Modern Science and Anarchism/Chapter 8
VIII.
PLACE OF ANARCHISM IN MODERN SCIENCE.
What place, then, does Anarchism occupy in the great intellectual movement of the nineteenth century?
The answer to this question is already apparent in what has been said in the preceding chapters. Anarchism is a conception of the Universe based on the mechanical[1] interpretation of phenomena, which comprises the whole of Nature, including the life of human societies and their economic, political, and moral problems. Its method is that of natural sciences, and every conclusion it comes to must be verified by this method if it pretends to be scientific. Its tendency is to work out a synthetic philosophy which will take in all facts of Nature, including the life of societies, without, however, falling into the errors of Comte and Spencer, which were due to reasons already pointed out.
It is evident that on this account Anarchism necessarily has to give its own answers to all questions put before us by modern life, and it unavoidably takes up an attitude with regard to them quite different from that of all political parties, as also, up to a certain point, of the Socialist parties, which have not yet freed themselves from old metaphysical fictions.
Of course, the elaboration of a complete mechanical conception of Nature and human societies is at present hardly begun in its sociological part, devoted to the life and evolution of societies. Nevertheless, the little that has been done, at times even unconsciously, already bears the character which we have indicated. In the philosophy of Law, in the theory of morals, in political economy, and in the historical study of nations and institutions, Anarchism has already proved that it would not content itself with the metaphysical conclusions of old, but would look for a naturalistic basis.
It refuses to be imposed upon by the metaphysics of Hegel, Schelling, and Kant, by the expositors of Roman or Canonical law, by learned professors of State law, or by the political economy of metaphysicians; and it endeavours to clearly understand all questions arising in these spheres, basing itself on a mass of work done from the naturalist's point of view during the last thirty or forty years.
In the same way as the metaphysical conceptions of a Mind of the Universe, a Creative Force of Nature, a Loving Attraction of Matter, an Incarnation of the Idea, an Aim of Nature, a Reason for its Existence, the Unknowable, and so forth were gradually abandoned by the materialist (mechanical, or rather kinetic) philosophy, and the embryos of generalisations found hidden behind these words were translated in the concrete language of facts, so do we endeavour now to proceed when we approach the facts of life in societies.
When metaphysicians wish to persuade a naturalist that the intellectual and emotional life of man is unrolled "according to the inherent laws of the Spirit," the naturalist shrugs his shoulders and continues his patient study of the phenomena of life, of intelligence, and of emotions and passions, in order to prove that they may all be reduced to physical and chemical phenomena. He endeavours to discover their natural laws.
Likewise when an Anarchist is told that, according to Hegel, "every evolution represents a thesis, an antithesis, and a synthesis"; or that "the aim of Law is to establish Justice, which represents a materialisation of the Supreme Idea"; or yet again, when he is asked: "What is, then, according to you, the Aim of Life!" the Anarchist likewise shrugs his shoulders. And he asks himself: "How is it possible that with the present development of natural science there should still exist such antiquated beings who go on believing in these 'words and words'! Men speaking still the language of the primitive savage, who used to anthropomorphise Nature by representing it as something governed by beings having human forms!"
Anarchists are not to be deceived by such sonorous phrases, as they know that these phrases only serve to cover, either ignorance—that is to say, incomplete investigation—or, which is far worse, superstition—the fear before the unknown. Therefore, when they are addressed in this language, they pass on without paying attention to it, and continue their study of social conceptions and institutions, past and present, always following the method of the naturalist.
And they find that the development of the life of societies is in reality infinitely more complex (and far more interesting) than we should be led to believe if we judged by metaphysical formulas.
We have heard of late very much about the dialectic method, recommended to us by Social Democrats in order to elaborate the Socialist ideal. But we no more admit this method than would natural science. The dialectic method reminds the modern naturalist of something very antiquated that has had its day and is forgotten, happily long since forgotten by science. No discovery of the nineteenth century, in mechanics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, or anthropology, has been made by the dialectic method. All the immense acquisitions of the century are due to the use of the inductive-deductive method—the only scientific method. And as man is a part of Nature, as his personal and social life is a natural phenomenon, just as the growth of a flower, or the evolution of life in societies of ants or bees—there is no reason why we should, when we pass from the flower to man, or from a village of beavers to a human city, abandon the method which till then has been so useful, and look for another method in the realms of metaphysics.
The inductive-deductive method which we employ in natural sciences has so well proved its efficacy that the nineteenth century has been able to advance science in a hundred years more than it had progressed before during two thousand years. And when men of science began, in the second half of the century, to apply the same method to the study of human societies, never did they stumble upon an obstacle which rendered its rejection necessary, or made advisable a return to the mediaeval scholasticism resuscitated by Hegel. Besides, when some naturalists, doing honour to their bourgeois education, and pretending to be followers of the scientific method of Darwin, told us: "Crush whoever is weaker than yourself: such is the law of Nature!" it was easy for us to prove, first, that this was not Darwin's conclusion, and, using the same scientific method, to show that these scientists were on the wrong path: that such a law does not exist, that Nature teaches us a very different lesson, and that their conclusions were in nowise scientific.
The same is true as regards the assertion which economists tried to make us believe: namely, that the inequality of fortunes is "a law of Nature," and that capitalistic exploitation represents the most advantageous form of social organisation. By applying the method of natural sciences, we are enabled to prove that the so-called "laws" of bourgeois social science, including present political economy, are not at all laws, but simple suppositions or affirmations that nobody has ever attempted to verify. In fact, some of their most essential would-be laws crumbled to pieces as soon as they were submitted to the test of numeric data, taken from a study of real life.
One word more. Scientific research is only fruitful on condition that it has a definite aim—that it was undertaken with the intention of finding an answer to a plain question well put. And every inquiry is the more fruitful the clearer we see the relation existing between the question and the fundamental lines of our general conception of the Universe. The better it fits in with this general conception, the easier is its solution.
Well then. The question put by Anarchism might be expressed in the following way: "Which social forms best guarantee in such and, such societies, and in humanity at large, the greatest sum of happiness, and therefore the greatest sum of vitality?" "Which forms of society are most likely to allow this sum of happiness to increase and develop in quantity and quality—that is to say, will enable this happiness to become more complete and more varied?" (which, by the way, gives us the formula of progress).
The desire to help evolution in this direction determines the social, scientific, and artistic activity of the Anarchist. And this activity, in its turn, precisely on account of its falling in with the development of society in this direction, becomes a source of increased vitality, vigour, sense of oneness with mankind and its best vital forces.
It therefore becomes a source of increased vitality and happiness for the individual.
- ↑ It would have been better to say “kinetic," but this expression is less known.