6. Some think that one can order the life of others only by force, yet force brings no order into human life, but only disorder.
7. Only he who does not believe in God can believe that men, who are of his own kind, may order his life so as to make it better.
8. The delusion that man can order the life of others is all the more dreadful because under this belief the less moral a man is the more highly he is esteemed.
9. The existing order is sustained not by force, but by public opinion. Force violates public opinion. Therefore, force weakens and undermines that which it would sustain.
10. When men say that all should live in peace, that no one should be injured, yet use force to compel people to live according to their will, it is as though they said: do as we say, but not as we do. Such men may be feared, but they cannot be trusted.
11. As long as men are unable to withstand the temptations of fear, intoxication, covetousness, ambition and vanity, which enslaves some and deprave others, they will always form a society of deceivers and users of force on the one hand, and of victims of deceit and force on the other. To avoid this, moral effort is required on the part of every man. Men realize this in the depth of their own hearts, but they seek to attain without a moral effort that which can be attained only through a moral effort.
To determine by you own effort your attitude to the world, and to maintain it, to establish your attitude to man on the basis of the eternal principle of doing unto others as you would that others do unto you, to subjugate those evil passions within that enslave us to other people, to be no man's master, no man's slave, not to pretend, not to lie, not to recede for fear of favor from the demands of the highest law of your conscience—all this requires effort. But if you imagine that the establishment of some kind of order will in some mysterious manner lead all men, including myself, to attain justice and all sorts of virtues, and, if in order to attain them, you repeat—without mental effort—what the men of some one party choose to say, if you hustle, argue, lie, dissemble, quarrel, fight—^all these things come of their own accord and require no effort. And now comes the doctrine of bettering our social life by means of a change of external orders. According to this doctrine men can attain without effort the fruits of effort. This doctrine has been and is responsible for terrible misery and more than anything else holds back the true progress of mankind towards perfection.
The Use of Force in Combating Evil is Inadmissible, Because the Conception of Evil Varies with
Different People
1. It would seem to be clear beyond a doubt that since every one has a different conception of evil, to fight what various people consider evil with another evil, would serve to increase evil rather than to diminish it. If John considers that which is done by Peter as evil, and he thinks it right to do evil to Peter, Peter may with the same right do evil to John, and thus evil can be only increased.
It is marvelous that m«n should understand the relations between stars and fail to understand this simple truth. Why is it so ? Because men believe in the beneficial effect of force.
2. If I may by the use of force compel one man to do that which I believe to be good, even so can another man by force compel me to do that which he thinks is good, although our ideas of what is good may be entirely contrary to one another.
3. The doctrine that man may not and must not use force for the sake of that which he considers good, is fair if alone for the reastm that the ideas of good and evil differ with all men. That which one man considers evil may be an imaginary evil (some people may consider it good); but the force used for the sake of destroying this evil—chastisement, maiming, deprivation of liberty, death, is an evil beyond any doubt.
4. The question how to settle the constantly current disputes of people аз to what constitutes good and evil is answered by the teaching of Christ: since man cannot indisputably establish what is evil, he must not by the use of force, which is an evil, overcome that which he believes to be evil.
5. The principal harm of the fallacy of ordering the lives of others by the use of force lies in the fact that the moment you admit the propriety of using force upon one man for the bendit of many there are no limits to the evil that may be wrought for the sake of the same proposition. Upon this very principle were based the torture, inquisition, and slavery of olden times, and are now based the present day wars from which millions are perisbJi^.
III.
The Inefficiency of Force
1. To compel people by force to refrain from doing evil is like damming a river and feeling pleased with the shallow place below the dam. In due course the river will overflow the dam and will run as of yore, and evil doers will not cease from evil, but merely await their opportunity.
2. He who forces us deprives us of our rights and we hate him. We love those who know how to persuade us and count them our benefactors. It is not the wise man, but the brutal and unenlightened man who takes recourse to force. In order to use force, many accessories are required. To persuade, we need none. He who feels enough power within himself to dominate minds needs not take recourse to force. Only those take recourse to force who feel their impotence to persuade people of their necessity.
Socrates,
3. To compel people by force to that which seems to me good is the best means to create in them a repugnance against that which seems to me good.
4. Every man knows in his heart how hard it is so to change one's life as to become such as one would be. But in the case of others it seems to us as though all we have to do is to command and to terrify, and others will become such as we would have them be.
5. Force is the instrument by which ignorance compels its followers to do things against the inclination of their nature; and like the attempt to force water above its level, the moment the instrument ceases to act, its effects cease as well. There are only two ways of directing human activities : one is to gain the inclination and to convince the reasoning, and the other to compel a man to act against his inclina-
tions and against his reasoning. The first method is proved by experience and is always crowned by success, and the other is employed by ignorance and always results in disappointment. When a baby is crying for its rattle, it means to get it by force. When the parents spank their children it is to force them to be good. When a drunken husband beats his wife, his idea is to correct her by force. When people punish others, it is to make the world better by the employment of force. When one man goes to law with another, it is done to obtain justice by the use of force. When the preacher speaks of the terror of the tortures of hell, his purpose is to attain the desired condition of soul by force. And it is a marvel that ignorance should persist in guiding mankind on the same path of violence which is bound to lead to disappointment. Combes.
6. Every man knows that all force is evil, and yet, to prevent people from using force, we cannot invent anything better, while demanding the highest respect for ourselves, than to adopt the most terrible forms of violence.
7. The fact that it is possible to make men amenable to justice by the use of force, does not yet prove that it is just to subject people to force. Pascal.
IV. The Delusion of an Order of Life Based on Force
1. How strange is the delusion that men may force others to do that which they consider good for them, and not that which these latter consider good for themselves, and yet all the misfortunes of life are based upon this delusion. One set of people compels the others to pretend that they enjoy doing the things prescribed for them, and threatens them with all sorts of violence should they discontinue this pre-
tense, and they are thoroughly convinced that they are doing something useful and worthy of praise by all men, even by those whom they force to do their will.