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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
from violence than those who rely on violence. The robber, murderer, or deceiver, will more quickly leave them alone than those who resist with weapons. They who take the sword perish with the sword, and those who seek peace, who act in a friendly manner, inoffensively, who forget and forgive offences, for the most part enjoy peace, or, if they die, die blessed.
"Thus, if all kept the commandment of non-resistance, it is evident that there would be no offences and no evil needs. If these formed a majority, they would establish the reign of love and goodwill, even towards the ill-disposed, by never resisting evil with evil and never using violence. If there were a considerable minority of such, they would have such a corrective moral effect upon society that every cruel punishment would be abolished, and violence and enmity would be changed to peace and love. If there were but a small minority of them, they would rarely experience anything worse than the contempt of the world, and the world in the meanwhile, without noticing it and without feeling itself under obligaton, would become wiser and better for this secret influence. And if, in the very worst case, a few members of the minority should be persecuted to death, these men, dying for the truth, would leave behind them their teaching, sanctified by their martyr's death."
Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'
While Adin Ballou formulated the concept of non-violent resistance, Thoreau (1817-1862) showed how to use it so as to get justice and fair-play from the opponent---in his case, the State. Some excerpts from his article 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' advocating his view point, are as follows:
“Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ... Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil ....
“Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true
1Thoreau, H. D., Walden or Life in the Woods, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, p. 281.
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