It is impossible to present here all recognized Anarchistic teachings, not to say all Anarchistic teachings. Therefore our study limits itself to the presentation of seven especially prominent teachings ([chapters III to IX]), and then, from this standpoint, seeks to get a view of the totality of recognized Anarchistic teachings and of all Anarchistic teachings ([chapter X]).
The teachings presented are presented in their own words,[24] but according to a uniform system: the first, for security against the importation of alien thoughts; the second, to avoid the uncomparable juxtaposition of fundamentally different courses of thought. They have been compelled to give definite replies to definite questions; it was indeed necessary in many cases to bring the answers together in tiny fragments from the most various writings, to sift them so far as they contradicted each other, and to explain them so far as they deviated from ordinary language. Thus Tolstoi's strictly logical structure of thought and Bakunin's confused talk, Kropotkin's discussions full of glowing philanthropy and Stirner's self-pleasing smartness, come before our eyes directly and yet in comparable form.
3. Finally, after removing widely diffused errors, we are to get determinate concepts of Anarchism and its species.
We must, therefore, on the basis of that knowledge of the Anarchistic teachings which we have acquired, clear away the most important errors about Anarchism and its species; and then we must determine what the Anarchistic teachings have in common, and what specialties are represented among them, and assign to both a place in the total realm of our experience. Then we have the concepts of Anarchism and its species ([chapter XI]).
FOOTNOTE:
[24] Russian writings are cited from translations, which are cautiously revised where they seem too harsh.
