XV.
CONCLUSION.
What has been said in the preceding chapters will probably be sufficient to give a general idea of Anarchism, and to show the place it occupies in modern thought and its relations to modern science.
It represents an attempt to apply the generalisations obtained by the inductive-deductive method of natural sciences to the appreciation of human institutions; as also to foretell, on the basis of these appreciations, the probable aspects of the further march of mankind towards liberty, equality, and fraternity, guided by the desire to obtain the greatest possible sum of happiness for each unit in every human society.
Anarchism is the inevitable result of the intellectual movement in natural sciences which began towards the end of the eighteenth century, and, after having been retarded by the triumph of reaction in Europe after the defeat of the French Revolution, flourished anew in all its might sixty years later. Having its origin in the natural philosophy of the eighteenth century, it had not its basis completely established till after the revival of science which took place in the middle of the nineteenth century, giving new life to the study of institutions and human societies on a natural science basis.
The so-called "scientific laws," which seemed to satisfy the German metaphysicians during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, find no room in Anarchist conceptions. Anarchism recognises no method of research but the scientific one; and it applies this method to all sciences usually described as the humanitarian sciences.
This is the scientific aspect of Anarchism.
Taking advantage of the scientific method of the exact sciences, as well as of the researches made of late under the impulse of this method, Anarchism endeavours to reconstruct all sciences concerning man, and re-examines the generally received conceptions of Law, Justice, etc. Basing itself on the new data obtained by anthropological research, and extending the work of its eighteenth-century predecessors, Anarchism has sided with the individual against the State, and with society against the authority which, by virtue of historical inheritance, dominates society. On the basis of historical data accumulated by modern science, Anarchism has demonstrated that State authority, which steadily grows in our days, is in reality but a noxious and a useless superstructure which, for us Europeans, only dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: a superstructure built to the advantage of Landlordism, Capitalism, and Officialism, and which in ancient times has caused already the downfall of Home and Greece and many other centres of civilisation once flourishing in the East and in Egypt.
The authority that was constituted in order to unite the nobleman, the judge, the soldier, and the priest for their mutual protection and their class advantages, and which always was an obstacle to the attempts of man to create for himself a life somewhat secure and free—this authority cannot become a weapon of enfranchisement, any more than Caesarism or Imperialism, or the Church, can become instruments of a social revolution.
In political economy, Anarchism has come to the conclusion that the evils of the present day are not caused by the capitalist appropriating for himself the "surplus value," or "net profit," but by the fact itself that "net profit" or "surplus value" is possible. Such an appropriation of the produce of human labour by the owners of capital exists only because millions of men have literally nothing to live upon, unless they sell their labour force and their intelligence at a price that will make the net profit of the capitalist and "surplus value" possible.
This is why we consider that in political economy the first chapter to be studied is the chapter on consumption—not that on production; and when a revolution breaks out, the first duty to attend to, will be to remodel consumption, so that shelter, food, and clothing should be assured to one and all. As to production, it will have to be organised so that the principal needs of all the members of society should be satisfied first. This is also why Anarchism cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution of "labour cheques" for gold, nor of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists. In the coming revolution, the Anarchists see a first step towards free Communism, untrammelled by the State.
Is Anarchism right in its conclusions? The answer will be given us by a scientific criticism of its basis on the one hand, and especially by practical life on the other. But there is one point on which without doubt Anarchism is absolutely in the right. It is when it considers the study of the social institutions as a chapter of natural science; when it parts for ever with metaphysics; and when it takes for its method of reasoning the method that has served to build up all modem science and natural philosophy. If this method be followed, the errors into which Anarchists may have fallen will be easily recognised. But to verify our conclusions is only possible by the scientific inductive-deductive method, on which every science is built, and by means of which every scientific conception of the Universe has been developed.
[The End.]