O 
193 
BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 
Economists to State intervention to an extreme, he ends by 
crying up “anarchy,” that is to say, the suppression of the 
State. He extols individualism and liberty. Order will result 
he asserts, from the initiative of individuals freed from the 
shackles of all kinds which at present impede and crush them. 
Bakunin reproduces these ideas, but he clothes them in Russian 
garb. He demands the collective ownership of the soil and 
of the instruments of production, but he confers it upon the 
Commune in like manner as such ownership exists with regard 
to land in the villages of Great Russia. He desires “ anarchy,” 
but with a sort of mystic enthusiasm quite foreign to Proudhon. 
He dreams of the total destruction of all existing institutions, 
and the formation of an “ amorphous ” society ; that is to say, â 
society without any form, which means, in reality, a return to 
the savage state. To attain this end, there is wanted a revolu 
tion knowing no pity—a revolution which, by fire and sword, 
will extirpate to the very last traces the old social order. Thé 
final aim, then, is Collectivism, or, better still, “ Amorphism,” 
and the means of attaining it “pan-destruction.” 
It might be supposed that these were the ideas of a raving 
lunatic, but they are not without precedent in the history of 
human thought. At certain troublous epochs the souls of 
those who yearn for the ideal bemoan and are indignant at the 
evils and iniquities that afflict the human race. They catch a 
glimpse of a better order where justice will reign supreme, but 
they believe that it can never be attained by slow and successive 
reforms. They, therefore, look for the destruction of the old 
order, so that from its ruins the regenerated order may arise 
Such was the idea of primitive Christianity. In order that the 
Kingdom of Heaven might come, this perverse world must 
perish ; not, it is true, by a political or social revolution but by 
a cosmical catastrophe. Everything was to be consumed not 
by the torch of the incendiary, as certain Anarchists wish 
to-day, but by fire from heaven. 
“ Dies iræ, dies ilia 
Solvet sæclum in favilla.” * 
• The idea of palingenesis arose from the problem of evil. The just