 weapons of the fray begin with the tooth of the tiger 
 and the fang of the serpent, and end, for the present 
 at least, with the submarine, the Zeppelin, and the 42- 
 centimetre siege gun of the Germans. Interpretations 
 of the battle take forms as various as the half-articulate 
 cry of the savage shouting vengeance against his foe, 
 and the carefully wrought philosophy of Nietzsche or 
 history of Treitschke. " All are but parts of one 
 stupendous whole," however a doctrine of supreme 
 reliance upon the efficacy of physical force, in a struggle 
 which means life or death to the combatants involved ! 
 But the defenders of this gospel, if we may call it 
 such, do not end with pointing out facts which they be- 
 lieve cannot be contradicted and therefore must be ac- 
 cepted. They go on and point out the interesting cir- 
 cumstance that these phenomena of struggle and sur- 
 vival on the basis of physical energy are not only real, 
 but " true and righteous altogether." They are justi- 
 fied, that is, pragmatically, and thus raised at once be- 
 yond the level of the merely physical to the infinitely
 
 higher level of the moral and spiritual. The struggle, 
 in other words, is something more than a mere contest 
 of strength. It is, at bottom, a testing of soul a 
 divine process for the selection of the fit from the un- 
 fit, the strong from the weak, the worthy from the un- 
 worthy, the heroic from the cowardly. The struggle 
 of organism with organism is no mere lustful fight for 
 food, or water, or propagation of the species. Rather 
 is it a battle of good against bad, of health against dis- 
 ease, of growth against decay, of life against death. 
 Here in these mighty struggles do we see the creative 
 process. It is this, continued through many ages, by 
 beasts unnumbered, that has at last brought man upon 
 the scene. And it is this, continued again through 
 many ages by man himself, which is developing step by 
 step the super-man who is some day destined to appear 
 as the final achievement of the divine handiwork. 
 Battle, bloodshed, slaughter, destruction these are 
 but the methods of severing sheep from goats. Look 
 upon marching armies, flaming cities, devastated fields, 
 sinking ships, ravished women, frightened children, and 
 you look only upon what happens when God, as Julia 
 Ward Howe has put it in her hymn, 
 
 "... is sifting out the hearts of men before his 
 
 judgment seat." 
 
 Such is the doctrine of force, as it has been exemplified 
 in all ages and taught more or less openly in some. 
 Easy is it to deduce, from this statement of its general 
 content, the specific answers which it gives to the prob-
 
 22 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 lems stirred up anew, as we have seen, by the Great 
 War. 
 
 In regard to the problem of peace among the nations, 
 the champions of this doctrine take attitudes of varying 
 degrees of thoroughness. Some declare, without 
 apology of any kind, that war is not bad but good, and 
 that a permanent state of peace, therefore, is to be 
 deprecated rather than welcomed. Such an advocate 
 is General Bernhardi, and, if we can judge correctly, 
 the entire militaristic group of the German Empire. 
 Others there are, like John Ruskin * and Professor 
 Cramb, 2 of Cambridge, who recognise the hideous char- 
 acter of war and deplore its occurrence, but believe that 
 war has certain virtues which are unique to itself, and 
 to this extent, therefore, is to be accepted as necessary 
 and beneficent. Then again, there are men, numerous 
 in our country as in others, who are convinced that 
 war is wholly dreadful and should be done away with 
 immediately and forever, but who believe that this end 
 can never be accomplished save by the development and 
 maintenance of weapons of force on so stupendous a 
 scale that no one nation shall dare to venture its ex- 
 istence upon such a hazard as that of declaring hostili- 
 ties. The variety of these opinions is evident. But 
 behind them all is the one idea, so central to the doctrine 
 
 1 One side of his attitude only. For a description of John Rus- 
 kin's views see below, Chapter IX, page 303. His ideas were of 
 course hopelessly inconsistent with one another, as he himself 
 readily admitted. His feeling of utter detestation of war was 
 sound; his thought of war's contribution to civilisation a perfect 
 illustration of pseudo-knowledge. 
 
 2 See his book, Germany and England.
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 23 
 
 of force, that our ultimate reliance, in this as in other 
 problems of life, must be upon the sword. One nation 
 may desire war as a blessing; another may seek stead- 
 fastly to avoid war as the worst of curses. But both 
 nations alike must arm themselves to the teeth, and 
 use identically the same weapons for the attainment of 
 their so widely different ends. 
 
 As regards the problem of security, the advocates of 
 force are somewhat more closely agreed. There is no 
 security possible in this world, they assert, except that 
 which is won and held by main strength. We sleep in 
 our homes at night with a feeling of reasonable security, 
 first because our doors are locked and barred, and sec- 
 ondly because there paces in the street before our dwell- 
 ing an armed representative of the law. Were our 
 doors for any reason thrown open, or the policeman for 
 any reason withdrawn from his post, we would feel in- 
 stantly alarmed for the safety of both property and 
 life. And as with individuals, so with nations ! We 
 may talk until doomsday about guaranteeing national 
 security by treaties of neutrality, alliance, or arbitra- 
 tion, or by practising righteousness and goodwill in 
 international relations. Treaties of any kind, as Mr. 
 Roosevelt is never tired of pointing out, are not worth 
 the paper they are written on unless backed by the 
 mailed fist and the drawn sword. The tragedy of Bel- 
 gium, terrible as it was, seemed almost worth while to a 
 man of Mr. Roosevelt's views as an immortal demonstra- 
 tion of this thesis. And as for friendship, goodwill, 
 righteousness these may be all right in the private
 
 24 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 relations of individual citizens, but they can avail abso- 
 lutely nothing in relations between jealous, suspicious, 
 and hostile states. Force can alone save us from de- 
 struction. " Speak softly and carry a big stick " is the 
 only maxim of prudence. 
 
 It is only when we get to our third problem, that of 
 life itself, however, that we meet the perfect expression 
 of the gospel of force. Here do we find this doctrine 
 raised to the dignity of a new code of morals, a new 
 revelation of religion. Power now becomes the great 
 possession, struggle for mastery the great activity, 
 success or victory the great end. The good man is de- 
 scribed not as the one who is meek, gentle, kindly, sym- 
 pathetic, but as the one who is strong, self-assertive, 
 brave, ruthless in his pursuit of ends. The bad man 
 is pictured not as the one who is mean, deceitful, cruel, 
 selfish, but as the one simply who is weak. Virtue here 
 becomes synonymous with valour sin synonymous 
 with humility. Nietzsche sums it all up in one of his 
 most familiar passages "What is good? all that 
 increases the feeling of power, the will for power, power 
 itself in man. What is bad ? all that proceeds from 
 weakness. What is happiness ? the feeling that 
 power increases and that resistance is overcome. Not 
 contentedness but power not peace but war not 
 virtue but capacity this is the rule of life. The 
 weak shall perish, and people shall help them to do so 
 this is the first principle of charity. What is the 
 worst of crimes? sympathy for the weak and unfor- 
 tunate Christianity ! "
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 25 
 
 Opposed now, in every sense of the word, to the doc- 
 trine of force, and presenting in its entirety the other 
 side, so to speak, of the theory of life, is what I shall 
 call, for lack of a better name, the doctrine of non-re- 
 sistance. This word, as we shall see, 1 is hopelessly in- 
 accurate, but it has long since assumed, by reason of 
 historic usage, a distinct if not adequate connotation, 
 and therefore must be employed. 
 
 At bottom, the doctrine of non-resistance, exactly 
 like the doctrine of force, is a summons to battle. It 
 agrees that the life-process is an uninterrupted struggle 
 for survival between contending organisms. It agrees 
 as well that this struggle began upon the plane of 
 physical energy, and that the weapons of the flesh have 
 ever played a potent part in the determination of vic- 
 tory. It denies, however, that the battle for existence 
 was ever at any time limited to the physical plane, in- 
 sists that it has again and again been lifted to higher 
 levels, and points out that other weapons than those of 
 the flesh have long since proven their superiority. 
 Nothing is more impressive, for example, in the modern 
 study of evolution, than the gradual supplanting of 
 the struggle for self-preservation by what Drummond 
 terms " the struggle for the life of others." The more 
 widely we extend our observation of the biological 
 process of development, and the higher we climb in the 
 scale of animal life, the more frequently we encounter 
 
 i See Chapter IV, " What Non-Resistance Means."
 
 26 
 
 " mutual aid " as the determining factor of survival. 
 Not the claw of the tiger but the love of the tigress 
 for her cubs, not the mammoth strength of the ele- 
 phant but his disciplined membership in the herd 
 these are the things that really make for the preserva- 
 tion of the species. " The strength of the wolf is the 
 pack," says Rudyard Kipling in his Jungle Book, " and 
 the strength of the pack is the wolf." So true is this, 
 indeed, that a long-range survey of the line of evolu- 
 tion shows conclusively that the weaker animals, which, 
 because of their inadequate strength, have learned the 
 lesson of co-operation, are the ones which are winning 
 out in the battle for life, and the savage animals, on 
 the other hand, like the lion and the bear, which rove 
 the jungle alone in the proud glory of unconquerable 
 power, are the very ones which are losing and thus 
 gradually disappearing. Physical force, in other 
 words, is for some reason or other showing itself to be 
 a failure in the struggle for survival. 
 
 And what is merely suggested here in the animal 
 realm, is triumphantly indicated in the life of man. 
 For man, whatever his physical relationship to the brute 
 creatures from which he sprang, must be described, in 
 the last analysis, not as a physical but rather as a 
 spiritual being. With his appearance upon the earth, 
 life at once moves to a loftier plane and seeks to adapt 
 itself to a nobler standard of activity. If the law of 
 existence for the animal is the law of force, then, as 
 Huxley declared in his famous Romanes Lecture, this 
 law is overthrown by man in favour of a law of his own
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 27 
 
 discovery or creation the law of love. Or, if this 
 higher law, as John Fiske and others have declared, has 
 already appeared in the field of animal existence and has 
 there competed for supremacy with the law of sheer 
 brute strength, then this higher law is deliberately 
 chosen by man for the practice of his life to the total 
 exclusion of the other, and spirit is forthwith pitted in 
 a death grapple with flesh for the mastery of the human 
 soul. The whole story of humanity, from this point 
 of view, becomes an exciting romance of the persistent 
 endeavour of the race to rid itself of force and possess 
 itself of love, as the one all-sufficient weapon of advance. 
 And history, if it teaches us anything with precision, 
 certainly teaches that man strengthens his hold on life, 
 rises in the scale of existence, wins peace, security and 
 happiness for his reward, just to the extent that he suc- 
 ceeds in this one supreme endeavour of the soul. 
 
 It is this fact which is set forth with such compelling 
 power by the prophets of all ages, both ancient and 
 modern, who have discerned with clear vision the truths 
 of the spirit and have formulated these truths into a 
 wondrous gospel of love, service, sacrifice and goodwill. 
 From no great teacher of ethics and religion have these 
 things been hidden; by every great teacher have they 
 been translated into noble gospels of human brother- 
 hood. But supreme among all these seers of " things 
 invisible " must be counted Jesus, the brave carpenter 
 of Nazareth, who, in a time which rang with the crash 
 of arms and among a people who had long been trod- 
 den into the dust under the iron heel of conquest, dared
 
 28 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 to lift his voice on behalf of the most consistent, thor- 
 oughgoing and uncompromising gospel of non-resistance 
 that the world has ever seen. " They that take the 
 sword shall perish with the sword resist not evil, but 
 whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to 
 him the other also ye have heard that it hath been 
 said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine 
 enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, 
 and pray for them that despitefully use you and perse- 
 cute you all things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do you even so unto them he that 
 findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life 
 for my sake shall find it " these are the words he 
 spoke in eternal challenge of every doctrine of life 
 which would place reliance, for any purpose, under any 
 conditions, upon the use of violence, force or aggression 
 of any kind. Jesus saw clearly enough that life was a 
 struggle. He himself followed no easy path, and at 
 last went down in defeat before his enemies. But he 
 insisted in his preaching, and demonstrated in his 
 practice, that this struggle, for man at least, was a 
 struggle not for physical survival but for spiritual ful- 
 filment ; and urged, therefore, upon all those who would 
 truly live, the one great end of love. 
 
 Such in meagrest outline is the doctrine of non-re- 
 sistance! That it is the exact antithesis in every par- 
 ticular of the doctrine of force must be evident even 
 from such a summary interpretation as this which is 
 set down in the above paragraphs. We need not be
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 29 
 
 surprised, therefore, to discover that, in its answers to 
 the problems of the Great War, which we have more 
 than once considered, it challenges the doctrine of force 
 on each and every issue. 
 
 Thus, as regards the question of peace, the non-re- 
 sistant asserts, without qualification or equivocation of 
 any kind, that war is the sum of all villainies and peace 
 the sum of all blessings. He believes that war may 
 have its benefits, as peace may have its ills ; but that 
 benefits and ills are incidental to the main factors in 
 the situation, which, in the case of war, are wholly bad, 
 and, in the case of peace, are wholly good. Peace has 
 never brought harm to any individual or group of indi- 
 viduals ; war, on the other hand, has never brought any- 
 thing else. The highest ideal of organised humanity, 
 therefore, must be the establishment of " peace on 
 earth, good will toward men." So long as war con- 
 tinues under any form, or for any purpose, the race 
 must fall far short of the fulfilment of its " one true 
 aim." 
 
 But the non-resistant does not stop with this un- 
 qualified endorsement of peace as a permanent condition 
 of human good. On the contrary, he goes on to point 
 out, with great definiteness, the method for attaining 
 his ideal. This is none other than that of preparing 
 for peace, by putting one side forever the weapons of 
 war and building diligently and seriously the social 
 mechanism expressive of ordered knowledge, sound 
 reason, and truthful friendship. To seek peace by pre- 
 paring for war, says the non-resistant, is the rankest
 
 30 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 absurdity, demonstrated by the failure of any people 
 in any period of history to find the peace thus sought. 
 There has been the peace attained by Rome the Pax 
 Romanum which is the obedience dictated to a help- 
 less world by the iron rod of conquest. There has been 
 the peace pictured so vividly by Tacitus, when he de- 
 scribed the legionaries of the Imperial City as " making 
 a desolation and calling it peace." There has been the 
 peace, dictated by treaties and assured by balances of 
 power, which is an armed truce between the close of 
 one war and the opening of another. But the true 
 peace, described by Isaiah as a time when " nation shall 
 not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they 
 learn war any more," has never come for the simple 
 reason that men have never had the wisdom nor the 
 courage to adopt the one true method to this end 
 that of " beating their swords into ploughshares and 
 their spears into pruning hooks." 
 
 To the problem of security, the non-resistant gives 
 much the same answer that he gives to the problem of 
 peace. Man desires security as he desires peace ; but 
 he fails to attain the one, just as he fails to attain the 
 other, for the reason that he seeks security by the 
 methods that create insecurity, just as he seeks peace 
 by the methods that create war. The bolted door and 
 the armed policeman, you say, are the evidences of se- 
 curity ! On the contrary, they are the evidences of in- 
 security. No man feels himself safe behind such bar- 
 riers. Bolts and bars are indefinitely multiplied, the 
 city police are supplemented by private watchmen,
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 31 
 
 loaded revolvers are kept in bureau drawers and under 
 pillows, intricate systems of automatic alarm are in- 
 stalled at great expense with the result that security 
 is as far away as ever. And what is true of the indi- 
 vidual is equally true also of the nation! The vast 
 armaments of our time are evidences not of security but 
 of fear. Ship is added to ship, fortress to fortress, 
 army corps to army corps and still the fear grows, 
 until at last in a very madness of mutual apprehension, 
 the Great War bursts upon the world. If the colossal 
 armaments of this age could not win and hold security 
 for any one of the great peoples involved, what arma- 
 ments, pray, can be huge and terrible enough to attain 
 this end? 
 
 The fact of the matter is, of course, as the non-re- 
 sistant has all along pointed out, that the appeal to 
 force is the cause and not the cure of fear, the occasion 
 and not the end of insecurity. Security, at the best 
 precarious in this uncertain world, can be won, if at all, 
 in only one way. Let the individual be patient, for- 
 bearing, sympathetic, kind to his neighbours let the 
 nation practise justice, righteousness, goodwill in its 
 relations with all foreign peoples and all the security 
 that the world can give will thereby be attained. To 
 arm is to raise up arms against you to be suspicious 
 is to generate suspicion to prepare for contingencies 
 is to create those same contingencies. To disarm your- 
 self, however, is to disarm your neighbour to trust is 
 to be trusted to be peaceful is to win peace. " As 
 ye sow, so shall ye reap." And if perchance, by acci-
 
 32 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 dent or crime, peril sweeps down upon you, then, for 
 individual and nation alike, it is always possible to die. 
 No one of us is under any obligation to live. Indeed, 
 it is the crowning belief of the non-resistant that to live 
 by breaking the highest laws of life is infinitely worse 
 than death. 
 
 This lofty assertion of idealism brings us at once to 
 the non-resistant's answer to the whole great question 
 of life itself. Physical survival, so important, as we 
 have seen, to the champion of force, here becomes of in- 
 significance. The passion for self-preservation is his- 
 torically the most primitive, and ethically the lowest, of 
 all vital instincts. Long since has the law of survival, 
 in every system of individual morality, been superseded 
 by the law of sacrifice. Not to live but to love, not 
 to save ourselves but to save others, not to survive at 
 any cost but to die for any cause this is the standard 
 by which we gauge our conduct. Calvary still stands 
 as the noblest symbol of the soul. And what is true of 
 the individual, is true also of the nation. No more 
 here than anywhere else can there be tolerated a double 
 standard of morals. The martyr nation is as sublime, 
 and may be as necessary, as the martyr hero. Jesus's 
 message was to nations as well as to men, when he laid 
 down the laws of blessedness " Blessed are the poor 
 in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven . . . 
 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 
 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the 
 merciful for they shall obtain mercy. . . . Blessed are
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 38 
 
 the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of 
 God." 
 
 VI 
 
 Here, now, is a survey of the whole problem of pacif- 
 ism which is presented to us for discussion. What is 
 outlined in this chapter I propose to amplify at length 
 in the chapters which follow. My purpose is to state 
 the case for pacifism in terms of force versus non-re- 
 sistance. I shall try to say all that can be said for this 
 sublime and much-maligned ideal, as fairly and yet as 
 fully as possible. My mind is by no means closed upon 
 the subject. I am conscious of no over-weening am- 
 bition to force this interpretation of life upon unwilling 
 minds. I certainly am not eager to be dubbed a 
 pacifist or a non-resistant, as either title is a hope- 
 less travesty. In a time, however, when reliance upon 
 the methods and the ideals of brute force has involved 
 the world in the most frightful disaster of history, and 
 men, all unmindful of the lesson, are still urging us to 
 push on faster and farther in the same old way to the 
 same old end, I feel that there is need for a statement, 
 however feeble, of the other side of the case. 
 
 In offering this statement, in the uncompromising 
 form here adopted, I am perfectly well aware of the 
 fact that I am exposing myself to the charge of folly. 
 " You are only wasting your time and strength," is the 
 word which has already come to me, " for it must be as 
 evident to you as to anybody else that there is not one 
 man in a million who takes any stock in the principle of
 
 34 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 non-resistance, and not one chance in a million that 
 this idea will ever be accepted by the majority of men 
 in the future. Why not turn aside from conceptions 
 which, however ideal in themselves, are futile, and do 
 what you can to discover and commend to men those 
 things which may be useful right here and now for ' the 
 healing of the nations ' ? " 
 
 To such a charge as this, I beg to offer two replies. 
 
 The first is the reply dictated by the unchanged and 
 unchangeable idealism of the human heart. It is the 
 reply which Ralph Waldo Emerson gave to this very 
 charge in his non-resistant Lecture on War, when he 
 said, " We never take much account of objections which 
 merely respect the actual state of the world, but which 
 admit the permanent excellence of the project. What 
 is the best must be the true, and what is true must at 
 last prevail over all obstruction and opposition." It is 
 the reply to the same charge, expressed in more general 
 terms, by John Morley, in his Essay on Compromise, 
 where he says, " In the formation of an opinion as to 
 the truth or falsehood or right significance of a proposi- 
 tion, we have nothing to do with the circumstance that 
 it is not practicable. We must have the best opinion, 
 even if we know that this opinion has an infinitely small 
 chance of being speedily or ever accepted by the ma- 
 jority, or by anybody but ourselves." It is the great 
 reply given by Leo Tolstoi, in his Confessions, when he 
 tells about his experience of witnessing the execution of 
 a criminal in Paris. " When I saw the head divided 
 from the body," says the great Russian, " and heard
 
 A STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 35 
 
 the sound with which it fell separately into the box, I 
 understood that no theory of the wisdom of all estab- 
 lished things, nor of progress, could justify such an 
 act ; and that if all the men in the world from the day 
 of creation, by whatever theory, had found this thing 
 necessary, I knew that it was not necessary, that it was 
 a bad thing; and that therefore I must judge of what 
 was right and necessary, not by what men said and did, 
 not by progress, but by what I felt to be true in my 
 heart." 
 
 This may well be considered in itself an all-sufficient 
 reply to any charge of futility against the advocacy of 
 idealism. But there is a second reply, dictated in this 
 particular case by the conditions of the times. The 
 counsel of non-resistance has hitherto fallen upon the 
 ears of a heedless world. But is it certain that this 
 must ever be its fate? For centuries the gospel of force 
 has been practised with unremitting fidelity, and the re- 
 sult is one long uninterrupted record of devastation, 
 bloodshed, misery, and death. It has been estimated 
 that fourteen hundred billions of human beings have 
 been killed in war since history began enough mortals 
 to populate eighteen planets like the earth on the pres- 
 ent basis of population. How much wealth has been 
 destroyed by the same process is probably beyond all 
 bounds of calculation. How many kingdoms have risen 
 only to fall, how many peoples have prospered only to 
 be destroyed, how many civilisations have flourished 
 only to be swept away, by this same fell method of life, 
 the pages of history only too impressively record.
 
 86 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 And now, behold, in this latest period of human prog- 
 ress, a more widely-extended, more destructive, and 
 more cruel war, than mankind has ever known before! 
 Is it not possible, that, under the stress of such an 
 agony of woe as weighs upon men's hearts to-day, their 
 minds may at last be prepared for the hearing, if not 
 the immediate practice, of the gospel of non-resistance? 
 Having found the way of force to be the path " that 
 leadeth to destruction," may not men be ready at least 
 to consider the alternative way of love? Defeated, 
 baffled, wasted, face to face with death, may they not 
 heed the prophet voices, and mayhap try a plan of 
 action which, at the worst, cannot bring a greater tide 
 of woe upon the world than has already come? 
 
 Such at least is my hope, as I prepare this new 
 statement of an ancient gospel. The failure of modern 
 civilisation in our time has sobered us, shocked us, set 
 us to thinking on new lines. We are ready, as per- 
 haps never before, to see a new vision of truth, to try a 
 new way of life. Hence the wisdom of appealing once 
 again to the mighty words of old " Behold, I will 
 save my people by the Lord their God. I will not save 
 them by the bow nor by the sword nor by battle, by 
 horses nor by horsemen. . . . But I will make war to 
 cease. I will break the bow, and cut the spear in sun- 
 der ; and burn the chariots in the fire. ... I will speak 
 peace unto the nations."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE
 
 " Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the po- 
 litical action of the working class, you are fatally driven ... to 
 accept the tactics of the Vaillants and the Henrys." 1 George 
 Plechanoff, in Anarchism and Socialism. 
 
 i August Vaillant was the terrorist who attempted in 1892 to 
 blow up with dynamite the French Chamber of Deputies, fimile 
 Henry was the terrorist who avenged Vaillant by blowing up the 
 caf6 of the Hotel Terminus in Paris.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LOGIC OF FOBCE 
 
 AT first sight it may seem as though the whole weight 
 of the argument on this question of non-resistance 
 were on the side of the opponents of the doctrine. The 
 burden of proof, as it is called, is assuredly on the 
 shoulders of the man who would contend that the 
 problems of life can be met and solved without resort 
 to force of any kind. If there is any presumption in 
 the case at all, it is against him rather than for him. 
 
 A closer examination of the problem, however, is 
 certain, I believe, to upset this original impression. 
 Not the advocate of non-resistance but the advocate of 
 force, is the one who is on the defensive at the start, 
 and the one therefore who is laden with the burden of 
 proving his case. Ask the average man if he believes 
 in the use of force for the settlement of practical diffi- 
 culties, and see how eagerly he will repudiate such an 
 idea. Confront the average man with an outbreak of 
 violence and bloodshed, and see how quickly he will de- 
 nounce it and call for its suppression. A fight be- 
 tween two neighbours, a brawl between gangs of hood- 
 lums in the slums, a beating up of a burglar by a po- 
 liceman, a lynching of a Negro criminal in the South, 
 
 a riot between strikers and strike-breakers, a civil war 
 
 39
 
 40 
 
 in Mexico, an international war in Europe all these 
 episodes of violence are at once denounced by public 
 opinion as wrong on the face of things. There may 
 have been a time when the use of force in such ways as 
 these was regarded as right on general principles, but 
 to-day such use, by either an individual or a nation, 
 must be shown to be justified by very definite and un- 
 usual conditions, if it is not to be condemned as an un- 
 pardonable offence against the social order. 
 
 When we turn to the ideal set forth by the non-re- 
 sistants, however, we find the situation exactly re- 
 versed. The great majority of persons agree, with- 
 out argument of any kind, that the works of gentleness, 
 mercy, goodwill, are wholly beneficent. Nobody seeks 
 justification, by appeal to special circumstances and 
 conditions, for the use of reason in the settlement of 
 difficulties, and the employment of love in the allaying 
 of violence. These things justify themselves. They 
 need no explanation and call for no defence. To love 
 one's neighbour, to serve him in his need, to forgive him 
 in his wrath, to pity him in his sin, is the natural, the 
 normal, the human way of living. To hate, despise, 
 injure, kill one's neighbour, is the unnatural, abnormal, 
 inhuman way of living. Significant is it to note that, 
 when St. Paul names " the fruit of the spirit," which 
 is " love, j oy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, good- 
 ness, faith, meekness, temperance," in contrast with 
 " the works of the flesh," which are " adultery . . . 
 idolatry . . . hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, 
 strife, seditions, envy ings, murders . . . and such
 
 41 
 
 like," he takes particular pains to point out that 
 against the former " there is no law." By which he 
 very plainly means to infer that the works of the flesh 
 are under condemnation unless acquitted by special 
 trial of law, whereas the fruits of the spirit stand of 
 themselves, " honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good re- 
 port." 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the burden of proof in 
 this contention is upon those who would use force 
 under any circumstances and not upon those who 
 would try, under all circumstances, to use the gentler 
 methods of sweet reasonableness and goodwill. Force, 
 in other words, is a principle so dangerous in operation 
 and so destructive in result that men have long since 
 come to agree together that its employment must be re- 
 stricted within the narrowest possible limitations. It 
 is like poison, which can be used only by physicians for 
 certain very specific medicinal purposes. It is like 
 fire-arms which can be carried only by persons who 
 have been duly licensed by the city for special reasons. 
 It is like dynamite, which can be transported through 
 the streets only in certain quantities, at certain times, 
 in certain ways, and for certain ends. Anybody who 
 desires to use poison, carry fire-arms, or handle dyna- 
 mite is at once on the defensive. He must show cause 
 for his desire, and justify this cause beyond all man- 
 ner of doubt, before he can be permitted to proceed. 
 And so also with the use of force ! This is universally 
 regarded as so perilous in all cases, and so wrong in 
 most cases, that it is forbidden in general terms both
 
 42 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 by the statutes of the state and the precepts of re- 
 ligion. "Against such there is (the) law!" It is 
 commonly agreed that there may very likely appear 
 from time to time certain particular conditions, such 
 as the burglary of a house or the invasion of a nation, 
 which make resort to force unavoidable, and the law 
 therefore of none effect. But the presumption is al- 
 ways against such conditions ; and they must be estab- 
 lished beyond question before a verdict of acquittal 
 can be rendered. 
 
 The question as to whether the use of force can ever 
 be regarded as unavoidable and as a consequence justi- 
 fiable, raises at once, of course, the whole issue of non- 
 resistance, and will therefore be discussed at great 
 length as our argument proceeds. Assuming for the 
 moment that there may exist conditions which seem to 
 make necessary the lifting of the ban against physical 
 violence, I desire at this point to ask if such violence, 
 once let loose, can be kept within the limits of these 
 conditions? Granting, for the sake of argument, that 
 there may be a certain restricted area within which 
 force may justifiably be employed, I want to inquire if 
 such force, when liberated in this area, can by any pos- 
 sibility be prevented from leaping the barriers imposed, 
 and working unforeseeable havoc in remoter areas 
 where it does not belong and where it should never be 
 allowed to enter? Do we realise, in other words, how 
 perilous the use of force really is, and how easily, there- 
 fore, even under the most carefully guarded conditions, 
 it may sweep beyond control?
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 43 
 
 An experience of my boyhood, which remains as 
 vividly impressed upon my mind to-day as though it 
 took place yesterday, may be offered here, perhaps, as 
 an interpretation in parable form of the idea which I 
 am trying to suggest. One day, early in the spring of 
 my ninth or tenth year, I was playing with some lads 
 of my acquaintance in an open field, which was covered 
 by a heavy growth of long, dry grass. One of us sug- 
 gested, in a moment of idleness, that it would be " great 
 fun " to set fire to the stubble, and have a conflagra- 
 tion. How it happened that such heedless youngsters 
 had any thought of danger in such a proceeding I can- 
 not imagine, but as a matter of history it is necessary 
 to record that some one of us suggested that such a 
 fire might get away from us and that it would be well 
 therefore to make some endeavour to keep our blaze 
 within bounds. In the most serious way in the world, 
 therefore, we boys set vigorously to work with spades, 
 shovels, sticks and other implements to dig a series of 
 trenches, which should enclose in a rough square some 
 two or three hundred square feet of ground. Here, 
 now, was our prairie, which was to be devoured in 
 flames, and here were our rivers which were to stop the 
 blaze. Nothing could be better, and in a few moments 
 a match was lit and the dry grass was burning. But 
 alas ! how little we understood the peril of fire, and the 
 folly of expecting to keep it within the bounds which 
 we had so carefully imposed ! For the grass was long 
 and dry, the trenches were narrow and poorly dug, a 
 good breeze was blowing from the east and before we
 
 44 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 could so much as snatch a coat to beat out the flames, 
 the blaze was sweeping on through the field, straight 
 toward a large wooden stable, filled with horses, and a 
 little group of frame houses just beyond. Frightened 
 boys, shouts, screams, running men, buckets of water, 
 an alarm of fire, engines, firemen, hose - these were 
 the rapid succession of events in our playground. And 
 to this day, I imagine, there are a dozen or more grown 
 men who cherish, as I do, the unextinguishable griev- 
 ance against the world, that the careful and laborious 
 endeavours which these boys had made to keep their 
 prairie fire within bounds were never praised or even 
 acknowledged ! 
 
 Here, now, as I have said, is a kind of parable on the 
 unforeseen results of appeal to arms on any question. 
 There is a power in physical force, as in fire, which, 
 when once liberated, sweeps away all the restrictions 
 which may be raised against it. There is a logic in 
 force, a kind of fatalism, if you will, which makes the 
 descent into Avernus not only easy, but inevitable. 
 Once agree that the use of force is necessary and there- 
 fore can be justified under certain conditions, and lo, 
 before you realise it, you are moving steadily on from 
 step to step, from stage to stage, and at last are justi- 
 fying the use of force under all conditions. Not non- 
 resistance, as is so commonly asserted, but force, how- 
 ever narrowly restricted, is the straight road to an- 
 archy !
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 45 
 
 In order to understand just what this logic of force 
 really means, it will be necessary to consider, first of 
 all, what are the special conditions which are generally 
 accepted to-day as justifying the use of force. These 
 conditions, when all extraneous and unwarranted ex- 
 cuses for violence are eliminated, are two in number. 
 
 The first condition is laid down with great clearness 
 in a statement by Prof. Rauschenbusch in his remark- 
 able book entitled Christianising Hie Social Order. 
 Discussing the industrial troubles of our time, and es- 
 pecially the violence which is constantly breaking out 
 in the strife between capital and labour, Prof. Raus- 
 chenbusch asserts, " I do not hold that the use of force 
 against oppression can always be condemned as wrong. 
 The test of brute strength is the ultima ratio when all 
 higher arguments have proved vain. The great Roman 
 historian, Livy, expressed the general conviction, 
 ' War is just for those for whom it is necessary, and 
 arms are holy for those to whom no hope is left except 
 in arms.' ' 
 
 A study of this defence of force, as a weapon of 
 progress, shows at once that it involves two definite 
 propositions. In the first place, it is declared that 
 force is justified when men are suffering from oppres- 
 sion. This oppression may be oppression of the body, 
 as in the case of chattel slavery. It may be oppression 
 of the mind, as in the case of the denial of free 
 thought and free speech. It may be oppression of the
 
 46 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 soul, as in the case of religious persecution. It may 
 be general social oppression, as in the case of political 
 and military tyranny. But whatever the particular 
 kind of oppression, it is equally intolerable ; and wher- 
 ever it is found to exist, all men, especially those suf- 
 fering from its burdens, are justified in using force to 
 destroy it. It is this doctrine, is it not, which is laid 
 down in the American Declaration of Independence? 
 Here it is announced, in immortal phrase, that all men 
 are entitled to " certain inalienable rights," that among 
 these are " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," 
 and that when these are denied to, or alienated from, 
 men, these men are justified in taking up arms on be- 
 half of freedom. " Prudence will dictate," says the 
 Declaration, " that governments long established 
 should not be changed for light causes and accord- 
 ingly all experience hath shown that mankind is more 
 disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to 
 right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they 
 are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and 
 usurpations evinces a design to reduce them under ab- 
 solute despotism, it is their right to throw off such 
 government and provide new guards for their future 
 security." 
 
 But there is a second proposition laid down in Prof. 
 Rauschenbusch's statement. Not only must a state of 
 oppression be known to exist, if force is to be justly 
 used, but all other ways and means of securing libera- 
 tion must be tried before resort is made to arms. Men 
 suffering under oppression must appeal to their op-
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 47 
 
 pressors for emancipation ; they must define their 
 grievances and specify their desires ; they must petition, 
 protest, agitate; they must plead, persuade, pray. 
 But when they have done everything that can be done 
 when their petitions have been denied, their prayers 
 flouted, and their agitations suppressed when they 
 have endured, suffered and died to no effect then 
 at last may they appeal to the arbitrament of arms. 
 " Patience, . . . smiling at grief " is a noble monu- 
 ment " for the dead, but it is an impossible model for 
 the living. If men would live in joy and not die in 
 shame, they must again and again strike their tyrants 
 to the dust with that one weapon of revolt which these 
 tyrants can alone understand. " When all higher argu- 
 ments have proved vain," then may " the test of brute 
 strength " take its rightful place as " the ultima ratio." 
 By such doctrine have the liberties of the race been 
 won ; by such doctrine are these liberties now main- 
 tained. 
 
 An illustration of this apparent justification of force 
 is seen in the American Revolution, which reveals with 
 perfect clearness both the propositions here involved. 
 There can be no question, of course, as to the condi- 
 tions of oppression which existed in the thirteen col- 
 onies in 1775. The Declaration of Independence makes 
 no less than twenty-seven specifications of " injuries, 
 usurpations and oppressions," as they are termed. 
 For eight years, from the close of the French and In- 
 dian Wars to the outbreak of the Revolution itself, the 
 American colonists suffered under the tyrannical ex-
 
 4-8 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 actions of the government of George III, and here in 
 the Declaration do we find a dictated statement of just 
 what these exactions were. Surely, if ever there was a 
 condition of intolerable political oppression, it was 
 here. 
 
 And the second condition of Prof. Rauschenbusch's 
 defence of force is equally well illustrated by the Revo- 
 lution. Not only did oppression exist, but every rea- 
 sonable endeavor had been tried by the colonists to se- 
 cure release from these oppressions. They had sent 
 petitions to the Commons ; they had despatched appeals 
 to the sovereign and his ministers ; they had sent am- 
 bassadors to speak on their behalf on English soil. 
 And it was only when petitions had been refused, their 
 appeals ignored, and their embassies dismissed from the 
 royal throne, that the colonists took up arms for inde- 
 pendence. Patrick Henry stated the whole case, in his 
 oration before the Virginia House of Burgesses, on 
 March 23, 1775 " Let us not deceive ourselves 
 longer," he said. " We have done everything that 
 could be done to avert the storm which is now coming 
 on. We have petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we 
 have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before 
 the throne. Our petitions have been slighted; our re- 
 monstrances have produced additional violence and in- 
 sult ; our supplications have been disregarded ; and we 
 have been spurned in contempt from the foot of the 
 throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the 
 fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no 
 longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, we
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 49 
 
 must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight. An appeal 
 to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us." 
 
 The soundness of this whole contention, especially as 
 embodied in the American Revolution, seemed to me in- 
 contestable until about two years ago, when I chanced, 
 one fateful evening, in Carnegie Hall, to hear a notable 
 address by Mrs. Pankhurst. In the opening passages 
 of her speech, this famous leader of the English Mili- 
 tants professed the most nai've amazement that any true 
 American should be opposed to the methods which she 
 and her associates were practising on behalf of the 
 woman suffrage movement in England. " Why," she 
 said, " citizens of this country, which had its birth in 
 violent revolution, come to us every day and deprecate 
 the revolution in which I am engaged in my country. I 
 have heard opposition expressed in Newport, where in 
 the year 1774 the patriots of America destroyed the 
 homes of two men who were officers of the crown under 
 the Stamp Act. I have met with doubts and question- 
 ings in Providence, where in 1775 the British schooner, 
 Gaspee, was burned to the water's edge by the outraged 
 colonists. I have even encountered sceptics in Boston, 
 where, before the Revolution, the house of Andrew 
 Oliver, a stamp officer, was burned by a rioting mob, the 
 contents of the residence of Chief Justice Hutchinson 
 were seized and destroyed, and three hundred and forty 
 chests of tea, belonging to British merchants who were 
 guiltless of any offence against America, were thrown 
 into the sea." 
 
 The logic of Mrs. Pankhurst's speech on this occasion
 
 50 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 troubled me, but did not convince me. Recognition 
 that her parallel was just came only with the reading of 
 Mrs. Pankhurst's more detailed defence of her policy, 
 in the book which she published some months ago under 
 the title of My Own Story. Here, in the course of a 
 full account of the operations of the Militants from 
 their more or less innocent beginnings to their sudden 
 ending on the occasion of the European cataclysm, do 
 we find a two-fold justification of the movement. 
 
 In the first place, says Mrs. Pankhurst, the women of 
 England are the victims of outrageous and intolerable 
 oppression. The democracy of England is a democ- 
 racy for men, and not for women. In spite of political 
 and social liberties such as the world has seen in no 
 previous period of history, more than one half of the 
 population of the Kingdom suffer under disabilities of 
 the most serious description. Women are denied the 
 right of suffrage. They are denied, under many cir- 
 cumstances, the control of their property. In the 
 marital relation, they are denied the possession of their 
 bodies. In escape from the marital relation, they are 
 denied equal privileges of divorce with their husbands. 
 In the field of industry, they are forced to live and work 
 under intolerable conditions, from which there is no re- 
 lease save through the charity of men. Sentence by 
 sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, Mrs. 
 Pankhurst specifies their disabilities, as the Declaration 
 of Independence specifies the disabilities of the American 
 colonists under British rule. From such iniquities, or 
 others no worse, she points out that men have long since
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 51 
 
 delivered themselves, by argument when possible, by 
 force when necessary. Women, now corne at last to 
 self-consciousness, are proceeding to " profit by their 
 example " ! 
 
 Having established, as she believes, that the women of 
 England are oppressed, Mrs. Pankhurst offers a second 
 justification for her militant movement namely, that 
 the women have tried every other method of redress in 
 vain, and are now resorting to violence only as a last 
 resort. For more than a generation, she asserts, Eng- 
 lish women have pointed out their disabilities and peti- 
 tioned for redress. For twenty years they have had a 
 majority of the members of the House of Commons 
 ready to vote in favour of enfranchisement, and the min- 
 isters of both parties have refused to introduce a bill. 
 Argument, organisation, agitation, have all been in vain. 
 Only open war is left, and this war, says Mrs. Pank- 
 hurst, we have now declared. And then she proceeds to 
 quote the very speech of Patrick Henry to which I have 
 referred above, and offer this as the final and perfect 
 justification of all that she and her associates have done 
 in their campaign of violence. " I ask my readers," 
 says this great leader, " to put themselves in the place 
 of those women who for years have given their lives un- 
 stintingly to the work of securing political freedom for 
 women. I ask you to consider that we had used, in our 
 agitation, only peaceful means until we saw clearly that 
 peaceful means were absolutely of no avail. Now we 
 lighted the torch, and we did it with the absolute convic- 
 tion that no other course was open to us. We had
 
 52 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tried every other measure, and failed." Then, quoting 
 the speech of Henry, she continues, " If it is right for 
 men to fight for freedom, then it is right for women to 
 fight for freedom and the freedom of the children they 
 bear. On this declaration of faith the militant women 
 of England rest their case." 
 
 Here, now, in this perfect parallel between the 
 motives behind the American Revolution and those be- 
 hind the English Militant Suffrage movement, do we 
 have a striking illustration of what I have called the 
 logic of force. Once admit that force can be used to 
 secure deliverance from oppression under certain very 
 definite and perhaps narrow conditions, and instantly 
 these conditions are extended to vindicate violence of the 
 most outrageous description. Once agree that one man 
 was justified in taking up arms against tyranny, and 
 sooner or later another man, under what seem to be very 
 different circumstances, will declare himself a victim of 
 tyranny and forthwith proceed to draw the sword and 
 kindle the torch. For oppression, we must remember, is 
 a condition existing not in the outer world of affairs but 
 in the inner world of the mind. It is not the fact but 
 the thought about the fact that is really important. 
 Millions of men have lived in chains and fetters all their 
 days, and been conscious of no outrage whatsoever. 
 Other millions have enjoyed a fair degree of liberty, 
 perhaps, but have seen visions and dreamed dreams, 
 which have borne their souls into new worlds of the 
 spirit, and thus made their comparative freedom an in- 
 tolerable bondage. Oppression, in other words, is at
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 53 
 
 bottom, a psychological and not a sociological phenom- 
 enon. A man is enslaved when he thinks he is enslaved ; 
 a man is free when he thinks he is free. You and I be- 
 lieve that the women of England are victims of no very 
 great degree of injustice; but so undoubtedly thought 
 Lord North and his ministers of the rebelling American 
 colonists in the great days of the Revolution. What 
 you think, and I think, about the conditions of the life 
 of a certain man or group of men, after all, docs not 
 greatly matter. The one thing that is vitally important 
 is what the man himself, or the group of men, think 
 about this condition. If they regard this condition as 
 one of oppression, find that the world will not accept 
 their interpretation or accede to their appeals for re- 
 dress of grievances, and then learn from their forebears, 
 as Mrs. Pankhurst learned from Patrick Henry, that 
 force under these circumstances is justifiable what is 
 to restrain them from taking action? Who is to judge, 
 not to-morrow, or next year, or next century, but here 
 and now to-day, as to whether violence is right ? Where 
 is there any judge in such cases but the parties them- 
 selves concerned? What does Livy's declaration that 
 " war is just for those for whom it is necessary," mean, 
 if not " that war is just for those " who find it neces- 
 sary, or think it necessary, in their own particular case? 
 And if, as this same historian tells us, " arms are holy 
 for those to whom no hope is left except. in arms," why 
 are they not holy for all who have tried every hope 
 the}' know, and find nothing left them but rebellion or 
 despair ?
 
 54 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 The logic of force, so far as this defence of its em- 
 ployment is concerned at least, is plainly nothing short 
 of universal anarchy. Long ago was it discovered in 
 England that the logic of Mrs. Pankhurst's movement 
 was that every man or woman in the Kingdom who had 
 a grievance against the Cabinet, should forthwith pro- 
 ceed to break windows, destroy mail, burn houses, as- 
 sault ministers, and precipitate riots. It is time now 
 that we saw that this is the logic not only of Militancy 
 but of the American Revolution, and of every other out- 
 break of violence that the world has ever seen. Justify 
 the employment of force against oppression anywhere, 
 and you justify it everywhere. Justify it against real 
 oppression, and inevitably you justify it against imag- 
 ingary oppression. Justify it against oppression which 
 can be righted apparently in no other way, and you jus- 
 tify it against oppression which can be righted easily in 
 many other ways. Justify the American Revolution, 
 and you justify the Militants who break windows, the 
 redskins who go upon the war-path, the anarchists who 
 shoot kings and presidents, the McNamaras who blow 
 up bridges and newspaper offices. Nay, you not only 
 justify violence yesterday, but you encourage new vio- 
 lence to-day or to-morrow. If " the test of brute 
 strength is the ultima ratio when all higher arguments 
 have proved vain," why should not the Negroes of the 
 South, who are oppressed by a thousand disabilities and 
 are denied resort to any of the saving outlets of democ- 
 racy, prepare a revolution ; why should not the millions 
 of men and women, who are exploited in mines, factories,
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 55 
 
 and sweatshops and have cried in vain these many years 
 for liberation, take up arms and smite the lords who 
 hold them captive ; why should not the unemployed, who 
 walk our city streets by night in hunger and nakedness, 
 and lift their idle hands by day for work which never 
 comes, break into our churches, houses, and storehouses, 
 and use them for their own? It is easy to praise revolt 
 that succeeds, but what about revolt that fails? It is 
 easy to justify the use of force which has brought 
 benefits to men, but what about the use of force which 
 has brought calamity? It is easy to commend the vio- 
 lence sanctified by a century or two of glorious tradi- 
 tion, but what about the violence which breaks, raw and 
 crude and bloody, upon your own defenceless head 
 to-day? Is not force, after all, force, as logic is logic? 
 If we justify it in one place and at one time, must we 
 not justify it in all places and at all times? If condi- 
 tions are granted once at the behest of one group of 
 men, why must they not be granted again at the behest 
 of another group of men? Our trenches are deep, but 
 is it well, after all, to light the fire? 
 
 in 
 
 But there is a second condition under which the use of 
 force has been justified by men in the past and is still 
 justified to-day. I refer to the familiar plea of self- 
 defence. We may always have resort to force with per- 
 fect propriety, so it is argued, when our property, life, 
 and honour, or the property, life, and honour of those 
 committed to our care, are in peril of injury or destruc-
 
 56 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tion. To fight with any weapon that may be handy in 
 defence of your own is justifiable from every point of 
 view. 
 
 In seeking an illustration of this second principle, 
 which shall be as unimpeachable as that of the American 
 Revolution under our first principle, I find myself think- 
 ing of the instance of Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of 
 Rome, in the closing years of the second century of the 
 Christian era. This great man is without question 
 " the noblest Roman of them all." Nay, more than this, 
 he is safely to be numbered among the few almost per- 
 fect characters of history. With the single exception 
 of Jesus and perhaps Socrates, it is probable that this 
 wise ruler and saintly man holds a place second to none 
 in the affection and reverence of humanity. " Marcus 
 Aurelius," says Mr. Lecky, in his History of European 
 Morals, " was the purest and gentlest spirit of all the 
 pagan world, the last and most perfect representative of 
 Roman Stoicism as nearly a perfectly virtuous man 
 as has ever appeared upon our world." 
 
 Now if we turn from the observation of the per- 
 sonality and character of Aurelius to a study of the 
 events of his career as Emperor of Rome, we discover 
 two very remarkable things. In the first place, we find 
 that this man, who was all his life a lover of peace and 
 a hater of war, and who dreamed as few men have ever 
 dreamed of the coming of a day when peace would 
 everywhere be established among men, spent the larger 
 part of his reign in waging some of the bloodiest wars 
 in all the history of the Empire. During fourteen of
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 51 
 
 the nineteen years that he held the Roman sceptre, Mar- 
 cus Aurelius wore the armour of a Roman soldier, lived 
 in the camp of the Roman legionaries, and led his troops 
 in battle and campaign against the barbarians of Ger- 
 many, Asia, and the country north and east of the 
 Danube River. We wonder how this extraordinary fact 
 could for a moment be possible how this peace-loving 
 author of the Meditations could be one of the most per- 
 sistent, courageous, and at times ruthless warriors that 
 Rome produced. And when we turn to the records to 
 find an explanation, we discover that this Stoic philoso- 
 pher was driven to take up arms in order to defend the 
 Empire committed to his care from hostile incursions 
 from across its borders. For it was in the reign of his 
 father, Antoninus Pius, who was second only to his illus- 
 trious son in the virtue of his life, the exaltation of his 
 thought, and the wisdom of his rule, that there began 
 those threatening invasions of the barbaric hosts from 
 the territories beyond the Rhine, the Danube, and the 
 Euphrates, which finally overthrew the Empire which 
 had subdued the world. By the time that Marcus 
 Aurelius had come to the throne, these invasions had be- 
 come persistent and dangerous. Hurled back beyond 
 the frontiers at one place, they promptly broke out at 
 another. And thus for fourteen of his nineteen years 
 as Emperor, as I have said, this brave and patient 
 ruler, this lover of peace and dreamer of dreams, kept 
 himself at the head of his armies. And so far as I have 
 been able to discover, all historians unite in praising 
 Aurelius for fighting this long succession of wars, and
 
 58 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 in declaring that through his great feats of arms, the 
 doom of Rome was postponed for at least one hundred 
 and fifty years. 
 
 Here, now, is an excellent example of what is meant 
 by the use of force for purposes of defence. Aurelius 
 never took up arms as a conqueror. In all his years of 
 fighting, he added not a single square mile to the terri- 
 tory over which he held domain. Had the Empire not 
 been invaded, his nineteen years of rule would have been 
 years of uninterrupted tranquillity. But when the in- 
 cursions came from over the frontiers east, north, and 
 west, there was nothing for him to do but act. Just 
 because he was the best of men as well as the most faith- 
 ful of rulers, he drew the sword and defended by the 
 sword the Empire which had been committed to his hand. 
 
 But there is a second feature of Marcus Aurelius's 
 reign which is even more remarkable than the first. I 
 refer not only to the fact that this lover of peace was a 
 successful warrior, but to the still more paradoxical fact 
 that this man, whose virtue is surpassed only by that of 
 Jesus and whose love for humanity constitutes one of 
 the most cherished memories of the race, proved himself 
 to be, with the possible exception of Diocletian, the most 
 persistent and ruthless persecutor of Christianity that 
 Rome ever produced. John Stuart Mill declares, in his 
 Essay on Liberty, that the persecution of the Christians 
 by a man like Marcus Aurelius is " one of the most 
 tragical facts in the history of the world." Terrible 
 beyond words were the deeds which were done under the 
 sign and seal of this gentle, kindly, and wholly right-
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE. 50 
 
 minded monarch. The persecutions in Smyrna, which 
 " far exceeded in atrocity," says Lecky, " any that 
 Christianity had endured since Nero," were authorised 
 at this time. The fearful story of the persecutions in 
 Lyons, which Lecky describes as " one of the most atro- 
 cious in the whole compass of ecclesiastical history," is 
 a part of the record of his reign. Polycarp and Justin 
 Martyr, two of the noblest of the church fathers, fell 
 victims to the sword of this beneficent Emperor. Men 
 and women burned to death, children slaughtered like 
 sheep, old men placed in torture, maidens outraged by 
 ferocious soldiery these were the horrors committed 
 at the direction and under the authority of him whose 
 precepts have been the guide of life and whose life the 
 type of sainthood, for seventeen hundred years. Search 
 the pages of history fnom end to end and no stranger 
 anomaly than this can anywhere be found. 
 
 Attempts to explain this anomaly have of course been 
 many. It is impossible, of course, to attribute such 
 deeds to any natural ferocity in Marcus Aurelius's char- 
 acter, for every circumstance sustains the theory that 
 he was gentle, pure, and generous beyond all previous 
 example. Equally impossible is it to attribute the per- 
 secutions to any occasional or momentary outbreak of 
 religious fanaticism, for the Meditations are an im- 
 mortal witness to the fact that he was among the calmest 
 and most broad-minded of men, absolutely tolerant of 
 all forms of religion, Christianity excepted. Neither is 
 it possible to believe that Marcus Aurelius cherished any 
 particular hatred for Christians as Christians. In the
 
 60 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 first place, he was most decidedly a man immune to per- 
 sonal hatreds of any kind; and in the second place, the 
 Meditations give the clearest indications that he knew 
 nothing about the Christians, and had no interest in 
 their teachings or practices. The only explanation of 
 the phenomenon which has ever found acceptance by 
 historians is that laid down in most satisfactory form in 
 the Encyclopedia Britannica. " The Christians," says 
 the writer of the article on Aurelius, " had assumed a 
 much bolder attitude than they had hitherto done. Not 
 content with bare toleration in the Empire, they de- 
 clared war against all heathen rites, and, at least in- 
 directly, against the government which permitted them 
 to exist. In the eyes of Marcus Aurelius they were foes 
 of that social order which he considered the first of a 
 citizen's duties to maintain ; although the most amiable 
 of men and of rulers, he considered it his duty to sanc- 
 tion measures for the extermination of such wretches." 
 In this statement we have what may be regarded as a 
 true explanation of the extraordinary paradox of 
 Aurelius's persecutions. And it is an explanation which 
 preserves unimpaired the flawless character of the man, 
 even if it fails to justify the acts which he committed. 
 Exactly the same motive, in other words, which led 
 Marcus Aurelius, the sincere lover of peace, to wage 
 relentless war against the barbarians across the fron- 
 tier, led this same Marcus Aurelius, the sincere lover of 
 his kind, to conduct persecutions of terrible ferocity 
 against the Christians within the realm. The Emperor
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 61 
 
 lifted the sword in the one case on exactly the same 
 principle that he lifted it in the other. In both cases, 
 he was engaged in the splendid business of protecting his 
 Empire against wanton and threatening attacks of its 
 enemies. In both cases, he was appealing to arms on 
 the high ground of self-defence. And I have no doubt 
 that, if he had been made to choose between destroying 
 the enemies beyond the borders and the enemies within 
 the Christian church, he would have unhesitatingly 
 selected the latter, as by all means the more dangerous 
 of the two. 
 
 Here, now, in the instance of so radiantly beautiful a 
 character as that of Marcus Aurelius, do we find a per- 
 fect illustration of the tragic lengths to which the logic 
 of force will conduct us if once we yield to the appeal 
 of self-defence. Any form of violence can be justified 
 on this ground. Pope Alexander VI was justified in all 
 that he did against the Florentine priest, Savonarola, 
 for the latter had declared war upon the church and was 
 doing all he could to weaken and discredit it. The 
 citizens of Athens were justified in condemning Socrates 
 to drink the hemlock, for this philosopher was the un- 
 relenting foe of the institutions that these citizens held 
 dear. Caiaphas was justified in nailing Jesus to the 
 cross of Calvary, for the Nazarene had threatened more 
 than once to destroy Jerusalem and overthrow the 
 temple. George III was justified in making war upon 
 America, in defence of the integrity of his Kingdom. 
 The South was justified in firing upon Sumter, in de-
 
 62 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 fence of slavery. Germany was justified in marching 
 through Belgium and France, in defence of the liberties 
 of the Empire. Go through all the history of the world 
 study all the persecutions, outrages, slaughters, 
 martyrdoms, wars search out the motives that de- 
 termined these tragedies of blood and iron. And I ven- 
 ! ture to prophesy that, in every case, it will be found 
 that the injury was wrought because some man, or insti- 
 tution, or country, felt it necessary to defend something 
 which was assailed and in danger therefore of destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 What indeed is defence, after all, but aggression from 
 the other point of view? The wars of Marcus Aurelius 
 were all of them defensive wars, as we have seen. But 
 again and again he invaded the countries of his foes, 
 ravaged their fields, burned their cities, and slaughtered 
 their inhabitants, on the perfectly sound military prin- 
 ciple that offensive action of this kind was the best 
 means of preserving the frontiers of the Empire intact. 
 The persecutions of Marcus Aurelius were all of them in 
 defence of the government against the attacks of the 
 Christian, as we have also seen. But the officers of the 
 Empire hunted out the Christians in their homes and 
 churches, drove them from street to street and city to 
 city, and put them to the sword or the torch wherever 
 found. Efficient defence always means efficient assault. 
 It is ridiculous, said a distinguished American states- 
 man in my hearing not long ago, to talk about building 
 up a navy for coast defence. There is no such thing, 
 he continued, as a coast defence. The only navy worth
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 63 
 
 anything is a navy which is ready to attack the enemy 
 upon any one of the seven seas and put his ship and men 
 altogether out of business. 
 
 The present war in Europe is the supreme example of 
 this great truth. Never in any previous war of history 
 has fighting been so persistently aggressive. And yet 
 every one of the nations involved, from Germany on the 
 one hand to Montenegro on the other hand, is fighting 
 on the defence. Austria precipitated the whole conflict 
 in order that she might defend herself against Serbia 
 and in the process has nearly wiped Serbia from the map 
 of Europe. Russia mobilised her troops and entered 
 upon the war in order to defend the interests of the Slav 
 against Austria and for months after the fight began 
 her troops were fighting in Galicia and Bukowina. 
 Germany took up arms against Russia and her 
 armies have destroyed Belgium, conquered northern 
 France, and are far advanced in Russian Poland. Of- 
 fence, immediate and terrible, as Germany is teaching 
 the world with awful impressiveness, is the only sure 
 defence. To hit the first blow, and hit so hard that the 
 enemy is forthwith put out of action, is the whole pro- 
 gramme of protective battle. From the standpoint of 
 force, Germany was perfectly right to sweep Belgium, 
 and invade France and Poland, in order to defend her- 
 self against Russia. This was defence in the best sense 
 of the word it was defence which really defended ! 
 
 To resort to force, therefore, from motives of self- 
 defence is as perilous as to resort to force from motives 
 of liberation. In this case as in the other the fire leaps
 
 64 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 the trenches and kindles the conflagration. It is doubt- 
 ful if defence, even when successfully kept within 
 bounds, is ever itself defensible. Nothing hinders 
 progress more lamentably than the defence of the things 
 which ought not to be defended. There is no falsehood 
 so gross, no superstition so hideous, no prejudice so 
 base, no institution so hoary and decayed, that millions 
 will not rush to its defence and wildly take up arms on 
 its behalf. If a thing cannot be its own defence, on the 
 ground of reason and beneficence, but must appeal to 
 arms that it may live, then it is time, high time, that it 
 should die. The sword is the weapon of death, wielded 
 by death to do the work of death. For this reason, if 
 for no other, is it never the friend of life, and never 
 therefore to be safely lifted to do life's work. 
 
 IV 
 
 Such is the logic of force ! Justify violence on either 
 of the two grounds which I have specified, and immedi- 
 ately you kindle the flame which devours the world. Is 
 it right to use force as the ultima ratio in the battle 
 against oppression? then may anybody take up arms 
 who thinks himself to be oppressed and helpless other- 
 wise to gain freedom ! Is it right to use force in self- 
 defence ? then may any man, nation or religion, sweep 
 the world with ravage that security may be assured by 
 world dominion. The logic of force is in the one case 
 anarchy, and in the other case, murder, persecution, and 
 universal war. It is the old lesson of violence breeding 
 violence, hate breeding hate, war breeding war. The
 
 THE LOGIC OF FORCE 65 
 
 present situation is the perfect illustration a world 
 founded upon force as the ultimate principle of life, 
 tumbling to ruin before the assaults of the weapons it- 
 self has builded for liberation and defence ! 
 
 A few months ago, shortly after the outbreak of the 
 Great War, there died a man who was ranked during his 
 life as one of the supreme intellectual leaders of his time, 
 and who had a larger influence, perhaps, in the move- 
 ment for great armaments of the last twenty or thirty 
 years than any other one person. I refer to Admiral 
 Mahan, the discoverer, or creator, of the modern theory 
 of sea-power. A few weeks after his death, there ap- 
 peared in one of our great religious journals, a tribute 
 written by a friend who had known Mahan intimately 
 through many years, and had shared, even to the last 
 moments of his life, his innermost thoughts. And this 
 is what he said "Admiral Mahan, though by profes- 
 sion a man of war, was at heart a man of peace. He 
 advocated preparedness for war and readiness to strike, 
 only as the best means he was yet aware of, to further 
 peace in the end. But now it appears that . . . 
 in extolling England's sea-power, Mahan had been 
 spurring on the present autocracies of Europe to use 
 his lessons against England and all that the Anglo- 
 Saxon mind stands for in the world. Here was an un- 
 expectedly logical application of his thesis and we 
 need not be surprised to learn that it gave him pause."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE
 
 " Force is no remedy." John Bright, in Speech on the Irish 
 Troubles (1880).
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 
 
 THE danger that is involved in the use of violence for 
 purposes however closely restricted, must now be clear. 
 Once liberate force, under any conditions, and you set 
 in motion consequences which are beyond all calculation 
 and control. The doctrine of force, however hedged 
 about with qualifications, leads straight in the end to 
 the anarchic principle that force may be freely used by 
 anybody who has an end to gain or an interest to guard. 
 The logic of force, in the last analysis, is nothing more 
 nor less than the definite establishment of the barbaric 
 faith that strength may be synonymous with good. We 
 are returned, in other words, to the ancient maxim, 
 Might makes Right ! 
 
 Not yet, however, have we demonstrated that the use 
 of force should be dispensed with altogether. For the 
 fact that a certain weapon or agent is dangerous is no 
 conclusive argument for its abolition. Nothing is more 
 terrible in its possibilities, for example, than fire, as the 
 parable in the last chapter indicated with great clear- 
 ness. But nobody would argue, on the basis of this 
 parable, that man should try to live without making use 
 
 of this essential element. Dangerous as it is, fire is still 
 
 69
 
 70 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 indispensable to life. Its discovery undoubtedly marks 
 the beginning of civilisation, and its progressive utilisa- 
 tion in processes of heating, lighting, transportation, 
 and manufacture, the development of civilisation. Its 
 dangers are admitted ; but these imply not abandonment 
 but control. 
 
 So also with dynamite, lyddite, and other instantane- 
 ous explosives. Nothing more perilous is known to 
 man than these terrifying agencies of destruction. And 
 yet they are manufactured in vast quantities in every 
 land, transported regularly on lines of public travel, 
 stored in great centres of population, and used as com- 
 monly in certain industrial operations as sand or cement. 
 These explosives, in other words, are necessary agencies 
 of social life. They accomplish certain things which 
 cannot be accomplished in any other way. Therefore is 
 their use, under certain rigid restrictions of inspection 
 and precaution, not only permitted but encouraged. 
 
 Poisons of various kinds furnish another illustration 
 of exactly the same kind. Only a few months ago, for 
 example, recurring deaths from the accidental use of 
 bichloride of mercury started a vigorous agitation 
 against this particular drug. Great stress was laid 
 upon its perils ; but nobody, so far as I know, advocated 
 its out-and-out suppression. Like all poisons, it was 
 fatal to human life, but like all poisons also, it fulfilled 
 indispensably certain needs. Therefore was it argued 
 that its use should be not prohibited but regulated. 
 And laws restricting its sale to certain licensed agencies, 
 its use to certain authorised persons, and its manufac-
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 71 
 
 tured form to tablets of a certain shape and bottles of 
 a certain size, were speedily passed in many states. 
 
 Now what is true here of such elements as fire, explo- 
 sives and poisons, would seem to be true also of physical 
 force as an agency of human action. It is true that the 
 use of force is attended by dangers of the most serious 
 description. Leaping the barriers of control, it works 
 havoc far and wide. Adopted with reluctance by an 
 unselfish man for unselfish ends, it is straightway 
 adopted with eagerness by a selfish man for selfish ends. 
 Taken as a last resort to save the race, it is seized as a 
 first resort to destroy the race. And yet, in spite of 
 the perils involved in its employment, it cannot be 
 dispensed with altogether. Again and again there ap- 
 pear contingencies in human life when the use of force 
 becomes absolutely necessary. On every side there exist 
 problems of human relationships which cannot be solved 
 save as resort is made ultimately to the " arma virum- 
 que," of which Virgil proudly sang. Peace, for example, 
 between men and nations alike, can never be maintained 
 except by the action of authority backed by force. Se- 
 curity both for the individual and for the state, can be 
 guaranteed by nothing short of the clenched fist and the 
 loaded gun. Life itself can fulfil its uttermost capacity 
 and reach its farthest goal only as its will to power is 
 given free exercise and scope. There are certain funda- 
 mental points of view, in other words, from which the 
 use of force is seen to be indispensable to the mainten- 
 ance and development of life. The peril of its use is as 
 nothing to the peril of its disuse. Magnify its dangers
 
 72 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 as much as you please, and still you have demonstrated 
 nothing but the wisdom of caution and the unwisdom 
 of precipitancy. You have shown us not that we must 
 stop, but only that we must be sure that we are right 
 before we go ahead ! 
 
 n 
 
 Now it is just this basic idea of the efficacy of force 
 in certain contingencies the necessity of force for 
 the solution of certain problems and the achievement of 
 certain ends that I propose to consider in this chap- 
 ter. And let me state with all possible emphasis, at the 
 very outset of my discussion, that I believe that this 
 idea is utterly and pre-eminently fallacious. It is a 
 superstition inherited from past ages of barbarism and 
 savagery, which knew no weapon but that of force and 
 no aim but that of conquest. It is a delusion carried 
 over from the primitive time when man struggled single- 
 handed against the ravin of wild beasts and the raging 
 of the elements. Like the vermiform appendix, it is a 
 survival of man's animal organism and experience, which 
 should long since have fallen into disuse. Force is 
 efficacious to no end it is necessary for no purpose. 
 It brings not peace, but war. It guarantees not se- 
 curity but insecurity. It accompanies the lowest and 
 not the highest type of human existence. From the 
 very beginning of the world it has been tried, and from 
 the very beginning of the world it has proved itself a 
 failure. Life has survived in any form only as it has 
 escaped the destructive influences of force. Life has
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 73 
 
 climbed from one form to another in the slow process of 
 evolution, only as it has discarded the downward 
 tendencies of force. Life is to-day expanding, mount- 
 ing, attaining finding after long centuries of dis- 
 appointment, some promise at least of ultimate peace, 
 security and joy only as it is resolutely putting away 
 the works of the flesh, and seeking, however haltingly 
 and fearfully, the things of the spirit. Of all the 
 fallacies of history, the fallacy of force is the most 
 prodigious and the most fatal. " If there be any 
 virtue and if there be any praise " in the monstrous 
 horrors of the Great War now raging through the 
 world, they are to be found in the fact that at last, 
 through an unexampled cataclysm, this fallacy of falla- 
 cies has been blasted forevermore. 
 
 ra 
 
 If we follow the lead of those who believe in the gospel 
 of force most thoroughly and teach it most consistently, 
 we shall find ourselves carried straight back to the basic 
 principles of life as these are revealed in the earliest 
 forms of organic existence upon this planet. The 
 ultimate justification of force is a biological justifica- 
 tion, reflected first in the struggle for existence, and 
 secondly in the survival in this struggle of those crea- 
 tures which are the strongest and as a consequence the 
 fittest. The law of nature is the law of struggle 
 and the goal of nature is the goal of survival. To 
 struggle, fight, contend, is to share in the world-process 
 and to succeed is to share in the triumph of this
 
 74 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 process. He who appeals to arms, therefore, is making 
 an ultimate appeal. He has the universe on his side. 
 He is one with tides and winds, storms and seasons, 
 rolling suns and marching stars. He who refuses to 
 make use of force, on the other hand, is outlawing him- 
 self from nature, interfering with the cosmic process, 
 defying the will of God. To live by the law of force in 
 human relationships is simply to provide that, with man 
 as with the plants and animals, the fittest and therefore 
 the worthiest shall survive. To ignore or repudiate this 
 law of force in human relationships, on the other hand, 
 is to betray the fit to the unfit, and thus expose mankind 
 to degeneration, decay and ultimate death. Force, 
 therefore, and life are interchangeable terms. The one 
 is not possible without the other. 
 
 General Bernhardi, in the second chapter of his book 
 on Germany and the Next War, has given as clear an 
 exposition of this point of view as could be desired. 
 " The aspiration toward the abolition of force," he says, 
 in one place, " is directly antagonistic to the great uni- 
 versal laws which rule the development of life. The use 
 of force is a biological necessity of the first importance. 
 At the basis of all, healthy development, nay of existence 
 itself, is the struggle for existence. This struggle is 
 regulated and restrained by the unconscious surviving 
 of biological forms. Everywhere the law of the 
 stronger holds good. Those forms survive which are 
 able to procure for themselves the most favourable con- 
 ditions of life, and to assert themselves in the universal 
 economy of nature. The weaker on the other hand
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 75 
 
 succumb. To supplant or to be supplanted is the es- 
 sence of life, and the strong life gains the upper hand." 
 
 A return, now, to the early ages of biological history 
 would seem to indicate that General Bernhardi is per- 
 fectly right in laying down this interpretation of life in 
 terms of physical energy and prowess. Certainly, in 
 these more primitive epochs of the world's development, 
 force seems to have been not so much the dominant as 
 the sole principle of action. To all appearances nature 
 had discovered but one method of evolution, the battle 
 for physical supremacy, and with marvellous thorough- 
 ness proceeded to prepare her contending creatures for 
 the fray. She built her armaments, manufactured her 
 weapons, stored up her munitions of war and 
 straightway the world was filled with monsters of almost 
 unimaginable size and strength, who battled in the ooze 
 and slime for the mastery of creation. " Equipped 
 from her arsenal with her varied arms and armour," 
 says Dr. J. C. Kimball, in his Studies in Evolution, 
 " nature sent forth her myriad creatures into their 
 great life-battle." 
 
 It may be interesting to pause here, for a moment, 
 and survey some of these mighty warriors of the ante- 
 diluvian age, that we may appreciate with what com- 
 pleteness the law of force was tested at this time. Here, 
 for example, was the Dinichthys, a Devonian ganoid fish, 
 which was thirty feet long, and was protected about its 
 head with a suit of massive articulated armour. Here 
 were some monster reptiles, the Mcgalosaur, the Mosa- 
 saur, the Dinosaur, etc., which varied in length from
 
 76 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 fifty, sixty, to one hundred feet, were plated over with 
 thick scales for defence, and armed for attack with claws 
 hooked back like sickles. The Mastodon, with his huge 
 bulk, thick hairy hide, and tusks twelve and fourteen 
 feet long, has been made known to us by deposits in 
 Siberian fields and Arctic wastes. Less familiar is the 
 Glyptodon, which carried on his back a solidified bony 
 armour, nine feet across and weighing four thousand 
 pounds. Then there is the Megatherium, which had 
 clawed feet which were a full yard in length. And no 
 less terrible was the Machairodus, or sabre-toothed 
 tiger, whose open mouth was an arsenal set with four 
 rows of long, sharp, glistening, sword-like teeth. 
 
 Here are only a few of the frightful monsters, armed 
 like modern dreadnaughts for attack upon and defence 
 against their enemies, which swam the seas and rivers, 
 walked the earth, and battled ceaselessly for existence, 
 in these early prehistoric times. Surely if force ever 
 did its perfect work, it did it in the persons of such 
 magnificently equipped creatures as these. If living 
 organisms were ever fitted to battle and survive, these 
 were the ones. And yet when we look abroad over the 
 world to-day to find these monsters and congratulate 
 them, we search for them from pole to pole in vain. 
 Nowhere are they to be found. They have vanished, 
 every one. Yea, vanished so long ago and so com- 
 pletely, that, were it not for an occasional bone un- 
 covered from some remote deposit in the earth, and a 
 few degenerate survivors like the shark and the alligator, 
 still lingering in our own time, we should never even
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 77 
 
 know that such creatures once walked the earth and 
 boasted, as they battled for existence, that to meet force 
 with force is the basic condition of security, happiness 
 and peace. Something would certainly seem to be 
 wrong with General Bernhardi's interpretation of life. 
 Force has here had its chance to demonstrate its central 
 place in the law of life, and yet, if survival is any evi- 
 dence of efficacy, it has failed, and failed completely. 
 What is the explanation ? 
 
 A very clear suggestion as to what is involved in this 
 matter is indicated by the character of the animals 
 which occupy the world in greatest numbers at the pres- 
 ent time, and thus may be regarded as having success- 
 fully withstood the test of survival. Horses, cows, 
 dogs, sheep, goats, wolves, monkeys, etc. ; plants, birds, 
 insects, fishes these are no new-comers upon the scene. 
 All species of this type can be traced back to origins as 
 remote as those of the huge giants whose battles must 
 have shaken sky and sea. At the very time, that is, that 
 these " monsters of the prime " were bestriding the 
 earth like so many colossi, other creatures, diminutive in 
 size, puny in strength, unarmed in any way for either 
 attack or defence, were struggling here for life ; and, 
 mirabile dictu, these are the creatures which have sur- 
 vived ! Not the Megalosaur but the horse, not the 
 Glyptodon but the dog, not the Megatherium but the 
 deer, have endured into this later age. The small have 
 outlived the great, the weak defeated the strong, the 
 gentle overcome the savage. Scythe-like claws, sabre- 
 like teeth, tusks, bony armour, iron scales all these
 
 78 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 have availed nothing. Something else has been at work 
 here in the great process of evolution something as 
 silent, and yet as potent, as the attraction of the 
 spheres. Nor is it difficult to discern what the secret is ! 
 At the basis of the development of the great monsters 
 of the early days were the very factors of which General 
 Bernhardi has spoken so emphatically first struggle, 
 and secondly force as the weapon of survival in this 
 struggle. The outward expression of this type of life 
 is seen in the huge armaments of attack and defence 
 with which these mighty creatures were equipped. 
 These armaments were provided, of course, with the dis- 
 tinct idea, if we may so express it, of protecting the ani- 
 mals which wielded them from injury and destruction. 
 But strangely enough, as experience slowly but surely 
 demonstrated, they worked just the other way. Each 
 monster, armed literally to the teeth, was a foe to every 
 other. Battle and death were the order of the day, 
 with extermination sooner or later the inevitable result. 
 Had the work of propagation been maintained in equal 
 ratio with the work of destruction, this fate of extinc- 
 tion might have been prevented or at least indefinitely 
 delayed. But the combativeness of these monsters, de- 
 veloped, by the armaments which they carried, to a 
 point of blood-thirstiness never paralleled in all creation 
 since, kept them moving in isolation. The bulk of their 
 armour and the effectiveness of their offensive weapons 
 seriously interfered with the process of breeding. And, 
 worst of all, these armaments were so costly from the 
 standpoint of mere maintainance, that all the vital en-
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 79 
 
 ergies were utilised for this one end, to the practical 
 exclusion of everything else. These mighty monsters 
 were their own worst enemies. In this case as in every 
 other, force proved itself to be an instrument of death, 
 and not of life. 
 
 How different is the spectacle, however, when we come 
 to the other type of animal, of which I have spoken. 
 Provided with no weapons to kill their foes, covered with 
 no armour to protect them from attack, these feeble 
 creatures had no course open to them but to congregate 
 in flocks and herds and packs, and seek strength in the 
 mere fact of numbers. Association rather than isola- 
 tion, was their way of life ; co-operation rather than 
 conflict, was their programme of action ; self-sacrifice 
 rather than self-assertion, was their spirit of endeavour. 
 Held together by sheer necessities of defence against 
 their mightier competitors, and impeded by few rivalries 
 or hatreds among themselves, these animals found the 
 process of breeding easy and rapid. Cumbered by no 
 elaborate armour, they were able to divert vast stores 
 of energy into the channels of propagation, care for the 
 young, and mutual aid. In spite of disasters to indi- 
 viduals and occasional disasters to entire groups of 
 individuals, flocks developed into herds, herds into multi- 
 tudes of herds, multitudes of herds into countless myri- 
 ads. Everything here was directed to the increase 
 of strength, the multiplication of energy, the conserving 
 of life. And while thus, by association, co-operation, 
 friendship, sympathy, love, and self-sacrifice, these 
 forms of life survived all invasions and calamities, the
 
 80 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 mighty monsters busied themselves with mutual slaugh- 
 ter, and thus little by little left the world to the weak- 
 lings which they despised. 
 
 What is really involved in this miracle of survival 
 through love, as contrasted with extinction by force, has 
 been interpreted again and again by our modern stu- 
 dents of evolution. Charles Darwin himself pointed the 
 way in his Origin of Species and Descent of Man. Her- 
 bert Spencer developed the theme in a hundred passages 
 in his Principles of Biology, Principles of Ethics, and 
 Principles of Sociology. Prince Kropotkin produced 
 a special study of the subject in his Mutual Aid as a 
 Factor in Evolution. John Fiske answered Huxley's 
 doubts upon the question in his Phi Beta Kappa address 
 on The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self -Sacrifice. 
 Henry Drummond retold the story with ample authority 
 and surpassing beauty of phrase in his Ascent of Man. 
 And all pointed to the same great fact that, from the 
 beginning of earthly life, two forces and not one have 
 been at work. On the one side is the physical force of 
 sheer brute strength, as exemplified by the lonely 
 monsters of swamp and field. On the other side is the 
 spiritual force of mutual aid, co-operation, love, as ex- 
 emplified in the insects, the birds, and the herding 
 animals. These two forces have never of course been 
 thus absolutely divided. The tiger nursing her cubs 
 shows the entrance of love into the most savage life. 
 The stags battling for the doe show ferocity invading 
 the realm of association. But just because of this 
 mingling of the two tendencies or passions in every
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 81 
 
 organism, are we enabled to see the more clearly the 
 nature of the real battle which is being fought. Here 
 is no struggle of claw against claw, and fang against 
 fang. Bernhardi is all wrong when he thus describes 
 the evolutionary process. What has really been going 
 on, in the breast of each individual animal as well as in 
 the whole world of organic life, is the struggle of the 
 monster against the herd, of brute force against mutual 
 aid, of fierce aggression against co-operation, of blast- 
 ing hate against protecting love. Not two armed giants 
 battling for outward survival, but two great principles 
 of action battling for inward supremacy this is the 
 tale of evolution. And its lesson is read aright only 
 when force is seen to be a failure, leading to extinction 
 all who use its weapons, and love is seen to be a success, 
 leading to eternal life all who bow to its commands. 
 
 Of the validity of this conclusion, man is of course 
 the perfect demonstration. From the purely physical 
 standpoint, man is the feeblest of all creatures. He 
 cannot run like the deer, fly like the eagle, swim like the 
 fish, fight like the lion. He has not so much even as a 
 coat of fur to cover his body from the cold, or a tooth 
 or claw or fang to strike his enemy a blow. Defenceless 
 as he is, he has been driven by the sheer necessities of the 
 situation to protect himself by the clever exercise of his 
 wits and the ready sympathy of his comrade. And by 
 these weapons, which seem to be no weapons at all, he 
 has to his own surprise gained the mastery of the 
 physical world. Never was there a clearer demonstra- 
 tion of the futility of force. " From the dawn of life,"
 
 82 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 says Drummond, summing up the whole matter in his 
 Ascent of Man, " two forces have acted together (in the 
 evolutionary process), one continually separating and 
 destroying, the other continually uniting and cherishing. 
 Both are great in nature, but the greatest of these is 
 love ! " 
 
 IV 
 
 With this crumbling of the foundations of the Bern- 
 hardi doctrine, the entire philosophy of force comes 
 tumbling to the ground. Upon this the whole case has 
 been rested, and with this the whole case disappears. 
 An understanding of the completeness of the wreckage 
 cannot be had, however, unless we push on from the 
 field of biology to the field of history, and show from 
 the study of man as a social agent rather than as an 
 evolutionary product, how absolute is the fallacy of 
 force. And right here I would anticipate, without 
 further delay, the objection, which must already have 
 become apparent, to my description of man as a physi- 
 cally defenceless animal. Man, you say, defenceless ! 
 Man the feeblest of all creatures ! Man, the master of 
 nature through the operation of intellectual and spir- 
 itual forces ! Is there anything which could be more 
 ridiculous than this? Why, man is the most combative 
 of all animals. And his battles have been just as much 
 on the physical plane as those of any of the lower ani- 
 mals. He has used his reason, to be sure but for 
 what purpose so exclusively as that of producing 
 weapons of offence more terrible than any which
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 83 
 
 nature herself has ever been able to evolve? He 
 has used his associative instincts, no doubt but to 
 what end more effectively than that of amassing great 
 multitudes of his fellows for the work of death on so 
 vast a scale that nothing in nature short of flood, fire 
 or famine has been able to match it. What man has 
 lacked in his own body, he has long since supplied by 
 inventions and manufactures. He cannot run like the 
 deer but he has the automobile. He cannot fly like 
 the eagle but he has the aeroplane. He cannot swim 
 like the fish but he has the submarine. He cannot 
 fight like the lion but he has swords and spears and 
 guns. He has no actual protection for his body but 
 look at his trenches and battleships and forts. He has 
 neither teeth, fangs, nor claws but he has dread- 
 naughts, 42-centimetre guns, and Zeppelin airships. 
 Man, an illustration of the triumph of love over force ! 
 Is not just the opposite the case? Is not man the su- 
 preme illustration of force as the determining factor of 
 survival ? 
 
 So it would seem, especially in this age which marks 
 the culmination in society of the power of destructive 
 force. And yet I believe that, if we look a little closer 
 at this problem, we shall find that the phenomena of 
 human history present exactly the same story of 
 struggle between physical and moral force as the phe- 
 nomena of natural evolution, and point to exactly the 
 same conclusion of the failure of force as a conserving 
 principle. What, indeed, is the story of human prog- 
 ress but the story of the discovery, in every field of
 
 84 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 human relationship, of the fallacy of force, and of its 
 gradual displacement in favour of love? 
 
 Take, for example, the domestic relation ! In the 
 early days of social development, a man obtained a wife 
 in exactly the same way that he obtained his dinner. 
 He went out and captured her took her home by 
 force, held her by force, and used her by force. In 
 oriental countries we find this practice still typified in 
 the institution of the harem, where women are held as 
 in a prison behind barred windows and locked doors, 
 and under the constant guard of eunuchs. In the be- 
 ginning, that is, the relationship between husband and 
 wife was a relationship joined by force and maintained 
 by force ; and if anybody had dared to assert that hus- 
 band and wife could be held together in peace and har- 
 mony by any other method, he would have been held to 
 be as crazy as the man who to-day contends that peace 
 between the nations can be secured by any other means 
 than competitive armaments, balances of power, and 
 secret treaties of alliance. Nevertheless, the change 
 has come in our day, because force has proved itself 
 a failure. Bolts are not strong enough, bars stout 
 enough, eunuchs watchful enough, to hold an unwilling 
 wife to an eager husband. The only thing that can 
 hold her is the surrender of her own will, and this is to 
 be won not by compulsion but by love. To-day a man 
 does not capture his wife, but woos her. He does not 
 hold her to him by chains, but binds her to him by affec- 
 tion. Long since has he learned that, in the domestic
 
 85 
 
 relation at least, there is no compulsion that is so potent 
 and so permanent as the passion of the heart. There- 
 fore, to the extent that he would keep his wife fast to 
 his own heart, he puts no bonds on her but those of his 
 own reverent devotion. He loves her, serves her, cares 
 for her, worships her and lo, she is his forever ! 
 
 Analogous to this is the problem of the treatment of 
 children. Time was when it was implicitly believed 
 that the only way to control and care for children was 
 through the use of force. In Rome, as in other ancient 
 countries, the father was given power of life and death 
 over his own offspring. And such a grant of extreme 
 authority was justified on the ground that in no other 
 way could the growing boy or girl be made obedient to 
 the parent, and the home therefore be held together. 
 All such barbarity as this, of course, has long since 
 passed away. And little by little is disappearing as 
 well, from home and school and college, the twin bar- 
 barity of corporal punishment. For experience is 
 teaching us that, in the case of the child as in the case 
 of the wife, the use of force always fails of its appointed 
 purpose. If the child is to be saved, he must be led by 
 love and not driven by blows. There must be laid upon 
 him the compulsion not of passionate violence, but of 
 patient example, wise instruction, affectionate care. 
 To strike the child is to stir his anger and arouse his 
 fear. To love the child is to win his confidence, chal- 
 lenge his faith, hold his allegiance. Even with the in- 
 corrigible, the juvenile delinquent, the out-and-out de-
 
 86 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 generate, the method of force is doomed to utter fail- 
 ure. For love alone can hold, and alone therefore can 
 save. 
 
 Another illustration of the same truth comes to us 
 from the field of industry. In the early relationship 
 between employer and employe, as in the early relation- 
 ship between husband and wife and between parent and 
 child, force was again regarded as indispensable. That 
 a man could be held to his labour by any other means 
 than that of physical compulsion, was believed to be im- 
 possible and therefore we had in primitive times the 
 universal institution of slavery, with its chains, its 
 whips and its auction-blocks. Later epochs brought us 
 serfdom, feudalism, peonage, and in our own time the 
 wage system. Rut all of these have gone, or are rap- 
 idly going, for each and every one of these relationships, 
 just to the extent that it has been founded upon out- 
 ward force for its continuance, has proved itself a fail- 
 ure and a fraud. Force has not worked here any more 
 than it has worked in the home or in the school. If 
 there has been constant trouble in the labour world 
 from the slave rebellion of Moses to the trade rebel- 
 lions of 'Gene Debs and Tom Mann, it is because force 
 and not goodwill has been the bond of union. If there 
 is trouble and turmoil in the labour world at this late 
 hour, it is because compulsion, dependence, subordina- 
 tion, inequality, slavery, still survive in one form or 
 another. And if peace, security, and happiness have 
 anywhere been won in the labour world in the past or in 
 the present, it has been by the application of the age-
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 87 
 
 old ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity between man 
 and man. One thing is becoming clear in our time in 
 the tangled problems of industry, even if everything 
 else is still doubtful. I refer to the sweeping fact that 
 these problems are never going to be solved by strikes, 
 lockouts, police clubs, militia bayonets, court injunc- 
 tions, McNamara broils and Ludlow massacres, but by 
 co-operation, democracy, elimination of master and 
 servant, abolition of wages and profits, the union of all 
 workers in all work upon a single level of comradely 
 association. When force is gone, and " one equal tem- 
 per of heroic hearts " is come our labour problem 
 will no longer be a problem. 
 
 Identical in its lesson is the melancholy history of 
 prisons and prisoners. Up to within comparatively 
 modern times, and still very largely in our more en- 
 lightened days, force of the most rigorous description 
 has been the one weapon universally commended and 
 used for the control of criminals. Hundreds of of- 
 fences, running all the way from the murder of a man 
 to the theft of a pig, have been punished in all coun- 
 tries at various periods in the past, with death. Less 
 than a hundred years ago, in England, it was possible 
 to hang a thief upon the gallows. Along with this ex- 
 treme example of force, have gone all manner of less 
 terrible examples, typified by such instruments of tor- 
 ture as the rack, the thumb-screw, the wheel, the stocks, 
 the whipping-post, the ducking stool, chains, subter- 
 ranean dungeons, filthy prisons, etc., etc. One shud- 
 ders when one recalls how men have for ages been
 
 88 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 broken, whipped, strung up, fettered, starved, buried 
 alive, in the sacred name of law and order ; and one 
 shudders still more when one recollects that this kind of 
 brutal treatment is still visited upon most of our pris- 
 oners in most of our prisons at the present moment. 
 One only has to think of our modern death-houses, cell- 
 blocks, " coolers," chain-gangs, bull-rings and even 
 whipping-posts, to realise how exclusively we are still 
 depending upon the use of force for the control and re- 
 form of criminals. And yet, from the beginning of or- 
 dered society down to this very moment, such methods 
 have never been anything but colossal failures. They 
 have never done anything that they were supposed to do. 
 Capital punishment has never stayed the hand of a 
 single murderer. Chains, bars, armed guards and 
 rigid discipline, so far from controlling men, have only 
 driven them to madness and rebellion. The whole sys- 
 tem of relentless force, so far from redeeming or reform- 
 ing men, has only brutalised them into confirmed crimi- 
 nality. Visit any prison conducted on the old lines of 
 violent repression, and see how its record is one unvary- 
 ing story of outbreak, assaults, bloodshed, and insanity, 
 and its inmates one unvarying line of fourth and fifth 
 offenders. In this case, as in all others, force is a fail- 
 ure. And in this case, as in all others, the opposite of 
 force, namely reason and goodwill, is alone a success. 
 Go to the notorious Sing Sing prison in Ossining, where 
 are confined some sixteen hundred of the vilest crim- 
 inals in New York State, and see the success of Warden 
 Osborne and his ideals of mutual welfare. Armed
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 89 
 
 guards withdrawn and the men placed in charge of con- 
 vict officers in the cell-blocks and convict foremen in the 
 factories, freedom of intercourse and association guar- 
 anteed and fostered, rules and regulations formulated 
 by the prisoners and their violation punished by a court 
 of their own choosing, athletics encouraged, honour sys- 
 tems instituted, recreation and school facilities provided 
 with the immediate result that rebellions have ended, 
 sickness and insanity are steadily diminishing, and con- 
 trol is as easy as formerly it was difficult ! Go to Ore- 
 gon, and see the prisoners taken from behind their iron 
 bars and granite walls, placed at work on roads, in for- 
 ests, and on the farms, and held in bonds not by state 
 guards but by convict leaders ! Go to Colorado and see 
 prisoners despatched hither and yon as free men, 
 charged with the tasks of state, and maintaining in 
 strictest honour the imposed limits of their freedom ! 
 Strike a man, and he strikes back confine him, and he 
 breaks away brutalise him, and he becomes a brute. 
 But trust a man, help him, love him, serve him, and no 
 matter what his record of crime, he responds in kind. 
 
 Political relationships provide still another illustra- 
 tion of the same universal truth. For centuries men 
 believed that government rested upon force. Kings and 
 parliaments looked to Janissaries, Swiss Guards, Black 
 Hundreds, for their support, with the result that revolu- 
 tions were ever the order of the day. Now, with the 
 slow advancement of democracy, we are venturing to 
 rest our government not upon the force of armed sol- 
 diery, but upon the consent of free citizens with the
 
 90 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 result that revolutions are no longer a part of history. 
 Peace comes to a community when the cossack is with- 
 drawn, and the court of law is established in his place. 
 Security is held by every citizen, when revolvers and 
 knives are snatched from his belt, and opportunity 
 granted for the settlement of differences on an equal 
 basis of reason and goodwill. Life develops, flourishes, 
 blossoms in fragrance and beauty, when tyranny is over- 
 thrown and freedom won. Contrast Turkey and Amer- 
 ica, the army of the Sultan and the Supreme Court of 
 the United States and we have an all-convincing ex- 
 ample of the failure of the sword and the success of the 
 spirit in the task of government. 
 
 A special application of this truth is seen in the mat- 
 ter of colonial administration, more particularly as 
 exemplified by the experience of Great Britain. In the 
 eighteenth century, England, like every other colonising 
 power of that day, regarded the inhabitants of its colo- 
 nies as subject peoples, and its territories across the 
 seas as crown lands. In the case of emigre or trans- 
 ported Englishmen, of course, certain liberties were 
 granted or permitted which were withheld in the case of 
 native populations. But even upon these former no 
 final governmental authority was bestowed, and the ex- 
 ercise of force was regarded in the last analysis as the 
 guarantee of loyalty. The futility of this doctrine was 
 clearly demonstrated by the successful revolt of the 
 Americans in 1775 ; and England was wise enough to 
 see and learn the lesson taught by this experience. 
 From that time on, the British people Bounded their
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 91 
 
 colonial policies on principles of liberty and not of au- 
 thority, of goodwill and not of force, with the ^result 
 that they have builded during the last one hundred years 
 an empire of unexampled stability and power. The su- 
 preme test of the abnegation of force as a definite pol- 
 icy of colonial administration came with the outbreak of 
 the Great War in Europe. Canada, New Zealand, Aus- 
 tralia, these were to all intents and purposes independ- 
 ent principalities. They were not even bound to Eng- 
 land by the tie of economic self-interest. They had no 
 concern in the European quarrel, so far as the problem 
 of their own particular welfare was concerned. There 
 was no power in the hands of the mother-country which 
 could force them to enter the struggle against Germany, 
 if they chose not to do so. All such power had long 
 since been surrendered. And yet, at the instant that 
 England and Germany clashed in mortal combat, the 
 free colonies of the Empire leaped into the fray, and 
 from that day to this have been pouring a steady tide 
 of men, munitions and money into the area of conflict. 
 Even the South African Republic, so lately conquered 
 and overthrown, and so hazardously granted the priv- 
 ilege of self-government by the Asquith Ministry, re- 
 sponded to the call. Only Egypt and India stood, and 
 still stand, in any doubtful attitude of allegiance to 
 King George and these, be it noted, are the very 
 colonies from which the hand of force has not yet been 
 lifted. Just to the extent, in other words, that abso- 
 lute power has been withdrawn and free relationships 
 of goodwill substituted, just to that extent loyalty has
 
 92 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 been quickened, security established, and happiness fos- 
 tered. In this field, as in all other fields of human ac- 
 tivity, force is a failure, and love a demonstrated suc- 
 cess ! 
 
 And what is true in all these various relations of the 
 master, is true also of his victim. Driven to despair by 
 the bondage imposed upon him, goaded to desperation 
 by nameless cruelties, robbed of every weapon of revolt 
 save the ultima ratio of sheer brute strength, the im- 
 prisoned wife, the beaten child, the exploited working- 
 man, the tortured convict, the political outlaw or re- 
 ligious heretic, have again and again striven for release 
 by pitting force against force, madness against madness. 
 Especially in the field of politics, as in the revolutions of 
 '48, and in the field of industry, as in the labour strug- 
 gles of the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, 
 has violence been resorted to as the way to emancipation. 
 And in the action of the rebel, exactly as in the action 
 of the tyrant, has this resort been accompanied by al- 
 most uninterrupted failure. Sometimes, by some mir- 
 acle of chance, as in the American Revolution or the 
 Italian War of Liberation, the strength of the revolu- 
 tionist has overcome the strength of the ruling power. 
 Sometimes, by dint of long previous preparation, as in 
 the Civil War, resort to arms has been the last act in a 
 struggle already determined by educational, political 
 and economic processes. But in the vast majority of 
 cases, appeal to force has resulted either in immediate 
 disaster, or, if momentarily successful, as in the case 
 of the French Revolution, has but led, through storm,
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 93 
 
 to the darkness of reaction. Nothing in history is 
 more pitiful than the oft-told tale of the helpless multi- 
 tudes madly beating themselves to pieces against the 
 unyielding walls of tyranny. Slave rebellions, peas- 
 ants' revolts, Chartist riots, Bomba horrors, Communes, 
 Homestead massacres, Ludlow shambles the story 
 runs in an unbroken and bloody stream from Spartacus 
 to John Lawson ; and everywhere there is the same fatal 
 outcome. For one time that force has brought life, 
 liberty and happiness to the outraged masses, a thou- 
 sand times it has brought death, bondage, and misery. 
 Force is a failure no less for the rebelling slave than for 
 the repressing master. Nay, for the slave it is more 
 often a failure, for in the battle of strength against 
 strength, might, not right, must win. Inevitably does 
 the master, with his legions as in Rome, his soldiers as 
 in France and Italy, his private guards and state militia 
 as in America in one word, the whole organised power 
 of society on his side, prove the stronger of the two. 
 It was realisation of this fact, undoubtedly, which led 
 Shelley, an anarchist of the anarchists, to counsel the 
 
 " Men of England, heirs of glory, 
 Heroes of unwritten story, 
 Nurslings of one mighty Mother," 
 
 on the occasion of the massacre at Manchester, to seek 
 vengeance and liberation by methods peaceable and not 
 violent. Thus, in his Mask of Anarchy, did he write 
 
 " Let a great Assembly be 
 Of the fearless and the free
 
 94 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 On some spot of English ground 
 Where the plains stretch wide around. 
 
 " From the corners uttermost 
 Of the bounds of English coast; 
 From every hut, village, and town 
 Where those who live and suffer moan 
 For others' misery or their own, 
 
 " From the workhouse and the prison 
 Where pale as corpses newly risen, 
 Women, children, young and old 
 Groan for pain, and weep for cold 
 
 " From the haunts of daily life 
 Where is waged the daily strife 
 With common wants and common cares 
 Which sows the human heart with tares 
 
 " Let a vast assembly be, 
 And with great solemnity 
 Declare with measured words that ye 
 Are, as God has made ye, free 
 
 " Be your strong and simple words 
 Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
 And wide as targes let them be 
 With their shade to cover ye. 
 
 "Let the tyrants pour around 
 With a quick and startling sound, 
 Like the loosening of a sea, 
 Tro9ps of armed emblazonry. 
 
 " Let the charged artillery drive 
 Till the dead air seems alive 
 With the clash of clanging wheels, 
 And the tramp of horses' heels.
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 95 
 
 "Let the fixed bayonet 
 Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
 Its bright point in English blood 
 Looking keen as one for food. 
 
 " Let the horsemen's scimitars 
 Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars 
 Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
 In a sea of death and mourning. 
 
 " Stand ye calm and resolute, 
 Like a forest close and mute, 
 With folded arms and looks which are 
 Weapons of unvanquished war." 
 
 Similar realisation it is also, which has created in 
 our time, under the inspiration of Marx and Engels, 
 and under the guidance of Bebel, Liebknecht and Jaures, 
 the great movement of international socialism, which 
 seeks the mastery of the modern world not through the 
 old methods of violent revolt, but through the new and 
 nicer " methods of education, organisation, and political 
 action . . . the weapons of civilisation," as Robert 
 Hunter calls them in his Violence and the Labour Move- 
 ment. Nothing in all history is more wonderful, to my 
 mind, than the story of the winning of the labour move- 
 ment in all countries to the cause of pacifism. Never 
 were any people under a heavier burden of oppression, 
 and therefore under a greater temptation to armed re- 
 bellion, than the labouring multitudes of our own day. 
 Never was the sword of hate and revenge held out to 
 their hands more persuasively than by Bakounin and 
 his terrorist disciples. More than once, as in the Char-
 
 96 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tist days and on many occasions of revolt in Italy, 
 Spain and France, did the " physical forcists " seem 
 triumphant over the " moral forcists." Especially in 
 1872, when the International was virtually disbanded, 
 did the wise leadership of Marx away from terrorism to 
 pacifism seem utterly vain. But after sore struggle 
 the victory for order as against violence was won. And 
 to-day we have the stupendous spectacle of a vast inter- 
 national body, 12,000,000 in numbers, organised for 
 the conquest of the wealth and dominion of the world, 
 putting force as a weapon of combat altogether aside, 
 and deliberately choosing the counter weapons of the 
 pen, the platform and the ballot. " They have refused 
 to hurry," says Mr. Hunter. " They have declined all 
 short cuts. They have spurned violence." Never was 
 there such a spectacle ! And in it we must see, not the 
 triumph of any fanatical idealism, but the calm, reas- 
 oned conviction of the fallacy of force as a " power of 
 deliverance." 
 
 And so we might go on, multiplying the illustrations 
 of this thesis almost without limit. But why continue? 
 All tell exactly the same story, and point to exactly the 
 same conclusion. Every relationship of human life had 
 its beginning on the animal plane of physical control. 
 The mighty principle of love was never altogether ab- 
 sent even in the struggles of the forest beasts, as we 
 have seen. But force as the law of life was everywhere 
 in the ascendent. And man, like his animal progeni- 
 tors, gave this principle of life every conceivable chance 
 to prove its efficacy. But the more thorough the trial,
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 97 
 
 the more convincing its failure. Not because love was 
 known to succeed, but because force was known to fail, 
 has man little by little turned to the one and away from 
 the other. And to-day he is solving his problems and 
 reaching his goal just to the extent that he is having 
 the courage and wisdom to put his perfect trust in love. 
 Force avails nothing, achieves nothing, secures noth- 
 ing. It is the instrument of destruction, and not of 
 conservation the agent of retreat and not of advance 
 the minister of death and not of life. With man, as 
 with the animal, two forms have contended for mastery, 
 " one continually separating and destroying, the other 
 continually uniting and cherishing." And if man is 
 to-day something more than an animal in character, his 
 superiority may perhaps be more truly attributed to 
 the fact that he has little by little subdued the flesh to 
 the spirit, mastered force in favour of love, than any 
 other one thing. The story of man's climb from brute- 
 hood to potential sainthood is the story of his climb 
 from the claw to the brain, from the fang to the heart. 
 In the home, the school, the church, the state, the mart, 
 he has scourged force from him as a traitor, and drawn 
 love to him as a friend. In every field of action, he 
 has tried more and more to lead rather than to drive, 
 to woo rather than to subdue, to serve rather than to 
 master, and his perpetual reward has been peace, secur- 
 ity and mounting life. 
 
 v 
 
 In every field of action save only one ! In the in- 
 ternational field, little or no progress has been made.
 
 98 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Still to-day, as in the ancient days of Persian satraps 
 and Roman consuls, relations between states are founded 
 upon force. And yet where, in any department of 
 human life, has the futility of force been more com- 
 pletely demonstrated than in the department of inter- 
 nationalism? Consider for a moment those particular 
 problems of the modern world which were raised all 
 anew by the outbreak of the Great War. 
 
 First of all, there is the question of peace the ques- 
 tion of the method by which peace between rival states 
 may be most surely and easily maintained. The answer 
 that has been given to this problem, ever since the day 
 when ^Esop met the boar in the forest sharpening his 
 tusks against a tree, has uniformly been the affirmation 
 that the best way, indeed the only way, for nations to 
 insure peace is to make ready for war. George Wash- 
 ington gave a crystal clear statement of this position, 
 when, in his address to the two houses of Congress in 
 1790, at the time when all Europe was bursting into the 
 conflagration kindled by the French Revolution, he de- 
 clared that " to be prepared for war is one of the most 
 efficient means of preserving peace." 
 
 That there is a certain superficial persuasiveness 
 about this dictum is obvious enough. And yet it may 
 be well doubted if any other theory of the human in- 
 tellect has ever offered quite so arrant a challenge to 
 experience and so impudent a defiance of reason as this 
 hoary doctrine of preparedness. For what have the na- 
 tions of the world been doing, since the beginning of
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 99 
 
 time, but preparing for war ; and when in any age has 
 this business of preparation ever brought anything but 
 war, war, war? The Sargons, Sennacheribs and 
 Tiglath-Pilesers of old Assyria, with the possible ex- 
 ception of the rival Pharaohs of Egypt, made the might- 
 iest war preparations of their time, but it would be 
 difficult to find a year when they were not waging war 
 against the Pharaohs or the Pharaohs against them. 
 Sparta was pre-eminent among all the cities of the 
 Grecian world for her sacrifice of every human interest 
 to the things of war, and she also was pre-eminent for 
 the number and savagery of the wars which she fought. 
 Rome was the greatest military power that mankind has 
 ever seen and the doors of the Temple of Janus, 
 which were opened in times of war and closed in times 
 of peace, were closed but twice, and both times but mo- 
 mentarily, in a period of six hundred years. Every 
 country of the Middle Ages was organised on the basis 
 of the feudal system, which was a system constructed 
 for the express purpose of enabling an entire people to 
 be prepared for war and every country of the Middle 
 Ages was fighting an almost continual battle against its 
 neighbours. The last half of the nineteenth century 
 was a period remarkable for the completeness and 
 efficacy of its preparations for war but the Crimean 
 War of 1855, the Danish War of 1864, the Austrian 
 War of 1866, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the 
 Italian Wars of Liberation, ending in 1870, the Russio- 
 Turkish War of 1877, the more recent Spanish-Ameri-
 
 100 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 can, Boer, Turco-Grecian, and Russio-Japanese Wars, 
 and the continual struggles in the Balkans, are a part 
 of the record of this period. 
 
 It would seem preposterous that any further demon- 
 stration of the futility of this principle of prepared- 
 ness could be needed, after the uninterrupted testimony 
 of something like three thousand years of fighting. But 
 whether needed or not, a final demonstration came with 
 a vengeance in August, 1914. Here for forty years 
 have the nations of Europe been building up such arma- 
 ments as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart 
 of man conceived, in any previous age of human his- 
 tory. Never have there been such armies as those of 
 Germany, Austria, Russia and France. Never has there 
 been such a navy as that of England. Never have there 
 been such fortresses as those lining the frontiers and 
 shores of all these states. Never, in other words, has 
 preparedness been so complete. Every citizen was a 
 soldier in active service or reserve. Every ship was po- 
 tentially a war-vessel or transport. Railroads were 
 constructed on strategic rather than commercial lines. 
 Passenger-cars and freight-cars were measured in terms 
 not of the passengers and freight they could carry in 
 time of peace, but of the soldiers and munitions they 
 could transport in time of war. Schools and hotels 
 were built with an eye to the possibility of their instant 
 transformation into barracks and hospitals. If any- 
 thing in the way of preparation for war was left undone 
 during these years, the world has yet to find it out. 
 And now, as the end of it all, we behold not peace at all,
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 101 
 
 but the greatest and most terrible war in the history of 
 mankind ! The very presence of armaments so complete 
 and so ready for instant use made war not impossible 
 nor even uncertain, but inevitable. Not one of the na- 
 tions, on those fateful days of July and August, 1914, 
 dared to wait, even twenty-four hours, for negotiations. 
 The risk of waiting was too great. The advantage of 
 the first blow was too vital. And prepared to strike, 
 they all struck and war in a night was the result. 
 The Serbian ultimatum was like a spark in a dynamite 
 factory. Explosion was immediate and universal. 
 
 Thousands of years of unvarying experience, crowned 
 in one day by the most stupendous calamity of the ages, 
 have destroyed at last forever the old idea that prepara- 
 tion for war is a guarantee of peace. Never again can 
 any man who is sane argue for battleships and armies on 
 the plea that these mechanical horrors are needed to pre- 
 serve the peace. At last we see what Charles Sumner 
 saw, as long ago as 1837, when he said, in his famous 
 oration on The True Grandeur of Nations, " This maxim 
 is transmitted to us from distant ages, when brute force 
 was the general law. It belongs to the dogmas of bar- 
 barism. It is the child of suspicion and the forerunner 
 of violence. It is a mere prejudice, sustained by vulgar 
 example and not by enlightened truth. It is a mis- 
 chievous fallacy, the most costly the world has wit- 
 nessed, dooming nations to annual tribute in comparison 
 with which the extortions of conquest are as the widow's 
 mite." And if, while seeing the fact, we do not quite 
 understand the reasons for the fact, we have only to
 
 102 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 turn to the unanswerable statement of John Quincy 
 Adams, then Ambassador to England, in his letter to 
 the English premier on behalf of President Monroe's 
 suggestion for disarmament on the border line between 
 England and Canada : " The increase of naval arma- 
 ments on one side upon the Lakes, during peace, will 
 necessitate the like increase on the other, and besides 
 causing an aggravation of useless expense to both par- 
 ties, must operate as a continual stimulus of suspicion 
 and ill-will upon the inhabitants and local authorities 
 of the borders against those of their neighbours. The 
 moral and political tendency of such a system must be 
 to war and not to peace." 
 
 If the Great War has shattered the idea that force 
 can make for peace, it has on the other hand strength- 
 ened immeasurably the old-time doctrine of force as ap- 
 plied to our second problem that of security. Men 
 the world around are looking upon stricken Belgium, 
 ravaged France, wasted Galicia, Poland and Bukowina, 
 and with one accord they are declaring that armaments 
 must be built and maintained on a scale never known be- 
 fore, if only to protect the nations from such a dire 
 fate as has been met by these unhappy people. So 
 long as war is liable to come, protection must be had 
 against its incursion, and where can such protection be 
 found except in arms? Peace, as we now see, cannot 
 be assured, even by the method of preparation. But 
 preparation, for this very reason, is more essential than 
 ever before in order that we may be secure when trouble 
 comes. Safety we must have ; and in the world as it is
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 108 
 
 now constituted at least, this can be guaranteed onl" 
 by resort to force. 
 
 It may well be doubted, however, by those who have 
 any knowledge of human experience, if this argument 
 for security is any sounder than the similar argument 
 for peace, which we have just seen to be so fallacious. 
 For where, in all the history of ancient and modern 
 times, is there a single nation that has ever found perma- 
 nent security in arms? Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, 
 Sparta, Rome these, like the mighty monsters of 
 early biological times, were effectively protected against 
 all possibility of military disaster. Surely these peo- 
 ples, with their swords and spears, their chariots and 
 horsemen, their phalanxes and legions, were secure for- 
 ever. And yet, just like these monsters with the bony 
 armour, the scythe-like talons and the sabre-like teeth, 
 they have every one disappeared. Assyria is but a 
 mound in the desert, Egypt but a melancholy wreck of 
 empty shrines and rifled tombs, Sparta a plain without 
 so much as one stone standing upon another, and Rome 
 but a legend " to point a moral and adorn a tale." In 
 spite of their armaments, or shall we say, because of 
 their armaments all of them gone, all of them fallen 
 upon insecurity, and perished! 
 
 Later ages tell identically the same story, in only 
 slightly different terms. Charlemagne, Charles V, 
 Philip II, Charles XII, Peter the Great, Frederick the 
 Great, Napoleon behold the geniuses who have sought 
 not merely glory but security in arms. And all of 
 them failed ignominiqusly in their quest. And in our
 
 104 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 day, the same story is being repeated still again. For 
 why are not men wise enough, in these dreadful hours 
 of world disaster, to read aright the lesson that is being 
 taught? Force, you say, must be relied upon for se- 
 curity? When, I answer you, was force ever so im- 
 plicitly relied upon for security as it was yesterday, and 
 when has it ever brought disaster so complete? Bel- 
 gium was not unarmed, that she was swept away to ruin ! 
 On the contrary, she had an army proportionally only 
 slightly smaller than that of Germany ; she had a 
 frontier lined with cannon, troops and forts ; and in 
 Antwerp she had the best protected city in Europe. 
 Galicia was not defenceless, and therefore a prey to 
 Russia ! On the contrary, her cities were fortresses, 
 her railroads military highways, her mountain-barriers 
 citadels, and all her men armed soldiers. Russia was 
 completely armed but disasters immeasurable are 
 sweeping down upon her. France was strained to the 
 breaking-point in support of her fleet and armies and 
 the fairest and richest sections of her territory are to- 
 day in the hands of the enemy. England's fleet sur- 
 passed and still surpasses anything ever seen upon the 
 seven seas but her empire is trembling to its founda- 
 tions with the shock of war. Germany, with the great- 
 est military machine at her disposal the world has ever 
 known, is already doomed to such cataclysmic ruin as 
 has come upon no people since the fall of Spain. 
 
 Force, you say, the guarantee of security? On the 
 contrary, force is the guarantee of nothing but dis- 
 aster. For force breeds force, and the work of force
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 105 
 
 is death. Build a battleship, and you arouse the sus- 
 picion of your neighbour, who matches your one battle- 
 ship with two. Construct a fort, and you stir fear 
 across the border, and your fort is straightway fronted 
 by two forts. Raise an army of a million men, and all 
 the nations, disturbed and apprehensive, raise armies of 
 other millions and all the world is fixed in arms. 
 France totters and falls to-day, because her army 
 shouted Revanche across the Alsatian border. England 
 gasps in a struggle which bleeds her white, because she 
 challenged with drcadnaughts the freedom of the seas. 
 Germany is doomed to certain extinction, because she 
 built a military machine so terrible that all of Europe 
 lifts up arms against her. 
 
 " Lo, all our pomp of yesterday, 
 Is one with Nineveh and Tyre," 
 
 because it is built upon the same explosive foundations. 
 He who seeks defence in force, brings force down upon 
 him. He who sows the dragon's teeth, reaps ere long 
 the crop of armed men. " They that take the sword 
 shall perish with the sword," said Jesus when he bade 
 Peter to put up his weapon, and make no resistance to 
 his arrest. If there is any security in this world of 
 chance and change, ignorance and hate, it is not by 
 force that it can come. Security, like peace, is the 
 fruit of love. It comes not from violence but from 
 goodwill. It is maintained not by the hand, but by the 
 heart. Norman Angell sums up the whole question in 
 his Arms and Industry when he speaks of the remarka-
 
 106 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ble one hundred years of peace between England and 
 America, and referring to the lapse of any attempt of 
 either nation to seek security against the other by re- 
 sort to arms, says, " We have secured ourselves by the 
 only means that will ever give permanent national 
 safety a better understanding of the real character 
 of the relationship between nations." 
 
 And what about the last of these three recrudescent 
 problems that of the true character of life? What 
 of Bernhardi's dictum that there can be no high and 
 noble life save that which is based on the utilisation of 
 force? What of Ruskin's idea that no great literature 
 and art have ever been produced save as a consequence 
 of war and the war-spirit? What of Professor Cramb's 
 suggestion that war provides an exaltation of spirit so 
 essential to life at its best that mankind will not be will- 
 ing to dispense with it utterly? Do such propositions 
 as these constitute a final vindication of the gospel of 
 arms, or are they, on the contrary, a final demonstration 
 of the fallacy of this gospel? 
 
 History once more has its conclusive answer, for 
 those at least who have ears to hear its voice. For 
 what is left to us by these nations which have lived by 
 the law of force most faithfully and developed the war- 
 spirit therefore most consistently? Chaldea gives us 
 a few statues, reliefs and hieroglyphic inscriptions ; 
 Egypt some glorious temples, mighty pyramids and 
 mysterious sphinxes; Tyre, Sidon, Phoenicia, mere 
 names. Out of all the ancient East, as a supreme ex- 
 pression of human genius, and a priceless treasure of
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 107 
 
 human achievement, comes only the religion of the Jews, 
 who for centuries cowered beneath the iron heels of con- 
 querors, and only twice, for momentary periods in the 
 great days of David and the Maccabees, lifted the sword 
 of victory on the field of battle. Impressive is it to re- 
 member that Isaiah looked upon the fall of Samaria, 
 watched the invasions of Sennacherib, and shared in the 
 humiliations of Ahaz and Hezekiah that Jeremiah 
 flourished in the days which witnessed the fall of Jeru- 
 salem and the captivity of Israel that Deutero-Isaiah, 
 the greatest spiritual genius of the Jewish race before 
 Jesus, lived amid the supreme sorrows of the Exile 
 and that Jesus himself came at a time when the dark- 
 ness of Roman conquest and dominion was over all the 
 land of Palestine. 
 
 Identical is the story of the classic world. Four 
 names are here supreme from the standpoint of mili- 
 tarism Sparta, Macedonia, Carthage and Rome. 
 But wherein, with the exception of the last, have these 
 names significance to-day? Sparta is the warrior-state 
 par excellence but she left nothing to posterity but a 
 few doubtful legends of martial heroism and endurance. 
 Macedonia produced Philip, Alexander and the match- 
 less phalanxes which followed these conquerors to war 
 and perished of exhaustion. Carthage dyed sea 
 and land with blood, but is now remembered only as the 
 occasion of Cato's cry for vengeance and the scene of 
 Scipio's meditation on the futility of arms. As for 
 Rome, she gave to us her laws, a worthy heritage ; but 
 she was barbaric to the end, and gained a civilisation
 
 108 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 only as she robbed of art, literature, and religion the 
 nobler principalities which she conquered. 
 
 It is in our own day, however, that we find the su- 
 preme example of the antagonism of militarism and 
 civilisation in the case of Germany. For centuries, the 
 German people were peaceful traders, hard-working 
 peasants, and raptured dreamers. Political power was 
 unknown to them, and military greatness undesired. 
 And these were the days, be it noted, when her life was 
 purest, and her spirit at its zenith of achievement. It 
 was feeble and divided Germany which gave us the long 
 line of noble mystics from Tauler and Meister Eck- 
 hart to Herder and Schleiermacher Martin Luther 
 and the Reformation the literature of Lessing, Schil- 
 ler, Goethe and Heine the music of Bach, Beethoven, 
 Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert the philosophy of 
 Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling the scholarship 
 of Wolf, Strauss, Baur, Niebuhr, and Ranke. Then, 
 in the eighteenth century, came the Great Elector and 
 Frederick, and the beginnings of Prussian militarism. 
 Then came the Napoleonic Wars, with their poisonous 
 progeny in the persons of Stein, Scharnhorst, and 
 Gneisenau. The days of '48 were a brief awakening 
 from the creeping hypnotism of the times. But Bis- 
 marck and Moltke, the veritable incarnation of blood 
 and iron, soon came upon the scene, and Germany was 
 lost. From that day to this Germany has been obsessed 
 with the ideal of force, greediness, power ; and from that 
 day to this, her true life has atrophied and slowly died. 
 If 1870 marks the beginning of German imperialism, it
 
 THE FALLACIES OF FORCE 109 
 
 marks as well the close of German culture. And if the 
 political and military doom now impending upon the 
 Empire can bring any compensation for its attendant 
 miseries and horrors, it is that the German spirit, 
 " sleeping, but not dead," may rise and lead the world 
 again to paths of light. 
 
 Force, therefore, has no connection with abundant 
 life, save as it chokes its springs, diverts its flow, and 
 poisons its purity. If civilisation flourishes in days 
 of military splendour, as in Athens after the Persian 
 Wars, in Venice in the triumphant days of the great 
 Doges, or in England in the reign of the Good Queen 
 Bess, it is for reasons extraneous to feats of arms. It 
 is in spite of war, and never because of war, that the 
 spirit of man attains. In the case of the antedeluvian 
 animals, as we have seen, the armaments which they car- 
 ried were so heavy that their energies were available 
 for no other and higher purpose than that of physical 
 maintenance. The battles of these creatures were so 
 fierce and constant that every nobler instinct of co- 
 operation, friendliness and compassion was atrophied 
 from disuse. The same thing is true in the case of 
 man. It was when brain development began to take the 
 place of body development, says Alfred Russel Wal- 
 lace, that the advance of man to the higher reaches of 
 intellect and spirit had its beginning. Both forms of 
 development could not go on together. The flesh must 
 yield place to the spirit, if the spirit was to expand. 
 And not otherwise is it with nations. Herbert Spencer 
 traced the true analogy in his Principles of Sociology,
 
 110 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 in his elaborate account of the passing of militarism 
 and the rise of industrialism. If the soul is to live, it 
 must be freed ; and the fetters which bind it, and have 
 always bound it, are those forged by the hand of force. 
 
 VI 
 
 The failure of force, as a working principle, must 
 by now be manifest. It is demonstrated by the bi- 
 ological history of the race; it is demonstrated by the 
 individual and social relationships of men ; it is demon- 
 strated by the rise and fall of states. Force and love 
 the power that separates and destroys, and the power 
 that unites and cherishes here are the two contend- 
 ing giants of the cosmos. They have wrestled long, 
 and are still wrestling. Bait little by little, as age 
 passes into age and aeon into aon, force is seen to be 
 growing weaker and love stronger. " God's in his 
 heaven," after all I Force is failing, because it is alien 
 to God. Love is rising, because it is of the very essence 
 and potency of the Divine. Isaiah had clear vision 
 when he looked into the future and saw the coming of 
 the day when force should be wholly overcome, and love, 
 with its sweet ministers of peace, security and happi- 
 ness, everywhere supreme. How wonderful, and how 
 true as well, the picture which he painted. " The wolf," 
 he said, " shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard 
 shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young 
 lion and the fatling together." ! And as the crowning 
 touch of all, the great prophet proclaimed, that " a little 
 child," at once the weakest and the loveliest thing of 
 earth, " shall lead them."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE
 
 " I believe in the spirit of peace and in sole and absolute reliance 
 on truth. ... I do not believe that the weapons of liberty ever 
 have been, or ever can be, the weapons of despotism. I know 
 that those of despotism are the sword, the revolver, the cannon, 
 the bombshell; and therefore the weapons to which tyrants cling 
 and upon which they depend are not the weapons for me as a 
 friend of liberty. . . . Much as I detest the oppression exercised 
 by the Southern slave-holder, he is a man, sacred before me. He 
 is a man, not to be harmed by my hand nor with my consent. . . . 
 He is a sinner before God a great sinner ; yet, while I will not 
 cease reprobating his injustice, I will let him see that, in my heart 
 there is no desire to do him harm . . . and that I have no other 
 weapon to wield against him but the simple truth of God, which 
 is the great instrument for the overthrow of all iniquity and the 
 salvation of the world," William Lloyd Garriton,
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 
 
 IT must be tolerably evident, at this point of our dis- 
 cussion, that the champion of the gospel of force has 
 fallen very far short of discharging the burden of proof 
 which we saw some time ago was laid upon him by the 
 nature of the question. Force, we discovered, was like 
 fire, dynamite, or poison in that it was too dangerous 
 to be used excepting under the most rigid conditions 
 and for the most necessary purposes. Anybody who 
 desires to employ it must prove, beyond peradventure 
 of a doubt, that nothing else will do the work which 
 must be done, and that force itself will do this work 
 successfully. 
 
 The attempt to give this proof, however, has failed 
 most lamentably, as we have just been seeing. View it 
 from any angle, subject it to any test, try it under any 
 conditions, and always and everywhere force shows it- 
 self to be a failure. It simply will not work or, if it 
 works at all, accompanies its action with such fearful 
 consequences of ill that the end is lost almost before it 
 is won. Every argument ever offered on behalf of force 
 has sooner or later turned out to be at the worst a 
 calamity and at the best a sadly mixed good. The 
 whole progress of life, at every stage of its existence 
 and in every form of its development, has been de- 
 
 113
 
 114 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 pendent upon the restriction of force within ever nar- 
 rower and narrower bounds and the expansion of love 
 to ever wider and wider areas. Force, as Jesus clearly 
 stated, is the wide gate and broad way " that leadeth 
 to destruction." To bar this gate and way, and open 
 wide the strait gate and narrow way " that leadeth unto 
 life," was the endeavour of the Nazarene, and still re- 
 mains to-day the unfulfilled endeavour of mankind. 
 
 This brings us immediately to the discussion of non- 
 resistance, as the extreme form of pacifism, and the 
 logical antithesis therefore of force. And first of all, 
 to the very particular discussion of the meaning of the 
 term ! For most people, as I discover from expe- 
 rience, have not the slightest idea of what non-re- 
 sistance really implies as a philosophy of conduct. And 
 this very largely for the reason, as I take it, that the 
 word which is used to denote this philosophy, is an ab- 
 solute misnomer ! It is not too much to say that non- 
 resistance as a word implies just the opposite of what 
 non-resistance as a programme of life really means. 
 Therefore do I propose, in the first place, to define non- 
 resistance from an abstract point of view, with a con- 
 siderable degree of elaboration. Then I shall proceed 
 to illuminate this definition by considering at some 
 length the teachings and careers of the more conspicu- 
 ous exemplars of non-resistance in ancient and modern 
 times. This somewhat prolonged discussion will give 
 us, I trust, an accurate conception of what this doc-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 115 
 
 trine really involves as a rule of life ; and prepare us to 
 consider the more immediately vital question as to what 
 we may be able to do with non-resistance. 
 
 ii 
 
 The phrase, non-resistance, has its origin in the 
 famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount, wherein 
 Jesus declares his opposition to the Mosaic law of re- 
 taliation. " Ye have heard that it hath been said," the 
 statement runs, " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth. But I say unto you, Resist not evil." It must 
 not be presumed from this fact that there were no non- 
 resistants in the world before the advent of the Naza- 
 rene. On the contrary, as we shall see in the next chap- 
 ter, there were non-resistants before Jesus, just as there 
 were kings before Agamemnon. But Jesus gave so 
 clear a formulation of this doctrine in his teachings, 
 and exemplified the doctrine with so matchless a de- 
 gree of heroism in his life, that it is eminently fitting that 
 it should have become uniquely associated with his name 
 and have found immortal expression in his words. 
 
 An examination of the phrase, to which I have re- 
 ferred, shows that it involves two definite propositions. 
 On the one hand, there is the statement of fact, " evil " ; 
 and on the other hand, there is the ethical command, 
 *' resist not." There is first the recognition of evil in 
 the world; and secondly the recommendation as to the 
 attitude which we are to assume toward this evil. Any 
 proper understanding of the doctrine involved, there- 
 fore, demand.? an explanation of what Jesus meant by
 
 116 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 evil, and what he had in mind when he bade his disciples 
 not to resist this evil. 
 
 Many persons have assumed that the word " evil," 
 as used in this connection, refers to everything which 
 may be regarded as in any way obstructive or hostile to 
 the physical and moral integrity of the human race. 
 Thus they have included in the category of evil, such 
 natural phenomena as fires, tempests, floods, and vol- 
 canic eruptions such specimens of organic nature as 
 serpents, wild beasts, and poisonous insects such un- 
 necessary and baleful horrors of human life itself as 
 famine, pestilence, poverty, and war. These persons 
 have interpreted the word " evil," in other words, in the 
 most literal, which means the most inclusive, sense pos- 
 sible, and, interpreting the command, " resist not," with 
 similar literalness, have come to the obviously ridiculous 
 conclusion that the gospel of non-resistance means flatly 
 that we should offer no resistance to any form of evil. 
 
 It should be hardly necessary to point out, in the 
 light of this reductio ad absurdum, that a very definite 
 limitation must be placed on this word " evil." Nor 
 will it be in any way difficult to prove that Jesus had 
 this limitation very clearly in mind when he formulated 
 his commandment. Thus, as we read the complete 
 passage, as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew, it is 
 evident that the Nazarene was talking not about floods, 
 or snakes, or pestilences, but about human beings and 
 what human beings, in their selfishness and greed, are 
 liable to do to one another. " Whosoever shall smite 
 thee upon the right cheek," is his statement, " turn to
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 117 
 
 him the other also. And if a man sue thee at the law, 
 and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 
 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with 
 him twain." It is perfectly clear, from the context of 
 the passage, in other words, that Jesus was here using 
 the word " evil " not in its universal application to 
 all unfavourable phenomena of the world, but in its 
 narrower application to the sins and aberrations of 
 human conduct. He was speaking not of evil in gen- 
 eral, but very particularly of the evil that may be 
 wrought by one man upon another. This means that 
 the doctrine of non-resistance is to be interpreted very 
 strictly as a doctrine of human relationships. The 
 question which it raises is not the question as to what 
 we shall do when we find ourselves set upon by storms 
 or wild beasts or wretched poverty, but what we shall 
 do when confronted with the malicious and violent ac- 
 tions of our fellow-beings. 
 
 It is obvious that the non-resistant, in all the great 
 areas of experience outside the comparatively narrow 
 bounds of the human-circle, is privileged to live exactly 
 like other people. He may wear clothes to protect him- 
 self against the cold, and raise a roof over his head to 
 shelter him from the elements. He may shoot the lion 
 and the bear, and bruise without compunction the ser- 
 pent's head. If he plunges into some dangerous wilder- 
 ness, as Theodore Roosevelt plunged into the forests of 
 Brazil, he may freely follow Mr. Roosevelt's militant 
 example of carrying along a medicine chest to resist the 
 ravages of jungle- fever, and may arm himself with a
 
 118 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 rifle to protect himself against the attacks of wild 
 beasts. It is not even obligatory upon the consistent 
 non-resistant to have his door unlocked and his house 
 unguarded by day and night. The good Monseigneur 
 Bienvenu, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, to be sure, 
 always left his door open, so that any chance passer-by 
 might freely cross his threshold. But it is to be noted 
 that, while this practice may have been a result of the 
 saintly Bishop's non-resistance principles, it was de- 
 fended by him as a practice enjoined upon him by the 
 ideals of the priesthood. Just as the door of the phy- 
 sician's house, he said, should never be closed, so the 
 door of the priest's house should always be open. The 
 matter of placing bolts on our doors has nothing to do 
 with non-resistance as such. This principle here comes 
 into play, not when we bar our homes against unwel- 
 come or inconvenient intrusion, but when we find our- 
 selves standing face to face with a man who has shat- 
 tered our bolts, and are forced to take some kind of 
 personal action toward this human invader. 
 
 That we are taking no undue liberties with our text, 
 in thus interpreting the word " evil " to mean in this 
 connection nothing more than the evil which may be 
 done by men, is shown most impressively by the fact 
 that, when the King James Version of the Bible was 
 revised in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 this very passage which we are discussing was one of 
 those which was made to undergo a radical change in 
 phraseology. In the Revised Version, we no longer 
 read, " Resist not evil." These words have disap-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 119 
 
 peared, and in their place appears the much more ex- 
 plicit statement, " Resist not him that is evil." When 
 Jesus laid down this law of non-resistance, in other 
 words, he used not a generic noun, but a personal pro- 
 noun and a modifying clause. Which shows us, if 
 anything can show, that Jesus was talking not about 
 evil things but about evil men ! 
 
 Much more important than the question as to what 
 Jesus meant by the word " evil," is the question as to 
 what he meant by the command, " resist not." It is 
 interesting to learn that when Jesus spoke of " evil," 
 he was really speaking of " him that is evil." But 
 how does this help us any with the problem of non-re- 
 sistance, for surely " the evil that men do " is even 
 more destructive and terrible than the evil wrought by 
 the blind fury of nature. It is encouraging to know 
 that we may shoot a lion or smite a rattle-snake, but 
 how does this help those of us who have to face not 
 lions or rattle-snakes, but pickpockets, burglars and 
 gunmen ? 
 
 The very statement of this inquiry reveals the fact 
 that the term, " resist not," is commonly understood 
 in as erroneous a fashion as the term, " evil," which we 
 have just been considering. Most people, undoubt- 
 edly, take this phrase to mean exactly what it says 
 that we shall not resist in any way any of the assaults 
 on property and life which evil men may direct against 
 us. The consistent non-resistant must under all cir- 
 cumstances remain inactive, passive, acquiescent. He 
 must accept any injury that may be brought upon him
 
 120 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 by a human hand surrender to any brute that may 
 attack him. He must be willing to see his home bur- 
 glarised, himself assaulted, his wife violated, his little 
 child beaten to death, and yet do nothing in opposi- 
 tion. He must be content to see his country invaded, 
 ravaged, conquered, laid under tribute by a foreign 
 foe, and yet lift no sword or rifle in its defence. He 
 must, in a word, let evil have its own way in the world 
 of men, and lift not so much as a little finger against it. 
 The " sea of troubles " may threaten to engulf the 
 world, but he must on no account " take up arms " 
 and by " opposing end them " ! 
 
 Now such a literal interpretation of the words, " re- 
 sist not," as the above, must be described as just as un- 
 tenable, and therefore as ridiculous, as the similar in- 
 terpretation of the word, " evil." It is here that we 
 are made to see, with perfect clearness, what an abso- 
 lute misnomer the phrase " non-resistance " is, after 
 all, and how necessary it is to define and illustrate it 
 at great length. If passivity, acquiescence, cowardice 
 of this kind is what non-resistance involves, it is use- 
 less to expect that any man worthy of the name will 
 adopt it as a rule of life ; and it may well be wondered 
 how in the past it has won the allegiance of so many 
 pure and knightly souls. 
 
 It is evident that there is something wrong some- 
 where. Let us turn back to our context once again, 
 and see if we can find out what it is. 
 
 In the passage which we are considering, it is no- 
 ticeable that Jesus introduces his commandment of non-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 
 
 resistance with the statement, " Ye have heard that it 
 hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth." Now in this reference to the previous custom 
 of Israel, as in all the similar references in the Sermon 
 on the Mount, the Nazarene very obviously had in mind 
 certain laws in the old Mosaic code. He was thinking 
 of such a passage as this from Exodus " If any mis- 
 chief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for 
 eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 
 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for 
 stripe " ; or this from Leviticus, " If a man cause a 
 blemish in his neighbour, as he hath done, so shall it be 
 done to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for 
 tooth " ; or this from Deuteronomy, " Life shall go for 
 Jife, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, foot for foot." For 
 centuries the Jewish people had been conducting their 
 affairs upon this basis of out-and-out retaliation. 
 They were acting on the principle that injury must be 
 met with injury, violence with violence, evil with the 
 same kind of evil. And it was nothing more, and also 
 nothing less, than this specific principle of action that 
 Jesus was combating when, after quoting the Mosaic 
 code, he declared, with unexampled audacity, " But I 
 say unto you, Resist not evil." Resist not evil with 
 evil do not attempt to meet violence with violence, or 
 force with force. It is necessary, of course, that evil 
 should be resisted and, if possible, overcome. The 
 world could not endure for an hour if evil men were al- 
 lowed to go on unrcsisted. But do not resist evil with 
 its own weapons. Do not be guilty of the folly and
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 iniquity of taking an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, 
 or a life for a life. If this is the only way that you 
 know of resisting evil of this kind, then do not resist at 
 all. For it is better that one eye, one tooth, one life 
 should be taken, unavenged, than that two eyes, two 
 teeth, two lives should be taken for any reason ! 
 
 That this interpretation may not be thought to be, 
 in any sense of the word, a dodging of the issue or a 
 juggling of terms, let me cite the testimony on this point 
 of Count Leo Tolstoi, who was a literalist in his inter- 
 pretation of the words of Scripture, if there ever was 
 one. Those who condemn his teachings most severely 
 base their indictment almost entirely upon the liberal- 
 ism of his exegesis. His critics will in all probability 
 never cease dwelling upon the paradox that the author 
 of the thrillingly imaginative War and Peace, Anna 
 Karenma, and Resurrection, is also the author of the 
 dry-as-dust treatises on My Religion and The Gospel in 
 Brief. And yet it is this extreme literalist who, when 
 he comes to consider the phrase, " Resist not evil," tells 
 us, " Christ showed me that the fourth temptation de- 
 structive of my welfare is the resort to violence for the 
 resistance of evil. ... I cannot yield to the first im- 
 pulse to resort to violence ; I am obliged to renounce it, 
 and to abstain from it altogether." And if we want 
 further confirmation of this same fact, we have only to 
 turn from the words of Tolstoi to the life of Tolstoi, 
 which was one long battle against the political, social, 
 and religious evils of Russia, and indeed of all western
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 123 
 
 civilisation. He met force but not with force ; he 
 resisted evil but not with evil ! 
 
 Here, now, are the two distinctions or qualifications 
 which must be kept constantly in mind if we are to 
 understand aright the doctrine of non-resistance. 
 " Evil " means " him that is evil " ; " resist not " means 
 resist not with evil ; the entire command, " resist not 
 evil," means resist not the evil of him that is evil with 
 evil of your own. St. Paul, in writing to the Romans 
 in interpretation of this very passage which we are 
 considering, summed up the whole matter with marvel- 
 lous precision, when he said, " Recompense to no man 
 evil for evil "/ 
 
 m 
 
 Not yet, however, have we explained all that is in- 
 volved in the non-resistant principle. Thus far we 
 have spoken only of the negative side of the question 
 what we cannot do ; beyond this lies the positive side of 
 the question what we can do which is so infinitely 
 more important. For nothing is more dangerous, and 
 at the same time more common, than the idea that the 
 removal of the possibility of resisting evil with evil is 
 equivalent to the removal of the possibility of resisting 
 evil altogether. Let it be set down in this place once 
 for all, that the evil in the world not only can be re- 
 sisted, but must be resisted. It is the first duty, the 
 whole duty, of man, to hate iniquity and love righteous- 
 ness to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 which is good. There can be no question as to our 
 permanent obligation to make this world the best pos- 
 sible of all worlds by wiping out its evil and fostering 
 its good. The only question involved is as to the 
 methods to be followed, the weapons to be used, in our 
 fulfilment of our duty, and the non-resistant doctrine is 
 an answer to this question. Not ends at all, but means, 
 are what we are concerned with in our discussion of 
 non-resistance. Violent means, as we have seen, are al- 
 together excluded. Now comes the query as to what 
 means can be adopted in place of violence to attain our 
 end. And to this query I venture to submit three sug- 
 gestions. Paradoxical as it may seem, there are three 
 methods of resisting evil which are not in any sense in- 
 consistent with non-resistance. The most thorough- 
 going non-resistant may nay, must resist and 
 overcome him that is evil by one or all of the three ways 
 here laid down. 
 
 First of all, as the least effective and least advisable 
 of the three non-resistant methods of resistance, must 
 be named what is commonly known as " passive resist- 
 ance." The passive resistant may be briefly and ac- 
 curately described as the complete non-conformist. 
 He is the man who finds himself confronted by some 
 law or condition or circumstance which he regards as 
 evil, and who, refusing from motives of conscience or 
 perhaps only of prudence, to meet this evil with forcible 
 resistance, refuses also to conform or submit to it in 
 any way. Ignoring the bad law or vile condition or 
 evil circumstance as though it did not exist at all, this
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 125 
 
 man goes on his appointed way with unswerving fidelity, 
 and suffers without complaint or resistance any conse- 
 quences, however terrible, which his conduct may bring 
 upon him. He resists not actively but passively not 
 violently but meekly. Two or three illustrations, more 
 or less familiar, will show what passive resistance means. 
 There has come down to us, from the very early days 
 of Rome, a stirring legend of the capture and sack of 
 the city by a horde of Gallic barbarians, under their 
 chieftain, Brennus. The Roman army had been de- 
 feated on the banks of a river some miles distant, and 
 the city thus exposed to the invader. As the Gauls 
 neared the gates, the inhabitants fled in terror and dis- 
 may -r- all save certain aged men, members of the Sen- 
 ate, who resolved, for the honour of Rome, to face 
 their conquerors. They had no intention of fighting, 
 for, with the dispersion of the army, fighting had be- 
 come useless. But they also had no intention of flee- 
 ing, and thus abandoning the city without resistance 
 to the enemy. Therefore, with fine wisdom and superb 
 courage, they resorted to the policy of passive resist- 
 ance. Donning their robes of office and taking in their 
 hands their senatorial sceptres, these old and feeble men 
 sat themselves down in their thrones upon the Capitoline 
 and, like so many marble statues, awaited the onslaught 
 of the foe. Not a finger did they move not a word 
 did they speak and at the same time they offered no 
 obeisance or surrender. They simply waited, in calm 
 repose, for whatever doom the savage Brennus might 
 pronounce against them.
 
 126 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 A more striking illustration, because drawn from the 
 circumstances and conditions of our time, is that of the 
 Passive Resistant movement in England some years ago 
 against the Tory Education Bill. The details of this 
 event are intricate and need not be set down in this place. 
 Sufficient is it to say that, in the ministry of Mr. Bal- 
 four, Parliament enacted certain legislation in regard to 
 the public school system of the Kingdom which imposed 
 taxes on Non-Conformists for the support of Anglican 
 instruction. There was a great outcry in protest 
 against this high-handed piece of injustice, and in some 
 cases violent rebellion, as in the case of Ulster and the 
 Home Rule Bill, was insistently urged. Wiser coun- 
 sels, fortunately, prevailed, and under the lead of the 
 eminent Baptist clergyman, Dr. John Clifford, a Pas- 
 sive Resistant movement of the most formidable descrip- 
 tion was organised. Offering no forcible resistance 
 whatsoever to the Crown or to the officers of the Crown, 
 Non-Conformists by the thousands, true to their his- 
 toric appellation, flatly refused to conform. They re- 
 fused to send their children to the schools and when 
 punished for this offence, took their punishment with- 
 out a whimper. They refused to pay the rates and 
 allowed their houses and goods to be sold for non-pay- 
 ment of taxes without raising a hand in opposition. In 
 more than one instance, they were arrested and impris- 
 oned, but in all instances endured to the bitter end. 
 Nothing could shake their conviction that the Educa- 
 tion Bill was a crime ; nothing could persuade them to 
 resort to violence against its enforcement by the au-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 127 
 
 thorities ; but at the same time nothing could swerve 
 them from their determination to resist that enforce- 
 ment at any cost. 
 
 Another illustration of passive resistance is found in 
 the life of Jesus of Nazareth. After his arrest in the 
 Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was taken before the San- 
 hedrin, and later, we are told, before Pontius Pilate, the 
 Roman Procurator. There he was asked to plead his 
 cause, and, according to one version of the record at 
 least, he refused to speak a word. He had shown at 
 the time of his seizure that he would not strike his as- 
 sailants, or fight against them ; and now he showed that 
 he would not accuse them or even answer their charges. 
 But at the same time he would not surrender to them. 
 On the contrary, he would resist them, passively, to the 
 very end ! 
 
 Such is the meaning of passive resistance. It is the 
 opposite of violence but at the same time it is the 
 opposite of n\ere passivity or acquiescence. The word 
 to underscore in the phrase is not " passive " but " re- 
 sistance." Passive resistance means most emphatically 
 resistance to evil and a most effective kind of re- 
 sistance as well ! Take the old legend of the Roman 
 Senators. When the Gauls climbed the hill and looked 
 upon the aged men in their curile chairs, the story runs 
 that they were so surprised and over-awed by the noble 
 spectacle that they dropped their spears and shields, 
 and one after another approached, like worshippers to 
 a shrine, and stroked the snowy beards of the Senators 
 with reverence. Had it not been that one of these men,
 
 128 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 less self-controlled than the rest, raised his sceptre and 
 smote one of the Gauls for his audacity in touching 
 him, their lives, and the city itself, would have been 
 spared. The Passive Resistant movement in England 
 made the enforcement of the Education Bill impossible, 
 and was one of the decisive influences in the downfall of 
 the Balfour Cabinet. And as regards Jesus, it may 
 be said that it was his attitude more than anything else 
 which made Pilate marvel and moved him to declare 
 that he could find no evil in him. 
 
 Passive resistance effective? Think of what would 
 have happened in Europe in the summer of 1914 if the 
 Christians and socialists, who were pledged against in- 
 ternational war, had steadfastly refused to take up 
 arms ! There are reports that some socialists in Ger- 
 many and Austria were shot to death because they would 
 not answer the mobilisation orders. A well-authenti- 
 cated story has come to England from Hungary of 
 certain members of the ancient sect of Nazarenes 
 non-resistants like the primitive Christians who were 
 butchered because they would not enter the army. 
 Such isolated protests, however sublime, were of course 
 ineffective. But suppose all had been faithful. Thou- 
 sands would undoubtedly have perished but the war 
 would have been made impossible. Not violence, but 
 passive resistance, is the potent weapon. Not to strike, 
 but to endure, is again and again the way to victory. 
 
 But passive resistance is not the only, nor yet the 
 most effective, mode of legitimate resistance to evil. 
 Sometimes, for reasons that must be obvious, it is the
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 129 
 
 only way; and sometimes also it is the most effective. 
 But usually there is open to us that more active and 
 aggressive way, exemplified by all great prophets 
 and teachers, of resisting evil by a method dictated by 
 the fact that the evil with which we are concerned is the 
 evil which may be visited by one man upon another. In 
 wrestling with storm or flood, we are dealing with phy- 
 sical phenomena, and have no help but in the wise utili- 
 sation of physical energy. In battling against wild 
 animals, or even lunatics, we are engaged with crea- 
 tures moved by physical instincts, and subject there- 
 fore to no discipline save that of physical force. With 
 man, however, this is never the case. By the very na- 
 ture of his being, man is endowed with reason, and open 
 therefore to the appeal of thought. By the very neces- 
 sities of his bodily mechanism, he is controlled by mo- 
 tives, and therefore amenable to intelligent suggestion. 
 A man, just because he is a man, lives and moves and 
 has his being on the plane of the mind and not of the 
 body, of the spirit and not of the flesh and therefore 
 can be approached and swayed and mastered upon this 
 plane more wisely, and assuredly more worthily, than 
 upon the lower animal plane. A myriad examples at- 
 test the power of education, persistently applied, over 
 all the evil that can be wrought by the devices of man's 
 heart. 
 
 Take such an episode of history, for example, as that 
 of the exposure and defeat of the fell conspiracy of 
 Catiline against Rome by the intelligence and eloquence 
 of Cicero. The great orator, as we know, was no non-
 
 130 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 resistant, and certainly no genuine idealist. He would 
 have felt no reluctance about appealing to arms against 
 his fellow-Senator, had he believed that such an appeal 
 were wise. And had he made the appeal, all the forces 
 of the Republic would have been placed at his entire 
 disposal for the defeat and capture of the arch-traitor. 
 But all of these customary weapons of defence Cicero 
 cast resolutely aside. Knowing full well the scope of 
 his mental resources and especially the magic of his 
 tongue, he assailed Catiline and his followers not with 
 a legion but with an oration. Four times he rose in 
 his place in the Senate Chamber and indicted Catiline 
 to his face. Four times he recited the case against him 
 four times he challenged him for very shame to seek 
 acquittal or to withdraw from the high office which he 
 disgraced. Four times he called upon his fellow-citi- 
 zens to hear and note the truth. With the result that 
 Catiline was hounded from the Senate, driven from the 
 city, and banished at last in exile from his country. 
 Without so much as the drawing of a sword or the lift- 
 ing of a spear, solely by the power of clear thought and 
 valiant speech, the most dangerous conspiracy in Roman 
 history was frustrated and its leaders exposed and scat- 
 tered. 
 
 Another and still more impressive illustration of the 
 power of reason is that of the Revolution in France in 
 1789. It is common to think of this stupendous event 
 as a hideous and yet triumphant exemplification of the 
 virtue of force as applied to certain political and social 
 Gordian knots. We recall the Bastile, the field of
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 131 
 
 Mars, the feast of pikes, the guillotine of Danton, the 
 sword of Napoleon and straightway declare that this 
 great day of deliverance was a thing of blood and iron. 
 As a matter of fact, however, nothing could be farther 
 from the truth. Before the sword was the pen. Be- 
 fore Parisian mobs and Napoleonic guards, were books, 
 pamphlets, and encyclopedias. Before Robespierre, 
 Danton, Marat, Pichegru, were Rousseau, Diderot, Hoi- 
 bach, D'Alembert, Voltaire, and all the rest of that 
 great cluster of thinkers whose rise, like that of flam- 
 ing stars, proclaimed the dawning of the new day of 
 freedom. Take Voltaire alone ! In his biographical 
 study of this colossal genius, John Morley declares that 
 Voltaire's life was so potent an influence in the over- 
 throw of the vast structure of superstition, tyranny 
 and misery which was Bourbon France, that his career 
 must be told not in terms of biography but of history. 
 He is fairly to be described, says Morley, not as a man 
 but as an epoch. A little, shrivelled dwarf, feeble all 
 the time, sick most of the time hiding away in dark 
 corners and out-of-the-way places from the wrath of 
 kings and cardinals journeying madly across fron- 
 tiers and seas in flight from prison, torture and execu- 
 tion this mighty man for a period of full seventy 
 years wielded such a pen as has never been wielded be- 
 fore or since by mortal man. Letters, pamphlets, 
 plays, poems, novels, histories, poured by the thousands 
 from his asylums all of them arrows dipped in wrath, 
 feathered by scorn, and aimed straight as a shaft of 
 light at the entrenched abominations of the times. The
 
 132 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 world is old, but it has never seen another such fighter 
 against evil as this dauntless Frenchman, who could not 
 lift a sword, trembled at bloodshed, and hated war as 
 he hated hell. Single-handed, with a pen dipped in ink 
 as his only weapon, Voltaire offered resistance to the 
 worst abominations of the worst country in the worst 
 century of modern times and more than any other 
 man or force, delivered the country, and through it all 
 of Europe, from its woe. Pikes and swords, mobs and 
 armies these, after all, were but accidents, frothy 
 spume upon the great currents of the mighty deep which 
 Voltaire and his associates had stirred. 
 
 And so we might go through all the history of ancient 
 and modern times, and find the same thing everywhere 
 to be true. The man whose life marks the turning 
 point of history, was an artisan who talked to people 
 like himself, and died like a sheep going to the slaugh- 
 ter. The men who conquered Rome and laid the foun- 
 dations of modern times were Christians, sworn to non- 
 resistance and practising the same. The men who 
 scattered the darkness of the Middle Ages and wrought 
 the wonders of the Renaissance were quiet scholars in 
 cells of monasteries and halls of learning, like Erasmus 
 and Thomas More. The man who overthrew Catholi- 
 cism in half the Christian world and precipitated the 
 resulting storm of the Reformation, was a priest who 
 was sworn by his oath of office not to use the sword of 
 violence. The man who delivered England in the long 
 fight against the Cavaliers was quite as much Milton, 
 with the pen that wrote the Areopagitica, as Crom-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 133 
 
 veil, with the sword that won Naseby and Marston 
 Moor. The speeches of Patrick Henry and Samuel 
 Adams, the pamphlets of Thomas Paine, and the Dec- 
 laration of Thomas Jefferson, were the determining 
 forces of the American Revolution. The great battle 
 for emancipation in this country was won not by men 
 who fought on any field of battle but by a single non- 
 resistant who owned a printing press and published a 
 newspaper called The Liberator.* And the most potent 
 movement of our time, socialism, is a movement which 
 has definitely banished the advocates of violence from 
 its ranks, and sought its ends by education, organisa- 
 tion and the ballot. 2 
 
 The whole history of humanity, from the standpoint 
 of progress, is the history of the pen and not the sword, 
 of the spoken word and not the iron deed, of the 
 thinker and not the soldier. Say all that can be said 
 about weapons of violence, and you can only declare 
 that they end in the worst way what thought has begun 
 in the best way. " The only things that get done in 
 this world are done by words," says the Captain in 
 Charles Rann Kennedy's The Terrible Meek, in explana- 
 tion of the necessity of putting Jesus to death for 
 " sayin' a few words." Why, even in this day of uni- 
 versal violence, the supremacy of thought is still mani- 
 fest. Here is Belgium, for example, devastated, pil- 
 
 1 Lowell wrote with perfect truth of William Lloyd Garrison 
 
 " In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, 
 Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned, young man, 
 The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean, 
 Yet there the freedom of a race began." 
 
 2 See Robert Hunter's Violence and the Labor Movement.
 
 134 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 laged, swept from end to end. Liege, Dinant, Namur, 
 are hopeless ruins; Antwerp, the mightiest fortress in 
 Europe, is in the hands of the enemy ; her army of 
 thousands of men is broken and shattered. Every- 
 thing, upon which was placed reliance in the days of 
 her pride and strength, is gone. Nothing is left 
 save only those things which no might of arms can ever 
 destroy and which are destined to save her as a people. 
 First among the things of Belgium " that cannot be 
 shaken " is a certain treaty written in the year 1839. 
 Torn into shreds as a mere " scrap of paper " by Von 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, it is for that very reason a sacred 
 thing which will eventually do more for Belgium's 
 security than all her armies and all her forts. A second 
 thing that belongs to Belgium to-day, more precious 
 by far than the sword of Albert, is Maeterlinck's writ- 
 ten protest against her violation. What the soldiers 
 of the king could not do, the words of the poet have 
 already done. And still another thing that stands like 
 a bulwark in Belgium's defence a bulwark which shall 
 stand when not a stone is left upon another in any of 
 her fortresses or cities is the pastoral letters of Car- 
 dinal Mercier. Here are instruments not only of 
 preservation but of restoration, which put to scorn 
 " the armies of the aliens." 
 
 Talk about swords, guns, forts, dreadnaughts, sub- 
 marines, Zeppelins ! Nothing is so potent as thought. 
 A word is irresistible. An idea is omnipotent. 
 Well has Bulwer-Lytton affirmed that " the pen is 
 mightier than the sword." Conquerors rise and fall
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 135 
 
 like the empires which they build " the captains and 
 the kings depart " like the vanished pomp of Nineveh 
 and Tyre. But the prophet lives and conquers, long 
 after his body has been broken, burned, dismembered. 
 In spite of its apparent " foolishness," preaching 
 stands ; all the might of a hundred kings and a thou- 
 sand marching armies shall not prevail against it. 
 Swinburne sums it all up in one stanza of flaming 
 verse 
 
 " And shall ye rule, O kings, O strong men? Nay! 
 Waste all ye will and gather all ye may, 
 Yet one thing is there that ye shall not stay, 
 Even Thought, that fire nor iron can affright." 
 
 Not yet, however, have we reached the end. One 
 thing more there is that the non-resistant can do in 
 legitimate resistance against evil and this the wisest, 
 noblest and most effective thing of all. He can have 
 resort, or make appeal, to love, as indicated by Jesus 
 himself in his immortal proclamation, " Love your ene- 
 mies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
 hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you 
 and persecute you." 
 
 The evil which we are discussing, as we have seen 
 again and again, is the evil involved in human relation- 
 ships. The whole problem before us, in other words, is 
 that of " evil communications " between one person and 
 another. The very fact, however, that two persons, by 
 the mere doing of this kind of evil, are brought in touch 
 with one another, opens at once the way of love. If 
 one person hates, the other can love ; if one person
 
 136 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 seeks to injure, the other can seek to benefit; if one at- 
 tempts to destroy, the other can attempt to save. A 
 lie can always be met by a truth, a curse with a blessing, 
 an evil with a good. Love has its opportunity in any 
 relation between persons, whether that relation be 
 joined by force of evil or force of good. And if it acts, 
 it " never faileth " ! Thus it is that the non-resistant, 
 in the highest and best sense of the word, is not the man 
 who endures passively, nor yet fights rationally, but 
 the man who loves profoundly. The non-resistant dis- 
 arms his enemies by serving them, conquers them by 
 loving them, overcomes their evil by his good. The 
 non-resistant is pre-eminently the lover and servant of 
 his kind and to this extent and for this reason the 
 one personage who is supremely useful. " They are 
 lovers and benefactors," says Emerson, in his Lecture 
 on War, " men of love, honour, and truth men whose 
 influence is felt to the end of the earth men whose 
 look and voice carry the sentence of honour and good- 
 will and all forces yield to their energy and per- 
 suasion." 
 
 The best example which I know of this highest form 
 of positive non-resistance is given to us by Victor Hugo, 
 in his Les Miserables, in the person of the good Bishop 
 Myriel, a man who was not a genius but simply loved, 
 who did not seek to get gold out of the earth but pity 
 out of the hearts of men, who sought to do good to all 
 in return for whatever either of good or evil was done 
 to him. The supreme test of his soul came, of course, 
 on the night when the convict, Jean Valjean, given food
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 137 
 
 and shelter in the Bishop's home, fled with the basket 
 of silver and was arrested by the gendarme. Anger at 
 the betrayal of his kindness, the thought of punish- 
 ment for crime, the consideration for social welfare 
 all these may very well have been present in his mind ; 
 but all were forced to yield to pity for frailty, or love 
 even for the most ungrateful of " brethren." Refusing 
 to recognise the theft, he takes his two silver candle- 
 sticks from the shelf and gives them to the frightened 
 convict, and bids him go and " sin no more ! " 
 
 Here, in such an act as this, do we have the non- 
 resistant spirit at its best. And here also, by the same 
 token as we shall see, do we have the non-resistant spirit 
 at its highest point of efficiency. To forgive, to serve, 
 to love supremely to meet injury with service and 
 evil with good this is at once to conquer every dif- 
 ficulty, stay every peril, and win mankind. See Jesus 
 hanging on the cross, praying for the forgiveness of 
 those who knew not what they were doing in slaying 
 him and instantly converting the soul of the Roman 
 centurion who had crucified him ! See Stephen, yield- 
 ing to those who stone him, praying to God to " lay 
 not this sin to the charge " of those who smote him 
 and at once winning the allegiance of " the young man, 
 Saul," who held the garments of his executioners ! See 
 Garrison led through the streets of Boston with a halter 
 about his neck, unresisting, unreviling and claiming 
 on the spot the life-long devotion to his cause of Wen- 
 dell Phillips ! As surely as violence makes enemies, so 
 surely does love make friends. Why, love can do any-
 
 138 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 thing. Love is the greatest thing in the world. It cuts 
 through steel more quickly than any acid ; it conquers 
 flesh more surely than any sword. The only reason 
 why we do not know its potency, and believe in it, and 
 use it, is that we have never dared to try it. We lack 
 the supreme courage of faith. But some there are who 
 have tried it and never vainly. These are they to 
 whom St. John refers in his first epistle, when he speaks 
 of those who " have overcome the world." And it is 
 with sure vision that he goes on to explain their tri- 
 umph by the assertion that " these are of God." " For 
 love is of God," he says, " and every one that loveth is 
 born of God and knoweth God . . . There is no fear 
 in love, for perfect love casteth out fear. God is love ; 
 and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God 
 in him." 
 
 IV 
 
 Such is the meaning of non-resistance ! On the nega- 
 tive side it is the refusal to resist " the evil that men 
 do " with other evil. It is the firm denial of either the 
 efficacy or the right of resorting to force for the pur- 
 pose of overcoming force. It is, in fewest possible 
 words, the abandonment once for all of physical force 
 as a method of destroying evil and establishing good. 
 
 Contrary to almost universal opinion, however, this 
 great refusal does not in any sense of the word imply 
 a weak and cowardly acquiescence in evil and indiffer- 
 ence to good. Paradoxical as it may sound, and con- 
 trary to all apparent implications of the word, non-
 
 THE MEANING OF NON-RESISTANCE 139 
 
 resistance must be understood as involving resistance 
 to falsehood, dishonour, greed, lust, violence, hate, of 
 the most persistent and heroic type. The non-resist- 
 ant, if he be a true non-resistant, fights as bravely as 
 anybody for God's kingdom. But just because he is 
 fighting for God's kingdom he believes that he must 
 fight, not as the devil fights, but as God fights. He 
 thinks it vain to defeat the devil outwardly by surren- 
 dering to him inwardly. He believes it futile to uproot 
 Prussian militarism from the soil of Germany by plant- 
 ing it deep in the soil of France and England. He is 
 certain that God is served by his own spirit and, un- 
 less all revelation is false, this spirit is the spirit of 
 love. From this viewpoint, non-resistance means one 
 thing, which can be expressed very simply the lifting 
 of resistance to evil from the physical to the moral 
 plane! 
 
 Let it be repeated, therefore, definitely and finally, 
 that non-resistance is no counsel of cowardice, and the 
 non-resistant no minion of fear. Non-resistance is 
 moral militancy, spiritual chivalry, the knighthood of 
 the Kingdom. St. Paul, a true non-resistant, described 
 true non-resistance in the great passage in his letter 
 to the Ephesians where he. exhorted his followers to 
 " put on the whole armour of God, that (they might) 
 be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Pic- 
 turing the terrible evils, which must be fought and de- 
 stroyed ** principalities, powers, the rulers of the 
 darkness of the world, spiritual wickedness in high 
 places " he proclaims, " Wherefore take unto you the
 
 140 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 whole armour of God. . . . having your loins girt 
 about with truth, and having on the breastplate of 
 righteousness : and your feet shod with the preparation 
 of the gospel of peace ; above all, taking the shield of 
 faith ; . . . and take the helmet of salvation, and the 
 sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Hav- 
 ing thus armed themselves, he promises his disciples 
 that, " strong in the Lord and in the power of his 
 might," they shall " be able to withstand in the evil 
 day," and " quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE (Ancient)
 
 "With mercy and forbearance shall thou disarm every foe. 
 For want of fuel the fire expires: mercy and forbearance bring 
 violence to naught." Buddha.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE (ANCIENT 1 ) 
 
 THERE can be no better way of illuminating the in- 
 terpretation of non-resistance submitted in the last 
 chapter than that of turning to the vast treasuries of 
 biography and discussing what certain men have act- 
 ually said and done in regard to this rule of life. By 
 this method of procedure, furthermore, we shall not only 
 get a clearer definition of our doctrine, but we shall also 
 find ourselves strengthened in our faith by the knowledge 
 that some of the noblest figures in the history of hu- 
 manity have been teachers and exemplars of the non-re- 
 sistant principle. For the purpose, therefore, in the 
 first place, of emphasising what we have said about the 
 positive, aggressive and militant character of non-re- 
 sistance, and, in the second place, of showing that, in 
 our advocacy of this gospel, we are by no means alone, 
 but on the contrary in the goodly company of some of 
 the greatest heroes of ancient and modern times, we 
 shall proceed to call the roll of some of the more con- 
 spicuous exemplars of our cause. It is obvious that our 
 list must fall very far short of being complete ; but it 
 will at least be long enough, we trust, to achieve the 
 ends we have in view. 
 
 i 
 First of all, among the non-resistants of the ancient 
 
 world, must be cited the shadowy and yet strangely im- 
 
 143
 
 144 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 pressive figure of Lao-tse, a teacher of religion in China 
 before Confucius. This man, it may be safely af- 
 firmed, is the only real prophet of the spirit that the 
 Chinese people have ever produced, for his more famous 
 and influential rival, as a matter of fact, was not a seer 
 at all, but only a shrewd expounder of a not very exalted 
 type of expediential ethics. Taoism, the religious sys- 
 tem of Lao-tse, is the only native religion, in the strict 
 sense of the word, which China has ever known. 
 
 That Lao-tse was a consummate genius is evident 
 from the profound impression which he made upon his 
 contemporaries and transmitted to posterity. Of the 
 details of his life and teachings, however, we know prac- 
 tically nothing. In both of these respects, this Chinese 
 sage reminds us irresistibly of Heracleitus, the famous 
 philosopher of early Greece, whose outlines are hidden 
 in the impenetrable mists of remote antiquity. He was 
 born, in all probability, somewhere about the year 604 
 B.C. His father, strangely enough, seems to have been 
 an officer in the king's army. We know that during the 
 greater part of his career he was a librarian, or keeper 
 of the royal archives, in the court of the sovereign of 
 Chow. Beyond these very rudimentary facts or sur- 
 mises, we are sure of nothing. 
 
 One story, illuminating in its way, comes down 
 to us, of a meeting between Lao-tse, when he was an old 
 man, and Confucius, who was at the time apparently a 
 young man. According to the record, Confucius un- 
 dertook a long and painful journey for the express pur- 
 pose of meeting and conversing with the venerated
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 145 
 
 teacher, Lao-tse. Returning to his disciples after the 
 visitation, Confucius described his amazement at what 
 he had seen and heard in the following terms : " I 
 know," he said, " how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, 
 and how beasts can run. The runner, however, may be 
 snared, the swimmer may be hooked, and the flyer may 
 be shot. But there is a dragon I cannot tell how he 
 mounts on the wind through the clouds, and rises to 
 heaven. To-day I have seen Lao-tse, and I can only 
 compare him to the dragon." 
 
 This story is almost certainly apocryphal a mere 
 legend of unhistoric days. But it shows, with perfect 
 accuracy, how the spiritual message of Lao-tse must 
 have impressed a teacher like Confucius, who was igno- 
 rant of all the deeper mysteries of the spirit, and whose 
 gospel never rose above the shallow levels of a kind of 
 dry, uninspired, more or less platitudinous philosophy 
 of common-sense practicality. It was quite impossible 
 that these two alien souls should have any under- 
 standing of one another. To Confucius, the great Lao- 
 tse, with his lofty vision of the universal and eternal, 
 must indeed have appeared like the dragon who mounted 
 by unknown paths to heaven and could not be snared by 
 the devices of men. 
 
 Turning from the life of Lao-tse to his teachings, 
 we find at once the certain fact that here was a noble 
 and consistent exemplar of non-resistance. So frag- 
 mentary are the sayings which are left to us, that it is 
 almost impossible to ascertain from just what point of 
 view he came to the acceptance and inculcation of this
 
 146 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 idealistic doctrine. What seem to have been the work- 
 ings of his mind can best be suggested, perhaps, by a 
 reference to a familiar piece of English literature, which 
 seems to reflect in our modern language, in the strangest 
 way in the world, the hidden thought of this ancient 
 seer. I refer to Matthew Arnold's poem, entitled Self- 
 Dependence, wherein he pictures himself as standing at 
 the prow of a great ship, which is sailing across the vast 
 reaches of the sea. 
 
 " Weary of myself, and sick of asking 
 What I am or what I ought to be," 
 
 he ponders upon the restlessness of human action, and 
 the strange unsatisfied yearnings of human thought. 
 And as he tries to still the perturbations of his own 
 spirit, he becomes impressed with the great repose of the 
 surrounding universe. He listens to the steady wash- 
 ing of the waves against the vessel he looks upon the 
 quiet shining of the stars in heaven he feels the soft 
 blowing of the gale against his cheek. And out of the 
 great spaces of the night there comes to his troubled 
 spirit the suggestion as to how the heart of man can 
 find content and peace. Speaking of the things of na- 
 ture, the poet says : 
 
 " Unaff righted by the silence round them, 
 Undistracted by the sights they see, 
 These demand not that the things without them 
 Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 
 
 "And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
 And the sea its long moon-silvered roll, 
 For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
 All the fever of some differing soul.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF 1VON-RESISTANCE 147 
 
 " Bounded by themselves and unregardful 
 In what state God's other works may be, 
 In their own tasks all their powers outpouring, 
 These attain the mighty life you see." 
 
 Strangely enough, it is this high thought of the Eng- 
 lish apostle of culture of the last century, which seems 
 best to interpret the philosophy of the Chinese seer who 
 lived some six hundred years before the birth of Jesus. 
 Lao-tse, so far as we can judge from the few sayings 
 which have been preserved to us from his writings, seems 
 always to have been primarily impressed by the unvary- 
 ing processes of the natural world the forces of na- 
 ture and the laws which controlled these forces. Every 
 day he watched the sun rise in the morning and go to its 
 setting in the evening without haste or confusion. 
 Every night he beheld the stars march reposefully across 
 the heavens, and look down, as if in pity, upon the 
 fevered ways of men. He saw great rivers coursing to 
 the sea, and the sea itself rising and falling in rhythmic 
 beat upon the shore. Nowhere was there fret or fury, 
 confusion or waste or chance. Nature apparently did 
 all that she wanted to do, and received all that she 
 wanted to receive, without clamour, excitement, violence, 
 or death. And contemplating these phenomena as the 
 English poet contemplated them, Lao-tse spoke to men, 
 as the English poet spoke in his verses, urging upon 
 their attention and imitation the example of the natural 
 world. From some such experience and reflection, we 
 may be reasonably sure, the great sage came to his 
 message of gentleness and repose, which stands out in
 
 148 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 our late day as the one unmistakable feature of his 
 gospel. He exhorted men to be quiet, kindly, sympa- 
 thetic ; he instructed them not to fret or struggle, not to 
 " strive nor cry " ; he warned them against endeavours to 
 outmatch their neighbours in strength or cunning, or to 
 rival others in powers or possessions. And then he 
 went on to emphasise the majesty of repose, the valour 
 of gentleness, and the unconquerable power of humility. 
 " Of all the weak things in the world," he said, " nothing 
 exceeds water ; and yet of those which attack hard and 
 strong things, I know not what is superior to it." And 
 the same fact, he went on, is true of men. " The weak," 
 was his declaration, " can conquer the strong, and the 
 tender the hard. Therefore the superior man, con- 
 scious of being strong, is content to be weak." 
 
 Here, in this exposition of the power of the gentle life, 
 is the unmistakable note of non-resistance. But Lao-tse 
 did not stay his flight at this point ; he rose at once, like 
 Confucius's dragon, " on the winds " of faith " through 
 the clouds " of doubt, to the " heaven " of perfect vision. 
 Impressive is it to note, six centuries before the advent 
 of Jesus, the appearance of a teacher who imparted to 
 his disciples exactly those principles of moral recom- 
 pense which glorify the gospel of the Nazarene. " To 
 those who are good," he said, " I am good ; and to those 
 who are not good, I am also good and thus all get to 
 be good. To those who are sincere I am sincere ; and to 
 those who are not sincere, I am also sincere and thus 
 all get to be sincere. To recompense injury with kind- 
 ness, this is the law of life." Confucius, it will be re-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 149 
 
 membered, never accepted this principle. On the con- 
 trary, he laughed it to scorn. Thus when one of his 
 disciples pointed out to him that Lao-tse had taught the 
 doctrine of returning good for evil, Confucius replied, 
 undoubtedly with that tone of positive assurance that 
 always characterises the practical man Not at all; 
 you should not recompense injury with kindness, for if 
 you do that, what are you going to give the kind man? 
 " Give to the kind man kindness, but to the unkind man, 
 give nothing more than justice." 
 
 Preaching thus the thorough-going gospel of good- 
 will, it is not surprising to learn that Lao-tse translated 
 his theories into definite social policies which were unique 
 in his day and still remain unfulfilled in ours. Thus 
 this forerunner of spiritual idealism denounced the 
 practice of capital punishment, on the ground that it 
 was a violation of the law of love. More remarkable 
 still, he inveighed against the barbarous punishments 
 for crime which, then as now, were ruthlessly ad- 
 ministered in Chinese prisons. Most remarkable of all, 
 in an age of almost universal ignorance and barbarism, 
 he declared against war. I cannot find that he ever 
 laid down any absolute dictum against war. But he de- 
 nounced it freely as the consummation of all evil, as- 
 serted that it should never be practised except under the 
 most extreme circumstances, and said that " he is the 
 wise king who keeps his people in the paths of peace, and 
 he an unwise and foolish king who leads them into the 
 paths of strife." 
 
 Here, certainly, is a non-resistant ! Whether there
 
 150 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 is any connection between the teachings of this prophet 
 and the traditional practices of the Chinese people it is 
 difficult to say. The books of Confucius have had an 
 immensely wider and deeper influence than those of Lao- 
 tse ; and the modern religion of Taoism has little of the 
 gospel of its reputed founder left in it. But certainly 
 it does not seem altogether rash to venture the supposi- 
 tion that the pacific temper of Chinese life is to some 
 degree a result of Lao-tse's philosophy, or at least that 
 both have their origin in some more ancient influence not 
 yet disclosed to human knowledge. 
 
 ii 
 
 The second exemplar of non-resistance is Buddha, 
 the founder of the greatest and most beneficent of the 
 world's religions, with .the single exception of Christi- 
 anity. There is no need in this place to tell at any 
 length the familiar story of the life of this great teacher. 
 His birth in the palace of his father, the prince and 
 soldier the careful shelter of his early years from all 
 knowledge of pain and misery his marriage to the 
 beautiful princess, Yasodhara the birth of his only 
 child, a son his discovery first of pain, then 
 of disease, and last of death his determination, 
 under the impact of this revelation, to devote himself 
 to the alleviation of human ill, and his consequent 
 abandonment of his family, home and political responsi- 
 bilities his years of wandering, as a poor mendicant, 
 in search of the way of salvation the moment of su- 
 preme revelation beneath the Bodhi tree the preach-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 151 
 
 ing of the sermon at Benares, which corresponds in the 
 history of Buddhism to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount 
 the gathering of his disciples and organisation of his 
 sacred order the long years of his teaching, the wide 
 spread of his influence, his old age, his death these 
 facts are familiar as constituting one of the most 
 romantic stories in history. Sufficient is it for our 
 purposes to point out that throughout all the period 
 of his long life, from the time he left his father's court 
 to the time he expired in the arms of his disciples, he ex- 
 emplified with unvarying uniformity the precepts of 
 non-resistance. 
 
 More important for us than the story of his career, 
 is the question as to the line of thought which led this 
 great prophet to the acceptance and practice of the 
 non-resistant principle. And fortunately, in this case, 
 as not in the case of Lao-tse, we are left in no manner of 
 doubt as to the answer to this inquiry. The record of 
 Buddha's thought is full and clear. 
 
 At the bottom, of course, of all his teaching, is the 
 recognition of the fact of suffering. Buddha saw suf- 
 fering everywhere. " Birth," he said, " is suffering, age 
 is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, con- 
 tact with what we dislike is suffering, separation from 
 what we like is suffering, failure to attain what we crave 
 is suffering ... in brief, all that makes bodily ex- 
 istence is suffering." Buddhism, after all, has its origin 
 in what must be described, with however much reluc- 
 tance, the blackest kind of pessimism to the very end. 
 
 Now as it was this recognition of suffering which
 
 152 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 awakened Buddha to his sense of a mission to mankind, 
 so it was an endeavour to discover the cause of suffer- 
 ing and the cure of suffering which engaged all his 
 thought as a religious teacher. And very early in his 
 search for the way of salvation, he came face to face 
 with the great fact of violence. A large part of the 
 suffering in the world was undoubtedly the direct result 
 of the violent practices visited by men upon their fel- 
 lows. Greed, selfishness, fear, lust, hate, all these were 
 constantly finding expression in action based upon phys- 
 ical force. Nay, more than this, virtuous motives were 
 dictating the use of force quite as frequently as evil 
 passions, with the same results of pain and woe. If suf- 
 fering ever is to be conquered, violence, for whatever 
 purpose used, must be abolished. Therefore, with al- 
 most unexampled thoroughness, did Buddha denounce 
 the use of force, and seek to eliminate it from human 
 life. Violence, he declared, can accomplish nothing but 
 suffering. It can only pile up evil upon the earth con- 
 tinually. The man who resorts to its use, for however 
 worthy an end, is only defeating his end and at the 
 same time adding to the accumulated miseries of the 
 race. 
 
 But Buddha did not stop with the proclamation of 
 this negative gospel. On the contrary, he advanced at 
 once the positive message of gentleness, kindness, and 
 compassion. These are the things, he said, that bring 
 balm to the wounds of men, and surcease therefore to 
 their suffering. These are the things which, while they 
 add nothing to the evil of the world, add immeasurably
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 153 
 
 to its good. And then, moving straight along the path 
 way trod by Lao-tse and later followed by Jesus, he 
 came to the great goal of forgiving love. Startling is it 
 to find these three great teachers, separated from one 
 another by thousands of miles of space and hundreds of 
 years of time, rising to the same great heights of vision 
 and formulating the same great law of life. " Recom- 
 pense injury with kindness," said Lao-tse; "love your 
 enemies," said Jesus ; and now comes Buddha with the 
 words, " The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will 
 return to him the protection of my ungrudging love ; 
 the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go 
 from me. . . . Let a man overcome anger by love, let 
 a man overcome evil by good, 1 let him overcome the 
 greedy by liberality and the liar by truth." 
 
 As we study the religion of Buddha, it is interesting 
 to note, that, unlike the religion of Lao-tse, it has no 
 social applications whatsoever. Throughout his life, 
 Buddha was a teacher of the individual, and the way of 
 salvation which he laid down was a way for the indi- 
 vidual. Therefore do we look in vain among his sayings 
 for any application of his gospel to poverty, war, the 
 treatment of prisoners, etc. One statement only, apart 
 from his general formulations of the laws of gentleness 
 and sympathy, can here be quoted and this not so 
 
 i " Overcome evil with good" St. Paul, in Romans 12. See 
 Edwin Arnold's rewriting of this saying in his Light of Asia 
 " Also I think that good must come of good 
 And ill of evil surely unto all 
 In every place and time seeing sweet fruit 
 Groweth from wholesome roots, and hitter things 
 From poison-stocks; yea, seeing too, how spite 
 Breeds hate, and kindness friends, and patience peace."
 
 154 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 much because it has any reference to our present dis- 
 cussion as because of its amazing anticipation of a point 
 which we amplified at considerable length in our chapter 
 on " The Fallacies of Force." 
 
 It will be remembered that in our consideration of 
 Bernhardi's reliance upon biological phenomena for the 
 substantiation of his doctrine of force, we showed that 
 the combative monsters, who fought and tore one an- 
 other in the primeval " ooze and slime," were the very 
 animals which had disappeared in the course of ages of 
 evolution, and that the weak, gentle, gregarious crea- 
 tures were the ones which had withstood the crucial test 
 of survival. Now here in the case of Buddha, who lived 
 some two thousand five hundred years before Charles 
 Darwin and the modern school of evolutionists, do we 
 find the following saying " Three cubs the lioness 
 brings forth, four the tigress, but one the cow, yet many 
 are the meek cattle, few the beasts of prey. The fierce 
 and grasping soon decay ; the universe preserves to the 
 peaceful the heritage of the earth." a It seems almost 
 incredible that Buddha could have observed and formu- 
 lated this biological law; and yet this statement is as 
 well-accredited as any which is reputed to have come 
 from his lips. Here, six hundred years before Christ, is 
 the summing up of the whole gospel of evolution in its 
 bearing upon the principle of non-resistance. Buddha, 
 like Lao-tse before him and Jesus after him, saw clearly 
 that it is the weak who conquer the strong in the long 
 
 i " Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth " 
 Jesus, in Matthew 5.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 155 
 
 run, and that as a consequence the way of love is the 
 way of life. Verily, verily, General Bernhardi and his 
 school are farther behind the times than we had sup- 
 posed ! 
 
 m 
 
 The third exemplar of non-resistance, whom I shall 
 name, brings us to the familiar ground of Jewish history 
 and the familiar record of the Old Testament. I refer 
 to Isaiah, commonly regarded as the greatest in the long 
 line of the prophets of ancient Israel. 
 
 In order to understand the teachings of this man, it is 
 necessary to remember that, unlike Lao-tse and Buddhr, 
 and unlike also most of his predecessors and successors 
 in the prophetic line, Isaiah was not primarily a re- 
 ligious teacher at all, but a politician or rather states- 
 man. He was not a cloistered student, not a wander- 
 ing mendicant, not a priest, not even a man of the peo- 
 ple, but all his life an aristocrat, a courtier, a friend of 
 kings and a counsellor in the ministries of state. It is 
 for this reason that his recorded writings have so ex- 
 clusively to do, not with the ethical problems of indi- 
 vidual life, but with the political problems of Israel, 
 and the vast issues of international relationships. And 
 it is for this reason also that his attitude as a non-re- 
 sistant has a greater interest for us than that of Lao-tse 
 or Buddha, or perhaps even of Jesus. For there are 
 many of us who are pretty much convinced of the inef- 
 ficacy of force and the efficacy of goodwill in the quiet 
 and sheltered ways of individual existence, but are ex-
 
 156 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ceedingly dubious about these principles when they 
 come to be extended to the larger, more intricate and 
 therefore more perilous problems of the nation and of 
 society at large. In Isaiah we have a supremely able, 
 courageous and spiritually-minded man who made just 
 this doubtful extension of the non-resistant gospel to 
 the affairs of state and therefore an immensely sig- 
 nificant example of the meaning and practicability of 
 our doctrine. 
 
 There were two episodes in the long career of Isaiah 
 as a statesman and prophet which put his non-resistant 
 principles to the test. They may be cited as all-suf- 
 ficient illustrations of his thought and conduct. 
 
 The first episode occurred in the year 734 B.C. It 
 was in anticipation of that invasion from the east which 
 resulted only a few years later in the fall of Samaria 
 and the conquest of the Northern Kingdom, that Pekah, 
 the king of Israel, and Rezin, the king of Syria, under- 
 took to persuade Ahaz, king of Judah, to join with them 
 in a coalition against the Assyrians, believing that the 
 time had at last come when together they could over- 
 throw the Chaldean hosts and thus protect their lands 
 from destruction. Now the motive behind this pro- 
 posal seemed worthy, and its occasion propitious ; there- 
 fore was Ahaz tempted to clasp hands with his royal 
 contemporaries and join in their hostile enterprise. 
 When he looked far to the east, however, and saw in all 
 its splendour and might, the stupendous military power 
 of Assyria, he became frightened and hesitant. Thus 
 did he blow now hot, now cold, eager to smite his enemy,
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 157 
 
 longing for the booty of a successful war ; but, a coward 
 at heart, never quite daring to take the final step. At 
 last, after long waiting, Pekah and Rezin, both of them 
 men of some boldness, grew angry as well as impatient, 
 and decided to force Ahaz to join them. Therefore did 
 they turn their armies south into Judah instead of east 
 into Assyria, and marched upon Jerusalem. 
 
 Terror-stricken at this sudden and unexpected turn 
 of affairs, the wretched Ahaz was about to appeal to 
 Assyria, of all countries, for help, when, at the supreme 
 crisis in the nation's affairs, Isaiah came upon the scene. 
 His advice was at once comforting and terrifying. You 
 are perfectly right, he said, to hesitate about joining 
 in any desperate coalition against Assyria. The three 
 nations, Israel, Judah, and Syria, can never hope to se- 
 cure any permanent advantage over this mighty power 
 to the East ; an attack can only lead to utter destruc- 
 tion in the end. But you are all wrong in seeking now 
 to form an alliance with Assyria, in order to ward off 
 the invasion of Pekah and Rczin. Assyria may promise 
 protection, but she will not give it ; and any alliance of 
 any kind means the ultimate merging of your kingdom 
 into the Assyrian empire. The thing for you to do, ho 
 continued and here is the greatness of his message ! 
 is to stand aloof from all alliances and coalitions, 
 and steadfastly refuse to make war. Even now, when 
 your foes are advancing against you, it is the part of 
 wisdom for you to sheath your sword and place your 
 confidence in Jehovah. God is our Gcd, who will safe- 
 guard his people who put their trust in him !
 
 158 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 It is needless to say that a coward like Ahaz had jio 
 confidence in such desperate counsel as this. Surely 
 hope is far gone when one has no other reliance but 
 God! Therefore did the king cast his fate into the 
 hands of Assyria and the inevitable straightway came 
 to pass. Marching west with his swarming legions 
 Tiglath-Pileser, the Assyrian despot, overthrew the 
 armies of Syria and Israel, captured the capital cities, 
 Damascus and Samaria, ravaged the prostrate countries 
 from end to end, and carried the population off into 
 captivity. Then, distrusting Ahaz and contemptuous 
 of his friendship, he invaded the land of his ally exactly 
 as he had invaded the lands of his enemies, and was only 
 turned aside by a surrender on the part of Ahaz which 
 was equal in humiliation if not in terror to that of 
 Pekah and Rezin. Only when the temple of Jehovah 
 had been stripped of its gold and silver, the daughters 
 of Ahaz passed over to the pleasures of the great king, 
 and hundreds of captives of high degree committed to 
 his hands as hostages, did Tiglath-Pileser consent to 
 spare Judah and return to his own dominions. The 
 kingdom was saved, but at what a loss of wealth, happi- 
 ness, and honour ! 
 
 Anticipating exactly such an outcome as this, Isaiah, 
 upon hearing of Ahaz's alliance with Assyria, had 
 erected in one of the public squares of Jerusalem, a 
 great sign bearing the inscription, " Swift spoil, speedy 
 prey." The prophecy was clear that he who lifted 
 the sword would always become the " swift spoil " and 
 " speedy prey " either of his enemy or of his friend.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 159 
 
 And the prophecy was fulfilled. Ahaz escaped Pekah 
 and Rezin, only to fall into the clutches of Tiglath ! 
 The second episode, to which I have referred, took 
 place twelve years later, in the year 722 B. c. Sargon, 
 the successor of Tiglath-Pileser on the throne of As- 
 syria, had been assassinated, and the great soldier, Sen- 
 nacherib, had taken his place. Revolution broke out in 
 the West immediately on the death of Sargon, and 
 among those who took advantage of this opportunity 
 for independence was Hezekiah, the king of Israel. 
 Sennacherib's first move was to put down the rebellion 
 in his own kingdom. This done, he marched straight 
 to the West and invaded Egypt, with the Pharaoh of 
 which Hezekiah had joined alliance. The land of the 
 pyramids was soon conquered, and then came the turn 
 of Israel. Advancing rapidly eastward, the great king 
 ravaged and burned and slaughtered on every side, and 
 at last, breathing frightful vengeance, marshalled his 
 host about the walls of Jerusalem and besieged the city. 
 It was at this moment, when the most formidable of 
 armies, under one of the greatest of soldiers, was as- 
 saulting the citadel, that Isaiah came to Hezekiah and 
 spoke that message which stands, and must stand for- 
 ever, I believe, as one of the most remarkable utterances 
 of all time. " Woe," he said, " to the rebellious chil- 
 dren that go down into Egypt for help, and trust in 
 chariots because they are many, and in horsemen be- 
 cause they are strong ; but unto the Holy One of Israel 
 they look not, neither seek the Lord! . . . Now the 
 Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses are
 
 160 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 flesh, and not spirit ; wherefore both he that helpeth 
 shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall. . . . As 
 birds flying, so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusa- 
 lem ; defending also he will deliver it, and passing over 
 he will preserve it. Turn ye unto him, from whom the 
 children of Israel have deeply revolted." 
 
 Then followed one of the most extraordinary acci- 
 dents of history. Isaiah had told the king that, if he 
 defended the city, it would be destroyed ; but that if he 
 trusted to God alone, it would be saved. The idea 
 seemed preposterous ; but Hezekiah, in the desperate- 
 ness of the situation, knew nothing else to do but look 
 to the Lord. And lo, in a single night, the vast army 
 which was besetting Jerusalem on every side, suddenly 
 broke camp, returned to the east, and never again in- 
 vaded Israel. What took place, no historian is able 
 definitely to say. Some surmise that a revolt had taken 
 place in Assyria others, that news of an invasion 
 from some unexpected source was received still 
 others, that pestilence had broken out in the camp and 
 was decimating the troops. The last is probably the 
 most likely supposition. But whatever the cause, the 
 fact still remains that the siege was lifted and the city 
 saved. And from that day forward, it may be added, 
 Isaiah was a man of unquestioned authority in the 
 political affairs of the kingdom. 
 
 Here, now, in these two striking episodes, do we have 
 impressive evidence of the thoroughness and courage of 
 Isaiah's policy of non-resistance. To many historians, 
 the prophet's attitude on both of these occasions has
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 161 
 
 seemed to be the very acme of unreason and immorality. 
 Some have even gone so far as to suggest in Isaiah's 
 case, as later in Jeremiah's, the charge of treason. 
 Thus Ernest Renan, discussing these events in his His- 
 tory of the People of Israel, asked if " one does not seem 
 to be reading the words of a rabid socialist of our own 
 day, declaiming against the army, making mock of pa- 
 triotism, and predicting with a kind of savage joy fu- 
 ture disaster? " From the standpoint of the tradi- 
 tional and still universally accepted ideas of statecraft 
 and patriotism, Renan is undoubtedly correct in this in- 
 dictment ; and those who read the words of Isaiah as in- 
 spired utterances and clamour for armies and navies, 
 foreign coalitions, and wars on every provocation, may 
 well take note of his fearless criticism. But some of 
 us may be pardoned, perhaps, if we believe that Isaiah, 
 whether justified by events or not, was right in his 
 counsel of perfection, and seek for some statesman- 
 prophet of our own time to " profit by his example." 
 Isaiah, in a position of great responsibility, anticipated 
 Jesus in asserting that " they that take the sword 
 shall perish with the sword," and is still unmatched by 
 any public leader in his trust in God and the things 
 of righteousness. 
 
 IV 
 
 Our last example of non-resistance in the ancient 
 world must be Jesus of Nazareth. At first sight it 
 might seem as though we needed to spend very little time 
 in explaining the attitude of the Carpenter upon this
 
 162 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 question, for the evidence is familiar and would seem to 
 be unimpeachable. We shall deceive ourselves, how- 
 ever, if we lightly assume that the founder of Christi- 
 anity is everywhere accepted as a non-resistant, and 
 that we can use the authority of his name without sub- 
 stantiating our interpretation of his gospel. Nothing 
 has been more marked, for example, since the outbreak 
 of the Great War in Europe, than the endeavour of 
 those who believe in war, or at least in this particular 
 war, to prove that Jesus was not a non-resistant, and 
 that the Christians of Germany, England, and France 
 were under no spiritual obligation, therefore, to refrain 
 from taking up arms against their enemies. Strange 
 as it may seem to those of us who have always accepted 
 the Christian tradition in this regard without hesita- 
 tion, there are those who are ready to argue that our 
 conclusions are wrong, and, like the devil in the old say- 
 ing, quote scripture to suit their purpose. Which 
 means that we must assume nothing upon this question, 
 but, if we can, prove everything! 
 
 It would be a long and undoubtedly tedious task to 
 search the Scriptures for evidence upon the question 
 of Jesus's attitude toward the use of force in human 
 affairs. Therefore is it fortunate that no such ex- 
 haustive survey of our problem is required. For all 
 the arguments ever offered in contradiction of the as- 
 sumption that Jesus was a non-resistant are based upon 
 one or all of four very brief passages in the Synoptic 
 Gospels. If we can dispose of these, the whole case in
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 163 
 
 opposition falls to pieces, and our original conception 
 stands unimpaired. 
 
 First among these four passages which seem to in- 
 validate the non-resistant interpretation of Jesus's life 
 and teachings, is the familiar statement in the thirteenth 
 chapter of Mark, " When ye shall hear of wars and 
 rumours of wars, be not troubled, for such things must 
 needs come to pass." Here, it is argued, is Jesus fore- 
 telling the wars that are vexing the earth even in our 
 day, and laying down in so many words the principle 
 of their necessity. How can it be contended that Jesus 
 is a non-resistant when he distinctly says that the very 
 things, against which the non-resistant stands fronted 
 in deadly opposition, " must needs come to pass "? 
 
 The absurdity of this argument is so apparent that 
 it is hardly necessary, I take it, for one to waste time 
 and strength in answering it. Surely there is some 
 difference, is there not, between saying that it is in- 
 evitable that certain things shall transpire in the fu- 
 ture, and saying that it is right and proper that such 
 things should transpire? I pick up a letter written 
 by Count Tolstoi to the London Times some years be- 
 fore his death, in which he states that, under the con- 
 ditions then prevailing in Europe, it is certain that 
 sooner or later the continent will be engulfed in a uni- 
 versal cataclysm of arms. Ergo, I must infer that the 
 rumour that the great Russian was a non-resistant can 
 be no longer credited ! I read Romain Rolland's vast 
 novel, Jean Christophe, and find in the last volume a
 
 164 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 startling forecast of the outbreak of the present War of 
 the Nations. Ergo, I must presume that M. Rolland 
 welcomes the conflict and approves of all that Germany 
 and Austria did to precipitate it ! I turn the pages oT 
 H. G. Wells's Social Forces in England and America, 
 and, coming to his essay on The Possible Collapse of 
 Civilisation, find him anticipating the horror which the 
 armaments of modern nations have brought upon the 
 world. Ergo, I must take it for granted that Wells 
 does not hate war, does not believe in disarmament, but 
 on the contrary is to be counted among the Treitschkes 
 and Bernhardis, the Crambs and Robertses, of modern 
 times ! Is not the folly of such a mode of argument 
 too patent to need serious refutation? When Jesus de- 
 clared that " wars and rumours of wars . . . must needs 
 come," he simply showed that he understood the stu- 
 pidity of human reason, the blindness of human greed, 
 the immorality of national statecraft. He simply 
 prophesied that, so long as the temper of the heart and 
 the conditions of society remained as they were, there 
 could be no " peace on earth, goodwill toward men." 
 He said what would be not what ought to be ! And 
 coupled this with a grand assurance of faith, that " such 
 things " need not trouble us, since the time must come 
 when " such things " shall not be ! 
 
 Another passage which is always cited in this con- 
 nection is the famous text from the tenth chapter of 
 Matthew, " Think not that I am come to send peace on 
 the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword." 
 Here is a statement which seems to be conclusive, and
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 165 
 
 therefore incontestable. Jesus declares categorically 
 that his mission is not one of peace at all, but one of 
 war. He comes to earth not to unite men, but to send 
 a sword among them. It is evident that he not only be- 
 lieves that " wars and Tumours of wars " shall " come to 
 pass " of their own accord, but that he proposes to 
 make some of those " wars and rumours of wars " him- 
 self. 
 
 Such a literal interpretation of this martial text 
 seems to be inevitable at least until we read on in this 
 same chapter a little farther. " I came not to send 
 peace, but a sword," are his words. But immediately 
 thereafter, in the same passage, he goes on to say, " I 
 am come to set a man at variance against his father, 
 and the daughter against her mother, and the daugh- 
 ter-in-law against her mother-in-law." These sentences 
 obviously belong together they are part of the same 
 thought, or sequence in the same discourse. And are 
 we to infer therefrom that Jesus came into the world 
 for the single, distinct purpose of breaking up families 
 and severing households that his appointed mission 
 was to turn fathers against their sons, and daughters 
 against their mothers, and daughters-in-law against 
 their mothers-in-law? 
 
 The mere suggestion takes us at once to the reductio 
 ad absurdum which is involved in any attempt to in- 
 terpret literally, " I came not to send peace, but a 
 sword." What Jesus was emphasising here, in his vivid 
 oriental fashion, was the radical and therefore divisive 
 character of the gospel which he had come to preach.
 
 166 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 His message of pure idealism went to the roots of 
 things. It separated instantly the sheep from the 
 goats the worshippers of Mammon from the worship- 
 pers of God. Right in his own household, he had seen 
 it divide himself from his mother and his brethren. 
 And what had taken place in his home, he felt certain 
 was bound to take place in many others. The preach- 
 ing of the Kingdom would sever fathers from sons, and 
 mothers from daughters. Such divisions were not to 
 be welcomed, much less plotted and planned, but were 
 to be accepted when they came. They were simply the 
 altogether regrettable and yet inevitable results of the 
 proclamation of a new truth, a new commandment, a 
 new age ! Let no man seek for compromises or, hav- 
 ing put his hand to the plough, look back or, 
 having enlisted, seek to return and bury his dead. 
 " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not 
 worthy of me ; and he that loveth son or daughter more 
 than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not 
 his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." 
 Thus spoke the Master his awful challenge of allegiance 
 and thus he lifted the sword that cleaved those who 
 heard from those who would not hear ! 
 
 More serious than either of these two passages which 
 we have cited, is the third, which appears in the story of 
 the Last Supper as told by St. Luke. Jesus and his 
 disciples were conversing together after the evening 
 meal, and he was telling them something of the perils 
 which lay before them. " And he said unto them, When 
 I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 167 
 
 ye anything? and they said, Nothing. Then he said 
 unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him 
 take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no 
 sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." And 
 when he had said this, we are told, that they said, 
 " Lord, behold, here are two swords." And he said 
 unto them, " It is enough." 
 
 This passage has always proved troublesome, not 
 only to non-resistants, but to all students of the gospels, 
 who have without exception found it difficult to recon- 
 cile with the actions of Jesus on other and similar occa- 
 sions. Apart from all questions of his non-resistant 
 attitude, this speech of his simply does not seem to fit 
 in, somehow or other, with the rest of his career. 
 Therefore do we find various attempts to explain it or 
 even argue it away. What these are, we need not here 
 enumerate. Renan, who declares flatly in his Vie de 
 Jesu, that Jesus was momentarily overcome by fear, 
 and Nathaniel Schmidt, who surmises in his Prophet 
 of Nazareth that the incident in all probability never 
 took place as here recorded, are perhaps typical. 
 What is important for us to observe is, that all higher 
 critics of the gospel narrative agree that here is some- 
 thing that does not fit in with the rest of the picture, 
 something that needs special study and consideration, 
 something that must be explained; and that they all 
 straightway proceed to find some explanation which is 
 different from that which the passage seems to imply 
 upon its face! What we have here, to my mind, is 
 simply a bold endeavour on the part of Jesus, through
 
 168 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 the figure of the sword which he had used so many times 
 before, to impress upon his over-sanguine and there- 
 fore heedless disciples the seriousness of the situation 
 which was before them, and thus to prepare them for 
 disaster. The whole atmosphere of the Last Supper 
 was that of farewell. Every word of the Master was 
 that of forecast of arrest, punishment, death. The 
 spilt wine, the broken bread, the promised betrayal, the 
 judgment of Peter all pointed straight to Gethsem- 
 ane, the Sanhedrin, and Calvary. The situation has 
 changed, was the message of the hour our enemies are 
 upon us. There was a time when we could go " without 
 purse, and scrip, and shoes," but not now ! If there- 
 fore there be any one among you who cares particularly 
 about saving his own skin, he cannot do a better thing 
 than sell his cloak and buy a sword, for this is a time 
 for swords ! The incomparable irony was at work here, 
 as on so many other occasions in the Master's speech. 
 And as usual it was totally misunderstood. He may 
 have had in mind many things, when he thus instructed 
 his followers. But that he actually bade them to buy 
 swords and defend themselves against arrest, is too pre- 
 posterous for discussion. It is put absolutely out of 
 court by the great event which transpired only a few 
 moments later in the Garden, when Peter drew a sword 
 against the servant of the High Priest. " Put up thy 
 sword again into its place," said Jesus, " for all they 
 that take the sword shall perish with the sword." 
 
 But one passage more remains to be considered, and 
 this the most serious of all. I refer, of course, to the
 
 EXEMPLARS Oi NON-RESISTANCE 169 
 
 cleansing of the Temple. That this event took place 
 as recorded is unquestionable. That it constitutes an 
 act of open violence is similarly unquestionable. Any 
 such explanation as that piously offered by Adin Ballou 
 in his Christian Non-Resistance, that Jesus may have 
 driven the money-changers from the court-yard, but 
 there is no evidence that he struck any one of them, is 
 of course the most flagrant kind of hair-splitting. 
 What we have here is a well-authenticated violation of 
 the principle of non-resistance and why not accept 
 it as such? The episode is chiefly remarkable in the 
 fife of the Nazarene, not for anything which it teaches 
 in itself, but for its inconsistency with the rest of his 
 career. Never at any other time, so far as we know, 
 did he precipitate riot or himself assault his enemies. 
 But this time he did this time he failed to live up to 
 the inordinately exacting demands of his own gospel of 
 brotherhood. Nor is the circumstance at all difficult 
 to understand! Jesus came to Jerusalem tired, worn, 
 hunted. He knew that he walked straight into the arms 
 of his enemies, and undoubtedly therefore straight to 
 his own death. Weary, desperate, confused, he came to 
 the Temple to pray and here, right before the altars 
 of his God, were the money-changers here in the 
 sacred places, the type and symbol of that com- 
 mercialised religion which he most abhorred and which 
 he knew was certain in the end to destroy him. What 
 wonder that a mighty flood of anger surged up in his 
 soul, and for the moment overwhelmed him. What 
 wonder that he seized the rushes from the floor, and
 
 170 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 swept the place clean of its profaners. It was mag- 
 nificent, we grant you, but it was not war, in Jesus's 
 sense of that word. This was a moment of defeat, and 
 not of victory! 
 
 Such are the passages upon which those, who deny 
 that Jesus was a non-resistant, found their case. 
 Whether we have explained these passages satisfactorily 
 or not, is after all not a matter of great importance. 
 For even though every one of the four were to be in- 
 terpreted as our militant friends would have us believe, 
 and even though the four were to be multiplied to four- 
 teen or forty, we should still be obliged to hold to the 
 non-resistant character of Jesus's life and teaching. 
 Whatever our interpretations of separate speeches and 
 episodes, three general facts in regard to the work of 
 the Nazarene stand unimpeachable. 
 
 In the first place, whatever may be said about sep- 
 arate incidents, the whole spirit of Jesus's life, as re- 
 flected in the four gospels, and in every apocryphal 
 and patristic memory of him that has been preserved to 
 us, is that of a man who believed profoundly in the 
 gospel of love ; whatever may be said about isolated 
 passages, the whole burden of Jesus's teaching is that 
 of the gospel of forgiving injuries, doing kindness, and 
 fostering goodwill. The Nazarene had his inconsistent 
 moments, like the rest of us. There is nothing easier 
 than to go through the gospels and point out the con- 
 tradictions in the record. But whatever his occasional 
 lapses from his own august ideals, his power, his desire, 
 his spirit, are plain beyond possibility of confusion.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 171 
 
 He condemned and eschewed violence. He deprecated 
 and avoided the use of force. At his best moments he 
 sought to " turn the other cheek," to love his enemies, 
 to do no evil for any cause. Not by one or two, or 
 even four, exceptions, which can by hook or crook be 
 found in one of the most stressful careers in history, 
 must the man be judged, but by the whole rule of his 
 life. The workmanship may here and there be defec- 
 tive, but the design is plain. 
 
 Secondly, at the supreme crisis of his life, when he 
 was put to the ultimate test of his convictions, Jesus 
 made perfectly plain the import of his doctrine. When 
 he was set upon in the Garden of Gethsemane, three 
 things were at stake: First of all, his own life. Sec- 
 ondly, so far as he could foresee at the moment, the lives 
 of his well-beloved disciples who had left all and fol- 
 lowed at his bidding. Thirdly, again so far as he 
 could foresee, the whole destiny of the reform move- 
 ment which, at some cost, he had initiated and car- 
 ried forward in Israel. Now, had Jesus's own life alone 
 been placed in jeopardy by the action of Caiaphas, he 
 might well have disdained to resort to arms. This, 
 certainly, is understandable. But what shall we say 
 when we see him refusing to use the sword offered him 
 by Peter, to defend his disciples and perpetuate his 
 work? If ever there is excuse or reason for the use of 
 force, it is in defence of the persons of those we love, or 
 of the cause of truth which we espouse. Here, if any- 
 v.herc, it is agreed, are sanctions of violence. And 
 yet Jesus steadfastly refused to avail himself of them.
 
 172 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Any one who can look upon Gethsemane, the Sanhe- 
 drin, the house of Pilate, and Calvary, and deny that 
 Jesus was a non-resistant, seems beyond the reach of 
 reason. 
 
 Lastly, as we shall see at length in the next chapter 
 and need therefore only mention in this place, it is to be 
 noted that the men who knew Jesus, and the men who 
 knew the men who knew Jesus, were so convinced that 
 he was a non-resistant that, even in the face of the 
 crudest martyrdom the world has known, not one of 
 them lifted the sword in self-defence. They preferred 
 to die rather than to take up arms, and many there 
 were who walked the path of death in obedience to their 
 faith. 
 
 These three facts cannot be denied. Any teachings 
 that seem to contradict, and any conduct that seems to 
 fall short of, the perfect idealism embodied in these 
 facts, must be counted as of small significance. If 
 Jesus was not a non-resistant, then there are no non- 
 resistants. We are talking about creatures as grossly 
 fabled as the roc or unicorn. 
 
 Here, now, are the four supreme exemplars of non- 
 resistance who come to us from ancient times. In the 
 early days of the Great War, it was the fashion to 
 speculate as to what might have happened in Europe if 
 the socialists had but stood fast by their pacifist prin- 
 ciples. Is it not worth speculating at any time, in much 
 the same way, as to what might have happened in the
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 173 
 
 world at large long since, if the professed disciples of 
 these four great religious prophets had from the begin- 
 ning been faithful to their gospel? The total popula- 
 tion of the world in 1910 was estimated in round num- 
 bers to be 1,652,945,000. Of these, 483,000,000 were 
 Buddhists and Taoists, 610,000,000 Christians, 11,- 
 000,000 Jews a total of 1,104,000,000. Is it too 
 much to assert, in the light of these figures, that, if these 
 millions were " faithful to the heavenly vision " seen and 
 revealed by their prophets, wars would cease forthwith 
 and peace at last be established among mankind?
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 
 (Modern)
 
 " Peace is of all things the best and happiest. War on the con- 
 trary is the blackest villainy of which human nature is capable. . . . 
 
 "The object of war is to do all possible injury to the enemy. 
 But can we hurt essentially without hurting at the same time and 
 by the same means ourselves? . . . What is there not to be feared 
 in it and from it? ... Great are the evils which must be sub- 
 mitted to, in order to accomplish an end itself a greater evil than 
 all that have preceded it. Indeed, if we were to calculate the 
 matter fairly and form a just computation ... no men of sound 
 mind or honest heart would ever rush headlong into the dangers 
 and difficulties (of violence) when they may enjoy the blessings 
 of peace with little trouble " Erasmus, in The Plea of Reason, 
 Religion and Humanity Against War.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE (MODERN) 
 
 THE earliest exemplars of non-resistance in the 
 modern world were the early Christians, not a few of 
 whom like Stephen, died for the sake of the cause which 
 they had espoused without offering resistance to their 
 enemies. Pre-eminent among these primitive witnesses, 
 for the vividness of his words as well as the heroism of 
 his deeds, was Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. 
 
 Paul first makes his appearance in history as the 
 " young man " who guarded the " clothes " of the exe- 
 cutioners of Stephen and " consented " unto the killing 
 of this first of all the martyrs. Later on he is described 
 as one of the most active and ruthless of the persecutors 
 of the little bands of Christians which were scattered 
 throughout Palestine. Terrible is the passage in Acts, 
 which speaks of him as " breathing out threatenings and 
 slaughter against the disciples of the Lord," and going 
 " unto the high priest " for " letters to the syna- 
 gogues " that he might be duly commissioned to 
 " bring bound unto Jerusalem " any that he " found 
 of this way, whether they were men or women." 
 At this time, as later, intense in his convic- 
 tions and thoroughgoing in his actions, Paul found 
 
 177
 
 178 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 it entirely consistent with his Pharisaic Judaism 
 to wield the fire and sword of persecution. The tradi- 
 tion of Judas Maccabeus had long since overshadowed 
 that of the great Isaiah ! But the very moment that he 
 became converted to Christianity, he swung far over to 
 the other extreme, and in accordance with what he re- 
 garded as the teaching and example of Jesus, became as 
 aident a non-resistant as he had formerly been a cham- 
 pion of force. Through all his long service as a 
 missionary to the Gentile world, " in labours abundant, 
 in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in 
 deaths oft . . . thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, 
 ... in journeyings often, in perils of robbers, in perils 
 by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the 
 wilderness, in perils among false brethren, ... in 
 weariness and painfulness, in watchings, hunger, thirst, 
 fastings, cold and nakedness," he never swerved from 
 his obedient practice of that love which he described as 
 " the fulfilling of the law." No man ever preserved 
 greater fidelity to the ideal of the non-resistant life 
 under more trying circumstances than Paul. And no 
 man, be it said at the same time, ever gave more valiant 
 service against what he regarded as falsehood and evil. 
 
 Nor did his service end with his deeds. More valu- 
 able in certain ways than anything that he did, were 
 the deathless words which he wrote in interpretation of 
 the Christian gospel. All through his epistles there 
 sounds the constant appeal to his followers to " live at 
 peace with all men," and again and again he describes 
 with unequalled clearness and power the meaning of
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 179 
 
 peace. Nowhere in all literature not even in the 
 gospels themselves is there a more precise and beau- 
 tiful elucidation of the non-resistant doctrine than that 
 found in the twelfth chapter of Romans. More satis- 
 factory than the famous " resist not evil " passage, of 
 which it is frankly a re-statement, are the sublime words, 
 " Bless them which persecute you ; bless, and curse 
 not. . . . Recompense to no man evil for evil. . . . 
 Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto 
 wrath ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, 
 saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed 
 him ; if he thirst, give him drink : for in so doing, thou 
 shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not over- 
 come of evil, but overcome evil with good." 
 
 ii 
 
 Cruel as were the trials of the early followers of 
 Jesus, however, the non-resistant aspect of Christian 
 life only came into real prominence with the extension 
 of the movement to the great centres of the Roman 
 world, and its consequent appearance as an important 
 element in the life of the Empire. Then came the clash 
 with the public authorities, as a result of the refusal 
 of the Roman citizens converted to the new religion to 
 serve in the army. There was more than one reason, of 
 course, why the early Christians declined to enter the 
 ranks of the legions. First of all, they could not con- 
 scientiously take the oath of obedience to the Emperor 
 which was required of every legionary. In the second 
 place, they were unwilling to place upon the Emperor's
 
 180 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 shrine the offerings exacted of every soldier and thus 
 worship the ruler as a divine or semi-divine being. Fur- 
 thermore, they were well aware, if they enlisted, that 
 they were liable to be summoned at any time, in obe- 
 dience to the whim of the Emperor or even of a pro- 
 vincial officer, to arrest their fellow-Christians, torture 
 them and put them to death. More important than any 
 such reasons as these, however, is the simple fact that 
 conversion to Christianity, in this age of the world's 
 history, involved conversion to the ideal of non-resist- 
 ance. No man, so it was believed in this benighted era 
 could be a soldier of the Empire and at the same time a 
 follower of the Nazarene. To draw the sword, even in 
 the p\iblic service of the country, was a flagrant viola- 
 tion of Jesus's law of life. Therefore did they refuse ; 
 and many were those who walked the bloody path of 
 martyrdom as the price of this refusal. 
 
 The writings which have come to us in abundance from 
 the church fathers of the first three centuries after 
 Christ, give ample evidence of the depth and thorough- 
 ness of the early Christian attitude upon this issue. 
 The idea of non-resistance in its most extreme form is 
 written all over the pages of this patristic literature. 
 In one of the most famous of the letters of the great 
 teacher, Justin Martyr (circa 150 A. D.), we find a cita- 
 tion of the passage from Isaiah prophesying the day 
 when " nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
 neither shall they learn war any more," followed imme- 
 diately by the impressive declaration of Justin, that 
 " this prophecy is already being fulfilled, since we who
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 181 
 
 formerly used to murder one another, not only now re- 
 frain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that 
 we may not lie nor deceive our enemies, willingly die con- 
 fessing Christ." 
 
 Another striking testimony comes to us from the 
 great Tertullian (circa 200 A. D.), the ablest and most 
 zealous of the Christian leaders of his day. Retorting 
 upon some of his pagan critics, who had accused the 
 Christians of all sorts of crime, especially the crime 
 of non-resistance, Tertullian says, " Shall (the Chris- 
 tian) apply the chain and prison, torture and death, 
 who is not even the avenger of his own wrongs? Shall 
 it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, 
 when the Lord proclaims that he who takes the sword 
 shall perish by the sword? " And then repudiating the 
 charge of cowardice brought against his brethren, be- 
 cause they refused to enlist in the legions, he continues, 
 " For what wars should we not be fit, we who so willingly 
 yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were 
 not counted better to be slain than to slay ? " 
 
 Especially impressive is the testimony of Lactantius 
 (circa 260325 A. D.), not only because of the uncom- 
 promising character of his words, but also because of 
 the comparatively late period of his career. Already 
 by the end of the third century, the early passion for 
 non-resistance, as for various other Christian ideals, 
 was beginning to cool, but Lactantius spoke forth as 
 boldty as any of those who had preceded him in the 
 earlier and less corrupt periods of Christian life. 
 *' When God forbids us to kill," he says in The Divine
 
 182 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Institutes, " he not only prohibits us from open vio- 
 lence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but 
 he warns us against the commission of those things, 
 which are esteemed lawful among men. Thus it can 
 never be lawful for a righteous man to go to war, since 
 his warfare is in righteousness itself ; nor to accuse any 
 one of a capital charge, since it makes no difference 
 whether you put a man to death by word or by sword, 
 since it is the act of putting to death which is pro- 
 hibited. Therefore, with regard to this precept of 
 God, there can be no exception at all ... it is always 
 unlawful to put a man to death." 
 
 So do the evidences of Christianity multiply. Adin 
 Ballou, in his Christian Non-Resistance^ has gathered 
 together a series of some of the more striking and pithy 
 sayings of the early writers upon this point. " One 
 says, * It is not lawful for a Christian to bear arms.' 
 Another, ' Because I am a Christian, I have abandoned 
 my profession as a soldier.' A third, ' I am a Chris- 
 tian, and therefore I cannot fight.' A fourth, ' I can- 
 not fight, if I die ; I am not a soldier of this world, but a 
 soldier of God.' ' It is evident that, in these primitive 
 days at least, there was no compromise upon the ques- 
 tion whatsoever. More than one, as for example a 
 certain Maximilian, died rather than take up arms and 
 fight against the invaders of the Empire. Even though 
 the nation was destroyed by barbarians, they still be- 
 lieved that they must not kill. 
 
 Of course the charge was frequently brought against 
 these early Christians, as it is against pacifists to-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 183 
 
 day, that if their conduct became a rule of universal 
 conduct, it would mean the end of civilisation. Thus 
 Celsus, the opponent of Justin, wrote in one of his con- 
 troversial epistles " You will not bear arms in the 
 service of the Empire when your services are needed ; 
 and if all people should act upon this principle, the Em- 
 pire would be over-run by barbarians." To which 
 statement it was unfalteringly replied that this matter 
 was in the hands not of men but of God ! If God de- 
 sired the barbarians to over-run the Empire, then this 
 was a part of " the divine plan " * and must be endured. 
 Even though this part of the divine plan could not be 
 understood, that other part of the divine plan, the law 
 of love, was perfectly plain to every conscience. There- 
 fore must this law be heeded, though the end of the 
 world come. "Fiat justitia, ruat coelum ! " "Even 
 though St. Peter himself should descend out of heaven, 
 and should come to us with the declaration that we must 
 take up arms for the sake of saving Rome from the bar- 
 barians," said one of the Fathers, " I would not be- 
 lieve it ; for the words of Jesus are more sure than even 
 such a miracle as this." 
 
 m 
 
 By the time that the third century A. D. was well 
 under way, it was evident that the original zeal of Chris- 
 tian discipleship was beginning to wane, and its primi- 
 tive characteristics to adapt themselves more and more 
 
 i How much a part of " the divine plan," or a necessary stage 
 in the evolution of civilisation, this barbarian invasion was, not 
 even these early Christians could have imagined !
 
 184 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 closely to the worldly environment of the Empire. By 
 the time that Constantine was converted and Christi- 
 anity made the official religion of his dominions, the 
 process of spiritual disintegration was far advanced, 
 and only needed this crisis of success to become com- 
 plete. It is common to speak of this year, 312, as the 
 date which marks the conquest of the Roman Empire by 
 the Christian church ; but much more accurate would it 
 be, to my mind, to describe it as the date which marks 
 the conquest of the church by the Empire. For at 
 this fateful moment, the religion of Jesus disappeared, 
 like a hidden river, not to emerge again for more than a 
 thousand years. Like every hidden river, the lost 
 stream of spiritual life made green the fields beneath 
 which it found its way, and nourished many a fair 
 growth of blossom and fruit. But it was seldom seen 
 of men, and was almost as much lost as though it had 
 never been. 
 
 From this date on, the history of Christianity is the 
 history not of a redemptive religion, but of a corrupt 
 ecclesiastical state and a repressive theological system. 
 Not Jesus, but Augustine and Thomasius, Gregory and 
 Innocent, are the dominating figures. The world, and 
 not the church, has won ! 
 
 Now one of the most surprising results of this con- 
 quest of Christianity by the Empire, is the practical 
 annihilation of the doctrine of non-resistance, which 
 had played so conspicuous and heroic a part in the 
 early history of the church. Even before the con-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 185 
 
 version of Constantine, Christians here and there had 
 begun to give way, especially on the vital issue of join- 
 ing the army ; but from the time that the Emperor was 
 numbered among the followers of the humble Nazarene 
 and proclaimed the cross as the symbol of victory on 
 the field of battle, the cause was for the time being al- 
 most entirely lost. The army now became the weapon 
 of the church ; and service in the army, therefore, a test 
 of discipleship. Here and there, to be sure, would 
 rise up a stalwart apostle, who, like another Lac- 
 tantius, would remind the world of the recorded teach- 
 ings of the Master. But these were " voices crying in 
 the wilderness," and they soon subsided. The great 
 officers and teachers of the church were now not only 
 very complaisant on this matter of militarism, but were 
 themselves soldiers. Bishops wore armour and rode 
 into battle side by side with " men of iron." Legions 
 were recruited to conquer foreign lands in the name of 
 Christ. Bloody conquerors, like Charlemagne in Sax- 
 ony, were blessed for their feats of arms, which brought 
 unnumbered thousands of helpless captives to the 
 waters of baptism. And at last, as a fitting climax, 
 came the Crusades, with all Christendom transformed 
 into an armed camp for the slaughter of the Paynim 
 and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. Never was 
 so rapid and complete a revolution ! In five centuries 
 the religion of the cross had become the religion of the 
 sword. And so triumphantly has the sword prevailed 
 down to our own day, that it is possible for a conserva-
 
 186 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tive historian, like John Morley, soberly to affirm, that 
 "more blood has been shed for this cause (Christian- 
 ity) than for any other cause whatsoever!" 
 
 It would be wrong, however, to imply that the non- 
 resistant idea wholly disappeared from the hearts of 
 men, even in the black midnight of the Middle Ages. 
 The hidden river of pure Christianity was not always 
 a hidden river. Here and there it came rippling to 
 the surface, as living water, and revealed thereby the 
 presence of the stream. All through the Mediaeval 
 period, in other words, there appeared little groups of 
 men and women who held to the old ideas and 
 clung to the old practices of the primitive church. 
 These sects, as they were called, were far removed 
 from the main thoroughfares of Christian life. They 
 were unfailingly condemned as heretical, and fre- 
 quently persecuted with the most terrible severity. Al- 
 together outside the pale of official Christianity, they 
 played little part in the history of the church and ex- 
 erted little tangible influence upon the world's develop- 
 ment. But they at least remained " faithful to the 
 heavenly vision " kept burning bright and clear a 
 light in dark places and preserved to a more sympa- 
 thetic era the type of early Christian life and thought. 
 It is impressive to note some of the characteristics of 
 these heretical bodies, all of which, it is needless to 
 point out, were consistently non-resistant. f 
 
 In the first place, their membership was invariably 
 drawn from the ranks of the common people in most 
 
 1 See his Voltaire, Chapter I. 
 
 2 See "Voices in the Wilderness" in Christ and War,
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 181 
 
 cases the poverty-stricken populace of the country- 
 sides. Rare indeed was it to find any person of educa- 
 tion, wealth or social respectability associated with 
 these sects. Peasants, artisans, travelling journey- 
 men, strolling players, seers and saints of doubtful 
 lineage, these were the kind of men and women who 
 comprised these strange groups of spiritual outlaws 
 men and women, it should be noted, who were much 
 nearer the type of those who heard gladly the preach- 
 ing of the Nazarene than the ecclesiastical princes who 
 monopolised his name. 
 
 In the second place, these heretical sects were at one 
 in their predominant interest not in the sacraments of 
 worship or the articles of theological instruction, but 
 in the things of the spirit. Christianity was to them 
 not an institution to be supported, nor a creed to be 
 learned, nor a ritual to be performed, but first and 
 foremost, a way of life. They were concerned not with 
 the definitions of the Godhead, but with the command- 
 ments of God. They were interested not in the nature 
 of Christ, but in the nature of the Christ-life. What 
 to do, whom to serve, how to live these, and not in- 
 tricate theories of transubstantiation or supereroga- 
 tion, were the problems of religion. And to the settle- 
 ment of these problems, in the light of the Master's 
 teachings, they devoted the glad service of their days. 
 
 Lastly, it is to be noted, that these obscure and 
 heretical sects were all of them composed of men and 
 women who were ceaseless readers of the Bible, and 
 more or less literal interpreters of the scriptural text.
 
 188 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 The Roman church knew perfectly well what it was 
 doing when it declared that the uninstructed reading 
 of the Bible was dangerous business, and forthwith 
 took the sacred book from the hands and eyes of its 
 communicants. It was obvious, even to a Mediaeval 
 bishop, that there was a serious discrepancy between 
 ecclesiastical Christianity and the religion of Jesus, 
 and that it was important that this discrepancy should 
 not be made apparent by indiscriminate reading of the 
 Bible. It is no accident that such reading was as 
 uniformly characteristic of these Mediaeval sects as it 
 was of the primitive churches of the second century. 
 
 It will be instructive, as well as inspiring, to name 
 some of these sects and consider for a moment some of 
 the ideals which they tried to serve in these dark and 
 terrible years of Christian history. 
 
 Here, for example, are the Cathari, who first ap- 
 peared in Bulgaria in the ninth century. By the elev- 
 enth century, they had spread abroad through the 
 neighbouring countries, and had attracted so much un- 
 favourable attention, that they were honoured with 
 persecution. The word Cathari, significantly enough, 
 means " the pure men." In some places they were 
 called the Slavoni, because of their origin among the 
 Slav population of southeastern Europe. Still more 
 frequently they were styled the " Weavers," for the 
 obvious reason that most of them were weavers, or ar- 
 tisans who supported themselves by some kind of hand 
 labour. These Cathari were primitive Christians in
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 189 
 
 the literal sense of the word; and of course were non- 
 resistants of the uncompromising type. Therefore is 
 it a matter of record that when the persecutors of 
 Rome fell upon them with fire and sword and rack 
 pillaged their homes, tortured their old and young, 
 and slaughtered men, women and children, all alike 
 without compunction they raised not a hand in op- 
 position. Without any attempt at self-defence, they 
 died for the faith that was within them. 
 
 An equally noble, and much more famous sect, is that 
 of the Waldenses, which appeared in the twelfth cen- 
 tury. The Waldensian movement, as it is called, goes 
 back to Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of the city of 
 Lyons. In 1170, he heard for the first time the story 
 of the rich young man who was told by Jesus to sell all 
 his goods and give them to the poor. Good Waldo 
 acted at once upon this commandment of the Master, 
 and, like St. Francis after him, went forth to preach 
 the gospel of goodwill. From the very beginning, non- 
 resistance was an important part of his message. And 
 it is somewhat noteworthy that he based his teaching in 
 this regard, not merely upon the words of Jesus, but 
 also upon those of Moses. The non-resistant prin- 
 ciples of the Nazarene, he said, were only a logical ex- 
 tension of the Mosaic law, " Thou shalt not kill." For 
 two centuries, the followers of Waldo were faithful to 
 his teachings in this as in all other regards. Hunted 
 from one end of Europe to the other, tortured, slain, 
 mutilated, they refused to take up the sword. The
 
 190 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Waldensian persecution constitutes one of the noblest 
 as well as one of the blackest pages of religious his- 
 tory. 
 
 A still more remarkable group of non-resistants in 
 the Middle Ages is that of the followers of John 
 Wycliffe in England. An eloquent preacher, pro- 
 found scholar, ardent reformer, a man of nervous en- 
 ergy and kindling magnetism, the translator of the first 
 English Bible and the founder of the epoch-making 
 school of Lollards, the great Wycliffe is the noblest 
 ornament of English history down to his own day, with 
 the single exception of King Alfred, and unquestion- 
 ably the brightest light that glowed in the darkness of 
 the Middle Ages. His life, like that of Voltaire, was 
 in many ways an epoch in the progress of the race. 
 
 A non-resistant always, there were few things against 
 which Wycliffe inveighed more persistently than the 
 practice of the priests of the church in taking their 
 places in the line of battle. " Men say," is his word 
 on this issue, " that Christ bade his disciples sell their 
 coats, and buy them swords. But Christ taught not 
 his apostles to fight with the sword of iron, but with 
 the sword of God's word, which standeth in meekness 
 of heart and in the prudence of man's tongue." Long 
 after John Wycliffe himself had passed away, and his 
 followers were being harried in the land, these Lollards, 
 as they were dubbed, remained steadfast in their alle- 
 giance to the non-resistant idea and commended it in 
 their preaching as one of the cardinal principles of 
 Christian faith. " Men of war are not allowed by the
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 191 
 
 gospel, for the gospel knoweth peace and not war," 
 was the unvarying language of their speech. 
 
 But the influence of Wycliffe was by no means lim- 
 ited to England and his persecuted Lollards. Far 
 abroad, to the distant borders of Bohemia, was it car- 
 ried by journeying artisans and students. Here in 
 this alien soil were the seeds of his word planted; and 
 here did they later spring up into the rich harvest of 
 the Moravians, who constitute one of the most beauti- 
 ful of all the heretical orders of the Middle Ages. 
 Faithful in all things, they were especially faithful to 
 the doctrine of non-resistance. Says one of the histo- 
 rians of the Moravian church " No weapon did they 
 use except the pen. They never retaliated, never re- 
 belled, never took up arms in their own defence, never 
 even appealed to the arm of justice. When smitten 
 on the one cheek, they turned the other also." And 
 this is true not merely of yesterday, be it recorded, but 
 of to-day as well. For the Moravian church, in spite 
 of long persecution, still flourishes in Bohemia, and 
 only a few years ago despatched a large delegation to 
 the great International Congress of Religious Liberals 
 in Berlin. 
 
 Not so much an heretical sect outside the church as 
 a great movement of reform within the church, and 
 yet to be classified, from our point of view at least, 
 among the movements which we are here describing, is 
 that of the Franciscans. By general consent is the 
 story of the good St. Francis counted as the most beau- 
 tiful in the records of Medievalism. Born in wealth
 
 192 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 and reared in luxury, this man lived a life, through all 
 his early years, of idleness and dissipation. He played 
 day and night with the sportive youths of his " set " ; 
 marched light-heartedly to battle when his native city 
 was at war, and fought valiantly be it said ; travelled 
 on pleasure bent wherever fancy might lead him. Then 
 came the sudden emotional upheaval strangely 
 enough when he was fighting in battle ; the long struggle 
 for inward peace, and at last the surrendei- to the in- 
 sistent call of his soul. Stripping himself literally 
 naked, he forsook family, friends, everything that he 
 had known, and gave himself unreservedly to the service 
 of the poor, the diseased and the fallen. Then came 
 the gathering of his disciples, the building of his mon- 
 asteries, and at last the great Order, the history of 
 which marks one of the noblest pages in all the long 
 story of Christianity. 
 
 The work of St. Francis, in its essential character, 
 was pre-eminently emotional; but behind it was at 
 least one consistent idea, namely, that of reproducing, 
 in one of the most corrupt ages of European history, 
 the exact pattern of the life of Jesus. Francis set 
 himself deliberately to the task of living as he believed 
 that Jesus lived, and he educated all his personal fol- 
 lowers in the same habit of life. It is not surprising, 
 therefore, to learn that, in his personal experience at 
 least, he was a scrupulous non-resistant. Very touch- 
 ing, as an illustration of his practice, is the story of 
 the robbers who broke into the monastery one night. 
 A monk, who was a doorkeeper or watchman, set upon
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 
 
 the intruders and succeeded in driving them away. 
 Awakened by the disturbance, St. Francis heard the 
 excited tale of the sentinel and, greatly displeased at 
 his violence, despatched him down the road as fast as 
 his legs could carry him to overtake the robbers and 
 bring them back. This the monk somehow or other 
 succeeded in doing; whereupon St. Francis received the 
 robbers in his private room, spread the board with food 
 and drink for their refreshment, and in general so over- 
 whelmed them with kindness that they fell on their 
 knees in repentance and begged to be received into the 
 fellowship of his Order. 
 
 That this story is historically true, may well be re- 
 garded as doubtful; but that it is spiritually true is 
 beyond question. This is the kind of thing which St. 
 Francis was always doing, and the kind of thing which 
 he was always commending to his disciples. These 
 followers, it will be remembered, he divided into three 
 groups. Only one of these did he bind to the literal 
 performances of the life of Jesus, mindful in his unfail- 
 ing charity that " the flesh is weak." But to this he 
 granted no qualifications, and therefore among other 
 things, pledged them to non-resistance. This very 
 flower of the Franciscan Order was forbidden to use 
 force for any purpose or under any conditions. Going 
 through the world unarmed, they were to practise 
 peace, and manifest to all mankind the omnipotence of 
 love.
 
 194 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 IV 
 
 Mention of the Moravians and Franciscans brings 
 us at once to the period of the Reformation, which in- 
 volves one of the most remarkable phenomena in the 
 history of non-resistance. In the beginning, nearly all 
 the great leaders of the Protestant revolt were out- 
 and-out non-resistants. The explanation of this fact 
 is undoubtedly to be found in the further fact that the 
 whole reforming movement of this age had its origin in 
 a rediscovery of the Bible. For generations the scrip- 
 tures had been safely hidden from the laity, and used 
 by the clergy only under the most severe restrictions. 
 Now, under the impulse of the quickening spirit of the 
 Renaissance, came a new interest in the sacred litera- 
 tures of Judaism and Christianity ; and, with the read- 
 ing of the text which this prompted, a new understand- 
 ing of the past and especially of the teachings of the 
 Nazarene. In the case of the reformers, as inevitably 
 in the case of the various heretical sects which we have 
 named, this meant a revival of primitive Christianity, 
 and of non-resistance as a vital part of primitive Chris- 
 tianity. In its incipiency, Protestantism was as truly 
 a non-resistant movement as Waldensianism or Lol- 
 lardry. Martin Luther, for example, in the early years 
 of his revolt against Rome, was an advocate of the 
 pacifist principle. For this reason in particular, was 
 he violently assailed by Sir Thomas More, who, in 
 spite of his Utopia, was in many things an eminently 
 practical man. Luther valiantly held his ground,
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 195 
 
 however, and, at the crowning moment of his life, in 
 his sublime defiance of Charles V at the Diet of Worms, 
 gave to the world one of the bravest examples of non- 
 resistant action since the crucifixion at Golgotha. 
 Later on, however, when Luther entered upon his long 
 career of compromise, he found it convenient to rid 
 himself of some of his ideals, and non-resistance was 
 one of the first to go. Henceforth he was glad to have 
 the Protestant princes serve him and his cause at any 
 cost of suffering and bloodshed. And when the 
 wretched peasants, stirred by his own preachings of 
 liberty, sought release from the intolerable burdens of 
 their lot, he not only urged the nobles to defend them- 
 selves against attack, but actually incited them to 
 harry and slaughter without mercy until the uprising 
 was suppressed. The most regrettable episode in the 
 history of Protestantism, in many ways, is Martin 
 Luther's conduct in relation to this Peasants' Revolt. 
 
 John Calvin also was a non-resistant in his early 
 years. Thus in one of his writings we find the state- 
 ment, " Trust in the power of man is to be uncondi- 
 tionally renounced; if there is need, God will work a 
 miracle to save his church." When, however, Calvin 
 undertook the administration of the city of Geneva and 
 found himself confronted by French Catholics to the 
 west, German Catholics to the north, Swiss Catholics 
 to the east and Italian Catholics to the south, to say 
 nothing of varieties of hostile Protestants inside and 
 outside of his seat, he found it convenient to change 
 his tactics. From this time on, he never scrupled to
 
 196 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 use force, not only for defence, but for the active fur- 
 therance of his plans of government and social control ; 
 until at last, like Luther, he touched the lowest depths 
 of infamy in his burning of Michael Servetus. No 
 better illustration of what I have called " the logic of 
 force," can anywhere be found, than in the case of 
 these two great leaders of Protestantism, who, aban- 
 doning their non-resistant ideals for expediential mo- 
 tives, were led, the one into the cruelties of the Peas- 
 ants' War and the other into the calculated horror of 
 Servetus's murder. 
 
 One man, conspicuous in this epoch, stood firm. On 
 his dying day, as in his early youth, the great scholar 
 and teacher, Erasmus, was a relentless hater of war 
 and an ardent lover of peace. Untiringly by voice 
 and pen, did he condemn appeal to the sword; and in 
 his multitudinous writings he has left to us some of the 
 strongest arguments and noblest appeals upon this 
 theme in the literature of his or any other age. His 
 Plea of Reason, Religion and Humanity Against War, 
 with its eloquent portrayal of the horrors of war and 
 the beauties of peace, its relentless exposure of the 
 perils and fallacies of force, and above all its telling 
 analysis of the teachings of Jesus and the apostles, 
 remains to this day the classic utterance of modern 
 times upon the peace question. Only the half-hearted- 
 ness of our modern peace-advocates, their fear of a 
 thoroughgoing statement of their own gospel, has left 
 this matchless treatise unknown to the people of our 
 time.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 197 
 
 Aside from Erasmus, the Protestant movement has 
 on the whole little to offer us on the question of non- 
 resistance, until we come to the seventeenth century 
 and the advent of the Quakers. Then do we receive 
 an illustration of our theme which constitutes, as it 
 must ever constitute, I believe, the most persuasive of 
 all arguments in support of the non-resistant philoso- 
 phy of life. 
 
 It is important to note that the Quaker movement 
 had its beginning at a time when England was being 
 rent and torn with war to a degree unknown since the 
 bloody days of Lancaster and York. It was when 
 Charles and Cromwell, in other words, were locked in 
 deadly combat, and all men were summoned to join the 
 ranks either of Cavaliers or Roundheads, that George 
 Fox and his despised Quakers proclaimed their gospel 
 of peace and resolutely refused to take up arms. This 
 was most decidedly no academic or theoretical crusade. 
 It was an announcement and trial of the non-resistant 
 principle at a time which was least propitious and con- 
 sequently most dangerous. When the supreme test of 
 his ideals came, George Fox was in prison under the 
 guard of the soldiers of Cromwell. Knowing of his 
 great influence over his followers and desirous there- 
 fore of securing his allegiance, the Puritan officers of- 
 fered to set him free and give him a high position in 
 the army of the Commonwealth, if he would publicly 
 renounce his non-resistant folly, take up arms, and bid
 
 198 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 his disciples to do the same. The temptation was a 
 bitter one. Fox was weak and sick ; his prison was as 
 dark and filthy as all the prisons of that cruel day ; 
 chains were on his hands and feet ; and so long as he 
 was thus confined, his voice was stilled. Never for a 
 moment, however, did he falter; on the contrary, he 
 hurled the challenge of the officers straight in their 
 teeth and revealed to them the cause of all the woes that 
 contending warriors were then visiting upon England. 
 " I told them," he records in his Journal, " I knew 
 from whence all wars arose, even from lust, according 
 to James's doctrine; and that I lived in the virtue of 
 that life and power that took away the occasion of all 
 wars ... I told them I was come into the covenant of 
 peace, which was before wars and strifes were." 
 
 What was done by Fox on this occasion, was done 
 with equal valour on later occasions of greater or less 
 agony, by his gentle followers without number. The 
 consistent bravery and almost miraculous success of the 
 Quakers in living out their doctrine, under the most 
 trying conditions, stands as the most convincing de- 
 monstration available of the entire practicability of 
 non-resistance, as we shall point out at length in the 
 succeeding chapter. In this place, we would speak of 
 the Friends only as exemplars of the gospel, and ex- 
 emplars of altogether extraordinary courage and per- 
 tinacity. 
 
 Take, for example, the notable case of Richard Sel- 
 lar, a fisherman of the city of Scarborough, England. 
 In 1665, this man was impressed on an English man-o'-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 199 
 
 war, in the good old-fashioned method of recruiting in 
 vogue in those days. When he was seized by the sailors 
 he refused to go on board ; and his captors were obliged 
 to tie him up in a bag and throw him on to the ship 
 with a derrick. Once aboard, he refused to obey 
 orders to work the cannon, load the guns, handle the 
 ammunition, and the rest. Whereupon he was thrown 
 on deck, heavily ironed; and kicked about like a foot- 
 ball by the angry sailors. Why the man was not 
 kicked to death, remains to this day a mystery. Still 
 obdurate, in spite of the frightful mauling to which he 
 was subjected, he was at last taken before the captain 
 of the ship, and put on trial for his life. Condemned 
 of course on his own confession, he was sentenced to 
 suffer the hideous penalty of being put into a large 
 cask, through the sides of which huge iron nails had 
 been driven in a hundred places, and rolled about the 
 deck until he was dead. Without a word of complaint, 
 Sellar made ready for the frightful ordeal and calmly 
 awaited the appearance of the cask. By this time, 
 however, the inconceivable patience and goodwill of 
 the Quaker fisherman had made its impression not only 
 upon the officers, but even upon the hardened sailors. 
 Somehow or other, contrary to all expectations, they 
 did not relish the idea of carrying out the sentence of 
 the court, and put the matter off from day to day. 
 Then suddenly a ship of the enemy was encountered, 
 and in the battle which ensued, Sellar made himself so 
 useful and showed himself so brave in caring for the 
 wounded under fire, that after the fight was over, the
 
 200 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 captain took him to the nearest port, and, releasing 
 him, gave him service-papers which protected him per- 
 manently from impressment. 
 
 Here is only one of the Quakers of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, who at greatest hazard of 
 comfort and safety, triumphantly vindicated the effi- 
 cacy of the doctrine which they had espoused. The 
 instance is typical, not exceptional. Nor do we have 
 to return to these distant days for illustrations from 
 Quaker history. Our own Civil War furnishes exam- 
 ples of striking impressiveness. Thus when the South- 
 ern States found themselves hard pressed for soldiers 
 in the closing days of the Rebellion, they began to seize 
 Quakers, who up to this time had been excused from 
 service, and order them to the front. In every case, 
 the Confederate authorities were met with a point- 
 blank refusal to take up arms, and in every case re- 
 solved to push the matter to the limit. Hundreds of 
 Quakers were tried for treason before drum-head court- 
 martials, and nearly all of them were convicted and 
 condemned to be shot. In many cases, they were actu- 
 ally seized, blindfolded, and stood up against a wall 
 before a firing-squad. But not a single recalcitrant, 
 so far as I have been able to ascertain, was put to 
 death. Execution was psychologically impossible in 
 the face of such patient and unprotesting courage. 
 Here again, as always with the Quakers, we have ex- 
 ample not only of the sublimity but also of the prac- 
 ticability of non-resistance. * 
 
 'For above, see Wilson's Christ and War.
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 201 
 
 VI 
 
 Mention of the Civil War brings us to the considera- 
 tion of that remarkable group of non-resistants who 
 appeared in New England in the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century. The years from 1810 to 1850, as we 
 know, were years which witnessed a marvellous intel- 
 lectual and spiritual awakening throughout the north- 
 ern states. The Transcendental movement, the anti- 
 slavery movement, the women's rights movement, the 
 Unitarian movement in theology, the socialist or com- 
 munist movement which culminated in the Brook Farm 
 and Hopedale experiments, the founding of the Con- 
 cord School of Philosophy, the rise of the poetic group 
 in Cambridge and Boston, the organisation of the 
 Radical Club, the educational reforms of Horace 
 Mann, the social service activities of Joseph Tucker- 
 man, Dorothea Dix and Dr. Howe all these were so 
 many different phases of the most potent revival of the 
 spirit that this country has ever seen. And one among 
 all the others was the movement of non-resistance ! 
 
 Conspicuous among the teachers and exemplars of 
 this ideal in the early days was Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 who, in his Lecture on War, first delivered in 1833, set 
 forth the clearest and most exalted exposition of the 
 doctrine to be found in American literature. His 
 Journals, so recently published in ten elaborate vol- 
 umes, throw interesting side-lights upon his thought on 
 this subject in the earlier days of its development. 
 Under date of October 3, 1831, for example, he writes,
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 " I wish the Christian principle, the ultra principle of 
 non-resistance and returning good for evil, might once 
 be tried fairly." And again, under date of October 
 27, 1839, he says, " But to return to the principle of 
 non-resistance I believe that that principle should 
 be trusted." 
 
 The mighty change in Emerson's thought and feel- 
 ing, which was wrought by the shocking events in the 
 last half of the fifties and the climactic events of the 
 Civil War, did not leave his non-resistant convictions 
 unshaken. On the contrary, under the stress and 
 strain of this stupendous upheaval in American life, 
 they tottered and tumbled to the ground. Thus, for 
 example, we read that in 1857, in the days of the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska struggle, John Brown came to Concord 
 and delivered a lecture, which Emerson heard. A note 
 on this lecture in his Journals, reads as follows 
 " One of his good points was, the folly of the peace 
 party in Kansas, who believed that their strength lay 
 in the greatness of their wrongs, and so discounte- 
 nanced resistance." When, a few months later, John 
 Brown and his gallant band went down to Harper's 
 Ferry and by the capture of the United States Ar- 
 senal, declared open war against the Southern slave- 
 power, we find Emerson giving a lecture in Boston and 
 referring to Brown, then confined in the Virginia prison 
 awaiting trial, as "that new saint, than whom none 
 purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into 
 conflict and death, the new saint awaiting his mar- 
 tyrdom, and who, if he shall suffer, will make the gal-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 203 
 
 lows glorious like the cross." Later on came the out- 
 break of the war. In the early part of 1861, accord- 
 ing to the biography by Mr. Cabot, Emerson visited 
 the Charlestown Navy Yard and, looking about at the 
 cannon and shells, exclaimed to a friend, " Ah, some- 
 times gunpowder smells good." 
 
 It is obvious from these facts that it is unfair to 
 cite Emerson as a champion of non-resistance. He re- 
 pudiated his faith completely and finally under the 
 impact of the closing years of the struggle against 
 slavery. Nevertheless, if the Concord philosopher 
 cannot be called non-resistant, his earlier writings can ! 
 His Lecture on War is the classic American utterance 
 on this theme. 
 
 But if Emerson finally severed his connection with 
 the non-resistant movement of the forties and fifties, 
 others remained faithful to the cherished ideal, even 
 through all the dreadful years of this saddest epoch 
 in American history. Towering head and shoulders 
 above the rest of these stalwarts is of course William 
 Lloyd Garrison, who fought through the anti-slavery 
 struggle from beginning to end, a leader of the leaders 
 in that great battle of the giants, and kept his non- 
 resistant principles inviolate to the close. Never, even 
 in the days when feelings ran highest and crises were 
 most acute, did he yield for a moment to the easy 
 temptations of violence. When the fugitive slave 
 riots burst upon Boston, for example, he steadfastly 
 counselled against forcible resistance to the govern- 
 ment officers. Even in the days of the rendition of
 
 204 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Anthony Burns, when mobs were racing through the 
 streets and raging about the court-house and prison, 
 when Parker and Phillips and Higginson were moving 
 heaven and earth to secure the prisoner's release, Gar- 
 rison, as his biographers point out, stuck to his print- 
 ing office and calmly set his type. The publication of 
 The Liberator on time was more important, to his 
 mind, than the liberation of any escaped slave ! Anc! 
 when John Brown made his attack on Harper's Ferry, 
 we find Garrison writing, " Judging John Brown by 
 the code of Bunker Hill, we think he is as deserving of 
 eulogy as any who ever wielded sword or battle-axe in 
 the cause of liberty. But we do not or cannot ap- 
 prove any indulgence of the war-spirit. John Brown 
 has perhaps a right to a place by the side of Moses, 
 Joshua, Gideon, and David, but he is not on the same 
 plane with Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John." 
 
 Side by side with Garrison, must be named John 
 Greenleaf Whittier. Serving as the poet of the move- 
 ment of which Garrison was the prophet and organiser, 
 Whittier, like Garrison, refused to use any weapons 
 but the reasoning mind and the impassioned heart. 
 His comment on the John Brown exploit, in a letter to 
 his non-resistant friend, Lydia Maria Child, under date 
 of October 21, 1859, tells the whole story of his atti- 
 tude. Referring to the " brave but sadly misguided 
 Captain Brown," he continues, "We feel deeply (who 
 does not?) for the noble-hearted, self-sacrificing old 
 man. But as friends of peace, as well as believers in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, we dare not lend any coun-
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 205 
 
 tenance to such attempts as that at Harper's Ferry. 
 . . . God is now putting our non-resistant principles 
 to the test. I hope we shall not give the lie to our 
 professions. I quite agree with thee that we must 
 judge of Brown by his standards; but at the same time 
 we must be true to our settled convictions, and to the 
 duty we owe to humanity." 
 
 vn 
 
 Along with the Quakers and the Transcendentalists 
 as non-resistants must be named the socialists. That 
 these international labourites are non-resistants has 
 never been asserted, so far as I know ; and it may seem 
 strange to make this assertion at just this time when 
 the socialists of Europe are eagerly supporting the 
 Great War. But that the socialists, when they are 
 faithful, are pacifists in the true sense of the word, 
 non-resistants in the sense of the word here employed 
 in our discussion, is to my mind beyond question. For 
 fifty years they have steadfastly resisted every effort 
 to introduce violence as a weapon in their arsenal of 
 revolt. Bakounin and his terrorists were driven from 
 the International at what threatened to be the cost of 
 the life of the movement. Sorel and his syndicalists 
 have fought a gallant but losing fight for recognition. 
 Haywood and his I. W. W. have been forced to conduct 
 their propaganda in America altogether outside of the 
 socialist ranks. Again and again, as the ruthless 
 power of capitalism, in defiance of every statute of law 
 and every precept of morality, has abused and tor-
 
 206 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tured them, have the socialists been tempted to take 
 up the sword in self-defence. But with a wisdom which 
 might well be the model of priests of the church and 
 ministers of the state, they have refrained. Great is 
 this example ! In spite of the War of the Nations, 
 which swept socialists away only as it swept away Jews, 
 Christians, and professional pacifists, these socialists 
 must be described as the supreme exemplars in our 
 time of the sublimity and efficacy alike of the non-re- 
 sistant ideal. 
 
 VIII 
 
 It remains for us to name but one other modern ex- 
 emplar of non-resistance and this the colossal moral 
 giant, Leo Tolstoi. To do justice to this mighty man 
 in this place is quite impossible, nor is it necessary, for 
 the story of his life and the record of his teachings 
 have already found their way into the treasure-houses 
 of the race. Already before his body has crumbled to 
 dust, the great Russian has become enrolled among the 
 immortals. Suffice it to point out that Tolstoi, like 
 St. Francis, came to the discovery of his convictions 
 after years of dissipation and of valiant service in 
 bloody wars. Sebastopol and War and Peace stand as 
 permanent witnesses of what Count Tolstoi knew of war 
 and warriors. Then came his spiritual awakening, de- 
 scribed in his Confessions his discovery of primitive 
 Christianity and the religion of Jesus, narrated at 
 great length in his My Religion and The Gospel in Brief, 
 and finally those heroic days of abnegation and
 
 EXEMPLARS OF NON-RESISTANCE 207 
 
 steadfast witness against wrong, which lifted him in 
 moral stature far above his contemporaries in every 
 land until, for a period of a generation, " he bestrode 
 the world like a Colossus." Living in the most bar- 
 baric land of Christendom, Tolstoi was the most con- 
 sistent Christian of modern times. As a non-resistant, 
 he can be compared to nobody who has lived and taught 
 since the earliest days of primitive Christianity. He 
 converted few to his viewpoint ; and in the light of 
 present events, it may well seem as though he lived in 
 vain. But his memory, like a great sun shining upon 
 wintry snows, abides, and will some day turn the world 
 to fragrance and to beauty. 
 
 rx 
 
 Here are the more conspicuous non-resistants of 
 modern times. They are not many. But the impor- 
 tant fact to note is, that never at any time since Jesus 
 perished upon Calvary, have these champions of good- 
 will failed to appear and " bear witness to the truth." 
 The teachings of the Master have been lost, forgotten, 
 perverted, flouted; superstition and barbarism have 
 overwhelmed the earth like the Darkness of which Lord 
 Byron sang the dreadful song; wars have devastated 
 the earth a thousand times, and rumours of wars for- 
 ever beset with terror the hearts of men. But still has 
 the torch been passed from hand to hand of the faith- 
 ful, and shone like a beacon in the night. 
 
 And significant is it to observe that, in this age of 
 ours, the darkest that the world has known since that
 
 208 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 which looked upon the decline and fall of the Roman 
 Empire, the non-resistant principle is undergoing such 
 a renaissance as it has not seen since the advent of the 
 Quakers, two centuries and a half ago. The light of 
 the spirit cannot be quenched! The voice of truth 
 cannot be silenced! God reigns, and Christ still walks 
 the earth! 
 
 " O pure Reformers ! not in vain 
 
 Your trust in human kind; 
 The good which bloodshed could not gain, 
 Your peaceful zeal shall find. 
 
 " The truths ye urge are borne abroad, 
 
 By every wind and tide; 
 The voice of nature and of God 
 Speaks out upon your side. 
 
 " The weapons which your hands have found 
 
 Are those which Heaven hath wrought, 
 Light, Truth, and Love; your battle-ground 
 The free, broad fields of Thought. 
 
 " Oh, may no selfisn purpose break 
 
 The beauty of your plan, 
 No lie from throne or altar shake 
 Your steady faith in Man ! " 1 
 
 i John Greenleaf Whittier.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PRACTICABILITY OF 
 NON-RESISTANCE
 
 "'Resist not evil' means never resist, never oppose violence; 
 or, in other words, never do anything Contrary to the law of 
 love. . . . Christ said this in words so clear and simple that it 
 would be impossible to express the idea more clearly. . . . Nowhere 
 did he say that obedience would be difficult; on the contrary, he 
 said, ' My yoke is easy and my burden is light '. . . . How was 
 it, then, that believing or trying to believe that he who said this 
 was God, I still maintained that it is beyond my power to obey? 
 ... As I reviewed my past history, I perceived that I had drunk 
 in this idea (of impracticability) with my mother's milk, . . . and 
 all my after life had only confirmed me in this strange error. . . . 
 From infancy to manhood, I learned to venerate what was in 
 direct contradiction to Christ's law. . . . The whole organisation of 
 my life agreed in calling Christ's teaching impracticable and vi- 
 sionary, and by words and deeds taught what was opposed to it. 
 Thus my error rose. . . . But now I understand. . . . This com- 
 mandment is like a key which opens everything, but only when it 
 is thrust into the lock." Leo Tolstoi, in My Religion.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 
 
 IT may be taken for granted, at this point in our argu- 
 ment, that we have some understanding of the meaning 
 of non-resistance, in its positive as well as negative 
 aspects, and some knowledge as to how it has been in- 
 terpreted and practised by great souls of ancient and 
 modern times. The very elaboration of our study of 
 these phases of the subject, however, has perhaps only 
 aggravated our desire to get at close grips with the 
 question as to whether or not non-resistance is prac- 
 ticable. Just here, after all, in this matter of work- 
 ableness, is the crux of our whole problem. Every- 
 body is ready to admit the beauty of the conception of 
 non-resistance as a conception ; but is anybody pre- 
 pared to justify it as a practical way of life? The 
 " tabernacle " of theory is superb ; but is there any 
 way of bringing this " tabernacle " down out of heaven 
 and placing it on earthly foundations? We call it a 
 way of life, but is it anything more, in the last analysis, 
 than a way of death? Is not the consistent non-re- 
 sistant a suicide? 
 
 It is obvious that the discussion of this question can- 
 not longer be avoided. But it must also be admitted, 
 
 211
 
 212 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 as we have before suggested, 1 that such discussion can 
 only be entered into with reluctance. For is there not 
 something essentially unworthy, indeed almost degrad- 
 ing, in complicating the discussion of a great concep- 
 tion of the spirit with inquiry as to its efficacy in the 
 outer world of practical affairs? It would seem as 
 though it were the business of those who profess them- 
 selves to be spiritual beings, especially of those who 
 claim allegiance to such out-and-out idealists as Isaiah 
 or Jesus, to consider primarily not what is practicable 
 but what is right, and having found the right, to serve 
 it with all their " mind and heart and soul and 
 strength," whether it be practicable or not. It would 
 seem as though it were the unescapable duty of those 
 who worship God and pray to God for the coming of 
 his Kingdom, to try to learn the will of God and then 
 to try to do this will whether it be easy or be hard. 
 To consider results, to ponder expediences, is very like 
 surrendering the unique privilege of the soul to live in 
 a higher realm than that of earth. Whether true or 
 not, it has the appearance at least of reversing the 
 charge of Jesus that we " fear not them which kill the 
 body . . . but rather him which is able to destroy 
 both soul and body," by making the preservation of 
 the body and not the salvation of the soul our chief 
 concern. 
 
 Leo Tolstoi, it has always seemed to me, spoke the 
 perfect word upon this subject in the immortal letter 
 addressed to the people of the Czar on the occasion of 
 
 i See above, Chapter I, pages 33-36.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 213 
 
 the Russio-Japanese War, which was published in the 
 London Times under the title of Bethink Yourselves. 
 Appealing for non-resistance at the moment when the 
 enemies of the Empire were thundering at the portals 
 of Manchuria, Tolstoi takes up the familiar charge 
 that his doctrine is impracticable that, if the people 
 of Russia were to respond to his summons to lay down 
 arms, the country would straightway be over-run by 
 the Japanese and in due course added to the Mikado's 
 dominions. " To this question," answers Tolstoi, with 
 the unshakable conviction of the true prophet of right- 
 eousness, " there can be no other answer than this 
 that whatever be the circumstances, I cannot act other- 
 wise than as God demands of me. What will happen 
 immediately or soon from my ceasing to do that which 
 is contrary to the will of God, I do not and cannot 
 know but I believe that, from the fulfilment of the 
 will of God, there can follow nothing but that which is 
 good for me and for all men." Then, mounting to a 
 still higher plane, he continues, " The religious man is 
 guided in his activity not by the presumed consequences 
 of his action, but by the consciousness of the destina- 
 tion of his life. . . . For him there is no question as 
 to whether many or few men act as he does, or of what 
 may happen if he does that which he should do. He 
 knows that besides life and death nothing can happen, 
 and that life and death are in the hands of God whom 
 he obeys." Therefore " the religious man acts thus 
 and not otherwise, not because he desires to act thus, 
 nor because it is advantageous to himself or to other
 
 214 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 men, but because, believing that his life is in the hands 
 of God, he cannot act otherwise." 
 
 Here, as applied to the particular question of war 
 and peace, is the rule of life as laid down and prac- 
 tised by every true prophet of the soul who has ever 
 lived. Here is the faith of Buddha as he left his 
 father's court and entered the paths of beggary, of 
 Isaiah as he fronted the cowardice of Ahaz and Heze- 
 kiah, of Jesus as he " set his face steadfastly toward 
 Jerusalem," of Justin Martyr as he answered Celsus's 
 charge of treason, of Savonarola as he indicted Pope 
 Alexander and Prince Lorenzo, of Luther as he defied 
 Charles V with the immortal declaration " God help 
 me I cannot do other," of every hero who has pre- 
 ferred the approval of his conscience to the applause 
 of the multitudes, the sanctity of his spirit to the uses 
 of the world. On the low levels of ignoble strife for 
 profit, security, success, the air is heavy with the poi- 
 sonous fogs of expediency. But there are heights to 
 which have climbed the strong and brave, where ideas 
 practical and impractical are dispersed like mists be- 
 fore the sun, and we breathe the tonic air of pure 
 idealism. Or rather, shall we not say that, on these 
 heights, the mists are absorbed in the sunlight, the 
 practical merged with the ideal, and the vision of what 
 we may call the higher expediency thereby disclosed? 
 Rising to these spiritual summits, in other words, we 
 get the far view of the horizon instead of the near view 
 of rocky barriers. We behold the vast reaches of eter- 
 nity instead of the narrow confines of time. And lo,
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 215 
 
 there dawns upon our sight the abiding truth that the 
 ideal, after all, is nothing more nor less than that 
 which is practicable in the long run ! 
 
 For what great truth was ever practicable in the 
 days when it was first discovered and proclaimed? 
 How practicable was the religion of Jesus, when the 
 Nazarene proclaimed it to the world of Caiaphas and 
 Pilate how practicable even to-day? How prac-< 
 ticable was the gospel of democracy when the first man, 
 whoever he was, stood up among the brutish serfs of 
 his day and generation and declared that governments 
 " derive their just powers " not from the will of kings 
 or the whims of aristocracies but " from the consent 
 of the governed"? How practicable was the doctrine 
 of women's rights when first acclaimed by Mary Woll- 
 stonecraft in her Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 
 or even later in this country by Lucy Stone and Susan 
 B. Anthony? How practicable was the movement for 
 the emancipation of the three million ignorant slaves of 
 the South, when Garrison set up his printing-press in 
 Boston, or even later when Lincoln wrote his immortal 
 proclamation? Every great endeavour of the spirit, 
 just because it is an endeavour of the spirit, is abso- 
 lutely impracticable at the outset. Indeed, nothing at 
 all is practicable, until it is made so by the will of 
 dauntless men. And those men of the past whom we 
 most truly reverence and deeply love at the present 
 moment are none other than those who, bearing all 
 things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring 
 all things, working steadfastly in face of opposition,
 
 216 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 remaining patient under ridicule and denunciation, dy- 
 ing that the cause may live, have made the impracti- 
 cable to be practicable, and the ideal to be real. " I 
 did not know that it could not be done," said one of 
 these spiritual creators, " so I went ahead and did it." 
 All of which has its very immediate application to 
 our problem of non-resistance ! Some time this gospel, 
 so impracticable at the present time, is going to be 
 made practicable by the will of humankind. Some time 
 it is going to become as much of a social commonplace 
 as political democracy, or Negro freedom. And it is 
 for those of us who are convinced of its validity, to 
 begin right here and now the work of establishing its 
 efficacy as a practical philosophy of life. This work 
 will not be easy and pleasant. We shall be denounced 
 as fools, cowards, and perhaps traitors. Position, influ- 
 ence, reputation may have to be sacrificed without other 
 recompense than that of inward peace. If war swept 
 down upon America as upon Russia in Manchuria, 
 and we remained faithful as did Leo Tolstoi, we might 
 possibly have to suffer loss of freedom, of property, 
 and in the last emergency, of life itself. But this 
 principle is no different from any other, and cannot be 
 established therefore in any other way than by the 
 fearless witness and willing suffering of those who be- 
 lieve. As true for peace as for war, is the immortal 
 Quatrain of Emerson 
 
 " Though love repine and reason chafe, 
 
 There comes a voice without reply, 
 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
 When for the truth he ought to die.*
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 217 
 
 ii 
 
 But is non-resistance impracticable at the present 
 time? So we have admitted, momentarily, for the 
 sake of our argument on behalf of pure idealism; and 
 so unquestionably would the overwhelming majority of 
 men assert at the present time ! Already have we sum- 
 marised the dubious questions which throng upon the 
 mind the instant that the challenge of non-resistance 
 is encountered. But are these questions valid? Is 
 our admission even momentarily sound? Is the major- 
 ity opinion upon this matter anything more than the 
 evidence of prevailing ignorance and instinctive fear? 
 Is not the practicability of non-resistance already 
 proved, and our case therefore already established? 
 
 This is the question now before us. And no sooner 
 do we enter upon its consideration, than we find our- 
 selves treading familiar ground. Already in our study 
 of what we called " the fallacies of force," 1 have we 
 seen how impracticable is the use of force in all human 
 relationships, and how the whole story of the progress 
 of humanity in this regard is the story of the gradual 
 abandonment of force and the search for some wiser 
 and more gentle method of procedure. In the rela- 
 tions of husband and wife, of parent and child, of em- 
 ployer and employe, of warden and convict, of king 
 and subject in all of these relations, we have found 
 that man has long since become convinced of the futil- 
 ity of force as a law of life, and has been ceaselessly 
 
 i See Chapter III, pages 82-97.
 
 218 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 struggling to discover and to put into practice some 
 higher and safer law. 
 
 At the time that we were considering this matter, we 
 were interested in the negative rather than the positive 
 aspects of the question. We were interested primarily 
 in what man was finding to be a failure namely, 
 force and not what he was trying to establish as a 
 successful substitute for this failure. Now, however, 
 that we have considered the meaning of non-resistance 
 and observed some of the ancient and modern exem- 
 plars of non-resistance, it is all at once become evident 
 that here is the new thing which, little by little, with 
 much hesitation and many fears, the human race is 
 learning to use in place of the old, discredited, falla- 
 cious resort to violence. For centuries our various 
 human relationships have been in process of shifting 
 from the basis of force to the basis of non-resistance ! 
 
 And what do these centuries of trial teach us but the 
 unfailing practicability of the non-resistant principle? 
 Enter any home where the husband holds the wife to 
 himself by the compulsion not of bonds but of love ; go 
 into any household where corporal punishment is un- 
 known, discipline precise, and obedience absolute 
 where the children rush gladly into the father's arms, 
 bring to him their secrets, confess to him their errors, 
 seek his counsel, accept his reproof, and imitate his 
 example ; search the industrial field in vain for the 
 chain and the whip of old-time slavery, and observe in 
 their places the free comradeship of common labourers 
 in a common task of co-operative achievement ; go to
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 219 
 
 Oregon, and see unguarded convicts working on the 
 public highways and in the state forests or to Colo- 
 rado, and see Judge Lindsey handling his juvenile de- 
 linquents without a suggestion of compulsion or to 
 Sing Sing, and see a prison run by convicts for the 
 benefit of convicts instead of by guards for the benefit 
 of guards ; live in the United States, where soldiers are 
 almost never seen, where a decision of the Supreme 
 Court, however unpopular, is enforced by popular con- 
 sent and not by official compulsion, where the govern- 
 ment, without arms, enjoys a security which is the 
 despair of Czars and Sultans ; and here, in all these 
 cases, do you find demonstrations of the perfect practi- 
 cability of non-resistance. In all of these relationships 
 of life domestic, industrial, political, social non- 
 resistance is being tried to some extent or other. And 
 just to the extent that the trial is complete, in courage 
 and good faith, it tends to work; and just to the ex- 
 tent that the trial falls short of completeness, from 
 fear or scepticism, it tends to fail. Non-resistance 
 in other words, moral compulsion or moral suasion 
 is itself the only force that is practicable. Love is 
 stronger than any chain that has ever been forged by 
 the hand of man. Righteousness, honour, goodwill, 
 are bulwarks mightier than any fortresses that have 
 ever been builded of rock or steel. The Psalmist is 
 right " God is our refuge and strength " ; when we 
 put our trust in him we need not fear, for he " shall 
 not be moved, though the earth be removed and though 
 the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."
 
 220 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ra 
 
 All this is evident. Denial of the successful substi- 
 tution of love for force in various fields of human rela- 
 tionships is no longer possible at this late day. And 
 yet, this demonstration does not satisfactorily answer 
 our inquiry, as to the practicability of non-resistance. 
 For this question, in the last analysis, after all, con- 
 cerns itself not so much with the slow substitution of 
 love for force, as with the immediate abandonment of 
 force altogether ; and an abandonment not merely in 
 the even flow of every-day affairs, but in the violent 
 upheavals of the great crises of life and death. When 
 we are dubious about the feasibility of non-resistance, 
 we have in mind not the children in the home or the 
 labourers in the factory or even the convicts in the 
 prison, but those ultimate questions of the security of 
 property and life which constitute the final test of any 
 theory of individual conduct and social order. Is it 
 possible to walk the crowded ways of life, go to all 
 kinds of hidden places, associate with all sorts and con- 
 ditions of men, and never lift up the hand of violence 
 or resort to the protection of the officers of the law? 
 What are you going to do if an enemy insults you or 
 libels your reputation? How are you going to pro- 
 tect your home from burglary and your property from 
 theft? What is your method of procedure if a high- 
 wayman holds you up on a dark street, or a ruffian as- 
 saults your wife, or a brute undertakes to beat to 
 death a little child? Or what would you recommend
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 221 
 
 in such a recrudescence of barbarism as is now afflict- 
 ing more than half the world? Would non-resistance 
 avail anything in Serbia, Bulgaria, or Poland or 
 indeed anywhere in Europe under such conditions as 
 are now prevailing? Let us talk of specific things 
 grapple with particular situations ! Let us get away 
 from the consideration of abstract ideals on the one 
 hand, and vague surveys of the course of human prog- 
 ress on the other ! Let us face this question of practi- 
 cability in its naked reality! What are you going to 
 do when you face the loaded pistol of a murderer, or 
 witness the rape of your wife, or see your native soil 
 invaded by the armed hosts of a revengeful and savage 
 foe? "That," as Hamlet says, "is the question." 
 
 At first sight, I must admit, I am tempted to be im- 
 patient at this attempt to shift our basis of discussion 
 from the broad grounds of social law to the very nar- 
 row ground of individual accident. I am reminded of 
 the shrewd reference of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his 
 discussion of non-resistance, to extravagant dilemmas 
 of this kind, which he compares to " those problems in 
 arithmetic which in long winter evenings the rustics 
 try the hardness of their heads in ciphering out." It 
 seems ridiculous to the last degree that the acceptance 
 of a great ideal of human conduct should be made thus 
 conditional upon the solution of moral riddles. And 
 yet, after all, such riddles as these cannot, in fairness, 
 be evaded. For if the gospel of non-resistance cannot 
 prove itself to be practicable in just such contingencies 
 as these which have been enumerated, then it can avail
 
 222 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 us very little. A boat must float not only in still 
 waters but in stormy Seas. An automobile must move 
 ahead not only on smooth roads but up steep hills and 
 through deep mires. An aeroplane, if it ever is to be 
 generally serviceable, must fly not only in quiet breezes 
 but in sudden gales. And so with non-resistance. It 
 must work when it is most necessary that it should 
 work. It is when life and death are in the balance that 
 it must not fail. Hence the cogency to our argument 
 of just such riddles as these which have been proposed, 
 and the fairness of the insistence that they be an- 
 swered. 
 
 IV 
 
 One thing still remains, however, to be pointed out, 
 before we proceed to the direct consideration of our 
 problem. I refer to the fact that, in order to establish 
 what we are calling the practicability of non-resist- 
 ance, it is by no means obligatory upon us to prove 
 that this principle will infallibly work in each and 
 every relation of life that it will never fail under 
 any circumstances. What we are trying to do here, 
 after all, is not to establish an invariable law of action, 
 but to offer a reasonably efficacious substitute for the 
 more or less futile method of force. And in order to 
 do this, the most that we have to do, from the stand- 
 point of strict logic at least, is to demonstrate that 
 one is likely to win out more frequently and more ef- 
 fectively by appeal to non-resistance than by resort 
 to force. For how often does force insure to us secur-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 223 
 
 ity under such conditions as are laid down in the riddles 
 outlined just above? How likely am I to get the bet- 
 ter of the highwayman, who suddenly bars my road 
 with a levelled revolver, and thus to protect my purse 
 from capture and my body from injury, by attacking 
 my assailant with bare hands? What is the chance of 
 my being able to protect my wife from rape or a little 
 child from a beating, if I precipitate a fight with the 
 consummate brute who can alone undertake the doing 
 of such hideous offence? What did it avail Belgium 
 to marshal her armies and hold her forts against the 
 irresistible advance of the German legions? We are 
 speaking, it is to be remembered, not of honour but of 
 security not of what is morally creditable, perhaps, 
 but of what is practically efficacious. And from this 
 standpoint is it not easily apparent that in each and 
 every case the appeal to force is the direct choice of 
 injury and destruction? Physical resistance under 
 such circumstances, as actually in the case of Belgium, 
 is suicidal. Non-resistance cannot be less secure; it 
 may very easily be more secure. It would seem, after 
 all, in this matter of alternatives, that our " yoke " 
 of preference is " easy " and our " burden " of proof 
 is " light." 
 
 Not so, however, says the champion of force ! Re- 
 sistance to the highwayman or the invading army may 
 be desperate, as you say ; force may fail far more often 
 than it succeeds, as you seem to imply. But it is at 
 least more practicable, even under such hazardous cir- 
 cumstances, than non-resistance ; for in the one case,
 
 224, NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 jou at least do, or attempt to do, something, on behalf 
 of your purse, or your wife, or your child, whereas in 
 the other case, you do not do, or attempt to do, an}'- 
 thing at all. You simply hold up your hands, sur- 
 render, acquiesce let the robber take your purse, the 
 ruffian misuse your wife or child, and the invader over- 
 run your country, without so much as raising a finger 
 or firing a shot in opposition. In resorting to force, 
 under however disadvantageous circumstances, you at 
 least have some chance of accomplishing something ; but 
 in " non-resisting " if there be such a word ! you 
 have no chance at all, for you submit at the very start 
 and give a free hand to your assailant to work his will 
 unhindered. Certainly there can be no comparison be- 
 tween the two methods, either as regards honour or 
 feasibility. 
 
 So it would seem at first glance ! Further considera- 
 tion of the problem, however, will show that there are 
 at least two serious errors involved in this reply. 
 
 In the first place, there is the error of assuming that, 
 because you attempt to do something by resort to force, 
 you are therefore doing something effective on your 
 own behalf. It is true that you are " doing some- 
 thing " when you offer violent resistance to your as- 
 sailant ; but it is also true that you are doing the very 
 thing which he expects you to do and for which there- 
 fore he is amply prepared. In other words, you are 
 doing what, in all reasonable probability, will injure 
 your assailant least and yourself most. You are doing 
 the one thing which is bound to fail, and leaving undone
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 225 
 
 many things which may possibly succeed. You are 
 certainly no match for your assailant in physical 
 strength, but you are very likely much more than his 
 match in wits, in patience, in self-control, in goodwill. 
 Why do the insane thing of meeting him on his own 
 ground of accepting his choice of weapons ? Why 
 not dictate your own terms of battle, and thus have 
 some chance of accomplishing your end? 
 
 But in non-resistance, you say, you do nothing at 
 all? Surely physical resistance, however hazardous, 
 is better than servile surrender? 
 
 Here is the second error in this reply. For surely 
 it must have become apparent long before this, if our 
 argument has not been all in vain, that non-resistance 
 means anything but inaction, abject surrender to evil. 
 Non-resistance is a positive and not a negative thing 
 it is attack not submission, but attack on the high 
 ground of the spirit and not on the low ground of the 
 flesh. " No man," says Emerson, with his customary 
 acuteness of thought, " ever embraces the cause of 
 peace for the sole end and satisfaction of being plun- 
 dered and slain. A man does not come the length of the 
 spirit of martyrdom without some active purpose, some 
 equal motive, some flaming love." And one such pur- 
 pose at least of non-resistance is that of which we have 
 just now been speaking the shifting of the ground 
 of battle from the plane where the defendant is at a 
 hopeless disadvantage to the plane where he has at least 
 an equal, and in all probability has an infinitely su- 
 perior, chance of winning out. The non-resistant, in
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 other words, quite apart from his deep-rooted con- 
 viction that love is the highest duty of his life, has a 
 clear idea that, if he resorts to violence in his dealings 
 with those to whom violence is as the very breath of 
 their nostrils, he is bound to be overcome, but that if he 
 resorts to a duel of wits or a competition of goodwill, 
 he is pretty certain to emerge triumphant. He does 
 not surrender or run away. He will die rather than 
 see his wife and children abused without his interference 
 die rather than see his native land invaded and laid 
 waste. But he will fight the good fight in his own ele- 
 ment. He will choose the weapons. And the weapon 
 in this case, as in every case, will be love. And who 
 that knows the power of love can doubt its efficacy, even 
 in the most dreadful emergencies of life? Think of 
 what Paul has to say of love ! " Love suffereth long 
 and is kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is 
 not puffed up, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; 
 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 
 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
 things, endureth all things." Do you wonder that, 
 when the Apostle has listed this catalogue of virtues, 
 he ends up with the triumphant declaration, " love never 
 faileth "? Of course it " never faileth." Love softens 
 all enmity, disarms every foe. It is at once the sword 
 that conquers and the armour that wards. The 
 fallacies of force are apparent ; but not less apparent 
 are the virtues of love.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE ,227 
 
 Our faith in the practicability of non-resistance, 
 however, is still an assertion, and not yet a demonstra- 
 tion. Two things must now be said in confirmation of 
 this faith. 
 
 First of all, it is almost uniformly true that such 
 violent experiences as are pointed out in the test-ques- 
 tions submitted above, very seldom fall to the lot of the 
 man who is a lover of his kind and therefore a " peace- 
 maker." " Such cases," says Emerson, in his Lecture 
 on War, "seldom or never occur to the just and good 
 man." The true non-resistant, as a general rule, does 
 not get into trouble, for the reason that he does not 
 make trouble, seek trouble, or expect trouble. He 
 leaves all such experiences as these to the advocate of 
 force, who, because he lives in the realm of violence, re- 
 gards violence as the invariable condition of existence. 
 
 A good example of this truism came to me some 
 months ago in the person of a gentleman who had heard 
 me discussing certain aspects of the non-resistant ques- 
 tion in the pulpit. He informed me that he had lived 
 most of his life in Mexico, and was to return within a 
 fortnight to that turbulent and war-stricken country. 
 Would I advise him, now, to go back to his old haunts 
 unarmed? Did I believe that the non-resistant doctrine 
 would work for an instant under such conditions as pre- 
 vailed in nearly every part of the Republic? He him- 
 self, he said, had little use for any such preposterous 
 ideas. His equipment had never included less than
 
 228 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 seven revolvers or rifles, and he was quite ready to 
 testify that, on many occasions the presence, and on 
 more than one occasion the prompt use, of these 
 weapons, had alone secured him from attack and pos- 
 sible death. He then went on to tell me about the 
 Mexican people their dirt, their cruelty, their treach- 
 ery, their incapacity. Scorn curled his lips; hatred 
 darkened his brow ; " dagos," " greasers," " niggers," 
 were the contemptuous epithets that tripped from his 
 tongue. It was obvious enough that this man had noth- 
 ing but bitterness in his heart for these sorely beset 
 people of the southern Republic and that, with such 
 a temper behind his actions, nothing but trouble could 
 dog his footsteps. If he did not find trouble in his deal- 
 ings with the Mexicans, he would certainly make plenty 
 of it in short order. So I advised that, in his case, not 
 seven guns, but " seventy times seven," were an advis- 
 able equipment and I ventured to express my doubt 
 if even the " seventy times seven " could save him in the 
 end. 
 
 Then I thought of the men one at least of my own 
 acquaintance who had roamed Mexico for years un- 
 armed, loving these intensely lovable people and serv- 
 ing them whenever opportunity offered, and never at 
 any time meeting trouble or suffering injury. I 
 thought of Livingstone threading the jungle pathways 
 of central Africa, surrounded on every hand by the 
 savagest people on the surface of the globe, and every- 
 where finding his goodwill matched by the goodwill of 
 his dusky friends. I thought of General Scott of the
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 229 
 
 United States army, just at that moment doing, alone 
 and unarmed, what regiments of soldiers had failed to 
 do subdue the revolting Indians of Utah by the sheer 
 power of understanding and affection. 
 
 Do we encounter no peace or security in the world? 
 Do we see no gentleness and goodwill in the hearts of 
 men? Is not the trouble with ourselves? "Thou 
 find'st it not? " says James Russell Lowell 
 
 " I pray thee look again, 
 
 Look inward thro' the depths of thine own soul. 
 How is it with thee? Art thou sound and whole? 
 Doth narrow search show thee no earthly stain? 
 Be noble ! And the nobleness that lies 
 In other men, sleeping but never dead, 
 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own: 
 Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes. 
 Then will pure light around thy path be shed." 
 
 It is useless to deny, however, that even the noblest 
 lover of his kind may now and then encounter accident. 
 The non-resistant's house can boast no certain im- 
 munity from burglary, his wife may fall victim to as- 
 sault, his land may be precipitated into war by the 
 mad folly of militarists and thus exposed to hostile in- 
 vasion. What, under such unusual circumstances, is he 
 to do? 
 
 The answer is easy he is to appeal with calm poise 
 and sure reliance to the spiritual weapons of reason 
 and goodwill. And abundant are the illustrations, to 
 be drawn from history and personal experience, to 
 prove that such appeal is not in vain. 
 
 First of all, take such a comparatively trivial mat-
 
 230 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ter as a personal affront or insult ! Adin Ballou, in 
 his Christian Non-Resistance, tells a story of two 
 students in a certain college years ago, who had long 
 been friends, and who one day fell into a misunderstand- 
 ing. One of the two young men, a Southerner of un- 
 governable temper, proceeded to berate his comrade, 
 and finally demanded satisfaction on the field of honour. 
 The other young man refused to be in any way dis- 
 turbed, ignored the challenge to a duel, and persisted 
 in the declaration that he was not conscious of having 
 done any harm, but that if his friend would point out 
 his offence he would be glad to make amends. The an- 
 swer was only a new torrent of abuse and insult. 
 Whereupon the second man replied that he had always 
 been the friend of his college-mate, always would con- 
 tinue in that friendship, and expressed the hope that 
 the old relations would soon be resumed. The effect 
 of this conduct was of course inevitable. It takes two 
 to make a quarrel ! Before the interview was over, the 
 Southern lad was overtaken with shame, came to him- 
 self, and grasped the hand of his forgiving friend in a 
 new and stronger bond of affection. 
 
 Such an experience can be duplicated in nearly every 
 life. In my own case, I have frequently taken advan- 
 tage of the insulting letters which occasionally come to 
 the desk of every clergyman, to try experiments along 
 this line. Thus when a particularly objectionable 
 epistle has reached me from somebody in my own city, 
 I put on hat and coat, go straight to the home or busi- 
 ness office of my correspondent, send in my card and
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 231 
 
 ask to be received. Nothing can be more amusing to 
 the deliberate plotter of such a wicked scheme than the 
 confusion, embarrassment, and chagrin of my host when 
 I enter his presence, show him his letter, express regret 
 that I have been so misunderstood, and offer to make 
 explanations, or, if I have unwittingly done him injury, 
 give reparation. Experiments of this kind have taught 
 me that Paul was far more cruel than kind when he 
 recommended pouring " coals of fire " upon a victim's 
 head ! In every case, however, where I have acted upon 
 this policy, I have put my assailant immediately on 
 the defensive, received from him sooner or later profuse 
 apologies, and ended once for all the possibility of fur- 
 ther insulting letters from that particular source. 
 Verily, verily, a " soft answer turneth away wrath ! " 
 
 But what about the protection of property? What 
 are we going to do when we are halted by a highway- 
 man, or our homes are entered by burglars, or our es- 
 tates ravaged by the depredations of the heedless or 
 hostile public? Here again the answer is the same, and 
 the evidence not lacking ! 
 
 Thus there is the story of Dr. Ramsay, a Methodist 
 non-resistant clergyman of England. " He was de- 
 pendent for his living upon the quarterly collection 
 made by his people, which was barely sufficient ... to 
 support his family. On the night that one of these col- 
 lections was taken up, he was obliged to preach six miles 
 distant from his home, and the night was too stormy to 
 allow his return. During the night, two robbers broke 
 into his house, called up Mrs. Ramsay and her sister,
 
 232 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 and demanded to know where the money was. Mrs. 
 Ramsay, in her night-dress, lit the candle, and leading 
 the way to the bureau that contained the precious de- 
 posit, procured the key, opened the drawer, and point- 
 ing out the money as it lay in a handkerchief, said, 
 ' This is all we have to live on. It is the Lord's money. 
 Yet, if you will take it, there it is.' With this remark 
 she left them, and returned to bed. The next morning, 
 the money to a penny was found undisturbed." 
 
 A story of the same kind has come within my own 
 experience. It concerns two women who lived alone in 
 a house in a great city. The one was an invalid, dan- 
 gerously afflicted with some kind of nervous disorder; 
 the other was a nurse. On a certain night, the house 
 was entered by burglars. The nurse, awakened by the 
 disturbance, had but a single thought that of saving 
 her patient from what might be the fatal shock of fear 
 or excitement. Hastily donning a robe, she imme- 
 diately went down-stairs, all oblivious of peril, entered 
 the dining-room where the burglars were packing the 
 silver, and with perfect calmness informed the aston- 
 ished invaders of the presence of the invalid and asked 
 them to leave at once with as little noise as possible. 
 Whatever they desired to take with them, she added, 
 they were welcome to. Immediately, in answer to this 
 friendly appeal, with every indication of solicitude and 
 genuine embarrassment, the burglars gathered up their 
 tools and hastened away, without so much as purloining 
 a single spoon. 
 
 More important, however, than the fact that prop-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 233 
 
 erty can be protected by methods such as these is the 
 further fact that property can be rendered to all in- 
 tents and purposes immune from attack by a frank ex- 
 tension of these methods. Two examples will illustrate 
 what I mean. 
 
 On January 26, 1915, I received a letter from a 
 lawyer of New York City, which read as follows : 
 
 " My purpose in writing you is to inform you of a 
 fact in real life, within my knowledge, which seems to 
 me stronger than the fiction of Bishop Myriel's confi- 
 dence in his fellowmen as evidenced by his omitting 
 locks and bars from his house. A leading San Fran- 
 cisco man, now dead, for many years owned a beautiful 
 country estate situated about an hour's ride by boat 
 and rail from his place of business. It consisted of 
 many acres a considerable distance from any other 
 habitation on a well-travelled highway leading to Mt. 
 Tamalpais. He maintained there a residence for his 
 own use, and several cottages for the use of his guests. 
 And there was not a lock or bolt on a single door in any 
 of them nothing but a common latch. Shortly be- 
 fore his death I visited this place as his guest, and saw 
 in these houses vast quantities of the most expensive 
 household furnishings, linens and silverware, sculpture, 
 bronzes, china, and paintings. He was a collector of 
 works of art, and kept perhaps $100,000 worth of per- 
 sonal property in these houses. For weeks at a time 
 he left the entire property absolutely alone, without 
 even a caretaker, except for the occasional visit of a 
 servant from his city home. At the time of my visit
 
 234 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 he told me that he had never lost the slightest article 
 and that no one had even attempted to enter the 
 premises with wrongful purpose. He told me that if it 
 were not to protect his property from the weather he 
 would have no doors at all. He said men could always 
 be trusted more safely than they could be feared, and 
 he lived up to his ideals. There are many people in 
 San Francisco who can verify the above. His widow 
 lives there, and I will be glad to give you her name and 
 address if you wish to confirm this." 
 
 I immediately replied to this letter, asking for per- 
 mission to use the remarkable information therein con- 
 veyed. This was granted in a letter from my corre- 
 spondent, under date of January 27. Later on, I re- 
 ceived a third letter, dated February 19, as follows: 
 
 " Referring to my letters to you under date of Janu- 
 ary 25 and 27, I beg to state that, desiring to refresh 
 
 my recollection of the matter, I wrote Mrs. ,* the 
 
 widow, enclosing the correspondence with you. I to- 
 day have a reply in which she confirms my statement, 
 except that she thinks that my estimate of the total 
 valuation of the personal property may be a little 
 higher than it was at any one time, though it was very 
 large and may have been as much. She gives me the 
 additional information, which may be of use to you, 
 that later on, due to the urgency of herself and other 
 
 members of her family, Mr. was induced to put 
 
 locks and bolts on some of the doors, and to keep some 
 
 i The name is on my files, but is here withheld for obvious 
 reasons.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 235 
 
 one at the place all the time ; and that afterwards they 
 were troubled by thieves and vandals." 
 
 The second illustration is gathered from my own 
 experience. Some months ago I was the guest of a dis- 
 tinguished business man in a city of the Middle West. 
 My host was the owner of a beautiful estate, situated 
 just on the outskirts of the city, and comprising many 
 acres of woods, pastures and gardens. In the early 
 days of his possession of this land, the gentleman to 
 whom I refer had taken care to protect his property 
 with fences, gates, armed watchmen, etc. ; but during 
 this period invasions and depredations were constant. 
 After a while, in disgust perhaps at his ill-success, he 
 decided to change his policy. Guards were discharged, 
 gates unlocked, fences removed, and announcement made 
 to the citizens of the community that the property was 
 open freely to the public on condition that certain rea- 
 sonable wishes and regulations, which were duly posted, 
 were complied with. Since that time, the land has been 
 used by thousands of people and to-day it is to all 
 intents and purposes a public park ! but no damage 
 has been done and no property lost. 
 
 While riding through this estate one day, we stopped 
 at a greenhouse, located on the edge of a large stretch 
 of cultivated ground, right beside a public highway. 
 As we entered to examine the vegetables and flowers, I 
 noticed that the door was unlocked, no watchman or 
 even gardener in sight, and that in addition there were 
 wash-rooms for men and women on cither side of the en- 
 trance passage-way. I at once inquired if the green-
 
 236 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 house was regularly left wide open and unguarded in 
 this way, and was informed that this was the case. Ex- 
 perience had shown that this was the only way to pro- 
 tect the place from attack. Every effort was made to 
 attract visitors and make them welcome with the re- 
 sult that not a blossom was ever plucked or a tool dis- 
 turbed. In other words, this man had perfect confi- 
 dence in the goodwill of his fellow-citizens and this 
 confidence had not yet been abused ! 
 
 Such illustrations as these go far toward proving the 
 perfect security of property when handled on the non- 
 resistant principle. It only remains now to consider 
 the question of our persons. Is the doctrine of non- 
 resistance equally practicable when applied to crises af- 
 fecting the security of life? What about assaults, 
 hold-ups, riots all conditions of social unrest and 
 disturbance? Will reason and love work here, or shall 
 we be wise and prepare ourselves for the occasional re- 
 sort to force? 
 
 That force is never necessary, even under the most 
 trying circumstances, is shown conclusively by the con- 
 duct of Jesus on the one occasion in his career when he 
 was placed in the position of defending another from 
 violent death. This was a position of peculiar diffi- 
 culty. On the one side was a wretched woman, who had 
 been " taken in adultery," and who, by the accepted law 
 and custom of the age, was doomed to death by stoning. 
 On the other side, was not one man or a group of men, 
 but a mob raging against the guilty woman and waiting 
 only the word of the leaders to destroy her. What did
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 237 
 
 Jesus do under these terrifying conditions? Did he 
 threaten the crowd with punishment? Did he throw 
 himself between the crowd and its crouching victim in 
 an attitude of menace or defiance? Did he strike madly 
 right and left, in the vain hope of putting the mob 
 to flight, in the sublime determination to die himself 
 rather than to stand by and see the woman die? He 
 might have done any one of these things, not without 
 credit to himself. But if so, we may be sure that his 
 efforts would have been futile. He would have but 
 stirred the throng to wilder fury and doomed the woman 
 to a more fearful death ! Instead of resorting to vio- 
 lence of any kind, however, he simply spoke some words, 
 and then, turning away, began to write upon the sand. 
 Could anything have been more utterly ridiculous ! 
 And yet, we are told that when Jesus finished his writ- 
 ing and looked about him, the mob was dispersed and 
 the woman saved ! 
 
 It is difficult to find another incident to match this, 
 for the same reason that it is difficult to find another 
 personality to match the Nazarene. Other episodes, 
 only less striking, however, are not uncommon. The 
 famous story of Archbishop Sharpe, a distinguished 
 churchman of England, comes immediately to mind. 
 According to the account of the essayist, Jonathan Dy- 
 mond, " Archbishop Sharpe was assaulted by a footpad 
 on the highway, who presented a pistol and demanded 
 money. The Archbishop spoke to the robber in the 
 language of a fellow-man and of a Christian. The man 
 was really in distress, and the prelate gave him such
 
 238 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 money as he had, and promised that, if he would call 
 at the palace, he would make up the amount to fifty 
 pounds. This was the sum of which the robber had 
 said he was in the utmost need. The man called and 
 received the money. About a year and a half after- 
 wards, this man came again to the palace, and brought 
 back the same sum. He said that his circumstances 
 had become improved and that, through the astonishing 
 goodness of the Archbishop, he had become the most 
 penitent, the most grateful, and happiest of his species." 
 Similar stories of this same kind, as of Robert Bar- 
 clay and Leonard Fell, the English Quakers, of John 
 Pomphret, the English Methodist, of Rowland Hill, the 
 well-known London preacher, could be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely. No man who has had faith and courage 
 enough to put the non-resistant principle to the test 
 even under the most trying conditions, but has his tale 
 of triumph to narrate. All these personal anecdotes 
 I put one side, however, to come the more speedily to 
 the experience of the Quakers, as a group, which consti- 
 tutes not only a demonstration of the practicability of 
 non-resistance, but, entirely apart from this particular 
 subject here under discussion, one of the most glorious 
 episodes of history. 
 
 VI 
 
 The story of the Quakers is everywhere the same. 
 The chapter which has special interest for us, however, 
 is that pertaining to the coming of the Quakers to North 
 America in the seventeenth century, and more particu-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 239 
 
 larly their settlement in the colony of Pennsylvania, 
 under the leadership of William Penn. All the world 
 has of course heard the thrilling story how Penn and 
 his Quaker followers landed on the banks of the Schuyl- 
 kill River unarmed, met with the savage and suspicious 
 redskins under the famous oak tree, and gave to them 
 the hand of friendship. " The Great God," said Penn 
 in his address to the Indians, " hath written his law in 
 our hearts by which we are taught and commanded to 
 love and help and do good to one another. It is not 
 our custom to use hostile weapons against our fellow- 
 creatures, for which reason we come unarmed. Our ob- 
 ject is not to do injury but to do good. We are now 
 met on the broad pathway of good faith and goodwill, 
 so that no advantage is to be taken on either side, but 
 all is to be openness, brotherhood, and love, while all are 
 to be treated as of the same flesh and blood." 
 
 If the experience of the other colonies of the Atlantic 
 seaboard was any criterion, Penn and his followers, by 
 this crazy action, were only preparing themselves for 
 inevitable destruction. Any wise militarist of Massa- 
 chusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, or Virginia could have 
 told him of the treacherous character of the North 
 American Indians, their bloodthirstiness, their unex- 
 pected raids with tomahawk and torch and the abso- 
 lute necessity therefore of being armed to the teeth in 
 preparation for, and security against, attack. But the 
 Quakers did not know, or, if they did know, they did not 
 believe ; and thus they came to this wilderness without 
 so much as a sword or a rifle, and settled down to es-
 
 238 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 money as he had, and promised that, if he would call 
 at the palace, he would make up the amount to fifty 
 pounds. This was the sum of which the robber had 
 said he was in the utmost need. The man called and 
 received the money. About a year and a half after- 
 wards, this man came again to the palace, and brought 
 back the same sum. He said that his circumstances 
 had become improved and that, through the astonishing 
 goodness of the Archbishop, he had become the most 
 penitent, the most grateful, and happiest of his species." 
 Similar stories of this same kind, as of Robert Bar- 
 clay and Leonard Fell, the English Quakers, of John 
 Pomphret, the English Methodist, of Rowland Hill, the 
 well-known London preacher, could be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely. No man who has had faith and courage 
 enough to put the non-resistant principle to the test 
 even under the most trying conditions, but has his tale 
 of triumph to narrate. All these personal anecdotes 
 I put one side, however, to come the more speedily to 
 the experience of the Quakers, as a group, which consti- 
 tutes not only a demonstration of the practicability of 
 non-resistance, but, entirely apart from this particular 
 subject here under discussion, one of the most glorious 
 episodes of history. 
 
 VI 
 
 The story of the Quakers is everywhere the same. 
 The chapter which has special interest for us, however, 
 is that pertaining to the coming of the Quakers to North 
 America in the seventeenth century, and more particu-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 239 
 
 larly their settlement in the colony of Pennsylvania, 
 under the leadership of William Penn. All the world 
 has of course heard the thrilling story how Penn and 
 his Quaker followers landed on the banks of the Schuyl- 
 kill River unarmed, met with the savage and suspicious 
 redskins under the famous oak tree, and gave to them 
 the hand of friendship. " The Great God," said Penn 
 in his address to the Indians, " hath written his law in 
 our hearts by which we are taught and commanded to 
 love and help and do good to one another. It is not 
 our custom to use hostile weapons against our fellow- 
 creatures, for which reason we come unarmed. Our ob- 
 ject is not to do injury but to do good. We are now 
 met on the broad pathway of good faith and goodwill, 
 so that no advantage is to be taken on either side, but 
 all is to be openness, brotherhood, and love, while all are 
 to be treated as of the same flesh and blood." 
 
 If the experience of the other colonies of the Atlantic 
 seaboard was any criterion, Penn and his followers, by 
 this crazy action, were only preparing themselves for 
 inevitable destruction. Any wise militarist of Massa- 
 chusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, or Virginia could have 
 told him of the treacherous character of the North 
 American Indians, their bloodthirstiness, their unex- 
 pected raids with tomahawk and torch and the abso- 
 lute necessity therefore of being armed to the teeth in 
 preparation for, and security against, attack. But the 
 Quakers did not know, or, if they did know, they did not 
 believe ; and thus they came to this wilderness without 
 so much as a sword or a rifle, and settled down to es-
 
 242 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 upon hostilities with the colonists. All such special ex- 
 planations as these, however, fail to account for the fur- 
 ther fact that the Quakers who chanced to live in other 
 settlements, such as those in New England or Virginia, 
 which were constantly harried by Indian warfare, en- 
 joyed exactly the same immunity from injury as that 
 enjoyed by the Pennsylvanians. The other settlers in 
 other places lived in armed houses, carried weapons 
 wherever they went, and in case of attack from the 
 forests fled at once to the block-houses prepared for 
 these occasions. The Quakers, however, true to their 
 principles, lived in houses which were undefended, never 
 carried arms of any kind, and, when the Indians came 
 sweeping down upon the villages, went undisturbed about 
 their daily tasks as though nothing unusual were hap- 
 pening. And what was their fate? Were they the 
 first to be butchered in cold blood? On the contrary, 
 they were the only members of these communities who 
 were left unharmed. In all the Indian fighting of these 
 early colonial days, only three Quakers, so far as we 
 know, were slain. And these were Quakers, who, under 
 stress of great alarm, were persuaded to arm themselves 
 against attack ! Two were men who were accustomed 
 to go to their labour unarmed ; " but a spirit of distrust 
 taking place in their minds, they took weapons of war 
 to defend themselves, and the Indians, who had seen 
 them several times without them and let them alone . . . 
 now seeing them with guns, and supposing that they 
 were designed to kill the Indians, therefore shot them 
 dead." The other was a woman, who, on the occasion
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 243 
 
 of a raid, had remained in her habitation, not deigning 
 to go to the block -house for protection. Later, becom- 
 ing frightened, she fled with her children, and on the 
 way was killed. 
 
 The surest test to which the peace principles of the 
 Quakers were ever subjected, however, was that which 
 came in Ireland, on the occasion of the memorable Re- 
 bellion in 1798. Two years before this outbreak oc- 
 curred, the Quakers, anticipating serious trouble, met 
 together in their meeting-houses and publicly destroyed 
 their firearms which they were in the custom of using 
 for game. This they did, so one of the statements ran, 
 *' to prevent (arms) being made use of to the destruc- 
 tion of our fellow-creatures and more fully and clearly 
 to support our peaceable and Christian testimony in 
 these perilous times." In other words, they did just 
 the opposite of what the Belgians did last year. In- 
 stead of arming themselves against those who they 
 feared were getting ready to attack them, they went out 
 of their way to proclaim their defenselessness. Feeling 
 sure that war was coming, they prepared not for war, 
 but for peace. And what was the result? For two 
 years, from 1798 to 1800, the Rebellion raged. Thou- 
 sands of men were killed, hundreds of women outraged, 
 fields were ravaged and towns destroyed. Victory alter- 
 nated from side to side, and by both sides were the 
 Quakers " despised and rejected." The Protestants 
 viewed them with scorn because they would not fight for 
 the Protestant cause or even pay military taxes ; the 
 Catholic insurgents hated them because they would
 
 244 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 neither profess the true faith nor help them fight for 
 Irish freedom. Threats and insults were heaped upon 
 them by both parties. More than once they were 
 brought face to face with death. But, steadfast in 
 their faith and practice, they everywhere escaped. In 
 course of time their homes became known as sure havens 
 of safety, and were sought out by fleeing women and 
 wounded men. At last, their unfailing deeds of kind- 
 ness to both Protestants and Catholics had their inevi- 
 table effect, so that toward the close of the Rebellion, 
 whichever party would enter a village after a victorious 
 fight, the cry would go up, " Spare the Quakers they 
 do good to all, and harm to none ! " It is worthy of 
 memory that, in all these dreadful months of ravage and 
 slaughter, only one Quaker is known to have been killed. 
 This was a young man who, being afraid to trust peace 
 principles, put on a uniform and went to the garrison 
 for protection. This man was later captured by the 
 enemy, and he was killed. " His dress and arms spoke 
 the language of hostility," says the historian, " and 
 therefore invited it." 
 
 vn 
 
 The Quakers, however, are not the only organised 
 group of modern times, whose experience gives us 
 demonstration of the practicability of the non-resistant 
 principle. More remarkable, in certain ways, is the 
 story of the famous sect of the Bahaists. 
 
 If there are any conditions amid which the practice of 
 non-resistance would seem to be as impossible as it
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 245 
 
 would be ignoble, these conditions are certainly to be 
 found in the Empire of Turkey. The horror of the 
 Armenian persecutions, through many generations past, 
 is a case in point. Here have inoffensive and unoffend- 
 ing Christians been set upon by the bloodthirsty emis- 
 saries of the Sultan and his ministers, and visited with 
 such indignities, sufferings, agonies as few other peo- 
 ples, in all the long history of human misery, have ever 
 been called upon to endure. Villages levelled to the 
 ground country-sides put to the sword popula- 
 tions driven like sheep into wilderness and desert, there 
 to perish of thirst, hunger, exposure and exhaustion 
 men by the hundreds shut up in churches and burned 
 alive women by the thousands ravished, mutilated or 
 spared only for captivity in harems children aban- 
 doned, murdered, torn limb from limb, tossed in idle 
 sport from spear to spear what words are adequate 
 to describe the enormity of these crimes ! And who 
 can dare to argue, in the face of such crimes, that non- 
 resistance is a practicable law of life? Would it have 
 availed these wretched Armenians anything to have of- 
 fered no resistance to their Turkish murderers? 
 Would they have won any security or saved any lives 
 by submitting tamely to the hand of the oppressor? 
 And even if prudence might have dictated such a course 
 of action, would it not have been the height of coward- 
 ice to have acquiesced? Was it not the duty of every 
 man to resist to the death the violators of his home, 
 and of every woman to fight to the last in defence of 
 her own honour and the safety of her children? Is it
 
 246 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 not sufficient, in a word, to encounter one experience of 
 this kind to see to what a reductio ad absurdum we are 
 speedily brought by any thorough-going discussion of 
 this question? 
 
 In answer to these inquiries just two things are to be 
 said. First of all, it must be noted that the appeal to 
 force has in this case accomplished nothing in the way 
 of guaranteeing to the Armenians immunity from at- 
 tack, or protecting them from unmentionable horrors 
 when attacked. Neither the arms of the Armenians 
 themselves, nor the enormous armaments of the Chris- 
 tian nations of Europe and America to which appeal 
 for aid has repeatedly been made, have restrained the 
 blood-stained hand of the Turkish oppressor. Indeed, 
 it may fairly be asked if the tradition of Christian 
 militancy as made known to the Mohammedan through 
 many centuries gone by, and the call of the Armenians 
 to an armed Christendom for protection and redress, 
 have not served to aggravate, if not actually create, the 
 situation? In any case, Armenian massacres have been 
 for years a constantly recurring event in Turkish his- 
 tory ; and the outbreak of the Great War was the signal 
 for worse atrocities than have ever been known before. 
 The appeal to force is a failure ! 
 
 But would non-resistance have been a success? To 
 this we answer, Yes and for the simple reason that, 
 under exactly similar circumstances, it has succeeded ! 
 For the Armenians are not the only religionists in the 
 Mohammedan world who have been ruthlessly perse-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 247 
 
 cuted. Side by side with them, through many years, 
 suffered and died the followers of the Bab. Shot to 
 death himself in a public square in Tabriz in July, 1850, 
 this noble prophet of the soul left behind him many dis- 
 ciples who devoted themselves, like the early apostles of 
 Christ, to the preaching of his gospel to a hostile world. 
 Very speedily the Mohammedan authorities became 
 alarmed, especially after an unsuccessful attack upon 
 the life of the Persian Shah by a crazed Babi, and per- 
 secution of the most terrible character was set on foot. 
 In the frenzied massacres which followed, thirty thou- 
 sand men, women and children were cut down in cold 
 blood. Outrages of every description were practised, 
 cruelties of the last degree of refinement perpetrated, 
 upon defenseless and terrified populations. The leaders 
 were seized, some of them killed and others imprisoned. 
 Baha o'llah, the successor of the Bab, was stripped of 
 his property, imprisoned in a noisome dungeon, and at 
 last banished from the kingdom. In Turkey, where he 
 took refuge, he was in 1868 doomed to the prison of 
 Akka in Palestine, where he remained till his death. 
 And here also, for a period of forty years, languished 
 his disciple and later successor, Abdul Baha. 
 
 Thus far the story of the Bahaists is that of the 
 Armenians. But now appears the difference. Instead 
 of meeting violence with violence, or appealing from the 
 sword of Mohammed to the sword of Christ, the fol- 
 lowers of the Bab, like the early Christians in Rome, 
 dedicated themselves resolutely to the ideal of non-re-
 
 24,8 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 sistance. Not a sword was drawn or a staff lifted in 
 defence of their homes and persons against the assaults 
 of their enemies. Protests were uttered, prayers of- 
 fered, appeals to pity spoken but no resort was 
 had to violence of any kind. With the result that 
 slaughter very soon ceased, persecutions ended, prison 
 doors opened ; and Bahaism is now taught and practised 
 by millions of devotees without interference by the au- 
 thorities ! Long before Balm o'llah died, he saw his 
 followers protected from attack by the sheer power of 
 their own endurance, patience and unfailing goodwill. 
 In his old age, he was himself released from prison, so 
 great was the impression made upon his jailers " by the 
 uniform kindness and fairness the Bahaists displayed 
 toward each other and toward their keepers." Abdul 
 Baha, also, after forty years of suffering, has won 
 similar immunity by similar ways of the spirit, and is 
 now permitted a latitude of speech and action within 
 the confines of Islam which would not under any cir- 
 cumstances be granted to a native Christian. Again 
 has love done its perfect work. Again has the spirit 
 triumphed, where the flesh has failed. Well does an 
 historian of this movement declare that " religious faith, 
 in our own times, once more revealed its secret power 
 to triumph over the agony of fire and steel." Nor is 
 any record to be found of denunciation of these mar- 
 tyrs for cowardice or shame in thus enduring and hop- 
 ing all things ! 
 
 i See Horace Holley's The Modern Social Religion, page 160.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 210 
 
 vin 
 
 To the Quakers and the Bahaists must now be added 
 the socialists, who are exemplars, from the wider view- 
 point at least, of all the best that we mean by non-re- 
 sistance. The story of the mighty and successful bat- 
 tles which they have waged against the capitalistic des- 
 potisms of modern times presents many illustrations of 
 the perfect efficacy of the pacifist method of attack, 
 but none is quite so cunning and inspiring, perhaps, as 
 that of the triumphant twelve-years' fight of the Ger- 
 man socialists against Bismarck and the Hohenzollern-s. 
 
 In October, 1878, as a result be it noted, of a succes- 
 sion of terrorist outrages, there was passed by the 
 German Reichstag, after a battle royal between the 
 Chancellor on the one side and Bebel and Liebknecht on 
 the other, an anti-socialist law which was intended to 
 cut off every legal and peaceable means of advancing 
 the socialist cause. The chief measures of the law l 
 prohibited the formation or existence of socialist or- 
 ganisations, so restricted the right of assembly that all 
 socialist meetings, festivals and processions were made 
 impossible, interdicted all socialist publications, both 
 domestic and foreign, confiscated all socialist books and 
 printing presses, and forbade the collection of money 
 on behalf of socialistic activities either by private as- 
 sessment or public appeal. Persons violating these pro- 
 hibitions were liable to punishments varying from a fine 
 of 500 marks or three months' imprisonment to expul- 
 
 i See Robert Hunter's Violence and the Labor Movement.
 
 250 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 sion from a certain neighbourhood or governmental dis- 
 trict. Ample powers for enforcing these prohibitions 
 were lodged in the local and national police. 
 
 For the moment it seemed as though the enactment of 
 this law marked the end of German socialism. So- 
 cieties were instantly dissolved, newspapers and maga- 
 zines suppressed, printing establishments confiscated, 
 and agitators imprisoned or expelled. " Within a few 
 weeks," says Mr. Hunter, " not a thing seemed left of 
 the great movement of half a million men that had ex- 
 isted a few weeks before." Here, if ever, was a case 
 where violence would seem to have been justifiable. 
 Where or when can be found a state of affairs which 
 more nearly meets the condition of ultima ratio laid 
 down by Professor Rauschenbusch? 1 Had arson, as- 
 sassination, and general murder broken loose throughout 
 the Empire, it would be difficult to condemn the utilisa- 
 tion of such methods of force. Nor were the terrorists 
 of the time slow to see the opportunity and to point its 
 moral. " All measures are legitimate against tyrants," 
 cried Johann Most from the safe refuge of London, and 
 here certainly was tyranny at its very worst. 
 
 In spite of the extreme provocation of the situation, 
 however, the German socialists stood steadfast against 
 resort to violence. Instead of fighting, they gave them- 
 selves to the development of an underground socialist 
 movement that proved most baffling to the police. In a 
 hundred mysterious ways the propaganda was cease- 
 lessly conducted throughout the Empire. Papers were 
 
 i See above, Chapter II, page 45.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 251 
 
 passed from hand to hand ; meetings were held in vacant 
 fields and darkened cellars ; funds were raised to support 
 agitators whose dangerous duty it was to keep the fires 
 burning in hidden places. In spite of all that Bismarck 
 and his minions could do in spite of martial law, fines, 
 imprisonments, banishments the agitation went on. 
 Month after month, year after year, reports came to 
 the Chancellor of the continued life of the movement, 
 and, what was more astounding, of its rapid growth. 
 In 1886, infuriated beyond measure by the failure of 
 his programme, Bismarck arrested nine of the socialist 
 deputies in the Reichstag on charges of belonging to a 
 secret and illegal organisation. All the accused were 
 convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for six or nine 
 months. But even this did not avail to stop the move- 
 ment. Slowly, surely, without the firing of a single gun 
 or the throwing of a single bomb, the work went on 
 from strength to strength. Whereas the socialist vote 
 in 1878, when the law was enacted, was 450,000, in 
 the election of 1890 it mounted to 1,427,000. Defeat 
 was apparent ; and in spite of all Bismarck's pleas to 
 the contrary, a disgusted Reichstag, in September 30, 
 1890, repealed the law. 
 
 Never was there a greater victory and never a 
 victory which showed more convincingly the irresistible 
 momentum of moral, as contrasted with physical, power. 
 Had the German socialists, in their hour of despair in 
 1878, resorted to violence, there can be no question but 
 what they would have been destroyed root and branch. 
 Such resort was indeed the very thing for which Bis-
 
 252 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 marck in his secret heart most ardently hoped, for the 
 game of blood and iron was the one game in which he 
 knew himself to be supreme. With aggravating per- 
 sistency and marvellous patience, the socialists kept to 
 the non-resistant path, and thus made certain their ulti- 
 mate victory. Liebknecht summed up the whole matter 
 when he said : " He [Bismarck] has had at his entire 
 disposal for more than a quarter of a century, the 
 police, the army, the capital, and the power of the State 
 in brief, all the means of mechanical force. We had 
 only our just right, our firm conviction, our bared 
 breasts, to oppose him with, and it is we who have con- 
 quered! Our arms were the best. In the course of 
 time brute power must yield to moral factors." 
 
 IX 
 
 The experiences of the Quakers, the Bahaists and the 
 socialists give us indication of what can be accomplished 
 along the lines of non-resistance not only by individuals 
 but by groups of individuals. They suggest the possi- 
 bility at least of a practicable extension of the non-re- 
 sistant principles to the great field of international re- 
 lationships, and a satisfactory answer therefore to those 
 basic questions of peace, security and national idealism 
 which have been raised up all anew, as we have seen, 1 by 
 the present war. Fortunately, however, we are not left 
 any more to speculation in this field than in the other, 
 Experimentation along these lines by nations has of 
 course been rare as compared with experimentation by 
 
 i See Chapter I, pages 10-18.
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 253 
 
 individuals. But instances exist, and are convincing! 
 
 Take, for example, the problem of international 
 peace. We have already seen at considerable length 
 the utter failure of the militarist theory of preserving 
 peace by preparing for war. 1 Always have nations pre- 
 pared for war, just as the militarists have advised, and 
 always has war, and not peace, been the result. It is 
 obvious, or at least it should be obvious, that there is no 
 solution of our problem along these lines. This being 
 the case, it might well be asked if it is not possible that 
 there may be " something " in the pacifist theory of 
 disarmament as a guarantee of peace especially in 
 view of the fact that one trial has been given to this 
 theory with completely successful results ! 
 
 Just one hundred years ago, in 1815, England and 
 America agreed to a policy of almost complete dis- 
 armament along the four thousand miles of boundary 
 line between the United States and Canada. One or 
 two ships of ridiculously light tonnage and only a single 
 gun each, were to float upon the Great Lakes, but aside 
 from this the frontier was to be open. Practically 
 speaking, there was to be absolute disarmament so far 
 as the relations between these two great countries of 
 North America were concerned. From that day to 
 the present, this condition of affairs, happily achieved 
 by President Monroe and his minister, John Quincy 
 Adams, has continued; and from that day to the pres- 
 ent, there has been peace. The treaty effecting this 
 arrangement, be it noted, was signed very shortly after 
 
 iSee Chapter III, pages 9&-102.
 
 254 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 the close of the War of 1812, when feeling was bitter 
 between Canada and America. At various times, dis- 
 putes of great intricacy and full of fighting possibili- 
 ties have arisen, as witness the " Fifty-four Forty or 
 Fight " crisis of the '40s. But in spite of every diffi- 
 culty and temptation, peace has held for an entire cen- 
 tury. And who that can reason at all along the lines of 
 cause and effect, can deny that the absence of weapons 
 of war is one of the chief reasons, if not actually the 
 sole reason, why war has not come? Extend this policy, 
 now, throughout the world. Let all national frontiers 
 be like that of Canada and the United States rather 
 than like that of Germany and France. Let all states- 
 men take example of Monroe and Adams rather than of 
 Bismarck. And who can doubt that war would be no 
 more? Peace will come when we really believe in peace 
 enough to walk steadfastly in its ways. So, and not 
 otherwise, can the problem now before us be perma- 
 nently solved. 
 
 The one hundred years of peace between America 
 and Canada might well be taken also to illustrate the 
 one possible solution of our second problem, that of 
 national security. For where is there an American 
 citizen, even on the frontier between these two countries, 
 who feels any sense of insecurity because we have no 
 forts on the northern borders of Maine or Minnesota 
 or Washington, and no dreadnaughts floating upon 
 Lake Erie or Lake Superior? On the contrary, is not 
 every American citizen conscious of a profound sense of 
 security as he looks toward Canada, for the very reason
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 255 
 
 that there is not a gun upon that border which menaces 
 our safety? Compare the feelings of Americans to- 
 ward Canada to-day with the feelings of Frenchmen 
 toward Germany, or Germans toward Russia, two years 
 ago and we begin to realise, perhaps, what is the true 
 relation between armaments and national security. 
 
 That there may be no dodging of issues and evading 
 of questions, however, I propose to go to the extreme 
 upon this matter, and cite as an illustration of security 
 won by non-resistance methods, the case of China. The 
 Celestial Empire is usually taken by the militarists as 
 the supreme example of the failure of .non-resistance as 
 a practicable national policy. But why? Let the 
 pages of history be turned from the most ancient days 
 unto our own, and where is there a single people which 
 has achieved such security as the Chinese? Egypt, 
 Chaldea, Persia, Athens, Macedonia, Rome, Spain 
 all have gone. Not a nation has endured beyond a cer- 
 tain span of centuries save only China. And China 
 has endured, century after century, seon after aeon 
 and here she stands to-day, as firm, as impregnable, as 
 ever. Invading armies, to be sure, have crossed her 
 borders. Her sovereigns have been overthrown, and 
 alien dynasties placed within her palaces. In recent 
 times, ports have been wrested from her control, and 
 concessions of territory exacted, by western peoples. 
 But how nearly have these insignificant details of politi- 
 cal experience touched the national life? How have the 
 people of China as a whole been affected by a change 
 of royal houses or the lifting of a foreign flag above
 
 256 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Hong-Kong or Kiow-Tschau? The impressive fact is 
 not that occasional attacks have been made upon her 
 territory, but that no attack has touched the integrity 
 of her civilisation. Chinese sovereigns have fallen, 
 Chinese cities have been stolen, but the Chinese people 
 have endured, like the sands that meet the mounting and 
 receding seas. They have seen a score of conquerors 
 come and go, and promise to see another score of our 
 own and later times similarly disappear and still 
 they remain the same ! If by security we mean survival 
 
 and what does security mean if not this ? what 
 people has ever stood the test like these mysterious ori- 
 entals? All other nations have drawn the sword, and 
 perished by the sword. This nation has drawn no 
 sword, or has done so only upon rare occasions under 
 the disastrous leadership of militaristic dynasties, and 
 behold, she lives ! The inference is indubitable that, 
 if security is our problem, here is our answer ! 
 
 But who would have security at such a price as this? 
 Who wants to survive, if he must survive as a China- 
 man ? Is it not better to be a dead lion than a live dog 
 
 to perish grandly like Rome than to exist forever 
 like China? 
 
 This raises at once our third question that of na- 
 tional idealism. And let it be said at once of the pacif- 
 ist, that he has no more admiration for Chinese civili- 
 sation as such than the militarist ! But he quite fails 
 to understand wherein the peculiar and uninspiring 
 character of this civilisation has anything essentially 
 to do with resistance or non-resistance. The Egyp-
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 257 
 
 tians, in their worship of dead ancestors, their rearing 
 of temples and tombs, their reverence for tradition, 
 their expediential philosophy, their stolidity, bear strik- 
 ing resemblance to the Chinese but the Egyptians 
 were militarists of the fiercest type. The Quakers, on 
 the other hand, in their non-resistant ideas, are of one 
 mind and heart with the Celestials; but one may look 
 to the Quakers in vain for any of those religious and 
 racial characteristics which set the Chinese apart from 
 other peoples. The fact of the matter is, there is on 
 the one hand no essential connection between the char- 
 acter of Chinese civilisation and the non-resistant prin- 
 ciple; and on the other hand nothing essentially incon- 
 sistent between any other type of civilisation our na- 
 tion for example and the non-resistant principle. 
 Non-resistance may be practised by any people success- 
 fully, just as its opposite, militarism, has been prac- 
 tised by a long succession of peoples unsuccessfully. 
 What we have in the case of the Chinese is simply the in- 
 stance of one people, which, by some fortuitous con- 
 course of circumstances, was induced to follow this par- 
 ticular law of life. That this one people chanced to 
 exemplify certain characteristics which do not stir our 
 admiration, matters nothing either one way or the 
 other. The Quakers, equally non-resistant with the 
 Chinese, exemplify, on the other hand, everything that 
 is beautiful in the moral and spiritual life; in many 
 ways they must be regarded as the very flower and 
 fruitage of our Christian civilisation. To argue that 
 the Quakers are thus spiritually supreme because they
 
 258 NEW WARS FOR OLH 
 
 are non-resistant would be as inaccurate as to argue 
 the opposite of the Chinese. In neither case is non- 
 resistance a vital part of the group-character under 
 discussion. It is as consistent with the highest as well 
 as with the lowest type can be made as much a rule 
 of life for the best as for the worst civilisation. What 
 we have here is simply a principle of action which allows 
 whatever civilisation may adopt it to survive and thus 
 develop to the uttermost every element that it chances 
 to contain. If the militarist principle of action be 
 adopted, development is interfered with, diverted from 
 its true course, cut off untimely by repressive, cor- 
 ruptive, and destructive forces of a wholly extraneous 
 character. Non-resistance furthers survival, and hence 
 gives a chance for full fruition. The Chinese and the 
 Quakers, each in their own way, are finished products. 
 What they are is all they ever can be. Which means 
 from the standpoint of national idealism, that non-re- 
 sistance is the " saving element." 
 
 Such are the evidences of the practicability of non- 
 resistance. It may be contended, of course, that all 
 these cases are, after all, exceptions. But to this full 
 answer has already been given by Charles Sumner in his 
 oration already referred to more than once. " If it 
 be urged," he says, " that these instances are excep- 
 tional I reply at once, that it is not so. They are in- 
 dubitable evidence of the real man, revealing the di- 
 vinity of humanity, out of which goodness, happiness,
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 259 
 
 true greatness can alone proceed. They disclose sus- 
 ceptibilities confined to no particular race, no special 
 period of time, no narrow circle of knowledge or refine- 
 ment, but are present wherever two or more human be- 
 ings come together, and strong in proportion to their 
 virtue and intelligence." 
 
 The instances here cited, so far from being excep- 
 tions, are definite illustrations of the workings of two 
 absolute spiritual laws. 
 
 The first of these laws is this that like always pro- 
 duces like. Reason conduces to reason, hate stirs up 
 hate, love generates love. " Cast your bread upon the 
 waters," said Jesus, " and it will come back to you 
 again." " As ye sow," said Paul, with the same moral 
 truth in mind, " so shall ye also reap." Nothing can be 
 more certain than that, if you distrust a man, you will 
 alienate him ; if you have trust in a man, you will en- 
 courage him to goodwill ; if you love a man, he will love 
 you in return. This law is all summed up in the writ- 
 ings of one of the more remote groups of early Chris- 
 tians, where appears the remarkable saying, " Love your 
 enemies, and you will have none." 
 
 And the second spiritual law exemplified by this evi- 
 dence is this that the spirit is always superior to the 
 flesh, and the flesh therefore always subordinate to the 
 spirit. Wherein is man superior to the brute if not in 
 the possession of those spiritual qualities which make 
 him in very truth to be " but a little lower than the 
 angels"? Wherein is "the wise man," as Socrates 
 called him, superior to the ordinary man, if not in in-
 
 260 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 telligence, reason, patience, self-control, compassion, 
 love, as contrasted oftentimes with fleetness of foot, 
 strength of muscle, and power of physical endurance? 
 It is spirit that elevates, purifies, and, in the. final strug- 
 gle, conquers. To trust to the spirit, is to trust to 
 nothing less than the immortal soul, the universe, God. 
 Who can stand before such a marshalling of power? 
 Robert Browning sums up all of this great law in his 
 poem Ins tans Tyrannus, where he tells us how the slave 
 conquered his murderous master. 
 
 " Did I say ' without friend ' ? 
 
 says the beaten master, referring to his victim, as he 
 tells the tale of defeat. 
 
 " Say rather, from marge to blue marge 
 The whole sky grew his targe 
 With the sun's self for visible boss, 
 While an arm ran across 
 Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast 
 Where the wretch was safe prest ! 
 Do you see? Just my vengeance complete, 
 The man sprang to his feet, 
 
 Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! 
 So, / was afraid!" 
 
 XI 
 
 It is facts such as these which justify us in our con- 
 viction that non-resistance is practicable. Theoreti- 
 cally, as we have just seen, it is the embodiment in 
 human action of two great laws first, that like pro- 
 duces like; and secondly, that spirit conquers flesh. 
 Practically it is the tried and tested rule of life of those
 
 PRACTICABILITY OF NON-RESISTANCE 361 
 
 who have had faith to see, courage to dare, and strength 
 to endure. Of course it goes without saying, that the 
 application of the non-resistant principle to the hun- 
 dred and one intricate problems of human relationships 
 is not always successful. It fails only less often than 
 the resort to force as a method of solution of these same 
 problems. But in the case of the former, as not in the 
 case of the latter, we have a principle which fails not 
 because of its own essential falsity, but because of the 
 weakness, timidity, halfheartedness of those who strive 
 to put it into practice. Not too frequently can we re- 
 mind ourselves of the counsel of " Golden-Rule " Jones 
 of Toledo, Ohio. " Live always by the Golden Rule," 
 was his word. "When (it) will not work, it is not the 
 fault of the Rule, but because one does not know just 
 how to work it." l Of itself, " love never faileth." 
 Those who live by this law have the unseen on their side. 
 The very stars in their courses fight for them. God, 
 in his infinite majesty, stands up and makes their cause 
 his own. 
 
 " O ye of little faith " think well ere ye scoff and 
 turn away ! Not yet has all been learned, that " fools " 
 should not appear to confound the great and wise. 
 Would ye not better pray, that faith may yet be yours, 
 to save the world new terrors and old fates? 
 
 i See Brand Whitlock, in Forty Years of It, page 215. 
 
 Note: Is there no qualification to this doctrine of practicable 
 non-resistance ? None in itself ! Were men so minded, they 
 could practise it to-morrow with complete success, and to the 
 indescribable joy of the world. But that they are not so minded, 
 is evident. " Of course, all that I have been saying," writes Mr. 
 Bertrand Russell, in a plea for non-resistance in his Justice in
 
 262 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 War Time, " is fantastic, degrading, and out of touch with reality. 
 I have been assuming that men are to some extent guided by 
 reason, that their actions are directed to ends such as ' life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This is not the case." 1 
 In other words, it is an unescapable fact that men have never 
 been, and are not yet, ready to practise the precepts of " love 
 to God and man " which they profess. They persist, in the last 
 extremity, in reliance upon force for the gaining of their ends. 
 They will not see, they do not welcome, the gospel here laid down. 
 Therefore, in pursuit of this unqualified ideal of good, must 
 qualification in practice be recognised as the condition of ultimate 
 fulfilment qualification, it should be said, not on the part of the 
 single man, who must be wholly faithful, but on the part of groups 
 of men organised into social entities. In relations between in- 
 dividuals, this qualification is found in the police system, which 
 takes from the hands of the private citizen all agencies of force, 
 and restricts their possession to a picked group of men, charged 
 to use them for the benefit not of themselves but of the com- 
 munity. A disarmed citizenry leads gradually to a disarmed 
 police; the disarmed police, to a gradual substitution in govern- 
 ment of the rule of consent for the rule of force; and the rule of 
 consent to a gradual establishment of the non-resistant ideal in 
 social action. Similar, I believe, must be the course of evolution 
 toward the unqualified non-resistant ideal in relations between 
 states. Not by preparations for war, not by alliances offensive 
 and defensive, not by balances of power, not by leagues to en- 
 force peace, will the way to peace be found. Rather must the 
 arms of separate states be transferred completely to an inter- 
 national police force, charged by an international tribunal of ex- 
 ecutive administration to employ these arms not for the benefit 
 of itself, or of any nation or group of nations, but for the better 
 ordering of mankind. What has been accomplished in the United 
 States, in relations between states, must be accomplished in the 
 world at large, in relations between nations. By such a method 
 of compromise, shameful and yet necessary, will the area within 
 which force can be operated be ever more and more narrowly 
 confined, until at last, without as already within enlightened 
 communities of our own time, it will disappear altogether before 
 the universal reign of reason and goodwill. Mr. Russell, in the 
 essay to which I have referred, names one condition as a justifi- 
 cation of the use of force. It is just this condition which I 
 would rather define as the one qualification of our non-resistant 
 ideal, necessitated by the imperfect spiritual development of men. 
 " The use of force is justifiable," he says, " when it is ordered 
 in accordance with law by a neutral authority in the general 
 interest." 2 
 
 1 See page 52. 
 
 2 See Justice in War Time, page 41.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE?
 
 "The notion of a right to go to war cannot lie properly con- 
 ceived as an element in the law of nations. For it would be 
 equivalent to a right to determine what is just, not by universal 
 external laws limiting the freedom of every individual alike, but 
 through one-sided maxims that operate by means of force. If 
 such a right be conceived at all it would amount, in fact, to this: 
 that in the case of men who are so disposed it is quite right for 
 them to destroy and devour each other, and thus to find perpetual 
 peace only in the wide grave which is to cover all the abomination 
 of the deeds of violence and their authors ! " Immanuel Kant, in 
 Eternal Peaee.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 
 
 THE acceptance of non-resistance as a working prin- 
 ciple of life, and the belief in its entire practicability, 
 still leave unanswered certain phases of the question of 
 international war. On general principles, of course, 
 the non-resistant can have nothing to do with armed 
 conflict of any kind. But as there are exceptions to all 
 rules, may there not be an exception to this rule? Is 
 not war, in other words, sometimes inevitable and there- 
 fore justifiable even for the non-resistant, just to the 
 extent that relations between nations, unlike relations 
 between individuals, have not yet been ordered and 
 moralised? Does not the undeniable assertion of Gen- 
 eral Bernhardi, in his Germany and the Next War, that 
 the absence of centralised and supreme authority in the 
 world at large, leaves to each nation the high task of 
 defending its own integrity and finding its own " place 
 in the sun," point to a situation which makes war at 
 times a duty as stern as it is terrible? What about the 
 Northern states after the firing upon Sumter? What 
 about Belgium in August, 1914? What about 
 America, if Germany had defied President Wilson after 
 the sinking of the Lusitania? Do not occasional condi- 
 tions such as these make war not only justifiable but 
 honourable? To the discussion of this question we now 
 turn. 
 
 265
 
 266 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 War between the nations of the earth is on the de- 
 fensive to-day as it has never been before. There was 
 a time, not so very long ago, when war was glorified 
 quite apart from any of the particular circumstances 
 of its precipitation, and the warrior extolled as among 
 the bravest and noblest of mankind. Bait now all this 
 is changed. War to-day is almost universally regarded 
 as a degradation, and the maker of war an enemy of the 
 race. So at least we discovered when the Great War 
 burst upon the affrighted world. Here for the first 
 time was a war for which nobody was willing to assume 
 responsibility " a foundling," to use the striking 
 phrase of David Starr Jordan, to which no one of the 
 nations involved would give refuge. Here was a war 
 which was hailed from one end of the earth to the other, 
 not with shouts of exultation, but with the curses of 
 men and the tears of women. Here was a war which 
 brought down upon the heads of those who are rightly 
 or wrongly charged with responsibility, such a tide of 
 hatred and execration as has come upon no individual, 
 or group of individuals, since the passing of Bonaparte 
 and his marshals. Nothing could be more remarkable, 
 and at the same time more encouraging, than the ex- 
 pressions of detestation and horror which everywhere 
 appeared when it was first realised what had come upon 
 the world. Newspaper cartoons and editorials, maga- 
 zine articles, sermons and addresses, all joined in de- 
 nouncing the conflict as an unspeakable outrage and
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTICIABLE? 267 
 
 in calling upon those in places of authority to secure 
 peace. Especially significant were the utterances of 
 the poets, who sounded not songs of battle, but almost 
 without exception the sad refrains of dirges and 
 lamentations. Rudyard Kipling's famous lines, as hard 
 as the " steel and stone " of which he chanted, and John 
 Masefield's elegy, as pathetic as that written in an 
 earlier age in a country churchyard, are regarded not 
 without good reason as the typical expressions of the 
 hour. 
 
 While it is true, however, that war in general is 
 condemned in our time as it has never before been 
 condemned in human history, it is to be noted, on 
 the other hand, that war in the case of each par- 
 ticular nation is justified to-day in exactly the same 
 way that it has always been justified in the past. The 
 defence is not quite so jubilant as formerly, but it is 
 a defence all the same. Englishmen of course hate war 
 in general as much as Germans, and Germans as much 
 as Frenchmen. Mr. Asquith regards this particular 
 war as inexcusable and unnecessary as does the Crown 
 Prince of the German Empire or the Czar of all the 
 Russias. But England is as certain that Germany and 
 Austria are to blame for the struggle as the Teuton 
 states are certain that England and her allies are to 
 blame ; and the individual Englishman is as eager to fight 
 for the banner of St. George as the individual German 
 for the Prussian Eagle. War is undoubtedly wrong, 
 but this particular war is undoubtedly right for Eng- 
 lishmen, or Frenchmen, or Germans, or Belgians, as the
 
 268 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 case may be. Only in the United States has there been 
 a condemnation of the business which is specific as well 
 as general, but this is only because we are altogether 
 outside of the area of battle. Professor John Erskine, 
 of Columbia University, is perfectly right, as events 
 since the Lusitania outrage abundantly attest, when he 
 points out, in reference to this fact, that " there can be 
 little question that if the United States were actually 
 in the conflict this . . . attitude would largely disap- 
 pear." That is to say, we condemn war " for the other 
 fellow," but we justify it so soon as we ourselves are 
 challenged to take up arms ! 
 
 Now it is this extraordinary fact that war is uni- 
 versally abhorred and denounced to-day, so long as it 
 is regarded by itself and is thus judged strictly upon 
 its own merits, but speedily wins the approval of the 
 citizens of any one state so soon as it becomes involved 
 in any way with the interests or honour of that state, 
 which justifies the searching question as to whether war 
 is ever justifiable. It is all well and good to condemn 
 war in the abstract as " the sum of all villainy," but 
 what avails it if war straightway becomes the sum of all 
 virtue just the moment it becomes our war as con- 
 trasted with some one else's war? It is profitable, no 
 doubt, for the peacemaker to work for peace when 
 " wars and rumours of wars," are far removed from the 
 bounds of possibility, but what becomes of the profit if 
 the peacemaker abandons his cause the very moment 
 that war becomes a contingency for the nation to which 
 he belongs and in which alone he has any influence?
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 269 
 
 It is admirable to denounce war in general, but how 
 much " forwarder " are we if denunciation of war in 
 general can be changed into approval of this particular 
 war the very instant that this particular war is immi- 
 nent? Somewhere there is a fundamental fallacy. 
 War, like slavery, cannot be wrong in one place and 
 right in another place. War, like religious persecution, 
 cannot be justifiable for Englishmen and unjustifiable 
 for Germans. One and the same thing cannot be right 
 and wrong, just and unjust, at one and the same time. 
 Here in the fact of war do we have a perfectly simple 
 and well-understood social phenomenon. It has pre- 
 sented the same general characteristics and followed the 
 same processes of action from the ancient day of clubs 
 and stones to the modern day of Zeppelins and super- 
 dreadnaughts. Those who engage in it, on one side 
 or the other, engage in identically the same work of 
 plunder, pillage, destruction, and murder. Now is this 
 thing right, or is it wrong? Is it justifiable or is it un- 
 justifiable? Study it from any standpoint judge it 
 on its own merits put aside all the ambitions, preju- 
 dices, and fears of national feeling and what must 
 the verdict be ! 
 
 II 
 
 Before getting to the real issue which is involved in 
 this inquiry, it will first be necessary to clear away 
 some perplexing and enticing illusions which have com- 
 plicated this question of the justifiability of war more 
 or less from the beginning. Only as we dissipate these
 
 270 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 illusions, and thus set the mind free from the entangle- 
 ments of self-deception, can we see things as they must 
 be seen, with an eye that is " single " and therefore full 
 of light. 
 
 In the first place, let us note that war cannot be 
 justified on the ground that it generates within the 
 human heart the heroic virtues. I am not one of those 
 who are inclined to extol the moral influences of war. 
 I recognise the heroism of the sentinel who keeps guard 
 in the filthy trenches, of the sailor who watches nightly 
 on the frozen deck of the battleship, of the woman who 
 waits in agony of spirit in the lonely home for news, 
 good or bad, of her beloved. But I recognise, also, 
 that for every one heart that is stirred by pure and 
 noble emotion of this kind, there are a hundred hearts 
 that are stirred by the blackest passions to which the 
 human breast is heir. War turns men not into angels 
 but into devils ! The path of war is strewn not with 
 the flowers of love but with the ashes of hate ! Caesar 
 bestrides the battlefield, and not Christ ! Nevertheless, 
 even if it were true that war developed the heroic vir- 
 tues in exactly the way described by the rapturous 
 eulogists of war, still would it be true that this would 
 offer no adequate justification of this horror. A great 
 fire in New York would undoubtedly produce prodigies 
 of valour, but this fact would not justify the Fire De- 
 partment in not doing its utmost to extinguish it. A 
 plague of cholera would generate such devotion and self- 
 sacrifice on the part of physicians and nurses as 
 would baffle adequate description, but the Health De-
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 271 
 
 partment would not feel justified for this reason in 
 starting and maintaining an epidemic. Most of the 
 noblest deeds in human history are to be found in the 
 annals of martyrdom we would not willingly sur- 
 render the record of these deeds ! and yet this does 
 not tempt us to justify the persecution which produced 
 the martyrs: There is no plainer witness to the essen- 
 tial divinity of the human spirit than its unfaltering 
 courage in the face of disaster, and its abiding faith 
 in the midst of evil. But disaster still remains disaster, 
 and evil evil, even though the soul can make itself trium- 
 phant over both. To look at the great memorial 
 in Boston to Robert Gould Shaw and his Negro regi- 
 ment is to feel one's pulse quicken and one's heart 
 refreshed. But these soldiers marching away to heroic 
 death no more justify the Civil War than " the noble 
 army of martyrs " perishing in the Roman arena justi- 
 fies the persecutions of Nero. 
 
 In the second place, war cannot be justified by the 
 sincere motives, generous impulses and high ideals which 
 oftentimes lie behind it. Again and again we are per- 
 suaded to characterise a certain war as " true and 
 righteous altogether " because the men who went into 
 it, on the side in which we .happen to be interested, were 
 moved by the noblest sentiments and were serving the 
 best interests of humanity. Thus we justify the Civil 
 Wars in England because Cromwell and his Roundheads 
 represent one of the most remarkable moral movements 
 in modern history. We justify the American Revolu- 
 tion because the colonists were battling unselfishly for
 
 272 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 the great principle of political and social liberty. We 
 justify the American Civil War because the "boys in 
 blue " laid down their lives for the holy purpose of 
 saving the Republic and emancipating the slave. And 
 so, at the present moment, most Americans are justi- 
 fying the war now being fought by the Allies on the 
 ground that England, France, and Russia are protect- 
 ing civilisation from the menace of German militarism. 
 In all of these instances, undoubtedly, we have wars 
 fought from the noblest motives and with the most un- 
 selfish desires. But how far this comes from justify- 
 ing war in itself is shown by the fact that we find ex- 
 actly these same motives and desires present in the 
 hearts of those against whom our chosen heroes were 
 fighting. The Cavaliers of Charles were every whit as 
 sincere as the Roundheads of Oliver Cromwell. Lord 
 North and the English Tories fought the American col- 
 onists in the honest conviction that these colonists were 
 traitors to the king and enemies therefore of the Brit- 
 ish realm. The " boys in gray " died as gallantly as 
 the *' boys in blue " for a cause which was to them as 
 precious. And in the war now being fought in Europe 
 there is nothing finer than the absolute devotion of a 
 united people to what they regard as the sacred cause 
 of the Fatherland. The fact of the matter is that 
 motives apply to persons and not at all to events. No 
 mistake is more frequent, and yet no mistake should be 
 more obvious, than that of carrying over the question 
 of motive from the actor to the action, and thus of 
 confusing the intrinsic merits of the former with the
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 
 
 intrinsic merits of the latter. No social phenomenon, 
 least of all one which involves the happiness and lives 
 of millions of human beings, can be justified by the mo- 
 tives of the participants therein. Human sacrifice was 
 for centuries practised by men and women as a religious 
 rite and therefore in the noblest spirit of devotion. 
 Persecution has again and again been visited upon help- 
 less victims by men whose motives were as unselfish and 
 idealistic as those which animated the breast of Marcus 
 Aurelius, when he drew his sword against the Chris- 
 tians. Most of the enormities which have character- 
 ised the present-day struggle between capital and 
 labour have been committed on both sides by men who 
 were sincerely convinced that they were serving the 
 best interests of humanity. The motives involved in 
 these dreadful acts may justify the persons performing 
 them, as I have said, but they have nothing to do with 
 the justifiability of the acts themselves. The present 
 war, like human sacrifice or religious persecution, must 
 be justified, if at all, for reasons quite apart from the 
 motives of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Belgians, Aus- 
 trians, Germans, which are in all cases, I have no doubt, 
 equally fine. And what is true of this war is true of 
 every war that has ever been fought. 
 
 In the third place, it is important to note that war 
 cannot be justified by the beneficent results which it 
 may achieve. That great good, both for nations and 
 individuals, has at times been the consequence of war, 
 is beyond question. Marathon repelled the barbaric 
 hordes of Asia from the shores of Greece ; Charles Mar-
 
 274 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tel saved Christianity from being overwhelmed by 
 Mohammedanism at the battle of Tours ; the Crusades 
 brought light out of darkness and made possible the 
 Protestant Reformation ; the wars of the Netherlands 
 destroyed the tyranny of Spain and led the way to the 
 great achievement of religious liberty ; the American 
 Revolution is a landmark in the history of political 
 democracy ; and a by-product of the American Civil 
 War was the emancipation of the slaves. Facts like 
 these inevitably tempt us to believe that, however it 
 may be with wars in general, these particular wars at 
 least stand justified by their results. A little careful 
 thought, however, will quickly show how impossible is 
 such a conclusion. The " Black Death," which de- 
 stroyed one-half of the population of Europe in a single 
 year, brought to the surviving workers the indubitable 
 boon of high wages and abundant labour; the Great 
 Fire of London wiped out the last vestiges of the Great 
 Plague ; the Reign of Terror sealed the fate of the 
 Ancien Regime and marks the opening chapter of the 
 history of European liberty; the Chicago Fire turned 
 a shabby frontier town into a modern municipality ; 
 the sinking of the Titanic made ocean travel for the 
 first time reasonably secure; but who of us would 
 argue, on this basis of results, that these dreadful dis- 
 asters are therefore justified? Who of us would be 
 willing to have them repeated for the sake of securing 
 further beneficent results of the same kind? These 
 events undoubtedly prove that good is stronger than 
 all ill that this universe is so divinely constituted
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 275 
 
 that, in the long run, bane can work nothing but bless- 
 ing that " there is a power not ourselves " which 
 brings righteousness out of evil, security out of disas- 
 ter, life out of death that God can make the igno- 
 rance, the folly, even the wrath of men, to praise him ! 
 But they do not prove that evil is in itself anything 
 but evil, or crime in itself anything but crime. If war 
 sometimes works good, it is not because it is itself ever 
 good, but rather because God lives to confound the 
 fury of men, and men live to prove themselves better 
 than their own weaknesses and sins ! 
 
 ni 
 
 Having cleared away these two or three illu- 
 sions by which the minds of men have ever been beset 
 in their discussion of this problem of the justifiability 
 of war, we are now ready, perhaps, to consider the im- 
 mediate issue which is before us. War, as we have just 
 seen, cannot be justified by the heroic virtues which it 
 may generate in the hearts of men by the noble mo- 
 tives of which it may be the consecrated expression 
 or by the beneficent results which upon occasion it may 
 unquestionably produce in society at large. No one 
 of these considerations comes anywhere near to what 
 may be called the real heart of the problem. For if 
 the phenomenon of war is to be justified at all, it must 
 be justified, in the last analysis, like every other social 
 phenomenon, simply and solely by its relation to the 
 great fact of life by the contribution which it makes, 
 or does not make, to the wholeness of man's existence
 
 276 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 upon the earth. " I come that they might have life, 
 and have it more abundantly?" said Jesus, defining the 
 standard by which he wanted his career to be meas- 
 ured. " Die when I may," said Abraham Lincoln, to 
 his friend, Joshua Speed, " I want it said of me by 
 those who know me best, that I always plucked a thistle 
 and planted a flower where I thought a flower would 
 grow." 
 
 " Give me the power to labour for mankind, 
 
 Make me the mouth for such as cannot speak; 
 
 Eyes let me be to groping men and blind; 
 A conscience to the base; and to the weak 
 
 Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind; 
 And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek." 
 
 said Theodore Parker, in his sonnet, entitled Aspira- 
 tion. Here are different, and yet very similar, expres- 
 sions of that one permanent idea, which is as applicable 
 to social institutions and processes as to individual 
 human beings, that the test of life is nothing other 
 than life that life is itself the end and aim of life 
 that the justification of one life is the service of an- 
 other! Does this particular man bring richer, fuller, 
 more abundant life to other men planting two blades 
 of grass, perhaps, where only one grew before? Then 
 is he " a good and faithful servant," however humble 
 his name or lowly his station. Does this particular 
 institution the state, the church, the school, the cor- 
 poration, the labour union foster, enlarge, liberate, 
 ennoble the lives of men? Then does it stand justified, 
 and rightly call for protection and support. Does this
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 277 
 
 social process or plan of social action monogamous 
 marriage, representative government, manhood suf- 
 frage, restricted immigration, public worship add to 
 the health, happiness, integrity, efficiency, beauty, of 
 human living? Then is it also justified, and entitled 
 therefore to men's favour. But does this man, or in- 
 stitution, or social process, weaken life, enslave it, de- 
 grade it, impoverish it, destroy it? Then does it 
 stand condemned, whatever may be its merits from other 
 and different points of view. Life, after all, is the 
 only thing that counts in this world of men this uni- 
 verse of God. The test of Christ is universal and in- 
 fallible. 
 
 " 'Tis life of which our nerves are scant; 
 O life, not death, for which we pant; 
 More life and fuller that we want." 
 
 This, as Tennyson has put it so vividly in these lines 
 from The Two Voices, is the supreme and perfect aim. 
 Anything which serves this aim is thereby justified and 
 perpetuated. Anything which fails, for any reason, to 
 serve this aim, is thereby condemned, and sooner or 
 later must be 
 
 " cast as rubbish to the void." 
 
 Now one only has to define this fundamental stand- 
 ard of justification, in order to see at once what must 
 be our answer to the question as to whether or not war 
 is ever justifiable. War is the exact antithesis of " life 
 more abundantly " the enemy of everything that 
 makes for life and the friend of everything that makes
 
 278 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 for death ! " What is the net purpose and upshot of 
 war," asks Thomas Carlyle, in an unforgetable pass- 
 age. " To my own knowledge, for example, there 
 dwell in the British village of Dumdrudge some five 
 hundred souls. From these there are selected, during 
 the French war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dum- 
 drudge at her own expense has suckled and nursed 
 them ; she has fed them up to manhood and even trained 
 them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, 
 another hammer. Nevertheless, amid much weeping 
 and swearing, they are selected, all dressed in red, and 
 shipped away some two thousand miles, or say only to 
 the south of Spain, and fed there till wanted. And 
 now to that same spot in Spain are thirty similar 
 French artisans from a French Dumdrudge in like man- 
 ner wending ; till at length, after infinite effort, the two 
 parties come into actual juxtaposition; and thirty 
 stand fronting thirty, each with a gun in his hand. 
 Straightway the word ' Fire ' is given, and they blow 
 the souls out of one another ; and in place of sixty 
 brisk, useful craftsmen the world has sixty dead car- 
 casses which it must bury." Multiply this number, 
 now, by a hundred, a thousand, yea a hundred thou- 
 sand add the horrors of bayonet charges, mine ex- 
 plosions, artillery bombardments, frozen trenches, and 
 hospitals and we begin to have a suggestion at least 
 of the meaning of war in its relation to the great reality 
 of life. 
 
 And this is only the beginning! For what accom- 
 panies this slaughter of one body of men by another?
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 279 
 
 If the killing of the soldiers were all, we might conceiv- 
 ably become reconciled to war as sometimes inevitable 
 and justifiable. But along with this business of killing 
 those who are set apart for this especial sacrifice, there 
 goes the wasting of harvest fields, the burning of great 
 cities with their busy streets and peaceful homes, the 
 outraging of women and little children, the starving 
 and scattering of unnumbered millions of the young, 
 the aged, the weak, the crippled, whose only crime is 
 that they stand in the pathways of contending armies. 
 Look at the situation in Europe to-day Belgium 
 wasted from end to end, thousands of her unoffending 
 civilians slaughtered or outlawed, and her people gen- 
 erally only saved from starvation by the kindly inter- 
 vention of neutral states Poland, East Prussia, 
 Galicia, Serbia, similarly devastated, in an even worse 
 condition of misery because of their remoteness from 
 sources of possible relief and now, as the crowning 
 iniquity of all, Germany and England each deliberately 
 setting themselves to the monstrous task of starving an 
 entire population as a legitimate expedient of warfare ! 
 Look at such things as these, and then let us ask our- 
 selves where is the justification of war from the single 
 standpoint of life as the aim of life? 
 
 Nor is this the end ! For thus far we have spoken 
 only of the physical horrors of international conflict. 
 But life certainly is more than bread, or raiment, or 
 the sweet flesh of the body. Life involves also, and 
 more truly, the minds and souls of men their 
 thoughts, affections, ideals, aspirations, hopes, dreams
 
 280 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 and faiths. And here do we find that war is as ruth- 
 less a destroyer as in the lower and more obvious realm 
 of things material. War burns the library of Alex- 
 andria and the University of Louvain. War destroys 
 the fair columns of the Parthenon, and smites the tow- 
 ers of the Rheims cathedral. War silences music, 
 paralyses art and literature, and turns " the towers of 
 learning into new Babels, so that our physicists and 
 geographers, our economists and biologists and dram- 
 atists, speak in strange and fearful tongues." War 
 strangles truth, destroys righteousness, and makes of 
 hate a new virtue of the soul. War makes " were- 
 wolves of neighbouring peoples in their imaginations of 
 each other " sets faithful against faithful, priest 
 against priest, church against church turns a world 
 of friends and neighbours into a world of outlanders, 
 aliens and foes. War violates all the finer sensibilities 
 of the race weakens the claims of mercy and justice 
 upon the soul stamps the growing generations with 
 barbarism fosters national prejudices, religious an- 
 tagonisms, and racial animosities. War makes de- 
 structive and not constructive the work of human 
 hands makes hate and not love the proudest posses- 
 sion of human hearts makes death and not life the 
 chief end of man. War destroys the body ; but, worse 
 than this, it mutilates the spirit, so that men, even 
 though they live, are men no longer, but animals seek- 
 ing whom they may devour and what they may destroy. 
 Nor is this the end ! For the ravages of war cease 
 not with the laying down of arms. War destroys not
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 281 
 
 only the thousands of men who fall and rot upon the 
 field of battle, but the unnumbered thousands as well 
 who would inevitably have sprung from the loins of 
 these men had they been left to walk the ways of peace 
 and propagate their kind in love. War picks to be its 
 victims the young men who are without blemish the 
 strong, the healthy, the fair, the noble as the Mina- 
 taur of old selected the most beautiful youths and 
 maidens of Athens to feed its maw, and thus leaves the 
 weak, the anaemic, the unfit to be the progenitors of 
 the new race of the future. " Greece died because the 
 men who made her glory had all passed away and left 
 none of their kin and therefore none of their kind." 
 Rome went the same way, because her slaves and not 
 her warriors bred her children. The campaigns of 
 Napoleon, we are told, reduced the height of the aver- 
 age Frenchman by three inches. America has never re- 
 covered from the awful losses suffered in the Civil War. 
 And what shall be said of the permanent ravages of 
 war in the realm of the spirit man's eye accustomed 
 once again to blood-letting, his heart poisoned with 
 lust and hate, his soul prostituted to the works of sav- 
 agery? Nation after nation has perished of empire. 
 Civilisation after civilisation has risen into glory only 
 to decline and fall through the death of body, mind and 
 spirit that follows, like the pestilence, in the train of 
 war. Look at Europe to-day, and what guarantee 
 have we got at this moment that H. G. Wells's proph- 
 ecy, made in his Social Forces in England and America, 
 in anticipation of just such a universal conflict as is
 
 282 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 now raging, will not come true? " Every modern 
 European state," he says, "is ... like a cranky, ill- 
 built steamboat in which some idiot has mounted and 
 loaded a monstrous gun with no apparatus to damp its 
 recoil. Whether that gun hits or misses when it is 
 fired, of one thing we may be absolutely certain it 
 will send the steamboat to the bottom of the sea." 
 
 From every point of view, therefore from the 
 standpoint of things spiritual as well as of things mate- 
 rial, from the standpoint of the future as well as of 
 the present war is the antithesis of life. Its one end 
 is to destroy what has been builded up through many 
 years by the sweat and tears of men. Its one aim is 
 to kill the lives which men have conceived in joy, women 
 born in agony, and both together reared in love. Its 
 one supreme triumph is to turn a busy factory into a 
 pile of wreckage, a fertile field into a desert, a home of 
 joy into an ash-heap of sorrow, a living soul into a 
 rotting carcass. Why, if war could once be carried 
 through to its logical conclusions if there were not 
 a limit to all strength, and a point of exhaustion 
 for every passion mankind would long since have 
 annihilated itself and this planet become as tenantless 
 as the silent moon ! And yet there are some yea, 
 there are many! who are ready to assert that this 
 foul business is sometimes and somewheres justifiable. 
 This I deny without qualification or evasion of any 
 kind. War is never justifiable at any time or under 
 any circumstances. No man is wise enough, no nation 
 is important enough, no human interest is precious
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 283 
 
 enough, to justify the wholesale destruction and mur- 
 der which constitute the essence of war. Human life 
 is alone sacred. The interests of human life are alone 
 sovereign. War, as we have now seen, is the enemy of 
 life and all its interests. Therefore, in the name of 
 life and for the sake of life, do I declare that war must 
 be condemned universally and unconditionally. 
 
 It is with war to-day exactly as with similar abomi- 
 nations yesterday. Plato thought that human slavery 
 was justifiable, since it enabled the free citizens of his 
 ideal republic to live the good life. Torquemada 
 thought persecution justifiable, since it gave protection 
 to the true faith. The manufacturers of England in 
 the early decades of the nineteenth century thought 
 that the degrading labour of women and children in 
 factories and coal-mines was justifiable, since it gave to 
 England the industrial leadership of the world. In 
 the same way we deceive ourselves to-day into believing 
 that war is justifiable, when it is fought on behalf of 
 political liberty, we will say, or in defence of the in- 
 tegrity of a nation. But some day men will awaken 
 from this illusion and see that war is never justifiable. 
 It will be with war as it was long since with human sac- 
 rifice. This hideous practice, like the equally hideous 
 practice of war, was bound up with the most solemn 
 customs and the most desperate fears of men. It 
 seemed as sacred and as necessary to the ancients as a 
 war of liberty does to us to-day. But there came a 
 time when men and women, out of sheer regard for the 
 sanctity of human life, revolted against this practice.
 
 284 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 In face of persecution and ridicule, they pointed out 
 that, in sacrificing one little child upon the altars of 
 the gods, a wrong was wrought upon their kind so ter- 
 rible that it could not be justified by any good achieved 
 or any evil forefended. Better that men perished al- 
 together than that one life should be thus destroyed ! 
 And little by little men came to agree with these pio- 
 neers, and human sacrifice was abolished. 
 
 So will it be with war. A few men have always 
 seen, and more men are in our time beginning to see, 
 that nothing can justify the human sacrifice of a sol- 
 dier upon the field of battle, and therefore that war 
 must go, at whatever cost. War is hate, and hate has 
 no place within the human heart. War is death, and 
 death has no place within the realms of life. War is 
 hell, and hell has no more place in the human order than 
 in the divine. Walt Whitman, in language as forceful 
 as it is inelegant, summed up the whole matter when he 
 said, " O God ! this whole damned war business is about 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine parts diarrhoea to one 
 part glory. . . . Wars are hellish business all wars. 
 . . . Any honest man says so hates war, fighting, 
 blood-letting. I was in the midst of it all saw war 
 where war was worst not on the battlefields, no 
 in the hospitals: there war is worst: there I mixed 
 with it, and now I say God damn the wars all wars : 
 God damn every war : God damn 'em ! God damn 'em ! "
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 285 
 
 IV 
 
 To many persons this indictment of war will un- 
 doubtedly seem in the main to be just, but in certain 
 particular cases at least to be unjust. The average 
 war, you say, is without any question indefensible. 
 But are there not some wars in the past which have 
 been justifiable on the very grounds which you have 
 laid down, and is it not likely that there may be some 
 wars in the future, in which our own nation may be- 
 come engaged, which may be similarly justifiable? 
 Are there not two kinds of war at least which must be 
 excepted from even the most sweeping indictment on 
 the one hand, the war which is fought on behalf of some 
 great principle, of which the Civil War is a good ex- 
 ample; and on the other hand, the war which is fought 
 in the defence of nationality, of which Belgium's present 
 war against Germany may be taken as an illustration? 
 
 Taking the war on behalf of principle for our first 
 consideration, let me point out in the beginning that 
 this so-called " moral justification of war " is nearly 
 always the flimsiest kind of a pretext. The real cause 
 even of those wars which are placed on the highest 
 moral plane is national jealousy, commercial rivalry, 
 industrial selfishness, imperialistic ambition, diplomatic 
 misunderstanding, rather than any truly genuine prin- 
 ciple of idealism. It is a poor king or chancellor or 
 president who cannot find high moral grounds for 
 going to war with a neighbouring state when there are 
 economic or political conditions which make such a war
 
 286 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 desirable. Take the present conflict in Europe, for 
 example. The striking fact about this most horrible 
 of all wars is that every nation is pretending to fight for 
 reasons which are absolutely unselfish and beneficent. 
 England as well as Germany, Austria as well as France, 
 was forced into the struggle wholly against her will, 
 that civilisation might be maintained, that a pledged 
 word might be fulfilled, that the interests of humanity 
 might be safeguarded against violation and destruction ! 
 In the face of such a unanimous profession of national 
 virtue, unexampled in this hitherto imperfect world, we 
 are all tempted to believe that some nation or group 
 of nations is a liar. And those who have no particular 
 interests or prejudices at stake, are pretty well con- 
 vinced by this time that all of them together are un- 
 worthy of confidence. Let there be no mistake about 
 this ! Nations go to war to-day, as they did yesterday, 
 for reasons which are selfish and therefore immoral. 
 There are foreign markets to be won, surplus capital to 
 be invested and thereafter protected in alien lands, con- 
 cessions to be gained and held at any cost in undevel- 
 oped continents, rich profits to be accumulated from 
 the exploitation of savage peoples, vast power to be 
 wielded in colonial empire and all such goals to be 
 won at the expense of other nations striving for the 
 same or greater ends ! It is for these reasons, partly 
 political, mostly economic, that armaments are builded 
 and wars declared. Wars for ideals, liberties, civilisa- 
 tions these are illusions behind which are hidden the 
 hideous struggle for industrial supremacy. Real wars,
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 287 
 
 at least in our time, are simply so many moves in the 
 great game for profits. They are made behind closed 
 doors, by a few men, for an ignoble materialistic end. 
 Reduced to its lowest terms, for instance, this present 
 struggle is simply and solely a battle not between the 
 Kingdom of Darkness and the Kingdom of Light, but 
 between industrial England and industrial Germany for 
 the industrial mastery of the world 1 
 
 But surely there have been some wars which were 
 fought for a high and noble purpose. What about the 
 American Civil War, for example? 
 
 To this plea I make answer that there undoubtedly 
 have been a few wars of this kind, and that the Civil 
 War is most surely one of them. If any war in the 
 history of the world was ever fought unselfishly, this 
 is the one. The pathetic face of Abraham Lincoln, 
 and the noble figure of Robert E. Lee, tell the whole 
 story. But to this plea I would also make the answer, 
 offered by Prof. Durant Drake, of Wesleyan Univer- 
 sity, in his recent book on The Problems of Conduct 
 a moralist, it may be pointed out, who does not re- 
 gard war as an unmitigated evil ! that " nearly al- 
 ways (in such cases) the good aimed at could have been 
 attained without the evils of war. If the American 
 colonies," he continues, referring to the Revolution, 
 " had had a little more patience, they could have won 
 the liberty they craved without war and separation 
 from the mother country as Canada and Australia 
 have done. If the United States had had a little more 
 patience and tact and diplomacy, it is probable that
 
 288 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Cuba could have been saved from the intolerable op- 
 pression of Spain without war." And the same thing 
 is true of the Great Rebellion ! This fight has been 
 described as " an irreconcilable conflict." But it was 
 irreconcilable, not because of any elements in the prob- 
 lem itself, but because of the compromises, the stupidi- 
 ties and the blind passions of men on both sides of 
 Mason and Dixon's line. Slaves had been freed before 
 '61 without disrupting a nation and precipitating a 
 civil conflict. And yet I am told that because states- 
 men in this country did not have the skill, the tact, the 
 patience, the courage, of statesmen in other countries, 
 men must shoulder their muskets and enter upon the 
 business of mutual slaughter ! I do not believe it. I 
 cannot believe it. There is always a better way in all 
 of these disputes. And our failure to find this bet- 
 ter way can never justify our taking the way of 
 evil. 
 
 But what about a war fought in self-defence? Must 
 not this at least be an exception to our rule of uni- 
 versal condemnation? Is there anybody who would not 
 justify Belgium for her battle against Germany? 
 
 Remembering that at the present moment, every one 
 of the thirteen nations, from Germany on the one side 
 to Russia upon the other, is fighting a defensive war, I 
 am tempted to put this whole plea out of court by de- 
 claring that there is no such thing as defensive war. 
 Granting, however, for the sake of the argument, that, 
 as in the case of Belgium, there are wars which are 
 purely defensive, I venture to lay down, in accordance
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 289 
 
 with the true doctrine of non-resistance, two safe prin- 
 ciples which some day are going to be apprehended and 
 accepted by the souls of men, even though they be 
 not so apprehended and accepted at the present mo- 
 ment. 
 
 In the first place, no defence of a nation is a real 
 defence unless it be a defence of the spirit, and against 
 a defence of this kind the arms of the flesh are 
 ineffectual. It is possible for the soldiers of one na- 
 tion to occupy the territory of another nation seize 
 her ports, capture her cities, occupy her strongholds, 
 levy tribute on her citizens but what avails such a 
 victory of arms? The legions of Rome overran the 
 peninsula of Greece, destroyed her cities, laid waste her 
 shrines, and enslaved her people but the light of 
 Greece was not and could not be extinguished. The 
 barbarians from the forest fastnesses across the Rhine 
 and Danube invaded, captured and sacked Rome, not 
 once but many times but the /Eneid of Virgil, the 
 Odes of Horace, and the Laws of Justinian are still 
 with us. The armies of Napoleon conquered Germany 
 from end to end in 1806 and 1807, but Goethe still 
 reigned supreme in Weimar, Fichte still taught in Ber- 
 lin, and the spirit of Martin Luther and Immanuel 
 Kant still brooded in the hearts of conquered men 
 and the culture which these men embodied and set forth 
 lives on to-day a hundred years after the empire of 
 Napoleon crashed to ruin. And so to-day the armies 
 of the Allies may march from west to east to the city 
 of Berlin, and hurl a proud people prostrate in the
 
 290 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 dust, but neither Cossack nor Zouave will weaken, 
 much less destroy, the world dominion of all that is 
 good in German culture. Or, reversing the picture, 
 the legions of Germany may ravage France from Os- 
 tend to Marseilles, leave England a desert island in a 
 wintry sea, conquer Russia and add it to the empire of 
 the Kaiser, but Coligny, Moliere, Hugo, Berlioz, Rodin, 
 will still survive; the language spoken by Shakespeare 
 and the science taught by Darwin will still illume the 
 minds of men, and Tolstoi will still rebuke from his 
 grave the pride of kings. Not territory but learning, 
 not wealth but vision, not political headship but spir- 
 itual leadership this constitutes a nation. And this 
 it is which needs no defence of battleships and forts. 
 Let Germany come here to America to-day as she came 
 to Belgium yesterday what of it? The Declaration 
 of Independence would defy her sword, the Constitution 
 resist her 42-centimetre guns, the memory of Lincoln 
 shame her panoply of arms. Let her come, and we will 
 not only prove unconquerable, but we will ourselves 
 conquer our conquerors, as Greece conquered her 
 Roman masters, and as Rome in turn conquered her 
 Ostrogoth and Visigoth invaders. 
 
 The spirit, therefore, is the essential thing and 
 this, if it be true, can survive all accidents of arms. 
 And yet, is it possible to disregard so completely all 
 geographical and political consideration? Must we 
 not love our country, as we love our homes and must 
 we not be prepared to defend our country, as we would 
 our homes, when the enemy comes against it? Is not
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 291 
 
 patriotism a true and noble instinct and must we 
 not, like the Belgians, be faithful to this instinct even 
 unto death? 
 
 This brings us to the second principle which must 
 be offered in answer to the plea of self-defence. 
 Patriotism, assuredly, is one of the strongest and pur- 
 est instincts of the soul. That man has indeed a dead 
 soul, as Sir Walter Scott has told us, 
 
 "Who never to himself hath said, 
 This is my own, my native land." 
 
 Noble as it is, however, patriotism cannot be regarded 
 as a complete and perfect virtue in itself, but only one 
 step onward in the development of that final virtue, 
 which is the sentiment not of country but of humanity. 
 There was a time, in ages long gone by, when man's 
 noblest passion found expression in the defence of noth- 
 ing larger than his hole in the rocks or his bower in the 
 tree. Later on village life developed, and patriotism 
 took the form of defending a single community against 
 the men of the next community. Later still, came the 
 canton or state and then, as in ancient Greece, or 
 mediaeval Italy, or in America only fifty years ago, 
 man's highest duty was to defend his state in prefer- 
 ence even to the nation. Now we are in the national- 
 istic stage of evolution, where no higher conception of 
 human relationships is generally apparent than that of 
 a country such as England, Germany, or America. 
 And to many a devoted soul, this marks the end of 
 progress. But not so, if vision is at all clear. Be-
 
 292 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 yond the nation is the world, and beyond the people of 
 one country the great circle of humanity. And as 
 sure as we are living at this moment, so surely, in the 
 distant future, the day will come when we shall recog- 
 nise that our first and highest duty is to mankind as a 
 whole, and not to any single section of mankind. I 
 love America. I cherish her history, revere her heroes, 
 admire her people, hail her destiny. But not yet do I 
 love her enough to seek, in the name of that love, to 
 injure or destroy any other people on this earth. If 
 I must hate Germany, in order to love America, I will 
 not love her. If I must take up arms against the Eng- 
 lish, in order to defend America, then I will not defend 
 her. If I must sacrifice my membership in the human 
 family, in order to keep my citizenship in America, then 
 I will not keep that citizenship. There was a time, not 
 so long ago, when men in this country had to 
 choose between loyalty to Virginia and loyalty to 
 America, and we believe that those chose rightly who 
 chose America. So even now is there come the time 
 when we must choose between loyalty to America and 
 loyalty to the world, and I believe that those will 
 choose rightly who choose the world. Not to America 
 or Germany or England but to that one blood of which 
 God hath made all nations of men not to Americans 
 or Germans or Englishmen but to " the brethren " 
 everywhere not to king or kaiser or president, but 
 to God the universal Father must we pledge our 
 first allegiance. " Let not a man glory in this, that he 
 loves his country," says Baha o'llah, in one of the
 
 IS WAR EVER JUSTIFIABLE? 293 
 
 noblest statements which has ever fallen, like sweet 
 music, upon the human heart, " let him rather glory in 
 this, that he loves his kind." 
 
 Here, then, is our answer to the question, Is War 
 Ever Justifiable? No war is never justifiable under 
 any circumstances. And this means what, in practical 
 terms, to-day? It means not only that war in general 
 is unjustifiable in general, but that this English war 
 to-day is unjustifiable for Englishmen, and this Ger- 
 man war unjustifiable for Germans. It means that this 
 war which may, in the folly of men, come to America 
 to-morrow, is unjustifiable for Americans. It means 
 that sometime, somewhere, somehow, war, like famine, 
 disease, cannibalism, infanticide, human sacrifice, will 
 be utterly abolished, and permanent and universal peace 
 established on the earth. Then shall we see at last that 
 every argument for war is sophistry and every act in 
 war a crime.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IS PERMANENT AND UNIVERSAL PEACE 
 TO BE DESIRED?
 
 " 'Twas said, ' When roll of drum and battle's roar 
 Shall cease upon the earth, oh, then no more 
 The deed, the race, the heroes in the land.' 
 But scarce that word was breathed when one small hand 
 Lifted victorious o'er a giant wrong, 
 That had its victims crushed through ages long; 
 Some woman set her pale and quivering face 
 Firm as a rock against a man's disgrace; 
 Some quiet scholar flung his gauntlet down, 
 And risked in Truth's great name the Synod's frown; 
 A civic hero, in the calm realm of laws, 
 Did that which suddenly drew a world's applause; 
 And one to the pest his lithe young body gave, 
 Th*t he a thousand thousand lives might save." 
 
 Richard Watson Gilder.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IS PERMANENT AND UNIVERSAL, PEACE TO BE 
 DESIRED? 
 
 THE mention of the certain coming of a day when war 
 will be abolished and peace secured, raises at this point 
 the further question as to whether permanent and uni- 
 versal peace is really a desirable state of affairs. 
 Most men without doubt cherish this hope as one of 
 the most beautiful and beneficent visions of the human 
 spirit. The present war, for example, is saved from 
 being an absolutely unmitigated horror by the pros- 
 pect that it may take its place in history, to quote Mr. 
 Wells again, as " the war that ended war." 
 
 Just how this longed-for end is going to be achieved, 
 no one, not even Mr. Wells, ventures to say. Some 
 dream of the establishment of an International Court 
 of Arbitration which shall be backed by a degree of 
 political authority which will enable it to enforce its 
 decrees upon the wayward wills of men. Some believe 
 that out of this stupendous struggle will come a new 
 and permanent alliance of all the leading nations of 
 the world, which will have for its purpose not the 
 maintenance of a so-called balance of power, but rather 
 the enforcement of the rule of peace upon all less ad- 
 vanced and more barbarous peoples. Others like to 
 think that out of this war will come a United States of 
 
 297
 
 298 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Europe, as out of the Revolution of 1776 there came 
 a United States of America, which will enable all the 
 countries of the continent to live together in harmony, 
 after the example of the forty-eight states of our great 
 Republic. A few men even hark back to the essay of 
 Immanuel Kant, written in 1795, on Eternal Peace, and 
 contemplate again the conception that arose in the mind 
 of this greatest of all modern philosophers, of the es- 
 tablishment throughout Europe of those republican 
 forms of government which must, from their very na- 
 ture, guarantee the reign of peace. 
 
 But however we may differ in our hopes and prophe- 
 cies as to the means which may be employed for the 
 attainment of this great end, we are certainly agreed 
 as regards the end itself. The establishment of per- 
 manent and universal peace upon the earth is the 
 one adequate compensation for the hideous slaughter 
 and exhaustion of this world-wide cataclysm. The 
 very determination of the nations which now seems so 
 ruthless, and which, more than anything else, is mak- 
 ing the struggle so terrific, is the one thing which gives 
 the surest guarantee of the ultimate attainment of this 
 goal. For when the tide of war has swept on to the 
 last bloody and shattered trench, when the nations en- 
 gaged in the awful struggle at last lay down their 
 arms from sheer inability to hold and wield them longer, 
 will not these same nations be ready to see, as never 
 before, the futility of it all, and in their very weakness 
 band themselves together not merely for mutual sup- 
 port, but for the higher aim of establishing that condi-
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 299 
 
 tion of universal brotherhood which has for so long been 
 regarded as but the dream of poets and prophets? 
 This, certainly, is the thing for which we hope ! Some 
 day far hence when our children or children's children 
 look back upon this awful struggle, as we look back 
 upon the civil struggle in America, may they be able 
 to say, what we have long since learned to say of the 
 great Rebellion, that, as James Russell Lowell put it, 
 this battle was " the great corrector of enormous 
 times " ! 
 
 It is a mistake, however, to cherish the illusion 
 that this desire for permanent and universal peace is 
 a unanimous sentiment. For there are many men in 
 the world to-day, as there have always been such men 
 in other days, who believe that war is in its essence 
 beneficent, and that the establishment therefore of per- 
 manent and universal peace would constitute a genuine 
 disaster. Some of these men, of course, have extra- 
 neous motives for regarding peace as a curse and war 
 as a blessing. Thus, army officers and navy officers, 
 for example, whose trade is war, naturally desire that 
 this trade should prosper. Editors of irresponsible 
 newspapers inevitably welcome scenes of war as a more 
 liberal and constant provider of sensation than the 
 quiet ways of peace. Manufacturers of rifles and am- 
 munition see clearly enough that the battlefields are 
 the best markets that can be secured for the disposal 
 of their goods. These men have good reason for be-
 
 300 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 lieving that the establishment of permanent and uni- 
 versal peace would be disastrous ; but these reasons are 
 so obviously founded upon selfish considerations that 
 they can of course play no part in a serious discussion 
 of the general problem. 
 
 Along with these men, however, are certain other men 
 statesmen, poets, prophets, thinkers who hold ex- 
 actly the same opinions in regard to the essentially 
 beneficent character of war, but whose motives are as 
 disinterested as their ideas are clear and emphatic. 
 These men recognise that war involves evil as well as 
 good ; but they assert that the same contradiction is to 
 be found in peace also. And when they come to com- 
 pare the evil and the good of the one with the evil and 
 the good of the other, they do not hesitate to declare 
 that the balance of good is to be found most decidedly 
 on the side of war. Peace is undoubtedly to be ac- 
 cepted as embodying the normal condition of affairs ; 
 an uninterrupted state of armed conflict would be in- 
 tolerable and in the end suicidal. But the abolition of 
 war as a recurring condition of human relationships 
 would likewise be disastrous ; for without those qualities 
 which " war alone," in the phrase of Theodore Roose- 
 velt, can develop, man will " rot and decay." If the 
 race is to survive, to say nothing of advancing, man 
 must ever be fundamentally militaristic which means 
 that war must be safeguarded as a perpetual contin- 
 gency and an occasional reality.
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 
 
 n 
 
 This point of view is to many of us so strange and 
 perhaps unconvincing, that it may be well to consider 
 in some detail the arguments on behalf of war that 
 have been formulated and maintained by some of the 
 master minds of past and present. 
 
 For our first example we may turn to the great 
 Athenian scientist and philosopher, Aristotle, who is 
 commonly regarded as the most wonderful thinker of 
 the ancient world, and has more than once been de- 
 scribed, as by John Fiske for example, as " the great- 
 est intellect " that the human race has produced. Now 
 Aristotle, it is interesting to note, believed that war 
 was not only a good thing but, from the moral stand- 
 point, indispensable ; and therefore he taught that its 
 abolition in favour of permanent and universal peace 
 would be a calamity. In the pages of his treatise on 
 Ethics, we find a careful and persuasive statement of 
 the reasons which led him to this conclusion, which seems 
 more surprising to our age, undoubtedly, than to his 
 own. In this book he discusses the various virtues of 
 human life, and endeavours to arrange them in a scale 
 of values, just as James Martineau attempted to do 
 in much more elaborate fashion in his Types of Ethical 
 Theory. As the highest of the virtues, Aristotle names 
 courage ; and, as the highest of different forms of cour- 
 age, he places the courage displayed by the soldier 
 upon the field of battle. All courage, he says, is at 
 bottom an expression of contempt for mere physical
 
 302 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 existence. It is a willingness to treat life not as some- 
 thing to be enjoyed in itself but as something to be 
 used for the higher and nobler interests of the spirit. 
 The coward is fundamentally the one who would pre- 
 serve his life at any spiritual cost, the hero is the one 
 who would gladly fling away his life, as a worthless 
 encumbrance, if thereby he might win the " prize " of 
 some " high calling." 
 
 Now there are many contingencies, continues Aris- 
 totle, where the choice has to be made between the role 
 of cowardice and the role of courage as thus defined. 
 A man is stricken with some dread disease, and is 
 forced to contemplate the imminent prospect of its 
 fatal termination. Or he stands upon the deck of a 
 sinking vessel, waiting to begin the battle for life in 
 the "icy waves. Or he finds himself looking into a 
 blazing building, whence come agonizing cries for the 
 help that he alone can give. Here in each and every 
 case is the test of virtue, in the Greek or Aristotelian 
 sense of that word. But not the supreme test! For 
 in all of these contingencies, as the philosopher points 
 out, the choice between cowardice and courage is in- 
 voluntary. The challenge has been met by accident, 
 and not sought out by deliberation. In one contin- 
 gency only is there a free choice of the hazard of life 
 and death and that is the contingency of battle. 
 The soldier purposely puts himself into the situation 
 where the sacrifice of his physical existence may be- 
 come an immediate necessity. He deliberately pursues, 
 until he finds it, the perfect test of courage, which, as
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 303 
 
 we have seen, is to be rated as the highest of all moral 
 qualities. Therefore do we have in the soldier, who 
 marches away to the field of battle, the supreme mani- 
 festation of human virtue ; and in the battle itself the 
 indispensable condition of this manifestation. What 
 would it mean to humanity if this ultimate challenge to 
 the soul were permanently abolished, and man never 
 forced to meet the final test of facing death in its most 
 sudden and dreadful form in the clash of deadly weap- 
 ons? Is it not obvious, says Aristotle, that if peace 
 were permanently and universally established, and the 
 hazard of battle thus permanently and universally re- 
 moved, the noblest type of human virtue would disap- 
 pear, and mankind enter a slow but sure period of dis- 
 integration? " The brave man," in the exact words of 
 this teacher of ancient Greece, " has to do with terrible 
 things. But death is the most terrible of all things. 
 . . . And yet the brave man does not appear to have 
 to do with death in every form, as at sea or in disease, 
 but only with the most honourable kinds of death. , . . 
 And those that occur in war are of this kind, for in war 
 the danger is the greatest and the most honourable." 
 A second example of this viewpoint is John Ruskin, 
 who would seem to be the last person in the world to find 
 excuse for such a social abomination as international 
 conflict. In his Notes on the Political Economy of 
 Prussia, published in his volume entitled The Crown of 
 Wild Olive, however, he confesses to having had always 
 the most contradictory opinions upon this subject. 
 " It is impossible," he says, " for me to write consist-
 
 304 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 ently of war, for the group of facts which I have gath- 
 ered about it lead me to two precisely opposite conclu- 
 sions. . . . The conviction on which I act is, that it 
 causes an incalculable amount of avoidable human suf- 
 fering, and that it ought to cease among Christian na- 
 tions ; and if therefore any of my boy-friends desire to 
 be soldiers, I try my utmost to bring them into what 
 I conceive to be a better mind. But, on the other hand, 
 I know certainly that the most beautiful characters 
 yet developed among men have been formed in war 
 that all great nations have been warrior nations, and 
 that the only kinds of peace which we are likely to get 
 in the present age are ruinous alike to the intellect and 
 the heart." 
 
 Enlarging upon this statement of the case in his lec- 
 ture on War, Ruskin lays down the categorical propo- 
 sitions that " all the pure and noble arts of peace are 
 founded on war," and that indeed " no great art ever 
 rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers." He 
 buttresses this astonishing assertion by detailed refer- 
 ences to the history of Egypt, Greece, and the Middle 
 Ages, showing that art is in each case the expression 
 of " the faculties of men at their fulness," this " ful- 
 ness " in turn being the direct, consequence of war ; and 
 that when war subsides and peace is established, art 
 immediately " declines " and in some cases disappears 
 altogether. " War is the foundation of all the arts," 
 says Ruskin, and by this he means fundamentally that 
 " it is the foundation of all the high virtues and facul- 
 ties of men." " It was very strange to me to discover
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 305 
 
 this," he continues, " and very dreadful but I saw it 
 to be quite an undeniable fact. . . . We talk of peace 
 and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of peace 
 and civilisation ; but I found that those were not the 
 words which the Muse of History coupled together : 
 that, on her lips, the words were peace and sensual- 
 ity, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace 
 and death. I found, in brief, that all great nations 
 learned their truth of word, and strength of thought, 
 in war ; that they were nourished in war, and wasted by 
 peace ; taught by war, and deceived by peace ; trained 
 by war, and betrayed by peace in a word, that they 
 were born in war, and expired in peace." 
 
 From this astounding interpretation of the problem, 
 John Ruskin goes on in his lecture from qualification 
 to reservation, until little seems to be left of this sweep- 
 ing assertion with which he started. Again and again 
 he gets entangled in hopeless contradictions, as for 
 example in his closing appeal to women, where he prays 
 them to use their influence to bring wars to an end and 
 shows them that if this influence were used aright, " no 
 war would last a week." It is evident that every es- 
 sential instinct of his nature cries out against what he 
 calls, in a passionate and unguarded outburst, " the 
 poverty, misery, and rage of battle," and that if he 
 followed the spontaneous impulses of his heart, he 
 would end war at once and forever. But his intellect 
 leads him to a different verdict. Therefore, while his 
 whole soul is plainly agonising, does he plead for the 
 continuance of warfare, and directs his entire lecture
 
 306 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 on the subject to the specific end of strengthening the 
 trust of young soldiers " in the virtue of their profes- 
 sion." In all this there is no consistency, as he him- 
 self admits. And yet, out of all the jumble of con- 
 fusion and contradiction, there comes the emphatic 
 declaration that war is necessary to the health of na- 
 tions, and that the establishment of permanent and uni- 
 versal peace would therefore be a calamity. 
 
 A third illustration of this point of view is furnished 
 by the late Professor Cramb, of Cambridge University, 
 England, in his book on Germany and England. The 
 lectures gathered together in this fascinating volume 
 have been strangely enough described as constituting 
 an " answer to Bernhardi " and the other more or less 
 familiar militaristic writers of modern Germany. 
 Never was there a more hideous misnomer. It is true 
 that Professor Cramb, like every other cultured man of 
 our time, recognises the appalling cost of war and is 
 anything but indifferent to its attendant horrors. But 
 quite in the spirit of Bernhardi and his school, he af- 
 firms the superiority of war to peace as a condition of 
 individual and social virtue, deplores the agitation for 
 the abolishment of war as wholly pernicious, and again 
 and again summons his countrymen, as Demosthenes 
 summoned the Athenians, to take up arms, as not only 
 the wisest but also the noblest thing that they can do. 
 " Rouse yourselves from your lethargy ! " is his word 
 of counsel. " Arm and stand in the ranks ! " In pages 
 which are fairly reeking with sarcasm and irony, he em- 
 phasises the futility " from the beginning of the world "
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 307 
 
 of all man's dreams of peace. He shows how these 
 dreams have been conceived and proclaimed by the seers 
 and saints of all the ages gone that no century has 
 passed without its poetic and prophetic champions of 
 human concord. And he points out with almost exult- 
 ant satisfaction that we are as far away from the prac- 
 tical fulfilment' of this dream to-day as ever. All his 
 other dreams, man has realised sooner or later. " To- 
 wards other ideals," he says, " man has progressed in 
 his war against disease, for instance, and in his war 
 against nature, the forest, the sea, the vicissitudes of 
 season and of climate." But here he has encountered 
 nothing but failure. " Toward this ideal alone he has 
 made no progress." Which means not that man has not 
 the power to abolish war, as he has every other abomi- 
 nation which has stirred his hate, but simply and solely 
 that he has not, in the innermost parts of his con- 
 sciousness, any real desire to abolish war! He may de- 
 nounce its cost and deplore its miseries. He may turn 
 his fancies toward the coming of the day of peace. 
 But in his heart of hearts, he knows that war in its 
 essence is a good thing, that it is well worth its stupen- 
 dous cost, that its material horrors are more than com- 
 pensated for by its heroisms, sacrifices, and sorrows. 
 
 In order to show just what he means by this eulogy 
 of war, Professor Cramb tells in truly eloquent phrase 
 the thrilling and touching story of Captain Scott and 
 the four comrades who perished with him in the frozen 
 wastes of the Antarctic. Why did these men under- 
 take, in defiance of every consideration of practical
 
 308 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 reason, this hazardous trip to the South Pole? What 
 could they bring back which would in any way counter- 
 balance the deprivations, miseries, and perils which 
 their venture involved? Are not their useless deaths 
 in the whirling snow the crowning indictment of their 
 folly, and the final proof that the world of men suf- 
 fered nothing but total .loss in this foolhardy expedi- 
 tion? So it might seem to the sober judgment of the 
 mind. But not so has this experience touched the hearts 
 of humankind. The world has already enrolled these 
 noble five among the heroes of all time. Everywhere do 
 men applaud not merely their courage but their wisdom. 
 Even in the face of ultimate and complete disaster, un- 
 der the most painful circumstances possible, do we de- 
 clare that the undertaking was well worth while, and the 
 five not to have died in vain. What would become of 
 the race if men were not ready to take supreme hazards 
 of this kind, and did not ever find opportunity for such 
 hazards? What were Englishmen if this were not the 
 type and symbol of what they all would do, had they all 
 the coveted chance? "Here surely," says our author, 
 " we have a kind of heroism which it would daunt the 
 courage of any . . . doctrinaire to explain by the 
 profit-and-loss theory or to analyse by the ordinary 
 processes of reason at all." 
 
 Now what is true here of " Captain Scott's last trip," 
 says Professor Cramb, is true in an even more perfect 
 and sublime way of war. " There is something in war, 
 after all, that is analogous to this heroism in the Ant- 
 arctic zone, something that transcends reason." The
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 309 
 
 same idea that led Scott and his comrades into the 
 frozen regions of the Antarctic leads thousands of men 
 on to the field of battle ; and the same ideal that justifies 
 the death of the explorer in the snowy hut, justifies the 
 death of the soldier in the bloody trench. In both 
 cases, we have life redeemed from all that is selfish, sor- 
 did and profane, and thus lifted, as it were by some 
 divine transcendence, to the highest degree of nobility 
 and honour. Why talk, in such a presence, of loss or 
 pain? Why measure cost, or pity suffering? What 
 even is death, in the glory of such a life? "In war 
 and the right of war man has a possession which he 
 values above religion, above industry and above social 
 comforts ; in war man values the power which it affords 
 to life of rising above life, the power which the spirit 
 of man possesses to pursue the Ideal. In all life at its 
 height, in thought, art, and action, there is a tendency 
 to become transcendental ; and if we examine the wars 
 of England and of Germany in the past we find govern- 
 ing these wars throughout this higher power of heroism, 
 or of Something, at least, which transcends reason." 
 
 Here, now, are some of the arguments which have 
 persuaded good men and true to justify war and view 
 with apprehension the possible establishment of perma- 
 nent and universal peace upon the earth. These argu- 
 ments of course have received their extreme expression 
 in our time in the writings of such men as Treitschke, 
 Steinmetz, and Bernhardi, whose teachings so largely 
 explain the militaristic ideals of modern Germany. To 
 these men war is no longer a mere occasion for the ex-
 
 810 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 pression of virtue, as with Aristotle and Cramb, or a 
 mere condition of the development of human genius, as 
 with Ruskin ; but is itself become synonymous with al! 
 of virtue and of genius. From their point of view, the 
 individual lives primarily in order to fight, and society 
 is organised primarily for the better functioning of war- 
 fare. Military efficiency is the coefficient of individual 
 and social virtue. 
 
 But we do not have to go to any such extravagant 
 lengths as this to understand what is in essence involved 
 in this whole attitude toward the problem of war and 
 peace. At bottom, of course, is the feeling that peace 
 sooner or later means the degeneracy of the individual 
 and the corruption of the state. In times of peace men 
 find security, and security brings with it ease, selfish- 
 ness, cowardice, luxury. The body grows soft, the 
 mind sluggish, the spirit feeble. Hazards are no 
 longer sought, nor perils courted. The " transcen- 
 dental," to quote Professor Cramb's word, disappears 
 altogether, and the dryrot of routine, surfeit, pleasure, 
 mild content, usurps its place. With the inevitable re- 
 sult of slow decay final death ! It is from this ig- 
 noble and disgusting fall that war enables men and na- 
 tions to escape. War means courage, sacrifice, suffer- 
 ing, consecration to a great ideal and love of a noble 
 cause. It means the striving of the deepest impulses 
 of the soul. In war a man is fronted with reality both 
 inside and outside. His body is toughened, his heart 
 cleansed, his spirit challenged. Now or never must he 
 prove his manhood. Now or never must he be his own
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 311 
 
 best self. Now or never must he live and die ! War, 
 in other words, is the great agent of moral redemption. 
 It purifies and ennobles men, and by uniting men into 
 one supreme and all-absorbing adventure of divine faith, 
 lifts nations to the farthest pinnacles of purity and 
 honour. Theodore Roosevelt sums up this entire 
 gospel, in his The Strenuous Life, where, on the one 
 hand, he deplores peace on the ground that it trains a 
 nation " to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease " 
 and thus dooms it " to go down in the end before other 
 nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous 
 qualities " ; and, on the other hand, applauds war on 
 the ground that " by war alone can (men) acquire those 
 virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of 
 actual life." 
 
 in 
 
 What, now, is to be said in answer to this plea on 
 behalf of war? Can these considerations, which we have 
 just been interpreting, be regarded as sound? If so, 
 what becomes of humanity's long-cherished dream of 
 peace on earth, goodwill toward men? And if not so, 
 why not so? Where stands to-day, in short, this whole 
 problem of the desirability of permanent and universal 
 peace ? 
 
 First of all, it must be seen that this whole argu- 
 ment on behalf of war is based upon a fundamental 
 misconception of the character of war and its effect 
 upon the life of the individual and of the state. That 
 there is much of the heroic and the sublime in the spec-
 
 312 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 tacle of an entire people putting aside the quiet pur- 
 suits and comfortable pleasures of peace and entering 
 steadfastly and unafraid upon the awful perils and 
 miseries of armed conflict, goes without saying. Doc- 
 tor Rainsford was not wholly wrong when he described 
 the present situation in Europe as a supreme justifica- 
 tion of the everlasting reality of religion, in the best 
 sense of that word, since in it we see the glad sacrifice, 
 on the part of millions of men and women, of " the best 
 they have to the best they know." But to argue, from 
 this unquestioned fact, that war ennobles human nature 
 and dignifies the life of nations, is certainly a gross ex- 
 aggeration. -Nay, more, it is an untruth ! War, in 
 the last analysis, as we have seen, is a reversion to sav- 
 agery ; and its advent marks the awakening from slum- 
 ber of all that is beastly in the human heart. Man is 
 at best a complex of the animal and the human. On the 
 one hand are the primitive passions of the flesh, tamed 
 and rigidly controlled by the customs, habits, and regu- 
 lations of ordinary social intercourse. On the other 
 hand, are the attributes of the spirit intelligence, 
 sympathy, generosity, mercy, faith, love which mark 
 a man distinctly as a man and which constitute the very 
 basis of his relationship with his fellows. War is in 
 essence chaos and not order, discord and not concord, 
 hatred and not goodwill. It brings liberation to the 
 lowest and suppression to the highest that man knows. 
 Let the passion of war sweep widely through a nation, 
 and instantly the beast, that is lurking in every human 
 heart, is freed from its social bonds and the spiritual
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 313 
 
 being which is his best self is instantly imprisoned or 
 destroyed. Courage remains, but it is the courage of 
 the frenzied beast and not of the patient martyr. Sac- 
 rifice appears, but it is the sacrifice of madness and not 
 of calm deliberation. And in all and through all and 
 over all are lust, brutality, vengeance, hatred, blood. 
 
 This present conflict has brought us amazing evi- 
 dences of this terrific psychological phenomenon. See, 
 for example, the experiences of Dr. Frederick Lynch, as 
 narrated in his little book, Through Europe on the Eve 
 of War! On one day, as he tells us, he saw merchants, 
 clerks, farmers, peasants, husbands, fathers, brothers 
 in France and Germany, going quietly about their busi- 
 ness. On the next day had come the declaration of 
 war, and instantly these men were transformed into 
 beasts. " We saw great crowds drunk with brandy, 
 and howling ' To hell with Germany ! ' or ' To hell with 
 France ! * We saw French soldiers try to pull a 
 German out of a train window, while he clung to his 
 two little babies that he was trying to get into Switzer- 
 land. We saw Germans yank a Russian and his wife 
 out of a train, and so frighten the wife that her little 
 baby could not nurse for two days. . . . At one sta- 
 tion, I saw three young men, flushed with drink, leap 
 from a car standing on a side-track, and try to pull 
 three young girls into the car on to the straw. . . . 
 The thousands of men we saw howling in all the cities of 
 Europe were not men any longer. They had become 
 beasts. . . . They howled for only three things 
 drink, women, and blood of their brothers." The same
 
 314 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 kind of testimony was brought to me personally by a 
 famous theological teacher of this country, who chanced 
 to be travelling from Belfort to Paris on the first night 
 of French mobilisation. His train was packed with ex- 
 cited reservists hastening to the colours fresh, eager 
 young men who had only the day before been living 
 peacefully and gently in their homes. This night, 
 however, they were animals. Language of the vilest 
 description was shouted through the cars. Acts of 
 indescribable indecency were openly and boastfully per- 
 petrated. Men were tortured, women insulted, children 
 terrified. " Only one word can describe those fifteen 
 hours with those young soldiers," said my friend, " and 
 that is ' hell ! ' : And all this before the fighting had 
 begun, or a single drop of blood had been shed ! The 
 mere call to arms had liberated " the ape and tiger," and 
 the mad orgy of lust and fury was on. Talk about war 
 purifying, ennobling, strengthening men ! Talk about 
 war instilling patience, sacrifice, heroism in the human 
 heart! War is the corrupter of virtue, the despoiler 
 of purity, the murderer of courage, honour, and chiv- 
 alry. Some men of imagination and self-control it lifts 
 and glorifies. But the average man it degrades to the 
 base level of the brute. Doctor Lynch is perfectly right 
 when he speaks of " the beast which such a crisis as 
 this [war] reveals as only slumbering." 
 
 And if this be true of the individual, it is no less true 
 also of the nation. John Ruskin has spoken eloquently 
 of the awakening of genius under the stimulus of the 
 deep emotion stirred by war. Cramb bears testimony
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 315 
 
 to the transcendental quality that enters into the soul 
 of a people under the unifying idealism of nationalistic 
 adventure. These phenomena have again and again 
 appeared, of course. But they are momentary, and 
 pass almost as rapidly as they appear, to be succeeded 
 by fatigue, indifference, cynicism, and finally out-and- 
 out corruption. Not the state of a nation at the out- 
 break of war or during the continuance of war, but after 
 the war is over this is the test of the spiritual conse- 
 quences which have really been engendered. We only 
 have to consider the death of the Athenian democracy 
 after the age of Pericles, the spiritual as well as the 
 material prostration of Germany after the Thirty 
 Years' War, the unspeakable political and business cor- 
 ruption rife in America in the decades following the true 
 idealism of the Civil War, to understand what war does 
 to a nation. Felix Adler tells the whole story in a 
 trenchant observation contained in a recent sermon on 
 war and peace. 1 " I happened to be in Berlin," he said, 
 " during and after the Franco-Prussian War, and I 
 remember well the kind of vertigo that seized upon the 
 people after the payment of the French indemnity. 
 The defeat for France was no less a defeat for what was 
 best in the German soul." 
 
 The case against war as a source of human misery 
 and degradation would seem to be decisive. Not on this 
 ground alone, however, are our militaristic friends to be 
 converted to the acceptance of the prospect of perma- 
 
 i See the December 1914 number of The Standard, published by 
 the Ethical Culture Society.
 
 316 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 nent and universal peace. Granted that all you say 
 about war, they argue, is true. Still is it also true that 
 war cultivates certain qualities of soul, both individual 
 and social, which are indispensable, as you yourself ad- 
 mit, and which cannot be obtained in any other way. 
 Bad as war undoubtedly is, therefore, it still would be a 
 calamity to abolish it altogether and thus lose these es- 
 sential elements of the highest type of life. Supreme 
 sacrifice, perfect heroism, purest honour these are in- 
 separably related to war, and without war would vanish 
 altogether. 
 
 This brings us to the second point which must be 
 made in answer to the militaristic plea on behalf of war. 
 I refer to the fact that all the virtues which can by 
 any possibility be ascribed to war must be regarded 
 as by-products, and that no by-product has ever yet 
 been accepted by the conscience of mankind as adequate 
 justification for the continuance of a recognised abomi- 
 nation. 1 I suppose, as a matter of fact, that there has 
 never been any single ill that flesh is heir to which has 
 not brought along with it some incidental good as a kind 
 of by-product of its essential evil. Take gambling, for 
 example. There can be no question that this pernicious 
 habit has the indirect result, upon the individuals ad- 
 dicted to its practice, of fostering undubitable and 
 worthy virtues in their hearts. There are qualities in 
 the typical gambler that win the admiration and affec- 
 tion of us all. He has self-control, patience, easy mas- 
 
 i See Dr. Adler's elucidation of this point in the address just 
 referred to.
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 317 
 
 tery of his emotions; he can be calm in moments of 
 tense excitement, and is " a good sport " in the sense 
 that he can face misfortune without complaint; he is 
 care-free, easy-going, optimistic, as delightfully irre- 
 sponsible as a little child ; especially is he generous, sym- 
 pathetic, as quick to give money to a friend as he is to 
 win it from an opponent at the table. The gambler is 
 not all bad, by any means. But these virtues, such as 
 they are, are all incidental, by-the-way. At bottom, 
 gambling is a disease which eats away the fundamentals 
 of character as surely as cancer eats away the vitals of a 
 physical organism. The experience of unnumbered gen- 
 erations demonstrates the fact that this vice is essen- 
 tially disintegrative of all those higher qualities of mind 
 and conscience which go to the making of manhood in 
 the right sense of that great word. Therefore is it uni- 
 versally agreed that gambling must be fought to the 
 death, whatever the incidental losses to be suffered in 
 the destruction of its incidental by-products of good. 
 
 Another and different kind of illustration is furnished 
 us by the great political and military institution of 
 feudalism. Here was an order of society which fulfilled 
 a vital and indispensable function in the development of 
 European life, and which introduced many admirable 
 and even beautiful social features. One has only to call 
 to mind all that is suggested by the single word " chiv- 
 alry " to understand something of the good that can be 
 said of this mediaeval system of society. The history 
 of mankind has nothing finer to show us than the per- 
 fect knight, Sir Galahad, with his purity, his honour,
 
 318 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 his courage, his blameless service of the poor and weak, 
 his stainless reverence for womanhood. Since chivalry 
 disappeared, the world has produced no type of man- 
 hood comparable to that which was the glory of the feu- 
 dalism of the Middle Ages. And yet chivalry had to 
 go, since it was the by-product of a social order which, 
 in the course of centuries, had become the citadel of ig- 
 norance, despotism, and oppression. Humanity could 
 not afford to sacrifice the life and happiness of the 
 masses of mankind, in order that a few chosen knights 
 might manifest and enjoy the unsullied privileges of 
 an Arthurian Round Table. 
 
 And so the illustrations might be multiplied, all point- 
 ing to the conclusion that no evil can be fostered merely 
 because of the by-product of good which may attend it. 
 We do not burn down our cities, because the San Fran- 
 cisco fire gave to the citizens of that community the 
 chance to build a healthier and more beautiful city than 
 would have otherwise been possible. We do not argue 
 against the extinction of disease, because leprosy gave 
 us Father Damien and tuberculosis Doctor Trudeau. 
 We do not plead for the continuance of religious perse- 
 cution, on the ground that saints and martyrs are the 
 certain result of the sword, the faggot, and the gibbet. 
 And why is not exactly the same thing true about our 
 attitude toward war? W T hat could be more absurd, or 
 more cruel, than to eulogise war and argue for its occa- 
 sional perpetration, on the ground that it never fails 
 to produce a few heroes and to stir momentarily the 
 noblest passions of national life ! Let us admit the
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 319 
 
 truth of all that the most enthusiastic of militarists can 
 say on behalf of the service rendered by international 
 conflict to the cause of individual and social virtue. 
 Let us agree with Aristotle that the highest type of 
 courage is impossible without war let us endorse the 
 suggestion of Professor Cramb that war does for mil- 
 lions of men what the perils of the Antarctic did for 
 Scott and his four comrades let us endorse the ver- 
 dict of Ruskin that no deep feeling, and therefore no 
 great art, has ever been inspired by times of peace ! 
 Still, is it not true that these things are by-products, 
 and in themselves not vital enough to outweigh the 
 abominations which comprise the very essence of this 
 hideous business? Look at Europe to-day its 
 slaughtered men, its weeping women, its homeless chil- 
 dren its wounded, sick, and imprisoned its devas- 
 tated fields and ruined cities its lost faiths, shattered 
 hopes, debased ideals its new hatreds, lusts, and bar- 
 barisms and who can say that war brings us anything 
 that can compensate for such as these? War is at bot- 
 tom evil ; and, whatever its incidental goods, it must, 
 like other evils, be abolished ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Not yet, however, have we answered the contentions 
 of those who sincerely deplore the prospect of the pass- 
 ing of war and the coming of peace ; for it is just these 
 men who will argue, in answer to our questions, that 
 war does bring compensations even for such horrors 
 as are this very day before our face and eyes. Nay,
 
 320 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 they even go so far as to reverse the situation, and 
 declare that it is the horrors which are the real inci- 
 dentals or by-products of war, and it is the strengthen- 
 ing of hearts and stirring of ideals which constitute the 
 essentials. It is just here, on this matter of relative 
 viewpoint, that the militarist and pacifist usually 
 fail to find a common ground for discussion; and just 
 here, therefore, that the latter usually fails to make 
 any impression upon the former. After this advocate 
 of peace has said all that can be said in regard to the 
 abomination of armed conflict, the Bernhardis and the 
 Crambs still support the position that these features 
 of war, while of course regrettable, are comparatively 
 unimportant, and are overshadowed by these other 
 things which are absolutely dependable upon the con- 
 tinuance, at intervals at least, of battles, sieges, and 
 campaigns. This is the attitude, strange as it may 
 seem, even of a man like Prof. William James. " One 
 cannot meet [these considerations]," he says in his 
 essay on The Moral Equivalent of War, " by mere 
 counter-insistency on war's expensiveness and horror. 
 The horror makes the thrill; and when the question is 
 of getting the extremest and supremest out of human 
 nature, talk of expense sounds ignominious. The 
 weakness of so much negative criticism is evident. . . . 
 The military party denies neither the bestiality, nor 
 the horror, nor the expense ; it only says that these 
 things tell but half the story. It only says that war is 
 worth them ; that, taking human nature as a whole, its 
 wars are its best protection against its weaker and more
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 
 
 cowardly self, and that mankind cannot afford to adopt 
 a peace-economy." 
 
 In considering this final point, it is necessary to em- 
 phasise at once the apparently irreconcilable dilemma 
 which is always presented by the militarist, as he argues 
 this important point. Always does he present the two 
 extremes of war on the one hand, and of dull, cowardly, 
 materialistic, degenerate peace upon the other. Al- 
 ways does he assume that the virtues inherent in war can 
 be obtained under no other conditions and purchased at 
 no other price, than those provided by the slaughter 
 and devastation of armed conflict. Not even with Aris- 
 totle is there any golden mean in this case. It is one 
 thing or the other either war with its glorified heroes 
 and redeemed nations, or peace with its corruption and 
 decay. 
 
 Now we may perhaps be pardoned for saying at this 
 point that this kind of rigid alternative irresistibly re- 
 minds us of the familiar Elian essay of Charles Lamb, 
 entitled A Dissertation upon Roast Pig. This is the 
 highly amusing story of how a Chinaman came home 
 one day and found to his dismay that his house had been 
 destroyed by fire. While poking round in the smoking 
 ruins of the little building, he chanced to come upon the 
 body of a pig that had been caught in the flames and 
 burned to death. At once he noticed that the roasted 
 flesh gave off an exceedingly fragrant smell. Then, 
 touching the meat with his finger and applying the finger 
 to his mouth, he found that it had a taste which was 
 delicious beyond belief. Devouring the animal with in-
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 finite satisfaction, he forthwith proceeded to tell the 
 good news to his neighbours. Whereupon every man of 
 them proceeded to put his pig in his house, and then 
 burn the house to the ground, in order that he too 
 might enjoy a feast of roast pork. 
 
 It is of course unnecessary to point out the ridiculous 
 side of this story to those who know full well that it is 
 possible to roast a pig without destroying homes by 
 fire. But wherein is it any more absurd for the China- 
 man to argue that you must burn your house in order 
 to obtain a toothsome dinner, than it is for the mili- 
 tarist to argue that you must destroy your civilisation 
 by the ravaging of fire and sword, in order to obtain the 
 priceless treasures of martial virtue in individual and 
 nation? It is perfectly possible to roast a pig and still 
 preserve your house from destruction ; and in exactly 
 the same way it is possible to develop every virtue in- 
 herent in the mad struggle of international war, and 
 still preserve the lives of men from slaughter and the 
 material structure of society from ruin. Turn to that 
 very book by Professor Cramb wherein war is described 
 as an indispensable condition of the development of 
 those transcendental aspects of life, which defy all 
 standards of rational expediency. When Professor 
 Cramb wants to tell us what he means by these transcen- 
 dental aspects of life, what does he do? Does he cite 
 examples of courage and endurance from the field of 
 battle? Does he tell stories of heroic daring and sub- 
 lime sacrifice in time of war? Not at all! On the con- 
 trary, he leaves the smoke and flame of battle far be-
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 323 
 
 hind, takes us away to the wastes of the Antarctic, 
 and points us to Gates walking out into the storm to 
 his certain death, and to Captain Scott dying patiently 
 and bravely in his snow-hut. Where is the war which 
 was indispensable to the virtue of these men? Wherein 
 was the period of profound peace, in which they set 
 forth upon their immortal quest, incompatible with 
 sacrifice, heroism, and manly love? This whole tale is 
 a part of the annals of peace, is it not? and yet it is 
 this which Professor Cramb cites most naturally as the 
 illustration of that which war alone can accomplish. 
 
 Inconsistency could seem to go no farther, unless it is 
 in Professor Cramb's further statement of the great 
 victories that man has achieved, in days gone by, in 
 pursuit of his ideals. He speaks here of the success 
 which man has won in his " war against disease, war 
 against nature, the forest, the sea, the vicissitudes of 
 season and of climate." War, not against other men, 
 but against nature and natural evil! War, in time of 
 peace ! War, under conditions of peace ! What, 
 pray, can Professor Cramb mean by pleading for the 
 everlasting continuance of war with swords and 
 guns against our fellows, when here is war right to our 
 hand against things which it is beneficent to over- 
 come and destroy! Peace, by Professor Cramb's 
 own testimony, is not wholly incompatible with struggle, 
 and fight, and triumph. Peace, if this be true, is not 
 necessarily a condition of stagnation, cowardice, dull 
 content, and easy pleasure. If armed conflict between 
 international bodies of men has any virtue at all, it is
 
 324 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 only because it gives to the human heart a foe to chal- 
 lenge, a goal to achieve, a victory to win. And lo ! 
 here do we find that peace hath its foes and goals and 
 victories, no less renowned than war that peace can 
 foster martial heroism and high idealism as well as war 
 that everything that war can give can be given 
 equally by peace, and without any of the horrors which 
 make war an intolerable disaster ! 
 
 It is this idea which William James puts forth so 
 impressively in his essay on The Moral Equivalent of 
 War. He points out the foes of disease, national 
 cataclysms, social corruptions, etc., which are waiting 
 to be fought and overcome. He shows us the perilous 
 work at sea, in mines, on steel buildings, which is ever 
 waiting to be done. And he calls upon men to organise 
 themselves to fight these battles of peace, just as now 
 they organise themselves for war against their neigh- 
 bours. " In the future toward which mankind seems 
 drifting, we must still subject ourselves collectively," he 
 says, " to those severities which answer to our real posi- 
 tion upon this only partly hospitable globe. We must 
 make new energies and hardihoods continue the man- 
 liness to which the military mind so faithfully clings." 
 And then he illustrates his " idea more concretely," by 
 conceiving " instead of military conscription, a con- 
 scription of the whole youthful population to form 
 for a certain number of years a part of the army en- 
 listed against nature. . . . To coal and iron mines, 
 to freight trains, to fishing fleets, to road-build-
 
 IS PEACE TO BE DESIRED? 325 
 
 ing and trench-making . . . would our youths be 
 drafted off ... to get the childishness knocked out of 
 them, and to come back into society with healthier sym- 
 pathies and sobered ideas. . . . Such a conscription 
 . . . would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilisa- 
 tion the manly virtues which the military party is so 
 afraid of seeing disappear in peace." 
 
 Here, now, is the full and final answer to the mili- 
 tarist. First, the virtues of war are grossly exagger- 
 ated. Secondly, these virtues, whatever they are, are 
 mere by-products, and as such cannot be regarded as 
 adequate justification for the continuance of an insti- 
 tution essentially evil. Thirdly, these virtues are not 
 in themselves dependent upon war, but can be fostered 
 in peace organised for strife against nature and her 
 ills. Permanent and universal peace, if not now de- 
 sirable, can be made desirable! 
 
 The whole lesson can be summed up in this single 
 word that our task is not the perpetuation of war 
 for this or any other purpose, but the redemption of 
 peace from ease, sloth, and corruption. The first con- 
 dition of such a redemption of peace is the total and 
 permanent abolition of war! For so long as war con- 
 tinues to recur at intervals, man will remain convinced 
 that there is nothing to fight against except his brother ; 
 and so long as peace is only a recurring interval from 
 strife, man will remain convinced that this is but a time
 
 326 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 of repose and idle enjoyment. Away, therefore, with 
 war, that worthy peace may come ! Speed the night, 
 that morn at last may break ! 
 
 " It is the Dawn ! The Dawn ! The nations 
 From East to West now hear the cry ! 
 Though all earth's blood-red generations 
 By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, 
 Here, on this height, still to aspire, 
 One only path remains untrod, 
 One path of love and peace climbs higher. 
 Make straight that highway for our God." 1 
 
 i Alfred Noyes, in The Wine-Prtst.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DUTY AND OPPORTUNITY OF 
 AMERICA TO-DAY
 
 " It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story that there was at 
 least one spot, the small -island of Delos, dedicated to the gods 
 and kept at all times sacred from War. No hostile foot ever 
 pressed this kindly soil, and citizens of all countries met here 
 beneath the aegis of invincible Peace. So let us dedicate our be- 
 loved country. . . . The Temple of Honour shall be enclosed by 
 the Temple of Concord, that it may never more be entered through 
 any portal of War; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its 
 gates; the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of 
 flashing adamant; while within its happy courts, purged of Vio- 
 lence and Wrong, Justice shall rear her serene and majestic 
 front. . . . 
 
 " And while seeking these fruitful glories for ourselves, let us 
 strive for their extension to other lands. Let the bugles sound 
 the Truce of God to the whole world forever. Not to one people, 
 but to every people, let the glad tidings go. . . . History dwells 
 with fondness on the reverent homage bestowed by massacring 
 soldiers upon the spot occupied by the sepulchre of the Lord. 
 Vain man ! why confine regard to a few feet of sacred mould ? 
 The whole earth is the sepulchre of the Lord; nor can any right- 
 eous man profane any part thereof." Charles Sumner, in The 
 True Grandeur of Nations.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE DUTY AND OPPORTUNITY OF AMEEICA TO-DAY 
 
 THE crisis now facing Europe is apparent. The prob- 
 abilities of destruction, blood-letting, exhaustion, rever- 
 sion, are fast becoming realities before our eyes. What 
 we are not seeing so clearly is the fact that this crisis 
 involves not merely the nations which are directly con- 
 cerned as belligerents in the conflict, but the neutral 
 countries as well; and first of all, among these, the 
 United States. Not only the destinies of Germany, 
 France, Russia, England, Austria, Italy, are hanging 
 in the balance, but also the destiny of America, even 
 though the Republic continues to hold aloof from actual 
 hostilities and thus does not in any way become involved 
 in the armed struggle of life and death. 
 
 The occasion of this stupendous crisis for America 
 is of course the amazing discovery that war in its most 
 hideous form can burst upon the world without warn- 
 ing, and sweep down not merely upon those nations 
 which have interests to serve upon the field of battle, 
 but also upon those nations which are least prepared 
 for, and certainly least desirous of, its coming. This 
 has given us, for the first time in our history, a feeling 
 
 of insecurity which is amounting almost to panic. And 
 
 329
 
 330 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 this feeling is presenting us with a problem of na- 
 tional policy which is new to our political and social 
 life. Already the problem has crystallised into a defi- 
 nite dilemma. Are we to continue to remain faithful 
 to the pacifist ideals which have made America unique 
 among modern nations; or shall we follow the rest of 
 the world in building up huge armaments and joining 
 questionable political alliances? Are we to continue to 
 rely upon the international policy of " with malice to- 
 ward none, with charity for all " as the sole protec- 
 tion of the state ; or must we, however reluctantly, arm 
 ourselves adequately in preparation for anticipated 
 conflicts? Can we still believe, as we have hitherto be- 
 lieved, that " Salvation shall be (our) walls and bul- 
 warks, and (our) gates Praise," or must we for the first 
 time seek refuge behind the guns of battleships and the 
 walls of fortresses? 
 
 n 
 
 How these questions are answered, by a large number 
 of American citizens, has been made perfectly plain by 
 the vigorous and widespread agitation in this country, 
 during the last few months, for the indefinite and rapid 
 increase of our armaments. Some of the men who ad- 
 vocate this line of action are unscrupulous politicians 
 and professional soldiers who have personal interests 
 to serve and are therefore not to be trusted. More 
 of these men, however, are scholars, educators, pub- 
 lishers, lawyers, bankers, business men, who are abso- 
 lutely unselfish, and have no other desire than that of
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 331 
 
 the sincere and honourable service of the best interests 
 of the Republic. The position of these men is easily 
 stated. 
 
 We all of us unite, they say, in deprecating war and 
 loving peace. There is nobody in America who would 
 be guilty of such a crime as that of advocating a policy 
 which would make the avoidance of war and the main- 
 tenance of peace, on the part of our country, more diffi- 
 cult or uncertain. This present war in Europe, how- 
 ever, has taught us many things which we never knew 
 before, or perhaps had forgotten or neglected. And 
 first of all among these lessons is the fact that we are 
 still living in a world which is disorganised, undisci- 
 plined, and to a very large extent barbaric, and there- 
 fore a world which is liable to suffer from an outbreak 
 of war at any time. After the fate of Belgium and 
 France in the opening days of the Great War, no 
 nation can regard itself as any longer safe from hostile 
 invasion. The best intentions, the most peaceful poli- 
 cies, the most modern treaties, the firmest reliance upon 
 righteousness and goodwill, cannot be counted upon to 
 preserve a country from attack. The peril is imminent, 
 for America as for every other people. Therefore is 
 it the part of prudence, to say nothing of patriotism, 
 to prepare the nation for what may at any moment be- 
 come the inevitable. As we insure our lives against 
 accident and death, our houses against fire, our prop- 
 erty against burglary, so must we insure our country 
 against war. And the only known way of doing this 
 to-day, is that of building up an army and a navy
 
 332 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 which shall be strong enough to repel the attack of any 
 enemy which may undertake to come against us. 
 Therefore must we build more battleships, double our 
 standing army, strengthen our fortifications, perfect 
 our state militia, organise a trained reserve, drill our 
 school-boys and college students. Such activity does 
 not spell militarism, or involve aggression, or overthrow 
 our traditional policy of having the military authorities 
 strictly subordinate to the civil. It simply means a 
 commonsense recognition of the conditions prevailing in 
 the modern world, and a commonsense endeavour to 
 meet these conditions. 
 
 m 
 
 Without attempting to criticise this position which 
 is being taken to-day by many of our most sincere and 
 enlightened citizens, it may be well to analyse, with 
 some care, the state of mind of which it may be re- 
 garded as the reflection. 
 
 First of all, there is behind this idea of military pre- 
 paredness the primitive psychological phenomenon of 
 fear. The advocates of great armaments are frankly 
 afraid of the terrible things which might happen in this 
 country if some foreign foe should assail us and find us 
 incapable of defence. Seeing a curious kind of parallel 
 between Belgium, which has for so long been " the cock- 
 pit of Europe," is about the size of Maryland, and has 
 some seven millions of inhabitants, and the United States 
 with its geographical remoteness, enormous extent of 
 territory, and one hundred million population, they
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 333 
 
 draw hair-raising pictures of the bombardment of New 
 York by a battle fleet, and the ravaging of our seacoast 
 and interior by an invading army. One of the most 
 eminent scientists in America, for example, declared 
 some months ago in my presence that we might wake 
 up at any moment to find the enemy at our gates, pre- 
 pared to visit upon us just such indignities, outrages, 
 and injuries as have lately been endured by the un- 
 happy Belgians. Which one of the great nations is 
 thus thirsting for the blood of America, is not said. 
 Which one, so thirsting, is in a position at this moment 
 to undertake the conquest of our country, we are not 
 told. But in answer to our natural inquiry for a bill 
 of specifications, it is triumphantly asserted that such 
 a bill could not have been rendered to Serbia, Belgium, 
 or France, on the first day of July, 1914. The danger, 
 uncertain as it is, is most surely present, and one can- 
 not safely wait until it discloses itself, to make ready to 
 encounter it. 
 
 Behind this feeling of fear, there lies, as a second 
 factor in the situation, a deep-rooted distrust of the 
 character and purposes of all the other civilised nations 
 of the world. It is argued, with a good deal of force, 
 that relations beween nations have never been moralised, 
 and that therefore it is folly to rely for security upon 
 pretensions of friendship or pledges of goodwill. The 
 policy of every modern people, like that of every ancient 
 people, is determined by selfish considerations of na- 
 tional aggrandisement and glory. Every nation, 
 whether it confesses it or not, is engaged in the great
 
 334 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 enterprise of world-empire ; and anything which will help 
 on this enterprise, whether moral or immoral, friendly 
 or unfriendly to a neighbouring state, will be done, 
 whenever circumstances are propitious. The present 
 war is an impressive illustration of the ethics of inter- 
 national relationships. To what extent have morality, 
 decency, goodwill, controlled the conduct of any one of 
 the nations involved in this unseemly quarrel? Which 
 one has respected the rights and privileges of its neigh- 
 bours? Which one has held to its plighted word? 
 Which one has risen to obedience of any higher law 
 than that of necessity, self-preservation, or self-ag- 
 grandisement ? What a nation wants, it takes what 
 is in its way, it destroys what it finds defenceless, it 
 outrages and defies. America may well be cautious 
 about taking its place in a company of international 
 freebooters without being carefully and fully armed. 
 Our nation is one which might well be coveted by every 
 crowned head of the world. South of us are fair do- 
 minions, which more than one country of Europe has 
 lusted after, but which we have solemnly sworn to de- 
 fend against assault. Our world-wide commerce, our 
 possessions in Hawaii and the Philippines, our valu- 
 able and strategic property in the Panama Canal, are 
 treasures which must be guarded against spoliation. 
 Treaties are no protection. Friendship may be but the 
 mask of brigandage. To " speak softly and carry a 
 big stick " is the only wise policy in a world wherein the 
 hand of every nation is against that of every other ! 
 In the third place, as a final complication of the situa-
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 335 
 
 tion, there is what we may call a purely materialistic 
 conception of the significance of national life. Our 
 patriotism here in America, in other words, is as sordid 
 and unspiritual as our business, our art, or our re- 
 ligion. This is shown clearly enough in the very lan- 
 guage which we use to symbolise our country. Thus 
 we speak of our flag, which must never be hauled down 
 from its proud position " on high " ; we talk of our soil, 
 which must never be profaned by the footsteps of an 
 invader; we refer to our blood, which must never be 
 shed by a hostile hand. America, to nine people out of 
 ten, is simply a territory which can be over-run and 
 conquered a group of cities which can be bombarded 
 and laid under tribute a certain amount of trade, 
 commerce, and natural wealth which can be seized a 
 certain number of millions of men, women, and children, 
 whose bodies can be outraged and destroyed. To 
 speak of " the soul of America," as Dr. Stanton Coit 
 has done in his recent book of that title a " soul " 
 which can be corrupted by a depraved spirit, but is im- 
 pregnable to attacks of sword and spear is to leave 
 us mystified and disturbed. Such language at once 
 takes us into a realm where can be found, perhaps, the 
 ideas of God, immortality, and the soul of man, but cer- 
 tainly not the idea of country. " My country " means 
 a great stretch of territory reaching from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf 
 of Mexico. It means an aggregation of millions of peo- 
 ple who live within the borders of this territory. It 
 means a vast machinery of government, which has its
 
 336 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 main plant in a place called the District of Columbia. 
 It means a group of cities like New York, Chicago, St. 
 Louis, and San Francisco a group of states like 
 Massachusetts, Ohio, Louisiana, and California. It 
 means stupendous business interests, running all the 
 way from the mining interests of the West to the manu- 
 facturing interests of the East. It means a hundred 
 and one things, all of which can be seen, touched, 
 handled, counted and lost. And this being our con- 
 ception of country, it naturally follows, does it not, 
 that our love of country means a love of these more 
 or less material things and a determination to preserve 
 them and glorify them at any price? And this means, 
 in turn, that true love of country must find its inevi- 
 table expression in a clamorous demand for armaments, 
 that territory, people, government, and wealth may not 
 fall into the hands of the enemy. We must have the 
 weapons of the flesh, in other words, to protect the 
 things of the flesh. So long as a country means to us 
 so much soil and not so much soul, so many people and 
 not so many ideas, so much wealth and not so much 
 holy spirit, then indeed must we rely not upon God, 
 but upon chariots and horsemen and this for the 
 very good reason pointed out by Isaiah, that chariots 
 are " many " and horsemen are " strong " ! 
 
 IV 
 
 In these three things which have just been enumer- 
 ated fear of the calamitous uncertainties of the 
 future, distrust of the faith and honour of other peo-
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 337 
 
 pies, and a materialistic conception of the meaning of 
 America and its place in the family of nations do 
 we find what I have called the state of mind of those who 
 believe that we should forthwith proceed to arm our- 
 selves to the limit of endurance, in view of the hazard 
 of war now forced upon our attention by events across 
 the seas. Without attempting to submit this state of 
 mind to any critical examination, let us consider at once 
 another and very different state of mind in which certain 
 people in this country are at this moment endeavouring 
 to meet the moral crisis of the hour. This state of 
 mind, as will be seen, presents factors which in each 
 and every case are diametrically opposite to those in- 
 volved in the first and more belligerent state of mind. 
 
 In the first place, we find that this second group of 
 people refuse to cherish any fears as to the dangers 
 which threaten this country to-day or may threaten it 
 in the future. They listen to the hideous stories of 
 captured cities, invaded shores and slaughtered citi- 
 zens, with indifference, amusement, or out-and-out con- 
 tempt. Looking at the matter from no higher stand- 
 point than that of the military problem involved, they 
 assert with assurance that the invasion of a country, 
 removed from any hostile base of operations by three 
 thousand and more miles of open and tempestuous sea, 
 is as impossible a feat of arms, under modern condi- 
 tions of warfare, as would be the conquest of a coun- 
 try stretching three thousand miles east and west 
 and fifteen hundred miles north and south, and in- 
 habited by a population of one hundred million. These
 
 338 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 people find their position laid down with perfect pre- 
 cision by Prof. Roland G. Usher, in his much-read book 
 on Pan-Germanism. " The United States," he says, in 
 the tenth chapter, " is beyond question invulnerable to 
 the assaults of foreign fleets and armies. It has been 
 pointed out that the Japanese might successfully land 
 an army upon the Pacific coast, or the Germans land an 
 army in New York or Boston, practically without op- 
 position. Sed cui bono? The strategical and geo- 
 graphical conditions of the country on either coast are 
 such that a foreign army would occupy the ground it 
 stood on, and no more. The British discovered in the 
 Revolutionary War that the occupation of New York, 
 Boston, and Philadelphia put them no nearer the mili- 
 tary possession of the continent than they were before, 
 and that marching through provinces was not subduing 
 them. However seriously the capture of New York 
 might cripple our commercial and railway interests, the 
 difficulty, even at its worst, could be easily overcome by 
 shifting the centre of business for the time being to 
 Chicago, and the possession of New York would cer- 
 tainly not permit a foreign army to conquer the coun- 
 try, even if it were possible for any nation to maintain 
 an army so far from its real base of supplies in Europe. 
 The possibility of invasion is made of no consequence 
 by the simple fact that no foreign nation possesses any 
 inducement for attempting so eminently hazardous an 
 enterprise." Such a statement of the actual facts of 
 the situation is like a breath of fresh air, blowing into 
 the fever-laden atmosphere of a plague-house, It is
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 
 
 like the light of morning breaking upon the spectre- 
 haunted shadows of the night. There is no more reason, 
 as a matter of fact, to be afraid of a successful or even 
 attempted invasion of our country than there is to fear 
 an invasion of our planet from flaming Mars. In the 
 one case as in the other, " strategical and geographical 
 conditions " are our all-sufficient safeguard against at- 
 tack. 
 
 But these people, of whom we are now speaking, do 
 not stop here. They not only decline to give way 
 to fears regarding the threatened invasion of America 
 from abroad, but they decline also to give way to un- 
 worthy suspicions regarding the intentions and pur- 
 poses of other nations. They recognise, to be sure, 
 that the history of international relationships is a con- 
 tinued story of falsehoods, deceits, betrayals, broken 
 pledges, and violated treaties. They agree that the 
 diplomatic record of this present conflict is one long 
 series of outrages, from Germany's indefensible in- 
 vasion of Belgium in violation of the treaty of neutral- 
 ity, to England's equally indefensible blockade of Ger- 
 many's shores in violation of the Declaration of Paris. 
 Well may one seem to be justified in asking to-day, 
 What nation of the earth can be trusted to act toward 
 other nations as one gentleman would act toward other 
 gentlemen? But to this plea the answer is inevitable, 
 that the dishonour of one nation is only the fruit which 
 has been grown by a universal system of dishonour. 
 Nations are treated by one another, in other words, 
 just exactly as they deserve to be treated. They reap
 
 340 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 only what they have long since sown. With what 
 measure they have meted, it is measured unto them. 
 Diplomacy has long been an evil plot, but it is a plot 
 in which all the nations of the world are conspirators 
 together. What is needed to untangle the Gordian 
 knot of treason, and thus to bring honour among na- 
 tions as among gentlemen, is only the honourable ex- 
 ample of one great power. And it is just this honour- 
 able example that America has given to the world, in 
 the few isolated cases in which she has been dragged 
 into the game of international diplomacy. With the 
 result that never yet has any country played her false ! 
 In other words, the sure way of maintaining relations of 
 friendship and honour with other nations, is not to 
 suspect them and deceive them, to try to outwit them 
 and always arm to the teeth against them. On the 
 contrary, the only sure way is to trust them, play them 
 fair, and approach them with hands not clenched and 
 armed in hate, but open in confidence and affection. 
 " The only way to have a friend," says Emerson in his 
 essay on Friendship, " is to be one " an affirmation 
 which is as true of nations as it is of individuals ! If 
 we distrust the nations, they will justify that distrust 
 by intrigue and betrayal. If we act as though we ex- 
 pected them to attack us at any moment, they will 
 justify that expectation by attacking us, lest we shall 
 attack them first. Russia distrusted Germany in July, 
 1914, and mobilised her army as though she expected 
 Germany to attack her and Germany did attack her ! 
 On the other hand, Germany distrusted France at the
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 341 
 
 same moment, and invaded Belgium as though she ex- 
 pected France to move against her and France did 
 move against her ! Suspicion begets suspicion, attack 
 precipitates attack, preparation for war hastens war. 
 The only road to friendship is friendship. The only 
 way to protect one nation from attack is to have con- 
 fidence that no other nation will assail her without 
 cause. The only way to secure peace is to walk stead- 
 fastly in the ways of peace. Let this Republic, said 
 Carl Schurz, " stand as the gentleman par excellence 
 among nations a gentleman scorning the role of 
 swashbuckler whose hip-pockets bulge with loaded six- 
 shooters and who flashes big diamonds on his fingers and 
 shirt-front; a gentleman modest in the consciousness 
 of strength, and carrying justice, forbearance and con- 
 ciliation on his tongue and benevolence in his hand, 
 rather than a chip on his shoulder " and lo ! she " shall 
 be far from terror, for it shall not come nigh (her)"! 
 
 More important, however, than such considerations 
 as these is the conception of nationality which consti- 
 tutes the distinctive state of mind of those who are 
 opposed to all agitation for armaments at this or any 
 other time. To such persons, a nation appears not as 
 a stretch of territory, or a group of people, or a mass 
 of wealth not at all as a " great power," in the 
 political sense of that term but simply and solely as 
 an idea, or group of ideas. Greece means not a pen- 
 insula, but an idea of beauty which is still the delight 
 and despair of men. Rome means not a city nor an 
 empire, but an idea of law which has slowly moulded our
 
 342 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 western world from chaos into order. England means 
 not an island, but an idea of liberty Germany not a 
 political group of Teutonic states, but an idea of cul- 
 ture and so on with all the peoples of the earth that 
 have a life which is in any sense distinctly national. 
 
 What is true now, of such countries as these, is true 
 to an altogether remarkable degree of America. Who 
 thinks, when this magic word is mentioned, of a par- 
 ticular geographical locality, a particular breed of 
 men, or even of a particular kind of government? 
 Immediately are we transported into the realm of ideas, 
 and there brought face to face with certain great con- 
 ceptions of the spirit. " Four score and seven years 
 ago," said Lincoln at Gettysburg, " our fathers brought 
 forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in lib- 
 erty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
 created equal." In such a declaration as this, do we 
 find a definition of what America really means. Not in 
 the things of the flesh, but in the things of the spirit did 
 we have our origin ; not in population or wealth, but in 
 ideas do we have our empire ; not in the conquest of 
 territory, but in the winning of souls do we find our 
 destiny ! " America," says Dr. David Starr Jordan, 
 " stands, has always stood, for two ideals from which 
 she cannot escape, for they are fundamental in her 
 origin and her growth." 
 
 First of all is the idea of internationalism or brother- 
 hood. America's first citizens were colonists from 
 England, and her last have just this day landed at 
 Ellis Island from the shores of Europe, Asia, and Aus-
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 343 
 
 tralia. Thirteen millions of Americans at this moment 
 are foreign born of foreign parents; eighteen millions 
 more are native born of foreign parents ; and the rest, 
 who boast of being true Americans, must all trace back 
 their parentage of a few generations ago to some coun- 
 try far across the seas. In the larger sense of the 
 word, that is, we are all of us immigrants from some 
 Fatherland to this, which has been well-called " the be- 
 loved Brotherland." America is the gathering place 
 of all the tribes of earth the melting-pot, as Zang- 
 will has put it, into which the ingredients of every race, 
 religion and nationality have been freely poured. And 
 out of it has come not a new nation, but a new idea 
 the idea of brotherhood. Here all national antipathies, 
 hereditary hatreds, race prejudices disappear, as 
 though bred out of the stock by some miracle of inter- 
 crossing. Englishman lives side by side with German, 
 Catholic with Protestant, Gentile with Jew. At the 
 very moment when England, Germany, France, Russia 
 and Austria are fighting one another to the death, their 
 children in this land are living, working and playing 
 together without enmity or friction. The average 
 American is a cosmopolitan a true human if there 
 ever was one. " This is the land where all hate dies," 
 said a certain man quoted by Dr. Jordan in his book 
 on America's Conquest of Europe, " My father was a 
 German, my mother French. What do I care for all 
 that? I am an American. The old hatreds and rival- 
 ries are nothing to me." It is true, of course, that 
 America has not always been true to this idea of
 
 344 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 brotherhood. Every one of her foreign wars has been 
 an infidelity, and all preparation for such wars a serious 
 lapse. But, on the whole, this great idea has never 
 been lost sight of a wonderful reality in the present 
 and a prophecy of mighty promise for the future. 
 
 If the first ideal of American life is international 
 brotherhood, the second, of course, is none other than 
 democracy that idea which finds its noblest expres- 
 sion in Lincoln's description of a government which is 
 " of the people, for the people, and by the people." 
 Here is the land where social distinctions of every kind 
 are definitely eliminated, where nothing counts but 
 simple manhood and womanhood the strong hand, 
 the valiant heart, the seeing soul. Democracy had its 
 beginning here on the frontier, where every man fought 
 and hewed his way to independence by the sweat of his 
 own brow and the cunning of his own mind. " These 
 pioneers," said John Hay, " looked on no one as their 
 superiors, and on none as their inferiors. They knew 
 no want they could not satisfy themselves." And it 
 is just this pioneer idea which has now been carried 
 over into every department of American life. Equal- 
 ity of economic opportunity, equality before the law, 
 equality in access to the land, to education, to legis- 
 lation here is the idea of democracy, now working 
 itself out into the conception of a state which is an or- 
 ganisation of " mutual adjustment for collective bene- 
 fit." It is needless to point out how often America 
 has failed to fulfil her own ideal of democracy. It is 
 needless to specify the menaces to American democ-
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 345 
 
 racy which are involved in the social and industrial 
 developments of our own day and generation. But 
 even in the darkest days of slavery, it was not forgot- 
 ten that " all men are created free and equal." And 
 now when social snobbery, industrial tyranny and law- 
 less wealth are apparently all-powerful, the conscience 
 of the nation remains as sound and whole as ever. The 
 battle for democracy has in many ways just begun 
 but that it has gone far enough to indicate that it is to 
 be fought through to a successful finish, however long 
 delayed, is apparent. 
 
 In these two great ideas of brotherhood and democ- 
 racy, is the essence of American life. This is what 
 America means to-day, as Greece yesterday meant 
 beauty and Rome law. And just here in this spiritual 
 idea of nationality, do we find the supreme and unan- 
 swerable vindication of the men who would save Amer- 
 ica at this time from militarism and the huge arma- 
 ments which militarism would build. Of course, if you 
 have no higher conception of America than a stretch of 
 land, comprising forty-eight states, three-and-a-half 
 million square miles of territory, one hundred millions 
 of inhabitants, and no higher conception of patriotism 
 than a frenzied passion to make the inhabitants of this 
 particular political division of the earth's surface the 
 dominant people of the world, then you had better 
 build as many dreadnaughts and train as many sol- 
 diers as you can, for these weapons can alone avail you 
 anything in this realm of sheer materialism. But if 
 you look upon America as a great ideal of the spirit,
 
 316 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 independent of territory and population and wealth, 
 then all such things as armies and navies become mat- 
 ters of supreme indifference. For the spirit is impreg- 
 nable to all the attacks that the hand of man can bring 
 against it. What if the soldiers of another nation 
 should occupy our territory, seize our ports, capture 
 our cities, occupy our strongholds, levy tribute upon 
 our citizens? What if Germany came here to-day as 
 she came to Belgium yesterday ! Would she not find it 
 as impossible to conquer " the soul of America " as 
 she has already found it impossible to conquer the soul 
 of Belgium? No conqueror that ever lived could de- 
 stroy the sense of brotherhood that is at the heart of 
 our American life ; no sword that was ever forged could 
 smite the love of democracy which is the impulse of our 
 civilisation. A free people would still be free, even 
 though in chains and a valiant spirit still survive, 
 even the hour of death. Nay, we will not only not be 
 conquered, but we will ourselves be conquerors in this 
 higher realm of the spirit. Let our enemies come 
 against us with sword and shield and trumpet, and we 
 will meet them with our faith in brotherhood and democ- 
 racy. And, behold, in the very process of this con- 
 quest, they will themselves be conquered ! America 
 will conquer the thousands who come in arms against 
 her, as she has already conquered the millions who have 
 sought her shores in peace ! 
 
 To all such attacks as these, the soul of America is 
 impregnable. But there is another kind of attack, 
 which may well be feared by all those who love this
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 347 
 
 nation not for what she has, but for what she is. I 
 refer to the attack not upon her soil but upon her soul 
 an attack which is now being conducted all along 
 the line by those who, for the reasons which I have de- 
 scribed, would have America abandon her priceless 
 ideals of brotherhood and democracy, and follow the 
 melancholy example of the great empires of history. 
 Why worry about the enemies who may be lying in 
 wait against our country on some far horizon of the 
 sea, when enemies much more serious are lying in wait 
 against her right here within her borders ? Why worry 
 about the armies and dreadnaughts that may be mar- 
 shalled against her territory in Germany or Japan, 
 when lies and deceits are even now being marshalled 
 against her soul in Washington and on Governor's 
 Island? Our real foes are of our own household 
 those men who, from motives however worthy, would 
 lead America out of the trodden paths of fraternity 
 and peace, into the treacherous ways of blood and iron. 
 Once let the policy of armaments get fastened upon 
 this Republic, and our mission as a nation is at an end. 
 No longer shall we be a people of ideas. On the con- 
 trary, we shall be a people of wealth, power, dominion, 
 glory a people who measure their greatness by the 
 territory they occupy or the trade they own, and not 
 by the ideals of the spirit which they serve. In becom- 
 ing an empire we shall lose that brotherhood which has 
 long been the hope of a disordered world. In becoming 
 a " great power " we shall sacrifice that democracy 
 which long has been the open door of opportunity to
 
 348 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 mankind. In gaining the whole world, we shall lose 
 our own soul die as Athens died, Rome died, Spain 
 died ! Here is a conquest to be feared in very earnest 
 a conquest beside which the bombardment of cities 
 and the ravaging of territory are as nothing. If I had 
 to choose between having America's soil over-run from 
 end to end by the triumphant legions of Von Hinden- 
 burg, and having her soil untouched by the foot of the 
 invader, but her soul at the same time surrendered to 
 the gospel of Treitschke and Bernhardi, I would un- 
 hesitatingly choose the former fate. For nothing is 
 lost, if the soul is safe ; and nothing is safe, if the soul 
 is lost. And it is just because our militarists, on the 
 specious plea of saving our shores from invasion, are 
 doing nothing more nor less than opening the soul of 
 America to a peril of conquest of this kind, that, in 
 spite of their sincerity, they are to be so greatly feared. 
 
 To keep America faithful to her ideals to help 
 her at this crisis of temptation, to preserve her soul 
 inviolate this is the highest duty of the present hour. 
 And this duty has a purpose which far transcends the 
 selfish interests of the American people themselves. 
 For why is it the duty of America to preserve her 
 ideals, if not that she may transmit these ideals to the 
 world? "America," said the great Belgian statesman, 
 Henri LaFontaine, in an address at Baltimore in 1911, 
 "has to liberate Europe from its burdens, its preju- 
 dices, its hatreds. It is your duty, it is your highest
 
 THE DUTY OF AMERICA TO-DAY 349 
 
 duty, to reconcile outside your borders the people you 
 have reconciled within your borders. For indeed the 
 American people ... is the elect people which can 
 alone transform all of the peoples of the earth into a 
 family of nations, a brotherhood of men." 
 
 In such a conception as this do we see what is the 
 duty of America to " conquer Europe," as President 
 Jordan has put it, not by force of arms, but by force 
 of ideas ! And when was there such an opportunity to 
 fulfil this duty as at this hour of world agony? When 
 did America's ideas of brotherhood and democracy 
 ever appear more lovely than they do to-day? And 
 when will the people of the earth be more ready to ac- 
 cept them than at the moment when they lay down their 
 blood-stained arms and seek the ways of peace? It 
 seems as though this war were a kind of terrible purg- 
 ing of the ancient world, in preparation for the com- 
 ing of the modern world. And yet there are those who 
 would fling away this God-given opportunity for fear 
 that some material disaster may come upon this na- 
 tion ! Not thus, we may be sure, will America be de- 
 stroyed. Let her put her trust not in arms, but in the 
 ideals which are the peculiar possession of her people, 
 and she will live forever, like " the tree of life " whose 
 " leaves are for the healing of the nations." But let 
 her abandon those ideals, and seek security not in love 
 but in power, and verily her days, like the days of 
 every empire, will be numbered. 
 
 "How long, Good Angel, O how long?" asks the 
 poet, Sidney Lanier, in his Centennial Cantata. How
 
 350 
 
 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 long shall beloved America endure? List how the 
 Angel speaks ! 
 
 Long as thine Art shall love true love, 
 Long as thy Science truth shall know, 
 Long as thine Eagle harms no Dove, 
 Long as thy Law by law shall grow, 
 Long as thy God is God above, 
 Thy brother every man below, 
 So long, dear land of all my love, 
 Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE one supreme text book of non-resistance is the 
 Bible. In scattered narratives in Genesis, Samuel, 
 Kings, in the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and 
 Micah, in the four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, and 
 certain of the Catholic Epistles, are to be found a rich 
 treasury of non-resistance ideas and ideals. 
 
 Other so-called sacred literatures are likewise to be 
 noted, especially those of Tao-ism and Buddhism. A 
 useful collection of important passages can be found in 
 Moncure D. Conway's Sacred Anthology. 
 
 To these ancient religious writings must be added 
 the literature associated with Bahaism. Few nobler 
 utterances on peace have been produced in any age 
 than those which may be found in the Tablets of Baha 
 o'llah and Abdul Baha. 
 
 Certain of the more important books and essays 
 bearing on the subject of non-resistance, or the more 
 radical ideas of peace, are as follows : 
 
 Angell, Norman America and the New World State. 
 Angell, Norman Arms and Industry. 
 
 Angell, Norman The Great Illusion. 
 
 351
 
 352 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Anonymous How Diplomats Make War. 
 
 Babson, R. W. The Future of World Peace. 
 
 Ballou, Adin Christian Non-Resistance. 
 
 Brailsford, H. N. The War of Steel and Gold. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu Thoughts and Things at Home and 
 Abroad. 
 
 Buxton, C. R., et al. Towards a, Lasting Settlement. 
 
 Child, Lydia Maria Letters. 
 
 Conway, Moncure D. Essays and Addresses. 
 
 Crane, Frank War and World Government. 
 
 Crile, George W. A Mechanistic View of War and 
 Peace. 
 
 Crosby, Ernest Garrison the Non-Resistant. 
 
 Darrow, Clarence Non-Resistance. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo Lecture on War. 
 
 Erasmus The Plea of Reason, Religion, and Human- 
 ity Against War. 
 
 Fiske, John The Destiny of Man. 
 
 Fox, George Journals. 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd Life, by his children. 
 
 Gulick, S. L. The Fight for Peace. 
 
 Hobson, J. A. Towards International Government. 
 
 Howe, Frederic C. Why War? 
 
 Hull, William I. Preparedness. 
 
 Hunter, Robert Violence and the Labour Movement. 
 
 James, William The Moral Equivalent of War. 
 
 Jefferson, Charles E. Christianity and International 
 Peace. 
 
 Jordan, David Starr America's Conquest of Europe. 
 
 Jordan, David Starr The Human Harvest.
 
 APPENDIX 853 
 
 Jordan, David Starr War's Aftermath. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel Eternal Peace. 
 
 Lynch, Frederick The Last War. 
 
 Lynch, Frederick The Peace Problem. 
 
 Lynch, Frederick Through Europe on the Eve of 
 
 War. 
 
 M acKaye, Percy A Substitute for War. 
 Marshall, H. R. War and the Ideal of Peace. 
 Mitchell, P. C. Evolution and the War. 
 Nasmyth, G. W. Social Progress and the Darwinian 
 
 Theory. 
 
 Perris, G. W. War and Peace. 
 Holland, Remain Above the Battle. 
 Ruskin, John War. 
 
 Russell, Bertrand Justice in War Time. 
 Spencer, Herbert Principles of Sociology. 
 Sumner, Charles The True Grandeur of Nations. 
 Tolstoi, Leo Bethink Yourselves! 
 Tolstoi, Leo Confessions. 
 Tolstoi, Leo My Religion. 
 Walling, William E. Socialists and the War. 
 Wilson, William E. Christ and War. 
 
 in 
 
 In recent years a remarkable series of imaginative 
 works on the subject of non-resistance have been pro- 
 duced. Some of these are as follows: 
 
 Brownell, Atherton The Unseen Empire.
 
 354 NEW WARS FOR OLD 
 
 Copley, Frank The Impeachment of President 
 
 Israels. 
 
 Crosby, Ernest Swords and Ploughshares. 
 Dix, Beulah Marie Moloch. 
 Galsworthy, John The Mob. 
 Kennedy, Charles Rann The Terrible Meek. 
 Newton, W. D. War. 
 
 Noyes, Alfred A Belgian Christmas Eve. 
 Noyes, Alfred Rada (the above in its original 
 
 form). 
 
 Noyes, Alfred The Wine-Press. 
 Trask, Katrina In the Vanguard. 
 Von Ende, Amelia The Wages of War. 
 Wentworth, Marion C. War Brides. 
 Zangwill, Israel The War God.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abdul Baha, 247, 248, 351 
 
 Acts, quoted, 177 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 102, 253; 
 letter to Pres. Monroe on 
 preparedness, 102 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 133 
 
 Adler, Felix, 316; quoted, 315 
 
 Agamemnon, 115 
 
 Ahaz, 107, 156, 214 
 
 Albert, King, 134 
 
 Alexander VI, Pope, 61, 214 
 
 Alexander the Great, 20, 107 
 
 Alexandria, library of, burned, 
 280 
 
 Alfred, King, 190 
 
 Alliances, relation to problem 
 of security, 14 
 
 Allies, the, 289 
 
 America (United States), 49, 
 216, 219, 246, 254, 265, 287, 
 290, 291, 292, 329, 331, 334; 
 unprotected boundary line 
 between, and Canada, 253; 
 true defence of, 290, 346; 
 and patriotism, 292; duty 
 and opportunity of, to-day, 
 327-350; crisis facing, 329; 
 lessons taught to, by Great 
 War, 331; Belgium con- 
 trasted with, 332; and pre- 
 paredness, 332-342; im- 
 pregnable to attack, 338; 
 two ideals of, internation- 
 alism, 342, and democracy, 
 344; real foes of, inside in- 
 stead of outside, 317; des- 
 tiny of, 348; conquest of 
 Europe by, 349 ; " How 
 long, Good Angel, O, how 
 long," 350 
 
 Anarchy, the logic of force, 54 
 
 Ancien Reylme, 274 
 
 Angell, Norman, 11; quoted, 
 105. 
 
 Antediluvian monsters, extinc- 
 tion of, 75 
 
 Anthony, Susan B., 215 
 
 Anti-slavery struggle, 133, 203, 
 288 
 
 Antoninus Pius, 57 
 
 Antwerp, 104 
 
 Armenians, persecutions of, 
 245 
 
 Aristotle, 301, 310, 319; de- 
 fence of war by, 301-303 
 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin, quoted, 
 153 (note) 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 146 
 
 Asquith, Mr., 267 
 
 Assyria, 99, 103; war against 
 Ahaz, 158 
 
 Athenian democracy, death of, 
 through war, 315 
 
 Athens, 109, 255, 281; after 
 Persian Wars, 109 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus, 10, 60, 62, 
 273; character of, 56; work 
 of, as emperor, 56; wars 
 of, 57; persecution of 
 Christians by, 58; explana- 
 tion of, 59; illustration of 
 dangers involved in use of 
 force, 61 
 
 Australia, 91, 287, 343; part of, 
 in Great War, 91 
 
 Austria, 63, 100, 267, 286, 329 
 
 B 
 
 Bab, the, 247 
 Babylonia, 103 
 Bach, 108 
 
 355
 
 356 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Baha o'llah, 247, 248, 351; 
 quoted on patriotism, 292 
 
 Bahaism, 244, 351 
 
 Bahaists, 244, 252; persecutions 
 of, in Turkey, 244-248; 
 compared with early Chris- 
 tians, 247 
 
 Bakounin, 95, 205 
 
 Balkans, the, 15 
 
 Ballou, Adin, quoted, 169, 182 
 
 Barclay, Robert, Quaker, 238 
 
 Bastile, the, 130 
 
 Baur, F. C., 108 
 
 Bebel, 95, 249 
 
 Beethoven, 108 
 
 Belgium, 15, 23, 63, 102, 265, 
 285, 286, 288, 331, 333, 339, 
 341, 346; not unprepared, 
 104; devastation of, 133, 
 279; contrasted with Amer- 
 ica, 332 
 
 Berlioz, 290 
 
 Bernhardi, General, 22, 75, 77, 
 81, 82, 106, 155, 164, 265, 
 306, 309, 320, 348; quoted, 
 
 9, 74 
 
 Bethmann-Hollweg, von, 134 
 Bible, the, 187, 188; quoted, 9, 
 
 10, 28, 30, 32, 36, 40, 41, 
 116, 118, 121, 135, 138, 139, 
 159, 163, 164, 166, 178, 179, 
 212, 219, 226, 259, 329 
 
 Bismarck, 108; struggle against 
 socialism, 249, 250, 252, 
 254 
 
 Bienvenu, Bishop (see Les 
 Miserables) 
 
 Black Death, the, 274 
 
 Black Hundreds, 89 
 
 Bloch, de, 11 
 
 Bomba atrocities, 93 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 4, 20, 
 103, 131, 266; cost of, to 
 France, 281; conquest of 
 Germany by, 289 
 
 Boston, 338* 
 
 Brennus, the Gaul, Rome cap- 
 tured by, 125, 127 
 
 Bright, John, quoted, 68 
 
 Brown, John, 202; Emerson's 
 attitude toward, 202; Gar- 
 rison's attitude toward, 
 204; Whittier's attitude 
 toward, 204 
 
 Browning, Robert, quoted, 200 
 
 Brook Farm, 201 
 
 Buddha, 10, 155; quoted, 142, 
 151, 154; a non-resistant, 
 150-155; life of, 150; 
 teachings of, 151; com- 
 pared with Lao-tse and 
 Jesus, 153; anticipation of 
 evolution, 154; faith of, 
 214 
 
 Buddhism, 173, 351; a religion 
 of pity, 151; no applica- 
 tion to social problems, 
 153 
 
 Buddhists, 173 
 
 Bulwer-Lytton, quoted, 134 
 
 Bunker Hill, code of, 204 
 
 Byron, Lord, 207 
 
 Caiaphas, 61, 215 
 
 California, 336 
 
 Calvary, 168, 207 
 
 Calvin, John, 11; in the begin- 
 ning a non-resistant, 195; 
 burning of Servetus by, 
 196 
 
 Canada, 287; part of, in the 
 Great War, 91, 254, 255; 
 disarmament with Amer- 
 ica, 102 ; unprotected 
 boundary line of, 253 
 
 Capital punishment, failure of, 
 88; denounced by Lao-tse, 
 149 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, quoted on 
 war, 278 
 
 Carthage, contribution to civ- 
 ilisation by, 107 
 
 Cathari, Medieval non-resist- 
 ant sect, 188
 
 INDEX 
 
 357 
 
 Catholics, Irish, 244 
 
 Catiline, 130; conspiracy 
 against Rome, 129 
 
 Cato, 107 
 
 Cavaliers, English, 132, 197, 
 272 
 
 Celsus, 214 
 
 Chaldea, 106, 255 
 
 Charlemagne, 103; conquest of 
 Saxony by, 185 
 
 Charles I, 197 
 
 Charles V, 103, 195, 214 
 
 Charles XII, 103 
 
 Chartist riots, 93, 95 
 
 Chicago, 336, 338; fire, 274 
 
 Child, Lydia Maria, a non-re- 
 sistant, 204 
 
 Children, failure of force in 
 care and training of, 85 
 
 China, example of non-resist- 
 ance in national life, 255- 
 258 
 
 Chinese, contrasted with Quak- 
 ers, 257, 258 
 
 Chivalry, 318 
 
 Christianity, 8, 12, 24, 173, 194, 
 206; under Marcus Aure- 
 lius, 58-60; failure of, to 
 stop the Great War, 128; 
 non-resistant, 177; as ex- 
 emplified by early Chris- 
 tians, 179; its corruption 
 by the Empire, 184; disap- 
 pearance of non-resistance 
 from, 184; heretical sects 
 of, 186-191; saved by Mar- 
 tel, 274 
 
 Christians, 173, 206; early, 59, 
 179, 259; persecutions of, 
 by Aurelius, 59-61, 62, 
 273; by Nero, 271; success 
 against Rome, 132; non- 
 resistants, 179-183; Baha- 
 ists compared with, 247 
 
 Church fathers, 10; quoted on 
 non-resistance, 180-183 
 
 Cicero, 130; opposition to Cati- 
 line, 129 
 
 Civil War (see War) 
 
 Civilisation, 4, 109, 257; its 
 possible ruin by the Great 
 War, 4; recent progress 
 toward, 6; failure of, 36; 
 war fatal to, 107, 281; 
 flourishes not because, but 
 in spite, of war, 109; 
 Chinese, 256; Ruskin's ar- 
 gument of war's contribu- 
 tion to, 303 
 
 Clifford, Dr. John, 126 
 
 Coit, Dr. Stanton, 335 
 
 Coligny, Admiral, 290 
 
 Colonial government, failure of 
 force in, 90 
 
 Colorado, prison system in, 89, 
 219 
 
 Commune, 93 
 
 Concord School of Philosophy, 
 201 
 
 Confucius, 10, 144; meeting 
 with Lao-tse, 144; com- 
 pared with Lao-tse, 145, 
 148, 150 
 
 Connecticut, colony of, 239 
 
 Constitution, the American, 
 290 
 
 Conway, Moncure D., Sacred 
 Anthology by, 351 
 
 Cramb, Professor J. A., 22, 
 106, 164, 310, 314, 319, 320, 
 322, 323; defence of war, 
 306-309 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 132, 197, 271, 
 272 
 
 Crown Prince, the German, 
 267 
 
 Crusades, the, 185, 274 
 
 D 
 
 D'Alembert, 131 
 
 Damien, Father, 319 
 
 Danton, 131 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 80, 154, 290 
 
 David. King, 107, 204 
 
 Debs, Eugene, 86
 
 358 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 
 the American, 290; quoted, 
 
 46, 47 
 
 Declaration of Paris, the, 339 
 Defence (see also Force), 
 
 equivalent to aggression, 
 
 62 
 Democracy, 344; and America, 
 
 345 
 
 Demosthenes, 306 
 Deuteronomy, quoted, 121 
 Diderot, 131 
 Diet of Worms, 195 
 Dix, Dorothea, 201 
 Domestic relations, failure of 
 
 force in, 84 
 Drake, Prof. Durant, quoted on 
 
 war, 287 
 Drummond, Henry, 80; quoted 
 
 on evolution, 25, 82 
 Dymond, Jonathan, 237 
 
 E 
 
 Eckhart, Meister, 108 
 
 Egypt, 103, 106, 255, 304; part 
 of, in Great War, 91 
 
 Ellis Island, 342 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 
 quoted, 34, 136, 216, 221, 
 227, 340; teachings on non- 
 resistance, 201; change in 
 thought, 202; on John 
 Brown, 202 
 
 Engels, 95 
 
 England, 3, 15, 90, 100, 105, 
 139, 253, 267, 272, 279, 283, 
 286, 290, 291, 292, 309, 329, 
 339, 342; government of 
 colonies by, 90; in days of 
 Elizabeth, 109; Civil Wars 
 in, 271 ; symbol of libertv, 
 342 
 
 Epistles, of Paul, 351; Catho- 
 lic, 351 
 
 Erasmus, 132, 197; a non-re- 
 sistant, 196 
 
 Erskine, Prof. John, quoted, 
 268 
 
 Evolution (see also Struggle 
 for Survival, Struggle for 
 Life of Others, Mutual 
 Aid, etc.), force as factor 
 in, 19, 74, 75; love as fac- 
 tor in, 26, 76, 79, 80; man 
 in, 81 ; part of brain devel- 
 opment in, 109; anticipa- 
 tion of, by Buddha, 154 
 
 Exodus, quoted, 121 
 
 Fell, Leonard, Quaker, 238 
 
 Fichte, 108, 289 
 
 "Fifty-four forty or fight," 
 254 
 
 Fiske, John, 80; quoted, 2, 27; 
 on Aristotle, 301 
 
 Force (see also War, Non-Re- 
 sistance, etc.), doctrine of, 
 19; as related to struggle 
 for survival, 19, 20; part 
 in evolution, 19, 21; al- 
 leged moral justification 
 of, 20; as a new code of 
 morals, 24; as related to 
 problem of international 
 peace, 22, 29, 98; to prob- 
 lem of security, 23, 30, 
 102; to problem of ideals, 
 24, 106; appeal to, the 
 cause of fear and insecur- 
 ity, 31 ; challenge of ideal- 
 ism to, 34; logic of, 39-65, 
 64; presumption against, 
 35, 39; failure of as a 
 working principle, 35, 110, 
 113, 133, 222, 224, 240, 242, 
 244; burden of proof on 
 advocates of, 41; a parable 
 of, 43; straight road to an- 
 archy, 44, 54; conditions 
 alleged to justify use of, 
 45, 55, 70; use of against 
 oppression, 45; as last re- 
 sort only, 46; dangers of, 
 52, 54; use of in defence of
 
 INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 property or life, 55, 58, 
 223-225; dangers of, 60, 
 61, 71; defensive use of 
 equivalent to aggression, 
 62; dangers of described 
 as argument for regulation 
 only, 69; analogy to fire, 
 69, explosives, 70, poisons, 
 70; fallacies of, 72-110, 
 224; evolutionary argu- 
 ment against efficacy of, 
 73; its part in domestic 
 relations, 84; in treatment 
 of children, 85, in indus- 
 trial relations, 86, in prison 
 administration, 87, in po- 
 litical relations, 89, in 
 colonial government, 91, in 
 struggles for liberty, 92; 
 Shelley on, 93; repudia- 
 tion of, by socialists, 95, 
 205; described and de- 
 nounced by Buddha as 
 root of all evil, 152; re- 
 pudiation of, by Isaiah, 156- 
 160, by Jesus, 168, 171, by 
 Paul, 179, by Tertullian, 
 181, by Lactantius, 181, 
 by Cathari, 188, by Wal- 
 denses, 189, by Wycliffe 
 and the Lollards, 190, by 
 Moravians, 191, by St. 
 Francis and his Order, 
 191, by Erasmus, 196, by 
 Quakers, 197, by Tran- 
 scendentalists (Emerson, 
 Garrison, Whittier, etc.), 
 201 ; only weapon for cow- 
 ards or those who hate 
 their fellows, 227; neces- 
 sary uses of, 262 
 
 Fox, George, 11, 198; quoted, 
 198; fidelity to non-re- 
 sistance, 197 
 
 France, 3, 63, 93, 102, 105, 139, 
 254, 272, 286, 290, 313, 315, 
 329, 331, 333, 340, 341 ; and 
 the Revolution, 130 
 
 Francis, St., 10, 206; a non-re- 
 sistant, 191-193; life of, 
 191; Order of, 192-193 
 
 Franciscans, 194; relation to 
 non-resistance, 191 
 
 Frederick the Great, 103, 108; 
 quoted, 12 
 
 French Revolution, the, 92, 98, 
 130 
 
 Friends (see Quakers) 
 
 Galahad, Sir, 317 
 
 Galicia, 63, 279 
 
 Garrison, William Lloyd, 
 quoted, 112; battle of, 
 against slavery, 133; 
 mobbed, 137; a non-re- 
 sistant, 203-204; on John 
 Brown, 204; how practi- 
 cal was he? 215 
 
 Gaspte, schooner, burned, 49 
 
 Genesis, 351 
 
 George III, 48, 61 
 
 George V, 91 
 
 Germany, 3, 63, 100, 139, 254, 
 255, 267, 279, 285, 288, 290, 
 291, 292, 309, 313, 315, 329, 
 340, 346, 347; culture of, 
 before 1870, 108; after 
 1870, 108; influence of 
 militarism upon, 108; over- 
 run by Napoleon, 289; in- 
 vasion of Belgium by, 339; 
 symbol of learning, 342 
 
 Gethsemane, Garden of, 127, 
 171 
 
 Gettysburg, Lincoln's Address 
 at, 342 
 
 Gideon, 204 
 
 Gilder, Richard Watson, 
 quoted, 296 
 
 Gneisenau, 108 
 
 Goethe, 289 
 
 Golden Rule, the, 261 
 
 Good Will (see Love, Non-Re- 
 sistance, etc.)
 
 360 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gospels, the, 351 
 
 Government, failure of force 
 
 in, 89 
 
 Governor's Island, 347 
 Greece, extinction of ancient, 
 
 281; conquered by Rome, 
 
 289; symbol of beauty, 341, 
 
 345 
 
 H 
 
 Hague Conferences, 7, 12 
 
 Hamlet, 221 
 
 Harper's Ferry, 202 
 
 Hawaii, 334 
 
 Hay, John, quoted, 344 
 
 Haydn, 108 
 
 Haywood, William, 205 
 
 Heine, 108 
 
 Henry, mile, terrorist, 38 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 52, 53, 133; 
 quoted on violence, 48, 51 
 
 Heracleitus, compared with 
 Lao-tse, 144 
 
 Herder, 108 
 
 Hezekiah, 107, 159, 160, 214 
 
 Higginson, T. W., 204 
 
 Hindenberg, von, 20, 348 
 
 Hohenzollerns, 249 
 
 Holbach, 131 
 
 Holley, Horace, quoted on 
 Bahaists, 248 (note) 
 
 Homestead riots, 93 
 
 Hopedale, 201 
 
 Horace, Odes of, 289 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward, quoted, 21 
 
 Howe, Dr. Samuel G., 201 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 118, 136, 290 
 
 Human Sacrifice, compared 
 with war, 273, 283 
 
 Hunter, Robert, 133 (note), 
 quoted on pacifism in the 
 labor movement, 95, 96; 
 on German socialists, 250 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor, resi- 
 dence destroyed, 49 
 
 Huxley, Thomas, quoted, 26 
 
 Idealism, problem of, 16; and 
 the doctrine of force, 24, 
 106; and the doctrine of 
 non-resistance, 32, 34, 211- 
 214; as practised, 214; 
 war defended on basis of, 
 306; as illustrated by Capt. 
 Scott, 307; American, 334, 
 341, 345 
 
 India, part of, in Great War, 
 91 
 
 Indians, of Utah, 229, peace- 
 ful relations of, with 
 Quakers in Pennsylvania, 
 239; savagery of, in other 
 colonies, 239 
 
 International Court of Arbi- 
 tration, 297 
 
 Internationalism, 292, 342; and 
 patriotism, 291; and Amer- 
 ica, 345 
 
 Ireland, rebellion in, 243 
 
 Isaiah, 9, 10, 30, 107, 212, 336; 
 quoted, 110, 159; a non- 
 resistant, 155-161; as a 
 statesman, 155; advice to 
 Ahaz, 157; to Hezekiah, 
 159; Renan's characteriza- 
 tion of, 161; faith of, 214 
 
 Isaiah, Deutero-, 107 
 
 Israel, captivity of, 107 
 
 Italy, 93, 96, 291, 329 
 
 I. W. W., 205 
 
 James, William, quoted on war, 
 320; on substitutes for 
 war, 324 
 
 Janissaries, 89 
 
 Japan, 347 
 
 Jaures, 95 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 133 
 
 Jeremiah, 107 
 
 Jerusalem, fall of, 107; saved 
 from Sennacherib, 160
 
 INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 Jesus, 27, 61, 114, 117, 119, 
 132, 133, 137, 154, 135, 
 179, 189, 204, 206, 207, 212, 
 215, 236; quoted, 10, 28, 32, 
 105, 135, 163, 164, 166, 259, 
 276; on "resist not evil," 
 115-123; as a passive re- 
 sistant, 127, 128; Lao-tse 
 compared with, 148; Bud- 
 dha compared with, 153; 
 a non-resistant, 161-172; on 
 " wars and rumors of 
 wars," 163; on "not peace 
 but a sword," 164; on "he 
 that hath no sword, let 
 him . . . buy one," 167; 
 cleansing the Temple, 169; 
 the spirit of his life, 170; 
 supreme sacrifice of, 171; 
 influence of, 172, 179; 
 faith of, 214; and woman 
 taken in adultery, 237 
 
 Jews, 173, 206; a non-militaris- 
 tic people, 107; survival of, 
 107; two episodes in his- 
 tory of, 156-160 
 
 John, St., 204; quoted, 138 
 
 Jones, " Golden Rule," quoted, 
 261 
 
 Jordan, David Starr, quoted, 
 266, 343, 349; on ideals of 
 America, 342 
 
 Joshua, 204 
 
 Judaism, 173 
 
 Justin Martyr, 59; quoted on 
 non-resistance, 180; faith 
 of, 214 
 
 Justinian, Laws of, 289 
 
 K 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska struggle, 202; 
 
 Emerson's attitude toward, 
 
 202 
 Kant, Immanuel, 108, 289, 298, 
 
 quoted, 264 
 Kennedy, Charles Rann, quoted, 
 
 133 
 
 Kimball, J. C., quoted, 75 
 
 Kings, I and II, 351 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard, quoted, 26, 
 
 105, 267 
 Kropotkin, Prince, 80 
 
 Labor, international organiza- 
 tion of, 12; and capital, 
 86; failure of force in dis- 
 putes of, 86, revolts of 
 against oppression, 93 
 
 Lactantius, quoted on non-re- 
 sistance, 181 
 
 La Fontaine, Henri, quoted on 
 America's destiny, 348 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 321 
 
 Lanier, Sydney, quoted, 349 
 
 Lao-tse, 10, 154, 155; quoted, 
 148; a non-resistant, 143- 
 150; life of, 144; meeting 
 of, with Confucius, 144; 
 teachings of, 145, 147; 
 compared with Confucius, 
 145, 148, 150, with Jesus, 
 148; Buddha compared 
 with, 153 
 
 Last Supper, the, 166 
 
 Lawson, John, 93 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., quoted on 
 Marcus Aurelius, 56, 59 
 
 Lee, Robert E., 287 
 
 Leibnitz, 108 
 
 Les Miserables, 118, 136 
 
 Leviticus, quoted, 121 
 
 Liberator, the, 133, 204 
 
 Liebknecht, 95, 249; quoted on 
 German socialism, 252 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 215, 287, 
 290, 344; quoted 276, 342 
 
 Lindsey, Judge Ben, 219 
 
 Livingstone, David, 228 
 
 Livy, 10; quoted, 45 
 
 Lollards, the, Medieval non-re- 
 sistants, 190, 194 
 
 London, the Great Fire of, 274 
 
 Lorenzo, of Florence, 214
 
 362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Louisiana, 336 
 
 Louvain, University of, burned, 
 280 
 
 Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 
 133 (note), 229, 299 
 
 Love (see also Non-Resist- 
 ance), law of, 27; as crown 
 of non-resistance, 27-28, 
 135; efficaciousness of, 136- 
 138; taught by Lao-tse, 
 149, by Buddha, 153, by 
 Jesus, 170, by St. Francis, 
 192; stronger than physical 
 force, 219; "never faileth," 
 226 
 
 Ludlow, massacre at, 87, 93 
 
 Lusitania, sinking of, 265, 268 
 
 Luther, Martin, 11, 132, 196, 
 289; in the beginning a 
 non-resistant, 194; and the 
 Peasants' War, 195; faith 
 of, 214 
 
 Lynch, Dr. Frederick, 314; 
 quoted, 7, 313 
 
 M 
 
 Maccabees, the, 107 
 
 Macedonia, 107, 255; contribu- 
 tion to history, 107 
 
 McNamaras, the 54, 87 
 
 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 134 
 
 Mahan, Admiral, 65 
 
 Man, part of, in evolution, 81; 
 combativeness of, 82 
 
 Manchuria, 213, 216 
 
 Mann, Horace, 201 
 
 Mann, Tom, 86 
 
 Marat, 131 
 
 Marathon, battle of, 273 
 
 Mark, Gospel of, quoted, 163 
 
 Marston Moor, battle of, 133 
 
 Martel, Charles, 273 
 
 Martineau, James, 301 
 
 Martyr nation, the, 32 
 
 Marx, Karl, 95, 96 
 
 Maryland, colony, 239 
 
 Masefield, John, 267 
 
 of Anarchy, Shelley's, 
 quoted, 93 
 
 Massachusetts, 336; colony of, 
 239 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, 116; 
 quoted, 164 
 
 Maximilian, an early Christian 
 non-resistant, 182 
 
 Mercier, Cardinal, 134 
 
 Mexico, 40, 227 
 
 Middle Ages, the, 3, 10, 99, 
 186, 190, 304, 318 
 
 Might makes right, 69 
 
 Militants, Suffrage, defended 
 as victims of oppression, 
 50; driven to violence as 
 last resort, 51 
 
 Militarism (see also Force, 
 Preparedness, etc.), fall of 
 nations through, 103; guar- 
 antee of insecurity and 
 death, 104; fatal influence 
 of, on ancient civilizations, 
 106; part of, in history of 
 Sparta, Macedonia, Carth- 
 age and Rome, 107; and 
 modern Germany, 108; 
 passing of, in favor of in- 
 dustrialism, 110; Prussian, 
 139; German, 272; depicted 
 as coefficient of virtue, 
 310-311 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, quoted on 
 Marcus Aurelius, 58 
 
 Milton, John, 132 
 
 Mobilisation, described by Dr. 
 Lynch, 313 
 
 Moliere, 290 
 
 Moltke, von, 108 
 
 Monroe, James, 102, 253 
 
 Montenegro, 63 
 
 Moravians, 194; non-resistants, 
 191 
 
 More, Thomas, 132; attack of, 
 on Luther, 194 
 
 Morlev, John, quoted, 34; on 
 Voltaire, 131 
 
 Mosaic Law, the, 115, 121, 189
 
 INDEX 
 
 863 
 
 Moses, 204 
 Mozart, 108 
 Munition-makers, 299 
 Mutual aid, as factor in evo- 
 lution, 26, 79 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon (see Bonaparte) 
 
 Naseby, battle of, 133 
 
 Nations, rise and fall of, 103, 
 106 
 
 Negro problem in the South, 
 54 
 
 Nero, 271 
 
 Netherlands, the, wars of, with 
 Spain, 274 
 
 New England, 242 
 
 New York, 333, 336, 338 
 
 New Zealand, part of, in 
 Great War, 91 
 
 Niebuhr, 108 
 
 Nietzsche, quoted, 24 
 
 Nineveh, 135 
 
 Non-Conformity, a form of 
 non-resistance, 124; battle 
 of against English Educa- 
 tion Bill, 126 
 
 Non-Resistance (see also Love, 
 Force, etc.), doctrine of, 
 25, 114; a summons to bat- 
 tle, 25; and evolutionary 
 struggle for survival, 26; 
 and mutual aid, 26; man's 
 progress toward, 28; and 
 the problem of peace, 29; 
 of security, 30; of idealism, 
 32; basis of, in idealism, 
 34; appeal of, to-day, 35; 
 presumption in favour of, 
 40; term a misnomer, 
 114; denned and inter- 
 preted, 115-123, 139; based 
 on "resist not evil," 115; 
 in relation to animals, 116; 
 can be applied only to hu- 
 man beings, 117; not a 
 doctrine of surrender or 
 
 cowardice, 119-122, 138, 
 225; a positive doctrine, 
 123, 225; and passive re- 
 sistance, 124-128; reason 
 and speech as agents of, 
 128-135; love as the crown 
 of, 135-138; a doctrine of 
 aggressive militancy, 139, 
 225; exemplars of, Lao-tse, 
 143-150; Buddha, 150-155, 
 Isaiah, 155-161; Jesus, 
 161-172; Stephen, 177; 
 Paul, 177-179; early Chris- 
 tians, 179-183; Medieval 
 sects; 183-191; St. Francis, 
 191-193; Erasmus, 196; 
 Quakers, 197-200; Emer- 
 son, 201-203; Garrison, 
 203; Whittier, 204; social- 
 ists, 205; Tolstoi, 206; 
 Bahaists, 247-248; practic- 
 ability of, demonstrated, 
 217-258; higher expediency 
 of, 211-216; success of, in 
 domestic relations, 218; in 
 care and training of chil- 
 dren, 218; in industrial re- 
 lations, 219; in prison re- 
 form, 219; in government, 
 219; in personal relations, 
 229; in defence of prop- 
 erty, 231-238; in defence 
 of life, 228, 236, 238-248; 
 in defence of liberty, 249- 
 252; in international rela- 
 tions, 253-255, 256-258; 
 not always successful, but 
 more so than force, 222; 
 as road to peace, 227, 230, 
 253; as means of security, 
 255, 290; as fulfilment of 
 national idealism, 256; 
 practicability of, not acci- 
 dental, 258; an application 
 of two principles, like 
 produces like, and spirit 
 is superior to flesh, 259- 
 260; necessary limitations
 
 364 
 
 INDEX 
 
 of, 261-262 (note); Amer- 
 ica defended by, 290; and 
 patriotism, 291 ; and inter- 
 nationalism, 292 
 North, Lord, 53, 272 
 Noyes, Alfred, quoted, 326 
 
 O 
 
 Gates, Titus, 323 
 
 Ohio, 336 
 
 Oliver, Andrew, house of, 
 
 burned, 49 
 Oppression, force described as 
 
 justified against, 45 
 Oregon, prison system in, 89, 
 
 219 
 
 Osborne, Thomas Mott, 88 
 Ostrogoths, 290 
 
 Pacifism (see also Non-Resist- 
 ance, Love, etc.), prob- 
 lem of, 33; folly of, an- 
 swered, 33; idealistic basis 
 of, 34; acceptance of, by 
 socialists, 95 ; non-resist- 
 ance -the extreme form of, 
 114; and early Christians, 
 182 
 
 Paine, Thomas, 133 
 
 Panama Canal, 334 
 
 Pankhurst, Mrs., 53; speech de- 
 fending use of force, 49; 
 quoted, 51, 52 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 204; quoted, 
 276 
 
 Passive Resistance, 124-127 ; 
 effectiveness of, 127-128 
 
 Passive Resistance Movement, 
 in England, 126, 128 
 
 Patriotism, true and false, 291; 
 and internationalism, 291 
 
 Paul, St., 204; quoted, 8, 10, 
 40, 153 (note), 179, 226, 
 231, 259; on non-resistance, 
 123, 139; a non-resistant, 
 177-179 
 
 Peace, international, progress 
 toward, 7; problem of, in 
 light of the Great War, 10; 
 hope of, before the War, 
 11 ; and the doctrine of 
 force, 22; and the doctrine 
 of non-resistance, 29; pre- 
 paredness for, 29; kinds of, 
 30; failure of force to 
 maintain, 98, 253; praised 
 by Lao-tse, 149; secured 
 and maintained by disarm- 
 ament in case of Canada 
 and U. S., 253-254; is it de- 
 sirable, 297-326; Kant on, 
 298; not desired by all, 299; 
 depicted as leading to de- 
 generacy, 310; if not now 
 desirable, can be made so, 
 325; first condition of re- 
 deeming, the abolition of 
 war, 325 
 
 Pekah, king of Israel, 156-158 
 
 Penn, William, 239; quoted, 
 239, 240 
 
 Pennsylvania, settled by Quak- 
 ers, 239; story of, 239-241 
 
 Pericles, 315 
 
 Persia, 255 
 
 Persecutions, of early Chris- 
 tians, 58; justified by 
 Aurelius, 60-62 ; of Cathari, 
 188; of Waldenses, 189; of 
 Moravians, 191 ; of Armeni- 
 ans, 245; of Bahaists, 247; 
 compared with war, 269, 
 283 
 
 Peter, St., 204; rebuked by 
 Jesus, 105, 168 
 
 Peter the Great, 103 
 
 Philadelphia, 338 
 
 Philip, of Macedo.1, 107 
 
 Philippine Islands, 334 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 137, 204 
 
 Phoenicia, 106 
 
 Pichee;ru, 131 
 
 Pilate", Pontius, 127, 128, 215 
 
 Plague, the Great, 274
 
 INDEX 
 
 365 
 
 Plato, 283 
 
 Pletchanoff, George, quoted, 38 
 
 Poland, 63, 102, 279 
 
 Police, civic, 262; international, 
 262 
 
 Polycarp, 59 
 
 Pomphret, John, non-resistant, 
 238 
 
 Portugal, 15 
 
 Preparedness, illusion as guar- 
 antee of security, 14; fail- 
 ure to maintain peace in 
 Europe, 29, 100; doctrine 
 of, as related to peace, 98; 
 failure throughout all his- 
 tory as means of main- 
 taining peace, 98; and the 
 Great War, 100; a supersti- 
 tion, inherited from bar- 
 barism, 101; J. Q. Adams 
 on, 102; and America, 332- 
 342; urged as result of 
 Great War, 331; forces be- 
 hind, fear, 332, interna- 
 tional distrust, 333, mater- 
 ialism, 334; opposition to, 
 based on confidence in na- 
 tural security, 337, trust in 
 power of goodwill, 339, 
 spiritual idealism, 341-345; 
 the road to death for Amer- 
 ica, 348 
 
 Prisons, failure of force in ad- 
 ministration of, 87; new 
 methods based on goodwill, 
 88; denounced by Lao-tse, 
 149 
 
 Protestantism, at first non-re- 
 sistant, 194; later corrup- 
 tion of, 194-196 
 
 Protestants, Irish, 243 
 
 Prussia, East, 279 
 
 Q 
 
 Quakers, the, 197, 208, 252, 258; 
 exemplars of non-resist- 
 ance, 197-200; in the Civil 
 
 War, 200; experience of, as 
 proof of practicability of 
 non-resistance, 238-244; in 
 Pennsylvania, 239; in Ire- 
 land, 243; Chinese con- 
 trasted with, 257 
 
 R 
 
 Radical Club, the, 201 
 
 Rainsford, Dr. William, 312 
 
 Ramsay, Dr., non-resistant, 231 
 
 Ranke, 108 
 
 Rauschenbusch, Walter, quoted 
 on use of force, 45 
 
 Reason, in non-resistance, 128- 
 133; effectiveness of, 133- 
 135 
 
 Reformation, the Protestant, 
 194, 274; early non-resist- 
 ant character of, 194 
 
 Reichstag, the German, 249 
 
 Reign of Terror, 274 
 
 Renan, Ernest, quoted on 
 Isaiah^ 161; on Jesus, 167 
 
 " Resist not Evil," its meaning, 
 115-123; relation to the 
 Mosaic code, 121; Tolstoi 
 on, 122 
 
 Revolt, the Peasants', 195, 196 
 
 Revolution, the American (see 
 War) 
 
 Revolution, the French, 92, 98, 
 130 
 
 Rezin, king of Syria, 156, 158 
 
 Rheims, cathedral of, destroyed, 
 280 
 
 Roberts, Lord, 11, 164 
 
 Robespierre, 131 
 
 Rodin, 290 
 
 Rolland, Remain, 163 
 
 Roman Empire, 3, 99, 103, 
 255, 289, 290; contribution 
 to civilization, 107; and the 
 early Christians, 179; cause 
 of fall of, 281 ; over-run by 
 barbarians, 289 
 
 Romans, Paul's epistle, quoted, 
 179
 
 366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Rome, capture of, by Brennus, 
 125-127; Catiline's con- 
 spiracy against, 129; sym- 
 bol of law, 341, 345 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 23, 117; 
 defence of war by, 300, 311 
 
 Roundheads, 197, 271, 272 
 
 Rousseau, 131 
 
 Ruskin, John, 22, 106, 310, 314, 
 319; quoted in defence of 
 war, 303-306 
 
 Russell, Bertrand, quoted on 
 non-resistance, 261-262 
 
 (note) 
 
 Russia, 3, 15, 63, 100, 104, 122, 
 213, 216, 255, 272, 288, 290, 
 329, 340 
 
 Sacrifice, law of, 32 
 
 St. Louis, 336 
 
 Samaria, fall of, 107, 156 
 
 Samuel, I and II, 351 
 
 San Francisco, 336 
 
 Sargon, king of Assyria, 159 
 
 Savonarola, 61; faith of, 214 
 
 Scharnhorst, 108 
 
 Schelling, 108 
 
 Schleiermacher, 108 
 
 Schmidt, Nathaniel, 167 
 
 Schubert, 108 
 
 Schurz, Carl, quoted on national 
 idealism, 341 
 
 Scipio, 107 
 
 Scott, Gen. Hugh L., 228 
 
 Scott, Capt. R. F., 307, 309, 
 319, 323 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 291 
 
 Sea Power, England's, 66 
 
 Security, problem of, in light 
 of the Great War, 13; 
 faith in, before the War, 
 14; and the doctrine of 
 force, 23; and the doctrine 
 of non-resistance, 30; fail- 
 ure of force to maintain, 
 102; success of non-resist- 
 
 ance in maintaining, 255- 
 257 
 
 Sellars, Richard, an heroic 
 Quaker, 198 
 
 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, 
 107, 159 
 
 Serbia, 15, 63, 279, 333 
 
 Sermon on the Mount, quoted, 
 32, 115, 151 
 
 Sharpe, Archbishop, 237 
 
 Shaw, Robert Gould, 271 
 
 Shelley, P. B., quoted, 93 
 
 Sidon, 106 
 
 Sing Sing Prison, 88 
 
 Slavery, compared with war, 
 269, 283 
 
 Socialism, 7; its repudiation of 
 violence, 95, 133; failure 
 of, to stop the Great War, 
 128 
 
 Socialists, 205, 252; as non-re- 
 sistants, 205-206, 249 ; prac- 
 ticability of non-resistance 
 proved by, 249-252; strug- 
 gle of, against Bismarck, 
 249 
 
 Socrates, 61, 259 
 
 Sorel, George, 205 
 
 South African Republic, part 
 of, in Great War, 91 
 
 Spain, 104, 225, 274, 278 
 
 Sparta, 99, 103; contribution of, 
 to civilization, 107 
 
 Speed, Joshua, friend of Lin- 
 coln, 276 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 80, 109 
 
 Stamp Act, violence caused by, 
 49 
 
 Stein, 108 
 
 Steinmetz, 309 
 
 Stephen, St., 137, 177 
 
 Stone, Lucy, 215 
 
 Strauss, 108 
 
 Struggle for life of others, in 
 evolution, 26, 80 
 
 Struggle for survival, in evolu- 
 tion, relation to doctrine 
 of force, 19; law of, super-
 
 INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 seded by law of sacrifice, 
 32; a law of nature, 73; 
 real character of, 81 ; man's 
 part in, 81 
 
 Usher, Prof. Roland G., quoted 
 preparedness, 101 ; on the 
 Quakers in Pennsylvania, 
 240; on laws of non-resist- 
 ance, 258; on America's 
 destiny, 328 
 
 Sumter, Fort, 61, 265 
 
 Supper, Last, 168 
 
 Supreme Court, the U. S., 219 
 
 Susquehannas (see Indians) 
 
 Swinburne, A. C., quoted, 135 
 
 Swiss Guards, 89 
 
 Switzerland, 313 
 
 Tacitus, 10, 30 
 
 Tao-ism, religion of Lao-tse, 
 144, 150 
 
 Tauler, 108 
 
 Tea Party, the Boston, 49 
 
 Temple, the cleansing of, 169 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred, quoted, 277 
 
 Tertullian, quoted on non-resist- 
 ance, 181 
 
 Thucydides, 10 
 
 Tiglath Pileser, 158, 159 
 
 Times, the London, 163, 213 
 
 Titanic, the, 274 
 
 Tolstoi, Leo, 216, 290; quoted, 
 34, 122, 210; on evil of war, 
 213; on "resist not evil," 
 122; a non-resistant, 206; 
 on expediency vs. duty, 212 
 
 Torquemada, 283 
 
 Transcendentalism, 201; as a 
 non-resistant movement, 
 201 
 
 Treitschke, 164, 309, 348 
 
 Tripoli, Italian war in, 15 
 
 Truce of God, 10 
 
 Trudeau, Dr., 318 
 
 Tuckerman, Joseph, 21 
 
 Turkey, 90; persecutions of 
 
 Armenians in, 245 ; persecu- 
 tions of Bahaists in, 246 
 Tyre, 106, 135 
 
 U 
 
 Ulster, and the Home Rule Bill, 
 126 
 
 Unitarianism, 201 
 
 United States of America (see 
 America) 
 
 United States of Europe, 297 
 
 Usher, Prof. Roland P., quoted 
 on impregnability of Amer- 
 ica, 338 
 
 Vaillant, August, terrorist, 38 
 
 Valjean, Jean, 136 
 
 Venice, in days of the Doges, 
 
 109 
 
 Violence (see Force) 
 Virgil, 71, 289 
 Virginia, colony of, 239, 242 
 Visigoths, 290 
 Voltaire, 12, 190; and the 
 
 French Revolution, 131 ; 
 
 Morley's characterization 
 
 of, 131 
 
 W 
 
 Waldenses, non-resistants, 189, 
 194 
 
 Waldo, Peter, 189 
 
 Wallace, A. R., on evolution, 
 109 
 
 War (see Force, non-Resistance, 
 etc.), 153, 216, 265, 299, 
 331; universal, 3; described 
 by militarists as good, 22, 
 301-311; part in destroying 
 civilization, 102, 106; de- 
 nounced by Lao-tse, 149, 
 by Isaiah, 156-160, by 
 Tertullian, 181, by Lactan- 
 tius, 181, by Justin, 183, by 
 Moravians, 191 ; forbidden
 
 368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 by St. Francis, 193; atti- 
 tude of Erasmus toward, 
 196; Quakers refuse to par- 
 ticipate in, 197-200; Emer- 
 son's change of attitude 
 toward, 201-203; Garrison's 
 repudiation of, 203; Tol- 
 stoi's denunciation of, 206; 
 is it ever justifiable, 265 
 294; on defensive to-day as 
 never before, 266; denounced 
 on general principles, 266, 
 but still justified in each 
 particular instance, 267; 
 compared with slavery and 
 persecution, 269, 283; not 
 justified by virtues engen- 
 dered by, 270, nor by mo- 
 tives behind, 271, nor by 
 goods achieved by, 273, 318; 
 life the one test of, 275-277; 
 the antithesis of life, phys- 
 ical, 278, cultural, 279, 
 spiritual, 280, 313-315; the 
 destroyer of civilizations, 
 281; never justifiable, 282- 
 284, 293; not even on behalf 
 of principle, 285 ; nor in de- 
 fence of national life, 288; 
 like practice of human sac- 
 rifice, 283; real character 
 of to-day, 286; spiritual, 
 289-291; defence of Amer- 
 ica without, 290; always a 
 crime, 293; defended by 
 Aristotle, 301, by Ruskin, 
 303, by Cramb, 306; as an 
 agent of moral redemption, 
 31 1 ; fallacies of this de- 
 fence of, 312-324; evils of, 
 basic, 312-315; goods of, 
 by-products, 316-319; goods 
 of, can be obtained in other 
 ways, 321-323; new for old, 
 324; abolition of, 325 
 War, the Great, 12, 15, 172, 
 205, 246, 265, 331 ; universal 
 character of, 3; possible 
 
 destruction of Europe, 
 by, 4; fundamental prob- 
 lem involved in, 5, 9, 19; a 
 reversion to first moral 
 principles, 8, 18; problems 
 precipitated by, 10, 13, 16; 
 interpreted as defensive by 
 all combatants, 63; proves 
 fallacies of force, 73, 100; 
 lesson of, on question of 
 preparedness, 100; on ques- 
 tion of national security, 
 102; might have been pre- 
 vented by Christians and 
 socialists, 128; "a found- 
 ling," 266; justified by 
 most Americans, 272; not a 
 war for principle, 286; 
 scenes attending outbreak 
 of, 313; "the last war," 
 297; lessons for Amer- 
 ica, 331 
 
 Wars, the American Civil, 92, 
 200, 201, 202, 271, 272, 274, 
 281, 299; not inevitable, 288 
 the American Revolutionary, 
 54, 56, 90, 92, 133, 271, 272, 
 274, 285, 298, 338; illustra- 
 tion of use of force against 
 oppression, 47; as the last 
 resort, 48; logic of, 54; un- 
 necessary, 287 
 the Austrian of 1866, 99 
 the Boer, 100 
 the Crimean, 99 
 the Danish of 1864, 99 
 the English Civil, 271 
 the Franco-Prussian, 99, 315 
 the French and Indian, 47 
 the Italian, of Liberation, 99 
 the Napoleonic, 108 
 the Persian, 109 
 the Russio-Japanese, 100 
 the Russio-Turkish, 99 
 the Spanish-American, 99 
 the Thirty Years, 4, 315 
 the Turko-Grecian, 100 
 Washington, George, quoted on
 
 INDEX 369 
 
 preparedness, 98 Whittier, J. G., quoted, 208; a 
 Wells, H. G., quoted on modern non-resistant, 204; on John 
 
 warfare, 5; on possible col- Brown, 204 
 
 lapse of civilization, 164, Wilson, Woodrow, 265 
 
 282, 297 Wolf, 108 
 
 Whitlock, Brand, 261 (note) Wollstonecraft, Mary, 215 
 
 Whitman, Walt, quoted on war, Woman taken in adultery, 236 
 
 284 Wycliffe, John, 190, 191

 
 A 000 7541362