t enslaved
majority." And so forth.

Here already, in this partial repetition of Proudhon's views, we see
Bakunin go far beyond Proudhon in an essential point, the question of
universal suffrage. Proudhon had already perceived in "the
organisation of universal suffrage" the only possible means of
realising his views. Bakunin rejects this view, and, as will be shown
later, this question formed the chief stumbling-block in his
differences with the "International." But in a much more important and
decisive point Bakunin goes farther than Proudhon, or rather sinks
behind him.

Proudhon always based all his hopes on the diffusion of knowledge; the
demo-cracy was to be changed into a demo-paedy, and thus gradually led
up to Anarchy of its own accord. Bakunin anathematises knowledge just
as much as religion; for it also enslaves men. "What I preach," he
says in the book quoted, "is to a certain extent the revolt of life
against knowledge, or rather against the domination of knowledge, not
in order to do away with knowledge--that would be a crime of high
treason against humanity (_laesae humanitatis_)--but in order to bring
it back to its place so surely that it would never leave it again....
The only vocation of knowledge is to illuminate our path; life alone,
in its full activity, can _create_, when freed from all fetters of
dominion and doctrine." He also thinks that knowledge should become
the common possession of all, but to the question as to whether men
should, until this takes place, follow the directions of knowledge, he
answers at once, "No, not at all."

In these two divergences from Proudhon lies the essential difference
between the modern and the older Anarchism. Bakunin rejects the
proposal to bring about Anarchy gradually by a process of political
transformation by means of the use of universal suffrage, equally with
the gradual education of mankind up to this form of society by
knowledge. Not by evolution, but by revolt, revolution, and similar
means is Anarchy to be installed to-day--Anarchy in the sense of the
setting free of all those elements which we now include under the name
of evil qualities, and the annihilation of all that is termed "public
order." Everything else will look after itself.

Bakunin wisely did not enter into descriptions of the future: "All
talk about the future is criminal, for it hinders pure destruction,
and steers the course of revolution." His views as to the nearest
goal, afte