ipal objections. In so doing, I
shall attempt to elucidate what Anarchism really stands for.

The strange phenomenon of the opposition to Anarchism is that it
brings to light the relation between so-called intelligence and
ignorance. And yet this is not so very strange when we consider the
relativity of all things. The ignorant mass has in its favor that it
makes no pretense of knowledge or tolerance. Acting, as it always
does, by mere impulse, its reasons are like those of a child.
"Why?" "Because." Yet the opposition of the uneducated to Anarchism
deserves the same consideration as that of the intelligent man.

What, then, are the objections? First, Anarchism is impractical,
though a beautiful ideal. Second, Anarchism stands for violence and
destruction, hence it must be repudiated as vile and dangerous.
Both the intelligent man and the ignorant mass judge not from a
thorough knowledge of the subject, but either from hearsay or false
interpretation.

A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in
existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing
conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one
objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is
wrong and foolish. The true criterion of the practical, therefore,
is not whether the latter can keep intact the wrong or foolish;
rather is it whether the scheme has vitality enough to leave the
stagnant waters of the old, and build, as well as sustain, new life.
In the light of this conception, Anarchism is indeed practical.
More than any other idea, it is helping to do away with the wrong and
foolish; more than any other idea, it is building and sustaining new
life.

The emotions of the ignorant man are continuously kept at a pitch by
the most blood-curdling stories about Anarchism. Not a thing too
outrageous to be employed against this philosophy and its exponents.
Therefore Anarchism represents to the unthinking what the proverbial
bad man does to the child,--a black monster bent on swallowing
everything; in short, destruction and violence.

Destruction and violence! How is the ordinary man to know that the
most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of
destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating? Nor is he
aware that Anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's
forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that
feed on the life's essence of