practice, that patriotism based
on hatred "killeth" and that patriotism based on love "giveth life."

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Address delivered before the Missionary Conference on February 14,
1916.

AHIMSA[4]

There seems to be no historical warrant for the belief that an
exaggerated practice of Ahimsa synchronises with our becoming bereft of
manly virtues. During the past 1,500 years we have, as a nation, given
ample proof of physical courage, but we have been torn by internal
dissensions and have been dominated by love of self instead of love of
country. We have, that is to say, been swayed by the spirit of
irreligion rather than of religion.

I do not know how far the charge of unmanliness can be made good against
the Jains. I hold no brief for them. By birth I am a Vaishnavite, and
was taught Ahimsa in my childhood. I have derived much religious benefit
from Jain religious works as I have from scriptures of the other great
faiths of the world. I owe much to the living company of the deceased
philosopher, Rajachand Kavi, who was a Jain by birth. Thus, though my
views on Ahimsa are a result of my study of most of the faiths of the
world, they are now no longer dependent upon the authority of these
works. They are a part of my life, and, if I suddenly discovered that
the religious books read by me bore a different interpretation from the
one I had learnt to give them, I should still hold to the view of Ahimsa
as I am about to set forth here.

Our Shastras seem to teach that a man who really practises Ahimsa in its
fulness has the world at his feet; he so affects his surroundings that
even the snakes and other venomous reptiles do him no harm. This is said
to have been the experience of St. Francis of Assisi.

In its negative form it means not injuring any living being whether by
body or mind. It may not, therefore, hurt the person of any wrong-doer,
or bear any ill-will to him and so cause him mental suffering. This
statement does not cover suffering caused to the wrong-doer by natural
acts of mine which do not proceed from ill-will. It, therefore, does not
prevent me from withdrawing from his presence a child whom he, we shall
imagine, is about to strike. Indeed, the proper practice of Ahimsa
_requires_ me to withdraw the intended victim from the wrong-doer, if I
am, in any way whatsoever, the guardian of such a child. It was,
therefore, most proper for the passive resisters of South Africa to have
resisted