Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TRUE AIM OF ANARCHISM- A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD AND OF MANKIND; AND THE TEACHINGS RESULTING THEREFROM. BY E. STEINLE. What is the aim and purpose of men, in giving up a free and independent life as individuals, in order to combine into groups, and form a society which must necessarily restrict to a certain degree the liberty of the person? Doubtless the aim can be nothing else than to secure the welfare of all those who belong to such a group or community, and to procure for them the means whereby to make life pleasant and enjoyable; the physical and mental powers of a single person not being sufficient either to furnish ample protection against the destroying powers of nature, or to produce all those things needful for that purpose. But, from the beginning to the present time, to what end have all combinations of men into com m unites, or into nations, led? Instead of accomplishing their true and natural aim and desire, the welfare of nil, they have always and everywhere (as far as we know the history of mankind) precipitated the great mass of the people into indescribable misery. Never have any people on the face of the earth accomplished this great aim. On the contrary, the result of all combinations of men has been the opposite of the original purpose. (Shall we therefore strive to dissolve such combinations? Certainly not, for they are absolutely necessary in order to secure the welfare of mankind. Now if this be true, it follows that thus far, always and everywhere, something must have been thoroughly wrong, and perverted, if such combinations have produced such fearful results as lie open before our eyes, both in the past and in the present. It is not necessary here to describe the terrible misery of men; that has been done already, very many t...