ANARCHISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "Bricornoz."] SIR,—Your reiterated statement as to man being " inherently bad" will surely tend to increase the pessimism which is one of the causes of anarchism. But is it not evident that anarchists are not merely ferocious pessimists, but rather idealists gone mad; in the words of Carlyle, "content that old
sick Society should be deliberately burnt in the Faith that she is a Phcenix, and that a new heaven-born young one will rise out of her ashes" (" Sartor Resartus," ch. v.) ? With anarchism, as with the religious persecution of past ages, while condemning the brutality of the means adopted, we must do justice to the belief that underlies it, and the evidence it affords that man differs from the brute in being essentially an idealist, ever striving—even at times in a spirit of passion- ate madness—to regenerate human society, and to establish an ideal kingdom on earth. The ideal of the anarchists is too material, their theories false, their methods brutal; but surely a vulgar desire for personal notoriety is an inadequate explanation of the movement as a whole.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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