We have demonstrated⁠—at least we hope so⁠—the right of every individual, without exception, to evolve without constraint; the right of everyone to satisfy his needs fully; and hence the illegitimacy of authority, property, and all the institutions which the exploiting class has established to defend those privileges which can only be secured by the spoliation of the masses. It remains for us to examine the means for overturning this state of things which we attack, for founding the society which we demand in the future, and to prove the legitimacy of these means; for many persons who admit our criticisms of the existing social condition, who applaud our vision of a harmonious world, fly into transports at the idea of employing violence. In their opinion it would be better to proceed step by step through persuasion, seeking gradually to ameliorate existing conditions. “Everything in nature,” they tell us, “is transformed by evolution; why, then, not proceed in the same way in sociology instead of wishing for sudden ruptures? While seeking to transform society by force, you risk wrecking everything without producing any good; above all you risk getting crushed yourself; bringing about a reaction not less violent than the attack and thus causing a setback to progress for several centuries.” This reasoning which is addressed to us by honest men, who discuss solely with a desire for enlightenment, rests upon a semblance of truth and merits being considered.

It is true that everything in nature is transformed by a slow process of evolution, by an uninterrupted sequence of progress acquired little by little, imperceptible if followed throughout its course, bursting upon the eye only when we pass suddenly from one period to another. It is thus that life progressed upon our globe, it is thus that man emerged from animality; and therefore it is that man in the nineteenth century no longer resembles man in the age of stone. But one thing only is ignored, viz., that in order that this evolution should go on without shocks it must meet no obstacles in its way; if it does, and the acquired impulse is stronger than the obstacles, it breaks them; if not, it is abortive. Every time that a shock occurs between progress and some existing thing there is a revolution, whether it be the swallowing up of a continent or the disappearance of a molecule in an organism⁠—the size of the thing does not matter. Nowadays it is admitted that great geologic revolutions, far from having been provoked by frightful convulsions and sudden changes proceeding from violent propulsions in the interior of our globe, are but the product of slow causes and imperceptible changes which have continued their effects through thousands of centuries. We know, likewise, that these same causes which have brought the earth to that condition in which we behold it are continuing their operation in our own days and preparing a new transformation. Everywhere the rains gnaw into the mountains, filter through them, and disintegrate the hardest granite. Nothing reveals the slow work of disintegration which is going on, or betrays it to the eye of the tourist. Generations pass away without any appreciable modification being noticed. But some fine day the mountain crumbles, dragging down forests and villages, filling up the beds of rivers, altering their courses, sowing ruin and desolation in the cataclysm. Yet the excitement once over, life soon resumes its course, issuing stronger and more intense than ever from every pore of this wreckage of materials. The evolution took place very slowly, but there came a moment when it could no longer continue without imperiling the existing order of things; it continued its course, and the mountain, undermined, crumbled, overwhelming everything upon its surface.

Another instance: It is known that the sea is retreating little by little from some of our coasts and invading others; its waves, dashing their foam over certain plains, detach therefrom the materials which leave room for it to encroach upon the land, whilst these same materials, transported to other places, aid the solid earth in gaining upon the sea. The work goes on so slowly that it is scarcely perceptible⁠—a few centimeters per century, it appears. That will not, however, hinder a day from arriving⁠—at the end of ten thousand or a hundred thousand years⁠—what matters the length of time?⁠—when the barrier which resisted the floods will be no longer compact enough to sustain the assault; it will give way before a final shock, and the sea, borrowing new strength from the very resistance it meets upon its march, will invade the plain, destroying everything in its course until it is arrested at the foot of a new barrier, which will dam up the flood afresh for a longer or shorter period, according to the degree of resistance it may possess.

It is the same with our societies: the social organization, the institutions created to defend this organization, represent the barriers which are opposed to progress. Everything in society, on the other hand, tends to overthrow these barriers. Ideas are modified, habits are transformed, gradually sapping respect for ancient institutions which preserve themselves and seek to continue to direct society and individuals. The slow work of dissociation is sometimes imperceptible to a generation. Customs do, indeed, disappear, or a prejudice is effaced; but these disappearances have been brought about so slowly that they take place without anyone being conscious thereof; nobody but old men who compare the customs of their youth with those of the youth that have succeeded them notices that manners have changed. But though manners have changed, institutions, the social organization, have remained the same; they continue to oppose their barriers to the floods which attack them, breaking impotently at their feet, contenting themselves with carrying off a stone here and there. The floods in their rage may tear out thousands of such; what does a stone matter in comparison with the imposing mass of the barriers? Nothing at all, only⁠—this stone, the waves roll it away with them and, in the next attack, hurl it against the wall whence it was torn, make use of it as a battering ram to tear out others, which in turn are transformed into a means of attack. The struggle may last for thousands of years; the cliffs seem undiminished till some day when, undermined, they fall before a new assault, leaving a free passage to the triumphant waves.

Most assuredly we should ask no better than that the evolution of our society should be accomplished in a slow but continuous fashion; we should like it to proceed without shocks; but that does not depend upon us. We fulfill our task of propaganda, we sow our ideas of renovation; it is the drop of water which infiltrates, dissolves the minerals, scoops a pathway, and comes out at the foot of the mountain. Can we prevent the mountain from crumbling, breaking the props by which you have hoped to render it firmer?

The bourgeoisie alone is interested in having this transformation take place without jars. Why, then, instead of trying to keep the mountain as it is, propping it to that end, do they not help us to level it and enable the water to flow slowly toward the plain, carrying away the useless or harmful materials to where they may elevate the surface of the soil till it be equalized? Insensate beings! They are not willing to yield up any portion of their privileges. Like the cliffs they deem themselves invulnerable to the surges that attack them. What matter to them the few concessions that have been wrung from them during a century? Their prerogatives are so great that the void is scarcely felt. But the wave has made the breach; with the very materials torn from the exploiters it renews the attack, creating therefrom a weapon to finish their destruction. We have contributed to evolution; let them take it upon themselves and their senseless resistance if it be transformed into revolution!

And certainly a little unprejudiced study of the operation of the social mechanism would be sufficient to show that the Anarchists have been led to become revolutionists solely by the force of circumstances. They have discovered that the cause of the ills from which society suffers is within its own organization; that all the palliatives proposed by politicians and Socialists can ameliorate absolutely nothing, because they attack effects instead of removing the cause. When one is well-fed, his needs more or less satisfied, it is easy to wait. But those who are physically and intellectually hungry, having once recognized the cause, are no longer satisfied with entertaining a future prospect; they are tempted to pass from the domain of speculation to that of action. Is it not natural for people fully convinced of an idea to seek to propagate it, to translate it into action? Can a man strongly impressed with a truth prevent himself from trying to get others to accept it, and above all to realize it by conforming his actions to it? And is it not, in our present society, an act of revolt to endeavor to put our new ideas into practice? How then can it be expected that those who have done everything to propagate these new ideas, to make the evils from which we suffer understood, to explain the causes of them, to show the remedy, to bring the attainments of a better society within reach; how can it be expected that these men shall put themselves athwart the advance march of those who seek to realize the ideas which have been explained to them and say to them, “Content yourselves with the pleasures of anticipation, continue to suffer, have patience; perhaps some day your exploiters will consent to make some concessions to you!” It would be horrible mockery!

Oh, truly we should ask nothing better than that the bourgeoisie should themselves understand the odious role they play, give up exploiting the workers, make restitution of their machinery, houses, lands, and mines to the collectivity, which would thereupon organize itself in order to put all these into operation for the benefit of all, and substitute the reign of solidarity for that of competition. But can anyone seriously hope to see the day when capitalists and exploiters will arrive at such an ideal of disinterestedness while today they have not army, police, and magistrates enough to repress even the most innocuous demands? To spin fine theories, to speculate about a better future is admirable; but if the recognition of the ignominies of the present society were confined to a parlor philosophy, to after-dinner discussions among well-fed people, if it were limited to vain recriminations against the existing order of things, to sterile aspirations towards a better future, it would be too much like the philanthropist who with a well-filled belly and well-stocked purse says to the wretch dying of hunger, “My friend, I pity you with all my heart; your fate interests me in the highest degree; I am making all sorts of vows that it shall be ameliorated; meanwhile be sober and saving,”⁠—and passes on thinking he has discharged his duty. Ah, but in that case the bourgeoisie would have a fine chance for a good, long season of exploitation before it, and the workers would be very far from seeing the end of their sufferings.

Happily, as we have seen, there is but one step from aspiration to the desire to realize it, and many temperaments are inclined to take this step; the more so that the theory of Anarchism being essentially one of action the more numerous are the revolutionary temperaments found among them. Hence the multiplication of those acts of revolt which timorous spirits deplore, but which according to us are simply proofs of the progress of our ideas. It would be playing into the hands of the exploiter to preach resignation to the exploited; we leave that role to Christianity. It is not by resignation or by hope that one changes his condition, but by action; now the best way to act is to get rid of the obstacles trammeling your route. Men have prostrated themselves before power long enough, awaited their redemption by providential saviors long enough, believed in political changes and the efficacy of the law quite too long. The putting of our ideas into practice requires men conscious of themselves and of their strength, knowing how to make their liberty respected without becoming tyrants over others, expecting nothing from anyone else but everything from themselves, from their own initiative, activity and energy. These men are not to be found by preaching resignation, but revolt.

Furthermore the idea of Anarchism in nowise rejects the cooperation of those who, having little taste for active struggle, confine themselves exclusively to spreading the principles, preparing a future evolution; it does not even require that these be accepted in their entirety. Every attack upon prejudice, everything which destroys an error or proclaims a truth, comes under their domain. The Anarchists disdain no contribution, reject no assistance, and ask no better than to join hands with all who have something new to offer. They content themselves with coordinating such efforts, synthesizing aspirations in order that people may be able to read into their own desires.

Finally it is impossible for the Anarchists to be pacific, even if they so wished; they will be urged into action by the sheer force of circumstances. Can one endure the meddling of officials after one understands the contemptible part they play? Can one submit to the insolence of lawyers when reflection has robbed them of the sacred aureole by which they were formerly surrounded? Can one respect the rich man wallowing in his luxury when one knows that it is wrought from the misery of hundreds of families? Can one consent to go into the barracks to serve as a sport for his exploiters’ keepers, after one has discovered that “the country” is but a pretext, and that the real role reserved for him is to cut the throats of his brothers in misery? When one sees that poverty is the result of a bad social organization, that people are dying of hunger only because others are gluttons and heap up fortunes for their descendants, one is not satisfied to go off and die in a corner of the poorhouse. There comes a moment when, pacific though the sufferers be, force is answered by force, and exploitation by revolt.

Those who would like to see society transformed without shocks must make up their minds to surrender the hope; it is impossible. Ideas in the course of evolving lead to revolution. We may regret it, deplore it, but the fact is there; we must accept our lot, lamentations cannot prevail against it. And since revolution is inevitable there is but one means of preventing it from going against progress, viz., to take part in it, endeavoring to utilize it towards the realization of the ideal in view. We are not of those who preach acts of violence; nor those who want to devour the employer and the capitalist, as these formerly devoured the priest; nor of those who incite people to do this or that, or accomplish such and such an act. We are convinced that people do not do anything but what they themselves have decided to do. We believe that actions are taught by example and not by writing or counsel. Therefore we confine ourselves to drawing the conclusions of things in order that people may themselves decide what they want to do. But we are also convinced that the ideas, when well understood, must in their ascending march multiply acts of revolt. The more they penetrate the mass the more will consciousness of them be awakened, the more intense will become the appreciation of their worth, and consequently the less will men be willing to submit to the meddlings of authoritarian power and the exploitation of capitalistic robbers, the more frequent and more multiplied will become acts of independence. This result has nothing disconsoling for us, quite the contrary; for every act of individual revolt is an ax-stroke against the props of the social edifice which is crushing us. And since it is admitted that progress cannot go on without shocks and victims, we salute those who disappear in this terrible tempest, hoping that their example will raise up champions more numerous and better armed, whose blows may have greater effect. But whatever the number of those who perish in the struggle, it is still very small compared to the innumerable victims daily devoured by the social Minotaur. The more intense the struggle, the shorter; and in consequence the more lives, else devoted to poverty, sickness, consumption, and degeneracy, will be spared.