by Richard B. Gregg

Editor’s Preface: This 1941 article, with its Foreword by Gandhi, continues our series of important historical documents on the theory and history of Gandhian nonviolence. Gregg here argues for the value of manual labor, as advocated by John Ruskin, and as practiced by Gandhi in his ashrams, where Gregg had lived. Gandhi considered spinning and weaving essential to the routine of a nonviolent community, yet this article is one of the very few to try to explicate this. Please also see the Editor’s Note at the end for more information about Gregg, and please also consult his other article, which we have posted here. JG

Foreword (by M. K. Gandhi): ‘A Discipline for Non-violence’ is a pamphlet written by Mr. Richard B. Gregg for the guidance of those Westerners who endeavour to follow the law of Satyagraha. I use the word advisedly instead of ‘pacifism’. For what passes under the name of pacifism is not the same as Satyagraha. Mr. Gregg is a most diligent and methodical worker. He had first-hand knowledge of Satyagraha, having lived in India and then too for nearly a year in the Sabarmati Ashram. His pamphlet is seasonable and cannot fail to help the Satyagrahis of India. For though the pamphlet is written in a manner attractive for the West, the substance is the same for both the Western and the Eastern Satyagrahi. A cheap edition of the pamphlet is therefore being printed locally for the benefit of Indian readers in the hope that many will make use of it and profit by it. A special responsibility rests upon the shoulders of Indian Satyagrahis, for Mr Gregg has based the pamphlet on his observation of the working of Satyagraha in India. However admirable this guide of Mr. Gregg’s may appear as a well-arranged code, it must fail in its purpose if the Indian experiment fails. (Sevagram, 24-8-1941)

A Discipline for Non-violence

For ages military discipline has won and held men’s faith. However crude, indiscriminate, and brief may be the results of organized violence, the world still has immense respect for its show of firmness and order. Much as we dislike war, when we begin to ask how we can attain justice and peace, we come face to face with this power of the military method. What is the secret of this power? Does it lie merely in men’s fear of violence?

Napoleon held that discipline amounts to seventy-five per cent of all the elements that go to make up success in battle. According to [Marshall Ferdinand] Foch, “Discipline constitutes the main strength of armies.” The Duke of Wellington said, “Habit is ten times nature.” George Russell (A. E.), the noted poet and founder of the Irish agricultural cooperatives, felt that military genius had discovered and applied with surpassing success a law of life that is even more important to civil than to military existence, namely the means by which the individual can be taught to forget his personal danger and to sacrifice his individual interests for the general welfare. The means, he said, is military discipline. It works miracles. Nowhere is subordination of the individual to the idea of the general welfare so effectually achieved as in military organizations. (1)

If, then, the great masters of military art and science are right, armies are powerful not primarily because of their weapons and their destructiveness, but because of their organization and firm habits. The power resides not so much in airplanes, warships, guns, and bombs, as in human beings, in the quality of their habits and in their modes of habit formation.

Napoleon also said that in war the relative importance of the moral elements to the physical elements is as three to one. Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, a renowned authority on military strategy and recent military history, believes that in modern war the relative importance of the moral to the physical is as six to one.

From these statements by military experts can we glean any guidance for those who desire to settle disputes by non-violent methods? In other words, is there any real hope that there is a gentle means of solving conflicts, of attaining a people’s righteous desires by non-violence? If in the settlement of great conflicts the moral element is so important, might it not be possible to achieve a discipline not only more moral than that of war, but, for that very reason, more potent? Can we not create a social power stronger than armies, with new methods of discipline more moral than those of war?

George Russell, whom we cited above, considered non-violent resistance, though morally beautiful, an impractical method of solving great conflicts. (2) He thought it impractical because he said it made too lofty demands upon human nature. While he admitted some of its achievements, he felt that the mass of mankind could not maintain such exalted discipline long enough to be successful. In this belief he is seconded by the military authority mentioned above, Captain Liddell Hart. (3) Captain Hart, while stating that non-violent resistance has demonstrated great power on some occasions, doubts that any nation could maintain the collective ethical discipline necessary to win a great and prolonged struggle by pacific resistance.

This is weighty opinion, but I believe it is mistaken. These two critics, and many other thoughtful, well-intentioned people seem to take for granted that the disciplines available to establish mass habits of powerful gentleness are solely in the realm of the spirit. It is my purpose in the ensuing pages to point out that non-violent as well as military training requires physical drills and disciplines, and that such training can be obtained through manual work.

Let it be understood at the very outset that while the programme I propose will necessarily have definite economic implications, it is offered primarily as a physical discipline for non-violence. Just as a militarist, who personally prefers to ride in an automobile and knows that it will get him to his destination more quickly, nevertheless believes in the training of long marches, so the believer in non-violence undertakes manual labor for the sake of the discipline even though he acknowledges the quantity of production to be thereby curtailed.

Let us for a moment examine some of the effects of military discipline. Such drill gives men practice in handling their weapons, simulating field conditions as closely as possible. In military training at its best, the constant drilling and other disciplinary activities create a habit of instant obedience; they produce self-respect and a limited self-reliance; they develop self-confidence, and promote self-control and self-sacrifice. They engender in the individual loyalty, tenacity, steadiness of purpose, and unity with the rest of the army. They foster endurance of hardship for a common cause, and awareness of effective order and cooperation in working towards an end greater than any individual. They induce in ordinary persons an awareness of being protectors of property, protectors of civilians, and protectors of the State. They create energy and courage.

Non-violence is a bold way of life. It must express itself in constructive action.

This is no mean array of accomplishments. By what discipline can the non-violent resister produce comparable results? It is now widely realized that pacific resistance cannot be successful or make an effective moral appeal if it is only passive. Non-violence is a bold way of life. It must express itself in constructive action. Not only among youth but among all morally healthy and vigorous people there is, in relation to any great conflict, an imperative need for deeds. This is especially true in times of national crisis. Activity we all must have. But it must be intelligent activity. It must be action, which is expected to advance towards power to win settlement of the specific issue, and it must at the same time be expected to achieve enduring order, security, freedom, and moral equality, to produce mutual respect, friendliness, and peace. Without a programme of practical performance in which any person can take part (i.e. a programme other than talk) many pacifists cannot maintain their belief. The moral and psychological need for deeds is compelling. Without such exertion pacifism seems and feels too negative. Such lack of belief and practice in bodily action accounts, I believe, for the abandonment of their faith by some distinguished former pacifists — such men as Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, A. A. Milne, and Beverly Nichols.

Psychological Reasons for Physical Action

The great majority of people learn by physical action. Mere verbal explanation is not enough. This is true even of such intellectual matters as mathematics. The ordinary pupil, until he has made the diagrams or written the formulae and manipulated the symbols with his own pencil, does not really understand the subject; it does not bring reality or conviction to him. Nor do we find all the implications of any idea until they have been tested and applied in action. Most people get their major satisfactions and pleasures out of bodily action and physical senses. Furthermore, sentiments develop out of certain types of creative work. (4) And habits grow from repetition of action. Ideas have to be carried out in action in order to “work”. For this reason any drill, any discipline, any process of habit formation must consist largely of physical actions. This is true of all the great disciplines — military, industrial, scientific, religious.

The action which I propose for the non-violent resister is participation in manual work with the following stipulations: (1) It must produce something beneficial to the community, especially to the poor and unemployed, and (2) it must be the kind of work which the poor and unemployed can themselves do and thus help themselves. These conditions make the discipline for non-violence more moral, and hence more potent, than the discipline for war.  The variety of forms, which this work will probably take, will be discussed later. The value of such work is double, that it is socially useful and brotherly, and that it furnishes discipline for non-violence.

There are sound evolutionary reasons why manual labor is the logical discipline for non-violence. The hand is the physical characteristic, which distinguishes man from beast and enables him to use tools. The tool is the first means and symbol of our power over nature and of our conscious, close, and active relation with natural forces. Tools gave man his first glimpse of cause and effect. From learning the operation of cause and effect in the outer world man began to understand the inner operations of the self, and to develop his power of mental objectification. (5) The correlation of the hand and the eye, and their combined use gave man self-consciousness. All through the evolution of man, the hand and the use of tools have greatly stimulated and influenced the development of his mind. (6) Prolonged, habitual use of tools subtly but powerfully organizes our thoughts, emotions, and sentiments, giving a sense of power in dealing with our environment. This immediate sensory and intellectual experience, with the cumulative effect of many frequent repetitions, gives faith, self-confidence, imaginative power, dignity, and self-respect that can never be destroyed.

Although intellectuals who deal mostly in abstractions may find it hard to agree to such far-reaching statements, experience proves their truth. An extreme case is the well-known fact that in mental sanatoria just such simple handwork is used in cases of desperate melancholia as a subtle but powerful restorative of self-respect, interest, hope, and courage. In this occupational therapy interest and self-respect are enhanced by the use of articles made by one’s own hand.

Initial Doubts

Before addressing ourselves to the discussion we must answer one incisive criticism. The sceptic may say, “If manual work were an effective habit-forming discipline for non-violence, then why aren’t farmers and city manual workers, the majority of the nation, now ready for a successful campaign of non-violent resistance towards a possible foe? Why aren’t they all alert, active, and poised for effective action, like soldiers? Why aren’t those who rely wholly on hand tools, like our [Scottish] Southern Highlanders, especially noted for non-violent types of action?”

There are three parts in answer to this. The first is that most of the manual workers, both agricultural and industrial, as individuals are in fact capable of such a [non-violent] campaign, as shown by the predominantly non-violent character of most industrial strikes. This non-violence is a fact, even though agents-provocateurs and police have sometimes succeeded in breaking it down, and though the editors of most newspapers try to make strikes appear violent. Experienced newspaper reporters and other eyewitnesses of strikes will verify this statement. When non-violent leadership is provided, manual workers show wonderful self-restraint. This readiness of working people for non-violence is due, I believe, to the results of manual work upon their character, in the way in which it will be presently explained. But those workers are not prepared now to make prolonged mass non-violent resistance. This is chiefly because of lack both of political skill and of unity with the more articulate middle-class people to whom they are accustomed to look for leadership. Also, most people do not understand or believe in the power of non-violence. Very few even of the leaders understand it.

Secondly mere manual activity, undirected by understanding, cannot act as a discipline for sustained group non-violent resistance. The situation is like that of an unassembled or dismembered watch. The parts are all piled together in a disorderly heap. To make them work they must be put together in a certain pattern, so that every part will have a specific functional relationship to every other part. So it is with manual work. When practiced understandingly, in comprehending relation to the full implications of the non-violent way of life, it becomes a sound discipline for even an individual; when practiced with many others on a large scale as a part of an intelligible plan, with partial or complete comprehension of the implications and working of a program of non-violent social or political reform, then it becomes a most effective group discipline.

The difference in results between doing things ignorantly or comprehendingly is great. A lad skilled at drawing but ignorant of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, for instance, could copy out a trigonometric diagram and theorem without its producing any effect upon his mind. But another chap who understood algebra and geometry and had studied trigonometry as far as this particular theorem, might go through the same motions of hand and eye as the first one, but the result would be entirely different. He would see what is meant, he might be excited over its immediate application to surveying, and he might then be able to get work on a surveying crew, have a happy and interesting job, and do effective work on a bridge or road construction project of great value to the community. The understanding of that bit of pencil work may alter his whole life, and create in him a whole new set of habits. When people have understood a programme, have caught a vision, have approved the motive — what a surge of enthusiasm, of energy, of persistent devotion has arisen! Look, for example, at the Boy Scouts, Sinn Fein in its early days, the mediaeval Crusades.

Such a lack of relationship and of understanding would apply to the handwork of the [Scottish] Southern Highlanders. Their work is predominantly individualistic and non-integrated for purposes of any program of social change or improvement. It therefore cannot act as a discipline for steady non-violence.

The third reason why manual workers at present, by the very nature of their work, are not disciplined for mass non-violence is that, where their work is correlated, the chief principle of organization is competition in industry or commerce. This condition holds as true for most farmers as for factory people and middlemen. Competitive industry and commerce on a large scale, under modern conditions, amount to economic warfare, and warfare of all sorts is the negation of non-violence.

If again some sceptic dislikes this idea of manual work as a discipline for non-violence because it is suspiciously like the youth discipline of Nazism and Fascism, one can only say that all good things can be abused and linked to mistaken patterns of life. We ask such a critic to suspend judgment until he has read all the following discussion. When a military struggle for any good cause is proposed, even the young men realize the necessity of giving months or years to drilling, discipline, organization and acquiring the necessary munitions. For a successful struggle of non-violent constructive effort the equivalent discipline is hard work. Let us see why.

Manual Work Has the Same Effects as Military Training

Though to many it may at first seem incredible, careful and objective analysis shows that the same valuable benefits derived from military discipline — that is, habits of obedience, self-respect and self-reliance, self-control and self-sacrifice, tenacity of will, sense of unity with others, endurance of common hardships, sense of order and cooperation, energy, courage, equanimity and poise, practice in handling moral equivalents of weapons — are developed by wide-spread, habitual, understood handwork . Let me demonstrate.

The Habit of Obedience 

Military discipline creates the habit of instant obedience to the officer’s orders. In non-violent action, while there will be some occasions where prompt obedience to the leader will be necessary, the primary obedience will be to one’s own conscience and one’s own ideals. Manual work will, in such a training regime, be supplemented by discursive thinking and meditation. Meditation involves listening to the commands of conscience, making conscience intelligent, sensitive, and wide-ranging, helping it to become understanding and practical. Meditation also enriches, extends, and strengthens ideals. Obedience to the orders of the leader will be best prompted by a thorough understanding of the same principles of non-violent resistance which motivate him and an appreciation of how those principles operate on people’s minds and hearts.

Self-respect, Self-reliance and Self-control

Self-respect comes from the realization that in doing manual labor the worker is industrious and manually competent, that he has created something tangible which is immediately useful, has economic value, and may also be beautiful.

Self-reliance also is built up by manual labor. City dwellers, intellectuals, those whom extreme specialization and division of labor have made technologically helpless and dependent on others, particularly need such a fillip of skills so as to provide directly for themselves. In these days of economic depression and impoverishment of the middle classes of all nations, none of us know when we may become really destitute. The actual practice of making one’s own tools gives self-reliance and self-confidence of a peculiarly solid and enduring nature; not the blustering sort of self-confidence but the deep, happy kind. Self-reliance is more needed by the non-violent resister than by the soldier, for often the struggle has to take place away from the supporting presence of comrades.

After self-reliance and self-confidence are developed, willingness to accept responsibility follows. This creates sources of leadership. The value of leadership to any movement is essential and obvious. Steady, daily, habitual manual labor, learning and practicing the delicate, patient, rhythmic coordination of eye, fingers, hands and arms necessary for any manual skill yields self-control of mind and emotion as well as control of body.

Devoting an hour or more a day to handwork may to some people seem like self-sacrifice. It would be more accurate to say that manual work helps us to understand the necessity, the meaning and the rewards of self-sacrifice, and so helps us to accomplish it. Sacrifice is not a mere giving up. It is a giving up of a lesser good in order to secure a greater good.

Tenacity of Will

The steady, daily practice of handwork, developing it into a habit, develops tenacity, just as much as does the soldier’s daily marching in the parade ground. The psychological reason for this is that two elements of the will are, a clear concept of a pattern of feasible action, and the establishment and use of a set of consistent exterior stimuli, which induce action along the chosen channel. (7) These two elements are found in military discipline, and their effect on the will of troops is undeniable. These two elements are also found in manual work of the sorts we are discussing. Further observation is needed to realize their effect upon workers.

Sense of Unity with Others

It is not hard to see that he who deliberately, conscientiously and intelligently works with his hands daily as a member of an organization (nationwide if possible) will soon develop a sense of unity with his fellow workers. There are few bonds closer or more lasting than the experience of working together with others over a period of months and years. Interestingly enough, that unity is peculiarly strong if the work is manual. That is due to the close connection between hand, mind, and self-awareness through all of man’s evolution since self-consciousness was attained. More than two-thirds of the nerve fibers that leave the cerebrum, the front part of the brain where we do our thinking, go to the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls action. This group of nerve fibers has the function of maintaining and changing the muscular tone of the body in readiness for effective action. (8) This is evidence of the close connection between mind and physical action.

Probably all thinking and some emotion takes place by means of imagery or symbolism of some sort. A considerable part of thinking and some feeling is done by means of words, which are auditory and visual symbols. In addition to visual and auditory imagery there is also kinesthetic, tactile, and articular imagery (i.e., referring respectively to the sense of muscular movement, the sense of touch, and the sense of motion of the joints), and something corresponding to imagery, which is based on perceptions of balance and of smell and temperature. Each of us probably has more skill and ease in using one or perhaps two kinds of such imagery than in using the others, though probably most persons can use all these forms in some degree. The more kinds of imagery we can become skilful in, the surer, more adaptable, more varied, more complete becomes our understanding of people. That is, we become more capable of wide, rich and deep unity with other human beings. The imagery of great numbers of inexpressive people and of those whose book education is not extensive is probably kinesthetic, articular, and tactile. A common form of physical activity, giving a common kinesthetic, articular and tactile experience and imagery, will thus enable all those who take part in it to reach a closer mutual understanding than would be possible in the absence of it.

The power to objectify, which man acquired from the use of tools, may have played some part in enabling him to develop speech. From tools and speech has grown his sense of social unity.

Because of the evolutionary connection between mind and manual dexterity, any great new step forward in the integration of human minds, such as group non-violent resistance, will wisely be associated with manual work. This association will give such a movement a deep, firm, bodily basis. Furthermore, the sense of touch, which is so delicate in the hand, is closely connected with and expressive of human sympathy. (9) To express sympathy one instinctively touches a person who is in deep trouble, or a person whom one loves. So a movement based on a re-establishment of human unity will naturally find an important part of its expression through the hand.

Certain it is that tools made man’s work effective, and that coordinated group work with tools provided the means of cooperation and hence was the basis of society. The manual laborer will inevitably learn about the activities of other manual laborers and then come to appreciate them as persons, members of a social group with a common purpose. Since some of these workers would be farmers and some city people, the bond between farmers and city folk would thus be strengthened.

We must work with people as well as for them. Giving money is not enough, nor is it at all an equivalent for actual manual work. If all kinds of people — the manual workers, the unemployed, the middle class, the intellectuals, and the rich — can take part in manual labor, especially if it can be the same for them all, it will provide a common experience and be a symbol of democratic common endeavor and of a bridging over of the gap between the classes. It will help to unite leaders and followers. Everyone can do such work. For this reason it can unite all kinds of people, the entire community, even the nation. This sense of unity can be enhanced by practicing manual work together daily in little groups of from five to twelve persons, and, while the work goes on, discussing various matters relating to the movement for non-violence. (10)

I do not intend to suggest the formation of separate, self-sufficient, small communities for doing such work and trying to evolve a separate non-violent pattern of living. That may be wise for some and I do not want to deter them. Extremely few people could pull up stakes and go off that way anyhow, nor can we be sure that it would be wise even if it were possible. A truly self-subsistent colony would require an assemblage of at least twenty-three different skilled craftsmen and their families and enough land to support over one hundred people. That amount of land is expensive. Also such an undertaking would necessitate sudden changes of many habits — a very difficult requirement. It may be better to have the believers in non-violence  living in the general community, acting as ferments for these ideas wherever they may be. But manual work in small groups and individually will serve to give cohesion and significance and power to their efforts. Part of the significance would be economic. The final result on society would probably be greater, I believe, than what might be accomplished by the establishment of separate communities. Both ways, however, can be useful.

It is easy to see that under such conditions of group work, and with the growth of the above-mentioned moral factors, there comes an increase of happiness and a deep satisfaction. The work is self-validating. Out of these in turn comes a sense of loyalty to the organization with which the manual worker is affiliated and to the sort of activities, yielding such satisfactions. The prolongation of these habits and these results inevitably produces steadiness of purpose, a sure, enduring, individual and group morale. The production of actual articles objectifies, and by repetition re-enforces the realization of all these growing elements. As one sees these articles used more and more widely, these realizations gain momentum, impressiveness, enthusiasm, and power.

Endurance of Common Hardship

The satisfactions thus obtained make those who take part in the activities ready and willing to undergo and endure common hardship for their cause. Such hardship endured together enhances still further their unity and esprit de corps.

Sense of Order and Cooperation

The experience of joint work, the observation of its material and intangible products, creates a realization of effective order and cooperation for a common purpose. Habitual working together for such a purpose and in such fashion develops a strong sense of mutual reliance and trust. The sense of being useful, of being part of an active, effective, significant human order gives a thrill of satisfaction, a deep delight. The desires for order, pattern, conscious relationship, belonging, and being needed, are among the deepest and strongest needs of mankind.

Undoubtedly that is one important reason why for so many men life as soldiers, or as seamen or as railway men exercises such a powerful fascination. A sense of order is one of the fundamental forces of society. So the ability to create strong awareness of significant, effective order and personal usefulness by means of manual labor as a member of a large organization is of importance to the freedom of the nation.

Protection of Community

The production and use of articles made by hand may have far-reaching effects on the community. Those who share in such production will see and be convinced of the results on the lives of farmers, of urban unemployed, and of middle class people. One result would be the closing of social and political chasms between the well-to-do and the poor, between unemployed and employed, between different communities, between city-folk and country-folk, and between the intellectuals and the masses. Hand-workers would begin to realize that they are creators of property, and that as creators of order they are re-builders of broken citizens — protectors and builders of their own forth-coming State. The cumulative effect of many little efforts and products is like the river resulting from raindrops, or in human affairs, it is like the immense government funds coming from a multitude of small individual taxes.

Energy

One begins now to perceive how manual labor develops energy in the individual and energy in society. One sure creator of human energy is hope. Added to this are faith and conviction, the enthusiasm of numbers, and goodwill towards others, which is exemplified at its highest in love. Still another creator of energy is the perception and understanding of significant order, relationship or pattern, and awareness of being a voluntary part of it. All these factors are present for the participator in the manual work program. So his energy wells up and continues. Likewise the combined energy of the group of participants increases. The sense of the significance of each individual and of his awareness of the nature of his relation to society will create great and widespread happiness, and release among the masses immense energy.

Recent biological studies have shown that in all classes of life, from the simplest to the most complex, from unicellular organisms to man, the endurance and effectiveness of a group of organisms is much greater proportionately than that of an individual. (11) As compared, for example, with the ability of a single bacterium to stand an unfavorable environment, thirty bacteria of the same kind together were found to be over two hundred times as effective. Similarly the group energy and effectiveness of many makers and users of handmade articles is vastly greater than that of one or two solitary makers or users. With an increase in numbers the momentum and power increases in almost geometrical ratio.

Courage

Finally we come to the claim that group manual labor builds up courage. At first sight such an assertion may seem ludicrous. How could a quiet, humdrum activity develop courage?

Courage is not an indivisible entity. It has several strands. A living thing, it is a growth out of compound elements. One element in courage is single-minded absorption in something outside oneself. This is exemplified by a mother cat with her kittens. In defense of her kittens she will attack and drive off a dog many times her size. In her love for her kittens she forgets about herself and the danger to her. Handwork has a fascination and stimulus, which helps to develop single-minded devotion to the task.

Another element in courage is a sense of unity with others, a realization that others are with you, giving their support in the common effort. The more the comrades, other things being equal, the more was the courage. As soon as there was a large organization of workers it would give a great heartening to anyone who joined. If a majority of the nation were to become earnest manual workers, what a source of unity!

Energy is a factor in courage. The increase of moral and physical energy growing out of engaging in a program of handwork would add its quota to the participant’s courage.

Inner integration with its enhanced sense of life, wellbeing and hope add to one’s store of courage. These elements also are found in a workers’ movement.

In some situations, consciousness of power to endure is also a factor in courage; a practice such as handwork, which cultivates patience and a realization of the cumulative value of repetitive acts, will promote courage and fortitude. Whatever gives a sense of control over exterior forces of any sort promotes courage. For example, medical skill gives courage in time of epidemic disease. Handwork is a manipulative skill, which removes an economic danger for the individual and the nation. If such work were widespread, it would, for the nation, also tend to reduce grave social and political dangers such as unemployment, poverty, disunity, indifference and despair.

So far as handwork and the use of its products promote simplicity of living they reduce one’s possessions and thus reduce one’s economic fears. Since so many of our fears nowadays are economic, whatever reduces our possibilities of economic loss and increases our economic self-reliance should be expected to increase our courage.

Again, so far as the making and using of handwork increase our consistency of thought, action, and desire, our inner conflicts are thereby decreased, our poise is enhanced, and our courage is increased. This is still more true for moral than for physical courage. And since the leaders have special need of moral courage, to the leaders the value of handwork is emphasized.

Allied with the single-minded interest which gives courage is love. All love gives courage. Indeed, the complete antithesis of fear is not courage but love. Courage, in the main, accepts the diversity between combatants and meets an attack on much the same moral plane as that of the attacker. But love rises above the plane of separation and conflict and asserts the unity of the two parties. Whatever promotes love or even its more generalized cousin, goodwill, also gives courage.

The increase of goodwill may in economic parlance be called a capital-goods industry. Where a nation has built up a vast store of mutual goodwill it can afford to take social, economic and political risks that a nation, which is poor in that respect cannot take. Not only moral but political and economic generosity becomes possible.

Equanimity and Poise

Yet another source of courage, developed through manual labor, is patience. All its practitioners agree to that. The winning of equanimity and moral strength is partly a problem of an inner organizing of sentiments and thoughts, and attaining a unifying ultimate spirit. That organizing of sentiments is taken care of by another phase of the non-violent resister’s discipline. But the winning of equanimity and moral strength is also in part a problem of mobilizing energy and giving it satisfying direction and use.

Each person is a centre of energy, which is expressed in various ways: physical, emotional, intellectual, moral and spiritual. Each of us in growing up has experienced numerous frustrations and some humiliations. Such experiences meant that the energy behind the desire, hope, plan or partly completed action was suddenly blocked. The blockage caused resentment within us. Continuance of the blocking caused bitterness. Sometimes the energy of that resentment found normal expression through another channel. Much of it still lies within us like a coiled-up watch-spring. The occasions of most of our childhood frustrations and humiliations and probably most of those of our adult years have been forgotten. But much of the energy is still bottled up within us. A trivial occasion may pull the trigger, as it were, for the explosion of such stored up resentment. (12)

War provides a wide channel and allows people to vent all the energy of their accumulated resentments. The release of stored-up energy gives deep satisfaction. This explains in part why many men get such satisfaction from war. This probably also explains many riots, and the wartime cruelty of long-humiliated people or of people whose social discipline has been very rigid and repressive. (13)

To the extent that we find constructive channels for the steady, social expression of our stores of inner energy, we greatly reduce the likelihood of outbursts of anger. We generally have self-control enough to handle the new frustration or humiliation. It is that huge reservoir of unconscious, suppressed energy of resentments of long ago which is so unmanageable and takes us off our guard. A wise discipline will find ways to drain off that energy into creative channels. By so doing it will enable its followers to develop more poise and equanimity. The nature of this manual work and of its organization is similar to that of much of the causes of the original frustrations, namely social, economic and natural. Also the deep evolutionary connection between mind and hand, and between emotion and physical action, makes sublimation by means of manual activities peculiarly effective and complete.

Anger among pacific resisters is the equivalent of cowardice among soldiers. Anger and resulting violence are a breach of the non-violent discipline. Fear and resulting flight are the corresponding breach of military discipline. Therefore whatever reduces the general tendency to anger promotes the chances of success in a non-violent struggle.

After the World War of 1914-18 many demobilized British soldiers were unemployed and became bitter against the government and indeed against all modern civilization. Some of those bitter men finally secured little plots of land where they could raise crops and keep animals on subsistence schemes. The physical work of digging in the open air, creating something of their own, at least partly supporting themselves, gradually eased off their bitterness and anger, soothed their frayed nerves, relieved their sense of humiliation, restored their self-respect, ended their inferiority complex, and once more gave them happiness. The same thing has happened among persecuted Jews who have found refuge in Palestine and have been working on the land.

The same is true of all creative manual labor. As already explained, manual work and the use of simple tools have a subtle and powerful effect upon man’s character and energies. For these reasons a wholehearted enlistment in a handwork program would do much to increase courage, poise, and equanimity, and thereby increase the likelihood of maintaining complete non-violence in a struggle for freedom or reform.

Practice in Handling the Moral Equivalent of Weapons

Military discipline gives practice in the handling of weapons under conditions simulating, as nearly as possible, those of actual warfare. This is true in some measure of the discipline of handwork . In a struggle by a non-violent party against a violent party, just as in a struggle between two violent parties, the aim is to alter the will, hopes, and values of the opponent so as to bring a peace better and more enduring than that which previously existed. The non-violent party must first win the respect of its opponent — respect for unity and cohesion, firmness of will, courage, endurance, and strength. They must also win their opponent’s trust and liking. They must convince the opponent’s mind of the practicality of their proposals and the personal ability of those who would carry them into action. Endurance and strength need to be demonstrated in the technological and economic as well as the political and moral fields. The actual operation of a handwork program in thorough fashion all through a group or nation would powerfully demonstrate at least some of these persuasions. Working with the hands would then afford practice in the use of some of the non-violent resister’s equivalent of weapons. There is another similarity to army discipline. Each kind of service in the army has physical activities peculiar to its own kind of weapon or equipment. The activities of infantry, of artillery, and of air force, differ from one another. Each has its own characteristic drill, yet most of them drill by marching in formation.

So in the physical disciplinary activities of non-violent resisters, some may do shovel-work like the members of the international voluntary corps, Ceresole Service International. Others may do sanitary fieldwork, malaria prevention, and so forth. But all can and should, if possible, do one thing in common. It is important that in one respect one discipline and one consequent unity should be more complete and thorough than that even of soldiers. The struggle to rid the world of organized violence will be the mightiest that mankind has yet undertaken. The discipline must therefore be exceptionally thorough.

Additional Qualities Needed for Pacific Resistance

Non-violent resisters, in order to be successful, need not only the above-mentioned qualities in common with the soldier. For a non-violent struggle they need special additional qualities. They need tolerance, patience, humility, love of truth, love of people, and faith in the ultimate possibilities of human nature. They need, lastly, an understanding of and firm belief in the power of non-violence.

Patience and Humility

Practicing manual labor can develop humility. A true craftsman’s selfless fidelity to his work is an important form of humility and promotes other forms of humility. Since no

worker’s individual production can exceed another’s more than by a physically limited degree, all are on a relatively equalitarian level. Moral perspective is also promoted. The relation of the individual’s product to that of the entire nation is so small as to be humbling. The fact that the product of one machine operator also does not much exceed that of another and is very small in comparison to that of the entire nation does not invalidate the statement of this effect of hand production. Early in this discussion I pointed out that modern industrial workers are capable of, and have often shown, marked non-violence. They certainly have also shown humility.

Machinery and technology are probably the source of modern man’s strongest pride. Let us not include science, for the scientific method is understood and practiced by only a small group of highly trained people. The rest of us merely accept its results. But machinery and technology are used and largely understood by us all. Exceedingly few are those who are not proud of this joint accomplishment. If machinery is the source of our strongest pride, to restrict it by a preference for handwork in one or two industries would help to promote real, even if not complete, humility. The restriction would not be for reasons of resentment or puritanical asceticism, but because we have come better to understand both machinery and ourselves.

Love of Truth

Prolonged work with tools and physical material creates in the worker a certain directness, respect for fact, honesty, and sincerity. These are all elements in love of truth. Accuracy is at least a part of love of truth, and accuracy of hand and eye are cultivated by skilled manual work. As the work goes on and the larger implications of its national use come to be not only intellectually understood but more completely realized through the senses, emotions, sentiments, will, and prolonged bodily participation, in like proportion the subtler aspects of the entire truth of the nation, its struggles and its character, will be increasingly perceived and developed.

Faith in Human Nature

Whenever we do manual work with other people we learn their moral quality, and usually we find ourselves respecting them more and having more faith in human nature. Profound cynics are not usually found among the manual workers. The beneficent results of a manual work movement will increase the detail, the range, the strength, and the enduring quality of our love for mankind.

For these reasons the handwork program would provide the finest kind of discipline for a national effort for non-violence. Throughout most of his history man has found satisfaction in trying to master material things, the forces of his environment. When he has not had that opportunity, his creative, dominating instincts have had to have an outlet and so have led him to try to dominate his fellow men. The results of that warping are apt, sooner or later, to be unpleasant all around. So a man is more normal and his fellow men are usually happier, if he has a regular outlet for his creative instincts via some sort of manual work. Of course this is not all there is to the difficulty, but it is an important part. Manual work provides a sublimation of energy, which is not indiscriminate but appropriate. It would not stifle initiative or spontaneity as military drill does. Nor would it result in highly centralized organizations. It is a discipline peculiarly fitted to equip the individual and the nation for non-violence.

Instead of calling the effect of such work a discipline for non-violence we could call it a means of building up character in the individual, group, and community. As such it should interest educators and community leaders of all sort.

Satisfactions

Most people are hesitant about accepting new practices. A new program, if it is to be widely adopted and adhered to for any length of time, must provide immediate and real satisfactions and reasonable promises of future satisfactions. For most people at least some part of those satisfactions have to be sensory and bodily.

Manual work complies with these conditions. Of the ten human bodily senses, six are given exercise and experience by manual work. These are the senses of sight, touch, hearing (in the rhythmic noise of tools and in talk about the work), balance, kinesthesis (the feeling of the muscles in action), and the articular sense (the feeling of the joints in motion). Hence manual work provides a fairly rich sensory experience, and of course it does not exclude the routine use of the other senses.

Handwork provides more room for initiative, creation, untrammeled cooperation, variety, and freedom than does machine work. It usually makes possible more sociability while working. The possession of self-respect which manual work supplies satisfies a deep human need. The same is true of a sense of dignity. We now see better the reasons why all manual work has dignity. When these reasons come to be widely understood both by those who do manual work for a living and by those who do not, many of the cleavages in society can more readily be healed. That prospect provides the possibility for great future satisfaction.

To the extent that the wider meanings of the work are realized there will be intellectual, emotional, aesthetic and moral satisfactions arising from the work. In addition to these experiences, which are all not only immediate but deeply satisfying, there is the realization of future value from the completion of the separate bits of work. Part of this value will be economic, part aesthetic, part social, and eventually part political.

Another source of psychological strength in handwork as a discipline lies in its compliance with the law of stimulus and response. It is a law of life that a great many repetitions of slight appropriate stimuli cause growth. This is true not only of organic tissue but also of mental, emotional, aesthetic and moral faculties. The habitual daily practice of manual activities of the sorts above described provides such stimuli. The results are sure.

People in this age understand readily how many little bits of money accumulate to form significant sums, as in savings banks or taxation. There is a similar powerful psychological and moral accumulative effect from the summation of many, many small acts.

Relief from Moral Strain

This analysis of the discipline of manual work has answered, in large measure, the objection mentioned early in the discussion to the effect that pacific resistance is on too high a moral plane for the mass of mankind to reach and maintain for any considerable length of time, the feeling that mankind cannot stay long on moral tiptoe.

But there is more to this aspect of the matter than we have yet mentioned. The nature of manual work is significant. Handwork is rhythmic, slow, persistent and soothing, patient, routine, and undramatic. It affords, therefore, a contrast to the high tension of moral and spiritual effort involved in an open non-violent struggle. It is creative of things that are useful and sometimes beautiful. It therefore gives inner integration and inspiration.

After a strenuous moral effort, the gentle resister may retire to an artistic and re-creative type of activity, like Antaeus returning to the vitalizing touch of the earth. Such manual activity prepares for the strain, and afterwards compensates for it and relieves it. This holds true for both the individual and the group who participate.

Kinds of Manual Discipline

There are various kinds of manual work that satisfy the conditions we laid down at the beginning, namely that the product shall be beneficial to the community, especially to the poor and unemployed, and that the work is such that the poor and unemployed can themselves do it and thus self-respectingly help themselves. Some kinds of such work have been exemplified by the American Friends Service Committee in their Work Camps, by the British and American Quakers’ Relief and Reconstruction work in Europe during and after the World War, recently in Spain and elsewhere in Europe, and by Pierre Ceresole’s Service International, mentioned above. These have involved such work as feeding undernourished women and children, providing clothing to the destitute; operating hospitals, kindergartens, and playgrounds; building, rebuilding and repairing houses; building roads and dams, planting trees, performing agricultural tasks, operating fruit and vegetable canneries, making swimming pools and fields for sports, removing and repairing damage from floods and earthquakes, draining marshes, digging wells and trenches for water-pipes and sewers. These projects have also at times included such handicrafts as furniture-making, shoemaking, basketry, knitting, weaving, making hooked rugs, making surgical dressings and bandages and so on.

The Best Manual Discipline and Reasons for Its Superiority

While all these are good and effective for the purpose of discipline, I urge searching for one that seems most effective. The various details of the argument apply more or less to all the activities above mentioned, but if one kind of work could be found which exemplifies the discipline with special power and which could be universally practiced, it would be especially valuable. If the activity is to be socially unifying, it must be something which poor people could do within even their limited means, and it must also meet the felt needs of the largest group of society and the group whose needs are greatest. Also, the need to be met should be an elemental need such as food, shelter, or clothing. To become habitual and permanent the work process must yield both present satisfaction and future use. To be effective among a large group the disciplinary activity must be common to them all.

In modern war, women, old people and children may suffer quite as much as soldiers. In a struggle of non-violent resistance the women and old people can play as active and important a part as do the young and physically vigorous men. Indeed, women may be more effective at non-violent resistance than men are. Hence the manual discipline for non-violence must be such that women can easily take part in it.

Clearly, only those with access to land can raise food. To choose farming as the common discipline would prevent the city population, over half the nation, from acquiring the discipline. This applies also to forestry and soil conservation work. Also, growing food in most places can be practiced for only about half the year.

Building shelter requires many skills and much expensive material and is mostly heavy work, which might eliminate some women and most elderly people. The skills and expense would narrow still further the number who could experience the discipline. Most people cannot leave their homes and daily routine work to go where such work might be. Rough, unskilled work probably has less disciplinary values than moderately skilled work. And most hand construction or digging work can be done only during the warm six months of the year. These considerations seem to eliminate food-raising and building as universal manual disciplines.

The remaining elemental need is clothing. Once the raw fibers can be obtained, yarn and thread can be made by the relatively simple skill of spinning, and many articles of clothing by knitting, crocheting, weaving and sewing. (14) Hand spinning, hand carding, and (in the case of cotton) hand ginning are essential because they transform the raw fiber into yarn. If mill-manufactured yarn is used, the expense is considerable and the labor is tied to the factory process. In time of an actual non-violent struggle the worker could readily be cut off from his supply of yarn. But in a great struggle, farmers might constitute many of the resisters, and be able to supply some of the raw fiber, or other farmers might be sympathetic enough to do so.

The product of hand-textile work is a standard necessity; it can be transported for use; it can either be used for oneself or one’s family or sold for cash. The product of a group working together can be combined into a final unit product. The product is useful to people of all ages and occupations. There is no need for a large organization before work can begin. The hand tools of textile making are inexpensive, small, light in weight, and easily carried from place to place. Such work can be done by people of both sexes and of any age above small childhood. It is easy and does not take long to learn to make a product usable in one way or another. The work can be done in the evening after work, or at any hour of the day, and at any season of the year. It is clean work. It is somewhat rhythmic, and when once learned can be done while the mind is chiefly occupied with other matters.

It is quiet work and so can be carried on together with reading or discussion, and without disturbing neighbors. It can be done indoors or outdoors, by individuals or groups, by poor and rich alike, by city folk as well as farmers, skilled and unskilled, educated and ignorant persons, and even by bed-ridden invalids. Even the blind can knit, spin, and weave. Such work can be carried on while traveling as well as at home, by people who have only one room to live in, or who sleep in a common dormitory. Because the work is light, those tired after a day’s routine work can also do it. And it is sufficiently different from most work to be a pleasant change, and therefore a practical rest.

For these reasons the making of yarn and cloth by hand are more capable than any other manual work of constituting a universal physical disciplinary activity for non-violence. These reasons are worth pondering carefully. If this conclusion seems wrong and the reader can find another better kind of disciplinary work, by all means let him proceed to do so.

Overcoming a Prejudice

Some prejudices, fairly strong, would probably at first hamper participation in these crafts by men. Because the household manufacture of textile materials and clothing has for ages been mostly an occupation for women, many men will shy away from it. Men are apt to think that courage and dignity are primarily masculine virtues, and that to do what women have done would make them appear effeminate and undignified. But courage is neither an exclusively male virtue nor necessarily correlated with superior size. Real dignity resides not in tools or specific occupations but in the head and the heart. Don’t allow yourself to be sensitive to the jibes of the unthinking.

Furthermore, it will be found, I believe, that upon the basis of equal quality of raw fiber the finished product made by hand will usually be as cheap financially and sometimes cheaper than that of the mill-made product. This is largely because the savings of machine manufacture are more than lost by the high costs of modern commercial distribution. In cases where the hand-made article proves more expensive, the value of the discipline will offset the extra money cost.

Associated Training Activities

In addition to the discipline obtainable from the widespread practice of manual work, especially hand spinning and hand weaving, there are other methods of still further enhancing the discipline of non-violent resisters. They should organize themselves into small groups, not only for handwork  but also for study, discussion, singing, folk-dancing, reading aloud stories of great exemplars of non-violence, meditation, and social service of various kinds. (15) Such practice would constitute a fourfold discipline: by manual work, by cultivation of sentiments, by discursive thinking, and by meditation. (16) Any of these activities will develop moral and spiritual resources. If they can all be practiced, the resulting discipline will be still more effective. (17) We know that to be effective in any activity we must be whole-hearted, not divided in our attention or desires. So also to be effective we must have all levels of our being employed and working together: body, emotion, mind and spirit, hence, the importance of a fourfold discipline. Though most of this discussion has been devoted to the physical part of the discipline, this is only because hitherto that aspect has been too little considered or practiced. The stress here has been laid upon manual work by way of a correction in emphasis. The element of discussion is important because of the need for an understanding of the method of non-violence and of how manual work plays its part therein. If the whole pattern is not understood by most of the people who undergo the practice, the discipline will become only another blind ritual, of little value and even capable of abuse.

A disciplinary program, which includes all these activities as well as manual work, would have rich sensory content. In such a range of activities every one of the senses finds exercise, and if one may speak of a sense of beauty, it, too, would find scope in the manual work, folk-dancing, singing, reading of poetry, meeting around the fireside, and perhaps in some of the meals.

In addition to these sensory satisfactions, this broad program of disciplinary activities would provide strong and varied intellectual, emotional, social, aesthetic, moral, and religious satisfactions. They would do much to restore the sense of inner power and inner resource which modern man has so much lost. Singing would help reduce the moral tension referred to in the previous section. These activities aim at peace and order, resulting in a sense of security, reliable expectations and ability to plan ahead. They provide for social intercourse, opportunity to do useful and pleasant things together, and to develop and enhance the quality of social living in the future. Such discipline is needed not merely to make strong non-violent resisters but also to develop the kind of people who can create a better civilization, a non-violent world.

Superiorities over Military Discipline

All these activities together provide a greater variety, engage a wider range of human faculties and potentialities, reach deeper and loftier levels of being, and are more mutually consistent than are military exercises and military discipline. Military discipline calls for too narrow a range of loyalty and unity. It is inconsistent with the worldwide cooperative relationships imposed by modern commerce, communications, finance, science and technology. In that respect, disciplines and instruments of war are an increasing anachronism. Military discipline severely limits men’s initiative and freedom. It hampers men’s minds and spirits. It interferes with truth and love of truth. Also it is defective because of its inner inconsistency. Though it builds up the soldier’s courage, at the same time it plays on his fears by threatening him with severe punishments or even death if, at any point, he resists the pressure of the war machine, or later if his habits fail. Fear of the enemy is natural. But to develop fear of the very authority towards which complete loyalty is demanded is a serious psychological inconsistency. The discipline of non-violence has no such inherent weak spots.

Such inconsistencies are particularly serious among the more discriminating, sensitive, far-seeing, and intelligent minds, those who would be the best leaders and officers. They tend to reduce moral courage. Their absence from the discipline for non-violence might make possible higher and more enduring moral courage than would usually be found among men subjected only to military discipline. Believers in non-violence must subject themselves to some sort of thorough discipline. Having a discipline, which is consistent with and expressive of the method of non-violence, is clearly of the utmost importance.

All authorities on military strategy agree that the ultimate aim of military victory is the establishment of a better peace. But in modern war, the expensiveness of weapons, indiscriminateness of attack, severity and extent of destruction, suppression and distortion of truth, and totalitarian methods of following up military victory make a better peace impossible. The nature of the means determines the nature of the end actually achieved. The consonance of the training for non-violence with non-violence itself constitutes a further advantage over military discipline. Military discipline does not promote unity with the opponent, an attitude which is essential to an enduring peace.

One reason for doubt as to the practicality of non-violent resistance on a national scale is that it would require a higher collective morale than has been attained by any army. But by the use of the non-violent disciplines described in this paper such higher collective morale may be attained. Because the non-violent disciplines would not interfere with ordinary civilian life and would provide real satisfactions, such training could be embraced without harm or grave difficulty by an entire nation.

Discipline Necessary for a Mass Movement

If pacifism and non-violent resistance are ever to become mass movements, if a whole nation is ever to achieve non-violence and use non-violent resistance instead of war, these movements must have a common discipline. Unless there is a common discipline, the opponents of the movement will be able to destroy it by the old tactics of “divide and rule”. This common discipline can best be found in the realm of manual work.

A Non-violent Standing Army

Once this program gets under way, it could be developed in a fashion more hopeful than any League of Nations or “Union Now”. As so eloquently and vigorously proposed by Pierre Ceresole, instead of the usual armies devoted to violence and destruction, every State should have for its own protection a standing army of goodwill which, as soon as called, would be ready and would go to any place within its own nation or to any other nation, to help in work of reconstruction after any disaster, or to build and help wherever there is disease, poverty, physical hardship, or lack of education. The national expenses for such an army and such work would be vastly less than those for present armies and navies, and thus our tax burdens would be immensely lightened. Such action would remove mutual ignorance and misunderstanding, would put an end to mutual distrust, suspicion and hatred. Thus national egoism would be decreased, mutual trust and goodwill developed between both classes and nations. The order established by such an army would be a true order, in which the inner condition of people’s minds and hearts would correspond to the outer condition of sound means for living. Such procedure would be conquest by kindness. That would be a defense not destructive, but constructive, and hence permanent. That is the way to build real peace and promote enduring national and international security. This is not a fantasy. In the Service International of Pierre Ceresole and the relief work of the American Friends Service Committee there has been for several years the nucleus of such an army of goodwill actually functioning.

Manual Work is the Physical Factor in Discipline for Non-violent Struggle

Even though in the resolution of conflicts the major effective power lies with moral factors, there must also be some physical factors. This is certainly true in war, and it is just as true in non-violent resistance. A non-violent struggle is not between disembodied spirits, but between human beings using material objects for carrying on life. For non-violent resistance the required physical element of discipline is manual labor and the direct social use of its products.

Endnotes: 

(1) A. E., The National Being, New York: Macmillan, 1916, p. 127.

(2) A. E., The Living Torch, London: Macmillan, 1937, p. 170.

(3) B. H. Liddell Hart, Europe in Arms, London: Faber and Faber, 1937; see especially Chap. I.

(4) I use sentiment in the psychological sense of an organized arrangement of feelings and thoughts. See T. N. Whitehead, Leadership in Free Society, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936.

(5) Jack Lindsay, A Short History of Culture, London: Gollancz, 1939, pp. 23-25.

(6) G. Elliot Smith, “Evolution of the Mind” in Early Man: His Origin, Development and Culture, London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1931; Tones and Porteus, The Matrix of the Mind, Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press Association, 1928.

(7) H. G. Wyatt, The Psychology of Intelligence and Will, London: Kegan Paul, 1930; see also, A. R. Luria, The Nature of Human Conflicts, New York: Liveright, 1932.

(8) G. G. Campion and Sir G. Elliot Smith, The Neural Basis of Thought, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1934, pp. 24, 25.

(9) Nathaniel Shaler, The Neighbour, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904, and also Shaler, The Individual, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1900, Ch. VI.; as well, R. B. Gregg, Training for Peace, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1937.

(10) For very interesting data and interpretation as to the great industrial, civic and personal advantages derived in actual practice in a large industrial establishment from encouraging conversation while working in small groups see T. N. Whitehead, Leadership in Free Society, above cited; also Elton Mayo, The Human Problem of an Industrial Civilization, New York: Macmillan, 1933.

(11) W. C. Allee, The Social Life of Animals, New York: W. Norton Co., 1939.

(12) E. M. F. Durbin and J. Bowlby, Personal Aggressiveness and War, London: Kegan Paul, 1939.

(13) Edgar Snow, The Battle for Asia, New York: Random House, 1941.

(14) An alternative way of making cloth is weaving little four-inch squares on devices such as “Weave-It”; “Easy-Weave”; “Loomette”; “Jiffy-Loom”, and then sewing or crocheting them together. Whenever in the subsequent discussion hand weaving is mentioned, these other ways of making cloth are to be understood as included.

(15) See my Training for Peace, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1937.

(16) By sentiments is meant an organized arrangement of feelings and thoughts.

(17) Those who care about the deeper implications of non-violence will find in I Corinthians, 13, support for the practice of meditation as part of the discipline.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Richard Gregg (1885-1974) is often credited with being the first American theorist of nonviolent civil resistance (satyagraha).  While a student at Harvard in the early 1920s he attended a guest lecture about Gandhi and Gandhian satyagraha. Upon graduating in 1925 he embarked for India, and lived for several years in various Gandhian ashrams. In 1934 he published the work he is best known for, The Power of Non-violence. The book was to have a great influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. and other of the civil rights leaders, and has remained an essential text in the study of nonviolence, and the influence of nonviolence on American political thought. There is an interesting, well organized website devoted to Gregg, with extensive biographical and bibliographical information, links, etc, to be found at www.richardgregg.org.