n's picture of
society quite as Utopian as Plato's, and certainly none the less a
product of genius. Moreover, we are convinced that grave complications
have already arisen in society owing to the fanatical pursuit of these
Utopian ideas, and still greater ones will arise; and yet we do not
belong to those who deplore the appearance of these ideas, or who
believe that serious and permanent danger is threatened to the
development of society by the Anarchist idea. This, indeed, would be
the place in which to write a chapter on the value of the error; but
we must leave this to writers on ethics, and content ourselves with
pointing out that the development of culture does not depend mainly
upon the truth or falsehood of ruling ideas. As we have often said in
these pages in our criticism of the Anarchists, life is not merely the
fulfilment of philosophic dreams or the embodiment of absolute truths;
on the contrary, it can easily be proved from history that error and
superstition have rather been the most potent factors in human
development. When discussing Stirner's views, we have shewn the
cardinal error that lies in the conclusion that only the absolutely
true is useful and admissible in practice. Certainly, philosophy has
taught us the insufficiency of all _a priori_ proofs of the truth of
the conception of God; critical science has shown us its empirical
origin, and taught us that our ideas of the soul, God, and the future
life have proceeded from the most erroneous and crudest attempts to
explain certain physiological and psychological phenomena: but even if
the conception of the Deity were the greatest error committed by
mankind, it is yet incontestable that this conception has produced and
still produces the greatest blessings for mankind. We have taken up
this standpoint against the Anarchists, and now it may turn out in
their favour; for, if it is not a question of doing away with the
State altogether, merely because (as Stirner discovered, though he was
not the first to do so) it is not sacred, nor absolute, nor real in
the philosophic sense, so one need not consider an idea absolutely
worthless, and therefore unworthy of discussion merely because it
arises from and leads to errors.

Anarchism is certainly one of the greatest errors ever imagined by
man, for it proceeds from assumptions and leads to conclusions which
entirely contradict human nature and the facts of life.

Nevertheless, it also has its purpose in