BUDDHA OR KARL MARX 453
a duty and a right; the duty to obey the law and right to critise it. In Dictatorship you have only duty to obey but no right to criticise it.
VII WHOSE MEANS ARE MORE EFFICACIOUS
We must now consider whose means are more lasting. One has to chose between Government by force and Government by moral disposition.
As Burke has said force cannot be a lasting means. In his speech on conciliation with America he uttered this memorable warning :
“First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.”
“My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource, for, conciliation failing, force remains; but force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverised and defeated violence.
A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought for is the thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted and consumed in the contest.”
In a sermon addressed to the Bhikkus the Buddha has shown the difference between the rule by Righteousness and Rule by law i.e. force. Addressing the Brethren he said :
(2) Long long ago, brethren, there was Sovereign overlord named Strongtyre, a king ruling in righteousness, lord of the four quarters of the earth, conqueror, the protector of his people. He was the possessor of the celestial wheel. He lived in supremacy over this earth to its ocean bounds, having conquered it, not by the courage, not by the sword, but by righteousness.
(3) Now, brethren, after many years, after many hundred years, after manu thousand years, king Strongtyre command a certain man, saying:
“Thou shouldest see. Sir, the Celestial Wheel has sunk a little, has slipped down from its place, bring me word.”
Now after many many hundred years had slipped down from its place On seeing this he went to King Strongtyre and said: “Know, sire, for a truth that the Celestial Wheel has sunk, has slipped down from its place.”