IF one explores the history of the past as it concerns mankind, one finds it disfigured throughout by tragedy. Often it shows class pitted against class, one class ruthlessly oppressing another, which for the time being is powerless to protect itself. But almost of a certainty the day of retribution comes, when the oppressed become the oppressors, perhaps using methods even more pitiless than those which had kept them in bondage.
How often have men in their struggle to obtain redress for the wrongs they have suffered resorted to ways as harsh and cruel, or even more so, than those against which they had rebelled! This is readily explained when we consider the tendency of mankind to believe that evil is as real as good, and that therefore evil must be met and countered with evil. This method of dealing with evil has, however, time and again but perpetuated the mental and physical suffering of those who used it.
It may be said of the use of destructive mental or physical force that it may appear rapidly to change human or material conditions, and that then, amid the changed conditions, men may seize the opportunity to think more calmly, deliberate more justly, and so formulate better laws for kindlier and more efficient government of themselves and others. Or, to put it another way: after the apparent forces of evil have exhausted themselves, men are freer to think more soberly, more wisely, and more justly, and so to establish among themselves more righteous government. But the fact must be emphasized that the employment of evil in itself never results in good.
