Page:Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin - Modern Science and Anarchism (1912).pdf/78

 higher mathematics in words that every one understood? All great scientists do that; why do not you do as much?"

In fact, what is meant when the words “"universal law" or "categorical imperative" are used? Is it that all men accept the idea: "Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you"? If so, very well. Let us begin to study (as Hutchinson and Adam Smith have done before us) whence came this moral conception, and how did it develop? Let us then study in what degree this idea of Justice implies Equality. A very important question, because only those who consider others as their equals can obey the rule: "Do not do to others what you do not wish them to do to you." A serf-owner and a slave merchant can evidently not recognise the "universal law" or the "categorical imperative" as regards serfs and negroes, because they do not look upon them as equals. And if our remark be correct, let us see whether it is possible to inculcate morality while inculcating ideas of inequality.

Let us analyse next, as Guyau did, the "sacrifice of self," and, having done that, let us see what were the causes and the conditions that have most contributed in history to the development of moral sentiment—both of that sentiment which is expressed in the commandment concerning our neighbour, and of that other feeling which leads to self-sacrifice. Then we shall be able to deduce which social conditions and institutions promise the best results in the future. We shall learn how much religion contributed to it, and how far the economic and political inequalities established by Law hamper it; what is the part contributed towards the development of these feelings by Law, punishments, prisons, judges, gaolers, and executioners.

Let us study all this in detail, separately, and then we shall be able to talk, with some practical result, of social morality and of moralisation by Law, by Tribunals, and by Superintendents of Police. But high flown words, that only serve to hide from us the superficiality of our would-be knowledge, had better be left alone. They may have been unavoidable at a certain period of history, though even then their having been useful is very doubtful; but now, fit as we are to undertake the study of the most arduous social questions in exactly the same way as the gardener on the one hand, and the physiologist on the other hand, study the most favourable conditions for the growth of a plant—let us do so!

Again, when an economist comes and says to us: "In an