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  Anchorites ­
  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  property, ­
  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  autonomy ­
  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  demonstrated ­
  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,  perhaps ­
  for  some  centuries,  the  hell  that  at  present  exists.  No
it  is  too  much.  Accursed  be  society  !  Down  with  its  institutions ­
  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  character. ­
  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