Evolution and Revolution are not contradictory terms. Quite the contrary. When they both take place, the one following and supplementing the other, the second is the conclusion of the first, the revolution is only the characteristic crisis which ends and gives real effect to a period of evolution. Notice what takes place in the case of the young chick. After having gone through the regular process of development inside of its shell, the little brute, who is as yet unable to read the _Temps_, does not know that it has been decreed that evolution must take place without any violence; instead of employing its leisure in gently and legally wearing a hole through its shell, it breaks its way out without warning or ceremony. Well, then, socialism which does read the _Temps_, will act just as though it had not read it, and, if the emergency arises, will imitate the little chick; if in the course of events it becomes necessary, it will burst asunder the mould of legality within which it is developing, and within which, at the present time, it has simply to continue its regular and peaceful development. The distinctive mark of a revolution, as I have said, is the rupture of _de facto_ legality--that is the only _sine qua non_, everything else is merely incidental. Unfortunately the strong general tendency is to think that the word, revolution, necessarily implies the execution of persons and the destruction of property. The latter are catastrophes that the socialists will make every possible effort to avoid; for they know that excesses in one direction inevitably provoke a re-actionary movement in the opposite direction, and they will do everything they possibly can to keep from thus unconsciously defeating their own ends. At some particular time in the future events may occur that, purely by the power of circumstances over men, will lead to a rupture of legality. When and how will this happen, if it does happen? We know nothing about it, and we are not and will not be the responsible cause of such an event, because we recognize and point out the possibility of its occurrence. The interested fears of some will not destroy this possibility, nor will the too pardonable impatience of others convert it into a probability. As the _Temps_ said one day, in speaking incidentally of revolutions: "One does not make them; they make themselves."[18]