the troops of wandering workmen.
(Westlaender, A., _Russland vor einem Regime-Wechsel_,
Stuttgart, 1894, p. 28.)

It might seem surprising that a savant of Reclus's calibre does not
himself perceive a refutation that is so obvious. But Reclus is a
type: who does not know the figure--even here not seldom seen--of the
earnest savant, full of the purest love and devotion for mankind, who
dabbles in politics in his leisure hours? It is as if in this time of
leisure his spirit seeks to free itself from the severe discipline of
his professional life. The man who, in his capacity as a doctor, a
geographer, or physicist, would never allow subjective influences to
trouble his method, deals with politics quite apart, as if there were
not also a science of politics that, like any other science, regards
freedom from the subjective standpoint, or from love and hatred as the
first condition of the validity of its propositions. Reclus, the
celebrated geographer, goes so far, as a politician, as to deny the
value of political economy and to assert that every workman knows
more, and is better acquainted with social laws, than the learned
economist.

On the other hand, it is just this circumstance that gives this aged
savant an importance in Anarchist theory, to which the originality and
the teaching of his Anarchist writings could give him no claim. The
pamphlet _Evolution and Revolution_ is nothing but a _rechauffe_ of
the well-known commonplaces of Anarchism; but the noble personality of
Reclus that stands out before us at every sentence, the honourable
intention, the high moral desire, the inspired hope which make even
the errors of opponents so touching, give the little book the same
importance for his followers as the _Contrat Social_ once possessed,
and makes his decoction the quintessence of Anarchist thought, in its
noblest, purest, and also--as a consequence--its most nebulous form.

* * * * *

A man of quite a different stamp is Jean Grave, the soul of the chief
Anarchist organ, the Parisian _Revolte_, which originated from the
earlier paper, the _Revolte_ of Kropotkin, which appeared previously
in Geneva, and was suppressed there in 1885. Among the multitude of
_declasses_ who gave up their millions, their rank, and their estates
in order to preach Anarchy, Grave has been, since Proudhon, the only
member of the proletariat who has made any important contributions to
the theoretical