On the contrary, we believe that if a revolution begins, it must take the form of a widely spread popular movement, during which movement, in every town and village invaded by the insurrectionary spirit, the masses set themselves to the work of reconstructing society on new lines. The people — both the peasants and the town workers — must themselves begin the con- structive work, on more or less Communist principles, without waiting for schemes and orders from above. From the very beginning of the movement they must contrive to house and to feed every one, and then set to work to produce what is necessary to feed, house, and clothe all of them.
They may not be — they are sure not to be — the majorily of Modern Science arcd Aiturc/itsm. 87 the nation. But if they are a respectably uunierous minority of cities and villages scattered over the country, starting life on their own new Socialist lines, they will be able to win the right to pursue their own course. In all probability they will draw towards them a notable portion of the land, as was the case in France in 1793-94.
• As to the Government, whether it be constituted by force only or by election; be it, "the dictatorship of the proletariate," as they used to say in Fiance in the "forties," and as they still say in Germany, or else an elected " Provisional Government," or a "Convention"; we put no faith in it. We know before- hand that it will be able to do nothing to accomplish the revolution, so long as the people themselves do not accomplish the change by working out on the spot the necessary new institutions.
We say so, not because we have a personal dislike of Govern- ments, but because the whole or history shows us that men thrown into a Government by a revolutionary wave have never been able to accomplish what was expected from them. And this is unavoidable. Because in the task of reconstructing society on new principles, separate men, however intelligent and devoted they may be, are sure to fail. The collective spirit of the masses is necessary for this purpose. Isolated men can.some- times find the legal expression to sum up the destruction of old social forms — when the destruction is already proceeding. At. the utmost, they may widen, perhaps, the sphere of the recon- structive work, extending what is being done in a part of the country, over a larger part of the territory. But to impose t\n\ reconstruction by law is absolutely iuipossible, as was proved, among other examples, by the whole history of the French Revolution. Many thousands of the laws passed by the revolutionary Convention had not even been put into force when reaction came and flung those laws into the waste-paper basket.
During a revolution new forms of life will always gtrminate on the ruios of the old forms, but no Government will ever be able to find their expression so long as these forms vaiU nat' have taken a definite shape during the loorh itself of rsc'iti- struciion which must be going on in thousandc of spots »*" '.~.-* same time. Who guessed — who, in fact, could have guc«.s<sa — before 1789 the role going to be played by the Municif a'ities and the Commune of Paris in tlie revolutionary events of 1789-17931 It is impos.sible to legislate for the futurti. All 88 Mudcv'it Science and Anarchitsnt,.
we can do is to vaguely guess its essential ttnJeucies and clear the road for it.
It is evident that in understanding the problem of the Social Revolution in this way, Anarchism cannot let itself be seduced by a programme that offers as its aim: " The conquest of the power now in the hands of the State."
We know that this conquest is not possible by peaceful means. The middle class will not give up its power without a struggle. It will resist. And in proportion as Socialists will become part of the Government, and share power with the middle class, their Socialism will grow paler and paler. This is, indeed, what Socialism is rapidly doing. Were this not so, the middle classes, who are very much more powerful numerically and intellectually than most Socialists imagine them to be, would not share their power with the Socialists.
On the other hand, we also know that if an insurrection succeeded in giving to France, to England, or to Germany a provisional Socialist Government, such a Government, without the spontaneous constructive activity of the people, would be absolutely powerless; and it would soon become a hindrance and a check to the revolution.
In studying the preparatory periods of revolutions, we come to the conclusion that no revolution has had its origin in the power of resistance or the power of attack of a Parliament or any other representative body. All revolutions began among the 'people. None has ever appeared armed from head to foot, like Minerva rising from the brain of Jupiter. All had, besides their period of incubation, their period of evolution, during which the masses, after having formulated very modest demands in the beginning, gradually began to conceive the necessity of more and more thorough and deeper changes: they grew more bold and daring in their conceptions of the problems of the moment, they gained confidence, and, having emerged from the lethargy of despair, they widened their programme. The "humble remonstrances " they formulated at the outset, grew step by step to be truly revolutionary demands.
In fact, it took France four years, from 1789 to 1793, to create a Republican minority which would be strong enough to impose itself.
As to the period of incubation, this is how we understand it. To begin with, isolated individuals, profoundly disgusted by Modern Science and Anarchism. 89 what thev saw around them, rebelled separately. Many of them perished without any apparent result; but the indifi'erence of society was shaken. Even those who were most satisfied with existing conditions and the most ignorant were brought by these separate acts of rebellion to ask themselves: " For what cause did these people, honest and full of energy, rebel and prove ready to give their lives? " Gradually it became impossible to remain indifferent: people were compelled to declare themselves for or against the aims pursued by these individuals. Social thought woke up.
Little by little, small groups of men were imbued with the f same spirit of revolt. They also rebelled — sometimes with the hope of a partial success; for example, that of winning a strike and of obtaining bread for their children, or of getting rid of some hated functionary; but very often also without any hope of success: they broke into revolt simply because they could not remain patient any longer. Not one or two such revolts, but hundreds of small insurrections in France and in England pre- ] ceded the Revolution. This again was unavoidable. Without such insurrections, no revolution has ever broken out. Without the menace conatined in such revolts, no serious concession has erer been wrung by the people from the governing classes. Without such risings, the social mind was nev3r able to get rid of its deep- rooted prejudices, nor to embolden itself sufficiently to conceive hope. And hope — the hope of an improvement — was always the mainspring of revolutions.
The pacific abolition of serfdom in Russia is often mentioned as a proof of the possibility of a deep change being accomplished without a revolution. But it is forgotten, or ignored, that a long series of peasant insurrections preceded and brought about the abolition of serfdom. These revolts began as early as the "fifties," perhaps as an echo of 1848, and every year they spread more and more over Russia, while at the same time they became more and more serious and took a violent character, up till then unknown. This lasted till 1857, when Alexander II. at last issued his letter to the nobility of the Lithuanian provinces, containing a promise of liberation to the serfs. The words of Herzen: " Better give liberty from above, than wait till it comes from below" — words repeated by Alexander II. before the nobility of Moscow, in 1856 — were not a mere menace: the;/ expressed the real state of affairs. It was the dread of a peasant uprising, perhaps even more terrible than that of Pugatch6ff in 1773, which induced the serf-owners to yield.
90 Modem Science and A narchism.
The same has occurred whenevpr a revolution drew near, and we can safely say that as a general rule the character of each revolution was determined by the character and the purpose of the insurrections that preceded it.
Consequently, to expect a Social Revolution to come lil<e a Christmas-box, without being heralded by small acts of revolt and insurrections, is to cherish a vain hope. It would be shutting one's eyes to what is going on all round, in Europe and America, and taking no notice of the hundreds of strikes and small uprisings occurring everywhere, and gradually assuming u more widespread and a deeper character.
XV. CONCLUSION.
What has been sairl in the pre -eding chapters will probably be suliicient to give a gener^il idea of Anaiciiism, and to show the pi'ir."? ic occupies in moderu thought and its relations to modern sciea<».
It represents an at'enipt to apply the generalisations obtained bv the inductive-deductive method of natural sciences to the appreciation of human institutions; as also to foretell, on the basis of these appreciations, the probable aspects of the further march of mankind towards liberty, equality, and fraternity, ifuided by the desire to obtain the greatest possible sum of happine^^s for eacii unit in every human society.
Anarchism is the inevitable result of the intellectual movement In natural sciences u-liich be^an towards the end of the eighteenth century, and, after ha\ing been retarded by the triumph of reiction in Europe after the defeat of the French Revolution, flourished anew in all its might sixty years later. Having its origin in the natural philosophy of the eighteenth century, it h "i not its basis completely established till after the revival of science which took place in the middle of the nineteenth century, giving new life to the study of institutions and human societies on a natural science basis.
The so-called "scientific laws," which seemed to satisfy the German metaphysicians during the first thirty 3-ears of the nineteenth century, find no room in Anarchist conceptions. Anarchism recoijnises no method of research but the scientific one; and it applies this method to all sciences u'>u lUy described as the humanitarian sciences.
This is the scientiric a.'jpect of Anarchism.
Taking advantage of the scientific method of the exact sciences, as well as of the researcln-s made of late under the impulse of this method, Anarchism endeavours to reconstruct all sciences concerning man, and re-examines the generally received conceptions of Law,.Justice, etc. Basing itself on the new data obtained by anthropological research, and extending the work of its eighteenth-century predecessors, An;u-chisni has sided with the individual against the State, and with society against the 92 Modern Science and Ajiarchism, authority which, by virtue of historical inheritance, dominates society. On the basis of historical data accumulated by modem science, Anarchism has demonstrated that State authority, which steadily grows in our days, is in re ility but a noxious and a useless superstructure which, for us Europeans, only dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: a superstructure built to the advantage of Landlordism, Capitalism, and Officialism, and which in ancient times has caused already the downfall of Rome and Greece and many other centres of civilisation once flourishing in the East and in Egypt.
The authority that was constituted in order to unite the nobleman, the judge, the soldier, and the priest for their mutual protection and their class advantages, and which always was an ' obstacle to the attempts of man to create for himself a life some- what secure and free — this authority cannot become a weapon c^ enfranchisement, any more than Caesarism or Imperialism, or th? Church, can become instruments of a social revolution.
In political economy. Anarchism has come to the conclusion that the evils of the present day are not caused by the capitaliai appropriating for himself the " surplus value," or " net prv£-.^*' but by the fact itself tliat "net profit" or "surplus vahio" k possible. Such an appropriation of the produce of human labour by the owners of capital exists only because millions of men havr^ literally nothing to live upon, unless they sell their labour forcr. and their intelligence at a price that will malce the net profit oi the capitalist and "surplus value" possible.
This is why we consider that in political economy the first/ chapter to be studied is the chapter on cuyiHumptioii — not that on production; and when a revolution breaks out, the first duty to attend to will be to remodel consumption, so that shelter, food, and clothing should be assured to one and all. As to production, it will have to be organised so that the principal necids of all the members of society should be satisfied first. This is also why Anarchism cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution of " labour cheques " for gold, nor of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists. In the coming revolution, the Anarchists see a first step towards free Com- viunism, untrammelled by the State.
Is Anarchism right in its conclusions 1 The answer will be given us by a scientific criticism of its basis on the one hand, and especially by practical life on the other. But there is one point on which without doubt Anarchism is absolutely in the right. Tt is when it con.'iitlcis the study of the social institutions a.s a Modern Science and Anarchism. 93 chapter of natural science; when it parts for ever with meta- physics; and when it takes for its method of reasoning the method that has served to build up all modern science and natural philosophy. If this method be followed, the errors into which Anarchists may have fallen will be easily recognised. But to verify our conclusions is only possible by the scientific inductive-deductive method, on which every science is built, and by means of which every scientific conception of the Universe has been developed.
[Tub End.]
GLOSSARY.
This Glossary was compiled by a friend for the German edition of "Modern Science and Anarchism," in 1904. I have now revised and extended it for this edition.
Anabaptism, a popular religious moi/ement at the time of the Reformation. This movptuent was directed against the authority of the Catholic Church, but went much further than that headed by Lather. The Anabaptists preached the full liberty of the individual in religious and moral matters, while in social matters they preached equality and the abolition of private property. They repudiated also all forms of coercion — the oath, the tribunals in the shape of landlords' justice, military service, and all obedience to the Government, which they declared uu-Christian. Notice of this movement is usually taken when it began to be prosecuted at Zwickau in 1520. In reality, however, it had its origin in the Wycliff movement of the fourteenth century, and in the movement of the Hussites in Bohemia, at the end of the fourteenth century. Long before Luther had posted his "Theses" on the door of the church of Wittenberg, a movement against the Church, the State, and the Law was brewing among the artisans and the peasants. It repre- sented the left, advanced wing of the Lutheran movement, and in fact gave it its real vigour. During the Great Peasant War (1525), and with the proclamation of the Commune at Leyden by Thomas Miiuster (1535), the Anabaptists broke out in open rebellion against all established authorities. Both of these rebellions were drowned in blood, thousands of Anabaptists being executed or burned at the stake. Later on, a similar movement was transported by emigrants to England, where it took a much more moderate form. It was also continued in Austria, in Holland, in Russia (through German immigrants), and even in Greenland, taking in all these countries various more or less Communistic forms. (See the German works of Keller, Hase, and Cornelius; and an excellent little English summing-up in Richard Heath's "Anabaptism," 1895.)
Anthropology, a science which studies man: his physical constitution in different climates, his races, his physical development, and the evolu- tion of his institutions and social, moral, and religious conceptions. The Glossary. 95 institutions and the social, moral, and religions conceptions are, how« ever, often considered as part of Ethnology. By "Anthropological School" we mean those who, in the second half of the nineteenth century, studied the origins and evolution of conceptions and social institutions from the point of view of natural science, without appeali:ng to super- natural intuition, and without trying to conceal the gaps in our know- ledge by vague and incomprehensible metaphysical words.
Babeuf, Fran9ois Noel (1764-1797), French Communist, took part in the Revolution, and published a paper, Tribun du Peuple, in which he preached the social revolution. After the fall of the Robespierre party, he organised, with Sylvain Mar^chal, Darth^, and several others, a secret Communist society, which intended to overthrow the Government and to constitute a Communist Directorate. The conspiracy was betrayed, and the leaders were shot in 1797.
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), great English philosopher, known as the father of the "inductive" method of scientific research, because he was the first to show that research and discovery will only be able to progress when the human mind has grown accustomed to consider observation and free, methodical, experimental research as the only means to discover natural laws and the true causes of phenomena. Scholastic wisdom, which only juggled with words, had to be given up, and true knowledge be acquired through induction — i.e., through the closest study of the separate phenomena themselves, before generalisations are "induced." This was the fundamental idea of all his work, and this is why Bacon is truly considered as the father of modern science. (See below, "Inductive- Deductive Method.")
Bain, Alexander (born 1818), one of the chief English representatives of physiological psychology. His chief works were: "Mind and Body," "The Senses and the Intellect."
Bakunin, Michael (1814-1876), political writer and an indefatigable revolutionist. Took part in all the revolutionary and Socialist move- ments of his own times, in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Poland. Had a prominent part in the Dresden revolution of 1849. NVas condemned after its defeat to lifelong imprisonment, and extradited by the Saxon Government to Austria. After a two years' confinement in an Austrian fortress, where he was chained to the wall, he was surrendered to the Russian Tsar, Nicholas I., who kept him imprisoned in the fortress of St. Petersburg till 1856. Released after the death of Nicholas I., he was banished to Siberia, where he was very well received by the then Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, N. Muravioflf-Amursky. Escaping from Vladivostok in 1862, he came to London, and took the liveliest part in the European revolutionary agitation. He soon became a member of the International "Working Men's Association, joining the Jura Federa- tion, which, in opposition to the General Council of the International, was the stronghold of the Federalist, anti-Statist, revolutionary, and G 96 Modem Science and Anarchism.
direct-economic-struggle tendency in the Association. He thus came in conflict with Marx and Engels, who were the leading spirits of the London General Conncil, and were working then to divert the Association from the direct economic struggle, and to make of it a Parliamentary political party. At the Hague Congress of the International, in 1872, Marx succeeded, with the aid of a fictitious majority, in having the Jura Federation and its leading spirits, Bakunin and James Guillaume, excluded from the International; whereupon the Jura, the Spanish, the Italian, and the East Belgian (Vesdre) Federations broke entirely with the General Council, which was transferred next year to New York, where it died; while the Federations just mentioned, concluding a federative alliance among themselves, and abolishing all central authority, con- tinued the work of the International Working Men's Association on federalist principles, and up to 1878 held regular yearly Congresses, until this became impossible, owing to Government prosecutions. During this period Bakunin wrote a number of pamphlets in which he developed the principles of Anarchism, the chief of which are: "God and the State," "The State Idea and Anarchism," "Letters to a Frenchman" about the war of 1870-71, "The Knouto-Germanic Empire," etc. An exhaustive biography of Bakunin has been written by Dr. M. Nettlau, in three large volumes; a short abstract of this work has also been published.
Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832), English political writer, who received French citizenship from the Republican Convention for his work in the reform of legislation. Founder of the English ethical school of "Utili- tarianism," which considers the aim of all social organisation to be the attainment of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. J. S. Mill subsequently developed these ideas in his well-known essay, entitled "Utilitarianism."
Bernard, Claude (1818-1878), great French physiologist, widely known for his discoveries in physiology, and especially for his experimental work tending to lay down the bases for a physiological psychology. Chief works: "Lessons in Experimental Physiology," 1856; on toxical substances, 1857; and on the physiology of the nervous system, 1858.
Berthelot, Marcelin (1827-1907), French chemist, opened a new field of research by his wonderful syntheses of organic bodies — that is, by producing in the laboratory, through the combination of chemical elements (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon), various substances which enter into the composition of living bodies, or are produced by such bodies: hydro-carbons, oils, fats, and so on. All his work was a beautiful illustration of the unity of physical forces, which represents the greatest conquest of science in the course of the nineteenth century, and of that other great conquest, the transformation of mechanical movement into heat. He therefore retained till his death a firm belief in the unlimited power of science to give well-being to mankind, and in his philosophy and in its application to life he remained true to the Glossary. 97 best traditions of the Encyclopaedist!*. He published during his lifetime no less than 1,200 scientific memoirs, his chief works being: "Organic Chemistry Based on Synthesis," 1860; "Lectures on the General Methods of Synthesis," 1864; " Lectures on Isomery," 1865; "Chemical Synthesis," 1875.
Blanc, Louis (1811-1882), French Socialist and historian. He proved that the misery of the masses was caused by individualism and the commercial and industrial competition which the latter leads to, and he advocated the reconstruction of society upon the basis of solidarity, the first step being the socialisation of the instruments of production. He wanted, therefore, the "Organisation of Labour," the State helping in promoting social workshops. He was thus, with Pecqueur and Vidal, one of the first promoters of Socialism organised by the State. During the Revolution of 1848 he became a member of the Provisional Government and the chairman of a special committee for the re-organisation of pro- duction. His chief works are: " Organisation of Labour "; a History of the French Revolution, in eight volumes, written from the Jacobinist (Robespierrist) point of view; a History of Ten Years (1830-1840); etc. After the coup d'etat of Napoleon III. he was for many years a refugee in England.
Brehons. — Among all the free stems, Celtic, Saxon, Scandinavian, Slavonian, Finnish, and so on, which did not belong to the Roman Empire, and had no written law during the first centuries of the Christian era, the tradition of the law — that is, the decisions previously taken in different cases by the folkmotes — was kept in memory by special men who usually kept that knowledge either in their families or in special guilds. It was their duty to recite the traditional common law during the popular festivals which were kept in connection with the great folkmotes of large portions of the federated stems, and for that purpose the law was often put in the shape of verses, or triads, to facilitate memory. This habit is still widely in use in many parts of Western Asia. In Ireland, the keepers of the law were known as the Brehons, and they combined this function with sacer- dotal functions. The collection of the Irish common law, compiled in the middle of the fifth century, and known as the Senchus Mor ("Great Antiquity "), is one of the most remarkable documents among the many similar collections of unwritten common law dating from that period. Modern historians continually represent Brehons and similar reciters of the law as law-makers; but this was not the case. The law-makers were the folkmotes — the Brehons, the Knyazes of the Slavonians, etc., being only the keepers of law in its old forms.
Buchner, Ludwig (1824- 1S99), German naturalist and philosopher, especially renowned for his work "Force and Matter," which represeuteil an attempt to give, on the basis of modern knowledge in natural science, and in a perfectly popular and accessible form, the tubstance of an atomist-materialistic comprehension of the UaiTerie. Hundreds of 98 Modern Science and Anarchism, ihoattnda of copies of this work were circulated in Germany, France, and Bussia. He also wrote a work "Love" (describing sociability and sympathetic instincts in animals); "Man and his Position in Nature' (also very widely read in Germany and France), a popular exposition of Darwinism; "Love and Love Relations in the Animal World," 1885; "Last Words on Materialism," London, 1901; etc. By all these works he has powerfully contributed to the diffoflion of a materialistic — i.e., dynamic— comprehension of Nature.
Buffon, Georges (1707-1788), great French naturalist. Made the first attempt to construct a full system of Nature and to give a full description of the animal world on the bases of comparative anatomy. One of the chief services he has rendered was that, notwithstanding a severe opposi- tion and the menaces of the Church, he put an end to the intervention of theology in questions of natural science. Chief work: "Natural History."
Buonarroti, Filippo (1761-1837), Italian lawyer. Was influenced by the ideas of Boasseau, and was expelled from Italy, Corsica, and Sardinia, for propagating revolutionary ideas. Came to Paris during the Great Revolution, and joined Babeuf for the propaganda of revolutionary Communism. Was involved in the Babeuf conspiracy in 1795, and wrote a description of it, "The Conspiracy of Babeuf." Later on was the chief inspirer of the secret Communist societies in France and Italy in the " twenties " and " thirties " of the nineteenth century.