Frontmatter

Titlepage

Modern Science
and Anarchism

by
Peter Kropotkin

Translated from the Russian Original by
David A. Modell

Published by
The Social Science Club of Philadelphia
1903

Price, Twenty-Five Cents

Translator's Foreword

This translation being submitted in manuscript to the author for approval and criticism, he has returned it with a few brief additions and a number of suggestions. All of the former, of course, are embodied in the text; but of many of the latter I could not avail myself. Instead, before sending the translation to press, I have labored carefully to improve it by making numerous verbal changes calculated to secure greater lucidity and a more correct idiom. In its present form, therefore, the translation is technically unlike what the author has returned to me. Under these circumstances, to have adhered to my intention of displaying "Revised by the Author" on the title-page might prove somewhat misleading. This intention was therefore abandoned. Yet, the author's helpful suggestions and friendly encouragement must be freely acknowledged. It is to do this, and at the same time to absolve him from all responsibility for the translation as it now appears in print, that I make this explanation.

D. A. M.

Contents

      I. Two fundamental tendencies in Society: the popular and the governmental. — The Kinship of Anarchism and the Popular-creative tendency.
      II. The Intellectual movement of the XVIII century: its fundamental traits: the investigation of all phenomena by the scientific method. — The Stagnation of Thought at the Beginning of the XIX century. — The Awakening of Socialism: its influence upon the development of science. — The Fifties.
      III. Auguste Comte’s Attempt to build up a Synthetic Philosophy. — The causes of his failure: the religious explanation of the moral sense in man.
      IV. The flowering of the Exact Sciences in 1856–62. — The Development of the Mechanical World-Conception, embracing the Development of Human Ideas and Institutions. — A Theory of Evolution.
      V. The Possibility of a New Synthetic Philosophy. — Herbert Spencer’s attempt: why it failed. — The Method not sustained. — A False Conception of “The Struggle for Existence.”
      VI. The Causes of this Mistake. — The Teaching of the Church: “the World is steeped in Sin.” — The Government’s Inculcation of the same view of “Man’s Radical Perversity.” — The Views of Modern Anthropology upon this subject. — The Development of forms of life by the “Masses,” and the LAw. — Its Two-fold Character.
      VII. The Place of Anarchism in Science. — Its Endeavor to Formulate a Synthetic Conception of the World. — Its Object.
      VIII. Its origin. — How Its Ideal is Developed by the Natural-Scientific Method.
      IX. A Brief Summary of the Conclusions Reached by Anarchism: Law. — Morality. — Economic Ideas. — The Government.
      X. Continuation: — Methods of Action. — The Understanding of Revolutions and their Birth. — The Creative Ingenuity of the People. — Conclusion.