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.