Deterrence

“ In the hour of security and sleep, when your deadly enemies are supposed to be friends, quietly fishing and hunting—when they are believed to be far off, and thoughtless of you and yours, your sleep is suddenly broken by the war-whoop, your house and village set on fire, your family and friends butchered, and yourself escape only to be carried into captivity, and wrung with every species of torture. ”

“ Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind. ”

“ Is everything that’s gathering force underground, in the dark, in the night, in little hidden rooms, out of sight of governments and policemen and idiotic ‘statesmen’—heaven save them!—is all this going to burst forth some fine morning and set the world on fire? ”

“ The State resembles an army; punishments must inspire terror; the idea of war is ever present. Such instincts, such a history, raises before them with tragic severity the idea of life; death is at hand, wounds, blood, tortures. The fine purple cloaks, the holiday garments, elsewhere signs of gayety of mind, are stained with blood and bordered with black. ”

“ The ground strewed with the dead and dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death ”

“ For instead of loosing the rays, as we sprang, they leapt to meet us, at the same time giving utterance to loud, hissing cries of alarm.
Our guards outnumbered us, and though we leapt upon them with all the energy of horror and despair, striving to wrest the death-tubes from their grasp, they coiled about and held us, while into the great hall from the big corridor outside there rushed in answer to their alarm other scores of serpent-creatures, leaping likewise upon us. ”

“ I say that mighty armies have often been put to flight and routed by the mere terror and charge of the enemy, not only without the death of any one, but even without one single person being wounded
15 42In truth, O judges, that is not the only violence which reaches our persons and our lives, but that is even a much greater one, which, by threatening us with the danger of death, often drives our minds, agitated by fear as they are, from their steady position and condition. ”

“ Fancy trying to protect yourself day after day from all the enemy's noisy devices of death, knowing as well that each moment mines are creeping towards you, wondering each moment if your particular section has been chosen, anticipating each moment the crumbling of the earth beneath your feet, a roar, a disintegration as important for you as the end of the world. ”

“ We were to hunt seals, and fish, and pry bivalves from the rocks at low tide, and build fires, and talk, and alternate between suspicion and security, between the danger of sedition and the insanity of men without defined purpose, world without end forever. ”

“ At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I would answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must, ourselves, be its author and its finisher. ”

“ The danger never dreamt of, that is the danger.
His was, by compassing and hemming in, that is above ground, and may be descried from a watch- tower. Ours was by undermining, digging deep under ground, that none could discerne.
One cannot be beset, but he may have hope to break through, at some part. But here, from this, no way, no meanes, no possibility of escaping. The danger not to be descried, not to be escaped, that is the danger. ”

“ I would hand over to you this minute the weapon which so much terrifies you, if I did not fear to be surprised without any means of defence. If you are humane enough to take me in, show me some way of getting into the house without being perceived. ”

“ For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart.
Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, and how, and against what? ”

“ Thou art fearful? so be it; but why dost thou fear where there is no fear, and why dost thou not fear where everything is to be feared? Because thou hast fled from the battle-line, dost thou think to have escaped the foe? It is easier for the Adversary to pursue a fugitive than to bear himself against manful defence. Secure, arms cast aside, thou takest thy morning slumbers, the hour when Christ will have arisen! The multitude of enemies beset the house, and thou sleepest. Is it safer to be caught alone and sleeping, than armed with others in the field? ”

“ Swayed by no panic fear, but influenced by terrors of dreadful reality, the people exerted all their force to escape from that spot; and thus the struggling, crushing, pushing, crowding, fighting, and all the oscillations of a multitude set in motion by the direst alarms, were succeeded by the most fatal results. ”

“ Our control of fire has obliged us to be continually making calls upon our bravery. The formidable machines which we set in motion; the explosives which we use so largely; the murderous forces of nature, like electricity, which we have brought into subservience;98 the thousand dangerous exploits on the sea, in the bowels of the earth, and in the giddy heights of the air in which thousands, nay millions, of engineers and workmen daily risk their lives, have steeled our temperaments to quell that blind and instinctive fear which lies deep down in human nature. ”

“ Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side. The first born of death shall devour his strength. ”

“ Terror, moreover, is epidemic; and a force already successful commonly finds its victorious progress greatly aided by the prevailing notion of its prowess. Thus we have witnessed, {233} in the wars of more disciplined troops, the tremendous effect of a name alone. ”

“ While this huge monster walks the earth unchecked and unrestrained, no man’s life will be safe; and even if we run away and find for ourselves fresh hiding-places, what security have we that at any moment he may not appear amongst us and again inflict upon us ruin and destruction? ”

“ Terror borne on the air, fleet as the furies, spread out ahead, and murder, arson, rapine, enveloped them. Who can describe the agonies of mothers for their daughters, for their babes, for their fathers and young boys? ”

“ If there is truly a violent tempest, and if the danger is real and imminent, trust to that Almighty Power who is with you always,—on the sea, and on the land; and silently and fervently implore his protection. ”

“ The sharp night air, the rustle in the grass or the trees which may mean an enemy, the stealthy crawl with the fingers on the trigger, the fitful flare of the star-shells, the rasp of barbed wire, the knowledge that life depends on one's own personal swiftness of action, wake again in civilised man the old instincts of the hunter and the hunted. ”

“ That whether there are wars, or famines, or pestilences, or earthquakes, or distress of nations, or whatever may come according to the purposes of our God, that we may know it before hand, and be prepared for it, so that none of these things shall overtake us as a thief in the night, and while we are crying peace and safety, sudden destruction come upon us. ”

“ Tho' destruction walk a round us,
Tho' the arrows past us fly,
Angel guards from thee surround us,
We are safe if thou art nigh.
Tho' the night be dark and dreary,
Darkness cannot hide from thee ”

“ What is it we have got by all our menaces, which have been many and ferocious? What advantage have we derived from the penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we made toward our object by the sending of a force which, by land and sea, is no contemptible strength? ”

“ For at their hands we suffer robbery, captivity, chains, imprisonment, exile, torture, mutilation, loss of sight, the violation of chastity to satisfy the lust of the oppressor, and many other dreadful evils. What numberless casualties threaten our bodies from without,—extremes of heat and cold, storms, floods, inundations, lightning, thunder, hail, earthquakes, houses falling ”

“ We can almost behold the divine fugitives crowding in flight, some into the upper regions of air to outsoar the anger of the destroyer, others seeking the recesses of the earth to hide themselves from the fierceness of his countenance, the roar of his thunderbolts, and the arrows of his lightning. ”

“ Tens of thousands of men stand assembled on the one side of a field,—and an equal number on the other,—preparing themselves for the work of mutual destruction. How many hearts in those crowds quivering, if not with bodily fear, at least with an undefined sensation of dread, as they stand thus in the very presence of Death! ”

“ Who can contemplate unmoved that spectacle of the men, not gathered in the peaceful security of the House of God, but out upon the ocean, expecting attack, realising the possible nearness of the end, leaving their guns but for the moment, then back again, strengthened for life or death by the sacred Body and Blood. ”

“ And then he'd begun to see the people on the road. The terrified people, the walking, running, stumbling people heading for the hills—the hills and the forests, the hiding places that ships couldn't see, that bombs couldn't find. ”

“ Every heart was now chilled with new terrors, when, on their nearer approach, they discovered the fatal ensigns of their enemies, and knew that there was no longer any possibility either of resistance or escape. ”

“ So we move warily through a placid country that may become at any moment full of menace; travelling may at any moment be exchanged for fighting, and the roadway for the battlefield; even the green slopes that front us may hide the gravest danger, and the river-bed with its grasses and lapsing waters become a pit of death. ”

“ Some go and shoot big game, others climb mountains, a few explore, and some rush gaily into foreign wars, all for the same reason, to shake off the choking folds of security's sombre cloak and feel the thrill of danger. ”

“ By being continually exposed to it, danger, with them, ceases to be frightful; of death they have no more terror than the beasts that perish; and even hardships, such as cold, wet, hunger, and broken rest, lose at least part of their disagreeableness, by the frequency of their recurrence. ”

“ Into that placid and speculative air real life tumbles with a resounding shock and the many souls that have been building, these many years, with careful elaboration, walls of defence and protection find themselves suddenly naked and indecent before the world. ”

“ The reaction to external danger consists normally of a mental state of fear, which will be examined further in a moment, and in various activities suited to the occasion—flight, concealment, defence by fighting, or even sometimes by attacking. ”

“ Fuller, “is the history of nations, but an account of a succession of mighty hunters and their adherents, each of whom, in his day, caused terror in the land of the living? The earth has been a kind of theatre, in which one part of mankind, being trained and furnished with weapons, have been employed to destroy another ”

“ Soldiers and forts, and industries of death, and devil ships, and loud-winged devil birds,
All bent on slaughter and destruction. These and yet more shameful things mine eyes beheld.
Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought of God ”

“ Why, on the contrary, in critical, decisive moments, when danger confronts them, when their existence is threatened, when nothing is more imperative than flight, attack or defence, do we see animals paralysed with trembling, incapable of struggling, and perishing without their strength having in the least profited them? ”

“ You must pass four places of danger,—the rocks that crush the traveller, the reeds that cut him to pieces, the cane cactuses that tear him to pieces, and the boiling sands that overwhelm him. But I shall give you something to subdue your enemies and preserve your lives. ”

“ I remembered nothing, thought of nothing, cared for nothing, save that countless humans were in danger about us, and that we were going to help them. Explosions followed one upon another, rocking the very ground beneath us. ”

“ As if seven men, each armed with his own appropriate weapon of violence, breaking into a house, and spreading ruin around them, could "readily be understood," (to quote their own language,) to incur each a limited responsibility!... ”

“ Any openly avowed posture of defense—while the nature of the danger, and the quarter from which it might come, were alike unknown—would be useless in itself, and worse than useless in the consequences which it might produce by putting the people of the house on their guard. ”

“ Buy any thing but a Threatener. By the Threatener, Man himself, the Lord of the Creation, who subdues all the Animals that range the Forest, is himself kept in fear and trepidation!—This ingenious Animal has the sagacity, at every step, to threaten the [Pg 237] fracture of his Rider’s neck, probably with a view to abolish the practice of Riding; but has, at the same time, the good sense not to fall quite down, lest he should accidentally break his own. ”

“ To what danger or distress can a scholar be reduced equal to that of a soldier, who, being besieged in some strong place, and at his post in some ravelin or bastion, perceives the enemy carrying on a mine under him, and yet must upon no account remove from thence, or shun the danger which{59} threatens him? ”