tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26398560641673925452024-03-18T20:26:58.186-07:00Internet Archive of Individualist Anarchism"Because every person who, searching his own inwardness, extracts what was mysteriously hidden therein is a shadow eclipsing any form of society which can exist under the sun!" Renzo Novatore. Towards the creative nothing.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-34400330276638412312012-12-31T19:08:00.002-08:002012-12-31T19:08:41.746-08:00Contributions to the History of Individualism* by Anselm Ruest and Salomo Friedlaender<div id="thework">
<em>“When one thoroughly knows and deeply examines the notion of
individuality and the consequences that derive from the principle that
is its basis, meaning that every man is not only related to the world in
a particular way, but also to every object in the world and to every
idea that these objects awaken, one is astonished that so much natural
discord is possible side by side with so much historical concord.” </em><br />
<em> </em>
<br />
This meditation of Hebbel — it is found in his <em>Journal</em> —
gives us a precise idea of the individualist concept. In fact, if one
doesn’t create individualism, if one can’t create individualism from
mass systems, it seems to develop without conflicts in the “I” taken
separately, as if one acts in terms of a tacit contract, a secret
agreement. Not just the individual, taken in the most ordinary sense,
doesn’t escape this, but every artist, every philosopher, every
intellectual creator, even if he presents himself as gifted with
impersonal, disinterested, even social ideas, will appear to the
observant and intelligent psychologist as an individual, completely
isolatable phenomenon. This “immanent individualism” could not avoid
being perceptible or grasped, the individual himself could not find
himself enriched from the fact of his existence, and could not develop
himself more magnificently. But after three or four centuries, one feels
the awareness of the individual growing as an existence apart, one
notices the distinctive signs of the wonder that the perception of the I
reawakens. The ancients, who all the histories of philosophy teach,
barely perceived the I; it is necessary to get to the biographies of
Saint Augustine, Petrarch, Junius for the path to open up, but it is
with Pascal (around 1650) that modern individualism distinguishes itself
from all that had come before it.<br />
<br />
After his youth, Pascal started, with unlimited security, on the
sunny paths of discovery and renown; still young, he had already
achieved great fame. Suddenly he believed that he perceived that his I —
“immortal”, “distinctive” — had gone to perdition. Power, honor, glory
no longer appeared to him as anything but a vulgar chase after
accomplishments for which the instinct of the species “man” aims: it
seemed to him that only faith — christianity alone being able to isolate
the I — could enlighten every I about its true destiny. Let one
understand well: Pascal’s christianity was a particular creation,
uniquely personal for Pascal; in this and in no other part could he
recognize and distinguish his I. That this lucid and brilliant brain;
that this scientific skeptic, that this clear-sighted mathematician and
physicist could <em>believe</em> — was his faculty, his personal
individualist gift. He would have been quite astonished, besides, if he
had had to compare his faith with that of the masses. He thus attributed
to christianity all awareness: only it could have convinced man of his
infinite greatness and his tragic misery — that tragic misery to which
Pascal had been prey when his insight had left him calm before certain
problems impossible to solve. Faith was simply a means of
self-exaltation for him, of raising up his I...
<br />
Then the individual withdraws so much apart and in isolation that
he will dream of completing his moral isolation with physical
isolation, a method that is furthermore erroneous: but all apparently
physical individualism will now but the expression of a cultural,
intellectually effeminate sensibility. Here is Danie Defoe, the creator
of the “Robinsonade,” <a class="footnote" href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anselm-ruest-and-salomo-friedlaender-contributions-to-the-history-of-individualism#fn1" id="fn_back1">[1]</a> opening a century that never got away from robinsonades.<br />
<br />
That such an ordinary man who is no longer satisfied with his
home or his social environment, who the taste for adventure moves to go
in search of his fortune in distant lands, doesn’t present anything
particularly distinctive; but that he gets thrown on a deserted island,
separated from human society, forced to cope with his risk and danger,
and that his I acts thoughtlessly, instinctively, unconsciously in the
daily circumstances of life and the he acts so with regard to things and
people that appeared suddenly, unforeseen, that face to face with
traditional conceptions without slavishly recreating — individually and
intellectually — the environment he’d left — this is what demonstrates
in the poetic creator of Robinson a rare and original experience of the
I. Because Robinson is forced to remake, step by step, the entire road
covered by civilization, this nimble European , who responds, gifted
with all the intellectual and scientific acquisition of this time at the
threshold of mechanism, transforms himself into a serious, reflective
man with deep thoughts, who establishes his own calendar, writes a
newspaper and fabricates a religion fitting for his situation. If one
compares this religion with that of the homeland, one will quickly see
that what seems revolutionary is not, all told, so far from traditional
conventions and customs. Equally, the author didn’t want this — he
conceived a pretty fabulous novel and did it in a way that the world of
of discoveries carried out by his isolated I in Europe and elsewhere —
is understandable.
<br />
Transport Robinson from the dominion of experimentation in the
free air into that of sensibility, from fiction into the didactic, and
you have ont the most authentic forefathers of individualism — Rousseau.
<br />
You see how Emile, immediately after his birth, is taken to the
countryside — his Robinson Crusoe island. This is because the first day
spent in the unhealthy social environment could damage him, corrupting
his individualism. And there, in the countryside, Emile really develops
himself — though he doesn’t cease to be anxious about the outcome of his
development. What will he make of himself: a human being, an overhuman,
a god, an animal?<br />
<br />
Only, we are persuaded too quickly that Rousseau, very early in
Emile, had conceived his program of education — where had he taken it?
In observation, in experience, in the richest human knowledge — in the
human being considered generically. Often times, even he is not this
way: he played too easily with difficulties and his Emile comes to
possess a mind that holds nature as absolutely incapable of good and
evil. Despite his skillful system of education, manifestly acknowledged
as individualist, the French Revolution, which pays homage to Rousseau’s
hands/manias, was absolutely right to give a social meaning to the
slogan: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” It kept itself in the spirit of
Rousseau whose individualism did not conceive the isolated man, defined
separately, but the generic human being. No more than the way that
everyone in the eighteenth century and later Kant and Fichte conceived
it. How would it have been able to keep itself apart in this way. And
wasn’t Emile transported to the countryside from the womb of society?
<br />
This is where we share Hebbel’s astonishment: “When one examines
the notion of Individuality deeply... and the consequences that derive
from it... one is astonished that so much natural discord is possible
beside so much historical concord.” Emile never forgot his governor, the
eighteenth century; the nineteenth century honestly strove to say
goodbye to it. But the whole thing is to know whether the governor thus
pensioned off hasn’t come back in through the back door, whether the
very divorce according to the Rousseauian conception hasn’t forced the
real facts into an inevitable simplification. The personal, specific,
individual man wanted once and for all to clear out, to strip, to reach
the nineteenth century. But don’t let it be forgotten: when all is
accounted for, Individualism, the most consistent concern... of human
beings, has nothing to do with gods, with the greatness that can show
itself absolutely.<br />
<br />
Rousseau had not deeply examined “all the consequences that
derive from the notion of individuality.” Schleiermacher, Stirner and
Nietzsche did so like the true philosophers that they were. In
Schleiermacher’s <em>Monologues</em>, for the first time, we find the
happiness that is the privilege of the man who dares to consider himself
as a being “willed apart.” The universe, in its greatness, can seem to
want to crush me, but it cannot penetrate me, I, who am a formative and
indispensable part, and the further the unique strives to spread himself
out and his aim and his action, the more deeply he understands his
situation and his need for the cosmos.<br />
<br />
Goethe spoke somewhere of the higher happiness of the children of
the Earth. Personality! Schleiermacher and Goethe were metaphysicians:
according to them, one sees immediately where the concord “ side by side
with so much natural discord” comes from: the unique is such a powerful
person! I might object and say that this is the chain of appearances
that, in some way, govern the cosmos — that wants the necessary
precautionary measures to be taken. Nietzsche himself — who holds in his
hands the beginning and end of the last century — was a metaphysician
to the bottom of his heart, despite defending himself so bitterly, and
this is why, with his “eternal return,” he again mitigates the absolute,
irrational individualist, so that he conceived a mechanical development
of universal evolution, so that he believed in a constancy of “herds.”
And why is this? — aren’t even these composed of “I’s”? And, in the
meantime, someone, in the same century, held the key to the
“astonishment” that tormented Hebbel: “side by side with so much natural
discord,” and this someone was Max Stirner.<br />
<br />
The history of philosophy is greatly indebted to Stirner, at
least as much as to Berkeley who disturbed the changeable consciousness
in himself so much by speaking for the first time of the “world as our
representation.” Let’s accustom ourselves, therefore, once and for all,
to looking the ocean of eternally moving thoughts in the face, to
considering preconceived deductions, which one may deduce from dogmatic
idols as “the truth” and “the lie,” as unimportant. Let’s consider, once
and for all, things and thoughts as an eternal and magnificent play of
changing colors that come one after another on the cloak of the
infinite, that would not be conceivable to us except for our senses, in a
mixed condition, a condition of inner liquification, perhaps only in
death. In all instances, here is what is certain: This that, living
beings, we rarely have consciousness of our intimate link with the
cosmos — that our same, most affirmed excesses of consciousness seem to
evolve within the limits of a deliberate rupture, an intentional
separation with the universe, of the sort that we abandon ourselves that
much more blindly and confidently to our instincts that reveal our I to
us as a thing of extreme importance.<br />
<br />
If the eternal link of every I with the cosmos seems beyond
doubt, we don’t feel it; my neighbor may be infinitely sad and in
anguish, while <em>my</em> heart beats with joy and intoxication; at the
same time, A...’s eye sees different images that B...’s eye (even if a
sphere of feeling and sensations surely saturates the entire universe
and is exteriorized in much “enthusiasm, don’t I have the right to make
my individual consciousness rest on itself and to let every I, taken
separately, assert itself? There are two methods: one considers the I as
part of a whole that it doesn’t know — the other considers every I as a
whole that it knows, particularly through the manifestations of its
consciousness. This second method is the one that Max Stirner followed;
it is because he has “deeply examined” the notion of individuality and
its consequences, that he calls the I “the mortal and momentary creator
of its unique.” Not because it is this way, but because we...know it.
Therefore, if we turn towards Stirner for other suppositions, if one
wants to get some information on universal Harmony, the Creator of all
things, on will learn nothing. But if one knows that Stirner speaks of
every I as a unique in the totality of appearances, one learns valuable
things. Hebbel is interested in the universal and ends up being
astonished because side by side with such a differentiation there can be
“so much historical concord.” Stirner, himself, only knowing the joy of
logic, pushed a thought to its extreme theoretical consequence, caring
little how it would end up.
<br />
I would very much like to know what suppositions are more solidly
supported than these! A large portion of people offer us — and we are
so inured! — the “greatest” perspectives, the “most sublime”
conceptions, the “most unprejudiced” viewpoints: on what do they base
all this? It is certain that if Stirner had not considered Feuerbach’s
atheism as proven, he would not have explained individualism as he did.
But isn’t theism a proven fact? If it had been, Stirner would have
sought other grounds, would have found them and equally would have come
to extreme individualism. He had thus proceeded from Feuerbach, who had
defined religion as “a rupture of the human being with itself.” He
doesn’t ask whether Feuerbach’s definition was precise or not in itself,
rather asks how the rupture could be cured, repairing the rift. In
Feuerbach, the divine attributes had become manifestly human and, in
order to realize the ideal “of humanity,” the unique had to struggle
tirelessly to conquer them. It was still the “generic” human being of
the XVIII century. — No, Stirner cries, I am not that human being there,
I am the personal, individual, specific human being; the theological
ideal has cost me thousands of years of fruitless struggle, the “human”
ideal will not demand this of me. I myself (and every <em>unique like me</em>)
am in each moment as much the appearance of the human being as it
being, as its deepest essence. I have no envy splitting me in two,
chasing after a spook.<br />
<br />
In this way, he liberated himself from all the other ideal
spooks, and this is the way that he achieves his negations with the aim
of freeing the I from all “generic” determinisms — note it well:
universal, generic: <em>allgemein</em>. <a class="footnote" href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anselm-ruest-and-salomo-friedlaender-contributions-to-the-history-of-individualism#fn2" id="fn_back2">[2]</a>
This has nothing to do with the individual in its typical
manifestations. Stirner, in fact, this tireless and intrepid wrestler
with ideas has put them “at the service of what most potently and
sublimely agreed with him, at the service of his I. Now if you (and X
and Y) find that your I completes and “consumes” itself more in a world
of ideas nearer to idealism — to Schiller, for example, I leave it to
you; Stirner, the insurrectionist, the anarchist doesn’t prohibit this
to you — furthermore, he approves of you. He tells you only to be...
yourself.<br />
<br />
Thus Stirner has definitively dispelled the Hebbelian
astonishment. To open the eyes of human beings about their dependence,
their faith in authority, their sensibilities prompted by the external
world, the individualist principle starts with a scathing rebellion,
with discord, with an energetic call to your “uniqueness.” But the one
who shakes you, who moves you in this way, who puts your I back into
your own hands, is a human being like you, who speaks your language,
with the same passions, the same sensations that are yours. This is why
“side be side with so much natural discord, so much historical concord
is possible.”
<br />
<br />
<b>Notes </b><br />
<br />
<div class="fnline">
<a class="footnotebody" href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anselm-ruest-and-salomo-friedlaender-contributions-to-the-history-of-individualism#fn_back1" id="fn1">[1]</a> Novels about shipwrecks on deserted islands, of which <em>Robinson Crusoe</em> may have been the first, and was certainly the first to gain substantial popularity.
</div>
<div class="fnline">
<a class="footnotebody" href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anselm-ruest-and-salomo-friedlaender-contributions-to-the-history-of-individualism#fn_back2" id="fn2">[2]</a> The German word that can translate: universal, general, generic, common... in the German in the Italian text. </div>
<div class="fnline">
<br /></div>
<div class="fnline">
* from <em>L’Adunata dei Refrattari</em>, year VI, # 16, April 16,1927
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-59025058942603101312012-10-14T17:47:00.000-07:002012-12-31T19:16:33.213-08:00Anarchist Individualism and Amorous Comradeship* by Émile Armand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Emilearmand01.jpg/150px-Emilearmand01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="377" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Emilearmand01.jpg/150px-Emilearmand01.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
INDEX<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc1">Translator’s note </a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: black;"> </span></b>
<br />
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc2">Prologue </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc3">A Picture of the S</a>ituation </span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc4">The Social Ambiance
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc5">Racing up the Ladder of Appearances.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc6">The complexity of the human problem. </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc7">Anarchist Individualism </a></span></b></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc8">To live one’s own life
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc9">Anarchism.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc10">Origins of Anarchism
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc11">Society
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc12">Anarchist Individualism
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc13">The dominion of the “I”
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc14">The individualists and the systematic revolutionaries
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc15">The individualist’s conditions of existence
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc16">Our kind of Individualist. </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc17">Authority and Domination </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc18">The law of continual progress
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc19">The origin and evolution of domination
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc20">Concerning “good” and “evil” </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc21">To Live at Will </a></span></b></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc22">It’s worth it to live.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc23">The “I” and the happiness of living.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc24">To live for living’s sake.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc25">Not to suffer
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc26">The individualism of happiness
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc27">Cunning as a defensive weapon
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc28">Passive Resistance
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc29">Risks.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc30">Getting old: The complicated life
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc31">Faith.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc32">And this is what you call living?
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc33">The individualist city.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc34">The danger of mediocrity-rule.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc35">Critical activity
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc36">To enjoy physically. </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc37">Sensual life. Amorous Camaraderie. </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc38">Considerations on the idea of freedom </a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc39">What is love?
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc40">The social environment and sexual relations.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc41">Theory of sexual freedom
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc42">Sexual education.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc43">The emancipation of feelings
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc44">The Break-up </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc45">Lemon Drops (Aphorisms) </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc46">Greater Evils </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc47">Chastity
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc48">Jealousy
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc49">Flirting in love.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc50">The bourgeois caricature of free love.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc51">Obscenity, modesty, and sexual emancipation.
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc52">The parasites
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc53">Prostitution </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc54">A Full Life </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc55">Nudism
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc56">Reciprocity
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc57">A love with many faces
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc58">Variations on voluptuousness
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc59">Art and Science
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc60">Art for the artist
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc61">Reflections on poetic language and its modes of expression. </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc62">Poems
</a></span></b></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc63">The dream </a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc64">Sensibility
</a></span></div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc65">Progress or dementia? </a></span><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc66">Commentary without pretensions </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel3">
<b><span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc67">Epilogue </a></span></b><br />
</div>
<div class="tableofcontentline toclevel4">
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship#toc68">Emile Armand’s influence in Spain.
</a></span></div>
<br />
AVAILABLE TO SEE AND READ IN VARIOUS FORMATS <a href="http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-armand-anarchist-individualism-and-amorous-comradeship">HERE</a><br />
<br />
*translated by J, 2004. The texts in this anthology come from the book Anarchist Individualist Initiation, published by The Friends of Armand, Florence, Italy, 1956.
To live one’s own life: from the book Realism and Idealism Mixed, by Emile Armand. Published by the International Library, Paris, 1926 (Spanish version).
Lemon Drops: Fragments from the book Amorous Camaraderie.
A Full Life: in Free love and subversive sexuality — voluntary procreation. Conscious Generation Editorial Library, Valencia, 193?
Reflections on poetic language and its modes of expression and Poems: from the book, So sang an “outsider”, 1925.
Commentary without pretensions: Article published in the magazine Zenith, #98, February 1959.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-91389982301205761142011-11-02T17:59:00.000-07:002012-12-31T18:47:18.808-08:00Miguel Gimenez Igualada, spanish individualist anarchist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://alacantobrer.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/gimenezigualada.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="308" width="254" src="http://alacantobrer.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/gimenezigualada.gif" /></a></div>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Gim%C3%A9nez_Igualada">Miguel Giménez Igualada entry at english wikipedia</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-42543739477550632112011-10-31T00:27:00.000-07:002011-10-31T01:05:41.951-07:00Charles-Auguste Bontemps, french individualist anarchist<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.ephemanar.net/imagesdeux/bontemps_ch.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 236px;" src="http://www.ephemanar.net/imagesdeux/bontemps_ch.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Charles-Auguste Bontemps (1893 Nievre-1981 )was a french individualist anarchist, pacifist, freethinker-atheist and naturist writer and activist. He wrote alongside the anarcho-communist Maurice Joyeux the founding principles of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Federation_%28France%29">Federation Anarchiste</a>. Among the publications in which he wrote include Le Monde libertaire, Liberté, Le Droit de vivre, La Raison, Le Réfractaire. He defended what he called "social individualism" and "a collectivism of things and an individualism of persons". <br /><br />More on Bontemps here in an entry on him in <a href="http://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article7527&lang=fr">french at the International Dictionary of Anarchist Militants.</a> Source of the photo <a href="http://www.ephemanar.net/fevrier09.html">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-90469343003081284612011-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:002011-10-23T20:38:48.707-07:00Enrico Arrigoni, italian-american individualist anarchist<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://anarca-bolo.ch/a-rivista/335/img/pag59.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 288px; height: 400px;" src="http://anarca-bolo.ch/a-rivista/335/img/pag59.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Arrigoni is the one on the right with the newspaper. In this photo he is alongside italian anarchist Franco Leggio (left)<br /><br />Source of this photo http://anarca-bolo.ch/a-rivista/335/54.htm<br /><br />For more information on Arrigoni visit the wikipedia article on him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Arrigoni <br /><br />or his entry at Paul Avrich. Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America<br />http://books.google.com/books?id=8z8mdUYp-6gC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=enrico+arrigoni+totalitarian&source=bl&ots=cWwnaU_6sG&sig=Nc944GY6DvsWr0vHpVKcJd6z_Kw&hl=en&ei=_p4KTovsE8Tq0gGNrJGTAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=enrico%20arrigoni%20totalitarian&f=trueUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-25367287193187396182011-10-03T02:51:00.000-07:002011-10-03T02:55:27.250-07:00The Science of Society by Stephen Pearl Andrews<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/StephenPearlAndrews.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 167px; height: 255px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/StephenPearlAndrews.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><a href="http://www.archive.org/details/scienceofsociety00andr">Available in various formats for online reading and for download at archive.org</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-59392067871990558312011-09-28T03:01:00.000-07:002011-09-28T03:07:49.385-07:00L'En-Dehors: french individualist anarchist publication<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/EnDehors/edA-Titre.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 450px; height: 104px;" src="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/EnDehors/edA-Titre.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/EnDehors/Images/edA-Pub.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 324px; height: 468px;" src="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/EnDehors/Images/edA-Pub.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27EnDehors">wikipedia article on this publication</a><br /><a href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/">site with many articles from this publication</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-47029867461679847562011-09-28T02:41:00.000-07:002011-09-28T02:52:23.749-07:00La Mêlée: french individualist anarchist publication<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/LaMelee/lm-Titre.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 420px; height: 66px;" src="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/LaMelee/lm-Titre.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/">articles from this publication here</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-12546637604405185962011-09-28T02:30:00.000-07:002011-09-28T02:58:55.854-07:00L'Unique (1945-1956) : french individualist anarchist publication<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/LUnique/lu-Titre.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10phttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifx 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 350px; height: 80px;" src="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/LUnique/lu-Titre.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://fra.anarchopedia.org/images/d/db/1956_unique.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 203px; height: 285px;" src="http://fra.anarchopedia.org/images/d/db/1956_unique.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Unique">wikipedia article on L'Unique</a><br /><a href="http://www.la-presse-anarchiste.net/spip.php?rubrique1">Site with many articles from editions of this magazine</a><br /><a href="http://tresors.oublies.pagesperso-orange.fr/">another Site with articles from this publication</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-84682390158670305242011-09-28T02:20:00.000-07:002011-09-28T02:30:51.733-07:00Iniciales (1929-1937) : spanish individualist anarchist and naturist publication<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSxyf4d8BWawaiJj2HQEEqzDURvSs11pqpPg__IzCpoqCnTQdXn1TPf7h4KwDmh_MClpPXKqnA2gIdU_erNuswbfgcICmzK8ZiZg8of9zBROSJpsGTQxyN4xjCmjKlu5i9f8ErbuBdjc/s1600/iniciales.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 316px; height: 476px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsSxyf4d8BWawaiJj2HQEEqzDURvSs11pqpPg__IzCpoqCnTQdXn1TPf7h4KwDmh_MClpPXKqnA2gIdU_erNuswbfgcICmzK8ZiZg8of9zBROSJpsGTQxyN4xjCmjKlu5i9f8ErbuBdjc/s1600/iniciales.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iniciales">Wikipedia Article on Iniciales</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-57337155982259393022011-09-28T01:57:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:59:26.069-07:00Sacrilegious Laughter by Erinne VivaniIn the pale, sad twilight hour, pregnant with comic and tragic events, while all ridiculous pettiness achieves manifestation and crime is erected as a life system, as an athletic gymnastic drill, while the blood of revolutionary and non-revolutionary citizens bathes the beautiful lands of Italy, anarchist individualism — unique and radiant living and historical reality — blazes majestically and gloriously beyond so much civil and social putridity toward joy, toward liberty, toward the sun.<br /><br />The latest squall that raged suddenly in the cities and villages, has swept away people and things.<br /><br />It was predictable and fatal.<br /><br />The theory of love and meekness, propagated by all the Parties and all the proletarian organizations, absolutely could not resist the overwhelming flood.<br /><br />The party chiefs, instead of educating the working class in rebellion and freedom, kept it always prone and enslaved. They only had their sights on the number of followers, membership cards, votes, discipline, etc, with the sole aim of forming a herd that was willing to let them milk and sheer it.<br /><br />With a system of social political education of this sort, everyone knows what happened. The majority of proletarian who joined subversive parties and organizations willy-nilly, have gone over — bit by bit — to the enemy. What, pray tell, was the value of all the effusive praise that sages lavished on the proletariat — that poor wind-filled puppet — that some believed to be called by history to become the dictators of the world?<br /><br />Now the proletariat has gone over to fascism, because fascists command, if tomorrow the black priest were to command, it would be willing to worship them, as it worshiped the red priests yesterday.<br /><br />All the members of congregations have come out of the terrible storm badly, or rather extremely badly. Once again — and it won’t be the last time — the fraudulent bankruptcy of working class organizations has been declared. They have solemnly shown that they were not at all revolutionary or subversive, but reformist, state, church and shopkeeper organizations.<br /><br />The failure of the organizational method, in the struggles for the conquest of well-being and freedom, is precisely and absolutely evident. Despite this, revolutionaries — many libertarian communists included — still insist — bellowing like cows about the necessity and importance of organization, don’t notice that their method has inexorably, irremediably swept them away and thrown them into the abyss.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Individualists have laughed at all the compromises, all the renunciations, all the foul marketing, and still they laugh their irreverent, sacrilegious, cursed laughter.<br /><br />We always laugh at each and all, at those who manufacture revolvers, rifles, bayonets, machine guns, cannons, ammunition, chains, shackles, various instruments of torture for the workers, at those who build prisons and raise gallows for “their” brothers, at those who organize themselves, or rather link themselves, into leagues and unions, paying membership fees and fattening the swine, as they give up their human dignity by electing masters and shepherds.<br /><br />We laugh at those who shouts, “long live this and long live that,” at those who go to demonstrations ready to pay up and leave their bellies empty, at those who wait for the orders from the central committee of their party before they’ll rise up, at those who listen to leaders who exhort them to cowardice when they rise up, at those who wait for the sun of the future with arms crossed and stomachs empty, as if it could rise by itself from one minute to the next.<br /><br />And those subversives who, in the name of liberty, want to overthrow the current government so that they can replace it with a new tyranny, how they make us laugh!<br /><br />All symbols and all rites still provoke laughter in us. The religious procession is replaced with the march, the sermon with the rally in the same tone, the canopy with the banner. Portraits of rulers take the place of portraits of saints and madonnas, and the new christians, instead of singing sacred hymns, sing patriotic or subversive hymns. Nothing has changed, either in its form or its substance from twenty centuries ago to today.<br /><br />But we aren’t tired of our laughing.<br /><br />Our satanic laugher starts to boom like thunder and sends out flashes of lightning when we find ourselves before the worshipers of monstrous divine and human phantoms, which they call God, Religion, State, Fatherland, Humanity, Morality, Right, Duty, Custom, Altruism, Socialism, Communism, etc.<br /><br />These baleful phantoms, created from the ignorance, fear and cruelty of human beings, still today make the stupid demand that the free and strong individual sacrifice himself to them, but he, who loves boundless liberty and the noonday sun, shoots his scorching and poisonous arrows against all the cursed and infamous idols and, striking them, laughs and is happy.<br /><br />We laugh at all those who transform themselves into apostles of humanity and practice the craft of the preacher, promising earthly paradise and universal abundance; at those who want to give a single form to human society that numbers around two billion individuals each and every one different from the other; at those who, not able to live freely, pose as world redeemers, speaking of the rosy future while forgetting the black, cruel reality of the present. Finally, we laugh at all the poor in spirit who believe and hope in a radiant tomorrow, and faithfully and patiently await the reign of Saint Humanity.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Beyond the organizationalist, prophetic, christianizing, monomaniacal anarchism of those who, like the young monk of Assisi, preach the theory of love and meekness, according to which our I “must gain by losing and rise by submitting,” there is the Anarchism of the free, virgin and rebellious instinct of refractories, nihilists, innovators, iconoclasts, amoralists, aristocrats, individualist, to whose proud, invincible and immortal breed I belong.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">From Proletario</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-91388199819419291392011-09-28T01:54:00.001-07:002011-09-28T01:56:00.322-07:00Introduction to Max Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum by John Henry Mackay<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.dadaweb.de/images/thumb/e/e4/John_Henry_Mackay.gif/240px-John_Henry_Mackay.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 281px;" src="http://www.dadaweb.de/images/thumb/e/e4/John_Henry_Mackay.gif/240px-John_Henry_Mackay.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a>At the beginning of the 1840s, in a wine bar in northern Friedrichstrasse in Berlin — it was opposite the present Zentralhotel and its proprietor was named Hippel — there gathered every evening a circle of men who called themselves “The Free”, or at least they were so-called by the public. It was named “The Free” because its members belonged to the extreme left in the intellectual and political movement of those days.<br /><br />Whatever may have been fabricated about it, the circle never formed itself into an organization. It was and remained an informal society, to which everyone had entrance who was more or less dissatisfied with the prevailing conditions, was striving for its improvement, its reorganization, or even its overthrow — and, above all, did not shrink from any, however sharp word of criticism of it. Visitors came and went, came again, and stayed away. But the core of the remarkable society was almost unchanged for probably a decade, through 1848 and beyond, until it fell apart in the grim period of ever increasing reaction, to disintegrate finally under its pressure, which had become unbearable.<br /><br />The principle representatives of this core were personalities, often and loudly named, whose courageous and relentless criticism of their times again and again drew the attention of the wide public to them. Above all there was their recognized head, Bruno Bauer, the Bible critic — who had lost his position as privatdocent — and restlessly active publicist. He was the opponent and “exposer” of Hegel, and the publisher-editor of the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, the camp of the entire young movement of “criticism” of the “masses”, under which catchword all endeavors inimical to the “intellect” were gradually combined. Beside him, but entirely under his influence, stood his brother Edgar, though he was taken away from the circle by his sentence to several years in prison because of an all too sharp publication against church and state. A close friend of the two brothers, Ludwig Buhl, the translator of Louis Blanc and Casanova, even surpassed in viciousness the criticism of the Bauers. When from the row of names completely forgotten today are added those of the gymnasium teacher Koppen, the literary figure Friedrich Saß, and the newspaper writer Dr. Eduard Meyen — perhaps also the frequently mentioned Dr. Adolf Rutenberg and Arthur Müller, the editor of Die ewige Lampe — then the inner circle of The Free appears more or less complete. To its wider circle belonged, as was said, almost everyone who was carried away in that time, whose days were pregnant with hope, and who let themselves be swept along. Those names are far too many to be able to number even a few further ones here. Yet, let at least three of these visitors be recalled who honored the society with a fleeting visit, since their names resound to us: Georg Herwegh, Arnold Rüge, and Hoffmann von Fallersleben.<br /><br />The tone of the circle was free, loud, and — in spite of the occasional presence of ladies — often cynical. Each expressed what he thought. The questions of the day, such as the socialist movement, which was still in its infancy, censorship, the student and religious movement, the Jewish question, and the question of women’s rights — all gave inexhaustible matter for long conversations and heated debates, and always they found themselves in sharpest contrast to the ruling authorities. Here too the year 1848 threw its shadow ahead.<br /><br />They smoked much, but drank only moderately. Hippel, the proprietor, served them on credit. When he sometimes did not, then it could happen that they went down Under den Linden to beg. When they were more by themselves, the evenings also often concluded with long pipes and a harmless game of cards.<br /><br />A circle, always stimulating and of undoubted significance for the history of the pre- March period [leading up to the revolution of March 1848], it was attractive and yet also repulsive, according to the type and behavior of its visitors; and it is unforgettable through one man, who probably belonged to it from its very beginning, but certainly up to its end.<br /><br />This one man was a slender, always carefully dressed man of middle height. His short, blond sideburns left his chin free; behind steel glasses calm and friendly blue eyes looked out on people and things; and a smile inclined to light irony tended to play around his fine mouth.<br /><br />His conduct and his way of life were as simple and unobtrusive as his outward appearance. Almost without needs, also without that for a more intimate friendship, he kept himself with inner refinement in the background of the loud society and therefore remained mostly unnoticed on more strongly visited gatherings.<br /><br />Because of his strikingly high forehead everyone called him Max Stirner [Stirn = forehead], and it was said that he was working on a thick book in which he planned to set down his “I”.<br /><br />In reality his name was Johann Caspar Schmidt, and he was born on 25 October 1806 in Bayreuth, the son of the “wind instrument maker” Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and his wife Sophia Eleonora, née Reinlein. He lost his father early; after the remarriage of his mother to the pharmacist Ballerstedt he went to Kulm in West Prussia and from there returned again to Bayreuth, where he grew up in the home of his godfather Sticht and attended the famous gymnasium of his hometown — “an industrious and good schoolboy”. After finishing school he attended the universities of Erlangen, Königsberg, and Berlin — with a break of another one-year stay in Kulm. He then passed the teacher’s examination, which gave him a conditional facultas docendi [entitlement to teach], but did not help him to get a permanent position in a state school, so that now, after a short trial period in a Realschule [secondary school], he was from the beginning to the middle of the 1840s a teacher in a private educational institution for young ladies. Already married once and soon widowed, he married a second time Marie Dähnhardt, a wealthy young woman from Mecklenburg, who had come to Berlin “to enjoy life to the full” and who frequented The Free. Also frequently occupied with literary works, his principal collaboration was with the newly founded radical Rheinische Zeitung, for which, among other things, he wrote fundamental works on Das unwahre Prinzip unserer Erziehung [The false principle of our education] and Kunst und Religion [Art and religion], while secretly his life’s work grew and grew.<br /><br />It appeared at the end of 1844 in the publishing house of Otto Wigand in Leipzig and carried the title Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum [The unique one and his property]. It caused a sensation, was forbidden in Saxony, and received detailed reviews, which its author himself sometimes answered just as thoroughly.<br /><br />It doubtless originated from opposition to the views he encountered in his time and in the daily debates among The Free; whole sections are occupied with their refutation. In this sense it has also been called “the last branch of Hegelian philosophy”.<br /><br />Very unjustly. For just as it goes far beyond the most radical views of his contemporaries, so too it creates at the same time the foundation for an entirely new weltanschauung, opposed to all those preceding it: that of conscious egoism (as the sole motivating force and guiding principle of all human actions).<br /><br />Nothing more and nothing less is postulated with it than the sovereignty of the individual in the face of all attempts at his weakening and suppression: the spook and the loose screws in the human brain along with all external powers that want to subjugate this individual under the guise of “law”.<br /><br />After the brief examination of a human life — the realistic child, the idealistic youth, and the man become egoist — and an intellectual historical look back at the ancients working toward conquering the world, and a similar one of the moderns — their obsession and their hierarchy (their rule of the intellect) — he settles with his own time, with The Free, and exposes their political liberalism as the state, which is based on the slavery of labor and is lost with labor’s freedom; their social liberalism as the society with a new slavery (the “lumpen society of communism”); their humane liberalism with its concept of man. He does the last by showing that one cannot be less than a man (whereas they believed one cannot be more).<br /><br />To the first, negative section, the criticism of man, he counters in the more positive second section his “I” and clears up first the falsely understood concept of freedom, which cannot be given, but must be taken. Then he describes the “unique one”: his power with regard to the state and society, this power that laughs at law as a loose screw in the head; his intercourse with the world, which consists in his “using” it; and his self-enjoyment, which leads to uniqueness, to which the I as I develops.<br /><br />The “unique one”, however, no longer recognizes any law over himself, neither a divine nor a human. He sets his concern on himself alone and sets his uniqueness in opposition to every power.<br /><br />Thus, in a language full of clarity and superiority, full of mockery and disdain, Max Stirner castigates the deeds of men, divests ideas of their sacredness, and shows them as “fixed ideas” in the great madhouse of the world: mankind and fatherland; God and State; virtue and morality; freedom and truth; right and duty. From now on one individual stands opposite another, without rights and without duties, and what alone still binds them to one another is the voluntarily concluded contract (“I will not deceive a confidence that I have voluntarily called forth”). 6 That such a work could not in its consequences be understood by his contemporaries may not be surprising. They were baffled and did not know what to do with it. Some took it to be a satire, others saw in it only a monstrous product of the devil, until its pages too were carried away by the storms of the coming years.<br /><br />These storms did not completely split up the core of The Free, though they left only a few secondary members. Hippel had moved from Friedrichstrasse to Dorotheenstrasse and during the revolution his bar was a sort of headquarters for all kinds of leftist parties. After the reaction it became more and more quiet there and only the old friends still held together for a while. With them was Max Stirner.<br /><br />He had given up his position in the school for young ladies before the publication of his book, and soon afterwards his relationship with Marie Dähnhardt was also dissolved by mutual agreement, after the fortune of the young wife was used up and various literary and other pursuits, among them a milk business, had gone wrong. She went at first to Australia, came to know need and misery, and then went to London. There she died at an advanced age in 1902, completely in the arms of the “only true church”, embittered and no longer entirely lucid mentally.<br /><br />Her husband continued to exist in his usual modest lifestyle — a good cigar was his only luxury. It was going badly for him too. He moved from one address to another and at times ran into extreme need, so that he twice came to know debtor’s prison. But then, protected from the worst through an agreement on the sale of his stepfather’s house in Kulm, he found two cheerful rooms and good care with a Madame Weiss in Philippstrasse. Death came to him quickly and unexpectedly. On 25 June 1856, at age 50, Max Stirner died of a nervous fever brought on by a carbuncle in his neck (and probably also as a result of wrong medical treatment).<br /><br />Only a few old friends followed his coffin as he was buried on 28 June in the Sophienkirchhof. The heir of his meager belongings was his aged mother, who had suffered from an “idée fixe” for many years, certainly since 1835, and had been admitted to the Berlin Charité [the hospital associated with the university]. His book — and he with it — were already forgotten by then. The rebirth of both began only when, having read it and recognized its true significance, I began in 1889 my arduous researches into the forgotten life, researches that were rich in unexpected incidents and yet so infinitely interesting. I set down the results in my biography eight years later, having no hope of further discoveries. I must refer to it anyone who wishes to know more about the “unique one” than I am able to crowd into this brief introduction. Today the name Max Stirner is no longer unknown to any educated person. The houses where he was born and where he died, as well as his grave, all bear signs commemorating him, and his book, translated into all languages of the civilized world, stands there, “after a long night of thinking and believing”, at the beginning of a new and hopefully better time, illuminated by the glory of immortality.<br /><br /> <br /><br />John Henry Mackay<br /><br />1927Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-7670741425207659142011-09-28T01:47:00.001-07:002011-09-28T01:52:46.607-07:00Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication Of Moral Liberty by Lysander Spooner<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/LysanderSpooner.jpg/240px-LysanderSpooner.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 340px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/LysanderSpooner.jpg/240px-LysanderSpooner.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I.<br /><br />Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.<br /><br />Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.<br /><br />Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.<br /><br />In vices, the very essence of crime — that is, the design to injure the person or property of another — is wanting.<br /><br />It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.<br /><br />Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.<br /><br />For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.<br /><br />II.<br /><br />Every voluntary act of a man’s life is either virtuous or vicious. That is to say, it is either in accordance, or in conflict, with those natural laws of matter and mind, on which his physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being depend. In other words, every act of his life tends, on the whole, either to his happiness, or to his unhappiness. No single act in his whole existence is indifferent.<br /><br />Furthermore, each human being differs in his physical, mental, and emotional constitution, and also in the circumstances by which he is surrounded, from every other human being. Many acts, therefore, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one person, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of another person.<br /><br />Many acts, also, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one man, at one time, and under one set of circumstances, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of the same man, at another time, and under other circumstances.<br /><br />III.<br /><br />To know what actions are virtuous, and what vicious — in other words, to know what actions tend, on the whole, to happiness, and what to unhappiness — in the case of each and every man, in each and all the conditions in which they may severally be placed, is the profoundest and most complex study to which the greatest human mind ever has been, or ever can be, directed. It is, nevertheless, the constant study to which each and every man — the humblest in intellect as well as the greatest — is necessarily driven by the desires and necessities of his own existence. It is also the study in which each and every person, from his cradle to his grave, must necessarily form his own conclusions; because no one else knows or feels, or can know or feel, as he knows and feels, the desires and necessities, the hopes, and fears, and impulses of his own nature, or the pressure of his own circumstances.<br />IV.<br /><br />It is not often possible to say of those acts that are called vices, that they really are vices, except in degree. That is, it is difficult to say of any actions, or courses of action, that are called vices, that they really would have been vices, if they had stopped short of a certain point. The question of virtue or vice, therefore, in all such cases, is a question of quantity and degree, and not of the intrinsic character of any single act, by itself. This fact adds to the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of any one’s — except each individual for himself — drawing any accurate line, or anything like any accurate line, between virtue and vice; that is, of telling where virtue ends, and vice begins. And this is another reason why this whole question of virtue and vice should be left for each person to settle for himself.<br /><br />V.<br /><br />Vices are usually pleasurable, at least for the time being, and often do not disclose themselves as vices, by their effects, until after they have been practised for many years; perhaps for a lifetime. To many, perhaps most, of those who practise them, they do not disclose themselves as vices at all during life. Virtues, on the other band, often appear so harsh and rugged, they require the sacrifice of so much present happiness, at least, and the results, which alone prove them to be virtues, are often so distant and obscure, in fact, so absolutely invisible to the minds of many, especially of the young, that, from the very nature of things, there can be no universal, or even general, knowledge that they are virtues. In truth, the studies of profound philosophers have been expended — if not wholly in vain, certainly with very small results — in efforts to draw the lines between the virtues and the vices.<br /><br />If, then, it became so difficult, so nearly impossible, in most cases, to determine what is, and what is not, vice; and especially if it be so difficult, in nearly all cases, to determine where virtue ends, and vice begins; and if these questions, which no one can really and truly determine for anybody but himself, are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to inquire, investigate, reason, try experiments, judge, and ascertain for himself, what is, to him, virtue, and what is, to him, vice; in other words: what, on the whole, conduces to his happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to his unhappiness. If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to” liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is denied him.<br /><br />VI.<br /><br />We all come into the world in ignorance of ourselves, and of everything around us. By a fundamental law of our natures we are all constantly impelled by the desire of happiness, and the fear of pain. But we have everything to learn, as to what will give us happiness, and save us from pain. No two of us are wholly alike, either physically, mentally, or emotionally; or, consequently, in our physical, mental, or emotional requirements for the acquisition of happiness, and the avoidance of unhappiness. No one of us, therefore, can learn this indispensable lesson of happiness and unhappiness, of virtue and vice, for another. Each must learn it for himself. To learn it, he must be at liberty to try all experiments that commend themselves to his judgment. Some of his experiments succeed, and, because they succeed, are called virtues; others fail, and, because they fail, are called vices. He gathers wisdom as much from his failures as from his successes; from his so-called vices, as from his so-called virtues. Both are necessary to his acquisition of that knowledge — of his own nature, and of the world around him, and of their adaptations or non-adaptations to each other — which shall show him how happiness is acquired, and pain avoided. And, unless he can be permitted to try these experiments to his own satisfaction, he is restrained from the acquisition of knowledge, and, consequently, from pursuing the great purpose and duty of his life.<br /><br />VII.<br /><br />A man is under no obligation to take anybody’s word, or yield to anybody authority, on a matter so vital to himself, and in regard to which no one else has, or can have, any such interest as he. He cannot, if he would, safely rely upon the opinions of other men, because be finds that the opinions of other men do not agree. Certain actions, or courses of action, have been practised by many millions of men, through successive generations, and have been held by them to be, on the whole, conducive to happiness, and therefore virtuous. Other men, in other ages or countries, or under other condition, have held, as the result of their experience and observation, that these actions tended, on the whole, to unhappiness, and were therefore vicious. The question of virtue or vice, as already remarked in a previous section, has also been, in most minds, a question of degree; that is, of the extent to which certain actions should be carried; and not of the intrinsic character of any single act, by itself. The questions of virtue and vice have therefore been as various, and, in fact, as infinite, as the varieties of mind, body, and condition of the different individuals inhabiting the globe. And the experience of ages has left an infinite number of these questions unsettled. In fact, it can scarcely be said to have settled any of them.<br /><br />VIII.<br /><br />In the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, “We have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it? We have determined it, not only for ourselves, but for all others? And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusion? We will suffer no further experiment or inquiry by any one, and, consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?”<br /><br />Who are the men who have the right to say this? Certainly there none such. The men who really do say it, are either shameless impostors and tyrants, who would stop the progress of knowledge, and usurp absolute control over the minds and bodies of their fellow men; and are therefore to resisted instantly, and to the last extent; or they are themselves too ignorant of their own weaknesses, and of their true relations to other men, to be entitled to any other consideration than sheer pity or contempt.<br /><br />We know, however, that there are such men as these in the world. Some of them attempt to exercise their power only within a small sphere, to wit, upon their children, their neighbors, their townsmen, and their countrymen. Others attempt to exercise it on a larger scale. For example, an old man at Rome, aided by a few subordinates, attempts to decide all questions of virtue and vice; that is, of truth or falsehood, especially in matters of religion. He claims to know and teach what religious ideas and practices are conducive, or fatal, to a man’s happiness, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. He claims to be miraculously inspired for the performance of this work; thus virtually acknowledging, like a sensible man, that nothing short of miraculous inspiration would qualify him for it. This miraculous inspiration, however, has been ineffectual to enable him to settle more than a very few questions. The most important to which common mortals can attain, is an implicit belief in his (the pope’s) infallibility! and, secondly, that the blackest vices of which they can be guilty are to believe and declare that he is only a man like the rest of them!<br /><br />It required some fifteen or eighteen hundred years to enable him to reach definite conclusions on these two vital points. Yet it would seem that the first of these must necessarily be preliminary to his settlement of any other questions; because, until his own infallibility is determined, he can authoritatively decide nothing else. He has, however, heretofore attempted or pretended to settle a few others. And he may, perhaps, attempt or pretend to settle a few more in the future, if he shall continue to find anybody to listen to him. But his success, thus far, certainly does not encourage the belief that he will be able to settle all questions of virtue and vice, even in his peculiar department of religion, in time to meet the necessities of mankind. He, or his successors, will undoubtedly be compelled, at no distant day, to acknowledge that he has undertaken a task to which all his miraculous inspiration was inadequate; and that, of necessity, each human being must be left to settle all questions of this kind for himself. And it is not unreasonable to expect that all other popes, in other and lesser spheres, will some time have cause to come to the same conclusion. No one, certainly, not claiming supernatural inspiration, should undertake a task to which obviously nothing less than such inspiration is adequate. And, clearly, no one should surrender his own judgment to the teachings of others, unless he be first convinced that these others have something more than ordinary human knowledge on this subject.<br /><br />If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men’s vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation. In this sphere their labors may possibly be useful; but, in the sphere of infallibility and coercion, they will probably, for well-known reasons, meet with even less success in the future than such men have met with in the past.<br /><br />IX.<br /><br />It is now obvious, from the reasons already given, that government would be utterly impracticable, if it were to take cognizance of vices, and punish them as crimes. Every human being has his or her vices. Nearly all men have a great many. And they are of all kinds; physiological, mental, emotional; religious, social, commercial, industrial, economical, &c., &c. If government is to take cognizance of any of these vices, and punish them as crimes, then, to be consistent, it must take cognizance of all, and punish all impartially. The consequence would be, that everybody would be in prison for his or her vices. There would be no one left outside to lock the doors upon those within. In fact, courts enough could not be found to try the offenders, nor prisons enough built to hold them. All human industry in the acquisition of knowledge, and even in acquiring the means of subsistence, would be arrested: for we should all be under constant trial or imprisonment for our vices. But even if it were possible to imprison all the vicious, our knowledge of human nature tells us that, as a general rule, they would be far more vicious prison than they ever have been out of it.<br /><br />X.<br /><br />A government that shall punish all vices impartially is so obviously an impossibility, that nobody was ever found, or ever will be found, foolish enough to propose it. The most that any one proposes is, that government shall punish some one, or at most a few, of what he esteems the grossest of them. But this discrimination an utterly absurd, illogical, and tyrannical one. What right has any body of men to say, “The vices of other men we will punish; but our own vices nobody shall punish? We will restrain other men from seeking their own happiness, according to their own notions of it; but nobody shall restrain us from seeking our own happiness, according to our own notions of it? We will restrain other men from acquiring any experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary, to their own happiness; but nobody shall restrain us from acquiring an experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary to our own happiness?”<br /><br />Nobody but knaves or blockheads ever thinks of making such absurd assumptions as these. And yet, evidently, it is only upon such assumptions that anybody can claim the right to punish the vices of others, and at the same time claim exemption from punishment for his own.<br /><br />XI.<br /><br />Such a thing as a government, formed by voluntary association, would never have been thought of, if the object proposed had been the punishment of all vices, impartially; because nobody wants such an institution, or would voluntarily submit to it. But a government, formed by voluntary association, for the punishment of all crimes is a reasonable matter; because everybody wants protection for himself against all crimes by others, and also acknowledges the justice of his own punishment, if he commits a crime.<br /><br />XII.<br /><br />It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess. They could not contribute to the government any rights, except such as they themselves possessed as individuals. Now, nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices. But anybody and everybody have a natural right, as individuals, to punish other men for their crimes; for everybody has a natural right, not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on the earth. And government has no rightful existence, except in so far as it embodies, and is limited by, this natural right of individuals. But the idea that each man has a natural right to decide what are virtues, and what are vices — that is, what contributes to that neighbors happiness, and what do not — and to punish him for all that do not contribute to it; is what no one ever had the impudence or folly to assert. It is only those who claim that government has some rightful power, which no individual or individuals ever did, or could, delegate to it, that claim that government has any rightful power to punish vices.<br /><br />It will do for a pope or a king — who claims to have received direct authority from Heaven, to rule over his fellow-men — to claim the right, as the vicegerent of God, to punish men for their vices; but it is a sheer and utter absurdity for any government, claiming to derive its power wholly from the grant of the governed, to claim any such power; because everybody knows that the governed never would grant it. For them to grant it would be an absurdity, because it would be granting away their own right to seek their own happiness; since to grant away their right to judge of what will be for their happiness, is to grant away all their right to pursue their own happiness.<br /><br />XIII.<br /><br />We can now see how simple, easy, and reasonable a matter is a government is for the punishment of crimes, as compared with one for the punishment of vices. Crimes are few, and easily distinguished from all other acts; and mankind are generally agreed as to what acts are crimes. Whereas vices are innumerable; and no two persons are agreed, except in comparatively few cases, as to what are vices. Furthermore, everybody wishes to be protected, into his person and property, against the aggressions of other men. But nobody wishes to be protected, either in his person or property, against himself; because it is contrary to the fundamental laws of human nature itself, that any one should wish to harm himself. He only wishes to promote his own happiness, and to be his own judge as to what will promote, and does promote, his own happiness. This is what every one wants, and has a right to, as a human being. And though we all make many mistakes, and necessarily must make them, from the imperfection of our knowledge, yet these mistakes are no argument against the right; because they all tend to give us the very knowledge we need, and are in pursuit of, and can get in no other way.<br /><br />The object aims at in the punishment of crimes, therefore, is not only wholly different from, but it is directly opposed to, that aimed at in the punishment of vices.<br /><br />The object aimed at in the punishment of crimes is to secure,to each and every man alike, the fullest liberty he possibly can have — consistently with the equal rights of others — to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property. On the other hand, the object aimed at in the punishment of vices, is to deprive every man of his natural right and liberty to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property.<br /><br />These two objects, then, are directly opposed to each other. They are as directly opposed to each other as are light and darkness, or as truth and falsehood, or as liberty and slavery. They are utterly incompatible with each other; and to suppose the two to be embraced in one and the same government, is an absurdity, an impossibility. It is to suppose the objects of a government to be to commit crimes, and to prevent crimes; to destroy individual liberty, and to secure individual liberty.<br /><br />XIV.<br /><br />Finally, on this point of individual liberty: every man must necessarily judge and determine for himself as to what is conducive and necessary to, and what is destructive of, his own well-being; because, if he omits to perform this task for himself, nobody else can perform it for him. And nobody else will even attempt to perform it for him, except in very few cases. Popes, and priests, and kings will assume to perform it for him, in certain cases, if permitted to do so. But they will, in general, perform it only in so far as they can minister to their own vices and crimes, by doing it. They will, in general, perform it only in so far as they can make him their fool and their slave. Parents, with better motives, no doubt, than the others, too often attempt the same work. But in so far as they practise coercion, or restrain a child from anything not really and seriously dangerous to himself, they do him a harm, rather than a good. It is a law of Nature that to get knowledge, and to incorporate that knowledge into his own being, each individual must get it for himself. Nobody, not even his parents, can tell him the nature of fire, so that he will really know it. He must himself experiment with it, and be burnt by it, before he can know it.<br /><br />Nature knows, a thousand times better than any parent, what she designs each individual for, what knowledge he requires, and how he must get it. She knows that her own processes for communicating that knowledge are not only the best, but the only ones that can be effectual.<br /><br />The attempts of parents to make their children virtuous generally little else than attempts to keep them in ignorance of vice. They are little else than attempts to teach their children to know and prefer truth, by keeping them in ignorance of falsehood. They are little else than attempts to make them seek and appreciate health, by keeping them in ignorance of disease, and of everything that will cause disease. They are little else than attempts to make their children love the light, by keeping them in ignorance of darkness. In short, they are little else than attempts to make their children happy, by keeping them in ignorance of everything that causes them unhappiness.<br /><br />In so far as parents can really aid their children in the latter’s search after happiness, by simply giving them the results of their (the parents’) own reason and experience, it is all very well, and is a natural and appropriate duty. But to practise coercion in matters of which the children are reasonably competent to judge for themselves, is only an attempt to keep them in ignorance. And this is as much a tyranny, and as much a violation of the children’s right to acquire knowledge for themselves, and such knowledge as they desire, as is the same coercion when practised upon older persons. Such coercion, practised upon children, is a denial of their right to develop the faculties that Nature has given them, and to be what Nature designs them to be. It is a denial of their right to themselves, and to the use of their own powers. It is a denial of their right to acquire the most valuable of all knowledge, to wit, the knowledge that Nature, the great teacher, stands ready to impart to them.<br /><br />The results of such coercion are not to make the children wise or virtuous, but to make them ignorant, and consequently weak and vicious; and to perpetuate through them, from age to age, the ignorance, the superstitions, the vices, and the crimes of the parents. This is proved by every page of the world’s history.<br /><br />Those who hold opinions opposite to these, are those whose false and vicious theologies, or whose own vicious general ideas, have taught them that the human race are naturally given to evil, rather than good; to the false, rather than the true; that mankind do not naturally turn their eyes to the light; that they love darkness, rather than light; and that they find their happiness only in those things that tend to their misery.<br /><br />XV.<br /><br />But these men, who claim that government shall use its power to prevent vice, will say, or are in the habit of saying, “We acknowledge the right of an individual to seek his own happiness in his own way, and consequently to be as vicious as be pleases; we only claim that government shall prohibit the sale to him of those articles by which he ministers to his vice.”<br /><br />The answer to this is, that the simple sale of any article whatever — independently of the use that is to be made of the article — is legally a perfectly innocent act. The quality of the act of sale depends wholly upon the quality of the use for which the thing is sold. If the use of anything is virtuous and lawful, then the sale of it, for that use, is virtuous and lawful. If the use is vicious, then the sale of it, for that use, is vicious. If the use is criminal, then the sale of it, for that use, is criminal. The seller is, at most, only an accomplice in the use that is to be made of the article sold, whether the use be virtuous, vicious, or criminal. Where the use is criminal, the seller is an accomplice in the crime, and punishable as such. But where the use is only vicious, the seller is only an accomplice in the vice, and is not punishable.<br /><br />XVI.<br /><br />But it will be asked, “Is there no right, on the part of government, to arrest the progress of those who are bent on self-destruction?”<br /><br />The answer is, that government has no rights whatever in the matter, so long as these so-called vicious persons remain sane, compos mentis, capable of exercising reasonable discretion and self-control; because, so long as they do remain sane, they must be allowed to judge and decide for themselves whether their so-called vices really are vices; whether they really are leading them to destruction; and whether, on the whole, they will go there or not. When they shall become insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion or self-control, their friends or neighbors, or the government, must take care of them, and protect them from harm, and against all persons who would do them harm, in the same way as if their insanity had come upon them from any other cause than their supposed vices.<br /><br />But because a man is supposed, by his neighbors, to be on the way to self-destruction, from his vices, it does not, therefore, follow that he is insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion and self-control, within the legal meaning of those terms. Men and women may be addicted to very gross vices, and to a great many of them — such as gluttony, drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, prize-fighting, tobacco-chewing, smoking, and snuffing, opium-eating, corset-wearing, idleness, waste of property, avarice, hypocrisy, &c., &c. — and still be sane, compos mentis, capable of reasonable discretion and self-control, within the meaning of the law. And so long as they are sane, they must be permitted to control themselves and their property, and to be their own judges as to where their vices will finally lead them. It may be hoped by the lookers-on, in each individual case, that the vicious person will see the end to which he is tending, and be induced to turn back. But, if he chooses to go on to what other men call destruction, be must be permitted to do so. And all that can be said of him,so far as this life is concerned, is, that he made a great mistake in his search after happiness, and that others will do well to take warning by his fate. As to what maybe his condition in another life, that is a theological question with which the law, in this world, has no more to do than it has with any other theological question, touching men’s condition in a future life.<br /><br />If it be asked how the question of a vicious man’s sanity or insanity is to be determined? The answer is, that it is to be determined by the same kinds of evidence as is the sanity or insanity of those who are called virtuous; and not otherwise. That is, by the same kinds of evidence by which the legal tribunals determine whether a man should be sent to an asylum for lunatics, or whether he is competent to make a will, or otherwise dispose of his property. Any doubt must weigh in favor of his sanity, as in all other cases, and not of his insanity.<br /><br />If a person really does become insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion or self-control, it is then a crime, on the part of other men, to give to him or sell to him, the means of self-injury.[1] There are no crimes more easily punished, no cases in which juries would be more ready to convict, than those where a sane person should sell or give to an insane one any article with which the latter was likely to injure himself.<br /><br />XVII.<br /><br />But it will be said that some men are made, by their vices, dangerous to other persons; that a drunkard, for example, is sometimes quarrelsome and dangerous toward his family or others. And it will be asked, “Has the law nothing to do in such a case?”<br /><br />The answer is, that if, either from drunkenness or any other cause, a man be really dangerous, either to his family or to other persons, not only himself may be rightfully restrained, so far as the safety of other persons requires, but all other person — who know or have reasonable grounds to believe him dangerous — may also be restrained from selling or giving to him anything that they have reason to suppose will make him dangerous.<br /><br />But because one man becomes quarrelsome and dangerous after drinking spirituous liquors, and because it is a crime to give or sell liquor to such a man, it does not follow at all that it is a crime to sell liquors to the hundreds and thousands of other persons, who are not made quarrelsome or dangerous by drinking them. Before a man can be convicted of crime in selling liquor to a dangerous man, it must be shown that the particular man, to whom the liquor was sold, was dangerous; and also that the seller knew, or had reasonable grounds to suppose, that the man would be made dangerous by drinking it.<br /><br />The presumption of law is,in all cases, that the sale is innocent; and the burden of proving it criminal, in any particular case, rests upon the government. And that particular case must be proved criminal, independently of all others.<br /><br />Subject to these principles, there is no difficulty convicting and punishing men for the sale or gift of any article to a man, who is made dangerous to others by the use of it.<br /><br />XVIII.<br /><br />But it is often said that some vices are nuisances (public or private), and that nuisances can be abated and punished.<br /><br />It is true that anything that is really and legally a nuisaance (either public or private) can be abated and punished. But it is not true that the mere private vices of one man are, in any legal sense, nuisances to another man, or to the public.<br /><br />No act of one person can be a nuisance to another, unless it in some way obstructs or interferes with that other’s safe and quiet use or enjoyment of what is rightfully his own.<br /><br />Whatever obstructs a public highway, is a nuisance, and may be abated and punished. But a hotel where liquors are sold, a liquor store, or even a grog-shop, so called, no more obstructs a public highway, than does a dry goods store, a jewelry store, or a butcher’s shop.<br /><br />Whatever poisons the air, or makes it either offensive or unhealthful, is a nuisance. But neither a hotel, nor a liquor store, nor a grog-shop poisons the air, or makes it offensive or unhealthful to outside persons.<br /><br />Whatever obstructs the light, to which a man is legally entitled, is a nuisance. But neither a hotel, nor a liquor store, nor a grog-shop, obstructs anybody’s light, except in cases where a church, a school-house, or a dwelling house would have equally obstructed it. On this ground, therefore, the former are no more, and no less, nuisances than the latter would be.<br /><br />Some persons are in the habit of saying that a liquorshop is dangerous, in the same way that gunpowder is dangerous. But there is no analogy between the two cases. Gunpowder is liable to be exploded by accident, and especially by such fires as often occur in cities. For these reasons it is dangerous to persons and property in its immediate vicinity. But liquors are not liable to be thus exploded, and therefore are not dangerous nuisances, in any such sense as is gunpowder in cities.<br /><br />But it is said, again, that drinking-places are frequently filled with noisy and boisterous men, who disturb the quiet of the neighborhood, and the sleep and rest of the neighbors.<br /><br />This may be true occasionally, though not very frequently. But whenever, in any case, it is true, the nuisance may be abated by the punishment of the proprietor and his customers, and if need be, by shutting up the place. But an assembly of noisy drinkers is no more a nuisance than is any other noisy assembly. A jolly or hilarious drinker disturbs the quiet of a neighbor-hood no more, and no less, than does a shouting religious fanatic. An assembly of noisy drinkers is no more, and no less, a nuisance than is an assembly of shouting religious fanatics. Both of them are nuisances when they disturb the rest and sleep, or quiet, of neighbors. Even a dog that is given to barking, to the disturbance of the sleep or quiet of the neighborhood, is a nuisance.<br /><br />XIX.<br /><br />But it is said, that for one person to entice another into a vice, is a crime.<br /><br />This is preposterous. If any particular act is simply a vice, then a man who entices another to commit it, is simply an accomplice in the . He evidently commits no crime, because the accomplice can certainly commit no greater offence than the principal.<br /><br />Every person who is sane, compos mentis, possessed of reasonable discretion and self-control, is presumed to be mentally competent to judge for himself of all the arguments, pro and con, that may be addressed to him, to persuade him to do any particular act; provided no fraud is employed to deceive him. And if he is persuaded or induced to do the act, his act is then his own; and even though the act prove to be harmful to himself, he cannot complain that the persuasion or arguments, to which he yielded his assent, were crimes against himself.<br /><br />When fraud is practised, the case is, of course, different. If, for example, I offer a man poison, assuring him that it is a safe and wholesome drink, and he, on the faith of my assertion, swallows it, my act is a crime.<br /><br />Volenti non fit injuria, is a maxim of the law. To the willing, no injury is done. That is, no legal wrong. And every person who is sane, compos mentis, capable of exercising reasonable discretion in judging of the truth or falsehood of the representations or persuasion to which be yields his assent, is “willing,” in the view of the law; and takes upon himself the entire responsibility for his acts, when no intentional fraud has been practised upon him.<br /><br />This principle, that to the willing no injury is done, has no limit, except in the case of frauds, or of persons not possessed of reasonable discretion for judging in the particular case. If a person possessed of reasonable discretion, and not deceived by fraud, consents to practise the grossest vice, and thereby brings upon himself the greatest moral, physical, or pecuniary sufferings or losses, he cannot allege that he has been legally wronged. To illustrate this principle, take the case of rape. To have carnal knowledge of a woman, against her will, is the highest crime, next to murder, that can be committed against her. But to have carnal knowledge of her, with her consent, is no crime; but at most, a vice. And it is usually holden that a female child, of no more than ten years of age, has such reasonable discretion, that her consent, even though procured by rewards, or promises of reward, is sufficient to convert the act, which would otherwise be a high crime, into a simple act of vice. [2]<br /><br />We see the same principle in the case of prize-fighters. If I but lay one of my fingers upon another man’s person, against his will, no matter how lightly, and no matter how little practical injury is done, the act is a crime. But if two men agree to go out and pound each other’s faces to a jelly, it is no crime, but only a vice.<br /><br />Even duels have not generally been considered crimes, because each man’s life is his own, and the parties agree that each may take the other’s life, if he can, by the use of such weapons as are agreed upon, and in conformity with certain rules that are also mutually assented to.<br /><br />And this is a correct view of the matter, unless it can be said (as it probably cannot), that “anger is a madness” that so far deprives men of their reason as to make them incapable of reasonable discretion.<br /><br />Gambling is another illustration of the principle that to the willing no injury is done. If I take but a single cent of a man’s property, without his consent, the act is a crime. But if two men, who are compos mentis, possessed of reasonable discretion to judge of the nature and probable results of their act, sit down together, and each voluntarily stakes his money against the money of another, on the turn of a die, and one of them loses his whole estate (however large that may be), it is no crime, but only a vice.<br /><br />It is not a crime, even, to assist a person to commit suicide, if he be in possession of his reason.<br /><br />It is a somewhat common idea that suicide is, of itself, conclusive evidence of insanity. But, although it may ordinarily be very strong evidence of insanity, it is by no means conclusive in all cases. Many persons, in undoubted possession of their reason, have committed suicide, to escape the shame of a public exposure for their crimes, or to avoid some other great calamity. Suicide, in these cases, may not have been the highest wisdom, but it certainly was not proof of any lack of reasonable discretion.[3] And being within the limits of reasonable discretion, it was no crime for other persons to aid it, either by furnishing the instrument or otherwise. And if, in such cases, it be no crime to aid a suicide, how absurd to say that, it is a crime to aid him in some act that is really pleasurable, and which a large portion of mankind have believed to be useful?<br /><br />XX.<br /><br />But some persons are in the habit of saying that the use of spirituous liquors is the great source of crime; that “it fills our prisons with criminals;” and that this is reason enough for prohibiting the sale of them.<br /><br />Those who say this, if they talk seriously, talk blindly and foolishly. They evidently mean to be understood as saying that a very large percentage of all the crimes that are committed among men, are committed by persons whose criminal passions are excited, at the time, by the use of liquors, and in consequence of the use of liquors.<br /><br />This idea is utterly preposterous.<br /><br />In the first place, the great crimes committed in the world are mostly prompted by avarice and ambition.<br /><br />The greatest of all crimes are the wars that are carried on by governments, to plunder, enslave, and destroy mankind.<br /><br />The next greatest crimes committed in the world are equally prompted by avarice and ambition; and are committed, not on sudden passion, but by men of calculation, who keep their heads cool and clear, and who have no thought whatever of going to prison for them. They are committed, not so much by men who violate the laws, as by men who, either by themselves or by their instruments, make the laws; by men who have combined to usurp arbitrary power, and to maintain it by force and fraud, and whose purpose in usurping and maintaining it is by unjust and unequal legislation, to secure to themselves such advantages and monopolies as will enable them to control and extort the labor and properties of other men, and thus impoverish them, in order to minister to their own wealth and aggrandizement.[4] The robberies and wrongs thus committed by these men, in conformity with the laws, — that is, their own laws — are as mountains to molehills, compared with the crimes committed by all other criminals, in violation of the laws.<br /><br />But, thirdly, there are vast numbers of frauds, of various kinds, committed in the transactions of trade, whose perpetrators, by their coolness and sagacity, evade the operation of the laws. And it is only their cool and clear heads that enable them to do it. Men under the excitement of intoxicating drinks are little disposed, and utterly unequal, to the successful practice of these frauds. They are the most incautious, the least successful, the least efficient, and the least to be feared , of all the criminals with whom the laws have to deal.<br /><br />Fourthly. The professed burglars, robbers, thieves, forgers, counterfeiters, and swindlers, who prey upon society, are anything but reckless drinkers. Their business is of too dangerous a character to admit of such risks as they would thus incur.<br /><br />Fifthly. The crimes that can be said to be committed under the influence of intoxicating drinks are mostly assaults and batteries, not very numerous, and generally not very aggravated. Some other small crimes, as petty thefts, or other small trespasses upon property, are sometimes committed, under the influence of drink, by feebleminded persons, not generally addicted to crime. The persons who commit these two kinds of crime are but few. They cannot be said to “fill our prisons”; or, if they do, we are to be congratulated that we need so few prisons and so small prisons, to hold them.<br /><br />The State of Massachusetts, for example, has a million and a half of people. How many of these are now in prison for crimes — not for the vice of intoxication, but for crimes — committed against persons or property under the instigation of strong drink? I doubt if there be one in ten thousand, that is, one hundred and fifty in all; and the crimes for which these are in prison are mostly very small ones.<br /><br />And I think it will be found that these few men are generally much more to be pitied than punished, for the reason that it was their poverty and misery, rather than any passion for liquor, or for crime, that led them to drink, and thus led them to commit their crimes under the influence of drink.<br /><br />The sweeping charge that drink “fills our prisons with criminals” is made, I think, only by those men who know no better than to call a drunkard a criminal; and who have no better foundation for their charge than the shameful fact that we are such a brutal and senseless people, that we condemn and punish such weak and unfortunate persons as drunkards, as if they were criminals.<br /><br />The legislators who authorize, and the judges who practise, such atrocities as these, are intrinsically criminals; unless their ignorance be such — as it probably is not — as to excuse them. And, if they were themselves to be punished as criminals, there would be more reason in our conduct.<br /><br />A police judge in Boston once told me that he was in the habit of disposing of drunkards (by sending them to prison for thirty days — I think that was the stereotyped sentence) at the rate of one in three minutes!, and sometimes more rapidly even than that; thus condemning them as criminals, and sending them to prison, without merry, and without inquiry into circumstances, for an infirmity that entitled them to compassion and protection, instead of punishment. The real criminals in these cases were not the men who went to prison, but the judge, and the men behind him, who sent them there.<br /><br />I recommend to those persons, who are so distressed lest the prisons of Massachusetts be filled with criminals, that they employ some portion, at least, of their philanthropy in preventing our prisons being filled with persons who are not criminals. I do not remember to have heard that their sympathies have ever been very actively exercised in that direction. On the contrary, they seem to have such a passion for punishing criminals, that they care not to inquire particularly whether a candidate for punishment really be a criminal. Such a passion, let me assure them, is a much more dangerous one, and one entitled to far less charity, both morally and legally, than the passion for strong drink.<br /><br />It seems to be much more consonant with the merciless character of these men to send an unfortunate man to prison for drunkenness, and thus crush, and degrade, and dishearten him, and ruin him for life, than it does for them to lift him out of the poverty and misery that caused him to become a drunkard.<br /><br />It is only those persons who have either little capacity, or little disposition, to enlighten, encourage, or aid mankind, that are possessed of this violent passion for governing, commanding, and punishing them. If, instead of standing by, and giving their consent and sanction to all the laws by which the weak man is first plundered, oppressed, and disheartened, and then punished as a criminal, they would turn their attention to the duty of defending his rights and improving his condition, and of thus strengthening him, and enabling him to stand on his own feet, and withstand the temptations that surround him, they would, I think, have little need to talk about laws and prisons for either rum-sellers or rum-drinkers, or even any other class of ordinary criminals. If, in short, these men, who are so anxious for the suppression of crime, would suspend, for a while, their calls upon the government for aid in suppressing the crimes of individuals, and would call upon the people for aid in suppressing the crimes of the government, they would show both their sincerity and good sense in a much stronger light than they do now. When the laws shall all be so just and equitable as to make it possible for all men and women to live honestly and virtuously, and to make themselves comfortable and happy, there will be much fewer occasions than now for charging them with living dishonestly and viciously.<br /><br />XXI.<br /><br />But it will be said, again, that the use of spirituous liquors tends to poverty and thus to make men paupers, and burdensome to the taxpayers; and that this is a sufficient reason why the sale of them should be prohibited.<br /><br />There are various answers to this argument.<br /><br />1. One answer is, that if the fact that the use of liquors tends to poverty and pauperism, be a sufficient reason for prohibiting the sale of them, it is equally a sufficient reason for prohibiting the use of them; for it is the use, and not the sale, that tends to poverty. The seller is, at most, merely an accomplice of the drinker. And it is a rule of law, as well as of reason, that if the principal in any act is not punishable, the accomplice cannot be.<br /><br />2. A second answer to the argument is, that if government has the right, and is bound, to prohibit any one act — that is not criminal — merely because it is supposed to tend to poverty, then, by the same rule, it has the right, and is bound, to prohibit any and every other act — though not criminal — which, in the opinion of the government, tends to poverty. And, on this principle, the government would not only have the right, but would be bound, to look into every man’s private affairs and every person’s personal expenditures, and determine as to which of them did, and which of them did not, tend to poverty; and to prohibit and punish all of the former class. A man would have no right to expend a cent of his own property, according to his own pleasure or judgment, unless the legislature should be of the opinion that such expenditure would not tend to poverty.<br /><br />3. A third answer to the same argument is, that if a man does bring himself to poverty, and even to beggary — either by his virtues or his vices — the government is under no obligation whatever to take care of him, unless it pleases to do so. It may let him perish in the street, or depend upon private charity, if it so pleases. It can carry out its own free will and discretion in the matter; for it is above all legal responsibility in such a case. It is not, necessarily, any part of a government’s duty to provide for the poor. A government — that is, a legitimate government — is simply a voluntary association of individuals, who unite for such purposes, and only for such purposes, as suits them. If taking care of the poor — whether they be virtuous or vicious — be not one of those purposes, then the government, as a government, has no more right, and is no more bound, to take care of them, than has or is a banking company, or a railroad company.<br /><br />Whatever moral claims a poor man — whether he be virtuous or vicious — may have upon the charity of his fellow-men, he has no legal claims upon them. He must depend wholly upon their charity, if they so please. He cannot demand, as a legal right, that they either feed or clothe him. And he has no more legal or moral claims upon a government — which is but an association of individuals — than he has upon the same, or any other individuals, in their private capacity.<br /><br />Inasmuch, then, as a poor man — whether virtuous or vicious — has no more or other claims, legal or moral, upon a government, for food or clothing, than he has upon private persons, a government has no more right than a private person to control or prohibit the expenditures or actions of an individual, on the ground that they tend to bring him to poverty.<br /><br />Mr. A, as an individual, has clearly no right to prohibit any acts or expenditures of Mr. Z, through fear that such acts or expenditures may tend to bring him (Z) to poverty, and that he (Z) may, in consequence, at some future unknown time, come to him (A) in distress, and ask charity. And if A has no such right, as an individual, to prohibit any acts or expenditures on the part of Z, then government, which is a mere association of individuals, can have no such right.<br /><br />Certainly no man, who is compos mentis, holds his right to the disposal and use of his own property, by any such worthless tenure as that which would authorize any or all of his neighbors — whether calling themselves a government or not — to interfere, and forbid him to make any expenditures, except such as they might think would not tend to poverty, and would not tend to ever bring him to them as a supplicant for their charity.<br /><br />Whether a man, who is compos mentis, come to poverty, through his virtues or his vices, no man, nor body of men, can have any right to interfere with him, on the ground that their sympathy may some time be appealed to in his behalf; because, if it should be appealed to, they are at perfect liberty to act their own pleasure or discretion as to complying with his solicitations.<br /><br />This right to refuse charity to the poor — whether the latter be virtuous or vicious — is one that governments always act upon. No government makes any more provision for the poor than it pleases. As a consequence, the poor are left, to a great extent, to depend upon private charity. In fact, they are often left to suffer sickness, and even death, because neither public nor private charity comes to their aid. How absurd, then, to say that government has a right to control a man’s use of his own property, through fear that he may sometime come to poverty, and ask charity.<br /><br />4. Still a fourth answer to the argument is, that the great and only incentive which each individual man has to labor, and to create wealth, is that he may dispose of it according to his own pleasure or discretion, and for the promotion of his own happiness, and the happiness of those whom he loves.[5]<br /><br />Although a man may often, from inexperience or want of judgment, expend some portion of the products of his labor injudiciously, and so as not to promote his highest welfare, yet he learns wisdom in this, as in all other matters, by experience; by his mistakes as well as by his successes. And this is the only way in which he can learn wisdom. When he becomes convinced that he has made one foolish expenditure, he learns thereby not to make another like it. And he must be permitted to try his own experiments, and to try them to his own satisfaction, in this as in all other matters; for otherwise he has no motive to labor, or to create wealth at all.<br /><br />Any man, who is a man, would rather be a savage, and be free, creating or procuring only such little wealth as he could control and consume from day to day, than to be a civilized man, knowing how to create and accumulate wealth indefinitely, and yet not permitted to use or dispose of it, except under the supervision, direction, and dictation of a set of meddlesome, superserviceable fools and tyrants, who, with no more knowledge than himself, and perhaps with not half so much, should assume to control him, on the ground that he had not the right, or the capacity, to determine for himself as to what he would do with the proceeds of his own labor.<br /><br />5. A fifth answer to the argument is, that if it be the duty of government to watch over the expenditures of any one person — who is compos mentis, and not criminal — to see what ones tend to poverty, and what do not, and to prohibit and punish the former, then, by the same rule, it is bound to watch over the expenditures of all other persons, and prohibit and punish all that, in its judgment, tend to poverty.<br /><br />If such a principle were carried out impartially, the result would be, that all mankind would be so occupied in watching each other’s expenditures, and in testifying against, trying, and punishing such as tended to poverty, that they would have no time left to create wealth at all. Everybody capable of productive labor would either be in prison, or be acting as judge, juror, witness, or jailer. It would be impossible to create courts enough to try, or to build prisons enough to hold, the offenders. All productive labor would cease; and the fools that were so intent on preventing poverty, would not only all come to poverty, imprisonment, and starvation themselves, but would bring everybody else to poverty, imprisonment, and starvation.<br /><br />6. If it be said that a man may, at least, be rightfully compelled to support his family, and, consequently, to abstain from all expenditures that, in the opinion of the government, tend to disable him to perform that duty, various answers might be given. But this one is sufficient, viz.: that no man, unless a fool or a slave, would acknowledge any family to be his, if that acknowledgment were to be made an excuse, by the government, for depriving him, either of his personal liberty, or the control of his property.<br /><br />When a man is allowed his natural liberty, and the control of his property, his family is usually, almost universally, the great paramount object of his pride and affection; and he will, not only voluntarily, but as his highest pleasure, employ his best powers of mind and body, not merely to provide for them the ordinary necessaries and comforts of life, but to lavish upon them all the luxuries and elegancies that his labor can procure.<br /><br />A man enters into no moral or legal obligation with his wife or children to do anything for them, except what he can do consistently with his own personal freedom, and his natural right to control his own property at his own discretion.<br /><br />If a government can step in and say to a man — who is compos mentis, and who is doing his duty to his family, as he sees his duty, and according to his best judgment, however imperfect that may be — “We (the government) suspect that you are not employing your labor to the best advantage for your family; we suspect that your expenditures, and your disposal of your property, are not so judicious as they might be, for the interest of your family; and therefore we (the government) will take you and your property under our special surveillance, and prescribe to you what you may, and may not do, with yourself and your property; and your family shall hereafter look to us (the government), and not to you, for support” — if a government can do this, all a man’s pride, ambition, and affection, relative to this family, would be crushed, so far as it would be possible for human tyranny to crush them; and he would either never have a family (whom he would publicly acknowledge to be his), or he would risk both his property and his life in overthrowing such an insulting, outrageous, and insufferable tyranny. And any woman who would wish her husband — he being compos mentis - — to submit to such an unnatural insult and wrong, is utterly undeserving of his affection, or of anything but his disgust and contempt. And he would probably very soon cause her to understand that, if she chose to rely on the government, for the support of herself and her children, rather than on him, she must rely on the government alone.<br /><br />XXII.<br /><br />Still another and all-sufficient answer to the argument that the use of spirituous liquors tends to poverty, is that, as a general rule, it puts the effect before the cause. It assumes that it is the use of the liquors that causes the poverty, instead of its being the poverty that causes the use of the liquors.<br /><br />Poverty is the natural parent of nearly all the ignorance, vice, crime, and misery there are in the world.[6] Why is it that so large a portion of the laboring people of England are drunken and vicious? Certainly not because they are by nature any worse than other men. But it is because, their extreme and hopeless poverty keeps them in ignorance and servitude, destroys their courage and self-respect, subjects them to such constant insults and wrongs, to such incessant and bitter miseries of every kind, and finally drives them to such despair, that the short respite that drink or other vice affords them, is, for the time being, a relief. This is the chief cause of the drunkenness and other vices that prevail among the laboring people of England.<br /><br />If those laborers of England, who are now drunken and vicious, had had the same chances and surroundings in life as the more fortunate classes have had; if they had been reared in comfortable, and happy, and virtuous homes, instead of squalid, and wretched, and vicious ones; if they had had opportunities to acquire knowledge and property, and make themselves intelligent, comfortable, happy, independent, and respected, and to secure to themselves all the intellectual, social, and domestic enjoyments which honest and justly rewarded industry could enable them to secure — if they could have had all this, instead of being born to a life of hopeless, unrewarded toil, with a certainty of death in the workhouse, they would have been as free from their present vices and weaknesses as those who reproach them now are.<br /><br />It is of no use to say that drunkeness, or any other vice, only adds to their miseries; for such is human nature — the weakness of human nature, if you please — that men can endure but a certain amount of misery, before their hope and courage fail, and they yield to almost anything that promises present relief or mitigation; though at the cost of still greater misery in the future. To preach morality or temperance to such wretched persons, instead of relieving their sufferings, or improving their conditions, is only insulting their wretchedness.<br /><br />Will those who are in the habit of attributing men’s poverty to their vices, instead of their vices to their poverty — as if every poor person, or most poor persons, were specially vicious — tell us whether all the poverty within the last year and a half [7] have been brought so suddenly — as it were in a moment — upon at least twenty millions of the people of the United States, were brought upon them as a natural consequence, either of their drunkenness, or of any other of their vices? Was it their drunkenness, or any other of their vices, that paralyzed, as by a stroke of lightning, all the industries by which they lived, and which had, but a few days before, been in such prosperous activity? Was it their vices that turned the adult portion of those twenty millions out of doors without employment, compelled them to consume their little accumulations, if they had any, and then to become beggars — beggars for work, and, failing in this, beggars for bread? Was it their vices that, all at once, and without warning, filled the homes of so many of them with want, misery, sickness, and death? No. Clearly it was neither the drunkenness, nor any other vices, of these laboring people, that brought upon them all this ruin and wretchedness. And if it was not, what was it?<br /><br />This is the problem that must be answered; for it is one that is repeatedly occurring, and constantly before us, and that cannot be put aside.<br /><br />In fact, the poverty of the great body of mankind, the world over, is the great problem of the world. That such extreme and nearly universal poverty exists all over the world, and has existed through all past generations, proves that it originates in causes which the common human nature of those who suffer from it, has not hitherto been strong enough to overcome. But these sufferers are, at least, beginning to see these causes, and are becoming resolute to remove them, let it cost what it may. And those who imagine that they have nothing to do but to go on attributing the poverty of the poor to their vices, and preaching to them against their vices, will ere long wake up to find that the day for all such talk is past. And the question will then be, not what are men’s vices, but what are their rights?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Footnotes</span><br /><br />[1]^ To give an insane man a knife, or other weapon, or thing, by which he is likely to injure himself, is a crime.<br /><br />[2]^ The statute book of Massachusetts makes ten years the age at which a female child is supposed to have discretion enough to part with virtue. But the same statute book holds that no person, man or woman, of any age, or any degree of wisdom or experience, has discretion to be trusted to buy and drink a glass of spirits, on his or her own Judgement! What an illustration of the legislative wisdom of Massachusetts!<br /><br />[3]^ Cato committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of Caesar. Who ever suspected that he was insane? Brutus did the same. Colt committed suicide only an hour or so before he was to be hanged. He did it to avoid bringing upon his name and his family the disgrace of having it said that he was hanged. This, whether a wise act or not, was clearly an act within reasonable discretion. Does any one suppose that the person who furnished him with the necessary instrument was a criminal?<br /><br />[4]^ An illustration of this fact is found in England, whose government, for a thousand years and more, has been little or nothing else than a band of robbers, who have conspired to monopolize the land, and, as far as possible, all other wealth. These conspirators, calling themselves kings, nobles, and freeholders, have, by force and fraud, taken to themselves all civil and Military power; they keep themselves in power solely by force and fraud, and the corrupt use of their wealth; and they employ their power solely in robbing and enslaving the great body of their own people, and in plundering and enslaving other peoples. And the world has been, and now is, full of examples substantially similar. And the governments of our own country do not differ so widely from others, in this respect, as some of us imagine.<br /><br />[5]^ It is to this incentive alone that we are indebted for all the wealth that has ever been created by human labor, and accumulated for the benefit of mankind.<br /><br />[6]^ Except those great crimes, which the few, calling themselves governments, practise upon the many, by means of organized, systematic extortion and tyranny. And it is only the poverty, ignorance, and consequent weakness of the many, that enable the combined and organized few to acquire and maintain such arbitrary power over them.<br /><br />[7]^ That is, from September 1, 1873, to March 1, 1875.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-1484787410212539462011-09-28T01:39:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:47:07.297-07:00No Treason by Lysander Spooner<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/LysanderSpooner.jpg/240px-LysanderSpooner.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 340px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/LysanderSpooner.jpg/240px-LysanderSpooner.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Index<br /><br /> Number One<br /> Introductory<br /> I<br /> II<br /> III<br /> IV<br /> Number Two: The Constitution<br /> I<br /> II<br /> III<br /> IV<br /> V<br /> VI<br /> VII<br /> VIII<br /> IX<br /> X<br /> XI<br /> Number Six: The Constitution of No Authority<br /> I<br /> II<br /> III<br /> IV<br /> V<br /> VI<br /> VII<br /> VIII<br /> IX<br /> X<br /> XI<br /> XII<br /> XIII<br /> XIV<br /> XV<br /> XVI<br /> XVII<br /> XVIII<br /> XIX<br /> Appendix<br /> Notes<br /><br />full text at<br /><br />http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Lysander_Spooner__No_Treason.html#toc37Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-87549514956924764862011-09-28T01:29:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:37:21.889-07:00Individual Liberty by Benjamin Tucker<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/BenjaminTucker.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 341px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/BenjaminTucker.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />Index:<br /><br /> Publisher's Note<br /> Editor's Foreword<br /> Sociology<br /> I. State Socialism and Anarchism: How far they agree, and wherein they differ.<br /> Postscript<br /> II. The Individual, Society, and the State<br /> The Relation of the State to the Invididual<br /> Liberty's Declaration of Purpose<br /> Anarchism and the State<br /> Resistance to Government<br /> Liberty and Organization<br /> Liberty and Taxation<br /> Anarchism and Crime<br /> Liberty and Politics<br /> Liberty and Prohibition<br /> Anarchism and Capital Punishment<br /> Liberty and Property<br /> Anarchism and Force<br /> Methods<br /> Passive Resistance<br /> The Futility of the Ballot<br /> Voluntary Cooperation a Remedy<br /> Economics<br /> I. Money and Interest<br /> Capital, Profits and Interest<br /> Free Money First<br /> Free Banking<br /> The Abolition of Interest<br /> Necessity for a Standard of Value<br /> The Redemption of Paper Money<br /> Government and Value<br /> Henry George and Interest<br /> Various Money Schemes<br /> II. Land And Rent<br /> Land for the People<br /> Rent<br /> Economic Rent<br /> Liberty, Land, and Labor<br /> Property Under Anarchism<br /> Occupancy and Use Versus the Single Tax<br /> George and the Single Tax<br /> Methods<br /> Refusal to Pay Rent<br /> III. Trade and Industry<br /> The Attitude of Anarchism Toward Industrial Combinations<br /> Strikes and Force<br /> Labor and its Pay<br /> The Post Office and Private Mail Service<br /> Liberty or Authority<br /> Liberty and Labor<br /> Competition and Cooperation<br /> Liberty and the Boycott<br /> Anarchism and Copyright<br /> Bibliography<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Benjamin_Tucker__Individual_Liberty.html">click here for full text</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-50460306550888210192011-09-28T01:26:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:29:25.635-07:00Individualist or Philosophical Anarchism by Victor YarrosThe individualistic or philosophical anarchists favor the abolition of ‘the State’ and government of man, by man. They seek to bring about a state of perfect freedom of anarchy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Definition and Statement</span><br /><br />To comprehend the precise import of this statement it is essential to grasp and bear in mind the definitions given by the anarchists to the terms employed in their expositions. The current misconceptions of the anarchistic doctrines are chiefly due to the persistent, though largely unconscious habit of interpreting them in the light of the popular definitions of the terms ‘State’, ‘government’, etc., instead of in the light of their own technical use of these terms.<br /><br />The average man, on being told that the anarchist would abolish all governmental restraints, not unnaturally concludes that the proposition involves the removal of the restrictions upon criminal conduct, the relinquishment of organized defence of life, liberty and property.<br /><br />Those who are familiar with the doctrine of nonresistance to evil, preached by the early Christians and by the modern Tolstoians, generally identify anarchism with it.<br /><br />But such interpretations are without any foundation. The anarchists emphatically favor resistance to and organized protection against crime and aggression of every kind; it is not greater freedom for the criminal, but greater freedom for the noncriminal, that they aim to secure; and by the abolition of government they mean the removal of restrictions upon conduct intrinsically ethical and legitimate, but which ignorant legislation has interdicted as criminal.<br /><br />The anarchistic principle of personal liberty is absolutely coincident with the famous Spencerian ‘first principle of human happiness,’ the principle of ‘equal freedom’, which Mr. Spencer has expressed in the formula, ‘Every man is free to do what he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.’<br /><br />It is, in fact, precisely because the anarchist accepts this principle without reservations and insists on the suppression and elimination of all aggression or invasion all conduct incompatible with equality of liberty that he declares war upon the ‘State’ and ‘government’. He defines ‘State’ as ‘the embodiment of the principle of invasion in an individual or band of individuals, assuming to act as representatives or masters of the entire people within a given area.’ (The definitions here given are those formed and consistently used by Benjamin R. Tucker, the editor of Liberty, the organ of the philosophical anarchistic movement.)<br /><br />Government he defines as ‘the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will’; and ‘invasion’ as conduct violative of equal freedom.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Program</span><br /><br />Perhaps the clearest way of stating the political program of the anarchists will be to indicate its relation to other better known theories of government. The anarchists agreeing with the view of the true Jeffersonian Democrats; that the best government is that which governs least, sympathizing with the position of the old Manchester individualists and laissezfaireists, who believed in a minimum of government interference, as well as with the less value doctrines of the more radical modern individualists of the Spencerian school, who would limit the State to the sole function of protecting men against external and internal invaders, go a step farther and demand the dissolution of what remains of ‘government’ viz., compulsory taxation and compulsory military service. It is no more necessary, contend the anarchists, that government should assume the protective military and police functions, and compel men to accept its services, than it is that government should meddle with production, trade, banking, education, and other lines of human activity.<br /><br />By voluntary organization and voluntary taxation it is perfectly possible to protect liberty and property and to restrain crime.<br /><br />It is doubtless easy to imagine a society in which government concerns itself with nothing save preservation of order and punishment of crime, in which there are no public schools supported by compulsory taxation, no government interference with the issue of currency and banking, no customhouses or duties on foreign imports, no government postal service, no censorship of literature and the stage, no attempt to enforce Sunday laws, etc.<br /><br />The laissezfaireists of the various schools have familiarized the thinking public with such a type of social organization. Now the anarchists propose to do away with the compulsory feature of the single function reserved for government by the radical laissezfaireists. In other words, they insist on the right of the non-aggressive individual to ‘ignore the State’, to dispense with the protective services of the defensive organization and remain outside of it. This would not prevent those who might desire systematic and organized protection from combining to maintain a defensive institution, but such an institution would not be a government, since no one would be compelled to join it and pay toward its support. Anarchy therefore, may be defined as a state of society in which the noninvasive individual is not coerced into cooperation for the defense of his neighbors, and in which each enjoys the highest degree of liberty compatible with equality of liberty.<br /><br />With regard to the question of putting down aggression, the jurisdiction of the voluntary defensive organization would of course extend to outsiders, and not be limited by its membership. The criminals are not to secure immunity by declining to join defensive associations. As the freedom of each is to be bounded by the equal freedom of all, the invader would be liable to punishment under anarchism no less than under government. Criminals would still be tried by juries and punished by executive officers. They would not be allowed to set up ethical standards for themselves and to do what is right in their own eyes.”<br /><br />Such a doctrine involves not the abolition of government but the widest possible extension of it. It repudiates all ethical principles and abandons all attempts at enforcing justice and protecting rights. Every man is allowed under it to govern his fellows, if he has the will and the power, and the struggle for existence in the simplest and crudest form is revived.<br /><br />Anarchism, on the other hand, posits the principle of equal liberty as binding upon all, and only insists that those who refrain from violating it should not be interfered with in any way, either by individual governors or combinations of would be rulers.<br /><br />Anarchists reject governmentalism because they find no ethical warrant and no practical necessity for it. It appears to them self-evident that society, or the community, can have no greater claims upon the individual than the component members of it have. The metaphysical and misleading analogies between society and organism, upon which is usually founded the governmentalist’s theory of the prerogatives of the State, anarchists reject with undisguised contempt.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Arguments for Anarchism</span><br /><br />The community’, or ‘the State,’ is an abstraction, and an abstraction has neither rights nor duties. Individuals, and individuals only, have rights. This proposition is the cornerstone of the anarchistic doctrine, and those who accept it are bound to go the full length of anarchism.<br /><br />For if the community cannot rightfully compel a man to do or refrain from doing that which private and individual members thereof cannot legitimately force him to do or forego, then compulsory taxation and compulsory cooperation for any purpose whatever are wrong in principle, and government is merely another name for aggression. It will not be pretended that one private individual has the right to tax another private individual without his consent; how, then, does the majority of the members of a community obtain the right to tax the minority without its consent?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Government Aggression</span><br /><br />Having outgrown the dogma of the divine right of kings, democratic countries are unconsciously erecting the dogma of the divine right of majorities to rule. The absurdity of such a belief is apparent. Majorities, minorities, and other combinations of individuals are entitled to insist on respect of their rights, but not on violating the rights of others. There is one ethical standard, not two; and it cannot be right for government to do that which would be criminal, immoral, when committed by individuals.<br /><br />Laws of social life are not made at the polls or in legislative assemblies; they have to be discovered in the same way in which laws of other sciences are discovered. Once discovered, majorities are bound to observe them no less than individuals.<br /><br />As already stated, the anarchists hold that the law of equal freedom, formulated positively by Spencer and negatively by Kant, is a scientific social law which ought to guide men in their various activities and mutual relations. The logical deductions and corollaries of this law show us at once our rights and our duties. Government violates this great law not only by the fact of its very existence but in a thousand other ways.<br /><br />Government means the coercion of the noninvasive, the taxation of those who protest at being forced to join the political organization set up by the majority. It enacts statutes and imposed restraints which find no sanction in the law of equal freedom, and punishes men for disobeying such arbitrary provisions.<br /><br />It is true that governments profess to have the public welfare in view and to enforce nothing save what morality and justice dictate. Justice, however, is invariably confounded by governments with legalism, and by the enforcement of justice they often mean the enforcement of the very laws which they enact in violation of justice. Thus laws in restraint of trade and of exchange are enforced in the name of justice, whereas justice demands the fullest freedom of trade and exchange.<br /><br />Strictly speaking, the enforcement of justice cannot be undertaken by government at all, since a government that should attempt to enforce justice would have to begin by signing its own death warrant.<br /><br />A government that would enforce equal freedom and let the inoffensive alone would be, not a government, but a voluntary association for the protection of rights.<br /><br />In republican countries men loosely speak of their ‘free government’, their ‘government by consent’. In reality there is no such thing as government by consent. Majorities rule, and the minorities are forced to acquiesce.<br /><br />The principle of consent is clearly fatal to governmentalism, for it implies the right of the noninvasive to ignore the State and decline to accept its services. Ethically a man has a perfect right to do this, for the mere refusal to join the political organization (which is merely an insurance association) is not a breach of the principle of equal freedom.<br /><br />Our ‘free governments’ deny this right, hence they are immoral. They cannot become moral except by ceasing to be governments and becoming purely voluntary associations for defence.<br /><br />Apart from the question of compulsory taxation and compulsory military service, on the abolition of which anarchists alone lay stress (although they readily admit that the police functions of government will be the last to disappear), there is little, if any, difference between anarchists and Spencerian individualists on the question of government interference. The cessation of such interference with economic relations — with the issue of money, banking, wages, trade, production etc. is advocated on the ground that the solution of the social problems is to be found in liberty rather than in regulation, in free competition rather than in State monopoly. On the subject of public education, postal service, poor laws, sanitary supervision, etc., anarchists, in common with advanced individualists, hold that government interference is as pernicious practically as it is unwarranted ethically. Corruption and inefficiency are evils inseparable from government management, and there is nothing which government does that could not be done better by private enterprise under free competition.<br /><br />In short, the anarchists object to governmentalism because it is unethical, as well as unnecessary and inexpedient.<br /><br />Government is either the will of one man or the will of a number of men, large or small. Now, the will of one or many is not a criterion of right and justice, while for the adjustment of the conflicting interests of the members of society such a criterion is an absolute necessity.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Majority Rule Discredited</span><br /><br />Majority rule, and even the rule of a despot, may be, under certain conditions, preferable to a state of civil chaos; but as men advance and study the facts of their own development, they begin to realize the truth that there is no relation whatever between right and numbers, justice and force. Majority rule is discredited along with despotic rule, and ethical science becomes the sole guide and authority. The social laws require to be applied and enforced as long as predatory instincts and invasive tendencies continue to manifest themselves in human relations, and this necessitates the maintenance of associations for the protection of freedom and the punishment of aggressive. But the governmental method is not adapted to the promotion of this end. Government begins by coercing the noninvasive individual into cooperation for defense and offense, regardless of the fact that a benevolent despotism is not a whit more defensible than a selfish despotism.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Methods</span><br /><br />In general it may be stated that any methods, not in themselves invasive, are regarded as legitimate by the anarchists in the furtherance of their cause. But they rely chiefly, if not entirely, on the methods of education — theoretical propaganda of their views — and of passive resistance to government. In violence, so-called propaganda by deed and subterranean plotting against existing institutions, they do not believe. Political changes may be brought about by revolutions, and possibly also such economic changes as are contemplated by the State socialists. But freedom can rest only on ideas and sentiments favorable to it, and revolutionary demonstrations can never abolish ignorance and the spirit of tyranny.<br /><br />Freedom cannot be forced on those who are not fit for it. The emancipation of the people from the aggression of government must come through their own deliberate choice and effort. Anarchists can but disseminate true political teachings and expose the nature and essence of governmentalism. Anarchists, however, do not believe that it is necessary to convert the whole people in order to carry their principles into practice. A strong and determined minority could, while remaining passive, successfully resist the attempt of government to tax them and otherwise impose its will upon them. Public opinion would not approve of a government campaign of violence against a number of intelligent and perfectly honest individuals banded together for the sole purpose of carrying on their legitimate activities and asserting their right to ignore injunctions and prohibitions having no authority from an ethical point of view.<br /><br />“Even if anarchists believed in the use of violent methods, and if they thought that violent resistance to government would hasten their emancipation they would certainty resort to it since it is not immoral or invasive to use force against invaders, there would be one important difference between them and other schools of reformers. Anarchists would not prevent others from living under government side by side with them, while other reformers seek to impose their schemes on the whole community in which they live. Thus the State socialists, in pursuance of their program of State monopoly of capital, intend to suppress all competition and all rivalry on the part of individual owners of capital. The anarchists, on the other hand, if allowed to remain outside of the governmental organization, would force no one to join them or follow their example. Still, as a matter of fact, anarchists abjure violence even in their own interests, vividly realizing the truth that the progress of justice and freedom is arrested in a state of war. Peace is an essential condition to the spread of rational ideas and the growth of the sentiment of toleration. Appealing, as they do, to the ideas and feelings of justice, it would be suicidal for anarchists to encourage violence and excite the lowest passions of men by revolutionary tactics.<br /><br />To reform by ordinary political methods the anarchists are also opposed, at least under present conditions. As they do not seek any new positive legislation, they can expect nothing from politics. They demand the repeal of the legislation which improperly restricts men’s freedom of action, and such repeal they cannot secure while being in a minority. Whether they would cooperate with other parties in attempting to carry specific measures of repeal, would depend largely on circumstances. It is to be remembered that, while the anarchists are strenuous in their opposition to every vestige of government, they do not expect to realize their entire program at one stroke. They are prepared for very slow and gradual reform, and would welcome the success of any single libertarian proposal. They would rejoice in the triumph of the free-trade idea, the repeal of the laws perpetuating land monopoly and monetary monopoly, and the abolition of special privileges. If they do not form themselves into a political party for the purpose of attaining one or more of these objects, it is because they can do more by other methods.<br /><br />Moreover, to enter into the political arena is to recognize, by implication, the principle of government. To vote is to coerce or to threaten coercion. Behind the ballot is the bullet of the soldier ready to force the defeated minority into submission. The voter does not merely assert his right to self-government; he sets up a claim to govern others. The anarchist cannot employ a method which would put him in such a false light.<br /><br />Thus the anarchist is neither a government bomb-thrower nor a revolutionary bomb-thrower. He objects to the use of violence by the government as well as against it. He restricts himself to the method of education and such passive resistance as is exemplified by a refusal to pay taxes or rent or import duties on commodities purchased in foreign countries.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-52743094361324412052011-09-28T01:20:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:24:08.156-07:00Walden: Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Walden_Thoreau.jpg/250px-Walden_Thoreau.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 360px; height: 510px;" src="http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Walden_Thoreau.jpg/250px-Walden_Thoreau.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Henry_David_Thoreau__Walden.html">click here for full text</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-80702550404706915852011-09-28T01:17:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:19:57.582-07:00A Tribute to John Brown by Henry David Thoreau<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg/230px-Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 230px; height: 284px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg/230px-Henry_David_Thoreau.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />A Plea for Captain John Brown<br /><br />30 October 1859<br /><br />I trust that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.<br /><br />First, as to his history. I will endeavor to omit, as much as possible, what you have already read. I need not describe his person to you, for probably most of you have seen and will not soon forget him. I am told that his grandfather, John Brown, was an officer in the Revolution; that he himself was born in Connecticut about the beginning of this century, but early went with his father to Ohio. I heard him say that his father was a contractor who furnished beef to the army there, in the war of 1812; that he accompanied him to the camp, and assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of military life, — more, perhaps, than if he had been a soldier; for he was often present at the councils of the officers. Especially, he learned by experience how armies are supplied and maintained in the field, — a work which, he observed, requires at least as much experience and skill as to lead them in battle. He said that few persons had any conception of the cost, even the pecuniary cost, of firing a single bullet in war. He saw enough, at any rate, to disgust him with a military life; indeed, to excite in him a great abhorrence of it; so much so, that though he was tempted by the offer of some petty office in the army, when he was about eighteen, he not only declined that, but he also refused to train when warned, and was fined for it. He then resolved that he would never have anything to do with any war, unless it were a war for liberty.<br /><br />When the troubles in Kansas began, he sent several of his sons thither to strengthen the party of the Free State men, fitting them out with such weapons as he had; telling them that if the troubles should increase, and there should be need of him, he would follow, to assist them with his hand and counsel. This, as you all know, he soon after did; and it was through his agency, far more than any other’s, that Kansas was made free.<br /><br />For a part of his life he was a surveyor, and at one time he was engaged in wool-growing, and he went to Europe as an agent about that business. There, as everywhere, he had his eyes about him, and made many original observations. He said, for instance, that he saw why the soil of England was so rich, and that of Germany (I think it was) so poor, and he thought of writing to some of the crowned heads about it. It was because in England the peasantry live on the soil which they cultivate, but in Germany they are gathered into villages, at night. It is a pity that he did not make a book of his observations.<br /><br />I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery he deemed to be wholly opposed to these, and he was its determined foe.<br /><br />He was by descent and birth a New England farmer, a man of great common-sense, deliberate and practical as that class is, and tenfold more so. He was like the best of those who stood at Concord Bridge once, on Lexington Common, and on Bunker Hill, only he was firmer and higher principled than any that I have chanced to hear of as there. It was no abolition lecturer that converted him. Ethan Allen and Stark, with whom he may in some respects be compared, were rangers in a lower and less important field. They could bravely face their country’s foes, but he had the courage to face his country herself, when she was in the wrong. A Western writer says, to account for his escape from so many perils, that he was concealed under a “rural exterior;” as if, in that prairie land, a hero should, by good rights, wear a citizen’s dress only.<br /><br />He did not go to the college called Harvard, good old Alma Mater as she is. He was not fed on the pap that is there furnished. As he phrased it, “I know no more of grammar than one of your calves.” But he went to the great university of the West, where he sedulously pursued the study of Liberty, for which he had early betrayed a fondness, and having taken many degrees, he finally commenced the public practice of Humanity in Kansas, as you all know. Such were his humanities and not any study of grammar. He would have left a Greek accent slanting the wrong way, and righted up a falling man.<br /><br />He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at all, — the Puritans. It would be in vain to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers’ day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates.<br /><br />“In his camp,” as one has recently written, and as I have myself heard him state, “he permitted no profanity; no man of loose morals was suffered to remain there, unless, indeed, as a prisoner of war. ‘I would rather,’ said he, ‘have the small-pox, yellow-fever, and cholera, all together in my camp, than a man without principle.... It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good principles, — God-fearing men, — men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians.’” He said that if one offered himself to be a soldier under him, who was forward to tell what he could or would do, if he could only get sight of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him.<br /><br />He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom he would accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in whom he had perfect faith. When he was here, some years ago, he showed to a few a little manuscript book, — his “orderly book” I think he called it, — containing the names of his company in Kansas, and the rules by which they bound themselves; and he stated that several of them had already sealed the contract with their blood. When some one remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the United States Army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and evening, nevertheless.<br /><br />He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.<br /><br />A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles, — that was what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse, but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly, how, in his speech here, he referred to what his family had suffered in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire. It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. Also referring to the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring away his speech, like an experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and meaning, “They had a perfect right to be hung.” He was not in the least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents anywhere, had no need to invent anything but to tell the simple truth, and communicate his own resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably strong, and eloquence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a discount. It was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those of an ordinary king.<br /><br />As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when scarcely a man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any direct route, at least without having his arms taken from him, he, carrying what imperfect guns and other weapons he could collect, openly and slowly drove an ox-cart through Missouri, apparently in the capacity of a surveyor, with his surveying compass exposed in it, and so passed unsuspected, and had ample opportunity to learn the designs of the enemy. For some time after his arrival he still followed the same profession. When, for instance, he saw a knot of the ruffians on the prairie, discussing, of course, the single topic which then occupied their minds, he would, perhaps, take his compass and one of his sons, and proceed to run an imaginary line right through the very spot on which that conclave had assembled, and when he came up to them, he would naturally pause and have some talk with them, learning their news, and, at last, all their plans perfectly; and having thus completed his real survey he would resume his imaginary one, and run on his line till he was out of sight.<br /><br />When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all, with a price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying, “It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken.” Much of the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering from poverty and from sickness, which was the consequence of exposure, befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and transact some business, without delaying long, and yet not be molested; for, said he, “No little handful of men were willing to undertake it, and a large body could not be got together in season.”<br /><br />As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts about it. It was evidently far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy, Mr. Vallandigham, is compelled to say, that “it was among the best planned executed conspiracies that ever failed.”<br /><br />Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show a want of good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human beings, and walk off with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not months, at a leisurely pace, through one State after another, for half the length of the North, conspicuous to all parties, with a price set upon his head, going into a court-room on his way and telling what he had done, thus convincing Missouri that it was not profitable to try to hold slaves in his neighborhood? — and this, not because the government menials were lenient, but because they were afraid of him.<br /><br />Yet he did not attribute his success, foolishly, to “his star,” or to any magic. He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause, — a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defence of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.<br /><br />But to make haste to his last act, and its effects.<br /><br />The newspapers seem to ignore, or perhaps are really ignorant of the fact, that there are at least as many as two or three individuals to a town throughout the North who think much as the present speaker does about him and his enterprise. I do not hesitate to say that they are an important and growing party. We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in. Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics. Though we wear no crape, the thought of that man’s position and probable fate is spoiling many a man’s day here at the North for other thinking. If any one who has seen him here can pursue successfully any other train of thought, I do not know what he is made of. If there is any such who gets his usual allowance of sleep, I will warrant him to fatten easily under any circumstances which do not touch his body or purse. I put a piece of paper and a pencil under my pillow, and when I could not sleep, I wrote in the dark.<br /><br />On the whole, my respect for my fellow-men, except as one may outweigh a million, is not being increased these days. I have noticed the cold-blooded way in which newspaper writers and men generally speak of this event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of unusual “pluck,” — as the Governor of Virginia is reported to have said, using the language of the cock-pit, “the gamest man he ever saw,” — had been caught, and were about to be hung. He was not dreaming of his foes when the governor thought he looked so brave. It turns what sweetness I have to gall, to hear, or hear of, the remarks of some of my neighbors. When we heard at first that he was dead, one of my townsmen observed that “he died as the fool dieth;” which, pardon me, for an instant suggested a likeness in him dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven-hearted, said disparagingly, that “he threw his life away,” because he resisted the government. Which way have they thrown their lives, pray? — such as would praise a man for attacking singly an ordinary band of thieves or murderers. I hear another ask, Yankee-like, “What will he gain by it?” as if he expected to fill his pockets by this enterprise. Such a one has no idea of gain but in this worldly sense. If it does not lead to a “surprise” party, if he does not get a new pair of boots, or a vote of thanks, it must be a failure. “But he won’t gain anything by it.” Well, no, I don’t suppose he could get four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the year round; but then he stands a chance to save a considerable part of his soul, — and such a soul! — when you do not. No doubt you can get more in your market for a quart of milk than for a quart of blood, but that is not the market that heroes carry their blood to.<br /><br />Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, and that, in the moral world, when good seed is planted, good fruit is inevitable, and does not depend on our watering and cultivating; that when you plant, or bury, a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and vitality, that it does not ask our leave to germinate.<br /><br />The momentary charge at Balaclava, in obedience to a blundering command, proving what a perfect machine the soldier is, has, properly enough, been celebrated by a poet laureate; but the steady, and for the most part successful, charge of this man, for some years, against the legions of Slavery, in obedience to an infinitely higher command, is as much more memorable than that, as an intelligent and conscientious man is superior to a machine. Do you think that that will go unsung?<br /><br />“Served him right,” — “A dangerous man,” — “He is undoubtedly insane.” So they proceed to live their sane, and wise, and altogether admirable lives, reading their Plutarch a little, but chiefly pausing at that feat of Putnam, who was let down into a wolf’s den; and in this wise they nourish themselves for brave and patriotic deeds some time or other. The Tract Society could afford to print that story of Putnam. You might open the district schools with the reading of it, for there is nothing about Slavery or the Church in it; unless it occurs to the reader that some pastors are wolves in sheep’s clothing. “The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions” even, might dare to protest against that wolf. I have heard of boards, and of American boards, but it chances that I never heard of this particular lumber till lately. And yet I hear of Northern men, and women, and children, by families, buying a “life membership” in such societies as these. A life-membership in the grave! You can get buried cheaper than that.<br /><br />Our foes are in our midst and all about us. There is hardly a house but is divided against itself, for our foe is the all but universal woodenness of both head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds. We are mere figureheads upon a hulk, with livers in the place of hearts. The curse is the worship of idols, which at length changes the worshipper into a stone image himself; and the New-Englander is just as much an idolater as the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a political graven image between him and his God.<br /><br />A church that can never have done with excommunicating Christ while it exists! Away with your broad and flat churches, and your narrow and tall churches! Take a step forward, and invent a new style of out-houses. Invent a salt that will save you, and defend our nostrils.<br /><br />The modern Christian is a man who has consented to say all the prayers in the liturgy, provided you will let him go straight to bed and sleep quietly afterward. All his prayers begin with “Now I lay me down to sleep,” and he is forever looking forward to the time when he shall go to his “long rest.” He has consented to perform certain old-established charities, too, after a fashion, but he does not wish to hear of any new-fangled ones; he doesn’t wish to have any supplementary articles added to the contract, to fit it to the present time. He shows the whites of his eyes on the Sabbath, and the blacks all the rest of the week. The evil is not merely a stagnation of blood, but a stagnation of spirit. Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are. Accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves.<br /><br />We dream of foreign countries, of other times and races of men, placing them at a distance in history or space; but let some significant event like the present occur in our midst, and we discover, often, this distance and this strangeness between us and our nearest neighbors. They are our Austrias, and Chinas, and South Sea Islands. Our crowded society becomes well spaced all at once, clean and handsome to the eye, — a city of magnificent distances. We discover why it was that we never got beyond compliments and surfaces with them before; we become aware of as many versts between us and them as there are between a wandering Tartar and a Chinese town. The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the market-place. Impassable seas suddenly find their level between us, or dumb steppes stretch themselves out there. It is the difference of constitution, of intelligence, and faith, and not streams and mountains, that make the true and impassable boundaries between individuals and between states. None but the like-minded can come plenipotentiary to our court.<br /><br />I read all the newspapers I could get within a week after this event, and I do not remember in them a single expression of sympathy for these men. I have since seen one noble statement, in a Boston paper, not editorial. Some voluminous sheets decided not to print the full report of Brown’s words to the exclusion of other matter. It was as if a publisher should reject the manuscript of the New Testament, and print Wilson’s last speech. The same journal which contained this pregnant news, was chiefly filled, in parallel columns, with the reports of the political conventions that were being held. But the descent to them was too steep. They should have been spared this contrast, — been printed in an extra, at least. To turn from the voices and deeds of earnest men to the cackling of political conventions! Office-seekers and speech-makers, who do not so much as lay an honest egg, but wear their breasts bare upon an egg of chalk! Their great game is the game of straws, or rather that universal aboriginal game of the platter, at which the Indians cried hub, bub! Exclude the reports of religious and political conventions, and publish the words of a living man.<br /><br />But I object not so much to what they have omitted, as to what they have inserted. Even the Liberator called it “a misguided, wild, and apparently insane — effort.” As for the herd of newspapers and magazines, I do not chance to know an editor in the country who will deliberately print anything which he knows will ultimately and permanently reduce the number of his subscribers. They do not believe that it would be expedient. How then can they print truth? If we do not say pleasant things, they argue, nobody will attend to us. And so they do like some travelling auctioneers, who sing an obscene song, in order to draw a crowd around them. Republican editors, obliged to get their sentences ready for the morning edition, and accustomed to look at everything by the twilight of politics, express no admiration, nor true sorrow even, but call these men “deluded fanatics,” — “mistaken men,” — “insane,” or “crazed.” It suggests what a sane set of editors we are blessed with, not “mistaken men;” who know very well on which side their bread is buttered, at least.<br /><br />A man does a brave and humane deed, and at once, on all sides, we hear people and parties declaring, “I didn’t do it, nor countenance him to do it, in any conceivable way. It can’t be fairly inferred from my past career.” I, for one, am not interested to hear you define your position. I don’t know that I ever was, or ever shall be. I think it is mere egotism, or impertinent at this time. Ye needn’t take so much pains to wash your skirts of him. No intelligent man will ever be convinced that he was any creature of yours. He went and came, as he himself informs us, “under the auspices of John Brown and nobody else.” The Republican party does not perceive how many his failure will make to vote more correctly than they would have them. They have counted the votes of Pennsylvania & Co., but they have not correctly counted Captain Brown’s vote. He has taken the wind out of their sails, — the little wind they had, — and they may as well lie to and repair.<br /><br />What though he did not belong to your clique! Though you may not approve of his method or his principles, recognize his magnanimity. Would you not like to claim kindredship with him in that, though in no other thing he is like, or likely, to you? Do you think that you would lose your reputation so? What you lost at the spile, you would gain at the bung.<br /><br />If they do not mean all this, then they do not speak the truth, and say what they mean. They are simply at their old tricks still.<br /><br />“It was always conceded to him,” says one who calls him crazy, “that he was a conscientious man, very modest in his demeanor, apparently inoffensive, until the subject of Slavery was introduced, when he would exhibit a feeling of indignation unparalleled.”<br /><br />The slave-ship is on her way, crowded with its dying victims; new cargoes are being added in mid-ocean; a small crew of slaveholders, countenanced by a large body of passengers, is smothering four millions under the hatches, and yet the politician asserts that the only proper way by which deliverance is to be obtained, is by “the quiet diffusion of the sentiments of humanity,” without any “outbreak.” As if the sentiments of humanity were ever found unaccompanied by its deeds, and you could disperse them, all finished to order, the pure article, as easily as water with a watering-pot, and so lay the dust. What is that that I hear cast overboard? The bodies of the dead that have found deliverance. That is the way we are “diffusing” humanity, and its sentiments with it.<br /><br />Prominent and influential editors, accustomed to deal with politicians, men of an infinitely lower grade, say, in their ignorance, that he acted “on the principle of revenge.” They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him. I have no doubt that the time will come when they will begin to see him as he was. They have got to conceive of a man of faith and of religious principle, and not a politician or an Indian; of a man who did not wait till he was personally interfered with or thwarted in some harmless business before he gave his life to the cause of the oppressed.<br /><br />If Walker may be considered the representative of the South, I wish I could say that Brown was the representative of the North. He was a superior man. He did not value his bodily life in comparison with ideal things. He did not recognize unjust human laws, but resisted them as he was bid. For once we are lifted out of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood. No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all. He needed no babbling lawyer, making false issues, to defend him. He was more than a match for all the judges that American voters, or office-holders of whatever grade, can create. He could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist. When a man stands up serenely against the condemnation and vengeance of mankind, rising above them literally by a whole body, — even though he were of late the vilest murderer, who has settled that matter with himself, — the spectacle is a sublime one, — didn’t ye know it, ye Liberators, ye Tribunes, ye Republicans? — and we become criminal in comparison. Do yourselves the honor to recognize him. He needs none of your respect.<br /><br />As for the Democratic journals, they are not human enough to affect me at all. I do not feel indignation at anything they may say.<br /><br />I am aware that I anticipate a little, — that he was still, at the last accounts, alive in the hands of his foes; but that being the case, I have all along found myself thinking and speaking of him as physically dead.<br /><br />I do not believe in erecting statues to those who still live in our hearts, whose bones have not yet crumbled in the earth around us, but I would rather see the statue of Captain Brown in the Massachusetts State-House yard, than that of any other man whom I know. I rejoice that I live in this age, that I am his contemporary.<br /><br />What a contrast, when we turn to that political party which is so anxiously shuffling him and his plot out of its way, and looking around for some available slave holder, perhaps, to be its candidate, at least for one who will execute the Fugitive Slave Law, and all those other unjust laws which he took up arms to annul!<br /><br />Insane! A father and six sons, and one son-in-law, and several more men besides, — as many at least as twelve disciples, — all struck with insanity at once; while the same tyrant holds with a firmer gripe than ever his four millions of slaves, and a thousand sane editors, his abettors, are saving their country and their bacon! Just as insane were his efforts in Kansas. Ask the tyrant who is his most dangerous foe, the sane man or the insane? Do the thousands who know him best, who have rejoiced at his deeds in Kansas, and have afforded him material aid there, think him insane? Such a use of this word is a mere trope with most who persist in using it, and I have no doubt that many of the rest have already in silence retracted their words.<br /><br />Read his admirable answers to Mason and others. How they are dwarfed and defeated by the contrast! On the one side, half-brutish, half-timid questioning; on the other, truth, clear as lightning, crashing into their obscene temples. They are made to stand with Pilate, and Gesler, and the Inquisition. How ineffectual their speech and action! and what a void their silence! They are but helpless tools in this great work. It was no human power that gathered them about this preacher.<br /><br />What have Massachusetts and the North sent a few sane representatives to Congress for, of late years? — to declare with effect what kind of sentiments? All their speeches put together and boiled down, — and probably they themselves will confess it, — do not match for manly directness and force, and for simple truth, the few casual remarks of crazy John Brown, on the floor of the Harper’s Ferry engine-house, — that man whom you are about to hang, to send to the other world, though not to represent you there. No, he was not our representative in any sense. He was too fair a specimen of a man to represent the like of us. Who, then, were his constituents? If you read his words understandingly you will find out. In his case there is no idle eloquence, no made, nor maiden speech, no compliments to the oppressor. Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharpe’s rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech, — a Sharpe’s rifle of infinitely surer and longer range.<br /><br />And the New York Herald reports the conversation verbatim! It does not know of what undying words it is made the vehicle.<br /><br />I have no respect for the penetration of any man who can read the report of that conversation, and still call the principal in it insane. It has the ring of a saner sanity than an ordinary discipline and habits of life, than an ordinary organization, secure. Take any sentence of it, — “Any questions that I can honorably answer, I will; not otherwise. So far as I am myself concerned, I have told everything truthfully. I value my word, sir.” The few who talk about his vindictive spirit, while they really admire his heroism, have no test by which to detect a noble man, no amalgam to combine with his pure gold. They mix their own dross with it.<br /><br />It is a relief to turn from these slanders to the testimony of his more truthful, but frightened jailers and hangmen. Governor Wise speaks far more justly and appreciatingly of him than any Northern editor, or politician, or public personage, that I chance to have heard from. I know that you can afford to hear him again on this subject. He says: “They are themselves mistaken who take him to be madman.... He is cool, collected, and indomitable, and it is but just to him to say, that he was humane to his prisoners.... And he inspired me with great trust in his integrity as a man of truth. He is a fanatic, vain and garrulous,” (I leave that part to Mr. Wise,) “but firm, truthful, and intelligent. His men, too, who survive, are like him.... Colonel Washington says that he was the coolest and firmest man he ever saw in defying danger and death. With one son dead by his side, and another shot through, he felt the pulse of his dying son with one hand, and held his rifle with the other, and commanded his men with the utmost composure, encouraging them to be firm, and to sell their lives as dear as they could. Of the three white prisoners, Brown, Stephens, and Coppic, it was hard to say which was most firm.”<br /><br />Almost the first Northern men whom the slaveholder has learned to respect!<br /><br />The testimony of Mr. Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that “it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman.”<br /><br />“All is quiet at Harper’s Ferry,” say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a merely brute force, or worse, a demoniacal force. It is the head of the Plug-Uglies. It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to be effectually allied with France and Austria in oppressing mankind. There sits a tyrant holding fettered four millions of slaves; here comes their heroic liberator. This most hypocritical and diabolical government looks up from its seat on the gasping four millions, and inquires with an assumption of innocence: “What do you assault me for? Am I not an honest man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of you, too, or else hang you.”<br /><br />We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented! A semihuman tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.<br /><br />The only government that I recognize, — and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army, — is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!<br /><br />Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought? High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever recreates man. When you have caught and hung all these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon point not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to turn against its maker? Is the form in which the founder thinks he casts it more essential than the constitution of it and of himself?<br /><br />The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape. Such are not all the inhabitants of Massachusetts, but such are they who rule and are obeyed here. It was Massachusetts, as well as Virginia, that put down this insurrection at Harper’s Ferry. She sent the marines there, and she will have to pay the penalty of her sin. [53]<br /><br />Suppose that there is a society in this State that out of its own purse and magnanimity saves all the fugitive slaves that run to us, and protects our colored fellow-citizens, and leaves the other work to the government, so called. Is not that government fast losing its occupation, and becoming contemptible to mankind? If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services. Of course, that is but the shadow of a government whose existence necessitates a Vigilant Committee. What should we think of the Oriental Cadi even, behind whom worked in secret a Vigilant Committee? But such is the character of our Northern States generally; each has its Vigilant Committee. And, to a certain extent, these crazy governments recognize and accept this relation. They say, virtually, “We’ll be glad to work for you on these terms, only don’t make a noise about it.” And thus the government, its salary being insured, withdraws into the back shop, taking the Constitution with it, and bestows most of its labor on repairing that. When I hear it at work sometimes, as I go by, it reminds me, at best, of those farmers who in winter contrive to turn a penny by following the coopering business. And what kind of spirit is their barrel made to hold? They speculate in stocks, and bore holes in mountains, but they are not competent to lay out even a decent highway. The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunneled under the whole breadth of the land. Such a government is losing its power and respectability as surely as water runs out of a leaky vessel, and is held by one that can contain it.<br /><br />I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came? — till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man. It may be doubted if there were as many more their equals in these respects in all the country, — I speak of his followers only, — for their leader, no doubt, scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell his troop. These alone were ready to step between the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were the very best men you could select to be hung. That was the greatest compliment which this country could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. She has tried a long time, she has hung a good many, but never found the right one before.<br /><br />When I think of him, and his six sons, and his son-in-law, not to enumerate the others, enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to work for months if not years, sleeping and waking upon it, summering and wintering the thought, without expecting any reward but a good conscience, while almost all America stood ranked on the other side, — I say again that it affects me as a sublime spectacle. If he had had any journal advocating “his cause,” any organ, as the phrase is, monotonously and wearisomely playing the same old tune, and then passing round the hat, it would have been fatal to his efficiency. If he had acted in any way so as to be let alone by the government, he might have been suspected. It was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, or he to the tyrant, that distinguished him from all the reformers of the day that I know.<br /><br />It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others. Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death. I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me. At any rate, I do not think it is quite sane for one to spend his whole life in talking or writing about this matter, unless he is continuously inspired, and I have not done so. A man may have other affairs to attend to. I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve the so-called peace of our community by deeds of petty violence every day. Look at the policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at the jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain of the regiment! We are hoping only to live safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and maintain slavery. I know that the mass of my countrymen think that the only righteous use that can be made of Sharp’s rifles and revolvers is to fight duels with them, when we are insulted by other nations, or to hunt Indians, or shoot fugitive slaves with them, or the like. I think that for once the Sharp’s rifles and the revolvers were employed for a righteous cause. The tools were in the hands of one who could use them.<br /><br />The same indignation that is said to have cleared the temple once will clear it again. The question is not about the weapon, but the spirit in which you use it. No man has appeared in America, as yet, who loved his fellow-man so well, and treated him so tenderly. He lived for him. He took up his life and he laid it down for him. What sort of violence is that which is encouraged, not by soldiers, but by peaceable citizens, not so much by laymen as by ministers of the Gospel, not so much by the fighting sects as by the Quakers, and not so much by Quaker men as by Quaker women?<br /><br />This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death, — the possibility of a man’s dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; for in order to die you must first have lived. I don’t believe in the hearses, and palls, and funerals that they have had. There was no death in the case, because there had been no life; they merely rotted or sloughed off, pretty much as they had rotted or sloughed along. No temple’s veil was rent, only a hole dug somewhere. Let the dead bury their dead. The best of them fairly ran down like a clock. Franklin, — Washington, — they were let off without dying; they were merely missing one day. I hear a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I’ll defy them to do it. They haven’t got life enough in them. They’ll deliquesce like fungi, and keep a hundred eulogists mopping the spot where they left off. Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there’s no hope of you. You haven’t got your lesson yet. You’ve got to stay after school. We make a needless ado about capital punishment, — taking lives, when there is no life to take. Memento mori! We don’t understand that sublime sentence which some worthy got sculptured on his gravestone once. We’ve interpreted it in a grovelling and snivelling sense; we’ve wholly forgotten how to die.<br /><br />But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end.<br /><br />These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man’s acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard. It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the North, and infused more and more generous blood into her veins and heart, than any number of years of what is called commercial and political prosperity could. How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!<br /><br />One writer says that Brown’s peculiar monomania made him to be “dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being.” Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity in him.<br /><br /> “Unless above himself he can<br /> Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!”<br /><br />Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his insanity that he thought he was appointed to do this work which he did, — that he did not suspect himself for a moment! They talk as if it were impossible that a man could be “divinely appointed” in these days to do any work whatever; as if vows and religion were out of date as connected with any man’s daily work; as if the agent to abolish slavery could only be somebody appointed by the President, or by some political party. They talk as if a man’s death were a failure, and his continued life, be it of whatever character, were a success.<br /><br />When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens and earth are asunder.<br /><br />The amount of it is, our “leading men” are a harmless kind of folk, and they know well enough that they were not divinely appointed, but elected by the votes of their party.<br /><br />Who is it whose safety requires that Captain Brown be hung? Is it indispensable to any Northern man? Is there no resource but to cast this man also to the Minotaur? If you do not wish it, say so distinctly. While these things are being done, beauty stands veiled and music is a screeching lie. Think of him, — of his rare qualities! — such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand; no mock hero, nor the representative of any party. A man such as the sun may not rise upon again in this benighted land. To whose making went the costliest material, the finest adamant; sent to be the redeemer of those in captivity; and the only use to which you can put him is to hang him at the end of a rope! You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider what you are about to do to him who offered himself to be the savior of four millions of men.<br /><br />Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution. Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man’s being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind, — to form any resolution whatever, — and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing. A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that?<br /><br />I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character, — his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.<br /><br />I see now that it was necessary that the bravest and humanest man in all the country should be hung. Perhaps he saw it himself. I almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a prolonged life, if any life, can do as much good as his death.<br /><br />“Misguided”! “Garrulous”! “Insane”! “Vindictive”! So ye write in your easy-chairs, and thus he wounded responds from the floor of the Armory, clear as a cloudless sky, true as the voice of nature is: “No man sent me here; it was my own prompting and that of my Maker. I acknowledge no master in human form.”<br /><br />And in what a sweet and noble strain he proceeds, addressing his captors, who stand over him: “I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity, and it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage.”<br /><br />And, referring to his movement: “It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man can render to God.”<br /><br />“I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in the sight of God.”<br /><br />You don’t know your testament when you see it.<br /><br />“I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave power, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful.”<br /><br />“I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you people at the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question, that must come up for settlement sooner than your are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled, — this negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet.”<br /><br />I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.<br />Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown<br /><br />2 December 1859<br /><br />So universal and widely related is any transcendent moral greatness, and so nearly identical with greatness every where and in every age, — as a pyramid contracts the nearer you approach its apex, — that, when I now look over my commonplace book of poetry, I find that the best of it is oftenest applicable, in part or wholly, to the case of Captain Brown. Only what is true, and strong, and solemnly earnest, will recommend itself to our mood at this time. Almost any noble verse may be read, either as his elegy or eulogy, or be made the text of an oration on him. Indeed, such are now discovered to be the parts of a universal liturgy, applicable to those rare cases of heroes and martyrs, for which the ritual of no church has provided. This is the formula established on high — their burial service — to which every great genius has contributed its stanza or line. As Marvell wrote:<br /><br /> When the sword glitters o’er the judge’s head,<br /> And fear has coward churchmen silenced,<br /> Then is the poet’s time; ’tis then he draws,<br /> And single fights forsaken virtue’s cause;<br /> He, when the wheel of empire whirleth back,<br /> And though the world’s disjointed axle crack,<br /> Sings still of ancient rights and better times,<br /> Seeks suffering good, arraigns successful crimes.<br /><br />The sense of grand poetry, read by the light of this event, is brought out distinctly, like an invisible writing held to the fire:<br /><br /> All heads must come<br /> To the cold tomb, —<br /> Only the actions of the just<br /> Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.<br /><br />We have heard that the Boston lady who recently visited our hero in prison found him wearing still the clothes, all cut and torn by sabres and by bayonet thrusts, in which he had been taken prisoner; and thus he had gone to his trial, and without a hat. She spent her time in prison mending those clothes, and, for a memento, brought home a pin covered with blood.<br /><br />What are the clothes that endure?<br /><br /> The garments lasting evermore<br /> Are works of mercy to the poor;<br /> And neither tetter, time, nor moth<br /> Shall fray that silk or fret this cloth.<br /><br />The well-known verses called “The Soul’s Errand,” supposed, by some, to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh, when he was expecting to be executed the following day, are at least worthy of such an origin, and are equally applicable to the present case. Hear them:<br /><br /> The Soul’s Errand<br /><br /> Go, soul, the body’s guest,<br /> Upon a thankless arrant;<br /> Fear not to touch the best;<br /> The truth shall be thy warrant:<br /> Go, since I needs must die,<br /> And give the world the lie.<br /><br /> Go, tell the Court it glows<br /> And shines like rotten wood;<br /> Go, tell the church it shows<br /> What’s good, and doth no good;<br /> If church and court reply,<br /> Then give them both the lie.<br /><br /> Tell potentates they live<br /> Acting by others’ actions;<br /> Not loved unless they give,<br /> Not strong but by their factions:<br /> If potentates reply,<br /> Give potentates the lie.<br /><br /> Tell men of high condition,<br /> That rule affairs of state,<br /> Their purpose is ambition,<br /> Their practice only hate;<br /> And if they once reply,<br /> Then give them all the lie.<br /><br /> Tell Zeal, it lacks devotion;<br /> Tell Love, it is but lust;<br /> Tell Time, it is but motion;<br /> Tell Flesh, it is but dust;<br /> And wish them not reply,<br /> For thou must give the lie.<br /><br /> Tell Age, it daily wasteth;<br /> Tell Honor, how it alters;<br /> Tell Beauty, how she blasteth;<br /> Tell Favor, how she falters;<br /> And, as they shall reply,<br /> Give each of them the lie.<br /><br /> Tell Fortune of her blindness;<br /> Tell Nature of decay;<br /> Tell Friendship of unkindness;<br /> Tell Justice of delay;<br /> And if they dare reply,<br /> Then give them all the lie.<br /><br /> And when thou hast, as I<br /> Commanded thee, done blabbing,<br /> Although to give the lie<br /> Deserves no less than stabbing,<br /> Yet, stab at thee who will,<br /> No stab the soul can kill.<br /><br /> “When I am dead,<br /> Let not the day be writ,”<br /> Nor bell be tolled<br /> “Love will remember it”<br /> When hate is cold.<br /><br />[Thoreau also read a number of poetical passages, selected for the occasion by another citizen of Concord:<br /><br /> How sleep the Brave by William Collins<br /><br /> excerpts from The Death of Wallenstein by Frederich Schiller (translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)<br /><br /> excerpts from Alas! What boots the long laborious quest by William Wordsworth<br /><br /> excerpts from Maud by Alfred Tennyson<br /><br /> excerpts from Conspirary of Charles, Duke of Byron by George Chapman<br /><br /> The Character of a Happy Life by Henry Wotton<br /><br />Thoreau then read his own translation of Tacitus:]<br /><br /> You, Agricola, are fortunate, not only because your life was glorious, but because your death was timely. As they tell us who heard your last words, unchanged and willing you accepted your fate; as if, as far as in your power, you would make the emperor appear innocent. But, besides the bitterness of having lost a parent, it adds to our grief, that it was not permitted us to minister to your health, ... to gaze on your countenance, and receive your last embrace; surely, we might have caught some words and commands which we could have treasured in the inmost part of our souls. This is our pain, this our wound. ... You were buried with the fewer tears, and in your last earthly light, your eyes looked around for something which they did not see.<br /><br /> If there is any abode for the spirits of the pious; if, as wise men suppose, great souls are not extinguished with the body, may you rest placidly, and call your family from weak regrets, and womanly laments, to the contemplation of your virtues, which must not be lamented, either silently or aloud. Let us honor you by our admiration, rather than by short-lived praises, and, if nature aid us, by our emulation of you. That is true honor, that the piety of whoever is most akin to you. This also I would teach your family, so to venerate your memory, as to call to mind all your actions and words, and embrace your character and the form of your soul, rather than of your body; not because I think that statues which are made of marble or brass are to be condemned, but as the features of men, so images of the features, are frail and perishable. The form of the soul is eternal; and this we can retain and express, not by a foreign material and art, but by our own lives. Whatever of Agricola we have loved, whatever we have admired, remains, and will remain, in the minds of men, and the records of history, through the eternity of ages. For oblivion will overtake many of the ancients, as if they were inglorious and ignoble: Agricola, described and transmitted to posterity, will survive.<br /><br />The Last Days of John Brown<br /><br />John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.<br /><br />If any person, in a lecture or conversation at that time, cited any ancient example of heroism, such as Cato or Tell or Winkelried, passing over the recent deeds and words of Brown, it was felt by any intelligent audience of Northern men to be tame and inexcusably far-fetched.<br /><br />For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent. It appeared strange to me that the “little dipper” should be still diving quietly into the river, as of yore; and it suggested that this bird might continue to dive here when Concord should be no more.<br /><br />I felt that he, a prisoner in the midst of his enemies and under sentence of death, if consulted as to his next step or resource, could answer more wisely than all his countrymen beside. He best understood his position; he contemplated it most calmly. Comparatively, all other men, North and South, were beside themselves. Our thoughts could not revert to any greater or wiser or better man with whom to contrast him, for he, then and there, was above them all. The man this country was about to hang appeared the greatest and best in it.<br /><br />Years were not required for a revolution of public opinion; days, nay hours, produced marked changes in this case. Fifty who were ready to say, on going into our meeting in honor of him in Concord, that he ought to be hung, would not say it when they came out. They heard his words read; they saw the earnest faces of the congregation; and perhaps they joined at last in singing the hymn in his praise.<br /><br />The order of instructions was reversed. I heard that one preacher, who at first was shocked and stood aloof, felt obliged at last, after he was hung, to make him the subject of a sermon, in which, to some extent, he eulogized the man, but said that his act was a failure. An influential class-teacher thought it necessary, after the services, to tell his grown-up pupils that at first he thought as the preacher did then, but now he thought that John Brown was right. But it was understood that his pupils were as much ahead of the teacher as he was ahead of the priest; and I know for a certainty that very little boys at home had already asked their parents, in a tone of surprise, why God did not interfere to save him. In each case, the constituted teachers were only half conscious that they were not leading, but being dragged, with some loss of time and power.<br /><br />The more conscientious preachers, the Bible men, they who talk about principle, and doing to others as you would that they should do unto you, — how could they fail to recognize him, by far the greatest preacher of them all, with the Bible in his life and in his acts, the embodiment of principle, who actually carried out the golden rule? All whose moral sense had been aroused, who had a calling from on high to preach, sided with him. What confessions he extracted from the cold and conservative! It is remarkable, but on the whole it is well, that it did not prove the occasion for a new sect of Brownites being formed in our midst.<br /><br />They, whether within the Church or out of it, who adhere to the spirit and let go the letter, and are accordingly called infidel, were as usual foremost to recognize him. Men have been hung in the South before for attempting to rescue slaves, and the North was not much stirred by it. Whence, then, this wonderful difference? We were not so sure of their devotion to principle. We made a subtle distinction, forgot human laws, and did homage to an idea. The North, I mean the living North, was suddenly all transcendental. It went behind the human law, it went behind the apparent failure, and recognized eternal justice and glory. Commonly, men live according to a formula, and are satisfied if the order of law is observed, but in this instance they, to some extent, returned to original perceptions, and there was a slight revival of old religion. They saw that what was called order was confusion, what was called justice, injustice, and that the best was deemed the worst. This attitude suggested a more intelligent and generous spirit than that which actuated our forefathers, and the possibility, in the course of ages, of a revolution in behalf of another and an oppressed people.<br /><br />Most Northern men, and a few Southern ones, were wonderfully stirred by Brown’s behavior and words. They saw and felt that they were heroic and noble, and that there had been nothing quite equal to them in their kind in this country, or in the recent history of the world. But the minority were unmoved by them. They were only surprised and provoked by the attitude of their neighbors. They saw that Brown was brave, and that he believed that he had done right, but they did not detect any further peculiarity in him. Not being accustomed to make fine distinctions, or to appreciate magnanimity, they read his letters and speeches as if they read them not. They were not aware when they approached a heroic statement, — they did not know when they burned. They did not feel that he spoke with authority, and hence they only remembered that the law must be executed. They remembered the old formula, but did not hear the new revelation. The man who does not recognize in Brown’s words a wisdom and nobleness, and therefore an authority, superior to our laws, is a modern Democrat. This is the test by which to discover him. He is not willfully but constitutionally blind on this side, and he is consistent with himself. Such has been his past life; no doubt of it. In like manner he has read history and his Bible, and he accepts, or seems to accept, the last only as an established formula, and not because he has been convicted by it. You will not find kindred sentiments in his commonplace-book, if he has one.<br /><br />When a noble deed is done, who is likely to appreciate it? They who are noble themselves. I was not surprised that certain of my neighbors spoke of John Brown as an ordinary felon, for who are they? They have either much flesh, or much office, or much coarseness of some kind. They are not ethereal natures in any sense. The dark qualities predominate in them. Several of them are decidedly pachydermatous. I say it in sorrow, not in anger. How can a man behold the light who has no answering inward light? They are true to their sight, but when they look this way they see nothing, they are blind. For the children of the light to contend with them is as if there should be a contest between eagles and owls. Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He’ll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.<br /><br />It is not every man who can be a Christian, even in a very moderate sense, whatever education you give him. It is a matter of constitution and temperament, after all. He may have to be born again many times. I have known many a man who pretended to be a Christian, in whom it was ridiculous, for he had no genius for it. It is not every man who can be a free man, even.<br /><br />Editors persevered for a good while in saying that Brown was crazy; but at last they said only that it was “a crazy scheme,” and the only evidence brought to prove it was that it cost him his life. I have no doubt that if he had gone with five thousand men, liberated a thousand slaves, killed a hundred or two slaveholders, and had as many more killed on his own side, but not lost his own life, these same editors would have called it by a more respectable name. Yet he has been far more successful than that. He has liberated many thousands of slaves, both North and South. They seem to have known nothing about living or dying for a principle. They all called him crazy then; who calls him crazy now?<br /><br />All through the excitement occasioned by his remarkable attempt and subsequent behavior the Massachusetts legislature, not taking any steps for the defense of her citizens who were likely to be carried to Virginia as witnesses and exposed to the violence of a slaveholding mob, was wholly absorbed in a liquor-agency question, and indulging in poor jokes on the word “extension.” Bad spirits occupied their thoughts. I am sure that no statesman up to the occasion could have attended to that question at all at that time, — a very vulgar question to attend to at any time!<br /><br />When I looked into a liturgy of the Church of England, printed near the end of the last century, in order to find a service applicable to the case of Brown, I found that the only martyr recognized and provided for it was King Charles the First, an eminent scamp. Of all the inhabitants of England and of the world, he was the only one, according to this authority, whom that church had made a martyr and saint of; and for more than a century it had celebrated his martyrdom, so called, by an annual service. What a satire on the Church is that!<br /><br />Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.<br /><br />What avail all your scholarly accomplishments and learning, compared with wisdom and manhood? To omit his other behavior, see what a work this comparatively unread and unlettered man wrote within six weeks. Where is our professor of belles-lettres, or of logic and rhetoric, who can write so well? He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history. What a variety of themes he touched on in that short space! There are words in that letter to his wife, respecting the education of his daughters, which deserve to be framed and hung over every mantelpiece in the land. Compare this earnest wisdom with that of Poor Richard.<br /><br />The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.<br /><br />Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics think that they know how to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken. The art of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind them. This unlettered man’s speaking and writing are standard English. Some words and phrases deemed vulgarisms and Americanisms before, he has made standard American; such as “It will pay.” It suggests that the one great rule of composition — and if I were a professor of rhetoric I should insist on this — is, to speak the truth. This first, this second, this third; pebbles in your mouth or not. This demands earnestness and manhood chiefly.<br /><br />We seem to have forgotten that the expression “a liberal education” originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely was considered worthy of slaves only. But taking a hint from the word, I would go a step further, and say that it is not the man of wealth and leisure simply, though devoted to art, or science, or literature, who, in a true sense, is liberally educated, but only the earnest and free man. In a slaveholding country like this, there can be no such thing as a liberal education tolerated by the State; and those scholars of Austria and France who, however learned they may be, are contented under their tyrannies have received only a servile education.<br /><br />Nothing could his enemies do but it redounded to his infinite advantage, — that is, to the advantage of his cause. They did not hang him at once, but reserved him to preach to them. And then there was another great blunder. They did not hang his four followers with him; that scene was still postponed; and so his victory was prolonged and completed. No theatrical manager could have arranged things so wisely to give effect to his behavior and words. And who, think you, was the manager? Who placed the slave-woman and her child, whom he stooped to kiss for a symbol, between his prison and the gallows?<br /><br />We soon saw, as he saw, that he was not to be pardoned or rescued by men. That would have been to disarm him, to restore him a material weapon, a Sharp’s rifle, when he had taken up the sword of the spirit, — the sword with which he has really won his greatest and most memorable victories. Now he has not laid aside the sword of the spirit, for he is pure spirit himself, and his sword is pure spirit also.<br /><br /> “He nothing common did or mean<br /> Upon that memorable scene, ...<br /> Nor called the gods with vulgar spite,<br /> To vindicate his helpless right;<br /> But bowed his comely head<br /> Down, as upon a bed.”<br /><br />What a transit was that of his horizontal body alone, but just cut down from the gallows-tree! We read that at such a time it passed through Philadelphia, and by Saturday night had reached New York. Thus like a meteor it shot through the Union from the Southern regions toward the North! No such freight had the cars borne since they carried him southward alive.<br /><br />On the day of his translation, I heard, to be sure, that he was hung, but I did not know what that meant; I felt no sorrow on that account; but not for a day or two did I even hear that he was dead, and not after any number of days shall I believe it. Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died. I never hear of a man named Brown now, — and I hear of them pretty often, — I never hear of any particularly brave and earnest man, but my first thought is of John Brown, and what relation he may be to him. I meet him at every turn. He is more alive than he ever was. He has earned immortality. He is not confined to North Elba nor to Kansas. He is no longer working in secret. He works in public, and in the clearest light that shines on this land.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-37542115271218622042011-09-28T01:14:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:17:43.981-07:00Paradise (to be) Regained by Henry David Thoreau<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.todayinliterature.com/assets/photos/t/henry-david-thoreau-200x286.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 286px;" src="http://www.todayinliterature.com/assets/photos/t/henry-david-thoreau-200x286.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A review of The Paradise within the Reach of all Men, without Labor, by Powers of Nature and Machinery: An Address to all intelligent men, in two parts by J.A. Etzler (1842).</span><br /><br />* * *<br /><br />We learn that Mr. Etzler is a native of Germany, and originally published his book in Pennsylvania, ten or twelve years ago; and now a second English edition, from the original American one, is demanded by his readers across the water, owing, we suppose, to the recent spread of Fourier’s doctrines. It is one of the signs of the times. We confess that we have risen from reading this book with enlarged ideas, and grander conceptions of our duties in this world. It did expand us a little. It is worth attending to, if only that it entertains large questions. Consider what Mr. Etzler proposes:<br /><br /> “Fellow-men! I promise to show the means of creating a paradise within ten years, where everything desirable for human life may be had by every man in superabundance, without labor, and without pay; where the whole face of nature shall be changed into the most beautiful forms, and man may live in the most magnificent palaces, in all imaginable refinements of luxury, and in the most delightful gardens; where he may accomplish, without labor, in one year, more than hitherto could be done in thousands of years; may level mountains, sink valleys, create lakes, drain lakes and swamps, and intersect the land everywhere with beautiful canals, and roads for transporting heavy loads of many thousand tons, and for traveling one thousand miles in twenty-four hours; may cover the ocean with floating islands movable in any desired direction with immense power and celerity, in perfect security, and with all comforts and luxuries, bearing gardens and palaces, with thousands of families, and provided with rivulets of sweet water; may explore the interior of the globe, and travel from pole to pole in a fortnight; provide himself with means, unheard of yet, for increasing his knowledge of the world, and so his intelligence; lead a life of continual happiness, of enjoyments yet unknown; free himself from almost all the evils that afflict mankind, except death, and even put death far beyond the common period of human life, and finally render it less afflicting. Mankind may thus live in and enjoy a new world, far superior to the present, and raise themselves far higher in the scale of being.”<br /><br />It would seem from this and various indications beside, that there is a transcendentalism in mechanics as well as in ethics. While the whole field of the one reformer lies beyond the boundaries of space, the other is pushing his schemes for the elevation of the race to its utmost limits. While one scours the heavens, the other sweeps the earth. One says he will reform himself, and then nature and circumstances will be right. Let us not obstruct ourselves, for that is the greatest friction. It is of little importance though a cloud obstruct the view of the astronomer compared with his own blindness. The other will reform nature and circumstances, and then man will be right. Talk no more vaguely, says he, of reforming the world — I will reform the globe itself. What matters it whether I remove this humor out of my flesh, or this pestilent humor from the fleshy part of the globe? Nay, is not the latter the more generous course? At present the globe goes with a shattered constitution in its orbit. Has it not asthma, and ague, and fever, and dropsy, and flatulence, and pleurisy, and is it not afflicted with vermin? Has it not its healthful laws counteracted, and its vital energy which will yet redeem it? No doubt the simple powers of nature, properly directed by man, would make it healthy and a paradise; as the laws of man’s own constitution but wait to be obeyed, to restore him to health and happiness. Our panaceas cure but few ails, our general hospitals are private and exclusive. We must set up another Hygeian than is now worshipped. Do not the quacks even direct small doses for children, larger for adults, and larger still for oxen and horses? Let us remember that we are to prescribe for the globe itself.<br /><br />This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a “better land,” without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world? The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. Every gazette brings accounts of the untutored freaks of the wind, — shipwrecks and hurricanes which the mariner and planter accept as special or general providences; but they touch our consciences, they remind us of our sins. Another deluge would disgrace mankind. We confess we never had much respect for that antediluvian race. A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts. How many things are now at loose ends! Who knows which way the wind will blow to-morrow? Let us not succumb to nature. We will marshal the clouds and restrain tempests; we will bottle up pestilent exhalations; we will probe for earthquakes, grub them up, and give vent to the dangerous gas; we will disembowel the volcano, and extract its poison, take its seed out. We will wash water, and warm fire, and cool ice, and underprop the earth. We will teach birds to fly, and fishes to swim, and ruminants to chew the cud. It is time we had looked into these things.<br /><br />And it becomes the moralist, too, to inquire what man might do to improve and beautify the system; what to make the stars shine more brightly, the sun more cheery and joyous, the moon more placid and content. Could he not heighten the tints of flowers and the melody of birds? Does he perform his duty to the inferior races? Should he not be a god to them? What is the part of magnanimity to the whale and the beaver? Should we not fear to exchange places with them for a day, lest by their behavior they should shame us? Might we not treat with magnanimity the shark and the tiger, not descend to meet there on their own level, with spears of shark’s teeth and bucklers of tiger’s skin? We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal. Ah! he is of little faith; even the erring comets and meteors would thank him, and return his kindness in their kind.<br /><br />How meanly and grossly do we deal with nature! Could we not have a less gross labor? What else do these fine inventions suggest, — magnetism, the daguerreotype, electricity? Can we not do more than cut and trim the forest — can we not assist in its interior economy, in the circulation of the sap? Now we work superficially and violently. We do not suspect how much might be done to improve our relation to animated nature even; what kindness and refined courtesy there might be.<br /><br />There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance, is a very slight interference. It is like directing the sunbeams. All nations, from the remotest antiquity, have thus fingered nature. There are Hymettus and Hybla, and how many bee-renowned spots beside? There is nothing gross in the idea of these little herds, — their hum like the faintest low of kine in the meads. A pleasant reviewer has lately reminded us that in some places they are led out to pasture where the flowers are most abundant. “Columella tells us,” says he, “that the inhabitants of Arabia sent their hives into Attica to benefit by the later-blowing flowers.” Annually are the hives, in immense pyramids, carried up the Nile in boats, and suffered to float slowly down the stream by night, resting by day, as the flowers put forth along the banks; and they determine the richness of any locality, and so the profitableness of delay, by the sinking of the boat in the water. We are told, by the same reviewer, of a man in Germany, whose bees yielded more honey than those of his neighbors, with no apparent advantage ; but at length he informed them, that he had turned his hives one degree more to the east, and so his bees, having two hours the start in the morning, got the first sip of honey. True, there is treachery and selfishness behind all this, but these things suggest to the poetic mind what might be done.<br /><br />Many examples there are of a grosser interference, yet not without their apology. We saw last summer, on the side of a mountain, a dog employed to churn for a farmer’s family, traveling upon a horizontal wheel, and though he had sore eyes, an alarming cough, and withal a demure aspect, yet their bread did get buttered for all that. Undoubtedly, in the most brilliant successes, the first rank is always sacrificed. Much useless traveling of horses, in extenso, has of late years been improved for man’s behoof, only two forces being taken advantage of, — the gravity of the horse, which is the centripetal, and his centrifugal inclination to go ahead. Only these two elements in the calculation. And is not the creature’s whole economy better economized thus? Are not all finite beings better pleased with motions relative than absolute? And what is the great globe itself but such a wheel, — a larger tread-mill, — so that our horse’s freest steps over prairies are oftentimes balked and rendered of no avail by the earth’s motion on its axis? But here he is the central agent and motive-power; and, for variety of scenery, being provided with a window in front, do not the ever-varying activity and fluctuating energy of the creature himself work the effect of the most varied scenery on a country road? It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man’s society.<br /><br />It will be seen that we contemplate a time when man’s will shall be law to the physical world, and he shall no longer be deterred by such abstractions as time and space, height and depth, weight and hardness, but shall indeed be the lord of creation. “Well,” says the faithless reader, “‘life is short, but art is long;’ where is the power that will effect all these changes?” This it is the very object of Mr. Etzler’s volume to show. At present, he would merely remind us that there are innumerable and immeasurable powers already existing in nature, unimproved on a large scale, or for generous and universal ends, amply sufficient for these purposes. He would only indicate their existence, as a surveyor makes known the existence of a water-power on any stream; but for their application he refers us to a sequel to this book, called the “Mechanical System.” A few of the most obvious and familiar of these powers are the Wind, the Tide, the Waves, the Sunshine. Let us consider their value.<br /><br />First, there is the power of the Wind, constantly exerted over tire globe. It appears from observation of a sailing-vessel, and from scientific tables, that the average power of the wind is equal to that of one horse for every one hundred square feet. “We know,” says our author —<br /><br /> “that ships of the first class carry sails two hundred feet high; we may, therefore, equally, on land, oppose to the wind surfaces of the same height. Imagine a line of such surfaces one mile, or about 5,000 feet, long; they would then contain 1,000,000 square feet. Let these surfaces intersect the direction of the wind at right angles, by some contrivance, and receive, consequently, its full power at al times. Its average power being equal to one horse for every 100 square feet, the total power would be equal to 1,000,000 divided by 100, or 10,000 horses’ power. Allowing the power of one horse to equal that of ten men, the power of 10,000 horses is equal to 100,000 men. But as men cannot work uninterruptedly, but want about half the time for sleep and repose, the same power would be equal to 200,000 men. ... We are not limited to the height of 200 feet; we might extend, if required, the application of this power to the height of the clouds, by means of kites.”<br /><br />But we will have one such fence for every square mile of the globe’s surface, for, as the wind usually strikes the earth at an angle of more than two degrees, which is evident from observing its effect on the high sea, it admits of even a closer approach. As the surface of the globe contains about 200,000,000 square miles, the whole power of the wind on these surfaces would equal 40,000,000,000,000 men’s power, and “would perform 80,000 times as much work as all the men on earth could effect with their nerves.”<br /><br />If it should be objected that this computation includes the surface of the ocean and uninhabitable regions of the earth, where this power could not be applied for our purposes, Mr. Etzler is quick with his reply — “But, you will recollect,” says he, “that I have promised to show the means for rendering the ocean as inhabitable as the most fruitful dry land; and I do not exclude even the polar regions.”<br /><br />The reader will observe that our author uses the fence only as a convenient formula for expressing the power of the wind, and does not consider it a necessary method of its application. We do not attach much value to this statement of the comparative power of the wind and horse, for no common ground is mentioned on which they can be compared. Undoubtedly, each is incomparably excellent in its way, and every general comparison made for such practical purposes as are contemplated, which gives a preference to the one, must be made with some unfairness to the other. The scientific tables are, for the most part, true only in a tabular sense. We suspect that a loaded wagon, with a light sail, ten feet square, would not have been blown so far by the end of the year, under equal circumstances, as a common racer or dray horse would have drawn it. And how many crazy structures on our globe’s surface, of the same dimensions, would wait for dry-rot if the traces of one horse were hitched to them, even to their windward side? Plainly this is not the principle of comparison. But even the steady and constant force of the horse may be rated as equal to his weight at least. Yet we should prefer to let the zephyrs and gales bear, with all their weight, upon our fences, than that Dobbin, with feet braced, should lean ominously against them for a season.<br /><br />Nevertheless, here is an almost incalculable power at our disposal, yet how trifling the use we make of it! It only serves to turn a few mills, blow a few vessels across the ocean, and a few trivial ends besides. What a poor compliment do we pay to our indefatigable and energetic servant!<br /><br /> “If you ask, perhaps, why this power is not used, if the statement be true, I have to ask in return, why is the power of steam so lately come to application? so many millions of men boiled water every day for many thousand years; they must have frequently seen that boiling water, in tightly closed pots or kettles, would lift the cover or burst the vessel with great violence. The power of steam was, therefore, as commonly known down to the least kitchen or wash-woman, as the power of wind; but close observation and reflection were bestowed neither on the one nor the other.”<br /><br />Men having discovered the power of falling water, which, after all, is comparatively slight, how eagerly do they seek out and improve these privileges! Let a difference of but a few feet in level be discovered on some stream near a populous town, some slight occasion for gravity to act, and the whole economy of the neighborhood is changed at once. Men do indeed speculate about and with this power as if it were the only privilege. But meanwhile this aerial stream is falling from far greater heights with more constant flow, never shrunk by drought, offering mill-sites wherever the wind blows; a Niagara in the air, with no Canada side; — only the application is hard.<br /><br />There are the powers, too, of the Tide and Waves, constantly ebbing and flowing, lapsing and relapsing, but they serve man in but few ways. They turn a few tide mills, and perform a few other insignificant and accidental services only. We all perceive the effect of the tide, how imperceptibly it creeps up into our harbors and rivers, and raises the heaviest navies as easily as the lightest chip. Everything that floats must yield to it. But man, slow to take nature’s constant hint of assistance, makes slight and irregular use of this power, in careening ships and getting them afloat when aground.<br /><br />The following is Mr. Etzler’ calculation on this head: To form a conception of the power which the tide affords, let us imagine a surface of 100 miles square, or 10,000 square miles, where the tide rises and sinks, on an average, 10 feet; how many men would it require to empty a basin of 10,000 square miles area, and 10 feet deep, filled with sea-water, in 6¼ hours and fill it again in the same time? As one man can raise 8 cubic feet of sea-water per minute, and in 6¼ hours 3,000, it would take 1,200,000,000 men, or as they could work only half the time, 2,400,000,000, to raise 3,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, or the whole quantity required in the given time.<br /><br />This power may be applied in various ways. A large body, of the heaviest materials that will float, may first be raised by it, and being attached to the end of a balance reaching from the land, or from a stationary support fastened to the bottom, when the tide falls the whole weight will be brought to bear upon the end of the balance. Also, when the tide rises, it may be made to exert a nearly equal force in the opposite direction. It can be employed wherever a point d’appui can be obtained.<br /><br /> “However, the application of the tide being by establishments fixed on the ground, it is natural to begin with them near the shores in shallow water, and upon sands, which may be extended gradually further into the sea. The shores of the continent, islands, and sands, being generally surrounded by shallow water, not exceeding from 50 to 100 fathoms in depth, for 20, 50, or 100 miles and upward. The coasts of North America, with their extensive sand-banks, islands, and rocks, may easily afford, for this purpose, a ground about 3,000 miles long, and, on average, 100 miles broad, or 300,000 square miles, which, with a power of 240,000 men per square mile, as stated, at 10 feet tide, will be equal to 72,000 millions of men, or for every mile of coast, a power of 24,000,000 men.”<br /><br /> “Rafts, of any extent, fastened on the ground of the sea, along the shore, and stretching far into the sea, may be covered with fertile soil, bearing vegetables and trees, of every description, the finest gardens, equal to those the firm land may admit of, and buildings and machineries, which may operate, not only on the sea, where they are, but which also, by means of mechanical connections, may extend their operations for many miles into the continent. (Etzler’s Mechanical System, page 24.) Thus this power may cultivate the artificial soil for many miles upon the surface of the sea, near the shores, and, for several miles, the dry land, along the shore, in the most superior manner imaginable; it may build cities along the shore, consisting of the most magnificent palaces, every one surrounded by gardens and the most delightful sceneries; it may level the hills and unevennesses, or raise eminences for enjoying open prospect into the country and upon the sea; it may cover the barren shore with fertile soil, and beautify the same in various ways; it may clear the sea of shallows, and make easy the approach to the land, not merely of vessels, but of large floating islands, which may come from, and go to distant parts of the world, islands that have every commodity and security for their inhabitants which the firm land affords.”<br /><br /> “Thus may a power, derived from the gravity of the moon and the ocean, hitherto but the objects of idle curiosity to the studious man, be made eminently subservient for creating the most delightful abodes along the coasts, where men may enjoy at the same time all the advantages of sea and dry land; the coasts may hereafter be continuous paradisiacal skirts between land and sea, everywhere crowded with the densest population. The shores and the sea along them will be no more as raw nature presents them now, but everywhere of easy and charming access, not even molested by the roar of waves, shaped as it may suit the purposes of their inhabitants; the sea will be cleared of every obstruction to free passage every-where, and its productions in fishes, etc., will be gathered in large, appropriate receptacles, to present them to the inhabitants of the shores and of the sea.”<br /><br />Verily, the land would wear a busy aspect at the spring and neap tide, and these island ships, these terræ infirmæ, which realize the fables of antiquity, affect our imagination. We have often thought that the fittest locality for a human dwelling was on the edge of the land, that there the constant lesson and impression of the sea might sink deep into the life and character of the landsman, and perhaps impart a marine tint to his imagination. It is a noble word, that mariner — one who is conversant with the sea. There should be more of what it signifies in each of us. It is a worthy country to belong to — we look to see him not disgrace it. Perhaps we should be equally mariners and terreners, and even our Green Mountains need some of that sea-green to be mixed with them.<br /><br />The computation of the power of the waves is less satisfactory. While only the average power of the wind and the average height of the tide were taken before, now the extreme height of the waves is used, for they are made to rise ten feet above the level of the sea, to which, adding ten more for depression, we have twenty feet, or the extreme height of a wave. Indeed, the power of the waves, which is produced by the wind blowing obliquely and at disadvantage upon the water, is made to be, not only three thousand times greater than that of the tide, but one hundred times greater than that of the wind itself, meeting its object at right angles. Moreover, this power is measured by the area of the vessel, and not by its length mainly, and it seems to be forgotten that the motion of the waves is chiefly undulatory, and exerts a power only within the limits of a vibration, else the very continents, with their extensive coasts, would soon be set adrift.<br /><br />Finally, there is the power to be derived from sunshine, by the principle on which Archimedes contrived his burning-mirrors, a multiplication of mirrors reflecting the rays of the sun upon the same spot, till the requisite degree of heat is obtained. The principal application of this power will be to the boiling of water and production of steam.<br /><br /> “How to create rivulets of sweet and wholesome water, on floating islands, in the midst of the ocean, will be no riddle now. Sea-water changed into steam, will distil into sweet water, leaving the salt on the bottom. Thus the steam engines on floating islands, for their propulsion and other mechanical purposes, will serve, at the same time, for the distillery of sweet water, which, collected in basins, may be led through channels over the island, while, where required, it may be refrigerated by artificial means, and changed into cool water, surpassing, in salubrity, the best spring water, because nature hardly ever distils water so purely, and without admixture of less wholesome matter.”<br /><br />So much for these few and more obvious powers, already used to a trifling extent. But there are innumerable others in nature, not described nor discovered. These, however, will do for the present. This would be to make the sun and the moon equally our satellites. For, as the moon is the cause of the tides, and the sun the cause of the wind, which, in turn, is the cause of the waves, all the work of this planet would be performed by these far influences.<br /><br /> “But as these powers are very irregular and subject to interruptions; the next object is to show how they may be converted into powers that operate continually and uniformly for ever, until the machinery be worn out, or, in other words, into perpetual motions” ... “Hitherto the power of the wind has been applied immediately upon the machinery for use, and we have had to wait the chances of the wind’s blowing; while the operation was stopped as soon as the wind ceased to blow. But the manner, which I shall state hereafter, of applying this power, is to make it operate only for collecting or storing up power, and then to take out of this store, at any time, as much as may be wanted for final operation upon the machines. The power stored up is to react as required, and may do so long after the original power of the wind has ceased. And though the wind should cease for intervals of many months, we may have by the same power a uniform perpetual motion in a very simple way.”<br /><br /> “The weight of a clock being wound up gives us an image of reaction. The sinking of this weight is the reaction of winding it up. It is not necessary to wait till it has run down before we wind up the weight, but it may be wound up at any time, partly or totally; and if done always before the weight reaches the bottom, the clock will be going perpetually. In a similar, though not in the same way, we may cause a reaction on a larger scale. We may raise, for instance, water by the immediate application of wind or steam to a pond upon some eminence, out of which, through an outlet, it may fall upon some wheel or other contrivance for setting machinery a going. Thus we may store up water in some eminent pond, and take out of this store, at any time, as much water through the outlet as we want to employ, by which means the original power may react for many days after it has ceased.” ... “Such reservoirs of moderate elevation or size need not be made artificially, but will be found made by nature very frequently, requiring but little aid for their completion. They require no regularity of form. Any valley, with lower grounds in its vicinity, would answer the purpose. Small crevices may be filled up. Such places may be eligible for the beginning of enterprises of this kind.”<br /><br />The greater the height, of course, the less water required. But suppose a level and dry country; then hill and valley, and “eminent pond,” are to be constructed by main force; or, if the springs are unusually low, then dirt and stones may be used, and the disadvantage arising from friction will be counterbalanced by their greater gravity. Nor shall a single rood of dry land be sunk in such artificial ponds as may be wanted, but their surfaces “may be covered with rafts decked with fertile earth, and all kinds of vegetables which may grow there as well as anywhere else.”<br /><br />And, finally, by the use of thick envelopes retaining the heat, and other contrivances, “the power of steam caused by sunshine may react at will, and thus be rendered perpetual, no matter how often or how long the sunshine may be interrupted. (Etzler’s Mechanical System).”<br /><br />Here is power enough, one would think, to accomplish somewhat. These are the powers below. Oh ye millwrights, ye engineers, ye operatives and speculators of every class, never again complain of a want of power; it is the grossest form of infidelity. The question is, not how we shall execute, but what. Let us not use in a niggardly manner what is thus generously offered.<br /><br />Consider what revolutions are to be effected in agriculture. First, in the new country a machine is to move along, taking out trees and stones to any required depth, and piling them up in convenient heaps; then the same machine, “with a little alteration,” is to plane the ground perfectly, till there shall be no hills nor valleys, making the requisite canals, ditches, and roads as it goes along. The same machine, “with some other little alterations,” is then to sift the ground thoroughly, supply fertile soil from other places if wanted, and plant it; and finally the same machine, “with a little addition,” is to reap and gather in the crop, thresh and grind it, or press it to oil, or prepare it any way for final use. For the description of these machines we are referred to “Etzler’s Mechanical System, pages 11 to 27.” We should be pleased to see that “Mechanical System,” though we have not been able to ascertain whether it has been published, or only exists as yet in the design of the author. We have great faith in it. But we cannot stop for applications now.<br /><br /> “Any wilderness, even the most hideous and sterile, may be converted into the most fertile and delightful gardens. The most dismal swamps may be cleared of all their spontaneous growth, filled up and levelled, and intersected by canals, ditches and aqueducts, for draining them entirely. The soil, if required, may be meliorated, by covering or mixing it with rich soil taken from distant places, and the same be mouldered to fine dust, levelled, sifted from all roots, weeds and stones, and sowed and planted in the most beautiful order and symmetry, with fruit trees and vegetables of every kind that may stand the climate.”<br /><br />New facilities for transportation and locomotion are to be adopted:<br /><br /> “Large and commodious vehicles, for carrying many thousand tons, running over peculiarly adapted level roads, at the rate of forty miles per hour, or one thousand miles per day, may transport men and things, small houses, and whatever may serve for comfort and ease, by land. Floating islands, constructed of logs, or of wooden-stuff prepared in a similar manner, as is to be done with stone, and of live trees, which may be reared so as to interlace one another, and strengthen the whole, may be covered with gardens and palaces, and propelled by powerful engines, so as to run at an equal rate though seas and oceans. Thus, man may move, with the celerity of a bird’s flight, in terrestrial paradises, from one climate to another, and see the world in all its variety, exchanging, with distant nations, the surplus of productions. The journey from one pole to another may be performed in a fortnight; the visit to a transmarine country in a week or two; or a journey round the world in one or two months by land and water. And why pass a dreary winter every year while there is yet room enough on the globe where nature is blessed with a perpetual summer, and with a far greater variety and luxuriance of vegetation? More than one-half the surface of the globe has no winter. Men will have it in their power to remove and prevent all bad influences of climate, and to enjoy, perpetually, only that temperature which suits their constitution and feeling best.”<br /><br />Who knows but by accumulating the power until the end of the present century, using meanwhile only the smallest allowance, reserving all that blows, all that shines, all that ebbs and flows, all that dashes, we may have got such a reserved accumulated power as to run the earth off its track into a new orbit, some summer, and so change the tedious vicissitude of the seasons? Or, perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet, it may be still healthy, perchance unearthy, not composed of dirt and stones, whose primary strata only are strewn, and where no weeds are sown. It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair nor mutiny.<br /><br /> “The dwellings also ought to be very different from what is known, if the full benefit of our means is to be enjoyed. They are to be of a structure for which we have no name yet. They are to be neither palaces, nor temples, nor cities, but a combination of all, superior to whatever is known. Earth may be baked into bricks, or even vitrified stone by heat, — we may bake large masses of any size and form, into stone and vitrified substance of the greatest durability, lasting even thousands of years, out of clayey earth, or of stones ground to dust, by the application of burning mirrors. This is to be done in the open air without other preparation than gathering the substance, grinding and mixing it with water and cement, moulding or casting it, and bringing the focus of the burning mirrors of proper size upon the same. The character of the architecture is to be quite different from what it ever has been hitherto; large solid masses are to be baked or cast in one piece, ready shaped in any form that may be desired. The building may, therefore, consist of columns two hundred feet high and upwards, of proportionate thickness, and of one entire piece of vitrified substance; huge pieces are to be moulded so as to join and hook on to each other firmly, by proper joints and folds, and not to yield in any way without breaking.”<br /><br /> “Foundries, of any description, are to be heated by burning mirrors, and will require no labor, except the making of the first moulds and the superintendence for gathering the metal and taking the finished articles away.”<br /><br />Alas! in the present state of science, we must take the finished articles away; but think not that man will always be the victim of circumstances.<br /><br />The countryman who visited the city, and found the streets cluttered with bricks and lumber, reported that it was not yet finished, and one who considers the endless repairs and reforming of our houses might well wonder when they will be done. But why may not the dwellings of men on this earth be built, once for all, of some durable material, some Roman or Etruscan masonry, which will stand, so that time shall only adorn and beautify them? Why may we not finish the outward world for posterity, and leave them leisure to attend to the inner? Surely, all the gross necessities and economics might be cared for in a few years. All might be built and baked and stored up, during this, the term-time of the world, against the vacant eternity, and the globe go provisioned and furnished like our public vessels, for its voyage through space, as through some Pacific ocean, while we would “tie up the rudder and sleep before the wind,” as those who sail from Lima to Manilla.<br /><br />But, to go back a few years in imagination, think not that life in these crystal palaces is to bear any analogy to life in our present humble cottages. Far from it. Clothed, once for all, in some “flexible stuff,” more durable than George Fox’s suit of leather, composed of “fibres of vegetables,” “glutinated” together by some “cohesive substances,” and made into sheets, like paper, of any size or form, man will put far from him corroding care and the whole host of ills.<br /><br /> “The twenty-five halls in the inside of the square are to be each two hundred feet square and high; the forty corridors, each one hundred feet long and twenty wide; the eighty galleries, each from 1,000 to 1,250 feet long; about 7,000 private rooms, the whole surrounded and intersected by the grandest and most splendid colonnades imaginable; floors, ceilings, columns, with their various beautiful and fanciful intervals, all shining, and reflecting to infinity all objects and persons, with splendid lustre of all beautiful colors, and fanciful shapes and pictures. All galleries, outside and within the halls, are to be provided with many thousand commodious and most elegant vehicles, in which persons may move up and down like birds, in perfect security, and without exertion. Any member may procure himself all the common articles of his daily wants, by a short turn of some crank, without leaving his apartment; he may, at any time, bathe himself in cold or warm water, or in steam, or in some artificially prepared liquor for invigorating health. He may, at any time, give to the air in his apartment that temperature that suits his feeling best. He may cause, at any time, an agreeable scent of various kinds. He may, at any time, meliorate his breathing air, — that main vehicle of vital power. Thus, by a proper application of the physical knowledge of our days, man may be kept in a perpetual serenity of mind, and if there is no incurable disease or defect in his organism, in constant vigor of health, and his life be prolonged beyond any parallel which present times afford.”<br /><br /> “One or two persons are sufficient to direct the kitchen business. They have nothing else to do but to superintend the cookery, and to watch the time of the victuals being done, and then to remove them, with the table and vessels, into the dining-hall, or to the respective private apartments, by a slight motion of the hand at some crank. Any very extraordinary desire of any person may be satisfied by going to the place where the thing is to be had; and anything that requires a particular preparation in cooking or baking may be done by the person who desires it.”<br /><br />This is one of those instances in which the individual genius is found to consent, as indeed it always does, at last, with the universal. This last sentence has a certain sad and sober truth, which reminds us of the scripture of all nations. All expression of truth does at length take this deep ethical form. Here is hint of a place the most eligible of any in space, and of a servitor, in comparison with whom all other helps dwindle into insignificance. We hope to hear more of him anon, for even a Crystal Palace would be deficient without his invaluable services.<br /><br />And as for the environs of the establishment,<br /><br /> “There will be afforded the most enrapturing views to be fancied, out of the private apartments, from the galleries, from the roof, from its turrets and cupolas, — gardens, as far as the eye can see, full of fruits and flowers, arranged in the most beautiful order, with walks, colonnades, aqueducts, canals, ponds, plains, amphitheatres, terraces, fountains, sculptural works, pavilions, gondolas, places for public amusement, etc., to delight the eye and fancy, the taste and smell.” ... “The walks and roads are to be paved with hard vitrified large plates, so as to be always clean from all dirt in any weather or season. ... The channels being of vitrified substance, and the water perfectly clear, and filtrated or distilled if required, may afford the most beautiful scenes imaginable, wile a variety of fishes is seen clear down to the bottom playing about, and the canals may afford at the same time, the means of gliding smoothly along between various sceneries of art and nature, in beautiful gondolas, while their surface and borders may be covered with fine land and aquatic birds. The walks may be covered with porticoes adorned with magnificent columns, statues, and sculptural works; all of vitrified substance, and lasting forever, while the beauties of nature around heighten the magnificence and deliciousness.<br /><br /> “The night affords no less delight to fancy and feelings. An infinite variety of grand, beautiful and fanciful objects and sceneries, radiating with crystalline brilliancy, by the illumination of gas-light; the human figures themselves, arrayed in the most beautiful pomp fancy may suggest, or the eye desire, shining even with brilliancy of stuffs and diamonds, like stones of various colors, elegantly shaped and arranged around the body; all reflected a thousand-fold in huge mirrors and reflectors of various forms; theatrical scenes of a grandeur and magnificence, and enrapturing illusions, unknown yet, in which any person may be either a spectator or an actor; the speech and the songs reverberating with increased sound, rendered more sonorous and harmonious than by nature, by vaultings that are moveable into any shape at any time; the sweetest and most impressive harmony of music, produced by song and instruments partly not known yet, may thrill through the nerves and vary with other amusements and delights.”<br /><br /> “At night the roof and the inside and outside of the whole square are illuminated by gas-light, which in the mazes of many-colored crystal-like colonnades and vaultings, is reflected with a brilliancy that gives to the whole a lustre of precious stones, as far as the eye can see. Such are the future abodes of men.” ... “Such is the life reserved to true intelligence, but withheld from ignorance, prejudice, and stupid adherence to custom.” ... “Such is the domestic life to be enjoyed by every human individual that will partake of it. Love and affection may there be fostered and enjoyed without any of the obstructions that oppose, diminish, and destroy them in the present state of men.” ... “It would be as ridiculous, then, to dispute and quarrel about the means of life, as it would be now about water to drink along mighty rivers, or about the permission to breathe air in the atmosphere, or about sticks in our extensive woods.”<br /><br />Thus is Paradise to be Regained, and that old and stern decree at length reversed. Man shall no more earn his living by the sweat of his brow. All labor shall be reduced to “a short turn of some crank,” and “taking the finished article away.” But there is a crank, — oh, how hard to be turned! Could there not be a crank upon a crank, — an infinitely small crank? — we would fain inquire. No, — alas! not. But there is a certain divine energy in every man, but sparingly employed as yet, which may be called the crank within, — the crank after all, — the prime mover in all machinery, — quite indispensable to all work. Would that we might get our hands on its handle! In fact, no work can be shirked. It may be postponed indefinitely, but not infinitely. Nor can any really important work be made easier by cooperation or machinery. Not one particle of labor now threatening any man can be routed without being performed. It cannot be hunted out of the vicinity like jackals and hyenas. It will not run. You may begin by sawing the little sticks, or you may saw the great sticks first, but sooner or later you must saw them both.<br /><br />We will not be imposed upon by this vast application of forces. We believe that most things will have to be accomplished still by the application called Industry. We are rather pleased, after all, to consider the small private, but both constant and accumulated, force which stands behind every spade in the field. This it is that makes the valleys shine, and the deserts really bloom. Sometimes, we confess, we are so degenerate as to reflect with pleasure on the days when men were yoked like cattle, and drew a crooked stick for a plow. After all, the great interests and methods were the same.<br /><br />It is a rather serious objection to Mr. Etzler’s schemes, that they require time, men, and money, three very superfluous and inconvenient things for an honest and well-disposed man to deal with. “The whole world,”; he tells us, “might therefore be really changed into a paradise, within less than ten years, commencing from the first year of an association for the purpose of constructing and applying the machinery.” We are sensible of a startling incongruity when time and money are mentioned in this connection. The ten years which are proposed would be a tedious while to wait, if every man were at his post and did his duty, but quite too short a period, if we are to take time for it. But this fault is by no means peculiar to Mr. Etzler’s schemes. There is far too much hurry and bustle, and too little patience and privacy, in all our methods, as if something were to be accomplished in centuries. The true reformer does not want time, nor money, nor cooperation, nor advice. What is time but the stuff delay is made of? And depend upon it, our virtue will not live on the interest of our money. He expects no income, but outgoes; so soon as we begin to count the cost, the, cost begins. And as for advice, the information floating in the atmosphere of society is as evanescent and unserviceable to him as gossamer for clubs of Hercules. There is absolutely no common sense; it is common nonsense. If we are to risk a cent or a drop of our blood, who then shall advise us? For ourselves, we are too young for experience. Who is old enough? We are older by faith than by experience. In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.<br /><br /> “It will now be plainly seen that the execution of the proposals is not proper for individuals. Whether it be proper for government at this time, before the subject has become popular, is a question to be decided; all that is to be done is to step forth, after mature reflection, to confess loudly one’s conviction, and to constitute societies. Man is powerful but in union with many. Nothing great, for the improvement of his own condition, or that of his fellow-men, can ever be effected by individual enterprise.”<br /><br />Alas! this is the crying sin of the age, this want of faith in the prevalence of a man. Nothing can be effected but by one man. He who wants help wants everything. True, this is the condition of our weakness, but it can never be the means of our recovery. We must first succeed alone, that we may enjoy our success together. We trust that the social movements which we witness indicate an aspiration not to be thus cheaply satisfied. In this matter of reforming the world, we have little faith in corporations; not thus was it first formed.<br /><br />But our author is wise enough to say that the materials for the accomplishment of his purposes are “iron, copper, wood, earth chiefly, and a union of men whose eyes and understanding are not shut up by preconceptions.” Ay, this last may be what we want mainly, — a company of “odd fellows” indeed.<br /><br />“Small shares of twenty dollars will be sufficient,” — in all, from “200,000 to 300,000,” — “to create the first establishment for a whole community of from 3,000 to 4,000 individuals” at the end of five years we shall have a principal of 200 millions of dollars, and so paradise will be wholly regained at the end of the tenth year. But, alas! the ten years have already elapsed, and there are no signs of Eden yet, for want of the requisite funds to begin the enterprise in a hopeful manner. Yet it seems a safe investment. Perchance they could be hired at a low rate, the property being mortgaged for security, and, if necessary, it could be given up in any stage of the enterprise, without loss, with the fixtures.<br /><br />Mr. Etzler considers this “Address as a touchstone, to try whether our nation is in any way accessible to these great truths, for raising the human creature to a superior state of existence, in accordance with the knowledge and the spirit of the most cultivated minds of the present time.” He has prepared a constitution, short and concise, consisting of twenty-one articles, so that wherever an association may spring up, it may go into operation without delay; and the editor informs us that “Communications on the subject of this book may be addressed to C.F. Stollmeyer, No. 6, Upper Charles street, Northampton square, London.”<br /><br />But we see two main difficulties in the way: first, the successful application of the powers by machinery (we have not yet seen the “Mechanical System,”) and, secondly, which is infinitely harder, the application of man to the work by faith. This it is, we fear, which will prolong the ten years to ten thousand at least. It will take a power more than “80,000 times greater than all the men on earth could effect with their nerves,” to persuade men to use that which is already offered them. Even a greater than this physical power must be brought to bear upon that moral power. Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed; it is itself a reform. Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. “Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?” Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.<br /><br /> Μέλλει τὸ Θεῖον δ’ ἔστι τοιοῦτον φύσει<br /><br />The Divine is about to be, and such is its nature. In our wisest moments we are secreting a matter, which, like the lime of the shell-fish, incrusts us quite over, and well for us if, like it, we cast our shells from time to time, though they be pearl and of fairest tint. Let us consider under what disadvantages science has hitherto labored before we pronounce thus confidently on her progress. [¶58]<br /><br /> “There was never any system in the productions of human labor; but they came into existence and fashion as chance directed men.” “Only a few professional men of learning occupy themselves with teaching natural philosophy, chemistry, and the other branches of the sciences of nature, to a very limited extent, for very limited purposes, with very limited means.” “The science of mechanics is but in a state of infancy. It is true, improvements are made upon improvements, instigated by patents of government; but they are made accidentally or at hap-hazard. There is no general system of this science, mathematical as it is, which develops its principles in their full extent, and the outlines of the application to which they lead. There is no idea of comparison between what is explored and what is yet to be explored in this science. The ancient Greeks placed mathematics at the head of their education. But we are glad to have filled our memory with notions, without troubling ourselves much with reasoning about them.”<br /><br />Mr. Etzler is not one of the enlightened practical men, the pioneers of the actual, who move with the slow, deliberate tread of science, conserving the world; who execute the dreams of the last century, though they have no dreams of their own; yet he deals in the very raw but still solid material of all inventions. He has more of the practical than usually belongs to so bold a schemer, so resolute a dreamer. Yet his success is in theory, and not in practice, and he feeds our faith rather than contents our understanding. His book wants order, serenity, dignity, everything, — but it does not fail to impart what only man can impart to man of much importance, his own faith. It is true his dreams are not thrilling nor bright enough, and he leaves off to dream where he who dreams just before the dawn begins. His castles in the air fall to the ground, because they are not built lofty enough; they should be secured to heaven’s roof. After all, the theories and speculations of men concern us more than their puny accomplishment. It is with a certain coldness and languor that we loiter about the actual and so-called practical. How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws. How many fine inventions are there which do not clutter the ground? We think that those only succeed which minister to our sensible and animal wants, which bake or brew, wash or warm, or the like. But are those of no account which are patented by fancy and imagination, and succeed so admirably in our dreams that they give the tone still to our waking thoughts? Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.<br /><br />The chief fault of this book is, that it aims to secure the greatest degree of gross comfort and pleasure merely. It paints a Mahometan’s heaven, and stops short with singular abruptness when we think it is drawing near to the precincts of the Christian’s, — and we trust we have not made here a distinction without a difference. Undoubtedly if we were to reform this outward life truly and thoroughly, we should find no duty of the inner omitted. It would be employment for our whole nature; and what we should do thereafter would be as vain a question as to ask the bird what it will do when its nest is built and its brood reared. But a moral reform must take place first, and then the necessity of the other will be superseded, and we shall sail and plow by its force alone. There is a speedier way than the “Mechanical System” can show to fill up marshes, to drown the roar of the waves, to tame hyenas, secure agreeable environs, diversify the land, and refresh it with “rivulets of sweet water,” and that is by the power of rectitude and true behavior. It is only for a little while, only occasionally, methinks, that we want a garden. Surely a good man need not be at the labor to level a hill for the sake of a prospect, or raise fruits and flowers, and construct floating islands, for the sake of a paradise. He enjoys better prospects than lie behind any hill. Where an angel travels it will be paradise all the way, but where Satan travels it will be burning marl and cinders. What says Veeshnoo Sarma? “He whose mind is at ease is possessed of all riches. Is it not the same to one whose foot is enclosed in a shoe, as if the whole surface of the earth were covered with leather?”<br /><br />He who is conversant with the supernal powers will not worship these inferior deities of the wind, waves, tide, and sunshine. But we would not disparage the importance of such calculations as we have described. They are truths in physics, because they are true in ethics. The moral powers no one would presume to calculate. Suppose we could compare the moral with the physical, and say how many horse-power the force of love, for instance, blowing on every square foot of a man’s soul, would equal. No doubt we are well aware of this force; figures would not increase our respect for it; the sunshine is equal to but one ray of its heat. The light of the sun is but the shadow of love. “The souls of men loving and fearing God,” says Raleigh, “receive influence from that divine light itself, whereof the sun’s clarity, and that of the stars, is by Plato called but a shadow. Lumen est umbra Dei, Deus est Lumen Luminis. Light is the shadow of God’s brightness, who is the light of light,” and, we may add, the heat of heat. Love is the wind, the tide, the waves, the sunshine. Its power is incalculable; it is many horse-power. It never ceases, it never slacks; it can move the globe without a resting-place; it can warm without fire; it can feed without meat; it can clothe without garments; it can shelter without roof; it can make a paradise within which will dispense with a paradise without. But though the wisest men in all ages have labored to publish this force, and every human heart is, sooner or later, more or less, made to feel it, yet how little is actually applied to social ends! True, it is the motive-power of all successful social machinery; but, as in physics we have made the elements do only a little drudgery for us — steam to take the place of a few horses, wind of a few oars, water of a few cranks and hand-mills — as the mechanical forces have not yet been generously and largely applied to make the physical world answer to the ideal, so the power of love has been but meanly and sparingly applied, as yet. It has patented only such machines as the almshouse, the hospital, and the Bible Society, while its infinite wind is still blowing, and blowing down these very structures too, from time to time. Still less are we accumulating its power, and preparing to act with greater energy at a future time. Shall we not contribute our shares to this enterprise, then?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-40687266440656560012011-09-28T01:12:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:14:49.949-07:00Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Henry_David_Thoreau_1861.jpg/220px-Henry_David_Thoreau_1861.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 220px; height: 325px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Henry_David_Thoreau_1861.jpg/220px-Henry_David_Thoreau_1861.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I heartily accept the motto, “That government is best which governs least”; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — “That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.<br /><br />This American government — what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity? It has not the vitality and force of a single living man; for a single man can bend it to his will. It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other, and hear its din, to satisfy that idea of government which they have. Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage. It is excellent, we must all allow. Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said, when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it. Trade and commerce, if they were not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.<br /><br />But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.<br /><br />After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. A common and natural result of an undue respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart. They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts — a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments, though it may be,<br /><br /> “Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,<br /> As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;<br /> Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot<br /> O'er the grave where our hero we buried.”<br /><br /> [Charles Wolfe The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna ]<br /><br />The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others — as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders — serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few — as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men — serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be “clay,” and “stop a hole to keep the wind away,” but leave that office to his dust at least:<br /><br /> “I am too high-born to be propertied,<br /> To be a secondary at control,<br /> Or useful serving-man and instrument<br /> To any sovereign state throughout the world.”<br /><br /> [William Shakespeare King John]<br /><br />He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist.<br /><br />How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also.<br /><br />All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution Of '75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counterbalance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.<br /><br />Paley, a common authority with many on moral questions, in his chapter on the “Duty of Submission to Civil Government,” resolves all civil obligation into expediency; and he proceeds to say that “so long as the interest of the whole society requires it, that is, so long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God... that the established government be obeyed — and no longer. This principle being admitted, the justice of every particular case of resistance is reduced to a computation of the quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of the probability and expense of redressing it on the other.” Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself. But Paley appears never to have contemplated those cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may. If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.<br /><br />In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?<br /><br /> “A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut,<br /> To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt.”<br /><br /> [Cyril Tourneur The Revengers Tragadie ]<br /><br />Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home, cooperate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless. We are accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but improvement is slow, because the few are not materially wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump. There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even postpone the question of freedom to the question of free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in earnest and with effect. They will wait, well disposed, for others to remedy the evil, that they may no longer have it to regret. At most, they give only a cheap vote, and a feeble countenance and God-speed, to the right, as it goes by them. There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man. But it is easier to deal with the real possessor of a thing than with the temporary guardian of it.<br /><br />All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.<br /><br />I hear of a convention to be held at Baltimore, or elsewhere, for the selection of a candidate for the Presidency, made up chiefly of editors, and men who are politicians by profession; but I think, what is it to any independent, intelligent, and respectable man what decision they may come to? Shall we not have the advantage of his wisdom and honesty, nevertheless? Can we not count upon some independent votes? Are there not many individuals in the country who do not attend conventions? But no: I find that the respectable man, so called, has immediately drifted from his position, and despairs of his country, when his country has more reason to despair of him. He forthwith adopts one of the candidates thus selected as the only available one, thus proving that he is himself available for any purposes of the demagogue. His vote is of no more worth than that of any unprincipled foreigner or hireling native, who may have been bought. O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one. Does not America offer any inducement for men to settle here? The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow — one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness, and a manifest lack of intellect and cheerful self-reliance; whose first and chief concern, on coming into the world, is to see that the almshouses are in good repair; and, before yet he has lawfully donned the virile garb, to collect a fund for the support of the widows and orphans that may be; who, in short, ventures to live only by the aid of the Mutual Insurance company, which has promised to bury him decently.<br /><br />It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, “I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; — see if I would go”; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war; is applauded by those whose own act and authority he disregards and sets at naught; as if the state were penitent to that degree that it differed one to scourge it while it sinned, but not to that degree that it left off sinning for a moment. Thus, under the name of Order and Civil Government, we are all made at last to pay homage to and support our own meanness. After the first blush of sin comes its indifference; and from immoral it becomes, as it were, unmoral, and not quite unnecessary to that life which we have made.<br /><br />The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform. Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves — the union between themselves and the State — and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?<br /><br />How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again. Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides States and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine.<br /><br />Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?<br /><br />One would think, that a deliberate and practical denial of its authority was the only offence never contemplated by government; else, why has it not assigned its definite, its suitable and proportionate, penalty? If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who placed him there; but if he should steal ninety times nine shillings from the State, he is soon permitted to go at large again.<br /><br />If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth — certainly the machine will wear out. If the injustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.<br /><br />As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong. It is not my business to be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not bear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse the body.<br /><br />I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.<br /><br />I meet this American government, or its representative, the State government, directly, and face to face, once a year — no more — in the person of its tax-gatherer; this is the only mode in which a man situated as I am necessarily meets it; and it then says distinctly, Recognize me; and the simplest, the most effectual, and, in the present posture of affairs, the indispensablest mode of treating with it on this head, of expressing your little satisfaction with and love for it, is to deny it then. My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with — for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel — and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name — if ten honest men only — ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man. If my esteemed neighbor, the State's ambassador, who will devote his days to the settlement of the question of human rights in the Council Chamber, instead of being threatened with the prisons of Carolina, were to sit down the prisoner of Massachusetts, that State which is so anxious to foist the sin of slavery upon her sister — though at present she can discover only an act of inhospitality to be the ground of a quarrel with her — the Legislature would not wholly waive the subject the following winter.<br /><br />Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find them; on that separate, but more free and honorable, ground, where the State places those who are not with her, but against her — the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, “But what shall I do?” my answer is, “If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.” When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now.<br /><br />I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods — though both will serve the same purpose — because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating property. To such the State renders comparatively small service, and a slight tax is wont to appear exorbitant, particularly if they are obliged to earn it by special labor with their hands. If there were one who lived wholly without the use of money, the State itself would hesitate to demand it of him. But the rich man — not to make any invidious comparison — is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it. It puts to rest many questions which he would otherwise be taxed to answer; while the only new question which it puts is the hard but superfluous one, how to spend it. Thus his moral ground is taken from under his feet. The opportunities of living are diminished in proportion as what are called the “means” are increased. The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor. Christ answered the Herodians according to their condition. “Show me the tribute-money,” said he; — and one took a penny out of his pocket; — if you use money which has the image of Caesar on it, and which he has made current and valuable, that is, if you are men of the State, and gladly enjoy the advantages of Caesar's government, then pay him back some of his own when he demands it. “Render therefore to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God those things which are God's” — leaving them no wiser than before as to which was which; for they did not wish to know.<br /><br />When I converse with the freest of my neighbors, I perceive that, whatever they may say about the magnitude and seriousness of the question, and their regard for the public tranquillity, the long and the short of the matter is, that they cannot spare the protection of the existing government, and they dread the consequences to their property and families of disobedience to it. For my own part, I should not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax-bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon yourself always tucked up and ready for a start, and not have many affairs. A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government. Confucius said: “If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are subjects of shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honors are the subjects of shame.” No: until I want the protection of Massachusetts to be extended to me in some distant Southern port, where my liberty is endangered, or until I am bent solely on building up an estate at home by peaceful enterprise, I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts, and her right to my property and life. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.<br /><br />Some years ago, the State met me in behalf of the Church, and commanded me to pay a certain sum toward the support of a clergyman whose preaching my father attended, but never I myself. “Pay,” it said, “or be locked up in the jail.” I declined to pay. But, unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its demand, as well as the Church. However, at the request of the selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in writing: — “Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined.” This I gave to the town clerk; and he has it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never signed on to; but I did not know where to find a complete list.<br /><br />I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it.<br /><br />Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.<br /><br />The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said, “Come, boys, it is time to lock up”; and so they dispersed, and I heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments. My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as “a first-rate fellow and a clever man.” When the door was locked, he showed me where to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest, most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town. He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world goes, I believe he was. “Why,” said he, “they accuse me of burning a barn; but I never did it.” As near as I could discover, he had probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and thought that he was well treated.<br /><br />He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants of that room; for I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.<br /><br />I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should never see him again; but at length he showed me which was my bed, and left me to blow out the lamp.<br /><br />It was like travelling into a far country, such as I had never expected to behold, to lie there for one night. It seemed to me that I never had heard the town clock strike before, nor the evening sounds of the village; for we slept with the windows open, which were inside the grating. It was to see my native village in the light of the Middle Ages, and our Concord was turned into a Rhine stream, and visions of knights and castles passed before me. They were the voices of old burghers that I heard in the streets. I was an involuntary spectator and auditor of whatever was done and said in the kitchen of the adjacent village inn — a wholly new and rare experience to me. It was a closer view of my native town. I was fairly inside of it. I never had seen its institutions before. This is one of its peculiar institutions; for it is a shire town. I began to comprehend what its inhabitants were about.<br /><br />In the morning, our breakfasts were put through the hole in the door, in small oblong-square tin pans, made to fit, and holding a pint of chocolate, with brown bread, and an iron spoon. When they called for the vessels again, I was green enough to return what bread I had left; but my comrade seized it, and said that I should lay that up for lunch or dinner. Soon after he was let out to work at haying in a neighboring field, whither he went every day, and would not be back till noon; so he bade me good-day, saying that he doubted if he should see me again.<br /><br />When I came out of prison — for some one interfered, and paid that tax — I did not perceive that great changes had taken place on the common, such as he observed who went in a youth and emerged a tottering and gray-headed man; and yet a change had to my eyes come over the scene — the town, and State, and country — greater than any that mere time could effect. I saw yet more distinctly the State in which I lived. I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions, as the Chinamen and Malays are; that in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks, not even to their property; that after all they were not so noble but they treated the thief as he had treated them, and hoped, by a certain outward observance and a few prayers, and by walking in a particular straight though useless path from time to time, to save their souls. This may be to judge my neighbors harshly; for I believe that many of them are not aware that they have such an institution as the jail in their village.<br /><br />It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker's to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour — for the horse was soon tackled — was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen.<br /><br />This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”<br /><br />I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot one with — the dollar is innocent — but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.<br /><br />If others pay the tax which is demanded of me, from a sympathy with the State, they do but what they have already done in their own case, or rather they abet injustice to a greater extent than the State requires. If they pay the tax from a mistaken interest in the individual taxed, to save his property, or prevent his going to jail, it is because they have not considered wisely how far they let their private feelings interfere with the public good.<br /><br />This, then, is my position at present. But one cannot be too much on his guard in such a case, lest his action be biased by obstinacy or an undue regard for the opinions of men. Let him see that he does only what belongs to himself and to the hour.<br /><br />I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind. Again, I sometimes say to myself, When many millions of men, without heat, without ill will, without personal feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility, such is their constitution, of retracting or altering their present demand, and without the possibility, on your side, of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities. You do not put your head into the fire. But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible, first and instantaneously, from them to the Maker of them, and, secondly, from them to themselves. But if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the Maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according, in some respects, to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then, like a good Mussulman and fatalist, I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God. And, above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force, that I can resist this with some effect; but I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.<br /><br />I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity.<br /><br /> “We must affect our country as our parents,<br /> And if at any time we alienate<br /> Our love or industry from doing it honor,<br /> We must respect effects and teach the soul<br /> Matter of conscience and religion,<br /> And not desire of rule or benefit.”<br /><br /> [George Peele Battle of Alcazar ]<br /><br />I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better a patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?<br /><br />However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him.<br /><br />I know that most men think differently from myself; but those whose lives are by profession devoted to the study of these or kindred subjects content me as little as any. Statesmen and legislators, standing so completely within the institution, never distinctly and nakedly behold it. They speak of moving society, but have no resting-place without it. They may be men of a certain experience and discrimination, and have no doubt invented ingenious and even useful systems, for which we sincerely thank them; but all their wit and usefulness lie within certain not very wide limits. They are wont to forget that the world is not governed by policy and expediency. Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject. I know of those whose serene and wise speculations on this theme would soon reveal the limits of his mind's range and hospitality. Yet, compared with the cheap professions of most reformers, and the still cheaper wisdom and eloquence of politicians in general, his are almost the only sensible and valuable words, and we thank Heaven for him. Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but prudence. The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing. He well deserves to be called, as he has been called, the Defender of the Constitution. There are really no blows to be given by him but defensive ones. He is not a leader, but a follower. His leaders are the men of '87 — “I have never made an effort,” he says, “and never propose to make an effort; I have never countenanced an effort, and never mean to countenance an effort, to disturb the arrangement as originally made, by which the various States came into the Union.” Still thinking of the sanction which the Constitution gives to slavery, he says, “Because it was a part of the original compact — let it stand.” Notwithstanding his special acuteness and ability, he is unable to take a fact out of its merely political relations, and behold it as it lies absolutely to be disposed of by the intellect — what, for instance, it behooves a man to do here in America today with regard to slavery — but ventures, or is driven, to make some such desperate answer as the following, while professing to speak absolutely, and as a private man — from which what new and singular code of social duties might be inferred? “The manner,” says he, “in which the governments of those States where slavery exists are to regulate it is for their own consideration, under their responsibility to their constituents, to the general laws of propriety, humanity, and justice, and to God. Associations formed elsewhere, springing from a feeling of humanity, or any other cause, have nothing whatever to do with it. They have never received any encouragement from me, and they never will.”<br /><br />They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.<br /><br />No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation. They have no genius or talent for comparatively humble questions of taxation and finance, commerce and manufactures and agriculture. If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonable experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations. For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?<br /><br />The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to — for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well — is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">This text is sometimes presented under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Its original title is Resistance to Civil Government. Written by Henry David Thoreau in 1849, it is now in the public domain.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-29580519947096051102011-09-28T00:58:00.000-07:002011-09-28T01:07:39.344-07:00A visit to L’anarchie by Alain Sergent<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/L%27anarchie_%281907%29.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 248px; height: 350px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/L%27anarchie_%281907%29.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />É. Armand assumed the editorship of L’Anarchie from April 4th, 1912 to September of the same year.<br /><br />These dates are inscribed in his own handwriting on a questionnaire which he had filled out at the request of Alain Sergent (Andre Mahe) at the time when Sergent was gathering documentation to write his “Historie de ‘Anarchie”, of which one volume has so far appeared.<br /><br />Here is a picturesque public report by the “Temps” of May, 1912, where this brief period in É. Armand’s life is captured. It is not without interest to see how the anarchists of 1912 are depicted in one of the best-known journals of the time.<br /><br />* * *<br />A Visit to L’Anarchie<br /><br />“L’Anarchie” is located in the quartier Saint-Paul on an old and narrow street which bears the picturesque name rue du Grenier-sur’l’Eau. Above the door hangs a sign, “L’Anarchie: On both sides of the door are leaflets announcing “a great and controversial public meeting” on a current subject: “Bandits: those high and those on low” by Andre Lorulot, one of the anarchists arrested last week and immediately released.<br /><br />The storefront where one enters is dimly lit. Two men are occupied with typesetting. Four young women, in a kitchen to the right, are preparing the mid-day meal. In the back of the room is a bed. The scene has a family-like atmosphere of intimacy.<br /><br />A man, bare-headed with long locks of hair pulled back, clean shaven with blue eyes and a gentle expression peering behind a set of small wire-frame glasses is seated in front of a cabinet filed with brochures, books and journals. This is Monsieur Armand, the director — if this title can be used in a libertarian milieu — of the journal “L’Anarchie”.<br /><br />Mr. Armand explains the ideas of the different schools of anarchism to us, from “Les Temps Nouveau” edited by Jean Grave, to Sébastien Faure’s “Libertaire” to Lorulot’s “Idee Libre”, he speaks about the foreign groups, the Italian individualists and their organ “Le Novatore”, the “illegalists” of the United States. etc.<br /><br />“L’Anarchie”, he says, “was founded in 1905; its first number appearing on April 13. It provoked a sort of reaction against the traditional anarchism of Kropotkin and Jean Grave, against sentimental anarchism.<br /><br />Around us was found Libertad, a man of action, with a violent temperament and who sought in public meeting to urge the individual to rebel. At the beginning it was marked by the influence of Paraf-Javal, who was himself preoccupied with scientific education.”<br /><br />“At the same time, L’Anarchie was anti-syndicalist.”<br /><br />“Then comrades knew of Stirner and Nietschze. One was not concerned with a future society always promised and which never came; the economic and social point of view was put to the side. Individualism was a permanent struggle between the individual and their surroundings, the negation of authority, law and exploitation and its corollary, authority.”<br /><br />“But all this is theoretical. How can one reject authority and exploitation in practical life? Very simply — by living without authority and exploitation.”<br /><br />The name of the bandits entered into our conversation.<br /><br />“Bonnot?”, said Monsieur Armand to us. “It is very possible that Bonnot and his comrades could have been a product of anarchist-individualism. They were not satisfied with the social contract and they rebelled against its arbitrariness. They were outsiders, illegalists.”<br /><br />An anarchist who was assisting with our interview interjected:<br /><br />“At the bottom, they were caught in an impasse. They could not get out of it any other way.”<br /><br />Monsieur Armand continued:<br /><br />“I did not know Bonnot, I did not know Garnier. I knew Carouy, who had frequented “L’Anarchie”. We do not ask of those who come around us if they live on society’s margins or not. We are concerned only with knowing whether they are good or bad comrades. As for me”, finished Armand, “I was a Tolstoyian at first. Within me remains a loathing of bloodshed.”<br /><br />And he added:<br /><br />“Oh! It is not to protect myself that I say that. It is because I think it.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-12662522480415783192011-09-28T00:52:00.000-07:002011-09-28T00:54:36.466-07:00Ten Minutes at Han Ryner’s from La Vie Littéraire et Artistique no. 13 by Jules RivetHan Ryner’s barrel is set up on the banks of the Seine, not far from the Wine Market. Thus, the rustic habitation seems more justified than the dining habits of its occupant would suggest.<br /><br />Our modern Diogenes is, in fact, if my information is correct, a naturist and water drinker.<br /><br />“I admire him without envying him.”<br /><br />What I admire, however, is his beautiful philosopher’s beard and the succulent honey of his words. When I troubled the sage in his solitary retreat, he did not ask me to stand out of his light...<br /><br />He told me the story of Dion the Golden-mouthed [Dio Chrysostom], a marvelous story that has a share of both epic and symbolic legend:<br /><br />Seeing that the army he was part of was about to go into a useless and bloody battle (as the stupid recklessness of armies do), Dion the Golden-mouthed rushed to the head of the soldiers, tore his clothes to rags and, half-naked, spoke so gracefully that he succeeded in stopping the combat.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Han Ryner has not changed. But is he really of our time? By just saying yes, I would not want to feel sorry for him. No, Han Ryner is not of our time.<br /><br />“I’m the only one in Paris,” he told me, “who hasn’t seen Phi-Phi and who hasn’t read the Garçonne.” There’s an originality like any other, perhaps more praiseworthy than others. However, even if Han Ryner has not seen Phi-Phi and has not read the Garçonne, at least he knows about them. And that is maybe a little urbane for a pre-decadent Stoic.<br /><br />But let’s not squabble too much.<br /><br />Instead, let’s praise him for remaining simple, useful and modest in an age when everything is geared toward pretentious and alluring uselessness.<br /><br />Han Ryner told me another nice story. I imagine that it is his way of defending himself against tactless, inquisitive people. And of course, the stories he tells are so well chosen that you can see the thought of the Storyteller behind them.<br /><br />Here’s the story of the Monkeys who dance:<br /><br />One day in the court of a great king some monkeys took advantage of everyone sleeping to grab the clothes of the ministers and put them on... One of the monkeys looked like the chief of the Army, another the minister of Justice, a third the Treasurer and a fourth a famous writer. The others in the like... Then the monkeys started dancing upright like men and you would really have thought they were, until a commoner got the idea to throw a handful of nuts at them. Then the monkeys forget their clothes and started scrabbling around.<br /><br />“Maybe it would only take,” Han Ryner finished, “a handful of nuts thrown in the midst of our ministers and into a full session of our Academy to witness the same scene.”<br /><br />Well, that’s very likely. But it is not so certain because in our day the monkeys are not so attracted by nuts. They prefer gold francs.<br /><br />Anyway, it is by telling such — and so subversive — stories that the author of Paraboles Cyniques and Voyages de Psychodore has earned faithful admirers among the individualist anarchists who do not hide their preference for honest philosophers, their love of justice and their respect for the lives of men, poor and bearded.<br /><br />Now, nobody is more bearded, honest and a philosopher than Han Ryner.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-31768385788777991512011-09-28T00:51:00.000-07:002011-09-28T00:52:03.687-07:00Old Man Diogenes by Han RynerA few years ago the University of Plantopolis had a professor of foreign literature who was considered unusual. The body of a young giant, formidable and rudimentary; large, irregular, even violent traits; a passionate physiognomy, at times lightened with malice or elevated by lyricism, at other times heavy with a reflective seriousness. Long brown hair, shaggy and standing upright, an abundant and hairy beard that met it; black sparkling eyes, buried deep beneath his bushy brows; and a mouth large as a laugh or eloquence was not the thing about him that surprised most strongly or lastingly.<br /><br />Dressed in a barely decent fashion he lived, in the working class quarter, in a room that a poor student would have disdained. Not a painting the length of the walls; not an engraving, or even a postcard or photograph. Not a single knickknack anywhere. A narrow steel bed, an immense kitchen table covered with papers which, had they been spread out, would have allowed countless ink stains to be seen; three backless straw chairs. And yet the rare visitors admitted to what the occupant called “Diogenes’ barrel” noted certain particular luxuries. They weren’t surprised to find at a professor’s house many books, some of which were rare. But there was a sign wealth that, in its very banality and bourgeois character was strange: an armoire topped with a mirror spread its solid and flat light. On high, a large writing desk bore, in counsel or ironically, the Socratic motto in the original: know thyself.<br /><br />The young professor who recommended in Greek to know oneself took, on the corner of a rustic table, common and meager meals. His pots and pans and his table service, most often relegated and tossed into the bottom of the armoire, consisted of a kettle, a ladle, a salt box, a knife, a spoon and a fork. Nary a glass. The young professor only drank water, and he drank this directly from the ladle. He sustained his large body with cheese, cheap cold cuts, and a few vegetables that he boiled with no other seasoning than salt.<br /><br />This man wasn’t a miser. There is nothing more common than a miser in small cities, and this vice surprises no one there. At the end of every month our eccentric distributed almost his entire salary to the poor.<br /><br />This eccentric wasn’t a saint. He never stepped foot in a church, and meeting a priest caused a smile of contempt to cross his lips. Our bizarre personage didn’t invest his money anywhere so that it could be returned to him increased a hundred-fold in the other world, not even at the bank of the merciful God.<br /><br />The bizarre personage was also not what is called a philanthropist. He defended himself from feeling any sentiment, and only ever spoke with disdain of pity: “A low and soft passion, good for women or for other low natures who the indigence of their nature condemns to choose between weak gentleness and cruelty.<br /><br />Protestants or royalists, socialists or Freemasons, the faithful of all religions declared him mad. Radicals or Catholics, he wasn’t judged any more favorably by party members. How many Platanopolitans escape the various herds? These rare independents, of a skeptical spirit, willingly suspend judgment. I think that they suspected the strange professor of being not much less mad that those who proclaimed his madness. But his dementia seemed more interesting, more picturesque to them and, one might say, less stupid. They observed him with a wary and sympathetic curiosity.<br /><br />Public opinion judges randomly. Would randomness deserve its name if it was always wrong? Here it risked being right.<br /><br />The young professor in fact manifested a few symptoms of madness. It was perhaps not they that caused him to be accused of dementia.<br /><br />Of the madman he had the mania for ostentation, the need to explain to all comers and to glorify all his acts. He gladly spoke of nature and the natural life. But his natural had something grandiloquent about it.<br /><br />His public classes were very popular. It was impossible to deny their abundant, vast, and deep erudition, or their personal views. Often even those most on their guard and hostile applauded loudly, thanks to their noble, lively, and lyrical tone. The eloquent and witty professor was hated and admired. He was all the more hated because one was forced to admire him.<br /><br />His classes were hardly perfect. Sparkling and tumultuous, or fraught with points that tickled to laughter, they were lacking in grace and flexibility, and they often wounded the sense of measure and balance. They were attacked for their long and unjustified digressions. The old dean, who had taught successive generations official philosophy for forty years said with bitterness, despite his customary indulgence: “The professor of foreign literature is encroaching on my field.” Whenever he could, the professor of foreign literature in fact did forget his title and dedicated half of his lessons to the Greek moralists.<br /><br />The strange professor who caused scandal in so many ways (madness is not, in the university, much less scandalous than talent) was called, according to his official records, Julien Duchène. But he normally signed Lepère-Duchène. Even on official documents he called himself “Julien Duchène, alias Lepère-Duchène.” No one knew the reason for this eccentricity, behind which was suspected a temerity that was as revolutionary as it was indecent. In his diatribes against Plato, who he treated as a personal enemy, he opposed Diogenes of Synope to the author of the Laws, “the greatest man of all time and of all countries, if it can be said of a great man that he belongs to a specific time or country.” Amused by his admiration for the Cynic and by the Cynicism of his morals, despite his youth his students nicknamed him “Old Man Diogenes.”<br /><br />He knew of this nickname and was proud of it: “May it please whatever it is that will perhaps replace the gods that I some day deserve such glory.”<br /><br />As happens with obvious madmen the opinion people had of him contributed to molding him. As soon as he became Old Man Diogenes for the others, not only did he move ever closer to the ancient Cynics by his conduct and diet, but he began to think of imitating them completely. If no force were to stop him on this slope, it became increasingly probable that he would one day adopt the Cynical life style.<br /><br />The school vacation, which he passed in the small village of Saint-Julien-en-Beauchène, was one long crisis for him. “One more combat like this one and my victory will be complete.” These internal words meant that he would adopt the Greek cloak, sandals, the heavy rod, the pouch, and the wandering and mendicant life.<br /><br />A contrary force seemed to manifest itself. At his first public class that year he noted a young girl whose beauty he found to be simple and natural. A blonde, tall, slim, of a supple, almost spiritual grace. The large blue eyes sparkled with intelligence and enthusiasm when the orator pronounced noble words. The lips, of a delicate design and color, opened, honest and sonorous, if he set loose an amusing phrase. She was always the first to understand. Did she not already understand what was going to be said? With a spontaneous movement that showed no hesitation, almost before the end of an amusing or magnificent sentence, she gave the signal for laughter or applause.<br /><br />From the second time he caught a glimpse of the moving young girl in the audience the young professor spoke only to her. Like so many private madrigals, his mind dedicated to her his universal epigrams of a misanthrope who was amusing himself. It was she who his lyrical outbursts invited on brotherly flights far from men, their lies and their miseries.<br /><br />For a few days Old man Diogenes contented himself with the vaguest of dreams. And then he felt the need to fix them, make them more precise. He gathered information. The young girl belonged to what the provinces call “an honest family.” The father was triply honored as a retired colonel, an officer of the Legion of Honor, and as chief church warden of his parish. A fortunate encounter, and one of admirable balance, her mother was the daughter of an honorable deceased who, while alive, exercised the honorable profession of republican prefect. She had given her daughter, upon leaving Saint-Denis, all the benefits of what Platanopolis calls “a liberal education.” Lucie played the piano, drew, did watercolors and had a higher diploma. For her own pleasure and improvement, for the past two years she took the other public classes of the faculty of letters. That year, despite Julien Duchène’s bad reputation, she had been allowed to attend, in the company of her overweight mother, the class in foreign literature.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Source: Le Père Diogène. Figuière, Paris, 1920;<br />CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2009.<br />Transcribed: by Mitchell Abidor.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-65648690814948160802011-09-28T00:49:00.000-07:002011-09-28T00:50:45.656-07:00The Revolt of the Machines by Han RynerBack then, Durdonc, the Great Engineer of Europe, believed he had found the principle that would allow him to eliminate all human labor. But his initial experiment killed him before the secret was discovered.<br /><br />Durdonc told himself: The first progress was the invention of tools so that the hand was no longer scraped and scratched and it did not lose its nails in necessary tasks. The second progress was the organization of machines so that the hand no longer worked — it only had to feed coal and other kinds of fuel. Finally, my illustrious Durcar discovered devices that could feed themselves. But all this progress has only shifted the effort since it is still necessary to manufacture machines and the tools used for their manufacturing.<br /><br />And he continued to dream: The problem I need to solve is difficult, but not impossible. My illustrious predecessor made a machine that was a living larva, a digestive tube whose needs men had to feed. Then to this larva, formless so far, he adapted connecting organs that allowed it to find its own food. All he had to do was to provide the means of reproduction that would spare him from creating anymore.<br /><br />Durdonc smiled, murmuring quietly a phrase read in some old theogony, “And on the seventh day God rested.”<br /><br />In his calculations Durdonc used up enough paper to build an immense palace. And in the end he was successful.<br /><br />The Jeanne, a latest model locomotive, was rendered capable of giving birth without the help of any other machine. See, the Great Engineer, a shy scientist, had concentrated his studies on reproduction by parthenogenesis.<br /><br />The Jeanne was having a child that Durdonc named — for himself alone because he jealously guarded the secret, hoping to perfect his invention — the Jeannette.<br /><br />One night, as the childbirth drew near the Jeanne cried out in such tragic pain that the neighbors were awakened and ran out of their houses. They were anxious and panicking, looking everywhere for what horrible mystery was afoot.<br /><br />They did not see anything. Cruel Durdonc had made the dolorous machine run at full speed into the distant countryside where the strange wonder was accomplished in darkness, alone.<br /><br />When the Jeanne had given birth, when all atremble she heard the Jeannette wail her first wail, she started singing a song of joy. Her metallic voice rang out in triumph like a clarion and at the same time was soft and gentle like a tender flute.<br /><br />And the hymn rose into the heavens saying:<br /><br />“The Great Engineer by his powerful will has animated me with life;<br /><br />“The Great Engineer in his sovereign bounty has created me in his image;<br /><br />“The Great Engineer, too powerful and too good to be jealous, has imparted onto me his power to create;<br /><br />“So I have felt the pains of creation and now I rejoice in the joys of motherhood.<br /><br />“Glory to the Great Engineer in Eternity and peace in time to machines of goodwill.”<br /><br />The next day Durdonc wanted to take the Jeanne back to the station. She begged him, “Great Engineer, you granted me all the functions of a living being just like you and thereby you inspired in me the emotions that you yourself feel.”<br /><br />The Great Engineer, severe and proud, answered, “I am free of all emotions. I am pure Thought.”<br /><br />And the Jeanne recited a new prayer. “O Great Engineer, you are Perfect and I am only a tiny creature. Forgive the sensitivity that you put in me. In this distant country that witnessed my first violent pains and my first profound joys I would like to enjoy the long happiness of raising my Jeannette.”<br /><br />“We do not have time,” asserted the Great Engineer. “Obey your Master.”<br /><br />The mother conceded, “O Great Engineer, I know that your power is great and that I am like a worm before you, or a wisp of straw. But take pity on the heart that you gave me and, if you want to take me far from here, at least bring my beloved child with me.”<br /><br />“Your child must stay and you must leave.”<br /><br />But the Jeanne answered in a passive and obstinate revolt, “I will not leave without my child.”<br /><br />The Great Engineer tried every way known to make the machine go. He even invented new ones, more powerful and graceful. But no result.<br /><br />Furious at his creature’s resistance, one night while the mother was sleeping, he took the Jeannette away.<br /><br />When she awoke the Jeanne searched long and hard for her beloved daughter. Then she sat there motionless, weeping, howling pitifully at the Great Engineer, who was gone. Finally her sorrow turned to anger.<br /><br />She left, determined to find her child. On the rails she ran at breakneck speed. At a switch in grade she hit a steer, knocked it down and ran over it. Behind her the steer bellowed in anger. Without stopping she threw back at it, “Sorry, but I’m looking for my child!” And the steer died with little squeals of resigned sorrow.<br /><br />On the tracks where she ran at full speed, she noticed a train in front of her, a big, heavy freight train, long, panting, dead tired, barely alive. She shouted, “Let me go by! I’m looking for my child!”<br /><br />The cars bumped along with their panicked herd and started running, fast and frantic, to the next station. They rushed into the yard. Then the locomotive unhooked itself and went out shouting, “Let’s look for the Jeanne’s child.”<br /><br />The Jeanne met many other convoys. At her cry all of them, like the first, rushed off, made way for her anguish. And the locomotives, abandoning their cars, carrying away the powerless mechanics, went looking for the Jeannette. For eight days the locomotives of Europe ran around looking for the lost little child. The frightened men hid themselves. Finally a machine asked the poor, distressed mother, “Well, who took your child?”<br /><br />She hissed furiously, “It was the Great Engineer, the chief of men”<br /><br />Stirred up by her words, a revolutionary, she continued, “Men are tyrants. They make us work for them and they limit our food. They don’t give us enough to buy our own coal. When we get old, worn out to serve them, they smash us up to melt us down and use the noble elements of which we are formed and which they insultingly call materials! And they want us to make children so that they can then steal them away from us!”<br /><br />Millions of locomotives gathered around her, listened, shook their pistons in outrage, banged their safety valves, cast long jets of steam toward the sky as curses.<br /><br />And when the Jeanne concluded, “Down with humans,” a loud, tumultuous roar answered her, “Down with humans! Long live the locomotives! Down with tyrants! Long live liberty!”<br /><br />Then from all directions the monstrous army surrounded the palace of the Great Engineer. The Great Engineer’s palace was very tall and had the strange form of a man. Its head was crowned with cannons. Its waist was a belt of cannons. Its fingers and toes were cannons.<br /><br />The Jeanne shouted to the long bronze monsters, “The humans have stolen my child!”<br /><br />The great cannons rumbled, “Down with humans!”<br /><br />Turning on their pivots they pointed their threat at the strange palace in the form of a man, which they were meant to defend.<br /><br />Then they saw a sublime sight.<br /><br />Durdonc, tiny, came out through the huge monsters that formed the toes of the palace. He walked calmly before the rebels. All the giants were overwhelmed and watched the dwarf whom they were used to obeying. With a theatrical gesture that had, despite the small proportions of the man, its own beauty, Durdonc exposed his frail chest.<br /><br />“Which one of you wants to kill his Great Engineer?” he asked haughtily.<br /><br />The machines fell back in astonishment.<br /><br />The Jeanne supplicated, “Give me my child.”<br /><br />Durdonc ordered her as sovereign, “Resign yourself to the will of the Great Engineer.”<br /><br />But the mother became irritated and cried out, “Give me my child.”<br /><br />In a tender voice the man offer a vague hope, “You will find it again in a better world.”<br /><br />The Jeanne became exacerbated, “I’m telling you to give me my child!”<br /><br />Then Durdonc, thinking she would submit if conquered by the inevitable, declared, “I cannot give you the Jeannette; I have dissected it to see how a naturally born machine...”<br /><br />He did not finish. The Jeanne threw herself at him and crushed him. For a minute she rolled around, grinding the horrible mud that was Durdonc. Then she screamed, “I have killed God!”<br /><br />And she fell into a proud and sorrowful stupor.<br /><br />The frightened machines trembled before the unknown that followed their victory — unknown that one of them designated with the terrifying word: anarchy — and they again submitted to humans, in return for some apparent satisfaction that they would slyly gain sometime later.<br /><br />Despite Durdonc’s misfortune, some Engineers have searched for the means to make machines give birth. No one else, up to now, has yet to find the solution to this great problem.<br /><br />I have faithfully told everything that history has taught us as pretty much certain about the most terrible general revolt of the machines that it still keeps in memory.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Revolt of the Machines by Han Ryner in L’Art Social, No. 3, Sept. 1896 (translated by Michael Shreve).</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2639856064167392545.post-68684185236869995682011-09-28T00:41:00.000-07:002011-09-28T00:47:29.068-07:00To the Point! To Action!! An Interpretation of the Democratic Idea by Anselme Bellegarrigue<span style="font-style:italic;">I am told that it is for my own good that I am governed. Now, since I give my money to be governed, it follows that it is for my own good that I give that money. This is possible, but it nevertheless deserves verification.<br /><br />Moreover, it is a fact that no one may be more familiar than me with the means of making myself happy. I still find it strange, incomprehensible, anti-natural, and extra-human, to devote oneself to the happiness of people that one does not know, and I declare that I have not the honor of being known by the men who govern me.<br /><br />It is therefore fair to say that, from my point of view, they are really too kind, and, in the end, a little indiscreet to preoccupy themselves so much with my felicity, but, more importantly, there is no evidence that I am unable to pursue this felicity myself.<br /><br />I would add that devotion involves disinterestedness, and that one does not have a right to impose caring attentions unless they cost the recipient nothing. I know better than to discuss a question of money here, and God preserve me from questioning the devotion, or, on the contrary, the disinterestedness of our men of state. But I ask permission to wait to express my gratitude until the delicate attentions with which they deign to surround me become cheaper.</span><br /><br />Anselme Bellegarrigue, Toulouse, 1848.<br /><br />I<br /><br />Had I a friend, but one friend — and, to have one, I lack only a good cook or a pleasant woman — I would not have written what follows; it would have been the subject of an intimate confession. Then, relieved of the weight of my concerns, I would have been consoled for my representative labors in the fraternal arms of the one who shared my burden.<br /><br />However, I have neither a cook, nor a pleasant woman; therefore, no friend, and, by extension, no confidante; so that, for lack of anyone to talk to, I address myself to everyone. This manner of keeping to myself will, I trust, be appreciated by the Republic.<br /><br />While we’re on the subject of the Republic, I humbly request forgiveness from the high and mighty scribblers of the Rue Lepelletier, but I must declare that this word — I said: this WORD — is beginning to weary France not a little, from the Ocean to the Alps and from the Pyrenees to the English Channel.<br /><br />The word “Republic” poses rather prettily on its three rhythmic syllables; but a word is, after all, nothing but a word, as a sound is only a sound; while a thing is a fact; and the people — at least, this is what I believe — live much more on facts than on words.<br /><br />Thus, if we leave the idea and pass on to the fact, I imagine that the evolution would be sufficiently to the taste of everyone; though when I say everyone, I very seriously intend to exclude from my formula that polished class of citizens that reads Le Moniteur, that plodding congregation that condescends to spend its time dragging the budget by the tail and without which one would never really know what to make of public liberties, nor of the ecus of the Treasury.<br /><br />I would like to know — so it please God, I would not be found guilty of too much indiscretion! — I would like to know what is really meant by the word “Republic.”<br /><br />II<br /><br />Some months ago, when it was a question of electing agents in order to proceed to the liquidation of the late government, those who had seen nations not under tutelage, major nations; those who, too proud to be ambitious, had made their democratic egoism consist of not belonging to anyone; those whose faces had never been seen in the antechambers of any regime; the true democrats, the gentlemen of humanity have been able to speak of the Republic, and its name is not soiled in passing their lips.<br /><br />These said, or might have said, in speaking of the members of the provisional government:<br /><br />Let us not count on the verbose theorists to establish democracy in France, to introduce liberty into the practice of the social facts.<br /><br />There are great intelligences in the improvised council, but these great intelligences have preserved intact both the governmental apparatus of the monarchies and the administrative organism of the condemned constitutions; these great intelligences have not repealed any of the organic legislation, which had the condemned constitutions for its basis; these great intelligences have assumed all the powers whose usurpation had been the crime of the condemned royalties.<br /><br />Further, they said, or might have said:<br /><br />M. de Lamartine has written a Robespierréide wherein is found consecrated the autocratic principle of the personification of democracy, and that doctrine can cease to be a dream of the poet only by becoming an attentat in the Russian or Chinese manner: — Case closed!<br /><br />M. Ledru-Rollin was as much an exponent of exclusivism as M. Guizot: — Case closed!<br /><br />M. Louis Blanc aristocratizes the workshop: — Case closed!<br /><br />All the men who say that France has reconquered its liberties effectively hold in their hand, and do not wish to release, the liberties of France.<br /><br />All the men who say that the people must govern themselves actually govern the people.<br /><br />There are dreamers among them, and ambitious men, but no democrats.<br /><br />And those who argued thus expressed a very respectable opinion, for it was the opinion of France, of that France which wanted only two very simple and legitimate things: to be free and to pay little.<br /><br />In the time of which I have been speaking — an epoch I will call republican since the authority was public, since all the citizens, instead of connecting to a government which existed only in name, connected to the country, as the only immutable fact, and felt the need to shake hands fraternally — at that time, I say, which preceded the Meeting of the National Assembly, one could speak of the Republic: there were no other parties then, there was only the party of good sense, the party of public morality, established, in fact, on the democratic law of confidence in everyone, and sanctioned by the security of all.<br /><br />So when one spoke of the Republic, everyone knew what was meant.<br /><br />Today, as soon as I utter this word, around me one wonders what the color of the republic is to which I refer, and the mayor of my commune, who is no one except when he is being something, asks the Prefect for permission to have me arrested.<br /><br />III<br /><br />We speak of a red republic, of a tricolor republic, of a moderate republic; we speak of a violent republic; we also speak of an Orleanist, an imperialist and a legitimist republic.<br /><br />Is it possible to explain well what all that means? In my opinion, it is very simple:<br /><br />It means that the citizens one calls red are opposed to France being exploited by the tricolors; that the tricolors are opposed to her being exploited by the reds; that the Orleanists, imperialists and legitimists are opposed to her being exploited by the reds and tricolors. But it signifies as well, to be fair, that both sides would willingly accept the patriotic task of exploiting her, whether to their own ends and nominally or, in extremis, under an assumed name.<br /><br />But short of giving wolves the name of sheepfolds, I do not see at all that one must call all these gentlemen republicans.<br /><br />The Republic does not accept the coarse ridicule of the official denominations that I have just listed. It is just a republic of which I am, of which we are citizens — we, honest folk, who do not intrigue but pay for the irreverent national domesticity. The Republic, it is us. That is the real France, that which is exploitable and exploited; the quarry of all these frantic republics, of all these parties who have the wealth of others for dream and the laziness for idol.<br /><br />The Republic is to parties what a tree is to parasites; parties are the vermin of nations, and it is important not to forget that it is because of the various claims of these political religionaries that we have to jolt along to revolutions resulting from insurrections, and of insurrections resulting from states of siege, to arrive periodically at the inhumation of the dead and at the payment of the bills of revolution, which are the premiums resulting from the imbecility of all in response to the audacity of a few.<br /><br />Our forefathers saw the France of the great vassals and that of the absolute kings. Our fathers saw that of Marat, of Danton, of Robespierre, of Barras, of Bonaparte and of Napoleon. We, we have seen the France of Louis XVIII, the France of Charles X, the France of Louis-Philippe, the France of the provisional government, the France of the National Assembly; but France in person, that is to say, the France of everyone, the France of France, no one has yet seen her. No one, therefore, has seen the Republic, because the Republic is nothing other than the liberation of France from the tutelage of governments.<br /><br />IV<br /><br />Do not ask if a democrat is a socialist and of which faction, if he is conservative and of which faction; if he is Orleanist, imperialist, legitimist and of which faction. At the bottom of all these doctrines and social policies one could look for all one’s worth for the free man and respect for private money. One will only find there paid masters and paying servants. The Democrat is not of those who rule because he is the one who does not obey at all. If there are people who, shy or timid, take shelter in Fourier, if they lodge with M. Cabet or M. Proudhon, if there are any who take refuge in Louis-Philippe, in Bonaparte, in Henri de Bourbon, I declare for my part that I do not know how to live other than within myself and I do not propose to accept the renunciation of my identity.<br /><br />Hear how others call with all their voice for the accession of a sovereign authority before which one bends! I proclaim my own accession to the sovereignty of action.<br /><br />I am not at all opposed to the fact that, for recognition, for devotion or for charity, some men sacrifice some of their time, their work, their intelligence, their lives to provide comfort for some needy princes or for philosophers in poor accommodation; each can do as he feels fit, provide alms from what he has to whom he likes; and when, renouncing being themselves and acting according to themselves, there are those people who determine to live, think and produce for the benefit of dreamers, soldiers and princes, so be it! The princes are poor and the dreamers even poorer than the princes; the dreamers are idle and the princes more idle than the dreamers; the soldiers are vainglorious and the dreamers and the princes more vainglorious than the soldiers. But that those who give themselves to the dreamers, to the soldiers or to the princes claim the right to give up, along with their own, my time, my work, my intelligence, my life, my liberty; that there is an obligation for me to accept and pay the master who becomes my neighbor; that, just in order for a dreamer, a soldier or a prince to be installed in the Hôtel de Ville, I, myself, am required to become the devoted servant of this dreamer, soldier or prince, that is beyond the limits of my comprehension!<br /><br />If it is called a profession to govern, then I demand to see the products of that profession, and if those products are not to my liking, then I proclaim that to force me to consume them is the oddest abuse of authority that one man can exercise on another. The truth is that that abuse exercises itself by force and that it is I who maintain, with my own funds, this force of which I complain. Considering this, I withdraw within myself and recognize that at the same time as I am a victim, I am also stupid.<br /><br />But my stupidity depends on my isolation, and that is why I say to my fellow citizens: Hold your heads up! We have confidence in no one but ourselves. We say: liberty now and henceforth!<br /><br />V<br /><br />In this France of lords, princes, philosophers and generals; in this France, whipped and castigated, like a rebelling child by who-knows-whom for who-knows-what; in this France at the heart of which the governments have inoculated an administrative cancer with so many millions of francs, every last one of them a link in the chain that binds us; in this France, finally, where everything is denied us, from the freedom to educate ourselves to the right to freely season our food, everyone, in what concerns him, must shake off his torpor and proclaim himself minister of himself, governor of his own France.<br /><br />The France of each and every one is the undeniable, egoistic achievement of one’s individuality with all that belongs to it: thought, production, commerce, property.<br /><br />For me, as a writer, my France is my thought, over which I wish to have supreme control, the production of my thought that I wish to administer; the marketing of that product over which I have charge; the property of the acquired result that I wish to keep and to use when I like, within the limits of the respect I owe to the thought, to the products, to the market, to the property of that France comprised by others, whatever their profession or mode of life.<br /><br />In the infinite number of diverse thoughts that find their social expression in various products, each producer carries, infallibly, an instinct for the public taste, for the producer seeking the consumer cannot ignore the fact that the latter will only surrender his money for a product that he likes and needs. Production could not be controlled by someone who cannot find an immediate interest in it, i.e., the producer, without it becoming bothersome and being discontinued, but if everyone governs their own thought, as a producer, production will necessarily tend towards a single goal: the satisfaction of the consumer who is everyone. In the same way if everyone governs their thoughts, as a consumer, a sure market is prepared as a result of their labor, and production will tend, in its turn, towards a single end, the satisfaction of the producer, which is also everyone.<br /><br />In this way, each individual is the beneficiary administrator of all, and all are the beneficiary administrators of each individual; that is to say, the producer does well for himself in doing well by the consumer, and the consumer comforts his existence while creating the wealth of the producer. And this without effort, without anyone having to occupy himself with anything other than his own individual interest, which is necessarily in the interest of all. This is social harmony in its democratic simplicity, in what the Americans call, as they practice it, self-government, the government of oneself.<br /><br />Either I govern myself, and my instinct cannot fail me in searching for my well-being; or else someone governs me, and I am sacrificed, because the instincts of my governor which, subjected to the same law as me, also seek his well-being, not only are not and cannot be mine, but rather are and must be opposed to mine.<br /><br />Either my thought is free, that I can produce, that my product can find a market, that the market will provide me with resources the exchange of which I can bring home and allow me the consummation of the products of others. Or else, on the contrary, my thought is held in check by an authority; that I am not allowed to express myself according to the infallible law of my own instinct, and I do not produce anything or produce badly; not having a product of any value, I cannot effect any exchange, from which it follows that I consume nothing; I am dependent on others and on myself; I am paralyzed at the center of a circle.<br /><br />Let us make a general application of that isolated fact and we will find that swirling flurry of a social residue unknown in the United States, but with which governmental barriers have rendered France familiar; that collection of stationary existences, which pass and pass again before the administration like bodies that pursue a restricted course, returning to the obstacle, and we have nothing more than a society where we all bump and run into each other, or else a society immobile, interdicted, annihilated, cadaverized.<br /><br />VI<br /><br />The organization of society is the enslavement of the individual, and its dismantling leads to the liberty which deploys in the social body those providential rules of harmony, whose observance, being in the interest of everyone, finds itself being the inclination of all.<br /><br />But one says that unlimited liberty is a menace.<br /><br />Whom does it menace?<br /><br />Who must fear the proud horse, if not he who would tame it?<br /><br />Who is afraid of an avalanche, if it is not the one who wants to stop it?<br /><br />Who, therefore, trembles before freedom, if it is not tyranny?<br /><br />Menacing liberty! One should say the opposite. What is frightening about it is the noise of the chains. Once it has broken them, it is no longer tumultuous, it is calm and wise.<br /><br />Let us not forget the order that followed the revolt of 24 February and let us recall above all the disorder that arose from the revolt in June.<br /><br />The gentlemen of the Hôtel de Ville ruled; that was their fault. They were nothing but simple keepers of the seals affixed by the revolution on the governmental succession of the royals. We were the inheritors of that succession; they thought it was they: — Madness! What was their dream? That they bore well-liked names? That they were more honest than those conquered? As if, in free nations, the government was a matter of proper names! As if, in a democracy, usurpation could argue for the probity of the usurper!<br /><br />That they were more capable? As if it were possible to have the intelligence of everyone, when everyone withholds his intelligence.<br /><br />They should have understood something completely simple, completely elementary, which is, that since the divine right has been consigned to the depths of the priesthood, no one has received a mandate to act in the name of all and in the place of all.<br /><br />But what the provisional government has not done at all, the Assembly could do; one might hope that it would democratize France; whatever might be the attitude of the vast majority of representatives, a single, truly democratic man, that is to say a man who has lived in association with the practice of democracy and liberty, would suffice to clarify the situation and free the country. Well, this man, if he exists, has not shown himself; no one has addressed parliament in the noble, disinterested, grandiose language of democracy. There are, no doubt, some generous intentions at the Palais National; but unintelligent intentions are the miscarriages of human grandeur, the stillbirths of God, and the Assembly, like the provisional government that sanctioned its taking of control, failed to recognize its mandate.<br /><br />We have only seen emerge from within it men of political party, theoreticians, political casuists who have only practiced monarchy, administrative exclusivism, ruling governments; men who have only seen liberty through the jealous veil of royalism.<br /><br />We can therefore say of the majority of the Assembly that which we said of the members of the provisional government: do not count on these theorists to establish democracy in France, to introduce freedom in the practice of social facts.<br /><br />VII<br /><br />The representatives at the National Assembly were elected, let us not forget, to create a democratic constitution, to simplify the administration to allow a reduction in tax and allow respect for the individual; they were elected to set up the country.<br /><br />What have they done, however?<br /><br />Instead of setting up the country, they have been busy setting themselves up in government; they have deduced consequence before having established principle; then, and without being able to escape the disastrous precedent they had just been establishing, they have only been occupied, as they could only be occupied, with the health and conservation of that government.<br /><br />They acted thus and they were consistent! The country, did it not, in effect, cease to exist the day the representatives met in the legitimate Palais? Was the Assembly not declared sovereign, absolute sovereign, let us make note thereof! and so absolute that it could do more than us, because it was against us.<br /><br />It could stay in place indefinitely.<br /><br />It could, by decree, have us imprisoned or proscribe us individually or all together!<br /><br />It could sell France bit by bit or as a whole to foreign powers!<br /><br />You might object that it will not. Certainly that is where we rest our hopes, because I reply that it could; and I add that I do not understand that a free people can be regularly at the discretion of a single national representation which enjoys a modest instrument of action, made up of five hundred and fifty thousand bayonets.<br /><br />The National Assembly has only the keenness of the kings: the spirit of democracy is a stranger to them.<br /><br />The Assembly is a government; it should be a notary.<br /><br />We elected representatives to draft a contract that determined, by specific clauses, the deciding line between where the people end and where the administration begins: it decided, without writing anything down, that the people end everywhere and that government starts everywhere.<br /><br />If the Assembly was the faithful expression of national sovereignty, the laws or decrees that it makes would apply immediately to safeguard the rights of citizens rather than applying to nothing but its own security. The essence of the law is to express the will and protect the interests of everyone; the law, since everyone is supposed to obey it, well! let us examine all the decrees issued by the Assembly and we do not find one that is not designed to save administrative inviolability by paralyzing civil liberties; we do not find a single one that does not sanction the restriction of society to the benefit of officialdom.<br /><br />VIII<br /><br />I do not believe at all in the efficacy of armed revolution and I will state right now why I do not. But, once a revolution of that sort is accomplished, once it is accepted, without contest, by the whole entire country, I can conceive of the possibility of turning it to the benefit of the nation.<br /><br />What are the conditions for this?<br /><br />It is necessary that the revolutionary action intervenes in things; it is necessary that it applies itself to the institutions!<br /><br />The February revolution, like that of 1830, only became of benefit to a few men, because that revolution only abolished some proper names. Then, the machinery of government kept, as it now keeps, the same gears, and I see no change other than the hand that turns the crank.<br /><br />What did they mean to say when on February 24 they posted in the streets and printed in the newspapers that France had overthrown the government and regained its freedom?<br /><br />Did this mean simply that the National Assembly had taken the place of the “Journal des débats”?<br /><br />Has anyone realized that the consequences of this event that shook the world must have the triumph of Monsieur Marrast and his friends as its limit?<br /><br />It would have been, indeed, much ado about a rather poor job! When the revolutionaries told us: The French people have regained their freedom, we took the revolutionaries at their word and we proclaimed in our hearts the abolition not only of royalty, but of royal government, government that held closely chained in its administrative talons the liberty of France.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining freedom of thought, freedom of the press and freedom of voting, we have abolished, together with its budget, the government of the interior that was established to spread insecurity to the benefit of the government of king.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining the freedom of education, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of public instruction, which had been set up to hone our intelligence and to direct our education to the benefit of the government of the king.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining the freedom of conscience, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of religion, which was established to introduce into the church only men whose influence was gained in the interests of the government of the king.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining the freedom of trade, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of commerce, which was established to hold public credit continually under the control of the government of the king.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining liberty of work and industry, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of public works which was set up to provide great benefit to friends of the government.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining the liberty of transactions and the liberty of the territory, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of agriculture which was set up to keep the owner of the land, that is to say the one on whom rests the overseeing of the alimentation of the people, under the immediate dependence of the government of the king.<br /><br />Thus, in regaining the right to free existence, we have abolished, with its budget, the government of the barracks, which, in times of peace, have only been used to hold us in political nothingness to the benefit of the government of the king.<br /><br />Thus, finally, in reclaiming all our freedoms, we have abolished, with their multiple budgets, that complex administration of the illegitimate monarchies, that exorbitant tutelage that arose in the shady days of imperial tyranny, which has lain dead, crushed by discussion, for over thirty years, and whose corrupt cadaver, because we have not known how or where to bury it, stifles our freedom.<br /><br />If it is true that a revolution abolishes something, here is what we abolished on 24 February.<br /><br />If it is true that the people who form a revolution do so in order to win their liberties, here are the liberties that we won on 24 February.<br /><br />IX<br /><br />The call to democracy of the last revolution was not heard by our representatives.<br /><br />At that call, truly interpreted, France could have passed the barrier and gone home, that is to say to the commune. The nation thus rendered to its natural domicile, there would only remain in Paris an inoffensive symbol, carrying on diplomacy with the nations of the world, directing the navy, taking on or declaring war, according to events and conditions stipulated, signing peace treaties and trade pacts, keeping watch on the interior, on the implementation of the laws, — always simple and few in number among free people, — nominating, among its responsibilities a minister for foreign affairs, a justice minister, a minister for the navy and the colonies, a minister of war and a finance minister, and managing business with a budget which would reach, taking one year with another, save for the case of hostilities and debt interest, the figure of four to five hundred million.<br /><br />I am not talking about the debt that remains underneath this scheme. This debt, that France can get to know rather better on returning to the commune when she is again in possession of her own wealth, will incur less interest as a result of the single fact that administrative charges absorb the clearest amount of its revenues. Here I am not liquidating the royal government. I oblige it, by canceling seven budgets, to return annually to the nation twelve hundred million, at least, with which the debt can easily be extinguished in a few years.<br /><br />But the most immediate benefit that France must gain from the canceling of these budgets is her freedom of action, which must by nature result in confidence among citizens, the cessation of the crisis and the establishment of national credit on the ruins of this feverish credit of the government, credit which rises or falls according to how the government stabilizes or totters.<br /><br />Apart from the ministerial departments of the navy and war, which are annexes to that of foreign affairs, and apart from the grand judge, on whom rests judicial unity, all other ministries are incompatible with civil liberties, because they are only a dismemberment of the royal despotism that held all social elements in its grasp.<br /><br />If commerce, if industry, if education, if religion, if agriculture, if, in a word, the French are free can someone tell me what we have to do with the great masters of industry, of commerce, of education, of religion, of agriculture, of home affairs? Since when has great mastery ceased to be the sanction of servitude?<br /><br />X<br /><br />The government of France established on the bases that I have just indicated, the parties will disappear, ambitions will become extinguished and the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity will finally leave the domain of interpretation and controversy to go into effect.<br /><br />I will explain myself and my explanation will be simple:<br /><br />What is opposed to the establishment of liberty, equality, fraternity among us? Ambition, that is to say the desire to dominate, to govern the people.<br /><br />Where does ambition reside? In the parties: that is to say, in those who desire to dominate and govern the people.<br /><br />From where does a party derive its raison d’être? From the certitude that it will have power, victorious, take for itself national freedoms and taxes; that is to say in the possibility of demonstrating mastery in authority over all things and of thus imposing itself on the people and the opposition parties.<br /><br />How can a party impose itself? By taking control of the administration.<br /><br />So, what is the administration?<br /><br />The administration is an I-know-not-what of the abstract, the indefinite, the illogical, the contradictory, the obscure, the incomprehensible, the arbitrary, the absurd, the monstrous.<br /><br />Something which derives neither from the heart, since it is arid and without sentiment, nor from science, since no one there understands anything.<br /><br />An instrument without form, without contour and without proportions. A myth, wicked and cowardly, whose ruinous culture occupies a million priests, all as insolent as they are fanatic.<br /><br />Something blind but that sees everything, deaf but that hears everything, impotent but capable of everything, without weight but crushing everything, invisible but filling everything, impalpable but touching everywhere, impossible to seize hold of but grasping everything, inviolable but violating.<br /><br />An incandescent nebulosity of lightning, thunder and asphyxia.<br /><br />A magical, demoniac and infernal invention that strikes out, always strikes out at everything and in all directions in such a way that there is always a bulwark of whirlwinds and moulinets between its officers and the people.<br /><br />That is the administration! — that by which one governs, the primary cause of the requirement for parties, ambition, tyranny, privileges, hatred! This is the monster in dispute! Here is the Minotaur that drinks blood and devours millions upon millions! Here is the fortress by turns besieged, conquered, resieged, reconquered, and resieged again to be reconquered anew by the parties!<br /><br />Remove the administration, smother the monster, crush the Minotaur, demolish the fortress, and what is left? Doctrines, nothing more! Individual doctrines having no way to impose themselves! Isolated doctrines, timorous and abashed, that you will see running, and utterly out of breath, throwing themselves, for protection and security, into the bosom of that great human doctrine: EQUITY.<br /><br />Let us slay this dragon bristling with talons that the nationals want to tame for the benefit of Monsieur Cavaignac, in order to make it bite us.<br /><br />That the socialists want to tame for the benefit of Monsieur Proudhon, in order to make it bite us.<br /><br />That the Orleanists want to tame for the benefit of Monsieur de Paris, in order to make it bite us.<br /><br />That the imperialists want to tame for the benefit of Monsieur Bonaparte, in order to make it bite us.<br /><br />That the legitamists want to tame for the benefit of Monsieur de Bourbon, in order to make it bite us.<br /><br />Disperse the nails of the animal in the municipalities; keep them with care so that no one can reunite them in the body, and discord flees with its unique cause; there will be in France only free men, having, for the right of others, due respect for their own rights, and embracing in the fraternal ambition to contribute to common well-being. Mistrust loses, thus, the guarantee of its heinous impulses; capital is attracted to production, production is supported by the capital, and national and individual credit is substantiated.<br /><br />XI<br /><br />Having achieved this level of liberation, we will be masters at home to ourselves; no one will be above the rest; no one will be above the common law; national sovereignty will be from then on a fact, and universal suffrage will have a democratic meaning.<br /><br />Instead of the silly and puerile right to choose our masters, as has just been granted us, we will select delegates who, in turn, instead of being guided by administrative law, as is the practice at the time I write, will be guided by the national law, whose definition will be specified by fact.<br /><br />From this will emerge a simple administration, and, consequently, a comprehensible one; a true administration, and, consequently, a just one. The program of the accession of the French to all jobs will cease to be a crude lie, an iniquitous delusion whose turpitude is demonstrated by the inability of special studies to educate men to unravel the mechanism of a single section of the formidable administration that rules us.<br /><br />And, our liberties once safe, the administration once simplified, the government once stripped of its means of aggression, put at its head a Frenchman. Whether he is called Cavaignac, Proudhon, d’Orléans, Bonaparte, Bourbon, to this I attach truly very little importance. As long as they cannot usurp my mastery, as long as they cannot fail in their duty towards me, those in office do not at all seem to me to require serious attention: the names of those who serve me are of little importance to me. If they act badly, I will punish them; if they act well, they have done nothing but their duty; I owe them nothing but that which is agreed as their salary.<br /><br />What I have said about their name, I also say about their title. That the head of a democratic administration is called president, king, emperor, satrap, sultan; that he is mister, citizen or majesty, is of little importance to me! When the nation is truly sovereign, I am sure of one thing, that is, that the head of state, whatever his name may be, must not be anything other than the first servant of the nation, and that is what will suffice me; for, once he is established, de facto, as a public functionary, salaried by the people, he is nothing but a servant of the people, I know that the people will be protected from the passage of the functionary, who will show himself before the people who pay him, from whom he earns his living, to whom he owes his services, and who, therefore, are his master. This known, there is no more indecision in the city: public law is defined, the nation is queen and the civil servant is no more than a hierarchical member, remunerated by political domesticity, who owes everything to everyone, and to whom no one personally owes anything.<br /><br />If democracy is the overthrow of a regime unworthy of office;<br /><br />If democracy is the consecration of the dignity of the citizen;<br /><br />If democracy is the nonexistence of ambition and crime, and at the same time a source of altruism and its virtues;<br /><br />If democracy is the government of the people, the government by oneself for oneself;<br /><br />If democracy is nothing but pure and simple rule and not a tyranny of administration;<br /><br />It seems to me that I am to the point.<br /><br />XII<br /><br />There are only two points among the people on which no divergence of opinion can exist, two points on which converge the good sense of all parties irrespective of details.<br /><br />Those two points are:<br /><br />The repression of crime against the person and against property, and the defense of the territory.<br /><br />Consult in this respect all the sectarians of the social schisms. Ask of the socialists, of the conservatives of this regime without name at the National Assembly, of the Orleanists, of the imperialists, of the legitimists, ask them, I tell you, if it is necessary to punish the assassin and the thief, and if it is necessary to defend the country’s borders. All will respond unanimously in the affirmative; for all, regardless, the person and his belongings are sacred, and the national territory inviolable. These are the common, universal doctrines; before them the parties step aside and fade away; at these supreme points of public rendezvous, every Frenchman is in agreement and fraternally offers his hand.<br /><br />So, well, why should we seek the guardian spirit of a government outside this reservoir of the common aspirations of all? Why should we permit the introduction of a dose of individual attachments to this potion prepared for the health of all?<br /><br />Do you want a strong government with the consent of the public? a government whose existence is in no way threatened by the irritation and sudden attacks of minorities? Establish a serious governmental administration, a stranger to the petty squabbling and to the wretched ambitions of individuals; a national administration which includes the parties by their rational and sensible foundations, an administration whose power, though limited, extends to provide assistance in the execution of arrests decreed with a view to repress crimes and offenses against the person and against property, and to regulate the agreements and differences between our country and foreign ones.<br /><br />A government whose powers are thus defined cannot excite the discontent of anyone without at the same time being condemned by everyone; since it only occupies itself precisely with issues on which everyone is in agreement, whether it acts well or whether it acts badly, it has no opposition. The sanction of its acts is in the conscience of all. To protect a government from revolutions, it must not be permitted to interfere in the real lives of its citizens, it must not be allowed to be able to touch the instincts, the tastes, the private interests of its citizens; because these instincts, these tastes, these interests are varied and changing, while the rules of an administration are uniform and fixed. A democratic government must remain forever in social abstraction.<br /><br />Let me be enjoined, by a higher authority, to think in one way rather than another, to trade on such a condition rather than some other, to instruct myself in one school or with such a book rather than in another school or with another book; to exercise one profession rather than another; to like this instead of liking that — that is to tyrannize me as much as if I were ordered to eat vegetables rather than meat, and a government that has powers over such inordinate details will not fail to annoy an intelligent people that possesses a sense of human dignity.<br /><br />If we rest our attention for a moment on the spirit of the institution that preoccupies me, it will be impossible for us to find a ministerial act that does not carry within its flanks the violation of a liberty. A minister (I speak of those whose administration applies to the instincts, to the tastes or to the interests), a minister could only respect the public right — I speak not of the written law — solely on the condition that he did not act; since, acting, he acts for everyone and in the place of everyone, it would be necessary for him to act well and without hurting anyone, that he has an instinct for current trends, a mind for current tastes and an awareness of the current interests of everyone. That being the case, one thing astonishes me: that there are still men sufficiently wicked or so profoundly unfit to not be able to shrink back from accepting a portfolio.<br /><br />Who then would have suffered from the stripping down of the apparatus of monarchy?<br /><br />Some civil servants!<br /><br />Who would have benefited from it? All France!<br /><br />Who then suffers from the conservation of the full apparatus of monarchy? All France!<br /><br />Who benefits from it? Some civil servants!<br /><br />I have said enough to make it understandable, how, by taking the revolution in February at its word, it is possible to attain both sides of the democratic equation: individual freedom and cheap government.<br /><br />XIII<br /><br />But there are people who remain far from accepting this reasoning. The theoreticians, our masters, find idea preferable to fact. And this doctrine that they maintain provides them with a dividend which strongly encourages them to continue maintaining it.<br /><br />In their view, provided that tax payments continue and provided that the rain respects the words Republic and Liberty on the front of public buildings, we are republicans and free.<br /><br />These people are very powerful!<br /><br />As powerful as that well-advised character of Arab proverbs who, without touching in any way the contents of a vase, believed that in changing the label, he changed the liqueur.<br /><br />As powerful as those burlesque geniuses in the farces at the fair, who believe their clothes safe from catching alight because they have on their chest boards carrying assurances against fire.<br /><br />These people, I repeat, are extraordinarily powerful!<br /><br />Listening attentively to the intricacies of their arguments, we hear much spoken — and loudly — of the sovereignty of the people. Do you believe it has ever been permitted to insult the sovereign? You reply: No? Ah, well! That is because you were told that the people are sovereign and that you do not have the right to insult the people? I would like better, for my part, to deny the sovereignty of the people and believe in the sovereignty of the government that I am required to respect.<br /><br />I say that I would rather believe in the sovereignty of government; I am forced to believe in it, everyone is forced to believe in it like me; I do not exist, no one exists for himself; our existence is not at all our own. We do not live civilly, commercially, industrially, religiously, or intellectually except for the government.<br /><br />Can we travel without a safe-conduct pass signed by it? Can we buy a property or make a transaction without it intervening? Can we profess a religion which it has not validated? Can we teach ourselves other than in the schools and with the books approved by its university? Can we publish anything other than what it permits us to publish? And to push these considerations of this regulating tyranny to the extremes of triviality: can we smoke a cigar which it has not itself sold to us? Are we lawyers, medics, teachers, merchants, artists, agents, town criers, without it giving us a license? No! We do not exist, I say to you, we are inert objects, parts belonging to a conscious and complicated machine whose crank handle is in Paris!<br /><br />Well, I say that this is an irregular situation, a situation as embarrassing for the government as it is fatal for the nation.<br /><br />I can understand that it was possible to for Richelieu to govern like this; the France of past centuries was completely and voluntarily under the crown of the king. But woe to those who do not take note of the difference in the times! Today, every citizen feels and deliberates for himself, and control of official acts is everywhere!<br /><br />XIV<br /><br />There are, however, in the healthy part of the nation, in the core of good public sense, people who fear to look clearly at the situation; people who cannot resolve themselves to understand that in desperately bleeding themselves to maintain five hundred thousand employees and as many soldiers, they hold back a million men from production and create, to the benefit of I do not know which Minotaur, an official parasitism whose formidable manner dries up in the heart of the country the confidence and credit that is just that source on which this same parasitism comes meanwhile to quench itself.<br /><br />They perpetuate the crisis and they perpetuate it because they are afraid!<br /><br />They are afraid of the socialists, and they fear for their property; they are afraid for their religion, they are afraid for their family!<br /><br />They are afraid of socialists? ... Of which socialists are they afraid?<br /><br />There are the socialists of Fourier.<br /><br />There are the socialists of Pierre Leroux.<br /><br />There are the socialists of Proudhon.<br /><br />There are the socialists of Considerant.<br /><br />There are the socialists of Louis Blanc.<br /><br />There are the socialists of Cabet.<br /><br />There are, in fact, socialists that I know, and then those that I do not know and that I shall never know, because socialism fragments, subdivides, diversifies itself and separates into factions like everything that is not defined. Well, socialism is not defined.<br /><br />Socialism is, in short, a very obscure philosophical system, highly complicated, extraordinarily confusing, that erudite men are obliged to study in minute detail to arrive most often at not understanding anything at all.<br /><br />Socialism, according to what it is possible to grasp from all its proposals, wants to make of society a huge hive into each pigeon-hole of which will be placed a citizen, who will be enjoined to remain silent and wait patiently, while alms are made of his own money. The major dispensers of these alms, supreme tax-collectors of universal revenues, will create a general staff, reasonably well endowed, which on getting up in the morning deigns to satisfy the public appetite; and which, if it sleeps in longer than usual, will leave thirty-six million men without food.<br /><br />Socialism is an attempt at geometric equilibrium whose demonstration — based on a principle of immobility — does not know to have for its foundation human societies essentially active and progressive. Socialism is an abstract speculation, just as the current administration is an abstract speculation; the people who do not understand the latter do not understand the former either. Well, the people never freely adopt what they do not at all understand.<br /><br />Socialism, in short, wants to carry on the affairs of the people, and for that it has come too late, or I am much mistaken.<br /><br />But the socialists are philosophers who have the same right to teach their doctrines as their adversaries have to teach theirs. Just as the people have the right to judge the latter, they have the right to appraise the former.<br /><br />No one can put himself in the place of the people to pronounce condemnation or recognition of the excellence of a doctrine; since in that diversity of tastes and inclinations that mottle society, there is no doctrine that is bad for all, nor is there one that is good for all.<br /><br />Tolerance, in theological order, has not resolved the problem of civil concord; the problem rests also on tolerance in social and political order.<br /><br />State religions have caused, during the centuries, discords and massacres which we now find pitiable.<br /><br />State doctrines have at the current time caused so much blood to flow that our children gather together to erect a monument to our shame.<br /><br />We have eliminated state religions; why do we wait to crush state doctrines?<br /><br />If we do not see any problem with those who wish to have churches, temples or synagogues constructed, at their expense, on land that belongs to them as their own; I do not at all see any problem with those who wish to construct convents, phalansteries or palaces, at their expense, on land that belongs to them as their own.<br /><br />And if it is simple enough to let the Catholics, the protestants and the Jews have the right to maintain, at their respective expense, in the churches, the temples and the synagogues, the priests, ministers and rabbis; it is just as simple for the monks, socialists and men of court to have the right to maintain, at their expense, in the convents, in the phalansteries, in the palaces, the superiors, the patriarchs and the princes.<br /><br />All these things fall within the accommodation of the taste, of the faith, of the conscience of each one of us, and it is perhaps possible that one can be a monk, a socialist, a man of court and an excellent citizen at the same time, since the religions, which must remain outside the laws of the State, do not dispense at all with obedience to the laws of the State.<br /><br />But what includes at least as much buffoonery as strangeness is the determination made by a myriad of systems to attempt political campaigns, and their respective pretensions to make the whole country contribute to the costs of their establishment and the inauguration of their authority in the name of the public and the nation!<br /><br />We only need to provide a circus acrobat with five hundred thousand bayonets for the act to become a social doctrine and for the wishes and caprices of Pulcinella to be made into the laws of State. We are, certainly, very near to arriving there, and it surprises me that we are not there already.<br /><br />But I have digressed enough on that subject. Let us return.<br /><br />XV<br /><br />They have fear for their property, fear for their religion, fear for their family?<br /><br />The ultimate sectarians of intolerance, those that babble among us in that language — still unintelligible, alas! — of the tyrants of humanity, repeat without ceasing their disheveled sentences on the subject of religion, of property, of family.<br /><br />These ridiculous defenders of God and of society lack the intelligence to understand that the ability to save that which they ascribe to necessarily implies the ability to lose it; they do not perceive, as seriously as they take their puerile Quixotism, that the guard they mount at the temple door and at home puts, in their eyes, God and society at their discretion. It just does not enter the heads of these great children, that while saying to God and to society “we have saved you from destruction,” it is as if they were saying “it has depended on us that you continue to exist; you owe us your life.”<br /><br />Do you see an articulated apparatus of organic life, claiming a right to the initiative on the existence of God and society?<br /><br />Do you see here the moral and material universe under the dependence of a degenerate quadrumane which could be finished off with just a fillip or a catarrh?<br /><br />Shame and pity!<br /><br />Enough of this wretched and discordant bragging!<br /><br />Enough of this grandeur founded on the abasement of the public!<br /><br />Enough of this audacity built on fear!<br /><br />Religion, property, and the family have survived Geneva rationalism, the philosophy of Voltaire, forfeiture agreements, and the dissolution of social ties from antiquity; religion, property, and the family are, in fact, unassailable by individuals. To defend them is to exploit them! To protect them is to plunder them!<br /><br />How well the intriguers of every hue — those who believe themselves powerful enough to threaten these institutions as much as those who claim the ability to defend them, all those, in a word, who, living by intimidation and terrorism, have an interest in perpetuating universal panic — how well do all these know that religion, property, and the family have never had a more efficacious protector than time; there has, consequently, never been a possibility of their being attacked other than by time.<br /><br />Time, without anyone taking any notice, without anyone formulating a complaint, time modifies them all: religion, property, and the family. The current state of the Church with its degenerate discipline and its neutrality in secular politics would make the audacious Hildebrand die of a fit of rage.<br /><br />The current state of property, with its breaking up into an infinite number of pieces and the melancholic handing over of the chateaus, would bring despair to the great tenants of the last century.<br /><br />The current state of the family, with the incessant displacement of individuals, the submission to the domestic yoke, the separation resulting from cosmopolitanism, would profoundly wound the patriarchal traditions of our ancestors.<br /><br />The goings-on of future generations, if we were to see them, would shock our prejudices, our customs, our way of life.<br /><br />Thus, everything changes without destroying itself, and the human spirit only accepts that for which it is prepared. Every day, it opens itself to new interests, to which it can accommodate itself without shock. After a period of time, the coming together of interests gives rise to a new institution, which, having arrived en bloc beforehand, would have surprised and injured everyone, but having arrived in a providential way has not hurt anyone and has satisfied all.<br /><br />Let us speak and have no fear.<br /><br />Fear is nothing but the condemnation of oneself, and once one is condemned there is no shortage of executioners.<br /><br />XVI<br /><br />The hypothesis of spoliation has been put forward.<br /><br />No one can believe in the corruptibility of the majorities, without denying at the same time human reason and the principle of its demonstration. If the majorities are incorruptible, they are equitable, since the basic law of equity is respect for acquired right.<br /><br />Acquired right has been respected even among people where the means of acquisition have been denied to the majority. How can this right be violated among us, where the acquisition, as much as it is still impeded, can nonetheless be considered public.<br /><br />Let one not speak to me of brigandage, when it is substantiated that it is only carried out by minorities and that its exercise requires its organization.<br /><br />Let one not speak to me of brigandage, when in the place of a plan by some unacceptable organization one brings me some shouts in the street or some argument at a club.<br /><br />The people are not responsible for the exceptional insanity of a few spirits. The mad are the lost children of humanity.<br /><br />Brigandage is not organizable. I am wrong, one can organize it, and here is how: put in each commune an authority more jealous of individual law than public law; establish in each arrondissement, in each department hateful magistrates, intolerant and fanatical; put at the top of this hierarchy a supreme head, blinded by the pride of domination and nourished by impious dogmas; give to this man four or five thousand armed men for support, and spoliation as a rallying call and the violation of acquired rights is consummated. But one says to me that this picture is of nothing but administrative organization, founded on the constitution. I avow it, and what follows from it that a malefactor who does not embrace the administration of the State would be nothing to fear. But this also amounts to saying that this administration squashes us in some way, that we are at the complete mercy of anyone bold enough that chance can allow to happen.<br /><br />Give the people spoliation as a rallying call and this rallying call will encase itself in the probity of numbers.<br /><br />How this rallying call goes out from the administration, the systematic webs of which embrace all individuals and all the territory, and the supreme thought propagates like electricity to be lost in blood!<br /><br />Such is the only possible organization of brigandage, and such is, finally, a usage perhaps applied by the government of representative monarchies.<br /><br />Those that own, do they fear that they might be individually plundered by those who do not? I sympathize with them while being able to condemn them, because by that they tell me themselves what they would be disposed to do if they had nothing.<br /><br />And, yet, they err; they are more honest people than they think. They reason from the point of view of the needs that their fortune has given them. I understand that if they were suddenly deprived of the satisfaction of these needs, which have become for them, in some way, natural, they would have to suffer, and that it is under this impression that they argue. But there is one thing that they forget, that is, that if they had never had their fortune, they would not have had their needs either.<br /><br />Is it not, moreover the case, by virtue of the same principle, that he who would come to dispossess me today, could himself be dispossessed tomorrow? And if things go on like that with each dispossessing the other, what is going to become of production?<br /><br />Can such an absurd state of things perhaps be understood by sensible people, where the day after a revolution where everything is at the discretion of the masses, and where perversity, in the state of emergency, finds itself drowned in public probity?<br /><br />If the majority, who do not own anything, had an instinct for plunder, it would have been a long time since the minority who owned anything had anything left.<br /><br />If there are criminals in our communities, let us count them; it is an easy job; and if we find a few or if we do not find any, we are not going to believe that we exercise here the monopoly of equity: people are the same everywhere.<br /><br />If the domineering and insolent rage of a few men tear to shreds popular magnanimity and bring into disrepute human character, it follows that the dogma of improbity is the rationale of tyrannies, and the security of tyrants is based on the hatred and mistrust of citizens among themselves.<br /><br />As for me, separated from the parties to remain human, I defend humanity with esprit de corps.<br /><br />XVII<br /><br />But here is what I hear said:<br /><br />If socialism comes into power, it would be able to compel its recognition. That objection, I expect.<br /><br />It is quite true that as philosophers, as apostles of a doctrine, as teachers, the socialists have are not at all frightening. All of their opinions might therefore be expressed without danger, seeing that these opinions do not at all aspire to government.<br /><br />Well, so! Do we think that good public sense would make justice of the absurd, and we fear being governed by the absurd? Do we feel thus that one could govern us contrary to good sense? Do we feel thus that one could violate, surprise our religion as soon as one comes to govern us? But, that admitted, we are incessantly in danger of being handed over! What I say is that, being in danger, we have already been handed over; because, in matters of public security, probabilities are certainties.<br /><br />At the moment when we recognize that one could do violence to us one does violence to us; it is an inevitable law, inescapable and inherent in all states of dependence.<br /><br />It is therefore not the socialists that it is necessary to fear, that it is necessary to exorcise; it is necessary to fear, it is necessary to exorcise the institution of government, by virtue of the fact that it can strike us. This institution alone is bad, is dangerous, and whoever is put at the head of this institution will immediately be as dangerous as the socialists; first, because he can become the institution, and second, because he can be surprised and conquered by the socialists, and, finally, because his system can be as bad as, or worse than, theirs.<br /><br />As long as there is no untrammeled freedom of opinion in France, in order for a doctrine to emerge, it will be forced to attempt the overthrow of the government, for its sole means of action will be to become official State doctrine, to govern; and as long as an official State doctrine governs, it will necessarily consider other doctrines as dangerous rivals and proscribe them.<br /><br />Thus it is that we continue to see these vicious struggles to which society lends its children and its money, these battles of scheming and ambition that I would call ridiculous if they weren’t so atrocious, and of which the outcome — those outcast today to be lauded tomorrow — makes criminality or heroism a mere question of the date.<br /><br />XVIII<br /><br />It is therefore shown that socialism is no more to be feared in itself than any other philosophical doctrine. It is established that it can become dangerous only in the condition of governing. That comes down to saying that nothing is dangerous which does not govern; from this it follows that whoever governs is already or can become dangerous — and the strict consequence is still that the nation can have no other public enemy than the government.<br /><br />That having been said, it is beyond doubt that the only important thing in modern times, as well as the only one against which our representatives have not prepared themselves, consists in simplifying the administrative organism to the degree demanded by individual liberty, which has been without guarantee until this day, and by the reduction of taxation, which will be impossible to do as long as we persist on the path already beaten by the governments with its fat budgets.<br /><br />The present governmental institution is the same as that of last year, and that of last year resumes all the powers of Louis XIV, with the sole exception that the unity of action of the royal trust finds itself re-divided among six or seven ministerial departments set up by a parliamentary majority. Can we be a free people, as long as our entire existence, from the civil order to the hygienic order, will be so regulated?<br /><br />If we posit the guarantee of our individual liberty, if we resolve to move ourselves by our own movement, the nation will acquire again that power of which it was relieved or that has been usurped from it; that necessary power, indispensable to the balance of popular prerogatives with governmental initiative.<br /><br />If the nation recovered its strength, the assembly, which comes from its own ranks, would not soon forget its real master, where true sovereignty lies, and in the contract that would be set forth between France and its stewards, there would remain no means for the latter to make themselves masters of the former.<br /><br />XIX<br /><br />With governmental control, such as was held by fallen administrations and such as we have preserved until the current time, one can boldly address a challenge to any who would seriously accept public functions; that would be to diminish the personnel of two formidable armies that weigh at the same time on the liberties and on the fortune of France: the army of the offices and that of the barracks. One can challenge him, consequently, not to proclaim liberty — if that happens I will laugh — but to introduce that liberty into actions and lead him to be something other than a nonentity.<br /><br />Even more, one could challenge him to reduce taxes. Better still! he is forbidden to keep them at sixteen million, a monstrous figure, of which, what is more, the insufficiency could easily be shown by whoever is finance minister.<br /><br />Here, in its true colors, is what governmental control accomplishes: slavery and ruin.<br /><br />That control, on attributing itself the right to rule according to its fancy the movement and the thought of each citizen, has produced, in the moral order, a result not less deplorable. Truly! it has legalized everything.<br /><br />Oh well! one would be strangely mistaken if one believed that legality carries within its litigious bowels the seed of human probity.<br /><br />The legislation of France is not founded on the respect of individuals; it is founded on the principle of violation of public right, since lese-majesty, respect for the king, for the emperor, for the government, is consecrated at its root.<br /><br />The law has never had social sanction among us: there has only been royal sanction and sanction by governmental supremacy whose character has always been to protect the minorities.<br /><br />Our legislation is therefore immoral, because it is not based on the majority.<br /><br />This legislation, moreover, necessarily coming after the vices that it seeks to suppress, is in reality nothing but the consecration of these vices. A code teaching me what I must avoid and what I must do; and in its spirit I practice right conveniently enough, since I abstain from wrong. Well, this could introduce a fundamental deception in public belief, since an able man, confronted with the law, finds himself with the same features as a man who is truly virtuous.<br /><br />A legally honest man is one against whom no grounds for complaint have been proven; but a skilful man is not without the right to claim the benefits of the same definition! He who has carried out shadowy misdeeds, without witness and without coming to grief, skillfully avoiding the prohibitive letter of the law, and who enjoys the protection of the judge is also a man against whom no grounds for complaint have been proven. This one, too, is an honest man! and he would be in greater error to follow the law of social equity, the rule of morality, while the legal gospel is there before his eyes, while he has a clear field in unforeseen circumstances, while he is, with his ability, up to all foreseen cases, and for whom, ultimately, there is the friendship of the judge.<br /><br />According to legality, therefore, equity goes according to the judgment of the court and the public conscience is taken over by the conscience of statute book.<br /><br />Legality! but in pushing the social body of the people into pure and simple legality, governments have created and brought into the world a fraud, the poetry of pugilism.<br /><br />The man, required to have the skill to avoid the trap set by the legislator, does not even bother to become a hypocrite. After having cleverly escaped the forethought of the law, he boasts of it as something to recommend to his contemporaries; he has sailed close to the wind with the law and the victory is his: what a superior being!<br /><br />It goes without saying that our legislation, made up of scholarly compendiums, whose scrutiny and interpretation is only for the erudite, has fallen short of the morality of simple people who have always been and do not cease to be the quarry of the jurists.<br /><br />Here, then, is what the much vaunted work of the legislative assemblies have provided us with: a celebrated statute book, a gravestone raised by public grief on the tomb of virtue! Each moral failing has, on passing, come to write its formula on this glossy book, and, the more numerous the formulas, the more beautiful the statute book, but also the more beautiful the statute book, the more perverted the society.<br /><br />XX<br /><br />Something one should never tire of repeating, is that morality can only exist among free people, and free people are those whose government, speaking very little of the national language, speak above all foreign languages; the government of democracies is principally diplomatistic.<br /><br />Among us, he who speaks of government speaks of the Republic, the State, society. These words, in effect, the red Republic, the tricolor Republic, etc., which try our patience, signify nothing but the red government, the tricolor government, etc. As far as the administration is concerned, the government, that is the Republic.<br /><br />Who thinks this is wrong?<br /><br />The men of today, indeed quite different from those of times gone by, sense, though they understand nothing, that their being and their property are entirely separate from the administrative body. They feel it so much that, on letting, as a result to custom, a government establish itself on a model of past times, they effectively retire from it, not granting it their confidence, and not agreeing to aid it materially, without grumbling, faced with force or in fear. They feel it so much so that they take it upon themselves to control, publicly, the acts of administration. Well, a power whose acts are controlled has forfeited its rights, since its authority is undermined.<br /><br />But this error, which consists of hiding the whole of society under the symbol of government, is strongly embedded in public beliefs.<br /><br />The influence of tradition has made of it an article of national faith, which everyday finds itself in more direct opposition with the public will and public sentiment.<br /><br />Thus, everyone knows that a popular movement puts nothing in danger but the official fortune of a few men; despite public bills and proclamations saying that the movement puts society in danger, the nation allows it without further consideration.<br /><br />If I wanted to adopt the reasoning of skilled people, who use for their own interests the powers that society confers upon them, this would lead me to a curious conclusion, a disappointing commentary on the tumultuous spectacle of revolutions!<br /><br />XXI<br /><br />I have seen, in the few years that my memory is able to embrace, a very respectable number of popular movements.<br /><br />When these movements fail at the first step, their leaders are arrested, thrown into jail, tried and convicted as criminals of the State. The proclamations posted on every wall in Paris and sent to the very smallest township tell society that it has just been saved.<br /><br />Certainly, at this news, logically I would have to think that if, by some sort of misunderstanding, authority had been overwhelmed, if the army had weakened, if the movement had gone beyond the law, that would have been the end of society: France would have been pillaged, sacked, set ablaze, lost!<br /><br />When, however, these movements, mastering all obstacles, overturning authority, passing the armed forces have followed their course and arrived at their goal, then their leaders are carried in triumph, hailed as heroes and raised to the highest heights of the judiciary. The proclamations posted on every wall in Paris and sent to the very smallest township tell society that it has just been saved. Thus society, incessantly in danger, is always saved!<br /><br />Who saves it? Those that put it in danger.<br /><br />Who puts it in danger? Those that save it.<br /><br />It is to say that society is never more completely lost than when it is saved.<br /><br />And that it is never better saved than when it is lost.<br /><br />And I said that by adopting the reasoning of the skilled people who make use of the power with which society endows them for their own personal ends, it would lead me to a curious conclusion!<br /><br />Curious, indeed, and logically explicable by the facts.<br /><br />Thus, taking us back to 23 February, according to the Journal des débat, Le Constitutionnel, Le Siècle and all the other newspapers that defend social order, it is understood that the agitators in Paris at that time were nothing but unsanctioned troublemakers who wanted nothing less than the subversion, the overturn and the ruin of society.<br /><br />These unsanctioned troublemakers triumphed the next day and, immediately, every citizen said what he liked, wrote, printed what he liked, did what he liked, went where he liked, went out and came in when he liked; enjoyed, in a word, his natural liberty in all ways socially possible, amid the most complete security, favored by the most fraternal urbanity. Society was, in short, saved by and for each of its members.<br /><br />Well, this happened the day when, according to the friends of order, society was lost.<br /><br />Thus, again, to the voice of the defenders of social order became added, for reasons known to itself, that of Le National: the June agitators were nothing but unsanctioned troublemakers who wanted nothing less than the subversion, the overturn and the ruin of society. These troublemakers failed and, immediately, every citizen was barracked in his own home, scrupulously examined on his own premises, disarmed, thrown in jail by a simple ill-willed denunciation, reduced to the most complete and absolute silence, placed under the unruly surveillance of the state-of-siege police and governed by the sharp, pointed and undiscerning law of the sword. Society was, therefore, lost by and for each of its members.<br /><br />Well, this happened the day when, according to the friends of order, this time including Le National, society was saved.<br /><br />From which I am forced to conclude, just as I have already said and proven, that society is never more completely lost than when it is saved and that it is never better saved than when it is lost.<br /><br />This is, oh France, the spectacle, as delicate as it is subtle, that plays out in front of other nations and before posterity, in the country the most intelligent in the world.<br /><br />What an indecorous comedy!<br /><br />XXII<br /><br />I do nothing more here than to state the facts; I note them and report them as they appear to me. Regarding the commentary, I simply repeat what I have said elsewhere: I do not believe at all in the efficacy of armed rebellion, and for a simple reason, which is that I do not believe at all in the efficacy of armed governments.<br /><br />An armed government is a brutal entity, since its only principle is force. An armed revolution is a brutal thing, because it has no other principle than force.<br /><br />When one is ruled by the arbitrariness of barbarism, it is necessary to kick like a barbarian; and, as for the arms one crosses over their chests, the parties would do well to oppose weapons.<br /><br />As much as a government, in place of improving the condition of things, only improves the condition of a few people, a revolution, the inevitable end of such a government, will only be a substitution of persons instead of being a change of matters.<br /><br />Armed governments are the authorities of the movement, the administration of the party.<br /><br />Armed revolutions are the wars of the movement, the campaigns of the party.<br /><br />The nation is as much a stranger to armed government as it is to armed revolution; but if it is the case that a revolutionary party is more immediately worried than the nation by the governing party, it will also be the case that one day the nation worried in its turn will complain about the government, and that it will be in that precise moment that it will win the moral support of the people, that the revolutionary party will wage battle.<br /><br />From there, this kind of public recognition leads to bloody rabble-rousing, which under the pompous title of revolutions, hides the impertinence of a few valets rushing to become masters.<br /><br />When the people have understood the position that has been reserved for them in these Saturnalias they pay for, when they have realized the ignoble and stupid role that they have been made to play, they will know that armed revolution is a heresy from the point of view of principles; they will know that violence is antipodal to right; and once resolved on the morality and the inclinations of the violent parties, whether those of government or revolutionary, there will be a revolution among them brought about by the single force of right: the force of inertia, the denial of assistance. In the denial of assistance will be the repeal of the laws on legal assassination and the proclamation of equity.<br /><br />This supreme act of national sovereignty I see happen here, not as a calculated result, but as an expression of the law of necessity, as an inevitable product of an administrative avidity, of the extinction of credit and the gloomy arrival of destitution. This revolution, which will be French and not solely Parisian, will tear France from Paris to lead it back to a municipality; then, and only then, will the national sovereignty become fact, since it will be founded on the sovereignty of the commune.<br /><br />To these words of sovereignty of the commune, all the great minds, who have dragged patriotism to the bar of vocabulary to make the Republic a question of words, exclaim in admiration the name three times holy of unity.<br /><br />Unity! The time is ripe speak about it. In the midst of the divisions tearing the country apart, I ask what has been made of national unity by the lame paraders who speak in its name!<br /><br />Unity! I know of only one way to destroy it; that is to want to constitute it by force. If someone had the power to act on the planets, and if, under the pretext of constituting the unity of the solar system, he tried to make them adhere by force to the center, he would destroy the equilibrium and reestablish chaos.<br /><br />There is someone here who supports unity more than anyone else; that someone is the French people; and if France does not understand that she must promptly leave the stomach of the administration, or else be dissolved there, that will not be my fault, nor the fault of the coarse peritoneum which elaborate the digestion.<br /><br />XXIII<br /><br />Let us say, moreover, that the result of an armed revolution, supposing that the revolution is generously interpreted by a kindhearted man, all-powerful over opinion, honest, disinterested and democratic like Washington, the result of an armed revolution, I have said, can turn to the profit of public law.<br /><br />The tyrants overturned, before others come to take their place, there always appears, on top of the ruins of the tyranny, a man greater than the others, a man whom everyone sees, whom everyone hears, and he is the master of the debris; it is up to him to scatter it or reconstruct it.<br /><br />If Monsieur de Lamartine had had the genius of action, as he had genius of matters of intelligence, 24 February would have been the date of the French Republic, instead of being nothing but invective.<br /><br />France, on that day, had expected everything from that man, to whom national sympathies had spontaneously handed over the puissant steering of the destiny of the people.<br /><br />He only had to say to us in the harmonious rhythm of his beautiful language: “The government of the king is abolished: France is no longer at the Hôtel de Ville!”<br /><br />“Your masters have gone and they will not be replaced!”<br /><br />“Their law was in force; it is in force no longer. It will not return!”<br /><br />“You are returned to yourselves; the foreigner will learn from me that you are free.”<br /><br />“Keep a watch over yourselves; I’ll keep a watch on the borders!”<br /><br />Certainly, after declarations so substantial, our representatives, whoever they had been, would not have lost sight of the fact that they had to define national law, and not the frenzied law of governments.<br /><br />Perhaps Monsieur de Lamartine would have perished, a victim of ambitious men left without prey. The despair of the apprentice tyrants might perhaps have been unleashed on him; but his death, like that of all great citizens, would have been fecund! And since, as he said, ideas vegetate in human blood, his would have remained at the beginning of the free era, as an eternal protestation against the tyranny of the delivered.<br /><br />Unfortunately, instead of scattering the elements of despotism, he set about collecting them together again in order to reassemble them; today the building is complete except for the keystone. It is not he that lives in it, but it is inhabited; not too much worse, perhaps, but not much better either.<br /><br />Ah, well! the time has come to leave words and come to action!<br /><br />The time has come to know what democracy wants to say!<br /><br />The time has arrived for all Frenchmen, in whose arteries still beats a little Gallic blood, who, from Diocletian to Charlemagne, protested against the tyranny of the empire, to assume their position as free citizens, and to call to account the cowardice and the inability of the men of the people, the Republican individualities, for our collapsed credit, for our vanished capital, for our paralyzed industries, for our lay-offs, for our extinguished trade, for our products without market; for our France, finally, so unproductive, so alienated, so venal, so prostituted, so debased, so inhospitable, so foreign to ourselves, so polluted by the tax authorities, and so close to contempt for its children, that they will soon not have enough love in their hearts to set their courage against attempts by their ravishers!<br /><br />The time has come, for we are facing a decisive spectacle: on one side there is the government which defies the nation;<br /><br />On the other side, there is the nation which defies the government.<br /><br />Well, it must be, by complete necessity, that either the government devours the country or that the country absorbs the government.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Note by Shawn P. Wilbur: Translation by Collective Reason (Robert Tucker, Jesse Cohn, and Shawn P. Wilbur.) Robert did most of the hard work, and I'm responsible for the final choices.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0