and daggers, as Nihilist and Anarchists have attempted to do, to destroy this conspiracy of governments against nations, from without; the other is to come to an agreement with the government, making concessions to it, participating in it, in order gradually to disentangle the net which is binding the people, and to set them free. Both these issues are closed.
Dynamite and the dagger, as experience has already shown, only cause reaction, and destroy the most valuable power, the only one at our command, that of opinion.
The other issue is closed, because governments have already learnt how far they may allow the participation of men wishing to reform them. They admit only that which does not infringe, which is non-essential; and they are very sensitive concerning things harmful to them,—sensitive because the matter concerns their own existence. They admit men who do not share their views, and who desire reform, not only in order to satisfy the demands of these men, but also in their own interest, in that of the government. These men are dangerous to the governments if they remain outside them and revolt against them,—opposing to the governments the only effective instrument the governments possess—public opinion; they must therefore render these men harmless, attracting them by means of concessions, in order to render them innocuous (like cultivated microbes), and then make
