A society where all were invariably aggressive would destroy itself by inner friction, and in a society where some are aggressive, others must be non-resistant, if there is to be any kind of order. This is the present constitution of society, and to the mixture we owe many of our blessings. But the aggressive members of society are always tending to become bullies, robbers, and swindlers; and no one believes that such a state of things as we now live in is the millennium.
This is characteristic James in this section - speaking for a supposed skeptical "common sense," only to argue that this common sense can already see beyond itself, thanks to the inspiration of the saints.
It is meanwhile quite possible to conceive an imaginary society in which there should be no aggressiveness, but only sympathy and fairness,—any small community of true friends now realizes such a society. Abstractly considered, such a society on a large scale would be the millennium, for every good thing might be realized there with no expense of friction. To such a millennial society the saint would be entirely adapted. His peaceful modes of appeal would be efficacious over his companions, and there would be no one extant to take advantage of his non-resistance. The saint is therefore abstractly a higher type of man than the “strong man,” because he is adapted to the highest society conceivable, whether that society ever be concretely possible or not.
My discussions of this passage have tended to stop here, with some reflections on James' will/right to believe, which pertains precisely in cases where there's not enough information to decide an existential question, but how you respond to it is of "momentous" significance to you - and might even contribute to the reality of what you commit to believing. In fact the passage here continues for two more sentences:
The strong man would immediately tend by his presence to make that society deteriorate. It would become inferior in everything save in a certain kind of bellicose excitement, dear to men as they now are. (374-5)
James moves quickly on from this, as the saints do, guided by the better possibilities, but reading this in March 2025 it's hard not to see a warning of an anti-millennium. Don't let the haters convince you that humanity is capable of less than you already know it to be capable of: be as saintly as you can. It might not bring about the millennium, just preventing utter societal collapse... or it might.
