the people; and if one desires to help the poor, the first thing required of him is not to create those unfortunates whom he wishes to assist. If he would really help people, one "should not make use of money, thus presenting an inducement to extortion from the poor, by forcing them to work for him; and in order not to make use of the toil of others, he must demand as little from them as possible, and work as much as possible himself.” In work Tolstoi finds the great social panacea, and the only sort of work that he seems to recognize in his later writings is manual labor. For science, art, literature, he seems to cherish only feelings of contempt; and the time spent in the writing of his novels, upon which his fame chiefly rests, he regards as wasted or worse. "Everything that we call culture our sciences, art, and the perfection of the pleasant things of life all these are attempts to deceive the moral requirements of man." And as far as his family would permit, Tolstoi in his later years went back to the life of a peasant wearing the peasant's dress and working with his hands at the plough and at the cobbler's bench. The problem of life being to save the soul, a man must renounce all pleasures; he must labor, be humble, endure, and be charitable to all men. Community of property, non-resistance to evil, abstinence from all duties towards government, are the cardinal points in this theory of Anarchy. Tolstoi's literary fame and literary skill in the effective presentation of his thought have secured for him a sympathetic hearing in many quarters to which other anarchistic literature would never have been admitted. How many have believed his new gospel is another question.

V

The difficulties to be met and solved by anarchistic communism are not economic, as we have seen, but human. All attempts at revolution thus far have failed, or have at least been only partially successful, because the real problem has hitherto been misunderstood and therefore has not been attacked in the right way. The Paris Commune failed in 1871 because its members busied themselves with ideas of government, instead of proceeding at once to the industrial reorganization of society. Kropotkin believes that the people have unsuspected capabilities of organization, and could solve for themselves all the complex difficulties of a new social order. But to most persons who read this portion of his writings he will appear to be only a wild and impractical fanatic. He frankly avows himself a Utopian, and for Utopias the world at large has no longer use. The fatally weak point in his revolutionary programme is his tacit assumption that the present holders of property will sit still and permit the Revolution to despoil them, without having been first convinced that they are to be benefited by the social change, as well as the proletariat. He who believes this sets at naught all the teachings of history, and all that is known of human nature. The holders of property are in an overwhelming majority in the present social order, and until the small holders are convinced of the propriety of a change they will help the wealthy few fight for their own, if need be. The Revolution of a minority against a majority can never succeed; if it wins a temporary triumph, it will be to suffer the greater downfall. On the other hand, whenever a majority are convinced

that change is expedient, the Revolution will have been virtually accomplished, and that without violence or bloodshed. The anarchist will do well, therefore, to imitate the socialist, and gain converts to his views as rapidly as he may.

Since Bakunin, one school of anarchists has pursued this policy, and they are known as philosophical anarchists. By society at large they are looked upon as a class of mild and harmless lunatics,—little children in mind, who know no better than to cry for the moon. Their theories are regarded as flatly contradicting the facts of human nature as it now exists. Their social ideal would possibly be suited to angels, but is certainly not adapted to men until the arrival of the millennium. It practically assumes, though no anarchist is absurd enough explicitly to assert, that if men were perfectly free, nobody would wrong his neighbor, nobody would commit an act of trespass or violence or passion! Kropotkin's notion is that the working-man has something inherently noble and unselfish in his nature, that is kept down by his oppressed state, but would at once burgeon into life and fruitage if he achieved economic freedom. The employer, the capitalist, has economic freedom; where is his noble and unselfish character? The toiler and the employer are of the same flesh and blood — the one is just as selfish, just as greedy, just as ready to resort to violence and injustice to gain his ends, just as little likely to consider anybody but himself and his own interests, as the other — and no more so. Kropotkin has been profoundly impressed by examples of unselfish devotion shown to their fellows and their cause by some workers. But the same qualities are occasionally shown in every class, including

the class of employers and only occasionally in any class. It is sad, but it is true; such qualities are the exception and not the rule, in every walk of life.

Dr. Anton Menger recognizes the folly of assuming that human nature will undergo a great change for the better under Socialism or Anarchy. He assumes that human nature will remain essentially unchanged, that men will continue to be actuated by self-interest under the new order, as they have been under the old; and his speculations about the probable in a revolutionized society are based on this hypothesis, not on the assumption of a miraculously perfected humanity. This is the only rational procedure. It has sometimes happened that a group of men have found themselves relieved of all restraints of law and order as in a mining camp, or after a mutiny at sea. The result was invariably a hell on earth. With evil passions unchained, and might making right, life became intolerable to the weak and peaceloving. There was no security for life, property, or virtue until a government was once more established, strong enough to execute justice on evil-doers and maintain order, even if it were only the supremacy of Judge Lynch. No sane man can doubt that if it were possible to establish anarchistic communism anywhere to-day, with human nature as it now is, the outcome would be some form of despotism, and that speedily. After enduring for a time the evils of a society in which the weak would be at the mercy of the strong, men would in desperation accept any authority that promised them peace and protection and the old contest for freedom and equal rights would have to be begun over again from the beginning.

Aside from this inherent impracticability of communism is the fact that it contemplates a levelling down, rather than a levelling up, of mankind. It is like that bastard democracy, which looks at the man higher in the social scale and says defiantly, "I am as good a man as you are, any day"; while the true democracy looks at the man beneath and says, "You are, or are capable of becoming, as good a man as I am, and here's my hand to help you rise." The communist, in like manner, gazes at the richer man and says, "You are my brother, therefore share your wealth with me," but never looks at the man still poorer than himself, nor thinks to say, "I am your brother, therefore share with me what I possess." Men of sense and men of heart alike have rejected communism.

VI

But there is also a party of violent anarchists, widely distributed among all the countries of Europe and transplanted to America; everywhere a source of danger, which at times becomes imminent. The most numerous group of this party is found in Russia, where it is generally known under the name of Nihilists. The name was first invented and used by the Russian novelist Turgenieff, in his "Fathers and Sons" (1861), to describe a movement for general emancipation in Russia. There had been a liberal movement, rather than a liberal party, in Russia since 1825, which became more definite in its aims from 1870 onward, largely because of the spread of the doctrines of Bakunin and Marx. This movement took its deepest hold on the young men in the universities. The publication and teaching of liberal doctrines was