As in nature, misoneism dominates every human community. It is most invincible in children and neuropathic and insane individuals, very powerful among barbarous peoples, and more or less disguised among civilised nations. But the world progresses: every day new conditions and new interests arise to combat the law of inertia and render impossible the realisation of the much-desired invariability; and progress, unwelcome yet inevitable, prevails. By political crime we understand every action which attacks the laws, the historical, economical, political and social traditions of a nation or, in fact, any part of the existing social fabric, and which comes into collision with the law of inertia. Any attempt to obtain forcibly a change in existing systems, to enforce by violence, for instance, the claims of free trade in a protectionist country, to plunge a nation into war or to incite workers to strike--all such actions represent the first steps in political crime, which reaches its climax in revolts and insurrections, and which victory alone can exalt above a host of blameworthy and base deeds, and crown with glory. Revolution is the struggle between the tendency to immobility innate in a community, and the force which urges it to move. Revolution is the historical expression of evolution and has always great and sublime ends in view. It is the struggle against an institution or a system which hinders the progress of a nation, never against any temporary oppression, no matter how unbearable it may be. The French revolution was not a struggle against an individual king or even a dynasty, but against the institutions of monarchy and feudalism; nor was Lutheranism a revolt against any pope, but against the corruption that had invaded the Roman Catholic Church. The Italian revolution was not directed against foreign rule, which indeed was mild and generous in some parts of the country, but it voiced an imperious demand for independence indispensable to every people that desires to become truly civilised. A revolution is therefore a slow, constant effort towards progress, preceded by propaganda. In some instances, it may last for years; in others, for centuries, until an entire nation, from the humblest citizen to the most wealthy patrician, is convinced of the necessity of the proposed change, and the habitual misoneism of the masses overcome, the existing order of things being defended by only a few, whose personal interests are bound up in the old system. The ultimate triumph is inevitable, even when the leaders of the movement perish and the first risings are suffocated in blood; nay, death and martyrdom serve only to kindle greater enthusiasm for an ideal, if it be worthy to live. This becomes apparent when we consider the impulse given to Christianity by the crucifixion of its Leader, and to Italian independence by the death of the two brothers, Emilio and Attilio Bandiera.