Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/240

 men's passion. There are men and communities to whom no hurt less than the loss of a limb is a hurt. There are also others to whom clear abuse of authority under conditions that lead to the irresistible conclusion that a national injury is contemplated is sufficient to provoke their appearance as an embodiment of the sense of honor that feels betrayed if not outraged. Many may be provoked in this manner, but the provocation felt by one man more than by the others can and does alone arrest attention. If that man will not and does not feel provoked—at the right time, feeling his responsibility solely to a power within himself, as the agent of apropelling moral impulse,and actasan asthra of an unseen force, if he does not feel and act so—the wrong remains. It is not planning in secret by a band of young men in despair and revenge that will succeed where protests from citizens and the accredited organs of public opinion fail. For such planning becomes and is no more than a form of guilt; guilt has nowhere conquered wrong and oppression. It may at best make the authorities concerned more wary—but it does not convert them so as to make them realise that they have miscalculated the forces they have