124 THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY
lectic is no longer the movement of absolute reason. There is no longer any dialectic; at the most there is only pure ethics.
When M. Proudhon spoke of the series in the under- standing, of the logical succession of categories, he de- clared positively that he would not give history according to the order of time, that is to say, according to M. Proudhon, the historical succession in which the cate- gories are manifested. All therefore passed for him in the pure ether of reason. All must be caused to flow from this ether by means of dialectic. Now that it is a question of putting this dialectic in practice, reason makes default. The dialectic of M. Proudhon makes a false leap to the dialectic of Hegel, and here is M. Proud- hon compelled to say that the order in which he gives the economic categories is no longer the order in which they engender éach other. The economic evolutions are no longer the evolutions of reason itself.
What then is it that M. Proudhon gives us? Real history, that is to say, according to the understanding of M. Proudhon, the succession in which the categories are manifested in the order of time? No. History as it passes in the idea itself? Still less that. Thus neither the profane history of categories nor their sacred history. What history does he give us, in fine? The history of his own contradictions. We will see how they march and how they draw M. Proudhon after them. Before approaching this examination, which gives place to the sixth ‘important observation, we have still an important observation to make.
We will admit with M. Proudhon that real history, history according to the order of time, is the historical
succession in which the ideas, the categories, the principles are manifested.
