New York.
You will recall on this subject the celebrated debate between Spencer
and Laveleye: "The State and the Individual or Social Darwinism and
Christianity," in the "Contemporary Review," 1885.
Lafargue has also replied to Spencer, but has not pointed out the fact
that Spencer's criticisms apply, not to democratic socialism, our
socialism, but to State socialism.
See also CICCOTTI on this subject.
[67] At the moment when I was correcting the proofs of the Italian
edition of this work, M. Crispi had just proposed the "exceptional laws
for the public safety," which, using the outrages of the anarchists as a
pretext, aimed by this method to strike a blow at and to suppress
socialism.
Repressive laws can suppress men, but not ideas. Has the failure of the
exceptional laws against the socialist party in Germany been forgotten?
It is possible to increase the number of crimes, to suppress public
liberties ... but that is no remedy. Socialism will continue its forward
march just the same.
[68] LOMBROSO and LASCHI, _Le Crime politique_, etc., and the monograph
of ELISEE RECLUS, Evolution et Revolution.
[69] WALTER BAGEHOT, Physics and Politics. D. Appleton & Co.
[70] It is this lack of even elementary knowledge of geology, biology,
etc., which makes the vague ideal of anarchy so attractive to many men
or the people with really bright minds, but with no scientific training,
even though they repudiate the employment of violent methods.
In my opinion a more wide-spread instruction in the natural
sciences--together with their substitution for the classics--would do
more than any repressive laws to suppress the outrages of anarchy.
[71] HAMON, _Les Hommes et les theories de l'anarchie_, Paris,
1893.--LOMBROSO, _Ultime scoperte ed applicazioni dell' antropologia
criminale_, Turin, 1893.
[72] At the moment when I was correcting the proofs of the Italian
edition of this book, the emotion had not yet subsided which grew out of
the harmless attack upon Crispi, at Rome, on the 16th of June, and
especially the much keener emotion produced by the death of the
President of the French Republic, Sadi Carnot, on the 24th of June.
I reproduce here, as documentary evidence, the declaration published by
a section of the _Socialist Party of Italian Workers_ in the _Secolo_ of
the 27-28 June, and distributed by thousands in Milan as a manifesto,
and which was not mentioned by either the Conservative or the
Progressi
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