l who
have hitherto written upon or against Anarchism, with a few very rare
exceptions, have probably never read an Anarchist publication, even
cursorily, but have contented themselves with certain traditional
catchwords.

As a contrast to this, it was necessary, for the purposes of a
critical work upon Anarchism, to go right back to its sources and to
the writings of those who represented it. But here I found a further
difficulty, which could not always be overcome. Where was I to get
these writings? Our great public libraries, whose pride it is to
possess the most complete collections possible of all the texts of
Herodotus or Sophocles, have of course thought it beneath their
dignity to place on their shelves the works of Anarchist doctrinaires,
or even to collect the pamphlet literature for or against
Anarchism--productions which certainly cannot take a very high rank
from the point of view either of literature or of fact. The
consequence of this foresight on the part of our librarians is that,
to-day, anyone who inquires into the development of the social
question in these great libraries devoted to science and public study
has nothing to find, and therefore nothing to seek. I have thus been
compelled to procure the materials I wanted partly through the
kindness of friends and acquaintances, and partly by purchase of
books--often at considerable expense,--but always by roundabout means
and with great difficulty. And here I should like specially to
emphasise the fact that it was the literary representatives of
Anarchism themselves who, although I never concealed my hostility to
Anarchism, placed their writings at my disposal in the kindest and
most liberal manner; and for this I hereby beg to offer them my
heartiest thanks, and most of all Professor Elisee Reclus, of
Brussels.

But if I thus enter into details of the difficulties which met me in
writing the present book, it is not with the object of surrounding
myself with the halo of a pioneer. I only wish to lay my hand on a
sore which has no doubt troubled other authors also; and, at the same
time, to explain to my critics the reason why there are still so many
_lacunae_ in this work. I have, for instance, been quite unable to
procure any book or essay by Tucker, or a copy of his journal
_Liberty_, although several booksellers did their best to help me, and
although I applied personally to Mr. Tucker at Boston. It was all in
vain. _Ut aliquid fecisse videatur_