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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  International ­
  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  association ­
  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  combinations ­
  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  tendencies ­
  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