The Moral Sense Is A Natural Faculty

But Times And Tempers Are Changed. Rebels Are Everywhere To Be Found Who No Longer Wish To Obey The Law Without Knowing Whence It Comes, What Are Its Uses, And Whither Arises The Obligation To Submit To It, And The Reverence With Which It Is Encompassed. The Rebels Of Our Day Are Criticizing The Very Foundations Of Society Which Have Hitherto Been Held Sacred, And First And Foremost Amongst Them That Fetish, Law.

All This We See, And, Therefore, Instead Of Inanely Repeating The Old Formula, "respect The Law," We Say, "despise Law And All Its Attributes!" In Place Of The Cowardly Phrase, "obey The Law," Our Cry, Is "revolt Against All Laws!"

But What Right Had I To These Highest Joys, When All Around Me Was Nothing But Misery And Struggle For A Moldy Bit Of Bread; When Whatsoever I Should Spend To Enable Me To Live In That World Of Higher Emotions Must Needs Be Taken From The Very Mouths Of Those Who Grew The Wheat And Had Not Bread Enough For Their Children?

A Different Conception Of Society, Very Different From That Which Now Prevails, Is In Process Of Formation. Under The Name Of Anarchy, A New Interpretation Of The Past And Present Life Of Society Arises, Giving At The Same Time A Forecast As Regards Its Future, Both Conceived In The Same Spirit As The Above-mentioned Interpretation In Natural Sciences. Anarchy, Therefore, Appears As A Constituent Part Of The New Philosophy, And That Is Why Anarchists Come In Contact, On So Many Points, With The Greatest Thinkers And Poets Of The Present Day.

There Are Those, On The One Hand, Who Hope To Achieve The Social Revolution Through The State By Preserving And Even Extending Most Of Its Powers To Be Used For The Revolution. And There Are Those Like Ourselves Who See The State, Both In Its Present Form, In Its Very Essence, And In Whatever Guise It Might Appear, An Obstacle To The Social Revolution, The Greatest Hindrance To The Birth Of A Society Based On Equality And Liberty, As Well As The Historic Means Designed To Prevent This Blossoming.