and very dear in their eyes, they give the term a meaning quite
different from the conception entertained by us, materialists and
Revolutionary Socialists. Indeed, they never speak of it without
immediately adding another word, _authority_--a word and a thing which
we detest with all our heart.
What is authority? Is it the inevitable power of the natural laws which
manifest themselves in the necessary concatenation and succession of
phenomena in the physical and social worlds? Indeed, against these
laws revolt is not only forbidden--it is even impossible. We may
misunderstand them or not know them at all, but we cannot disobey them;
because they constitute the basis and fundamental conditions of our
existence; they envelop us, penetrate us, regulate all our movements,
thoughts, and acts; even when we believe that we disobey them, we only
show their omnipotence.
Yes, we are absolutely the slaves of these laws. But in such slavery
there is no humiliation, or, rather, it is not slavery at all. For
slavery supposes an external master, a legislator outside of him whom he
commands, while these laws are not outside of us; they are inherent
in us; they constitute our being, our whole being, physically,
intellectually, and morally: we live, we breathe, we act, we think, we
wish only through these laws. Without them we are nothing, _we are not_.
Whence, then, could we derive the power and the wish to rebel against
them?
In his relation to natural laws but one liberty is possible to man--that
of recognizing and applying them on an ever-extending scale in
conformity with the object of collective and individual emancipation or
humanization which he pursues. These laws, once recognized, exercise an
authority which is never disputed by the mass of men. One must, for
instance, be at bottom either a fool or a theologian or at least a
metaphysician, jurist, or bourgeois economist to rebel against the law
by which twice two make four. One must have faith to imagine that fire
will not burn nor water drown, except, indeed, recourse be had to some
subterfuge founded in its turn on some other natural law. But these
revolts, or, rather, these attempts at or foolish fancies of an
impossible revolt, are decidedly the exception; for, in general, it may
be said that the mass of men, in their daily lives, acknowledge the
government of common sense--that is, of the sum of the natural laws
generally recognized--in an almost absolute fashion.
The great misfortune is that a large number of natural laws, already
established as such by science, remain unknown to the masses, thanks to
the watchfulness of these tutelary governments that exist, as we know,
only for the good of the people. There is another difficulty--namely,
that the major portion of the natural laws connected with the
development of human society, which are quite as necessary, invariable,
fatal, as the laws that govern the physical world, have not been duly
established and recognized by science itself.
Once they shall have been recognized by science, and then from science,
by means of an extensive system of popular education and instruction,
shall have passed into the consciousness of all, the question of
liberty will be entirely solved. The most stubborn authorities must
admit that then there will be no need either of political organization
or direction or legislation, three things which, whether they emanate
from the will of the sovereign or from the vote of a parliament elected
by universal suffrage, and even should they conform to the system of
natural laws--which has never been the case and never will be the
case--are always equally fatal and hostile to the liberty of the masses
from the very fact that they impose upon them a system of external and
therefore despotic laws.
The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws
because he has _himself_ recognized them as such, and not because they
have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever,
divine or human, collective or individual.
Suppose a learned academy, composed of the most illustrious
representatives of science; suppose this academy charged with
legislation for and the organization of society, and that, inspired only
by the purest love of truth, it frames none but laws in absolute harmony
with the latest discoveries of science. Well, I maintain, for my part,
that such legislation and such organization would be a monstrosity,
and that for two reasons: first, that human science is always and
necessarily imperfect, and that, comparing what it has discovered with
what remains to be discovered, we may say that it is still in its
cradle. So that were we to try to force the practical life of men,
collective as well as individual, into strict and exclusive conformity
with the latest data of science, we should condemn society as well as
individuals to suffer martyrdom on a bed of Procrustes, which would soon
end by dislocating and stifling them, life ever remaining an infinitely
greater thing than science.
The second reason is this: a society which should obey legislation
emanating from a scientific academy, not because it understood itself
the rational character of this legislation (in which case the existence
of the academy would become useless), but because this legislation,
emanating from the academy, was imposed in the name of a science which
it venerated without comprehending--such a society would be a society,
not of men, but of brutes. It would be a second edition of those
missions in Paraguay which submitted so long to the government of the
Jesuits. It would surely and rapidly descend to the lowest stage of
idiocy.
But there is still a third reason which would render such a government
impossible--namely that a scientific academy invested with a
sovereignty, so to speak, absolute, even if it were composed of the most
illustrious men, would infallibly and soon end in its own moral and
intellectual corruption. Even to-day, with the few privileges allowed
them, such is the history of all academies. The greatest scientific
genius, from the moment that he becomes an academician, an officially
licensed _savant_, inevitably lapses into sluggishness. He loses his
spontaneity, his revolutionary hardihood, and that troublesome and
savage energy characteristic of the grandest geniuses, ever called
to destroy old tottering worlds and lay the foundations of new. He
undoubtedly gains in politeness, in utilitarian and practical wisdom,
what he loses in power of thought. In a word, he becomes corrupted.
It is the characteristic of privilege and of every privileged position
to kill the mind and heart of men. The privileged man, whether
politically or economically, is a man depraved in mind and heart. That
is a social law which admits of no exception, and is as applicable to
entire nations as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It is the
law of equality, the supreme condition of liberty and humanity. The
principal object of this treatise is precisely to demonstrate this truth
in all the manifestations of human life.
A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society
would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to
quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established
powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society
confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of
its government and direction.
But that which is true of scientific academies is also true of all
constituent and legislative assemblies, even those chosen by universal
suffrage. In the latter case they may renew their composition, it is
true, but this does not prevent the formation in a few years' time of a
body of politicians, privileged in fact though not in law, who, devoting
themselves exclusively to the direction of the public affairs of a
country, finally form a sort of political aristocracy or oligarchy.
Witness the United States of America and Switzerland.
Consequently, no external legislation and no authority--one, for that
matter, being inseparable from the other, and both tending to the
servitude of society and the degradation of the legislators themselves.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought.
In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker;
concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect
or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such
a _savant_. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the
_savant_ to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and
with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character,
their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism
and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority
in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions,
and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no
infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever
respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an
individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would
be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my
undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an
instrument of the will and interests of others.
If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness
to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary,
their indications and even their directions, it is because their
authority is imposed upon me by no one, neither by men nor by God.
Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their
counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would
make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps
of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon
me by my own reason. I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all
its details and positive developments, any very large portion of
human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a
comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for
industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I
receive and I give--such is human life. Each directs and is directed
in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but
a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary
authority and subordination.
This same reason forbids me, then, to recognize a fixed, constant, and
universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable
of grasping in that wealth of detail, without which the application of
science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of
social life. And if such universality could ever be realized in a single
man, and if he wished to take advantage thereof to impose his authority
upon us, it would be necessary to drive this man out of society, because
his authority would inevitably reduce all the others to slavery and
imbecility. I do not think that society ought to maltreat men of genius
as it has done hitherto; but neither do I think it should indulge them
too far, still less accord them any privileges or exclusive rights
whatsoever; and that for three reasons: first, because it would often
mistake a charlatan for a man of genius; second, because, through such
a system of privileges, it might transform into a charlatan even a real
man of genius, demoralize him, and degrade him; and, finally, because
it would establish a master over itself.
To sum up. We recognize, then, the absolute authority of science,
because the sole object of science is the mental reproduction, as
well-considered and systematic as possible, of the natural laws inherent
in the material, intellectual, and moral life of both the physical and
the social worlds, these two worlds constituting, in fact, but one and
the same natural world. Outside of this only legitimate authority,
legitimate because rational and in harmony with human liberty, we
declare all other authorities false, arbitrary and fatal.
We recognize the absolute authority of science, but we reject the
infallibility and universality of the _savant_. In our church--if I may
be permitted to use for a moment an expression which I so detest: Church
and State are my two _betes noires_--in our church, as in the Protestant
church, we have a chief, an invisible Christ, science; and, like the
Protestants, more logical even than the Protestants, we will suffer
neither pope, nor council, nor conclaves of infallible cardinals, nor
bishops, nor even priests. Our Christ differs from the Protestant and
Christian Christ in this--that the latter is a personal being, ours
impersonal; the Christian Christ, already completed in an eternal past,
presents himself as a perfect being, while the completion and perfection
of our Christ, science, are ever in the future: which is equivalent to
saying that they will never be realized. Therefore, in recognizing
_absolute science_ as the only absolute authority, we in no way
compromise our liberty.
I mean by the words "absolute science," the truly universal science
which would reproduce ideally, to its fullest extent and in all its
infinite detail, the universe, the system or co-ordination of all the
natural laws manifested by the incessant development of the world. It is
evident that such a science, the sublime object of all the efforts of
the human mind, will never be fully and absolutely realized. Our Christ,
then, will remain eternally unfinished, which must considerably take
down the pride of his licensed representatives among us. Against that
God the Son in whose name they assume to impose upon us their insolent
and pedantic authority, we appeal to God the Father, who is the real
world, real life, of which he (the Son) is only a too imperfect
expression, whilst we real beings, living, working, struggling, loving,
aspiring, enjoying, and suffering, are its immediate representatives.
But, while rejecting the absolute, universal, and infallible authority
of men of science, we willingly bow before the respectable, although
relative, quite temporary, and very restricted authority of the
representatives of special sciences, asking nothing better than to
consult them by turns, and very grateful for such precious information
as they may extend to us, on condition of their willingness to receive
from us on occasions when, and concerning matters about which, we are
more learned than they. In general, we ask nothing better than to see
men endowed with great knowledge, great experience, great minds, and,
above all, great hearts, exercise over us a natural and legitimate
influence, freely accepted, and never imposed in the name of any
official authority whatsoever, celestial or terrestrial. We accept all
natural authorities and all influences of fact, but none of right; for
every authority or every influence of right, officially imposed as such,
becoming directly an oppression and a falsehood, would inevitably impose
upon us, as I believe I have sufficiently shown, slavery and absurdity.
In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged,
licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from
universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of
a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense
majority in subjection to them.
This is the sense in which we are really Anarchists.
The modern idealists understand authority in quite a different way.
Although free from the traditional superstitions of all the existing
positive religions, they nevertheless attach to this idea of authority
a divine, an absolute meaning. This authority is not that of a truth
miraculously revealed, nor that of a truth rigorously and scientifically
demonstrated. They base it to a slight extent upon quasi-philosophical
reasoning, and to a large extent on vaguely religious faith, to a large
extent also on sentiment, ideally, abstractly poetical. Their religion
is, as it were, a last attempt to divinize all that constitutes humanity
in men.
This is just the opposite of the work that we are doing. In behalf
of human liberty, dignity, and prosperity, we believe it our duty to
recover from heaven the goods which it has stolen and return them to
earth. They, on the contrary, endeavoring to commit a final religiously
heroic larceny, would restore to heaven, that divine robber, finally
unmasked, the grandest, finest, and noblest of humanity's possessions.
It is now the freethinkers' turn to pillage heaven by their audacious
impiety and scientific analysis.
The idealists undoubtedly believe that human ideas and deeds, in order
to exercise greater authority among men, must be invested with a divine
sanction. How is this sanction manifested? Not by a miracle, as in the
positive religions, but by the very grandeur or sanctity of the ideas
and deeds: whatever is grand, whatever is beautiful, whatever is noble,
whatever is just, is considered divine. In this new religious cult every
man inspired by these ideas, by these deeds, becomes a priest, directly
consecrated by God himself. And the proof? He needs none beyond the
very grandeur of the ideas which he expresses and the deeds which he
performs. These are so holy that they can have been inspired only by
God.
Such, in few words, is their whole philosophy: a philosophy of
sentiments, not of real thoughts, a sort of metaphysical pietism. This
seems harmless, but it is not so at all, and the very precise, very
narrow, and very barren doctrine hidden under the intangible vagueness
of these poetic forms leads to the same disastrous results that all the
positive religions lead to--namely, the most complete negation of human
liberty and dignity.
To proclaim as divine all that is grand, just, noble, and beautiful in
humanity is to tacitly admit that humanity of itself would have been
unable to produce it--that is, that, abandoned to itself, its own nature
is miserable, iniquitous, base, and ugly. Thus we come back to the
essence of all religion--in other words, to the disparagement of
humanity for the greater glory of divinity. And from the moment that the
natural inferiority of man and his fundamental incapacity to rise by his
own effort, unaided by any divine inspiration, to the comprehension of
just and true ideas, are admitted, it becomes necessary to admit also
all the theological, political, and social consequences of the positive
religions. From the moment that God, the perfect and supreme being, is
posited face to face with humanity, divine mediators, the elect, the
inspired of God spring from the earth to enlighten, direct, and govern
in his name the human race.
May we not suppose that all men are equally inspired by God? Then,
surely, there is no further use for mediators. But this supposition is
impossible, because it is too clearly contradicted by the facts. It
would compel us to attribute to divine inspiration all the absurdities
and errors which appear, and all the horrors, follies, base deeds, and
cowardly actions which are committed, in the world. But perhaps, then,
only a few men are divinely inspired, the great men of history, the
_virtuous geniuses_, as the illustrious Italian citizen and prophet,
Giuseppe Mazzini, called them. Immediately inspired by God himself and
supported upon universal consent expressed by popular suffrage--_Dio e
Popolo_--such as these should be called to the government of human
societies.[3]
But here we are again fallen back under the yoke of Church and State.
It is true that in this new organization, indebted for its existence,
like all the old political organizations, to the _grace of God_, but
supported this time--at least so far as form is concerned, as a
necessary concession to the spirit of modern times, and just as in the
preambles of the imperial decrees of Napoleon III.--on the (pretended)
_will of the people_, the Church will no longer call itself Church; it
will call itself School. What matters it? On the benches of this School
will be seated not children only; there will be found the eternal minor,
the pupil confessedly forever incompetent to pass his examinations,
rise to the knowledge of his teachers, and dispense with their
discipline--the people.[4] The State will no longer call itself
Monarchy; it will call itself Republic: but it will be none the less the
State--that is, a tutelage officially and regularly established by a
minority of competent men, _men of virtuous genius or talent_, who will
watch and guide the conduct of this great, incorrigible, and terrible
child, the people. The professors of the School and the functionaries of
the State will call themselves republicans; but they will be none the
less tutors, shepherds, and the people will remain what they have been
hitherto from all eternity, a flock. Beware of shearers, for where there
is a flock there necessarily must be shepherds also to shear and devour
it.
The people, in this system, will be the perpetual scholar and pupil. In
spite of its sovereignty, wholly fictitious, it will continue to serve
as the instrument of thoughts, wills, and consequently interests not its
own. Between this situation and what we call liberty, the only real
liberty, there is an abyss. It will be the old oppression and old
slavery under new forms; and where there is slavery there is misery,
brutishness, real social _materialism_, among the privileged classes as
well as among the masses.
_In deifying human things the idealists always end in the triumph of a
brutal materialism._ And this for a very simple reason: the divine
evaporates and rises to its own country, heaven, while the brutal alone
remains actually on earth.
Yes, the necessary consequence of theoretical idealism is practically
the most brutal materialism; not, undoubtedly, among those who sincerely
preach it--the usual result as far as they are concerned being that they
are constrained to see all their efforts struck with sterility--but
among those who try to realize their precepts in life, and in all
society so far as it allows itself to be dominated by idealistic
doctrines.
To demonstrate this general fact, which may appear strange at first,
but which explains itself naturally enough upon further reflection,
historical proofs are not lacking.