for the rest, Proudhon's inoculation with
Hegelianism, which was afterwards continued by K. Gruen and Bakunin,
must have been very marked and continuous, for we shall constantly be
meeting with traces of it as we go on. Powerful as was the influence
of Hegel upon Proudhon, the Anarchist was but little affected by the
fashionable philosophy of his contemporary and fellow-countryman, A.
Comte; which is all the more remarkable since it is Comte's Positivism
which, proceeding along the lines of Spencer's philosophy, has in no
small degree influenced modern Anarchism, while echoes of the Comtian
individualist doctrine are even to be found in the German contemporary
of Proudhon, Stirner; echoes which, although numerous, are perhaps
unconscious. Proudhon attached himself, as already mentioned,
specially to the Hegelian dialectic and to the doctrine of Antitheses.
Using this criterion, Proudhon proceeded to the consideration and
criticism of social phenomena; and just as beginners and pupils in the
difficult art of philosophy, instead of contenting themselves with
preliminary questions, attack the very kernel of problems, with all
the rashness of ignorance, so Proudhon also attacked, as his first
problem, the fundamental social question of property, taking it up for
the subject of his much-quoted though much less read work, _What is
Property?_ (_Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_--First essay in _Recherches
sur le Principe du Droit et du Gouvernement_). Proudhon has been
judged and condemned, though, and wrongly, yet almost exclusively, by
this one essay, written at the beginning of his literary career.
Friends and foes alike have always contented themselves with regarding
the celebrated dictum there uttered, Property is Theft, as the Alpha
and the Omega of Proudhon's teaching, without reading the book itself.
And because it has been thought sufficient to catch up a phrase
dragged from all its context, so it has happened that Proudhon to-day,
although he is one of the most frequently mentioned authors, is hardly
either known or read. Although the question of property forms the
corner-stone of all Proudhon's teaching, yet it would be wrong to
identify it with his doctrine entirely. And it is no less wrong to
represent the first attempt which Proudhon made to solve so great a
problem as the whole of his views about property, as unfortunately
even serious authors have hitherto done almost without exception, and
especially those who make