Medical science tells us that there is in the human eye a blind spot, by the existence of which alone we are enabled to see. If that blind spot were absent the eye would be without focus. In human nature (however much we hold by the principle of ordered government) there is a point of revolt which standardises the relations of the individual to government. It cannot be brought into play by mere artifice or calculation, except for brief spells; but when naturally aroused it lasts. It is that point of revolt, latent at all times in a freedom-loving people, but only aroused by unjust conditions--it is the existence of that point of revolt in human nature which secures good government. Minorities, if determined, can make unjust government an economic extravagance, and can indicate to majorities (with some trouble and cost to themselves) the limitation of their rights. The sleeping partner of good government is the spirit of revolt. To-day we have not good government; and that is why the sleeping partner is awake. DISCREDITABLE CONDUCT (1915) Discreditable conduct, according to its right derivation, is conduct provocative of disbelief. It is that kind of conduct which makes us doubt the professions of its agents, because it is practically inconsistent with the things that they preach. Many things are done in this world which are very reprehensible, vindictive, cruel, narrow-minded--I might go through a whole catalogue of the vices; but they are not therefore “discreditable.” A man who has gone about the world expressing his undying hatred for another man, and then ends by killing him, has done nothing discreditable from his own standard. He has not made you believe less in his professions, but more; for he actually did mean what he said, and has become by his act a creditable witness to the faith that was in him--the dark gospel of hatred. But if, while nourishing a personal hatred, he was at the same time laying it down as the duty of all men to love their enemies, then we have not to wait for the murder in order to look upon him as a tainted and a discredited witness. It is not so much the blood upon his hands as the hatred within his heart which has discredited him as a preacher to others. Or, put the case otherwise; without pretending to such a counsel of perfection as that he can love his enemies, a man may yet assert that human life is sacred, and that he has no right to take the life of his fellow. Having done so he begins to set up exceptions: “Though I may not do it at my own,” he says, “I may do it at the bidding of others.” And this not by orders that he is compelled into on pain of death or torture (when he might plead a natural human infirmity as his excuse for wrongdoing) but by voluntary enlistment in an army, or by voluntary acceptance of the post of public hangman, or of a judgeship, or of service upon a jury in cases involving the death-penalty.