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From: "Objections To Anarchism," by George Barrett, Freedom Pamphlet, Freedom Press, 127 Ossulston Street, London, N.W.1., 1921.

Objections to Anarchism

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preach in theory, and establish in fact, the principle of resistance to the law. Indeed, curious as it may seem, it is a fact that immediately after the Revolution it was declared seditious to preach against resistance to law, just as to-day it is seditious to speak in favour of it.

To sum up, then, if there was any logic in the question, which there is not, we might restate it thus: "Since the present dominant class were unable to gain their ends by use of the House of Commons and the Law, why should we hope to gain ours by them?"


No. 3.

All change is slow by Evolution, and not sudden, as the Anarchists wish to make it by Revolution.

It is quite true that every great change is slowly prepared by a process of evolution almost imperceptible. Sometimes changes are carried right through from beginning to end by this slow process, but on the other hand it is quite clear that very often evolution leads slowly up to a climax, and then there is a sudden change in the condition of things. This is so obvious that it seems scarcely worth while to elaborate the point. Almost anywhere in Nature we can see the double process: the plant which slowly, very slowly, ripens its germs of new life, quite suddenly exposes these to new conditions, and when they enter these new conditions they slowly begin to change again. An almost laughably good example of this, amongst many others, is furnished by a little fungus called the pile bolus. This, which very slowly and innocently ripens its spores like any other ordinary little plant, will, when the moment comes, suddenly shoot out a jet of water in which the spores are carried, and which it throws to a distance of sometimes as much as three feet, although the plant itself is very small. Now it is perfectly true that in this case the necessary pressure is slowly evolved; it has taken long for all the conditions to imperceptibly ripen, and as the pressure has increased the cell wail has been giving way. There comes a time, however, when that wall can stretch no further — and then it has suddenly burst asunder, and the new germs of life have been thrown violently into their new conditions, and according to these new conditions so do they develop.

So is it with the conditions of society. There is always

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