to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes
Well, to get this honest but unpleasant business over, the objection
to the Suffragettes is not that they are Militant Suffragettes.
On the contrary, it is that they are not militant enough.
A revolution is a military thing; it has all the military virtues;
one of which is that it comes to an end. Two parties fight
with deadly weapons, but under certain rules of arbitrary honor;
the party that wins becomes the government and proceeds to govern.
The aim of civil war, like the aim of all war, is peace.
Now the Suffragettes cannot raise civil war in this
soldierly and decisive sense; first, because they are women;
and, secondly, because they are very few women. But they can
raise something else; which is altogether another pair of shoes.
They do not create revolution; what they do create is anarchy;
and the difference between these is not a question of violence,
but a question of fruitfulness and finality. Revolution of its
nature produces government; anarchy only produces more anarchy.
Men may have what opinions they please about the beheading
of King Charles or King Louis, but they cannot deny that Bradshaw
and Cromwell ruled, that Carnot and Napoleon governed.
Someone conquered; something occurred. You can only knock off
the King"s head once. But you can knock off the King"s hat any
number of times. Destruction is finite, obstruction is infinite:
so long as rebellion takes the form of mere disorder
(instead of an attempt to enforce a new order) there is no logical
end to it; it can feed on itself and renew itself forever.
If Napoleon had not wanted to be a Consul, but only wanted to be
a nuisance, he could, possibly, have prevented any government
arising successfully out of the Revolution. But such a proceeding
would not have deserved the dignified name of rebellion.
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