Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - Modern Science and Anarchism (1912).pdf/100

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
96
Modern Science and Anarchism.

direct-economic-struggle tendency in the Association. He thus came in conflict with Marx and Engels, who were the leading spirits of the London General Council, and were working then to divert the Association from the direct economic struggle, and to make of it a Parliamentary political party. At the Hague Congress of the International, in 1872, Marx succeeded, with the aid of a fictitious majority, in having the Jura ederation and its leading spirits, Bakunin and James Guillaume, excluded from the International; whereupon the Jura, the Spanish, the Italian, and the East Belgian (Vesdre) Federations broke entirely with the General Council, which was transferred next year to New York, where it died; while the Federations just mentioned, concluding a federative alliance among themselves, and abolishing all central authority, continued the work of the International Working Men’s Association on federalist principles, and up to 1878 held regular yearly Congresses, until this became impossible, owing to Government prosecutions. During this period Bakunin wrote a number of pamphlets in which he developed the principles of Anarchism, the chief of which are: "God and the State," "The State Idea and Anarchism," "Letters to a Frenchman" about the war of 1870–71, "The Knouto-Germanic Empire," etc. An exhaustive biography of Bakunin has been written by Dr. M. Nettlau, in three large volumes; a short abstract of this work has also been published.

Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832), English political writer, who received French citizenship from the Republican Convention for his work in the reform of legislation. Founder of the English ethical school of "Utilitarianism," which considers the aim of all social organisation to be the attainment of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. J. S. Mill subsequently developed these ideas in his well-known essay, entitled "Utilitarianism."

Bernard, Claude (1813–1878), great French physiologist, widely known for his discoveries in physiology, and especially for his experimental work tending to lay down the bases for a physiological psychology. Chief works: "Lessons in Experimental Physiology," 1855; on toxical substances, 1857; and on the physiology of the nervous system, 1858.

Berthelot, Marcelin (1827–1907), French chemist, opened a new field of research by his wonderful syntheses of organic bodies—that is, by producing in the laboratory, through the combination of chemical elements (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon), various substances which enter into the composition of living bodies, or are produced by such bodies: hydro-carbons, oils, fats, and so on. All his work was a beautiful illustration of the unity of physical forces, which represents the greatest conquest of science in the course of the nineteenth century, and of that other great conquest, the transformation of mechanical movement into heat. He therefore retained till his death a firm belief in the unlimited power of science to give well-being to mankind, and in his philosophy and in its application to life he remained true to the