cated that the
spiritual view is consistent with severe and stringent treatment.
Checks there should be by the heavy hand of legislation laid upon
the arrogant evildoers. They should be stopped if possible in
mid-career. The oppressed, also, should oppose those who oppress
them. No one is worth his salt who is not willing to defend his
rights against those who would trample on them. So far from
ruling out conflict, I regard conflict as a weapon of progress--an
ethical weapon, if it be waged with the right intentions.
Furthermore, when speaking of oppression, I have in mind not
merely the cupidity of the few as it operates mercilessly upon the
many, but also the banded arrogance of the many as it sometimes
displays itself in contempt for the rights of the few. From
whichever side oppression proceeds, there should be resistance to
it; the check imposed by resistance is one of the means of
educating to new habits those who find themselves checked.
Individuals, and social classes, too, as history proves, learn to
respect the rights which they find in practice they cannot traverse.
First come the limits set to the aggression, and then the opening of
the eyes to perceive the justice of the limitation. But conflict is an
ethical weapon only if it is wielded like the knife in the surgeon's
hands. The knife wounds and hurts; the method is apparently cruel;
but the purpose is benevolent. So should the battle of social reform
be animated by concern not only for the oppressed, but also for the
oppressor. And such a motive does not exceed the capacity of
human nature, but, on the contrary, is the only motive which will
permanently satisfy human nature. Certain of the Socialists have
made it their deliberate policy for years to stir up hatred between
the poor and the rich, on the ground that hatred alone can
overcome the lethargy of the masses and arouse in them the
intensity of feeling necessary for conflict. On the contrary, hatred
engenders hatred on the opposite side, action provokes reaction.
As the individual can be uplifted in his life only by accepting the
spiritual motive, by trying to act always so as to recognize in
others and to make manifest the indefeasible worth of the human
soul, so the social classes can be uplifted only by acting on the
same spiritual motive. Despite the efforts of a hundred years, the
real progress that has been achieved in ameliorating the relations
between the social classes at the present day