112 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



sia, Switzerland, France and Germany. The 

 last chapter takes up really modern instances 

 of the principle, the first and most important 

 are the Labor unions and their strikes. Co- 

 operative societies, Life-boat associations, 

 Charitable organizations. 



The illustration of this principle which is 

 cited first after the Labor union is the Social- 

 ist movement. Kropotkin presents his con- 

 ception of the Socialist movement as a mani- 

 festation of mutual aid in existing society in 

 the following eloquent passage: 



"Every experienced politician knows that 

 all great political movements were fought 

 upon large and often distant issues, and that 

 those of them were the strongest which pro- 

 voked most disinterested enthusiasm. All 

 great historical movements have had this 

 character, and for our own generation Social- 

 ism stands in that case. Taid agitators,' is, 

 no doubt, the favorite refrain of those who 

 know nothing about it. The truth however, 

 is that — to speak only of what I know per- 

 sonally — if I had kept a diary for the last 

 twenty-four years, the reader of such a diary 

 would have had the word 'heroism' constantly 

 on his lips. But the men I would have spoken 

 of were not heroes; they were average men, 

 inspired by a grand idea. Every Socialist 



