The object of this policy of violence is partly, as we see from the above quotations, to inflame the spirit of revolt and disorder in the working classes; and it is partly to terrorize the _bourgeoisie_, so that they may yield in pure panic all they possess. But for its expressly violent policy, anarchism would be the least formidable or offensive manifestation of contemporary socialism. For, in the first place, its specific doctrine is one which it is really difficult to get the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting. Men in their better mind may be ready enough to listen to specious, or even not very specious, schemes of reform that hold out a promise of extirpating misery, and in their worse mind they may be quite as prone to think that if everybody had his own, there would be fewer rich; but they are not likely to believe we can get on without law or government of any sort. Even the vainest will feel that however superfluous these institutions may be for themselves, they are still unhappily indispensable for some of their neighbours. Then in the next place this doctrine of the anarchists is as great a stumbling-block to themselves as it is to other people, for they carry their objection to government into their own movement, and can consequently never acquire that concentration and unity of organization which is necessary for any effectual conspiracy. They are always found constituted in very small groups very loosely held together, and small as the several groups may be, they are always much more likely to subdivide than to consolidate. Even the few anarchist refugees in London who might be expected to be knit into indissoluble friendship by their common adversity have broken into separate clubs, and the "Autonomic" and the "Morgenrothe"--though they have hardly more than a hundred members between them, and all belong to the same socialist variety of anarchist doctrine--remain as the Jews and the Samaritans. It is said to be a subject of speculative discussion among anarchists whether two members are sufficient to constitute an anarchist club. This laxity of organization is a natural result of the dislike to authority which the anarchists cultivate as a cardinal principle. Subjection to an executive committee is as offensive to their feelings and as contrary to their principles as subjection to a monarch. The dread of subjection keeps them disunited and weak. As Machiavelli says, the many ruin a revolutionary society, and the few are not enough. A small group may concoct an isolated crime, but it can do little towards the social revolution.