would not actually, if he had the chance, lay the oppressor flat with his fist.  All, however, arises from the search after a false simplicity, the aim of being, if I may so express it, more natural than it is natural to be.  It would not only be more human, it would be more humble of us to be content to be complex.  The truest kinship with humanity would lie in doing as humanity has always done, accepting with a sportsmanlike relish the estate to which we are called, the star of our happiness, and the fortunes of the land of our birth.

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 have turned him into something only faintly represented by Alfred the Great.  In fact, the policy recommended by this school for dealing with the bovine stupidity and bovine fury of this world is accurately summed up in the celebrated verse of Mr. Edward Lear: 

  “There was an old man who said, ’How
  Shall I flee from this terrible cow? 
  I will sit on a stile and continue to smile
  Till I soften the heart of this cow.’”