V
every country a few people, criminals, and in the world, a few savages who will not or are not able to recognise right and justice as a force higher than physical force and moral obligation as something which must be obeyed. Thus against criminals and savages a certain amount of physical or police force and militarism will always be necessary in every country and in the world.
But people will say to me how are you to make mankind recognise right and justice as a force higher than physical force. I answer the first thing you will have to do is to convince mankind of the efficacy of right and justice, convince them that right and justice is a power; in fact, convince them of the power of goodness. But then again how are you to do this? Well,—in order to do this, the Religion of good citizenship in China teaches every child as soon as he is able to understand the meaning of words, that the Nature of man is good.[1]
Now the fundamental unsoundness of the civilisation of Europe to-day, it seems to me, lies in its wrong conception of human nature; its conception that human nature is evil and because of this wrong conception, the whole structure of society in Europe has always rested upon force. The two things which the people of Europe have depended upon to maintain civil order are Religion and Law. In other words, the population of Europe have been kept in order by the fear of God and the fear of the Law.
- ↑ The first sentence of the first book that is put into the hands of every child in China when he goes to school
