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 discontent of a divinity, and he explains all facts of Nature as acts of the will of various gods). Then man goes over to the metaphysical phase, and explains all acts of Nature by some abstract forces ("vital force," "soul of Nature," etc.); and finally he reaches the positive phase when he gives up the research of "final causes" and "substances," and tries only to find out the laws of the phenomena which should merely express the relation between them and their succession. In his second work "Positive Politics," Comte, however—contrary to the very essence of his philosophy—endeavoured to lay the foundation of a religion, of which the divinity was "Humanity." The Positive philosophy of Comte exercised a deep influence upon all the science and philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century.

Considérant, Victor (1802–1893), French Socialist writer, follower of Fourier, whose work he continued. Edited La Phalange in 1837, and La Démocratie Pacifique in 1845. Tried later on to found a phalanstère in Texas. Developed the ideas of Fourier in a series of works of great value, of which the chief are: "Social Destiny," 1834; "Theory of Natural and Attractive Education," 1835; "Principles of Socialism: Manifesto of the Pacific Democracy," published in 1843, prosecuted, and published in a second edition in 1847—its economical principles, as shown by W. Tcherkesoff, represent the substance of those of the "Communist Manifesto" of Marx and Engels; "Socialism Before the Old World," 1848, an excellent review of the different schools of Socialism.

Darwin, Charles (1809–1882), the most renowned naturalist of our own times. Science owes to him that he proved the variability of the species of plants and animals by such a rich mass of facts that the whole science of organic beings (Biology) felt the effect of his work. Buffon and Lamarck in 1801–9 had already maintained the variability of species and the descent of all species of plants and animals from some common ancestors. Darwin worked out this hypothesis on a scientific basis, and endeavoured to show that, given the immense number of individual variations which continually appear in every species, natural selection in the struggle for life (or the survival of the fittest) would be quite sufficient to explain the gradual development of all the existing species of plants and animals, including man, and to account for the wonderful accommodation of most of them to their surroundings from the action alone of natural causes, without the intervention of a guiding power. His theories were admirably explained in a very simple form by Huxley ("Lectures to Working Men"). His two chief works are "Origin of Species," 1859, and "Descent of Man," 1871.

Diderot, Denis (1713–1784), French philosopher. After having been prosecuted for his "Philosophical Thoughts," 1746, and imprisoned for his "Letters on the Blind," 1749, he conceived and realised the idea of the "General Encyclopaedia," an immense work for that epoch, which he succeeded in bringing to an end in twenty-two years (1751–1772), with the