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

222 ! ANARCHISM
as now, but certainly some will always exist. It is proverbial that the same tree never
bears two identical leaves, and this will probably always be tme. And it is even truer with
regard to human beings, who are much more complex than leaves. But this diversity is
hardly an evil. On the contrary, as the German philosopher Feuerbach rightly observed, it
is a resource of the human race. Thanks to this diversity, humanity is a collective whole in
which the one individual complements all the others and needs them. As a result, this infinite
diversity of human individuals is the fu ndamental cause and the very basis of their
solidarity. It is an all-powerful argument for equality.
Even in modern society, if we disregard the differences artificially created by a
thousand social causes, such as upbringing, education, and economic and political
standing-which differ not only among social strata but nearly from fa mily to fa m­
ily-we will see that from the standpoint of intellectual abilities and moral strength,
excluding geniuses and idiots, the vast majority of individuals either are quite similar
or at least balance each other out (since one who is weaker in a given respect nearly
always makes up the difference by being equivalently stronger in another respect),
with the result that it becomes impossible to say whether one individual from this
mass rises much above or sinks much below another. The vast majority of human individuals
are not identical, but they are equivalent and hence equal ...
Education ought to be equal fo r everyone in all respects. It must therefore be integral
education, that is, it should prepare every child of each sex fo r the life of
thought as well as fo r the life of labour. This way, all children are equally able to become
full human beings ...
Since, on the one hand, no mind however powerful can encompass evelY specialty
of evelY science, and since, on the other hand, a general knowledge of all sciences is absolutely
necessary for the mind to be fully developed, instmction will naturally be divided
into two parts: the general part, which will furnish both the basic elements of every
science without exception and a very real, not superficial knowledge of the whole that
they form together; and the special part, which will be divided of necessity into several
groups or faculties, each of which will cover in full the particular aspects of a given number
of sciences that are intrinsically very complementary ...
Undoubtedly some adolescents, influenced by either their own or someone
else's secondary interest, will be mistaken in the choice of their scientific specialty,
initially choosing a faculty and career not quite best suited to their aptitudes. But
since we are sincere, unhypocritical partisans of individual freedom; since we detest
with all our heart, in the name of this freedom, the principle of authority and every
possible manifestation of that divine, anti-human principle; since we detest and con-