We are living in a period of discipline, of culture and of civilization, but it is still far off from being a moral period.  One can say that, in the present condition of humanity, prosperity increases with the misery of its inhabitants.  And one might ask if we would not be happier living in a primitive state, deprived of all our culture of the present day.  For how can one make men happy without making them moral and good?  (Kant.  Daily Reading, June 16th)

Try to conduct yourself in such a way that you need not resort to violence.  (Daily Reading, October 15th)

We are quite accustomed to find ways of managing other people’s lives, and these methods do not seem odd to us.  They would be unnecessary, however, if men were religious and free.  They are, in fact, the result of despotism and of the domination of one or a few over many.  This error is harmful, not only because it causes suffering to those who feel the oppression of despots, but even more so because their consciences no longer warn them of the necessity of bettering their condition.  But only this conscience can have an effect on one’s fellow being.

Not only has one man not the right to dispose of a great number, but a great number have not the right to dispose of a single man.  (V. Tchertkov, Daily Reading, November 22nd)

“Wonderful.  But will you kindly tell us what form human society will take when it decides to live without government?” ask those who believe that men can always know what the social life of the future will be, and who therefore credit the same knowledge to those who wish to live without a government.

It is true that this idea is only a common superstition, very old and very prevalent.  Men, whether they submit or refuse to submit to government, never know and cannot know what form this future state will take.  How much less, then, could a minority organize the lives of everybody?  This organization can be effected, not according to the will of some of them, but as the result of numerous intervening factors, the principal among which is the religious development of the majority of men.

The superstition that causes one to think that he can tell in advance how society will be organized in the future has its origin in the desire of the transgressors to justify their conduct, and in the desire of the victims to explain and lighten the weight of the constraint.  The former persuade themselves and others that they know the way to make life take the form that they consider the best.  The latter, who undergo such constraint that they do not feel strong enough to free themselves, have the same conviction, for it permits them to give a certain excuse for their position.

The history of nations ought to destroy this superstition entirely.

At the end of the eighteenth century, a few Frenchmen tried to maintain the old despotic regime, but in spite of all their efforts this regime fell and the republic replaced it.  In the same way, in spite of all the efforts of the republican chiefs, in spite of all their acts of violence, the empire replaced the republic, and thus they succeeded each other: empire, coalition, Charles X, a new revolution, a new republic, Louis-Philippe, then other governments up to the present day republic.

The same facts have been repeated wherever violence is the basis of action.  For example, all the efforts of the papacy, far from killing Protestantism, have only further developed it.  The progress of socialism is due to the efforts of capitalists.  In short, even in the case where the government established by the aid of violence is maintained for a certain length of time, or is modified by the use of force, it is only because at that period the form of the social organization continues or ceases to answer to the moral condition of the people.  It is not because any external cause assures or modifies its existence.

It follows that the axiom whereby a minority can organize the life of the majority, an axiom in the name of which one commits the greatest crimes, is only a superstition.  In the same way, the activity that results from it, and which is generally considered as most honorable and important as much by the directors of the State as by the revolutionaries, is in reality only a pastime as useless as it is harmful, and which above all prevents the true happiness of humanity.

This superstition has caused and still causes much blood to flow, and much horrible suffering.  The worst of it is that this superstition has always prevented and still prevents social betterment that answers to the degree of the development of the human conscience.  It prevents true progress, because men spend their entire efforts in concerning themselves with others, thereby neglecting their own moral regeneration, which alone can contribute to the regeneration of the world in general.  In fact, social life advances, and advances necessarily towards the eternal ideal of perfection, thanks to the progress of individuals in the endless path of perfection.

One sees from all this the horror of the superstition that makes us neglect our task of individual betterment, and which alone procures personal happiness and general welfare.  It is the only means of which we are really masters, contrary to the superstition that invites us to concern ourselves with the happiness of others, which is not in our power.  It makes us employ means of constraint that are as harmful for us as for others, and takes us further from individual as well as social perfection.