Page:A Handbook of Anarchy.djvu/15

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14

one, it is not essential or uniformly desirable. Seducing a person to quit or ignore an existing sexual partnership is, other things being equal, an act that would call forth the contempt of the lawless, on account of its inconsiderate character towards the other partner.

Children would not be the chattel slaves of the parents as they are now. They would be to all on the same footing as any other feeble and inexperienced stranger who might arrive and become the guest of the community. It would at once be recognised as monstrous to order such a stranger about, saying, "do this because you are told." A child may be rightfully coerced, to avoid more serious harm to itself or others, but without authority, as you would force a friend who was drinking too much and behaving foolishly—nor for the mere whim of the parents or anyone else, but with full responsibility to everyone's sense of fairness and right.

As older people would have leisure to let the society and wants of childhood enter more into their lives than at present... and encourage the natural tendency of children to take the affairs of their elder friends into their lives... children would pick up writing, reading, and all material knowledge as they acquire speech or the knowledge of games. Special classes conducted by those whom it would please to so exercise their faculties, and cooperative classes of students, such as our scientific societies really are, are natural and obvious means for closer study.

The nature of Anarchy being now understood, how is this state, so desirable, to be realised? It cannot be imposed; it must come by enlightenment and individual reform. Each must purify his own life from all taint of the evil, and have courage to ignore what is imposed, as the Catholics did before pagan and Protestant persecutors, Protestants before Catholic persecutors, and Atheists in face of both; as science has conquered religious persecution while the sects are still contending, so Anarchy, the applied science of society, will make its way with a rapidity and power impossible to barren creeds. In the spirit of the living faith that works its truth to sight, dwells, and there alone, the hope with the glory of Victory.