The Practical Anarchist by Sartwell Crispin;

Author:Sartwell, Crispin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Chapter 2: Self-Preservation

Words, though they are things themselves, are mainly the signs of things.

We see the sign of “Dry Goods.” The sign is exceedingly well executed, but it gives us no adequate idea of the goods within; no one would order any quantity of them before going within to examine the things to which the sign referred.

My words here are intended to be the signs of ideas or facts; but even the best-chosen and best-arranged words are full of ambiguity and imperfections, and it is unsafe for a reader to take it for granted that the writer on a subject of vital interest can do everything for him. There is a part which the reader is obliged to act for himself; that is, to look beyond or within the mere words or signs for the idea intended to be conveyed. With this precaution kept vividly before the reader, the mere execution of the sign is of secondary importance. Delicious foreign fruits and spices are brought to us in very rough and crude envelopes; but they are the best the conditions of their producers afford, and we are content to get our figs, our dates and cinnamon without much regard to the mats in which they are conveyed to us.

Before we begin to probe the festering mass now called “civilization,” let us prepare ourselves with all the spirit of forbearance which the case allows, that we need not add any unnecessary pangs to the already exhausted and dying patient.

“I know,” says B., “that you do not admit analogies as proof, but is there not some indication of the divine law in the large fishes eating up the little ones, and in spiders spinning webs to entrap flies? Is not this the work of the Deity, who is all perfection, and can we hope to alter these things permanently for the better?”

Answer. Are we willing to admit from the first glance at analogies that the law for fishes and insects is also the law for cultivated, civilized man?

Cultivation is as much the law for man as primitive crudity is. But suppose we admit that the same law governs men, fishes, and insects. What is that law which is inherent and indestructible in all? It is the instinct of self-preservation. Fishes and insects would not perhaps eat each other raw and alive, if, like man, they had the means of preparation and cooking; nor would they run the risk, nor take the trouble of pursuing each other in continuous warfare, if, like men, they had more safe or expeditious modes of preserving their existence. It is our particular privilege to have an abundance of superior modes, and it is only for want of the appreciation of them, or when cut off from them by casualties that we are driven to the level of fishes and spiders. Although we cannot talk at all without resorting to analogies to illustrate our meaning, nothing is more likely to lead us astray when they are too readily accepted as parallels.

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