Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

92 / ANARCHISM
tence ... Since its own nature forces it to ignore the existence of Peter and James, it
must never be permitted, nor must anybody be permitted in its name, to govern Peter
and James. For it were capable of treating them almost as it treats rabbits. Or
rather, it would continue to ignore them; but its licensed representatives, men not at
all abstract, but on the contrary in very active life and having very substantial interests,
yielding to the pernicious influence which privilege inevitably exercises upon
men, would finally fleece other men in the name of science, just as they have been
fl eeced hitherto by priests, politicians of all shades, and lawyers, in the name of God,
of the State, of judicial Right.
What I preach then is, to a certain extent, the revolt of life against science, or
rather against the government of science, not to destroy science-that would be high
treason to humanity-but to remand it to its place so that it can never leave it
again ...
On the one hand, science is indispensable to the rational organization of society;
on the other, being incapable ofinterestillg itself in that which is real and living,
it must not interfere with the real or practical organization of society.
This contradiction can be solved only in one way: by the liquidation of science
as a moral being existing outside the life of all, and represented by a body of breveted
savants; it must spread among the masses. Science, being called upon to henceforth
represent society's collective consciousness, must really become the property of evelybody.
Thereby, without losing anything of its universal character, of which it can
never divest itself without ceasing to be science, and while continuing to concern itself
exclusively with general causes, the conditions and fixed relations of individuals
and things, it will become one in fa ct with the immediate and real life of all individuals
... The world of scientific abstractions is not revealed; it is inherent in the real
world, of which it is only the general or abstract expression and representation. As
long as it fo rms a separate region, specially represented by the savants as a body, this
ideal world threatens to take the place ofa good God to the real world, reserving fo r
its licensed representatives the office of priests. That is the reason why it is necessary
to dissolve the special social organization of the savants by general instruction, equal
for all in all things, in order that the masses, ceasing to be flocks led and shorn by
privileged priests, may take into their own hands the direction oftheir destinies.