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

186/ ANARCHISM
ments of the Reform, and especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of
the last century and of our own times, the total abandonment of the idea of revenge,
or of "due reward "-of good for good and evil for evil-is affirmed more and more
vigorously. The higher conception of "no revenge fo r wrongs," and of freely giving
more than one expects to receive from his neighbours, is proclaimed as being the
real principle of morality-a principle superior to mere equivalence, equity, or justice,
and more conducive to happiness. And man is appealed to to be guided in his
acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception
of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which
we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and
undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical
progress of man, Illutual support-not mutual struggle-has had the leading part. In
its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee ofa still
loftier evolution of our race.
Anarchist Morality (1890)
We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves
wish to rule nobody We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing
but the truth. And by this very fa ct, do we not declare that we ourselves do not
wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the
truth, the whole truth We do not wish to have the fruits of our labour stolen from us.
And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others' labour
... By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fa shion,
reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different Our sense
of equality revolts at such an idea ...
By proclaiming ourselves anarchists, we proclaim beforehand that we disavow any
way of treating others in which we should not like them to treat us; that we will no longer
tolerate the inequality that has allowed some among us to use their strength, their
cunning or their ability after a fa shion in which it would annoy us to have such qualities
used against ourselves. Equality in all things, the synonym of equity, this is anarchism in
very deed. It is not only against the abstract trinity oflaw, religion, and authority that we
declare war. By becoming anarchists we declare war against all this wave of deceit, cunning,
exploitation, depravity, vice-in a word, inequality-which they have poured into
all our hearts. We declare war against their way of acting, against their way of thinking.
The governed, the deceived, the exploited, the prostitute, wound above all else our
sense of equality. It is in the name of equality that we are determined to have no more
prostituted, exploited, deceived and governed men and women ...