Page:Anarchism- Its Aims and Methods (Yarros, 1887).pdf/6

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impress the intelligent investigator with a profound sense of respect for this new departure in the world of reform. The unimpeachable record of history fatally establishes the presence, in almost all reform movements to which a greater or smaller influence on man and society may be justly ascribed, of the common incriminating feature of unjustifiable coercion and extreme carelessness in the choice of methods. The ideal, the theory, the utopia, monopolized the attention; the mode of application had to be determined by other factors. The end justified the means: consequently, all that pertained to the practical sides of the divine and glorious ideas upon which alone the salvation of mankind rested was dismissed as too "material" and unworthy of consideration. To establish an undefinable "Right," nothing was wrong; to "fight" for "peace" was not thought paradoxical. Like orthodox Christianity, which is incapable of perceiving any inharmony between its avowed general mission of saving fallen humanity and bringing it heavenly bliss, and its cool and deliberate consignment of millions of beings to eternal tortures and anguish, nearly all reform movements, inspired by lofty aims and brilliant utopias, sought to materialize by and through means which could have no effect other than reactionary and evil-aggravating. For the first time in the history of great movements, "principle" and "policy" are made to conform to one and the same standard, and subject to the domination of one and the same guiding power, in the theory and practice of Anarchy. Whether looked upon as expounders of certain truths and apostles of a certain system of philosophy, or whether studied as practical rebels and conspirators against existing iniquitous institutions, the same consistency, plumb-line adherence to well-defined limits, and scrupulous regard for the rights of the non-Anarchists