and Anti-theology_, which
as a proposal designed for the central committee of the League of
Freedom and Peace at Geneva, but never published, presents a short
reprint of Proudhon's _Justice_; and lastly, a fragment published in
1882 by C. Cafiero and Elisee Reclus, after his manuscript, _Dieu et
l'Etat_, which seems intended to lay a philosophic foundation for
Bakunin's Anarchism.

This fragment, in which Bakunin follows the lead of the great
materialists and Darwinians, begins with Hegelianism. Man (it says) is
of animal origin; all development proceeds from the "animal nature" of
man, and strives to reach the negation of this, or humanity.
"Animality" is the starting-point; "humanity," its opposite, is the
goal of development. The first human being, the pitheco-anthropus,
distinguished itself, according to Bakunin, from other apes, by two
gifts: the capacity for thinking, and, thereby, for raising itself.
Bakunin, therefore, distinguishes three elements in all life: (1)
animality; (2) thought; and (3) rising. To the first corresponds
social and private economy; to the second, science; to the third,
freedom. After establishing these peculiar categories, Bakunin never
troubles about them again throughout his book, and does not know what
use to make of them; they were nothing but a pretty philosophic pose,
sand thrown in one's eyes. He goes farther, and declares next that he
intends to penetrate into the reason "of the idealism of Mazzini,
Michelet, Quinet, and [_sic!_] Stuart Mill." Again we hear nothing
more throughout this fragmentary work of the thus announced refutation
of Mill's idealism. It is limited to giving a rather shallow
reproduction of Proudhon's contrast between religion and revolution.

"The idea of God," says Bakunin, "implies the abdication of human
reason and justice; it is the most decisive denial of human freedom,
and leads necessarily to the enslaving of humanity, both in theory and
practice.... The freedom of man consists solely in following natural
laws, because he has recognised them himself as such, and not because
they are imposed upon him from without by the will of another, whether
divine or human, collective or individual.... We reject all
legislation, every authority, and every privileged, recognised
official and legal influence, even if it has proceeded from the
exercise of universal suffrage, since it could only benefit a ruling
and exploiting minority against the interests of the grea