Under no circumstances can the pacifist harm or destroy the person who
does evil; he can use only love and sacrificial goodwill to bring about
conversion. This is his highest value and his supreme principle. Though
the heavens should fall, or he himself and all else he cherishes be
destroyed in the process, he can place no other value before it. To the
pacifist who holds such a position, non-violence is imperative _even if
it does not work_. By his very respect for the personality of the
evil-doer, and his insistence upon maintaining the bond of human
brotherhood, he has already achieved his highest purpose and has won his
greatest victory.

But much of the present pacifist argument in favor of non-violence is
based rather upon its expediency. Here, we are told, is a means of
social action that _works_ in achieving the social goals to which
pacifists aspire. Non-violence provides a moral force which is more
powerful than any physical force. Whether it be used by the individual
or by the social group, it is, in the long run, the most effective way
of overcoming evil and bringing about the triumph of good. The
literature is full of stories of individuals who have overcome
highwaymen, or refractory neighbors, by the power of love.[4] More
recent treatments such as Richard Gregg's _Power of Non-Violence_[5]
present story after story of the successful use of non-violent
resistance by groups against political oppression. The history of the
Gandhi movement in India has seemed to provide proof of its expediency.
Even the argument in Aldous Huxley's _Ends and Means_, that we can
achieve no desired goal by means which are inconsistent with it, still
regards non-violent action as a _means_ for achieving some other end,
rather than an _end_ in itself.[6]

So prevalent has such thinking become among pacifists, that it is not