Anarchy, Geography, Modernity:
Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus
Edited and Translated by John Clark and Camille Martin
With an Introductory Essay by John Clark

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus Edited and translated byJohn Clark and Camille Martin, with an introductory essay by John Clark© 2013 John Clark and Camille Martin
This edition © 2013 PM Press
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ISBN: 978–1–60486–429–8
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For all who are able to envisiona free, just, and compassionate world,
and who, like Reclus,
dedicate their lives
to creating such a world

Contents

Preface to the PM Press Edition
Preface to the First Edition

vii
xi

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

PART I An Introduction to Reclus’ Social Thought
The Earth Story, the Human Story
The Anarchist Geographer
The Dialectic of Nature and Culture
A Philosophy of Progress
Anarchism and Social Transformation
The Critique of Domination
The Legacy of Reclus: Liberty, Equality, Geography

3
8
16
35
52
74
99

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

PART II Selected Writings of Elisée Reclus
The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society (1866)
To My Brother the Peasant (1893)
Anarchy (1894)
The Extended Family (1896)
Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal (1898)
On Vegetarianism (1901)
The History of Cities (1905)
The Modern State (1905)
Culture and Property (1905)
Progress (1905)
Advice to My Anarchist Comrades (1901)

103
113
120
132
138
156
163
186
202
208
234

Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors

236
264
271
283

Preface to the PM Press Edition

One of the best-known images from Reclus’ works originally appeared
above the preface of his magnum opus, L’Homme et la Terre, and is reproduced here. It depicts two hands holding the earth, coupled with the statement in French that “Humanity is nature becoming self-conscious.” It isclear that the image indicates not only that the fate of the earth is now inthe hands of humanity, but also that humanity can only fulfill its weighty
responsibility by acting with an awareness that we are an integral partof nature, rather than continuing under the illusion that we are a powerover and above the natural world. Reclus’ message is that the “hands” in
the image are those of nature acting through humanity, though it is up to
the viewer whether to read the image with more emphasis on humanity
or more on nature.
Another famous Reclusian image, the one reproduced on the cover ofthis book, contains no such ambiguity. In this image, we see Nature herself
contemplating or watching over the earth, which this time is clearly held in
her hands.1 The contemplating and holding seem to be inseparable partsof one process. The image evokes aspects of the contemporary ethics ofcare, an important dimension of ecofeminism, in which “holding” is a
key concept. Feminist philosopher Sara Ruddick introduced this idea todescribe the maternal attitude of preserving, conserving, and maintaining
what is needed in a child’s life. Quoting Adrienne Rich, she adds that it
is an attitude essential to “world-protection, world-preservation, worldrepair.”2 The question posed by this Reclusian image is very much in thisspirit: whether we can fulfill our historical destiny as an integral part ofnature, awakened to the earth, allowing it to reveal itself to us, and playing
our role in holding and caring for it.
It has been almost a decade since the first edition of this work
appeared. Since then, the crucial significance of Reclus’ vision of humanity

viii

Preface to the PM Press Edition

as the developing self-consciousness of the earth has become increasingly
clear, as the costs of the continued operation of the system of economic,
political, and technological domination become more and more evident.
The magnitude of these costs is most striking in regard to global ecologicalcrisis. Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre have formulated aconception of “planetary boundaries” within which human activity could
continue without precipitating global ecological collapse, and concluded
that “transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious
or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing thresholds that will trigger
non-linear, abrupt environmental change within continental- to planetaryscale systems.”3 They have defined nine such boundaries: climate change,
ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, biogeochemical nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, global freshwater use, rate of biodiversity
loss, land-system change, chemical pollution, and atmospheric aerosol
loading. They suggest that three boundaries have already been passed
and that most others are rapidly being approached.4 Knowledge of suchthreats has expanded greatly over the past decade. This is exemplified by
the successive United Nations Climate Change Conferences that focus
the world’s attention on global climate crisis, while the negotiations failever more miserably.
Global social crisis has followed a similarly tragic trajectory. The
consumptionist culture of nihilism and the productionist system of technological domination have continued to colonize all areas of global society,while the nationalist, ethnic identitarian, and religious fundamentalist
reactions to these processes continue to accelerate. Integral to these developments (both those internal to the dominant system and those generated
in reaction to it) is the continual expansion by capitalism and the state ofmechanisms of surveillance, control and annihilation. In view of the inability of the dominant system to significantly reform, much less radicallytransform itself in the face of global social and ecological crisis, Reclus’
call for a many-sided social ecological revolution to replace the system of
domination with engaged and compassionate communities in solidarity
with humanity and nature seems increasingly prophetic.
The year after this book originally appeared, 2005, marked the 100th
anniversary of the death of Elisée Reclus and the 175th anniversary of hisbirth. It also signaled the beginning of a surge of interest in his thought.
A number of international conferences brought together researchers andactivists to discuss Reclus’ work and its relevance today. These included
conferences on “The Geographer, the City and the World” at the Universityof Montpellier, France (dedicated to Reclus and French geographer Paul
Vidal de la Blache); “Elisée Reclus and Our Geographies: Texts and Pretexts”
at the University of Lyon, France; “Elisée Reclus, Nature and Education”

Preface to the PM Press Editionix

at the University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy; and “Humanity and the Earth /L’Homme et la Terre: The Legacy of Elisée Reclus” at Loyola University in
New Orleans. Such international events have continued to take place asinterest in Reclus expands. The most important of these, “Elisée Reclus
and the Geography of the New World,” took place in 2011 at the Universityof São Paulo, Brazil, which has become a global center of Reclus research.
In recent years, the rate of publication of works on or by Reclus hasgrown exponentially. In the wake of the centennial, two new books on
Reclus and two collections of Reclus conference proceedings appeared.5 In
the succeeding years, a new biography, a work on Reclus and colonialism,
another on Reclus and the United States, and a brief introductory text haveappeared.6 In addition, anarchist geographer Philippe Pelletier recently
published a massive volume on Reclus, Kropotkin, and Metchnikoff tofollow up his earlier book on Reclus and anarchy.7 In addition to the newFrench publications, Federico Ferretti, who is responsible for some of themost important research and writing on Reclus, has published two works
in Italian.8 New editions of Reclus’ own works have included two collections of his writings on the Americas, a volume of his letters from prisonand exile, a reprint of his “Great Globe” project, and a new edition of his
anarchist political writings.9 While translation of Reclus’ writings into
major languages has proceeded slowly, twelve volumes of Reclus’ works
have recently been published in Portuguese, and a collection in Spanish isforthcoming.10 A documentary film on Reclus has also appeared recently.11
In view of the rapidly growing interest in Reclus, this is an auspicious time
for the new edition of the present work to appear.
We would like to reiterate our gratitude to the many who contributed
to the project, and who were mentioned in the preface to the first edition.
Prof. Ronald Creagh deserves further thanks for his contributions to thisrevised edition. In addition, we would like to thank Ramsey Kanaan andCraig O’Hara of PM Press for their encouragement and assistance, andJohn Yates for his skill and imagination in designing the cover of thisedition. We are extremely grateful to PM Press for making it possible forthis work to become readily available to its intended audience for the firsttime. With its publication of the first accessible edition of this work and thefirst comprehensive collection of writings of Gustav Landauer in English,
PM Press has been instrumental in bringing to an English-speaking audience the work of the two greatest classical communitarian anarchist philosophers. Paraphrasing Hegel’s famous statement about philosophy, “theOwl of Minerva takes flight at dusk,” we might say that for anarchist philosophy today the Owl of Minerva increasingly takes flight at PM.

Preface to the First Edition

Elisée Reclus’ life and ideas have been an inspiration to both of us eversince we first discovered his fascinating account of his voyage to New
Orleans. We both have a strong interest in French culture and ideas and in
the history of the French in America—an interest that was influenced by
our Louisiana French family backgrounds. One of us has long been interested in anarchist theory and social ecology, and has written several bookson these subjects. For these reasons, we were intrigued by this French anarchist geographer and his acute observations on the land of our ancestors,
la Louisiane. We went on to translate the text of Reclus’ voyage, which was
published as A Voyage to New Orleans: Anarchist Impressions of the Old South.1
As we continued to study Reclus over most of the past decade, we
found his writings not only interesting historically but also pertinent totoday’s world. We have both been active in the Green movement and invarious ecological projects, and for a number of years we edited a magazine
concerned with (among other things) bioregional culture and ecologicalpolitics. We were struck by the degree to which Reclus’ ideas concerning
the relationship between humanity and the earth, his view of history andthe struggle for liberation, and his critique of various forms of oppression
and domination were relevant to the theory and practice of political ecology.
Reclus’ efforts to put his inspiring ideals into practice in his personal life also
impressed us greatly. We concluded that despite serious limitations in someareas, he has an important message of freedom, human love and solidarity,
and reconciliation with nature that is as meaningful today as ever before.
In fact, it takes on even more significance in an increasingly cynical age
that is sorely in need of a vision of hope, social creativity, and the universal
good. This book is the result of our desire to share Reclus’ vision with others.
❧

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Preface to the First Edition

The project of selecting excerpts from Reclus’ voluminous writings wasrather daunting. His two most important works alone run to twenty-five
volumes and more than twenty thousand pages, and he also wrote otherimportant multivolume works. Furthermore, he contributed many articles to geographical journals, intellectual reviews, and popular politicalmagazines, in addition to writing a number of widely circulated political
pamphlets. The translated selections and introductory essays draw on
many of these works, but most particularly Reclus’ magnum opus of social
geography and social theory, Man and the Earth. This 3,500-page book,which was the culmination of his life’s work, has been almost unknown
to the English-speaking world. Our translation makes key sections of thiswork available to English-language readers for the first time. We are alsopresenting the first English translation of a large section of Reclus’ only
full-length political work, Evolution, Revolution and the Anarchist Ideal, andseveral important short works written over a period of a half-century. In
addition, the introductory essays offer the first extensive analysis of Reclus’social thought ever to appear in English. Our goal is to offer the reader abrief but comprehensive view of Reclus’ life and work, and an appreciation of his importance to philosophy, social theory, and political thought.
The translation of diverse works published between 1866 and 1905
presented certain difficulties. The most demanding of our challenges wasto produce a translation that would be readable for a contemporary audience but still capture the flavor of Reclus’ nineteenth-century prose. His
final work, Man and the Earth, presented the most formidable difficulties.
According to his nephew Paul, Reclus completed the manuscript in 1903,
and they worked together on editorial revisions of this vast six-volume
work “between October 1903 and Reclus’ death in July 1905.”2 Certain
important discussions, while quite coherent and sometimes reaching thelevel of eloquence, never received the thorough editing they deserved. We
have attempted to remain faithful to Reclus’ meaning while achieving as
much clarity as the texts allow.
We have consistently employed English cognates in certain cases
in which Reclus’ French usage strongly reflects his culture and historicalepoch. We felt that it was important to use the generic “man,” not only
because it was the contemporary English equivalent of Reclus’ “l’homme”
but also because it expresses very well the tension, and indeed the conflict, between his anarchistic, liberatory aspirations and the conventional,
and even conservative, conceptual framework he inherited. The same
point applies to such terminology as the “conquest” of various goals as
opposed to their “achievement”; the “discovery” of regions by Europeansrather than their “exploration”; and the description of certain cultures
as “primitive,” “savage,” and “barbarian” rather than “tribal,” “huntingPreface to the First Editionxiii

and gathering,” or “planting.” At times, Reclus explicitly recognized the
problematical nature of some of these terms, but he continued to use them,and they certainly express the classic modernist political sensibility that
constitutes an important dimension of his outlook.
Language typical of the classical workers’ movement and nineteenthcentury radicalism has also been retained. For example, the term maître
has usually been translated as “master,” a term that frequently appearedin English-language anarchist prose of his time, in preference to “ruler”
or other more contemporary terms. Reclus uses two terms, camarade andcompagnon, for his fellow members of the revolutionary movement. We
have translated these terms as “comrade” and “companion,” for eventhough only the former is common in such a context in English, various
cognates of the latter term have been very widely used in the international anarchist movement. Reclus’ pain has consistently been translated
as “bread,” even when the terms “food” or “necessities of life” would
seem more natural today. It was Reclus who gave Kropotkin the title forhis famous work The Conquest of Bread. Although this phrase may now
strike one as rather strange, it reflects very well the social imagination ofEuropean revolutionaries of the nineteenth century. Finally, it will be notedthat in a few cases we have included the original French in brackets when
the word is unusual, or when the original might usefully convey certain
connotations to readers with some knowledge of French.
❧

We would like to express our deepest thanks to our close friend and colleague Prof. Ronald Creagh of the Université Paul Valéry in Montpellier,France, for many hours of discussion of numerous points of translation,
for his highly perceptive comments on the introductory essays, and for his
assistance in locating important texts. We also wish to express our deep
gratitude to M. Pierre Bravo-Gala for his generosity and enthusiasm in
discussing our translation, for his friendship and hospitality, and for his
many astute suggestions on the interpretation of some of Reclus’ most
perplexing passages. We would like to thank Prof. Gary Dunbar for hisvery helpful comments on the text and for his generous gift of invaluable research materials. We are grateful to Prof. Kent Mathewson for his
encouragement and support, and to Mr. Pavlos Stavropoulos for encouraging us to expand our project to its present scope. We would also like torecognize Ms. Deborah F. Justice for outstanding editorial work on the text.
Many others contributed to our work through suggestions, assistancein locating materials, advice on technical issues in their fields, and generalencouragement of our project. Included in one or more of these categories
are Mr. Alvaro Alcazar of Loyola University; Prof. Myrna Breitbart ofxiv

Preface to the First Edition

Hampshire College; Prof. Maurice Brungardt of Loyola University; Prof.
Bernard Cook of Loyola University; Mr. David Crawford; Mme. FrançoiseCreagh; Prof. Anatol Dolgoff; Ms. Patricia Doran, Loyola University Libraryinterlibrary loan coordinator; Prof. Marie Fleming of the University ofWestern Ontario; Mr. Jeffrey Harrington; Mr. Tetsushi Hiruma; Ms. Riki
Matthews; the late Rev. Thomas Mulcrone, S.J., of Loyola University;
Prof. Tom Starnes; and Mme. Stéphane Tiné of the staff of the French
Senate. John Clark would also like to thank the Loyola University Grants
and Leaves Committee for travel assistance for research. He is also very
grateful to Camille Martin for applying her considerable editorial skills
to the chapters he wrote.
John Clark and Camille Martin
New Orleans, Louisiana, and Bayou LaTerre, Mississippi

PART IAn Introduction to
Reclus’ Social Thought

1

The Earth Story,
the Human Story
Elisée Reclus begins his magnum opus of social theory, Man and theEarth, with the words “L’Homme est la nature prenant conscience d’ellemême”—“Humanity is nature becoming self-conscious.”1 Above thisstatement is an image of the earth, held in two upward-stretching hands.
In an important sense, the purpose of that work, and indeed, of Reclus’
entire life’s work, is to draw out the implications of these words and thisimage. He wishes to trace the course of human history, showing the unityof development underlying the diversity of cultures and epochs, and thento situate the history of our species within the larger history of the planet.
In doing so, he hopes to contribute significantly to the very process of thedevelopment of self-consciousness that he describes.
Reclus wishes in this way to help humanity discover its meaning as
a historical being and as an aspect of the earth’s larger processes of selfrealization. It is his further hope that the discovery of these truths about
ourselves can also help us to act consciously and responsibly as part ofa developing human community and a developing earth community. In
short, Reclus retells the story of humanity in the context of the story of
the earth. He thus places his work firmly in the tradition of the great historical narratives.
This is a tradition that might seem outmoded today. The revolutionary“grand narratives” of socialism and communism have been widely discredited, and even the dominant “grand narratives” of capitalism, technologicalprogress, and nationalism appear in an increasingly demythologized form.
The power of brute facts (or certain social conditions that are ideologically
mystified as “brute facts”) seemingly banishes the great myths of progressand social transformation. Ironically, mystification displaces mythology.
We (or at least the “we” of the West and its dependencies) seem now
to be living through a period between narratives, between myths, if indeed

4

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

we have not reached the end of the history of myth. It is a time of nihilism,in which the quest for being and meaning is replaced by the struggle forpower. Without a Golden Age to emulate or a utopia to create, we findourselves seemingly trapped in a rather uninspiring if overawing present.
Banality is raised to the level of the sublime. We retain bits and pieces ofthe fragmented myths of the past and increasingly find ourselves left withdisconnected bits and pieces of self. At worst, we merely accumulate anddiscard; at best, we recycle.
Reclus lived in a strikingly different age, in the heyday of the Mythof Progress. Partisans of the system of domination exuded optimism, if
not smug complacency. Its opponents bristled with righteous indignationand glowed with idealistic hope for revolutionary change. Today, suchhope has largely been replaced by the spirit of resignation. Conservatism
declines into hardened cynicism, while radicalism is reduced to resentful
marginalization. Between the two reigns confusion.
In an age of resignation, any narrative of universal self-realization
seems suspect—as evidenced by recent postmodernist critiques of thevery idea of the “grand narrative.” Critics allege that any attempt to discover a transhistorical universality, or even any unifying thread running
through the fabric of history, betrays an intellectual will to power, culturalimperialism, or a disguised apology for the forces of domination. It isindeed true that such narratives are usually guilty of one or more of thesecharges. And granted, it is the function of critical thought to subject allinterpretation to the most ruthless questioning.
Yet Reclus’ anarchist “grand narrative”—for the very reason that it
is self-consciously anarchistic and aims at the destruction of the systemof domination—presents a challenge to such sweeping dismissals of thequest for a more comprehensive, holistic view of history. Although it istrue (and not very surprising) that Reclus does not entirely escape thebiases that plague the creators of universal narratives, there are fundamental differences between his project and almost all the others. One ofthese concerns the identity of the historical protagonist (the “subject” oragent of history). Reclus’ universal subject is not, as one finds in the stereotypical “grand narrative,” Western or “civilized” humanity engaged in aprocess of triumphant world domination. Rather, it is a global humanity,
embedded in nature, yet undertaking an open-ended and creative projectof liberatory self-realization.
Thus, Reclus can be looked upon as an early prophet of globalization. His significance today comes in large part from his presentation ofan egalitarian, libertarian vision of globalization—a globalization “frombelow”—that offers a theoretical alternative to the dominant corporate
and statist versions that now prevail. Writing in the 1870s, he foresees a

The Earth Story, the Human Story5

future in which “equality will obtain in the end, not only between America
and Europe, but also between these two and the other quarters of theworld.” In place of a world divided into a powerful, wealthy, and hegemonic core and a weak, poor, and dominated periphery, the world will have“its center everywhere, its periphery nowhere.”2
Reclus’ project in fact points beyond even the globalization of humanity, for he understood the globe as the whole earth, of which we are an
integral part. We develop within and in relation to that whole in all its
complexity. He takes a dialectical approach in which every phenomenon,
including the phenomenon of humanity, is inseparable from other phenomena (geographical features of the land, other living beings, natural
regions) to which it is related. An understanding of the world thus requires
a simultaneous understanding of all the interconnected and interpenetrating factors. For as Reclus states, though we must always seek to understand the significance of each determining factor, “it is only through an
act of pure abstraction that one can contrive to present a particular aspectof the environment as if it had a distinct existence, and strive to isolate itfrom all the others, in order to study its essential influence.”3Thus, from his dialectical perspective the unity of history must be
discovered through an understanding of the diversity of phenomena, bothnatural and social. Accordingly, his account of the human story recognizes
the integrity and specificity of the other—whether this other be a culturalor natural one. He recognizes various past cultures and many existing
non-Western ones for their unique and enduring contributions to progress,and he rejects the reduction of these cultures to mere obsolete stages ofdevelopment toward the higher social, political, economic, and intellectual
achievements of the modern West. Nor does he depict the natural world
as a mere backdrop for human history. Rather, nature is for him always anactive presence, both encompassing humanity and remaining in intimate
dialectical interaction with humanity throughout history.
Furthermore, Reclus’ account of human history and earth history
avoids the imposition of closure, and it always retains a moment of creativity,
novelty, and openness. In the preface to Man and the Earth, he summarizes
what he sees as “the three orders of facts that are revealed to us through thestudy of social geography, and which remain so constant amidst the chaosof things that one might well label them ‘laws.’” These are “the class struggle, the quest for equilibrium and the sovereign decision of the individual.”4
In each case, the sweeping historical “law” is far from being a narrowly
deterministic one. The class struggle for Reclus is a realm of creative, selfexpressive activity on the part of the dominated and oppressed, not a resultof their mere reactivity to social conditions. Moreover, the quest for equilibrium is a creative project of humanity in which human beings have over the6Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

course of history invented diverse modes of cooperation, mutual aid, andcultural self-expression. For Reclus, social disequilibrium arises from thelack of freedom and from the attempt to impose a static order on a dynamic
social milieu.5 He agrees with Proudhon that freedom is “the mother, notthe daughter, of order,” and he adds that domination necessarily engenders
disorder. Finally, despite the strongly communitarian dimension of Reclus’
anarchism, it is “the human person, the primary element of society,” that is
the source of “the creative will that constructs and reconstructs the world.”6
It is his hope that this creative freedom will lead humanity to a futuresociety based on free association, which will synthesize social harmony
and equilibrium with social diversity and spontaneity.
Reclus was a pioneer in the project of writing the story of the earth
and of humanity.7 His anarchist grand narrative is a sweeping account of
the planet from its beginnings, through the course of evolution over theages, and finally through the manifold episodes of the human story within
the story. It depicts the intersection of natural history and human history—or as he terms it, the story of “nature becoming self-conscious.” Integral
to this history is an account of the forces of domination that emerge inhuman history, only to restrict the future self-realization of both humanity
and nature. So needless to say, another central theme of his story is thelong quest to overcome these forces of domination.
In exploring such themes, Reclus anticipates later critiques of thedomination of humanity and nature, developed from the Frankfurt School
through contemporary poststructuralist and radical ecological thought.
We are now entering an era in which concepts of global social and ecological crisis become more familiar; ideas that were once limited primarily
to the arcane realm of abstract social theory begin to pervade the larger
culture. Consequently, the world-historical narrative that Reclus recounts
may have even greater resonance today than it did in his own time.
As will be shown in the discussion that follows, Reclus’ emancipatory
vision of history is a sweeping one with universalistic dimensions, but it
encompasses a social and ecological ethic that is based on a concern forthe self-realization of all beings in their uniqueness and particularity, anda practice of love and care for those beings.8 This ethic is perhaps summarized best (at least in regard to humanity) in a letter that Reclus wrote
near the end of his life to a Protestant minister in Orthez, his hometown.
He asserts that his own ethic embodies the highest ideals of Christianity,
ideals that had, perhaps ironically, been betrayed by institutionalized
religion but carried on by anarchism:
It seems to me that as a libertarian socialist or, to be more precise, acommunist anarchist, I am in many ways close to the Christian of theThe Earth Story, the Human Story

7

Gospels. Thus, I must neither call anyone “master” nor call myself“master” of anyone else. I must seek to live in a condition of equality
with everyone, Jew or Greek, owner or slave, millionaire or beggar,
without accepting any kind of supposed superiority or inferiority. I
must adopt the old Christian maxim not to do anything to others that
I would not want done to myself, and to do to others only what I would
wish them to do to me. If I claim the right of personal or collective selfdefense, nevertheless I will forbid myself any idea of vengeance, which
is a primitive practice, and no hatred will arise in my heart, since itwould be aimed at unfortunates who are already victims of atavism ora bad environment. Finally, and again like the Christian who is faithful
to his name, I would love first of all the brother whom I see “before
cherishing or adoring the unknown beings that I do not see.”9Reclus’ life work was to prepare the way for a world in which all forms ofdomination—all “mastery”—would be abolished, so that humanity could
live in a free community of equals founded on such a practice of active,
engaged love and compassion.

2

The Anarchist Geographer

Elisée Reclus was born on March 15, 1830, in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, a small
town on the Dordogne River in southwestern France. His father, Jacques
Reclus, was a minister in Sainte-Foy and a professor at the nearby Protestantcollege. He was, in effect, a Protestant among Protestants, deciding to leave
the French Reformed Church to become the pastor of a “Free Church” in the
town of Orthez. By leaving an established church, Jacques Reclus rejected,
for the sake of his beliefs, the possibilities of personal advancement andgreater material security for himself and his large family. According toElisée’s nephew and biographer, Paul Reclus, Jacques powerfully influenced
his children by his dedication to his principles, by “putting communism into
practice” in his daily life, and by showing himself, through his independence from official religion, to be a “precursor of anarchism.”1 Elisée echoes
these sentiments when he says that his father “was not an ordinary man
who is content to live in accord with the world: he had the strange fantasy
of wishing to live according to his conscience.”2 Elsewhere, he notes thatwhile Jacques at first dominated the Reclus children through his powerfulpersonality, his lasting influence took the form of creating in them “the idealof the unyielding conscience.”3 Elisée’s own independence of thought andhis quest for a just community were thus conditioned by his paternal heritage of religious dissent. Indeed, his anarchism can be seen as the ultimate
Protestant revolt against two of the most dominant religions of the modernage: the deification of capital and the worship of the state. Moreover, hislater ideal of a universal community of love is clearly a transformation of
the concept of Christian love that he encountered in his early life.
Other familial influences on Elisée were also very important. His
sense of dedication to the general good was fostered by the example ofhis mother, Marguerite Trigant, who inspired admiration within the family
and the community for her tireless efforts in conducting a school for girls,

The Anarchist Geographer

9

while conscientiously raising thirteen children, eleven of whom reachedadulthood. Marguerite also influenced her children through her knowledge of literature, her encouragement of good writing,4 and her “deep love”
for the family.5 While Reclus later broke with his parents over their conservative religious views, both left enduring marks on his character andideals. Moreover, his ties with the rest of the family remained unusuallystrong throughout his life. This was true above all in the case of his older
brother, Elie, with whom he maintained a deep personal, political, andintellectual relationship throughout the course of their long lives. While
Reclus later launched a fierce attack on the patriarchal authoritarian family,
the family as a loving community of mutual aid and solidarity had a strong
influence on his vision of the good society.
Reclus was educated primarily in Protestant institutions. At the age oftwelve he was sent to the Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where
he learned German, Latin, English, and Dutch. His budding cosmopolitanism was encouraged not only by his exposure to another culture andto diverse languages but also by his personal experience of nationalistic
animosity and prejudice against foreigners on the part of many of his
fellow students. These experiences contributed to his growing concern
for universal justice and belief in human solidarity. He returned to France,
attended the Protestant College of Sainte-Foy, from which he received thebaccalaureate, and then went to the Protestant University in Montauban.
By this time, the seventeen-year-old Reclus had already developed aninterest in radical political ideas and was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his conservative Calvinist environment.
Looking back on this period, he remarks that he, his brother Elie, andtheir schoolmates began to broaden their horizons as they heard news
from Paris “of political struggles” and “then, all at once, of the Revolution
itself.”6 The growing rebelliousness of the Reclus brothers is evidenced by
the fact that in the next year they were both expelled from the university
for leaving school without permission to travel to the Mediterranean. For
Elisée, this event perhaps signaled both his growing rejection of established institutions and his budding passion for exploring the larger world.
Elie later described Elisée’s reaction to his first view of the great sea as
ecstatic. Despite his restlessness, Reclus managed to return to the schoolat Neuwied, where he taught briefly. He then completed his formal education with six months of study at the University of Berlin. This stay, thoughrelatively brief, was crucial in his development, for it was in Berlin that
he attended lectures by the famous geographer Carl Ritter, who greatly
stimulated his interest in his future field of specialization.
Already during his student years, Reclus’ political ideas were quite
radical. In a manuscript dating from this period, the twenty-one-year-old

10

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

expresses views that already quite clearly defined the course of his future
anarchism and its underlying basis. He judges the goal of history to be“complete and absolute liberty,” adding that such liberty will amount tonothing more than “colossal egoism” if it is not united with love.7 “Foreach individual man,” he asserts, “liberty is an end,” but in a larger sense“it is only a means toward love and universal brotherhood.”8 Reclus’ lifelong concern with a synthesis of the ideals of freedom and solidarity arethus already quite evident. Even at this early date the implications of his
views were clear enough for him to state, in terms reminiscent of Proudhon,that “our destiny is to reach that state of ideal perfection in which nations
will no longer need to be under the tutelage of a government or of anothernation; it is the absence of government, it is anarchy, the highest expression of order.”9Reclus’ conception of freedom had by this time already extended
beyond the political into other realms, including the economic. He assertsthat “political liberty is nothing without other liberties” and that freedom
is meaningless “for those who despite their sweat cannot buy breadfor their families, and for those workers who only incur new sufferings
through the revolutions they themselves make.”10 He also anticipates his
later critique of authoritarian socialism in noting that “some communist
varieties [of socialism], in reaction against the present-day society, seem tobelieve that men ought to dissolve themselves into the mass and become
nothing more than the innumerable arms of an octopus” or “drops ofwater lost in the sea.”11 Reclus holds, to the contrary, that community andsolidarity can never be separated from liberty and individuality. In this his
ideas are reminiscent of those of William Godwin, his great predecessor
in the tradition of philosophical anarchism. Godwin also emerged fromthe tradition of Protestant dissent and like Reclus was heir to a legacy of
deep concern for the inviolability of individual conscience and respect for
personal autonomy.12
After leaving Berlin, Elisée joined Elie in a walk across France, from
Strasbourg on the Rhine in the northeast, to Orthez in the extreme southwest corner of the hexagon. By this time, both brothers had developed apassion not only for advanced political ideas but also for radical politicalaction. They were enraged by Louis Napoléon’s coup d’état of December
2, 1851, and met to plan a march to the mairie of Orthez to organize resistance. Only a small group of would-be insurrectionists actually set out thenext morning for the mairie, and even these few, one by one, abandoned
their plan. By the time the dwindling revolutionary mob reached its destination, it consisted of only two participants, Elisée and Elie.13 Although
their rebellion had turned into a fiasco, the authorities seemed to takethe matter seriously, and the Reclus brothers found it necessary to leave

The Anarchist Geographer

11

France and take refuge in England. For Elisée, this flight began over five
years of foreign travel, and it profoundly affected his future vocation as ageographer.
Reclus spent most of a year in England and Ireland, working first as
a tutor in London and then as a farm worker near Dublin. During thisperiod, he developed the idea of exploring the Americas with the intention of eventually establishing an agricultural community in cooperation
with Elie and other friends. By early 1853, he had crossed the Atlantic andwas living in Louisiana.14 His Voyage to New Orleans recounts his passage
through the Antilles, his trip up the Mississippi Delta, and his striking
impressions of the city of New Orleans. It also chronicles an importantstage in the development of his social and political ideas. After working
briefly as a dockworker in New Orleans, he found a position as a tutor
for the children of the Fortier family of Félicité Plantation. He spent mostof his two and one-half years in Louisiana on this plantation, fifty miles
up-river from New Orleans on the west bank of the Mississippi. His experience with the much-romanticized plantation society of the Old South
produced in him above all a visceral reaction to the cruel inhumanity ofslavery.15 His revulsion toward the slave system was largely responsible
for his decision to leave Louisiana. He wrote that he could not continue toearn money by tutoring the children of slaveholders and thus “steal fromthe Negroes who by their sweat and blood have earned the money that
I put in my pocket.”16 His strong sense of personal moral responsibility
is evident in his judgment concerning his relationship to the system ofslavery. He concluded that by remaining in the plantation house even in
the seemingly innocuous role of tutor and participating in such an institution, “it is indeed I who hold the whip.”17
In addition to intensifying his hatred of racism, Reclus’ visit toLouisiana also strengthened his belief in the inhumanity of capitalism.
While his experiences in Europe had already led him to abhor the evilsof economic inequality and exploitation, he discovered in America an
economistic mentality that far surpassed anything he had experienced
in more traditionalist European societies. He concluded that the spirit ofcommerce and material gain had deeply infected American culture andpoisoned it. As he wrote to his brother Elie, he believed the country to
be a “great auction house in which everything is for sale, the slaves andthe owner into the bargain, votes and honor, the Bible and consciences.
Everything goes to the highest bidder.”18 His loathing for the virtues offree enterprise continued throughout his lifetime.
After leaving Louisiana, Reclus spent eighteen months in New
Granada (now Colombia), where he attempted unsuccessfully to realize
his dream of a cooperative agricultural community. His efforts were12

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

doomed by yellow fever, inadequate planning, and his partnership with
an elderly Frenchman who turned out to be untrustworthy. Reclus was
reduced to penury by this disastrous undertaking and ended up “without
the means even to buy a pair of shoes.”19 Despite the setbacks that Reclus
experienced in the Americas, his travels on both continents contributed
greatly to his development as a geographer. During his stay in Louisiana,
he traveled up the Mississippi and into Canada, making observations thatwould be invaluable for his later writings on North America.20 In addition,
his visit to New Granada formed the basis for his book Voyage to the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta.21
After six years of travel, Reclus decided to return to his home andfamily and to seek new opportunities in France. He returned with his idealism and creative energy seemingly unaffected by his adversities and witha wealth of experience that would be invaluable in his future vocation. His
strong beliefs concerning the desirability of blending races and cultures
were put into practice in his personal life when he married, in December
1858, Clarisse Brian, the daughter of a French father and a Senegalesemother. According to Paul Reclus, “there is not the slightest doubt that
Elisée’s stay in Louisiana formed in him the idea of marrying a daughter of the despised race.”22 To whatever degree this may have been his
motive, the marriage was also based on personal affinity and was a happy
one. Tragically, it ended after ten years with Clarisse’s death, shortly after
the birth of their third child, who also died soon thereafter. A year later,
Reclus married an old friend, Fanny L’Herminez, according to anarchist
principles—that is, without the intrusion of either church or state. This
alliance proved to be his closest and most cherished relationship withany woman in his life since the two shared many common values, intellectual interests, and political commitments. There was a deep spiritualaffinity between them comparable only to that which Reclus had with his
brother Elie. Although Fanny died less than four years after the marriage,
he was profoundly affected by her for the rest of his life and for many years
included her name or initials as part of his signature. He later entered intoanother “free union” with his third wife, Ermance Beaumont-Trigant. This
relationship was also a personally fulfilling one for Reclus, though it lacked
the spiritual depth he had found in his relationship with Fanny.
The testimony of Reclus’ friends and colleagues indicates that his
egalitarian and cooperative ideas were practiced admirably in his personal
life. His fundamental principles of solidarity and mutual aid were much
more than political slogans. According to his friend and fellow anarchist
geographer Peter Kropotkin, “the idea of dominating anyone at all seems
never to have crossed his mind; he hated down to the smallest signs adominating spirit.”23 This was true of his relationships not only with his

The Anarchist Geographer

13

wives but also with other members of his family and his broad circle offriends. He was widely praised for his great humility and his reluctance topresent himself as a “leader” or “expert.” While he became well known asboth a scientist and a political writer and activist, he vehemently rejected
the idea of having followers or of placing himself in a position of superiority. As he once wrote to a young woman who was a would-be disciple:“For shame. . . . Is it right for some to be subordinated to others? I do notcall myself ‘your disciple.’”24 There are numerous stories of his interactions with others on terms of complete equality and of his unassuming
participation in the more menial aspects of political work. Jean Gravenotes that Reclus “was able to listen to objections from whatever source
they came, and to answer them without any pride and without the sharp
tone of one who issues decrees, and admits of no discussion.”25 His spiritof nondomination extended beyond human beings to all other creatures
and, indeed, to nature as a whole. He could not bear the idea of mistreating any sentient being, and he practiced vegetarianism for most of his life,on ethical grounds.
During the 1860s, Reclus published many geographical essays in the
Revue des deux mondes and other journals, and he completed the first of
his three great geographical projects. The Earth is an extensive fifteenhundred-page work in two volumes, published in 1868 and 1869.26 This
impressive study of the physical geography of the earth established Reclus
rather early in his lifetime as an important figure in his field. In 1869, hepublished The Story of a Brook, a popular work that became a classic ofnature writing for young people.27 It was later followed by a companion
work, The Story of a Mountain.28 Another of Reclus’ activities in this period
was his work in the cooperative movement, largely in support of Elie’s
initiatives. The two brothers were responsible for the publication of thecooperativist journal L’Association and the creation of a mutual bank, La
Société du Crédit au Travail. The journal’s difficulty in finding a public andthe collapse of the bank contributed to Reclus’ increasing disillusionment
with the cooperative movement.
For Reclus and his circle, the early 1870s were dominated by theevents of the Paris Commune and its aftermath. Since he was over forty
years of age at the time, he was exempt from military service during theFranco-Prussian War. Nevertheless, he volunteered for the National Guard,
believing that it was necessary to defend the Republic against reactionary
enemies. He served in the balloonist company of his friend Félix Nadar,
but he did not see military action until after the Commune was declared.
During the brief life of the revolutionary regime, he actively participatedin both its politics and the defense of the city. As Paris fell, his column of
the National Guard was captured by the Versailles troops. During the next

14

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

eleven months, he spent time in fourteen different prisons and was triedand sentenced to deportation to New Caledonia.
Despite his refusal to submit to the new regime, and largely because of
his prestige as a scientist and intellectual, his friends and supporters succeeded in having his sentence reduced to ten years in exile. As a result, he
was allowed to immigrate to Switzerland. Ironically, this exile at the handsof a reactionary regime contributed powerfully to his development as aradical political theorist and a force within the European anarchist movement, for in Switzerland he began his association with the anarchists of theJura Federation and developed close ties with the major anarchist theorists
Bakunin and Kropotkin. After some initial differences in outlook, Bakunin
and Reclus became close collaborators in the First International and in
the anarchist movement (including Bakunin’s International Brotherhood).
Bakunin once said of the Reclus brothers that he had never known any
persons more “modest, noble, disinterested, pure, and religiously devoted
to their principles.”29 These principles were close enough to Bakunin’s own
that the three remained strong political allies until Bakunin’s death. Elisée
delivered a eulogy to the great revolutionary at his funeral in Berne in 1876.
It was also in Switzerland that Reclus began his greatest geographical work, the New Universal Geography.30 This monumental achievement
appeared in nineteen large volumes between 1876 and 1894. The reader is
struck not only by the quality of the writing, which, according to Patrick
Geddes, “raised anew geography into literature,”31 but also by the expansive scope of this seventeen-thousand-page work, the exhaustivenessof its details, and the magnificence of its illustrations. Geographer Gary
Dunbar, in his biography of Reclus, concludes that “for a generation” thiswork “was to serve as the ultimate geographical authority” and that itconstituted “probably the greatest individual writing feat in the history ofgeography.”32 Reclus remained in Switzerland until 1890, heavily occupied
with his extensive scholarship and political activities, and then finally
returned to France after almost two decades of exile.
In 1894, he began a new phase of his career when he accepted aninvitation to become a professor at the New University in Brussels. Reclus
had originally been invited to teach at the Free University of Brussels, but
because of increasing public reaction against anarchist “propaganda by thedeed,” he was judged too controversial, and the invitation was withdrawn.
This chain of events produced considerable dissension within the Free
University and contributed to the decision to found the New University.33
Despite the rather dissident character of this institution, Reclus had somereservations about entering even the remotest corner of the academic
world, having remained an independent scholar, following his own political and intellectual path, until quite late in life. He wrote that although theThe Anarchist Geographer

15“noble war cry” of the New University was “Let Us Make Men!” he fearedthat “to a certain degree it would also contribute to making exploiters.”34
Despite these misgivings, he finally accepted the challenge with enthusiasm and was a great success, achieving renown as a teacher and winningthe enduring admiration of many students.
At the conclusion of the New Universal Geography, Reclus commentsthat from “the myriad facts” of that vast work he would like to “extract
a general idea, and thus, in a small volume written at leisure, justify thelong series of books now ended without apparent conclusion.”35 The“small volume” turned out to be Reclus’ final major work, the six-volume,
thirty-five-hundred-page Man and the Earth.36 This impressive undertaking constitutes a grand synthesis of Reclus’ ideas on geography, history,
philosophy, science, politics, religion, anthropology, and many other fields.
While the work reinforced his reputation as a major figure in the historyof geography, it also expanded social geography beyond the conventional
limits of the geographical into a comprehensive worldview. Since his publisher had compelled Reclus to avoid in the New Universal Geography any
lengthy “digressions” on social and political topics, he reserved many ofhis most important theoretical reflections for this final work.37 It is thus
both the culmination of his life’s work as a social geographer and the mostdeveloped expression of his anarchist social philosophy.
Reclus was admirably consistent in integrating his libertarian andcommunitarian ideals into his personal life, his political activism, and his
scholarly work. His enduring love of life, of other human beings, and oftruth is expressed eloquently in a letter written March 25, 1905, only a few
months before his death. At the age of seventy-five, though ill and growing
increasingly weaker, he could still write of “two powerful attractions” thatgave him the will to live. The first consisted of “affection, tenderness, thejoy of loving, the happiness of having friends and of making them feelthat one loves them, that one asks nothing of them but to let themselves
be loved, and that every token of affection is a delight freely given.” Thesecond, he says, is “the study of history, the joy of seeing the interconnection of things. There is doubtless a strong element of imagination in thisstudy, and deceptive Maya also leads us down many false paths. But it isanother great joy to recognize one’s errors.”38
Reclus died in the countryside at Thourout near Brussels on July 4,1905. It is reported that his last days were made particularly happy by newsof the popular revolution in Russia. He expired shortly after hearing of therevolt of the sailors on the battleship Potemkin.

3

The Dialectic of Nature
and Culture
It is likely that Reclus’ most enduring intellectual legacy will be his contribution to the development of the modern ecological worldview and hisrole in the creation of radical ecological social thought.1 More specifically,
he is important for introducing a strongly ecological dimension into the
tradition of anarchist and libertarian social theory. This tradition, like
Western thought in general, has been marked by humanity’s alienationfrom the natural world and its quest to dominate nature. Yet it has been,on the whole, more successful than most others in uncovering the roots ofthis alienation, looking beyond the project of planetary domination, andattempting to restore humanity to its rightful place within, rather thanabove, nature. Reclus made a powerful contribution to introducing thismore ecological perspective into anarchist thought.
It is noteworthy that social geography had an impact on anarchist
theory at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentiethcentury, just as social ecology has had a certain influence on anarchist
thought in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.2 While
this historical parallel is occasionally noted, the connection is usually
made through reference to Kropotkin as a forerunner of ecological anarchism. Few commentators have understood that Reclus, much more than
Kropotkin, introduced into anarchist theory themes that were later developed in social ecology and eco-anarchism. Indeed, Reclus explored thesesocial ecological issues with considerable theoretical sophistication—
more than a century ago.3
Béatrice Giblin, in her article “Reclus: An Ecologist ahead of His
Time?” contends that Reclus “had a global ecological sensibility that diedwith him for almost a full half-century.”4 This sweeping generalization isin some ways even an understatement of the case. The kind of ecologicalperspective that Reclus developed, especially in his great culminating

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

17

work, Man and the Earth, effectively disappeared from mainstream social
thought early in the century and did not reemerge significantly until wellinto the 1970s, in response to growing public awareness of the ecologicalcrisis. In the meantime, ecological thinking remained an undercurrent ofanarchist and utopian thought and practice, as, for example, in the work ofsuch communitarian groups as the School of Living of Ralph Borsodi and
Mildred Loomis.5 However, it did not become a central theme in anarchist
and utopian theoretical discussion until the ideas of Paul Goodman andMurray Bookchin began to have a noticeable influence in the late 1960s.6
It has been noted that Reclus begins the first volume of his magnum
opus of social theory with the epigraph “Man is nature becoming selfconscious.”7 This concept—literally, that humanity is “nature taking
consciousness of itself”—captures the essence of Reclus’ message: thathumanity must come to understand its identity as the self-consciousnessof the earth and that it must complete the process of developing thisconsciousness in history. In effect, he proposes a theoretical project ofunderstanding more fully our place in nature and of unmasking the ideologies that distort it, and a corresponding ethical project of assuming,
through a transformed social practice, the far-reaching moral responsibilities implied by that crucial position. On the basis of this approach, heseeks to explain the development of human society in dialectical interaction with the rest of the natural world, and he expounds a theory of social
progress in which human self-realization and the flourishing of the planet
as a whole can finally be reconciled with one another.
Reclus always had a strong sense of humanity’s intimate connectedness to the natural world. Even in his early work, he eloquently describes
humanity’s character as an expression of the earth’s creativity and our
kinship with all of life. “We are,” he says, “the children of the ‘beneficent
mother,’ like the trees of the forest and the reeds of the rivers. She it isfrom whom we derive our substance; she nourishes us with her mother’smilk, she furnishes air to our lungs, and, in fact, supplies us with that
wherein we live and move and have our being.”8 Throughout his works, heremains true to this integral, holistic vision of humanity-in-nature. While
his studies became increasingly scientific, technical, and minutely detailed,
he never abandoned the aesthetic, poetic, and even spiritual aspects of his
attitude toward nature but rather synthesized these dimensions in his farranging, integrative perspective. Such a fusion of forms of rationality andimagination that have so often been opposed to one another in Western
thinking is one of the most noteworthy dimensions of Reclus’ thought.9
Similarly, Reclus seeks to integrate a theoretical and scientific understanding of nature with an awareness of the practical implications of suchan understanding. His social geography is a thoroughly political geography,

18

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

constantly exploring the question of what one might call “the politics ofself-conscious nature.” Yves Lacoste, the contemporary French geographer
who has perhaps done most to revive interest in Reclus, contends thatwhile Reclus was “the greatest French geographer,” he has been “completely misunderstood” because of the “central epistemological problemof academic geography: the exclusion of the political.”10 Lacoste finds it
ironic that recent discussions of social geography systematically “forget”
Reclus’ massive six-volume work in which social geography is the “mainthread.”11 The situation parallels in some ways the reception of social
ecology and radical political ecology today. Such perspectives are sometimes granted validity to the extent that they point out that “all things areconnected,” including ecological and social realities, but they often losecredibility when they begin to explore the nature of that connection—anddare to find the roots of ecological crisis in the existence of the centralized
nation-state and the corporate capitalist economy.
Such parallels should not be surprising, for the connections between
Reclus’ social geography and social ecology in particular are in many ways
quite striking. To the extent that social ecology remains radically dialectical, one of its fundamental interpretive principles is the concept that every
phenomenon incorporates within itself the history of that phenomenon.
Reclus uses much the same concept to guide his social geography when
he observes that “present-day society contains within itself all past societies.”12 He also applies it to human nature, expressing a variation on theidea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. In his formulation, “man recollects in his structure everything that his ancestors lived through during
the vast expanse of ages. He indeed epitomizes in himself all that preceded
him in existence, just as, in his embryonic life, he presents successively
various forms of organization that are more simple than his own.”13
There is thus for Reclus a continuity of development in both naturaland social phenomena, in which the earlier stages are preserved in thelater ones. This does not, however, imply any sort of strict deterministic
outlook. Rather, our knowledge of continuities and determinants is seen
as contributing to the increased freedom that results from an accurate
understanding of the nature of things. Interestingly, Reclus does not hesitate to recognize similarities between “monarchy” in human society and“monarchy” within animal species, as in the case of some primates species
with groups having dominant individuals, or, as he depicts them, “recognized chiefs.”14 Bookchin, on the other hand, completely rejects any such
attributions on the ground that many essential features of human hierarchies do not exist in the animal communities that are described as hierarchical. He seems to fear that the use of such terminology might imply
that human institutions are biologically based and therefore not subject

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

19

to social transformation. Reclus would certainly recognize the significant
differences between human and primate hierarchies, yet he sees the use ofsuch terminology as no threat to his anarchist principles or his hopes forhumanity. In his analysis, such language draws attention to a certain continuity between phenomena in the human and natural worlds. Yet from thehistory of humanity one can learn that social hierarchies are contingent,historically developed institutions that may be rejected if human beings
choose to organize their communities in other ways.
Although Reclus believes we can learn much about existing social
phenomena through the study of the evolution of all forms of life, his
primary focus is on discovering the nature of these phenomena throughthe examination of their evolution over the history of human society inparticular. Such an analysis will guide us in understanding both the structure of and the contradictions within present-day societies. In his analysisof these societies, he discovers that each of them “is composed of superimposed classes, representing in this century all successive previous centuries with their corresponding intellectual and moral cultures,” and thatwhen they are “seen in close juxtaposition, their vastly differing conditionsof life present a striking contrast.”15 Through the investigation of theseclasses, Reclus seeks to uncover certain fissures in the social structurethat are usually concealed by the dominant integrative ideologies. It canthus be shown how the hidden legacy of social domination reveals itself
in contemporary social conflicts.
For Reclus, it is necessary to develop a critical consciousness of pasthistorical development if we are ever to transcend the legacy of domination. Such an awareness is a precondition for the conscious creation of afuture collective history, a process conceptualized by Reclus as humanity’s
attempt “to realize itself through one form that encompasses all ages.”16
As the species comes to see itself as part of a historical and geographicalwhole, it attains both self-consciousness and a corresponding freedom.
We gain the ability “to free ourselves from the strict line of development
determined by the environment that we inhabit and by the specific lineageof our race. Before us lies the infinite network of parallel, diverging, andintersecting roads that other segments of humanity have followed.”17 It
is thus by comprehending the great diversity of human experience thathumanity can achieve a unifying vision of its own history.
Just as in society unity is achieved through a recognition of diversity, in nature a unifying harmony is attained through diverse and often
discordant elements. Although the ecological perspective has often been
identified with a rather one-sided emphasis on harmony, balance, andorder, recent discussions in ecological theory have challenged the dominant (ecosystemic, “balance of nature”) model. Indeed, some theorists,

20

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

inspired by postmodernist thought, have embraced the opposite extreme,
seeing only disorder and chaos in nature. Reclus long ago supported amore judicious and theoretically balanced dialectical view that avoids
the extremes of overemphasizing either order or chaos.18 There is indeed,according to Reclus, a harmony and balance in nature, but it is one that
operates through a tendency toward discord and imbalance. He notesthat “as plants or animals, including humans, leave their native habitatand intrude on another environment, the harmony of nature is temporarily disturbed”; however, these introduced types either die out or adapt to
the new conditions, making a contribution to nature as they “add to thewonderful harmony of the earth, and of all that springs up and grows upon
its surface.”19 Thus, to the extent that there is a “balance of nature” it is
not a simple balance of elements but rather a complex balance of orderand disorder.
Reclus’ deeply holistic account of natural processes often prefigurescontemporary ecological analyses. An example is his discussion of thefunction of forests in global ecological health. He laments the reckless anddestructive actions of the “pioneers” of both North and South America,
who burned huge expanses of ancient forest in order to establish agriculture, “at the same time burning the animals, blackening the sky withsmoke, and casting to the wind ashes that scatter over hundreds of kilometers.”20 He notes that while this action was shortsighted even from anarrowly economic point of view, the great loss is that the forests havebeen prevented from playing “their part in the general hygiene of the earth
and its species,” which is “an essential role.”21 Reclus sounds strikingly
contemporary in proposing a health model of ecological soundness inwhich human health is linked to the health of ecosystems. Using strongly
organicist imagery, he suggests that the earth “ought to be cared for likea great body, in which the breathing carried out by means of the forests
regulates itself according to a scientific method; it has its lungs which
ought to be respected by humans, since their own hygiene depends onthem.”22 He also incorporates the aesthetic dimension in his holistic viewof nature when he describes the earth as “rhythm and beauty expressedin a harmonious whole.”23 His discussion is strongly reminiscent of Aldo
Leopold’s land ethic, which stresses concern for “the health of the land,”in the sense of “the capacity of the land for self-renewal,” and famously
defines “rightness” in terms of what “tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.”24
Recent ecological thought has devoted a great deal of attention to the
problem of anthropocentrism, a view that places human beings in a hierarchical position over all other beings and reduces all value in “external
nature” to a merely instrumental one in relation to human ends. Reclus may

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

21

sometimes sound rather anthropocentric, particularly when he focuses on
the various “conquests” involved in human progress. However, his social
geography actually constitutes a great step in the direction of incorporating humanity fully into the life and history of the planet. What is striking
about his viewpoint is the degree to which he was able to transcend manyof the dominant ideas of his century in shifting from an entirely humancentered to a more earth-centered perspective. The comments of an earlycommentator, Edward Rothen, in a memorial tribute, indicate the extent
to which Reclus’ approach could seem even in his own day to constitute a
break with the dominant human-centered ideology. According to Rothen,Reclus “completely rejected that anthropomorphism which made man, theimage of God, the sovereign of a world created only for the satisfactionof his needs and his whims.”25 Reclus “thought it stupid to deny a soul
to animals, to plants and to all that is still termed ‘insensible matter,’ asif such matter could be found anywhere in the universe.”26 His view constitutes, according to Rothen, an “infinite pantheism” that “perceives animmense solidarity between all that lives.”27 Considering his recognitionof the continuity and underlying unity of all being, and the awe with which
he contemplated nature, this certainly captures an important dimensionof Reclus’ outlook. Reclus did not choose to use the term “pantheism” torefer to his worldview. Nevertheless, one finds in his works such passages
as the following, from his chapter on “Bathing” in his History of a River:“It seems that I have become part of the surrounding milieu; I feel as if I
am one with the floating aquatic plants, one with the sand swept along
the bottom, one with the current that sways my body.”28 The sensibility
expressed here is certainly close to what is sometimes called “nature
mysticism” or “pantheism.”
What is clear is that Reclus wished to situate humanity within thecontext of a larger reality of which it is a part. Far from being anthropocentric, Reclus’ view of humanity’s place in nature is dialectical, criticallyholistic, and developmental. In a sense, it might be called an “emergence”
theory, if it is understood that for him humanity is emerging within nature
rather than out of it. His analysis in some ways parallels the division of
the natural world made by Bookchin and various other social and political ecologists who adopt the ancient distinction between a “first nature”
and a “second nature,” corresponding more or less to the natural world
and the social world, both of which are seen as developing dimensions ofa larger “nature.”29
Reclus also delineates such realms of being in nature, but his analysis
is a bit more complex than these. There is, on the one hand, that sphereof nature that can exist independently of humanity, and that had, indeed,existed for eons before nature began to “become conscious of itself”

22

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

through the development of humanity. As humanity emerges, it remains
in intimate interrelationship with an external sphere of nature, and thecomplex relationships of interdependence between the two realms takeon an increasingly planetary dimension. Reclus calls the realm of natural
being that has arisen and related itself to the rest of nature “the humansocial milieu.”
However, the social world does not constitute for Reclus merely a“second nature,” for it is itself dual and thus might be said to encompass
both a “second” and a “third nature.” He calls the former “the static milieu”
or “the natural conditions of life,” while he labels the latter “the dynamic
milieu” or “the artificial sphere of existence.” The first sphere, even though
it is shaped by human culture, constitutes our most immediate embeddedness in nature and thus has a certain degree of natural necessity. The
second sphere is much more subject to human direction and is therefore
more a realm of social contingency. For Reclus, there is “a quite marked
distinction between the facts of nature, which are impossible to avoid,and those which belong to an artificial world, and which one can flee or
perhaps even completely ignore. The soil, the climate, the type of laborand diet, relations of kinship and marriage, the mode of grouping together,
these are the primordial facts that play a part in the history of each man,as well as of each animal. However, wages, ownership, commerce, andthe limits of the state are secondary facts.”30 In defense of the contingent nature of the institutions he associates with “secondary facts,” heobserves that many earlier societies managed to exist without them. He
argues for the theoretical priority of the “static milieu,” since it has always
existed and has often had a determining force in social affairs. Although
he admits that “quite often in the case of individuals the artificial sphereof existence prevails over the natural conditions of life,” he thinks that “itis necessary to study the static milieu first and then to inquire into the
dynamic milieu.”31
The subtle relationship between the two spheres is, however, dialectical. For Reclus, this means that the influence of nature and of the “static
milieu” is much greater than historians and social theorists have recognized. In the development of society over history “nothing is lost,” because“the ancient causes, however attenuated, still act in a secondary manner,and the researcher can discover them in the hidden currents of the contemporary movement of society.”32 While superimposed political and economic factors are often given primary recognition as social causes, “thissecond dynamic milieu, added to the primitive static milieu, constitutes awhole of influences within which it is difficult, and often even impossible,
to determine the preponderance of forces. This is all the more true because
the relative importance of primary and secondary forces, whether purely

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture23

geographical or already historical, varies according to peoples and ages.”33
Once again, a phenomenon—including even the social whole—can only
be understood as the cumulative product of its entire history. Indeed,humanity itself, “with all its characteristics of stature, proportion, traits,
and cerebral capacity,” is “the product of previous milieux multiplying
themselves to infinity” since the origins of the species.34
In short, we reflect the earth and the regions of the planet in which
we arose and developed. In Reclus’ words, “The history of the development of mankind has been written beforehand in sublime lettering on theplains, valleys, and coasts of our continents.”35 While bioregionalism has
only recently reintroduced this concept and brought it to the center of ecological thought, Reclus long ago developed the theme that human beings
are, at the most fundamental level, regional creatures.36 The relationshipbetween humanity and the earth and its regions is a dialectical one, resulting from mutual interaction, as the earth expresses itself through humanity,
and as humanity acts upon the earth. For Reclus this interaction includes
not only harmonious interaction but also humanity’s struggle with therest of the natural world. It is important to recognize that “the accordance
which exists between the globe and its inhabitants” cannot be described
adequately through a one-sided focus on terms like “harmony,” “balance,”
and “oneness” that stress the existence of order since that very order“proceeds from conflict as much as from concord.”37 Once again we find in
the world a dialectic between order and chaos, in this case in the humanrelationship to nature.
Reclus is especially interested in analyzing the side of the interrelationship between humanity and nature that has been neglected by muchof social thought throughout the modern period: the conditioning of the“social” by the “natural.” His position on this subject should not be confused with the tradition that begins with Montesquieu’s famous reflections on the influence of climate on society.38 In such discussions, theappeal to natural influences becomes little more than an attempt to givean “objective” basis to the writer’s social and cultural prejudices, so thatcharacteristics attributed to various peoples become essential qualities
dictating strict limits for possible social change. This tradition culminatesin such theories as Huntington’s “human geography,” in which the appeal
to nature becomes the ideological justification for white supremacy andEuropean hegemony.39
Reclus’ analysis should be distinguished from such views not only on
the basis of his differing value commitments but also by his radically different methodology. In stressing the dialectical relationship between natureand culture, he focuses on the interaction between many natural andsocial factors in shaping human society, on the inevitability of change and24

Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

transformation, and on the open-ended character of human and natural
history. Far from attributing inherent, immutable qualities to peoples andcultures, he hopes that by understanding the determinants of the socialworld, all peoples can ultimately transform themselves into active, conscious agents in shaping their own liberation and self-realization, andthat of the entire planet. His radically libertarian analysis illustrates thefact that the investigation of the influence of the natural world on cultural
practices and social institutions does not necessarily have reactionary,authoritarian, or racist implications.
An example of Reclus’ analysis of the influence of natural geography
on social institutions is his treatment of the history of ancient religions.
He hypothesizes that the monotheism of the ancient Near East reflects theaustere character of that region’s terrain. He remarks that one might generalize “that throughout the Semitic countries the splendid uniformity of
tranquil spaces, illuminated by a violent sunlight, must have contributed
mightily to giving a noble and serious turn to the concepts of the inhabitants. They learned to see things simply, without searching for great complications.”40 He contrasts this unifying vision to the unity-in-diversity
expressed in Indian religion and suggests that the latter corresponds to thenatural features of India. Near Eastern mythology “bore no resemblance
to the chaos of divine forces leaping out of nature in infinite variation that
one finds in India, with its high mountains, great rivers, immense forests,
and climate whipped into rages by the abundant rains and the fury ofstorms.”41 Reclus notes that the “Hindu spirit” also perceived an underlying order and unity but that it naturally expressed this “single force” in“an infinite variety” of manifestations.42
Reclus also discusses the dialectic between nature and humanity,
geography and society, in his discussion of the development of early Greek
society. He notes that Greece consists of many basins or watersheds (touse bioregional terminology) divided from one another by rocky or mountainous terrain, and that “the features of the ground thus favored thedivision of the Greek people into a multitude of independent republics.”43
On the other hand, the ubiquity of the sea, with the long coastline, many
inlets, and surrounding islands, exerted a unifying force. The sea “acts asa binding element” and has “made the maritime inhabitants of Greece anation of sailors—amphibiae, as Strabo called them.”44 There is thus a
dialectic both between the unifying and diversifying natural factors, andalso between these natural factors and the social ones.
Reclus does not, it should be stressed, attempt to reduce the complexity of social phenomena, whether in ancient societies or any others,
to a mere reflection of geographical qualities. Indeed, he often puts greatemphasis on the significance of the economic, the technical, and other

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

25“material” determinants, not to mention the political and cultural ones, inshaping all aspects of society. Reclus lived in an age in which social analysis tended toward either an idealism in which material determinants wereignored or a materialism in which economic and technological determinants were attributed almost exclusive importance. In this context (which
encompassed not only mainstream ideological thought but also most ofradical social theory, in both its Marxist and anarchist varieties), Reclus
wished to rectify the general neglect of the influence of the natural world
on human history. His thought is therefore noteworthy for the degree towhich it draws attention to natural and geographical factors that havebeen of historical importance in shaping human societies and that still
exercise an influence both immediately and through the sedimentation of
their effects within inherited social institutions.
Nature thus shapes humanity at the same time that humanity reshapes
the natural world. While modern civilization has devoted much attention
to the latter side of this dialectic, the power of humanity to transformnature, it has failed, however, to recognize the moral significance of nature
as a dynamic realm of meaning, value and creativity. With this moral
failing in mind, Reclus therefore launches a scathing critique of humanity’s abuse of the earth. In “The Feeling for Nature” he writes of the “secretharmony” that exists between the earth and humanity, warning that when“reckless societies allow themselves to meddle with that which creates thebeauty of their domain, they always end up regretting it.”45 He warns thatwhen humanity degrades the natural world, it degrades itself. His analysis of this phenomenon is reminiscent of the view of Thomas Berry, whoargues that the diversity and complexity of the human mind reflects therichness and complexity of the earth and its regions, so that in damaging
the earth we harm ourselves not only physically but in our “intellectual
understanding, aesthetic expression, and spiritual development.”46 Reclus
states that “where the land has been defaced, where all poetry has disappeared from the countryside, the imagination is extinguished, the mind
becomes impoverished, and routine and servility seize the soul, inclining
it toward torpor and death.”47 Of course, Reclus does not neglect the more
obvious material damage to human society caused by ecological degradation. He notes that “the brutal violence with which most nations havetreated the nourishing earth” has been “foremost among the causes thathave vanquished so many successive civilizations.”48
Reclus believes that despite such abuses of the past there are many
ways in which humanity can pursue its own good while achieving an
ecologically sound and ethically grounded relationship with the natural
world. One means of achieving this goal is to grasp the close link between
the ethical and the aesthetic and apply this understanding to our social

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practice. He believes that whether or not we carry out our ethical obligations to the natural world will have much to do with our aesthetic appreciation of it. An ugly, degraded world will not be fulfilling to human beings,
while a beautiful one will contribute to our own satisfaction and selfrealization. One of his most eloquent statements of the connections among
the human good, human ethical choice, and the beauty of nature is foundin his History of a Mountain. He says thatevery people gives, so to speak, new clothing to the surrounding nature.
By means of its fields and roads, by its dwellings and every mannerof construction, by the way it arranges the trees and the landscapein general, the populace expresses the character of its own ideals. If
it really has a feeling for beauty, it will make nature more beautiful.
If, on the other hand, the great mass of humanity should remain as
it is today, crude, egoistic and inauthentic, it will continue to markthe face of the earth with its wretched traces. Thus will the poet’s cryof desperation become a reality: “Where can I flee? Nature itself has
become hideous.”49

Nevertheless, human transformative activities need not have suchnegative effects. Doing what is right from an ethical perspective can be
identical with the creation and preservation of the beauty and integrityof the natural world. We can, Reclus says, find beauty in “the intimate
and deeply seated harmony that exists between our own work and that ofnature.”50 Thus, as we contribute to the flourishing of the natural world we
make our own lives richer and more fulfilling. It is quite possible to “assist
the soil instead of inveterately forcing it,” and to achieve “the beautification as well as the improvement of his domain,” by giving “an additional
grace and majesty to the scenery which is most charming.”51 When thisis done, human creative self-expression will be in accord with the creative self-expression of nature. We will have succeeded in “mak[ing] ourexistence as beautiful as possible, and, as best we can, adapt[ing] it to theaesthetic conditions of our environment.”52
Reclus gives a number of examples of the ways in which humanity
cooperates with the earth in producing goodness and beauty, rather thanruthlessly seeking to impose its will upon it. Although agriculture always
involves significant human transformation of the landscape, there is noneed for it to be a process of mining the soil. Reclus believes that it isquite possible for farmers to “comprehend” the land and to “humor” it bydiscovering which crops suit it best, and he contends that some forms of
traditional farming have achieved this goal. He praises the Shaker communities for their symbiotic, mutualistic practices that make agriculture a“ceremony of love” in which all aspects of nature are “cherished.”53 Writing

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

27

in the 1860s, he remarks that there are also good examples in Europe of theway in which agricultural productivity can be reconciled with the beautyof the landscape. He remarks that “a complete alliance of the beautiful
and the useful” has been attained in certain areas of England, Lombardy,
and Switzerland, places where agriculture is in fact “most advanced.”54
As other instances of such a beneficial alliance, he cites the draining ofmarshes in Flanders to produce farmland, the irrigation of the barren Crau
region, the planting of olive trees along the slopes of the Apennines andAlps, and the replacement of Irish peat bogs by diverse forests.55 In Historyof a Mountain he notes that ancient alluvial deposits near the Pyrenees
were transported by canal in order to build up and enrich the “naked
plains” of the Landes, or moors, of southwest France. He comments thatin such undertakings one “certainly” must see “considerable progress.”56
Reclus makes a strong case that such undertakings have increased
natural beauty of certain kinds in addition to being useful for humansociety. He can thus be looked upon as a forefather of bioregional agriculture as later developed in the work of thinkers such as Wendell Berryand Bernard Charbonneau.57 However, it seems that in discussions suchas those just cited, Reclus exhibits a bias in favor of more humanizedrather than relatively wild landscapes. In general, he seems much lesssensitive to the natural beauty of the austere terrain of rugged mountains
and plains or the rich wildness of a swampland than to the appeal ofmore pastoral landscapes. Similar questions have been raised concerning
later theories that tend toward an “ecological humanism,” as, for example,
Bookchin’s version of social ecology. However, if social geography andsocial ecology seem at times to exhibit a one-sided pastoralism, this is aquality of specific versions of these theories, rather than a fundamental
limitation of either. Both theories in their strongest formulations encompass a dialectical view of the relationship between humanity and nature
and a grasp of the importance of nondomination, spontaneous development, and unity-in-diversity in the self-realization of the whole. They are
therefore in principle fully capable of recognizing the importance of bothhumanized and pastoral landscapes as well as wilder and biologicallymore diverse ecosystems.58
Throughout Reclus’ works, there is a tension between his expressionof an emerging holistic, ecological perspective and his retention of certain
aspects of the dualistic, human-centered outlook that was so common in
his age. In an early work, he exhibits the latter tendency rather strongly
when he remarks favorably that science is “gradually converting the globe
into one great organism always at work for the benefit of mankind.”59 Thisrather extravagant conception of the earth’s processes as a vast conspiracy
to benefit our species is far from Reclus’ later, more dialectical analysis.

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There, humanity is integrated into the planetary whole as the consciousness of the earth, and the healthy functioning of the earth’s metabolism isseen to benefit humanity as one part of that flourishing whole. The ideathat science might control the entire earth in any way vastly exaggerates
the power of technological processes. Reclus claims that these processes
have the capacity to make the earth into “that pleasant garden which has
been dreamed of by poets in all ages.”60 Such an image of the earth errs
through an overemphasis on stasis, neglecting the element of dialecticaltension that must always characterize human confrontation with the otherness of nature. This imagery tends to legitimate the destruction of theecologically necessary wildness and freedom of the natural world, and toidealize a domesticated, highly humanized natural world that is far frombeing an authentically ecological conception. Fortunately, such tendencies
became more muted in Reclus’ later works, though they do not disappear
entirely.61
It should be recognized that Reclus was from the outset a forceful
critic of various assaults on nature that were accepted with complacency
by his contemporaries. He judges that in civilization’s dealings with nature,“everything has been mismanaged,” so that what is left is “a pseudo-nature
spoilt by a thousand details—ugly constructions, trees lopped and twisted,footpaths brutally cut through woods and forests.”62 He judges that in viewof humanity’s ravaging of the natural world, it will be necessary to undertake an extensive process of ecological restoration, a topic that has only
recently gained widespread attention in ecological thought with the riseof conservation biology. Reclus states that “a reckless system has defaced[nature’s] beauty,” and it will therefore be necessary for “man” to “endeavor
to restore it” and to “repair the injuries committed by his predecessors.”63
Reclus sees the project of moving from an exploitative relationship tonature to an ecologically sound one as having both subjective, ideological as well as objective, institutional aspects. He points out that humaninteraction with nature has not been guided by “a sentiment of respect
and feeling” for nature but rather by “purely industrial or mercantile interests.”64 For a fundamental change to take place in humanity’s relationship to nature, a revolution in values must certainly take place. But theideological transformation that will result in the triumph of “respect andfeeling” can only succeed if there is a complementary process of socialtransformation, a change that would overturn the dominance of those“industrial or mercantile interests.” According to Reclus, a “complete
union of Man with Nature can only be effected by the destruction of theboundaries between castes as well as between peoples.”65 This implies for
Reclus (as will be discussed in chapter 6) the destruction of the system of
economic inequality and exploitation embodied in capitalism, the system

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture29

of political domination inherent in the modern state, the system of sexualhierarchy rooted in the patriarchal family, and the system of ethnic oppression rooted in racial hierarchies. In short, the domination of nature willcontinue as long as humanity remains under the sway of a vast system ofsocial domination.
In his analysis of the effects on nature of such an exploitative society,
Reclus showed a level of awareness of the dangers posed by the destruction of biodiversity and by ecological disruption that was unusual for histime. In The Earth, he presents examples of the extinction of species causedby human “destruction,” “slaughter,” and “butchery,” concluding thathuman activity has caused a “rupture in the harmony primitively existingin the flora of our globe.”66 Long before wilderness preservation became anorganized movement with the establishment of the Wilderness Society in
1936, and indeed even before the establishment of the first national park in
the United States in 1872, Reclus was in the 1860s warning of the dangers
to ancient forest ecosystems in North America. He laments the destructionof “colossal” and “noble” trees such as the sequoias of the West Coast, a
process that has resulted in “perhaps an irreparable loss” in view of the“hundreds and thousands of years” that will be necessary for the forest’s
regeneration.67 In History of a Mountain he attacks the clear-cutting offorests and asks whether one “is not tempted to curse” those who carry out
such logging practices.68 He also discusses the damage produced throughthe introduction into ecosystems (whether by intention or negligence) of
exotic plants and animals, without consideration of their effects on ecological interrelationships. Here again, he focuses on a major ecologicalproblem that has only recently gained widespread attention among thoseconcerned with environmental issues. Reclus cites the poignant commentby the Maori of New Zealand that “the white man’s rat drives away ourrat, his fly drives away our fly, his clover kills our ferns, and the white man
will end by destroying the Maori.”69
On the other hand, Reclus’ discussions of demography and population growth seem to show less than adequate ecological insight, at leastfrom today’s perspective. It was his opinion that the human population of
1.5 billion in his time was not only easily supportable but even “still veryminimal, relative to the habitable surface of the earth.”70 He did not seriously consider the possible impact on the biosphere if the human population were to double several times over the next century. At one point, heminimizes the significance of increases in human population by notingthat if each person were given a square meter of space, everyone could fit
into the area of greater London. Such a fact is, of course, entirely irrelevantfrom the standpoint of social geography. We could stand several persons ineach square meter, some even on the shoulders of others, without learning

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very much about the interaction between human communities and theearth.71
Fortunately, his discussion of population is often much more nuanced
than this, though still tinged with progressivist optimism. He is well awareof the fact that there is no optimal human population that can be calculated by means of arithmetic and plane geometry, or even discovered
through more complex natural and social sciences. In this recognition,
he was already far ahead of some contemporary advocates of simplistic
conceptions of “carrying capacity.”72 He notes that if the world consistedof a population of hunters, the earth could perhaps support a populationof only 500 million, or one-third the actual population at the time he waswriting. He cites various estimates of the possible sustainable human population and comments favorably on Ravenstein’s view that a populationof six billion is a possible limit.73 Nevertheless he expresses skepticism
about all such estimates since there are numerous variables that cannot be
predicted with any certainty. As an example he cites changes in methodsof production, most notably in the area of agriculture. In his view, suchchanges would probably allow a much greater human population to besupported. He believes that when farming attains “the intensive character
that science dictates,” the population will increase at “a completely unforeseen rate” and that “the expanse of good land, which is presently quite
limited, cannot fail to grow rapidly, whether through irrigation, drainage,
or the mixing of soils.”74 Reclus did not consider the possibility that if
vastly increased social and ecological costs of increased technologicaldevelopment led to a slowing of growth in productivity, the per capita
supply of arable land dwindled with population growth, and ecologicaldegradation caused the quality of the soil to deteriorate, exactly opposite
conclusions concerning population would follow. Today, the significant
slowing of population growth in much of the global South can be seen as a
response to such problems, which have been aggravated by the additionalburdens imposed by the neoliberal restructuring of the global economy.
Reclus shared with many of his progressivist contemporaries certain
pronatalist attitudes and saw a decline in birth rates in parts of Europe asa sign of decadence. He moralizes about the fact that in the more affluent
areas, natality drops drastically. He cites the examples of the départementsof l’Eure and Lot-et-Garonne, where the death rate had surpassed thebirth rate for most of the century, despite the fact that these are among the
départements “whose soils have the greatest fertility.”75 He attributes to theegoism of affluence the failure of the citizens to reproduce at a level thathe thinks appropriate, and he presents the phenomenon as an exampleof how under capitalism the pursuit of individual self-interest conflicts
with the general good. He notes that proprietors who fear the division

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

31of their land among numerous heirs find that having few offspring better
serves their self-interest, and that the same holds for functionaries withmodest incomes who want to move up in social status.76 No doubt thereis truth in his observations. But what he fails to note is that where egoism
reigns, all social phenomena (including both the desire for offspring andthe desire to limit the number of offspring) take on an egoistic coloring,and that their egoistic character in such a context says little about these
phenomena “in themselves.”
Despite his pronatalist tendencies, Reclus did not share the widespread view that an increase in population was an unmixed blessing tosociety. He says that although “growth in numbers has been, without
doubt, an element contributing to civilization, it has not been the principal
one, and that in certain cases it can be an obstacle to the development oftrue progress in personal and collective well-being, as well as to mutual
good will.”77 It is likely that he would see significant population growthmuch more as an “obstacle” today, as ecological devastation accelerates,as the accompanying social crisis intensifies, and as a rapidly increasing
human population has now surpassed the limit of six billion that even he,living in an optimistic age, considered plausible. Moreover, the conditionsof production have changed in a sense contrary to the one he hoped for:their development under conditions of capitalist hegemony shows little
promise of bestowing abundance on a rapidly expanding global population, while it threatens to destroy the biotic preconditions for supporting
existing human and nonhuman populations at an “optimal level,” if indeed
at any level at all.
An area in which Reclus was far in advance of his time, and in which
he anticipated current debate in ecophilosophy and environmental ethics,
is his effort to raise both ethical and ecological issues concerning ourtreatment of other species. His ideas are important in view of the factthat he was not only a pioneer in ecological philosophy but also an earlyadvocate of the humane treatment of animals and of ethical vegetarianism. Even today, after several decades of discussion of “animal rights” and“ecological thinking,” there are few theorists who have attempted to think
through the interrelationship between the two concerns. Yet more thana century ago, Reclus offered some highly suggestive ideas about how acomprehensive holistic outlook might encompass a serious considerationof our moral responsibilities toward other species.
Reclus observes that all social authorities, in addition to public opinion
in general, “work together to harden the character of the child” in relation
to animals used for food.78 This conditioning, he says, destroys our senseof kinship with a being that “loves as we do, feels as we do, and might also
progress under our influence, if it does not regress along with us.”79 Much

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like the utilitarian defenders of animal welfare since Bentham, he objects
to the suffering inflicted on individual animals raised for food, but froma larger perspective he also censures the injury caused to the species by
the process of domestication. The flourishing and adaptive developmentof species that takes place in the wild is halted and then reversed, as theanimal is increasingly reshaped or reengineered in conformity with its
single role as a food resource.
As has been noted, Reclus links the ethical and the aesthetic in his
analysis of our relation to the phenomena of nature. He observes that theabuse of animals that we find to be morally repugnant is also repellent toour sensibilities. In this connection, he touches on the question of intrinsic value, a concept that is central to current debates in environmental
ethics. He states that the “regression” of animals under human influence“is indeed one of the most deplorable results of our carnivorous practices,
for the animals sacrificed to man’s appetite have been systematically andmethodically made ugly, weakened, deformed, and degraded in intelligence and moral worth.”80 Such a reduction of “moral worth” mightrefer to two aspects of the moral problem: first, that human treatment ofanimals reduces them to a level at which their lives and experience seemless valuable to human beings; and second, that the “debasing” treatment to which they are subjected reduces the animals’ capacity for theattainment of their own peculiar good and for experience that has value
in itself. Reclus’ general discussion of animal issues indicates that he hasboth aspects in mind.
The importance of ethical vegetarianism for Reclus is that it“recogniz[es] the bonds of affection and kindness that link man to animals”
and “extend[s] to our brothers who have been dismissed as inferior the
feelings that have already put an end to cannibalism within the humanspecies.”81 In a letter he explains that there are spheres of moral obligation
extending out from one’s own society, to humanity as a whole, and finallyto all sentient beings:
For my part, I also include animals in my feeling of socialist solidarity.
But I also say to myself: everything comes in degrees and our primaryobligations begin immediately around us! Let us realize justice in thelargest circle in which we can possibly do so: in the civilized circle first,
then in the human circle. Every partial realization of an ideal increases
our sensitivity and delicacy and makes us more capable of realizing alarger ideal. All that we accomplish for our neighbor moves us closer
to those who are now distant from us. I am firmly confident that ourharmonic society should embrace not only humans but also all beings
that have consciousness of their lives.82

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

33

Though Reclus refers in such passages to an “extension” of our moral
sentiments, his position goes far beyond the “moral extensionism” ofcertain ethical theorists who merely apply conventional, nonecologicalethical concepts to nonhumans. Reclus instead undertakes a fundamental
rethinking of the ethical. He believes that our treatment of other species
reflects our level of awareness of our connectedness to the whole of natureand of our development of feelings that are in accord with such awareness.
In his view, our growing knowledge of animals and their behavior “willhelp us to delve more deeply into the life sciences, increase our knowledgeof the nature of things, and expand our love.”83 Elsewhere he expresses
his “fervent love of the justice that extends to all that lives, to the entire
expanse of beings,”84 and he refers to “the bond of solidarity” that unites
him not only with “those beings that I respect and love” but also with “allthat lives and suffers.”85 For Reclus, we develop morally as the scope ofour knowledge expands and as our attachment to the larger whole of life
is strengthened.
Once again, the centrality of the concept of love to Reclus’ worldview is evident. His view of human moral development is noteworthy
in relation to recent discussions of the distinction between the ethics ofabstract moral principles and the ethics of care.86 Reclus is unusual among
nineteenth-century radical social thinkers in that he focuses so strongly
on the importance of the development of moral feeling, compassion, andthe practice of love and solidarity in everyday life. In his time, much of
the radical opposition to the dominant order was fueled by a sense of
injustice and outrage at the oppression and exploitation produced by thatsystem. While this opposition certainly had an authentic ethical dimension, it also succumbed to the reactive mentality and spirit of resentmentthat Nietzsche so perceptively diagnosed in many versions of socialism,
communism, and anarchism. Reclus’ outlook achieves a remarkable synthesis between, on the one hand, the concern for justice, knowledge andrationality, and on the other hand, the need for social solidarity and thedevelopment of care and compassion. In this, he has much in common
with contemporary feminist ethicists who wish to restore the balance
between these two sets of concerns.
Reclus’ conception of love and solidarity is also relevant to issues incontemporary ecophilosophy. While various recent theorists have offered“identification” with nature as an antidote to anthropocentric attitudes andpractices, such proposals have sometimes remained on a rather idealist
level at which identification has the character of an act of will, if not that ofa leap of faith. Reclus is closer to the position of social ecology and bioregionalism on this issue, as in many other areas. For him, it is our growing
knowledge (in the sense of both savoir, understanding; and connaître, being

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acquainted with) of the earth and its human and nonhuman communities
that offers an expanded scope for identification and solidarity. As we cometo know each realm more adequately, we achieve greater identification
with our own species, identification with all the inhabitants of the planet,
and finally, as “the conscience of the earth,” identification with the living,
evolving planet itself. In this insight, Reclus anticipated some of the mostprofound dimensions of contemporary ecological thought.

4

A Philosophy of Progress

Although the myth of progress has taken on myriad forms over the ages, it
has remained powerful through much of the history of Western civilization.
Indeed, in various guises it has constituted the dominant myth of modernity. Even radical critics of existing society have had difficulty challenging
it, and the classical anarchist thinkers, including Bakunin, Kropotkin, andReclus, were no exception. Indeed, they sometimes rivaled their capitalist
and statist opponents in their confidence in the inexorable advance toward
a better future.1 When one examines Reclus’ view of history, one is struckby the strongly progressivist nature of his thought. In this, he seems tobe quintessentially modern in his thought, imagination, and sensibility.
Nevertheless, Reclus distinguishes himself among classical radical
theorists by the complex nature of his conception of progress. On themost overt level, he is a strong partisan of the concept and seeks to defend
it against those who would use it on behalf of injustice and oppression.
He recognizes that since the French Revolution the idea of progress hasoften been used as an ideological justification for elitism, class domination,
imperialism, and other evils. Reclus attempts to rescue the concept fromthose who have betrayed it in this way, but on a deeper level, he questions
the idea of progress itself. He refuses to interpret any given historicalevent, movement, institution, or tendency as being simply and unequivocally progressive. Instead, he takes a dialectical approach in which every
historical phenomenon is seen as embodying in itself many contradictory
moments. Thus, all such phenomena can be seen as having both progressive and regressive elements that require careful analysis if one is to understand their significance and assess accurately their dominant tendency.
One of the goals of Reclus’ social geography is to uncover continuities between the natural and social worlds and between natural and social
phenomena. His analysis of progress exemplifies this endeavor, for it seeks

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to show that the concept can be applied meaningfully not only to humansociety but also to the natural world. Just as in human history there arecases in which various “social types” have attained “full blossoming,” soin nature there are examples of genera and species that “have reachedsuch ideals of strength, rhythm, or beauty that nothing superior to themcan be imagined.” Thus “each form, epitomizing in itself all of the lawsof the universe that converge to determine it, is an equally marvelous
consequence of this process.”2 Reclus’ analysis echoes such philosophicalthemes as Aristotle’s concept of telos (according to which beings have ends
toward which they aim and that, if attained, constitute the full realizationof their highest potentialities); Aristotle’s more specific idea of the aretai,or excellences, which define such elements of self-realization for humanbeings; and the Daoist concept of de, which refers to the power of beings
to realize their unique and incomparable goods. Even more striking is thesimilarity between Reclus’ thinking and concepts of recent ecophilosophers who focus on the importance of the fact that beings in nature havethe capacity to attain their peculiar goods and that each has the possibilityof developing into a “good of its kind.” He sees such development towarda good as a key concept for understanding both nature and human society.
When Reclus looks at the vast scope of human history, he sees certain
slowly developing but pervasive changes in society that are moving it
toward a future in which it realizes its own good—that is, the attainmentof freedom and justice in its institutions and practices. Although he argues
for the need for periodical violent revolutions, he interprets such cataclysmic events as but the culmination of gradual changes that take place overlong periods of time. Progress is thus the result of interdependent revolutionary and evolutionary processes. He offers as evidence of evolutionary change the slow decline in belief in certain scientific absurdities andreligious superstitions, and the waning power of traditional hierarchicaland deferential attitudes. He believes that contrary to some versions ofhistorical materialism, changes in consciousness can precede and indeed
give rise to fundamental changes in what is incorrectly seen as the “material base” of society. It is in part for this reason that he hopes “the great
evolution now taking place” can prepare the way for “the long expected,
great revolution.”3
Though Reclus tries to show that world history (within which hewould include so-called prehistory) contains both advances and regressions, he concludes that beneath these changes there is an overall movement of evolutionary progress. In interpreting social evolution, he sides
ultimately with the view that “civilized” societies are more developed, notin the common economic or technical senses of this term but rather in
relation to the project of human self-realization. He contends that while

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these societies have regressed in some important ways in comparison toprevious ones, their advances make them on balance a positive step on thepath of evolutionary social progress. Thus, the more “primitive” society
often has the advantage of greater “coherence” and “consistency with its
ideal,” while the “civilized” one has gained in “complexity” and “diversity.”4 By this he means that the latter incorporates within itself a greater
range of elements and has more highly developed interrelationships withother societies. For Reclus, the various forms of social “intermingling”
characteristic of modern societies are enormous advantages since they
expand our possibility of sharing human experience and attaining greater
universality. In his view, the greater the interaction between cultures andraces in a society, the greater the society’s strength and ability to achieve
the good for all its members. Consequently, the more that all cultures of
the world are unified in a universal global society, the more the advancesof every region and age can contribute to general human development.
Reclus’ works sometimes exhibit a disconcerting juxtaposition of
profound admiration for diverse cultures and condescension to thosethat he considers less advanced. Some of his earlier works in particular
are lacking in appreciation of the merits of so-called “primitive” societies.
Thus, writing in the 1860s in The Earth, he claims that in tropical regions“the mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil, the exuberance of life,
and the suddenness of death, take an equal part in maintaining man in
his native carelessness and idleness,” so that humans “bend in silence
before the majesty of mighty nature” and reconcile themselves to being“her slave.”5 Like many of his contemporaries, he depicts such societies
as remaining at the level of the “childhood” of humanity. He chides theEuropeans for falsely taking pride in advances that were due less to theirunique qualities and more to their good fortune in happening to live in thetemperate zone, where they are “incited to labor” and pushed into efforts
that led them to acquire “shrewdness, knowledge, cheerfulness, and loveof life.”6
In his later works, he comes to recognize that many of these same
intellectual and personal qualities exist in one form or another in societies other than the naturally “favored” ones. Even so, he sometimes lapses
into generalizations about the “backwardness” of peoples of the tropics.
For example, he argues in Man and the Earth that while in such regions
people can live with little effort, they do not “prosper” because “a purely
vegetative existence is not conducive to the development of [man’s] intelligence” and will not “render him master of the too-indulgent nature thatsurrounds him.”7 He reiterates his opinion that the conditions necessary
for these achievements are present only in certain “regions of effort” that“are all situated in the northern temperate zone.”8

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Despite such questionable assessments of various cultures, Reclus
manages to escape the widespread prejudice of his age according to which
civilization constituted an unambiguous advance compared to previous
social forms. Indeed, he explicitly attacks what he calls “chronocentricegoism,” which holds “that contemporary civilization, as imperfect as
it may be, is nevertheless the culminating state of humanity, and that bycomparison, all past ages were barbaric.”9 In his view, societies go throughperiods of both progress and regression, and there is no single, unilinear path of world history by which to judge achievements. He criticizes
European observers who “haughtily” dismiss all tribal cultures as merely“savage,” when in fact these societies are at “distinct points” in social evolution and may either be in a vital and creative “state of becoming” or “onthe road to decay and death.”10 This recognition of the specificity of social
evolution within each society shows a relative openness to the uniquequalities of those societies. Reclus concedes that societies that are often
arrogantly excluded by European thought from world history are in fact
“in history”—that is, they have their own history, which is comparable tothe history of any other society.
Furthermore, despite Reclus’ statements concerning the greater
degree of progress in modern societies, his writings demonstrate considerable sensitivity to the values and achievements of premodern and nonWestern societies. He admires much about tribal societies and considers
the modern world to be quite inferior in many important areas. He cites,
for example, the Aeta of the Philippines, whom he considers to be a model“in goodness, in spirit of justice, in rectitude of intention, and in reverence,in the truth of word and deed.”11 Similarly, he praises the Aleuts for many
qualities, including their artistic achievements, their boat-building andsailing accomplishments, their achievement of “social equilibrium,” andtheir peacefulness and amiability.12
Reclus avoids both the narrowness of provincialists, who are blind to
the achievements of such societies, and the naïveté of primitivists, who
often have limited knowledge of tribal peoples yet idealize them as “noble
savages.” The latter observers, by not applying critical judgment to asociety’s practices and by subordinating its lived reality to their illusions,express a subtle condescension toward the society. Reclus contends that
it is necessary to recognize that some tribal societies have engaged in
the most hideous rites of murder and ritual decapitation, and that evensuch generally admirable cultures as that of Tahiti have included somebrutal and inhumane institutions.13 Yet there is no need to idealize suchsocieties to find merit in them, for when examined in the most realistic
light they offer examples of some of the greatest achievements of humanself-realization.

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The fundamental challenge for society, according to Reclus, is to discover and develop fully every area in which humanity has progressed,
while at the same time uncovering and negating every tendency toward
regression. He contends that modern society has regressed in comparison
to tribal society not only in the area of social solidarity, but also in its
relationship to the natural world. His position on this issue is very similar
to that of many contemporary social ecologists who concur with Reclus
that human society has throughout history substituted one form of social
hierarchy for another and has increasingly adopted an exploitative anddestructive standpoint toward the natural world. The result is an intensifying contradiction between the possibilities created through social progress
and the costs imposed on humanity and nature for its continuation. Thereis a growing need to resolve this contradiction through the destruction of
the system of domination that divides human beings from one anotherand from nature. The attainment of this goal will permit a reappropriation of those valuable aspects of human society that have been sacrificed,
including the communal sensibility and the respect for nature embodiedin earlier social formations. While it is neither desirable nor even possible
to replicate past social phenomena, knowledge of such past achievements
offers inspiration for transforming our values and for expanding our visionof human possibilities in the future.
For Reclus, as for many modernist political radicals, humanity’s successin the project of liberatory social transformation requires both the vanquishing of ignorance and prejudice and a further development of humanrationality. He states that the true revolutionary must be not only “a manof sentiment” but also “a man of reason,” uniting a strong feeling of humansolidarity with precise knowledge of history, sociology, biology, and otherfields, so that he can “incorporate his personal ideas into the generic wholeof the human sciences.”14 Advances in critical historical rationality are particularly important to Reclus. Through the scientific knowledge of history,
humanity can learn how to preserve all the gains of historical progress andreclaim what has been lost through all the regressions of the past. “Modern
man must unite in his being all of the virtues of those who have preceded
him on earth. Without giving up any of the great privileges that civilization has conferred on him, neither must he lose any of his ancient strength,
nor allow himself to be surpassed by any savage in vigor, dexterity, or in
knowledge of natural phenomena.”15 It is notable that despite his use of the
now-pejorative term “savages,” Reclus recognizes among the many virtuesof tribal people a greater knowledge of nature, which is no small matterfrom his strongly naturalistic, ecological point of view.
Indeed, Reclus’ overall judgment on the modern world is that despiteenormous progress in many spheres, regression has taken place in some of

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the most essential areas. Modern society is superior in complexity since
it has attained “a greater scope and constitutes a more heterogeneousorganism through the successive assimilation of juxtaposed organisms.”16
But this growing unity is achieved through the creation of a nation-state“whose aim is preeminence over and even the absorption of other ethnic
groups,” so that the diversity of cultures existing in decentralized tribal
societies is increasingly lost.17 Here again, there is a strong parallel withmore recent social ecological analysis of the dialectic underlying thehistory of civilization. While later social forms achieve greater complexityand even universality in their embodiment of a vast process of historicaldevelopment, at the same time they move toward social simplification andthe destruction of the wealth of cultural diversity, as a global monocultureis established by the global capitalist economic order and the global statist
political order. There is a striking parallel and a real historical connection
between this social simplification and the accompanying ecological simplification, alluded to by Reclus in his discussion of the Maori cited earlier.
Throughout Reclus’ work one finds such a dialectical social critique,in which the coexisting progressive and regressive moments of historicalphenomena are delineated. His examination of the history of religion
presents one of the most comprehensive and detailed applications of suchan analysis. Beginning with tribal religions and the rise of the major world
religious traditions and extending the analysis to his own day, he traces
the changing role of religion in various social systems and delineates its
historically progressive and regressive dimensions.
For example, he analyzes the long evolution of the Hebrew God.
Beginning as a “belligerent defender of the confines of his narrow homeland,” Yahweh is gradually transformed into a rather distant and transcendent ruler of the earth, and finally into a god of compassion, as thesorrow of the people, “having renewed the nation, renewed its god also.”18
He explains that this transformation was a response to the experienceof the Jewish people, specifically to its experience of war, plunder, andbetrayal by its leaders. As a result of such ordeals, it began to conceive ofthe deity not as “the protector of the homeland, but rather as the representative of justice.”19 Religion thus reflected a process of moral education
in society.
Reclus contends that in Israel a “moral revolution” took place, inwhich the Hebrew prophets expressed a vision of social justice the legacyof which continues in the demands of reformers and revolutionaries ofmodern times. Prophets such as Amos and Micah “expressed their disgust
for religious formalities, spectacles, sacrifices and genuflections,” andepitomized the essence of religion as “pure and simple morality, the practice of justice, and kindness.”20 They condemned war, looked forward toA Philosophy of Progress41

a future age of peace, and “dreamed of that universal fraternity of which
we still dream today and which has fled from us like a mirage over the
past two thousand years.”21 Having lost their own land, they “embraced inthought the whole of the universe” and looked forward to the day when all
would be united “in the perfect consciousness of what is just and good.”22
Needless to say, this vision of justice and solidarity is of much morethan historical interest to Reclus. For it is exactly this moral heritage ofthe Hebrew prophets, which was passed down to him by way of radical
Protestantism, that lies at the core of his own anarchism.
Despite Reclus’ admiration for the prophetic tradition, he subjects
it to a critical, dialectical analysis and finds in it not only progressive
but also strongly regressive aspects. While the prophets’ message ofjustice constituted an enormous contribution to the history of liberation,
it was also inextricably enmeshed in the system of historical domination.
Consequently, its powerful message was available for use in legitimating and even strengthening that system. Because it was allied with anauthoritarian monotheism that claimed “the certitude of knowing the only
God, the absolute Master,” the prophetic tradition also contributed to thecreation of the theocratic state and the first “perfect religious intolerance”
in history.23
Reclus is particularly astute in diagnosing the ways in which the metaphysical and moral insights of the founders of spiritual traditions havebeen turned into ideology at the service of power. His discussion of thehistory of Buddhism perhaps best illustrates this. He shows how the revolutionary implications of Shakyamuni Buddha’s message were negated as
his teachings were institutionalized in the form of an organized religion
in alliance with political power. Reclus is among the few Western socialand political theorists who have understood the challenge to all existingideologies and institutions inherent in the Buddhist appeal to direct experience. He perhaps sees the affinities between his own critique of domination and belief in universal love, and the fundamental Buddhist teachings of nonattachment and compassion. In Reclus’ words, the Buddha
preached a “gospel of brotherhood” that proclaimed “no more kings, nomore princes, no more bosses or judges, no more Brahmins or warriors, nomore enemy castes that hate one another, but rather brothers, comrades,
and companions who work together!” He goes so far as to say that in thisoriginal teaching “all hierarchy is abolished” and that “there is no role at
all for authority.”24 In effect, the original Dharma was a form of anarchism.
Reclus explains that these revolutionary, anarchistic dimensions of
Buddhism were destroyed as its social egalitarianism was given a purely
moral or mystical interpretation, the Buddha was declared a god (or anavatar of Vishnu), and the Dharma was established as an official state

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religion. He notes the irony of the fact that the state reestablished the caste
system, while official state proclamations continued to proclaim such
Buddhist principles as “human fraternity and the necessity of spreading
instruction to women and children as well as men.”25
Reclus notes an even more extreme conflict between ideology andpractice in the case of the Jains. The Jain religion is based on a feeling ofunity with all of life and an ethics of nonviolence that extends even toother species (a view that today would be called “biocentric egalitarianism”). Yet the far-reaching social implications of such principles, which
would certainly require the abolition of the state and other authoritarian
institutions, were negated as Jain practice developed into an extreme andeven fanatical obsession with avoidance of injury to various life forms. It
became perhaps the only biocentrism in human history that took its principles to their logical conclusions (though, some might say, by reducing
them to the absurd). The Jains adopted such extreme practices as filtering drinking water, breathing through a veil, and sweeping the groundbefore them as they walked in order to avoid destroying other life forms.
However, their respect for life did not prevent them from “enriching themselves at the expense of the populace” so that they became “a fierce caste,composed of public enemies who were justly detested by the people.”26
Reclus points out that their respect for all life forms did not prevent themfrom becoming an elite group that exploited the masses.27 He remarksthat “such is the fate of religions: in becoming established, they negate
their own starting-points, systematize their betrayal, and repudiate theirown founders.”28
Despite Reclus’ harsh critique of institutionalized religion and his
professed atheism and secularism, there is an implicit, but very significant, religious undercurrent in his own works. As has been mentioned, hesometimes writes in a rather pantheistic vein of the experience of nature as
involving a loss of the ordinary sense of selfhood and a merging with thesurrounding milieu. In some works he expresses not only an intense loveof the natural world but something close to the experience of union withnature typical of nature mysticism.29 Furthermore, at times he explicitly
refers to his own philosophy as a kind of humanistic religion based on
the pursuit of the good of the whole. When the journal La Revue proposed
discussion of “morality without God,” Reclus replied that “the public good,or in other words the happiness of all human beings, our brothers, will
naturally become the special goal of our renewed existence” and that “wewill thus have our religion, which, henceforth, will be in no way incompatible with reason, and this religion, which is moreover far from new and has
always been practiced by the best people, includes everything good thatwas contained in the ancient religions.”30

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Reclus holds that this positive core of religion has been overwhelmingly betrayed by its institutionalized forms; nevertheless, he recognizes
that it is still put into practice by the more enlightened and compassionate
adherents of these traditions. He admits that there are tendencies within
religion that are compatible with the social goals of anarchism, even when
there are irreconcilable divergences on the level of beliefs. Thus, in his
letter to M. Roth, a minister in Orthez, he says that although “there canbe no agreement between Christians and anarchists, for all confusion of
languages leads to a confusion of ideas,” nevertheless, “as a Christian,
you carry out your mission conscientiously. We anarchists know that all
the heartfelt love that you have for your non-Christian friends hastens
the coming of that great federation into which all men of good will, going
beyond all churches, will enter, even if they be atheists like the Buddha.”31
Despite his recognition of the progressive aspects of religion, Reclus
sees its regressive aspects as by far the most significant ones in the modern
world. He finds institutionalized religion to be primarily a force that perpetuates a past of ignorance and superstition, and that stands in the wayof social progress. He juxtaposes it starkly with science, which he sees as aforce for progress, enlightenment, and modernity. Reclus traces the origins
of religion as a social force back to early societies in which the shaman wasboth a teacher who conveyed knowledge based on observation of the realworld and also a priest who propagated fantasies concerning an illusory
world. He contends that throughout history traditional worldviews haveinherited the legacy of this original split and have consisted of an amalgamof myth and reality, truth and falsehood.32
Reclus observes that as knowledge of society and nature has progressed in the modern world, science and religion have increasingly
diverged from one another. He sees the result of this divergence as “adistinct opposition, a relentless war, between science—that is, the objective search for truth—and the collection of feelings, beliefs and fetishistic
vestiges that we call religion.”33 He believes that in this struggle sciencemust ultimately triumph and reveal the dominant religious concepts to berelics of past ignorance and superstition.
Science thus plays a heroic role in history for Reclus. Though he finds
elements of both progress and regression in the history of science, his
account exhibits the almost boundless faith in science and technology thatis so typical of classic modernity. He sometimes depicts scientific institutions not only as essential to all material progress but, even more, as the key
to truth in all realms. The march of progress advances inexorably, banishingobsolete ideas and overcoming material barriers, and science is the instrument of its triumph. In his preface to the 1892 French edition of Kropotkin’s
The Conquest of Bread, Reclus goes so far as to say that he “professes a new

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faith” and that the object of that faith, “science,” is the “ideal” upon whichsociety must ultimately “model” itself.34 How this “modeling” might beaccomplished is not made entirely clear. However, what is apparent is
Reclus’ adherence to a variation of the myth of the Enlightenment, in which
technique and reason march forward in tandem, as ignorance, superstition,and material scarcity are progressively vanquished.
As a result of this rather extreme historical optimism, Reclus sometimes exaggerates the possibilities for banishing ideology from the modern
world. “As the worker believes no longer in miracles,” he asks rhetorically, “can he be induced to believe in lies?”35 Unfortunately, we haveseen over the last century abundant evidence of the capacity of humanbeings—workers or otherwise—to delude themselves, whether to justify
their hope in times of desperation or their cynicism in times of complacentsatisfaction. Reclus vastly underestimates the need of human beings tocreate illusions to deal with the eternal problems of human existence: pain,
suffering, death, losses of all kinds, the search for identity, the quest formeaning. Like almost all classical radical theorists, he has an inadequate
grasp of some of the most important spiritual, existential, and psychological dimensions of the human condition. He also devotes little attention to
the deep-seated human striving for power that has been explored by the
Hegelian, Nietzschean, and Lacanian traditions but has been generally
neglected by most radical social thought, including much of the anarchist
tradition. Consequently, he fails to consider adequately the ways in which
ideals like “anarchy,” “communism,” or even his cherished “brotherhood”
and “solidarity,” not to mention “science,” “reason,” and “progress,” could
themselves so easily be distorted ideologically.
But although Reclus sometimes lapses into naïve technological optimism and uncritical rationalism, his thought often transcends these tendencies. As will be discussed later, he includes an incisive critique of technology in his overall critique of domination. He sees the ultimate criterion
for judging social progress to be neither technological development nor
economic growth but rather the advancement of human social self-realization in harmony with the natural world. Furthermore, he rejects narrow
views of this goal that would identify it with vastly increased productivity,
material improvements, expansion of knowledge, or even the maximization of pleasure and happiness, as utilitarian ethics maintains, and as theconventional wisdom seemed increasingly inclined to hold even in his day.
In place of any sort of technological or economistic utopianism, Reclus
develops a many-sided view of human self-realization that includes someof the goals mentioned but goes far beyond them. It consists, he says, of“a complete development of the individual,” including such areas as “theimprovement of the physical being in strength, beauty, grace, longevity,

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material enrichment, and increase of knowledge,” in addition to “the perfecting of character, the becoming more noble, more generous, and more
devoted.”36 Moreover, self-realization must be a social process in which“the progress of the individual merges with that of society, united by theforce of an increasingly intimate solidarity.”37 Even in this brief summaryof the nature of the good life, Reclus includes its physical, aesthetic, material, intellectual, moral, and social dimensions. Reclus’ view has much incommon with the Aristotelian eudemonistic ethic, both in his multifaceted
conception of human self-realization and in his belief in the inseparable
interconnection between the individual attainment of diverse virtues or
excellences and the collective realization of a common good. Though
Reclus’ ethics can in many ways be looked upon as “an ethics of care,”it might also be seen as a “left Aristotelianism,” in that it broadens theconcept of self-realization into a radically universal one. It is in some ways
more radical than Marx’s left Aristotelianism, not only in proposing a conception of human solidarity with more deeply communitarian dimensions
but also in linking human self-realization to similar processes of unfolding
and development on the part of other species and of the earth as a whole.
Reclus seems particularly Aristotelian when he defines the ultimate
goal of progress as “happiness,” in a very expansive sense. He explicitly
rejects the individualistic or utilitarian conception of happiness as mere
“personal enjoyment,” and he redefines it to encompass a process of universal self-realization. Happiness, he says, “is true, deep, and complete
only when it extends to the whole of humanity.”38 But this does not mean
merely totaling up the sum of all individual satisfactions to produce theaggregate good for humanity as a whole. The attainment of happinesscannot be reduced (in the manner of individualistic ethical theories) to“a certain level of personal or collective existence,” but rather includes acollective “consciousness of marching toward a well-defined goal” anda process of “directing the whole great human body toward the greatest
good.”39 “Happiness” is thus a broad concept signifying participation inhumanity’s collective project of self-realization.
From Reclus’ holistic ethical perspective, the concept of self-realization must also be extended beyond our own species. If we are truly to act
as “nature becoming self-conscious,” we must, in addition to pursuing
the good of humanity, also contribute as much as is in our power to thegood of all living beings. Accordingly, humanity has a wide-ranging moral
responsibility that consists not only of negative duties to refrain fromharming the natural world but also of positive duties to contribute actively
to its flourishing. We have an obligation to “develop the continents, theseas, and the atmosphere that surrounds us; to ‘cultivate our garden’ onearth; to rearrange and regulate the environment in order to promote each

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individual plant, animal, and human life.”40 Such actions must be basedon a growing awareness of our integral place in nature that leads us “tobecome fully conscious of our human solidarity, forming one body withthe planet itself, and to take a sweeping view of our origins, our present,
our immediate goal, and our distant ideal.”41
Holistic thought is sometimes criticized for emphasizing the good of
the whole to the detriment of that of the part. While examples of authoritarian and even “fascistic” holism can certainly be found, the term in noway implies domination or “totalization.” Indeed, the most authenticallyholistic approaches recognize that the self-realization of the whole canonly be attained through that of the parts, whether these may be thebody and all its organs and faculties, in the case of holistic health, or thecommunity and all its constituent groups and individuals, in the case ofholistic social theory.42 Reclus’ social thought is instructive as an example
of a critical holism that gives full recognition to the relative autonomy andintegrity of individuals. It is thus, like any truly dialectical social ecology,
a theory of unity-in-diversity. The nature of social progress cannot be
understood merely through an analysis of the development of structures,
institutions, or other social wholes but also requires careful attention toindividuality and subjectivity.
According to Reclus, all “evolution in the existence of peoples” isthe result of “individual effort.”43 It is true that he often explains various
social phenomena as the result of the interaction between natural andsocial forces. Yet he reminds us that history cannot be reduced entirely tothe dialectical interplay between objective conditions and that the human
freedom to act creatively and to shape the future always exists, albeit
within certain social and natural constraints. His overriding concern isto demonstrate that it is “the human person,” rather than historical laws,
institutions, or social forces, that is the “primary element of society.”44
Society, he believes, becomes more deterministic as economic power, theauthoritarian state, and manipulative technologies subject people to morerigid controls and as freedom and creativity find fewer (or perhaps lessconspicuous) avenues for social expression. Yet spontaneity and choiceremain possible, and they constitute the basis for creating a future society
in which nondominating unity-in-diversity is finally realized. “Free society
establishes itself through the liberty provided for the full developmentof each human person, the original basic cell of society, who then joins
together and associates as he wishes with other cells of a changing humanity.”45 Reclus’ account of the achievement of personal self-realization
through participation in the free, cooperative community is an excellent
example of that “commitment to communal individuality” that Alan Ritter
sees as “the strength of the anarchists’ thought.”46

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Reclus’ vision of the unfolding of freedom in human history continues in many ways the Spinozistic and Hegelian conceptions of freedom
as a form of self-determination and self-expression. Spinoza defined theattainment of freedom by a being as its movement from being passively
acted upon by external forces to shaping actively the world around it.
Hegel developed and radicalized this conception by giving it a historicaldimension. Spinoza’s Deus sive Natura (God or Nature) becomes in Hegel
Geist (Spirit) or the Absolute, the universal subject of world-historicaldevelopment toward freedom through self-realization. Reclus’ philosophyof progress is a major step toward naturalizing and demystifying sucha conception of freedom. He notes that while “for a long time we werenothing more than [the earth’s] unconscious products, we have become
increasingly active agents in its history.”47 As humanity becomes moreaware of its agency, it can develop a meaningful conception of its collective self-liberation. Thus, “the essence of human progress consists of the
discovery of the totality of interests and wills common to all peoples; it
is identical to solidarity.”48 Finally, our conception of unity will extend
beyond our own species to the earth itself. As we begin to see ourselves as“one body with the planet” and conceive of ourselves as “nature becoming
self-conscious,” we realize that the process of attaining freedom throughself-realization encompasses not only humanity but also the earth as awhole.
Needless to say, from Reclus’ perspective, while this general progressive movement toward freedom takes place, contrary regressive developments are also impeding its advance. He believes that one cost of thedevelopment of civilization has been an increase in the barriers between
individuals and groups in society resulting from institutionalized domination. Social progress therefore depends on the elimination of hierarchical divisions, so that open communication can be achieved. Long before
Habermas, Reclus discussed the idea that social emancipation requires
forms of communication that are free from domination, and the abilityof the species to create a fund of practical knowledge relevant to thatemancipation. Reclus asserts that it is necessary to destroy “the boundaries between castes, as well as between peoples,”49 so that humanity will
finally be able to draw on the experience of all cultures and all individuals
in formulating its goals and values. As a result, humanity will be able tosynthesize the virtues and achievements of both modern and “primitive”
societies. The complexity, diversity, and universality of the former willbe allied with the latter’s “original simplicity” of life, in which there is “acomplete and amicable freedom of human social intercourse.”50
As humanity becomes in this way more conscious of its own history,
it also expands its consciousness into the larger context of nature. The

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concept of humanity as the self-consciousness of nature was present in
Reclus’ work almost three decades before he made it the opening statement of Man and the Earth. As early as the 1860s he asserts that “sincecivilization has connected all the nations of the earth in one common
humanity—since history has linked century to century—since astronomy
and geology have enabled science to cast her retrospective glance on
epochs thousands and thousands of years back, man has ceased to be an
isolated being, and, if we may so speak, is no longer merely mortal: he has
become the consciousness of the imperishable universe.”51
Reclus had already begun to develop his dialectical conception thatall phenomena of nature are in a constant state of transformation andunfolding. He notes that one of the most basic truths discovered throughthe universalization of consciousness is that “everything is changing andeverything is in motion.”52 Humanity begins to understand itself in thecontext of these larger processes when it begins to look beyond humanhistory to earth history. Thus, “the firm ground which he treads under his
feet, and long thought to be immovable, is replete with vitality, and is actuated by incessant motion; the very mountains rise or sink; not only do thewinds and ocean-currents circulate round the planet, but the continents
themselves . . . are slowly traveling around the circle of the globe.”53 Overthe subsequent decades, Reclus increasingly developed this process viewof reality in a teleological (though in no way deterministic) direction as
he united it with a vision of universal self-realization.
Reclus deserves recognition as an early prophet of the developing
globalization or planetization of humanity. He believes that as the worldis brought closer together through advances in transportation and communication, and as knowledge of the common history of human beings andthe earth grows, humanity will have to revolutionize its system of valuesin accord with its growing unity. He notes that “industrial appliances, thatby a single electric impulse make the same thought vibrate through far
continents, have distanced by far our social morals”;54 further, the exploration of all corners of the earth and the perpetual movement of travelers
between all countries has made us “citizens of the planet.”55 He concludes
that through such means the illusion of separateness has become untenable and that “humanity has arrived at self-consciousness.”56 In the New
Universal Geography he strikingly expresses this conception of the growing
planetary unity of humanity:
So bounded are now the confines of the planet, that it everywhere
benefits by the same industrial appliances; that, thanks to a continuous network of postal and telegraphic services, it has been enrichedby a nervous system for the interchange of thought; that it demands a

A Philosophy of Progress

49

common meridian and a common hour, while on all sides appear theinventors of a universal language. Despite the rancors fostered by war,
despite hereditary hatreds, all mankind is becoming one. Whether our
origin be one or manifold, this unity grows apace, daily assumes moreof a quickening reality.57

Reclus thus saw the unification of humanity as a concrete, material processthat will increasingly be experienced as a historical reality. In his view,a growing consciousness of this process will make the anarchist idealof social unity-in-diversity appear increasingly plausible to humanity.
History increasingly exhibits “a general tendency of things to merge
themselves into one living body in which all the parts are in reciprocalinterdependence,” so that society can be seen as moving toward a statein everything “would constitute a harmonious cosmos in which each cellretains its individuality, corresponding to the free labor of each individual,
and in which all would mesh together with one another, each one being
necessary to the work of all.”58
Of course, the consciousness of global unity that Reclus hoped for
was in his own time, and largely remains today, in only a rudimentarystate. Yet he would argue that social and technological developments
have nevertheless created objective conditions that help form the basis
for such a planetary consciousness. He does not underestimate the obstacles to overcoming ideological distortions of this consciousness and totransforming it into effective social praxis, yet he is able (perhaps in an
act of modernist, progressivist faith) to see profound, indeed revolutionary implications in the slowly growing awareness of the interconnections
between all terrestrial phenomena.
Reclus is often marvelously imaginative in attempting to contributeto the creation of this new, unified vision of the world. An example is his
proposal that an enormous globe with a network of surrounding walkways
be constructed at the center of Paris, so that people could pass at various
levels examining the details of the earth and thereby begin to grasp it asa vast interconnected whole. He also proposes that a new calendar be
adopted that would not be linked to the history of any particular religious
tradition or show preference for one culture over another. He judges theidea of numbering years in two directions with positive and negative
numbers to be completely irrational. His solution is to choose a beginning point with a universal, planetary significance rather than a merely
particularistic, culturally specific one. He suggests for this point of reference the first eclipse recorded in human history. He notes that he would
be writing in the year 13,447 according to this system.59 His choice of thefirst recorded eclipse is a powerful symbol of the interrelation between

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

the natural and the social. Although that event was a natural occurrence
beyond human control and involved phenomena extending even beyond
our own planet, as a recorded event it forms part of human history andis noteworthy for its place in the development of human knowledge ofnatural phenomena.
Reclus’ desire to promote the unity of humanity seems sometimes
to go to extreme lengths, as when he discusses the need for a “common
language” for all human beings to facilitate global communication. He
certainly appears a bit naïve when he states that the members of the
new nation of humanity “must understand each other completely” andsuggests that a language might be developed that would help realize thisrather ambitious goal.60 However, there may be more value to his speculation on this topic than appears at first sight. Reclus was well aware of thehistorical importance of Latin and later French as common languages ofpolitics, commerce, culture, and scholarship. Today he would no doubt
point to the growing dominance of English in these areas and in commerce
as the expression of the need for an ever more closely interrelated humanity to express itself in a common tongue. Clearly, he would have preferred
Esperanto or a new, more multicultural and universalistic language forsuch a means of communication. Yet the fact that far more human beings
than ever before can now communicate directly would be seen by Reclus
as strong evidence of progress in the unification of humanity. He would
certainly add that the inevitable regressive dimensions of such a development should not be ignored, no doubt pointing out the cultural homogenization and loss of diversity that has accompanied the growing dominanceof English and Anglophone culture.
For Reclus, the self-consciousness of humanity will continue to growas knowledge of geography and history create a new global spatiality andtemporality. In his view, “humankind, which makes itself One at every
latitude and longitude, similarly tries to realize itself through one form
that encompasses all ages.”61 He posits a close relationship between thisgrowing knowledge (which Hegel calls “world-historical” but which inthe spirit of Reclus we might call “earth-historical”) and the expansion of
freedom. For Reclus, history exhibits a certain order and “logic of events,”
the knowledge of which allows us to play a more active and creative rolein determining our own destiny. To the degree that we broaden our graspof historical development and the diversity of human possibilities, wetranscend any “strict line of development” determined by environmental
and hereditary factors.62
The achievement of a grasp of this historical unity-in-diversity is thegoal of Reclus’ social geography, especially as expressed in his sweeping
account of human history in Man and the Earth. There he surveys theA Philosophy of Progress

51

vast diversity of human achievements, while at the same time synthesizing that multiplicity into a single narrative of the human struggle forself-realization. He believes that such a unifying narrative is increasingly
inscribing itself in history as a social reality rooted in human experience.
As we become increasingly planetary beings in many spheres of our activity, social phenomena naturally begin to appear to us as aspects of the life
story of a universal humanity. Cultures of other times and other places
lose their quality of alien otherness, and their contributions to progress
become available to all as examples of human possibilities. We come tosee all peoples as “brothers toward whom we feel a growing spirit of solidarity,” and we find throughout history “an increasing number of models
demanding understanding, including many that awaken in us the ambition
to imitate some aspect of their ideal.”63 The human race discovers itself
to have a common history and is able to undertake a common project ofself-realization. For Reclus, this means that the diverse experiences of all
become part of one great human experiment, the great struggle for theattainment of freedom.

5

Anarchism and Social
Transformation
Reclus is the anarchist geographer par excellence. The term “anarchist
geography” captures perfectly the idea of his work: writing (graphein) the
history of the struggle to free the earth (Gaia) from domination (archein).
Yves Lacoste calls the work of Reclus, and above all his book Man and theEarth, the “epistemological moment,” indeed the “epistemological turning
point,” in the history of geography. Before Reclus, he says, geography “waslinked essentially to the state apparatus, not only as a tool of power, butalso as an ideological and propagandistic representation. Reclus turned
this tool against the state apparatus, the oppressors and the dominantclasses.”1 For Reclus, social geography and the social philosophy grounded
in it become part of the process of the planetary history of liberation.
It is reported that Reclus once exclaimed to the Dutch anarchist
Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, “Yes, I am a geographer, but above all I
am an anarchist.”2 Quite early in life he developed a deep faith in human
freedom and solidarity that increasingly defined his existence and later
received full development in his libertarian political theory. His anarchist vision of social freedom is also the mature expression of his enduring belief in moral autonomy. For Reclus, and as anarchist ethics from
William Godwin on has so often stressed, moral responsibility is impossible without moral autonomy. In his early manuscript “Development of
Liberty in the World,” he asserts that “laws must appear before the tribunalof our conscience and we must not submit to them except when they arein perfect accord with the moral law that dwells within us.”3 If these laws
conflict with “eternal justice,” it is our moral obligation to disobey them.
Respect for human laws in disregard for the higher moral law is no virtue
and indeed amounts to no more than “moral cowardice.”4 While Reclus
later dropped the rather abstract, idealist language of “moral law” and“eternal justice” in favor of a more historical and naturalistic depiction ofAnarchism and Social Transformation

53

morality, an emphasis on free commitment to the greater good of humanity and nature remained fundamental to his anarchism.
For Reclus, though “anarchy,” aims at the greatest possible realizationof freedom and justice and the establishment of a universal community
based on freedom, justice, solidarity and love, it is never merely a vague
and distant future utopia. It is capable of immediate realization whereverthese values are embodied in existing human relationships and social
practice. “Anarchy” is the entire sphere of human life that takes placeoutside the boundaries of arche, or domination. He states in the preface
to the 1892 French edition of Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread that “anarchistic society has long been in a process of rapid development,” for it canbe found “wherever free thought breaks loose from the chains of dogma;
wherever the spirit of inquiry rejects the old formulas; wherever the humanwill asserts itself through independent actions; wherever honest people,
rebelling against all enforced discipline, join freely together in order toeducate themselves, and to reclaim, without any master, their share of life,
and the complete satisfaction of their needs.”5 In effect, the entire historyof the struggle for human collective self-realization constitutes anarchy,
though it is often “unaware of itself.”6
Although “anarchy” thus has a larger historical meaning for Reclus,
he also uses the term to refer more specifically to a future society that is
free from institutionalized forms of domination and that will attain an
unprecedented synthesis of liberty, equality, and community. For Reclus,
as for the anarchist tradition in general, anarchism means much more thananti-statism, opposition to coercion, or rebellion against authority. In its
most sophisticated forms, it proposes a practice of social transformation
and reorganization based on nondominating mutual aid and cooperation.7 Reclus believes that the most deeply rooted social order arises outof the greatest possible freedom and voluntary association, and that evergrowing social disorder results from coercion, oppression, and domination.
Thus, he sees “an abyss between two kinds of society,” one of which is“constituted freely by men of good will, based on a consideration of theircommon interests,” whereas the other “accepts the existence of either
temporary or permanent masters to whom [its members] owe obedience.”8The former has “authentic organization, spontaneous, attractive association that constantly adapts to the changes in persons and things,” while
the latter consists of “a forced juxtaposition that is opposed by continual
tendencies to disjoin the parts. The former . . . is precisely the kind thatby the very fact of its liberty remains centripetal, while the latter, held
together only by regulations, is made up of centrifugal elements.”9 Reclus’
goal is to develop a positive vision of such a future society of “orderedanarchy.”10

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

However, in examining Reclus’ reflections on the nature of anarchist
society, one is often struck by the generality of many of his statements andthe lack of specific content. In this, he is typical of the classical anarchist
theorists and rather different from utopian writers, who often present
highly imaginative depictions of a free and just society. Anarchy constitutes for him an inspiring social ideal that could give direction to presentday struggles; however, the details of future social organization must be
arranged “after the revolution.” In his essay “Anarchy,” he summarizes theideal as “equality of rights and reciprocity of services,” and the basis of
anarchist morality as the familiar principle “to each according to his needs,
from each according to his powers.”11 The achievement of anarchy thusmeans simply the creation of a free, egalitarian, and cooperative society toreplace the existing oppressive, hierarchical, and competitive one.
Reclus does at times discuss in general terms some of the institutions that might exist after the social revolution. At the Berne Congressof the League for Peace and Freedom in 1868, he proposes that a futuresociety should be one in which all previously existing political divisions
are replaced by workers’ associations. In his view, the existing subdivisions, from the province down to the local district, are nothing but “toolsof despotism” created by those who wish to centralize power.12 He goes so
far as to say that there is no such thing as a “natural border,”13 for naturalfeatures must be given a social meaning through human action. Free individuals, he argues, will look beyond all artificial territorial boundaries
and achieve “ideal justice” by reorganizing society through “productive
associations and groups formed by these associations.”14 The boundariesof the free associations of the future may or may not correspond to existing
borders, depending on the decisions of their members in their pursuit ofjustice and mutual aid. “Anarchy” in the sense of a fully realized anarchist
society will consist of a large voluntary federation of these free associations existing at the local level.
In Reclus’ view, such a free, cooperative society can only emergeout of a social revolution, but this revolution will itself depend on a long
history of liberatory thought and practice. He observes that anarchism
has spread “where minds have long been liberated from religious andmonarchical prejudices, where revolutionary precedents have shaken faith
in the established order, where the practice of municipal liberties has best
prepared men to become their own masters, where disinterested study has
developed thinkers free from all sectarianism.”15 There are thus a great
many spheres of thought and action in which anarchists can contributeto social progress and lay the groundwork for the future libertarian society.
In order for successful revolutionary change to take place, a long history of
evolutionary change must prepare the way.

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55

Reclus distinguishes himself from his historically more influential ally
Bakunin in his deeper analysis of the preconditions for social transformation. While Bakunin made an important contribution to a critical theoryof libertarian social transformation, he also succumbed to a fetishismof revolution and often exaggerated the liberatory potential of reactive
social movements, vague popular discontent, and unfocused rebellion. For
Bakunin, such amorphous social conditions could be given a revolutionary
direction when shaped by an “invisible dictatorship” of conscious revolutionaries. Such views led to an exaggerated emphasis on revolutionary
will and a vanguardism that has decidedly nonanarchistic and, indeed,authoritarian implications. The historical anarchist movement has often
been influenced by a Bakuninist insurrectionism, and it might have done
well to follow consistently Reclus’ more balanced view of the relationshipbetween evolution and revolution.
Reclus’ idea of the complementary roles of evolution and revolution
is one of the central themes in his political writings. “In every sphere,” hesays, “we are not only evolutionists, but also just as much revolutionists,since we realize that history itself is but a series of achievements that
follows a series of preparations. The great intellectual evolution that emancipates minds has a logical consequence in the emancipation of individuals
in all of their relationships with other individuals.”16 The potential contribution of any phenomenon to evolutionary change is not easy to ascertain, according to Reclus, because all phenomena have both positive andnegative moments, and both progressive and regressive aspects in relation
to the larger milieu. Each phenomenon is “two-sided, for it is at once aphenomenon of death and a phenomenon of revival; in other words, it is
the result of evolution toward decay and also toward progress.”17 The challenge to those with a critical faith in historical progress is to preserve anddevelop the positive moment while rejecting and eliminating the negative.
Reclus applies this analysis to specific social institutions and phenomena. For example, he has enormous confidence that many advancesof modern science and technology can be used for such progressive purposes as the increase of knowledge, freedom, health, and beauty, but nevertheless he also sees within them the potential for unprecedented levelsof regimentation, domination, malaise, and degradation of society andnature. This forthright recognition of the dual nature of social realities
distinguishes Reclus from many other modernist thinkers of his age, who
focused one-sidedly on the possibilities for progress but neglected thedangers, costs, and self-contradictions of seemingly progressive historicaldevelopments.
From Reclus’ dialectical perspective, revolution itself partakes of thedual nature characteristic of all social phenomena. There is no absolute

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revolutionary break with history, as idealist and voluntaristic revolutionary theorists would contend. Revolution is an integral part of the movement of history and reflects the complexity and contradictory nature of
all the other historical phenomena that interact with it and condition it.
Reclus points out that although a given revolutionary movement may
be authentically liberatory in many ways, the revolutionaries have been
shaped by the conditions existing prior to the revolution. These conditions
do not disappear absolutely on the great day of revolt but rather leave
traces on the personalities, practices, and institutions of the relativelytransformed society.
Consequently, the exercise of revolutionary power often becomes aconvenient tool of aspiring authoritarians, who transform revolutionary
ideals into authoritarian ideology. In Reclus’ words, “there is often a mostshocking disparity between the revolutionary circumstances that accompany the emergence of an institution and the manner in which it functions,which is completely opposed to the ideals of its naïve founders.”18 In aprescient commentary on many later revolutionary regimes, Reclus notes
the danger of “the routine, the hierarchy, and the spirit of regression that
gradually encroach on every institution”19 once a new system of concentrated power is established.
These reservations did not, however, deter Reclus from actively supporting revolutionary movements and seeking to help them transcendtheir limitations. He was dedicated to the First International, which he saw
as an advance of historic dimensions in the direction of unifying humanity
for the cause of justice and progress. He contends that “since the discovery
of America and the circumnavigation of the earth, no achievement wasmore important in the history of man,” and that “the future normative
unity that the philosophers desired” only began to be realized when “theEnglish, French, and German workers, forgetting their different origins
and understanding one another in spite of their diversity of languages,
joined together to form a single nation, in defiance of all their respective
governments.”20 Although the practical results of that organization might
hardly seem to justify such extravagant claims for its importance, his point
relates more to its symbolic significance as the first modern embodimentin practice of the ideal of the unity of all of humanity and the example
that it created for future efforts at global solidarity. In a sense, Reclus was
saying that the First International ushered in the still rather incipient
movement of “globalization from below.”
Reclus’ views concerning social transformation were profoundly
affected by his participation in the International and by the influence of
his close ally Bakunin. While Reclus and Bakunin opposed one anotherat various times on some important issues, including the role of secretAnarchism and Social Transformation57

societies in the revolutionary movement, the influence of the charismatic revolutionary was responsible in part for Reclus’ development ofa firm belief in the necessity of social revolution. He participated in the
Bakuninist Alliance for Social Democracy and in Bakunin’s efforts to movethe nonrevolutionary League for Peace and Freedom in a more radical
direction. He was also a member of Bakunin’s International Brotherhood(a secret society of dedicated Bakuninist revolutionaries) from 1865 on. He
attended the meetings of the General Council of the First Internationalin 1869 and defended the anarchist (majority) position in the world’s first
great working-class organization.
A strategy of the international workers’ movement that Reclus enthusiastically supported, and for which he had great hopes, was the generalstrike. He contends that “English, Belgian, French, German, American,
and Australian wage workers understand that it is up to them to withhold
all labor from their bosses on the same day,” and he asks why they would“not carry out tomorrow what they understand today, especially if a soldiers’ strike is added to that of the workers?”21 From this passage it would
seem that Reclus believed that the working classes of the major industrial
countries of his time both understood clearly the strategy of the generalstrike and were committed to it in principle. If these two assumptions
were indeed correct, it was reasonable for him to hope that a revolutionary
situation on an international scale was imminent.
Unfortunately, such expectations exhibit some of the same kind of
unrealistic revolutionary optimism that plagued Bakunin. While Reclus
was right about the general strike not being in principle impossible, heoverestimated the existing level of consciousness of the European working
class. The kind of the careful analysis he applied to other issues might
usefully have been devoted to the nature of the barriers confronting the
expansion of popular critical consciousness. Although he has some important insights in this area, especially interspersed among his geographicalwritings, in his most explicitly political (and most widely reprinted) works,
edifying revolutionary rhetoric often takes the place of probing analysisof the actual state of workers’ consciousness, of the material, ideological,
and imaginary processes that shape that consciousness, and of the factorsthat might transform it into an effective revolutionary force.22
Reclus’ assessment of “propaganda by the deed,” a subject of muchcontroversy within the anarchist movement of his day, also presents
certain problems. During the 1880s and 1890s, attacks on political officials,
bankers, and industrialists, and even random victims in places judged“bourgeois,” became increasingly common. The names of terrorists like
Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry became well known to the public. Many of
those carrying out violent attacks on the established order began to invoke

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

anarchist principles to defend their deeds, causing a crisis of conscience
for anarchist theorists. Such actions would seem to be in direct contradiction to Reclus’ ethical values and his humanitarian sensibilities. Indeed,
in a letter of 1883, he asserts that “from the revolutionary point of view,
I am very careful not to recommend violence, and I am distressed whenfriends carried away by passion allow themselves to resort to the idea ofvengeance, which is so unscientific and sterile.”23 In another letter of 1889
he states that “the secret” is “to love everyone always, including even thosewhom one must fight with unflagging energy because they live as parasites
on the social body.”24 And finally, in a letter of 1903 he goes so far as toassert that “it is necessary to resist evil without hating the evildoers, butrather even while loving them.” Reclus was consistent in his rejection of
hatred and vindictiveness both as a matter of general principle and in his
own personal practice.25
Nevertheless, his refusal to advocate violence and vengeance did notin his mind require condemnation of those who come to see individual
violence as a legitimate response to oppression and who act on theseviews. Although some well-known anarchists disassociated themselvesfrom all terrorist acts and others, like Kropotkin, adopted an ambiguous
position, Reclus steadfastly refused to condemn the propagandists of thedeed. In his opinion, violence in society is the necessary result of a crueland inhumane system of oppression, and blame should not be directed atthose victims who in desperation lash out against their own oppression.
Rather, in his view, those who control the unjust system and benefit fromit should be held guilty for both the injustices that they inflict on society
as a whole and the violent acts to which they drive some of the oppressed.
At times, Reclus came even closer to explicit approval of terrorist acts.
In a letter of 1892, after expressing admiration for Ravachol for his “highcharacter,” he states that he considers “all revolt against oppression to bea good and just act.”26 Though he reaffirms his belief in the gradual growthof enlightenment through the effect of “words and feelings,” he notes thatanger “has its raison d’être, its day and its hour.”27 In another letter ofthe same month, he praises Ravachol for “his courage, his goodness, his
greatness of soul, and the generosity with which he pardons his enemies,
and indeed those who informed on him.” He says that he knows “of few
men who surpass him in nobility” and judges him “a hero of uncommon
magnanimity.”28
Reclus’ considered opinion of all social phenomena in general is thatthey should be assessed carefully for their positive and negative aspects
and that their effect on the overall course of social progress should be thefinal criterion for judgment. However, in the case of propaganda by thedeed, he veers in a strongly deontological direction. In this instance, heAnarchism and Social Transformation

59

stresses that the perpetrators of such acts should be judged by the nobilityof their actions—perhaps even by the beauty of their souls—rather thanstrictly by their effects on the course of history and on the revolutionary
movement they claimed to represent.
Reclus overlooks a number of crucial points concerning propagandaof the deed. First, the deterministic arguments that he invokes in order toexcuse the terrorists have certain implications that he ignores. By the same
reasoning, he should have focused more on the innocence of the terrorists’ victims, for to whatever degree they participated in an unjust social
system, they did not personally and intentionally create it and were certainly themselves products of that system. Second, whatever determinants
may have been present, his refusal to hold the terrorists responsible for
their actions denies them the status of moral agents capable of choosing
between alternative methods of protesting against injustice. Instead, they
are treated as no more than links in a chain of causality. Finally, the actsof desperation that the terrorists committed were, in any case, miserable
failures that did little promote authentic social transformation and often
only contributed to promoting reaction and repression. As “propaganda”
they were a disaster for which anarchists are still unjustly suffering, stereotyped as they are as terrorists and “bomb-throwers.”29
However, despite the many problems with his position on this issue,
Reclus presents one quite powerful argument that should not be overlooked. He points out that to condemn the relatively rare violent acts ofdesperate individuals crying out for justice while at the same time complacently accepting the enormous system of day-to-day violence embodiedin such social institutions as state domination, capitalist exploitation,
institutionalized racism, and patriarchal oppression constitutes the worst
form of ideological distortion. It is his concern for the widespread moral
insensitivity to the horrors of entrenched, institutionalized injustice that
leads Reclus to emphasize terrorism as a symptom of greater evils, rather
than as an evil in itself.
Another of Reclus’ most controversial views is his acceptance of theright of the workers “to partial recovery of the collective products” ofsociety by means of the individual’s “personal recovery of his part” of thatproperty.30 He means by this the sort of activity that is usually labeled“theft.” Reclus believes that theft, like violence, is a great evil. But in his
opinion, those who are outraged by this evil should direct their indignation above all toward the capitalist, statist system that institutionalizes
theft rather than toward exploited individuals who informally use theftas a means of striking back at that system. According to his analysis, thethief is a “restorer” who seeks to reappropriate a small part of the wealththat has been extracted from his or her labor. In a letter of 1887 he writes

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that since private property is itself theft, “if a repossessor infringes on it,
inspired by a spirit of justice and solidarity, I find no fault with it.”31 He
adds that he is not inclined “by nature, by habit, or by personal tendency”
to act similarly but that he has no right to “speak as a model for others.”32
While some were shocked by this gentle man’s advocacy of suchactivity, he argues that their horror is misplaced. Why, he asks, should
we echo the dominant culture’s hypocritical condemnation of the effortsof the oppressed to improve their miserable position in society throughsuch reappropriation? First, he argues that under the existing exploitative order, theft is universal. He explains in a letter to Jean Grave that “inthe society of injustice and caprice in which we live, we are, in spite ofourselves, implicated in all the evil that takes place.”33 And in a letter tothe anarchist journal La Révolte, he asserts that “it is true beyond doubtthat in this iniquitous society in which everything rests on inequality andhoarding, in which money alone provides one’s bread, we are all, without
exception, forced by the very conditions of our existence into a life ofoutright theft.”34 The truly abhorrent form of theft is that practiced by therich and powerful, who are highly successful in their efforts to confiscate
the product of the labor of others. Reclus’ sense of justice was outraged
by a system that exalts the biggest and most successful thieves and holds
them up as models of virtue and of success in life while condemning tomisery, disdain, and imprisonment those who seek to recover at best asmall portion of what has been stolen from them.
There are some obvious problems with this analysis. First, there is
the troubling question of the possible corrupting effects of this “reappropriation” process on those who carry it out in sovereign moral isolation.35 While his communitarian ideas imply a collective process of
seeking justice, he apparently sees the “restorers” as justified in appropriating individually what they personally believe to be due to them. To
expect objectivity in such a process seems unrealistic at best. Furthermore,
Reclus’ contention that so-called theft should not be condemned because
everything is theft has rather disturbing implications. On the one hand, it
demonstrates an awareness of the manner in which all become implicatedin systems of domination and injustice. On the other hand, it implies a
moral equivalency for all actions “before the revolution” that threatens tocreate a nihilistic, rather than an anarchistic, ethos. If everything is theft,everything is deceit, and everything is exploitation (since we participate
in corrupt systems in which these evils are ubiquitous), then “everythingis permitted.” However high Reclus’ own moral standards may have been,
he advocates on this issue a kind of moral laissez-faire that might justify
egoistic self-interest as effectively as it would inspire liberatory social
practice.

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It should be stressed that Reclus’ concept of anarchist politics does
not focus on such isolated acts of defiance. Rather, it overwhelmingly
emphasizes the importance of collective and communal organization andthe growth of a culture of freedom and solidarity. He undertakes an investigation of the history of libertarian and communitarian achievements goingback as far as the Athenian polis and ancient tribal societies, presenting
an imaginative vision of the possibilities for embodying this experience ina transformed society. He wishes to reclaim the history of free community
over the ages and to show how this tradition can be reinvigorated throughthe creation of a new libertarian and communitarian society.
Reclus differs markedly from other radical political theorists of histime in his claim that many elements of this long history were of morepractical significance than the prevailing strategies of his own era. In his
view, “the names of the Spanish comuneros, of the French communes,of the English yeomen, of the free cities in Germany, of the Republic of
Novgorod and of the marvelous communities of Italy must be, with us
Anarchists, household words: never was civilized humanity nearer to realAnarchy than it was in certain phases of the communal history of Florence
and Nuremberg.”36 Despite his strong commitment to the contemporary
workers’ movement, he refused to narrow his vision of social transformation by limiting it to the model of the struggle of labor against the modern
state and capitalism. For him, humanity must self-consciously seek selfrealization by drawing on its long and expansive history of struggles forliberation and experiments in freedom.
Reclus attributes special significance in the history of human emancipation to the Athenian polis and to the achievements of Greek democracy.37 He notes that in the polis, “the political unity [ensemble politique]of the social body was as simple, as undivided and as well-defined as was
the unity of the individual himself,” and that it “is in this sense that one
must, like Aristotle, consider the human being to be par excellence thezoon politikon: the ‘urban animal,’ the participant [le part-prenant] in theorganic city [la cité organique] (and not merely the ‘political animal,’ as it isusually translated).”38 Thus, the “political animality” of the citizens does
not mean merely that they were socialized or educated to possess “civic
virtue” or that they achieved self-realization through the political community (though it certainly encompasses both of these). Reclus stresses themore holistic dimension of Aristotle’s conception. When a being attains
its end (telos) within a larger whole, it is an organic part of that larger
whole. However, the citizens are not mere structural cells or organs in the
body politic but rather dynamic participants in the larger organic unity.
Reclus’ use of the language both of life [organique] and of social action[prendre part] is significant. The free and democratic political community

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is a unity in which organic solidarity and spontaneous, voluntary activity
are synthesized.
Reclus situates the development of the democratic polis within thelarger scope of Greek history. He notes that the age of democracy coincidedwith a growing economic equality, as the aristocratic landowners lost someof their holdings and the lower classes of citizens gained wealth throughthe vicissitudes of war. Many of the old prerogatives were eliminated, andpositions were increasingly opened to the electors. Political democracy
thus coincided with other important economic and social reforms. The
political, in turn, accelerated changes in other spheres. Reclus attributes the
success of the Athenians in trade and commerce and the vast achievementsof Greek culture in this period to the effects of growing political equalityand democratization, which fostered creativity and initiative in all areas.39
Another epoch that Reclus recognizes as a milestone in the historyof human liberation is early Icelandic democracy. He greatly admiresthe Icelanders for exhibiting a spirit of independence and for creatingstrong democratic traditions during a period in which Europe was miredin monarchical despotism and feudal hierarchy. He claims that they “succeeded completely in maintaining their dignity as free men, without kings,
feudal princes, hierarchy or any military establishment.”40 Instead, they
made decisions through a process in which “the common interest was
discussed in the open air by all the inhabitants, who were dressed in armor,
the symbol of the absolute right of personal self-defense belonging toeach individual.”41 These assemblies took place at a volcanic gorge called
the Almannagja, or “the Gorge of All the People,” where the Lögmadr, or“Reader of the Law,” proclaimed the decisions of previous assemblies. Any
decisions that were not announced and reaffirmed by the assembly forthree successive years were annulled. Reclus notes that judicial processes
were subject to the same popular supervision. At the end of the gorge was“the Mound of the Law,” where “the judge and the accused met face to face,under the vigilant eye of the armed multitude.”42
Like Kropotkin, Reclus also looks to the era of the medieval free cities
and their federations for inspiration for future social transformation.43 He
notes that these cities had two principles of association—one grouping citizens according to “professional interests, ideas, and pleasure,” the otheraccording to “neighborhood, district, and small territorial units that were
supposed to be in no way sacrificed for the sake of the city center.”44 Rural
communities had a similar dual organization, and both “joined together inleagues,” some of which endured for hundreds of years.45 For Reclus thispresents an admirable model for future federations of local communities.
Despite the great achievements of medieval cities, Reclus also finds
them instructive because of their shortcomings. He argues that a weakness

Anarchism and Social Transformation

63of these communes was their lack of sufficient concern for the liberty ofother communities, and their tendency to become absorbed with theirown interests. As a result, they were susceptible to destruction by powerful economic and political interests.46 He concludes that anarchists must
devote as much attention to such principles as federation, mutual aid, andsolidarity as they do to the goals of freedom, justice, and decentralizationof power, if efforts to transform the larger society are to succeed.
Reclus also expresses great admiration for the independent Basquecommunities that “retained for centuries their administrative autonomy.”47
He comments that these communities have been distinguished by theirlove of freedom and their hostility toward all centralized authority. Since
Reclus grew up in the southwest of France (Orthez is in the shadow of the
Pyrenees), he knew the Basque culture well and found in it many affinities
with his own anarchist sensibilities. He remarks that the Basques “havealways preferred to live in isolation at some beautiful site in their land ofhills and mountains, in the shadow of a great oak, symbolizing the tribe
and its ancient liberty.”48 He takes this phenomenon as a good exampleof the interaction between aspects of culture and nature. In his view, thenatural milieu encouraged the group’s quest for cultural autonomy andindividual freedom. He asks, “Where does the Basques’ fine confidence inthemselves come from, if not from that nature which has always protected
them?”49 Reclus is not implying any geographical determinism here, for healso notes the fact that the Basques knowingly sought out those aspectsof nature that resonated most with their own yearning for independence.
He is pointing out the sort of dialectical interaction between natural andcultural factors that can play a part in the quest for human liberation.
Reclus expresses a similar admiration for communities that had preserved traditions of communal property and cooperative labor. He celebrates the fact that there was in his day still abundant evidence of “thespirit of full association” in Switzerland, where “two-thirds of the alpine
prairies and forests belong to the communes, which also own peat bogs,
reed marshes, and quarries, as well as fields, orchards, and vineyards.”50
He describes these communities as exhibiting a joy in collective laborthat contrasts markedly with the degraded conditions of contemporary
industrialized manufacture and agriculture. He observes that “on manyoccasions when the co-proprietors of the commune have to work together,
they feel as though they are at a festival rather than at work.”51 These small
communities are important to him as evidence that the members of society
can still work together cooperatively and that social organization based onsolidarity is a viable alternative to the political and economic regimentation of an atomized society. As Reclus states it, such social coÂ�operation
persists “despite all the ill will of the rich and the state, who have every

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernityinterest in breaking apart these tightly bound bundles of resistance totheir greed or power and who attempt to reduce society to a collection ofisolated individuals.”52
It is not surprising that as Reclus surveys European history, he finds
the French Revolution to be a great chapter in the history of human liberation.53 It is noteworthy, however, that he also discovers that even thisgreat landmark in the progress of humanity exhibits in a striking manner
the dual aspect that he finds in all historical phenomena. On the one hand,
it was a progressive step away from the absolute monarchy, the religious
authoritarianism, and the cultural conservatism of the past. But it wasalso a regressive step in the direction of the authoritarian state and theconcentration of political power.
For Reclus, the political unification and centralization that emerged
from the Revolution were achieved at the expense of local liberties, andmany of the most progressive features of traditional French society weredestroyed: “Thus, the free communities, the ‘universities’ of the mountainpeople, lost their uncontrolled management of their own interests andtheir sovereign assemblies, in which each man and woman had the absolute right to presence, speech, and initiative.”54 The traditional leftist interpretation of the revolution has been that it was unequivocally progressive
in destroying the traditional feudal and monarchical society and creating arepublican system founded on the rights of the citizen—albeit in the formof a bourgeois republic. To Reclus, it is equally important to see how therevolution helped establish the modern nation-state that has progressively
annihilated an invaluable legacy of decentralized, communal institutions.
An important epoch in the history of liberation that Reclus witnessed
firsthand, and to which he personally contributed, was the Paris Commune.
Not only did he spend years of his life in prison and then in exile as a resultof defending it, but he also pondered deeply its political significance. He
looked to this great social experiment as evidence of the growing historical efficacy of the principles proclaimed by the First International and theanarchist movement, but he also criticized the Commune for failing tolive up to some of its own ideals. His critique is fundamentally a radically
democratic, municipalist, and federalist one. In his view, “the principal
error of the Commune, an unavoidable error, since it derived from the very
principle on which power was constituted, was precisely that of being agovernment, and of substituting itself for the people by force of circumstances.”55 Its flaw was that rather than becoming a fully developed experiment in municipal liberty, and thus a model for other such experiments, itbegan to reinstitute the form of the state. The problem was that the necessary “evolution” had not taken place prior to the “revolution.” The revolutionaries were still too much under the influence of traditional centralist,

Anarchism and Social Transformation

65

authoritarian politics to create a new, radically libertarian regime. “Thenatural functioning and intoxication of power led it to consider itself a bit
like the representative of the entire French state, of the entire Republic,
and not simply the Commune of Paris calling for a free association withother communes, towns and rural areas.”56
Another expression of Reclus’ radical municipalist outlook is his
admiration for the great cities of history, his appreciation of the ethos ofeach city as a unique cultural expression. “Each city,” he says, “has its
unique individuality, its own life, its own countenance, tragic and sorrowful in some cases, joyful and lively in others.”57 Such a generalized depiction of the city only begins to capture the full complexity of the urban
milieu, for the city constitutes not only a distinctive whole but also a sumof distinctive parts. It must be understood both as “a collective personality”
and also as “a very complex individual” in which each neighborhood “isdistinguished from the others by its own particular nature.”58 The cultureof cities thus exemplifies the concept of a dialectical interrelationshipbetween unity and diversity.
Reclus believes that although the city can be studied as a distinctsocial phenomenon, the life of cities and urban problems can be understood only in relation to the institutional structure of society as a whole.
As he puts it, the “urban question” cannot be separated from the larger“social question.” As long as a system of economic injustice and politicaldomination exists, cities cannot develop freely and fulfill their destiny as
centers of human self-realization. Thus, a century ago, Reclus had alreadypresciently announced an intensifying crisis of the city and diagnosed
this crisis as only a symptom of the larger crisis of society. He notes themultitude of “vices,” such as poverty, crime, and ecological degradationthat infest the modern city. He predicts that the continuing centralizationof population in urban areas, with all its attendant problems, will continue
to accelerate. Indeed, he foresees the rise of the gigantic megalopolis, andpredicts that urban areas of ten and twenty million inhabitants will be “anormal phenomenon of social life” in the future.59
Reclus’ comprehensive, critically holistic approach to urbanism madehim an early critic of “urban renewal” schemes, which he attacks as basedon a superficial view of urban questions. He points out that poor housing
and bad health conditions are merely displaced when they are addressed
through a problematic of renewing a certain delimited area rather than
one of renewing the larger society and its natural environment. He notes
pointedly that “in a society in which people cannot depend on having
enough bread to eat, in which the poor and even the starving make up alarge part of the population of every large city, it is no more than a halfway
measure to transform unhealthy neighborhoods if the unfortunate people

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

who previously inhabited them find themselves thrown out of their former
hovels only to go in search of new ones in the suburbs, merely moving the
poisonous emanations a certain distance away.”60 Most urbanists have
yet to come to grips with this inescapable problem that was quite clearly
diagnosed by Reclus at the dawn of the twentieth century.
For Reclus, cities cannot be fundamentally renewed so long as theyremain an integral part of a corrupt and oppressive society. He admires
creative and energetic attempts to improve the city and points to themas inspiring examples of what can be achieved in the future. However, hebelieves that true renewal can only result from reclaiming the city’s richheritage of personal freedom and vibrant local community that extended
across a long history from the Greek polis down to the revolutionary democratic communities of the modern period. It is only when cities become
expressions of the collective self-realization of all the citizens that they can
possibly be renewed and regenerated. Only then can they become “perfectly healthy and beautiful organic bodies.”61 In short, the city can attainfreedom, justice, beauty, and cooperation only when the social revolution
achieves these goals for society as a whole.
Although the concept of mutual aid has been closely associated withthe political philosophy of Kropotkin, Reclus deserves recognition formaking this concept central to anarchist social theory at about the sametime. Reclus declares mutual aid to be “the principal agent of humanprogress.”62 Like other revolutionary theorists, Reclus sees history as a
struggle between the powerful and the masses who are oppressed andexploited. As a theorist of mutual aid, he also sees this struggle as a conflict between those who look upon society as an arena of competition inwhich some inevitably triumph over others, and those who envision asociety in which social solidarity and cooperation prevail. He attacks theSocial Darwinist idea that “the fittest,” in the sense of the most effective
individual competitors, must always triumph. He sees this theory as no
more than an ideology aimed at legitimating the dominance of those witheconomic power.
Reclus contends that those who join together in the liberatory struggle to create a cooperative community will ultimately show themselves tobe both the fittest and the most powerful. This, he thinks, will be demonstrated when their solidarity, combined with their superior numbers, allows
them to overturn the prevailing economic and political system. “The lawof the strongest will not always benefit the industrial monopoly,” he predicts, for “the day is coming when might will be at the service of right.”63
The defenders of the status quo proclaim the eternal rule of “the law of
the blind and brutal struggle for existence,” but it will be succeeded byanother law, that of “the grouping of weak individualities into organisms

Anarchism and Social Transformation

67

more and more developed, learning to defend themselves against theenemy forces, to recognize the resources of their environments, even to
create new ones.”64 Thus mutual aid, allied with human intelligence, will
once again show itself to be a force for social evolution.
Such creative self-organization was beginning to take place in Reclus’
time within the cooperative movement. Both Elisée and his brother
Elie participated very actively in that movement, helping to establish
the first cooperative in Paris and collaborating to produce the journal
La Coopération. However, Reclus’ views began to change markedly after
several disappointing experiences with cooperative efforts, and as hebegan to ally himself more closely with Bakunin and to participate actively
in anarchist revolutionary organizations and the First International. He
came to see a preoccupation with the creation of worker self-managed
cooperatives and intentional communities as a diversion from the morecrucial struggle against capitalism and the state. “As for us anarchists,”
he concludes, “never will we separate ourselves from the world to build alittle church, hidden in some vast wilderness.”65
Reclus’ negative judgments concerning the cooperative movement
and communal experiments seems to contradict his desire to transformhuman values and relationships in order to “make ready for the day” inwhich the new society will be achieved. Despite his strong emphasis on
the importance of a dialectic between evolution and revolution in theprocess of social transformation, his ideas still retain some elements of the
fetishism of revolution that was long endemic to the Marxist and anarchist
left. His belief in evolutionary change as a precondition for revolutionarytransformation was applied consistently to many areas, including personal
life, educational efforts to spread progressive ideas, and the creation of
anarchist organizations. On the other hand, he seemed to have much more
limited faith in the development of counter-institutions that would put
into practice his libertarian and communitarian values before the social
revolution. The forms of organization that he promoted were primarily
oppositional ones, such as revolutionary unions, revolutionary politicalgroups, and radical political alliances. He did not seem to grasp fully theimportance of developing a “pre-revolutionary” practice of libertarianand communitarian social life in areas like production, consumption, andcooperative living that would prepare the way for a more thorough transformation of society.
Nevertheless, one cannot deny the strength of Reclus’ critique ofcooperative experiments. He incisively points out the danger of economic
cooperatives that are divorced from a larger movement for social emancipation. “One tells oneself that it is especially important to succeed in anundertaking that involves the collective honor of a great number of friends,

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

and one gradually allows oneself to be drawn into the petty practicesof conventional business. The person who had resolved to change theworld has changed into nothing more than a simple grocer.”66 This astutediagnosis has been verified in a multitude of cases since Reclus’ time andpoints out a danger inherent in many strategies for reform. Just as those
who enter the dominant political system with radical goals often end bysacrificing those goals for the sake of success within that system, so those
who participate in the dominant economic system with far-reaching goals
often sacrifice their radicalism for the sake of success in that sphere.
It should also be noted that even as Reclus came to stress the greater
importance of other forms of social transformation, he continued to see
value in cooperative experiments. While they are, in his view, incapable ofthoroughly changing present-day society, they are a good source of experience in the practice of the mutual aid that will form the basis of the futurecooperative society. He believes that “studious and sincere anarchists” canlearn much from those cooperatives that have “joined with one another toform ever larger entities in such a way as to encompass the most diverse
functions, such as those of industry, transportation, agriculture, science,
art, and entertainment,” thereby developing a “scientific practice of mutualaid.”67 But despite these contributions, he believes that it is impossible forthem gradually to expand and peacefully replace the existing system. He
therefore concludes that rather than working in cooperatives, anarchists
can better spend their time organizing a revolutionary movement that will
seize power and quickly apply the principles and lessons of cooperation
to the new social order.
Reclus subjects intentional communities to the same critique as heapplies to other forms of cooperative endeavor. He contends that whilethese social experiments may indeed be remarkable achievements inthemselves, they present no serious challenge to the dominant systemof power. At best, they create a sphere of relative freedom on the fringesof that system without threatening it; at worst, they merely function asa part of the system and help stabilize it. He comments that intentional
communities in the United States often succeeded materially, “only toallow themselves to be once again reabsorbed by the environment of allpowerful capitalism.”68
This criticism of the “utopian” nature of intentional communities
seems in some ways to be rather shortsighted. According to Reclus’ own
principles, an indefinite period of evolutionary change must precede thequalitative, revolutionary transformation of society. The potential of communitarian experiments had certainly not been exhausted in his time,and neither has it been today. In fact, it is quite clear that oppositional
movements have directed only a minute fraction of their efforts into such

Anarchism and Social Transformation

69

experiments, while enormous efforts have gone into electoral activity, laborstruggles, and revolutionary organization, none of which has effected thekind of transformation envisioned by Reclus. Thus, his argument against
communalism can be leveled at all strategies for social change (including
his own) that have not succeeded in overturning the prevailing system.
But if some of Reclus’ arguments regarding intentional communities
and cooperatives seem facile, some of his points are very well taken. He
notes that some communitarians are “utopians” in the pejorative sense,in that they do not have a good grasp of the obstacles—especially theinternal, psychological ones—that stand in the way of cooperation: “Thepersons who come together in order to form one of these societies withnew ideals are themselves by no means completely rid of prejudices, oldpractices, and deeply rooted atavisms; they have not yet ‘shed the oldman.’”69 Although the members of the community may physically leave
the old society behind, they carry with them traces of the institutions thatformed their character. Thus, “in the ‘anarchist’ or ‘harmonist’ microcosm
they have created, they must always struggle against the dissociative anddisruptive forces produced by habits, customs, the ever-powerful bonds offamily, tempting advice from friends, the return of worldly ambitions, theneed for adventure, and the obsession with change.”70 This is a very perceptive analysis. The problems Reclus points out are not, however, uniqueto cooperative or communal experiments. A similar critique can usefully
be applied to any attempt to create new social relationships, including therevolutionary organizations and postrevolutionary institutions that Reclus
himself advocated.
It should be noted that in his letters, Reclus sometimes expresseda much greater enthusiasm for intentional communities than is evident
in his published writings. In a letter of 1902, he discusses his visit to an
intentional community, the “International Brotherhood” community in
Blaricum, Holland. He comments:
What brave souls! With what courage they devote themselves to their
work! With what nobility of language they discuss questions related tomorality and humanity! How happy one feels in their good company!
I took from them one of the most lasting impressions of my life. I felt
myself truly to be among my brothers and your brothers, part of ourgreat family. . . . Are these people “born again,” to use your language? I
believe so; I am confident of it. And if they are not born again, the zeal
they exhibit today, their ardent desire for justice, will certainly have an
influence on the imminent birth of those who will complete their work.71

In a letter of the next year he mentions several other intentional communities of varying tendencies and judges that despite their frequent difficulties

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity

in surviving in hostile environments, they “always have great importancein raising the level of morality around them.”72
Although Reclus had mixed feelings concerning the potential of intentional communities and cooperative enterprises, he had a strong belief in
the importance of the personal realm to the process of social transformation. As early as 1859, when he was still in his twenties, he writes to his
sister Louise: “Let us found little republics within ourselves and aroundourselves. Gradually these isolated groups will come together like scattered crystals and form the great Republic.”73 Later, in 1895, he elaborates
on the nature of these “republics.” The anarchist, he says, should “workto free himself personally from all preconceived or imposed ideas, andgradually gather around himself friends who live and act in the sameway. It is step by step, through small, loving, and intelligent associations,that the great fraternal society will be formed.”74 One finds in this idea ofsmall republics of everyday life the essence of what became widely known
in later radical theory and practice as the “affinity group.” Reclus madeextraordinary efforts in his own personal life to apply his principles ofmutual aid, freedom, and egalitarianism in this way. Some other prominent
anarchists (most notably, Bakunin) preached equality and cooperation
while often engaging in self-promotion, manipulation, and cabal. Reclus,
on the other hand, sought consistency between his ideals and his practice.
It was important to him that his own circle of family, friends, and coworkers constituted a small cell in the emerging organic community of freedomthat he heralded in his theoretical writings.75
A final area in which Reclus made a strong positive conception toanarchist thought is the sphere of education. It is surprising that he has
not been more widely recognized as one of the most important figures in
the history of libertarian education, for many concepts often associatedwith Bakunin, Tolstoy, Ferrer, and other libertarian educational theorists
were also proposed, and developed with at least as much originality, in
his writings.76 Reclus’ conception of education focuses on the ideal of thefree self-realization of the child. His ideas are in some ways reminiscent ofRousseau and also prefigure Montessori, Dewey, and other later reformers. He sees the primary objective of education as being to “help the childdevelop in conformity with the logic of its own nature. There is no needfor any goal other than drawing forth in the young intellect that which
it already possessed in an unconscious form, and to assist religiouslywith the interior labors of that intellect, without any hurry, and without
drawing premature conclusions.”77 He sees this process of creating theconditions conducive to such natural unfolding as involving more thanmerely the intellect. Here, as in other areas, Reclus’ approach is dialecticaland holistic. He recommends that practical, physical endeavors always beAnarchism and Social Transformation

71

combined with intellectual ones and stresses the fact that education must
involve both the body and the mind. He says that if both intellectual abilities and “skill and muscular energy” are given due attention, there will bea “natural balance of power” in the developing human being.78 The child’sdevelopment also requires adequate motivation, so his or her interests,
imagination, and “passion” must be encouraged. Fortunately, Reclus says,
the educator has a powerful ally in pursuing this end—play. In his words,“free amusement is one of the great educators of man.”79
Reclus’ critically holistic and libertarian approach to learning
demands a restructuring of education in accord with the child’s stages ofdevelopment. He believes that the practical faculties should be developed
first, through more active and experiential forms of learning, combinedwith the use of stories and forms of play that develop the imagination.
Throughout the educational experience “the direct study of nature andthe consideration of its phenomena should become one of the principal
elements.”80 For the young child, such study should avoid the mere assimilation of information and focus rather on the child’s concrete experience of
his or her natural surroundings. In Reclus’ opinion, logic, science, and all
fields stressing abstraction and generalities can be approached later withmore success. He fears that an education that begins with the abstract will
“deflower the imagination” and render the child “skeptical and blasé.”81
The direct experience of the natural world is the great educational resource
not only for the instruction of children but for education in general. In thesame spirit as Thomas Berry, who states that “the natural world itself” is“the primary educator,” Reclus asserts that “the true school should be freenature, including not only the beautiful landscapes that one contemplates,
and the laws that one studies in the field, but also all the obstacles that
one must learn to overcome.”82
Reclus argues against any kind of coercive or authoritarian methodsof education. He contends that such means are entirely unnecessary if
the needs, capacities, and interests of the child are considered carefully
and subject matter is introduced at the appropriate time. When attempts
to impose premature or unsuitable studies on a child result in failure, it
is often concluded that coercion, rather than better education, is what isneeded. In many cases, coercive methods are imposed before more effective noncoercive ones are even tried.
Reclus contends that a powerful noncoercive instrument in the educational process comprises the personal qualities of a skilled teacher. He
notes that the capable educator has a kind of natural authority over the
young child based on “greater size and power, age, intelligence, scientificknowledge, moral dignity and life experience.”83 This “authority of competence” (as it is often called in anarchist theory), combined with the natural

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activity and curiosity of the child, offers more than adequate stimuli tolearning. Moreover, Reclus recommends a kind of Socratic method ofhelping draw out what is implicit within the student, combined with
the Aristotelian assumption that human beings have a natural desire forknowledge: “The child wants to know and the educator wants to teach,that is, to show the child that he already knows unconsciously, and needs
only to pay attention to things in order to know consciously.”84 In thissense, the educator only assists the student in the free realization of hisor her intellectual potentialities.
Reclus stresses heavily the social dimension of education. He observes
that the nature of the educational experience has a powerful influence ona child’s development as a social being and on his or her future capacity
to participate cooperatively in the life of the community. The character ofthe learning group is therefore crucial. On the one hand, it must be large
enough to create a spirit of collective endeavor as the students pursue theirinterests. They will thereby learn lessons in cooperation that they can later
apply in their personal lives, their work, and their communities. On theother hand, the group must be small enough for a close relationship toexist between all the students and the instructor. Such a group will form“a veritable family for the joys of work and play.”85 The instructor will be“both a father and a brother,” having the natural authority that comesfrom age and competence, but will always consider the students’ needs,interests, and developing autonomy.86 In effect, the libertarian educationalgroup will combine certain qualities of the affinity group with others of
the cooperative workplace. It will therefore help the child develop into aperson who can participate successfully in both these realms.
Reclus’ analysis of educational methodology stresses, in a quite
Deweyan spirit, the distinction between education arising out of direct
experience and engaged understanding, and education based on abstract
dogmatism and sterile abstractions. In a letter of 1881 he proclaims: “I hatetextbooks. Nothing is more detrimental to the intellectual health and themorale of the students. They present science to the student as something
ready-made, finished, signed and approved, made almost into a religion
and on the way to becoming a superstition. It’s a diet that is dead andthat kills.”87 He adds that “for science to come alive, it is necessary that[the student] live it himself, that he create it, and so to speak, renew it
constantly.”88
It must be added that for Reclus, formal education is only one aspectof a larger process of libertarian education—education for social selfrealization—within society as a whole. He explains that “the ideal of theanarchists is not to eliminate the school, but rather to enlarge it, to makesociety itself into a great body for mutual instruction, where all will be atAnarchism and Social Transformation73

once pupils and professors, where each child, after having received ‘thebasics’ in primary education will learn how to develop himself integrally,
according to his own intellectual capacities, in the existence that he haschosen for himself.”89
Reclus’ ideas concerning formal education are thus an application ofhis more general theory of the development of liberatory consciousness
and practice within society. They reflect what has often been seen, withgood reason, as one of the great strengths of his political thought: hisanalysis of the close relation between revolutionary change at the level ofsocial institutions and prior evolutionary change at the level of personal
life, values, and social practices. In view of the perceptiveness and originality of much of his analysis of social evolution and revolution, Reclus
deserves greater recognition than he has usually been given, not only as
one of the major figures in the history of anarchist thought but as a significant figure in modern European social and political theory in general.

6

The Critique of Domination

Reclus was always an anarchist by temperament, and his libertarian ideas
began to develop early in his life. However, his anarchism became increasingly deeper and more consistent as his social analysis expanded into a
detailed critique of all forms of domination. As has been shown, Reclus was
unusual in questioning the conception of human domination of nature that
was accepted not only by mainstream thinkers but also by most critics ofthe prevailing order. He is also distinctive for the comprehensiveness of his
critique of domination within human society. His analysis of various institutional forms of social domination constitutes one the most far-reachingaccounts in classical radical thought, and his position prefigures in many
ways the more widely recognized achievements of later critical theory.
One of the most extensively developed aspects of Reclus critique ishis devastating attack on all forms of the state, including what he saw
as the ideological fiction of the “representative” state. Although as lateas 1871 he was willing to offer himself as a candidate for the National
Assembly, he soon came to oppose the parliamentary system entirely, andfor the remainder of his life he rejected voting in national elections, evenin the proverbial case of “the lesser of evils.” In his opinion, all those who
seek to exercise power in a centralized nation-state render themselvesvulnerable to absorption into that system of domination. He says that
aspiring officeholders are “raised above the crowd, whom they soon learn
to despise,” so that they “end by considering themselves essentially superior beings; solicited by ambition in a thousand forms, by vanity, greed
and caprice,” and “are all the more easily corrupted.”1 He observes that
their corruption is encouraged by a “rabble of interested flatterers” whoare “ever on the watch to profit by their vices.”2
Reclus’ remarks on the processes by which elected officials are selected
are often quite astute and describe accurately many features of what is

The Critique of Domination75

called representative democracy. He notes that in order to gain support, anaspiring public official must please a variety of factions so that “ambitions
inevitably emerge, and machinations, extravagant promises, and lies havefree rein. Moreover, it is certainly not the most honest candidate who has
the best chance of winning.”3 In theory, the legislator should be a specialist in every area in order to make decisions for everyone on every subject
imaginable. But in reality the candidates do not possess such capacities any
more than do the members of the electorate. In practice, what is requiredof them is only that they be experts at getting elected, and “no particularability recommends the candidate to the voters.”4 Entirely irrelevant or
arbitrary qualities become essential to electoral victory, and “the winner
may owe his success to a certain provincial popularity, his good-natured
qualities, his oratorical skills, or his organizational talents, but frequently
he is also indebted to his wealth, his family connections, or even the terrorthat he can inspire as a great industrialist or large property owner.”5
The products of this degraded system, Reclus contends, are a collection of mediocrities who have no conception of the common good. The
successful politician “will be a man of the party; he will be asked neither
to involve himself in public works, nor to facilitate human relations, butrather to fight against one faction or another.”6 The greatest danger is not
the incompetence of the legislature but the fact that it is “inferior in moral
qualities, since it is dominated by professional politicians.”7 In Reclus’
opinion, these falsely denominated “representatives of the people” willcertainly make far worse decisions for the populace than its individual
members would have made for themselves without going through thetrouble of holding elections.
Reclus contends that after the so-called representatives are elected,
they are free to move ever farther from any kind of effective control by
the people. Knowing that there is no real accountability between elections, and “well aware that he can now commit crimes with impunity, theelected official finds himself immediately exposed to all sorts of seductions on behalf of the ruling classes.”8 The legislators find themselves ina world of power and wealth that is quite alien to the lives of those who
elected them. The power of this milieu overcomes any scruples that may
have stood in the way of identification with the political elite, as “thenewcomer is initiated into the legislative traditions under the leadershipof the veteran parliamentarians, adopts the esprit de corps, and is solicitedby big industry, high officials, and above all, international finance.”9 As
is typical of all modes of socialization, the immediate social environment
has an overwhelmingly powerful effect on the individual.
Reclus’ attack on electoralism is directed especially against the parliamentary socialists. He comments that “it would be absurd on our part

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to hold a grudge against the socialist leaders who, finding themselvescaught up in the electoral machine, end up being gradually transformed
into nothing more than bourgeois with liberal ideas. They have placed
themselves in determinate conditions that in turn determine them.”10 But
while he (perhaps disingenuously) dismisses the idea of “holding a grudge
against” such socialists, he certainly thinks they should be exposed astraitors to the cause of freedom and justice. Since they use the rhetoricof justice and equality and claim to act on behalf of the masses, they
become powerful impediments to the popular acceptance of libertarianand revolutionary ideas. They sap the people’s revolutionary energies by
diverting them into ineffectual and indeed counterproductive strategies.
Reclus would no doubt direct similar criticisms at today’s “progressive”
and social democratic politicians who argue that society can be madejust and free if only their faction is elected to national office in sufficientnumbers to guide the policies of the nation-state and mitigate somewhat
the worst excesses of the capitalist system.
According to Reclus, such politicians corrupt themselves and become
shameless hypocrites in seeking electoral success and high position rather
than devoting all their efforts to achieving the social emancipation towhich they profess allegiance. Once again (as on the issues of cooperatives
and intentional communities), he raises the question of a discontinuity
between means and ends. He argues that means that are justified in thename of quite laudable ends soon come to exert such a powerful influence that the ends become no more than ideological alibis for helping toperpetuate the system of domination and to legitimate the position of thenominal opposition within that system. In pursuit of electoral success,“the socialist candidate readily flatters the tastes, the inclinations, or eventhe prejudices of his electorate. He blithely ignores disagreements, disputes, and grudges, and for a while becomes the friend, or at least the ally,of those with whom only a short time ago he had exchanged invectives.”11
If these politicians succeed in their quest for office, the disintegration of
their character only accelerates. “Their very spirit undergoes a pervasivetransformation,” and they finally end up as “experts at exchanging smiles,
handshakes, and favors.”12
Reclus contends that the achievement of electoral success, though
always greeted with euphoria, may actually be a major setback for any
growing movement for social change, no matter how just and moral its
professed ends may be. While it would seem that such a movement has
gained a great victory if it can enact its demands into law, “it is possiblethat the result will be precisely the opposite. While it is true that any
charter or laws that are agreed to by the insurgents may sanction theliberty that has been won, it is also true that they will limit it, and therein

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lies the danger. They determine the precise limit at which the victors muststop, and this inevitably becomes the point of departure for a retreat.”13
Within a vital social movement, ideas and practices develop and evolve
among the community of those committed to common ends. The shift
to the parliamentary realm (and often even merely to the electoral one)transforms this dynamic process into a debilitating struggle to salvage
some elements of the ideal in the form of a viable “program” or “platform.”
This critique perhaps overstates the extent to which all such efforts toembody far-ranging ideals in practical political programs must founder on
the shoals of political pragmatism. Yet the examples multiply of “progressive” (whether liberal, social democratic, or green) social movements thathave envisioned vast social transformations, only to become practicallyineffectual and theoretically insipid in the face of their own electoral andlegislative successes.
If Reclus is harsh in his criticism of legislative power, he is no lessscathing in his attack on bureaucracy and administration. He observes
that injustice is woven into the fabric of existing society and that as longas the system of power remains fundamentally intact, any large institution must adapt itself to the prevailing conditions. He has a disturbing
yet powerful message for many liberals, social democrats, and others of
the reformist left who have continued to believe that an improved statebureaucracy is a promising agent for the rectification of social injustices.
“As soon as an [administrative] institution is established, even if it should
be only to combat flagrant abuses, it creates them anew through its very
existence. It has to adapt to its bad environment, and in order to function,
it must do so in a pathological way. Whereas the creators of the institution
follow only noble ideals, the employees that they appoint must consider
above all their remuneration and the continuation of their employment.”14
Far from constituting, as Hegel claimed, a “universal class,” the bureaucracy is rather a powerful particularistic interest.
Furthermore, Reclus warns, bureaucracy is hopelessly inefficient.
While bureaucratic rationality claims to maximize efficiency, it in fact
does the reverse, because “first, it impedes individual initiative in every
way and even prevents its emergence; second, it delays, halts, and immobilizes the works that are entrusted to it.”15 Reclus’ critique of bureaucracy is of interest in part because many of his points sound so much likethe antibureaucratic discourse of the neoliberal right in many countries
today. But Reclus would argue that the contemporary left succumbs to a
fallacious and disastrous logic when it deduces from the true premise that
big business acts in ways detrimental to society the false conclusion thatstate bureaucracies will act in ways that are truly beneficial to the populations whose welfare is entrusted to them. He would contend that this78

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logic will seldom seem convincing to those who have the most immediate
experience of the administrative state, the actual “clients” (he would say“victims”) of state bureaucracies.
Reclus argues that the bureaucracy creates its own forms of social irresponsibility and greatly reduces efficiency at the same time. Despite hisloathing for the capitalist industrial system, Reclus finds the bureaucratic
world to be in some ways even worse. While human values are trampled on
by industry, at least its economic rationality produces an effort to reduce
waste and increase productivity. On the other hand, “the administrative
hierarchy does its utmost to multiply the number of employees and subordinates, directors, auditors, and inspectors. Work becomes so complicatedas to be impossible,” and “everything becomes a pretext for a delay or a
reprimand.”16 In this respect, there is even less redeeming social value instate bureaucratic organization.
Reclus sees another evil of bureaucracy in the loss of responsibility that results from its complex, mazelike network of power, in which
accountability becomes impossible. In such a system, “minor officials
exercise their power more absolutely than persons of high rank, who are by
their very importance constrained by a certain propriety,” and “the petty
official need not have the slightest fear of being held responsible in thisway so long as he is shielded by a powerful boss.”17 The egoistic, dominating personality fostered by authoritarian institutions gains a multitude
of outlets in the bureaucratic labyrinth: “The uncouth can give free rein
to crass behavior, the violent lash out as they please, and the cruel enjoy
torturing at their leisure.”18
Reclus thus developed a quite challenging critique of bureaucracy
over a century ago, pointing out evils that have become even more evident
in the massively bureaucratic states that have developed since his time.
It might seem ironic that the mainstream left has allowed the right tomonopolize antibureaucratic rhetoric for its own benefit, even as militaryand corporate bureaucracies hostile to the presumed goals of the left haveproliferated. Reclus would argue that this lapse has continued to exist forvery good ideological reasons. He would point out that an incisive critiqueof bureaucratic abuses would necessarily lead to a critique of statism, party
politics, and all the other related hierarchical institutions that oppositional
political movements and parties have themselves done so much to perpetuate and in which they continue to have a vested interest.
Another area in which Reclus’ critique of the state is particularly
acute is in his discussion of patriotism and the ideology of nationalism.
His dissection of the extremes of patriotic folly prefigures later analysis of the psychology (and pathology) of nationalism by figures such as
Randolph Bourne and Wilhelm Reich. Although individuals, he notes, may

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sometimes escape a prevailing insular mentality, masses of people tend toremain in the grip of a “primitive morality of force” that can be aroused
whenever their leaders find an enemy against whom they can direct malignant passions and murderous fantasies.
Reclus is quite eloquent in his description of the collective insanitythat periodically breaks out under the influence of nationalist leadersand manipulative politicians. Once it is deceived into conflict, a nation
unites in patriotic hatred and then “delights in ravishing, killing, and thensinging of victory over the sprawling corpses. It glories in all the evil thatits ancestors have inflicted on other peoples. It gets carried away, andwildly celebrates in verse, in prose, and in triumphant depictions, all theabominations that its own people have committed in foreign lands. Iteven solemnly invites its God to take part in the general intoxication.”19
What Reclus describes, though he never specifically mentions the term, isa process in which all the forces of the social imagination are enlisted onbehalf of the state and its atrocities.
This mechanism is one of the most powerful means of control available to “the masters of the people.” Social antagonisms are calmed andoppositional forces abated by “transforming all the energies of a nation
into a rage against the foreigner.”20 This recourse is readily available since
the state and its rulers labor tirelessly to rewrite history as a chronicle ofoffenses against the nation by malevolent foreign powers, with episodesof injury and victimization alternating with those of triumph and revenge.
The fundamentally oppositional and antagonistic nature of the system ofnation-states greatly facilitates this task. Pretexts for turning neighbors into
enemies “are easy to find, since the interests of states remain different andin conflict through the very fact of their separation into distinct artificialorganisms.”21 In addition, given the vicissitudes of international relations,
there is usually a long history of conflict at the disposal of the rulers forpurposes of inflaming the public. They can make use of “the memories ofactual wrongs, massacres, and crimes of all sorts committed in former wars.
The call for revenge still resounds, and when a new war will have passed
like the terrible flames of a fire devouring everything in its path, it will also
leave the memory of hatred and will serve as leaven for future conflicts.”22
The oppositional nature of the state dictates not only conflict but also
conquest. By Reclus’ time the age-old process of state expansionism had
evolved into the system of global imperialism in which the more powerful
European nation-states had succeeded in subjecting most of the surfaceof the earth to colonization. This process of global transformation was ofgreat interest to Reclus both as a social geographer and as a political theorist. Béatrice Giblin notes that his views on colonization are ambiguous
because of his distinction between “colonies of exploitation,” based on the80

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domination of conquered peoples, and “colonies of population,” which, in
his view, have contributed to progress through the spread of constructive
human activity over the face of the earth.23 Giblin correctly points out thathe “had a dialectical vision of the phenomenon of colonialism,” according
to which “he denounces the negative effects—such as the plunder of theeconomy, the destructuring of indigenous cultures, the increase in famines,
etc.,” while also recognizing such positive consequences as “the spread ofeducation to a greater proportion of the population, the progressive disappearance of certain ‘barbaric’ customs such as infanticide of female offspring, improvement in health conditions, etc.”24 His assessment of colonialism thus coincides with his general view of social phenomena, which
requires a careful analysis of both progressive and regressive moments.
It would be incorrect to see in this dialectical analysis any sort ofapology for colonization. Reclus does not seek to explain away the evilsof history in any quasi-Hegelian defense of their necessity in some vast
scheme of world history. Rather, he asserts that freedom and solidarity must always be defended and that progress must be pursued only
through the most just and liberatory means possible. He therefore vehemently opposes the spread of imperial state power, whatever good might
be discovered amidst the evils of conquest and oppression. For example,
his condemnation of the French colonization of Algeria—despite theimplantation of widespread “colonies of population” there—is scathing. He notes that the military conquerors “were interested much lessin the fate of the conquered populations than in plying their trade, andhe saw little in Algeria beyond a vast field for training troops in all sortsof military exercises,” so that as a consequence “the so-called militaryspirit was formed—a spirit hostile to all free thought, individual initiative,
and peaceful, spontaneous progress.”25 He condemns colonial exploitation elsewhere on similar grounds, sometimes noting the correspondence
between the destruction of indigenous cultures and the assault on the
integrity of nature as European power spread across the earth.
While Reclus finds certain evils, such as conflict and conquest, to be
inherent in the very form of the nation-state, he does not treat “the state”
as a monolithic institution. He recognizes that states have diverse histories and compositions, and that they play varying roles in the course ofhistory. He is even willing to concede that they have both progressive andregressive aspects (perhaps a surprising concession for as thoroughgoingan anarchist as Reclus). In his consideration of modern nation-states, hefinds Russia and the United States to be of particular importance in the
future course of history. He sees these two societies as the major modern
paradigms of social organization. The United States is “a republic, theleader of other republics,” while Russia represents “conservative principles

The Critique of Domination81

and the old despotism.”26 Indeed, he discovers in Russia the seeds of an
Oriental despotism that constitutes a major threat to European society. He
warns of “the poison of a traditional, atavistic servitude that easily spreads
through the veins of the European: the Oriental conception of the necessity for a strong government,” and suggests that there is no lack of “basesouls, happy to renounce themselves and to obey.”27 In particular, he fears
that European authoritarianism would be promoted by the example of amodern Russian despotism that carried on the tradition of Genghis Khanand Ivan the Terrible. It takes little imagination to combine these remarkson Oriental despotism with Reclus’ attacks on authoritarian socialism andto discover a powerful implicit critique of Stalinism and the future Soviet“communist” state.28
Reclus also warns against more subtle developments in the directionof despotism. He recognizes that with the spread of illusory “representative democracy” the state begins in some ways to gain a firmer hold overthe populace. “On the one hand, the ambition to govern becomes widespread, even universal, so that the natural tendency of the ordinary citizen
is to participate in the management of public affairs. Millions of men feelsolidarity in the maintenance of the state, which is their property, theiraffair.”29 On the other hand, the state is strengthened by the spread of an
equally superficial social democracy, as a multitude of people become
dependent on it for “small entitlements to income.”30 For Reclus, no lessthan for Friedrich Hayek, the social-democratic state is certainly a “road toserfdom” (though Reclus would contend that Hayek and other conservative critics of the state merely take detours to the same destination).
But in spite of his fears of regression to old forms of despotism andevolution toward new ones, Reclus holds out hope that the despotic statemight on the whole be moving into a period of decline. He notes that evenas the public begins to find itself on much more intimate terms with thestate, true to the cliché, familiarity begins to breed contempt. The unmasking of the state’s cynical exercise of power begins, and the manipulativeand self-interested nature of its actions becomes increasingly clear. Reclus
is rather prophetic in describing this unmasking process, which might becalled the “disenchantment of the state.” While we have yet to see whether
it proceeds to what he sees as its logical conclusion, his analysis of thephenomenon is brilliantly prescient.
He observes that as the populace becomes more involved, albeit
superficially, in the affairs of state, “this banal government, being all too
well understood, no longer dominates the multitudes through the impression of terrifying majesty that once belonged to masters who were all but
invisible and who only appeared before the public surrounded by judges,
attendants, and executioners.”31 While the popularization of the state

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superficially seems to reinforce its power, the disenchanted state loses
its capacity to “inspire mysterious and sacred fear” and finally reaches
the point at which “it even provokes laughter and contempt.”32 He suggests that historians will have to study satire and caricature to understandadequately the fate of the state and government beginning with the second
half of the nineteenth century.
Reclus describes this process in dialectical terms: “The state perishes
and is neutralized through its very dissemination. Just when all possess it,it has virtually ceased to exist, and is no more than a shadow of itself.”33
The transformation of the modern state illustrates the classically Hegelian
dialectical principle that when a phenomenon reaches the limit of its selfdevelopment it begins to destroy itself, though its history is preserved
through its embodiment in succeeding phenomena. “Institutions thus disappear at the moment when they seem to triumph. The state has branchedout everywhere; however, an opposing force also appears everywhere.
While it was once considered inconsequential and was unaware of itself,
it is constantly growing and henceforth will be conscious of the work thatit has to accomplish.”34 The opposing force is, of course, the movement
for human liberation. Needless to say, Reclus’ optimism concerning its
efficacy, and even its growing self-consciousness, has yet to be borne out
in history. And to the extent that the legitimacy of the state has indeed
eroded, its place has often been taken by other modes of domination,
including the form that is given the most extensive attention in Reclus’
own analysis—economic exploitation.
Although Reclus launches a stinging attack on the state and bureaucracy, it is economic power that is the object of his most far-reaching critique. In his view, capital is the supreme power in modern society and the
major obstacle to social emancipation. He therefore presents an extensive
analysis of the evolution of forms of property, the domination of society
by economic power, and the destructive effects of the economization ofsociety and its values. His reflections on the subject make an important
contribution to an anarchist theory of property. In part, he further develops such conceptions as Godwin’s idea of entitlement based on need andProudhon’s distinction between exploitative forms of property, which thelatter defined as “theft,” and property as personal possession, which hesaw as a form of “freedom.”
According to Reclus, there are ancient forms of appropriation thatpreceded “property” as we now conceive of it. Early societies linked possession to use and had no conception of individual or group ownership.
Even collective property, he says, is “a limitation of the primitive right tolabor belonging to all.”35 The most ancient forms seem to come closest
to what Reclus proposes for the future, which is a kind of distribution

The Critique of Domination83

according to need, or, as he would put it, distribution based on solidarity
with others and with the community. In his view, the earliest forms weresucceeded by a system of possession of property by the community as awhole. Although he sees a regressive aspect in this change since it introduced ideas of possession that had potentially antisocial implications, heargues that many of the virtues of the more ancient system were preserved.
Indeed, he praises lavishly what remains of the tradition of communal
property, for it offers a sphere of resistance to the domination of capitalist
property relations, presents a point of reference with which to show thebrutality of the present economic order, and points toward a future systemof cooperative production.
Critics have sometimes contended that anarchist thought, and classical anarchist theory in particular, has emphasized opposition to the state
to the point of neglecting the real hegemony of economic power. This
interpretation arises, perhaps, from a simplistic and overdrawn distinction
between the anarchist focus on political domination and the Marxist focus
on economic exploitation. While there is abundant evidence against such athesis throughout the history of anarchist thought, Reclus’ analysis refutes
it in a particularly conclusive manner. In his view, “one overriding fact dominates all of modern civilization, the fact that the property of a single person
can increase indefinitely, and even, by virtue of almost universal consent,
encompass the entire world.”36 He observes that the ability of capital totransgress all boundaries of state and nationality gives it a great advantage
over political power. “The power of kings and emperors has limits, but thatof wealth has none at all. The dollar is the master of masters.”37
In analyzing the destructive aspects of capital, Reclus considers arguments that concentration of property has fostered economic and technological progress, and that economies of scale have increased productivity. He holds that if one looks at this concentration from the standpointof social geography rather than from that of economic rationality, theresults are seen to be detrimental to both human society and to nature. In
his words, “the devouring of the surrounding land by the large estates ishardly less disastrous than fire and other devastations” since “it produces
the same end result, which is the ruin not only of populations but alsofrequently of the land itself.”38 With stinging irony he notes that “intelligent large landholders can no doubt train excellent farm hands, and they
will certainly have domestics of impeccable correctness,” but they makeno contribution to social progress since they produce “subjects” rather
than “dignified equals.”39 Reclus the social geographer once again shows
how the ecological and the social (in this case degradation of the land anddegradation of character) are intimately interrelated and result from thesame root causes.

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It has been noted that Reclus saw Russia and the United States as
the two emerging models for the next period of world history. While
Russia is taken as the paradigm for statism and political domination, theUnited States serves as the model for economism and the power of capital.
Nevertheless, Reclus is not so naïve as to reduce American society to its
economic system in the manner of some superficial social critics, including
some anarchists. He knew that society well and presents a subtle analysisof both its great achievements and promise as well as its tragic injustices
and contradictions. He finds its republican institutions to have many admirable qualities, and he recognizes its capacity to exert a positive influenceon societies that are still struggling to end political despotism. In addition,
he praises it as the world’s best example of “daring, initiative, and energy
in labor.”40 He suggests, however, that much of the society’s vast potential
for social progress is negated by the dominance of its economistic values.
After living several years in the United States, he depicted in his early
work A Voyage to New Orleans the baneful effects of commerce on theAmerican character. He notes that while Europeans “obey traditions rather
than humans” and are “governed by the dead more than by the living,” inthe United States “not a single superstition is attached to the past, or to thenative soil, and the population, moving like the surface of a lake seeking
its level, distributes itself entirely according to the laws of economics.”41
He observes that in such a society the quest for innovation leads to widespread destruction, as so much falls quickly into obsolescence. He notesthat “in the young and growing republic, there are already as many ruins
as in our old empires.”42 Writing before the Civil War, he diagnoses rather
acutely the growing dominance of economic ideology in American society.
“For the masses,” he comments, “all feelings merge more and more withpecuniary interests.”43 He was greatly alarmed at the prospect that the“leader of republics” would lead other nations toward class dominationand egoistic exploitation rather than freedom and solidarity, as it spreadthis economistic outlook throughout the world.
Indeed, Reclus foresees the coming ascendancy of a world economic
system pervaded by a global culture of economistic values. This culture,
he notes, is already entrenched in societies of the West. He remarks that“for the typical civilized European, or better yet, the North American, theessential thing is to train oneself to pursue monetary gain, with the goalof commanding others by means of the omnipotence of money. One’s
power increases in direct proportion to one’s economic resources.”44 Sucha system of values is dominant in countries with European cultures but isspreading across the globe. He notes its influence in “those countries ofAsia that have developed in the direction of the ideal world of economics,
and in all other parts of the world that are carried along by the example ofThe Critique of Domination

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Europe and its all-powerful will.”45 It would not be surprising to Reclus tofind that today countries of East Asia have been integrated into the coreof the world system.
Reclus laments the fact that as this process of economization andEuropeanization extends to an increasing number of traditional cultures,the communal traditions that might contribute to the development of afree communitarian society are destroyed: “The ancient forms of property
that grant to each member of the community equal right to the use of theearth, water, air and fire are nothing more than archaic survivals in theprocess of rapid extinction.”46 Whereas Marx and many other classicalradical theorists accepted the dissolution of all traditional institutions as
the necessary cost of economic and technological progress, Reclus sees theprocesses of commodification and economic rationalization as destroying
genuinely progressive features of traditional culture—features that might
be developed in a liberatory direction.
In addition to diagnosing at a rather early date the destructive cultural effects of global economic imperialism, Reclus also warns of thedangers inherent in the more purely economic tendencies of that system.
Describing the process of economic expansion, he observes thatthe theater expands, since it now embraces the whole of the land andseas. But the forces that struggled against one another in each particular state are precisely those that fight across the earth. In each country,
capital seeks to subdue the workers. Similarly, on the level of the broadest world market, capital, which has grown enormously, disregards all
the old borders and seeks to put the entire mass of producers to work
on behalf of its profits, and to secure all the consumers in the world,
savage and barbarian as well as civilized.47

He notes that in this globalizing economy the state acts increasingly
on a transnational level to enforce the interests of economic power. He
observes that already troops have been dispatched to foreign countries“by order of the stock exchange” and that “the unlimited power of capitaland its international character are phenomena that are so well establishedthat one may speak of the replacement of governments by banks in directing the undertaking and administration of war and peace.”48 Finally, hegoes so far as to ask rhetorically whether these economic institutions that“already directly manage—albeit under an assumed name—billions of thebudget, do not indirectly manage all the affairs of state.”49 He thus depicts
modern capitalism, at a relatively early stage in its development, as anincreasingly totalizing system of global economic imperialism.
Reclus’ critique of economic domination is based above all on his
acute sense of justice, on his deep compassion for those who suffer, and86

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on his intense feeling of outrage at the subordination of some to the powerof others. His concern for justice is expressed perhaps most strikingly insuch popular works as his pamphlet To My Brother the Peasant, in which hejuxtaposes a description of the enormous wealth of the infant born into theworld of privilege and an account of the growing degradation of the livesof working people. Here and in some of his other more polemical works
he expresses, often in eloquent terms, the righteous moral indignation that
underlies his social analysis.
But despite his identification with the oppressed, he does not neglect
the detrimental effects of injustice on those who seemingly benefit from
exploitation. He believes deeply that a life of cooperation and mutual aid
within a compassionate community is the most fulfilling existence for ahuman being. Conversely, he sees a life of privilege based on injustice
as no more than an illusion of happiness and success. For Reclus, thehuman spirit is necessarily distorted when some prosper at the expense ofothers. Accordingly, “the present cruel state of inequality, in which someare overloaded with superfluous wealth while others are deprived evenof hope, weighs like a bad conscience on the human soul, whether one
is aware of it or not. It weighs most on the souls of the fortunate, whosejoys are always poisoned by it.”50 Reclus’ critique of economic inequality
is fundamentally an ethical one that focuses on the fact that it destroys
the human potential to achieve the good life, whether on the part of the
oppressed or of the oppressors.
Reclus also does not overlook the many ways in which the drive for
economic power destroys what is of value in the natural world and prevents it from flourishing. In his relatively early essay on “The Feeling for
Nature in Modern Society,” he describes the acquisitive drive to turn into
a new source of profit everything in nature that can possibly be exploited
economically. He notes that even the most exalted spiritual and aesthetic
dimensions of nature are increasingly reduced to the level of economic
values.
Each natural curiosity, be it rock, grotto, waterfall, or the fissure of a
glacier—everything, even the sound of an echo—can become individual property. The entrepreneurs lease waterfalls and enclose themwith wooden fences to prevent non-paying travelers from gazing at
the turbulent waters. Then, through a deluge of advertising, the lightthat plays about the scattering droplets and the puffs of wind unfurlingcurtains of mist are transformed into the resounding jingle of silver.51

Reclus’ discussion of such economic exploitation exhibits the appeal
to both moral and aesthetic sensibilities that so often marks his ethicalcritique.

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Reclus was also an early and perceptive critic of the social regimentation and control that results from the development of industrial technology at the service of economic power. He deserves recognition for hisprescient insights concerning technocracy in general and the dangers of
the coming machine civilization. In his widely reprinted To My Brotherthe Peasant, he warns that “we are in an age of science and method, andour rulers, served by an army of chemists and professors, are preparing asocial structure for you in which all will be regulated as in a factory. There,
the machine controls everything, even men, who are simple cogs to bedisposed of when they take it upon themselves to reason and to will.”52
In some ways, his critique is reminiscent of Marx’s account of alienationand dehumanization under a capitalist division of labor. However, unlike
his great contemporary, he did not see humanity’s passage through “thesteeling school of labor” as a historically necessary stage, and he did not
accept the desirability of continuing the regimentation of labor until theautomated industrial machine freed humanity from the necessity of toil.
In order to illustrate the nature of the process of mechanization,
Reclus points to the example of industrialized farming in the AmericanWest. The criteria for the organization of production, he notes, are, first,
the reduction of everything, including human beings, according to technical rationality, to quantifiable and manipulable resources, and, second,the efficient use of these resources according to the dictates of economic
rationality, with minimal investment and maximum return. “Machines,
horses, and men are used in the same manner: they are viewed as so muchforce to be quantified numerically, and they must be used most profitably
for the employer, with the greatest productivity and the least expense
possible.”53 The result is a system of regimentation and control in which“all of the workers’ movements are regulated from the moment they leave
the communal dormitories.”54
Later, in Man and the Earth, he describes this system as a processof reducing workers “to the simple role of living cogs in the machine”
who, after “repeating the same motions millions or even billions of times,”
finally have “but the appearance of life.”55 He thus outlined and criticized the principles of capitalist “scientific management,” just as Frederick
Taylor was beginning to introduce it into American industry. Of course,
Adam Smith had described the process of mechanized labor, and Marxand others had criticized it long before. But Reclus’ analysis goes farther
than many others, for in addition to stressing the dehumanization, alienation, and immiseration of the workers, he also points out the emergenceof systematic technological domination of society. His judgment of thedeveloping system of technical rationality is astute: “Never did ancientslavery more methodically mold and shape human material to reduce it to88

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being a tool.”56 In his view, modern “free” labor is subjected to a kind of
domination and objectification that was inconceivable under any previous
system of exploitation, no matter how brutal it may have been.
Bakunin is often thought to be distinctive among anarchist politicaltheorists for his prophetic warning of the coming domination of the “newclass”—that is, the rule of the new elite of scientific and technical intelligentsia. In Bakunin’s words, their attainment of power would signal “thereign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant andcontemptuous of all regimes.”57 However, Reclus also stresses the dangers
posed by the rise of this new class. He notes the example of those Germanscientists who served as “intellectual bodyguards for the imperial Houseof Hohenzollern”58 and warns that although the technobureaucratic elite
can function as an important tool of concentrated power, it also aspires tothe direct exercise of such power: “If some scientists pride themselves inserving the master, there are others who aspire to become masters themselves.”59 He cites the principles of the Saint-Simonians and the Comptists
as early examples of ideologies legitimating technocratic domination in
the alleged interest of society as a whole. According to these schools,
society must be managed “like a great factory directed by the discretionof engineers” and, more particularly, directed “precisely by the leaders ofthese new schools, who aim at infallibility.”60 In his view, this project oftechnocratic domination was advanced by authoritarians of his own time
under the guise of “scientific socialism.”
Reclus’ reaction to the growth of scientific and technical knowledge
and expertise was far from entirely negative. Here as elsewhere his viewis a dialectical one, in which both positive and negative moments are
identified and analyzed. He finds that despite its ruthless and destructive aspects, the developing scientific and technical division of labor has
made a definite contribution to social progress. It has done so not only byincreasing the wealth of society, as its defenders often claim, but also by
fostering “the participation of an increasingly greater number of workers
in the science of mechanics and all the associated areas of knowledge,
including electronics, chemistry and metallurgy.”61 Much like Bakunin,
Kropotkin, and other anarchist theorists, Reclus believes that society’s
goal should be to extend this process to create a “synthesis of intellectualand manual labor” in which “science becomes active.”62
For Reclus, the distinctive quality of the division of labor and the ideal
toward which it moves is not mere increase in production but above all
the creation of “solidarity between all the functions that are divided fromone another.”63 In his view, modern industry subverts this ideal by using
the division of labor to increase its profit and, in pursuit of this goal, seeks“to separate the workers, isolate them one from another, and maintain its

The Critique of Domination89

own power through the breaking up of opposing forces.”64 The challenge
for a liberatory social movement, according to Reclus, is to take controlof the system of production so that the growing solidarity of labor canbe allowed to develop freely and take its place within a larger system ofsolidarity encompassing both humanity and nature.
Another form of domination that concerned Reclus very deeply
throughout his life was racism. For Reclus, racism expresses a contemptuous, hierarchical ranking of human beings that conflicts with his senseof human solidarity, his belief in social equality, and his respect for theachievements of all cultures. This great social evil became a matter ofintense personal interest to him when his stay in Louisiana gave him direct
experience of a racist, slaveholding society. His marriage to a woman of
mixed African and European ancestry intensified his personal involvementin the issue. While classical anarchist thinkers and radical theorists ingeneral tended to focus their critique on the state and capitalism, Reclus
always identifies racism as one of the most pernicious forms of oppression and domination. He holds that the most effective response to racismis the destruction of the social barriers that have been created to enforce
the system of dominance and subordination. In his view, society is always
strengthened by the creative diversification resulting from the interaction
and blending of peoples and cultures. The social and biological intermingling of previously segregated races would therefore both eliminate thebasis for racism and also contribute to the vitality of society.
Reclus was particularly interested in the conditions of black people in
the United States, a topic he analyzed both before and after slavery. In his
Voyage to New Orleans, he presents a moving depiction of an antebellum
slave market. Reflecting on the atrocities of the auction block, he observes
that “all the Negroes of Louisiana pass in turn on this fateful table: children
who have just ended their seventh year and whom the law in its solicitude deems old enough to be separated from their mothers, young girls
subjected to the stares of two thousand spectators and sold by the pound,mothers who come to see their children stolen from them, and who are
obliged to remain cheerful under threat of the whip, and the elderly, whohave already been auctioned off many times, and who have to appear one
last time before these pale-faced men who despise them and jeer at their
white hair.”65 His encounter, relatively early in his life, with racism in thismost brutal form affected him profoundly and left him with an unusual
sensitivity to the ethnic dimensions of domination.
Reclus was well aware of the fact that the abolition of slavery did
not eliminate the system of racism and the exploitation of black people
in America. He notes that after what was called emancipation, capitalist
entrepreneurs found ways to exploit the freed labor power of former slaves

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at the lowest possible cost. The result was “slavery, minus the obligation
to care for the children and the elderly.”66 New discriminatory laws andthe biased enforcement of existing ones facilitated this exploitation bysegregating blacks in living areas near plantations and workplaces, andby depriving them of the vote. In some areas, imprisonment for minor
infractions was encouraged so that entrepreneurs could make use of forced
prison labor. Some towns, consumed with “pure, brutal and instinctive
hatred,” merely expelled blacks and forbade their reentry.67
Reclus was unusual among social critics of his day in developing an
extensive critique of American racism in the postslavery period. Whatis most striking is that he, a Frenchman, did so when American radicals
and reformers almost unanimously neglected the issue. While the left ofthis period focused heavily on economic class issues and only graduallycame to grasp the centrality of racism to the system of social injustice,liberals and “progressives” needed another half-century to discover the“American dilemma.” Reclus, on the other hand, continued until his lastdays to develop the critique of racism that he had begun in the 1850s. He
describes the American system of racial segregation with an acute sense of
moral outrage. He recounts the harsh punishment, tortures, and murders
committed against blacks who offended the mores of racist communities,
noting that such “horrible practices” were so common that they had takenon the force of “local law.”68
While Reclus deserves credit for such advanced views, certain serious
limitations of his outlook must also be noted. Despite his fierce anti-racism
and his appreciation of diverse cultures and peoples, he was not entirely
successful in overcoming the Eurocentric ideology of his time. Especiallyin his early work, one detects undertones of condescension, even when
he enthusiastically praises non-Western cultures. Also, surprisingly, inview of his hatred for racism and his experience of living in the South, heshows little awareness of the contributions of black culture to American
culture in general. In his view, blacks had been so “deracinated” and so
Americanized “by language, education, ways of thinking, and even patriotism and all its prejudices” that their “originality within the whole of thenation” became “minimal.”69 He should perhaps be given credit for avoiding the perennial leftist pitfall of uncritically idealizing oppressed groups,
but unfortunately, in this case, he sometimes goes to the opposite extreme.
Despite such lapses, Reclus’ abhorrence of racism and his quest forunderstanding and mutual recognition between all ethnic groups andcultures persisted throughout his life. His efforts to transcend the prejudices of his age became consistently more successful, and, especially in
his mature writing, he exhibited unusual openness and perceptiveness in
examining the values and achievements of every society. After his death,

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Kropotkin could say of him with justice that “in speaking of the smallest
tribe, he always found a few words to inspire his reader with the feelingthat all men are equal, that there are no superior or inferior races.”70
Just as through most of its history the theorists of the left neglected
the issue of racism, they also exhibited a very limited awareness of thecentral place of patriarchy in the system of domination. On this topic,
Reclus is also rather exceptional, for not only did he challenge the patriarchal system explicitly in his theoretical analyses, but—as is even moreunusual in his epoch—he also attempted to put theory into practice inhis personal life. In accord with his repugnance for all hierarchical relations, he opposed the concept of male dominance and advocated sexualegalitarianism. He believed that one precondition for equality between thesexes is the practice of “free unions” between men and women. In describing such unions, he states that “the normal, spontaneous family must be
based solely on affection and on free affinity: Everything related to thefamily that arises out of the force of prejudice, the intervention of the law,or financial interests should disappear since it is essentially corrupting.
Here, as in every other area, freedom and natural impulses are the basisof life.”71 In his view, such a union at its best is deeply fulfilling on many
levels and contributes to the ongoing self-development of each partner. It“includes at once mutual passion, fervent friendship, perfect respect andthe constancy of love that stems from continual transformation, from therenewal of each by the other until the end of their lives.”72 It is clear that
Reclus’ depiction of such a relationship was profoundly shaped by his own
deeply fulfilling life with Fanny L’Herminez.
Compared to his ideal of “free unions, based only on mutual affection, self-respect and the dignity of others,” he sees traditional marriage,
authorized by the church and enforced by the state, as mere “matrimonial
trafficking.”73 It is a morally debasing institution that lies at the core of
the larger system of domination. Almost a half-century before Wilhelm
Reich’s revolutionary analysis of the connection between the authoritarianfamily and the authoritarian state, Reclus made strikingly similar claims.
He argues that “it is certain that familial associations, whether manifested
in polygyny, polyandry, monogamy, or free unions, exercise a direct influence on the form of the state through the effects of their ethics. What one
sees on a large scale parallels what one sees on the small scale.”74 Though
he, like other anarchist theorists, emphasizes the strong determining influence of the state on all other forms of domination, he is unusual in placingsuch a heavy emphasis on the correlatively powerful effects of family relationships on the state and other oppressive institutions. While not underestimating the evils of political coercion, he recognizes the ultimately
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most intimate relationships. He notes the connection between the systemof political authority and that prevailing in the family, and he remarksthat the former is “ordinarily in lesser proportions, for the government isincapable of pressuring widely dispersed individuals in the way that one
spouse can pressure the other who lives under the same roof.”75
Reclus’ views on marriage represent an important way in which hebreaks fundamentally with the mainstream of modernist social thought,
which tends to accept the division between the public and private spheresas autonomous realms. He believes that a free society can exist only if
the principles of freedom that are to guide society are put into practice inthe most intimate and personal details of life. His outlook anticipates the
feminist interpretation of personal life as being eminently political and thepost-1968 movement for the “liberation of everyday life.” It also situates
him in some ways closer to the tradition of utopian communitarianism
than to the mainstream of modern anarchist and socialist political theory.
The utopians have been among the few who have long taken questionsof personal life seriously, while more conventional political radicals haveusually seen changes in this realm as merely “superstructural” or haverelegated them to the postrevolutionary era. Reclus saw an immediate andthoroughgoing change in personal relationships as a necessary precondition for liberatory social transformation. He comments that “it is above allwithin the family, in a man’s daily relationships with those close to him,that one can best judge him. If he absolutely respects the liberty of his wife,
if the rights and the dignity of his sons and daughters are as precious tohim as his own, then he proves himself worthy of entering the assemblyof free citizens. If not, he is still a slave, since he is a tyrant.”76
In attempting to undermine the foundations of patriarchy and to
demythologize it, Reclus looks back to the beginnings of human society.
He was unusual for his time in his willingness to recognize the powerful contribution of women to the origins of civilization. According to
his revisionist account of history, the institution of “maternity” (that is,of matricentric and matrilineal practices) arises “in the midst of primitive barbarism” and gives “the first impulse to the future civilization” byuniting the members of primitive bands around the maternal hearth andsocializing them.77 He believes that the role of women across the entire
history of society has been vastly underestimated, both by scholars andin the popular mind. He notes that there is no lack of examples in history“of women who were veritable chiefs,” that “diverse tribes have recognizedabsolutely the supremacy of women,” and that “other tribes in which men
have exercised power have adhered to the maternal family line.”78 Throughsuch examples he seeks to destroy the myth of the universality and, by
implication, the natural necessity, of patriarchy.

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Reclus argues that the significance of women in the social institutionsof many societies has been vastly underestimated. One of the most important areas that has been neglected in this way is economics. He notes thatin societies where horticulture has been the prerogative of women, they
have had “the useful role par excellence in the general economy of thetribe,”79 and their labor has been the most secure source of food for thegroup. In such societies, “the general prosperity depends absolutely oncapable management by the mothers, and on the spirit of order, peace andharmony that they introduce into the household.”80 Furthermore, in thesecultures, the feminine influence is decisive for determining the values of
the group, as “the natural affection that they bestow on the children gathered around them develops into a kind of religion.”81 Reclus also stresses
the fact that, contrary to general misconceptions, women have often possessed powerful political authority in such communities. “No decision
can be made without their being consulted beforehand. As the absolute
dispensers of familial fortune, they come to be the regulators of all socialand political affairs. Although the males are stronger, they bow before themoral sovereigns.”82 According to Reclus’ analysis, even when in certain
societies males performed the functions that from our perspective seem tobe of greatest importance (e.g., the nominal “chief” may have been male),this does not necessarily indicate male social dominance. In such societies,
even the exclusively male functions were subject to strong female influence, other functions of equal or greater importance were directly in thehands of women, and—what is most important—feminine and maternal
values thoroughly pervaded the culture.
In his discussions of such societies, Reclus often refers to the “matriarchal family.” This usage is a bit disconcerting since he purports to makean “anarchic” critique of all forms of social domination, yet we find him
praising the superiority of another “archy.” However, he recognizes thatthe concept of “matriarchy” would lead to confusion if taken in its literal
etymological sense. He observes that in the kinship systems that are given
this label the mother does not actually “rule.” He notes that in fact thevery significant maternal power that exists in such societies has sometimes
been compatible even with “brutality” by the father, and with situations
in which he is “the incontestable master” of the family.83 Reclus is notdescribing a supposed system of female dominance. He does not attempt
to invent a mythological “matriarchy” in which an imagined matriarchal
power becomes the mirror image of historical patriarchal power. Rather,he seeks merely to show that patriarchy is not “inevitable,” that women
have often exercised authority in the most essential areas of social life, andthat in doing so they have been the most powerful agents of “progress” and“civilization,” in the best senses of those terms.

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In addition to defending women’s rightful place in history, Reclus
vehemently supported their quest for social emancipation in his own day.
In the strongest terms, he declares himself completely in accord withthe feminist cause, asserting that “obviously, all of the claims of women
against men are just: the demands of the female worker who is not paid
at the same rate as the male worker for the same labor, the demands ofthe wife who is punished for ‘crimes’ that are mere ‘peccadilloes’ whencommitted by the husband, and the demands of the female citizen who
is barred from all overt political action, who obeys laws that she has nothelped to create, and who pays taxes to which she has not consented.”84
In short, women are oppressed not only in the domestic sphere but in theeconomic, social, and political ones also, and complete justice and equality
must be achieved in all these areas.
But although Reclus is in sympathy with all the goals of feminism, hedoes not approve of all feminists. He is disturbed that some middle-classfeminists seem concerned only with their own oppression and exhibit
disdain for the working class. He laments the fact that they fail to seethat “their cause merges with that of all oppressed people, whoever they
may be.”85 Reclus’ comments are echoed today by radical feminists who
criticize liberal feminism for focusing on issues such as “the glass ceiling”
that affects upwardly mobile, more privileged women while neglecting
the suffering and oppression of working-class and poor women. Reclus
celebrates “the heroism of brave women who go to the prostitutes to jointhem in solidarity to protest the abominable treatment to which they havebeen subjected, and the shocking bias of the law in favor of the corruptersand against their victims.”86 Reclus was far ahead of his time not only in
speaking out for the cause of the most abused and abandoned of women
but also in calling attention to the state’s complicity with the men who
exploit them.
Another of Reclus’ views that has only recently begun to gain widespread sympathy is his firm belief that women are justified in striking
back at their oppressors. He declares that as a result of the severe mistreatment to which they have been subjected, women have “an absoluteright to recrimination, and the women who occasionally take revenge are
not to be condemned, since the greatest wrongs are those committed by
the privileged.”87 From Reclus’ time to the present, few have defended
retaliation by women except in the most extreme cases of abuse. However
Reclus believed that in view of the brutality of the oppression of womenand because the most oppressed found few advocates of their cause,
overt rebellion was often an appropriate response. He deplores the factthat the cause of women is usually dominated by well-behaved, conventional personalities (moderate and liberal feminists, we would say today)

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who “naïvely petitions legislators and high officials, waiting for salvation
through their deliberations and decrees,” when in truth “freedom does
not come begging, but rather must be conquered.”88 Reclus, like his great
anarchist-feminist contemporary Emma Goldman, thought that women
could only advance their cause effectively through direct action—in boththe personal and social spheres.
Another area that was much neglected in Reclus’ time, but about
which he shows remarkable insight, is the question of the rights of children
and the place of the young in society. His thoughts on this topic are closely
related to his critique of patriarchy. In his view, just as it was necessary
to break with the long tradition, running “from Aristotle, St. Paul and the
Church Fathers” down to “the Fathers of the American Constitution,” thatsaw slavery as a legitimate form of property ownership, so the equallyancient tradition that makes the father the proprietor of his children must
be rejected.89 Reclus proposes a new morality that will “recognize thefree individual even in the newborn infant, and defend the child’s rights
in relation to all, including, first of all, the father.”90 A corollary of thisview is that the repressive system of authoritarian education, which is anextension of the patriarchal family and the authoritarian state, must beabolished.
Reclus attacks the existing system of education as a process of training children to fit well into institutions based on egoism, domination,and unthinking obedience. Through its hierarchical structure this systemteaches competition for personal advantage rather than cooperation inpursuit of the general good. The students, “from their first lesson, learn
that they are rivals and combatants. They are told in every way that the
prizes to be won are few in number, and that one must snatch them awayfrom one’s comrades, not only by superior talent, but, when possible, bytrickery, by force, by cabals and schemes, by the basest sort of machinations, or by prayers to St. Anthony of Padua.”91 The goal is to convince thestudents that all sorts of future honors and benefits can be achieved if they
are willing to fight for them and destroy others in the process. Humanity
and solidarity are undermined for the sake of “these symbols.”92 Just as asystem of libertarian education is necessary to create a community of free,compassionate, and cooperative human beings, a system of authoritarian
education is essential to the production of a hierarchical society of dominant and submissive individuals.
Another area that for Reclus is fundamental to the creation of an
authoritarian character structure is the system of repressive morality.
One of the expressions of this morality that he finds most outrageous is
the nudity taboo.93 He believes that a free society can never be attained
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physical being. From his perspective it is clothing, rather than the human
body, that is the true scandal.
While Reclus has a long list of arguments against the evils of clothing, his principal objection is a moral one. He asserts that “it is from thepoint of view of moral health above all that the reintroduction of nude
beauty is necessary.”94 A morality that “consists of repressing one’s body”
and pretending that one “no longer has any organs, results in constantly
directing thought toward those things that should remain ‘out of sight.’ It
is a phobia, madness, fierce lechery, the perversion of all the senses. It islying, hypocrisy.”95 Opponents of nudity create a moralistic travesty ofmorality in which “normal acts become vicious” and “the source of life
is corrupted,” so that “from generation to generation the world is perverted.”96 From Reclus’ point of view, the deleterious effects of clothing
on individual character and social morality can hardly be overestimated.
He attacks what might be called the fetishism of clothing on grounds
not only of morality but also of physical health. He claims that “without
doubt, the skin regains its vitality and its natural activity when it is freely
exposed to air, light, and the changing phenomena outdoors. Perspiration
is not hampered; the functioning of the bodily organ is improved; it
becomes at once firm and supple; it does not pale like an isolated plantdeprived of sunlight.”97 While nudity, he contends, contributes to health,clothes are “nests of germs that cut us off from pure air and light, makeus sickly and uncoordinated, turn our skin pale and cover it with ulcers,
make lovers repulsive to one another, and sometimes make women sterileor doom them to give birth to weak and stunted infants!”98 Reclus’ feelings
about clothing place him in sympathy with the dress reform movement of
his time, which sought to liberate both women and men from restrictive
and unhealthy clothing. For example, this movement blamed tight corsets,
popular during the Victorian era, for a variety of health problems, including constriction and displacement of vital organs, atrophy of muscles, andrisks to pregnant women and their fetuses.99
Reclus also objects to the obsession with clothing on the grounds ofaesthetic appreciation. He cites travelers’ accounts of the Polynesians as“the most beautiful of people” in their nudity before “the missionaries wenton their rampage,” and he notes the universal admiration for Greek artistic
representations of the nude.100 He believes that without the liberation of
the body and the freedom to appreciate the body, the full development of
art is not possible. He also believes that clothing is destructive of beautyin everyday life. As a result of clothing and the dictates of fashion, “natural
curves are replaced by rows of buttons, and by skirts and blouses.”101
While this spirited tirade certainly makes some excellent points
about repression and hypocrisy, it also exhibits a paradoxical relationship

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between his nudism and the very Puritanical spirit that he attacks. He
praises nudity, quite consistently, in the name of free expression andhealthy self-affirmation. However, the seemingly obvious possibility thatclothing and self-decoration might also be positive forms of individual
and social self-expression is rather dogmatically overlooked. Clothing for
Reclus can only be seen as an expression of corrupt society, with its classhierarchy and sexual repression. “The artifice of dress and finery is one
that leads most—through foolish vanity, the slavish spirit of imitation, andabove all, the thousand ingenuities of vice—to the general corruption ofsociety. . . . Nude beauty purifies and ennobles; clothing, insidious anddeceptive, degrades and perverts.”102
At this point, the radicalism of Reclus’ position is undermined by
the reactive, absolutist quality of his response to a corrupt and hypocritical society. Moreover, his own viewpoint borders on a form of naturist
Puritanism when, in criticizing the distorted eroticism of a repressive
society, he comes close to purging both nudity and clothing of any positive erotic potential. He certainly deserves recognition for his courageous
application of the idea of human liberation to the body, a subject neglectedby most radical theorists (other than a few “utopians”) until recent times.
However, his idealization of nudity sometimes falls into the kind of naïve,reactive naturalism that has plagued ecological thought even up to thepresent.
An institution that Reclus sees as closely allied to authoritarian morality is authoritarian religion. As was discussed in considerable detail earlier,
he sees religion as having both progressive and regressive aspects. He
holds that the founders of the great religions had metaphysical and moral
insights that conflicted starkly with the later religious institutions that he
attacks so vehemently. These original insights often had subversive andeven revolutionary implications that had to be negated in order for religion
to be transformed into an ideology at the service of patriarchy, state power,
and economic exploitation. It is thus by betraying its own egalitarian andlibertarian premises that religion becomes one of the most powerful cultural and psychological supports for oppression and domination. Reclus
believes that institutionalized religion has carried out this authoritarianrole very successfully across history. As he sums up the tragic and brutal
history of institutionalized religion in one of his letters, “the fear of God
is the beginning of all servitude and all depravity.”103
As has been mentioned, Reclus believes that the inexorable progressof science will progressively destroy the ideological basis of religion andthat it will therefore be in a state of constant retreat before the imperious
forces of modernity. In fact, he contends that although religion was once a
powerful form of social domination in its own right, by his own time it had

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already lost much of its hold on the masses and was becoming primarily asystem of social convention. This view, which exaggerates the decline ofreligious institutions, seems to be shaped strongly by Reclus’ experienceof the Catholic cultures of southern Europe. He observes that in thesecultures “the interests of property, capital, parasitism, and everything of
this sort demand the prescribed practice of the Catholic religion, and millions of people conform to this obligation, carried out without the least
sincerity.”104 He contends that not only in southern Europe but in muchof the world, religion had been reduced to such superficial practice andno longer consisted of deeply held beliefs. He judges, however, that evenas a form of social convention religion would continue for some time tofunction as an important support for other forms of domination, such as
the state and capitalism, that are now in a period of historical ascendancy.
It is likely that Reclus would have no difficulty recognizing theauthentically progressive nature of liberation theology and other religiously based social justice movements today. Also, the fact that religion
continues to reinforce various systems of political, economic, and cultural
power would be fully in accord with his expectations. On the other hand,in view of his thesis that the advances of science and general enlightenment would result in the progressive decline of religious institutions, hewould no doubt be surprised at the enduring strength of highly repressive,
doctrinaire religious movements, at the global resurgence of fundamentalism, and at the ability of religion to function at times as a relatively
autonomous form within the larger system of domination.
Despite certain limitations that have been mentioned, Reclus’ critiqueof domination is an analysis with a consistency and comprehensivenessthat are impressive. Not only is it broad enough to encompass many ofthe major institutions of society, including politics, economics, technology,
sex roles, family structure, education, morality, and religion, but it is also
deep enough to extend from the level of vast social institutions to the mostintimate areas of personal life and human relationships. For this, Reclus
must be recognized as a groundbreaking social theorist whose thought isa landmark in the development of the critical theory of society.

7

The Legacy of Reclus:
Liberty, Equality, Geography
We will conclude by returning to the beginning—to the beginning of Man
and the Earth, and to the beginning of Reclus’ entire problematic, both asa thinker and as a human being. He begins his great work of social geography with the image of human hands holding the earth, an image thatreveals much about what is most essential to his outlook and about thenature of the ecological imaginary implicit in his work. First, the earth isheld aloft almost as if it were a sacramental object. It is presented as theobject of awe, reverence, deep love, and respect. Second, and perhaps
more obviously at first glance, the image depicts the earth as being “in thehands” of a personified humanity.1 The image thus points to our responsibility for the destiny of the earth, and to our need to achieve the collective
self-consciousness symbolized by this image of humanity.
These two aspects of the image capture very well the two imaginary
poles of Reclus’ thought: the ecological imaginary that is embodied in his
social geography, and the anarchistic imaginary that is embodied in his
politics. First, we are challenged to develop a deeper respect, reverence,and love for nature, for the earth, and for all the beings that share theplanet, including humanity in all its diversity. Secondly, we are challenged
to express these feelings in fully engaged, transformative activity, as we
carry out our responsibilities toward all that we find in our hands.
We have seen that Reclus is distinctive among modern social theorists
for the central place of love in his conception of social transformation. Thisis a powerful dimension of his thought that speaks directly to the crisisof our age. As valid as the message of social and environmental justice
may be, it is a message that has no meaning for those who do not care
deeply about humanity and the earth. For this reason the revolutionarysocial transformation that Reclus calls for implies not only an objective
revolutionizing of social institutions but also a revolution in subjectivity.

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In such a revolution of the spirit, human beings rediscover and experience
more vividly their connectedness with others and with nature.
While there is perhaps something implicit in our “egocentric predicament” that will always incline us toward egoism, it is the patriarchal,authoritarian, power-based institutions of society that transform this inclination into an egoistic rage against the other human being and against
nature itself.2 Reclus’ importance lies not least of all in the fact that hecombined a critically holistic, communitarian vision of society and nature
with insight into the social barriers that prevent human beings from relating themselves to these greater wholes in a practical, socially transformative manner. While his dialectical, holistic view of humanity-in-nature
helps diagnose our egoistic, autistic malady, his analysis of the institutions
and ideologies of domination—capitalism and class domination; nationalism, statism and technobureaucracy; patriarchy and sexism; racism andethnic oppression; speciesism and the domination of nature—helps showwhat must be changed if our autism is to be cured. The way out of ouregocentric impasse is a process of self-transformation that is identical witha process of social evolution/revolution.
Reclus’ most enduring legacy is his contribution to our growing selfknowledge as human beings and as planetary beings, and to the reemergence of the spirit of hope and of creative action. His significance lies in
his place on the way to the great convergence of reason, passion, andimagination—logos, eros, and poesis. It comes from his work in preparing
for the day when poetry, myth, and narrative enter fully into a dialectic
with reason and experience. Reclus spoke fervently of revolution, which in
his liberatory imaginary was the most inspiring image of hope. But he also
contributed powerfully to a vision of the future rooted in the much more
ecological image of “regeneration.” He pointed toward the regenerationof a rich, highly individualized yet social self; the regeneration of a free,cooperative community; and the regeneration of a holistically diversified,
dynamically balanced, creatively evolving earth. This is the utopian andtopian vision in which Reclus’ version of the human story and the earth
story culminate—a realm of freedom encompassing humanity and thewhole earth; an end to the domination of humanity and of all other beingson the planet; and humanity’s final realization of its harmonious, integral
place in nature.
Liberty, Equality, Geography!

PART II

Selected Writingsof Elisée Reclus

8

The Feeling for Nature inModern Society (1866)
The following discussion is taken from the relatively early article “Du sentiment dela nature dans les sociétés modernes,” which was published in La Revue des Deux
Mondes 63 (May–June 1866): 352–81. It is noteworthy as an example of Reclus’
view of nature in his earlier work. Most of the social analysis in the three-partessay appears in the third section (371–81), which is translated here.

It becomes ever more essential to expand and refine our feeling for natureas the multitude of men who are exiled from the countryside by force of
circumstances increases daily. Pessimists have long feared the ceaselessgrowth of large cities. Still, they seldom realize how rapidly future populations will be able to move toward preferred centers.
It is true that the colossal Babylons of the past also gathered within
their walls hundreds of thousands or even millions of inhabitants. The
natural interests of commerce, the despotic centralization of all power,
the scrambling for favors, and the pursuit of pleasure made these powerful cities as populous as entire provinces. But factors such as slow transportation, the flooding of a river, bad weather, the delay of a caravan, araid by an enemy army, or a tribal uprising could result in provisions
sometimes being delayed or halted. The great city, in the midst of allits splendors, found itself in constant danger of starvation. Moreover,during periods of relentless war, these enormous capitals always ended
up as an arena for an immense slaughter, and sometimes the destruction
was so complete that the ruin of a city meant the end of a people. Even
quite recently, we were able to see, through the example of several cities
in China, what fate could befall great urban centers under the sway ofancient civilizations. The powerful city of Nanjing was reduced to a heapof ruins, while Wuchang, which about fifteen years ago appeared to be

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the most populous city in the entire world, lost more than three-fourthsof its inhabitants.
While traditional causes of population shifts to large cities still operate,
there are now other no less powerful causes that relate to the whole ofmodern progress. Transportation routes, canals, secondary roads, and railroads radiate in increasing numbers from important centers and surroundthem with an increasingly dense network of links. Today’s transportation
is so smooth that during a single day the railways can deliver five hundred
thousand persons to the streets of London or Paris, and in anticipation ofa simple holiday, a wedding, a funeral, or the visit of a celebrity, millions
have sometimes swelled the fluctuating population of a capital. And provisions can be transported just as easily as travelers. From the surrounding
countryside, outlying parts of the country, and all corners of the world,
commodities flow by land and sea toward these enormous stomachs that
endlessly consume more and more. If it were necessary for the demandsof its appetite, London could have more than half of the earth’s produce
transported to it in less than a year.
This is certainly an enormous advantage that the large cities of antiquity did not have, yet the revolution in social practices brought about byrailroads and other modes of transportation has hardly begun. After all,what is an average of two or three trips per year for each inhabitant ofFrance, especially when a brief excursion of fifteen minutes to the suburbsof Paris or some other large city is considered a trip for the statistics?
Each year, the multitude of travelers will doubtless increase in enormous
proportions, and all expectations will probably be surpassed, as they havebeen since the beginning of the century. Thus the amount of travel in
London alone is currently as great in a single week as it was during anentire year in all of Great Britain around 1830. Thanks to the railroads,
regions are constantly becoming smaller. One can even mathematicallycalculate the rate at which this shrinking of the land is taking place merely
by comparing the speed of locomotives to that of the stagecoaches andrickety carriages that they replaced. For his part, man turns his back on
his native soil more and more easily. He becomes a nomad—not like theshepherds of the past, who always followed their usual paths and neverfailed to return periodically to the same pastures with their flocks, but ina manner much more complete since he indiscriminately heads in one
direction or another, wherever his interest or desire impels him. A verysmall number of these voluntary exiles return to die in their native land.
This endlessly growing migration of peoples is now taking place by millions upon millions, and it is precisely toward the most populous humananthills that the great multitude of immigrants makes its way. From an
ethnological point of view, the fearsome invasion of Frankish warriors

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into Roman Gaul was perhaps not as important as the silent migration ofstreet sweepers from Luxembourg and the Palatinate who each year swell
the population of Paris.
To get an idea of what the great commercial cities of the world could
become if the causes of growth are not sooner or later counterbalancedby opposing factors, one can simply observe the enormous importance of
cities in modern colonial societies relative to villages and isolated households. The populations of these regions, released from the bonds of custom,and free to congregate as they please, with no motive except their own
will, amass overwhelmingly in the cities. Even in specifically agricultural
settlements such as the young American states of the Far West, the regionsof La Plata, Queensland in Australia, and the North Island of New Zealand,
the urban population surpasses that of the countryside. On average it is
at least three times greater and constantly increases in proportion to thedevelopment of commerce and industry. In settlements such as Victoria
and California, where specific factors such as gold mines and great commercial advantages attract multitudes of speculators, the concentrationof city dwellers is greater still. If Paris were to France what San Francisco
is to California and what Melbourne is to sunny Australia, the “big city”
would really live up to its name, having no less than nine to ten million
people. Clearly, it is in all these new countries, where civilized man has
only recently established himself, that one can see the external expressionof the ideal of nineteenth-century society: no obstacle prevented the newcomers from spreading out in small groups over the entire region, yet they
preferred to gather in vast cities. The contrast between Hungary or Russia
and any modern colony such as California illustrates how great a gap ofcenturies separates countries whose populations are still distributed as in
the Middle Ages from those where the phenomena of social affinity developed by modern civilization can have free play. On the plains of Russia andin the Hungarian puszta, there are hardly any true cities, but only more orless large villages. The capital cities are administrative centers, artificial
creations that the inhabitants could easily do without and that would
immediately lose a sizable share of their importance if the government did
not maintain a factitious life there at the expense of the rest of the nation.
In these countries the working population is composed of farmers, andthe cities exist only for office workers and men of leisure. By contrast, inAustralia and California the countryside is never more than a suburb, andits inhabitants, shepherds and farmers, have their minds on the city. They
are speculators who have temporarily withdrawn from the great commercial center for the sake of their business but who will inevitably return toit. Doubtless, the Russian peasants who are now so firmly rooted in theirnative soil will sooner or later discover how to free themselves from the106

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fields on which only yesterday they were subjugated. Like the British andthe Australians, they will become nomads and make their way to the big
cities, beckoned by commerce and industry and compelled by their own
ambition to see, to know, or to improve their condition.
The complaints of those who lament the depopulation of the countryside cannot stop the movement. Nothing will stop it, and all the outcry isuseless. Thanks to easier and cheaper travel, the tenant farmer has gained
the fundamental liberty to “come and go,” from which all other liberties
eventually proceed, and he follows his natural inclination when he heads
for the crowded city, about which he has heard so many wonderful tales.
Sad and joyful at the same time, he bids farewell to the lowly hovel of hisbirth to gaze upon the miracles of industry and architecture. Although hegives up the regular and dependable wages from his manual labor, perhaps
he will succeed, like so many other sons of his village, in becoming comfortably well-off or even wealthy. And if he returns home one day it will
be to build a castle in place of the squalid dwelling where he was born.
However, very few immigrants realize such dreams of fortune, thoughmany find poverty, disease, and a premature death in the big cities. But
at least those who survive are able to broaden the horizon of their ideas.
They have seen regions that differ from one another, developed themselves through contact with other men, and become more intelligent andeducated, and all these individual advancements constitute an invaluableasset for society as a whole.
In France, we know how rapidly the phenomenon of the migration ofrural populations toward Paris, Lyons, Toulouse, and the large seaports
takes place. All population growth occurs in these centers of attraction,
whereas the number of inhabitants in most of the small towns and villages remains stationary or even declines. More than half of the départements are becoming less and less populated, and one can be cited, that ofBasses-Alpes, which since the Middle Ages has undoubtedly lost a good
third of its inhabitants. If one also takes into account visits and temporary migrations, which necessarily produce an increase in the fluctuating
population of the big cities, the results are even more striking. In the
Pyrenees of Ariège, there are certain villages that all the inhabitants, both
men and women, abandon in the winter in order to go to the cities of theplains. Finally, most Frenchmen who are in business or who live off theirinvestments—not counting the multitudes of peasants and workers—arecertain to visit Paris and the main cities of France. And it has been a very
long time since, in remote provinces, a wayfaring laborer was named after
the large city in which he lived. The same social phenomena are occurringin England and Germany. Although in these two countries the excess ofbirths over deaths is much greater than in France, some agricultural areas

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107such as the duchy of Hesse-Cassel and the county of Cambridge are also
losing population to the large cities. Even in North America, where thepopulation is increasing at an astonishing rate, a great number of agricultural areas in New England have lost a large proportion of their inhabitants because of a double migration: on the one hand, there is a movement
toward the regions of the Far West, and on the other, toward the coastal
commercial cities of Portland, Boston, and New York.
However, it is a well-known fact that in the cities the air is full of
deadly substances. Although the official statistics on this matter are notalways as candid as we would like them to be, it is nonetheless certain thatin all countries of Europe and America, the average life-span among rural
populations exceeds that of the city dwellers by several years. Immigrants
who leave their native soil for the narrow and foul-smelling streets of a big
city could calculate in advance the approximate extent to which they areshortening their lives according to the laws of probability. Not only does
the newcomer suffer personally and risk an early death, he also dooms
his descendants. It is known that in large cities such as London and Paristhe life force is quickly exhausted, and that no bourgeois family living
there survives beyond the third or at most the fourth generation. If theindividual can resist the deadly effects of his environment, his family will
still succumb in the end, and without the continuous migration of country
people and foreigners who march happily to their death, the capital cities
could not recruit their enormous populations. The city dweller’s character becomes refined, but the body weakens and the springs of life dry
up. Likewise, from an intellectual point of view, all the brilliant faculties
developed by social life are at first overstimulated, but the mind graduallyloses its powers. It becomes weary and finally declines prematurely. The
street urchin of Paris, compared to the young peasant, is certainly a being
full of life and high spirits. But is he not the brother of the pale hoodlum
who can be compared physically and morally to sickly plants vegetating
in dark cellars? In fact, it is in the cities, especially those most renowned
for their opulence and civilization, that one finds the most degraded of
all men. They are poor beings without hope, whom filth, hunger, coarse
ignorance, and general contempt have placed far below the happy savage
wandering through forests and mountains. One finds the rankest abjection
side by side with the most magnificent splendor. Not far from museums
where the beauty of the human body is displayed in all its glory, spindly
children warm themselves in the foul atmosphere emanating from sewers.
If steam power brings endlessly growing crowds to the cities, it also
brings back to the countryside an ever-growing number of city dwellers
who go to breathe the open air for a while and refresh their minds among
flowers and greenery. The wealthy, free to create leisure time as they

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please, can escape their occupations and the weary pleasures of the city
for months at a time. There are even those who live in the countryside andmake only fleeting appearances at their city residences. As for the workers
of all types, who cannot leave for long periods because of the demandsof everyday life, most manage nevertheless to take enough time off fromtheir jobs to visit the countryside. The most fortunate among them takeweeks of vacation, which they spend far from the capital, in the mountains or at the seashore. Those who are the most enslaved by their work
content themselves with an occasional escape from the narrow horizonsof their accustomed streets for a few hours. Naturally, they happily takeadvantage of their holidays when the weather is mild and the sky is clear.
At such times, every tree in the woods near the big cities shelters a happy
family. A considerable proportion of merchants and clerks, especially inEngland and America, bravely establish their wives and children in the
countryside and sentence themselves to traveling twice per day the distance that separates the sales counter from the domestic hearth. Thanks
to the speed of transportation, millions of men can lead the double lives ofcity and country dweller, and each year, the number of persons who thus
divide their lives constantly grows. Each morning, hundreds of thousands
converge on London to plunge into the whirlwind of business in the big
city, and then return each evening to their peaceful homes in the verdant
suburbs. The city, the true center of the business world, is losing its residents. By day, it is the most active human beehive; by night, it is a desert.
Unfortunately, this reflux from the cities toward the outskirts does
not occur without defacing the countryside. Not only does debris of allsorts clutter the intermediate space between city and field, but even worse,
speculators grab up all the charming sites in the vicinity, divide theminto rectangular plots, enclose them with monotonous walls, and thenbuild hundreds and thousands of pretentious little houses. To pedestrians
wandering along the muddy roads in this would-be countryside, the only
nature in evidence is the trimmed shrubs and clumps of flowers glimpsed
through the fences. At the seashore, many of the most picturesque cliffs
and charming beaches are snatched up either by covetous landlords or by
speculators who appreciate the beauties of nature in the spirit of a moneychanger appraising a gold ingot. In frequently visited mountainous areas,
the same mania of appropriation seizes the inhabitants. Landscapes arecarved up into squares and sold to the highest bidder. Each natural curiosity, be it rock, grotto, waterfall, or the fissure of a glacier—everything,even the sound of an echo—can become individual property. The entrepreneurs lease waterfalls and enclose them with wooden fences to prevent
non-paying travelers from gazing at the turbulent waters. Then, througha deluge of advertising, the light that plays about the scattering droplets

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and the puffs of wind unfurling curtains of mist are transformed into theresounding jingle of silver.
Since nature is so often desecrated by speculators precisely becauseof its beauty, it is not surprising that farmers and industrialists, in theirown exploitative endeavors, fail to consider whether they contribute todefacing the land. Certainly the “sturdy plowman” cares very little forthe charm of the countryside and the harmony of the landscape, so longas the soil produces abundant harvests. Walking around the thickets at
random with his ax, he cuts down trees that are in his way and shamefully
mutilates others, giving them the appearance of posts or brooms. Vastregions which formerly were beautiful to behold and enjoyable to travel
through are completely spoiled, and one actually experiences disgust uponseeing them. Moreover, it often happens that the farmer, as lacking inscience as he is in love of nature, errs in his calculations and causes his
own ruin through certain changes that he unwittingly introduces into theenvironment. Similarly, it matters little to the industrialist, operating his
mine or factory in the middle of the countryside, whether he blackens
the atmosphere with fumes from the coal or contaminates it with foulsmelling vapors. In Western Europe, not to mention England, there are agreat many industrial valleys whose thick air is almost unbreathable tooutsiders. The houses there are filled with smoke, and even the leaves on
the trees are coated with soot. The sun almost always shows its yellowish
face through a thick haze. As for the engineer, his bridges and viaducts
always look the same, whether on the flattest of plains or in the gorgesof the steepest mountains. He is concerned not with making his work
harmonious with the landscape, but solely with balancing the thrust andresistance of his materials.
Certainly, man must take possession of the earth’s surface and know
how to utilize its forces. However, one cannot help lamenting the brutality
with which this process is carried out. And so when the geologist Marcou1
informs us that Niagara Falls has noticeably decreased in flow and lostits beauty since it was diverted to operate factories on its banks, we thinksadly of a time not long ago when the “thunderous waters,” unknown tocivilized man, tumbled freely over the high cliffs between two walls ofrock completely covered with large trees. Similarly, one wonders whether
the vast prairies and wild forests, where one can still imagine seeing thenoble figures of Chingachgook and Leatherstocking,2 could have been succeeded by something other than fields of equal size, all aligned with thepoints of the compass, in accordance with the land survey, and enclosed
uniformly with fences of a standard height. Wild nature is so beautiful. Is
it really necessary for man, in seizing it, to proceed with mathematicalprecision in exploiting each new conquered domain and then mark his

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possession with vulgar constructions and perfectly straight boundaries?
If this continues to occur, the harmonious contrasts that are one of thebeauties of the earth will soon give way to a depressing uniformity. Sincesociety is increasing its population by at least ten million per year and has
at its disposal through science and industry forces that are growing at aphenomenal rate, it is marching rapidly toward the conquest of the entire
surface of the planet. The day is approaching when there will remain noregion on any continent that has not been visited by a civilized pioneer,and sooner or later, the effects of human labor will extend to every pointon the surface of the earth. Fortunately, a complete alliance of the beautiful
and the useful is possible. It is precisely in the countries where industrialized agricultural is most advanced—in England, Lombardy, and certain
parts of Switzerland—that those who exploit the soil know how to make it
produce the highest yields while at the same time respecting the charm of
the landscape, or even adding artfully to its beauty. The marshes and bogsof Flanders, transformed by drainage into extremely fertile countryside;
the rocky Crau, changed into a magnificent prairie thanks to irrigation
canals; the rocky slopes of the maritime Apennines and Alps, coveredfrom base to summit with the foliage of olive trees; and the reddish peatbogs of Ireland, replaced by forests of larch, cedar, and silver fir—are these
not admirable examples of this power by which the farmer exploits theland for his benefit while at the same time rendering it more beautiful?
The question of knowing which of the works of man serves to beautify
and which contributes to the degradation of external nature can seem
pointless to so-called practical minds; nevertheless, it is a matter of thegreatest importance. Humanity’s development is most intimately connected with the nature that surrounds it. A secret harmony exists between
the earth and the peoples whom it nourishes, and when reckless societies
allow themselves to meddle with that which creates the beauty of their
domain, they always end up regretting it. In places where the land has
been defaced, where all poetry has disappeared from the countryside,
the imagination is extinguished, the mind becomes impoverished, androutine and servility seize the soul, inclining it toward torpor and death.
Throughout the history of humanity, foremost among the causes that havevanquished so many successive civilizations is the brutal violence withwhich most nations have treated the nourishing earth. They cut down
forests, caused springs to dry up and rivers to overflow, damaged environments, and encircled cities with foul-smelling marshes. Then, whennature thus desecrated turned hostile toward them, they came to hateit, and, unlike the savage, who could immerse himself in the life of theforest, they increasingly allowed themselves to succumb to the stupefying
despotism of priests and kings. “The great estates have ruined Italy,” said

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111

Pliny, and it must be added that these great estates, cultivated by slaves’hands, defaced the land like leprosy. Historians, struck by the astonishingdecline of Spain since Charles the Fifth, have tried to explain it in various
ways. According to some, the principal cause of that nation’s downfall
was the discovery of gold in America; others claim that it was the religious terror organized by the “holy brotherhood” of the Inquisition, theexpulsion of the Jews and the Moors, and the bloody autos-da-fé of theheretics. They have also blamed the fall of Spain on the unfair tax of thealcabala and the despotic centralization in the French manner.3 But did
the Spanish passion for cutting down trees due to their fear of birds, “pormiedo de los pajaritos,” contribute nothing to this terrible decline? The
earth, yellow, rocky, and naked, has taken on a repugnant and fearsome
appearance: the soil is impoverished, and the population, which has been
decreasing for two centuries, has to an extent lapsed into barbarism. The
little birds are avenged.
Therefore, we must now enthusiastically welcome the generous
passion that induces so many men (and we declare them to be the best
among men) to traverse virgin forests, beaches, and mountain gorges, inshort, to visit nature in all regions of the earth that have retained their
original beauty. Threatened with intellectual and moral decline, one feels
the need to see the great sights of the earth in order to counterbalance at
all costs the vulgarity of all the ugliness and mediocrity that narrow minds
view as evidence of modern civilization. The direct study of nature and thecontemplation of its phenomena must become for all well-rounded men
one of the fundamental elements of education. It is also essential for eachindividual to develop muscular dexterity and strength so that he can enjoy
climbing to the peaks of mountains, look fearlessly into abysses, and keepin his entire physical being that natural balance of forces without which
one can perceive the most beautiful settings only through a veil of sadness
and melancholy. Modern man must unite in his being all of the virtues of
those who have preceded him on earth. Without giving up any of the great
privileges that civilization has conferred on him, neither must he lose anyof his ancient strength, nor allow himself to be surpassed by any savagein vigor, dexterity, or in knowledge of natural phenomena. In the splendid
epoch of the Greek republics, the Hellenes undertook nothing less than tomake their children heroes through grace, strength, and courage. In thesame way, it is by awakening in the younger generations all of the qualities
of manliness and by bringing them back to nature and making them cometo grips with it that modern societies can be insured against all decline
through the regeneration of the race itself.
Rumford said a long time ago that “one always finds in nature morethan one is looking for.”4 Whether the scholar examines clouds or stones,

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plants or insects, or whether he goes further and studies the general lawsof the world, he continually discovers unexpected wonders everywhere.
The artist who seeks out beautiful landscapes encounters a continual feast
for the eyes and mind. The industrialist who tries to make use of what theearth produces inevitably sees around him unutilized riches. As for thesimple man who is content to love nature for itself, he finds in it his joy,
and when he is unhappy, his sorrows are at least mitigated by the sight of
the wild countryside. Certainly, outcasts or even those poor déclassés wholive like exiles in their own homeland always feel isolated, unknown, andfriendless, even in the most charming settings, and they suffer the constant ache of despair. However, in the end they also experience the gentle
influence of their environment, and their most intense bitterness graduallychanges into a sort of melancholy that allows them to comprehend, witha sensibility refined by sadness, all that the earth has to offer in grace andbeauty. Even more than those who are happy, they know how to appreciate
the rustling of leaves, the songs of birds, and the murmur of springs. And if
nature has the power to console or to strengthen individuals, what could it
do over the course of centuries for whole peoples? Without a doubt, magnificent vistas greatly contribute to the qualities of mountain populations,and it is no mere figure of speech to call the Alps the boulevard of liberty.

9

To My Brother the Peasant (1893)

In 1873, Reclus wrote an article entitled “Quelques mots sur la propriété” for
L’Almanach du peuple. He later revised and expanded it, publishing it as a pamphlet under the title A mon frère le paysan. In his “Biographie d’Elisée Reclus”
in Les Frères Elie et Elisée Reclus (Paris: Les Amis d’Elisée Reclus, 1964), Paul
Reclus writes that “it was translated into a dozen European languages, even
including two dialects of Breton” (91). While this small work is a classic of anarchistpropaganda and possesses all the rhetorical qualities appropriate to the genre, it
is also of interest for its comments on the relationship between capitalism andtechnological rationality.

“Is it true,” you ask me, “that your comrades, the urban workers, are thinking of seizing the land from me, this sweet land that I love and that bears
me crops? It does so very meagerly, I’ll admit, but nonetheless it bears
them. It has fed my father and my father’s father. And won’t it provide alittle bread for my children, too? Is it true that you want to seize this land
from me?”“No, brother, it’s not true. Because you love the soil and cultivate it,
the harvest indeed belongs to you. You are the one who produces the bread,and no one has any more right to it than you, the wife who shares yourlot, and the child born of your union. Keep your fields in peace, keep yourspade and plow to turn the hard soil, and the seed with which to make it
fruitful. Nothing is more sacred than your labor, and a thousand curses
on whoever would seize the land that has become nourishing throughyour efforts!”
But what I say to you, I do not say to others who claim to be farmers
but who in reality are not. Who are these self-styled workers, these fertilizers of the soil? One of them is born a great lord. As he is being placed in his

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cradle, wrapped in fine wools and soft, beautiful silks, the priest, the judge,
the lawyer, and other dignitaries arrive to greet the newborn as a future
master of the earth. Sycophants, both men and women, hasten from allaround to bring him presents of silver brocades and golden rattles. While
he is being showered with gifts, pencil pushers are recording in great books
that the little one is the owner of springs and rivers in one place, woods,
fields, and prairies in another, and additional parks, fields, woods, andpastures in yet another. He owns property in the mountains and also in theplains. He is even the master of great underground domains in which men
work by the hundreds and thousands. Some day, when he grows up, hemay decide to visit what he inherited as his birthright, or perhaps he will
never even bother to go and see all these things; however, he won’t forget
to have the produce gathered and sold. From all over, by highways andrailroads, by riverboats and by oceangoing ships, he is brought large bagsof money, the income from all his landholdings. So, when we have gained
strength, will we leave all these products of human toil in the safe of theheir? Will we have respect for this property? No, my friends, we will takeall of it. We will tear up the documents and maps, break down the doorsof the chateaus, and seize the estates. “Work, young man!” we will tell him.
“Work if you want to eat. None of this wealth belongs to you any more.”
And what about the other lord, the one who was born poor, withouta pedigree, and whom no flatterer came to admire in the rude cottage or
garret of his birth, but who was lucky enough to become wealthy throughhis work, honest or otherwise? He did not have a clod of earth to call his
own, but owing to speculation, savings, favors from the authorities, orgood fortune, he knew how to acquire immense stretches of land, which
he now encloses with fences and walls. He harvests where he has notsown the seed, and he gathers and eats the bread that another has earned
through his labor. Will we respect this second kind of ownership, that of
the nouveau riche who never works his land himself but who has it worked
by slave labor and calls it his own? No, we will not respect this second kindof ownership any more than the first. Here again, when we have gained
strength, we will seize these estates as well and tell the one who considers himself the master: “Stand back, upstart! Since you once knew how
to work, get back to work! You will have the bread that you gain throughyour labor, but the land that others cultivate is no longer yours. You are
no longer the master of bread!”And so, yes—we will seize the land, but we will seize it from those
who hold onto it without working it, in order to return it to those who
do. However, the latter will not then be allowed in turn to exploit other
unfortunate people. The amount of land to which the individual, the family,or the community of friends has a natural right is the amount that canTo My Brother the Peasant115

be worked through individual or collective labor. As soon as a parcel ofland exceeds the amount that they are able to cultivate, they would bewrong to claim this additional portion. Its use belongs to another worker.
The boundary will be drawn in different ways between the various lands
cultivated by individuals or groups, depending on the requirements ofproduction. The land that you cultivate, brother, is yours, and we will help
you to keep it by every means in our power. But the land that you do notcultivate is for a companion. Make room for him, for he, too, knows how
to make the land fruitful.
But even though each of you has the right to your share of land, do
you want to remain isolated? Completely alone, the small farmer, whether
landowner or tenant, is too weak to struggle against a stingy nature andan evil oppressor at the same time. If he survives, it is through a feat ofwillpower. He must adjust to all the whims of the weather and submit athousand times to voluntary torment. Whether in freezing cold or blistering heat, whether in rain or wind, there is always work to be done. If floods
drown his harvest or heat scorches it, he sadly gathers whatever remains,which will not be enough to provide for him. When sowing time arrives, hewithholds grain that could have been eaten and scatters it in the field. In
his despair, he is left with a grim faith: if necessary, he sacrifices a portionof his meager harvest, trusting that after a harsh winter, treacherous spring,and burning summer, the grain will still come up again, doubling or tripling the seed, or perhaps even increasing it tenfold. What intense love
he feels for this land, which brings him so much misery and toil, so muchsuffering from fears and disappointments, yet so much joy when he sees
the undulating stalks full of grain! No love is stronger than that of thepeasant for the soil he plows and sows, from which he is born and to which
he will return! Yet so many enemies surround him and covet the land that
he loves! The tax collector taxes his plow and takes some of his grain fromhim, the merchant seizes another portion, and finally the railroad defrauds
him when transporting his produce. He is tricked from all sides. We havecalled out to him, “Don’t pay the tax, don’t pay the rent!” Nevertheless, hestill pays, because he is alone, does not trust his neighbors, the other small
farmers, whether landowners or tenants, and does not dare to consult withthem. They are kept submissive by fear and disunity.
The peasants who have joined in a Zadrougas (“group of friends”) orin a mir (little “universe”) such as those in Russia or other Slavic countries are stronger against the common enemy—the state and the feudal
lord. Their collective property is not divided into countless enclosures byhedges, walls, and ditches. They do not have to quarrel over the ownershipof an ear of corn growing to the right or the left of the furrow. There areno bailiffs, attorneys, or notaries to regulate business between comrades.

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After the harvest and before the time comes to begin their work again, theygather to discuss their common interests. The young man who has justmarried, and the family that has added a child or taken in a guest, explain
their new situation and take a larger portion of the common resourcesin order to satisfy their increased needs. Boundaries are decreased orincreased according to the availability of land and the number of members.
Each cares for his field, happy to be at peace with his brothers, who work
their share of the land, which has been apportioned to meet the needs ofall. During emergencies, the comrades help each other out. If a fire devours
one of the cottages, all participate in rebuilding it. If a gully erodes partof a field, another portion is granted to the holder of the damaged land.
One person grazes the community’s herds, and in the evening, the sheep
and cows follow the road back to their stables without being driven. The
commune is at once the property of each and of all.
But the commune, like the individual, is still very weak if it remains
isolated. Perhaps it does not have enough land for all of its members, andall will have to suffer from hunger! It almost always finds itself in conflictwith a lord richer than itself, who claims ownership of a certain field, forest,or pasture. It puts up a good fight, and if the lord were alone, the commune
would indeed quickly triumph over this greedy and arrogant personage.
But he is not alone—he has on his side the governor of the province, thechief of police, the priests, the judges, and the entire government with its
laws and its army. Should he need them, he has at his disposal cannons tobombard anyone who would fight him for the contested land. And eventhough the commune might be absolutely in the right, it is certain thatthe powerful will prove it wrong. And as much as we have cried out to thecommune, as we did to the individual tax victim, “Don’t give up!” it mustalso succumb, a victim of its isolation and weakness.
Thus all you small landowners, whether isolated or joined in communes, are indeed weak against those who try to enslave you—the land
grabbers who are after your small plot of land and the authorities who try
to take all the income from it. If you do not know how to join together,you will soon share the fate of millions upon millions of men who are
already stripped of all rights to sow and reap and who live as wage slaves.
They find work when the bosses are interested in giving it to them, andare always obliged to beg in a thousand ways, sometimes asking humbly
to be hired, sometimes even holding out their hands to plead for a meager
pittance. They have been deprived of land, and you might be among themtomorrow. Is there really such a big difference between their fate andyours? They have already become victims of this threat, while it spares
you for a day or two. Unite, all of you, in your misfortune or in your peril!
Defend what you still have, and reconquer what you have lost!

To My Brother the Peasant

117

Otherwise your fate will be horrible, for we are in an age of scienceand method, and our rulers, served by an army of chemists and professors, are preparing a social structure for you in which all will be regulated
as in a factory. There, the machine controls everything, even men, who
are simple cogs to be disposed of when they take it upon themselves toreason and to will.
This is what has happened in the vast stretches of the great AmericanWest. Groups of speculators who are on very good terms with the government (as are all the rich, including those lucky scoundrels who havebecome rich) have been granted vast domains in fertile regions, which
through large infusions of manpower and capital they have turned into
grain factories. Here, farming takes place on the scale of an entire province.
This vast space is entrusted to a sort of general, who is educated, experienced, good at farming and business, and skilled in the art of evaluating
the exact value of the productive power of land and muscle. Our man
establishes himself in a comfortable house in the center of his land. In hisbarns he has a hundred plows, a hundred sowers, a hundred harvesters,
and twenty threshing machines. About fifty freight cars pulled by locomotives continuously come and go on the railways between the depots inthe fields and the nearest port, whose piers and ships also belong to him.
A network of telephones connects the palatial house to all the outbuildings of the estate. The master’s voice is heard everywhere. He can listen
to every sound and observe every act. Nothing is done without his orders,and nothing escapes his surveillance.
And what becomes of the worker or the peasant in this world thatis so well organized? Machines, horses, and men are used in the samemanner: they are viewed as so much force to be quantified numerically,
and they must be used most profitably for the employer, with the greatest
productivity and the least expense possible. The stables are laid out insuch a way that as soon as the animals leave the building, they begin toplow the furrow several kilometers long that will extend to the end of the
field. Each of their steps is calculated and each profits the master. Similarly,
all of the workers’ movements are regulated from the moment they leave
the communal dormitories. There, neither women nor children come todisrupt the work with a hug or a kiss. The workers are grouped into squads,
each with their sergeants, captains, and the inevitable informer. Their duty
is to perform methodically the work they are ordered to do, and to observe
silence in the ranks. When a machine breaks down, they throw it into thescrap heap if it is not possible to repair it. When a horse falls and breaks
a leg, they shoot it in the ear and drag it to the mass grave. When a man
succumbs to pain, breaks an arm or leg, or is incapacitated by fever, they
are kind enough not to finish him off, but they get rid of him all the same:

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they let him die out of the way, without annoying anyone with his moans.
At the end of the vast undertaking, when nature takes a rest, the manager
also takes a rest and fires his army. The following year, he will always findan adequate supply of muscle and bone to hire, but he will be careful not
to employ the same workers as the previous year. They might speak of
their experience, think that they know as much as the master, obey orders
grudgingly, and who knows? They might become attached to the soil theycultivate and imagine that it belongs to them!
If the happiness of humanity consisted of creating a few millionaires
who, to satisfy their whims and desires, hoarded the produce amassed by
all the subjugated workers, then this scientific exploitation of the earth
by an overseer of galley slaves would certainly be the ideal world. The
financial results of these enterprises are extraordinary. The amount ofgrain yielded by the work of five hundred men can feed fifty thousand.
The expense incurred for a meager wage yields an enormous amount of
produce that is dispatched by the shipload and sold for ten times thecost of production. Even so, if the mass of consumers becomes too poor
because they are without work and wages, they will be unable to buy
all of this produce. Condemned to die of starvation, they will no longer
enrich the speculators. But the latter are not in the least interested in the
distant future. Their attitude is first to make money, travel the road pavedwith gold, and let the future take care of itself—the children will manage!
“Après nous le déluge!”
This is your fate, fellow workers who love the plowed field where you
saw for the first time the mystery of little sprouts of wheat piercing thehard lumps of soil. This is the fate they are preparing for you! They willtake field and harvest away from you; indeed, they will take you yourselves
and attach you to a screeching, smoking iron machine. There, completely
surrounded by coal smoke, you will have to swing a lever back and forth
ten to twelve thousand times every day. This is what they will call agriculture. In addition, you must not expect to go courting just because yourheart tells you to take a wife. And don’t even turn your head to look at the
young woman who is passing by—the foreman will not like it if the boss
is cheated of his labor. If it suits the boss to let you get married and haveoffspring, it is because he finds you to his liking. For you have the kindof slavish soul that he wishes most to mold, and you are abject enoughfor him to authorize you to help perpetuate the race of abjection. The
future that has been awaiting you is that of the working man, woman andchild of the factory! Never did ancient slavery more methodically moldand shape human material to reduce it to being a tool. What remnants ofhumanity are left in a haggard, twisted, scrofulous being who suffocatesin an atmosphere thick with suint, grease, and dust?

To My Brother the Peasant

119

Avoid this death at all costs, comrades. If you have a little plot of land,
guard it jealously: it is your life and that of your wife and children whom
you love. Join with your companions whose land, like yours, is threatenedby factory owners, sport hunters, and money lenders. Forget all your little
grudges against your neighbors and band together in communes where
there is a solidarity of interests and where each clump of earth is defended
by all members of the community. If you number a hundred, a thousand,or ten thousand, you will be quite strong against the lord and his valets,
but you will not yet be strong enough to take on an army. Therefore, each
commune must form an alliance with the others, so that the weakest mightpartake of the strength of all. In addition, you must call out to those whohave nothing, to those disinherited people of the cities. You have perhaps
been taught to despise them, but you must love them because they will
help you to keep your land and to reconquer what has been taken from you.
With them, you will attack and knock down the high walls of the enclosures. With them, you will found the great commune of men, where you
will work in unison to invigorate and beautify the land, and live happily
on this good earth that gives us bread.
But if you do not do this, all will be lost. You will die slaves andbeggars. As the mayor of Algiers recently said to a delegation of humble,
unemployed people: “So, you’re hungry? Why don’t you just eat one
another!”

10

Anarchy (1894)

The following text was originally a talk presented on June 18, 1894, in Brussels to
the members of “The Philanthropic Friends,” a Masonic lodge. It was publishedas “L’Anarchie” in Les Temps nouveaux 18 (May 25–June 1, 1895).

Anarchy is far from being a new theory. The word itself, in its acceptedmeaning of “the absence of government” and “a society without leaders,”
is of ancient origin and was used long before the time of Proudhon.1
Besides, what difference do words make? There were “acratists” before
there were anarchists, but the acratists were not given their name—alearned construction—until many generations had passed. In all ages
there have been free men, those contemptuous of the law, men living
without any master and in accordance with the primordial law of theirown existence and their own thought. Even in the earliest ages we findeverywhere tribes made up of men managing their own affairs as they wish,
without any externally imposed law, having no rule of behavior other than“their own volition and free will,” as Rabelais expresses it,2 and impelledby their desire to found a “profound faith” like those “gallant knights” and“charming ladies” who gathered together in the Abbey of Thélème.
But if anarchy is as old as humanity, those who represent it nevertheless bring something new to the world. They have a keen awareness of thegoal to be attained, and from all corners of the earth they join together
to pursue their ideal of the eradication of every form of government. The
dream of worldwide freedom is no longer a purely philosophical or literary utopia, as it was for the creators of the Cities of the Sun and the New
Jerusalems.3 It has become a practical goal that is actively pursued bymasses of people united in their resolute quest for the birth of a society
in which there are no more masters, no more official custodians of public

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morals, no more jailers, torturers and executioners, no more rich or poor.
Instead there will be only brothers who have their share of daily bread,
who have equal rights, and who coexist in peace and heartfelt unity thatcomes not out of obedience to law, which is always accompanied by dreadful threats, but rather from mutual respect for the interest of all, and fromthe scientific study of natural laws.
No doubt this ideal will appear chimerical to some of you, but I am
sure that it will also seem desirable to most, and that you can see in the
distance the ethereal image of a peaceful society in which men, henceforth reconciled with one another, will let their swords go to rust, melt
down their cannons, and disarm their ships. Besides, aren’t you among
those who have long (for thousands of years, you say) worked to build
the temple of equality? You are “masons,” and the goal of your masonry
is to construct an edifice of perfect proportions into which will enter only
those who are free, equal and fraternal, who work ceaselessly to improve
themselves, and in whom the power of love awakens a new life of justiceand goodness. Isn’t this your goal? And is it not true that there are others
who share it? You claim no monopoly on the spirit of progress and renewal.
Indeed, you do not commit the injustice of forgetting your express enemies
who curse you and excommunicate you, the rabid Catholics who condemn
to hell the enemies of the Holy Church but who themselves no less thanyou prophesy the coming of an age of lasting peace. Francis of Assisi,
Catherine of Sienna, Theresa of Avila, and so many other adherents of afaith not at all your own certainly loved humanity with a most sincere love,
and we must count them among those who lived for an ideal of universal
happiness. And today there are millions upon millions of socialists, regardless of the school to which they belong, who also struggle for a future inwhich the power of capital will be broken, and in which men will finallybe able to call themselves “equals” without irony.
The anarchists thus have a final goal in common with many othermagnanimous persons belonging to a great diversity of religions, sects, andparties. But they distinguish themselves sharply from the others by theirmeans, as their name indicates in the clearest terms. The conquest of power
has almost always been the great preoccupation of revolutionaries, including the best intentioned of them. The prevailing system of education does
not allow them to imagine a free society operating without a conventional
government, and as soon as they have overthrown their hated masters,
they hasten to replace them with new ones who are destined, according
to the ancient maxim, to “make the people happy.” Generally, no one
has dared to prepare for a change of princes or dynasties without having
paid homage or pledged obedience to some future sovereign. “The king isdead! Long live the king!” cried the eternally loyal subjects—even as they

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revolted. For many centuries this has been the unvarying course of history.
“How could one possibly live without masters!” said the slaves, the spouses,
the children, and the workers of the cities and countryside as they quitedeliberately placed their shoulders under the yoke, like the ox that pulls theplow. One is reminded of the insurgents of 1830 who proclaimed “the bestof republics”4 embodied in the person of a new king, and the republicans
of 1848 quietly repairing to their hovels after having undergone “threemonths of misery in the service of the provisional government.”5 During
the same period, a revolution broke out in Germany and a popular assembly met in Frankfurt: “the old authority is a corpse,” proclaimed one of therepresentatives. “Yes,” replied the chairman, “but we will revive it. We will
summon new men who know how to exercise power to restore the strengthof the nation.” On this topic it might be appropriate to repeat the line from
Victor Hugo: “There is an age-old human instinct that leads to turpitude.”6
In contrast to this instinct, anarchy truly represents a new spirit. One
can in no way reproach the libertarians for seeking to get rid of a government only to put themselves in its place. “Get out of the way to makeroom for me!” are words that they would be appalled to speak. They
would condemn to shame and contempt, or at least to pity, anyone who,
stung by the tarantula of power, aspires to an office under the pretext of“making his fellow citizens happy.” Anarchists contend that the state andall that it implies are not any kind of pure essence, much less a philosophical abstraction, but rather a collection of individuals placed in a
specific milieu and subjected to its influence. Those individuals are raised
up above their fellow citizens in dignity, power, and preferential treatment, and are consequently compelled to think themselves superior tothe common people. Yet in reality the multitude of temptations besetting
them almost inevitably leads them to fall below the general level.
This is what we constantly repeat to our brothers—including our
fraternal enemies, the state socialists—“Watch out for your leaders andrepresentatives!” Like you they are surely motivated by the best of intentions. They fervently desire the abolition of private property and of thetyrannical state. But new relationships and conditions change them little
by little. Their morality changes along with their self-interest, and, thinking themselves eternally loyal to the cause and to their constituents, they
inevitably become disloyal. As repositories of power they will also makeuse of the instruments of power: the army, moralizers, judges, police, andinformers. More than three thousand years ago the Hindu poet of the
Mahabharata expressed the wisdom of the centuries on this subject: “He
who rides in a chariot will never be the friend of the one who goes on foot!”
Thus anarchists have the firmest principles in this area. In theirview, the conquest of power can only serve to prolong the duration of theAnarchy123

enslavement that accompanies it. So it is not without reason that eventhough the term “anarchists” ultimately has only a negative connotation,
it remains the one by which we are universally known. One might label
us “libertarians,” as many among us willingly call themselves, or even“harmonists,” since we see agreement based on free will as the constituting element of the future society. But these designations fail to distinguish
us adequately from socialists. It is in fact our struggle against all official
power that distinguishes us most essentially. Each individuality seems to
us to be the center of the universe and each has the same right to its integral development, without interference from any power that supervises,
reprimands or castigates it.
So you understand our ideal. The next question that arises is the following: “Is this truly a noble ideal? Does it justify the sacrifice of dedicatedmen and all the terrible risks that revolutions inevitably bring in theirwake? Is anarchist morality pure, and if a libertarian society is created,
will man be better off than in one based on fear of power and of the law?
I reply with complete confidence (and I hope that soon you will join me
in this response), “Yes, it is anarchist morality that is most in accord withthe modern conception of justice and goodness.”
The foundation of the old morality was, as you know, nothing but
fear, that “trembling” of which the Bible speaks, and which was instilled
in you through various teachings during your youth. “The fear of God isthe beginning of wisdom” was formerly the starting point for all education.
In other words, society as a whole is founded on terror. Men were not citizens, but rather subjects or members of a flock. Wives were servants andchildren slaves over whom the parents retained vestiges of the ancient lawof life and death. We find everywhere, in all social relations, positions ofsuperiority and subordination. In short, even in our own time the guiding
principle of the state itself and of all the particular states that make it up
is hierarchy, by which is meant “holy” archy or “sacred” authority, for thatis the true meaning of the word.7 This sacrosanct system of dominationencompasses a long succession of superimposed classes in which thehighest have the right to command and the lowest have the duty to obey.
The official morality consists in bowing humbly to one’s superiors and inproudly holding up one’s head before one’s subordinates. Each person
must have, like Janus, two faces, with two smiles: one flattering, solicitous,
and even servile, and the other haughty and nobly condescending. The
principle of authority (which is the proper name for this phenomenon)
demands that the superior should never give the impression of being
wrong, and that in every verbal exchange he should have the last word. But
above all, his orders must be carried out. That simplifies everything: there
is no more need for quibbling, explanations, hesitations, discussions, or124

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misgivings. Things move along all by themselves, for better or worse. And
if a master isn’t around to command in person, one has ready-made formulas—orders, decrees, or laws handed down from absolute masters andlegislators at various levels. These formulas substitute for direct orders,and one can follow them without having to consider whether they are inaccord with the inner voice of one’s conscience.
Between equals, the task is more difficult but also more exalted. We
must search fiercely for the truth, discover our own personal duty, learn
to know ourselves, engage continually in our own education, and act inways that respect the rights and interests of our comrades. Only then can
one become a truly moral being and awaken to a feeling of responsibility.
Morality is not a command to which one submits, a word that one repeats,something purely external to the individual. It must become a part of one’s
being, the very product of one’s life. This is the way that we anarchists
understand morality. Are we not justified in comparing this conception
favorably with the one bequeathed to us by our ancestors?
Perhaps you will now concede that we are right. But here again, someof you will speak of a “chimera.” Though it pleases me that you will at least
concede that ours is a noble dream, I wish to claim more than this andassert that our ideal, our conception of morality, is fully in accord with thelogic of history, brought about naturally through the evolution of humanity.
Long ago, haunted by their fear of the unknown as well as by their
feeling of powerlessness to discover the real causes of things, men createdout of their intense desire one or more helpful divinities that represented
both their formless ideal and the basis for an entire mysterious world ofthings, both visible and invisible, that surrounded them. These phantomsof the imagination, invested with supreme power, also became in theeyes of men the principle of all justice and authority. These masters of
the heavens needed interpreters on earth—magicians, counselors, andwar chiefs before whom one learned to prostrate oneself as if before emissaries from on high. This was quite logical; however, man endures longer
than his own works. For this reason the gods that he created never stopchanging, like shadows cast into infinity. At first visible and driven by
violent and fearsome human passions, they retreated little by little into animmense distance. Finally they became abstractions, sublime ideas thatwere no longer even assigned a name, and then merged with the naturallaws that govern the world. They once again became part of a universethat they supposedly caused to burst forth out of nothingness. And now
man finds himself alone on the earth, above which he once erected thecolossal image of God.
Our entire conception of things changes simultaneously. If God disappears, those who derived from God their right to demand obedienceAnarchy125

will see their borrowed luster become tarnished. They will be obliged toreturn gradually to the ranks, adapting as best they can to the way things
are. Today one can no longer find a Tamerlane,8 who commanded his
forty courtesans to jump from the top of a tower, certain that in the blinkof an eye he would observe from the crenels forty bloody, broken corpses.
Freedom of thought has made all men anarchists without their knowing
it. Who today does not set aside a small corner of the brain for reflection?
This is precisely the crime of crimes, the sin par excellence, symbolized
by the fruit of the tree that revealed to men the knowledge of good andevil. From this came the hatred of science that the Church has always
professed. From this came the rage that Napoleon, a modern Tamerlane,
always harbored against the “ideologues.”
But the ideologues have come. They have blown away the misty illusions of the past, undertaking once again the work of science throughobservation and experimentation. One of them, a nihilist before his time,an anarchist in word if not in deed, commenced by making a “tabula rasa”
of all that he had learned.9 Today there is scarcely a single scientific orliterary scholar who does not claim to be his own master and model, thethinker of his own original thoughts, the moralist for his own morality. As
Goethe said, “If you wish to blossom, blossom on your own.” Do artists
not seek to render nature as they see it, feel it, and understand it? One
might see this as a kind of “aristocratic anarchy” that demands freedom
only for the chosen people who consort with the muses,10 those who climb
Parnassus. Each of them wants to have freedom of thought and pursue
his own ideal, without any limits, just as he pleases—while at the verysame time saying that there must be “religion for the people.” He wants
to live as a fully independent man, but thinks that “obedience is designed
for women.” He wants to create original works of art, but thinks that“the crowd below” must remain in debasing, machine-like subservienceto the operations of the division of labor! In any case, these aristocratsof taste and thought are powerless to close the floodgates against the
coming deluge. If science, literature, and art have become anarchistic, if all
progress and every new form of beauty are the result of the flourishing offree thought, this thought must also be at work within the depths of society.
Today it is no longer possible to contain it. It is too late to stop the flood.
Isn’t the loss of respect a quality par excellence of contemporarysociety? Some time ago I saw a crowd of thousands rush forward to gazeupon the empty carriage of a great lord. I no longer see such things. In
India, pariahs once came devoutly to a halt the prescribed 115 paces fromthe haughty Brahmin. Since people began crowding into train stations,nothing has separated them but a partition in the waiting room. There
are still more than enough examples of baseness and vile groveling in the

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world, but there has nevertheless been progress in the direction of equality. Before showing respect, one sometimes asks whether the man or the
institution in question is truly respectable. One now considers the valueof individuals and the importance of their deeds. Faith in greatness has
disappeared, and when that faith no longer exists, the institutions that
depended on it will in turn disappear. The abolition of the state is a natural
implication of the dying out of such respect.
The anti-authoritarian critique to which the state is subjected applies
equally to all social institutions. The people no longer believe in the sacredorigin of private property, produced, as the economists have told us (though
one doesn’t dare repeat it today), by the personal labor of the property
owners. They are well aware of the fact that the toil of one individual could
never create by itself a fortune of millions upon millions, and that such amonstrous accumulation of wealth is always the result of defective social
conditions, in which the product of the labor of thousands is allocated toa single person. They will always respect the hard-earned bread of theworker, the hut that he builds with his own hands, and the garden thathe plants, but they are certainly going to lose their respect for the multitude of artificial holdings symbolized by various pieces of paper locked
up in bank vaults. I have no doubt that the day will come when they willcalmly reclaim possession of all the products of their common labor: minesand estates, factories and castles, railroads, ships, and cargo. When thesemasses, debased by their ignorance and the weakness that it inevitably produces, no longer deserve the terms with which they are insulted, when theycome to know with complete certainty that the monopolization of theseimmense assets rests solely on fictitious scribbling and the sanctity of redtape, the prevailing social order will indeed be in danger! Considering thedeep and irresistible evolution occurring in all human minds, the fanaticalrailing now directed against the innovators will seem so inane and devoidof sense to our descendents. What matters the filth spewed out by a press
that has to pay back in choice prose the stipends of its patrons? Whatmatters even the abuse heaped upon us quite sincerely by the “saintly
but simple” religionists who would have gladly carried wood to burn John
Huss at the stake!11 The movement that enthralls us is not the work of dullwitted troublemakers or pathetic dreamers, but that of the whole of society.
It is necessitated by the progression of thought, which has now become as
inevitable and ineluctable as the rotation of the heavens and earth.
Nevertheless, some doubt may remain in your minds whether anarchy
has ever been any more than a mere ideal, an intellectual exercise, or the
subject of dialectic. You may wonder whether it has ever been realized
concretely, or whether any spontaneous organization has ever sprung
forth, putting into practice the power of comrades working together

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freely, without the command of any master. But such doubts can easily
be laid to rest. Yes, libertarian organizations have always existed. Yes, they
constantly arise once again, each year in greater numbers, as a result ofadvances in individual initiative. To begin with, I could cite diverse tribal
peoples called “savages,” who even in our own day live in perfect social
harmony, needing neither rulers nor laws, prisons nor police. But I will
not stress such examples, despite their significance. I fear that some might
object that these primitive societies lack complexity in comparison to theinfinitely complicated organism of our modern world. Let us therefore set
aside these primitive tribes and focus entirely on fully constituted nations
that possess developed political and social systems.
Granted, I am unable to point to a single one throughout the course ofhistory that has been constituted in a purely anarchistic manner, for eachfound itself in a period of struggle between diverse elements that had not
yet been joined together with one another. But one finds that each of thesefragmented societies, though not yet merged into a harmonious totality,
was all the more prosperous and all the more creative to the degree thatit had expanded freedom and accorded greater recognition to the valueof each individual as a person. Since the point at which human society
emerged from prehistory, awakened to the arts, sciences, and industry, andwas able to hand down its experience to us through written records, thegreatest periods in the lives of nations have always been those in whichmen, shaken by revolution, have suffered least under the long-lasting andheavy burden of a duly-constituted government. Judged by the progressin discovery, the flowering of thought, and the beauty of their art, thetwo greatest epochs for humanity were both tumultuous epochs, ages of“imperiled liberty.” Order reigned over the immense empires of the Medesand the Persians, but nothing great came out of it. On the other hand, while
republican Greece was in a constant state of unrest, shaken by continual
upheavals, it gave birth to the founders of all that we think exalted andnoble in modern civilization. It is impossible for us to engage in thought
or to produce any work of art without recalling those free Hellenes who
were our precursors and who remain our models. Two thousand years later,
after an age of darkness and tyranny that seemed incapable of ever coming
to an end, Italy, Flanders, and the Europe of the Free Cities reawakened.
Countless revolutions shook the world. Ferrari12 counted no less than seventhousand upheavals for Italy alone. In addition, the fire of free thought
burst forth and humanity began once again to flourish. In the works ofRaphaël, da Vinci, and Michelangelo it felt the vigor of youth once more.
Then came the great century of the Encyclopedists, with its proclamation of the rights of man and the world revolutions that ensued. One ishardly capable of listing all the advances that have been achieved since128

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this great upheaval of humanity. It almost seems as if the greater part of
all human history has been concentrated in this last century. The humanpopulation has increased to over half a billion. Commerce has increased
more than tenfold. Industry has been transformed. The art of modifying natural resources has been wonderfully enriched. New sciences haveappeared on the scene, and regardless of one’s assessment of it, a third
period in the history of art has begun. A conscious, worldwide socialist
movement has begun to flourish. At the very least, one has the feeling ofliving in the century of great problems and enormous struggles. Imagine
the hundred years that came in the wake of eighteenth-century philosophy being replaced with a period without history, such as that in which
400 million peaceful Chinese lived under the tutelage of a “father of thepeople,” a ritualistic court, and mandarins armed with diplomas. Far fromliving with the great vigor that we have seen, we would have gradually
fallen into a condition of inertia and death. Galileo, while locked away inthe prisons of the Inquisition, could only murmur secretly, “Still, it moves!”
But thanks to the revolutions and the fury of free thought, we can today
cry from the housetops and in the public squares, “The world moves, andit will continue to move!”
In addition to this great movement that gradually transforms all ofsociety in the direction of free thought, free morality and freedom of action,in short, toward the essentials of anarchy, there has also existed a historyof direct social experimentation that has manifested itself in the foundingof libertarian and communitarian colonies. These might be looked upon
as a series of small tests that are analogous to the laboratory experimentsof chemists and engineers. These efforts to create model communities
all have the major failing of being created outside the normal conditionsof life, that is to say, far from the cities where people intermingle, whereideas spring up, and where intellects are reinvigorated. Nevertheless, one
can point to quite a number of such projects that have fully succeeded,
for example, “Young Icaria,” which is a transformation of Cabet’s colony,founded almost half a century ago on principles of authoritarian socialism.13 After repeated migrations, the group of communards has now
become entirely anarchist and leads a simple life in the countryside of
Iowa, near the Des Moines River.
But where anarchist practice really triumphs is in the course of
everyday life among common people who would not be able to endure
their dreadful struggle for existence if they did not engage in spontaneous mutual aid, putting aside differences and conflicts of interest. Whenone of them falls ill, other poor people take in his children, feeding them,sharing the meager sustenance of the week, seeking to make ends meet by
doubling their hours of work. A sort of communism is instituted among

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neighbors through lending, in which there is a constant coming and goingof household implements and provisions. Poverty unites the unfortunate
in a fraternal league. Together they are hungry; together they are satisfied.
Anarchist morality and practice are the rule even in bourgeois gatherings
where they might seem to be entirely absent. Imagine a party in the countryside at which some participant, whether the host or one of the guests,
would put on airs of superiority, order people around, or impose his whims
rudely on everyone! Wouldn’t this completely destroy all the pleasure andjoy of the occasion? True geniality can only exist between those who arefree and equal, between those who can enjoy themselves in whatever way
suits them best, in separate groups if they wish, or drawing closer to one
another and intermingling as they please, for the hours spent in this way
are the most agreeable ones.
Please permit me at this point to relate to you a personal experience. We were sailing along in one of those modern ships that cleavethrough the waves at a speed of fifteen to twenty knots and trace a direct
path from continent to content regardless of wind and tide. The air wascalm, the evening pleasant, and the stars sparkled one by one in a blacksky. We were conversing on the poop deck, and came inevitably to theeternal social question, which grabs us and seizes us by the throat likethe Riddle of the Sphinx. The reactionary of the crowd was assailed byhis interlocutors, who were all socialists, more or less. He turned suddenly toward the captain, our leader and master, hoping to find in him
a born champion of the conventional wisdom. “You are the commander
here! Isn’t your authority sacred? What would happen to this vessel if itwere not under the constant direction of your will?” “How naïve you are,”replied the captain. “Just between us, I can tell you that for the most partI’m completely useless. The man at the helm keeps the ship on course, andin a little while another pilot takes his place, and later, still others, and we
consistently follow our charted route, without my intervention. Below, thestokers and engineers do their work without my help or opinion, and doit better the less I meddle and give advice. And all the topmen are sailors
who also know the jobs they have to do, and only occasionally do I haveto coordinate my small part of the work with theirs, which is harder andless lucrative than mine. To be sure, I am charged with guiding the ship.
But isn’t it obvious that this is pure fiction? We use maps, but I didn’t draw
them. The compass guides us, but I didn’t invent it. Someone dredged
the channel of the port we left and the channel of the port to which weare heading. And this superb vessel, its ribs hardly groaning at all under
the pressure of the waves, majestically rocking in the swell, powerfully
steaming ahead—I didn’t build it. What am I compared to the great menof the past, the scientists and inventors, our predecessors who taught us130

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how to cross the seas? We are all their partners, including my comrades
the sailors, and also you the passengers. After all, it is for you that we ride
the waves, and in case of peril, we count on you to assist us fraternally.
We have a common endeavor and we are united with one another!” Theneveryone became silent, and I added to the treasury of my memory theprecious words of this captain, the likes of whom is rarely encountered.
And so this vessel, this floating world in which, moreover, punishment
is unknown, carries a model republic across the oceans, despite all thehierarchical labyrinths of the world. And this is hardly an isolated example.
Each of you knows, if only by hearsay, of schools in which the professor,
disregarding harsh regulations, treats all the pupils as friends and cordialcolleagues. Everything required to get the little rascals under control isprovided by the proper authorities, but their big friend has no need for allthat paraphernalia of repression. He treats the children like human beings,
constantly appealing to their good will, to their understanding of things,
and to their sense of justice. And they all respond joyfully. A minisculesociety that is anarchistic and truly humane is thus created, even though
everything in the larger world seems to be in league to prevent its beingborn—laws, regulations, bad examples, and public immorality.
Anarchistic groups thus spring up constantly, despite all the old prejudices and the heavy weight of ancient customs. Our new world springs up
all around us, like new flora sprouting up from the refuse of the ages. Not
only is it not a mere dream, as some often claim, but it already manifests
itself in a thousand different forms. One has to be blind not to notice it. On
the other hand, if there is any form of society that is illusory and impossible,
it is the pandemonium in which we now live. I hope that you will grant methat I have not gone overboard in my critique, though it is not difficult to do
so in regard to the world we live in, which has given us the so-called principle of authority and the cut-throat struggle for survival. But in the end, by
its very definition a society is a collection of individuals who come together
and deliberate in pursuit of the common good. However, one cannot state
unambiguously that the chaotic mass that we find around us constitutes
a society. According to its proponents—and every bad cause possesses
them—the goal of our society is supposed to be the attainment of perfectorder through the satisfaction of the interests of all. But isn’t it ludicrous
to look for a well-ordered society anywhere in the sphere of European
civilization, with its unending succession of internal conflict, murder andsuicide, violence and shootings, depression and famine, theft, fraud, anddeception of every kind, bankruptcy, collapse and ruin? Which of you, on
leaving, will not see rising up around you specters of hunger and vice? In
our own Europe there are five million men who are but waiting for thesignal to kill other human beings, to burn houses and harvests. Ten million

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others on reserve outside the barracks are consciously committed to carrying out the same work of destruction. Five million wretches live, or atleast vegetate, in prison, condemned to a variety of sentences; ten million
die prematurely each year; and of 370 million persons, 350 million, that is
to say nearly the whole, shudder in justifiable fear of the future. Despite
the immense wealth of society, who among us could deny that an abrupt
reversal of fortunes might take away his assets? These are the facts that noone can deny, and which ought I think inspire in us all the firm resolve tochange the present state of things, which is ripe for permanent revolution.
I once had the opportunity to converse with a high-level bureaucrat,
well trained by the daily routine of enacting laws and imposing penalties.
“Go ahead, defend your society,” I said to him. “How do you expect me todefend it?” he replied. “It is indefensible.” Nevertheless it is defended, butwith arguments that need no justification: with flogging, solitary confinement and the scaffold.
On the other hand, those who attack this society can do so with acompletely clear conscience. It is certain that the movement of social transformation will involve violence and revolution, but isn’t the world aroundus nothing but continual violence and permanent revolution? And between
the two sides in the social struggle, which of the two sides will consist of
responsible men? Those who proclaim an era of justice and equality for
all, without distinction between classes and individuals, or those who wish
to perpetuate the separation and consequently the hatred between castes,
who add repressive law to repressive law, and whose only solution to social
problems consists of infantry, cavalry, and artillery? History allows us tostate with full confidence that a politics of hatred always begets more
hatred, inevitably aggravates the overall situation, and may even bringon ultimate destruction. How many nations have gone to ruin in this way,
oppressors as well as the oppressed! Will we in turn also go to ruin?
I hope that we will not, thanks to the anarchist thought that manifests
itself ever more strongly, renewing human initiative. Aren’t you yourselves,
if not anarchists, then at least strongly tinged with anarchism? Who of you,in your heart of hearts, would call yourself the superior of your neighbor,and would not recognize in him your brother and your equal? The morality that has often been proclaimed here in words that are more or lesssymbolic will certainly become a reality. For we, as anarchists, know that
this morality of perfect justice, liberty, and equality is surely the true one,and we live it with all our hearts, whereas our adversaries are uncertain.
They are unsure of being right. At bottom, they are even convinced thatthey are wrong, and hand over the world to us in advance.

11

The Extended Family (1896)

This essay was published as “La grande famille” in Le Magazine international(January 1897). A previous English translation entitled “The Great Kinship” wasmade by the important but neglected libertarian theorist and cultural radical
Edward Carpenter. See Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Joseph Ishill(Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927), 52–54.

Man likes to live in a dream world. The mental effort required to grasp
reality seems too demanding, and he tries to avoid this struggle by resorting to ready-made opinions. If “doubt is the pillow of the wise,” thenblissful faith is the pillow of the simpleminded. Once there was a supreme
God who did our thinking for us, willed and acted from on high, andguided human destiny according to his whims. His power was all that weneeded, and it caused us to accept our inevitable fate with resignation oreven gratitude. This personal God, on whom the meek could depend, is
now perishing in his own temples, and men have to find a substitute forhim. No longer do they have the All-Powerful at their service. They have
only a few words that they try to endow with mysterious force or magicalpower—for example, the word “progress.”
Without doubt, man has progressed in many ways. His sensations
have become more refined, his thinking more acute and profound, andhis humanity, embracing a much wider world, has expanded prodigiously.
But no progress can occur without some degree of regression. The humanbeing grows, but in the process he moves forward, thus losing part of theterrain that he formerly occupied. Ideally, civilized man should have kept
the savage’s strength, dexterity, coordination, natural good health, tranquility, simplicity of life, closeness to the beasts of the field, and harmonious relationship to the earth and all beings that inhabit it. But what was

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once the rule is now the exception. Much evidence suggests that a manwith determination and a favorable environment can equal the savage inall his basic qualities, while also adding to them by means of a consciousness strengthened by a higher soul. But how many have gained without
losing, who are the equals of both the primitive of the forest or prairie, andthe modern artist or scholar in the bustling city?
And if sometimes a man of exceptional willpower and exemplary
deeds manages to equal his ancestors in native qualities and even surpassthem in acquired traits, one must still conclude that humanity as a whole
has lost some of its early achievements. Thus the animal world, in which
we find our origins and which instructed us in the art of existence, teaching us hunting and fishing, techniques of healing and of building houses,
methods of working together and providing for our needs—this world
has become more foreign to us. Whereas today we speak of the training
or domestication of animals in the sense of subjugation, the primitive
thought of his association with animals in fraternal terms. He saw in theseliving creatures his companions rather than his servants. Indeed, during
times of danger, especially storms and floods, animals—dogs, birds, andsnakes—took refuge with him.
The Indian woman of Brazil happily surrounds herself with a wholemenagerie, and tapirs, deer, opossums, and even tame jaguars can be seenin the clearing around her cabin. Monkeys gambol in the branches above
the hut, peccaries root in the ground, and toucans, hoccos,1 and parrots
perch here and there on the swaying branches, protected by dogs andlarge trumpeter birds.2 And this entire republic functions without the needfor an ill-tempered mistress to deal out insults or blows. The Quechuan3
shepherd, crossing the plateau of the Andes with his llama and its packs,
gains the cooperation of his beloved animal only through strokes andencouragement. If there were a single act of violence, the llama, his personal dignity offended, would lie down angrily and refuse to get up. He
walks at his own pace, never accepts a burden that is too heavy, pauses
for a long time at dawn to gaze upon the awakening sun, expects to be
wreathed with flowers and ribbons or to have a banner waving above hishead, and wants the women and children to pet and stroke him when hearrives at their huts. Isn’t it also true that the horse of the Bedouin, anotherprimitive, stays in the tent and the infants sleep between its legs?
The natural sympathy existing between all these beings brought them
together in a pervasive atmosphere of peace and love. Birds perched ona man’s hand, as they still do today on the horns of bulls, and squirrels
frolicked within reach of the farmer or shepherd. Primitive people do noteven exclude animals from their political communities. In Fazokl,4 when
the subjects depose their king, they always address the following speech

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to him: “Since you are no longer acceptable to men, women, children, anddonkeys, the best thing you can do is to die, and we will help you do so.”5Long ago, men and animals kept no secrets from one another. “The beasts
talked,” according to the fable, but more significantly, man understood. Are
any stories more charming than those of southern India, which are perhaps
the oldest traditional tales in the world, and which were passed on to theDravidian invaders by the indigenous peoples? In these stories, elephants,
jackals, tigers, lions, jerboas,6 snakes, crayfish, monkeys, and men converse
freely, thus forming, so to speak, the great common school of the primitive
world. And in this school, the real teacher is usually the animal.
In these early periods, alliances between men and animals included
a much greater number of species than are found today in the domestic
sphere. Geoffroy St. Hilaire mentioned forty-seven of them that formed,
so to speak, the entourage of man. But how many species that he failed
to mention also lived long ago in intimacy with their youngest brother!
He included neither the many companions of the Guarani7 Indian woman,nor the snakes that the Dinka of the Nile8 call by name and share theircows’ milk with, nor the rhinoceroses that graze with the other livestockon the meadows of Assam,9 nor the crocodiles of the Sindh,10 which Hindu
artists decorate with religious symbols. Archeologists have demonstrated
conclusively that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom11 had among theirherds of domestic animals three or even four species of antelope, and one
ibex. After having been incorporated into human communities, all of theseanimals have now become wild again. Even hyena-like dogs and cheetahs
were transformed by hunters into loyal companions. The Rig-Veda extols
carrier pigeons, “swifter than the clouds.” It sees in them gods and goddesses and directs that sacrifices be made and libations poured for them.
And surely the mythical story of the Flood reminds us of our early ancestors’ skillful use of the swift homing pigeon. Noah sent forth from the Ark
a dove that explored the expanse of waters and the emerging land, andbrought the olive branch back to him in its beak.
Today’s domestication of animals exhibits in many ways moral regression since, far from improving animals, we have deformed and corrupted
them. Although through selective breeding we have improved qualities
such as strength, dexterity, scent, and speed in racing, as meat-eaters ourmajor preoccupation has been to increase the bulk of meat and fat on fourlegs to provide walking storehouses of flesh that hobble from the manure
pile to the slaughterhouse. Can we really say that the pig is superior to thewild boar or the timid sheep to the courageous mouflon?12 The great art ofbreeders is to castrate their animals and create sterile hybrids. They train
horses with the bit, whip, and spur, and then complain that the animals
show no initiative. Even when they domesticate animals under the bestThe Extended Family

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possible conditions, they reduce their resistance to disease and ability toadapt to new environments, turning them into artificial beings incapableof living spontaneously in free nature.
Such degradation of species is itself a great evil, but civilized science
goes even further and sets about exterminating them. We have seen how
many birds have been wiped out by European hunters in New Zealand,
Australia, Madagascar, and the polar archipelagos, and how many walruses and other cetaceans have already disappeared!13 The whale has fled
the waters of the temperate zone, and soon will not even be found among
the ice fields of the Arctic Ocean. All the large land animals are similarly
threatened. We already know the fate of the aurochs14 and the bison, andwe can foresee that of the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, and the elephant.
Statistical estimates place the annual production of elephant ivory at eight
hundred tons, which means that hunters kill forty thousand elephants,
without counting those that are wounded and go deep into the bush todie. How far we have come from the Singhalese of long ago, for whom“the eighteenth science of man was to win the friendship of an elephant!”
How far from the Aryans of India, who assigned to the tamed colossus two
Brahmins as companions so that it might be taught to practice the virtues
worthy of its breed!
On a plantation in Brazil, I once had the opportunity to observe thegreat contrast between the two modes of civilization. The owner took
pride in two bulls that he had purchased at great expense in the Old World.
One of them, which had come from Jersey, was pulling at a chain thatpassed through his nostrils, bellowing, fuming, pawing the ground with hishoof, pointing his horns, and looking menacingly at his keeper. The other,a zebu imported from India, followed us like a dog and with a sweet lookbegged to be petted. We poor, ignorant, “civilized” people, cooped up in
our houses, distant from a nature that we dread because the sun is too hot
or the wind too cold—we have even completely forgotten the meaning of
the holidays that we celebrate. Though Christianity ignores the fact, allof them—Christmas, Easter, Rogation Days, and All Saints’ Day—were
originally nature festivals. Do we understand the meaning of the traditions
that place the first man in a beautiful garden where he walked freely withall the animals, and that have the “Son of Man” born on a bed of straw,
between the ass and the ox, the two companions of the plowman?
Although the distance that separates man from his animal brethren
has widened, and though our direct interactions with species that remain
free in the wilderness has diminished, it nevertheless seems clear that atleast some progress has occurred, thanks to our closer relationship withdomesticated animals not used for food. Without doubt, dogs have been
to some degree corrupted. The majority are, like soldiers, accustomed to

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beatings and have become loathsome beings that tremble before the whip
and cringe at the threatening words of the master. Others are trained to bevicious, like the bulldogs that bite the calves of poor people or go for thethroats of slaves. Still others, those “greyhounds in jackets,” take on all thevices of their mistresses—greediness, vanity, lust, and haughtiness. And
the dogs in China, which are bred to be eaten, are of unsurpassed stupidity. But if a dog is truly loved and raised with kindness, gentleness, andnobility of feeling, doesn’t it often realize a human or even superhumanlevel of devotion and moral goodness?
Cats have known much better than dogs how to maintain their personal independence and their distinctive character, so that we make alliances with them rather than taming them. Haven’t they made almost
miraculous intellectual and moral progress since they emerged from their
original wild state in the forests? There is no human sentiment that they
do not from time to time understand or share, no idea that they do not
intuit, no desire that they do not anticipate. Poets have imagined them as
magicians. And indeed, they do seem at times to be more discerning thantheir human friends in their foresightedness. And don’t the “happy families” exhibited by showmen at fairs demonstrate that rats, mice, guinea
pigs, and many other little creatures wish to attain, along with man, thegreat union of happiness and kindness? Every prison cell is soon transformed into a school for small animals—rats and mice, flies and fleas—
provided the guards do not set things in order. The story of Pellisson’s
spider is well known.15 The prisoner had regained his love of life, thanks
to the little friend whose trainer he had become. But a guardian of orderappeared, and with the avenging boot of official morality, crushed thecreature that had come to console the poor wretch!
All of these facts demonstrate man’s enormous resources for exertinga positive influence over the entire living world, which he now leaves tothe mercy of fate and fails to connect to his own life. Some day our civilization, which is so fiercely individualist and divides the world into as many
little belligerent states as there are private properties and family households, will finally collapse, and it will be necessary to practice mutual aid
to assure our common survival. Some day the quest for friendship will
replace the quest for material well-being that sooner or later will havebeen adequately provided for. Some day dedicated naturalists will havedisclosed to us all that is charming, appealing, human, and often morethan human in the nature of animals. We will then reflect upon all the
species left behind in the march of progress and seek to make of themneither our servants nor our machines, but rather our true companions.
Just as the study of primitive people has made a noteworthy contribution
to our understanding of the civilized16 man of our own time, so the study ofThe Extended Family

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the ways of animals will help us to delve more deeply into the life sciences,increase our knowledge of the nature of things, and expand our love. Let
us look forward to the time when the deer emerges from the forest and,looking at us with its dark eyes, comes before us to be petted, and the bird,
aware its own beauty, triumphantly perches on the shoulder of a beloved
human companion, asking her for its share of love.

12

Evolution, Revolution, and
the Anarchist Ideal (1898)
On February 5, 1880, Reclus delivered an address in Geneva entitled “Evolution etRévolution.” It was published in the journal Le Révolté under that title (February
21, 1880): 1–2, and then was reprinted as a pamphlet and translated many times.
Reclus finally expanded the discussion into a book entitled L’Evolution, la révolution et l’idéal anarchique (Paris: Stock, 1898; Montréal: Lux Editions, 2004), hisonly full-length work on anarchist politics. The following text consists of excerpts
containing the most important discussions in that work; it includes about onefourth of the original text.

Evolution encompasses the entirety of human affairs. We ought to recognize that revolution does also, even though this parallelism is not always
evident from the individual events that make up the whole of the life ofsocieties. All advancements are interdependent, and in proportion to ourknowledge and power, we desire them all—social and political progress,
moral and material progress, and progress in science, art, and industry. In
every sphere we are not only evolutionists, but just as much revolutionists, since we realize that history itself is but a series of achievementsthat follows a series of preparations. The great intellectual evolution thatemancipates minds has a logical consequence in the emancipation ofindividuals in all of their relationships with other individuals.
It can thus be said that evolution and revolution are two successive
aspects of the same phenomenon, evolution preceding revolution, andrevolution preceding a new evolution, which is in turn the mother of future
revolutions. Can any change take place without producing sudden shifts
in the balance of life? Does revolution not inevitably follow evolution in
the same way that an act follows the will to act? The two differ only in thetime of their appearance. When a mass of fallen debris obstructs a river,Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal

139

the waters gradually accumulate above the impediment, and a lake isformed through slow evolution. Then suddenly the down-river dam begins
to leak, and the fall of a pebble precipitates a cataclysm. The obstruction
is violently swept away, and the emptied lake once again becomes a river.
In this way, a small terrestrial revolution takes place.
If revolution always lags behind evolution, it is because of the resistance of the environment: the water in a stream splashes between its banks
because they hinder its flow; thunder rumbles in the sky because theatmosphere resists the electrical charge that flashes down from the cloud.
Each transformation of matter and each realization of an idea is, during
its actual process of change, thwarted by the inertia of the environment. A
new phenomenon can thus come into being only through an effort that ismore violent, or a force that is more powerful, than the resistance. Herder,
speaking of the French Revolution, expressed this idea: “A seed falls to theground, and for a long time it seems to be dead. Then suddenly it sprouts,
displaces the hard soil that had covered it, violently pushes away its enemy,
the clay, and thus becomes a flowering plant that bears fruit.” And consider how a child is born: after spending nine months in the darkness of
the womb, it also escapes violently, tearing its receptacle and sometimes
even killing its mother. Such are revolutions—necessary consequences ofthe evolutions that preceded them.
❧

However, revolutions do not necessarily constitute progress, just as evolutions are not always directed toward justice. Everything changes; everything in nature moves as part of an eternal movement. But where there
is progress, there can also be regression, and if some evolutions tend
toward the growth of life, there are others that incline toward death. To
stop is impossible, and it is necessary to move in one direction or another.
The hardened reactionary and the gentle liberal, both of whom cry out
in fright at the word “revolution,” nevertheless march onward toward
a revolution—the last one, which is eternal rest. Disease, senility, andgangrene are evolutions just as much as puberty is. The appearance ofworms in a corpse, like the first cry of an infant, indicates that a revolution
has occurred. Physiology and history demonstrate that some evolutions
indicate decline, and certain revolutions mean death.
We know human history only partially, based on the experience of but
a few thousand years, yet it offers endless examples of tribes, peoples, cities,
and empires that have perished miserably as a consequence of slow evolutions that led to their downfall. The factors that brought about these maladies of entire nations and races have been manifold and diverse. Climate
and soil can deteriorate, as has certainly happened over vast stretches of140

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Central Asia where lakes and rivers have dried up and salt deposits havereclaimed previously fertile lands. Invasions of enemy hordes devastatedcertain regions to such an extent that they have remained forever desolate;however, many nations were able to flourish again following conquests
and massacres, even after centuries of oppression. Thus if a nation falls
again into barbarism or completely dies out, one must seek the reasonsfor its regression and ruin, above all within the nation itself and in its
essential constitution, rather than in external circumstances. There is afundamental cause—indeed, the cause of all causes—that epitomizes thehistory of decline. It is the establishment of mastery of one part of society
over another, and the monopolizing of land, capital, power, education,and honors by a few or by an aristocracy. As soon as the dull masses nolonger have the drive to revolt against this monopoly by a small number ofmen, they are as good as dead, and their disappearance is but a matter oftime. The black plague will soon come to finish off such a useless swarm
of individuals without liberty. Slaughtering invaders charge from east andwest, and the desert moves in to replace immense cities. Thus Assyria
and Egypt died and Persia collapsed, and when the whole Roman Empire
belonged to a few great landowners, the barbarians soon replaced theenslaved proletariat.
Every event is two-sided, for it is at once a phenomenon of death
and a phenomenon of revival; in other words, it is the result of evolution
toward decay and also toward progress. Thus the Roman Empire’s destruction, in its immense complexity, consisted of a whole set of revolutions
corresponding to a series of evolutions, some of which were disastrous
and others fortunate. The destruction of the formidable machine of suppression that had weighed heavily on the world was certainly a great relief
for the oppressed, and the violent arrival of the peoples from the north to
the world of civilization was also in many respects a fortunate stage in thehistory of humanity. During the upheaval, many of the enslaved regained
a small amount of liberty at the expense of their masters; however, scienceand industry perished or went into hiding. Statues were smashed andlibraries were burned. It seems as though the chain of time had broken, so
to speak. The people abandoned their heritage of knowledge. Despotism
was followed by a worse despotism, and from a dead religion grew theoffshoots of a new one that was more authoritarian, cruel, and fanatical.
For a thousand years, the darkness of ignorance and folly propagated bymonks spread across the earth.
❧

Since every event and every period of history presents a double aspect,
it is impossible to judge any of them categorically. The very example ofEvolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal141

the renewal that brought the Middle Ages and the night of ignorance
to a close shows us how two revolutions can simultaneously be carried
out—one resulting in decline, and the other in progress. The Renaissance,
which rediscovered the monuments of antiquity, deciphered its books
and teachings, freed science from superstitious methods, and once again
engaged men in objective studies, also resulted in the definitive end of the
spontaneous artistic movement that had developed so splendidly during
the period of free cities and communes. It came as suddenly as the overflowing of a river that ravages the neighboring farm lands. Everything had
to start over, and often, banal imitations of the ancient replaced works thatat least had the merit of being original!
The renaissance of science and art was accompanied in the religious
world by the split within Christianity called the Reformation. For a longtime, it seemed natural to view this revolution as one of the beneficial
turning points of humanity, epitomized by the conquest of the right of individual initiative and the emancipation of the mind, which the priests had
kept in servile ignorance. It was believed that henceforth, men would betheir own masters, each equal through the independence of thought. But
we now know that the Reformation also meant the establishment of otherauthoritarian churches in opposition to the one that had hitherto held themonopoly on intellectual enslavement. The Reformation shifted fortunes
and prebends to benefit the new power, and religious orders emerged fromboth sides—Jesuits and counter-Jesuits—to exploit the people in new
ways. Luther and Calvin spoke of those who did not share their views withthe same language of fierce intolerance as such figures as St. Dominic andInnocent III. Like the Inquisition, they spied, imprisoned, quartered, andburned, and in principle, their doctrine implied equal obedience to kings
and to the interpreters of the “Divine Word.”❧

There is often a most shocking disparity between the revolutionary circumstances that accompany the emergence of an institution and the mannerin which it functions, which is completely opposed to the ideals of itsnaïve founders. At its birth, there may be cries of “Liberty! Liberty!” andthe hymn “War against the Tyrants” may resound in the streets; however,“tyrants” still manage to come into their midst as the direct result of theroutine, the hierarchy, and the spirit of regression that gradually encroachon every institution. The longer any institution persists, the more formidable it becomes, for it finally rots the very soil on which it stands andpollutes the atmosphere around it. The mistakes that it sanctions, andthe perversion of ideas and feelings that it justifies and promotes, take onsuch a character of antiquity and even sanctity that rarely does anyone

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dare to challenge it. Its authority grows with each passing century, and if
it nevertheless dies out in the end, as do all things, it is because it finds
itself increasingly at odds with the totality of new developments emerging
around it.
❧

Some institutions, such as those of religious creeds, have gained sucha powerful hold over the soul that many free-thinking historians havethought it impossible for men to liberate themselves from them. Indeed,
the popular image of God sitting on his throne in Heaven is not one thatis easy to overcome. In the logical order of human development, religious organization followed the political one, and priests came after chiefs,
since every image presupposes a primordial reality; however, the religious
illusion was placed at the loftiest height in order to make it the original
justification for all earthly authority, and it was thus endowed with amajestic character par excellence. One spoke to the sovereign and mysterious power, the “Unknown God,” in a state of fear and trembling that suppressed all thought and all inclination toward critical analysis or personal
judgment. Adoration was the only feeling that priests allowed their faithful.
❧

According to social psychology, we must mistrust not only the powerthat is already established, but also that which is emerging. It is equallyimportant to examine carefully the practical meaning of such seemingly
innocuous or even seductive words as “patriotism,” “order,” and “social
peace.” The love of one’s native soil is, without doubt, a very natural andagreeable sentiment. It is delightful for an exile to hear his cherishedmaternal language and once more to see places that remind him of hisbirthplace. And such love is not limited to the land that nourished him
and the language that he heard in the cradle, but also extends, through anatural impulse, to the sons of that same land, with whom he shares ideas,
feelings, and customs. If he has a noble nature, he will finally become
fervently attached, with a passionate solidarity, to those whose needs andways he knows intimately. If this is “patriotism,” what man of heart could
help but feel it? But the word almost always hides a meaning quite different from mere “love for the land of one’s forefathers.”
It is a strange contradiction that one’s native land has never been
spoken of with such burning affection as it has since it began to disappear
gradually into the great terrestrial homeland of humanity. Flags are seen
everywhere, especially at the doors of cabarets and houses of ill repute.
The “ruling classes” incessantly boast of their patriotism, while at thesame time investing their assets abroad and trading illicitly with Vienna orEvolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal

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Berlin in whatever will bring them money—including state secrets. Even
scholars, forgetful of having once constituted an international republicthroughout the world, speak of “French science,” “German science,” or“Italian science,” as if it were possible to confine the knowledge of facts
and the dissemination of ideas within borders, under police protection.
They practice protectionism not only for turnips and cotton cloth, butalso for the products of the mind. But to the degree that the minds of thepowerful become narrower, those of ordinary people are expanded. Men inhigh positions see their domain and their hopes diminished to the extent
that we rebels take possession of the universe and enlarge our hearts. We
think of ourselves as comrades throughout the world, from America toEurope and from Europe to Australia. We use the same language to assert
the same interests, and the day is coming when we will in a spontaneous impulse adopt the same tactics and a single rallying cry. Our army
awakens in all corners of the world.
In comparison to this global movement, what is commonly called
patriotism is nothing but a regression in every respect. One would haveto be extremely naïve to be unaware of the fact that the “catechisms of
citizenship” preach the love of homeland in order to serve all the interestsand privileges of the ruling class, and that for the benefit of this class they
promote hatred between the weak and disinherited of various countries.
The term “patriotism” and all the modern glosses on it disguise the age-old
practices of servile obedience to the will of a leader and the complete abdication of the individual in the face of those who hold power and wield theentire nation like a blind force. Similarly, the words “order” and “social
peace” sound quite beautiful to our ears, but we would like to know what
those noble apostles, the rulers, mean by these words. Yes, peace and order
are great ideals that deserve to be realized, but under one condition: that
this peace is not that of the grave, and this order is not that of Warsaw!1
Our future peace must arise not from the unquestioned domination bysome and the hopeless enslavement of others, but from good, straightforward equality among friends.
❧

Although the current state of affairs is atrocious, an immense evolution has
taken place, giving promise of the next revolution. This evolution consistsin the fact that the “science” of economics, which prophesied scarcity ofresources and the inevitable death of the starving masses, has been provenwrong, and that moreover, a suffering humanity, believing itself to be poor
only a short time ago, has discovered its wealth. Thus its ideal of “breadfor all” has been found to be no mere utopia. The earth is vast enough tonourish us all and rich enough to support us comfortably. It can provide

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enough crops for all to have food, it produces enough fibrous plants for
all to have clothing, and it contains enough stones and clay for all to havehouses. This is economic reality in all its simplicity. Not only is that which
the earth produces adequate for the consumption of its present inhabitants,
but it would also be enough if consumption were suddenly to double. This
would be the case even if science did not intervene to advance agriculture
beyond its empirical methods by placing at its disposal all of the resources
now available from chemistry, physics, meteorology, and mechanics. In
the great family of humanity, hunger is not only the result of a collective
crime, it is moreover an absurdity, since production is more than double
what is needed for consumption.
❧

And what of freedom of speech and freedom of action? Are they not direct
and logical consequences of freedom of thought? Speech is but thought
become audible. Action is but thought become visible. Our ideal thus
entails for each man the complete and absolute liberty to express histhoughts in every area, including science, politics, and morals, without
any condition other than his respect for others. It also entails the rightof each to do as he pleases while naturally joining his will with those ofothers in all collective endeavors. His own freedom is in no way limited bythis union, but rather expands, thanks to the strength of the common will.
It goes without saying that this absolute freedom of thought, speech,
and action is incompatible with the maintenance of institutions that
restrict free thought, rigidify speech in the form of a final and irrevocablevow, and even dictate that the worker fold his arms and die of hunger
at the owner’s command.2 Conservatives are by no means wrong when
they generalize that revolutionaries are “enemies of religion, family, andproperty.” Yes, anarchists reject the authority of dogma and the intrusionof the supernatural into our lives. In this sense, whatever fervor they may
bring into the struggle for their ideals of fraternity and solidarity, they are
enemies of religion. Yes, they want to abolish matrimonial trafficking andinstead desire free unions based only on mutual affection, self-respect,
and the dignity of others. In this sense, as loving and devoted as they areto those whose lives are joined with theirs, they are indeed enemies ofthe family. Yes, they want to abolish the monopolizing of the earth andits products in order to distribute them to everyone. In this sense, thehappiness they would have in guaranteeing to everyone the enjoyment of
the fruits of the earth makes them enemies of property. Certainly, we love
peace, and our ideal is harmony among all men. Yet war rages around us.
It appears before us in the distance as a sad prospect, for in the immensecomplexity of human affairs, the march toward peace is itself accompanied

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by struggles. “My kingdom is not of this world,” said the Son of Man. Still,
he also “brought a sword,” creating “the division between son and father,and between daughter and mother.” Every cause, even the worst, has its
defenders, and even though the revolutionary loves them, he must nonetheless also fight against them.
❧Nothing good can possibly come to us from the republic and the successful “republicans,” that is, those who gain power. To hope otherwise
would be to accept a historical absurdity, utter nonsense. The class thatpossesses and governs is inevitably the enemy of all progress. The vehicleof modern thought and of intellectual and moral evolution is that part ofsociety which struggles, labors, and is oppressed. It is that part whichdevelops and realizes the idea and which, with great difficulty, constantly
sets the chariot of society in motion, while conservatives endlessly try tostall it or bog it down.
But one might ask whether our evolutionary and revolutionary friends,
the socialists, are equally liable to betray their cause, and whether we will
see them one day go through the usual process of regression after thoseamong them who want to “conquer state power” have succeeded. If thesocialists become our masters, they will certainly proceed in the samemanner as their predecessors, the republicans. The laws of history will not
bend in their favor. Once they have power, they will not fail to use it, if only
under the illusion or pretense that this force will be rendered useless as all
obstacles are swept away and all hostile elements destroyed. The world isfull of such ambitious and naïve persons who live with the illusory hopeof transforming society through their exceptional capacity to command;
however, when they have risen into the ranks of the leaders, or at least
become enmeshed in the vast machine of high-level administration, they
understand that their isolated will has no hold over the only real power,
which is the inner workings of public opinion, and that all their efforts
risk being lost amidst the indifference and ill will that surrounds them.
What remains for them to do but follow governmental routine, enrich theirfamilies, and dole out positions to their friends?
Some fervent authoritarian socialists tell us that the mirage of power
and the exercise of authority can doubtless have grave dangers for men
who are simply motivated by good intentions, but that this danger neednot be feared by those who have mapped out their plan of action througha program rigorously debated with comrades who will know how to callthem to order in case of negligence or betrayal. It is required that programs
be duly spelled out, signed, and countersigned. They are published inthousands of copies. They are posted on the doors of meeting halls, and146

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each candidate knows them by heart. Are these not sufficient guarantees?
However, the meaning of these scrupulously debated words varies fromyear to year according to events and perspectives, and each understands
it according to his own interests. And when a whole faction comes to viewthings differently than it had in the beginning, the clearest statements
take on a merely symbolic meaning, and eventually become no more thanhistorical documents.
The fact is that those who aspire to conquer state power must obviously use the means that seem to lead most surely to their goal. In republics with universal suffrage, they court the multitudes, the crowd. They
support the interests of the wine industry and make themselves popular
at the pubs. They welcome voters from wherever they come, unconcerned
about sacrificing substance for form. They invite enemies into their midst,
which is like injecting poison directly into the body. In countries with amonarchy, many socialists declare themselves to be indifferent to the formof government, and they even call upon the king’s ministers to help themrealize their plans for social change, as if it were logically possible to reconcile domination by a single ruler with brotherly mutual aid among men.
But the impatience to act can blind one to obstacles, and faith willingly
believes that it can move mountains. Lassalle longs to have Bismarck as apartner in establishing a new world.3 Others turn toward the Pope, asking
him to head the league of the humble. And when the young Emperor ofGermany gathered a few philanthropists and sociologists at his table, there
were those who imagined that the new day had finally dawned.
And if some socialists are still fascinated by the prestige of politicalpower expressed as divine right or the right of force, they succumb evenmore readily to power that is masked by its popular origin in limited oruniversal suffrage. In order to win votes, or in other words, to earn thefavor of the citizens, which initially seems quite legitimate, the socialist
candidate readily flatters the tastes, the inclinations, or even the prejudicesof his electorate. He blithely ignores disagreements, disputes, and grudges,
and for a while becomes the friend, or at least the ally, of those with whom
only a short time ago he had exchanged invectives. In the clericalist, hetries to find a Christian socialist. In the liberal bourgeois, he conjures up
the reformer. And in the patriot, he appeals to the courageous defender ofcivic dignity. At times, he even takes care not to scare off the “owner” or
the “boss.” He goes so far as to present them with his demands as if they
were guarantees of peace. “May Day,” which was supposed to represent
victory in a long struggle against Lord Capital, has become a holiday withgarlands and farandoles. With these superficial gestures to the voters, thecandidates gradually forget the proud language of truth and the uncompromising attitude of combat. Their very spirit undergoes a pervasive

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transformation, especially among those who reach the goal of all theirefforts and assume their places on velvet benches facing the gold-fringed
rostrum. At this point they must become experts at exchanging smiles,
handshakes, and favors.
This is simply human nature, and it would be absurd on our partto hold a grudge against the socialist leaders who, finding themselvescaught up in the electoral machine, end up being gradually transformed
into nothing more than bourgeois with liberal ideas. They have placed
themselves in determinate conditions that in turn determine them. The
consequences are inevitable, and the historian should limit himself topointing it out as a danger to revolutionaries who would rashly throw
themselves into the political fray. Besides, one need not exaggerate theresults of this evolution of socialist politicians, for the struggling masses
are always composed of two elements whose respective interests must
increasingly diverge. Some are bound to abandon the original cause, whileothers remain faithful to it. These developments imply a new categorization of individuals, in which they are grouped according to their actual
affinities. Thus we have recently seen the Republican Party split in two,
forming on the one hand the crowd of “opportunists,” and on the other,
the socialist factions. The latter will also have to divide, one group watering down its program to make it more palatable to the conservatives, andthe other group maintaining its spirit of straightforward evolution andhonest revolution. After having had their moments of discouragement andeven skepticism, they will “let the dead bury the dead” and will return totake their place among the living. But if only they knew that every party
requires esprit de corps, and, consequently, solidarity in evil as well as ingood. Each member of a party becomes bound up with the mistakes, thelies, and the ambitions of all his comrades and masters. It is only the free
man—who of his own accord joins his strength with that of other men
acting out of their own will—who has the right to disavow the mistakes
or misdeeds of his so-called companions. He takes responsibility only forhimself.
❧

Since the present function of the state consists foremost of defending
the interests of landowners and the “rights of capital,” it is indispensablefor the economist to have at his disposal some successful arguments andfantastic lies that the poor, wanting very much to support the national
economy, can accept without question. But alas! These fine-sounding
theories, invented in the past for consumption by the dull masses, can nolonger be accepted. One might well blush to repeat the old assertion that“work is always rewarded by wealth and property.” In claiming that labor

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is the source of wealth, the economists are perfectly conscious that they
are not telling the truth. Like the socialists, they know that great wealthis not the product of personal effort, but of the work of others. They are
not unaware that speculation and success in the stock market, the sourceof great fortunes, can be justly compared with the exploits of bandits.
They certainly would not dare to claim that the individual who has amillion to spend each week, which is equivalent to the amount necessary
to support a hundred thousand persons, distinguishes himself from othermen through intelligence and virtue a hundred thousand times superior tothat of the average person. It would be foolish, and almost complicitous,
to waste time debating the hypocritical arguments on which this allegedsource of social inequality is based.
But another kind of reasoning is used that at least has the merit of not
being founded on a lie. Against the demands made on behalf of society,some invoke the right of the strongest, and even the respected name of
Darwin (though without regard for his actual views), in order to defend
injustice and violence. The strength of muscle and jaw, of cudgel andbludgeon—this is the ultimate argument! In actuality it is the right ofthe strongest that triumphs in the monopoly of wealth. The one who isbest equipped materially, the most favored through birth, education, andfriends, the best armed through force or trickery, and who finds before
him the weakest enemies, has the best chance of succeeding. He is morecapable than others of building a lofty fortress from which he can fire on
his unfortunate brothers.
Thus the crude battle of conflicting egos determines the outcome.
But in former times, one hardly dared acknowledge this theory of ironand fire, which seemed too violent, and preferred instead the language of
hypocritical virtue. It was veiled by solemn expressions so that the people
would not understand the meaning. “Work is a bridle,” said Guizot.4 But
naturalists’ studies of the struggle between species for existence and theconcept of the survival of the fittest have encouraged the theoreticians offorce to announce brazenly their arrogant challenge. “You see,” they say,“this is the inevitable law and immutable destiny to which both predator
and prey are subject.”
We should be pleased that the question is thus simplified in all its
brutality, for it is that much closer to being resolved. “Force rules!” say the
defenders of social inequality. “Yes, it’s force that rules!” cry out ever more
loudly those who profit from modern industry in its ruthless development,
the desired result of which is above all to reduce the number of workers.
But could not the revolutionaries say much the same thing as the economists and the industrialists, but with the understanding that cooperationfor existence will gradually replace the struggle for survival? The law of theEvolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal

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strongest will not always benefit the industrial monopoly. “Might makes
right,” said Bismarck, like many others before him, but the day is coming
when might will be at the service of right. If it is true that ideas of solidarity are spreading, that the conquests of science will eventually reach every
level of society, and that moral resources are becoming the property of all,will not the workers, who have both the right and the might, make use of
these things in order to create a revolution for the benefit of all? As strongas they may be in money, intelligence, and shrewdness, what can isolated
individuals do against the united masses? The rulers have lost hope ofgiving any moral justification for their cause; now they ask only to rulewith a firm hand. This is the only superiority to which they aspire. One
could easily cite examples of state officials who were chosen not for theirmilitary glory, their noble genealogy, their talents, or their eloquence, butsolely for their lack of scruples. In this regard, one has full confidence inthem: they allow no prejudice to stand in the way of the conquest of poweror the defense of bank notes.
In no modern revolution have the privileged been known to fighttheir own battles. They always depend on armies of poor people, whomthey indoctrinate with the so-called religion of the flag and drill in theso-called maintenance of order. Six million men, without counting all theranks of police, are employed for such work in Europe. But these armies
can disintegrate. They can recall the common origin and destiny thatconnect them with the masses of the people, and the hand that leads them
can lose control. Composed largely of proletarians, they can and certainly
will become for bourgeois society what the barbarians in the pay of theempire became for Roman society—an element of dissolution. History
is full of examples of outbreaks of panic to which the powerful succumb,even those who have preserved their strength of character—for there arealso a number of “rulers” who are nothing more than simple degenerates.
The latter are the sort who, if trapped in a spreading fire, would not havethe energy and physical strength (even if there were a hundred of them)to break through a wooden wall, nor enough dignity to allow women andchildren to escape first.5 When the disinherited are united in their own
interests—trade with trade, nation with nation, race with race, or, spontaneously, man with fellow man—and when they know their goal well,there can be no doubt that the opportunity will arise for them to use theirforce in the service of liberty for all. As powerful as the master may be atthat time, he will be quite weak when he faces all who are united with asingle will and who rise up against him so that they may be assured fromthat moment on of their bread and liberty.
❧

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Ignorance is decreasing, and among the united revolutionary evolutionists, knowledge will soon be the guide of power. This is the overriding factthat gives us confidence in the promise of humanity: despite the infinite
complexity of things, history demonstrates that progress will win out overregression. In considering all the facts of contemporary life, some attest toa relative decline while others conclude that there has been a step forward.
The latter view is more valid, since day by day evolution moves us evercloser to that totality of both peaceful and violent transformations that wealready call “social revolution.” This will entail above all the destructionof the despotic power of persons and things, and of individual monopoly
over the products of collective labor.
The major event in this evolutionary process is the emergence ofthe Workers’ International. No doubt it has been taking root ever since
men of different nations began practicing mutual aid, in complete friendship and for their common interests. It even acquired a theoretical existence when the philosophers of the eighteenth century inspired the French
Revolution’s proclamation of the “rights of man.” But these rights haveremained a mere slogan, and the assembly that shouted them out to theworld was careful not to put them into practice. It did not even dare toabolish the slavery of the blacks of Santo Domingo and only yielded after
years of insurrection, when it seemed that the last chance for salvation
was to pay this price. The International, which was in the process of formation in all civilized countries, did not fully come to consciousness ofitself until the second half of our century, and it was in the sphere oflabor that it emerged. The “ruling classes” had nothing to do with it. The
International! Since the discovery of America and the circumnavigationof the earth, no achievement was more important in the history of man.
Columbus, Magellan, and El Cano6 were the first to notice the physicalunity of the earth, but the future normative unity that the philosophersdesired began to be realized only when the English, French, and German
workers, forgetting their different origins and understanding one anotherin spite of their diversity of languages, joined together to form a single
nation, in defiance of all their respective governments. The beginnings of
the undertaking were not impressive. Scarcely a few thousand men banded
together in this association, which was the original cell of the humanity of
the future. But historians understood the fundamental importance of theevent that had just occurred. In the early years of the International, theoverturning of the Vendôme Column during the Paris Commune showedthat the ideas of that organization had become a living reality. Until thattime, it was unheard of for a conquered people to overturn enthusiasticallythe monument of former victories. It was done not to flatter in a cowardly
manner those who had in turn just conquered them, but rather to show

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their fraternal sympathy toward the brothers who had been driven against
them, and their feelings of loathing for the masters and kings who on bothsides had led their subjects to the slaughterhouse. For those who know
how to rise above the petty struggles of factions and contemplate themarch of history from a distance, there has never in this century been amore impressive sign of the times than the toppling of the imperial column
onto a pile of manure!7❧

As soon as the spirit of demanding their due pervades the entire mass ofthe oppressed, every event, even if it seems to be of minimal importance,
will be capable of creating shock waves of change, just as a single spark cancause a whole keg of powder to explode. Already we see harbingers of thegreat struggle. For example, when in 1890 the call of “May Day” resounded,launched by an unknown person, perhaps an Australian comrade, theworkers of the world were suddenly united in a single thought. On thatday, the International, which had officially been buried, was brought backto life—not by the command of leaders, but through the pressure of themasses. Neither the “wise counsel” of influential socialists nor the oppressive apparatus of governments was able to prevent the oppressed of allnations from feeling that they are brothers throughout the world, and fromaffirming this to one another. However, on the surface, “May Day” did notseem to amount to much, merely a platonic expression, a rallying cry, apassword! Bosses and governments, aided by the socialist leaders themselves, have indeed attempted to turn those fateful words into nothing
more than an empty formula. Nevertheless, this cry and this yearly celebration have taken on an epic significance through their universality.
Another kind of outcry, one that is sudden, spontaneous, and unexpected, can lead to even more surprising results. Due to one cause oranother and in relation to some insignificant fact, the force of circumstances—that is, the entirety of economic conditions—will inevitably
give rise to the kind of crisis that impassions even the indifferent. At thatmoment, there will suddenly be an explosion of the tremendous energythat has accumulated in the hearts of men because of a violated sense ofjustice, unredressed sufferings, and unappeased hatreds. Any day mightbring such a cataclysm. The firing of a worker, a local strike, or an unforeseen massacre can be the cause of revolution, for the feeling of solidarity isconstantly spreading, and each local tremor tends to shake all of humanity. Several years ago, the new rallying cry of “general strike” burst forthin the factories. This term seemed bizarre, and was thought to express amere dream or chimerical hope. But it was repeated more loudly, and now
it resounds so strongly that the capitalist world often trembles from it. No,

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the general strike is not impossible. English, Belgian, French, German,
American, and Australian wage workers understand that it is up to themto withhold all labor from their bosses on the same day. And why would
they not carry out tomorrow what they understand today, especially if asoldiers’ strike is added to that of the workers? The newspapers unanimously maintain an extremely careful silence when soldiers rebel or leave
the military en masse. Conservatives, who prefer to ignore completely any
facts that are not in accord with their wishes, would like to believe thatsuch a social abomination is impossible. But collective desertions, partial
rebellions, and refusals to shoot are phenomena that occur frequently
in poorly trained armies, and that are not completely unknown in the
toughest of military organizations. Those among us who remember theCommune are reminded of the thousands of men left in Paris by Thiers,
who were disarmed by the people and easily converted to its cause. Whenthe majority of soldiers are pervaded by the will to strike, the opportunity
to act upon it will come sooner or later.
The strike, or rather the spirit of the strike in the broadest sense,
derives its value above all through the solidarity that it creates among
those who demand their rights. In struggling for a common cause, theylearn to love one another. But there are also efforts at direct association,and these also contribute increasingly to the social revolution. This unitingof forces by the poor, the farmers, or the industrial workers encountersgreat obstacles because of the lack of material resources among the individual members. The need to earn a living requires them either to leave
their native land in order to sell their labor-power to the highest bidder,or to remain where they are and accept the conditions, as shabby as they
may be, created for them by the distribution of labor. In any case, they are
enslaved, and their daily work prevents them from making plans for the
future and freely choosing their allies in the battle of life. Thus it is quite
remarkable that they accomplish work that may be limited in scope, butthat nonetheless introduces to the world around it a new quality of life.
Moreover, some signs of the society of the future do occasionally appear
here and there among the workers, thanks to favorable circumstances andto the strength of the idea, which pervades even some social circles in theworld of the privileged.
Often it pleases our critics to ask us sarcastically about previous
attempts to create more or less communal associations in various parts of
the world, and we would lack perspective if we were in any way embarrassed to answer such questions. True, the history of these associations
reveals many more failures than successes. It could not be otherwise, since
what is necessary is total revolution, the replacement of individual or collective work for the benefit of one, by the work of all for the benefit of all.

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The persons who come together in order to form one of these societies
with new ideals are themselves by no means completely rid of prejudices,
old practices, and deeply rooted atavisms; they have not yet “shed theold man”! In the “anarchist” or “harmonist” microcosm they have created,
they must always struggle against the dissociative and disruptive forces
produced by habits, customs, the ever-powerful bonds of family, tempting advice from friends, the return of worldly ambitions, the need foradventure, and the obsession with change. Pride and a feeling of dignity
can sustain novices for a while, but at the first disappointment, it is easy
for them to succumb to a secret hope that the undertaking will fail andthat they will once again plunge into the tumult of life on the outside. We
are reminded of the experience of the colonists of Brook Farm in New
England, who remained faithful to their association, if only through thebonds of virtue and loyalty to their original intention. Nevertheless, they
were delighted when a fire destroyed their communal palace, thus absolving them from the agreement contracted among them in what amounted
to a sort of interior vow, albeit not in the monastic sense. Obviously, theassociation was doomed to perish, even if the fire had not fulfilled theinnermost desire of some, since the basic will of the members was at odds
with the functioning of their colony.
Most communitarian associations have perished for similar reasons
related to their inability to adapt to their surroundings. They were notregulated, as are barracks or monasteries, by the absolute will of religious or military masters and by the no less absolute obedience of theirinferiors—soldiers, monks, or nuns. Besides, they did not yet possess thebond of complete solidarity that results in absolute respect for persons,intellectual and artistic development, and the prospect of a great andcontinually growing ideal. The opportunities for discord and even disunity
are even more to be expected when colonists, attracted by the mirage ofa distant land, are drawn toward a region completely different from theirown, where each thing seems strange to them and where adaptation to
the soil, the climate, and local customs is subject to the greatest uncertainties. The phalansterians who accompanied Victor Considérant to theplains of northern Texas shortly after the foundation of the Second Empire
were headed toward certain ruin. They settled in the midst of populations
whose brutal and coarse customs surely must have shocked their thin
Parisian skins. Also, they encountered the abominable institution of blackslavery and were even forbidden by law to express their opinion about it.
Similarly, the experiment of Freiland, or “Land of Freedom,” attempted
under the direction of a Prussian officer in regions known only throughvague stories and conquered with difficulty through a war of extermination, offered a farcical spectacle to the historian. It was evident from the154

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beginning that all these heterogeneous elements would not be able to unite
in a harmonious whole.
None of these failures can discourage us, for the successive efforts
indicate an irresistible striving of the social will. Neither disappointments
nor ridicule can deter the seekers. Besides, they always have before themthe example of the “cooperatives”—consumers’ associations and othertypes—which also had difficult beginnings but which now have become
numerous and wonderfully prosperous. Undoubtedly, several of theseassociations have turned out very badly, especially the most prosperous
among them, in the sense that the realization of profit and the desire toincrease it have inflamed the love of wealth among the members of thecooperative, or at least diverted them from the revolutionary enthusiasmof the early years. This is the most formidable danger, human nature being
always ready to grasp at excuses to avoid the risks of the struggle. It iseasy to confine oneself to one’s “good work,” thrusting aside the concernsand dangers that arise from devotion to the revolutionary cause in its fullscope. One tells oneself that it is especially important to succeed in anundertaking that involves the collective honor of a great number of friends,
and one gradually allows oneself to be drawn into the petty practices of
conventional business. The person who had resolved to change the world
has changed into nothing more than a simple grocer.
Nevertheless, studious and sincere anarchists can learn a great lesson
from these innumerable cooperatives that have emerged everywhere andjoined to form ever larger entities in such a way as to encompass the mostdiverse functions, such as those of industry, transportation, agriculture,science, art, and entertainment. The scientific practice of mutual aid isspreading and becoming easy to achieve. All that remains is to give it itstrue meaning and morality by simplifying the whole system of exchangeof services and retaining only the simple recording of statistics of production and consumption, thereby eliminating the large books of “debit” and“credit,” which will have become useless.
This profound revolution is not only on the path to fulfillment, but isactually being realized in various places; however, it is pointless to draw
attention to the endeavors that seem to us to be closest to our ideal, fortheir chances of success are greatest if silence continues to protect them,
if the clamor of publicity does not disturb their modest beginnings. Let
us remember the history of the small society of friends that had gathered
under the name of the “Montreuil Commune.” Some painters, carpenters, gardeners, housekeepers, and schoolteachers got the idea of simply
working for one another, without hiring a bookkeeper as intermediary or
asking the advice of a tax collector or notary. If someone needed chairs ortables, he went to see the friend who made them. If someone’s house had

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become a bit shabby, he informed a comrade, who brought his paintbrushand bucket of paint the next day. During good weather, the members put
on clean clothes, well cared for and pressed by the women citizens, andthen went for a walk to gather fresh vegetables at the garden of anotherfriend. And every day the children studied reading with the schoolteacher.
It was too beautiful! Such a scandal had to stop. Fortunately, an “anarchist
attack” had spread terror among the bourgeoisie, and the minister whosename recalls the “infamous laws”8 had the great idea of offering a New
Year’s present to the conservatives—a decree of arrests and mass searches.
The brave communitarians of Montreuil did not survive, and the mostguilty—that is, the best among them—had to submit to that disguised
torture called the secret investigation. And so the dreaded little commune
was killed. But do not fear—it will be reborn.

13

On Vegetarianism (1901)

This essay first appeared in an earlier English translation in The Humane Review 1(January 1901): 316–24, while the French version, “Le Végétarisme,” was publishedlater the same year in La Réforme alimentaire (March 1901): 37–45. The text waslater reprinted as a pamphlet in both French and English and has been circulated
up to the present time.

Highly qualified experts in hygiene and biology have done thoroughresearch into questions relating to common foods, so I will be careful not
to demonstrate my incompetence in offering my own opinion concerning
animal and vegetable diet. Every man to his trade. Since I am neither achemist nor a physician, I will make no references to nitrogen or albumin,
nor will I report the results of laboratory analyses. Instead I will limit
myself simply to presenting my own personal impressions, which probably coincide with those of many vegetarians. I will follow the path of myown experience, stopping occasionally for comments suggested by various
small incidents.
First of all, I should say that the search for absolute truth played norole in the early impressions that turned me into a virtual or potential
vegetarian when I was a small child still wearing baby clothes. I remember
distinctly my horror at the sight of the shedding of blood. Once, a family
member put a plate in my hand and sent me off to the village butcher,asking that I bring back some bloody scrap or other. Innocently obeying,
I set out blithely to run the errand and entered the courtyard where one
finds those executioners who slit animals’ throats. I still remember this sinister courtyard in which terrifying men went by holding large knives thatthey wiped on blood-spattered smocks. On a porch hung an enormous
carcass that seemed to me to take up an extraordinary amount of space.

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From its white flesh a pink liquid ran in rivulets. I stood trembling anddumbfounded in this bloodstained courtyard, unable to advance and too
terrified to run away. I have no idea what happened next. I have not theslightest memory. I think I was told that I fainted and that a sympathetic
butcher carried me to his home. I weighed no more than one of the lambs
he slaughtered each morning.
Other such incidents cast a gloom over my early years and, like myexperience at the slaughterhouse, are landmarks in my young life. I canstill see the sow belonging to some peasants who were amateur butchers,
the cruelest kind. One of them bled the animal slowly, so that the bloodfell drop by drop, for it is said that to make really good blood sausage, thevictim must suffer a great deal. And indeed, she let out a continuous cry,punctuated with childlike moans and desperate, almost human pleas. It
seemed as if one were listening to a child.
And in fact the domesticated pig is for a year the baby of the household, gorged with food to fatten him. He responds with sincere affection for
all this care, though its only real aim is to add on a thick layer of bacon. But
when there is a meeting of hearts, when the housewife charged with caring
for the pig befriends her ward, pets him, pampers him and speaks to him,
doesn’t she appear ridiculous, as if it were absurd and almost disgraceful
to love an animal who loves us! One of the strongest impressions of mychildhood comes from witnessing a rural tragedy. A pig was slaughteredby a whole populace in revolt against a good old woman, my great aunt,
who would not consent to the murder of her fat friend. The crowd from thevillage forced its way into the pigpen and then led the beast away by force
to the rustic slaughterhouse where the machinery of butchery awaited.
Meanwhile, the miserable lady collapsed on a stool, silently weeping. I
stood next to her and watched her tears, not knowing whether I shouldshare her grief or believe like the crowd that the slaughter of the pig wasjust and legitimate, dictated by both common sense and fate.
Each of us has witnessed some such barbarous act committed by
the carnivore against the animals he eats, and this is especially true of
those who have lived among the common people, far away from humdrum
cities where everything is carefully pigeonholed or hidden away. There isno need to go to a Porcopolis1 of North America, or into a saladero of La
Plata2 to gaze upon the horrifying massacres that are a precondition for
the food we eat each day. But such impressions fade away in time. They
give way to the baneful influence of everyday life, which tends to pull theindividual in the direction of normality, while robbing him of anything thatmight make him into a unique being, a real person. Parents, official andinformal educators, and doctors, not to mention that all-powerful personreferred to as “everybody,” all work together to harden the character of the158

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child in relation to this “meat on feet,” which, nevertheless, loves as wedo, feels as we do, and might also progress under our influence, if it does
not regress along with us.
And such regression is indeed one of the most deplorable results ofour carnivorous practices, for the animals sacrificed to man’s appetite havebeen systematically and methodically made ugly, weakened, deformed,
and degraded in intelligence and moral worth. The very name of theanimal into which the wild boar has been transformed has become thenastiest insult. The mass of flesh that one sees wallowing in a foul-smelling
puddle is so repulsive to behold that we very carefully avoid any similarityof name between the animal and the dishes made out of it. What a difference there is between the mouflon’s3 physique and bearing as it leaps
from rock to rock in the mountains, and that of the sheep, which is foreverrobbed of all individual initiative, reduced to mere inert flesh at the mercyof its fears. It never dares to stray from the flock and even throws itself
into the jaws of the dog that pursues it. The same kind of degeneration
is evident in the cow that we see moving laboriously across the pasture,transformed by its breeders into an enormous ambulatory mass, shaped
geometrically as if it were designed explicitly for the butcher’s knife. And
it is to the creation of such monstrosities that we that we apply the term“breeding”! This is how man carries out his mission as educator in relation
to his animal brethren!
Isn’t this moreover the way that we act in relation to all of nature? Let
loose a pack of engineers in a charming valley, in the midst of meadowsand trees, or on the banks of a beautiful river, and you will soon see what
they are capable of doing to it. They will do everything in their power tomake their own work conspicuous and hide nature under piles of gravel
and coal. They will be quite proud to see the sky crisscrossed by streaks offilthy yellowish or black smoke from their locomotives. These same engineers also sometimes claim to beautify nature. Thus when some Belgian
artists recently protested against the devastation of the countryside along
the Meuse River, the Minister in charge quickly assured them that hewould make them happy in the future by having all the new factories builtwith Gothic turrets! Similarly, butchers display dismembered carcasses
and bloody pieces of meat before the eyes of the public, even along thebusiest streets, next to perfumed shops decked with flowers. They evenhave the audacity to decorate the hanging hunks of flesh with rose garlands to make them aesthetically pleasing.
When reading the news of the war in China,4 one is amazed that theatrocities reported are a sad reality rather than a bad dream. How is it
possible that men who once had the joy of their mothers’ caresses andwere taught in school words such as “justice” and “kindness” turn into

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wild beasts with human faces who take pleasure in tying Chinese people
together by their clothing and pigtails and then throwing them into a river?
How is possible for them to finish off the wounded and force prisoners
to dig their own graves before shooting them? Who are these terrifying
assassins? They are people like ourselves, who study and read as we do,
who have brothers, friends, wives, and fiancées. We are likely to meetthem sooner or later and shake their hands without noticing any tracesof blood on them.
But isn’t there a direct causal relationship between the food eatenby these executioners, who call themselves “civilizers,” and their brutal
deeds? They often praise bloody flesh as a source of health, strength, andintelligence. And without disgust they go into butcher shops with slippery
reddish pavement and breathe the sickly sweet odor of blood! How muchdifference is there between the dead carcass of a cow and that of a man?
Their severed limbs and entrails mixed in with one another look quite
similar. The slaughter of the former facilitates the murder of the latter,
especially when an order resounds from a superior, or when one hears
from afar the words of his royal master, “Show no mercy!”
A French proverb says that “any evil deed can be denied.” There wasa certain degree of truth to this as long as the soldiers of each nation committed their acts of cruelty in isolation, for the reports of their atrocities
could then be dismissed as the products of jealousy and national hatred.
But today in China, the Russians, French, English, and Germans no longer
conceal things discretely from one another. Eyewitnesses and even the
culprits themselves inform us of them in many languages, though some
do it with open cynicism and others more reluctantly. Since the truth canno longer be denied, it has become necessary to create a new morality to
explain it. This morality holds there are two laws for mankind, one law
for those with yellow skin and another law that is the prerogative of thewhites. Apparently, in the future it will be permissible to kill or torture theformer, while it will still be wrong to do so to the latter.
But isn’t morality equally flexible when applied to animals? Bygoading dogs on to tear a fox to pieces, the gentleman learns how to send
his marksmen after the fleeing Chinese. The two kinds of hunt are part ofone and the same “sport,” though when the victim is a man the emotion
and pleasure are no doubt more intense. One might ask the opinion of theofficer who recently invoked the name of Attila, pointing to that monster
as a model for his soldiers!
It is in no way a digression to mention the horrors of war in connection
with massacres of cattle and carnivorous banquets. People’s diet corresponds closely to their morality. Blood calls for blood. On considering one’s
acquaintances, one usually finds that the agreeable manners, kindness of160

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disposition, and equanimity of the vegetarians contrasts markedly with thequalities of the inveterate meat-eaters and avid drinkers of blood.
Such qualities are not held in very high esteem by those “supermen”
who, without actually being superior to other mortals, excel in arroganceand imagine that they advance themselves by belittling the humble andexalting the strong. In their view, the meek are weak and sickly; they block
our path, and it would be a noble deed to sweep them aside. If they are notkilled, they should at least be allowed to die! But it is precisely such gentle
people who might well be more resistant to ills than the violent. Thosewith a ruddy complexion are not usually the ones who live the longest. The
truly strong are not those who exhibit their strength on the surface, in aflushed face, bulging muscles, or huge, glistening bulk. Statistical studies
could quickly settle this point conclusively, and would have probably
done so already were there not so many biased individuals using figures,
whether true or false, as ammunition to defend their pet theories.
Be that as it may, we merely contend that for the great majority ofvegetarians, the question is not whether their biceps and triceps are firmer
than those of carnivores, nor even whether their constitutions are better
able to cope with the trials of life and the risk of death—as important as
these matters may be. For them, the real concern is to recognize the bondsof affection and kindness that link man to animals. It is to extend to ourbrothers who have been dismissed as inferior the feelings that have alreadyput an end to cannibalism within the human species. The arguments thatcannibals once gave against the elimination of human flesh from their
daily diet have the same merit as those that the typical meat-eater employs
today, and the arguments that were used against that abominable custom
are precisely the ones that we now present. The horse and the cow, thewild rabbit and the cat,5 the deer and the hare—these are more valuable tous as friends than as meat. We are eager to have them either as respected
fellow workers, or simply as companions in the joy of living and loving.
“Nevertheless,” we are told, “if you abstain from the flesh of animals,then other carnivores, whether man or beast, will eat them instead, or else
hunger and the elements will see to it that they die.” Indeed, the balance of
nature will be maintained as always, in accord with the hazards of life andthe conflict of appetites. But at least in the struggle between species the jobof destroyer will belong to others. We will develop the part of the earth that
falls to us so as to make it as pleasant as possible, not only for ourselves,
but also for the animals of our household. We will take seriously the roleof educator that man has claimed since prehistoric times. Our share of
responsibility in the transformation of the universal order does not extend
beyond ourselves and our immediate environment. Even though we cando only a little, this little will at least be our own work.

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If we had the chimerical idea of taking the practice of our theory
to its ultimate and logical conclusion, without taking into account anyother considerations, we would surely fall into complete absurdity. In
this way, the principle of vegetarianism is exactly the same as any otherprinciple; it must be adapted to the normal conditions of life. Obviously,
we have no intention of dedicating all our practices and actions, every
hour and every minute, to respecting the life of the infinitely small. We
will not let ourselves die of hunger and thirst, like a Buddhist lama, whena microscope shows us a drop of water teeming with animalcules. We will
not hesitate occasionally to cut a stick in the forest or pick a flower in agarden. We will even go so far as to use lettuce, cabbages, and asparagus
for our food, although we fully acknowledge that life exists in plants aswell as in animals. But we are not interested in founding a new religion
and chaining ourselves to it with sectarian dogmatism. Our goal is to makeour existence as beautiful as possible, and, as best we can, to adapt it to
the aesthetic conditions of our environment.
Just as our ancestors became disgusted with eating their fellow
humans and one fine day stopped serving them on their tables, and just as
there are many carnivores today who refuse to eat the flesh of man’s noble
companion, the horse, or that of those pampered guests in our homes, thedog and the cat—in the same way it is repugnant to us to drink the bloodand chew the muscle of the steer, an animal whose labor helps supply us
with bread. We no longer want to hear the bleating of sheep, the bellowing of cows, or the grunts and piercing cries of pigs as they are led to theslaughterhouse. We look forward to the day when we will no longer haveto rush quickly past hideous sites of killing to see as little as possible of therivulets of blood, the rows of cadavers hanging from sharp hooks, and theblood-stained workers armed with gruesome knives. We hope to live one
day in a city in which we no longer risk seeing butcher shops full of carcasses next to silk and jewelry stores, or across from a pharmacy, a standwith fragrant fruit, or a fine bookstore full of engravings, statuettes andworks or art. We want to be surrounded by an environment that pleases
the eye and is an expression of beauty.
And since we know from physiologists and even more from our own
experience that this vile diet of dismembered flesh is not necessary to sustain
our existence, we put aside all these awful foods that our ancestors onceenjoyed and that most still do today. We hope that before long the meat-eaters will at least have the discretion to hide their food. Slaughterhouses are
already banished to the outskirts of town. Butcher shops should be treatedsimilarly. Like cowbarns, they should be tucked away in dark corners.
It is also because of their ugliness that we abhor vivisection and all
dangerous experiments, except when they are heroically carried out by162

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the scientist on his own person. And it is also because of the ugliness of
the act that we are disgusted when a naturalist pins live butterflies in his
specimen box or destroys an entire anthill in order to count the ants. We
turn with repugnance from the engineer who defaces nature by imprisoning a waterfall in cast-iron pipes, and from the logger in California who
cuts down a tree that is four thousand years old and three hundred feethigh in order to show its rings at fairs and exhibitions. Ugliness in persons,in actions, in life, and in the natural environment are all the enemy par
excellence. Let us become beautiful ourselves, and let our life be beautiful!
Which foods then seem most in accord with our ideal of beauty, bothin their nature and in the manner in which they are produced? Precisely
those that have always been most appreciated by those who lived a simple
life, the foods that have no need for deceptive culinary tricks. These include
eggs, grains, and fruits, in other words, the products of animal and vegetable life that represent both the temporary cessation of the organism’svitality and the concentration of the materials necessary for the formationof new life. The eggs of an animal, the seeds of a plant, and the fruit of atree are the end of an organism that no longer exists, and the beginningof an organism that does not yet exist.6 Man collects them for his foodwithout killing the being that provides them since they are formed at the
point of contact between two generations. Moreover, do not the scientists
who study organic chemistry tell us that the egg of the animal or plant is
the repository par excellence of every vital element? Omne vivum ex ovo.7

14

The History of Cities (1905)

Portions of the following appeared in an earlier English text, “The Evolution ofCities,” which was published in The Contemporary Review 69 (January–June 1895:
246–64. Reclus’ ideas concerning cities have been known primarily through that
text, which was finally published in French in Cahiers d’économie et de sociologie
rurales 8 (1992): 67–74. The present text constitutes Reclus’ final formulation of
his ideas concerning the city, in volume 5 of L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie
Universelle, 1905–8), 335–76. It consists of the entire chapter on “Répartition desHommes” (“The Distribution of Human Population”).

The natural attractive force of the soil tends normally to distribute humanbeings rhythmically across the entire earth. In the modern period, we
encounter a seemingly opposing force that concentrates hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in certain circumscribed areas surrounding markets, palaces, forums, and parliaments. Towns were already of considerable size at the outset of the age of railroads. Now, they develop into
immense cities, vast agglomerations of aligned houses, crisscrossed by an
infinite network of streets, alleyways, boulevards, and avenues. During
the day, a grayish dome of smoke hangs over them, while at night a glow
radiates outward, illuminating the sky. People were astounded by the
Babylons and Ninevehs of ancient times. However, our modern Babylons,
which are both cursed and celebrated, are much larger, more complex, andmore teeming with humanity and gigantic machinery. Rousseau, deploring
the degradation of so many country people who disappeared into the big
cities, calls them “abysses” that swallow up humanity, whereas Herdersees in them “the entrenched camps of civilization.” And here is how
Ruskin judges them, attacking above all the largest if not the most hideousof today’s cities, the capital of the immense British Empire:164

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The first of all English games is making money. . . . So all that great
foul city of London there,—rattling, growling, smoking, stinking,—aghastly heap of fermenting brickwork, pouring out poison at every
pore,—you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a greatcity of play; very nasty play, and very hard play, but still play. It is . . . ahuge billiard table without the cloth, and with pockets as deep as thebottomless pit; but mainly a billiard table, after all.1

All the railing against cities by their critics is justified, as are all the encomiums of those who glorify them. How much lifeblood has gone to waste
or even been destroyed by hatred, in these cities of foul air, deadly contagion, and chaotic struggle! But is it not also out of these confluencesof humanity that new ideas have burst forth, new works have been born,
and the revolutions that have delivered humanity from its gangrenous
senility have erupted? “There is an infernal vat upon the earth,” proclaims
Barbier.2 And for his part, Hugo glorifies this same Paris in enthusiastic
verse: “Paris is the mother city! . . . Where generations come / To feedthemselves with ideas!”3
The divergent tendencies of cities toward both good and evil is prefigured in the passions and will of those who flee the small towns and countryside for the big city, sometimes finding there a larger life, sometimes
decline and death. But in addition to these bold forerunners who proceed
resolutely toward some modern Babylon, we must count those—and they
are legion—who are drawn toward centers of population and deposited
there like alluvium carried by the current to be cast upon the beaches.
These include peasants evicted from their plot of land for the benefit ofa wealthy speculator or at the whim of a lord who decides to turn theirfields into a pasture or hunting ground; servants who are summoned fromthe country by the city-dwellers; wet-nurses called to breast-feed infantsin place of their mothers; workers, soldiers, employees, and civil servants who are transferred to the big city; and, in general, all those who in
obedience to their masters, or indeed to that most imperious of masters,
economic necessity, inevitably swell the urban population.
How pleasant are the words of the moralistic landowners who advise
the country people to remain attached to the land, while by their actions
they uproot those very peasants and create for them the living conditions
that compel them to flee toward the city. Who put an end to the commons?
Who reduced and then abolished entirely the rights of usufruct? Whoclear-cut the forests and the moors, depriving the peasant of the fuel heneeded? Who built walls around property to mark well the establishmentof a landed aristocracy? And when large industry was born, did the landowner not abandon the country miller and the humble village artisans?

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And when the peasant no longer has any communal lands, when he isdeprived of his small industries, when all his resources are diminished at
the same time that his needs and expenses grow, is his inevitable flight tothe city so surprising? The landowner no longer employs full-time agricultural labor, so the worker is ruined by unemployment and forced into exile.
When the proprietor needs hands for the grape harvest, he no longer looks
to the old tenants of his land, but to the men of the “mobile army”—to the
Irish, the Flemish, the “Gavaches,”4 and to the anonymous workers whocome from who knows where, whose birthplace, language, and customs
are unknown, and who will soon disappear without leaving a trace.
Thus the immigrants drawn in multitudes toward the maelstrom of
the cities obey a law that is more powerful than their own wills. Their own
caprice plays only a very subordinate role in generating the force that
attracts them. The relatively small number of escapees from the countryside who voluntarily head for the cities can be divided into several distinctgroups. Though all may go in search of happiness, personal gain, andgreater satisfaction in their emotional lives, the meaning of these ideals
varies completely from individual to individual. Many of them succumb
to a kind of dread that seems inexplicable. One gazes in amazement at
one of their cottages, superbly situated in the mountains of the Jura, thePyrenees, or the Cévennes. The legal owner has allowed it to fall into ruin,even though it seems to possess all the qualities that would cause one
to cherish it. Alongside the dwelling rises the ancestral tree, shading theroof. Nearby, a spring of pure water gushes forth from an undulation in
the meadow. Everything that can be seen from the threshold—the garden,
the meadow, the fields, the groves—belonged to the family, and evidently
still does. But the family now consists only of two elderly persons trying todevote their remaining energies to the farming and the household chores.
In spite of this, everything perishes. The marsh encroaches on the meadow,
weeds invade the paths and the flowerbeds, the harvest shrinks from year
to year, and the roofs of the barns and granaries cave in. When the oldpeople are gone, the house will collapse. But do they not have a single
family member—a son, a grandson, or nephew—who might continue thework of their ancestors, as they themselves do? Yes, they have a son, but
he despises the land. He has become a policeman in some distant town,
taking pleasure in rounding up drunks and handing out tickets. When his
parents die, he will not know what to do with the ancestral fields. They
will fall fallow and a great landlord will purchase them, or rather get themfor a song, to round out his hunting grounds.
If these were the only causes of the remarkable expansion of cities,
they would become nothing more than social cancers, and one might
justly curse them, as the Hebrew prophets once cursed ancient Babylon.

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Growing by the day or even by the hour, like octopuses extending theirlong tentacles into the countryside, these cities indeed seem to be monsters, gigantic vampires draining the blood from men. But every phenomenon is complex. The wicked, depraved, and decadent will consume andcorrupt themselves more rapidly in a milieu obsessed with pleasure orindeed fallen into decay. However, there are others with better motives,
who wish to learn, who seek opportunities to think, to improve themselves,to blossom into writers or artists or even the apostles of some truth. They
turn reverently toward museums, schools, and libraries, and renew theirideals through contact with others who are equally in the thrall of greatthings. Are they not also immigrants to the cities, and is it not thanks tothem that the chariot of civilization continues to move forward throughthe ages? When cities grow, humanity progresses, and when they shrink,the social body is threatened with regression into barbarism.
Without having studied the question, one might easily imagine thatcities are distributed randomly. And in fact, a number of accounts depict
the founders of cities leaving to fate the choice of a site on which to settle
and build protective walls. The course of the flight of birds, the spot on
which a stag was hunted down and taken, or the point at which a ship ran
aground determined where a city was to be constructed. Thus the capitalof Iceland, Reykjavik, is supposed to have been founded according to
the will of the gods.5 In 874, the fugitive Ingolfur came in sight of Icelandand cast into the water the wooden images that served as his household
idols. He sought vainly to follow their course, but they eluded him, andhe had to establish a temporary camp on the shore. Three years later, herediscovered the sacred pieces of wood, and moved his settlement to a
nearby site, which turned out to be as favorably situated as possible inthis formidable “Land of Ice.”6
If the earth were completely uniform in relief, in the quality of its soil,
and in its climatic conditions, cities would be distributed in geometrical
positions, so to speak. Mutual attraction, social instinct, and convenience for trade would have given rise to them at equal distances from one
another. Given a region that is flat, that has no natural obstacles, rivers,or ports, that is situated in a particularly favorable manner, and that is notdivided into separate political states, the largest city would be constructedprecisely at the center of the country. The secondary cities would be distributed at equal intervals around it, spaced rhythmically. Each of thesewould have its own planetary system of smaller towns, and each of these
its retinue of villages. On a uniform plain, the interval between the various
urban agglomerations should be the normal distance of a day’s walk. The
number of leagues that could be covered by the average walker between
dawn and dusk—that is to say, between twelve and fifteen, corresponding

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to the hours of the day—constitutes the usual distance between towns.
The domestication of animals, then the invention of the wheel and finallymachines have modified, either gradually or abruptly, these early measurements. The gait of the horse, and later the turn of the axle determined
the normal distance between the great gathering places of humanity. The
average interval between villages is measured by the distance covered by afarmer pushing his wheelbarrow full of hay or grain. A supply of water forthe cattle, the convenient transportation of the fruits of the earth—suchfactors determine the site of the stable, the granary, and the cottage.
In a number of countries that have been populated for a long time,and in which the distribution of the urban population is still in accord
with the original distances, one finds beneath the apparent disorder ofcities an underlying order of distribution that was clearly determinedlong ago by the footsteps of walkers. In the “Middle Flower,”7 in Russia,
where railways are a relatively recent creation, and even in France, one canobserve the astounding regularity with which the urban agglomerations
were distributed before mining and industry came to disturb the naturalequilibrium of population.8 Thus Paris, the capital of France, is surrounded,in the direction of the country’s borders and coastlines, by cities that aresecond only to itself in importance: Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen, Lille, Nancy,and Lyons. The ancient Phoenician and later Greek city of Marseilles
owes its origins to a different phase of history from that of the cities thatwere Gallic and then French. Nevertheless, its position corresponds totheirs since it is situated at the Mediterranean extremity of a radius thatis twice the distance between Paris and the great urban planets in its orbit.
Between the capital and the secondary administrative centers, cities ofconsiderable though lesser importance, such as Orléans, Tours, Poitiers,
and Angoulème, were founded. These were established at approximately
equal intervals, for they are separated by a double daily traveling distance, that is, between twenty-five and thirty leagues. Finally, halfway
between these tertiary centers, modest towns such as Etampes, Amboise,
Châtellerault, Ruffec, and Libourne took shape. Their locations marked anaverage day’s traveling distance. Thus the traveler crossing France foundalternately a town that was a simple resting place and a town with all theamenities. The first was adequate for the traveler on foot, while the second
was suitable for the rider. On almost all the highways, the rhythmic distribution of cities occurs in the same manner, through a natural cadence
regulated by the pace of men, horses, and carriages.
The irregularities in the network of settlements are all explained bysuch factors as the contour of the land, the course of rivers, and the thousand variations of geography. In the first place, the nature of the soil determines where people choose sites for their dwellings. The village can only

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spring up where the stalk sprouts. People turn away from barren heaths,
masses of gravel, and heavy clays that are difficult to plough, and rush
immediately and spontaneously to areas of loose soil that is easy to work.
They also avoid low, moist regions, although these have an exceptional
fertility. The history of agriculture shows that these soft alluviums repel
people because of their unhealthiness. They have been cultivated throughcollective efforts that only become possible when humanity has advanced
considerably.
Terrain that is too uneven and soil that is too arid also fail to attract
population, thereby preventing or delaying the establishment of cities.
Glaciers, snow, and cold winds expel people, so to speak, from the harsh
mountain valleys. The natural tendency is to found cities immediately
outside such forbidding regions, at the first favorable spot available—for
example, just at the entrance to a valley. Every stream has its ripariancity in the lowlands, where the riverbed suddenly widens and divides
into a multitude of branches through the gravels. Every double, triple, or
quadruple confluence of valleys gives rise to a large agglomeration whose
size is proportional, all things being equal, to the volume of water carriedby the convergent riverbeds. Could any site for a city be more naturally
determined than that of Saragossa, which is in the middle of the course of
the Ebro, at the junction of the double valley through which the Gállego
and the Huerva flow? Similarly, the city of Toulouse, the metropolis of theMidi of France, occupies a site that even a child could have pointed out asa likely meeting place for peoples, just where the river becomes navigable,
below the confluence of the upper Garonne, the Ariège, and the Hers. At
the two western corners of Switzerland, Basel and Geneva were built at
the crossroads of the great paths followed by migrating peoples. And on
the southern slope of the Alps, every valley without exception has at its
entrance a guardian town. Powerful cities such as Milan and so manyothers mark points of geographical convergence. The upper valley of thePo, constituting three-quarters of an immense circle, has at its natural
center the city of Turin.
On the lower course of the river the establishment of cities is determined by conditions analogous to those that prevail at the middle. It
occurs at the headland of two streams, at the ramification of three or fournavigable waterways or natural routes that come together, or at the point
on a river where it intersects with natural land routes leading in various
other directions. In addition, other groups settle at necessary stopping
places, such as rapids, waterfalls, or rocky gorges, where boats drop anchor
and where merchandise is transshipped. The straits of rivers and any
spots where the crossing from bank to bank is particularly easy are also
appropriate for the site of a village or even a town, if there are additional

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advantages besides the narrowing of the river. If a marked bend in a waterway brings its valley into close proximity to a large center of activity
situated in another basin, this can also attract a large number of settlers.
Accordingly, Orléans had to be built on the bank of the Loire conducive
to expansion toward the north in the direction of Paris, and Tsaritsin9 is
located at the place where the Volga is closest to the Don. Finally, on every
river the vital point par excellence is the area around its mouth, where
the rising sea stops and supports the upper current and where the smallerboats, carried by the current of fresh water, naturally meet the seagoingvessels coming in with the tide. In the hydrographic organization, thismeeting place can be compared to the collar of a tree between the aerial
vegetation and the underground root system. This is the normal pattern
for the large European tidal seaports such as Hamburg, London, Antwerp,
and Bordeaux.
The irregularities of the coastline also affect the distribution of cities.
Certain sandy shorelines with little variation, inaccessible to ships except
on those rare days of complete calm, are avoided by people from inland as
well as by those who sail the seas. Thus the 220-kilometer coastline thatruns in a straight line from the estuary of the Gironde to the mouth of theAdour has not a single town other than little Arcachon, which is no morethan a simple bathing spot and resort, situated away from the shore withina rampart formed by the dunes of Cape Ferret. Similarly, the impressive barrier islands that follow the Atlantic coast of the Carolinas allow
access between Norfolk and Wilmington only to a few poor towns thatcarry on a hazardous trade with considerable difficulty. In other coastal
regions, islands and islets, rocks, promontories, and peninsulas multiply
the thousand jagged edges and gashes of the escarpments. These similarly
prevent the birth of towns, despite the advantages offered by deep andwell-protected waters. Where coastlines are too violent and tempestuous, only a small number of people will be able to settle easily. The mostfavorable sites are those that have a temperate climate and are accessible
from both land and sea, by ships and vehicles of all kinds.
In contrast to the regular coast of the Landes, which is almost devoidof towns and villages, one can point to the Mediterranean coastline of
Languedoc between the delta of the Rhone and the mouth of the Aude. In
this region the large centers of population are found in closer proximity
than they are on average anywhere else in France, even though the densityof population per square kilometer is no greater than that of the country
as a whole. The explanation for this string of cities is to be found in thegeographical features of the countryside. The route that those travelingfrom Italy used to follow to reach Spain or Aquitaine had to avoid both thesteep mountains of the interior and the marshes, salt lakes, and mouths of170

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rivers along the coast. The steep, sparsely populated, and rather inhospitable upland area that borders the mountainous wall of the Cévennes tothe south begins in the vicinity of the sea. Historically, movement throughthe region has thus shifted to a route that follows the Mediterranean coast.
On the other hand, trade requires points of access, whether they be themouth of a river such as the Aude or the Hérault, or else a cove artificially
protected by jetties. Such considerations are responsible for the establishment of Narbonne, which enjoyed a period of world power when it
was the most populous city of Gaul; Béziers, which prospered during the
Phoenician period and which remains one of the great agricultural markets
of France; Agde, the Greek town, which was succeeded in importance bySête, another town with Hellenic origins; and Montpellier, the intellectual
capital of the Midi, where the Saracens and the Jews were the precursors of
the Renaissance. Beyond, other towns crowd together. The ancient Nîmes,sitting beside its fountain, is linked with the Rhone through the three cities
of Avignon, Beaucaire, and Arles.
All natural conditions, including agricultural, geographical, and climatic ones, influence the development of cities, whether for better or forworse. Every natural advantage increases their powers of attraction, andevery disadvantage diminishes them. Given the exact same historical environments, the size of cities would be directly proportional to the sum of
their natural endowments. However, two cities, one in Africa and the otherin Europe, might have similar natural environments yet differ considerably from one another because the context of their historical evolution
is so different. Nevertheless, there will be similarities in their destinies.
And just as celestial bodies affect one another, neighboring urban centers
mutually influence one another. They may either work together because
they offer complementary advantages, as is the case with the commercial
city of Liverpool and the manufacturing city of Manchester, or harm one
another when they each have the same benefits to offer. The latter is thecase with Bordeaux, on the Garonne, and Libourne, on the Dordogne,
which are situated not far apart, on the two sides of the “Entre-deux-Mers.”
Libourne could have offered almost identical services to trade; however,its proximity to Bordeaux hurt its chances. Devoured by its rival, it lost
virtually all its maritime significance and has no importance today otherthan as a stopping place for travelers.
Another remarkable phenomenon that should be noted is the abilityof geographical forces, much like those of heat and electricity, to act at
a distance, producing effects far from their source. Thus a city may riseup on a certain site as the result of various factors that make it preferable to sites closer to that source. One can cite the examples of three
Mediterranean ports located where river deltas have created conditions

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that are particularly appropriate for trading cities. Despite its distancefrom the Nile, Alexandria serves as the commercial center for the entire
river basin, while Venice is the port for the Paduan plain, and Marseilles,
for the valley of the Rhone. And though Odessa is twenty kilometers fromthe mouth of the Dnieper, it still oversees the river’s trade.
In addition to the qualities of the climate and the soil, those of the
subsoil sometimes exercise a decisive influence. A city may rise up suddenly at a seemingly inhospitable spot, thanks to the area’s subterranean wealth in building stones, clay for molding and sculpting, chemicals,various metals, and combustible minerals. Thus Potosí, Cerro de Pasco,
and Virginia City have sprung up in regions that, apart from the presenceof silver deposits, could never have supported a city. Merthyr Tidfil, Le
Creusot, Essen, Liège, and Scranton are creations of coal mines. Formerly
unused forces of nature are now giving birth to new cities in places thatwere once shunned, such as at the foot of a waterfall, as in the case of
Ottawa, or in mountainous areas that are now within reach of electricallines, as in the valleys of Switzerland. Every advancement by man creates
points of vitality in unexpected places, much as a new organ creates its
own nerve centers. What rapid changes in the distribution of cities are in
store when man will have become the master of aeronautics and aviation!
Just as man now seeks new sites along seacoasts that are most capable ofhandling the coming and going of ships, in the future he will feel as if hewere carried like an eagle toward the summits from which his view canembrace the infinity of space.
To the degree that the sphere of human consciousness expands andinteractions occur across much greater distances, cities become membersof a greater organism. To the particular advantages that caused their birth,they add assets of a more general nature that may allow them to play amajor role in history. Thus Rome, Paris, and Berlin have never ceased togain new causes of growth, including growth itself.10 Can we not say thisof London, today the largest city in the world? The principal cause of its
prosperity is its location as a port, being situated at the head of maritime navigation of the Thames. This has allowed the city, which became
the capital of the United Kingdom, to develop various assets that mightotherwise have remained mere possibilities, never to be realized. Thus,
advancing further and further in relation to the rest of the world, London
has ended up becoming the central point that is on the whole most easily
accessible from every corner of the earth.
As cities develop, it often happens that the growth or decline of thesegreat organisms moves irregularly, by fits and starts caused by rapid historical change. To take the example of London again, one can see that at theoutset, the local advantages of the city, while having a certain importance,

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could not in themselves explain the rank that it has achieved among theworld’s cities. Many conditions were most favorable to London in helping
it prevail in its struggle with other English cities for survival. It is locatedon a plain that is clearly bordered on the north by protective hills. It is on
the banks of a great river and at the confluence of another smaller waterway. And it is positioned at the very point where the rise and fall of tides
facilitates the alternation of navigational direction and the loading andunloading of merchandise. However, these local advantages would never
have realized their true value had the Romans not chosen this site as thecentral convergence of the routes extending in every direction across thesouthern half of the great island. The British Rome could only rise up on
the site chosen as the center of this network. But when the Roman legions
had to abandon Albion and all the “high streets” constructed between the
military posts and the country’s port were deserted, Londinium thereby
lost all of its importance. It became no more than a simple British village,
reduced, like so many others, to dependence on its purely local assets, andfor two hundred years it was completely ignored by history.11 In order forthe city to regain its significance, it was necessary that it reestablish its
relationship to the continent.
The development of capital cities is to a large extent artificial.
Administrative favors, the demands of courtiers and courtesans, civil
servants, police, soldiers, and the self-interested multitude that crowds
around the “ten thousand at the top,” give capitals certain peculiar qualities that that prevent them from being studied as typical urban centers.
It is easier to comprehend the life of those cities whose histories depend
almost entirely on their geographical environment. No study is more
fruitful than the biography of a city whose appearance, even more than its
historical records, allows one to observe the successive changes that have
unfolded from century to century, following a certain rhythm.
In the mind’s eye one can visualize the huts of the fisherman andgardener beside one another. Two or three farms are scattered across thelandscape and a millwheel turns under the weight of the tumbling water.
Later, a watchtower rises upon the hill. On the other side of the river, theprow of a ferry touches the shore, and another hut is built. Beside the boatman’s cottage, an inn and a shop beckon travelers and passers-by. Then amarket rises up on the leveled terrace nearby. A widening path, which isincreasingly beaten by the footsteps of men and animals, descends fromthe plain to the river, while a winding trail cuts through the hillside. Futureroads begin to take shape in the trodden grass of the fields, and houses
occupy the four corners of the crossroads. The chapel becomes a church,
the watchtower a fortified castle, a barracks, or a palace. The village grows
into a town and then a city.

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The correct way to study an urban agglomeration that has gone
through a long period of historical development is to examine it in detail,paying careful attention to the conditions of its growth. One should begin
with the place that was its cradle, a site almost always consecrated bylegend, and end with today’s factories and garbage dumps.
Each city has its unique individuality, its own life, its own countenance, tragic and sorrowful in some cases, joyful and lively in others.
Successive generations have left each with its distinctive character. Andeach constitutes a collective personality whose impression on each separate person may be good or bad, hostile or benevolent. But the city isalso a very complex individual, and each of its various neighborhoods isdistinguished from the others by its own particular nature. The systematic
study of cities, which examines both their historical development and thesocial values expressed in their public and private architecture, allows
one to judge them as one judges individuals. One can note the dominantelements in a city’s character and judge the extent to which its influence has on the whole been either useful or detrimental to the progressof the populace that lives within its sphere of activity. Many cities arequite obviously devoted to work, but some of these differ markedly fromothers, according to whether local businesses operate in a normal or apathological manner: whether they develop in conditions of peace, relative equality, and mutual tolerance, or whether they are instead carriedaway by the turmoil of furious competition, chaotic speculation, and brutal
exploitation of the working class. Some cities can be seen immediately to
be banal, bourgeois, routine, lacking in originality, and lifeless. Others areclearly designed for domination and overwhelm the surrounding countryside. They are tools of conquest and oppression, and on seeing them one
experiences feelings of spontaneous horror and dread. Other cities seemcompletely antiquated even in their modern sections. They are places of
shadow, mystery, and fear, where one feels overcome by feelings of anotherage. On the other hand, some cities seem eternally young. They inspirejoy, their humblest structure has originality, the homes are cheerful, andthe inhabitants have a poetic air and contribute to humanity their own,
unique way of life. Finally, there are all the cities that have many faces, inwhich each social class is found in distinct neighborhoods that reflect its
condition, and where attitudes and language change only slowly over the
centuries. There are so many unhappy places that would make one weep!
The differences between cities are exhibited clearly in their respectivemodes of growth. Cities extend their suburbs outward along the highways,
like tentacles that reach out in the direction of the greatest land commerce.
Similarly, if a city runs along a river, its growth extends along the banks,
where the boats anchor and unload. There is sometimes a striking contrast

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between two neighborhoods along a river that seem equally suited forhuman habitation, but which differ markedly because of the direction of
the river’s current. Thus, considering the city of Bordeaux spatially, one
would conclude immediately that the real center of population should
be on the right bank of the river, at a spot where the houses of the small
suburb of la Bastide rise up. But here there is a large bend in the Garonne,
and consequently the docks are all located along the left bank, following
the more rapid current of the river. The side on which the river truly flows
also carries the current of commercial and political activity. The population follows the course of the river and avoids the muddy shores of theright bank. Big business did the rest by taking over the suburb, hemming
it in with intersecting circles of railroad tracks and crossing gates anddefacing it with sheds and warehouses.
It has often been contended that cities have a tendency to grow westward. This phenomenon, of which there are many cases, can be explained
very well in the countries of Western Europe and in those with a similar
climate. In these countries the prevailing winds blow from the west. The
inhabitants of neighborhoods receiving fresh air are less exposed to healthhazards than those living on the other side of the city, where the air ispolluted when passing over chimneys, sewers, and many thousands oreven millions of human beings. Furthermore, one must remember that therich, the idle, and the artistic who enjoy contemplating the beauties of theheavens have more occasion to do so at dusk than at dawn. They unconsciously follow the direction of the sun in its westerly movement, and takepleasure in the evening at watching it set among the radiant clouds. Yet
how many exceptions there are to this normal tendency of cities to growin the direction of the sun’s path! The form and contour of the land, theappeal of beautiful sites, the direction of the currents of waterways, andthe growth of neighborhoods parasitical on the needs of industry and commerce often draw people of wealth and leisure to parts of the city otherthan those that lie to the west. Brussels and Marseilles are two examples
of such divergence from the normal model.
By the very fact of its growth and development, the urban agglomeration tends to die, like every organism. It is subject to the ravages of time,and one day discovers that it is old, while other cities are rising up, eager tolive their own lives. Doubtless, because of the forces of inertia and routine
among its inhabitants, and the powerful attraction that a center exerts oversurrounding areas, it still maintains certain enduring qualities. But not
only is the urban organism subject to the fatal accidents that befall cities
as well as men, it is unable to rejuvenate and recreate itself quickly except
by means of ever-greater efforts—and even then it may shrink from thiscontinual necessity. The city must enlarge its streets and squares, rebuild,

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move or raze its walls, and replace old, outmoded structures with new ones
adapted to changing needs.
Whereas a new American city is born fully adapted to its environment,a city like Paris, which is old, congested, and polluted, must constantly
reconstruct itself. Because of this continuous effort, the city is at a great
disadvantage in the struggle for existence, as compared to new cities suchas New York and Chicago. It is for similar reasons that in the basins of theEuphrates and the Nile immense cities like Babylon, Nineveh, and Cairo
have successively relocated. Thanks to the advantages of its site, each ofthese cities has retained its historical importance, at least to some degree.
However, they all found it necessary to abandon certain antiquated quarters and move further on in order to avoid the debris, not to mention the
stench emanating from garbage piles. In general, the only inhabitants ofthe site that was forsaken when the city moved on are those in the graves.
Other causes of the death of cities, more decisive because they arise
from historical development itself, have struck many formerly famous
cities. Conditions similar to those that gave birth to the city have been thecause of its inevitable destruction. Thus the replacement of one highway
or crossroads by other roads that are more convenient can result in theelimination of a city that owed its existence to transportation. Alexandria
ruined Pelusium.12 Cartagena in the West Indies returned Portobello tothe solitude of the forest.13 The requirements of commerce and the suppression of piracy have changed the location of many cities built on the
rocky coast of the Mediterranean. Once they were perched on rugged hills
and encircled by thick walls to defend them from warlords and privateers.
Now they have come down from their rocky heights and extend along theseashore. Everywhere the borgo has become a marina. The Piraeus14 has
succeeded the Acropolis.
In our authoritarian societies, in which political institutions haveoften given preponderant influence to a single will, it has sometimes happened that the whims of a sovereign have placed cities in areas in which
they would never have grown up spontaneously. Once established insuch unnatural environments, they have only been able to develop at thecost of an enormous loss of vital energy. Thus cities such as Madrid and
St. Petersburg were built at great expense, though the original huts andhamlets, left to themselves without the actions of Charles the Fifth andPeter the Great, would never have become the populous cities that they aretoday. Although these cities were created by despotism, because of men’scollective labor they are nevertheless able to live as if they had a normal
origin. Though the natural features of the landscape did not destine them
to be centers of population, they have become so because of the convergence of highways, canals, railways, transportation links, and intellectual

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exchanges. Geography is not an unchanging thing, but rather somethingthat makes and remakes itself constantly. It is continually modified by theactions of men.
Today it is no longer such Caesars who build capitals; they have beensucceeded by powerful capitalists, speculators, and presidents of financial syndicates. Construction covering wide areas rises up in just a few
months, laid out beautifully and provided with excellent facilities; even theschools, libraries, and museums lack nothing. If the choice of sites is wise,
these new creations quickly enter the mainstream of life. Thus Le Creusot,
Crewe, Barrow on Furness, Denver, and La Plata have taken their place ascenters of population. But if the site is poorly chosen, then the city diesalong with the special interests that gave birth to it. Cheyenne, no longer
the final stop on the railway, sends its little houses further down the line,
and Carson City disappears when the silver mines that attracted people
to the forbidding desert around it are exhausted.15
Not only do the whims of capital sometimes give rise to cities thatare doomed by the general interests of society; they also destroy many
communities whose inhabitants would be quite content to continue to live
there. Do we not see, on the outskirts of many large cities, rich bankers
and landowners increasing their domain each year by hundreds of hectares, systematically changing cultivated land into plantations or parks forpheasants or large game? They level whole hamlets and villages to replacethem with widely scattered caretakers’ huts.
One should mention, among the cities that are partially or entirely
artificial and do not fulfill the real needs of industrial societies, those cities
created for war, or at least those built in recent times by large centralizedstates. This was not the case when the city included the entire tribe orconstituted the natural core of the nation. It was then absolutely necessary
for defense to build ramparts that followed exactly the exterior outline of
the neighborhoods, and to build watchtowers at the corners. In this period,
the citadel, where all the citizens took refuge in times of grave danger, also
served as the temple, and was built at the summit of the guardian hill, amonument made sacred with statues of the gods. In the case of cities like
Athens, Megara, and Corinth, which consisted of two separated sections,
it was necessary to protect the connecting road with long parallel walls.
The arrangement of the fortifications was determined by the nature of thelandscape and blended in a harmonious and picturesque manner with thecountryside.
But in our day of extreme division of labor, in which military forces
have become practically independent of the nation and no civilian would
dare to interfere in questions of strategy, most of the fortified cities haveextremely ugly contours. They have not the slightest attunement to theThe History of Cities

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undulations of the landscape but instead cut up the landscape along linesthat are offensive to the eye. The Italian engineers of the Renaissance,and later Vauban and his emulators, at least tried to design the outline of
their fortified sites with the goal of perfect symmetry. Some of their works
take the form of a starred cross with rays and gems. The white walls of
their bastions and redans16 contrast consistently with the calm quietudeof the shady countryside. But our modern sites no longer aspire to beauty.
This goal never enters the minds of the builders. Indeed, a mere glance at
the map of a fortified town shows it to be ugly, hideous, and in complete
conflict with their environment. Rather than embracing the contours of
the land and freely extending its arms into the countryside, it seems as if
its limbs are amputated and its vital organs stricken. Just look at the sadoutward appearance of cities such as Strasbourg, Metz, and Lille! The
latter is so narrowly confined within its ramparts that it had to overflow,
so to speak, these military restraints. Roubaix and Tourcoing adjoin thefortified center, and today an attempt is made to merge the three elements
into a harmonious whole by means of wide boulevards. Despite its beautiful buildings, its graceful promenades, and the charm of its people, Paris is
another city that is marred by a harsh ring of fortifications. If the city had
been freed from this unpleasant oval of broken lines, it would have grownorganically, in an aesthetically pleasing and rational manner. It would havefollowed the more elegant contours given to it by life itself.
Another cause of ugliness in our modern cities is the invasion of large
manufacturing industries. Almost every urban agglomeration is darkened
with one or two areas that bristle with stinking smokestacks and are crisscrossed by gloomy streets lined with hulking structures whose walls areeither completely blank or are riddled with countless depressingly uniform
windows. The ground shakes under the weight of trucks and freight trains
and from the effects of machinery in motion. There are so many cities,
especially in young America, where the air is almost unbreathable, where
everything that one encounters—the soil, the roads, the walls, the sky—seems to exude mud and soot! One can only recall with horror and disgusta mining community like the endlessly winding Scranton, whose seventy
thousand inhabitants lack even a single hectare of filthy grass or sooty
foliage to soothe their eyes after all the hideousness of the factory. Or
consider the enormous Pittsburgh, with its semi-circular crown of elevateddistricts that flame and fume. Although the natives claim that the streets
have become cleaner and the view clearer since the introduction of natural
gas in the factories, can one imagine a filthier atmosphere? Other lessblackened cities are still almost as hideous because of the railroads, whichhave taken over streets, squares, and walkways, and send locomotives
snorting and hissing by, scattering the crowds in their path. In fact, some

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernityof the most beautiful sites on earth have been desecrated. Thus in Buffalo
people try in vain to walk along the banks of the superb Niagara River,running into foundries, railway crossings, muddy canals, piles of graveland garbage, and all the other refuse of the city.
Barbarous speculation has also ruined the streets by creating subdivisions on which contractors build large districts, planned beforehandby architects who have never even visited the site, much less gone to thetrouble of consulting the future inhabitants. They erect a Gothic church
for the Episcopalians, a Romanesque structure for the Presbyterians, andfinally a sort of Pantheon for the Baptists. They lay out the streets insquares and diamonds, varying bizarrely the geometrical design of the
public squares and the style of the houses, while religiously saving themost valuable corners for the most unsavory drinking establishments.
These are contrived cities that are based on the most banal concepts andthat always betray in some manner the ostentatious arrogance of theircreators.
In any case, every new city immediately constitutes, by its configuration of dwellings, a collective organism. Each cell seeks to develop in
perfect health, as is necessary for the health of the whole. History demonstrates that sickness is no respecter of persons; the palace is in danger
when the plague rages through the slums. No municipality can ignore
the importance of the thorough rehabilitation of the city through street
cleaning; the establishment of parks with lawns, flowers, and large shadetrees; the rapid disposal of all refuse; and the supply of an abundance ofpure water to every house in every neighborhood. In this regard, the citiesof the most advanced countries are in friendly competition to test and put
into practice various procedures to improve cleanliness and convenience.
It is true that cities, like states, have rulers whose milieu induces them toplace their own self-interest above everything else. We have neverthelessachieved a great deal if we know what can be done so that some day theurban organism will function automatically to provide food, pure water,
heat, light, energy, and ideas; to distribute equipment; and to dispose ofuseless or harmful materials. This ideal is still far from being realized.
Still, many cities have already become healthy enough so that the average
quality of life exceeds that of many rural areas in which the inhabitants
constantly breathe the odor of rot and manure, and remain in primitive
ignorance of basic hygiene.
The level of consciousness present in urban life is also expressedin a concern for art. Like Athens in ancient times, and like Florence,
Nuremberg, and the other free cities of the Middle Ages, every moderncity seeks to beautify itself. Even the most humble village has a bell tower,a column, or a sculptured fountain. But how sad and dreary is this art in

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general, concocted by highly certified professors under the supervision of
a committee of incompetents whose pretentiousness is directly proportional to their ignorance. True art is always spontaneous and can neveradapt itself to the dictates of a public works commission. These smallminded city council members often proceed in the style of the Roman
General Mummius, who enthusiastically commanded his soldiers to
repaint every damaged picture. They imagine that symmetry will achieve
beauty, and think that identical reproductions will give their towns a
Parthenon or a St. Mark’s. In Europe we have a city whose very buildings
render it preeminently banal—namely, the vast city of Munich, whichcontains many scrupulous imitations of Greek and Byzantine monuments,
masterpieces that lack their appropriate environment, atmosphere, soil,
and people.
Even if the imitators were able to produce monuments that were exact
copies of their models, their works would be no less contrary to nature. A
building can be understood only in relation to the conditions of time andspace that gave rise to it. Each city has its own life, its particular qualities,
its distinct countenance. With what great reverence architects should lookupon it! It is an assault on the collective personality embodied in the city
to destroy its individuality in order to litter it with unimaginative structures and monuments that clash with its present character and its pasthistory! The true art is to adapt the contemporary city to the demands ofmodern labor while preserving all the picturesque, unique, and beautiful
qualities it has inherited from past centuries. We must learn how to sustain
the life of the city and endow it with perfect health and utility, in the same
way that loving hands restore the well-being of a sick person.
Thus in Edinburgh, intelligent men who are at once artists and scientists have undertaken the restoration of the splendid thoroughfare called
High Street, which extends from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace,joining the two main sections of the old city. On the departure of KingJames for England, it was abandoned immediately by all the parasites of
the court: chamberlains, soldiers, pleasure-seekers, purveyors, and lawyers.
This avenue of sumptuous mansions then had new residents, for the poor
moved in, doing their best to adapt the huge rooms by dividing them up
with crude partitions. Two hundred years after the desertion of the street,it had become a collection of hovels with foul-smelling courtyards andtiny rooms infested with fever. The populace, clothed in filthy rags andconstantly covered with mud, consisted in large part of the infirm, thescrofulous, and the anemic. The elegant vices of the court were succeededby the most repugnant public ones. It is these awful cesspools that therenovators have attacked, gradually transforming each house, reinstallingthe wide staircases, restoring the large rooms with monumental fireplaces,

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bringing an abundance of fresh air and light everywhere, supplying plentyof water to even the humblest attic, and adding bas-reliefs and decorative details to the bare walls of buildings. The picturesque qualities of old
structures are respectfully preserved, and are even accentuated by meansof towers, pinnacles, and belvederes, while the horrible filth and stench
are removed. The street that was formerly bedecked with tattered rags now
contains balconies decorated with flowers and foliage. The city reemerges
fresh and new, just as in a garden a trampled flower springs back with thestem and soil undisturbed.
But in a society in which people cannot depend on having enoughbread to eat, in which the poor and even the starving make up a large partof the population of every large city, it is no more than a halfway measure
to transform unhealthy neighborhoods if the unfortunate people who
previously inhabited them find themselves thrown out of their former
hovels only to go in search of new ones in the suburbs, merely moving
the poisonous emanations a certain distance away. Even if the council
members of a city were without exception men of impeccable taste andevery restoration or rebuilding were carried out in a manner that is beyond
reproach, there would still exist everywhere the painful and disastrous
contrast between wealth and poverty, which is the inevitable result of
inequality, the antagonism that cuts the social body in half. The counterpart to the arrogantly imposing neighborhoods is the sordid dwellings
that, behind their low and leaning outer walls, conceal slimy courtyards
and unsightly piles of stones and scraps of wood. Even in cities in which
the administrators try to veil all these horrors hypocritically by hidingthem behind decent whitewashed fences, the misery breaks through nonetheless. Behind them, death carries out its work even more cruelly thanelsewhere. Is there among our modern cities a single one that does nothave its Whitechapel or its Mile End Road?17 As beautiful and imposing
as an urban agglomeration may be in its entirety, it always has its openor hidden vices, its defects, and its chronic sicknesses. These will lead
inevitably to death if healthy blood does not once again freely circulate
throughout the organism.
How very far are so many of today’s cities from such a future stateof well-being and beauty. A chart published in the city directory of St.
Petersburg for 1892 gives a striking example of the manner in whichsuch a large capital city can consume human lives. Starting with the year
1754, when the population was about 150,000, over the next 126 years therate of growth increased to the point that there were 950,000 inhabitants. However, the hypothetical rate of change, calculated according tomortality and not taking into account immigration, results in a loss of
50,000. Births do not outnumber deaths even slightly until 1885, a year

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of extensive sanitation projects. And across the world, how many cities,
like Budapest, Lima, and Rio de Janeiro, would be on the road to quick
destruction were it not for the people from the country who come to takethe place of those who die! If Parisian families die out after two or three
generations, is it not the pernicious odor of the city that gets to them? Ifyoung Polish Jews fail the military physicals in much greater numbers
than young people of other nationalities, should the blame not be placedon the cities that condemn them to stagnate in poverty-stricken ghettos?
And in how many cities does the sky seem to be draped with a funeral
veil! On entering a hazy city such as Manchester, Seraing, Essen, Le
Creusot, or Pittsburgh, one can see clearly how the works of Lilliputian
humans are capable of tarnishing the sunlight and profaning the beautyof nature. If a very minute quantity of coal dust escapes from combustionand produces a continuous layer of haze a fraction of a millimeter in thickness, this suffices, especially if there is fog, to counteract the light of thesun.18 The impenetrable atmosphere that sometimes weighs on the cityof London is justly famous.
Moreover, the cleaning-up of urban centers gives rise to a number ofother problems, apart from that of smoke, that should be on the wholeeasy to solve. Unfortunately, we are far from having found effective andstandardized methods for the disposal of sewage and household garbage,and for the purification of sewage water, either by chemical treatment orby its rational use in agriculture, and too many municipalities seem noteven to be concerned with such questions. The adoption of road surfacesthat produce neither dust nor mud, and, in general, the efficient organization of transportation, also have an important influence on public health.
Many indicators show that the flow of rural population toward thecities could come to a halt or even reverse direction. First of all, the highrent in urban areas naturally causes workers to move to the outer suburbs,
and the bosses of industry can only encourage this exodus, since it willlead to a decrease in the cost of labor. The bicycle, the morning trams,
and commuter trains have allowed many thousands of factory and office
workers to find more affordable housing in an atmosphere that is less polluted with carbonic acid. Thus in Belgium the rural communes in many
districts have maintained their population, thanks to the use of “weekly
coupons.” In 1900 there were no less than 150,000 workers who spentnights and Sundays in their villages, but traveled even fifty kilometers, ata weekly cost of two francs twenty-five centimes, to work every weekday
in a workshop or factory in some distant city. But this is a spurious solution since the head of the family exhausts himself through long journeys,
bad meals, and shortened nights of rest, and besides, the villages have thesame health and sanitation problems as the cities.19

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And this is not all. The electricity generated by waterpower tends
to replace coal as an energy source, so that factories are scattered alongwaterways. Thus Lyons, despite the strong attraction of its industry andarts, nevertheless shrinks by several thousand inhabitants each year. This
is not because it is becoming less prosperous, but on the contrary, because
its rich textile manufacturers and other industrialists have extended theirsphere of activity to all the surrounding départements, and even as far as
the Alps—anywhere that waterfalls and rapids offer them the energy
resources they require.
To judge things correctly, we must recognize that every question ofmunicipal governance is inseparable from the social question itself. Will
we see the day when all people without exception can breathe fresh air,enjoy the full sunlight, delight in the pleasant shade, savor the fragrance ofroses, and generously provide for their families without fearing that theycannot put food on the table? When this day comes, and only then, cities
will be able to realize their ideal and transform themselves in a mannerthat corresponds exactly to the needs and desires of all. They will finallybecome perfectly healthy and beautiful organic bodies.
This is the avowed goal of the Garden City.20 Indeed, intelligent industrialists and innovative architects have succeeded in creating in England,
where urban blight has been the most hideous, a certain number of centersin which conditions are equally healthy for all, including the poor as muchas the rich. Port Sunlight, Bourneville, and Letchworth certainly offer apleasant alternative to the slums of Liverpool, Manchester, and similar
cities. The low mortality rates for these new towns rival those of the mostopulent neighborhoods of our great capitals—only ten to twelve deaths
annually per thousand inhabitants. But it is still the privileged who livein the Garden Cities, and the good will of all the philanthropists in theworld is not sufficient to conjure away the antagonism that exists between
Capital and Labor.
Long before these experiments of our own day, we find in many villages of our ancestors touching evidence of the quest for a beauty that
could only be satisfied by the creation of a harmonious whole. One cancite notably the communities of the Polabians,21 a people of Slavic origin
who live in the valley of the Jeetze, a branch of the Elbe in Hanover. All
the houses are spaced around a central oval plaza containing a small pond,a grove of oaks and lime trees, and some stone tables and benches. Eachdwelling is dominated by a high gable supported by a projecting framework. Its facade is turned toward the plaza, and above the door there isan inscription with moral and biographical import. The greenery of theirrear gardens joins together to form a beautiful circle of trees, interrupted
only by the road linking the plaza with the highway. Along this main routeThe History of Cities

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connecting the village with the others, one finds the church, the school,
and the inn.22
The density of population in certain big cities, notably certain neighborhoods of Paris, has reached a level of over a thousand inhabitants per
hectare. Prague is even more crowded. The swelling human population
seems to have reached its greatest concentration in New York, whichin 1896 had a density of 1860 persons per hectare over a total area of
130 hectares.23 Except where the military engineers have created zones
around cities where dwellings are prohibited, the countryside is covered
with houses and villas. In addition, the farmers are drawn toward theirnatural center, moving in ever closer to what is now a continuous massof urban development and creating in the surrounding area a ring ofdense population. Left with diminishing space for their fields and farmhouses, they are forced into more and more intensive labor. Shepherds
become farmers, and farmers in turn become gardeners. Demographic
maps show clearly the progression of this phenomenon, in which one
finds an annular distribution of rural population turning to horticulture.
Thus the city of Bayreuth is encircled by a zone with a population densityof 109 persons per square kilometer. Around Bamberg, the density reaches
180, even though the terrain onto which this mass of people is crowded
was originally of little value. As a mixture of sand and peat, it was only
suitable for growing conifers; nevertheless, it has been transformed into
garden soil of unsurpassed quality.24 In the Mediterranean region, one
finds that the love of the city does not so much increase the populationof the countryside around the cities as depopulate it. The great privilegeof participating in the discussion of the public interest has traditionallyturned everyone into a city-dweller. The appeal of the agora, as in Greece,and of municipal life, as in Italy, draws the inhabitants toward the central
square, where the affairs of the community are discussed, more often
along the public walkways than in the resounding chambers of the city
hall. Accordingly, in Provence the small landowner, rather than living
among his fields, remains an inveterate city-dweller. Though he mighteven own a farmhouse or a country house, he refuses to live on his rural
estate, but rather resides in the city, from which he can go for an outing
to visit his fruit trees and do the picking. The work in the countryside isfor him a secondary concern.25
It is quite natural that many should react against the awful swallowing
up of people, the wholesale degradation of character, and the widespread
corruption of the naïve souls who brew in the “infernal vat.” Accordingly,
some reformers call for the destruction of cities and the voluntary returnof the entire population to the countryside. In an enlightened society that
resolutely wills a renaissance of humanity by means of a life in the open

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country, such a revolution, the likes of which have never been seen before,
would surely be a real possibility. If we estimate the area of the habitablelands that are pleasant and healthy at only one hundred million square
kilometers, then two houses per square kilometer, with seven or eightoccupants in each, would be adequate to house all of humanity. However,human nature, whose first law is sociability, would never adapt to sucha dispersion. Certainly, we need the rustling of trees and the babbling ofbrooks, but we also require association with other people and, indeed,with all people. The entire globe becomes for humanity a great city thatalone can satisfy us.
It cannot be assumed that today’s immense agglomerations of structures have reached the greatest expansion imaginable. The truth is quite
to the contrary. In countries of recent colonization, where people group
together spontaneously according to modern interests and tastes, cities
have much greater populations proportionally than those of the old countries of Europe. Some of the large centers of growth have as much as aquarter, a third, or even half the population of the entire country. In relation to the area from which it draws its population, Melbourne is a larger
city than London because the surrounding population is more mobile andbecause it has not been necessary, as in England, to tear it away from thecountryside in which it was rooted for centuries. However, this unusual
concentration of population found in Australian cities stems to a large
degree from the division of the land in the countryside into vast estates inwhich the immigrants were unable to find a place. They were driven fromthe latifundia toward the capitals.26 In any case, the process of transplantation becomes progressively easier, and London will be able to continue
its growth with a smaller expenditure of energy. At the beginning of thetwentieth century, that city has only a seventh of the population of the
British Isles. It is not at all impossible that some day it will have a third ora fourth of the inhabitants, especially since London is not only the centerof attraction in Great Britain and Ireland, but also the most importantcommercial center in Europe and a large part of the colonial world. We
should not be surprised at the imminent development of urban agglomerations of ten to twenty million inhabitants in the lower Thames valley,at the mouth of the Hudson, or in other centers of attraction. Indeed, weshould prepare ourselves to accept such phenomena as a normal part ofsocial life. The growth of great foci of attraction cannot be checked until
an equilibrium is established between the force of attraction of the various
centers on the inhabitants of the intermediate spaces. But the movement
will certainly not stop then. It will be transformed more and more into a
constant exchange of population between cities, a phenomenon that canalready be observed and that can be compared to the circulation of theThe History of Cities

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blood in the human body. There is no doubt that this new mode of functioning will give birth to new organisms, and cities, which have alreadybeen renewed so many times, will be reborn again with a new character
that will correspond to the whole of social and economic evolution.

15

The Modern State (1905)

Reclus’ most extended critique of the state appears in L’Evolution, la révolution etl’idéal anarchique and in the chapter “L’État moderne,” in volume 6 of L’Homme etla Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 171–223. The following text consistsof the most important sections of that chapter (171–77, 188–94, and 214–23).

The world is very close to unification. All lands, including even the small
islands scattered across the vast ocean, have entered into the field of
attraction of one common culture, in which the European type predominates. Only in a few rare enclaves—in lands of caves where men flee thelight, or in very secluded places protected by walls of rock, forests, ormarshlands—have some tribes been able to remain completely isolated,living their lives outside the rhythm of the great universal life. However,as jealously as these peoples have hidden themselves, forming small, selfsufficient hereditary circles, scientific researchers have discovered themand integrated them into the whole of humanity by studying their forms,
their ways of life, and their traditions, and by placing them in a social classification of which they were previously an unknown member.
The instinctive tendency of all nations to take part in the common
affairs of the entire world already manifests itself in many instances incontemporary history. For example, in 1897 we witnessed the six greatest
European powers (whatever their secret motives may have been) claiming to seek to maintain a balance of power in Europe, while satisfying
both Turkey and Greece.1 In the process, they fired on some unfortunate Cretans—their “brothers in Christ”—in the name of “public order.”Despite the disheartening spectacle of a large deployment of force against
a small people who asked only that justice be rendered to them, it was nevertheless a completely new and telling political phenomenon that soldiers

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and sailors of various languages and nationalities could join together,grouped in allied detachments under the orders of a leader chosen by lot
among the British, Austrians, Italians, French, and Russians. This was an
event with an international character, unprecedented in history becauseof the methodical precision with which it was carried out. It was proventhat Europe as a whole is now indeed a sort of republic of states, united
through class solidarity. The financial caste that rules from Moscow toLiverpool causes governments and armies to act with perfect discipline.
Since then, history has offered other examples of this council ofnations that forms spontaneously in all grave political situations. Since
the interests of all are at stake, each wants to take part in the deliberations
and profit from the settlement. In China, for example, the temporary alliance that has been achieved between nations is strong enough to unite themilitary representatives of all the states in a common task of destruction
and massacre. Elsewhere, notably in Morocco, the collective machinations are limited for the time being to diplomatic talks, but at any rate, thecase is clear. States have an acute awareness of the effects of all events
throughout the world on their own destiny, and they do their best to copewith changes in the balance of power. Nevertheless, it is very important
to stress the difference between the solidarity of conservative states andthat of peoples during periods of revolution, in which an upsurge takes
place in the opposite direction. Whereas the year 1848 rocked the world
with tremors of liberty, fifty years later we find that England hands itself
over to representatives of the aristocracy and throws itself into a long war
behind a band of crooks. France grapples with a recrudescence of a clericaland military mentality. Spain reestablishes the practices of the Inquisition.
America, populated by immigrants, tries to close its ports to foreigners.
And Turkey takes revenge against Greece.
A movement of convergence toward mutual understanding is occurring all over the world. We may therefore be permitted, in order to comprehend the transformations that will occur in the future, to take as ourstarting point the state of mind and practice exhibited by the civilized
peoples of Europe in the management of their societies and the realizationof their ideal. Obviously, each group of men moving toward the same goal
will not slavishly follow the same road. It will take, according to the position that it occupies at any given time, the path that is determined by thesum total of all the individual wills that it contains. So what we propose isa kind of average that is related to the particular situation of each nationand each social element according to the temporal and spatial milieu.
But in such a study, the researcher must carefully distance himself fromany tendency toward patriotism, that vestige of the ancient delusion thatone’s nation is specially chosen by Divine Providence for the acquisition

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernityof wealth and the accomplishment of great things. Corresponding to thisnatural delusion of all peoples that they rank first in merit and genius isanother, which Ludwig Gumplowicz called “acrochronism.” Its effect isthat one is content to suppose that contemporary civilization, as imperfectas it may be, is nevertheless the culminating state of humanity, and that bycomparison, all past ages were barbaric. This is a “chronocentric” egoism,
analogous to the “ethnocentric” egoism of patriotism.
The “rights of man” were proclaimed for thousands of years by isolated individuals and more than a century ago by an assembly that has
drawn the attention of peoples ever since. Yet in present-day society theserights are still only recognized in principle, like a simple word whose
meaning one hardly begins to fathom. The brutal fact of authority endures
against rights, in the family and in society as well as in the state. It endures
while at the same time accepting its opposite and intermingling with it ina thousand illogical and bizarre combinations. There are now very few
fanatical defenders of the kind of absolute authority that gives to theprince the right of life and death over his subjects, and to the husband
and father the same rights over his wife and children. Yet public opinion
on such matters wavers indecisively, guided less by reason than by one’s
individual circumstances and personal sympathies, and by the nature of
the stories one hears. Generally speaking, it can be said that man measures
the strictness of his principles of liberty by his share of personal benefits
from the outcome. He is absolutely strict when it is a question of events
that occur on the other side of the world. But when it is a question of his
own country or caste, he compromises slightly by mixing his mania for
authority with conceptions of human rights. Finally, when he is directly
affected, he is likely to let himself be blinded by passion, and he will gladly
make authoritarian pronouncements.
In certain countries—France, for example—is it not an establishedcustom, so to speak, that the husband has the right to kill his unfaithful
wife? It is above all within the family, in a man’s daily relationships withthose close to him, that one can best judge him. If he absolutely respects
the liberty of his wife, if the rights and the dignity of his sons and daughters
are as precious to him as his own, then he proves himself worthy of entering the assembly of free citizens. If not, he is still a slave, since he is a tyrant.
It has often been repeated that the family unit is the primordial cellof humanity. This is only relatively true, for two men who meet and strikeup a friendship, a band (even among animals) that forms to hunt or fish,
a concert of voices or instruments that join in unison, an association
to realize ideas through common action—all constitute original groupings in the great global society. Nevertheless, it is certain that familial
associations, whether manifested in polygyny, polyandry, monogamy, orThe Modern State

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free unions, exercise a direct influence on the form of the state throughthe effects of their ethics. What one sees on a large scale parallels what
one sees on a small scale. The authority that prevails in government corresponds to that which holds sway in families, though ordinarily in lesser
proportions, for the government is incapable of pressuring widely dispersed individuals in the way that one spouse can pressure the other who
lives under the same roof.
Just as familial practices naturally harden into “principles” for all
those involved, so government takes on the form of distinct political bodies
encompassing various segments of the human race that are separated fromone another. The causes of this separation vary and intermingle. In one
place, a difference in language has demarcated two groups. In another, economic conditions arising from a specific soil, particular products, or diverging historical paths have created the boundaries that divide them. Then, on
top of all the primary causes, whether arising from nature or from stagesof social evolution, is added a layer of conflicts that every authoritariansociety always produces. Thus through the ceaseless interplay of interests,
ambitions, and forces of attraction and repulsion, states become demarcated. Despite their constant vicissitudes, these entities claim to have a sortof collective personality and demand from those under their jurisdictionthat peculiar feeling of love, devotion, and sacrifice called “patriotism.”
But should a conqueror pass through and erase the existing borders, thesubjects must, by order of that authority, modify their feelings and reorient themselves in relation to the new sun around which they now revolve.
Just as property is the right of use and abuse, so is authority the rightto command rightly or wrongly. This is understood well by the masters
and also by the governed, whether they slavishly obey or feel the spiritof rebellion awakening. Philosophers have viewed authority quite differently. Desiring to give this word a meaning closer to its original one,which implied something like creation, they tell us that authority resides inanyone who teaches someone else something useful, and that it applies toeveryone from the most celebrated scholar to the humblest mother.2 Still,none of them goes so far as to consider the revolutionary who stands up
to power as the true representative of authority.
❧

Individuals and classes with power at their disposal—whether chiefs ofstate or aristocratic, religious, or bourgeois masters—willingly intervenewith brutal force to suppress all popular initiative. In their childish andbarbaric illusion, they think themselves capable of stopping the overflowing vitality of the masses, and of immobilizing society for their personal
profit. But they can only lift a faltering hand. The unchanging laws of190

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history are beginning to be understood well enough so that even the more
audacious exploiters of society do not dare to run head-on into its movement. They must proceed with science and skill in order to divert it onto
side roads, like a train that is switched from the main track. Up to thepresent, the most frequently used means—and one that unfortunately
benefits most the masters of the people—consists of transforming all theenergies of a nation into a rage against the foreigner. The pretexts areeasy to find, since the interests of states remain different and in conflictthrough the very fact of their separation into distinct artificial organisms.
Beyond the pretexts, there exist the memories of actual wrongs, massacres,and crimes of all sorts committed in former wars. The call for revenge still
resounds, and when a new war will have passed like the terrible flamesof a fire devouring everything in its path, it will also leave the memory of
hatred and serve as leaven for future conflicts. How many examples one
could cite of such diversions! Those in power respond to the internal problems of the government through external wars. If the wars are triumphantand the masters take advantage of the opportunity to profit from themthrough the consolidation of their regime, they will have debased theirpeople through the foolish vanity they call glory. They will have made thepeople into shameful accomplices by inviting them to steal, pillage, andslaughter, and this solidarity of evil will cause the people’s former demands
to languish as their cups are once more filled with the red wine of hatred.
In addition to war, those who govern have at their disposal other powerful means of protecting themselves from any threat. These include corruption and demoralization through gambling and all forms of debauchery:
betting, horse-racing, drinking, cafés, and nightclubs. “If they sing, they’llpay!” The depraved, debased, and self-hating no longer have the dignity
necessary to impel them to revolt. Imagining they have the souls of lackeys,
they do themselves justice by accepting their oppression. Thus the wars of
the Republic and the burgeoning vices and depravity that succeeded thefirst years of the Revolution, with its ideals of austerity and virtue, were
well timed to prepare the way for the imperial regime and the shamefuldebasement of character. However, this swing in the opposite direction
was largely the result of a normal reaction on the part of society as a whole.
It is natural for men to shift from one extreme to the other, in the same
way that their lives alternate from activity to sleep, and from rest to work.
Moreover, since a nation is composed of many classes and diverse groups,
each of which has a particular evolution within the general one, historical movements with opposing tendencies collide and intersect, creating acomplicated web that the historian can untangle only with great difficulty.
Thus during the internal struggles of the French Revolution, the peopleof the Vendée certainly represented the principle of the autonomous

The Modern State191

and freely federated commune, in opposition to the central government.
However, through a contradiction that they were unable to grasp dueto their complete lack of education, they also became defenders of the
Church, whose goal was universal authority over souls, and of the monarchy, which viewed all members of the commune as nothing but corvée
labor to be taxed, or even as so much meat to be sliced up on the battlefield.3 Through a strange naïveté that would be comic were it not so tragic,
the Negros of Haiti, struggling for their freedom against the white planters,
enthusiastically declared themselves to be subjects of the King; and therebels of the Spanish colonies of the New World greeted the Catholic Kingof Spain with cheers! Throughout history, those who revolted against any
authority almost always did so in the name of another authority, as if theideal required nothing more than changing masters. During the time ofgreat ferment in public opinion and of intellectual liberation that led to
the revolution of 1830, those who worked for the emancipation of language
and for the free study of the history of art and literature of all periods andall cultures (and not only those of Greece, Rome, and the Age of Louis
XIV), and those who traced their origins back to the Middle Ages and evenfound ancestry among the Germans and Slavs (in a word, the “romantics”),
had for the most part remained royalists and Christians. On the other
hand, those who championed political liberty always did so through theclassical forms of the Schoolmen, in the traditional style that is the hallmark of the Academies. When Blanqui, blackened with powder, finallylaid down his rifle after the three victorious days in July, he simply said:“Down with the Romantics!”4 The revolution had disintegrated into twoelements: a political one, which aimed at toppling thrones, and a literary
one, which worked for the liberation of language and the extension of its
domain. Each of these groups of revolutionaries was reactionary from thestandpoint of the other. And each faction was quite justified in criticizing
the other’s illogic, irrelevancies, absurdities, and stupidities.
The historian who studies the vicissitudes of events and tries toextract what is essential relative to progress has the most difficult problem
to resolve, that of discovering the parallelogram of forces underlying thethousand conflicting impulses that collide on all sides. It is easy for him toerr, and he often despairs that he is witnessing a collapse when in reality
there was progress, or rather when, in the overall assessment of losses andgains, human resources have actually greatly increased.
But how long and difficult does the work of true revolution seem tothose who are devoted to the ideal! For if the external forms of institutions and laws respond to the pressure of deeper changes taking place,they cannot produce those changes: a new impetus must always comefrom the interior. To begin with, it certainly appears that the adoption of

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a constitution or of laws that give official expression to the victory of thatpart of the nation which is demanding its rights would ensure the progressthat had been achieved. Yet it is possible that the result will be precisely
the opposite. While it is true that any charter or laws that are agreed toby the insurgents may sanction the liberty that has been won, it is also
true that they will limit it, and therein lies the danger. They determine theprecise limit at which the victors must stop, and this inevitably becomesthe point of departure for a retreat. For a situation is never absolutely
stationary, and if movement does not occur in the direction of progress, itwill occur on the side of repression. The immediate consequence of law is
to lull those who have imposed it during their temporary triumph, to drainfrom zealous individuals the personal energy that animated them in their
victorious efforts, and to transfer it to others, to professional legislatorsand to conservatives—in other words, to the very enemies of all progressive change. Moreover, the people are conservative at heart, and the gameof revolution does not please them for long. They accept evolution because
they are not suspicious of it; since they are unaware of it, it is unlikely toarouse their displeasure. Having become legalists, the former rebels are inpart satisfied. They enter the ranks of the “friends of order,” and reaction
regains the upper hand until the arrival of new groups of revolutionaries
who are not tied to the system, and who, aided by the mistakes or folliesof the government, smash another hole in the ancient edifice.
As soon as an institution is established, even if it should be only tocombat flagrant abuses, it creates them anew through its very existence.
It has to adapt to its bad environment, and in order to function, it must
do so in a pathological way. Whereas the creators of the institution follow
only noble ideals, the employees that they appoint must consider above
all their remuneration and the continuation of their employment. Far fromdesiring the success of the endeavor, in the end their greatest desire is thatthe goal should never be achieved.5 It is no longer a question of accomplishing the task, but only of the profits that it brings and the honors
that it confers. For example, a commission of engineers is in charge ofinvestigating the complaints of landowners who were displaced by theconstruction of the aqueduct of the Avre. It would seem very simple first to
study these complaints and then to respond in all fairness. But no—they
begin by taking a few years to do a general survey of the region, a taskthat had already been done, and done well at that. Time passes, expenses
accumulate, and the complaints get worse. How often has it happened
that the funds allocated for some public work are notoriously insufficient,scarcely enough to maintain the scaffolding, yet the engineers run up
fees as if useful work were being accomplished? How many years werenecessary for that tireless association, the Loire Navigable, to obtain theThe Modern State193

authorization to create a channel in the riverbed at its own expense by
constructing relatively inexpensive groins? The state would only consider
works costing millions, and twenty years later the matter would probably
still be under study, like so many other projects that are vital for the intelligent use of French land.
❧

The Law is decreed by the Parliament, which arises from the People, inwhom national sovereignty resides. The freer the country, the more venerable its elected legislative body, and the more important the free examination of all the implications of liberty. And no institution is more deservingof critique than parliamentary government.
The Parliament was undeniably an instrument of progress for thenation that gave birth to it, and one can understand the admiration that
Montesquieu developed through studying the functioning of the British
system, which is so simple, and therefore so logical. Later, during the
National Assembly of 1789 and the Convention, the Parliament passed
through its heroic period in France, and on the whole, played a rather positive role in the history of the gradual liberation of the individual. Since then,it has spread to all countries of the world, including the Negro republics ofHaiti, Santo Domingo, and Liberia. Only Russia (1905), Turkey, China, theEuropean colonies of exploitation, and a few other states remain without
national representation. The institution has become diversified in different countries, demonstrating shortcomings in some cases and strengths
in others, but one finds everywhere a profound divergence between theevolution of a people and that of its legislative body.
Even if one sets aside systems with poll taxes and plural voting,ignores the fact that with rare exceptions the feminine half of the population is not “represented” at all, and considers only universal suffrage thatis honestly applied, one still cannot claim that the laws voted on by the
majority of the elected representatives, who are themselves selected by
the majority of the voters, express the opinion of the majority of electors.
In fact, the opposite is often true. This defect, which is purely mathematical, might be negligible if the state contained only two factions, since thelosses and gains would balance out on the whole, but it becomes so much
more serious as life intensifies and opinions become more diverse. Yet the
Swiss are alone in conferring on the entire electorate the final adoption or
rejection of each new law.
Except in very rare cases, the spectacle presented by countries during
an election would hardly delight a man of principles. Whether an electoralcommittee drafts the candidate, or whether he violates his own modesty,
ambitions inevitably emerge, and machinations, extravagant promises,

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and lies have free rein. Moreover, it is certainly not the most honest candidate who has the best chance of winning. Since the legislators must be
knowledgeable about all sorts of problems—local and global, financial
and educational, technical and moral—no particular ability recommends
the candidate to the voters. The winner may owe his success to a certain
provincial popularity, his good-natured qualities, his oratorical skills, or
his organizational talents, but frequently he is also indebted to his wealth,his family connections, or even the terror that he can inspire as a great
industrialist or large property owner. Most often, he will be a man of theparty; he will be asked neither to involve himself in public works, nor
to facilitate human relations, but rather to fight against one faction or
another. In short, the composition of the legislature does not at all reflectthat of the nation. It will be generally inferior in moral qualities, since it isdominated by professional politicians.
Once elected, the representative is in fact independent of his electors.
It is left up to him to decide on the thousand issues of each day according
to his own conscience, and if he does not take the side of his constituents,
there exists no recourse against his vote. Far from having any accountability during the four, seven, or nine years of his mandate, and well aware that
he can now commit crimes with impunity, the elected official finds himself
immediately exposed to all sorts of seductions on behalf of the rulingclasses. The newcomer is initiated into the legislative traditions under
the leadership of the veteran parliamentarians, adopts the esprit de corps,
and is solicited by big industry, high officials, and above all, international
finance. Even if the parliament happens to be composed of a majority ofhonest people, it develops a peculiar mentality based entirely on negotiations, compromises, recantations, dealings that must not reach the ears of
the general public, and bargaining in the corridors that is covered up by
brilliant jousting between skilled orators. All noble character is debased,
all sincere conviction contaminated, and all honest intention destroyed.
Thus it is not surprising that so many men refuse to help sustain suchan environment by means of their vote and to cooperate in the “conquestof state power.” The revolutionaries at least realize that the forms of thepast will endure as long as the workers support their existence and compromise with them, even if only to modify them. They can only deplore thenaïveté of those who think that they can “make the Revolution armed tothe teeth with ballots.” In order to maintain this illusion, one must ignore
the real weakness of this allegedly sovereign parliament, closing one’s eyesto the far more powerful institutions that gather around it, playing with itlike a cat with a mouse.
❧

The Modern State195

All the movements for emancipation stand together, although the insurgents are often unaware of each other, and they even hold on to their
atavistic enmities and resentments. From England and Germany to France
and Italy, there are many workers who despise one another, though thisdoes not prevent them from helping each another in their common struggle against capitalist oppression. Similarly, among the women who havethrown themselves impetuously into the battle for equality between thesexes, there were at first a very significant number who, with their rather
patrician or high-brow tendencies, harbored a pious disdain of the worker
in his worn-out or dirty clothes. Nevertheless, since the early days of“feminism,” we have witnessed the heroism of brave women who go to
the prostitutes to join them in solidarity to protest the abominable treatment to which they have been subjected, and the shocking bias of the law
in favor of the corrupters and against their victims. Risking insults andthe most unsavory contacts, they dared to enter the brothels and form
an alliance with their scorned sisters against the shameful injustice ofsociety. Consequently, the coarse laughter and vulgar insults that greeted
their first steps gave way to a profound admiration on the part of many
who had mocked them. Here is a courage of a different order than that of
the fierce soldier who, seized with a bestial fury, lunges with his sword or
fires his rifle.
Obviously, all of the claims of women against men are just: the demandsof the female worker who is not paid as much as the male worker for thesame labor, the demands of the wife who is punished for “crimes” that are
mere “peccadilloes” when committed by the husband, and the demands ofthe female citizen who is barred from all overt political action, who obeys
laws that she has not helped to create, and who pays taxes to which she has
not consented. She has an absolute right to recrimination, and the women
who occasionally take revenge are not to be condemned, since the greatest
wrongs are those committed by the privileged. But ordinarily, a woman does
not avenge herself at all. To the contrary, at her conventions she naïvely
petitions legislators and high officials, waiting for salvation through theirdeliberations and decrees; however, experience teaches women year after
year that freedom does not come begging, but rather must be conquered.
It teaches them, moreover, that in reality their cause merges with that of
all oppressed people, whoever they may be. Women will need to occupy
themselves henceforth with all people who are wronged, and not only withthe unfortunate women forced by poverty to sell their bodies. Once all areunited, all the voices of the weak and the downtrodden will thunder witha tremendous outcry that will indeed have to be heard.
Make no mistake about it. Those who seek justice would have neithera chance of realizing it in the future nor a single ray of hope to console

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them in their misery if the league of all enemy classes had no defections and remained as solid as the human wall of an infantry formation.
However, countless renegades leave their ranks. Some go without hesitation to augment the camp of the rebels, while others disperse here andthere, somewhere between the ranks of the innovators and the conservatives. In any case, they are too far from their original position to be broughtback at the moment of battle. It is perfectly natural that organized bodies
are thus weakened by a loss of their best elements through a continualmigration. The study of the interconnected facts and laws revealed bycontemporary science, the rapid transformation of society, new conditionsin the environment, and the need for mental balance in those who are
logically attracted to the search for truth—all this creates for the young a
milieu completely different from that entailed by a traditional society with
its slow and painful evolution. It is true that the representatives of ancientmonopolies also gain recruits, especially among those who, tired of suffering for their ideas, finally want to try out the joys and privileges of thisworld, to eat when they are hungry and take their turn living as parasites.
But whatever the particular worth of a given individual who changes his
ideals and practices, it is certain that the revolutionary offensive benefits
by this exchange of men. It receives those who have conviction and determination, young people with boldness and will, whereas those whom life
has defeated head for the camp of the parties of reaction and bring withthem their discouragement and their faintheartedness.
The state and the various elements that constitute it have the great
disadvantage of acting according to a mechanism so regular and so ponderous that it is impossible for them to modify their movements and adapt
to new realities. Not only does bureaucracy not assist in the economic
workings of society, but it is doubly harmful to it. First, it impedes individual initiative in every way and even prevents its emergence; second, it
delays, halts, and immobilizes the works that are entrusted to it. The cogsof the administrative machine work precisely in the opposite direction
from those functioning in an industrial establishment. The latter strives
to reduce the number of useless articles, and to produce the greatest possible results with the simplest mechanism. By contrast, the administrative
hierarchy does its utmost to multiply the number of employees and subordinates, directors, auditors, and inspectors. Work becomes so complicatedas to be impossible. As soon as business arises that is outside the normal
routine, the administration is as disturbed as a company of frogs would
be if a stone were thrown into their swamp. Everything becomes a pretext
for a delay or a reprimand. One withholds his signature because he isjealous of a rival who might benefit from it; another because he fears thedispleasure of a supervisor; a third holds back his opinion in order to giveThe Modern State197

the impression of importance. Then there are the indifferent and the lazy.
Weather, accidents, and misunderstandings are all used as excuses for the
results of ill will. Finally, files disappear under a layer of dust in the officeof some malevolent or lazy manager. Useless formalities and sometimes
the physical impossibility of providing all of the desired signatures haltsbusiness, which gets lost like a parcel en route between capitals.
The most urgent projects cannot be accomplished because the sheer
force of inertia of the bureaucracy remains insurmountable. This is thecase with the island of Ré, which is in danger of some day being split
in two by a storm. On the ocean side, it has already lost a strip of land
several kilometers wide in some places, and currently all that remains at
the most threatened point is an isthmus of less than one hundred meters.
The row of dunes that forms the backbone of the island is very weak there.
Considering all the facts, it is inevitable that one day, during a strong
equinoctial tide, a raging westerly wind will push the waves across thepeduncle of sand and open up a large strait through the swamps and fields.
Everyone agrees that it is urgent to construct a strong seawall at the weak
point on the island; however, some time ago a small fort was built, a worthless construction now abandoned to the bats, without even a man garrisoned there. No matter, it is in principle under the supervision of the corpsof engineers, and consequently all public works are necessarily halted in
its vicinity. This part of the island will have to perish. Not far from there,
the waters of a gulf have intruded into the salt marshes and changed theminto a shallow estuary. It would be easy to recover these “Lost Marshes,”
and the surrounding residents have formulated a proposal to do so. But theinvasion of the sea has made state property of the area, and the series offormalities that the recovery of the land would entail seems so interminable that the undertaking has become impossible. The lost land will remain
lost unless a revolution abolishes all clumsy intervention from an ignorantand indifferent state and restores the free management of interests to theinterested parties themselves.
In certain respects, minor officials exercise their power more absolutely than persons of high rank, who are by their very importance constrained by a certain propriety. They are bound to respect social decorum
and to conceal their insolence, and this sometimes succeeds in soothing
them and calming them down. In addition, the brutalities, crimes, or misdemeanors committed by important figures engage everyone’s attention.
The public becomes enthralled with their acts and discusses them passionately. Often they even risk being removed from office through theintervention of deliberative bodies and bringing their superiors down withthem. But the petty official need not have the slightest fear of being held
responsible in this way so long as he is shielded by a powerful boss. In this198

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case, all upper-level administration, including ministers and even the king,will vouch for his irreproachable conduct. The uncouth can give free rein
to crass behavior, the violent lash out as they please, and the cruel enjoy
torturing at their leisure. What a hellish life it is to endure the hatred of adrill sergeant, a jailer, or the warden of a chain gang! Sanctioned by law,rules, tradition, and the indulgence of his superiors, the tyrant becomes
judge, jury, and executioner. Of course, while giving vent to his anger, heis always supposed to have dispensed infallible justice in all its splendor.
And when cruel fate has made him the satrap of some distant colony, whowill be able to oppose his caprice? He joins the ranks of kings and gods.
The arrogant, do-nothing petty bureaucrat who, protected by a metal
grating, can take the liberty of being rude toward anyone; the judge who
exercises his “wit” at the expense of the accused he is about to condemn;
the police who brutally round up people or beat demonstrators; plus athousand other arrogant manifestations of authority—this is what maintains the animosity between the government and the governed. And it
must be noted that these daily acts do not wrap themselves in the mantleof the law but rather hide behind decrees, memos, reports, regulations,and orders from the prefect and other officials. The law can be harsh
and indeed unjust, but the worker crosses its path only rarely. In certain
circumstances, he can even go through life without suspecting that he issubject to it, as when he is unaware that he is paying some tax. But every
time he acts, he is confronted with decisions decreed by officials whose
irresponsibility differs from that of the members of parliament. The decisions of the former are without recourse and continually remind the individual of the guardianship that the state exercises over him.
The number of high and low officials will naturally grow considerably,in proportion to increases in budgetary resources and to the extent thatthe treasury contrives to find new means of extracting additional revenues
from whatever may be taxed. But the proliferation of employees and staff
members results above all from what we like to call “democracy,” that is,from the participation of the masses in the prerogatives of power. Eachcitizen wants his scrap, and the main preoccupation of those who alreadyhave an official post is to classify, study, and annotate the applications ofothers who seek a position. The budget has paid for, and possibly continues to pay for, a forest ranger on the island of Ouessant, which has a
grand total of eight trees—five in the garden of the curé and three in thecemetery!
So much pressure is exerted on the government by the multitude of
supplicants that the acquisition of distant colonies is due in very largepart to the concern for the distribution of government positions. One
can judge the so-called colonization of many countries by the fact that

The Modern State199

in Algeria in 1896 there were a little more than 260,000 French residing
within the territorial boundaries, of which more than 51,000 were officialsof all kinds. This constitutes roughly a fifth of the colonists,6 yet one mustalso take into account the 50,000 soldiers stationed there. This brings tomind the inscription added on a map to the name of the “town” of Ushuaia,
the southernmost urban settlement of the Americas and of the world:“Seventy-eight inhabitants, all officials”!
France is an example of such a “democratization” of the state since
it is managed by approximately six hundred thousand participants in theexercise of sovereign power. But if one adds to the officials in the strict
sense those who consider themselves as such, and who are indeed invested
with certain local or temporary powers, as well as those distinguished fromthe mass of the nation through titles or distinguishing marks, such as thevillage policemen and the town criers, not to mention the recipients ofdecorations and medals, it becomes apparent that there are more officials
than soldiers. Moreover, the former are, as a group, much more energetic
supporters of the government that pays them. Whereas the soldier obeys
orders out of fear, the official’s motivation stems not only from forced
obedience but also from conviction. Being himself a part of the government, he expresses its spirit in his whole manner of thinking and in his
ambitions. He represents the state in his own person. Moreover, the vast
army of bureaucrats in office has a reserve force of a still greater army of
all the candidates for offices, supplicants and beggars of favors, friends,
and relations. Just as the rich depend on the broad masses of the poorand starving, who are similar to them in their appetites and their love of
lucre, so do the masses, who are oppressed, persecuted, and abused bystate employees of all sorts, support the state indirectly, since they arecomposed of individuals who are each preoccupied with soliciting jobs.
Naturally, this unlimited expansion of power, this minute allocation of positions, honors, and meager rewards, to the point of ridiculous
salaries and the mere possibility of future remuneration, has two consequences with opposing implications. On the one hand, the ambition to
govern becomes widespread, even universal, so that the natural tendencyof the ordinary citizen is to participate in the management of public affairs.
Millions of men feel a solidarity in the maintenance of the state, whichis their property, their affair. At the same time, the growing debt of thegovernment, divided into thousands of small entitlements to income, finds
as many champions as it has creditors drawing the value of their income
coupons from quarter to quarter. On the other hand, this state, divided
into innumerable fragments, showering privileges on one or another individual whom all know and have no particular reason to admire or fear,
but whom they may even despise—this banal government, being all too

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well understood, no longer dominates the multitudes through the impression of terrifying majesty that once belonged to masters who were all but
invisible and who only appeared before the public surrounded by judges,
attendants, and executioners. Not only does the state no longer inspire
mysterious and sacred fear, it even provokes laughter and contempt. It isthrough the satirical newspapers, and especially through the marvelous
caricatures that have become one of the most remarkable forms of contemporary art, that future historians will have to study the public spirit
during the period beginning with the second half of the nineteenth century.
The state perishes and is neutralized through its very dissemination. Just
when all possess it, it has virtually ceased to exist, and is no more than ashadow of itself.
Institutions thus disappear at the moment when they seem to triumph.
The state has branched out everywhere; however, an opposing force also
appears everywhere. While it was once considered inconsequential andwas unaware of itself, it is constantly growing and henceforth will beconscious of the work that it has to accomplish. This force is the libertyof the human person, which, after having been spontaneously exercisedby many primitive tribes, was proclaimed by the philosophers and successively demanded with varying degrees of consciousness and will by
countless rebels. Presently, the number of rebels is multiplying, and theirpropaganda is taking on a character that is less emotional than it waspreviously and much more scientific. They enter the struggle more convinced, more daring, and more confident of their strength, and they find an
environment that offers more opportunities to avoid the grip of the state.
Here is the great revolution that is developing and even reaching partial
fulfillment before our eyes. In the past, society has functioned throughdistinct nations, separated by borders and living under the dominationof individuals and classes who claim superiority over other men. We now
see another mode of general evolution that intermingles with the previous
one and begins to replace it in an increasingly regular and decisive manner.
This mode consists of direct action through the freely expressed will ofmen who join together in a clearly defined endeavor, without concern forboundaries between classes and countries. Each accomplishment that isthus realized without the intervention of official bosses and outside thestate, whose cumbersome machinery and obsolete practices do not lendthemselves to the normal course of life, is an example that can be used forlarger undertakings. Erstwhile subjects become partners joining together
in complete independence, according to their personal affinities and theirrelation to the climate that bathes them and the soil that supports them.
They learn to escape from the leading strings that had guided them sobadly, being in the hands of degenerate and foolish men. It is through theThe Modern State201

phenomena of human activity in the arenas of labor, agriculture, industry,
commerce, study, education, and discovery that subjugated peoples gradually succeed in liberating themselves and in gaining complete possessionof that individual initiative without which no progress can ever take place.

16

Culture and Property (1905)

Some of Reclus’ most extensive comments on historical forms of property arefound in “Culture and Property,” which is in volume 6 of L’Homme et la Terre(Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 225–311. There he discusses the differences
between large and small property holdings, individual and communal property,
and cooperative and competitive practices. The following selections are takenfrom that chapter (268–71, 280–85). The text includes some of Reclus’ most eloquent encomiums to cooperation and stinging criticisms of concentrated economic power.

There is not a single European country in which the traditions of the oldcommunal property have entirely disappeared. In certain areas, notably in
the Ardennes and in the steep mountainous regions of Switzerland, where
the peasants did not have to submit to the kind of oppression to which theGerman villagers were subjected after the wars of the Reformation, communal property is still widespread enough to constitute a considerable
part of the territory.
In the Belgian Ardennes, the collective lands are composed of threeparts: the woods, the freshly cleared ground [sart], and the pastures. They
also often include arable land and quarries. The woods, which form thelargest part of the property, are divided into a certain number of sections, generally twenty to twenty-two. Each year, one section is divided
by drawing lots among the various households of the commune, the barkof the oaks having been previously stripped for the benefit of the communal coffers. For the work with heavy wood, the families divide into
groups of five, whose members rotate the responsibility of cutting down
the trees, squaring the timber, and transporting it. After the cutting, each
person proceeds to clear the portion of the land that fell to his lot andCulture and Property

203sows the rye that he will harvest the following year. Two and a half years
after harvesting the rye, the inhabitants apportion the broom plants thathave grown in the clearings, after which the section, in which new growth
has already begun, is left to itself until the same operations recommence.
The grazing is communal and without any special organization, and takes
place on the uncultivated lands, in the mature woods, and in the brush six
or seven years after a cutting. Stones may be quarried freely, barring any
previous notice to the contrary.
These customs clearly influence the moral character of individuals
and greatly develop their spirit of solidarity, mutual kindness, and heartfelt
friendliness. Thus it is customary to form voluntary work crews for the
benefit of those who need work done. The latter need only to state theirrequest by proceeding noisily through the village, calling out, “So-and-so
needs something done! Who wants to help out?” Immediately a group
appears and its members put their heads together to figure out who canbest undertake the job, and the service is rendered.1 Such stories also cometo us from the Queyras.2
In all of Switzerland, two-thirds of the alpine prairies and forests
belong to the communes, which also own peat bogs, reed marshes, andquarries, as well as fields, orchards, and vineyards. On many occasions
when the co-proprietors of the commune have to work together, they feelas though they are at a festival rather than at work. The young men andwomen climb to the high mountain pastures, driving their herds before
them to the harmonious clinking of the bells. At other times, the work
is more difficult. While the snow still covers the ground, the woodsmen,
armed with axes, cut the high pines in the communal forest. They strip
the sawlogs and slide them down the avalanche corridors to the torrent
that will carry them away in its bends and rapids.
Then there are the evening gatherings on winter nights, in which all
are summoned to the home of whoever has the most urgent work, whether
it is to shell corn, hull nuts, or make wedding gifts for a woman engaged tobe married. During these gatherings, the work is a pleasure. The children
want to participate, for everything is new to them. Instead of going tobed, they stay up with the adults and are given the best of the chestnuts
roasting under the hot embers. When dreamtime is near, they listen to
songs and are told stories, adventures, and fables, which are transformedby their imaginations into marvelous apparitions. It is often during suchnights of mutual good will that a child’s being permanently takes shape.
Here, one’s loves in life are kindled, and life’s bitterness is made sweeter.
Thus the spirit of full association has by no means disappeared in
the communes, despite all the ill will of the rich and the state, who haveevery interest in breaking apart these tightly bound bundles of resistance204

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to their greed or power and who attempt to reduce society to a collection of isolated individuals. Traditional mutual aid occurs even amongpeople of different languages and nations. In Switzerland, it is customary
to exchange children from family to family, between the German and theFrench cantons. Similarly, the country people of Béarn send their children to the Basque country, welcoming in turn young Basques as farmboys. In this way, they will all soon learn the two languages without theparents having to spend any money. Finally, all individuals with a similar
trade and common interests—whether they be coal merchants, hunters,
or sailors—have established virtual confraternities having neither written
constitutions nor signatures, but nevertheless forming small, close-knit
republics. Throughout the world, carnival performers who meet by chanceon the road are allied in a sort of freemasonry that is far more solemn thanthat of the “brothers” who gather in the temples of Hiram.3
It is evident that anyone who becomes master over his fellow man
through war, conquest, usury, or any other means thereby establishes
private property for his own advantage. For by appropriating the man, healso takes possession of another’s labor and of the product of that labor,
and finally of that portion of the common soil on which his slave produces
crops. No matter how tenaciously the people may have sought to maintain their ancient traditions, the power of kings has inevitably led theserulers to indulge their caprice. They take men and land, and dispense allaccording to their whims. The forms of gratitude, the homage of vassals,
and the circumstances of tenure have varied according to the country andthe age, but the essential fact is that ownership of the land was no longer
secured for those who worked it but was instead granted to one who wasincapable of handling a spade or driving a plow.
Just as common property and private property conflict, there is aconstantly raging battle between large and small property. Not only does
each create class groupings hostile to one another, but they also collide as
two different and enemy systems. Although each arises from the appetites
and passions of man, the two forms of property are presented by theiradvocates as systems that should be maintained permanently because of
their essential virtues. First of all, small ownership, which seems closer tonatural equity, is vaunted as the ideal state. It offers to the farming family
a life of constant work and regular employment to fill its hours and days.
Even when the fields are fallow, the members of the household must tend
to the livestock and prepare their produce. They also decorate their homes,
and in this way art plays a normal role in the life of the peasant. Novelists
delight in the rustic cottage, which becomes the charming setting for theidyll of their dreams. But though the dream has been realized many times,
it is much more likely that a wretched poverty will inhabit the hearth. And

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205

even if a humble family is lucky enough to enjoy modest comfort, what
can they do to enlarge their horizons, to expand their ideas, to renew theirintellectual resources, or even to increase their knowledge of their own
industry? The routine that binds them to the hereditary soil also holds
them tightly in the grip of the customs of the past. However free they may
appear to be, they nevertheless possess the souls of slaves.
The owners of vast landholdings claim to be educators in the scienceof agriculture in order to justify the usurpation of communal and private
lands due to their birth, hereditary wealth, or speculations. This claim
is particularly inappropriate in the case of those powerful lords who arecareful to live somewhere other than on their own lands, like most of thenobility of Irish estates, who are well aware of the hatred their tenant
farmers feel for them. Is it not, then, simply ludicrous to speak of themas “educators” of any sort? And what about those who might otherwise
be warmly received by serfs reconciled to the condition of non-ownership,
but who, concerned only with receiving their income, hand over the entire
burden of management to stewards, trustees, or lawyers, for whom the
management of the estate is also far from being a selfless duty?
It is true that in certain countries renowned agronomists owning large
estates have instituted excellent methods of cultivating the soil, managed
their fields as scientifically as the chemical industries that utilize the most
up-to-date processes, introduced new species of plants and animals, andadopted practices that were previously unknown. One must not forget,
however, that the latifundium4 in its essence inevitably requires that thevast majority be deprived of land. If a few have much, it is because themajority no longer have any. Some large owners are seized with a hunger
for land and also desire to be admired as local benefactors. But the devouring of the surrounding land by the large estates is hardly less disastrous
than fire and other devastations. Moreover, it produces the same end
result, which is the ruin not only of populations but also frequently of
the land itself. Intelligent large landholders can no doubt train excellent
farm hands, and they will certainly have domestics of impeccable correctness. But even assuming that the productive industry initiated by themprovides more than enough labor for the entire local population, is it notinevitable that their authoritarian and absolutist manner of regimenting
labor will create subjects rather than produce dignified equals? They makeevery effort to preserve the essentially monarchical character of society.
Moreover, they try to return to the past by destroying all democraticelements in their milieu in order to reconstitute a feudal world where
power belongs to those they deem to be the most deserving—that is tosay, to themselves. And whether or not they are the most deserving, theyremain the most privileged. One need only study a map of France to verify

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the influence exerted by large estates. Among the reasons that certain
cantons automatically fall into the hands of reactionary representatives
and masters, who are both clericalist and militarist, none is more crucial
than the influence of the large landowners. They have no need to telltheir flunkies and farm hands how to vote, for they easily lead them so far
down the path of moral degradation that they willingly vote in favor of aregime of obedience to the traditional master. The same spirit determines
the voting of lackeys and tradesmen in the elegant neighborhoods of thecities and in the resorts.
Furthermore, is it not possible that if all its effects are considered,large ownership actually produces less material improvement than does
small property, as divided up as the latter may be? If, taking the economy
of France as a whole, one were to make a detailed comparison of the net
profit produced by large estates under individual management and thelosses to the communes resulting from the parks reserved for the privileged few, the hunting grounds, and the moors that displace small property,
it is quite possible that, on balance, the losses would be greater. We would
discover that large land ownership is for modern peoples what it was forancient ones—a fatal plague. Furthermore, initiative has emerged not
only among rich agronomists but also—though with less ostentation andacclaim—in small holdings among truck farmers, horticulturalists, andsmall farmers. The poor person is certainly a slave to routine and risks his
few pennies, eaten away by taxes and usury, only with extreme prudence.
But risk them he does. Some know how to observe, experiment, and learn,so that over many generations and centuries they carry out experiments oflong-lasting value. The case is clear: the land of the austere peasant today
yields twice as much as it did when Young traveled through the provincesof France and noted its disheartening poverty.5 Only through private initiative can there be progress, but the union of forces that enjoys all theadvantages of large and small ownership has hardly begun to appear.
There are only signs of its coming.
In considering the consequences of large property ownership, wemust not forget the obstacles that it places in the way of free movement
when the surrounding populations do not know how to bypass restrictions. In Great Britain, the “right of way” issue excites local opinion intwenty different places at any given time. The inhabitants find themselves
cut off from the old roads, one after the other. Pity the communities thatappeal to a court of law if they lack indisputable titles! In many districts in
Scotland, landlords have forbidden by law all access to the mountains, andpedestrians are reduced to using the same roadway at the bottom of thevalley as do bicycles and automobiles. The maps of the Ordnance Survey
even caution that “the existence of a road on a map does not imply theCulture and Property

207

right to use it.” And woe to the traveler who takes it upon himself to enter
the underbrush or to pass through a fallow field! The last tollgates are
now disappearing—as recently as 1893, 600,000 francs were paid for theremoval of a turnpike that prevented livestock from having free access toGower Street in London (the equivalent of Rue Bergère in Paris); however,numerous new prohibitive barriers have replaced these old tollgates. The
usual excuse given by the landowners for closing the roads that cross theirestate is the preservation of game, so poaching becomes an inevitablecorollary of large landholdings. There is a stark contrast between thehunting trophies on which the legally authorized hunter prides himself
and the slaughter committed by his nocturnal counterpart as well as thefishing by dynamite, which depopulates a river in a few hours. Moreover,the legal consequences are far from the same for these two sorts of hunters.
Manhunting is permitted in practice to the property owner and his guards.
On the other hand, one cannot begin to estimate how many during thenineteenth century have spent years in prison or at hard labor, or haveeven gone to the scaffold, as a result of hunting the rabbit and the “sacredbird.”
Statesmen and economists are often interested in encouraging small
property ownership. In Denmark, notably, every opportunity is offered
for the easy acquisition of property of less than four hectares. Anotherexample that comes to mind is the homestead exemption found in the
United States, in which a small area of land per family as well as the housethat the family occupies are declared non-transferable and unseizable,with conditions that vary somewhat from state to state. But it is obviousthat such a system must remain limited to a small segment of the population. Otherwise, if each producer had access to the soil, his independence
would be assured, and the current conception of society would be shaken
to its very foundation. Also, one can be sure that nothing like this will
ever become law in France, unless restrictions are imposed to make theeffects illusory. Among European peoples, the Icelanders are alone intaking precautions against the monopolization of land. Since 1884, theproperty owner who does not cultivate the land himself has been obliged
to rent it to another.

17

Progress (1905)“Progress” is the final chapter of Reclus’ final work, L’Homme et la Terre. It is oneof the most comprehensive statements of his view of human nature, historicaldevelopment, and social values. This text is translated in its entirety from volume
6 of L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 501–41.

“Progress,” in the strictest sense of the word, is meaningless, for the worldis infinite, and in its unlimited vastness, one is always as distant from the
beginning as from the end. The movement of society ultimately reduces
to the movements of the individuals who are its constitutive elements. Inview of this fact, we must ask what progress in itself can be determinedfor each of these beings whose total life span from birth to death is only a
few years. Is it no more than that of a spark of light glancing off a pebble
and vanishing instantly into the cold air?
The idea of progress must be understood in a much more qualified
sense. The common meaning of this word has been passed down to us by
the historian Gibbon, who states that “since the beginning of the world,
each age has increasingly improved the material wealth, the happiness, thescientific knowledge, and perhaps the virtue of the human species.”1 Thisdefinition, which is somewhat questionable from the standpoint of moral
evolution, has been adopted by modern writers and modified, expanded,or narrowed in various ways. In any case, the common view of the word
“progress” is that it encompasses the general improvement of humanity
throughout history. But it would be a mistake to attribute to every otherepoch of life on earth an evolution analogous to that which contemporary
humankind has experienced. There are quite plausible hypotheses dealing
with the geological time of our planet that lend a great deal of support
to the theory of a fluctuation of ages corresponding on a larger scale toProgress209

the phenomenon of our alternating summers and winters. A back-andforth motion encompassing thousands or millions of years or of centuries
would result in a succession of distinct and contrasting periods in whichlife evolves in ways that are very different from one another. What would
become of present-day humanity if there were another “great winter”—that
is, if a new ice age were again to cover the British Isles and Scandinavia
with a continuous sheet of ice, and our museums and libraries were to be
destroyed by the severe cold? Would we simply have to hope that the twopoles would not simultaneously become colder, and that man would be
able to survive by gradually adapting to the new conditions and by moving
the treasures of our present civilization to warmer climates? But if there
were a widespread cooling, is it conceivable that an appreciable decreasein solar heat, which is the source of all life, and the gradual depletion of
our energy resources, could permit continued improvement of culture or
real progress? Today we are already able to confirm that the normal consequences of the drying of the earth following the ice age caused unquestionably regressive phenomena in regions of Central Asia. Dried-up rivers andlakes, and waves of invading dunes, brought with them the demise of cities,
civilizations, and nations themselves. Sandy deserts replaced countrysideand cities. Man was not able to hold his ground against a hostile nature.
Whatever conception we might have of progress, one point seems
completely indisputable: in different epochs, certain individuals haveemerged who, through some characteristic, have attained great prominence among men of all times and nations. One can think of scores ofnames of persons who, by their perspicacity, hard work, deep-seated goodness, moral virtue, artistic sensibility, or some other aspect of character or talent, constitute ideal and unsurpassable types in their particularsphere. The history of Greece in particular presents great examples, butother human groups have possessed them, as we have often surmised
from myths and legends. Who could claim to be better than Shakyamuni,
more artistic than Phidias, more inventive than Archimedes, or wiser thanMarcus Aurelius? If there has been progress during the past three thousand years, it must consist of a greater diffusion of this initiative previously
reserved for a few, and of a better utilization of gifted minds by society.
Some great thinkers are not satisfied with these fundamental restrictions in the concept of progress and furthermore deny that there could
be any real improvement in the general state of humanity. According
to them, the whole idea of progress is completely illusory and only has
meaning from an individual point of view. Indeed, for most men, the fact ofchange is synonymous with either the idea of progress or that of regression,
depending on its relative motion toward or away from the step occupiedby the observer on the ladder of beings. The missionaries who encounter210

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magnificent savages moving about freely in their nakedness believe thatthey will bring them “progress” by giving them dresses and shirts, shoes
and hats, catechisms and Bibles, and by teaching them to chant psalms in
English or Latin. And what triumphant songs in honor of progress have notbeen sung at the opening ceremonies of all the industrial plants with theiradjoining taverns and hospitals!2 Certainly, industry brought real progress
in its wake, but it is important to analyze scrupulously the details of thisgreat evolution! The wretched populations of Lancashire and Silesia demonstrate that their histories were not a record of unadulterated progress.
It is not enough to change one’s circumstances and enter a new class inorder to acquire a greater share of happiness. There are now millions ofindustrial workers, seamstresses, and servants who tearfully remember
the thatched cottages of their childhoods, the outdoor dances under theancestral tree, and the evening visits around the hearth. And what kind of“progress” is it for the people of Cameroon and of Togo to have henceforth
the honor of being protected by the German flag, or for the Algerian Arabs
to drink aperitifs and express themselves elegantly in Parisian slang?
The word “civilization,” which is ordinarily used to indicate the progressive state of a particular nation, is, like the word “progress,” one ofthose vague expressions that confounds various meanings. For most individuals, it characterizes only the refinement of morals and, above all, thoseoutward conventions of courtesy that merely prevent men of awkward
bearing and rude manners from claiming moral superiority over courtiers
playing their elegant madrigals. Others see in civilization only the sum
total of material improvements due to science and modern industry. To
them, railroads, telescopes and microscopes, telegraphs and telephones,
dirigibles and flying machines, and other inventions seem sufficient evidence of the collective progress of society. They do not want to know
anything beyond this or to probe into the depths of the great organism ofsociety. But those who study it from its beginnings note that each “civilized” nation is composed of superimposed classes representing in thiscentury all successive previous centuries with their corresponding intellectual and moral cultures. Present-day society contains within itself all pastsocieties in the form of survivals, and when seen in close juxtaposition,
their vastly differing conditions of life present a striking contrast.
Obviously, the word “progress” can cause the most unfortunate
misunderstandings, depending on the meaning attributed to it by those
who use it. Buddhists and the exegetes of their religion could number thevarious definitions of nirvana in the thousands. Likewise, philosophers,
according to their ideals of life, are capable of viewing the most varied(and even the most contradictory) evolutions as examples of “moving
forward.” There are some for whom repose is the ultimate good, and theyProgress

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make a vow, if not for death, at least for perfect peace of body and mind
and for “order,” even if this consists of no more than routine. What theseweary beings consider to be Progress is certainly looked upon as something entirely different for men preferring a perilous freedom to a peacefulservitude. However, the average view of progress is identical to that of
Gibbon. It entails the improvement of physical being from the standpointof health, material enrichment, the growth of knowledge, and finally theperfection of character, which becomes distinctly less cruel, more respectful of the individual, and perhaps more noble, generous, and dedicated.
From this point of view, the progress of the individual merges with that ofsociety, united by the force of an increasingly intimate solidarity.
In view of the uncertainty concerning the meaning of progress, it isimportant to study each historical fact from a sufficient distance so as not
to become lost in the details, and to find the necessary vantage point fromwhich to determine the true relationships to the whole of all the interconnected civilizations and peoples. There are examples of men of high intelligence who absolutely deny not only progress but even any concept ofa sustained evolution for the better. Ranke, though otherwise a historianof great value, sees in history only successive periods, each having its
own peculiar character and manifesting itself through various tendencies
that give a distinct, unexpected, and even “piquant”3 life to the different
tableaux of each epoch and each people.4 According to this conception,
the world appears as a sort of picture gallery. If there were progress, says
the pietist writer, men would be assured of improvement from century
to century, and they would therefore not be “directly dependent on the
divinity,” who sees all successive generations in the course of time with animpartial eye, as if their relative value were exactly equal. Ranke’s opinion
goes against those usually encountered since the eighteenth century andjustifies once more the observation of Guyau that “the idea of progressis antagonistic to that of religion.”5 Because of the sovereign authority ofgods and dogmas that lasted through the ancient and medieval ages, thisidea of progress remained dormant for a long time, hardly awakened by
the most open-minded philosophers of the ancient world, and came to life
with full self-consciousness only with the Renaissance and the period ofmodern revolutions. Indeed, all religion proceeds from the principle thatthe universe emerged from the hands of a creator; in other words, that it
had its origin in supreme perfection. As the Bible states, God looked at
his work and saw that it was “good,” and even “very good.”6 Following
this original state marked by the seal of divinity, the movement resulting
from the actions of imperfect men could only continue toward decline
and fall; regression was inevitable. After the Golden Age, these creatures
ended up falling into the Iron Age. They left the paradise where they had

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lived happily, to be engulfed by the waters of the Flood, from which they
emerged only to lead thereafter an aimless life.
Moreover, the entrenched institutions of monarchy and aristocracy,
and all the official and exclusive creeds founded and masoned, so to speak,by men who claimed, and indeed were even certain, that they had achieved
perfection, presupposed that all revolution and all change must be a fall,a return to barbarism. These ancestors and forefathers, glorifiers of “theolden days,” played a large role along with gods and kings in the denigration of the present relative to the past and in the creation of a prejudicethat regression is inevitable. Children have a natural tendency to regard
their parents as superior beings, and these parents have in turn done thesame. Such attitudes have been successively deposited in minds like alluvial soil on the banks of a river, and have consequently created a veritabledogma of man’s irremediable fall from grace. Even in our time, is it not awidespread practice to hold forth in prose or verse on “the depravity of
our century”? For example, the same people who praise the “inevitable
progress of humanity” speak readily of its “decline,” thus showing a complete (though nearly unconscious) lack of logic. Two contrary currents
intersect in their speech as well as in their views. Indeed, previously held
notions collide with new ones, even among reflective persons who do not
speak unthinkingly. Though the weakening of religions is interrupted bysudden revivals, they must nevertheless succumb to the force of theories
that explain the formation of the world by slow evolution, the gradualemergence of things from primitive chaos. And what is this phenomenon
if not by definition progress itself—whether acknowledged implicitly, as
by Aristotle, or in precise, eloquent words, as by Lucretius?7
The idea that there has been progress during the brief span of eachhuman generation and in the whole of human evolution owes its persuasiveness largely to geological research, which has revealed in the succession of phenomena, if not a “divine plan,” as it was once called, a natural
evolution that gradually refines life by means of increasingly complex
organisms. Thus the first life-forms whose remains or traces can be seenin the most ancient strata of the earth present rudimentary, uniform, andscarcely differentiated features, and constitute increasingly successful
sketches of species that appear in subsequent ages. Leafy plants comeafter leafless ones; vertebrates follow invertebrates; brains develop fromera to era; and man, the last to come with the exception of his own parasites,8 is alone among all the animals to have acquired through speech
the complete liberty of expressing thoughts, and through fire the power
to transform nature.
When we look at the more restricted field of the written history ofnations, general progress does not seem so clearly evident. Many defeatists

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found evidence that humanity does not progress at all, but only shifts,
gaining on one side and losing on the other, rising through certain peoples
and decaying through others. During the very epoch in which the most
optimistic sociologists were preparing the way for the French Revolution
in the name of the continuous progress of man, other writers, impressedby the tales of explorers who had been seduced by the simple life of distantpeoples, spoke of returning to the mode of existence of these primitives.
“Return to nature” was the cry of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is strangethat this call, however contrary to that of the “Rights of Man and of the
Republican,” found its way into the language and ideas of the time. The
revolutionaries wanted simultaneously to return to the era of Rome and of
Sparta, as well as to the happy and pure ages of prehistoric tribes.
In our time, a trend analogous to the “return to nature” movement
has emerged, and even more earnestly than in the time of Rousseau. The
reason is that current society, which has expanded to the point of including all of humanity, tends to assimilate more intimately the heterogeneous ethnic components from which progressive civilizations remained
separated for a long time. Moreover, anthropological studies of the psychology of our primitive brothers have made enormous strides, and thegreatest explorers have added to the discussion the decisive weight of
their testimony.
We no longer have to rely on such simple and naïve stories as those of
Jean de Léry, Claude d’Abbeville, or Yves d’Evreux about the Tupinambá
and other Brazilian savages, stories that nevertheless deserve to be greatly
appreciated. We also have better statements than the hasty observationsof Cook and Bougainville, for the chronicles are now replete with very
scrupulous testimonials drawn from long experience. Among the tribesthat must undeniably be ranked very highly among men who are closest
to the ideal of mutual aid and brotherly love, we must definitely count the
Aeta, classified among the primitives, who gave their name “Negros” to
one of the Philippine islands.
In spite of all the evils that the whites have done to them, these“Negritos” or “little Negroes” have remained gentle and benevolent toward
their persecutors, and it is among them that the virtues of the race aremost evident. All members of the tribe think of themselves as brothers,
so that when a child is born, the entire extended family gathers to decide
on an auspicious name with which to greet the newborn. Their marriages,
which are invariably monogamous, depend on the free will of the spouses.
The sick, the children, and the elderly are cared for with perfect devotion.
No one exerts power, yet all bow willingly to the elderly to show respect
for their experience and advanced age.9 Is there any country in Europe or
America that deserves praise equal to this? But we must wonder whether

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this humble society of the good Aeta still exists. Has it been able to preserve its dwellings of woven branches, its huts of reeds or palms, against
the great American hunting party?10
Let us take another example from men who have a wider horizon,
among populations that are closer to the white race and whose very wayof life compels them to pass a large part of their existence away from thematernal hut. The Unangin, referred to by the Russians as the Aleuts after
the name of the islands that they inhabit, live in a region of rain, wind,and storms. In order to adapt to their surroundings, they build huts thatare half underground, constructed mostly of woven branches covered by ashell of hardened mud and illuminated at the top by a large lens of ice. The
necessity of obtaining food has made these Aleuts a fishing people, skilled
at maneuvering boats of stretched skins, which they enter as if into a drum.
The dangerous seas that they travel have made them intrepid seamen andgifted foreseers of storms. Some of them, especially the whalers, becometrue naturalists and constitute a special guild whose members are requiredfor initiation to endure a long period of ordeals.11 The Aleuts, like theirneighbors on the mainland, are extraordinarily skillful sculptors, and fascinating objects have been discovered in their burial sites under vaults ofrocks. The complexity of Aleut life is also evident in their code of social
decorum, which is strictly regulated by custom among blood relatives,
relations by marriage, and strangers. Having attained this relatively highdegree of civilization, the Aleuts remained, thanks to their isolation, in astate of peace and perfect social equilibrium until a recent period. The first
European explorers who made contact with them unanimously praised
their good qualities and virtues. Archbishop Innokenti (better known
by the name Veniaminov), who witnessed their way of life for ten years,
depicted them as “the most affectionate of men” and as beings of incomparable modesty and discretion who are never guilty of the slightest violencein word or deed: “During our years of living together, not one ill-mannered
word passed their lips.” In this respect, there is certainly no comparison
between our people of Western Europe and the little tribe of the Aleutians!
The spirit of solidarity and the dignity of moral life among these islanders
was so great that some Greek Orthodox missionaries decided not to try toconvert them: “What good would it do to teach them our prayers? They
are better than we are.”12
To these examples, chosen from various stages of civilization, canbe added equally significant ones from the travels of sociologists andfrom specialized works in ethnology. Numerous cases can be found inwhich there is both moral superiority and a more serene appreciation oflife among so-called savage or barbarous societies, although these are
greatly inferior to ours in the intellectual understanding of things. In theProgress

215

unending spiral that humanity ceaselessly travels, in evolving upon itself
in a continuous motion that is roughly comparable to the rotation of theearth, it often happens that certain parts of the larger whole are muchcloser than others to the ideal focus of the orbit. Perhaps some day thelaw governing this back-and-forth motion will be understood precisely.
For now, it is enough to note the simple facts without drawing prematureconclusions and, above all, without accepting the paradoxical views ofgloomy sociologists who see in the material progress of humanity only
evidence of its actual decline.
Great minds seem at times to have succumbed to this outlook. The
following memorable passage from Malay Archipelago, published in 1869
by A.R. Wallace, might actually be regarded as a sort of manifesto, a challenge to the ingenuity of those who would unconditionally defend thetheory of the continuous progress of humanity. This challenge still awaits
a reply. It may be useful to recall his words and to take them as a standard
by which to judge historical studies:
What is this ideally perfect social state towards which mankind everhas been, and still is tending? Our best thinkers maintain, that it is astate of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possibleby the equal development and just balance of the intellectual, moral,
and physical parts of our nature,—a state in which we shall each be so
perfectly fitted for a social existence, by knowing what is right, and at
the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to beright., that all laws and all punishments shall be unnecessary. . . . Now it
is very remarkable, that among people in a very low stage of civilization,
we find some approach to such a perfect social state. I have lived with
communities of savages in South America and in the East, who have nolaws or law courts but the public opinion of the village freely expressed.
Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or never takes place. In such a community, all
are nearly equal. There are none of those wide distinctions, of educationand ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are theproduct of our civilization; there is none of that wide-spread division oflabor, which, while it increases wealth, products also conflicting interests; there is not that severe competition and struggle for existence. . . .
[W]e shall never, as regards the whole community, attain to any real orimportant superiority over the better class of savages.13

But it would be wrong to generalize the observations made by the great
naturalist and sociologist about the indigenous peoples of the Amazon andof the Insulindes,14 and to apply them to all the savage populations ofevery continent and archipelago. The island of Borneo, where Wallace’s

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view was shaped by so many examples of this moral nobility, is the same
great land that Boek has described as the “Land of the Cannibals.”15 One
could also call it the “Land of the Headhunters,” referring to the men ofDayak who, in order to earn the right to call themselves “men” and to starta family, must chop off one or more heads, whether through trickery orin fair combat. Likewise, the wonderful island of Tahiti, the New Cytheraof which eighteenth-century explorers spoke with such naïve enthusiasm,
only partly merits the praise of the Europeans who were delighted byboth the beauty of the countryside and the friendliness of the inhabitants.
Certain august and gentle dignitaries and venerable elders, who in theirnoble gravity seemed to complete the charming picture of an oceanic
paradise, may have belonged to the formidable caste of the Oro (Arioï),which, after having constituted a celibate clergy, became in the end an
association of murderers indulging in the infernal rites of killing all theirchildren. It is true that at this point the Tahitians had already reached alevel of cultural evolution far beyond the primitive stage. But does thisperiod represent a regression, rather than a development in the directionof progress? Or did the two movements converge in the social life of thislittle nation locked in its narrow oceanic universe?
Herein lies the main difficulty. Thousands of tribes and other ethnic
groupings, lumped together under the name “savages” by haughty “civilized” people, correspond to distinct points that are very different from one
another, spaced variously along the path of time and within the infinite
network of environments. One tribe is in the middle of a progressive evolution, while the other is obviously in decline. One is in a state of becoming,
the other on the road to decay and death. Each of the examples presented
by various authors engaged in the general investigation of progress should
thus be accompanied by the particular history of the human group inquestion, for two situations that seem to be almost identical can have an
absolutely opposite meaning if the one corresponds to the infancy of anorganism and the other to its old age.
One primary fact clearly stands out in comparative ethnographic
studies: the essential difference between the civilization of a primitive
tribe that is yet only slightly influenced by its neighbors, and the civilization of immense, modern political societies with their unbridled ambition,
consists of the simple character of the former and of the complex character of the latter. The first, though not highly developed, at least has theadvantage of being coherent and consistent with its ideals. The second
is vast, owing to the scope it encompasses, and is infinitely superior toprimitive culture in terms of the forces it sets in motion. It is complex anddiverse, burdened with survivals from the past, and necessarily incoherent and contradictory. It lacks unity and pursues opposing objectives

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simultaneously. In prehistoric societies and in those of the world still
considered savage, a balance can very easily be established because theirideal is simple.16 Accordingly, such tribes and primitive races, which havedeveloped very little scientific knowledge, possess only rudimentary crafts
and lead a life without much variety; nevertheless, they have been able toattain a level of mutual justice, equitable well-being, and happiness greatly
surpassing the corresponding characteristics of our modern societies. The
latter are infinitely complex, and are swept along through discoveries andpartial progressions in a continual momentum of renewal that blends invarious ways with all of the factors from the past. Also, when we compare
our powerful, global society to the small, almost unnoticeable groups ofprimitives who have managed to maintain themselves apart from the “civilizers”—who are all too often destroyers—we might be led to conclude
that these primitives are superior to us and that we have regressed overthe course of time. But our acquired qualities are not of the same order as
the ancient ones, so it is very difficult to make an equitable comparison.
Society has greatly increased its baggage since primitive times. In any case,
it is very agreeable to focus on the dozens or hundreds of individuals who
have developed harmoniously within the limits of their narrow cosmos,
and who were fortunate enough to realize on a small scale that which weare now trying to accomplish at the level of the entire human universe. In
societies in which all know each other as members of the same family, thedesired goal is near at hand. It is different for our modern society, which
encompasses a world but does not yet embrace it.
If we look at humanity in its entirety, and even return to the origins
of living beings, we can regard all social groupings as normally forming
small, distinct colonies, from the floating ribbons of salpa on the sea, tothe swarms of bees that gather at the same hive, to peoples who seek todemarcate themselves precisely within borders. The earliest groupings
are microcosmic, and then they become more and more extended andincreasingly complex over time, to the degree that an ideal arises andbecomes more difficult to achieve. Each of these small societies constitutes
by nature an independent and self-sufficient organism. However, none ofthem are completely closed, except for those that are isolated on islands,
peninsulas, or in mountain cirques whose access has been cut off. Asgroups of men encounter one another, direct and indirect relations arise.
In this way, following internal changes and external events, each swarm
ends its particular, individual evolution and joins willingly or forcibly withanother body politic so that both are integrated into a superior organization with a new course of life and of progress before it. This metamorphosis is analogous to that by which a seed changes into a tree, or an egg into
an animal: there is a transformation from homogeneous to heterogeneous

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structure.17 But diverse outcomes are possible. Among small, isolatedsocieties, a great number perish from senile exhaustion through a bloody
conflict before realizing the more or less exalted end toward which theirnormal functioning tends. Other microcosms, having an environment
more conducive to their harmonious development, are able to attain theirideal successfully and live according to the rules of wisdom established bytheir ancestors. Thus a number of tribes that had a simple social organization and a naïve general conception of the universe, and that were freefrom mixture with other ethnic components, succeeded in constituting
small cells of perfected form and well-arranged organs. Each individual
was conscious of his solidarity with all the other members of the tribe andenjoyed through each individual an absolutely respected personal liberty,
an inviolate justice, and a calm and tranquil life. These tribes have comeclose to the state that one could call “happiness” if this word were to imply
only the satisfaction of instincts, appetites, and feelings of affection.
In the history of humanity, several social types have successively
reached their full blossoming. Similarly, among the more ancient worldsof flora and fauna, numerous genera and species have reached such idealsof strength, rhythm, or beauty that nothing superior to them can be imagined. While the rose is the precursor of many subsequent forms, it is noless perfect or insurpassable for it. And among animals, is it possible toimagine any organisms more definitive, each of their kind, than crinoids,
beetles, swallows, antelopes, bees, and ants?18 Is man, still imperfectin his own eyes, not surrounded by countless living beings that he canadmire unreservedly if he has open eyes and an open mind? And even if
he chooses among the infinite number of types around him, does he notin reality do so through his inability to embrace everything? For eachform, epitomizing in itself all of the laws of the universe that converge todetermine it, is an equally marvelous consequence of this process.
Therefore, modern society can lay claim to a particular superiority
over the societies that preceded it only through the greater complexity ofthe elements that enter into its formation. It has a greater scope and constitutes a more heterogeneous organism through the successive assimilationof juxtaposed organisms. But on the other hand, this vast society tends
to become more simplified. It seeks to realize human unity by gradually
becoming the repository of everything achieved from labor and thought
in all countries and all ages. Whereas the various tribes living separately
represent diversity, the nation whose aim is preeminence over and eventhe absorption of other ethnic groups tends to achieve great unity. In
effect, it seeks to benefit by the resolution of all conflicts, and to create one
unified truth out of all the small, scattered truths. But the road that leads
to this goal is very difficult, full of obstacles, and, above all, criss-crossedProgress219

with deceptive paths that seem at first to be parallel to the main route that
we fearlessly take! History has shown us how each nation, no matter how
well endowed, strong, and healthy it may be in its prime, ends up lagging
behind after a number of decades or centuries and then disintegrates into
smaller bands that wander off, scattering across the surrounding countryside. Sometimes it even tries to return to its origins, but the diversity oflanguages, of factions, and of local interests prevails over the feeling of
human unity, which for a time sustains the nation in its progress.
In our time, the idea of human unity has so deeply penetrated various
civilized ethnic groups that they are, so to speak, immunized against
decline and death. Barring great cosmic revolutions whose shadows have
yet to fall over us, modern nations will in the future escape the phenomenaof seemingly final ruin that occurred to so many ancient peoples. Certainly,
political “transgressions,” analogous to marine transgressions on coastlines, will occur on the borders of states, and these borders themselves
will disappear in many places, prefiguring the day when they will cease toexist everywhere. Various geographical names will be erased from maps,
but despite such changes, the peoples encompassed by modern civilization (which covers a very considerable portion of the earth’s land surface)
will certainly continue to participate in the material, intellectual, andmoral progress of one another. They are in the era of mutual aid, and evenwhen they engage in bloody conflicts with each other, they do not stop
working in part for the common welfare. During the last great European
war between France and Germany, hundreds of thousands of men perished,crops were devastated, and wealth was destroyed. Each side despised anddamned the other, but that did not in the least prevent either side fromcontinuing the labor of thought for the benefit of all men, including mutual
enemies. There were patriotic disputes over whether the diphtheria serum
had been effectively discovered and applied for the first time to the east or
west of the Vosges, but in France as in Germany, the medicine increased
the power of a unified humanity over an indifferent nature. In a similarway, a thousand other new inventions have become the common heritageof the two neighboring nations—rivals and enemies, it is true, but stillfundamentally very close friends since they engage relentlessly in broader
work for the benefit of all men. And in the Far East, one finds that thecovert or overt war between Japan and Russia cannot stop the astonishing progress that is being accomplished in this part of the world throughthe sharing of human culture and ideals. A historical period has alreadyearned the name of “humanism” because at that time the study of Greek
and Latin classics united all refined men in the common appreciation ofgreat thoughts expressed in fine language. Our epoch is even more deserving of such a name since today it is not only a brotherhood of intellectuals

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who are joined together but also entire nations descended from the mostdiverse races and peopling the most distant parts of the world!
Yet in our time, a fatuous humanitarianism [humanitairerie] is quiteprevalent. All statesmen and great writers make fun of this poor sentimentality. The second half of the nineteenth century was fertile in theories
about the forms progress sometimes takes. For example, the revolutionaries of 1848 proclaimed with extraordinary brilliance the idea of “humanity.” But in their profound ignorance, these brave souls had no idea of the
difficulties that their propaganda would have to encounter, and, moreover,it was easy after their defeat to ridicule them. Then came the FrancoPrussian War, the crowning glory of Bismarckian politics, which cameto fruition in a sentimental Germany. Everyone vied with one another toimitate, with equal ineptitude, the machinations of the Iron Chancellor,
whose shadow still looms over us. The liberation of Greece and the Two
Sicilies,19 and the acclaim that greeted Byron, Kossuth, Garibaldi, andHerzen was followed by the most restrained conduct in response to themassacres in Armenia, the slaughter in eastern Africa, and the pogromsof Russia.20 A passionate nationalism rages in all western countries, andexisting borders have for the most part been tightened during the past fifty
years. We have also seen in Great Britain the republican idea, which united
many supporters before 1870, gradually fade from the political scene. It is
the same in all civilized countries for the most idealistic of “utopias.” One
can thus become discouraged by classifying these distinct evolutions as
definite regressions if one does not also investigate their causes. Once it
is understood how this movement of reversal functions, there can be no
doubt that the cry of humanity will once again resound when the “weakand the downtrodden” (who have never stopped proclaiming this ideal
among themselves) will have acquired a thorough scientific knowledge.
Having attained a more complete mastery of international understanding,they will feel strong enough to abolish forever all threat of war.
Conflicts between rival governments can be serious and full of repercussions; however, even when these disputes lead to war, they cannot
have results analogous to those of the struggles that long ago destroyed
the Hittites, the Elamites, the Sumerians and Akkadians, the Assyrians,
the Persians, and before them so many civilizations whose very names are
unknown to us. In reality, all nations, including those that call themselves
enemies, and in spite of their leaders and the survival of hatreds, form but
one single nation in which all local progress reacts upon the whole, thus
contributing to general progress. Those whom the “unknown philosopher” of the eighteenth century called “men of desire”—in other words,
men who desire good and who work toward its realization—are alreadysufficiently numerous, active, and harmoniously grouped into one moral

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nation for their labor of progress to prevail over the elements of regression
and separation produced by surviving hatreds.
It is this new nation, composed of free individuals, independent fromone another but nonetheless amicable and unified, that must be addressed.
It is to this humanity in formation that we must direct propaganda on
behalf of all the reforms that are desired and all the ideas that seem justand renewing. This great nation has expanded to all corners of the earth,and it is because it is already aware of itself that it feels the need for acommon language. It is not acceptable that these new fellow citizens
should merely speculate about one another from one end of the earth
to the other—they must understand each other completely. We can be
confident that the language that we hope for will come into being: every
strongly willed ideal can be realized.
This spontaneous union across borders of men of good will removes
all authority from certain falsely named “laws” that were generalized fromprevious historical evolution and that now deserve to be relegated to thepast as having had only relative truth. One example is the theory according to which civilization was supposed to have made its way around theearth from east to west, like the sun, and determined its focus from millennium to millennium on the circumference of the planet. Some historians,
struck by the elegant parabola traced by the spread of civilization between
ancient Babylon and our modern Babylons, formulated this law of theprecession of culture; however, before the flowering of Hellenic culture, theEgyptians, in seeking to comprehend the vastness of their Nilotic world, a
true universe unto itself by virtue of its extent and its isolation, attributed
a quite different direction to the propagation of human thought. They
believed that it had come to them from south to north, carried like fertile
alluvial soils by the waters of the Nile. They were probably wrong, andin at least one known historical epoch, civilization spread in the opposite
direction, from Memphis toward Thebes with its “Hundred Doors.”21 In
other lands, the movement of culture proceeds downstream along rivers
and successively gives rise to populous cities that are centers of humanlabor. Similarly, in India the trajectory is from northwest to southeast
along the banks of the Ganges and the Jamuna, and on the vast plains ofChina, the “line of life” clearly travels from east to west through the valleysof the Huang He and the Chang Jiang.
These examples suffice to show that the so-called law of progress
determining the successive transfer of the predominant global focus ofprogress from east to west has only a provisional and localized validity, and that other serial movements have prevailed in various regions,depending on the slope of the terrain and the forces of attraction produced
by environmental conditions.22 Nevertheless, it is good to recall the classic

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thesis, not only in order to understand the causes that gave rise to it, butalso because it is still invoked by an ambitious nation of the “Great West,”
which loudly proclaims its right to preeminence.23 But has it not become
obvious to the members of the great human family that the center ofcivilization is already everywhere, by virtue of a thousand discoveries
and their applications that occur every day in one place or another andthen spread immediately from city to city across the surface of the earth?
The imaginary lines that history once traced over the globe have been
submerged, so to speak, by the waves of the deluge that now covers all
countries. This deluge is really the flood of knowledge that the gospel says(albeit from a different point of view) ought to spread equally over all partsof the earth. The element of distance has lost its importance, for man can
and indeed does educate himself about all the phenomena relating to soil,
climate, history, and society that distinguish different countries. Now tounderstand one another is to be already associated, to be intermingled
to a certain extent. Certainly, there are still contrasts between different
lands and different nations, but these contrasts are diminishing and tend
gradually to be neutralized in the minds of the well-informed. The focus
of civilization is wherever one thinks or acts. It is in the laboratory inJapan, Germany, or America where the properties of a particular metal orchemical substance are discovered, in the plant where propellers for ships
or aircraft are built, or in the observatory where previously unknown data
concerning the movement of the stars are recorded.
The once-famous theory of Vico on the corsi and ricorsi (ebb andflow) of historical evolution is now as much out of favor as the theory of
the successive displacement of centers of culture. A closed society behaving like a single individual would no doubt have a natural tendency todevelop according to rhythmic oscillations, with periods of activity following periods of rest, and, whenever the process would resume, the action of
the same elements under similar conditions would bring about an almost
identical operation. The alternation from democracy to a tyrannical regime
and from tyranny back to popular government would thus occur with aswinging motion similar to that of a clock’s pendulum. But as our knowledge of history grows, and as ethnic factors become more influential invarious ways, we see that such rhythmic alternation of events is inevitably
disturbed: the ebb and flow take on such amplitude and merge in such avarying manner that they cannot clearly be distinguished. It was largely toestablish the proper relationship between them that the two-dimensionalmodel of Vico’s swinging pendulum was replaced by an infinite curve
ascending in spirals. Here is just the sort of poetic image that Goethe wasfond of sketching; however, it corresponds only vaguely to reality. It is truethat when the infinite entanglement of historical facts is studied from aProgress

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distance, they seem to form themselves into large masses. But beneath thesurface there is a constant movement of action and reaction, and the sumof the various conflicting forces can never carry humanity along a straightline. The whole of this vast profusion certainly does not lack harmonious
development, and there are remarkable regularities in the thousand changing details of its scenes. But however elegant geometrical forms may seem,
they cannot give an adequate idea of its endless undulations.
The extension of the scope of research, which increases through revolutions and the passage of time, constitutes one of the principal elements
of progress. Self-conscious humanity has grown continuously in proportion to the geographical assimilation of distant lands into the realm of
those already scientifically examined. Whereas the explorer conquers
space, thus allowing men of good will to unite their efforts throughout theworld, the historian, turning toward the past, conquers time. Humankind,which makes itself One at every latitude and longitude, similarly tries torealize itself through one form that encompasses all ages. This is a conquest no less important than the first. All past civilizations, even thoseof prehistory, offer us a glimpse of the treasure of their secrets and, in acertain sense, are gradually merging into the life of present-day societies.
We can now look back on the succession of epochs as one synoptic scenethat plays out according to an order in which we can seek to discover the
logic of events. In doing so, we cease to live solely in the fleeting moment,
and instead embrace the whole series of past ages recorded in the annalsof history and discovered by archeologists. In this way, we manage to freeourselves from the strict line of development determined by the environment that we inhabit and by the specific lineage of our race. Before us lies
the infinite network of parallel, diverging, and intersecting roads that othersegments of humanity have followed. And throughout this series of epochs
stretching out toward an indefinite horizon, we find examples that appeal
to our spirit of imitation. Everywhere we see brothers toward whom wefeel a growing spirit of solidarity. As our overview of history extends everfurther into the past, we find an increasing number of models demanding
understanding, including many that awaken in us the ambition to imitate
some aspect of their ideal. As humanity became more mobile and modified
itself in the most diverse ways, it lost a significant part of its achievements
attained in the past. Today, we may ask whether it is possible to recover
all of the baggage we have left at the various stations of our long voyage
through the centuries.
Since men are henceforth masters of time and space, they see an
infinite field of achievement and progress opening before them. However,burdened by the illogical and contradictory conditions of their surroundings, they are hardly in a position to proceed knowledgeably with the224

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harmonious work of improvement for all. This is understandable. All initiative comes from individuals and insignificant minorities, and these isolated
persons or small groups attend to the most urgent needs first, directly
attacking whatever evil they find before them. So if their efforts have theadvantage of emerging simultaneously on almost all fronts, by the same
token, they lack coherent strategy. But theoretically, when one detaches
oneself intellectually from the chaos of conflicting interests, it is easy to see
immediately that the true and fundamental conquest, from which all others
can logically be derived, is that of procuring bread for all men—for all whocall themselves “brothers,” even though they are very far from being so.
When all have enough to eat, all will feel that they are equal. Now this isprecisely the ideal that many a small tribe far from our great pathways ofcivilization already knew how to realize, and we must come to terms withthis ideal of solidarity as soon as possible if all of our hopes for progress
are not to become the most cruel of ironies. Montaigne has described theopinion on this subject held by the Brazilian natives who were brought toRouen in 1557 “at the time that the late King Charles the Ninth was there.”24
They were struck by many strange things and above all by the fact “thatthere were among us men full and crammed with all sorts of good things,[for] which their halves [fellow countrymen] were begging at their doors,
emaciated with hunger and poverty; and they thought it strange that thesenecessitous halves were able to suffer such an injustice, and that they did
not take the other by the throat or set fire to their houses.”25 For his part,
Montaigne greatly pitied these savages from Brazil for “allowing themselves [to] be deluded with desire of novelty and to leave the serenity of
their sky to come and gaze at ours!”26 They were “unaware . . . that fromthis intercourse will be born their ruin.”27 Indeed, these Tupinambá fromthe American coast have left not a single descendent. All of the tribes were
exterminated, and if there still remains a little blood of these indigenous
people, it is mixed with that of some despised proletarians.
The conquest of bread, which true progress requires, must be an
actual conquest.28 It is not simply a question of eating, but of eating thebread that is due by human right rather than owing to the charity of a greatlord or wealthy monastery. The unfortunate people who beg at the doors of
the barracks and churches number in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps
in the millions. Thanks to the vouchers for bread and soup distributed bycharity, they barely manage to get by; however, it is very unlikely that theaid provided for all these needy people has had the slightest significancein the history of civilization. The very fact that they have been fed without
having asserted their right to food, and perhaps even required to express
their gratitude, proves that they consider themselves to be simply the dregsof society. Free men look each other in the eye, and the first condition ofProgress

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their forthright equality is that individuals be absolutely independent of
one another, and that they earn their bread through a mutuality of services.
Entire populations have been reduced to moral ruin through a gratuitousmaterial existence. When Roman citizens lived in a state of abundanceand did not have to work for the food and entertainment provided by themasters of the state, did they not stop defending the empire? A numberof classes, among them that of the “deserving poor,” prove completely
useless in relation to progress as a result of the system of alms, and somecities have fallen into irreversible decay because they contain an idle multitude that, having no need to work for itself, also refuses to work for others.
This is the real reason that so many cities and even nations are “dead.”
Charity brings with it a curse on those it nourishes. This can be witnessedin the Christmas celebrations of the aristocracy, in which young heirs tovast fortunes, draped in luxurious clothes, practice their noble gesturesand gracious smiles. And then, under the loving eyes of their mothers andgovernesses, they nobly distribute presents to the poor of the streets, who
are dutifully washed and dressed in their Sunday best for the occasion. Is
there a spectacle sadder than that of these young unfortunates, stupefied
by the glory of gold in all its munificence?
Down with this ugly Christian charity! The cause of progress is
entrusted to the conquerors of bread—in other words, to the working
people who are united, free, equal, and released from the bonds of patronage. It will be up to them to finally use scientific method in applying each
discovery to the interests of society, and to realize Condorcet’s assertion
that “Nature has placed no limit on our hopes.” For, as another historianand sociologist said, “The more one asks of human nature, the more it
gives. Its faculties are stimulated by effort, and its power seems unlimited.”29 As soon as man is firmly confident of the principles according towhich he directs his actions, life becomes easy. Fully aware of his due, heaccordingly recognizes that of his neighbor. In doing so, he brushes aside
the functions usurped by the legislature, the police, and the executioner;
thanks to his own ethic, he abolishes law (Emile Acollas). Self-conscious
progress is not a normal function of society, a process of growth analogous
to that of a plant or animal. It does not open like a flower;30 instead, it
must be understood as a collective act of social will that attains consciousness of the unified interests of humanity and satisfies them successively
and methodically. And this will becomes ever stronger as it surrounds
itself with new achievements. Once accepted by all, certain ideas become
indisputable.
The essence of human progress consists of the discovery of the totalityof interests and wills common to all peoples; it is identical to solidarity.
First of all, it is necessary to address the economy, which is very different

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from that of primitive nature, in which the seeds of life pour out withastonishing abundance. At present, society is still very far from achieving
the wise use of forces, especially human forces. It is true that violent death
is no longer the rule as in former times. Nevertheless, the vast majorityof people die before their time. Disease, accidents, injuries, and defects ofall kinds, most often complicated by medical treatments applied wrongly
or randomly and exacerbated above all by poverty, the lack of essentialcare, and the absence of hope and cheer, cause decrepitude long before
the normal onset of old age. Indeed, an eminent physiologist31 has written
a wonderful book whose principal thesis is that almost all old people die
before their time and with an absolute dread of death, which would instead
arrive like sleep if it were to come at a time when a man, happy to haveled a good life full of activity and love, felt the need for rest.
This uneconomical use of forces is demonstrated above all in greatchanges, such as violent revolutions and the introduction of new processes.
Old equipment, as well as men who are accustomed to a previous form oflabor, are discarded as useless; however, the ideal is to know how to utilize
everything, to employ refuse, waste, and slag, for everything is useful inthe hands of one who knows how to work with the materials. Generally
speaking, all modification, no matter how important, is accomplishedthrough a combination of progress and a corresponding regression. A neworganism is established at the expense of the old. Even when the vicissitudes of conflict are not followed by destruction and ruin in the strictest
sense, they are nevertheless a cause of local decline. The prosperity ofsome brings the downfall of others, thus confirming the ancient allegorythat depicts Fortune as a wheel, lifting up some while crushing others. The
same fact can be evaluated in many ways: on the one hand as a great moral
advance, and on the other as evidence of decay. From a great, fundamental
event such as the abolition of slavery, disastrous consequences can ensue
due to the thousand blows and counterblows of life, contrasting withthe totality of fortunate results. The slave, and generally speaking eventhe man whose life has been regulated from infancy and who has neverlearned to distinguish clearly between two successive and very distinct
states of his milieu, easily becomes accustomed to the unchanging routineof existence, as mundane as it may be. He can live without complaining,
like a stone, or like a plant hibernating under the snow. As a result of thishabituation, during which thought slumbers, it often happens that the man
who is suddenly liberated from some form of servitude does not know how
to accommodate himself to his new situation. Not having learned how to
exercise his will, he stares like an ox at the stick that once goaded him towork. He awaits the bread that had always been thrown to him and that
he was accustomed to picking up from the mud. The qualities of slavery,

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obedience and resignation—as far as one can call them “qualities”—are
not the same as those of the free man: initiative, courage, and indomitable
perseverance. The person who retains even vaguely the first qualities, whoallows himself to miss his former life ruled by the carrot and the stick, will
never be the proud hero of his destiny.
On the other hand, the man who has cheerfully accommodated
himself to the conditions of a new life of perfect independence, a lifethat gives to the agent full responsibility for his conduct, is in danger ofunimaginable suffering when he finds himself caught again in a vestige ofancient slavery—the military, for example. His life then becomes unbearable, and suicide seems like a refuge. Thus in our incoherent society, inwhich two opposing principles struggle against one another, it is possible
to desire death either because it is too difficult to conquer life or because
liberty has so many joys that one cannot give them up. Is it not contradictory that the reaction to a greater intensity in life can be an extraordinary
increase in bouts of despair and an obsessive fear of death? The numberof suicides has continually increased for several decades in contemporarysociety and in all so-called civilized countries. Not long ago, this typeof death was rare in all lands and completely unknown among certain
peoples such as the Greeks, for whom, moreover, poverty, temperance, andharsh work were the rule. But the great whirlwind generated by the cities
has produced a corresponding torrent of passions, emotions, changing
impressions, ambitions, and insanity in our modern “Babylons.” Since life
is more active and passionate, it is frequently complicated with crises andoften ends abruptly through voluntary death.
This is the very sorrowful aspect of our much-acclaimed half-civilization (it is only half-civilized because it is far from benefiting everyone).
The average man of our time is not only more active and lively but also
happier than in previous times when humanity, divided into innumerable
tribes, had not yet become conscious of itself as a whole; however, it is noless true that the moral discrepancy between the way of life of the privileged and that of the outcasts has increased. The unfortunate have become
more unfortunate, and envy and hatred are added to their poverty, increasing their physical suffering and forced deprivation. In primitive clans, thevictims of starvation and sickness are subject only to physical pain. Butamong our civilized people, they must also bear the burden of humiliation and even public loathing. Their living conditions and clothing makethem seem sordid and repugnant to the observer. Are there not neighborhoods in every large city that are carefully avoided by travelers becauseof an aversion to the nauseating odors that emanate from them? Except
for the Eskimos in their winter igloo, no savage tribe inhabits such hovels
as exist in Glasgow, Dundee, Rouen, Lille, and so many other industrial

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cities, where in cellars with slimy walls, beings that resemble humans dragthemselves about painfully for a time in a semblance of life. The barbaric
Hindus who live in the forests at the center of the subcontinent, clothed
in a few colorful rags, offer a relatively cheerful sight compared to theseemaciated proletarians of luxurious Europe, somber, sad, and gloomyin their tattered, filthy clothes. For the observer who is not afraid to gonear the factories when they let out, the most striking thing, aside fromthe clothing of poverty, is the absolute absence of personality. All thesebeings rushing toward an inadequate meal have had since youth the samewithered face and the same vacant, deadened stare. It is impossible to distinguish among them any more clearly than among sheep in a flock. They
are not humans, but rather arms, or “hands,” as they are so appropriately
called in the English language.
This horrible discrepancy, this most dreadful scourge of contemporary society, could be corrected rapidly by scientific method through theredistribution of the goods of the earth, since the resources necessary for
all humans are in superabundance. This goes without saying. Humanity
is admirably equipped through its progress in the knowledge of time andspace, of the innermost nature of things, and of man himself. But is it currently advanced enough to tackle the fundamental problem of its existence,
which is the problem of the realization of its collective ideal, not only forthe “ruling classes,” one caste, or a group of castes, but for all whom a religion once described as “brothers created in the image of God”? Of course,
humanity can reach this goal. There will no longer be a question of hunger
the day that people who are starving join together to claim their due.
Similarly, the question of education will be resolved, since the problem
is acknowledged in principle and because the desire for knowledge iswidespread, even if it is only in the form of curiosity. Now one advancement never comes alone; it has a complementary and reciprocal relationship with other advancements in the entirety of social evolution. As soon
as the sense of justice is satisfied through the participation of all in thematerial and intellectual resources of humanity, each man will as a result
experience a great unburdening of his conscience. For the present cruelstate of inequality, in which some are overloaded with superfluous wealthwhile others are deprived even of hope, weighs like a bad conscience on
the human soul, whether one is aware of it or not. It weighs most on thesouls of the fortunate, whose joys are always poisoned by it. The greatest
step toward peace would be for no one to do wrong to his neighbor, for it
is in our nature to hate those whom we have wronged and to love those
whose presence recalls our own worth. The moral consequences of thevery simple act of justice in which bread and education are guaranteed to
all would be incalculable.

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If, continuing the present direction of historical evolution, humanity
soon reaches the goals of abolishing death from hunger and stagnationfrom ignorance, then another ideal will appear like a shining beacon—anideal that moreover is already being pursued by an ever-growing numberof individuals. This is the lofty ambition to regain all lost energies, toprevent the loss of present forces and materials, and also to recover fromthe past everything that our ancestors allowed to slip away. Generally
speaking, this would mean that civilizations would imitate the engineersof our day who are discovering treasures in the debris that was consideredworthless by the Athenian miners of the past. If it is true that in certain
respects some primitives and ancients surpassed the average modernday man in strength, agility, health, and beauty, then we must become
their equals! Granted, this reconquest will not go so far as the recoveryof the use of atrophied organs whose former purposes have been discovered by biologists (such as Elie Metchnikoff); however, it is important toknow how to maintain fully those energies that are still accorded to us
and to retain the use of muscles that, while continuing to function, havebecome less flexible and are in danger of soon becoming worthless to ourbodies. Is it possible to prevent this physical diminishment of man, whois thrown out of balance by the development of his mental capacities? It
is predicted that man will gradually turn into an enormous brain, wrappedin bandages to protect him from colds, and that the rest of his body will
atrophy. Is there anything we can do to resist this tendency? Zoologists
tell us that man used to be a climbing animal, like the monkey. Why, then,does modern man let himself forfeit this skill of climbing, which certain
primitives still possess to a remarkable degree, notably those who climb
to the tops of palm trees to gather bunches of fruit? As mothers neverfail to observe admiringly, infants have astonishing grasping power, withwhich they can suspend their bodies, even for minutes at a time,32 yetthey gradually lose this initial strength because great care is taken to deny
them the opportunity to exercise it. The threat of clothing being ripped
and torn through the child’s efforts to climb are enough for the parents ofour economically-minded society to forbid their offspring to climb trees.
The fear of danger is only a secondary consideration in this prohibition.
As a result of such fears, most “civilized” children remain greatly inferior to the sons of savages in games of strength and agility. Furthermore,since they have had little opportunity to exercise their senses outdoors,they do not have the same clarity of vision or keenness of hearing.
Compared to the animals of beautiful form and sharpened senses that
Herbert Spencer thought they should be, they seem for the most part tohave clearly degenerated. In no way do they merit the words of admiration
evoked in European travelers by the sight of the young men of Tenimber,

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practicing stringing their bows or throwing the javelin.33 The players ofpelote, golf, and lacrosse constitute the elite of civilized people for physicalbeauty. But the spectators would have difficulty finding perfectly balanced
forms to rhapsodize over, even among the champions. The evidence isclear. It is certain that in purity of line, dignity of bearing, and gracefulness of movement, a number of Negro, American Indian, Malayan,
and Polynesian tribes surpass randomly selected groups representing
the average type of the nations of Europe, though perhaps not certain
exceptional cases among Europeans. Thus, from this perspective there
has been a general regression because of our confinement to our homes
and our absurd clothing, which interferes with perspiration, the effect of
air and light on the skin, and the free development of muscles, which areoften constricted, tortured, or even crippled by laced boots and corsets.
Nevertheless, numerous examples prove that this regression is not final
and irrevocable, since our young people who have been raised in goodhygienic conditions and who engage in physical exercise develop in shapeand strength like the most beautiful of savages. Besides, they have been
granted the superiority of self-awareness and the distinction of intellect.
Thanks to the achievements of the past, which moderns acquire rapidly
and methodically through education, they succeed in living longer than
the savage since they know how to compress into their lives a thousandprior existences and to recall survivals from the past in order to make alogical and beautiful whole out of current practices and the innovationsof previous times. If only we could gauge the degree of strength that themodern can attain by using as an example today’s skilled mountain climbers of the Alps, the Caucasus, the Rocky Mountains, the Andes, the Tien
Shan, and the Himalayas! Certainly, a Jacques Balmat would not haveclimbed Mont Blanc if a de Saussure had not existed to train him in thisundertaking. Today, such experts as Whymper, Freshfield, and Conway arein strength, endurance, knowledge, and the practice of mountain climbing
the equals and even the superiors of the most dependable mountain guides,
who were trained from youth in all the physical and moral qualities necessary for dangerous ascents. It is the man of science who is now followedby the native to the summit of Kilimanjaro or of the Aconcagua, and it is
he who leads the Eskimos to the conquest of the North Pole. Thus it ispossible for modern man to realize perfectly his imagined ideal, that ofbeing able to acquire new qualities without losing, or even while regaining,those possessed by his ancestors. This is not at all a chimera.
This strength of understanding, this increased capacity of modernman, permits him to reconquer the past from the savage in his natural,ancient environment, and then to unite it and blend it harmoniously withhis own more refined ideas. But all of this increase in strength will result

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in a permanent, well-established reconquest only on the condition thatthe new man include all other men, his brothers, in the same feeling ofunity with all things.
Here, then, is the social question that is posed anew in its full scope.
It is impossible to love wholeheartedly the primitive savage in his naturalenvironment of forests and streams if at the same time one does not lovethe men living in the more or less artificial society of the contemporary
world. How can we admire and love the small, charming individuality of
the flower, or feel brother to the animals and approach them as St. Francisof Assisi did if we do not also see our fellow men as beloved companions?
The alternative is to avoid them in the name of love so as to escape themoral wounds inflicted by the hateful, the hypocrites, or the indifferent.
The complete union of the civilized with the savage and with nature cantake place only through the destruction of the boundaries between castes,
as well as between peoples. Each individual must be able to address any ofhis peers in complete brotherhood, and to speak freely with them “about
all that is human,” as Terence said, without succumbing to the customs
and conventions of the past. Life, restored to its original simplicity, thus
entails a complete and amicable freedom of human social intercourse.
Has humanity made any real progress along this road? It would be
absurd to deny it. What is called the “tide of democracy” is nothing otherthan the growing feeling of equality among the members of different castes
that were recently enemies. Under a thousand changing surface appearances, the work is carried out in the depths, in all nations, thanks to man’s
growing knowledge of himself and of others. Increasingly he succeeds infinding the common basis for our likeness to one another and manages toextricate himself from the entanglement of superficial opinions that have
kept us separated. We march, then, toward future conciliation, toward aform of happiness far more ample than that which satisfied our ancestors,
the animals and the primitives. Our physical and moral world has grownlarger at the same time that our conception of happiness has become
broader. Indeed, in the future, happiness will be considered as such only
if it is shared by all, if it is made conscious and is well thought out, andif it includes within itself the fascinating pursuits of science and the joysof antique beauty.
All of this removes us noticeably from the theory of the “Superman”
as understood by the aristocrats of thought. The kings and the powerfulreadily imagine that there are two systems of morals—theirs, which consists of capriciousness; and obedience, which is suitable for the masses.
Similarly, arrogant young people who worship the intellectual powers they
think they possess, indulgently place themselves on a high terrace of theivory tower, beyond the reach of humble mortals. They condescend to chat

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only with a select few. Perhaps they even believe themselves to be alone.
Genius weighs heavily upon them. Underneath their inevitably furrowed
brows, a turbulent world rages. They are oblivious to the teeming, formlessmass of the unknown multitude far beneath the flight of their thought. It
is true that man can discover no limits that he cannot surpass through his
striving to study and learn. Yes, he must try to realize his own ideal, toseek to surpass it, and to climb ever higher. Even as a dying man, I believe
in my personal progress; those who feel as if they are moribund might aswell die. But in order to surpass his limits, man does not need to break thebonds that connect him with the beings around him, for he cannot escapethe close solidarity that supports his life through the lives of his fellow
creatures. To the contrary, each of his personal advancements means
progress for those around him: he shares his knowledge as he shares hisbread, and he does not leave behind the poor and the crippled. He has had
teachers—since he was hardly born without a father like some god in a
fable—and he will in turn teach those who come after him.
The barbarous methods of the Spartans are still favored by thoseineffectual persons who know neither how to heal nor how to teach. They
smother those who seem weak and throw the malformed into a hole,
breaking their bones. Such are the summary practices of the ineffectualand the ignorant. And what doctor, midwife, or infallible arbitrator willtell us which newborn can be spared and which is beyond hope? Often,
the science practiced by these judges has been faulty. A particular bodythat they had deemed ill-suited for life actually turned out to be admirably
adapted to it. A particular intelligence that from the heights of their judicial bench they had classified as moronic developed brilliant and creative
powers. Being old, slaves to routine, and misoneistes,34 they were completely wrong, and it is through revolution against them that the world wasennobled and renewed. The best approach is to accept all men as equals in
potential and in dignity, to help the weak by supporting them with one’s
own strength, to help restore health to the sick, and to open the minds ofthe unintelligent to elevated thoughts, all with constant concern for the
betterment of others and of oneself. For we are part of a whole, and evolution takes place throughout the world, whether it moves from progress toprogress or from regression to regression.
Thus happiness, as we understand it, does not consist simply of
personal enjoyment. Of course it is individual in the sense that “eachis the artisan of his own happiness,” but it is true, deep, and complete
only when it extends to the whole of humanity. It is not possible to avoid
sorrow, accidents, sickness, or even death; however, by joining together
with others in an undertaking whose significance he grasps, and by following a method that he knows to be effective, man can be certain ofProgress

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directing the whole great human body toward the greatest good. In comparison to this body, each individual cell is infinitely small, a millionth ofa millionth, counting the present population of the earth and all previous
generations. Happiness does not mean the attainment of a certain level of
personal or collective existence. It is rather the consciousness of marching toward a well-defined goal to which one aspires and that one createsin part through one’s own will. To develop the continents, the seas, andthe atmosphere that surrounds us; to “cultivate our garden” on earth; toreÂ�arrange and regulate the environment in order to promote each individual plant, animal, and human life; to become fully conscious of ourhuman solidarity, forming one body with the planet itself; and to take a
sweeping view of our origins, our present, our immediate goal, and our
distant ideal—this is what progress means.
Thus we can with complete confidence respond to the question thatarises in the depths of each man’s being: yes, we have progressed since
the time when our ancestors left their maternal caves, during the several
thousand years that make up the brief self-conscious period of human life.

18

Advice to My Anarchist
Comrades (1901)
Reclus wrote the following letter on the occasion of the opening of an anarchist
congress. It was subsequently published in Il Pensiero (June 16, 1907), in Réveil deGenève (January 7, 1911), and in volume 3 of Correspondance, 238–40.

To the Editors of la Huelga General in Barcelona
Brussels, December 4, 1901
Dear comrades,
It is our usual habit to exaggerate both our strengths and our weaknesses.
During revolutionary periods, it seems that the least of our actions has
incalculably great consequences. On the other hand, during times of stagnation, even though we have dedicated ourselves completely to the cause,
our lives seem barren and useless. We may even feel swept away by thewinds of reaction.
What then should we do to maintain our intellectual vigor, our moral
energy, and our faith in the good fight?
You come to me hoping to draw on my long experience of people andthings. So as an old man I give you the following advice.
Do not quarrel or deal in personalities. Listen to opposing arguments
after you have presented your own. Learn how to remain silent and reflect.
Do not try to get the better in an argument at the expense of your own
sincerity.
Study with discretion and perseverance. Great enthusiasm and dedication to the point of risking one’s life are not the only ways of serving a
cause. It is easier to sacrifice one’s life than to make one’s whole life an
education for others. The conscious revolutionary is not only a person of

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feeling, but also one of reason, for whom every effort to promote justiceand solidarity rests on precise knowledge and on a comprehensive understanding of history, sociology, and biology. Such a person can incorporate
his personal ideas into the larger context of the human sciences, and canbrave the struggle, sustained by the immense power he gains through his
broad knowledge.
Avoid specialization. Side neither with nations nor with parties. Be
neither Russians, Poles nor Slavs. Rather, be men who hunger for truth,
free from any thoughts of particular interests, and from speculative ideas
concerning the Chinese, Africans, or Europeans. The patriot always ends
up hating the foreigner, and loses the sense of justice that once kindled
his enthusiasm.
Away with all bosses, leaders, and those apostles of language who turnwords into Sacred Scripture. Avoid idolatry and value the words even ofyour closest friend or the wisest professor only for the truth that you findin them. If, having listened, you have some doubts, turn inward toward
your own mind and reexamine the matter before making a final judgment.
So you should reject every authority, but also commit yourself to a
deep respect for all sincere convictions. Live your own life, but also allow
others the complete freedom to live theirs.
If you throw yourself into the fray to sacrifice yourself defending thehumiliated and downtrodden, that is a very good thing, my companions.
Face death nobly. If you prefer to take on slow and patient work on behalfof a better future, that is an even better thing. Make it the goal of every
instant of a generous life. But if you choose to remain poor among the poor,in complete solidarity with those who suffer, may your life shine forth asa beneficent light, a perfect example, a fruitful lesson for all!
Greetings, comrades.
Elisée Reclus

NotesPreface to the PM Press Edition

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Perhaps by chance, Nature’s gaze seems to be focused in the direction of New Orleans,the location at which the translation and the commentary for this work happened tohave taken place.
Quoted in Ariel Salleh, ed. Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology(London: Pluto Press, 2009), 302.
Johan Rockström et al., “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for
Humanity” in Ecology and Society 14, no. 2, at http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/
iss2/art32/. For a more concise statement of the findings of the Stockholm ResilienceCentre, see Johan Rockström et al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity” in Nature
461 (September 2009): 472–75.
Ibid.
Joël Cornuault, Elisée Reclus et les Fleurs Sauvages (Bergerac: Librairie La Brèche, 2005);
Crestian Lamaison, Elisée Reclus, l’Orthésien qui écrivait la Terre (Orthez: Cité du Livre,2005); Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg, ed., Elisée Reclus. Natura e educazione (Milan:
Bruno Mondadori, 2007); and Ronald Creagh et al., eds., Elisée Reclus, Paul Vidal
de la Blache, la géographie, la cité et le monde, hier et aujourd’hui, autour de 1905 (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2009).
Jean-Didier Vincent, Elisée Reclus. Géographe, anarchiste, écologiste (Paris: Robert Laffont,2010); Florence Deprest, Elisée Reclus et l’Algérie colonisée (Paris: Belin, 2012); Ronald
Creagh, Elisée Reclus et les États-Unis (Paris: Editions Noir et Rouge, 2013); and Didier
Jung, Elisée Reclus (Paris: Pardès, 2013).
Philippe Pelletier, Géographie & anarchie. Reclus. Kropotkine. Metchnikoff. (Paris: Editions
du Monde libertaire, 2013) and Elisée Reclus, géographie et anarchie (Paris: Editions duMonde libertaire, 2009).
Federico Ferretti, Il mondo senza la mappa: Elisée Reclus e i Geografi Anarchici (Milan:
Zero in Condotta, 2007), and Anarchici ed editori. Reti scientifiche, editoria e lotte culturali
attorno alla Nuova Geografia Universale di Elisée Reclus (1876–1894) (Milan: Zero in
Condotta, 2011).
Elisée Reclus, Un nom confisqué: Elisée Reclus et sa vision des Amériques, ed. by Ernesto
Machler-Tobar (Paris: Editions INDIGO et Coté femmes, 2007); Elisée Reclus, Projetde Globe au 100.000e, ed. by Nikola Jankovic (Paris: Editions B2, 2011); Elisée Reclus,
Lettres de prison et d’exil, ed. by Federico Ferretti (Lardy: A la Frontière, 2012); EliséeNotes

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Reclus, Ecrits sociaux, ed. by Alexandre Chollier and Federico Ferretti (Geneva: Editions
Héros-limite, 2012); Elisée and Elie Reclus, L’homme des bois, études sur les populations
indiennes d’Amérique du Nord, ed. by Alexandre Chollier and Federico Ferretti (Geneva:
Editions Héros-limite, 2012).
For information on the Portuguese volumes and other publications, see Federico
Ferretti’s useful survey of recent works in “La redécouverte d’Elisée Reclus: à propos
d’ouvrages récents” in Echogéo 21 (2012), at http://echogeo.revues.org/13173.
Elisée Reclus. La passion du monde, directed by Nicolas Eprendre and produced by
Antoine Martin (Rouen, 2012).
Preface to the First Edition

1

2

See Elisée Reclus, A Voyage to New Orleans: Anarchist Impressions of the Old South, ed.
and trans. John P. Clark and Camille Martin; revised and expanded edition (Enfield,
N.H.: Glad Day Books, 2004).
Paul Reclus, “A Few Recollections on the Brothers Elie and Elisée Reclus,” in Elisée andElie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Joseph Ishill (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927),
5.

1

The Earth Story, the Human Story

1
2

Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 1:i.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: The Universal Geography, trans. Augustus
Henry Keane (London: H. Virtue, 1876–94), 1:3.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:114–15.
Ibid., 1:iv.
Reclus’ concept of dynamic equilibrium is closer to the model of nature as a “discordant
harmony” than to the simplistic idea of a “balance of nature.”
Ibid., 1:iii–iv.
In this he prefigures contemporary efforts, such as Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry’s
account of the “Earth Story” within the larger “Universe Story.” See The Universe Story:
From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era—A Celebration of the Unfolding of the
Cosmos (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1992).
Reclus thus contributes to the overcoming of tendencies in Western social thought
toward, on the one hand, an abstract universalism that dissolves particularity andsingularity, and, on the other, a reactive and exaggerated anti-universalism that denies
universality and even particularity in its cult of singularity. For an extended defenseof the universal particular, see John P. Clark, The Impossible Community: Realizing
Communitarian Anarchism (New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2013).
Letter to M. Roth (no specific date, 1904) in Correspondance, 3:285–86. Reclus paraphrases 1 John 4:20, “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen,cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

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Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus (Paris: Les Amis d’Elisée Reclus, 1964), 17. It should be
obvious that by “communism” Paul Reclus does not mean anything related to statesocialism but rather a system in which the good of the community is placed above
individual self-interest and obedience to conscience and principle is placed above
conformity to abstract laws and regulations.
Ibid., 159.
Ibid., 162.

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Ibid., 17.
Ibid., 167.
Ibid., 170. While the conservatism of this environment should be noted, one should
not forget the strong tendency toward radicalism that was inherent in this milieu. For
example, it is significant that the great libertarian theorist of the sixteenth century,
Etienne de la Boétie, came out of the same Huguenot culture of southwestern France.
De la Boétie, the author of the enduring anti-authoritarian classic The Discourse of
Voluntary Servitude, was born in Sarlat in the Dordogne, the same region as Reclus. See
Etienne de la Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, trans.
Harry Kurz (New York: Free Life Editions, 1975).
“Développement de la liberté dans le monde,” 1851 manuscript first published in Le
libertaire (1925), quoted in Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus (Paris: Les Amis d’Elisée Reclus,1964), 50.
Ibid., 50.
Ibid., 53.
Ibid.
Ibid., 53–54.
For Godwin’s views on “the right of private judgment,” see John P. Clark, The PhilosophicalAnarchism of William Godwin (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), 136–47.
Elisée states that “Elie and his friends” were alone in the end (Les frères Elie et Elisée
Reclus, 175), while Paul Reclus maintains that Elisée was in fact the only friend who
remained (ibid., 23).
For the details of Reclus’ stay in Louisiana, see Gary S. Dunbar, “Elisée Reclus inLouisiana,” Louisiana History 23 (1982): 341–52. The article includes much fascinating
material, as for example an account of Reclus’ bout with yellow fever in the context ofthe great epidemic of 1853 (345–46).
See Elisée Reclus, A Voyage to New Orleans, ed. and trans. John P. Clark and Camille
Martin (Enfield, N.H.: Glad Day Books, 2004), 51–52. While working on that book, theeditors took a tour of a plantation near Félicité (which still stands but is a private home
not open to visitors). We discovered that the official tour goes to great lengths to extol
the grandeur of the Old South but gives no hint that a system of organized brutality
ever existed there. The tour guide, a young woman dressed in antebellum garb, notedthat “the slave who carried the baked pies from the kitchen outbuilding to the mainhouse had to whistle constantly as he walked—to assure that he didn’t taste the pie!”
The crowd of tourists found this anecdote quite amusing, having no trouble identifying
themselves with the clever planters rather than the hapless servants.
Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus, 31.
Ibid. Reclus’ comment is reminiscent of a famous statement by another great figurein the history of anarchist thought who was also an uncompromising opponent ofslavery, Henry David Thoreau. In discussing his refusal to pay taxes to support a statethat enforced slavery, Thoreau explained as follows: “How does it become a man tobehave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without
disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.” Henry David Thoreau,“Civil Disobedience,” in Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, ed. Brooks
Atkinson (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 636.
Letter to Elie Reclus (undated) in Correspondance (Paris: Librairie Schleicher Frères,1911), 1:91.
Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus, 39.

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W.L.G. Joerg notes that Reclus’ voyage north may have taken him to Chicago andeven as far northeast as Niagara Falls. He bases this view on research on Reclus’ lifeby the great historian of anarchism Max Nettlau. See Joerg, “The Geography of North
America: A History of Its Regional Exposition,” Geographical Review 26 (1936): 648.
Elisée Reclus, Voyage à la Sierra-Nevada de Saint-Marthe: Paysage de la nature tropicale(Paris: Hachette, 1861).
Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus, 43.
Peter Kropotkin, “Elisée Reclus,” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Joseph Ishill(Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927), 63.
Letter to Mlle. de Gérando (January 1, 1882) in Correspondance (Paris: Librairie Schleicher
Frères, 1911), 2:238. Marie Fleming cites Elie’s observation that when Elisée was in his
sixties he not only taught but also attended courses at the New University, always eager
to learn from others. The Geography of Freedom (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1988), 178.
Jean Grave, “Elisée Reclus” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Ishill, 39. This isno small tribute to someone who was generally considered the most renowned geographer and one of the two or three most important anarchist theorists of his time.
Elisée Reclus, La Terre: description des phénomènes de la vie du globe, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette,
1868–69); vol. 1 translated by B.B. Woodward and edited by Henry Woodward under
the title The Earth: A Descriptive History of the Phenomena of the Life of the Globe (NewYork: Harper and Brothers, 1871), and vol. 2 translated by B.B. Woodward and edited
by Henry Woodward under the title The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life: being the second
series of a descriptive history of the phenomena of the life of the globe (New York: Harper andBrothers, 1873).
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’un ruisseau (Paris: Hachette, 1869).
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’une montagne (Paris: Hetzel, 1880), translated by Bertha Lilly
and John Lilly under the title The History of a Mountain (New York: Harper and Brothers,
1881).
Michael Bakunin, La Polémique avec Mazzini: Ecrits et Matériaux, part 1 of Michel
Bakounine et L’Italie 1875–82, Oeuvres Complètes de Bakounine, ed. Arthur Lehning (Paris:
Editions Champ Libre, 1973), 1:245.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: The Universal Geography, 19 vols., trans.
Augustus Henry Keane (London: H. Virtue, 1876–94); originally published as Nouvelle
géographie universelle, 19 vols., ed. Ernest George Ravenstein (Paris: Hachette, 1876–94).
Herein, the authors refer to this work as the New Universal Geography, as in the Frenchtitle, to preserve Reclus’ conception of the work.
Patrick Geddes, “A Great Geographer: Elisée Reclus” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In
Memoriam, 155.
Gary S. Dunbar, Elisée Reclus: Historian of Nature (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books,
1978), 95. See also Gary S. Dunbar, The History of Geography (Cooperstown, N.Y.: Gary
S. Dunbar, 1996), especially chapters 3, 6, 11, 17, 18, and 26.
For extensive details on the uproar within the university after the invitation to Reclus
was withdrawn, see Hem Day, ed., Elisée Reclus en Belgique: sa vie, son activité (Paris andBrussels: Pensée et Action, 1956). Among the documents reprinted in this work are theminutes of the students’ organizations, which reported that a general assembly of theuniversity’s students voted to support Reclus, with only two dissenting votes (32).
Letter to Jean Grave (October 6, 1894) in Correspondance (Paris: Alfred Costes, 1925),
3:172.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants, 19:vi.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6 vols. (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8).

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Les frères Elie et Elisée Reclus, 89.
Letter to Clara Mesnil (March 25, 1905) in Correspondance, 3:314.

3

The Dialectic of Nature and Culture

1

While the emphasis in the present discussion is on the relevance of Reclus’ social
geography to ecological thought and social theory, the considerable importance of
his contribution in other areas, including physical geography and geology, should
not be overlooked. Among Reclus’ achievements is his early advocacy of the theoryof continental drift and his defense of the view that this phenomenon is compatible
with uniformitarian explanation. As early as 1868, in The Earth, he proposed that theplanet is many times older than most contemporary theory indicated and that thecontinents formed a single landmass as recently as the Jurassic period. In 1979, an
intriguing discussion of Reclus’ geological significance appeared in the journal Geology.
In his article “Elisée Reclus: Neglected Geologic Pioneer and First Continental Drift
Advocate,” James O. Berkland concludes that Reclus “was a peer of the geologic greatsof the nineteenth century such as Darwin and Lyell,” and that while his name “hasfaded to near obscurity,” he “should be recognized in the history of plate tectonic
theory as one of its foremost pioneers and perhaps, as its founder.” See Geology 7 (1979):
192. In a “Comment” on this article Myrl E. Beck, Jr., suggests that Reclus’ lapse into
“obscurity” may have had more to do with his anarchist philosophy than with the meritsof his scientific theories. See Geology 7 (1979): 418. In his “Reply,” Berkland agrees andlaments “the slow literary descent of Reclus to the status of a quasi-nonperson [sic]”
as a case of “book-burning through neglect.” In his concluding statement, Berkland
surprisingly admits that “had [he] possessed full knowledge of just how ‘revolutionary’ Reclus really was, it is probable that [he] would not have invested the time andeffort to give him well-deserved credit for his geologic accomplishments.” See ibid. As
geographer Gary Dunbar correctly notes, Berkland’s claims are rather exaggerated.
Reclus cannot be considered a “pioneer” or “founder” of continental drift theory, sinceothers proposed the theory long before he discussed it. But while its possibility wasmentioned before his time, Alfred Wegener published the first major theory of thephenomenon in 1912, and it did not receive general acceptance until the 1960s; see A.
Hallam, “Alfred Wegener and the Hypothesis of Continental Drift,” Scientific American
232, no. 2 (February 1975): 88–97. Reclus’ support for continental drift thus predates
its classic formulation by almost half a century and its firm establishment by almosta century. The fact that one of the foremost geographers of that era defended it at thisearly date was thus a significant step in the history of continental drift theory. I am
grateful to Gary Dunbar and to geologist Anatol Dolgoff for their contrasting but highly
enlightening views on this topic.
“Social ecology,” in the sense used here, is an ecological philosophy based on a dialectical (but nontotalizing) view of reality. It interprets all natural and social phenomena as
mutually determining parts of larger wholes and as being in a process of development
and unfolding. Any whole is seen as a complex, developing unity-in-diversity that canbe understood to the degree that its elements, their relationships, and the history of its
development are understood. A consistent social ecology must, in view of its radicallydialectical quality, reject any kind of reification of phenomena or concepts, any dualistic divisions within any sphere of reality, or any process of totalization that transforms
dynamic wholes into closed systems (whether natural, social, or intellectual). These
principles are applied to the evolution of humanity and the entire course of humanhistory, in relation to natural history and the evolution of life on earth. A social ecology

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is, however, more than an ecological philosophy; it is also a social practice that aims
at creating a free, cooperative, ecological society in which not only the human quest
to conquer nature but also all forms of domination within society are overcome.
Reclus’ connection with contemporary social ecology has not been widely recognized.
A notable exception is Peter Marshall’s chapter on “Elisée Reclus: The Geographerof Liberty” in his monumental work Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism(Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2009), 339–44. Marshall concludes that Reclus “had a profound ecological sensibility,” and that he was “a forerunner of modern social ecology”(344).
Béatrice Giblin, “Reclus: un écologiste avant l’heure?” in Elisée Reclus: Un géographe libertaire, ed. Yves Lacoste, Hérodote 22 (1981): 110. Giblin edited and wrote the introduction
for a book of selections entitled L’Homme et la Terre—morceaux choisis (Paris: Maspero,
1982). The entire issue of Hérodote containing her article is devoted to studies of Reclus’
work, with a strong emphasis on the ecological implications of his social geography.
Joël Cornuault, in his excellent and highly perceptive little book Elisée Reclus, géographeet poète (Eglise-Neuve d’Issac, France: Fédérop, 1995) also recognizes Reclus as “one of
the first ecologists” and points out that although Reclus does not use the word “ecology,”
he showed his ecological tendencies by “commenting favorably on the works of George
P. Marsh as early as 1864” (73). Cornuault shows very convincingly that Reclus’ books
History of a Brook and History of a Mountain are crucial to understanding his ecologicalsensibility and his work as a natural historian. Contemporary ecological thought has
devoted little attention to the connection between geography and ecology. An exception is Thomas Berry, one of the best-known contemporary ecological thinkers, whodevotes an entire chapter in one of his works to “Ecological Geography.” He states that“geography provides a comprehensive context for understanding the functioning of the
Earth in its larger structure,” that it is “useful in appreciating the integral functioning of
the various regions into which the planet is divided,” and that it “provides the context
for ecological thinking.” The Great Work: Our Way to the Future (New York: Bell Tower,1999), 86.
The School of Living is a radically decentralist, back-to-the-land movement based on
ideas developed by Borsodi and his associates in the 1920s and early 1930s. The firstexperimental community was begun in 1934, and various communities and educational centers have existed ever since as part of this important grassroots movement.
According to Loomis, one of the founders, the School of Living advocates a “Green
Revolution” (a term used since 1940) based on such principles as “family homesteads,
organic agriculture” and “activities in small communities,” in addition to “freeing theland of price and speculation, cooperative credit, a stable exchange medium” and“replacing government with voluntary action.” Mildred J. Loomis, Alternative Americas(New York: Universe Books, 1982), 73.
The significance of Goodman’s ideas for late twentieth-century ecological thought
has not been adequately appreciated. One might think in this connection of his many
decentralist social and political essays, which were widely influential in the 1960s, but
the philosophical basis of his contribution is found above all in his relatively early
work Gestalt Therapy (New York: Dell, 1951), which is one of the most sophisticatedtheoretical works in modern anarchist thought. One of the few commentators to grasp
the importance of Goodman’s psychological writings and what we might call their ecological import is Taylor Stoehr. See the introduction to his Goodman collection Nature
Heals: The Psychological Essays of Paul Goodman (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979), xix–xxiv.
Bookchin published a series of articles between 1965 and 1970 that made an early and

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important contribution to the development of contemporary ecological social thought.
The essays “Post-Scarcity Anarchism” and “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought” presented a radically libertarian and communitarian interpretation of ecological thinking;“Towards a Liberatory Technology” argued for the need for the development of ecological technologies; and “The Forms of Freedom” was an outline of a submerged “historyof freedom” that might help inspire an alternative to the mass society of commodity
consumption. These essays and others were collected in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (Palo
Alto, Calif.: Ramparts Press, 1971) and have had a significant influence on subsequent
radical ecological thought.
“L’Homme est la nature prenant conscience d’elle-même.” Elisée Reclus, L’Homme etla Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 1:1. It is instructive to compare Reclus’
more ecological and dialectical concept to Marx’s more environmentalist and residually dualistic conception of nature as “man’s inorganic body.” While the two thinkers
were contemporaries (Reclus being only twelve years younger than Marx), Reclus wasmuch more successful in transcending the spirit of the age by applying a dialecticalanalysis to the relationship between humanity and nature. For a discussion of Marx’s
philosophy of nature and his failure to develop fully the dialectical view of naturethat is in fact implicit in his own thought, see John P. Clark, “Marx’s Inorganic Body,”
Environmental Ethics 11 (1989): 243–58. John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett criticize
this interpretation of Marx in “The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations: Marx andthe Hegelian Philosophy of Nature,” Organization and Environment 13 (2000): 403–25. I
revise my assessment of Marx and reply to Foster and Burkett in “Marx’s Natures: A
Response to Foster and Burkett” Organization and Environment 14 (2001): 451–62.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873),
434.
Reclus’ comprehensive, critically holistic perspective relates him to intellectual traditions beyond those that are emphasized in the present discussion. Joël Cornuault points
out that Reclus’ encyclopedic approach places him in the broader humanistic traditionof scholarship that preceded the extreme scientific specialization we have known since
his time. He also mentions as an antecedent the Renaissance humanism of Pico della
Mirandola, a reference that is perhaps surprising, but not at all inappropriate, in viewof Reclus’ often-eloquent affirmation of the beauty and goodness of humanity andnature. Cornuault also relates Reclus’ holistic dimension to certain scientific views
that were developing in the latter part of the nineteenth century, including the idea of“terrestrial unity” of Vidal de la Bache and the “principle of connection” of Brunhes.
See Joël Cornuault, “‘L’imagination écologique’ d’Elisée Reclus: notes sur un livre deJohn P. Clark,” Les cahiers Elisée Reclus 4 (1997): 2. It must always be kept in mind thatthe holistic dimension in Reclus has nothing to do with the positing of closed totalities,
but rather concerns developing unity-in-diversity within open and relative wholes.
Yves Lacoste, “Editorial,” in Elisée Reclus: Un géographe libertaire, ed. Yves Lacoste,
Hérodote 22 (1981): 4–5.
Yves Lacoste, “Géographicité et géopolitique: Elisée Reclus” in Elisée Reclus: Un géographe libertaire, ed. Yves Lacoste, Hérodote 22 (1981): 14. While Reclus never had thestature in the United States that he did in France, there has been a similar process of“forgetting” in mainstream American geography. For example, if one examines The
Geographical Review from its beginning in 1916 to the present, one finds three references
to Reclus in the 1920s, three in the 1930s, two in the 1940s, and then a long silence. A
modest growth of interest in Reclus among American geographers during the 1970s
also parallels the situation in France and is evidenced by articles dealing with his work

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in the radical geography journal Antipode, as well as by the publication of geographer
Gary Dunbar’s biography Elisée Reclus: Historian of Nature (Hamden, Conn.: Archon
Books, 1978).
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 210.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:14.
Ibid., 1:272.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 210.
Ibid., 223.
Ibid.
In Reclus’ time, just as today, some views overemphasized unity and the whole andothers overemphasized diversity and individual phenomena. In the past century, theorganicist tradition stemming from Hegel tended toward extreme holism and social
authoritarianism, while the individualist tradition arising out of classical liberalism
fostered social atomism and anomic individualism. An authentically dialectical position, which might be considered a form of radical left Hegelianism, avoids both of these
dangers, and interprets the whole as a dynamic, self-transcending unity-in-diversity.
This is the perspective of a truly dialectical social ecology.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 434.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:254.
Ibid., 6:255.
Ibid. Reclus’ holistic dimension may be compared to a similar strain in the thoughtof his friend and colleague Peter Kropotkin. The latter contends, for example, thatgeography should present a view of society and nature that will “combine in one vivid
picture all separate elements of this knowledge” and “represent it as an harmonious
whole, all parts of which are consequences of a few general principles and are held
together by their mutual relations.” Antipode 10, no. 3–1 (1978): 11.
Thérèse Dejongh, “The Brothers Reclus at the New University,” in Elisée and Elie Reclus:
In Memoriam, ed. Joseph Ishill (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927), 237.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), 262, 259.
Edward Rothen, “Elisée Reclus’ Optimism,” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, 145.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’un ruisseau (Arles: Actes Sud, 1995), 137.
This distinction was basic to Aristotle’s ethics, and was important both for Hegel andfor Marx’s critique of Hegel on the issue of transformative praxis and the problematicof “the end of prehistory.” The terms appear frequently in the literature of political
ecology, including, for example in the writings of James O’Connor and other contributors to Capitalism Nature Socialism, the most important English-language journalof political ecology. Bookchin has made the concepts more central to his thought;
however, he presents no detailed theoretical discussion of the relationship between
the two realms. In his essay “Thinking Ecologically,” he states that by “second nature”
he means “humanity’s development of a uniquely human culture, a wide variety of
institutionalized human communities, an effective human technics, a richly symbolic
language, and a carefully managed source of nutriment.” See The Philosophy of Social
Ecology (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1990), 162. He describes “first nature” as thelarger natural world from which second nature is “derived” and states that “the realquestion . . . is how second nature is derived from first nature” (163). He also posits athird natural realm, which he calls “free nature”; however, it is not an existent sphere

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but rather a possibility in a future ecological society that would constitute “a naturethat could reach the level of conceptual thought” (182).
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:42.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1:117.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1:119.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 435.
One of the many similarities between the social geography of Reclus and that of
Kropotkin lies in the strongly bioregional flavor of each. Myrna Breitbart points outthat the latter “believed that it was necessary to reestablish a sense of community andlove of place. Rootedness in a particular environment would foster greater humaninteraction and a more intimate relationship with one’s surroundings.” Myrna Breitbart,“Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Geographer,” in Geography, Ideology and Social Concern, ed.
David Stoddart (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), 140.
Ibid.
See Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (New York and London: Hafner, 1949),
chapters 14–17.
Ellsworth Huntington argues that there is “a close adjustment between life and its
inorganic environment” and that factors such as “soil, climate, relief,” and “position
in respect to bodies of water” all “combine to form a harmonious whole” in affecting
human society; The Human Habitat (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1927), 16–17. It turns
out that for Huntington this “harmonious whole” dictates racial hierarchy, since “racialdifferences” in areas such as “inherent mental capacity” are caused by the various
natural factors, especially climate. See “Climate and the Evolution of Civilization,” in
The Evolution of the Earth and Its Inhabitants (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1918), 148. Elsewhere he seeks to defend his racialist conclusions by arguing (or moreaccurately, speculating) that climate has had an enormous influence on inheritancethrough its effects on “migration, racial mixture, and natural selection,” and perhaps
even “mutations.” See Civilization and Climate (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1915), 3.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 2:91.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: The Universal Geography, trans. Augustus
Henry Keane (London: H. Virtue, 1876–94), 1:38.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society,” in this volume, 110.
Thomas Berry, “The Viable Human,” in Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights
to Radical Ecology, 3rd ed., Michael Zimmerman et al., eds. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.:
Prentice Hall, 2001), 178.
Elisée Reclus, “The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society,” in this volume, 110.
Ibid. The issue of the central role of ecological crisis in societal decline and collapse
is a crucial one in world history that has been generally neglected by historians until
recently. For a general overview see Clive Ponting, A New Green History of the World:
The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’une montagne (Arles: Actes Sud, 1998), 224–25.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 526.

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Ibid. In his view, “when man forms some loftier ideal as regards his action on the earth,
he always perfectly succeeds in improving its surface, although he allows the scenery
to retain its natural beauty” (527).
Elisée Reclus, “On Vegetarianism,” in this volume, 161.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 527.
Elisée Reclus, “The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society,” in this volume, 110.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’une montagne, 221.
See Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996).
For an overview of Charbonneau’s work, see John P. Clark, “Bernard Charbonneau:
Regionalism and the Politics of Experience,” Capitalism Nature Socialism 51 (2002):
41–48. For a very useful comparison of these two bioregional thinkers, see Daniel
Cérézuelle, “Wendell Berry et Bernard Charbonneau, critiques de l’industrialisation
de l’agriculture,” in Encyclopédie de l’Agora, January 29, 2003, at http://agora.qc.ca/
reftext.nsf/Documents/Agriculture–Wendell_Berry_et_Bernard_Charbonneau_critiques_de_par_Daniel_Cerezuelle.
For example, George Sessions claims that social ecologists “have yet to demonstrate anappreciation of, and commitment to, the crucial ecological importance of wilderness
and biodiversity protection.” See “Wilderness: Back to Basics,” interview by JoAnn
McAllister, in The Trumpeter 11 (Spring 1994): 66. Yet a dialectical position that sees
humanity as “the self-consciousness of the earth,” interprets history as the movement
toward the realization of a “free nature,” and conceives of the earth in dialectical terms
as a unity-in-diversity is uniquely capable of dealing theoretically with these important issues. Steve Chase has presented a very circumspect analysis of the neglect ofwilderness issues by Bookchin and many other social ecologists, and of the need forattention to these issues from a social ecological perspective. See “Whither the Radical
Ecology Movement?” in Defending the Earth: A Dialogue between Murray Bookchin andDave Foreman, Steve Chase, ed. (Boston: South End Press, 1991).
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 529.
Ibid.
This raises an important issue not only for Reclus, but also for social ecology. While
humanity can and ought to make a unique contribution to the emergence of greater
freedom and creativity in nature, this contribution cannot presumably be limited apriori to the attainment of its own nondominating self-realization and to creativeinteraction with the natural milieu in a way that respects the integrity of nature. At
this point in the history of the earth, one of the central ecological questions is the way
in which human beings can reorganize society so that its impact on large areas of theearth can be reduced and finally minimized. A stronger conception of “nondomination”
is needed: one that recognizes the need for the earth to have a sphere of ecological
freedom and evolutionary creativity guided neither by human self-interest nor byhuman rationality.
Elisée Reclus, “The Progress of Mankind” in Contemporary Review 70 (July–December1896): 782.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 526.
Ibid.
Ibid. The same idea is stated in “Progress,” in this volume, 231.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 517–18.
Ibid., 518.
Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’une montagne, 134.

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Julius Haast, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, and Oscar Peschel, Ausland (February 19,
1876), quoted in Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 519.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:300.
Ibid.
A century later, there are still right-wing “cornucopian” pro-natalist ideologists, but
reactionary thought has generally shifted to an anti-natalist, population-control position. For an extensive critique of Garrett Hardin, perhaps the most famous and influential exponent of such a perspective, see John P. Clark, “The Tragedy of Common
Sense; Part One: The Power of Myth” in Capitalism Nature Socialism 21:3 (2010): 35–54;
and “The Tragedy of Common Sense; Part Two: From Ideology to Historical Reality”
in Capitalism Nature Socialism 21:4 (2010): 34–49.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:332.
Ibid.
Ibid., 5:415.
Ibid., 5:416.
Ibid., 5:418.
Elisée Reclus, “On Vegetarianism,” in this volume, 157.
Ibid., 157–58.
Ibid., 158.
Ibid., 160. Reclus’ arguments constitute an eloquent defense of the humane treatment of animals, but they are far from conclusive as a proof of the moral necessityof unconditional vegetarianism. He presents an excellent case for the immorality ofsystems of food production that inflict continual suffering on animals and callously
ignore the moral relevance of the attainment of goods by these beings and their selfrealization. His critique is therefore quite pertinent to much of today’s meat industry,
with its factory farming and mechanized mass production. On the other hand, hedoes not demonstrate that no possible form of animal husbandry or hunting can be
carried out in a humane manner. It is interesting that Reclus never subjects traditional
hunting societies to the scathing criticism he directs toward the modern meat industry.
Unfortunately, he fails to explore the possibility of morally relevant differences between
the two systems.
Letter to Richard Heath (no specific date, 1884) in Correspondance (Paris: Librairie
Schleicher Frères, 1911), 2:325.
Elisée Reclus, “The Extended Family,” in this volume, 136–37.
Letter to Mlle. de Gérando (December. 8, 1903) in Correspondance (Paris: Alfred Costes,
1925), 3:267.
Letter to an unknown recipient, ibid., 3:323.
See Carol Gilligan, “Moral Orientation and Moral Development,” in Women and Moral
Theory, eds. Kay Kittay and Diana Meyers (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1987),
19–33. According to Gilligan, “all human relationships, public and private, can be characterized both in terms of equality and in terms of attachment, and . . . both inequalityand detachment constitute grounds for moral concern. Since everyone is vulnerable
to both oppression and abandonment, two moral visions—one of justice and one ofcare—recur in human experience” (20). This important essay develops further the
ethical implications of her groundbreaking work, In a Different Voice: Psychological
Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).

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A Philosophy of Progress

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By comparison, utopian thinkers such as Blake, Fourier, and Morris sometimes appear
much more an-archic, in the sense of being capable of questioning every arche—every“unquestionable” principle and every “historically necessary” form of domination.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 218.
Elisée Reclus, Evolution and Revolution (London: W. Reeves, n.d.), 16. This brief pamphlet has been reprinted numerous times in many languages over the past century,and translations of it have unfortunately been the main source of knowledge of Reclus’
political ideas for non-Francophone readers. While its old-fashioned rhetorical qualities perhaps once made it compelling, it lacks serious social analysis and conveys littleof Reclus’ enduring significance.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 216.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873),
440.
Ibid., 443–44.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 5:302. This
statement and some of those cited previously are reminiscent of Marx’s view that“where Nature is too lavish, she ‘keeps him in hand, like a child in leading-strings.’ She
does not impose upon him any necessity to develop himself.” Karl Marx, Capital: A
Critique of Political Economy (New York: International Publishers, 1967), 1:513.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:302.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 188.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 216.
Elisée Reclus, “The Progress of Mankind,” in The Contemporary Review 70 (July–Dec.
1896): 766. There are still enthusiastic admirers of the Aeta culture. For example, in1998 the organization fPcN (friends of Peoples close to Nature) produced the shortfilm Save the Savages, which it describes as “a story about the last free Savages in thePhilippines.” The film extols the virtues of the Aeta’s traditional cooperative way oflife and depicts its near destruction by logging and mining activities.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 214.
Ibid., 216.
Letter to the editors of Huelga General, an anarchist journal in Spain (December 4, 1901)
in Correspondance, 3:238–40.
Elisée Reclus, “The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society,” in this volume, 111.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 218.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 2:102.
Ibid.
Ibid., 2:103.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 2:104.
Ibid., 3:178.
Ibid., 3:182–84. A very similar process, he says, was used later by Constantine to “kill”
Christianity (182).
Ibid., 3:211–12.
Ibid.
Ibid., 3:212.

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There are striking convergences on certain points between Reclus’ thought andBuddhism in particular. For example, in his History of a Brook, he states in terms reminiscent of the Buddhist teaching of anatta that “much like a flowing river, we change
at every moment; our life renews itself from minute to minute, and if we believe that
we remain the same, this is nothing more than an illusion of the mind.” Histoire d’un
Ruisseau (Arles: Actes Sud, 1995), 204. The parallel with Heraclitus, the founder ofWestern dialectic, is also evident.
Letter to Paul Gsell, also published in La Revue (December 1, 1905), in Correspondance,
3:324. Reclus also at times recognizes that such an outlook is not what is popularly
meant by the term “religion.” See his letter to an unknown recipient (undated), ibid.,
3:322–23.
Letter to M. Roth (no specific date, 1904), ibid., 3:286.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 3:388.
Ibid., 3:387.
Elisée Reclus, “Préface à la Conquête du pain de Pierre Kropotkine,” http://kropot.free.
fr/Reclus-PrefConq.htm.
Elisée Reclus, Evolution and Revolution, 14.
Elisée Reclus, “The Progress of Mankind,” 762.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 211.
Ibid., 232.
Ibid. Reclus’ concept can be compared in some ways with the early Marx’s idea oflabor as the conscious self-creative activity of humanity and the expression of its“species-being.”
Ibid., 233.
Ibid.
Indeed, an authentic holism, which must be a dialectical holism, is always a holism/
anti-holism. Developing phenomena always have both a holistic and an anti-holistic
moment. Radically dialectical social theory in particular stresses the fact that in a dialectical development there is always a supplement, a remainder, a surplus, that whichcannot be reduced to an element of any supposed “synthesis.”Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:iii.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Alan Ritter, Anarchism: A Theoretical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1980), 3. While Ritter’s introduction of this concept is very helpful, he unfortunately
makes no reference to Reclus and other relevant figures but concentrates almost exclusively on the thought of Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. In fact, several ofthese thinkers had a very limited conception of the meaning of “communal individuality,” and none of them contributed as much to developing such an idea as did Reclus.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 435.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 225.
Ibid., 231.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth: A Descriptive History of the Phenomena of the Life of the Globe,trans. B.B. Woodward (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1871), 567.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “Anarchy: By an Anarchist,” Contemporary Review 45 (January–June1884): 640.

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Elisée Reclus, “Progress of Mankind,” 75.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants: The Universal Geography, trans. Augustus
Henry Keane (London: H. Virtue, 1876–94), 19:iv.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:384–85.
Elisée Reclus, “Nouvelle proposition pour la suppression de l’ère chrétienne,” inQuelques écrits (Paris and Brussels: Pensée et Action, 1956), 31.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 221.
Ibid., 223.
Ibid.
Ibid.

5

Anarchism and Social Transformation

1

Yves Lacoste, review of Espace et pouvoir, by Paul Claval, and Pour une géographie dupouvoir, by Claude Raffestin, in Elisée Reclus: Un géographe libertaire, ed. Yves Lacoste,
Hérodote 22 (1981): 157.
H. Roorda van Eysinga, “Avant tout anarchiste,” in Hem Day, Elisée Reclus (1830–1905):
Savant et Anarchiste (Paris and Brussels: Cahiers Pensée et Action, 1956),, quoted inMarie Fleming, The Geography of Freedom: The Odyssey of Elisée Reclus (Montréal: Black
Rose Books, 1988), 20. It is quite appropriate that after Reclus’ death his friend Jules
Verne used Reclus as the model for an anarchist hero in one of his novels, Les naufragés
du “Jonathan” (The Survivors of the Jonathan). Peter Costello, in his biography Jules
Verne: Inventor of Science Fiction (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1978), notes thatthe hero is “a philosophical anarchist and atheist called the Kaw-Djer, the Benefactor,
by the natives,” who after a shipwreck becomes the leader of the remote Hoste Island
off the coast of South America and “finds himself having to organize a society, which
he detests doing” (210). After solving numerous problems, he finally gives up power“and sets off to the even more remote island of Cape Horn, to live on the lighthouse
which he has built there, to prevent further wrecks” (ibid.). Costello remarks that thecharacter of the Benefactor seems to be based on Reclus, who had indeed tried tobring utopian anarchism to South America. Interestingly, between Hoste Island andCape Horn Island lies L’Hermite Island, which, according to Costello, is named after
an “anarchist explorer.” Should this implausible story be true, the name of explorer inquestion would apparently mean “hermit” (l’ermite in French) and would be curiously
reminiscent of an anarchist explorer whose name means “recluse.”
Paul Reclus, “Biographie d’Elisée Reclus,” in Les Frères Elie et Elisée Reclus (Paris: LesAmis d’Elisée Reclus, 1964), 51.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “Préface à la Conquête du pain de Pierre Kropotkine,” http://kropot.free.
fr/Reclus-PrefConq.htm.
Ibid.
See John P. Clark, “What Is Anarchism?” in The Anarchist Moment: Reflections on Culture,
Nature and Power (Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1984), 117–40.
Letter to M. Felix, professor at the New University of Brussels (February 1896) inCorrespondance (Paris: Alfred Costes, 1925), 3:194.
Ibid.
The concept of “ordered anarchy” later became well known for its use in connection with various African stateless societies. See, for example, E.E. Evans-Pritchard,

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Evans-Pritchard (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), 296.
Elisée Reclus, “Anarchy: By an Anarchist,” Contemporary Review 45 (January–June1884): 628. Although this phrase is often attributed to Marx, the formulation goes far
back in the history of communitarian thought and was popularized by the so-called
utopian socialists, especially Saint-Simon and his followers. It becomes very important
for the communist anarchists, for whom an immediate movement toward distribution
according to need is a central point of contention with both Marxists and “collectivist” anarchists. Reclus’ own ethical communism was almost instinctual, going backto early religious influences that later conditioned his political and philosophicaloutlook. He expresses this outlook well in one of his letters: “Having received everything from others, I want to give everything back to them.” Letter to an unknown
recipient (undated) in Correspondance (Paris: Schleicher Frères, 1911), 3:323.
Ibid., 1:285.
Paul Reclus quotes from the stenographic record of the Congress of the League for
Peace and Freedom in Les Frères Elie et Elisée Reclus, 56.
Letter to Elie Reclus (no date) in Correspondance, 1:285.
Letter to Georges Renard (June 2, 1888), ibid., 2:441–42.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 138.
Ibid., 140.
Ibid., 141.
Ibid.
Ibid., 150.
Ibid., 152.
Reclus’ shortcomings in this area are typical of revolutionaries of his era, and especiallyof those anarchists who looked to an uprising of workers and peasants as the sourceof coming social transformation. Bakunin is a much more extreme case of this uncritical approach, which had disastrous effects on the historical anarchist movement. See
John P. Clark, “The Noble Lies of Power: Bakunin and the Critique of Ideology,” inRights, Justice, and Community, ed. Creighton Peden and John K. Roth (Lewiston, N.Y.:
Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), 25–34, for an analysis of this strain in Bakunin’s thought.
I conclude there that his “unrealistic faith in revolutionary vanguards led him to overestimate the ‘instinctual’ revolutionary potential of the masses in the most extreme,and often dangerous manner. While there are many examples of his exaggerated hopes
for various national groups, classes, and social strata, perhaps the most striking is his
idealization of the bandits. His claims for the revolutionary role of brigands is basedon no analysis of their actual place in society. The question of the nature of their consciousness, values, and character structures is ignored, as is the problem of how theymight adapt to a cooperative order” (32–33).
Letter to Richard Heath (February 18, 1883) in Correspondance, 2:279.
Letter to Mlle. de Gérando (April 1, 1889), ibid., 2:447.
Letter to Richard Heath (June 2, 1903), ibid., 3:258.
Letter to Lilly Zibelin-Wilmerding (June 7, 1892), ibid., 3:118.
Ibid.
Letter to editors of Sempre Avanti, an Italian journal (June 28, 1892), ibid., 3:120–21.
A more critical anarchist view would see the anarchist terrorists as the early vanguardof the society of the spectacle who helped found a tradition of “Left Spectacularism.”
They were impatient with the slow evolutionary work of social and natural regeneration,
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revolutionary change of a liberatory nature. Instead, they adopted the tactic of thedramatic gesture, which was to catalyze in some magical way vast processes of socialtransformation. Left Spectacularism, though only rarely taking on a terroristic form,
became the bane of the New Left of the 1960s.
From a letter (August 1889) found in the Archives de la Préfecture de Police in Paris,
quoted in Marie Fleming, The Geography of Freedom, 151.
Letter to Richard Heath (no date) in Correspondance, 2:414–15. I am reminded of acontrasting anarchist view expressed by the libertarian writer and activist Karl Hess.
In a conversation in the early 1970s, he described discussions of the problem of theftin the poor neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where he lived at the time. Some, hesaid, defended theft on the part of community members (even from the community’s
cooperative store) on the grounds that “stealing is the privilege of the poor.” He argued
against this view on the grounds that the consequences of theft are destructive for thecommunity and that in reality “stealing is the privilege of the rich.”
Ibid.
Letter to Jean Grave (Nov. 29, 1891), ibid., 3:97.
Text attached to letter to Jean Grave, ibid.
In one of his letters, Reclus touches on this problem in relation to individual acts ofpropaganda of the deed. However, he does not attempt there to offer a solution. See
letter to Sempre Avanti (June 28, 1892), ibid., 3:121.
Elisée Reclus, “Anarchy: Extracts from a lecture delivered at South Place Institute,London on Monday, July 29th, 1895,” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Joseph
Ishill (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927), 350.
On this subject, he agrees with Kropotkin, who saw the two greatest periods of advancement in human history to be those of the Greek polis and the medieval free cities. See
Peter Kropotkin, “The State: Its Historic Role,” in Selected Writings on Anarchism andRevolution, ed. Martin A. Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970), 233. It should
be observed that Reclus was in some ways inadequately critical in his assessment of
the polis. Although the existence of such institutions as slavery and patriarchy do
not negate the achievements of Greek democracy, it would be naïve to idealize thatsystem and to neglect the ways in which the political realm was dialectically shapedby its interaction with other elements of the social whole. In a social system foundedon hierarchy, domination, and exploitation, all institutions reflect the fundamental
distribution of power, however mystified the effects of that power may be. After almosta century much the same uncritical approach to the polis appears in Bookchin’s assessment of Greek democracy. For an analysis of this problem, see John P. Clark, “Beyond
the limits of the city: A communitarian anarchist critique of libertarian municipalism,” in The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (New York andLondon: Bloomsbury, 2013), especially “The Social and the Political,” 261–64.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 2:321.
Ibid., 2:335
Ibid., 3:519. Reclus also praises the Icelanders for maintaining “the principle of land to
the peasants” in a rather equitable manner over a period of many centuries (515).
Ibid., 3:519. In referring to “all the inhabitants,” Reclus conspicuously fails to mention
the exclusion of women from these processes.
Ibid.
Peter Kropotkin makes similar points but presents a much more detailed discussion in
Mutual Aid, in which he devotes two chapters to the medieval communes, cities, and

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guilds. See chapters 5 and 6, “Mutual Aid in the Medieval City,” in Mutual Aid: A Factor
of Evolution (Boston: Porter Sargent, n.d.), 153–222.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 4:18.
Ibid., 4:18–19.
Ibid., 4:272.
Ibid., 4:14.
Ibid., 4:16.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “Culture and Property,” in this volume, 203.
Ibid.
Ibid., 203–4.
In view of his interest in municipal institutions, it is surprising that Reclus did not place
more emphasis on the importance of the emergence of direct democracy in the Parisiansections during the Revolution. The classic anarchist interpretation of this chapter inthe history of radical democracy appears in Kropotkin’s history of the Revolution. See
chapter 24, “The ‘Districts’ and the ‘Sections’ of Paris,” and chapter 25, “The Sectionsof Paris under the New Municipal Law,” in The Great French Revolution (Montréal: Black
Rose Books, 1989), 180–94.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:28.
Ibid., 5:248. From this passage and other discussions it is clear that Reclus’ municipalist
ideas differ considerably from Bookchin’s “libertarian municipalism” and proposals
of some other social ecologists that anarchists seek offices in existing municipalities.
He would find the idea of anarchists exercising political power within municipalities
that are organized undemocratically and that are part of centralized nation-states tobe contrary to his revolutionary position regarding social change. He would apply
his criticisms of cooperatives and intentional communities to such reformist efforts(perhaps in even stronger terms), and would not be sympathetic to the argument thatsuch electoral activity could help create a revolutionary situation in the future.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “The Evolution of Cities,” in this volume, 173.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:37–76.
Elisée Reclus, “The History of Cities,” in this volume, 180.
Ibid., 182.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:145.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 148–49.
Elisée Reclus, “Preface” to La civilisation et les grands fleuves historiques, by Léon
Metchnikoff (Paris: Hachette, 1889), quoted in Marie Fleming, The Anarchist Way toSocialism: Elisée Reclus and Nineteenth-Century European Anarchism (London: Croom
Helm, 1979), 150.
Elisée Reclus, “Anarchy: By an Anarchist,” 637.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 154.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:140.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 153.
Ibid.
Letter to Richard Heath (November 12, 1902) in Correspondance, 3:250–51.
Ibid., 3:258–59.
Letter to Reclus’ sister Louise (no specific date, 1859), ibid., 1:206.

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Letter to Clara Koettlitz (April 12, 1895), ibid., 3:182.
Reclus and Kropotkin are similar in using communitarian and organicist terminology
extensively in describing social phenomena. However, Kropotkin’s depiction of the
future society is sometimes more strongly organicist. For example, he states that “anew form of society is germinating” and that this society “will not be crystallized into
certain unchangeable forms, but will continually modify its aspect, because it will
be a living, evolving organism.” See Peter Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist (NewYork: Dover, 1971), 398–99. Furthermore, although both thinkers saw the need for theorganic growth of a new society in free and loving personal relationships, Kropotkin
was more optimistic than was Reclus about the organic development of cooperative institutions alongside the dominant authoritarian ones. See his two chapters on“Mutual Aid Amongst Ourselves,” in Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 223–92. In
Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Kropotkin criticizes socialist papers that “often have thetendency to become mere annals of complaints about existing conditions,” while whatis needed is “a record of those symptoms which everywhere announce the coming of a
new era, the germination, the growing revolt against antiquated institutions” (418). He
concludes, in a statement that might well be pondered by advocates of social change inour own day, that “it is hope, not despair, which makes successful revolutions” (ibid.).
Reclus is not mentioned, for example, in Joel Spring’s A Primer of Libertarian Education(New York: Free Life Editions, 1975). In fact, one can review much of the extensive
literature on libertarian, progressive, “open,” and “free” education without finding any
reference to his ideas.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:439.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873),
529.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:134.
Elisée Reclus, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, 529.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:439.
Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring
Forth to the Ecozoic Era—A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 1992), 255. Elisée Reclus, Histoire d’une montagne (Arles: Actes Sud,
1998), 223.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:439.
Letter to Henri Roorda van Eysinga (November 4, 1897) in Correspondance, 3:203.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:440.
Ibid.
Letter to Mlle. de Gérando (October 8, 1881) in Correspondance, 2:235.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Evolution, la révolution et l’idéal anarchique (Paris: P.V. Stock, 1898), 231.

6

The Critique of Domination

1

Elisée Reclus, “Anarchy: By an Anarchist,” in Contemporary Review 45 (January–June1884): 630–31.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 193–94.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

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Ibid.
Ibid., 194.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 147.
Ibid., 146.
Ibid., 146–47.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 192.
Ibid.
Ibid., 196.
Ibid.
Ibid., 197.
Ibid., 198
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 5:304.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 190.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Béatrice Giblin, “Elisée Reclus et les colonisations,” in Elisée Reclus: Un géographe libertaire, ed. Yves Lacoste, Hérodote 22 (1981): 57. Reclus does not seem to consider the
possibility that under certain conditions the multiplication and growth of “colonies of
population” might eventually amount to imperialism and even cultural genocide.
Ibid., 67.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 5:118.
Ibid., 5:219.
Ibid., L’Homme et la Terre, 5:485.
The point, of course, is that Reclus anticipated Wittfogel’s famous application of
the concept of Oriental Despotism to the Soviet State. See Karl Wittfogel, Oriental
Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1964).
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 199.
Ibid. Reclus does not use the terms, but he would certainly see such dangers in reformist
calls for “social democracy” or “social welfare” policies.
Ibid., 200.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:258.
Ibid., 6:256.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “Culture and Property,” in this volume, 205.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:80.
Elisée Reclus, A Voyage to New Orleans, ed. and trans. John P. Clark and Camille Martin(Enfield, N.H.: Glad Day Books, 2004), 58.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:257.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 5:287.
Ibid.

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Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, “Progress,” in this volume, 228.
Elisée Reclus, “The Feeling for Nature in Modern Society,” in this volume, 108–9.
Elisée Reclus, To My Brother the Peasant, in this volume, 117.
Elisée Reclus, “Quelques mots sur la propriété,” in Almanach du Peuple pour 1873 (StImier: Le Locle, 1873), 133.
Elisée Reclus, To My Brother the Peasant, in this volume, 117.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:326.
Elisée Reclus, To My Brother the Peasant, in this volume, 118.
Michel Bakounine et les Conflits dans l’Internationale 1872, Bakounine: Oeuvres Complète,ed. Arthur Lehning (Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1975), 3:204.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:429.
Ibid., 6:430.
Ibid.
Ibid., 6:324.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, A Voyage to New Orleans, 50.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:106.
Ibid., 6:107.
Ibid.
Ibid., 6:108.
Peter Kropotkin, “Elisée Reclus,” in Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam, ed. Joseph Ishill(Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1927), 60.
Letter to Mlle. Clara Koettlitz (April 12, 1895) in Correspondance (Paris: Librairie
Schleicher Frères, 1911), 3:183.
Letter to Lilly Zibelin-Wilmerding (September, 1896?), ibid., 3:196.
Elisée Reclus, “Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal,” in this volume, 144.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 188–89.
Ibid., 189.
Ibid., 188.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:254. This theme has now become commonplace insocial ecological thought. Bookchin discusses it in general terms, following Mumford,
who analyzed it at much greater length and with considerably more richness of detailin his account of domestication. See Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom: The
Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy (Palo Alto, Calif.: Cheshire Books, 1982), 52–54
and 57–61, and Lewis Mumford, Technics and Human Development (New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1967), esp. chapter 7, “Garden, Home, and Mother,” 142–62.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 1:255.
Ibid., 1:258.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1:270.
Elisée Reclus, “The Modern State,” in this volume, 195.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

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Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:439.
Ibid.
Ibid., 6:492.
Ibid.
In a letter of 1897, he comments that “I have often spent the night in the woods or onbeaches; often I have been satisfied with bread and water, and if official morality had
not threatened me with imprisonment, I would not have been afraid to live in complete
nudity.” Letter to the editor of La Vie Naturelle (February 6, 1897) in Correspondance,
3:197.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:489.
Letter to Henri Roorda van Eysinga (March 16, 1891) in Correspondance, 3:90.
Ibid.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:486–87.
Letter to Henri Roorda van Eysinga (March 16, 1891) in Correspondance, 3:90.
See Leigh Summers, Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset (Oxford: Berg,
2001); and Valerie Steele, The Corset: A Cultural History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2001).
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:488.
Letter to Henri Roorda van Eysinga (March 16, 1891) in Correspondance, 3:91.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:489.
Letter to an unknown recipient (July 18, 1892) in Correspondance, 3:122.
Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la Terre, 6:418.

7

The Legacy of Reclus: Liberty, Equality, Geography

1

Is it coincidental that the area of the land mass closest to the center of the image iseast-central Africa? This was, of course, the place of origin of the human race.
Some of the most incisive analysis along these lines has been done by Joel Kovel. For his
account of how racism is related to certain transhistorical aspects of human nature andto other historically situated social institutions, see White Racism: A Psychohistory (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1984). A brilliant analysis of the interaction between
capitalism, the state, and patriarchy in the formation of subjectivity in a society of
domination is found in The Age of Desire: Reflections of a Radical Psychoanalyst (NewYork: Pantheon Books, 1981). He presents an analysis of the quest to transcend egoic
selfhood and its relation to politics in History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophyof Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), and finally, in The Enemy of Nature (London
and New York: Zed Books, 2007) he demonstrates how the global capitalist systemconstitutes the ultimate obstacle to the flourishing of humanity and nature.

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1

Jules Marcou (1824–98) was a French geologist who did extensive study of the Jura
Mountains and North America. He produced geological maps of the United States,
the British provinces of North America, and the world, and cofounded the Museum of
Comparative Zoology.
Characters in The Leatherstocking Tales, a series of historical novels by James Fenimore
Cooper.
The alcabala was a general sales tax established in Spain in the Middle Ages. Over the
centuries, it increased from 5 percent to as much as 20 percent. It was at times perhaps

23Notes4257

the largest single source of revenue for the crown but was notoriously unpopular andis thought to have had a detrimental effect on industry and trade.
Count Rumford (1753–1814), born Benjamin Thompson in Massachusetts, was a scientist, inventor, nutritionist, and social reformer who, because of British sympathies,
left for Great Britain in 1776. Rumford is primarily known for his work on the natureof heat, for his improvements to fireplaces, and for playing a large role in founding theRoyal Institution of Great Britain in 1800.

10Anarchy1

The anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–65) is usually credited withpopularizing the term and first associating it with a large-scale social movement.
In Gargantua and Pantagruel (Book 1, Chapter 57), Rabelais says of the inhabitants of
the Abbey of Thélème that “their lives were governed not by laws, statutes, or rules, butaccording to their own volition and free will [vouloir et franc arbitre].” François Rabelais,
Gargantua et Pantagruel (Paris: G. Jeune, 1957), 1:142.
One of the best known of these philosophical and literary utopias is La Citta del Sole:
Dialogo Poetico / The City of the Sun: A Poetical Dialogue, trans. Daniel J. Donno (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1981), by Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639).
In July of 1830, Lafayette, recently named commandant of the National Guard, greeted
the Duke of Orléans, the new king, with the words, “Here is the best of republics!”
Despite these rousing words, Lafayette soon became disillusioned with the new regime
and resigned his post.
The French working class fought for the Republic in the revolution of 1848, only tohave its interests ignored by the new bourgeois regime, which nevertheless thanked theworkers for their three months of misery on its behalf. The regime crushed a workers’
rebellion in June of that year.
Hugo’s words are from “A Juvénal” in Les Châtiments, Œuvres Complètes de Victor Hugo,
vol. 4 (Paris: Hetzel-Quantin, 1882), 4:344.
The term “hierarchy” derives specifically from the Greek hieratikos, or “rule of the highpriest,” and ultimately from hier, “sacred,” and archia, rule.
Timur Lenk, Tartar conqueror of southern and western Asia, who ruled Samarkand
from 1369 to 1405.
Reclus refers to Descartes’ strategy of methodological skepticism in which one begins
by doubting everything, after which knowledge can be reconstituted “scientifically”
and with certitude, founded on “clear and distinct” ideas.
Reclus says, “le peuple choisi des Musantes.”
John Huss (1369?–1415) was a Bohemian religious reformer and martyr.
Giuseppe Ferrari (1812–76) was an Italian philosopher, historian, and political activist.
He wrote The Philosophy of Revolution (1851) and The History of Revolution (1858).
The Icarians were followers of the French utopian socialist Etienne Cabet (1788–1856),
who was influenced by the British utopian Robert Owen. Cabet’s Voyage en Icarie (1840)
inspired a large movement to create Icarian communities. A disastrous attempt wasmade to create a vast colony on the Red River in Texas in 1848. Later communities
were established in Nauvoo, Illinois, and Corning, Iowa, with remnants surviving until
1898.

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Local name for several birds of the family Cracidae, found in Guiana. They are also
called curassows.

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The Agami Heron, Agamia agami, is sometimes considered the most beautiful of all New
World herons. Its range is in tropical lowlands from southeast Mexico south on the
Pacific slope to Ecuador and on the Atlantic slope to northern Bolivia and Amazonian
Brazil. It is noted for its reclusive nature and relatively inaccessible habitat. See Emmet
Reid Blake, Manual of Neotropical Birds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).
Member of an Amerindian group of Quechua speakers, primarily in the Andean regionof South America.
The Fazokl or Fazogli is a region in the eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia.
It is located in the foothills of the Abyssinian plateau and is crossed by the Blue Nile.
The region was inhabited primarily by the Shangalla tribes, with later Funj and Arab
immigration.
Reclus cites “Letters from Egypt.” He is referring to Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and thePeninsula of Sinai, trans. Lenora and Joanna B. Horner (London, 1853) by Karl Richard
Lepsius (1810–84), a German philologist and Egyptologist.
Any of several jumping rodents of the family Dipodidae, with long hind legs and a large
tail.
Tribal people of the Tupian family of Central South America, including Brazilian
Amazonia.
A pastoral people of Sudan.
A state of northeast India.
The Sindh is a region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is now
one of the four provinces of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
2575–2150 b.c.e.
A wild sheep of the mountainous regions of Corsica and Sardinia.
Reclus says “other cetaceans”; however, the walrus is a pinnaped, not a cetacean.
Extinct large, long-horned wild oxen of the German forests.
Paul Pellisson-Fontanier (1624–93) was a French attorney and writer who was imprisoned in the Bastille.
Reclus says “l’homme policé.” The French thus has a connotation of being “policed” orsupervised.

12

Evolution, Revolution, and the Anarchist Ideal

1

Reclus’ meaning here is not entirely clear. At the time he was writing, Poland no longer
existed as a sovereign state, having been partitioned between Russia, Prussia, andAustria. The largest segment, of which Warsaw was the metropolis, consisted of the“Kingdom of Poland,” which suffered under Russian domination. Presumably, “the orderof Warsaw” means the autocratic imposition of order, as that through which the czarist
regime suppressed seething nationalism, revolutionary movements, and student unrestin Poland.
Reclus is apparently referring to the illusory quality of freedom of speech and contract
in a situation of vastly unequal power. In his time, the workers’ alleged “free and voluntary agreement” to the conditions of labor when they accepted employment was used
as a justification for strikebreaking and the destruction of labor organizations. Their“freedom” thus becomes a precondition for their misery and oppression.
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–64) was a German socialist leader. He is noted for his reformist views, particularly the idea that the working class could gain control of the state bymeans of universal suffrage and then transform the economy into a system of workers’
cooperatives. He was a major opponent of Marx in the socialist movement and was
the object of extensive criticism in Marx’s “Critique of the Gotha Program.”

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François Guizot (1787–1874) was a French statesman and historian.
Reclus was referring to a notorious event that had recently occurred in Paris. “On May
4, 1897, during peak shopping hours, a fire spread with astounding rapidity throughthe Bazar de la Charité, turning it into a huge inferno in which 117 people perished.
In the midst of the panic that broke out at the beginning of the disaster, a number oflives were saved through acts of bravery. On the other hand, several people from highsociety who were there presented a sad spectacle.” Roger Gonot, Elisée Reclus: Prophètede l’Idéal Anarchique (Pau, France: Editions Covedi, 1996), 73.
Juan Sebastian del Cano, the first circumnavigator of the earth. He sailed with Magellan,
and after the latter’s death, navigated the Victoria back to Spain, completing the circumnavigation in 1522.
The Vendôme Column was constructed to honor Napoléon I and his imperial army.
The statue of the emperor atop the Column was removed during the Restoration but
replaced by Louis-Philippe. Napoléon III later replaced this statue with a more imperial depiction of the emperor in a toga, which outraged republicans and radicals. Afterthe Paris Commune was declared, it was decided to destroy the column. On April
12, 1871, Félix Pyat proposed demolition, stating that the column “was a monumentof barbarism, a symbol of brute force and false glory, an affirmation of militarism, anegation of international law, a prominent insult to the conquered by their conquerors,a perpetual insult to one of the three great principles of the French Republic, fraternity.”
The column was destroyed on April 16. See Stewart Edwards, The Paris Commune 1871
(New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973), 300–303.
Reclus refers to “les conventions scélérates,” by which he means les lois scélérates, which
consisted of repressive “emergency regulations” passed in 1894 and 1895 against the
anarchists.

13

On Vegetarianism

1

Term used to refer to large meatpacking centers of the United States. It was first widelyused to refer to Cincinnati and later to Chicago.
The La Plata Basin was a center of the saladero industry. Saladeros were slaughterhouses
that bought cattle to produce jerked beef that was salted and dried in the sun.
See page 258, note 12.
Reclus refers to the retaliation by European forces against the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising against European imperialism in China in 1900. In June of that year, the conflict led
to the killing of scores of Europeans in Beijing, including the German ambassador. In
response, European troops went on a rampage, looting the city, slaughtering suspected
Boxers and beheading prisoners in public.
Reclus says “le lapin de garenne et le lapin de gouttière,” literally, “the wild rabbit and thegutter rabbit.” The latter refers ironically to the alley cat, “le chat de gouttière,” which
was used for food by the poor.
Reclus’ argument seems a bit confused here because he does not make it clear that
he is describing processes at the phylogenetic rather than the ontogenetic level. It is
certainly not always the case that the egg, fruit, or seed are produced when the organism that produces them no longer exits; however, on the level of the life of the species
they represent biologically the fulfillment of the organism’s reproductive role (though
this generalization still ignores the function of care that is sometimes required in thecase of the egg).
“All living things come from the egg.”

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14

The History of Cities

1
2

John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, n.d.), 28–29.
Auguste Barbier (1805–82) was a satirical poet and writer, and a member of the French
Academy. His poem “La cuve” is a rant against the evils and horrors of urban life. See
Auguste Barbier, “La cuve,” in Iambes et poèmes (Paris: P. Mascagna, 1840), 91–92.
See Victor Hugo, “A l’Arc de Triomphe” (Les voix intérieures), Œuvres poétiques, ed. Pierre
Albouy (Paris: Pléiade, 1964), 1:936–48.
A term applied to immigrants from northern France who settled in the Dropt Valley
and around Monségur after the Hundred Years’ War. During the nineteenth century
many gavaches came down from the mountains to work as “estivandiers,” or seasonal
workers, in wheat-producing areas.
Labonne, Annuaire du Club alpin, 1886. [Reclus’ note]
Ingolfur Arnarsson was the first settler of Iceland. After being banished from Norway
he set sail for Iceland. He brought along the posts from the high seat, or throne, of hishome in Norway. On sighting land, he threw the pillars into the sea and asked the gods
to wash them ashore at the appropriate spot for a settlement. He lost sight of the pillars
and built a farm on the southeast coast. The posts were finally located along the coastto the west, and the settlement was moved to a spot that was given the Norse name
“Reykjavik,” or “Bay of Smoke,” after the geothermal steam that rose there.
China was traditionally called “the Middle Kingdom” or “the Middle Flower” becauseof its supposed location at the center of the earth’s surface.
Gobert, le Gerotype. [Reclus’ note]
Later Stalingrad (1925–61), and now Volgograd.
J. G. Kohl, Die geographische Lage der Hauptstädte Europas. [Reclus’ note]Gomme, Village Communities, 48, 51; Green, The Making of England, 118. [Reclus’ note]This ancient city, now called Tell el-Farama, was one of Egypt’s most important ports.
Cartagena de Indias is a seaport on the northern coast of Colombia. Portobello, a minor
port on the eastern coast of Panama, was once a major center of the Spanish colonial
empire. Reclus correctly notes that Portobello declined relative to Cartagena, but it
was not because the former was directly displaced by the latter. It declined primarily
because the Spanish treasure fleet system, which made it a center of exchange of silver
from Peru and goods from Europe, had become obsolete by the eighteenth century.
Cartagena’s fortunes were affected to a much smaller degree.
The port of Athens.
Reclus overstates his point by using these particular examples. Cheyenne became aboomtown after the Union Pacific Railroad moved into Wyoming but experienced asevere decline when rail service was extended to Colorado, and Denver in particular.
Carson City also experienced a boom when the Comstock Lode silver deposits werediscovered but lapsed into two decades of depression when the mines were exhausted.
This was followed, however, by a new period of boom with the discovery of additionalgold, silver, and copper deposits in the area. Much of the history of Western boom
towns is outlined in Duane A. Smith’s Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, andMontana, 1859–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992). See also
Russell R. Elliot’s History of Nevada (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973).
V-shaped works, usually projecting from a fortified line.
Mile End Road and Whitechapel are in London’s East End, noted in the nineteenth
century for its poverty, crime, and industrial blight, in addition to its vibrant ethnicneighborhoods and radical politics.
Ch. Dufour, Bulletin de la Soc. Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, juin–sept. 1895, 145.
[Reclus’ note]

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Emile Vandervelde, L’Exode rural. [Reclus’ note]
The Garden City was an idea popularized by the town planner Sir Ebenezer Howard(1850–1928) and applied in several communities in England. The Garden City was
designed to express such values as human scale, efficiency, beauty, and social cooperation. With a park and public buildings at the center, a green belt at the circumference,and extensive public space, the community was to combine the best features of urban
and rural life. Howard’s ideas are best known from his book Garden Cities of To-morrow,ed. F.J. Osborn (London: Faber and Faber, 1946). This work was first published in 1898
as Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform.
The name given to certain East Slavic tribes who settled in northeastern Germany
during the late first millennium c.e. The name comes from the Old Slavic po, meaning“on the banks of” and “Laba,” the Slavic name for the Elba.
Dr. Tetzner, Globus, April 7, 1900. [Reclus’ note]
Lawrence Corthell, Revue Scientifique, June 27, 1896, 815. [Reclus’ note]
Chr. Sandler, Volks-Karten, 1. [Reclus’ note]Edmond Demolins, Les Français d’aujourd’hui, 106, 107. [Reclus’ note]
J. Denain-Darrays, Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Feb. 1, 1903. [Reclus’ note]

15

The Modern State

1

6

Reclus refers to Crete’s civil war of 1897 between the Greeks and Muslims. Six major
European powers (Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Great Britain, and Russia), in addition to Greece and Turkey, became involved in the conflict and ultimately imposed apeace agreement in conformity with their will.
Saint-Yves d’Alvaydra, La mission des Juifs, 41. [Reclus’ note]
Reclus is punning on taillable, which refers both to taxing and to cutting.
Gustave Geoffroy, L’Enfermé, 51. [Reclus’ note]
Reclus cites “Herbert Spencer, Introduction to Social Science, ch. V, 87.” There is, however,no such title. He is apparently referring to chapter 5 of Spencer’s The Study of Sociology(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961; reprint of the 1880 edition). There,
Spencer comments that “agencies established to get remedies for crying evils, are liable
to become agencies maintained and worked in a considerable degree, and sometimes
chiefly, for the benefit of those who reap income from them” (75).
Louis Vignon, La France en Algérie. [Reclus’ note]

16

Culture and Property

12
3Paul Gille, Société nouvelle, March 1988. [Reclus’ note]
Briot, Etudes sur l’économie alpestre. [Reclus’ note]
Hiram was king of Tyre and a contemporary of David and Solomon. According to tradition, Hiram was “Grand Master of all Masons,” and participated in the construction ofSolomon’s Temple. For this reason, he has been an important figure in the legendary
history of Freemasonry.
Large estate.
Arthur Young, an English agronomist, traveled through France on the eve of the French
Revolution.

19
20

21

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3
4
5

4
5
17

Progress

1

Gibbon, in the original, states: “We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusionthat every age of the world has increased and still increases the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue of the human race.” Edward Gibbon, The

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Anarchy, Geography, Modernity
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London and New York: Everyman’s Library, 1910),
3:519.
Havelock Ellis, The Nineteenth Century. [Reclus’ note]“Die Historie bekommt einen eigenthümlichen Reiz,” Weltgeschichte, Neunter Theil, II,4, 5, 6, etc. [Reclus’ note]
Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), perhaps the most famous German historian, is known
as a founder of the modern objective school of historical study, which focused on the
rigorous examination of primary sources. His social views were conservative andnationalistic.
M. Guyau, Morale d’Epicure, 153 et seq. [Reclus’ note] Jean-Marie Guyau (1854–88)
was French philosopher, poet, translator, and educator, known for his writings on
ethics, aesthetics, religion, and various philosophical topics. He gained many admirers,
including Nietzsche, before his early death.
Genesis I:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. [Reclus’ note]
Guyau, Morale d’Epicure, 157. [Reclus’ note]
Elie Metchnikoff. Etudes sur la nature humaine. [Reclus’ note]
Semper, Die Philippinen und ihre Bewohner; F. Blumentritt, Versuch einer Ethnographie derPhilippinen; Ergänzungsheft zu den Pet. Mit., No. 67. [Reclus’ note]
Reclus refers to the Philippine war for independence from the United States. The revolt
began in February 1899 and lasted for almost three years. During the war, large segments of the population were slaughtered in some provinces, and entire populationsof some towns were wiped out by battle and disease. This war has been systematicallyignored by mainstream historians. See Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the UnitedStates (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 305–15.
Alphonse Pinard, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, Dec. 1873. [Reclus’ note]
A. Bastian, Rechtszustände. [Reclus’ note]
Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago: The land of the orang-utan, and the birdof paradise. A narrative of travel, with studies of man and nature (New York: Harper andBrother, 1885), 598.
Islands of Asia west of New Guinea, north of Australia, south of the South China Sea;
these include Indonesia, Melanesia, and often the Philippines.
Unter den Kannibalen auf Borneo. [Reclus’ note]
Guillaume de Greef, Sociologie générale élémentaire, leçon XI, 39. [Reclus’ note]
De Baer, Herbert Spencer, etc. [Reclus’ note]
H. Drummond, Ascent of Man. [Reclus’ note]
A former kingdom including Naples (with lower Italy) and Sicily; it united with the
kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Reclus refers to several figures of his time who were associated with revolution. The firstis the well-known English Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824). In
1823, Byron sailed to Greece to devote his energies and resources to the cause of Greek
independence from Turkey. Lajos Kossuth (1802–94) was the leader of the Hungarian
movement for independence from Austria and the end of serfdom. He was presidentof the short-lived Hungarian Republic in 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–82) was an
Italian revolutionary and nationalist leader. He was major figure in Italian unification
and a popular hero. Alexander Herzen (1812–70) was a Russian revolutionary, journalist, and writer. He saw the Russian peasant communes as the precursor of futuresocialism.
The “Hundred Doors” refers to the “doors” of the numerous tombs in the Theban Valleyof the Kings in Egypt.

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25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34

263

See Chapter VI, Book 1. [Reclus’ note] Reclus refers to L’Homme et la Terre (Paris:
Librairie Universelle, 1905–8), 1:321–54.
Reclus has in mind the United States and its famous doctrine of “Manifest Destiny.”
According to this theory, the American state was preordained by God and history toextend its dominion westward from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1934), 1:189.
Ibid., 1:190.
Ibid., 1:189.
Ibid.
Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread. [Reclus’ note]
H. Taine, Philosophie de l’art dans les Pays-Bas. [Reclus’ note]
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 80. [Reclus’ note]
Elie Metchnikoff. [Reclus’ note]
Drummond, Ascent of Man, 101, 103. [Reclus’ note]Anna Forbes, Insulinde: Experiences of a Naturalist’s Wife in the Eastern Archipelago.
[Reclus’ note]“Misoneistes” are defined as “haters of innovation and change.”Bibliography

Those seeking additional primary and secondary materials on Reclus are directedto the Research on Anarchism Forum’s Elisée Reclus collection at http://raforum.
info/reclus/?lang=fr. It contains extensive materials, including an up-to-datebibliography of books and articles. Much useful material can also be found in
the Elisée Reclus collection of the Anarchy Archives at http://dwardmac.pitzer.
edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/reclus/reclus.html. The French journal Itinéraire
devoted a special issue in 1998 to Reclus that included an extensive listing of his
works in French.

Bakunin, Michael. La Polémique avec Mazzini: Ecrits et Matériaux. Part 1 of Michel Bakounine et
L’Italie 1875–1882, vol. 1 of Oeuvres Complètes de Bakounine. Edited by Arthur Lehning(Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1973).
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3 of Bakounine: Oeuvres Complètes, edited by Arthur Lehning (Paris: Editions Champ
Libre, 1975).
Barbier, Auguste. “La cuve.” In Iambes et poèmes (Paris: P. Mascagna, 1840).
Beck, Myrl E., Jr. “Comment” on “Elisée Reclus: Neglected Geologic Pioneer and First
Continental Drift Advocate.” Geology 7, no. 9 (1979): 418.
Becker, Heiner, et al., eds. Elisée Reclus, Itinéraire 14 (1998).
Berkland, James O. “Elisée Reclus: Neglected Geologic Pioneer and First Continental Drift
Advocate.” Geology 7, no. 4 (1979): 189–92.
â•…â•…â•… . “Reply” to “Comment” by Myrl E. Beck. Geology 7, no. 9 (1979): 418.
Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way to the Future (New York: Bell Tower, 1999).
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Ecology, edited by Michael Zimmerman et al. 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 2001).
Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996).
Blake, Emmet Reid. Manual of Neotropical Birds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).

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Harper and Brothers, 1881).
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IndexAcollas, Emile, 225
Aconcagua, Mount, 230
Acropolis, 175
Adour River, 169
advertising, 86, 108
aesthetics, 17, 20, 25–26, 32, 45, 86, 96,
158, 161, 177–80, 182, 230. See also
ethicsAeta, 38, 213–14, 247n11
affinity groups, 70, 72, 91
Africa, 170, 220, 249–50n10, 256n1
Agde, 170
agriculture, 20, 26–31, 63, 87, 93, 105,
107–7, 109, 113–19, 143–44, 165,
167–68, 170, 181, 201, 203–6, 241n5
Akkadians, 220
alcabala, 111, 256n3
Aleuts, 38, 214
Alexandria (Egypt), 171, 175
Algeria, 80, 199, 210
Alliance for Social Democracy, 57
Almannagja 62
Alps, 27, 63, 106, 110, 112, 168, 182, 203,
230
Amazonia, 215, 258n2, 258n7
Amboise, 167
America. See United States
Amos, 40
anarchism, 6–7, 9–10, 16–19, 25, 29,
35, 40–44, 46, 47, 49, 52–54, 63–64,
66–70, 82–83, 123–25, 130, 144. See
also anarchist movement; anarchy

anarchist movement, 13–14, 33, 54–60,
66–73, 97, 128, 152–54, 250n29, 250n35.
See also Alliance for Social Democracy;
anarchism; anarchy; International
Brotherhood
anarchy, 10, 30, 53–54, 61, 120–21,
129–30. See also anarchism; anarchist
movement
Andes Mountains, 133, 230
Angoulême, 167
animals, 18, 21, 29, 31–33, 45–46, 117,
132–37, 151, 156–62, 167, 188, 205, 218,
231, 233, 246n81. See also vegetarianism
anthropocentrism, 20–21, 27–28, 33
anti-anarchist laws, 154, 259n8
Antwerp, 169
Apennine Mountains, 27, 110
Aquitaine, 169
Arcachon, 169
Archimedes, 209
Arctic Ocean, 135
Ardennes, Belgian, 202
Ariège, 106
Ariège River, 168
Aristotle, 36, 45, 61, 72, 95, 212, 243n29
Arles, 170
Armenia, 220
Arnarsson, Ingolfur, 166, 260n6
Aryans, 135
Asia, 84–85, 139–40, 209, 257n8, 262n14
Assam, 134
Assyria, 140, 220

272

index

Athens, 61–62, 176, 178, 229, 260n14
Attila the Hun, 159
Aude River, 169, 170
Australia, 57, 105, 106, 135, 143, 151, 152,
184, 262n14
Austria, 187, 258n1, 261n1, 262n20
authoritarianism, 9, 10, 24, 41, 42, 46, 55,
56, 64, 65, 71, 78, 81, 88, 91, 95, 97, 100,
126, 128, 140, 141, 145, 175, 188, 189, 205,243n18, 253n75
authority, 41, 53, 63, 71–72, 92, 93, 122,
123, 124, 129, 130, 142, 144, 145, 188–89,
191, 198, 211, 221, 235
autonomy, 10, 46, 52, 63, 72, 191
Avignon, 170
Avre River, 192
Babylon, 163, 165, 175, 221
Bache, Vidal de la, 242n9
Bakunin, Mikhail, 14, 35, 55–57, 67, 70, 88,
248n46, 250n22
Balmat, Jacques, 230
Bamberg, 183
Barbier, Auguste, 164, 260n2
Barrow on Furness, 176
Basel, 168
Basques, 63, 204
Basses-Alpes (French department), 106
Bayreuth, 183
Béarn, 204
Beaucaire, 170
Beaumont-Trigant, Ermance, 12
Bedouins, 133
Beijing, 259n4
Belgium, 57, 152, 158, 181, 202
Bentham, Jeremy, 32
Berkland, James O., 240n1
Berlin, 9, 10, 143, 171
Berry, Thomas, 25, 71, 237n7, 241n4,
244n46
Berry, Wendell, 27, 245n57
Béziers, 170
Bible, 11, 123, 210, 211
biocentrism, 42
biodiversity, viii, 29, 245n58
bioregionalism, 23, 24, 27, 33, 244n36,
245n57
Bismarck, Otto von, 146, 149, 220
Blake, William, 247n1

Blanqui, Louis August, 191
Blaricum Community (Holland), 69
body, 20, 21, 45–46, 47, 49, 70–71, 95–97,
107, 184–85, 229, 232–33, 242n7
Boek, Carl, 216
Boétie, Étienne de la, 238n6
Bolivia, 258n2
Bookchin, Murray, 17–19, 21, 27, 241n6,243n29, 245n58, 251n37, 252n55, 255n77
Bordeaux, 167, 169, 170, 174
Borneo, 215
Borsodi, Ralph, 17, 241n5
Boston, 107
Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 213
Bourne, Randolph, 78
Boxer Rebellion, 158–59, 259n4
Brahmins, 41, 125, 135
Brazil, ix, 133, 135, 213, 224, 258n2, 258n7
Breitbart, Myrna, 244n36
Breton (language), 113
Brian, Clarisse, 12
Brook Farm, 153
Brunhes, Jean, 242n9
Brussels, 14–15, 120, 174
Budapest, 181
Buddha (Shakyamuni), 41, 43, 209
Buddhism, 41–42, 161, 210, 248n29
Buffalo, 178
bureaucracy, 77–78, 88, 100, 131, 192–93,
196–200, 261n5
Burkett, Paul, 242n7
Byron, Lord, 220, 262n20
Cabet, Etienne, 128, 257n13
Cairo, 175
calendar reform, 49
California, 105, 162
Calvinism, 9, 141
Cambridge (England), 107
Cameroon, 210
Campanella, Tommaso, 257n3
Canada, 12
Cano, Juan Sebastian del, 150, 259n6
Cape Ferret, 169
capitalism, viii, 3, 8, 11, 18, 29, 30–31, 40,
59–60, 67–68, 76, 82–87, 89–90, 98,
100, 109, 113, 117, 121, 140, 146, 147–48,
151, 176, 182, 195, 256n2. See also
economic exploitationindex
Carolinas, 169
Carpenter, Edward, 132
Carson City (Nevada), 176, 260n15
Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), 175,
260n13
castes, 28, 41–42, 47, 131, 187, 188, 216,
228, 231
Catholicism. See Roman Catholic Church
Caucasus Mountains, 230
Cerro de Pasco (Peru), 171
Cévennes Mountains, 165, 170
Chang Jiang (Yangtze) River, 221
Charbonneau, Bernard, 27, 245n57
charity, 224, 225
Charles the Fifth, 111, 175
Charles the Ninth, 224
Chase, Steve, 245n58
Châtellerault (France), 167
Cheyenne (Wyoming), 176, 260n15
Chicago (Illinois), 175, 239n20, 259n1
children, vii, 8–9, 11, 17, 31, 37, 42, 70–73,
89–90, 93, 95, 107, 108, 111, 113, 118–19,
123, 128, 130, 133, 155, 156–58, 188,
203–4, 212, 213, 216, 229, 247n7. See
also education
China, 103–4, 128, 136, 158–59, 187, 193,
221, 235, 259n4, 260n7
Chingachgook, 109
Christianity, 6–7, 8, 43, 135, 141, 146, 191,
225, 247n25. See also Protestantism;
Roman Catholic Church
Cincinnati (Ohio), 259n1
cities, 61–66, 103–9, 127, 141, 163–85, 227,251n37, 261n20. See also polis; suburbs
City of the Sun, 120, 257n3
civilization, 25, 28, 31, 35, 37–40, 47–48,
83, 86, 93–94, 107, 132, 136–37, 165–66,
187–88, 191–95, 209, 210, 213–18,
221–24, 227–29, 244n48
class, 5, 19, 62, 75, 88, 94, 97, 100, 131, 142,
143, 150, 173, 190–91, 194, 195, 196, 204,
210, 225, 228. See also working classclothing, 95–97, 227, 228, 230
colonialism, 79–80, 105, 158–59, 184, 191,
193, 199, 210, 254n23, 260n13
Colombia, 11, 260n13
Colorado, 260n15
Columbus, Christopher, 150
common good, 45, 75, 130273

communal individuality, 46, 248n46
communism, 3, 6–7, 8, 10, 33, 44, 81,
128–29, 237n1, 250n11
compassion. See lovecompetition, 66, 95, 173, 178, 215
Comptists, 88
comuneros, 61
Condorcet, Marquis de, 225
conscience, 8, 10, 11, 34, 52, 57–58, 86, 124,
131, 194, 228, 237n1
conservation biology, 28
Considérant, Victor, 153
Constantine, Emperor, 247n25
Conway, William Martin, 230
Cook, Captain James, 213
Cooper, James Fenimore, 256n2
cooperation. See mutual aid
cooperatives, 11, 13, 53, 63, 67–70, 72, 76,
83, 154, 241n5, 251n31, 252n35, 258n3.
See also intentional communities
Corinth, 176
Corning (Iowa), 257n13
Cornuault, Joël, 236n5, 241n4, 242n9
Corsica, 258n12, 259n3
countryside, 25, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107–10,
112, 122, 128, 158, 164, 165, 166, 169–70,
173, 176–77, 183–84, 209, 216, 219
Crau, 27, 110
Crete, 261n1
Crewe, 176
d’Abbeville, Claude, 213
Daoism, 36
Darwin, Charles, 148, 240n1
da Vinci, Leonardo, 127
David, King, 261n3
Dayak people, 216
decentralization, 40, 63, 64, 241n5, 241n6
democracy, 61–62, 64, 66, 75–77, 81,
193–94, 198–99, 205, 222, 231, 251n37,
252n53, 252n55, 254n30
Denmark, 207
Denver, 176, 260n15
Descartes, René, 257n9
Des Moines River, 128
determinism, 5, 18, 46, 48, 59, 63
d’Evreux, Yves, 213
Dewey, John, 70, 72

274

index

dialectic, 5, 16–34, 35, 40, 41, 46, 48,
55, 63, 65, 67, 70, 80, 82, 88, 100, 126,240n2, 242n7, 243n18, 245n8, 248n29,
248n42, 251n37
Dinka, 134
diversity, 3, 5, 6, 19, 25, 37, 40, 47,
50–51, 56, 65, 99, 121, 150, 218, 219,
240n2, 243n18. See also biodiversity;
unity-in-diversity
Dnieper River, 171
Dolgoff, Anatol, 240n1
domination, viii, ix, 4, 6, 7, 13, 16, 19, 27,
29, 39, 41, 44, 46, 47, 52–53, 55, 59, 60,
65, 74–98, 100, 123, 143, 146, 173, 200,241n2, 245n61, 247n1, 251n37, 256n2.
See also capitalism; patriarchy; state
Don River, 169
Dordogne River, 170
Dravidians, 134
dress reform movement, 96
Dropt Valley, 260n4
Dublin, 11
Dunbar, Gary, 14, 238n14, 240n1, 243n11
Ebro River, 168
ecology, 6, 16–34, 39, 40, 65, 83, 240n1,
241n4, 241n6, 242n7, 243n29. See also
nature; social ecology
economic exploitation, 11, 14–15, 28–29,
33, 39, 59, 60, 66, 82–89, 97, 109–10,
114–15, 173, 251n37. See also capitalism
economism, 84
Ecuador, 258n2
Edinburgh, 179
education, 40, 53, 61, 67, 70–73, 80, 90, 95,
98, 111, 121, 123, 124, 157–58, 191, 201,
228, 215, 222, 230, 234, 241n5, 253n76
efficiency, 77, 78, 87, 181, 261n20
egalitarianism. See equality
egoism, 10, 26, 30–31, 38, 60, 78, 84, 95,
100, 188, 256n2
Egypt, 134, 140, 221, 258n5, 260n12,262n21
Elamites, 220
Elbe River, 182
electoral politics, 74–77, 81, 122, 145–47,
193–95
Encyclopedists, 127

England, 11, 27, 106, 108, 109, 110, 153, 179,
182, 184, 187, 195, 261n20
Enlightenment, 44, 128
Entre-Deux-Mers, 170
equality, 5, 7, 11, 13, 28, 53, 54, 62, 70, 76,
89, 91, 94, 121, 126, 131, 142, 173, 195,
224–25, 231, 246n86
Eskimos, 227, 230
Esperanto, 50
Essen, 171, 181
Etampes, 167
ethics, vii, 6, 20, 26, 31, 32, 33, 42, 45,
52, 58, 86, 91, 99–100, 161, 188–89,
243n29, 246n86, 250n11, 262n5. See also
animals; morality
Euphrates River, 175
Eurocentrism, 38, 90
Europe, 5, 11, 14, 23, 30, 37, 38, 57, 62, 64,
73, 79, 80, 81, 84–85, 89, 98, 107, 109,
127, 130, 135, 143, 149, 169, 170, 174, 179,
184, 186, 187, 193, 202, 207, 213, 214, 216,
219, 228–29, 230, 235, 259n4, 260n13,
261n1evolution (in nature), 19, 55, 138–39, 212,240n2, 245n61, 250n29. See also social
evolutionfamily, 9, 29, 69, 70, 72, 75, 91–93, 95, 98,
107, 108, 114–15, 116, 136, 144, 153, 165,
188, 194, 204, 205, 207, 213, 216, 217,
222, 241n5
Fazokl, 133, 258n4
federation, 14, 43, 54, 62–63, 64, 191
Félicité Plantation, 11, 238n15
feminism, vii, 33, 92, 94–95, 195
Ferrari, Giuseppi, 127, 257n12
Ferrer, Francisco, 70
First International. See International
Workers’ Association
Flanders, 27, 110, 127, 165
Florence, 61, 178
forest, 17, 20, 24, 27, 28, 29, 63,107, 108,
109, 110, 111, 114, 116, 133, 136, 137, 161,
164, 175, 186, 199, 202, 203, 228, 231,
256n93, 258n14
Fortier family, 11
Foster, John Bellamy, 242n7
Founders (of United States), 95
Fourier, Charles, 247n1

indexFrance, 8–11, 12, 14, 27, 63, 104, 105, 106,
167, 168, 169, 170, 187, 188, 193, 195,
199, 205, 206, 207, 219, 238n6, 242n11,
260n4, 261n1, 261n5
Franco-Prussian War, 13, 219, 220
Frankfurt, 122Frankfurt School, 6Franks, 104–5
freedom, 6, 10, 18, 19, 28, 36, 46–47, 50,
51, 52, 53, 55, 61, 63, 66, 68, 70, 76, 80,
83, 84, 91, 92, 95, 96, 100, 120, 125, 127,
128, 144, 153, 191, 195, 211, 215, 231, 235,
242n6, 245n61, 258n2. See also freeunions; voluntary association
free love. See free unions
Freemasons, 120, 121, 204, 261n3
free unions, 12, 91, 144, 189
Free University (Brussels), 14
Freiland, 153
Freshfield, Douglas, 230
friendship, 15, 43, 67, 69, 70, 76, 91,
114–15, 130, 135, 136–37, 143, 148,
153–55, 160, 188, 199, 235
Galileo, 128
Gàllego River, 168
Ganges River, 221
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 220, 262n20
Garonne River, 168, 170, 174
Gaul, 105, 170
gavaches, 165, 260n4
Geddes, Patrick, 14
general strike, 57, 151–52
Geneva, 138, 168
Genghis Khan, 81
geography, 5, 9, 11, 13, 14–15, 16–17, 19, 21,
22–25, 27, 29–30, 35, 50, 52, 63, 79, 83,
99–100, 163–85, 219, 223, 240n1, 241n4,
242n9, 242n11, 243n22, 244n36
Germany, 9, 61, 88, 106, 122, 146, 150, 159,
210, 219, 220, 222, 258n14, 259n4, 261n1,
261n21
Gibbon, Edward, 208, 211, 261n1
Giblin, Béatrice, 16, 79–80, 241n4
Gilligan, Carol, 246n86
Gironde River, 169
globalization, 4–5, 48, 56, 85
Godwin, William, 10, 52, 82, 238n12,248n46275

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 125, 222
Goldman, Emma, 95
Goodman, Paul, 17, 241n6
government. See state
grand narrative, 3–7, 19, 51
Grave, Jean, 13, 60, 239n24
Great Britain, 104, 184, 206, 220, 257n4,
261n1
Greece, 24, 61–62, 66, 96, 111, 127, 167,
170, 179, 183, 186, 187, 191, 209, 214, 219,
220, 227, 251n37, 261n1, 262n20
Guarani people, 134
Guiana, 257n1
Guizot, François, 148, 259n4
Gumplowicz, Ludwig, 188
Guyau, Jean-Marie, 211, 262n5
Habermas, Jürgen, 47
Haiti, 191, 193
Hamburg, 169
Hanover, 182
Hayek, Friedrich, 81
health, 20, 28, 46, 55, 65–66, 72, 89,
96–97, 132, 159, 168, 174, 178–84, 211,
219, 229, 232,
Hebrew prophets, 40–41, 165
Hegel, G.W.F., 44, 47, 50, 77, 80, 82,
243n18, 243n29
Henry, Emile, 57
Heraclitus, 248n29
Hérault River, 170
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 139, 163
Hers River, 168
Herzen, Alexander, 220, 262n20
Hess, Karl, 251n31
Hesse-Cassel, 107
hierarchy, 18–19, 20, 29, 36, 39, 41, 47, 54,
56, 62, 78, 89, 91, 95, 97, 123, 130, 141,
196–97, 244n39, 251n37, 257n7
Himalayas, 230
Hiram, 204, 261n3
Hittites, 220
holism, 4, 17, 20, 21, 27, 31, 45–46, 61, 65,
70–71, 100, 242n9
Howard, Ebeneezer, 261n20
Huang He (Yellow) River, 221
Hudson River, 184
Huerva River, 168
Hugo, Victor, 12, 164, 257n6

276

index

humanity, vii–viii, 3–7, 16–17, 19, 21–29,
32, 37–38, 39, 45–51, 53, 56, 61, 64,
87, 89, 99–100, 110, 118, 120, 121, 124,
127–28, 133, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 150,
151, 164, 166, 168, 173, 183–84, 186,
188, 208–9, 212–23, 225, 227, 228–29,
231, 232, 240n2, 242n7, 242n9, 243n29,
245n58, 245n61, 248n39, 256n2
Hungary, 105
Huntington, Ellsworth, 23, 244n39
Huss, John, 126, 257n11
Icarians, 128, 257n13
ice age, 209
Iceland, 60, 62, 166, 207, 251n40, 260n6
idealism, 25, 33, 52, 55–56
ideology, 3, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 35, 41–42,
44, 49, 52, 56, 57, 59, 66, 74, 76, 78, 84,
88, 90, 97, 100, 125, 246n72
imagination, xiii, 15, 17, 25, 35, 49, 54, 57,
61, 71, 79, 99, 100, 110, 124, 179, 203, 222
imperialism. See colonialism
India, 24, 125, 134, 135, 221, 258n9, 258n10
inequality, 11, 28–29, 60, 86, 148–49,
180, 224–28, 246n86, 258n2. See also
equality
injustice, 33, 35, 58–60, 65, 77, 84, 86, 90,
94, 121, 148, 195–96, 224–25. See also
justice
Innocent III, Pope, 141
Inquisition, 111, 128, 141, 187
instrumental value, 20
Insulindes, 215
intentional communities, 67–70, 76,
154–55, 252n55, 257n13
International Brotherhood (community),
69
International Brotherhood (secret society),
14, 57
International Workers’ Association, 14, 56,
57, 64, 67, 150–51
intrinsic value, 21, 32, 44
Iowa, 128, 257n13
Ireland, 11, 27, 110, 165, 184, 205
Israel, 40
Italy, 61, 110–11, 127, 169, 177, 183, 187, 195,257n12, 261n1, 262n19, 262n20
Ivan the Terrible, 81

James I, King, 179
Jamuna River, 221
Japan, 219, 222
Jeetze valley, 182
Jersey, 135
Jesuits, 141
Jesus Christ, 135
Jews, 40, 111, 170, 181
Jura Federation, 14
Jura Mountains, 165, 256n8
justice, 9, 32, 33, 36, 38, 40–41, 52–53, 54,
56, 59, 60, 63, 66, 69, 76, 85–86, 94, 98,
99, 121, 123, 124, 130, 131, 139, 151, 158,
186, 196, 198, 217, 218, 228, 235, 246n86
Kilimanjaro, Mount, 230
Kossuth, Lajos, 220, 262n20
Kovel, Joel, 256n2
Kropotkin, Peter, xiii, 12, 14, 16, 58, 62, 66,
88, 91, 243n22, 248n46, 251n37, 251n43,
252n53, 253n75
La Bastide, 174
labor, 22, 26, 37, 49, 57, 59, 60, 63, 72, 78,
82, 84, 87–90, 93–94, 106, 108–10,
113–18, 125, 126, 128, 129, 133, 145,
147–50, 152, 154–55, 158–161, 165, 173,
175, 176, 179, 181, 182, 183, 191, 195, 197,
201–203, 204, 205, 207, 215, 218, 221,
225, 226, 227, 248n39, 258n2. See also
working classlabor movement, 54, 56–57, 61, 68, 69, 89,
119, 150–52, 250n22, 258n2. See alsoInternational Workers’ Association
Lacan, Jacques, 44
Lacoste, Yves, 18, 52
Lafayette, Marquis de, 257n4
Lancashire, 210
Land Ethic, 20
Landes, 27, 169
language, xiii, 19, 43, 49–50, 52–53, 61,
69, 99, 141, 142, 143, 146, 148, 173, 189,
191, 204, 219, 221, 228, 235, 243n29
Languedoc, 169
La Plata (Argentina), 105, 157, 176, 259n2
Lassalle, Ferdinand, 146, 253n3
League for Peace and Freedom, 54, 57,
250n13
Leatherstocking, 109, 256n2

indexLe Creusot, 171, 176, 181
Leopold, Aldo, 20
Léry, Jean de, 213
l’Eure, 30
L’Herminez, Fanny, 12, 91
Liberia, 193
libertarianism, 4, 6–7, 15, 16, 24, 52, 54, 61,
65, 67, 70–72, 74, 76, 95, 122–23, 127,
128, 132, 238n6, 242n6, 251n31, 251n37,
252n55, 253n76
liberty. See freedom
Libourne, 167, 170
Liège, 171
Lille, 167, 177, 227
Lima, 181
Liverpool, 170, 182, 187
Lögmadr, 62
Loire Navigable (association), 193
Loire River, 169, 193
Lombardy, 27, 110
London, 11, 29, 104, 107, 108, 164, 169,
171–72, 181, 184, 207, 260n17
Loomis, Mildred, 17, 241n5
Lot-et-Garonne, 30
Louisiana, 11–12, 89, 238n14, 238n15
Louis-Philippe, King, 259n7
love, xi, 6–7, 8–9, 10, 15, 26, 31, 33, 37, 41,
42, 43, 53, 58, 63, 91, 99, 109, 112, 113,
115, 118, 119, 121, 133, 136–37, 142–43,
144, 145, 152, 154, 157–58, 183, 189,
199, 203, 213, 226, 228, 231, 237n9,
244n36. See also free unions; friendship;solidarity
Lucretius, 212
Luther, 141
Luxembourg, 105
Lyons, 106, 167, 182
Madagascar, 135
Madrid, 175
Magellan, Ferdinand, 150, 259n6
Mahabharata, 122
Manchester, 170, 181, 182
Maori, 29, 40
Marcou, Jules, 109, 256n1
Marcus Aurelius, 209
marriage, 22, 91–92, 213, 214
Marseilles, 167, 171, 174
Marsh, George, 241n4

277

Marshall, Peter, 241n3
Marx, Karl, 45, 85, 87, 242n7, 243n29,
247n7, 248n39, 250n11, 258n3
Marxism, 25, 67, 83, 250n11
materialism, 25, 36
May Day, 146, 151
Medes, 127
Mediterranean Sea, 9, 167, 169, 170–71,
175
Megara, 176
Melbourne, 105, 184
Memphis (Egypt), 221
Merthyr Tydfil, 171
Metchnikoff, Elie, 229
Metz, 177
Meuse River, 158
Mexico, 258n2
Micah, 40Michelangelo, 127
Middle Ages, 62–63, 105, 106, 141, 178,
191, 211, 251n37, 251n43, 256n3,
Midi, 168, 170
Milan, 168
Mile End Road, 180, 260n17
military, 13, 62, 78, 80, 149, 152, 153, 172,
176, 177, 179, 181, 183, 187, 206, 227,259n7
mining, 26, 105, 109, 126, 167, 171, 176, 177,
229, 247n11, 260n15
mir, 115
Mississippi River, 11, 12
modernity, 5, 8, 16, 23, 25, 35, 38–40,
43–44, 55, 56, 80–83, 85, 88, 97, 104,
105, 111, 123, 127, 145, 148, 163, 177–80,
210, 216–19, 227, 230
monarchy, 18, 54, 62, 64, 146, 191, 205, 212
Monségur, 260n4
Montaigne, Michel de, 224
Mont Blanc, 230
Montesquieu, Charles de, 23, 193
Montessori, Maria, 70
Montpellier, 170
Montreuil Commune, 154–55
Moors, 111
morality, 11, 17, 19, 25, 30, 31–35, 40–43,
45, 48, 52–53, 54, 59, 60, 69–70, 75,
76, 79, 86, 90, 91, 93, 95–97, 107, 111,
121–25, 128, 129, 131, 134, 136, 145, 149,
154, 158, 159, 194, 203, 206, 208, 209,

278

index

210, 214–16, 219, 220–21, 225, 226, 227,
228, 231, 246n81, 246n86, 256n93. See
also ethics
Moravian School (Neuwied, Germany), 9
Morocco, 187
Morris, William, 247n1
Mumford, Lewis, 255n77
Mummius, Lucius, 179
Munich, 179
Muslims, 261n1
mutual aid, 6, 9, 12, 53, 54, 63–64, 66–70,
72, 86, 128, 133, 136, 146, 148, 150, 154,
204, 213, 219, 251n43, 261n20. See alsosolidarity
mysticism, 21, 41, 42
Nadar, Félix, 13
Nancy, 167
Nanjing, 103
Nantes, 167
Napoléon I, Emperor, 125, 259n7
Napoléon III, Emperor, 10, 259n7
Narbonne, 170
nationalism, viii, 3, 9, 78–79, 100, 159,
220, 258n1, 262n4, 262n20. See also
patriotism
nation-state. See state
nature, vii–viii, 3–6, 13, 16–34, 35–37, 39,
42, 44, 45–51, 52–53, 54, 63, 65, 71, 74,
80, 83, 86, 89, 97, 99–100, 103–12, 115,
118, 125, 128, 135, 139, 148, 158, 160, 162,
163, 170–71, 176, 179, 181, 209, 212–13,
225–26, 231, 236n1, 237n5, 240n1,
240n2, 242n7, 242n9, 243n22, 243n29,
244n39, 245n51, 245n58, 245n61, 247n7,
256n2. See also animals; ecology
Nauvoo, 257n13
Negritos, 213
Negros Island, 213neoliberalism, 30, 77
New England, 107, 153
New Granada (Colombia), 11–12
New Jerusalem, 120
New Orleans, 11, 84, 89, 236n1
New University (Brussels), 14–15, 239n24
New York City, 107, 175, 183
New Zealand, 29, 105, 135
Niagara Falls, 109, 239n20
Niagara River, 178

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 33, 44, 262n5
Nieuwenhuis, Ferdinand Domela, 52
Nile River, 134, 171, 175, 221, 258n4Nîmes, 170
Nineveh, 163, 175
Noah, 134
Norfolk (Virginia), 169
Norway, 260n6
non-violence, 42
North Pole, 230
Novgorod, 61
nudism, 95–97, 209–10, 256n93
Nuremberg, 61, 178
O’Connor, James, 243n29
Odessa, 171
Oriental Despotism, 81, 254n28
Orléans, 167, 169
Orléans, Duke of, 257n4
Oro caste, 216
Orthez, 6, 8, 10, 43, 63
Ottawa, 171
Ouessant, 199
Owen, Robert, 257n13
Paduan plain, 171
Pakistan, 258n10
Palatinate, 105
Panama, 260n13
pantheism, 21, 42
Paris, 9, 13, 49, 67, 105, 106, 107, 164, 167,
169, 171, 175, 177, 181, 183, 207, 210,252n53, 259n5
Paris Commune, 13, 64–65, 150, 152,259n7
pastoralism, 27
patriarchy 9, 29, 59, 91–95, 97, 100,
188–89, 195–96, 251n37, 256n2
patriotism, 78–79, 90, 142–43, 187–88,
219. See also nationalism
peasants, 105–6, 107, 113–19, 157, 164–65,
202, 204–6, 250n22, 251n40, 262n20
Pellisson-Fontanier, Paul, 136, 258n15
Pelusium, 175, 260n12
Persia, 127, 140, 220
Peru, 260n13
Peter the Great, 175
phalansterians, 153
Phidias, 209

indexPhilippine Islands, 38, 213–14, 247n11,
262n14
Philippine War, 213–14, 262n10
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 242n9
Piraeus, 175
Pittsburgh, 177, 181
Pliny, 110–11
Polabians, 182
Poitiers, 167
Poland, 258n1
polar archipelagos, 135
polis, 61–62, 66, 111, 251n37
Polynesia, 96, 230
Ponting, Clive, 244n48
population, 29–31, 65, 80–81, 84, 103–7,
110–11, 128, 164, 167–71, 174–76,
181–84, 246n72, 254n23
Po River, 168
Portland (Maine), 107
Portobello, 175, 260n13
Potosí, 171
poverty. See inequality
power, 4, 36, 41, 44, 46, 52, 54, 56, 63–66,
68, 71, 74–90, 92–93, 97–98, 100, 103,
117, 121–24, 126–27, 132, 138, 139, 140,
141, 142–43, 145–46, 149–50, 152, 176,
186–87, 189–90, 197–99, 204–5, 213,
231, 251n37, 252n55, 258n2
Prague, 183
progress, 3–5, 17, 21, 27, 30–31, 35–51, 54,
55, 56, 58, 64, 66, 79–80, 83–85, 88,
93, 97, 104, 121, 125–27, 132, 136–37,
138–41, 145, 150, 166, 173, 191–93, 201,
208–33. See also evolution; regression
propaganda of the deed, 14, 57–59, 155,250n29, 251n35
property, 59–60, 63, 75, 82–83, 85, 86,
95, 98, 108, 114, 115–16, 122, 126, 144,
147–48, 164–65, 189, 194, 197, 200,
202–7. See also economic exploitation
prostitution, 94, 195
Protestant College (Sainte-Foy-la-GrandeFrance), 8, 9
Protestant University (Montauban,
France) 9
Protestantism, 6, 8, 9, 10, 41, 238n6
Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 6, 10, 82, 120,248n46, 257n1
Provence, 183

279

Prussia, 258n1
Pyat, Félix, 259n7
Pyrenees Mountains, 27, 63, 106, 165
Quechua, 133
Queensland, 105
Queyras, 203
Rabelais, François, 120, 257n2
race, 12, 13, 37, 89, 91, 213, 214, 217, 220–21
racism, 11–12, 24, 59, 89–91, 100, 256n2
railroads, 104, 114, 115, 163, 174, 177,
260n15
Ranke, Leopold von, 211, 262n4
Ravachol (François-Claudius
Koeningstein), 57, 58
Ravenstein, Ludwig, 30, 239n30
reason, 39, 42, 44, 87, 100, 117, 188,
234–35. See also technical rationality
Reclus, Elie, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 67, 238n13,239n24
Reclus, Louise, 70
Reclus, Paul, xii, 8, 12, 237n2, 238n13
Red River, 257n13
Reformation, 141, 202regression, 32, 36–40, 43, 56, 81, 132, 134,
139–41, 143, 145, 150, 157–58, 160,
209–212, 216, 220–21, 226, 230, 232.
See also progress
Reich, Wilhelm, 78, 91
religion, 6–9, 24, 36, 40–43 49, 54, 64,
97–98, 111, 121, 125, 126, 134, 141,
142, 144, 153, 161, 189, 210, 211, 212,
228, 248n30, 250n11, 257n11. See also
Buddhism; Christianity
Renaissance, 141, 170, 177, 211, 242n9
revenge, 7, 58, 79, 94, 187, 190, 195
revolution, viii, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 15, 28, 36, 39,
40–41, 48–49, 54–59, 60, 64, 66–69,
73, 76, 92, 97, 99–100, 104, 121, 122, 123,
127–28, 131, 138–55, 164, 184–85, 187,
189, 191–92, 194–97, 200–201, 211–13,
220, 223, 226, 232, 234, 240n1, 250n22,
250–51n29, 252n53, 252n55, 253n75,257n5, 258n1, 262n20. See also Paris
CommuneReykjavik, 166, 260n6
Rhone River, 169, 170
Rhone valley, 171

280

rights of man, 64, 127, 150, 188, 213
Rig-Veda, 134
Rio de Janeiro, 181
Ritter, Alan, 46, 248n26
Ritter, Carl, 9Rocky Mountains, 230
Roman Catholic Church, 98, 121, 141, 191
Roman Empire, 104–5, 140, 149, 172, 179,
225
Romanticism, 191, 262n20
Rome, 171, 191, 213
Roth, M., 43
Rothen, Edward, 21
Roubaix, 177
Rouen, 167, 224, 227
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 70, 163, 213
Ruffec, 167
Rumford, Count (Benjamin Thompson),
111, 257n4
Ruskin, John, 163
Russia, 15, 80–81, 84, 105–6, 115, 159, 167,
187, 193, 219, 220, 258n1, 261n1, 262n20
St. Anthony of Padua, 95
St. Catherine of Siena, 121
St. Dominic, 141
Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, 8
St. Francis of Assisi, 121, 231
St. Hilaire, Geoffroy, 134
St. Paul, 95
St. Petersburg, 175, 180
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de, 88, 259n11
St. Theresa of Avila, 121
San Francisco, 105
Santo Domingo, 150, 193
Saracens, 170
Saragossa, 168
Sardinia, 258n12, 259n3
Saussure, Horace-Bénédict de, 230
scarcity, 44, 143, 152, 241–42n6
Schoolmen, 191
School of Living, 17, 241n5
science, 17, 20, 27–28, 30, 33, 39, 43–44,
48, 55, 68, 71, 72, 87–88, 97, 98, 110,
117, 118, 121, 125, 135, 137, 140–41,
143–44, 154, 162, 186, 196, 205, 220,
223, 230, 240n1, 242n9, 257n9. See also
technology
Scotland, 206

index
Scranton, 171, 177
self-realization, 4, 6, 17, 24, 26, 27, 32, 36,
38, 44–48, 51, 53, 61, 65, 66, 70, 72, 100,
139, 187, 217–18, 231, 245n58, 245n61,
246n81
Seraing, 181
Sessions, George, 245n58
Sête, 170
Shakers, 26
Silesia, 210
Sindh, 134, 258n10
Singhalese, 135
slavery, 7, 11, 87–88, 89–90, 95, 111, 118,
122, 136, 140, 150, 153, 205, 226–27,
238n15, 238n17, 251n37
Slavs, 115, 182, 191, 261n21
Smith, Adam, 87
social cooperation. See mutual aid
Social Darwinism, 66, 148, 160
social ecology, 16, 18, 27, 33, 39, 40, 46,240n2, 241n3, 243n18, 243n29, 245n58,
245n61, 252n55, 255n77
social evolution, 6, 19, 36–37, 38, 40, 46,
54, 55, 64, 67, 68, 73, 81, 82, 100, 124,
126, 138–55, 163–85, 189, 190–91, 192,
193, 196, 200, 208, 210–11, 216, 217, 220,
221, 222, 228–29, 232, 240n2, 250n29
socialism, 3, 6–7, 10, 32, 33, 75–76, 81, 88,
92, 121, 122–23, 128, 129, 145–48, 151,
237n1, 250n11, 253n75, 257n13, 258n3,
262n20,social milieu, 6, 22–23, 65, 75, 122, 166,
178, 187, 196, 226, 238n6
Socratic method, 72
solidarity, viii, xi, 9, 10, 21, 33–34, 39, 41,
45–47, 51, 56, 60, 61–63, 81, 82–83,
88–89, 94, 95, 119, 142, 147, 151–53, 187,
190, 195, 200, 203, 211, 214, 218, 223–25,
232, 233, 235
Solomon, King, 261n3
Soviet Union, 81, 254n28
Spain, 61, 111, 169, 187, 191, 247n14, 256n3,
259n6, 260n13
Sparta, 213, 232
Spencer, Herbert, 229, 261n5
Spinoza, Baruch, 47
spontaneity, 6, 27, 46, 53, 62, 80, 91,
126–27, 135, 141, 143, 149, 151, 168, 173,
179, 184, 187, 200, 221indexsports, 111, 119, 159, 229, 230
Stalingrad, 260n9
Stalinism, 81
state, viii, 8, 12, 18, 22, 29, 40, 41–42, 46,
52, 59, 63–65, 74–83, 85, 91, 94, 95, 97,
115, 122–23, 126, 145–47, 176, 186–201,
219, 225, 249n10, 252n55, 254n28,
258n3, 263n23. See also bureaucracy,electoral politics; nationalism;
representative government
Stoehr, Taylor, 241n6
Strabo, 24
Strasbourg, 10, 177
suburbs, 66, 104, 105, 108, 173, 174, 180,
181
Sudan, 258n4, 258n8
suicide, 130, 227
Sumeria, 220
survival of the fittest. See Social
Darwinism
survivals, 85, 210, 216, 230
Swimme, Brian, 237n7
Switzerland, 27, 63, 110, 168, 171, 193–94,
202, 203–4
Tahiti, 38, 216
Tamerlane (Timur Lenk), 125, 257n8Taylor, Frederick, 87
technical rationality, 87–88, 117–18
technobureaucracy, 88, 100
technology, viii, 3, 25, 28, 30, 43–44, 46,
49, 55, 83, 85, 87–88, 117–18, 241–42n6
teleology, 36, 48, 61
Tell el-Farama, 260n12
Tenimber, 229–30
Terence, 231
terrorism. See propaganda of the deed
Texas, 153, 257n13
Thames River, 171
Thames valley, 184
Thebes, 221, 262n21
theft, 11, 59–60, 82, 130, 190, 251n31
Thélème, Abbey of, 120, 257n2
Thiers, Louis Adolph, 152
Thoreau, 238n17
Thourout (Belgium), 15
Tien Shan Mountains, 230
Togo, 210
Tolstoy, Leo, 70

281

Toulouse, 106, 168
Tupinambá, 213, 224
Tourcoing, 177
Tours, 167
tribal society, 36–40, 47, 61, 63, 91, 92–93,
103, 107, 110, 111, 120, 127, 132–34, 137,
139, 176, 186, 200, 209–10, 213–18, 224,
227–31, 247n11
Trigant, Marguerite, 8Tsaritsin, 169
Turin, 168
Turkey, 186, 187, 193, 261n1, 262n20
Two Sicilies, Kingdom of, 220, 262n19
Unangin, 214
United States, 5–6, 11, 29, 63, 80, 84,
87, 89–90, 117, 175, 177, 187, 207, 214,
242n11, 256n1, 259n1, 262n10, 263n23,
unity-in-diversity, 24, 27, 46, 49, 50, 242n9,
243n18, 245n58
universal suffrage, 146, 193, 258n3
Ushuaia, 199
utilitarianism, 32, 44, 45
utopianism, 4, 17, 44, 53, 54, 68–69, 92, 97,
100, 120, 143, 220, 247n1, 249n2, 250n11,257n3, 257n13. See also intentional
communities
Vaillant, Auguste, 57
vanguardism, 55, 250n22, 250n28
Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre de, 177vegetarianism, 13, 31, 32, 156–62, 246n81
Vendée, 191
Vendôme Column, 150, 259n7
vengeance. See revenge
Veniaminov, Ivan, 214
Venice, 171
Verne, Jules, 249n2
vice, 96, 97, 130
Vico, Giovanni Battista, 222
Victoria (Canada), 105violence, 67–68. See also propaganda ofthe deed
Virginia City, 171
Vishnu, 41
Volga River, 169
Volgograd, 260n9
Wallace, Alfred Russel, 215

282

index

war, 13, 40, 49, 62, 79, 85, 103, 145, 158–59,
190, 219–20, 261n1, 262n10
Warsaw, 143, 258n1
Wegener, Alfred, 240n1
Whitechapel, 180, 260n17
Whymper, Edward, 230
wilderness, 29, 245n58
Wilderness Society, 29
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 146
Wilmington (North Carolina), 169
Wittfogel, Karl, 254n28
women, 12, 13, 42, 91, 92–95, 96, 125, 155,
195–96working class, 10, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61, 85,
87, 88, 94, 108, 113–19, 122, 148–49,
150–52, 165, 173, 181, 194, 195, 210,250n22, 257n5, 258n2, 258n3, 260n4.
See also International Workers
Association
Wuchang, 103
Wyoming, 260n15
Yahweh, 40
yeomen, 61
Young, Arthur, 206, 261n5
Young Icaria, 128
Zadrouga, 115

About the Contributors

John Clark is Curtin Distinguished Professor of Humane Studies and theProfessions, professor of philosophy, and a member of the environmental
studies faculty at Loyola University. He has written a number of works
on ecological philosophy and anarchist political theory, including, mostrecently, The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism(Bloomsbury, 2013). He is completing a critical reinterpretation of social
ecology entitled Between Earth and Empire. He writes for the journal
Capitalism Nature Socialism and co-moderates the Research on Anarchism
List. For many years he has been an activist in the anarchist, green, andbioregional movements. He is a member of the Education Workers’ Unionof the IWW.
Camille Martin is the author of four collections of poetry: Looms(2012), Sonnets (2010), Codes of Public Sleep (2007), and Sesame Kiosk (2001).
She earned a PhD in English from Louisiana State University and an MFA
in poetry from the University of New Orleans. A resident of New Orleans
for many years, she now resides in Toronto. She maintains a website at
http://www.camillemartin.ca and a literary blog at http://rogueembryo.com.