d the "companions" are very wrong to complain
of their conduct. They become altogether ridiculous when they combat the
bourgeoisie in the name of their victims. "What matters the death of
vague human beings"--continues the Anarchist logician Tailhade--"if
thereby the individual affirms himself?" Here we have the true morality
of the Anarchists; it is also that of the crowned heads. _Sic volo, sic
jubeo!_[78]

_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 qua 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 Societe Mourante et L'Anarchie," p. 253.

[70] Ibid., p. 249.

[71] Ibid., pp. 250-251.

[72] _Vorwaerts_, January 23, 1894.

[73] "The companions were looking for someone to advance funds, but
infamous capital did not seem in a hurry to reply to their appeal. I
urged on infamous capital, and succeeded in persuading it that it was to
its own interest to facilitate the publication of an Anarchist paper....
But don't imagine that I with frank brutality offered the Anarchists the
encouragement of the Prefect of police. I sent a well-dressed bourgeois
to one of the most active and intelligent of them. He explained that
having made a fortune in the druggist line, he wanted to devote a part
of his income to advancing the Socialist propaganda. This bourgeois,
anxious to be devoured, inspired the companions with no suspicion.