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of view, charity, however generous it may be, 

 being necessarily personal and partial, cannot 

 be a remedy for the social (and therefore 

 collective) question of the distribution of 

 wealth. 



In political questions which leave intact 

 the economic-social basis, we can understand 

 how, for instance, the exile of Napoleon III. 

 or of the Emperor Dom Pedro can set up a 

 republic. But this transformation does not 

 touch the foundation of social life, and the 

 Empire of Germany or the Monarchy of Italy 

 are socially bourgeois, just like the French 

 Republic or the Republic of North America, 

 because in spite of the political differences they 

 all belong to the same economic -social phase. 



That is why the processes of evolution and 

 revolution, the only ones completely social or 

 collective, are the most efficacious, whilst 

 partial revolt, and still more individual 

 violence have only a very feeble power for 

 social transformation; they are besides anti- 

 social and anti -humane, because they revive 

 primitive savage instincts and they deny in 

 the person even of him whom they strike, the 

 principle with which they believe themselves 

 to be animated : the principle of respect for 

 human life and solidarity. Of what use is it 

 to hypnotise oneself with phrases, "propa- 

 ganda by deeds " and " immediate action " ? 



One knows that anarchists, individualists, 

 " amorphists," and libertarians admit, as a 

 means of social transformation, individual 

 violence which extends from homicide to 

 robbery, or to taking advantage, even among 



