Page:Anarchism- Its Aims and Methods (Yarros, 1887).pdf/8

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losophers wrote and poets sang and dreamers of all ages drew fantastic pictures. We are comforted by the admission that humanity is sure to attain that high perfection which will obliterate all distinctions and make laws unnecessary. Every man will be a law unto himself, and government a thing unknown.

While duly appreciating the generosity and benevolence of this view of Anarchy, we must make the disappointing declaration nevertheless that there is no more truth and intelligent comprehension of Anarchistic philosophy in it than there is in its antipode, which is entertained by a far greater number of people not distinguished for excessive liberality and toleration,—namely, the view which can discover nothing in Anarchy except chaos and universal war. Anarchy brings peace, and brings it in the here and the now. Sickly sentimentalism and ferocious savagery are alike foreign to Anarchism, which is simply and objectively the Science of Society and the text-book of Justice, and which concerns itself very little about the remote future, but deals with the present and the very next step of progress.

What is it that absorbs and preoccupies the thinking mind of the world today? A multitude and variety of pressing problems. There are infinite abuses to be removed, evils to be abolished, maladies to be cured, grievances to be settled, wrongs to be righted. There are all sorts of movements on foot aiming at reform. Starting from the same point in earnest search for truth, reformers travel in all directions, and explore all roads and by-ways, in the end finding themselves in a circle, in the midst of a raging battle and hopeless confusion. Unguided by intelligence, the abundant crop of good intentions and noble impulses paves the road to the hell of modern universal uncertainty and insecurity. Anar-