The greater the scale of crime, then, the less the necessity of resorting to physical force to prevent it! "4th.

But it may be asked, what is to prevent repeated and continued aggression?
I answer, first, not instruments of destruction, but the moral principle which God has placed in the bosom of every man.

I think that obedience to the law of God, on the part of the injured, is the surest preventive against the repetition of injury.

I answer, secondly, suppose that acting in obedience to the law of benevolence will not prevent the repetition of injury, will acting on the principle of retaliation prevent it ?" Again; "I believe aggression from a foreign nation to be the intimation from God that we are disobeying the law of benevolence, and that this is his mode of teaching nations their duty, in this respect, to each other.

So that aggression seems to me in no manner to call for retaliation and injury, but rather to call for special kindness and good-will." This argument, if such it can be called, is equally applicable to individual aggressions.