(vii) Every person who examines this book at all will speedily divide its contents into Eltzbacher's own discussion and his seven chapters of classified quotations from Anarchist leaders; and, if he buys the book, he will buy it for the sake of the quotations. I do not mean that the book might not have a sale if it consisted exclusively of Eltzbacher's own words, but simply that among ten thousand people who may value Eltzbacher's discussion there will not be found ten who will not value still more highly the conveniently-arranged reprint of what the Anarchists themselves have said on the cardinal points of Anarchistic thought. Nor do I feel that I am saying anything uncomplimentary to Eltzbacher when I say that the part of his work to which he has devoted most of his space is the part that the public will value most.

And yet there is much to be valued in the chapters that are of Eltzbacher's own writing, -even if one is reminded of Sir Arthur Help's satirical description of English lawyers as a class of men, found in a certain island, who make it their business to write highly important documents in closely-crowded lines on such excessively wide pages that the eye is bound to skip a line now and then, but who make up for this by invariably repeating in another part of the document whatever they have said, so that whatever the reader may miss in one place he will certainly catch in another. The fact is that Eltzbacher's work is an admirable model of what should be the mental processes of an investigator trying to determine the definition of a term which he finds to be confusedly conceived. Not only is his method for determining the definition of Anarchism flawless, but his subsidiary investigation of the definitions of law, the State, and property is conducted as such things ought to be, and (a good

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test of clearness of thought) his illustrations are always so exactly pertinent that they go far to redeem his style from dullness, if one is reading for the sense and therefore cares for pertinence. The only weak point in this part of the book is that he thinks it necessary to repeat in print his previous statements wherever it is necessary to the investigation that the previous statement be mentally renewed. But, however tiresome this may be, one gets a steady progress of thought, and the introductory part of the book is not very long at worst.

The collection of quotations, which form three-fourths of the book both in bulk and in importance, is as much the best part as it is the biggest. Here the prime necessity is impartiality, and Eltzbacher has attained this as perfectly as can be expected of any man. Positively, one comes to the end of all this without feeling sure whether Eltzbacher is himself an Anarchist or not; it is not until we come to the last dozen pages of the book that he lets his opposition to Anarchism become evident. To be sure, one feels that he is more journalistic than scientific in selecting for special mention the more sensational points of the schemes proposed (the journalistic temper certainly shows itself in his habit of picking out for his German public the references of Germany in Anarchist writers). Yet it is hard to deny that much of the sensational is involved with Anarchism; and, on the other hand, Eltzbacher recognizes his duty to present the strongest points of the Anarchist side, and does this so faithfully that one often wonders if the man can repeat these words without feeling their cogency. So far as any bias is really felt in this part of the book it is the bias of over-methodicalness; now and then a quotation is made to go into the classification at a place where it will not go in without forcing, and perspective is distorted when some obiter dictum that had never seemed to its author to be worth repeating a second time is made to serve as illuminant now for this division of the "teaching'"now for that, till it seems to the reader like a favorite topic of the Anarchist.

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However, the bias of methodicalness is as nearly non-partisan as any bias can be, and its effect is to put the matter into a most convenient form for consultation and comparison.

Next to impartiality, if not even before it, we need intelligence in our compiler; and we have it. Few men, even inside the movement, would have been more successful than Eltzbacher in picking out the important parts of the Anarchist doctrines, and the quotations that will show these important parts as they are. I do not mean that this accuracy had not exceptions- many exceptions, if you count such things as the failure to give due weight to some clause which might restrict or modify the application of the words used; a few serious exceptions, of which we reap the fruit in his final summary. But in admitting these errors I do not retract my statement that Eltzbacher has made his compilation as accurate as any man could be expected to. More than this, it may well be said that he has, except in ordinary reading; he has overlooked nothing but what his readers would have been sure to overlook if he had presented it. As a gun is advertized to shoot "as straight as any man can hold,"so Eltzbacher has, with three or four exceptions, told his story as straight as any man with ordinary attention can read. The net result is that we have here, without doubt, the most complete and accurate presentation of Anarchism that ever has been given or ever will be given in so short a space. If anyone wants a fuller and more trustworthy account, he will positively have to go direct to the writings of the Anarchists themselves; nowhere else can he find anything as good as Eltzbacher. Withal, this main part of the book is decidedly readable. Eltzbacher's repetitiousness has no opportunity to become prominent here, and the man is not at all dull in choosing and translating his quotations. On the contrary, his fondness for apt illustration is a great help toward making the compilation constantly readable, as well as toward making the reader's impressions of the Anarchistic teachings vivid and definite.

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I do not mean to say that this book can take the place of a consultation of the original sources. For instance, the Bakunin chapter follows next after the Stirner chapter; but the exquisite contrariness of almost every word of Bakunin to Stirner's teaching can be appreciated only by those who have read Stirner's book- Eltzbacher's quotations are on a different aspect of Stirner's teachings from that which applies against Bakunin. (Stirner and Bakunin, it will be noted, are the only Anarchist leaders against whom Eltzbacher permits himself a disrespectful word before he has presented their doctrines.) It is to be hoped that many who read this book will go on to examine the sources themselves. Meanwhile, here is an excellent introduction, and the chronological arrangement make it easy to watch the historical development and see whether the later schools of Anarchism assail the State more effectively than the earlier.

I have not reserved any expressions of praise for the small part of the book which comes after the compiled chapters, because it calls for none. All Eltzbacher's weak points come out in this concluding summary; the best that can be said for it is that it deserves careful attention, and that the author continues to be oftener right than wrong. But now that he has gathered all his knowledge he wants it to amount to omniscience, and most imprudently shuts his eyes to the places where there is nothing under his feet. He charges men with error for not using in his sense a term whose definition he has not undertaken to determine. He accepts all too unquestioningly such statements as fit most conveniently into his scheme of method. His most glaring offence in this direction is his classification of the Anarchist-Communist doctrines as mere prediction and not the expression of a will or demand or approval or disapproval of anything, simply because fashionableness of evolutionism and of fatalism has led the leaders of that school to prefer to state their doctrine in terms of prediction. Eltzbacher has forgotten to compare his judgment with the actions of the men he judges; solvitur ambulando; if Kropotkin's proposition were

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merely predictive and not pragmatic, it would have less trouble with the police than it has. Again, he does one of the most indiscreet things that are possible to a votary of strict method when he asserts repeatedly that he has listed not merely all that is to be found but all that could possibly exist under a certain category. For instance, he declares that every possible affirmative doctrine of property must either be private property, or common property in the wherewithal for production and private property in the wherewithal for consumption, or common property. Why should not a scheme of common property in the things that are wanted by all men and private property in the things that are wanted only by some men have as high a rank in the classification as has Eltzbacher's second class? A look at the quotations from Kropotkin will show that I have not drawn much on my own ingenuity in conceiving such a scheme as supposable. He claims to have listed all the standpoints from which Anarchism has been or can be propounded or judged, yet has omitted legitimism, the doctrine that a political authority which is to claim our respect and obedience must appear to have originated by a legitimate foundation and by usurpation. The great part that legitimism has played in history is notorious; and it lends itself very readily to the Anarchist's purpose, since come governments are so well known to have originated in usurpation and others so easily suspected of it. Nay, legitimism is in fact a potent factor in shaping the most up-to-date Anarchism of our time; for it is largely concerned in Lysander Spooner's doctrine of juries, of which some slight account is given in Eltzbacher's quotations from Tucker. And he claims to have recited all the important arguments that sustain Anarchism: where has he mentioned the argument form the evil that the State does in interfering with social and economic experimentation? Or the argument from the fact that reforms in the State are necessarily in a democracy, and ordinarily in a monarchy, very slow in coming to pass, and when they do come to pass they necessarily come with all-disturbing

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suddenness? Or the argument from the evil of separating people by the boundary lines which the State involves? Or the fact that war would be almost inconceivable if the States were replaces by voluntary and non-monopolistic organizations, since such organizations could have no "jurisdiction"or control of territory to fight for, and war for any other cause has long been unknown among civilized nations? By these and other such unwarranted claims of absolute completeness, and by the conclusions based on these pasteboard premises, Eltzbacher makes it necessary to read his final chapters with all possible independence of judgment.

It remains for me to say something of my own work on this book. I have consulted the originals of some of the works cited --- such as circumstances have permitted --- and given the quotations not by translation from Eltzbacher's German but direct from the originals. The particulars are as follows:

Of Godwin's "Political Justice"I used an American reprinting of the second British edition. This second edition is greatly revised and altered from the first, which Eltzbacher used. Godwin calls our attention to this, and especially informs us that the first edition did not in some important respects represent the views which he held at the time of its publication, since the earlier pages were printed before the later were written, and during the writing of the book he changed his mind about some of the principles he had asserted in the earlier chapters. In the second edition, he says, the views presented in the first part of the book have been made consistent with those in the last part, and all parts have been thoroughly revised. It will astonish nobody, therefore, that I found it now and then impossible to identify in my copy the passages translated by Eltzbacher from the first edition. In particular, I got the impression that what Eltzbacher quotes about promises, from the first part of the book, is one of those sections which Godwin says he retracts and no longer believed in even at the time he wrote the later chapters of the first edition. If so, a bit of the foundation for Eltzbacher's

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ultimate classification disappears. Besides giving the pages of the first edition as in Eltzbacher, I have added in brackets the page numbers of the copy I used, wherever I could identify them. Throughout the books brackets distinguish footnotes added by me from Eltzbacher's own, and in a few places I have used them in the text to indicate Eltzbacher's deviations from the wordings of his original, of which matter I will speak again in a moment.

The passages from Proudhon's works I translated from the original French as given in the collected edition of his "&Oelig;uvres completes." In this edition some of the works differ only in pagination from the editions some of the works differ only in pagination from the editions which Eltzbacher used, while others have been extensively revised. I know of no changes of essential doctrine.

Since in Stirner's case German is the original language, I have accepted as my original the quotations given by Eltzbacher. It is probable that they are occasionally condensed; but a fairly faithful memory, and the fact that it is less than a year since I was reading the proofs of my translation of Stirner's book, enable me to be confident that there is no change amounting to distortion. I have here made no use of that translation of mine* except from memory, because I well knew that in dealing with Stirner there is no assurance that the best possible translation of the continuous whole will be made up of the best possible translations of the individual parts. Neither have I used the extant English translations of Bakunin's "God and the State,"Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread,"Tolstoi's works, or any of the other books cited. I have not had at hand any originals of Bakunin or Tolstoi, nor any Kropotkin except "Anarchist Communism." Of this I had the first edition, and Eltzbacher, contrary to his habit, the second; but I judge that the two are from the same plates, for all the page-numbers cited agree.

Toward the Tucker chapter I have taken a special attitude. I

________________
* Entitled "The Ego and His Own." N.Y., Benj. R. Tucker, 1907.
_______________

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am myself one of Tucker's followers and collaborators; I may claim to be an "authority"on the exposition of his doctrine-

Nennt man die besten Namen,
So wird auch der meine genannt-

and I have tried to have an eye to the precise correctness of everything in that chapter. That I used the original of "Instead of a Book"is a matter of course; and I have not only taken Tucker's words where Eltzbacher had translated the whole, but have had an eye to all points where Eltzbacher had condensed anything in a way that could affect the sense, and have restored the words that made the passage mean something a little bit different from what Eltzbacher made it mean. (I did about the same in this respect with Kropotkin's "Anarchist Communism"; and indeed something of the kind is inevitable if one is to consult originals at all.) On the other hand, I have not, in general, drawn attention to passages where Eltzbacher makes merely formal changes for the purpose of inserting in a sentence of a certain grammatical structure what Tucker had said in a sentence of different structure.

The renderings of Tolstoi's biblical quotations are taken from the "Corrected English New Testament,"a conservative version which is now spoken of as the best English New Testament extant. It fits well into Tolstoi, at least so far as the present quotations go.

I have spoken above of Eltzbacher's qualities as compiler; it here becomes necessary to say something of his work as translator. His translation is that of a very intelligent man, trusting to his intelligence to justify him in translating quite freely. He is confident that he knows what the idea to be presented is, and his main concern is to express that in the language best suited to the purpose. He even avows, as will be seen, that he has "cautiously revised"other people's translations from the Russian, without himself claiming to be familiar with the Russian language. I would as soon entrust this extremely delicate task

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to Eltzbacher as to anybody I know, for he is in general remarkably correct in his re-wordings. The justification of his confidence in his knowledge of the author's thought may be seen in the fact that in passages which happen not to affect the main thought he makes a few such slips as zahlen mit s'hrer Vergiftung for "pay to be poisoned,"Willkuer for "arbitrament,"and even sine blutige Revolution rusckrichtslos nisderwuerfe for "would do anything in his power to precipitate a bloody revolution"(can he have been misled by the chemist's use of "precipitate"?), but in passages where these blunders would do real harm he keeps clear of them, being safeguarded by his knowledge of the sensè. But it makes a difference whom you translate in this way. Tucker is a man who uses language with especial precision: every phrase in a sentence of his may be presumed to contribute something definite to the thought; and Eltzbacher treats him as if the less conspicuous phrases were merely ornamental work which might safely be omitted or amended when they seemed not be advantageous for ornamental purposes. I must confess that I have little faith in the Eltzbacher method of translation for the rendering author; but it works especially ill with an author like Tucker.

Of course all defects of translation are cured, silently, by substituting the original English. Therefore, at the expense of slightly increasing the bulk of the Tucker chapter, this edition gives the American readers a much more accurate presentation of the utterances of the American champion of Anarchism than can be had in Eltzbacher's German; and, since I have the same advantage as regards Godwin, I thinks I may claim in general terms that mine is the best edition of Eltzbacher for those who read both English and German.

Besides looking out for the accurate presentation of the passages quoted from Tucker, I have kept watch of the correctness of the subject-matter. Whatever seemed to me to represent Tucker's book unfairly, either by misrepresenting his doctrine or by misapplying the quotations, has been corrected by a note.

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This will be useful to the reader not only by giving him a better Tucker, but also by giving a sample from which he may judge what amount of fault the followers of Kropotkin or Tolstoi or the rest would be likely to find with the chapters devoted to them. The merely popular reader will probably get the impression that Eltzbacher is really a rather unreliable man. The competent student, who knows that must be looked out for in all work of this sort, will have his confidence in Eltzbacher increased by seeing how little of serious fault appears in such a search.

The index is compiled independently for this translation. Omitting such entries as merely duplicate the utility of the table of contents, and making an effort to head every entry with the word under which the reader will actually seek it, I hope I have bettered Eltzbacher's index; and I hope the index will be not only a place-finder but a help toward the appreciation of the Anarchistic teachings.

I have not in general undertaken to criticise those features of the book which embody Eltzbacher's own opinions. Whether it was in fact right to select these seven men as the touchstone of Anarchism, -whether Eltzbacher is right in discussing the definition of the State as he does, or whether he might better simply have taken as authoritative that definition which has legal force in international law, -whether he ought to have added any other feature to his book, -are points on which the reader does not care for my judgment, nor am I eager to express a judgment. Having had to work over the book very carefully in detail, I have felt entitled to express an opinion as to how well Eltzbacher has done the work that he did choose to do; I have also told what work I as a translator claim to have done; and it is time this preface ended.

Steven T. Byinton.

Ballardvale, Mass., August 28, 1907.

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BOOKS REFERRED TO BY ABBREVIATED TITLES

Adler, "Handwoerterbuch", Georg Adler, "Anarchismus,"in Hindwoerterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 2d ed. (Jena 1898), vol. 1 pp. 296-327.

Adler, "Nord und Sued", Georg Adler, "Die lehren der Anarchisten,"in Nord und Sued (Breslau) vol. 32 (1885) pp. 371-83.

Ba. "Articles", "Articles ècrits par Bakounine dans l'Egalitè de 1869,"in Mèmoire prèsentè par la fèdèration jurassienne de l'Association internationale des travailleurs á toutes les fèdèrations de l'Internationale (Sonvillier, n. d.), "Pièces justificatives"pp. 68-114.

Ba. "Briefe", "Briefe Bakunins,"in Dragomanoff (see below) pp. 1-272.

Ba. "Dieu", Michel Bakounine, Dieu et l'Etat, 2d ed. (Paris 1892).

Ba. "Dieu"Œuvres, "Dieu et l'Etat,"in Michel Bakounine œuvres, 3d ed. (Paris 1895), pp. 261-326.

Ba. "Discours", "discours de Bakounine au congrès de Berne,"in Mèmoire prèsentè par la fèdèration jurassienne de l'Association internationale des travailleurs á toutes les fèdèrations de l'Internationale (Sonvillier, n. d.), "Pièces justificatives"pp. 20-38.

Ba. "Programme", Bakounine, "Programme de la section slave à Zurich,"in Dragomanoff (see below) pp. 381-3.

Ba. "Proposition", "Fèdèralisme, socialism et antithèologisme. Proposition motivèe au Comitè central de la Ligue de la paix et de la libertè,"in Michel Bakounine, Œuvres, 3d ed. (Paris 1895), pp. 1-205.

Ba. "Statuts", "Statuts secrets de l'Alliance"and "Programme et règlement de l'Alliance publique,"in L'Alliance"(see below) pp. 118-35.

Ba. "Volkssache", M. Bakunin, "Die Volkssache. Romanow, Pugatschew oder Pestel?"in Dragomanoff (see below) pp. 303-9.

Bernatzik, Bernatzik, "Der Anarchismus,"in Jahrbuch fuer Gesetzbung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutscl, en Reich (Leipsig) vol. 19 (1895) pp. 1-20.

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Bernstein, Eduard Bernstein, "Die soziale Doktrin des Anarchismus,"in Die Neus Zeit (Stuttgart) year 10 (1891-2) vol. 1 pp. 358-65, 421-8; vol. 2 pp. 589-96, 618-26, 657-66, 772-8, 813-19.

Crispi= Francesco Crispi, "The Antidote for Anarchy,"in Daily Main (London) no. 807 (1898) p. 4.

"Der Anarchismus und seine Traeger", Der Anarchismus und seine Traeger. Enthuellungen aus dem Lager der Anarchisten von, Verfasser der Londoner Briefe in der Koelnischen Seitung (Berlin 1887).

"Die historische Entwickelung des Anarchismus", Die historische Entwickelung des Anarchismus (New York 1894).

Diehl, Karl Diehl, P.J. Proudhon. Seine Lehre und sein Leben. (3 vol., Jena 1888-96.)

Dragomanoff, Michail Dragomanow, Michail Bakunins sozial-politischer Briefwechsel nit Alezander Iw. Herzen und Ogarjow, Deusch von Boris Minzès (Stuttgart 1895).

Dubois, Felix Dubois, Le Pèril anarchiste (Paris 1894).

Ferri, "Discours de Ferri"in Congrès international s'anthropologie criminelle, compte rendu des travaux de la quatrième session, tenus á Genève du 24 au 29 août 1896 (Genève 1897) pp. 254-7.

Garraud, R. Garroud, L'Anarchie et la Rèpression (Paris 1895).

Godwin, William Godwin, An Enquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtus and Happiness (2 vol., London 1793). [Bracketed references are to the "First American from the second London edition, corrected,"Philadelphia, 1796.]

"Hintermaenner", Die Hintermaenner der Sozialdemokratis. Von einem Eingewsihten (Berlin 1890).

Kr. "Anarchist Communism", Peter Kropotkine, Anarchist Communism: its Basis and Principles, 2d ed. (London 1895). [Reprinted from the Nineteenth Century.]

Kr. "Conquête", Pierre Kropotkine, La Conquête du pain, 5th ed. (Paris 1895).

Kr. "L'Anarchie dans l'èvolution socialiste", Pierre Kropotkine, L'Anarchie dans l'èvolution socialiste (Paris 1895).

Kr. "L'Anarchie. Sa philosophie- son idèal, Pierre Kropotkine, L'Anarchie. Sa philosophie---son idé;al (Paris 1896).

Kr. "Morale", Pierre Kropotkine, La Morale anarchiste (Paris 1891).

Kr. "Paroles", Pierre Kropotkin, Paroles d'un rèvoltè, ouvrage publiè par Elisée Réclus, nouv. ed. (Paris, n. d.)

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Kr. "Prisons", Pierre Kropotkine, Les Prisons (Paris 1890).

Kr. "Siècle", Pierre Kropotkine, Un siècle d'attente. 1789-1889 (Paris 1893).

Kr. "Studies", Revolutionary Studies, translated from "La Révolte" and reprinted from "The Commonweal"London 1892).

Kr. "Temps Nouveaux", Pierre Kropotkine, Les Temps nouveaux (confèrence faite â Londres) (Paris 1894).

"L'Alliance", L'Alliance de la dèmocratie socialiste et l'Association international des travailleurs (Londres et Hambourg 1873).

Lenz, Adolf Lenz, Der Anarchismus und des Strafrecht. Sonderabdruck aus der Zeitzchrift fuer die gesamte Strafrechiswissenschaft, Bd. 16, Heft 1 (Berlin, n. d.).

Lombroso, C. Lombroso, Gli Anarchici, 2d ed. (Torino 1895).

Mackay, "Anarchisten", John Henry Mackay, Die Anarchisten. Kulturgemaekde aus dem Ende des 19. Jarhunderts. Volksausgabe (Berlin 1893).

Mackay, "Magazin", John Henry Mackay, "Der individualistiche Anarchismus: ein Gegner der Propaganda der That,"in Das Magazin fuer Litteratur (Berlin und Weimar) vol. 67 (1898) pp. 913-15.

Mackay, "Stirnir", John Henry Mackay, Max Stirner. Sein Leben und sein Werk (Berlin 1898).

Merlino, F.S. Merlino, L'Invidividualismo nell' anarchismo (Roma 1895).

Pfau, "Proudhon und die Franzosen,"in Ludwig Pfau, Kunst und Kritik, vol. 5 of Aesthetische Schriften, 2d ed. (Stuttgart, Leipzig, Berlin, 1888), pp. 183-236.

CHAPTER II

LAW, THE STATE, PROPERTY

1.—General

In this discussion we are to get determinate concepts of law, the State, and property in general, not of the law, State and property of a particular legal system or of a particular family of legal systems. The concepts of law, State, and property are therefore to be determined as concepts of general jurisprudence, not as concepts of any particular jurisprudence.
1.By the concepts of the law, State and property, one may understand, first, the concepts of law, State, and property in the science of a particular legal system. These concepts of law, State, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the substance of a particular legal system. For we may designate as the science of a particular legal system that part of jurisprudence which concerns itself exclusively with the norms of a particular legal system.

The concepts of law, State, and property in the science of a legal system are distinguished from the concepts of law, State and property in the science of other legal systems by this characteristic, - that they are concepts of norms of this particular system. From this characteristic that result from the special substance of this system of law in contrast to other such systems. The concepts of property in the present laws of the German empire, of France, and of England are distinguished by the fact that they are concepts of norms of these three different legal systems. Consequently they are as different as are the norms of the present imperial-German, French, and English law on the subject of property. The concepts of law, State, and property in different legal systems are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept.

2. Second, one may understand by the concepts of law, State, and property the concepts of law, State, and property in the science of a particular family of laws.

These concepts of law, State, and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family. They embrace only the common substance of the different systems of this family. They may, therefore, be called concepts of the science of this family of laws. For we may designate as the science of a particular family of laws that part of jurisprudence which deals exclusively with the norms of a particular family of legal systems, so far as these are not already dealt with by the sciences of the particular legal systems of this family.

The concepts of law, State, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, State, and property in the sciences of the legal systems that form the family by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of these systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of one or another legal system. The concept of the State in the science of present European law is distinguished from the concepts of the State in the sciences of present German, Russian, and Belgian law by not being a concept of norms of any of these systems, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that result from the special substance of the constitutional norms in force in Germany, Russia, and Belgium. Its relations to the concepts of the State in the science of these systems is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts.

The concepts of law, State, and property in the science of a family of laws are distinguished from the concepts of law, State, and property in the science of other such families by the characteristic, - that they are concepts of norms of this particular family. From this characteristic we may deduce all the characteristics that are peculiar to the common substance of the different legal systems of this family in contrast to the common substance of the different legal systems of other families. The concept of the State in the science of present European law and the concept of the State in the science of European law in the year 1000 are distinguished by the fact that one is a concept of constitutional norms that are in force in Europe to-day, the other of such as were in force in Europe then; consequently norms in force in Europe to-day have in common is different from what was common to the constitutional norms in force in Europe then. These concepts are to each other as species-concepts which are subordinate to one and the same generic concept.

3. Third, one may understand by the concepts of law, State, and property the concepts of law, State, and property in general jurisprudence.

These concepts of law, State and property contain all the characteristics that belong to the common substance of the most different systems and families of laws. They embrace only what the norms of the most different systems and families of laws have in common. They may, therefore, be called concepts of general jurisprudence. For that part of jurisprudence which treats of legal norms without limitation to any particular system or family of laws, so far as these norms are not already treated by the sciences of the particular systems of families, may be designated as general jurisprudence.

The concepts of law, State, and property in general jurisprudence are distinguished from the concept of law, State and property in the particular jurisprudence by lacking the characteristic of being concepts of norms of one of these systems or at least one of these families of systems, and consequently lacking also all the characteristics which may be deduced from this characteristic according to the special substance of some system of family of laws. The concept of law per se is distinguished from the concept of law in present European law and from the concept of law in the present law of the German empire by not being a concept of norms of that family of laws, not to say that particular system, and consequently by lacking all the characteristics that might belong to any peculiarities which might be common to all legal norms at present in force in Europe or in Germany. Its relation to the concepts of law in these particular jurisprudences is that of a generic concept to subordinate species-concepts.

4. In which of the senses here distinguished the concepts of law, State, and property should be defined in a particular case, and what matters should accordingly be taken into consideration in defining them, depends n the purpose of one's study.

If, for example, the point is to describe scientifically the constitutional norms of the present law of the German empire, then the concept of the state as defined in this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular legal system. For scientific work on the norms of a particular legal system requires that concepts be formed of the norms of just this system. Consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the constitutional norms of the present law of the German empire. -That the concepts defined in the scientific description of a system of law are in fact concepts of the science of this system my indeed seem obscure. For every concept of the science of any particular system of law may be defined as the concept of a species under the corresponding generic concept of general jurisprudence. We define this generic concept, say the concept of the State in general jurisprudence, and add the distinctive characteristic of the species-concept, that it is a concept of norms of this particular system of law, say of the present law of the German empire. And then we often leave this additional characteristic unexpressed, where we think may assume (as in the case in the scientific description of the norms of any particular system of law) that everybody will regard it as tacitly added. The consequence is that the definition given in the scientific description of a particular system of law looks, at a superficial glance, like the definition of a concept of general jurisprudence.

Or, if the point is to compare scientifically the norms of the present European law regarding property, the concept of property as defined on this occasion must be a concept of the science of this particular family of laws. For the scientific comparison of norms of different legal systems demands that concepts of the sciences of these different legal systems be subordinately arranged under corresponding concepts of the science of the family of laws which is made up of these systems. Consequently the material to be taken into consideration will be only the norms of this family of laws. -Here again, indeed, it may seem obscure that the concepts defined are really concepts that belong to the science of a family of laws may likewise be defined by defining the corresponding concepts of general jurisprudence and tacitly adding the characteristic of being concepts of norms of this particular family of laws.

Finally, if it comes to pass that the point is to compare scientifically what the norms of the most diverse systems of law have in common, the concept of law as defined on this occasion must be a concept of general jurisprudence. For the scientific comparison of norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts which belong to the sciences of the most diverse systems and families of laws be subordinately arranged under the corresponding concept of general jurisprudence. Consequently the material is to be taken in to consideration will be the norms of the most diverse systems and families of laws.

Here, -where the point is to take the first step toward a scientific comprehension of teachings which pass judgment on law, the State, and property in general, not only on the law, State, or property of a particular system or family of laws, - the concepts of law, State, and property must be necessarily be defined as concepts of general jurisprudence. For a scientific comprehension of teachings which deal with the common substance of the most diverse systems and families of laws demands that concepts of this common substance - consequently concepts belonging to general jurisprudence - be formed. Therefore we have to take into consideration, as our material, the norms (especially regarding the state and property) of the most diverse systems and families of laws.

2. - LAW

Law is the body of legal norms. A legal norm is a norm which is based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which included themselves.

1. A legal norm is a norm.

A norm is the idea of a correct procedure. A correct procedure means one that corresponds either to the final purpose of all human procedure (unconditionally correct procedure, -for instance, respect for another's life), or at any rate to some accidental purpose (conditionally correct procedure, - for instance, the skilled handling of a picklock). And the idea of a correct procedure means that the unconditionally or conditionally correct procedure is to be thought of not as a fact but as a task, not as something real but as something realized; it does not mean that I shall in fact spare my enemies life, but that I am to spare it - not how the thief really did use the picklock, but how he should have used it. The idea of a correct procedure is what we designate as an "ought": when I think of an "ought," I think of what has to be done in order to realize either the final purpose of all human procedure or some accidental personal purpose. All passing of judgment on past procedure is conditioned upon the idea of a correct procedure - only with regard to this idea can past procedure be described as good or bad, expedient or inexpedient; as so is all deliberation on future procedure - only with regard to this idea does one inquire whether it will be right, or at any rate expedient, to proceed in a given manner.

Every legal norm represents a procedure as correct, declares that it corresponds to a particular purpose. And it represents this correct procedure as an idea, designates it not as a fact but as a task, does not say that any one does proceed so but that one is to proceed so. Hence a legal norm is a norm.

2. A legal norm is a norm based on human will.

A norm based on human will is a norm by virtue of which one must proceed in a certain way in order that he may not put himself in opposition to the will of some particular men, and so be apprehended by the power which is at the service of these men. Such as norm, therefore, represents a procedure only as conditionally correct; to wit, as a means to the end (which we are perhaps pursuing or perhaps despising) of remaining in harmony with the will of certain men, and so being spared by the power which serves this will.

Every legal norm tells us what we must proceed in a certain way in order that we may not contravene the will of some particular men and then suffer under their power. Therefore it represents a procedure only as conditionally correct, and instructs us not as to what is good but only as to what is prescribed. Hence a legal norm is norm based on human will.

3. A legal norm is a norm based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others.

A norm is based on the fact that men will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others when the will on which the norm is based has reference not only to others who do not will, but also, as the same time, to the willer's themselves also; when, therefore, these not only will that others be subject to the norm but also will to be subject to it themselves.

Every legal norm, and of all norms only the legal norm as the characteristic that the will on which it is based reaches beyond those who will it is, and yet embraces them too. The rule, "Whoever takes from another a movable thing that is not his own, with the intent to appropriate it illegally, is punished with imprisonment for theft," is not only based on the will of men, but each of these men is also conscious that, while on the other hand the rule applies to other men, on the other hand it applies to himself.

Here it might alleged that, after all, the mere fact of men's will to have a certain procedure for themselves and others does not always establish law; for example, the efforts of the Bonapartists do not establish the empire in France. But it is when this bare will exists that law is established, but only when a morn is based on this will; that is when it has in its service so great a power that it is competent to affect the behavior of the men to whom it relates. As soon as Bonapartism spreads so widely and in such circles that this takes place, the republic will fall and the empire will indeed become law in France.

One might further appeal to the fact that in unlimited monarchies (in Russia, for instance) the law is based solely on the will of one man, who is not himself subject to it. But Russian law is not based on the czar's will at all'; the czar is a weak individual man, and his will in itself is totally unqualified to affect many millions of Russians in their procedure. Russian law is based rather on the will of all those Russians — peasants, soldiers, officials — who, for the most various reasons — patriotism, self-interest, superstition- will that what the czar wills shall be law in Russia. Their will is qualified to affect the procedure of the Russians; and, if they should ever grow so few that it would no longer have this qualification, then the history of revolutions proves.

4. It has been asserted that legal norms have still other qualities.

It has been said, first, that it belongs to the essence of a legal norm to be enforceable, or even to be enforceable in a particular way, by judicial procedure, governmental force.

If by this we are to understand that conformity can always be enforced, we are met at once by the great number of cases in which this cannot be done. When a debtor is insolvent, or a murder has been committed, conformity to the violated legal norms cannot not be enforced after the fact, but their validity is not impaired by this.

If by enforceability we mean that conformity to a legal norm must be insured by other legal norms providing for the vase of its violation, we need only go on from the insured to the insuring norms for a while, to come to norms for which conformity is not insured by any further legal norms. If one refuses to recognize these norms as legal norms, then neither can the norms which are insured by them rank as legal norms, and so, going back along the series, one has last no legal norms left.

Only if one would understand by the enforceability of the legal norm that a will must have at its disposal a certain power in order that legal norm may be based on it, one might certainly say in this sense that enforceability belongs to the essence of a legal norm. But this quality of the legal norm would be only such a quality as would be derivable from its quality of being a norm, and would therefore have no claim to be added as a further quality.

Again, it has been named an essential quality of a legal norm that it should be based on the will of a State. But even where we cannot speak of a State at all, among nomads for instance, there are yet legal norms. Besides, every State is itself a legal relation, established by legal norms, which consequently cannot be based on its will. And lastly, the norms of international law, which are intended to bind the will of States, cannot be based on the will of a State.

Finally, it has been asserted that it was essential to a legal norm that it should correspond to the moral law. If this were so, then among the different legal norms which to-day are in force one directly after the other in the territories under the same circumstances, only one could in each case be regarded as a legal norm; for under the same circumstances there is only moral right. Nor could one speak then of unrighteous legal norms, for it they are unrighteous norms, for if they were unrighteous they would not be legal norms. But in reality, even when legal norms determine conduct quite differently under the same circumstances, they are all nevertheless recognized as legal norms; nor is it doubted that there are bad legal norms as well as good.

5. as a norm based on the fact that men have the will to see a certain procedure generally observed within a circle which includes themselves, the legal norm is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it.

By being based on the will of men it is distinguished from the moral law (the commandment of the morality); this is not based on men's willing a certain procedure, but on the fact that this procedure corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure. The maxim, "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse and persecute you,"is a moral law; so is the maxim, "Act so that the maxims of your will might at all times serves as the principles of a general legislation."For the correctness of such as procedure is founded on the fact that other men will have it, but on the fact that it corresponds to the final purpose of all human procedure.

By being based on the will of men the legal norm is distinguished also from good manners; these are not based on the fact that men will a certain procedure, but on the fact that they themselves proceed in a certain way. It is manners that one goes to a ball in a dress coast and white gloves, uses his knife at the table only for cutting, begs the daughter of the house for a dance or least one round, takes leave of the master and mistress of the house, and lastly presses a tip into the servant's hand; for the correctness of such a behavior is not based on the fact that other men ask this of us, - to those who start a new fashion is spreading to more extensive circles, - but solely on the fact that other men themselves behave so, and that we want "not to be peculiar,""not to make ourselves conspicuous,""to do like the rest,"etc.

By being based on a will which relates at once to those who will it is and to others whose will it is not, it is distinguished on the other hand from an arbitrary command, in which one's will applies only to others, and on the other from a resolution, in which it applies only to himself. It is an arbitrary command when Cortes with his Spaniards commands the Mexicans to bring out their gold, or when a band of robbers forbids a frightened peasantry to betray their hiding-place; here a human will decides, indeed, but a will that relates only to other men, and not at the same time to those whose will it is. A resolution is presented when I have decided to get up at six every morning, or to leave smoking, or to finish a piece of work within a specified time — here a human will is indeed the standard, but it relates only to him who will it is not at all to others.

6. What is briefly summed up in the definition of the legal norm may, of one takes into account the explanations which have been given with this definition, be expanded as follows:

Men will that a given procedure be generally observed within a circle which included themselves, and their power is so great that their will is competent to affect the men of this circle in their procedure. When such is the condition of things, a legal norm exists.

3. — THE STATE

The State is a legal relation by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a certain territory.

1. The state is a legal relation
A legal relation is the relation, determined by legal norms, of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed, to an entitled party, one for who sake it is prescribed. Thus, for instance, the legal relation of a loan is a relation of the borrower, who is bound by the legal norms concerning loans, to the lender, for whose sake he is bound.

The State is the legal relation of all the men who by legal norms are subjected to a supreme territorial authority, to all those for whose sake they are subjected to it. Here the circle of the entitled and the obligated is one and the same; the State is a bond upon all in favor of all.

To this it might perhaps be objected that the State is not a legal relation but a person. But the two propositions, that an association of men is a person in the legal sense and that it is a legal relation of a particular kind; law, in viewing the association in its outward relationships as a person, starts from the fact that men are bound together by a particular legal relation. A joint-stock corporation is a person not although, but because, it is a legal relation of a peculiar kind. And similarly, the fact that the State is a person is not only reconcilable with its being a legal relation, but founded on its being a peculiar legal relation.

2. As to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary.

A voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; for instance, entrance into the relation of tenancy is conditioned on agreeing to a lease. Per contra, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party, as, for instance, a patent is not conditioned on any action of those who are bound by it, and the sentence of a criminal is at least not conditioned on any action whereby he intended to bring it about.

If the state were a voluntary legal relation, a supreme authority could exist only for those inhabitants of a territory who had acknowledged it. But the supreme authority exists for all inhabitants of the territory, whether they have acknowledged it or not; the legal relation is therefore involuntary.

3. The substance of this legal relation is, that a supreme authority exists in a territory.

An authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when, according to the legal norms which found the relation, the will of some men — or even merely of a man — is regulative for the inhabitants of this territory. A supreme authority exists in a territory by virtue of a legal relation when according to those norms the will of some men is finally regulative for the inhabitants of the territory, - that is, is decisive when authorities disagree. What we here designate as a supreme authority, therefore, is not the men on whose will the legal norms in force in a territory are based, but rather their highest agents, whose will they would have finally regulative within the territory.

What men it is whose will is finally regulative for the inhabitants of a territory by virtue of a legal relation — for instance, members of a royal family according to a certain order of inheritance, or persons elected according to a certain election law — depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. On these legal norms, too, depends the question within what limits the will of these men is regulative. But this limited nature of the authority does not stand in the way of its being a supreme authority; the highest agent need not be an agent with unrestricted powers.

Here one might perhaps object that in federal States, in the German empire of instance, the individual States have not supreme authority. But in reality have it. For, even if there are a multitude of subjects in reference to which the highest authority of the individual States of the German empire has to bow to the imperial authority, yet there are also subjects enough about which the highest authority of the individuals States gives a final decision. As long as there are such subjects, a supreme authority exists in the individual states; if some day there should no longer be such, one could no longer speak of individual States.

4. As a legal relation, by virtue of which a supreme authority exists in a territory, the State is distinguished from all other objects, even from those that most resemble it.

By being a legal relation it is distinguished on the one hand from institutions such as would exists in a conceivable kingdom of God of reason, on the basis of the moral law, and on the other hand from the dominion of a conqueror in the conquered country, which can never be anything but an arbitrary dominion.

Being an involuntary legal relation, the State is distinguished from a conceivable association of men who should set up a supreme authority among men themselves in agreement, as well as from leagues under international law, in which a supreme authority exists on the basis of an agreement.

The fact that by virtue of a legal relation an authority over a territory is given distinguishes the State from the tribal is given distinguishes from the State from the tribal community of nomads and from the Church; for in the former there is given an authority over people of a certain descent, in the latter over people of a certain faith, but in neither over people of a certain territory. And finally, in the fact that this territorial authority is a supreme authority lies the difference between the State and towns, countries, or provinces; in the latter there is indeed a territorial authority instituted, but one that by the very intent o its institution must bow to a higher authority.

5. What is briefly summed up in the definition of the State may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previous definition of a legal norm and on the other hand the above explanations of the definition of the State:

Some inhabitants of a territory are so powerful that their will is competent to affect the inhabitants of this territory in their procedure, and these men will have it that for all the inhabitants of the territory, for themselves as well as for the rest, the will of men picked out in a certain way shall within certain limits be finally regulative. When such is the condition of things, a State exists.

Property is a legal relation, by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing.

1. Property is a legal relation.

As has already been stated, a legal relation is the relation of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed by legal norms, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed.

Property is the legal relation of all the members of a group of men who by legal norms are excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing, to him — or to those — for whose sake they are excluded from it. Here the circle of the obligated is much broader than that of the entitled; the former embraces, say, all the inhabitants of a territory of all who belong to a tribe, the latter only those among them in whom certain further conditions (for instance, transfer, prescription, appropriation) are fulfilled.

2. As to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary.

As discussion has already shown, a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions of the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; per contra, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party.

If property were a voluntary legal relation, then there could be excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing only those members of a group of men who had consented to this exclusion. But all members of the group — for instance, all the inhabitants of a territory, all who belong to a tribe — are excluded, whether they are consented or not.

3. The substance of this legal relation consists in some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing.

Some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing means that this group is excluded from the thing in his favor; that is, they must not hinder him from dealing with the thing according to his will, nor may they themselves deal with it against his will. Now, the exclusive disposition of a thing within a certain group of men may be virtue of a legal relation, belong to several, part by part, in this way: that some — or one — of them have it in this or that particular respect (for instance, as to the usufruct), and one — or some — in all other respects which are not individually alienated, to him belongs, within that group, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of the thing.

To whom this belongs by virtue of the legal relation — whether, for instance, it belongs among others to him who by labor has made a thing into some new thing — depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. On them also depends on the question, within what limits this belongs to him: the dispository authority of him to whom the exclusive disposition of a thing within a group of men ultimately belongs is limited not only by the dispository authority of those to whom the exclusive disposition within the group proximately belongs, but also by the limits within which such dispository authority is at all allowed to anybody in the group. Especially, it depends on these legal norms whether a privilege of exclusive ultimate disposition belongs to individuals as well as to corporations, or only to corporations, and whether it applies to every kind of things or only to one kind or another.

4. As a legal relation by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, property is distinguished from all other objects, even from those which most resemble it.

By being a legal relation it is distinguished from all the relations in which one has the exclusive ultimate disposition of a thing guaranteed to him solely by the reasonableness of the men who surround him, or solely by his own might, as might be the case in a conceivable kingdom of God or of reason, and as is often the case in a conquered country.

Being an involuntary legal relation, it is distinguished from those legal relations by virtue of which the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing that belongs to some one solely on the ground of a contract, and solely as against the other contracting parties.

That by virtue of this legal relation some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, distinguishes property from copyright, by virtue of which some one has exclusively, within a group of men, not the disposition of a thing, but somewhat else; and furthermore from rights in the property of others, by virtue of which some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of disposing of a thing, but not of ultimately disposing of it.

5. What is briefly summed up in the definition of property may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previously given definition of legal norm, and on other the above explanations of the definition of property.

Some men are so powerful that their will is able to affect in its procedure a group of men which embraces them, and these men will have it that no member of this group shall, within certain limits, hinder a member picked out in a certain way from dealing with a thing according to his will, nor within these limits, himself deal with the thing against the will of that member, so far as the will of another member is not already in particular respects regulative with respect that thing equally with the will of that member. When such is the condition of things, property exists.

CHAPTER III

GODWIN'S TEACHING

1.— GENERAL

1. William Godwin was born in 1756 at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. He studied theology at Hoxton, beginning in 1773. In 1778 he became preacher at Ware, Hertfordshire; in 1780, preacher at Stowmarket, Suffolk. In 1782 he gave up this position. From this time on he lived in London as an author. He died there in 1836.

Godwin published numerous works in the departments of philosophy, economics, and history; also stories, tragedies, and juvenile books.

2. Godwin's teaching about law, the State, and property is contained mainly in the two-volume work " An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness" (1793).

"The printing of this treatise," says Godwin himself, " was commenced long before the composition was finished. The ideas of the author became more perspicuous and digested as his inquiries advanced. This circumstance has led him into some inaccuracies of language and reasoning, particularly in the earlier part of the work. He did not enter upon the subject without being aware that government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of individual intellect; but he understood the proposition more completely as he proceeded, and saw more distinctly into the nature of the remedy."* Godwin's teaching is here presented exclusively in the developed form which it shows in the second part of the work.

3. Godwin does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property "Anarchism." Yet this word causes him no terror. "Anarchy is a horrible calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. Where anarchy has slain its hundreds, despotism has sacrificed millions upon millions, with this only effect, to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices, and the misery of mankind. Anarchy is a short-lived mischief, while despotism is all but immortal. It is unquestionably a dreadful remedy, for the people to yield to all their furious passions, till the spectacle of their effects gives strength to recovering reason: but, though it be a dreadful remedy, it is a sure one."†

2.— BASIS

According to Godwin, our supreme law is the general welfare.

What is the general welfare? " Its nature is definedby the nature of mind." It is unchangeable; as long as men are men it remains the same.§ "That will most contribute to it which expands the understanding, supplies incitements to virtue, fills us with a generous consciousness of our independence, and carefully removes whatever can impede our exertions." ||

The general welfare is our supreme law." Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual, which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit."* "Justice is the sum of all moral duty; if there be such a thing, I am bound to do for the general weal everything in my power."§ " Virtue is a desire to promote the benefit of intelligent beings in general, the quantity of virtue being as the quantity of desire; "§ " the last perfection of this feeling consists in that state of mind which bids us rejoice as fully in the good that is done by others, as if it were done by ourselves." ||

"The truly wise man "strives only for the welfare of the whole. He is "actuated neither by interest nor ambition, the love of honor nor the love of fame. [He knows no jealousy. He is not disquieted by the comparison of what he has attained with what others have attained, but by the comparison with what ought to be attained.] He has a duty indeed obliging him to seek the good of the whole; but that good is his only object. If that good be effected by another hand, he feels no disappointment. All men are his fellow laborers, but he is the rival of no man."**

3.— LAW

I. Looking to the general good, Godwin rejects law, not only for particular local and temporary conditions, but altogether."

Law is an institution of the most pernicious tendency.""The institution once begun, can never be brought to a close. No action of any man was ever the same as any other action, had ever the same degree of utility or injury. As new cases occur, the law is perpetually found deficient. It is therefore perpetually necessary to make new laws. The volume in which justice records her prescriptions is for ever increasing, and the world would not contain the books that might be written."* "The consequence of the infinitude of law is its uncertainty. Law was made that a plain man might know what he had to expect, and yet the most skilful practitioners differ about the event of my suit." "A farther consideration is that it is of the nature of prophecy. Its task is to describe what will be the actions of mankind, and to dictate decisions respecting them."

"Law we sometimes call the wisdom of our ancestors. But this is a strange imposition. It was as frequently the dictate of their passion, of timidity, jealousy, a monopolizing spirit, and a lust of power that knew no bounds. Are we not obliged perpetually to revise and remodel this misnamed wisdom of our ancestors? to correct it by a detection of their ignorance, and a censure of their intolerance ?"§ " Legislation, as it has been usually understood, is not an affair of human competence. Reason is [our sole legislator, and her decrees are unchangeable and everywhere the same.]" || "Men cannot do more than declare and interpret law; nor can there be, an authority so paramount, as to have the prerogative of making that to be law, which abstract and immutable justice had not made to be law previously to that interposition.

"To be sure," it must be admitted that we are imperfect, ignorant, and slaves of appearances."* But "whatever inconveniences may arise from the passions of men, the introduction of fixed laws cannot be the genuine remedy." "As long as a man is held in the trammels of obedience, and habituated to look to some foreign guidance for the direction of his conduct, his understanding and the vigor of his mind will sleep. Do I desire to raise him to the energy of which he is capable? I must teach him to feel himself, to bow to no authority, to examine the principles he entertains, and render to his mind the reason of his conduct."

II. The general welfare requires that in future ititself should be men's rule of action in place of the law. "

"If every shilling of our property, [every hour of our time,] and every faculty of our mind, have received their destination from the principles of unalterable justice,"§ that is, of the general good,|| then no other decree can any longer control it. "The true principle which ought to be substituted in the room of law, is that of reason exercising an uncontrolled jurisdiction upon the circumstances of the case."

"To this principle no objection can arise on the score of wisdom. It is not to be supposed that there are not men now existing, whose intellectual accomplishments rise to the level of law. But, if men can be found among us whose wisdom is equal to the wisdom of law, it will scarcely be maintained, that the truths they have to communicate will be the worse for having no authority, but that which they derive from the reasons that support them."*

"The juridical decisions that were made immediately after the abolition of law, would differ little from those during its empire. They would be the decisions of prejudice and habit. But habit, having lost the centre about which it revolved, would diminish in the regularity of its operations. Those to whom the arbitration of any question was entrusted would frequently recollect that the whole case was committed to their deliberation, and they could not fail occasionally to examine themselves, respecting the reason of those principles which had hitherto passed uncontroverted. Their understandings would grow enlarged, in proportion as they felt the importance of their trust, and the unbounded freedom of their investigation. Here then would commence an auspicious order of things, of which no understanding man at present in existence can foretell the result, the dethronement of implicit faith, and the inauguration of unclouded justice."

4.— THE STATE

I. Since Godwin unconditionally rejects law, he necessarily has to reject the State as unconditionally. Nay, he regards it as a legal institution peculiarly repugnant to the general welfare.

Some base the State on force, others on divine right, others on contract. But "the hypothesis of force appears to proceed upon the total negation of abstract and immutable justice, affirming every government to be right, that is possessed of power sufficient to enforce its decrees. It puts a violent termination upon all political science, and is calculated for nothing farther than to persuade men, to sit down quietly under their present disadvantages, whatever they may be, and not exert themselves to discover a remedy for the evils they suffer. The second hypothesis is of an equivocal nature. It either coincides with the first, and affirms all existing power to be alike of divine derivation; or it must remain totally useless, till a criterion can be found, to distinguish those governments which are approved by God, from those which cannot lay claim to that sanction."* The third hypothesis would mean that one "should make over to another the control of his conscience and the judging of his duties." "But we cannot renounce our moral independence; it is a property that we can neither sell nor give away; and consequently no government can derive its authority from an original contract."

"All government corresponds in a certain degree to what the Greeks denominated a tyranny. The difference is, that in despotic countries mind is depressed by a uniform usurpation; while in republics it preserves a greater portion of its activity, and the usurpation more easily conforms itself to the fluctuations of opinion." "By its very nature positive institution has a tendency to suspend the elasticity and progress of mind." "We should not forget that government is, abstractedly taken, an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind."

II. The general welfare demands that a social human life based solely on its precepts should take the place of the State.

1. Men are to live together in society even after the abolition of the State. "A fundamental distinction exists between society and government. Men associated at first for the sake of mutual assistance."It was not till later that restraint appeared in these associations, in consequence of the errors and perverseness of a few." Society and government are different in themselves, and have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. Society is in every state a blessing; government even in its best state but a necessary

But what is to hold men together in "society without government?"Not a promise, at any rate. No promise can bind me; for either what I have promised is good, then I must do it even if there had been no promise; or it is bad, then not even the promise can make it my duty. "The fact that I have committed an error does not oblige me to make myself guilty of a second also.""Suppose I had promised a sum of money for a good and worthy object. In the interval between the promise and its fulfillment a greater and nobler object presents itself to me, and imperiously demands my co-operation. To which shall I give the preference? To the one that deserves it. My promise can make no difference. I must be guided by the value of things, not by an external and alien point of view. But the value of things is not affected by my having taken upon me an obligation."

"Common deliberation regarding the general good"is to hold men together in societies hereafter. This is highly in harmony with the general welfare." That a nation should exercise undiminished its function of common deliberation, is a step gained, and a step that inevitably leads to an improvement of the character of individuals. That men should agree in the assertion of truth is no unpleasing evidence of their virtue. Lastly, that an individual, however great may be his imaginary elevation, should be obliged to yield his personal pretensions to the sense of the community, at least bears the appearance of a practical confirmation of the great principle, that all private considerations must yield to the general good."

2. The societies are to be small, and to have as little intercourse with each other as possible.

Small territories are everywhere to administer their affairs independently. "No association of men, so long as they adhered to the principles of reason, could possibly have any interest in extending their territory.""Whatever evils are included in the abstract idea of government, are all of them extremely aggravated by the extensiveness of its jurisdiction, and softened under circumstances of an opposite species. Ambition, which may be no less formidable than a pestilence in the former, has no room to unfold itself in the latter. Popular commotion is like the waves of the sea, capable where the surface is large of producing the most tragical effects, but mild and innocuous when confined within the circuit of a humble lake. Sobriety and equity are the obvious characteristics of a limited circle."—"The desire to gain a more extensive territory, to conquer or to hold in awe our neighboring States, to surpass them in arts or arms, is a desire founded in prejudice and error. Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble. Mankind are brethren. We associate in a particular district or under a particular climate, because association is necessary to our internal tranquility, or to defend us against the wanton attacks of a common enemy. But the rivalship of nations is a creature of the imagination."

The little independently-administered territories are to have as little to do with each other as possible." Individuals cannot have too frequent or unlimited intercourse with each other; but societies of men haveno interests to explain and adjust, except so far as error and violence may render explanation necessary. This consideration annihilates at once the principal objects of that mysterious and crooked policy which has hitherto occupied the attention of governments. Before this principle officers of the army and the navy,

CHAPTER V

STIRNER'S TEACHING

GENERAL

1. Johann Kaspar Schmidt was born in 1806, at Bayreuth in Bavaria. He studied philosophy and theology at Berlin from 1826 to 1828, at Erlangen from 1828 to 1829. In 1829 he interrupted his studies, made a prolonged tour through Germany, and then lived alternately at Koenigsberg and Kulm till 1832. From 1832 to 1834 he studied at Berlin again; in 1835 he passed his tests there as Gymnasi- alkhrer. He received no government appointment, however, and in 1839 became teacher in a young ladies' seminary in Berlin. He gave up this place in 1844, but continued to live in Berlin, and died there in 1856.

In part under the pseudonym Max Stirner, in part anonymously, Schmidt published a small number of works, mostly of a philosophical nature.

2. Stirner's teaching about law, the State, and property is contained chiefly in his book " Der Ein- siffc und sein Eigentum " (1845).

—But here arises the question, Can we speak of such a thing as a " teaching " of Stirner's?

Stirner recognizes no ought. " Men are such as they should be—can be. What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they be? Not more, again, than they—can, i. e.

than they have the ability, the strength, to be."* " A man is ' called ' to nothing, and has no ' proper business,' no ' function,' as little as a plant or beast has a ' vocation.' He has not a vocation; but he has powers, which express themselves where they are, because their being consists only in their expression, and which can remain idle as little as life, which would no longer be life if it ' stood still' but for a second. Now one might cry to man, ' Use your power.' But this imperative would be given the meaning that it was man's proper business to use his power. It is not so. Rather, every one really does use his power, without first regarding this as his vocation; every one uses in every moment as much power as he possesses."

Nay, Stirner acknowledges no such thing as truth. " Truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words (logos); brought into connection, or arranged by ranks and files, they form logic, science, philosophy." " Nor is there a truth,—not right, not liberty, humanity, etc.,—which could subsist before me, and to which I would submit."§ " If there is a single truth to which man must consecrate his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc.; he is a man in service."|| " As long as you believe in truth, you do not believe in yourself; you are a—servant, a—religious man. You alone

*Stirner p. 439. [The page numbers of Stirner's first edition, here cited, agree almost exactly with those of the English translation under the title "____ and His Own." Any passage quoted here will in general be English translation either on the page whose number is given ______ page ; for the early pages, subtract two or three from

are truth; or rather, you are more than truth, which is nothing at all before you."*

If one chose to draw the extreme inference from this, Stirner's book would be only a self-avowal, an expression of thoughts without any claim to general validity; in it Stirner would not be informing us what he thinks to be true, or what in his opinion we ought to do, but only giving us an opportunity to observe the play of his ideas. Stirner did not draw this inference, and one should not let the style of the book, which speaks mostly of Stirner's " I," lead him to think that Stirner did draw it. He calls that man " blinded, who wants to be only ' Man '."J He takes the floor against " the erroneous consciousness of not being able to entitle myself to as much as I want."§ He mocks at our grandmothers' belief in ghosts. || He declares that " penalty must make room for satisfaction, "that man" should defend himself against man."** And he asserts that " over the door of our time stands not Apollo's ' Know thyself,' but a ' Turn yourself to account!' "So Stirner intends not only to give us information about his inward condition at the time he composed his book, but to tell us what he thinks to be true and what we ought to do; his book is not a mere self-avowal, but a scientific teaching.

3. Stirner does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property " Anarchism." He prefers to use the epithet '' anarchic " to designate political liberalism, which he combats.

2.—BASIS

According to Stirner the supreme law for each one of us is his own welfare.

What does one's own welfare mean? " Let us seek out the enjoyment of life! "* " Henceforth the question is not how one can acquire life, but how he can expend it, enjoy it; not how one is to produce in himself the true ego, but how he is to dissolve himself, to live himself out." " If the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the longing or hope for life, it must overcome it in its double significance which Schiller brings out in ' The Ideal and Life'; it must crush spiritual and temporal poverty, abolish the ideal and —the want of daily bread. He who must lay out his life in prolonging life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it; both are poor."

Our own welfare is our supreme law. Stirner recognizes no duty.§ " Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, humane, liberal, or unhuman, inhumane, illiberal, what do I ask about that? If only it aims at what I would have, if only I satisfy myself in it, then fit it with predicates as you like; it is all one to me."|| "So then my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it ' for God's sake', I do nothing ' for man's sake ', but what I do I do ' for my sake '." "Where the world comes in my way—and it comes in my way everywhere—I devour it to appease the hun-

ger of my egoism. You are to me nothing but—my food, just as I also am fed upon and used up by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of utility, of usableness, of use."* " I too love men, not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no ' commandment of love'."

3.—LAW

I. Looking to each one's own welfare, Stirner rejects law, and that without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions.

Law exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his interests, but by his holding it sacred. " Who can ask about ' right' if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people? Is not ' right' a religious concept, i. e. something sacred?"§ "When the Revolution stamped

* Stirner p. 395. t Ib. p. 387.

t [To understand some of the following citations it is necessary to remember that in German " law " (in the sense of common law, or including this) and " right" are one and the same word.—While it is probably not , fair to say that these assaults of Stirner are directed only against some laws, it does seem fair to say that they deny to the laws only some sorts of validity. We have very little material for compiling the constructive side of Stirner's teaching, for he avoided specifying what things the Egoists or their unions were to do in his future social order; he said explicitly that the only way to know what a slave will do when he breaks his fetters is to wait and see. But, while he may nowhere have stated a law which is to obtain in the good time coming, neither has he said anything which authorizes us to declare that none of his unions will ever make laws on such a basis as (for instance) the rules of the Stock Exchange. On page 114 below is quoted a passage where he distinctly and approvingly contemplates the possibility that a union of his followers may fix a minimum wage, and may threaten violence to any person who consents to work below the scale. This would be law, and might easily be the germ of a State. On pages 108 and 109 are quoted passages which strongly suggest that the Egoistic union would undertake to defend its member against all interference with his possession of certain goods; this would be both law and property.]

liberty as a ' right' it took refuge in the religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."* I am to revere the sultan ic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics, the canon law in Catholic communities, etc. I am to subordinate myself to these laws, I am to count them sacred, " "The law is sacred, and he who outrages it is a criminal." "There are no criminals except against something sacred "; § crime falls when the sacred disappears. || Punishment has a meaning only in relation to something sacred.^ " What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that which was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, you will see, the lives of those who belong to the State must be included)."**

But law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's welfare. " Right—is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost. "Men have " not recovered the mastery over the thought of ' right,' which-they themselves created; their creature is running away with them." "Let the individual man claim ever so many rights; what do I care for his right and his claim?"§§ I do not respect them.—" What you have the might to be you have the right to be. I deduce all right and all entitlement from myself; I am entitled to everything that I have might over. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I can; if I cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as against me."|| ||

" Right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by force,"* " but with the concept the word too loses its meaning." "The people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against blasphemy. Shall I therefore not blaspheme? Is this law to be more to me than an order? " " He who has might ' stands above the law '."§ " The earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it, belongs to him. This is egoistic right; i. e., it suits me, therefore it is right." ||

II. Self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law.

Each of us is " unique," "a world's history for himself,"** and, when he "knows himself as unique," he is a " self-owner." " God and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as God, the nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the Unique."§§ " Away then with every business that is not altogether my business! You think at least the ' good cause ' must be my business? What good, what bad? Why, I myself am my business, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. What is divine is God's business, what is human ' Man's.' My business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is

*[The German idiom ~for " it suits me " is " it is right to me "].

not what is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no general business, but is—unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself! "*

" What a difference between freedom and self- ownership! I am free from what I am rid of; I am owner of what I have in my power." " My freedom becomes complete only when it is my—might; but by this I cease to be a mere freeman and become a self- owner." " Each must say to himself, I am all to myself and I do all for my sake. If it ever became clear to you that God, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from you just as the Christians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen morality." § " How one acts only from himself, and asks no questions about anything further, the Christians have made concrete in the idea of ' God.' He acts ' as pleases him'."||

" Might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for ' one gets farther with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might ' stands above the law.' How does this prospect taste to you, you ' law- abiding ' people? But you have no taste! "

4.—THE STATE

I. Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, just as unconditionally, the legal institution

which is called State. Without law the State is not possible. " ' Respect for the statutes!' By this cement the whole fabric of the State is held together."*

The State as well as the law, then, exists, not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but rather by his counting it sacred, by " our being entangled in the error that it is an I, as which it applies to itself the name of a ' moral, mystical, or political person.' I, who really am I, must pull off this lion's skin of the I from the parading thistle- eater." The same holds good of the State as of the family. " If each one who belongs to the family is to recognize and maintain that family in its permanent existence, then to each the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of family piety, of respect for the ties of blood, whereby every blood- relative becomes hallowed to him. So, also, to every member of the State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is supreme to the State must be supreme to him too. "The State is " not only entitled, but compelled, to demand " this.§

But the State is not sacred. " The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence ' law', but that of the individual ' crime '."|| If I do not do what it wishes, " then the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-talons; for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle." " Even if you do overpower your opponent as a power, it does not follow that you are to him a hallowed authority, un-

less he is a degenerate. He does not owe you respect, and reverence, even if he will be wary of your might."*

Nor is the State favorable to the individual's welfare. " I am the mortal enemy of the State." " The general welfare as such is not my welfare, but only the extremity of self-denial. The general welfare may exult aloud while I must lie like a hushed dog; the State may be in splendor while I starve." " Every State is a despotism, whether the despot be one or many, or whether, as people usually conceive to be the case in a republic, all are masters, i. e. each tyrannizes over the others."§ " Doubtless the State leaves the individuals as free play as possible, only they must not turn the play to earnest, must not forget it. The State has never any object but to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and is only the clear-cut limitation of me, my limitedness, my slavery."||

" A State never aims to bring about the free activity of individuals, but only that activity which is bound to the State's purpose." " The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its oversight, its police, and counts this hindering as its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation."** " I am not allowed to do all the work I can, but only so much as the State permits; I must not turn my thoughts to account, nor my work, nor, in general,

anything that is mine."* " Pauperism is the valuelessness of Me, the phenomenon of my being unable to turn myself to account. Therefore State and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me attain my value, and exists only by my valuelessness; its goal is always to get some benefit out of me, i. e. to exploit me, to use me up, even if this using consisted only in my providing a proles (proletariat); it wants me to be ' its creature'."

" The State cannot brook man's standing in a direct relation to man; it must come between as a— mediator, it must—intervene. It tears man from man, to put itself as ' spirit' in the middle. The laborers who demand a higher wage are treated as criminals so soon as they want to get it by compulsion. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a price fixed by the ego, a real, free turning to account of one's property, which it cannot permit. "

II. Every man's own welfare demands that a social human life solely on the basis of its precepts should I take the place of the State. Stirner calls this sort of social life "the union of egoists."§

1. Even after the State is abolished men are to live together in society. " Self-owners will fight for the unity which is their own will, for union."|| But what is to keep men together in the union?

Not a promise, at any rate. " If I were bound to-day and hereafter to my will of yesterday," my will

would " be benumbed. My creature, viz., a particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such all my life."* "The union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their continuance, so still less do I pledge myself to the union for my future and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and as is really the case with the State and all intellectual authority; but I am and remain more to myself than State, Church, God, and the like, and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."

Rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which each individual has from the union at every moment. If I can " use " my fellowmen, " then I am likely to come to an understanding and unite myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. In this joinder I see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do I retain it."

Hence the union is something quite different from "that society which Communism means to found."§ " You bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. In the former you live ego-

istically, in the latter humanly, i. e. religiously, as a ' member in the body of this Lord '. You owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are—possessed by ' social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use out of it. If society is more than you, then it is of more consequence to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and exists even without you ; in short, society is sacred, the union is your own ; society uses you up, you use up the union."*

2. But what form may such a social life take in detail? In reply to his critic, Moses Hess, Stirner gives some examples of unions that already exist.

" Perhaps at this moment children are running together under his window for a comradeship of play ; let him look at them, and he will espy merry egoistic unions. Perhaps Hess has a friend or a sweetheart; then he may know how heart joins itself to heart, how two of them unite egoistically in order to have the enjoyment of each other, and how neither ' gets the worst of the bargain.' Perhaps he meets a few pleasant acquaintances on the street and is invited to accompany them into a wine-shop; does he go with them in order to do an act of kindness to them, or does he ' unite' with them because he promises himself enjoyment from it? Do they have to give him their best thanks for his ' self-sacrifice ', or do they

know that for an hour they formed an ' egoistic union ' together?"* Stirner even thinks of a " German Union."

5.—PROPERTY

I. Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, and just as unconditionally, the legal institution of property. This " lives by grace of the law. It has its guarantee only in the law; it is not a fact, but a fiction, a thought. This is law-property, legal property, warranted property. It is mine not by me, but by—law."

Property in this sense, as well as the law and the State, is based not on the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but on his counting it sacred. " Property in the civil sense means sacred property, in such a way that I must respect your property. ' Have respect for property!' Therefore the political liberals would like every one to have his bit of property, and have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by their efforts in this direction. Every one must have his bone, on which he may find something to bite."§

But property is not sacred. " I do not step timidly back from your property, be you one or many, but look upon it always as my property, in which I have no need to ' respect' anything. Now do the like with what you call my property! " ||

Nor is property favorable to the individual's welfare. " Property, as the civic liberals understand it,

is untenable, because the civic proprietor is really nothing but a propertyless man, a man everywhere excluded. Instead of the world's belonging to him, as it might, there belongs to him not even the paltry point on which he turns around."*

II. Every one's own welfare commands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property. When Stirner designates as " property " the share of commodities assigned to the individual by these precepts, it is in the improper sense in which he constantly uses the word property: in the proper sense only a share of commodities assigned by law can be called property.

Now, according to the decrees of his own welfare, every man should have all that he is powerful enough to obtain.

" What they are not competent to tear from me the power over, that remains my property: all right, then let power decide about property, and I will expect everything *from my power! Alien power, power that I leave to another, makes me a slave; then let own power make me an owner."J " To what property am I entitled? To any to which I—empower myself. I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, plenary power, empowerment." § " What I am competent to have is my ' competence.' "|| "The sick, children, the aged, are still competent for a great deal; e. g. to receive their living instead of taking it. If they are

* Zenker fails to recognize this when he asserts (p. 80) that Stirner demands property based on the right of occupation.

competent to control you to the extent of having you desire their continued existence, then they have a power over you."* " What competence the child possesses in its smile, its play, its crying,—in short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its demand? or do you not hold out to it, as a mother, your breast,—as a father, so much of your belongings as it needs? It puts you under constraint, and therefore possesses what you call yours."

" Property, therefore, should not and cannot be done away with; rather, it must be torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then will the erroneous consciousness that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I want vanish.—' But what cannot a man want? ' Well, he who wants much, and knows how to get it, has in all times taken it to him, as Napoleon did the continent, and the French Algeria. Therefore the only point is just that the respectful ' lower classes' should at length learn to take to themselves what they want. If they reach their hands too far for you, why, defend yourselves." "What 'man' wants does not by any means furnish a scale for me and my needs; for I may have a use for more, or for less. Rather, I must have as much as I am competent to appropriate to myself."§

2. " In this matter, as well as in others, unions will multiply the individual's means and make secure his assailed property."|| "When it is our will no longer to leave the land to the land-owners, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves for this purpose; we form a union, a société, which makes itself owner;

if we are successful, they cease to be land-owners. And, as we chase them out from land and soil, so we can also from many another property, to make it our own, the property of the—conquerors. The conquerors form a society, which one may conceive of as so great that by degrees it embraces all mankind; but so-called mankind is also, as such, only a thought (ghost); its reality is the individuals. And these individuals as a collective mass will deal not less arbitrarily with land and soil than does an isolated individual."*

" What all want to have a share in will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone; it is made a common possession. As a common possession every one has a share in it, and this share is his property. Just so, even in our old relations, a house which belongs to five heirs is their common possession; but the fifth part of the proceeds is each one's property. The property which for the present is still withheld from us can be better made use of when it is in the hands of us all. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery."

6.-REALIZATION

According to Stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires is to come about in this way,— that men in sufficient number Jirst undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward change also: to wit, the abrogation of line, State, and property, and the introduction of the new condition.

I. The first and most important thing is the inward change of men.

" Revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing condition or state, the State or society, and so is a political or social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements: the Insurrection leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves, and sets no brilliant hope on ' institutions.' It is not a fight against the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. If I leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. . Now, since my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."*

Why was the founder of Christianity " not a revolutionist, not a demagogue as the Jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a Liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of conditions, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist, like Caesar for in-

stance, but an insurgent; not an overturner of the State, but one who straightened himself up. He waged no Liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by them."*

" Everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. Everything sacred will be, must be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such perverters by the quantity in all spheres. They are preparing for the break of the law, for lawlessness." " Regard yourself as more powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard yourself as more, and you are more."| " The poor become free and proprietors only when they—' rise'."§ Only from egoism can the lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves and—will give to themselves. If they do not let themselves be constrained into fear, they are a power." ||

II. Furthermore, in order to bring about the " transformation of conditions " and put the new condition in the place of law, State, and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has hitherto existed is requisite.

1. " The State can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."** "The individual's violence [Gewalt] is called crime [Verbrechen], and only by crime does he break [brechen] the State's authority [Gewalt] when he opines that the State is not above him, but he above the State."" Here too the result is that the thinkers' combat against the government is wrong,

viz. in impotence, so far as it cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). The theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. It is only the egoistic combat, the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."*

" The property question cannot be solved so gently as the Socialists, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all." " Let me then retract the might which I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, ' Whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then claim as property all that I feel myself strong enough to attain; and let me make my real property extend as far as I entitle (i. e. empower) myself to take." " In order to extirpate the unpossessing rabble, egoism does not say, ' Wait and see what the Board of Equity will—donate to you in the name of the collectivity ', but ' Put your hand to it and take what you need! '"§

In this combat Stirner agrees to all methods. " I will not draw back with a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St. Boniface was disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens'

* [But Stirner does not mean that all are to fight against all; they are merely to declare themselves no longer bound by thr obligations of peace, and then those who are able to agree with each other can at once make terms to suit themselves.]

sacred oak on account of religious scruples."* " The power over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves, this too I call—mine." " The life of the individual man I rate only at what it is worth. His goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my—might."

2. Stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation of conditions. He assumes that certain men come to realize that they occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the State as compared with others who receive the preference.

" Those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the question, ' By what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones? ' and give themselves the answer, ' By our refraining from interference! By our protection, therefore! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and contempt you give the " common people "; police oversight, and a catechism with the chief sentence " Respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! respect others, and especially superiors! " But we reply, " If you want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." We will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. With what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many thousands of his yearly income? or Another for the sheer hundred- thousands and millions? With what do you pay us for chewing potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and

you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry about violence if we take hold and help eat them, and you are right. Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us.

"' But take the oysters and done with it, and let us come to what is in a closer way our property (for this other is only possession)—to labor. We toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a few groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. We will come to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that neither any longer needs to—donate anything to the other. For centuries we have offered you alms in our kindly—stupidity, have given the mite of the poor and rendered to the masters what is—not the masters'; now just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the price of our ware. We will take nothing away from you, nothing at all, only you shall pay better for what you want to have. What have jou then? " I have an estate of a thousand acres,'' And 1 am jour plowman, and will hereafter do jour plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "Then I'll get another." You will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him beware of us.' "

CHAPTER VI

BAKUNIN'S TEACHING

1.— GENERAL

1. Mikhail Alexandrovitch Bakunin was born in 1814 at Pryamukhino, district of Torshok, government of Tver. In 1834 he entered the Artillery School at St. Petersburg; in 1835 he became an officer, but resigned his commission in the same year. He then lived alternately in Pryamukhino and in Moscow.

In 1840 Bakunin left Russia. In the following years revolutionary plans took him now to this part of Europe, now to that; in Paris he associated much with Proudhon. In 1849 he was condemned to death in Saxony, but was pardoned; in 1850 he was handed over to Austria and was condemned to death there also; in 1851 he was handed over to Russia and was there kept a prisoner first at St. Petersburg, then at Schluesselburg; in 1857 he was sent to Siberia.

From Siberia Bakunin escaped to London in 1865, by way of Japan and California. He took up his revolutionary activities again at once, and thereafter lived by turns in the most various parts of Europe. In 1868 he became a member of the Association international des travailleurs, and soon afterward he founded the Alliance Internationale de la démocratie socialiste. In 1869 he came into intimate relations with the fanatic Nechayeff, but broke away from him in the next year. In 1872 he was expelled from the Association internationale des travailleurs on the ground that his aims were different from those of the Association. He died at Berne in 1876.

Bakunin wrote a number of works of a philosophical and political nature.

2. Bakunin's teaching about law, the State, and property finds its expression especially in the "Proposition motiveé au comité central de la Ligue de la paix et de la liberté "¹ offered by him in 1868; in the principles² of the Alliance Internationale de la democratic socialiste, drawn up by him in 1868; and in his work "Dieu et l'Etat"³ (1871).

Writings which cannot with certainty be assigned to Bakunin are here disregarded. Among such we may name especially the two works "The Principles of the Revolution "and "Catechism of the Revolution, "⁴ in which Nechayeff's views are set forth. They are indeed ascribed to Bakunin by some,⁵ but their matter is in contradiction to his other utterances as well as to his deeds; he even used vehement language on several occasions against Nechayeff's ⁶ "Machiavellianism and Jesuitism."⁷ Even on the assumption that they are by Bakunin, they would at any rate express only a very insignificant chapter in his development.

3. Bakunin designates his teaching about law, the State, and property as "Anarchism.""In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, all privileged, chartered, official, and legal influence, — even if it were created by universal suffrage,- — in the conviction that such things can but redound always to the advantage of a ruling minority of exploiters and to the disadvantage of the vast enslaved majority. In this sense we are in truth Anarchists."⁸

2.— BASIS

Bakunin regards the evolutionary law of the progress of mankind from a lefts perfect existence to the most perfect possible existence as the law which has supreme validity for man.

"Science has no other task than the careful intellectual reproduction, in the most systematic form possible, of the natural laws of corporeal, mental, and moral life, alike in the physical and in the social world, which two worlds constitute in fact only a single natural world. "⁹

Now "science — that is, true, unselfish science "¹⁰ — teaches us the following: "Every evolution signifies the negation of its starting-point. Since according to the materialists the basis or starting-point is material, the negation must necessarily be ideal. "¹¹ That is, "everything that lives makes the effort to perfect itself as fully as possible."¹²

Thus, "according to the conception of materialists, man's historical evolution also moves in a constantly ascending line."¹³ "It is an altogether natural movement from the simple to the compound, from down to up, from the lower to the higher.^''14 "History consists in the progressive negation of man's original bestiality by the evolution of his humanity. "¹⁵

"Man is originally a wild beast, a cousin of the gorilla. But he has already come out of the deep night of bestial impulses to make his way to the light of the mind. This explains all his former missteps in the most natural way, and comforts us somewhat with regard to his present aberrations. He has turned his back on bestial slavery, and is now moving toward freedom through the realm of slavery to God, which lies between his bestial and his human existence. Behind us, therefore, lies our bestial existence, before us our human ; the light of humanity, which alone can light us and warm us, deliver us and exalt us, make us free, happy, and brothers, stands never at the beginning of history, but always only at its end."¹⁶

This "historical negation of the past takes place now slowly, sluggishly, sleepily, but now again passionately and violently."¹⁷ It always takes place with the inevitable certainty of natural law: "we believe in the final triumph of humanity on earth."¹⁸ "We yearn for the coming of this triumph, and seek to hasten it with united effort "; ¹⁹ "we must never look back, always forward alone; before us is our sun, before us our bliss."²⁰

3.— LAW

I. In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence, one of the next steps, according to Bakunin, will be the disappearance — not indeed of law, but — of enacted law.

Enacted law belongs to a low stage of evolution. "A political legislation, whether it is based on a ruler's will or on the votes of representatives chosen by universal suffrage, can never correspond to the laws of nature, and is always baleful, hostile to the liberty of the masses, if only because it forces upon them a system of external and consequently despotic laws."²¹ No legislation has ever "had another aim than that of confirming, and exalting into a system, the exploitation of the laboring populace by the ruling classes."²² Thus every legislation "has for its consequence at once the enslavement of society and the depravation of the legislators."²³

But mankind will soon leave behind it the stage of evolution to which law belongs. Enacted law is in-dissolubly connected with the State: "the State is a historically necessary evil,"²⁴ "a transitory form of society";²⁵ "with the State, law in the jurists' sense, the so-called legal regulation of popular life from above downward by legislation, must necessarily fall."²⁶ Everybody feels already that this moment is approaching,²⁷ the transformation is at hand,²⁸ it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.²⁹

II. In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, there will be no enacted law to be sure, but there will be law even there. What Bakunin predicts with regard to this next stage of evolution enables us to perceive that according to his expectation norms will then prevail which "are based on a general will,"³⁰ and which even secure obedience by forcible compulsion if necessary, ³¹ so that they are legal norms.

Among such legal norms of our next stage of evolution Bakunin mentions that by virtue of which there exists a "right to independence."³² For me as an individual this means "that I as a man am entitled to obey no other man, and to act only in accordance with my own judgment."³³ But, furthermore, "every nation, every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories.''³⁴

Likewise Bakunin regards it as a legal norm of the next stage of evolution that contracts must be lived up to. To be sure, the obligation of contracts has its limits. "Human justice cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. All rights and duties are founded on liberty. The right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights."³⁵

Another legal norm mentioned by Bakunin as belonging to the next stage of evolution is that by virtue of which "the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, will exclusively serve for the use of the agricultural and industrial associations."³⁶

4.— THE STATE

I. In the progress of mankind from its bestial existence to a human existence the State will shortly, according to Bakunin, disappear. "The State is a historically temporary arrangement, a transitory form of society.''³⁷

1. The State belongs to a low stage of evolution. "Man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the human. "³⁸ "All religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets, their Messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of their intellectual powers."³⁹ This holds good also, and particularly, of Christianity : it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and reason."⁴⁰

The State is a product of religion. "In all lands it is born of a marriage of violence, robbery, spoilation, — in short, of war and conquest, — with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations had gradually created."⁴¹ "He who speaks of revelation speaks thereby of revealers enlightened by God, of Messiahs, prophets, priests, and lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives of the Deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by God himself, then of course they have unlimited authority. All men owe them blind obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the divine reason and justice. As slaves of God, men must be also slaves of the Church, and of the State so far as the Church hallows the State. "⁴²

"No State is without religion, and none can be without religion. Take the freest States in the world, — for instance, the United States of America or the Swiss Confederacy, — and see what an important part divine providence plays in all public utterances there."⁴³ "It is not without good reason that governments hold the belief in God to be an essential condition of their power. "⁴⁴ "There is a class of people who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they believed. This class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and exploiters. Priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers, office-holders of all sorts; policemen, gendarmes, jailers, and executioners ; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners; lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades, — all of them, down to the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that, if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him ; ' for must not the populace have its religion ? ' It is the very safety-valve."⁴⁵

2. The characteristics of the State correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs.

The State enslaves the governed. "The State is force; nay, it is the silly parading of force. It does not propose to win love or to make converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in command and compulsion. However much pains it may take, it cannot conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant negation of our liberty. Even when it commands the good, it makes this valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face; as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the dignity, of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."⁴⁶

At the same time the State depraves those who govern. "It is characteristic of privilege, and of every privileged position, that they poison the minds and hearts of men. He who is politically or economically privileged has his mind and heart depraved. This is a law of social life, which admits of no exceptions and is applicable to entire nations as well as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It is the law of equality, the foremost of the conditions of liberty and humanity. "⁴⁷

"Powerful States can maintain themselves only by crime, little States are virtuous only from weakness."⁴⁸ "We abhor monarchy with all our hearts; but at the same time we are convinced that a great republic too, with army, bureaucracy, and political centralization, will make a business of conquest without and oppression within, and will be incapable of guaranteeing happiness and liberty to its subjects even if it calls them citizens."⁴⁹ "Even in the purest democracies, such as the United States and Switzerland, a privileged minority faces the vast enslaved majority. "⁵⁰

3. But the stage of mankind's evolution to which 1 the State belongs will soon be left behind.

"From the beginning of historic society to this day, there has always been oppression of the nations by the State. Is it to be inferred that this oppression is inseparably connected with the existence of human society?"⁵¹ Certainly not! "The great, true goal of history, the only one for which there is justification, is our humanization and deliverance, the genuine liberty and prosperity of all socially-living men."⁵² "In the triumph of humanity is at the same time the goal and the essential meaning of history, and this triumph can be brought about only by liberty."⁵³ "As in the past the State was a historically necessary evil, it must just as necessarily, sooner or later, disappear altogether."⁵⁴ Everybody feels already that this moment is approaching, ⁵⁵ the transformation is at hand,⁵⁶ it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.⁵⁷

II. In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, the place of the State will be taken by a social human life on the basis of the legal' norm that contracts must be lived up to.

1. Even after the State is done away, men will live together socially. The goal of human evolution, "complete humanity,"⁵⁸ can be attained only in a society. "Man becomes man, and his humanity becomes conscious and real, only in society and by the joint activity of society. He frees himself from the yoke of external nature only by joint — that is, societary — labor: it alone is capable of making the surface of the earth fit for the evolution of mankind; but without such external liberation neither intellectual nor moral liberation is possible. Furthermore, man gets free from the yoke of his own nature only by education and instruction : they alone make it possible for him to subordinate the impulses and motions of his body to the guidance of his more and more developed mind ; but education and instruction are of an exclusively societary nature. Outside of society man would have remained forever a wild beast, or, what comes to about the same thing, a saint. Finally, in his isolation man cannot have the consciousness of liberty. What liberty means for man is that he is recognized as free, and treated as free, by those who surround him ; liberty is not a matter of isolation, therefore, but of mutuality— not of separateness, bnt of combination; for every man it is only the mirroring of his humanity (that is, of his human rights) in the consciousness of his brothers."⁵⁹

But men will be held together in society no longer by a supreme authority, but by the legally binding force of contract. Complete humanity can be attained only in a free society. "My liberty, or, what means the same, my human dignity, consists in my being entitled, as man, to obey no other man and to act only on my own judgment."⁶⁰ "I myself am a free man only so far as I recognize the humanity and liberty of all the men who surround me. In respecting their humanity I respect my own. A cannibal, who treats his prisoner as a wild beast and eats him, is himself not a man, but a beast. A slaveholder is not a man, but a master."⁶¹ "The more free men surround me, and the deeper and broader their freedom is, so much deeper, broader, and more powerful is my freedom too. On the other hand, every enslavement of men is at the same time a limitation of my freedom, or, what is the same thing, a negation of my human existence by its bestial existence."⁶² But a free society cannot be held together by authority, ⁶³ but only by contract.⁶⁴

2. How will the future society shape itself in detail?

"Unity is the goal toward which mankind ceaselessly moves."⁶⁵ Therefore men will unite with the utmost amplitude. But "the place of the old organization, built from above downward upon force and authority, will be taken by a new one which has no other basis than the natural needs, inclinations, and endeavors of men."⁶⁶ Thus we come to a "free union of individuals into communes, of communes into provinces, of provinces into nations, and finally of nations into the United States of Europe and later of the whole world."⁶⁷

"Every nation, — be it great or small, strong or weak, — every province, and every commune has the unlimited right to complete independence, provided that its internal constitution does not threaten the independence and liberty of the adjoining territories. "⁶⁸

"All of what are known as the historic rights of nations are totally done away; all questions regarding natural, political, strategic, and economic boundaries are henceforth to be classed as ancient history and resolutely disallowed. "⁶⁹

"By the fact that a territory has once belonged to a State, even by a voluntary adhesion, it is in no wise bound to remain always united with this State. Human justice, the only justice that means anything to us, cannot recognize anything as creating an obligation in perpetuity. All rights and duties are founded on liberty. The right of freely uniting and separating is the first and most important of all political rights. Without this right the League would be merely a concealed centralization still."⁷⁰

5.— PROPERTY

I. In the progress of mankind from Its bestial existence to a human existence, according to Bakunin, we must shortly come to the disappearance — not indeed of property, but — of property's present form, unlimited private property.

1. Private property, so far as it fastens upon all things without distinction, belongs to the same low stage of evolution as the State.

"Private property is at once the consequence and the basis of the State."⁷¹ "Every government is necessarily based on exploitation on the one hand, and on the other hand has exploitation for its goal and bestows upon exploitation protection and legality."⁷² In every State there exist "two kinds of relationship, — to wit, government and exploitation. If really governing means sacrificing one's self for the good of the governed, then indeed the second relationship is in direct contradiction to the first. But let us only understand our point rightly! From the ideal standpoint, be it theological or metaphysical, the good of the masses can of course not mean their temporal welfare: what are a few decades of earthly life in comparison to eternity? Hence one must govern the masses with regard not to this coarse earthly happiness, but to their eternal good. Outward sufferings and privations may even be welcomed from the educator's standpoint, since an excess of sensual enjoyment kills the immortal soul. But now the contradiction disappears. Exploiting and governing mean the same; the one completes the other, and serves as its means and its end."⁷³

2. Private property, when it exists in all things without distinction, has such characteristics as correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs.

"On the privileged representatives of head-work ( who at present are called to be the representatives of society, not because they have more sense, but only because they were born in the privileged class) such property bestows all the blessings and also all the debasement of our civilization : wealth, luxury, profuse expenditure, comfort, the pleasures of family life, the exclusive enjoyment of political liberty, and hence the possibility of exploiting millions of laborers and governing them at discretion in one's own interest. What is there left for the representatives of handwork, these numberless millions of proletarians or of small farmers? Hopeless misery, not even the joys of the family (for the family soon becomes a burden to the poor man), ignorance, barbarism, an almost bestial existence, and this for consolation with it all, that they are serving as pedestal for the culture, liberty, and depravity of a minority."⁷⁴

The freer and more highly developed trade and industry are in any place, "the more complete is the demoralization of the privileged few on the one hand, and the greater are the misery, the complaints, and the just indignation of the laboring masses on the other. England, Belgium, France, Germany, are certainly the countries of Europe in which trade and industry enjoy greatest freedom and have made most progress. In these very countries the most cruel pauperism prevails, the gulf between capitalists and landlords on the one hand and the laboring class on the other is greater than in any other country. In Russia, in the Scandinavian countries, in Italy, in Spain, where trade and industry are still embryonic, people but seldom die of hunger except on extraordinary occasions. In England starvation is an every-day thing. And not only individuals starve, but thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands."⁷⁵

3. But mankind will soon have passed the low stage of evolution to which private property belongs.

As there has at all times been oppression of the nations by the State, so has there also always been "exploitation of the masses of slaves, serfs, wageworkers, by a ruling minority."⁷⁶ But this exploitation is no more "inseparably united with the existence of human society "⁷⁷ than is that oppression. "By the force of things themselves "⁷⁸ unlimited private property will be done away. Everybody feels already that this moment is approaching, ⁷⁹ the transformation is already at hand,⁸⁰ it is to be expected within the nineteenth century.⁸¹

II. In the next stage of evolution, which mankind must speedily reach, property will be so constituted that there will indeed be private property in the objects of consumption, but in land, instruments of labor, and all other capital, there will be only social property. The future society will be collectivist.

In this way every laborer has the product of his labor guaranteed to him.

1. "Justice must serve as basis for the new world: without it, no liberty, no living together, no prosperity, no peace."⁸² "Justice, not that of jurists, nor yet that of theologians, nor yet that of metaphysicians, but simple human justice, commands "⁸³ that "in future every man's enjoyment corresponds to the quantity of goods produced by him."⁸⁴ The thing is, then, to find a means "which makes it impossible for any one, whoever he may be, to exploit the labor of another, and permits each to share in the enjoyment of society's stock of goods (which is solely a product of labor) only so far as he has, by his labor, directly contributed to the production of this stock of goods. "⁸⁵

This means consists in the principle "that the land, the instruments of labor, and all other capital, as the collective property of the whole of society, shall exclusively serve for the use of the laborers,—that is, of their agricultural and industrial associations. "⁸⁶ "I am not a Communist, but a Collectivist."⁸⁷

2. The collectivism of the future society "by no means demands the setting up of any supreme authority. In the name of liberty, on which alone an economic or a political organization can be founded, we shall always protest against everything that looks even remotely similar to Communism or State Socialism."⁸⁸ "I would have the organization of society, and of the collective or social property, from below upward by the voice of free union, not from above downward by means of any authority."⁸⁹

0.—REALIZATION

The change that is promptly to be expected in the course of 'mankind's progress' from its bestial existence to a human existence,—the disappearance of the State, the transformation of law and property, and the appearance of the new condition.—will come to pass, according' to Bakunin, by a social revolution; that is, by a violent subversion of the old order, which will be automatically brought about by the power of things, but which those who foresee the course of evolution have the task of hastening and facilitating.

I. "To escape its wretched lot the populace has three ways, two imaginary and one real. The two first are the rum-shop and the church, the third is the social revolution."⁹⁰ "A cure is possible only through the social revolution,"⁹¹—that is, through "the destruction of all institutions of inequality, and the establishment of economic and social equality. "⁹² The revolution will not be made by anybody. "Revolutions are never made, neither by individuals nor yet by secret societies. They come about automatically, in a measure; the power of things, the current of events and facts, produces them. They are long preparing in the depth of the obscure consciousness of the masses—then they break out suddenly, not seldom on apparently slight occasion."⁹³ The revolution is already at hand to-day; ⁹⁴ everybody feels its approach;⁹⁵ we are to expect it within the nineteenth century.⁹⁶

1. "By the revolution we understand the unchaining of everything that is to-day called ' evil passions,' and the destruction of everything that in the same language is called ' public order '."⁹⁷

The revolution will rage not against men, but against relations and things.⁹⁸ "Bloody revolutions are often necessary, thanks to human stupidity; yet they are always an evil, a monstrous evil and a great disaster, not only with regard to the victims, but also for the sake of the purity and perfection of the purpose in whose name they take place."⁹⁹ "One must not wonder if in the first moment of their uprising the people kill many oppressors and exploiters—this misfortune, which is of no more importance anyhow than the damage done by a thunderstorm, can perhaps not be avoided. But this natural fact will be neither moral nor even useful. Political massacres have never killed parties; particularly have they always shown themselves impotent against the privileged classes; for authority is vested far less in men than in the position' which the privileged acquire by any institutions, particularly by the State and private property. If one would make a thorough revolution, therefore, one must attack things and relationships, destroy property and the State: then there is no need of destroying men and exposing one's self to the inevitable reaction which the slaughtering of men always has provoked and always will provoke in every society. But, in order to have the right to deal humanely with men without danger to the revolution, one must be inexorable toward things and relationships, destroy everything, and first and foremost property and its inevitable consequence the State. This is the whole secret of the revolution."¹⁰⁰

"The revolution, as the power of things to-day necessarily presents it before us, will not be national, but international,—that is, universal. In view of the threatened league of all privileged interests and all reactionary powers in Europe, in view of the terrible instrumentalities that a shrewd organization puts at their disposal, in view of the deep chasm that to-day yawns between the bourgeoisie and the laborers everywhere, no revolution can count on success if it does not speedily extend itself beyond the individual nation to all other nations. But the revolution can never cross the frontiers and become general unless it has in it the foundations for this generality; that is, unless it is pronouncedly socialistic, and, by equality and justice, destroys the State and establishes liberty. For nothing can better inspire and uplift the sole true power of the century, the laborers, than the complete liberation of labor and the shattering of all institutions for the protection of hereditary property and of capital."¹⁰¹ "A political and national revolution cannot win, therefore, unless the political revolution becomes social, and the national revolution, by the very fact of its fundamentally socialistic and State-destroying character, becomes a universal revolution."¹⁰²

2. "The revolution, as we understand it, must on its very first day completely and fundamentally destroy the State and all State institutions. This destruction will have the following natural and necessary effects. (a) The bankruptcy of the State, (b) The cessation of State collection of private debts, whose payment is thenceforth left to the debtor's pleasure, (c) The cessation of the payment of taxes, and of the levying of direct or indirect imposts. (d) The dissolution of the army, the courts, the corps of office-holders, the police, and the clergy, (e) The stoppage of the official administration of justice, the abolition of all that is called juristic law and of its exercise. Hence, the valuelessness, and the consignment to an auto-daft, of all titles to property, testamentary dispositions, bills of sale, deeds of gift, judgments of courts—in short, of the whole mass of papers relating to private law. Everywhere, and in regard to everything, the revolutionary fact in place of the law created and guaranteed by the State, (f) The confiscation of all productive capital and instruments of labor in favor of the associations of laborers, which will use them for collective production, (g) The confiscation of all Church and State property, as well as of the bullion in private hands, for the benefit of the commune formed by the league of the associations of laborers. In return for the confiscated goods, those who are affected bv the confiscation receive from the commune their absolute necessities; they are free to acquire more afterward by their labor."¹⁰³

The destruction will be followed by the reshaping. Hence, (h) "The organization of the commune by the permanent association of the barricades and by its organ, the council of the revolutionary commune, to which every barricade, every street, every quarter, sends one or two responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions. The council of the commune can appoint executive committees out of its membership for the various branches of the revolutionary administration, (i) The declaration of the capital, insurgent and organized as a commune, that, after the righteous destruction of the State of authority and guardianship, it renounces the right (or rather the usurpation) of governing the provinces and setting a standard for them, (k) The summons to all provinces, communities, and associations, to follow the example given by the capital, first to organize themselves in revolutionary form, then to send to a specified meeting-place responsible and revocable representatives with binding instructions, and so to constitute the league of the insurgent associations, communities, and provinces, and to organize a revolutionary power capable of defeating the reaction. The sending, not of official commissioners of the revolution with some sort of badges, but of agitators for the revolution, to all the provinces and communities—especially to the peasants, who cannot be revolutionized by scientific principles nor yet by the edicts of any dictatorship, but only by the revolutionary fact itself: that is, by the inevitable effects of the complete cessation of official State activity in all the communities. The abolition of the national State, not only in other senses, but in this,—that all foreign countries, provinces, communities, associations, nay, all individuals who have risen in the name of the same principles, without regard to the present State boundaries, are accepted as part of the new political system and nationality; and that, on the other hand, it shall exclude from membership those provinces, communities, associations, or personages, of the same country, who take the side of the reaction. Thus must the universal revolution, by the very fact of its binding the insurgent countries together for joint defence, march on unchecked over the abolished boundaries and the ruins of the formerly existing States to its triumph."¹⁰⁴

II. "To serve, to organize, and to hasten"¹⁰⁵ "the revolution, which must everywhere be the work of the people"¹⁰⁶ —this alone is the task of those who foresee the course of evolution. We have to perform "midwife's services "¹⁰⁷ for the new time, "to help on the birth of the revolution."¹⁰⁸

To this end we must, "first, spread among the masses thoughts that correspond to the instincts of the masses."109 "What keeps the salvation-bringing thought from going through the laboring masses with a rush? Their ignorance; and particularly the political and religious prejudices which, thanks to the exertions of the ruling classes, to this day obscure the laborer's natural thought and healthy feelings."110 "Hence the aim must consist in making him completely conscious of what he wants, evoking in him the thought that corresponds to his impulses. If once the thoughts of the laboring masses have mounted to the level of their impulses, then will their will be soon determined and their power irresistible."¹¹¹

Furthermore, we must "form, not indeed the army of the revolution,—the army can never be anything but the people,—but yet a sort of staff for the revolutionary army. These must be devoted, energetic, talented men, who, above all, love the people without ambition and vanity, and who have the faculty of mediating between the revolutionary thought and the instincts of the people. No very great number of such men is requisite. A hundred revolutionists firmly and seriously bound together are enough for the international organization of all Europe. Two or three hundred revolutionists are enough for the organization of the largest country."¹¹²

Here, especially, is the field for the activity of secret societies.¹¹³ "In order to serve, organize, and hasten the general revolution "¹¹⁴ Bakunin founded the Alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste. It was to pursue a double purpose: "(a) The spreading of correct views about politics, economics, and philosophical questions of every kind, among the masses in all countries; an active propaganda by newspapers, pamphlets, and books, as well as by the founding of public associations, (b) The winning of all wise, energetic, silent, well-disposed men who are sincerely devoted to the idea; the covering of Europe, and America too so far as possible, with a network of self-sacrificing revolutionists, strong by unity."¹¹⁵

Citations

1. Printed in "Œuvres de Michel Bakounine "(1895) pp. 1-205, under the title "Fédéralisme, socialisme, et antithéologisme."

2. Printed in "L' Alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l' Association internationale des travailleurs "(1873) pp. 118-35.

3. Only fragments have been printed : one under the title "L' Empire knoutogermanique et la Révolution sociale "(1871), a second under the title "Dieu et l'Etat "(1882), a third under the same title in "Œuvres de Michel Bakounine"(1895) pp. 281-326.

4. Printed in Dragomanoff, "Michail Bakunins sozial-politischer Briefwechsel mit Alexander Iw. Herzen und Ogarjow, "German translation by Mimes (1885) pp. 358-64.

5. A part is printed in French translation, in "L' Alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'Association internationale des travailleurs "(1878) pp. 90-95, the rest in Dragomanoff pp. 371-83.

6. "L' Alliance de la démocratie socialiste et l'Association internationale des travailleurs "p. 89 ; Dragomanoff p. IX.

7. Ba. "Briefe "pp. 223, 233, 266, 272.

8. Ba. "Dieu "p. 34.

9. Ib. p. 33.

10. Ib. p. 3.

11. Ib. p. 52.

12. Ba. "Proposition "p. 104.

13. Ba. "Dieu "p. 52.

14. Ib. p. 7.

15. Ib. p. 16.

16. Ib. p. 16.

17. Ib. p. 16.

18. Ba. "Proposition"p. 155.

19. Ba. "Proposition"p. 155.

20. Ba. "Dieu "p. 16.

21. Ib. pp. 27-8.

22. Ba. "Programme "p. 382.

23. Ba. "Dieu "p. 30.

24. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 287.

25. Ib. p. 285.

26. Ba. "Programme "p. 382.

27. Ba. "Articles "p. 113.

28. Ba. "Statuts "p. 125.

29. Ib. p. 125.

30. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 281 .

31. Ba. "Statuts "pp. 129-31.

32. Ba. "Proposition "pp. 17-18.

33. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 281.

34. Ba. "Proposition "pp. 17-18.

35. Ba. "Proposition "p. 18.

36. Ba. "Statuts "p. 133.

37. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 285.

38. Ba. "Proposition"p. 134.

39. Ba. "Dieu"p. 19.

40. Ib. p. 87.

41. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 287.

42. Ba. "Dieu "p. 20.

43. Ib. p. 97.

44. Ib. p. 9.

45. Ib. p. 11.

46. Ba. "Dieu. "Œuvres p. 288.

47. Ba. "Dieu "pp. 29-30.

48. Ba. "Proposition "p. 154.

49. Ib. p. 10.

50. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres pp. 287-8.

51. Ba. "Dieu "p. 14.

52. Ib. p. 65.

53. Ib. p. 53.

54. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 287.

55. Ba. "Articles "p. 113.

56. Ba. "Statuts "p. 125.

57. Ba. "Statuts "p. 125.

58. Ba. "Dieu "p. 11.

59. Ba. "Dieu "CEuvres pp. 277-8.

60. Ib. p. 281.

61. Ib. p. 279.

62. Ib. p. 281.

63. Ib. p. 283.

64. Ba. "Proposition "pp. 16-18.

65. Ib. p. 20.

66. Ba. "Proposition "p. 16.

67. Ib. pp. 16-17.

68. Ib. pp. 17-18.

69. Ib. p. 17.

70. Ib. p. 18.

71. Ba. "Statuts "p. 128,.

72. Ba. "Dieu "Œuvres p. 324.

73. Ib. pp. 323-4.

74. Ba. "Proposition "pp. 32-3.

75. Ba. "Proposition "pp. 26-7.

76. Ba. "Dieu"p. 14.

77. Ib. p. 14.

78. Ba. "Programme "p. 882.

79. Ba. "Articles"p. 113.

80. Ba. "Statuts "p. 125.

81. Ib. p. 125.

82. Ba, "Proposition"pp. 54-5.

83. Ib. p. 59.

84. Ba. "Statuts "p. 133.

85. Ba. "Proposition "p. 55.

86. Ba. "Statuts "p. 133.

87. Ba. "Discours "p. 27.

88. Ba. "Proposition "p. 56.

89. Ba. "Discours "p. 28.

90. Ba. "Die-it. "p. 10.

91. Ib. p. 18.

92. Ib. p. 45.

93. Ba. "Statuts "p. 132.

94. Ib. p. 125.

95. Ba. "Articles "p. 113.

96. Ba. "Utatuts "p. 125.

97. Ba. "Statute "p. 129.

98. Ib. p. 126.

99. Ba. "Volkssache "p. 309.

100. Ba. "Statuts "pp. 127-8.

101. Ib. p. 125.

102. Ib. p. 131.

103. Ba. "Statuts "pp. 129-30. [Bakunin is writing in a world where the Church is everywhere part of the State machine. Would his words about Church property apply equally, according to him, in the United States, where the Church property is in general made up of the free gifts of individual believers? Perhaps; for he would have no love for the Church even here, and he is obviously hostile to anything in the nature of mortmain. If so, how about college property ?]

104. Ba. "Statuts " pp. 130-31.

105. Ib. p. 125.

106. Ib. p. 131.

107. Ba. "Volkssache "p. 309.

108. Ba. "Statuts "p. 132.

109. Ib. p. 132.

110. Ba, "Articles"p. 103.

111. Ba. "Articles "p. 103.

112. Ba. "Statuts "p. 132.

113. Ib. p. 132.

114. Ib. p. 125.

115. Ib. pp. 125-6.

IX

Tolstoi's Teaching

1-General

1. Lef Nikolayevitch Tolstoi was born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, district of Krapivna, government of Tula. From 1843 to 1846 he studied in Kazan at first oriental languages, then jurisprudence. After a lengthy stay at Yasnaya Polyana, he entered an artillery regiment in the Caucasus, in 1851; he became an officer, remained in Caucasus til 1853, then served in the Crimean war, and left the army in 1855.

Tolstoi now lived at first in St. Petersburg. In 1857, he took a lengthy tour in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland. After his return he lived mostly in Moscow till 1860. IN 1860-1861 he traveled in Germany, France, Italy, England, and Belgium; in Brussels he made the acquaintance of Prouhon.

Since 1861 Tolstoi has lived almost uninterruptedly at Yasnaya Polyana, as at once agriculturist and author.

Tolstoi has published numerous works; his works up to 1878 are mostly stories, among which the two novels "War and Peace"and "Anna Karenina"are notable; his later works are mostly of a philosophical nature.

2. Of special importance for Tolstoi's teaching about law, the State, and property are his works "My Confession"(1879), "The Gospel in Brief"(1880), "What I Believe"(1884) [also known in English as "My Religion"], "What Shall We Do Then?"(1885), "On Life"(1887), "The Kingdom Of God is Within You; or, Christianity not a mystical doctrine, but a new life-conception"(1893).

3. Tolstoi does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property "Anarchism." He designates as "Anarchism"the teaching which sets up as its goal a life without government and wishes to see this realized by the application of force.*

2-Basis

According to Tolstoi our supreme law is love; from this he derives the commandment not to resist evil by force.

1. Tolstoi designates "Christianity"as his basis; but by Christianity he means not the doctrine of one of the Christian churches, neither the Orthodox nor the Catholic nor that of any of the Protestant bodies, but the pure teaching of Christ.

"Strange as it may sound, the churches have always been not merely alien but downright hostile to the techings of Christ, and they must needs to be so. The churches are not, as many think, institutions that are based on a Christian origin and have only erred a little from the right way; the churches, as such, as associations that assert their infallibility, are anti-Christian institutions.

Anarchism

By

Dr. Paul Eltzbacher

CONTENTS

Translator's Preface