Compulsion

“ Force and compulsion are terms not here applicable. For directly to produce a volition in another is absolutely impossible; and supposing that, by compulsion, you can produce a state of mind, on which the volition follows; yet you have not compelled the volition. That is not the effect of the state you have produced. It is the reassertion of the self, which has been drawn back from the whole content of the self; and the whole self asserts itself in the act. Compulsion may lead to volition, it can not cause it. ↑ The above doctrine, I think, will cover all maniacal phenomena. ”

“ Wonder if our own highest things have not grown up out of equally simple things. The compulsion first—then the sense of duty become habit, automatic, the conviction expanding into knowledge of ethical habit,—then the habit creating conviction,—then relations,—then the capacity for general ideas. ”

“ The argument suggests that compulsion is limited not by indifference—how could the character of its members be matter of indifference to the community?—but by its own incapacity to achieve its ends. The spirit cannot be forced. ”

“ Where lies to right to compulsion? Where do we find the justification of any compulsion by humanity? [To this question Tolstoy gives the following answer:] If such an abnormal condition as the use of force in culture -- education -- has existed for ages, the causes of this phenomenon must be rooted in human nature. ”

“ But as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of being guided to their own improvement by conviction or persuasion (a period long since reached in all nations with whom we need here concern ourselves) , compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer admissible as a means to their own good, and justifiable only for the security of others. ”

“ The doctrine that our will can be forced to voluntary acts should not, I think, alarm or distress us. It seems to me by no means an immoral doctrine; and that charge holds good far more against the teaching that there is always a possibility of resistance to evil and performance of good at any moment, and under any previous and present conditions. Possibility of compulsion should make us see more clearly the need of so strengthening our will for good, as to make that compulsion impossible for us, except in theory. ”

“ But such a compulsion, under such circumstances, is not only a testimony to the intrinsic weakness of that for which it is invoked, it is also a token that they who resort to it have lost all faith in any inherent power of the system they are supporting, and that, in truth, it is fast coming to an end. ”

“ Let it be assumed, he urges, that compulsion is indispensable to the establishment of the law of Right. Such compulsion may be, and is, contrary to the instinctive will, the 'natural freedom', of the isolated individual. ”

“ As soon as man can use compulsion, he uses it to introduce and enforce his customs; for in his eyes they are proved as the wisdom of life. In the same way a company of individuals compels each single one to adopt the same customs. ”

“ So far the ordinary consciousness is clear, and on this point we must not press it further. To fix the limits of compulsion; to say where force ends, and where will begins; to find the conditions, under which we may say, ‘There was no possibility of volition, and there could have been none’ — [1] is no easy matter, and fortunately one which does not concern us. [See more, Note A.]
Not only must the deed be an act, and come from the man without compulsion, but, in the second place, the doer must be supposed intelligent ”

“ And there are signs that the Principle of Compulsion—that is, the treatment of an individual in the way that the community deems best, whether he likes it or not—is about to form part of the policy for other sections of the destitute. ”

“ The punishment is sure, if we either refuse the reverence, or are too cowardly and indolent to enforce the compulsion. A base nation crucifies or poisons its wise men, and lets its fools rave and rot in its streets. A wise nation obeys the one, restrains the other, and cherishes all. ”

“ It is by no means an unlimited power of compulsion that the superior exercises, but one dependent in the long run, or dependent for the purpose of insuring an habitual obedience, upon conformity to certain convictions on the part of the subjects as to what is for their general interest. ”

“ This insistence upon the absolute necessity of force or coercion, upon the theory that, do what you will, you alter only the distribution, not the general quantity of force, is the leading principle of the book. Compulsion and persuasion go together, but the 'lion's share' of all the results achieved by civilisation is due to compulsion. Parliamentary government is a mild and disguised form of compulsion [130] and reforms are carried ultimately by the belief that the reformers are the strongest. ”

“ In this humorous form of ornament we are beforehand with Posterity. Posterity is baffled.
Will this victory over our sons’ sons be the last resolute tyranny prepared by one age for the coercion, constraint, and defeat of the future? To impose that compulsion has been hitherto one of the strongest of human desires. It is one, doubtless, to be outgrown by the human race; but how slowly that growth creeps onwards, let this success in the stencilling of St Paul’s teach us, to our confusion. ”

“ If, as appears to be the case, the voluntary system has broken down, and we are to have compulsion, most honest men and women will prefer that the compulsion should be fair rather than unfair, direct rather than indirect, and that it should be exercised by those responsible for the government of the country, rather than by private persons who cannot compel, but can only penalise. ”

“ Consequently, if left to themselves, they are apt to abuse412 their power, and to govern by the ignoble method of compulsion, disregarding all appeals to reason and to morality. Hence the need of a combination of moral forces to exercise a constant check upon the hardness with which they are so apt to use their authority. ”

“ The consequence of such conduct is evident: it is that whosoever employs against another the law of compulsion means thereby that he does not recognize between himself and other men any other law but that. ”

“ These pressures extend, at least in the social sense, from measures of persuasion, which appeal to a sense of honor and of shame, to actual coercion and punishment which may take the form of physical compulsion. ”

“ Take for illustration the sensation undergone by a child that puts its forefinger into a flame with the acquisition of a habit of keeping all its members out of all flames. A compulsion is "Brute," whose immediate efficacy nowise consists in conformity to rule or reason. ”

“ But, although a stern and severe compulsion may secure obedience while under your eye, by that course you make the act so disagreeable and repulsive, by associating it with your stern manner, that they are tempted to rush to the other extreme whenever they can do so with impunity. ”

“ As understood, at any rate, by the joint headmasters of the new school, causation does involve compulsion. 'Men's actions,' say they, 'are the product not of their volition, but of their antecedents,' and 'result from large and general causes which must produce certain consequences.' Neither, if this be so, is it of any avail to suggest that, possibly, the large and general causes in question may be of only temporary operation. ”

“ When they apply the Principle of Compulsion, they do so, not for its own sake, and not even for the immediate advantage that it brings, but in order to prevent greater evils to the community in the future, such as the existence of illiterate and wholly uneducated persons, or the outbreaks of violent lunatics, or the more subtle degradation of the Standard of Life by the procreation of the feeble-minded and the undermining competition of degenerates. ”

“ The notion of compulsion is just as little applicable to effects as to causes. To say that causes compel effects is as misleading as to say that effects compel causes. Compulsion is anthropomorphic: a man is compelled to do something when he wishes to do the opposite, but except where human or animal wishes come in the notion of compulsion is inapplicable. ”

“ It is not until the reign of order is established and established it can never be save by compulsion that the rational will finds the conditions which are necessary to its growth. In applying compulsion, therefore, we are replacing the false freedom by the true. We are not thwarting, but fostering, the rational will ”

“ And if the 'must' in the former case represents in part the knowledge that compulsion may be put on the man who neglects to do what he must, which is no part of its meaning in the second, on the other hand the consciousness that the constraint is for a common good, which wholly constitutes the power over inclination in the second case, must always be an element in that obedience which is properly called obedience to law, or civil or political obedience. ”

“ But something in all of us, and much in some of us, is recalcitrant through rebellion, indolence, incompetence, or ignorance. And it is only on these elements that the public power operates as power, through compulsion {201} or authoritative suggestion. ”

“ Though we have given every possible support to the great voluntary effort recently made, truth compels us to state that the results are proving disappointing. Compulsion must follow, and the sooner the Government make up their minds to accept this fact the better advised it will be. ”

“ Diametrically to the contrary, it comes about in legions of cases that compulsion, even drastic [Pg 216] compulsion, is the only weapon to hand that will make any impression on certain of self-willed, self-centered, singularly refractory prisoners, who had been indulged in mock heroics, and who devise deviltry even while they are changing from citizen to prison garb. At once is the time to read to such their prison lesson, predicated in penal law. If it can be done through kindly admonition that carries from the heart of the mentor, by all manner of means do it so ”

“ Nor does the word compulsion give a true picture. It suggests that, as a rule, men would not accept the duty if they could evade it, which is not the case. The number of men who have been volunteers since 1860 shows that the duty is widely accepted. ”

“ The first five chapters, of the third Book of the Ethics, are devoted to an examination of various notions involved in our ideas of virtue and vice — Voluntary and Involuntary — ἑκούσιον καὶ ἀκούσιον — Ignorance — ἄγνοια — Choice or resolution, consequent upon previous deliberation — προαίρεσις.
Those actions are involuntary, which are done either by compulsion, or through ignorance. An action is done by compulsion when the proximate cause of it (or beginning — ἀρχὴ) is something foreign to the will of the agent — the agent himself neither concurring nor contributing. ”

“ Obligation is often, again, confounded with compulsion: but submission to physical force is not morally an act at all, because its αρχη or immediate antecedent is external to us, and therefore independent of our moral laws. ”

“ Further, our system of oaths and bonds must be abolished. This swearing people to tell the truth, and binding them to perform their 34duty, presupposes that they will lie and neglect their duty. People are always placed upon the side of force and compulsion—never upon that of personal rectitude and honor. ”

“ He believed men to be so malignant by nature that they always act malevolently from choice, and never well except by compulsion, a devilish doctrine, to be accounted for rather than excused by the circumstances of his age and country. ”

“ Each one must be kept in his place, as God has ordained, sons and daughters, servants, maids, husbands, wives, etc.... If compulsion and the law of the strong arm still ruled (in the case of servants and retainers) as in the past, so that if a man dared to grumble he got a box on the ear—things would fare better ”

“ Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the disorganized condition of society: how ill many forces of society fulfil their work; how many powerful are seen working in a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all know. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and the Writers of Books, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of all other disorganizations;—a sort of heart, from which, and to which all other confusion circulates in the world! ”

“ Circumstances are compulsory, from the absence of a power to resist or control them: and if the absence likewise be the effect of circumstances.... the evil derives from the circumstances.... and such evil is not sin."* Do you say that you are independent of all circumstances, that you can control them, that you have a free will? ”

“ There is no duty but what now costs us something; no precept in the law but combats some of our passions; no step in the paths of God against which our heart does not revolt.
To this load of corruption, which renders duty so difficult and irksome, and iniquity so natural, add the snares which surround us, the examples which entice us, the objects which effeminate us, the occasions which surprise us, the compliances which weaken us, the afflictions which discourage us, the properties which corrupt us, the situations which blind us, and the contradictions which we experience ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ In both lie dangers, difficulties, and troubles, which no human foresight can foreshadow or perceive; but they are not equal in magnitude. One is beset with humiliation, dishonor, emeutes, rebellion,—with submission in the beginning to all, and at all times, and confiscation and slavery in the end. ”