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104 and order; but it is not so in reality, because—and this is the really wonderful thing and the spiritual root of the whole matter—conscience is the most infectious and convincing force in life. In a community there is really a far greater agreement of conscience than of desire or of opinion. A conscientious resister may, of course, be mistaken; but if he is prepared to go on resisting, making sacrifice, and enduring suffering for his scruples—that process is the least fallible as a test, and the most converting in its tendency of all the processes of propaganda that the human mind can conceive; and by recognizing the moral right of the individual to put himself to that test before the eyes of his fellow citizens, and so at the same time to test their consciences in the matter, you are not really encouraging a course which leads to disunion and anarchy, but a course which, on the whole, will best bring about a general consensus of opinion. A community which recognises the moral worth of such tests of its own and of the individual conscience, will be far less likely to arouse such demonstrations of revolt than one which altogether ignores and despises them; for the simple reason that such a community will be better based in its duty toward its neighbour; it will wish each man to do that which it would claim the right to do itself in a like case, if faced by a superior power backed by greater numbers than its own.

If I know that my conscientious resistance