FREEDOM PAMPHLETS,-No. 10.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
ANARCHISM:
ITS PHILOSOPHY AND IDEAL,
BY PETER KROPOTKIN.
SECOND ISSUE. 1897.
IT is not without a certain hesitation that I have decided to take
the philosophy and ideal of Anarchy as the subject of this lecture.
Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions
relating to the future, and an unconscious striving towards the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the
ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we
should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two
or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy
consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?
Nevertheless Anarchists have been spoken of so much lately, that
part of the public has at last taken to reading and discussing our doctrines. Sometimes men have even given themselves the trouble to
reflect, and at the present moment we have at least gained a point: it
is willingly admitted that Anarchists have an ideal. Their ideal is
even found too beautiful, too lofty for a society not composed of
superior beings.
But is it not pretentious on my part to speak of a philosophy, when,
according to our critics, our ideas are but dim visions of a distant future?
Can Anarchy pretend to possess a philosophy, when it is denied that
Socialism has one




2                       Freedomz Pamphilets.
Thsis whait I ami about to answer with all possible precision and
clearniess, o11ny a11Siking you to excuse me beforehand if I repeat an
examleD- or two whichl I have alreadyciv -ven at a, Lonldoii lectuinc. aind
'Wi(iihseemn to be best fitted to explain1. what is mean--t by thle pliliosopihy
o f AInaieLii(.11S In.
You will. not h~ear mie avivy ill-will if I ben-in ILv takia1-11(_ a. feu- elemlentoy-N jillu.,ti- ations borrowecl from ntrls(Mieiiot-s _N() l a. l a tl mlosae
Of oeni5Our social icdeas ftiom thiem i-f n1 1VIii iO   Ut ani-1ik -lie
betei to st ct ofcc.I-t in la on01s. wixlicli aire eaisier grsa ý,'l i,,i 1 atioiicar
Ve lLDv(_ ý tlie eacu s~iences th in in examnples oniix tacok freon i
c, ~ii r  xxia.il strikes us, at pieseaLlt nre   t     o>i
to  afoc noaIieain -which thiey z-v-e nnoeoaa c
10,e  ý-(_ 11110 1 kci  (lc  oi  1- eai  n inii  *111  ca ai'   ian
th]e ec te n   t.   Co nel aII   iiuisiiiý  tMII00  SrPla i' L:   L i i
Was thie eceoted of a -ýs   T~ h3 son    tlie 11.am1- t.I- a  si.
but  n-,a or-l   - or  r-ii  t ai cl  hi1 l rn  wiis  c irI el iLe  IllI thIIe, lý!i;.  _ý  t
whoI WnluclieA( the Ieoast, iv 1oIs (ctiolsý arrest-eci the S111su C0e  I  ton o1*I1 i  1i1
Wa1ftocI i Liloe dlo-IS I   eUCII'" his Showercis orl hetoier1 l 0
fields,,j:II oitdes, '1 y.0  tiic, v inte or 1)nuisli thie cri-iaos o" airi
kind.    a I'Vi hlousardi~s c yea, s a ii;, thuis coiioone-O- tlile UaIISC'
You know aso      Z1iilcaiese Change -was,, -oraceI ii:   -It   U
cenutta  in 4d Con all.. h 1S Of tlio  \ ri1zed 1 Of of vil roki,_cl  04~e  \ i S
detnonstrated flici- fir oui ain blain tlr ceritie of thie nnle
was only a, groin ci;-anld inl thle so1la \y-~l-" b lii ii'si5iHa  n~i
than the otliei plin ots tliatI[i~e. sea in sfto  ii l aai  i iCM
paul-son to our- hvtl,_ ()a1-- N-TL ý 1s 1at -t' a-m 4   othe  dii  s
stars wxhaic we see shi ~ii.I, lit tiii!  iCUilc swarinbno- in thle niiiill  iax.
How snilll mian apoanei-ed it cca-ý;irisL toa th~is*,- Mmmeinity withiout
limits, how 1 i  cI-lans, h iiis pm eten1AIions  All thie plhisa li (ftIi
epoch. ill socud an;ud reau~i"MomS CoCicotiors flot the eho'c ts of thlis tniarsform laitor irn o 'sma'oav Nattural scioiene. whrose pieseont clevelopineict
we are so ii rouch of, omilT dlites fr-om thiat tinie.
But a cli lioel iiuch m-o e 1)1 ofoival, anld with far wixdem reaichiiir~
resuilts, is beiin( cfl cteil ait Ole resent ti-me inl thie xx.Iii of 11i ý(4 s lce
and Auinchi, Ycii Will See. i-S b'k clt  Oi th  iii ZLIrii iii-iia5Of
this evolutiom~i.
Take lany work on aistuonwflx  of' the 1s,,t centuily 0, orldie Baja:Iiilugr
ofours.  -SOuNilno  ol"U't,1Il    it it. s  without salvili"  cLI ii l




3             Anarchism   Its Philosoplhy and Ideal.
planet placed in the centre of the universe. iBut vou will meet at every
step the idea of a central luminary-the sun-which by its powei ful
attraction governs our planetary world. From this central body radiates
a force guiding the course of the planets, and m iitaitio the hlnrmony
of the system. Issued from a central auzlomei;tioT, plinets have. so
to say, budded from it; they owe their bnith to this a1 o loneration0
thehe radiant star that urepeats it still                      the
rhythm of their movements,. their orlits set it wively ierulated dista ices, the life that ainirat s them and Cdoins thel1  -urees. And
when any peitu-lbation (listilils their couotse:s them    deviate
from their orbits, the central bdy cre-establishes oidcLt in thi system
it assures at.d perpetuates its existeice.
This cnc'pt on however is also (disappearinitg as the other one did.
After hig t1l toir attention On the sun and the large planets,
asr1oncImnCr' ave I  n1in  to ]tulv now the infinitely small ones that
people     m             ti ve discover that the interplanetary and
internt                 ) U   I t op1end arossed in all ima1inable  1 iae.tions
by little swirrn- oL     -21, isite. iunfintelv small whe. (ken separateiv, but  -ow I   i.1   'UmJ       Among thCse n   S, some,
like the b a   I i'r                     day, ate stt1  i h - 1- 4ig;
others ie   b U  L   I       or ("i'   bhile around ithe  is wafted
dust, almost       i )        up te dpaces.
It is to tli- dst, to thlso L nO  U    bodies that dnsh throurn
space in All d rctio              it --, that clash with one amother,
a,,lomeniate. (I- Se n d alwavs, it is to them that today astion~o  s lok ota at      m       of the oricin cd our solar
systeni, ti  onimlte its palts, and the liarmony of their
whole.                                - a l  1 r m oo  universal gravitation itself wvill be
but the result o al tmiie disam aed maimd icoherent inovenmeits of these
infinitely smidl ha     o-of lsmtllitios of atomsthat maniest themselves
in all possilble directions. Tthus the centre. the 1rieln of force, formerly
transfeired from the earth to the sut, now ta.ns out to be seatteedl
and dissemainated: it is everywhere a'li iA here. Wit the astronomer,
we perceive that solar systems are the work of infinitely small bodies
that the power which was su1)10ed to eovarn the system is itself but
the result oV time collisions among "thsoe infinitely tiny clusters of matter,
that the harntov of stellar systens is harmony only because it is an
adaptation, a resu tant of all these iuntmhbenless movements uniting,
Com)pleting, equilibrating onii another.
The whole aspect of 'he universe clmanges with this new conception.
The idea of force govairiilmg the world, of preestablished law, preconceived harmoiiy, disappears to make temni tor the harmony that Fourier
hald caught a glimpse of: the oite which iesults from the disorderly and




4

Freedom Pamphlets.

incoherent movements of numberless hosts of matter, each of which
goes its own way and all of which hold each other in equillibrium.
If it were only astronomy that were undergoing this change!  But
no; the same modification takes place in the philosophy of all sciences
without exception; those which study nature as well as those which
study human relations.
In physical sciences, the entities of heat, magnetism, and electricity
disappear. When a physicist speaks to-day of a heated or electrified
body, he no longer sees an inanimate mass, to which an unknown force
should be added. He strives to recognize in this body and in the surrounding space, the course, the vibrations of infinitely small atoms
which dash in all directions, vibrate, move, live, and by their vibrations,
their shocks, their life, produce the phenomena of heat, light, magnetism or electricity.
In sciences that treat of organic life, the notion of species and its
variations is being substituted by a notion of the variations of the individual. The botanist and zoologist study the individual-his life, his
adaptations to his surroundings.  Changes produced in him   by the
action of drought or damp, heat or cold, abundance or poverty of nourishment, of his more or less sensitiveness to the action of exterior surroundings will originate species; and the variations of species are now
for the biologist but resultants-a given sum of variations that have
been produced in each individual separately. A species will be what
the individuals are, each undergoing numberless influences from the
surroundings in which they live, and to which they correspond each in
his own way.
And when a physiologist speaks now of the life of a plant or of an
animal, he sees rather an agglomeration, a colony of millions of separate
individuals than a personality one and indivisible.  He speaks of a
federation of digestive, sensual, nervous organs, all very intimately connected with one another, each feeling the consequence of the well-being
or indisposition of each, but each living its own life. Each organ, each
part of an organ in its turn is composed of independent cellules which
associate to struggle against conditions unfavorable to their existence.
The individual is quite a world of federations, a whole universe in
himself.
And in this world of aggregated beings the physiologist sees the
autonomous cells of blood, of the tissues, of the nerve-centres; he recognizes the millions of white corpuscles-the phagocytes-who wend
their way to the parts of the body infected by microbes in order to
give battle to the invaders. More than that: in each microscopic cell
be discovers to-day a world of autonomous organisms, each of which




Freedom Pamphlets.                         5
lives its own life, looks for well-being for itself and attains it by grouping and associating itself with others. In short, each individual is a
cosmos of organs, each organ is a cosmos of cells, each cell is a cosmos
of infinitely small ones; and in this complex world, the well-being of
the whole depends entirely on the sum of well-being enjoyed by each
of the least microscopic particles of organised matter.     A  whole
revolution is thus produced in the philosophy cf life.
But it is especially in psychology that this revolution leads to consequences of great importance.
Quite recently the psychologist spoke of man as an entire being, one
and indivisible. Remaining faithful to religious tradition, he used to
class men as good and bad, intelligent and stupid, egotists and altruists.
Even with materialists of the eighteenth century, the idea of a soul, of
an indivisible entity, was still upheld.
But what would we think to-day of a psychologist who would still
speak like this! The modern psychologist sees in man a multitude of
separate faculties, autonomous tendencies, equal among themselves,
performing their functions independently, balancing, opposing one
another continually. Taken as a whole, man is nothing but a resultant,
always changeable, of all his divers faculties, of all his autonomous tendencies, of brain cells and nerve centres. All are related so closely to
one another that they each react on all the others, but they lead their
own life without being subordinated to a central organ-the soul.
Without entering into further details you thus see that a profound
modification is being produced at this moment in the whole of natural
sciences. Not that this analysis is extended to details formerly neglected. No! the facts are not new, but the way of looking at them is
in course of evolution; and if we had to characterise this tendency in a
few words, we might say that if formerly science strove to study the
results and the great sums (integrals, as mathematicians say), to-day it
strives to study the infinitely small ones-the individuals of which those
sums are composed and in which it now recognizes independence and
individuality at the same time as this intimate aggregation.
As to the harmony that the human mind discovers in Nature, and
which harmony is, on the whole, but the verification of a certain stability
of phenomena, the modern man of science no doubt recognizes it more
than ever. But he no longer tries to explain it by the action of laws
conceived according to a certain plan preestablished by an intelligent
will.
What used to be called "natural law" is nothing but a certain relation among phenomena which we dimly see, and each "law" takes a




1 lCnrciis:                ItDs Philosophly and((7 ~eal.
temporary c (1 rnictcr of causalnx; that is to say: If suca phL ienomenon
is nioduc('d( uider such collditiois, such another phenioimenoii xxill follow.
~No lawv plac'ced outside the phcieniomena: each phenomenon ovxerins that
- ic Ii fo lo1 s i t- n   l aw.
Nothingv pireonceived in iwhat we call harmony in NAtuJre.  The
ch11c icOf coli i'ns and encounters has sufliced to esttablish l t. Such a
nhei omeuno     i-. ast for centuries because the adaptatmo,  the equilIrium it repiresents has taken centuries to be established  wh ile sucll
another xil 1 ist hut an instilant if that formi of monenit;Iry eqa iIu-1
was born in an instant. If tihe planets of our solxr system In not col-.ide Iwit:h one another and do not lestroy one another every day if they
xiist millions of yeairs, it is beenuse they represent an equiliiiunm that
"ihs takein imillions of centuries to establish ias a result-r t of millionis of
blin  fooices. If continents are not continually destroxed by volcanic
shocks, it is becauuse they haxe talken thousandls and thousands of centuties to build up. molecule bx molecule, and to take their presei t shipe.
t ightning iil onl hnst an instant; because it repriesents a m.iomenta.r* rupture of the equihlib'iim, a sudden redistribution of force.
lHarinonv tho us appears a's a temporary adjustment. estaAblished -ilong
a  ftorces n-tiino upon a given spot-'i provisory Idlaptation;  thit
adVustiret  will only last under one condition: th'it of ingI coItii ull y
modlified  of riepresenting every moment the re.uitant  f t  ll coif ( icctin
ons  Let liut one of those forces be hampetred in its action fot
ie time and hanrmony disappears. Force will accuimula]te its C-f'ect
i   ust coie to light, it must exercise its action, and0 if other forces
hider its m1nifes1-t C tion it will not be annihilated by that. but xx iv nd
by upsetting th      l present adjustment, by destroying harmony, in ordi
t  in ai neix forim of ecquiibrium and to ivwork to form a ienw adaptation.
Sh is the er iption of a volcano, whose imprisoned force ends by
b~eaking the petrified lax 'is which hindered them  to pour forth the
gaxes, the moiten laIas and the incandescent ashes.  Such, also, are
t e revolutions of mankind.
An analoorTs transformation is being produced at the sane time inll
the sciences t1'at treat of man. Thus we see that history, after having
been the histoa' of kingdoms, tends to become the history of nations
aId then the atelv of individuals. The historian wants to know hox
the members, of wxhich such a nation was composed, lived at such a
tim-e, wxhit their beliefs were, their means of existence, what ideal of
society was visible to them, and what means they possessed to rwNrch
towards this ideal. And by the action of all those forces, forinerly
neglected, he interprets the great historical phenomena.




Freedomt PacIeplets.                        7
So the man of science who studies jurisprudence is no longer content
with such or such a code. Like the ethnologist he wants to know the
genesis of the institutions that succeed one another; he follows their
evolution through ages, and in this study he applies himself far less to
written law than to local customs--to the " customary law " in which
the constructive genius of the iiunknown imasses lots found expression in
all timnes.  A wholly new science is beinm elaborated in this direction
and promises to upset established conceptions wie learned at school, succeeding in inteirpretimng histo xr in the same manner as natural sciences
inte-1pret the phenomenae ct o N tuire.
Ad, finally, politicl ic cii eco  Iom   icx h wa s t the he'anininn  - stulv
ofhiH h e altll of i'os,betcoimes to-daly l  study oif tile  ealth of
7i),((s. It czries iess to knowi if soch a nation han: 0I has 11ot oa l  l Ire
foreign trade; it wants to be assured that bread is not wmantitto in ule
peasant's or worker's cottagre. It knocks at all doots- -at that of the
palace as well as that of the hovel-andi asks the i-ch als well as t:e
poo.: 7Up to what point are your neelds satisfied both for nilecessaies
and luxuries?
Andi as it discorers tIhat the most pressing needs of iiiiie-teniiths  f
each naotion are not sttisfi-ed it iaks itself the qtestiou that a p1y1siologist would ask hiniself about a plant or' an aninal: "--- Which
the means to satisfy the needs of all with the le:l t loss 0F porier? Hoxy
can a society giuaanitee to each, and conseqaentlv to l;  the  reatest
sum of satisfaction?"  It is in tlhis directioe thiiat ecnoic siece is
beiing transformed; anld tfter halivinX r beeni so long a silrcjde stateltieii
of phenomena interpreted inll the ititerest of a rich mitnoity, it tendt -s
become (or rather it elaborates the elements to becmle) a sciet ic
the true sense of the word-a physiology of hummani societies,
While a new philosophy-a iinexw ieix of knoxlede tiakn     t x Il
-is thus being worked out, we may observe thalit t di ie i e.  cotiIcelttl1
of society, very different from tliat which nilow prevails, is in proctt s  f
formation. Under the name of Aintarchy, a n ew interpret itiol of t: e
past and present life of society arises, givitig at the sauie time a florect st
as regyards its future, bhth conceived in the same splii-t a  the  ibovemeintioned interpretation in iinatural sciences.  An irclir tlierefloe,
appeiars as a constituent part of thlie niew plilosoplht  21n i thI.t i. wy
Anaichliists conie in cointact, ot so maty points, xith e  e' test tti kers aind poets of the present day.
In fact, it is certain thiat iin pitoorotion as the human it 1iul fteeS i
self f)oin0 ideas inculctad bti h ino niriities of liriests, tmililar a1W Ciec  ad
judges, all striving to esttblish their domintationt, and of  ti p'id.
to peirpetuate it, a conception of society arises, in which coAc;Li uon there



8               Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.
is no longer room for those dominating minorities. A society entering
into possession of the social capital accumulated by the labor of preceding
generations, organizing itself so as to make use of this capital in the
interests of all, and constituting itself without reconstituting the power
of the ruling minorities. It comprises in its midst an infinite variety
of capacities, temperaments and individual energies: it excludes none.
It even calls for struggles and contentions; because we know that
periods of contests, so long as they were freely fought out, without the
weight of constituted authority being thrown on the one side of the
balance, were periods when human genius took its mightiest flight and
achieved the greatest aims. Acknowledging, as a fact, the equal rights
of all its members to the treasures accumulated in the past, it no longer
recognizes a division between exploited and exploiters, governed and
governors, dominated and dominators, and it seeks to establish a certain
harmonious compatibility in its midst-not by subjecting all its members to an authority that is fictitiously supposed to represent society,
not by trying to establish uniformity, but by urging all men to develop
free initiative, free action, free association.
It seeks the most complete development of individuality combined
with the highest development of voluntary association in all its aspects,
in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever changing, ever
modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their
durability and constantly assume new forms, which answer best to the
multiple aspirations of all.
A society to which preestablished forms, crystallized by law, are repugnant; which looks for harmony in an ever-changing and fugitive
equilibrium between a multitude of varied forces and influences of every
kind, following their own course,-these forces promoting themselves
the energies which are favorable to their march towards progress,
towards the liberty of developing in broad daylight and counterbalancing one another.
This conception and ideal of society is certainly not new.  On the
contrary, when we analyze the history of popular institutions-the clan,
the village community, the guild and even the urban commune of the
Middle Ages in their first stages,-we find the same popular tendency
to constitute a society according to this idea; a tendency, however,
always trammelled by domineering minorities. All popular movements
bore this stamp more or less, and with the Anabaptists and their forerunners in the ninth century we already find the same ideas clearly
expressed in _the religious language which was in use at that time.
Unfortunately, till the end of the last century, this ideal was always
tainted by a theocratic spirit; and it is only nowadays that the concep



Freedom Pamphlets.                         9
tion of society deduced from the observation of social phenomena is rid
of its swaddling-clothes.
It is only to-day that the ideal of a society where each governs himself according to his own will (which is evidently a result of the social
influences borne by each) is affirmed in its economic, political and moral
aspects at one and the same time, and that this ideal presents itself
based on the necessity of Communism, imposed on our modern societies
by the eminently social character of our present production.
In fact, we know full well to-day that it is futile to speak of liberty
as long as economic slavery exists.
"' Speak not of liberty-poverty is slavery!" is not a vain formula;
it has penetrated into the ideas of the great working-class masses; it
filters through all the present literature; it even carries those along who
live on the poverty of others, and takes from them the arrogance with
which they formerly asserted their rights to exploitation.
Millions of Socialists of both hemispheres already agree that the present form of capitalistic social appropriation cannot last much longer.
Capitalists themselves feel that it must go and dare not defend it with
their former assurance. Their only argument is reduced to saying to
us: " You have invented nothing better!"    But as to denying the
fatal consequences of the present forms of property, as to justifying
their right to property, they cannot do it.   They will practise this
right as long as freedom of action is left to them, but without trying
to base it on an idea. This is easily understood.
For instance, take the town of Paris-a creation of so many centuries, a product of the genius of a whole nation, a result of the labor
of twenty or thirty generations. How could one maintain to an inhabitant of that town who works every day to embellish it, to purify it, to
nourish it, to make it a centre of thought and art-how could one
assert before one who produces this wealth that the palaces adorning
the streets of Paris belong in all justice to those who are the legal proprietors to-day, when we are all creating their value, which would be
nil without us?
Such a fiction can be kept up for some time by the skill of the people's
educators. The great battalions of workers may not even reflect about
it; but from the moment a minority of thinking men agitate the question and submit it to all, there can be no doubt of the result. Popular
opinion answers: " It is by spoliation that they hold these riches!"
Likewise, how can the peasant be made to believe that the bourgeois
or manorial land belongs to the proprietor who has a legal claim, when
a peasant can tell us the history of each bit of land for ten leagues
around?  Above all, how make him believe that it is useful for the




10

A v archism: Its Philosophiyand I7eal.

nation that 'Mr. So-and-so keeps t piece of land for his park when so
many nidibouring peasants would be onil too galad to cultivite it.
And, laistly, how make the worker in an fitctory, or the miner in ft
mine, believe that factory and mine equittCLay belon to thein. pe. telet
masters, when wo-rker and even miner are begn1 ing to see clil,]y
through Pa11naIm  scandals, bribery, French, Turkish or other railways,
pillage of the St-ate and the legal theft, fiom which gamelit commericial and
industriial propertvy a:e derivied?
In fact the masses have ilever believed in sophis.,Is tauight by economists, uttered more to con~firm  exploiters in their' rigts than to
convert the exploited! Pe.sants a nd workers, crushed by misery and
finding no support in the well-to-do classes, have let tlios go, save
from time to time when they have affirimed their rilghts I iansturrection.
And if workers ever thought that tie day would conime N ien personl:.1
appropriattion of capit.il would profit all by turning it into a stock of
wealth to be sihmaed by all, this illusion is vanishi g like so many others.
The wo-rker perceives that he has been disinherited, and thaf disinhoeicited
he will remain, unless he has recourse to strikes or revolts to tear from
his masters the smallest part of riches built tp by his own efforts; th:t
is to say, in order to get that littie, he already must impose on hinmself
the pangs of hunger and face imprisonment, if not exposure to Imperiail,
Royal, or Republican fusillades.
But a greater evil of the present system  becomes more and. more
marked; namely, that in a system based on private appropriation, all
that is necessary to life and to production--land, housing, food and tools
-having once passed into the hands of a few, the production of necessities that would give well-being to all is continually hampered.  The
worker fels vaguely that our present technical power could give abundance to all, but he also perceives how the capitalistic system  and the
State hinder the conquest of this well-being in every way.
Far from producing more than is needed to assure material riches,
we do not produce enough.    When a peasant covets the parks and
gardens of industrial filibusters and Panamists, round which judges
and police mount guard-when he dreams of covering them with crops
which, he knows, would carry abundance to the villages whose inhabitants feed on bread hardly washed down with sloe wine--he understands
this.
The miner, forced to be idle three days a week, thinks of the tons of
coal lie might extract, and which are sorely needed in poor households.
The worker whose factory is closed, and who tramps the streets in
search of work, sees bricklayers out of work like himself, while one-fifth




Freedonm Paimpilets.

1. 1"

of the population of Paris live in insanitary hovels; he heais shoemakers complain of want of woik, while so many people need shoesand so 01on.
In short, if certain economists delight in wvitina treatises oni overproduction, and in explaining each imnu.ti mal ci siis by this cause. tlihey
would be m1uch at a loss if cilled upon to namne a, ile article. Ioroduced
by France in greatec quantities than  oe necessay  to satisfy the needs
of the whole populatioll.   It is ceIrtini  noit con: the country is
obliged to import it. It is not winxe either: peasants d ik  bu at little
wine, and sulbstitute sloe wine in its stead, and the inhmbitarnts of towns,have to be conoteit w itih adulteiateld stuff. It is evildently iiot houses:
millions still liv\e in cottages of the most wretched descriptiol, with one
or twNo aperitures. It is niot even good or bad books, for tlhe  are still
objects of luxury in the villages. Only one thing is proiduced inll quantities gre-tei thain needed,-- it is the budget-devoiurinr iidividual; bhut
such merchandise is not mentioned in lectuies by polniticail  ccononists,
although thse individuals possess all the attibiutes of Imerchlandise,
being eve  ready to sell themselves to the hiighest bidder.
WNhat econoiists call over-production is but a production that is
above the porchiiasing power of the worker, lwho is reduced to poverty
by Capital Iand Shcte. Now, this sort of ove -production remains fatally
chlaractemi stic iof the present capitalise production, because-Proudhoz.
has alreadv slihowxn it---wo keirs ciannot bux wNith thei n salaries what they
have pr'odcCd (c' n d at the sane tiiie copiously nourish the swairm  of
idlers who live uponi their xworik.
The very essence of th-e present economic system is, that the xwoiker
can never enjoy the xwell-being lie has producAd, and that the numliber
of those who lii e ait his expense will alwa7s augrnient.  The iioie a.
country is advanced inl indnstry, the mnore this niumber grows.  Inevitably, industi-y is directed, anid wiilli have to be directed, not towardý.
what is nieeiddcl to satisfy the needs of all, but towards that wvhichl, at a.
given moment, bhiigs iLt the greatest temporary profit to a few. OE
niecessity, the abunidaince of some will be based on the poverty of others,
and the straitened circumstances of the greater number will have t&
be niaintaiined at all costs, that there may be hands to sell themselves
for a part onlyx of that -which they are capable of producing; without
which, private accumulation of capital is impossible
These chiaraicteristics of our economical system  are its very essence.
Without them, it cannot exist for, who would sell his labor power for
less than it is capable of bringing in, if he were not forced thereto by
the threat of hunoer?




12

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.

And those essential traits of the system are also its most crushing
condemnation.
As long as England and France were pioneers of industry, in the
midst of nations backward in their technical development, and as long
as neighbours purchased their wools, their cotton goods, their silks,
their iron and machines, as well as a whole range of articles of luxury,
at a price that allowed them  to enrich themselves at the expense of
their clients,-the worker could be buoyed up by hope that he, too,
would be called upon to appropriate an ever and ever larger share of
the booty to himself. But these conditions are disappearing. In their
turn, the backward nations of thirty years ago have become great producers of cotton goods, wools, silks, machines and articles of luxury. In
certain branches of industry they have even taken the lead, and not
only do they struggle with the pioneers of industry and commerce in
distant lands, but they even compete with those pioneers in their own
countries. In a few years Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the United
States, Russia and Japan have become great industrial countries.
Mexico, the Indies, even Servia, are on the march-and what will it be
when China begins to imitate Japan in manufacturing for the world's
market?
SThe result is, that industrial crises, the frequency and duration of
which are always augmenting, have passed into a chronic state in many
industries.  Likewise, wars for Oriental and African markets have
become the order of the day since several years; it is now twenty-five
years that the sword of war has been suspended over European states.
And if war has not burst forth, it is especially due to influential financiers who find it advantageous that States should become more and more
indebted. But the day on which Money will find its interest in fomenting war, human flocks will be driven against other human flocks, and will
butcher one another to settle the affairs of the world's master-financiers.
All is linked, all holds together under the present economic system,
and all tends to make the fall of the industrial and mercantile system
under which we live inevitable. Its duration is but a question of time
that may already be counted by years and no longer by centuries. A
question of time-and energetic attack on our part! Idlers do not
make history: they suffer it!
That is why such powerful minorities constitute themselves in the
midst of civilized nations, and loudly ask for the return to the community of all riches accumulated by the work of preceding generations.
The holding in common of land, mines, factories, inhabited houses, and




Freedom Pamphlets.                        13
means of transport is already the watch-word of these imposing fractions,
and repression-the favorite weapon of the rich and powerful-can no
longer do anything to arrest the triumphal march of the spirit of revolt.
And if millions of workers do not rise to seize the land and factories
from the monopolists by force, be sure it is not for want of desire.
They but wait for a favorable opportunity-a chance, such as presented
itself in 1848, when they will be able to start the destruction of the
present economic system, with the hope of being supported by an
International movement.
That time cannot be long in coming; for since the International was
crushed by governments in 1872-especially since then-it has made
immense progress of which its most ardent partisans are hardly aware.
It is, in fact, constituted-in ideas, in sentiments, in the establishment
of constant intercommunication.    It is true the French, English,
Italian and German plutocracies are so many rivals, and at any moment
can even cause nations to war with one another. Nevertheless, be sure
when the Communist and Social revolution does take place in France,
France will find the same sympathies as formerly among the nations of
the world, including Germans, Italians and English. And when Germany, which, by the way, is nearer a revolution than is thought, will
plant the flag-unfortunately a Jacobin one-of this revolution, when
it will throw itself into the revolution with all the ardor of youth in an
ascendant period, such as it is traversing to-day, it will find on this side
of the Rhine all the sympathies and all the support of a nation that loves
the audacity of revolutionists and hates the arrogance of plutocracy.
Divers causes have up till now delayed the bursting forth of this
inevitable revolution. The possibility of a great European war is no
doubt partly answerable for it. But there is, it seems to me, another
cause, a deeper-rooted one, to which I would call your attention. There
is going on just now among the Socialists-many tokens lead us to believe it-a great transformation in ideas, like the one I sketched at
the beginning of this lecture in speaking of general sciences. And the
uncertainty of Socialists themselves concerning the organisation of the
society they are wishing for, paralyses their energy up to a certain
point.
At the beginning, in the forties, Socialism presented itself as Comra
munism, as a republic one and indivisible, as a governmental and
jacobin dictatorship, in its application to economics. Such was the
ideal of that time. Religious and freethinking Socialists were equally
ready to submit to any strong government, even an imperial one, i




14

14           ~AwflchiC~t150  I1s ii  JO)/~   Itideal.

that coxvei-nnient would oinly remode cicon omic 1 el itions to thle workher's
A Jpi~ol~otid icvolotiioli lixs shilce bee  accoi-ilOisie lP-c, eCp-pcc.i.llx a~iiio-iig1
the. L-itin and 'jilglish  peolples.  (ox eri-Lic  1~ Comxiu IM!, Sl  lik-e
theocratic Communimism, is repugizirit, to the xxoreiic  &oL~d thli> 11c1pugnan11ce on;Ie Uise to a ilew eOnccptioiio01 docuri-ie-taiit ol` (,I/ofisc
in the Inteinat-idoil    IThis (to.timi~e at finst 'SjiOl1(iifi u  the CoIectivo
PS-sion of the insti uiieiits of li-aoduction (lo-L) inelitvoxljll wha1(t is
necessary to liv e). and tile rii ht of 'ch cloup to Succt oh l-letdlico(1 of
rexiineiatioix  x l-Jetlier com-munist c 011oir ooh i   ~    lclel itS 1
membeis. L-Lr',ci t)) little, howevcx, tins sx sten wa s ti anus-4ornied in1to
a soit of coninpi ni.-cý h'4xx cn con~i~iiunistic mid  ixluitewg
remunei-atioii   lo-ci y the Cjollectivist xxxuts 01ti Ch:- LOO c21iOnc( ti  ro
dluction. to bcco xxe conmnon proe11-~tx 1)ut thA atchcii horici be individually
remuneratted by 111001 chequo-ýs, ftcooidiiior to the n~uinhcir of 1iom-s lie
has speiit in piroduction. These chc ques -w ould '~     mUx      Iillcyciiaidise in the Soeniýýlt stoices at cost 10 ice, whnich l)ýice wvoulcl also
be estimated in hou ii  of 1 ~bour.
But if y ou  im'   ti s idea you 11 ill Owxn ti'kLt i>c-iea  summe
tip by oiie of our mrkndlsl 1, r'?dcxc I toLI
Partiatl Comimunismn in the. xossession of instruments of prioduction
and ecluc;1Lion11 C nipetition auxongy iii(iix idiiils anci gi onus foi bread,
liousing ald cloill" moo  dix iduzlismn for xwoirks of flui an,1d  thouoht.
Time.- Socialo-t41c a,`tO a~ -.-l fat chilcren, iiix dtidsan'd old people.
In 'xxa' civid- struggle foi- tile meains of existence mitio 'Cted by charity.
Always the Christian ili-ixiiii  "Wound to heal aftcrwi cds "And
always the door open to inquiisition, in ordler to k-now if you. aire a mlan
who must be left to struggle, or a mni*tr the State mnust soc coi.
The idea of labour chccqces, you know, is old. It dt-ite fiom Rlobert
Owen; Proudhon. comimo eded it in      1848;-Maixists    hxaxve  made
"4Scientific Socialism) of it to-d.ay.
\Ye inust say, hoxvever, that this sy7stemn seems to liaxve htlehldo
the mainds of the masses; it xwould seem they foresa AX its dra'wback-s,
not to say its impossibility.  Firstly.T the diuratioii of timne given111 to any
work does not gix-e the measure of socia-l utility of the xvork acconapli.shed,
and the theori'es of value that economists have ende~avoured to base,
from A clam Smith to MNarx, only on the cost of production, valued in
la~bor tinie, haxe not solved the question of value. As soon as there is
exchange, the value of an article becomes a comiplex quantity, and depends also on the degree of satisfaction xwhich it hi'inigs to the needs
-not of the inidividual, as certain economists stated formiierly, but of
the xwhole of society, takcen in, its entirety. Value is a social fact. Being the result of o(n exchange, it has a double aspect:that of labor,




Freedom Pamiiphlets.

15

and that of satisfaction of needs, both evidently concoeived in their social
and not individuAl aspect.
On the other hand, when we anadyze the evils of tlhe preseut
economic system, we see-and tlhe woke - knov     s it fill  el-t:
their essence lies in the Jforced necessity of the worLker to sell hin II's '
power. Not havinig the wherewitai to live for the, next foi tn1i_-t,
and being prevented by the St ate finom usinor hi labor poweir without selling it to someone, the xworkei sels himsels' to tie oue  Lho
undertakes to give himiin work;  he renoulnces the bueefts h is l1u
milght Iring him in; hlie abaduions t-he lins Ihae ofif whait he p1moarLce-s
to his emildover;l he even albdicates his liberit  lie rtenii ies Iis rigit to
make his opinioin heard on the utility of wiaL hen is aDout to produce
and on the xway of piodtucinig it.
Thuts resullts the acniuthition0 of ciapital, not110t i  ts faLculty of bsobinmg sti lS-Svii ne, but ill the forced positition thlie w(oifer is plcced to sell
his nhmbom  poweii:-Uthe seller beino'g sore iin zaxtuace that hle will iot
receive all tint his sth; en.th  cint p1odutce of bmeirg xioiunded in his
interests. and of becomingn the iiiferioir of the buyer. c iiLout tiis
the capithlist wiiould iever have tried to bruly him; whlich phiovxes tohit to
change the si sterm it must be acttacked iu i ts essence: in its cLausasale and puchli nse,-not inll its et-C  italisnm.
Workers thiemsexlves Ihivt- i  L  iantit rn of this, mud weie tehre tni
KVsay ofee a    ftnorýlen  tt ahI 1ig w iv1 d1one if the Soci. ReI 1voluti+
does not begin  ith ti Lhe distriiltion o  rai ncs if it doe.s iot og-u-raneethe nece'siies of lif to dll1l-thmt is to s, v ious-ingA, foo d aund clothiug.
And we kn-ow tot to do ihis a              e  iiti the t powerfiul mue- iof prodluctioni it ourx dispol-.
If thei ovrker continumes to he paid in wages, he necesarilv wiill
menmlin the slave r  tle sort ilunLe  of tie one to whom lhe is forcei to
sell his l1bou fore-e   the buiyer a piivaitLe individual or tihe State.
In the popnlpulur uiid-ill  thlit sun tot l of thousands of opiniions
crossinm the huma  bin-un  it is felt thit if the State were to be substitutied fori tie eimployer, in his ia-le of huier acnd overseeri of tabor,
it xeould still be an odllous tianuy   imn 11i  Of the people does not
reason abcout ubsti ictions, lie thinis in concrete terms, and that is
wxluy lie feels tIti  the iabstrctiot, thie St. te, would for him assumUe tihe
form of numnbLeries fucn-ictioinaries, taken from  among his factory and
worlkshop coniltae-s, akd lie knoxvs what imupoirtincel he can attach to
their virtues: exiellcut conii ades to-mlay, they become unbearable foremen to- i in r.     idl hie looks fol. a social constitution that will
eliminate the prIasent evils witlihout creiatmin new ones.
That is why Col lectivismn husu, never thiken hold of the masses, who always cone  buck to Coinunimi-nit       Cby muuliusm more aud more




16

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.

stripped of the Jacobin theocracy and authoritarianism of the fortiesto Free Communism-Anarchy.
Nay more: in calling to mind all we have seen during this quarter
of a century in the European Socialist movement, I cannot help believing that modern Socialism is forced to make a step towards Free
Communism; and that so long as that step is not taken, the incertitude
in the popular mind that I have just pointed out will paralyze the
efforts of Socialist propaganda.
Socialists seem to me to be brought, by force of circumstances, to
recognise that the material guarantee of existence of all the members of the community shall be the first act of the Social Revolution.
But they are also driven to take another step. They are obliged to
recognise that this guarantee must come, not from the State, but independently of the State, and without its intervention.
We have already obtained the unanimous assent of those who have
studied the subject, that a society, having recovered the possession of
all riches accumulated in its midst, can liberally assure abundance to
all in return for four or five hours effective and manual work a day, as
far as regards production. If everybody, from childhood, learned
whence came the bread he eats, the house he dwells in, the book he
studies, and so on; and if each one accustomed himself to complete mental work by manual labor in some branch of manufacture,-society
could easily perform this task, to say nothing of the further simplification of production which a more or less near future has in store
for us.
In fact, it suffices to recall for a moment the present terrible waste,
to conceive what a civilised society can produce with but a small quantity of labor if all share in it, and what grand works might be undertaken
that are out of the question to-day.  Unfortunately, the metaphysics
called political economy has never troubled about that which should have
been its essence-economy of labor.
There is no longer any doubt as regards the possibility of wealth in
a Communist society, armed with our present machinery and tools.
Doubts only arise when the question at issue is, whether a society can
exist in which man's actions are not subject to State control; whether,
to reach well-being, it is not necessary for European communities to
sacrifice the little personal liberty they have reconquered at the cost of
so many sacrifices during this century? A section of Socialists believe
that it is impossible to attain such a result without sacrificing personal
liberty on the altar of the State. Another section, to which we belong,
believes, on the contrary, that it is only by the abolition of the State,
by the conquest of perfect liberty by the individual, by free agreement,
association, and absolute free federation that we can reach Communism




Freedom Pamphlets.

17

-the possession in common of our social inheritance, and the production
in common of all riches.
That is the question outweighing all others at present, and Socialism must solve it, on pain of seeing all its efforts endangered and all
its ulterior development paralysed.
Let us, therefore, analyse it with all the attention it deserves.
If every Socialist will carry his thoughts back to an earlier date, he
will no doubt remember the host of prejudices aroused in him when, for
the first time, he came to the ideathat abolishing the cupitalist system
and private appropriation of land and capital had become an historical
necessity.
The same feelings are to-day produced in the man who for the first
time hears that the abolition of the State, its laws, its entire system of
management, governmentalism and centralisation, also becomes an
historical necessity: that the abolition of the one without the abolition
of the other is materially impossible.  Our whole education-made, be
it noted, by Church and State, in the interests of both-revolts at this
conception.
Is it less true for that? And shall we allow our belief in the State
to survive the host of prejudices we have already sacrificed for our
emanciption?
It is not my intention to criticise to-night the State. That has been
done and redone so often, and I am obliged to put off to another lecture
the analysis of the historical part played by the State.  A few general
remarks will suffice.
To begin with, if man, since his origin, has always lived in societies,
the State is but one of the forms of social life, quite recent as far as
regards European societies. Men lived thousands of years before the
first States were constituted; Greece and Rome existed for centuries
before the Macedonian and Roman Empires were built up, and for us
modern Europeans the centralised States date but from the sixteenth
century. It was only then, after the defeat of the free medikeval Communes had been completed that the mutual insurance company between
military, judicial, landlord, and capitalist authority which we call
" State," could be fully established.
It was only in the sixteenth century that a mortal blow was dealt to
ideas of local independence, to free union and organisation, to federation of all degrees among sovereign groups, possessing all functions now
seized upon by the State. It was only then that the alliance between
Church and the nascent power of Royalty put an end to an organisation, based on the principle of federation, which had existed from the
ninth to the fifteenth century, and which had produced in Europe the
great period of free cities of the middle ages, whose character has been




18

Anarchism: Its Philosoph yand 1deal.

sc well understood in France by Sismondi and Augustin Thierry-two
historians unfortunately too little read now-a-days.
We know well the means by whlich this association of lord, priest,
meicha, nt, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination.  It was by
the annihilation of all free runions: of village conmmunities, guilds,
trades unions, fraternities, and medi'rval cities. It was by confiscating
the land of the communes and the riches of the guilds; it was by the
absolute and ferocious prohibition of all kinds of free agroeemnent between
men; it was by massacre, the wheel, the gibbet, the sword, and the fire
that Cllurch and State established their domination, and that they succeeded hienceforth to reign over an incoherent agglomeration of "subjects'
who had no direct union more among themselves.
It is now hardly thirty of forty years ago that we began to reconquer,
by stritggle, by revolt, the first steps of the right of association, that was
freely -practised by the artisans and the tillers of the soil through the
whole of tile middle agoes.
And. a1l'eady now, Europe is covered by thousands of voluntary associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce, science, art, literatulie, exploitation, resistance to exploitation, amusement, serious work,
gratificition and self-denia!, for all that makes up the life of an active
and thinking being. We see these societies rising in all nooks and corners of all domains: political, economic, artistic, intellectual. Some are
as shortlived as roses, some hold their own since several decades, and
all strive-while maintaining the independence of each group, circle,
branchll, or section-to federate, to unite, across frontiers as well as
among each nation; to cover all the life of civilised men with a net,
meshes of which are intersected and interwoven.   Their numbers can
already be reckoned by tens of thousands, they comprise millions of adherents-although less than fifty years have elapsed since Church and
State began to tolerate a few of them-very few, indeed.
These societies already begin to encroach everywhere on the functions
of the State, and strive to substitute free action of volunteers for that
of a centralised State. In England we see arise insurance companies
against theft; societies for coast defence, volunteer societies for land
defence, which the State endeavors to get under its thumb, thereby
umaking them instruments of domination, although their original aim
was to do wit'(out the State. Were it not for Church and and State,
free societies would have already conquered the whole of the immense
domain of education. And, in spite of all difficulties, they begin to invade this domain as well, and make their influence already felt.
And when we mark the progress already accomplished in that direction, in spite of and against the State, which tries by all means to maintain its supremacy of recent origin; when we see how voluntary societies




Freedom Paml)hlets.

19

invade everything and are only impeded in their development by the,State, we are forced to recognise a powerful tendency, a latent force in
modern society. And we ask ourselves this question: If, five, ten, or
twenty years hence--it m atters little-the workers succeed by revolt in
-destr:oying the said mutual insurance society of landlords, bankers,
priests, judges, aid soldiers; if the people become masters of their destiny for, a, few mo1iths, and lay hallds on the riches they have created,
and whch ich beGlog tio thn by rilght-will they really begin to reconstitute that blood-suckIer, tfhe State?  Or will they not rather try to
organiise fromr tla simnple to the complex, according to mutual agreement.and to the iiiitrel varlied, ever-chlangiM- needs of each locality, in order
to secure the pose.sion of those riches for themselves, to mutually
guarantee one arnother's life, and to prioduce what will be found necessary for life?
Will they follow the dominant tendency of the centuiry, towards decentralisatioii, lihoe rule and free agreement; or will they nimrrch conti.tlry to thlis tedilencyv and strive to reconstitute demolished aut-hority?
Educated men-     civilised," as Fourier used to say with disdaintremble at the idea that society might some day be Nwitho t j dges,
police, or gaolers.
But, frankly, do you need them as much as you have beein told in
musty books?   Books written, be it noted, by scientists who generally
know well what has been written before them, but, for the   o.t part,
absolutely ignore the people and their every-dayc life.
If we can wander, without fear, not only in the stireets of P;aris. which
bristle with police, but especially in rustic walks where you rarlely meet
passers by, is it to thne plolice that we owe this security? or rather to the.a.bsence of p)eople who care to rob or murder us?  I am evidently not
speaking of tlihe oe who carries millions about him. Theat one-a recent
trial tells us-is soon robbed, by preereiice in plices where there are..s many policenme, as l amp-1posts. No, I sek of the man who fears
for his life and riot for his purse filled wNxith ill-gotten sovereigns.  Are
his fears real?
Besides, has not experience denmon.sti'latcld quite recently tlnit JrIck the
Ripper performed his exploits unde, tlie eye of the London police-a
most active force-and that lie only left off killing when the pojiu'lation of Whiitechapel itself began to give chlise to hiin?
And in our every-day relations with our fellowx-citizens, do you think
that it is really judges, gaolers, and police that hinder anti-social acts
from multiplying? The judge, ever ferocious, because ihe is a marniac
of law, the accuser, the informer, the police spy, all those interlopers
that live from hand to mouth around the Law Courts, do they inot scat



20

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.

ter demoralisation far and wide into society? Read the trials, glance
behind the scenes, push your analysis further than the exterior facade
of law courts, and you will oome out sickened.
Have not prisons-which kill all will and force of character in man,
which enclose within their walls more vices than are met with on any
other spot of the globe-always been universities of crime?  Is not the
court of a tribunal a school of ferocity?  And so on.
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than
they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that
men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Once a German jurist of great renown, Ihering, wanted to sum   up
the scientific work of his life and write a treatise, in which he proposed
to analyse the factors that preserve social life in society. " Purpose in
Law " (Der Zweck im Rechte), such is the title of tlut book, which enjoys
a well-deserved reputation.
IIe made an elaborate plan of his treatise, and, with much erudition,
discussed both coercive factors v hich are used to maintain society:
wagedom and the different forms of coercion which are sanctioned by
law. At the end of his work he reserved two paragraphs only to mention the two non-coercive factors-the feeling of duty and the feeling
of mutual sympathy-to which he attached little importance, as might
be expected from a writer in law.
But what happened? As he went on analysing the coercive factors
he realised their insufficiency. He eonsecrated a whole volume to their
analysis, and the result was to lessen their importance! When he be-.gan the last two paragraphs, when he began to reflect upon the noncoercive factors of society, he perceived, on the contrary, their immense,
-outweighing importance; and, instead of two paragraphs, he found
himself obliged to write a second volume, twice as large as the first, on
these two factors: voluntary restraint and mutual help; and yet, he
analysed but an infinitesimal part of these latter-those which result
from personal sympathy-and hardly touched free agreement, which
results from social institutions.
Well, then, leave off repeating the formule which you have learned
at school; meditate on this subject; and the same thing that happened
to Ihering will happen to you: you will recognise the infinitesimal
importance of coercion, as compared to the voluntary assent, in society.
On the other hand, if by following the very old advice given by
Bentham you begin to think of the fatal consequences-direct, and especially indirect-of legal coercion, then, like Tolstoy, like us, you will
begin to hate the use of coercion, and you will begin to say that society
possesses a thousand other means for preventing anti-social acts. If it




Freedom Pamphlets.

0 21

neglects those means to-day, it is because, being educated by Church
and State, our cowardice and apathy of spirit hinder us seeing clearly
on this point. When a child has committed a fault, it is so easy to
punish it: that puts an end to all discussions! It is so easy to hang a
man-especially when there is an executioner who is paid so much for
each execution-and it dispenses us from  thinking of the cause of
crimes.
It is often said that Anarchists live in a world of dreams to come,
and do not see the things which happen to-day. We do see them only
too well, and in their true colors, and that is what makes us carry the
hatchet into the forest of prejudices that besets us.
Far from living in a world of visions and imagining men better than
they are, we see them as they are; and that is why we affirm that the
best of men is made essentially bad by the exercise of authority, and
that the theory of the " balancing of powers " and "control of authorities" is a hypocritical formula, invented by those who have seized power,
to make the " sovereign people," whom they despise, believe that the
people themselves are governing.  It is because we know men that we
say to those who imagine that men would devour one another without
those governors: "You reason like the king, who, being sent across the
frontier, called out, ' What will become of my poor subjects without
me? '"
Ah, if men were those superior beings that the utopians of authority
like to speak to us of, if we could close our eyes to reality, and live, like
them, in a world of dreams and illusions as to the superiority of those
who think themselves called to power, perhaps we also should do like
them; perhaps we also should believe in the virtues of those who govern.
With virtuous masters, what dangers could slavery offer? Do you
remember the Slave-owner of whom we heard so often, hardly thirty
years ago? Was he not supposed to take paternal care of his slaves?
"4 He alone," we were told, " could hinder these lazy, indolent, improvident children dying of hunger. How could he crush his slaves through
hard labor, or mutilate them by blows, when his own interest lay in
feeding them well, in taking care of them as much as of his own children! And then, did not 'the law' see to it that the least swerving of
a slave-owner from the path of duty was punished? " How many times
have we not been told so!  But the reality was such that, having
returned from a voyage to Brazil, Darwin was haunted all his life by
the cries of agony of mutilated slaves, by the sobs of moaning women
whose fingers were crushed in thumbscrews!
If the gentlemen in power were really so intelligent and so devoted
to the public cause, as panegyrists of authority love to represent, what
a pretty government and paternal utopia we should be able to construct I




22

Anarchism: Its Philosophyand Ideal.

The employer would never be the tyrant of the worker; he would be
the father! The factory would be a palace of delight, and never would
masses of workers be doomed to physical deterioration. The State
would not poison its workers by making matches with white phosphorus,
for which it is so easy to substitute red phosphorus.' A judge would not
have the ferocity to condemn the wife and children of the one whom
he sends to prison to suffer years of hunger and misery and to die some
day of anemia; never would a public prosecutor ask for the head of the
accused for the unique pleasure of showing off his oratorical talent; and
nowhere would we find a gaoler or an executioner to do the bidding of
judges, who have not the courage to carry out their sentences themselves.
What do I say! We should never have enough Ilutarchs to praise the
virtues of Members of Parliament who would all hold Panama cheques
in horror! Biribii   would become an austere nursery of virtue, and
permanent armies would be the joy of citizens, as soldiers would only
take up arms to parade before nursemaids, and to carry nosegays on the
point of their bayonets!
Oh, the beautiful utopia, the lovely Christmas dream we can make as
soon as we admit that those who govern represent a superior caste, and
have hardly any or no knowledge of simple mortals' weaknesses!       It
would then suffice to make them     control one another in hierarchical
fashion, to let them exchange fifty papers, at most, among different
administrators, when the wind blows down a tree on the national road.
Or, if need be, they would have only to be valued at their proper worth,
during elections, by those same masses of mortals which are supposed
to be endowed with all stupidity in their mutual relations but become
wisdom itself when they have to elect their masters.
* The making of matches is a State's monopoly in France.
- Biribi is the name given in France to the )pnishment battalions in Algeria.
Every young man who has been in prison before he begins his military service,
is sent to such a battalion. Many soldiers, for want of discipline, undcrgo the
same punishment. The treatment in these places is so horrid that no Enlishman would believe it possible. A very few years ago, the pear-shaped hole in
the ground, where men were left for weeks, and some were actually devoured by
vermin, was an habitual punishment. At the present time, it is quite habitual
to let a man, handcuffed and chained, lay for a fortnight on the ground, covered
by a bit of cloth, under the scorching sun of Algeria and through the bitterly
cold nights, compelled to eat his food and to lap his water like a dog. Scores of
the most terrible facts became known lately, since Georges Darien published his
book ' Biribi" (Paris, 1890, Savine, pulisher) based on actual experience, and full of the most horrible revelations. One of my Clairvaux companions
had to spend two years of military service in such a battalion-his condemnation at Lyons, as the editor of an Anarchist paper, being already a reason to be
transported to Ailgeria. He fully confirmed, on his release, all that was writ~ten by.Darien. -P.K.




,1reeldo(a ]ampldets.                   2
All the science of government irnmagined by those who govern, is imbibed with these utopins. 13ut we kknow men too well to dream such
dreams.   We hlive not two m1asuRes for the vi,:wc  of the governed
an( those of thie g:OveO'ino-rs  we!w th'Lt; we o)urselves are not without
faults and Ihit the best of 1s '%old S(o,1 be, c((11  ted hb the exeicise o0
power. We t,e imen for w,,zAt they are woetlh, that is why we
hate the 2governnment of ILan o  in, adn ti l;t1  - w' k with al our
might--perha.ps not st, roun enough--to put an end t, it.
But it is not enough to destroy.  V e must also kn]ow how to build,
and it is owing to not -avxing thoughlt about it tt the m-Iasses have
always been led astray in all tliei. revolutions.t.  1 ] Naving oemolished
they abandoned the care of irecoc!,trc ti     L,:l1.lss people,
vwhlo iossss    mo'e or less pi.ecis, ceis,),,:.1 0 0if wlhst ie( wished to
reali-e, a d who consequentlt  reconstiud auit  ho'ity to their own
adv.mltige.
Th1it is why i nar:iy, wheni it wor0]1s to desrovy autlo lity in all its
aspects, when it demaunds the abiom tonf laws and tlmhe aelitioi of
the mechn:iiismi thnat serves to ii)nps them. when it re uses:JI hierarchicl olrga,ization and plreaches free agreei nnt-at thiie s:une time
strives to nmaintuain and enhlage the precious keo'nel of soci-l customs
without which no human or animal society can exist. Oi1y, isdteatd of
demanding that thoee social customs should be maintained ti iA~:   the
authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of rI.
Communist customs and institutions are of absolute necessity for
society, not only to solve economic difficulties, but. also to maintain and
develop social customs that bring men in contact with one another;
they must be looked to for establishing such relations between men
that the interest of each should be the interest of all; and this alone
can unite men instead of dividing them.
In fact, when we ask ourselves by wha.t means a ceirtain nmoral level
can be maintained in a human or animal society, we find only three
such means: the repression of anti-social acts; moral teaching; and
the practice of mutual help itself. And as all three have already been
put to the test of practice, we can judge them by their effects.
As to the impotence of repression-it is sufficiently demonstrated by
the disorder of present society and by the necessity of a revolution that
we all desire or feel inevitable. In the domain of economy, coercion has
led us to industrial servitude; in the domain of politics-to the State,
that is to say, to the destruction of all ties that formerly existed
among citizens, and to the nation becoming nothing but an incoherent
ma.ss of obedient sulbjects of a central authority.
Not only has a coercive system contributed and powerfully aided to
create all the present economical political and social evils, but it has




24

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.

given proof of its absolute impotence to raise the moral level of
societies; it has not been even able to maintain it at the level it had
already reached. If a benevolent fairy could only reveal to our eyes all
the crimes that are committed every day, every minute, in a civilised
society, under cover of the unknown, or the protection of law itself,society would shudder at that terrible state of affairs. The authors of
the greatest political crimes, like those of Napoleon III.'s coup d'etat, or
the bloody week in May after the fall of the Commune of 1871, never
are arraigned; and as a poet said: "the small miscreants are punished
for the satisfaction of the great ones." More than that, when authority
takes the moralisation of society in hand, by " punishing criminals " it
only heaps up new crimes!
Practised for centuries, repression has so badly succeeded that it has
but led us into a blind alley from which we can only issue by carrying
torch and hatchet into the institutions of our authoritarian past.
Far be it from us not to recognise the importance of the second
factor, moral teaching--especially that which is unconsciously transmitted in society and results from the whole of the ideas and comments
emitted by each of us on facts and events of every-day life. But this
force can only act on society under one condition, that of not being
crossed by a mass of contradictory immoral teachings resulting from the
practice of insitutions.
In that case its influence is nil or baneful. Take Christian morality:
what other teaching could have had more hold on minds than that
spoken in the name of a crucified God, and could have acted with all its
mystical force, all its poetry of martyrdom, its grandeur in forgiving
executioners? And yet the institution was more powerful than the
religion: soon Christianity-a revolt against imperial Rome-was
conquered by that same Rome; it accepted its maxims, customs, and
language. The Christian church accepted the Roman law as its own,
and as such-allied to the State-it became in history the most furious
enemy of all semi-communist institutions, to which       Christianity
appealed at its origin.
Can we for a moment believe that moral teaching, patronised by
circulars from ministers of public instruction, would have the creative
force that Christianity has not had?   And what could the verbal
teaching of truly social men do, if it were counteracted by the whole
teaching derived from institutions based, as our present institutions of
property and State are, upon unsocial principles?
The third element alone remains-the institution itself, acting in such
a way as to make social acts a state of habit and instinct. This
element- history proves it-has never missed its aim, never has it
acted as a double-bladed sword; and its influence has only been




Freedom Pamphlets.

25

weakened when custom strove to become immovable, crystallised, to
become in its turn a religion not to be questioned when it endeavoured
to absorb the individual, taking all freedom of action from him and
compelling him to revolt against that which had become, through its
crystallisation, an enemy to progress.
In fact, all that was an element of progress in the past or an instrument of moral and intellectual improvement of the human race is due
to the practice of mutual aid, to the customs that recognised the equality
of men and brought them to ally, to unite, to associate for the pur pose
of producing and consuming, to unite for purposes of defence to
federate and to recognise no other judges in fighting out their di fferences than the arbitrators they took from their own midst.
Each time these institutions, issued from popular genius, when it had
reconquered its liberty for a moment,-each time these institutions
developed in a new direction, the moral level of society, its material
well-being, its liberty, its intellectual progress, and the affirmation of
individual originality made a step in advance. And, on the contrary,
each time that in the course of history, whether following upon a
foreign conquest, or whether by developing authoritarian prejudices
men become more and more divided into governors and governed,
exploiters and exploited, the moral level fell, the well-being of the
masses decreased in order to insure riches to a few, and the spirit of
the age declined.
History teaches us this, and from this lesson we have learned to
have confidence in free Communist institutions to raise the moral level
of societies, debased by the practice of authority.
To-day we live side by side without knowing one another. We come
together at meetings on an election day: we listen to the lying or
fanciful professions of faith of a candidate, and we return home. The
State has the care of all questions of public interest; the State alone
has the function of seeing that we do not harm   the interests of our
neighbour, and, if it fails in this, of punishing us in order to repair the
evil.
Our neighbour may die of hunger or murder his children,-it is no
business of ours; it is the business of the policeman. You hardly
know one another, nothing unites you, everything tends to alienate
you from   one another, and finding no better way, you ask the
Almighty (formerly it was a God, now it is the State) to do all that lies
within his power to stop anti-social passions from reaching their
highest climax.
In a Communist society such estrangement, such confidence in an
outside force, could not exist.  Communist organization cannot be left
to be constructed by legislative bodies called parliaments, municipal or




26

AI-narchism"i: Its Philosophyand Ideal.

communal councils. It must be the work of all, a natural growth, a
product of the constructive genius of the great mass.     Communism
cannot be imposed from above; it could not live even for a few months
if the constant and daily co-operation of all did not uphold it.    It
must be free.
It cannot exist without creating a continual contact between all for
the thousands and thousands of common transactions; it cannot exist
without creating local life, independent in the smallest unities-the
block of houses, the street, the district, the commune.  It would not
answer its purpose if it did not cover society with a network of thousands of associations to satisfy its thousand iieeds: the necessaries of
life, articles of luxury, of study, enjoyment, amusements.  And such
associations cannot remain llarrow. And local; they must necessarily
tend (as is already the case with learned societies, cyclist clubs, humanit, arian societies and the like) to beconme international.
And the sociable customs that Communism--were it only partial at
its oriin--must inevitably engender in life, would allea-dy be a force
incomparably more powerful to maintmin and de velop the kernel of
socible cus toms tla  all 1 repessive  acli:sery.
iThis, then~ is the form-sci  abc iinstitutilon of which we ask the
development of the spirit of hirmony tbat, COhurcll:11m d State had utndei tak en to iimpose on us--with the sad i estult we k]now only too well.
And t]Lese rem.irks contain omr aniswei ci tlothGoe who affirm that Coml:unisml aiind Anarchy c:nllOt go toget:her. Tl!ey r   re, you see, a necessa_'y,.'-plement to one another. The most powerful development of
individuclity, of individual originm!ity--is one of our coumades has so
well said,--cau   only be produced when the first needs of food acnd shelter are saitsfied; wlien te str.ui le for existece iagainst the forces of
nature has been simplifidc  whlien nmi''s timie is no longer t.ken up entirely by the meane-te  side of dcily sub.istence,-then, owily, his intellige:ce, his artistic taste, his inlventi\e spiirit, his genius, co1n develop
freely a nd ever sci 'ive to greater achiiev-ements.
Communuiism is the best baS's for individual develoupment and freedom;
not that individualism which drives man to the war of each,ai:idst all
-this is the only one known up cill now,-but that which represents
the full expansion of iman's faculties, the superiorc developmeneit of what
is original in him, the createst fruitfulness of intelligence, feeling and
will.
Such beingr our ideal, what does it niiitter to us that it can not be
realised at once!
Our first duty is to find out, by an analysis of society, its chlaracteristic tendencies at 'a given in im nent of evolution and to sta;te tliem clearly.
Then, to act according to those tenidencies iin o, relations with all those




FrPeedom Pai2pJi7 s.27
who thiink as we do. And, finally, from to-day and espec ialy during a.
revolutionary per-iod, work for the destruction of the institutions, as
well Cas the prejudices-, that impedle thie development of such tendlencies.
Thiat is aill wýe can do by peaceatble or revolution~ary methods, andc we
know that by favor-ing those tendencies we contribute to piociless nhile
wvho resist them impedle the mar-tch- of progress.
Nevei'thaeless, men oft~en spea-rk of stagres to he t~ravelled tlirou lnh, and"
they propose to work to i-each. xxhat they COnjsie1-. -o 1e t~ice ijt -st,
station and onlx /o    to ta1 e the hiloh reid le(ýIdiinr to wvhlit they
recognise to be a, st-iill Iicrher idleil.
But r-easoi~iino- like this seem-s to me to 'Mvid-ALercitand ~letrue charactor of humian progress and to niike, use ot fl bil chosheen -nirilitiry
compar'ison. Hum in111ty is no, (a loll)or I nor even 1 a1 mrrnn  colunin. It is a whiile t~hat ev olves sin-lt nieon-1 inl the    (1of
milosof whic iuUt is; comoposed; )irl if you xxi i for ar comp.11_1Pon1, youl
mu~st ra(ther takc it in I ~e Ilawxs of orrmtmic evoluition- tai in in. ti -11;c of I-n
no  'iniiiovi in hodl
I h(-_ ft it is th, t err'1 I f Ii eOt  ielopacut of a societyis~ a. r~euoitan
of tall thi ilerli lies of Io nit e ii  ii o  collpo' rý t U Oti  i
iens t he imprilnt orl ill t hose inIll ionis of w\ifl.Is4  C on-erpueint;1v wv1artexer, M11r be tlhc      of c I otdci lI lilmiclir, ii, t'rae twnticnth  iiis
proper ~  ~     ~    ~    1 11tru  in  'trs ' fsn  i'l -s1ow, the efctre  oi. the
mr1ti-2Dll 01 hai era 1--ni ides x -~lob iis ilo\  4akillo- phice. `I cd tlie
depth wvit~ whi chi this moxvement ix ill ],)l. i ipi es.sed upon the, colning
tweiiticthi I iltm-i instlitur los ix ill. (hephetill uponl the iii mhbel rif meni
who wv1 i I  ( Iokn I it ixxirhi muthio-*illý:Ii pa~eiov   o   the
enriy they i xiill lhive u~dinl:I',a   ohldiituo   on theim   es
sii  lerxdlai-ie, on i -in e   -o     ~    e,1iiess with which the
ideal of a free sacieli wxill Inave been lnrsdon the miii(ls of the
ma111ssesq.  but, to-(. d' v.       in om il   Ohtll cod)ence, tniat in Fr nne
the awalreiiiii of iml arni ii(W;s h11Sa de:idx plit Its er nimp oil Society;
and thait the unet revolution x     bei'oth the J lco' in rex oliticir wh ich
it would have lwove ha-id it biii st (lit twentvyveairs amgo
And as these iilc;is ire- iieithier tlle invention of a, man nor a gyroulp,
but result from the,( whole of the movement of irleas of the tiixie, we cani
be suire that, wh~itovel coenes out of the iiext ci olutionmi it will not be
the dictaItorial. aiid eeiitiilused Conmmuuiisiný which lwa s- so niucli in vogTue
forty year-s ag1)o. iiov the a1ithoiitar,--*iii Ciollectixvinm to whdeic we were
quite r-ecently invitedl torially ou.selves, arid vx inchi its advocaltes dare
only defoiiul ver-y feebly at pre~selit.
The 'tit stael "it is certaini, Will thieii be (jniltu different fr-oi what
was (leselilla undcer that name hardly twventy years ago. The latest
developments of the libertaria~n ideas have aflrepady modified it 'before
baiid ini amil Ainaieliist.ensqe.




28

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal.

I have already mentioned that the great all-dominating question now
is for the Socialist party, taken as a whole, to harmonise its ideal of
society with the libertarian movement that germinates in the spirit of
the masses, in literature, in science, in philosophy.  It is also, it is
especially so, to rouse the spirit of popular initiative.
Now, it is precisely the workers' and peasants' initiative that all parties-the Socialist authoritarian party included-have always stifled.
wittingly or not, by party discipline.  Committees, centres, ordering
everything; local organs having but to obey, "so as not to put the
unity of the organisation in danger "  A whole teaching, in a word;
a whole false history, written to serve that purpose, a whole incomprehensible pseudo-science of economics, elaborated to this end.
Well, then, those who will work to break up these superannuated
tactics, those who will know how to rouse the spirit of initiative in
individuals and in groups, those who will be able to create in their
mutual relations a movement and a life based on the principles of free
understanding-those that will understand that variety, conflict even,
is life, and that uniformity is death,-they will work, not for future
centuries, but in good earnest for the next revolution, for our own
times.
We need not fear the dangers and " abuses " of liberty.  It is only
those who do nothing who make no mistakes.     As to those who only
know how to obey, they make just as many, and more, mistakes than
those who strike out their own path in trying to act in the direction
their intelligence and their social education suggest to them.   The
ideal of liberty of the individual-if it is incorrectly understood owing
to surroundings where the notion of solidarity is insufficiently accentuated by institutions-can certainly lead isolated men to acts that are
repugnant to the social sentiments of humanity.  Let us admit that it
does happen: is it, however, a reason for throwing the principle of
liberty overboard?  Is it a reason for accepting the teaching of those
masters who, in order to prevent " digressions," reestablish the censure
of an enfranchised press and guillotine advanced parties to maintain
uniformity and discipline-that which, when all is said, was in 1793 the
best means of insuring the triumph of reaction?
The only thing to be done when we see anti-social acts committed
in the name of liberty of the individual, is to repudiate the principle of
" each for himself and God for all," and to have the courage to say aloud
in any one's presence what we think of such acts.  This can perhaps
bring about a conflict; but conflict is life itself. And from the conflict
will arise an appreciation of those acts far more just than all those
appreciations which could have been produced under the influence of
old-established ideas.




Freedom Pamphlets.                      29
When the moral level of a society descends to the point it has reached
to-day we must expect beforehand that a revolt against such a society
will sometimes assume forms that will make us shudder.  No doubt,
heads paraded on pikes disgust us; but the high and low gibbets of the
old regime in France, and the iron cages Victor Hugo has told us told
us of, were they not the origin of this bloody exhibition? Let us hope
that the coldblooded massacre of thirty-five thousand Parisians in May,
1871, after the fall of the Commune, and the bombardment of Paris by
Thiers will have passed over the French nation without leaving too
great a fund of ferocity. Let us hope that. Let us also hope that the
corruption of the swell mob, which is continually brought to light in
recent trials, will not yet have ruined the heart of the nation. Let us
hope it! Let us help that it be so! But if our hopes are not fulfilled
-you, young Socialists, will you then turn your backs on the people in
revolt, because the ferocity of the rulers of to-day will have left its furrow in the people's minds; because the mud from above has splashed
far and wide?
It is evident that so profound a revolution producing itself in people's
minds cannot be confined to the domiin of ideas without expanding to
the sphere of action. As was so well expressed by the sympathetic
young philosopher, too early snatched by death from our midst, Mark
Guyau,* in one of the most beautiful books published for thirty years,
there is no abyss between thought and action, at least for those who
are not used to modern sophistry. Conception is already a beginning
of action.
Consequently, the new ideas have provoked a multitude of acts of
revolt in all countries, under all possible conditions: first, individual
revolt against Capital and State; then collective revolt-strikes and
working-class insurrections-both preparing, in men's minds as in
actions, a revolt of the masses, a revolution.  In this, Socialism  and
Anarchism have only followed the course of evolution, which is always
accomplished byforce-ideas at the approach of great popular risings.
That is why it would be wrong to attribute the monopoly of acts of
revolt to Anarchism. And, in fact, when we pass in review the acts
of revolt of the last quarter of a century, we see them proceeding from
all parties.
In all Europe we see a multitude of risings of working masses and
peasants. Strikes, which were once "a war of folded arms," to-day
easily turning to revolt, and sometimes taking-in the United States,
in Belgium, in Andalusia-the proportions of vast insurrections.  In
* La morale sans obligation ni sanction, par M. Guyau.




300

30            ~~A oerc/nso;    J Is ]Plulosrpi'i (0(  1 '(((1

the new and old worids it is by the dlozen that we count the risings Gof
strikers having turned to revolts.
On the other hand, the individual anet of revolt takes all po-sible
characters, and all advanced parties contiibute to it. We pass before
us the rebel young woman Vera Zassulitch sheooting a satralp of Alexander II.; the Social Democrat HInlel alnd the Relpublican Nobiling
shooting at the Emperor of GeCimanxy; the cooper Otero shootinl at
the King of Spain, and the relgions N uizzinn, Possonante, strrikinM
at the King of Italy.  We see A aginriaan mI rOS in Ireland and explosions iin London, organized by Irilh Ntion-is wX1o have a horror of
Socialishm -nud Anarchism. TYe -e ( Ihlce  gnie ti on of voun1  Plussians-Sociailists, Constitutionhslits nud.c bins--- cW r wl  r to the
knife caginst Alexander II, and p  fxtr tlo t r -olt  ani _t acutocracy
by thirtv-five executions and swxai  s of exiles. Numeions cts of personal revenge takle place among Beloicn Enlish ndnl Alineictn miners,
and it is only at the end of this loun sries that we see the laichists
apponr with their acts of revolt in Spalin anid Frauce.
And, during this some period, mnssxacres, wNholesa!e and retail. or ginisecl by oiernments follow theiir reiunlhr course.  To the opf1mnuse of
the Eui(ipean borgeCoisie, the V ea illes Assembly causrs thiirty-fi-e
thousaildl Parisian workmen to be butel ipee- for the inost pirt piisoners or the vanquished C mmune. I" inkerton thuos "-thaht piivaxte
army of the rich Ameriein capitAlists-massacre strikers accoridin  to
the riules of thct art. Priests incite in idiot to shcot it Louise Nlichel,
who-as a triue Anaiclhist-snatches lher would-be mu (ieier frl m his
judges by pleidina for him. Outside Europe the Indins of Canida
are massacred and Riel is strangled, the iMlatabele fare exterminated,
Alexandria is bombarded, witbout saving  more of the butcheries in
Madagascar, in Tonkin. in Turkonian's land and everywhere, to which is
giv-en the name of war. And, finally, eaeh year thundreds and even thousands of years of imprisonment are dlistributed among the rebellious
workers of the two continents, and the xwives and children, who are thus
condemned to expiate the so-called crimes of their fathers, are doomed
to the darkest misery.-The rebels aie trfinsported to Siberia, to Biribi,
to Noumea and to Guiana; and in those places of exile the convicts
are shot down like dogs for the least act of insubordination.  What a
terrible indictment the balance-sheet of the sufferings endured by workers anid their friends, during this last quatrter of a century, would be!
What a multitude of horrible details that are unknown to the public
at large and that would haunt you like a nightmare if I ventured to
tell you them to-night! What a fit of passion each page would provoke
if the martyrology of the modern forerunners of the great Social Revolution were written!-Well, then, we have lived through such a history,




1Frecc/oim lamphlClels.

31

and each one of us has read whole pages from that book of blood and
misery.
And, in the face of those sufferings, those executions, those Guinnas,
Siberias, Noumn'as and Biribis, they have the insolence to reproach tile
rebel worker with want of respect for human life!!
But the whole of our present life extinjguisihes the respect for human
life! The judge who sentences to deathl,, and 1i. lieutenant, the executioner, who garrots in brload dayliht in Madridi or guillotines in the
mists of Paris amid the jeers of lie degrUtded members of high and low
society; the general who massa:c:v  at B;i-leh, and the newspaper correspondent who strives to cover the assasis with glory; the employer
who poisons his workmen with \\white ie;(i, be:tuse-he answers-" it
would cost so much more to substitute o,-ide 0  f zinc for it;" the socalled Englisli geo.~rapher wlio kills an old woman lest she should
awake a. hostile villaoe by her sobs,;tnd the German geographer who
causes t     l hoil he ]icad taken as a mitiess t e,e hanged with ler lover,
the court-mni-atial tliat is content with fS ftee dJays arrest for the Biribi
ga.oler convicted of inurder...dl, all,;i all in the piesent society teaches
absolute contempt for human life-for that flesh that costs so little in
the market! And those who gn:ot,:.. assassinate, who kill' depreciated
human merchlindise, they who haV \e made a religion of the maxim that
for the safety of the public you mist gariot, shoot and kill, tlley complain that human life is not sulficienily respected!!
No, citizens, as longo as society accepts the law of retaliation, as long
as religion and law, the bairiack and the 1 aw-courts, the prison and
industrial penal servitude, the peess and the school continue to teach
supreme contempt for the life of the individual,-do not ask the rebels
against that society to respect it. It would be exacting a degree of
gentleness and magnanimity from them, infinitely superior to that of
the whole of society.
If you wish, like us, tlat the entire liberty of the individual and,
consequently, his life be respected, you are necessarily brought to reputdiate the governmeint of man by man, whatever silhape it assumes;
you are forced to accept the principles of Anarchy that you have
spurned so long. You must then search with us the forms of society
that can best realise that ideal and put an end to all the violence that
rouses your indignation.




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