Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/388

 Greek and Roman sages of the world. I think this law was most clearly expressed by Christ, who plainly said that "in this only is all the law and the prophets." But besides this, foreseeing the corruption to which this law is and may be subject, he straightway pointed out the danger of its corruption, which is natural to people who live in worldly interests, the danger, namely, which justifies the defence of these interests (by the use of force, or, as he said, *with blows to answer blows, by force to take back things usurped," etc. He knew, as every sensible man must know, that the use of force is incompatible with love as the fundamental law of life, that as soon as violence is permitted, in whichever case it may be, the insufficiency of the law of love is acknowledged, and by this the very law is denied. The whole Christian civilisation, so brilliant outwardly, grew upon this self-evident and strange misunderstanding and contradiction, sometimes conscious, but mostly unconscious.

In reality, as soon as force was admitted into love there was no more, and there could be no love as the law of life, and as there was no law of love, there was no law at all, except violence—i.e., the power of the strongest. So lived Christian humanity for nineteen centuries. It is true that in all times people were guided by violence in arranging their lives. The difference between the Christian nations