The Biological Function of Religion

Having begun examining Rignano’s work on the function of religion recently, after
coming across his Essays in Scientific Synthesis, 1918, specifically chapter six, The Religious
Phenomenon, we have since followed up on his suggestion to look at the topic in more detail by
referring to another of his books, which brings us to On Socialism in Accordance with Liberal
Economic Doctrine, 1901, with the relevant section of chapter seven being The Social Function
of Religion, which we have just now, 17/02/2025 19:48, taken our first peek at. However as we
begin this task tonight by translating the first few statements, we find ourselves entering at a
midpoint in a train of thought that throws us offtrack completely, as he begins this chapter on the
function of religion by talking about societies with different levels of consciousness. To gather
our bearings we have to recognise that this part on religion is a section of a chapter that has to do
with collective consciousness, making us further realise that if we want to study the ideas
concerning religion, then we have to get back to the beginning of the chapter, which is going to
take a little longer than we had thought.

Saturday, 12 April 2025 – Approaching two months and our task of rendering Italian into English
is complete, what follows, after some preliminary discussion, is the English text, followed by
notes made during the process of translation as the ideas revealed made themselves felt in relation
to our Atheist Science philosophy that is based on an understanding that the human animal is a
superorganism; these notes have been reviewed after the whole task was completed. Finally the
Italian is included to allow the English made using internet translators to be checked. The index
for the complete work is given with page numbers relating to that whole work, not the contents
of this examination of one part of the whole book.
The general impression made by Rignano’s discussion of religion is one of this work
having the most exceptional relevance for our sociologically organicist ideas, as we adopt a
totally scientific view, a naturalistic view that is, of humanity’s place in existence. Rignano’s
discussion is as close to a scientific, as in naturalistic account of human nature, focused on
religion, as any we have ever had the good fortune to come across, religion being where any such
attempt at a science of humanity has to focus, because of the centrality of religion in human
existence exemplifying the essence of human nature as being corporate, as in individual somatic
form having evolved to deliver a human being as superorganism. He uses the idea of humans as
a species of mammalian superorganism, in so far as that idea had made itself felt at that time,
which was considerable. This means that we find much to enjoy in the manner of his reasoning,
where he talks about society being an organism, people being robotic cellular units of that
organism and religion being an organ of that same animal being. However, despite this
wonderful, scientifically correct mode of reasoning, Rignano nonetheless manages to maintain
the age old idea of the person as an end in themselves, a human being in their own right, so that
the general thrust of all that he is saying follows the standard logic of a flawed humanity. This is
tragic to see, but we are use to this being the sum of all ideas of this kind that do promote the true
idea of human biologically corporate nature, while never letting go of the false idea of human
divinity vested in the supremacy of the individual person. Because see this duplicity of thought
every time we find a work influenced by a correct scientific way of thinking, we have learnt to
take pleasure in the hint of real science, as we understand that apart from our own works, this is
as good as ‘science’ ever gets.
 Given this constraint on real science, we have to endlessly seek out ideas that indicate a
true scientific account of human existence relating to both the emergence of science, and its
containment. To this end we should enjoy the aspects of arguments like the one that we have
here courtesy of Rignano, that affirm our own ideas even as they provide an example of the
scientific truth’s containment at one and the same time. We should not think of this as a
conspiracy, we should see this as a natural process, more complex than any black and white
interpretation can account for. Rignano was not being dishonest, he was being robotic, exactly
as nature made human persons to be, this is what language is for, language makes the programme
that runs the robots. How else could we end up with the linguistic gush that we know as religion!

——

Will Religion Always Exist ?

Today is Sunday, 20 April 2025, which is Easter Sunday, the BBC lunchtime news lead
with the Catholic celebration of this date and dragged it out, that is the BBC for you, such an
independent news organisation, devoted to the establishment. But seeing such an event, albeit
only glimpsed during the moment required to grab the remote and seek something, anything else,
makes this a fitting day to consider the question above :

Here is a question we can answer easily and with absolute certainty : No.

Any apologists for religion faced with such a categorical statement would immediately
set about proving the invalidity of this definite, incontrovertible fact, but we are not concerned
with religion or religious people, in themselves, we are only interested in religion as an aspect of
reality.

Religion is a behaviour engaged in by an animal, so that in order for religion to exist the
animal that engages in religious behaviour must exist, and we can be certain that before long,
thinking in geological terms, as befits such a question asked as we have it in mind, the animal to
which religious behaviour relates, will no longer exist on this planet, and they will exist in no
other safe haven either, in terms of evading the inevitable extinction that comes with being a
lifeform, just as surely as death comes to each and every one us as individual lifeforms.
This very week astronomers at Cambridge declared to the world that they had found the
first potential evidence of life on another planet. Various discussions ensued as a consequence,
amongst which one pundit said that intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the universe, an
assertion that we must, at least in general terms, agree with. From which it follows that religion
likewise must exist elsewhere, since religious behaviour is synonymous with being ‘intelligent’,
as this term is used by all and sundry; although not by ourselves it must be said. Religion is as
antithetical to being ‘intelligent’ as it is possible to get, according to our ideas on the subject of
intelligence.
First we say that religion is synonymous with being intelligent, then we say religion is the
opposite of being intelligent!
The special attribute of intelligence, as expressed in human behaviour, where the
possession of knowledge arising from the attribute of intelligence is the paramount result that
overawes our regard for ourselves in the modern world, is what people have in mind when they
ask if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. Taking this self-exalting way of thinking
about ourselves as it is, makes it true to say that religion is a feature of this human capacity for
expressing intelligence, because the elaborate religious formulas that rule our world consist of
immense bodies of knowledge, bearing in mind that knowledge does not have to be true, or even
rational at all, in order to be knowledge, knowledge is simply a product of the human capacity
for intelligence, which is a product of human linguistic anatomy. Knowledge is also an attribute
of sociality, it is a collectively accumulated and thus shared product of human linguistic
behaviour, so that if life elsewhere is intelligent, then it must also be social in the same way that
humans are social. Intelligence cannot exist outside the context of sociality, although of course
religion claims otherwise, as it posits a divine being supremely intelligent and solitary, but that is
religion for you, as we just said, antithetical to intelligence even as it is a product of intelligence.
While we are on the subject, it is also evident from our own existence as intelligent lifeforms,
that biological evolution has to of produced lifeforms of a sufficiently substantial form in order
for them to possess a medium of communication as part of their anatomy that can generate
knowledge.
From all of which it follows that if human-like intelligence exists anywhere in the
universe, then so does religion. Human-like intelligence without religion makes no sense in
biological terms. That would be like animals evolving wings in a world where there was no
atmosphere to fly in. The only possible biologically functional reason for an animal to come into
existence with a capacity to create knowledge is that knowledge has to be, first and foremost,
religious in nature. Hence religion is synonymous with intelligence as the subject is generally
thought of, even though religion is anathema to intelligence as intelligence has come to dominate
our world through the product of intelligence, which is knowledge, where science is clearly the
only way to know anything intelligent about reality. This leads us to one final conclusion, human
intelligence is not intelligence at all! It is something else, which, given the crazy world we live,
makes perfect sense.
When elaborating upon the subject of intelligence, knowledge and religion, its should be
immediately obvious that we take a radically different view of human nature than that which
passes for knowledge in the world at large, so that we think very differently about human
intelligence and religious behaviour. We shift the basis of human nature to a point where most
things that are taken for granted concerning human nature, vanish in a puff of sound reasoning.
For us persons are not human beings, therefore they do not possess reason in the absolute sense
that is meant when this idea is generally discussed. For us individual persons as created via the
process of biological evolution, constitute programmed units of a human being, from which it
follows that just as we all understand that a computer cannot be intelligent in the way that humans
are supposed to be, so it is also true that humans cannot be intelligent in the way that humans are
said to be either, because humans, like computers, are programmed, the former being a
programmed machine made by humans, while humans are programmable biological units of a
corporate being made by nature through the process of biological evolution.
In respect to humans therefore, the collective, social body, is the true object of human
existence, the real product of biological evolution in humans. From this statement it should be
immediately apparent why we say that a capacity for intelligence, which equates to a capacity to
generate knowledge, can only evolve for one reason, to enable lifeforms as somatic units of an
extended being to come into existence. From which it follows that the biological function of
intelligence, which is about creating knowledge, is really concerned with evolving an animal with
an anatomy that can generate a programme that organises the same individual units, that we know
as ‘persons’, to form the true animal being of the species concerned. This is where religion comes
in as the epitome of intelligence, albeit one that is simultaneously the antithesis of intelligence,
in the sense that intelligence is ordinarily thought of. The programme that organises individuals
is generated by the linguistic anatomy of individuals, where the product of that anatomy is the
programme existing in the form of knowledge that accumulates in the being of the social body,
the human superorganism, where that programme, that is knowledge, takes a form that integrates
the units, the persons, into the superorganism, integrally. The rationality of such programming
therefore takes its reference from the requirements of biological functionality that delivered such
a knowledge forming species. There is a logic and a rationality to such a programme which
expresses intelligence in a religious form, allowing religions to evolve that capture the actual
basis of the existence of human-like intelligence, and this is clearly seen in modern religious
formulas that are powerful and successful in the social, or superorganic terms, just stated. To that
extent religion expresses intelligence, but because of the true, biologically functional nature of
human intelligence, given the wider reality of existence within which humans exist, a point is
reached where religion becomes antithetical to the attribute of intelligence that generated it for
strictly biologically functional reasons, which eventually produced a human superorganic form
able to formulate knowledge of the wider reality within which it exists. However, knowledge
expressing biologically functional factors trumps abstract knowledge expressing human
intelligence beyond the constraints of biological functionality, so that despite the immense
advances in such detached knowledge creation, the abstraction of knowledge from the biological
process of human evolution remains entirely contained within the limits of biological
functionality. Hence religion continues to rule our world while science simply does not exist,
other than as an appendage to religion.

Individual persons are able to carry information in a way that has the appearance of
expressing intelligence, just as computers can, but the fact is that individuals are incapable of
recreating the information they carry, themselves, just as a computer is, unless, as may be the
case with a computer, they also carry information routines enabling various modes of the
knowledge creation processes to be performed by them as individuals. Some people somewhere
must have the ability to originate knowledge, we may think, but any such acts of individual
creation do not exist as a pure essence of thought arising from within individuals, notwithstanding
that individual geniuses do exist, but even they live within a cultural flux of information within
which individuals can only play contributory roles, and nothing more. This is an idea often
encountered in the expression saying that great people stand on the shoulders of those who went
before them. Intelligence then, as we apply this idea to humans as a distinct attribute of these
animals, is not really intelligence in an absolute sense, since at best, when properly understood
scientifically, in naturalistic terms, human-like intelligence only ever has the nature of dynamic
programming about it, and this is why religion continues to exist, and does so for purely
biologically functional reasons.

No one is creative in an absolute sense, a poet or a gifted scientist alike have to have
immense aids in place within society before they can perform their amazing creative feats. I
acquired an unusual book just this week in which the exact opposite claim was made in order to
assert that God must exist, since we all experience a creative capacity, it said, which proves that
such a capacity exists in the universe! Wow, such an ignorant, shallow, dishonest, manipulative
way of reasoning. This idea came from Word Controlled Humans by John Harland, 1981, where
we find a notable passage saying that anyone who does not think of themselves as a computer
“must believe that creative intelligence exists in the universe — because they perceive creative
intelligence in themselves.” (p. 43). This perception of self is a programmed routine, part of what
the programme calls our ‘culture’ indeed, written to the brains of all of us within our culture,
which implants the idea that the person is the human being, living in a universe created by God.
Whereas, what is called ‘God’ is in reality the human being as superorganism. Linguistic anatomy
is the means by which nature created a mammalian form of superorganism composed of
linguistically programmed cellular units, that are called ‘persons’ within the identity programme
written to our brains. This programme constitutes our individual state of consciousness.
Harland’s book seems to be a highly contrived religious text, what made it of interest was the
way it adopts the idea of people being linguistically programmed, except, within the logic
employed, this is presented exactly as we will find it with Rignano, as the standard logic of flawed
nature, as in flawed humanity standing apart from nature, being self-made, which is used to treat
individuals as ends in themselves, who must combat this horrible flaw and recover their true
nature as human beings existing in their own right, as ends in themselves. So, as ever, Harland’s
work is of interest, as is Rignano’s, because of the way it uses the correct idea of what humans
really are, within an argument intended to deny that the reality of the account of human nature
presented is correct. This duplicity is all that we ever get from the intellectual priests, as we think
of them, who propagate the programme all the time, even when, as here, the declared object is to
recognise that such programming exists, and to resist it.
The programming of our brains tells us nothing real about who or what we are, it just puts
us in the exact same position as every other lifeform in existence, anywhere in the universe, our
programming tells us what religion tells us about who and what we are, which is nothing, nothing
real. Religion, which is part of the total programme written to our brains, is part of our biological
being, it is not an account of that being, although that is exactly what these linguistic formulations
purport to be within the programme, ‘within the programme’ being our state of consciousness,
this being what we ‘know’ in other words.

When we talk about intelligence we are talking about the possession of knowledge that is
based upon representation, which has the inherent attribute of being shared. It is from this fact
that immense bodies of false knowledge can accrue to form knowledge of the greatest importance
that is nonetheless complete nonsense, in terms of knowledge based on real world experience.
So that representational knowledge can have the exact same significance of a shared pheromone
in insects that form superorganisms, by simply acting as a medium of information imparting a
collective identity to individuals that are able to be incorporated into the body of shared
knowledge. In humans the capacity for intelligence is regarded as an attribute of individual
persons who possess and use knowledge. But this is where the flaw lies in the simple notion that
humans are intelligent, because the knowledge of greatest significance in human life is, when all
things are properly considered, not at all demonstrative of intelligence, because much of human
knowledge is false in numerous ways. Stated in a neutral manner not imparting any judgemental
evaluation, considered at the level of individual persons, we can say that by ‘knowledge’ we mean
an understanding of the meaning of representations, such as verbal symbols, that is, knowing
what words mean, where linguistic meaning is derived from society. Put like this, we would
hardly say that knowing the meaning of words constitutes intelligence, so that we obtain a less
overbearing idea of what human intelligence really is at the level of individual persons. This
neutral definition homes in on what knowledge really is, as in a mental impression held in
common, on the basis of a common understanding of representational meanings. This definition
of intelligence and knowledge is a bit convoluted, but if we are going to try and deny that humans
possess intelligence because all that looks like intelligence in humans is nothing more than
programming, then we are driven towards this kind of formulation of our ideas. This allows us
to assert that the immense body of ‘knowledge’ that a religion consists of is not actually
knowledge at all, but merely programming made coherent and meaningful on a biologically
functional basis that enables the formation of the human animal as superorganism, as delivered
by the process of biological evolution.
Humans then, are an animal with a capacity for generating shared conscious states through
mediums of representation, the seat of which lies in human linguistic anatomy, which is not just
about the power of speech, but more pertinently to this discussion, it is about the processing of
linguistic information in the brain, this aspect of the brain being what equates to the chip in a
computer that processes information on the basis of a programme. This description identifies an
essential biological attribute of the human species, which explains why linguistic anatomy
evolved, to enable the creation of shared states of consciousness, by which we mean ideas based
on representational mediums. Why would evolution produce an animal based on anatomy
existing to enable the formation of shared conceptual states, of ideas held in common, an animal
capable of possessing knowledge ? Because such shared mental states, almost by definition as
part of an animal’s physiology, must constitute a programme, where a programme is understood
to be a form of instruction delivering states of organised behaviour, which can only mean
reducing somatic individuals to the status of cellular units of an extended corporate being, a
superorganism.
In reasoning thus, we are formulating the nature of an animal possessed of knowledge in
such a way that it addresses the question whether intelligent life might exist anywhere else in the
universe, since to answer this question you have to of determined what intelligence really is as
we know it here on this planet, this is what we just endeavoured to do. Once we know what
human intelligence actually is, in biologically functional terms, then we can answer the question
whether intelligence of the kind seen in humans might exist elsewhere in the universe. From
which it follows naturally that discovering life elsewhere implies that intelligence is part of the
natural ongoing process of life itself, wherever it exists in the universe, instead of human-like
intelligence appearing as some kind of insuperable barrier to life because of the supposed
exceptional nature of humans.

Religion shows humans in their most natural, insectivorous-like state, where people are
driven towards being consumed by the biological, corporate, linguistic identity programme
written to their brains, that makes them part of the human animal to which they physically belong.
This insect-like behaviour is demonstrated when millions gather to see the pope on the occasion
of his visits; the pope having actually died this morning, Monday, 21 April 2025, causing the
BBC to go all out in the midday news, devoting the whole slot to this none event; and through
images of the Muslim hadj or just their ordinary manner of preying doubled over, in lines, on
their mats; along with other such religious mass demonstrations of submission to mindlessness
in subservience to a united collective being, that are seen across the planet, along the Ganges
would be another example I believe, what is that, Hindu programming?

Rignano is much concerned with this subservience to ignorance imposed upon the masses,
and it turns out that Harland is likewise concerned with the exact same thing and emulates the
manner of reasoning about it that we find in Rignano. Snatching a sample from Harland thus :

I want to show that the direction of the serpent, or body politic, which only exists
in the minds of word controlled groups — but causes them to act as if it were real —
opposes the direction pointed out by Jesus, and also opposes the direction set by three
billion years of life before humans came on the scene.
(p. 23)

From this statement we can discuss his peculiar take on human nature while showing how it
matches the logic employed by Rignano, in that he invokes a biologically organicist logic by
suggesting society is a kind of organism, a semi-organism is the phrase he uses, which he likens
to a serpent, drawing on religious mythology, while making linguistic programming the source
of such serpent forms which enslave masses of people, denying them their natural status as
individuals living as ends in themselves.
The one thing we never get from the religious is a true account of human nature, and this
is also the last thing we are ever going to get from scientific quarters as long as religion exists,
which, as we are seeking to point out, is destined to be for as long as humanity exists. There is
no way past religion, the nature of human intelligence, which evolved to bring the human animal
as superorganism into being, means that religious formulations of a corporate identity will always
thwart any other way of expressing human intelligence towards this corporate end. What we
mean by this last statement is that if religion were to fade into the past and a secular formulation
were to replace it as a medium of corporate identity organising people to form a superorganism,
as nature dictates must be the outcome of human existence, such a secular formula would have
to set the individual up as the ideological goal of human existence, as modern political ideas do
indeed profess to do, when they nonetheless they obviously do not achieve this end, at all. The
point being that this political ideal is a fiction that cannot stand on its own, hence the inevitable
necessity of the grander fiction of religious identity programming which acts at a deeper mental
level than political formulations by connecting with, and stimulating integral human emotions.

An academic on the Academia website once asked me if I thought humans were insects,
without this example of wilful stupidity it would not occur to me to explain my statement that
religion shows humans in their naturally insectivorous state. Insect superorganisms offer the
most clear definition of a superorganic being made up of individual somatic elements that have
the status of cellular units, therefore upon recognising that humans are identical in their nature to
such insects, it is appropriate to say that humans are mammals expressing a nature that is
personified within the insect domain, giving humans an insectivorous nature in respect to the
obvious fact, when viewed biologically, or in naturalistic terms, that persons constitute cellular
units of a mammalian superorganism. Religion reveals this simple fact in the most obvious and
glaring manner, or it can do, if we are not consumed by religion ourselves. This does not mean
that humans are insects, humans are mammals.
 EUGENIO RIGNANO
——

ON

SOCIALISM
IN ACCORDANCE WITH

LIBERAL ECONOMIC DOCTRINE

TORINO

BOCCA BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1901
 INDEX
——

CHAPTER I. The current economic regime as it is determined by the current

system of property . . . Page 1
II. On the current right to make a will 19
III. On a progressive levy on inheritance by the State over time 58
IV. Profound changes in the social-economic structure to which
such a new system of property could lead 107
I. Premises „
II. On land 109
III. On the abolition of taxes 125
IV. On taxes and urban real estate . . . . 137
V. On public debts 149
VI. On the community and gratuitousness of the instruments
of production and capital in general . . . . . . 161
VII. Of a Malthusian brake and of a reward for capitalising abstinence 171
VIII. Of the organization of production and its coordination with
consumption 179
IX. Of cooperation in production 199
X. Of greater production and better distribution 218
V. Of the current distribution of wealth 228
VI. Of collectivism and other socialisms, and of socialism in general 299
VII. The collective consciousness of the proletarian class as a
sociological factor 404
I. On social consciousness and equity „
II. On the conditions that favour the formation
of a collective consciousness 408
III. On the social function of religion 417
IV. On war 442
V. Kidd’s theory of religion and religion among the
Anglo-Saxon race 455
VI. Various sociological factors and so-called
Historical Materialism 472
VII. Line of maximum effectiveness for the action of
the factor of social consciousness 511
 Chapter VII
The collective consciousness of the proletarian class
as a sociological factor.

———

I.

On social consciousness and equity.

We will say that a collectivity is conscious when its members have the ability to act in
concert under the influence of reason (1); we will say, on the other hand, that it is unconscious
when its members either do not act in concert, or when they do act in concert under given
circumstances, they do so instinctively, i.e. without being guided by reason : in which case it will
also be said to be animated by collective instincts.
A conscious collectivity will, therefore, direct each of its acts to a determined end that
conforms to the desires of most of those to whom this act is of interest. And just as the end of
every conscious individual is happiness, so the end of every conscious collectivity will be to
increase the total amount of collective happiness (the algebraic sum of individual happiness) and
to distribute it among as many individuals as possible. In almost all cases an increase or decrease
in the number of happy individuals will imply an increase or decrease in the total amount of
collective happiness, but, in any case, the aim of distributing this happiness among as many
individuals as possible will necessarily prevail, given the nature of a conscious collectivity, as
regards increasing the total amount of happiness.
——————
(1) See. Kidd, Social Evolution, p. 60.

404
——————————
Such an end in itself implies that the various relationships of the members of the
collectivity are established in such a way that each of them is assured the greatest possible
happiness consistent with this maximum amount of total social happiness or the number of happy
individuals. By definition, we shall call the relations between the members of a given community
equitable when they satisfy these conditions; when, to put it another way, they achieve, as Spencer
would say, as perfect or less imperfect a reconciliation of the interests of the individual with those
of the necessarily prevailing community.
We will say, furthermore, and consequently, that a collectivity is more or less perfectly
conscious, the more or less easily and the more or less completely its members succeed in
agreeing and acting in concert in the various cases of a collective action, and the greater or lesser
the number of social issues and facts in which this collective action will take place. Therefore,
the more or less perfect the collective consciousness of a given collectivity, the more or less
perfectly its members, in agreeing and acting in concert, will succeed in achieving this greatest
possible happiness of the greatest possible number of its members.
It will be said, then, that a society is partially or wholly conscious according to whether a
part or all of its members constitute a conscious collectivity. Thus, for instance, the collectivities
of the citizens of the ancient Greek republics constituted, at certain periods of their history, highly
conscious collectivities; but the society, in addition to these free citizens, also included the slaves,
who constituted the unconscious mass. — And for a society of partial consciousness to rise to
total consciousness, it is clear that it will be necessary and sufficient for the hitherto unconscious
portion to rise, perhaps separately, to consciousness, so that it too can participate in agreement
and action in concert with the hitherto solely conscious portions.
If the actions of a society are directed by a partial collective consciousness, they will be
directed towards procuring the greatest happiness not for the greatest number of the members of
society as a whole, but for the greatest number of the members of this restricted conscious
collectivity.

405
————————
Take, for example, the way the conscious ruling classes of all times and places act towards the
unconscious and exploited subject classes. If, instead, these acts were directed by a total collective
consciousness, then they would be truly aimed at procuring the greatest possible happiness for
the greatest possible number of individuals comprising the whole of society; and then only, as a
consequence, will social relations conforming to equity be possible.
The faculty of acting in concert under the influence of reason possessed by the members
of a conscious society will come to be expressed in the form of very diverse and infinite contracts,
each one made between a highly varied number of individuals — from the minimum of just two
individuals to the maximum of all the members of society, — and concerning all the infinite
possible relationships that may arise between these individuals.
There will be very many and very diverse social organs through which, in this perfectly
contractual regime, all these infinitely varied contracts between the various members of society
will be realised : state institutions, municipal and provincial administrations, chambers of
agriculture, industry and commerce, commercial bargaining exchanges, industrial unions,
production and consumer co-operatives, joint-stock companies, associations, clubs, etc., etc. But
the state will be the most important of all these organs, the one through which, by means of civil
institutions and laws, the social contract par excellence extended to all members of society and
concerning the essential conditions so that social coexistence, according to the demands of a total
social consciousness, is maintained with equitable relations between the members.
And full assurance will be given that the majority, in a perfectly and fully conscious
society, will not overrule the minority and proceed unequally :

406
———————
1o because in a fully and perfectly conscious society every member of the majority cannot
fail, when legislating, to bear in mind the possibility, nay, the supreme probability, for him, of
one day, or on some other occasion, becoming in his turn a member of the minority, or of one day
coming to be one himself, — especially when it is a question of fundamental civil institutions, or
of laws with a wide scope and of such a nature that social utility requires their immutability for
long intervals of time, — in those social circumstances to which the legislative provisions which
he sanctioned when they did not yet concern him would be applied : and this keeping in mind of
such possibilities will induce him to consider the questions under discussion from all the different
points of view of the various persons concerned, and will give to his legislative action a motive
of equity which will constitute for the minority the most complete guarantee against all unequal
treatment;
2° because the minority, conscious as it is, if it will adapt itself to accept the fair
contractual conditions agreed upon by the majority, because they necessarily appear to it as the
only ones possible and as the most advantageous for it, given its being a minority, will not accept
them, on the other hand, if they are not fair, if they are likely, that is, to be more advantageous for
it, given its being a minority : and its agitation, its revolt against the decisions of the majority,
thus causing the latter far greater harm than the advantages obtained by its transgression of the
principles of equity, will cause this majority to realise once and for all that it is more in accordance
with its own well-meaning interests to abide by these principles of equity rather than to violate
them.
First and foremost in a social contract par excellence between all members of society and
concerning the essential conditions for social coexistence to be maintained with equitable
relations between members, will be the civil institution of the order of property; which, therefore,
will be agreed upon and accepted not as one or other of the various metaphysical philosophical
systems of law, from divine law to Natural Law, would determine it, but such as to ensure the
greatest possible amount of welfare for the greatest possible number of members.

407
———————
That is to say, a perfectly and totally conscious society cannot but be purely and strictly
utilitarian; and it will be the property order that, more than any other institution, a conscious
society will have an interest in conforming according to these principles of social utility (1).

II.

Of the conditions that favour the formation

of a collective consciousness.
If we now turn to examine what conditions facilitate or hinder the rise of a collectivity —
whether of society as a whole or each individual social class — to a total and perfect
consciousness, we can count the following as the most important :
1o. The number of its members : The larger the community, the more difficult it will be,
all other things being equal, to rise to a high degree of perfection and extension of collective
consciousness. Even in those very small social groups, such as, for example, private business
companies, private associations for the defence of interests or mutual aid, recreational or reading
circles or clubs, etc., in which agreement would seem to be extremely easy to obtain, even in
these the mere fact of too large a number of members is sometimes precisely what prevents their
agreement on the course of their society, so that they dissolve and split up into several companies,
and thus they are prevented, in the very matter which constitutes the purpose of their association,
from acting in concert under the influence of reason.
——————
(1) “It cannot be denied that such a principle (BENTHAM’s principle of the greatest happiness of
the greatest number) rapidly becomes the regulating principle of all legislation in the modern world”
(HENRY SUMNER MAINE, Etudes sur l’hist. du droit, 304).
“Collective utilitarianism, of which Benthamism was a particular and rather restricted form, is
destined to serve as a common foundation for future legislation, since inevitably the progress of social
relations must end up giving the feeling and stimulating the need for the public good” (T ARDE, Les
transformations du droit, 150).

408
———————
It is therefore easy to imagine what obstacle to the formation of a collective consciousness must
be the number of individuals making up a very large community; what conciliatory spirit, what
feeling of duty, of solidarity and self-sacrifice, what compact organisation and what firm
discipline are needed to raise an entire social class or an entire nation to consciousness. —
However, the obstacle of numbers can sometimes be counterbalanced by the uniqueness of the
goal to be achieved by all the members of a given community : In fact, this uniqueness not only
greatly facilitates, but also renders, in itself, almost I would say spontaneous, natural and
irresistible, a common understanding and concerted action even of an infinite number of
individuals, just as all the infinite particles of water that make up a torrent all descend equally to
the bottom, as if they were moving in concert, because they are all attracted in the same direction
by a single force, that of gravity.
Now, more than any other social class or political party, the proletarian class has been
favoured, and in recent times only. For as long as there existed, and were in full development, the
old various proletarian subclasses — independent artisans of small industry and domestic
industry, small shopkeepers, wage labourers, sharecropper colonists, small peasant owners, etc.
— the economic aim to be achieved was different for each of them, and it would have been too
difficult for these subclasses to agree on a common understanding, in concerted action. But when,
on the other hand, the process, examined above, of general proletarisation of all the artisans of
small industry and domestic industry by medium and large industry, of all the small shopkeepers
by the large capitalised warehouses or the grandiose factories of which they become as mere
resale agents even more exploited than the wage-earners themselves, of all the sharecroppers and
peasants who own themselves at the hands of the great agricultural industry or the great landed
property or mortgage capital, — when, I say, such a process of general proletarisation came to
place all of them in the same condition, that of workers economically separated from their
instrument of production, it was then, and then for the first time, that for all the goal to be attained
became one only : the socialisation of all the instruments of production; and that Common
Understanding and Collective Interest in concert between all of them became, not only possible,
but easy.

409
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Hence, as is well known, one of the causes, and one of the main ones, of the advent of proletarian
class consciousness.
2° The density of the components of the collective : all other conditions being equal, the
greater the degree of extension and perfection of the collective consciousness the greater this
density will be. — It is obvious, in fact, how much the exchange of ideas, the conclusion of
agreements and contracts, benefits when the individuals who must exchange these ideas and
conclude these agreements have frequent and easy opportunities to see each other, to talk to each
other, to be together. And it is well known, precisely, how much the intensification of ever larger
masses of workers in ever larger factories (Marx) and their ever more impressive agglomeration
in today’s large industrial cities, where both phenomena have occurred today for the first time,
has contributed to the emergence of this collective consciousness of the proletarian class. So
much so that the strikes, this very first manifestation of its embryonic beginnings, and the means
by which this class succeeded in wresting its very first conquests, increased wages and reduced
working hours, were only made possible as a result, precisely, of such increasing density.
 Moreover, the same marvellous improvement of all means of transport and of
transmission of thought — railways, steamships, post office, telegraph, telephone, etc., and all
the press in general and newspapers in particular — is today for the first time increasing very
notably, with a relative advantage all the greater for the more numerous social classes as opposed
to the less numerous, the virtual density in addition to the increase in the effective density : for
two individuals at opposite poles communicate their ideas to each other as if they were side by
side; and a newspaper article is read simultaneously by hundreds of thousands of readers, so that
the propagandist can have the same persuasive effect on them as if he were giving a speech to all
this crowd of readers gathered within the range of his voice (1). —
———————
(1) Cf. Novicow, Conscience et volonté sociale [Consciousness and Social Will] ; Paris, Giard et
Brière, 1897; Chap. V : L’outillage intellectuel [Intellectual Resources]. — But his concept of social
consciousness is different from that set out above.

410
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The fruit of this density, both actual and virtual, achieved today by the wage-earning class, was,
for example, the first manifestation of May Day, perhaps the highest degree of collective
consciousness, both in extent and in perfection, that history recalls.
3° The economic power of the individual members of the community : all other things
being equal, the degree of extension and perfection of the collective consciousness of a given
community or social class will be greater the greater this economic power is : wealth, in fact,
facilitates travel and the consequent agreements between individuals even if they live in different
and distant places; on the other hand, it facilitates the maximum use of all the aforementioned
means of transmission of thought whose services are not free (mail, telegraph, etc.); it also
facilitates propaganda by means of newspapers, pamphlets, posters, etc.; in short, it increases the
virtual density mentioned above very considerably; it also makes available to the members of this
class a great deal of time to devote to this exchange of ideas, to this conclusion of agreements; it
also allows this class to keep at its service a category of intermediaries who have no other task
than to deal with and facilitate this exchange of ideas and this conclusion of agreements; thereby
facilitating its more compact organisation into a political party.
Now the slight increase in wages, which the workers crowded into the factories have been
able to command for the first time, allows them, now for the first time, the slight expense of
reading newspapers and magazines, and this makes possible, also for the first time, the rise of
periodicals advocating their interests (hence the very recent immense diffusion of the socialist
press); which now, again for the first time, allows their associations of resistance, their trade
unions for the defence of their interests, to pay a whole staff of secretaries and the like, whose
sole function is to facilitate a common understanding between the members of each association
and between the various associations themselves, and to conclude agreements for acting in
concert; which now for the first time allows their party to pay a whole staff of propagandists, to
conduct electoral struggles, to organise the party itself, and to direct its action.

411
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And the reduction in working hours, which they have managed to win at the same time as the
increase in wages thanks to their concentration in the factories, leaves them more and more time
available for other cares; and this, together with meetings and reading circles, which they have
managed to establish thanks to their numbers, even with minimal deductions from their wages,
facilitates, now for the first time, to an even greater degree, their exchange of ideas and their
common understandings.
 Wage increases, therefore, although minimal for each wage-earner individually, and thus
certainly not enough to induce them to desist from their legitimate claims, are nevertheless
sufficient, thanks precisely to the imposing number and very high percentage of wage-earners in
relation to the total of society, to ensure that, thanks to the sum of all these small individual
increases, the economic power of the proletariat, as a social class, is considerably increased and
reaches the necessary and sufficient level for the development of this class in terms of its
consciousness.
Hence the faster socialism spreads, the more remarkable and more extensive the economic
improvement of these proletarian masses (1).
4° The degree of intelligence and culture of the members of the collectivity : all other
conditions being equal, it is obvious that the higher in degree these attributes are, the greater in
extension and perfection will be the collective consciousness of the collectivity or social class to
which these members belong.
———————
(1) “It is useless to try to provoke a social revolution if the classes you want to drag along do not
already enjoy a certain degree of well-being..... The conservative forces of society have easily achieved
victory over the upswelling of despair, witness the Jacquerie in France and the peasants’ war in Germany.
Men only think of organising themselves when they have their daily bread assured” (THOROLD ROGERS,
Interprétation économique de l’histoire; Paris, Guillaumin, 1892; p. 83).

412
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In fact, knowing how to read and write, knowing how to administer an association, how to
manage a company, knowing how to evaluate at their right value the conditions of the contract
offered by the opposing party, knowing how to discern whether a given social institution, a given
law, is favourable or unfavourable to their class interests, knowing how to discriminate in the
speeches and proposals of the patrons of the opposing classes under the phrases of equity and
disinterestedness the real hidden economic motive of a particular egoism (1) : all this, the fruit of
intelligence and culture, is a very important condition for the formation of a very extensive and
very perfected collective consciousness (2). And, on the other hand, the appreciation at its proper
value of the supreme importance that for each political party has the feeling of duty and discipline,
the spirit of solidarity and self-denial of each of its members, and the possession of these moral
qualities, so elevated and so necessary, can only be expected from a fairly high average level of
intelligence and culture.
———————
(1) This awakening to consciousness of the proletarian class makes, in fact, the open and frank
manifestation of class economic egoism impossible today, except for the latter : “The very publicity and
solemnity of the assemblies make impossible the open manifestation of this economic egoism which in
the clandestine process of private enterprise shows itself more resolutely” (L ORIA, Les bases, etc., 199).
Hence it is that while the ruling capitalist class, through the mouths of its representatives, its officials, its
newspapers, and its scholars in the economic and social sciences, speaks of nothing but the general welfare
and declares itself to be intent on nothing but the good of the working class, what it makes of official
speeches and writings is nothing but a tissue of lies and hypocrisies, the proletariat alone can, on the other
hand — thanks to being precisely the scapegoat of the iniquities of the current regime, which makes the
advocacy of its interests nothing more than the advocacy of a cause of supreme justice — can, I say, it
alone have the frankness to speak openly of its interests and its class rights and to defend them in the light
of day without hypocrisy, without deceit. Hypocrisy, to which the ruling classes are forced, which lowers
their moral level by as much as, on the contrary, the frankness, which the proletarian class can afford the
luxury of, raises that of this class.
(2) “Many serious minds think it would be dangerous today to spread education in the ranks of
the people, and they are right. But how is it that they do not realise that this ‘danger of education’ is
overwhelming proof of the absurdity of our social order?” (LOUIS BLANC, Organisation du trav., 116).
 413
————————
Also on this side, therefore, that of intelligence and culture, the economic power of the
members of a given class, by facilitating them through very different and numerous ways (studies,
travels, etc.) this high level of education; by training them, thanks to the greater time it grants
them for life in society, in the art of expounding their ideas, defending them and refuting opposing
objections; by training them in the art of administering and directing and defending their affairs
and their interests; this greatly facilitates the rise to consciousness of such a class.
But, precisely in this respect, the proletarian class in recent times has been particularly
favoured : the introduction of ever more complicated and delicate machines, to which the
capitalist class has been feverishly driven in order to prevent the cost of wages from rising too
sharply, the ever greater complication of the processes of big industry, the ever more minute and
well-calculated division of labour, and the consequent strictness in the control of the work to be
given and received, have made it necessary to raise the intellectual worth and education of the
workers ever higher, and they have consequently induced this same capitalist class, in order to
raise up the able workers it needed, to spread with all its might, and even on a compulsory basis,
among the working masses, at first only elementary education, and now, with the professional
schools, also the fundamental principles of the mechanical, physical and chemical sciences, the
study of which principles is particularly apt to raise the reasoning to the level of abstract concepts
and to train it at the same time in the arguments of logic; — thus, too imprudently, providing
one’s enemy with precisely the most formidable weapons for future battle. Instruction which,
once the masses have emerged from illiteracy, is now also increasingly completed by the grace
of newspapers, popular magazines, association libraries, etc., which the increased economic
potential of the class now permits.

414
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And it is already known to what a high level of culture many English and German workers are
now rising, how an ever-increasing number of them quickly acquire the ability to read, to
understand and discuss among themselves scientific works, including the less easy ones, and the
major socialist authors, of George, of Lassalle and of Marx himself. — At the same time, the
administration and direction of their resistance leagues, of their mutual aid associations, of their
consumer cooperatives, comes to train these same working masses also in the art of
administration and management of collective interests and material goods, from which simple
manual labour had previously kept them away.
But, in addition to this ever-increasing degree of education, another remarkable fact
contributed powerfully and alone to open the eyes of these exploited masses, to make them aware
of the injustice of their economic condition, to educate them about their class interests : the
bourgeois class, in fact, at the time of its emancipation, due to the fact that it was necessary for
it, in order to achieve victory, to have recourse to the powerful help of the proletarian class,
forcing to grant to the latter those very rights, the political rights, of which it was deprived, and
which it precisely claimed in order to better protect its economic interests, among others, so that
it could relieve itself of much of the burden of the taxes that oppressed it, so that political equality
was then proclaimed, at least in theory, for all members of society. Now, this, in time, could not
but render the present regime in itself illogical, unsustainable and unstable.

415
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And indeed, whereas previously, under the feudal regime, the fact that what each received was
entirely independent of his merits, that is, that the serf remained a serf and the baron remained a
baron no matter how great the merits of the former or the demerits of the latter, predisposed the
lowest proletarian classes to consider the artificial differences in the initial conditions of the
struggle for life as being in conformity with the natural order of things, as irremediable and fatal,
and, not giving rise to any desire among these lowest classes to rise in social rank, because it was
impossible to satisfy it, not even giving rise to any desire to remove these artificial differences,
which thus predisposed them to acquiescence in the social order of the time; — today, however,
the fact that what each person receives is not entirely independent of his merits, that one, even
born in a humble condition, has the theoretical, and sometimes even actual, possibility of rising
to the highest social positions through wealth or dignity, gives rise in everyone to this desire to
rise in social rank, to enjoy as much as those who are considered the happiest, because these now
appear as possible things; and this very lively desire to rise now fixes attention on what is artificial
in the inequality of the initial conditions of the competition for a greater intensity of life, and
gives rise to the desire and makes it recognised as being possible to eliminate precisely this
artificial inequality; and thus facilitates the improvement and diffusion of social
consciousness (1).
5° The frequency, extent, and severity of perturbations in the course of economic
phenomena, and the resulting instability and uncertainty in the economic conditions of
individuals, the crises, in fact, the economic cataclysms, the continuous fluctuations of prosperity
and depression in the various branches of industry, and the consequent ups and downs in
employment and earnings, produce a ferment, a discontent in the collectivity or social class that
suffers most, which, precisely, provokes and fosters a lively exchange of ideas, and lively
discussions and agreements, from which the collective consciousness itself develops.
———————
(1) “Equality of political rights inevitably leads to a demand for equality of conditions, i.e. welfare
shared out in proportion to the work done. Universal suffrage needs universal welfare as its complement.
It is a contradiction that people should be at the same time miserable and sovereign” (D E LAVELEYE, Le
socialisme cont., p. xix).
“Socialism was born precisely from the profound contrast between the political liberties that
people have taken possession of and the economic servitude of which they have found the hardest yoke
and the heaviest burden after the conquest of these liberties” (NITTI, Le Socialisme catholique, 4).
“One cannot ignore the influence of the political equality that has been achieved on the
manifestation of the need for greater economic and social equality” (WAGNER, La sc. delle fin, 825-826).
It is VON SCHEEL in his Die Sociale Frage, who especially highlighted this particular aspect of
the social question (WAGNER, La sc. delle fin., 825-826; ROSCHER, Grundlage, 187).

416
———————
And so it is that the current state of chronic crisis, of very serious and continuous economic
disruptions, caused and brought to its apogee today, as we have seen, by the too great inequality
of fortunes, by unproductive speculative capital, and by monopolistic and overpowering trusts,
is matched by an increasingly widespread and intense discontent of the working masses, which
stirs them to consciousness.
6° But the fundamental condition for the rise to consciousness of the exploited masses,
and therefore for the formation of a total social consciousness, one without which all the
preceding points would have been of no use, because the very primordial element itself upon
which to raise this collective consciousness, the individual guided by his own reasoning, would
have been missing, is and will be the weakening and gradual extinction of religious sentiment. If,
as we shall now show, the essential social function of religion has been precisely that of hindering
and preventing the emergence and development of a total social consciousness, it is easy to
understand of what supreme and decisive importance the disappearance of the organ through
which such a function was performed will be for such a development.

III.

The Social Function of Religion.

Certainly, in the history of humanity this fact has stood out : that societies with total
consciousness were completely unsuited to the struggle for existence against other societies,
when this struggle took place, as has always been the case up to the present, in the form of war,
of mass struggle, that is, of one society against another; so that, in this struggle for existence
between societies, only those with a restricted partial consciousness survived and were selected.

417
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In fact, Spencer’s classification of societies into military and industrial, one organised
according to the principle of forced co-operation, the other according to that of voluntary co-
operation (1), is too well known for us to need to insist on the characteristics that the former must
have possessed in order to be the most suitable for this struggle; characteristics that a society with
total consciousness could never have sanctioned and which, therefore, in order for the society to
acquire them, required a restricted social consciousness. — On the whole, in fact, it can be said
that a society will have been all the more suited to this struggle the more it will have resembled
the organism of a prey animal : it will, therefore, had to of possessed in its bosom a small
community, the prince and the aristocracy, conscious and parasitic, which in relation to the whole
of society functions like the brain in relation to the whole animal body; it will of had to of
possessed a military class, also parasitic upon the rest of the community, which in relation to the
latter functions were like those of the fangs and claws of a carnivore; and, finally, the whole of
the rest of society would have to be made up of elements such as to perform, with the most
complete abnegation and submission, for the use and consumption of the two parasitic classes,
the nutritive function of the whole organism (2); and such, moreover, as to execute — in order to
give to this organism that compactness, and that rapidity and simultaneity of movements, proper
to an animal organism — with the greatest readiness and the most blind obedience, the orders of
the ruling class, just as the muscles of a carnivore respond to the reflex actions of the nervous
centres (3).
———————
(1) Principes de Sociologie; Paris, Germer Baillière, tome II, 1882, second part, and tome III,
1883, fifth part.
(2) Consequently, among the societies that survived were those which, all other conditions being
equal, instead of killing their enemies, enslaved them in aid of the women who had already been assigned
to this function of nourishing the parasitic ruling classes; and the true social function of slavery, of the
great division of society into two classes of oppressors and oppressed (Cf. GUMPLOWICZ, La lutte des
races [The Struggle of Races], chap. XXXIII : On the origin of the State, of the castes and of the social
classes), was to fashion society in the likeness of the animal body, i.e. to make possible the specialisation
of a social brain, the sole co-ordinator of all movements, and of an apparatus of attack and defence, in
relation to the rest of the social body assigned to the functions of nourishment : “The organisation of every
society begins with the establishment of a difference between the part of that society which sustains
relations, ordinarily hostile, with neighbouring societies, and that which devotes itself to providing the
whole with the necessities of life; in the first periods of social development there are only these two
sections” (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc, tome II, 193-194; et tome III, 637 et seq.).
An example of how this enslavement of the vanquished can make society more suitable for war :
“In his capacity as great king, too great for his kingdom which was only 50 leagues long and 25 wide,
Solomon also made it his duty to organise as large an army as possible. To this end he reduced to servitude
all the remnants of the old peoples of Palestine, whom the Jews had not succeeded in massacring : the
Haemorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, etc. These survivors of the vanquished were especially
charged with carrying out useful work, and the monarch was then able to gather together the entire virile
population of the Jewish race to make them warlike people” (LETOURNEAU, La guerre [War], 331).
(3) “Habitual warfare, which demands rapid cooperation of the parties, demands subordination.
Societies where there is little subordination disappear, and only those where there is considerable
subordination survive” (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome II, 195).

418
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But the social organism differs in this, as has been noted over and over again by many,
from the animal organism : the latter is composed partly of conscious psychic centres and partly
of unconscious somatic cells, whereas in the former all cells are naturally endowed with their
own reasoning and their own will; it is “sensitive in all of its units, instead of having a single
sensitive centre” (2).
Therefore, this social organism could not have that compactness and rapidity and
simultaneity of movement, it could not act on mass as a whole, if its histological elements were
endowed with a will of their own that predisposed them to move each one on its own initiative
independently of the others, if they could, therefore, at their own will, cease from their function
and refuse to obey the orders that the prince and the aristocracy, this social brain, transmitted to
them to move on mass as a whole against the enemy.
And these histological elements, if conscious, could not rebel and not refuse to obey this
function of theirs, if the conditions in which the military regime most suited to the fight was
placed were such that their reason, not understanding the ultimate purpose they served, could not
sanction them at all because they were unjust par excellence.
——————
(2) SPENCER, Ibid., Vol. II, 191.

419
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“The conservative force of a society (i.e. that which makes it more apt for resistance
among societies),” says Spencer, “will be all the greater if the direct succour of all men in a
position to bear arms is joined by the indirect succour of all other individuals. Other things being
equal, the societies that will survive will be those in which the efforts of the combatants are
seconded by those of the non-combatants. In a purely military society, individuals who do not
bear arms must consume their existence to maintain that of those who fight. Whether, as at the
beginning, non-combatants comprise only women; or whether, as at a later date, this class
comprises enslaved prisoners; or whether, as at a later date, it comprises serfs, its obligations are
always the same. For if there are two societies in which the conditions are equal in all other
relations, and the first subjects its workers to this service, while in the second the workers enjoy
the right to retain for themselves the product of their labour, or more than what is necessary for
their own maintenance, it will come to pass that, in the latter society, the warriors not being
maintained at all, or being maintained less completely than in the other, will have to provide for
their needs themselves and will therefore find themselves less prepared for the necessities of war.
Therefore, in the struggle for existence between these two societies, the former will usually win
and survive the latter” (1).
 Hence the necessity for militant societies to possess a social organ that would prevent
these workers from ever attaining collective consciousness, so that they would submit supinely
to such treatment and not make it necessary, by way of their turbulent aspiration for a regime of
equality and fairness, to divert the combatants, all or part of them, from the supreme goal of war
against the enemies outside, in order to keep them by force and threats of obedience.
——————————
(1) Princ. de Soc., Vol. III, 759-760.

420
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Which, all other things being equal, would have placed the society in an entirely unfavourable
position to fight.
Now, this social organ, which has been so fixed by natural selection in all societies
because it is of supreme utility to the social organism in its mass struggle for existence, is
precisely religion. Hence the social function of any religion : to hinder and prevent the formation
of a collective consciousness of these exploited working classes, and thus the formation of a total
social consciousness; and to substitute for this collective consciousness, instead, in these
exploited classes, the collective instinct of the most complete submission.
And how was such a function realised? — By making the elementary composition of the
social organism entirely analogous to that of the animal organism : that is, by reducing to the
status of unconscious somatic cells the great majority of social cells, which by their nature were
instead all psychic and conscious : that is, by obscuring and numbing, that is, by religious faith,
the intelligence of man; by subjugating and perverting his reasoning : credo quia absurdum [I
believe it is absurd.]; by annihilating his individual will ; and by thus completely extinguishing, in
the exploited masses, the faculty of acting in concert under the influence of reason.
In other words, faith — instilled in the great masses with the suggestion of the terror of
the unknown or the attraction of an ineffable future enjoyment — has been the means to numb,
or polarise in a given direction from which they could no longer deviate, the thinking and willing
centres of the believer’s brain. Religion, therefore, has been and is nothing more than a grandiose
phenomenon of collective suggestion, of social hypnotisation; ecclesiastical institutions are
nothing more than the organ assigned to this suggestive function, than the apparatus for
hypnotising society on mass and in the desired manner (1).
———————
(1) “To stimulate the attention of men in any kind of ideas, to push them strongly in one direction,
there are two great means : one must excite terror in them by the sight of the terrible evils that would result
from a conduct different from that which is prescribed to them, or present to them the attraction of
enjoyments that necessarily result from the efforts made by them in the direction which is indicated to
them. To produce, in these two circumstances, the strongest and most useful action, one must combine all
the means, all the resources that the fine arts can offer”. Thus the eloquence of the preacher, and poetry,
music, painting, sculpture, all must give their contribution to the cult; and “architects must build temples
in such a way that preachers, poets, musicians, painters and sculptors can at will arouse in the souls of the
faithful feelings of terror or of joy and hope” (SAINT-SIMON, Le nouveau Christianisme, first dialogue,
reported in HUBBARD, Saint-Simon, etc., pages 293-294). — A highly effective hypnotising device, this
combined competition of all the arts, always used, through high intuition, by all religions.

421
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Hence : 1. The essence of religious faith in general (which, although the objects to which
it applies have changed continuously, it can be said that almost every generation, in its essence,
however, as a subjective feeling, has never changed at all (1)); 2. the general characteristics of all
religions.
 Faith, in fact, says Guyau, is nothing more than “the renunciation of thought which
abdicates its freedom”, “it encloses the intelligence from a good principle within precise limits
and imposes on it a general direction with the duty not to deviate from it” (2). With respect to
what is a matter of faith, the believer is a suggestible, a hypnotised person, completely devoid of
reason and will; he is a mechanism that instinctively performs given acts imposed upon him by
the force of suggestion; he is no longer a conscious psychic centre, but an unconscious somatic
cell.
Faith in a divine will is a powerful narcotic, most capable of obtaining the most supine
submission, of removing any desire for claims of equity : “The feeling of submission, says Guyau,
to the decrees of Providence, a new destiny personified, has been the excuse for all laziness, for
all routines.
———————
(1) See GUYAU, L’irréligion de l’avenir; Paris, Alcan, 1895, page 103.
(2) Ibid., 107, 108. See this entire Chapter I of Part 2 : La foi dogmatique [Dogmatic Faith].

422
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When you push it to the extreme, what is it but the sophistry of laziness of the Orientals? It is
true that one habitually corrects the phrase “Heaven will help you” with the precept “Help
yourself”. But in order to help oneself effectively, one must have initiative and boldness, one
must turn against events instead of bowing down before them; one must not be content to say :
“Let God’s will be done”, but “let my will be done”; one must be like a rebel in the midst of the
passive multitude of beings, a kind of Prometheus or Satan. It is difficult to say to someone : “All
that happens, all that is, is by the irresistible will of God”, and to add at the same time : “Do not
submit to what is”. The men of the Middle Ages, under tyranny and in misery, consoled
themselves with the thought that it was God Himself who was striking them down, and they dared
not rise against their masters, for fear of rising against God. In order to preserve social injustice,
it was often necessary to deify it : a divine right was made of what was no longer a truly human
and real right” (1).
Faith in a divine will has been precisely the most suitable means of giving “a false
direction to the egoism of the class subjected to it, to “pervert its egoism”, “bringing against the
revolt of the worker a fantastic sanction which makes the disinherited classes fear revolt and
regard it as even more disastrous, for them, than appeasement itself” (2). —
———————
(1) Op. cit., 68-69.
(2) LORIA, Les bases économiques de la Const. soc. [The Economic Basis of the Social
Constitution], 19-20.

423
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“In fact,” so this author continues, “for religion to become an excellent instrument of moral
coercion, it is enough to represent actions that are contrary to egoism as a necessary means to
make the divinity propitious, to avoid its wrath and its punishments; that is, it is enough to extend
the methods of gaining divine benevolence to include not only a series of acts of reverence on
the part of man towards the divinity, but also a specific series of actions of man towards man.
Thus the threat of divine sanction comes to do violence to individual egoism and to divert man
from actions in conformity with his real egoism, to push him towards actions contrary to this
egoism of his and in conformity, instead, with that of his oppressors” (1).
Belief in a divine will has been the most effective means of inculcating a duty to the most
absolute obedience : “The fundamental task of priests is to preserve subordination, first to the
deified ancestor, or to the recognised God, then to the living descendant or representative of this
divinity. It could not be repeated often enough that, from the earliest times to the present day, the
constant and essential action of priests, at all times, in every place, in the name of every belief,
has been to inculcate obedience” (2).
———————
(1) Les bases, etc., 29. — On the other hand, for the ruling classes, since their acting in accordance
with their real selfishness was perfectly compatible with the military type best suited for society devoted
to the mass struggle, there was no need for a religion acting on them to pervert their selfishness and hinder
their collective consciousness; hence it is that the ruling classes were always the most irreligious, the
dominated (the workers and women) the most religious; while at the top they scoffed at the gods, among
the masses superstition and deepest faith reigned.
Even today, those among the ruling class who boast most of all of their scepticism and atheism
are those who are most anxious to proclaim the necessity and strengthening of religion among the masses.
Thus, for example among many, Garofalo in his “Superstizione socialista” [Socialist Superstition]. Hence,
the religious lie (See, e.g., MAX NORDAU, The Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation).
The current reawakening of clericalism, as is all too evident, is not a reawakening of religious
faith, but a rallying of the bourgeois classes to form an alliance with the Church in order to attempt to
suppress with renewed vigour the proletarian consciousness that is beginning to awaken. It is not a
religious movement, but only a political one.
(2) SPENCER, Princ, de Soc., tome IV, 174. — Thus, the sacred, divine character that the prince
always has, making every act of insubordination and rebellion sacrilegious, these acts will be all the rarer
the more widespread and intense the religious feeling among the masses. Thus, for example, among the
Peruvians the most common punishment was death, because they said that the culprit was not punished
for the crimes he had committed, but because he had transgressed the command of the Inca who was
respected as a God. So too in Japan, where the sovereign passes for divine, most crimes are punished by
death; punishment is inflicted less for the magnitude of the crime than for the audacity of the transgression
of the sacred laws of the empire (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome III, 697).

424
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From this function of religion, to hinder and prevent a total social consciousness, also, as
we said, we have the general characteristics of this organ (1) :
Dogma and religious intolerance : from the jealous God of the Ben-Israel tribes, and of
all savage and barbarian tribes in general, to the infallibility of the current pontiff. Dogma, indeed,
an excellent narcotic, does not tolerate doubt, destroys the critical spirit, chains and annihilates
free reasoning : “The philosopher,” says Guyau, “pretends to act on minds by means of
conviction, the priest by means of inculcation; one teaches, the other reveals; one seeks to direct
reasoning, the other to suppress it, or, at least, to divert it from primitive and fundamental dogmas;
one awakens the intelligence, the other tends to put it more or less to sleep. How could revelation
not oppose the spontaneity and freedom of the spirit? When God has spoken, man must be
silent.... And it was always when mankind wanted to prove his beliefs to himself that he began to
dissolve them : he who wants to control a dogma is very close to contradicting it. That is why the
priest, for whom contradiction is a lack of faith, always sees himself obliged by the very force of
things to avoid control, to forbid a certain number of questions, to be enclosed in mystery.
——————
(1) To understand the social function of religion, it is not necessary to dwell on considering the
various religious doctrines, elaborated and elevated to abstruse metaphysical systems by philosophers :
these philosophical systems, as sociological factors, have had only an infinitesimal influence that is
entirely negligible. What is important, however, is to consider religious sentiment as it is among the
masses, to examine what a community animated by religious faith in general essentially consists of.

425
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When the priest has already made faith enter the brain, it closes it. Doubt and investigation, which
for the philosopher are a duty, are, in the eyes of the priest, nothing but an indication of distrust
and suspicion, a sin, an impiety; one must beat one’s chest when one has dared to think for
oneself” (1).
Hence the other general characteristic of all religions : the subversion of science,
misoneism [hatred of innovation], an inquisition against all free thought, placing upon an Index of
ideas and books all that are capable of developing a total social consciousness. Hence the eternal
struggle between the Athenaeum and the Church (Bovio, “Filosofia del Diritto” [Philosophy of
Law]), between Science and Superstition, between Doubt and Dogma, between Reason and Faith
(2).
————————
(1) L’irrélig. de l’av. [The Non-Religion of the Future], 227-228. — On religious intolerance and
dogma, as general characteristics of all religion, see also Ibid., 111 et seq. — “In any case,” says Spencer,
“the thing that is of the greatest importance in the special injunctions of a cult, is the preservation of the
cult and the institutions in which it is embodied. Thus the chief duty is that of obedience to a purported
divine will, whatever it may be. Thus the members of a priestly hierarchy and their adherents regard the
authority of their church as an end that yields in importance only to the authority of the divine will itself.
Thus, ecclesiastical histories show us the contempt that priests have for moral precepts when they hinder
their supremacy. Of course, the atrocities committed by the Inquisition and the crimes of the popes
immediately come to mind. But there are still more pronounced examples”. Etc. (Princ. de Soc., tome IV,
1887; p. 180-181). — “The resistance that ecclesiastical officials showed to changes in customs, they also
opposed, naturally, to changes in belief, since every revolution in the traditional edifice of belief has the
effect of shaking all of its parts, weakening the authority of the teachings of the ancestors” (Ibid., 129). —
And in fact, the unquestioned authority of the church and its dogma is a sine qua non [without exception]
condition, for every religion, for the fulfilment of its social function of preventing the development of a
total social consciousness, since this in itself immediately germinates and develops as soon as a weakening
in the authority of religious teachings, of dogma, gives rise to the critical spirit to pronounce itself.
(2) Cf. KIDD, Social Evolution, 90 et seq. White, starting from primitive ideas and following their
evolution, “shows precisely at what price our intellectual conquests were bought, amidst what difficulties
and against what hostilities; he shows what the function of the theologian has been, always opposed to the
genesis of new ideas, always an enemy of research methods and the critical spirit, fiercely intent on stifling
the ambitions of independent thought” (Review of : A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom, by A. D. WHITE; “Revue Scientifique”, 7 Mai 1898, p. 596).

426
———————
Hence, also, as a mechanical means of predisposing the mind to dogma, the ethics of all
religions are predominantly ritualistic (1) : precisely because these ritual rules, this repetition of
the same religious ceremonies always constitute the best narcotic to numb the believer’s critical
spirit, to polarise him in that given faith; to develop in him ‘a ritualistic intelligence’, ‘to make
him contract, that is, invincible habits of thought’ (2). One need only enter any church or temple
for a few moments to see this effect of religious ritual ceremonies at work on the believer’s mind.
— ‘The importance of ritual,’ says Guyau, ‘in the material and religious life of a people indicates
the preponderant part, among this people, of unconscious and obscure associations; their brain is
as if caught and enveloped in a network of opaque threads entangled together, a fabric
impenetrable to light and consciousness (3).
But for still other functions besides that of hindering and preventing the development of
a total social consciousness, religion has been of added utility to societies in their mass struggle
for existence against other societies.
———————
 (1) “Ethics,’ says Letourneau when speaking of Semitic religions in general, “is above all ritual;
it consists principally, except for a few prescriptions of current and secular morality, in observing a certain
number of religious rules, most of which are devoid of practical utility; and it is precisely the infringements
of these ritual rules that the divinities chastise with the greatest rigour” (L’évolution religieuse; Paris,
Vigot, 1898, p. 385).
(2) GUYAU, L’irrélig. de l’av., 312.
(3) Ibid., 312.

427
———————
In fact, as a consequence of its essential function of subjugating reason through faith, it
has also fulfilled the task of facilitating the formation in all social classes, and of making as
intense as possible, all those other social instincts which are capable, precisely, of making society
more suitable for mass struggle for resistance, such as, for example, the feeling of discipline even
among the ruling classes themselves, the duty of sacrifice for one’s country, the instinct of tribal
revenge, racial hatred, religious hatred, patriotism, etc. (1) : collective instincts, those, which
however could have formed themselves, in the form of reflected social actions, without any
intervention of religion, if compatible with the coexistence of a total social consciousness.
Thus, for example, throughout Polynesia, inciting people to war : “the clergy meekly
associated itself with warlike fury, religion often aroused it and fully consecrated its most horrible
practices”. — “The warlike customs of the Polynesians show us with what zeal the primitive
religions, far from moderating the fury of the combatants, associate themselves with their savage
sentiments and embellish their hideous customs with pious ceremonies” (2). In the Fiji islands
“to please the gods, to be received after death in their paradise, one had to have killed many men
and destroyed many villages”. Similarly among the Red Skins, religion kept the warrior instinct
alive. In Nicaragua, paradise was reserved for those who died on the battlefield. The slaughter of
thousands of victims for sacrifices to the Mexican gods was in itself an incentive for war : among
the Aztecs, religion was “closely associated with war”. To nourish this deity (Huitzilopochtli)
was of the highest importance because she was the dispenser of victory, but to honour her
according to her supposed tastes, new prisoners were needed incessantly, so it was the clergy
themselves who continually incited new wars”.
———————
(1) On the survival, other things being equal, of societies admiring the collective instinct of
courage, revengeful societies, societies with strong patriotism, etc., see SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome III,
pp. 789, 790, 794, etc.
(2) LETOURNEAU, La guerre dans les diverses races humaines; Paris, Battaille, 1895; pages 128,
131.

428
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In Peru, religion, although less bloodthirsty, did not sanction war and its consequences any less;
indeed, wars were waged for the purpose of propagating religion (1).
As for the Muslim religion, no sacred book highlights better than the Koran the social
function of religion in facilitating the development and intensification of those collective instincts
best suited to ensure society’s survival in its struggle for existence (2). It represents war as a duty
imposed by Allah; it inspires in its followers a great ardour for proselytism; it inculcates in them
the most absolute fatalism, a psychological element of the utmost importance to achieve victory;
it reserves paradise only to those who have fallen in war; finally, given the sacred character of
war, it inspires in all these fanatics the most blind obedience to the prophet (3). And it is precisely
to these excellent characteristics of the Muslim religion that we owe the rapid success that Islam
has had.
————————
(1) Ibid., 41, 161, 164, 176, 178, 180. — The Fijian priests taught that “the shedding of blood and
war, like everything connected with it, are things pleasing to their deities”. Among the Jews, the order to
kill as many people as possible without distinction was attributed to God, so that one religious war was
naturally more bloody than the next (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome IV, 133). — See this whole Chapter :
On the Military Functions of Priests. “The sacrifices”, says this author, “made before or after and
sometimes even during battle by barbarian or half-civilised peoples show once again what a close
relationship there is between these two acts : killing enemies and pleasing the gods” (Ibid., 135).
“That great Catholic writer that was J. de Maistre was quite right”, says Letourneau, to write :
“Nothing fits together better in this world than the religious spirit and the military spirit”. This is a truth
that our studies on war come to confirm” (La guerre, 64).
(2) If in sedentary populations with developed agriculture and industry, where the specialisation
into parasitic classes (the aristocracy and the armed) and exploited classes (the working masses) is very
marked, the essential function of religion is to prevent the formation of a total social consciousness; in
nomadic tribes, on the other hand, where all are warriors and where, therefore, this division between
parasitic and exploited classes is not so marked and so substantial, the essential function of religion comes
to be that of facilitating development and of making those collective instincts as intense as possible that
are best suited to ensure victory.
(3) See LETOURNEAU, La guerre, 315 ff.; and L’évolut. relig., 553 ff.

429
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As for the Judaic religion, whose God is Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of armies, and all the
other Semitic religions in general (Assyrian, Judaic, Mohammedan), Letourneau believes that
they have succeeded more than all the others in “unleashing the worst instincts of humanity”, the
instincts, that is, most suited to war. Similarly, among the Aryan races of Asia, religion blessed
the bloodiest and most horrific deeds of war and priests exalted them. In Sparta, “religion was
used to fortify the moral worth of the troops”, it “was but an instrument of war”; they sacrificed
to the deities and consulted them before going off to war. In Athens, the religious ceremonies of
the funerals of the war dead and the funeral orations were “beautifully combined to exalt even
more the patriotism always so vibrant in Hellenic cities”. In Rome, it is all too well known the
task religion had there to instil eagle fetishism and the most fanatical patriotism. In the Christian
Middle Ages, it is precisely in wars of a religious nature that “ferocity takes on delirious
proportions” (1).
————————
(1) LETOURNEAU, La guerre, 354 et seq., 384, 405, 407, 433, 448 et seq., 522 et seq. —
“Essentially municipal and political in its origin, having for its basis the myths relating to the foundation
of the city and its divine protectors, the religion of Athens was from the beginning nothing other than the
religious consecration of patriotism and the institutions of the city. It was the cult of the Acropolis;
‘Aglaura’ and the oath that the young Athenians took on its altar have no other meaning; almost as if
religion among us consisted of conscription, exercise, and honouring the flag” (RENAN, Saint Paul; Paris,
Calmann Levy, 1893 ; p. 183).
In addition to developing and intensifying these collective instincts as much as possible in order
to make society more suitable for mass struggle, in other ways religion was also able to ensure victory and
survival for societies that were equipped with it, other things being equal. Thus, for example, religious
faith combined with the favourable responses of the divinity regarding the outcome of the war and the
sacrifices and prayers addressed to it to ensure victory, gave the combatants all the more confidence in the
success of the battle the greater this faith : a collective psychological element, this certainty in victory,
which is very important in order to actually achieve it : thus, the native people of the Sandwich Islands
dragged their war gods with them into battle (SPENCER, Princ, de Soc., tome IV, 134).

430
————————
 Given this overall function of religion, it follows that the collective consciousness of the
ruling classes, which makes them act according to their own economic motives, is matched
among the exploited masses by the collective instinct of supine submission, and in the whole of
society in general according to other collective instincts, such as patriotism, hatred of race, hatred
of religion, etc.; collective instincts which consist, we repeat, in a polarisation in a given sense,
with respect to a given question, of all the intelligences of the individuals of the collectivity, so
that, with respect to these questions, these individuals do not discuss questions about the future.
These collective instincts consist, we repeat, in a polarisation in a given sense, with respect to a
given question, of all the intelligences of the individuals of the collectivity, so that, with respect
to these questions, these individuals do not discuss, nor does it even occur to them to discuss and
agree in order to proceed in concert under the influence of reason in this or that way according to
their greatest common advantage : hence, in these collective instincts, precisely because they are
not collective volitions dictated by the agreement of men guided by reason, but collective
suggestions provoked by the annihilation in these individuals of this reason, every economic
motive is effectively lacking.
—————————
Thus among the ancient Mexicans, in Yucatan, among the Chibchas; also among the Philistines. The
Hebrews often brought the holy ark to war : thus, for example, we read in Samuel “that the Hebrews,
seeing themselves beaten by the Philistines, sent the holy ark forward to save them, and when the ark of
the covenant of the Lord entered the camp all Israel sent out great shouts, so that the earth rumbled with
them; and the Philistines were frightened because they said : ‘God has entered the camp’” (Ibid., 135).
And in Deuteronomy we read : “When it is necessary to approach to fight, the sacrificer shall come
forward and speak to the people and say to them : listen, children of Israel; you are marching today to
fight your enemies; let not your heart become cowardly, do not be afraid, do not be surprised, and do not
have any fear of them; for the LORD your God is marching with you, to fight with you against your
enemies and to preserve you” (Ibid., 139). — On sacrifices and other propitiatory acts to gain divine
favour in war, see Ibid., 136 ff. Thus, e.g., the Samoans take a priest with them to war “to pray in their
favour and curse the enemy”; in New Caledonia “the priests go to the fight, but keep their distance, fast
and pray for victory; etc.” (Ibid., 139). Today, these propitiatory acts still persist with religious services
before and during war, with the blessing of flags, with the baptism of warships at the moment of launching,
etc.”.
Even in these cases, therefore, it is always by suppressing free reasoning and individual will, and
by influencing the mass of combatants with faith, that religion succeeds in making so many elements
move as a whole, with the greatest compactness, the greatest simultaneity of action and the greatest
possible impetus, so many elements that in themselves would instead be dissolved, being inclined to move
each one on its own initiative independently of the others, and therefore completely unsuited to constitute
this single whole as compact as an animal organism.

431
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Furthermore, given this overall function of religion, it also follows, on the other hand,
that religion must have been, as we have mentioned above, the essential social organ, the most
important, the most indispensable, for societies in their mass struggle against other societies (1).
Therefore we must expect, in all probability, that societies of the military type compared to those
of the industrial type, in addition to the characteristics assigned to them respectively by Spencer
(2), will possess, the former, the character of a strong religiosity, the latter, that of irreligiosity;
the former, a restricted partial social consciousness, the latter, a total social consciousness; the
former, unconscious collective instincts, independent and perhaps opposed to the maximum well-
being of the greatest number of individuals, the latter, conscious collective volitions, or even
instinctive reflex social volitions, at first conscious volitions and then transforming into instincts
due to their continuous exercise, but always in conformity with the maximum well-being of the
greatest number because of their being continuously controlled by reason.
———————
(1) Letourneau repeatedly insists on the harm that religions do to society; thus, for example, when
speaking of the religions of the American races : “Not only are these religious conceptions chimerical, but
they are fatal; for they bar the way to any more just interpretation and, once consecrated as established
religions, venerable in a special way, they tyrannically hinder all rational speculation” (L’evolut. relig.,
233). — If this harm is real, as it certainly is, it must, however, be matched by a very special advantage if
it is precisely the most religious societies that have been the ones selected from all the others. — And this
is precisely Kidd’s great merit : that is, he understood that religious systems and religion in general could
not be a simple “grotesque cryptogamic excrescence” formed around the main trunk of the cult of the
ancestors (Grant Allen), but that they must instead have a very important function in the evolution of
societies, and precisely in the struggle for existence among them. But, as we shall see below, he then
completely erred in determining the very essence of this function.
(2) Princ, de Soc., vol. III, chap. XVII e XVIII.

432
————————
Now, this is what actually happens thanks to this fact : that this very important social
organ tends to form of its own accord in societies that are constantly at war, and by itself tends to
disappear if warfare is silenced for a long time.
War, in fact, thanks to the lively state of excitement in which it puts the whole community;
thanks to the impact it has upon everyone’s imagination with its violent deaths, with massacres,
with all, in short, of the horrors that accompany it; thanks to the dismay into which it throws
everyone; exerts the most powerful suggestive action to inculcate the most intense religious faith,
the liveliest belief, that is to say, and the most sacred terror of supernatural forces — spirits of the
dead or divinities — which are the supposed causes of these horrors (1).
Conversely, religious faith, continually undermined by the natural tendency of human
reasoning to disengage itself from all suggestion when suggestive action is not continually
repeated, — as magnetised soft iron tends to demagnetise, — is itself weakened when a long
pause in war suspends this suggestive action.
————————
(1) Hence war, this mass struggle for existence between societies, not only selects the social organ,
religion, which makes these societies more suitable for this struggle, but itself creates and invigorates the
religious feeling upon which natural selection is then exercised. In this it differs, therefore, from the
Darwinian struggle for existence taking place between individuals, which does not itself produce
individual differences, but only secretes them; — these individual differences being then caused by the
inheritance of acquired characteristic, according to Darwin and Spencer; by mating between the sexes
(which would have precisely this function of increasing the variability of individuals to an excess),
according to Weismann, who then recently considered it necessary to add, we do not know to what
advantage for his favourite theory, the struggle of intergerminal determinants (See WEISMANN, Essai sur
l’hérédité; Paris, Reinwald, 1892; Chap. VI : La reproduction sexuelle et sa signification pour la théorie
de la sélection naturelle; and Germinal Selection, in The Monist, Chicago, January, 1896).
Given the psychic structure, the degree and quality of the intelligence of primitive man (the
impulsiveness of his character, the ease with which some dead person he feared while alive would reappear
in his dreams, etc. (*)), it was inevitable that in the mind of the savage there should remain a vague fear
for the spirit of this deceased person — his ancestor, or the chief of his clan, of his tribe, or his enemy —
especially if he had died in the fray after having spread terror around him with his massacres and struck
the imagination of the whole tribe with his horrible deeds.
——————
(*) SPENCER, Princ. of Soc.; part one : Data from Sociology; LUBBOCK, The Origin of Civilization,
Cap. VI and sec.; LETOURNEAU, The Evolution of Religion, Chap. I and seg.

433
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Man then gradually regains his free reasoning and thus tends, little by little, to act in concert with
his fellows under the influence of reason : society, that is, becomes more and more irreligious,
and tends to gradually rise to a total social consciousness.
From this one can therefore conclude a priori — and the facts then fully prove it a
posteriori — that a prolonged state of war will be succeeded by a strong religiosity and social
unconsciousness; a prolonged state of peace, on the other hand, will be followed by an ever-
increasing irreligiosity, with a tendency for the social consciousness to become complete, seen in
an agitation by the masses demanding equity in social relations (1).
———————
This vague fear, shared by the whole tribe and constituting in embryo a collective religious sentiment (i.e.
a fear of the unknown), if skilfully exploited by the new leader of the small warrior community, especially
if he was the son or favourite friend of the much feared deceased, gave, all other things being equal, an
easy victory over the others, because, thanks to the religious respect for this new leader, they formed a
more compact whole, with faster and more simultaneous action, than adjacent communities : it is on this
vague and tenuous collective feeling of fear towards the unknown that natural selection was exercised,
which then gradually led to that most intense religious feeling, that has obscured and still obscures the
intelligence of the great mass of humanity.

(1) Similar ideas, in some respects, regarding the social function of religion and the alternation of
religious epochs with irreligious epochs — which also call to mind Saint-Simon’s mutual succession of
organic epochs and critical epochs — have already been expounded by Colins [Jean Hippolyte]. This is
how DE LAVELEYE relates them in his Socialisme contemporain, p. 291-293 : “In the beginning, the
sovereignty of brutal force imposes itself : the father of the family orders; the strongest of the tribe
commands. But in a somewhat considerable human agglomeration, this kind of sovereignty has never
been able to have but an ephemeral duration, because he who possesses the force for a moment cannot
always remain the strongest.

434
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What happens then? In order to remain the master, it transforms, as J. J. Rousseau says, its strength into
right and obedience into duty. It affirms, to this end, that there is an anthropomorphic, omnipotent being
called God; that God has revealed a norm of actions, and has appointed him as the legislator and infallible
interpreter of the revelation; that God has given each man an immortal soul; finally, that man will be
rewarded or punished, in a future life, according to whether or not he has conformed his acts to the revealed
norm.
But it is not enough for the legislator to affirm these dogmas; it is still necessary to prevent them
from being examined, and this is precisely what takes place by maintaining ignorance and the suppression
of thought.
Theocratic sovereignty or divine right is established, and aristocratic society becomes feudal. This
is the historical period that rational socialism calls : a period of social ignorance and the compressibility
of examination.
After a more or less long time, following the development of intelligence, of the discoveries that
are its consequence, and of the ease of communication between peoples, etc., the examination ends up
becoming incomprehensible, at least momentarily. Then the anthropomorphic social base is contested and
its authority falls, sovereignty is transformed : it loses its theocratic mask and is no longer anything other
than the sovereignty of force, that is, of the majorities or of the people. Society, shifting from the
aristocratic, becomes bourgeois; it enters the historical period of ignorance and incomprehensibility of the
examination.
Society is deeply disturbed and disorganisation is growing.
The principles that ensured the subjugation of the masses lose their empire. Everything is
discussed and questioned. Thus, the denial of the ultra-vital sanction and the personality of the
anthropomorphic God, the denial of the immortality of the soul, to mention but these few points, and
finally the affirmation of materialism, that is where free examination arrives at in this age. Then self-
interest prevails more and more over ideas of order and sacrifice, and over an ever-increasing number of
individuals; hence the fact that : in an age of social ignorance, immorality grows in proportion to the
development of intelligence.
Since pauperism increases inevitably, it follows that the bourgeois social form cannot last. Hence
the bourgeois regime is not slow to collapse in one way or another, and sovereignty by right is restored
until a new revolution once again leads to the triumph of the bourgeoisie. Societies can only get out of
this vicious circle in which they have been wandering since the origins of humanity, when, following the
invention and development of the printing press, and the general release of examination that is its
consequence, any return to the theocratic form has become radically impossible.

435
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These latter social characteristics, however, in themselves place society under conditions that are
more than unfavourable for mass struggle and thus place it in serious danger should war come to
devastate it again (1).
And the facts, we said, fully confirm a posteriori the a priori deduction :
Thus the Eskimos, the Arafuras, etc., essentially peaceful tribes, are mentioned as having
no religion (2); and tribes, on the other hand, always in a state of war are those in which religion
is most developed, as among the ancient Mexicans, in Dahomey, in the Fiji Islands, etc. (1*).
———————
Then humanity must either perish in anarchy or organise itself in accordance with methodically recognised
and proven reason. It is then that humanity enters the last period of its historical development, the period
of knowledge that will last forever as long as the life of the human species is possible on the globe.”
(1) Thus, for example, one of the causes that made it impossible for the people of Israel to resist
the powerful Assyrian and Persian empires was the great influence that the prophets, Nabis, true tribunes
representing the poor class, always exercised over that people. By always keeping the consciousness of
the people awake, by provoking continuous internal agitations, they prevented the establishment of a
strong monarchy, they hindered that blind devotion to it which the military regime demands, in short they
made impossible for that people that constitution or structure which alone could have made it suitable for
war : “What is important to point out,” writes Renan, “is that the prophetic authority so hostile to the
monarchy is no less hostile towards the priesthood. The prophet does not come from the tribe of Levi; he
does not teach in the temple, but in the squares, in the streets and in the markets; far from pushing towards
observances, according to the habit of the priest, he preaches pure worship, indifference to external
practices when they are separated from the adoration of the heart. The prophet has his mission only from
God and represents the popular interests against the kings and against the priests, often allied kings... The
Jews, with their very simple ideas on political and military organization, experienced a vivid impression
of wonder and terror when they found themselves for the first time in the presence of that terrifying
organization of force (the Assyrian and Persian monarchies), of that impious and brutal materialism, of
that despotism where the king usurped the place of God. The prophets did not cease to reject the only
policy that could save Israel, to undermine the monarchy and to excite internal agitations with their threats
and their puritanism” (Histoire du peuple d’Israel in the Études d’histoire religieuse; Paris, Michel Levy,
1864; pp. 104, 113-114).
(2) LUBBOCK, On the origin of Civilization of Man; London, Longmans Green, 1889, page. 214.
(1*) Spencer himself points out the relationship that has always existed, in space and time,
“between the relatively free institutions proper to industrialism and the arrest of priestly institutions”, and
between “the unresisting submission to an absolute political despotism appropriate to the social type of
militarism” and “an enormously developed priesthood” (Princ. de Soc., vol. IV, pp. 162-163).

436
————————
Thus, in the Middle Ages, war in its chronic state was matched by religious fanaticism at
its height (2); and, as a consequence, “a profound and voluntary subjugation of reason”, the most
complete “disappearance of all forms of independence in reasoning”. “In this period, reason was
conquered as it had never been in the history of the world” (3).
 And, conversely, in the late Middle Ages, the marvellous and sudden development of
commerce and the consequent relaxation of warfare, of which mercenary troops were the most
direct result (and it is well known that especially in the 15th century the fighting of commanders
among themselves had become, one might say, simple military parades, so that sometimes there
were battles that did not cost the life of a single man), produced the irreligiousness of the
Renaissance, and as a consequence, the high and extensive consciousness of the Italian
Communes. This was followed, however, by an impotence to resist the French and Spanish
invasions.
Thus the unceasing succession of wars between the Christians and the Moors in Spain
goes hand in hand with a frightening growth of religious fanaticism; and a similar unceasing
succession of wars in Scotland was accompanied by a similar development of an extraordinary
intensity of religious sentiment : and it is admirable how Buckle shows us this gradual generation
of the same intense religious sentiment in two very different countries, through one and the same
cause, the unceasing succession of wars (4).
———————
(2) Its indelible mark was the Gothic style (TAINE, Philosophie de l’Art).
(3) KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 126, 127.
(4) BUCKLE, Histoire de la Civilisation en Angleterre ; Paris, Marpon et Flammarion, 1881 ; vol.
IV and V.

437
————————
And, conversely, it was precisely when the empire of the Caesars came to assure the
Mediterranean peoples of “the great Roman peace”(1), when, as a result of this, pagan religious
sentiment was extremely weakened (2), and the empire became “the most absolute proclamation
of the secular state that ever existed” (3), it was then that the proletarian agitation, which had
already been fermenting for a long time among the descendants of the Ben-Israel (4), spread
victoriously, with the socialist word of Jesus of Nazareth, throughout the empire.
Indeed, this extraordinary social movement of primitive Christianity is nothing more, in
its intimate and profound essence, than true and simple proletarian agitation, albeit, outwardly,
with the character and form of a religious movement (5).
———————
(1) See Renan, Histoire des Origines du Christianisme, Les Apôtres; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1894;
Chap. XVII : État du monde vers le milieu du premier siècle [State of the World around the Middle of the
First Century].
(2) “The old religions,” says Fronde speaking of Caesar’s time, “were dying out from the Pillars
of Hercules to the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, and with them also the principles on which society
was constituted” (See KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 121). On this lack of “religious nourishment” on the part of
the people in all parts of the empire, similar to that which the most underprivileged portions of our societies
receive from the Church”, see also RENAN, Les Apôtres, p. 334 ff.
(3) RENAN, Hist. des Orig. du Christ., L’Antéchrist; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1893, page. 234.
(4) See RENAN, History of the Origins of Christ, Marcus Aurelius and the End of the Ancient
World; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1895, pages v-vi; and History of the People of Israel, in Studies of Religious
History, pages 104, 113-114.
(5) Cf. RENAN, Hist. des Orig. du Christ., especially Les Apôtres, Chap. XVII quoted above,
Chap. XVIII and XIX, and Marc Aurèle, pp. 598-603. See also, e.g., FREDERIC ENGELS, Zur Geschichte
des Urchristenthums, in Die Neue Zeit, 1894-95, Nr. 1 and Nr. 2. And NITTI, Le Socialisme catholique ;
Chap. III : Origines économiques du Christianisme. And LORIA, Les bases écon. de la const. soc., 55 ff.
— “It is not against religious principles, says HERTZKA, but against property, that Christ’s revolt was
directed, and that is why he had to die. This explains why the Pharisees fought against him; they
constituted the fine fleur not only intellectual but also material of Judaism; they were the most educated
and the richest; and if they would have taken pleasure in arguing with a religious sectarian, they hated to
the cross the man who had driven the bankers from the temple and declared himself the adversary of the
publicans” (LORIA, Les bases, etc., 222). — On the many remarkable points of similarity between the
movement of early Christianity and the current socialist movement, see precisely these writings just cited.
—

438
————————
And it is precisely when this social class of Christian proletarians had risen to the degree of
becoming a political party of great importance (1), that Constantine, representing the bourgeoisie
of the time, the wealthy classes of the provinces, resorted to its support to counterbalance and
overcome the power of the various opposing classes united within the ancient Roman aristocracy
(2). All the more so since, by then, resorting to such support was no longer of any danger
whatsoever for the entirety of the propertied classes in general :
——————
GIBBONS, in fact, cannot explain why the Romans, so tolerant towards all the other religious cults of the
empire, instead persecuted the Christians so cruelly (KIDD, L’evolut. soc., 147). In fact, the cult of Isis,
Mithraicism, etc. had full freedom to expand in the empire (RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 571 and following); nor
were the Epicurean philosophers always left undisturbed, although they were no less hostile to vulgar
superstitions than the Christians (Ibid., 61). — On the proletarian quality of the first Christians, see the
notable passages of the philosopher CELSO, their contemporary, in RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 362-365, and
RENAN himself, Ibid., 453-454, and FREDERICK ENGELS, Zur Geschichte des Urchristenthums, 36 et seq.
— On Celsus’ aversion to Christianity because of its characteristic, unlike all other religions which were
eminently national, of not being the religion of anyone, but only a protest against the national religion of
the empire, Ibid., 365-366. — “Strange thing,” Renan also observes, “Judaism, which revolted three times
against the empire with unparalleled fury, was never officially persecuted... On the contrary, Christianity,
which never revolted, was in reality outside the law. Judaism had, if one may put it this way, its concordat
with the empire; Christianity did not have this. Roman politics felt that Christianity was the termite that
was gnawing away at the edifice of ancient society internally” (Les Évangìles et la seconde generation
chrétienne; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1877, p. 213).
(1) “It is in the fourth century that the struggle against Christianity becomes great and fierce. The
rich classes, almost all attached to the ancient cult, fight vigorously; but the poor win” (R ENAN, Marc
Aurèle, 602).
(2) “The West still showed itself (at the end of the second century) highly resistant (to
Christianity); Asia Minor and Syria, on the contrary, counted dense masses of Christian populations that
were increasing every day in political importance. The centre of gravity of the empire shifted this way. It
was already felt that an ambitious person would be tempted to lean on these crowds, which beggary would
place them in the hands of the Church, and which the Church, in turn, would place in the hands of the
Caesar who was favourable to her. The political function of the bishop does not date from Constantine.
From the third century onwards, the bishop of the great cities of the East is shown to be a character
analogous to what the bishop in Turkey is in our day among Greek Christians, Armenians, etc.

439
————————
In the first place, the external character of the religious movement proper to this particular
proletarian agitation, strengthened more and more following the previous chronic state of
persecution that made terror ‘the habitual state of Christian life’ (1), — chronic persecution
which, regarding the practical effects of the suggestion of a religious faith, corresponds exactly
to a chronic state of war, — had then almost completely transformed the movement itself from
proletarian agitation in religious garb into a new and true religion.
Secondly, the blind obedience that these new believers now bring to their bishops (2),
which is largely the result of this religious faith that has thus penetrated and strengthened these
masses, and the ease with which these bishops can be won to the cause of the empire, completely
ensure that these proletarian classes are no longer of any danger to the ruling classes claiming
their support.
——————
He is a magistrate on the side of the public magistracy, taking advantage of all the latter’s mistakes. The
Church, in the third century, is already a great agency of popular interests, a substitute for what the empire
does not do. It is felt that one day, the empire failing, the bishop will be its heir. When the state refuses to
deal with social problems, these are solved separately, by means of associations that demolish the state”
(RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 586-587).
(1) RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 66.
(2) See. RENAN, Ibid., Cap. XXIX.

440
————————
In the meantime, the barbarian invasions arrived and the chronic state of war of the Middle
Ages began, and Christianity, by now the official religion of the empire and by now widespread
among the barbarians themselves, loses more and more, and finally completely, its intimate
essence of proletarian agitation, preserving only its guise, which by now had become its new
essence, that of a true and proper religion : from being a dissolving element, like all proletarian
agitations, of the most belligerent qualities, of the lively sentiment of patriotism, of the strong
spirit of military discipline (1), which had made the Roman empire invincible, it becomes instead,
like all other religions, an excellent instrument destined specifically to instil in the masses these
collective instincts so indispensable to societies at war; and from being a dangerous breeding
ground for proletarian agitation, it turns instead into a social organ apt, wondrously enough, to
prevent precisely any proletarian agitation in general, any awakening of a total social
consciousness :
“And it is marvellous to see,” says Loria, “how this perversion of workers selfishness (the
suffocation, that is, of the collective consciousness of the proletarian class) is deduced, by means
of a simple dialectical artifice, from the very morality that had inspired the claims of the rebel
slaves. For if the greatest among the reformers, Jesus, denounced the stealthy basis of property
and the essential usurpation of wealth, which he excluded from future happiness, his disciples
hastened to draw from this same doctrine a conservative deduction; for the fatal exclusion of the
rich from the kingdom of heaven, the necessary triumph of the poor in the future life, formed
precisely an excellent argument for reconciling the oppressed with the social system under which
they groaned. Thus this very morality, which had, for a moment, enlightened the egoism of the
workers, became, under the demoniacal influences of property, an effective means of perverting
it and diverting it from its true object. And just as the Bible, in spite of its republican spirit, has
been exploited for the defence of kings, so the Gospel, in spite of its communist spirit, has become
a powerful instrument for the protection of the wealthy classes, thanks to the efforts of the
mythical sophists, who have succeeded in making the greatest book of socialism the meanest
defence of property” (2).
————————
(1) See. RENAN, Ibid., Cap. XXXII, pages. 589-596.
(2) The Basis etc., 55-57. — Analogously in RENAN, The Gospels, 213; The Christian Church, V.

441
————————
That this is now the primary function of Christianity, that “the mortgage held by the peasant on
heavenly goods guarantees the mortgage held by the bourgeois on the peasant’s goods” (MARX, The Class
Struggles in France from 1848 to 1850; Milan, 1896, p. 77), is, as is known, — leaving aside the
Voltairianism of the last century, — an opinion that can be said to be general among today’s sociologists,
especially the socialists. See, for example, the authors just mentioned and those mentioned above. And, in
another field, ZOLA in his novel Paris (Paris, Charpentier, 1896), for example, pp. 411-412; and RUSKIN
(KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 88); etc.
“Catholicism,” wrote Louis BLANC, “cried out to the unfortunate : suffer without complaining,
for suffering is holy; suffer with joy, for God reserves heavenly and ineffable rewards for your sorrows.
— But this dogma no longer has any power over human minds. It has been realised that it was but a
sophism to prevent the legitimate insurrection of the oppressed against the oppressors; and this impious
sophism has fallen along with all the tyrannies to which it had so long served as a basis” (Organisat. du
trav., 180-181).
“We recognise, however, as PROUDHON also wrote, that the theory of resignation served society
by preventing its revolt. Religion by consecrating with divine right the inviolability of power and privilege
gave mankind the strength to continue on its way and to exhaust its contradictions. Without this blindfold
over the eyes of the people, society would have dissolved a thousand times over. It was necessary for
someone to suffer; and religion, the consoler of the afflicted, decided the poor should suffer” (Sist. des
contrad. econ., 364).
 Notes made during translation of On Socialism started Wednesday, 19 February 2025 :

Chapter 7

Section 1

Page 404 The opening statements are not encouraging as he seeks to delineate between
states of collective consciousness which exist as conscious decision making versus
unconscious action, where the latter can display a form of coordinated organisation which is
prompted instinctively, contrasting with the reasoned approach characterising consciously
determined collective actions.
He then proceeds to use the incredibly simplistic notion of seeking happiness as the goal
of conscious decision making, an idea deriving from utilitarianism, a philosophical outlook
conjured up some decades previously by the likes of John Stuart Mill, if memory serves me
correctly. Anway, this is all totally hopeless for our purposes, which begs the question what are
we doing here ?
From what I recall of the first material looked at on the function of religion from a month
or so back, he was treating religion as a kind of programme, approximately as we do in our Atheist
Science philosophy, so that it is worth sticking with him to see how he got there.

Page 405 The excruciating contortion over collective consciousness continues here as the
argument rotates around the attainment of partial versus a maximal state of
collective happiness, as determined at the level of the individual. The only value to arise from
such reasoning is that whereby his argument implicitly accepts there is a state of social
consciousness that is inherently hierarchical in its distribution within the social fabric of
collective being. If considered in such structural-functional terms, where the social structure is
thought of as a superorganism within which individuals are but cellular units of the whole, then
this peculiar approach would have the potential to discern the reality of the human condition, but
the main thrust of the logic imparted here concerns making the individual the be all and end all
within a collective structure, with the individual person being the only entity that has any true
existence as an end in itself. So that what is being aimed at here, is the development of an
argument that makes the existence of society all about serving the needs of the individual, which
is just the same old same old in terms of what the academic priests hurl at us all the time. Which
makes this appalling stuff, but still, it is employing key ideas applied within the framework of
society seen as a social organism, an idea that was at its peak around the time when this work
was published in 1901. In this sense we appear to have an author who is devoted to the
sociologically organicist view of society in a way that drives him to accept that society is a social
organism, while nonetheless striving to find a way out of this conception of human corporate
nature, in order to return to established ideas conforming to the needs of established authority,
within which the person alone is granted the status of a human being existing as an end in
themselves. This would make Rignano a greater enemy of science applied to humans than any
other academic, since he is attacking science from within what should be its own core ideas on
the nature of the human animal seen as a superorganism. Saying all of which still means that this
enemy of science is the best author we have on the true science of human biological nature, even
though he only approached the truth in a manner that would negate the truth; the approach itself
is a significant position to of adopted and as good as science ever got, as from this time onward,
science has been all downhill in respect to placing humanity within nature.
Page 406 The ridiculous nonsense continues as Rignano outlines how an adjustment of
social consciousness will ensure that instead of ruler and ruled, there will
henceforth only be total equality of power vested in individuals right across the social world. The
best we can say of this, is that it is a childlike utopian vision based upon the recognition of mental
states as the key factor of human existence. Conceptions of society of this kind always follow
narrow, bias lines of reasoning, prompting a utopian inversion of the normal, unhappy state of
affairs.
Again then, we can only say that taken at face value this is worthless material to all who
wish for sound knowledge about the reality of human existence. Only when we consider the
origin of such reasoning do the arguments presented here have any interest for us, an origin that
relates their appearance to the pinnacle of the idea of society being a social organism, which these
idiotic arguments are a response to. It is the very idea that society is widely understood to be a
biologically formed entity that brings the idea of consciousness to the fore in this bizarre way,
causing consciousness to be focused upon as a key social factor. All that this academic priest of
the time was trying to do, it seems, was to show how the realisation that society was the true
object of human existence, could be inverted so that society could made to exist in the service of
individuals seen as the only human objects existing in their own right. This attempt to force
reality to obey human myths leads this pathetic conception of how society will work when rulers
dispense with all power and ensure that authority is vested equally, in every single person existing
within society.
The ideas being spouted in this piece are horrendously idiotic and as such revolting to
read, but there is something of interest to be found in them, that lies in the fact that they represent
a reaction to a genuinely scientific conception of what human society really is, that had come to
dominate society at that time, but which has long since been erased and made unspeakable within
academic circles. So that what this man was striving to do in terms of perverting ideas in a world
where real science had come to exist, after a fashion, is now fully established, nothing in anyway
approximating to science exists today, as all scientific ideas conform to the idiocy of the human
person as human being, so that ideas no longer have to be presented in such contorted, idiotic
terms, because nothing opposes the moronic ideas rooted in religious authority.
The point concerning Rignano’s focus upon social consciousness, when properly
formulated according to the primary idea that society is a biologically generated living entity, is
that there are no individuals existing as ends in themselves, so that there is no such thing as
consciousness applicable at the level of social action, there is only a programme directing the
activity at the social level, a programme that is written to the brains of individuals during the
process of acculturation, which organises individual behaviour along collective lines. His
conception of consciousness and everything arising from it, is entirely spurious in scientific
terms, it is in fact merely an extension of the programme seeking to draw the organisation of
individuals back into orbit around a core authority based upon religion, based upon Judaism
indeed, we can say, when this situation is fully comprehended scientifically.

Page 407 We have become familiar with the absurd notions put forward in this section of
Rignano’s work, but reading more of it is excruciating because of its utterly crazy
notions of a utopian reality which contradicts everything we know about society as it has existed
at any time or in any place.
This particular time was however quite exceptional in the history of humanity and
exceptional consequences flowed from this fact. This is how we must make sense of what he his
surely putting forward in all seriousness. At this time society was undergoing immense change
in its ideas, which could be thought of as a vast expansion of society’s consciousness of reality,
due to an immense structural transformation brought about by technological advances of a kind
never seen before, that were of a truly radical nature.
 With this in mind we can be more tolerant of ideas that are so obviously facile. At the
turn of the twentieth century hitherto unheard of political movements were emerging and making
an impact, socialism and communism in particular, arising from the development of a working
class as part of a process of industrialisation. It is this physical reality concerning the structure
of society that is reflected in the facile ideas we see being expounded here, where the idea of
conscious versus unconscious, structurally differentiated between a conscious core authority and
an immense, powerless, mindless majority, are being banded about.
Today, at the end of the first quarter of the twenty first century we know that these
ideological movements came to nothing and the natural tendency for absolute power to be
concentrated in a core authority has emerged from the disruption that was coming to a head
around the turn of the twentieth century. Society gave rise to political parties that avowed the
same kind of facile principles as we see in Rignano’s text, after the last world war socialist ideas
delivered things like a National Health Service, council housing and more, but such egalitarian
structures run counter to the natural growth of social structure, which is why espousing them in
principle sounds so facile. It took the mere flick of her fingers for Margaret Thatcher to bring
this absurdity crashing down by opening up those areas of the social structure that had been
artificially removed from the natural dynamics of social order, by unleashing market forces,
which could not be reversed because market forces represent the organic process of social order
that generates a core authority, contrasting with an abject and disempowered majority. Now
socialism is long dead, the supposedly socialist party, Labour, is as right-wing and conservative
as it is possible to be, having recently obtained power, solely because of the total worthlessness
of the Conservatives that could not be endured any longer, Labour has begun by tweaking minor
aspects of society in accordance with its key facile ideas, as in having a poke at private education,
which is meaningless, and putting laws in place to destroy the farming community, which will
have an immensely harmful impact on society, which is irrelevant to these politicians, as it
validates their pretence of being a socialist party, which is the only thing they have to distinguish
themselves from the Conservatives. In response to the rebalancing of society by Thatcher upon
an unjust basis, fostering elite power contrasted with the abject subservience and degradation of
the masses, socialists transformed themselves into conservatives devoted to the resulting
structure, under the leadership of Tony Blair. A sidekick of Thatcher’s, Michael Heseltine, had
this point put to him in a TV interview, that Labour had become more conservative than the
Conservatives, at which he smiled and said that just showed how successful the Conservatives
had been. All of which makes the point that these notions about equity and total consciousness,
like all such ideas to do with socialism, are simply flying in the face of reality, rather as religion
itself does, only religion is not politics, so religion never has to come up with the goods by
introducing people to their dead relatives, for example, so that religion can persist on a facile
basis in perpetuity, while socialism as a viable political movement is always very short-lived
indeed.
But it is this contrast between the nature of religion and politics as modes of knowledge
formation, that allows the arguments we are hoping to examine here to have some value for us,
despite the nonsense we are having to put up with as we approach the point where we get onto
religion, so, we persist — not too far now.

We could say that exactly the same thing is happening in America right now, with Trump
beginning his second term as president, as happened when Thatcher came to power here.
Thatcher trashed British social structure and reaped a financial reward that could be used to bribe
the masses into supporting her. The American Conservatives, the Republicans, are unleashing
the power of money in a process that stems from the financial support directed under ideas that
led to the creation of idealistically conceived social structures, that had accumulated over the
decades since the last world war, like a pot of honey just waiting to be raided. Trump has spent
his first thirty days in office trashing social structures on a global scale, that came into existence
because America rose to the position of apex social power within the Western world in the
aftermath of Europe going to war with itself in the middle of the last century, having already laid
the foundations for its own collapse in a previous terrible world war. The Conservative
demolition of social structures was a rebalancing of social structure that goes with the natural
flow of social dynamics, as opposed to resisting them, but this kind of action can only be taken
after a period of accumulation created by politics based on ideas that are in the end always facile
in their conception of reality.
Meanwhile, the application of laws that demolish structures valued by Conservatives,
such as that of farming communities, also serves to release wealth accumulated within social
structures that can then be channelled to those idealistically conceived structures that run counter
to natural social processes, whereas farming communities are obviously in accord with more
fundamental natural social processes. This is why we have dualistic social power dynamics, as
the fabric of society inculcates ideologies based upon the pooling of wealth within structures
which can be made the basis of competing political blocs, neither of which give a toss about
anything, save for obtaining positions of power, which is why all politicians are always such vile,
dishonest, despicable persons.
The inherent dishonesty of politicians was being discussed on Newsnight last night, today
being Thursday, 24 April 2025, to do with the clash of human rights arising from the Supreme
Court’s earthshattering decision that only a women can be legally classed as a women. The
discussion arose because of the prime minister Keir Starmer being shown saying one thing on the
subject at one time and the exact opposite at another, thus personifying the nature of politicians,
whose sole concern is attaining power, for the sake of attaining power.
These outcomes are entirely natural and in no way under the control of politicians,
because any notion of social consciousness is ridiculous, all politicians ever do is to ‘follow their
noses’, when most of the time their noses are pulled by a string which consists of the corporate
identity programme, comprising the corporate identity of the human being as superorganism. The
rise and fall of political ideologies is just another expression of a natural biological cycle, which
involves growth and dissipation repeating itself in an eternally rotating sequence of energy
accumulation and release.

Section 2

Page 408 Clearly the state of collective consciousness being dealt with here is one that is
identical to the consciousness of an individual person, where they are able to think
about and describe what they are thinking and explain it in its entirety. Even when it concerns an
individual however, when focusing upon what their consciousness really consists of, we are
bound to realise that much of the content of their consciousness is not theirs, but rather much of
it is drawn from the social world they are part of, so this way of thinking about social
consciousness is not scientific at all, but simplistically political. He should be using the
terminology of linguistic programming in other words, which he most definitely is not.

Page 409 The facile account of collective consciousness proceeds unabated, it is so pathetic,
he has no sense of history, the uniqueness of the time seems to him to be an
indication of the changeless nature of humans as individuals, forever dealing with the problems
they face as and when they face them. He has no concept of human nature as a natural given,
wherefrom collective consciousness always exists as surely as birds that fly always have wings,
however various they may be in other respects. So it is that our interest in this awful academic
continues to be the fact that he is dealing with the most important topic, that of human corporate
consciousness. As ever, these crucial aspects of human nature are only ever dealt with in a corrupt
manner by academics who, after all, are nothing but priests at work within academic settings, as
opposed to priests serving within a religious order, both serve the established knowledge of their
institutions, neither serve the truth as attested by reality, of the kind that gives rise scientific
knowledge that is independent of biased human ideas.

Page 410 From our scientific point of view this account continues to be annoyingly useless
as it simply regurgitates political dogma that has no conception of science, nor
any interest in the same, which is annoying because this work is not supposed to be a political
treatise, it is meant to be a scientific explanation of human social life. He is setting his ideas
within the political milieu of the day while affirming what everyone was saying, based on the
universal understanding that persons are human beings who are the creators of their own world.
What any real science would seek to do here, is to recognise the simple fact of the matter being
as it is said to be, and then look to explain why these social dynamics exist by reference to deeper
aspects of what the human animal is, namely by referring to the biologically given nature of the
human species. He says nothing of language, yet the unspoken aspect of his account is all about
language, which he simply takes to be a given that requires no discussion, from which we can
only assume that he means to go along with the establishment idea that language is a gift to people
from the gods, people thereafter being at liberty to use it as they please, when reality could not
be further from such an idiotic notion. Having recognised that the human animal is a
superorganism, our Atheist Science philosophy led us to reason that information is the biological
force of life and language is a manifestation of that force in humans. From which it follows that
the physical intensification within a human biomass described here, should be understood in
terms of the intensification of the linguistic force that creates human superorganic, or social form,
in exactly the same way that astronomers know they must recognise the relationship between the
force of gravity and the mass of cosmic objects when identifying material outcomes observed in
the universe.

Page 411 Drawing attention to the details of how social structure relates to the power of
linguistic force, which is what he is unwittingly doing here, engages our interest,
but continues to demonstrate his role as an academic priest serving to interpret social
transformation in accordance with long established authoritarian, which ultimately means
religious, logic. His one concession to the new way of seeing the world courtesy of science, is
his use of the idea of collective consciousness, which derives from the primary insight that the
human animal is a superorganism and the individual person is not a human being, as we would
state the case now. But after making this primary insight regarding the existence of a collective
consciousness the fundamental aspect of his reasoning, he disregards the logic of this idea
completely and carries on as if the idea had never existed, simply reasoning according to the logic
of individual persons as the culminating human being acting in an increasingly collective manner,
as individual consciousnesses are forced by material circumstances to conform to one view of
life condensed into an ever tighter and more extensive, and thus mentally denser, mass of people.
So the basis of his reasoning about collective consciousness is the existence of individual
consciousness, when a true grasp of the significance of the idea that society is a superorganism,
or social organism, as he would of known the idea at this time, presents the reality that persons
are programmed units of corporate being and their consciousness is not consciousness at all, but
merely the animation of the corporate identity programme written to their brains.
The shift of human identity from the individual to the collective entity is the key to
understanding what humans are and why human life plays out as it does in a way that is anything
but a logical, rational manner, that can be related to a wilful thought process on the part of
individual persons, any individual persons that is, elite or otherwise. President Trump is giving
us the most powerful demonstration of consciousness vested in the individual at this immediate
time, today being Thursday, 06 March 2025, where his arbitrary, random, eccentric and
contradictory statements are the epitome of individuality gone mad. But it remains an inescapable
fact that Trump no more exists than any other person exists in his own right as a human being
acting according to the dictates of his personal inner view of life. He, like everyone else, exists
within the social fabric of corporate being, so that all of his actions are just as predetermined and
structured as those of any other person, he is a programmed unit acting as a programmed unit.
He cannot escape this programmed status anymore than anyone else can. In the first place, he
has no idea that he is a programmed unit, he, like everyone else, thinks he has a mind of his own,
but no one can escape the structural aspects of their existence within a vast, complex social
structure. If for the hell of it, having become aware of this slave status applying to him as much
as anyone else, Trump decided to prove that he could act contrary to the constraints of the social
structure that he had come to be in command of, so that, for example, he made America act as
one with Russia by ordering a military invasion of Europe, with a view to making Europe part of
the Russian empire, he would test established structural constraints beyond their limits, his
position would collapse, his order would not be obeyed and he would be removed from office.
As it is, while there is much talk of what he is doing veering in this direction and structural
dynamics have been cranked into action, future prospects are, if rattled and hence seemingly
thrown into chaos, while still being well within the bounds of the present structural arrangements,
the coming years will most likely just reveal a structural resetting took place at this instant, that
was necessary and beneficial in terms of the currently established structure, in the long run.
07/03/2025 09:44 — There were already signs of this viewpoint being reported on the
BBC programme Newsnight last night, with Trump throwing part of his drastic contortions of
American policy into reverse, that of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, as market forces were
showing their displeasure at his economic antics, indicating how the structure was acting to
constrain the apparently omnipotent individuality of Trump on the loose, as the most powerful
individual on the planet. In human existence there is no individuality, there is only the social
structure and linguistic force is what holds it together.

Page 412 A work on this subject was very apt for the time and it is interesting to see the
exceptional nature of the times reflected in the way Rignano talks about the form
of the social structure and its impact upon his chosen subject, that of social consciousness
personified in the appearance of a working class as a new aspect of the modern social structure.
He keeps inserting the phrase ‘for the first time’ such that it acts like a refrain, but it is significant,
and appropriate. But he is still dealing with his subject in terms of the individual person as the
embodiment of the human being, even though his actual topic is the state of collective
consciousness, which by definition requires the negation of this individual as an entity existing
in their own right. Admittedly this negation of the individual is not obvious from the starting
point of collective consciousness, but it is if this idea is in turn properly rooted in the appropriate
deeper understanding, at a biological level as opposed to the political, which the economic is just
one facet thereof.

Page 413 And so it continues, as he elaborates even further upon how aspects of attributes
of individual consciousness, concerning knowledge of how social organisation
functions, are essential to the development of social consciousness, which is therefore all about
the human being as the person even when the subject is all about the individual being subsumed
under a prevailing collective identity, that we say is nothing but a programme imprinted to the
brains of individuals. These sophisticated aspects of human mental activity are just part of the
prevailing culture and as such the substance of the corporate identity programme, the content of
which will vary across the social structure. Yesterday afternoon, today being Saturday, 08 March
2025, there was a rerun of a daily BBC 2 programme called Flog It, in which an expert was
valuing an early nineteenth century workbook illustrated with nicely done sand paintings and
superb watercolours. Having expressed his admiration for the skill on display he explained to
the owner that at this time every member of the middle class was trained in the arts, painting,
music and such like, whereas now, with television and computers such commonly held skills are
entirely lost. If we compare this statement with the ideas Rignano is putting forward here, we
can see that even sophisticated skills are in perfect conformity with the idea of individuals being
programmed into a form of collective or class consciousness.
What we do find here that is a delight to see, is his all-round condemnation of the
guardians of knowledge, described as being inveterately corrupt in their service of the ruling
order, right across the board, which is exactly what we find today in respect to science, leading
us to call all academics ‘academic priests’, guardians of knowledge serving the subversion of
knowledge, in the service of established authority.

Page 414 More of the same extolling of the pathway to collective mental uniformity through
the intense development of individual mental powers, utterly illogical and
ridiculous, given reality as we know it to be concerning the severely limited ability of individuals
to attain high intellectual status. The phrase ‘class consciousness’ will of been all the rage at this
time and this estimation of its nature and origin will of seemed perfectly valid at the time, but as
we keep saying, he is pretending to provide a scientific explanation for this kind of collective
consciousness, related to the mental faculties of human beings as persons, when all of his
arguments are concerned with the structural details of social changes related to the appearance of
a working class, which completely disregards the fundamental nature of humans as animals
created by nature, that has given rise to such an amazing social condition.

Page 417 Throughout this effort of translation by means of computer power we have had a
question nagging away at us as to why we were taking such trouble to access such
lame ideas, a sentiment that is reflected in our notes. Here, at the very end of this task, we get
our answer, and it is superb!
We only wanted to examine Rignano’s ideas on religion but when we set about translating
the relevant section we found it was based on an immediately preceding discussion of social
consciousness, without which we could not proceed. As he concludes this preceding discussion
he puts religion in the frame in a most dramatic way, saying that the sole purpose of religion is to
enslave individuals to a ruling corporate authority, or words to that effect. The way he goes about
reasoning on this subject is infuriating, it is so mixed up and lacking in logical consistency, simply
because he has no proper foundation for the ideas he presents. His foundation is the given
underpinning of real-world corporate authority, most especially that obtained through religion, a
conception that takes it for granted that the person is the human being created by nature, that the
person is the object of human biological evolution, hence he portrays religion as enslaving the
individual by stealing their naturally given absolute autonomy, away from them.
We may pause to note that the point of origin for our ideas rests upon an uncompromising
anarchistic sentiment rejecting all authority and vesting the same in the individual, which is
expressed most forcefully in our strident atheism. We can easily see from looking around us, if
we free up our minds appropriately, that while all the world has it that the individual is the
supreme human entity, all individual authority is utterly degraded under a merciless authority that
opposes authority vested in the individual with an unswerving absolutism. So why the total
contradiction between what we say and what happens ? How do we make sense of this glaring
contradiction between what everyone asserts and believes, and what is real ? We have long since
been forced to concede that the highest expression of absolute individuality is seen in the
realisation that the individual does not exist. Only ourselves, as the ultimate individualists, have
ever voiced this idea, which is anathema to human society. For society to exist everyone must
operate under the delusion that they are the foci of authority existing in their own right, as we all
do today, or else, they must be actually physically, that is overtly enslaved, as has been the case
throughout the history of civilisation, to one extent or another.
And so, Rignano could not reject the basis upon which the authority of the individual
arises, no matter how far the subject he made his own lead him towards doing so if were to of
been true to that subject, he had to maintain this core falsehood regardless of anything else. This
reminds us of the situation that prevailed in the ancient world when faced with the undeniable
fact that the earth was a planet moving around the sun, which led to the creation of the greatest
science of the ancient world, that of Ptolemaic astronomy, which was highly sophisticated and
based upon the undeniable fact that the earth was at the centre of the universe, the equivalent
piece of work today being Darwin’s Origin of Species, which provided the modern scientific
lynchpin allowing the idea that the individual is the human being to be maintained, despite all the
evidence to the contrary.

Tuesday, 11 March 2025 – Trumpian chaos continues to animate the news, last night
Canada was in the spotlight and the outgoing prime minister’s speech contained this :

"Make no mistake, this is a nation-defining moment. Democracy is not a given. Freedom is

not a given. Even Canada is not a given," Trudeau said.
(Reuters)

Something we want to pick up in the context of what we are saying above when talking
about how humans evolved to be slaves, and will therefore always be slaves, so that the best state
they can ever attain is one in which they know they are free and anything but a slave. In other
words the highest state of existence attainable by individual persons is one in which they are in a
perfect state of delusion.
This is what contemporary religion is all about, in conjunction with which, it is what our
modern Western, liberal ideology is all about. This is why such remarks as we see being made
as those just quoted, warning that our Western way of life that has prevailed across the world for
centuries and has been taken by us as a given that humanity has attained, is now, for the first time
since Western civilisation came into existence, something that we Westerners are being forced to
recognise is anything but a given. Fascist dictatorships are coming to the fore and threatening
Western civilisation and now, out of the blue, since Trump came to power, we are being forced
to recognise that even the great bastion of Western civilisation is only a twinkling of an eye away
from transmogrifying into the world’s greatest fascist dictatorship. Such ideas as those expressed
by Trudeau have been cropping up in recent years, when they had previously been unimagined,
but this American wakeup call is something altogether new.
On a BBC Newsnight slot last week an American democrat was interviewed who called
Trump a fascist, she then affirmed that she held this belief in her heart of hearts, so that when the
Republican guest was next in line to be interviewed after she had left, he was apoplectic at the
BBC for dragging up this person he had never heard of, who dared to call Trump a fascist. Of
course if you are a fascist dressed in liberal clothing, you would not see the other fascists who
are your kind for what they are.

As we review these notes we have an opportunity to add a little, to which end, last night
on Channel Four News, today being Friday, 25 April 2025, a guest commenting on the most
recent denouncement of Ukraine by Trump, for not capitulating to Russian aggression and giving
up its war of resistance, compared the situation to that where Hitler and Stalin made a pact
dividing up Europe between themselves. The comparison does not quite work because America
is not part of Europe, but the thrust of the idea is real enough in that Trump is indicating that he
accepts the validity of wars of conquest by powers able to conduct them, even when this concerns
the conquest of Europe by Russia. Myself I have been imagining Britain launching an all out
war against Russia as the only move left if we want to preserve freedom, such as it is. That is
humans for you, war is what we do, such is life for a mammalian superorganism. Wars of
conquest epitomise the nature of the human animal as superorganism, the nature of which is all
about maximum possible extension, the impetus for which can never come to an end because it
is a biological given. If humans were to give up war they would no longer be human, they would
of become an entirely different kind of animal altogether, such a prospect is inconceivable on any
rational basis, and this business with America brings this reality to the fore right now : if you
want peace, prepare for war! Says it all. Europe has not been prepared for war since the last
conflagration, it has handed itself over to America, lock, stock and barrel, which makes Europe
America’s to give away, and guess what . . . that is what America is in the process of doing.

That our world is all an illusion in terms of what is real and what we say is real, means
there is no such thing as freedom, democracy, liberalism, equality, beyond the talk and pretence.
Trump’s sidekick, Vance, was shown last month (February), around the time when he lectured
the Europeans about how they were degrading into a form of totalitarianism, on how strength was
the be all and end all of everything, how you could not shoot at platitudes, thus expressing the
idea that physical, meaning military strength, was the only true basis of politics, which idea is
supposed to lie at the core of Trump’s support for Putin the Russian criminal, over Zelensky the
Ukrainian hero.
What we have in this text by Rignano is the work of an academic priest serving the
absolute theocracy ruling our world, even as he declares the need to destroy that same power. He
is serving that power because his explanation for everything is entirely in keeping with what that
power needs it to be, while he fails to reveal the simple truth which, if it came to be accepted,
would indeed make the continuance of religion impossible. At the time when Rignano’s
academic work was written the critical knowledge of relevance to this revelation was in the public
domain and at the height of its popularity, thus posing an existential threat to religion, which is
precisely why a work like that of Rignano’s that we are examining now was able to be written,
as it was in effect based upon that knowledge existing at that time under the phrase ‘social
organism’. This knowledge, that was so antithetical to religion, was soon destroyed and before
long it became strictly taboo, which it remains to this day. So it is that religion continues to thrive
as ever and has become vastly more empowered today through the modern version of the slave
identity implant which, in this regard, falls under the political term ‘multiculturalism’, which has
validated the spread of deeply primitive religious ideas throughout Western civilisation, thus
maintaining the religious basis of a culture avowedly secular. From which process of
transformation without, that maintains changelessness within, these alien corporate identity
formulas have become vital to the well being of the many millions of alien people brought into
the West under these slave formulas, thus making these alien religions very powerful and ensuring
that whereas the Christian slave identity of Judaism was on the wane, nothing will challenge,
thanks to these new slave formulas introduced under the banner of multiculturalism, as these
newly imposed religious identities perform the task that Rignano rightly said religion was there
to perform, even though his explanation was not correctly expressed and did not reveal the true
nature of the dynamic that he was pretending to understand, just as all priests only ever pretend.
The intention is to post this work to Scribd when completed, as a kind of follow on to the
last work posted which looked at a paper addressing the question whether humans could be
regarded as a species of superorganism. The essay by Kesebir is exceptional in its dealing with
this topic but it only raises this taboo subject in order to dismiss it, nonetheless it is something
that it should of been published at all and it has provided an opportunity for us to tackle the
subject in a contemporary context, but it remains the case that the subject is shunned and certainly
not asserted as the correct scientific explanation for human existence that it actually, quite
obviously, is.

Do academic priests know they are subverting truth to serve authority ? When a naked
fact stares them in the face, such as one obliging them to conclude that the individual person does
not exist, they know this is a horrific and unspeakable idea, as surely as a speeding train coming
towards them would be known for what it is. Last year when visiting my optician I explained the
difficulty I have wearing reading glasses because of the extreme sensitivity of my nose that
stemmed from an allergy, so that we discussed contact lenses as I explained that my whole life is
about reading and writing and I had done everything possible to get the lightest glasses. This
prompted her to ask what I wrote, which led me to hit the punch line and say that my conclusions
regarding the human animal being a superorganism meant that individual persons did not exist,
she gasped ! Says it all. So we may take it that, likewise, academic priests do not entertain the
notion that they are subverting truth when moments arise where they should, they simply veer
away from that which is so obviously unspeakable in terms of the culture into which we are all
inducted and all know perfectly well.

The idea that human individuals evolved to be slaves is something of a freehand mode of
expression suited to the fact that this idea is not officially recognised and thus warrants discussing
in popular terminology, but as with many things of a similar nature in science, if properly
expressed the description would be very different. The slave idea is pertinent to current social
structures of a civilised kind, where complex amalgamations of corporate identities are formed
into a compound superorganic structure. The first human superorganisms will of had one unified
corporate identity, race is quite obviously the substance of such corporate identities, but as the
latent potential of human biological corporate identity unleashed its potential through the medium
of linguistic force, human social structure developed accordingly, it was then that the kind of
structural relationships came into being that suggests the enslavement of individuals to corporate
identity programmes. With the increasing sophistication of the corporate identity programme
true slave making corporate identities evolved, such as Christianity and Islam, with Judaism as
the originating, master identity. But we should understand that individuals must have a corporate
identity written to their brains, if one is not provided then the resulting mental vacuum is filled
spontaneously as mediums of corporate identity emerge and are taken up by people, tattooing
being the classic example from our contemporary times when religion for native Western
populations has lost the widespread relevance it formerly possessed. So it is that we can rightly
talk about human somatic anatomy evolving to deliver a mammalian form that is made to be
enslaved, so that slave maker religious identities are not a perversion of nature, as Rignano
implies when saying that religion must be destroyed in order to liberate the naturally independent
authority of the individual person.

Section 3

Page 417 Now we come to the part that we have been here to look at all along, concerning
religion. As far as the material we are interested in goes, Rignano has several
fixed points of interest, social consciousness is the basis of those interests, he opens this section
by naming the second, which is war. The third is religion, which appears in the title of this
section. His entire approach is as flawed as anything ever written by any modern era academic
priest, because it rests upon the false pivot of observation concerning what humans are for real,
that false pivot being the individual, where the true pivot is the social entity. What is of value in
his work derives from the period in which he was writing, when the idea that the social entity
was the true pivot was dominant in society, the one and only time that this has happened
anywhere, and this is what he was influenced by that makes him of interest to us. Hence we have
an idea such as that of social consciousness, along with its related dynamics that conform to the
principle that persons are programmed units of an extended corporate being. Rignano employed
this idea of the social entity as human being, after a fashion, he even freely uses the phrase ‘social
organism’ and refers to religion as a functional organ of social organisation, which is perfect, but
he did so through the erroneous prism of the person as the object of human biological evolution,
which is as good as any modern science of human nature has ever got, for all that it is not good
at all. Ultimately this only goes to show the flawed nature of the academic world as a provider
of true knowledge, as academia exists only to be a perfect biological organ of knowledge
provision, serving the superorganism in biologically functional terms, just as religion does. In
this section we will see Rignano captures this point precisely, that of the biological function of
religion, but since he maintains the falsehood that persons are human beings, he fails to correctly
identify the nature of this functionality and instead interprets it as a flaw in need of correction,
even though we see in his opening words here, that a society based on a true understanding of
human nature cannot exist, because society has to be composed of individuals who are
programmed into a state mindless uniformity in respect to the nature of themselves and humanity
as a whole. Rignano addresses this principle of a programmed human biological nature in terms
of the most severely challenging circumstances, when war occurs, but again, this is just another
example of his utterly flawed approach, where all ideas are made to conform to the primary
falsehood concerning the actual nature of what a human being is.
Ultimately it comes down to one thing, the nature of language, why human language
exists and what biological function language performs within the life of the human animal.
Language never gets within a whisker’s breadth of Rignano’s thinking on the subject of human
nature and human society, instead language is taken as a given, as such language exists as part of
the nature of the human being made by nature to be an animal existing in its own right, embodied
in the individual person, that only needs to take hold of what nature has bequeathed to them, and
in this way a true collective consciousness can then come into being. Such utter rot! This has all
the makings of religious drivel. There is no index to look up language in, but the contents page
indicates this is a political and economic treatise, which therefore pays no heed to biological
foundations as such, despite his work being implicitly shot through with the idea of biological
foundations when employing the idea of social consciousness, if this state of being is not a
biological state, within the context of society as a social organism, then what is it ? Evidently for
Rignano social consciousness was a political state achieved through individuals working together,
but such a process should not employ physiological terms like that of ‘consciousness’. Social
consciousness is a linguistic state, quite obviously, but again this simple fact was disregarded, the
linguistic nature of consciousness being therefore taken as a given, but if it had been noted then
the obligation to see language as a phenomenon rooted in biology, as an evolved attribute that
had to have a biological functional in relation to what it delivered in life, as in social
consciousness, would of been inescapable, which is precisely why the nature of language was
disregarded, as it always is in such contexts. Language is always treated as a gift, a tool, never
as an attribute, but language is an attribute of the human animal as a superorganism and that is
all that language is.

Page 418 This is full-on sociological organicism, which is exactly what we recognise to be
true science, presented here in its most extreme form, but in keeping with an
entirely flawed method of reasoning which at the time was dismissed by characterising it as
analogical. This is the most telling statement on the nature of a society being like that of an
animal :
 it will, therefore, had to of possessed in its bosom a small community, the prince and the
aristocracy, conscious and parasitic, which in relation to the whole of society functions
like the brain in relation to the whole animal body

That the human animal as superorganism had to have such an organ of sentient being in some
form, is correct, but the misconception of that organ here is as facile, as childlike, as crude, and
plain wrong, as it could possibly of been. Here we are at the beginning of a chapter on religion
which is about to explain how religion acts as an organ of enslavement by taking over the mind,
the consciousness of individual persons, and at this precise point the nature of religion is
supplanted by simplistic structural interpretations. Religion is the key, because language is the
key and here the brain that is mentioned, should have been identified with Judaism, all the more
so since political antisemitism was prominent at the time and should of drawn attention to this
scientific fact as the proper means of comprehending how a small body within a vast social
structure could be in command of that structure, in precisely the way that is being attributed here
to the social elite which was of the same identity as the social mass that is supposedly being
exploited.
The flaw here is the argument’s total superficiality, except of course this is not a flaw, it
is the programme expressed in accordance with the needs of the ruling authority, which is
fundamentally religious. The elite are no more conscious than the masses, individuals do not
exist, which applies to all individuals. When this principle is not applied within a sociologically
organicist model, it is because the idea that the person is the real human being is being preserved
in contradiction to the entire logic that is implicitly being pursued in such a model. This is how
modern science was made, through dedicated, mindless corruption, within the social structure of
knowledge formulation and control that is academia.
This corruption of science is what made it so easy to eradicate the true science of
sociological organicism and to replace it with political sociology, but imagine if this science, this
sociological organicism, had been done properly, as we do it in our Atheist Science philosophy,
it would of meant the end of the world as we know it, as described by Rignano indeed, where a
world ruled by mindlessness would of collided with consciousness, as humanity became self-
aware, fully conscious of its own nature and thus unable to exist, at all. So it was that thanks to
the academic priests working tirelessly to subvert and pervert truth in the service of religious
authority, we slipped back from the abyss of true knowledge provided by science and thus we
now wallow securely in the dull horror of a world based on an insect-like mentality, as deeply
ignorant of and blind to reality as it relates to our own existence, as any insect could ever be.

Page 419 It is certainly fascinating to see an academic priest handling the idea of the human
being as superorganism in a fully committed manner, quite extraordinary times
these must of been. But as we have been saying, there is a total lack of logical coherence to the
approach taken, so that here he brings together the two opposite and contradictory factors
concerning the subject of human corporate nature, that persons must be robotic automatons while
they are actually fully independent beings in their own right by virtue of how nature has made
them. Obviously this sets up the contradictory situation into which religion is going to be
presented as intervening to remedy the difficulty. This reads like a piece of fiction in which the
plot is set out and the end of the story can then proceed to give the happy ending that the author
must deliver to satisfy their audience.
That humans are a superorganism is a radical transformation of everything, that leaves
nothing about ourselves as it was before, but not for this academic priest, for him this revelation
changes nothing. He carries on regardless, pursuing a political rationale that completely fails to
drive the new idea of human superorganic being forward, while he nonetheless uses this new idea
in his blather about the nature of human existence. No wonder the idea of humans as a species
of superorganism died a quite death, when its champions were such enemies of the idea itself.
As we just said above, Rignano had to begin with the process, which means language,
what language is and what language does, in order to resolve the issues that he tackled in a manner
that would give a result that would be true to the reality that he, as an academic, only toyed with.

Page 420 The passage from Spencer has an air of pure imagination about it, yet it serves
here as the basis of the grand theory which is about to follow concerning the
function of religion. It seemed like a good idea to take the original English since Spencer was
English, but the reference provided is too poor to allow this and searching for text on the basis of
the translation that we have is impractical, I just tried the word ‘supinely’ as being the most
distinctive, with no result. The volume referred to begins with a statement saying “There can be
no true conception of a structure without a true conception of its function.”, which is rather nice,
but although this has a scientific ring to it, Spencer certainly went nowhere near any kind of
scientific conception of what human existence is, anymore than anyone else has ever done.
Without first realising exactly what humans are, there can be no true account of human existence.
Humans are a species of superorganic mammal, meaning that persons are not human beings, so
that without having this simple fact as the basis of all naturalistic reasoning about human
existence, there can be no valid account of any aspect of human existence that can be called
scientific.
Which basically means that the context for what follows is contrived and has to be
disregarded as being plain nonsense. Spencer applies the key Darwinian principle to all of his
logical reasoning about humans, which means all of his ideas are utter nonsense and cannot be
otherwise, since Darwinism is nonsense. Life is not about competition, wherefrom a principle
arises consisting of the ‘survival of the fittest’, which is what Spencer is applying when he makes
the suggestion that the way resources are provided to military orders determines which society
will be the fittest. This is all total gush, just as any religion is likewise, thus it is merely religion
in a secular guise, as in ‘biologically functional idiocy’.

The human animal is a superorganism composed of cellular units in the form of persons,
whose somatic anatomy evolved to make them linguistically programmable units, where religion
is the core element of their programming nowadays, because religion provides the corporate
identity into which all are inducted, from which understanding we can proceed on a proper basis
to consider the ideas about the biological function of religion, that we are about to be presented
with.

Page 421 As atheists we are bound to find the statements made here regarding the nature of
religion delightful, in essence, but they are nonetheless pathetic, and as such,
actually antagonistic to atheism, because they fill the void where a true atheistic understanding
of the nature of religion should be. Again, Rignano’s account is entirely superficial, being
developed at the level of individual existence wherefrom all else follows, instead of being rooted
in biology, which he in effect acknowledges while simultaneously dismissing it with the glib, and
false assertion, saying that religion is generated at the behest of the natural force of competition
identified by Darwin. No! Religion is generated by the natural force of language, a biological
force, a linguistic force, which creates all human social structure and form by organising
individual behaviour. But this true account negates individuality, whereas Rignano states quite
clearly that the individual is everything and as such their natural, biologically given nature as
human beings existing in their own right, has been taken away from them by a natural force acting
against nature!! It is all such disgusting rot. But still, it is by far and away the best account of
human nature in relation to religion ever created by the academic establishment, in that it does at
least employ that which today no academic would ever dare mention in positive terms : the human
being as superorganism.

Page 422 We could not ask for anything more than this description of individuals under the
cosh of religion, being reduced to the status of robotic cellular units. Apart from,
that is, that this idea is presented in a scientific context which accounts for its existence properly,
instead of this twisted idea of a maladjustment of nature’s bounty, that of a supreme human
intelligence, where this flawed characterisation of religion simply negates the whole proposition
in the end, because it simultaneously provides a get-out card for religion even as it puts religion
squarely in the frame of an abusive form of knowledge, by suggesting that if religion were no
more then the unlimited intelligence inherent to all individuals, would be liberated. By this means
people are described as both automatons and omnipotent centres of intelligence existing in their
own right, at the same time, thus preventing any need to explain the automaton status, it being
explained by the existence of religion as a perversity of human nature.
This is commonplace atheism, of a kind promoted by individual atheists who consider
themselves to be an example of the liberated individual, which causes them to deliver this utterly
absurd model of human nature because this is how they see reality on the basis of their simple
renunciation of religion. How else are they to see this state of affairs ? It is a question of looking
further, of seeking reality beyond that of immediate experience, this being knowledge that cannot
be found from any public source, but instead has to be discovered by each individual devoting
their entire lifetime to the quest, as we have done, giving us the true answer. But this answer
cannot then be made public, it cannot become a source of knowledge, because the establishment,
in the process of coming into existence on the basis of false ideas of reality, takes on a structural
form that amounts to authority existing to ensure that genuine knowledge of reality cannot exist,
thus we have universities. Still, it is rather nice to see this conclusion presented in the most direct
terms possible, recognising that individual persons in relation to religion are nothing but somatic
cellular units of corporate being, even if, when properly conceived, the idea should be made
fundamental to all individuals, seeing the person as cellular units of the human animal as a
superorganism.

Page 423 While rejecting and demonising religion in a manner that is pleasing to read as an
expression of atheistic thinking, the account provided is utter rot, pure political
gush, merely expressing the political position of the person making the statement, it has nothing
to do with providing a scientific account of the nature of religion or the manner in which nature
delivers oppressive outcomes of the kind described here.

Page 424 Identifying religion as a political phenomenon is perfectly understandable if an

occasion has come to pass when religion is liable to be fundamentally questioned,
as was the case at the time when Rignano’s work was published. But that is all that Rignano, and
the others referenced, are doing here. There is no notion of considering the underlying nature of
humans as a species of animal which might have such attributes of collective being for biological
reasons. They look to other cultures to confirm their political model, but never transpose the
resulting knowledge into a general model of human biological nature, which is required for a true
account of this subject to be given a scientific form commensurate with reality.
The paragraph describing the role of priests in all times as that of maintaining
subservience, is rather delightful, given that we always refer to academics as priests, since this
definition of a priest’s role in society certainly applies exactly to all academics. Academics have
no concern for knowledge in relation to truth, but only its management and control in the service
of established, which ultimately means religious, authority. Academics cannot help manifesting
this ‘corrupt disposition’ of course, they are oblivious to it, they are but somatic cells of a
corporate being doing what they are programmed to do, which is to maintain the programming
of the intellectually inert that make up the greater number of the corporate biomass.

Page 425 The delightful tenor persists in the tone of conversation presented to us wherein
religion is disparaged completely and priests are characterised as the vile persons
they really are, as far as we are concerned. This page begins by making religion into a negative
social structure, one that exists to suppress freedom by subverting human nature. As a matter of
principle we assert that there can be no errors made in nature, if something is real then it is what
it is meant to be, it cannot be otherwise. Speaking in this negative manner about an integral
feature of human existence in and of itself opposes scientific reasoning and conforms to the logic
of political reasoning which, as long as religion exists, also means religious reasoning. From
which it follows that what these superbly atheistic sentiments are in reality, is religious
propaganda and nothing more, just being disguised as antagonistic to religion, which they are not
because the statements made are not true to the reality that persons are not human beings, rather
they are made by nature to be somatic cells of superorganic being. So that what we have here is
an academic priest serving religion in a secular guise. The priest and the academic, the
philosopher and the politician, being somatic cells of a human being as superorganism are, in
common with everyone else, robotic, programmed units, they are oblivious to the nature of the
role they play, all of which is, at all times, biologically functional and therefore positive in
scientific terms, and cannot, ever, be otherwise, not in any established, structural form. Hence
we can exist under the banner of our Atheist Science philosophy, as real truth tellers, but what we
are can never become part of an established social structure, because truth telling is anathema to
the formation of human social structure. Religion’s falsity enables the formation of human
society by giving religion its biologically functional attributes as programme written to people’s
brains for the purpose of organising them according to one core, identity forming, bias objective,
from which a corporate human being can arise as nature intended when evolving our linguistically
enabled species, this being something that plain statements of fact can never do because they are
by definition lacking in bias from which a distinct identity can be derived.

Page 426 The discussion we are presented with here is of interest because it displays a major
cleavage between religious authority and that of science, in which a distinction is
made between the priest and the academic, or philosopher, whereby the priest remains at odds
with truth, freedom and knowledge, in the service of established authority, while the academic is
devoted to truth, freedom and knowledge, vested in the individual. We of course continually
oppose, contradict and refute this distinction, calling academics priests by another name, people
devoted to ignorance, the suppression of freedom and truth, only within the secular domain, but
still in the service of established authority, which always defers to religious authority ultimately,
although this autocracy is covertly maintained in free societies like those of our modern
democracies.
The manner of discussion here is of considerable significance because this time was a
nodal cultural point of conversion between overt absolute theocracy and covert absolute
theocracy, a time when people such as those we are hearing from here lived within a cultural flux
that was threatening religious authority with decimation and who understandably thought they
were in the vanguard of a newly emerging freedom. The problem is, from our point of view, that
they were wrong, which today is perfectly obvious to anyone who carries a cultural remnant of
the liberality of this past time within them, a liberality which came to define British culture, if
not Western culture, but which has long since been crushed into oblivion by the established
religious authority which rules over academia with an iron fist, as the institution of knowledge
creation today is shot through with devotees of religion as surely as it has always been in the past,
only now this influence and power over academia is covert, whereas in the past it was completely
open and unabashed, and it probably will be again before too long, just look at the monsters of
cultural oppression that have come to power in America at the beginning of this year, 2025!

Saturday, 26 April 2025 – An interesting item on the news this week caught my attention, about
a Frenchman being banned from entering Britain where he was due to deliver a speech. Searching
the internet this related to Renaud Camus who has ideas opposed to mass migration, which he
says is resulting in the ethnic cleansing of Europe by people from alien cultures. Well we cannot
have people saying that kind of thing, such facts are contrary to the lying, manipulating agenda
of the state, which is covertly striving to realise precisely this outcome, in the name of religious
authority of course, why else would such a goal be pursued? Which is not to say anyone,
anywhere, overtly connects this goal to this reason, this ethnic cleansing process just follows on
spontaneously from the social dynamics of modern times, from the dynamics that have created
our modern world, ethnic cleansing being the very essence of human superorganic nature, in
conjunction with related attributes having to do with superorganic growth. This is not a process
that anyone is in control of, quite obviously, as the boats keep pouring in across the channel.

Page 427 The most difficult idea to accept that we present in our account of human nature
within our Atheist Science philosophy, has to be where we talk about people being
programmed units of corporate being, here we have something approximating to this idea of
people being programmed, only here this suggestion is confined to the nature of religion, which
is indeed the precise point where we would identify its greatest impact, except here the idea stops
with religion, suggesting religion is something bad, flawed, whereas we recognise that this
programming into mindlessness is the perfection of human existence, for all that it is, for us on a
personal level, the most disgusting state of existence, whereby people are rendered into insect-
like creatures, it is nonetheless functionally positive because human somatic form evolved to
deliver a programmable unit of corporate being. Why else would something like religion exist ?

Page 428 What they are describing here is the physiology of the human superorganism,
within which the power of linguistic force should have been recognised, in
conjunction with the idea of programming individuals as somatic cellular units of corporate
being. But, despite living in a culture imbued with the idea of the human being as superorganism,
which is evident from the whole tenor of what they do say about collective this and that, they
were oblivious to the real significance of this idea! So infuriating.

Page 429 Here we have an interesting discussion about the nature and structural function of
religion within the being of the human superorganism, including some thoughts
on the different stages of such an organism’s evolutionary development brought about by
unleashing the latent potential of human superorganic, corporate, biological nature, but although
scientifically sound, these good ideas take us nowhere in the end because of the total failure to
put them into the true context of the human being as a superorganism composed of cellular units,
as in persons, that are not beings of any kind at all, in terms of existing in their own right.

Page 430 None of this presents a naturalistic model of religion as being biologically
functional in terms of the human being as superorganism, despite the fact that in
places we have seen the argument very much veer in this direction when talking about religion
reducing people to the status of mindless automatons, rather than being the conscious participants
within a state of collective consciousness. Religion here is therefore just a form of political
manipulation, the exploitation of the masses by the elite, as opposed to being a natural
phenomenon doing exactly what biological evolution required in relation to the evolution of
linguistic anatomy in mammals.
 The note continues overleaf and concludes with a brief, but most interesting paragraph,
in which this idea of the person being reduced to the status of an automaton by religion, in the
context of warfare, is emphasised again even to the point of saying this results in the total mass
of individuals becoming akin to a single animal form. As delightful as this mode of expression
is to ourselves, because we are already fully aware that this is the true nature of the individual
person at all times, as created by nature through the process of biological evolution, so that
religion has nothing to do with this outcome, because it is language that delivers this result, we
know that if we did not already understand the true, biologically given, corporate nature of
humans, then this text would not reveal it to us, it would just leave us feeling that we had before
us another account of human injustice, simply being presented in a novel form.

Page 431 Here the manner of expression is in great conformity with the idea that individuals
are programmed units of a corporate entity, but all the while the emphasis is upon
this programming being a perversion of human nature, where human nature is regarded as being
synonymous with the individual person existing as an end in themselves, so that the person is
taken to be the object delivered by the process of biological evolution in humans, so that such
corporate programming is presented here as a corruption of the person’s capacity to reason
rationally in their own best interests. This is such a deeply twisted and ignorant representation
of the essential idea that is being presented here concerning the social nature of humans. It is
obvious that the collective outcome spoken of here, is a natural product of human nature, so that
people do not choose to be social anymore than fish choose to swim or birds choose to fly. but
come hell or high water, Rignano will not deliver this honest conclusion, so that he raises the
issue human sociality being inherently imposed only to dash it to pieces and represent it as
something that should be chosen freely by people, each acting in their own individual interests,
but doing so collectively. This kind of formulation only occurred at this time in Western society’s
existence because the idea of society as a social organism was openly presented across society,
otherwise the question would of been, as it is now, simply be avoided altogether.

Yesterday, today being Saturday, 22 March 2025, I got it into my head to run a search of
a book selling site using the phrase ‘social organism’ pre 1945, something I have not done for
some time. It threw up a couple of things of interest, a work by Dunoyer that was new to me,
from 1825, that was said to of anticipated Spencer in that it treated society as something
approximating to a superorganism. I spent a couple of hours looking through this work on the
basis of two searches, ‘organ’ and ‘social’, within the original French version, finding nothing to
confirm this. But it was certainly vaguely related to this idea, his central concern was with
freewill, as in liberty, and the extent to which it was both possible and realised. A product of the
revolution this work, I would guess, but it did cause the author to examine the extent to which
individuals were authorities in their own right and how much they were subsumed into a corporate
body. He discusses this in relation to the militarism of the Romans in a way that very much
accords with the arguments Rignano is sets out to do with the need for people to be robotised in
the service of war if societies are to triumph and survive.
Bertalanffy also cropped up and today I managed to download his book on men as robots,
not had a chance to glance at it yet though. Then there was a work by Lawrence Henderson on
Pareto’s General Sociology, which I have just spent a little time picking my way through to see
what makes Pareto’s work such a brilliant application of scientific logic to society, as Henderson
has it. Henderson says Pareto achieved great scientific insights by rendering society to a social
system, akin to the way chemists had developed their field into a chemical system. My quick
skim through the pages down to page twenty five just now, led me to see Pareto’s approach as
one that we can relate to our own Atheist Science ideas that focus on the role of language, whereas
Pareto singled out ‘sentiments’ as the be all and end all of everything in human life. This is such
an obfuscating way to approach the task, what the hell are sentiments for crying out loud, that
they can be made the prime mover in such a scheme ? Well, they are treated as an entirely
linguistic phenomenon and in addition they are treated as having conscious and subconscious
attributes, which are called ‘residues’ and ‘derivations’, or something along these lines. The
effort to be precise about this is not worthwhile, as it is just another example of academic priests
striving to do fake science when the subject is the nature of humanity. But the theme is there,
concerning the existence of the individual as free agent or otherwise, and this revolves around
the communication of ideas, just as it does within our Atheist Science philosophy, while we alone
take an open and honest approach to this subject.
Henderson began his work on Pareto by referring to Machiavelli and discussing how
offensive his work the Prince was, because in it he exalted corruption in high office, from which
Henderson derived questions about the way people reacted to such ideas, that were likely to be
true but offensive, and this does relate to the point we have just made above concerning the
treatment of the idea that the human animal is a superorganism, this being deeply offensive, albeit
blatantly true and undeniable from a scientific perspective, so that everyone simply rejects it.
When discussing this topic Henderson asks whether the offensive ideas presented, or their
rejection, are of service to society, which is of particular interest because it directly addresses the
question whether we should be concerned with what is actually true, truth of course being the
very essence of science and thus a question that in effect asks if we should tolerate the existence
of science, which of course Western society most certainly does not, not remotely, so there is your
answer to that question. There is no place for science existing as a free agent acting in pursuit of
truth, in our world.

Page 432 What we have here is the product of a scheme of reasoning that has been
developed along particular lines of thought, from which the resulting account
arises, so that we get a consistent presentation that is no better than the product of an
imaginatively constructed piece of fictional work. In this case the fiction consists of ideas
floating above an underlying reality, which is primarily due to a fixation upon the Darwinian
principle of the survival of the fittest, resulting in the sole consideration being the function of
religion in relation to war that pits societies against each other in existential terms. This is a false
premise, religion is all pervading and as such, however strongly associated with the promulgation
of warfare, it clearly has far deeper roots in human biological nature. By taking the approach he
does, Rignano and the other contemporaries referenced, were able to tackle the subject of religion
comprehensively, but shallowly, saying much, while revealing nothing to do with reality as it
actually exists in scientific terms. This way of thinking represents an established cultural fiction
that developed over the course of the nineteenth century in reaction to the challenge posed by the
emergence of science as it tackled the nature of human society, as can be seen from the continuing
influence of prior leading fictional elements, such as the centrality of the happiness of the greatest
number, the Darwinian fiction of the ‘survival of the fittest’ making the individual the be all and
end all of the biological evolutionary process, and Spencer’s dominant contribution to sociology
based on this false premiss provided by Darwin, plus a welter of other stuff making up the ocean
of fiction that is seen in a culminating form in this focus upon religion’s biological function
presented by Rignano.
What is being said about religion here is exquisite, the recognition that no matter how
repulsive to human reason religion is, in all of its manifestations, its position in human existence
demonstrates that it has to be of supreme importance in human life, so why ? Why should utter
nonsense be of such supreme value in the life of an animal whose most outstanding attribute is
its capacity for demonstrating an astounding degree of intelligence unlike anything found
anywhere else among life on earth ? Which prompts the question as to how human intelligence
can be related to life as we know we it ? This is a primary idea presented in our Atheist Science
philosophy, that we answer correctly, because we have a true conception of human biological
corporate nature, that is rooted in reality, not being based upon the fiction of the individual person
seen as the embodiment of the human animal. Religion has the ultimate biological function of
integrating the cellular units of corporate being into the fabric of the human animal as
superorganism. Religion is a linguistic pattern of information that equates to the pheromone
pattern of identity that incorporates insects such as ants, for example, into their superorganic role
as cellular units of an ant colony. This is blindingly obvious once we have come as far as these
academics had, that we are studying here, but none of them made this leap. What is more, it
seems that we are about to be treated to a criticism of this kind levelled by Rignano against one
of the most prominent workers of his day dealing with this subject, Benjamin Kidd, who was not
an academic, but nonetheless Kidd evidently carried within himself the same core programming
as professionally trained academics, so that while he took matters a little further than the
academics, he did not break free of the programme that all were subject to at that time, and all
remain subject to now, albeit with slight variations in the information routines today compared to
those implanted into people in Rignano’s day.

Page 433 We have an intriguing suggestion here concerning the way war induces the
presence of religion which diminishes when war is in abeyance. We are currently,
Monday, 24 March 2025, about a year and a half into the first European war since the last world
war that ended some eighty years ago. One thing caught my attention in particular at the outset
of this invasion of Ukraine by Putin, the visit to Moscow of the Israeli prime minister right at the
outset, what a curious thing to do, I thought at the time. What exactly was it that this war
mongering Jewish prime minister wanted to say to the war mongering Russian president that
prompted such a journey, which can only be explained by assuming that it was of such serious
content that under no circumstances could there be any question of anyone knowing what passed
between them, presumably, else why go to such extraordinary lengths of visiting in person?
One idea I had, is that Netanyahu was offering encouragement to Putin, but in what form,
the contents of Rignano’s discussion here stimulates my imagination such that I could understand
if this leader of the Jewish master race, that is all about enslaving and controlling humanity as if
they were the Jew’s cattle, was commending Putin’s action, such that he might of said that Europe
had been at peace long enough and it was time it was shaken up and reminded what it is to be
human, and more to the point, to be Goyim, as in slaves of the Jews. Yes, we could see how this
kind of activity might be attributed to the disgusting nature of religion which is the basis of Jewish
master race power, and just look at the horrors that this megalomanic Jew is unleashing in the
neighbourhood of Israel, which is widely believed to be about one thing only, ensuring that he
remains in power and that the four year long accusation of corruption that could see him in jail,
continues in a state of suspension. It said on the news yesterday, today being Tuesday, 25 March
2025, that when Netanyahu appeared in court he was allowed to leave after ten minutes because
a doctor said he needed to have his eyes tested! For real, did I really see that or am I just imagining
things ?
Here it is :

During the session, Netanyahu mentioned feeling discomfort in one of his eyes,
prompting a physician to be summoned to evaluate his condition. His lawyer, Amit
Hadad, informed the court at the start of the hearing that the Prime Minister was
experiencing an issue with his eye and that a medical professional would be arriving
later in the day. Judge Rivka Friedman-Feldman responded that the proceedings
would pause when the doctor arrived to allow for the necessary examination.
(Matzav.com, a Jewish news service.)
 Back to Rignano, it does not ring true for us, saying that war creates religion, that in turn
preserves war. We employ the same reciprocal logic in the presentation of our idea that the human
animal is a superorganism, in our Atheist Science philosophy, where we, however, base this
reciprocity on a distinction we make between information and structure, such that information
creates living structure that then preserves the information that created it. This is a coherent and
rational approach that stems from the idea of language as a source of biological information that
creates the human being as superorganism, from which we get the idea of a linguistic force
creating all social form, which in turn leads us to say that information is the biological force that
creates life. But there has to be a coherent continuum within the employment of this idea, there
can be a feedback loop operating between structure and information, but it does not make sense
to say that one structure creates another which then preserves the originating structure, reasoning
thus evades the underlying dynamics of the structural process which must rest upon something
beyond the existence of the structures themselves, namely a force, which here exists in the form
of information. So, information creates a structure that preserves the information that created it,
this is not only logical, it is obvious, in a biological context, where information is an attribute of
living matter.
A relationship may be identified between war and religion such that these two attributes
of human social behaviour appear to be interdependent. Language as a source of information
delivering what passes for knowledge, is never so much as hinted at in Rignano’s account, but it
is implicit in what is said, since the interdependency between war and religion relates to the
manner in which religion suppresses straightforwardly rational ideas by imposing irrational,
emotionally driven ideas, where the latter are fuelled by military action, which makes both martial
and religious structures mediums of linguistic information delivering corporate form, without
actually saying as much. Yet this is precisely how we would describe such a structural
relationship, because for us language exists to deliver a programme that organises individuals so
as to create the human being as superorganism. We therefore see the act of creation in this setting
as being all about the creation of the human being, whereas Rignano’s account states that what is
going on in this context is the necessity of war leading to the creation of religion, which then
becomes a de facto reality that cannot be escaped from, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that
is not what religion is at all, religion is what we just said it is, all about the human being as
superorganism, just that and nothing other than that.

Under page 431 I mention Bertalanffy, I just spent half an hour looking through the first
pages and finally, at page twenty seven, I was able to see that his work was worthless, as he
revealed that the human animal is embodied in the person and not in the corporate entity which
is society. He focused upon anthropogenesis, the origin of humans, in which language had a
preeminent part, but not as language, but rather as symbol use. He says that none symbolic
behaviour is always biologically functional, while symbolic behaviour, which is unique to
humans, is quite the opposite much of the time, as biological imperatives often give way to
symbolic ones. This of course means that the individual person is the only human biological
entity and that society is not a biological entity, so that war, for example, cannot be seen as
biologically advantageous in terms of the collective when it is so destructive of individual
imperatives, such as not being blown to pieces! His ideas are anathema to a true science of
humanity, as they were bound to be, so much of what he says begs to be interpreted in terms of
linguistic programming, but however closely he skims past this idea, he completely avoids it.
We might also mention in passing, that among various authors identified as contributing
significantly to the development of a scientific sociology, we have Sorokin, with his 1928 work
Contemporary Sociological Theories (Bertalanffy, p. 4) being named as defining sociology as a
‘science of sociocultural systems’. Sorokin’s work rang the death knell for a true science of
sociology, as it simultaneously welcomed in the dawn of a new age for sociology, that of
sociology as pseudo science existing in the service of religious authority, identified as
‘professional sociology’ by academic priests, making it sound like a positive shift away from the
supposedly amateurish efforts of the past century or so. Henceforth, while the idea of the social
organism was named as little as possible by the academic priests working in sociology, they
always deferred to this work by Sorokin as the one to examine to understand why sociological
organicism was worthless as science. Obviously the dismissive discussion to be found therein
said nothing, it just rejected this true science to make way for its replacement by the false science
that we have today, and forever no doubt. Sorokin’s work is therefore significant, but for reasons
entirely opposite to those stated by the academic priests who got to teach, publish and pontificate
on what was real in relation to human existence. This is how academia works to control
knowledge, thereby serving its biological function within the being of the human animal as
superorganism, in conjunction with other structural attributes of superorganic being doing
likewise, as in the institutions of religion, warfare and politics.

Page 434 As much as we are bound to disagree entirely with the representation of human
existence in this fictional form, that is akin to the writing of a novel, there is
something about the statements made here that is appealing. Rignano’s work being published in
1901 came a little over a decade before the greatest war ever to of occurred in human existence,
up to that time. This was at a time when religion was under pressure of a kind that could lead to
this kind of fanciful idea of cycles of religion and irreligion occurring under the influence of
peace versus war, and indeed it was not long before this highly irreligious phase, although still
entirely under the command of an unswerving absolute theocracy, just as we are today, despite
the apparent irreligiosity of our present time, hit the brick wall of all out warfare.
The general idea of a social dynamic in which authority animates the social structure
through the medium of linguistic force to bring about these reciprocal pulsations in the form of
knowledge that reverberates throughout society, is perfectly acceptable to us, what is not
acceptable is the basis upon which the explanations provided are made to rest. These explanations
are entirely political in nature, whereas we want an entirely biological explanation wherein the
political aspect is seen to be a fictional, or linguistic attribute, of the corporate cellular units
making up the body of the living organism, which exists in the form of the social structure. It is
the social structure that is real, not the individual persons, where the latter only exist as units of
corporate being, where the paramount requirement is that this biologically functional,
programmed status, must absolutely never be known to these units. Hence we see a work like
that of Bertalanffy addressing the subject of robot man, which is actually all about condemning
the idea that people are robotic and ensuring this simple, obvious truth, is suppressed, arising to
ensure that the roboticism of individuals is protected and will continue to command all human
life.

Page 435 This is a continuation of a long quote from Contemporary Socialism by Laveleye,
which is as replete with naive elaborations as it bereft of any meaningful scientific
explanation of the human social process. Thus the very thing being denounced as dead and gone
here, the suppression of thought, is being reinforced along new lines, such that what we have here
is a perfect example of strident atheism in the service of absolute theocracy, because while
denouncing religion it completely fails to reveal what is real, which alone would sound the death
knell for religion, if anything could do that, which means the void is always left vacant for
religious autocracy to expand into once again, as it certainly has since this time, as religion never
does anything more than deflate a little when under pressure from without. This is all about the
pressure of linguistic force within the social structure of the human being as superorganism,
composed of linguistically programmable units of corporate being, where Laveleye is merely
adding novelty to the programme, borne of the novel circumstances of the time when a new
movement came to the fore due to structural developments applying to the anatomy and
physiology of the human superorganism. Laveleye was just another priest doing his duty to mass
ignorance, in the service of absolute authority.

Page 436 We get the last couple of sentences from Laveleye here, they read like the closing
lines of a fairy tale, truly pathetic, in terms of what is supposed to be science!

Page 438 This characterisation of Christianity as a political movement of the masses shows
the total absence of any real comprehension of anything to do with the subject that
this academic priest devoted himself to here. Religion is always and entirely a fascistic
formulation, viewed in political terms, that can never be anything other than a slave making
identity programme, exactly as Christianity is and exactly as much of this work by Rignano is
saying religion is, by way of its suppression of freedom of thought. Christianity’s focus upon the
lower structure of society was the means by which Judaism created a second tier of enslavement
to Jewish programming, thus enslaving the mass of society to the elite first order which consisted
of the Jews, and still does to this day, as based on the master race formulation of Judaism dealing
with the control of wealth. But these intellectual fools only see politics, only see the individual
person as the animal being created by biological evolution, they had no grasp of the idea of the
human animal being a superorganism, despite their world being the only one that has ever existed
in which the idea that the human animal was a superorganism ever dominated the collective
consciousness, a fact that is reflected in the work they produced, but only reflected, not truly
expressed.

Page 439 Interesting reference to the Jews having a special relationship with Roman power,
a topic of considerable interest, what was the substance of this relationship and
why did it exist, what was it that the Jews did for the Romans that no one else could ? Also, we
see key details about Christianity as a Jewish slave body being pointed out here, its empowering
of the masses and outdoing all other corporate identity programmes, religions that is, by applying
a key principle of Jewish corporate identity programming, that of monotheism, which delivered
a corporate body, a human superorganism, greater than any other corporate identity programme,
or religion, ever could, because other religions were all constrained by geographical factors
written into their corporate identity code, that Jewish programming broke through, and when
applied to a supposedly none Jewish identity programme, that was nonetheless in reality as Jewish
as Jewish identity itself, delivered a Jewish slave body, exactly as history since the time of
Christianity’s formulation has fully demonstrated to be the case, and never more so than at this
precise time in the decades following the culminating realisation of Jewish ambition seen in the
establishment of the state of Israel, based solely upon the master race power of the Jews ruling
over the most powerful, ostensibly none Jewish societies, on earth.

Page 442 The concluding discussion concerning the nature of Christianity and its
transformation from a liberating ideology for the masses that, upon attaining
power, inverted the direction of travel of its logic to become a means of oppressing the masses,
is just more political gobbledegook spouted by academic priests at a given time in our cultural
history when religion was under pressure and atheism was out in the open and to the fore. The
final quote about the benefit of religion induced collective mindlessness, merely describes a
human condition without explaining it, even as it provides an apparent explanation, which is
rubbish. Religion blinds the masses today more than it ever did in the past because the most
blind, Muslims and Americans, have come to the fore, firstly as one of the most widespread and
secondly as the most powerful at this time. This is what religion does, it programmes people, not
for political reasons or because people’s natural qualities are perverted, but because this is what
nature delivered through the biological evolution of the human species, a mammalian
superorganism composed corporate somatic cells of this animal’s being, as in persons, where
religion is the form in which they are programmed today.
 EUGENIO RIGNANO
——

DI

UN SOCIALISMO
IN ACCORDO COLLA

DOTTRINA ECONOMICA LIBERALE

TORINO

FRATELLI BOCCA EDITORI

1901
 INDICE

——

CAP. I. Il regime economico attuale quale viene ad essere determinato

dall’attuale ordinamento della proprietà Pag. 1
„ II. Del diritto di testare attuale „ 19
„ III. Di una prelevazione nelle successioni da parte dello Stato
progressiva nel tempo „ 58
„ IV. Modificazioni profonde nella struttura sociale-economica, cui
potrebbe condurre un tal nuovo ordinamento della proprietà „ 107
I. Premesse „ „
II. Della terra „ 109
III. Della soppressione delle imposte „ 125
IV. Delle tasse e degli immobili urbani „ 137
V. Dei debiti pubblici „ 149
VI. Della comunità e gratuità degli strumenti di
produzione e capitali in genere „ 161
VII. Di un freno Malthusiano e di un premio
all’astinenza capitalizzatrice „ 171
VIII. Della organizzazione della produzione e della
sua coordinazione al consumo ” 179
IX. Della cooperazione di produzione „ 199
X. Di una produzione maggiore e di una distribuzione
migliore „ 218
„ V. Della distribuzione delle ricchezze attuale „ 228
„ VI.Del collettivismo e degli altri socialismi, e del socialismo in genere „ 299
” VII. La coscienza collettiva della classe proletaria quale fattore
sociologico ” 404
I. Della coscienza sociale e della equità „ „
II. Delle condizioni che favoriscono il formarsi di una
coscienza collettiva „ 408
III. Della funzione sociale della religione „ 417
IV. Della guerra „ 442
V. La teoria del Kidd sulla religione e la religione
nella razza anglo-sassone „ 455
VI. I diversi fattori sociologici e il cosiddetto Materialismo
Storico „ 472
VII. Linea di efficacia massima per l’azione del fattore
della coscienza sociale „ 511
 CAPITOLO VII.

La coscienza collettiva della classe proletaria

quale fattore sociologico.
———

I.

Della coscienza sociale e della equità.

Diremo che una collettività è cosciente, allorché i suoi membri hanno la facoltà di agire
di concerto sotto rinfluenza della ragione (1); la diremo, invece, incosciente, allorché i suoi
membri o non agiscono di concerto, o quando agiscono, invece, in date circostanze, di concerto,
lo fanno istintivamente, senza, cioè, esser guidati dalla ragione : nel qual caso si dirà, anche,
animata da istinti collettivi.
Una collettività cosciente rivolgerà, quindi, ogni suo atto ad un fine determinato e
conforme ai desideri dei più fra coloro cui questo atto interessa. E come il fine di ogni individuo
cosciente è la felicità, così il fine di ogni collettività cosciente sarà di aumentare la quantità totale
di felicità collettiva (somma algebrica delle felicità individuali) e di distribuirla fra il maggior
numero possibile di individui. Nella quasi totalità dei casi un aumento o una diminuzione nel
numero degli individui felici implicherà un aumento o una diminuzione nella quantità totale di
felicità collettiva, ma, in tutti i modi, il fine di distribuire questa felicità fra il maggior numero
possibile d’individui prevarrà necessariamente, data la natura d’una collettività cosciente, su
quello di aumentarne la quantità totale.
———————
(1) Cfr. KIDD, L’évolut. sociale, 60.

404
————————
Un tal fine implica di per se che le varie relazioni fra loro dei componenti la collettività
si stabiliscano in modo che a ciascuno di costoro sia assicurata la massima felicità possibile
compatibilmente con questo massimo ammontare della felicità sociale totale o del numero degli
individui felici. Per definizione, chiameremo eque le relazioni fra i consociati di una data
collettività allorché soddisfano a queste condizioni; allorché, cioè, — per esprimerci con altre
parole, — pervengono a rendere, come direbbe lo Spencer, quanto più possibile perfetta, o meno
imperfetta, la conciliazione degli interessi dell’individuo con quelli della collettività,
necessariamente prevalenti.
Diremo, inoltre, e conseguentemente, che una collettività è più o meno perfettamente
cosciente, quanto più o meno facilmente e quanto più o meno completamente i suoi membri
riusciranno ad accordarsi e a procedere di concerto nei diversi casi di una azione collettiva, e
quanto maggiore o minore sarà il numero delle questioni e dei fatti sociali in cui verrà a svolgersi
questa azione collettiva. Per cui, più o meno perfetta sarà la coscienza collettiva di una data
collettività, più o meno perfettamente i suoi membri, nel mettersi d’accordo e nell’agire di
concerto, riusciranno a conseguire questa maggior felicità possibile del maggior numero possibile
dei suoi membri.
Si dirà, poi, che una società è parzialmente o totalmente cosciente secondo che una parte
soltanto o tutti i suoi membri costituiscono una collettività cosciente : Così, ad es., le collettività
dei cittadini delle antiche repubbliche greche costituirono, in dati periodi della loro storia, delle
collettività altamente coscienti; ma la società, oltre questi liberi cittadini, comprendeva anche gli
schiavi, i quali costituivano la massa incosciente. — Ed affinchè una società a coscienza parziale
assurga a coscienza totale è chiaro che sarà necessario e sufficiente che la porzione rimasta fin’ora
incosciente si elevi essa pure, magari separatamente, a coscienza, sì che possa anch’essa
partecipare all’accordo e all’azione di concerto colle porzioni fino ad ora le sole coscienti.
Se gli atti di una società sono diretti da una coscienza collettiva parziale, essi saranno
rivolti a procurare la massima felicità

405
————————
non al maggior numero dei componenti la società tutta quanta, ma al maggior numero dei
componenti questa collettività cosciente ristretta. Valga ad esempio il modo d’agire delle classi
dominanti coscienti, di tutti i tempi e di tutti i luoghi, verso le classi soggette incoscienti e
sfruttate. Se poi questi atti sono, invece, diretti da una coscienza collettiva totale, essi saranno
rivolti a procurare, allora veramente, la massima felicità al maggior numero possibile di individui
componenti la società tutta quanta ; e allora soltanto, per conseguenza, saranno possibili rapporti
sociali conformi all’equità.
La facoltà di agire di concerto sotto l’influenza della ragione posseduta dai membri di una
società cosciente verrà ad esplicarsi sotto forma di diversissimi e infiniti contratti, stretti ciascuno
fra un numero diversissimo di individui — dal minimo di due soli individui al massimo di tutti
quanti i componenti la società, — e riguardanti tutti gli infiniti possibili rapporti suscettibili di
nascere fra questi individui.
Numerosissimi e diversissimi saranno gli organi sociali per mezzo dei quali, in questo
regime perfettamente contrattuale, verranno ad effettuarsi tutti questi infiniti diversi contratti fra
i diversi membri della società : istituzioni dello Stato, amministrazioni comunali e provinciali,
camere di agricoltura, industria e commercio, borse di contrattazioni commerciali, sindacati
industriali, cooperative di produzione e di consumo, società per azioni, associazioni, circoli,
clubs, ecc., ecc. Ma lo Stato sarà il più importante di tutti questi organi, quello per cui, col mezzo
delle istituzioni civili e delle leggi, si stringerà di continuo e continuamente si rinnoverà il
contratto sociale per eccellenza esteso a tutti i membri della società e riguardante le condizioni
essenziali affinchè la convivenza sociale, secondo esige una coscienza sociale totale, si mantenga
con relazioni eque fra i consociati.
E piena garanzia si avrà che la maggioranza, in una società perfettamente e totalmente
cosciente, non soprafaccia la minoranza e non proceda non equamente :
1o perchè in una società totalmente e perfettamente cosciente ogni membro della
maggioranza non potrà fare a meno, nel legiferare, di tener presente la possibilità, anzi la somma
probabilità,

406
————————
per lui, di venire un giorno, o in altra occasione, a far parte alla sua volta della minoranza, o di
venire un giorno a trovarsi anche lui, — in ispecie quando si tratti delle istituzioni civili
fondamentali, o di leggi con largo campo d’azione e di natura tale che l’utilità sociale richieda la
loro immutabilità per lunghi intervalli di tempo, — in quelle circostanze sociali alle quali
verrebbero ad applicarsi le disposizioni legislative da lui sanzionate quando ancora non lo
tangevano : e questo tener presente tali possibilità lo spingerà a considerare le questioni in
discussione da tutti i differenti punti di vista dei diversi interessati e darà alla sua azione
legislativa un movente di equità che costituirà per la minoranza la più completa garanzia contro
ogni trattamento non equo;
2° perchè la minoranza, cosciente anch’essa, se si adatterà ad accettare le condizioni
contrattuali eque concordate dalla maggioranza, perchè appunto le appariranno necessariamente
come le sole possibili e come le più vantaggiose per lei, dato il suo essere una minoranza, non le
accetterà, invece, se non eque, se suscettibili, cioè, di essere più vantaggiose per lei, dato pure il
suo stato di minoranza : e il suo agitarsi, il suo rivoltarsi contro le decisioni della maggioranza,
recando allora a quest’ultima danni ben più grandi dei vantaggi ottenuti colla trasgressione dei
principi di equità, farà sì che questa maggioranza si renderà subito ben conto, una volta per
sempre, esser più conforme ai suoi interessi ben intesi l’attenersi a questi principi di equità
anziché infrangerli.
Primo per importanza nel contratto sociale per eccellenza stretto fra tutti i membri della
società e riguardante le condizioni essenziali affinchè la convivenza sociale si mantenga con
relazioni eque fra i consociati, sarà l’istituzione civile dell’ordinamento della proprietà ; il quale,
quindi, verrà pattuito ed accettato non quale verrebbero a determinarlo l’uno o l’altro dei vari
sistemi filosofici metafisici del diritto, dal diritto divino al Naturrecht, ma tale da assicurare la
maggior quantità possibile di benessere al maggior numero possibile dei consociati. Una società
perfettamente e totalmente cosciente non potrà, cioè, non essere prettamente e rigorosamente
utilitarista ; e sarà l’ordinamento

407
————————
della proprietà che più che ogni altra istituzione la società cosciente avrà interesse a conformare
secondo questi principi di utilità sociale (1).

II.

Delle condizioni che favoriscono il formarsi

di una coscienza collettiva.
Se passiamo ora ad esaminare quali sono le condizioni che facilitano od ostacolano
l’innalzarsi di una collettività — sia la società tutta quanta o ciascuna singola classe sociale —
ad una coscienza totale e perfetta, possiamo annoverare, come le più importanti, le seguenti :
1° Il numero dei suoi componenti : Quanto più numerosa sarà la collettività tanto più le
sarà difficile, a parità delle altre condizioni, di elevarsi ad un alto grado di perfezione e di
estensione di coscienza collettiva. Persino, infatti, in quei gruppi sociali minuscoli, quali, ad es.,
le società private di affari, le associazioni private di difesa d’interessi o di mutuo aiuto, i circoli
o clubs di ricreazione o di lettura, ecc., nei quali l’accordo parrebbe dover essere di somma facilità
ad ottenersi, pure anche in costoro il solo fatto d’un numero troppo grande di consociati è talvolta
proprio ciò che impedisce il loro accordo sull’andamento della società, sicché si sciolgono e si
scindono in più società, e che impedisce loro, così, nella materia stessa che costituisce lo scopo
della loro associazione, di agire di concerto sotto
——————
 (1) “Non si può negare che un tal principio (quello di BENTHAM della massima felicità del più
gran numero) diviene rapidamente il principio regolatore di ogni legislazione nel mondo moderno„
(HENRY SUMNER MAINE, Etudes sur l’hist. du droit, 304).
“L’utilitarismo collettivo, di cui il Benthamismo è stato una forma particolare e abbastanza
ristretta, è destinato a servire di fondamento comune alle legislazioni future, poiché inevitabilmente il
progresso delle relazioni sociali deve finire per dare il sentimento e stimolare il bisogno del bene pubblico„
(TARDE, Les transformations du droit, 150).

408
———————
l’influenza della ragione. Facile è dunque l’immaginarsi di quale ostacolo al formarsi di una
coscienza collettiva debba essere il numero degli individui componenti una collettività molto
numerosa; quale spirito conciliativo, quale sentimento del dovere, di solidarietà e di abnegazione,
quale compatta organizzazione e quale salda disciplina, abbisogneranno per elevare a coscienza
un’intera classe sociale o tutta quanta una nazione. — Senonchè, all’ostacolo del numero può
fare talvolta esatto o anche preponderante contrappeso l’unicità dell’intento da raggiungersi per
tutti quanti i membri di una data collettività : infatti questa unicità, non solo facilita enormemente,
ma rende, di per sé, quasi direi spontanea, naturale e irresistibile, un’intesa comune e l’azione di
concerto anche di infinito stuolo di individui, come tutte le infinite particelle d’acqua che
costituiscono un torrente scendono tutte ugualmente al basso, come se si movessero di concerto,
perchè attratte tutte nella stessa direzione da un’unica forza, quella di gravità.
Ora, di questa unicità dell’intento da conseguire, più che qualsiasi altra classe sociale o
partito politico, è stata favorita, e in questi ultimi tempi solamente, la classe proletaria. Finché,
infatti, esistevano, e in pieno sviluppo, le antiche diverse sottoclassi proletarie, — artigiani
indipendenti della piccola industria e dell’industria domestica, piccoli esercenti, operai salariati,
coloni mezzadri, piccoli contadini proprietari, ecc., — diverso per ciascuna di esse era l’intento
economico da raggiungersi, e troppo difficil cosa sarebbe stata, di conseguenza, per queste
sottoclassi, accordarsi in un’intesa comune, in un’azione di concerto. Ma quando, invece, il
processo, di sopra esaminato, di proletarizzazione generale di tutti gli artigiani della piccola
industria e dell’industria domestica per opera della media e della grande industria, di tutti i piccoli
esercenti per opera dei grandiosi magazzini ad ingenti capitali o delle grandiose fabbriche di cui
divengono come semplici agenti di rivendita ancora più sfruttati degli stessi salariati, di tutti i
mezzadri e contadini proprietari stessi per opera della grande industria agricola o della grande
proprietà fondiaria o del capitale ipotecario, — quando, dico, un tal processo di proletarizzazione
generale venne a porre tutti costoro

409
———————
in una stessa condizione, quella, cioè, di lavoratori separati economicamente dal loro strumento
di produzione, fu allora, e allora per la prima volta, che per tutti la meta da raggiungersi divenne
una sola : la socializzazione di tutti gli strumenti di produzione; e che Fintesa comune e Fazione
di concerto fra tutti costoro divennero, nonché possibili, facili. Da ciò, come è noto, una delle
cause, e delle principalissime, dell’avvento a coscienza della classe proletaria.
2° La densità dei componenti la collettività : a parità delle altre condizioni, il grado di
estensione e perfezione della coscienza collettiva sarà tanto maggiore quanto maggiore sarà
questa densità. — E ovvio, infatti, quanto lo scambio d’idee, il concludere accordi e contratti, si
avvantaggi, quando gli individui che devono scambiarsi queste idee e concludere questi accordi
hanno frequenti e facili occasioni di vedersi, di parlarsi, di stare insieme. Ed è noto, appunto,
quanto l’addensamento di masse sempre più ingenti di operai in opifici sempre più grandiosi
(Marx) e l’agglomeramento loro sempre più imponente nelle grandi città industriali odierne,
fenomeni che ambedue si sono prodotti oggi per la prima volta, abbiano contribuito al sorgere di
questa coscienza collettiva della classe proletaria. Tanto che gli scioperi, questa primissima
manifestazione del suo embrionale cominciamento, e il mezzo per cui questa classe è riuscita a
strappare le sue primissime conquiste, aumento di salari e diminuzione delle ore di lavoro, non
sono stati resi possibili altro che in seguito, precisamente, a un tale addensamento.
Inoltre, lo stesso meraviglioso perfezionarsi odierno di tutti i mezzi di locomozione e di
trasmissione del pensiero, — strade ferrate, navigazione a vapore, posta, telegrafo, telefono, ecc.,
e tutta la stampa in genere e i giornali in ispecie, — viene, oggi per la prima volta, ad aumentare
notevolissimamente, con vantaggio relativo tanto maggiore per le classi sociali più numerose di
fronte alle meno numerose, la densità virtuale in aggiunta all’aumento della densità effettiva :
chè due individui agli antipodi si comunicano oggi le loro idee come se fossero l’uno accanto
all’altro; e un articolo di giornale è letto contemporaneamente da centinaia di migliaia di lettori,
sì che

410
———————
il propagandista può aver su loro la stessa azione persuasiva come se tenesse un discorso a tutta
questa folla di lettori addensatasi alla portata della sua voce (1). — Frutto di questa densità,
effettiva e virtuale, raggiunta oggigiorno dalla classe salariata, è stata, ad es., la prima
manifestazione del 1° Maggio, l’atto di coscienza collettiva di grado forse il più elevato, sia in
estensione che in perfezione, che rammenti la storia.
3° La potenza economica dei singoli componenti la collettività : a parità delle altre
condizioni, il grado di estensione e perfezione della coscienza collettiva di una data collettività o
classe sociale sarà tanto maggiore quanto maggiore sarà questa potenza economica : la ricchezza,
infatti, facilita i viaggi e i conseguenti accordi fra individui anche domiciliati in luoghi diversi e
lontani; facilita, d’altra parte, l’utilizzazione massima di tutti gli ora rammentati mezzi di
trasmissione del pensiero il cui servizio non sia gratuito (posta, telegrafo, ecc.); facilita, ancora,
la propaganda per via dei giornali, degli opuscoli, dei manifesti, ecc.; aumenta, insomma,
notevolissima mente, la densità virtuale su accennata; rende, inoltre, disponibile per gli
appartenenti a questa classe un tempo grande da dedicarsi a questo scambio d’idee, a questa
conclusione di accordi ; permette a questa classe di tenere al suo servizio una categoria di
intermediari che non hanno appunto altro ufficio che di occuparsi e di facilitare questo scambio
d’idee e questa conclusione d’accordi ; facilita, con ciò, la sua organizzazione più compatta in
partito politico.
Ora, appunto, il leggiero aumento dei salari, che gli operai addensati negli opifìci hanno
per prima cosa saputo conquistare, permette loro, ora per la prima volta, la lieve spesa per la
lettura di giornali e riviste, e questo rende possibile, ora per la prima volta, il sorgere di periodici
propugnatori dei loro interessi (quindi la recentissima immensa diffusione della stampa
socialista); permette, ora per la prima volta, alle loro associazioni di resistenza, ai loro sindacati
di difesa dei propri interessi,
——————
(1) Cfr. Novicow, Conscience et volonté sociale; Paris, Giard et Brière, 1897; Chap. V :
L’outillage intellectuel. — Ma diverso è il suo concetto della coscienza sociale da quello sopraesposto nel
testo.

411
———————
di retribuire tutto un apposito personale, di segretari e simili, unicamente addetto a facilitare, fra
i membri di ciascuna associazione e fra le diverse associazioni stesse, un’intesa comune, ed a
concludere gli accordi onde agire di concerto ; e permette, ora per la prima volta, al loro partito
di retribuire tutto un personale addetto a fare la propaganda, a condurre le lotte elettorali, a
organizzare il partito stesso, e a dirigerne l’azione. E la riduzione delle ore di lavoro, che, grazie
pur sempre al loro addensamento negli opifici, sono riusciti a conquistare nel tempo stesso
dell’aumento dei salari, lascia loro sempre maggior tempo disponibile per altre cure; e questo,
unitamente ai circoli di riunione e di lettura, che, pur con prelevamenti di quote minime dal loro
salario, sono riusciti, grazie al loro numero, a fondare, facilita, ora per la prima volta, in grado
ancora ben maggiore, il loro scambio d’idee e le loro intese comuni.
Rialzo dei salari, dunque, che benché minimo per ciascun salariato singolarmente, e
quindi tale da non potere certo indurlo a desistere dalle sue legittime pretese, pure, grazie appunto
al numero imponente e alla percentuale elevatissima dei lavoratori salariati rispetto al totale della
società, è sufficiente a far sì che, grazie al sommarsi di tutti questi piccoli aumenti individuali, la
potenza economica del proletariato, in quanto classe sociale, venga notevolmente ad accrescersi,
ed a raggiungere quel tanto necessario e sufficiente per lo sviluppo a coscienza di questa classe.
Da ciò il diffondersi tanto più rapido del socialismo quanto più notevole e più esteso il
miglioramento economico di queste masse proletarie (1).
4° Il grado di intelligenza e di coltura dei membri della collettività : a parità delle altre
condizioni, è ovvio che, quanto
———————
(1) “È inutile cercare di provocare una rivoluzione sociale se le classi che si vuol trascinare non
godono già di un certo benessere….. Le forze conservatrici della società l’hanno vinta facilmente sulle
esplosioni della disperazione, testimoni la Jacquerie in Francia e la guerra dei contadini in Germania. Gli
uomini non pensano a organizzarsi che quando hanno il loro pane quotidiano assicurato„ (THOROLD
ROGERS, Interprétation économique de l’histoire; Paris, Guillaumin, 1892; pag. 83).

412
————————
più elevato sarà questo grado, tanto maggiore, in estensione e perfezione, sarà la coscienza
collettiva della collettività o classe sociale cui questi membri appartengono. Il saper leggere e
scrivere, infatti, il saper amministrare un’associazione, dirigere un’azienda, il saper valutare al
loro giusto valore le condizioni del contratto offerte dal contraente avversario, il saper discernere
se una data istituzione sociale, una data legge, sia favorevole o sfavorevole ai loro interessi di
classe, il saper discriminare nei discorsi e nelle proposte dei patrocinatori delle classi avversarie
sotto le frasi di equità e di disinteresse il vero movente economico nascosto dell’egoismo
particolare (1) : tutto ciò, frutto di intelligenza e di coltura, è condizione importantissima al
formarsi d’una coscienza collettiva molto estesa e molto perfezionata (2). E, d’altra parte,
l’apprezzamento al suo giusto valore
——————
(1) Questo svegliarsi a coscienza della classe proletaria rende, infatti, impossibile oggigiorno,
eccettuato per quest’ultima, la manifestazione aperta e franca dell’egoismo economico di classe : “La
pubblicità stessa e la solennità delle assemblee rendono impossibile la manifestazione aperta di questo
egoismo economico che nel processo clandestino dell’ intrapresa privata si mostra più risolutamente„
(LORIA, Les bases, etc., 199). Onde è che mentre la classe capitalista dominante, per bocca dei suoi
rappresentanti, dei suoi funzionari, dei suoi giornali, e dei suoi cultori delle scienze economiche e sociali,
non parla che di benessere generale e si dichiara, anzi, di non altro quasi intenta che del bene della classe
lavoratrice, ciò che fa dei discorsi e degli scritti ufficiali non altro che un tessuto di menzogne e di ipocrisie,
il solo proletariato può avere, invece, — grazie all’essere appunto esso il capro espiatorio delle iniquità
del regime attuale, il che fa della propugnazione dei suoi interessi non altro che la propugnazione di una
causa di somma giustizia, — può, dico, esso soltanto avere la franchezza di parlare apertamente dei suoi
interessi e dei suoi diritti di classe e di difenderli alla luce del sole senza ipocrisie, senza raggiri. Ipocrisia,
a cui sono costrette le classi dominanti, che di tanto abbassa il loro livello morale, di quanto, invece, la
franchezza, di cui può permettersi il lusso la classe proletaria, alza quello di questa classe.
 (2) “Molte menti serie pensano che oggi sarebbe pericoloso di diffondere l’istruzione nei ranghi
del popolo, e hanno ragione. Ma come mai non si accorgono che questo “pericolo dell’ educazione„ è una
prova schiacciante dell’assurdità del nostro ordine sociale?„ (LOUIS BLANC, Organisation du trav., 116).

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della somma importanza che per ogni partito politico ha il sentimento del dovere e della
disciplina, lo spirito di solidarietà e di abnegazione di ciascuno dei suoi membri, e il possesso di
queste qualità morali, così elevate e così necessarie, non possono aspettarsi che da un livello
medio di intelligenza e di coltura abbastanza elevato.
Anche per questo lato, dunque, della intelligenza e della coltura, la potenza economica
dei membri di una data classe, agevolando loro per vie diversissime e numerosissime (studi,
viaggi, ecc.) questo alto grado di istruzione; esercitandoli, grazie al maggior tempo che concede
loro per la vita in società, nell’arte di esporre le loro idee, difenderle e confutare le obbiezioni
avversarie; esercitandoli nell’arte di amministrare e dirigere e difendere i loro affari e i loro
interessi; agevola notevolissimamente il sorgere a coscienza di una tal classe.
Ma, appunto, a questo riguardo, la classe proletaria in questi ultimi tempi è stata
particolarmente favorita : l’introduzione delle macchine, infatti, sempre più complicate e delicate,
alla quale la classe capitalista è stata febbrilmente sospinta onde impedire un rialzo troppo forte
dei salari, la sempre maggiore complicazione dei processi della grande industria, la sempre più
minuziosa e ben calcolata suddivisione del lavoro, e la conseguente rigorosa esattezza nei
controlli dei lavori da dare a compiere e da ricevere compiuti, hanno reso necessario di elevare
sempre più il valore intellettuale e l’istruzione dei lavoratori, e hanno spinto di conseguenza
questa stessa classe capitalista, onde tirarsi su i lavoratori capaci di cui necessitava, a diffondere
con tutte le sue forze, e persino in via obbligatoria, presso le masse lavoratrici, dapprima
l’istruzione elementare soltanto, e oggi, colle scuole professionali, anche i principi fondamentali
delle scienze meccaniche, fisiche e chimiche, lo studio dei quali principi è particolarmente atto
ad elevare il raziocinio ai concetti astratti e ad addestrarlo nel tempo stesso nelle argomentazioni
della logica; — fornendo così, troppo imprudentemente, al proprio nemico precisamente le armi
più formidabili per la battaglia futura. Istruzione che, una volta che le masse sieno uscite
dall’analfabetismo, si completa ormai sempre più anche in grazia dei giornali,

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delle riviste popolari, delle biblioteche delle associazioni, ecc., che l’aumentata potenzialità
economica di classe permette ora di possedere. E di già, infatti, è noto a quale alta coltura si
elevino ormai molti operai inglesi e tedeschi, come un numero sempre maggiore di costoro si
ponga presto in grado di leggere, capire e discutere fra loro le opere scientifiche stesse, e le meno
facili, dei maggiori autori socialisti, del George, del Lassalle e del Marx stesso. — Nel tempo
stesso, Famministrazione e direzione delle loro leghe di resistenza, delle loro associazioni di
mutuo soccorso, delle loro cooperative di consumo, viene ad addestrare queste stesse masse
lavoratrici anche nell’arte di amministrazione e gestione di interessi collettivi e di beni materiali,
da cui prima il semplice lavoro manuale li teneva lontani.
Ma, oltre a questo grado d’istruzione sempre maggiore, un altro fatto notevole ha
contribuito da solo, e potentemente, ad aprire gli occhi a queste masse sfruttate, a renderle conscie
della ingiustizia della loro condizione economica, ad istruirle sui loro interessi di classe: La classe
borghese, infatti, all’epoca della propria emancipazione, per il fatto che le fu necessario, onde
riportare la vittoria, di ricorrere all’aiuto potente della classe proletaria, fu costretta a concedere
anche a quest’ultima quei diritti stessi, i politici, di cui essa era priva, e che appunto reclamava
onde meglio tutelare i suoi interessi economici: fra gli altri, onde potersi sgravare di gran parte
del peso delle imposte che la opprimevano: e l’uguaglianza politica fu proclamata allora, almeno
in teoria, per tutti quanti i membri della società. Ora, ciò, col tempo, non poteva non rendere di
per sè illogico, insostenibile, instabile, il regime attuale. Ed invero, mentre prima, sotto il regime
feudale, il fatto che ciò che ciascuno riceveva era del tutto indipendente dai suoi meriti, che il
servo, cioè, rimaneva servo e il barone rimaneva barone per quanto grandi fossero i meriti del
primo o i demeriti del secondo, predisponeva le classi infime proletarie a ritenere come conformi
all’ordine naturale delle cose, come irrimediabili e fatali, le differenze artificiali delle condizioni
iniziali della lotta per la vita, e, non facendo nascere presso queste infime classi, perchè
impossibile a soddisfarsi, alcun desiderio di elevarsi nel rango

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sociale, non faceva nascere nemmeno alcun desiderio di togliere queste differenze artificiali, e
predisponeva così all’acquiescenza all’ordinamento sociale d’allora ; — oggi, invece, il fatto che
ciò che ciascuno riceve non è del tutto indipendente dai suoi meriti, che uno, nato anche in umile
condizione, ha la possibilità teorica, e talvolta anche effettiva, di salire anche ai posti sociali più
elevati per ricchezza o per dignità, fa nascere in tutti questo desiderio di elevarsi nel rango sociale,
di godere quanto quelli che sono ritenuti i più felici, perchè queste appaiono ora come cose
possibili; e questo desiderio vivissimo di salire fìssa ora l’attenzione su ciò che vi è di artificiale
nella disuguaglianza delle condizioni iniziali della gara per una maggiore intensità di vita, e fa
nascere il desiderio e fa riconoscere come possibile di togliere appunto questa disuguaglianza
artificiale; e facilita così il perfezionarsi e il diffondersi della coscienza sociale (1).
5° La frequenza, estensione, e gravità delle perturbazioni nell’andamento dei fenomeni
economici, e la conseguente instabilità e incertezza nelle condizioni economiche dei singoli
individui : le crisi, infatti, i cataclismi economici, le continue oscillazioni di prosperità e di
depressione nei vari rami d’industria, e i conseguenti alti e bassi nella occupazione e nei guadagni,
producono un fermento, uno scontento nella collettività o classe sociale che più ne viene a
soffrire, il quale, appunto, provoca e favorisce
——————
(1) “L’uguaglianza dei diritti politici conduce inevitabilmente a reclamare l’uguaglianza delle
condizioni, cioè il benessere ripartito in proporzione del lavoro effettuato. Il suffragio universale vuole
come complemento il benessere universale. È una contraddizione che il popolo sia nello stesso tempo
miserabile e sovrano„ (DE LAVELEYE, Le socialisme cont., pag. xix).
“Il Socialismo è nato precisamente dal contrasto profondo fra le libertà politiche di cui il popolo
si è impossessato e la servitù economica di cui esso ha trovato il giogo più duro e il peso più grave dopo
la conquista di queste libertà „ (NITTI, Le Socialisme catholique, 4).
“Non si può disconoscere l’influenza della conquistata uguaglianza politica sulla manifestazione
del bisogno di una maggiore uguaglianza economica e sociale„ (WAGNER, La sc. delle fin., 825-826).
È il VON SCHEEL nella sua Die Sociale Frage, che in special modo ha messo in luce questo aspetto
particolare della questione sociale (WAGNER, La sc. delle fin., 825-826; ROSCHER, Grundlage, 187).

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un vivo scambio di idee, e discussioni vivaci e accordi, da cui si sviluppa la coscienza collettiva
stessa. Ed è così, che allo stato attuale di crisi cronica, di perturbazioni economiche gravissime e
continue, provocato e portato oggi al suo apogeo, come abbiamo visto, dalla troppo grande
disuguaglianza delle fortune, dal capitale improduttivo di speculazione, e dai trusts monopolistici
e strapotenti, fa riscontro uno scontento sempre più diffuso e intenso delle masse operaie, che le
desta a coscienza.
6° Ma la condizione fondamentale al sorgere a coscienza delle masse sfruttate, e quindi
al formarsi di una coscienza sociale totale, quella senza la quale tutte le precedenti accennate a
nulla sarebbero valse, perchè sarebbe mancato l’elemento primordiale stesso su cui innalzare
questa coscienza collettiva, l’individuo, cioè, guidato dal proprio raziocinio, è e sarà l’affievolirsi
e l’estinguersi graduale del sentimento religioso. Se, come ora dimostreremo, la funzione sociale
essenziale della religione è stata appunto quella di ostacolare e d’impedire il sorgere e lo
svilupparsi di una coscienza sociale totale, ben si comprende di quale somma e decisiva
importanza sarà, per un tale sviluppo, lo scomparire dell’organo per il quale una tale funzione
veniva compiuta.

III.

Della funzione sociale della religione.

Ed invero, nella storia dell’umanità è avvenuto questo fatto : che le società a coscienza
totale furono del tutto inadatte alla lotta per l’esistenza contro le altre società, allorché questa
lotta avvenne, come fu sempre il caso sino ad oggi, sotto forma di guerra, di lotta in massa, cioè,
di una società contro l’altra ; per cui, in questa lotta per 1’esistenza fra le società, non
sopravvissero e non furono selezionate che quelle a coscienza parziale ristretta.
Ed infatti, è troppo nota ormai la classificazione dello Spencer delle società in militari e
industriali, l’una organizzata secondo

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il principio della cooperazione forzata, l’altra secondo quello della cooperazione volontaria (1),
perchè vi sia bisogno d’insistere sui caratteri che devono aver posseduto le prime onde riuscire
le più adatte alla lotta; caratteri, che una società a coscienza totale non avrebbe mai potuto
sanzionare e che, quindi, affinchè la società potesse acquistarli, richiedevano una coscienza
sociale ristretta. — Nel complesso, infatti, si può affermare che una società sarà stata tanto più
adatta a questa lotta quanto più avrà assomigliato all’organismo di un animale da preda: avrà,
quindi, dovuto possedere nel suo seno una piccola collettività, il principe e l’aristocrazia,
cosciente e parassitica, che rispetto alla società tutta quanta fungesse come il cervello rispetto a
tutto il corpo animale; avrà dovuto possedere una classe militare, pure parassitica del restante
della comunità, che rispetto a questa fungesse come le zanne e gli artigli di un carnivoro; ed infine
tutto il restante della società avrà dovuto essere formato da elementi tali da compiere, con la più
completa abnegazione e sottomissione, per uso e consumo delle due classi parassitiche, la
funzione nutritiva di tutto l’organismo (2); e tali,
———————

(1) Principes de Sociologie; Paris, Germer Baillière, tome II, 1882, deuxième partie, et tome III,
1883, cinquième partie.
(2) Per conseguenza, fra le società sopravvissero quelle che, a parità delle altre condizioni, invece
di uccidere i nemici li riducevano in schiavitù in aiuto delle donne già addette a questa funzione nutritiva
delle classi dominanti parassite; e Palta funzione sociale, dunque, della schiavitù, della grande spartizione
in genere della società in due classi di oppressori e di oppressi (Cfr. GUMPLOWICZ, La lutte des races, cap.
XXXIII : Sulla origine dello Stato, delle caste e delle classi sociali), fu appunto questa di foggiare la
società a somiglianza del corpo animale, di rendere, cioè, possibile in essa lo specializzarsi di un cervello
sociale, unico coordinatore di tutti i movimenti, e di un apparato d’ attacco e di difesa, da tutto il restante
del corpo sociale addetto alle funzioni nutritive : “L’organizzazione di ogni società comincia dallo
stabilirsi di una differenza fra la parte di questa società che sostiene le relazioni, ordinariamente ostili,
colle società vicine, e quella che si consacra a procurare all’ insieme le necessità della vita; nei primi
periodi dello sviluppo sociale non vi sono che queste due sezioni„ (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome II, 193-
194; et tome III, 637 e seg.).
Un esempio di quanto questo ridurre in schiavitù i vinti possa rendere

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inoltre, da eseguire, — onde dare a questo organismo quella compattezza, e quella rapidità e
simultaneità di movimenti, proprie ad un organismo animale, — colla massima prontezza e colla
più cieca obbedienza, gli ordini della classe dominante, come i muscoli d’un carnivoro
rispondono alle azioni riflesse dei centri nervosi (1).
Ma l’organismo sociale in ciò differisce, come da tanti è stato notato più e più volte,
dall’organismo animale : che quest’ultimo è composto in parte di centri psichici coscienti e in
parte di cellule somatiche incoscienti, mentre nel primo tutte le cellule sono invece fornite
naturalmente di proprio raziocinio e di propria volontà; esso è “sensibile in tutte le sue unità,
invece di avere un centro sensibile unico„ (2).
Non poteva, dunque, quest’organismo sociale avere quella compattezza e rapidità e
simultaneità di movimenti, non poteva esso agire in massa come un sol tutto, se i suoi elementi
istologici erano muniti di una volontà propria che li predisponeva a muoversi ciascuno di propria
iniziativa indipendentemente dagli altri, se essi potevano, quindi, a loro volontà, cessare dalla
loro funzione e rifiutarsi di ubbidire agli ordini che il principe e l’aristocrazia, questo cervello
sociale, trasmetteva loro per muovere in massa come un sol tutto contro il nemico.
E non potevano questi elementi istologici, se coscienti, non ribellaesu
——————

la società più adatta alla guerra : “Nella sua qualità di gran re, troppo grande per il suo regno che aveva
soltanto 50 leghe in lunghezza sopra 25 di larghezza, Salomone si fece un dovere anch’ esso di organizzare
un’armata la più grande possibile. A tal fine ridusse in servitù tutti i resti dei vecchi popoli della Palestina,
che gli Ebrei non erano riusciti a massacrare : gli Emoriti, gli Hittiti, i Perizziti, gli Hivviti, ecc. Questi
sopravviventi dei vinti furono specialmente incaricati di eseguire i lavori utili, e il monarca potè allora
raccogliere tutta la popolazione virile di razza ebraica per farne delle genti di guerra „ (LETOURNEAU, La
guerre, 331).

(1) “La guerra abituale, che reclama una cooperazione rapida delle parti, esige la subordinazione.
Le società ove vi ha poca subordinazione spariscono, e si mantengono solo quelle in cui la subordinazione
è considerevole „ (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome II, 195).
(2) SPENCER, Ibid., tome II, 191.

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bellarsi a questa loro funzione, non rifiutarsi all’obbedienza, se le condizioni in cui veniva a porli
il regime militare più adatto alla lotta erano tali che la loro ragione, non compresa del fine ultimo
cui servivano, non poteva affatto sanzionare perchè inique per eccellenza.
“La forza conservatrice d’una società (cioè che la rende più atta alla lotta per resistenza
fra le società), dice Io Spencer, sarà tanto più grande se al soccorso diretto di tutti gli uomini in
istato di portare le armi, si aggiunge il soccorso indiretto di tutti gli altri individui. A parità delle
altre condizioni, le società che sopravviveranno saranno quelle nelle quali gli sforzi dei
combattenti saranno secondati da quelli dei non combattenti. In una società puramente militare,
gli individui che non portano le armi devono consumare la loro esistenza a mantenere quella di
coloro che combattono. Sia che, come al principio, i non combattenti non comprendano che le
donne ; o che, come più tardi, questa classe comprenda i prigionieri ridotti in schiavitù; o che,
come ad un’epoca più avanzata, essa comprenda dei servi, i suoi obblighi sono sempre gli stessi.
Infatti, se vi sono due società in cui le condizioni sieno uguali sotto tutti gli altri rapporti e che la
prima assoggetti i suoi lavoratori a questo servizio, mentre che nella seconda i lavoratori godono
del diritto di ritenere per loro il prodotto del loro lavoro, o più di quello che è necessario al loro
proprio mantenimento, arriverà che, in quest’ultima società, i guerrieri non essendo punto
mantenuti, o essendolo meno completamente che nell’altra, avranno da provvedere essi stessi ai
loro bisogni e si troveranno perciò meno preparati ai bisogni della guerra. Perciò nella lotta per
1’esistenza fra queste due società, la prima, abitualmente, vincerà e sopravviverà alla
seconda„ (1).
Da ciò, dunque, la necessità per le società militanti di possedere un organo sociale
impedente a questi lavoratori di mai pervenire a coscienza collettiva, affinchè si assoggettassero
supinamente a tale trattamento e non rendessero necessario, col loro aspirare turbolento ad un
regime di uguaglianza e di equità,
———————
(1) Princ. de Soc., tome III, 759-760.

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di distogliere, onde mantenerli con la forza e colle minaccie all’obbedienza, i combattenti, tutti o
in parte, dal supremo fine della guerra contro i nemici all’esterno. Il che, a parità delle altre
condizioni, avrebbe posto la società in condizioni di lotta del tutto sfavorevoli.
Ora, quest’organo sociale, stato così fissato dalla selezione naturale in tutte quante le
società perchè di somma utilità all’organismo sociale nella sua lotta in massa per l’esistenza, è
stato appunto la religione. Da ciò la funzione sociale di qualsiasi religione : ostacolare e impedire
il formarsi d’una coscienza collettiva di queste classi lavoratrici sfruttate, e con ciò il formarsi
d’una coscienza sociale totale; e sostituire, invece, in queste classi sfruttate, a questa coscienza
collettiva, l’istinto collettivo della più completa sottomissione.
E in qual modo fu compiuta una tale funzione? — Rendendo appunto la composizione
elementare dell’organismo sociale del tutto analoga a quella dell’organismo animale : riducendo,
cioè, a cellule somatiche incoscienti la grande maggioranza delle cellule sociali che per loro
natura erano invece tutte psichiche e coscienti: ottenebrando e addormentando, cioè, colla fede
religiosa, l’intelligenza dell’uomo; soggiogandone e pervertendone il raziocinio : credo quia
absurdum ; annientandone la volontà individuale; e spengendo, in tal modo, completamente, nelle
masse sfruttate la facoltà di agire di concerto sotto l’influenza della ragione.
In altre parole, la fede, — istillata nelle grandi masse con la suggestione del terrore
dell’ignoto o dell’attrattiva di un godimento ineffabile futuro, — è stato il mezzo onde
addormentare, o polarizzare in una data direzione dalla quale più non potessero deviare, i centri
pensanti e volenti del cervello del credente. E la religione, quindi, non è stata e non è che un
grandioso fenomeno di suggestione collettiva, di ipnotizzazione sociale ; le istituzioni
ecclesiastiche non altro che l’organo addetto a questa funzione suggestionatrice, che
l’apparecchio per ipnotizzare la società in massa e nel senso voluto (1).
———————
(1) “Per stimolare l’attenzione degli uomini in qualsiasi genere d’idee,

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Da ciò : 1° l’essenza della fede religiosa in genere (la quale, quantunque gli oggetti ai
quali essa si applica abbiano cambiato continuamente, si può dire quasi ad ogni generazione,
nella sua essenza, invece, come sentimento soggettivo, non ha mai cambiato affatto (1)); 2° le
caratteristiche generali di tutte le religioni.
 La fede, infatti, dice il Guyau, non è che “ la rinunzia del pensiero il quale abdica alla sua
libertà„, “essa rinchiude da bel principio l’intelligenza entro limiti precisi e le impone una
direzione generale col dovere di non deviarne„ (2). Rispetto a ciò che è materia di fede, il credente
è un suggestionato, un ipnotizzato, del tutto privo di raziocinio e di volontà; è un meccanismo
che compie istintivamente dati atti a lui imposti colla forza della suggestione ; non è più un centro
psichico cosciente, ma una cellula somatica incosciente.
La fede in una volontà divina è narcotico potente il più atto ad ottenere la sottomissione
più supina, a togliere ogni velleità di rivendicazioni d’equità : “Il sentimento di sottomissione,
dice il Guyau, ai decreti della Provvidenza, nuovo destino personificato, è stata la scusa di tutte
le pigrizie, di tutte le routines.
——————

per spingere fortemente in una direzione, esistono due grandi mezzi : bisogna eccitare in essi il terrore
colla vista dei mali terribili che risulterebbero ad essi da una condotta differente da quella che viene loro
prescritta, o presentar loro l’attrattiva di godimenti risultanti necessariamente dagli sforzi fatti da essi nella
direzione che viene loro indicata. Per produrre, in queste due circostanze, F azione la più forte e la più
utile bisogna combinare tutti i mezzi, tutte le risorse che le belle arti possono offrire„. Così l’eloquenza
del predicatore, e la poesia, la musica, la pittura, la scultura, tutte devono dare il loro concorso al culto; e
“ gli architetti devono costruire i templi in modo che i predicatori, i poeti, i musicisti, i pittori e gli scultori
possano a volontà far nascere nell’ anima dei fedeli i sentimenti del terrore o quelli della gioia e della
speranza „(SAINT-SIMON, Le nouveau Christianisme, primo dialogo, riportato in HUBBARD, Saint-Simon,
etc., pagine 293-294). — Apparecchio ipnotizzatore, efficacissimo, questo concorso combinato di tutte le
arti, usato sempre, per alto intuito, da tutte quante le religioni.
(1) Vedi GUYAU, L’irréligion de l’avenir; Paris, Alcan, 1895, pag. 103.
(2) Ibid., 107, 108. Vedi tutto questo capitolo I della 2a parte : La foi dogmatique.

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Quando lo si spinge all’estremo, che è se non il sofisma di pigrizia degli Orientali? È vero che si
corregge abitualmente la parola “Il cielo ti aiuterà„ col precetto “Aiutati da te stesso„. Ma per
aiutarsi da sè stessi efficacemente, bisogna pur bene avere l’iniziativa e l’audacia, bisogna pur
bene rivoltarsi contro gli avvenimenti invece di curvarsi davanti a loro ; non bisogna contentarsi
di dire : “Che la volontà di Dio sia fatta„, ma “che la mia volontà sia fatta„ ; bisogna essere come
un ribelle in mezzo alla moltitudine passiva degli esseri, una specie di Prometeo o di Satana. È
difficile di dire a qualcuno : “Tutto ciò che avviene, tutto ciò che è, è per l’irresistibile volontà di
Dio„, e di aggiungere nel tempo stesso : “Non ti sottomettere a ciò che è„. Gli uomini del Medio
Evo, sotto la tirannia e nella miseria, si consolavano pensando che era Dio stesso che li colpiva,
e non osavano levarsi contro i loro padroni, per tema di levarsi contro Dio. Per conservare
l’ingiustizia sociale è bisognato spesso divinizzarla: si è fatto un diritto divino di ciò che non era
più un diritto veramente umano e reale„ (1).
La fede in una volontà divina è stato appunto il mezzo più idoneo a dare “una falsa
direzione all’egoismo della classe soggetta a “pervertirne l’egoismo„, “portando contro la rivolta
del lavoratore una sanzione fantastica che fa sì che le classi diseredate temino la rivolta e la
riguardino come più funesta ancora, per loro, dell’acquietamento stesso„ (2). — “Affinchè,
infatti, così prosegue questo autore, la religione divenga un eccellente strumento di coazione
morale basta rappresentare l’azione contraria all’egoismo come un mezzo necessario per rendersi
la divinità propizia, per evitare la sua collera e i suoi castighi ; cioè basta estendere i metodi di
cattivarsi la benevolenza divina comprendendovi non soltanto una serie di atti di riverenza da
parte dell’uomo verso la divinità, ma anche una serie determinata di azioni dell’uomo verso
l’uomo Così la minaccia della sanzione divina perviene a far violenza all’egoismo individuale e
a stornare l’uomo dalle azioni conformi al suo
———————
(1) Op. cit., 68-69.
(2) LORIA, Les bases économiques de la Const. soc., 19-20.

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egoismo reale, per spingerlo ad azioni contrarie a questo suo egoismo e conformi, invece, a quello
dei suoi oppressori„ (1).
La fede in una volontà divina è stato il mezzo più efficace ad inculcare il dovere
all’obbedienza più assoluta : “Il compito fondamentale dei preti consiste a conservare la
subordinazione, dapprima all’antenato divinizzato, o al Dio riconosciuto, in seguito al
discendente vivente o al rappresentante di questa divinità. Non si potrebbe ripetere mai
abbastanza che, dai tempi più lontani fino ai nostri giorni, l’azione costante ed essenziale dei
sacerdoti, in ogni tempo, in ogni luogo, in nome di ogni credenza, è stato di inculcare
l’obbedienza„ (2).
——————
(1) Les bases, etc., 29. — Invece, per le classi dominanti, siccome il loro agire conforme al loro
egoismo reale era perfettamente compatibile col tipo militare più adatto per la società alla lotta in massa,
non fu necessaria in loro una religione che ne pervertisse l’egoismo e ne ostacolasse la coscienza collettiva;
quindi è che le classi dominanti sono state sempre le più irreligiose, le dominate (i lavoratori e la donna)
le più religiose; mentre in alto si irrideva agli Dei, nelle masse regnava la superstizione e la fede più
profonde.
Oggi ancora, coloro stessi, nella classe dominante, che più menan vanto del loro scetticismo ed
ateismo, sono coloro che più si affannano nel tempo stesso a proclamare necessaria e a rafforzare la
religione nelle masse. Così, ad esempio fra i tanti, il Garofalo nella sua Superstizione socialista. Da ciò,
la menzogna religiosa (Vedi, ad es., MAX NORDAU, Le menzogne convenzionali della nostra civiltà).
Il risveglio attuale del clericalismo, come di per se è troppo evidente, non è un risveglio di fede
religiosa; ma un accorrere delle classi borghesi a stringer lega colla Chiesa onde questa tenti soffocare con
rinnovato vigore la coscienza proletaria che incomincia a destarsi. Esso non è un moto religioso, ma solo
un moto politico.
(2) SPENCER, Princ, de Soc., tome IV, 174. — Così, il carattere sacro, divino, che riveste sempre
il principe, rendendo sacrilego ogni atto d’insubordinazione e di ribellione, questi atti saranno tanto più
rari quanto più il sentimento religioso nelle masse sarà diffuso e intenso. Così, ad es., presso i Peruviani
il castigo più comune era la morte, perchè essi dicevano che il colpevole non era punito per i crimini che
aveva commesso, ma perchè aveva trasgredito il comando dell’Inca che era rispettato come un Dio. Così
pure al Giappone, dove il sovrano passa per divino, la maggior parte dei crimini sono puniti con la morte;
si infligge la pena meno per la grandezza del crimine che per l’audacia della trasgressione delle leggi sacre
dell’impero

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Da tale funzione della religione, di ostacolare ed impedire una coscienza sociale totale,
anche, come dicevamo, le caratteristiche generali di quest’organo (1) :
Il dogma e l’intolleranza religiosa : dal Dio geloso delle tribù dei Ben-Israel, e di tutte le
tribù selvaggio e barbare in genere, alla infallibilità del pontefice attuale. Il dogma, infatti,
narcotico eccellente, non tollera il dubbio, distrugge lo spirito critico, incatena e annienta il libero
raziocinio : “Il filosofo, dice il Guyau, pretende agire sulle menti per mezzo della convinzione, il
prete per mezzo della inculcazione ; l’uno insegna, l’altro rivela ; l’uno cerca di dirigere il
ragionamento, l’altro di sopprimerlo, o, per lo meno, di stornarlo dai dogmi primitivi e
fondamentali; l’uno sveglia l’intelligenza, l’altro tende ad addormentarla più o meno. Come
potrebbe la rivelazione non opporsi alla spontaneità e alla libertà dello spirito? Quando Dio ha
parlato, l’uomo deve tacere.... E sempre allorché l’umanità ha voluto dimostrare a sé stessa le sue
credenze che essa ha incominciato a dissolverle : chi vuole controllare un dogma è molto
prossimo a contraddirlo. Perciò il prete,
——————
(SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome III, 697). Così al Messico “si faceva del sovrano una divinità e della
sottomissione assoluta un dogma„ (LETOURNEAU, L’évolut. relig., 233); e i re del Dahomey, dell’antico
Egitto, ecc., tutte nazioni eminentemente militari, avevano tutti un carattere sopranaturale, sacro, divino
(SPENCER, ibid., 772 e seg.).
Così il mezzo adoperato immancabilmente e indistintamente in tutti i luoghi e in tutti i tempi per
assicurarsi la più cieca obbedienza, la più salda disciplina, era appunto di legare a questa obbedienza e a
questa disciplina mediante il giuramento, mediante un atto religioso, cioè, con cui si evocava la collera
divina in caso di mancanza alla promessa fatta; quindi l’efficacia del giuramento era funzione della
intensità della fede religiosa, e funzione di questa fede era, quindi, la obbedienza, la disciplina, la
compattezza, la rapidità e simultaneità d’azione della collettività combattente.
(1) Per comprendere la funzione sociale della religione non bisogna soffermarsi a considerare le
varie dottrine religiose, elaborate ed elevate ad astrusi sistemi metafìsici da filosofi : questi sistemi
filosofici, come fattori sociologici, non hanno avuto che un’influenza infinitesima del tutto trascurabile.
L’importante, invece, è di considerare il sentimento religioso quale è nelle masse, di esaminare in che
essenzialmente consiste una collettività animata da fede religiosa in genere.

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per il quale la contraddizione è una mancanza di fede, si vede sempre obbligato dalla forza stessa
delle cose ad evitare il controllo, ad interdire un certo numero di questioni, a rinchiudersi nel
mistero. Quando già il prete ha fatto entrare la fede nel cervello, esso lo chiude. Il dubbio e
l’investigazione, che per il filosofo sono un dovere, non sono, agli occhi del prete, che un indizio
di sfiducia e di sospetto, un peccato, un’empietà; bisogna battersi il petto quando si è osato
pensare da sè stessi„ (1).
Da ciò l’altro carattere generale di tutte le religioni : Avversamento della scienza,
misoneismo, inquisizione di ogni libero pensiero, messa all’Indice delle idee e dei libri atti a
svolgere una coscienza sociale totale. Da ciò la lotta eterna fra l’Ateneo e la Chiesa (Bovio,
Filosofia del Diritto), fra la Scienza e la Superstizione, fra il Dubbio ed il Dogma, fra la Ragione
e la Fede (2).
——————
(1) L’irrélig. de l’av., 227-228. — Sull’intolleranza religiosa e sul dogma, quali caratteri generali
di ogni religione, vedi anche Ibid., 111 e seg. — “ In ogni caso, dice lo Spencer, la cosa che ha maggiore
importanza nelle ingiunzioni speciali di un culto, è la conservazione del culto e delle istituzioni nelle quali
esso s’incarna. Così il dovere principale è quello della obbedienza a una pretesa volontà divina, qualunque
essa sia. Così i membri d’una gerarchia sacerdotale e i loro aderenti riguardano l’autorità della loro chiesa
come un fine che non la cede in importanza che alla autorità della volontà divina stessa. Così le storie
ecclesiastiche ci mostrano il disprezzo che i preti fanno dei precetti morali quando impacciano la loro
supremazia. Naturalmente le atrocità commesse dall’Inquisizione e i delitti dei papi si presentano subito
alla memoria. Ma vi hanno ancora esempi più spiccati„. Ecc. (Princ. de Soc., tome IV, 1887; pag. 180-
181). — “La resistenza che i funzionari ecclesiastici mostravano al cambiamento degli usi, l’opponevano
pure, naturalmente, ai cambiamenti nella credenza, poiché ogni rivoluzione nell’edifizio tradizionale delle
credenze ha per effetto di scuoterne tutte le parti, indebolendo l’autorità degli insegnamenti degli antenati„
(Ibid., 129). — Ed infatti, l’autorità indiscussa della chiesa e del domma è condizione sine qua non, per
ogni religione, all’adempimento della sua funzione sociale di impedire lo svilupparsi di una coscienza
sociale totale, giacche questa viene subito di per sè a germogliare e a svilupparsi appena un indebolimento
nell’autorità degli insegnamenti religiosi, del domma, dà luogo allo spirito critico di pronunziarsi.
(2) Cfr. KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 90 e seg. Il White, partendosi dalle idee primitive e seguendone
l’evoluzione, “mostra appunto a qual prezzo sono

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Da ciò, anche, quale mezzo meccanico atto a predisporre la mente al dogma, l’etica di
tutte le religioni prevalentemente rituale (1) : appunto perchè queste regole rituali, questo ripetersi
sempre uguale delle stesse cerimonie religiose costituiscono il narcotico migliore ad
addormentare lo spirito critico del fedele, a polarizzarlo in quella data fede; a sviluppare in lui
“una intelligenza ritualista “a far contrarre, cioè, delle abitudini di pensiero invincibili„ (2). Basta
entrare per pochi istanti in una chiesa o tempio qualsiasi per vedere all’opera questo effetto delle
cerimonie rituali religiose sulla mente del credente. — “L’importanza del rito, dice il Guyau, nella
vita materiale e religiosa d’un popolo indica la parte preponderante, presso questo popolo, delle
associazioni incoscienti e oscure; il suo cervello è come preso e inviluppato in una rete di fili
opachi impigliati fra loro, tessuto impenetrabile alla luce e alla coscienza„ (3).
Ma per altre funzioni ancora, oltre a questa di ostacolare ed impedire una coscienza
sociale totale, la religione è stata di utilità somma per le società nella loro lotta per l’esistenza
fatta in massa contro le altre società.
Conseguentemente, infatti, a questa sua funzione essenziale di soggiogatrice della ragione
per mezzo della fede, essa ha adempiuto anche al compito di agevolare il formarsi in tutte
——————
state comprate le nostre conquiste intellettuali, in mezzo a quali difficoltà e contro a quali ostilità; mostra
quale è stata la funzione del teologo, sempre contrario alla genesi delle idee nuove, sempre nemico dei
metodi di ricerca e dello spirito critico, accanito a soffocare le velleità di pensiero indipendente„
(Recensione di : A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, per A. D. WHITE;
“Revue Scientifique„, 7 Mai 1898, pag. 596).
(1) “L’etica, dice il Letourneau parlando delle religioni semitiche in genere, è sopratutto rituale;
essa consiste principalmente, salvo qualche prescrizione di morale corrente e laica, a osservare un certo
numero di regole religiose, la maggior parte sprovviste di utilità pratica ; e sono precisamente le infrazioni
a queste regole rituali che le divinità castigano col maggiore rigore „ (L’évolution religieuse; Paris, Vigot,
1898, pag. 385).
(2) GUYAU, L’irrélig. de l’av., 312.
(3) Ibid., 312.

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quante le classi sociali, e di rendere quanto più possibile intensi, tutti quegli altri istinti sociali
atti, appunto, a rendere la società più adatta alla lotta in massa per resistenza, quali, ad es., il
sentimento della disciplina anche nelle stesse classi dominanti, il dovere del sacrificio per la
patria, l’istinto della vendetta di tribù, l’odio di razza, l’odio di religione, il patriottismo, ecc. (1) :
istinti collettivi, questi, che avrebbero però potuto formarsi da sè, sotto forma di azioni sociali
riflesse, senza intervento alcuno della religione, se compatibili col coesistere d’una coscienza
sociale totale.
Così, ad es., in tutta la Polinesia la religione eccitava alla guerra: “ il clero si associava
docilmente al furore guerriero, la religione vi eccitava spesso e ne consacrava pienamente le
pratiche più orribili„. — “I costumi guerreschi dei Polinesiani ci mostrano con quanto zelo le
religioni primitive, ben lungi dal moderare il furore dei combattenti, si associno ai loro sentimenti
selvaggi e abbelliscano di pie cerimonie i loro costumi orribili„ (2). Nelle isole Fidgi “per piacere
agli Dei, per essere ricevuti dopo la morte nel loro paradiso, bisognava aver ucciso molti uomini
e distrutto molti villaggi„. Parimenti nei Pelli Rosse la religione mantiene vivo l’istinto guerriero.
Al Nicaragua il paradiso era riservato a coloro che morivano sul campo di battaglia. Le ecatombi
di migliaia di vittime per i sacrifizi agli Dei Messicani costituivano di per sè un incentivo alla
guerra : presso gli Atzequi, infatti, la religione era “strettamente associata alla guerra„ : “Ben
nutrire questa divinità (Uitzilopotchli) era della più alta importanza perchè essa era la
dispensatrice della vittoria, ma per onorarla secondo i suoi gusti presunti bisognavano
incessantemente nuovi prigionieri, per cui era il clero stesso che eccitava continuamente a nuove
guerre„. Al
——————
(1) Sulla sopravvivenza, a parità delle altre condizioni, delle società ammiratrici per istinto
collettivo del coraggio, delle società vendicative, delle società a forte patriottismo, ecc., vedi SPENCER,
Princ. de Soc., tome III, pagg. 789, 790, 794, ecc.
(2) LETOURNEAU, La guerre dans les diverses races humaines; Paris, Battaille, 1895; pagg. 128,
131.

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Al Perù la religione, benché meno sanguinaria, non sanzionava però meno la guerra e le sue
conseguenze; anzi, le guerre si facevano allo scopo di propagare la religione (1).
Quanto alla religione Musulmana, nessun libro sacro meglio del Corano mette in evidenza
la funzione sociale della religione ad agevolare lo sviluppo e ad intensificare quegli istinti
collettivi più adatti ad assicurare alla società la sopravvivenza nella sua lotta per resistenza (2).
Esso rappresenta la guerra come un dovere imposto da Allah ; ispira nei suoi seguaci un grande
ardore di proselitismo ; inculca loro il più assoluto fatalismo, elemento psicologico di somma
importanza a conseguire la vittoria ; riserva il paradiso solo ai caduti in guerra ; infine, dato
appunto questo carattere sacro della guerra, suggestiona in tutti questi fanatici la più cieca
obbedienza al profeta (3). Ed è appunto a queste ottime caratteristiche della religione Musulmana
che si deve il successo rapido che ebbe Islam.
——————
(1) Ibid., 41, 161, 164, 176, 178, 180. — I preti Fidgiani insegnavano che “l’effusione del sangue
e la guerra, come tutto ciò che vi si collega, sono cose gradite alle loro divinità„. Presso gli Ebrei si
attribuiva a Dio l’ordine di uccidere il più possibile indistintamente, cosicché una guerra religiosa riusciva
naturalmente più sanguinaria delle altre (SPENCER, Princ. de Soc., tome IV, 133). — Vedi tutto questo
Capitolo : “Sulle funzioni militari dei preti„. “I sacrifici, dice questo autore, fatti prima o dopo e talvolta
anche durante la battaglia da parte dei popoli barbari o mezzo inciviliti mostrano ancora una volta quale
stretta relazione vi sia fra questi due atti : uccidere dei nemici e far piacere agli Dei„ (Ibid., 135).
“Quel grande scrittore cattolico che fu J. de Maistre ha avuto ben ragione, dice il Letourneau, di
scrivere : “Niente si accorda meglio in questo mondo che lo spirito religioso e lo spirito militare„. È questa
una verità che i nostri studi sulla guerra vengono a confermare„ (La guerre, 64).
(2) Se nelle popolazioni sedentarie con agricoltura e industrie sviluppate, dove è molto spiccata
la specializzazione in classi parassitiche (aristocrazia e armata) e classi sfruttate (le masse lavoratrici), la
funzione essenziale della religione è quella d’impedire il formarsi d’una coscienza sociale totale; nelle
tribù nomadi, invece, dove tutti sono guerrieri e in cui, quindi, questa divisione fra classi parassite e classi
sfruttate non è così marcata e così sostanziale, la funzione essenziale della religione viene ad essere quella
di agevolare lo sviluppo e di rendere quanto più possibile intensi quegli istinti collettivi più adatti ad
assicurare la vittoria.
(3) Vedi LETOURNEAU, La guerre, 315 e seg.; e L’évolut. relig., 553 e seg.

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Quanto alla religione Giudaica, il cui Dio è Jehova Zebaoth, il Dio degli eserciti, e a tutte
le altre religioni semitiche in genere (Assira, Giudaica, Maomettana), il Letourneau ritiene che
esse sieno appunto riuscite più che tutte le altre a “scatenare i peggiori istinti dell’umanità„, gli
istinti, cioè, più adatti alla guerra. Analogamente, presso le razze Ariane dell’Asia, la religione ha
benedetto le gesta più sanguinarie e più orribili della guerra e i preti le hanno esaltate. A Sparta
“per fortificare il valore morale delle truppe si ricorreva alla religione„, essa “non era che uno
strumento di guerra„ ; si sacrificava alle divinità e si consultavano prima di partire per la guerra.
Ad Atene la cerimonia religiosa dei funerali dei morti in guerra e le orazioni funebri erano
“benissimo combinate nel loro insieme per esaltare ancor di più il patriottismo sempre così
vibrante nelle città elleniche„. A Roma è troppo noto il compito che vi aveva la religione per
infondere il feticismo dell’aquila e il più fanatico patriottismo. Nel cristiano Medio Evo è appunto
nelle guerre aventi carattere religioso che “la ferocia prende delle proporzioni deliranti„ (1).
——————
(1) LETOURNEAU, La guerre, 354 e seg., 384, 405, 407, 433, 448 e seg., 522 e seg. —
“Essenzialmente municipale e politica alla sua origine, avente per base i miti relativi alla fondazione della
città e ai suoi divini protettori, la religione d’Atene non fu da principio che la consacrazione religiosa del
patriottismo e delle istituzioni della città. Era il culto dell’Acropoli ; “Aglaura„ e il giuramento che
prestavano sul suo altare i giovani Ateniesi non hanno altro senso ; presso a poco come se la religione
presso di noi consistesse a tirare la coscrizione, a fare l’esercizio, a onorare la bandiera„ (RENAN, Saint
Paul; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1893 ; pag. 183).
Oltre a sviluppare e a rendere quanto più possibile intensi questi istinti collettivi atti a rendere la
società più adatta alla lotta in massa, ancora per altre vie la religione riusciva ad assicurare, a parità delle
altre condizioni, la vittoria e la sopravvivenza alle società che ne erano provvedute. Così, ad es., la fede
religiosa unita ai responsi favorevoli della divinità rispetto all’esito della guerra, e ai sacrifici e alle
preghiere che le si rivolgevano per assicurarsi la vittoria, dava nei combattenti tanto maggior fiducia nel
buon esito della pugna quanto più grande era questa fede: elemento psicologico collettivo, questa certezza
nella vittoria, importantissimo a conseguirla realmente : Così, i naturali delle isole Sandwich trascinavano

430
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Data questa funzione complessiva della religione, ne viene dunque di conseguenza che
alla coscienza collettiva delle classi dominanti, la quale le fa agire secondo il loro movente
economico, fanno riscontro, nelle masse sfruttate, l’istinto collettivo di una sottomissione supina,
e, in tutta la società in genere, questi istinti collettivi, quali il patriottismo, l’odio di razza, l’odio
di religione, ecc.; istinti collettivi che consistono, ripetiamo, in una polarizzazione in un dato
senso, rispetto ad una data questione, di tutte le intelligenze degli individui della collettività,
sicché, rispetto a tali questioni, questi individui non
——————
i loro Dei di guerra con loro nelle battaglie (SPENCER, Princ, de Soc., tome IV, 134). Così presso gli antichi
Messicani, nell’Yucatan, presso i Chibchas; così i Filistei. Gli Ebrei portavano spesso alla guerra l’arca
santa : così, ad es., si legge in Samuele “che gli Ebrei vedendosi battuti dai Filistei, inviarono l’arca santa
in avanti affinchè essa li salvasse, ‘e quando l’arca dell’alleanza del Signore entrò nel campo tutto Israele
mandò fuori delle grandi grida, in modo che la terra ne rintronò; e i Filistei furono spaventati perchè
dissero : Dio è entrato nel campo’ „(Ibid., 135). E nel Deuteronomio si legge : “Quando bisognerà
avvicinarsi per combattere, il sacrificatore si avanzerà e parlerà al popolo e gli dirà: ascoltate, figli
d’Israele; voi marciate oggi per combattere i vostri nemici; che il vostro cuore non divenga codardo, non
temete, non rimanete sorpresi, e non abbiate alcun terrore di loro ; poiché l’Eterno vostro Dio marcia con
voi, per combattere con voi contro i vostri nemici e per preservarvi „(Ibid., 139). — Sui sacrifizi e altri
atti propiziatori per guadagnarsi il favore divino nella guerra, vedi Ibid., 136 e seg. Così, ad es., i Samoani
conducono con loro un prete alla guerra “per pregare in favore di loro e maledire il nemico„ ; nella Nuova
Caledonia “i preti vanno al combattimento, ma si tengono a distanza, digiunano e pregano per ottenere la
vittoria; ecc. Oggi questi atti propiziatori persistono ancora colle funzioni religiose prima e durante la
guerra, colla benedizione delle bandiere, col battesimo delle navi da guerra nel momento del varo, ecc.
Anche in questi casi, dunque, è sempre sopprimendo il libero raziocinio e la volontà individuale
e suggestionando la massa dei combattenti colla fede, che la religione riesce a far muovere come un sol
tutto, colla maggiore compattezza, colla maggiore simultaneità d’azione, e col maggiore slancio possibile,
tanti elementi che di per sè sarebbero invece disciolti, inclinati a muoversi ciascuno di propria iniziativa
indipendentemente dagli altri, e inadatti, quindi, completamente, a costituire questo sol tutto così compatto
come un organismo animale.

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discutono, anzi non passa loro neppure per la mente di discutere e di accordarsi onde procedere
di concerto sotto l’influenza della ragione in questo o in quel modo secondo il loro massimo
vantaggio comune : per cui, in questi istinti collettivi, appunto perchè non volizioni collettive
dettate dall’accordo di uomini guidati dalla ragione, ma suggestioni collettive provocate
coll’annientare in questi individui questa ragione, manca effettivamente ogni movente
economico.
Inoltre, data questa funzione complessiva della religione, ne viene pure di conseguenza,
d’altra parte, che essa religione ha dovuto essere, come sopra accennavamo, l’organo sociale
essenziale, il più importante, il più indispensabile, per le società nella loro lotta in massa contro
le altre società (1). Per cui dobbiamo aspettarci, con tutta probabilità, che le società a tipo militare
e industriale, oltre ai caratteri assegnati loro rispettivamente dallo Spencer (2), possederanno, le
prime, il carattere di una forte religiosità, le seconde, quello della irreligiosità ; le prime, una
coscienza sociale parziale ristretta, le seconde, una coscienza sociale totale; le prime, degli istinti
collettivi incoscienti, indipendenti e magari opposti al massimo benessere del maggior numero
degli individui, le seconde, delle volizioni collettive coscienti,
——————
(1) Il Letourneau insiste più volte sul danno che le religioni recano alla società; così, ad es.,
parlando delle religioni delle razze Americane : “Non soltanto queste concezioni religiose sono
chimeriche, ma esse sono funeste ; poiché esse sbarrano il cammino a ogni interpretazione più giusta e
una volta consacrate come religioni istituite, venerabili in special modo, esse ostacolano tirannicamente
ogni speculazione razionale„ (L’evolut. relig., 233). — Se questo danno è effettivo, come lo è realmente,
gli deve però far riscontro un vantaggio tutto speciale se sono state appunto le società più religiose che
sono state le selezionate fra tutte le altre. — E questo appunto il grandissimo merito del Kidd : di aver
compreso, cioè, che i sistemi religiosi e la religione in genere non potevano essere una semplice
“escrescenza crittogamica grottesca„ formatasi attorno al tronco principale del culto degli antenati (Grant
Allen), ma che dovevano avere invece un’importantissima funzione nella evoluzione delle società, e
precisamente nella lotta per 1’esistenza fra loro. Ma, come vedremo più innanzi, egli ha poi errato
completamente nel determinare l’essenza stessa di questa funzione.
(2) Princ, de Soc., tome III, chap. XVII e XVIII.

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o anche delle volizioni sociali riflesse istintive, dapprima volizioni coscienti e poi passate ad
istinti per il loro continuo esercizio, ma sempre conformi al massimo benessere del maggior
numero perchè controllate continuamente dalla ragione.
Ora, ciò è quello che avviene realmente in grazia di questo fatto: che quest’organo sociale
così importante tende a formarsi di per sè nelle società in continua guerra, e di per sè tende a
scomparire se questa guerra per lunga epoca viene a tacere.
La guerra, infatti, grazie all’eccitazione vivissima in cui pone tutta la collettività; grazie
al colpire che fa di tutte le immaginazioni colle morti violente, coi massacri, con tutti, insomma,
gli orrori che l’accompagnano ; grazie allo sgomento in cui getta tutti quanti; esercita l’azione
suggestiva più potente ad inculcare la più intensa fede religiosa, la più viva credenza, cioè, e il
più sacro terrore nelle forze sopranaturali — spiriti dei defunti o divinità — che di questi orrori
sono le cause presunte (1).
Viceversa, la fede religiosa, continuamente minata dalla tendenza naturale del raziocinio
umano a svincolarsi da ogni suggestione quando l’azione suggestiva non venga di continuo
ripetuta, — come il ferro dolce magnetizzato tende a smagnetizzarsi, — viene di per sè ad
affievolirsi quando un lungo sostare della
——————
 (1) Per cui la guerra, questa lotta in massa per l’esistenza fra le società, non solo seleziona l’organo
sociale, la religione, che rende queste società più adatte a questa lotta, ma crea e rinvigorisce essa stessa
il sentimento religioso sul quale poi si esercita la selezione naturale. In ciò differisce, quindi, dalla lotta
per resistenza Darwiniana fra i singoli individui, la quale non produce essa stessa le differenze individuali,
ma solo le secerne ; — queste differenze individuali essendo allora cagionate : dall’ereditarietà dei
caratteri acquisiti, secondo Darwin-Spencer ; dall’accoppiamento dei sessi (che appunto avrebbe questa
funzione di aumentare a dismisura questa variabilità degl’individui), secondo il Weismann, il quale poi di
recente ha ritenuto di dover aggiungervi, non sappiamo con quanto vantaggio per la sua teoria prediletta,
la lotta dei determinanti intergerminale (Vedi WEISMANN, Essai sur l’hérédité; Paris, Reinwald, 1892 ;
Chap. VI : La reproduction sexuelle et sa signification pour la théorie de la sélection naturelle; e Germinal
Selection, in “The Monist„, Chicago, January, 1896).
Data la struttura psichica, il grado e la qualità d’intelligenza dell’uomo primitivo (l’impulsività
del suo carattere la facilità con cui gli riappariva

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guerra sospenda questa azione suggestiva. L’uomo riacquista allora gradatamente il suo libero
raziocinio e tende, quindi, a poco a poco, ad agire di concerto coi suoi simili sotto l’influenza
della ragione : la società, cioè, diviene sempre più irreligiosa, e tende ad elevarsi gradatamente a
una coscienza sociale totale.
Da ciò si può dunque concludere a priori, — e i fatti poi lo dimostrano pienamente a
posteriori, — che ad uno stato di guerra prolungato succederà una forte religiosità e l’incoscienza
sociale; ad uno stato di pace prolungata, invece, farà seguito una irreligiosità sempre maggiore,
una tendenza della coscienza sociale a farsi totale, un agitarsi delle masse a rivendicare l’equità
nei rapporti sociali (1). — Caratteristiche sociali quest’ultime,
—————
in sogno qualche defunto da lui, in vita, temuto, ecc. (*)), era inevitabile che nella mente del selvaggio
restasse un timore vago per lo spirito di questo defunto, — suo antenato, o capo del suo clan, della sua
tribù, o suo nemico, — in ispecie se morto nella mischia dopo aver seminato colle sue stragi il terrore
intorno a sè e colpito colle sue gesta orribili l’immaginazione di tutta la tribù. Questo vago timore,
condiviso da tutta la tribù e costituente in embrione un sentimento collettivo religioso (di timore, cioè,
verso l’ignoto), se abilmente sfruttato dal nuovo duce della piccola collettività guerriera, sopratutto se
figlio o amico prediletto del defunto temuto, dava ad essa, a parità delle altre condizioni, facile vittoria
sulle altre, perchè, grazie al rispetto religioso verso questo nuovo duce, veniva a formare un tutto più
compatto, ad azione più rapida e più simultanea, delle altre collettività: è su questo vago e tenue sentimento
collettivo di timore verso l’ignoto che venne dunque ad esercitarsi quella selezione naturale che poi via
via ha condotto a quel sentimento religioso il più intenso che ha oscurato e oscura ancora l’intelligenza
della gran massa umana.

(1) Idee analoghe, sotto certi rispetti, circa alla funzione sociale della religione e all’avvicendarsi
di epoche religiose con epoche irreligiose, — e che anch’esse richiamano alla mente il vicendevole
succedersi delle epoche organiche e delle epoche critiche del Saint-Simon, — sono già state esposte, del
resto, dal Colins. Così le riporta il DE LAVELEYE nel suo Socialisme contemporain, pag. 291-293 : “ Da
principio la sovranità della forza brutale si impone : il padre di famiglia ordina; il più forte della tribù
comanda. Ma
—————
(*) SPENCER, Princ. de Soc.; première partie : Données de la Sociologie; LUBBOCH, The origin of
Civilization, Cap. VI e seg.; LETOURNEAU, L’évolut. relig., Chap. I e seg.

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però, che pongono di per sè la società in condizioni oltre modo
—————
in una agglomerazione umana un po’ considerevole, questa specie di sovranità non ha mai potuto avere
che una durata effimera, perchè colui che possiede un istante la forza, non può restar sempre il più forte.
Che accade allora? Affine di restare il padrone, esso trasforma, come dice J. J. Rousseau, la sua forza in
diritto e l’obbedienza in dovere. Esso afferma, a tale scopo, che esiste un essere antropomorfo,
onnipossente, chiamato Dio; che Dio ha rivelato una norma delle azioni, ed ha nominato lui legislatore e
interprete infallibile della rivelazione; che Dio ha dato a ciascun uomo un’anima immortale; infine che
l’uomo sarà ricompensato o punito, in una vita futura, secondo che avrà o no conformato i suoi atti alla
norma rivelata.
“Ma non basta al legislatore di affermare questi dogmi; bisogna ancora impedirne l’esame, ed è
ciò che appunto ha luogo col mantenere l’ignoranza e colla compressione del pensiero.
“La sovranità teocratica o di diritto divino si costituisce, e la società aristocratica diviene feudale.
È il periodo storico che il socialismo razionale chiama : periodo di ignoranza sociale e di compressibilità
dell’esame.
“Dopo un tempo più o meno lungo, in seguito allo svilupparsi della intelligenza, delle scoperte
che ne sono la conseguenza, e della facilità delle comunicazioni fra i popoli, ecc., Pesame finisce per
divenire incompressibile, per lo meno momentaneamente. Allora la base sociale antropomorfica è
contestata e la sua autorità cade, la sovranità si trasforma : essa perde la sua maschera teocratica e non è
più che la sovranità della forza, cioè delle maggioranze o del popolo. La società da aristocratica diviene
borghese; essa entra nel periodo storico di ignoranza e di incompressibilità dell’esame.
“La società è profondamente turbata e la disorganizzazione va crescendo.
“I principi che assicuravano la sottomissione delle masse perdono il loro impero. Tutto è discusso
e messo in dubbio. Così, negazione della sanzione ultra-vitale e della personalità del Dio antropomorfo,
negazione della immortalità deiranima, per non parlare che di questi punti, infine affermazione del
materialismo, ecco dove arriva il libero esame, in quest’epoca. Allora l’interesse personale predomina
sempre più che non le idee d’ordine e di sacrifìcio, e sopra un numero continuamente crescente
d’individui; da cui risulta il fatto che : In epoca di ignoranza sociale l’immoralità cresce proporzionalmente
allo svilupparsi della intelligenza.
“Siccome nel medesimo il pauperismo aumenta secondo le medesime proporzioni, ne segue che
la forma sociale borghese non può durare. Per cui il regime borghese non tarda a crollare in un modo o in
un altro, e la sovranità di diritto è ristaurata fino a che una nuova rivoluzione conduca ancora una volta il
trionfo della borghesia. Le società non possono uscire da questo circolo vizioso nel quale esse si aggirano
fin dalle origini della umanità, che quando, in seguito alla invenzione e allo sviluppo della stampa,

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sfavorevoli per la lotta in massa e che quindi la pongono in serio pericolo ove la guerra venga di
nuovo a funestarla (1).
E i fatti, dicevamo, confermano pienamente a posteriori la deduzione a priori :
Così gli Eschimesi, gli Arafuras, ecc., tribù essenzialmente pacifiche, sono menzionate
come non possedenti nessuna religione (2); e le tribù, invece, sempre in ¡stato di guerra sono
——————
e della incompressibilità generale dell’esame che ne è la conseguenza, ogni ritorno alla forma teocratica
è divenuto radicalmente impossibile. Allora l’umanità deve perire nell’anarchia o organizzarsi
conformemente alla ragione metodicamente riconosciuta e dimostrata. È allora che l’umanità entra
nell’ultimo periodo del suo sviluppo storico, nel periodo di conoscenza che durerà per sempre fin che la
vita della specie umana sarà possibile sul globo„.
(1) Così, ad es., una delle cause che resero impossibile al popolo d’Israele di resistere ai potenti
imperi assiro e persiano fu la grande influenza che sovra esso popolo esercitarono sempre i profeti, nabi,
veri tribuni rappresentanti della classe povera, che, tenendo sempre desta la coscienza del popolo,
provocando continue agitazioni interne, impedirono il costituirsi di una forte monarchia, ostacolarono
quella devozione cieca ad essa come appunto il regime militare esige, resero impossibile insomma per
quel popolo quella costituzione o struttura che sola avrebbe potuto renderlo atto alla guerra : “Ciò che
importa di rimarcare, scrive il Rénan, è che l’autorità profetica così ostile alla monarchia non lo 'e meno
verso il sacerdozio. Il profeta non proviene dalla tribù di Levi; esso non insegna nel tempio, ma sulle
piazze, nelle strade e nei mercati; lungi da spingere alle osservanze, secondo l’abitudine del prete, esso
predica il culto puro, l’indifferenza delle pratiche esteriori quando siano disgiunte dall’adorazione del
cuore. Il profeta non tiene la sua missione che da Dio e rappresenta gl’interessi popolari contro i re e
contro i preti, dei re spesso alleati….. Gli Ebrei colle loro idee così semplici in fatto di organizzazione
politica e militare provarono una viva impressione di meraviglia e di terrore, quando si trovarono la prima
volta in presenza di quella spaventevole organizzazione della forza (le monarchie assira e persiana), di
quel materialismo empio e brutale, di quel dispotismo dove il re usurpava il posto di Dio. I profeti non
cessavano di respingere la sola politica che potesse salvare Israele, di battere in breccia la monarchia e di
eccitare colle loro minaccie e col loro puritanismo delle agitazioni interne„ (Histoire du peuple d’Israel
negli Études d’histoire religieuse; Paris, Michel Levy, 1864; pagg. 104, 113-114).
(2) LUBBOCH, On the origin of Civilization of Man; London, Longmans Green, 1889, pag. 214.

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quelle in cui la religione ha maggiore sviluppo, come presso gli antichi Messicani, nel Dahomey,
nelle isole Fidgi, ecc. (1).
Così nel Medio Evo alla guerra allo stato cronico fa riscontro il fanatismo religioso al suo
massimo apogeo (2); e, come conseguenza, una u sottomissione profonda e volontaria della
ragione„, la più completa “scomparsa di ogni forma d’indipendenza nel raziocinio “In questo
periodo la ragione è stata vinta come non lo era mai stata nella storia del mondo„ (3).
E, viceversa, in sul finire del Medio Evo, lo sviluppo meraviglioso e subitaneo del
commercio, e il conseguente rilassarsi della guerra, di cui le truppe mercenarie furono il più
diretto risultato (ed è noto che sopratutto nel XV secolo i combattimenti dei condottieri fra loro
erano divenuti, si può dire, semplici parate militari, sì che talvolta vi erano battaglie che non
costavano la vita a un solo uomo), producono la irreligiosità del Rinascimento, e come
conseguenza, l’alta ed estesa coscienza dei Comuni italiani. A questa fa seguito, però, l’impotenza
a resistere alle invasioni francesi e spagnuole.
Così al seguito incessante di guerre fra i Cristiani e i Mori in Ispagna va di pari passo un
crescendo spaventoso del fanatismo religioso ; e ad analogo seguito incessante di guerre in
Iscozia, un analogo formarsi di una intensità straordinaria del sentimento religioso : e
mirabilmente, appunto, il Buckle ci fa assistere a questa graduale generazione d’uno stesso
sentimento religioso così intenso, in due paesi così diversi, per opera di un’unica e stessa causa,
il seguito incessante di guerre (4).
E, viceversa, è appunto allorquando l’impero dei Cesari è
——————
(1) Spencer stesso rimarca il rapporto che ha sempre esistito, nello spazio e nel tempo, “fra le
istituzioni relativamente libere proprie dell’industrialismo e l’arresto delle istituzioni sacerdotali„, e fra
“la sottomissione senza resistenza a un dispotismo politico assoluto appropriato al tipo sociale del
militarismo„ e “un sacerdozio enormemente sviluppato„ (Princ. de Soc., tome IV, pagg. 162-163).
(2) Sua impronta incancellabile lo stile gotico (TAINE, Philosophie de l’Art).
(3) KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 126, 127.
(4) BUCKLE, Histoire de la Civilisation en Angleterre ; Paris, Marpon et Flammarion, 1881 ; tome
IV e V.

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venuto ad assicurare ai popoli Mediterranei “la gran pace romana„ (1), allorquando, in seguito a
ciò, il sentimento religioso pagano si è affievolito estremamente (2), e l’impero è divenuto “la
proclamazione più assoluta dello stato laico che sia mai esistita„ (3), è allora che l’agitazione
proletaria, che già da lungo tempo fermentava nei discendenti dei Ben-Israel (4), si diffonde
vittoriosa, colla parola socialista di Gesù di Nazareth, in tutto quanto l’impero.
 Non altro, infatti, è questo straordinario movimento sociale del Cristianesimo primitivo,
nella sua intima e profonda essenza, che vera e semplice agitazione proletaria, benché,
esteriormente, con caratteri e forma di movimento religioso (5). Ed è appunto
———————
(1) Vedi RENAN, Histoire des Origines du Christianisme, Les Apôtres; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1894;
Chap. XVII : État du monde vers le milieu du premier siècle.
(2) “Le vecchie religioni, dice il Fronde parlando dell’epoca di Cesare, si estinguevano dalle
colonne d’Èrcole alle rive dell’Eufrate e del Nilo e con loro anche i principi su cui era costituita la società„
(Vedi il KIDD, L’évolut. soc., 121). Su questo mancare da parte del popolo in tutte le parti dell’impero di
“ un alimento religioso “analogo a quello che ricevono, nella Chiesa, le porzioni le più diseredate delle
nostre società„, vedi appunto anche il RENAN, Les Apôtres, pag. 334 e seg.
(3) RENAN, Hist. des Orig. du Christ., L’Antéchrist; Paris, Calmann Levy, 1893, pag. 234.
(4) Vedi RENAN, Hist. des Orig. du Christ., Marc Aurèle et la fin du mond antique; Paris, Calmann
Levy, 1895, pag. v-vi; e Histoire du Peuple d’Israël, negli Études d’Hist. relig., pagg. 104, 113-114
sopracitate.
(5) Cfr. il RENAN, Hist. des Orig. du Christ., sopratutto Les Apôtres, Chap. XVII su citato, Chap.
XVIII e XIX, e Marc Aurèle, pagg. 598-603. Vedi, inoltre, ad es., FEDERICO ENGELS, Zur Geschichte des
Urchristenthums, in “Die Neue Zeit„, 1894-95, Nr. 1 e Nr. 2. E il NITTI, Le Socialisme catholique ; Chap.
III : Origines économiques du Christianisme. E il LORIA, Les bases écon. de la const. soc., 55 e seg. —
“Non è contro i principi religiosi, dice l’HERTZKA, ma contro la proprietà, che fu diretta la rivolta di Cristo,
ed è perciò che dovette morire. Con ciò si spiega perchè i Farisei lo combattevano; essi costituivano la
fine fleur non soltanto intellettuale ma anche materiale del Giudaismo; essi erano i più istruiti e i più ricchi;
e se avrebbero provato piacere a discutere con un settario religioso, essi odiarono fino alla croce l’uomo
che aveva cacciato i banchieri dal tempio e che si era dichiarato l’avversario dei pubblicani „ (LORIA, Les
bases, etc., 222). — Sui numerosi

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quando questa classe sociale di proletari cristiani è assurta ormai a partito politico di grande
importanza (1), che Costantino, rappresentante la borghesia d’allora, le classi ricche delle
provincie, ricorre al suo appoggio per controbilanciare e superare la potenza delle avversarie varie
classi riunite dell’antica aristocrazia romana (2). Tanto più che, ormai, il ricorrere a un
——————
e notevoli punti di somiglianza fra il movimento del Cristianesimo primitivo e il movimento socialista
attuale, vedi appunto questi scritti ora citati. — Il GIBBONS, appunto, non sa spiegarsi come mai i Romani,
così tolleranti verso tutti gli altri culti religiosi dell’impero, abbiano, invece, perseguitato così crudelmente
i cristiani (KIDD, L’evolut. soc., 147). Piena libertà, infatti, di espansione nell’impero ebbero il culto d’Isis,
il Mitriacismo, ecc. (RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 571 e seg.); nè meno indisturbati furono sempre lasciati i
filosofi Epicureiani, benché fossero non meno dei Cristiani ostili alle superstizioni volgari (Ibid., 61). —
Sulla qualità proletaria dei primi cristiani, vedi i notevoli brani del filosofo CELSO, loro contemporaneo,
in RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 362-365, e il RENAN stesso, Ibid., 453-454, e FEDERICO ENGELS, Zur Geschichte
des Urchristenthums, 36 e seg. — Sulla avversione di Celso al Cristianesimo per la sua caratteristica, a
differenza di tutte quante le altre religioni che erano eminentemente nazionali, di non essere la religione
di nessuno, ma solo protesta contro la religione nazionale dell’impero, Ibid., 365-366. — “Cosa strana,
osserva appunto anche il Renan, il Giudaismo, che si rivoltò tre volte contro l’impero con un furore senza
pari, non fu mai ufficialmente perseguitato... Al contrario, il Cristianesimo, che non si rivoltò mai, era in
realtà fuori della legge. Il Giudaismo ebbe, se ci si può esprimere così, il suo concordato con l’impero ; il
Cristianesimo non ebbe il suo. La politica romana sentiva che il Cristianesimo era la termite che rodeva
interiormente Vedificio della società antica„ (Les Évangìles et la seconde generation chrétienne; Paris,
Calmann Levy, 1877, pag. 213).
(1) “È nel quarto secolo che la lotta contro il Cristianesimo diviene grande e accanita. Le classi
ricche, quasi tutte attaccate al culto antico, lottano energicamente ; ma i poveri la vincono„ (RENAN, Marc
Aurèle, 602).
 (2) “L’Occidente si mostrava ancora (alla fine del secondo secolo) ben refrattario (al
Cristianesimo); l’Asia Minore e la Siria, al contrario, contavano masse dense di popolazioni cristiane
aumentanti ogni giorno di importanza politica. Il centro di gravità dell’impero si trasportava da questa
parte. Si sentiva già che un ambizioso avrebbe la tentazione di appoggiarsi su queste folle, che la mendicità
metteva nelle mani della Chiesa, e che la Chiesa, alla sua volta, metterebbe nelle mani del Cesare che a
lei fosse favorevole. La funzione politica del vescovo non data da Costantino. Fin

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tale appoggio non è più di nessun pericolo affatto per l’insieme di tutte in genere le classi
possidenti :
In primo luogo, infatti, il carattere esterno del movimento religioso proprio di questa
particolare agitazione proletaria, rafforzatosi sempre più in seguito all’antecedente stato cronico
di persecuzione che fece del terrore “lo stato abituale della vita cristiana„ (1), — persecuzione
cronica che, agli effetti pratici della suggestione di una fede religiosa, corrisponde esattamente
ad uno stato cronico di guerra, — ha ormai trasformato quasi completamente il movimento stesso
da agitazione proletaria con veste religiosa in nuova e vera religione.
In secondo luogo, la cieca obbedienza che questi nuovi credenti ormai portano ai loro
episcopi (2), la quale in gran parte è frutto appunto di questa fede religiosa in tal modo penetrata
e rafforzatasi in queste masse, e la facilità con cui questi vescovi possono essere guadagnati alla
causa dell’impero, affidano completamente che queste classi proletarie più non sono di alcun
pericolo per le classi possidenti reclamanti il loro appoggio.
Sopraggiungono intanto le irruzioni barbariche e incomincia lo stato cronico di guerra del
Medio Evo, e il Cristianesimo, ormai religione ufficiale dell’impero e ormai diffusosi presso i
barbari stessi, perde sempre più, e infine del tutto, la sua intima essenza di agitazione proletaria
per non conservare che la sua veste, ormai divenuta sua nuova essenza, di vera e propria
——————
dal III secolo il vescovo delle grandi città d’Oriente si mostra come un personaggio analogo a ciò che è,
ai giorni nostri, il vescovo in Turchia presso i cristiani greci, armeni, ecc. I depositi dei fedeli, i testamenti,
la tutela dei pupilli, i processi, tutta l’amministrazione, in una parola, della comunità sono confidati a lui.
È un magistrato al lato della magistratura pubblica, avvantaggiantesi di tutti gli errori di questa. La Chiesa,
al III secolo, è digià una grande agenzia di interessi popolari, supplente a ciò che l’impero non fa. Si sente
che un giorno, l’impero, venendo meno, il vescovo ne sarà l’erede. Quando lo Stato ricusa di occuparsi
dei problemi sociali, questi si risolvono a parte, per mezzo di associazioni che demoliscono lo Stato„
(RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 586-587).
(1) RENAN, Marc Aurèle, 66.
(2) Cfr. RENAN, Ibid., Cap. XXIX.

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religione : da elemento dissolvitore, come tutte quante le agitazioni proletarie, delle qualità più
belligere, del sentimento vivo di patriottismo, dello spirito forte di disciplina militare (1), che
avevano reso invincibile l’impero romano, diviene invece anch’esso, come tutte quante le altre
religioni, strumento eccellente destinato appositamente a infondere nelle masse questi istinti
collettivi così indispensabili alle società in guerra; e da focolare pericoloso di agitazione
proletaria si muta, invece, in organo sociale atto a meraviglia ad impedire precisamente ogni
agitazione proletaria in genere, ogni risveglio d’una coscienza sociale totale :
“E meraviglioso di vedere, dice appunto il Loria, come questa perversione dell’egoismo
dei lavoratori (il soffocamento, cioè, della coscienza collettiva della classe proletaria) si deduce,
per mezzo di un semplice artifizio dialettico, dalla morale stessa che aveva ispirato le
rivendicazioni degli schiavi ribelli. Infatti se il più grande fra i riformatori, Gesù, denunziava la
base furtiva della proprietà e l’usurpazione essenziale della ricchezza, che egli escludeva dalla
felicità futura, i suoi discepoli si affrettarono a tirare da questa stessa dottrina una deduzione
conservatrice; poiché l’esclusione fatale dei ricchi dal regno dei cieli, il trionfo necessario dei
poveri nella vita futura, formavano precisamente un eccellente argomento per riconciliare gli
oppressi col sistema sociale sotto il quale gemevano. Così questa morale stessa, che aveva, un
istante, illuminato l’egoismo dei lavoratori, diveniva, sotto le demoniache influenze della
proprietà, un mezzo efficace per pervertirlo e stornarlo dal suo vero oggetto. E come la Bibbia,
malgrado il suo spirito repubblicano, è stata sfruttata per la difesa dei re, così il Vangelo, malgrado
il suo spirito comunista, è divenuto un possente strumento di protezione delle classi ricche, grazie
agli sforzi dei sofisti mitrati, che hanno saputo fare del più gran libro del socialismo la più
meschina difesa della proprietà„ (2).
——————
(1) Cfr. RENAN, Ibid., Cap. XXXII, pagg. 589-596.
(2) Les bases etc., 55-57. — Analogamente il RENAN, Les Évangiles, 213; L’Eglise Chrétienne,
V.
Che tale sia ormai la funzione precipua del Cristianesimo, che “l’ipoteca

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posseduta dal contadino sui beni celesti garantisca l’ipoteca posseduta dal borghese sui beni del contadino„
(MARX, Le lotte di classe in Francia dal 1848 al 1850; Milano, 1896, pag. 77), è, come è noto,— lasciando
pur stare il Volterrianismo del secolo scorso, — opinione si può dire generale fra i sociologhi odierni, i
socialisti in ispecie. Vedi appunto, ad es., gli autori ora e sopra rammentati. E, in altro campo, lo ZOLA nel
suo romanzo Paris (Paris, Charpentier, 1896), ad es., pagg. 411-412; e il RUSKIN (KIDD, L’évolut. soc.,
88); ecc.
“Il cattolicismo, già così scriveva il Louis BLANC, gridò agli infelici : Soffrite senza lagnarvi,
poiché la sofferenza è santa; soffrite con gioia perche Dio riserva ai vostri dolori delle indennità celesti e
ineffabili. — Ma questo dogma non ha più ormai nessuna potenza sulle menti umane. Si è compreso che
non era che un sofisma proprio ad impedire la legittima insurrezione degli oppressi contro gli oppressori;
e questo sofisma empio è caduto insieme a tutte le tirannie alle quali aveva per tanto tempo servito di
base„ (Organisat. du trav., 180-181).
“Riconosciamo tuttavia, già così scriveva anche il PROUDHON, che la teoria della rassegnazione
servì alla società impedendone la rivolta. La religione consacrando col diritto divino l’inviolabilità del
potere e del privilegio diede all’umanità la forza di continuare la sua via e di esaurire le sue contradizioni.
Senza questa benda sugli occhi del popolo, la società si sarebbe mille volte disciolta. Era necessario che
qualcuno soffrisse; e la religione, consolatrice degli afflitti, ha deciso il povero a soffrire„ (Sist. delle
contrad. econ., 364).