ng neutralised yours, and
the equilibrium being now established, I will hear any reasons you may
have to urge for my paying you money; or any argument in favour of your
creed. Reason, understanding, adjustment shall settle it." You would be
a Pacifist. Or, if you deem that that word connotes non-resistance,
though to the immense bulk of Pacifists it does not, you would be an
anti-Bellicist to use a dreadful word coined by M. Emile Faguet in the
discussion of this matter. If, however, you said: "Having disarmed you
and established the equilibrium, I shall now upset it in my favour by
taking your weapon and using it against you unless you hand me _your_
purse and subscribe to _my_ creed. I do this because force alone can
determine issues, and because it is a law of life that the strong should
eat up the weak." You would then be a Bellicist.

In the same way, when we prevent the brigand from carrying on his
trade--taking wealth by force--it is not because we believe in force as
a means of livelihood, but precisely because we do not. And if, in
preventing the brigand from knocking out brains, we are compelled to
knock out his brains, is it because we believe in knocking out people's
brains? Or would we urge that to do so is the way to carry on a trade,
or a nation, or a government, or make it the basis of human
relationship?

In every civilised country, the basis of the relationship on which the
community rests is this: no individual is allowed to settle his
differences with another by force. But does this mean that if one
threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it?
That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the
individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by
force?" It is _because_ of that, because the act of self-defence is an
attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that the law
justifies it.[2]

But the law would not justify me, if having disarmed my opponent, having
neutralised his force by my own, and re-established the social
equilibrium, I immediately proceeded to upset it, by asking him for his
purse on pain of murder. I should then be settling the matter by
force--I should then have ceased to be a Pacifist, and have become a
Bellicist.

For that is the difference between the two conceptions: the Bellicist
says: "Force alone can settle these matters; it is the final appeal;
therefore fight it out. Let the best man win.