Brute force

“ That moment he is thinking of war; he has enlisted or impressed a soldier, and the soldier does not draw the bow to suit him. Suddenly his mind jumps to "Peace, peace; this piece of toasted cheese will do 't." The very opposite of military power, brute force, is the small shrewdness of catching a mouse. ”

“ They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. ”

“ Every time that, by invasion or any military enterprise whatever, physical brute force has taken the upper hand in society, the conquerors have shown the tendency to concentrate government and property in their own hands. ”

“ That I am a weak, spiritless, little-Englander, who will be swept away by the first 'still, strong man' who comes along with 'a mailed fist.' Very well. I have no doubt that brute force can and will sweep away most things not brutal like itself. ”

“ But brute force takes its revenge upon the man who despises force, and he is killed in a chance medley. Only his ideals, which were his true life, survive him, to renew for those of a later generation the mystic idealism of his faith. ”

“ Reduced to its lowest terms, fighting is mere barbarity; a most illogical method of settling some disputed question by brute force instead of by the refined reasoning processes of the intelligent human mind ”

“ But if, for instance, I find a man possessing a certain facility of speech, happily adapted to his cause, addressing a great body of his fellow-men in inflammatory appeals to their passions, and stirring them up against the institutions of the country, that is what I call brute force—which I think the country would be very well content to do without, and which, if there be any sense or spirit left in men, or any men of right feeling in the country, they will resolve to put down as an intolerable and ignominious tyranny! ”

“ If the futility of brute force as an appeal to reason required an object lesson, it might easily be found in the fact that while the hand that wielded one pen lies motionless in death, hundreds of others have been raised up to fight under the same banner. ”

“ Passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is matchless. It is superior to the force of arms. How, then, can it be considered only a weapon of the weak? Physical-force men are strangers to the courage that is requisite in a passive resister. Do you believe that a coward can ever disobey a law that he dislikes? Extremists are considered to be advocates of brute-force. ”

“ Those only can be considered to be so imbued, who, having experienced the force of the soul within themselves, will not cover before brute-force, and will not, on any account, desire to use brute-force. ”

“ Only those who realize that there is something in man which is superior to the brute nature in him, and that the latter always yields to it, can effectively apply this force, which is to violence, and therefore to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness. ”

“ Says Professor Ranke: “It is the mind of man that shows itself superior to the most powerful brute force, even where we meet him for the first time.” This remains true whether the brute force be displayed in brutes or in other men. ”

“ We say brute force because, though the theory is that this force should be directed by the supreme intellect for the time being, yet all inferior wits are treated rather as obstacles to be contemptuously shoved aside than as ancillary forces to be conciliated through their reason. ”

“ Will you not admit that you are arguing against yourself? You know that what the English obtained in their own country they have obtained by using brute-force. I know you have argued that what they have obtained is useless, but that does not affect my argument. They wanted useless things, and they got them. My point is that their desire was fulfilled. What does it matter what means they adopted? Why should we not obtain our goal which is good, by any means [Pg 76] whatsoever even by using violence? Shall I think of the means when I have to deal with a thief in the house? ”

“ And then, after having ourselves assiduously corrupted men, we shut them up like wild beasts in places from which they cannot escape, and where they become still more brutalized, or else we kill them. And these very men whom we have corrupted and brutalized by every means, we bring forward as a proof that one cannot deal with criminals except by brute force. ”

“ Brute force was the common method of exercising control and administering justice. The barbarians were bold and independent, but cruel and superstitious. Their furious natures needed taming and their rude minds tutoring. ”

“ But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. "Might makes right," and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies. ”

“ They opposed brute force to reason and philosophy, and battalions of foreign mercenaries to ideas. As if ideas were to be impaled on bayonets! ”

“ It means that one at least of the national wills concerned has deliberately set aside its human quality—as only a human will can do—and has made of itself just such a material obstruction or menace. Hence war seems, and is often called, a contest of brute forces. ”

“ A stream of filthy language followed—abuse of the Commanding Officer, abuse of the army, abuse of the war, and abuse of the Government. The man could find no other way of expressing himself with adequate force and crudity. ”

“ Trembling with weakness and the overstrained exertion of my recent struggle, I rose and looked with stern exultation on this new conflict, at this new and unexpected ally, against whom the human brute fought apparently in vain, for with all his strength he failed to wrench or tear the dog's sharp fangs from his already lacerated throat. ”

“ Perhaps the motion was too sudden; and human nature starts at murder, though strong necessity compels it. I have thought long of this; and my first feelings were like yours; a foolish conscience awed me, which soon I conquered. The man that would undo me, nature cries out, undo. Brutes know their foes by instinct; and where superior force is given, they use it for destruction. ”

“ Thus the steady firmness of moral force and the strong effect of determination, acting deliberately, awed the most savage men, and suppressed a scene of carnage, which would have instantly followed the least precipitancy or exertion of physical force. ”

“ Judge, then, the condition I must be in, knowing the cruelty and merciless disposition of those savages, should I fall into their hands. To escape which dreadful misfortune, having my gun loaded in my hand I threatened them with death if they should not desist. But how vain and fruitless are the efforts of one man against the united force of so many and of such merciless, undaunted, and blood thirsty monsters as I had here to deal with. ”

“ Therefore, if on the one hand, the violence with which we wish to strike the blow prescribes the greatest concentration of force, so in like manner, on the other hand, we have to fear every undue excess as a real evil, because it entails a waste of power, and that in turn a deficiency of power at other points. ”

“ Yet the use of force to coerce another man's will, even in those rare cases in which it is justifiable, produces a brutal and tyrannous state of mind, and is more destructive of inward peace than any misfortune that can be inflicted from without. ”

“ To destroy any power growing wild from the rank productive force of the human mind is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies in the material. ”

“ Has Pan led your brutes where they stumble?
"Has Dana numbed pain of the child-bed, or Wotan put hands to your plough?
"What matter your foolish reply! O, man, standing lone and bowed earthward,
"Your task is a day near its close. Give thanks to the night-giving God."
Slowly the darkness falls, the broken lands blend with the savage;
The brute-tamer stands by the brutes, a head's breadth only above them. [164]
A head's breadth? ”

“ We will use only soul-force and never destroy by war or any even defensive employment of physical violence? Good, though until foul-force is effective, the Asuric force in men and nations tramples down, breaks, slaughters, burns; pollutes, as we see it doing to-day, but then at its ease and unhindered, and you have perhaps caused as much destruction of life by your abstinence as others by resort to violence ”

“ When strength so great might thus be irritated to greater, and when there were no "powers of the world to come," to invade the dreadful cavern of iniquity in the mind, and there combat and subdue it, there would often be no want of the audacity to send it forth into action at all hazards, and in defiance and contempt of the restraining force which operated through mutual fear of vindictive reaction. ”

“ When compelled to yield, it should be by the force of reason, and never by the power of agitation. Its measures should be actuated by a sense of what is right, and not what is expedient, for to concede is to recede—to recede is to evince weakness—and to betray weakness is to invite attack. ”

“ There is also, in the habits of mind formed under a system which is supported by continual resort to force and violence, a necessary deadening of sensibility to the evils of force and violence, as applied to other subjects. ”

“ In fact, the less fortunate, the wounded and the stricken in the battle of life, are attacked by their own companions,—they are destroyed by the ruthless, social brute. The gregarious brute has no sympathy with the pains and sufferings of the injured and the wounded. ”

“ We reduce him to the standard and condition of a brute, then assume that he is but a brute in feelings, intellect, capacity to acquire, and thence argue—in the narrowest of circles—that being but a brute, it is but right and natural to deal with him as what he is. ”

“ They place the weak upon a level with the strong, and make it evident to every one that the best course would be to submit all questions of right to the arbitration of the mind instead of the arm and sword. Suppose I, being a small, weak man, should quarrel with a man of great physical strength, and a hatred to the death should be declared between us. ”

“ Ever at hand, but too much scattered to be successfully attacked, impotent in battle, but powerful and invincible in an extensive region, they finally decimate and overpower an organized force by means of skirmishes, surprises, fatigues, and privations. ”

“ With all the force of his being, so to speak, visible, with clenched fists, with the veins on his forehead swollen, with his stern face convulsed by a superhuman effort of will, he demanded that access of feebleness in which all resistance crumbles. ”

“ So strong is the tyrant's arm, that nothing can resist its force; so true his aim, that nothing can elude the blow. Sudden as lightning, sometimes is his arrow launched; and wounds and kills, in the twinkling of an eye. Never promise yourself safety in an expedient, but constant preparation. The fatal shafts fly so promiscuously, that none can guess the victim. ”

“ Abandoned to itself and suddenly restored to a natural condition, the human flock is capable only of agitation, of mutual strife until pure force at length predominates, as in barbarous times, and until, amidst the dust and outcry, some military leader rises up who is, generally, a butcher. ”

“ When we exclaim, "What force!" on seeing a head with prominent bushy brows, incisive nose, deep-set eyes, and a massive jaw, we are indeed expressing our recognition of force, but only of the sort of force underlying instincts of aggression and brutality. ”

“ Force we may define as physical or intangible power or influence to effect change in the material or immaterial world. Coercion is the use of either physical or intangible force to compel action contrary to the will or reasoned judgment of the individual or group subjected to such force. Violence is the willful application of force in such a way that it is physically or psychologically injurious to the person or group against whom it is applied. Resistance is any opposition either physical or psychological to the positive will or action of another. ”

“ Whatever law deviates from this principle will always meet with a resistance, which will destroy it in the end; for the smallest force, continually applied, will overcome the most violent motion communicated to bodies. ”

“ When, on the contrary, those who make or administer the laws are determined to abide by a phrase or a form, then the necessities accumulate, the burden and the strain become intolerable, and the gravitation towards the normal standard of living, which should act as a slight but permanent force, acts suddenly at a high potential and with destructive violence. ”