Adin Ballou

“ It is equally plain that nature necessitates aggression as certainly as it does injurious resistance to aggression; that in fact it necessitates neither; and that non-resistance, as I have defined it, is no more contrary to nature than non-aggression. Both aggressive and resistant injury can be unlearned, abandoned, and forever eschewed, without annihilating or perverting any essential constituent, element, property, quality or capability of human beings. More than this, men brought up to that moral excellency will be more thoroughly and perfectly men than in any inferior state. ”

“ These familiar workings of this law of nature ought to open the most unwilling eyes to the fact that non-resistance, instead of being contrary to nature, is in strict accordance with it. And if it is confessedly the object of good men to do away with violence, cruelty, murder, and all the great crimes which blast the happiness of humanity, they ought to know that it never can be done by rendering evil for evil - injury for injury. ”

“ This restless activity of the human mind comes from a deep, indefinable, irresistible desire to get rid of contradictions, and reduce things to harmony, to consistency. This is the great desideratum. Contradiction and inconsistency is the infallible indication of falsehood and wrong. For truth and right must be harmonious. They cannot involve contradiction and discord, where they alone exist. Here then is a universal, irresistible law of our nature. It has done much to correct and reform the errors ensuing from human ignorance and depravity. ”

“ And this will be hastened by the intense workings of the law of rational harmony, which will detect and expose error, reform abuses, revolutionize false opinions, maxims, institutions, customs and habits, and bring to light in all things the most excellent way. There is a true God, and this law will never let man rest till he finds him. There is a real right and wrong, the eternal reality; and this law will at length bring all men to see and feel it. There is a consistency, an absolute harmony of things, and this law will turn and overturn till it be attained. ”

“ It eschews all war, all violence, all injury, all social discord, all combating of wrong with wrong, evil with evil, and lays the only ample foundation, deep on the rock of principle, for the pacification and harmony of the world. If men would only restrain themselves from mutual injury, how soon would they be able to ascertain all important truths, and to correct all essential errors of theory and practice. ”

“ You say injurious resistance, war and bloodshed will never cease till aggression cease! Will aggression ever cease? Can it ever cease? Is it not a necessary result of the laws of nature? What is the conclusion from such premises, but this - that man's nature obliges him to aggress and resist just as he does, and there is no hope that he will ever cease doing either. ”

“ Could all their dying groans be heard, and their expiring throes be witnessed at once, by the existing generation of men; could their blood flow together into one vast lake, mingled with the tears of their bereaved relatives; could their corpses be seen piled up in one huge pyramid; or their skeletons be contemplated in a broad Golgotha, would it be deemed conclusive evidence that mankind had practiced the true method of self. preservation!! ”

“ None but an atheist ought to put forth such arguments. I deny that there is any law or necessity of nature obliging man to injure his fellow man, either offensively or defensively; any more than there is for his being a drunkard, offensive or defensive, to everlasting ages. He can cease to practice both. He can be cured of his war mania. He can be induced to abstain from committing injury by aggression, and also from committing it in the way of resistance. The question is, whether we shall preach non-resistance to the good, as well as non-aggression to the bad ”

“ Five great laws of nature considered Let us bring into view the prominent laws of human nature. I will mention five of the most fundamental. They are self-preservation, social affinity, religious and moral obligation, rational harmony and progression. These may be pronounced universal and eternal.
Under the law of self-preservation, which is substantially identical with self-love, man instinctively desires to exist and be happy. He dreads death; he guards against injury; he endeavors to keep what good he already has, and in a thousand ways strives to acquire more. ”

“ It is a striking fruit and proof of that law. It takes for granted that man has been a noisy, fretful, buffeted child long enough; that it is time for him to act like a reasonable being; that he ought to be, and can be governed by moral power; that he has been carnally minded long enough, and ought now to become spiritually minded; that he has quarreled, fought, and been flogged enough; that he is capable of acting from higher motives and better principles than resisting evil with evil, and that he can, if he will only try, "overcome evil with good," and thus approximate the angelic nature. ”

“ After a few passes with the sword, a few rounds of musketry, a few assaults and retreats, it is all self-defense - all justifiable homicide, violence and destruction. All parties are seeking only to conquer an honorable peace. One party has been wronged in point of honor, another in person, another in property, and another in imagination; all are standing on the defensive; all are for carrying out the first law of nature by the common method. There is no ultimate arbiter but the sword. Injury must be resisted with injury. ”

“ Ignorance, error, folly, sin will be left behind. Improvement will follow improvement in all that needs improvement, till the jarring elements be reconciled, and one soft, sweet, supernal harmony consummate the happiness of the whole creation. This is the glorious result to which the declared will of God, the predictions of his holy prophets, and the prayers of saints through all past generations, have ever pointed, and do still look forward. Then will there be no war, no violence, no wrong, no sorrow. ”

“ Nothing can be more untrue, than that non-resistance is contrary to the laws of nature. It is in perfect accordance with them. It is only contrary to the false, foolish, perverse, self-defeating methods, ways and means by which man, in his ignorance and delusion, has heretofore attempted to execute the dictates of those laws. It is at war with man's ignorance, blind self-will, and vicious habits ”

“ But let the true Christian receive this storm of envenomed words, and they strike his shield of self-composure only to rattle for a moment like hailstones on its surface, and then fall harmlessly about his feet. A second and a third discharge succeed, but he still remains calm. The assailant is half vexed, quite confounded, and soon grows ashamed of himself. He either quits the field, or listens to reason, and perhaps is constrained to beg pardon for his rudeness. At all events, he never remembers his abuse of a calm, kind-hearted, firm-minded man, without peculiar mortification. ”

“ The fifth law is that of progression. This follows close on the heels of the others, or rather co-exists with them. It is this which impels man to aspire after something higher and better than the present. Hence he observes, imitates, learns, inquires, invents, hopes and perseveres, improves, progresses, and will forever progress amid new wonders, and with new achievements of mind, world without end. His nature will not permit him to become stationary. ”

“ But a social being, for better or worse, he always was, and always must be.
Under the law of religious and moral obligation man confesses, worships, and serves a God; feels a sense of dependence gratitude and duty; is conscious that there is right and wrong in human conduct; that he can choose either, but that he is accountable for the choice he makes - for his use or abuse of ability possessed; feels guilty when he does what he supposes to be wrong, and approved when he does what he believes to be right. Hence arises a perpetual conflict between the lower and higher portions of his nature. ”

“ These laws radically harmonious Now all these fundamental laws of our nature must be radically agreeable to each other. There can be no essential incongruity or discord among them. And when they shall have had their perfect work, man must be a lovely and glorious being. The human family must be an affectionate, wise, holy, harmonious, happy family. Look at the legitimate results.
The law of self-preservation or self-love will secure its desired object, just when the law of social affinity makes every fellow human being a second self - a co-self - never to be injured. ”

“ He must not even preserve his life, or seek any good for himself by wrong doing. Thus is he checked, straitened, restrained, and disciplined. But even this law, grand and powerful as it is, does not at once acquaint him with the true God, nor with the true right and wrong - the perfect righteousness. Hence, millions have worshipped false gods, been superstitiously religious, and verily thought many things were right, which were in fact utterly wrong. Yet man always was, and always must be a religious and moral being, in some way, to some extent. He cannot escape from this law of his nature. ”

“ Consequently, we speak of all things as governed by some law of nature. What to us is uniform and universal, or nearly so, we regard as the result of nature's laws - a certain necessity of tendency and development, which determines the form, mode, or method of its manifestation. These laws are at best but imperfectly understood, and are oftener talked about than well conceived of. They are only secondary causes in a vast chain, incomprehensible to finite minds, and which we vaguely trace to a Supreme First Cause - the Self-Existent Divine Nature - God. ”

“ What we can with any propriety assume to know of those indefinable somethings termed "the laws of nature," is only the uniformity and universality of their results within the narrow sphere of our observation. It becomes us therefore to be humble and modest in pronouncing on these laws. We know some things perhaps beyond possibility of mistake. Many other things we know partially and imperfectly; concerning which it is our besetting weakness to presume that we know a vast deal more than we really do. Of the great whole we know comparatively next to nothing. ”

“ If a man strike me violently, and I return the blow with equal or greater violence, will not my blow call for a third, and so on, till the weaker party cries "hold"? This is the law of nature. Does the opponent plead that the aggressor, being severely repelled, and knowing himself in the wrong, will retreat and learn to be civil? This will depend on which of the parties can strike the hardest, and injure the worst. If the aggressor be the stronger party, he will only fight the harder, till his antagonist is subdued. ”

“ The good wish the bad to reform. Will they return good for evil, and thereby hasten their reform? or will they return evil for evil, and thereby frustrate that reform? God has ordered the work begun and prosecuted from both ends at once: the bad to cease aggressive injury, and the good defensive injury. ”

“ All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail; Returning Justice lift aloft her scale; Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. There shall be none to hurt or destroy, for all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God. ”

“ I understand the laws of nature to be those forms, modes, or methods according to which it necessarily operates in its various developments. When any tendency or action of nature is observed to be uniform under given circumstances throughout the sphere of our knowledge, we infer that a certain law or necessity governs it. ”

“ If he can do nothing else, he finds fault, grumbles and complains about this or that presumed evil. If farther advanced, he becomes a reformer, and agitates the world. He may be a reformer in religion, morals, government, education, science, art, or whatever comes in his way, theoretical or practical. And if he cannot construct what ought to be, he will at least destroy or modify what ought not to be. ”

“ What puts it into the heart or the head of the assailed party to repel injury with injury? It is like begetting its like: injury suggesting, prompting, and producing injury. No better way is thought of or desired, than life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blow for blow, force for force, injury for injury. ”

“ The whole world is in arms, after nearly six thousand years' close adherence to this method of self preservation. It costs the human race more to maintain the various means of this method, than for religion, government, and education together. There must be a delusion somewhere.
If there were no such method in operation, the worst that could happen would be the murders, oppressions, and cruelties of unprovoked aggression. ”

“ He magnetizes, to a certain extent, every susceptible being with whom he meets. If he can live peaceably with any, it is those only who from natural predisposition, or moral principle, are non-resistants towards him. These he will make uncomfortable; but by bearing with him, and suffering some abuse with patience, they can keep him comparatively decent, and may pass their lives near him without any serious outbreak. Who has not seen some such persons? And who does not know that such can never be cured by violence and injurious resistance? ”

“ Their whole nature, physical, mental, moral and religious, will then be more symmetrically and gloriously developed than now. If so, non-resistance cannot be contrary to nature. Nor, if embraced and carried into practice, will it fail to ensure the most universal and complete self-preservation. It will prove to be the true method demanded by that first great law of nature. ”