Quiz: God and the State

All 30 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Which three ways of escape from misery does Bakunin name?

   Crime, suicide, and revolution The dram-shop, the church, and social revolution The dram-shop, the trade union, and the ballot Emigration, education, and the church
2. 2. Which two thinkers does Bakunin credit with saying that metaphysics are reduced to psychology?

   Paul Henri d’Holbach and Denis Diderot Plato and Aristotle Kant and Hegel Ludwig Feuerbach and Auguste Comte
3. 3. Among whom were the disciples of Jesus received “with open arms,” according to Bakunin?

   Slaves and women Philosophers and priests Merchants and landowners Roman officials and soldiers
4. 4. What does Bakunin say he preaches?

   The revolt of life against the government of science A return to religious faith against science The rule of scientists over the ignorant The destruction of science as a tool of the rich
5. 5. How did Bakunin answer those who criticised his unfinished writings, according to the editors?

   “My life itself is a fragment” “The passion for destruction is a creative passion” “Finished books are for academicians” “Action is worth more than a library”
6. 6. How does Bakunin portray Satan in the story of the Fall?

   As an invention of the Jesuits, devised to frighten the ignorant As a symbol of the capitalist who tempts the worker to sin As the eternal rebel and first freethinker who freed man As the true creator of the world
7. 7. According to the chapter, what is intelligence?

   A property of the animal body, especially the brain A gift handed down by tradition from generation to generation A spark of the divine spirit placed in the body at birth A product of language alone
8. 8. To what does Bakunin compare the savants in their existing organization?

   A merchant company trading in ideas A medieval guild of craftsmen serving the people A priesthood whose God is scientific abstraction A standing army defending the State
9. 9. How does Bakunin answer the argument that a belief must be true because it is ancient and universal?

   He cites the Bible against the theologians, showing that it condemns their own beliefs He shows that many ancient peoples were atheists, so the belief was never universal at all He argues that only modern beliefs count as evidence, since ancient peoples lacked science He notes that all once believed the sun circled the earth, and slavery was universal
10. 10. Under the Restoration, who was the poet of the French bourgeoisie, according to Bakunin?

    Lamartine Béranger Victor Hugo Chateaubriand
11. 11. Which of these is not among the illustrious idealists Bakunin names as his serious opponents?

    Auguste Comte Jules Michelet Giuseppe Mazzini John Stuart Mill
12. 12. Until the masses are educated, should they be governed by scientific men?

    No: better to do without science Only in economic matters, where science is surest Yes, provided the savants are freely elected by the people Yes, but only for a short transitional period of tutelage
13. 13. According to the editors’ preface, where is Bakunin buried?

    In Geneva, beside the press that printed his works In the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris At Premukhino, on his family estate In the cemetery of Berne
14. 14. What role does Bakunin give the Romans in preparing a universal God?

    They wrote the gospels Their conquests destroyed national institutions and gods They supplied the personal God, Jehovah They invented the metaphysics of the Logos
15. 15. Which two men does Bakunin blame for reviving the divine falsehood as “lay priests” in the eighteenth century?

    Voltaire and Denis Diderot Danton and Hébert Chateaubriand and Lamartine Rousseau and Robespierre
16. 16. In Mazzini’s idealist republic, what does Bakunin say the Church will call itself?

    Nation Academy School Humanity
17. 17. What is the conclusion of Bakunin’s short syllogism about God and freedom?

    God does not exist Man must accept his slavery God exists only as an idea Freedom is impossible
18. 18. Whose philosophy does Bakunin attack as the official doctrine of the French schools under the University?

    Benjamin Constant’s Guizot’s Victor Cousin’s Auguste Comte’s
19. 19. What does Bakunin call religion?

    The first science A noble error of the poor A collective insanity A necessary moral education
20. 20. What two faculties does Bakunin say distinguished our first ancestors from other animals?

    Articulate speech and the use of fire and tools Obedience and imitation Love of their offspring and the fear of death The power to think and the desire to rebel
21. 21. Whom does Bakunin include among the “popes and priests” the people no longer want?

    Those who call themselves Social Democrats Only the Catholic clergy The Protestant reformers The bourgeois students who join the people
22. 22. To what does Bakunin compare a society governed by a scientific academy whose laws it does not understand?

    The Roman Empire under the Caesars The Paraguay missions A Prussian army barracks The court of Napoleon III
23. 23. Besides a world of slaves, what other piece of “good luck” did Christianity have?

    The Barbarian invasions The invention of printing The support of the Greek philosophers The fall of Jerusalem to Titus
24. 24. Which ancient civilization does Bakunin call the more materialist in its starting point but the more humanly ideal in its results?

    The Hebrew The Egyptian The Greek The Roman
25. 25. Which states does Bakunin cite to show that even the freest States invoke divine Providence?

    Constitutional England and the republican Netherlands Prussia and Russia The United States and the Swiss Confederation The French Republic and the Kingdom of Belgium
26. 26. Which countries does Bakunin cite to show that elected assemblies breed a political aristocracy?

    Prussia and Russia England and constitutional Belgium France and Italy The United States and Switzerland
27. 27. How does Bakunin reverse Voltaire’s saying about God?

    If God did not exist, it would be necessary to forget him If God did not exist, the people would invent a worse one If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him If God existed, the State would be unnecessary
28. 28. Why, in the editors’ view, can government by savants not be trusted?

    Savants would refuse to take office at all Savants are too few and too divided to staff a government Science is unfinished; power corrupts Science has proved that all men are equal in talent and capacity for rule
29. 29. On what condition does Bakunin accept the authority of the bootmaker or the engineer?

    Never: he rejects every authority whatsoever, even the bootmaker’s Only when the State has licensed them as competent Only as advice he freely chooses, keeping his right of criticism Only if they are elected and revocable at will by their fellow workers
30. 30. How does Bakunin contrast art with science?

    Art restores abstraction to life; science sacrifices life to it Art serves the rich; science serves the poor Art is individual and free; science is purely national and official Art deals in falsehoods; science in truths