pon all men alike. Practically that means a
threat in the last resort of physical punishment. The bond, then, which
keeps us together in any tolerable order is ultimately the fear of
force. Resist, and you will be crushed. The existence, therefore, of
such a sanction is essential to every society; or, as it may be
otherwise phrased, society depends upon coercion.

This, moreover, applies in all spheres of action. Morality and religion
'are and always must be essentially coercive systems.'[122] They
restrain passion and restrain it by appealing to men's hopes and
fears--chiefly to their fears. For one man restrained by the fear of the
criminal law, a vast number are restrained by the 'fear of the
disapprobation of their neighbours, which is the moral sanction, or by
the fear of punishment in a future state of existence, which is the
religious sanction, or by the fear of their own disapprobation, which
may be called the conscientious sanction, and may be regarded as a
compound case of the other 'two.'[123] An objection, therefore, to
coercion would be an objection to all the bonds which make association
possible; it would dissolve equally states, churches, and families, and
make even the peaceful intercourse of individuals impossible. In point
of fact, coercion has built up all the great churches and nations.
Religions have spread partly by military power, partly by 'threats as to
a future state,'[124] and always by the conquest of a small number of
ardent believers over the indifferent mass. Men's lives are regulated by
customs as streams are guided by dams and embankments. The customs like
the dams are essentially restraints, and moreover restraints imposed by
a small numerical minority, though they ultimately become so familiar to
the majority that the restraint is not felt. All nations have been built
up by war, that is, by coercion in its sternest form. The American civil
war was the last and most striking example. It could not ultimately be
settled by conveyancing subtleties about the interpretation of clauses
in the Constitution, but by the strong hand and the most energetic
faith.[125] War has determined whether nations are to be and what they
are to be. It decides what men shall believe and in what mould their
religion, laws, morals, and the whole tone of their lives shall be
cast.[126]

Nor does coercion disappear with the growth of civilisation. It is not
abolished but transformed. Lincoln and Moltke commanded