Pierre Kropotkine
Ethics - origin and development
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About the print version:
This text was taken from a 1st edition of Ethics: Origin and Development, George
G. Harrap & Co., LTD., London, Calcutta, and Sydney 1924.
*******
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
INTRODUCTION BY THE RUSSIAN EDITOR
CHAPTER I
THE PRESENT NEED OF DETERMINING THE BASES OF MORALITY
CHAPTER II
THE GRADUALLY EVOLVING BASES OF THE NEW ETHICS
CHAPTER III
THE MORAL PRINCIPLE IN NATURE
CHAPTER IV
MORAL CONCEPTIONS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES
CHAPTER V
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS--ANCIENT GREECE
CHAPTER VI
CHRISTIANITY--THE MIDDLE AGES--THE RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS IN THE MODERN ERA--XVII AND XVIII
CENTURIES
CHAPTER VIII
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS IN THE MODERN ERA XVII AND XVIII
CENTURIES (continued)
CHAPTER IX
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS IN THE MODERN ERA--END OF THE XVIII
CENTURY AND BEGINNING OF THE XIX CENTURY
CHAPTER X
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS---XIX CENTURY
CHAPTER XI
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS XIX CENTURY (continued)
CHAPTER XII
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS--XIX CENTURY (continued)
CHAPTER XIII
DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL TEACHINGS XIX CENTURY (concluded)
CONCLUSION
INDEX
**********
The text is from my copy of Peter Kropotkin, Ethics: Origins and Development,
London: George E Harrap Co, Ltd.
TRANSLATORS' PREFACE
Kropotkin's "Ethics: Origin and Development," is, in a sense, a continuation of
his well-known work, "Mutual Aid as a Factor of Evolution." The basic ideas of
the two books are closely connected, almost inseparable, in fact: -- the origin
and progress of human relations in society. Only, in the "Ethics" Kropotkin
approaches his theme through a study of the ideology of these relations.
The Russian writer removes ethics from the sphere of the speculative and
metaphysical, and brings human conduct and ethical teaching back to its natural
environment: the ethical practices of men in their everyday concerns -- from the
time of primitive societies to our modern highly organized States. Thus
conceived, ethics becomes a subject of universal interest; under the kindly eyes
and able pen of the great Russian scholar, a subject of special and academic
study becomes closely linked to whatever is significant in the life and thought
of all men.
The circumstances leading to the conception and writing of this book are
discussed by the Russian editor, N. Lebedev, whose Introduction is included in
this volume. The present translators have availed themselves of Kropotkin's two
articles on Ethics contributed to the Nineteenth Century, 1905-06. They found,
however, that the author had made very many changes in the first three chapters
of his book -- in substance, a reproduction of the magazine articles- and they
thought it best to make the necessary alterations and additions called for by
the Russian text. These three chapters preserve the English and the turns of
phrase of the magazine articles.
In preparing this edition the translators consulted all of the books mentioned
by Kropotkin; they verified all his citations, and corrected a number of errors
that crept into the Russian original owing to the absence of the author's
supervising care. As is generally known, the book appeared after Kropotkin's
death. The translators have added such additional footnotes as they thought
would prove of value and interest to the English reader. They have made every
attempt to discover and cite the best, most readily available English versions
of the books referred to by the author. These added notes and comments are
enclosed in brackets, and are usually marked, -- Trans. Note. In addition, the
Index has been carefully revised and augmented.
A multitude of books had to be consulted in the faithful discharge of the
translators' duties. And for these, many librarians -- those most obliging and
patient of mortals-were pestered. The translators wish to record their thanks to
Mr. Howson, Mr. Frederic W. Erb, Miss Erb, and Mr. Charles F. Claar -- all of
Columbia University Library, and to Mr Abraham Mill of the Slavonic division of
the New York Public Library. They and their assistants have been very helpful
and kind. In the preparation of the manuscript the translators were fortunate to
have the competent assistance of Miss Ann Bogel and Miss Evelyn Friedland
--always vigilant in the discovery and eradication of errors.
Madam Sophie G. Kropotkin and Madam Sasha Kropotkin -- wife and daughter of
Peter Kropotkin -- followed the progress of this edition; they have been ever
gracious and helpful. It is their hope that, at some time in the near future,
Kropotkin's last essays on Ethics will be issued in English translation. And
indeed, our literature and thought will be richer for the possession of all of
Kropotkin's writings. His work -- fine and thorough and scholarly as it is -- is
only less inspiring than the ennobling memory of his life and character.
Louis S. Friedland
Joseph R. Piroshnikoff
New York
May 1924
Introduction by the Russian Editor
"ETHICS" is the swan song of the great humanitarian scientist and
revolutionist-anarchist, and constitutes, as it were, the crowning work and the
résumé of all the scientific, philosophical, and sociological views of Peter
Alekseyevich Kropotkin, at which he arrived in the course of his long and
unusually rich life. Unfortunately, death came before he could complete his
work, and, according to the will and desire of Peter Alekseyevich, the
responsible task of preparing "Ethics" for the press fell upon me.
In issuing the first volume of "Ethics", I feel the necessity of saying a few
words to acquaint the reader with the history of this work.
In his "Ethics" Kropotkin wished to give answers to the two fundamental problems
of morality: whence originate man's moral conceptions? and , what is the goal of
the moral prescriptions and standards? It is for this reason that he subdivided
his work into two parts: the first was to consider the question of the origin
and the historical development of morality, and the second part Kropotkin
planned to devote to the exposition of the bases of realistic ethics, and its
aims.
Kropotkin had time to write only the first volume of "Ethics," and even that not
in finished form. Some chapters of the first volume were written by him in rough
draft only, and the last chapter, in which the ethical teachings of Stirner,
Nietzsche, Tolstoi, Multatuli, and of other prominent contemporary moralists
were to be discussed, remained unwritten.
For the second volume of "Ethics" Kropotkin had time to write only a few essays,
which he planned to publish at first in the form of magazine articles, -- and a
series of rough drafts and notes. They are the essays: "Primitive Ethics,"
"Justice, Morality, and Religion," "Ethics and Mutual Aid," "Origins of Moral
Motives and of the Sense of Duty," and others.
Kropotkin began to occupy himself with moral problems as early as in the
'eighties, but he devoted particularly close attention to the questions of
morality during the last decade of the nineteenth century, when voices began to
be heard in literature proclaiming that morality is not needed and when the
a-moralist doctrine of Nietzsche was gaining attention. At the same time, many
representatives of science and of philosophic thought, under the influence of
Darwin's teaching, -- interpreted literally, -- began to assert that there
reigns in the world but one general law, -- the "law of struggle for existence,"
and by this very assumption they seemed to lend support to philosophical
a-moralism.
Kropotkin, feeling all the falseness of such conclusions, decided to prove from
the scientific point of view that nature is not a-moral and does not teach man a
lesson of evil, but that morality constitutes the natural product of the
evolution of social life not only of man, but of almost all living creatures,
among the majority of which we find the rudiments of moral relations.
In 1890 Kropotkin delivered, before the "Ancoats Brotherhood" of Manchester, a
lecture on the subject "Justice and Morality," and somewhat later he repeated
this lecture in amplified form before the London Ethical Society.
During the period 1891-1894 he printed in the magazine, Nineteenth Century, a
series of articles on the subject of mutual aid among the animals, savages, and
civilized peoples. These essays, which later formed the contents of the book
"Mutual Aid, a factor of evolution," constitute, as it were, an introduction to
Kropotkin's moral teaching.
In 1904-1905 Kropotkin printed in the magazine Nineteenth Century two articles
directly devoted to moral problems: "The Ethical Need of the Present Day," and
"The Morality of Nature." These essays, in somewhat modified form, constitute
the first three chapters of the present volume. About the same time Kropotkin
wrote in French a small pamphlet, "La Morale Anarchiste." In this pamphlet
Kropotkin exhorts man to active participation in life, and calls upon man to
remember that his power is not in isolation but in alliance with his fellow men,
with the people, with the toiling masses. In opposition to anarchistic
individualism he attempts to create social morality, the ethics of sociality and
solidarity.
The progress of mankind, says Kropotkin, is indissolubly ...
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