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Title: The place of the individual in society
Author: Emma Goldman
Release date: August 16, 2023 [eBook #71418]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: Free Society Forum, 1940
Credits: Fritz Ohrenschall, Louise Pattison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY ***
_The_
PLACE OF THE INDIVIDUAL
IN SOCIETY
[Illustration: Author Photograph]
By EMMA GOLDMAN
“NATIONALISM AND ITS RELATION TO CULTURE”
_By_ RUDOLF ROCKER
This profound work will revolutionize the intellectual world of thought
by showing that the heretofore accepted notions as to the underlying
causes of Social Phenomena are only partially true and therefore,
inadequate to explain how social changes are affected.
Many great thinkers have sought to formulate a “Philosophy of History”
which would enable us to analyze and explain, as well as predict social
and historical events. Buckle, Hegel, Marx and Spengler are just a few
among the great thinkers who have contributed to this great task, but
Rocker with his profound understanding and in his illuminating style
shows why the “Hegelian Dialectics”, “Marx’s Economic Determinism” and
“The Spenglerian Philosophy of Destiny” have failed.
In this veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, we see before us, in a
living procession, the great cultures of all ages. The thoughts and
ideals of the Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans become
accessible to us with the same clarity and understanding as the thoughts
and ideals of our contemporaries. No intelligent person regardless of
his school of thought, can afford to miss reading this great work.
“Nationalism and Its Relation to Culture” will be published in two
volumes and sold at $7.50 for both volumes. We offer You this great work
at a price of $5.00, if you SUBSCRIBE IN ADVANCE.
This monumental work will soon be off the press. We urge you to send
your subscriptions now--in advance. By so doing, you will help our
committee complete the work and you will save $2.50.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY.
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THE INDIVIDUAL, SOCIETY AND THE STATE
By
EMMA GOLDMAN
The minds of men are in confusion, for the very foundations of our
civilization seem to be tottering. People are losing faith in the
existing institutions, and the more intelligent realize that capitalist
industrialism is defeating the very purpose it is supposed to serve.
The world is at a loss for a way out. Parliamentarism and democracy are
on the decline. Salvation is being sought in Fascism and other forms of
“strong” government.
The struggle of opposing ideas now going on in the world involves social
problems urgently demanding a solution. The welfare of the individual
and the fate of human society depend on the right answer to those
questions. The crisis, unemployment, war, disarmament, international
relations, etc., are among those problems.
The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject
of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all
civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a
strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be
preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another,
dictatorship--monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian--the solution of the
ills and difficulties that beset society today?
In other words, shall we cure the evils of democracy by more democracy,
or shall we cut the Gordian knot of popular government with the sword of
dictatorship?
My answer is neither the one nor the other. I am against dictatorship
and Fascism as I am opposed to parliamentary regimes and so-called
political democracy.
Nazism has been justly called an attack on civilization. This
characterization applies with equal force to every form of dictatorship;
indeed, to every kind of suppression and coercive authority. For what is
civilization in the true sense? All progress has been essentially an
enlargement of the liberties of the individual with a corresponding
decrease of the authority wielded over him by external forces. This
holds good in the realm of physical as well as of political and economic
existence. In the physical world man has progressed to the extent in
which he has subdued the forces of nature and made them useful to
himself. Primitive man made a step on the road to progress when he first
produced fire and thus triumphed over darkness, when he chained the wind
or harnessed water.
What role did authority or government play in human endeavor for
betterment, in invention and discovery? None whatever, or at least none
that was helpful. It has always been the =individual= that has
accomplished every miracle in that sphere, usually in spite of the
prohibition, persecution and interference by authority, human and
divine.
Similarly, in the political sphere, the road of progress lay in getting
away more and more from the authority of the tribal chief or of the
clan, of prince and king, of government, of the State. Economically,
progress has meant greater well-being of ever larger numbers.
Culturally, it has signified the result of all the other
achievements--greater independence, political, mental and psychic.
Regarded from this angle, the problems of man’s relation to the State
assumes an entirely different significance. It is no more a question of
whether dictatorship is preferable to democracy, or Italian Fascism
superior to Hitlerism. A larger and far more vital question poses
itself: Is political government, is the State beneficial to mankind, and
how does it affect the individual in the social scheme of things?
The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in himself, he does
not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called “society,” or
the “nation,” which is only a collection of individuals. Man, the
individual, has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and
motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has been a
continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals
against the State and even against “society,” that is, against the
majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship. Man’s
greatest battles have been waged against man-made obstacles and
artificial handicaps imposed upon him to paralyze his growth and
development. Human thought has always been falsified by tradition and
custom, and perverted false education in the interests of those who held
power and enjoyed privileges. In other words, by the State and the
ruling classes. This constant incessant conflict has been the history of
mankind.
Individuality may be described as the consciousness of the individual as
to what he is and how he lives. It is inherent in every human being and
is a thing of growth. The State and social institutions come and go, but
individuality remains and persists. The very essence of individuality is
expression; the sense of dignity and independence is the soil wherein it
thrives. Individuality is not the impersonal and mechanistic thing that
the State treats as an “individual”. The individual is not merely the
result of heredity and environment, of cause and effect. He is that and
a great deal more, a great deal else. The living man cannot be defined;
he is the fountain-head of all life and all values; he is not a part of
this or of that; he is a whole, an individual whole, a growing,
changing, yet always constant whole.
Individuality is not to be confused with the various ideas and concepts
of Individualism; much less with that “rugged individualism” which is
only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his
individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic
=laissez faire=: the exploitation of the masses by the classes by means of
legal trickery, spiritual debasement and systematic indoctrination of
the servile spirit, which process is known as “education.” That corrupt
and perverse “individualism” is the strait-jacket of individuality. It
has converted life into a degrading race for externals, for possession,
for social prestige and supremacy. Its highest wisdom is “the devil take
the hindmost.”
This “rugged individualism” has inevitably resulted in the greatest
modern slavery, the crassest class distinctions, driving millions to the
breadline. “Rugged individualism” has meant all the “individualism” for
the masters, while the people are regimented into a slave caste to serve
a handful of self-seeking “supermen.” America is perhaps the best
representative of this kind of individualism, in whose name political
tyranny and social oppression are defended and held up as virtues; while
every aspiration and attempt of man to gain freedom and social
opportunity to live is denounced as “un-American” and evil in the name
of that same individualism.
There was a time when the State was unknown. In his natural condition
man existed without any State or organized government. People lived as
families in small communities; They tilled the soil and practiced the
arts and crafts. The individual, and later the family, was the unit of
social life where each was free and the equal of his neighbor. Human
society then was not a State but an =association=; a =voluntary=
association for mutual protection and benefit. The elders and more
experienced members were the guides and advisers of the people. They
helped to manage the affairs of life, not to rule and dominate the
individual.
Political government and the State were a much later development,
growing out of the desire of the stronger to take advantage of the
weaker, of the few against the many. The State, ecclesiastical and
secular, served to give an appearance of legality and right to the wrong
done by the few to the many. That =appearance= of right was necessary the
=easier= to rule the people, because no government can exist without the
=consent= of the people, consent open, tacit or assumed. Constitutionalism
and democracy are the modern forms of that alleged consent; the consent
being inoculated and indoctrinated by what is called “education,” at
home, in the church, and in every other phase of life.
That consent is the belief in authority, in the necessity for it. At its
base is the doctrine that man is evil, vicious, and too incompetent to
know what is good for him. On this all government and oppression is
built. God and the State exist and are supported by this dogma.
Yet the State is nothing but a =name=. It is an abstraction. Like other
similar conceptions--nation, race, humanity--it has no organic reality.
To call the State an organism shows a diseased tendency to make a fetish
of words.
The State is a term for the legislative and administrative machinery
whereby certain business of the people is transacted, and badly so.
There is nothing sacred, holy or mysterious about it. The State has no
more conscience or moral mission than a commercial company for working a
coal mine or running a railroad.
The State has no more existence than gods and devils have. They are
equally the reflex and creation of man, for man, the =individual=, is the
only reality. The State is but the shadow of man, the shadow of his
opaqueness of his ignorance and fear.
Life begins and ends with man, the individual. Without him there is no
race, no humanity, no State. No, not even “society” is possible without
man. It is the individual who lives, breathes and suffers. His
development, his advance, has been a continuous struggle against the
fetishes of his own creation and particularly so against the “State.”
In former days religious authority fashioned political life in the image
of the Church. The authority of the State, the “rights” of rulers came
from on high; power, like faith, was divine. Philosophers have written
thick volumes to prove the sanctity of the State; some have even clad it
with infallibility and with god-like attributes. Some have talked
themselves into the insane notion that the State is “superhuman,” the
supreme reality, “the absolute.”
Enquiry was condemned as blasphemy. Servitude was the highest virtue. By
such precepts and training certain things came to be regarded as
self-evident, as sacred of their truth, but because of constant and
persistent repetition.
All progress has been essentially an unmasking of “divinity” and
“mystery,” of alleged sacred, eternal “truth”; it has been a gradual
elimination of the abstract and the substitution in its place of the
real, the concrete. In short, of facts against fancy, of knowledge
against ignorance, of light against darkness.
That slow and arduous liberation of the individual was not accomplished
by the aid of the State. On the contrary, it was by continuous conflict,
by a life-and-death struggle with the State, that even the smallest
vestige of independence and freedom has been won. It has cost mankind
much time and blood to secure what little it has gained so far from
kings, tsars and governments.
The great heroic figure of that long Golgotha has been Man. It has
=always= been the individual, often alone and singly, at other times in
unity and co-operation with others of his kind, who has fought and bled
in the age-long battle against suppression and oppression, against the
powers that enslave and degrade him.
More than that and more significant: It was man, the individual, whose
soul first rebelled against injustice and degradation; it was the
individual who first conceived the idea of resistance to the conditions
under which he chafed. In short, it is always the individual who is the
parent of the liberating =thought= as well as of the =deed=.
This refers not only to political struggles, but to the entire gamut of
human life and effort, in all ages and climes. It has always been the
individual, the man of strong mind and will to liberty, who paved the
way for every human advance, for every step toward a freer and better
world; in science, philosophy and art, as well as in industry, whose
genius rose to the heights, conceiving the “impossible,” visualizing its
realization and imbuing others with his enthusiasm to work and strive
for it. Socially speaking, it was always the prophet, the seer, the
idealist, who dreamed of a world more to his heart’s desire and who
served as the beacon light on the road to greater achievement.
The State, every government whatever its form, character or color--be it
absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or
Bolshevik--is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of
change and opposed to it. Whatever changes it undergoes are always the
result of pressure exerted upon it, pressure strong enough to =compel= the
ruling powers to submit peaceably or otherwise, generally
“otherwise”--that is, by revolution. Moreover, the inherent conservatism
of government, of authority of any kind, unavoidably becomes
reactionary. For two reasons: first, because it is in the nature of
government not only to retain the power it has, but also to strengthen,
widen and perpetuate it, nationally as well as internationally. The
stronger authority grows, the greater the State and its power, the less
it can tolerate a similar authority or political power along-side of
itself. The psychology of government demands that its influence and
prestige constantly grow, at home and abroad, and it exploits every
opportunity to increase it. This tendency is motivated by the financial
and commercial interests back of the government, represented and served
by it. The fundamental =raison d’etre= of every government to which,
incidentally, historians of former days wilfully shut their eyes, has
become too obvious now even for professors to ignore.
The other factor which impels governments to become even more
conservative and reactionary is their inherent distrust of the
individual and fear of individuality. Our political and social scheme
cannot afford to tolerate the individual and his constant quest for
innovation. In “self-defense” the State therefore suppresses,
persecutes, punishes and even deprives the individual of life. It is
aided in this by every institution that stands for the preservation of
the existing order. It resorts to every form of violence and force, and
its efforts are supported by the “moral indignation” of the majority
against the heretic, the social dissenter and the political rebel--the
majority for centuries drilled in State worship, trained in discipline
and obedience and subdued by the awe of authority in the home, the
school, the church and the press.
The strongest bulwark of authority is uniformity; the least divergence
from it is the greatest crime. The wholesale mechanisation of modern
life has increased uniformity a thousandfold. It is everywhere present,
in habits, tastes, dress, thoughts and ideas. Its most concentrated
dullness is “public opinion.” Few have the courage to stand out against
it. He who refuses to submit is at once labelled “queer,” “different”
and decried as a disturbing element in the comfortable stagnancy of
modern life.
Perhaps even more than constituted authority, it is social uniformity
and sameness that harass the individual mast. His very “uniqueness,”
“separateness” and “differentiation” make him an alien, not only in his
native place, but even in his own home. Often more so than the foreign
born who generally falls in with the established.
In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition,
early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not
enough to make sensitive human beings feel =at home=. A certain atmosphere
of “belonging,” the consciousness of being “at one” with the people and
environment, is more essential to one’s feeling of home. This holds good
in relation to one’s family, the smaller local circle, as well as the
larger phase of the life and activities commonly called one’s country.
The individual whose vision encompasses the whole world often feels
nowhere so hedged in and out of touch with his surroundings than in his
native land.
In pre-war time the individual could at least escape national and family
boredom. The whole world was open to his longings and his quests. Now
the world has become a prison, and life continual solitary confinement.
Especially is this true since the advent of dictatorship, right and
left.
Friedrich Nietzsche called the State a cold monster. What would he have
called the hideous beast in the garb of modern dictatorship? Not that
government had ever allowed much scope to the individual; but the
champions of the new State ideology do not grant even that much. “The
individual is nothing,” they declare, “it is the collectivity which
counts.” Nothing less than the complete surrender of the individual will
satisfy the insatiable appetite of the new deity.
Strangely enough, the loudest advocates of this new gospel are to be
found among the British and American intelligentsia. Just now they are
enamored with the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” In theory only, to
be sure. In practice, they still prefer the few liberties in their own
respective countries. They go to Russia for a short visit or as salesmen
of the “revolution,” but they feel safer and more comfortable at home.
Perhaps it is not only lack of courage which keeps these good Britishers
and Americans in their native lands rather than in the millenium come.
Subconsciously there may lurk the feeling that individuality remains the
most fundamental fact of all human association, suppressed and
persecuted yet never defeated, and in the long run the victor.
The “genius of man,” which is but another name for personality and
individuality, bores its way through all the caverns of dogma, through
the thick walls of tradition and custom, defying all taboos, setting
authority at naught, facing contumely and the scaffold--ultimately to be
blessed as prophet and martyr by succeeding generations. But for the
“genius of man,” that inherent, persistent quality of individuality, we
would be still roaming the primeval forests.
Peter Kropotkin has shown what wonderful results this unique force of
man’s individuality has achieved when strengthened by =co-operation= with
other individualities. The one-sided and entirely inadequate Darwinian
theory of the struggle for existence received its biological and
sociological completion from the great Anarchist scientist and thinker.
In his profound work, _Mutual Aid_, Kropotkin shows that in the animal
kingdom, as well as in human society, co-operation--as opposed to
internecine strife and struggle--has worked for the survival and
evolution of the species. He demonstrated that only mutual aid and
voluntary co-operation--=not= the omnipotent, all-devastating State--can
create the basis for a free individual and associational life.
At present the individual is the pawn of the zealots of dictatorship and
the equally obsessed zealots of “rugged individualism.” The excuse of
the former is its claim of a new objective. The latter does not even
make a pretense of anything new. As a matter of fact “rugged
individualism” has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Under its
guidance the brute struggle for physical existence is still kept up.
Strange as it may seem, and utterly absurd as it is, the struggle for
physical survival goes merrily on though the necessity for it has
entirely disappeared. Indeed, the struggle is being continued apparently
=because= there is no necessity for it. Does not so-called overproduction
prove it? Is not the world-wide economic crisis an eloquent
demonstration that the struggle for existence is being maintained by the
blindness of “rugged individualism” at the risk of its own destruction?
One of the insane characteristics of this struggle is the complete
negation of the relation of the producer to the things he produces. The
average worker has no inner point of contact with the industry he is
employed in, and he is a stranger to the process of production of which
he is a mechanical part. Like any other cog of the machine, he is
replaceable at any time by other similar depersonalized human beings.
The intellectual proletarian, though he foolishly thinks himself a free
agent, is not much better off. He, too, has a little choice or
self-direction, in his particular metier as his brother who works with
his hands. Material considerations and desire for greater social
prestige are usually the deciding factors in the vocation of the
intellectual. Added to it is the tendency to follow in the footsteps of
family tradition, and become doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, etc.
The groove requires less effort and personality. In consequence nearly
everybody is out of place in our present scheme of things. The masses
plod on, partly because their senses have been dulled by the deadly
routine of work and because they must eke out an existence. This applies
with even greater force to the political fabric of today. There is no
place in its texture for free choice of independent thought and
activity. There is a place only for voting and tax-paying puppets.
The interests of the State and those of the individual differ
fundamentally and are antagonistic. The State and the political and
economic institutions it supports can exist only by fashioning the
individual to their particular purpose; training him to respect “law and
order;” teaching him obedience, submission and unquestioning faith in
the wisdom and justice of government; above all, loyal service and
complete self-sacrifice when the State commands it, as in war. The State
puts itself and its interests even above the claims of religion and of
God. It punishes religious or conscientious scruples against
individuality because there is no individuality without liberty, and
liberty is the greatest menace to authority.
The struggle of the individual against these tremendous odds is the more
difficult--too often dangerous to life and limb--because it is not truth
or falsehood which serves as the criterion of the opposition he meets.
It is not the validity or usefulness of his thought or activity which
rouses against him the forces of the State and of “public opinion.” The
persecution of the innovator and protestant has always been inspired by
fear on the part of constituted authority of having its infallibility
questioned and its power undermined.
Man’s true liberation, individual and collective, lies in his
emancipation from authority and from the belief in it. All human
evolution has been a struggle in that direction and for that object. It
is not invention and mechanics which constitute development. The
ability to travel at the rate of 100 miles an hour is no evidence of
being civilized. True civilization is to be measured by the individual,
the unit of all social life; by his individuality and the extent to
which it is free to have its being, to grow and expand unhindered by
invasive and coercive, authority.
Socially speaking, the criterion of civilization and culture is the
degree of liberty and economic opportunity which the individual enjoys;
of social and international unity and co-operation unrestricted by
man-made laws and other artificial obstacles; by the absence of
privileged castes and by the reality of liberty and human dignity; in
short, by the true emancipation of the individual.
Political absolutism has been abolished because men have realized in the
course of time that absolute power is evil and destructive. But the same
thing is true of all power, whether it be the power of privilege, of
money, of the priest, of the politician or of so-called democracy. In
its effect on individuality it matters little what the particular
character of coercion is--whether it be as black as Fascism, as yellow
as Nazism or as pretentiously red as Bolshevism. It is power that
corrupts and degrades both master and slave and it makes no difference
whether the power is wielded by an autocrat, by parliament or Soviets.
More pernicious than the power of a dictator is that of a class; the
most terrible--the tyranny of a majority.
The long process of history has taught man that division and strife mean
death, and that unity and co-operation advance his cause, multiply his
strength and further his welfare. The spirit of government has always
worked against the social application of this vital lesson, except where
it served the State and aided its own particular interests. It is this
anti-progressive and anti-social spirit of the State and of the
privileged castes back of it which has been responsible for the bitter
struggle between man and man. The individual and ever larger groups of
individuals are beginning to see beneath the surface of the established
order of things. No longer are they so blinded as in the past by the
glare and tinsel of the State idea, and of the “blessings” of “rugged
individualism.” Man is reaching out for the wider scope of human
relations which liberty alone can give. For true liberty is not a mere
scrap of paper called “constitution,” “legal right” or “law.” It is not
an abstraction derived from the non-reality known as “the State.” It is
not the =negative= thing of being free =from= something, because with
=such= freedom you may starve to death. Real freedom, true liberty =is
positive=: it is freedom to something; it is the liberty to be, to do;
in short, the liberty of actual and active opportunity.
That sort of liberty is not a gift: it is the natural right of man, of
every human being. It cannot be given; it cannot be conferred by any law
or government. The need of it, the longing for it, is inherent in the
individual. Disobedience to every form of coercion is the instinctive
expression of it. Rebellion and revolution are the more or less
conscious attempt to achieve it. Those manifestations, individual and
social, are fundamentally expressions of the values of man. That those
values may be nurtured, the community must realize that its greatest and
most lasting asset is the unit--the individual.
In religion, as in politics, people speak of abstractions and believe
they are dealing with realities. But when it does come to the real and
the concrete, most people seem to lose vital touch with it. It may well
be because reality alone is too matter-of-fact, too cold to enthuse the
human soul. It can be aroused to enthusiasm only by things out of the
commonplace, out of the ordinary. In other words, the Ideal is the spark
that fires the imagination and hearts of men. Some ideal is needed to
rouse man out of the inertia and humdrum of his existence and turn the
abject slave into an heroic figure.
Right here, of course, comes the Marxist objector who has outmarxed Marx
himself. To such a one, man is a mere puppet in the hands of that
metaphysical Almighty called economic determinism or, more vulgarly, the
class struggle. Man’s will, individual and collective, his psychic life
and mental orientation count for almost nothing with our Marxist and do
not affect his conception of human history.
No intelligent student will deny the importance of the economic factor
in the social growth and development of mankind. But only narrow and
wilful dogmatism can persist in remaining blind to the important role
played by an idea as conceived by the imagination and aspirations of the
individual.
It were vain and unprofitable to attempt to balance one factor as
against another in human experience. No one single factor in the complex
of individual or social behavior can be designated as the factor of
decisive quality. We know too little, and may never know enough, of
human psychology to weigh and measure the relative values of this or
that factor in determining man’s conduct. To form such dogmas in their
social connotation is nothing short of bigotry; yet, perhaps, it has its
uses, for the very attempt to do so proved the persistence of the human
will and confutes the Marxists.
Fortunately even some Marxists are beginning to see that all is not well
with the Marxian creed. After all, Marx was but human--all too
human--hence by no means infallible. The practical application of
economic determinism in Russia is helping to clear the minds of the more
intelligent Marxists. This can be seen in the trans-valuation of Marxian
values going on in Socialist and even Communist ranks in some European
countries. They are slowly realising that their theory has overlooked
the human element, _den Menschen_, is a Socialist paper put it.
Important as the economic factor is, it is not enough. The rejuvenation
of mankind needs the inspiration and energising force of an ideal.
Such an ideal I see in Anarchism. To be sure, not in the popular
misrepresentations of Anarchism spread by the worshippers of the State
and authority. I mean the philosophy of a new social order based on the
released energies of the individual and the free association of
liberated individuals.
Of all social theories Anarchism alone steadfastly proclaims that
society exists for man, not man for society. The sole legitimate purpose
of society is to serve the needs and advance the aspiration of the
individual. Only by doing so can it justify its existence and be an aid
to progress and culture.
The political parties and men savagely scrambling for power will scorn
me as hopelessly out of tune with our time. I cheerfully admit the
charge. I find comfort in the assurance that their hysteria lacks
enduring quality. Their hosanna is but of the hour.
Man’s yearning for liberation from all authority and power will never be
soothed by their cracked song. Man’s quest for freedom from every
shackle is eternal. It must and will go on.
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“A life unmatched by any woman of our time.”
The N. Y. Herald-Tribune
“jaybass” [Illustration: printers logo] printing
Transcriber’s Note
Obvious typographical errors corrected as follows:
On Page 3: ‘Is political goverment, is the State...’--corrected to
‘government’.
On Page 10: ‘But for the “genuis of man,” that...’--corrected to
‘genius’.
On Back Cover: ‘...most absorbing though.’--corrected to
‘thought’.
Punctuation errors corrected without note.
Questionable spellings of ‘millenium’, ‘wilful’ and ‘wilfully’ retained.
_Text_ denotes italic and =text= denotes bold in this e-text version.
The title given on the cover of this Pamphlet and the title given on
the first page are indeed different.
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