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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Anarchism, by E. V. Zenker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Anarchism
+       A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory
+
+Author: E. V. Zenker
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2010 [EBook #31903]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANARCHISM ***
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+
+                              Anarchism
+
+
+
+
+                              ANARCHISM
+
+                       A CRITICISM AND HISTORY
+                           OF THE ANARCHIST
+                                THEORY
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                             E. V. ZENKER
+
+
+                         G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+                         NEW YORK AND LONDON
+                       The Knickerbocker Press
+                                 1897
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1897
+                                  BY
+                         G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+
+                  The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+
+                               PREFACE
+
+
+On the day of the bomb outrage in the French Parliament I gave an
+impromptu discourse upon Anarchism to an intelligent audience anxious
+to know more about it, touching upon its intellectual ancestry, its
+doctrines, propaganda, the lines of demarcation that separate it from
+Socialism and Radicalism, and so forth. The impression which my
+explanations of it made upon my audience was at the same time
+flattering and yet painful to me. I felt almost ashamed that I had
+told these men, who represented the pick of the middle-class political
+electorate, something entirely new to them in speaking of matters
+which, considering their reality and the importance of the question,
+ought to be familiar to every citizen. Having thus had my attention
+drawn to this _lacuna_ in the public mind, I was induced to make a
+survey of the most diverse circles of the political and Socialist
+world, both of readers and writers, and the result was the resolve to
+extend my previous studies of Anarchism (which had not extended much
+beyond the earliest theorists), and to develop my lecture into a book.
+This book I now present to my readers.
+
+The accomplishment of my resolve has been far from easy. What little
+literature exists upon the subject of Anarchism is almost exclusively
+hostile to it, which is a great drawback for one who is seeking not
+the objects of a partisan, but simply and solely the truth. One had
+constantly to gaze, so to speak, through a forest of prejudices and
+errors in order to discover the truth like a little spot of blue sky
+above. In this respect I found it mattered little whether I applied to
+the press, or to the so-called scientific Socialists, or to fluent
+pamphleteers.
+
+  "In vielen Worten wenig Klarheit,
+  Ein Fuenkchen Witz und keine Wahrheit."[1]
+
+    [1] Many words, but little light; a spark of wit, but no
+    truth.
+
+Laveleye, for instance, does not even know of Proudhon; for him
+Bakunin is the only representative of Anarchism and the most
+characteristic; Socialism, Nihilism, and Anarchism mingle together in
+wild confusion in the mind of this social historian. Garin, who wrote
+a big book, entitled _The Anarchists_, is not acquainted with a single
+Anarchist author, except some youthful writings of Proudhon's and a
+few agitationist placards and manifestoes of the modern period. The
+result of this ignorance is that he identifies Anarchism completely
+with Collectivism, and carries his ridiculous ignorance so far as to
+connect the former Austrian minister Schaeffle, who was then the chief
+adviser of Count Hohenwart, in some way or other with the Anarchists.
+Professor Enrico Ferri, again, exposes his complete ignorance of the
+question at issue sufficiently by branding Herbert Spencer as an
+Anarchist. In fact, the only work that can be called scientifically
+useful is the short article on "Anarchism" in the _Cyclopaedia of
+Political Science_, from the pen of Professor George Adler. All
+pamphlets, articles, and essays which have since appeared on the same
+subject are, conveniently but uncritically, founded upon this short
+but excellent essay of Adler's. Since the extraordinary danger of
+Anarchist doctrines is firmly fixed as a dogma in the minds of the
+vast majority of mankind, it is apparently quite unnecessary to obtain
+any information about its real character in order to pronounce a
+decided, and often a decisive, judgment upon it. And so almost all who
+have hitherto written upon or against Anarchism, with a few very rare
+exceptions, have probably never read an Anarchist publication, even
+cursorily, but have contented themselves with certain traditional
+catchwords.
+
+As a contrast to this, it was necessary, for the purposes of a
+critical work upon Anarchism, to go right back to its sources and to
+the writings of those who represented it. But here I found a further
+difficulty, which could not always be overcome. Where was I to get
+these writings? Our great public libraries, whose pride it is to
+possess the most complete collections possible of all the texts of
+Herodotus or Sophocles, have of course thought it beneath their
+dignity to place on their shelves the works of Anarchist doctrinaires,
+or even to collect the pamphlet literature for or against
+Anarchism--productions which certainly cannot take a very high rank
+from the point of view either of literature or of fact. The
+consequence of this foresight on the part of our librarians is that,
+to-day, anyone who inquires into the development of the social
+question in these great libraries devoted to science and public study
+has nothing to find, and therefore nothing to seek. I have thus been
+compelled to procure the materials I wanted partly through the
+kindness of friends and acquaintances, and partly by purchase of
+books--often at considerable expense,--but always by roundabout means
+and with great difficulty. And here I should like specially to
+emphasise the fact that it was the literary representatives of
+Anarchism themselves who, although I never concealed my hostility to
+Anarchism, placed their writings at my disposal in the kindest and
+most liberal manner; and for this I hereby beg to offer them my
+heartiest thanks, and most of all Professor Elisee Reclus, of
+Brussels.
+
+But if I thus enter into details of the difficulties which met me in
+writing the present book, it is not with the object of surrounding
+myself with the halo of a pioneer. I only wish to lay my hand on a
+sore which has no doubt troubled other authors also; and, at the same
+time, to explain to my critics the reason why there are still so many
+_lacunae_ in this work. I have, for instance, been quite unable to
+procure any book or essay by Tucker, or a copy of his journal
+_Liberty_, although several booksellers did their best to help me, and
+although I applied personally to Mr. Tucker at Boston. It was all in
+vain. _Ut aliquid fecisse videatur_, I ordered from Chicago M. J.
+Schaack's book, _Anarchy and Anarchists, a History of the Red Terror
+and the Social Revolution in America and Europe: Communism, Socialism,
+and Nihilism, in Doctrine and in Deed_. After waiting four months, and
+repeatedly urging things on, I at last received it, and soon perceived
+that I had merely bought a pretty picture book for my library for my
+five dollars. The book contains, in spite of its grandiloquent title,
+its six hundred and ninety-eight large octavo pages, and its "numerous
+illustrations from authentic photographs and from original drawings,"
+not a single word about the doctrine of Anarchism in general, or
+American Anarchism in particular. The author, a police official, takes
+up a standpoint which is certainly quite explicable in one of his
+position, but which is hardly suitable for a social historian. To him
+"all Socialists are Anarchists as a first step, although all
+Anarchists are not precisely Socialists" (see page 22),--which is
+certainly praiseworthy moderation in a police officer. He calls
+Ferdinand Lassalle "the father of German Anarchism as it exists
+to-day" (page 23); on the other hand he has no knowledge of Tucker (of
+Boston), the most prominent exponent of theoretical Anarchism in
+America. This, then, was the literature which was at my disposal.
+
+As regards the standpoint which I have taken in this book upon
+questions of fact, it is strictly the coldly observant and critical
+attitude of science and no other. I was not concerned to write either
+for or against Anarchism, but only to tell the great mass of the
+people that concerns itself with public occurrences for the first time
+what Anarchism really is, and what it wishes to do, and whether
+Anarchist views are capable of discussion like other opinions. The
+condemnation of Anarchism, which becomes necessary in doing this,
+proceeds exclusively from the exercise of scientific criticism, and
+has nothing to do with any partisan judgment, be it what it may. It
+would be a contradiction to adopt a partisan attitude at the very time
+when one is trying to remind public opinion of a duty which has been
+forgotten in the heat of party conflict.
+
+But I do not for a moment allow myself to be deluded into thinking
+that, with all my endeavours to be just to all, I have succeeded in
+doing justice to all. Elisee Reclus wrote to me, when I informed him
+of my intention to write the present book, and of my opinion of
+Anarchism, that he wished me well, but doubted the success of my work,
+for (he said) _on ne comprend rien que ce qu'on aime_. Of this remark
+I have always had a keen recollection. If that great savant and gentle
+being, the St. John of the Anarchists, thinks thus, what shall I have
+to expect from his passionate fellow-disciples, or from the
+terror-blinded opponents of Anarchism? "We cannot understand what we
+do not love," and unfortunately we do not love unvarnished truth.
+Anarchists will, therefore, simply deny my capacity to write about
+their cause, and call my book terribly reactionary; Socialists will
+think me too much of a "Manchester Economist"; Liberals will think me
+far too tolerant towards the Socialistic disturbers of their peace;
+and Reactionaries will roundly denounce me as an Anarchist in
+disguise. But this will not dissuade me from my course, and I shall be
+amply compensated for these criticisms which I have foreseen by the
+knowledge of having advanced real and serious discussion on this
+subject. For only when we have ceased to thrust aside the theory of
+Anarchism as madness from the first, only when we have perceived that
+one can and must understand many things that we certainly cannot like,
+only then will Anarchists also place themselves on a closer human
+footing with us, and learn to love us as men even though they often
+perhaps cannot understand us, and of their own accord abandon their
+worst argument, the bomb.
+
+                                                       E. V. ZENKER.
+
+
+
+
+                              CONTENTS.
+
+
+                      PART I.--EARLY ANARCHISM.
+
+                                                                PAGE
+  PREFACE                                                          v
+
+  CHAP.
+  I. PRECURSORS AND EARLY HISTORY                                  3
+
+    Forerunners and Early History -- Definitions -- Is Anarchism
+    a Pathological Phenomenon? -- Anarchism Considered
+    Sociologically --Anarchist Movements in the Middle Ages --
+    The Theory of the Social Contract with Reference to Anarchism
+    -- Anarchist Movements during the French Revolution -- The
+    Philosophic Premises of the Anarchist Theory -- The Political
+    and Economic Assumptions of Anarchism.
+
+  II. PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON                                      32
+
+    Biography -- His Philosophic Standpoint -- His Early Writings
+    -- The "Contradictions of Political Economy" -- Proudhon's
+    Federation -- His Economic Views -- His Theory of Property --
+    Collectivism and Mutualism -- Attempts to Put his Views into
+    Practice -- Proudhon's Last Writings -- Criticism.
+
+  III. MAX STIRNER AND THE GERMAN PROUDHONISTS                   100
+
+    Germany in 1830-40 and France -- Stirner and Proudhon --
+    Biography of Stirner -- _The Individual and his Property_
+    (_Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_) -- The Union of Egoists --
+    The Philosophic Contradiction of the _Einziger_ -- Stirner's
+    Practical Error -- Julius Faucher -- Moses Hess -- Karl Gruen
+    -- Wilhelm Marr.
+
+
+                     PART II.--MODERN ANARCHISM.
+
+  CHAP.                                                         PAGE
+  IV. RUSSIAN INFLUENCES                                         141
+
+    The Earliest Signs of Anarchist Views in Russia in 1848 --
+    The Political, Economic, Mental, and Social Circumstances
+    of Anarchism in Russia -- Michael Bakunin -- Biography --
+    Bakunin's Anarchism -- Its Philosophic Foundations --
+    Bakunin's Economic Programme -- His Views as to the
+    Practicability of his Plans -- Sergei Netschajew -- The
+    Revolutionary Catechism -- The Propaganda of Action -- Paul
+    Brousse.
+
+  V. PETER KROPOTKIN AND HIS SCHOOL                              172
+
+    Biography -- Kropotkin's Main Views -- Anarchist Communism
+    and the "Economics of the Heap" (_Tas_) -- Kropotkin's
+    Relation to the Propaganda of Action -- Elisee Reclus: his
+    Character and Anarchist Writings -- Jean Grave -- Daniel
+    Saurin's _Order through Anarchy_ -- Louise Michel and G.
+    Elievant -- A. Hamon and the Psychology of Anarchism --
+    Charles Malato and other French Writers on Anarchist
+    Communism -- The Italians: Cafiero, Merlino, and Malatesta.
+
+  VI. GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA                              213
+
+    Individualist and Communist Anarchism -- Arthur Muelberger --
+    Theodor Hertzka's _Freeland_ -- Eugen Duehring's "Anticratism"
+    -- Moritz von Egidy's "United Christendom" -- John Henry
+    Mackay -- Nietzsche and Anarchism -- Johann Most -- Auberon
+    Herbert's Voluntary State -- R. B. Tucker.
+
+
+    PART III.--THE RELATION OF ANARCHISM TO SCIENCE AND POLITICS.
+
+  CHAP.                                                         PAGE
+  VII. ANARCHISM AND SOCIOLOGY: HERBERT SPENCER                  245
+
+    Spencer's Views on the Organisation of Society -- Society
+    Conceived from the Nominalist and Realist Standpoint -- The
+    Idealism of Anarchists -- Spencer's Work: _From Freedom to
+    Restraint_.
+
+  VIII. THE SPREAD OF ANARCHISM IN EUROPE                        260
+
+    First Period (1867-1880): The Peace and Freedom League -- The
+    Democratic Alliance and the Jurassic Bund -- Union with and
+    Separation from the "International" -- The Rising at Lyons --
+    Congress at Lausanne -- The Members of the Alliance in Italy,
+    Spain, and Belgium -- Second Period (from 1880): The German
+    Socialist Law -- Johann Most -- The London Congress -- French
+    Anarchism since 1880 -- Anarchism in Switzerland -- The
+    Geneva Congress -- Anarchism in Germany and Austria -- Joseph
+    Penkert -- Anarchism in Belgium and England -- Organisation
+    of the Spanish Anarchists -- Italy -- Character of Modern
+    Anarchism -- The Group -- Numerical Strength of the Anarchism
+    of Action.
+
+  IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS                                         304
+
+    Legislation against Anarchists -- Anarchism and Crime --
+    Tolerance towards Anarchist Theory -- Suppression of
+    Anarchist Crime -- Conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+                                PART I
+
+                           EARLY ANARCHISM
+
+
+    "A hundred fanatics are found to support a theological or
+    metaphysical statement, but not one for a geometric theorem."
+                                              CESARE LOMBROSO.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                     PRECURSORS AND EARLY HISTORY
+
+    Forerunners and Early History Definitions -- Is Anarchism
+    a Pathological Phenomenon? -- Anarchism Considered
+    Sociologically --Anarchist Movements in the Middle Ages --
+    The Theory of the Social Contract with Reference to Anarchism
+    -- Anarchist Movements during the French Revolution -- The
+    Philosophic Premises of the Anarchist Theory -- The Political
+    and Economic Assumptions of Anarchism.
+
+        "Die Welt wird alt und wird wieder jung
+        Doch der Mensch hofft immer auf Besserung."
+
+
+Anarchy means, in its ideal sense, the perfect, unfettered
+self-government of the individual, and, consequently, the absence of
+any kind of external government. This fundamental formula, which in
+its essence is common to all actual and real Theoretical Anarchists,
+contains all that is necessary as a guide to the distinguishing
+features of this remarkable movement. It demands the unconditional
+realisation of freedom, both subjectively and objectively, equally in
+political and in economic life. In this, Anarchism is distinct from
+Liberalism, which, even in its most radical representatives, only
+allows unlimited freedom in economic affairs, but has never questioned
+the necessity of some compulsory organisation in the social
+relationships of individuals; whereas Anarchism would extend the
+Liberal doctrine of _laisser faire_ to all human actions, and would
+recognise nothing but a free convention or agreement as the only
+permissible form of human society. But the formula stated above
+distinguishes Anarchism much more strongly (because the distinction is
+fundamental) from its antithesis, Socialism, which out of the
+celebrated trinity of the French Revolution has placed another figure,
+that of Equality, upon a pedestal as its only deity. Anarchism and
+Socialism, in spite of the fact that they are so often confused, both
+intentionally and unintentionally, have only one thing in common,
+namely, that both are forms of idolatry, though they have different
+idols, both are religions and not sciences, dogmas and not
+speculations. Both of them are a kind of honestly meant social
+mysticism, which, anticipating the partly possible and perhaps even
+probable results of yet unborn centuries, urge upon mankind the
+establishment of a terrestrial Eden, of a land of the absolute Ideal,
+whether it be Freedom or Equality. It is only natural, in view of the
+difficulty of creating new thoughts, that our modern seekers after the
+millennium should look for their Eden by going backwards, and should
+shape it on the lines of stages of social progress that have long
+since been passed by; and in this is seen the irremediable internal
+contradiction of both movements: they intend an advance, but only
+cause retrogression.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Are we, then, to take Anarchism seriously, or shall we pass it by
+merely with a smile of superiority and a deprecating wave of our hand?
+Shall we declare war to the knife against Anarchists, or have they a
+claim to have their opinions discussed and respected as much as those
+of the Liberals or Social Democrats, or as those of religious or
+ecclesiastical bodies? These questions we can only answer at the
+conclusion of this book; but at this point I should like to do away
+with one conception of Anarchism which is frequently urged against it.
+
+Those who wish nowadays to seem particularly enlightened and tolerant
+as regards this dangerous movement, describe it as a "pathological
+phenomenon." We have done our best to make some sense of this
+mischievous, though modern, analogy, but have never succeeded, in
+spite of Lombroso, Kraft-Ebing, and others undeniably capable in their
+own department. The former, in his clever book on this subject,[1] has
+confused individual with social pathology. When Lombroso completely
+identified the Anarchist theory and idea--with which he is by no means
+familiar--with the persons engaged in Anarchist actions, and made an
+attempt (which is certainly successful) to trace the political methods
+of thought and action of a great many of them to pathological
+premises, he reached the false conclusion that Anarchism itself was a
+pathological phenomenon. But in reality the only conclusion from his
+demonstration is that many unhealthy and criminal characters adopt
+Anarchism, a conclusion which he himself admits in this remark, that
+"Criminals take part specially in the beginnings of insurrections and
+revolutions in large numbers, for, at a time when the weak and
+undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive activity of abnormal and
+unhealthy characters preponderates, and their example then produces
+epidemics of excesses." This fact we fearlessly acknowledge; and it
+gains a special significance for us in that the Anarchists themselves
+base their system of "propaganda by action" upon this knowledge. But
+if we are therefore to call this phenomenon a symptom that Anarchism
+itself is a pathological phenomenon, to what revolutionary movement
+might we not then apply this criterion, and what would it imply if we
+did?
+
+    [1] Cesare Lombroso, _The Anarchists, a Study in Criminal
+    Psychology and Sociology_. (German translation by Dr. Hans
+    Kneller, after the 2d edition of the original. Hamburg,
+    1895.)
+
+I have stated, and (I hope) have shown elsewhere[2] what may be
+understood by "pathological" social phenomena, namely, an abnormal
+unhealthy condition of the popular mind in the sense of a general
+aberration of the intellect of the masses, as is possibly the case in
+what is known as Anti-Semitism. But even in this limited sense it
+appears quite inadmissible and incorrect to call Anarchism a
+pathological phenomenon. Let us be fair and straightforward, if we
+wish to learn; let us be just, even if we are to benefit our most
+dangerous enemies; for in the end we shall benefit ourselves. With
+Anarchism there is no question of transitory anomalies of the public
+mind, but of a well defined condition which is visibly increasing and
+which is necessarily connected with all previous and accompanying
+conditions; it is a question of ideas and opinions which are the
+logical, even if in practice inadmissible, development of views that
+have long been well known and recognised by the majority of civilised
+men. A further test of every unhealthy phenomenon, namely, its local
+character, is entirely lacking in Anarchism; for we meet with it
+to-day extending all over the world, wherever society has developed in
+a manner similar to our own; we meet it not merely in one class, but
+see members of all classes, and especially members of the upper
+classes, attach themselves to it. The fathers, as we may call them, of
+the Anarchist theory are almost entirely men of great natural gifts,
+who rank high both intellectually and morally, whose influence has
+been felt for half a century, who have been born in Russia, Germany,
+France, Italy, England, and America, men who are as different one from
+another as are the circumstances and environment of their respective
+countries, but who are all of one mind as regards the theory which we
+mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.
+
+    [2] _Rupticism, Pietism, and Anti-Semitism at the Close of
+    the Nineteenth Century_, a study in social history. Vienna,
+    1894.
+
+And that is what Anarchism undoubtedly is: a theory, an idea, with all
+the failings and dangers, but also with all the advantages which a
+theory always possesses, with just as much, and only as much,
+validity as a theory can demand as its due, but at any rate a theory
+which is as old as human civilisation, because it goes back to the
+most powerful civilising factor in humanity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The care for the bare necessities of life, the inexorable
+struggle for existence, has aroused in mankind the desire for
+fellow-strugglers, for companions. In the tribe his power of
+resistance was increased, and his prospect of self-support grew in
+proportion as he developed together with his fellows into a new
+collective existence. But the fact that, notwithstanding this, he did
+not grow up like a mere animal in a flock, but in such a way that he
+always--even if often only after long and bitter experience--found his
+proper development in the tribe--this has made him a man and his tribe
+a society. Which is the more ancient and more sacred, the unfettered
+rights of the individual or the welfare of the community? Can anyone
+take this question seriously who is accustomed to look at the life and
+development of society in the light of facts? Individualism and
+Altruism are as inseparably connected as light and darkness, as day
+and night. The individualistic and the social sense in human society
+correspond to the centrifugal and centripetal forces in the universe,
+or to the forces of attraction and repulsion that govern molecular
+activity. Their movements must be regarded simply as manifestations of
+forces in the direction of the resultants, whose components are
+Individualism and Altruism. If, to use a metaphor from physics, one of
+these forces was excluded, the body would either remain stock-still,
+or would fly far away into infinity. But such a case is, in society as
+in physics, only possible in imagination, because the distinction
+between the two forces is itself only a purely mental separation of
+one and the same thing.
+
+This is all that can be said either for or against the exclusive
+accentuation of any one single social force. All the endeavours to
+create a realm of unlimited and absolute freedom have only as much
+value as the assumption, in physics, of space absolutely void of air,
+or of a direction of motion absolutely uninfluenced by the force of
+gravity. The force which sets a bullet in motion is certainly
+something actual and real; but the influence which would correspond to
+this force, this direction in the sense in which the physicist
+distinguishes it, exists only in theory, because the bullet will, as
+far as all actual experience goes, only move in the direction of a
+resultant, in which the impetus given to it and the force of gravity
+are inseparably united and appear as one. If, therefore, it is also
+clear that the endeavour to obtain a realm of unconditional freedom
+contradicts _ipso facto_ the conception of life, yet all such
+endeavours are by no means valueless for our knowledge of human
+society, and consequently for society itself; and even if social life
+is always only the resultant of different forces, yet these forces
+themselves remain something real and actual, and are no mere fiction
+or hypothesis; while the growing differentiation of society shows how
+freedom, conceived as a force, is something actual, although as an
+ideal it may never attain full realisation. The development of society
+has proceeded hand in hand with a conscious or more often unconscious
+assertion of the individual, and the philosopher Hegel could rightly
+say that the history of the world is progress in the consciousness of
+freedom. At all events, it might be added, the statement that the
+history of the world is progress in the consciousness of the universal
+interdependence of mankind would have quite as much justification, and
+practically also just the same meaning.
+
+The circumstance that, apart from the events of what is comparatively
+a modern period, the great social upheavals of history have not taken
+place expressly in the name of freedom, although they have
+indisputably implied it, only proves that in this case we have to deal
+not with a mere word or idea, but with an actual force which is active
+and acting, without reference to our knowledge or consciousness of it.
+The recognition of individual freedom, and much more the endeavour to
+make it the only object of our life, are certainly of quite recent
+date. But these presuppose a certain amount of progress in the actual
+process of setting the individual free in his moral and political
+relationships, which is not to be found in the whole of antiquity, and
+still less in the middle ages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is not possible to point to clearer traces of Anarchist influences
+in the numberless social religious revolutions of the close of the
+middle ages, without doing violence to history, although, as in all
+critical periods, even in that of the Reformation,--which certainly
+implied a serious revolt against authority,--there was no lack of
+isolated attempts to make the revolt against authority universal, and
+to abolish authority of every kind. We find, for instance, in the
+thirteenth century, a degenerate sect of the "Beghards," who called
+themselves "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit," or were also
+called "Amalrikites," after the name of their founder.[3] They
+preached not only community of goods but also of women, a perfect
+equality, and rejected every form of authority. Their Anarchist
+doctrines were, curiously enough, a consequence of their Pantheism.
+Since God is everything and everywhere, even in mankind, it follows
+that the will of man is also the will of God; therefore every
+limitation of man is objectionable, and every person has the right,
+indeed it is his duty, to obey his impulses. These views are said to
+have spread fairly widely over the east of France and part of Germany,
+and especially among the Beghards on the Rhine.[4] The "Brothers and
+Sisters of the Free Spirit" also appear during the Hussite wars under
+the name of "Adamites"; this name being given them because they
+declared the condition of Adam to be that of sinless innocence. Their
+enthusiasm for this happy state of nature went so far that they
+appeared in their assemblies, called "Paradises," literally in Adamite
+costume, that is, quite naked.
+
+    [3] Amalrich of Bena, near Chartres, was, about 1200 A.D., a
+    professor of theology at Paris. He had to defend himself
+    before Pope Innocent III. on a charge of pantheistic
+    teaching, and then recanted. His follower, David of Dinant,
+    however, continued his work after his master's death (in 1206
+    or 1207), and this caused a condemnation of Amalrich's
+    teaching by the Synod of Paris in 1210, and by the Lateran
+    Council in 1215, and also led to a severe persecution of the
+    Amalrikites.
+
+    [4] E. Bernstein and K. Kautsky, _Die Vorlaeufer des Neueren
+    Socialismus_, Stuttgart, 1895. Part i., pp. 169 and 216.
+
+But that, in spite of all this, the real Communism of this sect went
+no farther than a kind of patriarchal Republicanism, certainly not as
+far as actual Anarchy, is proved by the information given by AEneas
+Sylvius: that they certainly had community of women, but that it was
+nevertheless forbidden to them to have knowledge of any woman without
+the permission of their leader.
+
+There is one other sect met with during the Hussite wars in Bohemia,
+which bears some similarity to the Anarchical Communism of the present
+day, that of the Chelcicians.[5] Peter of Chelcic, a peaceful
+Taborite, preached equality and Communism; but this universal equality
+should not (he said) be imposed upon society by the compulsion of the
+State, but should be realised without its intervention. The State is
+sinful, and an outcome of the Evil One, since it has created the
+inequality of property, rank, and place. Therefore the State must
+disappear; and the means of doing away with it consists not in making
+war upon it, but in simply ignoring it. The true follower of this
+theory is thus neither allowed to take any office under the State nor
+call in its help; for the true Christian strives after good of his own
+accord, and must not compel us to follow it, since God desires good to
+be done voluntarily. All compulsion is from the Evil One; all
+dignities or distinctions of classes offend against the law of
+brotherly love and equality. This pious enthusiast easily found a
+small body of followers in a time when men were weary of war after the
+cruelties of the Hussite conflicts; but here, too, his theory
+developed in practice into a kind of Quietism under priestly control,
+an austere Puritanism, which is the very opposite of the personal
+freedom of Anarchism.
+
+    [5] _Vorlaeufer des Neueren Socialismus_, Pt. i., p. 230.
+
+Once more the Anarchist views of the Amalrikite appear at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century among the Anabaptists in the sect
+of the "Free Brothers," who considered themselves set free from all
+laws by Christ, had wives and property in common, and refused to pay
+either taxes or tithes, or to perform the duties of service or
+serfdom.[6] The "Free Brothers" had a following in the Zuerich
+highlands, but they were of no more importance than the other sect, we
+have mentioned; utterly incomprehensible to those of their own time,
+they formed the extreme wings of the widespread Communist movement
+which, coming at the same time as the Reformation in the Church,
+separates the (so-called) middle ages from modern times like a
+boundary line. We observe in it nothing but the naively logical
+development of a belief that is common to most religions: the
+assumption of a happy age in the childhood of mankind (Golden Age,
+Paradise, and so on), when men followed merely the laws of reason
+(Morality, God, or Nature, or whatever else it is called), and needed
+no laws or punishments to tell them to do right and avoid wrong; when
+mankind, as every schoolboy knows from his Ovid,--
+
+                          "Vindice nullo
+  Sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat;
+  Poena metusque aberant, nec verba minacia fixo
+  AEre legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat
+  Judicis ora sui, sed erant sine judice tuti."
+
+    [6] "_Der Wideraeufferen vosprung, fuergang, Secten v.s.w. ...
+    beschreiben durch Heinerrychen Bullingern...._" Zurich, 1561.
+    Fol. 32.
+
+The transition from this primeval Anarchy to the present condition of
+society has been presented by religion, both Graeco-Roman and
+Judaic-Christian, as the consequence of a deterioration of mankind
+("the Fall"), and as a condition of punishment, which is to be
+followed, in a better world and after the work of life has been well
+performed, by another life as Eden-like as the first state of man, and
+eternal. But it must not be forgotten that Christianity was at first a
+proletarian movement, and that a great part of its adherents certainly
+did not join it merely with the hope of a return to the original state
+of Paradise in a future world. Perhaps (thought they) this Paradise
+might be attainable in this world. It can be seen that the Church had
+originally nothing to lose by at least not opposing this hope of a
+millennium[7]; and so we see not only heretics like Kerinthos, but
+also pillars of orthodoxy, like Papios of Hieropolis, Irenaeus, Justin
+Martyr, and others, preaching the doctrine of the millennium. In later
+times, indeed, when the Church had long since ceased to be a mainly
+proletarian movement, and when Christianity had risen from the
+Catacombs to the palace and the throne, the hopes of the poor and
+oppressed for an approaching millennial reign lost their harmless
+character, and "Millennialism" became _ipso facto_ heresy. But this
+heresy was, as may be understood, not so easy to eradicate; and when,
+in the closing centuries of the middle ages, the material position of
+large classes of people had again become, in spite of Christianity,
+most serious and comfortless, Millennialism awoke again actively in
+men's minds, and formed the prelude, as well as the Socialist
+undercurrent, of the Reformation. Some Radical offshoots of this
+medieval Millennialism we have already noticed in the "Brothers and
+Sisters of the Free Spirit," the Adamites, Chelcicians, and "Free
+Brothers."
+
+    [7] Or, from the Greek, chiliad; and hence the word
+    _chiliasm_, expressing the belief in a millennium.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The presuppositions of this flattering superstition are so deeply
+founded in the optimism of mankind, that it remained the same even
+when divested of its religious, or rather its confessional, garment;
+and could be no more eradicated by the Rationalistic tendency that
+arose after the Reformation than by the interdict of Rome or the
+brutal cruelties of ecclesiastical justice.
+
+If we look more closely into the doctrine of the so-called _contrat
+social_, which was destined to form the programme of the French
+Revolution, we again recognise without much difficulty the fundamental
+ideas of the Millennialists, hardly altered at all. A Paradise
+without laws, existing before civilisation, which is considered as a
+curse, and another like unto it, when "this cursed civilisation" is
+abolished, is what a modern Anarchist would say. The names only are
+different, and are taken from the vocabulary of Rationalism, instead
+of from that of religious mythology. Instead of divine rights men
+spoke now of the everlasting and unalterable rights of man; instead of
+Paradise, of a happy state of nature, in which there is, however, an
+exact resemblance to Ovid's golden age, the transition into the
+present form of society was represented to be due to a social contract
+or agreement, occasioned, however, by a certain moral degeneracy in
+mankind, only differing in name from the "Fall." In this case, also,
+Anarchy is regarded as underlying society as the ideal state of
+nature; every form of society is only the consequence of the
+degeneration of mankind, a _pis aller_, or, at any rate, only a
+voluntary renunciation of the original, inalienable, and unalterable
+rights of man and nature, the chief of which is Freedom.
+
+In the further development of this main idea the believers in the
+_contrat social_ have been divided. While some, foremost among whom is
+Hobbes, declared the contract thus formed once and for all as
+permanent and unbreakable, and hence that the authority of the
+sovereign was irrevocable and without appeal, and thus arrived at
+Monarchism pure and simple; others, and these the great majority,
+regarded the contract merely as provisional, and the powers of the
+sovereign as therefore limited. In this case everyone is not only free
+to annul the contract at any time and place himself outside the
+limits of society,[8] but the contract is also regarded as broken if
+the sovereign--whether a person or a body corporate--oversteps his
+authority. Here the return to the primeval state of Anarchy not only
+shines, as it were, afar off as a future ideal, but appears as the
+permanently normal state of mankind, only occasionally disturbed by
+some transitory form of social life. This idea cannot be more clearly
+expressed than in the words which the poet Schiller--certainly not an
+advocate of bombs--puts into the mouth of Stauffacher in _William
+Tell_:
+
+  "When the oppressed . . .
+  . . . makes appeal to Heaven
+  And thence brings down his everlasting rights,
+  Which there abide, inalienably his,
+  And indestructible as are the stars,
+  Nature's primeval state returns again,
+  Where man stands hostile to his fellow-man."
+
+How nearly the doctrine of the "social contract" corresponds to the
+idea of Anarchy is shown by the circumstance that one of the first
+(and what is more, one of the ecclesiastical) representatives of this
+doctrine, Hooker, declared, that "it was in the nature of things not
+absolutely impossible that men could live without any public form of
+government." Elsewhere he says that for men it is foolish to let
+themselves be guided, by authority, like animals; it would be a kind
+of fettering of the judgment, though there were reasons to the
+contrary, not to pay heed to them, but, like sheep, to follow the
+leader of the flock, without knowing or caring whither. On the other
+hand, it is no part of our belief that the authority of man over men
+shall be recognised against or beyond reason. Assemblies of learned
+men, however great or honourable they may be, must be subject to
+reason. This refers, of course, only to spiritual and ecclesiastical
+authority; but Locke, who followed Hooker most closely, discovered
+only too clearly what the immediate consequences of such assumptions
+would be, and tried to avoid them by affirming that the power of the
+sovereign, being merely a power entrusted to him, could be taken away
+as soon as it became forfeited by misuse, but that the break-up of a
+government was not a break-up of society. In France, on the other
+hand, Etienne de la Boetie had already written, when oppressed by the
+tyranny of Henry II., a _Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, ou
+Contr'un_ (in 1546), containing a glowing defence of Freedom, which
+goes so far that the sense of the necessity of authority disappears
+entirely. The opinion of La Boetie is that mankind does not need
+government; it is only necessary that it should really wish it, and
+it would find itself happy and free again, as if by magic.
+
+    [8] "Cette liberte commun est une consequence de la nature
+    de l'homme. Sa premiere loi est de veiller a sa propre
+    conservation, ses premiers soins sont ceux qu'il se doit a
+    lui-meme: et sitot qu'il est en age de raison, lui seul etant
+    juge des moyens propres a le conserver, devient par la son
+    propre maitre."--_Rousseau._
+
+So we see how the upholders of the social contract are separated into
+a Right, Central, and Left party. At the extreme right stands Hobbes,
+whom the defenders of Absolutism follow; in the centre is Locke, with
+the Republican Liberals; and on the extreme left stand the pioneers of
+Anarchism, with Hooker the ecclesiastic at their head. But of all the
+theoretical defenders of the "social contract," only one has really
+worked out its ultimate consequences. William Godwin, in his _Inquiry
+concerning Political Justice_,[9] demanded the abolition of every form
+of government, community of goods, the abolition of marriage, and
+self-government of mankind according to the laws of justice. Godwin's
+book attracted remarkable attention, from the novelty and audacity of
+his point of view. "Soon after his book on political justice
+appeared," writes a young contemporary, "workmen were observed to be
+collecting their savings together, in order to buy it, and to read it
+under a tree or in a tavern. It had so much influence that Godwin said
+it must contain something wrong, and therefore made important
+alterations in it before he allowed a new edition to appear. There can
+be no doubt that both Government and society in England have derived
+great advantage from the keenness and audacity, the truth and error,
+the depth and shallowness, the magnanimity and injustice of Godwin, as
+revealed in his inquiry concerning political justice."
+
+    [9] London, 1795, 2 vols.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our next business is to turn from theoretical considerations of the
+=contrat social= to the practice based upon this catchword; and to
+look for traces of Anarchist thought upon the blood-stained path of
+the great French Revolution--that typical struggle of the modern
+spirit of freedom against ancient society. We are the more desirous to
+do this, because of the frequent and repeated application of the word
+Anarchist to the most radical leaders of the democracy by the
+contemporaries, supporters, and opponents of the Revolution. As far as
+we in the present day are able to judge the various parties from the
+history of that period,--and we certainly do not know too much about
+it,--there were not apparently any real Anarchists[10] either in the
+Convention or the Commune of Paris. If we want to find them, we must
+begin with the Girondists and not with the Jacobins, for the
+Anarchists of to-day recognise--and rightly so--no sharper contrast
+to their doctrine than Jacobinism; while the Anarchism of Proudhon
+is connected in two essential points with its Girondist
+precursors--namely, in its protest against the sanction of property
+and in its federal principle. But, nevertheless, neither Vergniaud nor
+Brissot was an Anarchist, even though the latter, in his
+_Philosophical Examination of Property and Theft_ (1780), uttered a
+catchword, afterwards taken up by Proudhon. At the same time, they
+have no cause and no right to reproach the "Mountain" with Anarchist
+tendencies.
+
+    [10] Jean Grave says in his book, _La Societe Mourante_, p.
+    21: "In the year 1793 one talked of Anarchists. Only Jacques
+    Roux and the '_surages_' appear to have been those who saw
+    the Revolution most clearly, and wished to turn it to the
+    benefit of the people; and, therefore, the bourgeois
+    historian has left them in the background; their history has
+    still to be written; the documents buried in archives and
+    libraries are waiting for one who shall have time and courage
+    to exhume them, and bring to light the secrets of events that
+    are to us almost incomprehensible. Meanwhile, we can pass no
+    judgment on their programme." Of course _we_ can do so still
+    less.
+
+Neither Danton nor Robespierre, the two great lights of the
+"Mountain," dreamed of making a leap into the void of a society
+without government. Their ideal was rather the omnipotence of society,
+the all-powerful State, before which the interests of the individual
+were scattered like the spray before the storm; and the great
+Maximilian, the "Chief Rabbi" of this deification of the State,
+accordingly called himself "a slave of freedom." Robespierre and
+Danton, on their side, called the Hebertists Anarchists. If one can
+speak of a principle at all among these people, who placed all power
+in the hands of the masses who had no votes, and the whole art of
+politics in majorities and force, it was certainly not directed
+against the abolition of authority. The maxims of these people were
+chaos and the right of the strongest. Marat, the party saint, had
+certainly, on occasion, inveighed against the laws as such, and
+desired to set them aside; but Marat all the time wanted the
+dictatorship, and for a time actually held it. The Marat of after
+Thermidor was the infamous Caius Gracchus Baboeuf, who is now
+usually regarded as the characteristic representative of Anarchism
+during the French Revolution--and regarded so just as rightly, or
+rather as wrongly, as those mentioned above. Baboeuf was a more
+thorough-going Socialist than Robespierre; indeed he was a Radical
+Communist, but no more. In the proclamation issued by Baboeuf for
+the 22d of Floreal, the day of the insurrection against the
+Directoire, he says: "The revolutionary authority of the people will
+announce the destruction of every other existing authority." But that
+means nothing more than the dictatorship of the mob; which is rejected
+in theory by Anarchists of all types, just as much as any other kind
+of authority. That the followers of Baboeuf had nothing else in view
+is shown by the two placards prepared for this day, one of which said,
+"Those who usurp the sovereignty ought to be put to death by free
+men," while the other, explaining and limiting the first, demanded the
+"Constitution of 1793, liberty, equality, and universal happiness."
+This constitution of 1793 was, however, Robespierre's work, and
+certainly did not mean the introduction of Anarchy.
+
+Echoes and traditions of Baboeuf's views, often passing through
+intermediaries like Buonarotti, are found in the Carbonarists of the
+first thirty years of our own century, and applied to this (as to so
+many other popular movements) the epithet "Anarchical," so glibly
+uttered by the lips of the people. But among the chiefs, at least, of
+that secret society that was once so powerful, we find no trace of it;
+on the contrary they declared absolute freedom to be a delusion which
+could never be realised. Yet even here, though the fundamental dogma
+of Anarchism is rejected, we notice a step forward in the extension of
+the Anarchist idea. It was indeed rejected by the members of that
+society, but it was known to them, and what is more, they take account
+of it, and support every effort which, by encouraging individualism
+to an unlimited extent, is hostile to the union of society as such.
+Thus we even find individual Carbonarists with pronounced Anarchist
+views and tendencies. Malegari, for instance, in 1835, described the
+_raison d'etre_ of the organisation in these words[11]: "We form a
+union of brothers in all parts of the earth; we all strive for the
+freedom of mankind; we wish to break every kind of yoke."
+
+    [11] J. A. M. Bruehle: _Die Geheimbunde gegen Rom. Zur Genesis
+    der italien. Revolution._ Prague, 1860.
+
+Between the time when these words were spoken and the appearance of
+the famous _What is Property?_ and the _Individual and his Property_,
+there elapsed only about ten years. How much since then has been
+changed, whether for better or worse, how much has been cleared up
+and confused, in the life and thought of the nations!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Feuerbach described the development which he had passed through as a
+thinker in the words: "God was my first thought, Reason my second, Man
+my third and last." Not only Feuerbach, but all modern philosophy, has
+gone through these stages; and Feuerbach is only different from other
+philosophers, in having himself assisted men to reach the third and
+final stage. The epoch of philosophy that was made illustrious by the
+brilliant trinity of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, however far it
+may have departed or emancipated itself from the traditions of
+religion, not only never deposed the idea of God, but actually for the
+first time made the conception of the Deity the starting-point of all
+Thought and Existence. The philosophy which abolished this, whether we
+consider Locke and Hume the realists, or Kant and Hegel the idealists,
+is philosophy of intellect; absolute reason has taken the place of an
+absolute God, criticism and dialectics the place of ontology and
+theocracy. But in philosophy we find the very opposite of the
+mythological legend, for in it Chronos instead of devouring his
+children is devoured by them. The critical school turned against its
+masters, who were already sinking into speculative theology again,
+quite forgetting that its great leader had introduced a new epoch with
+a struggle against ontology; and losing themselves in the heights of
+non-existence, just as if they had never taken their start from the
+thesis, that no created mind can comprehend the nature of the Being
+that is behind all phenomena. From such heights a descent had to be
+made to our earth; instead of immortal individuals, as conceived by
+Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, the school of Feuerbach, Strauss, and
+Bauer postulated "human beings, sound in mind and body, for whom
+health is of more importance than immortality." Concentration upon
+this life took the place of vague trancendentalism, and anthropology
+the place of theology, ontology, and cosmology. Idealism became
+bankrupt; God was regarded no longer as the creator of man, but man as
+the creator of God. Humanity now took the place of the Godhead.
+
+The new principle was now a universal or absolute one; but, as with
+Hegel, universal or absolute only in words, for to sense it is
+extremely real, just as Art in a certain sense is more real than the
+individual. It was the "generic conception of humanity, not something
+impersonal and universal but forming persons, inasmuch as only in
+persons have we reality." (D. F. Strauss.)
+
+If philosophic criticism were to go still farther than this, there
+remained nothing more for it than to destroy this generalisation, and
+instead of Humanity to make the individual, the person, the centre of
+thought. A strong individualistic and subjective feature, peculiar to
+the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy, favoured such a process.
+Although in the case of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling this feature had
+never outstepped the limits of the purely comprehensible, yet such a
+trait makes philosophy infer a similarly strongly developed feature of
+individualism in the people, especially as at that time it was so
+closely connected with popular life. Moreover, at that period there
+was a great desire (as we see in Fichte and his influence on the
+nation) to translate philosophy at once into action; and so it was not
+remarkable that a thinker regardless of consequences should introduce
+the idea of individualism into the field of action, and regard this
+also as suitable for "concentration of thought upon this present
+life." Herewith began a new epoch; just as formerly human thought had
+proceeded from the individual up to the universal, so now it descended
+from the highest generalisation down again to the individual; to the
+process of getting free from self followed the regaining of self.
+
+Here was the point at which an Anarchist philosophy could intervene,
+and, as a matter of fact did intervene, in Stirner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In another direction also, and about the same time, the critical
+philosophy had reached a point beyond which it could not go without
+attacking not only the changing forms, but also the very foundations
+of all organisations of society which were then possible. However far
+the Aufklaerer, the Encyclopaedists, the heedless fighters in the
+political revolution, and the leading personages in the spiritual
+revolution, had gone in their unsparing criticism of all institutions
+and relationships of life, they had not as yet, except in a few
+isolated cases, attacked Religion, the State, and Property, as such in
+the abstract.
+
+However manifold and transitory their various forms might be, these
+three things themselves still seemed to be the incontrovertible and
+necessary conditions of spiritual, political, and social life, merely
+the different concrete formulae for the one absolute idea which could
+not be banished from the thought of that age.
+
+But if we approach these three fundamental ideas with the probe of
+scientific criticism, and resolutely tear away the halo of the
+absolute, it does not on that account seem necessary for us to declare
+that they are valueless or even harmful in life. We read Strauss's
+_Life of Jesus_, and put it down perhaps with the conviction that the
+usually recognised sources of inspired information as to revealed
+religion and the divine mission of Christianity are an unskilful
+compilation of purely apocryphal documents; but are we on that account
+to deny the importance of Judaism and Christianity in social progress
+and ethics? Or again, I may read E. B. Tyler's _Primitive Culture_ and
+see the ideas of the soul and God arise from purely natural and (for
+the most part) physiological origins, just as we can trace the
+development of the skilful hand of Raphael or Liszt from the
+fore-limbs of an ape; but am I from that to conclude that the idea of
+religion is harmful to society? It is just the same with the ideas of
+the State and Property. Modern science has shown us beyond dispute the
+purely historical origin of both these forms of social life; and both
+are, at least as we find them to-day, comparatively recent features of
+human society. This, of course, settles the question as to the State
+and Property being inviolable, or being necessary features of human
+society from everlasting to everlasting; but the further question as
+to how far these forms are advantages and _relatively_ necessary for
+society in general, or for a certain society, has nothing to do with
+the above, and cannot be answered by the help of a simple logical
+formula. But though this fact seems so clear to us, it is even to-day
+not by any means clear to a great portion of mankind. And how much
+less clear it must have been to thinkers at the beginning of this
+century when thought was still firmly moulded upon the conception of
+the Absolute. To them there could only be either absolute Being or
+absolute Not-Being; and as soon as ever critical philosophy destroyed
+the idea of the "sacredness" of the institutions referred to
+(Property and the State), it was almost unavoidable that it should
+declare them to be "unholy," _i. e._, radically bad and harmful. The
+logic which underlies this process of thought is similar to that which
+concludes that if a thing is not white it must be black. But it cannot
+be denied that just at this time--during the celebrated _dix ans_
+after the Revolution of July--many circumstances seemed positively to
+favour such an inference.
+
+Not only were economic conditions unsatisfactory (though pauperism
+alone will never produce Anarchism), but even hope and faith had gone.
+Idealism was bankrupt, not only in the political but also in the
+economic world. Full of the noblest animation, and with the most
+joyous confidence, the French nation had entered upon the great
+Revolution, and all Europe had looked full of hope towards France,
+whence they expected to see the end of all tyranny and--since such
+things at that time were not well understood--the end of all misery.
+We may be spared the detailed description of the transition by which
+this hope and these childish expectations, this Millennialism, were
+bitterly disillusioned, and how the excitement of 1789 to 1791 ended
+in a great wail of woe; and that too not only in France, where
+absolute monarchy _post tot discrimina verum_ had merely changed into
+an absolute empire, but also in Germany, whose princes hastened to
+recall the concessions made under the pressure of the Revolution. The
+monarchs of Europe then celebrated an orgie of promise-breaking, from
+which even to-day the simple mind of the people revolts with deep
+disgust. It need only be remembered how in the Napoleonic wars of
+Germany noble princes exploited the flaming enthusiasm and the naive
+confidence of their people for their own dynastic purposes, and then,
+after the downfall of the Corsican, drove them back again through the
+old Caudine yoke. If, after such unfortunate experiences, the people,
+and especially the insatiate elements amongst them, had retained any
+remains of confidence in help from above, it must have perished in the
+sea of disgust and bitterness at the Revolution of July.
+
+In a struggle for a free form of the State, which lasted almost half a
+century, the proletariat and its misery had grown without cessation.
+They had fought for constitutional monarchy, for the Republic, and for
+the Empire; they had tried Bourbons and Bonapartes and Orleanists;
+they had gone to the barricades and to the field of battle for
+Robespierre, Napoleon, and finally for Thiers; but of course their
+success was always the same: not only their economic position, but
+also the social condition of the lower masses of the people had
+remained unchanged. It was recognised more and more that between the
+proletariate and the upper classes there was something more than a
+separation of mere constitutional rights; in fact, that the privileges
+of wealth had taken the place of the privileges of birth; and the more
+the masses recognised this the more did their interest in purely
+political questions, and, above all, the question as to the form of
+the State, sink into the background, while it became more and more
+clearly seen that the equality of constitutional rights was no longer
+real equality, and that the attainment of equality necessitated the
+abolition of all privileges, including also the privilege of free
+possession or of property. Henceforth, therefore, every revolutionary
+power attacks no longer political points but the question of property,
+and even though all movements did not proceed so far as to open
+Communism, yet they were animated by the main idea that the question
+of human poverty was to be solved only by limitation of the right of
+free acquisition, possession, and disposal of property.
+
+The dogma of the sanctity of property was in any case gone for ever.
+But still the last dogma, that of the inviolability of the State,
+remained. The Franco-German Socialists of the third and fourth decades
+of our century, Saint-Simon, Cabet, Weitling, Rodbertus, down to Louis
+Blanc himself, did not think of denying the State as such, but had
+thought of it as playing the principal part in the execution of their
+new scheme of organisation of industry and society. But the very
+character of the new reforming tendencies necessitated an unlimited
+preponderance of State authority which would crush out the freedom of
+decision in the individual. And a directly opposite tendency, opposed
+to all authority, could appear, therefore,--though certainly from the
+nature of the case necessary,--at first only as a very feeble
+opposition.
+
+The principle of equality was not disputed, but the use of brute force
+through the power of the State was regarded with horror in the form in
+which the followers of Baboeuf, the enthusiasts for Utopianism,
+preached it. The necessity for an organisation of industry was not
+denied, but men began to ask the question whether this organisation
+could not proceed from below upwards till it reached freedom? Already
+Fourier's phalanxes might be regarded as such an attempt to organise
+industry through the formation of free groups from below upwards; an
+attempt to which the Monarchists and Omniarchists are merely an
+exterior addition. If we leave out of consideration the rapid failure
+of the various Socialistic attempts at institutions based upon the
+foundation of authority, yet the sad experiences of half a century
+filled with continual constitutional changes would have sufficed to
+undermine the respect for authority as such. Absolute monarchy as well
+as constitutional, the Republic just as much as Imperialism, the
+dictatorship of an individual just as much as that of the mob, had all
+alike failed to remove pauperism, misery, and crime, or even to
+alleviate them; was it not then natural for superficial minds to
+conclude that the radical fault lay in the authoritative form of
+society in the State as such? did not the thought at once suggest
+itself that a further extension of Fourier's system of the formation
+of groups on the basis of the free initiative of the individual might
+be attempted without taking the State into account at all? But here
+was a further point at which a system of social and political
+Anarchism might begin with some hope of success, and here it actually
+did begin with Proudhon.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+                        PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON
+
+    Biography -- His Philosophic Standpoint -- His Early Writings
+    -- The "Contradictions of Political Economy" -- Proudhon's
+    Federation -- His Economic Views -- His Theory of Property --
+    Collectivism and Mutualism -- Attempts to Put his Views into
+    Practice -- Proudhon's Last Writings -- Criticism.
+
+
+The man who had such a powerful, not to say fateful, influence upon
+the progress of the proletarian movement of our century was himself
+one of the proletariat class by birth and calling.
+
+Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born 15th January, 1809, in a suburb of
+Besancon. His father was a cooper, his mother a cook; and Pierre
+Joseph, in spite of his thirst for knowledge, had to devote himself to
+hard work, instead of completing his studies; he became a proofreader
+in some printing works at Besancon, and as a journeyman printer
+wandered all through France. Having returned to Besancon, he entered
+the printing house again as a factor. In the year 1836 he founded,
+with a fellow-workman in the same town, a little printing shop,
+which, however, he wound up after his partner had died in 1838, being
+determined to change the occupation he had followed so far, for
+another for which he had already long been preparing by diligent study
+both during his wanderings and in his leisure hours in past years.
+Proudhon's activity as an author began in the year 1837. The Academy
+at Besancon had to award a three years' scholarship, which had been
+founded by Suard, the secretary of the French Academy, for poor young
+men of Franche-Comte who wished to devote themselves to a literary or
+scientific career. Proudhon entered as a competitor, and won the
+scholarship. In the memoir of his life, which he drew up for the
+Academy, he said: "Born and reared in the midst of the working
+classes, to which I belong with my heart and in my affections, and
+above all by the community of sufferings and aspirations, it will be
+my greatest joy, if I receive the approval of the Academy, to work
+unceasingly with the help of philosophy and science, and with the
+whole energy of my will and all my mental powers, for the physical,
+moral, and intellectual improvement of those whom I call brothers and
+companions, in order to sow amongst them the seeds of a doctrine which
+I consider as the law of the moral world, and hoping to succeed in my
+endeavours, to appear before you, gentlemen, as their representative."
+As to the studies to which he devoted himself in Paris for several
+years after receiving the scholarship, Proudhon relates himself that
+he received light, not from the socialistic schools which then existed
+and were coming into fashion, not from partisans or from journalists,
+but that he began with a study of the antiquities of Socialism, a
+study which, according to his opinion, was absolutely necessary in
+order to determine the theoretical and practical laws of the social
+movement.
+
+It gives us a somewhat strange sensation to learn that Proudhon, the
+father of Anarchism, made these sociological studies in the Bible; and
+this Book of books is even to-day the most important source of empiric
+sociology. For no other book reflects so authentically and elaborately
+the development of an important social Individualism, and in
+Proudhon's time the Bible (in view of the complete lack of
+ethnographic observations which then prevailed) was also almost the
+only source of studies of this kind. And if also it must be admitted
+that these studies could not fail to be one-sided, yet it cannot be
+denied that Proudhon proceeded in a way incomparably more correct than
+most social philosophers have done either before or since, for they
+have built up their systems generally by deductive and dogmatic
+methods.
+
+An essay which Proudhon wrote upon the introduction of Sunday rest,
+from the point of view of morality, health, and the relations of a
+family estate, brought him a bronze medal from the Academy, and he was
+able afterwards to say with truth: "My Socialism received its baptism
+from a learned society, and I have an academy as sponsor"; certainly a
+remarkable boast for one who denied all authority.
+
+Proudhon appears to have travelled very quickly along the road which
+led from the regions of faith to the metaphysics prevailing at that
+time; and already he took for his criterion--as he tells us later in
+his _Confessions_--the proposition (drawn up according to the Hegelian
+theory, that everything when it is legalised at the same time brings
+its opposite with it), "that every principle which is pursued to its
+farthest consequence arrives at a contradiction when it must be
+considered false and repudiated; and that, if this false principle has
+given rise to an institution, this institution itself must be regarded
+as an artificial product and as a Utopia." This proposition Proudhon
+later on formulated as follows: "Every true thought is conceived in
+time once, and breaks up in two directions. As each of these
+directions is the negation of the other and both can only disappear in
+a higher idea, it follows that the negation of law is itself the law
+of life and progress, and the principle of continual movement." Here,
+indeed, we have Proudhon's whole teaching; with this magic wand of
+negation of law he thought he could open the magic world of social
+problems, and heal up the wounds of the social organisation.
+
+"My masters," said Proudhon to his friend Langlois in the year 1848,
+"that is those who woke fruitful ideas in me, are three: first of all,
+the Bible, then Adam Smith, and finally Hegel." Proudhon always
+boasted of being Hegel's pupil, and Karl Marx maintained that it was
+he who, during his stay in Paris in the year 1844, in debates which
+often lasted all night long, inoculated Proudhon (to the latter's
+great disadvantage) with Hegelianism, which he nevertheless could not
+properly study owing to his ignorance of the German language. A
+well-known anecdote attributes to Hegel the witty saying that only one
+scholar understood him and he misunderstood him. We do not know who
+this scholar was, but it might just as well have been Marx as
+Proudhon, for that which both of them took from the great philosopher,
+and applied as and how and when they did, is common to both: namely,
+the dialectic method applied to the problems of social philosophy.
+
+The similarity between them in this respect is so striking that one
+might call both these embittered opponents the personal antitheses of
+the great master, Hegel. As for the rest, Proudhon's inoculation with
+Hegelianism, which was afterwards continued by K. Gruen and Bakunin,
+must have been very marked and continuous, for we shall constantly be
+meeting with traces of it as we go on. Powerful as was the influence
+of Hegel upon Proudhon, the Anarchist was but little affected by the
+fashionable philosophy of his contemporary and fellow-countryman, A.
+Comte; which is all the more remarkable since it is Comte's Positivism
+which, proceeding along the lines of Spencer's philosophy, has in no
+small degree influenced modern Anarchism, while echoes of the Comtian
+individualist doctrine are even to be found in the German contemporary
+of Proudhon, Stirner; echoes which, although numerous, are perhaps
+unconscious. Proudhon attached himself, as already mentioned,
+specially to the Hegelian dialectic and to the doctrine of Antitheses.
+Using this criterion, Proudhon proceeded to the consideration and
+criticism of social phenomena; and just as beginners and pupils in the
+difficult art of philosophy, instead of contenting themselves with
+preliminary questions, attack the very kernel of problems, with all
+the rashness of ignorance, so Proudhon also attacked, as his first
+problem, the fundamental social question of property, taking it up for
+the subject of his much-quoted though much less read work, _What is
+Property?_ (_Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_--First essay in _Recherches
+sur le Principe du Droit et du Gouvernement_). Proudhon has been
+judged and condemned, though, and wrongly, yet almost exclusively, by
+this one essay, written at the beginning of his literary career.
+Friends and foes alike have always contented themselves with regarding
+the celebrated dictum there uttered, Property is Theft, as the Alpha
+and the Omega of Proudhon's teaching, without reading the book itself.
+And because it has been thought sufficient to catch up a phrase
+dragged from all its context, so it has happened that Proudhon to-day,
+although he is one of the most frequently mentioned authors, is hardly
+either known or read. Although the question of property forms the
+corner-stone of all Proudhon's teaching, yet it would be wrong to
+identify it with his doctrine entirely. And it is no less wrong to
+represent the first attempt which Proudhon made to solve so great a
+problem as the whole of his views about property, as unfortunately
+even serious authors have hitherto done almost without exception, and
+especially those who make a special study of him, such as Diehl. As a
+matter of fact, Proudhon has carefully and elaborately set forth his
+theory of property in several other works which are mixed up for the
+most part with his other numerous writings, and has left behind a
+fragment of a book on the theory of property, in which he meant to
+produce a comprehensive theory of property as the foundation of his
+whole work. We must, therefore, in order not to anticipate, leave a
+complete exposition of Proudhon's theory of property to a later
+portion of this book, hence we will merely glance at the work, _What
+is Property?_ and also at another study which appeared in 1843 called
+_The Creation of Order in Humanity_, which shows the second, or I
+might say, the political side of Proudhon's train of thought in its
+first beginnings, and of which Proudhon himself said later, that it
+satisfied neither him nor the public, and was worse than mediocre,
+although he had very little to retract in its contents. "This book, a
+veritable infernal machine, which contains all the implements of
+creation and destruction," he said in his _Confessions_, "is badly
+done, and is far below that which I could have produced if I had taken
+time to choose and arrange properly my materials. But however full of
+faults my work may now appear, it was then sufficient for my purpose.
+Its object was to make me understand myself. Just as contradiction had
+been useful to me to destroy, so now the processes of development
+served me to build up. My intellectual education was completed, the
+_Creation of Order_ had scarcely seen the light, when, with the
+application of the creative method which followed immediately upon it,
+I understood that in order to obtain an insight into the revolution
+of society the first thing must be to construct the whole series of
+its antitheses, or the system of opposites."
+
+This was done in the book which appeared at Paris in two volumes in
+1846, _The System of Economic Contradictions, or the Philosophy of
+Misery_, which deserves to be called his masterpiece, both because it
+contains the philosophic and economic foundations of his theory in a
+perfectly comprehensive and clear exposition, and because it is
+impossible to understand Proudhon without a knowledge of these
+contradictions. In his first work upon property, Proudhon had
+represented it as something equivalent to theft. But now we have
+another doctrine proposed: that Property is Liberty. These two
+propositions were thought by Proudhon to be proved in the same way.
+"Property considered in the totality of social institutions has, so to
+speak, two current accounts. One is the thought of the good which it
+produces, and which flows directly from its nature; the other is the
+disadvantages which it produces, and the sacrifices which it causes,
+and which also result directly, just as much as the good, from its
+nature. In property evil, or the abuse of it, is inseparable from the
+good, just as in book-keeping by double entry the debtor is
+inseparable from the creditor side. The one necessarily implies the
+other. To suppress the abuse of property means to extinguish it, just
+as much as to strike out an entry on the debtor side means also
+striking it out on the creditor side of an account." He proceeded in
+the same way with all "economic categories." Labour, he tells us in
+the _Contradictions_ more explicitly, is the principle of wealth, the
+power which creates or abolishes values, or puts them in proportion
+one to another, and also distributes them. Labour thus in itself, at
+the same time, is a force that makes for equilibrium and productivity,
+which one might think should secure mankind against every want. But in
+order to work, labour must define and determine itself--that is,
+organise itself. What are, then, the organs of labour, that is, the
+forms in which human labour produces and fixes values and keeps off
+want? These forms or categories are: division of labour, machinery,
+competition, monopoly, the State or centralisation, free exchange,
+credit, property, and partnership.
+
+However much labour in itself is the source of wealth, yet those means
+which are invented for the purpose of increasing wealth, become,
+through their antagonism and through that antithetical character,
+which, according to Proudhon, lies in the very nature of all social
+forms, just as many causes of want and pauperism. Labour gains by its
+division a more than natural fertility, but, at the same time, this
+divided labour, which debases the workman, sinks, owing to the manner
+in which this division is carried out, with great rapidity below its
+own level and only creates an insufficient value. After it has
+increased consumption by the superfluity of products, it leaves them
+in the lurch owing to the low rate of pay; instead of keeping off want
+it actually produces it.
+
+The deficiency caused by the division of labour is said to be filled
+by machinery, which not only increases and multiplies the productivity
+of labour, but also compensates for the moral deficiency caused by the
+division of labour, and supplies a higher unity and synthesis in place
+of the division of labour. But according to Proudhon this is not the
+case; with machinery begins the distinction between masters and
+wage-earners, between capitalists and workmen. Thus mankind, instead
+of being raised up by machinery from degradation, sinks deeper and
+deeper. Man loses both his character as a man, and freedom, and
+becomes only a tool. Prosperity increases for the masters, poverty for
+the men; the distinction of caste begins, and a terrible struggle
+becomes manifest, which consists in increasing men in order to be able
+to do without them. And so the general pressure becomes more and more
+severe; poverty, already heralded by the division of labour, at last
+makes its appearance in the world, and henceforth becomes the soul and
+sinews of society.
+
+As opposed to its aristocratic tendencies, society places freedom or
+competition. Competition emancipates the workman and produces an
+incalculable growth in wealth. By competition the productions of
+labour continually sink in price, or (what comes to the same thing)
+continually increase in quality: and since the sources of competition,
+just like mechanical improvements and combinations of the division of
+labour, are infinite, it may be said that the productive force of
+competition is unlimited as regards intensity and scope. At last, by
+competition, the production of wealth gets definitely ahead of the
+production of men, by which statement Proudhon destroys the dogma of
+Malthus, which, we may remark, was no more proved than his own. But
+this competition is also a new source of pauperism, because the
+lowering of prices which it brings with it only benefits, on the one
+hand, those who succeed, and, on the other, leaves those who fail
+without work and without means of subsistence. The necessary
+consequence, and, at the same time, the natural antithesis of
+competition is monopoly. It is that form of social possession without
+which no labour, no production, no exchange, and no wealth would be
+possible. It is most intimately connected with individualism and
+freedom, so that without it we can hardly imagine society, and yet it
+is, quite as much as competition, anti-social and harmful. For
+monopoly attracts everything to itself--land, labour, and the
+implements of labour, productions and the distribution thereof--and
+annihilates them; or it annihilates the natural equilibrium of
+production and consumption; it causes the labourer to be deceived in
+the amount of his reward, and it causes progress in prosperity to be
+changed into a continual progress in poverty. Finally, it inverts all
+ideas of justice in commerce.
+
+The State, in its economic relations, should, according to Proudhon,
+eventuate in an equalisation between the patricians and the
+proletariat; its regulations (such as taxation) should, in the first
+place, be an antidote against the arrogance and excessive power of
+monopoly; but even the institution of the State fails in its purpose,
+since taxes, instead of being paid by those who have wealth, are
+almost exclusively paid by those who have not; the army, justice,
+peace, education, hospitals, workhouses, public offices, even
+religion,--in short, everything which is intended for the advance,
+emancipation, and the relief of the proletariat being first paid for
+and supported by the proletariat, and then either turned against it or
+lost to it altogether.
+
+It would be useless to repeat what Proudhon says about the beneficial,
+and at the same time fateful, consequences both of free-trade and its
+opposite. Who does not know the arguments which even to-day are used
+by politicians and savants in the still undecided controversy for and
+against it?
+
+In this system of contradiction, then, in this antithesis of society,
+Proudhon believed he had discovered the law of social progress, while
+as a matter of fact he had only given a very negative proof (though he
+certainly would hardly have acknowledged it) that there is not in
+economics any more than in ethics anything absolute, and that
+"benefit" and "harm" are relative terms which have nothing in common
+with the essence of things; and it is just as wrong in the one case to
+regard the existing social order as the best of all possible worlds,
+as it is in the other to regard any one economic institution as a
+social panacea, or to blame one or the other for all the evils of an
+evil world. Such a confession of faith might easily be considered
+trivial, and it might even give rise to a supercilious smile if it
+required nothing less than the doctrine of antithesis taught by Kant
+and Hegel to be brought in to prove what are obviously matters of
+fact. But perhaps it is just this superficial smile which is the
+justification of Proudhon, who had to fight a severe and not always
+victorious battle for an apparently trivial cause. We do not forget
+how helplessly the age in which he lived was tossed to and fro in all
+social questions, from casuistical Agnosticism to arbitrary Dogmatism;
+from extreme Individualism to Communism, from the standpoint of
+absolute _laisser faire_ to the uttermost reliance on authority. In
+placing these two worlds in sharp contrast one to another,
+_Contradictions_, with all its acknowledged faults and errors,
+performed an undeniable service; and this book--against which Karl
+Marx has written a severe attack--will retain for all time its value
+as one of the most important and thorough works of social philosophy.
+In any case, the net result of the lengthy discussion, in view of the
+purpose which Proudhon had before him, was absolutely nil. Proudhon
+certainly endeavoured in his dialectic method to find a solution of
+antitheses, and to come to some positive result; but even this
+solution, which was to have been the great social remedy, is, when
+divested of its philosophical garments, such a general and indefinite
+draft upon the bank of social happiness that it could never be
+properly paid.
+
+"I have shewn," said Proudhon, at the close of his _Contradictions_,
+"how society seeks in formula after formula, institution after
+institution, that equilibrium which always escapes it, and at every
+attempt always causes its luxury and its poverty to grow in equal
+proportion. Since equilibrium has never yet been reached, it only
+remains to hope something from a complete solution which synthetically
+unites theories, which gives back to labour its effectiveness and to
+each of its organs its power. Hitherto pauperism has been so
+inextricably connected with labour, and want with idleness, and all
+our accusations against Providence only prove our weakness." This
+solution of the great problem of our century by the synthetic union of
+economic and social antithesis, or, as Proudhon calls it in another
+place, by a scientific, legal, immortal, and inseparable combination,
+is certainly a beautiful and noble philosophy. It cannot be denied
+that herewith Proudhon, who, in all his works, raged furiously against
+Utopians, has none the less created a Utopia of his own, not, indeed,
+by forcibly urging mankind through an ideal change, but by attempting
+to mould life into an ideal shape without, like others, appealing to
+force, or venturing to organise the forces of terror, in order to
+accomplish his ideal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just as Proudhon differed from the ready-made Socialism of his age by
+a conception which he opposed to pauperism, so, too, he differed in
+the method which he recommended should be adopted for the removal of
+pauperism. He certainly accepted the proposition that poverty could
+only be removed by the labourer receiving the entire result of his
+labour, and that social reform must, accordingly, consist of an
+organisation of labour. In this he was quite at one with Louis Blanc,
+but only in this; for while Louis Blanc claimed for the organisation
+of labour the full authority of the State, Proudhon desired it to
+arise from the free initiative of the people, without the interference
+of the State in any way. This is the parting of the roads between
+Anarchism and authoritative Socialism; here they separate once for
+all, never to meet again, except in the most violent opposition. This
+was the starting-point of Proudhon's Anarchist views. The experiences
+of the Revolution of 1848, which, from the social standpoint, failed
+entirely, might well have fitted in with these views of his. Proudhon
+had taken a very active part in the occurrences of this remarkable
+year, as editor of the _People_, and as a representative of the
+Department of the Seine, and in other capacities, and thought that the
+cause of the fruitlessness of all attempts to solve the social problem
+and to reap the fruits of the Revolution lay in the fact that the
+Revolution had been initiated from above instead of from below, and
+because the revolutionary principle had been installed in power, and
+therefore had destroyed itself. But ultimately the opposition of
+Proudhon to Blanc goes back to the fundamental difference alluded to
+above.
+
+Society, as Proudhon explains in his _Contradictions_, and as he
+applies his doctrine of politics in his book called the _Confessions
+of a Revolutionary_, written in prison in 1849, is essentially of a
+dialectic nature and is founded upon opposites, which are all mingled
+one with another, and the combinations of which are infinite. The
+solution of the social problem he finds in placing the different
+expressions of the problem no longer in contradiction but in their
+"dialectic developments," so that for example the right to work, to
+credit, and to assistance, rights whose realisation under an
+antagonistic legislation is impossible or dangerous, gradually result
+from an already established, realised, and undoubted right; and so
+instead of being stumbling-blocks one to another they find in their
+mutual connection their most lasting guarantee. But since such
+guarantees should lie in the institutions themselves the authority of
+the State becomes neither necessary nor justifiable for the carrying
+out of this revolution.
+
+But why should revolution from above be impossible? The doctrine of
+antithesis, applied to politics, implies freedom and order. The first
+is realised by revolution, the second by government. Thus there is
+here a contradiction; for the government can never become
+revolutionary for the very simple reason that it is a government. But
+society alone--that is, the masses of the people when permeated by
+intelligence--can revolutionise itself, because it alone can express
+its free will in a rational manner, can analyse and develop and unfold
+the secret of its destination and its origin, and alter its beliefs
+and its philosophy.
+
+"Governments are the scourge of God, introduced in order to keep the
+world in discipline and order. And do you demand that they should
+annihilate themselves, create freedom, and make revolutions? That is
+impossible. All revolutions, from the anointing of the first king to
+the declaration of the Rights of Man, have been freely accomplished by
+the spirit of the people. Governments have always hindered, oppressed,
+and crushed them to the ground. They have never made a revolution. It
+is not their function to produce movements but to keep them back. And
+even if they possessed revolutionary science--which is a contradiction
+of terms--they would be justified in not making use of it. They must
+first let their knowledge be absorbed by the people in order to
+receive the support of the citizens, and that would mean to refuse to
+acknowledge the existence of authority and power."
+
+It follows through this that the organisation of work by the State--as
+was attempted by Fourier, Louis Blanc, and their followers in a more
+or less remote degree--is an illusion, and on this theory revolution
+can only take place through the initiative of the people
+itself--"through the unanimous agreement of the citizens, through the
+experience of the workmen, and through the progress and growth of
+enlightenment."
+
+We here have laid bare the yawning gulf which lies between Proudhon
+and the State Socialism of his time, and over this gulf there is no
+bridge. We see how from these premises has been developed gradually
+and logically that which Proudhon himself has called Anarchy
+(_An-arche_, without government). The Socialists have made the
+statement that the political revolution is the means of which the
+social revolution is the end. Proudhon has inverted this statement
+and regards the social revolution as the means and a political
+revolution as the end. It is therefore a great mistake to consider
+him, as is always done, as a political economist, for he was first and
+foremost a social politician. The Socialists place as the ultimate
+object of revolution, the welfare of all, enjoyment; but for Proudhon
+the principle of revolution is freedom, that is:
+
+(1) Political freedom by the organisation of universal suffrage, by
+the independent centralisation of social functions, and by the
+continual and unceasing revision of the constitution.
+
+(2) Industrial freedom through the mutual guarantee of credit and
+sale. In other words "no government by men by means of the
+accumulation of power, no exploitation of men by means of the
+accumulation of capital."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Proudhon thought that the fault of every political or social
+constitution, whether it was the work of political or social
+Radicalism, that which produces conflicts, and sets up antagonism in
+society, lies in the fact that on the one hand the division of powers,
+or rather of functions, is badly and incompletely performed, while on
+the other hand centralisation is insufficient. The necessary
+consequence of this is that the chief power is inactive and the
+"thought of the people," or universal suffrage, is not exercised.
+Division of functions then must be completed, and centralisation must
+increase; universal suffrage must regain its prerogative and therewith
+give back to the people the energy and activity which is lacking to
+them.
+
+The manner in which Proudhon proposed this constitution of society by
+the initiative of the masses and the organisation of universal
+suffrage cannot be better or more simply explained than in the words
+and examples which he himself has used in the _Confessions_ in order
+to interpret his views. He says:
+
+"For many centuries the spiritual power, according to the traditional
+conception of it, has been separated from the temporal power. I
+remark, by the way, that the political principle of the division of
+powers, or functions, is the same as the principle of the division of
+the departments of industry or of labour. Here already we see a
+glimpse of the identity of the political and social constitution. But
+now I say that the division of the two powers, the spiritual and
+temporal, has never been complete; and that their centralisation,
+which was a great disadvantage both for ecclesiastical administration
+and for the followers of religion, was never sufficient. A complete
+division would take place if the temporal power never mingled in
+religious solemnities, in the administration of the sacraments, in the
+government of parishes, and especially in the nomination of bishops.
+There would then be a much greater centralisation, and consequently
+still more regular government, if in every parish the people had the
+right to choose their clergymen and chaplains themselves, or even not
+to have any at all; if the priests in every diocese chose their
+bishops; if the assembly of bishops alone regulated religious affairs
+in theological education and in divine worship. By this division the
+clergy would cease to be a tool of tyranny in the hands of the
+political power against the people; and by this application of
+universal suffrage the Church Government, centralised in itself, would
+receive its inspiration from the people, and not from the Government
+or from the Pope: it would continually find itself in harmony with the
+needs of society and with the spiritual condition of the citizens. In
+order thus to return to organic, economic, and social truth, it is
+necessary (1) To do away with the constitutional accumulation of
+power, by taking away the nomination of bishops from the State, and
+separating once for all spiritual from temporal affairs; (2) To
+centralise the Church in itself by a system of elective grades; (3) To
+give to the ecclesiastical power, as to all other powers of the State,
+the right of voting as its foundation. By this system, that which
+to-day is 'government' becomes nothing more than administration. And
+it will be understood if it is possible to organise the whole country
+in all its temporal affairs, according to the rules which we have just
+laid down for its spiritual organisation, the most perfect order and
+the most powerful centralisation would exist without there being
+anything of what we now call the constituted authority of a
+government.
+
+"One other example: formerly there existed besides the legislative and
+executive powers a third, the judicial power. This was an abolition of
+the dividing dualism, a first step towards the complete separation of
+political functions as of the departments of industry. The judicial
+functions--with their different specialties, their hierarchy, their
+irremovability, their union in a single ministry--testify undoubtedly
+to their privileged position and their efforts towards centralisation.
+But these functions do not arise from the people upon whom they are
+exercised; their purpose is the administration of executive power;
+they are not subordinated to the country by election, but to the
+Government, president, or princes, by nomination. The consequence is
+that the liberties of the people who are judged are given into the
+hands of those who are supposed to be their natural judges, like
+parishioners into the hands of their pastor, so that the people belong
+to the magistrates as an inheritance, while the litigants exist for
+the sake of the judge, and not the judge for the sake of the
+litigants. Apply universal suffrage and the system of elective grades
+to judicial functions in the same way as to ecclesiastic; take away
+their irremovability which is the denial of the right of election;
+take away from the State all action and influence upon the judges; let
+this order, centralised in and for itself, arise solely from the
+people, and you have taken away from the State its most powerful
+implement of tyranny. You have made out of justice a principle of
+freedom and order, and unless you suppose that the people from whom,
+by means of universal suffrage, all power must proceed is in
+contradiction with itself, and that it does not wish in the case of
+justice what it wishes in the case of religion, or _vice versa_, you
+may rest assured that the division of power can produce no conflict.
+You can confidently establish the principle that division and
+equilibrium will in future be synonymous.
+
+"I pass over to another case, to the military power. It belongs to the
+citizens to nominate their military commanders in due order, by
+advancing simple privates and national guards to the lower grades and
+officers to the higher grades in the army. Thus organised the army
+maintains its citizen-like sentiment. There is no longer a nation in a
+nation, a country in a country, a kind of wandering colony where the
+citizen is a citizen amongst soldiers, and learns to fight against his
+own country. The nation itself, centralised in its strength and youth,
+can, independently of the power of the State, appeal to the public
+power in the name of the law, just like a judge or police official,
+but cannot command it or exercise authority over it. In the case of a
+war the army owes obedience only to the representative assembly of the
+nation, and to the leaders appointed by it.
+
+"It is clear that in this, no judgment is passed upon the necessity of
+these great manifestations of the social mind, and that if we wish to
+abide by the judgment of the people, which alone is competent to
+decide as to the importance and duration of its institutions, we can
+do nothing better (as has just been said) than to constitute them in a
+democratic manner.
+
+"Societies have at all times experienced the need of protecting their
+trade and industry against foreign imports; the power or function
+which protects native labour in each country and guarantees it a
+national market, is taxation in the shape of Customs. I will not here
+say anything at all about the morality, or want of it, the usefulness
+or the harm of Customs duties. I take it as I see it in society, and
+confine myself to examining it from the point of view of the
+constitution of powers. Taxation, by the very fact that it exists, is
+a centralised function. Its origin like its action, excludes every
+idea of division or dismemberment. But how does it happen that this
+function, which belongs specially to the province of merchants and
+those concerned with industry, and proceeds exclusively from the
+authority of the Chambers of Commerce, yet belongs to the State? Who
+can know better than industry itself wherein and to what extent it
+requires protection, where the compensation for the taxation which has
+to be raised must come from, and what products require bounties and
+encouragement? And as for the Customs service itself, is it not
+obvious that it is the business of those interested to reckon up the
+expenses of it, while it is not at all suitable for the Government to
+make of it a source of emolument for its favourites by procuring an
+income for its extravagances by differential taxes?
+
+"Besides the ministries of justice, religion, war, and international
+trade, the Government appoints yet others; the ministry for
+agriculture, public works, public instruction, and finally to pay for
+all these, the ministry of finance. Our so-called division of powers
+is only an accumulation of all kinds of powers, our centralisation is
+an absorption. Do you not think that the agriculturists, who are
+already all organised in their communities and committees, would
+perform their own centralisation very well, and could guide their
+common interests without this being done by the State? Do you not
+think that the merchants, manufacturers, agriculturists, the
+industrial population of every kind, who have their books open before
+them in the Chambers of Commerce, could in the same way, without the
+help of the State, without expecting their salvation from its
+good-will, or their ruin from its inexperience, organise at their own
+cost a central administration for themselves; could debate their own
+affairs in general assemblies; could correspond with other
+administrations; could pass all their useful decisions without waiting
+for the sanction of the President of the Republic; and could entrust
+the execution of their will to one amongst themselves, who would be
+chosen by his fellows to be the Minister? It is clear that the public
+works which concern agricultural industry and trade, or the
+departments and the communes, might in future be assigned to the local
+and central administrations which have an interest in them; and should
+no more be a special corporation in the hands of the State than is the
+army, the customs, or monopolies. Or should the State have its
+hierarchy, its privileges, its ministry, so that it may carry on a
+trade in mining, canals, or railways, may speculate on the Stock
+Exchange, grant leases for ninety-nine years, and leave the building
+of streets, bridges, dams, water-ways, excavations, sluices, etc., to
+a legion of contractors, speculators, usurers, destroyers of morality,
+and extortioners, who live upon the public wealth by the exploitation
+of workmen and wage-earners, and upon the folly of the State?
+
+"Can it not be believed that public instruction could be just as well
+made universal, be administered, directed, and that the teachers,
+professors, and inspectors could be just as well elected, and the
+system of studies would be just as much in harmony with the habits and
+interests of the nation if it was the business of municipal and
+general councils to appoint teachers, while the universities only had
+to grant them their diplomas; if in public instruction, as in the
+military career, merit in the lower grades was necessary for promotion
+to the higher, if our dignitaries of the university must first have
+gone through the duties of an elementary teacher and supervisor of
+studies?
+
+"Does one imagine that this perfectly democratic system would do harm
+to the discipline of schools, to morality, education, the dignity of
+instruction, or the peace of the family?
+
+"And as the sinews of every administration are money, as the budget
+is made for the country and not the country for the budget, as the
+taxes must every year be granted freely by the representatives of the
+people, as this is the original and inalienable right of the people
+both under a monarchy and a republic, since the country must first
+sanction the income and expenditure before it can be applied by the
+Government,--does it not follow that the consequence of this financial
+initiative, which is formally recognised as belonging to the citizens
+in all our constitutions, will consist in the fact that the finance
+minister, or, in a word, the whole fiscal organisation, belongs to the
+country and not to its ruler; that it depends directly upon those who
+pay the budget and not upon those who spend it; that there would be
+infinitely fewer abuses in the administration of public money, fewer
+extravagances and deficits, if the State had just as little power over
+public finances as over religion, justice, the army, taxes, public
+works, and public instruction?
+
+"Supposing the heads of the different branches of administration were
+grouped together, we should have then a council of ministry or an
+executive power which would serve just as well as a State Council.
+Place over this a great 'jury,' legislative body, or national
+assembly, elected and commissioned directly by the whole of the
+country, whose duty it is not to nominate the ministers, for these
+receive their office from the members of their special departments,
+but to look through accounts, to make laws, to draw up the budget, and
+to decide the differences between the different administrations after
+having received the report of the Public Minister or the Minister of
+the Interior, to which in the future the whole Government will be
+reduced,--and there you would have a centralisation which would be all
+the stronger the more its different centres were multiplied. You would
+have responsibility, which is all the more real because the separation
+between various powers is more sharply defined; you would have a
+constitution which at the same time is political and social."
+
+Here we have the picture of the society of the future, as Proudhon
+imagined it when the principles of democracy and, above all, of
+universal suffrage have become a reality--the celebrated federative
+principle of Proudhon, the inheritance of the most talented party of
+any age, the Girondists, locally developed, and to some extent not
+without a profound knowledge of politics. It cannot be denied that the
+federal principle, as Proudhon here explains it, means the integration
+of social force, which in its differentiation meets us sometimes as a
+special and sometimes as the common interest, sometimes as
+Individualism or again as Altruism. According to this, federation is
+nothing more than the translation into politics of the metaphor (which
+we formerly used from physics) of the resultants of several component
+forces; a metaphor which not only suits the genius of Proudhon, but
+also is frequently found in his language. Proudhon was deeply
+permeated by the reality of Collectivism, but saw it in the light both
+of Physics and Physiology, so that the word "resultants" is with him
+more than a metaphor. In this respect Proudhon far surpassed in
+insight all the social philosophers of his age, and anticipated the
+pioneers of modern sociology. But he contradicted himself, and lost
+his special merits by wishing to make out of a social law an absolute
+formula; by abandoning the scientific standpoint which he once
+attained, and falling back again into dogmatism. If we conceive all
+society in the mechanical manner in which Proudhon did; or if we think
+(as he did) that we have at least partially discovered the laws of
+its movement, then all further politics exhaust themselves in an
+experimental verification of the laws in question. But to anticipate
+any point of the development which one expects, and to regard it as
+something absolute, is a process irreconcilable with an exact
+scientific method. In brief, Proudhon's federalism is a political
+principle; his Anarchism is a dogma, or at best an hypothesis which
+cannot even be logically proved from the first-named, for it is not
+true, as Proudhon maintains, that the idea of agreement excludes that
+of lordship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But if Proudhon conceives all society in a mechanical manner, it is to
+be expected that he would again seek--and find--the same laws that he
+saw operating in the political constitution also in economic life.
+This is, as a matter of fact, the case. "Agreement solves every
+problem"; only agreement in economic life means with him exchange.
+"Social agreement," he says, "is in its essence like the agreement of
+exchange." Therefore the corner-stone in his economic system is
+exchange. But Proudhon transposed into this purely empiric idea a
+moral element, by presupposing equality and justice as necessary to
+exchange. Economic freedom, he reasons, is free exchange; but an
+exchange can only be called free which presupposes the equality of
+values, or, in other words, equality and justice. This again
+presupposes a just balance and constitution of values--a mutual
+balance of all economic and social forces. What, then, is economic
+freedom? It is equality and justice. And what is the opposite--the
+hindrance of these principles? It is inequality, injustice, slavery,
+which means property. This is the reason why Proudhon's doctrine of
+property stands at the centre of his system, which it by no means
+exhausts; it is the reason why he always proceeded from this point,
+and always returned to it again. Here we have clearly the reason for
+all his numberless and endless mistakes in the province of economics,
+the weak point of this otherwise great and noble mind. As we already
+have remarked about the _Contradictions_, Proudhon did not attack
+property in itself; he tried to ennoble it and bring it into harmony
+with the claims of justice and equality by taking away from it what
+to-day is a _jus utendi et abutendi_, that is, its rights over the
+substance of a thing, and the right of devolving it for ever. The
+ominous statement "Property is Theft" was directed only against this.
+This kind of property (_propriete_, _dominium_) was to be replaced by
+individual possession (_possession individuelle_): as to which one
+must take care to understand the distinction between "property" and
+"possession" in the legal sense.
+
+Proudhon sought in his first and larger work, which is mainly of a
+critical nature, to put forward the negative proof that property is
+impossible, by inverting all the proofs hitherto brought forward in
+its favour, so that instead of justifying the possession of property
+they seemed rather to make for freedom. It is, however, quite wrong to
+regard this dialectic jugglery as the essence of Proudhon's system. A
+proof, such as that here proposed by Proudhon, is not only quite
+inadmissible as logic, but it cannot even be said that Proudhon
+himself (usually so accurate in this respect) turned out here a really
+good piece of work. On the one hand he attacks the defenders of
+property, who, after all, are not very difficult to controvert; while,
+at the same time, his attempt itself does not always succeed. Of
+course it does not mean very much when he cleverly riddles the old
+argument for property drawn from divine right or the right of nature;
+for in any case he was only attacking dead theories. In the attack on
+really living arguments, as in the case of his theory of labour, he
+does not succeed.
+
+Property cannot be explained by labour because
+
+(1) The land cannot be appropriated,
+
+(2) Labour leads to equality, and in the sight of justice labour, on
+the contrary, abolishes property.
+
+The proposition that property, _i. e._, the right to the substance of
+the thing appropriated, cannot be created by labour, because the land
+cannot be appropriated, is at least a _petitio principii_ or
+tautology. But, leaving that, let us suppose that the land really
+cannot be appropriated; yet there is always some kind of property
+which has nothing to do with the land. It will not do always to speak
+of landed property only, as Proudhon invariably does. Movable property
+(in weapons, utensils, ornaments, animals, etc.) precedes immovable
+property, owing to its origin, which was only created in imitation of
+the other much later, and is entirely property due to work; thus not
+only property, but not even the origin of the idea of property in
+men, can be explained from the point of view of social history
+otherwise than by work.
+
+If it is right, as one of our most acute thinkers says, to declare
+that mankind has placed his tools between himself and the animal
+world, then another proposition follows directly from this, namely,
+that man has placed property between himself and animals. It is true
+that the animal develops as far as the family, for if this also is
+founded merely upon thought, it cannot be a conscious one. Property
+presupposes a definite mental equipment, which even in the case of
+primitive men must be important, implying subjectively an already
+clear consciousness of self; objectively a certain capacity for
+measuring even the remoter consequences of an action; for the desire
+for special possession could only exist with reference to a pronounced
+consciousness of the self, and to the recognised purpose and further
+utility of an object. Neither of these mental presuppositions are
+anywhere fulfilled in the animal world. It need hardly be mentioned
+that labour in the technical sense has developed naturally and
+gradually from physiological labour and the bodily functions; that is,
+that even between the natural implement and the artificial there is no
+hiatus.
+
+Espinas says (_Animal Communities_, by A. Espinas, p. 338): "Every
+living being, however lonely its life may be, can in case of need
+build itself some protective covering, and that is the beginning of
+the artistic impulse (_Kunst-trieb_), unless, perhaps, this is to be
+found in the formation of the organism itself. Leaving out of
+consideration the tubicolous annelidae, the mussels and stone-boring
+molluscs, the weaving caterpillars, and finally spiders, even the
+non-social hymenoptera present, among many insects, examples of a very
+skilful adaptation of materials. But it is equally undeniable that,
+since the appearance of communities whose purpose is the rearing of
+their offspring, the artistic tendency receives a considerable impulse
+and produces unexpected marvels. Here it decidedly abandons its usual
+procedure in order to take up a new one. Hitherto the lower animals
+have, to a great extent, taken the materials for their places of
+refuge and their implements from their own bodies: the former an
+extension of the organism that produces it; the latter, as in the case
+of the spider, only an enlargement of the animal itself which forms
+the centre. The productions of the social artistic impulse, on the
+other hand, are made out of materials which are more and more foreign
+to the substance of the artificer, and are worked up externally by
+means which become more and more exclusively mechanical. Hence it
+follows that the living body is no longer so directly interested in
+the preservation of its work; it can alter and again build up this
+structure to an almost infinite extent--in short, the structure
+becomes more and more an implement instead of an organ. That was the
+inevitable result of animal life, which, being essentially capable of
+transference, and presupposing an intercourse of several separate
+existences, must necessarily raise itself above external substances,
+or else organise them according to the purposes of its life. But must
+we now conceive its operations as altogether distinct from those of
+physiological life?
+
+"If one reflects that unnoticed steps connect the unconscious work
+which produces the organ with the conscious work which produces the
+implement, then it does not appear so. Speaking exactly, the waxen
+cell in which the larvae of the bee wait for their daily food is
+external for every individual of the race, but internal for the whole
+of the community; since this forms one single consciousness, or a
+collective individuality. The mind of the race is to some extent a
+common function, its body a common apparatus; the one is only the
+material translation of the other, and the implement performs its
+function as faithfully as does the organ. One might even go farther
+and maintain that the implement in the full sense of the word is an
+organ; for it serves a function that is vital for the community, and
+this is exposed to every change, and derives benefit from every growth
+which circumstances bring to it."
+
+The work of animals, therefore, only differs in its highest
+developments from purely physiological functions, in that the animal
+becomes more independent of its implements and of the product of its
+labour. Notice, for instance, the progress which is shown in the
+series of the mussel's shell, the spider's web, the bee's cell, the
+bird's nest, and the mole's burrow. The progressive differentiation
+of the products of labour keeps step with the progressive
+individualisation of the labourer and with the growing material
+independence of the body from its products. Mussel shell, cobweb, and
+bee's cell are still produced from the secretions of the body; but
+while the mussel is inseparable from its shell, the spider, at least
+without immediate harm, can be detached from its web; while the bee is
+still further emancipated from its structure of cells. The bird's nest
+and the mole's burrow have been formed already by a manipulation of
+materials foreign to the body, though in the case of the first still
+by the help of secretions from the body. In both cases the animal is
+almost completely independent of its product. Still the most
+complicated product of animal labour is, after all, connected
+inseparably with the body of the worker; and to a much less extent can
+the animal be separated from its implements; therefore complete
+emancipation never takes place in the animal world.
+
+Even in the case of the anthropoid apes the transition to the
+instrument and to a product of labour entirely artificial and
+perfectly independent of the animal's own body, is only very slowly
+completed. This is clear from a consideration of the slow process by
+which man has progressed in perfecting the implements which he has
+invented. From the action of the bird which beats open a nut with its
+beak, or the squirrel which cracks it with its teeth, up to that of
+man who, in order to open the nut, makes use of a stone lying near
+him, is only a step, and yet by that step the destiny of the _genus
+homo_ is settled. The application of natural objects, such as sticks
+and stones, to the purposes of daily life, to defence against animals
+and men, to hunting, to cutting down fruits, and so on, does not
+certainly become a habit all at once. Indeed, a very long time
+elapsed before this adaptation became a general and even a conscious
+one, and it was only possible when the advantages of such objects had
+been perceived through many experiences.
+
+It needed a still longer time before man learned to choose between the
+various objects offered to him by nature, and understood how to
+distinguish a more pointed and sharper or a harder stone from one of
+those less useful for his purpose. Perhaps it required the experience
+and disappointments of uncounted ages to bring the consciousness of
+purpose even up to this point. But when this was once done, when man
+could judge as to the usefulness of the implement which nature offered
+him, then a further step of progress, and certainly the most important
+in this series of developments, was taken. To natural selection
+follows immediately artificial. The need for suitable and useful
+implements became more general and greater, and at the same time it
+became more difficult to satisfy, since nature is not so generous with
+objects of this kind, and (as was soon seen) only very few substances
+united all these qualities which hitherto had been recognised as
+necessary or useful. But by this time individuals who were already
+better provided for had made other discoveries; they had, for example,
+in cracking a nut, broken a stone with which they cracked it, and
+noticed that the broken pieces had greater sharpness and pointedness
+on their edges than those which nature afforded; or they had found the
+pieces of some tree split by lightning, and discovered their greater
+hardness and capacity for resistance. What was more natural under the
+pressure of the necessity, than to produce intentionally those
+processes by which the objects afforded by nature became more
+usable--to break the stone in pieces or to burn the wood?
+
+And now at last the artificial implement was produced, and all future
+progress was but a trifle compared to the development which had gone
+before. The wonders of modern technical art are child's-play compared
+to the difficulties with which the anthropoid ape succeeded in making
+the first stone celt. The most urgent need of primitive life, the
+bitterest competition for the necessities of existence, and the
+concentration of the highest mental gifts then possessed, were
+necessary to guide the sight of primitive man to the remoter
+consequences of an action or of a quality. That his sight became
+sharper and sharper in proportion as the implement once invented
+showed itself to be insufficient, and became more and more
+differentiated in its adaptation to the different kinds of labour,
+follows as a matter of course. But the decisive action occurred when
+the anthropoid ape for the first time mechanically worked up natural
+objects, for by doing so he was enabled to exploit nature rationally,
+according to his desires and requirements, to emancipate himself from
+the limitations of existence as regards place and climate, to break
+those chains of partial action which weigh upon everything belonging
+to the animal world.
+
+One must take fully into consideration the difficulties under which
+primitive man made his first tools; but one must, however, realise
+still more the immeasurable advantages which proceed from the
+possession, and the disadvantages which arise from the want, of a
+tool, in order to perceive that man had a vital interest in preserving
+permanently by him the objects which he had produced. If in his
+inexperience he at first threw away his laboriously acquired treasure
+after using it, yet soon the oft-recurring need for it, and the
+trouble of remaking it, must have taught him better. And by not
+leaving the tool behind him for someone else, he made not only a
+tremendous step in advance in the satisfaction of his needs, but also
+took a step higher in the social scale of his tribe. The others had
+need of him, admired him, feared or flattered him; they perhaps sought
+to take his treasured tool away from him; he had therefore to defend
+himself against others, and all these facts formed still more strongly
+the desire to keep it for himself permanently and exclusively. The
+conception of property flashed upon the human mind. It sprang from the
+sweat of labour; and human culture begins not with equality but with
+property.
+
+This rather lengthy digression has been necessary in order that we may
+be able to oppose actual facts to the logical subtlety of Proudhon,
+which appears to-day to have a greater power than ever of leading men
+astray. The question whether the producer of a stone celt was merely
+the user of its advantages (Latin, _possessor_) or its actual owner
+and master; whether he also had the right to the substances of which
+it was composed, appears, after what we have said above, to be simply
+childish. The property, which was absolutely labour-property, was at
+once perceived to be such, to be _dominium_ and not merely
+_possessio_; it never occurred to anybody either to doubt it or to
+believe it. Now, Proudhon declares that general consent cannot justify
+property, because general consent to an injustice cannot form the
+basis of justice. But apart from the fact that the innate sense of
+justice in society is merely a fiction of Proudhon's, as of all
+earlier or later Utopians, this proposition may perhaps belong to
+metaphysics or ethics, but certainly not to the empirical science of
+sociology. For he who puts on the crown, and whom all agree to obey,
+is really king, even if he has waded to the throne through seas of
+blood. The question, in so far as it is neither political nor a
+justification of his mode of action, is not a legal one but purely
+ethical. The answer to this question prejudges nothing either as to
+life or society, and history knows cases enough of actions which
+cannot be approved from the moral standpoint, and yet have turned out
+to the advantage of the community.
+
+The opinion that agrarian communism, or the village community, is the
+most primitive form of property and the natural form of society, is
+also quite untenable. In the first place, because the word _naturally_
+cannot be taken in the sense that it implies an unalterable normal
+condition, or something fixed; for, in reality, _naturally_ means that
+which develops itself, and therefore something in the highest degree
+changeable. In the second place, because tribal communism is by no
+means such a primitive condition as the Socialists, from Rousseau's
+time downwards, seem to believe, and wish to make others believe.
+Rather, a state preceded it, in which only movable property, the _jus
+utendi atque abutendi re_, was known to man. Races have been found
+which possess very scanty conceptions of religion, which have not
+recognised the family in the widest implication of the idea; whereas,
+on the other hand, no race has been found to whom the idea of property
+was not known. Certainly in this case it was only a question of the
+possession of weapons and ornaments, and so forth; possession of land,
+especially as a communal possession, has only been found among a
+comparatively small number of primitive peoples, and implies a very
+advanced state of social culture. But, however little this condition
+is the natural one, [Greek: kat' exochen], still less is it
+particularly moral or just.
+
+We know to-day for certain that the rise of communal possession in
+land was always inseparably connected with the introduction of
+slavery, and that one cannot be thought of without the other. But to
+wish to imagine equality in addition to the collective possession of
+primitive society is to a great extent a distortion of the facts of
+history. Whatever facts we may produce from the actual and not merely
+imaginary primitive history of property would be so many arguments
+against Proudhon's contention. His economic argument is just as
+untenable, that labour should lead to equality. All work, according
+to Proudhon, is the effective of a collective force, which is equal to
+the resultants of the forces of the single individuals who form the
+labour group. Consequently, the product of labour is the property of
+the whole community, and every worker has an equal claim to it. This
+is, briefly, the argument which, from premises that are possibly
+correct, draws conclusions that are entirely false. Proudhon gives the
+following example: "Two hundred grenadiers placed the obelisk of Luxor
+on its pedestal in a few hours, and yet we do not believe that one man
+could have performed the same work in two hundred days. The collective
+force is greater than the sum of individual forces and individual
+efforts. Therefore the capitalist has not rewarded the labourer fairly
+when he pays wages for one day multiplied by the number of
+day-labourers employed by him."
+
+It will be seen that Proudhon here proceeds from the assumption that
+the value of a product of a labour is a firmly established and easily
+fixed amount, as John Grey and Rodbertus had taught before him; for
+only in this case could it be exactly stated how great the claim is
+which belongs to a labourer. In fact, the characteristic feature of
+Proudhon's theory of value lies in his endeavour to determine and fix
+values; that is, to use his own dialectic jargon, according to the
+synthetic solution of the antithesis of value in use and value in
+exchange, in which our economic life fluctuates. Supply and demand,
+considered by others as the factors which regulate and determine
+value, are to him only forms which serve to contrast with one another
+the value in use and value in exchange, and to cause these values to
+combine. From justice, which ought to be the foundation of society, he
+concludes the necessity, and from general obedience of life to law the
+possibility, of a determination of values. Even this value, thus
+determined, will be a variable amount, a proportionate figure, similar
+to the index which in the case of chemical elements gives their
+combining weights. "But this value will none the less be strictly
+fixed. Value may alter, but the law of values is unalterable; indeed,
+the fact that value is capable of alteration only results from its
+being subject to a law whose principle is essentially fluctuating, for
+it is labour measured by time." (_Contradictions_, i., "On the Theory
+of Value.") Value is thus brought into consideration within the
+community which producers form among themselves by means of the
+division of labour and exchange, the relation of the proportion of the
+products which compose riches, and that which is specially termed the
+value of a product is a formula which assigns a proportion of this
+product in coins in the general wealth.
+
+Leaving out of the question the moral arrangement of the world, which
+even here has contributed to this definition of double meaning, we may
+ask, how is this formula, which assigns in coins the proportion of the
+product in the general wealth, reckoned? Proudhon has always appealed
+only to the realisation of the idea through the actual circulation of
+values on the one hand, and to the law-abiding character of nature on
+the other. Upon the point of "realisation" we shall have something to
+say later. But the law-abiding character of life is, however, just as
+much an algebraical expression as the "proportion of the product."
+Supposing both are not disputed, what follows, then? If I know the
+exact formula for the direction and velocity of a projectile, shall I
+now be able to protect myself from every bullet by merely getting out
+of its way? The introduction of statistical methods into the general
+formula for special values Proudhon has himself excluded as incorrect.
+The question settles itself. Society goes on of its own
+accord--_laissez aller, laissez faire_--everything remains in the old
+way. In addition to this mistake, we find that there is in Proudhon's
+mind great confusion with regard to the two ideas of time of labour
+and value of labour.
+
+"Adam Smith takes as a measure of value sometimes the time necessary
+to produce a commodity and sometimes the value of labour," says Marx
+in his celebrated polemic against Proudhon.[1] "Ricardo discovered
+this error by clearly proving the difference between these two modes
+of measurement. Proudhon, however, goes even farther than the error of
+Adam Smith, by identifying two things which Smith has only brought
+into juxtaposition. To find the right proportion according to which
+the labourers should have their share in the products of their labour,
+or, in other words, to determine the relative value of labour,
+Proudhon seeks some measure for the relative value of commodities. To
+determine the measure for the relative value of commodities he cannot
+invent anything better than to give us as an equivalent for a certain
+quantity of work, the total of the products made by it; which leaves
+us to suppose that the whole of society consists of nothing but
+labourers, who receive as wages what they themselves produce. In the
+second place, he maintains the equal value of the working days of
+different labourers as an actual fact; in a word, he seeks the measure
+for the relative value of commodities in order to discover the equal
+payment of labourers, and assumes the equality of payment as a settled
+fact, in order to proceed to search for the relative value of
+commodities."
+
+    [1] _Das Elend der Philosophie: An Answer to Proudhon's
+    Philosophie des Elends._ Stuttgart, 1892 (German ed.).
+
+If we turn back to the question, What is property? we find this
+confusion of ideas is answerable for his unsuccessful attempt to prove
+that labour must create equality and annihilate property. Here, too,
+the equality of the working days is assumed, and therefore the
+equality of wages is demanded. But, then, immediately this working day
+is changed into his work done in a day (_tache sociale journaliere_).
+"Let us assume," says he, "that this social day's work amounts to the
+cultivation or weeding or harvesting of two square decametres, and the
+mean average of all the time necessary for these amounts to seven
+hours. One labourer will finish it in six hours; another in eight
+hours; the majority will work seven hours; but so long as each
+performs the amount of work required of him, he deserves the same
+wages as all the others, however long he may have worked at it." Here
+time of work has imperceptibly changed into quantity of work, and
+wages are given, not according to the measure of equal working times
+but according to the measure of equal performances. Proudhon here
+seeks for a solution by saying that the more capable workman, who
+performs his day's work in six hours, should never have the right to
+usurp the day's work of a less capable labourer, under the pretext of
+greater strength and activity, and thus rob him of work and bread; it
+is advantage enough derived from his greater capacities that, by this
+shortening of his time of labour, he has greater opportunity to work
+for his own personal education and culture, or to enjoy himself, and
+so on. But Proudhon must be driven even from this last corner of
+refuge by the question, What will take place if anyone will perform
+only the half of his day's work? Proudhon says: "That is all right;
+obviously half of his wages are sufficient for that man. What has he
+to complain of if he is rewarded according to the work which he has
+performed? and what does it matter to others? In this sense it is
+right and proper to apply the text, 'to each according to his work';
+that is the law of equality."[2]
+
+    [2] _Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_ p. 102.
+
+But this is to retract all along the line. Proudhon, who assumes the
+equality of all working days, and has made it the basis of his theory
+of value, must now admit the dependence of wages upon the performance
+of work, and admit also, although reluctantly, the statement of St.
+Simon, "to each according to his work," which he had set out to
+refute. He ought to have gone still farther and said: "If anyone will
+not do any work, what happens then? Obviously the man needs no wages;
+why should the others then trouble about it?--it is the law of
+equality." But what becomes then of the equality to which work was
+said to lead? Further, what about the impossibility of proving the
+right of property through work? All Proudhon's arguments in proof of
+the impossibility of property are mere dialectic sword-play which
+hardly anyone takes seriously. Proudhon does not even criticise actual
+circumstances, but proves that, following his ideal assumptions (which
+in any case exclude property), property is impossible.
+
+The supposed result of his book he sums up in the Hegelian formula:
+"Communism, the first form and the final destiny of society, is the
+first terminus of social development, the thesis; property, the
+contradictory opposite to communism, forms the second terminus, the
+antithesis; it remains for us to determine the third terminus, the
+synthesis, and then we have the required solution. The synthesis
+results necessarily from the correction of the thesis by the
+antithesis. It is therefore necessary to examine closely its
+peculiarities, and to exclude that which there is in them hostile to
+society. The two that remain will, when united, form the true formula
+of human social life."[3]
+
+    [3] _Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_ p. 202.
+
+Karl Marx, who made very merry over Proudhon's dialectic, thought he
+had played his trump card against the capitalistic method of
+production in almost the same way, namely, with the Hegelian
+proposition of the negation of negation. If they both explained
+themselves by bringing forward, besides the dialectic proof, also an
+historical and economic one for their contentions, the answer is that
+historic proof cannot be brought forward for Proudhon's synthetic
+conception of property or for Marx's method of production, since
+history only concerns itself with the past or the present; whereas
+such conditions as they imagine exist only in the future, and can only
+be derived from the past or present conditions by the dialectic
+method, and only can be assumed as hypotheses.
+
+This standpoint unites Proudhon and Karl Marx, the Anarchists and the
+Social Democrats; they both call each other Utopians, and both are
+right.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Proudhon in his book upon property did not answer the question put in
+its title, _What is Property?_ as he had promised in the introduction.
+From his statement "property is theft," which was uttered with so much
+_eclat_, and of which, according to his own account at least, he was
+prouder than if he had possessed all the millions of Rothschild--from
+this paradox one might conclude, and certainly the great majority of
+his readers do conclude usually that Proudhon was an enemy of property
+in general. That is not at all the case. "What I have been seeking
+since 1840 in defining property," said he much later (in _Justice_,
+i., p. 302), "and what I wish to-day, as I have repeated over and over
+again, is certainly not abolition of property. For this would be to
+fall into Communism with Plato, Rousseau, Louis Blanc, and other
+opponents of property, against whom I protest with all my strength.
+What I demand from property is _a balance_." But all his life Proudhon
+was unable to dispel the misunderstanding which he carelessly brought
+upon his doctrine in his first writing by a talented paradox. We say
+carelessly, for the concluding answer which Proudhon gives to the
+question, "What is property?" was, even in his first work, not
+"property is theft" but "property is liberty;" only the use of all his
+great scientific apparatus was quite superfluous, because it was in no
+way connected with the chief purpose of his book. Proudhon might just
+as well have placed the supposed conclusion, the Ten Commandments of
+his economic doctrine, at the beginning of his book, for they were
+arrived at not by the method of science but of speculation. These Ten
+Commandments run:
+
+(1) Individual possession is the fundamental condition of social life;
+five thousand years of the history of property prove it; property is
+the suicide of society. Possession is a right; property is against all
+right; suppress property and maintain possession, and you would by
+this one main alteration transform everything--laws, government,
+economy, statesmanship; you would make evil disappear from the earth.
+
+(2) Since the right of occupation is the same for all, possession
+changes according to the number of possessors; thus property can no
+longer be created.
+
+(3) Since the result of labour remains the same for the whole of the
+community, property, which arising from the exploitation of others and
+from rent, disappears.
+
+(4) Since every human work necessarily arises from a collective force,
+every piece of property becomes both collective and indivisible--to be
+exact, labour annihilates property.
+
+(5) Since every capacity for any occupation, including all the
+instruments of labour and capital, is collective property, the
+inequality of treatment and of goods, which rests upon the inequality
+of capabilities, is injustice and theft.
+
+(6) Trade necessarily presupposes the freedom of the contracting
+parties and the equivalence of the products exchanged; but since value
+is determined by the amount of time and expense which each product
+costs, and since freedom is inviolable, the workers remain necessarily
+equal in reward as also in rights and duties.
+
+(7) Products are only exchanged again for products; but since every
+bargain presupposes the equality of products, profit is impossible and
+unjust. Take heed to this, the first and the most elementary principle
+of economics, and pauperism, luxury, servitude, vice, crime, and
+hunger will disappear from our midst.
+
+(8) Men are already, before they fully agreed to do so, associated
+from the physical and mathematical law of production; the equality of
+external conditions of existence is thus a demand of the justice of
+social right, of strict right; friendship, respect, admiration, and
+recognition alone enter into the province of equity or proportion.
+
+(9) Free association, or freedom which limits itself to expressing
+equality in the means of production and equivalence in articles of
+exchange, is the only possible, the only right, and the only true form
+of society.
+
+(10) Politics is the science of freedom; the government of men by men,
+under whatever name it may be concealed, is servitude; the highest
+consummation of society is found in the union of order and anarchy.
+
+We will only select from this Decalogue of Collectivist Anarchism one
+dogma, the seventh; because it contains a fundamental error of
+Proudhon's, which must continually produce other errors. "Products,"
+he says, "are only exchanged for products; but since every bargain
+presupposes the equality of products, profit is impossible and not
+right." By this proposition the question of pauperism and everything
+evil is to be solved, and, in fact, Proudhon even made some attempts
+to realise the theory contained therein. But that every bargain
+presupposes the equality of products in any other than the sense
+determined by supply and demand, is untrue; yet even this equality is
+not regarded by Proudhon as such. He understands thereby equivalence
+or the equality of values, which again is determined by the time of
+labour, and accordingly he makes it a presupposition of a free bargain
+that only products which represent equal times of labour can be
+exchanged. Thus a hat which took six hours to make, should be
+exchanged for a poem which was written in the same time. And if we are
+startled by the incorrectness of this assumption, what can be said for
+the converse of this statement, namely, that products of equal value,
+_i. e._, such as represent equal times of labour, must be accepted at
+any time in place of payment, just as money is accepted to-day?
+Proudhon ascribed the utility of money as a universal medium of
+exchange to the supposed circumstance that its value was fixed or
+established, and concluded therefrom that whenever the value of other
+commodities was determined, they would have the same utility as money;
+thus, that it would be possible to exchange at any time a watch which
+represented three days' work for a pair of boots which had been made
+in the same time. And to complete this economic and logical confusion,
+Proudhon once again inverts history, and makes the just and free
+exchange of products and the circulation of values the starting-point
+for the determination of values, and thereby also the foundation of
+his realm of justice, freedom, and equality, in which economic forces
+have free play.
+
+If values circulate themselves, then too they determine themselves,
+and thus only is there a just bargain; profit is impossible, so too is
+the accumulation of capital and property. Since all have equal share
+in production as in consumption, commodities will always be where they
+are needed, and they will always be needed where they exist; supply
+and demand will equal one another, value in use and value in exchange
+will be the same, value is determined, and the circle (which is in
+any case a vicious circle) is completed. Land, like all the means of
+labour, is a collective possession. Every one will enjoy the full
+results of his labour, but no one will be able to heap up riches
+because profit in any form is impossible. Men will collect through
+their own free choice in productive groups, which again will be in
+direct intercourse one with another, and will exchange their products
+as may be required, without profit. Common interests will be
+determined by Boards of Experts, who will be chosen by the members of
+these groups by means of universal suffrage. The total of all these
+boards, which are completely autonomous, forms the only existing and
+only possible administration. Governments become superfluous, since
+the economic life must entirely absorb political life. And since there
+will be no property and no distinction of rich and poor, there will
+also be no rule of one man over another, there will be no criminals,
+judicial and civil power, militarism and bureaucracy become
+superfluous and disappear of themselves. In spite of anarchy (_i. e._,
+no government), or rather because of it, the greatest, the only order
+will prevail.
+
+In fact, if anything ever deserved the name ideal it is this reform of
+society sketched by Proudhon, to which he himself has given the name
+"Mutualism." He did not suspect or notice that he had done nothing
+more than express the abstract formula of existing relationships, the
+most general conception of the liberal scheme of economics. Things
+happen in our own world just as Proudhon wished in his kingdom of the
+future, only there are a few insignificant factors of friction,
+extensions of co-efficients, and so on, which he, if he had been
+familiar with scientific methods, would have added as "corrections" to
+his universal formula. The present world is related to his as any one
+triangle is to the triangle absolute. The triangle which is neither
+obtuse-angled, nor acute-angled, nor right-angled, neither equilateral
+nor isosceles, nor of unequal sides, whose sides and angles are not
+confined to any particular measurement, may certainly be a real
+triangle and contain no contradiction in itself (which is by no means
+the case in Proudhon's realm of justice), but this triangle cannot be
+drawn or even imagined. This is the old dispute of nominalists and
+realists, a piece of scholasticism long since obsolete applied to the
+problems of modern society, and not even worth refutation, least of
+all worthy of any man who has once correctly recognised the reality of
+human society, and made it the guiding motive of his thought.
+
+On two occasions Proudhon seemed to have the alluring opportunity of
+being able to realise his Utopian visions. The first was in the time
+of the Revolution. In February, 1849, he founded the People's Bank
+(_Banque du Peuple_),[4] which was to take the initiative in free
+economic organisation, and, according to Proudhon's expectations,
+would have introduced "free society" if, at the decisive moment, he
+had not been sent for three years to the prison of Saint Pelagie for a
+political offence, and the Bank was therefore compelled to liquidate.
+The second opportunity occurred in the year 1855. Napoleon had asked
+for opinions as to how the _Palais de l'Industrie_, in which the Paris
+Exhibition had been held, could be used after its close as an
+institution of public utility. Among those to whom this question was
+addressed we find Proudhon, who answered it with the project of a
+permanent exhibition,[5] which was to be conducted by a society
+proceeding from very much the same point of view as the People's Bank.
+This project was, of course, left unnoticed, and Proudhon became
+deeply disgusted and discouraged at this new disappointment.
+
+    [4] After Proudhon's paper, _Le Representant du Peuple_, had
+    published the statutes of the Exchange Bank, he tried in
+    numerous articles to explain the mechanism and necessity of
+    it. These articles have been collected in a book, and
+    appeared under the title, _Resume de la Question Sociale,
+    Banque d'Echange_.
+
+    [5] The scheme appeared in Proudhon's posthumous works.
+
+The People's Bank, like its subsequent second edition, the Permanent
+Exhibition Company, was to be founded (in Proudhon's Hegelian method
+of expression) upon the identity of the shareholders and their
+clients. The producers who had a share in the People's Bank were to
+deliver their products to the bank, which would control and determine
+the prices of those commodities by assessors, the prices being
+determined only with reference to the time of labour spent upon them
+and the necessary expenses of production; profit was forbidden since
+the bank was not to operate upon its own account. The producer
+received upon delivery of his goods "exchange bonds," in return for
+which he then could take from the bank other commodities. As the bank
+also granted its customers loans without charging interest, money and
+interest would become unnecessary, trade would gradually be carried on
+only by means of the bonds of the bank, and thus would be brought
+about the harmony of social intercourse of which Proudhon dreamed.
+
+The Permanent Exhibition Company was to be a new edition of the
+People's Bank, perfected and enlarged in every direction. Since the
+shareholders of this company consisted of producers, and their purpose
+was above all the sale and interchange of products, so therefore the
+subscription for the formation of the capital was not to be, as in the
+case of other companies, merely in money, but was to be nine-tenths in
+products, which were to be sold by the company, and the receipts of
+the sale were then to be credited to the shareholders. As the State
+was to become surety for the interest on these shares, Proudhon
+thought that these must become actual money, representing rights to
+dividend, which could only lose their value by the destruction of the
+company's depot for goods. Against the goods which were deposited with
+it or the sale of which it undertook, as well as against the bills
+which were given to it to discount, the company was to issue, together
+with the cash which it had at disposal, general bonds of exchange (_la
+bons generaux d'echange_) which would represent the goods stored in it
+and realised by it, and should give the claim to an equal value in
+goods which the holder of the bond could take from the storehouses as
+he wished. These bonds were to be the circulating money of the
+company, and were to be accepted by it instead of cash payments in all
+transactions with goods or with bills. The circulating paper of the
+company, held by it at par, owing to the fact that it could be
+exchanged into money or the goods of the company upon presentation,
+would become the great lever of its operations and the irresistible
+instrument of its power. The company was to undertake banking and
+commission business of all kinds, grant credit in money and goods, and
+support industry, trade, and agriculture.
+
+All objects deposited with this society, including gold and silver,
+and especially all articles composing its balance, were to be arranged
+in an exchange tariff, which would be continually changeable, and the
+object of which was to secure the equivalence of values. "Certainly
+every rise in the exchange of an article would be balanced by an
+equivalent fall of exchange in one or more articles, if one regards
+the existing total sum, one-tenth being allowed in fluctuations either
+up or down. The differences in time in the balance would be entered in
+a special balance book which would finally equalise itself from time
+to time."
+
+That is the project; and its author gives the following example: Since
+the company carries on no business on its own account, and neither
+acquires nor possesses products itself, and thus does not lose money
+on the rise or fall, it is only guided in directing the course of
+prices by one object, viz., to moderate one by the other, and to
+create a permanent and a daily compensation; thus, if demand arises
+for one product while it falls off for one or several others, the
+company raises the price of the first 4 per cent., and at the same
+time lowers, according to the quantity of the first, the price of the
+other in such a way that the compensation is as exact as possible.
+Because it is difficult to reach this mathematical exactitude, a
+certain margin is allowed, which again, compensating itself from time
+to time, never can amount to the assets of the society. If we assume,
+for the sake of example, that the price of gold has fallen--that is,
+that gold is freely offered, while silver has risen, that is, is more
+in demand--the company, since its bills are discounted with its own
+notes, will give 100 francs of its money for 105 francs of gold, equal
+to 100 francs in silver; or, to express myself more exactly, for a
+weight of gold which is only one-twentieth higher than five
+twenty-five franc pieces, and the weight of silver which is only
+one-twentieth lower than twenty-five franc pieces. From this
+compensation no profit accrues to the company; it has only intervened
+with its own money in order again to re-establish equilibrium.
+
+From this process of compensation carried on by the company, which was
+to be applied in like manner to all products, raw materials and food
+stuffs, and so on, Proudhon hoped for that much talked of and much
+promising fixity of values, since all products would (so to speak) be
+monetised and made into money, and would maintain the highest degree
+of circulating power. Branches of the company over all France and a
+complete public administration were to complete the system, which
+should have as its object the organisation and centralisation of
+exchange of products in return for products, according to the formulae
+of J. B. Say, with as little money as possible, as few intermediaries
+as possible, with the least possible expense, and for the exclusive
+benefit of producers and consumers.
+
+It hardly need be observed that the rise and prosperity of these
+institutions must stand or fall by the correctness of the assumption
+of fixed values and of the monetisation of all products. Proudhon's
+opponents wished to make out, that in view of this knowledge his
+sudden arrest and imprisonment in Saint Pelagie, by which he was
+divested of all responsibility for the liquidation of the company, was
+not altogether unwished for by him. But this is contradicted by the
+attempt which was renewed later on to realise the project of the
+People's Bank. We have, indeed, no cause to suspect Proudhon's good
+faith in the matter; on the other hand, the supposed originality of
+this idea of his is all the more open to suspicion, because in all
+essential particulars it reminds us too closely of the "labour paper
+money" of Rodbertus that was to be issued by the State after the
+determination of values, an idea with which Proudhon's economics had
+many points in common. There is a still greater similarity between
+Proudhon's projects and the Boards of Trade thought of by Bray ten
+years before the beginning of the People's Bank; and it is also like
+John Gray's Central Bank.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In later years Proudhon not only outwardly, owing either to compulsion
+or prudence, renounced all immediate realisation of his intentions,
+but even became convinced and expressed his conviction in his work
+upon the federative principle (_Du Principe Federatif_, 1852), that
+ordered anarchy was an ideal, and as such could never be realised, but
+that nevertheless human society should strive to attain it by means of
+federative organisations, as he had sketched it in his earlier
+writings. Even in this period of mental maturity, when removed from
+political agitation, he remained the sworn enemy and direct opponent
+of the Communists, and wished to see the great problem of the best
+arrangement of society solved, not by universal levelling down, but by
+the general perfection and development of society; not by revolution
+from which he had gained nothing but disgust and disillusionment, but
+by evolution. "If ideas will rise up," he used to say, "then even the
+paving stones would rise up themselves if the Government were so
+imprudent as to wait for this."
+
+With true prophetic insight Proudhon perceived the fact that even in
+human society revolution is everything; with a clearness of vision
+such as none before him, and only very few after him, have possessed,
+he always insisted upon the organic character of human society and the
+natural continuity between animal and human social life; and in this
+lies his greatness, which will never be diminished by any of his
+numerous errors. But while he thus with one foot for the first time
+trod upon the ground of a new discovery, with the other he stood on
+the standpoint of social philosophy of previous centuries. He could
+neither externally nor internally disassociate himself from its
+baseless assumptions of a social contract, the absolute rights of man,
+a moral order of the universe, and similar ethical views of politics;
+and herein lies the contradiction upon which his great mental talents
+were shipwrecked. If we once regard human society as Proudhon did, as
+something real, the product of nature which is moved and develops
+itself according to the laws of the rest of nature, then we have once
+for all given up the right to mark out for it a line of development
+determined merely by speculation, or to demand from it that it should
+move towards any particular goal, however well-intentioned it may be.
+A breeder may produce in his pigeons or fowls a certain kind of
+feather or a certain form of pouting, but he cannot change the pigeon
+into a hen. The artificial selection of breeding is all that man can
+do (_pour corriger la nature_) against the free progress of natural
+development. This is not so insignificant as one may be inclined to
+believe at the first glance. The latter belongs to the category of
+Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, and of that Utopian social philosophy which
+began with Plato, and in all human probability will not end for a long
+time. Proudhon wished to unite both, one with another,--to unite water
+with fire. Like all Utopians, he desired--he who all his life, in his
+numerous writings, so frequently confuted and sneered at them--that
+the human race might be metamorphosed in order to accept unanimously
+his ideas about society. For that the men of his day were not fit for
+a true democracy--that is, for anarchy--he was honest enough to admit.
+
+"Nothing is in reality less democratic than the people," said he,
+occasionally, and he did not allow himself the least delusion as
+regards their slavish love for authority. For that very reason, he
+thought democracy must be changed into "demopaedy," and a complete
+revolution of a popular spirit must be caused by education. But to
+prove that, even with the help of democracy, people would not be ripe
+for pure democracy, or, rightly speaking, for anarchy, we can quote an
+authority which he never doubted, namely, himself. In an access of
+pessimism, he said once, "I have thought I have noticed (may
+philosophy pardon me for it!) that the more reason develops in us the
+more brutal becomes passion when once it is let loose. It appears then
+that the angel and the biped brute which together compose our human
+nature in their intimate union, instead of mingling their attributes,
+only live side by side with one another. If progress leads us to that,
+of what use is it?" This is a bad look-out for the great moral
+revolution upon which Proudhon more and more based all his hopes.
+
+Proudhon has had the most varied judgment passed upon him. Some have
+treated him as an obscure pamphlet writer. Louis Blanc calls him a
+prizefighter; Laveleye, in a history of Socialism, only considers him
+worth mentioning in order to call his ideas "the dreams of a raving
+idiot"; Karl Marx denies him either talent or knowledge; many have
+considered him as a Jesuitical hypocrite; others, again, his
+followers and representatives, have called him the greatest man of the
+century. Ludwig Pfau called him the clearest thinker that France had
+produced since Descartes. But the spectacle is by no means new. In
+reality, but little courage and wit are to-day needed to acquire the
+applause of an ignorant multitude which has no idea of Proudhon's
+train of thought by the condemnation of the father of Anarchism.
+"Justice must be done to all, even to Louis Napoleon," exclaimed
+Proudhon, to the great astonishment _orbis et urbis_ after the _coup
+d'etat_; and not to take a lower standard than the father of
+Anarchism, we exclaim also, "Justice must be done to all, even to
+Proudhon."
+
+The most usual reproach which is cast against Proudhon is that he is
+contradictory and confused. This reproof is generally made by people
+who know no more about Proudhon than the paradox "Property is Theft,"
+and from this one expression call him confused and contradictory.
+
+Proudhon saw very clearly the end before his eyes, strove to attain it
+unfalteringly and steadily, and amid all the variety of the
+developments in which he preached his ideas to the world for a quarter
+of a century, never betrayed one iota of its contents. The
+contradiction from which his work suffered lay deeper. It lay in the
+form of his thought, and partly in the period to which he belonged.
+Placed on the boundary line between two epochs of social science and
+of social forms, one of which is marked by dogma and the other by
+induction, he had not the strength to break completely with one or
+give himself up completely to the other. His whole life and thought
+was a constant fight against dogma in every form. He fought against
+social Utopianism as against religious dogmatism, and fought against
+the dogmatism of property as against political authority; he sought to
+transform Socialism upon severely scientific and realistic lines, and
+to free it from all the fetters of dogmatic religion; and yet, just as
+Rousseau did, he placed at the head of his system a dogma: "Man is
+born free"; and at the conclusion of it the teleological phrase of a
+moral order of society--two propositions which can never be proved by
+experience, but rather contradict all experience.
+
+In the same way this internal contradiction is shown in the principal
+work of his last period, the _Justice dans le Revolution et dans
+l'Eglise_, in which Proudhon endeavours to show these two separate
+worlds in their marked difference one from another without suspecting
+that he himself fluctuated between both.
+
+After he, as a logical idealist, had denied all external force and all
+authority, and nevertheless as a realist had supported society as the
+unalterable condition of human life and civilisation, he seeks at the
+same time to save anarchy and society by a new bond between
+individuals who have been set free and find this in some internal
+necessity and internal authority, in a principle which acts upon the
+will like a force, and determines it in the direction of the general
+interest independently of all consideration of self-interest.
+
+And so the man, who had put away from himself everything of an
+absolute and _a priori_ nature because he declared a purely empirical
+foundation of social science to be the source of all immorality,
+arrived at the assumption of an innate, immanent justice as the first
+principle of society which he, with the arbitrariness of a catechism
+writer, declared to be "the first and most essential of our faculties;
+a sovereign faculty which, by that very fact, is the most difficult to
+know, the faculty of feeling and affirming our dignity, and
+consequently of wishing it and defending it as well in the person of
+others as in our own person."
+
+As Proudhon, in spite of the fact that he was always opposing
+Utopianism, nevertheless fell into the chief error of the Utopians,
+so, too, finally he shared the destiny of Auguste Comte, upon whom
+during his life he had rather looked down. Both had started with a
+sworn antagonism to every speculative foundation of social philosophy,
+and both finally adopted a _deus ex machina_ in order to preserve the
+world that was falling into individual pieces before them from a
+complete atomisation. With Comte it is called "love," with Proudhon
+"justice." The distinction between the two is somewhat childish. Both
+perceived the standpoint of evolution, the mechanical conception which
+overcomes all deviations, without assigning to it the part which it
+deserves. One may safely say that if Proudhon had been brought into
+connection with the doctrine of evolution, he would have been one of
+the leading sociologists. He had an infinitely keen sense of the most
+secret motions of the social soul, but he believed that he might not
+approach it lovingly in its nudity of nature, and therefore degraded
+it to a Platonic idea, after having affirmed its utmost reality. This
+was an action like that of Kronos, the curse of which never departed
+from his thought.
+
+To this was added a very scanty and transitory acquaintance with
+political economy which allowed the practicability of his ideas to
+appear to him in the easiest light, but which, when he was opposed to
+one so thoroughly acquainted with it as Karl Marx, placed him in the
+most piteous position.
+
+One of the commonest reproaches which is made against Proudhon, and
+which is partly a personal one, refers to his attitude towards
+Napoleon III. In the little political catechism which is found in his
+_Justice_, Proudhon answered the question "Whether Anarchy can be
+united with the dynastic principle," in the following way: "It is
+clear that France till now was not of opinion that freedom and dynasty
+were incompatible ideas. When the old monarchy called together the
+States General it kindled the Revolution. The constitution of 1791 and
+those of 1814 and 1830, proved the desire of the country to reconcile
+a monarchical principle with the democracy. The popularity of the
+First Empire was one argument more for the possibility of this
+supposition; the people believed they found in it all their
+preconceived ideas, and apparently surrender was reconciled with
+progress. Thus men satisfied their habits of subjection under a
+lordship, and their need for unity; they exercised the danger of a
+president dictator or an oligarchy. When in 1830 Lafayette defined the
+new order of affairs as 'a monarchy surrounded by republican
+arrangements,' he perceived the identity of the political and economic
+order. While the true republic consists in the equilibrium of forces
+and efforts, people pleased themselves by seeing a new dynasty hold
+the balance and guaranteeing justice. And finally, this theory is
+confirmed by the example of England (although equality is unknown
+there), and by the new constitutional states. No doubt the union of
+the dynastic principle with that of freedom and equality in France has
+not produced the fruits that were expected from it, but that was the
+fault of Governmental fatalism; the mistake was made just as much by
+the princes as by the people. Although dynastic parties since 1848
+have shown themselves by no means friendly to revolution, the force of
+circumstances will again bring them to it, and as France at all stages
+of her fortunes has always liked to give herself a ruler and to
+manifest her unity by a symbol, so it would be exaggeration to deny
+even now the possibility of a restoration of the dynasty. We have
+heard Republicans say, 'He will be my master who shall wear the purple
+robe of equality,' and those who speak thus form neither the smallest
+nor the least intelligent portion; but it is also true that they did
+not wish for a dictatorship. At any rate, one must admit that there
+are no symptoms of a restoration in the near future. And what makes us
+suppose that the dynastic principle is, at least, under a cloud, is
+the fact that the pretenders and their advisers have no heart for the
+affair. 'After you, gentlemen,' they appear to say to the Democrats.
+But after the democracy there will not remain much for a dynasty to
+pick up, or the economic equilibrium would be false. _Non datur regnum
+aut imperium in oeconomiae._"
+
+This certainly reasonable and moderate point of view, which proceeds
+from the perception that in an organic society the caprice of one
+individual cannot possibly stop or disturb the course of the social
+function, and that king or emperor accordingly could at most be a
+symbol, is also at the bottom of the book on social revolution. In the
+_coup d'etat_ of the 2d of December, Proudhon only saw a stage of the
+great social revolution, the manifestation of the will of the people,
+striving in the direction of social equalisation; although perhaps
+mistakenly, and challenged Louis Napoleon, whose _coup d'etat_ he had
+prophesied, condemned, and sought to prevent, to show himself worthy
+of public opinion, and to use the mandate given him by destiny and by
+the French people in the sense that it was entrusted to him.[6]
+Proudhon probably did not believe, when he was writing the _Sociale
+Revolution_, by any means too much in the willingness of Napoleon to
+take upon himself such a mission as he assigned to him. The language
+of the book is in any case very reserved, and there is no trace of the
+apotheosis of the author of the _coup d'etat_.
+
+    [6] It must not be forgotten that the people expected in
+    Louis Napoleon "the social emperor," and that he had in
+    earlier times played upon this expectation. Compare his work
+    on _The Abolition of Pauperism_, German translation by R. V.
+    Richard. Leipsic, 1857. Volume ii.
+
+Nevertheless some have wished to represent this as Proudhon's
+intention; his early release from the prison in which the little book
+was written as the immediate effect, and as being the thanks of the
+Emperor, thus representing Proudhon as a mercenary time-server. But
+this is not in accordance with the facts. Proudhon remained in his
+imprisonment almost till the very last day of his sentence, and the
+attitude of the authorities towards his writings afterwards does not
+seem to show that any relationship, even a secret one, existed between
+Proudhon and Napoleon. Proudhon might write what he liked, it was
+confiscated; in vain he applied for permission to be allowed to issue
+his paper, _Justice_; a book which no longer showed the violence of
+his youth brought him three more years' imprisonment again, which he
+only escaped by a rapid flight to Belgium, and in the general amnesty
+of the year 1859 he was specially excepted from its conditions. When
+the Emperor in 1861, as a special favour, granted him permission to
+return home before the proper time, Proudhon proudly refused this
+favour, much as he wished to be in Paris, and only returned there at
+the expiration of the three years' period, at the end of 1863. These,
+at least, are no proofs that the author of _What is Property?_ allowed
+himself to be brought over by the man on the 2d December. But Proudhon
+was not to breathe the air of his native land much longer. Broken by
+the troubles of persecution, he died, after a long illness, on the
+19th June, 1865, in the arms of his wife, who, like himself, belonged
+to the working classes, and with whom he had led a life full of
+harmony and love.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER III
+
+          MAX STIRNER AND THE GERMAN FOLLOWERS OF PROUDHON
+
+    Germany in 1830-40 and France -- Stirner and Proudhon --
+    Biography of Stirner -- _The Individual and his Property_
+    (_Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_) -- The Union of Egoists --
+    The Philosophic Contradiction of the _Einziger_ -- Stirner's
+    Practical Error -- Julius Faucher -- Moses Hess -- Karl Gruen
+    -- Wilhelm Marr.
+
+
+In the first half of the forties, almost about the same time, but
+completely independent one from another, there appeared, on each side
+of the Rhine, two men who preached a new revolution in a manner
+totally different from the ordinary revolutionist, and one from which
+at that time even the most courageous hearts and firmest minds shrank
+back. Both were followers of the "royal Prussian Court philosopher"
+Hegel, and yet took an entirely different direction one from the
+other: but both met again at the end of their journey in their
+unanimous renunciation of all political and economic doctrines
+hitherto held; in their thorough opposition to every existing and
+imagined organisation of society upon whatever compulsion of right it
+might be founded; and in their desire for free organisation upon the
+simple foundation of rules made by convention or agreement--in their
+common desire for Anarchy.
+
+The contemporaneous appearance of Proudhon and Stirner is of as much
+importance as their, in many ways, fundamental difference. The first
+circumstance shows their appearance was symptomatic, and raises it
+above any supposed or probable outcome of chance; Stirner and Proudhon
+support each other mutually with all their independence, and with all
+their difference one from another. As to this, it cannot be denied
+that it is to be traced, first and foremost, to the totally different
+environment in which the two authors grew up.
+
+Ludwig Pfau, in a talented essay, has sought to derive the literary
+peculiarities of Proudhon from the Gallic character and from his
+French _milieu_. But even besides the purely literary aspect, Proudhon
+shows all the gifts and all the weaknesses of his people and of his
+time; he shares with all Frenchmen their small inclination to real
+criticism, but also their faculty of never separating themselves from
+the stream of practical life; and thus, before everything, we perceive
+in Proudhon's earlier works a strong tendency towards the part of an
+agitator. L. Pfau asserts that it is a specific peculiarity of the
+French nation, with all their notorious sentiment for freedom, "to
+discipline their own reluctant personality, and subject it to the
+common interest"; and therein lies, perhaps, the reason why Proudhon,
+although an enthusiastic advocate of personal freedom, never wished
+this to be driven to the point of the disintegration of collective
+unity and to the sacrifice of the idea of society.
+
+Stirner is the German thinker who is carried away by the unchecked
+flow of his thoughts far from the path of the actual life into a misty
+region of "Cloud-cuckoo-land," where he actually remains as the "only
+individual," because no one can follow him. There is no trace in
+Stirner's book of any intention of being an agitator. As far as
+political parties are mentioned in it, they do appear as such, but
+merely as corollaries of certain tendencies of philosophic thought.
+Stirner keeps himself even anxiously apart from politics, and a
+certain dislike to them is unmistakable in him. All parties have in
+his eyes only this in common, that they all strive to actualise
+conceptions and ideas which lie beyond them, whether these be called
+God, State, or humanity. Stirner stands in the same relation to the
+philosophic tendencies of his own and earlier times. He sees them all
+run into the great ocean of generality the absolute, nothingness. The
+distinction between Saint Augustine and L. Feuerbach is for him purely
+a superficial and not an essential one; for the "man" of the latter is
+as foreign to him as the "God" of the former. And so Stirner carries
+his disinclination to politics, as being inimical to the philosophy of
+his time, almost to disgust, being herein a genuine son of his country
+and of his period.
+
+Upon the philosophic exaltation and the speculative "foundation
+period" of the beginning of the century there had followed a severe
+depression; to the over-eager expectations which had been placed in
+philosophy there followed just as severe a disappointment; to the
+metaphysical orgy there followed a moral headache, which might be
+designated not inaptly by the motto which Schopenhauer gave in mockery
+to Feuerbach's philosophy, so well suited to his time--
+
+  "Edite, bibite, collegiales!
+   Post multa saecula
+   Pocula nulla."
+
+The political attitude of the forties was very much the same. The
+national enthusiasm, the wars of freedom, and the sanguine hopes which
+had attended the downfall of the Corsican, had, like the expectations
+aroused by the Revolutionists of the days of July, ended in miserable
+disaster. The touching confidence which a nation, all too naive in
+politics, had placed in its princes had been shamefully deceived and
+abused. All dreams of union and freedom seemed to be extinguished for
+a long time, and the flunkeyism which was unfortunately only too
+rampant in the nation, ran riot, while frank souls stood aside in
+disgust. The more eager the spiritual enthusiasm had been on the
+threshold of two centuries, the deeper now did apathy weigh upon men's
+spirits in the period of the forties. The fuller men's souls had been
+of surging and stormy ideals, and wishings and vague longings of all
+kinds, the emptier did they now become, and not only Stirner could
+with justice give to his "only individual" the motto, "I have placed
+my all on nothing," but it was the motto of all Germany at that time.
+And yet in one thing Stirner is the type of his people as contrasted
+with Proudhon. He is the most complete example of the German who lacks
+that proud self-sacrificing view of the life of the community, that
+feeling of the inseparability of the individual from the mass of his
+people--which is the token of the French,--but who at all times has
+suffered from a separatism that destroys everything. He is the typical
+representative of that nation to whom its best sons have denied the
+capacity of being a nation, but which has therefore been able to
+produce more striking individualities than all other civilised nations
+of the time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Caspar Schmidt--for this is Stirner's real name[1]--was born at
+Baireuth on the 25th October, 1806, and, like Strauss, Feuerbach,
+Bruno Bauer, and other thinkers of the same kind, devoted his time to
+theological and philosophic studies. After completing these, he took
+the modest position of a teacher in a high school, and in a girls'
+school in Berlin. In 1844 there appeared, under the pseudonym "Max
+Stirner," a book called _The Individual_ _and his Property_, with the
+dedication which, under these circumstances, is touching: "To my
+Darling, Marie Doehnhardt." The book appeared like a meteor; it caused
+for a short time a great deal of talk, and then sank into oblivion for
+ten years, till the growing stream of Anarchist thought again came
+back to it in more recent times. A _History of the Reaction_, written
+after the year 1848, is esteemed as a good piece of historical work;
+and, besides this, Caspar Schmidt also produced translations of Say,
+Adam Smith, and other English economists. On the 26th of June, 1856,
+he ended his life, poor in external circumstances, rich in want and
+bitterness. That is all that we know of the personality of the man who
+has raised the idea of personality to a Titanic growth that has
+oppressed the world.
+
+    [1] Stirner's chief work, _The Individual and his Property_
+    (_Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum_, Leipsic, 1845), has been
+    reprinted by P. Reclam, at Leipsic, with a good introduction
+    by Paul Lauterbach. The literature about Stirner is almost
+    exclusively confined to a few scattered remarks in larger
+    works, which are not always very appropriate. J. H. Mackay is
+    said to be working at a biography of Stirner. The monograph
+    by Robert Schellwien, _Max Stirner und Friedrich Nietzsche_
+    (Leipsic, 1892), is quite worthless for our purpose.
+
+Stirner proceeds from the fact, the validity of which we have placed
+in the right light at the beginning of this book, that the development
+of mankind and of human society has hitherto proceeded in a decidedly
+individualistic direction, and has consisted predominantly in the
+gradual emancipation of the individual from his subjection to general
+ideas and their corresponding correlatives in actual life, in the
+return of the Ego to itself. Starting from the school of Fichte and
+Hegel, he pursued this special individualistic tendency till close
+upon the limits of caricature; he formally founded a cultus of the
+Ego, all the while being anxious that it should not return again to
+the region of metaphysical soap-bubbles, and leave its psychological
+and practical sphere. On the contrary, Stirner appears to be rather
+inclined to Positivism, and to consider the details of life and of
+perception as real, and as the only ones whose existence is justified.
+All that is comprehensible and general is secondary, a product of the
+individual, the subject turned into an object, a creation that is
+looked upon and honoured by the creator as the only actual reality,
+the highest end--indeed, as something sacred. In the origin of this
+generalisation, as well as in emancipation from it, Stirner perceives
+the course of progressive culture.
+
+The ancients only got so far as generalisations of the lower order;
+they lived in the feeling that the world and worldly relationships
+(for example, the natural bond of blood) were the only true things
+before which their powerless self must bow down. Man, in the view
+of life taken by the ancient world, lived entirely in the region of
+perception, and therefore all his general ideas, even the highest type
+of them, not excluding Plato's, retained a strongly sensuous
+character.
+
+Christianity only went a step higher with its generalisations out
+of the region of the senses; ideas became more spiritual and less
+corporeal in proportion as they became more general. Antiquity sought
+the true pleasure of life, enjoyment of life; Christianity sought the
+true life; antiquity sought complete sensuousness, Christianity
+complete morality and spirituality; the first a happy life here,
+the latter a happy life hereafter; antiquity postulated as the
+highest moral basis, the State, the laws of the world; Christianity
+postulated God, imperishable, everlasting Law. The ancient world
+did not get beyond the rule of formal reason, the Sophists;
+Christianity put the heart in the place of reason, and cultivation
+of sentiment in that of one-sided cultivation of the intellect.
+Nevertheless, this is, according to Stirner (as has already been
+mentioned), the same process, the objectivisation of the Self, which
+comes out of itself, and considers itself as some foreign body
+striving upwards--unconscious self-deification.
+
+Even in the Reformation Stirner recognises nothing more than the
+continuation of the same process. Up to the time of the period
+preceding the Reformation, reason, that was condemned as heathenish,
+lay under the dominion of dogma; shortly before the Reformation,
+however, it was said, "If only the heart remains Christianly minded,
+reason may after all have its way." But the Reformation at last places
+the heart in a more serious position, and since then hearts have
+become visibly less Christian. When men began with Luther "to take the
+matter to heart," this step of the Reformation led to the heart being
+lightened from the heavy burden of Christianity. The heart becomes
+from day to day less Christian; it loses the contents with which it
+occupies itself, until at last nothing remains to it but empty
+"heartiness," general love of man, the love of humanity, the
+consciousness of freedom. It need hardly be mentioned that this view
+of history is quite arbitrary and distorted. Who requires to be told
+that the Reformation was, perhaps, the greatest historical act in
+favour of the individual, because it freed him from the most powerful
+of all authorities, from the omnipotence of the Roman dogma? With the
+Reformation the conscious movement for freedom received its first
+great impulse.
+
+But Stirner places the reverence of the ancients for the State, the
+reverence of the Christian for God, and of modern times for humanity
+and freedom, all upon the same level,--they all seem to him ghosts,
+spectres, possession by spirits and hauntings,--and he seeks to
+establish the same conclusion as regards the ideas of truth, right,
+morality, property, and love,--the so-called sacred foundations of
+human society. They are all ghost-imaginations of our own mind,
+creations of our own Ego, before which the creator of them bows in the
+impotence of ignorance, considering them as something unalterable,
+eternal, and sacred, to which every activity of the creative idea is
+placed in contrast as Egoism.
+
+"Men have got something into their heads which they think ought to be
+actualised. They have ideas of love, goodness, and so on, which they
+would like to see realised; and therefore they wish for a kingdom of
+love upon earth in which no one acts out of self-interest, but
+everyone from love. Love shall rule. But what they have placed in
+their heads, how can it be called other than 'a fixed idea' (_idee
+fixe_)? Their heads are haunted by spectres. The most persistently
+haunting spectre is Man himself. Remember the proverb, 'The way to
+ruin is paved with good intentions.' The proposal to actualise
+humanity in itself, to become wholly human, is of just the same
+disastrous character, and to it belong the intentions of becoming
+good, noble, loving, and so forth."
+
+The dominion of the idea, whether it is religious or humanitarian or
+moral, is for Stirner mere priest-craft; philanthropy is merely a
+heavenly, spiritual, but priest-imagined love. Man must be restored,
+and in doing so we poor wretches have ruined ourselves. It is the same
+ecclesiastic principle as that celebrated motto, _Fiat justitia,
+pereat mundus_; humanity and justice are ideas and ghosts to which
+everything is sacrificed. The enthusiast for humanity leaves out of
+consideration persons as far as his enthusiasm extends, and walks in a
+vague ideal of sacred interest. Humanity is not a person but an
+ideal--an imagination.
+
+All progress of public opinion or emancipation of the human mind, as
+hitherto proceeding, is accordingly for Stirner worthless labour, a
+mere scene-shifting. As Christianity not only did not free mankind
+from the power of ancient spectres, but rather strengthened and
+increased them, so too the Reformation did not remove the chains of
+mankind a hair's-breadth. "Because Protestantism broke down the
+medieval hierarchy, the opinion gained ground that hierarchy in
+general had been broken down by it, while it was quite overlooked that
+the Reformation was even a restoration of a worn-out hierarchy. The
+hierarchy of the middle ages had been only a feeble one, since it had
+to allow all possible barbarity to persons to go on unchecked with it,
+and the Reformation first steeled the strength of the hierarchy. When
+Bruno Bauer said: 'As the Reformation was principally the abstract
+separation of the religious principle from art, government, and
+science, and thus was its liberation from those powers with which it
+had been connected in the antiquity of the Church and in the hierarchy
+of the middle ages, so also the theological and ecclesiastical
+movements that proceeded from the Reformation were only the logical
+carrying out of this abstraction or separation of the religious
+principle from other powers of humanity';--and so I see on the
+contrary that which is right, and think that rule of the mind or
+mental freedom (which comes to the same thing) has never been before
+so comprehensive and powerful as at the present time, because now,
+instead of separating the religious principle from art, government,
+and science, it is rather raised entirely from the kingdom of this
+world into the realm of the spirit and made religious."
+
+From the same point of view he considers the whole of the mental
+attitude introduced by the Reformation.
+
+"How can one," he says, "maintain of modern philosophy and of the
+modern period that they have accomplished freedom when it has not
+freed us from the power of objectivity? Or am I free from despots when
+I no longer fear a personal tyrant, but am afraid of every outrage
+upon the loyalty which I owe to him?"
+
+This is just the case in the modern period. It only changes existing
+objects, the actual ruler and so on, to an imagined one, that is, into
+ideas for which the old respect not only has not been lost but has
+increased in intensity. If a piece was taken off the idea of God and
+the devil in their former gross realism, nevertheless only so much the
+more attention has been devoted to our conceptions of them. "They are
+free from devils, but evil has remained." To revolutionise the
+existing State, to upset the existing laws, was once thought little
+of, when it had once been determined to allow oneself to be no longer
+imposed upon by what was tangible and existing; but to sin against the
+conception of the State and not to submit to the conception of
+law--who has ventured to do that? So men remained "citizens" and
+"law-abiding, loyal men"; indeed, men thought themselves all the more
+law-abiding in proportion as they more rationalistically did away with
+the previous faulty law in order to do homage to the spirit of law. In
+all this it is only the objects that have changed but which have
+remained in their supremacy and authority; in short, men still
+followed obedience, lived in reflection, and had an object upon which
+they reflected, which they respected, and for which they felt awe and
+fear. Men have done nothing else but changed things into ideas of
+things, into thoughts and conceptions, and thus their dependence
+became all the more innate and irrevocable. It is, for example, not
+difficult to emancipate oneself from the commands of one's parents, or
+to pay no heed to the warnings of an uncle or an aunt, or to refuse
+the request of a brother or a sister; but the obedience thus given up
+lies easily upon one's conscience, and the less one gives way to
+individual sentiments, because one recognises them from a rational
+point of view, and from our own reason to be unreasonable, the more
+firmly does one cleave conscientiously to piety and family love, and
+with greater difficulty does one forgive an offence against the idea
+which one has conceived of family love and the duty of piety. Released
+from our dependence upon the existing family life, we fall into the
+more binding submission to the idea of the family; we are governed by
+family spirit. And the family, thus raised up to an idea or
+conception, is now regarded as something "sacred," and its despotism
+is ten times worse, because its power lies in my conscience. This
+despotism is only broken when even the ideal conception of the family
+becomes nothing to me. And as it is with the family, so it is with
+morality. Many people free themselves from customs, but with
+difficulty do they get free from the idea of morality. Morality is the
+"idea" of custom, its spiritual power, its power over the conscience;
+on the other hand, custom is something too material to have power over
+the spirit, and does not fetter a man who is independent, a "free
+spirit."
+
+Humanity strives for independence, and strives to overcome everything
+which is not a self, says Stirner; but how does this agree with the
+above-mentioned spread of the power of the mental conception and of
+the idea? To-day mankind is less free than before; so-called
+Liberalism only brings other conceptions forward; that is, instead of
+the divine, the human; instead of ecclesiastical ideas, those of the
+State; instead of those of faith, those of science; or general
+statements, instead of the rough phrases and dogmas, actual ideas and
+everlasting laws.
+
+In the movement for emancipation in modern times Stirner distinguishes
+three different varieties, the political, social, and humanitarian
+Liberalism.
+
+Political Liberalism, according to Stirner, culminates in the thought
+that the State is all in all, and is the true conception of humanity;
+and that the rights of man for the individual consist in being the
+citizen of the State. Political Liberalism did away with the
+inequality of rights of feudal times, and broke the chains of
+servitude which at that period one man had forced upon another, the
+privilege upon him who was less privileged. It did away with all
+special interests and privileges, but it by no means created freedom;
+it only made one independent of the other, but yet made all the most
+absolute slaves to the State. It gave all power of right to the State,
+the individual only becomes something as a citizen, and only has those
+rights which the State gives him. Political Liberalism, says Stirner,
+created a few people, but not one free individual. Absolute monarchy
+only changed its name, being known formerly as "king," now as
+"people," "State," or "nation."
+
+"Political freedom says that the _polis_, the State, is free; and
+religious freedom says that religion is free, just as freedom of
+conscience means that the conscience is free; but not that I am free
+from the State, from religion, or from conscience. It does not mean my
+freedom, but the freedom of some power which governs and compels me;
+it means that one of my masters, such as State, religion, or
+conscience, is free. State, religion, and conscience, these despots
+make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery." "If the principle
+is that only facts shall rule mankind, namely, the fact of morality or
+of legality, and so on, then no personal limitations of one individual
+by the other can be authorised--that is, there must be free
+competition. Only by actual fact can one person injure another, as the
+rich may injure the poor by money--that is, by a fact, but not as a
+person. There is henceforth only one authority, the authority of the
+State; personally no one is any longer lord over another. But to the
+State, all its children stand exactly in the same position; they
+possess 'civic or political equality,' and how they get on one with
+another is their own affair; they must compete. Free competition means
+nothing else than that everyone may stand up against someone else,
+make himself felt, and fight against him."
+
+At this point (wherein Stirner by no means recognises immediate or
+economic individualism) social Liberalism--that which we to-day call
+social Democracy or communal Socialism--separates from the political.
+With a cleverness which we cannot sufficiently admire, Stirner
+proceeds to show that these directions which are so totally opposed
+are essentially the same, and regards the latter merely as the logical
+outcome from the former.
+
+"The freedom of man is, in political Liberalism, the freedom from
+persons, from personal rule, from masters; security of any individual
+person, as regards other persons, is personal freedom. No one can
+give any commands; the law alone commands. But if persons have become
+equal, their positions certainly have not. And yet the poor man needs
+the rich, and the rich man needs the poor; the former needs the money
+of the rich, the latter the work of the poor. Thus no one needs anyone
+else as a person; but he needs him as a giver, or as one who has
+something to give, as a proprietor or possessor. Thus what he has,
+that makes a man. And in having or in possession people are unequal.
+Consequently, so social Liberalism concludes, no one must possess,
+just as, according to political Liberalism, no one must command--that
+is, as here the State alone has the power of command, so now society
+alone has the power of possessing." As in political Liberalism, the
+State is the source of all right; the individual only enjoys so much
+of it as the State gives him, so the social State, now called society,
+is also the only master of all possessions, and the individual must
+only have so much as society lets him share in. "Before the highest
+Ruler," says Stirner in his rough language, "before the only
+Commander, we all become equal--equal persons, that is, nonentities.
+Before the highest owner of property we all become vagabonds alike.
+And now one person is, in the estimation of another, a vagabond, a
+'havenought,' but then this estimate of each other stops, we are all
+at once vagabonds, and we can only call the totality of communist
+society 'a conglomeration of vagabonds.'"
+
+That which Stirner, finally, under the name of humanitarian
+Liberalism, places side by side with the two tendencies just mentioned
+has nothing to do, generally speaking, with the political and material
+relations of mankind, and is the philosophical Liberalism of
+Feuerbach, who places freedom of thought in the same position as his
+predecessors put freedom of the person. "In the human society which
+humanitarianism promises," says Stirner, "nothing can be recognised
+which any person has as something 'special,' nothing shall have any
+value which bears the mark of a 'private' individual. In this way the
+circle of Liberalism completes itself, having in humanity its good
+principle, in the egotist and every 'private' person its evil one; in
+the former its God, in the latter its devil. If the special or private
+person lost his value in the State, and if special or private property
+ceased to be recognised in the community of workers or vagabonds, then
+in human society everything special or private is left out of
+consideration, and when pure criticism shall have performed its
+difficult work, then we shall know what is private, and what one must
+leave alone in _seines Nichts durchbohrendem Gefuehle_." Political
+Liberalism regulated the relations of might and right, social
+Liberalism wishes to regulate those of property and labour,
+humanitarian Liberalism lays down the ethical principles of modern
+society.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As may be seen, Stirner does not recognise the efforts and endeavours
+of all these tendencies to which we ascribe the complete
+transformation of Europe in the last century, but, on the contrary,
+is prepared to perceive in them rather an intensification of the
+servitude in which the free Ego is held. The more spiritual, the more
+interesting, the more sublime and the more sacred ideas become for
+men, the greater becomes their respect for them, and the less becomes
+the freedom of the Ego as regards them. But as these ideas are merely
+creations of man's own spirit,--fiction and unreal forms,--all the
+so-called progress made by Liberalism is regarded by Stirner as
+nothing else than increasing self-delusion and constant retrogression.
+True progress evidently lies for him only in the complete emancipation
+of the Ego from this dominion of ideas that is in the triumph of
+egotism. "For Individualism (egotism) is the creator of everything,
+just as already genius [a definite egotism] which is always
+originality, is regarded as the creator of new historical productions.
+Freedom teaches us: set yourselves free, get rid of everything
+burdensome; but it does not teach you who you yourselves are. Free!
+free! so sounds its cry, and you eagerly follow it; become free from
+yourselves, and renounce yourselves. But Individualism calls you back
+to yourselves, and says: 'Come to yourself!' Under the aegis of freedom
+you become free from many things, but become subject again to some new
+thing; you are free from the Evil One, but abstract evil still
+remains. As individuals you are really free from everything, and what
+clings to you you have accepted. That is your choice and your wish.
+The individual is the one who is born free, the man who is free by
+birth. The 'free man,' on the other hand, is he who only looks for
+freedom, the dreamer, the enthusiast." Freedom is only possible
+together with the power to acquire it and to maintain it; but this
+power only resides in the individual. "My power is my property; my
+power gives me property; I am myself my own power, and am thereby my
+own property." This is, in a nutshell, Stirner's positive doctrine.
+
+Right is power or might. "What you have the power to be, that you have
+the right to be. I derive all right and justification from myself
+alone; for I am entitled to everything which I have power to take or
+to do. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah or God, if I can; if I
+can _not_, these gods will always retain their rights and power over
+me; but I shall stand in awe of their rights and their power in
+impotent reverence, and shall keep their commands and believe I am
+doing right in everything that I do, according to their ideas of
+right, just as a Russian frontier sentry considers himself justified
+in shooting dead a suspicious person who runs away, because he relies
+upon a 'higher authority,' in other words, commits murder legally. But
+I am justified in committing a murder by myself, if I do not forbid it
+to myself, if I am not afraid of murder in the abstract as of
+'something wrong.' I am only not justified in what I do not do of my
+own free will, that is, that which I do not give myself the right to
+do. I decide whether the right resides in me; for there is some right
+external to myself. If it is right to me, then it is right. It is
+possible that others may not regard it as right, but that is their
+affair, not mine, and they must take their own measures against it.
+And if something was in the eyes of the whole world not right, and yet
+seemed right to me, that is, if I wished it, even then I should ask
+nothing from the world: thus does everyone who knows how to value
+himself, and each does it to the extent that he is an egotist, for
+might goes before right, and quite rightly too."
+
+All existing right is external to the Ego; no one can give me my
+right, neither God, nor reason, nor Nature, nor the State; as to
+whether I am right or not there is only one judge and that is myself;
+others at most can pass a judgment and decide whether they support my
+right and whether it also exists as a right for them. Law is the will
+of the dominating power in a community. Every State is a despotism,
+whether the dominant power belongs to one, to many, or to all. A
+despotism would remain then, if, for example, in the national assembly
+the national will, that is to say, the individual wills of each
+person, really had overwhelmingly expressed itself, including also my
+own will; if then this wish becomes law I am bound to-morrow by what I
+wished yesterday, and then I thus become a servant, even though it be
+only the servant of myself. How can this be changed? "Only by my
+recognising no duty, neither letting myself bind nor be bound. If I
+have no duty then I also know no law." Wrong goes side by side with
+right, crime with legality. The unfettered Ego of Stirner is the
+never-ceasing criminal in the State; for only he who denies his
+"self," and who practises self-denial is acceptable to the State. And
+thus with the disappearance of right comes also the disappearance of
+crime.
+
+"The dispute about the right of property is violently waged. The
+Communists maintain that the earth belongs properly to him who
+cultivates it; and the products of the same to those who produce them.
+I maintain it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not
+let it be taken from him or let himself be deprived of it; if he
+appropriates it, not merely the earth but also the right to it belongs
+to him. This is the egotistical right, that is, it is right for me,
+and therefore it is right." How far Stirner is separated from Proudhon
+is shown most clearly in the question of property. Proudhon denied
+property because it was incompatible with justice. Stirner denies
+justice, and maintains property upon the grounds of the right of
+occupation. Proudhon declared that property was theft, but Stirner
+entirely reverses the phrase, and answers to the question, What is my
+property?--"Nothing but what is in my power." To what property am I
+entitled?--"To that which I entitle myself." "I give myself the right
+to property by taking property or by giving myself the power of the
+proprietor, a full power or title."
+
+The theory of occupation or seizure here appears to us in all its
+brutality. Nevertheless, even here Stirner is not frightened at the
+most extreme consequences of this theory, nor at the thought that one
+would have to defend one's property daily and hourly with a weapon in
+one's hand; and he is therefore inclined to make some concession to a
+voluntary form of organisation. "If men reach the point of losing
+respect for property, each will have property; just as all slaves
+become freemen as soon as they regard their master no longer as
+master. Union will then multiply the means of the individual, and
+secure for him the property he has acquired by fighting. In the
+opinion of the Communists the community should be the only proprietor.
+The converse of this is, I am the proprietor, and merely come to some
+agreement with others about my property. If the community does not do
+right by me, I revolt against it, and defend my property. I am an
+owner of property, but property is not sacred." The regulation of
+society by itself is accepted by Stirner just as little as in the
+question of property, when it comes to the question of obtaining for
+the labourers a full reward of their labour. "They must rely upon
+themselves and ask nothing from the State," he answers. Only to a
+third very difficult question does this thoroughgoing theorist fail in
+an answer. He declares pauperism to be "lack of value of myself, when
+I cannot make my value felt; and, therefore, I can only get free from
+pauperism if I make my value felt as an individual, if I give myself
+value, and put my own price upon myself. All attempts at making the
+masses happy, and philanthropic associations arising from the
+principle of love, must come to grief, for help can only come to the
+masses through egotism, and this help they must and will procure for
+themselves. The question of property cannot be solved in such a legal
+way as the Socialists, and even the Communists, imagine. It can only
+be solved by the war of all against all. The poor will only become
+free and be owners of property by revolting, rising, and raising
+themselves. However much is given them, they will always wish to have
+more; for they wish nothing less than that, at last, there shall
+remain nothing more to give. It will be asked: But what will happen
+then, when those who have nothing take courage and rise? What kind of
+equalisation will be made? One might just as well ask me to determine
+a child's nativity; what a slave will do when he has broken his chains
+one can only wait and see."
+
+Step by step Stirner departs from Proudhon; the latter demands, in
+order to create his paradise, a balance, the former lays down the
+principle of natural selection as the highest and only law in social
+matters. The fight, the struggle for existence, which Proudhon strove
+to recognise in economic life, here enters upon its rights in all its
+brutality. The realisation of the self is, for Stirner, the key to the
+solution of the problems of work, property, and pauperism. He will
+have no division of goods, no organisation of labour. For Proudhon
+every piece of work is the result of a collective force, for Stirner
+the most valuable works are those of "individual" artists, savants,
+and so on, and their value is always to be determined only from the
+egoist standpoint.
+
+To the question whether money should be maintained or done away with
+among egoists, he answers: "If you know a better medium of exchange,
+all right; but it will always be 'money.' It is not money that does
+you harm, but your lack of power to take it. Let your power be felt,
+nerve yourselves, and you will not lack money--_your_ money, the money
+of your own coining. But working I do not call letting your power be
+felt. Those who only 'seek for work, and are willing to work hard,'
+prepare for themselves inextinguishable lack of work." What we
+now-a-days call free competition, Stirner refuses to regard as free,
+since everyone has not the means for competing. "To abolish
+competition only means to favour members of some craft. The
+distinction is this: in a craft, such as baking, baking is the
+business of the members of the craft; under a system of competition it
+is the business of anyone who likes to compete; but in societies it is
+the business of those who use what is baked; thus, my or your
+business, not the business of the members of the craft, nor of the
+baker who has a concession given him, but of those in the union or
+society." Here for the second time we meet with the idea of a union,
+without Stirner expressing himself exactly about its character. Only
+in one other place does he happen to speak about the ideas of this
+union. He says the end of society is agreement or union. A society
+also certainly arises through union, but only in the same way as a
+fixed idea arises from a thought, namely, by the fact that the energy
+of the thought, thinking itself the restless absorption of all rising
+thoughts, disappears from thought. When a union has crystallised
+itself into a society, it has ceased to be an active union; for the
+act of union is a ceaseless uniting of individuals, it has become a
+united existence, has come to a standstill, has degenerated into a
+fixity; it is dead as a union; it is the corpse of union, and of the
+act of union; that is, it is a society or community. What is known as
+"party" is a striking example of this.
+
+Stirner admits that union cannot exist without freedom, being limited
+in all manner of ways. But absolute freedom is merely an ideal, a
+spectre, and the object of the union is not freedom, which it, on the
+contrary, sacrifices to individualism, but its object is only
+individualism. "Union is my creation, my implement, sacred to me, but
+has no spiritual power over my mind, and does not make me bow down to
+it; but I make it bow down to me, and use it for my own purposes. As I
+may not be a slave of my maxims, but without any guarantee expose them
+to my own continual criticism, and give no guarantee of their
+continuance, so, still less, do I pledge myself to the union for my
+future, or bind my soul to it; but I am and remain to myself more than
+State or Church, and consequently infinitely more than the union."
+
+Just as we again recognise in this loose and always breakable union
+(although Stirner does not say so) that union whose mission he had
+declared it to be "to render secure property gained by force," to
+arrange the relations of production and consumption, and at the same
+time to create a certain unity of the means of payment; so, too, we
+have in this "union of egoists," as its author called it, all the
+constructive thought that Stirner's book either can or does contain.
+For a man who only acknowledges one dimension, and only operates with
+one, considering everything not contained therein as non-existing,
+cannot form any of the combinations of which life consists, without
+coming into hopeless conflict with his principles. This Stirner has
+done, in spite of the vague and imaginary nature of his "union of
+egoists."
+
+As Stirner had to acknowledge that this union or society cannot exist
+without freedom being limited in every way, he declared--since after
+all he requires union for some things--"absolute freedom" a creature
+of the imagination, as the opposite to "individuality," which is the
+main thing. But can it be believed that Stirner has set up an
+"absolute freedom" all of his own making, to place it in contrast with
+individuality. In other words, freedom is merely the possibility of
+living one's individuality, of being an "individual" in Stirner's
+sense. Freedom is the absence of every outside influence; it may be
+understood in an exoteric or esoteric sense; and throughout his whole
+book Stirner has done nothing but strip the "Ego" from every sign of
+outside compulsion; he has made it the "only one" by freeing it with
+relentless logic from everything external. He has depicted this act of
+liberation as the goal of all culture; and it finally emerges that all
+this story of the "only Ego" is a delusion, for "union" excludes
+"absolute individuality" as well as "absolute freedom"--because the
+two are identical.
+
+Stirner, indeed, only spoke of an "absolute freedom" to represent it
+as a fiction of the imagination, and on the other hand only of an
+individuality. Now his union does not exclude individuality and
+freedom, but only absolute individuality. But this last Stirner cannot
+admit, because it also he regards merely as a "spectre," an
+"obsession," a "fixed idea." But whether he admits it or not, what is
+Stirner's "individual" but an idea, something absolute? Stirner had
+begun with the intention of slaying Feuerbach's idea of "man" as a
+retrograde idealist fallacy, and of creating, like Prometheus, a new
+man, the _Unmensch_, in the Ego completed into a microcosm, and, as
+such, complete in itself, separate and independent. But that is, as a
+matter of fact, not the "no-man" but the superhuman Prometheus
+himself, the idea of Man which he attacked in Feuerbach. "Might," he
+says in one part of his book, "goes before right, and rightly too."
+This is exactly the logical scheme of the whole book. Away with
+everything absolute! Individuality goes before every idea, just
+because it is itself the absolute idea of the much-despised Hegel.
+
+But suppose we do not take into consideration this fundamental
+contradiction. Let us suppose there is none, and that all Stirner's
+other assumptions are indisputable, that God, Humanity, Society,
+Right, the State, the Family are all classed in one category, as were
+abstractions and creations of my own "Ego," what follows? That these
+ideas, now that they have lost their absolute character, are no longer
+to be reckoned as factors in the organisation of life? It is so, if
+one regards only that which is absolute as entitled to exist; but
+Stirner would drive everything absolute from its very last positions.
+And does it follow further from the circumstance that one of these
+factors has lost its controlling influence over mankind that all the
+others, because they too are not absolute, should be denied all
+practical significance? Put in concrete form, the question stands
+thus: (1) Has the idea of Deity lost its practical significance,
+because it has been divested of its absolute character, and its purely
+empiric origin has been recognised? and (2) If the idea of Right is no
+more an absolute one than the idea of Deity, does it follow that the
+influence of Right must be placed upon the same plane as the influence
+of conscience?
+
+As to the first point, I am relieved from any answer in view of the
+thorough treatment of these questions by the light of modern
+investigation. The second question I prefer to leave to some
+professional jurist, who knows the nature of law, and at the same time
+has every intention of doing justice to Stirner.
+
+Dr. Rudolf Stammler says,[2] after showing that the necessity of the
+influence of Law for human society cannot be proved _a priori_: "It is
+the theory of Anarchism which must lead us with special force to a
+train of thought that has never yet appeared in the literature of
+legal philosophy, although it makes clear, in a manner universally
+valid, the necessity of legal compulsion in itself and justifies legal
+organisation. For the antithesis of our present mode of social life,
+based on law and right, is, as conceived by Anarchism as its ideal and
+goal, the union and ordering of men in freely formed communities, and
+entirely under rules framed by convention. Though the individual
+Anarchist may regard a union of egoists as a postulate, or may desire
+fraternal Communism, yet each must determine for himself his
+connection with such a community. Let him enter freely into the
+supposed agreement and break it again as seems good to him, it is
+still the stipulations of the agreement that bind him as long as the
+agreement exists; an agreement which he must first enter into and can
+at any time break regardless of conditions by a new expression of his
+will. From this it is that this kind of organisation, which forms the
+core of the theory of Anarchism, is only possible for such of mankind
+as are actually qualified and capable of uniting with others in some
+form of agreement. Those who are not capable of acting for themselves,
+as we jurists say, such as the little child, those who are of unsound
+mind, incapacitated by illness and old age, all these would be
+entirely excluded from such an organisation and from all social life.
+For as soon as, for example, an infant has been taken into this
+society and subjected to its rules, the compulsion of law would have
+been again introduced, and authority would have been exercised over a
+human being without the proper rules for his assent being observed.
+The Anarchist organisation of man's social life therefore fails,
+inasmuch as it is possible only for certain special persons, qualified
+empirically, and excludes others who lack these qualifications. I
+therefore conclude the necessity of legal compulsion, not from the
+fact that without it the small and weak would fare but badly; for I
+cannot know this for certain beforehand and as a general rule. Nor do
+I deduce the recognised and justified existence of legal arrangements
+from the fact that only by these can the 'true' freedom of each
+individual be attained without the interference of any third person;
+for that would not be justified by the facts of history, and would
+certainly not follow from formal legal compulsion in itself. Rather, I
+base the lawfulness of law and the rightness of right, in its formal
+state, upon the consideration that a legal organisation is the only
+one open to all human beings without distinction of special fortuitous
+qualifications. To organise means to unite under rules. Such a
+regulation of human relationships is a means to an end, an instrument
+serving the pursuit of the final end of the highest possible
+perfection of man. Hence only that regulation of human society can be
+universally justified which can embrace universally all human beings
+without reference to their subjective or different peculiarities. Law
+alone can do this. So even under a bad law legal compulsion in itself
+retains its sound foundation. Its existence does not cease to be
+justified, nor is it even touched, by any chance worthlessness of the
+concrete law in question: it is firmly founded, because it alone
+offers the possibility of a universally valid, because universally
+human, organisation. Therefore social progress can only be made by
+perfecting law as handed down by history, according to its content,
+and not by abolishing legal compulsion as such."
+
+    [2] Stammler, _Die Theorie des Anarchismus_, Berlin, 1894, p.
+    42.
+
+These conclusions block the way for the mischievous misapplications of
+distorted expressions of an exact thinker such as Ihering. Ihering
+certainly took away ruthlessly the ideological basis of law, but he
+never denied or attacked necessity of legal compulsion as Stirner did.
+We might just as well ascribe to Darwin the intention of disowning man
+because he set forth man's natural descent.
+
+It is of just as little use to claim that past master of sociology,
+Herbert Spencer, in support of Stirner's views, because Spencer too
+recognises the purely egoistical origin of law and of social
+organisation. Egoism and Anarchism are not so mutually interchangeable
+as Stirner thinks. The question is, first of all, whether egoism after
+all really finds its account in the "union of egoists." It has been
+already more than once remarked that here too, as in the case of
+Proudhon, we only have to do, at bottom, with the logical extension of
+the present order of society that rests on free competition. "Make
+your value felt" is still to-day the highest economic principle; and
+he whose value, whose individuality consists in knowledge alone
+without an adequate admixture of worldly wisdom, would probably fare
+no better in the more perfect Anarchist world than the poor
+schoolmaster Caspar Schmidt in our _bourgeois_ society, who suffered
+all the pangs of hunger and greeted Death as his redeemer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stirner did not form any school of followers in Germany in his own
+time, but Julius Faucher (1820-78) who was known as a publicist and a
+rabid Freetrader, represented his ideas in his newspaper _Die
+Abendpost_ (_The Evening Post_), published in Berlin in 1850. This
+paper was, of course, soon suppressed, and the only apostle of
+Stirner's gospel thereupon left the Continent and went to England, to
+turn to something more practical than Anarchism, or (to use Stirner's
+own jargon) to realise his "Ego" more advantageously. How strange and
+anomalous Stirner's individualism appeared even to the most advanced
+Radicals of Germany in that period appears very clearly from a
+conversation recorded by Max Wirth,[3] which Faucher had with the
+stalwart Republican Schloeffel, in an inn frequented by the Left party
+in the Parliament of Frankfort. "Schloeffel loved to boast of his
+Radical opinions, just as at that time many men took a pride in being
+as extreme as possible among the members of the Left. He expressed his
+astonishment that Faucher held aloof from the current of politics. 'It
+is because you are too near the Right party for me,' answered Faucher,
+who delighted in astonishing people with paradoxes. Schloeffel stroked
+his long beard proudly, and replied, 'Do you say that to _me_?' 'Yes,'
+continued Faucher, 'for you are a Republican incarnate; you still want
+a State. Now _I_ do not want a State at all, and, consequently, I am a
+more extreme member of the Left than you.' It was the first time
+Schloeffel had heard these paradoxes, and he replied: 'Nonsense; who
+can emancipate us from the State?' 'Crime,' was Faucher's reply,
+uttered with an expression of pathos. Schloeffel turned away, and left
+the drinking party without saying a word more. The others broke out
+laughing at the proud demagogue being thus outdone: but no one seems
+to have suspected in the words of Faucher more than a joke in
+dialectics." This anecdote is a good example of the way in which
+Stirner's ideas were understood, and shows that Faucher was the only
+individual "individual" among the most Radical politicians of that
+time.[4] On the other hand, Proudhon's doctrines, which in their
+native France could not find acceptance, gained a few proselytes among
+the Radical Democrats, and especially among the Communists of
+Switzerland and the Rhine.
+
+    [3] "Zur Geschicte des Anarchismus," _Neue Freie Press_, 26th
+    July 1894 (No. 10,748).
+
+    [4] It is characteristic that even the German followers of
+    Proudhon, as, _e. g._, Marr, Gruen, and others, had a very
+    poor opinion of Stirner, and never dreamed of any connection
+    between his views and those of Proudhon.
+
+Moses Hess was, among Germans, the first to seize hold upon the word
+"Anarchy" fearlessly and spread it abroad. This was in 1843, thus
+shortly after the appearance of Proudhon's sensational book on
+property, where the word was first definitely adopted as the badge of
+a party. Hess was born at Bonn in 1812, and was meant for a merchant's
+life, but turned his attention to studies picked up later, more
+especially to Hegelian philosophy, and entered upon the career of
+literature. In the beginning of the forties he propounded in his works
+on _The Philosophy of Action_ and _Socialism_ a confused programme,
+in which the Communism of Weitling was curiously intermingled with the
+views of Proudhon. In 1845 he expressed his views in a paper called
+_The Mirror of Society_ (_Gesellschaftspiegel_), that appeared later
+in 1846, under the title of _The Social Conditions of the Civilised
+World_, and represented the extreme views of Rhenish Socialism. Moses
+Hess died in obscurity in 1872.
+
+Hess went farther than Proudhon, in that he differed from Proudhon's
+carefully thought-out and measured organisation of society by
+demanding, under Anarchy, the abolition of the influence, in social,
+mental, and moral life, not only of the State and the Church, but also
+in like manner of any or all external dominion. All action, he
+declared, must proceed exclusively from the internal decision of the
+individual acting upon the external world, and not _vice versa_.
+Action which did not proceed from internal impulse, but from
+external--whether from external compulsion, necessity, desire for
+gain, or enjoyment--was "not free," and thus merely "a burden or a
+vice." This cannot be the case under Anarchy, for there every work
+will bring its own reward in itself. The manner and duration of a
+man's work will depend entirely on his inclination, thus introducing
+an individual arbitrary will unknown as yet to Proudhon. Society will
+offer to each just as much as he "reasonably" needs for
+self-development and the satisfaction of his wants. As the means of
+introducing "Anarchism" Hess mentions the improvement of the system of
+education, the introduction of universal suffrage, and--a thing which
+Proudhon always opposed--the erection of national workshops.
+
+Karl Gruen, however, was not only in friendly personal relationship
+with Proudhon, but also perfectly imbued with his ideas. Born on
+September 30, 1817, at Ludenscheid, in Westphalia, he studied at Bonn
+and Berlin, and later became a teacher of German at the college of
+Colmar. Later he founded in Mannheim the radical newspaper, the
+_Mannheimer Zeitung_, and when expelled from Baden and Bavaria went to
+Cologne, where for some time he continued active as a lecturer and
+journalist. During the winter of 1844 and 1845 he had made the
+acquaintance of Proudhon personally in Paris, and had inoculated him
+with Hegelian philosophy, and in return brought back Proudhon's views
+with him to Germany. The result of this first visit to Paris was the
+work entitled, _The Social Movement in France and Belgium_,[5] one of
+the most important works on advanced Socialism in Germany, which made
+known the Socialist views of Frenchmen, and especially of Proudhon, to
+the German public in an attractive form. In 1849 Gruen made another
+stay in Paris. Returning thence to Germany, he was elected a member of
+the Prussian National Assembly; then, being arrested for alleged
+complicity in the Palatinate rising, was at length acquitted after
+eight months' imprisonment. He then lived in Belgium and Italy,
+engaged actively in literary work; later on became a teacher at the
+School of Commerce in Frankfort, visited the Rhine towns on a
+lecturing tour from 1865 to '68, and migrated in 1868 to Vienna, where
+he resided till his death in 1887.
+
+    [5] Gruen wrote many works on literature and the history of
+    art, and also _Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the Sphinx on the
+    French Throne_ (3d ed., 1866); _France before the Judgment
+    Seat of Europe_ (1860); Italy (1861), etc.
+
+Gruen goes farther than his master Proudhon, and, like Hess, sowed the
+seed of the Communist Anarchy which has only attained its full growth
+as a doctrine in quite recent years. In this he totally rejected the
+principle of reward or wages maintained by Proudhon. "Proudhon never
+got beyond this obstacle," he says; "he anticipates it, seeks it, he
+would like it, he introduces it: the farther association extends, the
+greater the number of workmen, the less becomes the work of each, the
+more distinction between them disappears. That is a mathematical
+proceeding, not social or human. What distinction is to disappear? The
+distinction among producers is to become progressively smaller. The
+natural distinction of capacity which society abolishes by the social
+equality of wages. Preach the social freedom of consumption, and then
+you have at once the true freedom of production. Reverse the case: are
+you so anxious about lack of production? Recent progress in science
+may assure you. Perhaps children up to fifteen years of age would be
+able to perform all necessary household duties as mere guides of
+machineryeven in holiday attire, as a game of play! Everyone is paid
+according to what he produces, and the production of each is limited
+by the right of all. But no! no limitation! Let us have no right of
+all against the right of the individual. On the contrary, the
+consumption of each is guaranteed by the consumption of all. The
+production of one is not paid for by the product of another, but each
+pays out of the common product."[6] We shall meet with the same ideas
+in Kropotkin, only more definite.
+
+    [6] Die sociale Bewegung, p. 433. Darmstadt, 1845.
+
+Proudhon found an ardent disciple in Wilhelm Marr, who at that time
+stood at the head of the German Democratic Union of manual workmen of
+"young Germany" in Switzerland. Born on May 6, 1819, at Magdeburg,
+Marr was originally intended for a merchant's calling, but after his
+stay in Switzerland (1841) gave it up entirely, and turned his
+attention to a political and literary career. At first, attracted by
+Weitling's Communism, he later on came into decided opposition to it
+from his accentuation of the individualist standpoint, which he, as an
+ardent follower of Feuerbach, pursued according to Proudhon's rather
+than Stirner's views. In conjunction with a certain Hermann Doeleke,
+Marr endeavoured to instil these views into the above-mentioned Swiss
+workmen's unions. His programme was quite of a negative character; as
+he himself describes it: "The abolition of all prevailing ideas of
+Religion, State, and Society was the aim, which we followed with a
+full knowledge of its logical consequences." Doeleke called it the
+"theory of no consolation"[7] (_Trostlosigkeits-theorie_). In
+December, 1844, Marr published a journal in Lausanne called _Pages of
+the Present for Social Life (Blaetter der Gegenwart fuer sociales
+Leben)_, to promote the literary acceptance of this theory. "With
+remorseless logic," says Marr himself (_Das junge Deutschland_, p.
+271) "we attacked not only existing institutions in State and Church,
+but State and Church themselves in general; and as a first attempt,
+which we in the second number made in the shape of an article upon the
+Tschech outrage, produced no ill consequences for us, our audacity
+grew to such a pitch that Doeleke often preached Atheism, and the word
+'Atheism' was to be seen at the head of his articles. I did the same
+in the department of social criticism, while, following the example of
+Proudhon, I put before my readers at the very beginning the final
+consequences of my argument." For a time the Government did not
+interfere with Marr's propaganda, but in July, 1845, it stopped the
+publication of his journal, and Marr was soon after expelled from the
+country. This was the end of the results of his propaganda in
+Switzerland; for in the popular reflex of Marr's doctrines we can
+hardly find more than the Radicalism of German Democrats, as preached
+by Boerne, coloured by a few traces of Proudhon's teaching. This shade
+of opinion was then quite modern; we recognise it in Alfred Meisener,
+Ludwig Pfau, and the Vienna group, even in Boerne, who died in the
+forties; the doctrine was part of the spirit of the age, and did not
+need to be derived from Proudhon.
+
+    [7] Wilhem Marr, _Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz_, p.
+    135. Leipsic, 1846.
+
+Wilhelm Marr, after many and various political metamorphoses, took
+sides with the Anti-Semites, and acquired the unenviable reputation
+of being one of the literary fathers of this questionable movement.
+Recently he has again abandoned this movement, and living embittered
+in retirement in Hamburg, has once more devoted the flabby sympathies
+of his old age to the Anarchist ideals of his youth.
+
+Marr forms the link between the pure theory of Anarchism and active
+Anarchist agitation, between the older generation who laid down the
+principles and the modern Anarchists. The acute reaction following
+upon the years 1848 and '49 extinguished the scanty growth that had
+sprung from the seed sown by Proudhon and Stirner. Only when in the
+sixties, with the reviving Social-Democratic movement there naturally
+arose also its opposite, the "Anti-Authoritative Socialism," did men
+proceed to complete the work begun by Proudhon and Stirner. Recent
+proceedings in this direction have, however, not only not added any
+essential feature to the theory of Anarchism, but rather have obscured
+the former sharp outlines of its ideas, and introduced into its theory
+elements which are really quite foreign and contradictory to it, and
+have prevented that peaceful discussion of it which might be
+advantageous to all parties. This distinction between the older and
+the more modern theorists of Anarchism is most clearly marked in
+Bakunin with his introduction of "Russian influence"; with Bakunin
+begins the theory of active agitation.
+
+
+
+
+                               PART II
+
+                           MODERN ANARCHISM
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                          RUSSIAN INFLUENCES
+
+    The Earliest Signs of Anarchist Views in Russia in 1848 --
+    The Political, Economic, Mental, and Social Circumstances of
+    Anarchism in Russia -- Michael Bakunin -- Biography --
+    Bakunin's Anarchism -- Its Philosophic Foundations --
+    Bakunin's Economic Programme -- His Views as to the
+    Practicability of his Plans -- Sergei Netschajew -- The
+    Revolutionary Catechism -- The Propaganda of Action -- Paul
+    Brousse.
+
+       "L'Eglise et l'Etat sont
+        Mes deux betes noires."--BAKUNIN.
+
+
+In Russia traces of Anarchist views are found as far back as the
+stormy period of 1848-49. The extent of poverty, both mental and
+material, in the vast dominion of the Czar caused the Russian people
+to be less ready to accept and propagate political ideals of freedom
+than to comprehend the Socialist doctrines that were then first
+springing up in Western Europe. The great movement that seized upon
+and shook all Central and Western Europe died down in Russia to a few
+isolated centres of life, and was felt chiefly in secret debating
+societies which eagerly received and disseminated the writings of
+Considerant, Fourier, Saint-Simon, Blanc, and Proudhon.
+
+The reading of Proudhon's works was even undertaken as a duty by the
+most important of these societies, the so-called "Association of
+Petraschewski." The extent to which his teaching impressed the
+thoughtful members of this society, which included among others
+Dostojewski, cannot easily be determined, since the companions of
+Petraschewski, like the Nihilists of to-day, have always liked to
+preserve a certain electicism. However, one trace of the influence of
+Proudhon's doctrines upon its members is distinctly visible. Thus, an
+associate, Lieutenant Palma of the Guards, had designed a book of
+laws, in which we are surprised to meet the following passage, quite
+in the Anarchist vein: "The chief distinctive feature of man is that
+he is a being endowed with a personality, _i. e._, with reason and
+freedom, which is an end in itself, and ought not under any
+circumstances to be regarded as a means or end for others. From the
+idea of personality is derived the idea of right. I may do everything
+that I please, because each of my actions is the result of my reason."
+Petraschewski himself, in a satirical _Dictionary_ which he published
+under the pseudonym of Kirilow, praised as one of the merits of early
+Christianity the abolition of private property and so on. We can
+easily recognise here the elements of Proudhon's and Stirner's
+Anarchism.
+
+In spite of the severe prohibitive system that came in force after
+1848, the teachings of English and French Socialists penetrated into
+Russia even in this period, and were disseminated by such eminent men
+as Tschernichevsky, Dobrolinbow, Herzen, Ogarjow, and others, to wider
+circles, and again we see that interest is chiefly taken in Proudhon's
+doctrines. These found their way deep into the heart of the masses,
+even to the peasants. It must not be forgotten that to the Russian
+peasants, with their already existing collectivist village
+communities, Proudhon's ideas were far more easy to understand than an
+educated Frenchman or German found them. There is probably no country
+in the world where the principles of "federative Socialism," as taught
+by Proudhon and later by Bakunin, were better understood than in
+Russia, and Bakunin even denied the necessity of a Socialist
+propaganda among Russian peasants, because he said that they already
+possessed a knowledge of its elements.
+
+The broad, subterranean stream of Nihilism, which, swelling from these
+small beginnings to a dread power and strength, has undermined both
+feet of the Colossus of the Russian Empire, disappears here from our
+view. We can only notice individual men who, separated from the main
+body of the movement, made ready the path of revolution in their
+native land while living as voluntary or involuntary exiles in Western
+Europe. It may appear superfluous to remark upon the important _role_
+played by Russians on the revolutionary committees of every country.
+And in no revolutionary movement have they gained such a disastrous
+influence or played such a leading part as in Anarchism. When, in the
+sixties, Socialism, with its organisation of the working-class
+movement, grew up side by side with the revival of political
+Liberalism, then, too, by a natural law, arose the extreme form of
+protest against the aggregation of human society by Communism; the
+Anarchist doctrine naturally rose up from the complete oblivion in
+which it had lain for ten years. But modern Anarchism celebrated its
+renascence in a totally different form: times and men had changed; the
+philosophic period was passed, Stirner was dead, and Proudhon near his
+end; Russian godfathers stood round the cradle of modern Anarchism.
+Men of lofty idealism, who, impregnated with Western culture, with
+bold violence, wished to anticipate by several ages the natural
+development of mankind, have given up to Anarchy, as the empire of
+perfect and free personality, their whole heart and mind. But those
+who gave to this doctrine--justified to some extent, like every other
+one-sided view, in spite of all its extravagance, contradictions, and
+inherent impossibility--the sanction of the dagger, the revolver,
+petroleum, and dynamite, were neither Frenchmen nor Germans, but the
+half-civilised barbarians of the East.
+
+The older form of Anarchism is marked by that lofty idealism which was
+the general mental attitude of civilised Western Europe in the first
+half of this century. The modern Anarchism of Bakunin, Netschajew,
+Kropotkin, and others, is branded by the semi-civilised culture of
+Russia, whose only object is the destruction of every existing state
+of things, and indeed under existing circumstances it cannot be
+otherwise. Dislike of, and discontent with real or fancied grievances,
+combined with a stiff-necked, _doctrinaire_ attitude unprepared for
+any _sacrificio del intelletto_, may indeed lead the children of
+Western civilisation to a logical denial of the existing order of
+society. But from this to the actual overthrow of all existing
+conditions is a still farther step; and the positive intention of
+annihilating the infinite mental and material inheritance which is the
+outcome of civilisation, and which is not even denied by Anarchists
+themselves, could only be conceived by a few degenerate individuals
+who could only wish to see themselves _vis-a-vis de rien_ because of
+their own utter lack of moral, intellectual, or material possessions.
+Against these individuals there will always be arrayed an overwhelming
+majority, who are ready to pledge the whole weight of their
+superiority in culture for these possessions and guarantees of the
+undeniable progress of mankind.
+
+It is different in Russia. The political and social, the mental and
+moral conditions of this large but barbarian empire do not afford much
+opportunity for the growth even of a moderate amount of conservatism.
+For what can there be to conserve, to maintain, or to improve in those
+lives that depend on the mere sign of a bloodthirsty and savage
+despotism, in that society that has hardly raised itself from the
+primitive tribal level, in those rotten national economics, trade and
+industry, in a spiritual life groaning under the banner of orthodoxy
+and an arbitrary police, of popes and Tschinowniks? Must not the only
+possible way, the inevitable presupposition of any possible
+improvement be a desire for a total and universal overthrow, a radical
+annihilation of all these conditions that render life and development
+impossible? The Russian need not shrink from the thought that all
+present conditions should be annihilated, for when he looks round
+about him he finds nothing that his heart would care to preserve; and
+the higher he ranks in the mental or social sphere, the stronger must
+this "Nihilist" feeling naturally become. We who are citizens of a
+State that, with all its faults, is yet richly blessed by
+civilisation, show our comprehension of these facts by regarding with
+a milder and more sympathetic glance the acts of a few desperate men
+in Russia, which we should condemn severely if they occurred under the
+happier circumstances that surround ourselves. In fact, nothing is
+more natural--lamentable as it may be--than that, under circumstances
+such as those of Russia, revolutionary Radicalism should assume this
+purely negative "Nihilist" and murderously destructive character in
+the desperate struggle of the individual against a society that is
+totally degenerate.
+
+"Among us," says Stepniak,[1] "a revolution or even a rising of any
+importance, such as those in Paris, is absolutely impossible. Our
+towns contain barely a tenth of the total population, and most of them
+are merely great villages, miles and miles away one from another. The
+real towns, such as, _e. g._, those of from 10,000 or 15,000
+inhabitants, contain only 4 or 5 per cent. of the total
+population--that is, about three or four million people. And the
+Government which rules over the military contingent of the whole
+people--that is, over 1,200,000 soldiers--can transform the five or
+six chief towns, the only places where any movement would be possible,
+into veritable camps, as is indeed the case. Against such a Government
+any means are permissible; for it is no longer the guardian of the
+people's will or even of the will of a majority. It is injustice
+organised; a citizen need respect it no more than a band of highway
+robbers. But how can we shake off this Camarilla that shelters itself
+behind a forest of bayonets? How can we free the country from it?
+Since it is absolutely impossible to remove this hindrance by force,
+as in other more fortunate countries, a flank movement was necessary
+in order to attack this Camarilla before it could make use of its
+power, which thus was made useless in fruitless positions. Thus
+Terrorism arose. Nurtured in hatred, suckled by patriotism and hope,
+it grew up in an electric atmosphere, filled by the enthusiasm that is
+awakened by a noble deed."
+
+    [1] _Underground Russia_, 3d edition, pp. 34 ff. and 41.
+    London, 1890.
+
+These same features were necessarily assumed in Russia by Anarchist
+doctrines, which from their very nature found a friendly and (as we
+have seen) an early reception, and were practically incorporated with
+Nihilism, but, as must be distinctly noted, without becoming identical
+with it, or even forming an essential and integral part of it. In
+fact, we find in avowed Nihilists and Panslavists, such as Herzen,
+the fundamental Anarchist ideas present just as much as in Bakunin and
+Kropotkin, whose Anarchism was superior to their Panslavism. In his
+book, _After the Storm (Apres la Tempete)_, composed under the
+impression made by the disappointed hopes and expectations of 1848,
+Herzen exclaimed: "Let all the world perish! Long live Chaos and
+Destruction"; and in a work that appeared almost at the same time,
+_The Republic One and Indivisible_, he attacked the Republican form of
+government as "the last dream of the old world," which yet could not
+succeed in carrying out the great fundamental law of social justice.
+Only when this has become really a truth, only when there is an end of
+men being devoured by men, will humanity, born again, rise free and
+happy from the ruins of this present cursed social structure: "Spring
+will come; young, fresh life will blossom on the graves of the races
+who have died as victims of injustice; nations will rise up full of
+chaotic but healthy forces. A new volume of the world's history will
+begin." The share of Nihilism in such ideas cannot be borrowed
+altogether from Western Anarchism. There was perhaps a mutual
+interaction of intellectual growth. But one gift Anarchism certainly
+did receive from Nihilism: "the propaganda of action" does not spring
+from the logical development of Proudhon's and Stirner's ideas, and
+cannot be extorted or extracted from it in any way; it is rather the
+consequence of the mixture of these ideas with Nihilism, a result of
+Russian conditions. This was the pretty embellishment with which the
+West received back Anarchism from Russian hands in the era of the
+sixties and seventies. Bakunin was entrusted with the gloomy mission
+of handing this gift over to us, and it is noticeable that in
+Bakunin--as in Nihilism generally--Anarchism by no means takes up that
+exclusively commanding position as in Proudhon, with whom he yet is so
+closely connected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Michael Bakunin was born in 1814 at Torschok in the Russian province
+of Tver, being a scion of a family of good position belonging to the
+old nobility. An uncle of Bakunin's was an ambassador under Catherine
+II., and he was also connected by marriage with Muravieff. He was
+educated at the College of Cadets in St. Petersburg, and joined the
+Artillery in 1832 as an ensign. But either, as some say, because he
+did not get into the Guards, or, as others say, because he could not
+endure the rough terrorism of military life, he left the army in 1838,
+and returned first to his father's house, where he devoted himself to
+scientific studies. In 1841 Bakunin went to Berlin, and next year to
+Dresden, where he studied philosophy, chiefly Hegel's but was also
+introduced by Ruge into the German democratic movement. Even at that
+time he had come to the conclusion (in an essay in the _Deutschen
+Jahrbuecher_ on "The Reaction in Germany") that Democracy must proceed
+to the denial of everything positive and existing, without regard for
+consequences. Pursued by Russian agents, he went in 1843 to Paris, and
+thence to Switzerland, where he became an active member of the
+Communist-Socialist movement. The Russian Government now refused him
+permission to stay abroad any longer, and as he did not obey repeated
+commands to return to his native land, it confiscated his property.
+From Zuerich, Bakunin returned a second time to Paris, and made the
+acquaintance of Proudhon. If here was laid the foundation for his
+later Anarchist views, we still find him active in another political
+direction. In a high-flown speech made at the Polish banquet on the
+anniversary of the Warsaw Revolution (29th November, 1847), Bakunin
+recommended the union of Russia and Poland in order to revolutionise
+the former. The Russian Government thereupon demanded his extradition,
+and set a price of ten thousand silver roubles on his head. In spite
+of this, Bakunin escaped safely to Brussels. After the Revolution of
+February, he returned to Paris, then went in March to Berlin, and in
+June to attend the Slav Congress in Prague.
+
+The question has not unnaturally been raised, What had Bakunin the
+cosmopolitan to do at such an institution of national Chauvinism as
+the Congress? What had the ultra-radical Democrat and sworn enemy of
+the Czar to do with a congress held by the favour of Nicholas, and
+visited by orthodox Archimandrites, by the envoys of Slav princes, and
+privy councillors decorated with Russian orders? When the drama at
+Prague ended with a sanguinary insurrection and the bombardment of
+Prague, Bakunin disappeared, only to re-appear again, now in Saxony
+and now in Thuringia, under all kinds of disguises, and (as those who
+are well-informed maintain)[2] constantly occupied with the intention
+of causing a new insurrection at Prague. Here too he was in
+contradiction with the attitude that he had adopted both before and
+after this event, for he must have known what a sorry part the Czechs
+had played and still were playing as regards the Vienna Democracy and
+the efforts for Hungarian emancipation.
+
+    [2] Karl Blind, "Vaeter des Anarchismus" (Persoenliche
+    Erinnerungen), 4 feuilletons in the _Neue Freie Presse_,
+    1894.
+
+During the insurrection in May, 1849, we find Bakunin in Dresden, as a
+member of the provisional government, and taking a prominent part in
+the defence of the city against the Prussian troops. Bakunin here
+appears as a champion of the very same cause that he had attacked at
+the Prague Congress. After the fall of Dresden he went with the
+provisional government to Chemnitz, where on the 10th of May he was
+captured and condemned to death by martial law. The sentence, however,
+was not carried out, since Austria had demanded his extradition. Here
+he was also condemned at Olmutz to be hanged; but Austria handed this
+offender, who was so much in request, over to Russia, which country
+also wished to get hold of him. By a remarkable chance, Bakunin
+escaped the death to which here also he was condemned, by receiving a
+pardon from the Czar; he was imprisoned first in the fortress of SS.
+Peter and Paul, and then at that of Schluesselburg; and in 1855,
+through the exertions of his influential relatives, was banished to
+Siberia. At that time a report had generally gained credence in
+Europe, although lacking any foundation, that Bakunin had by no means
+owed his life, that three countries had already condemned, to the
+chance favour of a monarch usually far from gracious; and the distrust
+of the apostle of Revolution was still more greatly increased when, in
+1861, he succeeded in escaping from the penal settlement in the Amur
+district, and returned to Europe _via_ Japan and America. Now the
+otherwise mysterious success of this escape has been explained. The
+Governor of the Amur (Muravieff-Amurski) happened to be a cousin of
+Bakunin's relation, Muravieff, and moreover (according to Bakunin's
+own statement),[3] a secret adherent of the revolutionary movement. He
+appears to have lived on a very intimate footing with Bakunin, and
+granted the exile all kinds of favours and freedom; and thus Bakunin
+was entrusted with the mission of travelling through Siberia in order
+to describe its natural resources. While on this journey he succeeded
+in embarking on a ship in the harbour of Nikolajewsk, and escaping. In
+1861 he arrived in England, and settled in London, where he entered
+into relations with the members of the "International." As to the part
+that Bakunin played here, as he did later, as an agitator for
+Anarchist ideas, we will speak later when we come to the history of
+the spread of Anarchism.
+
+    [3] There is a kind of autobiography for the period 1849-60,
+    by Bakunin himself in a letter, dated from Irkutsk (8th
+    December, 1860) to Herzen. _Michael Bakunin's
+    Social-Political Correspondence with Alexander Iw. Herzen and
+    Ogarjow_, with a biographical introduction, appendices, and
+    notes by Professor Michael Dragomanoff. Authorised
+    translation from the Russian, by Dr. Boris Minzes, Stuttgart,
+    1895 (_Bibl. russischer Denkwuerdigkeiten_, edited by Dr. Th.
+    Schiemann, vol. vi.), No. 6, pp. 29 and 99.
+
+When the Revolution broke out in Poland in 1863, Bakunin was one of
+the leaders of the expedition of Polish and Russian emigrants that was
+planned in Stockholm, and which was to revolutionise Russia from the
+Baltic coast. When this attempt also failed, he stayed sometimes in
+Russia and sometimes in Italy, devoting himself to Socialist
+agitation, and being always on every favourable opportunity active
+either as an apostle of Anarchist doctrine or as an agitator in the
+preparations and _mise-en-scene_ of a revolution. We shall speak of
+this later. The last years of his life were spent alternately in
+Geneva, Locarno, and Bern, where he died on July 1, 1878, at the
+hospital, after refusing all nourishment, and thus hastening his end.
+
+The Anarchist epoch of his life is included mainly in the last ten
+years of his career, so fertile in mistakes and changes of opinion.
+Anarchism owes its renascence to his active agitation, regardless of
+all consequences; and even in his writings the thinker lags far behind
+the agitator. Bakunin at best could only be called the theorist of
+action; his activity as an author was limited to scattered articles in
+journals and a few (mostly fragmentary) pamphlets. He was right in his
+answer to those critics who reproached him with this: "My life itself
+is but a fragment." Where could he have found in his life-long
+wanderings the peaceful leisure in which to develop his thoughts
+quietly or to express them in a work such as Proudhon's _Justice_ or
+Stirner's _Einziger_? Besides, he lacked the gift of mental depth and
+firmly grounded knowledge. His style possesses something of his
+fluency as a demagogue, but his procedure in science reminds of the
+soaring dialectics of the revolutionary orator, full of repetitions,
+and attractive rather than convincing. In his case a pose always takes
+the place of an argument.
+
+It is said that during the period of his association with the
+"International" Bakunin had had the intention of setting forth his
+ideas in two large works, one of which would have been a criticism of
+the existing arrangements of the State, property, and religion, while
+the other would have treated of the problems of the European nations,
+especially the Slavs, and have shown their solution by social
+revolution and anarchy. But, of course, these two works were never
+written, and there remain to us only some remnants of numerous
+fragmentary and formless manuscripts, originating in the period of
+1863-73. Among these is a _Catechism of Modern Freemasonry_, the
+_Revolutionary Catechisms_, not to be compared with the later
+catechism of Netschajew, which was wrongly ascribed to Bakunin; also
+the wordy essay on _Federation, Socialism, and Anti-theology_, which
+as a proposal designed for the central committee of the League of
+Freedom and Peace at Geneva, but never published, presents a short
+reprint of Proudhon's _Justice_; and lastly, a fragment published in
+1882 by C. Cafiero and Elisee Reclus, after his manuscript, _Dieu et
+l'Etat_, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for
+Bakunin's Anarchism.
+
+This fragment, in which Bakunin follows the lead of the great
+materialists and Darwinians, begins with Hegelianism. Man (it says) is
+of animal origin; all development proceeds from the "animal nature" of
+man, and strives to reach the negation of this, or humanity.
+"Animality" is the starting-point; "humanity," its opposite, is the
+goal of development. The first human being, the pitheco-anthropus,
+distinguished itself, according to Bakunin, from other apes, by two
+gifts: the capacity for thinking, and, thereby, for raising itself.
+Bakunin, therefore, distinguishes three elements in all life: (1)
+animality; (2) thought; and (3) rising. To the first corresponds
+social and private economy; to the second, science; to the third,
+freedom. After establishing these peculiar categories, Bakunin never
+troubles about them again throughout his book, and does not know what
+use to make of them; they were nothing but a pretty philosophic pose,
+sand thrown in one's eyes. He goes farther, and declares next that he
+intends to penetrate into the reason "of the idealism of Mazzini,
+Michelet, Quinet, and [_sic!_] Stuart Mill." Again we hear nothing
+more throughout this fragmentary work of the thus announced refutation
+of Mill's idealism. It is limited to giving a rather shallow
+reproduction of Proudhon's contrast between religion and revolution.
+
+"The idea of God," says Bakunin, "implies the abdication of human
+reason and justice; it is the most decisive denial of human freedom,
+and leads necessarily to the enslaving of humanity, both in theory and
+practice.... The freedom of man consists solely in following natural
+laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because
+they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether
+divine or human, collective or individual.... We reject all
+legislation, every authority, and every privileged, recognised
+official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the
+exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling
+and exploiting minority against the interests of the great enslaved
+majority." And so forth.
+
+Here already, in this partial repetition of Proudhon's views, we see
+Bakunin go far beyond Proudhon in an essential point, the question of
+universal suffrage. Proudhon had already perceived in "the
+organisation of universal suffrage" the only possible means of
+realising his views. Bakunin rejects this view, and, as will be shown
+later, this question formed the chief stumbling-block in his
+differences with the "International." But in a much more important and
+decisive point Bakunin goes farther than Proudhon, or rather sinks
+behind him.
+
+Proudhon always based all his hopes on the diffusion of knowledge; the
+demo-cracy was to be changed into a demo-paedy, and thus gradually led
+up to Anarchy of its own accord. Bakunin anathematises knowledge just
+as much as religion; for it also enslaves men. "What I preach," he
+says in the book quoted, "is to a certain extent the revolt of life
+against knowledge, or rather against the domination of knowledge, not
+in order to do away with knowledge--that would be a crime of high
+treason against humanity (_laesae humanitatis_)--but in order to bring
+it back to its place so surely that it would never leave it again....
+The only vocation of knowledge is to illuminate our path; life alone,
+in its full activity, can _create_, when freed from all fetters of
+dominion and doctrine." He also thinks that knowledge should become
+the common possession of all, but to the question as to whether men
+should, until this takes place, follow the directions of knowledge, he
+answers at once, "No, not at all."
+
+In these two divergences from Proudhon lies the essential difference
+between the modern and the older Anarchism. Bakunin rejects the
+proposal to bring about Anarchy gradually by a process of political
+transformation by means of the use of universal suffrage, equally with
+the gradual education of mankind up to this form of society by
+knowledge. Not by evolution, but by revolt, revolution, and similar
+means is Anarchy to be installed to-day--Anarchy in the sense of the
+setting free of all those elements which we now include under the name
+of evil qualities, and the annihilation of all that is termed "public
+order." Everything else will look after itself.
+
+Bakunin wisely did not enter into descriptions of the future: "All
+talk about the future is criminal, for it hinders pure destruction,
+and steers the course of revolution." His views as to the nearest
+goal, after general expropriation and the annihilation of all powers,
+are almost exclusively derived from Proudhon's, and at most go beyond
+them only in so far as Bakunin does not recognise as obligatory that
+coalescence of "productive" groups into a higher collective entity,
+which Proudhon regarded as an organic society, but merely allows them
+to remain as groups. If several such local groups wish to unite into a
+larger association, this might be done, but no compulsion must thereby
+be exercised upon individuals. The influence of Stirner, with whom
+Bakunin was acquainted before 1840, must account for this. We
+recognise Bakunin's theory best and most authentically from the
+following extract, in which he comprises it in the programme of the
+"Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste" of Geneva,[4] founded by
+himself. It runs thus:
+
+    [4] Compare the chapter on "The Spread of Anarchy."
+
+1. The alliance professes atheism; it aims at the abolition of
+religious services; the replacement of belief by knowledge, and divine
+by human justice; and the abolition of marriage as a political,
+religious, judicial, and civic arrangement.
+
+2. Before all it aims at the definite and complete abolition of all
+classes, and the political, economic, and social equality of the
+individual, of either sex; and to attain this end it demands, before
+all, the abolition of inheritance, in order that for the future
+usufruct may depend on what each produces, and that, in accordance
+with the decision of the last Congress of Workmen at Brussels [in
+1868], the land, the instruments of production, as well as all other
+capital, can only be used by the workers, _i. e._, by the agricultural
+and industrial communities.
+
+3. It demands for all children of both sexes, from their birth
+onwards, equality of the means of development, education, and
+instruction in all stages of knowledge, industry, and art, with the
+general object that this equality, at first only economic and social,
+will ultimately result in producing more and more a greater natural
+equality of individuals, by causing to disappear all those artificial
+inequalities which are the historic products of a social organisation
+which is as false as it is unjust.
+
+4. As an enemy of all despotism, recognising no other form of policy
+than Republicanism, and rejecting unconditionally every reactionary
+alliance, it rejects all political action that does not aim directly
+and immediately at the triumph of the cause of labour against capital.
+
+5. It recognises that all existing political States, having authority,
+by gradually confining themselves to merely administrative functions
+of the public service in their respective countries, will be immerged
+into the universal union of free associations, both agricultural and
+industrial.
+
+6. Since the social question can only be solved, definitely and
+effectively, on the basis of the universal and international
+solidarity of the workmen of all countries, the alliance rejects any
+policy founded on so-called patriotism and the rivalry of nations.
+
+7. It desires the universal association of all local associations by
+means of freedom.[5] The question as to how this Anarchist condition
+of society, which Bakunin himself described as "amorphism," was to be
+brought about has been answered in no dubious fashion by Bakunin and
+his adherents in deeds of violence, such as that attempted by the
+leader himself in the Lyons riot of 1870 and the occurrences in Spain
+in 1873.[6] Bakunin tried to deceive himself into thinking that he
+deplored the violence that was sometimes necessary, and wrapped
+himself in the protecting cloak of the believer in evolution, who
+would wake up some fine morning and find that Anarchy had become an
+accomplished fact. By passive resistance in politics and economics, by
+complete abstention from politics, and by a "universal strike,"
+Anarchy would suddenly come into being of itself. At the proper time
+all the workmen of every industry of a country, or indeed of the whole
+world, would stop work, and thereby, in at most a month, would compel
+the "possessing" classes either to enter voluntarily into a new form
+of social order, or else to fire upon the workmen, and thus give them
+the right to defend themselves, and at this opportunity to upset
+entirely the whole of the old order of society. Again we see that
+force is the ultimate resort; nor could it be otherwise after Bakunin
+had uncompromisingly rejected every attempt to arrive gradually at his
+ideal end by means of political and intellectual progress. In the
+_Letter to a Frenchman_ he confesses the true character of the
+revolution which he advocates:
+
+    [5] Testut Oscar, _Die Internationale, ihr Wesen und ihre
+    Bestrebungen_.
+
+    [6] Friedrich Engels, _Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit_,
+    Denkschrift ueber den Aufstand in Spanien im Winter, 1873;
+    reprinted in _Internationales aus dem Volkstaate_ (1871-75),
+    Berlin, 1894.
+
+"Of course matters will not be settled quite peacefully at first," he
+says; "there will be battles; public order, the sacred _arche_ of the
+bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the first facts that will emerge
+from such a state of affairs can only end in what people like to call
+a civil war. For the rest, do not be afraid that the peasants will
+mutually devour each other; even if they attempt to do so at first, it
+will not be long before they are convinced of the obvious
+impossibility of continuing in this way, and then we may be certain
+that they will attempt to unite among themselves, to agree and to
+organise. The need of food and of feeding their families, and (as a
+consequence of this) of protecting their houses, family, and their own
+life against unforeseen attacks--all this will compel them to enter
+upon the path of mutual adjustment. Nor need we believe, either, that
+in this adjustment, that has been come to without any public
+guardianship of the State, the strongest and richest will exert a
+preponderating influence by the mere force of circumstances. The
+wealth of the rich will cease to be a power as soon as it is no longer
+secured by legal arrangements. As to the strongest and most cunning,
+they will be rendered harmless by the collective power of the
+multitude of small and very small peasants: so, too, in the case of
+the rural proletariat, who are to-day merely a multitude given over to
+dumb misery, but who will be provided by the revolutionary movement
+with an irresistible power. I do not assert that the rural districts
+that will thus have to reorganise themselves from top to bottom will
+create all at once an ideal organisation which will in all respects
+correspond to our dreams. But of this I am convinced, that it will be
+a living organisation, and, as such, a thousand times superior to
+that which now exists. Besides, this new organisation, since it is
+always open to the propaganda of the towns, and can no longer be
+fettered and so to speak petrified by the legal sanctions of the
+State, will advance freely and develop and improve itself, in ways
+that are uncertain, yet always with life and freedom, and never merely
+by decrees and laws, till it reaches a standpoint that is as rational
+as we could possibly hope at the present day."
+
+Bakunin has expressly excepted secret societies and plots from the
+means of bringing about this revolution. But this did not hinder him
+from becoming himself, as occasion suited, the head of a secret
+society, formed according to all the rules of the conspirator's art.
+
+Fundamentally opposed as our minds must be to men like Proudhon and
+Stirner, we yet readily recognise in them their undoubted personal
+talents, both of mind, spirit, and character, and, above all, have
+never questioned their good faith. But we cannot speak thus of
+Bakunin. In all the changes and chances of a life that was singularly
+rich in change, there were far too many dark points, to which evil
+report had ample opportunity to attach itself. We do not see in
+Bakunin that proletarian in wooden sabots and blouse, with the eager
+thirst for knowledge and keen desire to raise himself, who dreams as
+he works before the compositor's frame of a juster order of things in
+this world, yet more for others than for himself, and would like to
+arrange society itself laboriously in a well-ordered compositor's
+case; nor do we see in Bakunin that plain German schoolmaster who
+would people society with mere sons of Prometheus, while he himself
+totters starving to the grave; who dedicates his gospel of a doctrine
+that would overthrow the world from pole to pole "to his Darling,
+Marie Donhardt," as though it were a tender love-song. Bakunin remains
+to us for ever as the commercial traveller of eternal revolution in a
+magnificent pose, and from the red cloak so picturesquely cast around
+him peeps out unpleasantly the dagger of Caserio.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We cannot leave Bakunin without a passing mention of his favourite
+pupil Sergei Netschajew,[7] although he was still less of a pure
+Anarchist than Bakunin, and can still less easily be separated from
+Russian Nihilism.
+
+    [7] For Netschajew, cf. the article "Anarchism" in Wurm's
+    _Volks-lexicon_, vol. i., and in the _Handwoerterbuch der
+    Staatswissenschaften_, Jena, 1890, vol. i.; also E. von
+    Laveleye, _Socialism of the Present_ (German ed. by Ch.
+    Jasper, Halle, A.D. S., 1895). All these, however, are based
+    almost exclusively on the information in the memoir,
+    _L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste et l'Association
+    Internationale des Travailleurs_: Report and documents
+    published by order of the International Congress at The Hague
+    (London and Hamburg, 1873)--a very one-sided party brochure
+    of the Marxists against the Bakuninists, which has been
+    proved wrong on more points than one. We regret all the more
+    that we are limited to this source of information.
+
+But a picture of this pair of twin brothers will show us better than
+long essays how much of the total phenomenon of modern Anarchism is a
+product of Western hyper-philosophy, and how much is an inheritance of
+Russian Nihilism. Sergei Netschajew, the apostle and saint of Nihilist
+poesy, was born at St. Petersburg in 1846, the son of a court
+official, and in time became teacher at a parish school in his native
+town. In 1865 he went to Moscow, where he became associated with the
+students of the Academy of Agriculture, and founded a secret society
+that called itself "The People's Tribunal," and formed ostensibly the
+"Russian Branch of the International Workers' Union." Both in St.
+Petersburg and elsewhere he appeared as the founder of such branch
+societies, attached to the Bakuninist section of the "International,"
+and chiefly recruited from the ranks of youthful students. In a
+pamphlet issued later (1869), in conjunction with his master, Bakunin,
+called _Words Addressed to Students_, he exhorted the students not to
+trouble about this "empty knowledge" in whose name it was meant to
+bind their hands, but to leave the University and go among the
+people.[8] The Russian people, he said, were now in the same condition
+as in the time of Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, when Stenka
+Razin, a robber chieftain, placed himself at the head of a terrible
+insurrection. The young people who now leave their place in society
+and lead the life of the people would form an invincible, collective
+Stenka Razin, who would put themselves at the head of the fight for
+emancipation, and carry it through successfully. For this purpose they
+should not merely turn to the peasants and make them revolt, but also
+call in the help of robbers. "Robbery," he said, "was one of the most
+honourable forms of Russian national life." The robber is a hero, the
+protector and avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the
+State, and of all civic and social order founded by the State, who
+fights to the death against all this civilisation of officials,
+nobles, priests, and the crown. The Russian robber is the true and
+only revolutionary, the revolutionary _sans phrase_, without rhetoric
+derived from books, indefatigable, irreconcilable, and in action
+irresistible, a social revolutionary of the people, not a political
+revolutionary of the classes.
+
+    [8] The expression "go among the people" has since become a
+    well-known Nihilist term.
+
+This was the programme of the society called "The People's Tribunal,"
+as it was that of Nihilism generally, and, transferred from this into
+Western conditions, became the active programme of the "propaganda of
+action." At the same time as the _Words_, there were circulating in
+the circles influenced by Netschajew other writings, either written
+exclusively by himself or in conjunction with Bakunin, such as the
+_Formula of the Revolutionary Question, the Principles of Revolution,
+the Publications of the People's Tribunal_,--all of which preached
+"total destruction" and Anarchism. The opponents of the Bakuninists
+maintain that the only purpose of these writings was, by their
+bloodthirsty tone, to compromise genuine revolutionaries, and give the
+police a weapon against them. But the whole spirit of Bakunin is
+expressed in the revolutionary _Catechism_,[9] first made accessible
+to the public in the trial of Netschajew. It was formerly thought that
+Bakunin was the author, but now it is pretty well agreed that it was
+Netschajew.
+
+    [9] The _Catechism_ is reproduced in the before-mentioned
+    memoir, _L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste_, viii.
+    (_L'Alliance en Russie et le Catechisme Revolutionnaire_),
+    pp. 90-95.
+
+The catechism, a condensation of revolutionary fanaticism,
+commands the revolutionary to break with all that is dear to him,
+and, troubling nought about law or morality, family or State,
+joy or sorrow, to devote himself wholly to his task of total
+_bouleversement_. "If he continues to live in this world, it is only
+in order to annihilate it all the more surely. A revolutionary
+despises everything _doctrinaire_, and renounces the science and
+knowledge of this world in order to leave it to future generations; he
+knows but one science: that of destruction. For that, and that only,
+he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and even medicine. For the
+same purpose he studies day and night living science--men, their
+character, positions, and all the conditions of the existing social
+order in all imaginary spheres. The object remains always the same:
+the quickest and most effective way possible of destroying the
+existing order" (Sec.Sec. 2, 3). "For him exists only one pleasure, one
+consolation, one reward, one satisfaction, the reward of revolution.
+Day and night he must have but one thought--inexorable destruction" (Sec.
+6). "For the purpose of irrevocable destruction a revolutionary can,
+and may, often live in the midst of society and appear to have the
+most complete indifference as to his surroundings. A revolutionary may
+penetrate everywhere, into high society, among the nobility, among
+shopkeepers, into the military, official, or literary world, into the
+'third section' [the secret police], and even into the Imperial
+palace" (Sec. 14). The catechism divides society into several categories:
+those in the first of these categories are condemned to death without
+delay. "In the first place we must put out of the world those who
+stand most in the way of the revolutionary organisation and its work"
+(Sec. 16). The members of the second category are to be allowed to live
+"provisionally," in order that, "by a series of abominable deeds they
+may drive the people into unceasing revolt" (Sec. 17). The third class,
+the rich and influential, must be exploited for the sake of the
+revolution, and made to become "our slaves." With the fourth class,
+Liberals of various shades of opinion, arrangements must be made on
+the basis of their programme, they must be initiated and compromised,
+and made use of for the perturbation of the State. The fifth class,
+the doctrinaires, must be urged forward; while the sixth and most
+important class consists of the women, for making use of whom for the
+purposes of the revolution Netschajew gives explicit directions. It is
+the tactics of the Jesuits in all their details that are here
+recommended for the inauguration of the most moral ordering of the
+universe. The last section of the catechism, which treats of the duty
+of the People's Tribunal Society towards the people, reads: "The
+Society has no other purpose but the complete emancipation and
+happiness of the people, _i. e._, of hardworking humanity. But
+proceeding from the conviction that this emancipation and this
+happiness can only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular
+revolution, the Society will use every effort and every means to
+heighten and increase the evils and sorrows which at length will wear
+out the patience of the people and encourage an insurrection _en
+masse_. By a popular revolution the Society does not mean a movement
+regulated according to the classic patterns of the West, which is
+always restrained in face of property and of the traditional social
+order of so-called civilisation and morality, and which has hitherto
+been limited merely to exchanging one form of politics for another,
+and at most to founding a so-called revolutionary State. The only
+revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly
+annihilates every political idea. With this end in view, the People's
+Tribunal has no intention of imposing on the people an organisation
+coming from above. The future organisation will, without doubt,
+proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the
+business of future generations. Our task is terrible, inexorable, and
+universal destruction."
+
+The views thus expressed are quite in harmony with what Netschajew has
+written about revolutionary action in the writings mentioned above.
+"Words," he exclaims, "have no value for us, unless followed at once
+by action. But all is not action that is so-called: for example, the
+modest and too-cautious organisation of secret societies without
+external announcements to outsiders is in our eyes merely ridiculous
+and intolerable child's-play. By external announcements we mean a
+series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a
+cause, a condition that hinders the emancipation of the people.
+Without sparing our lives, we must break into the life of the people
+with a series of rash, even senseless, actions, and inspire them with
+a belief in their powers, awake them, unite them, and lead them on to
+the triumph of their cause."
+
+The tendency which here develops into the recommendation of violence
+should be carefully noticed; outrage is no longer recommended, because
+the purposes of revolution can be served thereby directly, but
+indirectly, as a kind of sanguinary advertisement to the indolent
+masses, who would thus have their attention drawn to the theory by
+such terrible events. That is the diabolical basis of the "propaganda
+of action," which was defined by another follower of Bakunin--Paul
+Brousse, the man of the Jura Federation (see the chapter on "The
+Spread of Anarchy"). "Deeds," says Brousse, "are talked of on all
+sides; the indifferent masses inquire about their origin, and thus pay
+attention to the new doctrine, and discuss it. Let men once get as far
+as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them." Therefore he
+recommended revolution and outrage, not in order to upset existing
+society thereby, but for the purpose of the "propaganda." Brousse only
+had to borrow the thought, as we see, from Netschajew; and it is not
+difficult to say whence the latter got it. The opinion which ascribes
+the authorship of the _Catechism of Revolution_, and of the other
+writings above mentioned not to Netschajew but to Bakunin himself, has
+perhaps some foundation. But it matters little who is the author of
+these works. Netschajew is thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit,
+and he might even say to him (p. 115):
+
+  "... What thou hast thought in thy mind
+    That I do, that I perform.
+
+  And e'en though years may pass away
+    I never rest, until to fact
+  Is changed the word that thou did'st say,
+    'T is thine to think and mine to act.
+
+  Thou art the judge, the headsman I;
+    And as a servant I obey;
+  The sentence which thou dost imply,
+    E'en though unjust, I never stay.
+
+  In ancient Rome, a lictor dark
+    An axe before the consul bore;
+  Thou hast a lictor too, but mark!
+    The axe comes after, not before.
+
+  I am thy lictor; and alway
+    With bare, bright axe behind thee tread;
+  I am the deed, be what it may,
+    Begotten from thy thought unsaid."
+
+In the year 1869 a sudden end was put to Netschajew's activity in
+Russia. Among his most trusted friends in Moscow was a certain Iwanow,
+one of the most respected and influential members of the secret
+society. Iwanow himself lived in ascetic seclusion, and in his leisure
+time gave the peasants instruction gratis, establishing classes of
+poor students, and so forth. He was a fanatic in his belief in the
+social revolution. He had also established cheap eating-houses for
+poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their
+founder vanished, because Netschajew had placarded revolutionary
+appeals in them. In despair at this, Iwanow wished to retire from the
+secret society. Netschajew, believing that he might betray its
+secrets, enticed Iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the
+help of two fellow-conspirators, Pryow and Nicolajew, shot him, and
+threw the corpse into a pond. He then fled, and arrived safely in
+Switzerland, where, in conjunction with Bakunin, he produced the
+literary efforts referred to above. Soon, however, he quarrelled with
+Bakunin, owing to certain sharp practices of which he was guilty, went
+to London, edited a paper called _The Commonwealth_ (_Die Giemeinde_),
+in which he bitterly attacked his former master, and at last, in 1872,
+was handed over to Russia at the request of the Russian Government.
+Since then nothing more was heard of him; Netschajew disappeared, like
+the demon in a pantomime, "down below."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                    PETER KROPOTKIN AND HIS SCHOOL
+
+    Biography -- Kropotkin's Main Views -- Anarchist Communism
+    and the "Economics of the Heap" (_tas_) -- Kropotkin's
+    Relation to the Propaganda of Action -- Elisee Reclus: his
+    Character and Anarchist Writings -- Jean Grave -- Daniel
+    Saurin's _Order through Anarchy_ -- Louise Michel and G.
+    Elievant -- A. Hamon and the Psychology of Anarchism --
+    Charles Malato and other French Writers on Anarchist
+    Communism -- The Italians: Cafiero, Merlino, and Malatesta.
+
+    "Seek not to found your comfort and freedom on the servitude
+    of another; so long as you rule others, you will never be
+    free yourself. Increase your power of production by studying
+    nature; your powers will grow a thousandfold, if you put them
+    at the service of Humanity. Free the individual: for without
+    the freedom of the individual, it is impossible for society
+    to become free. If you wish to emancipate yourselves, set not
+    your hope on any help from this life or the next: help
+    yourselves! Next you must free yourselves from all your
+    religious and political prejudices. Be free men and trust the
+    nature of a free man: all his faults proceed from the power
+    which he exercises over his own kind or under which he
+    groans."--P. KROPOTKIN.
+
+
+One more Russian, a _declasse_, as Bakunin was, has exercised
+considerable influence on the development of modern Anarchism; and, in
+fact, although he has introduced but few new doctrines into it, has
+made, in the truest sense, a school of his own. Kropotkin, is regarded
+everywhere as the father of "Anarchist Communism," which is, to some
+extent, directly opposed both to the collectivist and evolutionist
+Anarchism of Proudhon and to the other philosophic and individual
+Anarchism of Stirner. In future we must carefully discriminate between
+these two directions of individual and communal Anarchism; moreover
+they are sharply distinguished not only in their intellectual but also
+their actual form. The former tendency seems more adapted to the
+Teutonic races in Germany, England, and America, whilst the Anarchists
+of the Romance nations, but especially the French, are devoted to the
+latter--the communist doctrine of Kropotkin.
+
+Peter Alexandriewitsch Kropotkin is a descendant of the royal house of
+the Ruriks, and it used to be said in jest in the revolutionary
+circles of St. Petersburg that he had more right to the Russian throne
+than the Czar Alexander II., who was only a German. Born at Moscow in
+1842, he was first a page at court, then an officer in the Amur
+Cossacks, and next, Chamberlain to the Czarina. In this atmosphere
+grew up the man who is now developing a perfectly feverish activity
+not only in the realm of intellect and science, but also in propaganda
+of the most destructive character. Prince Kropotkin studied
+mathematics in his youth at the High School, and during his extensive
+travels, which led him to Siberia and even to China, acquired a great
+knowledge of geography. The dreaded Anarchist is and has always been
+active as a writer of geographical and geological works, and enjoys a
+considerable reputation in these sciences, apart from his activity as
+a Socialist teacher and agitator. During a journey to Switzerland and
+Belgium in the year 1872, Prince Kropotkin became more closely
+connected with the "International," and especially with men of
+Bakunin's school; and so shortly as a year later we find him in his
+native land compromised and arrested because of Nihilist intrigues. He
+spent three years as a prisoner in the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul,
+where, however, he was allowed to pursue his scientific studies.[1] In
+the year 1876 he succeeded in escaping from there and reaching
+Switzerland. Here Kropotkin devoted himself to a feverish activity in
+the service of the new doctrines by which he is known. In Geneva he
+immediately joined the leaders of the Anarchist agitation known as the
+"Jurassic Union" (see the chapter on the "Spread of Anarchy"), founded
+the paper _Revolt_, and greatly assisted in extending the Union so
+widely in Switzerland and the South of France. After a short stay in
+England we find him at the beginning of the eighties in France, busy
+here and there with the founding of "groups," delivery of lectures,
+and so forth. In the sensational Anarchist trial at Lyons in 1883 he
+was also involved, and was condemned to five years' imprisonment upon
+his own confession of having been the "intellectual instigator" of the
+bloody demonstrations and riots at Montceau-les-Mines and Lyons in
+1882. Kropotkin was, however, set free after only three years'
+imprisonment, and betook himself to London, where he has lived till
+recently.[2] But the more watchful supervision of Anarchists that has
+been exercised since the murder of President Sadi Carnot, appears to
+have disgusted him with London, for his present place of abode is not
+known.
+
+    [1] See his life in Stepniak, _u. s._, pp. 90-101.
+
+    [2] He was living in Kent in 1897.--TRANS.
+
+Kropotkin's Anarchism rests upon the most scientific and humane
+foundations, and yet assumes the most unscientific and brutal forms.
+To him the Anarchist theory appears to be nothing but a necessary
+adaptation of social science to that modern tendency in all other
+sciences which, leaving on one side abstract and collective
+generality, turn to the individual, as, _e. g._, the cellular theory,
+the study of molecular forces, and so on. Just as all great
+discoveries of modern science have proceeded by rejecting the
+unfruitful deductive method and beginning to build up from below, so
+also, Kropotkin maintains, society must be built up afresh by
+realising all power, all reality, all purpose in individuals, and can
+only arise again new-born synthetically, from the free grouping of
+these individuals. With unconscious self-irony, Kropotkin remarks that
+he would like to call this system the "synthetic," if Herbert Spencer
+had not already applied that name "to another system." Anyone who
+would conclude from this that the learned prince would build up
+scientifically a well-founded system, as his earlier predecessors
+tried to do, would be mistaken. With a few exceptions, Kropotkin has
+only published short works, though certainly numerous, in which he
+uses epithets rather than arguments, and those in an intentionally
+trivial tone; indeed he sometimes mocks at the "wise and learned
+theorists," and regards one deed as worth more than a thousand
+books.[3] The same internal contrast is seen in him in another
+direction. He is apparently a philanthropist of the purest water,
+wishing to see the foundation of an universal brotherhood of humanity,
+based upon what he regards as the innate feeling of solidarity in man;
+we seem to see in this Proudhon's "justice," Comte's "love," in short,
+the moral order of the world, however materialist Kropotkin may be in
+action, and however much he may deny all moral element therein. But
+how does he mean to bring about this moral order? By any means that is
+suitable, even by the sanguinary "propaganda of action," and finally
+by the re-establishment of the actual conditions of the primeval
+ape-man, or tribal life on the level of the inhabitants of Tierra del
+Fuego.
+
+    [3] The chief work of Kropotkin is _La Conquete du Pain_,
+    Paris, 1892. (The chapter on agriculture was printed
+    separately as a pamphlet in 1892.) We quote below his
+    numerous smaller writings in the editions which we possess,
+    without vouching for the chronological order or completeness
+    of the list. _Les Paroles d'un Revolte_, 1885; _Revolutionary
+    Governments_ (trans. from German to French, Anarchist
+    Library, vol. i.); _Un Siecle d'Attente_, 1789-1889, Paris,
+    1893; _La Grande Revolution_, Paris, 1893; _Les Temps
+    Nouveaux_ (conference at London), Paris, 1894; _Jeunes Gens_,
+    4th ed., Paris, '93; _La Loi et l'Autorite_, 6th ed., Paris,
+    '92; _Les Prisons_, 2d ed., Paris, '90; _L'Anarchie dans
+    l'Evolution Socialiste_, 2d ed., Paris, '92; _Esprit de
+    Revolte_, Paris, '92, 5th ed.; _le Salariat_, 2d ed., Paris,
+    '92; _La Morale Anarchiste_, 1890; "Anarchist Communion: its
+    Basis and Principles" (republished by permission of the
+    editor of the _Nineteenth Century_), London, 1887.
+
+
+For Kropotkin Anarchy consists in (1) the liberation of the producer
+from the yoke of capital, in production in common, and the free
+enjoyment of all products of common work; (2) in freedom from any yoke
+of government, in the free development of individuals in groups, of
+groups in federations, in free organisation rising from the simple to
+the complex according to men's needs and mutual endeavours; and (3) in
+liberation from religious morality, and a free morality without duty
+or sanctions proceeding and becoming customary from the life of the
+community itself.[4]
+
+    [4] _L'Anarchie_, p. 26.
+
+The postulate of the abolition of the authority of the State is the
+well-known, old stock proposal of the Anarchists. But it is noticeable
+that Kropotkin attacks the State among other things, because it does
+not carry out the maxim of _laisser faire_ so often imposed upon it by
+another party. Kropotkin thinks that the State acts rather on the
+principle of _not laisser faire_, and is always intervening in favour
+of the exploiter as against the exploited (_Les Temps Nouveaux_, p.
+46). The State is accordingly a purely civic idea (_l'idee
+bourgeoise_), utterly rotten and decaying, only held together by the
+plague of laws. All law and dominion, including parliamentary
+government, must therefore be put aside, and be replaced by the
+"system of no government" and free arrangement (_la libre entente_).
+Kropotkin sees everywhere already, even at present in public, and
+especially in economic life, germs of this free understanding or
+_entente_, in which government never intervenes; what, for example,
+in isolated cases two railway companies do in making a free
+arrangement about fares and time-tables, is to be the universal form
+of society.
+
+In this society the feeling of solidarity alone, which Kropotkin
+assumes as a sort of _a priori_ axiom of society, will determine men's
+actions: "Each must retain the right of acting as he thinks best, and
+the right of society to punish any one for a social action in any way
+must be denied...." "We are not afraid of doing without judges and
+their verdicts," says he, in _La Morale Anarchiste_. "With Guyon we
+renounce each and every approval of morality or any duties to
+morality. We do not shrink from saying: Do what pleases you! Act as
+you think fit! for we are convinced that the great majority of
+mankind, in proportion to their enlightenment and to the completeness
+with which they throw off their present fetters, will always act in a
+manner beneficial to society--just as we are certain that some day or
+other a child will walk upon its two feet and not on all fours,
+because it is born of parents that belong to the genus _homo_." But
+the comparison is incorrect. There are, as a matter of fact,
+degenerate children of human kind who, deprived of all understanding,
+creep on all fours quite unconcernedly. Equally insufficient is
+another proof adduced by Kropotkin, who is a great friend of animals,
+from the animal world. Looking around among animals, he finds in them
+also an innate feeling of sympathy with their own species, expressed
+in mutual assistance in time of need or danger. By this he wishes to
+prove that men likewise would act in the same way to their fellow-men
+merely from the feeling of solidarity, and without laws or government.
+Elsewhere certainly, in a later work, he has to confess that there are
+among men an enormous number of individuals who do not understand that
+the welfare of the individual is identical with that of the race. But
+supposing that man were exactly like the animals, then--speaking in
+Kropotkin's manner--he would stand no higher in morality than they.
+But then do we really find that, in the animal world, the number of
+cases in which they act from a feeling of solidarity is greater than
+those in which they simply make use of brute force or blind want of
+forethought, and have animals the sense to do away with organised
+solidarity, the State, in order to replace it by something unorganised
+and consequently less valuable?
+
+But Prince Kropotkin, who appears to be such a stern materialist, is a
+very enthusiast, who gives way to utter self-deception as to human
+nature. "We do not want to be governed!" he says; "and do we not
+thereby declare that we ourselves wish to rule no one? We do not wish
+to be deceived; we always would hear nothing but the truth. Do we not
+declare by this that we ourselves wish to deceive no one, and that we
+promise to speak always the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
+the truth?" Who can fail to recognise here the exact opposite to the
+real facts of the case? The Anarchists, and especially those who
+acknowledge Kropotkin as their highest "authority," do not wish force
+used against them, yet use it themselves; they do not wish to be
+killed, and yet kill others. Can there be a stronger refutation of
+Anarchist morality?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kropotkin has finally broken with the Communism of Proudhon, and
+placed Anarchist Communism in its stead. Proudhon, and, to a certain
+extent, Bakunin also--who always called himself a Collectivist, and
+repelled the charge of Communism[5]--certainly attacked property as
+_rente_ or profit derived from the appropriation of the forces of
+nature; but they have also not only not denied the right to individual
+possession of property, but even sought to make it general. Everyone
+should become a possessor of property; only land and the means of
+labour, which must be accessible to all, may not be appropriated; they
+are collective property, and are applied to employment in a proportion
+equal to the quotient of the amount of land at disposal, or the means
+of production on the one hand and the number of members of free
+"groups" on the other. We have already seen to what a complicated
+organisation of economic life this led in the case of Proudhon's
+theory; but he did not entrust the maintenance of this economic order
+to the strong hand of the State, but believed that life, when once
+brought into equilibrium or "balance," could never fall away from it
+again. We will not repeat here what an illusion is contained in this.
+Collectivism left to itself must degenerate again at once into a state
+of economic inequality, and accordingly those Collectivists who make
+the maintenance of economic equilibrium the business of the State,
+possess at least the merit of consistency. But then the very
+foundation idea of Anarchism is hereby lost.
+
+    [5] At the Peace Congress at Bern in 1869, Bakunin defended
+    himself against the reproach of Communist tendencies, saying:
+    "I abominate Communism, because it is a denial of freedom,
+    and I cannot understand anything human without freedom. I am
+    no Communist, because Communism concentrates all the forces
+    of society in the State, and lets them be absorbed by it,
+    because it necessarily results in the centralisation of
+    property in the hands of the State; whereas I wish to do away
+    with the State, to utterly root out the principle of the
+    authority and guardianship of the State, which, under the
+    pretence of improving and idealising men, has hitherto
+    enslaved, oppressed, exploited, and ruined them. I wish for
+    the organisation of society and of collective and social
+    property from below upwards, by means of free association,
+    and not from above downwards by means of authority, be it
+    what it may. In demanding the abolition of the State, I mean
+    to abolish the inheritance of property by an individual,
+    _i. e._, of property that is only a matter of the State's
+    arrangement, and is only a consequence of the principle of
+    the State itself. In this sense I am a Collectivist and by no
+    means a Communist."
+
+This irreconcilable contradiction between Anarchism and Collectivism
+decided Kropotkin to give up the latter entirely, and to set up in its
+stead Anarchist Communism, thus attaching himself to the lines already
+indicated by Hess and Gruen. He criticised unsparingly (in _La Conquete
+du Pain_ and _Le Salariat_) every system of reward or wages, whether
+based on Saint-Simon's principle of "To each according to his
+capacity, and to every capacity according to its results"; or on
+Proudhon's rule, "to each according to his powers, to each according
+to his needs." With the reward of labour he rejects the period of
+labour, possession even in the form of Collective possession, and also
+the payment of labour (_les bons du travail_), equally with other
+forms of property, capital, or exploitation. He even attacks the
+theory of the full result of labour that ought to accrue to every
+labourer, this most stalwart hobby-horse of Socialism. "It would mean
+the annihilation of the race," he says, "if the mother would not
+sacrifice her life to save the life of her children; if man would not
+give where he could expect no recompense."
+
+Kropotkin's motto, that has been so eagerly accepted by the Anarchists
+of Romance nationality, is on the contrary: "Everything belongs to
+all," _tout est a tous; i. e._, no one is any longer a possessor; if
+after the Revolution all goods and property were expropriated and
+given back to the community, then everybody would take what he
+pleased, according to his needs. Anyone might just as well appropriate
+the land as another object or commodity. "Heap together all the means
+of life, and let them be divided according to each man's need," he
+cries[6]; "let each choose freely from this heap everything of which
+there is a superfluity, and let only those commodities be divided of
+which there might be some lack. That is a solution of the problem
+according to the wish of the people." Again, "free choice from the
+heap in all means of life that are abundant, proper division
+(_rationement_) of all those things the production of which is
+limited; division according to needs, with special regard to children,
+old people, and the weak generally. The enjoyment of all this not in a
+social feeding-institution (_dans la marmite sociale_), but at home
+in the family circle with our friends, according to the taste of the
+individual, that is the ideal of the masses, whose mouthpiece we are."
+
+    [6] In _Anarchy_, p. 13.
+
+It is interesting to see how all attempts to do away with individual
+property come back again at once in thought to that same property, and
+in opposition Proudhon might on this basis write a very pretty retort
+to _What is Property?_ Kropotkin wishes first of all a general
+expropriation, and then each person is to have what he likes. But what
+is the use of an expropriation, which only means one thing, if a
+division to all is to follow it? Would it not be simpler as the
+inauguration of Anarchist Communism, to do away with the guarantee of
+property at once, and then to watch quietly and see how individuals
+deprived each other of their possessions? The result would be just the
+same, but there is a well-understood contradiction in first declaring
+all property as a common possession--in which the reality of society
+which Kropotkin denies is thereby recognised--and then giving to each
+person the right to dispose as he pleases of everything. Stirner was
+at least logical when he declared: "All belongs to me!" As a matter of
+fact the statements, "All belongs to me," "All belongs to all,"
+"Nothing belongs to me," and "Nothing belongs to all," are perfectly
+identical. The difference between all these conceptions of property
+according to the principles of individualist or Communist Anarchism,
+and the relations of property as they exist to-day, merely reduces
+itself to this, that with us the State affords the guarantee of
+property, while Anarchy, at most, places the guarantee of it in free
+association or agreement, proceeding from a "group" or a "union of
+egotists." Here we come face to face with the purely formal question
+of whether right is derived from convention or compulsion; but as
+regards individual property as such no alteration is thereby made.
+
+But Kropotkin's "economics of the heap" (_la mise au tas, la prise au
+tas_) has another fault besides this matter of logic. Its talented
+inventor proceeds from two assumptions, which characterise him as a
+Utopian of the first water; on the one hand the old and incorrect
+assumption of the inexhaustible productivity of the earth, and on the
+other the assumption of the innate solidarity of mankind.
+
+Kropotkin maintains that production now already outweighs consumption,
+and that the former is growing with unsuspected rapidity together with
+scientific insight into the methods of production and with freedom of
+production. A piece of land which to-day is cultivated by ten persons,
+and feeds one hundred, would with rational cultivation feed one
+thousand people, and with the general employment of machinery would
+only require five persons to cultivate it. In fact, diminution of
+labour, with increase of production under rational cultivation, is
+perhaps the quintessence of Kropotkin's argument. Men will then
+quickly leave the less productive countries to settle in the most
+suitable and most productive districts, and from these they will
+extract with proportionately little labour a never-ending superfluity,
+so that the economic arrangement proposed by Kropotkin will become
+not only possible, but there will even be too much to distribute. Here
+again we have the Land of Idleness in the disguise of science, the
+millennium of the revolution. Let us listen to the description of this
+return to Paradise in Kropotkin's own words:
+
+"The workers will [after the Revolution] go away from the city and
+return to the country. With the help of machinery which will enable
+the weakest among us to support it, they will introduce the revolution
+into the methods of cultivation, as they had previously with the ideas
+and conditions, of those who were before but slaves. Here hundreds of
+acres will be covered with glass houses, and men and women will tend
+with gentle hands the young plants. Elsewhere hundreds of acres will
+be cleared and broken up by machinery worked by steam, improved by
+manures and enriched by phosphates. Laughing troops of workers will in
+due time cover these fields with seeds, guided in their work and in
+their experiments by those who understand agriculture, but all of them
+continually animated by the powerful and practical spirit of a people
+that has waked up from a long sleep and sees before it the happiness
+of all, that light-house of humanity shedding its rays afar. And in
+two or three months an early harvest will relieve their most pressing
+needs, and provide with food a people who after centuries of silent
+hope will at last be able to satisfy its hunger or eat as its appetite
+desires. Meanwhile the popular genius, the genius of a people that is
+rising and knows its own requirements, will seek new means of
+production which only need the test of experiment in order to come
+into general use. Attempts will be made to concentrate light, that
+well-known factor in agriculture, which in the latitude of Yakutsk
+ripens barley in forty-five days, and to produce it artificially, and
+with light rival heat in promoting the growth of plants. Some genius
+of the future will invent an instrument to guide the rays of the sun,
+and compel them to do work without it being necessary to seek in the
+depths of the earth for the heat contained in coal. Efforts will be
+made to water the ground with solutions of minute organisms--an idea
+of yesterday that will make it possible to introduce into the ground
+the little living cells that are necessary for plants in order to feed
+the young roots, and to decompose the component parts of the earth,
+and make them fit to be assimilated." Kropotkin adds, rendering
+criticism unnecessary: "We shall make experiments, but we need go no
+farther, for we should enter upon the realms of romance."
+
+We need not now consider whether the statement that production is
+already surpassing the capacity of consumption is really quite true;
+the vast majority of economists is of a different opinion. But even if
+it were so, and if production should further increase, Kropotkin
+himself admits that the necessary presupposition of abundant
+production is rational cultivation. But the first condition of such
+rational agriculture is fixed organisation. This condition is to-day
+fulfilled; but in Kropotkin's scheme there would only be cultivation
+by robbery, and that invariably leads at last to want, and a lack of
+production. Kropotkin has seen this himself, for otherwise his
+proposal to distribute those products, the growth of which is limited,
+and of which there might be a lack, would be most superfluous; for in
+the land of lotus-eaters there is no want.
+
+This admission that such a case might happen is, however, not only a
+relapse from the promised land of the future into the sober reality of
+to-day, but it is the negation of Anarchy. Where is the line to be
+drawn between the superfluous and the non-superfluous? Who is to draw
+it, and still more, who would recognise it? Who will undertake the
+distribution, and who will respect it? Every form of authority is
+abolished, and no one is pledged to anything. What if I simply refuse
+to recognise the limits made by the Commission of Distribution or to
+obey their decisions? Will anyone compel me? In that case Anarchy
+would be a fraud; but if I am allowed to do as I like, distribution is
+impossible and Communism a fraud.
+
+From this dilemma Kropotkin has endeavoured to extricate himself, in
+the fashion of certain celebrated examples, by invoking a _deus ex
+machina_. Comte called it love, Proudhon justice, and Kropotkin calls
+it "the solidarity of the human race,"--three different words, but
+they imply one and the same thing: the moral order of the universe--a
+dogma which anyone may believe or not, as he likes. Kropotkin assures
+us that, when once the great revolution has taken place, human
+solidarity will arise like a phoenix from the smoking ashes of the
+old order. We do not consider ourselves better or worse than other
+men, but we doubt very seriously whether we ourselves, if confronted
+on the one hand by want, and on the other by Kropotkin's famous "heap
+of commodities," would give up the chief necessaries of life (and it
+is these in which want must first be felt, just because they are the
+most necessary) merely out of a feeling of solidarity with a man who
+next moment, if he is stronger than I, might turn me out of my house,
+kill me, or part with my books or pictures as if they were his own,
+with impunity. This sort of Communism would only be possible under the
+rule of a despotic authority, such as the social-democratic State of
+the future must inevitably possess; but it would never be possible for
+a _libre entente_ of perfectly free individuals; "free" men in the
+Anarchist sense will never let themselves be made equal and never have
+done so.
+
+But Kropotkin thinks otherwise. He goes back to those dear, good, and
+too happy savages of Rousseau, and tells us[7] that primitive peoples,
+so long as they submit to no authority but live in Anarchy, lead a
+most enviably happy life. "Apart from the occurrences of natural
+forces, such as sudden changes of weather, earthquakes, frost, etc.,
+and apart from war and accidents, primitive races lead a rich and full
+life out of their own resources, following their own wishes, at the
+cost of the minimum of labour. Read the descriptions left by the great
+voyagers of early centuries, read certain modern records of travel,
+and you will see that where society has not yet sunk under the yoke of
+priests and warriors, plenty prevails among savages. Like gregarious
+birds they spend the morning in common labour; in the evening they
+rest in common and enjoy themselves. They have none of the troubles of
+life known to the proletariat in the great centres of industry of our
+time. Misery only overtakes them when they fall under the yoke of some
+form of authority."
+
+    [7] _Les Temps Nouveaux_, p. 21.
+
+Here we have the golden age existing before any form of society, just
+as previously we heard the description of a golden age after the fall
+of forms of society, and that the misery of this "cursed civilisation"
+can only be removed by doing away with such a society and returning
+again to the same primitive condition. It is the same old tale of the
+"social-contract" theory to which our Anarchists one and all
+invariably recur after manifold scientific toil and trouble. In fact
+this primitive paradise described by Kropotkin is just as much a
+figment of his imagination as the Anarchist paradise of the future. He
+speaks of early travellers. Now, as regards the ethnographic
+observations of old travellers, they are a very doubtful source of
+information. Formerly it was frequently declared off-hand that this or
+that people had no idea of religion or lived in Anarchy. The reason
+was that travellers completely underrated primitive forms in
+comparison with their own preconceived religious or political ideas
+and regarded them as naught. Exact observations have shown that a
+complete lack of all religious conceptions is as rare in primitive
+races as complete lack of all social organisation or form of
+authority. Kropotkin unfortunately does not mention the "certain new
+travellers" in whose books he has read those descriptions of the happy
+state of primitive peoples produced by Anarchy. As far as we know,
+Anarchy in the proper sense can only be stated of a very small number
+of races like the Tierra del Fuegans, the Eskimos, etc.; but the life
+of these people is, to their disadvantage, exceedingly different from
+the fancied paradise of Kropotkin. If we read the unanimous
+descriptions given by Fitzroy, Darwin, Topinard, and others about the
+inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, we shall very quickly abjure our
+belief--if we ever held it--that they lead such an Eden-like existence
+as Kropotkin's Anarchist savages. We find, rather, misery and hunger
+as permanent conditions, that appear here as consequences of Anarchy,
+and the blame cannot be laid entirely upon the lack of fertility of
+the soil. Narborough[8] says of the Tierra del Fuegans: "If any desire
+for civilisation arose, the forests that cover the country would not
+be an obstacle thereto, for in many parts there appear open, grassy
+spots, which are frequently regarded by seamen as the remnants of
+attempts at agriculture by the Spaniards." But in general the
+statements of all travellers and ethnographers agree in showing that
+the existence of these so-called "savages" is a continual and bitter
+struggle against nature and against each other for the barest
+necessaries of life, and that if hunger is not a constant guest, their
+mode of living is a very irregular alternation between surfeit and
+prolonged fast. How difficult it is to rear children among these
+primitive people and even among others more advanced in civilisation
+is proved by the terrible custom, common to all parts of the globe, of
+infanticide, which has no other object than artificial selection for
+breeding in view of the harsh conditions of existence. Persons who are
+regarded by the community only as mouths to feed and not as actual
+workers, the old and weak, are simply killed off by many races--even
+by those who, in other respects, do not stand upon a low level; and
+the murder of the parents and the aged appears to be as widespread
+among primitive races as infanticide. But these are facts which not
+only contradict the Anarchist assumption of a golden age of Anarchy,
+but still more contradict that of an innate feeling of solidarity in
+the human race.
+
+    [8] Quoted in Ratzel's _F. Voelkerkunde_, vol. ii., p. 668.
+    Leipsic and Vienna, 1890.
+
+A further remark remains to be made as to Kropotkin's attitude toward
+the "propaganda of action." It is often said that he rejects it. But
+that is quite contrary to the facts. In his _Psychology of Revolution_
+(_L'Esprit de Revolte_, p. 7) he takes up quite a decisive attitude in
+reply to the question how words must be translated into deeds: "The
+answer is easy," says he; "it is action, the continual, incessantly
+renewed action of the minority that will produce this transformation.
+Courage, devotion, self-sacrifice, are as contagious as cowardice,
+subjection, and terror. What forms is action to take? Any form--as
+different as are circumstances, means, and temperaments. Sometimes
+arousing sorrow, sometimes scorn, but always bold; sometimes isolated,
+sometimes in common, it despises no means ready to hand, it neglects
+no opportunity of public life to propagate discontent, and to clothe
+it in words, to arouse hatred against the exploiter, to make the
+ruling powers ridiculous, to show their weakness, and ever to excite
+audacity, the spirit of revolt, by the preaching of example. If a
+feeling of revolution awakes in a country, and the spirit of open
+revolt is already sufficiently alive among the masses to break out in
+tumultuous disorders in the streets, _emeutes_ and risings,--then it
+is 'action' alone by which the minority can create this feeling of
+independence and that atmosphere of audacity without which no
+revolution can be completed. Men of courage who do not stop at words
+but seek to transform them into deeds, pure characters for whom the
+action and the idea are inseparable, who prefer prison, exile, or
+death, rather than a life not in accordance with their principles,
+fearless men, who know what must be risked in order to win
+success,--those are the devoted outposts who begin the battle long
+before the masses are sufficiently moved to unfurl the standard of
+insurrection, and to march sword in hand to the conquest of their
+rights. Amid complaints, speeches, theoretical discussions, an act of
+personal or general revolt takes place. It cannot be otherwise than
+that the great mass at first remains indifferent; those especially
+who admire the courage of the person or group that took the initiative
+will apparently follow the wise and prudent in hastening to describe
+this act as folly, and in speaking of the fools and hot-headed people
+who compromise everything. These wise and prudent ones had fully
+calculated that their party, if it slowly pursued its objects, would
+perhaps have conquered the world in one, two, or three centuries, and
+now the unforeseen intrudes! The unforeseen is that which was not
+foreseen by the wise and prudent. But those who know history and can
+lay claim to any well-ordered reasoning power, however small, know
+quite well that a theoretical propaganda of revolution must
+necessarily be translated into action long before theorists have
+decided that the time for it has come. None the less the theorists are
+enraged with the 'fools' and excommunicate and ban them. But the fools
+find sympathy, the mass of the people secretly applaud their boldness,
+and they find imitators. In proportion as the first of them fill the
+prisons, others come forward to continue their work. The acts of
+illegal protest, of revolt, of revenge, increase. Indifference becomes
+impossible. Those who at first only asked what on earth the fools
+meant, are compelled to take them seriously, to discuss their ideas,
+and to take sides for or against. By acts which are done under the
+notice of the people, the new idea communicates itself to men's minds
+and finds adherents. One such act makes in a few days more proselytes
+than thousands of books."
+
+This is precisely the view of the followers of Bakunin, only obscured
+and founded on a psychological basis.
+
+Kropotkin forms the centre of a large number of Anarchist authors, who
+are working at the development or the popularising of Anarchist theory
+on the same lines as he is doing. From the mass of unimportant writers
+two rise up prominently, both essentially differing one from the
+other, Elisee Reclus, the savant, and Jean Grave, editor of the
+_Revolte_.
+
+Jean Jacques Elisee Reclus[9] was born on March 15, 1830, at Ste. Foy
+la Grande, in the Gironde, the son of a Protestant minister. He was
+the eldest but one of twelve children, and early became acquainted
+with want and distress, a circumstance which, in conjunction with his
+warm and affectionate heart, sufficiently explains his later social
+views. Educated in Rhenish Prussia, he attended the Protestant Faculty
+at Montauban, in Southern France, and then the University of Berlin,
+where he studied geography under Ritter. At present Reclus is regarded
+as one of the best geographers, and is the author of the famous and
+much admired _Nouvelle Geographie Universelle_, in nineteen volumes,
+and of the great popular physical geography _La Terre_, which has also
+been translated into German. His student life and also his stay at
+Berlin coincided with the stormy period of the Revolution of 1848, and
+Reclus eagerly accepted the views of the political and social
+Radicalism of that day. The _coup d'etat_ of December 2, 1851,
+compelled him to leave France; he fled to England, visited Ireland,
+and then from 1852 to 1857 travelled in the United States, North
+America, Central America, and Colombia. Returning to Paris, he devoted
+himself to a scientific arrangement of his studies during his travels,
+but at the same time took a more and more active part in the social
+and political movements of the day. Thus he was one of the first
+authors in France who eagerly supported the war of the Northern States
+of America for freedom, and defended Lincoln. When the American
+Minister in Paris wished to express his recognition to the savant,
+then living in extremely modest circumstances, by the present of a
+considerable sum of money, Reclus angrily rejected it. During the
+siege of Paris in 1870, Elisee Reclus joined the National Guard, and
+was one of the crew of the balloon under Nadar who endeavoured to
+convey news outside Paris. As a member of the International
+Association of Workmen, he published in the _Cri du Peuple_, at the
+time of the outbreak of the 18th March, 1871, a hostile manifesto
+against the Government at Versailles. Still belonging to the National
+Guard, which had now risen, he took part in a reconnaissance on the
+plateau of Chatillon, in which he was taken prisoner on the 5th of
+April. After seven months' imprisonment in Brest, during which he
+taught his fellow-prisoners mathematics, the court-martial in St.
+Germain condemned him, on 16th November, 1871, to be transported. This
+sentence caused a great outcry in scientific circles, and from
+different quarters, especially from eminent English statesmen and men
+of letters, among them being Darwin, Wallace, and Lord Amberley, the
+President of the French Republic was urged to mitigate his punishment.
+Accordingly, Thiers commuted the sentence of transportation on 4th
+January, 1872, to one of simple banishment. Reclus then proceeded to
+Lugano, but soon afterwards lost his young wife there, whom he loved
+passionately, and who had followed him into banishment. Later on he
+went to Switzerland, where he settled at Clarens, near Montreux, on
+the Lake of Geneva, and devoted himself again to Communist and
+geographical studies. In 1879, Reclus returned to Paris, was appointed
+in 1892 Professor of Geography at Brussels, but in 1893 was again
+deprived of his post on account of Anarchist outrages, in which he was
+quite unjustly supposed to be implicated. The students thereupon left
+the university, and founded a free university, in which Reclus is at
+present a professor.
+
+    [9] _Cf._ Wolkenhauer, _Elisee Reclus_ (_Globus_, vol. lxv.,
+    No. 8, Feb., 1894). Reclus's Anarchist writings are: _Produit
+    de la Terre et de l'Industrie_, 1885; _Richesse et Misere;
+    Evolution et Revolution_, 6th ed., Paris, 1891; and _A mon
+    Frere le Paysan_, Geneva, 1894.
+
+Elisee Reclus's Anarchism is explained externally not only by his
+intimate friendship with Kropotkin, but still more from his connexion
+with an "Anarchist family," for his brother, the eminent
+anthropologist Elie, and several of his nephews as well as their wives
+are devoted adherents of Anarchism. But while the younger members of
+the Reclus family are more closely connected with the "propaganda of
+action" (the engineer Paul Reclus was accused of being an accomplice
+of Vaillant), the older members, especially Elisee, are learned
+dreamers who have nothing in common with the folly of the dynamitard.
+"The idea of Anarchism is beautiful, is great," says Elisee, "but
+these miscreants sully our teaching: he who calls himself an Anarchist
+should be one of a good and gentle sort. It is a mistake to believe
+that the Anarchist idea can be promoted by acts of barbarity." And in
+the preface to the last volume of his _Universal Geography_ he says of
+his travels: "I have everywhere found myself at home, in my own
+country, among men, my brothers. I have never allowed myself to be
+carried away by sentiment, except that of sympathy and respect for all
+the inhabitants of the one great Fatherland. On this round earth that
+revolves so rapidly in space, a grain of sand amid infinity, is it
+worth while for us to hate one another?"
+
+Reclus has no special doctrine, but shares generally the views of his
+friend Kropotkin, although his greater scientific insight on many
+points leads him to incline rather to the Collectivism of Proudhon and
+Bakunin. The "economy of the heap" (_tas_) appears to Reclus, at any
+rate in the province of agriculture, to be unworkable. He prefers a
+distribution of land among individuals, family groups, and
+communities, according to the proposition of individual and collective
+power of labour. "The moment a piece of landed property surpasses the
+limits which can be properly cultivated, the holder should have no
+right to claim the surplus for himself; it will fall to the share of
+another worker." The Russian _mir_ is always before his thoughts as
+the patron of peasant organisation. Nothing is more remarkable than
+the affection of the Anarchist followers of Proudhon and Bakunin for
+the Russian _mir_ system. It would be a meritorious piece of
+sociological work to show the fundamental errors which underlie the
+agricultural systems that have been tried and have failed in modern
+attempts to revive them. The endeavour to revive them is now so
+general that it is no longer to be wondered at that we see those who
+are apparently most extreme, and even Anarchists, following the same
+reactionary stream as the Socialist Catholics and their followers. The
+folly of their proceedings is best seen in those people who angrily
+reject a revival of the guilds, but by no means object to the revival
+of the old village communism, which implies a far earlier stage of
+development. We are, however, digressing, but must add one further
+remark. The Anarchists are accustomed to say that their free economic
+organisation will quite absorb and devour politics, authority, and
+government, so that nothing of them remains; while, on the other hand,
+they represent the _mir_ as the pattern of such an organisation. But
+how comes it that, in the very country where the _mir_, this "just"
+village communism, exists, in Russia itself, on the one hand famine is
+never absent,[10] and on the other the Czar's bureaucracy and Cossack
+tyranny flourish so exceedingly, and that the peasant population
+itself is the most powerful support of the arbitrary rule of their
+"Little Father," the Czar?
+
+    [10] This is seen, _inter alia_, by the number of persons
+    wandering about seeking food--"a vagabond proletariat." In
+    1886 no less than 4,951,000 were wandering more than thirty
+    versts from their dwellings. Even the women have to leave the
+    villages to seek support elsewhere, and the number of women
+    and children who thus are compelled to seek work at a
+    distance is increasing every year. Thus, _e. g._, in the
+    district of the Government of Wjatka, in 1874, 2.68 per
+    cent.; in 1883, 6.46 per cent.; in 1885, 7.22 per cent. of
+    the women capable of work did this. Often whole families
+    wander about, and women with children at the breast are no
+    uncommon sight among the troops of wandering workmen.
+    (Westlaender, A., _Russland vor einem Regime-Wechsel_,
+    Stuttgart, 1894, p. 28.)
+
+It might seem surprising that a savant of Reclus's calibre does not
+himself perceive a refutation that is so obvious. But Reclus is a
+type: who does not know the figure--even here not seldom seen--of the
+earnest savant, full of the purest love and devotion for mankind, who
+dabbles in politics in his leisure hours? It is as if in this time of
+leisure his spirit seeks to free itself from the severe discipline of
+his professional life. The man who, in his capacity as a doctor, a
+geographer, or physicist, would never allow subjective influences to
+trouble his method, deals with politics quite apart, as if there were
+not also a science of politics that, like any other science, regards
+freedom from the subjective standpoint, or from love and hatred as the
+first condition of the validity of its propositions. Reclus, the
+celebrated geographer, goes so far, as a politician, as to deny the
+value of political economy and to assert that every workman knows
+more, and is better acquainted with social laws, than the learned
+economist.
+
+On the other hand, it is just this circumstance that gives this aged
+savant an importance in Anarchist theory, to which the originality and
+the teaching of his Anarchist writings could give him no claim. The
+pamphlet _Evolution and Revolution_ is nothing but a _rechauffe_ of
+the well-known commonplaces of Anarchism; but the noble personality of
+Reclus that stands out before us at every sentence, the honourable
+intention, the high moral desire, the inspired hope which make even
+the errors of opponents so touching, give the little book the same
+importance for his followers as the _Contrat Social_ once possessed,
+and makes his decoction the quintessence of Anarchist thought, in its
+noblest, purest, and also--as a consequence--its most nebulous form.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man of quite a different stamp is Jean Grave, the soul of the chief
+Anarchist organ, the Parisian _Revolte_, which originated from the
+earlier paper, the _Revolte_ of Kropotkin, which appeared previously
+in Geneva, and was suppressed there in 1885. Among the multitude of
+_declasses_ who gave up their millions, their rank, and their estates
+in order to preach Anarchy, Grave has been, since Proudhon, the only
+member of the proletariat who has made any important contributions to
+the theoretical edifice of the new doctrine. He was first a cobbler
+and then a printer, before becoming editor of the Parisian weekly
+journal.
+
+Grave is the Netschajew of Kropotkin. In the year 1883 he published,
+under the name of Jehan Levagre, a production entitled _Publication du
+Groupe de se et 43e Arrondissements_, wherein he maintained the thesis
+that public propaganda must serve the secret "propaganda of action" as
+a means of defence; it must offer it the means of action, namely,
+men, money, and influence; and especially must contribute to place
+these actions in the right light by commenting upon them. That is also
+the method in which Grave edits the _Revolte_. He is every inch the
+man of action, both in his journal and in his other writings, most of
+all in his book _La Societe Mourante et l'Anarchie_ (printed in
+London; the original edition is suppressed in France), which in 1894
+brought upon its author a sentence of two years' imprisonment on
+account of its provocative tone. On the other hand, in his latest
+work, _La Societe au Lendemain de la Revolution_ (3d ed., Paris,
+1893), Grave endeavours not only to write as a theorist, but has even
+sketched a definite picture of the Anarchist paradise. Adorned with
+the exterior drapery of the modern doctrine of descent and by the
+influence of H. Spencer, who has been totally misunderstood by Grave
+as by all other Anarchists, the teaching of Kropotkin here meets us
+without essential addition, but clear and precise. Grave only admits
+an organisation in the society of the future in the sense of a
+friendly agreement, formed by the identity of interests among
+individuals who group themselves together for the common execution of
+some task. These societies, which are formed and dissolved again
+merely according to the needs of the moment, are the _alpha_ and
+_omega_ of social organisation. From the group will proceed the
+production of shoes and the construction of further railways; there
+may be co-operation of groups, but no centralisation in the shape of
+commissions, delegations, or similar "parasitic" institutions. The
+ticklish question of the position of children under Anarchy is solved
+(with the resolute optimism peculiar to Grave) by a _libre entente_.
+Naturally there can be no right to any child, since there will be at
+most merely a "family group," and not a family. Those who wish to
+nurse and look after their children can, of course, do so; and those
+who do not wish to, can probably find some enthusiast who will with
+pleasure relieve them of the burden of humanity to which they have
+certainly given life, but which concerns them no more from the moment
+when the umbilical cord between mother and child is severed. Of course
+there can be no talk of education under Anarchy, because education and
+discipline presuppose authority; and therefore education will be a
+matter of "individual initiative." On the other hand, education will
+flourish luxuriantly because every one will perceive its value; and so
+on.
+
+The internal contradiction of Anarchism is nowhere so clearly seen as
+when it is a question of children, who form the most important group
+of "the weak." We have already touched upon this in connection with
+Stirner's union of egoists. But the more one attempts to understand
+this state of society in detail, the more violent becomes the
+contradiction between its supposed purpose and its actual
+consequences. For what purpose are we to overthrow the present order
+of society, and make any other form of society resting upon authority
+impossible? Is it in order to make the oppression of the weak by the
+strong, of minorities by majorities, of one man by another,
+impossible; to give each individual his full "integral" freedom? And
+what, as a matter of fact, would be the consequences of Anarchy?
+Imagine wanton, idle mothers, without conscience and seeking only
+enjoyment--and Grave admits that such exist to-day, and that in a
+future society they cannot be compelled to support their
+children,--imagine that such persons are set free from the duty of
+caring for their own offspring, of suckling and attending to them, and
+that it is to be left to mere chance and the "enthusiasm" of others,
+whether a child gets milk, or even is fed and cared for. How many
+children would perish? How many "weaker ones" would fall victims to
+the brutality of the stronger in the valuation of their individuality?
+We cannot be deceived with the "innate harmony or solidarity, justice
+or love of mankind," or whatever other name may be given to this
+figment of the imagination; still less with the Land of Indolence,
+overflowing with plenty, promised by Kropotkin and his followers. Both
+of these suppositions must first of all be proved actually to exist;
+at present they are only maintained obstinately because, as a matter
+of fact, they cannot be proved.
+
+Nature and life speak another language, perhaps more sorrowful and
+more convincing. The appeals to Darwin and Buechner are, in the
+language of Darwinism, the society of to-day, and any other form of
+society based upon the principle of the State implies a softening of
+the struggle for existence by artificial selection; but Anarchy would
+be natural selection, and thus would be a step lower in development.
+The return to primitive stages, which have long since been passed
+through, would be the external form in which this fact would appear;
+thus, for example, the conditions described by Grave in "the sexual
+group" would mean a return to the times and conditions which, in all
+races of a primitive type living in total or partial Anarchy, have led
+to the dreadful custom of murdering children and old people. But this
+would mean a return to artificial selection in its most primitive and
+sanguinary form. Anarchists want us to undergo once again all the
+errors, terrors, and madness associated with the results won by human
+culture; and that there will not be even a respectable minority
+prepared to do. But they wish to do it in order to introduce
+"happiness for all" (_le bonheur de l'humanite_), to change the
+"struggle for existence" into a general "struggle with nature," as all
+Anarchists from Proudhon to Grave have dreamed; and in this lies the
+incomprehensible and ineffable contradiction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+More original than Reclus and Grave, if only after the fashion of the
+eclectic who can quicken the various ancient and modern elements of
+thought into a new spirit, is Daniel Saurin, who, in his work on
+_Order through Anarchy_ (_L' Ordre par l'Anarchie_, Paris, 1893),
+tries to find a philosophic foundation for Anarchism. For Saurin,
+humanity is something substantial and real, not that _tohuwabohn_ from
+which even Reclus cannot rescue Kropotkin's "economics of the heap."
+According to Saurin the normal man combines two elements: a constant
+something that is permanent throughout the centuries, and, surpassing
+space and time, comes back again in all nations and persons; and a
+variable. The first is "man," the latter the individual. The human
+average (_le minimum humain_) appears in the bodily, moral, and mental
+equality of men; the individual is determined by the relation of these
+constants to an environment (_milieu_). Above the individual stands
+Man, and Man includes all individuals in himself. The laws of each
+individual are thus the laws of humanity; the law of society resides
+in ourselves; to recognise the essential conditions of our being is to
+recognise the essential form of society; to realise them, to be what
+man is, is to respect the reality of others, is to be "sociable." The
+most perfect form of society, therefore, is found in the fullest
+freedom of the ego; for this no human laws are needed. "To what
+purpose is it to re-enact natural laws and to wish to confirm their
+powerful commands by the ridiculous sanctions of men? Our obedience to
+them can add nothing to them; without our knowing or wishing it, we
+must obey them. Anarchy is thus not lack of order but the most natural
+order.... From the real society which binds us individuals together
+springs the universal law, the irrevocable moral order, to which each
+existence is bound and which it follows, without thereby belying the
+principle of Anarchy; for Anarchy cannot possibly be a mere
+unconditioned loosing of all bonds, the unreal absolute.... Man is
+higher than the individual; at least he stands before the individual,
+and in him is the passing of phenomena. Thus, also, morals must come
+before sociology, and form the foundation of a society which seeks to
+be permanent."
+
+Here, _post tot discrimina rerum_, we have again the moral order of
+the universe, to which we may apply the words of a celebrated
+Englishman, who said of certain moralists: "It would be thought absurd
+to say the planets must move in circles because the circle is the most
+perfect figure, and yet the dogmas of certain politicians are just as
+absurd as this assertion."
+
+As the caricature of the social revolutionist in petticoats, Louise
+Michel[11] has, perhaps wrongly, obtained a kind of celebrity as a
+type. Her memoirs show her, as Zetkin proves, as a noble,
+self-sacrificing, unselfish, and mild character. "Like all
+sharply-defined characters, Louise Michel suffers from the defects of
+her qualities. She is courageous to the point of aimless recklessness,
+so full of character that she might be termed obstinate; sympathetic
+and soft-hearted to the verge of sentimentality. Her idealism often
+loses itself in the misty regions of indistinctness, and borders on
+mysticism; her kindness degenerates into weakness, her trustfulness
+into credulity. But all these faults cannot weaken the general
+impression of this pure and noble character; on the contrary, they are
+the shadows which show up the lights more clearly and distinctly. Her
+Anarchism, Socialism, or whatever else it may be called, has nothing
+in common with modern scientific Socialism, except its unsparing
+criticism of the modern form of society and its persistent attempt to
+transform it and to produce a state of things more suitable to modern
+conditions. But her criticism finds support in quite different
+arguments; an idealist lack of clearness enfolds the end to be
+attained, and still more the means to it. She knows historical facts
+well enough, but lacks insight into the historical process of
+development; and still less does she possess a clear comprehension of
+economic relationships. To her a social transformation is not the
+natural and necessary product of historical and economic development,
+but the demand made by a passionate feeling of justice, a categorical
+imperative. If Louise Michel had lived in the middle ages, she would,
+without doubt, have been the foundress of a new religious order; as a
+child of the nineteenth century, as an atheist, who cannot postpone
+the redress of injustice into another life, she became a social
+revolutionary."
+
+    [11] Her books, _Le Livre de Miseres_ and _Prise de
+    Possession_, were not procurable by me, and I had to depend
+    upon Ossip Zetkin's sketch of her in _Charakterkoepfen aus der
+    franzoesischen Arbeiterbewegung_, pp. 40-48, Berlin, 1893, and
+    the _Volkslexikon, l. c._
+
+Her career shows the unselfishness and self-sacrifice with which
+Louise Michel carried out her ideas. She was born in 1836 at the
+French castle of Broncourt; she calls herself "a bastard"; her mother
+was a simple peasant girl, an orphan without either brothers or
+sisters, brought up in the castle, and seduced by the son of its
+owner. The young man's parents decided that Louise and her mother
+should remain in the castle, as an act of justice, not of kindness.
+After the death of her grandparents Louise left the castle with her
+mother in 1850, passed her examination as a teacher, and, as she would
+not take the oath necessary for holding office in Napoleonic France,
+she opened a "free school," _i. e._, a private school in a little
+village. In 1856 she came to Paris as assistant teacher in another
+private school, lived in extreme poverty, took a most active part in
+the struggles of the Commune in May, 1871, was taken prisoner and was
+to have been shot, but was condemned in December, 1871, to be
+transported to New Caledonia, whence she returned in 1880, in
+consequence of the general amnesty then given. She took part in
+editing Anarchist journals, and was condemned in 1886 to five years'
+imprisonment "for incitement to plunder." After three years she was
+pardoned by the President, but "she regarded this as a disgraceful
+insult," against which she protested violently, and absolutely refused
+to accept it, so that she had to be turned out of prison by force.
+Since then she has lived in London, where she acts as head of the
+"_Reveil International des Femmes_," an organisation possessing a
+journal and preaching an exceedingly confused and old-maidish form of
+female emancipation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Around these figures of modern French Anarchism are grouped a number
+of theorists of inferior rank, partly belonging to the literary
+aftergrowth and Bohemia, partly learned persons, contributors to the
+_Revolte_, the _Pere Peinard_, the _Revue Anarchiste_, the _L'en
+Dehors_, and other Anarchist prints in Paris,[12] mostly of a very
+ephemeral character.
+
+    [12] _Cf._ F. Dubois, _Le Peril Anarchiste_, pp. 93-120;
+    mostly superficial, but good on this topic.
+
+Thus we have G. Elievant, who wrote a declaration of Anarchist
+principles (_Declarations_, Paris, 1893), in consequence of a charge
+made against him in 1893 in connection with the dynamite robbery at
+Soisy-sous-Etiolles, a book regarded by the Anarchists as one of the
+standard works of their literature. A. Hamon, a learned sociologist,
+has written a pamphlet, _Les Hommes et les Theories de l'Anarchie_
+(Paris, 1893), which has enjoyed a wide circulation; and is preparing
+a large _Psychology of Anarchists_, of which he has already published
+a short summary (see Dubois, _u. s._, pp. 207-243). Hamon, in order to
+gain a knowledge empirically of the assumptions of psychology, has set
+on foot an inquiry (enquete), and put to several Anarchists the
+question, how and why they have become Anarchists. An examination of
+the confessions thus obtained showed that the chief peculiarity of the
+Anarchist mind is the inclination to revolt, which displays itself in
+the most various forms, such as a desire for opposition, criticism,
+and love of modernity (_philoneismus_); and that this tendency is
+combined with a remarkable love of freedom and strongly developed
+individuality. "The Anarchist must be free: he hates laws and
+authority"--all three traits unite in one; but Hamon's investigations
+completely confirm our assertion, that Anarchism is principally an
+emphasising of the sentiment of individuality and freedom, and cannot
+be explained sufficiently--perhaps not at all--by mere pauperism; in
+other words, Anarchism is not an economic but a political question.
+But to this predisposition to individualism, says Hamon, there must be
+united, in order to produce an Anarchist, also a strongly developed
+sentiment of Altruism, a fanatical love of humanity, a strong sense of
+justice, and finally, a keen faculty for logic. We do not wish to deny
+this; but we have seen that Cosmopolitanism, an over-excited sense of
+justice, and a certain tendency to dialectic _jeux d'esprit_, has been
+a common quality of all the doctrines we have hitherto described.
+
+Charles Malato (de Corne), of the old Italian nobility, the son of a
+Communist, with whom he went to New Caledonia, is one of the chief
+literary representatives and more eager supporters of the propaganda
+of Anarchism in Paris. Besides a _Philosophy of Anarchy_, a book
+called _Revolution Chretienne et Revolution Sociale_, and the widely
+circulated pamphlet, _Les Travailleurs des Villes aux Travailleurs des
+campagnes_ (issued anonymously in 1888, and recently again at Lyons in
+1893), he has written a long-winded diary, _De la Commune a
+l'Anarchie_ (Paris, 1894), a kind of family history of Anarchism in
+Paris, its press, its groups, and its representatives, from
+doctrinaires like Grave and Kropotkin to the men of action like Pini,
+Ravachol, and Vaillant.
+
+Other names of some note in the Anarchist world are Zo d'Axa (his real
+name is Galland), the former editor of _L'en Dehors_, a literary
+adventurer who has wandered into the camp of every party; Sebastian
+Faure, the father of the _Pere Peinard_ and author of _Le Manchinisme
+et ses Consequences_; Bernard Lazare, Octave Mirbeau, Francois Guy,
+author of _Les Prejuges et l'Anarchie_ (Beziers, 1888); Emil Darnaud,
+author of _La Societe Future_ (1890), _Mendiants et Vagabonds, une
+Revolution a Foix_, and others. The programme of these men is almost
+without exception that of Kropotkin, which they water down and
+popularise in numerous newspaper articles and pamphlets. Some of them,
+like Faure and Duprat, are decidedly men of action; others, like
+Saurin and Mirbeau, condemn bombs as the most sanguinary of all forms
+of authority.
+
+France does not to-day possess any representatives of individualist
+Anarchism. An isolated adherent of the Anarchist Collectivism of
+Proudhon is Adolphe Bonthons, for some time business manager of an
+Anarchist paper in Lyons, showing himself an eager Collectivist and
+opponent of rent and profit in many writings (_e. g._, _Menace a la
+Bourgeoisie_, Lyons, 1882, and _La Repartition des Produits du
+Travail_, 1881; of Garin, _Die Anarchisten_, p. 94), and demanding
+quite in the style of the Anarchist agitator the absolute abolition of
+all authority. To-day Bonthons is quite behind the times, and does not
+himself regard himself as an Anarchist.
+
+Finally, we note as eager defenders of Anarchist Communism the
+Italians Carlo Cafiero, the former friend of Bakunin, who devoted the
+whole of his great wealth to the Anarchist cause; Merlino, and
+Malatesta[13]--all of them men of action of the most reckless
+character, who have become acquainted with the prisons of many lands,
+and still wander through life as homeless revolutionaries.
+
+    [13] I have only seen Malatesta's dialogue _Between Peasants_
+    in a French translation: _Entre Paysans, Traduit de
+    l'Italien_, 6th ed., Paris, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                    GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA
+
+    Individualist and Communist Anarchism -- Arthur Muelberger --
+    Theodor Hertzka's _Freeland_ -- Eugen Duehring's "Anticratism"
+    -- Moritz von Egidy's "United Christendom" -- John Henry
+    Mackay -- Nietzsche and Anarchism -- Johann Most -- Auberon
+    Herbert's "Voluntary State" -- R. B. Tucker.
+
+
+There is a well-marked geographical division, not only in the
+Anarchism of agitation, but also in Anarchist theory. The Anarchist
+Communism, to which the "propaganda of action" is allied, appears to
+be almost exclusively confined to the Romance peoples, the French,
+Spaniards, and Italians; while the Teutonic nations appear to incline
+more towards individualist Anarchism. If this geographical division is
+not quite exact, it must be remembered that these views themselves are
+not so clearly separated, and that the ideas of Proudhon rarely
+develop into pure Individualism as proclaimed by Stirner. The external
+distinction between Individualists and Communists is certainly marked
+most clearly by the condemnation of the foolish propaganda of action
+of the former; and in order to prevent the disagreeable confusion of
+their views with the perpetrators of bomb outrages, the theorists of
+Germany and England give their systems more harmless names, such as
+Free Land, Anticratism, United Christianity, Voluntarism, and so on.
+It is perhaps owing to this circumstance that States which supervise
+mental movements in the minds of their citizens so closely, so
+anxiously, as do Austria and Germany, allow the extension of the
+theoretical propaganda of a movement which is only distinguished from
+the doctrines of Kropotkin, as explained above, by a difference in
+formulating the common axiom on which they are based.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the beginning of the seventies there appeared in Germany an eager
+worshipper of Proudhon, named Arthur Muelberger, born in 1847, who has
+practised since 1873 as a physician, and lately as medical officer in
+Crailsheim, and who has explained with great clearness separate
+portions of Proudhon's teaching in various articles in magazines and
+reviews.[1] Muelberger's writings have certainly chiefly an historical
+value; but he is one of the few who have not merely written about and
+criticised Proudhon, but have thoroughly studied him. He is
+accordingly, in spite of his somewhat partisan attitude as a supporter
+of Proudhon, certainly his most trustworthy and faithful interpreter.
+
+    [1] Now collected as _Studien ueber Proudhon_, Stuttgart,
+    1893.
+
+Of all modern phenomena, which, according to Proudhon's assumption
+that complete economic freedom must absorb all political authority,
+should introduce Anarchy by means of economic institutions, the most
+important is undoubtedly the so-called "Free Land" movement, whose
+"father" is Theodor Hertzka. Born on the 13th July, 1845, at Buda
+Pesth, Hertzka studied law, but afterwards turned to journalism, in
+which he gained the reputation of the most brilliant journalist in
+Vienna. In the seventies he was editor of the _Neue Freie Presse_, and
+in 1880 he founded the Vienna _Allgemeine Zeitung_; but since 1889 he
+has been editor of the _Zeitschrift fuer Staatsund Volkwirthschaft_.
+His book _Freeland_, a picture of the society of the future
+(_Freiland, ein Sociales Zukunftsbild_), which appeared in 1889, had
+an extraordinary success, and produced a movement for the realisation
+of the demands and ideas therein expressed. The expedition which was
+sent out to "Freeland," after years of agitation, prepared at great
+expense and watched with the eager curiosity of all Europe, appears
+to-day, however--as was hardly to be wondered at--to have failed.
+
+"Freeland," as depicted by Hertzka in his social romance, is a
+community founded upon the principle of unlimited publicity combined
+with unlimited freedom. Everyone throughout "Freeland" must be able to
+know at any time what commodities are in greater or less demand, and
+what branches of work produce greater or less profit. Thus in
+"Freeland" everybody has the right and the power to apply himself, as
+far as he is capable, to those forms of production that are at any
+time most profitable. A careful department of statistics publishes in
+an easily read and rapid form every movement of production and
+consumption, and thus the movement of prices in all commodities is
+quickly brought to everyone's notice. But in order that everyone may
+undertake that branch of production most suitable and profitable to
+him, from the information thus obtained, the necessary means of
+production, including the forces of nature, are freely at the disposal
+of all, without interest, but a repayment has to be made out of the
+result of production.
+
+Each has a right to the full return from his labour; this is obtained
+by free association of the workers. The entrance into each association
+is free to everyone, and anyone can leave any association at any time.
+Each member has a right to a share in the net product of the
+association corresponding to the work done by him. The work done is
+reckoned for each member in proportion to the number of hours worked.
+The work done by the freely elected and responsible managers or
+directors is reckoned, by means of free agreement made with each
+member of the union, as equal to a certain number of hours' work per
+day. The profit made by the community is reckoned up at the close of
+each working year, and after deduction for repayment of capital, and
+the taxes payable to the "Freeland" commonwealth, is divided amongst
+its members. The members, in case of the failure or liquidation of the
+association, are liable for its debts in proportion to their share of
+the profits. This liability for the debts of the association
+corresponds, in case of dissolution, to the claim of the guarantor
+members on the property available. The highest authority of the
+association is the General Assembly, in which every member possesses
+the same voting power, active and passive. The conduct of the business
+of the company is placed in the hands of a directorate, chosen by the
+General Assembly for a certain period, whose appointment is, however,
+revocable at any time. Besides this the General Assembly elects every
+year an overseer who has to watch over the conduct of the directors.
+There are neither masters nor servants; only free workers; there are
+also no proprietors, only employers of the capital of the association.
+The forms of capital necessary for production are therefore as free
+from owners as is the land.
+
+The most extensive publicity of all business proceedings is the prime
+supposition for the proper working of this organisation, which can
+only exist by the removal of all hindrances to the free activity of
+the individual will guided by enlightened self-interest. There can and
+need be no business secrets; on the contrary, it is the highest
+interest of all to see that everyone's capacity for work is directed
+to where it will produce the best results. The working-statements of
+the producers are therefore published; the purchase and sale of all
+imaginable products and commodities of "Freeland" trade takes place in
+large warehouses, managed and supervised for the benefit of the
+community.
+
+The highest authority in "Freeland" is at the same time the banker of
+the whole population. Not merely every association, but every person
+has his account in the books of the Central Bank, which looks after
+all payments inwards as well as all money paid out from the greatest
+to the smallest by means of a comprehensive clearing system.
+
+All the expenditure of the community is defrayed by all in common, and
+by each person singly, exactly in proportion to its income; for which
+purpose the Central Bank debits each with his share in the total.
+
+The chief item in the budget of "Freeland" expenditure is
+"maintenance"; which includes everything spent on account of persons
+incapacitated for work or excused from it, and who therefore have a
+right to free support, such as all women, children, sick persons,
+defectives, and men over sixty years of age. On the other hand,
+justice, police, military, and finance arrangements cost nothing in
+"Freeland." There are no paid judges or police officials, still fewer
+soldiers, and the taxes, as seen above, come in of their own accord.
+There is not even a code of criminal or civil law. For the settlement
+of any disputes that may arise, arbitrators are chosen, who make their
+decisions verbally, and from whom there is an appeal to the Board of
+Arbitrators. But they have practically nothing to do, for there is
+neither robbery nor theft in "Freeland"; since "men who are normal in
+mind and morals cannot possibly commit any violences against other
+people in a community in which all proper interests of each member are
+equally regarded." Criminals are therefore treated as people who are
+suffering from mental or moral disease.
+
+We need not point out that we here have to deal with an attempt to
+revive Proudhon's thoughts and plans, and that our criticisms on these
+apply equally to _Freeland_. If to-day extravagant praise is lavished
+on Hertzka's originality, that only proves that people who criticise
+and condemn Proudhon so readily have not read him; and even when
+Archdukes give the "Freeland" project their moral and financial
+support, that only proves again how little, even now, the real meaning
+of Anarchism is understood, and how slavishly people submit to words.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eugen Duehring has raved against "the State founded on force" as often
+as against Anarchism, in his various writings; he has as often
+pronounced a scornful judgment upon the literary connections of
+Anarchism as he has sought to ally himself with the so-called
+"honourable" Anarchists in his little paper (_The Modern Spirit--Der
+Moderen Voelkergeist_, in Berlin) that is apparently brought out for
+the sake of a Duehring cult. There appears at least to be a
+contradiction between the theory of Anarchism and Duehring's
+Anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, Duehring undoubtedly belongs to the
+Anarchists, and has never very seriously defended himself against this
+charge. His haughty and biassed criticisms of Proudhon, Stirner, and
+Kropotkin (he excepts only Bakunin, the enemy of the "Hebrew" Marx)
+are sufficiently explained by his own unexampled weakness and love of
+belittling others, without seeking any further motives; "it must be
+night where his own stars shine"; and as his followers have generally
+read nothing else beside his lucubrations, it is very easy to explain
+the great influence which Duehring exercises at present upon the youth
+of Germany, and why he is regarded by some people as the only man of
+genius since Socrates, and as a man of the most unparalleled
+originality, which he is not, by a long way.
+
+However much Duehring may belittle Proudhon, he is himself, at least as
+a social politician, and certainly as an economist, merely a weak
+dilution of Proudhon. In _The Modern Spirit_ Proudhon's Anarchism was
+recently credited with the intention of abolishing not only all
+government, but all organisation. Duehring, it was said, had reduced
+this mistaken view to its proper origin, and in place of Anarchism had
+set up "Anticratism," which does not intend to overthrow direction and
+organisation, but merely to abolish all unjust force, "the State
+founded on force." We who know Proudhon, know that what is here
+ascribed to Duehring is exactly what Proudhon taught as "no-government"
+(_An-arche_); and there was nothing left to the great Duehring but to
+bluff his half-fledged scholars with a new word that means nothing
+more or less than Anarchy. That which is Duehring's own, namely, the
+so-called "theory of force," has not an origin of any great
+profundity. He takes as the elements of society two human beings--not
+at all the sexual pair--but the celebrated "two men" of Herr Duehring,
+one of whom oppresses the other, uses force to him, and makes him work
+for him. These "two men" explain, for him, all economic functions and
+social problems; the origin of social distinctions, of political
+privileges, of property, capital, betterment, exploitation, and so on.
+By these two famous men he lets himself be guided directly into
+Proudhon's path. "Wealth," declares Duehring, "is mastery over men and
+things." Proudhon would never have been so silly--although Duehring
+means the same as he does--as to call wealth the mastery over men and
+things, and Engel formulates the proposition more correctly as:
+"Wealth is the mastery over men, by means of mastery over things";
+although this deserves the name of a definition neither in the logical
+nor economic sense. But Duehring uses his ambiguous proposition in
+order to be able to represent riches on the one hand as being
+something quite justifiable and praiseworthy (the mastery over
+things), and on the other as robbery (mastery over men), as "property
+due to force." Here we have a miserable degradation and commonplace
+expression of the antimony of Proudhon: "Property is theft," and
+"Property is liberty." We also find Proudhon, again distorted, in
+Duehring's statement that the time spent in work by various workers,
+whether they be navvies or sculptors, is of equal value.
+
+The "personalist Sociality" of Duehring, as its creator terms it
+elsewhere, is the conception of arrangements and organisations
+by means of which every individual person may satisfy all the
+necessities and luxuries of life, from the lowest to the highest,
+through the mutual working together and combination with every
+other individual. This personalist Sociality is, of course,
+anti-monarchical, and opposed to all privileges of position and birth;
+it is also "anti-religionist," for it recognises no authorities that
+are beyond control, except only conformity to nature. It starts from
+the actual condition of the individual; but this can only be known by
+its actions, and is not determined by birth. As regards public
+affairs, positions that are technically prominent should be given by
+universal, direct, and equal suffrage to persons who have shown by
+their actions that they possess the necessary qualifications for them.
+As regards the anti-religious element, which in Duehring's case really
+implies Anti-Semitism, the place of all religion and everything
+religious is taken by Duehring's philosophy of actuality or being.
+Among the just claims of the individual person Duehring reckons not
+only bodily freedom and immunity from injury, but also immunity from
+economic injury. Just as on the one hand every kind of slavery or
+limitation by united action or social forms must be unhesitatingly
+rejected, so, on the other hand, unlimited power of disposal over the
+means of production and natural capital must be limited by suitable
+public laws in such a way that no one can be excluded from the means
+supplied by nature, and reduced to a condition of starvation. The
+right to labour, as well as freedom of choice in labour, must
+everywhere be maintained.
+
+The economic corner-stones of personalist Sociality are, as Duehring's
+follower, Emil Doele,[2] explains, "metallic currency as the foundation
+of all economic relationships, and individual property, especially
+capital, as the necessary and inviolable foundation for every
+condition that is not based on robbery and violence. The logic and
+necessity of any form of society rests on private property, and that
+is also the basis of Duehring's system; but his reforms are directed to
+rejecting the ingredients of injustice, robbery, and violence towards
+persons that are commingled with these fundamental forms. To bring
+this about, the principle under which the merely economic mechanics of
+values have free play must be rejected; and instead of it, the
+original personal and political rights of men must be recognised.
+Duehring therefore regards a general association of workers as far more
+essential than strikes, and would wish political means (in the
+narrower sense of politics) brought once more into the foreground, and
+extended much farther than before. He certainly rejects the trickery
+of Parliament, but not a representation of the working classes
+seriously meant and honourably carried out. He also does not yield to
+that logic of wretchedness which expects every reform to arise from
+ever-increasing misery, but takes into account material and mental
+progress and the condition of the masses."
+
+    [2] Doele, _Eugen Duehring, etwas von dessen Charakter,
+    Leistungen, und reformatorischen Beruf_, Leipzig, 1893.
+    Compare also Fr. Engel's, Duehring's _Umwaelzung der
+    Wissenschaft_, 3d ed. Stuttgart, 1894.
+
+In all this it is easy to recognise Proudhon's views; even sometimes
+his theory of property. And even if their views are not alike
+formally, and Duehring does not quite understand Proudhon's
+"Mutualism," yet he ought to have regarded the French social reformer
+somewhat less condescendingly and confusedly. But he has also had a
+very low opinion of Stirner; yet, however persistently he and his
+followers may deny it, Duehring's "Personalism" is not only exactly the
+same as Stirner's "individual" (_Einziger_), but Duehring himself is
+the most repellent illustration of the egoist-individual of Stirner.
+Both Stirner and Proudhon have assumed as the necessary
+pre-supposition of the abolition of government, individuals who are
+able to govern themselves, _i. e._, moral individuals, which means
+"persons."
+
+When, finally, Duehring apparently seeks to limit the Anarchist phrase
+of the abolition of all government, by saying that Anticratism is the
+denial of all unrighteous exercise of force and usurpation of
+authority, this is palpable fencing. Duehring would tell the masses
+which form of force is right and which wrong; which should be
+maintained, and which not; and the masses will hasten to follow his
+dictates. Duehring, the great opponent of all metaphysics and _a
+priori_ conceptions, at once sets up, just like Jean Jacques Rousseau,
+"the modern Hebrew," an absolute concept "justice," and transforms the
+world according to it. Who can help laughing at this?
+
+Duehring has tried to reconcile his prejudice against the Jews with the
+foregoing doctrine, by distinguishing nations from the standpoint of
+personalism, and regarding the existence of higher races side by side
+with lower races as a hindrance--indeed the most serious hindrance--to
+the realisation of "personalist Sociality."
+
+"Nothing is easier than to make a wise grimace."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Perhaps the most peculiar of the circle of theoretical Anarchists is
+Herr von Egidy. If Duehring has succeeded in enlivening Anarchism by an
+admixture of Anti-Jewish persecution, Herr von Egidy has accomplished
+the far greater success of enlivening Anarchism with a new religious
+cult, called "United Christianity," added to the spirit of Prussian
+militarism and squiredom. When the new Apostle stood as a candidate
+for the Reichstag in 1893, supporting his new Christianity and the
+military programme rejected by the dissolved Parliament, he was able
+to secure 3000 votes. This is a piece of statistics that shows the
+confusion of ideas existing in so-called intelligence.
+
+Moritz von Egidy[3] was born at Mainz on 29th August, 1847, served in
+the Prussian army, and reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
+Afterwards he exchanged his military command for an apostleship, after
+gaining knowledge by private study. His Christianity is a religion
+without dogma or confession, _a lucus a non lucendo_, but deserves
+respect as a social phenomenon in view of conditions in Germany.
+
+    [3] See, for a study of his views, the popular publication,
+    _Einiges Christenthum_, Berlin, 1893, and the weekly paper
+    (since 1894), _Versoehrung_ (_Reconciliation_).
+
+The "United Christendom" is to be the union of all men in the idea of
+time and applied Christianity, in the sense of a humanity that
+approaches more nearly to God. The new religion only values and lays
+stress on life, on "morality lived"; doctrine and dogma must be laid
+aside; and thus Von Egidy arrives at the remarkable paradox of "a
+religion without dogma or confession." The purpose of religion is
+practical, and in dogmas he sees forms, among which each individual
+may choose for himself, forms which (according to the main principle
+of development which he places in the forefront of all his arguments)
+are in a state of continual flux and change. What religion has to
+offer is to be expressed not in dogmas, but only in points of view;
+not in institutions, but in directions for guidance. For this purpose
+it is not necessary that Egidy's disciples should form themselves into
+a church, for that even contradicts the spirit of this religion; their
+master rather tells them "to organise nothing, to actualise nothing."
+Not parties, nor unions, but only persons and actions, is what he
+wants, and these will each in his own way lead men into the earthly
+paradise of which Egidy speaks with truly prophetic confidence.
+
+The State, as we now know it, is for Egidy, who goes to work very
+cautiously, no more and no less than a link in the eternal chain of
+development; a stage, beyond which he looks into a divinely appointed
+kingdom of the future, that will no longer rest upon the pillars of
+force and fear, which "contradict the consciousness of God, wherein
+there will be no difference between governed and government." He
+quickly disposes of the objection that men are not fit for such an
+ideal State. "Once we have created conditions in accordance with the
+divine will, the men for them will be there. If there was a paradise
+for the first primitive man, why should there not be one for civilised
+man of to-day? We only need to create it for ourselves; and once we
+have gained entrance to it we shall not be driven out of it a second
+time--we have had our warning. Of course the 'old Adam' must be left
+outside." Of course! But Egidy forgets in the ardour of inspiration
+that it is not so easy to leave the old Adam outside, and that his
+assumption of a primitive paradise for mankind, for the _homme
+sauvage_ of the "social contract," directly contradicts the theory of
+evolution which he has just unhesitatingly accepted. He also
+contradicts himself when he at first maintains that the "conditions in
+accordance with the divine will" will produce men fitted for them, and
+afterwards says: "Do not let us trouble about programmes and systems,
+or modes of execution; only get the right men, and we need not trouble
+ourselves about how to realise our proposals."
+
+As may be seen, his "United Christianity" not only has a Socialist
+side, but it is sheer Socialism, the main basis of which is moral and
+intellectual self-consciousness. Egidy has certainly not drawn up a
+definite programme, and could not draw it up; "since we are all at the
+present moment, without exception, undergoing a thorough
+transformation of 'the inner man,' it is more reasonable to defer
+single efforts till the general consciousness has become enlightened
+on essential points." Egidy can thus only open up "points of view" on
+the social question, leaving everything else to the individual and to
+natural evolution. Hence a definite social doctrine is excluded.
+
+Thus, upon the question of property, he says that property is "not so
+much the source as the logical consequence of the immature ideas of
+human rights and duties which we still hold. With the progressive
+transformation of our ideas generally, with the adoption of a totally
+different view of life, with the dawn of a new view of the world, our
+conceptions of property will also alter; not sooner, but surely. This
+new view of life will give a direction and aim to our endeavours for
+improvement. The new treatment of the question of property, however,
+will only be one of the results of the general new tendencies.
+Certainly it will be one of the most important; but we do not need
+beforehand to recognise any one of the manifold tendencies indicated
+as a binding law; just as we may generally take what is called
+Socialism into consideration, as soon as it is offered to us on a
+firmly defined form, but never accept it without further demur as a
+new law.
+
+"Instead of the words 'equality' and 'freedom,' I say 'self-reliance'
+and 'independence.' They express better that which concerns the
+individual; and they also avoid the objection of being 'impossible.'
+That even self-reliance and independence may experience a certain
+limitation from the demands of our life in common one with another, I
+know quite well; but they do not mislead us beforehand to the same
+erroneous ideas and especially not to the same demands, so impossible
+of fulfilment, as the word equality. The highest attainable is always
+merely that we create for the individual equal, _i. e._, equally good,
+conditions of existence. But owing to the inequality of individuals
+similar conditions do not always produce by any means the same result
+of well-being; the utilisation of the conditions is a matter for the
+individual, and is unequal. Thus we should have to arrange these
+conditions as _un_equal for each individual in order to give all
+individuals really equal conditions of existence. Apart from the
+fundamental impossibility in our human imperfection, of doing absolute
+justice to these requirements, the equality thus restored would the
+very next moment be impaired in a thousand different directions."
+
+Egidy is a pure Anarchist, perhaps the purest of all, but he is
+certainly not the wisest. "The greatest fault in Anarchism," he says,
+"in the eyes of the opponent whom it has to overcome, is its name.
+This, however, is not quite fair to the representatives of these
+ideas; for why must everything have a name, and why must names be
+sought which annihilate what at present exists, instead of choosing
+names which indicate the highest connotation of meanings so far
+recognised? Why say, 'without government'? Why not rather,
+'self-discipline, self-government'? Discipline and government mean
+things of great value; without which we could not imagine human
+existence. The only question is, who exercises government over us, and
+who wields the rod of discipline: whether it is others or we
+ourselves?" To be sure, he draws a distinction between "Anarchists of
+Blood" and "noble Anarchists"; he condemns the former and associates
+himself with the latter. But that does not hinder this remarkable man
+from having a Bismarckian patriotism, sullen prejudices against the
+Jews, and, above all, incomprehensible zeal on behalf of Prussian
+Militarism and Monarchy.
+
+"The monarchical idea in itself," says this most remarkable of all
+Anarchists, "by no means contradicts the idea of the self-reliance and
+independence of the individual. The prince will not be lacking in the
+comprehension necessary for a redrafting of the monarchical idea to
+suit the people when they have attained their majority. The prince
+belongs to the people; the prince the foremost of the people; the
+prince in direct intercourse with the people. The prince neither
+absolute ruler nor constitutional regent; but the prince a
+personality, an ego; with a right to execute his will as equal as that
+of any one of the people. No confused responsibility of ministers
+thrust in between people and prince. There is no 'crown' as a
+conception; there is only a living wearer of the crown--the king, the
+prince--as responsible head of the people. The present servants of the
+crown become commissioners of the people." Compare these expressions
+with Proudhon's attitude in regard to the dynastic question described
+above, and consider, in order to do justice to each, that Egidy as
+well as Proudhon had in view when speaking a monarch who knew how to
+surround himself at least with the appearance of "social imperialism."
+If, indeed, Egidy were one day to be disillusioned by his "social
+prince," just as Proudhon was by _his_ monarch, yet it should not be
+forgotten that the "social prince" might also likewise be greatly
+disillusioned some day as to the loyalty of Egidy's followers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Germany possesses an honest and upright Anarchist of a strongly
+individualist tendency in the naturalised Scot, John Henry Mackay, who
+was born at Greenock on 6th February, 1864. In Mackay we find again
+one of those numerous persons who have descended from that sphere of
+society where want and distress are only known by name, into the
+habitations of human pity, and have risen from these upon the wings of
+poetic fancy and warmheartedness into the "regions where the happy
+gods do dwell," and where Anarchy does not need to be brought into
+being. Mackay is of an essentially artistic nature; like Cafiero, he
+is also a millionaire, which means a completely independent man. Both
+these circumstances are needed to explain his individualist Anarchism.
+His novel, which created some sensation, entitled _The Anarchist: A
+Picture of Society at the Close of the Nineteenth Century_,[4] which
+appeared in 1891, is a pendant to Theodor Hertzka's novel, _Freeland_,
+to which it is also not inferior in genuinely artistic effects, as
+_e. g._, the development of the character of Auban, an egoist of
+Stirner's kind, and in touching description, as that of poverty in
+Whitechapel. The book does not contain any new ideas: but is
+nevertheless important as making a thorough and clear distinction
+between individualist and communist Anarchism; while, on the other
+hand, the glaring colouring of the descriptions of misery possesses a
+certain provocative energy which the author certainly did not intend,
+for he rejects the "propaganda of action."
+
+    [4] _Die Anarchisten_, etc.; _Zuerich Verlagsmagazin_; a
+    popular edition has also appeared in Berlin; also an English
+    translation. Boston, 1891; and in French, Paris, 1892.
+
+It is only to be expected as a matter of course that in Germany as in
+France, that literary Bohemia, certain "advanced minds" should prefer
+to give themselves out as Anarchists and Individualists, as _Einzige_;
+but it must not therefore be concluded that it is our duty to concern
+ourselves with writers such as Pudor, Bruno Wille, and others. We
+might indeed utter a warning against extending too widely the
+boundaries of Anarchist theory, and thus obliterating them altogether.
+In our opinion it is quite incorrect to regard as a theoretical
+Anarchist every author who, like Nietzsche,[5] preached a purely
+philosophic individualism or egotism, without ever having given a
+thought to the reformation of society. To what does this lead? Some
+even include Ibsen among theoretical Anarchists because in a letter to
+Brandes he exclaims: "The State is the curse of the individual. The
+State must go. I will take part in this revolution. Let us undermine
+the idea of the State; let us set up free will and affinity of spirit
+as the only conditions for any union: that is the beginning of a
+freedom that is worth something." Such expressions may certainly show
+Ibsen's Anarchist tendencies, but they by no means elevate him to the
+position of a teacher; for that position one might sooner quote one of
+his own most powerful characters, Brand, that modern Faust after the
+style of Stirner. But Brand is a gloomy figure, who would not make
+many converts to individualism.
+
+    [5] Even in a philosophic sense, Nietzsche's Anarchism is a
+    mere fable. Schellwien truly remarks: "Max Stirner replaces
+    freedom by individuality, by the evolution of the individual
+    as such, but he cannot shew that anything else would happen
+    but the oppression of the weaker individuality by the
+    stronger; a state of things in which not individuality but
+    brute force would reign. Friedrich Nietzsche draws this
+    conclusion, and would have this oppression of the weak by the
+    strong; he would have the aristocratic will of the stronger,
+    who in his eyes are alone the good. He raises the 'will for
+    power' to a world-principle." Elsewhere Nietzsche positively
+    advocates, _e. g._, the reduction of some men to slavery for
+    the benefit of the aristocracy of the strong. This sort of
+    thing is hardly Anarchism.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may here cursorily notice the position of Johann Most in the theory
+of Anarchism, although this man, fateful and gloomy as has been his
+role in the history of Anarchist action, can hardly be taken into
+account as a theorist, and, moreover,--which is more important,--he is
+not even a pure Anarchist. Johann Most forms the link between social
+Democracy, to which he formerly attached himself, and Anarchism, to
+which he now devotes his baleful talents. But, as a matter of fact,
+Most goes no farther than ancient and modern followers of Baboeuf have
+gone at all times; the "decision of society" is the authoritative
+boundary which separates him from the communist Anarchists.
+
+Land and all movable and immovable capital should, in his opinion, be
+the property of the whole of society,--here we perceive a very
+conservative notion as compared with Kropotkin,--but should be given
+up for the use of the single groups of producers, which may be formed
+by free agreement (_libre entente_) among themselves. The products of
+industry should remain the property of those organisations whose work
+and creation they are, thus becoming collective property. To determine
+value and price, bureaux of experts should be formed by society--an
+arrangement which Grave considers highly reactionary, because implying
+authority,--and these bureaux are to calculate how much work is
+represented in each community, and what is its value on this basis.
+The price thus determined cannot be altered, because consumers will
+also form free groups, for the purpose of buying, just as the
+producers did. Other free groups will look after the bringing up of
+children. Marriage becomes a free contract between man and woman, and
+can be entered into or dissolved at pleasure. There are no laws, but
+only a "decision of society" in each case.
+
+If with these views Most must be regarded among Anarchist
+theorists--if he is an Anarchist at all--as a representative of
+extreme Conservatism, yet, on the other hand, there is not the
+slightest doubt that he must be looked upon as the theorist of force,
+the apostle of the most violent propaganda of action. In his notorious
+journal, _Freiheit_ (_Freedom_), as well as in numberless pamphlets,
+Johann Most has drawn up an inexhaustible compendium for "the men of
+action." The little groups, which are to-day characteristic of
+Anarchism, are his idea, and his, too, are the tactics of
+bomb-throwing. In the pamphlet[6] on the scientific art of
+revolutionary warfare and dynamiters, he explains exactly where bombs
+should be placed in churches, palaces, ballrooms, and festive
+gatherings. Never more than one Anarchist should take charge of the
+attempt, so that in case of discovery the Anarchist party may suffer
+as little harm as possible. The book contains also a complete
+dictionary of poisons, and preference is given to.... Poison should be
+employed against politicians, traitors, and spies. _Freedom_, his
+journal, is distinguished from the rest of the Anarchist press--which
+is mostly merely _doctrinaire_--by its constant provocation to a war
+of classes, to murder and incendiarism. "Extirpate the miserable
+brood!" says _Freedom_, speaking of owners of property--"extirpate the
+wretches! Thus runs the refrain of a revolutionary song of the working
+classes, and this will be the exclamation of the executive of a
+victorious proletariate army when the battle has been won. For at the
+critical moment the executioner's block must ever be before the eyes
+of the revolutionary. Either he is cutting off the heads of his
+enemies or his own is being cut off. Science gives us means which make
+it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts
+quietly and deliberately." Elsewhere he says, "Those of the reptile
+brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of
+the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to
+annihilate utterly this race of parasites," and so forth.
+
+    [6] Die _wissenschaftliche revolutionaere Kriegskunst und der
+    Dynamit Fuehrer._
+
+These are only a few specimens of the jargon of "Anarchism of action,"
+of which Johann Most is the classic representative; we shall refer
+elsewhere to his varied activity as such.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Most, whose special Anarchist influence is exercised on English soil,
+is also the link between German and English Anarchism.
+
+England possesses a theorist of a higher type in Auberon Herbert, who,
+like Bakunin and Kropotkin, is a scion of a noble house. Herbert began
+as a representative of Democracy in the seventies, and to-day edits in
+London a paper called _The Free Life_, in which he preaches an
+individualist Anarchism of his own, or, as he himself calls it,
+"Voluntarism." He does not wish constituted society, as such, to be
+abolished; his "voluntary State" is distinguished from the present
+compulsory State in that it is absolutely free to any individual to
+enter or leave the State as he wishes.
+
+"I demand," says Herbert,[7] "that the individual should be
+self-owner, the actual owner of his bodily and mental capacities, and
+in consequence owner of all that he can acquire by these capacities,
+only assuming that he treats his fellow-men as his equals and as
+owners of their own capacities."
+
+    [7] Anarchy and Voluntarism (_The Free Life_), vol. ii., p.
+    99, October, 1894.
+
+"If thus the individual is legally master of himself and legally owner
+of all that he has won by the aid of his own capabilities, then we
+must further conclude that the individual as such has the right to
+defend what is his own, even by force against force (understanding by
+force those forms of deception which are in reality only an equivalent
+of force); and since he now has this right of defence by force, he can
+transfer it to a corporation and to men who undertake to watch over
+the practical application of this right on his behalf; which
+corporation may be denoted by the practical term of 'State.' The State
+is rightfully born, only if the individuals have the choice of handing
+over to it their right of defence, and that no individual is compelled
+to take part in it when once formed, or to maintain it. When we
+consider that every force must be set in action for some definite
+purpose, the State or the sphere of society's force must be organised;
+yet every individual must retain his natural right of deciding for
+himself whether he will join the State and maintain it or not. If then
+the State is legitimate as an agreement to defend one's self-ownership
+against all attacks, there are sufficient reasons for creating such an
+organisation and placing the exercise of the forces mentioned in its
+hands, instead of keeping them in our hands as individuals.... I fully
+admit that the right of exercising force in self-defence belongs to
+the individual and is transferred by him to the State; but the moral
+pressure on the individual to transfer this right is overwhelming. Who
+of us would care to be judge and executioner at once in one's own
+person? Who would wish to exercise Lynch law?[8] What is to be gained
+thereby? It is not a question of right, for, as we have seen, the
+individual, who may exercise force in self-defence, can also transfer
+this exercise of his power, and if he can do this legally, is it not a
+hundred times better if he also does so actually? I willingly admit
+that, when it is solely a question of a group, even the group, as the
+source of law, may, if it wishes, organise its own defence, and
+isolate itself from the general organisation of other groups. But I do
+not admit that the group can also separate itself, when the question
+directly concerns other groups besides itself. I would not, for
+example, allow a group the right to conduct its sewers to a certain
+point in a stream, because this directly affects the interests of
+other groups at other points of the stream. The first group must come
+to an understanding with the other groups concerned; in other words,
+it must enter into a common organisation with other groups. Or again:
+group A decides to punish those who instigate to murder, while group B
+is of opinion that one need not trouble about words, but only about
+deeds. Such a difference of views and procedure is unimportant, so
+long as the members of group A merely associate with one another; but
+suppose a member of group B were to incite a person to murder a member
+of group A, it is clear that we should be confronted by a civil war
+between the two groups the moment that group A seeks to seize and
+punish the instigator. It also happens that in all cases where force
+has to be exercised against persons outside their own group as well as
+in it, some organisation must exist between the groups--a State--in
+order to determine the conditions under which force can be
+exercised.... For these reasons I consider pure Anarchy an
+impossibility; it rests upon a misunderstanding, and is founded upon
+the mingling of two things which are by nature entirely different....
+Anarchy is the rule of an individual over himself; but the actions of
+an individual in self-defence, however just they may be, are not
+founded entirely upon self-ownership, but are of a mixed nature, since
+they include rule over one's self and over others. The object of
+Anarchy is self-government, but we exceed the sphere of
+self-government as soon as we stretch out our hand to exercise force.
+The error which pure Anarchists commit lies in the fact that they
+apply the ideas of self-government, self-ownership, or freedom to
+force. Between actions of freedom and actions involving force a line
+must necessarily be drawn, which separates them for ever. As far as
+concerns a question of free will, _e. g._, the posting of letters,
+arrangements for education, all contracts of labour and capital, we
+can dispense with any authority; we can be Anarchists, because in
+these cases it is not necessary for me or for you to exercise or to
+undergo compulsion. We may leave the group whose actions we do not
+approve of, we may stand alone as individuals, we may follow
+exclusively the law of our nature; but the moment we proceed to
+measures of defence, to actions implying limitation or discipline, to
+actions which encroach upon the self-ownership of others, the whole
+state of things is altered. The moment force has to be exercised, an
+apparatus of force must be set up; if we wish to exercise force, it
+must be publicly proclaimed, and we must publicly agree upon what
+conditions it is to be applied; it must be surrounded by guarantees
+and so on. Force and the unconditional freedom of the individual, or
+Anarchy, are incompatible ideas, and therefore I am a Voluntarist, not
+an Anarchist--a Voluntarist in all questions where Voluntarism is
+admissible; but I return into the State when by the nature of things
+some organisation is necessary."
+
+    [8] The answer is obvious: the inhabitants of Texas.
+
+Practically Auberon Herbert's distinction of terms is merely playing
+with words; for the "voluntary State," which I can leave at any
+moment, from which I can withdraw my financial support if I do not
+approve of its actions, is Proudhon's federation of groups in its
+strictest form; perhaps it is even the practical outcome of Stirner's
+_Union of Egoists_; at any rate Herbert, like Stirner, prefers the
+unconditional acceptance of the principle of _laisser faire_, without
+reaching it, like Proudhon, by means of the thorny circumlocution of a
+complicated organisation of work. Carried into practice, Voluntarism
+would be as like Anarchism as two peas. None the less we must not
+undervalue the theoretical progress shown in the distinction quoted
+above. Herbert approaches within a hair's-breadth of the standpoint of
+Sociology, and what separates him from it is not so much the logical
+accentuation of the social-contract theory as the indirect assumption
+of it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In America we find views similar to Auberon Herbert's.
+
+The traces of Anarchist ideas in the United States go back as far as
+the fifties. Joseph Dejacque, an adherent of Proudhon, and compromised
+politically in 1848, edited in New York, from 1858-61, a paper, _Le
+Libertaire_, in which he at first preached the collective Anarchism of
+his master, but later--though long before Kropotkin--drifted into
+communist Anarchism.
+
+Side by side there also arose, almost, as it seems, independently of
+Europe, an individualist school, the origin of which goes back
+somewhere to the beginning of the century. Here the ideas of a free
+society, such as Thompson had imagined and taught, found rapid and
+willing acceptance, and were expanded, by men like Josiah Warren,
+Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner, and others, to the idea of
+"individual sovereignty," which to-day possesses its most important
+champion in R. B. Tucker, the editor of the journal, _Liberty_, in
+Boston, and which approaches most closely to Herbert's idea of the
+"voluntary State."
+
+
+
+
+                               PART III
+
+          THE RELATION OF ANARCHISM TO SCIENCE AND POLITICS
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+               ANARCHISM AND SOCIOLOGY: HERBERT SPENCER
+
+    Spencer's Views on the Organisation of Society -- Society
+    Conceived from the Nominalist and Realist Standpoint -- The
+    Idealism of Anarchists -- Spencer's Work: _From Freedom to
+    Restraint_.
+
+
+When Vaillant was before his judges he mentioned Herbert Spencer,
+among others, as one of those from whom he had derived his Anarchist
+convictions. Anarchists refer not seldom to the gray-headed Master of
+Sociology as one of themselves; and still more often do the Socialists
+allude to him as an Anarchist. People like Laveleye, Lafarque, and
+(lately) Professor Enrico Ferri,[1] have allowed themselves to speak
+of Spencer's Anarchist and Individualist views in his book, _The
+Individual versus the State_. If Vaillant, the bomb-thrower, rejoiced
+in such ignorance of persons and things as to quote Spencer, without
+thinking, as a fellow-thinker, we need hardly say much about it; but
+when men who are regarded as authorities in so-called scientific
+Socialism, do the same, we can only perceive the small amount either
+of conscientiousness or science with which whole tendencies of the
+social movement are judged, and judged too by a party which, before
+all others, is interested in procuring correct and precise judgments
+on this matter. For those who number Herbert Spencer among the
+Anarchists, either do not understand the essence of Anarchism, or else
+do not understand Spencer's views; or both are to them a _terra
+incognita_.
+
+    [1] _Socialismus und Moderne Wissenschaft_, p. 129. Leipsic,
+    1895.
+
+As far as concerns the book, _The Individual versus the State_
+(London, 1885), this is really only a closely printed pamphlet of some
+thirty pages, in which Spencer certainly attacks Socialism severely as
+an endeavour to strengthen an organisation of society, based on
+compulsion, at the expense of individual freedom and of voluntary
+organisations already secured; but not a single Anarchist thought is
+to be found in his pages, unless any form of opposition to forcing
+human life into a social organisation of regimental severity is to be
+called Anarchism. We may remark _en passant_ that here we have a
+splendid example of freedom of thought as understood by the
+Socialists; in their (so-called) free people's State the elements of
+Anarchism would assume a much more repulsive form than under the
+present _bourgeois_ conditions. And that is just what Spencer
+prophesies in his little book.
+
+Spencer appeals in this work to his views upon a possible organisation
+of society better than the present, as he has indicated in _The Study
+of Sociology_, _Political Institutions_, and elsewhere; and we think
+we ought to permit the appeal and present Spencer's views, not for the
+sake of Herbert Spencer--for we cannot undertake to defend everyone
+who is suspected of Anarchism,--but because he is the most important
+representative of a school of thought which some day or other will be
+called upon to say the last word in the scientific discussion of the
+so-called social question, and because we now wish to set forth
+clearly, once for all, what Anarchism is, in whatever disguise it may
+cloak itself, and what Anarchism is not, however far it may go in
+accentuating freedom of development.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The quintessence of Spencer's views upon the organisation of
+society--the point from which the pamphlet so misused by Ferri
+proceeds--is something like this. The organisation which is the
+necessary preliminary to any form of united social endeavour is,
+whether regarded historically or _a priori_, not of a single but of a
+twofold nature, a nature essentially different both in origin and
+conditions. The one arises immediately from the pursuit of individual
+aims, and only contributes indirectly to the social welfare; it
+develops unconsciously, and is not of a compulsory character. The
+other, which proceeds directly from the pursuit of social aims, and
+only contributes indirectly to the welfare of the individual, develops
+consciously, and is of a compulsory character (_cf. Principles_, iii.,
+p. 447). Spencer calls the first, voluntary, organisation the
+industrial type, because it always accompanies the appearance of
+industrial and commercial interests; but the second, compulsory,
+organisation the warlike type, because it is a consequence of the need
+of external defence for the community. The industrial type of Spencer,
+based upon the individualist sentiment, results in what we have come
+to know as convention; the military or warlike type, which addresses
+itself exclusively to altruistic feelings, leads to the State
+(status). The "social" question, when solved exclusively by the first
+method, we know already as Anarchy; solved by the second, it is
+Socialism in the narrower sense.
+
+However much these two types may seem to exclude each other in their
+conception, and actually do so when translated into the jargon of
+party, in reality they are by no means mutually exclusive. Those forms
+of human society which we see both in the present and the past are by
+no means pure types, but show the most varied gradation and
+interpenetration of both types; according as the need for common
+defence or for individual interests comes to the fore, the military
+type, that rules and regulates everything, or the industrial, that
+aims at free union, will preponderate. The vast majority of all forms
+of society, including the modern Great Powers, are still of the
+military type, for obvious reasons. The "idea of the State" is
+powerful within them, but only some of the most advanced, which from
+their peculiar circumstances are less threatened by the danger of war,
+and therefore devote themselves more largely to industry and commerce,
+such as England and America, are now inclining more to the industrial
+type.
+
+Which of the two forms deserves the preference cannot, of course, be
+determined _a priori_. Spencer gives it evidently to the industrial
+type, as being a higher form of development, and he thinks that, in
+the more or less distant future, this will acquire the supremacy
+(_Principles_, iii., Sec. 577). But he recognises also, as was only to be
+expected, that it has only rarely been possible to dispense with the
+military and compulsory organisation, whether in the present or the
+past, and that even in the future it will still in many cases be
+necessary for social development according to local conditions; and
+that accordingly a universal acceptance of co-operative work by
+convention, on the Anarchist's plan, cannot be imagined as possible,
+because, in social organisms as well as in individual organisms, the
+development of higher forms by no means implies the extirpation of
+lower forms. If we miss already, at this point, one of the most
+essential traits of Anarchist doctrine, viz., its absolute character,
+Spencer's so-called Anarchism shrinks still more into nothingness,
+when we approach the industrial type as he describes it in its
+complete state.
+
+While the requirements of the industrial type (he says) simply exclude
+a despotic authority, they demand on the other hand, as the only
+suitable means of carrying out the requisite actions of common
+benefit, an assembly of representatives to express the will of the
+whole body. The duty of this controlling agency, which may be denoted
+in general terms as the administration of justice, merely consists in
+seeing that every citizen receives neither more nor less benefit than
+his own efforts normally afford him. Hence public efforts to effect
+any artificial division of the result of labour is of itself excluded.
+When the _regime_ peculiar to militarism, the status, has disappeared,
+the _regime_ of convention appears in its stead, and finds more and
+more general acceptance, and this forbids any disturbance of the
+relations of exchange between the performance and the product of
+labour by arbitrary division. Looked at from another standpoint, the
+industrial type is distinguished from the military by the fact that it
+has a regulating influence, not simultaneously, both positive and
+negative, but only negative (_cf. Principles_, iii., Sec. 575). In this
+ever-increasing limitation of the influence of constituted society
+lies another sharply defined line of demarcation, from even the most
+conservative forms of Anarchism, whether it be Proudhon's federal
+society or Auberon Herbert's "voluntary State." For Spencer recognises
+even for the most perfect form of his society the necessity of some
+administration of law; he speaks of a Head of the State, even though
+he be merely elected (_Principles_, Sec. 578); he would like to see
+development continued along the beaten track of the representative
+system (which the Anarchists mainly reject), and even in certain
+circumstances would retain the principle of a second chamber (_ib._,
+p. 770). For however high may be the degree of development reached by
+an industrial society, yet the difference between high and low,
+between rulers and ruled, can never be done away with. All the new
+improvements which the coming centuries may have in store for industry
+cannot fail to admit the contrast between those whose character and
+abilities raise them to a higher rank and those who remain in a lower
+sphere. Even if any mode of production and distribution of goods was
+carried out exclusively by corporations of labourers working together,
+as is done even now in some cases to a certain extent, yet all such
+corporations must have their chief directors and their committees of
+administration. A Senate might then be formed either from an elective
+body that was taken, not from a class possessing permanent privileges,
+but from a group including all leaders of industrial associations, or
+it might be formed from an electorate consisting of all persons who
+took an active share in the administration; and finally it might be so
+composed as to include the representatives of all persons engaged in
+governing, as distinguished from the second chamber of representatives
+of the governed.
+
+Moreover, Spencer himself claims no sort of dogmatic obligatory force
+for these deductions with regard to the most favourable possible form
+of future organisation; rather he expressly warns us that different
+organisations are possible, by means of which the general agreement of
+the whole community in sentiment and views might make itself felt, and
+declares that it is rather a question of expediency than of principle
+which of the different possible organisations should finally be
+accepted (_Principles_, p. 766).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Incomprehensible as it may seem that Spencer, holding such views,
+should be regarded as an Anarchist, and that too by men who ought to
+have understood him as well as the Anarchists, yet this has been the
+case. Therefore we must guard against his lack of Radicalism (as shown
+in the foregoing remarks) being regarded by various parties less as a
+necessary result of his first premises than as the result of personal
+qualities of opportunism, of a lack of courage in facing the ultimate
+consequences of his reasoning. We should like, therefore, briefly to
+note the wide differences which separate the purely sociological
+standpoint of Spencer from the unscientific standpoint of the
+Anarchists.
+
+It may be considered as indifferent whether we are accustomed to
+regard society as a natural thing or only as a product of my thought,
+as something real and concrete or as a mere conception, and yet the
+range of this first assumption far surpasses the value of academic
+contention. No bridge leads from one of these standpoints to the
+other, and as deep a gulf separates the conclusions which are drawn
+from these premises. If society is a thing, something actual like the
+individual, then it is subject to the same laws as the rest of nature;
+it changes and develops, grows and decays, like all else. If, on the
+other hand, it is a mere conception, then it stands and falls with
+myself, with my wish to set it up or destroy it. Indeed, if society is
+nothing but an idea, a child of my thought, what hinders me from
+throwing it away as soon as I have recognised its nothingness, since
+it is no more use to me? Have not some already done so with the idea
+of God, because they thought it merely a product of their own mind?
+Here we may remember Stirner's argument, which was only rendered
+possible because he placed society upon exactly the same level as the
+Deity, _i. e._, regarding both as mere conceptions. But, on the other
+hand, if society exists apart from me, apart from my thought about it,
+then it will also develop without reference to my personal opinions,
+views, ideas, or wishes. In other words: if society is nothing but the
+summary idea of certain institutions, such as the family, property,
+religion, law, and so on, then society stands or falls with their
+sanctity, expediency and utility; and to deny these institutions is to
+deny society itself. On the other hand, if society is the aggregate of
+individuals forming it, then the institutions just mentioned are only
+functions of this collective body, and the denial or abolition of them
+means certainly a disturbance, though not an annihilation of society.
+Society then can no more be got rid of, as long as there are
+individuals, than matter or force. We can destroy or upset an
+aggregation, but can never hinder the individuals composing it from
+again uniting to form another aggregation.
+
+From these two divergent points of view follows the endless series of
+irreconcilable divergencies between Realists and Idealists. For the
+former, evolution is a process that is accomplished quite
+unconsciously, and is determined exclusively by the condition at any
+time of the elements forming the aggregate, and their varying
+relations. The Idealist also likes to talk of an evolution of
+society, but since this is only the evolution of an idea, there can be
+no contradiction, and it is only right and fair for him to demand that
+this evolution should be accomplished in the direction of other and
+(as he thinks) higher ideas, the realisation of which is the object of
+society. So he comes to demand that society should realise the ideas
+of Freedom, Equality, and the like. A society which does not wish, or
+is unfitted to do this, can and must be overthrown and annihilated.
+
+When we hear these destructive opinions, which are continually
+spreading, characterised as a lack of idealism, we cannot restrain a
+smile at the confusion of thought thus betrayed. As a matter of fact,
+the social revolutionaries of the present day, and especially the
+Anarchists, are idealists of the first rank, and that too not merely
+because of their nominalist way of regarding society, but they are
+idealists also in a practical sense. The society of the present is in
+their eyes utterly bad and incapable of improvement, because it does
+not correspond to the ideas of freedom and equality. But the fault of
+this does not lie in men as such, or in their natural attributes and
+defects, but in society, that is (since it is merely an idea), in the
+faulty conceptions and prejudices which men have as to the value of
+society. Men in themselves are good, noble, and possess the most
+brotherly sentiments; and not only that, but they are diligent and
+industrious from an innate impulse; society alone has spoiled them.
+These assumptions we have seen in all Anarchists; they are the
+inevitable premises of their ideal of the future, an ideal of a free,
+just, and brotherly form of society; but they are the necessary
+consequence of the first assumption, of the idealist conception of
+society itself, which is common to all Anarchists, with the single
+exception of Proudhon, whose peculiarities and contradictions we have
+dealt with above.
+
+Herbert Spencer, and with him the sociological school generally,
+cannot of course accept the conclusions of a premise which they do not
+assume. Comparative study of the life of primitive races, scientific
+anthropology, and exact psychology, all show this well-meaning
+assumption to be a mere delusion. Philoneism may be nobler and more
+humane, but, unfortunately, it is only misoneism that is true.
+Generally speaking, every man only works in order to avoid
+unpleasantness. One man is urged on by his experience that hunger
+hurts him, the other by the whip of the slave-driver. What he fears is
+either the punishment of circumstances, or the punishment given by
+someone set over him (_cf._ Spencer, _From Freedom to Restraint_, p.
+8). Work is the enemy of man; he struggles with it because he must do
+so in order to live; his life is a continual struggle but not (as all
+the Anarchists from Proudhon down to Grave try to persuade themselves
+and others) a united struggle of man against nature, but a struggle of
+men one against the other, a murderous, fratricidal conflict, from
+which in the end only the most suitable and capable emerges ("the
+survival of the fittest"). Short-sighted people and one-sided
+doctrinaires can never be convinced of the fact that in this brutal
+fact lies not only the end but also the proper beginning of unfeigned
+morality. And so too in social relations. Conflict, war, and
+persecution stand at the beginning of every civilisation and every
+social development; but the ceaseless hostilities of man with man have
+populated the earth from pole to pole with those who are most capable,
+powerful, and most fitted for evolution; we owe to man's hatred and
+fear of work the rich blessings of civilisation; and only from the
+swamp of servitude can spring the flower of freedom.
+
+But we must return once more to our idealists.
+
+According to the view common to all Anarchists, the fault of our
+present circumstances, which scorn freedom and equality, lies not in
+the natural limitation of mankind, but in the limitation entailed upon
+him by society, that is, by his own faulty conceptions and ideas. It
+is therefore only a question of convincing men that they hitherto have
+erred, that they should see in the State their enemy and not their
+protector and champion--and the world is at once turned upside down
+"like an omelet," society as now constituted is annihilated, and
+Anarchy is triumphant. Anarchists since Bakunin are of the opinion
+that, in order to reach this end, there is no need of weary evolution
+or of an education of the human race for Anarchy; on the contrary, it
+can be set up at once, immediately, with these same men; it merely
+requires the trifling circumstance that men should be convinced of its
+truth. Therefore they despise every political means, and their whole
+strategy, not excepting the propaganda of action, only aims at
+convincing men of the nothingness of society as such, and of the harm
+done by its institution. This fact can only be understood in view of
+the purely idealist starting-point from which the Anarchists proceed.
+The man to whom society is a fact, a reality, only recognises an
+evolution that excludes any sudden leap, and above all, the leap into
+annihilation.
+
+A radical error (as Herbert Spencer remarks in the very book which
+Ferri adduces as a proof of his Anarchist tendency) which prevails in
+the mode of thought of almost all political and social parties, is the
+delusion that there exist immediate and radical remedies for the evils
+that oppress us. "Only do thus, and the evil will disappear"; or "act
+according to my method and want will cease"; or "by such and such
+regulations the trouble will undoubtedly be removed"--everywhere we
+meet such fancies, or modes of action resulting from them. But the
+foundation of them is wrong. You may remove causes that increase the
+evil, you may change one evil into another, and you may, as frequently
+occurs, even increase the evil by trying to cure it: but an immediate
+cure is impossible. In the course of centuries mankind, owing to the
+increase of numbers, has been compelled to expand from the original,
+ancient condition, wherein small groups of men supported themselves
+upon the free gifts of nature, into a civilised condition, in which
+the things necessary to support life for such great masses can only be
+acquired by ceaseless toil. The nature of man in this latter mode of
+existence is very different from what it was in the first period; and
+centuries of pain have been necessary to transform it sufficiently. A
+human constitution that is no longer in harmony with its environment
+is necessarily in a miserable position, and a constitution inherited
+from primitive man does not harmonise with the circumstances to which
+those of to-day have to adapt themselves. Consequently it is
+impossible to create immediately a social condition that shall bring
+happiness to all. A state of society which even to-day fills Europe
+with millions of armed warriors, eager for conquest or thirsting for
+revenge; which impels so-called Christian nations to vie with one
+another all over the world in piratical enterprises without any regard
+to the rights of the aborigines, while thousands of their priests and
+pastors watch them with approval; which, in intercourse with weaker
+races, goes far beyond the primitive law of revenge, "a life for a
+life," and for one life demands seven--such a state of human society,
+says Spencer, cannot under any circumstances be ripe for a harmonious
+communal existence. The root of every well-ordered social activity is
+the sense of justice, resting, on the one hand, on personal freedom,
+and, on the other on the sanctity of similar freedom for others; and
+this sense of justice is so far not present in sufficient quantity.
+Therefore a further and longer continuance of a social discipline is
+necessary, which demands from each that he should look after his own
+affairs with due regard to the equal rights of others, and insists
+that everyone shall enjoy all the pleasures which naturally flow from
+his efforts, and, at the same time, not place upon the shoulders of
+others the inconveniences that arise from the same cause, in so far as
+others are not ready to undertake them. And therefore it is Spencer's
+conviction that the attempts to remove this form of discipline will
+not only fail, but will produce worse evils than those which it is
+sought to avoid.
+
+We need not discuss Spencer's views further in a book about Anarchism.
+But to those representatives of so-called scientific Socialism, as
+well as to those Liberals who are so ready to condemn as "Anarchist"
+any inconvenient critic of their own opinions, we should like to
+remark that Anarchism will only be overcome by free and fearless
+scientific treatment, and not by violent measures dictated by
+stupidity and hatred.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                  THE SPREAD OF ANARCHISM IN EUROPE
+
+    First Period (1867-1880) -- The Peace and Freedom League --
+    The Democratic Alliance and the Jurassic Bund -- Union with
+    and Separation from the "International" -- The Rising at
+    Lyons -- Congress at Lausanne -- The Members of the Alliance
+    in Italy, Spain, and Belgium -- Second Period (from 1880) --
+    The German Socialist Law -- Johann Most -- The London
+    Congress -- French Anarchism since 1880 -- Anarchism in
+    Switzerland -- The Geneva Congress -- Anarchism in Germany
+    and Austria -- Joseph Penkert -- Anarchism in Belgium and
+    England -- Organisation of the Spanish Anarchists -- Italy --
+    Character of Modern Anarchism -- The Group -- Numerical
+    Strength of the Anarchism of Action.
+
+
+It is the custom to represent Bakunin as the St. Paul of modern
+Anarchism. It may be so. The Anarchism of violence only acquired
+significance, owing to later circumstances in which Bakunin had no
+share; but the kind of prelude of the Anarchist movement, which was
+noticeable at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies,
+may certainly be attributed to the influence of Bakunin.
+
+With the growth of the organisation of the proletariat in its
+international relations in the second half of the sixties, it was only
+too readily understood that a part of this organisation rested upon an
+Anarchist basis, especially as the opposition to the social democratic
+tendency had not yet been developed in practice. Among workmen using
+the Romance languages, the free-collectivist doctrines of Proudhon
+gained much ground; prominent labour journals, such as the Geneva
+_Egalite_, the _Progres du Locle_, and others, often represented these
+views, and Switzerland especially was the chief country in which the
+working classes had always inclined to radical opinions. We call to
+mind, for example, the union of handicraftsmen of the forties, the
+Young Germany, and the _Lemanbund_ (Lake of Geneva Union) which had
+been led by Marr and Doeleke, to however small an extent, into an
+Anarchist channel. The same field was open to Bakunin as suitable for
+his operations, after he had long enough sought for one.
+
+After his return from his Siberian exile, Bakunin had looked out for
+an organisation, by the help of which he could translate his Anarchist
+ideas into action and agitation, the which were the proper domain of
+his spirit. When, after restless wanderings, he came from Italy into
+Switzerland, it appeared as if this wish were to be fulfilled.
+
+In Geneva there happened to be a meeting of the Peace Congress, which
+then had merely philanthropic aims, and was attended by members of the
+most diverse classes of society and most different nations. Bakunin
+hoped to win over to his ideas this company, consisting for the most
+part of amiable enthusiasts, doctrinaires and congress haunters, and
+to create in it a background for his own activity. He, therefore,
+appeared at the Congress and made a speech that was highly applauded
+in which he came to the conclusion that international peace was
+impossible as long as the following principle, together with all its
+consequences, was not accepted; namely: "Every nation, feeble or
+strong, small or great, every province, every community has the
+absolute right to be free and autonomous, to live according to its
+interests and private needs and to rule itself; and in this right all
+communities and all nations have a certain solidarity to the extent
+that this principle cannot be violated for one of them without at the
+same time involving all the others in danger. So long as the present
+centralised States exist, universal peace is impossible; we must,
+therefore, wish for their dismemberment, in order that, on the ruins
+of these unities based on force and organised from above downwards by
+despotism and conquest, free unities organised from below upwards may
+develop as a free federation of communities with provinces, provinces
+with nations, and nations with the united States of Europe." In
+another speech at the same Congress he sums up the principles upon
+which alone peace and justice rest, in the following:--(1) "The
+abolition of everything included in the term of 'the historic and
+political necessity of the State,' in the name of any larger or
+smaller, weak or strong population, as well as in the name of all
+individuals who are said to have full power to dispose of themselves
+in complete freedom independently of the needs and claims of the
+State, wherein this freedom ought only to be limited by the equal
+rights of others; (2) Annulling of all the permanent contracts between
+the individual and the collective unity, associations, departments or
+nations; in other words, every individual must have the right to break
+any contract, even if entered into freely; (3) Every individual, as
+well as every association, province and nation, must have the right to
+quit any union or alliance, with, however, the express condition that
+the party thus leaving it must not menace the freedom and independence
+of the State which it has left by alliance with a foreign power."
+
+Although these utterances of the wily agitator implied a complete
+diversion of the views of the Congress from purely philanthropic
+intentions to open Collectivist Anarchism, yet they found support in
+the numerous radical elements which took part in the Congress.
+
+Bakunin, who now settled in Switzerland, was elected a permanent
+member of the Central Committee of the newly-founded "Peace and
+Freedom League," with its headquarters in Bern, and he prepared for it
+his "proposal" already mentioned. Bakunin was feverishly active in
+trying to lead the League into an Anarchist channel. Already in the
+session of the Bern Central Committee, he proposed to the committee,
+with the support of Ogarjow, Jukowsky, the Poles Mrockowski and
+Zagorski, and the Frenchman Naquet, to accept a programme similar to
+that which he had laid before the Geneva Congress. Then he carried,
+by the aid of this submissive committee, a resolution, demanding the
+affiliation of the League with the International Union of Workers. But
+this demand of the League was refused by the congress of the
+"International" at Brussels; but, already greatly compromised by its
+position in regard to the League, the "International" still further
+left the path of safety when Bakunin recommended his Socialist
+programme to the congress of the League which sat at Bern in 1868.
+Bakunin found himself in the minority, retired from the congress, and,
+with a small band of faithful adherents, including the brothers
+Reclus, Albert Richard, Jukowsky, mentioned above, and others, betook
+himself to Geneva.
+
+These faithful followers formed the nucleus of the Socialist
+Democratic Alliance formed in Geneva in 1868, the first society with
+avowedly Anarchist tendencies. We have already quoted its official
+programme. It is an unimportant variation of Proudhon's Collectivism.
+The "Alliance" was a union of public societies, as far as possible
+autonomous federations, such as the Jurassic Bund; and, like the
+"International," it was divided into a central committee and national
+bureaus. But together with this division went a secret organisation.
+Bakunin, the pronounced enemy of all organisations in theory, created
+in practice a secret society quite according to the rules of
+Carbonarism--a hierarchy which was in total contradiction to the
+anti-authority tendencies of the society. According to the secret
+statutes of the "Alliance" three grades were recognised--(1) "The
+International Brethren," one hundred in number, who formed a kind of
+sacred college, and were to play the leading parts in the soon
+expected, immediate social revolution, with Bakunin at their head.
+(2) "The National Brethren," who were organised by the International
+Brethren into a national association in every country, but who
+were allowed to suspect nothing of the international organisation.
+(3) Lastly came the secret international alliance, the pendant to the
+public alliance, operating through the permanent Central Committee.
+
+If the "Alliance" made rapid progress in the first year of its
+existence, and quickly spread into Switzerland, the South of France,
+and large parts of Spain and Italy, and even found adherents in
+Belgium and Russia, this was certainly not due to the playing at
+secret societies affected by the International Brethren. It is
+probably not a mistake to see in the growth of the first Anarchist
+organisation first and foremost a natural reaction against the stiff
+rule of the London General Council; but at the same time the Anarchism
+of Proudhon contained (contradictory as it may sound) in many respects
+an element of moderation, and was far more adapted to the limits of
+the _bourgeois_ intellect than the tendencies of the Social Democracy,
+which demand a full participation in party interests and party life.
+Just as we find later, so also we find now at the time of the
+"Alliance," numerous elements in the Anarchist ranks belonging to the
+superior artisan and lower middle class. We therefore find strong
+Anarchist influences even within the "International" before the
+"Alliance" flourished. Thus one of the main events of the Brussels
+Congress early in September, 1868, was a proposal of Albert Richard, a
+follower of Bakunin, to found a bank of mutual credit and exchange
+quite after the manner of Proudhon. In the discussion upon it
+prominent representatives of Anarchist ideas took part, such as
+Eccarius, Tolain, and others. The Congress, however, buried the
+proposed statute in its sections--the last honor for Proudhon's much
+harassed project.
+
+But in the congress of the next year the Anarchists made quite another
+kind of influence felt. In the meantime the "Alliance" had been
+absorbed in the "International." A first attempt of Bakunin to
+affiliate the "Alliance" to the great international association of
+workmen, and thereby to secure for himself a leading part in it, was a
+failure. The General Council, in which the influence of the clever
+agitator was evidently feared, refused in December, 1868, to associate
+itself with the "Alliance." Some months later the "Alliance" again
+approached the General Council upon the question of affiliation, and
+declared itself ready to fulfil all its conditions. The chief of these
+was the dissolution of the "Alliance" as such and the division of its
+sections into those of the "International," as well as the abolition
+of its secret organisation. Thereupon the Bakuninist sections were in
+July, 1869, declared to be "International," although in London it was
+never believed that the members of the "Alliance" would keep the
+conditions. Not only the Central Committee continued as before, but
+also the secret organisation and Bakunin's leadership. If the
+amalgamation of both parties was at length completed, it only happened
+because at this stage each was in need of the other, and perhaps
+feared the other. But the very origin of the union, as will readily be
+understood, did not permit it to work together very harmoniously. And,
+moreover, apart from the main points of difference, there were also a
+series of minor divergencies of opinion, chiefly on the subject of
+tactics. The followers of Marx strove for greater centralisation of
+the directorate, the Bakuninists more for the autonomy of the separate
+sections. The men of the General Council eagerly urged the adoption of
+universal suffrage as the most prominent means of agitation for the
+purpose of proletariat emancipation; Bakunin entirely rejected any
+political action, including the exercise of the suffrage, since, in
+his opinion, this would only become an instrument of reaction, and
+since the workers could only use their rights by force and not votes.
+It will be easily understood that the result of such differences of
+opinion was a sharp divergence inside the "International" between the
+"Marxists" and "Bakuninists"--a divergence that became irremediable at
+the Basle Congress of 1869. At this Congress the "Alliance" succeeded,
+if not in securing a decisive majority, yet in obtaining sufficient
+influence to give the Congress a decidedly Anarchist character.
+
+As the first item on the programme, the Belgian Proudhonist, De Paepe,
+proposed to the Congress to declare (1) that society had the right to
+abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the
+community; (2) that it was necessary to make the land common property.
+Albert Richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source
+of all social inequalities and all poverty. "It arose from force and
+from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land
+must be regulated by the federally organised communes." Bakunin
+himself supported De Paepe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand
+that opposition made itself felt in the Anarchist ranks. Several
+pronounced Anarchists, especially Murat and Tolain, supported
+individual property with great decision and warmth. Nevertheless De
+Paepe's Collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or
+fifty-three) votes to four.
+
+But the Bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next
+question, concerning the right of inheritance. This was a question
+quite characteristic of Bakunin. The proposal ran:
+
+"In consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable
+element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of
+property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and
+the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land
+and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other
+hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a
+privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove
+injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further,
+inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms
+an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the
+individual having the same means of moral and material development;
+considering, finally, that the Congress has pronounced in favour of
+collective property in land, and that this declaration would be
+illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration:
+the Congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and
+absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary
+conditions of the emancipation of labour."
+
+One might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the
+abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to
+make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" institution as
+inheritance. But it appears that it was desired to let Bakunin (whose
+hobby the struggle against inheritance was well known to be) plainly
+see that the Congress wished to have none of him, although they had
+not ventured to oppose the views of his adherents upon the far more
+important question. The proposal only received thirty-two votes for
+it, twenty-three against it, and seventeen delegates refrained from
+voting. Therefore the resolution was lost, since it could not obtain a
+decisive majority.
+
+This procedure of the Basle Congress was calculated to embitter both
+parties. Open rupture could not be long delayed. Already, at the
+Romance Congress[1] at Chaux-de-Fonds on April 4, 1870, the admission
+of the Bakuninist sections had raised a veritable storm--twenty-one
+delegates voting for the admission, and eighteen against it, and the
+latter withdrew immediately from the Congress in consequence of the
+decision. Nevertheless, at this Congress Bakunin's views practically
+prevailed, for the Congress declared in favour of taking part in
+politics, and putting up working-men candidates at elections as a
+means of agitation.
+
+    [1] The first groups of the "International" in the
+    Romance-speaking portions of Switzerland had increased so
+    quickly that at a congress in Geneva in 1869 they united
+    themselves into a league of their own, the "Romance
+    Federation," in harmony with the "International," to which
+    members of the "Alliance" and Marxists belonged in almost
+    equal numbers.
+
+The day on which the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris (the 4th
+September, 1870) was considered by the "Alliance" to be the right
+moment "to unchain the hydra of Revolution." This was first done in
+Switzerland, where manifestoes were issued calling to the formation of
+a free corps against the Prussians. The manifestoes were seized, and
+the head of the revolutionary hydra cut off, as far as Switzerland was
+concerned. On September 28th, Bakunin tried to organise a riot at
+Lyons. Albert Richard, Bastelica, and Gaspard Blanc began it; the mob
+took possession of the Town Hall; Bakunin installed himself there, and
+decreed "abolition of the State." He had perhaps hoped that the
+example of Lyons would encourage other cities in the circumstances
+then prevailing, and these would likewise declare themselves to be
+free communes, and the State to be abolished. But the State,--as the
+opponents of the "Alliance" maliciously said,--in the shape of two
+companies of the National Guard, found a way into Lyons through a gate
+which the rioters had forgotten to watch, swept the Anarchists out of
+the Town Hall, and caused Bakunin to seek his way back to Geneva in
+great haste.
+
+This intermezzo, the only historical moment which the "Alliance" had,
+did not, of course, contribute to strengthen any friendship between
+the Bakuninists and Marxists. The latter had a suitable excuse for
+shaking off Bakunin, and making the Anarchists subservient to them. In
+the conference at London (September, 1871) the sections of the Jura
+were recommended to join the "Romance Union," and in case this was not
+done, the conference determined the mountain sections should unite
+into the Jurassic Federation. The conference passed a severe
+resolution against Bakunin's tactics, and a resolution against
+Netschajew's proceedings was also really directed against the leader
+of the "Alliance."
+
+Bakunin was right in taking this as a declaration of war, and his
+followers accepted the challenge. On November 12, 1871, the Jura
+sections met at a congress in Souvillier, in which they certainly
+accepted the name "Jurassic Union," but declared the "Romance Union"
+to be dissolved; appealed against the decisions of the London
+Conference as well as against their legality, and appealed to a
+general congress, to be called immediately.
+
+These endless disputes came to a climax at the congress held at The
+Hague in 1872, when Bakunin was excluded from the "International";
+whereupon the Anarchist sections finally separated from the Social
+Democrats, and in the same year called an "International Labour
+Congress" at St. Imier. Here a provisional union of "Anti-Authority
+Socialists" was resolved upon, and it was decided (1) that the
+annihilation of every political power was the first duty of the
+proletariat; (2) that every organisation of the political power, both
+provisory and revolutionary, was merely a delusion, and was as
+dangerous for the proletariat as any of the Governments now existing.
+In the following year, 1873, another congress took place at Geneva,
+which founded a new "International," which placed all power completely
+in the hands of the sections, while the "Bureau" only was to serve as
+a link between the autonomous unions, and to give information.
+
+This first international Anarchist organisation never became of
+practical importance; only the "Jurassic Union" formed for almost ten
+years a much feared centre of Anarchism in Romance-speaking
+Switzerland and Southern France. Indeed it became the cradle of the
+"Anarchism of action" generally. "The Jura Federation,"[2] wrote
+Kropotkin, "has played a most important part in the development of the
+revolutionary idea. If, in speaking of Anarchy to-day, we can say that
+there are three thousand Anarchists in Lyons, and five thousand in the
+valley of the Rhone, and several thousands in the South, that is the
+work mainly of the Jura Federation. Indeed I must ask, How was this
+possible? Is Anarchy in Europe only ten years old? Of course the
+_Zeitgeist_ has carried us along with it; but this was first openly
+manifest in a group, the Jura Federation, which thus must gain credit
+for it." The Jurassic Union was in fact the Anarchist party. The head
+and soul of this union was the Bakuninist, Paul Brousse, a zealous and
+reckless Anarchist and clever journalist, who in his paper
+_Avantgarde_ was one of the first to preach the "propaganda of
+action." In December, 1878, this paper was suppressed by the Swiss
+Government because it had approved the attempts of Hoedel and Nobeling.
+Brousse himself was arrested and condemned to two months' imprisonment
+and ten years' banishment, but after undergoing his imprisonment he
+completely gave up Anarchism. Kropotkin, who had already helped him
+with the _Avantgarde_, took his place, and founded in Geneva the
+_Revolte_, directing with a feverish activity the work originally
+begun by Bakunin into new channels, and afterwards doing so from
+London.
+
+    [2] _Revolte_, July 8, 1862.
+
+In the year 1876 the French Anarchists at the congress at Lausanne had
+finally separated themselves from every party, by declaring the
+Parisian Commune to be only another form of government by authority.
+The congress of 1878 at Freiburg was of similar importance. Elisee
+Reclus moved for the appointment of a commission, which was to
+answer the following questions: (1) "Why we are revolutionaries";
+(2) "Why we are Anarchists"; (3) "Why we are Collectivists." "We are
+revolutionaries," said Reclus, "because we desire justice. Progress
+has never been marked by mere peaceful development; it has always been
+called forth by a sudden resolution. We are Anarchists, and as such
+recognise no master. Morality resides only in freedom. We are
+international Collectivists, because we perceive that an existence
+without social grouping is impossible." The Congress accepted Reclus's
+motion, and decided (1) in favour of the general appropriation of
+social wealth; (2) for the abolition of the State in any form, even in
+that of a so-called central point of public administration. Further,
+the Congress declared in favour of the propaganda of theory, of
+insurrectionary and revolutionary activity, and against universal
+suffrage, since this was not adapted to secure the sovereignty of the
+multitude.
+
+At a congress held in the following year (1879) at Chaux-de-Fonds,
+Kropotkin definitely urged the policy of the propaganda of action, and
+the Anarchist Labour Congress at Marseilles in the same year declared
+itself unhesitatingly in favour of universal expropriation. At the
+next Swiss Anarchist Congress in 1880 Kropotkin finally demanded the
+abolition of the term "Collectivism" which had hitherto been retained,
+and proposed to replace it by the term "Anarchist Communism."
+
+Here we can see, even upon a point of theory, the deep divergence
+which was proceeding at this time. Hitherto Anarchism--and at least in
+this first period of its development we can speak of a party--has
+proceeded quite on the lines of Proudhon's Collectivism. Its main
+representative is the "Alliance," or rather Michael Bakunin, and after
+him the Jurassic Federation. This period is, with the exception of a
+few revolutionary attempts, free from outrage and crime. But all this
+was changed at the London Congress. Before speaking of this, however,
+we must just glance at the branches of the "Alliance" in Spain, Italy,
+and elsewhere.
+
+The Italian peninsula has always been one of the chief centres of
+Anarchism. It has been said that this is the fault of the weakness and
+deficiency of the police, although the Italian Government repeatedly,
+both in 1866 and 1876, and again recently, has required and supported
+the strengthening of the executive power in every possible way against
+certain phenomena of political and social passion. The police alone,
+whether zealous or lax, is here, as elsewhere, only the most
+subordinate factor in history. But if we remember the proletariat that
+swarms in the numerous cities of Italy, in its economic misery and
+moral degradation; if we consider the peculiar tendency of this nation
+towards political crime and the paraphernalia of secret conspiracy; if
+we remember the days of the Carbonari, the Black Brothers, the
+Acoltellatori, and others,--we shall find in Italy, quite apart from
+the police and their work, sufficient other reasons for the growth of
+Anarchism.
+
+During the war of independence, revolutionary literature in general,
+and especially the works of Herzen and Michael Bakunin, had a great
+sale among the younger generation, and so it came to pass that the
+idea of nationalism was imperceptibly fostered by Socialist and
+Nihilist influences. The leading part taken by a number of Italian
+revolutionaries, especially Cipriani,--afterwards the leader of the
+Apennine Anarchists,--in the Commune of 1871, contributed very
+considerably to promote Socialist demagogy in the revolutionary
+centres of Italy, in the Romagna, and the Marches. Closer contact with
+Bakunin proved to be the decisive touch.
+
+In those memorable days when the "International" separated into two
+heterogeneous parts, we already find the majority of the Italian
+Socialists adopting the standpoint of Bakunin; indeed the Italians,
+even before the Hague Congress, took sides in favour of Bakunin
+against the "Authority-Communists" of Marx. This first Anarchist
+movement became no more important in Italy than elsewhere, and an
+attempt at riot in April, 1877, near Benevento, headed by Cafiero and
+Malatesta, gave an impression of childishness and comicality rather
+than of menace. It was put down by a handful of soldiers; Malatesta
+and Cafiero were taken prisoners, but set free. The severe repressive
+measures afterwards adopted by the Government kept Anarchism down for
+some time.
+
+In Spain, also, at the beginning of the seventies, there was--as was
+the case with all the Romance countries--a strong Bakuninist party,
+which was said to have amounted to 50,000 men in 1873. During the
+Federalist risings the Anarchists made common cause with the
+Intransigeants, and succeeded in taking possession of several cities
+for a short time. Their successes, however, did not last long, and
+they were only able to hold out till 1874 in New Carthagena, where
+they had finally to surrender after a regular siege by the Government
+troops. The Anarchist societies and newspapers were suppressed, and
+the severest measures taken against Anarchists, which only roused them
+to the most sanguinary form of propaganda. The Anarchists declared
+that if they were to be treated as wild beasts, they would act as
+such, and cause death and destruction to the Government and to any
+existing form of society at any time, in any place, and by any means.
+
+In Belgium about this period there was also a great increase of
+Proudhonish Anarchism, which, later on, as in Switzerland, Italy, and
+Spain, attached itself to Bakunin, and at the congress at The Hague
+formed the centre of the opposition to the Marxists. The rapid growth
+of Social Democracy in Belgium during the second half of the seventies
+almost extinguished Anarchism there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If we wish to characterise briefly this first period of the Anarchism
+of action, a period terminated decisively by the year 1880, we should
+define it as the process of separation between the Socialist and the
+Anarchist tendency. Karl Marx, who had already come into opposition
+with the "Father of Anarchism," and had attacked his "philosophy of
+want" with the bitter criticism of "want of philosophy," noted the far
+greater danger which threatened Socialism from the clever agitator
+Bakunin, and entered into a life-and-death struggle against him.
+Although there was a large personal element in this conflict, it was
+really more than a personal struggle between two opponents. There was
+a deep division among the proletariat themselves, separating
+them--unconsciously for the most part--into two great and
+irreconcilable camps; the first battle had been fought, and the result
+was decidedly not in favour of the Anarchists. Towards the end of the
+seventies we notice everywhere, except perhaps in France, where social
+parties were strongly marked, a remarkable retrogression in Anarchism.
+It appeared as if, after playing the part of an episode, it was to
+disappear from the political stage.
+
+In view of the fact that the history both of practical and theoretical
+Anarchism is a history pure and simple of the most violent opposition
+to Social Democracy inside its own camp, it shows both ignorance and
+unfairness to make Socialists bear the blame of Anarchist propaganda.
+It is undeniable that Anarchism can only flourish where Socialism is
+generally prevalent. But that does not imply much, and no special
+wisdom is needed to find the reason for this phenomenon. But that is
+all. It is just as indisputable a fact, that Anarchism only flourishes
+where Social Democracy is feeble, divided, and weak, and that it
+always is unsuccessful in its efforts where the Social Democratic
+party is strong and united, as in Germany. All attempts to plant
+Anarchism in Germany have failed, not because of the preventive and
+repressive measures of the Government, but because of the strength of
+the party of Social Democracy. In England where there is a Socialist
+movement among the working classes, with a definite aim, Anarchism has
+remained merely an imported article; in Austria both parties have for
+years fought fiercely, and in proportion as one rises the other sinks.
+In Italy there are notorious centres of the Anarchism of action in
+Leghorn, Lugo, Forli, Rome, and Sicily. In Milan and Turin, where
+Social Democracy has established itself on the German pattern, and
+has great influence among the lower classes, there are hardly any
+"Anarchists of action." On the other hand, France, where the Socialist
+party by being broken up into numerous small fragments is condemned to
+lose its influence, is the headquarters of Anarchism. But anyone who
+is not satisfied with these facts need only look at the causes of the
+most significant turning-points which the history of modern Anarchism
+has to offer, the London Congress of 1881, when the Anarchism of
+action raised its Gorgon head, officially adopted the programme of the
+propaganda of action, when the system of groups in every country was
+accepted, and that era of outrages began which, instead of promoting
+the work of the self-improvement of society, rather alienates it under
+the pressure of a dreadful terrorism. To-day a small group, which in
+number hardly equals a single one of the famous twelve nationalities
+of Austria, has succeeded in making the whole world talk of them,
+while the parliaments of every nation pass their laws with reference
+to this group, and often in aiming their blows against Anarchists
+strike those who are merely followers of a natural evolution.
+
+And, it may be asked, On what day or by what act was so fortunate a
+chance offered to Anarchism? The occasion was the German Socialist
+law. This fact is indisputable.
+
+It was only in the natural order of things that, in 1878, when the
+German policy of force happened partially to paralyse the legal
+agitation of the Social Democrats by exceptional legislation, a
+radical group arose among the Socialist working classes which, led by
+the agitator Most, always an extremist, and Hasselmann, drew from
+these circumstances the lesson that now, being excluded from
+constitutional agitation, they must devote all their powers to prepare
+for revolution. This preparation, Most declared, should consist in the
+arming of all Socialists, energetic secret agitation to excite the
+masses, and, above all, revolutionary acts and outrages. The agitation
+was to be carried on by quite small groups of at most five men. Like
+Bakunin, Most, who, on being expelled from Berlin early in 1879,
+emigrated to London, where he founded his journal _Freedom_, had gone
+on in advance of the general Socialist movement, and for a time
+proceeded with it; but, like Bakunin too, he had been disowned and
+violently attacked by the Social Democratic party, when he showed the
+Anarchist in him so openly. The immediate consequence of Most and
+Hasselmann's programme was the formal expulsion of both agitators from
+the party by the secret congress at Wyden, near Ossingen, in
+Switzerland.
+
+But just because of the disposition engendered by the Socialist law,
+this decision was quite powerless to stifle the Most and Hasselmann
+movement. On the contrary, Most's following grew from day to day,
+aided in no small degree by his paper _Freedom_, written in the
+glowing language of the demagogue, and now calling itself openly an
+"Anarchist organ." When Most came to London, he soon took the lead of
+the "Social Democratic Working Men's Club," then a thousand strong,
+the majority of which, after the separation of the more moderate
+members who did not like the new programme, went over to Most's side.
+From these adherents Most formed an organisation of the "United
+Socialists," in which the "International" was to be revived again upon
+the most radical basis. The seat of this organisation was to be
+London, and from thence a Central Committee of seven persons was to
+look after the linking together of revolutionary societies abroad.
+Side by side with this public organisation, Most formed a secret
+"Propagandist Club," to carry on an international revolutionary
+agitation and to prepare directly for the general revolution which
+Most thought was near at hand. For this purpose a committee was to be
+formed in every country in order to form groups after the Nihilist
+pattern, and at the proper time to take the lead of the movement. The
+activity of all these national organisations was to be united in the
+Central Committee in London, which was an international body. The
+organ of the organisation was to be the _Freedom_. The following of
+this new movement grew rapidly in every country, and already in 1881 a
+great demonstration of Most's ideas took place at the memorable
+International Revolutionary Congress in London, the holding of which
+was mainly due to the initiative of Most and the well-known Nihilist,
+Hartmann.
+
+Already, in April, 1881, a preliminary congress had been held in
+Paris, at which the procedure of the "parliamentary Socialists" had
+been rejected, since only a social revolution was regarded as a
+remedy; in the struggle against present-day society all and any means
+were looked upon as right and justifiable; and in view of this the
+distribution of leaflets, the sending of emissaries, and the use of
+explosives were recommended. A German living in London had proposed an
+amendment involving the forcible removal of all potentates after the
+manner of the assassination of the Russian Czar, but this was rejected
+as "at present not yet suitable." The congress following this
+preliminary one took place in London on July 14 to 19, 1881, and was
+attended by about forty delegates, the representatives of several
+hundred groups.
+
+"The revolutionaries of all countries are uniting into an
+'International Social Revolutionary Working Men's Association' for the
+purpose of a social revolution. The headquarters of the Association is
+at London, and sub-committees are formed in Paris, Geneva, and New
+York. In every place where like-minded supporters exist, sections and
+an executive committee of three persons are to be formed. The
+committees of a country are to keep up with one another, and with the
+Central Committee, regular communication by means of continual reports
+and information, and have to collect money for the purchase of poison
+and weapons, as well as to find places suitable for laying mines, and
+so on. To attain the proposed end, the annihilation of all rulers,
+ministers of State, nobility, the clergy, the most prominent
+capitalists, and other exploiters, any means are permissible, and
+therefore great attention should be given specially to the study of
+chemistry and the preparation of explosives, as being the most
+important weapons. Together with the chief committee in London there
+will also be established an executive committee of international
+composition and an information bureau, whose duty is to carry out the
+decisions of the chief committee and to conduct correspondence."
+
+This Congress and the decisions passed thereat had very far-reaching
+and fateful consequences for the development of the Anarchism of
+action. The executive committee set to work at once, and sought to
+carry out every point of the proposed programme, but especially to
+utilise for purposes of demonstration and for feverish agitation every
+revolutionary movement of whatever origin or tendency it might be,
+whether proceeding from Russian Nihilism or Irish Fenianism. How
+successful their activity was, was proved only too well by now
+unceasing outrages in every country.
+
+The London Congress operated as a beacon of fire; scarcely had it
+uttered its terrible concluding words when it found in all parts of
+Europe an echo multiplied a thousand-fold. Anarchism, which was
+thought to be dead, celebrated a dread resurrection, and in places
+where it had never existed it suddenly raised its Gorgon head aloft.
+The reason is mainly to be found in the fact that all the numerous
+radical-social elements which had not agreed with the tactics of the
+Social Democrats in view of Government prosecutions, now adopted
+Most's programme without asking in the least what the Anarchist theory
+was or whether they believed in it. The two catchwords of the
+Anarchism of action, Communism and Anarchy, did not fail to have
+their usual effect upon the most radical and confused elements of
+discontent. Communism is, to speak plainly, only "the absolute
+average"; and as there are large numbers of men who fall even below
+the average both mentally, morally, and materially, Communism can have
+at any time nothing terrible in it for these people, and even
+represents to them a highly desirable Eldorado. Collectivism is the
+impractical invention of a man of genius, that may be compared to a
+mechanical invention that consists of so many screws, wheels, and
+springs that it never can be set going. But Communism seems an easy
+expedient for the average man; it can always reckon upon a public;
+certainly one is always to be found. By Anarchy, of course, the mob
+understands always only its own dictatorship, and this remedy, too,
+always has a great attraction for the uneducated masses. But as
+regards the tactics commended by the London Congress, it was
+completely adapted to the mental capacities of the representatives of
+"darkest Europe." The "new movement" could thus count upon success,
+especially as skilful agitators like Kropotkin, Most, Penkert,
+Gautier, and others devoted to it all their remarkable powers. This
+success was gained with surprising rapidity.
+
+In Paris in 1880 Anarchism was almost extinguished; its organ, the
+_Revolution Sociale_, had to cease when Andrieux, the Prefect of
+Police, who had supplied it with money, left his appointment, and
+supplies were stopped. The party was disorganised both in Paris and
+the provinces, and the Jurassic Federation was nearly extinct.
+Immediately after the London Congress, the "Revolutionary
+International League" was established, an active intercommunication
+was kept up with London, and an eager agitation was developed. In
+consequence, however, of the strong opposition of the other
+Socialists, this League remained weak, and scarcely numbered a hundred
+members. On the other hand, Anarchism increased all the more in the
+great industrial centres of the provinces. In the South were founded
+the _Federation Lyonnaise_ and the _Federation Stephanoise_, which,
+especially after Kropotkin took over the leadership and cleverly took
+advantage of the discords prevailing among other Socialists (_e. g._,
+at the congress of St. Etienne), made astonishing progress in Lyons,
+the main centre of the movement, St. Etienne, Roanne, Narbonne, Nimes,
+Bordeaux, and other places. According to Kropotkin, these unions
+already numbered in a year's time 8000 members. In Lyons they
+possessed an organ, which, like Most's _Freedom_, appeared under all
+kinds of titles in order to elude the police, and which openly
+advocated outrages and gave recipes for the manufacture of explosives.
+
+The consequences of this unchecked agitation soon became visible. The
+first opportunity was given by the great strikes which broke out at
+the beginning of 1882 in Roanne, Bezieres, Molieres, and other
+industrial centres of Southern France, and were used by the Anarchists
+for their own purposes. A workman, Fournier, who shot his employer in
+the open street, was honoured in Lyons by the summoning of a meeting
+to present him with a presentation revolver. For the national fete on
+the 14th July, 1882, a larger riot was planned to take place in Paris,
+for which purpose help was also sought from London. But as there
+happened to be a review of troops in Paris on that date, the
+Anarchists contented themselves with issuing a manifesto "to the
+Slaves of Labour," concluding with the words: "No Fetes! Death to the
+Exploiters of Labour! Long Live the Social Revolution!" In autumn,
+1882, riots broke out in Montceau-les-Mines and Lyons, in which
+violent means were employed, including dynamite. Next spring (March,
+1883), there and in Paris great demonstrations of the "unemployed"
+took place in the streets, combined with robbery and dynamite
+outrages, and on July 14th there were sanguinary encounters with the
+armed forces of the State in Roubaix and elsewhere, when the populace
+was incited to arise against the _bourgeoisie_, "who" (it was said)
+"were indulging in festivities while they had condemned Louise Michel,
+the champion of the proletariat, to a cruel imprisonment."
+
+The French Government now thought it no longer possible to look on
+quietly at these proceedings, and sought to secure the agitators,
+which proved no light task. Of the fourteen prisoners accused of
+complicity in the riots of Montceau-les-Mines, only nine were
+condemned to terms of imprisonment of one to five years or less
+important counts. On the other hand, at the Lyons trial of 19th
+January, 1883, only three out of sixty-six were acquitted; the
+others, including Kropotkin, his follower Gautier, a brilliant orator
+and fanatical propagandist, Bordas, Bernard, and others, were
+condemned to imprisonment with the full penalty on the strength of
+the law of March 14, 1872, against the "International." Almost
+all the accused, including Kropotkin, openly confessed that both
+intellectually and in deed they were the originators of the excesses
+at Lyons and Montceau-les-Mines, and that they were Anarchists, but
+denied the existence of an international organisation, and protested
+against the application of the law of the 14th March, 1872.
+
+Similarly the Government succeeded in securing the ringleaders of the
+demonstrations in Paris. At the same time the Government endeavoured
+to check the Anarchist agitation by administrative methods; but
+nothing could stay the progress of the new movement that had started
+since the London Congress. France is the headquarters of Anarchism,
+Paris contains its leading journals, over all France there exists a
+network of groups; the propaganda of action here celebrated its
+saddest triumphs, as is only too well shown by the cases of Ravachol,
+Henry, and Caserio.
+
+Switzerland, the original home of the Anarchism of action, now gives
+rise to but little comment. Immediately after the London Congress
+Kropotkin developed his most active agitation in the old Anarchist
+centre, the Lake of Geneva district. On July 4, 1882, at Lausanne, at
+an annual congress of some thirty delegates, Kropotkin estimated the
+number of his adherents at two thousand. Lausanne Congress adopted
+the same attitude as the London Congress, and took the opportunity on
+the occasion of the international musical festival at Geneva, August
+12 to 14, 1882, to hold a secret international congress there. At this
+the question of the separation of the Anarchists from every other
+party was discussed. As a matter of fact this separation had long
+since taken place; the long-drawn struggle between Marxists and
+Bakuninists had caused a complete division between the Social
+Democrats and Anarchists; latterly even the adherents of Collectivism,
+the Possibilists, and other groups had separated from the Anarchists;
+and thus the Geneva Congress merely gave expression to the complete
+individualisation of the new movement, and it was decided to make the
+new programme officially known in a manifesto. This manifesto ran:
+
+"Our ruler is our enemy. We Anarchists, _i. e._, men without any
+rulers, fight against all those who have usurped any power, or who
+wish to usurp it. Our enemy is the owner who keeps the land for
+himself, and makes the peasant work for his advantage. Our enemy is
+the manufacturer who fills his factory with wage-slaves; our enemy is
+the State, whether monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, with its
+officials and staff of officers, magistrates, and police spies. Our
+enemy is every thought of authority, whether men call it God or devil,
+in whose name the priests have so long ruled honest people. Our enemy
+is the law which always oppresses the weak by the strong, to the
+justification and apotheosis of crime. But if the landowners, the
+manufacturers, the heads of the State, the priests, and the law are
+our enemies, we are also theirs, and we boldly oppose them. We intend
+to reconquer the land and the factory from the landowner and the
+manufacturer; we mean to annihilate the State, under whatever name it
+may be concealed; and we mean to get our freedom back again in spite
+of priest or law. According to our strength, we will work for the
+annihilation of all legal institutions, and are in accord with
+everyone who defies the law by a revolutionary act. We despise all
+legal means because they are the negation of our rights; we do not
+want so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our
+own personal sovereignty, and cannot make ourselves accomplices in the
+crimes committed by our so-called representatives. Between us
+Anarchists and all political parties, whether Conservatives or
+Moderates, whether they fight for freedom or recognise it by their
+admissions, a deep gulf is fixed. We wish to remain our own masters
+and he among us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor
+to our cause. Of course we know that individual freedom cannot exist
+without a union with other free associates. We all live by the support
+one of another, that is the social life which has created us, that is
+the work of all, which gives to each the consciousness of his rights
+and the power to defend them. Every social product is the work of the
+whole community, to which all have a claim in equal manner. For we are
+Communists; we recognise that unless patrimonial, communal,
+provincial, and national limits are abolished, the work must be begun
+anew. It is ours to conquer and defend common property, and to
+overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called."
+
+In spite of the severe repressive measures taken against the Swiss
+Anarchists in consequence of the outrages in the south of France, in
+which they were rightly supposed to be implicated, they held their
+annual congress from July 7 to 9, 1883, at Chaux-de-Fonds, at which
+the establishment of an international fund "for the sacrifice of the
+reactionary _bourgeoisie_," the disadvantage from the Anarchist
+standpoint of a union of revolutionary groups, and the necessity of
+the propaganda of action were decided upon.
+
+The beginnings of German Anarchism in Switzerland date from the
+characteristic year 1880, when the division among German Socialists
+(arising from Most's influence) was felt among the Swiss working
+classes also. In the summer of 1880 Most himself was in Switzerland,
+and succeeded in collecting round him a small following, which, as
+early as October, felt itself strong enough to hold on the Lake of
+Geneva a sort of opposition congress to the one at Wyden, in order to
+declare its decisions null and void. At the same time the _Freedom_
+was recognised as the organ of the party. The London Congress gave a
+new impulse to the agitation. Proceedings were at once taken to
+realise in Switzerland the London programme; groups were formed,
+and connection made between them by special correspondents
+(_trimardeurs_), a propaganda fund established, and messages sent to
+Germany inciting to commit outrages as opportunity offered. In
+consequence of this active agitation, the Anarchist groups in France
+and N. E. Switzerland continually increased, and when in 1883 Most's
+_Freedom_ no longer could be published in London, it appeared in
+Switzerland under the editorship of Stellmacher, who was afterwards
+executed in Vienna, until Most, after performing his sentence of
+imprisonment in London, transferred it with him to New York. In this
+year (1883) the growth of Anarchism was so rapid that its adherents
+even succeeded in gaining the majority in many of the German
+working-men's clubs or in breaking them up. In August, 1883, the
+Anarchists held a secret conference in Zuerich, which declared Most's
+system of groups to be satisfactory; drew up a new plan for extending,
+as far as possible and with all possible safety, the spread of
+Anarchist literature; and considered the establishment of a secret
+printing-press. The activity of the Swiss Anarchists consisted mainly
+in smuggling Anarchist literature into Germany and Austria, while the
+Jurassic Federation again concerned itself chiefly with doing the same
+for Southern France. Both parties now had the most friendly relations
+one with another.
+
+Swiss Anarchism leads us directly to Germany and Austria. Germany may
+be termed the most free from Anarchists of any country in Europe. In
+the seventies a few groups had been founded here from Switzerland, and
+by means of the _Arbeiterzeitung_ (_Working-Mens' Journal_), appearing
+in Bern, and conducted by Reinsdorf, a former compositor and
+enthusiastic agitator, an attempt was made to convert the working
+classes of Germany to Anarchism. But owing to the strength of Social
+Democracy in this country, all Reinsdorf's efforts at agitation were
+in vain. Even the superior skill of Johann Most could only produce
+very feeble and transitory results. When he openly professed
+Anarchism, and was expelled from the Social Democratic party, a small
+following remained to him in Germany; but in the German Empire only a
+dozen or so groups were formed (chiefly in Berlin and Hamburg) which
+adopted Most's programme; but their numbers did not rise above two
+hundred, and they remained quite unimportant.
+
+The effects, however, of Most's agitation in Switzerland were all the
+more strongly felt in Austria, the classic land of political
+immaturity and insecurity. To-day the Austrian Empire is almost free
+from Anarchists; other elements have come to take up the _role_ of
+fishing in troubled waters. But at the time of the general increase of
+Anarchism, after the London Congress, Austria-Hungary was one of the
+strongholds of Anarchism. A former house painter, Josef Penkert, a man
+who had given himself a very fair education by his own efforts, and
+was Most's most eager pupil, conducted the agitation in Vienna and
+Pesth. Groups sprang up, and the agitation was so strong that the new
+Social Democratic party was soon relegated to the background.
+Everywhere Anarchist papers arose--in Vienna the _Zukunft_ (_Future_)
+and the _Delnicke Listy_, in Reichenberg the _Radical_, in Prague the
+_Socialist_ and the _Communist_, in Lemberg the _Praca_, in Cracow the
+_Robotnik_ and the _Przedswit_, imported from Switzerland. The chief
+organs of Austrian Anarchism, however, flourished on the other side of
+the river Leitha, where the press laws were interpreted more liberally
+than in the west of the kingdom. In Hungary there were numerous
+Anarchist journals, some of which, like the Pesth _Socialist_,
+preached the most sanguinary and merciless propaganda. This was acted
+upon in Vienna, under the guidance of Penkert, Stellmacher, and
+Kammerer, in such a way that Most's _Freedom_, which was smuggled in
+in large quantities, was delighted at it. In 1881 Anarchist meetings
+had collisions with the authorities. The money for the agitation was
+obtained by robbery, as the trial of Merstallinger proved. The most
+prominent Anarchist speakers were examined judicially in consequence
+of this trial, which took place in March, 1882, but had to be
+acquitted, which naturally only increased the confidence of the
+propagandists. The Socialists succeeded no better in making headway
+against this rapidly increasing movement. The "General Workmen's
+Conference," sitting at Bruenn on the 15th and 16th of October, 1882,
+certainly passed an open vote of want of confidence against the
+Anarchist minority, but a resolution to the effect that
+Merstallinger's offence was a common crime, that the tactics preached
+by the Anarchists ought to be rejected as unworthy of Social
+Democrats, and that all adherents of such tactics were to be regarded
+as enemies and traitors to the people--this was rejected after a hot
+debate. All this naturally increased the confidence and recklessness
+of the Anarchist agitation. Secret printing-presses were busily
+engaged spreading incendiary literature, which advocated the murder of
+police officials and explained the tactics suitable for this purpose.
+On the 26th and 27th October, 1883, at a secret conference at Lang
+Enzersdorf, a new plan of action was discussed and adopted, namely, to
+proceed with all means in their power to take action against
+"exploiters and agents of authority," to keep people in a state of
+continual excitement by such acts of terrorism, and to bring about the
+revolution in every possible way. This programme was immediately acted
+upon in the murder of several police agents. On December 15, 1883, at
+Floridsdorf, a police official named Hlubek was murdered, and the
+condemnation of Rouget, who was convicted of the crime, on June 23,
+1884, was immediately answered the next day by the murder of the
+police agent Bloect. The Government now took energetic measures. By
+order of the Ministry, a state of siege was proclaimed in Vienna and
+district from January 30, 1884, by which the usual tribunals for
+certain crimes and offences were temporarily suspended, and the
+severest repressive measures were exercised against the Anarchists, so
+that Anarchism in Austria rapidly declined, and at the same time it
+soon lost its leaders. Stellmacher and Kammerer were executed, Penkert
+escaped to England, most of the other agitators were fast in prison,
+the journals were suppressed and the groups broken up. The same
+occurred in Hungary, which had only followed the fashion in Austria,
+for in Hungary the social question is by no means so acute and the
+public movement in it is merely political.
+
+At present Anarchism in Germany and Austria is confined to an (at
+most) harmless doctrinaireism, and it will be well to accept with
+great reserve any statements to the contrary; for neither those who
+were condemned at the last Anarchist trial at Vienna, nor the Bohemian
+Anarchist and Omladinist trials, nor the suspected persons who have
+recently migrated to Germany, appear to have been more than half
+conscious of Anarchism, nor do they appear to have had any
+international associations.
+
+In Belgium, also, after the passing of the German Socialist laws, a
+difference of opinion became manifest among the working classes, which
+gave new life to Anarchism, almost extinct as it was at the end of the
+seventies. The "German Reading Union" in Brussels split into two
+parties, the more radical of which was filled with Most's ideas and
+eagerly agitated for the dissemination of his _Freedom_. As this
+radical tendency had found many supporters among the German
+Socialists, it made itself noticeable at the Brussels Congress of
+1880. The keener became the struggle between the Most-Hasselmann and
+the Bebel-Liebknecht parties, the more sharply defined became the
+opposition in the ranks of the Belgian working classes. The Radicals
+united into a "Union Revolutionnaire"; founded their own party organ,
+_La Perseverance_, at Verviers; and declared themselves in favour of
+the London Congress as against that at Coire. The others held
+quarterly advisory congresses at Brussels, Verviers, and Ceresmes, at
+which it was agreed to revive the "International Working-Men's
+Association" on a revolutionary basis and not to limit the various
+groups in their autonomy. These meetings also adopted the resolution
+which the German members in Brussels had suggested about the
+employment of explosives. But in spite of the active agitation, and
+the founding of the "Republican League" to show the activity of the
+Anarchists as opposed to the Socialist "Electoral Reform League,"
+Anarchism in Belgium made no progress, mainly on account of internal
+dissension, and the annual congress arranged for 1882 did not even
+take place. In spite of the most active propaganda, circumstances have
+not altered in Belgium during the last ten years. We must be careful
+not to set down to the Anarchists the repeated dynamite outrages which
+are so common during the great strikes in Belgium, although in certain
+isolated cases, as in the dynamite affair at Gomshoren, near Brussels,
+in 1883, the hand of the Anarchists cannot be mistaken.
+
+England, the ancient refuge of political offenders, although it has
+sheltered Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus, Most, Penkert, Louise Michel,
+Cafiero, Malatesta, and other Anarchist leaders, and still shelters
+some of them; although London is rich in Anarchist clubs and
+newspapers, meetings and congresses, yet possesses no Anarchism
+"native to the soil," and has formed at all times rather a kind of
+exchange or market-place for Anarchist ideas, motive forces, and the
+literature of agitation. London is especially the headquarters of
+German Anarchism; the English working classes have, however, always
+regarded their ideas very coldly, while the Government have always
+regarded the eccentric proceedings of the Anarchists, as long as they
+confined themselves merely to talking and writing, in the most logical
+spirit of the doctrine of _laisser faire_. Certainly, when Most went a
+little too far in his _Freedom_, the full power of the English law was
+put in motion against him, and condemned him on one occasion to
+sixteen, and on another to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard
+labour. But of greater effect than this punishment was the fact that
+in all London no printer could be found to set up the type for
+_Freedom_. Thereupon Most left thankless Old England grumbling, and
+went to the New World, where, however, he was, if possible, taken even
+less seriously.
+
+Spain was the only country where Anarchism, even under the new impulse
+of the London Congress, really kept in the main to its old
+Collectivist principles. In consequence of the movement proceeding
+from the London Congress, the Spanish Anarchists called a national
+congress at Barcelona on September 24 and 25, 1881, at which, in the
+presence of one hundred and forty delegates, a programme and statutes
+of organisation were drawn up and a "Spanish Federation of the
+International Working-Men's Association" was founded. Its aim was to
+be the political, economic, and social emancipation of all the working
+classes by the establishment of a form of society founded upon a
+Collectivist basis, and guaranteeing the unconditional autonomy of the
+free and federally united communes. The only means of reaching this
+aim was declared to be a revolutionary upheaval carried out by force.
+The organisation sketched out at the Barcelona Congress is quite in
+Proudhon's spirit; the arrangement of its members was to be a double
+one, both by trades and districts, and both divisions had mutually to
+enlarge each other. The basis of the trade organisation was to be
+formed by the single local groups; these were to be united into local
+associations, these into provincial associations, and these again into
+a national association, the "Union." Monthly, quarterly, and yearly
+conferences, and the committees attached to them, were to form the
+decisive and executive organs of these associations. Parallel with the
+arrangement by trades was to be the territorial arrangement, all the
+local trade associations of the same district being formed into one
+united local association, this again into provincial associations,
+these into the national association of the whole country, _i. e._,
+into the "Federation"; and here again local, provincial, and national
+congresses performed all executive functions as local, provincial, and
+national committees. The National Committee established by the
+Congress developed immediately an active agitation, so that at the
+next congress at Seville (24th to 26th September, 1883), attended by
+254 delegates, the Federation numbered already 10 provincial, 200
+local unions, and 632 sections, with 50,000 members. Their organ, the
+_Revista Social_, which appeared in Madrid, possessed about 10,000
+subscribers, although besides this there were several local journals.
+
+But this rapid growth of the Anarchist movement in Spain was followed
+by a retrogression, mainly caused by the increased severity of the
+measures taken by the Government in consequence of the terrorism
+created by the Andalusian secret society of "The Black Hand" (Mano
+Negra), and proceedings were taken against the Anarchists. Their
+examination, however, failed to reveal the supposed connection between
+the Mano Negra and Anarchism, and the Anarchists, who had been
+arrested wholesale, had to be acquitted. The Federation itself had
+expressed to every society its disapproval of the "secret actions of
+those assassins," and had pointed to the legality and public nature of
+their organisation and agitation, as well as to their statutes, which
+had received the approval of the authorities. The congress at Valencia
+(1883) repeated this declaration. Henceforth Spanish Anarchism
+proceeded on peaceful lines, and only in the last few years did it
+have recourse to force after the example of the French, as, _e. g._,
+in the attack on Campos, and the outrage in the Liceo Theatre at
+Barcelona.
+
+As to Italy, here also after 1880 Anarchism awoke to new life, as it
+did everywhere else, and at the same time broke finally with the
+Democratic Socialists. In December, 1886, the Anarchists held a secret
+congress at Chiasso, at which fifteen delegates of cities of North
+Italy took part. These professed Anarchist Communism, viewed with
+horror any division _au choix_, and recommended "the use of every
+favorable opportunity for seriously disturbing public order." In
+agreement with this the Italians, represented by Cafiero and
+Malatesta, took part in the London Congress in the following year. On
+their return these two men developed an active agitation, and began a
+bitter campaign against the moderate Socialists, especially when their
+leader Costa was elected to Parliament, which the Anarchists regarded
+as a betrayal of the proletariat to the _bourgeoisie_. In the year
+1883 Malatesta was arrested at Florence, and, with several companions,
+condemned by the royal courts, on February 1, 1884, to several years'
+imprisonment, it being proved that groups had already been formed in
+Rome, Florence, and Naples on the basis of the London programme, and
+that these groups had planned and prepared dynamite outrages. Leghorn,
+which in the time of the Romans was a refuge for criminals, may be
+regarded as the centre of modern Italian Anarchism. "In Leghorn,"
+writes one who knows his facts, "the number of the Anarchists of
+action is legion. The idea of slaking their inborn thirst for blood on
+the 'fat _bourgeoisie_' could not fail to gain many adherents among
+the descendants of that Sciolla, who at the time of the last Grand
+Duke founded the celebrated dagger-band and slew 700 people; how many
+adherents it gained may be seen from the figures of the last election
+(March, 1894), when 3200 electors voted for the Anarchist murderer
+Merga." Lugo (the home of Lega), Forli, and Cesena form important
+centres of Italian Anarchism. The _role_ which it has played in the
+international propaganda is fresh in the memory of all, and is
+sufficiently indicated by the names of Lega and Caserio.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It will be seen from the foregoing that Anarchism, after retrograding
+till the end of the seventies, made unexpectedly rapid progress in
+every country after 1880, lasting till about 1884, but after that a
+new reaction, or at least a diminution of propaganda, is to be
+noticed. The renewed force with which the Anarchism of action has
+during the last three years or so made itself felt in the Latin
+countries, appears already to present new features; this may be termed
+the third epoch of Anarchism. The epoch dating from the London
+Congress is characterised by certain party features (federations,
+alliances, etc.), which have now quite disappeared.
+
+With Most's departure for America, the central government created by
+him--if we can speak of a central government in view of the complete
+autonomy of the groups--appears to have completely lost its power, and
+when, at the congresses of Chicago (1891) and London (1892), Merlino
+and Malatesta moved that some form of leadership of the party should
+be established, their motion was rejected, it being pointed out that
+it was inconsistent with the main Anarchist principle: "Do as thou
+wilt." When nowadays we hear talk of an "International Organisation"
+of an Anarchist party and so forth, this must be taken merely in the
+very wide meaning of a completely free _entente_ between single
+groups.
+
+Everything at present rests with the "group," which is, at the same
+time, very small and of an extremely fluctuating character. Five,
+seven, or at most a dozen men unite in a group according to
+occupation, personal relationships, propinquity of dwelling, or other
+causes; only after a certain time to separate again. The groups are
+only connected with each other almost entirely by means of moving
+intermediaries, called _trimardeurs_, a slang expression borrowed from
+the thieves. This organisation completely corresponds to the purely
+individual character of their actions; Anarchist riots and
+conspiracies are out of fashion; and the outrages of recent years have
+arisen almost exclusively from the initiative of individuals. This
+circumstance, as well as the whole organisation of the Anarchists, of
+course renders difficult any summary proceedings on the part of the
+Government of the country; which is probably by no means the least
+important reason for the adoption of these tactics by the Anarchists.
+
+As to the numerical strength of Anarchism, different estimates are
+given by the Anarchists and their opponents; but all of them are very
+untrustworthy. Kropotkin, in 1882, gave the numbers of those living at
+Lyons at 3000; those in the basin of the Rhone at 5000; and spoke of
+thousands of others living in the south of France. One of the
+sixty-six defendants at the Lyons trial wrote: "We are _all_
+captured"--a remarkable difference of numbers compared with
+Kropotkin's 3000. Lately, the Paris _Figaro_ has published some data,
+said to be from an authentic source, about the strength of the
+Anarchists, and, according to this journal, about 2000 Anarchists are
+known to the police in France, among whom are about 500 Frenchmen and
+1500 foreigners. The majority of these foreign Anarchists consists of
+the Italians (45 per cent.), then come the Swiss (25 per cent.), the
+Germans and Russians (20 per cent., each), Belgians and Austrians (5
+per cent., each), Spaniards and Bulgarians (each 2 per cent.), and the
+natives of several minor States. This proportionate percentage of
+course only refers to Anarchists living in France or known there, and
+cannot be taken as trustworthy for international numbers. We have in
+fact practically no knowledge of its present strength, for it is as
+often undervalued as overrated. When this is done by those who are not
+Anarchists, it cannot be wondered at, since one of the leaders of the
+Anarchism of action in Paris confessed his own ignorance by the
+remark: "There are in the world some thousands of us, perhaps some
+millions."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                          CONCLUDING REMARKS
+
+    Legislation against Anarchists -- Anarchism and Crime --
+    Tolerance towards Anarchist Theory -- Suppression of
+    Anarchist Crime -- Conclusion.
+
+
+When about a year ago (1894) the Italian Caserio, a baker's
+apprentice, assassinated the amiable and respected President of the
+French Republic, probably thinking that he was thereby ridding the
+world of a tyrant, the public, in a mood perfectly comprehensible if
+not justifiable, was ready to take the severest measures against
+anyone suspected of Anarchism. An international convention against the
+Anarchists was demanded, but this was almost unanimously rejected by
+European diplomatists. Parliaments, however, showed themselves more
+subservient to the anxiety of the public than the diplomatists. Italy
+gave its Government full powers over administrative dealings with all
+suspected persons, and France passed a Press law limiting very
+considerably, not only the Anarchist press, but the press generally.
+Spain had already anticipated this action. Germany took all manner of
+trouble to frame exceptional laws, although one cannot quite see how
+this country was concerned in the matter. England alone, true to its
+traditions, rejected the proposal of the House of Lords to pass
+exceptional laws against the Anarchists, Lord Rosebery, who was then
+Premier, declaring that the ordinary law and the existing executive
+organisation were amply sufficient to cope with the Anarchists.
+
+The question as to which State has pursued the better policy appears
+at first extremely difficult to answer. It is believed that we have in
+Anarchism something quite new, which has never occurred before,
+something monstrous and not human, against which quite extraordinary
+measures are permissible. To judge whether this standpoint is correct,
+we must, before everything, distinguish carefully the theory from the
+propaganda.
+
+The common view--or prejudice--soon disposes of the Anarchist theory:
+the anxious possessor of goods thinks it is nothing less than a direct
+incitement to robbery and murder; the practical politician merely
+regards the Anarchist theory as not worth debate, because it could not
+be carried out in practice; and even men of science, as we have seen
+in the case of Laveleye, and could prove by other examples, look upon
+Anarchist theories merely as the mad and feverish fancies of
+extravagant minds.
+
+None of them would much mind if all Anarchist literature were consumed
+in an _auto da fe_ and the authors thereof rendered harmless by being
+sent off to Siberia or New Caledonia. Such judgments are easily
+passed, but whether one could settle the question permanently thereby
+is another matter.
+
+That the theory of Anarchism is not merely a systematic incitement to
+robbery and murder we need hardly repeat, now that we have concluded
+an exhaustive statement of it. Proudhon and Stirner, the men who have
+laid down the basis of the new doctrine, never once preached force.
+"If ideas once have originated," said Proudhon once, "the very
+paving-stones would rise of themselves, unless the Government has
+sense enough to avert this. And if such is not the case, then nothing
+is of any use." It will be admitted that, for a revolutionary, this is
+a very moderate speech. The doctrine of propaganda, which since
+Proudhon's time has always accompanied a certain form of Anarchist
+theory, is a foreign element, having no necessary or internal
+connection with the fundamental ideas of Anarchism. It is simply a
+piece of tactics borrowed from the circumstances peculiar to Russia,
+and accepted moreover only by one fraction of the Anarchists, and
+approved by very few indeed in its most crude form; it is merely the
+old tactics of all revolutionary parties in every age. The deeds of
+people like Jacques Clement, Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are
+all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain
+that Sand's action followed from the views of the _Burschenschaft_, or
+Clement's from Catholicism, even when we learn that Sand was regarded
+by his fellows as a saint, as was Charlotte Corday and Clement, or
+even when learned Jesuits like Sa, Mariana, and others, _cum licentia
+et approbatione superiorum_, in connection with Clement's outrage,
+discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of
+Netschajew or Most.
+
+We may quote the remarks of a specialist[1] upon the connection
+between politics and criminality. "History is rich in examples of the
+combination of criminal acts with politics, wherein sometimes
+political passion and sometimes a criminal disposition forms the chief
+element. While Pompeius the Sober has all honest people on his side,
+his talented contemporaries, Cicero, Caesar, and Brutus have as
+followers all the baser sort, men like Clodius and Cataline,[2]
+libertines and drunkards like Antonius, the bankrupt Curio, the mad
+Clelius, Dolabella the spendthrift, who wanted to repudiate all his
+debts by passing a law. The Greek Clephts, those brave champions of
+the independence of their home, were, in times of peace, brigands. In
+Italy the Papacy and the Bourbons in 1860 kept the brigands in their
+pay against the national party and its troops; and Garibaldi had on
+his side in Sicily the Maffia, just as in Naples the Liberals were
+supported by the Camorra. This alliance with the Camorra is not even
+yet quite dissolved, as the occurrences in Naples at the time of the
+recent disturbances in the Italian Parliament have shown, nor will
+matters probably improve. Criminals usually take a large share in the
+initial stages of insurrections and revolutions, for at a time when
+the weak and undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive force of
+abnormal and unhealthy natures preponderates, and their example calls
+forth epidemics of excesses.
+
+    [1] Lombroso, _Die Anarchisten_, p. 33. Hamburg, 1896.
+
+    [2] Cataline as a follower of Cicero is a new version of the
+    supposed facts.--TRANS.
+
+"Chenn, in his remarks upon revolutionary movements in France before
+1848, has shown that political passion gradually degenerated into
+unconcealed criminal attempts; thus the precursors of Anarchism at
+that time had for leader a certain Coffirean, who finally became a
+raving Communist, and exalted thieving into a socio-political
+principle, plundered the merchants with the aid of his adherents,
+because in his opinion they cheated their customers; by thus doing
+they believed they were only making perfectly justifiable reprisals,
+and at the same time converting the plundered ones into discontented
+men who would join the revolutionary cause. This group also occupied
+themselves in the manufacture of forged bank notes, which led in 1847
+to their being discovered and severely punished after the real
+Republicans had disowned them. In England at the time of the
+conspiracies against Cromwell, bands of robbers collected in the
+neighbourhood of London, and the number of thieves increased; the
+robber-bands assumed a political colouring and asked those whom they
+attacked whether they had sworn an oath of fidelity to the Republic,
+and according to their answer they let them go or robbed and
+ill-treated them. Companies of soldiers had to be sent to repress
+them, nor were the soldiers always victorious. Hordes of vagabonds,
+bands of robbers, and societies of thieves in unheard-of numbers also
+appeared as forerunners of the French Revolution. Mercier states that
+in 1789 an army of 10,000 vagabonds gradually approached Paris and
+penetrated into the city; these were the rabble that attended the
+wholesale executions during the Reign of Terror and later took part in
+the fusilades at Toulon and the wholesale drownings at Nantes; at the
+same time the revolutionary troops and militia were, according to
+Meissner, merely organised bands who committed every kind of murder,
+robbery, and extortion. The criminals who happened to be caught
+occasionally during the Revolution sought to save themselves by the
+cry of _a l'aristocrate_; when on trial they behaved in the most
+audacious manner, and grinned at the judges when condemned, and the
+women behaved most shamelessly. In 1790 only 490 accused, and in 1791
+not more than 1198, were sent to the Conciergerie. A similar state of
+affairs prevailed in the Commune of 1871. Among the population then in
+Paris, deceived as they were in their patriotic hopes, unnerved by
+inglorious combats, weakened by hunger and alcohol, no one cared to
+bestir themselves but the unruly elements, the _declasses_, the
+criminals, the madmen, and the drunkards who imposed their will upon
+the city; that these were the main elements in the rising is shown by
+the slaughter of helpless captives, by the refined cruelty of the
+murderers, who compelled their victims to jump over a wall, and shot
+them while doing so, while others were riddled by bullets; thus one
+citizen received sixty-nine bullets, and Abbe Bengy had sixty-two
+bayonet wounds."
+
+The foregoing examples could easily be increased in order to show that
+the criminal tactics of the Anarchists are nothing new. If they are
+more formidable and more monstrous than those of the religious
+dissenters of the Renaissance or the political criminals of the
+Revolutionary period, the reason lies in the age in which we live. We
+mean that those who use the progress of modern mechanics, chemistry,
+technical science, and so on, solely in order to increase the terror
+inspired by organised murder, and to make the furies of war
+invincible, ought not to be so surprised if the revolutionaries in
+their turn no longer content themselves with old-fashioned weapons,
+but seek to utilise also the achievements of modern chemistry.
+_Exampla trahunt._ The Anarchist propaganda should not be judged so
+severely; new and wonderful as it appears to the majority, it is by no
+means so in reality; it is the stock piece of all revolutionaries,
+somewhat modernised and adapted to a new age and a new doctrine.
+
+Certainly the Anarchist doctrine is something new, if you will; but we
+consider this means little if it merely expresses the fact that these
+new demands exceed all previous changes in society. This is too
+trivial to justify the application of exceptional measures and the
+suspension of the principle of tolerance to all opinions. The
+Anarchists are not, after all, so very original; they are a modernised
+version of the Chiliasts of more than a thousand years ago, and differ
+from them only as the mental conception of the present differs from
+that of Irenaeus. For he sought to justify his dreams by an appeal to
+religion, while the Anarchists appeal to modern science. That is all.
+But if we blame for its intolerance, and stigmatise as belonging to
+the "dark ages," the age that persecuted the Chiliasts with fire and
+sword, we certainly ought not to show a still greater intolerance to
+the Chiliasts of our own day.
+
+But it may be said that this fantasy, this Anarchist theory, is far
+more dangerous than all the other errors that have preceded it; it
+wishes to abolish property, reduce the family to Hetairism, and so
+forth. We hope we have shown clearly in the preceding pages that, at
+bottom, all Anarchist theories, even Kropotkin's, are very harmless,
+and would merely result in leaving everything as before, merely
+changing the present compulsory system into a voluntary one. A large
+group of Anarchists, indeed the most extreme, are pure Individualists,
+even maintaining individual property; how this could be maintained
+without some legal guarantee is a question for themselves; but it is
+evident that the Anarchist theory would alter the existing state of
+things much less than the social-democratic theory; for the latter
+demands the cessation of Individualist economy, and would punish any
+opposition to its views as a crime, just as we punish theft to-day. It
+is the same with marriage. Anarchists of all parties merely wish the
+family to be changed into the "family group"; but that means that
+everything could practically remain unchanged; only the legal
+guarantees and privileges associated with marriage must be abolished.
+We will neither discuss the morality, or lack of it, nor the
+practicability or impracticability of this idea; but in this the
+Anarchists go no further than what Fichte, or that moderate liberal,
+Wilhelm von Humboldt, or even F. A. Schlegel, the poet of Lucinde,
+have demanded as regards natural marriage; and Schlegel certainly is
+somewhat of the national-Christian-Socialism type. In any case, here,
+too, Socialism with its more drastic measures is more formidable, for
+even if it would respect the sexual group--which may be doubted in
+view of the artificial organisation of work in the social State--yet
+the character of the "family" would quite disappear owing to the
+Socialists' violent interference with the care and bringing up of
+children. It is certainly characteristic in this respect that the
+authoritative Socialists regard even Anarchism as merely a modern form
+of the Manchester Liberal School, sneering at Anarchists as "small
+_bourgeoisie_," and representing them as quite harmless against the
+reforms planned by themselves.
+
+But whether it is more or less dangerous need not be considered, when
+it is a question of whether an opinion is worth discussion. If an
+opinion contains elements which are useful, serviceable, or necessary
+for the majority of the members of society, these opinions will be
+realised in practice without regard to whether danger thereby
+threatens or does not threaten single forms or arrangements of present
+society. Exceptional legislation may check criticism of unhealthy or
+obsolete forms of society, but cannot hinder the organic development
+of society itself; for society will then only develop through a
+series of painful catastrophes instead of by a gradual evolution;
+catastrophes which are the consequence of opinions which have not had
+free discussion. It would be more than sad if we had to demonstrate
+the truth of these views again to-day, although our own age, or at
+least, we Continentals, seem in our condemnation of Anarchism to have
+lost all calmness, and to have abandoned those principles of
+toleration and Liberalism of which we are generally so proud. It has
+been rightly said that the freedom of conscience must include not only
+the freedom of belief, but also the freedom of unbelief. In that case
+the right of freedom of opinions must not be confined merely to the
+forms of the State: one should be equally free to deny the State
+itself. Without this extension of the principle, freedom of thought is
+a mockery.
+
+We therefore demand for the Anarchist doctrine, as long as it does not
+incite to crime, the right of free discussion and the tolerance due to
+every opinion, quite without regard to whether it is more dangerous,
+or more probable, or more practicable than any other opinion; and this
+we do not merely from _a priori_ and academic reasons, but in the best
+interests of the community.
+
+We consider the Anarchist idea unrealisable, just as is any other
+scheme based only on speculation; we think Proudhon's picture of
+society quite as Utopian as Plato's, and certainly none the less a
+product of genius. Moreover, we are convinced that grave complications
+have already arisen in society owing to the fanatical pursuit of these
+Utopian ideas, and still greater ones will arise; and yet we do not
+belong to those who deplore the appearance of these ideas, or who
+believe that serious and permanent danger is threatened to the
+development of society by the Anarchist idea. This, indeed, would be
+the place in which to write a chapter on the value of the error; but
+we must leave this to writers on ethics, and content ourselves with
+pointing out that the development of culture does not depend mainly
+upon the truth or falsehood of ruling ideas. As we have often said in
+these pages in our criticism of the Anarchists, life is not merely the
+fulfilment of philosophic dreams or the embodiment of absolute truths;
+on the contrary, it can easily be proved from history that error and
+superstition have rather been the most potent factors in human
+development. When discussing Stirner's views, we have shewn the
+cardinal error that lies in the conclusion that only the absolutely
+true is useful and admissible in practice. Certainly, philosophy has
+taught us the insufficiency of all _a priori_ proofs of the truth of
+the conception of God; critical science has shown us its empirical
+origin, and taught us that our ideas of the soul, God, and the future
+life have proceeded from the most erroneous and crudest attempts to
+explain certain physiological and psychological phenomena: but even if
+the conception of the Deity were the greatest error committed by
+mankind, it is yet incontestable that this conception has produced and
+still produces the greatest blessings for mankind. We have taken up
+this standpoint against the Anarchists, and now it may turn out in
+their favour; for, if it is not a question of doing away with the
+State altogether, merely because (as Stirner discovered, though he was
+not the first to do so) it is not sacred, nor absolute, nor real in
+the philosophic sense, so one need not consider an idea absolutely
+worthless, and therefore unworthy of discussion merely because it
+arises from and leads to errors.
+
+Anarchism is certainly one of the greatest errors ever imagined by
+man, for it proceeds from assumptions and leads to conclusions which
+entirely contradict human nature and the facts of life.
+
+Nevertheless, it also has its purpose in social evolution, and that
+not a small one, however frightened at this certain timid spirits may
+be. What is this mission? In so small a space as is now left us, it is
+hard to answer this without causing misunderstandings to arise on
+every side. But after what has been said, it will readily be perceived
+that Anarchism will be a factor in overcoming Socialism, if not by
+Anarchy yet at least by freedom.
+
+A military trait runs through the whole world; the great wars and
+conquests of the last few decades and present international relations
+which compel most European states to keep their weapons always ready;
+all this has called forth a military strain of character, a necessity
+for defence based upon guardianship and compulsory organisation, which
+is increased by a similar need for defence in the province of
+economics, as a consequence of previous economic and social phenomena.
+This feature is seen in the universal endeavour to increase the power
+of the State at the expense of the individual, and to solve economic
+problems in the same way as one organises an army. State Socialism,
+the Socialism of the chair, and the Christian Social movement prove
+the simultaneity of this characteristic of the age in every circle of
+modern society; the Social Democratic party merely represents the
+group to whose impulse we must ascribe the fact of governments
+including Socialism in their programme, of professors inoculating
+young intelligences therewith from their chairs, of Rome eagerly
+seizing it as a welcome instrument wherewith to revive her faded
+popularity; and the fact of politicians, who still call themselves
+liberal, giving up, often without a struggle, one position after the
+other in the defence of economic freedom.
+
+We will not go so far as to brand every concession to the Socialist
+spirit of our time as blamable and harmful. After almost a century of
+continually increasing economic freedom, after the old form of
+society, with its ranks and institutions, has been completely broken
+up by Liberalism, an increase of social discipline, a rallying of
+mankind round new social standpoints, is perfectly natural. But it is
+just as natural that evolution will not be able to proceed in the
+one-sided direction begun by Socialism. Already the most unpleasant
+phenomena are visible. The power of the State profits most of all by
+the Socialist movement, which it combats as Social Democracy; the
+rights of the individual retire to the background; in the "industrial
+army," as in the military force, the individual is only a number, a
+unit; the sense of freedom has almost disappeared from our age.
+Freedom in its signification as to culture and civilisation is now
+completely misunderstood and underrated, and even considered an idle
+dream. But the gloomiest feature of Socialism is a renaissance of the
+_religiose_ spirit and all the disadvantages it entails. The
+_religiose_ attitude, as I have shown elsewhere,[3] is connected with
+an inclination for tutelage, and places the individual in quite a
+secondary position. In an age when the weak are only too surely
+convinced of the impossibility of maintaining themselves in the midst
+of the social whirlwind, when everyone seeks to join some community or
+society, it is easy to make religious proselytes. People mostly
+console a nation that has a low position in the economic scale with
+religion, as we console the sick. To those who suffer so bitterly from
+the inequality of power and wealth in our social system, there is
+shown a prospect of a future eternal recompense; and those who are
+continually seeking the support of some power higher than themselves
+are referred to the Highest Power of all. That always convinces them.
+The Socialist and the religious view of the world are one and the
+same; the former is the religion of the absolute, infallible,
+all-mighty, and ever-present State. The reawakening of the religious
+spirit simultaneously with the growth of Socialist parties is no mere
+chance. Socialism has slipped on the cowl and cassock with the
+greatest ease, and we have every reason to believe that this sad
+companionship is by no means ended; the regard for personal freedom
+will decrease more and more; the tendency towards authority and
+religion will increase; the comprehension of purely mental effort will
+continue to disappear in proportion as society endeavours to transform
+itself into an industrial barrack. Whether the end of it all will be
+the Social Democratic popular State, or the Socialist Absolute
+Monarchy, matters but little. In any case, before things reach this
+point, a counteracting tendency will make itself felt from the needs
+of the people, which will endeavour to force evolution back into the
+opposite path. The old implacable struggle between the Gironde and the
+Mountain will again be renewed; and the impulse in this contest of the
+future will come from Anarchism, which is already preparing and
+sharpening the weapons for it. That Socialism will be overthrown by
+the introduction of Anarchism we do not believe; but the conquest will
+be won under the banner of individual freedom. The centralising
+tendency and the coercive character of the system of doing everything
+in common, without which Socialism cannot have the least success, will
+naturally and necessarily be replaced by Federalism and free
+association. In these two distinctive features of a future reaction
+against a Socialism that would turn everything into one vast army, we
+recognise those two demands of theoretical Anarchism which are capable
+of realisation, and capable of it because they are not dogmas, like
+absolute freedom, but only methods.
+
+    [3] _Mysticismus, Pietismus, Anti-Semitismus, am Ende des
+    XIXten Jahrhunderts_, p. 5, foll. Wien, 1894.
+
+Thus it appears not _a priori_ but _a posteriori_, that the Anarchist
+theory must not be considered as absolutely worthless because in
+itself it is an error and in its main demand is impracticable. Our
+opinion is that it contains at least as many useful elements as
+Socialism; and if to-day governments, men of learning, and even
+bishops proceed without alarm upon the path of Socialism, then a
+discussion of Anarchist theory should not be so coolly waved aside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is entirely different as regards the criminal propaganda of
+action. If Anarchists wish to spread their opinions abroad, there are
+quite sufficient means for doing so in civilised society. No one can
+be allowed the right of giving a sanguinary advertisement to his views
+by the murder of innocent visitors to a cafe or a theatre; still less
+have Anarchists the right, when they appeal to force, to complain if
+force is used against them.
+
+It is perfectly fair that the State should proceed against criminal
+propaganda by legal measures, and that Anarchist criminals should
+suffer for their action, the punishment which a country inflicts even
+if it be the death penalty. There is no difference of opinion[4] as
+regards this view except among Anarchists themselves, who arrogate to
+themselves the right to kill, but deny it to the State. There remain
+only two points that we might add.
+
+    [4] The opinion which would relegate Anarchist criminals to
+    the madhouse instead of to the guillotine deserves mention.
+    In this connection, in spite of Neo-Buddhist peculiarities,
+    the little work _Anarchismus und Seine Heilung_, by Emanuel
+    (Leipsic, 1894), gives fresh points of view.
+
+First of all, exceptional legislation should be avoided. It is in no
+way justified. Just as the motive of Anarchism to any offence affords
+no extentuating circumstances, so, too, it should not make matters
+worse. Secondly, we should not indulge in the vain hope that Anarchism
+itself, or the criminal results of it, can be combated by mere
+condemnation of Anarchist criminals, however just or unjust the
+sentence may be. Punishment appears to fanatics who long for the
+martyr's crown, no longer a deterrent but an atonement. In France in
+less than two years, Ravachol, Henry, and Vaillant were guillotined;
+but that did not deter Caserio in the least from his mad act.
+
+Numerous Anarchist crimes are to be regarded merely as means to
+indirect suicide, a method by which those who commit them may end
+lives that are a burden to them, while they lack the courage to commit
+suicide directly. Lombroso, Krafft, Ebbing, and others cite a long
+list of political criminals who must certainly be regarded as such
+indirect suicides.
+
+We will not enter the controversial province of criminal pathology,
+although it seems certain that in the criminal deeds of the Anarchism
+of action a large share is taken by persons pathologically diseased or
+mentally affected. For these also punishment loses its deterrent
+effect. Taken all in all, one cannot expect any other result from the
+punishment of Anarchist criminals, except the moral one of having
+defended the rights of society. On the other hand, the Anarchists
+regard the justification of one of their own party as the strongest
+means of propaganda, and it cannot be denied that the Ravachol cult
+resulting from the execution of that common criminal, Ravachol, caused
+a considerable accession of strength to Communist Anarchism. The State
+cannot, of course, allow itself to look on at Anarchist crimes and "to
+shorten its arm"; but it must not delude itself that it will remove
+such crime or stop the Anarchist movement by means of the guillotine.
+
+Does this mean that society is helpless in face of Anarchism? It is,
+if it possesses only force to suppress and not the power to convince;
+if society is only held together by compulsion, as the present State
+partly is, and the Socialist State would be still more, and threatens
+to fall to pieces if the apparatus of compulsion were given up; if the
+State, instead of trying to redress the unfortunately unalterable
+natural inequality of its members, only intensifies them by legalising
+all kinds of new inequalities, and if it regards its institutions, and
+especially the law, as instruments for the unalterable conservation of
+all present forms of society with all their imperfections and
+injustices. If right is done, and right is uttered arbitrarily, in a
+partisan and protectionist method; if equality before the law is
+disregarded by those who are called to defend the law; if belief in
+the reliability of the indispensable institutions of authority is
+lightly shaken by these very institutions themselves, then it is no
+wonder if men despair of the capability of the State to practice or to
+maintain right; and if the masses, always ready to generalise, deny
+right, law, State, and authority together. We have already pointed out
+repeatedly that Anarchism cannot be explained by pauperism alone.
+Pauperism justifies Socialism; but this movement against authority,
+which certainly does not bear in all cases the name of Anarchism, but
+which is to-day more widely spread than is often imagined, can only be
+explained by a confused mass of injustice and wrongdoing, of which the
+_bourgeois_ State is daily and hourly guilty towards the weak.
+
+The average man does not much mind his rich fellow-man riding in his
+carriage while he himself cannot even pay his tram fare; but that he
+should be abandoned by society to every chance official of justice, as
+a prey that has no rights, while justice often falters anxiously
+before those who are shielded by coats of arms and titles,--that makes
+his blood boil, and causes him to seek the origin of this injustice in
+the institution itself instead of in the way it works. How many
+Anarchists have become so merely because they were treated as common
+criminals when they happened to have the misfortune to be suspected of
+Anarchism? How many became Anarchists because they were outlawed by
+society on account of free and liberal views?
+
+Anarchism may be defined etiologically as disbelief in the suitability
+of constituted society. With such views there would be only one way in
+which we could cut the ground from under the Anarchists' feet. Society
+must anxiously watch that no one should have reason to doubt its
+intention of letting justice have free sway, but must raise up the
+despairing, and by all means in its power lead them back to their lost
+faith in society. A movement like Anarchism cannot be conquered by
+force and injustice, but only by justice and freedom.
+
+
+                               THE END.
+
+
+
+
+                             SOUND MONEY.
+
+
+=THE SILVER SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES.= By F. W. TAUSSIG, LL.B.,
+PH.D., Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University; author of
+"The Tariff History of the United States." (No. 74 in the Questions of
+the Day Series.) Second Edition. Revised and enlarged. 8vo, cloth $.75
+
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+
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+
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+=THE QUESTION OF SILVER.= By LOUIS E. EHRICH (of Colorado). (Questions
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+    New York.
+
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+=THE CURRENCY AND THE BANKING LAW OF CANADA.= Considered with
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+
+                         TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =bold=.
+
+3. The words phoenix, Poena, Baboeuf and oeconomiae use an oe ligature
+in the original.
+
+4. The words Chelcicians and Chelcic use c with caron in the original.
+
+5. Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious ones
+have been silently closed, while those requiring interpretation have
+been left open.
+
+6. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version
+these letters have been replaced with transliterations.
+
+7. The following misprints have been corrected:
+     "divison" corrected to "division" (page 40)
+     "agains" corrected to "against" (page 53)
+     "from" corrected to "form" (page 93)
+     "that" corrected to "than" (page 131)
+     "russicher" corrected to "russischer" (page 152)
+     "the the" corrected to "the" (page 165)
+     "Arbeiterfwegung" corrected to "Arbeiterbewegung" (page 206)
+     "Socialty" corrected to "Sociality" (page 222)
+     "pesecution" corrected to "persecution" (page 225)
+     "Edigy" corrected to "Egidy" (page 230)
+     "aer" corrected to "der" (page 235)
+     "completly" corrected to "completely" (page 316)
+     "iself" corrected to "itself" (page 318)
+
+8. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
+in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been
+retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Anarchism, by E. V. Zenker
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