188 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
profound thought, admirably expressed by De Tocqueville, in 
the seventeenth chapter of L'Ancieii Régime: “ When the people 
are overwhelmed with misery, they are resigned. It is when 
they begin to hold up their heads and to look above them, that 
they are impelled to insurrection.” 
When the votes were taken, the Anarchists found themselves 
in a minority. They then declared that the principles of the 
two schools were too opposed for common action, and the 
schism was definitively established. The anarchical principle 
had accomplished its work of dissolution. The second Inter 
national disappeared like that of Marx. The word is still 
frequently employed to designate certain groups of aggressive 
Socialism, but there now no longer exists any universal associa 
tion to which this name can be applied. Its ghost, however, 
survives and continues to act as if it still had some reality. It 
is true, indeed, that the International was never more than a 
shade, that is to say, an idea which was unable to take bodily 
form. 
Let us now sum up this sketch of the rise and fall of the 
International. As one of its leaders, Eccarius, said, it was 
born of the union of two tendencies : that of the English trades 
unions, aiming at an increase of wages by means of combina 
tions and strikes, on the practical economic ground, and that 
of French and German Socialism, looking forward to a radical 
change of the existing social order. The first of these ten 
dencies predominated up to 1869. Since then, and especially 
after the fall of the Commune, the revolutionary element got 
the upper hand. What made the success of the International 
so rapid and, in appearance, so alarming, was that it answered 
to that sentiment of discontent and revolt which has gradually 
spread among the labouring classes of all countries. The 
same irritations, the same aspirations everywhere fermenting, 
it was not difficult to establish among them a bond of union ; 
but the real power at the disposal of the Association was always 
insignificant It never knew, even approximately, the number 
of its adherents. As M. Fribourg, one of its former members, 
said, one affiliated oneself to the International “ as one takes a 
glass of wine.” From i866 to 1870 the greater number of