IV
There is a certain magnificence of logical consistency in the non-resistance doctrine of the pacifist who chooses the Empire of China (!) as the example of its perfect work in the field of international relations.[8] With the blessed example of the Celestial Kingdom before us we are asked:
What did it avail Belgium to marshal her armies and hold her forts against the irresistible advance of the German legions?[9]
The question has an extraordinary resemblance to that addressed by the Kaiser to King Albert in Punch's famous cartoon: "Don't you see that Belgium has lost everything?" And Albert's answer is taken from Christ's own lips: "She has not lost her soul." The Celestial Empire on the other hand seems to this champion of the pacifism of Lao-tse to have practically realized the blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven. Peacefully non-resistant under the corrupt domination of its Manchu conquerors it had attained the climax of earthly felicity. It had a name to live, and was dead.
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-resistance is the "saving element."[10]
This eulogy of China, however, was written before the new Republic of China, stirring the long dormant instincts of Chinese patriotism, had roused to new hopes and visions of world achievement the body that had become as one dead, insomuch that the more part said, He is dead. But non-resistant pacifism is ever rich in paradox. Today China herself, so long inert, blessed for so many centuries with all the felicity of submission, has thrown off the Manchu yoke of domination. And in the first surge of new-found strength she declares war against Attila and his Huns, and in the declaration itself avows that she is "fighting to establish peace." To such inconsistency does non-resistance seem fated as soon as life triumphs over death, as soon as the Christian gospel of a world kingdom of righteousness and peace triumphs over Buddha's pessimistic obliteration of desire and hope together in the gray nirvana of extinction. "Eternal life" through death-defying loyalty to a divine ideal begins at last to seem preferable, even in China, to mere indefinite "survival."
Not Quakerdom itself seems able to maintain consistency with its non-resistant ideals. Alas,
they were abandoned by those who could not and would not see the connection between these principles and the uninterrupted peace which had long blessed the Pennsylvania colony.
Becoming itself directly responsible for the order and security hitherto guaranteed by the sovereign British power the Quaker commonwealth followed the example of its neighbor states and girt on the sword.[11] For this, doubtless, we may hold the influx of alien immigrants more responsible than the genuine followers of Fox and Penn. But it must at least be admitted that Quaker leaven showed little power to work, so far as the doctrine and policy of non-resistance are concerned.
Inconsistencies such as these on the part of the greatest modern exemplars of non-resistance are saddening to its champions, but there remains ever a more ethereal realm, where philosophy can build without fear of the stern realities of life, the limbo of utopias.