non-reˈsistance
[non- 1.]
a. The practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised formerly esp. with reference to the doctrine of non-resistance as held in England in the 17th c. (Cf. passive obedience.)
| 1643 D. Digges Unlawf. Taking up Arms 50 Their severall exceptions and corrupt glosses by which they endeavour to avoyd this plaine obligation of non resistance. 1685 Acc. Execution Dk. of Monmouth 1 My Lord, if you be of the Church of England, you must acknowledge the Doctrine of Non-resistance to be True. 1687 Dryden Hind & P. iii. 663 Your sons are malcontents, but yet are true, As far as non-resistance makes them so. c 1720 Vicar of Bray iii, Passive obedience was a joke, A jest was non-resistance. 1791 Burke App. Whigs Wks. VI. 154 Sir John Hawles..positively affirming the doctrine of non-resistance to government to be the general, moral, religious, and political rule for the subject. 1838 W. L. Garrison in Liberator (Boston) 28 Sept. 154/5 We shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance and passive submission to enemies. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xiv. III. 453 Ken,..in the times when nonresistance and passive obedience were the favourite themes of his brethren,..had scarcely ever alluded to politics in the pulpit. 1861 W. Rowntree War & Christianity 6 The great principle of non-resistance. 1871 Fraser Life Berkeley ii. 49 Non-resistance and passive obedience were then associated with Jacobitism. 1878 Gardiner in Encycl. Brit. VIII. 348/2 The Five Mile Act (1665) forbade the expelled clergyman to come within five miles of a corporate borough,..unless he would swear his adhesion to the doctrine of non-resistance. 1898 [see internationalism]. 1934 G. B. Shaw On Rocks 155 It is easy to suggest that they [sc. evildoers] should be reformed by gentleness and shamed by non-resistance. 1973 R. V. Sampson Tolstoy: The Discovery of Peace vi. 109 It is very rare for a writer to allow Tolstoy's arguments in support of the doctrine of non-resistance to evil—the essence of Tolstoy—to be heard. |
| attrib. 1844 Emerson New Eng. Reformers Ser. ii. 169 Temperance and non-resistance principles. 1856 Olmsted Slave States 225 Charles II. ordered a shipment of Quakers to Virginia... Their non-resistance principles must have added much to their value. |
b. gen. (
const. to.)
| 1821 Lamb Elia Ser. i. Witches & Night Fears, The non⁓resistance of witches to the constituted powers. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 76 An operation which that sagacious quadruped endured with the most perfect passiveness, the most admirable non-resistance. |