II.
THE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
If Anarchism, like all other revolutionary movements, originated among the people during the tumult of strife, and not in a scientist's study, it is important, nevertheless, to know the position it occupies among the various currents of scientific and philosophic thought that exist at the present time. What is its attitude in respect to these divers currents? To which of them does it turn for support? Which method of research does it make use of in order to prove its conclusions? In other words what school of Philosophy of Law does Anarchy belong With what current of modern science does it show most affinity?
In view of the infatuation for metaphysical economics which we have recently seen in Socialist circles, this question presents considerable interest. I will therefore try to reply to it as briefly and simply as possible, avoiding all difficult terms when they can be avoided.
The intellectual movement of the nineteenth century originated from the works written by Scotch and French philosophers in the middle and towards the end of the preceding century.
The awakening of thought which took place in those times human stimulated these thinkers with the desire of encompassing all human knowledge in a general system—а System of Nature. Putting aside the scholastic and metaphysical views of the Middle Ages, they had the courage to conceive all Nature—the universe of stars, our solar system, our globe, the development of plants, of animals, and of human society on its surface—as a series of facts to be studied in the same way as natural sciences are.
Making use of the true scientific method, the inductive-deductive method, they undertook the study of all facts presented to us by Nature—whether belonging to the world of stars or of animals, or to that of beliefs or human institutions—absolutely in
