The work of Tolstoy has another and more special significance. It
represents the re-assertion of a certain awful common sense which
characterised the most extreme utterances of Christ. It is true that we
cannot turn the cheek to the smiter; it is true that we cannot give our
cloak to the robber; civilisation is too complicated, too vain-glorious,
too emotional. The robber would brag, and we should blush; in other
words, the robber and we are alike sentimentalists. The command of
Christ is impossible, but it is not insane; it is rather sanity preached
to a planet of lunatics. If the whole world was suddenly stricken with a
sense of humour it would find itself mechanically fulfilling the Sermon
on the Mount. It is not the plain facts of the world which stand in the
way of that consummation, but its passions of vanity and
self-advertisement and morbid sensibility. It is true that we cannot
turn the cheek to the smiter, and the sole and sufficient reason is that
we have not the pluck. Tolstoy and his followers have shown that they
have the pluck, and even if we think they are mistaken, by this sign
they conquer. Their theory has the strength of an utterly consistent
thing. It represents that doctrine of mildness and non-resistance which
is the last and most audacious of all the forms of resistance to every
existing authority. It is the great strike of the Quakers which is more
formidable than many sanguinary revolutions. If human beings could only
succeed in achieving a real passive resistance they would be strong with
the appalling strength of inanimate things, they would be calm with the
maddening calm of oak or iron, which conquer without vengeance and are
conquered without humiliation. The theory of Christian duty enunciated
by them is that we should never conquer by force, but always, if we can,
conquer by persuasion. In their mythology St. George did not conquer the
dragon: he tied a pink ribbon round its neck and gave it a saucer of
milk. According to them, a course of consistent kindness to Nero would