Thus, in the name of the revolution, the Anarchists serve the cause of reaction; in the name of morality they approve the most immoral acts; in the name of individual liberty they trample under foot all the rights of their fellows.
And this is why the whole Anarchist doctrine founders upon its own logic. If any maniac may, because he "wants" to, kill as many men as he likes, society, composed of an immense number of individuals, may certainly bring him to his senses, not because it is its caprice, but because it is its duty, because such is the conditio sine quâ non of its existence.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] In their dreams of riots and even of the Revolution, the Anarchists, burn, with real passion and delight, all title-deeds of property, and all governmental documents. It is Kropotkine especially who attributes immense importance to these auto-da-fe. Really, one would think him a rebellious civil servant.
[65] Republished in the Peuple of Lyons, December 20, 1893.
[66] "Anarchist Communism," p. 8.
[67] Kropotkine's preface to the Russian edition of Bakounine's pamphlet "La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'Etat." Geneva, 1892, p. 5.
[68] Ibid., same page.
[69] J. Grave "La Société Mourante et L'Anarchie," p. 253.
[70] Ibid., p. 249.