THE GENESIS OF PASSIVE RESISTANCE.
In an address that Mr. Gandhi delivered before an audience of Europeans at the Germiston (Transvaal) Literary and Debating Society in 1908, he said:—
Passive resistance was a misnomer. But the expression had been accepted as it was popular, and had been for a long time used by those who carried out in practice the idea denoted by the term. The idea was more completely and better expressed by the term "soul-force." As such, it was as old as the human race. Active resistance was better expressed by the term "body force." Jesus Christ, Daniel and Socrates represented the purest form of passive resistance or soul-force. All these teachers counted their bodies as nothing in comparison to their soul. Tolstoy was the best and brightest (modern) exponent of the doctrine. He not only expounded it, but lived according to it. In India, the doctrine was understood and commonly practised long before it came into vogue in Europe. It was easy to see that soul force was infinitely superior to body force. If people in order to secure redress of wrongs, resorted to soul force, much of the present suffering would be avoided. In any case the wielding of this force never caused suffering to others. So that, whenever it was misused, it only injured the users, and not those against whom it was used. Like virtue, it was its own reward. There was no such thing as failure in the use of this kind of force. "Resist not evil" meant that evil was not to be repelled by evil, but by good; in other words, physical force was to be opposed not by its like but by soul-force. The
