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240 VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
anarchists. They remind one of those Bakotminists that
Marx once referred to as "lawyers without cases, physicians
without patients and knowledge, students of billiards,
etc." (7) "They are good-natured, gentlemanly,
cultured people," says Sombart ; "people with spotless
linen, good manners and fashionably dressed wives ; people
with whom one holds social intercourse as with one's
equals; people who would at first sight hardly be taken
as the representatives of a new movement whose object
it is to prevent socialism from becoming a mere middleclass
belief." (8) In a word, they appear
to be individuals
wearied with the unrealities of life and seeking
to overcome their ennui by, at any rate, discussing the
making of revolutions. With their "myths," their "reflections
on violence," their appeals to physical vigor and
to the glory of combat, as well as with their incessant
attacks on the socialist movement, they have given very
material aid to the anarchist element in the syndicalist
movement. For a number of years I have read faithfully
Le Mouvement Socialiste, but I confess that I have
not understood their dazzling metaphysics, and I am
somewhat comforted to see that both Levine (9) and
Lewis (10) find them frequently incomprehensible.
Without injustice to this group of intellectuals, I think
it may be truthfully said that they have contributed nothing
essential to the doctrines of syndicalism as developed
by the trades unionists themselves ;
and Edward Berth,
in Les Nouveaux Aspects du Socialisme, has partially explained
why, without meaning to do so. "It has often
been observed," he says, "that the anarchists are by
origin artisan, peasant, or aristocrat. Rousseau represents,
obviously,
the anarchism of the artisan. His republic
is a little republic of free and independent craftsmen.
. . . Proudhon is a peasant in his heart . . .
and,