It is easy, therefore, to form an idea of the impression made upon modern Socialists by the arguments of the bourgeois theorists who sing ceaselessly the same old song of the incompatibility of human nature and communism. It is as though one would wage war upon the Darwinians with arms drawn from the scientific arsenal of Cuvier's time. And a most noteworthy fact is that the "evolutionists" like Herbert Spencer, themselves are not above piping to the same tune.[6] And now let us see what relation there may be between modern Socialism and what is called Anarchism. FOOTNOTES: [3] "Zur Kritik der Politischen OEkonomie," Berlin, 1859. Preface iv. v. [4] "Manifesto of the Communist Party." By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Authorised English translation by S. Moore, pp. 11-12. [5] "Communist Manifesto," p. 16. [6] "The belief not only of the Socialists, but also of those so-called Liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working institutions. It is a delusion. The defective nature of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts."--Herbert Spencer's "The Man _versus_ the State," p. 43. CHAPTER III THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANARCHIST DOCTRINE THE POINT OF VIEW OF ANARCHISM. "I have often been reproached with being the father of Anarchism. This is doing me too great an honour. The father of Anarchism is the immortal Proudhon, who expounded it for the first time in 1848." Thus spoke Peter Kropotkin in his defence before the Correctional Tribunal of Lyons at his trial in January, 1883. As is frequently the case with my amiable compatriot, Kropotkin has here made a statement that is incorrect. For "the first time" Proudhon spoke of Anarchism was in his celebrated book "_Qu'est-ce que le Propriété, ou Recherches sur le principe du droit et du Gouvernement_," the first edition of which had already appeared in 1840. It is true that he "expounds" very little of it here; he only devotes a few pages to it.[7] And before he set about expounding the Anarchist theory "in 1848," the job had already been done by a German, Max Stirner (the pseudonym of Caspar Schmidt) in 1845, in his book "Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum."[8] Max Stirner has therefore a well defined claim to be the father of Anarchism. "Immortal" or not, it is by him that the theory was "expounded" _for the first time_. MAX STIRNER