Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - Modern Science and Anarchism (1912).pdf/5



Anarchy does not draw its origin from any scientific researches, or from any system of philosophy. Sociological sciences are still far from having acquired the same degree of accuracy as physics or chemistry. Even in the study of climate and weather (in Meteorology), we are not yet able to predict a month or even a week beforehand what weather we are going to have; consequently, it would be foolish to pretend that with the aid of such a young science as Sociology is, dealing moreover with infinitely more complicated things than wind and rain, we could scientifically predict events. We must not forget either that scientific men are but ordinary men, and that the majority of them belong to the leisured class, and consequently share the prejudices of this class; most of them are even in the pay of the State. It is, therefore, quite evident that Anarchy does not come from universities.

Like Socialism in general, and like all other social movements, Anarchism originated among the people, and it will preserve its vitality and creative force so long only as it remains a movement of the people.

From all times two currents of thought and action have been in conflict in the midst of human societies. On the one hand, the masses, the people, worked out, by their way of life, a number of necessary institutions in order to make social existence possible, to maintain peace, to settle quarrels, and to practise mutual aid in all circumstances that required combined effort. Tribal customs among savages, the village communities, later on industrial guilds in the cities of the Middle Ages, the first elements of international law that these cities elaborated to settle their mutual relations; these and many other institutions were developed and worked out, not by legislation, but by the creative spirit of the masses.

On the other hand, there have always flourished among men, magi, shamans, wizards, rain makers, oracles, and priests, who