Endnotes

¹ Sufficient to name here the critical and historical works of Paulsen, Wundt, Leslie Stephen, Lishtenberger, Fouillée, De Roberty, and so many others.

² See A. Fouillée, Le Mouvement Idéaliste et la Réaction contre la Science positive, 2nd edition [Paris, 1896]. Paul Desjardins, Le Devoir présent, which has gone through five editions in a short time; [6th ed., Paris, 1896]; and many others.

³ Thus it actually happened with Huxley in the course of his lecture on Evoultion and Ethics, where he at first denied the presence of any moral principle in the life of Nature, and by that very assertion was compelled to acknowledge the existence of the ethical principle outside of nature. Then he retracted also this point of view in a later remark, in which he recognized the presence of the ethical principle in the social life of animals. [Volume 9 of Collected Essays, N.Y., contains the essay on Evolution and Ethics, written in 1893.] — Trans. Note.

⁴ Nineteenth Century, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1894, and 1896; and in the book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, London (Heinemann), 2nd edition, 1904. [Many later editions, Lond. and N.Y.] — Trans. Note.

⁵ See remarks in this connection by Lloyd Morgan and my reply to them. [Conwy L. Morgan, Animal Behaviour, Lond. 1900, pp. 227 ff. The reply is found in one of the notes to Mutual Aid.] — Trans. Note.

⁶ See Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Leipzig 1848, vol. III; 219, 221. When Eckermann told Goethe that a fledging, which fell out of the nest after Eckermann had shot its mother, was picked up by a mother of another species, Goethe was deeply moved. “If,” said he, “this will prove to be a widespread fact, it will explain the ‘divine in nature.’” The zoöligists of the early nineteenth century, who studied animal life on the still unpopulated parts of the American continent, and such a naturalist as Brehm, have shown that the fact noted by Eckerman is fairly common in the animal world. [There are several English translations of Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe. In his Mutual Aid Kropotkin gives a slightly different version of this “conversation.”] — Trans. Note.

⁷ [Alfred Fouillée, La psychologie des idées-forces, Paris, 1893, 2 vols.; 3d ed., enlarged, Paris, 1912.] — Trans. Note.

⁸ [Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. See Abbot’s trans, Kant’s Theory of Ethics, page 39; also pp. 18, 41.] — Trans. Note.

⁹ Later, however, he went further. It follows from his Philosophical Theory of Faith, published in 1792, that if he began by setting rational ethics over against the anti-Christian teachings of that time, he ended by recognizing the “ionconceivability of the moral faculty, pointing to its divine origin.” (Kant’s Works, Hartenstein’s Edition, vol. VI, pp. 143–144). [Leipzig, 1867–8, 8 vols. Kropotkin refers here to Kant’s Vorlesungen über die philosphische Religionslehre, — a series of articles, the first of which appeared in a German magazine in 1792. They were edited, Leipzig, 1817, by Pölitz. See also, J. W. Semple’s Kant’s Theory of Religion, Lond. 1838; 1848.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁰ “Ethics will not tell him, ‘This you must do,’ but inquire with him, ‘What is it that you will, in reality and definitively — not only in a momentary mood?’” (F. Paulsen, System der Ethik, 2 vols,. Berlin, 1896, vol. I, p. 20.)

¹¹ M. Guyau, A Sketch of Morality independent of Obligation or Sanction, trans. by Gertrude Kapeteyn, London (Watts), 1898.

¹² Wundt makes a very interesting remark: — “For, unless all signs fail, a revolution of opinion is at present going on, in which the extreme individualism of the enlightenment is giving place to a revival of the universalism of antiquity, supplemented by a better notion of the liberty of human personality — an improvement that we owe to individualism.” (Ethics, III, p. 34 of the English translation; p. 459 of German original.) [Eng. tr. by Titchener, Julia Gulliver, and Margaret Washburn, N.Y. & Lond., 1897–1901, 3 vols. German original, Ethik, Stuttgart, 1903 (3rd ed.), 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹³ C.P. Tiele, Geschichte der Religion in Altertum, German translation by G. Gehrich. Gotha, 1903, vol. II pp. 163 sq. [Trans from the Dutch of Cornelius Petrus Tiele, Gotha, 3 vols., 1896–1903.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴ In his History of Modern Philosophy, the Danish professor, Harald Höffding, gives an admirable sketch of the philosophical importance of Darwin’s work. Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, German translation by F. Bendixen (Leipzig, 1890), vol. 11, pp. 487 sq. [Eng. tr., Lond., 1900, by B. E. Meyer, 2 vole.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁵ The Descent of Man, chap. iv. pp. 148 sq. All quotations are from the last (cheap) edition of Mr. Murray, 1901. [First edition, 1871, Lond. & N. Y.: 2nd, N. Y., 1917]. — Trans. Note.

¹⁶ [The reference is to Captain Stansbury, who, on a trip to Utah, saw a blind pelican being fed by other pelicans, — on fish brought a distance of thirty miles. Kropotkin quotes this from Darwin’s Descent of Man, Chapter iv. See also, L H. Morgan’s The American Beaver, 1868, p. 272, to which Kropotkin refers in his Mutual Aid, page 51. Howard Stansbury, Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, Phil., 1852, 1855. The case of the blind rat is taken from M. Perty’s Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere, pp. 64 ff., Leipzig, 1876.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷ Not long after, Herbert Spencer, who at first took a negative attitude toward morality in animals, cited a few similar facts in James Knowles’ magazine, Nineteenth Century. These facts are reproduced in his Principles of Ethics, vol. 11, Appendix 1. [vol. X of the Synthetic Philosophy.]

¹⁸ The incapacity of an ant, a dog, or a cat to make a discovery, or to hit upon the correct solution of a difficulty, which is so often pointed out by some writers on this subject, is not a proof of an essential difference between the intelligence of man and that of these animals, because the same want of inventiveness is continually met with in men as well. Like the ant in one of John Lubbock’s experiments, thousands of men in an unfamiliar region, similarly attempt to ford a river and perish in the attempt, before trying to span the river with some primitive bridge — a trunk of a fallen tree, for example. And, on the other hand, we find in animals the collective intelligence of an ant’s nest or a beehive. And if one ant or one bee in a thousand happens to hit upon the correct solution, the others imitate it. And thus they solve problems much more difficult than those in which the individual ant, or bee, or cat has so ludicrously failed in the experiments of some naturalists, and, I venture to add, as the naturalists themselves fail in the arrangement of their experiments and in their conclusions. The bees at the Paris Exhibition, and their devices to prevent being continually disturbed in their work — they plastered the peep — window with wax (see Mutual Aid, Ch. 1) — or any one of the well — known facts of inventiveness among the bees, the ant the wolves hunting together, are instances in point.

¹⁹ In an excellent analysis of the social instinct (Animal Behaviour, London 1900, pp. 231–232) Professor Lloyd Morgan says: “And this question Prince Kropotkin, in common with Darwin and Espinas, would probably answer without hesitation that the primeval germ of the social community lay in the prolonged coherence of the group of parents and offspring.”, Perfectly true, I should only add the words: “or of the offspring without the parents,” because this addition would better agree with the facts stated above, while it also renders more correctly Darwin’s idea.

²⁰ Hartenstein’s edition of Kant’s works, vol. Vl. pp. 143–144 [Leipzig, 1867–87]. English translation by Th. K. Abbott: Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works, London, 1879, pp. 425-4Z7. Lond., 1889].

²¹ In a footnote, Darwin, with his usual deep insight, makes, however, one exception. “Enmity, or hatred,” he remarks, “seems also to be a highly persistent feeling perhaps more so than any other that can be named.... This feeling would thus seem to be innate, and is certainly a most persistent one. It seems to be the complement and converse of the true social instinct.” (Footnote 27) [of chap. iv, p. 114, 2nd ed. N Y., 1917]. This feeling, so deeply seated in animal nature, evidently explains the bitter wars that are fought between different tribes, or groups, in several animal species and among men. It explains also the simultaneous existence of two different codes of morality among civilized nations. But this important and yet neglected subject can better be treated in connection with the discussion of the idea of justice

²² On the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, Book VII, chap. i. (p. 270 of J. Devey’s edition in Bohn’s Library). Bacon’s arguments in favor of this idea are of course insufficient; but it must be borne in mind that he was only establishing the outlines of a science which had to be worked out by his followers. The same idea was later expressed by Hugo Grotius, and by some other thinkers.

²³ [Professor Kessler, one time Dean of the University of St. Petersburg, delivered a lecture on “The Law of Mutual Aid” before a meeting of the Russian Congress of Naturalists, Jan. 1880. It appears in the Trudi (Memoirs) of the St. Pet. Society of Naturalists, vol. 11, 1880. See Mutual Aid page x, and pp. 6 8.] — Trans. Note.

²⁴ See Conversations between Eckermann and Goethe. [Cf. Note, page 21 supra.]

²⁵ Spencer’s Data of Ethics appeared in 1879, and his Justice in 1891; that is long after Darwin’s Descent of Man, which was published in 1871. But his Social Statics had already appeared in 1850. Spencer was, of course, quite right in insisting upon the differences between his philosophical conceptions and those of Auguste Comte; but the influence upon him of the founder of Positivism is undeniable, notwithstanding the deep contrast between the minds of the two philosophers. To realize the influence of Comte it would be sufficient to compare Spencer’s views on biology with those of the French philosopher, especially as they are expressed in chap. iii. of the Discours préliminaire, in vol. 1, of Politique positive. [Systéme de politique positive, Paris, 1851–4, 4 vols. Eng. tr., Lond., 187j-7, 4 vols.] — Trans. Note. In Spencer’s ethics, the influence of Comte is especially apparent in the importance attributed by Spencer to the distinction between the “militant” and the “industrial”, stages of mankind and also in the apposition of “egoism” to “altruism.” This last word is used in the too wide, and therefore indefinite; sense in which it was used by Comte when he first coined it.

²⁶ “Positive morality thus differs, not only from metaphysical, but also from theological morality, in taking for a universal principle the direct preponderance of the social feelings” (Politique positive, Discours préliminaire, 2nd part, p. 93, and in several other places). Unfortunately, the flashes of genius which one finds scattered throughout the Discours préliminaire are often obscured by Comte’s later ideas, which can scarcely be described as development of the positive method.

²⁷ He mentions it in his Mental Evolution in Animals (London, 1883, p. 352.)

²⁸ Esquisse d’une morale sans obligation ni sanction. [Paris, 1896, 4th ed. Eng. tr., A Sketch of Morality. by Mrs. G. Kapteyn, London, 1898]. Trans. Note.

²⁹ The work of Professor Lloyd Morgan, who has lately rewritten his earlier book on animal intelligence under the new title of Animal Behaviour (London, 1900), is not yet terminated, and can only be mentioned as promising to give us a full treatment of the subject, especially from the point of view of comparative psychology. Other works dealing with the same subject, or having a bearing upon it, and of which Des Sociétés animales, Paris 1877, by Espinas, deserves special mention, are enumerated in the preface to my Mutual Aid.

³⁰ Kipling realized this very well in his “Mowgli.”

³¹ The learned geologists assert that during the Tertiary period there existed nearly a thousand different species of monkeys

³² See Mutual Aid, chaps. i. and ii., and Appendix. I have gathered many new facts in confirmation of the same idea, since the appearance of that work

³³ These gatherings are also mentioned by Professor Kessler. References to these gatherings are found in all the field zoölogists. [For comment on Professor Kessler, see note page 45. Kropotkin uses the term field zoölogist in contradistinction to desk, or book zoölogist] — Trans. Note

³⁴ Spelled also, Syevertsov, Syevertsoff, and Syevertzov,-Nikolai A., a Russian naturalist. See Mutual Aid] Trans. Note.

³⁵ Is it possible that the eloquent facts about animal morality collected by Romanes will remain unpublished?

³⁶ J. Brant-Sero, Dekanawideb, in the magazine Man, 1901, p. 166. [Dekananawideh: the Law-giver of the Camengahakas. By (Ra-onha) John 0. Brant-Sero (Canadian Mohawk). In Man, Lon., 1901, vol. 1, no. 134.] — Trans. Note.

³⁷ All thinking, as Fouillée justly remarked, has a tendency to become more and more objective, i.e., to renounce personal considerations and to pass gradually to general considerations. (Fouillée, Critique des systèmes de morale contemporaine, Paris, 1883, p. 18). In this manner the social ideal is gradually formed, i.e., a conception of a possibly better system.

³⁸ See on this subject, Play of Animals, by Karl Groos. “English trans. by Elizabeth L. Baldwin, N. Y. 189.8.] — Trans. Note.

³⁹ The reader will find many facts in connection with the rudiments of ethics among the social animals, in the excellent works of Espinas, who analyzed various stages of sociality among animals in his book, Des sociéltés animales (Paris, 1877). See also, Animal Intelligence, by Romanes; Huber’s and Forel’s books on ants, and Büchner’s Liebe und Liebesleben in der Thierwelt (1879; enlarged edition, 1886). [Alfred Victor Espinas, 2d enlarged ed., 1878. Geo. John Romanes, N. Y., 1883; latest ead., 1912. Pierre Huber, Recherches sur les moeurs des fourmis indigénes, Genéve, Paris, 1810 and 1861; English trans., The Natural History of the Ants, Lond., 1820, by J. R. Johnson. Auguste Forel, Ants and some other Insects, translated from the German by W. M. Whaler, Chic., 1904; the German work is Die Psychischen fähigheiten der Ameisen, etc., München, 1901. Forel is the author of a vast work, Le monde social des fourmis du globe, comparé à celui de l’homme, Genéve, 1921–23, 5 vols. Kropotkin had in mind, most likely, Forel’s Recherches sur les fourmis de la Suisse, Zurich, 1874, which he quotes in his Mutual Aid. The last author named is Ludwig Büchner.] — Trans. Note.

⁴⁰ Élie Reclus (brother of the geographer Élisée Reclus), wrote brilliantly on the significance of the “great multitude” of dead ancestors in his Les Primitifs — a book of few pages, but rich in ideas and facts. [Paris, 1885. The English trans., Primitive Folk, appeared in the Contemporary Scientific Series, Lond., 1896.] — Trans. Note.

⁴¹ Spencer analyses these facts in detail in his Principles of Ethics. [Vols. IX. X of A System of Synthetic Philosophy, N. Y., 1898.] — Trans. Note.

⁴² Descriptive Sociology, classified and arranged by Herbert Spencer, compiled and abstracted by Davis Duncan, Richard Schappig, and James Collier, 8 volumes in folio. t[Amer. ed., 9 vols., N. Y., 1873–1910.] — Trans. Note.

⁴³ It is very likely that with the gradual melting of the ice sheet, which at the time of its greatest development in the Northern hemisphere extended approximately to 50o North Latitude, these tribes were continually moving northward under pressure of the increasing population of the more southern parts of the Earth (India, North Africa, etc.), unreached by the glacial layer.

⁴⁴ Memoirs from the Unalashkinsky District, Petrograd, 1840; [3 vols., in Russian]. Excerpts from this work are given in Dall’s Alaska. Very similar remarks about the Eskimo tribes of Greenland, and also about the Australian savages of New Guinea, are found in the works of Mikhlucho-Maklay, and some others. [lvan Yevseyevich Venyaminov (1797–1879), who later became Innokenti, Metropolitan of Moscow. For Mikhlucho-Maklay see note, page Healey Dall, Alaska and its Resources. Boston, 1870.] — Trans. Note.

⁴⁵ In enumerating the principles of Aleutian ethics, Venyaminov includes also: “It is shameful to die without having killed a single enemy.” I took the liberty of omitting this statement, because I think that it is based on a misunderstanding. By enemy cannot be meant a man of one’s own tribe, for Venyaminov himself states that out of the population of 60,000 there occurred only one murder in the course of forty years, and it had unavoidably to be followed by vendetta, or by reconciliation after the payment of compensation. Therefore, an enemy whom it was absolutely necessary to kill could be only a man from some other tribe. But Venyaminov does not speak of any continual feuds among the clans or tribes. He probably meant to say “it is shameful to die without having killed the enemy who ought to be killed, as a requirement of clan-vendetta.” This viewpoint is, unfortunately, still held even among the so-called “civilized” societies, by the advocates of capital punishment.

⁴⁶ Preservation of fire is a very important thing Mikhlucho-Maklay writes that the inhabitants of New Guinea, among whom he lived, still retain a legend describing how their ancestors once suffered from scurvy because they let the fire go out, and remained without fire for a considerable time, until they were able to get some from the neighbouring islands. “Nikolai N. Mikhlucho-Maklay, a Russian traveller and naturalist (1846 88). His notes on New Guinea were contributed to Petermann’s Mitteilungen, 1874, 1878. A part of New Guinea bears the name of Maclay Coast. See the article on M-M. by Finsch in Deutsche Geographische Blättern, vol. xi, pts. 3–4, Bremen, 1888. Excerpts from his note-books appear, in Russian, in the Izvestia of the Russian Geographical Society, 1880, pp. 161 ff.] — Trans. Note.

⁴⁷ According to the customs of the Bouriats, who live in Sayany, near the Okinski Outpost, when a ram is killed, the whole village comes to the fire where the feast is being prepared, and all take part in the meal. The same custom existed also among the Bouriats of the Verkholensky district.

⁴⁸ Those who desire further information on this subject are referred to such monumental works as Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker; Post, Afrikaische Jurisprudenz, and Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Uzeit; M. Kovalevsky, Primitive Law. Tableau des origines de la. propriété; Morgan, Ancient Society; Dr. H. Rink, The Eskimo Tribes, and many scattered researches mentioned in the above works, and also in my treatise on Mutual Aid. [Theodor Waitz, Leipzig, 1859–1872, 6 vols. Albert Hermann Post, Afrik. Juris., Oldenburg, 1887, 2 vols. in 1; second work, Oldenburg, 1875. Maxim M. Kovalevsky, Primitive Law in Russian), 1876; Tableau. etc., Stockholm, 1890. Lewis Henry Morgan, N. Y., 1878. Hinrich J. Rink, Copenhagen, 1887–91, 2 vols. in 1. Peter A. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, Lond. and N. Y., 1919.] — Trans. Note.

⁴⁹ Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, vol. 3; Grey, Journals of two expeditions, 1841; and all reliable accounts of the life of savages. On the part played by in intimidation through the “curse,” see, the famous work by Professor Westermarck [Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, London, 1914; and see his L’âr: the transference of conditional oaths in Morocco. (In Anthropological essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor. Oxford, 1907. pp. 361–374.) Adolf Bastian, Leipzig, 3 vols. in 1, 1860. Sir Geo. Grey, Journals two expeditions of discovery in North-west and western Australia. Lond. 1841, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

⁵⁰ See note 3, page 65.

⁵¹ Some American investigators call these rites “dances”; in reality they have a much deeper significance than mere amusement. They serve to maintain all the established customs of hunting and fishing, and also the entire tribal mode of life.

⁵² In his extensive work, based on familiarity with the inhabitants of Morocco as well as on study of the voluminous literature on the primitive peoples, Professor Westermarck showed what an important part the “curse” played and still plays in the establishment of the obligatory customs and traditions. A man cursed by his father or mother, or by the whole clan, or even by some individual not connected with him (for refusal of aid, or for an injury) is subject to the vengeance of the invisible spirits, of the shades of the ancestors, and of the forces of nature.

⁵³ “Metaphysics” in Greek means “outside of physics,” i.e., beyond the domain of physical laws. Aristotle gave this name to one of the divisions of his works.

⁵⁴ Alcibiades I,118. [The Dialogues of Plato, translated by Benj. Jowett, Lond,. and N.Y., 1892, 3rd Edition, p. 484. All further references will be to this edition] — Trans. Note.

⁵⁵ [The quotations are from The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle. The translators have used the version of R. W. Browne, Bohn’s Library, Lond., 1853. Mr. Browne gives the following note, in part, in connection with the word “energy”: “Energy implies an activity, an active state” as contrasted with the potential. (Page 2, note b). Other translations of the Ethics are, by Chase, Everyman series, Lond. and N.Y., 1911; by F. H. Peters, Lond., 1909, 11th ed.; by J. E. C. Welldon, Lond. and N.Y., 1920.] — Trans. Note.

⁵⁶ “But we must inquire into the subject of justice and injustice, and see what kind of actions they are concerned with, what kind of mean state justice is, and between what things ‘the just’, that is, the abstract principle of justice, is a mean” — thus he begins the book Of Justice and Injustice. (Book V, ch. I, I; p. 116.)

⁵⁷ “Now the transgressor of law appears to be unjust, and the man who takes more than his share, and the unequal man.” Thus the conception of justice means at the same time both the lawful and equitable (attitude toward me)/. Then he continues: “But laws make mention of all subjects, with a view either to the common advantage of all, or of men in power, or of the best citizens” (Book V, ch. I, 6, 10, pp. 118, 119). Thus, as is to be expected in a society based on slavery, Aristotle’s interpretation of Justice, as obedience to the law, leads him to a recognition of inequality among men.

⁵⁸ “...justice, therefore, is not a division of virtue, but the whole of virtue; nor is the contrary injustice a part of vice, but the whole of vice.” (Book V, ch. I., 14; p. 120).

⁵⁹ He added: “This is clear from the expression ‘according to worth’; for, in distributions all agree that justice ought to be according to some standard of worth, yet all do not make that standard the same; for those who are inclined to democracy consider liberty as the standard; those who are inclined to oligarchy, wealth; [others nobility of birth;] and those who are inclined to aristocracy, virtue.” (Book V., ch. iv., 3; p. 124). And in summarizing all that he had said in support of this idea, he concludes with the following words: “Now we have said what the just and what the unjust are. But this being decided, it is clear that just acting is a mean between acting and suffering injustice; for one is having too much, and the other too little. But justice is a mean state,” etc. (Book V, ch. vi, 13; p. 132). Aristotle returns again and again to this subject; thus, in Book VIII, ch. vii, 3 (p. 216) he wrote: “equality in proportion to merit holds the first place in justice, and equality as to quantity, the second.” In the book Of Justice and Injustice he even defends slavery in the following words: “But the just in the case of master and slave, and father and child, is not the same...for there is not injustice, abstractedly, towards one’s own; a possession and a child, [as long as he be of a certain age,] and be not separated from his father, being as it were a part of him; and no man deliberately chooses to hurt himself; and therefore there is no injustice towards ones’ self” (Book V, ch. vi, 7; p. 134).

⁶⁰ [The author refers the reader, by mistake apparently, to Book VIII, ch. vi-vii, which deal with some other subject.] — Trans. Note.

⁶¹ In this exposition of the teaching of Epicurus, I follow, principally M. Guyau, in his remarkable work, La Morale d’Épicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines. (Paris, 3d enlarged ed., 1917), where he made a thorough study not only of the few writings of Epicurus that have come down to us, but also of the writings of those who expounded his teachings after his death. Good analyses of Epicurus’s teachings are given by Jodl, Wundt, Paulsen, and others.

⁶² This is very well shown by many scholars, and among them by Guyau (ch. iii, § 1 and ch. iv, introduction).

⁶³ Ibid., ch. iv § 1.

⁶⁴ Ibid., Book I, ch. iv, § 2.

⁶⁵ By promising men that the chosen ones of them will not remain the subterranean darkness, but will ascent to the luminous regions of Heaven, Christianity, remarks Guyau, effected a complete revolution in the mind. Everyone might cherish the hope of being chosen.

⁶⁶ Guyau, Book III, ch. ii.

⁶⁷ Guyau, Book IV, ch. i.

⁶⁸ Epictetus did not think it necessary to study nature in order to know the essence of its laws. Our soul, he said, knows them directly, because it is in intimate connection with Divinity.

⁶⁹ [Friedrich Johl, Geschichte der Ethik als philosophischer Wissenschaft, Stuttgart, Berlin, 2 vols. 1912] — Trans. Note.

⁷⁰ The naturalistic pantheism of the first Stoics, became transformed in his teachings into naturalistic theism, wrote Jodl. Seneca also assisted this transformation of Stoicism. [Geschichte der Ethik , vol. 1, p. 27.] — Trans. Note.

⁷¹ Eucken. Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker, seventh ed., 1907, p. 90. [Leipzig.]

⁷² [A System of Ethics, by Friedrich Paulsen. Translated by Frank Thilly, N.Y., 1899.] — Trans. Note.

⁷³ Guyau pointed out in his excellent treatise on the philosophy of Epicurus, that this philosophy in the course of a few centuries united many excellent men; and this is perfectly true. In the mass of humanity there is always a nucleus composed of men whom no amount of philosophizing, be it religious or utterly sceptical, can make better or worse in the social sense. But side by side with these there are masses of average people who are forever vacillating and forever fall in with the predominant teaching of the time. For this majority, weak in character, the philosophy of Epicurus served as the justification of their social indifference, The others, however, who sought for an ideal, turned to religion to find it. [For the reference to Guyau’s work on Epicurus, see footnote, page 104]. — Trans. Note.

⁷⁴ The word “Buddha” means “teacher.”

⁷⁵ With the end of the Glacial Period, and then of the Lake Epoch which followed during the melting of the ice sheet, there began a rapid drying-up of the high table-lands of Central Asia. These lands are now unpeopled deserts, with the remnants of once populous cities now buried in sand. This drying-up compelled the inhabitants of the table-lands to descend to the south, — to India, and to. the north, — to the low-lands of Jungaria and Siberia, whence they moved westward to the fertile plains of South Russia and western Europe. Entire peoples migrated in this manner, and it is easy to imagine what horror these migrations inspired in the other peoples who were already settled on the plains of Europe. The newcomers either plundered the native peoples or annihilated the population of entire regions where resistance was offered. What the Russian people lived through in the thirteenth century, at the time of the Mongol invasion, Europe experienced during the first seven or eight centuries of our era, on account of the migrations of the hordes that advanced, one after the other, from Central Asia. Spain and South France suffered similarly from the invasion of the Arabs, who advanced upon Europe from North Africa, due to the same causes of drying-up. (Of the lakes. Kropotkin’s reference to the “Lake” Epoch — a name not found in several standard works on geology — seems to refer to a subdivision of the late-Glacial (Pleistocene) Epoch, when lakes were drying up in parts of the “old” and the “new” world.] — Trans. Note.

⁷⁶ The evangelist St. Luke testifies to the existence of many such records in the opening passage of his gospel, (ch. i, 1–4) where he compiles and extends previous records.

⁷⁷ Disturbances in Judea began, apparently, in the very years when Christ was preaching. (See St. Luke, xiii, I and St. Mark, xv, 7).

⁷⁸ In Russia this prohibition remained in force up to 1859 or 1860. I vividly remember the impression produced in Petersburg by the first appearance of the New Testament in the Russian language, and I remember how we all hastened to buy this unusual edition at the Synod Typography, the only place where it could be obtained.

⁷⁹ There exists voluminous literature on the subject of the preparing of the ground for Christianity by the teaching of Plato, especially by his doctrines as to the soul; also by the teachings of the Stoics, and by some adaptations from earlier teachings. One may mention especially the work by Harnack, Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentbums in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten, 1902, [Leipzig, 2 vols. Trans., N. Y., 1908, 2 vols. (Theological Trans. Library, vols. 19, 20.)] — Trans. Note.

⁸⁰ See, for example, the description of the life of the Aleuts, who at that time were still making knives and arrows of stone. (The description given by the priest, Venyaminov, later Metropolitan of Moscow, in his Memoirs of the Unalashkinsky District, St. Petersburg, 1840). See also the exactly similar descriptions of the Eskimos of Greenland, recently furnished by a Danish Expedition. [The Eskimo Tribes, by Dr. Henry Rink, vol. 11 of Denmark, Commissionen, for ledelsen af de geologiske og geografiske undersogelser I Grontand. Kobenbaven. (1887–1923).] — Trans. Note.

⁸¹ [Chapter xiii of St. Mark does not make this assertion, but Chapter viii of his gospel and a similar section of Matthew’s account, conveys the same idea in words somewhat different from those Kropotkin uses in his paraphrase.] — Trans. Note.

⁸² In the Mosaic Law, in the aforementioned passage from Leviticus (xix, 18), we already meet with the words, “Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.” This commandment, however, stands alone and there are no traces of it in the subsequent history of Israel. On the contrary, in another passage, namely in Exodus, xxi, 21, it is permitted to strike with impunity one’s slave or maid-servant, provided only that they do not die within a day or two, and finally, as among all groups still living according to the tribal system, in case of a fight “if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound stripe for stripe” (vv. 23 to 25).

⁸³ “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well,” wrote St. Peter when such beasts as Caligula and Nero reigned in Rome. (The First Epistle General of Peter, ii, 13, 14), And further, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward,” etc. (Ibid, 18–25). And as regards the advices that St. Paul gave to his flock, it is really disgusting to speak of them; they were in direct contradiction to the teaching of Christ. “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God” ... “He (the ruler) is the minister of God.” (Epistle to the Romans, xiii, 1–5). He sacrilegiously ordered the slaves to obey their masters “like Christ”; at any rate, this is the statement made in his Epistle to the Ephesians, [vi, 51, which is recognized by the Christian Churches as the genuine Epistle of St. Paul. As to the masters, instead of urging them to renounce the labor of the slaves, he merely advised them to be moderate — “moderating their strictness”. Moreover, St. Paul exhorts to special obedience those slaves who “have believing masters...because they are faithful and beloved.” [The first Epistle to Timothy, vi, 2; Colossians, iii, 22]; Titus, ii, 9, and iii, 1. [The translators have corrected several faulty references of the original.] — Trans. Note.

⁸⁴ Eugene Sue, in his remarkable novel Les mystères du peuple: histoire d’une famille de prolétaires à travers les âges, gives a deeply stirring scene where the Great Inquisitor reproaches Christ for his error in being too merciful to men. As is known, Dostoyevsky, a great admirer of Sue, introduced a similar scene into his novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In order to realize fully to what an extent the Church interfered with the free development of Ethics, and of all the natural sciences, it is sufficient to survey the rule of the Inquisition up to the nineteenth century. In Spain it was destroyed only in 1808 by the French army, after having subjected to its judgment, and almost invariably to its tortures, in the course of 320 years, more than 340,000 people, among whom 32,000 were burned “in person,” 17,659 “in effigy,” and 291,450 were subjected to various tortures, In France the Inquisition was abolished only in 1772. Its power was so great that it made even such a moderate writer as Buffon renounce publicly his geological conclusions as to the antiquity of the geological layers, which he had expressed in the first volume of famous description of the animals populating the globe. In Italy, although the Inquisition was locally abolished at the end of the eighteenth century, it was soon re-established and continued to exist in Central Italy up to the middle of the nineteenth century. In Rome, i.e., in Papal Rome, its remnants still exist in the form of the Secret Tribunal, while certain groups of the Jesuits of Spain, Belgium, and Germany still advocate its re-establishment. [The novel referred to here is in fifteen volumes; many of these have appeared in English, N. Y., 1910, etc.] — Trans. Note.

⁸⁵ In recent times, especially in Germany and in Russia, the conceptions of “culture” and civilization are often confused. They were, however, clearly distinguished in the ‘sixties. The term “culture” was then applied to the development of the external conveniences of life: hygiene, means of communication, elegance of house-furnishing, etc., while the term “civilization,” or enlightenment, was applied to the development of knowledge, thought, creative genius, and striving for a better social system.

⁸⁶ Draper, in his treatise, Conflicts of Science with Religion, showed how many elements were admingled to Christianity from the heathen cults of Asia Minor, Egypt, etc. He did not, however, give sufficient attention to the much greater influence of Buddhism, which to this time remains insufficiently investigated. [John Williams Draper, History of the conflict between religion and science. N. Y., 1875.] — Trans. Note.

⁸⁷ The works of the great founder of Natural Science, Aristotle, became known for the first time in medieval Europe through the translation from the Arabian language into Latin.

⁸⁸ The Crusades caused vast movements of population. A peasant-serf who sewed a cross upon his sleeve and joined the crusaders became free from serfdom.

⁸⁹ There are many excellent treatises covering this period of history, but they are passed over in silence by our state schools and universities. The reader will find a list in my book, Mutual Aid, where there is also given a brief sketch of life in the medieval free cities.

⁹⁰ The remarkable work of Giordano Bruno, Spaccio della bestia trionfante, published in 1584, passed almost unnoticed. Similarly, Charron’s book De la sagesse, published in 1601 (in the edition of 1604 the bold passage about religion is omitted) where the attempt was made to base morality on plain common sense, was not widely known, it appears, outside of France. However, Montaigne’s Essais (1588), where variety of forms in religion is vindicated, met with great success. [In Bruno’s Opere italiane, Gottinga, 1888, two vols. in one. And see Vincenzo Spampanato, Lo Spaccio de la bestia trionfante con alcuni antecedenti, Portici, 1902, Charron’s De la Sagesse, Bourdeaus, 1601, reprinted Paris, 1797, three vols. in two. English translation, Of wisdome: three books..., by Samson Lennard, Lond., 1615; and by Geo. Stanhope, Lond., 1707, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

⁹¹ It is remarkable that Jodl, the historian of Ethics, who is very keen to note all new influences in ethical philosophy, also fails to give due credit to the few words in which Bacon expressed his idea. Jodl saw in these words the echo of Greek philosophy, or of the so-called natural law, lex naturalis (1573); whereas Bacon, in deriving morality from sociality, which is inherent in man as well as in the majority of animals, gave a new, scientific explanation of the primary foundations of morality.

⁹² I quote from the French translation: De jure bellis. Le Droit de guerre et de paix, traduit du latin par M. de Courtin, La Haye, 1703. Préface, §7. [The first edition of this French translation appeared in Amsterdam, 1688; the 1703 edition is credited to M. de Vourtin, 3 vols. English translations: The rights of war and peace, by A. C. Campbell, N. Y., and Lond., 1901; and Selections, by W. S. M. Knight, Lond., 1922.] — Trans. Note.

⁹³ [Kropotkin gives the two possible interpretations of the clause.] — Trans. Note.

⁹⁴ Gassendi’s moral teachings will be discussed in the next chapter.

⁹⁵ As is known, the English revolution began in 1639. Hobbes’s first work, De Cive [Elementa philosophica de cive], appeared first in Paris in the Latin language in 1648; just five years later it appeared in England in the English language. Hobbes’s second work, Leviathan, appeared in English in 1652, three years after the execution of the king. [The English translation of De Cive, — Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society — was published in London, in 1651; hence, three years after the original Latin.] — Trans. Note.

⁹⁶ [Philosophical Rudiments, etc. (Lond. 1651), chap I, § 15, — with modernized spelling.] — Trans. Note.

⁹⁷ [Idem, chap. II, chiefly § 11.]

⁹⁸ Thus in the note to the paragraph cited above Hobbes wrote: “It is true indeed that to Men...solitude is an enemy; for infants have need of others to help them to live, and those of riper years to help them to live well, wherefore I deny not that men (nature compelling) desire to come together. But civil societies are not mere meetings, but bonds to the making whereof faith and compacts are necessary.” If an objection is raised that if men were such as Hobbes describes them, they would avoid each other, — to this Hobbes replies that such is really the case, for “they who go to sleep shut their doors, those who travel carry their swords with them,” etc.

⁹⁹ “The cause of mutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men, partly in their mutual will of hurting.” And since it is an easy matter “even for the weakest man to kill the strongest” and since “they are equal who can do equal things one against the other,”...“all men therefore among themselves are by nature equal; the inequality we now discern, hath it spring from the Civil Law.” (1, 3) Until then “by right of nature” everyone is himself the supreme judge of the means that he is to employ for his self-preservation. (1, 8, 9.) “By right of nature all men have equal rights to all things.” (1, 10.) But since this condition would lead to constant warfare, men entered into a social covenant establishing peace, and “by right of nature” all are bound to observe this covenant.

¹⁰⁰ Moral philosophy, according to Hobbes, is nothing but the science of what is good and what is evil, in the mutual relations of men and in human society. “Good and Evil are names given to things to signify the inclination, or aversion of them by whom they were given. But the inclinations of men are diverse, according to their diverse constitutions, customs, opinions”; accordingly, men differ also in their interpretation of good and evil. [(Philosophical Rudiments, 111, 31). Page 55. Lond., 1651]. — Trans. Note.

¹⁰¹ De legibus naturae disquisitio philosophica, London, 1672.

¹⁰² Ethics, part 1, proposition 15. W. Hale White’s translation, fourth edition, Oxford University Press, 1910. For brevity, in further references the part will be indicated by Roman figures and the proposition by Arabic, thus: (I, 15).

¹⁰³ [Kropotkin refers here to the Appendix to Part 1, which follows Proposition 36.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁰⁴ Descartes’s teachings will be discussed in the next chapter.

¹⁰⁵ Spinoza used the word “thing” both for inanimate objects and for living beings.

¹⁰⁶ The assertion that man is not free and can do only what is the outcome of his nature, in connection with the similar assertion about God, is found in several passages of Spinoza’s Ethics. Thus, in the preface to the Fourth Part, “Of Human Bondage, or Of the Strength of the Affects,” he wrote: that eternal and infinite Being whom we call God or Nature acts by the same necessity by which He exists.”

¹⁰⁷ Friedrich Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik als philosophischer Wissenschaft, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1912.

¹⁰⁸ An Essay Concerning Human Understanding appeared in 1690, two years after the establishment of the constitutional monarchy in England. [All quotations are from Locke’s Philosophical Works, 2 vols., Bohn’s Standard Library, London, 1854.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁰⁹ Two Treatises of Government, 1689. An Epistle on Tolerance, 1690. The Reasonableness of Christianity, etc. [1697.]

¹¹⁰ An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book I, ch. iii, 2. [All further references are to the same essay. Books I-II are in vol. 1, and books III-IV in vol. 11 of the Bohn edition.] — Trans. Note.

¹¹¹ Locke wrote: But should that most unshaken rule of morality and foundation of all social virtue “that one should do as he would be done unto,” be proposed to one who never heard of it before, might he not without any absurdity ask a reason why?” (Bk. I, ch, iii, § 4.) To this a Christian would reply: Because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us.” But if a Hobbesist is asked why, he will answer: Because the public requires it, and the “Leviathan” will punish you if you do not” (§ 5) “Virtue (is) generally approved, not because innate, but because profitable” (167; 6), The great principle of morality, to do as one would be done to, is more recommended than practised.” (167; 7.) Locke, therefore, completely followed Hobbes on this point, failing to notice that habits are inherited and evolve into instincts, and that the instincts, i.e., that which was then known as appetites,” are to a great extent hereditary. In his struggle against the doctrine of innate ideas, he failed to notice heredity, though its significance was already understood by Bacon, and partly by Spinoza.

¹¹² [Locke uses the term “liberty” for the modern conception of “free will.”] — Trans. Note.

¹¹³ [London, 1708] — Trans. Note.

¹¹⁴ Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, etc., by Anthony. Earl of Shaftesbury, 2 vols., Grant Richards, London, 1900. [The passage quoted is from Vol. 1, Treatise IV, An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, Book I, Part II, Section III, p. 255.] — Trans. Note.

¹¹⁵ Ibid., Book I, Part III, Section III, p. 267; see also Book II, Part II, Section 1.] — Trans. Note.

¹¹⁶ Ibid., Book II, Part I, Section I, p. 280.

¹¹⁷ Ibid., Book II, Part II, Section II p. 318.

¹¹⁸ Ibid., Conclusion, p. 337. [See also Book II, Part II, Section I, p. 296.]

¹¹⁹ The Moralists: A Philosophical Rhapsody, being a recital of certain Conversations on Natural and Moral Subjects. [In Vol. II of the Characteristics]: That it was their natural state to live thus separately can never without absurdity be allowed. For sooner may you divest the creature of any other feeling or affection than that towards society and his likenesses.” (Part II. Section IV, p. 80.) Further on he says, If, on the other hand, their constitution be as ours....if they have memory, and senses, and affections...“tis evident they can no more by their goodwill abstain from society than they can possibly preserve themselves without it.” (Part II, Section IV, p. 82) Moreover, Shaftesbury pointed to the weakness of human children, and their need for protection and better food. Must not this [the human family, household] have grown soon into a tribe? and this tribe into a nation? Or though it remained a tribe only, was not this still a society for mutual defence and common interest?” Society, therefore, must be a natural state to man, and out of society and community he never did, nor ever can subsist.” (Part II, Section IV, p. 83.) This thought, as we shall see, was later reiterated by Hume.

¹²⁰ Ibid., pp. 83–84.

¹²¹ [See Appendix, page 339, below.] — Trans. Note.

¹²² [Glasgow, 1742; Rotterdam, 1745. The System of Moral Philosophy, appeared in London, 1755; 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹²³ The principal Philosophical works of Leibnitz are: Essais de theodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberti de l’homme, et l’origine du mal, 1710; Nouveaux essais Sur 1’entendement humain (a refutation of Locke, written in 1704, appeared only in 1760); Systeme nouvea, de la nature et de la communication des substances. [The first work appeared in Amsterdam; the second, in Amsterdam and Leipzig, 1760 and 1765, (English translation by A. G. Langley, N. Y., 1896; and see John Dewey’s critical exposition of the work in G. S. Morris, German Philos. Classics, Chicago, 1882); the Système nouveau is dated 1695, — see Leibnitz, (Oeuvres philosophiques, Ed. Janet, 1866, vol. 2, pp. 526 ff.] — Trans. Note.

¹²⁴ Bacon’s Novum Organum appeared in 1620. Descartes’s Discours de la méthode was published in 1637 [Paris; English translations, Lond., 1649; Edinburgh, 1850.] — Trans. Note.

¹²⁵ Jodl cites, in his Geschichte der Ethik als philos. Wissenschaft, a passage from the first edition of the Traité de la sagesse, 1601, which was omitted in the later editions, In this passage Charron plainly states that he “would also like to see devotion and religiousness, but not in order that they should implant in man morality, which is born with him and is given but in order to crown morality with completeness.” [Vol. 1, page 189, Stuttgart; Berlin 1912.] This quotation shows that the interpretation of morality as an inherent faculty of man was far more widespread among thinkers than is apparent from their writings. [For a note on Charron’s Traité, see supra, p. 139.] — Trans. Note.

¹²⁶ Thus, for example, from Descartes’s letters to his friend Mersenne, in July, 1633 and January, 1634, cited by Lange in his History of Materialism (Note 69, Part II, vol. 1), it is seen that upon learning of the second arrest of Galileo by the Inquisition, and of the verdict against his book, — most likely because of his opinion about the rotation of the earth, — Descartes was ready to renounce the same opinion, which he was about to express in his work. There are also indications of other concessions of this kind. [Friedrich Albert Lange, Gesch. der Materialismus, Iserlohn, two vols. in one: Eng. tr. by Ernest C. Thomas, Lond. & Bost., 1879–81, 3 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹²⁷ See the article, Unsuspected Radiations, in the review of the scientific discoveries of the nineteenth century printed in The Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute, for 1900, and in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, for December 1900, [an article by Kropotkin.] — Trans, Note.

¹²⁸ Exercitationes paradoxicae-adversus Aristotelae. Upon the insistence of his friends, however, he had to omit five chapters from this work, because the Church, resting its case on the books which she recognized as sacred, staunchly supported Aristotle and Ptolemy, who taught that the earth is situated in the centre of the Universe, and that the sun, the planets, and the stars revolve around it; moreover, only five years previously [in 1619] Vanini was burned at the stake for a similar heretical work. In addition, Gassendi refuted the teaching of Descartes on the structure of matter, and expounded his own view closely approaching the modern atomic theory. Two of his works about Epicurus, Gassendi published himself at the time when he occupied a chair at the Collège de France; his fundamental work, however, Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri appeared only after his death. [Amsterdam, 1678. Gassendi’s other works on Epicurus are: Animadversiones, etc., Lugdium, 1649, 3 vols.; De Vita et moribus Epicuri, Haggae-Comitum, 1656, (2nd. ed.). See G. S. Brett’s Philosophy of Gassendi, Lond., 1908. According to Mr. Brett, the Exercitationes adversus Aristotelae was never finished. Book I was published in 1624, as Kropotkin says, and fragments of Book II were included in Gassendi’s collected works. In 1624 Gassendi still held his professorship at Digne in Provence, in addition to a canonry at Grenoble. For Vanini (Lucilio, called Julius Cæsar) 1585–1619, see the French trans. of his works, (Euvres Philosophiques, Paris, 1842; also Victor Cousin, Vanini: Ses écrits, sa vie et sa mort, (“Revue des deux mondes”, Dec. 1843).] — Trans. Note.

¹²⁹ Dictionnaire historique et critique, which appeared at Rotterdam in 1697, first in two volumes, and later, in 1820, in 16 volumes. [Paris]. Bayle expressed for the first time his anti-religious views in 1680 in connection with the appearance of a comet and the superstitions that it called forth, in a pamphlet entitled Pensées diverses sur la comète. This pamphlet was, of course, prohibited soon after its appearance. [Pensées diverges écrites-à l’occasion de la Comète, 1683; an earlier Letter on the appearance of the comet (in 1680), — insisting that there was nothing miraculous in the passing of comets — was written in 1680.] — Trans. Note.

¹³⁰ [La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales, The Hague, 1664. La Bruyère, Caractères, Paris, 1688.] — Trans. Note.

¹³¹ [La Mettrie (Julian Offray de), L’Homme machine, Leyden 1748, is translated into English as Man a Machine, Lond., 1750, and, by G.S. Bussey, Chicago, 1912. The latter volume includes extracts from the Essai sur l’origine de l’âme humaine (1752); (La Haye 1745). L’Homme-plante, Potsdam, 1748.] — Trans. Note.

¹³² [Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines, Amsterdam I746; Traité des sensations, 1754; Eng. trans., by Nugent, Lond., 1756.] — Trans. Note.

¹³³ [Helvétius’ De l’Esprit, 2 vols., Paris, 1758. Eng. trans. Lond., 1810.] — Trans. Note.

¹³⁴ Système social, Vol. I, p. 17. [Lond. 1773, 3 vols. in 1.] — Trans. Note.

¹³⁵ [Ibid. Vol. 1, p. 104.]

¹³⁶ Holbach’s ideas were to a great extent utilized also by the English Utilitarians.

¹³⁷ [Abbé G.T.F. Raynal, Hist. philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes. Amsterdam, 1773–74, 7 vols; Paris, 1820, 12 vols. Eng. tr., Lond. 1776, 5 vols., and 1778, 8 vols.; also later editions. Extracts from this work appeared in Philadelphia, (Pa.), in 1775.] — Trans. Note.

¹³⁸ [Cesara B. Beccaria’s book appeared in a new edition, Edinburgh, 1801; Morellet’s French translation was published at Lausanne, 1776; English versions came in 1767, London; 1777, Dublin; 1778, Edinburgh; 1793, Philadelphia: 1809, N. Y.; 1872, Albany; and in 1880, London, in James A. Farrer’s Crimes and Punishment, pp. 109–25] — Trans. Note.

¹³⁹ [Naufrage des îles flottantes, Messine, 1753.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴⁰ [Mably’s Le Droit, etc., Kell, 1789; Paris (?), 1789.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴¹ [Caius Gracchus (Franqois Noël) Babeuf; Filippo Michele Buonarroti, — see his Conspiration pour l’égalité dite de Babeuf, Bruxelles, 2 vols. in 1, 1828; (Eng. tr., James B. O’Brien, Lond., 1836); Sylvian Maréchal, Le Jugement dernier des rois (a one-act play, in prose,) in L.E.D. Moland’s Théâtre de la Révolution, Paris, 1877. On these men and their conspiracy, see Kropotkin’s French Revolution; also, Victor Advielle, Histoire de Gracchus Babeuf et du babouvisme, Paris, 1884, 2 vols.; Ernest B. Bax, The Episode of the French Revolution: being a history of Gracchus Babeuf and the conspiracy of the Equals, Lond., 1911.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴² [Dr. Francois Quesnay, Physiocratie, Leyden, 1767–8, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴³ Voltaire, of course, cannot be regarded either as a revolutionary or a democrat; he never demanded the overthrow of the social system of his time, and even when he spoke of equality among men he recognized this equality “in principle,” but in society, said Voltaire, “men play different parts.” “All men are equal as men, but they are not equal as members of society.” (Pensées sur l’Administration, Works, vol. V. p. 351.) Voltaire’s political ideal consisted in “enlightened despotism,” directed for the good of the people. [Works (English trans.), N.Y., 1901, vol. 19, pt. 1, pp. 226–239.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴⁴ [Turgot, Plan de deux discours sur l’histoire universelle (In Æuvres, Paris, 1844, vol. 2. pp. 626–675).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴⁵ [Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès, etc., Paris, 1794.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴⁶ Hume’s principal works are: Treatise Upon Human Nature, London, 1738–40, 3 vols.; Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Edinburgh, 1751; Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, London, 1748; Natural History of Religion, London, 1752.

¹⁴⁷ The Natural History of Religion, Section xiv, pp. 443–444 in vol. II, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, Edinburgh, 1817.

¹⁴⁸ [“Sensations and perceptions,” in modern terminology.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁴⁹ An Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding, Sect. ii, vol. II, Edinburgh, 1817.

¹⁵⁰ An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Section I, in Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, Idem., vol. II.

¹⁵¹ Natural History of Religion, Section xiv, pp. 443–444, vol. II. Edinburgh, 1817. “‘Those who undertake the most criminal and most dangerous enterprises are commonly the most superstitious’... Their devotion a spiritual faith rise with their fears.” (Ibid ., p. 447.) [Hume quotes the first sentence from Diodorus Siculus.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁵² The opinions of various writers on Hume’s philosophy differ as to this point Pfleiderer held that Hume merely prepared the ground for Kant’s views “on practical reason,” while Gizycki and Jodl hold different views, and in his Gesch. der Ethik, Jodl expressed a very true thought: “Morality can never become an active factor if moral development and education is to be deprived of its effective bases — this was conclusively proved by Hume; but he forgot one thing, namely, the capacity for formulating a moral ideal; he left no place for this capacity in his explanation of reason, which he presented as occupied solely with the synthesis and analysis of conceptions. This, of course, is not the starting point of morality; nor is it the starting point human activity in the field of thinking or of creative effort. But the facts of moral life become intelligible only on the supposition that training and experience prepare the ground for the ideals, in which the intellectual and the practical elements are inextricably interwoven, and which contain an inner tendency toward realization.” (Gesch. der Ethik, vol. 1, ch. vii, note 29.) In other words, feeling and reason are equally necessary for the development of moral conceptions and for their conversion into the motives of our actions. [Edmund Pfeilderer, Empirik und Skepsis in David Hume’s Philosophie, Berlin 1874. Georg von Gizycki, Die Ethik David Hume’s, Breslau, 1878.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁵³ He expounded in detail views nearly approaching atheism in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and in Section XV of his Natural History of Religion .

¹⁵⁴ See Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik als philosophischer Wissenschaft, vol. I, ch. vii, Section ii.

¹⁵⁵ [An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Lond., 1776, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁵⁶ Smith ascribed such importance to this interpretation that he even included it in the title of his book, calling it The Theory of Moral Sentiments; or an essay towards an analysis of the principles by which men naturally judge concerning the conduct and character first of their neighbours, and afterwards of themselves .

¹⁵⁷ The Theory of Moral Sentiments, part II, section II, ch. I, p. 112. G. Bell and Sons, London, 1911.

¹⁵⁸ [It is interesting to note that in the latter part of his work Smith does state the principle of equality of man in no uncertain terms: “We are but one of the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it.” (Part III, ch. iii, p. 194). And yet he completely failed to draw the inevitable corollaries from this principle, and he did not assign to it a place of due prominence in his ethical system.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁵⁹ Ibid. pp. 114–115. In all that Smith wrote on justice (ch. i-iii, part II, sect. II, pp. 112–132) it is most difficult to distinguish his own opinion from that held by jurists.

¹⁶⁰ Ibid. Part II, Sections II and III.

¹⁶¹ In giving an historical survey of earlier interpretations of morality Smith makes the following remark. He is speaking about the utilitarians and gives this explanation of the way by which they arrive at their conclusion that moral conceptions have originated in considerations of their utility: — “Human society,” wrote Smith, “when we contemplate it in a certain abstract and philosophical light, appears like a great, an immense machine, whose regular and harmonious movements produce a thousand agreeable effects.” The less unnecessary friction there is in the machine, the more graceful and beautiful will be its action. Similarly, in life, some acts tend to produce a life without friction and collisions, while others will have the opposite effect; but the fewer the reasons for collision, the easier and smoother will flow the course of social life. Therefore, when the Utilitarian authors describe to us the innumerable advantages of social life, and the new and broad vistas that sociality opens to man, the reader “is commonly so delighted with the discovery, that he seldom takes time to reflect that this political view, having never occurred to him in his life before, cannot possibly be the ground of that approbation and disapprobation with which he has always been accustomed to consider those different qualities.” [i.e., the vices and virtues of men.] Similarly, when we read in history of the good qualities of some hero, we sympathize with him not because these qualities may prove useful to us, but because we imagine what we would have felt had we lived in his times. Such sympathy with the men of the past cannot be regarded as manifestations of our egoism. In general, Smith thought that the success of theories explaining morality by egoism is due to a faulty and insufficient understanding of morality. (Part VII, Section III, ch. I, pp. 163–165.)

¹⁶² “There is, however, one virtue, of which the general rules determine, with the greatest exactness, every external action which it requires. This virtue is Justice... In the practice of the other virtues ... we should consider the end and foundation of the rule more than the rule itself. But it is otherwise with regard to justice”... etc. (Part III, ch. VI, p. 249.)

¹⁶³ Kant expounded his moral philosophy in three works; Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785 (Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals); Kritik der practiscben Vernunft, 1788 (Critique of practical reason); Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797 (Metaphysics of Morals). It is also necessary to include his articles on religion, especially Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft. (Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone), otherwise named Philosophische Religionslehre. (The Philosophical Theory of Religion.) A thorough analysis of Kant’s moral philosophy may be found in the works of Jodl, Wundt, Paulsen, and others. [All the above works, except Die Metaphysik der Sitten, appear in one volume in English translation: Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, and other works on the theory of Ethics, translated by T. K. Abbott. All quotations, unless otherwise stated, are from the sixth edition of this book, London, 1909.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁶⁴ Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Part 1, Page 9 Of Abbott’s translation.

¹⁶⁵ The Philosophical Theory of Religion, end of Part 1, General Remark. Abbott’s translation, pp. 357–358. [A similar passage on the “incomprehensibility of the moral imperative” is found in the concluding remark to the Fundamental Principles of The Metaphysic of Morals. (Abbott’s translation. pp. 83–84).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁶⁶ The Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Abbott’s translation, page 69.

¹⁶⁷ “Ideal” in the Kantian sense of the word.

¹⁶⁸ [It is interesting to note that Shaftesbury, who used exactly the same expression in connection with this subject, took an intermediate position between that of Kant and the author. He wrote: “Principle of fear of future punishment and hope of future award, how mercenary or servile soever it may be accounted, is yet in many circumstances, a great advantage, security and support to virtue.” An Inquiry concerning Virtue. (Book 1, part 3, section 3).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁶⁹ About the relation of Kantian ethics to Christianity on the one side, and to egoistic utilitarianism on the other, see particularly, Wundt’s Ethics, volume 11, “Ethical Systems.”

¹⁷⁰ [Karl Christian F. Krause (1781–1832). See Jodl’s Gesch. der Ethik, vol. 2.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷¹ [Franz Xaver Baader (1765–1841)] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷² In Russia we know, for example, from the correspondence of the Bakunins, what an elevating influence Schelling’s philosophy exerted, at first, upon the youth that grouped itself around Stankevich and Mikhail Bakunin. But in spite of some correct surmises, expressed but vaguely (about good and evil, for example) Schelling’s philosophy, owing to its mystical elements, soon faded away, of course, under the influence of scientific thought. [See Corréspondance de Michel Bakounine, Paris 1896; Bakunin, Sozial-politischer Briefwechsel, 1895. Also, Bakunin, Oeuvres, 6 vols., Paris, 1895–1913. Nikolai V. Stankevich (1813–1840).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷³ Fundamental Principles of the Philosophy of Law (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1821). Also the Phenomenology of the Spirit, and the Encyclopædia of the Philosophical Sciences, — on the scientific analysis of the Natural Law, 1802–1803. [See Werke, Berlin, 1832–45, vol. 8 (Grundlinien); vol. 2 (Phänomenologie des Geistes); vols. 6 & 7 Encyclopädie der philos. Wissenschaften).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷⁴ [Dissertation On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830)] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷⁵ Dissertation on the progress of ethical philosophy, in the first volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica, (8th edition). Later this work was repeatedly reprinted as a separate edition. [Edinburgh, 1830.]

¹⁷⁶ Godwin, Enquiry concerning Political Justice and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness, 2 vols., London, 1793. Under fear of the persecutions — to which Godwin’s friends, the republicans, were subjected, the anarchistic tic and communistic assertions of Godwin were omitted from the second edition.

¹⁷⁷ [Dugald Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, 1793; Philosophy of the active and moral powers, 1828.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷⁸ [London, 1789; second edition, London, 1823.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁷⁹ [Bentham also includes a seventh criterion, — “purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind: that is, pain if it be pleasure; pleasure, if it be pain.” (Intro., etc., Ed. of 1907, Chapter IV, page 30).] — Trans. Note.

¹⁸⁰ The first edition of Deontology appeared in 1834, in two volumes. [London; Edinburgh.]

¹⁸¹ Guyau, La Morale anglaise contemporaine [Paris, 1879, 2nd. edition, rev. and aug., 1885.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁸² Utilitarianism appeared in 1861 in “Fraser’s Magazine,” and in 1863 in book form.

¹⁸³ It is necessary to add that in developing Bentham’s ideas John Stuart Mill introduced a great deal of new matter. Bentham, for example, in expounding his utilitarian theory of morality, had in mind only the quantity of good, and accordingly he called his theory “moral arithmetic,” whereas Mill introduced into utilitarianism a new element, — quality, and thereby laid the bases of moral æsthetics. Mill classified pleasures into higher and lower, into those worthy of preference, and unworthy of it. That is why he said that “a discontented (unhappy) Socrates, is higher in moral regard than a contented pig.” To feel oneself a man is to be conscious of one’s inner value, to feel one’s dignity, and in judging various actions man should keep in mind the duty imposed upon him by human dignity. Here Mill already rises above narrow utilitarianism and indicates broader bases of morality than utility and pleasure. [Note by Lebedev, the Russian Editor.]

¹⁸⁴ In former times, when peasant serfdom prevailed, i.e., when slavery existed, a large majority of landlords — really slave-owners — would not for a moment permit the thought that their serfs were endowed with just as “elevated and refined” feelings as their own. Hence it was considered a great merit in Turgeniev, Grigorovich, and others, that they succeeded in planting in the landlords’ hearts the thought that the serfs were capable of feeling exactly like their owners. Before their time such an admission would have been regarded as a belittling, a debasement of the lofty “gentlemen’s” feelings. In England, also, among a certain class of individuals, I met with a similar attitude toward the so-called “hands,” i.e., the factory workers, miners, etc. — although the English “county,” (administrative unit), and the church “parish” have already done much to eradicate such class arrogance.

¹⁸⁵ Jouffroy, Cours de Droit Naturel, Vol. 1, pp. 88–90, [3rd ed., Paris, 1858, 2 vols.; English tr. by Wm. H. Channing, An Introduction to Ethics, Boston, 1858, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁸⁶ Indestructibility of matter, mechanical theory of heat, homogeneity of physical forces, spectral analysis, and the convertibility of matter in the heavenly bodies, physiological psychology, physiological evolution of organs, etc.

¹⁸⁷ [Grigoriev N. Vyroubov, a Russian mineralogist and positivist philosopher, born 1842.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁸⁸ Comte founded his own positivist church and his new religion where “Humanity” was the supreme deity. This religion of Humanity, in Comte’s opinion, was to replace the outworn Christian creed. The religion of Humanity still survives among a small circle of Comte’s followers, who do not like to part entirely with the rites, to which they ascribe an educational value.

¹⁸⁹ [Translated by Harriet Martineau, in vol. 2 of the Phil. Positive, Lond., 1853.1 — Trans. Note.

¹⁹⁰ Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie (Preliminary Theses for Reform in Philosophy) and Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (Bases of the Philosophy of the Future). [The former appears in vol. 2 of Feuerbach’s Werke, Leipzig, 1846. It was first published in 1842. The second work appeared in Zurich, 1843.] — Trans. Note

¹⁹¹ [Gott, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁹² [Ludwig Knapp, System der Rechtsphilosophie, 1852.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁹³ Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik. Vol. II.

¹⁹⁴ Ludwig Knapp, System der Rechtsphilosophie, pp. 107–108, quoted by Jodl.

¹⁹⁵ [Appeared posthumously, in 1793; his first work is De I’Esprit, 1753.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁹⁶ [That is, Naufrage des îles flottatantes.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁹⁷ [De la législation; ou Principes des lois, 2 vols., Amsterdam.] — Trans. Note.

¹⁹⁸ Extensive and valuable material on the subject of the socialistic tendencies in the eighteenth century is to be found in the monograph by André Lichtenberger, Le Socialisme au XVIII siècle. — [Paris, 1895.]

¹⁹⁹ [Most of these names are well-known. François Vidal was a French socialist of ’48. Constantin Pecqueur (1801–87) author of Économie sociale. Albert E. F. Schäffle wrote his Bau und Leben des Sozialen Körpers, in 1875–78, 4 vols. Chernyshevsky is the author of the novel, What is to be done? and of several fine works in economics, not found in English. Piotr L. Lavrov (1823–1900) wrote the Historical Letters, available in a French and a German translation.] — Trans. Note.

²⁰⁰ [Qu’est-ce que la Propriéte?, Paris, 1840; Contradictions économiques, Eng.tr. by B. R. Tucker, Boston, 1888; Philosophie du Progrés, Bruxelles, 1853. The others are noted below.] — Trans. Note.

²⁰¹ Qu’est-ce que la Propriété? pp. 181 ff.; also 220–221. [Two English translations are available, of which the more recent was published in London, in 1902, — What is Property; an inquiry into the principle of right and of Government. 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

²⁰² De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Église, vol. 1, p. 216.

²⁰³ At this point Jodl falls into the same error as Proudhon, by identifying Morality in general with justice, which, in my opinion, constitutes but one of the elements of Morality.

²⁰⁴ Geschichte der Ethik, 11, p. 266, references to Proudhon’s Justice, etc., Étude II.

²⁰⁵ In recent time these two entirely different conceptions have begun to be confused in Russia.

²⁰⁶ In addition to the work, “De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Église (Noueaux principes de philosophie pratique), 3 vols. Paris, 1858, very valuable thoughts on ethics and justice may be found in his Système des contradictions économiques, ou, philosophie de la misère, 2 vols. (A work which, of course, lost none of its considerable merit on account of Marx’s malignant pamphlet, La Misère de la Philosophie); also Idée générale sur la Révolution au XIX siècle, and Qu’est-ce que la Propriéte? An ethical system was shaping itself in Proudhon’s mind from the time of his very first appearance as a writer, at the beginning of the ‘forties. [Karl Marx’s Réponse à la Philosophie de la Misère de M. Proudhon, Paris and Bruxelles, 1847; Eng. tr. by H. Quelch, Chicago, 1910. Proudhon’s Idée générale, etc., Paris, 1851.] — Trans. Note.

²⁰⁷ Justice — etc., Étude II, pp. 194–195, ed. of 1858.

²⁰⁸ Ibid, Étude II, p. 196.

²⁰⁹ [Tobit, 4, 15] — Trans. Note.

²¹⁰ I will only add that we find the identical idea in the rules of conduct f all savages. (See my book, Mutual Aid, a factor of Evolution .)

²¹¹ “En ce qui touche les personnes, hors de l’égalite point de Justice.” (Étude III, beginning; vol. 1, p. 206.)

²¹² The formula of the communists, adds Proudhon, — “To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities,” can be applied only in a family. Saint-Simon’s formula, “to each according to his abilities, to each ability according to its deeds” is a complete negation of actual equality and of equality of rights. In a Fourierist community the principle of mutuality is recognized, but in the application to an individual Fourier denied justice. On the other hand, the principle practiced by mankind from the remotest time is simpler, and, what is most important, more worthy; value is assigned only to the products of industry, — which does not offend personal dignity, and the economic organization reduces itself to a simple formula — exchange.

²¹³ Proudhon wrote these words in 1858. Since that time many economists have upheld the same principle.

²¹⁴ Man is a creature “rational and toiling, the most industrious and the most social creature, whose chief striving is not love, but a law higher than love. Hence the heroic self-sacrifice for science, unknown to the masses; martyrs of toil and industry are born, whom novels and the theatre pass over in silence; hence also the words: ‘to die for one’s country.’” “Let me bow before you, ye who knew how to arise and how to die in 1789, 1792, and 1830. You were consecrated to liberty, and you are more alive than we, who have lost it.” “To originate an idea, to produce a book, a poem, a machine; in short, as those in trade say, to create one’s chef d’œuvre; to render a service to one’s country and to mankind, to save a human life, to do a good deed and to rectify an injustice, — all this is to reproduce oneself in social life, similar to reproduction in organic life.” Man’s life attains its fullness when it satisfies the following conditions: love — children, family; work — industrial reproduction; and sociality, i.e., the participation in the life and progress of mankind. (Étude V, ch. v; vol. II. 128–130).

²¹⁵ [Edward A. Westermarck, Lond. & N. Y., 1906–8, 2 vols. Bastian’s Der Mensch, etc., Leipzig, 1860, 3 vols. in 1. Alexander C. Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, Lond., 1895, 2 vols.] — Trans. Note.

²¹⁶ Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. IV, pp. 149–150. Lond. 1859.

²¹⁷ Spinoza’s writings also make mention of mutual aid among animals (mutuum juventum), as an important feature of their social life. And if such an instinct exists in animals it is clear that, in the struggle for existence, those species had the better opportunity to survive in difficult conditions of life and to multiply, which made most use of this instinct. This instinct, therefore, had to develop more and more, especially since the development of spoken language, and consequently of tradition, increased the influence in society of the more observant and more experienced man. Naturally, under such circumstances, among very many man-like species with which man was in conflict, that species survived in which the feeling of mutual aid was strongly developed, in which the feeling of social self-preservation held the ascendancy over the feeling of individual self-preservation, — for the latter could at times act against the interest of the clan or tribe.

²¹⁸ In one of his letters, I do not remember to whom, Darwin wrote: “This subject remained unnoticed, probably because I wrote too briefly about it.” This is just what actually happened with what he wrote on Ethics, and, I must add, with a great deal that he wrote in connection with “Lamarckism.” In our age of capitalism and mercantilism, “struggle for existence” so well answered the needs of the majority that it overshadowed everything else.

²¹⁹ This lecture was published in the same year in pamphlet form with elaborate and very remarkable notes. Later Huxley wrote an explanatory introduction (Prolegomena) with which this lecture has since been reprinted in his Collected Essays and also in the Essays, Ethical and Political, Macmillan’s popular edition, 1903.

²²⁰ The word “agnostic” was introduced for the first time by a small group of doubting writers, who gathered about the publisher of the magazine Nineteenth Century, James Knowles. They preferred the name of “agnostics,” i.e., those who deny “gnosis,” to the name of “atheists.”

²²¹ St. George Mivart, Evolution in Professor Huxley, “Nineteenth Century,” August 1893, p. 198.

²²² Note 19 in the pamphlet; note 20 in the Collected Essays and in the Essays, Ethical and Political.

²²³ When I decided to deliver a lecture in London on Mutual Aid among Animals, Knowles, the publisher of the “Nineteenth Century,” who had become greatly interested in my ideas and had discussed them with his friend and neighbour, Spencer, advised me to invite Romanes as chairman. Romanes accepted my suggestion and very kindly consented to act as chairman. At the end of the lecture, in his closing address, he pointed out the significance of my work and summarized it in the following words: “Kropotkin has unquestionably proved that although external wars are waged throughout the whole of nature by all species, internal wars are very limited, and in most species there is the predominance of mutual aid and co-operation in various forms. The struggle for existence, says Kropotkin, is to be understood in metaphorical sense. I was seated behind Romanes and I whispered to him: “It was not I, but Darwin who said so, in the very beginning of the third chapter, ‘On Struggle for Existence.’” Romanes immediately repeated this remark to the audience and added that this is just the right way to interpret Darwin’s term, — not in a literal but in a figurative sense. If only Romanes could have succeeded in working for another year or two we should undoubtedly have had a remarkable work on animal morality. Some of his observations on his own dog are astounding, and have already gained wide renown. But the great mass of facts that he gathered would be still more important. Unfortunately, no one among the English Darwinists has as yet utilized and published this material. Their “Darwinism” was no more profound than that of Huxley. [Note by Lebedev, the Russian Editor.]

²²⁴ In accordance with such an interpretation of philosophy, prior to beginning his Principles of Ethics, Spencer published under the general title of Synthetic Philosophy the following series of works: First Principles, The Principles of Biology, The Principles of Psychology, The Principles of Sociology.

²²⁵ [See note 4, page 35.] — Trans. Note.

²²⁶ see the first edition of the Enquiry concerning Political Justice. In the second edition (in octavo) the communistic passages were omitted, probably on account of the court prosecutions instituted against Godwin’s friends. [London, 1796; first ed., Lend., 1793.] — Trans. Note.

²²⁷ See, The Proper Sphere of Government, London, 1842.

²²⁸ In this exposition I follow very closely what Spencer himself wrote in the preface to the 1893 edition, in connection with the combined weight of his Social Statics and his Principles of Ethics. It will be seen that his “evolutionist ethics,” which he expounded in the Social Statics, shaped itself in his mind before the appearance of Darwin’s Origin of Species. But the influence of Auguste Comte’s ideas upon Spencer is unquestionable.

²²⁹ In short, says Spencer, “that perfect adjustment of acts to ends in maintaining individual life and rearing new individuals, which is effected by each without hindering others from effecting like perfect adjustments, is, in its very definition, shown to constitute a kind of conduct that can be approached only as war decreases and dies out.” (§6.)

²³⁰ There is a long-felt need for a brief popular exposition of Spencer’s ethics, with a good introduction which would point out its defects.

²³¹ [See note 4, page 35.] — Trans. Note.

²³² In objecting to hedonism, i.e., to a teaching which explains the development of the moral conceptions by rational striving after happiness, personal or social, Sidgwick pointed out the impossibility of measuring the pleasant and the unpleasant effect of a given act according to the scheme devised by Mill. In answering Sidgwick, Spencer came to the conclusion that the utilitarianism which considers in each particular case what conduct will lead to the greatest sum of pleasurable sensations, i.e., the individually empirical utilitarianism, serves only as an introduction to rational utilitarianism. That which served as the means for attaining welfare, gradually becomes the aim of mankind. Certain ways of reacting to the problems of life become habitual, and man no longer has to ask himself in each particular case: “What will give me greater pleasure, to rush to the aid of a man who is in danger, or to refrain from so doing? To answer rudeness with rudeness, or not?” A certain way of acting becomes habitual.

²³³ Spencer refers here also to the seventeenth Psalm of David, first and second verses: “Hear the right, 0 Lord... Let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.” [The Russian text, as quoted by Kropotkin from the Synod version, differs from the English given here.] — Trans. Note.

²³⁴ These are the titles of the chapters: The Relativity of Pains and Pleasures. Egoism versus Altruism. Altruism versus Egoism. Trial and Compromise. Conciliation.

²³⁵ [L. H. Morgan, League of the ... Iroquois, Rochester, 1851.1 — Trans. Note.

²³⁶ If this paragraph (§ 278) were not so long it would be well worth citing in full. The next two paragraphs are also important for the understanding of Spencer’s ethics in connection with the question of justice. He wrote on the same subject in the ninth chapter, “Criticisms and Explanations,” while answering Sidgwick’s objections to Hedonism, i.e., to the theory of morality based on the pursuit of happiness. He agreed with Sidgwick that the measurements of pleasures and pains made by the utilitarians need confirmation or checking by some other means, and he called attention to the following: — as man develops the means for gratifying his desires, the latter become increasingly complex. Very often man pursues not even the aim itself (certain pleasures, for example, or wealth), but the means leading to it. Thus a reasonable, rational utilitarianism is being gradually developed from the spontaneous striving for pleasure. And this rational utilitarianism urges us toward a life which is in accordance with certain fundamental principles of morality. It is incorrect to assert, as Bentham did, that justice, as the aim of life, is incomprehensible to us, whereas happiness is quite comprehensible. The primitive peoples have no word expressing the conception of happiness, whereas they have a quite definite conception of justice, which was defined by Aristotle as follows: “The unjust man is also one who takes more than his share.” To this I will add that the rule here stated is in reality very strictly observed by savages in the most primitive stage known to us. In general, Spencer was right in asserting that justice is more comprehensible than happiness as the rule of conduct.

²³⁷ In general, Spencer, like many others, applied the word “State” in-discriminately to various forms of sociality, whereas it should be reserved for those societies with the hierarchic system and centralization, which evolved in Ancient Greece from the time of the empire of Philip II., and Alexander the Great, in Rome, toward the end of the Republic and the period of the Empire, — and in Europe from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. On the other hand, the federations of tribes and the free medieval cities, with their leagues, which originated in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and survived up to the formation of the States proper with their centralized power, should rather be called “free cities,” “leagues of cities,” “federations of tribes,” etc. And indeed, to apply the term “State” to Gaul of the time of the Merovingians, or to the Mongolian federations of the time of Jenghis-Khan, or to the medieval free cities and their free leagues, leads to an utterly false idea of the life of those times. (See my Mutual Aid, chapters v, vi, and vii.)

²³⁸ See Mutual Aid among animals and men, as a factor of Evolution.

²³⁹ In his Descent of Man. where he materially revised his former views on the struggle for existence, expressed in The Origin of Species.

²⁴⁰ [Both articles have a common title, On Justice, and are divided into five sections, as follows: March number: 1) Animal Ethics; 2) Sub-Human justice; April number: 3) Human justice; 4) The Sentiment of Justice, 5) The Idea of justice.] — Trans. Note.

²⁴¹ La Morale d’Épicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines (The Moral Teaching of Epicurus and its relation to the modern theories of morality). This work appeared in 1874 and was awarded the prize of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

²⁴² The first edition appeared in 1879.

²⁴³ A Sketch of Morality independent of Obligation or Sanction. Translated from the French by Gertrude Kapteyn. Watts & Company, London, 1898.[All the references will be to this edition.] As was shown by Alfred Fouillée in his book, Nietzsche et I’immoralisme, Nietzsche drew freely on Guyau’s essay, and he always had a copy on his table. On Guyau’s philosophy see the work by Fouillée, Morale des idéesforces, and other writings by the author. [Especially, La Morale, I’Art et la Religion d’après Guyau. 1 — Trans. Note.

²⁴⁴ A Sketch of Morality independent of Obligation or Sanction, Book 1, chapter iii, page 91. [Further references will be indicated briefly, as follows: (I, iii, 91).]

²⁴⁵ [Lermontov’s poem, Mzyri.] — Trans. Note.

²⁴⁶ To what an extent these remarks of Guyau, which he unfortunately did not develop further, are correct, has been already shown in the second chapter of this book, where it is pointed out that these tendencies of man have ban the natural outcome of the social life of many animal species, and of early man, and also of the sociality that developed under such conditions, without which no animal species could survive in the straggle for existence against the stern forces of nature.

²⁴⁷ These additions were inserted in the seventh edition. J.-M. Guyau, Education and Heredity, translated by W. S. Greenstreet, London, 1891.

²⁴⁸ “Morality,” wrote Guyau, “is nothing else than unity of being. Immorality, on the contrary, is the dividing into two — an opposition of different faculties, which limit each other.” (Book I, ch. iii, p. 93).

²⁴⁹ In a word, we think of the species, we think of the conditions under which life is possible to the species, we conceive the existence of a certain normal type of man adapted to these conditions, we even conceive of the life of the whole species as adapted to the world, and, in fact, the conditions under which that adaptation is maintained. (Education and Heredity, Chapter II, Division III, p, 77.)

²⁵⁰ Among many tribes of North American Indians, during the performance of their rites, should a mask fall from the face of one of the men so that the women can notice it, he is immediately slain, and the others say that he was killed by a spirit. The rite has the direct purpose of intimidating women and children. [Kropotkin uses the present tense but it is probable that this pleasant custom has fallen into disuse.] — Trans. Note.

²⁵¹ Friedrich Paulsen, A System of Ethics, trans. by Frank Thilly, New York, 1899. [These lines are not a single quotation, but a combination of phrases from different parts of Paulsen’s book. See particularly, pp. 223–224, 251, 270–271.] — Trans. Note.