THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

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its  numbers  diminishing  on  all  sides.  The  void  was  coming.
The  famous  Association  was  dying.  To  save  it,  it  was  resolved
to  convoke  for  next  year,  at  Ghent,  a  universal  congress  of
Socialism.  It  was  hoped  that  in  this  way  they  might  regain
lost  ground.  In  the  report  I  find  nothing  worth  mentioning
except  a  discussion  between  the  Belgian  delegate,  César  de
Paepe,  who  defended  the  State,  and  the  Italian  delegate,
Malatesta,  who  in  the  name  of  the  “  anarchists  ”  demanded  its
abolition.  It  is  curious  to  observe  how  far  the  anarchist
ideas  resemble  those  of  the  rigid  economists.  “  Society,”  says
Malatesta,  “is  not  an  artificial  aggregation  brought  about  by
force,  or  by  the  contact  of  individuals  by  nature  mutually  repellent. ­
  It  is  a  living  organic  body,  of  which  men  are  the
cellules,  contributing  individually  and  collectively  to  the  life
and  growth  of  the  whole.  It  is  regulated  by  laws  which  are
immanent,  necessary,  and  immutable,  as  are  all  natural  laws.
There  is  no  social  pact,  but  there  is  certainly  a  social  law.
What,  then,  is  the  State  ?  An  excrescence  ”—the  economists
say  a  canker—“  which  lives  at  the  expense  of  the  social  body,
and  which  has  no  other  object  and  no  other  effect  than  to
organize  and  keep  up  the  exploitation  of  the  workers.  This
is  our  reason  for  wishing  to  destroy  the  State.  How,  then,
shall  society  be  organized?  We  cannot  know.  We  utterly
distrust  all  Utopian  solutions.  Nor  do  we  want  any  artificial,
fantastic,  anti-scientific  Socialism,  nor  any  “Socialism  of  the
study,”  and  we  shall  oppose  such  Socialism  as  reactionary.
Our  single  aim  must  be  to  destroy  the  State.  It  will  then
be  for  the  free  and  fertile  action  of  the  natural  laws  of  Society
to  accomplish  the  destinies  of  humanity.”  This  is  an  expression ­
  of  the  ideas  which  tend  more  and  more  to  predominate
among  Socialists  in  France,  Italy,  and  Spain.  The  influence
of  positivism  and  Herbert  Spencer  is  manifest.
Before  attending  the  universal  congress  at  Ghent  the
Anarchists  assembled  in  Belgium,  at  Verviers,  from  the  5th  to
the  8th  of  September,  1877.  To  this  assembly,  which  included
in  all  about  ten  foreign  delegates,  the  pompous  name  of  the
“  Ninth  General  Congress  of  the  International  Working  Men’s
Association  ”  was  given.  The  questions  discussed  display  a