BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. I95 
end of the world did not come, those who persisted in these 
hopes, the Millenarians, were declared heretics. The Anchor 
ites and the Ascetics, too, fled from a world hopelessly given 
up to evil Finally, the same thought inspired Rousseau in 
his famous Essays on Letters, and on the Origin of Inequality. 
Jean-Jacques was struck with the evils and iniquities of the 
social order. Civil institutions consecrate inequality and pro 
perty, whence spring the servitude and misery of the masses. 
Science, art, and literature, of which we are so proud, are they 
not the agents of demoralization ? Civilization is the source 
of all evils. What is the remedy ? Rousseau sees only one, 
and that he believes impossible : a return to the primitive state. 
We must, then, as Voltaire put it, return to the woods and go 
on all fours. 
The Revolutionists of to-day reproduce the same train of 
reasoning. Formerly they called for universal suffrage and 
the republic, as the panacea against the social disorder. These 
institutions exist in America, together with commercial auto 
nomy and complete liberty; nevertheless, the progress of 
civilization is bringing about the same situation there as in 
monarchical Europe. The Utopian systems of Robert Owen, 
Fourier, Cabet, and Louis Blanc have been tried, and have 
failed. The difficulty of economic reforms has been demon 
strated by science and by facts. Must we wait until the 
gradual development of education and of equality brings about 
a better situation ? But then we shall have to endure, per 
haps for some centuries, the hell that at present exists. No 
it is too much. Accursed be society ! Down with its institu 
tions and its laws ! Let us overthrow all that is, and, according 
to Rousseau’s wish, go back again to the savage state. 
This genesis of the extreme revolutionary idea in the West 
takes, in the case of Bakunin, a peculiar tone of exaltation 
and mysticism that springs, I believe, from the Russian charac 
ter. Whether it is the effect of race or of social surroundings, 
we see social phenomena produced in Russia which would 
seem impossible with other nations. Thus, as one knows, 
there is in Russia a considerable sect who, in spite of severe 
penalties, practise systematically the self-inflicted mutilation of