"Herbert Spencer, for instance, who represents the high-water mark of a philosophy that will not hold water, pours out the vials of his bottled-up wrath on the poor unfortunates of London who are compelled 'to make a living' by tips in opening the carriage doors or holding the horses of the wealthy. He had nothing but loathing for the pregnant girl who tries to break her 'fall' by taking advantage of the 'poor laws.' For the workingman, who sincerely tries, at least, to settle the 'affairs of State' in the pot-house over a mug of ale, Spencer had nothing but contempt; but to the parliamentary people who settle the same 'affairs' over champagne and prostitutes, he played the lick-spittle.... The recantation of his 'Social Statics' is the worst case of intellectual cowardice on record.... He went down with final contempt for the workers who served him, gave him his daily bread, made his ink, pen, and paper and bound the twenty volumes of his philosophy of falsehood! May his 'works' rest in oblivion!... "In dismissing Spencer, it is worthy of note that the very thing which made him pause in the righting of social wrongs is the thing which will cause the Revolution, namely, the complicated nature of social falsehoods. In recanting his published truth on the land question, he admitted that, although the legal title to land was obtained by murder and dispossession of original occupants, the matter was now too complicated to be dealt with. If this be so, if justice cannot be done because of the difficulties in the way, then all hail to the simplicity and elemental justice of a Red Revolution!... "Yes, sometimes I feel like the crudest of the revolutionists, although I call myself a philosophical anarchist. Sometimes the jails seem to yearn for my reception, and I question my right to be at large. Nothing but a decreasing cowardice leaves me at liberty. And if I could not do more for my soul behind the bars than I have done in front of them, then I am fit only for durance vile. I, who have out-fasted the very flies till they fled my room, dread but one thing in the life of a prison--that I should have no time for reflection and repose! but out of a born anarchist it would make of me a compulsory Socialist, condemned to work for the State--a veritable dungeon of disgrace. "It is not so much that I love life, though as a rule the poor, who are so close to life, worship it in a way that puts all other things to scorn. I know nothing that reaches farther up or deeper down than this. It is only in the gutter that life is truly worshipped. And that is why I search for my last faith there--in the gutter, whence all faith really springs.