LIBRARY UNIVERSE OF CALIFORNI/V SAN DIEGO . 1 ANARCHISM BY E. V. ZENKER G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON "Knickerbocker 1897 COPYRIGHT, 1897 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Ube 'fcnicfeerbocfcer press, Tlcw fiorfc PREFACE j|N the day of the bomb outrage in the French Parliament I gave an impromptu discourse upon Anarchism to an intelli- gent audience anxious to know more about it, touching upon its intellectual ancestry, its doctrines, propaganda, the lines of demarca- tion that separate it from Socialism and Radicalism, and so forth. The impression which my explanations of it made upon my audience was at the same time flat- tering and yet painful to me. I felt almost ashamed that I had told these men, who represented the pick of the middle-class political electorate, something entirely new to them in speaking of matters which, considering their reality and the importance of the question, ought to be familiar to every citizen. Having thus had my attention drawn to this lacuna in the public mind, I was induced to make a survey of the most diverse circles of the political and Socialist world, both of readers and writers, and the result was the resolve to extend my pre- vious studies of Anarchism (which had not extended IV Preface much beyond the earliest theorists), and to develop my lecture into a book. This book I now present to my readers. The accomplishment of my resolve has been far from easy. What little literature exists upon the subject of Anarchism is almost exclusively hostile to it, which is a great drawback for one who is seeking not the objects of a partisan, but simply and solely the truth. One had constantly to gaze, so to speak, through a forest of pre- judices and errors in order to discover the truth like a little spot of blue sky above. In this respect I found it mattered little whether I applied to the press, or to the so-called scientific Socialists, or to fluent pamphleteers. " In vielen Worten wenig Klarheit, Ein Funkchen Witz und keine Wahrheit." * Laveleye, for instance, does not even know of Proudhon ; for him Bakunin is the only representative of Anarchism and the most characteristic ; Socialism, Nihilism, and Anarchism mingle together in wild confusion in the mind of this social historian. Garin, who wrote a big book, entitled The Anarchists, is not acquainted with a single Anarchist author, except some youthful writings of Proudhon's and a few agitationist placards and mani- festoes of the modern period. The result of this ignor- ance is that he identifies Anarchism completely with Collectivism, and carries his ridiculous ignorance so far as to connect the former Austrian minister Schaffle, who 1 Many words, but little light ; a spark of wit, but no truth. Preface v was then the chief adviser of Count Hohenwart, in some way or other with the Anarchists. Professor Enrico Ferri, again, exposes his complete ignorance of the question at issue sufficiently by branding Herbert Spen- cer as an Anarchist. In fact, the only work that can be called scientifically useful is the short article on "Anarch- ism ' ' in the Cyclopedia of Political Science, from the pen of Professor George Adler. All pamphlets, articles, and essays which have since appeared on the same subject are, conveniently but uncritically, founded upon this short but excellent essay of Adler' s. Since the extra- ordinary danger of Anarchist doctrines is firmly fixed as a dogma in the minds of the vast majority of mankind, it is apparently quite unnecessary to obtain any informa- tion about its real character in order to pronounce a decided, and often a decisive, judgment upon it. And so almost all who have hitherto written upon or against Anarchism, with a few very rare exceptions, have prob- ably never read an Anarchist publication, even cursorily, but have contented themselves with certain traditional catchwords. As a contrast to this, it was necessary, for the purposes of a critical work upon Anarchism, to go right back to its sources and to the writings of those who represented it. But here I found a further difficulty, which could not always be overcome. Where was I to get these writ- ings ? Our great public libraries, whose pride it is to possess the most complete collections possible of all the texts of Herodotus or Sophocles, have of course thought vi Preface it beneath their dignity to place on their shelves the works of Anarchist doctrinaires, or even to collect the pamphlet literature for or against Anarchism produc- tions which certainly cannot take a very high rank from the point of view either of literature or of fact. The consequence of this foresight on the part of our librari- ans is that, to-day, anyone who inquires into the de- velopment of the social question in these great libraries devoted to science and public study has nothing to find, and therefore nothing to seek. I have thus been com- pelled to procure the materials I wanted partly through the kindness of friends and acquaintances, and partly by purchase of books often at considerable expense, but always by roundabout means and with great diffi- culty. And here I should like specially to emphasise the fact that it was the literary representatives of An- archism themselves who, although I never concealed my hostility to Anarchism, placed their writings at my dis- posal in the kindest and most liberal manner; and for this I hereby beg to offer them my heartiest thanks, and most of all Professor Elisee Reclus, of Brussels. But if I thus enter into details of the difficulties which met me in writing the present book, it is not with the object of surrounding myself with the halo of a pioneer. I only wish to lay my hand on a sore which has no doubt troubled other authors also ; and, at the same time, to explain to my critics the reason why there are still so many lacunce in this work. I have, for instance, been quite unable to procure any book or essay by Preface vii Tucker, or a copy of his journal Liberty, although several booksellers did their best to help me, and although I applied personally to Mr. Tucker at Boston. It was all in vain. Ut aliquid fecisse videatur, I ordered from Chicago M. J. Schaack's book, Anarchy and Anarchists, a History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe : Communism, Socialism, and Nihil- ism, in Doctrine and in Deed. After waiting four months, and repeatedly urging things on, I at last re- ceived it, and soon perceived that I had merely bought a pretty picture book for my library for my five dollars. The book contains, in spite of its grandiloquent title, its six hundred and ninety-eight large octavo pages, and its " numerous illustrations from authentic photographs and from original drawings," not a single word about the doctrine of Anarchism in general, or American Anarch- ism in particular. The author, a police official, takes up a standpoint which is certainly quite explicable in one of his position, but which is hardly suitable for a social historian. To him " all Socialists are Anarchists as a first step, although all Anarchists are not precisely Socialists" (see page 22), which is certainly praise- worthy moderation in a police officer. He calls Ferdi- nand Lassalle " the father of German Anarchism as it exists to-day " (page 23); on the other hand he has no knowledge of Tucker (of Boston), the most prominent exponent of theoretical Anarchism in America. This, then, was the literature which was at my disposal. As regards the standpoint which I have taken in this via Preface book upon questions of fact, it is strictly the coldly obser- vant and critical attitude of science and no other. I was not concerned to write either for or against Anarchism, but only to -tell the great mass of the people that con- cerns itself with public occurrences for the first time what Anarchism really is, and what it wishes to do, and whether Anarchist views are capable of discussion like other opinions. The condemnation of Anarchism, which becomes necessary in doing this, proceeds exclus- ively from the exercise of scientific criticism, and has nothing to do with any partisan judgment, be it what it may. It would be a contradiction to adopt a partisan attitude at the very time when one is trying to remind public opinion of a duty which has been forgotten in the heat of party conflict. But I do not for a moment allow myself to be deluded into thinking that, with all my endeavours to be just to all, I have succeeded in doing justice to all. Elisee Reel us wrote to me, when I informed him of my inten- tion to write the present book, and of my opinion of Anarchism, that he wished me well, but doubted the success of my work, for (he said) on ne comprend rien que ce qu' on dime. Of this remark I have always had a keen recollection. If that great savant and gentle being, the St. John of the Anarchists, thinks thus, what shall I have to expect from his passionate fellow-disciples, or from the terror-blinded opponents of Anarchism ? " We cannot understand what we do not love," and un- fortunately we do not love unvarnished truth. Anarch- Preface ix ists will, therefore, simply deny my capacity to write about their cause, and call my book terribly reactionary; Socialists will think me too much of a " Manchester Economist " ; Liberals will think me far too tolerant towards the Socialistic disturbers of their peace; and Reactionaries will roundly denounce me as an Anarchist in disguise. But this will not dissuade me from my course, and I shall be amply compensated for these criticisms which I have foreseen by the knowledge of having advanced real and serious discussion on this subject. For only when we have ceased to thrust aside the theory of Anarchism as madness from the first, only when we have perceived that one can and must under- stand many things that we certainly cannot like, only then will Anarchists also place themselves on a closer human footing with us, and learn to love us as men even though they often perhaps cannot understand us, and of their own accord abandon their worst argument, the bomb. E. V. ZENKER. CONTENTS. PART I. EARLY ANARCHISM. PAGE PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . v CHAP. I. PRECURSORS AND EARLY HISTORY .... 3 Forerunners and Early History Definitions Is Anarch- ism a Pathological Phenomenon? Anarchism Considered Sociologically Anarchist Movements in the Middle Ages The Theory of the Social Contract with Reference to Anarchism Anarchist Movements during the French Revolution The Philosophic Premises of the Anarchist Theory The Political and Economic Assumptions of Anarchism. II. PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON 32 Biography His Philosophic Standpoint His Early Writings The "Contradictions of Political Economy " Proudhon's Federation His Economic Views His Theory of Property Collectivism and Mutualism At- tempts to Put his Views into Practice Proudhon's Last Writin gs Criticism. III. MAX STIRNER AND THE GERMAN PROUDHONISTS . 100 Germany in 1830-40 and France Stirner and Proudhon Biography of Stirner The Individual and his Property (Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum) The Union of Ego- ists The Philosophic Contradiction of the Einziger Stirner's Practical Error Julius Faucher Moses Hess Karl Grlln Wilhelm Marr. xi xii Contents PART II. MODERN ANARCHISM. IV. RUSSIAN INFLUENCES . . . . . .141 The Earliest Signs of Anarchist Views in Russia in 1848 The Political, Economic, Mental, and Social Circum- stances of Anarchism in Russia Michael Bakunin Biog- raphy Bakunin's Anarchism Its Philosophic Found- ations Bakunin's Economic Programme His Views as to the Practicability of his Plans Sergei Netschajew The Revolutionary Catechism The Propaganda of Action Paul Brousse. V. PETER KROPOTKIN AND HIS SCHOOL .... 172 Biography Kropotkin's Main Views Anarchist Com- munism and the " Economics of the Heap" (Tas) Kro- potkin's Relation to the Propaganda of Action Elisee Reclus : his Character and Anarchist Writings Jean Grave Daniel Saurin's Order through Anarchy Louise Michel and G. Elie'vant A. Hamon and the Psycho- logy of Anarchism Charles Malato and other French Writers on Anarchist Communism The Italians : Cafiero, Merlino, and Malatesta. VI. GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA .... 213 Individualist and Communist Anarchism Arthur Mttlber- ger Theodor Hertzka's Freeland Eugen Diihring's " Anticratism " Moritz von Egidy's " United Christen- dom " John Henry Mackay Nietzsche and Anarchism Johann Most Auberon Herbert's Voluntary State R. B. Tucker. PART III. THE RELATION OF ANARCHISM TO SCIENCE AND POLITICS. VII. ANARCHISM AND SOCIOLOGY : HERBERT SPENCER . 245 Spencer's Views on the Organisation of Society Society Conceived from the Nominalist and Realist Standpoint The Idealism of Anarchists Spencer's Work : From Freedom to Restraint. Contents Xlll CHAP. VIII. THE SPREAD OF ANARCHISM IN EUROPE . First Period (1867-1880) : The Peace and Freedom League The Democratic Alliance and the Jurassic Bund Union with and Separation from the "International" The Rising at Lyons Congress at Lausanne The Members of the Alliance in Italy, Spain, and Belgium Second Period (from 1880) : The German Socialist Law Johann Most The London Congress French Anarch- ism since 1880 Anarchism in Switzerland The Geneva Congress Anarchism in Germany and Austria Joseph Penkert Anarchism in Belgium and England Organisa- tion of the Spanish Anarchists Italy Character of Mod- ern Anarchism The Group Numerical Strength of the Anarchism of Action. IX. CONCLUDING REMARKS Legislation against Anarchists Anarchism and Crime Tolerance towards Anarchist Theory Suppression of An- archist Crime Conclusion. PAGE 260 304 PART I EARLY ANARCHISM " A hundred fanatics are found to support a theological or meta- physical statement, but not one for a geometric theorem." CESARE LOMBROSO. CHAPTER I PRECURSORS AND EARLY HISTORY Forerunners and Early History Definitions Is Anarchism a Patho- logical Phenomenon ? Anarchism Considered Sociologically Anarchist Movements in the Middle Ages The Theory of the Social Contract with Reference to Anarchism Anarchist Move- ments during the French Revolution The Philosophic Premises of the Anarchist Theory The Political and Economic Assump- tions of Anarchism. " Die Welt wird alt und wird wieder Jung Doch der Mensch hofft immer auf Besserung." NARCHY means, in its ideal sense, the perfect, unfettered self-govern- ment of the individual, and, conse- quently, the absence of any kind of external government. This funda- mental formula, which in its essence is common to all actual and real Theoretical Anarchists, contains all that is necessary as a guide to the distinguishing features of this remarkable movement. It demands the unconditional realisation of freedom, both sub- jectively and objectively, equally in political and in economic life. In this, Anarchism is distinct from 4 Anarchism Liberalism, which, even in its most radical represent- atives, only allows unlimited freedom in economic affairs, but has never questioned the necessity of some compulsory organisation in the social relation- ships of individuals; whereas Anarchism would ex- tend the Liberal doctrine of laisser faire to all human actions, and would recognise nothing but a free con- vention or agreement as the only permissible form of human society. But the formula stated above distinguishes Anarchism much more strongly (be- cause the distinction is fundamental) from its anti- thesis, Socialism, which out of the celebrated trinity of the French Revolution has placed another figure, that of Equality, upon a pedestal as its only deity. Anarchism and Socialism, in spite of the fact that they are so often confused, both intentionally and unintentionally, have only one thing in common, namely, that both are forms of idolatry, though they have different idols, both are religions and not sciences, dogmas and not speculations. Both of them are a kind of honestly meant social mysticism, which, anticipating the partly possible and perhaps even probable results of yet unborn centuries, urge upon mankind the establishment of a terrestrial Eden, of a land of the absolute Ideal, whether it be Freedom or Equality. It is only natural, in view of the difficulty of creating new thoughts, that our modern seekers after the millennium should look for their Eden by going backwards, and should shape it on the lines of stages of social progress that have long since been passed by ; and in this is seen the irremediable internal contradiction of both move- Precursors and Early History 5 ments : they intend an advance, but only cause retrogression. Are we, then, to take Anarchism seriously, or shall we pass it by merely with a smile of superiority and a deprecating wave of our hand ? Shall we declare war to the knife against Anarchists, or have they a claim to have their opinions discussed and respected as much as those of the Liberals or Social Demo- crats, or as those of religious or ecclesiastical bodies ? These questions we can only answer at the conclu- sion of this book; but at this point I should like to do away with one conception of Anarchism which is frequently urged against it. Those who wish nowadays to seem particularly enlightened and tolerant as regards this dangerous movement, describe it as a " pathological phenome- non." We have done our best to make some sense of this mischievous, though modern, analogy, but have never succeeded, in spite of Lombroso, Kraft - Ebing, and others undeniably capable in their own department. The former, in his clever book on this subject, 1 has confused individual with social patho- logy. When Lombroso completely identified the Anarchist theory and idea with which he is by no means familiar with the persons engaged in An- archist actions, and made an attempt (which is cer- tainly successful) to trace the political methods of thought and action of a great many of them to 1 Cesare Lombroso, The Anarchists, a Study in Criminal Psycho- logy and Sociology. (German translation by Dr. Hans Kneller, after the 2d edition of the original. Hamburg, 1895.) 6 Anarchism pathological premises, he reached the false conclu- sion that Anarchism itself was a pathological phe- nomenon. But in reality the only conclusion from his demonstration is that many unhealthy and criminal characters adopt Anarchism, a conclusion which he himself admits in this remark, that " Criminals take part specially in the beginnings of insurrections and revolutions in large numbers, for, at a time when the weak and undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive activity of abnormal and unhealthy characters preponderates, and their ex- ample then produces epidemics of excesses." This fact we fearlessly acknowledge ; and it gains a special significance for us in that the Anarchists themselves base their system of " propaganda by action " upon this knowledge. But if we are therefore to call this phenomenon a symptom that Anarchism itself is a pathological phenomenon, to what revolutionary movement might we not then apply this criterion, and what would it imply if we did ? I have stated, and (I hope) have shown elsewhere ' what may be understood by " pathological " social phenomena, namely, an abnormal unhealthy condi- tion of the popular mind in the sense of a general aberration of the intellect of the masses, as is pos- sibly the case in what is known as Anti-Semitism. But even in this limited sense it appears quite inad- missible and incorrect to call Anarchism a patho- logical phenomenon. Let us be fair and straight- forward, if we wish to learn ; let us be just, even if 1 Rupticism, Pietism, and Anti-Semitism at the Close of the Nine- teenth Century, a study in social history. Vienna, 1894. Precursors and Early History 7 we are to benefit our most dangerous enemies ; for in the end we shall benefit ourselves. With An- archism there is no question of transitory anomalies of the public mind, but of a well defined condition which is visibly increasing and which is necessarily connected with all previous and accompanying con- ditions ; it is a question of ideas and opinions which are the logical, even if in practice inadmissible, de- velopment of views that have long been well known and recognised by the majority of civilised men. A further test of every unhealthy phenomenon, namely, its local character, is entirely lacking in Anarchism ; for we meet with it to-day extending all over the world, wherever society has developed in a manner similar to our own ; we meet it not merely in one class, but see members of all classes, and especially members of the upper classes, attach themselves to it. The fathers, as we may call them, of the Anarchist theory are almost entirely men of great natural gifts, who rank high both intellectually and morally, whose influence has been felt for half a century, who have been born in Russia, Germany, France, Italy, England, and America, men who are as different one from another as are the circum- stances and environment of their respective coun- tries, but who are all of one mind as regards the theory which we mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. And that is what Anarchism undoubtedly is: a theory, an idea, with all the failings and dangers, but also with all the advantages which a theory always possesses, with just as much, and only as 8 Anarchism much, validity as a theory can demand as its due, but at any rate a theory which is as old as human civilisation, because it goes back to the most power- ful civilising factor in humanity. The care for the bare necessities of life, the inex- orable struggle for existence, has aroused in mankind the desire for fellow-strugglers, for companions. In the tribe his power of resistance was increased, and his prospect of self-support grew in proportion as he developed together with his fellows into a new col- lective existence. But the fact that, notwithstand- ing this, he did not grow up like a mere animal in a flock, but in such a way that he always even if often only after long and bitter experience found his proper development in the tribe this has made him a man and his tribe a society. Which is the more ancient and more sacred, the unfettered rights of the individual or the welfare of the community ? Can anyone take this question seriously who is ac- customed to look at the life and development of society in the light of facts ? Individualism and Altruism are as inseparably connected as light and darkness, as day and night. The individualistic and the social sense in human society correspond to the centrifugal and centripetal forces in the universe, or to the forces of attraction and repulsion that gov- ern molecular activity. Their movements must be regarded simply as manifestations of forces in the di- rection of the resultants, whose components are Indi- vidualism and Altruism. If, to use a metaphor from physics, one of these forces was excluded, the body Precursors and Early History 9 would either remain stock-still, or would fly far away into infinity. But such a case is, in society as in physics, only possible in imagination, because the distinction between the two forces is itself only a purely mental separation of one and the same thing. This is all that can be said either for or against the exclusive accentuation of any one single social force. All the endeavours to create a realm of un- limited and absolute freedom have only as much value as the assumption, in physics, of space abso- lutely void of air, or of a direction of motion abso- lutely uninfluenced by the force of gravity. The force which sets a bullet in motion is certainly something actual and real; but the influence which would correspond to this force, this direction in the sense in which the physicist distinguishes it, exists only in theory, because the bullet will, as far as all actual experience goes, only move in the direction of a resultant, in which the impetus given to it and the force of gravity are inseparably united and ap- pear as one. If, therefore, it is also clear that the endeavour to obtain a realm of unconditional free- dom contradicts ipso facto the conception of life, yet all such endeavours are by no means valueless for our knowledge of human society, and consequently for society itself; and even if social life is always only the resultant of different forces, yet these forces themselves remain something real and actual, and are no mere fiction or hypothesis ; while the growing differentiation of society shows how freedom, con- ceived as a force, is something actual, although as an ideal it may never attain full realisation. The io Anarchism development of society has proceeded hand in hand with a conscious or more often unconscious assertion of the individual, and the philosopher Hegel could rightly say that the history of the world is progress in the consciousness of freedom. At all events, it might be added, the statement that the history of the world is progress in the consciousness of the uni- versal interdependence of mankind would have quite as much justification, and practically also just the same meaning. The circumstance that, apart from the events of what is comparatively a modern period, the great social upheavals of history have not taken place ex- pressly in the name of freedom, although they have indisputably implied it, only proves that in this case we have to deal not with a mere word or idea, but with an actual force which is active and acting, without reference to our knowledge or consciousness of it. The recognition of individual freedom, and much more the endeavour to make it the only ob- ject of our life, are certainly of quite recent date. But these presuppose a certain amount of progress in the actual process of setting the individual free in his moral and political relationships, which is not to be found in the whole of antiquity, and still less in the middle ages. It is not possible to point to clearer traces of An- archist influences in the numberless social religious revolutions of the close of the middle ages, without doing violence to history, although, as in all critical periods, even in that of the Reformation, which cer- Precursors and Early History n tainly implied a serious revolt against authority, there was no lack of isolated attempts to make the revolt against authority universal, and to abolish authority of every kind. We find, for instance, in the thirteenth century, a degenerate sect of the " Beghards, " who called themselves " Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit," or were also called " Amalrikites," after the name of their founder. 1 They preached not only community of goods but also of women, a perfect equality, and rejected every form of authority. Their Anarchist doctrines were, curiously enough, a consequence of their Pantheism. Since God is everything and every- where, even in mankind, it follows that the will of man is also the will of God; therefore every limit- ation of man is objectionable, and every person has the right, indeed it is his duty, to obey his im- pulses. These views are said to have spread fairly widely over the east of France and part of Germany, and especially among the Beghards on the Rhine. 8 The " Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit " also appear during the Hussite wars under the name of Adamites " ; this name being given them because 1 Amalrich of Bena, near Chartres, was, about 1200 A.D., a profes- sor of theology at Paris. He had to defend himself before Pope Innocent III. on a charge of pantheistic teaching, and then recanted. His follower, David of Dinant, however, continued his work after his master's death (in 1206 or 1207), and this caused a condemnation of Amalrich's teaching by the Synod of Paris in 1210, and by the Lat- eran Council in 1215, and also led to a severe persecution of the Amalrikites. * E. Bernstein and K. Kautsky, Die Vorlaufer des Neueren Social- ismus, Stuttgart, 1895. Part i., pp. 169 and 216. 12 Anarchism they declared the condition of Adam to be that of sinless innocence. Their enthusiasm for this happy state of nature went so far that they appeared in their assemblies, called " Paradises," literally in Adamite costume, that is, quite naked. But that, in spite of all this, the real Communism of this sect went no farther than a kind of patri- archal Republicanism, certainly not as far as actual Anarchy, is proved by the information given by ^Eneas Sylvius : that they certainly had community of women, but that it was nevertheless forbidden to them to have knowledge of any woman without the permission of their leader. There is one other sect met with during the Hus- site wars in Bohemia, which bears some similarity to the Anarchical Communism of the present day, that of the Chelcicians. 1 Peter of Chelcic, a peace- ful Taborite, preached equality and Communism; but this universal equality should not (he said) be imposed upon society by the compulsion of the State, but should be realised without its interven- tion. The State is sinful, and an outcome of the Evil One, since it has created the inequality of property, rank, and place. Therefore the State must dis- appear ; and the means of doing away with it con- sists not in making war upon it, but in simply ignoring it. The true follower of this theory is thus neither allowed to take any office under the State nor call in its help; for the true Christian strives after good of his own accord, and must not compel us to follow it, since God desires good to be 1 Vorldufer de s Neueren Socialismus, Pt. i., p. 230. Precursors and Early History 13 done voluntarily. All compulsion is from the Evil One; all dignities or distinctions of classes offend against the law of brotherly love and equality. This pious enthusiast easily found a small body of fol- lowers in a time when men were weary of war after the cruelties of the Hussite conflicts; but here, too, his theory developed in practice into a kind of Quietism under priestly control, an austere Puritan- ism, which is the very opposite of the personal free- dom of Anarchism. Once more the Anarchist views of the Amalrikite appear at the beginning of the sixteenth century among the Anabaptists in the sect of the " Free Brothers," who considered themselves set free from all laws by Christ, had wives and property in com- mon, and refused to pay either taxes or tithes, or to perform the duties of service or serfdom. 1 The " Free Brothers " had a following in the Zurich highlands, but they were of no more importance than the other sect, we have mentioned ; utterly in- comprehensible to those of their own time, they formed the extreme wings of the widespread Com- munist movement which, coming at the same time as the Reformation in the Church, separates the (so- called) middle ages from modern times like a bound- ary line. We observe in it nothing but the naively logical development of a belief that is common to most religions: the assumption of a happy age in the childhood of mankind (Golden Age, Paradise, 1 " Der Wideraufferen vosprung, fur gang , Secten v.s.w. . . . beschreiben durch Heinerrychen Bullingern. . . ." Zurich, 1561. Fol. 32. 14 Anarchism and so on), when men followed merely the laws of reason (Morality, God, or Nature, or whatever else it is called), and needed no laws or punishments to tell them to do right and avoid wrong ; when man- kind, as every schoolboy knows from his Ovid, " Vindice nullo Sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat ; Pcena metusque aberant, nee verba minacia fixo JEi& legebantur, nee supplex turba timebat Judicis ora sui, sed erant sine judice tuti." The transition from this primeval Anarchy to the present condition of society has been presented by religion, both Graeco-Roman and Judaic-Christian, as the consequence of a deterioration of mankind (" the Fall "), and as a condition of punishment, which is to be followed, in a better world and after the work of life has been well performed, by another life as Eden-like as the first state of man, and eternal. But it must not be forgotten that Christ- ianity was at first a proletarian movement, and that a great part of its adherents certainly did not join it merely with the hope of a return to the original state of Paradise in a future world. Perhaps (thought they) this Paradise might be attainable in this world. It can be seen that the Church had originally nothing to lose by at least not opposing this hope of a millennium J ; and so we see not only heretics like Kerinthos, but also pillars of ortho- doxy, like Papios of Hieropolis, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and others, preaching the doctrine of the 1 Or, from the Greek, chiliad ; and hence the word chiliasm, expressing the belief in a millennium. Precursors and Early History 15 millennium. In later times, indeed, when the Church had long since ceased to be a mainly proletarian movement, and when Christianity had risen from the Catacombs to the palace and the throne, the hopes of the poor and oppressed for an approaching mil- lennial reign lost their harmless character, and " Mil- lennialism " became ipso facto heresy. But this heresy was, as may be understood, not so easy to eradicate ; and when, in the closing centuries of the middle ages, the material position of large classes of people had again become, in spite of Christianity, most serious and comfortless, Millennialism awoke again actively in men's minds, and formed the pre- lude, as well as the Socialist undercurrent, of the Reformation. Some Radical offshoots of this medi- eval Millennialism we have already noticed in the " Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit," the Adamites, Chelcicians, and " Free Brothers." The presuppositions of this flattering superstition are so deeply founded in the optimism of mankind, that it remained the same even when divested of its religious, or rather its confessional, garment ; and could be no more eradicated by the Rationalistic tendency that arose after the Reformation than by the interdict of Rome or the brutal cruelties of ecclesiastical justice. If we look more closely into the doctrine of the so-called contrat social, which was destined to form the programme of the French Revolution, we again recognise without much difficulty the fundamental ideas of the Millennialists, hardly altered at all. A 1 6 Anarchism Paradise without laws, existing before civilisation, which is considered as a curse, and another like unto it, when " this cursed civilisation " is abolished, is what a modern Anarchist would say. The names only are different, and are taken from the vocabulary of Rationalism, instead of from that of religious mythology. Instead of divine rights men spoke now of the everlasting and unalterable rights of man ; instead of Paradise, of a happy state of nature, in which there is, however, an exact resemblance to Ovid's golden age, the transition into the present form of society was represented to be due to a social contract or agreement, occasioned, however, by a certain moral degeneracy in mankind, only differing in name from the " Fall." In this case, also, An- archy is regarded as underlying society as the ideal state of nature; every form of society is only the consequence of the degeneration of mankind, a pis aller, or, at any rate, only a voluntary renunciation of the original, inalienable, and unalterable rights of man and nature, the chief of which is Freedom. In the further development of this main idea the believers in the contrat social have been divided. While some, foremost among whom is Hobbes, de- clared the contract thus formed once and for all as permanent and unbreakable, and hence that the authority of the sovereign was irrevocable and with- out appeal, and thus arrived at Monarchism pure and simple; others, and these the great majority, regarded the contract merely as provisional, and the powers of the sovereign as therefore limited. In this case everyone is not only free to annul the con- Precursors and Early History 17 tract at any time and place himself outside the limits of society, 1 but the contract is also regarded as broken if the sovereign whether a person or a body corporate oversteps his authority. Here the return to the primeval state of Anarchy not only shines, as it were, afar off as a future ideal, but ap- pears as the permanently normal state of mankind, only occasionally disturbed by some transitory form of social life. This idea cannot be more clearly ex- pressed than in the words which the poet Schiller certainly not an advocate of bombs puts into the mouth of Stauffacher in William Tell : " When the oppressed . . . . . . makes appeal to Heaven And thence brings down his everlasting rights, Which there abide, inalienably his, And indestructible as are the stars, Nature's primeval state returns again, Where man stands hostile to his fellow-man." How nearly the doctrine of the "social contract " corresponds to the idea of Anarchy is shown by the circumstance that one of the first (and what is more, one of the ecclesiastical) representatives of this doctrine, Hooker, declared, that " it was in the nature of things not absolutely impossible that men could live without any public form of government." Elsewhere he says that for men it is foolish to let 1 " Cette liberte commun est une consequence de la nature de rhomme. Sa premiere loi est de veiller a sa propre conservation, ses premiers soins sont ceux qu'il se doit a lui-meme : et sitot qu'il est en age de raison, lui seul etant juge des moyens propres a le conserver, devient par la son propre maitre." ROUSSEAU. 1 8 Anarchism themselves be guided, by authority, like animals; it would be a kind of fettering of the judgment, though there were reasons to the contrary, not to pay heed to them, but, like sheep, to follow the leader of the flock, without knowing or caring whither. On the other hand, it is no part of our belief that the authority of man over men shall be recognised against or beyond reason. Assemblies of learned men, however great or honourable they may be, must be subject to reason. This refers, of course, only to spiritual and ecclesiastical authority; but Locke, who followed Hooker most closely, dis- covered only too clearly what the immediate conse- quences of such assumptions would be, and tried to avoid them by affirming that the power of the sov- ereign, being merely a power entrusted to him, could be taken away as soon as it became forfeited by misuse, but that the break-up of a government was not a break-up of society. In France, on the other hand, Etienne de la Boetie had already written, when oppressed by the tyranny of Henry II., a Discours de la Servitude Volontaire, ou Contr'un (in 1546), containing a glowing defence of Freedom, which goes so far that the sense of the necessity of authority disappears entirely. The opinion of La Boetie is that mankind does not need government ; it is only necessary that it should really wish it, and it would find itself happy and free again, as if by magic. So we see how the upholders of the social con- tract are separated into a Right, Central, and Left party. At the extreme right stands Hobbes, whom Precursors and Early History 19 the defenders of Absolutism follow; in the centre is Locke, with the Republican Liberals ; and on the extreme left stand the pioneers of Anarchism, with Hooker the ecclesiastic at their head. But of all the theoretical defenders of the " social contract," only one has really worked out its ultimate conse- quences. William Godwin, in his Inquiry concerning Political Justice, 1 demanded the abolition of every form of government, community of goods, the abo- lition of marriage, and self-government of mankind according to the laws of justice. Godwin's book attracted remarkable attention, from the novelty and audacity of his point of view. " Soon after his book on political justice appeared," writes a young contemporary, " workmen were observed to be col- lecting their savings together, in order to buy it, and to read it under a tree or in a tavern. It had so much influence that Godwin said it must contain something wrong, and therefore made important al- terations in it before he allowed a new edition to appear. There can be no doubt that both Govern- ment and society in England have derived great advantage from the keenness and audacity, the truth and error, the depth and shallowness, the magnani- mity and injustice of Godwin, as revealed in his inquiry concerning political justice." Our next business is to turn from theoretical con- siderations of the contrat social to the practice based upon this catchword ; and to look for traces of An- archist thought upon the blood-stained path of the 1 London, 1795, 2 vols. 20 Anarchism great French Revolution that typical struggle of the modern spirit of freedom against ancient society. We are the more desirous to do this, because of the frequent and repeated application of the word An- archist to the most radical leaders of the democracy by the contemporaries, supporters, and opponents of the Revolution. As far as we in the present day are able to judge the various parties from the his- tory of that period, and we certainly do not know too much about it, there were not apparently any real Anarchists l either in the Convention or the Commune of Paris. If we want to find them, we must begin with the Girondists and not with the Jacobins, for the Anarchists of to-day recognise and rightly so no sharper contrast to their doctrine than Jacobinism; while the Anarchism of Proudhon is connected in two essential points with its Girond- ist precursors namely, in its protest against the sanction of property and in its federal principle. But, nevertheless, neither Vergniaud nor Brissot was an Anarchist, even though the latter, in his Philosophical Examination of Property and Theft (1780), uttered a catchword, afterwards taken up by 1 Jean Grave says in his book, La SoriM Mourante, p. 21 : " In the year 1793 one talked of Anarchists. Only Jacques Roux and the ' suragh ' appear to have been those who saw the Revolution most clearly, and wished to turn it to the benefit of the people ; and, there- fore, the bourgeois historian has left them in the background ; their history has still to be written ; the documents buried in archives and libraries are waiting for one who shall have time and courage to exhume them, and bring to light the secrets of events that are to us almost incomprehensible. Meanwhile, we can pass no judgment on their programme." Of course we can do so still less. Precursors and Early History 21 Proudhon. At the same time, they have no cause and no right to reproach the " Mountain " with Anarchist tendencies. Neither Danton nor Robespierre, the two great lights of the " Mountain," dreamed of making a leap into the void of a society without government. Their ideal was rather the omnipotence of society, the all-powerful State, before which the interests of the individual were scattered like the spray before the storm; and the great Maximilian, the " Chief Rabbi " of this deification of the State, accordingly called himself " a slave of freedom." Robespierre and Danton, on their side, called the Hebertists Anarchists. If one can speak of a principle at all among these people, who placed all power in the hands of the masses who had no votes, and the whole art of politics in majorities and force, it was certainly not directed against the abolition of au- thority. The maxims of these people were chaos and the right of the strongest. Marat, the party saint, had certainly, on occasion, inveighed against the laws as such, and desired to set them aside ; but Marat all the time wanted the dictatorship, and for a time actually held it. The Marat of after Thermi- dor was the infamous Caius Gracchus Babceuf, who is now usually regarded as the characteristic repre- sentative of Anarchism during the French Revolu- tion and regarded so just as rightly, or rather as wrongly, as those mentioned above. Babceuf was a more thorough-going Socialist than Robespierre ; indeed he was a Radical Communist, but no more. In the proclamation issued by Babceuf for the 22d 22 Anarchism of Floreal, the day of the insurrection against the Directoire, he says: "The revolutionary authority of the people will announce the destruction of every other existing authority." But that means nothing more than the dictatorship of the mob; which is rejected in theory by Anarchists of all types, just as much as any other kind of authority. That the fol- lowers of Babceuf had nothing else in view is shown by the two placards prepared for this day, one of which said, ' Those who usurp the sovereignty ought to be put to death by free men," while the other, explaining and limiting the first, demanded the " Constitution of 1/93, liberty, equality, and universal happiness." This constitution of 1793 was, however, Robespierre's work, and certainly did not mean the introduction of Anarchy. Echoes and traditions of Babceuf's views, often passing through intermediaries like Buonarotti, are found in the Carbonarists of the first thirty years of our own century, and applied to this (as to so many other popular movements) the epithet " Anarchi- cal, ' ' so glibly uttered by the lips of the people. But among the chiefs, at least, of that secret society that was once so powerful, we find no trace of it ; on the contrary they declared absolute freedom to be a de- lusion which could never be realised. Yet even here, though the fundamental dogma of Anarchism is rejected, we notice a step forward in the exten- sion of the Anarchist idea. It was indeed rejected by the members of that society, but it was known to them, and what is more, they take account of it, and support every effort which, by encouraging in- Precursors and Early History 23 dividualism to an unlimited extent, is hostile to the union of society as such. Thus we even find indi- vidual Carbonarists with pronounced Anarchist views and tendencies. Malegari, for instance, in 1835, described the raison d'etre of the organisation in these words *: " We form a union of brothers in all parts of the earth ; we all strive for the freedom of mankind; we wish to break every kind of yoke." Between the time when these words were spoken and the appearance of the famous What is Property ? and the Individual and his Property, there elapsed only about ten years. How much since then has been changed, whether for better or worse, how much has been cleared up and confused, in the life and thought of the nations ! Feuerbach described the development which he had passed through as a thinker in the words: " God was my first thought, Reason my second, Man my third and last." Not only Feuerbach, but all modern philosophy, has gone through these stages ; and Feuerbach is only different from other philosophers, in having himself assisted men to reach the third and final stage. The epoch of philo- sophy that was made illustrious by the brilliant trinity of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, how- ever far it may have departed or emancipated itself from the traditions of religion, not only never de- posed the idea of God, but actually for the first time made the conception of the Deity the starting-point 1 J. A. M. Brtihle : Die Geheimbunde gegen Rom. Zi+r Genesis der ifalien. Revolution, Prague, 1860, 24 Anarchism of all Thought and Existence. The philosophy which abolished this, whether we consider Locke and Hume the realists, or Kant and Hegel the idealists, is philosophy of intellect ; absolute reason has taken the place of an absolute God, criticism and dialectics the place of ontology and theocracy. But in philosophy we find the very opposite of the mythological legend, for in it Chronos instead of devouring his children is devoured by them. The critical school turned against its masters, who were already sinking into speculative theology again, quite forgetting that its great leader had introduced a new epoch with a struggle against ontology ; and losing themselves in the heights of non-existence, just as if they had never taken their start from the thesis, that no created mind can comprehend the nature of the Being that is behind all phenomena. From such heights a descent had to be made to our earth; instead of immortal individuals, as conceived by Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, the school of Feuer- bach, Strauss, and Bauer postulated " human be- ings, sound in mind and body, for whom health is of more importance than immortality." Concen- tration upon this life took the place of vague trancendentalism, and anthropology the place of theology, ontology, and cosmology. Idealism be- came bankrupt ; God was regarded no longer as the creator of man, but man as the creator of God. Humanity now took the place of the Godhead. The new principle was now a universal or absolute one ; but, as with Hegel, universal or absolute only in words, for to sense it is extremely real, just as Precursors and Early History 25 Art in a certain sense is more real than the indi- vidual. It was the " generic conception of human- ity, not something impersonal and universal but forming persons, inasmuch as only in persons have we reality." (D. F. Strauss.) If philosophic criticism were to go still farther than this, there remained nothing more for it than to de- stroy this generalisation, and instead of Humanity to make the individual, the person, the centre of thought. A strong individualistic and subjective feature, peculiar to the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy, favoured such a process. Although in the case of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling this feature had never outstepped the limits of the purely com- prehensible, yet such a trait makes philosophy infer a similarly strongly developed feature of individual- ism in the people, especially as at that time it was so closely connected with popular life. Moreover, at that period there was a great desire (as we see in Fichte and his influence on the nation) to translate philosophy at once into action; and so it was not remarkable that a thinker regardless of consequences should introduce the idea of individualism into the field of action, and regard this also as suitable for " concentration of thought upon this present life." Herewith began a new epoch; just as formerly human thought had proceeded from the individual up to the universal, so now it descended from the highest generalisation down again to the individual ; to the process of getting free from self followed the regaining of self. Here was the point at which an Anarchist philo- 26 Anarchism sophy could intervene, and, as a matter of fact did intervene, in Stirner. In another direction also, and about the same time, the critical philosophy had reached a point be- yond which it could not go without attacking not only the changing forms, but also the very founda- tions of all organisations of society which were then possible. However far the Aufklarer, the Encyclo- paedists, the heedless fighters in the political re- volution, and the leading personages in the spiritual revolution, had gone in their unsparing criticism of all institutions and relationships of life, they had not as yet, except in a few isolated cases, attacked Religion, the State, and Property, as such in the abstract. However manifold and transitory their various forms might be, these three things themselves still seemed to be the incontrovertible and necessary conditions of spiritual, political, and social life, merely the different concrete formulae for the one absolute idea which could not be banished from the thought of that age. But if we approach these three fundamental ideas with the probe of scientific criticism, and resolutely tear away the halo of the absolute, it does not on that account seem necessary for us to declare that they are valueless or even harmful in life. We read Strauss's Life of Jesus, and put it down perhaps with the conviction that the usually recognised sources of inspired information as to revealed re- ligion and the divine mission of Christianity are an Precursors and Early History 27 unskilful compilation of purely apocryphal docu- ments; but are we on that account to deny the importance of Judaism and Christianity in social progress and ethics ? Or again, I may read E. B. Tyler's Primitive Culture and see the ideas of the soul and God arise from purely natural and (for the most part) physiological origins, just as we can trace the development of the skilful hand of Raphael or Liszt from the fore-limbs of an ape ; but am I from that to conclude that the idea of religion is harmful to society ? It is just the same with the ideas of the State and Property. Modern science has shown us beyond dispute the purely historical origin of both these forms of social life ; and both are, at least as we find them to-day, comparatively recent feat- ures of human society. This, of course, settles the question as to the State and Property being inviol- able, or being necessary features of human society from everlasting to everlasting ; but the further question as to how far these forms are advantages and relatively necessary for society in general, or for a certain society, has nothing to do with the above, and cannot be answered by the help of a simple logi- cal formula. But though this fact seems so clear to us, it is even to-day not by any means clear to a great portion of mankind. And how much less clear it must have been to thinkers at the beginning of this century when thought was still firmly moulded upon the conception of the Absolute. To them there could only be either absolute Being or absolute Not-Being ; and as soon as ever critical philosophy destroyed the idea of the " sacredness " of the in- 28 Anarchism stitutions referred to (Property and the State), it was almost unavoidable that it should declare them to be " unholy," i. e., radically bad and harmful. The logic which underlies this process of thought is similar to that which concludes that if a thing is not white it must be black. But it cannot be denied that just at this time during the celebrated dix ans after the Revolution of July many circumstances seemed positively to favour such an inference. Not only were economic conditions unsatisfactory (though pauperism alone will never produce An- archism), but even hope and faith had gone. Ideal- ism was bankrupt, not only in the political but also in the economic world. Full of the noblest anima- tion, and with the most joyous confidence, the French nation had entered upon the great Revolu- tion, and all Europe had looked full of hope towards France, whence they expected to see the end of all tyranny and since such things at that time were not well understood the end of all misery. We may be spared the detailed description of the transi- tion by which this hope and these childish expecta- tions, this Millennialism, were bitterly disillusioned, and how the excitement of 1789 to 1791 ended in a great wail of woe ; and that too not only in France, where absolute monarchy post tot discrimina verum had merely changed into an absolute empire, but also in Germany, whose princes hastened to recall the concessions made under the pressure of the Re- volution. The monarchs of Europe then celebrated an orgie of promise-breaking, from which even to- day the simple mind of the people revolts with Precursors and Early History 29 deep disgust. It need only be remembered how in the Napoleonic wars of Germany noble princes exploited the flaming enthusiasm and the naive con- fidence of their people for their own dynastic pur- poses, and then, after the downfall of the Corsican, drove them back again through the old Caudine yoke. If, after such unfortunate experiences, the people, and especially the insatiate elements amongst them, had retained any remains of confidence in help from above, it must have perished in the sea of disgust and bitterness at the Revolution of July. In a struggle for a free form of the State, which lasted almost half a century, the proletariat and its misery had grown without cessation. They had fought for constitutional monarchy, for the Repub- lic, and for the Empire; they had tried Bourbons and Bonapartes and Orleanists; they had gone to the barricades and to the field of battle for Robes- pierre, Napoleon, and finally for Thiers ; but of course their success was always the same : not only their economic position, but also the social condition of the lower masses of the people had remained un- changed. It was recognised more and more that between the proletariate and the upper classes there was something more than a separation of mere constitutional rights ; in fact, that the privileges of wealth had taken the place of the privileges of birth ; and the more the masses recognised this the more did their interest in purely political questions, and, above all, the question as to the form of the State, sink into the background, while it became more and more clearly seen that the equality of constitutional 30 Anarchism rights was no longer real equality, and that the attainment of equality necessitated the abolition of all privileges, including also the privilege of free possession or of property. Henceforth, therefore, every revolutionary power attacks no longer politi- cal points but the question of property, and even though all movements did not proceed so far as to open Communism, yet they were animated by the main idea that the question of human poverty was to be solved only by limitation of the right of free acquisition, possession, and disposal of property. The dogma of the sanctity of property was in any case gone for ever. But still the last dogma, that of the inviolability of the State, remained. The Franco-German Socialists of the third and fourth decades of our century, Saint-Simon, Cabet, Weit- ling, Rodbertus, down to Louis Blanc himself, did not think of denying the State as such, but had thought of it as playing the principal part in the ex- ecution of their new scheme of organisation of indus- try and society. But the very character of the new reforming tendencies necessitated an unlimited pre- ponderance of State authority which would crush out the freedom of decision in the individual. And a directly opposite tendency, opposed to all author- ity, could appear, therefore, though certainly from the nature of the case necessary, at first only as a very feeble opposition. The principle of equality was not disputed, but the use of brute force through the power of the State was regarded with horror in the form in which the followers of Babceuf, the enthusiasts for Uto- Precursors and Early History 31 pianism, preached it. The necessity for an organis- ation of industry was not denied, but men began to ask the question whether this organisation could not proceed from below upwards till it reached freedom ? Already Fourier's phalanxes might be regarded as such an attempt to organise industry through the formation of free groups from below upwards; an attempt to which the Monarchists and Omniarchists are merely an exterior addition. If we leave out of consideration the rapid failure of the various Social- istic attempts at institutions based upon the found- ation of authority, yet the sad experiences of half a century filled with continual constitutional changes would have sufficed to undermine the respect for authority as such. Absolute monarchy as well as constitutional, the Republic just as much as Im- perialism, the dictatorship of an individual just as much as that of the mob, had all alike failed to re- move pauperism, misery, and crime, or even to alleviate them ; was it not then natural for superficial minds to conclude that the radical fault lay in the authoritative form of society in the State as such ? did not the thought at once suggest itself that a further extension of Fourier's system of the forma- tion of groups on the basis of the free initiative of the individual might be attempted without taking the State into account at all ? But here was a further point at which a system of social and politi- cal Anarchism might begin with some hope of suc- cess, and here it actually did begin with Proudhon. CHAPTER II PIERRE JOSEPH PROUDHON Biography His Philosophic Standpoint His Early Writings The "Contradictions of Political Economy" Proudhon's Federation His Economic Views His Theory of Property Collectivism and Mutualism Attempts to Put his Views into Practice Proudhon's Last Writings Criticism. HE man who had such a powerful, not to say fateful, influence upon the progress of the proletarian movement of our century was himself one of the proletariat class by birth and calling. Pierre Joseph Proudhon was born i$th January, 1809, in a suburb of Besan$on. His father was a cooper, his mother a cook; and Pierre Joseph, in spite of his thirst for knowledge, had to devote himself to hard work, instead of completing his studies; he became a proofreader in some printing works at Besangon, and as a journeyman printer wandered all through France. Having returned to Besangon, he entered the printing house again as a factor. In the year 1836 he founded, with a fellow- workman in the same town, a little printing shop, 33 Pierre Joseph Proudhon 33 which, however, he wound up after his partner had died in 1838, being determined to change the occu- pation he had followed so far, for another for which he had already long been preparing by diligent study both during his wanderings and in his leisure hours in past years. Proudhon 's activity as an author began in the year 1837. The Academy at Besan- c_on had to award a three years' scholarship, which had been founded by Suard, the secretary of the French Academy, for poor young men of Franche- Comte who wished to devote themselves to a literary or scientific career. Proudhon entered as a compet- itor, and won the scholarship. In the memoir of his life, which he drew up for the Academy, he said : " Born and reared in the midst of the working classes, to which I belong with my heart and in my affections, and above all by the community of suffer- ings and aspirations, it will be my greatest joy, if I receive the approval of the Academy, to work un- ceasingly with the help of philosophy and science, and with the whole energy of my will and all my mental powers, for the physical, moral, and intel- lectual improvement of those whom I call brothers and companions, in order to sow amongst them the seeds of a doctrine which I consider as the law of the moral world, and hoping to succeed in my en- deavours, to appear before you, gentlemen, as their 1 representative." As to the studies to which he de- voted himself in Paris for several years after receiving the scholarship, Proudhon relates himself that he received light, not from the socialistic schools which then existed and were coming into fashion, not from 34 Anarchism partisans or from journalists, but that he began with a study of the antiquities of Socialism, a study which, according to his opinion, was absolutely necessary in order to determine the theoretical and practical laws of the social movement. It gives us a somewhat strange sensation to learn that Proudhon, the father of Anarchism, made these sociological studies in the Bible; and this Book of books is even to-day the most important source of empiric sociology. For no other book re- flects so authentically and elaborately the develop- ment of an important social Individualism, and in Proudhon's time the Bible (in view of the complete lack of ethnographic observations which then pre- vailed) was also almost the only source of studies of this kind. And if also it must be admitted that these studies could not fail to be one-sided, yet it cannot be denied that Proudhon proceeded in a way incomparably more correct than most social philo- sophers have done either before or since, for they have built up their systems generally by deductive and dogmatic methods. An essay which Proudhon wrote upon the intro- duction of Sunday rest, from the point of view of morality, health, and the relations of a family estate, brought him a bronze medal from the Academy, and he was able afterwards to say with truth: " My Socialism received its baptism from a learned society, and I have an academy as sponsor " ; certainly a re- markable boast for one who denied all authority. Proudhon appears to have travelled very quickly along the road which led from the regions of faith Pierre Joseph Proudhon 35 to the metaphysics prevailing at that time ; and already he took for his criterion as he tells us later in his Confessions the proposition (drawn up ac- cording to the Hegelian theory, that everything when it is legalised at the same time brings its oppo- site with it), " that every principle which is pursued to its farthest consequence arrives at a contradiction when it must be considered false and repudiated; and that, if this false principle has given rise to an institution, this institution itself must be regarded as an artificial product and as a Utopia." This proposition Proudhon later on formulated as fol- lows: "' Every true thought is conceived in time once, and breaks up in two directions. As each of these directions is the negation of the other and both can only disappear in a higher idea, it follows that the negation of law is itself the law of life and progress, and the principle of continual movement." Here, indeed, we have Proudhon's whole teaching; with this magic wand of negation of law he thought he could open the magic world of social problems, and heal up the wounds of the social organisation. " My masters," said Proudhon to his friend Lan- glois in the year 1848, " that is those who woke fruitful ideas in me, are three : first of all, the Bible, then Adam Smith, and finally Hegel." Proudhon always boasted of being Hegel's pupil, and Karl Marx maintained that it was he who, during his stay in Paris in the year 1844, in debates which often lasted all night long, inoculated Proudhon (to the latter's great disadvantage) with Hegelianism, which he nevertheless could not properly study owing to 36 Anarchism his ignorance of the German language. A well- known anecdote attributes to Hegel the witty say- ing that only one scholar understood him and he misunderstood him. We do not know who this scholar was, but it might just as well have been Marx as Proudhon, for that which both of them took from the great philosopher, and applied as and how and when they did, is common to both : namely, the dialectic method applied to the prob- lems of social philosophy. The similarity between them in this respect is so striking that one might call both these embittered opponents the personal antitheses of the great master, Hegel. As for the rest, Proudhon's inocu- lation with Hegelianism, which was afterwards con- tinued by K. Griin and Bakunin, must have been very marked and continuous, for we shall con- stantly be meeting with traces of it as we go on. Powerful as was the influence of Hegel upon Proud- hon, the Anarchist was but little affected by the fashionable philosophy of his contemporary and fellow-countryman, A. Comte; which is all the more remarkable since it is Comte's Positivism which, proceeding along the lines of Spencer's philo- sophy, has in no small degree influenced modern Anarchism, while echoes of the Comtian individ- ualist doctrine are even to be found in the Ger- man contemporary of Proudhon, Stirner ; echoes which, although numerous, are perhaps unconscious. Proudhon attached himself, as already mentioned, specially to the Hegelian dialectic and to the doc- trine of Antitheses. Using this criterion, Proudhon Pierre Joseph Proudhon 37 proceeded to the consideration and criticism of social phenomena; and just as beginners and pupils in the difficult art of philosophy, instead of content- ing themselves with preliminary questions, attack the very kernel of problems, with all the rashness of ignorance, so Proudhon also attacked, as his first problem, the fundamental social question of prop- erty, taking it up for the subject of his much-quoted though much less read work, What is Property? (Quest-ce que la Proprie'tt ? First essay in Recher- che s siir le Principe du Droit et du Gouvernemenf). Proudhon has been judged and condemned, though, and wrongly, yet almost exclusively, by this one essay, written at the beginning of his literary career. Friends and foes alike have always contented them- selves with regarding the celebrated dictum there uttered, Property is Theft, as the Alpha and the Omega of Proudhon's teaching, without reading the book itself. And because it has been thought suffi- cient to catch up a phrase dragged from all its con- text, so it has happened that Proudhcn to-day, although he is one of the most frequently mentioned authors, is hardly either known or read. Although the question of property forms the corner-stone of all Proudhon's teaching, yet it would be wrong to identify it with his doctrine entirely. And it is no less wrong to represent the first attempt which Proudhon made to solve so great a problem as the whole of his views about property, as unfortunately even serious authors have hitherto done almost without exception, and especially those who make a special study of him, such as Diehl. As a matter 38 Anarchism of fact, Proudhon has carefully and elaborately set forth his theory of property in several other works which are mixed up for the most part with his other numerous writings, and has left behind a fragment of a book on the theory of property, in which he meant to produce a comprehensive theory of property as the foundation of his whole work. We must, therefore, in order not to anticipate, leave a complete exposi- tion of Proudhon's theory of property to a later portion of this book, hence we will merely glance at the work, What is Property? and also at another study which appeared in 1843 called The Creation of Order in Humanity, which shows the second, or I might say, the political side of Proudhon's train of thought in its first beginnings, and of which Proud- hon himself said later, that it satisfied neither him nor the public, and was worse than mediocre, al- though he had very little to retract in its contents. This book, a veritable infernal machine, which contains all the implements of creation and destruc- tion," he said in his Confessions, " is badly done, and is far below that which I could have produced if I had taken time to choose and arrange properly my materials. But however full of faults my work may now appear, it was then sufficient for my pur- pose. Its object was to make me understand myself. Just as contradiction had been useful to me to de- stroy, so now the processes of development served me to build up. My intellectual education was completed, the Creation of Order had scarcely seen the light, when, with the application of the creative method which followed immediately upon it, I Pierre Joseph Proudhon 39 understood that in order to obtain an insight into the revolution of society the first thing must be to construct the whole series of its antitheses, or the system of opposites. " This was done in the book which appeared at Paris in two volumes in 1846, 'The System of Economic Contradictions, or the Philosophy of Misery, which deserves to be called his masterpiece, both because it contains the philosophic and economic founda- tions of his theory in a perfectly comprehensive and clear exposition, and because it is impossible to understand Proudhon without a knowledge of these contradictions. In his first work upon property, Proudhon had represented it as something equiva- lent to theft. But now we have another doctrine proposed : that Property is Liberty. These two propositions were thought by Proudhon to be proved in the same way. " Property considered in the totality of social institutions has, so to speak, two current accounts. One is the thought of the good which it produces, and which flows directly from its nature ; the other is the disadvantages which it produces, and the sacrifices which it causes, and which also result directly, just as much as the good, from its nature. In property evil, or the abuse of it, is inseparable from the good, just as in book- keeping by double entry the debtor is inseparable from the creditor side. The one necessarily implies the other. To suppress the abuse of property means to extinguish it, just as much as to strike out an entry on the debtor side means also striking it out on the creditor side of an account," He proceeded 4