diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/34580.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/34580.txt | 16304 |
1 files changed, 16304 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/34580.txt b/old/34580.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d1b6e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/34580.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16304 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ego and His Own, by Max Stirner + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ego and His Own + +Author: Max Stirner + +Translator: Steven T. Byington + +Release Date: December 5, 2010 [EBook #34580] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EGO AND HIS OWN *** + + + + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + THE EGO AND HIS + OWN + + BY + + MAX STIRNER + + + TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY + STEVEN T. BYINGTON + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + + J. L. WALKER + + + NEW YORK + BENJ. R. TUCKER, PUBLISHER + 1907 + + + Copyright. 1907, by + BENJAMIN R. TUCKER + + + + + TO MY SWEETHEART + + MARIE DAeHNHARDT + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + PUBLISHER'S PREFACE vii + + INTRODUCTION xii + + TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE xix + + ALL THINGS ARE NOTHING TO ME 3 + + PART FIRST: _MAN_ 7 + I.--A HUMAN LIFE 9 + II.--MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 17 + I.--THE ANCIENTS 17 + II.--THE MODERNS 30 + Sec. 1.--THE SPIRIT 34 + Sec. 2.--THE POSSESSED 42 + Sec. 3.--THE HIERARCHY 85 + III.--THE FREE 127 + Sec. 1.--POLITICAL LIBERALISM 128 + Sec. 2.--SOCIAL LIBERALISM 152 + Sec. 3.--HUMANE LIBERALISM 163 + + PART SECOND: _I_ 201 + I.--OWNNESS 203 + II.--THE OWNER 225 + I.--MY POWER 242 + II.--MY INTERCOURSE 275 + III.--MY SELF-ENJOYMENT 425 + III.--THE UNIQUE ONE 484 + + INDEX 491 + + + + +PUBLISHER'S PREFACE + + +For more than twenty years I have entertained the design of publishing +an English translation of "_Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_." When I +formed this design, the number of English-speaking persons who had ever +heard of the book was very limited. The memory of Max Stirner had been +virtually extinct for an entire generation. But in the last two decades +there has been a remarkable revival of interest both in the book and in +its author. It began in this country with a discussion in the pages of +the Anarchist periodical, "Liberty," in which Stirner's thought was +clearly expounded and vigorously championed by Dr. James L. Walker, who +adopted for this discussion the pseudonym "Tak Kak." At that time Dr. +Walker was the chief editorial writer for the Galveston "News." Some +years later he became a practising physician in Mexico, where he died in +1904. A series of essays which he began in an Anarchist periodical, +"Egoism," and which he lived to complete, was published after his death +in a small volume, "The Philosophy of Egoism." It is a very able and +convincing exposition of Stirner's teachings, and almost the only one +that exists in the English language. But the chief instrument in the +revival of Stirnerism was and is the German poet, John Henry Mackay. +Very early in his career he met Stirner's name in Lange's "History of +Materialism," and was moved thereby to read his book. The work made such +an impression on him that he resolved to devote a portion of his life to +the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the lost and forgotten genius. +Through years of toil and correspondence and travel, and triumphing over +tremendous obstacles, he carried his task to completion, and his +biography of Stirner appeared in Berlin in 1898. It is a tribute to the +thoroughness of Mackay's work that since its publication not one +important fact about Stirner has been discovered by anybody. During his +years of investigation Mackay's advertising for information had created +a new interest in Stirner, which was enhanced by the sudden fame of the +writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, an author whose intellectual kinship +with Stirner has been a subject of much controversy. "_Der Einzige_," +previously obtainable only in an expensive form, was included in Philipp +Reclam's Universal-Bibliothek, and this cheap edition has enjoyed a wide +and ever-increasing circulation. During the last dozen years the book +has been translated twice into French, once into Italian, once into +Russian, and possibly into other languages. The Scandinavian critic, +Brandes, has written on Stirner. A large and appreciative volume, +entitled "_L'Individualisme Anarchiste: Max Stirner_," from the pen of +Prof. Victor Basch, of the University of Rennes, has appeared in Paris. +Another large and sympathetic volume, "Max Stirner," written by Dr. +Anselm Ruest, has been published very recently in Berlin. Dr. Paul +Eltzbacher, in his work, "_Der Anarchismus_," gives a chapter to +Stirner, making him one of the seven typical Anarchists, beginning with +William Godwin and ending with Tolstoi, of whom his book treats. There +is hardly a notable magazine or a review on the Continent that has not +given at least one leading article to the subject of Stirner. Upon the +initiative of Mackay and with the aid of other admirers a suitable stone +has been placed above the philosopher's previously-neglected grave, and +a memorial tablet upon the house in Berlin where he died in 1856; and +this spring another is to be placed upon the house in Bayreuth where he +was born in 1806. As a result of these various efforts, and though but +little has been written about Stirner in the English language, his name +is now known at least to thousands in America and England where formerly +it was known only to hundreds. Therefore conditions are now more +favorable for the reception of this volume than they were when I formed +the design of publishing it, more than twenty years ago. + +The problem of securing a reasonably good translation (for in the case +of a work presenting difficulties so enormous it was idle to hope for an +adequate translation) was finally solved by entrusting the task to +Steven T. Byington, a scholar of remarkable attainments, whose specialty +is philology, and who is also one of the ablest workers in the +propaganda of Anarchism. But, for further security from error, it was +agreed with Mr. Byington that his translation should have the benefit of +revision by Dr. Walker, the most thorough American student of Stirner, +and by Emma Heller Schumm and George Schumm, who are not only +sympathetic with Stirner, but familiar with the history of his time, and +who enjoy a knowledge of English and German that makes it difficult to +decide which is their native tongue. It was also agreed that, upon any +point of difference between the translator and his revisers which +consultation might fail to solve, the publisher should decide. This +method has been followed, and in a considerable number of instances it +has fallen to me to make a decision. It is only fair to say, therefore, +that the responsibility for special errors and imperfections properly +rests on my shoulders, whereas, on the other hand, the credit for +whatever general excellence the translation may possess belongs with the +same propriety to Mr. Byington and his coadjutors. One thing is certain: +its defects are due to no lack of loving care and pains. And I think I +may add with confidence, while realizing fully how far short of +perfection it necessarily falls, that it may safely challenge comparison +with the translations that have been made into other languages. + +In particular, I am responsible for the admittedly erroneous rendering +of the title. "The Ego and His Own" is not an exact English equivalent +of "_Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_." But then, there is no exact +English equivalent. Perhaps the nearest is "The Unique One and His +Property." But the unique one is not strictly the _Einzige_, for +uniqueness connotes not only singleness but an admirable singleness, +while Stirner's _Einzigkeit_ is admirable in his eyes only as such, it +being no part of the purpose of his book to distinguish a particular +_Einzigkeit_ as more excellent than another. Moreover, "The Unique One +and His Property" has no graces to compel our forgiveness of its slight +inaccuracy. It is clumsy and unattractive. And the same objections may +be urged with still greater force against all the other renderings that +have been suggested,--"The Single One and His Property," "The Only One +and His Property," "The Lone One and His Property," "The Unit and His +Property," and, last and least and worst, "The Individual and His +Prerogative." "The Ego and His Own," on the other hand, if not a precise +rendering, is at least an excellent title in itself; excellent by its +euphony, its monosyllabic incisiveness, and its telling--_Einzigkeit_. +Another strong argument in its favor is the emphatic correspondence of +the phrase "his own" with Mr. Byington's renderings of the kindred +words, _Eigenheit_ and _Eigner_. Moreover, no reader will be led astray +who bears in mind Stirner's distinction: "I am not an ego along with +other egos, but the sole ego; I am unique." And, to help the reader to +bear this in mind, the various renderings of the word _Einzige_ that +occur through the volume are often accompanied by foot-notes showing +that, in the German, one and the same word does duty for all. + +If the reader finds the first quarter of this book somewhat forbidding +and obscure, he is advised nevertheless not to falter. Close attention +will master almost every difficulty, and, if he will but give it, he +will find abundant reward in what follows. For his guidance I may +specify one defect in the author's style. When controverting a view +opposite to his own, he seldom distinguishes with sufficient clearness +his statement of his own view from his re-statement of the antagonistic +view. As a result, the reader is plunged into deeper and deeper +mystification, until something suddenly reveals the cause of his +misunderstanding, after which he must go back and read again. I +therefore put him on his guard. The other difficulties lie, as a rule, +in the structure of the work. As to these I can hardly do better than +translate the following passage from Prof. Basch's book, alluded to +above: "There is nothing more disconcerting than the first approach to +this strange work. Stirner does not condescend to inform us as to the +architecture of his edifice, or furnish us the slightest guiding thread. +The apparent divisions of the book are few and misleading. From the +first page to the last a _unique_ thought circulates, but it divides +itself among an infinity of vessels and arteries in each of which runs a +blood so rich in ferments that one is tempted to describe them all. +There is no progress in the development, and the repetitions are +innumerable.... The reader who is not deterred by this oddity, or rather +absence, of composition gives proof of genuine intellectual courage. At +first one seems to be confronted with a collection of essays strung +together, with a throng of aphorisms.... But, if you read this book +several times; if, after having penetrated the intimacy of each of its +parts, you then traverse it as a whole,--gradually the fragments weld +themselves together, and Stirner's thought is revealed in all its unity, +in all its force, and in all its depth." + +A word about the dedication. Mackay's investigations have brought to +light that Marie Daehnhardt had nothing whatever in common with Stirner, +and so was unworthy of the honor conferred upon her. She was no +_Eigene_. I therefore reproduce the dedication merely in the interest of +historical accuracy. + +Happy as I am in the appearance of this book, my joy is not unmixed with +sorrow. The cherished project was as dear to the heart of Dr. Walker as +to mine, and I deeply grieve that he is no longer with us to share our +delight in the fruition. Nothing, however, can rob us of the masterly +introduction that he wrote for this volume (in 1903, or perhaps +earlier), from which I will not longer keep the reader. This +introduction, no more than the book itself, shall that _Einzige_, +Death, make his _Eigentum_. + + _February, 1907._ + + B. R. T. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Fifty years sooner or later can make little difference in the case of a +book so revolutionary as this. + +It saw the light when a so-called revolutionary movement was preparing +in men's minds, which agitation was, however, only a disturbance due to +desires to participate in government, and to govern and to be governed, +in a manner different to that which prevails. The "revolutionists" of +1848 were bewitched with an idea. They were not at all the masters of +ideas. Most of those who since that time have prided themselves upon +being revolutionists have been and are likewise but the bondmen of an +idea,--that of the different lodgment of authority. + +The temptation is, of course, present to attempt an explanation of the +central thought of this work; but such an effort appears to be +unnecessary to one who has the volume in his hand. The author's care in +illustrating his meaning shows that he realized how prone the possessed +man is to misunderstand whatever is not moulded according to the +fashions in thinking. The author's learning was considerable, his +command of words and ideas may never be excelled by another, and he +judged it needful to develop his argument in manifold ways. So those who +enter into the spirit of it will scarcely hope to impress others with +the same conclusion in a more summary manner. Or, if one might deem that +possible after reading Stirner, still one cannot think that it could be +done so surely. The author has made certain work of it, even though he +has to wait for his public; but still, the reception of the book by its +critics amply proves the truth of the saying that one can give another +arguments, but not understanding. The system-makers and +system-believers thus far cannot get it out of their heads that any +discourse about the nature of an ego must turn upon the common +characteristics of egos, to make a systematic scheme of what they share +as a generality. The critics inquire what kind of man the author is +talking about. They repeat the question: What does he believe in? They +fail to grasp the purport of the recorded answer: "I believe in myself"; +which is attributed to a common soldier long before the time of Stirner. +They ask, What is the principle of the self-conscious egoist,--the +_Einzige_? To this perplexity Stirner says: Change the question; put +"who?" instead of "what?" and an answer can then be given by naming him! + +This, of course, is too simple for persons governed by ideas, and for +persons in quest of new governing ideas. They wish to classify the man. +Now, that in me which you can classify is not my distinguishing self. +"Man" is the horizon or zero of my existence as an individual. Over that +I rise as I can. At least I am something more than "man in general." +Pre-existing worship of ideals and disrespect for self had made of the +ego at the very most a Somebody, oftener an empty vessel to be filled +with the grace or the leavings of a tyrannous doctrine; thus a Nobody. +Stirner dispels the morbid subjection, and recognizes each one who knows +and feels himself as his own property to be neither humble Nobody nor +befogged Somebody, but henceforth flat-footed and level-headed Mr. +Thisbody, who has a character and good pleasure of his own, just as he +has a name of his own. + +The critics who attacked this work and were answered in the author's +minor writings, rescued from oblivion by John Henry Mackay, nearly all +display the most astonishing triviality and impotent malice. + +We owe to Dr. Eduard von Hartmann the unquestionable service which he +rendered by directing attention to this book in his "_Philosophie des +Unbewussten_," the first edition of which was published in 1869, and in +other writings. I do not begrudge Dr. von Hartmann the liberty of +criticism which he used; and I think the admirers of Stirner's teaching +must quite appreciate one thing which Von Hartmann did at a much later +date. In "_Der Eigene_" of August 10, 1896, there appeared a letter +written by him and giving, among other things, certain data from which +to judge that, when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his later essays, +Nietzsche was not ignorant of Stirner's book. + +Von Hartmann wishes that Stirner had gone on and developed his +principle. Von Hartmann suggests that you and I are really the same +spirit, looking out through two pairs of eyes. Then, one may reply, I +need not concern myself about you, for in myself I have--us; and at that +rate Von Hartmann is merely accusing himself of inconsistency: for, when +Stirner wrote this book, Von Hartmann's spirit was writing it; and it is +just the pity that Von Hartmann in his present form does not indorse +what he said in the form of Stirner,--that Stirner was different from +any other man; that his ego was not Fichte's transcendental generality, +but "this transitory ego of flesh and blood." It is not as a generality +that you and I differ, but as a couple of facts which are not to be +reasoned into one. "I" is somewise Hartmann, and thus Hartmann is "I"; +but I am not Hartmann, and Hartmann is not--I. Neither am I the "I" of +Stirner; only Stirner himself was Stirner's "I." Note how comparatively +indifferent a matter it is with Stirner that one is an ego, but how +all-important it is that one be a self-conscious ego,--a self-conscious, +self-willed person. + +Those not self-conscious and self-willed are constantly acting from +self-interested motives, but clothing these in various garbs. Watch +those people closely in the light of Stirner's teaching, and they seem +to be hypocrites, they have so many good moral and religious plans of +which self-interest is at the end and bottom; but they, we may believe, +do not know that this is more than a coincidence. + +In Stirner we have the philosophical foundation for political liberty. +His interest in the practical development of egoism to the dissolution +of the State and the union of free men is clear and pronounced, and +harmonizes perfectly with the economic philosophy of Josiah Warren. +Allowing for difference of temperament and language, there is a +substantial agreement between Stirner and Proudhon. Each would be free, +and sees in every increase of the number of free people and their +intelligence an auxiliary force against the oppressor. But, on the other +hand, will any one for a moment seriously contend that Nietzsche and +Proudhon march together in general aim and tendency,--that they have +anything in common except the daring to profane the shrine and sepulchre +of superstition? + +Nietzsche has been much spoken of as a disciple of Stirner, and, owing +to favorable cullings from Nietzsche's writings, it has occurred that +one of his books has been supposed to contain more sense than it really +does--so long as one had read only the extracts. + +Nietzsche cites scores or hundreds of authors. Had he read everything, +and not read Stirner? + +But Nietzsche is as unlike Stirner as a tight-rope performance is unlike +an algebraic equation. + +Stirner loved liberty for himself, and loved to see any and all men and +women taking liberty, and he had no lust of power. Democracy to him was +sham liberty, egoism the genuine liberty. + +Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt upon democracy +because it is not aristocratic. He is predatory to the point of +demanding that those who must succumb to feline rapacity shall be taught +to submit with resignation. When he speaks of "Anarchistic dogs" +scouring the streets of great civilized cities, it is true, the context +shows that he means the Communists; but his worship of Napoleon, his +bathos of anxiety for the rise of an aristocracy that shall rule Europe +for thousands of years, his idea of treating women in the oriental +fashion, show that Nietzsche has struck out in a very old path--doing +the apotheosis of tyranny. We individual egoistic Anarchists, however, +may say to the Nietzsche school, so as not to be misunderstood: We do +not ask of the Napoleons to have pity, nor of the predatory barons to +do justice. They will find it convenient for their own welfare to make +terms with men who have learned of Stirner what a man can be who +worships nothing, bears allegiance to nothing. To Nietzsche's +rhodomontade of eagles in baronial form, born to prey on industrial +lambs, we rather tauntingly oppose the ironical question: Where are your +claws? What if the "eagles" are found to be plain barnyard fowls on +which more silly fowls have fastened steel spurs to hack the victims, +who, however, have the power to disarm the sham "eagles" between two +suns? + +Stirner shows that men make their tyrants as they make their gods, and +his purpose is to unmake tyrants. + +Nietzsche dearly loves a tyrant. + +In style Stirner's work offers the greatest possible contrast to the +puerile, padded phraseology of Nietzsche's "_Zarathustra_" and its false +imagery. Who ever imagined such an unnatural conjuncture as an eagle +"toting" a serpent in friendship? which performance is told of in bare +words, but nothing comes of it. In Stirner we are treated to an +enlivening and earnest discussion addressed to serious minds, and every +reader feels that the word is to him, for his instruction and benefit, +so far as he has mental independence and courage to take it and use it. +The startling intrepidity of this book is infused with a whole-hearted +love for all mankind, as evidenced by the fact that the author shows not +one iota of prejudice or any idea of division of men into ranks. He +would lay aside government, but would establish any regulation deemed +convenient, and for this only _our_ convenience is consulted. Thus there +will be general liberty only when the disposition toward tyranny is met +by intelligent opposition that will no longer submit to such a rule. +Beyond this the manly sympathy and philosophical bent of Stirner are +such that rulership appears by contrast a vanity, an infatuation of +perverted pride. We know not whether we more admire our author or more +love him. + +Stirner's attitude toward woman is not special. She is an individual if +she can be, not handicapped by anything he says, feels, thinks, or +plans. This was more fully exemplified in his life than even in this +book; but there is not a line in the book to put or keep woman in an +inferior position to man, neither is there anything of caste or +aristocracy in the book. + +Likewise there is nothing of obscurantism or affected mysticism about +it. Everything in it is made as plain as the author could make it. He +who does not so is not Stirner's disciple nor successor nor co-worker. + +Some one may ask: How does plumb-line Anarchism train with the unbridled +egoism proclaimed by Stirner? The plumb-line is not a fetish, but an +intellectual conviction, and egoism is a universal fact of animal life. +Nothing could seem clearer to my mind than that the reality of egoism +must first come into the consciousness of men, before we can have the +unbiased Einzige in place of the prejudiced biped who lends himself to +the support of tyrannies a million times stronger over me than the +natural self-interest of any individual. When plumb-line doctrine is +misconceived as duty between unequal-minded men,--as a religion of +humanity,--it is indeed the confusion of trying to read without knowing +the alphabet and of putting philanthropy in place of contract. But, if +the plumb-line be scientific, it is or can be my possession, my +property, and I choose it for its use--when circumstances admit of its +use. I do not feel bound to use it because it is scientific, in building +my house; but, as my will, to be intelligent, is not to be merely +wilful, the adoption of the plumb-line follows the discarding of +incantations. There is no plumb-line without the unvarying lead at the +end of the line; not a fluttering bird or a clawing cat. + +On the practical side of the question of egoism _versus_ self-surrender +and for a trial of egoism in politics, this may be said: the belief that +men not moved by a sense of duty will be unkind or unjust to others is +but an indirect confession that those who hold that belief are greatly +interested in having others live for them rather than for themselves. +But I do not ask or expect so much. I am content if others individually +live for themselves, and thus cease in so many ways to act in opposition +to my living for myself,--to our living for ourselves. + +If Christianity has failed to turn the world from evil, it is not to be +dreamed that rationalism of a pious moral stamp will succeed in the same +task. Christianity, or all philanthropic love, is tested in +non-resistance. It is a dream that example will change the hearts of +rulers, tyrants, mobs. If the extremest self-surrender fails, how can a +mixture of Christian love and worldly caution succeed? This at least +must be given up. The policy of Christ and Tolstoi can soon be tested, +but Tolstoi's belief is not satisfied with a present test and failure. +He has the infatuation of one who persists because this _ought_ to be. +The egoist who thinks "I should like this to be" still has the sense to +perceive that it is not accomplished by the fact of some believing and +submitting, inasmuch as others are alert to prey upon the unresisting. +The Pharaohs we have ever with us. + +Several passages in this most remarkable book show the author as a man +full of sympathy. When we reflect upon his deliberately expressed +opinions and sentiments,--his spurning of the sense of moral obligation +as the last form of superstition,--may we not be warranted in thinking +that the total disappearance of the sentimental supposition of duty +liberates a quantity of nervous energy for the purest generosity and +clarifies the intellect for the more discriminating choice of objects of +merit? + + J. L. WALKER. + + + + +TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE + + +If the style of this book is found unattractive, it will show that I +have done my work ill and not represented the author truly; but, if it +is found odd, I beg that I may not bear all the blame. I have simply +tried to reproduce the author's own mixture of colloquialisms and +technicalities, and his preference for the precise expression of his +thought rather than the word conventionally expected. + +One especial feature of the style, however, gives the reason why this +preface should exist. It is characteristic of Stirner's writing that the +thread of thought is carried on largely by the repetition of the same +word in a modified form or sense. That connection of ideas which has +guided popular instinct in the formation of words is made to suggest the +line of thought which the writer wishes to follow. If this echoing of +words is missed, the bearing of the statements on each other is in a +measure lost; and, where the ideas are very new, one cannot afford to +throw away any help in following their connection. Therefore, where a +useful echo (and there are few useless ones in the book) could not be +reproduced in English, I have generally called attention to it in a +note. My notes are distinguished from the author's by being enclosed in +brackets. + +One or two of such coincidences of language, occurring in words which +are prominent throughout the book, should be borne constantly in mind as +a sort of _Keri perpetuum_: for instance, the identity in the original +of the words "spirit" and "mind," and of the phrases "supreme being" and +"highest essence." In such cases I have repeated the note where it +seemed that such repetition might be absolutely necessary, but have +trusted the reader to carry it in his head where a failure of his memory +would not be ruinous or likely. + +For the same reason,--that is, in order not to miss any indication of +the drift of the thought,--I have followed the original in the very +liberal use of italics, and in the occasional eccentric use of a +punctuation mark, as I might not have done in translating a work of a +different nature. + +I have set my face as a flint against the temptation to add notes that +were not part of the translation. There is no telling how much I might +have enlarged the book if I had put a note at every sentence which +deserved to have its truth brought out by fuller elucidation,--or even +at every one which I thought needed correction. It might have been +within my province, if I had been able, to explain all the allusions to +contemporary events, but I doubt whether any one could do that properly +without having access to the files of three or four well-chosen German +newspapers of Stirner's time. The allusions are clear enough, without +names and dates, to give a vivid picture of certain aspects of German +life then. The tone of some of them is explained by the fact that the +book was published under censorship. + +I have usually preferred, for the sake of the connection, to translate +Biblical quotations somewhat as they stand in the German, rather than +conform them altogether to the English Bible. I am sometimes quite as +near the original Greek as if I had followed the current translation. + +Where German books are referred to, the pages cited are those of the +German editions even when (usually because of some allusions in the +text) the titles of the books are translated. + + STEVEN T. BYINGTON. + + + + +THE EGO AND HIS OWN + + + + +All Things are Nothing to Me[1] + + +What is not supposed, to be my concern[2]! First and foremost, the Good +Cause,[3] then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, +of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my +fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other +causes. Only _my_ cause is never to be my concern. "Shame on the egoist +who thinks only of himself!" + +Let us look and see, then, how they manage _their_ concerns--they for +whose cause we are to labor, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic. + +You have much profound information to give about God, and have for +thousands of years "searched the depths of the Godhead," and looked into +its heart, so that you can doubtless tell us how God himself attends to +"God's cause," which we are called to serve. And you do not conceal the +Lord's doings, either. Now, what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of +us, made an alien cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are +shocked by this misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God's cause +is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be +called alien to him, because God is himself truth and love; you are +shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in +furthering an alien cause as his own. "Should God take up the cause of +truth if he were not himself truth?" He cares only for _his_ cause, but, +because he is all in all, therefore all is _his_ cause! But we, we are +not all in all, and our cause is altogether little and contemptible; +therefore we must "serve a higher cause."--Now it is clear, God cares +only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of +himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not +well-pleasing to him! He serves no higher person, and satisfies only +himself. His cause is--a purely egoistic cause. + +How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make our own? Is its cause +that of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind +looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind +only, mankind is its own cause. That it may develop, it causes nations +and individuals to wear themselves out in its service, and, when they +have accomplished what mankind needs, it throws them on the dung-heap of +history in gratitude. Is not mankind's cause--a purely egoistic cause? + +I have no need to take up each thing that wants to throw its cause on us +and show that it is occupied only with itself, not with us, only with +its good, not with ours. Look at the rest for yourselves. Do truth, +freedom, humanity, justice, desire anything else than that you grow +enthusiastic and serve them? + +They all have an admirable time of it when they receive zealous homage. +Just observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The +patriots fall in bloody battle or in the fight with hunger and want; +what does the nation care for that? Joy the manure of their corpses the +nation comes to "its bloom!" The individuals have died "for the great +cause of the nation," and the nation sends some words of thanks after +them and--has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism. + +But only look at that Sultan who cares so lovingly for his people. Is he +not pure unselfishness itself, and does he not hourly sacrifice himself +for his people? Oh, yes, for "his people." Just try it; show yourself +not as his, but as your own; for breaking away from his egoism you will +take a trip to jail. The Sultan has set his cause on nothing but +himself; he is to himself all in all, he is to himself the only one, and +tolerates nobody who would dare not to be one of "his people." + +And will you not learn by these brilliant examples that the egoist gets +on best? I for my part take a lesson from them, and propose, instead of +further unselfishly serving those great egoists, rather to be the egoist +myself. + +God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but +themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for _myself_, who am +equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the +only one.[4] + +If God, if mankind, as you affirm, have substance enough in themselves +to be all in all to themselves, then I feel that _I_ shall still less +lack that, and that I shall have no complaint to make of my "emptiness." +I am nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, +the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything. + +Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You +think at least the "good cause" must be my concern? What's good, what's +bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither +has meaning for me. + +The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the +divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely +what is _mine_, and it is not a general one, but is--_unique_,[5] as I +am unique. + +Nothing is more to me than myself! + + + + +Part First + +Man + + + + + _Man is to man the supreme being_, says Feuerbach. + + _Man has just been discovered_, says Burno Bauer. + + Then let us take a more careful look at this supreme being and + this new discovery. + + + + +I + +A HUMAN LIFE + + +From the moment when he catches sight of the light of the world a man +seeks to find out _himself_ and get hold of _himself_ out of its +confusion, in which he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley +mixture. + +But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself in +turn against his attacks, and asserts its own persistence. + +Accordingly, because each thing _cares for itself_ and at the same time +comes into constant collision with other things, the _combat_ of +self-assertion is unavoidable. + +_Victory_ or _defeat_--between the two alternatives the fate of the +combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the +_subject_: the former exercises _supremacy_ and "rights of supremacy," +the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject." + +But both remain _enemies_, and always lie in wait: they watch for each +other's _weaknesses_--children for those of their parents and parents +for those of their children (_e. g._ their fear); either the stick +conquers the man, or the man conquers the stick. + +In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying to get to the +bottom of things, to get at what is "back of" things; therefore we spy +out the weak points of everybody, for which, it is well known, children +have a sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to rummage +through hidden corners, pry after what is covered up or out of the way, +and try what we can do with everything. When we once get at what is back +of the things, we know we are safe; when, _e. g._, we have got at the +fact that the rod is too weak against our obduracy, then we no longer +fear it, "have outgrown it." + +Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our--obduracy, our obdurate +courage. By degrees we get at what is back of everything that was +mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, +the father's stern look, etc., and back of all we find our--ataraxy, +_i. e._ imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our odds of +strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us +fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take _courage_. Back +of everything we find our _courage_, our superiority; back of the sharp +command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous +choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the +smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our +trickery, shrewdness, courage, obduracy? What else but--_mind!_[6] + +Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that is so exhausting +later--the fight against _reason_. The fairest part of childhood passes +without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing +at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to +be persuaded to anything by _conviction_, and are deaf to good +arguments, principles, etc.; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment, and +the like are hard for us to resist. + +This stern life-and-death combat with _reason_ enter later, and begins a +new phase; in childhood we scamper about without racking our brains +much. + +_Mind_ is the name of the _first_ self-discovery, the first +undeification of the divine, _i. e._ of the uncanny, the spooks, the +"powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth, this feeling of self, now +defers to nothing; the world is discredited, for we are above it, we are +_mind_. + +Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have not looked at the +world _intelligently_ at all, but only stared at it. + +We exercise the beginnings of our strength on _natural powers_. We defer +to parents as a natural power; later we say: Father and mother are to be +forsaken, all natural power to be counted as riven. They are vanquished. +For the rational, _i. e._ "intellectual" man there is no family as a +natural power; a renunciation of parents, brothers, etc., makes its +appearance. If these are "born again" as _intellectual, rational +powers_, they are no longer at all what they were before. + +And not only parents, but _men in general_, are conquered by the young +man; they are no hindrance to him, and are no longer regarded; for now +he says: One must obey God rather than men. + +From this high standpoint everything "_earthly_" recedes into +contemptible remoteness; for the standby point is--the _heavenly_. + +The attitude is now altogether reversed; the youth takes up an +_intellectual_ position, while the boy, who did not yet feel himself as +mind, grew up in mindless learning. The former does not try to get hold +of _things_ (_e. g._ to get into his head the _data_ of history), but of +the _thoughts_ that lie hidden in things, and so, _e. g._, of the +_spirit_ of history. On the other hand, the boy understands +_connections_ no doubt, but not ideas, the spirit; therefore he strings +together whatever can be learned, without proceeding _a priori_ and +theoretically, _i. e._ without looking for ideas. + +As in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of the _laws of the +world_, so now in everything that he proposes he is met by an objection +of the mind, of reason, of his _own conscience_. "That is unreasonable, +unchristian, unpatriotic," and the like, cries conscience to us, +and--frightens us away from it. Not the might of the avenging Eumenides, +not Poseidon's wrath, not God, far as he sees the hidden, not the +father's rod of punishment, do we fear, but--_conscience_. + +We "run after our thoughts" now, and follow their commands just as +before we followed parental, human ones. Our course of action is +determined by our thoughts (ideas, conceptions, _faith_) as it is in +childhood by the commands of our parents. + +For all that, we were already thinking when we were children, only our +thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, _absolute, i. e._ NOTHING BUT +THOUGHTS, a heaven in themselves, a pure world of thought, _logical_ +thoughts. + +On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we had about a +_thing_; we thought of the thing so or so. Thus we may have thought "God +made the world that we see there," but we did not think of ("search") +the "depths of the Godhead itself"; we may have thought "that is the +truth about the matter," but we did not think of Truth itself, nor unite +into one sentence "God is truth." The "depths of the Godhead, who is +truth," we did not touch. Over such purely logical, _i. e._ theological +questions, "What is truth?" Pilate does not stop, though he does not +therefore hesitate to ascertain in an individual case "what truth there +is in the thing," _i. e._ whether the _thing_ is true. + +Any thought bound to a _thing_ is not yet _nothing but a thought_, +absolute thought. + +To bring to light _the pure thought_, or to be of its party, is the +delight of youth; and all the shapes of light in the world of thought, +like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, etc., illumine and inspire the +youthful soul. + +But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still +makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one +seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to +found its empire--an empire that is not of this world, the world just +conquered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself; _i. e._, +although I am spirit, I am not yet _perfected_ spirit, and must first +seek the complete spirit. + +But with that I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose myself +again at once, bowing before the complete spirit as one not my own but +_supernal_, and feeling my emptiness. + +Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure; but then is +every spirit the "right" spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal +of spirit, the "Holy Spirit." It is not my or your spirit, but just--an +ideal, supernal one, it is "God." "God is spirit." And this supernal +"Father in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."[7] + +The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the +world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to +improve it, _i. e_. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one +must deal with the world according to his _interest_, not according to +his _ideals_, becomes confirmed. + +So long as one knows himself only as _spirit_, and feels that all the +value of his existence consists in being spirit (it becomes easy for the +youth to give his life, the "bodily life," for a nothing, for the +silliest point of honor), so long it is only _thoughts_ that one has, +ideas that he hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found a +sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only _ideals_, unexecuted ideas +or thoughts. + +Not till one has fallen in love with his _corporeal_ self, and takes a +pleasure in himself as a living flesh-and-blood person,--but it is in +mature years, in the man, that we find it so,--not till then has one a +personal or _egoistic_ interest, _i. e._ an interest not only of our +spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the +whole chap, a _selfish_ interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and +see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, more selfish. +Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he has only become more definite, +or, as you also call it, more "practical." But the main point is this, +that he makes _himself_ more the centre than does the youth, who is +infatuated about other things, _e. g._ God, fatherland, and so on. + +Therefore the man shows a _second_ self-discovery. The youth found +himself as _spirit_ and lost himself again in the _general_ spirit, the +complete, holy spirit, Man, mankind,--in short, all ideals; the man +finds himself as _embodied_ spirit. + +Boys had only _unintellectual_ interests (_i. e._ interests devoid of +thoughts and ideas), youths only _intellectual_ ones; the man has +bodily, personal, egoistic interests. + +If the child has not an _object_ that it can occupy itself with, it +feels _ennui_; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with +_itself_. The youth, on the contrary, throws the object aside, because +for him _thoughts_ arose out of the object; he occupies himself with his +_thoughts_, his dreams, occupies himself intellectually, or "his mind is +occupied." + +The young man includes everything not intellectual under the +contemptuous name of "externalities." If he nevertheless sticks to the +most trivial externalities (_e. g._ the customs of students' clubs and +other formalities), it is because, and when, he discovers _mind_ in +them, _i. e._ when they are _symbols_ to him. + +As I find myself back of things, and that as mind, so I must later find +_myself_ also back of _thoughts_,--to wit, as their creator and _owner_. +In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, +whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me +like fever-phantasies--an awful power. The thoughts had become +_corporeal_ on their own account, were ghosts, such as God, Emperor, +Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them +back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the +world as what it is to me, as _mine_, as my property; I refer all to +myself. + +If as spirit I had thrust away the world in the deepest contempt, so as +owner I thrust spirits or ideas away into their "vanity." They have no +longer any power over me, as no "earthly might" has power over the +spirit. + +The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till +little by little he succeeded in getting at what was back of these very +things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked +his way up to where he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with +things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and sets his +personal interest above everything. Finally, the old man? When I become +one, there will still be time enough to speak of that. + + + + +II. + +MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW + + +How each of us developed himself, what he strove for, attained, or +missed, what objects he formerly pursued and what plans and wishes his +heart is now set on, what transformations his views have experienced, +what perturbations his principles,--in short, how he has to-day become +what yesterday or years ago he was not,--this he brings out again from +his memory with more or less ease, and he feels with especial vividness +what changes have taken place in himself when he has before his eyes the +unrolling of another's life. + +Let us therefore look into the activities our fore-fathers busied +themselves with. + + +I.--THE ANCIENTS + +Custom having once given the name of "the ancients" to our pre-Christian +ancestors, we will not throw it up against them that, in comparison with +us experienced people, they ought properly to be called children, but +will rather continue to honor them as our good old fathers. But how have +they come to be antiquated, and who could displace them through his +pretended newness? + +We know, of course, the revolutionary innovator and disrespectful heir, +who even took away the sanctity of the fathers' sabbath to hallow his +Sunday, and interrupted the course of time to begin at himself with a +new chronology; we know him, and know that it is--the Christian. But +does he remain forever young, and is he to-day still the new man, or +will he too be superseded, as he has superseded the "ancients"? + +The fathers must doubtless have themselves begotten the young one who +entombed them. Let us then peep at this act of generation. + +"To the ancients the world was a truth," says Feuerbach, but he forgets +to make the important addition, "a truth whose untruth they tried to get +back of, and at last really did." What is meant by those words of +Feuerbach will be easily recognized if they are put alongside the +Christian thesis of the "vanity and transitoriness of the world." For, +as the Christian can never convince himself of the vanity of the divine +word, but believes in its eternal and unshakeable truth, which, the more +its depths are searched, must all the more brilliantly come to light and +triumph, so the ancients on their side lived in the feeling that the +world and mundane relations (_e. g_. the natural ties of blood) were the +truth before which their powerless "I" must bow. The very thing on which +the ancients set the highest value is spurned by Christians as the +valueless, and what they recognized as truth these brand as idle lies; +the high significance of the fatherland disappears, and the Christian +must regard himself as "a stranger on earth";[8] the sanctity of +funeral rites, from which sprang a work of art like the Antigone of +Sophocles, is designated as a paltry thing ("Let the dead bury their +dead"); the infrangible truth of family ties is represented as an +untruth which one cannot promptly enough get clear of;[9] and so in +everything. + +If we now see that to the two sides opposite things appear as truth, to +one the natural, to the other the intellectual, to one earthly things +and relations, to the other heavenly (the heavenly fatherland, +"Jerusalem that is above," etc.), it still remains to be considered how +the new time and that undeniable reversal could come out of antiquity. +But the ancients themselves worked toward making their truth a lie. + +Let us plunge at once into the midst of the most brilliant years of the +ancients, into the Periclean century. Then the Sophistic culture was +spreading, and Greece made a pastime of what had hitherto been to her a +monstrously serious matter. + +The fathers had been enslaved by the undisturbed power of existing +things too long for the posterity not to have to learn by bitter +experience to _feel themselves_. Therefore the Sophists, with courageous +sauciness, pronounce the reassuring words, "Don't be bluffed!" and +diffuse the rationalistic doctrine, "Use your understanding, your wit, +your mind, against everything; it is by having a good and well-drilled +understanding that one gets through the world best, provides for himself +the best lot, the pleasantest _life_." Thus they recognize in _mind_ +man's true weapon against the world. This is why they lay such stress +on dialectic skill, command of language, the art of disputation, etc. +They announce that mind is to be used against everything; but they are +still far removed from the holiness of the Spirit, for to them it is a +_means_, a weapon, as trickery and defiance serve children for the same +purpose; their mind is the unbribable _understanding_. + +To-day we should call that a one-sided culture of the understanding, and +add the warning, "Cultivate not only your understanding, but also, and +especially, your heart." Socrates did the same. For, if the heart did +not become free from its natural impulses, but remained filled with the +most fortuitous contents and, as an uncriticised _avidity_, altogether +in the power of things, _i. e._ nothing but a vessel of the most various +_appetites_,--then it was unavoidable that the free understanding must +serve the "bad heart" and was ready to justify everything that the +wicked heart desired. + +Therefore Socrates says that it is not enough for one to use his +understanding in all things, but it is a question of what _cause_ one +exerts it for. We should now say, one must serve the "good cause." But +serving the good cause is--being moral. Hence Socrates is the founder of +ethics. + +Certainly the principle of the Sophistic doctrine must lead to the +possibility that the blindest and most dependent slave of his desires +might yet be an excellent sophist, and, with keen understanding, trim +and expound everything in favor of his coarse heart. What could there be +for which a "good reason" might not be found, or which might not be +defended through thick and thin? + +Therefore Socrates says: "You must be 'pure-hearted' if your shrewdness +is to be valued." At this point begins the second period of Greek +liberation of the mind, the period of _purity of heart_. For the first +was brought to a close by the Sophists in their proclaiming the +omnipotence of the understanding. But the heart remained +_worldly-minded_, remained a servant of the world, always affected by +worldly wishes. This coarse heart was to be cultivated from now on--the +era of _culture of the heart_. But how is the heart to be cultivated? +What the understanding, this one side of the mind, has reached,--to wit, +the capability of playing freely with and over every concern,--awaits +the heart also; everything _worldly_ must come to grief before it, so +that at last family, commonwealth, fatherland, and the like, are given +up for the sake of the heart, _i. e._ of _blessedness_, the heart's +blessedness. + +Daily experience confirms the truth that the understanding may have +renounced a thing many years before the heart has ceased to beat for it. +So the Sophistic understanding too had so far become master over the +dominant, ancient powers that they now needed only to be driven out of +the heart, in which they dwelt unmolested, to have at last no part at +all left in man. + +This war is opened by Socrates, and not till the dying day of the old +world does it end in peace. + +The examination of the heart takes its start with Socrates, and all the +contents of the heart are sifted. In their last and extremest struggles +the ancients threw all contents out of the heart and let it no longer +beat for anything; this was the deed of the Skeptics. The same purgation +of the heart was now achieved in the Skeptical age, as the understanding +had succeeded in establishing in the Sophistic age. + +The Sophistic culture has brought it to pass that one's understanding no +longer _stands still_ before anything, and the Skeptical, that his heart +is no longer _moved_ by anything. + +So long as man is entangled in the movements of the world and +embarrassed by relations to the world,--and he is so till the end of +antiquity, because his heart still has to struggle for independence from +the worldly,--so long he is not yet spirit; for spirit is without body, +and has no relations to the world and corporality; for it the world does +not exist, nor natural bonds, but only the spiritual, and spiritual +bonds. Therefore man must first become so completely unconcerned and +reckless, so altogether without relations, as the Skeptical culture +presents him,--so altogether indifferent to the world that even its +falling in ruins would not move him,--before he could feel himself as +worldless, _i. e._ as spirit. And this is the result of the gigantic +work of the ancients: that man knows himself as a being without +relations and without a world, as _spirit_. + +Only now, after all worldly care has left him, is he all in all to +himself, is he only for himself, i. e. he is spirit for the spirit, or, +in plainer language, he cares only for the spiritual. + +In the Christian wisdom of serpents and innocence of doves the two +sides--understanding and heart--of the ancient liberation of mind are +so completed that they appear young and new again, and neither the one +nor the other lets itself be bluffed any longer by the worldly and +natural. + +Thus the ancients mounted to _spirit_, and strove to become _spiritual_. +But a man who wishes to be active as spirit is drawn to quite other +tasks than he was able to set himself formerly: to tasks which really +give something to do to the spirit and not to mere sense or +acuteness,[10] which exerts itself only to become master of _things_. +The spirit busies itself solely about the spiritual, and seeks out the +"traces of mind" in everything; to the _believing_ spirit "everything +comes from God," and interests him only to the extent that it reveals +this origin; to the _philosophic_ spirit everything appears with the +stamp of reason, and interests him only so far as he is able to discover +in it reason, _i. e._ spiritual content. + +Not the spirit, then, which has to do with absolutely nothing +unspiritual, with no _thing_, but only with the essence which exists +behind and above things, with _thoughts_,--not that did the ancients +exert, for they did not yet have it; no, they had only reached the point +of struggling and longing for it, and therefore sharpened it against +their too-powerful foe, the world of sense (but what would not have been +sensuous for them, since Jehovah or the gods of the heathen were yet far +removed from the conception "God is _spirit_," since the "heavenly +fatherland" had not yet stepped into the place of the sensuous, +etc?)--they sharpened against the world of sense their _sense_, their +acuteness. To this day the Jews, those precocious children of antiquity, +have got no farther; and with all the subtlety and strength of their +prudence and understanding, which easily becomes master of things and +forces them to obey it, they cannot discover _spirit_, which _takes no +account whatever of things_. + +The Christian has spiritual interests, because he allows himself to be a +_spiritual_ man; the Jew does not even understand these interests in +their purity, because he does not allow himself to assign _no value_ to +things. He does not arrive at pure _spirituality_, a spirituality such +as is religiously expressed, _e. g._, in the _faith_, of Christians, +which alone (_i. e._ without works) justifies. Their _unspirituality_ +sets Jews forever apart from Christians; for the spiritual man is +incomprehensible to the unspiritual, as the unspiritual is contemptible +to the spiritual. But the Jews have only "the spirit of this world." + +The ancient acuteness and profundity lies as far from the spirit and the +spirituality of the Christian world as earth from heaven. + +He who feels himself as free spirit is not oppressed and made anxious by +the things of this world, because he does not care for them; if one is +still to feel their burden, he must be narrow enough to attach _weight_ +to them,--as is evidently the case, for instance, when one is still +concerned for his "dear life." He to whom everything centres in knowing +and conducting himself as a free spirit gives little heed to how +scantily he is supplied meanwhile, and does not reflect at all on how he +must make his arrangements to have a thoroughly free or enjoyable +_life_. He is not disturbed by the inconveniences of the life that +depends on things, because he lives only spiritually and on spiritual +food, while aside from this he only gulps things down like a beast, +hardly knowing it, and dies bodily, to be sure, when his fodder gives +out, but knows himself immortal as spirit, and closes his eyes with an +adoration or a thought. His life is occupation with the spiritual, +is--_thinking_; the rest does not bother him; let him busy himself with +the spiritual in any way that he can and chooses,--in devotion, in +contemplation, or in philosophic cognition,--his doing is always +thinking; and therefore Descartes, to whom this had at last become quite +clear, could lay down the proposition: "I think, that is--I am." This +means, my thinking is my being or my life; only when I live spiritually +do I live; only as spirit am I really, or--I am spirit through and +through and nothing but spirit. Unlucky Peter Schlemihl, who has lost +his shadow, is the portrait of this man become a spirit; for the +spirit's body is shadowless.--Over against this, how different among the +ancients! Stoutly and manfully as they might bear themselves against the +might of things, they must yet acknowledge the might itself, and got no +farther than to protect their _life_ against it as well as possible. +Only at a late hour did they recognize that their "true life" was not +that which they led in the fight against the things of the world, but +the "spiritual life," "turned away" from these things; and, when they +saw this, they became--Christians, _i. e._ the moderns, and innovators +upon the ancients. But the life turned away from things, the spiritual +life, no longer draws any nourishment from nature, but "lives only on +thoughts," and therefore is no longer "life," but--_thinking_. + +Yet it must not be supposed now that the ancients were _without +thoughts_, just as the most spiritual man is not to be conceived of as +if he could be without life. Rather, they had their thoughts about +everything, about the world, man, the gods, etc., and showed themselves +keenly active in bringing all this to their consciousness. But they did +not know _thought_, even though they thought of all sorts of things and +"worried themselves with their thoughts." Compare with their position +the Christian saying, "My thoughts are not your thoughts; as the heaven +is higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts," +and remember what was said above about our child-thoughts. + +What is antiquity seeking, then? The true _enjoyment of life_! You will +find that at bottom it is all the same as "the true life." + +The Greek poet Simonides sings: "Health is the noblest good for mortal +man, the next to this is beauty, the third riches acquired without +guile, the fourth the enjoyment of social pleasures in the company of +young friends." These are all _good things of life_, pleasures of life. +What else was Diogenes of Sinope seeking for than the true enjoyment of +life, which he discovered in having the least possible wants? What else +Aristippus, who found it in a cheery temper under all circumstances? +They are seeking for cheery, unclouded _life-courage_, for _cheeriness_; +they are seeking to "be of good _cheer_." + +The Stoics want to realize the _wise man_, the man with _practical +philosophy_, the man who _knows how to live_,--a wise life, therefore; +they find him in contempt for the world, in a life without development, +without spreading out, without friendly relations with the world, +_i. e._ in the _isolated life_, in life as life, not in life with +others; only the Stoic _lives_, all else is dead for him. The +Epicureans, on the contrary, demand a moving life. + +The ancients, as they want to be of good cheer, desire _good living_ +(the Jews especially a long life, blessed with children and goods), +_eudaemonia_, well-being in the most various forms. Democritus, _e. g._, +praises as such the calm of the soul in which one "_lives_ smoothly, +without fear and without excitement." + +So what he thinks is that with this he gets on best, provides for +himself the best lot, and gets through the world best. But as he cannot +get rid of the world,--and in fact cannot for the very reason that his +whole activity is taken up in the effort to get rid of it, that is, in +_repelling the world_ (for which it is yet necessary that what can be +and is repelled should remain existing, otherwise there would no longer +be anything to repel),--he reaches at most an extreme degree of +liberation, and is distinguishable only in degree from the less +liberated. If he even got as far as the deadening of the earthly sense, +which at last admits only the monotonous whisper of the word "Brahm," he +nevertheless would not be essentially distinguishable from the _sensual_ +man. + +Even the Stoic attitude and manly virtue amounts only to this,--that +one must maintain and assert himself against the world; and the ethics +of the Stoics (their only science, since they could tell nothing about +the spirit but how it should behave toward the world, and of nature +[physics] only this, that the wise man must assert himself against it) +is not a doctrine of the spirit, but only a doctrine of the repelling of +the world and of self-assertion against the world. And this consists in +"imperturbability and equanimity of life," and so in the most explicit +Roman virtue. + +The Romans too (Horace, Cicero, etc.) went no further than this +_practical philosophy_. + +The _comfort (hedone)_ of the Epicureans is the same _practical +philosophy_ the Stoics teach, only trickier, more deceitful. They teach +only another _behavior_ toward the world, exhort us only to take a +shrewd attitude toward the world; the world must be deceived, for it is +my enemy. + +The break with the world is completely carried through by the Skeptics. +My entire relation to the world is "worthless and truthless." Timon +says, "The feelings and thoughts which we draw from the world contain no +truth." "What is truth?" cries Pilate. According to Pyrrho's doctrine +the world is neither good nor bad, neither beautiful nor ugly, etc., but +these are _predicates_ which I give it. Timon says that "in itself +nothing is either good or bad, but man only _thinks_ of it thus or +thus"; to face the world only _ataraxia_ (unmovedness) and _aphasia_ +(speechlessness--or, in other words, isolated _inwardness_) are left. +There is "no longer any truth to be recognized" in the world; things +contradict themselves; thoughts about things are without distinction +(good and bad are all the same, so that what one calls good another +finds bad); here the recognition of "truth" is at an end, and only the +_man without power of recognition_, the _man_ who finds in the world +nothing to recognize, is left, and this man just leaves the truth-vacant +world where it is and takes no account of it. + +So antiquity gets trough with the _world of things_, the order of the +world, the world as a whole; but to the order of the world, or the +things of this world, belong not only nature, but all relations in which +man sees himself placed by nature, _e. g._ the family, the +community,--in short, the so-called "natural bonds." With the _world of +the spirit_ Christianity then begins. The man who still faces the world +_armed_ is the ancient, the--_heathen_ (to which class the Jew, too, as +non-Christian, belongs); the man who has come to be led by nothing but +his "heart's pleasure," the interest he takes, his fellow-feeling, +his--_spirit_, is the modern, the--Christian. + +As the ancients worked toward the _conquest of the world_ and strove to +release man from the heavy trammels of connection with _other things_, +at last they came also to the dissolution of the State and giving +preference to everything private. Of course community, family, etc., as +_natural_ relations, are burdensome hindrances which diminish my +_spiritual freedom_. + + +II.--THE MODERNS + +"If any man be in Christ, he is a _new creature_; the old is passed +away, behold, all is become _new_."[11] + +As it was said above, "To the ancients the world was a truth," we must +say here, "To the moderns the spirit was a truth"; but here, as there, +we must not omit the supplement, "a truth whose untruth they tried to +get back of, and at last they really do." + +A course similar to that which antiquity took may be demonstrated in +Christianity also, in that the _understanding_ was held a prisoner under +the dominion of the Christian dogmas up to the time preparatory to the +Reformation, but in the pre-Reformation century asserted itself +_sophistically_ and played heretical pranks with all tenets of the +faith. And the talk then was, especially in Italy and at the Roman +court, "If only the heart remains Christian-minded, the understanding +may go right on taking its pleasure." + +Long before the Reformation people were so thoroughly accustomed to +fine-spun "wranglings" that the pope, and most others, looked on +Luther's appearance too as a mere "wrangling of monks" at first. +Humanism corresponds to Sophisticism, and, as in the time of the +Sophists Greek life stood in its fullest bloom (the Periclean age), so +the most brilliant things happened in the time of Humanism, or, as one +might perhaps also say, of Machiavellianism (printing, the New World, +etc.). At this time the heart was still far from wanting to relieve +itself of its Christian contents. + +But finally the Reformation, like Socrates, took hold seriously of the +_heart_ itself, and since then hearts have kept growing visibly--more +unchristian. As with Luther people began to take the matter to heart, +the outcome of this step of the Reformation must be that the heart also +gets lightened of the heavy burden of Christian faith. The heart, from +day to day more unchristian, loses the contents with which it had busied +itself, till at last nothing but empty _warm-heartedness_ is left it, +the quite general love of men, the love of Man, the consciousness of +freedom, "self-consciousness." + +Only so is Christianity complete, because it has become bald, withered, +and void of contents. There are now no contents whatever against which +the heart does not mutiny, unless indeed the heart unconsciously or +without "self-consciousness" lets them slip in. The heart _criticises_ +to death with _hard-hearted_ mercilessness everything that wants to make +its way in, and is capable (except, as before, unconsciously or taken by +surprise) of no friendship, no love. What could there be in men to love, +since they are all alike "egoists," none of them _man_ as such, _i. e._ +none _spirit_ only? The Christian loves only the spirit; but where could +one be found who should be really nothing but spirit? + +To have a liking for the corporeal man with hide and hair,--why, that +would no longer be a "spiritual" warm-heartedness, it would be treason +against "pure" warm-heartedness, the "theoretical regard." For pure +warm-heartedness is by no means to be conceived as like that kindliness +that gives everybody a friendly hand-shake; on the contrary, pure +warm-heartedness is warm-hearted toward nobody, it is only a theoretical +interest, concern for man as man, not as a person. The person is +repulsive to it because of being "egoistic," because of not being that +abstraction, Man. But it is only for the abstraction that one can have a +theoretical regard. To pure warm-heartedness or pure theory men exist +only to be criticised, scoffed at, and thoroughly despised; to it, no +less than to the fanatical parson, they are only "filth" and other such +nice things. + +Pushed to this extremity of disinterested warm-heartedness, we must +finally become conscious that the spirit, which alone the Christian +loves, is nothing; in other words, that the spirit is--a lie. + +What has here been set down roughly, summarily, and doubtless as yet +incomprehensibly, will, it is to be hoped, become clear as we go on. + +Let us take up the inheritance left by the ancients, and, as active +workmen, do with it as much as--can be done with it! The world lies +despised at our feet, far beneath us and our heaven, into which its +mighty arms are no longer thrust and its stupefying breath does not +come. Seductively as it may pose, it can delude nothing but our _sense_; +it cannot lead astray the spirit--and spirit alone, after all, we really +are. Having once got _back_ of things, the spirit has also got _above_ +them, and become free from their bonds, emancipated supernal, free. So +speaks "spiritual freedom." + +To the spirit which, after long toil, has got rid of the world, the +worldless spirit, nothing is left after the loss of the world and the +worldly but--the spirit and the spiritual. + +Yet, as it has only moved away from the world and made of itself a being +_free from the world_, without being able really to annihilate the +world, this remains to it a stumbling-block that cannot be cleared away, +a discredited existence; and, as, on the other hand, it knows and +recognizes nothing but the spirit and the spiritual, it must perpetually +carry about with it the longing to spiritualize the world, _i. e._ to +redeem it from the "black list." Therefore, like a youth, it goes about +with plans for the redemption or improvement of the world. + +The ancients, we saw, served the natural, the worldly, the natural order +of the world, but they incessantly asked themselves whether they could +not, then, relieve themselves of this service; and, when they had tired +themselves to death in ever-renewed attempts at revolt, then, among +their last sighs, was born to them the _God_, the "conqueror of the +world." All their doing had been nothing but _wisdom of the world_, an +effort to get back of the world and above it. And what is the wisdom of +the many following centuries? What did the moderns try to get back of? +No longer to get back of the world, for the ancients had accomplished +that; but back of the God whom the ancients bequeathed to them, back of +the God who "is spirit," back of everything that is the spirit's, the +spiritual. But the activity of the spirit, which "searches even the +depths of the Godhead," is _theology_. If the ancients have nothing to +show but wisdom of the world, the moderns never did nor do make their +way further than to theology. We shall see later that even the newest +revolts against God are nothing but the extremest efforts of "theology," +_i. e._ theological insurrections. + + +Sec. 1.--THE SPIRIT + +The realm of spirits is monstrously great, there is an infinite deal of +the spiritual; yet let us look and see what the spirit, this bequest of +the ancients, properly is. + +Out of their birth-pangs it came forth, but they themselves could not +utter themselves as spirit; they could give birth to it, it itself must +speak. The "born God, the Son of Man," is the first to utter the word +that the spirit, _i. e._ he, God, has to do with nothing earthly and no +earthly relationship, but solely with the spirit and spiritual +relationships. + +Is my courage, indestructible under all the world's blows, my +inflexibility and my obduracy, perchance already spirit in the full +sense, because the world cannot touch it? Why, then it would not yet be +at enmity with the world, and all its action would consist merely in not +succumbing to the world! No, so long as it does not busy itself with +itself alone, so long as it does not have to do with _its_ world, the +spiritual, alone, it is not _free_ spirit, but only the "spirit of this +world," the spirit fettered to it. The spirit is free spirit, _i. e._ +really spirit, only in a world of _its own_; in "this," the world, it is +a stranger. Only through a spiritual world is the spirit really spirit, +for "this" world does not understand it and does not know how to keep +"the maiden from a foreign land"[12] from departing. + +But where is it to get this spiritual world? Where but out of itself? It +must reveal itself; and the words that it speaks, the revelations in +which it unveils itself, these are _its_ world. As a visionary lives and +has _his_ world only in the visionary pictures that he himself creates, +as a crazy man generates for himself his own dream-world, without which +he could not be crazy, so the spirit must create for itself its spirit +world, and is not spirit till it creates it. + +Thus its creations make it spirit, and by its creatures we know it, the +creator; in them it lives, they are its world. + +Now, what is the spirit? It is the creator of a spiritual world! Even in +you and me people do not recognize spirit till they see that we have +appropriated to ourselves something spiritual,--_i. e._, though thoughts +may have been set before us, we have at least brought them to life in +ourselves; for, as long as we were children, the most edifying thoughts +might have been laid before us without our wishing, or being able to +reproduce them in ourselves. So the spirit also exists only when it +creates something spiritual; it is real only together with the +spiritual, its creature. + +As, then, we know it by its works, the question is what these works are. +But the works or children of the spirit are nothing else but--spirits: + +If I had before me Jews, Jews of the true metal, I should have to stop +here and leave them standing before this mystery as for almost two +thousand years they have remained standing before it, unbelieving and +without knowledge. But, as you, my dear reader, are at least not a +full-blooded Jew,--for such a one will not go astray as far as this,--we +will still go along a bit of road together, till perhaps you too turn +your back on me because I laugh in your face. + +If somebody told you you were altogether spirit, you would take hold of +your body and not believe him, but answer: "I _have_ a spirit, no doubt, +but do not exist only as spirit, but am a man with a body." You would +still distinguish _yourself_ from "your spirit." "But," replies he, "it +is your destiny, even though now you are yet going about in the fetters +of the body, to be one day a 'blessed spirit,' and, however you may +conceive of the future aspect of your spirit, so much is yet certain, +that in death you will put off this body and yet keep yourself, _i. e._ +your spirit, for all eternity; accordingly your spirit is the eternal +and true in you, the body only a dwelling here below, which you may +leave and perhaps exchange for another." + +Now you believe him! For the present, indeed, _you_ are not spirit only; +but, when you emigrate from the mortal body, as one day you must, then +you will have to help yourself without the body, and therefore it is +needful that you be prudent and care in time for your proper self. "What +should it profit a man if he gained the whole world and yet suffered +damage in his soul?" + +But, even granted that doubts, raised in the course of time against the +tenets of the Christian faith, have long since robbed you of faith in +the immortality of your spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenet +undisturbed, and still ingenuously adhere to the one truth, that the +spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has greater claims on +you than anything else. Despite all your atheism, in zeal against +_egoism_ you concur with the believers in immortality. + +But whom do you think of under the name of egoist? A man who, instead of +living to an idea,--_i. e._ a spiritual thing--and sacrificing to it his +personal advantage, serves the latter. A good patriot, _e. g._, brings +his sacrifice to the altar of the fatherland; but it cannot be disputed +that the fatherland is an idea, since for beasts incapable of mind,[13] +or children as yet without mind, there is no fatherland and no +patriotism. Now, if any one does not approve himself as a good patriot, +he betrays his egoism with reference to the fatherland. And so the +matter stands in innumerable other cases: he who in human society takes +the benefit of a prerogative sins egoistically against the idea of +equality; he who exercises dominion is blamed as an egoist against the +idea of liberty,--etc. + +You despise the egoist because he puts the spiritual in the background +as compared with the personal, and has his eyes on himself where you +would like to see him act to favor an idea. The distinction between you +is that he makes himself the central point, but you the spirit; or that +you cut your identity in two and exalt your "proper self," the spirit, +to be ruler of the paltrier remainder, while he will hear nothing of +this cutting in two, and pursues spiritual and material interests just +_as he pleases_. You think, to be sure, that you are falling foul of +those only who enter into no spiritual interest at all, but in fact you +curse at everybody who does not look on the spiritual interest as his +"true and highest" interest. You carry your knightly service for this +beauty so far that you affirm her to be the only beauty of the world. +You live not to _yourself_, but to your _spirit_ and to what is the +spirit's--_i. e._ ideas. + +As the spirit exists only in its creating of the spiritual, let us take +a look about us for its first creation. If only it has accomplished +this, there follows thenceforth a natural propagation of creations, as +according to the myth only the first human beings needed to be created, +the rest of the race propagating of itself. The first creation, on the +other hand, must come forth "out of nothing,"--_i. e._, the spirit has +toward its realization nothing but itself, or rather it has not yet even +itself, but must create itself; hence its first creation is itself, _the +spirit_. Mystical as this sounds, we yet go through it as an every-day +experience. Are you a thinking being before you think? In creating the +first thought you create yourself, the thinking one; for you do not +think before you think a thought, _i. e._ have a thought. Is it not your +singing that first makes you a singer, your talking that makes you a +talker? Now, so too it is the production of the spiritual that first +makes you a spirit. + +Meantime, as you distinguish _yourself_ from the thinker, singer, and +talker, so you no less distinguish yourself from the spirit, and feel +very clearly that you are something beside spirit. But, as in the +thinking ego hearing and sight easily vanish in the enthusiasm of +thought, so you also have been seized by the spirit-enthusiasm, and you +now long with all your might to become wholly spirit and to be dissolved +in spirit. The spirit is your _ideal_, the unattained, the otherworldly; +spirit is the name of your--god, "God is spirit." + +Against all that is not spirit you are a zealot, and therefore you play +the zealot against _yourself_ who cannot get rid of a remainder of the +non-spiritual. Instead of saying, "I am _more_ than spirit," you say +with contrition, "I am less than spirit; and spirit, pure spirit, or the +spirit that is nothing but spirit, I can only think of, but am not; and, +since I am not it, it is another, exists as another, whom I call 'God'." + +It lies in the nature of the case that the spirit that is to exist as +pure spirit must be an otherworldly one, for, since I am not it, it +follows that it can only be _outside_ me; since in any case a human +being is not fully comprehended in the concept "spirit," it follows that +the pure spirit, the spirit as such, can only be outside of men, beyond +the human world,--not earthly, but heavenly. + +Only from this disunion in which I and the spirit lie; only because "I" +and "spirit" are not names for one and the same thing, but different +names for completely different things; only because I am not spirit and +spirit not I,--only from this do we get a quite tautological explanation +of the necessity that the spirit dwells in the other world, _i. e._ is +God. + +But from this it also appears how thoroughly theological is the +liberation that Feuerbach[14] is laboring to give us. What he says is +that we had only mistaken our own essence, and therefore looked for it +in the other world, but that now, when we see that God was only our +human essence, we must recognize it again as ours and move it back out +of the other world into this. To God, who is spirit, Feuerbach gives the +name "Our Essence." Can we put up with this, that "Our Essence" is +brought into opposition to _us_,--that we are split into an essential +and an unessential self? Do we not therewith go back into the dreary +misery of seeing ourselves banished out of ourselves? + +What have we gained, then, when for a variation we have transferred into +ourselves the divine outside us? _Are we_ that which is in us? As little +as we are that which is outside us. I am as little my heart as I am my +sweetheart, this "other self" of mine. Just because we are not the +spirit that dwells in us, just for that reason we had to take it and set +it outside us; it was not we, did not coincide with us, and therefore we +could not think of it as existing otherwise than outside us, on the +other side from us, in the other world. + +With the strength of _despair_ Feuerbach clutches at the total substance +of Christianity, not to throw it away, no, to drag it to himself, to +draw it, the long-yearned-for, ever-distant, out of its heaven with a +last effort, and keep it by him forever. Is not that a clutch of the +uttermost despair, a clutch for life or death, and is it not at the +same time the Christian yearning and hungering for the other world? The +hero wants not to go into the other world, but to draw the other world +to him, and compel it to become this world! And since then has not all +the world, with more or less consciousness, been crying that "this +world" is the vital point, and heaven must come down on earth and be +experienced even here? + +Let us, in brief, set Feuerbach's theological view and our contradiction +over against each other! + +"The essence of man is man's supreme being;[15] now by religion, to be +sure, the _supreme being_ is called _God_ and regarded as an _objective_ +essence, but in truth it is only man's own essence; and therefore the +turning point of the world's history is that henceforth no longer _God_, +but man, is to appear to man as God."[16] + +To this we reply: The supreme being is indeed the essence of man, but, +just because it is his _essence_ and not he himself, it remains quite +immaterial whether we see it outside him and view it as "God," or find +it in him and call it "Essence of Man" or "Man." _I_ am neither God nor +_Man_,[17] neither the supreme essence nor my essence, and therefore it +is all one in the main whether I think of the essence as in me or +outside me. Nay, we really do always think of the supreme being as in +both kinds of otherworldliness, the inward and outward, at once; for +the "Spirit of God" is, according to the Christian view, also "our +spirit," and "dwells in us."[18] It dwells in heaven and dwells in us; +we poor things are just its "dwelling," and, if Feuerbach goes on to +destroy its heavenly dwelling and force it to move to us bag and +baggage, then we, its earthly apartments, will be badly overcrowded. + +But after this digression (which, if we were at all proposing to work by +line and level, we should have had to save for later pages in order to +avoid repetition) we return to the spirit's first creation, the spirit +itself. + +The spirit is something other than myself. But this other, what is it? + + +Sec. 2.--THE POSSESSED. + +Have you ever seen a spirit? "No, not I, but my grandmother." Now, you +see, it's just so with me too; I myself haven't seen any, but my +grandmother had them running between her feet all sorts of ways, and out +of confidence in our grandmothers' honesty we believe in the existence +of spirits. + +But had we no grandfathers then, and did they not shrug their shoulders +every time our grandmothers told about their ghosts? Yes, those were +unbelieving men who have harmed our good religion much, those +rationalists! We shall feel that! What else lies at the bottom of this +warm faith in ghosts, if not the faith in "the existence of spiritual +beings in general," and is not this latter itself disastrously unsettled +if saucy men of the understanding may disturb the former? The +Romanticists were quite conscious what a blow the very belief in God +suffered by the laying aside of the belief in spirits or ghosts, and +they tried to help us out of the baleful consequences not only by their +reawakened fairy world, but at last, and especially, by the "intrusion +of a higher world," by their somnambulists, prophetesses of Prevorst, +etc. The good believers and fathers of the church did not suspect that +with the belief in ghosts the foundation of religion was withdrawn, and +that since then it had been floating in the air. He who no longer +believes in any ghost needs only to travel on consistently in his +unbelief to see that there is no separate being at all concealed behind +things, no ghost or--what is naively reckoned as synonymous even in our +use of words--no "_spirit_." + +"Spirits exist!" Look about in the world, and say for yourself whether a +spirit does not gaze upon you out of everything. Out of the lovely +little flower there speaks to you the spirit of the Creator, who has +shaped it so wonderfully; the stars proclaim the spirit that established +their order; from the mountain-tops a spirit of sublimity breathes down; +out of the waters a spirit of yearning murmurs up; and--out of men +millions of spirits speak. The mountains may sink, the flowers fade, the +world of stars fall in ruins, the men die--what matters the wreck of +these visible bodies? The spirit, the "invisible spirit," abides +eternally! + +Yes, the whole world is haunted! Only _is_ haunted? Nay, it itself +"walks," it is uncanny through and through, it is the wandering +seeming-body of a spirit, it is a spook. What else should a ghost be, +then, than an apparent body, but real spirit? Well, the world is +"empty," is "naught," is only glamorous "semblance"; its truth is the +spirit alone; it is the seeming-body of a spirit. + +Look out near or far, a _ghostly_ world surrounds you everywhere; you +are always having "apparitions" or visions. Everything that appears to +you is only the phantasm of an indwelling spirit, is a ghostly +"apparition"; the world is to you only a "world of appearances," behind +which the spirit walks. You "see spirits." + +Are you perchance thinking of comparing yourself with the ancients, who +saw gods everywhere? Gods, my dear modern, are not spirits; gods do not +degrade the world to a semblance, and do not spiritualize it. + +But to you the whole world is spiritualized, and has become an +enigmatical ghost; therefore do not wonder if you likewise find in +yourself nothing but a spook. Is not your body haunted by your spirit, +and is not the latter alone the true and real, the former only the +"transitory, naught" or a "semblance"? Are we not all ghosts, uncanny +beings that wait for "deliverance,"--to wit, "spirits"? + +Since the spirit appeared in the world, since "the Word became flesh," +since then the world has been spiritualized, enchanted, a spook. + +You have spirit, for you have thoughts. What are your thoughts? +"Spiritual entities." Not things, then? "No, but the spirit of things, +the main point in all things, the inmost in them, their--idea." +Consequently what you think is not only your thought? "On the contrary, +it is that in the world which is most real, that which is properly to be +called true; it is the truth itself; if I only think truly, I think the +truth. I may, to be sure, err with regard to the truth, and _fail to +recognize_ it; but, if I _recognize_ truly, the object of my cognition +is the truth." So, I suppose, you strive at all times to recognize the +truth? "To me the truth is sacred. It may well happen that I find a +truth incomplete and replace it with a better, but _the_ truth I cannot +abrogate. I _believe_ in the truth, therefore I search in it; nothing +transcends it, it is eternal." + +Sacred, eternal is the truth; it is the Sacred, the Eternal. But you, +who let yourself be filled and led by this sacred thing, are yourself +hallowed. Further, the sacred is not for your senses,--and you never as +a sensual man discover its trace,--but for your faith, or, more +definitely still, for your _spirit_; for it itself, you know, is a +spiritual thing, a spirit,--is spirit for the spirit. + +The sacred is by no means so easily to be set aside as many at present +affirm, who no longer take this "unsuitable" word into their mouths. If +even in a single respect I am still _upbraided_ as an "egoist," there is +left the thought of something else which I should serve more than +myself, and which must be to me more important than everything; in +short, somewhat in which I should have to seek my true welfare,[19] +something--"sacred."[20] However human this sacred thing may look, +though it be the Human itself, that does not take away its sacredness, +but at most changes it from an unearthly to an earthly sacred thing, +from a divine one to a human. + +Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge +himself, the _involuntary egoist_, for him who is always looking after +his own and yet does not count himself as the highest being, who serves +only himself and at the same time always thinks he is serving a higher +being, who knows nothing higher than himself and yet is infatuated about +something higher; in short, for the egoist who would like not to be an +egoist, and abases himself (_i. e._ combats his egoism), but at the same +time abases himself only for the sake of "being exalted," and therefore +of gratifying his egoism. Because he would like to cease to be an +egoist, he looks about in heaven and earth for higher beings to serve +and sacrifice himself to; but, however much he shakes and disciplines +himself, in the end he does all for his own sake, and the disreputable +egoism will not come off him. On this account I call him the involuntary +egoist. + +His toil and care to get away from himself is nothing but the +misunderstood impulse to self-dissolution. If you are bound to your past +hour, if you must babble to-day because you babbled yesterday,[21] if +you can not transform yourself each instant, you feel yourself fettered +in slavery and benumbed. Therefore over each minute of your existence a +fresh minute of the future beckons to you, and, developing yourself, you +get away "from yourself,"--_i. e._ from the self that was at that +moment. As you are at each instant, you are your own creature, and in +this very "creature" you do not wish to lose yourself, the creator. You +are yourself a higher being than you are, and surpass yourself. But that +_you_ are the one who is higher than you,--_i. e._ that you are not only +creature, but likewise your creator,--just this, as an involuntary +egoist, you fail to recognize; and therefore the "higher essence" is to +you--an alien[22] essence. Every higher essence, such as truth, mankind, +etc., is an essence _over_ us. + +Alienness is a criterion of the "sacred." In everything sacred there +lies something "uncanny," _i. e._ strange,[23] such as we are not quite +familiar and at home in. What is sacred to me is _not my own_; and if, +_e. g._ the property of others was not sacred to me, I should look on it +as _mine_, which I should take to myself when occasion offered. Or, on +the other side, if I regard the face of the Chinese emperor as sacred, +it remains strange to my eye, which I close at its appearance. + +Why is an incontrovertible mathematical truth, which might even be +called eternal according to the common understanding of words, +not--sacred? Because it is not revealed, or not the revelation of a +higher being. If by revealed we understand only the so-called religious +truths, we go far astray, and entirely fail to recognize the breadth of +the concept "higher being." Atheists keep up their scoffing at the +higher being, which was also honored under the name of the "highest" or +_etre supreme_, and trample in the dust one "proof of his existence" +after another without noticing that they themselves, out of need for a +higher being, only annihilate the old to make room for a new. Is "Man" +perchance not a higher essence than an individual man, and must not the +truths, rights, and ideas which result from the concept of him be +honored and--counted sacred, as revelations of this very concept? For, +even though we should abrogate again many a truth that seemed to be made +manifest by this concept, yet this would only evince a misunderstanding +on our part, without in the least degree harming the sacred concept +itself or taking their sacredness from those truths that must rightly be +looked upon as its revelations. _Man_ reaches beyond every individual +man, and yet--though he be "his essence"--is not in fact _his_ essence +(which rather would be as single[24] as he the individual himself), but +a general and "higher," yes, for atheists "the highest essence."[25] +And, as the divine revelations were not written down by God with his own +hand, but made public through "the Lord's instruments," so also the new +highest essence does not write out its revelations itself, but lets them +come to our knowledge through "true men." Only the new essence betrays, +in fact, a more spiritual style of conception than the old God, because +the latter was still represented in a sort of embodiedness or form, +while the undimmed spirituality of the new is retained, and no special +material body is fancied for it. And withal it does not lack corporeity, +which even takes on a yet more seductive appearance because it looks +more natural and mundane and consists in nothing less than in every +bodily man,--yes, or outright in "humanity" or "all men." Thereby the +spectralness of the spirit in a seeming-body has once again become +really solid and popular. + +Sacred, then, is the highest essence and everything in which this +highest essence reveals or will reveal itself; but hallowed are they who +recognize this highest essence together with its own, _i. e._ together +with its revelations. The sacred hallows in turn its reverer, who by his +worship becomes himself a saint, as likewise what he does is saintly, a +saintly walk, saintly thoughts and actions, imaginations and +aspirations, etc. + +It is easily understood that the conflict over what is revered as the +highest essence can be significant only so long as even the most +embittered opponents concede to each other the main point,--that there +is a highest essence to which worship or service is due. If one should +smile compassionately at the whole struggle over a highest essence, as a +Christian might at the war of words between a Shiite and a Sunnite or +between a Brahman and a Buddhist, then the hypothesis of a highest +essence would be null in his eyes, and the conflict on this basis an +idle play. Whether then the one God or the three in one, whether the +Lutheran God or the _etre supreme_ or not God at all, but "Man," may +represent the highest essence, that makes no difference at all for him +who denies the highest essence itself, for in his eyes those servants of +a highest essence are one and all--pious people, the most raging atheist +not less than the most faith-filled Christian. + +In the foremost place of the sacred,[26] then, stands the highest +essence and the faith in this essence, our "holy[27] faith." + + +THE SPOOK + +With ghosts we arrive in the spirit-realm, in the realm of _essences_. + +What haunts the universe, and has its occult, "incomprehensible" being +there, is precisely the mysterious spook that we call highest essence. +And to get to the bottom of this _spook_, to _comprehend_ it, to +discover _reality_ in it (to prove "the existence of God")--this task +men set to themselves for thousands of years; with the horrible +impossibility, the endless Danaid-labor, of transforming the spook into +a non-spook, the unreal into something real, the _spirit_ into an entire +and _corporeal_ person,--with this they tormented themselves to death. +Behind the existing world they sought the "thing in itself," the +essence; behind the _thing_ they sought the _un-thing_. + +When one looks to the _bottom_ of anything, _i. e._ searches out its +_essence_, one often discovers something quite other than what it +_seems_ to be; honeyed speech and a lying heart, pompous words and +beggarly thoughts, etc. By bringing the essence into prominence one +degrades the hitherto misapprehended appearance to a bare _semblance_, a +deception. The essence of the world, so attractive and splendid, is for +him who looks to the bottom of it--emptiness; emptiness is == world's +essence (world's doings). Now, he who is religious does not occupy +himself with the deceitful semblance, with the empty appearances, but +looks upon the essence, and in the essence has--the truth. + +The essences which are deduced from some appearances are the evil +essences, and conversely from others the good. The essence of human +feeling, _e. g._, is love; the essence of human will is the good; that +of one's thinking, the true; etc. + +What at first passed for existence, such as the world and its like, +appears now as bare semblance, and the _truly existent_ is much rather +the essence, whose realm is filled with gods, spirits, demons, _i. e._ +with good or bad essences. Only this inverted world, the world of +essences, truly exists now. The human heart may be loveless, but its +essence exists, God, "who is love"; human thought may wander in error, +but its essence, truth, exists; "God is truth,"--etc. + +To know and acknowledge essences alone and nothing but essences, that is +religion; its realm is a realm of essences, spooks, and ghosts. + +The longing to make the spook comprehensible, or to realize _non-sense_, +has brought about a _corporeal ghost_, a ghost or spirit with a real +body, an embodied ghost. How the strongest and most talented Christians +have tortured themselves to get a conception of this ghostly apparition! +But there always remained the contradiction of two natures, the divine +and human, _i. e._ the ghostly and sensual; there remained the most +wondrous spook, a thing that was not a thing. Never yet was a ghost more +soul-torturing, and no shaman, who pricks himself to raving fury and +nerve-lacerating cramps to conjure a ghost, can endure such soul-torment +as Christians suffered from that most incomprehensible ghost. + +But through Christ the truth of the matter had at the same time come to +light, that the veritable spirit or ghost is--man. The _corporeal_ or +embodied spirit is just man; he himself is the ghastly being and at the +same time the being's appearance and existence. Henceforth man no +longer, in typical cases, shudders at ghosts _outside_ him, but at +himself; he is terrified at himself. In the depth of his breast dwells +the _spirit of sin_; even the faintest _thought_ (and this is itself a +spirit, you know) may be a _devil_, etc.--The ghost has put on a body, +God has become man, but now man is himself the gruesome spook which he +seeks to get back of, to exorcise, to fathom, to bring to reality and to +speech; man is--_spirit_. What matter if the body wither, if only the +spirit is saved? everything rests on the spirit, and the spirit's or +"soul's" welfare becomes the exclusive goal. Man has become to himself a +ghost, an uncanny spook, to which there is even assigned a distinct seat +in the body (dispute over the seat of the soul, whether in the head, +etc.). + +You are not to me, and I am not to you, a higher essence. Nevertheless a +higher essence may be hidden in each of us, and call forth a mutual +reverence. To take at once the most general, Man lives in you and me. +If I did not see Man in you, what occasion should I have to respect you? +To be sure you are not Man and his true and adequate form, but only a +mortal veil of his, from which he can withdraw without himself ceasing; +but yet for the present this general and higher essence is housed in +you, and you present before me (because an imperishable spirit has in +you assumed a perishable body, so that really your form is only an +"assumed" one) a spirit that appears, appears in you, without being +bound to your body and to this particular mode of appearance,--therefore +a spook. Hence I do not regard you as a higher essence, but only respect +that higher essence which "walks" in you; I "respect Man in you." The +ancients did not observe anything of this sort in their slaves, and the +higher essence "Man" found as yet little response. To make up for this, +they saw in each other ghosts of another sort. The People is a higher +essence than an individual, and, like Man or the Spirit of Man, a spirit +haunting the individual,--the Spirit of the People. For this reason they +revered this spirit, and only so far as he served this or else a spirit +related to it (_e. g._ the Spirit of the Family, etc.) could the +individual appear significant; only for the sake of the higher essence, +the People, was consideration allowed to the "member of the people." As +you are hallowed to us by "Man" who haunts you, so at every time men +have been hallowed by some higher essence or other, like People, Family, +and such. Only for the sake of a higher essence has any one been honored +from of old, only as a ghost has he been regarded in the light of a +hallowed, _i. e._, protected and recognized person. If I cherish you +because I hold you dear, because in you my heart finds nourishment, my +need satisfaction, then it is not done for the sake of a higher essence +whose hallowed body you are, not on account of my beholding in you a +ghost, _i. e._ an appearing spirit, but from egoistic pleasure; you +yourself with _your_ essence are valuable to me, for your essence is not +a higher one, is not higher and more general than you, is unique[28] +like you yourself, because it is you. + +But it is not only man that, "haunts"; so does everything. The higher +essence, the spirit, that walks in everything, is at the same time bound +to nothing, and only--"appears" in it. Ghosts in every corner! + +Here would be the place to pass the haunting spirits in review, if they +were not to come before us again further on in order to vanish before +egoism. Hence let only a few of them be particularized by way of +example, in order to bring us at once to our attitude toward them. + +Sacred above all, _e. g._, is the "holy Spirit," sacred the truth, +sacred are right, law, a good cause, majesty, marriage, the common good, +order, the fatherland, etc. + + +WHEELS IN THE HEAD. + +Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine +great things, and depict to yourself a whole world of gods that has an +existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be +called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea! + +Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard +those persons who cling to the Higher, and (because the vast majority +belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable +fools, fools in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called a "fixed +idea"? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When you recognize, +with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave +up in an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which we are not to +doubt; the majesty of (_e. g._) the people, which we are not to strike +at (he who does is guilty of--lese-majesty); virtue, against which the +censor is not to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure; +etc.,--are these not "fixed ideas"? Is not all the stupid chatter of +(_e. g._) most of our newspapers the babble of fools who suffer from the +fixed idea of morality, legality, Christianity, etc., and only seem to +go about free because the madhouse in which they walk takes in so broad +a space? Touch the fixed idea of such a fool, and you will at once have +to guard your back against the lunatic's stealthy malice. For these +great lunatics are like the little so-called lunatics in this point +too,--that they assail by stealth him who touches their fixed idea. They +first steal his weapon, steal free speech from him, and then they fall +upon him with their nails. Every day now lays bare the cowardice and +vindictiveness of these maniacs, and the stupid populace hurrahs for +their crazy measures. One must read the journals of this period, and +must hear the Philistines talk, to get the horrible conviction that one +is shut up in a house with fools. "Thou shalt not call thy brother a +fool; if thou dost--etc." But I do not fear the curse, and I say, my +brothers are arch-fools. Whether a poor fool of the insane asylum is +possessed by the fancy that he is God the Father, Emperor of Japan, the +Holy Spirit, etc., or whether a citizen in comfortable circumstances +conceives that it is his mission to be a good Christian, a faithful +Protestant, a loyal citizen, a virtuous man, etc.,--both these are one +and the same "fixed idea." He who has never tried and dared not to be a +good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a virtuous man, etc., is +_possessed_ and prepossessed[29] by faith, virtuousness, etc. Just as +the schoolmen philosophized only _inside_ the belief of the church; as +Pope Benedict XIV wrote fat books _inside_ the papist superstition, +without ever throwing a doubt upon this belief; as authors fill whole +folios on the State without calling in question the fixed idea of the +State itself; as our newspapers are crammed with politics because they +are conjured into the fancy that man was created to be a _zoon +politicon_,--so also subjects vegetate in subjection, virtuous people in +virtue, liberals in humanity, etc., without ever putting to these fixed +ideas of theirs the searching knife of criticism. Undislodgeable, like a +madman's delusion, those thoughts stand on a firm footing, and he who +doubts them--lays hands on the _sacred_! Yes, the "fixed idea," that is +the truly sacred! + +Is it perchance only people possessed by the devil that meet us, or do +we as often come upon people _possessed_ in the contrary way,--possessed +by "the good," by virtue, morality, the law, or some "principle" or +other? Possessions of the devil are not the only ones. God works on us, +and the devil does; the former "workings of grace," the latter "workings +of the devil." Possessed[30] people are _set_[31] in their opinions. + +If the word "possession" displeases you, then call it prepossession; +yes, since the spirit possesses you, and all "inspirations" come from +it, call it--inspiration and enthusiasm. I add that complete +enthusiasm--for we cannot stop with the sluggish, half-way kind--is +called fanaticism. + +It is precisely among cultured people that _fanaticism_ is at home; for +man is cultured so far as he takes an interest in spiritual things, and +interest in spiritual things, when it is alive, is and must be +_fanaticism_; it is a fanatical interest in the sacred (_fanum_). +Observe our liberals, look into the _Saechsischen Vaterlandsblaetter_, +hear what Schlosser says:[32] "Holbach's company constituted a regular +plot against the traditional doctrine and the existing system, and its +members were as fanatical on behalf of their unbelief as monks and +priests, Jesuits and Pietists, Methodists, missionary and Bible +societies, commonly are for mechanical worship and orthodoxy." + +Take notice how a "moral man" behaves, who to-day often thinks he is +through with God and throws off Christianity as a bygone thing. If you +ask him whether he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and +sister is incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, that filial +piety is a sacred duty, etc., then a moral shudder will come over him at +the conception of one's being allowed to touch his sister as wife also, +etc. And whence this shudder? Because he _believes_ in those moral +commandments. This moral _faith_ is deeply rooted in his breast. Much as +he rages against the _pious_ Christians, he himself has nevertheless as +thoroughly remained a Christian,--to wit, a _moral_ Christian. In the +form of morality Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner under +_faith_. Monogamy is to be something sacred, and he who may live in +bigamy is punished as a _criminal_; he who commits incest suffers as a +_criminal_. Those who are always crying that religion is not to be +regarded in the State, and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the +Christian, show themselves in accord with this. Is not this of incest +and monogamy a _dogma of faith_? Touch it, and you will learn by +experience how this moral man is a _hero of faith_ too, not less than +Krummacher, not less than Philip II. These fight for the faith of the +Church, he for the faith of the State, or the moral laws of the State; +for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts otherwise than _their +faith_ will allow. The brand of "crime" is stamped upon him, and he may +languish in reformatories, in jails. Moral faith is as fanatical as +religious faith! They call that "liberty of faith" then, when brother +and sister, on account of a relation that they should have settled with +their "conscience," are thrown into prison. "But they set a pernicious +example." Yes, indeed: others might have taken the notion that the +State had no business to meddle with their relation, and thereupon +"purity of morals" would go to ruin. So then the religious heroes of +faith are zealous for the "sacred God," the moral ones for the "sacred +good." + +Those who are zealous for something sacred often look very little like +each other. How the strictly orthodox or old-style believers differ from +the fighters for "truth, light, and justice," from the Philalethes, the +Friends of Light, the Rationalists, etc. And yet, how utterly +unessential is this difference! If one buffets single traditional truths +(_e. g._ miracles, unlimited power of princes, etc.), then the +rationalists buffet them too, and only the old-style believers wail. +But, if one buffets truth itself, he immediately has both, as +_believers_, for opponents. So with moralities; the strict believers are +relentless, the clearer heads are more tolerant. But he who attacks +morality itself gets both to deal with. "Truth, morality, justice, +light, etc.," are to be and remain "sacred." What any one finds to +censure in Christianity is simply supposed to be "unchristian" according +to the view of these rationalists; but Christianity must remain a +fixture, to buffet it is outrageous, "an outrage." To be sure, the +heretic against pure faith no longer exposes himself to the earlier fury +of persecution, but so much the more does it now fall upon the heretic +against pure morals. + + * * * * * + +Piety has for a century received so many blows, and had to hear its +superhuman essence reviled as an "inhuman" one so often, that one +cannot feel tempted to draw the sword against it again. And yet it has +almost always been only moral opponents that have appeared in the arena, +to assail the supreme essence in favor of--another supreme essence. So +Proudhon, unabashed, says:[33] "Man is destined to live without +religion, but the moral law is eternal and absolute. Who would dare +to-day to attack morality?" Moral people skimmed off the best fat from +religion, ate it themselves, and are now having a tough job to get rid +of the resulting scrofula. If, therefore, we point out that religion has +not by any means been hurt in its inmost part so long as people reproach +it only with its superhuman essence, and that it takes its final appeal +to the "spirit" alone (for God is spirit), then we have sufficiently +indicated its final accord with morality, and can leave its stubborn +conflict with the latter lying behind us. It is a question of a supreme +essence with both, and whether this is a superhuman or a human one can +make (since it is in any case an essence over me, a super-mine one, so +to speak) but little difference to me. In the end the relation to the +human essence, or to "Man," as soon as ever it has shed the snake-skin +of the old religion, will yet wear a religious snake-skin again. + +So Feuerbach instructs us that, "if one only _inverts_ speculative +philosophy, _i. e._ always makes the predicate the subject, and so makes +the subject the object and principle, one has the undraped truth, pure +and clean."[34] Herewith, to be sure, we lose the narrow religious +standpoint, lose the _God_, who from this standpoint is subject; but we +take in exchange for it the other side of the religious standpoint, the +_moral_ standpoint. _E. g._, we no longer say "God is love," but "Love +is divine." If we further put in place of the predicate "divine" the +equivalent "sacred," then, as far as concerns the sense, all the old +comes back again. According to this, love is to be the _good_ in man, +his divineness, that which does him honor, his true _humanity_ (it +"makes him Man for the first time," makes for the first time a man out +of him). So then it would be more accurately worded thus: Love is what +is _human_ in man, and what is inhuman is the loveless egoist. But +precisely all that which Christianity and with it speculative philosophy +(_i. e._ theology) offers as the good, the absolute, is to +self-ownership simply not the good (or, what means the same, it is _only +the good_). Consequently, by the transformation of the predicate into +the subject, the Christian _essence_ (and it is the predicate that +contains the essence, you know) would only be fixed yet more +oppressively. God and the divine would entwine themselves all the more +inextricably with me. To expel God from his heaven and to rob him of his +"_transcendence_" cannot yet support a claim of complete victory, if +therein he is only chased into the human breast and gifted with +indelible _immanence_. Now they say, "The divine is the truly human!" + +The same people who oppose Christianity as the basis of the State, +_i. e._ oppose the so-called Christian State, do not tire of repeating +that morality is "the fundamental pillar of social life and of the +State." As if the dominion of morality were not a complete dominion of +the sacred, a "hierarchy." + +So we may here mention by the way that rationalist movement which, after +theologians had long insisted that only faith was capable of grasping +religious truths, that only to believers did God reveal himself, etc., +and that therefore only the heart, the feelings, the believing fancy was +religious, broke out with the assertion that the "natural +understanding," human reason, was also capable of discerning God. What +does that mean but that the reason laid claim to be the same visionary +as the fancy?[35] In this sense Reimarus wrote his "Most Notable Truths +of Natural Religion." It had to come to this,--that the _whole_ man with +all his faculties was found to be _religious_; heart and affections, +understanding and reason, feeling, knowledge, and will,--in short, +everything in man,--appeared religious. Hegel has shown that even +philosophy is religious. And what is not called religion to-day? The +"religion of love," the "religion of freedom," "political religion,"--in +short, every enthusiasm. So it is, too, in fact. + +To this day we use the Romance word "religion," which expresses the +concept of a condition of being _bound_. To be sure, we remain bound, so +far as religion takes possession of our inward parts; but is the mind +also bound? On the contrary, that is free, is sole lord, is not our +mind, but absolute. Therefore the correct affirmative translation of the +word religion would be "_freedom of mind_"! In whomsoever the mind is +free, he is religious in just the same way as he in whom the senses have +free course is called a sensual man. The mind binds the former, the +desires the latter. Religion, therefore, is boundness or _religio_ with +reference to me,--I am bound; it is freedom with reference to the +mind,--the mind is free, or has freedom of mind. Many know from +experience how hard it is on _us_ when the desires run away with us, +free and unbridled; but that the free mind, splendid intellectuality, +enthusiasm for intellectual interests, or however this jewel may in the +most various phrase be named, brings _us_ into yet more grievous straits +than even the wildest impropriety, people will not perceive; nor can +they perceive it without being consciously egoists. + +Reimarus, and all who have shown that our reason, our heart, etc., also +lead to God, have therewithal shown that we are possessed through and +through. To be sure, they vexed the theologians, from whom they took +away the prerogative of religious exaltation; but for religion, for +freedom of mind, they thereby only conquered yet more ground. For, when +the mind is no longer limited to feeling or faith, but also, as +understanding, reason, and thought in general, belongs to itself the +mind,--when, therefore, it may take part in the spiritual[36] and +heavenly truths in the form of understanding, etc., as well as in its +other forms,--then the whole mind is occupied only with spiritual +things, _i. e._ with itself, and is therefore free. Now we are so +through-and-through religious that "jurors," _i. e._ "sworn men," +condemn us to death, and every policeman, as a good Christian, takes us +to the lock-up by virtue of an "oath of office." + +Morality could not come into opposition with piety till after the time +when in general the boisterous hate of everything that looked like an +"order" (decrees, commandments, etc.) spoke out in revolt, and the +personal "absolute lord" was scoffed at and persecuted; consequently it +could arrive at independence only through liberalism, whose first form +acquired significance in the world's history as "citizenship," and +weakened the specifically religious powers (see "Liberalism" below). +For, when morality not merely goes alongside of piety, but stands on +feet of its own, then its principle lies no longer in the divine +commandments, but in the law of reason, from which the commandments, so +far as they are still to remain valid, must first await justification +for their validity. In the law of reason man determines himself out of +himself, for "Man" is rational, and out of the "essence of Man" those +laws follow of necessity. Piety and morality part company in this,--that +the former makes God the lawgiver, the latter Man. + +From a certain standpoint of morality people reason about as follows: +Either man is led by his sensuality, and is, following it, _immoral_, or +he is led by the good which, taken up into the will, is called moral +sentiment (sentiment and prepossession in favor of the good); then he +shows himself _moral_. From this point of view how, _e. g._, can Sand's +act against Kotzebue be called immoral? What is commonly understood by +unselfish it certainly was, in the same measure as (among other things) +St. Crispin's thieveries in favor of the poor. "He should not have +murdered, for it stands written, Thou shalt not murder!" Then to serve +the good, the welfare of the people, as Sand at least intended, or the +welfare of the poor, like Crispin,--is moral; but murder and theft are +immoral; the purpose moral, the means immoral. Why? "Because murder, +assassination, is something absolutely bad." When the Guerrillas enticed +the enemies of the country into ravines and shot them down unseen from +the bushes, do you suppose that was not assassination? According to the +principle of morality, which commands us to serve the good, you could +really ask only whether murder could never in any case be a realization +of the good, and would have to endorse that murder which realized the +good. You cannot condemn Sand's deed at all; it was moral, because in +the service of the good, because unselfish; it was an act of punishment, +which the individual inflicted, an--_execution_ inflicted at the risk of +the executioner's life. What else had his scheme been, after all, but +that he wanted to suppress writings by brute force? Are you not +acquainted with the same procedure as a "legal" and sanctioned one? And +what can be objected against it from your principle of morality?--"But +it was an illegal execution." So the immoral thing in it was the +illegality, the disobedience to law? Then you admit that the good is +nothing else than--law, morality nothing else than _loyalty_. And to +this externality of "loyalty" your morality must sink, to this +righteousness of works in the fulfilment of the law, only that the +latter is at once more tyrannical and more revolting than the old-time +righteousness of works. For in the latter only the _act_ is needed, but +you require the _disposition_ too; one must carry _in himself_ the law, +the statute; and he who is most legally disposed is the most moral. Even +the last vestige of cheerfulness in Catholic life must perish in this +Protestant legality. Here at last the domination of the law is for the +first time complete. "Not I live, but the law lives in me." Thus I have +really come so far as to be only the "vessel of its glory." "Every +Prussian carries his _gendarme_ in his breast," says a high Prussian +officer. + +Why do certain _opposition parties_ fail to flourish? Solely for the +reason that they refuse to forsake the path of morality or legality. +Hence the measureless hypocrisy of devotion, love, etc., from whose +repulsiveness one may daily get the most thorough nausea at this rotten +and hypocritical relation of a "lawful opposition."--In the _moral_ +relation of love and fidelity divided or opposed will cannot have place; +the beautiful relation is disturbed if the one wills this and the other +the reverse. But now, according to the practice hitherto and the old +prejudice of the opposition, the moral relation is to be preserved above +all. What is then left to the opposition? Perhaps the will to have a +liberty, if the beloved one sees fit to deny it? Not a bit! It may not +_will_ to have the freedom, it can only _wish_ for it, "petition" for +it, lisp a "Please, please!" What would come of it, if the opposition +really _willed_, willed with the full energy of the will? No, it must +renounce _will_ in order to live to _love_, renounce liberty--for love +of morality. It may never "claim as a right" what it is permitted only +to "beg as a favor." Love, devotion, etc., demand with undeviating +definiteness that there be only one will to which the others devote +themselves, which they serve, follow, love. Whether this will is +regarded as reasonable or as unreasonable, in both cases one acts +morally when one follows it, and immorally when one breaks away from it. +The will that commands the censorship seems to many unreasonable; but he +who in a land of censorship evades the censoring of his book acts +immorally, and he who submits it to the censorship acts morally. If some +one let his moral judgment go, and set up _e. g._ a secret press, one +would have to call him immoral, and imprudent into the bargain if he let +himself be caught; but will such a man lay claim to a value in the eyes +of the "moral"? Perhaps!--That is, if he fancied he was serving a +"higher morality." + +The web of the hypocrisy of to-day hangs on the frontiers of two +domains, between which our time swings back and forth, attaching its +fine threads of deception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough +to serve _morality_ without doubt or weakening, not yet reckless enough +to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now toward the one and now toward +the other in the spider-web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of +_halfness_, catches only miserable, stupid flies. If one has once dared +to make a "free" motion, immediately one waters it again with assurances +of love, and--_shams resignation_; if, on the other side, they have had +the face to reject the free motion with _moral_ appeals to confidence, +etc., immediately the moral courage also sinks, and they assure one how +they hear the free words with special pleasure, etc.; they--_sham +approval_. In short, people would like to have the one, but not go +without the other; they would like to have a _free will_, but not for +their lives lack the _moral will_. Just come in contact with a servile +loyalist, you Liberals. You will sweeten every word of freedom with a +look of the most loyal confidence, and he will clothe his servilism in +the most flattering phrases of freedom. Then you go apart, and he, like +you, thinks "I know you, fox!" He scents the devil in you as much as you +do the dark old Lord God in him. + +A Nero is a "bad" man only in the eyes of the "good"; in mine he is +nothing but a _possessed_ man, as are the good too. The good see in him +an arch-villain, and relegate him to hell. Why did nothing hinder him in +his arbitrary course? Why did people put up with so much? Do you suppose +the tame Romans, who let all their will be bound by such a tyrant, were +a hair the better? In old Rome they would have put him to death +instantly, would never have been his slaves. But the contemporary "good" +among the Romans opposed to him only moral demands, not their _will_; +they sighed that their emperor did not do homage to morality, like them; +they themselves remained "moral subjects," till at last one found +courage to give up "moral, obedient subjection." And then the same "good +Romans" who, as "obedient subjects," had borne all the ignominy of +having no will, hurrahed over the nefarious, immoral act of the rebel. +Where then in the "good" was the courage for the _revolution_, that +courage which they now praised, after another had mustered it up? The +good could not have this courage, for a revolution, and an insurrection +into the bargain, is always something "immoral," which one can resolve +upon only when one ceases to be "good" and becomes either "bad" +or--neither of the two. Nero was no viler than his time, in which one +could only be one of the two, good or bad. The judgment of his time on +him had to be that he was bad, and this in the highest degree: not a +milksop, but an arch-scoundrel. All moral people can pronounce only this +judgment on him. Rascals such as he was are still living here and there +to-day (see _e. g._ the Memoirs of Ritter von Lang) in the midst of the +moral. It is not convenient to live among them certainly, as one is not +sure of his life for a moment; but can you say that it is more +convenient to live among the moral? One is just as little sure of his +life there, only that one is hanged "in the way of justice," but least +of all is one sure of his honor, and the national cockade is gone before +you can say Jack Robinson. The hard fist of morality treats the noble +nature of egoism altogether without compassion. + +"But surely one cannot put a rascal and an honest man on the same +level!" Now, no human being does that oftener than you judges of morals; +yes, still more than that, you imprison as a criminal an honest man who +speaks openly against the existing constitution, against the hallowed +institutions, etc., and you entrust portfolios and still more important +things to a crafty rascal. So _in praxi_ you have nothing to reproach me +with. "But in theory!" Now there I do put both on the same level, as two +opposite poles,--to wit, both on the level of the moral law. Both have +meaning only in the "moral" world, just as in the pre-Christian time a +Jew who kept the law and one who broke it had meaning and significance +only in respect to the Jewish law; before Jesus Christ, on the contrary, +the Pharisee was no more than the "sinner and publican." So before +self-ownership the moral Pharisee amounts to as much as the immoral +sinner. + +Nero became very inconvenient by his possessedness. But a self-owning +man would not sillily oppose to him the "sacred," and whine if the +tyrant does not regard the sacred; he would oppose to him his will. How +often the sacredness of the inalienable rights of man has been held up +to their foes, and some liberty or other shown and demonstrated to be a +"sacred right of man"! Those who do that deserve to be laughed out of +court--as they actually are,--were it not that in truth they do, even +though unconsciously, take the road that leads to the goal. They have a +presentiment that, if only the majority is once won for that liberty, it +will also will the liberty, and will then take what it _will_ have. The +sacredness of the liberty, and all possible proofs of this sacredness, +will never procure it; lamenting and petitioning only shows beggars. + +The moral man is necessarily narrow in that he knows no other enemy than +the "immoral" man. "He who is not moral is immoral!" and accordingly +reprobate, despicable, etc. Therefore the moral man can never comprehend +the egoist. Is not unwedded cohabitation an immorality? The moral man +may turn as he pleases, he will have to stand by this verdict; Emilia +Galotti gave up her life for this moral truth. And it is true, it is an +immorality. A virtuous girl may become an old maid; a virtuous man may +pass the time in fighting his natural impulses till he has perhaps +dulled them, he may castrate himself for the sake of virtue as St. +Origen did for the sake of heaven: he thereby honors sacred wedlock, +sacred chastity, as inviolable; he is--moral. Unchastity can never +become a moral act. However indulgently the moral man may judge and +excuse him who committed it, it remains a transgression, a sin against a +moral commandment; there clings to it an indelible stain. As chastity +once belonged to the monastic vow, so it does to moral conduct. Chastity +is a--good.--For the egoist, on the contrary, even chastity is not a +good without which he could not get along; he cares nothing at all about +it. What now follows from this for the judgment of the moral man? This: +that he throws the egoist into the only class of men that he knows +besides moral men, into that of the--immoral. He cannot do otherwise; he +must find the egoist immoral in everything in which the egoist +disregards morality. If he did not find him so, then he would already +have become an apostate from morality without confessing it to himself, +he would already no longer be a truly moral man. One should not let +himself be led astray by such phenomena, which at the present day are +certainly no longer to be classed as rare, but should reflect that he +who yields any point of morality can as little be counted among the +truly moral as Lessing was a pious Christian when, in the well-known +parable, he compared the Christian religion, as well as the Mohammedan +and Jewish, to a "counterfeit ring." Often people are already further +than they venture to confess to themselves. For Socrates, because in +culture he stood on the level of morality, it would have been an +immorality if he had been willing to follow Crito's seductive incitement +and escape from the dungeon; to remain was the only moral thing. But it +was solely because Socrates was--a moral man. The "unprincipled, +sacrilegious" men of the Revolution, on the contrary, had sworn fidelity +to Louis XVI, and decreed his deposition, yes, his death; but the act +was an immoral one, at which moral persons will be horrified to all +eternity. + + * * * * * + +Yet all this applies, more or less, only to "civic morality," on which +the freer look down with contempt. For it (like civism, its native +ground, in general) is still too little removed and free from the +religious heaven not to transplant the latter's laws without criticism +or further consideration to its domain instead of producing independent +doctrines of its own. Morality cuts a quite different figure when it +arrives at the consciousness of its dignity, and raises its principle, +the essence of man, or "Man," to be the only regulative power. Those who +have worked their way through to such a decided consciousness break +entirely with religion, whose God no longer finds any place alongside +their "Man," and, as they (see below) themselves scuttle the ship of +State, so too they crumble away that "morality" which flourishes only in +the State, and logically have no right to use even its name any further. +For what this "critical" party calls morality is very positively +distinguished from the so-called "civic or political morality," and +must appear to the citizen like an "insensate and unbridled liberty." +But at bottom it has only the advantage of the "purity of the +principle," which, freed from its defilement with the religious, has now +reached universal power in its clarified definiteness as "humanity." +Therefore one should not wonder that the name "morality" is retained +along with others, like freedom, benevolence, self-consciousness, etc., +and is only garnished now and then with the addition, a "free" +morality,--just as, though the civic State is abused, yet the State is +to arise again as a "free State," or, if not even so, yet as a "free +society." + +Because this morality completed into humanity has fully settled its +accounts with the religion out of which it historically came forth, +nothing hinders it from becoming a religion on its own account. For a +distinction prevails between religion and morality only so long as our +dealings with the world of men are regulated and hallowed by our +relation to a superhuman being, or so long as our doing is a doing "for +God's sake." If, on the other hand, it comes to the point that "man is +to man the supreme being," then that distinction vanishes, and morality, +being removed from its subordinate position, is completed +into--religion. For then the higher being who had hitherto been +subordinated to the highest, Man, has ascended to absolute height, and +we are related to him as one is related to the highest being, _i. e._ +religiously. Morality and piety are now as synonymous as in the +beginning of Christianity, and it is only because the supreme being has +come to be a different one that a holy walk is no longer called a +"holy" one, but a "human" one. If morality has conquered, then a +complete--_change of masters_ has taken place. + +After the annihilation of faith Feuerbach thinks to put in to the +supposedly safe harbor of _love_. "The first and highest law must be the +love of man to man. _Homo homini Deus est_--this is the supreme +practical maxim, this the turning point of the world's history."[37] +But, properly speaking, only the god is changed,--the _deus_; love has +remained: there love to the superhuman God, here love to the human God, +to _homo_ as _Deus_. Therefore man is to me--sacred. And everything +"truly human" is to me--sacred! "Marriage is sacred of itself. And so it +is with all moral relations. Friendship is and must be _sacred_ for you, +and property, and marriage, and the good of every man, but sacred _in +and of itself_."[38] Haven't we the priest again there? Who is his God? +Man with a great M! What is the divine? The human! Then the predicate +has indeed only been changed into the subject, and, instead of the +sentence "God is love," they say "love is divine"; instead of "God has +become man," "Man has become God," etc. It is nothing more or less than +a new--_religion_. "All moral relations are ethical, are cultivated with +a moral mind, only where of themselves (without religious consecration +by the priest's blessing) they are counted _religious_." Feuerbach's +proposition, "Theology is anthropology," means only "religion must be +ethics, ethics alone is religion." + +Altogether Feuerbach accomplishes only a transposition of subject and +predicate, a giving of preference to the latter. But, since he himself +says, "Love is not (and has never been considered by men) sacred through +being a predicate of God, but it is a predicate of God because it is +divine in and of itself," he might judge that the fight against the +predicates themselves, against love and all sanctities, must be +commenced. How could he hope to turn men away from God when he left them +the divine? And if, as Feuerbach says, God himself has never been the +main thing to them, but only his predicates, then he might have gone on +leaving them the tinsel longer yet, since the doll, the real kernel, was +left at any rate. He recognizes, too, that with him it is "only a matter +of annihilating an illusion";[39] he thinks, however, that the effect of +the illusion on men is "downright ruinous, since even love, in itself +the truest, most inward sentiment, becomes an obscure, illusory one +through religiousness, since religious love loves man[40] only for God's +sake, therefore loves man only apparently, but in truth God only." Is +this different with moral love? Does it love the man, _this_ man for +_this_ man's sake, or for morality's sake, for _Man's_ sake, and so--for +_homo homini Deus_--for God's sake? + + * * * * * + +The wheels in the head have a number of other formal aspects, some of +which it may be useful to indicate here. + +Thus _self-renunciation_ is common to the holy with the unholy, to the +pure and the impure. The impure man _renounces_ all "better feelings," +all shame, even natural timidity, and follows only the appetite that +rules him. The pure man renounces his natural relation to the world +("renounces the world") and follows only the "desire" which rules him. +Driven by the thirst for money, the avaricious man renounces all +admonitions of conscience, all feeling of honor, all gentleness and all +compassion; he puts all considerations out of sight; the appetite drags +him along. The holy man behaves similarly. He makes himself the +"laughing-stock of the world," is hard-hearted and "strictly just"; for +the desire drags him along. As the unholy man renounces _himself_ before +Mammon, so the holy man renounces _himself_ before God and the divine +laws. We are now living in a time when the _shamelessness_ of the holy +is every day more and more felt and uncovered, whereby it is at the same +time compelled to unveil itself, and lay itself bare, more and more +every day. Have not the shamelessness and stupidity of the reasons with +which men antagonize the "progress of the age" long surpassed all +measure and all expectation? But it must be so. The self-renouncers +must, as holy men, take the same course that they do as unholy men; +as the latter little by little sink to the fullest measure of +self-renouncing vulgarity and _lowness_, so the former must ascend +to the most dishonorable _exaltation_. The mammon of the earth +and the _God_ of heaven both demand exactly the same degree +of--self-renunciation. The low man, like the exalted one, reaches out +for a "good,"--the former for the material good, the latter for the +ideal, the so-called "supreme good"; and at last both complete each +other again too, as the "materially-minded" man sacrifices everything to +an ideal phantasm, his _vanity_, and the "spiritually-minded" man to a +material gratification, the _life of enjoyment_. + +Those who exhort men to "unselfishness"[41] think they are saying an +uncommon deal. What do they understand by it? Probably something like +what they understand by "self-renunciation." But who is this self that +is to be renounced and to have no benefit? It seems that _you_ yourself +are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is unselfish +self-renunciation recommended to you? Again for _your_ benefit and +behoof, only that through unselfishness you are procuring your "true +benefit." + +You are to benefit _yourself_, and yet you are not seek _your_ benefit. + +People regard as unselfish the _benefactor_ of men, a Franke who founded +the orphan asylum, an O'Connell who works tirelessly for his Irish +people; but also the _fanatic_ who, like St. Boniface, hazards his life +for the conversion of the heathen, or, like Robespierre, sacrifices +everything to virtue,--like Koerner, dies for God, king, and fatherland. +Hence, among others, O'Connell's opponents try to trump up against him +some selfishness or mercenariness, for which the O'Connell fund seemed +to give them a foundation; for, if they were successful in casting +suspicion on his "unselfishness," they would easily separate him from +his adherents. + +Yet what could they show further than that O'Connell was working for +another _end_ than the ostensible one? But, whether he may aim at making +money or at liberating the people, it still remains certain, in one case +as in the other, that he is striving for an end, and that _his_ end; +selfishness here as there, only that his national self-interest would be +beneficial to _others too_, and so would be for the _common_ interest. + +Now, do you suppose unselfishness is unreal and nowhere extant? On the +contrary, nothing is more ordinary! One may even call it an article of +fashion in the civilized world, which is considered so indispensable +that, if it costs too much in solid material, people at least adorn +themselves with its tinsel counterfeit and feign it. Where does +unselfishness begin? Right where an end ceases to be _our_ end and our +_property_, which we, as owners, can dispose of at pleasure; where it +becomes a fixed end or a--fixed idea; where it begins to inspire, +enthuse, fanaticize us; in short, where it passes into our +_stubbornness_ and becomes our--master. One is not unselfish so long as +he retains the end in his power; one becomes so only at that "Here I +stand, I cannot do otherwise," the fundamental maxim of all the +possessed; one becomes so in the case of a _sacred_ end, through the +corresponding sacred zeal.-- + +I am not unselfish so long as the end remains my _own_, and I, instead +of giving myself up to be the blind means of its fulfilment, leave it +always an open question. My zeal need not on that account be slacker +than the most fanatical, but at the same time I remain toward it +frostily cold, unbelieving, and its most irreconcilable enemy; I remain +its _judge_, because I am its owner. + +Unselfishness grows rank as far as possessedness reaches, as much on +possessions of the devil as on those of a good spirit: there vice, +folly, etc.; here humility, devotion, etc. + +Where could one look without meeting victims of self-renunciation? There +sits a girl opposite me, who perhaps has been making bloody sacrifices +to her soul for ten years already. Over the buxom form droops a +deathly-tired head, and pale cheeks betray the slow bleeding away of her +youth. Poor child, how often the passions may have beaten at your heart, +and the rich powers of youth have demanded their right! When your head +rolled in the soft pillow, how awakening nature quivered through your +limbs, the blood swelled your veins, and fiery fancies poured the gleam +of voluptuousness into your eyes! Then appeared the ghost of the soul +and its eternal bliss. You were terrified, your hands folded themselves, +your tormented eye turned its look upward, you--prayed. The storms of +nature were hushed, a calm glided over the ocean of your appetites. +Slowly the weary eyelids sank over the life extinguished under them, the +tension crept out unperceived from the rounded limbs, the boisterous +waves dried up in the heart, the folded hands themselves rested a +powerless weight on the unresisting bosom, one last faint "Oh dear!" +moaned itself away, and--_the soul was at rest_. You fell asleep, to +awake in the morning to a new combat and a new--prayer. Now the habit of +renunciation cools the heat of your desire, and the roses of your youth +are growing pale in the--chlorosis of your heavenliness. The soul is +saved, the body may perish! O Lais, O Ninon, how well you did to scorn +this pale virtue! One free _grisette_ against a thousand virgins grown +gray in virtue! + +The fixed idea may also be perceived as "maxim," "principle," +"standpoint," and the like. Archimedes, to move the earth, asked for a +standpoint _outside_ it. Men sought continually for this standpoint, and +every one seized upon it as well as he was able. This foreign standpoint +is the _world of mind_, of ideas, thoughts, concepts, essences, etc.; it +is _heaven_. Heaven is the "standpoint" from which the earth is moved, +earthly doings surveyed and--despised. To assure to themselves heaven, +to occupy the heavenly standpoint firmly and for ever,--how painfully +and tirelessly humanity struggled for this! + +Christianity has aimed to deliver us from a life determined by nature, +from the appetites as actuating us, and so has meant that man should not +let himself be determined by his appetites. This does not involve the +idea that _he_ was not to _have_ appetites, but that the appetites were +not to have him, that they were not to become _fixed_, uncontrollable, +indissoluble. Now, could not what Christianity (religion) contrived +against the appetites be applied by us to its own precept that _mind_ +(thought, conceptions, ideas, faith, etc.) must determine us; could we +not ask that neither should mind, or the conception, the idea, be +allowed to determine us, to become _fixed_ and inviolable or "sacred"? +Then it would end in the _dissolution of mind_, the dissolution of all +thoughts, of all conceptions. As we there had to say "We are indeed to +have appetites, but the appetites are not to have us," so we should now +say "We are indeed to have _mind_, but mind is not to have us." If the +latter seems lacking in sense, think _e. g._ of the fact that with so +many a man a thought becomes a "maxim," whereby he himself is made +prisoner to it, so that it is not he that has the maxim, but rather it +that has him. And with the maxim he has a "permanent standpoint" again. +The doctrines of the catechism become our _principles_ before we find it +out, and no longer brook rejection. Their thought, or--mind, has the +sole power, and no protest of the "flesh" is further listened to. +Nevertheless it is only through the "flesh" that I can break the tyranny +of mind; for it is only when a man hears his flesh along with the rest +of him that he hears himself wholly, and it is only when he wholly hears +_himself_ that he is a hearing or rational[42] being. The Christian does +not hear the agony of his enthralled nature, but lives in "humility"; +therefore he does not grumble at the wrong which befalls his _person_; +he thinks himself satisfied with the "freedom of the spirit." But, if +the flesh once takes the floor, and its tone is "passionate," +"indecorous," "not well-disposed," "spiteful," etc. (as it cannot be +otherwise), then he thinks he hears voices of devils, voices _against +the spirit_ (for decorum, passionlessness, kindly disposition, and the +like, is--spirit), and is justly zealous against them. He could not be a +Christian if he were willing to endure them. He listens only to +morality, and slaps immorality in the mouth; he listens only to +legality, and gags the lawless word. The _spirit_ of morality and +legality holds him a prisoner; a rigid, unbending _master_. They call +that the "mastery of the spirit,"--it is at the same time the +_standpoint_ of the spirit. + +And now whom do the ordinary liberal gentlemen mean to make free? Whose +freedom is it that they cry out and thirst for? The _spirit's_! That of +the spirit of morality, legality, piety, the fear of God, etc. That is +what the anti-liberal gentlemen also want, and the whole contention +between the two turns on a matter of advantage,--whether the latter are +to be the only speakers, or the former are to receive a "share in the +enjoyment of the same advantage." The _spirit_ remains the absolute +_lord_ for both, and their only quarrel is over who shall occupy the +hierarchical throne that pertains to the "Vicegerent of the Lord." The +best of it is that one can calmly look upon the stir with the certainty +that the wild beasts of history will tear each other to pieces just like +those of nature; their putrefying corpses fertilize the ground for--our +crops. + +We shall come back later to many another wheel in the head,--for +instance, those of vocation, truthfulness, love, etc. + + * * * * * + +When one's own is contrasted with what is _imparted_ to him, there is no +use in objecting that we cannot have anything isolated, but receive +everything as a part of the universal order, and therefore through the +impression of what is around us, and that consequently we have it as +something "imparted"; for there is a great difference between the +feelings and thoughts which are _aroused_ in me by other things and +those which are _given_ to me. God, immortality, freedom, humanity, +etc., are drilled into us from childhood as thoughts and feelings which +move our inner being more or less strongly, either ruling us without our +knowing it, or sometimes in richer natures manifesting themselves in +systems and works of art; but are always not aroused, but imparted, +feelings, because we must believe in them and cling to them. That an +Absolute existed, and that it must be taken in, felt, and thought by us, +was settled as a faith in the minds of those who spent all the strength +of their mind on recognizing it and setting it forth. The _feeling_ for +the Absolute exists there as an imparted one, and thenceforth results +only in the most manifold revelations of its own self. So in Klopstock +the religious feeling was an imparted one, which in the "Messiad" simply +found artistic expression. If, on the other hand, the religion with +which he was confronted had been for him only an incitation to feeling +and thought, and if he had known how to take an attitude completely _his +own_ toward it, then there would have resulted, instead of religious +inspiration, a dissolution and consumption of the religion itself. +Instead of that, he only continued in mature years his childish feelings +received in childhood, and squandered the powers of his manhood in +decking out his childish trifles. + +The difference is, then, whether feelings are imparted to me or only +aroused. Those which are aroused are my own, egoistic, because they are +not _as feelings_ drilled into me, dictated to me, and pressed upon me; +but those which are imparted to me I receive, with open arms,--I cherish +them in me as a heritage, cultivate them, and am _possessed_ by them. +Who is there that has never, more or less consciously, noticed that our +whole education is calculated to produce _feelings_ in us, _i. e._ +impart them to us, instead of leaving their production to ourselves +however they may turn out? If we hear thee name of God, we are to feel +veneration; if we hear that of the prince's majesty, it is to be +received with reverence, deference, submission; if we hear that of +morality, we are to think that we hear something inviolable; if we hear +of the Evil One or evil ones, we are to shudder; etc. The intention is +directed to these _feelings_, and he who _e. g._ should hear with +pleasure the deeds of the "bad" would have to be "taught what's what" +with the rod of discipline. Thus stuffed with _imparted feelings_, we +appear before the bar of majority and are "pronounced of age." Our +equipment consists of "elevating feelings, lofty thoughts, inspiring +maxims, eternal principles," etc. The young are of age when they twitter +like the old; they are driven through school to learn the old song, and, +when they have this by heart, they are declared of age. + +We _must not_ feel at every thing and every name that comes before us +what we could and would like to feel thereat; _e. g._, at the name of +God we must think of nothing laughable, feel nothing disrespectful, it +being prescribed and imparted to us what and how we are to feel and +think at mention of that name. + +That is the meaning of the _care of souls_,--that my soul or my mind be +tuned as others think right, not as I myself would like it. How much +trouble does it not cost one, finally to secure to oneself a feeling of +one's _own_ at the mention of at least this or that name, and to laugh +in the face of many who expect from us a holy face and a composed +expression at their speeches. What is imparted is _alien_ to us, is not +our own, and therefore is "sacred," and it is hard work to lay aside the +"sacred dread of it." + +To-day one again hears "seriousness" praised, "seriousness in the +presence of highly important subjects and discussions," "German +seriousness," etc. This sort of seriousness proclaims clearly how old +and grave lunacy and possession have already become. For there is +nothing more serious than a lunatic when he comes to the central point +of his lunacy; then his great earnestness incapacitates him for taking a +joke. (See madhouses.) + + +Sec. 3.--THE HIERARCHY + +The historical reflections on our Mongolism which I propose to insert +episodically at this place are not given with the claim of thoroughness, +or even of approved soundness, but solely because it seems to me that +they may contribute toward making the rest clear. + +The history of the world, whose shaping properly belongs altogether to +the Caucasian race, seems till now to have run through two Caucasian +ages, in the first of which we had to work out and work off our innate +_negroidity_; this was followed in the second by _Mongoloidity_ +(Chineseness), which must likewise be terribly made an end of. +Negroidity represents _antiquity_, the time of dependence on _things_ +(on cocks' eating, birds' flight, on sneezing, on thunder and lightning, +on the rustling of sacred trees, etc.); Mongoloidity the time of +dependence on thoughts, the _Christian_ time. Reserved for the future +are the words "I am owner of the world of things, and I am owner of the +world of mind." + +In the negroid age fall the campaigns of Sesostris and the importance of +Egypt and of northern Africa in general. To the Mongoloid age belong the +invasions of the Huns and Mongols, up to the Russians. + +The value of _me_ cannot possibly be rated high so long as the hard +diamond of the _not-me_ bears so enormous a price as was the case both +with God and with the world. The not-me is still too stony and +indomitable to be consumed and absorbed by me; rather, men only creep +about with extraordinary _bustle_ on this _immovable_ entity, _i. e._ on +this _substance_, like parasitic animals on a body from whose juices +they draw nourishment, yet without consuming it. It is the bustle of +vermin, the assiduity of Mongolians. Among the Chinese, we know, +everything remains as it used to be, and nothing "essential" or +"substantial" suffers a change; all the more actively do they work away +_at_ that which remains, which bears the name of the "old," "ancestors," +etc. + +Accordingly, in our Mongolian age all change has been only reformatory +or ameliorative, not destructive or consuming and annihilating. The +substance, the object, _remains_. All our assiduity was only the +activity of ants and the hopping of fleas, jugglers' tricks on the +immovable tight-rope of the objective, _corvee_-service under the +lordship of the unchangeable or "eternal." The Chinese are doubtless the +most _positive_ nation, because totally buried in precepts; but neither +has the Christian age come out from the _positive, i. e._ from "limited +freedom," freedom "within certain limits." In the most advanced stage of +civilization this activity earns the name of _scientific_ activity, of +working on a motionless presupposition, a _hypothesis_ that is not to be +upset. + +In its first and most unintelligible form morality shows itself as +_habit_. To act according to the habit and usage (_morem_) of one's +country--is to be moral there. Therefore pure moral action, clear, +unadulterated morality, is most straightforwardly practised in China; +they keep to the old habit and usage, and hate each innovation as a +crime worthy of death. For _innovation_ is the deadly enemy of _habit_, +of the _old_, of _permanence_. In fact, too, it admits of no doubt that +through habit man secures himself against the obtrusiveness of things, +of the world, and founds a world of his own in which alone he is and +feels at home, _i. e._ builds himself a _heaven_. Why, heaven has no +other meaning than that it is man's proper home, in which nothing alien +regulates and rules him any longer, no influence of the earthly any +longer makes him himself alien; in short, in which the dross of the +earthly is thrown off, and the combat against the world has found an +end,--in which, therefore, nothing is any longer _denied_ him. Heaven is +the end of _abnegation_, it is _free enjoyment_. There man no longer +denies himself anything, because nothing is any longer alien and hostile +to him. But now habit is a "second nature," which detaches and frees man +from his first and original natural condition, in securing him against +every casualty of it. The fully elaborated habit of the Chinese has +provided for all emergencies, and everything is "looked out for"; +whatever may come, the Chinaman always knows how he has to behave, and +does not need to decide first according to the circumstances; no +unforeseen case throws him down from the heaven of his rest. The morally +habituated and inured Chinaman is not surprised and taken off his guard; +he behaves with equanimity (i. e. with equal spirit or temper) toward +everything, because his temper, protected by the precaution of his +traditional usage, does not lose its balance. Hence, on the ladder of +culture or civilization humanity mounts the first round through habit; +and, as it conceives that, in climbing to culture, it is at the same +time climbing to heaven, the realm of culture or second nature, it +really mounts the first round of the--ladder to heaven. + +If Mongoldom has settled the existence of spiritual beings,--if it has +created a world of spirits, a heaven,--the Caucasians have wrestled for +thousands of years with these spiritual beings, to get to the bottom of +them. What were they doing, then, but building on Mongolian ground? They +have not built on sand, but in the air; they have wrestled with +Mongolism, stormed the Mongolian heaven, Tien. When will they at last +annihilate this heaven? When will they at last become _really +Caucasians_, and find themselves? When will the "immortality of the +soul," which in these latter days thought it was giving itself still +more security if it presented itself as "immortality of mind," at last +change to the _mortality of mind_? + +It was when, in the industrious struggle of the Mongolian race, men had +_built a heaven_, that those of the Caucasian race, since in their +Mongolian complexion they have to do with heaven, took upon themselves +the opposite task, the task of storming that heaven of custom, +_heaven-storming_[43] activity. To dig under all human ordinance, in +order to set up a new and--better one on the cleared site, to wreck all +customs in order to put new and better customs in their place, +etc.,--their act is limited to this. But is it thus already purely and +really what it aspires to be, and does it reach its final aim? No, in +this creation of a "_better_" it is tainted with Mongolism. It storms +heaven only to make a heaven again, it overthrows an old power only to +legitimate a new power, it only--_improves_. Nevertheless the point +aimed at, often as it may vanish from the eyes at every new attempt, is +the real, complete downfall of heaven, customs, etc.,--in short, of man +secured only against the world, of the _isolation_ or _inwardness_ of +man. Through the heaven of culture man seeks to isolate himself from the +world, to break its hostile power. But this isolation of heaven must +likewise be broken, and the true end of heaven-storming is the--downfall +of heaven, the annihilation of heaven. _Improving_ and _reforming_ is +the Mongolism of the Caucasian, because thereby he is always setting up +again what already existed,--to wit, a _precept_, a generality, a +heaven. He harbors the most irreconcilable enmity to heaven, and yet +builds new heavens daily; piling heaven on heaven, he only crushes one +by another; the Jews' heaven destroys the Greeks', the Christians' the +Jews', the Protestants' the Catholics', etc.--If the _heaven-storming_ +men of Caucasian blood throw on their Mongolian skin, they will bury the +emotional man under the ruins of the monstrous world of emotion, the +isolated man under his isolated world, the paradisiacal man under his +heaven. And heaven is the _realm of spirits_, the realm _of freedom of +the spirit_. + +The realm of heaven, the realm of spirits and ghosts, has found its +right standing in the speculative philosophy. Here it was stated as the +realm of thoughts, concepts, and ideas; heaven is peopled with thoughts +and ideas, and this "realm of spirits" is then the true reality. + +To want to win freedom for the _spirit_ is Mongolism; freedom of the +spirit is Mongolian freedom, freedom of feeling, moral freedom, etc. + +We may find the word "morality" taken as synonymous with spontaneity, +self-determination. But that is not involved in it; rather has the +Caucasian shown himself spontaneous only _in spite of_ his Mongolian +morality. The Mongolian heaven, or morals,[44] remained the strong +castle, and only by storming incessantly at this castle did the +Caucasian show himself moral; if he had not had to do with morals at +all any longer, if he had not had therein his indomitable, continual +enemy, the relation to morals would cease, and consequently morality +would cease. That his spontaneity is still a moral spontaneity, +therefore, is just the Mongoloidity of it,--is a sign that in it he has +not arrived at himself. "Moral spontaneity" corresponds entirely with +"religious and orthodox philosophy," "constitutional monarchy," "the +Christian State," "freedom within certain limits," "the limited freedom +of the press," or, in a figure, to the hero fettered to a sick-bed. + +Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its spooks till he possesses +the strength to lay aside not only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, +but also the belief in the spirit. + +He who believes in a spook no more assumes the "introduction of a higher +world" than he who believes in the spirit, and both seek behind the +sensual world a supersensual one; in short, they produce and believe +_another_ world, and this other _world, the product of their mind_, is a +spiritual world; for their senses grasp and know nothing of another, a +non-sensual world, only their spirit lives in it. Going on from this +Mongolian belief in the _existence of spiritual beings_ to the point +that the _proper being_ of man too is his _spirit_, and that all care +must be directed to this alone, to the "welfare of his soul," is not +hard. Influence on the spirit, so-called "moral influence," is hereby +assured. + +Hence it is manifest that Mongolism represents utter absence of any +rights of the sensuous, represents non-sensuousness and unnature, and +that sin and the consciousness of sin was our Mongolian torment that +lasted thousands of years. + +But who, then, will dissolve the spirit into its _nothing_? He who by +means of the spirit set forth nature as the _null_, finite, transitory, +he alone can bring down the spirit too to like nullity. _I_ can; each +one among you can, who does his will as an absolute I; in a word, the +_egoist_ can. + + * * * * * + +Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; +they occupy a _powerless_ and _humble_ attitude toward it. And yet no +thing is sacred of itself, but by my _declaring it sacred_, by my +declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by +my--conscience. + +Sacred is everything which for the egoist is to be unapproachable, not +to be touched, outside his _power_,--_i. e._ above _him_; sacred, in a +word, is every _matter of conscience_, for "this is a matter of +conscience to me" means simply "I hold this sacred." + +For little children, just as for animals, nothing sacred exists, +because, in order to make room for this conception, one must already +have progressed so far in understanding that he can make distinctions +like "good and bad," "warranted and unwarranted," etc.; only at such a +level of reflection or intelligence--the proper standpoint of +religion--can unnatural (_i. e._ brought into existence by thinking) +_reverence_, "sacred dread," step into the place of natural _fear_. To +this sacred dread belongs holding something outside oneself for +mightier, greater, better warranted, better, etc.; _i. e._ the attitude +in which one acknowledges the might of something alien--not merely +feels it, then, but expressly acknowledges it, _i. e._ admits it, +yields, surrenders, lets himself be tied (devotion, humility, servility, +submission, etc.) Here walks the whole ghostly troop of the "Christian +virtues." + +Everything toward which you cherish any respect or reverence deserves +the name of sacred; you yourselves, too, say that you would feel a +"_sacred dread_" of laying hands on it. And you give this tinge even to +the unholy (gallows, crime, etc.) You have a horror of touching it. +There lies in it something uncanny, _i. e._ unfamiliar or _not your +own_. + +"If something or other did not rank as sacred in a man's mind, why, then +all bars would be let down to self-will, to unlimited subjectivity!" +Fear makes the beginning, and one can make himself fearful to the +coarsest man; already, therefore, a barrier against his insolence. But +in fear there always remains the attempt to liberate oneself from what +is feared, by guile, deception, tricks, etc. In reverence,[45] on the +contrary, it is quite otherwise. Here something is not only feared,[46] +but also honored[47]: what is feared has become an inward power which I +can no longer get clear of; I honor it, am captivated by it and devoted +to it, belong to it; by the honor which I pay it I am completely in its +power, and do not even attempt liberation any longer. Now I am attached +to it with all the strength of faith; I _believe_. I and what I fear are +one; "not I live, but the respected lives in me!" Because the spirit, +the infinite, does not allow of coming to any end, therefore it is +stationary; it fears _dying_, it cannot let go its dear Jesus, the +greatness of finiteness is no longer recognized by its blinded eye; the +object of fear, now raised to veneration, may no longer be handled; +reverence is made eternal, the respected is deified. The man is now no +longer employed in creating, but in _learning_ (knowing, investigating, +etc.), _i. e._ occupied with a fixed _object_, losing himself in its +depths, without return to himself. The relation to this object is that +of knowing, fathoming, basing, etc., not that of _dissolution_ +(abrogation, etc.) "Man is to be religious," that is settled; therefore +people busy themselves only with the question how this is to be +attained, what is the right meaning of religiousness, etc. Quite +otherwise when one makes the axiom itself doubtful and calls it in +question, even though it should go to smash. Morality too is such sacred +conception; one must be moral, and must look only for the right "how," +the right way to be so. One dares not go at morality itself with the +question whether it is not itself an illusion; it remains exalted above +all doubt, unchangeable. And so we go on with the sacred, grade after +grade, from the "holy" to the "holy of holies." + + * * * * * + +Men are sometimes divided into two classes, _cultured_ and _uncultured_. +The former, so far as they were worthy of their name, occupied +themselves with thoughts, with mind, and (because in the time since +Christ, of which the very principle is thought, they were the ruling +ones) demanded a servile respect for the thoughts recognized by them. +State, emperor, church, God, morality, order, etc., are such thoughts +or spirits, that exist only for the mind. A merely living being, an +animal, cares as little for them as a child. But the uncultured are +really nothing but children, and he who attends only to the necessities +of his life is indifferent to those spirits; but, because he is also +weak before them, he succumbs to their power, and is ruled by--thoughts. +This is the meaning of hierarchy. + +_Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind!_ + +We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who are supported by +thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred. + +But the two are always clashing, now one and now the other giving the +offence; and this clash occurs, not only in the collision of two men, +but in one and the same man. For no cultured man is so cultured as not +to find enjoyment in things too, and so be uncultured; and no uncultured +man is totally without thoughts. In Hegel it comes to light at last what +a longing for _things_ even the most cultured man has, and what a horror +of every "hollow theory" he harbors. With him reality, the world of +things, is altogether to correspond to the thought, and no concept to be +without reality. This caused Hegel's system to be known as the most +objective, as if in it thought and thing celebrated their union. But +this was simply the extremest case of violence on the part of thought, +its highest pitch of despotism and sole dominion, the triumph of mind, +and with it the triumph of _philosophy_. Philosophy cannot hereafter +achieve anything higher, for its highest is the _omnipotence of mind_, +the almightiness of mind.[48] + +Spiritual men have _taken into their head_ something that is to be +realized. They have _concepts_ of love, goodness, and the like, which +they would like to see _realized_; therefore they want to set up a +kingdom of love on earth, in which no one any longer acts from +selfishness, but each one "from love." Love is to _rule_. What they have +taken into their head, what shall we call it but--_fixed idea_? Why, +"their head is _haunted_." The most oppressive spook is _Man_. Think of +the proverb, "The road to ruin is paved with good intentions." The +intention to realize humanity altogether in oneself, to become +altogether man, is of such ruinous kind; here belong the intentions to +become good, noble, loving, etc. + +In the sixth part of the "_Denkwuerdigkeiten_" p. 7, Bruno Bauer says: +"That middle class, which was to receive such a terrible importance for +modern history is capable of no self-sacrificing action, no enthusiasm +for an idea, no exaltation; it devotes itself to nothing but the +interests of its mediocrity; _i. e._ it remains always limited to +itself, and conquers at last only through its bulk, with which it has +succeeded in tiring out the efforts of passion, enthusiasm, +consistency,--through its surface, into which it absorbs a part of the +new ideas." And (p. 6) "It has turned the revolutionary ideas, for which +not it, but unselfish or impassioned men sacrificed themselves, solely +to its own profit, has turned spirit into money.--That is, to be sure, +after it had taken away from those ideas their point, their consistency, +their destructive seriousness, fanatical against all egoism." These +people, then, are not self-sacrificing, not enthusiastic, not +idealistic, not consistent, not zealots; they are egoists in the usual +sense, selfish people, looking out for their advantage, sober, +calculating, etc. + +Who, then, is "self-sacrificing"?[49] In the full sense, surely, he who +ventures everything else for _one thing_, one object, one will, one +passion, etc. Is not the lover self-sacrificing who forsakes father and +mother, endures all dangers and privations, to reach his goal? Or the +ambitious man, who offers up all his desires, wishes, and satisfactions +to the single passion, or the avaricious man who denies himself +everything to gather treasures, or the pleasure-seeker, etc.? He is +ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices. + +And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not selfish, not +egoists? As they have only one ruling passion, so they provide for only +one satisfaction, but for this the more strenuously; they are wholly +absorbed in it. Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a +one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism; it is possessedness. + +"Why, those are petty passions, by which, on the contrary, man must not +let himself be enthralled. Man must make sacrifices for a great idea, a +great cause!" A "great idea," a "good cause," is, it may be, the honor +of God, for which innumerable people have met death; Christianity, which +has found its willing martyrs; the Holy Catholic Church, which has +greedily demanded sacrifices of heretics; liberty and equality, which +were waited on by bloody guillotines. + +He who lives for a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a +lofty calling, may not let any worldly lusts, any self-seeking interest, +spring up in him. Here we have the concept of _clericalism_, or, as it +may also be called in its pedagogic activity, school-masterliness; for +the idealists play the schoolmaster over us. The clergyman is especially +called to live to the idea and to work for the idea, the truly good +cause. Therefore the people feel how little it befits him to show +worldly haughtiness, to desire good living, to join in such pleasures as +dancing and gaming,--in short, to have any other than a "sacred +interest." Hence too, doubtless, is derived the scanty salary of +teachers, who are to feel themselves repaid by the sacredness of their +calling alone, and to "renounce" other enjoyments. + +Even a directory of the sacred ideas, one or more of which man is to +look upon as his calling, is not lacking. Family, fatherland, science, +etc., may find in man a servant faithful to his calling. + +Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world which has not yet +learned to do without clericalism,--that to live and work _for an idea_ +is man's calling, and according to the faithfulness of its fulfilment +his _human_ worth is measured. + +This is the dominion of the idea; in other words, it is clericalism. +_E. g._, Robespierre, St. Just, etc., were priests through and through, +inspired by the idea, enthusiasts, consistent instruments of this idea, +idealistic men. So St. Just exclaims in a speech, "There is something +terrible in the sacred love of country; it is so exclusive that it +sacrifices everything to the public interest without mercy, without +fear, without human consideration. It hurls Manlius down the precipice; +it sacrifices its private inclinations; it leads Regulus to Carthage, +throws a Roman into the chasm, and sets Marat, as a victim of his +devotion, in the Pantheon." + +Now, over against these representatives of ideal or sacred interests +stands a world of innumerable "personal" profane interests. No idea, no +system, no sacred cause is so great as never to be outrivaled and +modified by these personal interests. Even if they are silent +momentarily, and in times of rage and fanaticism, yet they soon come +uppermost again through "the sound sense of the people." Those ideas do +not completely conquer till they are no longer hostile to personal +interests, _i. e._ till they satisfy egoism. + +The man who is just now crying herrings in front of my window has a +personal interest in good sales, and, if his wife or anybody else wishes +him the like, this remains a personal interest all the same. If, on the +other hand, a thief deprived him of his basket, then there would at once +arise an interest of many, of the whole city, of the whole country, or, +in a word, of all who abhor theft; an interest in which the +herring-seller's person would become indifferent, and in its place the +category of the "robbed man" would come into the foreground. But even +here all might yet resolve itself into a personal interest, each of the +partakers reflecting that he must concur in the punishment of the thief +because unpunished stealing might otherwise become general and cause him +too to lose his own. Such a calculation, however, can hardly be assumed +on the part of many, and we shall rather hear the cry that the thief is +a "criminal." Here we have before us a judgment, the thief's action +receiving its expression in the concept "crime." Now the matter stands +thus: even if a crime did not cause the slightest damage either to me or +to any of those in whom I take an interest, I should nevertheless +_denounce_ it. Why? Because I am enthusiastic for _morality_, filled +with the _idea_ of morality; what is hostile to it I everywhere assail. +Because in his mind theft ranks as abominable without any question, +Proudhon, _e. g._, thinks that with the sentence "Property is theft" he +has at once put a brand on property. In the sense of the priestly, theft +is always a _crime_, or at least a misdeed. + +Here the personal interest is at an end. This particular person who has +stolen the basket is perfectly indifferent to my person; it is only the +thief, this concept of which that person presents a specimen, that I +take an interest in. The thief and man are in my mind irreconcilable +opposites; for one is not truly man when one is a thief; one degrades +_Man_ or "humanity" in himself when one steals. Dropping out of personal +concern, one gets into _philanthropism_, friendliness to man, which is +usually misunderstood as if it was a love to men, to each individual, +while it is nothing but a love of Man, the unreal concept, the spook. +It is not [Greek: tous anthropous], men, but [Greek: ton anthropon], +Man, that the philanthropist carries in his heart. To be sure, he cares +for each individual, but only because he wants to see his beloved ideal +realized everywhere. + +So there is nothing said here of care for me, you, us; that would be +personal interest, and belongs under the head of "worldly love." +Philanthropism is a heavenly, spiritual, a--priestly love. _Man_ must be +restored in us, even if thereby we poor devils should come to grief. It +is the same priestly principle as that famous _fiat justitia, pereat +mundus_; man and justice are ideas, ghosts, for love of which everything +is sacrificed; therefore the priestly spirits are the "self-sacrificing" +ones. + +He who is infatuated with _Man_ leaves persons out of account so far as +that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. +_Man_, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook. + +Now, things as different as possible can belong to _Man_ and be so +regarded. If one finds Man's chief requirement in piety, there arises +religious clericalism; if one sees it in morality, then moral +clericalism raises its head. On this account the priestly spirits of our +day want to make a "religion" of everything, a "religion of liberty," +"religion of equality," etc., and for them every idea becomes a "sacred +cause," _e. g._ even citizenship, politics, publicity, freedom of the +press, trial by jury, etc. + +Now, what does "unselfishness" mean in this sense? Having only an ideal +interest, before which no respect of persons avails! + +The stiff head of the worldly man opposes this, but for centuries has +always been worsted at least so far as to have to bend the unruly neck +and "honor the higher power"; clericalism pressed it down. When the +worldly egoist had shaken off a higher power (_e. g._ the Old Testament +law, the Roman pope, etc.), then at once a seven times higher one was +over him again, _e. g._ faith in the place of the law, the +transformation of all laymen into divines in place of the limited body +of clergy, etc. His experience was like that of the possessed man into +whom seven devils passed when he thought he had freed himself from one. + +In the passage quoted above all ideality, etc., is denied to the middle +class. It certainly schemed against the ideal consistency with which +Robespierre wanted to carry out the principle. The instinct of its +interest told it that this consistency harmonized too little with what +its mind was set on, and that it would be acting against itself if it +were willing to further the enthusiasm for principle. Was it to behave +so unselfishly as to abandon all its aims in order to bring a harsh +theory to its triumph? It suits the priests admirably, to be sure, when +people listen to their summons, "Cast away everything and follow me," or +"Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have +treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." Some decided idealists obey +this call; but most act like Ananias and Sapphira, maintaining a +behavior half clerical or religious and half worldly, serving God and +Mammon. + +I do not blame the middle class for not wanting to let its aims be +frustrated by Robespierre, _i. e._ for inquiring of its egoism how far +it might give the revolutionary idea a chance. But one might blame (if +blame were in place here anyhow) those who let their own interests be +frustrated by the interests of the middle class. However, will not they +likewise sooner or later learn to understand what is to their advantage? +August Becker says:[50] "To win the producers (proletarians) a negation +of the traditional conception of right is by no means enough. Folks +unfortunately care little for the theoretical victory of the idea. One +must demonstrate to them _ad oculos_ how this victory can be practically +utilized in life." And (p. 32): "You must get hold of folks by their +real interests if you want to work upon them." Immediately after this he +shows how a fine looseness of morals is already spreading among our +peasants, because they prefer to follow their real interests rather than +the commands of morality. + +Because the revolutionary priests or schoolmasters served _Man_, they +cut off the heads of _men_. The revolutionary laymen, those outside the +sacred circle, did not feel any greater horror of cutting off heads, but +were less anxious about the rights of Man than about their own. + +How comes it, though, that the egoism of those who affirm personal +interest, and always inquire of it, is nevertheless forever succumbing +to a priestly or schoolmasterly (_i. e._ an ideal) interest? Their +person seems to them too small, too insignificant,--and is so in +fact,--to lay claim to everything and be able to put itself completely +in force. There is a sure sign of this in their dividing themselves into +two persons, an eternal and a temporal, and always caring either only +for the one or only for the other, on Sunday for the eternal, on the +work-day for the temporal, in prayer for the former, in work for the +latter. They have the priest in themselves, therefore they do not get +rid of him, but hear themselves lectured inwardly every Sunday. + +How men have struggled and calculated to get at a solution regarding +these dualistic essences! Idea followed upon idea, principle upon +principle, system upon system, and none knew how to keep down +permanently the contradiction of the "worldly" man, the so-called +"egoist." Does not this prove that all those ideas were too feeble to +take up my whole will into themselves and satisfy it? They were and +remained hostile to me, even if the hostility lay concealed for a +considerable time. Will it be the same with _self-ownership_? Is it too +only an attempt at mediation? Whatever principle I turned to, it might +be to that of _reason_, I always had to turn away from it again. Or can +I always be rational, arrange my life according to reason in everything? +I can, no doubt, _strive_ after rationality, I can _love_ it, just as I +can also love God and every other idea. I can be a philosopher, a lover +of wisdom, as I love God. But what I love, what I strive for, is only in +my idea, my conception, my thoughts; it is in my heart, my head, it is +in me like the heart, but it is not I, I am not it. + +To the activity of priestly minds belongs especially what one often +hears called "_moral influence_." + +Moral influence takes its start where _humiliation_ begins; yes, it is +nothing else than this humiliation itself, the breaking and bending of +the temper[51] down to _humility_.[52] If I call to some one to run away +when a rock is to be blasted, I exert no moral influence by this demand; +if I say to a child "You will go hungry if you will not eat what is put +on the table," this is not moral influence. But, if I say to it "You +will pray, honor your parents, respect the crucifix, speak the truth, +etc., for this belongs to man and is man's calling," or even "this is +God's will," then moral influence is complete; then a man is to bend +before the _calling_ of man, be tractable, become humble, give up his +will for an alien one which is set up as rule and law; he is to _abase_ +himself before something _higher_: self-abasement. "He that abaseth +himself shall be exalted." Yes, yes, children must early be _made_ to +practise piety, godliness, and propriety; a person of good breeding is +one into whom "good maxims" have been _instilled_ and _impressed_, +poured in through a funnel, thrashed in and preached in. + +If one shrugs his shoulders at this, at once the good wring their hands +despairingly, and cry: "But, for heaven's sake, if one is to give +children no good instruction, why, then they will run straight into the +jaws of sin, and become good-for-nothing hoodlums!" Gently, you prophets +of evil. Good-for-nothing in your sense they certainly will become; but +your sense happens to be a very good-for-nothing sense. The impudent +lads will no longer let anything be whined and chattered into them by +you, and will have no sympathy for all the follies for which you have +been raving and driveling since the memory of man began; they will +abolish the law of inheritance, _i. e._ they will not be willing to +_inherit_ your stupidities as you inherited them from your fathers; they +destroy _inherited sin_.[53] If you command them, "Bend before the Most +High," they will answer: "If he wants to bend us, let him come himself +and do it; we, at least, will not bend of our own accord." And, if you +threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, they will take it like +being threatened with the bogie-man. If you are no longer successful in +making them afraid of ghosts, then the dominion of ghosts is at an end, +and nurses' tales find no--_faith_. + +And is it not precisely the liberals again that press for good education +and improvement of the educational system? For how could their +liberalism, their "liberty within the bounds of law," come about without +discipline? Even if they do not exactly educate to the fear of God, yet +they demand the _fear of Man_ all the more strictly, and awaken +"enthusiasm for the truly human calling" by discipline. + + * * * * * + +A long time passed away, in which people were satisfied with the fancy +that they had the _truth_, without thinking seriously whether perhaps +they themselves must be true to possess the truth. This time was the +_Middle Ages_. With the common consciousness--_i. e._ the consciousness +which deals with things, that consciousness which has receptivity only +for things, or for what is sensuous and sense-moving--they thought to +grasp what did not deal with things and was not perceptible by the +senses. As one does indeed also exert his eye to see the remote, or +laboriously exercise his hand till its fingers have become dexterous +enough to press the keys correctly, so they chastened themselves in the +most manifold ways, in order to become capable of receiving the +supersensual wholly into themselves. But what they chastened was, after +all, only the sensual man, the common consciousness, so-called finite or +objective thought. Yet as this thought, this understanding, which Luther +decries under the name of reason, is incapable of comprehending the +divine, its chastening contributed just as much to the understanding of +the truth as if one exercised the feet year in and year out in dancing, +and hoped that in this way they would finally learn to play the flute. +Luther, with whom the so-called Middle Ages end, was the first who +understood that the man himself must become other than he was if he +wanted to comprehend truth,--must become as true as truth itself. Only +he who already has truth in his belief, only he who _believes_ in it, +can become a partaker of it; _i. e._, only the believer finds it +accessible and sounds its depths. Only that organ of man which is able +to blow can attain the further capacity of flute-playing, and only that +man can become a partaker of truth who has the right organ for it. He +who is capable of thinking only what is sensuous, objective, pertaining +to things, figures to himself in truth only what pertains to things. But +truth is spirit, stuff altogether inappreciable by the senses, and +therefore only for the "higher consciousness," not for that which is +"earthly-minded." + +With Luther, accordingly, dawns the perception that truth, because it is +a _thought_, is only for the _thinking_ man. And this is to say that man +must henceforth take an utterly different standpoint, viz., the +heavenly, believing, scientific standpoint, or that of _thought_ in +relation to its object, the--_thought_,--that of mind in relation to +mind. Consequently: only the like apprehend the like. "You are like the +spirit that you understand."[54] + +Because Protestantism broke the mediaeval hierarchy, the opinion could +take root that hierarchy in general had been shattered by it, and it +could be wholly overlooked that it was precisely a "reformation," and so +a reinvigoration of the antiquated hierarchy. That mediaeval hierarchy +had been only a weakly one, as it had to let all possible barbarism of +unsanctified things run on uncoerced beside it, and it was the +Reformation that first steeled the power of hierarchy. If Bruno Bauer +thinks:[55] "As the Reformation was mainly the abstract rending of the +religious principle from art, State, and science, and so its liberation +from those powers with which it had joined itself in the antiquity of +the church and in the hierarchy of the Middle Ages, so too the +theological and ecclesiastical movements which proceeded from the +Reformation are only the consistent carrying out of this abstraction of +the religious principle from the other powers of humanity," I regard +precisely the opposite as correct, and think that the dominion of +spirits, or freedom of mind (which comes to the same thing), was never +before so all-embracing and all-powerful, because the present one, +instead of rending the religious principle from art, State, and science, +lifted the latter altogether out of secularity into the "realm of +spirit" and made them religious. + +Luther and Descartes have been appropriately put side by side in their +"He who believes is a God" and "I think, therefore I am" (_cogito, ergo +sum_). Man's heaven is _thought_,--mind. Everything can be wrested from +him, except thought, except faith. _Particular_ faith, like faith in +Zeus, Astarte, Jehovah, Allah, etc., may be destroyed, but faith itself +is indestructible. In thought is freedom. What I need and what I hunger +for is no longer granted to me by any _grace_, by the Virgin Mary, by +intercession of the saints, or by the binding and loosing church, but I +procure it for myself. In short, my being (the _sum_) is a living in the +heaven of thought, of mind, a _cogitare_. But I myself am nothing else +than mind, thinking mind (according to Descartes), believing mind +(according to Luther). My body I am not; my flesh may _suffer_ from +appetites or pains. I am not my flesh, but _I_ am _mind_, only mind. + +This thought runs through the history of the Reformation till to-day. + +Only by the more modern philosophy since Descartes has a serious effort +been made to bring Christianity to complete efficacy, by exalting the +"scientific consciousness" to be the only true and valid one. Hence it +begins with absolute _doubt_, _dubitare_, with grinding common +consciousness to atoms, with turning away from everything that "mind," +"thought," does not legitimate. To it _Nature_ counts for nothing; the +opinion of men, their "human precepts," for nothing: and it does not +rest till it has brought reason into everything, and can say "The real +is the rational, and only the rational is the real." Thus it has at last +brought mind, reason, to victory; and everything is mind, because +everything is rational, because all nature, as well as even the +perversest opinions of men, contains reason; for "all must serve for the +best," _i. e._ lead to the victory of reason. + +Descartes's _dubitare_ contains the decided statement that only +_cogitare_, thought, mind--_is_. A complete break with "common" +consciousness, which ascribes reality to _irrational_ things! Only the +rational is, only mind is! This is the principle of modern philosophy, +the genuine Christian principle. Descartes in his own time discriminated +the body sharply from the mind, and "the spirit 'tis that builds itself +the body," says Goethe. + +But this philosophy itself, Christian philosophy, still does not get rid +of the rational, and therefore inveighs against the "merely subjective," +against "fancies, fortuities, arbitrariness," etc. What it wants is that +the _divine_ should become visible in everything, and all consciousness +become a knowing of the divine, and man behold God everywhere; but God +never is, without the _devil_. + +For this very reason the name of philosopher is not to be given to him +who has indeed open eyes for the things of the world, a clear and +undazzled gaze, a correct judgment about the world, but who sees in the +world just the world, in objects only objects, and, in short, everything +prosaically as it is; but he alone is a philosopher who sees, and points +out or demonstrates, heaven in the world, the supernal in the earthly, +the--_divine_ in the mundane. The former may be ever so wise, there is +no getting away from this: + + What wise men see not by their wisdom's art + Is practised simply by a childlike heart.[56] + +It takes this childlike heart, this eye for the divine, to make a +philosopher. The first-named man has only a "common" consciousness, but +he who knows the divine, and knows how to tell it, has a "scientific" +one. On this ground Bacon was turned out of the realm of philosophers. +And certainly what is called English philosophy seems to have got no +further than to the discoveries of so-called "clear heads", such as +Bacon and Hume. The English did not know how to exalt the simplicity of +the childlike heart to philosophic significance, did not know how to +make--philosophers out of childlike hearts. This is as much as to say, +their philosophy was not able to become _theological_ or _theology_, and +yet it is only as theology that it can really _live itself out_, +complete itself. The field of its battle to the death is in theology. +Bacon did not trouble himself about theological questions and cardinal +points. + +Cognition has its object in life. German thought seeks, more than that +of others, to reach the beginnings and fountain-heads of life, and sees +no life till it sees it in cognition itself. Descartes's _cogito, ergo +sum_ has the meaning "One lives only when one thinks." Thinking life is +called "intellectual life"! Only mind lives, its life is the true life. +Then, just so in nature only the "eternal laws," the mind or the reason +of nature, are its true life. In man, as in nature, only the thought +lives; everything else is dead! To this abstraction, to the life of +generalities or of that which is _lifeless_, the history of mind had to +come. God, who is spirit, alone lives. Nothing lives but the ghost. + +How can one try to assert of modern philosophy or modern times that they +have reached freedom, since they have not freed us from the power of +objectivity? Or am I perhaps free from a despot when I am not afraid of +the personal potentate, to be sure, but of every infraction of the +loving reverence which I fancy I owe him? The case is the same with +modern times. They only changed the _existing_ objects, the real ruler, +etc., into _conceived_ objects, _i. e._ into _ideas_, before which the +old respect not only was not lost, but increased in intensity. Even if +people snapped their fingers at God and the devil in their former crass +reality, people devoted only the greater attention to their ideas. "They +are rid of the Evil One; evil is left."[57] The decision having once +been made not to let oneself be imposed on any longer by the extant and +palpable, little scruple was felt about revolting against the existing +State or overturning the existing laws; but to sin against the _idea_ of +the State, not to submit to the _idea_ of law, who would have dared +that? So one remained a "citizen" and a "law-respecting," loyal man; +yes, one seemed to himself to be only so much more law-respecting, the +more rationalistically one abrogated the former defective law in order +to do homage to the "spirit of the law." In all this the objects had +only suffered a change of form; they had remained in their prepollence +and pre-eminence; in short, one was still involved in obedience and +possessedness, lived in _refection_, and had an object on which one +reflected, which one respected, and before which one felt reverence and +fear. One had done nothing but transform the _things_ into _conceptions_ +of the things, into thoughts and ideas, whereby one's _dependence_ +became all the more intimate and indissoluble. So, _e. g._, it is not +hard to emancipate oneself from the commands of parents, or to set aside +the admonitions of uncle and aunt, the entreaties of brother and sister; +but the renounced obedience easily gets into one's conscience, and the +less one does give way to the individual demands, because he +rationalistically, by his own reason, recognizes them to be +unreasonable, so much the more conscientiously does he hold fast to +filial piety and family love, and so much the harder is it for him to +forgive himself a trespass against the _conception_ which he has formed +of family love and of filial duty. Released from dependence as regards +the existing family, one falls into the more binding dependence on the +idea of the family; one is ruled by the spirit of the family. The +family consisting of John, Maggie, etc., whose dominion has become +powerless, is only internalized, being left as "family" in general, to +which one just applies the old saying, "We must obey God rather than +man," whose significance here is this: "I cannot, to be sure, +accommodate myself to your senseless requirements, but, as my 'family,' +you still remain the object of my love and care"; for "the family" is a +sacred idea, which the individual must never offend against.--And this +family internalized and desensualized into a thought, a conception, now +ranks as the "sacred," whose despotism is tenfold more grievous because +it makes a racket in my conscience. This despotism is broken only when +the conception, family, also becomes a _nothing_ to me. The Christian +dicta, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"[58] "I am come to stir up a +man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,"[59] and +others, are accompanied by something that refers us to the heavenly or +true family, and mean no more than the State's demand, in case of a +collision between it and the family, that we obey _its_ commands. + +The case of morality is like that of the family. Many a man renounces +morals, but with great difficulty the conception, "morality." Morality +is the "idea" of morals, their intellectual power, their power over the +conscience; on the other hand, morals are too material to rule the mind, +and do not fetter an "intellectual" man, a so-called independent, a +"freethinker." + +The Protestant may put it as he will, the "holy[60] Scripture," the +"Word of God," still remains sacred[61] for him. He for whom this is no +longer "holy" has ceased to--be a Protestant. But herewith what is +"ordained" in it, the public authorities appointed by God, etc., also +remain sacred for him. For him these things remain indissoluble, +unapproachable, "raised above all doubt"; and, as _doubt_, which in +practice becomes a _buffeting_, is what is most man's own, these things +remain "raised" above himself. He who cannot _get away_ from them +will--_believe_; for to believe in them is to be _bound_ to them. +Through the fact that in Protestantism the _faith_ became a more inward +faith, the _servitude_ has also become a more inward servitude; one has +taken those sanctities up into himself, entwined them with all his +thoughts and endeavors, made them a "_matter of conscience_," +constructed out of them a "_sacred duty_" for himself. Therefore what +the Protestant's conscience cannot get away from is sacred to him, and +_conscientiousness_ most clearly designates his character. + +Protestantism has actually put a man in the position of a country +governed by secret police. The spy and eavesdropper, "conscience," +watches over every motion of the mind, and all thought and action is for +it a "matter of conscience," _i. e._ police business. This tearing apart +of man into "natural impulse" and "conscience" (inner populace and inner +police) is what constitutes the Protestant. The reason of the Bible (in +place of the Catholic "reason of the church") ranks as sacred, and this +feeling and consciousness that the word of the Bible is sacred is +called--conscience. With this, then, sacredness is "laid upon one's +conscience." If one does not free himself from conscience, the +consciousness of the sacred, he may act unconscientiously indeed, but +never consciencelessly. + +The Catholic finds himself satisfied when he fulfils the _command_; the +Protestant acts according to his "best judgment and conscience." For the +Catholic is only a _layman_; the Protestant is himself a +_clergyman_.[62] Just this is the progress of the Reformation period +beyond the Middle Ages, and at the same time its curse,--that _the +spiritual_ became complete. + +What else was the Jesuit moral philosophy than a continuation of the +sale of indulgences? only that the man who was relieved of his burden of +sin now gained also an _insight_ into the remission of sins, and +convinced himself how really his sin was taken from him, since in this +or that particular case (Casuists) it was so clearly no sin at all that +he committed. The sale of indulgences had made all sins and +transgressions permissible, and silenced every movement of conscience. +All sensuality might hold sway, if it was only purchased from the +church. This favoring of sensuality was continued by the Jesuits, while +the strictly moral, dark, fanatical, repentant, contrite, praying +Protestants (as the true completers of Christianity, to be sure) +acknowledged only the intellectual and spiritual man. Catholicism, +especially the Jesuits, gave aid to egoism in this way, found +involuntary and unconscious adherents within Protestantism itself, and +saved us from the subversion and extinction of _sensuality_. +Nevertheless the Protestant spirit spreads its dominion farther and +farther; and, as, beside it the "divine," the Jesuit spirit represents +only the "diabolic" which is inseparable from everything divine, the +latter can never assert itself alone, but must look on and see how in +France, _e. g._, the Philistinism of Protestantism wins at last, and +mind is on top. + +Protestantism is usually complimented on having brought the mundane into +repute again, _e. g._ marriage, the State, etc. But the mundane itself +as mundane, the secular, is even more indifferent to it than to +Catholicism, which lets the profane world stand, yes, and relishes its +pleasures, while the rational, consistent Protestant sets about +annihilating the mundane altogether, and that simply by _hallowing_ it. +So marriage has been deprived of its naturalness by becoming sacred, not +in the sense of the Catholic sacrament, where it only receives its +consecration from the church and so is unholy at bottom, but in the +sense of being something sacred in itself to begin with, a sacred +relation. Just so the State, etc. Formerly the pope gave consecration +and his blessing to it and its princes; now the State is intrinsically +sacred, majesty is sacred without needing the priest's blessing. The +order of nature, or natural law, was altogether hallowed as "God's +ordinance." Hence it is said _e. g._ in the Augsburg Confession, Art. +11: "So now we reasonably abide by the saying, as the jurisconsults +have wisely and rightly said: that man and woman should be with each +other is a natural law. Now, if it is a _natural law, then it is God's +ordinance_, therefore implanted in nature, and therefore a _divine_ law +also." And is it anything more than Protestantism brought up to date, +when Feuerbach pronounces moral relations sacred, not as God's ordinance +indeed, but, instead, for the sake of the _spirit_ that dwells in them? +"But marriage--as a free alliance of love, of course--is _sacred of +itself_, by the _nature_ of the union that is formed here. _That_ +marriage alone is a _religious_ one that is a _true_ one, that +corresponds to the _essence_ of marriage, love. And so it is with all +moral relations. They are _ethical_, are cultivated with a moral mind, +only where they rank as _religious of themselves_. True friendship is +only where the _limits_ of friendship are preserved with religious +conscientiousness, with the same conscientiousness with which the +believer guards the dignity of his God. Friendship is and must be +_sacred_ for you, and property, and marriage, and the good of every man, +but sacred _in and of itself_."[63] + +That is a very essential consideration. In Catholicism the mundane can +indeed be _consecrated_ or _hallowed_, but it is not sacred without this +priestly blessing; in Protestantism, on the contrary, mundane relations +are sacred _of themselves_, sacred by their mere existence. The Jesuit +maxim, "the end hallows the means," corresponds precisely to the +consecration by which sanctity is bestowed. No means are holy or unholy +in themselves, but their relation to the church, their use for the +church, hallows the means. Regicide was named as such; if it was +committed for the church's behoof, it could be certain of being hallowed +by the church, even if the hallowing was not openly pronounced. To the +Protestant, majesty ranks as sacred; to the Catholic only that majesty +which is consecrated by the pontiff can rank as such; and it does rank +as such to him only because the pope, even though it be without a +special act, confers this sacredness on it once for all. If he retracted +his consecration, the king would be left only a "man of the world or +layman," an "unconsecrated" man, to the Catholic. + +If the Protestant seeks to discover a sacredness in the sensual itself, +that he may then be linked only to what is holy, the Catholic strives +rather to banish the sensual from himself into a separate domain, where +it, like the rest of nature, keeps its value for itself. The Catholic +church eliminated mundane marriage from its consecrated order, and +withdrew those who were its own from the mundane family; the Protestant +church declared marriage and family ties to be holy, and therefore not +unsuitable for its clergymen. + +A Jesuit may, as a good Catholic, hallow everything. He needs only +_e. g._ to say to himself: "I as a priest am necessary to the church, +but serve it more zealously when I appease my desires properly; +consequently I will seduce this girl, have my enemy there poisoned, +etc.; my end is holy because it is a priest's, consequently it hallows +the means." For in the end it is still done for the benefit of the +church. Why should the Catholic priest shrink from handing Emperor +Henry VII the poisoned wafer for the--church's welfare? + +The genuinely--churchly Protestants inveighed against every "innocent +pleasure," because only the sacred, the spiritual, could be innocent. +What they could not point out the holy spirit in, the Protestants had to +reject,--dancing, the theatre, ostentation (_e. g._ in the church), and +the like. + +Compared with this puritanical Calvinism, Lutheranism is again more on +the religious, _i. e._ spiritual, track,--is more radical. For the +former excludes at once a great number of things as sensual and worldly, +and _purifies_ the church; Lutheranism, on the contrary, tries to bring +_spirit_ into all things as far as possible, to recognize the holy +spirit as an essence in everything, and so to _hallow_ everything +worldly. ("No one can forbid a kiss in honor." The spirit of honor +hallows it.) Hence it was that the Lutheran Hegel (he declares himself +such in some passage or other: he "wants to remain a Lutheran") was +completely successful in carrying the idea through everything. In +everything there is reason, _i. e._ holy spirit, or "the real is +rational." For the real is in fact everything, as in each thing, _e. g._ +each lie, the truth can be detected: there is no absolute lie, no +absolute evil, and the like. + +Great "works of mind" were created almost solely by Protestants, as they +alone were the true disciples and consummators of _mind_. + + * * * * * + +How little man is able to control! He must let the sun run its course, +the sea roll its waves, the mountains rise to heaven. Thus he stands +powerless before the _uncontrollable_. Can he keep off the impression +that he is _helpless_ against this gigantic world? It is a fixed _law_ +to which he must submit, it determines his _fate_. Now, what did +pre-Christian humanity work toward? Toward getting rid of the irruptions +of the destinies, not letting oneself be vexed by them. The Stoics +attained this in apathy, declaring the attacks of nature _indifferent_, +and not letting themselves be affected by them. Horace utters the famous +_Nil admirari_, by which he likewise announces the indifference of the +_other_, the world; it is not to influence us, not to arouse our +astonishment. And that _impavidum ferient ruinae_ expresses the very +same _imperturbability_ as Ps. 46.3: "We do not fear, though the earth +should perish." In all this there is room made for the Christian +proposition that the world is empty, for the Christian _contempt of the +world_. + +The _imperturbable_ spirit of "the wise man," with which the old world +worked to prepare its end, now underwent an _inner perturbation_ against +which no ataraxy, no Stoic courage, was able to protect it. The spirit, +secured against all influence of the world, insensible to its shocks and +_exalted_ above its attacks, admiring nothing, not to be disconcerted by +any downfall of the world,--foamed over irrepressibly again, because +gases (spirits) were evolved in its own interior, and, after the +_mechanical shock_ that comes from without had become ineffective, +_chemical tensions_, that agitate within, began their wonderful play. + +In fact, ancient history ends with this,--that _I_ have struggled till I +won my ownership of the world. "All things have been delivered, to me +by my Father" (Matt. 11.27). It has ceased to be overpowering, +unapproachable, sacred, divine, etc., for me; it is _undeified_, and now +I treat it so entirely as I please that, if I cared, I could exert on it +all miracle-working power, _i. e._ power of mind,--remove mountains, +command mulberry trees to tear themselves up and transplant themselves +into the sea (Luke 17.6), and do everything possible, _i. e. thinkable_: +"All things are possible to him who believes."[64] I am the _lord_ of +the world, mine is the "_glory_."[65] The world has become _prosaic_, +for the divine has vanished from it: it is my property, which I dispose +of as I (to wit, the mind) choose. + +When I had exalted myself to be the _owner of the world_, egoism had won +its first complete victory, had vanquished the world, had become +_worldless_, and put the acquisitions of a long age under lock and key. + +The first property, the first "glory," has been acquired! + +But the lord of the world is not yet lord of his thoughts, his feelings, +his will: he is not lord and owner of the spirit, for the spirit is +still sacred, the "Holy Spirit," and the "worldless" Christian is not +able to become "godless." If the ancient struggle was a struggle against +the _world_, the mediaeval (Christian) struggle is a struggle against +_self_, the mind; the former against the outer world, the latter against +the inner world. The mediaeval man is the man "whose gaze is turned +inward," the thinking, meditative man. + +All wisdom of the ancients is _the science of the world_, all wisdom of +the moderns is _the science of God_. + +The heathen (Jews included) got through with the _world_; but now the +thing was to get through with self, the _spirit_, too; _i. e._ to become +spiritless or godless. + +For almost two thousand years we have been working at subjecting the +Holy Spirit to ourselves, and little by little we have torn off and +trodden under foot many bits of sacredness; but the gigantic opponent is +constantly rising anew under a changed form and name. The spirit has not +yet lost its divinity, its holiness, its sacredness. To be sure, it has +long ceased to flutter over our heads as a dove; to be sure, it no +longer gladdens its saints alone, but lets itself be caught by the laity +too, etc.; but as spirit of humanity, as spirit of Man, it remains still +an _alien_ spirit to me or you, still far from becoming our unrestricted +_property_, which we dispose of at our pleasure. However, one thing +certainly happened, and visibly guided the progress of post-Christian +history: this one thing was the endeavor to make the Holy Spirit _more +human_, and bring it nearer to men, or men to it. Through this it came +about that at last it could be conceived as the "spirit of humanity," +and, under different expressions like "idea of humanity, mankind, +humaneness, general philanthropy," etc., appeared more attractive, more +familiar, and more accessible. + +Would not one think that now everybody could possess the Holy Spirit, +take up into himself the idea of humanity, bring mankind to form and +existence in himself? + +No, the spirit is not stripped of its holiness and robbed of its +unapproachableness, is not accessible to us, not our property; for the +spirit of humanity is not _my_ spirit. My _ideal_ it may be, and as a +thought I call it mine; the _thought_ of humanity is my property, and I +prove this sufficiently by propounding it quite according to my views, +and shaping it to-day so, to-morrow otherwise; we represent it to +ourselves in the most manifold ways. But it is at the same time an +entail, which I cannot alienate nor get rid of. + +Among many transformations, the Holy Spirit became in time the +"_absolute idea_," which again in manifold refractions split into the +different ideas of philanthropy, reasonableness, civic virtue, etc. + +But can I call the idea my property if it is the idea of humanity, and +can I consider the Spirit as vanquished if I am to serve it, "sacrifice +myself" to it? Antiquity, at its close, had gained its ownership of the +world only when it had broken the world's overpoweringness and +"divinity," recognized the world's powerlessness and "vanity." + +The case with regard to the _spirit_ corresponds. When I have degraded +it to a _spook_ and its control over me to a _cranky notion_, then it is +to be looked upon as having lost its sacredness, its holiness, its +divinity, and then I _use_ it, as one uses _nature_ at pleasure without +scruple. + +The "nature of the case," the "concept of the relationship," is to guide +me in dealing with the case or in contracting the relation. As if a +concept of the case existed on its own account, and was not rather the +concept that one forms of the case! As if a relation which we enter into +was not, by the uniqueness of those who enter into it, itself unique! As +if it depended on how others stamp it! But, as people separated the +"essence of Man" from the real man, and judged the latter by the former, +so they also separate his action from him, and appraise it by "human +value." _Concepts_ are to decide everywhere, concepts to regulate life, +concepts to _rule_. This is the religious world, to which Hegel gave a +systematic expression, bringing method into the nonsense and completing +the conceptual precepts into a rounded, firmly-based dogmatic. +Everything is sung according to concepts, and the real man, _i. e._ I, +am compelled to live according to these conceptual laws. Can there be a +more grievous dominion of law, and did not Christianity confess at the +very beginning that it meant only to draw Judaism's dominion of law +tighter? ("Not a letter of the law shall be lost!") + +Liberalism simply brought other concepts on the carpet, _viz._, human +instead of divine, political instead of ecclesiastical, "scientific" +instead of doctrinal, or, more generally, real concepts and eternal laws +instead of "crude dogmas" and precepts. + +Now nothing but _mind_ rules in the world. An innumerable multitude of +concepts buzz about in people's heads, and what are those doing who +endeavor to get further? They are negating these concepts to put new +ones in their place! They are saying: "You form a false concept of +right, of the State, of man, of liberty, of truth, of marriage, etc.; +the concept of right, etc., is rather that one which we now set up." +Thus the confusion of concepts moves forward. + +The history of the world has dealt cruelly with us, and the spirit has +obtained an almighty power. You must have regard for my miserable shoes, +which could protect your naked foot, my salt, by which your potatoes +would become palatable, and my state-carriage, whose possession would +relieve you of all need at once; you must not reach out after them. Man +is to recognize the _independence_ of all these and innumerable other +things: they are to rank in his mind as something that cannot be seized +or approached, are to be kept away from him. He must have regard for it, +respect it; woe to him if he stretches out his fingers desirously; we +call that "being light-fingered!" + +How beggarly little is left us, yes, how really nothing! Everything has +been removed, we must not venture on anything unless it is given us; we +continue to live only by the _grace_ of the giver. You must not pick up +a pin, unless indeed you have got _leave_ to do so. And got it from +whom? From _respect_! Only when this lets you have it as property, only +when you can _respect_ it as property, only then may you take it. And +again, you are not to conceive a thought, speak a syllable, commit an +action, that should have their warrant in you alone, instead of +receiving it from morality or reason or humanity. Happy _unconstraint_ +of the desirous man, how mercilessly people have tried to slay you on +the altar of _constraint_! + +But around the altar rise the arches of a church, and its walls keep +moving further and further out. What they enclose is--_sacred_. You can +no longer get to it, no longer touch it. Shrieking with the hunger that +devours you, you wander round about these walls in search of the little +that is profane, and the circles of your course keep growing more and +more extended. Soon that church will embrace the whole world, and you be +driven out to the extreme edge; another step, and the _world of the +sacred_ has conquered: you sink into the abyss. Therefore take courage +while it is yet time, wander about no longer in the profane where now it +is dry feeding, dare the leap, and rush in through the gates into the +sanctuary itself. If you _devour the sacred_, you have made it your +_own_! Digest the sacramental wafer, and you are rid of it! + + +III.--THE FREE + +The ancients and the moderns having been presented above in two +divisions, it may seem as if the free were here to be described in a +third division as independent and distinct. This is not so. The free are +only the more modern and most modern among the "moderns," and are put in +a separate division merely because they belong to the present, and what +is present, above all, claims our attention here. I give "the free" only +as a translation of "the liberals," but must with regard to the concept +of freedom (as in general with regard to so many other things whose +anticipatory introduction cannot be avoided) refer to what comes later. + + +Sec. 1.--POLITICAL LIBERALISM + +After the chalice of so-called absolute monarchy had been drained down +to the dregs, in the eighteenth century people became aware that their +drink did not taste human--too clearly aware not to begin to crave a +different cup. Since our fathers were "human beings" after all, they at +last desired also to be regarded as such. + +Whoever sees in us something else than human beings, in him we likewise +will not see a human being, but an inhuman being, and will meet him as +an unhuman being; on the other hand, whoever recognizes us as human +beings and protects us against the danger of being treated inhumanly, +him we will honor as our true protector and guardian. + +Let us then hold together and protect the man in each other; then we +find the necessary protection in our _holding together_, and in +ourselves, _those who hold together_, a fellowship of those who know +their human dignity and hold together as "human beings." Our holding +together is the _State_; we who hold together are the _nation_. + +In our being together as nation or State we are only human beings. How +we deport ourselves in other respects as individuals, and what +self-seeking impulses we may there succumb to, belongs solely to our +_private_ life; our _public_ or State life is a _purely human_ one. +Everything un-human or "egoistic" that clings to us is degraded to a +"private matter" and we distinguish the State definitely from "civil +society," which is the sphere of "egoism's" activity. + +The true man is the nation, but the individual is always an egoist. +Therefore strip off your individuality or isolation wherein dwells +discord and egoistic inequality, and consecrate yourselves wholly to the +true man,--the nation or the State. Then you will rank as men, and have +all that is man's; the State, the true man, will entitle you to what +belongs to it, and give you the "rights of man"; Man gives you his +rights! + +So runs the speech of the commonalty. + +The commonalty[66] is nothing else than the thought that the State is +all in all, the true man, and that the individual's human value consists +in being a citizen of the State. In being a good citizen he seeks his +highest honor; beyond that he knows nothing higher than at most the +antiquated--"being a good Christian." + +The commonalty developed itself in the struggle against the privileged +classes, by whom it was cavalierly treated as "third estate" and +confounded with the _canaille_. In other words, up to this time the +State had recognized caste.[67] The son of a nobleman was selected for +posts to which the most distinguished commoners aspired in vain, etc. +The civic feeling revolted against this. No more distinction, no giving +preference to persons, no difference of classes! Let all be alike! No +_separate interest_ is to be pursued longer, but the _general interest +of all_. The State is to be a fellowship of free and equal men, and +every one is to devote himself to the "welfare of the whole," to be +dissolved in the _State_, to make the State his end and ideal. State! +State! so ran the general cry, and thenceforth people sought for the +"right form of State," the best constitution, and so the State in its +best conception. The thought of the State passed into all hearts and +awakened enthusiasm; to serve it, this mundane god, became the new +divine service and worship. The properly _political_ epoch had dawned. +To serve the State or the nation became the highest ideal, the State's +interest the highest interest, State service (for which one does not by +any means need to be an official) the highest honor. + +So then the separate interests and personalities had been scared away, +and sacrifice for the State had become the shibboleth. One must give up +_himself_, and live only for the State. One must act "disinterestedly," +not want to benefit _himself_, but the State. Hereby the latter has +become the true person, before whom the individual personality vanishes; +not I live, but it lives in me. Therefore, in comparison with the former +self-seeking, this was unselfishness and _impersonality_ itself. Before +this god--State--all egoism vanished, and before it all were equal; they +were without any other distinction--men, nothing but men. + +The Revolution took fire from the inflammable material of _property_. +The government needed money. Now it must prove the proposition that it +is _absolute_, and so master of all property, sole proprietor; it must +_take_ to itself _its_ money, which was only in the possession of the +subjects, not their property. Instead of this, it calls States-general, +to have this money _granted_ to it. The shrinking from strictly logical +action destroyed the illusion of an _absolute_ government; he who must +have something "granted" to him cannot be regarded as absolute. The +subjects recognized that they were _real proprietors_, and that it was +_their_ money that was demanded. Those who had hitherto been subjects +attained the consciousness that they were _proprietors_. Bailly depicts +this in a few words: "If you cannot dispose of my property without my +assent, how much less can you of my person, of all that concerns my +mental and social position? All this is my property, like the piece of +land that I till; and I have a right, an interest, to make the laws +myself." Bailly's words sound, certainly, as if _every one_ was a +proprietor now. However, instead of the government, instead of the +prince, the--_nation_ now became proprietor and master. From this time +on the ideal is spoken of as--"popular liberty"--"a free people," etc. + +As early as July 8, 1789, the declaration of the bishop of Autun and +Barrere took away all semblance of the importance of each and every +_individual_ in legislation; it showed the complete _powerlessness_ of +the constituents; the _majority of the representatives_ has become +_master_. When on July 9 the plan for division of the work on the +constitution is proposed, Mirabeau remarks that "the government has only +power, no rights; only in the _people_ is the source of all _right_ to +be found." On July 16 this same Mirabeau exclaims: "Is not the people +the source of all _power_?" The source, therefore, of all right, and the +source of all--power![68] By the way, here the substance of "right" +becomes visible; it is--_power_. "He who has power has right." + +The commonalty is the heir of the privileged classes. In fact, the +rights of the barons, which were taken from them as "usurpations," only +passed over to the commonalty. For the commonalty was now called the +"nation." "Into the hands of the nation" all _prerogatives_ were given +back. Thereby they ceased to be "prerogatives":[69] they became +"rights."[70] From this time on the nation demands tithes, compulsory +services; it has inherited the lord's court, the rights of vert and +venison, the--serfs. The night of August 4 was the death-night of +privileges or "prerogatives" (cities, communes, boards of magistrates, +were also privileged, furnished with prerogatives and seigniorial +rights), and ended with the new morning of "right," the "rights of the +State," the "rights of the nation." + +The monarch in the person of the "royal master" had been a paltry +monarch compared with this new monarch, the "sovereign nation." This +_monarchy_ was a thousand times severer, stricter, and more consistent. +Against the new monarch there was no longer any right, any privilege at +all; how limited the "absolute king" of the _ancien regime_ looks in +comparison! The Revolution effected the transformation of _limited +monarchy_ into _absolute monarchy_. From this time on every right that +is not conferred by this monarch is an "assumption"; but every +prerogative that he bestows, a "right." The times demanded _absolute +royalty_, absolute monarchy; therefore down fell that so-called absolute +royalty which had so little understood how to become absolute that it +remained limited by a thousand little lords. + +What was longed for and striven for through thousands of years,--to wit, +to find that absolute lord beside whom no other lords and lordlings any +longer exist to clip his power,--the _bourgeoisie_ has brought to pass. +It has revealed the Lord who alone confers "rightful titles," and +without whose warrant _nothing is justified_. "So now we know that an +idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other god save the +one."[71] + +Against _right_ one can no longer, as against a right, come forward with +the assertion that it is "a wrong." One can say now only that it is a +piece of nonsense, an illusion. If one called it wrong, one would have +to set up _another right_ in opposition to it, and measure it by this. +If, on the contrary, one rejects right as such, right in and of itself, +altogether, then one also rejects the concept of wrong, and dissolves +the whole concept of right (to which the concept of wrong belongs). + +What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all enjoy "equality of +political rights"? Only this,--that the State has no regard for my +person, that to it I, like every other, am only a man, without having +another significance that commands its deference. I do not command its +deference as an aristocrat, a nobleman's son, or even as heir of an +official whose office belongs to me by inheritance (as in the Middle +Ages countships, etc., and later under absolute royalty, where +hereditary offices occur). Now the State has an innumerable multitude of +rights to give away, _e. g._ the right to lead a battalion, a company, +etc.; the right to lecture at a university; and so forth; it has them to +give away because they are its own, _i. e._ State rights or "political" +rights. Withal, it makes no difference to it to whom it gives them, if +the receiver only fulfils the duties that spring from the delegated +rights. To it we are all of us all right, and--_equal_,--one worth no +more and no less than another. It is indifferent to me who receives the +command of the army, says the sovereign State, provided the grantee +understands the matter properly. "Equality of political rights" has, +consequently, the meaning that every one may acquire every right that +the State has to give away, if only he fulfils the conditions annexed +thereto,--conditions which are to be sought only in the nature of the +particular right, not in a predilection for the person (_persona +grata_): the nature of the right to become an officer brings with it, +_e. g._, the necessity that one possess sound limbs and a suitable +measure of knowledge, but it does not have noble birth as a condition; +if, on the other hand, even the most deserving commoner could not reach +that station, then an inequality of political rights would exist. Among +the States of to-day one has carried out that maxim of equality more, +another less. + +The monarchy of estates (so I will call absolute royalty, the time of +the kings _before_ the revolution) kept the individual in dependence on +a lot of little monarchies. These were fellowships (societies) like the +guilds, the nobility, the priesthood, the burgher class, cities, +communes, etc. Everywhere the individual must regard himself _first_ as +a member of this little society, and yield unconditional obedience to +its spirit, the _esprit de corps_, as his monarch. More, _e. g._, than +the individual nobleman himself must his family, the honor of his race, +be to him. Only by means of his _corporation_, his estate, did the +individual have relation to the greater corporation, the State,--as in +Catholicism the individual deals with God only through the priest. To +this the third estate now, showing courage to negate _itself as an +estate_, made an end. It decided no longer to be and be called an +_estate_ beside other estates, but to glorify and generalize itself into +the "_nation_." Hereby it created a much more complete and absolute +monarchy, and the entire previously ruling _principle of estates_, the +principle of little monarchies inside the great, went down. Therefore it +cannot be said that the Revolution was a revolution against the first +two privileged estates: it was against the little monarchies of estates +in general. But, if the estates and their despotism were broken (the +king too, we know, was only a king of estates, not a citizen-king), the +individuals freed from the inequality of estate were left. Were they now +really to be without estate and "out of gear," no longer bound by any +estate, without a general bond of union? No, for the third estate had +declared itself the nation only in order not to remain an estate +_beside_ other estates, but to become the _sole estate_. This sole +_estate_ is the nation, the "_State_." What had the individual now +become? A political Protestant, for he had come into immediate +connection with his God, the State. He was no longer, as an aristocrat, +in the monarchy of the nobility; as a mechanic, in the monarchy of the +guild; but he, like all, recognized and acknowledged only--_one lord_, +the State, as whose servants they all received the equal title of honor, +"citizen." + +The _bourgeoisie_ is the _aristocracy of_ DESERT; its motto, "Let desert +wear its crowns." It fought against the "lazy" aristocracy, for +according to it (the industrious aristocracy acquired by industry and +desert) it is not the "born" who is free, nor yet I who am free either, +but the "deserving" man, the honest _servant_ (of his king; of the +State; of the people in constitutional States). Through _service_ one +acquires freedom, _i. e._ acquires "deserts," even if one +served--mammon. One must deserve well of the State, _i. e._ of the +principle of the State, of its moral spirit. He who _serves_ this spirit +of the State is a good citizen, let him live to whatever honest branch +of industry he will. In its eyes innovators practise a "breadless art." +Only the "shopkeeper" is "practical," and the spirit that chases after +public offices is as much the shopkeeping spirit as is that which tries +in trade to feather its nest or otherwise to become useful to itself and +anybody else. + +But, if the deserving count as the free (for what does the comfortable +commoner, the faithful office-holder, lack of that freedom that his +heart desires?), then the "servants" are the--free. The obedient +servant is the free man! What glaring nonsense! Yet this is the sense of +the _bourgeoisie_, and its poet, Goethe, as well as its philosopher, +Hegel, succeeded in glorifying the dependence of the subject on the +object, obedience to the objective world, etc. He who only serves the +cause, "devotes himself entirely to it," has the true freedom. And among +thinkers the cause was--_reason_, that which, like State and Church, +gives--general laws, and puts the individual man in irons by the +_thought of humanity_. It determines what is "true," according to which +one must then act. No more "rational" people than the honest servants, +who primarily are called good citizens as servants of the State. + +Be rich as Croesus or poor as Job--the State of the commonalty leaves +that to your option; but only have a "good disposition." This it demands +of you, and counts it its most urgent task to establish this in all. +Therefore it will keep you from "evil promptings," holding the +"ill-disposed" in check and silencing their inflammatory discourses +under censors' cancelling-marks or press-penalties and behind dungeon +walls, and will, on the other hand, appoint people of "good disposition" +as censors, and in every way have a _moral influence_ exerted on you by +"well-disposed and well-meaning" people. If it has made you deaf to evil +promptings, then it opens your ears again all the more diligently to +good _promptings_. + +With the time of the _bourgeoisie_ begins that of _liberalism_. People +want to see what is "rational," "suited to the times," etc., established +everywhere. The following definition of liberalism, which is supposed +to be pronounced in its honor, characterizes it completely: "Liberalism +is nothing else than the knowledge of reason, applied to our existing +relations."[72] Its aim is a "rational order," a "moral behavior," a +"limited freedom," not anarchy, lawlessness, selfhood. But, if reason +rules, then the _person_ succumbs. Art has for a long time not only +acknowledged the ugly, but considered the ugly as necessary to its +existence, and taken it up into itself; it needs the villain, etc. In +the religious domain, too, the extremest liberals go so far that they +want to see the most religious man regarded as a citizen--_i. e._ the +religious villain; they want to see no more of trials for heresy. But +against the "rational law" no one is to rebel, otherwise he is +threatened with the severest--penalty. What is wanted is not free +movement and realization of the person or of me, but of reason,--_i. e._ +a dominion of reason, a dominion. The liberals are _zealots_, not +exactly for the faith, for God, etc., but certainly for _reason_, their +master. They brook no lack of breeding, and therefore no +self-development and self-determination; they _play the guardian_ as +effectively as the most absolute rulers. + +"Political liberty," what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the +individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the +contrary, the individual's _subjection_ in the State and to the State's +laws. But why "liberty"? Because one is no longer separated from the +State by intermediaries, but stands in direct and immediate relation to +it; because one is a--citizen, not the subject of another, not even of +the king as a person, but only in his quality as "supreme head of the +State." Political liberty, this fundamental doctrine of liberalism, is +nothing but a second phase of--Protestantism, and runs quite parallel +with "religious liberty."[73] Or would it perhaps be right to understand +by the latter an independence of religion? Anything but that. +Independence of intermediaries is all that it is intended to express, +independence of mediating priests, the abolition of the "laity," and so +direct and immediate relation to religion or to God. Only on the +supposition that one has religion can he enjoy freedom of religion; +freedom of religion does not mean being without religion, but inwardness +of faith, unmediated intercourse with God. To him who is "religiously +free" religion is an affair of the heart, it is to him his _own affair_, +it is to him a "sacredly serious matter." So, too, to the "politically +free" man the State is a sacredly serious matter; it is his heart's +affair, his chief affair, his own affair. + +Political liberty means that the _polis_, the State, is free; freedom of +religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that +conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from +religion, from conscience, or that I am _rid_ of them. It does not mean +_my_ liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; +it means that one of my _despots_, like State, religion, conscience, is +free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave, and +_their_ liberty is _my_ slavery. That in this they necessarily follow +the principle, "the end hallows the means," is self-evident. If the +welfare of the State is the end, war is a hallowed means; if justice is +the State's end, homicide is a hallowed means, and is called by its +sacred name, "execution," etc.; the sacred State _hallows_ everything +that is serviceable to it. + +"Individual liberty," over which civic liberalism keeps jealous watch, +does not by any means signify a completely free self-determination, by +which actions become altogether _mine_, but only independence of +_persons_. Individually free is he who is responsible to no _man_. Taken +in this sense,--and we are not allowed to understand it otherwise,--not +only the ruler is individually free, _i. e., irresponsible toward men_ +("before God," we know, he acknowledges himself responsible), but all +who are "responsible only to the law." This kind of liberty was won +through the revolutionary movement of the century,--to wit, independence +of arbitrary will, of _tel est notre plaisir_. Hence the constitutional +prince must himself be stripped of all personality, deprived of all +individual decision, that he may not as a person, as an _individual +man_, violate the "individual liberty" of others. The _personal will of +the ruler_ has disappeared in the constitutional prince; it is with a +right feeling, therefore, that absolute princes resist this. +Nevertheless these very ones profess to be in the best sense "Christian +princes." For this, however, they must become a _purely spiritual_ +power, as the Christian is subject only to _spirit_ ("God is spirit"). +The purely spiritual power is consistently represented only by the +constitutional prince, he who, without any personal significance, stands +there spiritualized to the degree that he can rank as a sheer, uncanny +"spirit," as an _idea_. The constitutional king is the truly _Christian_ +king, the genuine, consistent carrying-out of the Christian principle. +In the constitutional monarchy individual dominion,--_i. e._, a real +ruler that _wills_--has found its end; here, therefore, _individual +liberty_ prevails, independence of every individual dictator, of every +one who could dictate to me with a _tel est notre plaisir_. It is the +completed _Christian_ State-life, a spiritualized life. + +The behavior of the commonalty is _liberal_ through and through. Every +_personal_ invasion of another's sphere revolts the civic sense; if the +citizen sees that one is dependent on the humor, the pleasure, the will +of a man as individual (_i. e._ as not authorized by a "higher power"), +at once he brings his liberalism to the front and shrieks about +"arbitrariness." In fine, the citizen asserts his freedom from what is +called _orders_ (_ordonnance_): "No one has any business to give +me--orders!" _Orders_ carries the idea that what I am to do is another +man's will, while _law_ does not express a personal authority of +another. The liberty of the commonalty is liberty or independence from +the will of another person, so-called personal or individual liberty; +for being personally free means being only so free that no other person +can dispose of mine, or that what I may or may not do does not depend on +the personal decree of another. The liberty of the press, for instance, +is such a liberty of liberalism, liberalism fighting only against the +coercion of the censorship as that of personal wilfulness, but +otherwise showing itself extremely inclined and willing to tyrannize +over the press by "press laws"; _i. e._, the civic liberals want liberty +of writing _for themselves_; for, as they are _law-abiding_, their +writings will not bring them under the law. Only liberal matter, _i. e._ +only lawful matter, is to be allowed to be printed; otherwise the "press +laws" threaten "press-penalties." If one sees personal liberty assured, +one does not notice at all how, if a new issue happens to arise, the +most glaring unfreedom becomes dominant. For one is rid of _orders_ +indeed, and "no one has any business to give us orders," but one has +become so much the more submissive to the--_law_. One is enthralled now +in due legal form. + +In the citizen-State there are only "free people," who are _compelled_ +to thousands of things (_e. g._ to deference, to a confession of faith, +and the like). But what does that amount to? Why, it is only the--State, +the law, not any man, that compels them! + +What does the commonalty mean by inveighing against every personal +order, _i. e._ every order not founded on the "cause," on "reason," +etc.? It is simply fighting in the interest of the "cause"[74] against +the dominion of "persons"! But the mind's cause is the rational, good, +lawful, etc.; that is the "good cause." The commonalty wants an +_impersonal_ ruler. + +Furthermore, if the principle is this, that only the cause is to rule +man--to wit, the cause of morality, the cause of legality, etc.,--then +no personal balking of one by the other may be authorized either (as +formerly, _e. g._, the commoner was balked of the aristocratic offices, +the aristocrat of common mechanical trades, etc.); _i. e. free +competition_ must exist. Only through the thing[75] can one balk another +(_e. g._ the rich man balking the impecunious man by money, a thing), +not as a person. Henceforth only one lordship, the lordship of the +_State_, is admitted; personally no one is any longer lord of another. +Even at birth the children belong to the State, and to the parents only +in the name of the State, which, _e. g._, does not allow infanticide, +demands their baptism, etc. + +But all the State's children, furthermore, are of quite equal account in +its eyes ("civic or political equality"), and they may see to it +themselves how they get along with each other; they may _compete_. + +Free competition means nothing else than that every one can present +himself, assert himself, fight, against another. Of course the feudal +party set itself against this, as its existence depended on an absence +of competition. The contests in the time of the Restoration in France +had no other substance than this,--that the _bourgeoisie_ was struggling +for free competition, and the feudalists were seeking to bring back the +guild system. + +Now, free competition has won, and against the guild system it had to +win. (See below for the further discussion.) + +If the Revolution ended in a reaction, this only showed what the +Revolution _really_ was. For every effort arrives at reaction when it +_comes to discreet reflection_, and storms forward in the original +action only so long as it is an _intoxication_, an "indiscretion." +"Discretion" will always be the cue of the reaction, because discretion +sets limits, and liberates what was really wanted, _i. e._ the +principle, from the initial "unbridledness" and "unrestrainedness." Wild +young fellows, bumptious students, who set aside all considerations, are +_really_ Philistines, since with them, as with the latter, +considerations form the substance of their conduct; only that as +swaggerers they are mutinous against considerations and in negative +relations to them, but as Philistines, later, they give themselves up to +considerations and have positive relations to them. In both cases all +their doing and thinking turns upon "considerations," but the Philistine +is _reactionary_ in relation to the student; he is the wild fellow come +to discreet reflection, as the latter is the unreflecting Philistine. +Daily experience confirms the truth of this transformation, and shows +how the swaggerers turn to Philistines in turning gray. + +So too the so-called reaction in Germany gives proof that it was only +the _discreet_ continuation of the warlike jubilation of liberty. + +The Revolution was not directed against _the established_, but against +_the establishment in question_, against a _particular_ establishment. +It did away with _this_ ruler, not with _the_ ruler--on the contrary, +the French were ruled most inexorably; it killed the old vicious rulers, +but wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely established +position, _i. e._ it simply set virtue in the place of vice. (Vice and +virtue, again, are on their part distinguished from each other only as a +wild young fellow from a Philistine.) Etc. + +To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to +assail only _one_ or _another_ particular establishment, _i. e._ be +_reformatory_. Much as may be _improved_, strongly as "discreet +progress" may be adhered to, always there is only a _new master_ set in +the old one's place, and the overturning is a--building up. We are still +at the distinction of the young Philistine from the old one. The +Revolution began in _bourgeois_ fashion with the uprising of the third +estate, the middle class; in _bourgeois_ fashion it dries away. It was +not the _individual man_--and he alone is _Man_--that became free, but +the _citizen_, the _citoyen_, the _political_ man, who for that very +reason is not _Man_ but a specimen of the human species, and more +particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, a _free citizen_. + +In the Revolution it was not the _individual_ who acted so as to affect +the world's history, but a _people_; the _nation_, the sovereign nation, +wanted to effect everything. A fancied _I_, an idea, such as the nation +is, appears acting; _i. e._, the individuals contribute themselves as +tools of this idea, and act as "citizens." + +The commonalty has its power, and at the same time its limits, in the +_fundamental law of the State_, in a charter, in a legitimate[76] or +"just"[77] prince who himself is guided, and rules, according to +"rational laws"; in short, in _legality_. The period of the +_bourgeoisie_ is ruled by the British spirit of legality. An assembly +of provincial estates, _e. g._, is ever recalling that its authorization +goes only so and so far, and that it is called at all only through favor +and can be thrown out again through disfavor. It is always reminding +itself of its--_vocation_. It is certainly not to be denied that my +father begot me; but, now that I am once begotten, surely his purposes +in begetting do not concern me a bit and, whatever he may have _called_ +me to, I do what I myself will. Therefore even a called assembly of +estates, the French assembly in the beginning of the Revolution, +recognized quite rightly that it was independent of the caller. It +_existed_, and would have been stupid if it did not avail itself of the +right of existence, but fancied itself dependent as on a father. The +called one no longer has to ask "what did the caller want when he +created me?" but "what do I want after I have once followed the call?" +Not the caller, not the constituents, not the charter according to which +their meeting was called out, nothing will be to him a sacred, +inviolable power. He is _authorized_ for everything that is in his +power; he will know no restrictive "authorization," will not want to be +_loyal_. This, if any such thing could be expected from chambers at all, +would give a completely _egoistic_ chamber, severed from all +navel-string and without consideration. But chambers are always devout, +and therefore one cannot be surprised if so much half-way or undecided, +_i. e._ hypocritical, "egoism" parades in them. + +The members of the estates are to remain within the _limits_ that are +traced for them by the charter, by the king's will, and the like. If +they will not or can not do that, then they are to "step out." What +dutiful man could act otherwise, could put himself, his conviction, and +his will as the _first_ thing? who could be so immoral as to want to +assert _himself_, even if the body corporate and everything should go to +ruin over it? People keep carefully within the limits of their +_authorization_; of course one must remain within the limits of his +_power_ anyhow, because no one can do more than he can. "My power, or, +if it be so, powerlessness, be my sole limit, but authorizations only +restraining--precepts? Should I profess this all-subversive view? No, I +am a--law-abiding citizen!" + +The commonalty professes a morality which is most closely connected with +its essence. The first demand of this morality is to the effect that one +should carry on a solid business, an honorable trade, lead a moral life. +Immoral, to it, is the sharper, the demirep, the thief, robber, and +murderer, the gamester, the penniless man without a situation, the +frivolous man. The doughty commoner designates the feeling against these +"immoral" people as his "deepest indignation." All these lack +settlement, the _solid_ quality of business, a solid, seemly life, a +fixed income, etc.; in short, they belong, because their existence does +not rest on a _secure basis_, to the dangerous "individuals or isolated +persons," to the dangerous _proletariat_; they are "individual bawlers" +who offer no "guarantee" and have "nothing to lose," and so nothing to +risk. The forming of family ties, _e. g., binds_ a man: he who is bound +furnishes security, can be taken hold of; not so the street-walker. The +gamester stakes everything on the game, ruins himself and others;--no +guarantee. All who appear to the commoner suspicious, hostile, and +dangerous might be comprised under the name "vagabonds"; every +vagabondish way of living displeases him. For there are intellectual +vagabonds too, to whom the hereditary dwelling-place of their fathers +seems too cramped and oppressive for them to be willing to satisfy +themselves with the limited space any more: instead of keeping within +the limits of a temperate style of thinking, and taking as inviolable +truth what furnishes comfort and tranquillity to thousands, they +overleap all bounds of the traditional and run wild with their impudent +criticism and untamed mania for doubt, these extravagating vagabonds. +They form the class of the unstable, restless, changeable, _i. e._ of +the _proletariat_, and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature, +are called "unruly fellows." + +Such a broad sense has the so-called _proletariat_, or pauperism. How +much one would err if one believed the commonalty to be desirous of +doing away with poverty (pauperism) to the best of its ability! On the +contrary, the good citizen helps himself with the incomparably +comforting conviction that "the fact is that the good things of fortune +are unequally divided and will always remain so--according to God's wise +decree." The poverty which surrounds him in every alley does not disturb +the true commoner further than that at most he clears his account with +it by throwing an alms, or finds work and food for an "honest and +serviceable" fellow. But so much the more does he feel his quiet +enjoyment clouded by _innovating_ and _discontented_ poverty, by those +poor who no longer behave _quietly_ and endure, but begin to _run wild_ +and become restless. Lock up the vagabond, thrust the breeder of unrest +into the darkest dungeon! He wants to "arouse dissatisfaction and incite +people against existing institutions" in the State--stone him, stone +him! + +But from these identical discontented ones comes a reasoning somewhat as +follows: It need not make any difference to the "good citizens" who +protects them and their principles, whether an absolute king or a +constitutional one, a republic, etc., if only they are protected. And +what is their principle, whose protector they always "love"? Not that of +labor; not that of birth either. But that of _mediocrity_, of the golden +mean: a little birth and a little labor, _i. e._, an _interest-bearing +possession_. Possession is here the fixed, the given, inherited (birth); +interest-drawing is the exertion about it (labor); _laboring capital_, +therefore. Only no immoderation, no ultra, no radicalism! Right of birth +certainly, but only hereditary possessions; labor certainly, yet little +or none at all of one's own, but labor of capital and of the--subject +laborers. + +If an age is imbued with an error, some always derive advantage from the +error, while the rest have to suffer from it. In the Middle Ages the +error was general among Christians that the church must have all power, +or the supreme lordship on earth; the hierarchs believed in this "truth" +not less than the laymen, and both were spellbound in the like error. +But by it the hierarchs had the _advantage_ of power, the laymen had to +_suffer_ subjection. However, as the saying goes, "one learns wisdom by +suffering"; and so the laymen at last learned wisdom and no longer +believed in the mediaeval "truth."--A like relation exists between the +commonalty and the laboring class. Commoner and laborer believe in the +"truth" of _money_; they who do not possess it believe in it no less +than those who possess it: the laymen, therefore, as well as the +priests. + +"Money governs the world" is the keynote of the civic epoch. A destitute +aristocrat and a destitute laborer, as "starvelings," amount to nothing +so far as political consideration is concerned; birth and labor do not +do it, but _money_ brings _consideration_.[78] The possessors rule, but +the State trains up from the destitute its "servants," to whom, in +proportion as they are to rule (govern) in its name, it gives money (a +salary). + +I receive everything from the State. Have I anything without the +_State's assent_? What I have without this it _takes_ from me as soon as +it discovers the lack of a "legal title." Do I not, therefore, have +everything through its grace, its assent? + +On this alone, on the _legal title_, the commonalty rests. The commoner +is what he is through the _protection of the State_, through the State's +grace. He would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the +State's power were broken. + +But how is it with him who has nothing to lose, how with the +proletarian? As he has nothing to lose, he does not need the protection +of the State for his "nothing." He may gain, on the contrary, if that +protection of the State is withdrawn from the _protege_. + +Therefore the non-possessor will regard the State as a power protecting +the possessor, which privileges the latter, but does nothing for him, +the non-possessor, but to--suck his blood. The State is a--_commoners' +State_, is the estate of the commonalty. It protects man not according +to his labor, but according to his tractableness ("loyalty"),--to wit, +according to whether the rights entrusted to him by the State are +enjoyed and managed in accordance with the will, _i. e._ laws, of the +State. + +Under the _regime_ of the commonalty the laborers always fall into the +hands of the possessors,--_i. e._ of those who have at their disposal +some bit of the State domains (and everything possessible is State +domain, belongs to the State, and is only a fief of the individual), +especially money and land; of the capitalists, therefore. The laborer +cannot _realize_ on his labor to the extent of the value that it has for +the consumer. "Labor is badly paid!" The capitalist has the greatest +profit from it.--Well paid, and more than well paid, are only the labors +of those who heighten the splendor and _dominion_ of the State, the +labors of high State _servants_. The State pays well that its "good +citizens," the possessors, may be able to pay badly without danger; it +secures to itself by good payment its servants, out of whom it forms a +protecting power, a "police" (to the police belong soldiers, officials +of all kinds, _e. g._ those of justice, education, etc.,--in short, the +whole "machinery of the State") for the "good citizens," and the "good +citizens" gladly pay high tax-rates to it in order to pay so much lower +rates to their laborers. + +But the class of laborers, because unprotected in what they essentially +are (for they do not enjoy the protection of the State as laborers, but +as its subjects they have a share in the enjoyment of the police, a +so-called protection of the law), remains a power hostile to this State, +this State of possessors, this "citizen kingship." Its principle, labor, +is not recognized as to its _value_; it is exploited,[79] a _spoil_[80] +of the possessors, the enemy. + +The laborers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they +once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would +withstand them; they would only have to stop labor, regard the product +of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labor +disturbances which show themselves here and there. + +The State rests on the--_slavery of labor_. If _labor_ becomes _free_, +the State is lost. + + +Sec. 2.--SOCIAL LIBERALISM + +We are freeborn men, and wherever we look we see ourselves made servants +of egoists! Are we therefore to become egoists too? Heaven forbid! we +want rather to make egoists impossible! We want to make them all +"ragamuffins"; all of us must have nothing, that "all may have." + +So say the Socialists. + +Who is this person that you call "All"?--It is "society"!--But is it +corporeal, then?--_We_ are its body!--You? Why, you are not a body +yourselves;--you, sir, are corporeal to be sure, you too, and you, but +you all together are only bodies, not a body. Accordingly the united +society may indeed have bodies at its service, but no one body of its +own. Like the "nation" of the politicians, it will turn out to be +nothing but a "spirit," its body only semblance. + +The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, freedom from _persons_, +from personal dominion, from the _master_; the securing of each +individual person against other persons, personal freedom. + +No one has any orders to give; the law alone gives orders. + +But, even if the persons have become _equal_, yet their _possessions_ +have not. And yet the poor man _needs_ the rich, the rich the poor, the +former the rich man's money, the latter the poor man's labor. So no one +needs another as a _person_, but needs him as a _giver_, and thus as one +who has something to give, as holder or possessor. So what he _has_ +makes the _man_. And in _having_, or in "possessions," people are +unequal. + +Consequently, social liberalism concludes, _no one must have_, as +according to political liberalism _no one was to give orders_; _i. e._, +as in that case the _State_ alone obtained the command, so now _society_ +alone obtains the possessions. + +For the State, protecting each one's person and property against the +other, _separates_ them from one another; each one _is_ his special part +and _has_ his special part. He who is satisfied with what he is and has +finds this state of things profitable; but he who would like to be and +have more looks around for this "more," and finds it in the power of +other _persons_. Here he comes upon a contradiction; as a person no one +is inferior to another, and yet one person _has_ what another has not +but would like to have. So, he concludes, the one person is more than +the other, after all, for the former has what he needs, the latter has +not; the former is a rich man, the latter a poor man. + +He now asks himself further, are we to let what we rightly buried come +to life again? are we to let this circuitously restored inequality of +persons pass? No; on the contrary, we must bring quite to an end what +was only half accomplished. Our freedom from another's person still +lacks the freedom from what the other's person can command, from what he +has in his personal power,--in short, from "personal property." Let us +then do away with _personal property_. Let no one have anything any +longer, let every one be a--ragamuffin. Let property be _impersonal_, +let it belong to--_society_. + +Before the supreme _ruler_, the sole _commander_, we had all become +equal, equal persons, _i. e._ nullities. + +Before the supreme _proprietor_ we all become equal--_ragamuffins_. For +the present, one is still in another's estimation a "ragamuffin," a +"have-nothing"; but then this estimation ceases. We are all ragamuffins +together, and as the aggregate of Communistic society we might call +ourselves a "ragamuffin crew." + +When the proletarian shall really have founded his purposed "society" in +which the interval between rich and poor is to be removed, then he +_will be_ a ragamuffin, for then he will feel that it amounts to +something to be a ragamuffin, and might lift "Ragamuffin" to be an +honorable form of address, just as the Revolution did with the word +"Citizen." Ragamuffin is his ideal; we are all to become ragamuffins. + +This is the second robbery of the "personal" in the interest of +"humanity." Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the +State took the former, society the latter. + +Because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt, +therefore the oppressed especially, and consequently the members in the +lower regions of society, think they find the fault in society, and make +it their task to discover the _right society_. This is only the old +phenomenon,--that one looks for the fault first in everything but +_himself_, and consequently in the State, in the self-seeking of the +rich, etc., which yet have precisely our fault to thank for their +existence. + +The reflections and conclusions of Communism look very simple. As +matters lie at this time,--in the present situation with regard to the +State, therefore,--some, and they the majority, are at a disadvantage +compared to others, the minority. In this _state_ of things the former +are in a _state of prosperity_, the latter in a _state of need_. Hence +the present _state_ of things, _i. e._ the State, must be done away +with. And what in its place? Instead of the isolated state of +prosperity--a _general state of prosperity_, a _prosperity of all_. + +Through the Revolution the _bourgeoisie_ became omnipotent, and +all inequality was abolished by every one's being raised or +degraded to the dignity of a _citizen_: the common man--raised, the +aristocrat--degraded; the _third_ estate became sole estate,--_viz._, +the estate of--_citizens of the State_. Now Communism responds: Our +dignity and our essence consist not in our being all--the _equal +children_ of our mother, the State, all born with equal claim to her +love and her protection, but in our all existing _for each other_. This +is our equality, or herein we are _equal_, in that we, I as well as you +and you and all of you, are active or "labor" each one for the rest; in +that each of us is a _laborer_, then. The point for us is not what we +are _for the State_ (_viz._, citizens), not our _citizenship_ therefore, +but what we are _for each other_,--_viz._, that each of us exists only +through the other, who, caring for my wants, at the same time sees his +own satisfied by me. He labors, _e. g._, for my clothing (tailor), I for +his need of amusement (comedy-writer, rope-dancer, etc.), he for my food +(farmer, etc.), I for his instruction (scientist, etc.). It is _labor_ +that constitutes our dignity and our--equality. + +What advantage does citizenship bring us? Burdens! And how high is our +labor appraised? As low as possible! But labor is our sole value all the +same; that we are _laborers_ is the best thing about us, this is our +significance in the world, and therefore it must be our consideration +too and must come to receive _consideration_. What can you meet us with? +Surely nothing but--_labor_ too. Only for labor or services do we owe +you a recompense, not for your bare existence; not for what you are _for +yourselves_ either, but only for what you are _for us_. By what have +you claims on us? Perhaps by your high birth, etc.? No, only by what you +do for us that is desirable or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing +to be worth to you only so much as we do for you; but you are to be held +likewise by us. _Services_ determine value,--_i. e._ those services that +are worth something to us, and consequently _labors for each other_, +_labors for the common good_. Let each one be in the other's eyes a +_laborer_. He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, +or--all laborers (laborers, of course, in the sense of laborers "for the +common good," _i. e._ communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the +laborer is worth his wages,[81] let the wages too be equal. + +As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dignity, no labor, however +harassing, could be objected to if it only did not hinder a man in his +faith. Now, on the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into +man, condemning a man to _machine-like labor_ amounts to the same thing +as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours +and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the +intent that the man be satisfied. Therefore he must become a _master_ in +it too, _i. e._ be able to perform it as a totality. He who in a +pin-factory only puts on the heads, only draws the wire, etc., works, as +it were, mechanically, like a machine; he remains half-trained, does not +become a master: his labor cannot _satisfy_ him, it can only _fatigue_ +him. His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object _in itself_, +is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and +is _used_ (exploited) by this other. For this laborer in another's +service there is no _enjoyment of a cultivated mind_, at most crude +amusements: _culture_, you see, is barred against him. To be a good +Christian one needs only to _believe_, and that can be done under the +most oppressive circumstances. Hence the Christian-minded take care only +of the oppressed laborers' piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only +so long as the downtrodden classes were _Christians_ could they bear all +their misery: for Christianity does not let their murmurings and +exasperation rise. Now the _hushing_ of desires is no longer enough, but +their _sating_ is demanded. The _bourgeoisie_ has proclaimed the gospel +of the _enjoyment of the world_, of material enjoyment, and now wonders +that this doctrine finds adherents among us poor: it has shown that not +faith and poverty, but culture and possessions, make a man blessed; we +proletarians understand that too. + +The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbitrariness of +individuals. But that arbitrariness was left which springs from the +conjuncture of situations, and may be called the fortuity of +circumstances; favoring _fortune_, and those "favored by fortune," still +remain. + +When _e. g._ a branch of industry is ruined and thousands of laborers +become breadless, people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it +is not the individual who must bear the blame, but that "the evil lies +in the situation." + +Let us change the situation then, but let us change it thoroughly, and +so that its fortuity becomes powerless, and a _law_! Let us no longer +be slaves of chance! Let us create a new order that makes an end of +_fluctuations_. Let this order then be sacred! + +Formerly one had to suit the _lords_ to come to anything; after the +Revolution the word was "Grasp _fortune_!" Luck-hunting or +hazard-playing, civil life was absorbed in this. Then, alongside this, +the demand that he who has obtained something shall not frivolously +stake it again. + +Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Competition, in which +alone civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck through +and through, from the speculations of the exchange down to the +solicitation of offices, the hunt for customers, looking for work, +aspiring to promotion and decorations, the second-hand dealer's petty +haggling, etc. If one succeeds in supplanting and outbidding his rivals, +then the "lucky throw" is made; for it must be taken as a piece of luck +to begin with that the victor sees himself equipped with an ability +(even though it has been developed by the most careful industry) against +which the others do not know how to rise, consequently that--no abler +ones are found. And now those who ply their daily lives in the midst of +these changes of fortune without seeing any harm in it are seized with +the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in naked +form and "breeds misfortune" as--_hazard-playing_. Hazard-playing, you +see, is too clear, too barefaced a competition, and, like every decided +nakedness, offends honorable modesty. + +The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of chance, and to +form a society in which men are no longer dependent on _fortune_, but +free. + +In the most natural way in the world this endeavor first utters itself +as hatred of the "unfortunate" against the "fortunate," _i. e._, of +those for whom fortune has done little or nothing, against those for +whom it has done everything. + +But properly the ill-feeling is not directed against the fortunate, but +against _fortune_, this rotten spot of the commonalty. + +As the Communists first declare free activity to be man's essence, they, +like all work-day dispositions, need a Sunday; like all material +endeavors, they need a God, an uplifting and edification alongside their +witless "labor." + +That the Communist sees in you the man, the brother, is only the Sunday +side of Communism. According to the work-day side he does not by any +means take you as man simply, but as human laborer or laboring man. The +first view has in it the liberal principle; in the second, illiberality +is concealed. If you were a "lazybones," he would not indeed fail to +recognize the man in you, but would endeavor to cleanse him as a "lazy +man" from laziness and to convert you to the _faith_ that labor is man's +"destiny and calling." + +Therefore he shows a double face: with the one he takes heed that the +spiritual man be satisfied, with the other he looks about him for means +for the material or corporeal man. He gives man a twofold _post_,--an +office of material acquisition and one of spiritual. + +The commonalty had _thrown open_ spiritual and material goods, and left +it with each one to reach out for them if he liked. + +Communism really procures them for each one, presses them upon him, and +compels him to acquire them. It takes seriously the idea that, because +only spiritual and material goods make us men, we must unquestionably +acquire these goods in order to be man. The commonalty made acquisition +free; Communism _compels_ to acquisition, and recognizes only the +acquirer, him who practises a trade. It is not enough that the trade is +free, but you must _take it up_. + +So all that is left for criticism to do is to prove that the acquisition +of these goods does not yet by any means make us men. + +With the liberal commandment that every one is to make a man of himself, +or every one to make himself man, there was posited the necessity that +every one must gain time for this labor of humanization, _i. e._ that it +should become possible for every one to labor on _himself_. + +The commonalty thought it had brought this about if it handed over +everything human to competition, but gave the individual a right to +every human thing. "Each may strive after everything!" + +Social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled with the "may," +because may means only "it is forbidden to none" but not "it is made +possible to every one." Hence it affirms that the commonalty is liberal +only with the mouth and in words, supremely illiberal in act. It on its +part wants to give all of us the _means_ to be able to labor on +ourselves. + +By the principle of labor that of fortune or competition is certainly +outdone. But at the same time the laborer, in his consciousness that the +essential thing in him is "the laborer," holds himself aloof from egoism +and subjects himself to the supremacy of a society of laborers, as the +commoner clung with self-abandonment to the competition-State. The +beautiful dream of a "social duty" still continues to be dreamed. People +think again that society _gives_ what we need, and we are _under +obligations_ to it on that account, owe it everything.[82] They are +still at the point of wanting to _serve_ a "supreme giver of all good." +That society is no ego at all, which could give, bestow, or grant, but +an instrument or means, from which we may derive benefit; that we have +no social duties, but solely interests for the pursuance of which +society must serve us; that we owe society no sacrifice, but, if we +sacrifice anything, sacrifice it to ourselves,--of this the Socialists +do not think, because they--as liberals--are imprisoned in the religious +principle, and zealously aspire after--a sacred society, such as the +State was hitherto. + +Society, from which we have everything, is a new master, a new spook, a +new "supreme being," which "takes us into its service and allegiance"! + +The more precise appreciation of political as well as social liberalism +must wait to find its place further on. For the present we pass this +over, in order first to summon them before the tribunal of humane or +critical liberalism. + + +Sec. 3.--HUMANE LIBERALISM + +As liberalism is completed in self-criticising, "critical"[83] +liberalism, in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond +the principle of liberalism, Man,--this may distinctively be named after +Man and called the "humane." + +The laborer is counted as the most material and egoistical man. He does +nothing at all _for humanity_, does everything for _himself_, for his +welfare. + +The commonalty, because it proclaimed the freedom of _Man_ only as to +his birth, had to leave him in the claws of the un-human man (the +egoist) for the rest of life. Hence under the _regime_ of political +liberalism egoism has an immense field for free utilization. + +The laborer will _utilize_ society for his _egoistic_ ends as the +commoner does the State. You have only an egoistic end after all, your +welfare! is the humane liberal's reproach to the Socialist; take up a +_purely human interest_, then I will be your companion. "But to this +there belongs a consciousness stronger, more comprehensive, than a +_laborer-consciousness_." "The laborer makes nothing, therefore he has +nothing; but he makes nothing because his labor is always a labor that +remains individual, calculated strictly for his own want, a labor day +by day."[84] In opposition to this one might, for instance, consider the +fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain individual, but begot +innumerable children, and still lives to-day; it was calculated for the +want of humanity, and was an eternal, imperishable labor. + +The humane consciousness despises the commoner-consciousness as well as +the laborer-consciousness: for the commoner is "indignant" only at +vagabonds (at all who have "no definite occupation") and their +"immorality"; the laborer is "disgusted" by the _idler_ ("lazybones") +and his "immoral," because parasitic and unsocial, principles. To this +the humane liberal retorts: The unsettledness of many is only your +product, Philistine! But that you, proletarian, demand the _grind_ of +all, and want to make _drudgery_ general, is a part, still clinging to +you, of your pack-mule life up to this time. Certainly you want to +lighten drudgery itself by _all_ having to drudge equally hard, yet only +for this reason, that all may gain _leisure_ to an equal extent. But +what are they to do with their leisure? What does your "society" do, +that this leisure may be passed _humanly_? It must leave the gained +leisure to egoistic preference again, and the very _gain_ that your +society furthers falls to the egoist, as the gain of the commonalty, the +_masterlessness of man_, could not be filled with a human element by the +State, and therefore was left to arbitrary choice. + +It is assuredly necessary that man be masterless: but therefore the +egoist is not to become master over man again either, but man over the +egoist. Man must assuredly find leisure: but, if the egoist makes use of +it, it will be lost for man; therefore you ought to have given leisure a +human significance. But you laborers undertake even your labor from an +egoistic impulse, because you want to eat, drink, live; how should you +be less egoists in leisure? You labor only because having your time to +yourselves (idling) goes well after work done, and what you are to while +away your leisure time with is left to _chance_. + +But, if every door is to be bolted against egoism, it would be necessary +to strive after completely "disinterested" action, _total_ +disinterestedness. This alone is human, because only Man is +disinterested, the egoist always interested. + + * * * * * + +If we let disinterestedness pass unchallenged for a while, then we ask, +do you mean not to take an interest in anything, not to be enthusiastic +for anything, not for liberty, humanity, etc.? "Oh, yes, but that is not +an egoistic interest, not _interestedness_, but a human, _i. e._ +a--_theoretical_ interest, to wit, an interest not for an individual or +individuals ('all'), but for the _idea_, for Man!" + +And you do not notice that you too are enthusiastic only for _your_ +idea, _your_ idea of liberty? + +And, further, do you not notice that your disinterestedness is again, +like religious disinterestedness, a heavenly interestedness? Certainly +benefit to the individual leaves you cold, and abstractly you could cry +_fiat libertas, pereat mundus_. You do not take thought for the coming +day either, and take no serious care for the individual's wants anyhow, +not for your own comfort nor for that of the rest; but you make nothing +of all this, because you are a--dreamer. + +Do you suppose the humane liberal will be so liberal as to aver that +everything possible to man is _human_? On the contrary! He does not, +indeed, share the Philistine's moral prejudice about the strumpet, but +"that this woman turns her body into a money-getting machine"[85] makes +her despicable to him as "human being." His judgment is, The strumpet is +not a human being; or, So far as a woman is a strumpet, so far is she +unhuman, dehumanized. Further: The Jew, the Christian, the privileged +person, the theologian, etc., is not a human being; so far as you are a +Jew, etc., you are not a human being. Again the imperious postulate: +Cast from you everything peculiar, criticise it away! Be not a Jew, not +a Christian, etc., but be a human being, nothing but a human being. +Assert your _humanity_ against every restrictive specification; make +yourself, by means of it, a human being, and _free_ from those limits; +make yourself a "free man," _i. e._ recognize humanity as your +all-determining essence. + +I say: You are indeed more than a Jew, more than a Christian, etc., but +you are also more than a human being. Those are all ideas, but you are +corporeal. Do you suppose, then, that you can ever become "a human being +as such"? Do you suppose our posterity will find no prejudices and +limits to clear away, for which our powers were not sufficient? Or do +you perhaps think that in your fortieth or fiftieth year you have come +so far that the following days have nothing more to dissipate in you, +and that you are a human being? The men of the future will yet fight +their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss. What do you need +that later liberty for? If you meant to esteem yourself as nothing +before you had become a human being, you would have to wait till the +"last judgment," till the day when man, or humanity, shall have attained +perfection. But, as you will surely die before that, what becomes of +your prize of victory? + +Rather, therefore, invert the case, and say to yourself, _I am a human +being_! I do not need to begin by producing the human being in myself, +for he belongs to me already, like all my qualities. + +But, asks the critic, how can one be a Jew and a man at once? In the +first place, I answer, one cannot be either a Jew or a man at all, if +"one" and Jew or man are to mean the same; "one" always reaches beyond +those specifications, and,--let Isaacs be ever so Jewish,--a Jew, +nothing but a Jew, he cannot be, just because he is _this_ Jew. In the +second place, as a Jew one assuredly cannot be a man, if being a man +means being nothing special. But in the third place--and this is the +point--I can, as a Jew, be entirely what I--_can_ be. From Samuel or +Moses, and others, you hardly expect that they should have raised +themselves above Judaism, although you must say that they were not yet +"men." They simply were what they could be. Is it otherwise with the +Jews of to-day? Because you have discovered the idea of humanity, does +it follow from this that every Jew can become a convert to it? If he +can, he does not fail to, and, if he fails to, he--cannot. What does +your demand concern him? what the _call_ to be a man, which you address +to him? + + * * * * * + +As a universal principle, in the "human society" which the humane +liberal promises, nothing "special" which one or another has is to find +recognition, nothing which bears the character of "private" is to have +value. In this way the circle of liberalism, which has its good +principle in man and human liberty, its bad in the egoist and everything +private, its God in the former, its devil in the latter, rounds itself +off completely; and, if the special or private person lost his value in +the State (no personal prerogative), if in the "laborers' or +ragamuffins' society" special (private) property is no longer +recognized, so in "human society" everything special or private will be +left out of account; and, when "pure criticism" shall have accomplished +its arduous task, then it will be known just what we must look upon as +private, and what, "penetrated with a sense of our nothingness," we +must--let stand. + +Because State and society do not suffice for humane liberalism, it +negates both, and at the same time retains them. So at one time the cry +is that the task of the day is "not a political, but a social, one," and +then again the "free State" is promised for the future. In truth, "human +society" is both,--the most general State and the most general society. +Only against the limited State is it asserted that it makes too much +stir about spiritual private interests (_e. g._ people's religious +belief), and against limited society that it makes too much of material +private interests. Both are to leave private interests to private +people, and, as human society, concern themselves solely about general +human interests. + +The politicians, thinking to abolish _personal will_, self-will or +arbitrariness, did not observe that through _property_[86] our +_self-will_[87] gained a secure place of refuge. + +The Socialists, taking away _property_ too, do not notice that this +secures itself a continued existence in _self-ownership_. Is it only +money and goods, then, that are a property, or is every opinion +something of mine, something of my own? + +So every _opinion_ must be abolished or made impersonal. The person is +entitled to no opinion, but, as self-will was transferred to the State, +property to society, so opinion too must be transferred to something +_general_, "Man," and thereby become a general human opinion. + +If opinion persists, then I have _my_ God (why, God exists only as "my +God," he is an opinion or my "faith"), and consequently _my_ faith, my +religion, my thoughts, my ideals. Therefore a general human faith must +come into existence, the "_fanaticism of liberty_." For this would be a +faith that agreed with the "essence of man," and, because only "man" is +reasonable (you and I might be very unreasonable!), a reasonable faith. + +As self-will and property become _powerless_, so must self-ownership or +egoism in general. + +In this supreme development of "free man" egoism, self-ownership, is +combated on principle, and such subordinate ends as the social "welfare" +of the Socialists, etc., vanish before the lofty "idea of humanity." +Everything that is not a "general human" entity is something separate, +satisfies only some or one; or, if it satisfies all, it does this to +them only as individuals, not as men, and is therefore called +"egoistic." + +To the Socialists _welfare_ is still the supreme aim, as free _rivalry_ +was the approved thing to the political liberals; now welfare is free +too, and we are free to achieve welfare, just as he who wanted to enter +into rivalry (competition) was free to do so. + +But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be _commoners_; to take +part in the welfare, only to be _laborers_. Neither reaches the point of +being synonymous with "man." It is "truly well" with man only when he is +also "intellectually free"! For man is mind: therefore all powers that +are alien to him, the mind,--all superhuman, heavenly, unhuman +powers,--must be overthrown, and the name "man" must be above every +name. + +So in this end of the modern age (age of the moderns) there returns +again, as the main point, what had been the main point at its beginning: +"intellectual liberty." + +To the Communist in particular the humane liberal says: If society +prescribes to you your activity, then this is indeed free from the +influence of the individual, _i. e._ the egoist, but it still does not +on that account need to be a _purely human_ activity, nor you to be a +complete organ of humanity. What kind of activity society demands of you +remains _accidental_, you know; it might give you a place in building a +temple or something of that sort, or, even if not that, you might yet on +your own impulse be active for something foolish, therefore unhuman; +yes, more yet, you really labor only to nourish yourself, in general to +live, for dear life's sake, not for the glorification of humanity. +Consequently free activity is not attained till you make yourself free +from all stupidities, from everything non-human, _i. e_. egoistic +(pertaining only to the individual, not to the Man in the individual), +dissipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea of humanity: +in short, when you are not merely unhampered in your activity, but the +substance too of your activity is only what is human, and you live and +work only for humanity. But this is not the case so long as the aim of +your effort is only your _welfare_ and that of all; what you do for the +society of ragamuffins is not yet anything done for "human society." + +Laboring does not alone make you a man, because it is something formal +and its object accidental; the question is who you that labor are. As +far as laboring goes, you might do it from an egoistic (material) +impulse, merely to procure nourishment and the like; it must be a labor +furthering humanity, calculated for the good of humanity, serving +historical (_i. e._ human) evolution,--in short, a _humane_ labor. This +implies two things: one, that it be useful to humanity; next, that it be +the work of a "man." The first alone may be the case with every labor, +as even the labors of nature, _e. g._ of animals, are utilized by +humanity for the furthering of science, etc.; the second requires that +he who labors should know the human object of his labor; and, as he can +have this consciousness only when he _knows himself as man_, the crucial +condition is--_self-consciousness_. + +Unquestionably much is already attained when you cease to be a +"fragment-laborer,"[88] yet therewith you only get a view of the whole +of your labor, and acquire a consciousness about it, which is still far +removed from a self-consciousness, a consciousness about your true +"self" or "essence," Man. The laborer has still remaining the desire for +a "higher consciousness," which, because the activity of labor is unable +to quiet it, he satisfies in a leisure hour. Hence leisure stands by the +side of his labor, and he sees himself compelled to proclaim labor and +idling human in one breath, yes, to attribute the true elevation to the +idler, the leisure-enjoyer. He labors only to get rid of labor; he wants +to make labor free, only that he may be free from labor. + +In fine, his work has no satisfying substance, because it is only +imposed by society, only a stint, a task, a calling; and, conversely, +his society does not satisfy, because it gives only work. + +His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of that, it satisfies +society; society ought to treat him as a man, and it treats him as--a +rag-tag laborer, or a laboring ragamuffin. + +Labor and society are of use to him not as he needs them as a man, but +only as he needs them as an "egoist." + +Such is the attitude of criticism toward labor. It points to "mind," +wages the war "of mind with the masses,"[89] and pronounces communistic +labor unintellectual mass-labor. Averse to labor as they are, the masses +love to make labor easy for themselves. In literature, which is to-day +furnished in mass, this aversion to labor begets the universally-known +_superficiality_, which puts from it "the toil of research."[90] + +Therefore humane liberalism says: You want labor; all right, we want it +likewise, but we want it in the fullest measure. We want it, not that we +may gain spare time, but that we may find all satisfaction in it itself. +We want labor because it is our self-development. + +But then the labor too must be adapted to that end! Man is honored only +by human, self-conscious labor, only by the labor that has for its end +no "egoistic" purpose, but Man, and is Man's self-revelation; so that +the saying should be _laboro, ergo sum_, I labor, therefore I am a man. +The humane liberal wants that labor of the _mind_ which _works up_ all +material; he wants the mind, that leaves no thing quiet or in its +existing condition, that acquiesces in nothing, analyzes everything, +criticises anew every result that has been gained. This restless mind is +the true laborer, it obliterates prejudices, shatters limits and +narrownesses, and raises man above everything that would like to +dominate over him, while the Communist labors only for himself, and not +even freely, but from necessity,--in short, represents a man condemned +to hard labor. + +The laborer of such a type is not "egoistic," because he does not labor +for individuals, neither for himself nor for other individuals, not for +_private_ men therefore, but for humanity and its progress: he does not +ease individual pains, does not care for individual wants, but removes +limits within which humanity is pressed, dispels prejudices which +dominate an entire time, vanquishes hindrances that obstruct the path of +all, clears away errors in which men entangle themselves, discovers +truths which are found through him for all and for all time; in +short--he lives and labors for humanity. + +Now, in the first place, the discoverer of a great truth doubtless knows +that it can be useful to the rest of men, and, as a jealous withholding +furnishes him no enjoyment, he communicates it; but, even though he has +the consciousness that his communication is highly valuable to the rest, +yet he has in no wise sought and found his truth for the sake of the +rest, but for his own sake, because he himself desired it, because +darkness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured for himself +light and enlightenment to the best of his powers. + +He labors, therefore, for his own sake and for the satisfaction of _his_ +want. That along with this he was also useful to others, yes, to +posterity, does not take from his labor the _egoistic_ character. + +In the next place, if he did labor only on his own account, like the +rest, why should his act be human, those of the rest unhuman, _i. e._ +egoistic? Perhaps, because this book, painting, symphony, etc., is the +labor of his whole being, because he has done his best in it, has spread +himself out wholly and is wholly to be known from it, while the work of +a handicraftsman mirrors only the handicraftsman, _i. e._ the skill in +handicraft, not "the man"? In his poems we have the whole Schiller; in +so many hundred stoves, on the other hand, we have before us only the +stove-maker, not "the man." + +But does this mean more than "in the one work you see _me_ as completely +as possible, in the other only my skill"? Is it not _me_ again that the +act expresses? And is it not more egoistic to offer _oneself_ to the +world in a work, to work out and shape _oneself_, than to remain +concealed behind one's labor? You say, to be sure, that you are +revealing Man. But the Man that you reveal is you; you reveal only +yourself, yet with this distinction from the handicraftsman,--that he +does not understand how to compress himself into one labor, but, in +order to be known as himself, must be searched out in his other +relations of life, and that your want, through whose satisfaction that +work came into being, was a--theoretical want. + +But you will reply that you reveal quite another man, a worthier, +higher, greater, a man that is more man than that other. I will assume +that you accomplish all that is possible to man, that you bring to pass +what no other succeeds in. Wherein, then, does your greatness consist? +Precisely in this, that you are more than other men (the "masses"), more +than _men_ ordinarily are, more than "ordinary men"; precisely in your +elevation above men. You are distinguished beyond other men not by being +man, but because you are a "unique"[91] man. Doubtless you show what a +man can do; but because you, a man, do it, this by no means shows that +others, also men, are able to do as much; you have executed it only as a +_unique_ man, and are unique therein. + +It is not man that makes up your greatness, but you create it, because +you are more than man, and mightier than other--men. + +It is believed that one cannot be more than man. Rather, one cannot be +less! + +It is believed further that whatever one attains is good for Man. In so +far as I remain at all times a man--or, like Schiller, a Swabian; like +Kant, a Prussian; like Gustavus Adolphus, a near-sighted person--I +certainly become by my superior qualities a notable man, Swabian, +Prussian, or near-sighted person. But the case is not much better with +that than with Frederick the Great's cane, which became famous for +Frederick's sake. + +To "Give God the glory" corresponds the modern "Give Man the glory." But +I mean to keep it for myself. + +Criticism, issuing the summons to man to be "human," enunciates the +necessary condition of sociability; for only as a man among men is one +_companionable_. Herewith it makes known its _social_ object, the +establishment of "human society." + +Among social theories criticism is indisputably the most complete, +because it removes and deprives of value everything that _separates_ man +from man: all prerogatives, down to the prerogative of faith. In it the +love-principle of Christianity, the true social principle, comes to the +purest fulfilment, and the last possible experiment is tried to take +away exclusiveness and repulsion from men: a fight against egoism in its +simplest and therefore hardest form, in the form of singleness,[92] +exclusiveness, itself. + +"How can you live a truly social life so long as even one exclusiveness +still exists between you?" + +I ask conversely, How can you be truly single so long as even one +connection still exists between you? If you are connected, you cannot +leave each other; if a "tie" clasps you, you are something only _with +another_, and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands of you a people, +millions of you humanity. + +"Only when you are human can you keep company with each other as men, +just as you can understand each other as patriots only when you are +patriotic!" + +All right; then I answer, Only when you are single can you have +intercourse with each other as what you are. + +It is precisely the keenest critic who is hit hardest by the curse of +his principle. Putting from him one exclusive thing after another, +shaking off churchliness, patriotism, etc., he undoes one tie after +another and separates himself from the churchly man, from the patriot, +etc., till at last, when all ties are undone, he stands--alone. He, of +all men, must exclude all that have anything exclusive or private; and, +when you get to the bottom, what can be more exclusive than the +exclusive, single person himself! + +Or does he perhaps think that the situation would be better if _all_ +became men and gave up exclusiveness? Why, for the very reason that +"all" means "every individual" the most glaring contradiction is still +maintained, for the "individual" is exclusiveness itself. If the humane +liberal no longer concedes to the individual anything private or +exclusive, any private thought, any private folly; if he criticises +everything away from him before his face, since his hatred of the +private is an absolute and fanatical hatred; if he knows no tolerance +toward what is private, because everything private is _unhuman_,--yet he +cannot criticise away the private person himself, since the hardness of +the individual person resists his criticism, and he must be satisfied +with declaring this person a "private person" and really leaving +everything private to him again. + +What will the society that no longer cares about anything private do? +Make the private impossible? No, but "subordinate it to the interests of +society, and, _e. g._, leave it to private will to institute holidays, +as many as it chooses, if only it does not come in collision with the +general interest."[93] Everything private is _left free_; _i. e._ it has +no interest for society. + +"By their raising of barriers against science the church and +religiousness have declared that they are what they always were, only +that this was hidden under another semblance when they were proclaimed +to be the basis and necessary foundation of the State----a matter of +purely private concern. Even when they were connected with the State and +made it Christian, they were only the proof that the State had not yet +developed its general political idea, that it was only instituting +private rights----they were only the highest expression for the fact +that the State was a private affair and had to do only with private +affairs. When the State shall at last have the courage and strength to +fulfil its general destiny and to be free; when, therefore, it is also +able to give separate interests and private concerns their true +position,--then religion and the church will be free as they have never +been hitherto. As a matter of the most purely private concern, and a +satisfaction of purely personal want, they will be left to themselves; +and every individual, every congregation and ecclesiastical communion, +will be able to care for the blessedness of their souls as they choose +and as they think necessary. Every one will care for his soul's +blessedness so far as it is to him a personal want, and will accept and +pay as spiritual caretaker the one who seems to him to offer the best +guarantee for the satisfaction of his want. Science is at last left +entirely out of the game."[94] + +What is to happen, though? Is social life to have an end, and all +companionableness, all fraternization, everything that is created by the +love or society principle, to disappear? + +As if one will not always seek the other because he _needs_ him; as if +one must not accommodate himself to the other when he _needs_ him. But +the difference is this, that then the individual really _unites_ with +the individual, while formerly they were _bound together_ by a tie; son +and father are bound together before majority, after it they can come +together independently; before it they _belonged_ together as members of +the family, after it they unite as egoists; sonship and fatherhood +remain, but son and father no longer pin themselves down to these. + +The last privilege, in truth, is "Man"; with it all are privileged or +invested. For, as Bruno Bauer himself says, "privilege remains even when +it is extended to all."[95] + +Thus liberalism runs its course in the following transformations: +"First, the individual _is_ not man, therefore his individual +personality is of no account: no personal will, no arbitrariness, no +orders or mandates! + +"Second, the individual _has_ nothing human, therefore no mine and +thine, or property, is valid. + +"Third, as the individual neither is man nor has anything human, he +shall not exist at all: he shall, as an egoist with his egoistic +belongings, be annihilated by criticism to make room for Man, 'Man, just +discovered'." + +But, although the individual is not Man, Man is yet present in the +individual, and, like every spook and everything divine, has its +existence in him. Hence political liberalism awards to the individual +everything that pertains to him as "a man by birth," as a born man, +among which there are counted liberty of conscience, the possession of +goods, etc.,--in short, the "rights of man"; Socialism grants to the +individual what pertains to him as an _active_ man, as a "laboring" man; +finally, humane liberalism gives the individual what he has as "a man," +_i. e._ everything that belongs to humanity. Accordingly the single +one[96] has nothing at all, humanity everything; and the necessity of +the "regeneration" preached in Christianity is demanded unambiguously +and in the completest measure. Become a new creature, become "man"! + +One might even think himself reminded of the close of the Lord's Prayer. +To Man belongs the _lordship_ (the "power" or _dynamis_); therefore no +individual may be lord, but Man is the lord of individuals;--Man's is +the _kingdom_, _i. e._ the world, consequently the individual is not to +be proprietor, but Man, "all," commands the world as property;--to Man +is due renown, _glorification_ or "glory" (_doxa_) from all, for Man or +humanity is the individual's end, for which he labors, thinks, lives, +and for whose glorification he must become "man." + +Hitherto men have always striven to find out a fellowship in which their +inequalities in other respects should become "non-essential"; they +strove for equalization, consequently for _equality_, and wanted to come +all under one hat, which means nothing less than that they were seeking +for one lord, one tie, one faith ("'Tis in one God we all believe"). +There cannot be for men anything more fellowly or more equal than Man +himself, and in this fellowship the love-craving has found its +contentment: it did not rest till it had brought on this last +equalization, leveled all inequality, laid man on the breast of man. But +under this very fellowship decay and ruin become most glaring. In a more +limited fellowship the Frenchman still stood against the German, the +Christian against the Mohammedan, etc. Now, on the contrary, _man_ +stands against men, or, as men are not man, man stands against the +un-man. + +The sentence "God has become man" is now followed by the other, "Man has +become I." This is _the human I_. But we invert it and say: I was not +able to find myself so long as I sought myself as Man. But, now that it +appears that Man is aspiring to become I and to gain a corporeity in me, +I note that, after all, everything depends on me, and Man is lost +without me. But I do not care to give myself up to be the shrine of this +most holy thing, and shall not ask henceforward whether I am man or +un-man in what I set about; let this _spirit_ keep off my neck! + +Humane liberalism goes to work radically. If you want to be or have +anything especial even in one point, if you want to retain for yourself +even one prerogative above others, to claim even one right that is not a +general "right of man," you are an egoist. + +Very good! I do not want to have or be anything especial above others, I +do not want to claim any prerogative against them, but--I do not measure +myself by others either, and do not want to have any _right_ whatever. I +want to be all and have all that I can be and have. Whether others are +and have anything _similar_, what do I care? The equal, the same, they +can neither be nor have. I cause no _detriment_ to them, as I cause no +detriment to the rock by being "ahead of it" in having motion. If they +_could_ have it, they would have it. + +To cause other men no _detriment_ is the point of the demand to possess +no prerogative; to renounce all "being ahead," the strictest theory of +_renunciation_. One is not to count himself as "anything especial," such +as _e. g._ a Jew or a Christian. Well, I do not count myself as anything +especial, but as _unique_.[97] Doubtless I have _similarity_ with +others; yet that holds good only for comparison or reflection; in fact I +am incomparable, unique. My flesh is not their flesh, my mind is not +their mind. If you bring them under the generalities "flesh, mind," +those are your _thoughts_, which have nothing to do with _my_ flesh, +_my_ mind, and can least of all issue a "call" to mine. + +I do not want to recognize or respect in you anything, neither the +proprietor nor the ragamuffin, nor even the man, but to _use you_. In +salt I find that it makes food palatable to me, therefore I dissolve it; +in the fish I recognize an aliment, therefore I eat it; in you I +discover the gift of making my life agreeable, therefore I choose you as +a companion. Or, in salt I study crystallization, in the fish animality, +in you men, etc. But to me you are only what you are for me,--to wit, my +object; and, because _my_ object, therefore my property. + +In humane liberalism ragamuffinhood is completed. We must first come +down to the most ragamuffin-like, most poverty-stricken condition if we +want to arrive at _ownness_, for we must strip off everything alien. But +nothing seems more ragamuffin-like than naked--Man. + +It is more than ragamuffinhood, however, when I throw away Man too +because I feel that he too is alien to me and that I can make no +pretensions on that basis. This is no longer mere ragamuffinhood: +because even the last rag has fallen off, here stands real nakedness, +denudation of everything alien. The ragamuffin has stripped off +ragamuffinhood itself, and therewith has ceased, to be what he was, a +ragamuffin. + +I am no longer a ragamuffin, but have been one. + + * * * * * + +Up to this time the discord could not come to an outbreak, because +properly there is current only a contention of modern liberals with +antiquated liberals, a contention of those who understand "freedom" in a +small measure and those who want the "full measure" of freedom; of the +_moderate_ and _measureless_, therefore. Everything turns on the +question, _how free_ must _man_ be? That man must be free, in this all +believe; therefore all are liberal too. But the un-man[98] who is +somewhere in every individual, how is he blocked? flow can it be +arranged not to leave the un-man free at the same time with man? + +Liberalism as a whole has a deadly enemy, an invincible opposite, as God +has the devil: by the side of man stands always the un-man, the +individual, the egoist. State, society, humanity, do not master this +devil. + +Humane liberalism has undertaken the task of showing the other liberals +that they still do not want "freedom." + +If the other liberals had before their eyes only isolated egoism and +were for the most part blind, radical liberalism has against it egoism +"in mass," throws among the masses all who do not make the cause of +freedom their own as it does, so that now man and un-man, rigorously +separated, stand over against each other as enemies, to wit, the +"masses" and "criticism";[99] namely, "free, human criticism," as it is +called ("_Judenfrage_," p. 114), in opposition to crude, _e. g._ +religious, criticism. + +Criticism expresses the hope that it will be victorious over all the +masses and "give them a general certificate of insolvency."[100] So it +means finally to make itself out in the right, and to represent all +contention of the "faint-hearted and timorous" as an egoistic +_stubbornness_,[101] as pettiness, paltriness. All wrangling loses +significance, and petty dissensions are given up, because in criticism a +common enemy enters the field. "You are egoists altogether, one no +better than another!" Now the egoists stand together against criticism. + +Really the egoists? No, they fight against criticism precisely because +it accuses them of egoism; they do not plead guilty to egoism. +Accordingly criticism and the masses stand on the same basis: both fight +against egoism, both repudiate it for themselves and charge it to each +other. + +Criticism and the masses pursue the same goal, freedom from egoism, and +wrangle only over which of them approaches nearest to the goal or even +attains it. + +The Jews, the Christians, the absolutists, the men of darkness and men +of light, politicians, Communists,--all, in short,--hold the reproach of +egoism far from them; and, as criticism brings against them this +reproach in plain terms and in the most extended sense, all _justify_ +themselves against the accusation of egoism, and combat--egoism, the +same enemy with whom criticism wages war. + +Both, criticism and masses, are enemies of egoists, and both seek to +liberate themselves from egoism, as well by clearing or whitewashing +_themselves_ as by ascribing it to the opposite party. + +The critic is the true "spokesman of the masses" who gives them the +"simple concept and the phrase" of egoism, while the spokesmen to whom +the triumph is denied in "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 24 were only bunglers. He is +their prince and general in the war against egoism for freedom; what he +fights against they fight against. But at the same time he is their +enemy too, only not the enemy before them, but the friendly enemy who +wields the knout behind the timorous to force courage into them. + +Hereby the opposition of criticism and the masses is reduced to the +following contradiction: "You are egoists"! "No, we are not"! "I will +prove it to you"! "You shall have our justification"! + +Let us then take both for what they give themselves out for, +non-egoists, and what they take each other for, egoists. They are +egoists and are not. + +Properly criticism says: You must liberate your ego from all limitedness +so entirely that it becomes a _human_ ego. I say: Liberate yourself as +far as you can, and you have done your part; for it is not given to +every one to break through all limits, or, more expressively: not to +every one is that a limit which is a limit for the rest. Consequently, +do not tire yourself with toiling at the limits of others; enough if you +tear down yours. Who has ever succeeded in tearing down even one limit +_for all men_? Are not countless persons to-day, as at all times, +running about with all the "limitations of humanity"? He who overturns +one of _his_ limits may have shown others the way and the means; the +overturning of _their_ limits remains their affair. Nobody does anything +else either. To demand of people that they become wholly men is to call +on them to cast down all human limits. That is impossible, because _Man_ +has no limits. I have some indeed, but then it is only _mine_ that +concern me any, and only they can be overcome by me. A _human_ ego I +cannot become, just because I am I and not merely man. + +Yet let us still see whether criticism has not taught us something that +we can lay to heart! I am not free if I am not without interests, not +man if I am not disinterested? Well, even if it makes little difference +to me to be free or man, yet I do not want to leave unused any occasion +to realize _myself_ or make myself count. Criticism offers me this +occasion by the teaching that, if anything plants itself firmly in me, +and becomes indissoluble, I become its prisoner and servant, _i. e._ a +possessed man. An interest, be it for what it may, has kidnapped a slave +in me if I cannot get away from it, and is no longer my property, but I +I am its. Let us therefore accept criticism's lesson to let no part of +our property become stable, and to feel comfortable only +in--_dissolving_ it. + +So, if criticism says: You are man only when you are restlessly +criticising and dissolving! then we say: Man I am without that, and I am +I likewise; therefore I want only to be careful to secure my property to +myself; and, in order to secure it, I continually take it back into +myself, annihilate in it every movement toward independence, and swallow +it before it can fix itself and become a "fixed idea" or a "mania." + +But I do that not for the sake of my "human calling," but because I call +myself to it. I do not strut about dissolving everything that it is +possible for a man to dissolve, and, _e. g._, while not yet ten years +old I do not criticise the nonsense of the Commandments, but I am man +all the same, and act humanly in just this,--that I still leave them +uncriticised. In short, I have no calling, and follow none, not even +that to be a man. + +Do I now reject what liberalism has won in its various exertions? Far be +the day that anything won should be lost! Only, after "Man" has become +free through liberalism, I turn my gaze back upon myself and confess to +myself openly: What Man seems to have gained, _I_ alone have gained. + +Man is free when "Man is to man the supreme being." So it belongs to the +completion of liberalism that every other supreme being be annulled, +theology overturned by anthropology, God and his grace laughed down, +"atheism" universal. + +The egoism of property has given up the last that it had to give when +even the "My God" has become senseless; for God exists only when he has +at heart the individual's welfare, as the latter seeks his welfare in +him. + +Political liberalism abolished, the inequality of masters and servants: +it made people _masterless_, anarchic. The master was now removed from +the individual, the "egoist," to become a ghost,--the law or the State. +Social liberalism abolishes the inequality of possession, of the poor +and rich, and makes people _possessionless_ or propertyless. Property is +withdrawn from the individual and surrendered to ghostly society. Humane +liberalism makes people _godless_, atheistic. Therefore the individual's +God, "my God", must be put an end to. Now masterlessness is indeed at +the same time freedom from service, possessionlessness at the same time +freedom from care, and godlessness at the same time freedom from +prejudice: for with the master the servant falls away; with possession, +the care about it; with the firmly-rooted God, prejudice. But, since the +master rises again as State, the servant appears again as subject; since +possession becomes the property of society, care is begotten anew as +labor; and, since God as Man becomes a prejudice, there arises a new +faith, faith in humanity or liberty. For the individual's God the God of +all, _viz._, "Man," is now exalted; "for it is the highest thing in us +all to be man." But, as nobody can become entirely what the idea "man" +imports, Man remains to the individual a lofty other world, an +unattained supreme being, a God. But at the same time this is the "true +God," because he is fully adequate to us,--to wit, our own "_self_"; we +ourselves, but separated from us and lifted above us. + + +POSTSCRIPT + +The foregoing review of "free human criticism" was written by bits +immediately after the appearance of the books in question, as was also +that which elsewhere refers to writings of this tendency, and I did +little more than bring together the fragments. But criticism is +restlessly pressing forward, and thereby makes it necessary for me to +come back to it once more, now that my book is finished, and insert this +concluding note. + +I have before me the latest (eighth) number of the "_Allgemeine +Literatur-Zeitung_" of Bruno Bauer. + +There again "the general interests of society" stand at the top. But +criticism has reflected, and given this "society" a specification by +which it is discriminated from a form which previously had still been +confused with it: the "State," in former passages still celebrated as +"free State," is quite given up because it can in no wise fulfil the +task of "human society." Criticism only "saw itself compelled to +identify for a moment human and political affairs" in 1842; but now it +has found that the State, even as "free State," is not human society, +or, as it could likewise say, that the people is not "man." We saw how +it got through with theology and showed clearly that God sinks into dust +before Man; we see it now come to a clearance with politics in the same +way, and show that before Man peoples and nationalities fall: so we see +how it has its explanation with Church and State, declaring them both +unhuman, and we shall see--for it betrays this to us already--how it can +also give proof that before Man the "masses," which it even calls a +"spiritual being," appear worthless. And how should the lesser +"spiritual beings" be able to maintain themselves before the supreme +spirit? "Man" casts down the false idols. + +So what the critic has in view for the present is the scrutiny of the +"masses," which he will place before "Man" in order to combat them from +the standpoint of Man. "What is now the object of criticism?" "The +masses, a spiritual being!" These the critic will "learn to know," and +will find that they are in contradiction with Man; he will demonstrate +that they are unhuman, and will succeed just as well in this +demonstration as in the former ones, that the divine and the national, +or the concerns of Church and of State, were the unhuman. + +The masses are defined as "the most significant product of the +Revolution, as the deceived multitude which the illusions of political +Illumination, and in general the entire Illumination movement of the +eighteenth century, have given over to boundless disgruntlement." The +Revolution satisfied some by its result, and left others unsatisfied; +the satisfied part is the commonalty (_bourgeoisie_, etc.), the +unsatisfied is the--masses. Does not the critic, so placed, himself +belong to the "masses"? + +But the unsatisfied are still in great mistiness, and their discontent +utters itself only in a "boundless disgruntlement." This the likewise +unsatisfied critic now wants to master: he cannot want and attain more +than to bring that "spiritual being," the masses, out of its +disgruntlement, and to "uplift" those who were only disgruntled, _i. e._ +to give them the right attitude toward those results of the Revolution +which are to be overcome;--he can become the head of the masses, their +decided spokesman. Therefore he wants also to "abolish the deep chasm +which parts him from the multitude." From those who want to "uplift the +lower classes of the people" he is distinguished by wanting to deliver +from "disgruntlement," not merely these, but himself too. + +But assuredly his consciousness does not deceive him either, when he +takes the masses to be the "natural opponents of theory," and foresees +that, "the more this theory shall develop itself, so much the more will +it make the masses compact." For the critic cannot enlighten or satisfy +the masses with his _presupposition_, Man. If over against the +commonalty they are only the "lower classes of the people," politically +insignificant masses, over against "Man" they must still more be mere +"masses," humanly insignificant--yes, unhuman--masses, or a multitude of +un-men. + +The critic clears away everything human; and, starting from the +presupposition that the human is the true, he works against himself, +denying it wherever it had been hitherto found. He proves only that the +human is to be found nowhere except in his head, but the unhuman +everywhere. The unhuman is the real, the extant on all hands, and by the +proof that it is "not human" the critic only enunciates plainly the +tautological sentence that it is the unhuman. + +But what if the unhuman, turning its back on itself with resolute heart, +should at the same time turn away from the disturbing critic and leave +him standing, untouched and unstung by his remonstrance? + +"You call me the unhuman," it might say to him, "and so I really am--for +you; but I am so only because you bring me into opposition to the human, +and I could despise myself only so long as I let myself be hypnotized +into this opposition. I was contemptible because I sought my 'better +self' outside me; I was the unhuman because I dreamed of the 'human'; I +resembled the pious who hunger for their 'true self' and always remain +'poor sinners'; I thought of myself only in comparison to another; +enough, I was not all in all, was not--_unique_.[102] But now I cease to +appear to myself as the unhuman, cease to measure myself and let myself +be measured by man, cease to recognize anything above me: +consequently--adieu, humane critic! I only have been the unhuman, am it +now no longer, but am the unique, yes, to your loathing, the egoistic; +yet not the egoistic as it lets itself be measured by the human, +humane, and unselfish, but the egoistic as the--unique." + +We have to pay attention to still another sentence of the same number. +"Criticism sets up no dogmas, and wants to learn to know nothing but +_things_." + +The critic is afraid of becoming "dogmatic" or setting up dogmas. Of +course: why, thereby he would become the opposite of the critic,--the +dogmatist; he would now become bad, as he is good as critic, or would +become from an unselfish man an egoist, etc. "Of all things, no dogma!" +this is his--dogma. For the critic remains on one and the same ground +with the dogmatist,--that of _thoughts_. Like the latter he always +starts from a thought, but varies in this, that he never ceases to keep +the principle-thought in the _process of thinking_, and so does not let +it become stable. He only asserts the thought-process against +stationariness in it. From criticism no thought is safe, since criticism +is thought or the thinking mind itself. + +Therefore I repeat that the religious world--and this is the world of +thoughts--reaches its completion in criticism, where thinking extends +its encroachments over every thought, no one of which may "egoistically" +establish itself. Where would the "purity of criticism," the purity of +thinking, be left if even one thought escaped the process of thinking? +This explains the fact that the critic has even begun already to gibe +gently here and there at the thought of Man, of humanity and humaneness, +because he suspects that here a thought is approaching dogmatic fixity. +But yet he cannot decompose this thought till he has found a--"higher" +in which it dissolves; for he moves only--in thoughts. This higher +thought might be enunciated as that of the movement or process of +thinking itself, _i. e._ as the thought of thinking or of criticism. + +Freedom of thinking has in fact become complete hereby, freedom of mind +celebrates its triumph: for the individual, "egoistic" thoughts have +lost their dogmatic truculence. There is nothing left but the--dogma of +free thinking or of criticism. + +Against everything that belongs to the world of thought, criticism is in +the right, _i. e._ in might: it is the victor. Criticism, and criticism +alone, is "up to date." From the standpoint of thought there is no power +capable of being an overmatch for criticism's, and it is a pleasure to +see how easily and sportively this dragon swallows all other serpents of +thought. Each serpent twists, to be sure, but criticism crushes it in +all its "turns." + +I am no opponent of criticism, _i. e._ I am no dogmatist, and do not +feel myself touched by the critic's tooth with which he tears the +dogmatist to pieces. If I were a "dogmatist," I should place at the head +a dogma, _i. e._ a thought, an idea, a principle, and should complete +this as a "systematist," spinning it out to a system, _i. e._ a +structure of thought. Conversely, if I were a critic, _viz._, an +opponent of the dogmatist, I should carry on the fight of free thinking +against the enthralling thought, I should defend thinking against what +was thought. But I am neither the champion of a thought nor the champion +of thinking; for "I," from whom I start, am not a thought, nor do I +consist in thinking. Against me, the unnameable, the realm of thoughts, +thinking, and mind is shattered. + +Criticism is the possessed man's fight against possession as such, +against all possession: a fight which is founded in the consciousness +that everywhere possession, or, as the critic calls it, a religious and +theological attitude, is extant. He knows that people stand in a +religious or believing attitude not only toward God, but toward other +ideas as well, like right, the State, law, etc.; _i. e._ he recognizes +possession in all places. So he wants to break up thoughts by thinking; +but I say, only thoughtlessness really saves me from thoughts. It it not +thinking, but my thoughtlessness, or I the unthinkable, +incomprehensible, that frees me from possession. + +A jerk does me the service of the most anxious thinking, a stretching of +the limbs shakes off the torment of thoughts, a leap upward hurls from +my breast the nightmare of the religious world, a jubilant Hoopla throws +off year-long burdens. But the monstrous significance of unthinking +jubilation could not be recognized in the long night of thinking and +believing. + +"What clumsiness and frivolity, to want to solve the most difficult +problems, acquit yourself of the most comprehensive tasks, by a +_breaking off_!" + +But have you tasks if you do not set them to yourself? So long as you +set them, you will not give them up, and I certainly do not care if you +think, and, thinking, create a thousand thoughts. But you who have set +the tasks, are you not to be able to upset them again? Must you be bound +to these tasks, and must they become absolute tasks? + +To cite only one thing, the government has been disparaged on account of +its resorting to forcible means against thoughts, interfering against +the press by means of the police power of the censorship, and making a +personal fight out of a literary one. As if it were solely a matter of +thoughts, and as if one's attitude toward thoughts must be unselfish, +self-denying, and self-sacrificing! Do not those thoughts attack the +governing parties themselves, and so call out egoism? And do the +thinkers not set before the attacked ones the _religious_ demand to +reverence the power of thought, of ideas? They are to succumb +voluntarily and resignedly, because the divine power of thought, +Minerva, fights on their enemies' side. Why, that would be an act of +possession, a religious sacrifice. To be sure, the governing parties are +themselves held fast in a religious bias, and follow the leading power +of an idea or a faith; but they are at the same time unconfessed +egoists, and right here, against the enemy, their pent-up egoism breaks +loose: possessed in their faith, they are at the same time unpossessed +by their opponents' faith, _i. e._ they are egoists toward this. If one +wants to make them a reproach, it could only be the converse,--to wit, +that they are possessed by their ideas. + +Against thoughts no egoistic power is to appear, no police power and the +like. So the believers in thinking believe. But thinking and its +thoughts are not sacred to _me_, and I defend _my skin_ against them as +against other things. That may be an unreasonable defence; but, if I am +in duty bound to reason, then I, like Abraham, must sacrifice my dearest +to it! + +In the kingdom of thought, which, like that of faith, is the kingdom of +heaven, every one is assuredly wrong who uses _unthinking_ force, just +as every one is wrong who in the kingdom of love behaves unlovingly, or, +although he is a Christian and therefore lives in the kingdom of love, +yet acts unchristianly; in these kingdoms, to which he supposes himself +to belong though he nevertheless throws off their laws, he is a "sinner" +or "egoist." But it is only when he becomes a _criminal_ against these +kingdoms that he can throw off their dominion. + +Here too the result is this, that the fight of the thinkers against the +government is indeed in the right, _viz___., in might,--so far as it is +carried on against the government's thoughts (the government is dumb, +and does not succeed in making any literary rejoinder to speak of), but +is, on the other hand, in the wrong, _viz._, in impotence, so far as it +does not succeed in bringing into the field anything but thoughts +against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the +thinkers). The theoretical fight cannot complete the victory, and the +sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. Only the +egoistic fight, the fight of egoists on both sides, clears up +everything. + +This last now, to make thinking an affair of egoistic option, an +affair of the single person,[103] a mere pastime or hobby as it were, +and to take from it the importance of "being the last decisive +power"; this degradation and desecration of thinking; this equalization +of the unthinking and thoughtful ego; this clumsy but real +"equality,"--criticism is not able to produce, because it itself is only +the priest of thinking, and sees nothing beyond thinking but--the +deluge. + +Criticism does indeed affirm, _e. g._, that free criticism may overcome +the State, but at the same time it defends itself against the reproach +which is laid upon it by the State government, that it is "self-will and +impudence"; it thinks, then, that "self-will and impudence" may not +overcome, it alone may. The truth is rather the reverse: the State can +be really overcome only by impudent self-will. + +It may now, to conclude with this, be clear that in the critic's new +change of front he has not transformed himself, but only "made good an +oversight," "disentangled a subject," and is saying too much when he +speaks of "criticism criticising itself": it, or rather he, has only +criticised its "oversight" and cleared it of its "inconsistencies." If +he wanted to criticise criticism, he would have to look and see if there +was anything in its presupposition. + +I on my part start from a presupposition in presupposing _myself_; but +my presupposition does not struggle for its perfection like "Man +struggling for his perfection," but only serves me to enjoy it and +consume it. I consume my presupposition, and nothing else, and exist +only in consuming it. But that presupposition is therefore not a +presupposition at all: for, as I am the Unique, I know nothing of the +duality of a presupposing and a presupposed ego (an "incomplete" and a +"complete" ego or man); but this, that I consume myself, means only that +I am. I do not presuppose myself, because I am every moment just +positing or creating myself, and am I only by being not presupposed but +posited, and, again, posited only in the moment when I posit myself; +_i. e._, I am creator and creature in one. + +If the presuppositions that have hitherto been current are to melt away +in a full dissolution, they must not be dissolved into a higher +presupposition again,--_i. e._ a thought, or thinking itself, criticism. +For that dissolution is to be for _my_ good; otherwise it would belong +only in the series of the innumerable dissolutions which, in favor of +others, (_e. g._ this very Man, God, the State, pure morality, etc.), +declared old truths to be untruths and did away with long-fostered +presuppositions. + + + + +Part Second + +I + + + + + At the entrance of the modern time stands the "God-man." At its + exit will only the God in the God-man evaporate? and can the + God-man really die if only the God in him dies? They did not + think of this question, and thought they were through when in + our days they brought to a victorious end the work of the + Illumination, the vanquishing of God; they did not notice that + Man has killed God in order to become now--"sole God on high." + The _other world outside us_ is indeed brushed away, and the + great undertaking of the Illuminators completed; but the _other + world in us_ has become a new heaven and calls us forth to + renewed heaven-storming: God has had to give place, yet not to + us, but to--Man. How can you believe that the God-man is dead + before the Man in him, besides the God, is dead? + + + + +I + +OWNNESS[104] + + +"Does not the spirit thirst for freedom?"--Alas, not my spirit alone, my +body too thirsts for it hourly! When before the odorous castle-kitchen +my nose tells my palate of the savory dishes that are being prepared +therein, it feels a fearful pining at its dry bread; when my eyes tell +the hardened back about soft down on which one may lie more delightfully +than on its compressed straw, a suppressed rage seizes it; when--but let +us not follow the pains further.--And you call that a longing for +freedom? What do you want to become free from, then? From your hardtack +and your straw bed? Then throw them away!--But that seems not to serve +you: you want rather to have the freedom to enjoy delicious foods and +downy beds. Are men to give you this "freedom,"--are they to permit it +to you? You do not hope that from their philanthropy, because you know +they all think like--you: each is the nearest to himself! How, +therefore, do you mean to come to the enjoyment of those foods and beds? +Evidently not otherwise than in making them your property! + +If you think it over rightly, you do not want the freedom to have all +these fine things, for with this freedom you still do not have them; you +want really to have them, to call them _yours_ and possess them as _your +property_. Of what use is a freedom to you, indeed, if it brings in +nothing? And, if you became free from everything, you would no longer +have anything; for freedom is empty of substance. Whoso knows not how to +make use of it, for him it has no value this useless permission; but how +I make use of it depends on my personality.[105] + +I have no objection to freedom, but I wish more than freedom for you: +you should not merely _be rid_ of what you do not want, you should also +_have_ what you want; you should not only be a "freeman," you should be +an "owner" too. + +Free--from what? Oh! what is there that cannot be shaken off? The yoke +of serfdom, of sovereignty, of aristocracy and princes, the dominion of +the desires and passions; yes, even the dominion of one's own will, of +self-will, for the completest self-denial is nothing but +freedom--freedom, to wit, from self-determination, from one's own self. +And the craving for freedom as for something absolute, worthy of every +praise, deprived us of ownness: it created self-denial. However, the +freer I become, the more compulsion piles up before my eyes; and the +more impotent I feel myself. The unfree son of the wilderness does not +yet feel anything of all the limits that crowd a civilized man: he seems +to himself freer than this latter. In the measure that I conquer freedom +for myself I create for myself new bounds and new tasks: if I have +invented railroads, I feel myself weak again because I cannot yet sail +through the skies like the bird; and, if I have solved a problem whose +obscurity disturbed my mind, at once there await me innumerable others, +whose perplexities impede my progress, dim my free gaze, make the limits +of my _freedom_ painfully sensible to me. "Now that you have become free +from sin, you have become _servants_ of righteousness."[106] Republicans +in their broad freedom, do they not become servants of the law? How true +Christian hearts at all times longed to "become free," how they pined to +see themselves delivered from the "bonds of this earth-life"! they +looked out toward the land of freedom. ("The Jerusalem that is above is +the freewoman; she is the mother of us all." Gal. 4. 26.) + +Being free from anything--means only being clear or rid. "He is free +from headache" is equal to "he is rid of it." "He is free from this +prejudice" is equal to "he has never conceived it" or "he has got rid of +it." In "less" we complete the freedom recommended by Christianity, in +sinless, godless, moralityless, etc. + +Freedom is the doctrine of Christianity. "Ye, dear brethren, are called +to freedom."[107] "So speak and so do, as those who are to be judged by +the law of freedom."[108] + +Must we then, because freedom betrays itself as a Christian ideal, give +it up? No, nothing is to be lost, freedom no more than the rest; but it +is to become our own, and in the form of freedom it cannot. + +What a difference between freedom and ownness! One can get _rid_ of a +great many things, one yet does not get rid of all; one becomes free +from much, not from everything. Inwardly one may be free in spite of the +condition of slavery, although, too, it is again only from all sorts of +things, not from everything; but from the whip, the domineering temper, +etc., of the master, one does not as slave become _free_. "Freedom lives +only in the realm of dreams!" Ownness, on the contrary, is my whole +being and existence, it is I myself. I am free from what I am _rid_ of, +owner of what I have in my _power_ or what I _control_. _My own_ I am at +all times and under all circumstances, if I know how to have myself and +do not throw myself away on others. To be free is something that I +cannot truly _will_, because I cannot make it, cannot create it: I can +only wish it and--aspire toward it, for it remains an ideal, a spook. +The fetters of reality cut the sharpest welts in my flesh every moment. +But _my own_ I remain. Given up as serf to a master, I think only of +myself and my advantage; his blows strike me indeed, I am not _free_ +from them; but I endure them only for _my benefit_, perhaps in order to +deceive him and make him secure by the semblance of patience, or, +again, not to draw worse upon myself by contumacy. But, as I keep my eye +on myself and my selfishness, I take by the forelock the first good +opportunity to trample the slaveholder into the dust. That I then become +_free_ from him and his whip is only the consequence of my antecedent +egoism. Here one perhaps says I was "free" even in the condition of +slavery,--to wit, "intrinsically" or "inwardly." But "intrinsically +free" is not "really free," and "inwardly" is not "outwardly." I was +own, on the other hand, _my own_, altogether, inwardly and outwardly. +Under the dominion of a cruel master my body is not "free" from torments +and lashes; but it is _my_ bones that moan under the torture, _my_ +fibres that quiver under the blows, and _I_ moan because _my_ body +moans. That _I_ sigh and shiver proves that I have not yet lost +_myself_, that I am still my own. My _leg_ is not "free" from the +master's stick, but it is _my_ leg and is inseparable. Let him tear it +off me and look and see if he still has my leg! He retains in his hand +nothing but the--corpse of my leg, which is as little my leg as a dead +dog is still a dog: a dog has a pulsating heart, a so-called dead dog +has none and is therefore no longer a dog. + +If one opines that a slave may yet be inwardly free, he says in fact +only the most indisputable and trivial thing. For who is going to assert +that any man is _wholly_ without freedom? If I am an eye-servant, can I +therefore not be free from innumerable things, _e. g._ from faith in +Zeus, from the desire for fame, and the like? Why then should not a +whipped slave also be able to be inwardly free from unchristian +sentiments, from hatred, of his enemy, etc.? He then has "Christian +freedom," is rid of the unchristian; but has he absolute freedom, +freedom from everything, _e. g._ from the Christian delusion, or from +bodily pain, etc.? + +In the meantime, all this seems to be said more against names than +against the thing. But is the name indifferent, and has not a word, a +shibboleth, always inspired and--fooled men? Yet between freedom and +ownness there lies still a deeper chasm than the mere difference of the +words. + +All the world desires freedom, all long for its reign to come. O +enchantingly beautiful dream of a blooming "reign of freedom," a "free +human race"!--who has not dreamed it? So men shall become free, entirely +free, free from all constraint! From all constraint, really from all? +Are they never to put constraint on themselves any more? "Oh yes, that, +of course; don't you see, that is no constraint at all?" Well, then at +any rate they are to become free from religious faith, from the strict +duties of morality, from the inexorability of the law, from--"What a +fearful misunderstanding!" Well, _what_ are they to be free from then, +and what not? + +The lovely dream is dissipated; awakened, one rubs his half-opened eyes +and stares at the prosaic questioner. "What men are to be free +from?"--From blind credulity, cries one. What's that? exclaims another, +all faith is blind credulity; they must become free from all faith. No, +no, for God's sake,--inveighs the first again,--do not cast all faith +from you, else the power of brutality breaks in. We must have the +republic,--a third makes himself heard,--and become--free from all +commanding lords. There is no help in that, says a fourth: we only get a +new lord then, a "dominant majority"; let us rather free ourselves from +this dreadful inequality.--O hapless equality, already I hear your +plebeian roar again! How I had dreamed so beautifully just now of a +paradise of _freedom_, and what impudence and licentiousness now raises +its wild clamor! Thus the first laments, and gets on his feet to grasp +the sword against "unmeasured freedom." Soon we no longer hear anything +but the clashing of the swords of the disagreeing dreamers of freedom. + +What the craving for freedom has always come to has been the desire for +a _particular_ freedom, _e. g._ freedom of faith; _i. e._, the believing +man wanted to be free and independent; of what? of faith perhaps? no! +but of the inquisitors of faith. So now "political or civil" freedom. +The citizen wants to become free not from citizenhood, but from +bureaucracy, the arbitrariness of princes, and the like. Prince +Metternich once said he had "found a way that was adapted to guide men +in the path of _genuine_ freedom for all the future." The Count of +Provence ran away from France precisely at the time when she was +preparing the "reign of freedom," and said: "My imprisonment had become +intolerable to me; I had only one passion, the desire for--_freedom_; I +thought only of it." + +The craving for a _particular_ freedom always includes the purpose of a +new _dominion_, as it was with the Revolution, which indeed "could give +its defenders the uplifting feeling that they were fighting for +freedom," but in truth only because they were after a particular +freedom, therefore a new _dominion_, the "dominion of the law." + +Freedom you all want, you want _freedom_. Why then do you higgle +over a more or less? _Freedom_ can only be the whole of freedom; a +piece of freedom is not _freedom_. You despair of the possibility of +obtaining the whole of freedom, freedom from everything,--yes, you +consider it insanity even to wish this?--Well, then leave off chasing +after the phantom, and spend your pains on something better than +the--_unattainable_. + +"Ah, but there is nothing better than freedom!" + +What have you then when you have freedom, _viz._,--for I will not speak +here of your piecemeal bits of freedom,--complete freedom? Then you are +rid of everything that embarrasses you, everything, and there is +probably nothing that does not once in your life embarrass you and cause +you inconvenience. And for whose sake, then, did you want to be rid of +it? Doubtless _for your sake_, because it is in _your_ way! But, if +something were not inconvenient to you; if, on the contrary, it were +quite to your mind (_e. g._ the gently but _irresistibly commanding_ +look of your loved one),--then you would not want to be rid of it and +free from it. Why not? _For your sake_ again! So you take _yourselves_ +as measure and judge over all. You gladly let freedom go when unfreedom, +the "sweet _service_ of love," suits _you_; and you take up your freedom +again on occasion when it begins to suit _you_ better,--that is, +supposing, which is not the point here, that you are not afraid of such +a Repeal of the Union for other (perhaps religious) reasons. + +Why will you not take courage now to really make _yourselves_ the +central point and the main thing altogether? Why grasp in the air at +freedom, your dream? Are you your dream? Do not begin by inquiring of +your dreams, your notions, your thoughts, for that is all "hollow +theory." Ask yourselves and ask after yourselves--that is _practical_ +and you know you want very much to be "practical." But there the one +hearkens what his God (of course what he thinks of at the name God is +his God) may be going to say to it, and another what his moral feelings, +his conscience, his feeling of duty, may determine about it, and a third +calculates what folks will think of it,--and, when each has thus asked +his Lord God (folks are a Lord God just as good as, nay, even more +compact than, the other-worldly and imaginary one: _vox populi, vox +dei_), then he accommodates himself to his Lord's will and listens no +more at all for what _he himself_ would like to say and decide. + +Therefore turn to yourselves rather than to your gods or idols. Bring +out from yourselves what is in you, bring it to the light, bring +yourselves to revelation. + +How one acts only from himself, and asks after nothing further, the +Christians have realized in the notion "God." He acts "as it pleases +him." And foolish man, who could do just so, is to act as it "pleases +God" instead.--If it is said that even God proceeds according to eternal +laws, that too fits me, since I too cannot get out of my skin, but have +my law in my whole nature, _i. e._ in myself. + +But one needs only admonish you of yourselves to bring you to despair +at once. "What am I?" each of you asks himself. An abyss of lawless and +unregulated impulses, desires, wishes, passions, a chaos without light +or guiding star! How am I to obtain a correct answer, if, without regard +to God's commandments or to the duties which morality prescribes, +without regard to the voice of reason, which in the course of history, +after bitter experiences, has exalted the best and most reasonable thing +into law, I simply appeal to myself? My passion would advise me to do +the most senseless thing possible.--Thus each deems himself +the--_devil_; for, if, so far as he is unconcerned about religion, etc., +he only deemed himself a beast, he would easily find that the beast, +which does follow only _its_ impulse (as it were, its advice), does not +advise and impel itself to do the "most senseless" things, but takes +very correct steps. But the habit of the religious way of thinking has +biased our mind so grievously that we are--terrified at _ourselves_ in +our nakedness and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem +ourselves depraved by nature, born devils. Of course it comes into your +head at once that your calling requires you to do the "good," the moral, +the right. Now, if you ask _yourselves_ what is to be done, how can the +right voice sound forth from you, the voice which points the way of the +good, the right, the true, etc.? What concord have God and Belial? + +But what would you think if one answered you by saying: "That one is to +listen to God, conscience, duties, laws, etc., is flim-flam with which +people have stuffed your head and heart and made you crazy"? And if he +asked you how it is that you know so surely that the voice of nature is +a seducer? And if he even demanded of you to turn the thing about and +actually to deem the voice of God and conscience to be the devil's work? +There are such graceless men; how will you settle them? You cannot +appeal to your parsons, parents, and good men, for precisely these are +designated by them as your _seducers_, as the true seducers and +corrupters of youth, who busily sow broadcast the tares of self-contempt +and reverence to God, who fill young hearts with mud and young heads +with stupidity. + +But now those people go on and ask: For whose sake do you care about +God's and the other commandments? You surely do not suppose that this is +done merely out of complaisance toward God? No, you are doing it--_for +your sake_ again.--Here too, therefore, _you_ are the main thing, and +each must say to himself, _I_ am everything to myself and I do +everything _on my account_. If it ever became clear to you that God, the +commandments, etc., only harm you, that they reduce and ruin _you_, to a +certainty you would throw them from you just as the Christians once +condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen morality. They did indeed put in +the place of these Christ and afterward Mary, as well as a Christian +morality; but they did this for the sake of _their_ souls' welfare too, +therefore out of egoism or ownness. + +And it was by this egoism, this ownness, that they got _rid_ of the old +world of gods and became _free_ from it. Ownness _created_ a new +_freedom_; for ownness is the creator of everything, as genius (a +definite ownness), which is always originality, has for a long time +already been looked upon as the creator of new productions that have a +place in the history of the world. + +If your efforts are ever to make "freedom" the issue, then exhaust +freedom's demands. Who is it that is to become free? You, I, we. Free +from what? From everything that is not you, not I, not we. I, therefore, +am the kernel that is to be delivered from all wrappings and--freed from +all cramping shells. What is left when I have been freed from everything +that is not I? Only I; nothing but I. But freedom has nothing to offer +to this I himself. As to what is now to happen further after I have +become free, freedom is silent,--as our governments, when the prisoner's +time is up, merely let him go, thrusting him out into abandonment. + +Now why, if freedom is striven after for love of the I after all,--why +not choose the I himself as beginning, middle, and end? Am I not worth +more than freedom? Is it not I that make myself free, am not I the +first? Even unfree, even laid in a thousand fetters, I yet am; and I am +not, like freedom, extant only in the future and in hopes, but even as +the most abject of slaves I am--present. + +Think that over well, and decide whether you will place on your banner +the dream of "freedom" or the resolution of "egoism," of "ownness." +"Freedom" awakens your _rage_ against everything that is not you; +"egoism" calls you to _joy_ over yourselves, to self-enjoyment; +"freedom" is and remains a _longing_, a romantic plaint, a Christian +hope for unearthliness and futurity; "ownness" is a reality, which _of +itself_ removes just so much unfreedom as by barring your own way +hinders you. What does not disturb you, you will not want to renounce; +and, if it begins to disturb you, why, you know that "you must obey +_yourselves_ rather than men!" + +Freedom teaches only: Get yourselves rid, relieve yourselves, of +everything burdensome; it does not teach you who you yourselves are. +Rid, rid! so rings its rallying-cry, and you, eagerly following its +call, get rid even of yourselves, "deny yourselves." But ownness calls +you back to yourselves, it says "Come to yourself!" Under the aegis of +freedom you get rid of many kinds of things, but something new pinches +you again: "you are rid of the Evil One; evil is left."[109] As _own_ +you are _really rid of everything_, and what clings to you _you have +accepted_; it is your choice and your pleasure. The _own_ man is the +_freeborn_, the man free to begin with; the free man, on the contrary, +is only the _eleutheromaniac_, the dreamer and enthusiast. + +The former is _originally free_, because he recognizes nothing but +himself; he does not need to free himself first, because at the start he +rejects everything outside himself, because he prizes nothing more than +himself, rates nothing higher, because, in short, he starts from himself +and "comes to himself." Constrained by childish respect, he is +nevertheless already working at "freeing" himself from this constraint. +Ownness works in the little egoist, and procures him the +desired--freedom. + +Thousands of years of civilization have obscured to you what you are, +have made you believe you are not egoists but are _called_ to be +idealists ("good men"). Shake that off! Do not seek for freedom, which +does precisely deprive you of yourselves, in "self-denial"; but seek for +_yourselves_, become egoists, become each of you an _almighty ego_. Or, +more clearly: Just recognize yourselves again, just recognize what you +really are, and let go your hypocritical endeavors, your foolish mania +to be something else than you are. Hypocritical I call them because you +have yet remained egoists all these thousands of years, but sleeping, +self-deceiving, crazy egoists, you Heautontimorumenoses, you +self-tormentors. Never yet has a religion been able to dispense with +"promises," whether they referred us to the other world or to this +("long life," etc.); for man is _mercenary_ and does nothing "gratis." +But how about that "doing the good for the good's sake without prospect +of reward? As if here too the pay was not contained in the satisfaction +that it is to afford. Even religion, therefore, is founded on our egoism +and--exploits it; calculated for our _desires_, it stifles many others +for the sake of one. This then gives the phenomenon of _cheated_ egoism, +where I satisfy, not myself, but one of my desires, _e. g._ the impulse +toward blessedness. Religion promises me the--"supreme good"; to gain +this I no longer regard any other of my desires, and do not slake +them.--All your doings are _unconfessed_, secret, covert, and concealed +egoism. But because they are egoism that you are unwilling to confess to +yourselves, that you keep secret from yourselves, hence not manifest +and public egoism, consequently unconscious egoism,--therefore they are +_not egoism_, but thraldom, service, self-renunciation; you are egoists, +and you are not, since you renounce egoism. Where you seem most to be +such, you have drawn upon the word "egoist"--loathing and contempt. + +I secure my freedom with regard to the world in the degree that I make +the world my own, _i. e._ "gain it and take possession of it" for +myself, by whatever might, by that of persuasion, of petition, of +categorical demand, yes, even by hypocrisy, cheating, etc.; for the +means that I use for it are determined by what I am. If I am weak, I +have only weak means, like the aforesaid, which yet are good enough for +a considerable part of the world. Besides, cheating, hypocrisy, lying, +look worse than they are. Who has not cheated the police, the law? who +has not quickly taken on an air of honorable loyalty before the +sheriff's officer who meets him, in order to conceal an illegality that +may have been committed, etc.? He who has not done it has simply let +violence be done to him; he was a _weakling_ from--conscience. I know +that my freedom is diminished even by my not being able to carry out my +will on another object, be this other something without will, like a +rock, or something with will, like a government, an individual, etc.; I +deny my ownness when--in presence of another--I give myself up, _i. e._ +give way, desist, submit; therefore by _loyalty_, _submission_. For it +is one thing when I give up my previous course because it does not lead +to the goal, and therefore turn out of a wrong road; it is another when +I yield myself a prisoner. I get around a rock that stands in my way, +till I have powder enough to blast it; I get around the laws of a +people, till I have gathered strength to overthrow them. Because I +cannot grasp the moon, is it therefore to be "sacred" to me, an Astarte? +If I only could grasp you, I surely would, and, if I only find a means +to get up to you, you shall not frighten me! You inapprehensible one, +you shall remain inapprehensible to me only till I have acquired the +might for apprehension and call you my _own_; I do not give myself up +before you, but only bide my time. Even if for the present I put up with +my inability to touch you, I yet remember it against you. + +Vigorous men have always done so. When the "loyal" had exalted an +unsubdued power to be their master and had adored it, when they had +demanded adoration from all, then there came some such son of nature who +would not loyally submit, and drove the adored power from its +inaccessible Olympus. He cried his "Stand still" to the rolling sun, and +made the earth go round; the loyal had to make the best of it; he laid +his axe to the sacred oaks, and the "loyal" were astonished that no +heavenly fire consumed him; he threw the pope off Peter's chair, and the +"loyal" had no way to hinder it; he is tearing down the divine-right +business, and the "loyal" croak in vain, and at last are silent. + +My freedom becomes complete only when it is my--_might_; but by this I +cease to be a merely free man, and become an own man. Why is the freedom +of the peoples a "hollow word"? Because the peoples have no might! With +a breath of the living ego I blow peoples over, be it the breath of a +Nero, a Chinese emperor, or a poor writer. Why is it that the +G.....[110] legislatures pine in vain for freedom, and are lectured for +it by the cabinet ministers? Because they are not of the "mighty"! Might +is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for "one goes further +with a handful of might than with a bagful of right." You long for +freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. +See, he who has might "stands above the law." How does this prospect +taste to you, you "law-abiding" people? But you have no taste! + +The cry for "freedom" rings loudly all around. But is it felt +and known what a donated or chartered freedom must mean? It is not +recognized in the full amplitude of the word that all freedom is +essentially--self-liberation,--_i. e._, that I can have only so much +freedom as I procure for myself by my ownness. Of what use is it to +sheep that no one abridges their freedom of speech? They stick to +bleating. Give one who is inwardly a Mohammedan, a Jew, or a Christian, +permission to speak what he likes: he will yet utter only narrow-minded +stuff. If, on the contrary, certain others rob you of the freedom of +speaking and hearing, they know quite rightly wherein lies their +temporary advantage, as you would perhaps be able to say and hear +something whereby those "certain" persons would lose their credit. + +If they nevertheless give you freedom, they are simply knaves who give +more than they have. For then they give you nothing of their own, but +stolen wares: they give you your own freedom, the freedom that you must +take for yourselves; and they _give_ it to you only that you may not +take it and call the thieves and cheats to an account to boot. In their +slyness they know well that given (chartered) freedom is no freedom, +since only the freedom one _takes_ for himself, therefore the egoist's +freedom, rides with full sails. Donated freedom strikes its sails as +soon as there comes a storm--or calm; it requires always a--gentle and +moderate breeze. + +Here lies the difference between self-liberation and emancipation +(manumission, setting free). Those who to-day "stand in the opposition" +are thirsting and screaming to be "set free." The princes are to +"declare their peoples of age," _i. e._ emancipate them! Behave as if +you were of age, and you are so without any declaration of majority; if +you do not behave accordingly, you are not worthy of it, and would never +be of age even by a declaration of majority. When the Greeks were of +age, they drove out their tyrants, and, when the son is of age, he makes +himself independent of his father. If the Greeks had waited till their +tyrants graciously allowed them their majority, they might have waited +long. A sensible father throws out a son who will not come of age, and +keeps the house to himself; it serves the noodle right. + +The man who is set free is nothing but a freedman, a _libertinus_, a dog +dragging a piece of chain with him: he is an unfree man in the garment +of freedom, like the ass in the lion's skin. Emancipated Jews are +nothing bettered in themselves, but only relieved as Jews, although he +who relieves their condition is certainly more than a churchly +Christian, as the latter cannot do this without inconsistency. But, +emancipated or not emancipated, Jew remains Jew; he who is not +self-freed is merely an--emancipated man. The Protestant State can +certainly set free (emancipate) the Catholics; but, because they do not +make themselves free, they remain simply--Catholics. + +Selfishness and unselfishness have already been spoken of. The friends +of freedom are exasperated against selfishness because in their +religious striving after freedom they cannot--free themselves from that +sublime thing, "self-renunciation." The liberal's anger is directed +against egoism, for the egoist, you know, never takes trouble about a +thing for the sake of the thing, but for his sake: the thing must serve +him. It is egoistic to ascribe to no thing a value of its own, an +"absolute" value, but to seek its value in me. One often hears that +pot-boiling study which is so common counted among the most repulsive +traits of egoistic behavior, because it manifests the most shameful +desecration of science; but what is science for but to be consumed? If +one does not know how to use it for anything better than to keep the pot +boiling, then his egoism is a petty one indeed, because this egoist's +power is a limited power; but the egoistic element in it, and the +desecration of science, only a possessed man can blame. + +Because Christianity, incapable of letting the individual count as an +ego,[111] thought of him only as a dependent, and was properly nothing +but a _social theory_,--a doctrine of living together, and that of man +with God as well as of man with man,--therefore in it everything "own" +must fall into most woeful disrepute: selfishness, self-will, ownness, +self-love, etc. The Christian way of looking at things has on all sides +gradually re-stamped honorable words into dishonorable; why should they +not be brought into honor again? So _Schimpf_ (contumely) is in its old +sense equivalent to jest, but for Christian seriousness pastime became a +dishonor,[112] for that seriousness cannot take a joke; _frech_ +(impudent) formerly meant only bold, brave; _Frevel_ (wanton outrage) +was only daring. It is well known how askance the word "reason" was +looked at for a long time. + +Our language has settled itself pretty well to the Christian standpoint, +and the general consciousness is still too Christian not to shrink in +terror from everything unchristian as from something incomplete or evil. +Therefore "selfishness" is in a bad way too. + +Selfishness,[113] in the Christian sense, means something like this: I +look only to see whether anything is of use to me as a sensual man. But +is sensuality then the whole of my ownness? Am I in my own senses when I +am given up to sensuality? Do I follow myself, my _own_ determination, +when I follow that? I am _my own_ only when I am master of myself, +instead of being mastered either by sensuality or by anything else (God, +man, authority, law, State, Church, etc.); what is of use to me, this +self-owned or self-appertaining one, _my selfishness_ pursues. + +Besides, one sees himself every moment compelled to believe in that +constantly-blasphemed selfishness as an all-controlling power. In the +session of February 10, 1844, Welcker argues a motion on the dependence +of the judges, and sets forth in a detailed speech that removable, +dismissable, transferable, and pensionable judges--in short, such +members of a court of justice as can by mere administrative process be +damaged and endangered,--are wholly without reliability, yes, lose all +respect and all confidence among the people. The whole bench, Welcker +cries, is demoralized by this dependence! In blunt words this means +nothing else than that the judges find it more to their advantage to +give judgment as the ministers would have them than to give it as the +law would have them. How is that to be helped? Perhaps by bringing home +to the judges' hearts the ignominiousness of their venality, and then +cherishing the confidence that they will repent and henceforth prize +justice more highly than their selfishness? No, the people does not soar +to this romantic confidence, for it feels that selfishness is mightier +than any other motive. Therefore the same persons who have been judges +hitherto may remain so, however thoroughly one has convinced himself +that they behaved as egoists; only they must not any longer find their +selfishness favored by the venality of justice, but must stand so +independent of the government that by a judgment in conformity with the +facts they do not throw into the shade their own cause, their +"well-understood interest," but rather secure a comfortable combination +of a good salary with respect among the citizens. + +So Welcker and the commoners of Baden consider themselves secured only +when they can count on selfishness. What is one to think, then, of the +countless phrases of unselfishness with which their mouths overflow at +other times? + +To a cause which I am pushing selfishly I have another relation than to +one which I am serving unselfishly. The following criterion might be +cited for it: against the one I can _sin_ or commit a _sin_, the other I +can only _trifle away_, push from me, deprive myself of,--_i. e._ commit +an imprudence. Free trade is looked at in both ways, being regarded +partly as a freedom which may _under certain circumstances_ be granted +or withdrawn, partly as one which is to be held _sacred under all +circumstances_. + +If I am not concerned about a thing in and for itself, and do not desire +it for its own sake, then I desire it solely as a _means to an end_, for +its usefulness; for the sake of another end; _e. g._, oysters for a +pleasant flavor. Now will not every thing whose final end he himself is +serve the egoist as means? and is he to protect a thing that serves him +for nothing,--_e. g._, the proletarian to protect the State? + +Ownness includes in itself everything own, and brings to honor again +what Christian language dishonored. But ownness has not any alien +standard either, as it is not in any sense an _idea_ like freedom, +morality, humanity, and the like: it is only a description of +the--_owner_. + + + + +II + +THE OWNER + + +I--do I come to myself and mine through liberalism? + +Whom does the liberal look upon as his equal? Man! Be only man, and that +you are anyway,--and the liberal calls you his brother. He asks very +little about your private opinions and private follies, if only he can +espy "Man" in you. + +But, as he takes little heed of what you are _privatim_,--nay, in a +strict following out of his principle sets no value at all on it,--he +sees in you only what you are _generatim_. In other words, he sees in +you, not _you_, but the _species_; not Tom or Jim, but Man; not the real +or unique one,[114] but your essence or your concept; not the bodily +man, but the _spirit_. + +As Tom you would not be his equal, because he is Jim, therefore not Tom; +as man you are the same that he is. And, since as Tom you virtually do +not exist at all for him (so far, to wit, as he is a liberal and not +unconsciously an egoist), he has really made "brother-love" very easy +for himself: he loves in you not Tom, of whom he knows nothing and wants +to know nothing, but Man. + +To see in you and me nothing further than "men," that is running the +Christian way of looking at things, according to which one is for the +other nothing but a _concept_ (_e. g._ a man called to salvation, etc.), +into the ground. + +Christianity properly so called gathers us under a less utterly general +concept: there we are "sons of God" and "led by the Spirit of God."[115] +Yet not all can boast of being God's sons, but "the same Spirit which +witnesses to our spirit that we are sons of God reveals also who are the +sons of the devil."[116] Consequently, to be a son of God one must not +be a son of the devil; the sonship of God excluded certain men. To be +_sons of men_,--_i. e._ men,--on the contrary, we need nothing but to +belong to the human _species_, need only to be specimens of the same +species. What I am as this I is no concern of yours as a good liberal, +but is my _private affair_ alone; enough that we are both sons of one +and the same mother, to wit, the human species: as "a son of man" I am +your equal. + +What am I now to you? Perhaps this _bodily I_ as I walk and stand? +Anything but that. This bodily I, with its thoughts, decisions, and +passions, is in your eyes a "private affair" which is no concern of +yours: it is an "affair by itself." As an "affair for you" there exists +only my concept, my generic concept, only _the Man_, who, as he is +called Tom, could just as well be Joe or Dick. You see in me not me, the +bodily man, but an unreal thing, the spook, _i. e._ a _Man_. + +In the course of the Christian centuries we declared the most various +persons to be "our equals," but each time in the measure of that +_spirit_ which we expected from them,--_e. g._ each one in whom the +spirit of the need of redemption may be assumed, then later each one who +has the spirit of integrity, finally each one who shows a human spirit +and a human face. Thus the fundamental principle of "equality" varied. + +Equality being now conceived as equality of the _human spirit_, there +has certainly been discovered an equality that includes _all_ men; for +who could deny that we men have a human spirit, _i. e._ no other than a +human! + +But are we on that account further on now than in the beginning of +Christianity? Then we were to have a _divine spirit_, now a _human_; +but, if the divine did not exhaust us, how should the human wholly +express what we are? Feuerbach, _e. g._, thinks that, if he humanizes +the divine, he has found the truth. No, if God has given us pain, "Man" +is capable of pinching us still more torturingly. The long and the short +of it is this: that we are men is the slightest thing about us, and has +significance only in so far as it is one of our _qualities_,[117] +_i. e._ our property.[118] I am indeed among other things a man, as I +am, _e. g._, a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, a +Berliner, and the like; but he who chose to have regard for me only as a +man, or as a Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very +unimportant to me. And wherefore? Because he would have regard only for +one of my _qualities_, not for _me_. + +It is just so with the _spirit_ too. A Christian spirit, an upright +spirit, and the like may well be my acquired quality, _i. e._ my +property, but I am not this spirit: it is mine, not I its. + +Hence we have in liberalism only the continuation of the old Christian +depreciation of the I, the bodily Tom. Instead of taking me as I am, one +looks solely at my property, my qualities, and enters into marriage +bonds with me only for the sake of my--possessions; one marries, as it +were, what I have, not what I am. The Christian takes hold of my spirit, +the liberal of my humanity. + +But, if the spirit, which is not regarded as the _property_ of the +bodily ego but as the proper ego itself, is a ghost, then the Man too, +who is not recognized as my quality but as the proper I, is nothing but +a spook, a thought, a concept. + +Therefore the liberal too revolves in the same circle as the Christian. +Because the spirit of mankind, _i. e._ Man, dwells in you, you are a +man, as when the spirit of Christ dwells in you you are a Christian; +but, because it dwells in you only as a second ego, even though it be as +your proper or "better" ego, it remains otherworldly to you, and you +have to strive to become wholly man. A striving just as fruitless as the +Christian's to become wholly a blessed spirit! + +One can now, after liberalism has proclaimed Man, declare openly that +herewith was only completed the consistent carrying out of Christianity, +and that in truth Christianity set itself no other task from the start +than to realize "man," the "true man." Hence, then, the illusion that +Christianity ascribes an infinite value to the _ego_ (as _e. g._ in the +doctrine of immortality, in the cure of souls, etc.) comes to light. No, +it assigns this value to _Man_ alone. Only _Man_ is immortal, and only +because I am man am I too immortal. In fact, Christianity had to teach +that no one is lost, just as liberalism too puts all on an equality as +men; but that eternity, like this equality, applied only to the _Man_ in +me, not to me. Only as the bearer and harborer of Man do I not die, as +notoriously "the king never dies." Louis dies, but the king remains; I +die, but my spirit, Man, remains. To identify me now entirely with Man +the demand has been invented, and stated, that I must become a "real +generic being."[119] + +The HUMAN _religion_ is only the last metamorphosis of the Christian +religion. For liberalism is a religion because it separates my essence +from me and sets it above me, because it exalts "Man" to the same extent +as any other religion does its God or idol, because it makes what is +mine into something otherworldly, because in general it makes out of +what is mine, out of my qualities and my property, something alien,--to +wit, an "essence"; in short, because it sets me beneath Man, and thereby +creates for me a "vocation." But liberalism declares itself a religion +in form too when it demands for this supreme being, Man, a zeal of +faith, "a faith that some day will at last prove its fiery zeal too, a +zeal that will be invincible."[120] But, as liberalism is a human +religion, its professor takes a _tolerant_ attitude toward the professor +of any other (Catholic, Jewish, etc.), as Frederick the Great did +toward every one who performed his duties as a subject, whatever fashion +of becoming blest he might be inclined toward. This religion is now to +be raised to the rank of the generally customary one, and separated from +the others as mere "private follies," toward which, besides, one takes a +highly _liberal_ attitude on account of their unessentialness. + +One may call it the _State-religion_, the religion of the "free State," +not in the sense hitherto current that it is the one favored or +privileged by the State, but as that religion which the "free State" not +only has the right, but is compelled, to demand from each of those who +belong to it, let him be _privatim_ a Jew, a Christian, or anything +else. For it does the same service to the State as filial piety to the +family. If the family is to be recognized and maintained, in its +existing condition, by each one of those who belong to it, then to him +the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of +piety, of respect for the ties of blood, by which every blood-relation +becomes to him a consecrated person. So also to every member of the +State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is +the highest to the State must likewise be the highest to him. + +But what concept is the highest to the State? Doubtless that of being a +really human society, a society in which every one who is really a man, +_i. e. not an un-man_, can obtain admission as a member. Let a State's +tolerance go ever so far, toward an un-man and toward what is inhuman it +ceases. And yet this "un-man" is a man, yet the "inhuman" itself is +something human, yes, possible only to a man, not to any beast; it is, +in fact, something "possible to man." But, although every un-man is a +man, yet the State excludes him; _i. e._, it locks him up, or transforms +him from a fellow of the State into a fellow of the prison (fellow of +the lunatic asylum or hospital, according to Communism). + +To say in blunt words what an un-man is is not particularly hard: it is +a man who does not correspond to the _concept_ man, as the inhuman is +something human which is not conformed to the concept of the human. +Logic calls this a "self-contradictory judgment." Would it be +permissible for one to pronounce this judgment, that one can be a man +without being a man, if he did not admit the hypothesis that the concept +of man can be separated from the existence, the essence from the +appearance? They say, he _appears_ indeed as a man, but _is_ not a man. + +Men have passed this "self-contradictory judgment" through a long line +of centuries! Nay, what is still more, in this long time there were +only--_un-men_. What individual can have corresponded to his concept? +Christianity knows only one Man, and this one--Christ--is at once an +un-man again in the reverse sense, to wit, a superhuman man, a "God." +Only the--un-man is a _real_ man. + +Men that are not men, what should they be but _ghosts_? Every real man, +because he does not correspond to the concept "man," or because he is +not a "generic man," is a spook. But do I still remain an un-man even if +I bring Man (who towered above me and remained otherworldly to me only +as my ideal, my task, my essence or concept) down to be my _quality_, +my own and inherent in me; so that Man is nothing else than my humanity, +my human existence, and everything that I do is human precisely because +_I_ do it, but not because it corresponds to the _concept_ "man"? _I_ am +really Man and the un-man in one; for I am a man and at the same time +more than a man; _i. e._, I am the ego of this my mere quality. + +It had to come to this at last, that it was no longer merely demanded of +us to be Christians, but to become men; for, though we could never +really become even Christians, but always remained "poor sinners" (for +the Christian was an unattainable ideal too), yet in this the +contradictoriness did not come before our consciousness so, and the +illusion was easier than now when of us, who are men and act humanly +(yes, cannot do otherwise than be such and act so), the demand is made +that we are to be men, "real men." + +Our States of to-day, because they still have all sorts of things +sticking to them, left from their churchly mother, do indeed load those +who belong to them with various obligations (_e. g._ churchly +religiousness) which properly do not a bit concern them, the States; yet +on the whole they do not deny their significance, since they want to be +looked upon as _human societies_, in which man as man can be a member, +even if he is less privileged than other members; most of them admit +adherents of every religious sect, and receive people without +distinction of race or nation: Jews, Turks, Moors, etc., can become +French citizens. In the act of reception, therefore, the State looks +only to see whether one is a _man_. The Church, as a society of +believers, could not receive every man into her bosom; the State, as a +society of men, can. But, when the State has carried its principle clear +through, of presupposing in its constituents nothing but that they are +men (even the North Americans still presuppose in theirs that they have +religion, at least the religion of integrity, of respectability), then +it has dug its grave. While it will fancy that those whom it possesses +are without exception men, these have meanwhile become without exception +_egoists_, each of whom utilizes it according to his egoistic powers and +ends. Against the egoists "human society" is wrecked; for they no longer +have to do with each other as _men_, but appear egoistically as an _I_ +against a You altogether different from me and in opposition to me. + +If the State must count on our humanity, it is the same if one says it +must count on our _morality_. Seeing Man in each other, and acting as +men toward each other, is called moral behavior. This is every whit the +"spiritual love" of Christianity. For, if I see Man in you, as in myself +I see Man and nothing but Man, then I care for you as I would care for +myself; for we represent, you see, nothing but the mathematical +proposition: A = C and B = C, consequently A = B,--_i. e._, I nothing +but man and you nothing but man, consequently I and you the same. +Morality is incompatible with egoism, because the former does not allow +validity to _me_, but only to the Man in me. But, if the State is a +_society of men_, not a union of egos each of whom has only himself +before his eyes, then it cannot last without morality, and must insist +on morality. + +Therefore we two, the State and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not +at heart the welfare of this "human society," I sacrifice nothing to it, +I only utilize it; but to be able to utilize it completely I transform +it rather into my property and my creature,--_i. e._ I annihilate it, +and form in its place the _Union of Egoists_. + +So the State betrays its enmity to me by demanding that I be a man, +which presupposes that I may also not be a man, but rank for it as an +"un-man"; it imposes being a man upon me as a _duty_. Further, it +desires me to do nothing along with which _it_ cannot last; so _its +permanence_ is to be sacred for me. Then I am not to be an egoist, but a +"respectable, upright," _i. e._ moral, man. Enough, before it and its +permanence I am to be impotent and respectful,--etc. + +This State, not a present one indeed, but still in need of being first +created, is the ideal of advancing liberalism. There is to come into +existence a true "society of men," in which every "man" finds room. +Liberalism means to realize "Man," _i. e._ create a world for him; and +this should be the _human_ world or the general (Communistic) society of +men. It was said, "The Church could regard only the spirit, the State is +to regard the whole man."[121] But is not "Man" "spirit"? The kernel of +the State is simply "Man," this unreality, and it itself is only a +"society of men." The world which the believer (believing spirit) +creates is called Church, the world which the man (human or humane +spirit) creates is called State. But that is not _my_ world. I never +execute anything _human_ in the abstract, but always my _own_ things; +_i. e._, _my_ human act is diverse from every other human act, and only +by this diversity is it a real act belonging to me. The human in it is +an abstraction, and, as such, spirit, _i. e._ abstracted essence. + +Br. Bauer states (_e. g._ "_Judenfrage_," p. 84) that the truth of +criticism is the final truth, and in fact the truth sought for by +Christianity itself,--to wit, "Man." He says, "The history of the +Christian world is the history of the supreme fight for truth, for in +it--and in it only!--the thing at issue is the discovery of the final or +the primal truth--man and freedom." + +All right, let us accept this gain, and let us take _man_ as the +ultimately found result of Christian history and of the religious or +ideal efforts of man in general. Now, who is Man? _I_ am! _Man_, the end +and outcome of Christianity, is, as _I_, the beginning and raw material +of the new history, a history of enjoyment after the history of +sacrifices, a history not of man or humanity, but of--_me_. _Man_ ranks +as the general. Now then, I and the egoistic are the really general, +since every one is an egoist and of paramount importance to himself. The +Jewish is not the purely egoistic, because the Jew still devotes +_himself_ to Jehovah; the Christian is not, because the Christian lives +on the grace of God and subjects _himself_ to him. As Jew and as +Christian alike a man satisfies only certain of his wants, only a +certain need, not _himself_: a _half_-egoism, because the egoism of a +half-man, who is half he, half Jew, or half his own proprietor, half a +slave. Therefore, too, Jew and Christian always half-way exclude each +other; _i. e._, as men they recognize each other, as slaves they +exclude each other, because they are servants of two different masters. +If they could be complete egoists, they would exclude each other +_wholly_ and hold together so much the more firmly. Their ignominy is +not that they exclude each other, but that this is done only _half-way_. +Br. Bauer, on the contrary, thinks Jews and Christians cannot regard and +treat each other as "men" till they give up the separate essence which +parts them and obligates them to eternal separation, recognize the +general essence of "Man," and regard this as their "true essence." + +According to his representation the defect of the Jews and the +Christians alike lies in their wanting to be and have something +"particular" instead of only being men and endeavoring after what is +human,--to wit, the "general rights of man." He thinks their fundamental +error consists in the belief that they are "privileged," possess +"prerogatives"; in general, in the belief in _prerogative_.[122] In +opposition to this he holds up to them the general rights of man. The +rights of man!-- + +_Man is man in general_, and in so far every one who is a man. Now every +one is to have the eternal rights of man, and, according to the opinion +of Communism, enjoy them in the complete "democracy," or, as it ought +more correctly to be called,--anthropocracy. But it is I alone who have +everything that I--procure for myself; as man I have nothing. People +would like to give every man an affluence of all good, merely because +he has the title "man." But I put the accent on me, not on my being +_man_. + +Man is something only as _my quality_[123] (property[124]), like +masculinity or femininity. The ancients found the ideal in one's being +_male_ in the full sense; their virtue is _virtus_ and _arete_,--_i. e._ +manliness. What is one to think of a woman who should want only to be +perfectly "woman"? That is not given to all, and many a one would +therein be fixing for herself an unattainable goal. _Feminine_, on the +other hand, she is anyhow, by nature; femininity is her quality, and she +does not need "true femininity." I am a man just as the earth is a star. +As ridiculous as it would be to set the earth the task of being a +"thorough star," so ridiculous it is to burden me with the call to be a +"thorough man." + +When Fichte says, "The ego is all," this seems to harmonize perfectly +with my theses. But it is not that the ego _is_ all, but the ego +_destroys_ all, and only the self-dissolving ego, the never-being ego, +the--_finite_ ego is really I. Fichte speaks of the "absolute" ego, but +I speak of me, the transitory ego. + +How natural is the supposition that _man_ and _ego_ mean the same! and +yet one sees, _e. g._, by Feuerbach, that the expression "man" is to +designate the absolute ego, the _species_, not the transitory, +individual ego. Egoism and humanity (humaneness) ought to mean the same, +but according to Feuerbach the individual can "only lift himself above +the limits of his individuality, but not above the laws, the positive +ordinances, of his species."[125] But the species is nothing, and, if +the individual lifts himself above the limits of his individuality, this +is rather his very self as an individual; he exists only in raising +himself, he exists only in not remaining what he is; otherwise he would +be done, dead. Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only +something thought of. To be _a_ man is not to realize the ideal of +_Man_, but to present _oneself_, the individual. It is not how I realize +the _generally human_ that needs to be my task, but how I satisfy +myself. _I_ am my species, am without norm, without law, without model, +and the like. It is possible that I can make very little out of myself; +but this little is everything, and is better than what I allow to be +made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, +religion, the laws, the State, etc. Better--if the talk is to be of +better at all--better an unmannerly child than an old head on young +shoulders, better a mulish man than a man compliant in everything. The +unmannerly and mulish fellow is still on the way to form himself +according to his own will; the prematurely knowing and compliant one is +determined by the "species," the general demands, etc.,--the species is +law to him. He is _determined_[126] by it; for what else is the species +to him but his "destiny,"[127] his "calling"? Whether I look to +"humanity," the species, in order to strive toward this ideal, or to God +and Christ with like endeavor, where is the essential dissimilarity? At +most the former is more washed-out than the latter. As the individual +is the whole of nature, so he is the whole of the species too. + +Everything that I do, think, etc.,--in short, my expression or +manifestation--is indeed _conditioned_ by what I am. The Jew, _e. g._, +can will only thus or thus, can "present himself" only thus; the +Christian can present and manifest himself only christianly, etc. If it +were possible that you could be a Jew or Christian, you would indeed +bring out only what was Jewish or Christian; but it is not possible; in +the most rigorous conduct you yet remain an _egoist_, a sinner against +that concept--_i. e._, _you_ are not the precise equivalent of Jew. Now, +because the egoistic always keeps peeping through, people have inquired +for a more perfect concept which should really wholly express what you +are, and which, because it is your true nature, should contain all the +laws of your activity. The most perfect thing of the kind has been +attained in "Man." As a Jew you are too little, and the Jewish is not +your task; to be a Greek, a German, does not suffice. But be a--man, +then you have everything; look upon the human as your calling. + +Now I know what is expected of me, and the new catechism can be written. +The subject is again subjected to the predicate, the individual to +something general; the dominion is again secured to an _idea_, and the +foundation laid for a new _religion_. This is a _step forward_ in the +domain of religion, and in particular of Christianity; not a step out +beyond it. + +The step out beyond it leads into the _unspeakable_. For me paltry +language has no word, and "the Word," the Logos, is to me a "mere +word." + +_My essence_ is sought for. If not the Jew, the German, etc., then at +any rate it is--the man. "Man is my essence." + +I am repulsive or repugnant to myself; I have a horror and loathing of +myself, I am a horror to myself, or, I am never enough for myself and +never do enough to satisfy myself. From such feelings springs +self-dissolution or self-criticism. Religiousness begins with +self-renunciation, ends with completed criticism. + +I am possessed, and want to get rid of the "evil spirit." How do I set +about it? I fearlessly commit the sin that seems to the Christian the +direst, the sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. "He who +blasphemes the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness forever, but is liable to +the eternal judgment!"[128] I want no forgiveness, and am not afraid of +the judgment. + +_Man_ is the last evil _spirit_ or spook, the most deceptive or most +intimate, the craftiest liar with honest mien, the father of lies. + +The egoist, turning against the demands and concepts of the present, +executes pitilessly the most measureless--_desecration_. Nothing is holy +to him! + +It would be foolish to assert that there is no power above mine. Only +the attitude that I take toward it will be quite another than that of +the religious age: I shall be the _enemy_ of every higher power, while +religion teaches us to make it our friend and be humble toward it. + +The _desecrator_ puts forth his strength against every _fear of God_, +for fear of God would determine him in everything that he left standing +as sacred. Whether it is the God or the Man that exercises the hallowing +power in the God-man,--whether, therefore, anything is held sacred for +God's sake or for Man's (Humanity's),--this does not change the fear of +God, since Man is revered as "supreme essence," as much as on the +specifically religious standpoint God as "supreme essence" calls for our +fear and reverence; both overawe us. + +The fear of God in the proper sense was shaken long ago, and a more or +less conscious "atheism," externally recognizable by a wide-spread +"unchurchliness," has involuntarily become the mode. But what was taken +from God has been superadded to Man, and the power of humanity grew +greater in just the degree that that of piety lost weight: "Man" is the +God of to-day, and fear of Man has taken the place of the old fear of +God. + +But, because Man represents only another Supreme Being, nothing has in +fact taken place but a metamorphosis in the Supreme Being, and the fear +of Man is merely an altered form of the fear of God. + +Our atheists are pious people. + +If in the so-called feudal times we held everything as a fief from God, +in the liberal period the same feudal relation exists with Man. God was +the Lord, now Man is the Lord; God was the Mediator, now Man is; God was +the Spirit, now Man is. In this threefold regard the feudal relation has +experienced a transformation. For now, firstly, we hold as a fief from +all-powerful Man our _power_, which, because it comes from a higher, is +not called power or might, but "right,"--the "rights of man"; we further +hold as a fief from him our position in the world, for he, the mediator, +mediates our _intercourse_ with others, which therefore may not be +otherwise than "human"; finally, we hold as a fief from him +_ourselves_,--to wit, our own value, or all that we are worth,--inasmuch +as we are worth nothing when _he_ does not dwell in us, and when or +where we are not "human." The power is Man's, the world is Man's, I am +Man's. + +But am I not still unrestrained from declaring _myself_ the entitler, +the mediator, and the own self? Then it runs thus: + +My power _is_ my property. + +My power _gives_ me property. + +My power _am_ I myself, and through it am I my property. + + +I.--MY POWER + +_Right_[129] is the _spirit of society_. If society has a _will_, this +will is simply right: society exists only through right. But, as it +endures only by exercising a _sovereignty_ over individuals, right is +its SOVEREIGN WILL. Aristotle says justice is the advantage of +_society_. + +All existing right is--_foreign law_; some one makes me out to be in the +right, "does right by me." But should I therefore be in the right if all +the world made me out so? And yet what else is the right that I obtain +in the State, in society, but a right of those _foreign_ to me? When a +blockhead makes me out in the right, I grow distrustful of my rightness; +I don't like to receive it from him. But, even when a wise man makes me +out in the right, I nevertheless am not in the right on that account. +Whether _I_ am in the right is completely independent of the fool's +making out and of the wise man's. + +All the same, we have coveted this right till now. We seek for right, +and turn to the court for that purpose. To what? To a royal, a papal, a +popular court, etc. Can a sultanic court declare another right than that +which the sultan has ordained to be right? Can it make me out in the +right if I seek for a right that does not agree with the sultan's law? +Can it, _e. g._, concede to me high treason as a right, since it is +assuredly not a right according to the sultan's mind? Can it as a court +of censorship allow me the free utterance of opinion as a right, since +the sultan will hear nothing of this _my_ right? What am I seeking for +in this court, then? I am seeking for sultanic right, not _my_ right; I +am seeking for--_foreign_ right. As long as this foreign right +harmonizes with mine, to be sure, I shall find in it the latter too. + +The State does not permit pitching into each other man to man; it +opposes the _duel_. Even every ordinary appeal to blows, notwithstanding +that neither of the fighters calls the police to it, is punished; except +when it is not an I whacking away at a you, but, say, the _head of a +family_ at the child. The _family_ is entitled to this, and in its name +the father; I as Ego am not. + +The "_Vossische Zeitung_" presents to us the "commonwealth of right." +There everything is to be decided by the judge and a _court_. It ranks +the supreme court of censorship as a "court" where "right is declared" +What sort of a right? The right of the censorship. To recognize the +sentences of that court as right one must regard the censorship as +right. But it is thought nevertheless that this court offers a +protection. Yes, protection against an individual censor's error: it +protects only the censorship-legislator against false interpretation of +his will, at the same time making his statute, by the "sacred power of +right," all the firmer against writers. + +Whether I am in the right or not there is no judge but myself. Others +can judge only whether they endorse my right, and whether it exists as +right for them too. + +In the meantime let us take the matter yet another way. I am to +reverence sultanic law in the sultanate, popular law in republics, canon +law in Catholic communities, etc. To these laws I am to subordinate +myself; I am to regard them as sacred. A "sense of right" and +"law-abiding mind" of such a sort is so firmly planted in people's heads +that the most revolutionary persons of our days want to subject us to a +new "sacred law," the "law of society," the law of mankind, the "right +of all," and the like. The right of "all" is to go before _my_ right. As +a right of all it would indeed be my right among the rest, since I, with +the rest, am included in all; but that it is at the same time a right of +others, or even of all others, does not move me to its upholding. Not as +a _right of all_ will I defend it, but as _my_ right; and then every +other may see to it how he shall likewise maintain it for himself. The +right of all (_e. g._ to eat) is a right of every individual. Let each +keep this right unabridged for _himself_, then all exercise it +spontaneously; let him not take care for all though,--let him not grow +zealous for it as for a right of all. + +But the social reformers preach to us a "_law of society_." There the +individual becomes society's slave, and is in the right only when +society _makes him out_ in the right, _i. e._ when he lives according to +society's _statutes_ and so is--_loyal_. Whether I am loyal under a +despotism or in a "society" _a la_ Weitling, it is the same absence of +right in so far as in both cases I have not _my_ right but _foreign_ +right. + +In considerations of right the question is always asked, "What or who +gives me the right to it?" Answer: God, love, reason, nature, humanity, +etc. No, only _your might_, _your_ power gives you the right (your +reason, _e. g._, may give it to you). + +Communism, which assumes that men "have equal rights by nature," +contradicts its own proposition till it comes to this, that men have no +right at all by nature. For it is not willing to recognize, _e. g._, +that parents have "by nature" rights as against their children, or the +children as against the parents: it abolishes the family. Nature gives +parents, brothers, etc., no right at all. Altogether, this entire +revolutionary or Babouvist principle[130] rests on a religious, _i. e._ +false, view of things. Who can ask after "right" if he does not occupy +the religious standpoint himself? Is not "right" a religious concept, +_i. e._ something sacred? Why, "_equality of rights_," as the Revolution +propounded it, is only another name for "Christian equality," the +"equality of the brethren," "of God's children," "of Christians," etc.: +in short _fraternite_. Each and every inquiry after right deserves to be +lashed with Schillers words: + + Many a year I've used my nose + To smell the onion and the rose; + Is there any proof which shows + That I've a right to that same nose? + +When the Revolution stamped equality as a "right," it took flight into +the religious domain, into the region of the sacred, of the ideal. +Hence, since then, the fight for the "sacred, inalienable rights of +man." Against the "eternal rights of man" the "well-earned rights of the +established order" are quite naturally, and with equal right, brought to +bear: right against right, where of course one is decried by the other +as "wrong." This has been the _contest of rights_[131] since the +Revolution. + +You want to be "in the right" as against the rest. That you cannot; as +against them you remain forever "in the wrong"; for they surely would +not be your opponents if they were not in "their right" too; they will +always make you out "in the wrong." But, as against the right of the +rest, yours is a higher, greater, _more powerful_ right, is it not? No +such thing! Your right is not more powerful if you are not more +powerful. Have Chinese subjects a right to freedom? Just bestow it on +them, and then look how far you have gone wrong in your attempt: because +they do not know how to use freedom they have no right to it, or, in +clearer terms, because they have not freedom they have not the right to +it. Children have no right to the condition of majority because they are +not of age, _i. e._ because they are children. Peoples that let +themselves be kept in nonage have no right to the condition of majority; +if they ceased to be in nonage, then only would they have the right to +be of age. This means nothing else than "What you have the _power_ to be +you have the _right_ to." I derive all right and all warrant from _me_; +I am _entitled_ to everything that I have in my power. I am entitled to +overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I _can_; if I cannot, then these +gods will always remain in the right and in power as against me, and +what I do will be to fear their right and their power in impotent +"god-fearingness," to keep their commandments and believe that I do +right in everything that I do according to _their_ right, about as the +Russian boundary-sentinels think themselves rightfully entitled to shoot +dead the suspicious persons who are escaping, since they murder "by +superior authority," _i. e._ "with right." But I am entitled by myself +to murder if I myself do not forbid it to myself, if I myself do not +fear murder as a "wrong." This view of things lies at the foundation of +Chamisso's poem, "The Valley of Murder," where the gray-haired Indian +murderer compels reverence from the white man whose brethren he has +murdered. The only thing I am not entitled to is what I do not do with +a free cheer, _i. e._ what _I_ do not entitle myself to. + +_I_ decide whether it is the _right thing_ in _me_; there is no right +_outside_ me. If it is right for _me_,[132] it is right. Possibly this +may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is their care, not +mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world something +were not right, but it were right for me, _i. e._ I wanted it, then I +would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how +to value _himself_, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for +might goes before right, and that--with perfect right. + +Because I am "by nature" a man I have an equal right to the enjoyment of +all goods, says Babeuf. Must he not also say: because I am "by nature" a +first-born prince I have a right to the throne? The rights of man and +the "well-earned rights" come to the same thing in the end, to wit, to +_nature_, which _gives_ me a right, _i. e._ to _birth_ (and, further, +inheritance, etc.). "I am born as a man" is equal to "I am born as a +king's son." The natural man has only a natural right (because he has +only a natural power) and natural claims: he has right of birth and +claims of birth. But _nature_ cannot entitle me, _i. e._ give me +capacity or might, to that to which only my act entitles me. That the +king's child sets himself above other children, even this is his act, +which secures to him the precedence; and that the other children approve +and recognize this act is their act, which makes them worthy to +be--subjects. + +Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, +etc., does so, all of that is the same _foreign_ right, a right that _I_ +do not give or take to myself. + +Thus the Communists say, equal labor entitles man to equal enjoyment. +Formerly the question was raised whether the "virtuous" man must not be +"happy" on earth. The Jews actually drew this inference: "That it may go +well with thee on earth." No, equal labor does not entitle you to it, +but equal enjoyment alone entitles you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy, then +you are entitled to enjoyment. But, if you have labored and let the +enjoyment be taken from you, then--"it serves you right." + +If you _take_ the enjoyment, it is your right; if, on the contrary, you +only pine for it without laying hands on it, it remains as before, a +"well-earned right" of those who are privileged for enjoyment. It is +_their_ right, as by laying hands on it it would become _your_ right. + +The conflict over the "right of property" wavers in vehement commotion. +The Communists affirm[133] that "the earth belongs rightfully to him who +tills it, and its products to those who bring them out." I think it +belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken +from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, +then not only the earth, but the right to it too, belongs to him. This +is _egoistic right_: _i. e._, it is right for _me_, therefore it is +right. + +Aside from this, right does have "a wax nose." The tiger that assails me +is in the right, and I who strike him down am also in the right. I +defend against him not my _right_, but _myself_. + +As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces +to the right which men give. _i. e._ "concede," to each other. If the +right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the +right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans +and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give +or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to +themselves. It will be objected, the children had nevertheless "by +nature" the right to exist; only the Spartans refused _recognition_ to +this right. But then they simply had no right to this recognition,--no +more than they had to recognition of their life by the wild beasts to +which they were thrown. + +People talk so much about _birthright_, and complain: + + There is--alas!--no mention of the rights + That were born with us.[134] + +What sort of right, then, is there that was born with me? The right to +receive an entailed estate, to inherit a throne, to enjoy a princely or +noble education; or, again, because poor parents begot me, to--get free +schooling, be clothed out of contributions of alms, and at last earn my +bread and my herring in the coal-mines or at the loom? Are these not +birthrights, rights that have come down to me from my parents through +_birth_? You think--no; you think these are only rights improperly so +called, it is just these rights that you aim to abolish through the +_real birthright_. To give a basis for this you go back to the simplest +thing and affirm that every one is by birth _equal_ to another,--to wit, +a _man_. I will grant you that every one is born as man, hence the +new-born are therein _equal_ to each other. Why are they? Only because +they do not yet show and exert themselves as anything but +bare--_children of men_, naked little human beings. But thereby they are +at once different from those who have already made something out of +themselves, who thus are no longer bare "children of men," but--children +of their own creation. The latter possess more than bare birthrights: +they have _earned_ rights. What an antithesis, what a field of combat! +The old combat of the birthrights of man and well-earned rights. Go +right on appealing to your birthrights; people will not fail to oppose +to you the well-earned. Both stand on the "ground of right"; for each of +the two has a "right" against the other, the one the birthright or +natural right, the other the earned or "well-earned" right. + +If you remain on the ground of right, you remain +in--_Rechthaberei_.[135] The other cannot give you your right; he cannot +"mete out right" to you. He who has might has--right; if you have not +the former, neither have you the latter. Is this wisdom so hard to +attain? Just look at the mighty and their doings! We are talking here +only of China and Japan, of course. Just try it once, you Chinese and +Japanese, to make them out in the wrong, and learn by experience how +they throw you into jail. (Only do not confuse with this the +"well-meaning counsels" which--in China and Japan--are permitted, +because they do not hinder the mighty one, but possibly _help him on_.) +For him who should want to make them out in the wrong there would stand +open only one way thereto, that of might. If he deprives them of their +_might_, then he has _really_ made them out in the wrong, deprived them +of their right; in any other case he can do nothing but clench his +little fist in his pocket, or fall a victim as an obtrusive fool. + +In short, if you Chinese and Japanese did not ask after right, and in +particular if you did not ask after the rights "that were born with +you," then you would not need to ask at all after the well-earned rights +either. + +You start back in fright before others, because you think you see beside +them the _ghost of right_, which, as in the Homeric combats, seems to +fight as a goddess at their side, helping them. What do you do? Do you +throw the spear? No, you creep around to gain the spook over to +yourselves, that it may fight on your side: you woo for the ghost's +favor. Another would simply ask thus: Do I will what my opponent wills? +"No!" Now then, there may fight for him a thousand devils or gods, I go +at him all the same! + +The "commonwealth of right," as the "_Vossische Zeitung_" among others +stands for it, asks that office-holders be removable only by the +_judge_, not by the _administration_. Vain illusion! If it were settled +by law that an office-holder who is once seen drunken shall lose his +office, then the judges would have to condemn him on the word of the +witnesses, etc. In short, the lawgiver would only have to state +precisely all the possible grounds which entail the loss of office, +however laughable they might be (_e. g._ he who laughs in his superiors' +faces, who does not go to church every Sunday, who does not take the +communion every four weeks, who runs in debt, who has disreputable +associates, who shows no determination, etc., shall be removed. These +things the lawgiver might take it into his head to prescribe, _e. g._, +for a court of honor); then the judge would solely have to investigate +whether the accused had "become guilty" of those "offences," and, on +presentation of the proof, pronounce sentence of removal against him "in +the name of the law." + +The judge is lost when he ceases to be _mechanical_, when he "is +forsaken by the rules of evidence." Then he no longer has anything but +an opinion like everybody else; and, if he decides according to this +_opinion_, his action is _no longer an official action_. As judge he +must decide only according to the law. Commend me rather to the old +French parliaments, which wanted to examine for themselves what was to +be matter of right, and to register it only after their own approval. +They at least judged according to a right of their own, and were not +willing to give themselves up to be machines of the lawgiver, although +as judges they must, to be sure, become their own machines. + +It is said that punishment is the criminal's right. But impunity is just +as much his right. If his undertaking succeeds, it serves him right, +and, if it does not succeed, it likewise serves him right. You make your +bed and lie in it. If some one goes foolhardily into dangers and +perishes in them, we are apt to say, "It serves him right; he would have +it so." But, if he conquered the dangers, _i. e._ if his _might_ was +victorious, then he would be in the _right_ too. If a child plays with +the knife and gets cut, it is served right; but, if it doesn't get cut, +it is served right too. Hence right befalls the criminal, doubtless, +when he suffers what he risked; why, what did he risk it for, since he +knew the possible consequences? But the punishment that we decree +against him is only our right, not his. Our right reacts against his, +and he is "in the wrong at last" because--we get the upper hand. + + * * * * * + +But what is right, what is matter of right in a society, is voiced +too--in the _law_.[136] + +Whatever the law may be, it must be respected by the--loyal citizen. +Thus the law-abiding mind of Old England is eulogized. To this that +Euripidean sentiment (Orestes, 418) entirely corresponds: "We serve the +gods, whatever the gods are." _Law as such, God as such_, thus far we +are to-day. + +People are at pains to distinguish _law_ from arbitrary _orders_, from +an ordinance: the former comes from a duly entitled authority. But a law +over human action (ethical law, State law, etc.) is always a +_declaration of will_, and so an order. Yes, even if I myself gave +myself the law, it would yet be only my order, to which in the next +moment I can refuse obedience. One may well enough declare what he will +put up with, and so deprecate the opposite by a law, making known that +in the contrary case he will treat the transgressor as his enemy; but no +one has any business to command _my_ actions, to say what course I shall +pursue and set up a code to govern it. I must put up with it that he +treats me as his _enemy_, but never that he makes free with me as his +_creature_, and that he makes _his_ reason, or even unreason, my +plumb-line. + +States last only so long as there is a _ruling will_ and this ruling +will is looked upon as tantamount to the own will. The lord's will +is--law. What do your laws amount to if no one obeys them? what your +orders, if nobody lets himself be ordered? The State cannot forbear the +claim to determine the individual's will, to speculate and count on +this. For the State it is indispensable that nobody have an _own will_; +if one had, the State would have to exclude (lock up, banish, etc.) this +one; if all had, they would do away with the State. The State is not +thinkable without lordship and servitude (subjection); for the State +must will to be the lord of all that it embraces, and this will is +called the "will of the State." + +He who, to hold his own, must count on the absence of will in others is +a thing made by these others, as the master is a thing made by the +servant. If submissiveness ceased, it would be all over with lordship. + +The _own will_ of Me is the State's destroyer; it is therefore branded +by the State as "self-will." Own will and the State are powers in deadly +hostility, between which no "eternal peace" is possible. As long as the +State asserts itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile opponent, +as unreasonable, evil, etc.; and the latter lets itself be talked into +believing this,--nay, it really is such, for no more reason than this, +that it still lets itself be talked into such belief: it has not yet +come to itself and to the consciousness of its dignity; hence it is +still incomplete, still amenable to fine words, etc. + +Every State is a _despotism_, be the despot one or many, or (as one is +likely to imagine about a republic) if all be lords, _i. e._ despotize +one over another. For this is the case when the law given at any time, +the expressed volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth +to be _law_ for the individual, to which _obedience is due_ from him, or +toward which he has the _duty_ of obedience. If one were even to +conceive the case that every individual in the people had expressed the +same will, and hereby a complete "collective will" had come into being, +the matter would still remain the same. Would I not be bound to-day and +henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will would in this case be +_frozen_. Wretched _stability_! My creature--to wit, a particular +expression of will--would have become my commander. But I in my will, I +the creator, should be hindered in my flow and my dissolution. Because I +was a fool yesterday I must remain such my life long. So in the +State-life I am at best--I might just as well say, at worst--a bondman +of myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, I am to-day without will: +yesterday voluntary, to-day involuntary. + +How change it? Only by recognizing no _duty_, _i. e._ not _binding_ +myself nor letting myself be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no +law either. + +"But they will bind me!" My will nobody can bind, and my disinclination +remains free. + +"Why, everything must go topsy-turvy if every one could do what he +would!" Well, who says that every one can do everything? What are you +there for, pray, you who do not need to put up with everything? Defend +yourself, and no one will do anything to you! He who would break your +will has to do with you, and is your _enemy_. Deal with him as such. If +there stand behind you for your protection some millions more, then you +are an imposing power and will have an easy victory. But, even if as a +power you overawe your opponent, still you are not on that account a +hallowed authority to him, unless he be a simpleton. He does not owe you +respect and regard, even though he will have to consider your might. + +We are accustomed to classify States according to the different ways in +which "the supreme might" is distributed. If an individual has +it--monarchy; if all have it--democracy; etc. Supreme might then! Might +against whom? Against the individual and his "self-will." The State +practises "violence," the individual must not do so. The State's +behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the +individual, "crime." Crime,[137] then,--so the individual's violence is +called; and only by crime does he overcome[138] the State's violence +when he thinks that the State is not above him, but he above the State. + +Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously, I might, as a well-meaning person, +admonish you not to make laws which impair my self-development, +self-activity, self-creation. I do not give this advice. For, if you +should follow it, you would be unwise, and I should have been cheated of +my entire profit. I request nothing at all from you; for, whatever I +might demand, you would still be dictatorial lawgivers, and must be so, +because a raven cannot sing, nor a robber live without robbery. Rather +do I ask those who would be egoists what they think the more +egoistic,--to let laws be given them by you, and to respect those that +are given, or to practise _refractoriness_, yes, complete disobedience. +Good-hearted people think the laws ought to prescribe only what is +accepted in the people's feeling as right and proper. But what concern +is it of mine what is accepted in the nation and by the nation? The +nation will perhaps be against the blasphemer; therefore a law against +blasphemy. Am I not to blaspheme on that account? Is this law to be more +than an "order" to me? I put the question. + +Solely from the principle that all _right_ and all _authority_ belong to +the _collectivity of the people_ do all forms of government arise. For +none of them lacks this appeal to the collectivity, and the despot, as +well as the president or any aristocracy, etc., acts and commands "in +the name of the State." They are in possession of the "authority of the +State," and it is perfectly indifferent whether, were this possible, the +people as a _collectivity_ (all individuals) exercise this +State-_authority_, or whether it is only the representatives of this +collectivity, be there many of them as in aristocracies or one as in +monarchies. Always the collectivity is above the individual, and has a +power which is called _legitimate_, _i. e._ which is _law_. + +Over against the sacredness of the State, the individual is only a +vessel of dishonor, in which "exuberance, malevolence, mania for +ridicule and slander, frivolity," etc., are left as soon as he does not +deem that object of veneration, the State, to be worthy of recognition. +The spiritual _haughtiness_ of the servants and subjects of the State +has fine penalties against unspiritual "exuberance." + +When the government designates as punishable an play of mind _against_ +the State, the moderate liberals come and opine that fun, satire, wit, +humor, etc., must have free play anyhow, and _genius_ must enjoy +freedom. So not the _individual man_ indeed, but still _genius_, is to +be free. Here the State, or in its name the government, says with +perfect right: He who is not for me is against me. Fun, wit, etc.,--in +short, the turning of State affairs into a comedy,--have undermined +States from of old: they are not "innocent." And, further, what +boundaries are to be drawn between guilty and innocent wit, etc.? At +this question the moderates fall into great perplexity, and everything +reduces itself to the prayer that the State (government) would please +not be so _sensitive_, so _ticklish_; that it would not immediately +scent malevolence in "harmless" things, and would in general be a little +"more tolerant." Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, its +avoidance may be a praiseworthy virtue; but in time of war one cannot be +sparing, and what may be allowed under peaceable circumstances ceases to +be permitted as soon as a state of siege is declared. Because the +well-meaning liberals feel this plainly, they hasten to declare that, +considering "the devotion of the people," there is assuredly no danger +to be feared. But the government will be wiser, and not let itself be +talked into believing anything of that sort. It knows too well how +people stuff one with fine words, and will not let itself be satisfied +with this Barmecide dish. + +But they are bound to have their play-ground, for they are children, you +know, and cannot be so staid as old folks; boys will be boys. + +Only for this play-ground, only for a few hours of jolly running about, +they bargain. They ask only that the State should not, like a splenetic +papa, be too cross. It should permit some Processions of the Ass and +plays of fools, as the church allowed them in the Middle Ages. But the +times when it could grant this without danger are past. Children that +now once come _into the open_, and live through an hour without the rod +of discipline, are no longer willing to go into the _cell_. For the open +is now no longer a _supplement_ to the cell, no longer a refreshing +_recreation_, but its _opposite_, an _aut--aut_. In short, the State +must either no longer put up with anything, or put up with everything +and perish; it must be either sensitive through and through, or, like a +dead man, insensitive. Tolerance is done with. If the State but gives a +finger, they take the whole hand at once. There can be no more +"jesting," and all jest, such as fun, wit, humor, etc., becomes bitter +earnest. + +The clamor of the Liberals for freedom of the press runs counter to +their own principle, their proper _will_. They will what they _do not +will_, _i. e._ they wish, they would like. Hence it is too that they +fall away so easily when once so-called freedom of the press appears; +then they would like censorship. Quite naturally. The State is sacred +even to them; likewise morals, etc. They behave toward it only as +ill-bred brats, as tricky children who seek to utilize the weaknesses of +their parents. Papa State is to permit them to say many things that do +not please him, but papa has the right, by a stern look, to blue-pencil +their impertinent gabble. If they recognize in him their papa, they must +in his presence put up with the censorship of speech, like every child. + + * * * * * + +If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no +less let yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and +reward come to you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. +Alongside right goes wrong, alongside legality _crime_. What are +_you_?--_You_ are a----_criminal_! + +"The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own crime!" says +Bettina.[139] One may let this sentiment pass, even if Bettina herself +does not understand it exactly so. For in the State the unbridled I--I, +as I belong to myself alone--cannot come to my fulfilment and +realization. Every ego is from birth a criminal to begin with against +the people, the State. Hence it is that it does really keep watch over +all; it sees in each one an--egoist, and it is afraid of the egoist. It +presumes the worst about each one, and takes care, police-care, that "no +harm happens to the State," _ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat_. The +unbridled ego--and this we originally are, and in our secret inward +parts we remain so always--is the never-ceasing criminal in the State. +The man whom his boldness, his will, his inconsiderateness and +fearlessness lead is surrounded with spies by the State, by the people. +I say, by the people! The people (think it something wonderful, you +good-hearted folks, what you have in the people)--the people is full of +police sentiments through and through.--Only he who renounces his ego, +who practises "self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people. + +In the book cited Bettina is throughout good-natured enough to regard +the State as only sick, and to hope for its recovery, a recovery which +she would bring about through the "demagogues";[140] but it is not sick; +rather is it in its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues +who want to acquire something for the individuals, for "all." In its +believers it is provided with the best demagogues (leaders of the +people). According to Bettina, the State is to[141] "develop mankind's +germ of freedom; otherwise it is a raven-mother[142] and caring for +raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in its very caring for +"mankind" (which, besides, would have to be the "humane" or "free" State +to begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it. How rightly +speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:[143] "What? the State has no +other duty than to be merely the attendant of incurable invalids?--That +isn't to the point. From of old the healthy State has relieved itself of +the diseased matter, and not mixed itself with it. It does not need to +be so economical with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without +hesitation, that the others may bloom.--Do not shiver at the State's +harshness; its morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. +Accuse it of no want of feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but +its experience finds safety only in this severity! There are diseases in +which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes the +disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never remove the +disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb after a shorter or +longer sickness!" Frau Rat's question, "If you apply death as a drastic +remedy, how is the cure to be wrought then?" isn't to the point. Why, +the State does not apply death against itself, but against an offensive +member; it tears out an eye that offends it, etc. + +"For the invalid State the only way of salvation is to make man flourish +in it."[144] If one here, like Bettina, understands by man the concept +"Man," she is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the +flourishing of "Man," for, the more infatuated the individuals are with +"Man," the better it serves the State's turn. But, if one referred it to +the individuals, to "all" (and the authoress half does this too, because +about "Man" she is still involved in vagueness), then it would sound +somewhat like the following: For an invalid band of robbers the only way +of salvation is to make the loyal citizen flourish in it! Why, thereby +the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band of robbers; and, +because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot every one who has a +leaning toward becoming a "steady man." + +In this book Bettina is a patriot, or, what is little more, a +philanthropist, a worker for human happiness. She is discontented with +the existing order in quite the same way as is the title-ghost of her +book, along with all who would like to bring back the good old faith and +what goes with it. Only she thinks, contrariwise, that the politicians, +place-holders, and diplomats ruined the State, while those lay it at the +door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the people." + +What is the ordinary criminal but one who has committed the fatal +mistake of endeavoring after what is the people's instead of seeking for +what is his? He has sought despicable _alien_ goods, has done what +believers do who seek after what is God's. What does the priest who +admonishes the criminal do? He sets before him the great wrong of having +desecrated by his act what was hallowed by the State, its property (in +which, of course, must be included even the life of those who belong to +the State); instead of this, he might rather hold up to him the fact +that he has befouled _himself_ in not _despising_ the alien thing, but +thinking it worth stealing; he could, if he were not a parson. Talk with +the so-called criminal as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not +that he transgressed against your laws and goods, but that he considered +your laws worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed +that he did not--despise you and yours together, that he was too little +an egoist. But you cannot talk egoistically with him, for you are not so +great as a criminal, you--commit no crime! You do not know that an ego +who is his own cannot desist from being a criminal, that crime is his +life. And yet you should know it, since you believe that "we are all +miserable sinners"; but you think surreptitiously to get beyond sin, you +do not comprehend--for you are devil-fearing--that guilt is the value of +a man. Oh, if you were guilty! But now you are "righteous."[145] +Well,--just put every thing nicely to rights[146] for your master! + +When the Christian consciousness, or the Christian man, draws up a +criminal code, what can the concept of _crime_ be there but +simply--_heartlessness_? Each severing and wounding of a _heart +relation_, each _heartless behavior_ toward a sacred being, is crime. +The more heartfelt the relation is supposed to be, the more scandalous +is the deriding of it, and the more worthy of punishment the crime. +Every one who is subject to the lord should love him; to deny this love +is a high treason worthy of death. Adultery is a heartlessness worthy +of punishment; one has no heart, no enthusiasm, no pathetic feeling for +the sacredness of marriage. So long as the heart or soul dictates laws, +only the heartful or soulful man enjoys the protection of the laws. That +the man of soul makes laws means properly only that the _moral_ man +makes them: what contradicts these men's "moral feeling," this they +penalize. How, _e. g._, should disloyalty, secession, breach of +oaths,--in short, all _radical breaking off_, all tearing asunder of +venerable _ties_,--not be flagitious and criminal in their eyes? He who +breaks with these demands of the soul has for enemies all the moral, all +the men of soul. Only Krummacher and his mates are the right people to +set up consistently a penal code of the heart, as a certain bill +sufficiently proves. The consistent legislation of the Christian State +must be placed wholly in the hands of the--_parsons_, and will not +become pure and coherent so long as it is worked out only by--the +_parson-ridden_, who are always only _half-parsons_. Only then will +every lack of soulfulness, every heartlessness, be certified as an +unpardonable crime, only then will every agitation of the soul become +condemnable, every objection of criticism and doubt be anathematized; +only then is the own man, before the Christian consciousness, a +convicted--_criminal_ to begin with. + +The men of the Revolution often talked of the people's "just revenge" as +its "right." Revenge and right coincide here. Is this an attitude of an +ego to an ego? The people cries that the opposite party has committed +"crimes" against it. Can I assume that one commits a crime against me, +without assuming that he has to act as I see fit? And this action I +call the right, the good, etc.; the divergent action, a crime. So I +think that the others must aim at the _same_ goal with me; _i. e._, I do +not treat them as unique beings[147] who bear their law in themselves +and live according to it, but as beings who are to obey some "rational" +law. I set up what "Man" is and what acting in a "truly human" way is, +and I demand of every one that this law become norm and ideal to him; +otherwise he will expose himself as a "sinner and criminal." But upon +the "guilty" falls the "penalty of the law"! + +One sees here how it is "Man" again who sets on foot even the concept of +crime, of sin, and therewith that of right. A man in whom I do not +recognize "Man" is "a sinner, a guilty one." + +Only against a sacred thing are there criminals; you against me can +never be a criminal, but only an opponent. But not to hate him who +injures a sacred thing is in itself a crime, as St. Just cries out +against Danton: "Are you not a criminal and responsible for not having +hated the enemies of the fatherland?"-- + +If, as in the Revolution, what "Man" is is apprehended as "good +citizen," then from this concept of "Man" we have the well-known +"political offences and crimes." + +In all this the individual, the individual man, is regarded as refuse, +and on the other hand the general man, "Man," is honored. Now, according +to how this ghost is named,--as Christian, Jew, Mussulman, good +citizen, loyal subject, freeman, patriot, etc.,--just so do those who +would like to carry through a divergent concept of man, as well as those +who want to put _themselves_ through, fall before victorious "Man." + +And with what unction the butchery goes on here in the name of the law, +of the sovereign people, of God, etc.! + +Now, if the persecuted trickily conceal and protect themselves from the +stern parsonical judges, people stigmatize them as "hypocrites," as St. +Just, _e. g._, does those whom he accuses in the speech against +Danton.[148] One is to be a fool, and deliver himself up to their +Moloch. + +Crimes spring from _fixed ideas_. The sacredness of marriage is a fixed +idea. From the sacredness it follows that infidelity is a _crime_, and +therefore a certain marriage law imposes upon it a shorter or longer +_penalty_. But by those who proclaim "freedom as sacred" this penalty +must be regarded as a crime against freedom, and only in this sense has +public opinion in fact branded the marriage law. + +Society would have _every one_ come to his right indeed, but yet only to +that which is sanctioned by society, to the society-right, not really to +_his_ right. But _I_ give or take to myself the right out of my own +plenitude of power, and against every superior power I am the most +impenitent criminal. Owner and creator of my right, I recognize no other +source of right than--me, neither God nor the State nor nature nor even +man himself with his "eternal rights of man," neither divine nor human +right. + +Right "in and for itself." Without relation to me, therefore! "Absolute +right." Separated from me, therefore! A thing that exists in and for +itself! An absolute! An eternal right, like an eternal truth! + +According to the liberal way of thinking, right is to be obligatory for +me because it is thus established by _human reason_, against which _my +reason_ is "unreason." Formerly people inveighed in the name of divine +reason against weak human reason; now, in the name of strong human +reason, against egoistic reason, which is rejected as "unreason." And +yet none is real but this very "unreason." Neither divine nor human +reason, but only your and my reason existing at any given time, is real, +as and because you and I are real. + +The thought of right is originally my thought; or, it has its origin in +me. But, when it has sprung from me, when the "Word" is out, then it has +"become flesh," it is a _fixed idea_. Now I no longer get rid of the +thought; however I turn, it stands before me. Thus men have not become +masters again of the thought "right," which they themselves created; +their creature is running away with them. This is absolute right, that +which is absolved or unfastened from me. We, revering it as absolute, +cannot devour it again, and it takes from us the creative power; the +creature is more than the creator, it is "in and for itself." + +Once you no longer let right run around free, once you draw it back into +its origin, into you, it is _your_ right; and that is right which suits +you. + + * * * * * + +Right has had to suffer an attack within itself, i. e. from the +standpoint of right; war being declared on the part of liberalism +against "privilege."[149] + +_Privileged_ and _endowed with equal rights_--on these two concepts +turns a stubborn fight. Excluded or admitted--would mean the same. But +where should there be a power--be it an imaginary one like God, law, or +a real one like I, you--of which it should not be true that before it +all are "endowed with equal rights," _i. e._ no respect of persons +holds? Every one is equally dear to God if he adores him, equally +agreeable to the law if only he is a law-abiding person; whether the +lover of God and the law is humpbacked and lame, whether poor or rich, +and the like, that amounts to nothing for God and the law; just so, when +you are at the point of drowning, you like a negro as rescuer as well as +the most excellent Caucasian,--yes, in this situation you esteem a dog +not less than a man. But to whom will not every one be also, +contrariwise, a preferred or disregarded person? God punishes the wicked +with his wrath, the law chastises the lawless, you let one visit you +every moment and show the other the door. + +The "equality of right" is a phantom just because right is nothing more +and nothing less than admission, _i. e._ a _matter of grace_, which, be +it said, one may also acquire by his desert; for desert and grace are +not contradictory, since even grace wishes to be "deserved" and our +gracious smile falls only to him who knows how to force it from us. + +So people dream of "all citizens of the State having to stand side by +side, with equal rights." As citizens of the State they are certainly +all equal for the State. But it will divide them, and advance them or +put them in the rear, according to its special ends, if on no other +account; and still more must it distinguish them from one another as +good and bad citizens. + +Bruno Bauer disposes of the Jew question from the standpoint that +"privilege" is not justified. Because Jew and Christian have each some +point of advantage over the other, and in having this point of advantage +are exclusive, therefore before the critic's gaze they crumble into +nothingness. With them the State lies under the like blame, since it +justifies their having advantages and stamps it as a "privilege" or +prerogative, but thereby derogates from its calling to become a "free +State." + +But now every one has something of advantage over another,--_viz._, +himself or his individuality; in this everybody remains exclusive. + +And, again, before a third party every one makes his peculiarity count +for as much as possible, and (if he wants to win him at all) tries to +make it appear attractive before him. + +Now, is the third party to be insensible to the difference of the one +from the other? Do they ask that of the free State or of humanity? Then +these would have to be absolutely without self-interest, and incapable +of taking an interest in any one whatever. Neither God (who divides his +own from the wicked) nor the State (which knows how to separate good +citizens from bad) was thought of as so indifferent. + +But they are looking for this very third party that bestows no more +"privilege." Then it is called perhaps the free State, or humanity, or +whatever else it may be. + +As Christian and Jew are ranked low by Br. Bauer on account of their +asserting privileges, it must be that they could and should free +themselves from their narrow standpoint by self-renunciation or +unselfishness. If they threw off their "egoism," the mutual wrong would +cease, and with it Christian and Jewish religiousness in general; it +would be necessary only that neither of them should any longer want to +be anything peculiar. + +But, if they gave up this exclusiveness, with that the ground on which +their hostilities were waged would in truth not yet be forsaken. In case +of need they would indeed find a third thing on which they could unite, +a "general religion," a "religion of humanity," and the like; in short, +an equalization, which need not be better than that which would result +if all Jews became Christians, by which likewise the "privilege" of one +over the other would have an end. The _tension_[150] would indeed be +done away, but in this consisted not the essence of the two, but only +their neighborhood. As being distinguished from each other they must +necessarily be mutually resistant,[151] and the disparity will always +remain. Truly it is not a failing in you that you stiffen[152] yourself +against me and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not +give way or renounce yourself. + +People conceive the significance of the opposition too _formally_ and +weakly when they want only to "dissolve" it in order to make room for a +third thing that shall "unite." The opposition deserves rather to be +_sharpened_. As Jew and Christian you are in too slight an opposition, +and are contending only about religion, as it were about the emperor's +beard, about a fiddlestick's end. Enemies in religion indeed, _in the +rest_ you still remain good friends, and equal to each other, _e. g_. as +men. Nevertheless the rest too is unlike in each; and the time when you +no longer merely _dissemble_ your opposition will be only when you +entirely recognize it, and everybody asserts himself from top to toe as +_unique_.[153] Then the former opposition will assuredly be dissolved, +but only because a stronger has taken it up into itself. + +Our weakness consists not in this, that we are in opposition to others, +but in this, that we are not completely so; _i. e._ that we are not +entirely _severed_ from them, or that we seek a "communion," a "bond," +that in communion we have an ideal. One faith, one God, one idea, one +hat, for all! If all were brought under one hat, certainly no one would +any longer need to take off his hat before another. + +The last and most decided opposition, that of unique against unique, is +at bottom beyond what is called opposition, but without having sunk back +into "unity" and unison. As unique you have nothing in common with the +other any longer, and therefore nothing divisive or hostile either; you +are not seeking to be in the right against him before a _third_ party, +and are standing with him neither "on the ground of right" nor on any +other common ground. The opposition vanishes in complete--_severance_ or +singleness.[154] This might indeed be regarded as the new point in +common or a new parity, but here the parity consists precisely in the +disparity, and is itself nothing but disparity, a par of disparity, and +that only for him who institutes a "comparison." + +The polemic against privilege forms a characteristic feature of +liberalism, which fumes against "privilege" because it itself appeals to +"right." Further than to fuming it cannot carry this; for privileges do +not fall before right falls, as they are only forms of right. But right +falls apart into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by might, +_i. e._ when one understands what is meant by "Might goes before right." +All right explains itself then as privilege, and privilege itself as +power, as--_superior power_. + +But must not the mighty combat against superior power show quite another +face than the modest combat against privilege, which is to be fought out +before a first judge, "Right," according to the judge's mind? + + * * * * * + +Now, in conclusion, I have still to take back the half-way form of +expression of which I was willing to make use only so long as I was +still rooting among the entrails of right, and letting the word at least +stand. But, in fact, with the concept the word too loses its meaning. +What I called "my right" is no longer "right" at all, because right can +be bestowed only by a spirit, be it the spirit of nature or that of the +species, of mankind, the Spirit of God or that of His Holiness or His +Highness, etc. What I have without an entitling spirit I have without +right; I have it solely and alone through my _power_. + +I do not demand any right, therefore I need not recognize any either. +What I can get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I +have no right to, nor do I give myself airs, or consolation, with my +imprescriptible right. + +With absolute right, right itself passes away; the dominion of the +"concept of right" is canceled at the same time. For it is not to be +forgotten that hitherto concepts, ideas, or principles ruled us, and +that among these rulers the concept of right, or of justice, played one +of the most important parts. + +Entitled or unentitled--that does not concern me; if I am only +_powerful_, I am of myself _empowered_, and need no other empowering or +entitling. + +Right--is a wheel in the head, put there by a spook; power--that am I +myself, I am the powerful one and owner of power. Right is above me, is +absolute, and exists in one higher, as whose grace it flows to me: right +is a gift of grace from the judge; power and might exist only in me the +powerful and mighty. + + +II.--MY INTERCOURSE + +In society the human demand at most can be satisfied, while the egoistic +must always come short. + +Because it can hardly escape anybody that the present shows no such +living interest in any question as in the "social," one has to direct +his gaze especially to society. Nay, if the interest felt in it were +less passionate and dazzled, people would not so much, in looking at +society, lose sight of the individuals in it, and would recognize that a +society cannot become new so long as those who form and constitute it +remain the old ones. If, _e. g._, there was to arise in the Jewish +people a society which should spread a new faith over the earth, these +apostles could in no case remain Pharisees. + +As you are, so you present yourself, so you behave toward men: a +hypocrite as a hypocrite, a Christian as a Christian. Therefore the +character of a society is determined by the character of its members: +they are its creators. So much at least one must perceive even if one +were not willing to put to the test the concept "society" itself. + +Ever far from letting _themselves_ come to their full development and +consequence, men have hitherto not been able to found their societies on +_themselves_; or rather, they have been able only to found "societies" +and to live in societies. The societies were always persons, powerful +persons, so-called "moral persons," _i. e._ ghosts, before which the +individual had the appropriate wheel in his head, the fear of ghosts. As +such ghosts they may most suitably be designated by the respective names +"people" and "peoplet": the people of the patriarchs, the people of the +Hellenes, etc., at last the--people of men, Mankind (Anacharsis Clootz +was enthusiastic for the "nation" of mankind); then every subdivision +of this "people," which could and must have its special societies, the +Spanish, French people, etc.; within it again classes, cities, in short +all kinds of corporations; lastly, tapering to the finest point, the +little people of the--_family_. Hence, instead of saying that the person +that walked as ghost in all societies hitherto has been the people, +there might also have been named the two extremes,--to wit, either +"mankind" or the "family," both the most "natural-born units." We choose +the word "people"[155] because its derivation has been brought into +connection with the Greek _polloi_, the "many" or "the masses," but +still more because "national efforts" are at present the order of the +day, and because even the newest mutineers have not yet shaken off this +deceptive person, although on the other hand the latter consideration +must give the preference to the expression "mankind," since on all sides +they are going in for enthusiasm over "mankind." + +The people, then,--mankind or the family,--have hitherto, as it seems, +played history: no _egoistic_ interest was to come up in these +societies, but solely general ones, national or popular interests, class +interests, family interests, and "general human interests." But who has +brought to their fall the peoples whose decline history relates? Who but +the egoist, who was seeking _his_ satisfaction! If once an egoistic +interest crept in, the society was "corrupted" and moved toward its +dissolution, as Rome, _e. g._, proves with its highly developed system +of private rights, or Christianity with the incessantly-breaking-in +"rational self-determination," "self-consciousness," the "autonomy of +the spirit," etc. + +The Christian people has produced two societies whose duration will keep +equal measure with the permanence of that people: these are the +societies _State_ and _Church_. Can they be called a union of egoists? +Do we in them pursue an egoistic, personal, own interest, or do we +pursue a popular (_i. e._ an interest of the Christian _people_), to +wit, a State and Church interest? Can I and may I be myself in them? May +I think and act as I will, may I reveal myself, live myself out, busy +myself? Must I not leave untouched the majesty of the State, the +sanctity of the Church? + +Well, I may not do as I will. But shall I find in any society such an +unmeasured freedom of maying? Certainly no! Accordingly we might be +content? Not a bit! It is a different thing whether I rebound from an +ego or from a people, a generalization. There I am my opponent's +opponent, born his equal; here I am a despised opponent, bound and under +a guardian: there I stand man to man; here I am a schoolboy who can +accomplish nothing against his comrade because the latter has called +father and mother to aid and has crept under the apron, while I am well +scolded as an ill-bred brat, and I must not "argue": there I fight +against a bodily enemy; here against mankind, against a generalization, +against a "majesty," against a spook. But to me no majesty, nothing +sacred, is a limit; nothing that I know how to overpower. Only that +which I cannot overpower still limits my might; and I of limited might +am temporarily a limited I, not limited by the might _outside_ me, but +limited by my _own_ still deficient might, by my _own impotence_. +However, "the Guard dies, but does not surrender!" Above all, only a +bodily opponent! + + I dare meet every foeman + Whom I can see and measure with my eye, + Whose mettle fires my mettle for the fight,--etc. + +Many privileges have indeed been cancelled with time, but solely for the +sake of the common weal, of the State and the State's weal, by no means +for the strengthening of me. Vassalage, _e. g._, was abrogated only that +a single liege lord, the lord of the people, the monarchical power, +might be strengthened: vassalage under the one became yet more rigorous +thereby. Only in favor of the monarch, be he called "prince" or "law," +have privileges fallen. In France the citizens are not, indeed, vassals +of the king, but are instead vassals of the "law" (the Charter). +_Subordination_ was retained, only the Christian State recognized that +man cannot serve two masters (the lord of the manor and the prince, +etc.); therefore one obtained all the prerogatives; now he can again +_place_ one above another, he can make "men in high place." + +But of what concern to me is the common weal? The common weal as such is +not _my weal_, but only the furthest extremity of _self-renunciation_. +The common weal may cheer aloud while I must "down";[156] the State may +shine while I starve. In what lies the folly of the political liberals +but in their opposing the people to the government and talking of +people's rights? So there is the people going to be of age, etc. As if +one who has no mouth could be _muendig_![157] Only the individual is +able to be _muendig_. Thus the whole question of the liberty of the +press is turned upside down when it is laid claim to as a "right of the +people." It is only a right, or better the might, of the _individual_. +If a people has liberty of the press, then _I_, although in the midst of +this people, have it not; a liberty of the people is not _my_ liberty, +and the liberty of the press as a liberty of the people must have at its +side a press law directed against _me_. + +This must be insisted on all around against the present-day efforts for +liberty: + +Liberty of the _people_ is not _my_ liberty! + +Let us admit these categories, liberty of the people and right of the +people: _e. g._ the right of the people that everybody may bear arms. +Does one not forfeit such a right? One cannot forfeit his own right, but +may well forfeit a right that belongs not to me but to the people. I may +be locked, up for the sake of the liberty of the people; I may, under +sentence, incur the loss of the right to bear arms. + +Liberalism appears as the last attempt at a creation of the liberty of +the people, a liberty of the commune, of "society," of the general, of +mankind; the dream of a humanity, a people, a commune, a "society," +that shall be of age. + +A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for +it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the +people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the +Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism, +banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker. + +How they do praise Socrates for his conscientiousness, which makes nun +resist the advice to get away from the dungeon! He is a fool that he +concedes to the Athenians a right to condemn him. Therefore it certainly +serves him right; why then does he remain standing on an equal footing +with the Athenians? Why does he not break with them? Had he known, and +been able to know, what he was, he would have conceded to such judges no +claim, no right. That _he did not escape_ was just his weakness, his +delusion of still having something in common with the Athenians, or the +opinion that he was a member, a mere member of this people. But he was +rather this people itself in person, and could only be his own judge. +There was no _judge over him_, as he himself had really pronounced a +public sentence on himself and rated himself worthy of the Prytaneum. He +should have stuck to that, and, as he had uttered no sentence of death +against himself, should have despised that of the Athenians too and +escaped. But he subordinated himself and recognized in the _people_ his +_judge_; he seemed little to himself before the majesty of the people. +That he subjected himself to _might_ (to which alone he could succumb) +as to a "right" was treason against himself: it was _virtue_. To +Christ, who, it is alleged, refrained from using the power over his +heavenly legions, the same scrupulousness is thereby ascribed by the +narrators. Luther did very well and wisely to have the safety of his +journey to Worms warranted to him in black and white, and Socrates +should have known that the Athenians were his _enemies_, he alone his +judge. The self-deception of a "reign of law," etc., should have given +way to the perception that the relation was a relation of _might_. + +It was with pettifoggery and intrigues that Greek liberty ended. Why? +Because the ordinary Greeks could still less attain that logical +conclusion which not even their hero of thought, Socrates, was able to +draw. What then is pettifoggery but a way of utilizing something +established without doing away with it? I might add "for one's own +advantage," but, you see, that lies in "utilizing." Such pettifoggers +are the theologians who "wrest" and "force" God's word; what would they +have to wrest if it were not for the "established" Word of God? So those +liberals who only shake and wrest the "established order." They are all +perverters, like those perverters of the law. Socrates recognized law, +right; the Greeks constantly retained the authority of right and law. If +with this recognition they wanted nevertheless to assert their +advantage, every one his own, then they had to seek it in perversion of +the law, or intrigue. Alcibiades, an intriguer of genius, introduces the +period of Athenian "decay"; the Spartan Lysander and others show that +intrigue had become universally Greek. Greek _law_, on which the Greek +_States_ rested, had to be perverted and undermined by the egoists +within these States, and the _States_ went down that the _individuals_ +might become free, the Greek people fell because the individuals cared +less for this people than for themselves. In general, all States, +constitutions, churches, etc., have sunk by the _secession_ of +individuals; for the individual is the irreconcilable enemy of every +_generality_, every _tie_, _i. e._ every fetter. Yet people fancy to +this day that man needs "sacred ties": he, the deadly enemy of every +"tie." The history of the world shows that no tie has yet remained +unrent, shows that man tirelessly defends himself against ties of every +sort; and yet, blinded, people think up new ties again and again, and +think, _e. g._, that they have arrived at the right one if one puts upon +them the tie of a so-called free constitution, a beautiful, +constitutional tie; decoration ribbons, the ties of confidence between +"---- ---- ----," do seem gradually to have become somewhat infirm, but +people have made no further progress than from apron-strings to garters +and collars. + +_Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter._ + +Everything sacred is and must be perverted by perverters of the law; +therefore our present time has multitudes of such perverters in all +spheres. They are preparing the way for the break-up of law, for +lawlessness. + +Poor Athenians who are accused of pettifoggery and sophistry! poor +Alcibiades, of intrigue! Why, that was just your best point, your first +step in freedom. Your AEschylus, Herodotus, etc., only wanted to have a +free Greek _people_; you were the first to surmise something of _your_ +freedom. + +A people represses those who tower above _its majesty_, by ostracism +against too-powerful citizens, by the Inquisition against the heretics +of the Church, by the--Inquisition against traitors in the State, etc. + +For the people is concerned only with its self-assertion; it demands +"patriotic self-sacrifice" from everybody. To it, accordingly, every one +_in himself_ is indifferent, a nothing, and it cannot do, not even +suffer, what the individual and he alone must do,--to wit, _turn him to +account_. Every people, every State, is unjust toward the _egoist_. + +As long as there still exists even one institution which the individual +may not dissolve, the ownness and self-appurtenance of Me is still very +remote. How can I, _e. g._, be free when I must bind myself by oath to a +constitution, a charter, a law, "vow body and soul" to my people? How +can I be my own when my faculties may develop only so far as they "do +not disturb the harmony of society" (Weitling)? + +The fall of peoples and mankind will invite _me_ to my rise. + +Listen, even as I am writing this, the bells begin to sound, that they +may jingle in for to-morrow the festival of the thousand years existence +of our dear Germany. Sound, sound its knell! You do sound solemn enough, +as if your tongue was moved by the presentiment that it is giving convoy +to a corpse. The German people and German peoples have behind them a +history of a thousand years: what a long life! O, go to rest, never to +rise again,--that all may become free whom you so long have held in +fetters.--The _people_ is dead.--Up with _me_! + +O thou my much-tormented German people--what was thy torment? It was the +torment of a thought that cannot create itself a body, the torment of a +walking spirit that dissolves into nothing at every cock-crow and yet +pines for deliverance and fulfilment. In me too thou hast lived long, +thou dear--thought, thou dear--spook. Already I almost fancied I had +found the word of thy deliverance, discovered flesh and bones for the +wandering spirit; then I hear them sound, the bells that usher thee into +eternal rest; then the last hope fades out, then the notes of the last +love die away, then I depart from the desolate house of those who now +are dead and enter at the door of the--living one: + + For only he who is alive is in the right. + +Farewell, thou dream of so many millions; farewell, thou who hast +tyrannized over thy children for a thousand years! + +To-morrow they carry thee to the grave; soon thy sisters, the peoples, +will follow thee. But, when they have all followed, then----mankind is +buried, and I am my own, I am the laughing heir! + + * * * * * + +The word _Gesellschaft_ (society) has its origin in the word _Sal_ +(hall). If one hall encloses many persons, then the hall causes these +persons to be in society. They _are_ in society, and at most constitute +a parlor-society by talking in the traditional forms of parlor speech. +When it comes to real _intercourse_, this is to be regarded as +independent of society: it may occur or be lacking, without altering +the nature of what is named society. Those who are in the hall are a +society even as mute persons, or when they put each other off solely +with empty phrases of courtesy. Intercourse is mutuality, it is the +action, the _commercium_, of individuals; society is only community of +the hall, and even the statues of a museum-hall are in society, they are +"grouped." People are accustomed to say "they _haben inne_[158] this +hall in common," but the case is rather that the hall has us _inne_ or +in it. So far the natural signification of the word society. In this it +comes out that society is not generated by me and you, but by a third +factor which makes associates out of us two, and that it is just this +third factor that is the creative one, that which creates society. + +Just so a prison society or prison companionship (those who enjoy[159] +the same prison). Here we already hit upon a third factor fuller of +significance than was that merely local one, the hall. Prison no longer +means a space only, but a space with express reference to its +inhabitants: for it is a prison only through being destined for +prisoners, without whom it would be a mere building. What gives a common +stamp to those who are gathered in it? Evidently the prison, since it is +only by means of the prison that they are prisoners. What, then, +determines the _manner of life_ of the prison society? The prison! What +determines their intercourse? The prison too, perhaps? Certainly they +can enter upon intercourse only as prisoners, _i. e._ only so far as +the prison laws allow it; but that _they themselves_ hold intercourse, I +with you, this the prison cannot bring to pass; on the contrary, it must +have an eye to guarding against such egoistic, purely personal +intercourse (and only as such is it really intercourse between me and +you). That we _jointly_ execute a job, run a machine, effectuate +anything in general,--for this a prison will indeed provide; but that I +forget that I am a prisoner, and engage in intercourse with you who +likewise disregard it, brings danger to the prison, and not only cannot +be caused by it, but must not even be permitted. For this reason the +saintly and moral-minded French chamber decides to introduce solitary +confinement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut off +"demoralizing intercourse." Imprisonment is the established and--sacred +condition, to injure which no attempt must be made. The slightest push +of that kind is punishable, as is every uprising against a sacred thing +by which man is to be charmed and chained. + +Like the hall, the prison does form a society, a companionship, a +communion (_e. g._ communion of labor), but no _intercourse_, no +reciprocity, no _union_. On the contrary, every union in the prison +bears within it the dangerous seed of a "plot," which under favorable +circumstances might spring up and bear fruit. + +Yet one does not usually enter the prison voluntarily, and seldom +remains in it voluntarily either, but cherishes the egoistic desire for +liberty. Here, therefore, it sooner becomes manifest that personal +intercourse is in hostile relations to the prison society and tends to +the dissolution of this very society, this joint incarceration. + +Let us therefore look about for such communions as, it seems, we remain +in gladly and voluntarily, without wanting to endanger them by our +egoistic impulses. + +As a communion of the required sort the _family_ offers itself in the +first place. Parents, husband and wife, children, brothers and sisters, +represent a whole or form a family, for the further widening of which +the collateral relatives also may be made to serve if taken into +account. The family is a true communion only when the law of the family, +piety[160] or family love, is observed by its members. A son to whom +parents, brothers, and sisters have become indifferent _has been_ a son; +for, as the sonship no longer shows itself efficacious, it has no +greater significance than the long-past connection of mother and child +by the navel-string. That one has once lived in this bodily juncture +cannot as a fact be undone; and so far one remains irrevocably this +mother's son and the brother of the rest of her children; but it would +come to a lasting connection only by lasting piety, this spirit of the +family. Individuals are members of a family in the full sense only when +they make the _persistence_ of the family their task; only as +_conservative_ do they keep aloof from doubting their basis, the family. +To every member of the family one thing must be fixed and +sacred,--_viz._, the family itself, or, more expressively, piety. That +the family is to _persist_ remains to its member, so long as he keeps +himself free from that egoism which is hostile to the family, an +unassailable truth. In a word:--If the family is sacred, then nobody who +belongs to it may secede from it; else he becomes a "criminal" against +the family: he may never pursue an interest hostile to the family, +_e. g._ form a misalliance. He who does this has "dishonored the +family," "put it to shame," etc. + +Now, if in an individual the egoistic impulse has not force enough, he +complies and makes a marriage which suits the claims of the family, +takes a rank which harmonizes with its position, and the like; in short, +he "does honor to the family." + +If, on the contrary, the egoistic blood flows fierily enough in his +veins, he prefers to become a "criminal" against the family and to throw +off its laws. + +Which of the two lies nearer my heart, the good of the family or my +good? In innumerable cases both go peacefully together; the advantage of +the family is at the same time mine, and _vice versa_. Then it is hard +to decide whether I am thinking _selfishly_ or _for the common benefit_, +and perhaps I complacently flatter myself with my unselfishness. But +there comes the day when a necessity of choice makes me tremble, when I +have it in mind to dishonor my family tree, to affront parents, +brothers, and kindred. What then? Now it will appear how I am disposed +at the bottom of my heart; now it will be revealed whether piety ever +stood above egoism for me, now the selfish one can no longer skulk +behind the semblance of unselfishness. A wish rises in my soul, and, +growing from hour to hour, becomes a passion. To whom does it occur at +first blush that the slightest thought which may result adversely to the +spirit of the family (piety) bears within it a transgression against +this? nay, who at once, in the first moment, becomes completely +conscious of the matter? It happens so with Juliet in "Romeo and +Juliet." The unruly passion can at last no longer be tamed, and +undermines the building of piety. You will say, indeed, it is from +self-will that the family casts out of its bosom those wilful ones that +grant more of a hearing to their passion than to piety; the good +Protestants used the same excuse with much success against the +Catholics, and believed in it themselves. But it is just a subterfuge to +roll the fault off oneself, nothing more. The Catholics had regard for +the common bond of the church, and thrust those heretics from them only +because these did not have so much regard for the bond of the church as +to sacrifice their convictions to it; the former, therefore, held the +bond fast, because the bond, the Catholic (_i. e._ common and united) +church, was sacred to them; the latter, on the contrary, disregarded the +bond. Just so those who lack piety. They are not thrust out, but thrust +themselves out, prizing their passion, their wilfulness, higher than the +bond of the family. + +But now sometimes a wish glimmers in a less passionate and wilful heart +than Juliet's. The pliable girl brings herself as a _sacrifice_ to the +peace of the family. One might say that here too selfishness prevailed, +for the decision came from the feeling that the pliable girl felt +herself more satisfied by the unity of the family than by the fulfilment +of her wish. That might be; but what if there remained a sure sign that +egoism had been sacrificed to piety? What if, even after the wish that +had been directed against the peace of the family was sacrificed, it +remained at least as a recollection of a "sacrifice" brought to a sacred +tie? What if the pliable girl were conscious of having left her +self-will unsatisfied and humbly subjected herself to a higher power? +Subjected and sacrificed, because the superstition of piety exercised +its dominion over her! + +There egoism won, here piety wins and the egoistic heart bleeds; there +egoism was strong, here it was--weak. But the weak, as we have long +known, are the--unselfish. For them, for these its weak members, the +family cares, because they _belong_ to the family, do not belong to +themselves and care for themselves. This weakness Hegel, _e. g._, +praises when he wants to have match-making left to the choice of the +parents. + +As a sacred communion to which, among the rest, the individual owes +obedience, the family has the judicial function too vested in it; such a +"family court" is described _e. g._ in the "Cabanis" of Wilibald Alexis. +There the father, in the name of the "family council," puts the +intractable son among the soldiers and thrusts him out of the family, in +order to cleanse the smirched family again by means of this act of +punishment.--The most consistent development of family responsibility is +contained in Chinese law, according to which the whole family has to +expiate the individual's fault. + +To-day, however, the arm of family power seldom reaches far enough to +take seriously in hand the punishment of apostates (in most cases the +State protects even against disinheritance). The criminal against the +family (family-criminal) flees into the domain of the State and is free, +as the State-criminal who gets away to America is no longer reached by +the punishments of his State. He who has shamed his family, the +graceless son, is protected against the family's punishment because the +State, this protecting lord, takes away from family punishment its +"sacredness" and profanes it, decreeing that it is only--"revenge": it +restrains punishment, this sacred family right, because before its, the +State's, "sacredness" the subordinate sacredness of the family always +pales and loses its sanctity as soon as it comes in conflict with this +higher sacredness. Without the conflict, the State lets pass the lesser +sacredness of the family; but in the opposite case it even commands +crime against the family, charging, _e. g._, the son to refuse obedience +to his parents as soon as they want to beguile him to a crime against +the State. + +Well, the egoist has broken the ties of the family and found in the +State a lord to shelter him against the grievously affronted spirit of +the family. But where has he run now? Straight into a new _society_, in +which his egoism is awaited by the same snares and nets that it has just +escaped. For the State is likewise a society, not a union; it is the +broadened _family_ ("Father of the Country--Mother of the +Country--children of the country"). + + * * * * * + +What is called a State is a tissue and plexus of dependence and +adherence; it is a _belonging together_, a holding together, in which +those who are placed together fit themselves to each other, or, in +short, mutually depend on each other: it is the _order_ of this +_dependence_. Suppose the king, whose authority lends authority to all +down to the beadle, should vanish: still all in whom the will for order +was awake would keep order erect against the disorders of bestiality. If +disorder were victorious, the State would be at an end. + +But is this thought of love, to fit ourselves to each other, to adhere +to each other and depend on each other, really capable of winning us? +According to this the State would be _love_ realized, the being for each +other and living for each other of all. Is not self-will being lost +while we attend to the will for order? Will people not be satisfied when +order is cared for by authority, _i. e._ when authority sees to it that +no one "gets in the way of" another; when, then, the _herd_ is +judiciously distributed or ordered? Why, then everything is in "the best +order," and it is this best order that is called--State! + +Our societies and States _are_ without our _making_ them, are united +without our uniting, are predestined and established, or have an +independent standing[161] of their own, are the indissolubly established +against us egoists. The fight of the world to-day is, as it is said, +directed against the "established." Yet people are wont to misunderstand +this as if it were only that what is now established was to be +exchanged for another, a better, established system. But war might +rather be declared against establishment itself, _i. e._ the _State_, +not a particular State, not any such thing as the mere condition of the +State at the time; it is not another State (such as a "people's State") +that men aim at, but their _union_, uniting, this ever-fluid uniting of +everything standing.--A State exists even without my co-operation: I am +born in it, brought up in it, under obligations to it, and must "do it +homage."[162] It takes me up into its "favor,"[163] and I live by its +"grace." Thus the independent establishment of the State founds my lack +of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism, +demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That +_it_ may be able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the +shears of "civilization"; it gives me an education and culture adapted +to it, not to me, and teaches me _e. g._ to respect the laws, to refrain +from injury to State property (_i. e._ private property), to reverence +divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to +be--_unpunishable_, "sacrificing" my ownness to "sacredness" (everything +possible is sacred, _e. g._ property, others' life, etc.). In this +consists the sort of civilization and culture that the State is able to +give me: it brings me up to be a "serviceable instrument," a +"serviceable member of society." + +This every State must do, the people's State as well as the absolute or +constitutional one. It must do so as long as we rest in the error that +it is an _I_, as which it then applies to itself the name of a "moral, +mystical, or political person." I, who really am I, must pull off this +lion-skin of the I from the stalking thistle-eater. What manifold +robbery have I not put up with in the history of the world! There I let +sun, moon, and stars, cats and crocodiles, receive the honor of ranking +as I; there Jehovah, Allah, and Our Father came and were invested with +the I; there families, tribes, peoples, and at last actually mankind, +came and were honored as I's; there the Church, the State, came with the +pretension to be I,--and I gazed calmly on all. What wonder if then +there was always a real I too that joined the company and affirmed in my +face that it was not my _you_ but my real _I_. Why, _the_ Son of Man +_par excellence_ had done the like; why should not a son of man do it +too? So I saw my I always above me and outside me, and could never +really come to myself. + +I never believed in myself; I never believed in my present, I saw myself +only in the future. The boy believes he will be a proper I, a proper +fellow, only when he has become a man; the man thinks, only in the other +world will he be something proper. And, to enter more closely upon +reality at once, even the best are to-day still persuading each other +that one must have received into himself the State, his people, mankind, +and what not, in order to be a real I, a "free burgher," a "citizen," a +"free or true man"; they too see the truth and reality of me in the +reception of an alien I and devotion to it. And what sort of an I? An I +that is neither an I nor a you, a _fancied_ I, a spook. + +While in the Middle Ages the church could well brook many States living +united in it, the States learned after the Reformation, especially after +the Thirty Years' War, to tolerate many churches (confessions) gathering +under one crown. But all States are religious and, as the case may be, +"Christian States," and make it their task to force the intractable, the +"egoists," under the bond of the unnatural, _i. e._ Christianize them. +All arrangements of the Christian State have the object of +_Christianizing the people_. Thus the court has the object of forcing +people to justice, the school that of forcing them to mental +culture,--in short, the object of protecting those who act Christianly +against those who act unchristianly, of bringing Christian action to +_dominion_, of making it _powerful_. Among these means of force the +State counted the _Church_, too, it demanded a--particular religion from +everybody. Dupin said lately against the clergy, "Instruction and +education belong to the State." + +Certainly everything that regards the principle of morality is a State +affair. Hence it is that the Chinese State meddles so much in family +concerns, and one is nothing there if one is not first of all a good +child to his parents. Family concerns are altogether State concerns with +us too, only that our State--puts confidence in the families without +painful oversight; it holds the family bound by the marriage tie, and +this tie cannot be broken without it. + +But that the State makes me responsible for my principles, and demands +certain ones from me, might make me ask, what concern has it with the +"wheel in my head" (principle)? Very much, for the State is the--_ruling +principle_. It is supposed that in divorce matters, in marriage law in +general, the question is of the proportion of rights between Church and +State. Rather, the question is of whether anything sacred is to rule +over man, be it called faith or ethical law (morality). The State +behaves as the same ruler that the Church was. The latter rests on +godliness, the former on morality. + +People talk of the tolerance, the leaving opposite tendencies free, and +the like, by which civilized States are distinguished. Certainly some +are strong enough to look with complacency on even the most unrestrained +meetings, while others charge their catchpolls to go hunting for +tobacco-pipes. Yet for one State as for another the play of individuals +among themselves, their buzzing to and fro, their daily life, is an +_incident_ which it must be content to leave to themselves because it +can do nothing with this. Many, indeed, still strain out gnats and +swallow camels, while others are shrewder. Individuals are "freer" in +the latter, because less pestered. But _I_ am free in _no_ State. The +lauded tolerance of States is simply a tolerating of the "harmless," the +"not dangerous"; it is only elevation above pettymindedness, only a more +estimable, grander, prouder--despotism. A certain State seemed for a +while to mean to be pretty well elevated above _literary_ combats, which +might be carried on with all heat; England is elevated above _popular +turmoil_ and--tobacco-smoking. But woe to the literature that deals +blows at the State itself, woe to the mobs that "endanger" the State. +In that certain State they dream of a "free science," in England of a +"free popular life." + +The State does let individuals _play_ as freely as possible, only they +must not be in _earnest_, must not forget _it_. Man must not carry on +intercourse with man _unconcernedly_, not without "superior oversight +and mediation." I must not execute all that I am able to, but only so +much as the State allows; I must not turn to account _my_ thoughts, nor +_my_ work, nor, in general, anything of mine. + +The State always has the sole purpose to limit, tame, subordinate, the +individual--to make him subject to some _generality_ or other; it lasts +only so long as the individual is not all in all, and it is only the +clearly-marked _restriction of me_, my limitation, my slavery. Never +does a State aim to bring in the free activity of individuals, but +always that which is bound to the _purpose of the State_. Through the +State nothing _in common_ comes to pass either, as little as one can +call a piece of cloth the common work of all the individual parts of a +machine; it is rather the work of the whole machine as a unit, _machine +work_. In the same style everything is done by the _State machine_ too; +for it moves the clockwork of the individual minds, none of which follow +their own impulse. The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its +censorship, its supervision, its police, and holds this hindering to be +its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation. The State +wants to make something out of man, therefore there live in it only +_made_ men; every one who wants to be his own self is its opponent and +is nothing. "He is nothing" means as much as, The State does not make +use of him, grants him no position, no office, no trade, and the like. + +E. Bauer,[164] in the "_Liberale Bestrebungen_," II, 50, is still +dreaming of a "government which, proceeding out of the people, can never +stand in opposition to it." He does indeed (p. 69) himself take back the +word "government": "In the republic no government at all obtains, but +only an executive authority. An authority which proceeds purely and +alone out of the people; which has not an independent power, independent +principles, independent officers, over against the people; but which has +its foundation, the fountain of its power and of its principles, in the +sole, supreme authority of the State, in the people. The concept +government, therefore, is not at all suitable in the people's State." +But the thing remains the same. That which has "proceeded, been founded, +sprung from the fountain" becomes something "independent" and, like a +child delivered from the womb, enters upon opposition at once. The +government, if it were nothing independent and opposing, would be +nothing at all. + +"In the free State there is no government," etc. (p. 94). This surely +means that the people, when it is the _sovereign_, does not let itself +be conducted by a superior authority. Is it perchance different in +absolute monarchy? Is there there for the _sovereign_, perchance, a +government standing over him? _Over_ the sovereign, be he called prince +or people, there never stands a government: that is understood of +itself. But over _me_ there will stand a government in every "State," in +the absolute as well as in the republican or "free." _I_ am as badly off +in one as in the other. + +The republic is nothing whatever but--absolute monarchy; for it makes no +difference whether the monarch is called prince or people, both being a +"majesty." Constitutionalism itself proves that nobody is able and +willing to be only an instrument. The ministers domineer over their +master the prince, the deputies over their master the people. Here, +then, the _parties_ at least are already free,--_videlicet_, the +office-holders' party (so-called people's party). The prince must +conform to the will of the ministers, the people dance to the pipe of +the chambers. Constitutionalism is further than the republic, because it +is the _State_ in incipient _dissolution_. + +E. Bauer denies (p. 56) that the people is a "personality" in the +constitutional State; _per contra_, then, in the republic? Well, in the +constitutional State the people is--a _party_, and a party is surely a +"personality" if one is once resolved to talk of a "political" (p. 76) +moral person anyhow. The fact is that a moral person, be it called +people's party or people or even "the Lord," is in no wise a person, but +a spook. + +Further, E. Bauer goes on (p. 69): "guardianship is the characteristic +of a government." Truly, still more that of a people and "people's +State"; it is the characteristic of all _dominion_. A people's State, +which "unites in itself all completeness of power," the "absolute +master," cannot let me become powerful. And what a chimera, to be no +longer willing to call the "people's officials" "servants, instruments," +because they "execute the free, rational law-will of the people!" (p. +73). He thinks (p. 74): "Only by all official circles subordinating +themselves to the government's views can unity be brought into the +State"; but his "people's State" is to have "unity" too; how will a lack +of subordination be allowable there? subordination to the--people's +will. + +"In the constitutional State it is the regent and his _disposition_ that +the whole structure of government rests on in the end." (_Ibid._, p. +130.) How would that be otherwise in the "people's State"? Shall _I_ not +there be governed by the people's _disposition_ too, and does it make a +difference _for me_ whether I see myself kept in dependence by the +prince's disposition or by the people's disposition, so-called "public +opinion"? If dependence means as much as "religious relation," as E. +Bauer rightly alleges, then in the people's State the people remains +_for me_ the superior power, the "majesty" (for God and prince have +their proper essence in "majesty") to which I stand in religious +relations.--Like the sovereign regent, the sovereign people too would be +reached by no _law_. E. Bauer's whole attempt comes to a _change of +masters_. Instead of wanting to make the _people_ free, he should have +had his mind on the sole realizable freedom, his own. + +In the constitutional State _absolutism_ itself has at last come in +conflict with itself, as it has been shattered into a duality; the +government wants to be absolute, and the people wants to be absolute. +These two absolutes will wear out against each other. + +E. Bauer inveighs against the determination of the regent by _birth_, by +_chance_. But, when "the people" have become "the sole power in the +State" (p. 132), have _we_ not then in it a master from _chance_? Why, +what is the people? The people has always been only the _body_ of the +government: it is many under one hat (a prince's hat) or many under one +constitution. And the constitution is the--prince. Princes and peoples +will persist so long as both do not _col_lapse, _i. e._ fall _together_. +If under one constitution there are many "peoples,"--_e. g._ in the +ancient Persian monarchy and to-day,--then these "peoples" rank only as +"provinces." For me the people is in any case an--accidental power, a +force of nature, an enemy that I must overcome. + +What is one to think of under the name of an "organized" people +(_ibid._, p. 132)? A people "that no longer has a government," that +governs itself. In which, therefore, no ego stands out prominently; a +people organized by ostracism. The banishment of egos, ostracism, makes +the people autocrat. + +If you speak of the people, you must speak of the prince; for the +people, if it is to be a subject[165] and make history, must, like +everything that acts, have a _head_, its "supreme head." Weitling sets +this forth in the "Trio," and Proudhon declares, "_une societe, pour +ainsi dire acephale, ne peut vivre_."[166] + +The _vox populi_ is now always held up to us, and "public opinion" is to +rule our princes. Certainly the _vox populi_ is at the same time _vox +dei_; but is either of any use, and is not the _vox principis_ also _vox +dei_? + +At this point the "Nationals" may be brought to mind. To demand of the +thirty-eight States of Germany that they shall act as _one nation_ can +only be put alongside the senseless desire that thirty-eight swarms of +bees, led by thirty-eight queen-bees, shall unite themselves into one +swarm. _Bees_ they all remain; but it is not the bees as bees that +belong together and can join themselves together, it is only that the +_subject_ bees are connected with the _ruling_ queens. Bees and peoples +are destitute of will, and the _instinct_ of their queens leads them. + +If one were to point the bees to their beehood, in which at any rate +they are all equal to each other, one would be doing the same thing that +they are now doing so stormily in pointing the Germans to their +Germanhood. Why, Germanhood is just like beehood in this very thing, +that it bears in itself the necessity of cleavages and separations, yet +without pushing on to the last separation, where, with the complete +carrying through of the process of separating, its end appears: I mean, +to the separation of man from man. Germanhood does indeed divide itself +into different peoples and tribes, _i. e._ beehives; but the individual +who has the quality of being a German is still as powerless as the +isolated bee. And yet only individuals can enter into union with each +other, and all alliances and leagues of peoples are and remain +mechanical compoundings, because those who come together, at least so +far as the "peoples" are regarded as the ones that have come together, +are _destitute of will_. Only with the last separation does separation +itself end and change to unification. + +Now the Nationals are exerting themselves to set up the abstract, +lifeless unity of beehood; but the self-owned are going to fight for the +unity willed by their own will, for union. This is the token of all +reactionary wishes, that they want to set up something _general_, +abstract, an empty, lifeless _concept_, in distinction from which the +self-owned aspire to relieve the robust, lively _particular_ from the +trashy burden of generalities. The reactionaries would be glad to smite +a _people_, a _nation_, forth from the earth; the self-owned have before +their eyes only themselves. In essentials the two efforts that are just +now the order of the day--to wit, the restoration of provincial rights +and of the old tribal divisions (Franks, Bavarians, etc., Lusatia, +etc.), and the restoration of the entire nationality--coincide in one. +But the Germans will come into unison, _i. e._ unite _themselves_, only +when they knock over their beehood as well as all the beehives; in other +words, when they are more than--Germans: only then can they form a +"German Union." They must not want to turn back into their nationality, +into the womb, in order to be born again, but let every one turn in _to +himself_. How ridiculously sentimental when one German grasps another's +hand and presses it with sacred awe because "he too is a German"! With +that he is something great! But this will certainly still be thought +touching as long as people are enthusiastic for "brotherliness," _i. e._ +as long as they have a "_family disposition_." From the superstition of +"piety," from "brotherliness" or "childlikeness" or however else the +soft-hearted piety-phrases run,--from the _family spirit_,--the +Nationals, who want to have a great _family of Germans_, cannot liberate +themselves. + +Aside from this, the so-called Nationals would only have to understand +themselves rightly in order to lift themselves out of their juncture +with the good-natured Teutomaniacs. For the uniting for material ends +and interests, which they demand of the Germans, comes to nothing else +than a voluntary union. Carriere, inspired, cries out,[167] "Railroads +are to the more penetrating eye the way to a _life of the people_ such +as has not yet anywhere appeared in such significance." Quite right, it +will be a life of the people that has nowhere appeared, because it is +not a--life of the people.--So Carriere then combats himself (p. 10): +"Pure humanity or manhood cannot be better represented than by a people +fulfilling its mission." Why, by this nationality only is represented. +"Washed-out generality is lower than the form complete in itself, which +is itself a whole, and lives as a living member of the truly general, +the organized." Why, the people is this very "washed-out generality," +and it is only a man that is the "form complete in itself." + +The impersonality of what they call "people, nation," is clear also from +this: that a people which wants to bring its I into view to the best of +its power puts at its head the ruler _without will_. It finds itself in +the alternative either to be subjected to a prince who realizes only +_himself, his individual_ pleasure--then it does not recognize in the +"absolute master" its own will, the so-called will of the people--, or +to seat on the throne a prince who gives effect to _no_ will of his +_own_--then it has a prince _without will_, whose place some ingenious +clockwork would perhaps fill just as well.--Therefore insight need go +only a step farther; then it becomes clear of itself that the I of the +people is an impersonal, "spiritual" power, the--law. The people's I, +therefore, is a--spook, not an I. I am I only by this, that I make +myself; _i. e._ that it is not another who makes me, but I must be my +own work. But how is it with this I of the people? _Chance_ plays it +into the people's hand, chance gives it this or that born lord, +accidents procure it the chosen one; he is not its (the "_sovereign_" +people's) product, as I am _my_ product. Conceive of one wanting to talk +you into believing that you were not your I, but Tom or Jack was your I! +But so it is with the people, and rightly. For the people has an I as +little as the eleven planets counted together have an _I_, though they +revolve around a common _centre_. + +Bailly's utterance is representative of the slave-disposition that folks +manifest before the sovereign people, as before the prince. "I have," +says he, "no longer any extra reason when the general reason has +pronounced itself. My first law was the nation's will; as soon as it had +assembled I knew nothing beyond its sovereign will." He would have no +"extra reason," and yet this extra reason alone accomplishes everything. +Just so Mirabeau inveighs in the words, "No power on earth has the +_right_ to say to the nation's representatives, It is my will!" + +As with the Greeks, there is now a wish to make man a _zoon politicon_, +a citizen of the State or political man. So he ranked for a long time as +a "citizen of heaven." But the Greek fell into ignominy along with his +_State_, the citizen of heaven likewise falls with heaven; we, on the +other hand, are not willing to go down along with the _people_, the +nation and nationality, not willing to be merely _political_ men or +politicians. Since the Revolution they have striven to "make the people +happy," and in making the people happy, great, and the like, they make +Us unhappy: the people's good hap is--my mishap. + +What empty talk the political liberals utter with emphatic decorum is +well seen again in Nauwerk's "On Taking Part in the State." There +complaint is made of those who are indifferent and do not take part, who +are not in the full sense citizens, and the author speaks as if one +could not be man at all if one did not take a lively part in State +affairs, _i. e._ if one were not a politician. In this he is right; for, +if the State ranks as the warder of everything "human," we can have +nothing human without taking part in it. But what does this make out +against the egoist? Nothing at all, because the egoist is to himself the +warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the State except "Get out +of my sunshine." Only when the State comes in contact with his ownness +does the egoist take an active interest in it. If the condition of the +State does not bear hard on the closet-philosopher, is he to occupy +himself with it because it is his "most sacred duty"? So long as the +State does according to his wish, what need has he to look up from his +studies? Let those who from an interest of their own want to have +conditions otherwise busy themselves with them. Not now, nor evermore, +will "sacred duty" bring folks to reflect about the State,--as little as +they become disciples of science, artists, etc., from "sacred duty." +Egoism alone can impel them to it, and will as soon as things have +become much worse. If you showed folks that their egoism demanded that +they busy themselves with State affairs, you would not have to call on +them long; if, on the other hand, you appeal to their love of fatherland +and the like, you will long preach to deaf hearts in behalf of this +"service of love." Certainly, in your sense the egoists will not +participate in State affairs at all. + +Nauwerk utters a genuine liberal phrase on p. 16: "Man completely +fulfils his calling only in feeling and knowing himself as a member of +humanity, and being active as such. The individual cannot realize the +idea of _manhood_ if he does not stay himself upon all humanity, if he +does not draw his powers from it like Antaeus." + +In the same place it is said: "Man's relation to the _res publica_ is +degraded to a purely private matter by the theological view; is, +accordingly, made away with by denial." As if the political view did +otherwise with religion! There religion is a "private matter." + +If, instead of "sacred duty," "man's destiny," the "calling to full +manhood," and similar commandments, it were held up to people that their +_self-interest_ was infringed on when they let everything in the State +go as it goes, then, without declamations, they would be addressed as +one will have to address them at the decisive moment if he wants to +attain his end. Instead of this, the theology-hating author says, "If +there has ever been a time when the _State_ laid claim to all that are +_hers_, such a time is ours.--The thinking man sees in participation in +the theory and practice of the State a _duty_, one of the most sacred +duties that rest upon him"--and then takes under closer consideration +the "unconditional necessity that everybody participate in the State." + +He in whose head or heart or both the _State_ is seated, he who is +possessed by the State, or the _believer in the State_, is a politician, +and remains such to all eternity. + +"The State is the most necessary means for the complete development of +mankind." It assuredly has been so as long as we wanted to develop +mankind; but, if we want to develop ourselves, it can be to us only a +means of hindrance. + +Can State and people still be reformed and bettered now? As little as +the nobility, the clergy, the church, etc.: they can be abrogated, +annihilated, done away with, not reformed. Can I change a piece of +nonsense into sense by reforming it, or must I drop it outright? + +Henceforth what is to be done is no longer about the _State_ (the form +of the State, etc.), but about me. With this all questions about the +prince's power, the constitution, etc., sink into their true abyss and +their true nothingness. I, this nothing, shall put forth my _creations_ +from myself. + +To the chapter of society belongs also "the party," whose praise has of +late been sung. + +In the State the _party_ is current. "Party, party, who should not join +one!" But the individual is _unique_,[168] not a member of the party. He +unites freely, and separates freely again. The party is nothing but a +State in the State, and in this smaller bee-State "peace" is also to +rule just as in the greater. The very people who cry loudest that there +must be an _opposition_ in the State inveigh against every discord in +the party. A proof that they too want only a--State. All parties are +shattered not against the State, but against the ego.[169] + +One hears nothing oftener now than the admonition to remain true to his +party; party men despise nothing so much as a mugwump. One must run with +his party through thick and thin, and unconditionally approve and +represent its chief principles. It does not indeed go quite so badly +here as with closed societies, because these bind their members to fixed +laws or statutes (_e. g._ the orders, the Society of Jesus, etc.). But +yet the party ceases to be a union at the same moment at which it makes +certain principles _binding_ and wants to have them assured against +attacks; but this moment is the very birth-act of the party. As party it +is already a _born society_, a dead union, an idea that has become +fixed. As party of absolutism it cannot will that its members should +doubt the irrefragable truth of this principle; they could cherish this +doubt only if they were egoistic enough to want still to be something +outside their party, _i. e._ non-partisans. Non-partisan they cannot be +as party-men, but only as egoists. If you are a Protestant and belong to +that party, you must only justify Protestantism, at most "purge" it, not +reject it; if you are a Christian and belong among men to the Christian +party, you cannot go beyond this as a member of this party, but only +when your egoism, _i. e._ non-partisanship, impels you to it. What +exertions the Christians, down to Hegel and the Communists, have put +forth to make their party strong! they stuck to it that Christianity +must contain the eternal truth, and that one needs only to get at it, +make sure of it, and justify it. + +In short, the party cannot bear non-partisanship, and it is in this that +egoism appears. What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow +who _unite_ with me without swearing allegiance to my flag. + +He who passes over from one party to another is at once abused as a +"turncoat." Certainly _morality_ demands that one stand by his party, +and to become apostate from it is to spot oneself with the stain of +"faithlessness"; but ownness knows no commandment of "faithfulness, +adhesion, etc.," ownness permits everything, even apostasy, defection. +Unconsciously even the moral themselves let themselves be led by this +principle when they have to judge one who passes over to _their_ +party,--nay, they are likely to be making proselytes; they should only +at the same time acquire a consciousness of the fact that one must +commit _immoral_ actions in order to commit his own,--_i. e._ here, that +one must break faith, yes, even his oath, in order to determine himself +instead of being determined by moral considerations. In the eyes of +people of strict moral judgment an apostate always shimmers in equivocal +colors, and will not easily obtain their confidence; for there sticks to +him the taint of "faithlessness," _i. e._ of an immorality. In the lower +man this view is found almost generally; advanced thinkers fall here +too, as always, into an uncertainty and bewilderment, and the +contradiction necessarily founded in the principle of morality does not, +on account of the confusion of their concepts, come clearly to their +consciousness. They do not venture to call the apostate immoral +downright, because they themselves entice to apostasy, to defection from +one religion to another, etc.; still, they cannot give up the standpoint +of morality either. And yet here the occasion was to be seized to step +outside of morality. + +Are the Own or Unique[170] perchance a party? How could they be _own_ if +they were such as _belonged_ to a party? + +Or is one to hold with no party? In the very act of joining them and +entering their circle one forms a _union_ with them that lasts as long +as party and I pursue one and the same goal. But to-day I still share +the party's tendency, and by to-morrow I can do so no longer and I +become "untrue" to it. The party has nothing _binding_ (obligatory) for +me, and I do not have respect for it; if it no longer pleases me, I +become its foe. + +In every party that cares for itself and its persistence, the members +are unfree (or better, unown) in that degree, they lack egoism in that +degree, in which they serve this desire of the party. The independence +of the party conditions the lack of independence in the party-members. + +A party, of whatever kind it may be, can never do without a _confession +of faith_. For those who belong to the party must _believe_ in its +principle, it must not be brought in doubt or put in question by them, +it must be the certain, indubitable thing for the party-member. That is: +One must belong to a party body and soul, else one is not truly a +party-man, but more or less--an egoist. Harbor a doubt of Christianity, +and you are already no longer a true Christian, you have lifted yourself +to the "effrontery" of putting a question beyond it and haling +Christianity before your egoistic judgment-seat. You have--_sinned_ +against Christianity, this party cause (for it is surely not _e. g._ a +cause for the Jews, another party). But well for you if you do not let +yourself be affrighted: your effrontery helps you to ownness. + +So then an egoist could never embrace a party or take up with a party? +Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and taken up by the +party. For him the party remains all the time nothing but a _gathering_: +he is one of the party, he takes part. + + * * * * * + +The best State will clearly be that which has the most loyal citizens, +and the more the devoted mind for _legality_ is lost, so much the more +will the State, this system of morality, this moral life itself, be +diminished in force and quality. With the "good citizens" the good State +too perishes and dissolves into anarchy and lawlessness. "Respect for +the law!" By this cement the total of the State is held together. "The +law is _sacred_, and he who affronts it a _criminal_." Without crime no +State: the moral world--and this the State is--is crammed full of +scamps, cheats, liars, thieves, etc. Since the State is the "lordship of +law," its hierarchy, it follows that the egoist, in all cases where +_his_ advantage runs against the State's, can satisfy himself only by +crime. + +The State cannot give up the claim that its _laws_ and ordinances are +_sacred_.[171] At this the individual ranks as the _unholy_[172] +(barbarian, natural man, "egoist") over against the State, exactly as he +was once regarded by the Church; before the individual the State takes +on the nimbus of a saint.[173] Thus it issues a law against dueling. Two +men who are both at one in this, that they are willing to stake their +life for a cause (no matter what), are not to be allowed this, because +the State will not have it: it imposes a penalty on it. Where is the +liberty of self-determination then? It is at once quite another +situation if, as _e. g._ in North America, society determines to let the +duelists bear certain evil _consequences_ of their act, _e. g._ +withdrawal of the credit hitherto enjoyed. To refuse credit is +everybody's affair, and, if a society wants to withdraw it for this or +that reason, the man who is hit cannot therefore complain of +encroachment on his liberty: the society is simply availing itself of +its own liberty. That is no penalty for sin, no penalty for a _crime_. +The duel is no crime there, but only an act against which the society +adopts counter-measures, resolves on a _defence_. The State, on the +contrary, stamps the duel as a crime, _i. e._ as an injury to its sacred +law: it makes it a _criminal case_. The society leaves it to the +individual's decision whether he will draw upon himself evil +consequences and inconveniences by his mode of action, and hereby +recognizes his free decision; the State behaves in exactly the reverse +way, denying all right to the individual's decision and, instead, +ascribing the sole right to its own decision, the law of the State, so +that he who transgresses the State's commandment is looked upon as if he +were acting against God's commandment,--a view which likewise was once +maintained by the Church. Here God is the Holy in and of himself, and +the commandments of the Church, as of the State, are the commandments of +this Holy One, which he transmits to the world through his anointed and +Lords-by-the-Grace-of-God. If the Church had _deadly sins_, the State +has _capital crimes_; if the one had _heretics_, the other has +_traitors_; the one _ecclesiastical penalties_, the other _criminal +penalties_; the one _inquisitorial_ processes, the other _fiscal_; in +short, there sins, here crimes, there sinners, here criminals, there +inquisition and here--inquisition. Will the sanctity of the State not +fall like the Church's? The awe of its laws, the reverence for its +highness, the humility of its "subjects," will this remain? Will the +"saint's" face not be stripped of its adornment? + +What a folly, to ask of the State's authority that it should enter into +an honorable fight with the individual, and, as they express themselves +in the matter of freedom of the press, share sun and wind equally! If +the State, this thought, is to be a _de facto_ power, it simply must be +a superior power against the individual. The State is "sacred" and must +not expose itself to the "impudent attacks" of individuals. If the State +is _sacred_, there must be censorship. The political liberals admit the +former and dispute the inference. But in any case they concede +repressive measures to it, for--they stick to this, that State is _more_ +than the individual and exercises a justified revenge, called +punishment. + +_Punishment_ has a meaning only when it is to afford expiation for the +injuring of a _sacred_ thing. If something is sacred to any one, he +certainly deserves punishment when he acts as its enemy. A man who lets +a man's life continue in existence _because_ to him it is sacred and he +has a _dread_ of touching it is simply a--_religious_ man. + +Weitling lays crime at the door of "social disorder," and lives in the +expectation that under Communistic arrangements crimes will become +impossible, because the temptations to them, _e. g._ money, fall away. +As, however, his organized society is also exalted into a sacred and +inviolable one, he miscalculates in that good-hearted opinion. Such as +with their mouth professed allegiance to the Communistic society, but +worked underhand for its ruin, would not be lacking. Besides, Weitling +has to keep on with "curative means against the natural remainder of +human diseases and weaknesses," and "curative means" always announce to +begin with that individuals will be looked upon as "called" to a +particular "salvation" and hence treated according to the requirements +of this "human calling." _Curative means_ or _healing_ is only the +reverse side of _punishment_, the _theory of cure_ runs parallel with +the _theory of punishment_; if the latter sees in an action a sin +against right, the former takes it for a sin of the man _against +himself_, as a decadence from his health. But the correct thing is that +I regard it either as an action that _suits me_ or as one that _does not +suit me_, as hostile or friendly to _me_, _i. e._ that I treat it as my +_property_, which I cherish or demolish. "Crime" or "disease" are not +either of them an _egoistic_ view of the matter, _i. e._ a judgment +_starting from me_, but starting from _another_,--to wit, whether it +injures _right_, general right, or the _health_ partly of the individual +(the sick one), partly of the generality (_society_). "Crime" is treated +inexorably, "disease" with "loving gentleness, compassion," and the +like. + +Punishment follows crime. If crime falls because the sacred vanishes, +punishment must not less be drawn into its fall; for it too has +significance only over against something sacred. Ecclesiastical +punishments have been abolished. Why? Because how one behaves toward the +"holy God" is his own affair. But, as this one punishment, +_ecclesiastical punishment_, has fallen, so all _punishments_ must fall. +As sin against the so-called God is a man's own affair, so that against +every kind of the so-called sacred. According to our theories of penal +law, with whose "improvement in conformity to the times" people are +tormenting themselves in vain, they want to _punish_ men for this or +that "inhumanity"; and therein they make the silliness of these +theories especially plain by their consistency, hanging the little +thieves and letting the big ones run. For injury to property they have +the house of correction, and for "violence to thought," suppression of +"natural rights of man," only--representations and petitions. + +The criminal code has continued existence only through the sacred, and +perishes of itself if punishment is given up. Now they want to create +everywhere a new penal law, without indulging in a misgiving about +punishment itself. But it is exactly punishment that must make room for +satisfaction, which, again, cannot aim at satisfying right or justice, +but at procuring _us_ a satisfactory outcome. If one does to us what we +_will not put up with_, we break his power and bring our own to bear: we +satisfy _ourselves_ on him, and do not fall into the folly of wanting to +satisfy right (the spook). It is not the _sacred_ that is to defend +itself against man, but man against man; as _God_ too, you know, no +longer defends himself against man, God to whom formerly (and in part, +indeed, even now) all the "servants of God" offered their hands to +punish the blasphemer, as they still at this very day lend their hands +to the sacred. This devotion to the sacred brings it to pass also that, +without lively participation of one's own, one only delivers misdoers +into the hands of the police and courts: a non-participating making over +to the authorities, "who, of course, will best administer sacred +matters." The people is quite crazy for hounding the police on against +everything that seems to it to be immoral, often only unseemly, and this +popular rage for the moral protects the police institution more than +the government could in any way protect it. + +In crime the egoist has hitherto asserted himself and mocked at the +sacred; the break with the sacred, or rather of the sacred, may become +general. A revolution never returns, but a mighty, reckless, shameless, +conscienceless, proud--_crime_, does it not rumble in distant thunders, +and do you not see how the sky grows presciently silent and gloomy? + + * * * * * + +He who refuses to spend his powers for such limited societies as family, +party, nation, is still always longing for a worthier society, and +thinks he has found the true object of love, perhaps, in "human society" +or "mankind," to sacrifice himself to which constitutes his honor; from +now on he "lives for and serves _mankind_." + +_People_ is the name of the body, _State_ of the spirit, of that _ruling +person_ that has hitherto suppressed me. Some have wanted to transfigure +peoples and States by broadening them out to "mankind" and "general +reason"; but servitude would only become still more intense with this +widening, and philanthropists and humanitarians are as absolute masters +as politicians and diplomats. + +Modern critics inveigh against religion because it sets God, the divine, +moral, etc., _outside_ of man, or makes them something objective, in +opposition to which the critics rather transfer these very subjects +_into_ man. But those critics none the less fall into the proper error +of religion, to give man a "destiny," in that they too want to have him +divine, human, and the like: morality, freedom and humanity, etc., are +his essence. And, like religion, politics too wanted to "_educate_" man, +to bring him to the realization of his "essence," his "destiny," to +_make_ something out of him,--to wit, a "true man," the one in the form +of the "true believer," the other in that of the "true citizen or +subject." In fact, it comes to the same whether one calls the destiny +the divine or human. + +Under religion and politics man finds himself at the standpoint of +_should_: he _should_ become this and that, should be so and so. With +this postulate, this commandment, every one steps not only in front of +another but also in front of himself. Those critics say: You should be a +whole, free man. Thus they too stand in the temptation to proclaim a new +_religion_, to set up a new absolute, an ideal,--to wit, freedom. Men +_should_ be free. Then there might even arise _missionaries_ of freedom, +as Christianity, in the conviction that all were properly destined to +become Christians, sent out missionaries of the faith. Freedom would +then (as have hitherto faith as Church, morality as State) constitute +itself as a new _community_ and carry on a like "propaganda" therefrom. +Certainly no objection can be raised against a getting together; but so +much the more must one oppose every renewal of the old _care_ for us, of +culture directed toward an end,--in short, the principle of _making +something_ out of us, no matter whether Christians, subjects, or freemen +and men. + +One may well say with Feuerbach and others that religion has displaced +the human from man, and has transferred it so into another world that, +unattainable, it went on with its own existence there as something +personal in itself, as a "God": but the error of religion is by no means +exhausted with this. One might very well let fall the personality of the +displaced human, might transform God into the divine, and still remain +religious. For the religious consists in discontent with the _present_ +man, _i. e._ in the setting up of a "perfection" to be striven for, in +"man wrestling for his completion."[174] ("Ye therefore _should_ be +perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." Matt. 5. 48): it consists +in the fixation of an _ideal_, an absolute. Perfection is the "supreme +good," the _finis bonorum_; every one's ideal is the perfect man, the +true, the free man, etc. + +The efforts of modern times aim to set up the ideal of the "free man." +If one could find it, there would be a new--religion, because a new +ideal; there would be a new longing, a new torment, a new devotion, a +new deity, a new contrition. + +With the ideal of "absolute liberty," the same turmoil is made as with +everything absolute, and according to Hess, _e. g._, it is said to "be +realizable in absolute human society."[175] Nay, this realization is +immediately afterward styled a "vocation"; just so he then defines +liberty as "morality": the kingdom of "justice" (_i. e._ equality) and +"morality" (_i. e._ liberty) is to begin, etc. + +Ridiculous is he who, while fellows of his tribe, family, nation, etc., +rank high, is--nothing but "puffed up" over the merit of his fellows; +but blinded too is he who wants only to be "man." Neither of them puts +his worth in _exclusiveness_, but in _connectedness_, or in the "tie" +that conjoins him with others, in the ties of blood, of nationality, of +humanity. + +Through the "Nationals" of to-day the conflict has again been stirred up +between those who think themselves to have merely human blood and human +ties of blood, and the others who brag of their special blood and the +special ties of blood. + +If we disregard the fact that pride may mean conceit, and take it for +consciousness alone, there is found to be a vast difference between +pride in "belonging to" a nation and therefore being its property, and +that in calling a nationality one's property. Nationality is my quality, +but the nation my owner and mistress. If you have bodily strength, you +can apply it at a suitable place and have a self-consciousness or pride +of it; if, on the contrary, your strong body has you, then it pricks you +everywhere, and at the most unsuitable place, to show its strength: you +can give nobody your hand without squeezing his. + +The perception that one is more than a member of the family, more than a +fellow of the tribe, more than an individual of the people, etc., has +finally led to saying, one is more than all this because one is man, or, +the man is more than the Jew, German, etc. "Therefore be every one +wholly and solely--man!" Could one not rather say: Because we are more +than what has been stated, therefore we will be this, as well as that +"more" also? Man and German, then, man and Guelph, etc.? The Nationals +are in the right; one cannot deny his nationality: and the +humanitarians are in the right; one must not remain in the narrowness of +the national. In _uniqueness_[176] the contradiction is solved; the +national is my quality. But I am not swallowed up in my quality,--as the +human too is my quality, but I give to man his existence first through +my uniqueness. + +History seeks for Man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious +_essence_, as the divine, first as _God_, then as _Man_ (humanity, +humaneness, and mankind), he is found as the individual, the finite, the +unique one. + +I am owner of humanity, am humanity, and do nothing for the good of +another humanity. Fool, you who are a unique humanity, that you make a +merit of wanting to live for another than you are. + +The hitherto-considered relation of me to the _world of men_ offers such +a wealth of phenomena that it will have to be taken up again and again +on other occasions, but here, where it was only to have its chief +outlines made clear to the eye, it must be broken off to make place for +an apprehension of two other sides toward which it radiates. For, as I +find myself in relation not merely to men so far as they present in +themselves the concept "man" or are children of men (children of _Man_, +as children of God are spoken of), but also to that which they have of +man and call their own, and as therefore I relate myself not only to +that which they _are_ through man, but also to their human +_possessions_: so, besides the world of men, the world of the senses +and of ideas will have to be included in our survey, and somewhat said +of what men call their own of sensuous goods, and of spiritual as well. + +According as one had developed and clearly grasped the concept of man, +he gave it to us to respect as this or that _person of respect_, and +from the broadest understanding of this concept there proceeded at last +the command "to respect Man in every one." But, if I respect Man, my +respect must likewise extend to the human, or what is Man's. + +Men have somewhat of their _own_, and _I_ am to recognize this own and +hold it sacred. Their own consists partly in outward, partly in inward +_possessions_. The former are things, the latter spiritualities, +thoughts, convictions, noble feelings, etc. But I am always to respect +only _rightful_ or _human_ possessions; the wrongful and unhuman I need +not spare, for only _Man's_ own is men's real own. An inward possession +of this sort is, _e. g._, religion; because _religion_ is free, _i. e._ +is Man's, _I_ must not strike at it. Just so _honor_ is an inward +possession; it is free and must not be struck at by me. (Action for +insult, caricatures, etc.) Religion and honor are "spiritual property." +In tangible property the person stands foremost: my person is my first +property. Hence freedom of the person; but only the _rightful_ or human +person is free, the other is locked up. Your life is your property; but +it is sacred for men only if it is not that of an inhuman monster. + +What a man as such cannot defend of bodily goods, we may take from him: +this is the meaning of competition, of freedom of occupation. What he +cannot defend of spiritual goods falls a prey to us likewise: so far +goes the liberty of discussion, of science, of criticism. + +But _consecrated_ goods are inviolable. Consecrated and guaranteed by +whom? Proximately by the State, society, but properly by man or the +"concept," the "concept of the thing": for the concept of consecrated +goods is this, that they are truly human, or rather that the holder +possesses them as man and not as un-man.[177] + +On the spiritual side man's faith is such goods, his honor, his moral +feeling,--yes, his feeling of decency, modesty, etc. Actions (speeches, +writings) that touch honor are punishable; attacks on "the foundation of +all religion"; attacks on political faith; in short, attacks on +everything that a man "rightly" has. + +How far critical liberalism would extend, the sanctity of goods,--on +this point it has not yet made any pronouncement, and doubtless fancies +itself to be ill-disposed toward all sanctity; but, as it combats +egoism, it must set limits to it, and must not let the un-man pounce on +the human. To its theoretical contempt for the "masses" there must +correspond a practical snub if it should get into power. + +What extension the concept "man" receives, and what comes to the +individual man through it,--what, therefore, man and the human are,--on +this point the various grades of liberalism differ, and the political, +the social, the humane man are each always claiming more than the other +for "man." He who has best grasped this concept knows best what is +"man's." The State still grasps this concept in political restriction, +society in social; mankind, so it is said, is the first to comprehend it +entirely, or "the history of mankind develops it." But, if "man is +discovered," then we know also what pertains to man as his own, man's +property, the human. + +But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because Man +or the concept man "entitles" him to them, _i. e._ because his being man +does it: what do _I_ care for his right and his claim? If he has his +right only from Man and does not have it from _me_, then for _me_ he has +no right. His life, _e. g._, counts to _me_ only for what it is _worth +to me_. I respect neither a so-called right of property (or his claim to +tangible goods) nor yet his right to the "sanctuary of his inner nature" +(or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his gods, +remain unaggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, +are _mine_, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of +my--might. + +In the _property question_ lies a broader meaning than the limited +statement of the question allows to be brought out. Referred solely to +what men call our possessions, it is capable of no solution; the +decision is to be found only in him "from whom we have everything." +Property depends on the _owner_. + +The Revolution directed its weapons against everything which came "from +the grace of God," _e. g._, against divine right, in whose place the +human was confirmed. To that which is granted by the grace of God, +there is opposed that which is derived "from the essence of man." + +Now, as men's relation to each other, in opposition to the religious +dogma which commands a "Love one another for God's sake," had to receive +its human position by a "Love each other for man's sake," so the +revolutionary teaching could not do otherwise than, first as to what +concerns the relation of men to the things of this world, settle it that +the world, which hitherto was arranged according to God's ordinance, +henceforth belongs to "Man." + +The world belongs to "Man," and is to be respected by me as his +property. + +Property is what is mine! + +Property in the civic sense means _sacred_ property, such that I must +_respect_ your property. "Respect for property!" Hence the politicians +would like to have every one possess his little bit of property, and +they have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by this +effort. Each must have his bone on which he may find something to bite. + +The position of affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not +step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as _my_ +property, in which I need to "respect" nothing. Pray do the like with +what you call my property! + +With this view we shall most easily come to an understanding with each +other. + +The political liberals are anxious that, if possible, all servitudes be +dissolved, and every one be free lord on his ground, even if this ground +has only so much area as can have its requirements adequately filled by +the manure of one person. (The farmer in the story married even in his +old age "that he might profit by his wife's dung.") Be it ever so +little, if one only has somewhat of his own,--to wit, a _respected_ +property! The more such owners, such cotters,[178] the more "free people +and good patriots" has the State. + +Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on _respect_, +humaneness, the virtues of love. Therefore does it live in incessant +vexation. For in practice people respect nothing, and every day the +small possessions are bought up again by greater proprietors, and the +"free people" change into day-laborers. + +If, on the contrary, the "small proprietors" had reflected that the +great property was also theirs, they would not have respectfully shut +themselves out from it, and would not have been shut out. + +Property as the civic liberals understand it deserves the attacks of the +Communists and Proudhon: it is untenable, because the civic proprietor +is in truth nothing but a propertyless man, one who is everywhere _shut +out_. Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own even the +paltry point on which he turns around. + +Proudhon wants not the _proprietaire_ but the _possesseur_ or +_usufruitier_.[179] What does that mean? He wants no one to own the +land; but the benefit of it--even though one were allowed only the +hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit--is at any rate one's +property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit +of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it; still less he who, as +Proudhon would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not +required for his wants; but he is the proprietor of the share that is +left him. Proudhon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not +_property_ itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed +proprietors, but to appropriate it to _ourselves_, we unite ourselves to +this end, form a union, a _societe_, that makes _itself_ proprietor; if +we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed +proprietors. And, as from the land, so we can drive them out of many +another property yet, in order to make it _our_ property, the property +of the--_conquerors_. The conquerors form a society which one may +imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity; but so-called +humanity too is as such only a thought (spook); the individuals are its +reality. And these individuals as a collective mass will treat land and +earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so-called +_proprietaire_. Even so, therefore, _property_ remains standing, and +that as "exclusive" too, in that _humanity_, this great society, +excludes the _individual_ from its property (perhaps only leases to him, +gives him as a fief, a piece of it) as it besides excludes everything +that is not humanity, _e. g._ does not allow animals to have +property.--So too it will remain, and will grow to be. That in which +_all_ want to have a _share_ will be withdrawn from that individual who +wants to have it for himself alone: it is made a _common estate_. As a +_common estate_ every one has his _share_ in it, and this share is his +_property_. Why, so in our old relations a house which belongs to five +heirs is their common estate; but the fifth part of the revenue is each +one's property. Proudhon might spare his prolix pathos if he said: +"There are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others +will from now on lay claim or--siege. Let us take them, because one +comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present +we are still deprived came to the proprietors likewise only by taking. +It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of _us all_ than if the +few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of +this robbery (_vol_)."--Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe +that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor, of +imprescriptible right; against it the so-called proprietors have become +thieves (_La propriete c'est le vol_); if it now deprives of his +property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only +availing itself of its imprescriptible right.--So far one comes with the +spook of society as a _moral person_. On the contrary, what man can +obtain belongs to him: the world belongs to _me_. Do you say anything +else by your opposite proposition, "The world belongs to _all_"? All are +I and again I, etc. But you make out of the "all" a spook, and make it +sacred, so that then the "all" become the individual's fearful _master_. +Then the ghost of "right" places itself on their side. + +Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against _egoism_. Therefore they +are continuations and consistent carryings-out of the Christian +principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something general, +something alien. They complete in property, _e. g._, only what has long +been extant as a matter of fact,--_viz._, the propertylessness of the +individual. When the law says, _Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad +singulos proprietas; omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio_, +this means: The king is proprietor, for he alone can control and +dispose of "everything," he has _potestas_ and _imperium_ over it. +The Communists make this clearer, transferring that _imperium_ to the +"society of all." Therefore: Because enemies of egoism, they are on +that account--Christians, or, more generally speaking, religious men, +believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality (God, +society, etc.). In this too Proudhon is like the Christians, that he +ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him (_e. g._, page +90) the Proprietaire of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot +think away the _proprietor as such_; he comes to a proprietor at last, +but removes him to the other world. + +Neither God nor Man ("human society") is proprietor, but the individual. + + * * * * * + +Proudhon (Weitling too) thinks he is telling the worst about property +when he calls it theft (_vol_). Passing quite over the embarrassing +question, what well-founded objection could be made against theft, we +only ask: Is the concept "theft" at all possible unless one allows +validity to the concept "property"? How can one steal if property is not +already extant? What belongs to no one cannot be _stolen_; the water +that one draws out of the sea he does _not steal_. Accordingly property +is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property. +Weitling has to come to this too, as he does regard everything as the +_property of all_: if something is "the property of all," then indeed +the individual who appropriates it to himself steals. + +Private property lives by grace of the _law_. Only in the law has it its +warrant--for possession is not yet property, it becomes "mine" only by +assent of the law--; it is not a fact, not _un fait_ as Proudhon thinks, +but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, +guaranteed property. It is mine not through _me_ but through the--_law_. + +Nevertheless, property is the expression for _unlimited dominion_ over +somewhat (thing, beast, man) which "I can judge and dispose of as seems +good to me." According to Roman law, indeed, _jus utendi et abutendi re +sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur_, an _exclusive_ and _unlimited +right_; but property is conditioned by might. What I have in my power, +that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the +proprietor of the thing; if it gets away from me again, no matter by +what power, _e. g._ through my recognition of a title of others to the +thing,--then the property is extinct. Thus property and possession +coincide. It is not a right lying outside my might that legitimizes me, +but solely my might: if I no longer have this, the thing vanishes away +from me. When the Romans no longer had any might against the Germans, +the world-empire of Rome _belonged_ to the latter, and it would sound +ridiculous to insist that the Romans had nevertheless remained properly +the proprietors. Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to +him it belongs till it is again taken from him, as liberty belongs to +him who _takes_ it.-- + +Only might decides about property, and, as the State (no matter whether +State of well-to-do citizens or of ragamuffins or of men in the +absolute) is the sole mighty one, it alone is proprietor; I, the +unique,[180] have nothing, and am only enfeoffed, am vassal and, as +such, servitor. Under the dominion of the State there is no property of +_mine_. + +I want to raise the value of myself, the value of ownness, and should I +cheapen property? No, as I was not respected hitherto because people, +mankind, and a thousand other generalities were put higher, so property +too has to this day not yet been recognized in its full value. Property +too was only the property of a ghost, _e. g._ the people's property; my +whole existence "belonged to the fatherland": _I_ belonged to the +fatherland, the people, the State, and therefore also everything that I +called _my own_. It is demanded of States that they make away with +pauperism. It seems to me this is asking that the State should cut off +its own head and lay it at its feet; for so long as the State is the ego +the individual ego must remain a poor devil, a non-ego. The State has an +interest only in being itself rich; whether Michael is rich and Peter +poor is alike to it; Peter might also be rich and Michael poor. It looks +on indifferently as one grows poor and the other rich, unruffled by this +alternation. As _individuals_ they are really equal before its face; in +this it is just: before it both of them are--nothing, as we "are +altogether sinners before God"; on the other hand, it has a very great +interest in this, that those individuals who make it their ego should +have a part in its wealth; it makes them partakers in _its property_. +Through property, with which it rewards the individuals, it tames them; +but this remains _its_ property, and every one has the usufruct of it +only so long as he bears in himself the ego of the State, or is a "loyal +member of society"; in the opposite case the property is confiscated, or +made to melt away by vexatious lawsuits. The property, then, is and +remains _State property_, not property of the ego. That the State does +not arbitrarily deprive the individual of what he has from the State +means simply that the State does not rob itself. He who is a State-ego, +_i. e._ a good citizen or subject, holds his fief undisturbed as _such +an ego_, not as being an ego of his own. According to the code, property +is what I call mine "by virtue of God and law." But it is mine by virtue +of God and law only so long as--the State has nothing against it. + +In expropriations, disarmaments, and the like (as, _e. g._, the +exchequer confiscates inheritances if the heirs do not put in an +appearance early enough) how plainly the else-veiled principle that only +the _people_, "the State," is proprietor, while the individual is +feoffee, strikes the eye! + +The State, I mean to say, cannot intend that anybody should _for his own +sake_ have property or actually be rich, nay, even well-to-do; it can +acknowledge nothing, grant nothing to me as me. The State cannot check +pauperism, because the poverty of possession is a poverty of me. He who +_is_ nothing but what chance or another--to wit, the State--makes out +of him also _has_ quite rightly nothing but what another gives him. And +this other will give him only what he _deserves_, _i. e._ what he is +worth by _service_. It is not he that realizes a value from himself; the +State realizes a value from him. + +National economy busies itself much with this subject. It lies far out +beyond the "national," however, and goes beyond the concepts and horizon +of the State, which knows only State property and can distribute nothing +else. For this reason it binds the possession of property to +_conditions_,--as it binds everything to them, _e. g._ marriage, +allowing validity only to the marriage sanctioned by it, and wresting +this out of my power. But property is _my_ property only when I hold it +_unconditionally_: only I, as _unconditioned_ ego, have property, enter +a relation of love, carry on free trade. + +The State has no anxiety about me and mine, but about itself and its: I +count for something to it only as _its child_, as "a son of the +country"; as _ego_ I am nothing at all for it. For the State's +understanding, what befalls me as ego is something accidental, my wealth +as well as my impoverishment. But, if I with all that is mine am an +accident in the State's eyes, this proves that it cannot comprehend +_me_: _I_ go beyond its concepts, or, its understanding is too limited +to comprehend me. Therefore it cannot do anything for me either. + +Pauperism is the _valuelessness of me_, the phenomenon that I cannot +realize value from myself. For this reason State and pauperism are one +and the same. The State does not let me come to my value, and continues +in existence only through my valuelessness: it is forever intent on +_getting benefit_ from me, _i. e._ exploiting me, turning me to account, +using me up, even if the use it gets from me consists only in my +supplying a _proles_ (_proletariat_); it wants me to be "its creature." + +Pauperism can be removed only when I as ego _realize value_ from myself, +when I give my own self value, and make my price myself. I must rise in +revolt to rise in the world. + +What I produce, flour, linen, or iron and coal, which I toilsomely win +from the earth, etc., is _my_ work that I want to realize value from. +But then I may long complain that I am not paid for my work according to +its value: the payer will not listen to me, and the State likewise will +maintain an apathetic attitude so long as it does not think it must +"appease" me that _I_ may not break out with my dreaded might. But this +"appeasing" will be all, and, if it comes into my head to ask for more, +the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and +eagle-claws: for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle. If I +refuse to be content with the price that it fixes for my ware and labor, +if I rather aspire to determine the price of my ware myself, _i. e._ "to +pay myself," in the first place I come into a conflict with the buyers +of the ware. If this were stilled by a mutual understanding, the State +would not readily make objections; for how individuals get along with +each other troubles it little, so long as therein they do not get in its +way. Its damage and its danger begin only when they do not agree, but, +in the absence of a settlement, take each other by the hair. The State +cannot endure that man stand in a direct relation to man; it must step +between as--_mediator_, must--_intervene_. What Christ was, what the +saints, the Church were, the State has become,--to wit, "mediator." It +tears man from man to put itself between them as "spirit." The laborers +who ask for higher pay are treated as criminals as soon as they want to +_compel_ it. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, +and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a determination of price +by the ego, a genuine, free realization of value from his property, +which it cannot admit of. What then are the laborers to do? Look to +themselves and ask nothing about the State?-- -- + +But, as is the situation with regard to my material work, so it is with +my intellectual too. The State allows me to realize value from all my +thoughts and to find customers for them (I do realize value from them, +_e. g._, in the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, +and the like); but only so long as my thoughts are--_its_ thoughts. If, +on the other hand, I harbor thoughts that it cannot approve (_i. e._ +make its own), then it does not allow me at all to realize value from +them, to bring them into _exchange_, into _commerce_. _My_ thoughts are +free only if they are granted to me by the State's _grace_, _i. e._ if +they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize freely only so +far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; _against_ the State I +must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its +"deficiencies," "furthering" it.--Therefore, as I may behave only as an +ego most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its +testimonial of legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me +to realize value from what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which +I hold as fief from it. My ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; +my thoughts its thoughts, else it stops my mouth. + +The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and +nothing must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that +offers itself to me for _realizing value_ from myself. _I_ am the deadly +enemy of the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, it or +I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not letting _me_ have a +standing, but also on keeping down what is _mine_. In the State there is +no--property, _i. e._ no property of the individual, but only State +property. Only through the State have I what I have, as I am only +through it what I am. My private property is only that which the State +leaves to me of _its, cutting off_ others from it (depriving them, +making it private); it is State property. + +But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there +is still left me a great might, the might over myself, _i. e._ over +everything that pertains only to me and that _exists_ only in being my +own. + +What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer +its thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In _my_ +thoughts, which I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have +my real property, a property with which I can trade. For as mine they +are my _creatures_, and I am in a position to give them away in return +for _other_ thoughts: I give them up and take in exchange for them +others, which then are my new purchased property. + +What then is _my_ property? Nothing but what is in my _power_! To what +property am I entitled? To every property to which I--_empower_ +myself.[181] I give myself the right of property in taking property to +myself, or giving myself the proprietor's _power_, full power, +empowerment. + +Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains +my property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will +expect everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to +another, makes me an owned slave: then let my own might make me an +owner. Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out +of ignorance regarding the strength of my _own_ might! Let me say to +myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as +property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let +me extend my actual property as far as _I_ entitle, _i. e._--empower, +myself to take. + +Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of _love,_ not +love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and +equity (for _justitia_ too is a phenomenon of--love, a product of love): +love knows only _sacrifices_ and demands "self-sacrifice." + +Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that +it wants; it simply decides, What I want I must have and will procure. + +All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the +bay of _love_ into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and +Communism cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with +adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one +socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or +communistically draws them from the community of goods. The individual's +mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence. The +distributing _board of equity_ lets me have only what the sense of +equity, its _loving_ care for all, prescribes. For me, the individual, +there lies no less of a check in _collective wealth_ than in that of +_individual others_; neither that is mine, nor this: whether the wealth +belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to +individual possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide +about either of the two. On the contrary, Communism, by the abolition of +all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence +on another, _viz._, on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it +always attacks the "State," what it intends is itself again a State, a +_status_, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over +me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience +from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that +it puts in the hands of the collectivity. + +Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does +not say: Wait for what the board of equity will--bestow on you in the +name of the collectivity (for such bestowal took place in "States" from +the most ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and +therefore according to the measure in which each was able to _deserve_ +it, to acquire it by _service_), but: Take hold, and take what you +require! With this the war of all against all is declared. _I_ alone +decide what I will have. + +"Now, that is truly no new wisdom, for self-seekers have acted so at all +times!" Not at all necessary either that the thing be new, if only +_consciousness_ of it is present. But this latter will not be able to +claim great age, unless perhaps one counts in the Egyptian and Spartan +law; for how little current it is appears even from the stricture above, +which speaks with contempt of "self-seekers." One is to know just this, +that the procedure of taking hold is not contemptible, but manifests the +pure deed of the egoist at one with himself. + +Only when I expect neither from individuals nor from a collectivity what +I can give to myself, only then do I slip out of the snares of--love; +the rabble ceases to be rabble only when it _takes hold_. Only the dread +of taking hold, and the corresponding punishment thereof, makes it a +rabble. Only that taking hold is _sin_, crime,--only this dogma creates +a rabble. For the fact that the rabble remains what it is, it (because +it allows validity to that dogma) is to blame as well as, more +especially, those who "self-seekingly" (to give them back their favorite +word) demand that the dogma be respected. In short, the lack of +_consciousness_ of that "new wisdom," the old consciousness of sin, +alone bears the blame. + +If men reach the point of losing respect for property, every one will +have property, as all slaves become free men as soon as they no longer +respect the master as master. _Unions_ will then, in this matter too, +multiply the individual's means and secure his assailed property. + +According to the Communists' opinion the commune should be proprietor. +On the contrary, _I_ am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding +with others about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, +I rise against it and defend my property. I am proprietor, but property +is _not sacred_. I should be merely possessor? No, hitherto one was only +possessor, secured in the possession of a parcel by leaving others also +in possession of a parcel; but now _everything_ belongs to me, I am +proprietor of _everything that I require_ and can get possession of. If +it is said socialistically, society gives me what I require,--then the +egoist says, I take what I require. If the Communists conduct themselves +as ragamuffins, the egoist behaves as proprietor. + +All swan-fraternities,[182] and attempts at making the rabble happy, +that spring from the principle of love, must miscarry. Only from egoism +can the rabble get help, and this help it must give to itself and--will +give to itself. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is a +power. "People would lose all respect if one did not coerce them so into +fear," says bugbear Law in "_Der gestiefelte Kater_." + +Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather +be torn from ghostly hands and become _my_ property; then the erroneous +consciousness, that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I require, +will vanish.-- + +"But what cannot man require!" Well, whoever requires much, and +understands how to get it, has at all times helped himself to it, as +Napoleon did with the Continent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact +point is that the respectful "rabble" should learn at last to help +itself to what it requires. If it reaches out too far for you, why, then +defend yourselves. You have no need at all to good-heartedly--bestow +anything on it; and, when it learns to know itself, it--or rather: +whoever of the rabble learns to know himself, he--casts off the +rabble-quality in refusing your alms with thanks. But it remains +ridiculous that you declare the rabble "sinful and criminal" if it is +not pleased to live from your favors because it can do something in its +own favor. Your bestowals cheat it and put it off. Defend your property, +then you will be strong; if, on the other hand, you want to retain your +ability to bestow, and perhaps actually have the more political rights +the more alms (poor-rates) you can give, this will work just as long as +the recipients let you work it.[183] + +In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the +Socialists, yes, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the +war of all against all. The poor become free and proprietors only when +they--_rise_. Bestow ever so much on them, they will still always want +more; for they want nothing less than that at last--nothing more be +bestowed. + +It will be asked, But how then will it be when the have-nots take heart? +Of what sort is the settlement to be? One might as well ask that I cast +a child's nativity. What a slave will do as soon as he has broken his +fetters, one must--await. + +In Kaiser's pamphlet, worthless for lack of form as well as substance +("_Die Persoenlichkeit des Eigentuemers in Bezug auf den Socialismus und +Communismus_," etc.), he hopes from the _State_ that it will bring about +a leveling of property. Always the State! Herr Papa! As the Church was +proclaimed and looked upon as the "mother" of believers, so the State +has altogether the face of the provident father. + + * * * * * + +_Competition_ shows itself most strictly connected with the principle of +civism. Is it anything else than _equality_ (_egalite_)? And is not +equality a product of that same Revolution which was brought on by the +commonalty, the middle classes? As no one is barred from competing with +all in the State (except the prince, because he represents the State +itself) and working himself up to their height, yes, overthrowing or +exploiting them for his own advantage, soaring above them and by +stronger exertion depriving them of their favorable circumstances,--this +serves as a clear proof that before the State's judgment-seat every one +has only the value of a "simple individual" and may not count on any +favoritism. Outrun and outbid each other as much as you like and can; +that shall not trouble me, the State! Among yourselves you are free in +competing, you are competitors; that is your _social_ position. But +before me, the State, you are nothing but "simple individuals"![184] + +What in the form of principle or theory was propounded as the equality +of all has found here in competition its realization and practical +carrying out; for _egalite_ is--free competition. All are, before the +State,--simple individuals; in society, or in relation to each +other,--competitors. + +I need be nothing further than a simple individual to be able to compete +with all others aside from the prince and his family: a freedom which +formerly was made impossible by the fact that only by means of one's +corporation, and within it, did one enjoy any freedom of effort. + +In the guild and feudality the State is in an intolerant and fastidious +attitude, granting _privileges_; in competition and liberalism it is in +a tolerant and indulgent attitude, granting only _patents_ (letters +assuring the applicant that the business stands open [patent] to him) or +"concessions." Now, as the State has thus left everything to the +_applicants_, it must come in conflict with _all_, because each and all +are entitled to make application. It will be "stormed," and will go down +in this storm. + +Is "free competition" then really "free"? nay, is it really a +"competition,"--to wit, one of _persons_,--as it gives itself out to be +because on this title it bases its right? It originated, you know, in +persons becoming free of all personal rule. Is a competition "free" +which the State, this ruler in the civic principle, hems in by a +thousand barriers? There is a rich manufacturer doing a brilliant +business, and I should like to compete with him. "Go ahead," says the +State, "I have no objection to make to your _person_ as competitor." +Yes, I reply, but for that I need a space for buildings, I need money! +"That's bad; but, if you have no money, you cannot compete. You must not +take anything from anybody, for I protect property and grant it +privileges." Free competition is not "free," because I lack the THINGS +for competition. Against my _person_ no objection can be made, but +because I have not the things my person too must step to the rear. And +who has the necessary things? Perhaps that manufacturer? Why, from him I +could take them away! No, the State has them as property, the +manufacturer only as fief, as possession. + +But, since it is no use trying it with the manufacturer, I will compete +with that professor of jurisprudence; the man is a booby, and I, who +know a hundred times more than he, shall make his class-room empty. +"Have you studied and graduated, friend?" No, but what of that? I +understand abundantly what is necessary for instruction in that +department. "Sorry, but competition is not 'free' here. Against your +person there is nothing to be said, but the _thing_, the doctor's +diploma, is lacking. And this diploma I, the State, demand. Ask me for +it respectfully first; then we will see what is to be done." + +This, therefore, is the "freedom" of competition. The State, _my lord_, +first qualifies me to compete. + +But do _persons_ really compete? No, again _things_ only! Moneys in the +first place, etc. + +In the rivalry one will always be left behind another (_e. g._ a +poetaster behind a poet). But it makes a difference whether the means +that the unlucky competitor lacks are personal or material, and likewise +whether the material means can be won by _personal energy_ or are to be +obtained only by _grace_, only as a present; as when, _e. g._, the +poorer man must leave, _i. e._ present, to the rich man his riches. But, +if I must all along wait for the _State's approval_ to obtain or to use +(_e. g._ in the case of graduation) the means, I have the means by the +_grace of the State_.[185] + +Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the +State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to +_earn the State's goods and largess_. Therefore all do chase after +havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of +honor, etc.), after the _things_. + +In the mind of the commonalty every one is possessor or "owner." Now, +whence comes it that the most have in fact next to nothing? From this, +that the most are already joyful over being possessors at all, even +though it be of some rags, as children are joyful in their first +trousers or even the first penny that is presented to them. More +precisely, however, the matter is to be taken as follows. Liberalism +came forward at once with the declaration that it belonged to man's +essence not to be property, but proprietor. As the consideration here +was about "man," not about the individual, the how-much (which formed +exactly the point of the individual's special interest) was left to him. +Hence the individual's egoism retained room for the freest play in this +how-much, and carried on an indefatigable competition. + +However, the lucky egoism had to become a snag in the way of the less +fortunate, and the latter, still keeping its feet planted on the +principle of humanity, put forward the question as to the how-much of +possession, and answered it to the effect that "man must have as much as +he requires." + +Will it be possible for _my_ egoism to let itself be satisfied with +that? What "man" requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me +and my needs; for I may have use for less or more. I must rather have so +much as I am competent to appropriate. + +Competition suffers from the unfavorable circumstance that the _means_ +for competing are not at every one's command, because they are not taken +from personality, but from accident. Most are _without means_, and for +this reason _without goods_. + +Hence the Socialists demand the _means_ for all, and aim at a society +that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer +recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence,--to +wit, your _working force_. In the possession of a property, or as +"possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this +reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his +standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not +"put out of this property." + +The possessor is competent, but only so far as the others are +incompetent. Since your ware forms your competence only so long as you +are competent to defend it (_i. e._, as _we_ are not competent to do +anything with it), look about you for another competence; for we now, by +our might, surpass your alleged competence. + +It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being +regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was +abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's +service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord." +But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate +and no longer recognized; _per contra_, your working and your work rise +in value. We now respect your _subduing_ things, as we formerly did your +possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor +only of what comes by _work_, not by _inheritance_. But as at the time +everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess +bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance stamp, everything must be +melted over. + +But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole +competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am +competent for? And does not the workers society itself have to concede +this, _e. g._ in supporting also the sick, children, old men,--in short, +those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good +deal, _e. g._ to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are +competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a +power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you +would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish. + +Therefore, what you are _competent_ for is your _competence_! If you are +competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you +an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing +it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to +_captivate_ any one, you may simply starve. + +Now am I, who am competent for much, perchance to have no advantage over +the less competent? + +We are all in the midst of abundance; now shall I not help myself as +well as I can, but only wait and see how much is left me in an equal +division? + +Against competition there rises up the principle of ragamuffin +society,--_partition_. + +To be looked upon as a mere _part_, part of society, the individual +cannot bear--because he is _more_; his uniqueness puts from it this +limited conception. + +Hence he does not await his competence from the I sharing of others, and +even in the workers' society there arises the misgiving that in an equal +partition the strong will be exploited by the weak; he awaits his +competence rather from himself, and says now, What I am competent to +have, that is my competence. What competence does not the child possess +in its smiling, its playing, its screaming! in short, in its mere +existence! Are you capable of resisting its desire? or do you not hold +out to it, as mother, your breast; as father, as much of your +possessions as it needs? It compels you, therefore it possesses what you +call yours. + +If your person is of consequence to me, you pay me with your very +existence; if I am concerned only with one of your qualities, then your +compliance, perhaps, or your aid, has a value (a money value) for me, +and I _purchase_ it. + +If you do not know how to give yourself any other than a money value in +my estimation, there may arise the case of which history tells us, that +Germans, sons of the fatherland, were sold to America. Should those who +let themselves be traded in be worth more to the seller? He preferred +the cash to this living ware that did not understand how to make itself +precious to him. That he discovered nothing more valuable in it was +assuredly a defect of his competence; but it takes a rogue to give more +than he has. How should he show respect when he did not have it, nay, +hardly could have it for such a pack! + +You behave egoistically when you respect each other neither as +possessors nor as ragamuffins or workers, but as a part of your +competence, as "_useful bodies_." Then you will neither give anything to +the possessor ("proprietor") for his possessions, nor to him who works, +but only to him whom _you require_. The North Americans ask themselves, +Do we require a king? and answer, Not a farthing are he and his work +worth to us. + +If it is said that competition throws every thing open to all, the +expression is not accurate, and it is better put thus: competition makes +everything purchasable. In _abandoning_[186] it to them, competition +leaves it to their appraisal[187] or their estimation, and demands a +price[188] for it. + +But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to make themselves buyers: +they have no money. For money, then, the purchasable things are indeed +to be had ("For money everything is to be had!"), but it is exactly +money that is lacking. Where is one to get money, this current or +circulating property? Know then, you have as much money[189] as you +have--might; for you count[190] for as much as you make yourself count +for. + +One pays not with money, of which there may come a lack, but with his +competence, by which alone we are "competent";[191] for one is +proprietor only so far as the arm of our power reaches. + +Weitling has thought out a new means of payment,--work. But the true +means of payment remains, as always, _competence_. With what you have +"within your competence" you pay. Therefore think on the enlargement of +your competence. + +This being admitted, they are nevertheless right on hand again with the +motto, "To each according to his competence!" Who is to _give_ to me +according to my competence? Society? Then I should have to put up with +its estimation. Rather, I shall _take_ according to my competence. + +"All belongs to all!" This proposition springs from the same +unsubstantial theory. To each belongs only what he is competent for. If +I say, The world belongs to me, properly that too is empty talk, which +has a meaning only in so far as I respect no alien property. But to me +belongs only as much as I am competent for, or have within my +competence. + +One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from +him; one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it. + +They raise a mighty uproar over the "wrong of a thousand years" which is +being committed by the rich against the poor. As if the rich were to +blame for poverty, and the poor were not in like manner responsible for +riches! Is there another difference between the two than that of +competence and incompetence, of the competent and incompetent? Wherein, +pray, does the crime of the rich consist? "In their hardheartedness." +But who then have maintained the poor? who have cared for their +nourishment? who have given alms, those alms that have even their name +from mercy (_eleemosyne_)? Have not the rich been "merciful" at all +times? are they not to this day "tender-hearted," as poor-taxes, +hospitals, foundations of all sorts, etc., prove? + +But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless, then, they are to _share_ +with the poor? Now you are demanding that they shall abolish poverty. +Aside from the point that there might be hardly one among you who would +act so, and that this one would be a fool for it, do ask yourselves: why +should the rich let go their fleeces and give up _themselves_, thereby +pursuing the advantage of the poor rather than their own? You, who have +your thaler daily, are rich above thousands who live on four groschen. +Is it for your interest to share with the thousands, or is it not rather +for theirs?-- -- + +With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing _best_ +than the intention to make it as _profitable_, as productive, as +possible. Hence people study to get into the civil service (pot-boiling +study), study cringing and flattery, routine and "acquaintance with +business," work "for appearances." Hence, while it is apparently a +matter of doing "good service," in truth only a "good business" and +earning of money are looked out for. The job is done only ostensibly for +the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One +would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be--advanced; one +would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best +convictions, but one is afraid of transference or even dismissal; one +must, above all things,--live. + +Thus these goings-on are a fight for _dear life_, and, in gradation +upward, for more or less of a "good living." + +And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care brings in for most +only "bitter life" and "bitter poverty." All the bitter painstaking for +this! + +Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm +_enjoyment_: we do not get the comfort of our possessions. + +But the organization of labor touches only such labors as others can do +for us, _e. g._ slaughtering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic, +because, _e. g._, no one can in your stead elaborate your musical +compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can +replace Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of a unique person,[192] +which only he is competent to achieve, while the former deserved to be +called "human," since what is anybody's _own_ in them is of slight +account, and almost "any man" can be trained to it. + +Now, as society can regard only labors for the common benefit, _human_ +labors, he who does anything _unique_ remains without its care; nay, he +may find himself disturbed by its intervention. The unique person will +work himself forth out of society all right, but society brings forth no +unique person. + +Hence it is at any rate helpful that we come to an agreement about +_human_ labors, that they may not, as under competition, claim all our +time and toil. So far Communism will bear its fruits. For before the +dominion of the commonalty even that for which all men are qualified, or +can be qualified, was tied up to a few and withheld from the rest: it +was a privilege. To the commonalty it looked equitable to leave free all +that seemed to exist for every "man." But, because left[193] free, it +was yet given to no one, but rather left to each to be got hold of by +his _human_ power. By this the mind was turned to the acquisition of the +human, which henceforth beckoned to every one; and there arose a +movement which one hears so loudly bemoaned under the name of +"materialism." + +Communism seeks to check its course, spreading the belief that the human +is not worth so much discomfort, and, with sensible arrangements, could +be gained without the great expense of time and powers which has +hitherto seemed requisite. + +But for whom is time to be gained? For what does man require more time +than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labor? Here Communism +is silent. + +For what? To take comfort in himself as the unique, after he has done +his part as man! + +In the first joy over being allowed to stretch out their hands toward +everything human, people forgot to want anything else; and they competed +away vigorously, as if the possession of the human were the goal of all +our wishes. + +But they have run themselves tired, and are gradually noticing that +"possession does not give happiness." Therefore they are thinking of +obtaining the necessary by an easier bargain, and spending on it only so +much time and toil as its indispensableness exacts. Riches fall in +price, and contented poverty, the care-free ragamuffin, becomes the +seductive ideal. + +Should such human activities, that every one is confident of his +capacity for, be highly salaried, and sought for with toil and +expenditure of all life-forces? Even in the every-day form of speech, +"If I were minister, or even the ..., then it should go quite +otherwise," that confidence expresses itself,--that one holds himself +capable of playing the part of such a dignitary; one does get a +perception that to things of this sort there belongs not uniqueness, but +only a culture which is attainable, even if not exactly by all, at any +rate by many; _i. e._ that for such a thing one need only be an ordinary +man. + +If we assume that, as _order_ belongs to the essence of the State, so +_subordination_ too is founded in its nature, then we see that the +subordinates, or those who have received preferment, disproportionately +_overcharge_ and _overreach_ those who are put in the lower ranks. But +the latter take heart (first from the Socialist standpoint, but +certainly with egoistic consciousness later, of which we will therefore +at once give their speech some coloring) for the question, By what then +is your property secure, you creatures of preferment?--and give +themselves the answer, By our refraining from interference! And so by +_our_ protection! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and disdain you +give to the "common people"; police supervision, and a catechism with +the chief sentence "Respect what is _not yours_, what belongs to +_others_! respect others, and especially your superiors!" But we reply, +"If you want our respect, _buy_ it for a price agreeable to us. We will +leave you your property, if you give a due equivalent for this leaving." +Really, what equivalent does the general in time of peace give for the +many thousands of his yearly income? another for the sheer +hundred-thousands and millions yearly? What equivalent do you give for +our chewing potatoes and looking calmly on while you swallow oysters? +Only buy the oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes of +you, then you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do +not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry over +_violence_ if we reach out our hands and help consume them, and you are +right. Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by +doing violence to us. + +But take the oysters and have done with it, and let us consider our +nearer property, labor; for the other is only possession. We distress +ourselves twelve hours in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a few +groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. Are you not +willing? You fancy that our labor is richly repaid with that wage, while +yours on the other hand is worth a wage of many thousands. But, if you +did not rate yours so high, and gave us a better chance to realize value +from ours, then we might well, if the case demanded it, bring to pass +still more important things than you do for the many thousand thalers; +and, if you got only such wages as we, you would soon grow more +industrious in order to receive more. But, if you render any service +that seems to us worth ten and a hundred times more than our own labor, +why, then you shall get a hundred times more for it too; we, on the +other hand, think also to produce for you things for which you will +requite us more highly than with the ordinary day's wages. We shall be +willing to get along with each other all right, if only we have first +agreed on this,--that neither any longer needs to--_present_ anything to +the other. Then we may perhaps actually go so far as to pay even the +cripples and sick and old an appropriate price for not parting from us +by hunger and want; for, if we want them to live, it is fitting also +that we--purchase the fulfilment of our will. I say "purchase," and +therefore do not mean a wretched "alms." For their life is the property +even of those who cannot work; if we (no matter for what reason) want +them not to withdraw this life from us, we can mean to bring this to +pass only by purchase; nay, we shall perhaps (maybe because we like to +have friendly faces about us) even want a life of comfort for them. In +short, we want nothing presented by you, but neither will we present you +with anything. For centuries we have handed alms to you from +good-hearted--stupidity, have doled out the mite of the poor and given +to the masters the things that are--not the masters'; now just open your +wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in price quite enormously. We do +not want to take from you anything, anything at all, only you are to pay +better for what you want to have. What then have you? "I have an estate +of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will henceforth attend +to your fields only for one thaler a day wages. "Then I'll take +another." You won't find any, for we plowmen are no longer doing +otherwise, and, if one puts in an appearance who takes less, then let +him beware of us. There is the housemaid, she too is now demanding as +much, and you will no longer find one below this price. "Why, then it is +all over with me." Not so fast! You will doubtless take in as much as +we; and, if it should not be so, we will take off so much that you shall +have wherewith to live like us. "But I am accustomed to live better." We +have nothing against that, but it is not our lookout; if you can clear +more, go ahead. Are we to hire out under rates, that you may have a good +living? The rich man always puts off the poor with the words, "What +does your want concern me? See to it how you make your way through the +world; that is _your affair_, not mine." Well, let us let it be our +affair, then, and let us not let the means that we have to realize value +from ourselves be pilfered from us by the rich. "But you uncultured +people really do not need so much." Well, we are taking somewhat more in +order that for it we may procure the culture that we perhaps need. "But, +if you thus bring down the rich, who is then to support the arts and +sciences hereafter?" Oh, well, we must make it up by numbers; we club +together, that gives a nice little sum,--besides, you rich men now buy +only the most tasteless books and the most lamentable Madonnas or a pair +of lively dancer's legs. "O ill-starred equality!" No, my good old sir, +nothing of equality. We only want to count for what we are worth, and, +if you are worth more, you shall count for more right along. We only +want to be _worth our price_, and think to show ourselves worth the +price that you will pay. + +Is the State likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so +forceful a self-consciousness in the menial? Can it make man feel +himself? nay, may it even do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it +want the individual to recognize his value and realize this value from +himself? Let us keep the parts of the double question separate, and see +first whether the State can bring about such a thing. As the unanimity +of the plowmen is required, only this unanimity can bring it to pass, +and a State law would be evaded in a thousand ways by competition and in +secret. But can the State bear with it? The State cannot possibly bear +with people's suffering coercion from another than it; it could not, +therefore, admit the self-help of the unanimous plowmen against those +who want to engage for lower wages. Suppose, however, that the State +made the law, and all the plowmen were in accord with it: could the +State bear with it then? + +In the isolated case--yes; but the isolated case is more than that, it +is a case of _principle_. The question therein is of the whole range of +_the ego's self-realization of value from himself_, and therefore also +of his self-consciousness _against_ the State. So far the Communists +keep company; but, as self-realization of value from self necessarily +directs itself against the State, so it does against _society_ too, and +therewith reaches out beyond the commune and the communistic--out of +egoism. + +Communism makes the maxim of the commonalty, that every one is a +possessor ("proprietor"), into an irrefragable truth, into a reality, +since the anxiety about _obtaining_ now ceases and every one _has_ from +the start what he requires. In his labor-force he _has_ his competence, +and, if he makes no use of it, that is his fault. The grasping and +hounding is at an end, and no competition is left (as so often now) +without fruit, because with every stroke of labor an adequate supply of +the needful is brought into the house. Now for the first time one is a +_real possessor_, because what one has in his labor-force can no longer +escape from him as it was continually threatening to do under the system +of competition. One is a _care-free_ and assured possessor. And one is +this precisely by seeking his competence no longer in a ware, but in his +own labor, his competence for labor; and therefore by being a +_ragamuffin_, a man of only ideal wealth. _I_, however, cannot content +myself with the little that I scrape up by my competence for labor, +because my competence does not consist merely in my labor. + +By labor I can perform the official functions of a president, a +minister, etc.; these offices demand only a general culture,--to wit, +such a culture as is generally attainable (for general culture is not +merely that which every one has attained, but broadly that which every +one can attain, and therefore every special culture, _e. g._ medical, +military, philological, of which no "cultivated man" believes that they +surpass his powers), or, broadly, only a skill possible to all. + +But, even if these offices may vest in every one, yet it is only the +individual's unique force, peculiar to him alone, that gives them, so to +speak, life and significance. That he does not manage his office like an +"ordinary man," but puts in the competence of his uniqueness, this he is +not yet paid for when he is paid only in general as an official or a +minister. If he has done it so as to earn your thanks, and you wish to +retain this thankworthy force of the unique one, you must not pay him +like a mere man who performed only what was human, but as one who +accomplishes what is unique. Do the like with your labor, do! + +There cannot be a general schedule-price fixed for my uniqueness as +there can for what I do as man. Only for the latter can a schedule-price +be set. + +Go right on, then, setting up a general appraisal for human labors, but +do not deprive your uniqueness of its desert. + +_Human_ or _general_ needs can be satisfied through society; for +satisfaction of _unique_ needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a +friendly service, or even an individual's service, society cannot +procure you. And yet you will every moment be in need of such a service, +and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you. +Therefore do not rely on society, but see to it that you have the +wherewithal to--purchase the fulfiment of your wishes. + +Whether money is to be retained among egoists?--To the old stamp an +inherited possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid +with it, it is ruined: if you do nothing for this money, it loses all +power. Cancel the _inheritance_, and you have broken off the executor's +court-seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether it be already +inherited or await its heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be +sealed up from you? why do you respect the seal? + +But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the +ware in taking from it the hereditary stamp? Now, money is a ware, and +an essential _means_ or competence. For it protects against the +ossification of resources, keeps them in flux and brings to pass their +exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, go ahead; yet it will +be a "money" again. It is not the money that does you damage, but your +incompetence to take it. Let your competence take effect, collect +yourselves, and there will be no lack of money--of your money, the money +of _your_ stamp. But working I do not call "letting your competence +take effect." Those who are only "looking for work" and "willing to work +hard" are preparing for their own selves the infallible upshot--to be +out of work. + +Good and bad luck depend on money. It is a power in the _bourgeois_ +period for this reason, that it is only wooed on all hands like a girl, +indissolubly wedded by nobody. All the romance and chivalry of _wooing_ +for a dear object come to life again in competition. Money, an object of +longing, is carried off by the bold "knights of industry."[194] + +He who has luck takes home the bride. The ragamuffin has luck; he takes +her into his household, "society," and destroys the virgin. In his house +she is no longer bride, but wife; and with her virginity her family name +is also lost. As housewife the maiden Money is called "Labor," for +"Labor" is her husband's name. She is a possession of her husband's. + +To bring this figure to an end, the child of Labor and Money is again a +girl, an unwedded one and therefore Money, but with the certain descent +from Labor, her father. The form of the face, the "effigy," bears +another stamp. + +Finally, as regards competition once more, it has a continued existence +by this very means, that all do not attend to _their affair_ and come to +an _understanding_ with each other about it. Bread, _e. g._, is a need +of all the inhabitants of a city; therefore they might easily agree on +setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave the furnishing +of the needful to the competing bakers. Just so meat to the butchers, +wine to the wine-dealers, etc. + +Abolishing competition is not equivalent to favoring the guild. The +difference is this: In the _guild_ baking, etc., is the affair of the +guild-brothers; in _competition_, the affair of chance competitors; in +the _union_, of those who require baked goods, and therefore my affair, +yours, the affair of neither the guildic nor the concessionary baker, +but the affair of the _united_. + +If _I_ do not trouble myself about _my_ affair, I must be _content_ with +what it pleases others to vouchsafe me. To have bread is my affair, my +wish and desire, and yet people leave that to the bakers and hope at +most to obtain through their wrangling, their getting ahead of each +other, their rivalry,--in short, their competition,--an advantage which +one could not count on in the case of the guild-brothers who were lodged +_entirely_ and _alone_ in the proprietorship of the baking +franchise.--What every one requires, every one should also take a hand +in procuring and producing; it is _his_ affair, his property, not the +property of the guildic or concessionary master. + +Let us look back once more. The world belongs to the children of this +world, the children of men; it is no longer God's world, but man's. As +much as every man can procure of it, let him call his; only the true +man, the State, human society or mankind, will look to it that each +shall make nothing else his own than what he appropriates as man, +_i. e._ in human fashion. Unhuman appropriation is that which is not +consented to by man, _i. e._ it is a "criminal" appropriation, as the +human, _vice versa_, is a "rightful" one, one acquired in the "way of +law." + +So they talk since the Revolution. + +But my property is not a thing, since this has an existence independent +of me; only my might is my own. Not this tree, but my might or control +over it, is what is mine. + +Now, how is this might perversely expressed? They say I have a _right_ +to this tree, or it is my _rightful_ property. So I have _earned_ it by +might. That the might must last in order that the tree may also be +_held_,--or better, that the might is not a thing existing of itself, +but has existence solely in the _mighty ego_, in me the mighty,--is +forgotten. Might, like other of my _qualities_ (_e. g._ humanity, +majesty, etc.), is exalted to something existing of itself, so that it +still exists long after it has ceased to be _my_ might. Thus transformed +into a ghost, might is--_right_. This _eternalized_ might is not +extinguished even with my death, but is transferred or "bequeathed." + +Things now really belong not to me, but to right. + +On the other side, this is nothing but a hallucination of vision. For +the individual's might becomes permanent and a right only by others +joining their might with his. The delusion consists in their believing +that they cannot withdraw their might. The same phenomenon over again; +might is separated from me. I cannot take back the might that I gave to +the possessor. One has "granted power of attorney," has given away his +power, has renounced coming to a better mind. + +The proprietor can give up his might and his right to a thing by giving +the thing away, squandering it, and the like. And _we_ should not be +able likewise to let go the might that we lend to him? + +The rightful man, the _just_, desires to call nothing his own that he +does not have "rightly" or have the right to, and therefore only +_legitimate property_. + +Now, who is to be judge, and adjudge his right to him? At last, surely, +Man, who imparts to him the rights of man: then he can say, in an +infinitely broader sense than Terence, _humani nihil a me alienum puto_, +_i. e._ the _human is my property_. However he may go about it, so long +as he occupies this standpoint he cannot get clear of a judge; and in +our time the multifarious judges that had been selected have set +themselves against each other in two persons at deadly enmity,--to wit, +in God and Man. The one party appeal to divine right, the other to human +right or the rights of man. + +So much is clear, that in neither case does the individual do the +entitling himself. + +Just pick me out an action to-day that would not be a violation of +right! Every moment the rights of man are trampled under foot by one +side, while their opponents cannot open their mouth without uttering a +blasphemy against divine right. Give an alms, you mock at a right of +man, because the relation of beggar and benefactor is an inhuman +relation; utter a doubt, you sin against a divine right. Eat dry bread +with contentment, you violate the right of man by your equanimity; eat +it with discontent, you revile divine right by your repining. There is +not one among you who does not commit a crime at every moment; your +speeches are crimes, and every hindrance to your freedom of speech is no +less a crime. Ye are criminals altogether! + +Yet you are so only in that you all stand on the _ground of right_; +_i. e._, in that you do not even know, and understand how to value, the +fact that you are criminals. + +Inviolable or _sacred_ property has grown on this very ground: it is a +_juridical concept_. + +A dog sees the bone in another's power, and stands off only if it feels +itself too weak. But man respects the other's _right_ to his bone. The +latter action, therefore, ranks as _human_, the former as _brutal_ or +"egoistic." + +And as here, so in general, it is called "_human_" when one sees in +everything something _spiritual_ (here right), _i. e._ makes everything +a ghost and takes his attitude toward it as toward a ghost, which one +can indeed scare away at its appearance, but cannot kill. It is human to +look at what is individual not as individual, but as a generality. + +In nature as such I no longer respect anything, but know myself to be +entitled to everything against it; in the tree in that garden, on the +other hand, I must respect _alienness_ (they say in one-sided fashion +"property"), I must keep my hand off it. This comes to an end only when +I can indeed leave that tree to another as I leave my stick, etc., to +another, but do not in advance regard it as alien to me, _i. e._ sacred. +Rather, I make to myself no _crime_ of felling it if I will, and it +remains my property, however long I resign it to others: it is and +remains _mine_. In the banker's fortune I as little see anything alien +as Napoleon did in the territories of kings: we have no _dread_ of +"_conquering_" it, and we look about us also for the means thereto. We +strip off from it, therefore, the _spirit_ of _alienness_, of which we +had been afraid. + +Therefore it is necessary that I do not lay claim to anything more _as +man_, but to everything as I, this I; and accordingly to nothing human, +but to mine; _i. e._ nothing that pertains to me as man, but--what I +will and because I will it. + +Rightful, or legitimate, property of another will be only that which +_you_ are content to recognize as such. If your content ceases, then +this property has lost legitimacy for you, and you will laugh at +absolute right to it. + +Besides the hitherto discussed property in the limited sense, there is +held up to our reverent heart another property against which we are far +less "to sin." This property consists in spiritual goods, in the +"sanctuary of the inner nature." What a man holds sacred, no other is to +gibe at; because, untrue as it may be, and zealously as one may "in +loving and modest wise" seek to convince of a true sanctity the man who +adheres to it and believes in it, yet _the sacred_ itself is always to +be honored in it: the mistaken man does believe in the sacred, even +though in an incorrect essence of it, and so his belief in the sacred +must at least be respected. + +In ruder times than ours it was customary to demand a particular faith, +and devotion to a particular sacred essence, and they did not take the +gentlest way with those who believed otherwise; since, however, +"freedom of belief" spread itself more and more abroad, the "jealous God +and sole Lord" gradually melted into a pretty general "supreme being," +and it satisfied humane tolerance if only every one revered "something +sacred." + +Reduces to the human expression, this sacred essence is "man himself" +and "the human." With the deceptive semblance as if the human were +altogether our own, and free from all the otherworldliness with which +that divine is tainted,--yes, as if Man were as much as I or you,--there +may arise even the proud fancy that the talk is no longer of a "sacred +essence" and that we now feel ourselves everywhere at home and no longer +in the uncanny,[195] _i. e._ in the sacred and in sacred awe: in the +ecstasy over "Man discovered at last" the egoistic cry of pain passes +unheard, and the spook that has become so intimate is taken for our true +ego. + +But "Humanus is the saint's name" (see Goethe), and the humane is only +the most clarified sanctity. + +The egoist makes the reverse declaration. For this precise reason, +because you hold something sacred, I gibe at you; and, even if I +respected everything in you, your sanctuary is precisely what I should +not respect. + +With these opposed views there must also be assumed a contradictory +relation to spiritual goods: the egoist insults them, the religious man +(_i. e._ every one who puts his "essence" above himself) must +consistently--protect them. But what kind of spiritual goods are to be +protected, and what left unprotected, depends entirely on the concept +that one forms of the "supreme being"; and he who fears God, _e. g._, +has more to shelter than he (the liberal) who fears Man. + +In spiritual goods we are (in distinction from the sensuous) injured in +a spiritual way, and the sin against them consists in a direct +_desecration_, while against the sensuous a purloining or alienation +takes place; the goods themselves are robbed of value and of +consecration, not merely taken away; the sacred is immediately +compromised. With the word "irreverence" or "flippancy" is designated +everything that can be committed as _crime_ against spiritual goods, +_i. e._ against everything that is sacred for us; and scoffing, +reviling, contempt, doubt, and the like, are only different shades of +_criminal flippancy_. + +That desecration can be practised in the most manifold wise is here to +be passed over, and only that desecration is to be preferentially +mentioned which threatens the sacred with danger through an +_unrestricted press_. + +As long as respect is demanded even for one spiritual essence, speech +and the press must be enthralled in the name of this essence; for just +so long the egoist might "trespass" against it by his _utterances_, from +which thing he must be hindered by "due punishment" at least, if one +does not prefer to take up the more correct means against it, the +preventive use of police authority, _e. g._ censorship. + +What a sighing for liberty of the press! What then is the press to be +liberated from? Surely from a dependence, a belonging, and a liability +to service! But to liberate himself from that is every one's affair, +and it may with safety be assumed that, when you have delivered yourself +from liability to service, that which you compose and write will also +belong to you as your _own_ instead of having been thought and indited +_in the service_ of some power. What can a believer in Christ say and +have printed, that should be freer from that belief in Christ than he +himself is? If I cannot or may not write something, perhaps the primary +fault lies with _me_. Little as this seems to hit the point, so near is +the application nevertheless to be found. By a press-law I draw a +boundary for my publications, or let one be drawn, beyond which wrong +and its _punishment_ follows. I myself _limit_ myself. + +If the press was to be free, nothing would be so important as precisely +its liberation from every coercion that could be put on it in the _name +of a law_. And, that it might come to that, I my own self should have to +have absolved myself from obedience to the law. + +Certainly, the absolute liberty of the press is like every absolute +liberty, a nonentity. The press can become free from full many a thing, +but always only from what I too am free from. If we make ourselves free +from the sacred, if we have become _graceless_ and _lawless_, our words +too will become so. + +As little as _we_ can be declared clear of every coercion in the world, +so little can our writing be withdrawn from it. But as free as we are, +so free we can make it too. + +It must therefore become our _own_, instead of, as hitherto, serving a +spook. + +People do not yet know what they mean by their cry for liberty of the +press. What they ostensibly ask is that the State shall set the press +free; but what they are really after, without knowing it themselves, is +that the press become free from the State, or clear of the State. The +former is a _petition_ to the State, the latter an _insurrection +against_ the State. As a "petition for right," even as a serious +demanding of the right of liberty of the press, it presupposes the State +as the _giver_, and can hope only for a _present_, a permission, a +chartering. Possible, no doubt, that a State acts so senselessly as to +grant the demanded present; but you may bet everything that those who +receive the present will not know how to use it so long as they regard +the State as a truth: they will not trespass against this "sacred +thing," and will call for a penal press-law against every one who would +be willing to dare this. + +In a word, the press does not become free from what I am not free from. + +Do I perhaps hereby show myself an opponent of the liberty of the press? +On the contrary, I only assert that one will never get it if one wants +only it, the liberty of the press; _i. e._ if one sets out only for an +unrestricted permission. Only beg right along for this permission: you +may wait forever for it, for there is no one in the world who could give +it to you. As long as you want to have yourselves "entitled" to the use +of the press by a permission, _i. e._ liberty of the press, you live in +vain hope and complaint. + +"Nonsense! Why, you yourself, who harbor such thoughts as stand in your +book, can unfortunately bring them to publicity only through a lucky +chance or by stealth; nevertheless you will inveigh against one's +pressing and importuning his own State till it gives the refused +permission to print?" But an author thus addressed would perhaps--for +the impudence of such people goes far--give the following reply: +"Consider well what you say! What then do I do to procure myself liberty +of the press for my book? Do I ask for permission, or do I not rather, +without any question of legality, seek a favorable occasion and grasp it +in complete recklessness of the State and its wishes? I--the terrifying +word must be uttered--I cheat the State. You unconsciously do the same. +From your tribunes you talk it into the idea that it must give up its +sanctity and inviolability, it must lay itself bare to the attacks of +writers, without needing on that account to fear danger. But you are +imposing on it; for its existence is done for as soon as it loses its +unapproachableness. To _you_ indeed it might well accord liberty of +writing, as England has done; you are _believers in the State_ and +incapable of writing against the State, however much you would like to +reform it and 'remedy its defects.' But what if opponents of the State +availed themselves of free utterance, and stormed out against Church, +State, morals, and everything 'sacred' with inexorable reasons? You +would then be the first, in terrible agonies, to call into life the +_September laws_. Too late would you then rue the stupidity that earlier +made you so ready to fool and palaver into compliance the State, or the +government of the State.--But I prove by my act only two things. This +for one, that the liberty of the press is always bound to 'favorable +opportunities,' and accordingly will never be an absolute liberty; but +secondly this, that he who would enjoy it must seek out and, if +possible, create the favorable opportunity, availing himself of his _own +advantage_ against the State, and counting himself and his will more +than the State and every 'superior' power. Not in the State, but only +against it, can the liberty of the press be carried through; if it is to +be established, it is to be obtained not as the consequence of a +_petition_ but as the work of an _insurrection_. Every petition and +every motion for liberty of the press is already an insurrection, be it +conscious or unconscious: a thing which Philistine halfness alone will +not and cannot confess to itself until, with a shrinking shudder, it +shall see it clearly and irrefutably by the outcome. For the requested +liberty of the press has indeed a friendly and well-meaning face at the +beginning, as it is not in the least minded ever to let the 'insolence +of the press' come into vogue; but little by little its heart grows more +hardened, and the inference flatters its way in that really a liberty is +not a liberty if it stands in the _service_ of the State, of morals, or +of the law. A liberty indeed from the coercion of censorship, it is yet +not a liberty from the coercion of law. The press, once seized by the +lust for liberty, always wants to grow freer, till at last the writer +says to himself, Really I am not wholly free till I ask about nothing; +and writing is free only when it is my _own_, dictated to me by no power +or authority, by no faith, no dread; the press must not be free--that is +too little--it must be _mine_:--_ownness of the press_ or _property in +the press_, that is what I will take. + +"Why, liberty of the press is only _permission of the press_, and the +State never will or can voluntarily permit me to grind it to nothingness +by the press. + +"Let us now, in conclusion, bettering the above language, which is still +vague, owing to the phrase 'liberty of the press,' rather put it thus: +_Liberty of the press_, the liberals' loud demand, is assuredly possible +in the State; yes, it is possible only _in_ the State, because it is a +_permission_, and consequently the permitter (the State) must not be +lacking. But as permission it has its limit in this very State, which +surely should not in reason permit more than is compatible with itself +and its welfare: the State fixes for it this limit as the _law_ of its +existence and of its extension. That one State brooks more than another +is only a quantitative distinction, which alone, nevertheless, lies at +the heart of the political liberals: they want in Germany, _e. g._, only +a '_more extended, broader_ accordance of free utterance.' The liberty +of the press which is sought for is an affair of the _people's_, and +before the people (the State) possesses it I may make no use of it. From +the standpoint of property in the press, the situation is different. Let +my people, if they will, go without liberty of the press, I will manage +to print by force or ruse; I get my permission to print only +from--_myself_ and my strength. + +"If the press is _my own_, I as little need a permission of the State +for employing it as I seek that permission in order to blow my nose. The +press is my _property_ from the moment when nothing is more to me than +myself; for from this moment State, Church, people, society, and the +like, cease, because they have to thank for their existence only the +disrespect that I have for myself, and with the vanishing of this +undervaluation they themselves are extinguished: they exist only when +they exist _above me_, exist only as _powers and power-holders_. Or can +you imagine a State whose citizens one and all think nothing of it? it +would be as certainly a dream, an existence in seeming, as 'united +Germany.' + +"The press is my own as soon as I myself am my own, a self-owned man: to +the egoist belongs the world, because he belongs to no power of the +world. + +"With this my press might still be very _unfree_, as _e. g._, at this +moment. But the world is large, and one helps himself as well as he can. +If I were willing to abate from the _property_ of my press, I could +easily attain the point where I might everywhere have as much printed as +my fingers produced. But, as I want to assert my property, I must +necessarily swindle my enemies. 'Would you not accept their permission +if it were given you?' Certainly, with joy; for their permission would +be to me a proof that I had fooled them and started them on the road to +ruin. I am not concerned for their permission, but so much the more for +their folly and their overthrow. I do not sue for their permission as if +I flattered myself (like the political liberals) that we both, they and +I, could make out peaceably alongside and with each other, yes, probably +raise and prop each other; but I sue for it in order to make them bleed +to death by it, that the permitters themselves may cease at last. I act +as a conscious enemy, overreaching them and _utilizing_ their +heedlessness. + +"The press is _mine_ when I recognize outside myself no _judge_ whatever +over its utilization, _i. e._ when my writing is no longer determined by +morality or religion or respect for the State laws or the like, but by +me and my egoism!"-- + +Now, what have you to reply to him who gives you so impudent an +answer?--We shall perhaps put the question most strikingly by phrasing +it as follows: Whose is the press, the people's (State's) or mine? The +politicals on their side intend nothing further than to liberate the +press from personal and arbitrary interferences of the possessors of +power, without thinking of the point that to be really open for +everybody it would also have to be free from the laws, _i. e._ from the +people's (State's) will. They want to make a "people's affair" of it. + +But, having become the people's property, it is still far from being +mine; rather, it retains for me the subordinate significance of a +_permission_. The people plays judge over my thoughts; it has the right +of calling me to account for them, or, I am responsible to it for them. +Jurors, when their fixed ideas are attacked, have just as hard heads and +hearts as the stiffest despots and their servile officials. + +In the "_Liberale Bestrebungen_"[196] E. Bauer asserts that liberty of +the press is impossible in the absolutist and the constitutional State, +whereas in the "free State" it finds its place. "Here," the statement +is, "it is recognized that the individual, because he is no longer an +individual but a member of a true and rational generality, has the right +to utter his mind." So not the individual, but the "member," has liberty +of the press. But, if for the purpose of liberty of the press the +individual must first give proof of himself regarding his belief in the +generality, the people; if he does not have this liberty _through might +of his own_,--then it is a _people's liberty_, a liberty that he is +invested with for the sake of his faith, his "membership." The reverse +is the case: it is precisely as an individual that every one has open to +him the liberty to utter his mind. But he has not the "right": that +liberty is assuredly not his "sacred right." He has only the _might_; +but the might alone makes him owner. I need no concession for the +liberty of the press, do not need the people's consent to it, do not +need the "right" to it, nor any "justification." The liberty of the +press too, like every liberty, I must "take"; the people, "as being the +sole judge," cannot _give_ it to me. It can put up with the liberty that +I take, or defend itself against it; give, bestow, grant it it cannot. I +exercise it _despite_ the people, purely as an individual; _i. e._ I get +it by fighting the people, my--enemy, and obtain it only when I really +get it by such fighting, _i. e. take_ it. But I take it because it is my +property. + +Sander, against whom E. Bauer writes, lays claim (page 99) to the +liberty of the press "as the right and the liberty of the _citizen in +the State_." What else does E. Bauer do? To him also it is only a right +of the free _citizen_. + +The liberty of the press is also demanded under the name of a "general +human right." Against this the objection was well-founded that not every +man knew how to use it rightly, for not every individual was truly man. +Never did a government refuse it to _Man_ as such; but _Man_ writes +nothing, for the reason that he is a ghost. It always refused it to +_individuals_ only, and gave it to others, _e. g._ its organs. If then +one would have it for all, one must assert outright that it is due to +the individual, me, not to man or to the individual so far as he is man. +Besides, another than a man (_e. g._ a beast) can make no use of it. The +French government, _e. g._, does not dispute the liberty of the press as +a right of man, but demands from the individual a security for his +really being man; for it assigns liberty of the press not to the +individual, but to man. + +Under the exact pretence that it was _not human_, what was mine was +taken from me! what was human was left to me undiminished. + +Liberty of the press can bring about only a _responsible_ press; the +_irresponsible_ proceeds solely from property in the press. + + * * * * * + +For intercourse with men an express law (conformity to which one may +venture at times sinfully to forget, but the absolute value of which one +at no time ventures to deny) is placed foremost among all who live +religiously: this is the law--of _love_, to which not even those who +seem to fight against its principle, and who hate its name, have as yet +become untrue; for they also still have love, yes, they love with a +deeper and more sublimated love, they love "man and mankind." + +If we formulate the sense of this law, it will be about as follows: +Every man must have a something that is more to him than himself. You +are to put your "private interest" in the background when it is a +question of the welfare of others, the weal of the fatherland, of +society, the common weal, the weal of mankind, the good cause, and the +like! Fatherland, society, mankind, etc., must be more to you than +yourself, and as against their interest your "private interest" must +stand back; for you must not be an--egoist. + +Love is a far-reaching religious demand, which is not, as might be +supposed, limited to love to God and man, but stands foremost in every +regard. Whatever we do, think, will, the ground of it is always to be +love. Thus we may indeed judge, but only "with love." The Bible may +assuredly be criticised, and that very thoroughly, but the critic must +before all things _love_ it and see in it the sacred book. Is this +anything else than to say he must not criticise it to death, he must +leave it standing, and that as a sacred thing that cannot be upset?--In +our criticism on men too, love must remain the unchanged key-note. +Certainly judgments that hatred inspires are not at all our _own_ +judgments, but judgments of the hatred that rules us, "rancorous +judgments." But are judgments that love inspires in us any more our +_own_? They are judgments of the love that rules us, they are "loving, +lenient" judgments, they are not our _own_, and accordingly not real +judgments at all. He who burns with love for justice cries out, _fiat +justitia, pereat mundus_! He can doubtless ask and investigate what +justice properly is or demands, and _in what_ it consists, but not +_whether_ it is anything. + +It is very true, "He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." +(I John 4. 16.) God abides in him, he does not get rid of God, does not +become godless; and he abides in God, does not come to himself and into +his own home, abides in love to God and does not become loveless. + +"God is love! All times and all races recognize in this word the central +point of Christianity." God, who is love, is an officious God: he cannot +leave the world in peace, but wants to make it _blest_. "God became man +to make men divine."[197] He has his hand in the game everywhere, and +nothing happens without it; everywhere he has his "best purposes," his +"incomprehensible plans and decrees." Reason, which he himself is, is to +be forwarded and realized in the whole world. His fatherly care deprives +us of all independence. We can do nothing sensible without its being +said, God did that! and can bring upon ourselves no misfortune without +hearing, God ordained that; we have nothing that we have not from him, +he "gave" everything. But, as God does, so does Man. God wants perforce +to make the world _blest_, and Man wants to make it _happy_, to make all +men happy. Hence every "man" wants to awaken in all men the reason which +he supposes his own self to have: everything is to be rational +throughout. God torments himself with the devil, and the philosopher +does it with unreason and the accidental. God lets no being go _its +own_ gait, and Man likewise wants to make us walk only in human wise. + +But whoso is full of sacred (religious, moral, humane) love loves only +the spook, the "true man," and persecutes with dull mercilessness the +individual, the real man, under the phlegmatic legal title of measures +against the "un-man." He finds it praiseworthy and indispensable to +exercise pitilessness in the harshest measure; for love to the spook or +generality commands him to hate him who is not ghostly, _i. e._ the +egoist or individual; such is the meaning of the renowned +love-phenomenon that is called "justice." + +The criminally arraigned man can expect no forbearance, and no one +spreads a friendly veil over his unhappy nakedness. Without emotion the +stern judge tears the last rags of excuse from the body of the poor +accused; without compassion the jailer drags him into his damp abode; +without placability, when the time of punishment has expired, he thrusts +the branded man again among men, his good, Christian, loyal brethren! +who contemptuously spit on him. Yes, without grace a criminal "deserving +of death" is led to the scaffold, and before the eyes of a jubilating +crowd the appeased moral law celebrates its sublime--revenge. For only +one can live, the moral law or the criminal. Where criminals live +unpunished, the moral law has fallen; and, where this prevails, those +must go down. Their enmity is indestructible. + +The Christian age is precisely that of _mercy, love_, solicitude to have +men receive what is due them, yes, to bring them to fulfil their human +(divine) calling. Therefore the principle has been put foremost for +intercourse, that this and that is man's essence and consequently his +calling, to which either God has called him or (according to the +concepts of to-day) his being man (the species) calls him. Hence the +zeal for conversion. That the Communists and the humane expect from man +more than the Christians do does not change the standpoint in the least. +Man shall get what is human! If it was enough for the pious that what +was divine became his part, the humane demand that he be not curtailed +of what is human. Both set themselves against what is egoistic. Of +course; for what is egoistic cannot be accorded to him or vested in him +(a fief); he must procure it for himself. Love imparts the former, the +latter can be given to me by myself alone. + +Intercourse hitherto has rested on love, _regardful_ behavior, doing for +each other. As one owed it to himself to make himself blessed, or owed +himself the bliss of taking up into himself the supreme essence and +bringing it to a _verite_ (a truth and reality), so one owed it to +_others_ to help them realize their essence and their calling: in both +cases one owed it to the essence of man to contribute to its +realization. + +But one owes it neither to himself to make anything out of himself, nor +to others to make anything out of them; for one owes nothing to his +essence and that of others. Intercourse resting on essence is an +intercourse with the spook, not with anything real. If I hold +intercourse with the supreme essence, I am not holding intercourse with +myself, and, if I hold intercourse with the essence of man, I am not +holding intercourse with men. + +The natural man's love becomes through culture a _commandment_. But as +commandment it belongs to _Man_ as such, not to _me_; it is my +_essence_,[198] about which much ado[199] is made, not my property. +_Man_, _i. e._ humanity, presents that demand to me; love is _demanded_, +it is my _duty_. Instead, therefore, of being really won for _me_, it +has been won for the generality, _Man_, as his property or peculiarity: +"it becomes man, _i. e._ every man, to love; love is the duty and +calling of man," etc. + +Consequently I must again vindicate love for _myself_, and deliver it +out of the power of Man with the great M. + +What was originally _mine_, but _accidentally_ mine, instinctively mine, +I was invested with as the property of Man; I became feoffee in loving, +I became the retainer of mankind, only a specimen of this species, and +acted, loving, not as _I_, but as _man_, as a specimen of man, _i. e._ +humanly. The whole condition of civilization is the _feudal system_, the +property being Man's or mankind's, not _mine_. A monstrous feudal State +was founded, the individual robbed of everything, everything left to +"man." The individual had to appear at last as a "sinner through and +through." + +Am I perchance to have no lively interest in the person of another, are +_his_ joy and _his_ weal not to lie at my heart, is the enjoyment that I +furnish him not to be more to me than other enjoyments of my own? On the +contrary, I can with joy sacrifice to him numberless enjoyments, I can +deny myself numberless things for the enhancement of _his_ pleasure, and +I can hazard for him what without him was the dearest to me, my life, my +welfare, my freedom. Why, it constitutes my pleasure and my happiness to +refresh myself with his happiness and his pleasure. But _myself, my own +self_, I do not sacrifice to him, but remain an egoist and--enjoy him. +If I sacrifice to him everything that but for my love to him I should +keep, that is very simple, and even more usual in life than it seems to +be; but it proves nothing further than that this one passion is more +powerful in me than all the rest. Christianity too teaches us to +sacrifice all other passions to this. But, if to one passion I sacrifice +others, I do not on that account go so far as to sacrifice _myself_, nor +sacrifice anything of that whereby I truly am myself; I do not sacrifice +my peculiar value, my _ownness_. Where this bad case occurs, love cuts +no better figure than any other passion that I obey blindly. The +ambitious man, who is carried away by ambition and remains deaf to every +warning that a calm moment begets in him, has let this passion grow up +into a despot against whom he abandons all power of dissolution: he has +given up himself, because he cannot _dissolve_ himself, and consequently +cannot absolve himself from the passion: he is possessed. + +I love men too,--not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them +with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes _me_ +happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I +know no "commandment of love." I have a _fellow-feeling_ with every +feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes +me too; I can kill them, not torture them. _Per contra_, the +high-souled, virtuous Philistine prince Rudolph in "The Mysteries of +Paris," because the wicked provoke his "indignation," plans their +torture. That fellow-feeling proves only that the feeling of those who +feel is mine too, my property; in opposition to which the pitiless +dealing of the "righteous" man (_e. g._ against notary Ferrand) is like +the unfeelingness of that robber who cut off or stretched his prisoners' +legs to the measure of his bedstead: Rudolph's bedstead, which he cuts +men to fit, is the concept of the "good." The feeling for right, virtue, +etc., makes people hard-hearted and intolerant. Rudolph does not feel +like the notary, but the reverse; he feels that "it serves the rascal +right"; that is no fellow-feeling. + +You love man, therefore you torture the individual man, the egoist; your +philanthropy (love of men) is the tormenting of men. + +If I see the loved one suffer, I suffer with him, and I know no rest +till I have tried everything to comfort and cheer him; if I see him +glad, I too become glad over his joy. From this it does not follow that +suffering or joy is caused in me by the same thing that brings out this +effect in him, as is sufficiently proved by every bodily pain which I do +not feel as he does; his tooth pains him, but his pain pains me. + +But, because _I_ cannot bear the troubled crease on the beloved +forehead, for that reason, and therefore for my sake, I kiss it away. If +I did not love this person, he might go right on making creases, they +would not trouble me; I am only driving away _my_ trouble. + +How now, has anybody or anything, whom and which I do not love, a +_right_ to be loved by me? Is my love first, or is his right first? +Parents, kinsfolk, fatherland, nation, native town, etc., finally +fellow-men in general ("brothers, fraternity"), assert that they have a +right to my love, and lay claim to it without further ceremony. They +look upon it as _their property_, and upon me, if I do not respect this, +as a robber who takes from them what pertains to them and is theirs. I +_should_ love. If love is a commandment and law, then I must be educated +into it, cultivated up to it, and, if I trespass against it, punished. +Hence people will exercise as strong a "moral influence" as possible on +me to bring me to love. And there is no doubt that one can work up and +seduce men to love as one can to other passions,--_e. g._, if you like, +to hate. Hate runs through whole races merely because the ancestors of +the one belonged to the Guelphs, those of the other to the Ghibellines. + +But love is not a commandment, but, like each of my feelings, _my +property_. _Acquire_, _i. e._ purchase, my property, and then I will +make it over to you. A church, a nation, a fatherland, a family, etc., +that does not know how to acquire my love, I need not love; and I fix +the purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure. + +Selfish love is far distant from unselfish, mystical, or romantic love. +One can love everything possible, not merely men, but an "object" in +general (wine, one's fatherland, etc.). Love becomes blind and crazy by +a _must_ taking it out of my power (infatuation), romantic by a +_should_ entering into it, _i. e._ the "object's" becoming sacred for +me, or my becoming bound to it by duty, conscience, oath. Now the object +no longer exists for me, but I for it. + +Love is a possessedness, not as my feeling--as such I rather keep it in +my possession as property--, but through the alienness of the object. +For religious love consists in the commandment to love in the beloved a +"holy one," or to adhere to a holy one; for unselfish love there are +objects _absolutely lovable_ for which my heart is to beat,--_e. g._ +fellow-men, or my wedded mate, kinsfolk, etc. Holy love loves the holy +in the beloved, and therefore exerts itself also to make of the beloved +more and more a holy one (_e. g._ a "man"). + +The beloved is an object that _should_ be loved by me. He is not an +object of my love on account of, because of, or by, my loving him, but +is an object of love in and of himself. Not I make him an object of +love, but he is such to begin with; for it is here irrelevant that he +has become so by my choice, if so it be (as with a _fiancee_, a spouse, +and the like), since even so he has in any case, as the person once +chosen, obtained a "right of his own to my love," and I, because I have +loved him, am under obligation to love him forever. He is therefore not +an object of _my_ love, but of love in general: an object that _should_ +be loved. Love appertains to him, is due to him, or is his _right_, +while I am under _obligation_ to love him. My love, _i. e._ the toll of +love that I pay him, is in truth _his_ love, which he only collects from +me as toll. + +Every love to which there clings but the smallest speck of obligation +is an unselfish love, and, so far as this speck reaches, a +possessedness. He who believes that he _owes_ the object of his love +anything loves romantically or religiously. + +Family love, _e. g._, as it is usually understood as "piety," is a +religious love; love of fatherland, preached as "patriotism," likewise. +All our romantic love moves in the same pattern: everywhere the +hypocrisy, or rather self-deception, of an "unselfish love," an interest +in the object for the object's sake, not for my sake and mine alone. + +Religious or romantic love is distinguished from sensual love by the +difference of the object indeed, but not by the dependence of the +relation to it. In the latter regard both are possessedness; but in the +former the one object is profane, the other sacred. The dominion of the +object over me is the same in both cases, only that it is one time a +sensuous one, the other time a spiritual (ghostly) one. My love is my +own only when it consists altogether in a selfish and egoistic interest, +and when consequently the object of my love is really _my_ object or my +property. I owe my property nothing, and have no duty to it, as little +as I might have a duty to my eye; if nevertheless I guard it with the +greatest care, I do so on my account. + +Antiquity lacked love as little as do Christian times; the god of love +is older than the God of Love. But the mystical possessedness belongs to +the moderns. + +The possessedness of love lies in the alienation of the object, or in my +powerlessness as against its alienness and superior power. To the egoist +nothing is high enough for him to humble himself before it, nothing so +independent that he would live for love of it, nothing so sacred that he +would sacrifice himself to it. The egoist's love rises in selfishness, +flows in the bed of selfishness, and empties into selfishness again. + +Whether this can still be called love? If you know another word for it, +go ahead and choose it; then the sweet word love may wither with the +departed world; for the present I at least find none in our _Christian_ +language, and hence stick to the old sound and "love" _my_ object, +my--property. + +Only as one of my feelings do I harbor love; but as a power above me, as +a divine power (Feuerbach), as a passion that I am not to cast off, as a +religious and moral duty, I--scorn it. As my feeling it is _mine_; as a +principle to which I consecrate and "vow" my soul it is a dominator and +_divine_, just as hatred as a principle is _diabolical_; one not better +than the other. In short, egoistic love, _i. e._, my love, is neither +holy nor unholy, neither divine nor diabolical. + +"A love that is limited by faith is an untrue love. The sole limitation +that does not contradict the essence of love is the self-limitation of +love by reason, intelligence. Love that scorns the rigor, the law, of +intelligence, is theoretically a false love, practically a ruinous +one."[200] So love is in its essence _rational_! So thinks Feuerbach; +the believer, on the contrary, thinks, Love is in its essence +_believing_. The one inveighs against _irrational_, the other against +_unbelieving_, love. To both it can at most rank as a _splen__didum +vitium_. Do not both leave love standing, even in the form of unreason +and unbelief? They do not dare to say, irrational or unbelieving love is +nonsense, is not love; as little as they are willing to say, irrational +or unbelieving tears are not tears. But, if even irrational love, etc., +must count as love, and if they are nevertheless to be unworthy of man, +there follows simply this: love is not the highest thing, but reason or +faith; even the unreasonable and the unbelieving can love; but love has +value only when it is that of a rational or believing person. It is an +illusion when Feuerbach calls the rationality of love its +"self-limitation"; the believer might with the same right call belief +its "self-limitation." Irrational love is neither "false" nor "ruinous"; +it does its service as love. + +Toward the world, especially toward men, I am to _assume a particular +feeling_, and "meet them with love," with the feeling of love, from the +beginning. Certainly, in this there is revealed far more free-will and +self-determination than when I let myself be stormed, by way of the +world, by all possible feelings, and remain exposed to the most +checkered, most accidental impressions. I go to the world rather with a +preconceived feeling, as if it were a prejudice and a preconceived +opinion: I have prescribed to myself in advance my behavior toward it, +and, despite all its temptations, feel and think about it only as I +have once determined to. Against the dominion of the world I secure +myself by the principle of love; for, whatever may come, I--love. The +ugly--_e. g._--makes a repulsive impression on me; but, determined to +love, I master this impression as I do every antipathy. + +But the feeling to which I have determined and--condemned myself from +the start is a _narrow_ feeling, because it is a predestined one, of +which I myself am not able to get clear or to declare myself clear. +Because preconceived, it is a _prejudice_. _I_ no longer show myself in +face of the world, but my love shows itself. The _world_ indeed does not +rule me, but so much the more inevitably does the spirit of _love_ rule +me. I have overcome the world to become a slave of this spirit. + +If I first said, I love the world, I now add likewise: I do not love it, +for I _annihilate_ it as I annihilate myself; _I dissolve it_. I do not +limit myself to one feeling for men, but give free play to all that I am +capable of. Why should I not dare speak it out in all its glaringness? +Yes, _I utilize_ the world and men! With this I can keep myself open to +every impression without being torn away from myself by one of them. I +can love, love with a full heart, and let the most consuming glow of +passion burn in my heart, without taking the beloved one for anything +else than the _nourishment_ of my passion, on which it ever refreshes +itself anew. All my care for him applies only to the _object of my +love_, only to him whom my love _requires_, only to him, the "warmly +loved." How indifferent would he be to me without this--my love! I feed +only my love with him, I _utilize_ him for this only: I _enjoy_ him. + +Let us choose another convenient example. I see how men are fretted in +dark superstition by a swarm of ghosts. If to the extent of my powers I +let a bit of daylight fall in on the nocturnal spookery, is it +perchance because love to you inspires this in me? Do I write out of +love to men? No, I write because I want to procure for _my_ thoughts an +existence in the world; and, even if I foresaw that these thoughts would +deprive you of your rest and your peace, even if I saw the bloodiest +wars and the fall of many generations springing up from this seed of +thought,--I would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will and +can, that is your affair and does not trouble me. You will perhaps have +only trouble, combat, and death from it, very few will draw joy from it. +If your weal lay at my heart, I should act as the church did in +withholding the Bible from the laity, or Christian governments, which +make it a sacred duty for themselves to "protect the common people from +bad books." + +But not only not for your sake, not even for truth's sake either do I +speak out what I think. No-- + + I sing as the bird sings + That on the bough alights; + The song that from me springs + Is pay that well requites. + +I sing because--I am a singer. But I _use_[201] you for it because +I--need[202] ears. + +Where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--I +consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing +but--my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We +have only one relation to each other, that of _usableness_, of utility, +of use. We owe _each other_ nothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe +at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you +likewise, then your cheeriness is of consequence to _me_, and my air +serves _my_ wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do +not show it. + + * * * * * + +One has to be educated up to that love which founds itself on the +"essence of man," or, in the ecclesiastical and moral period, lies upon +us as a "commandment." In what fashion moral influence, the chief +ingredient of our education, seeks to regulate the intercourse of men +shall here be looked at with egoistic eyes in one example at least. + +Those who educate us make it their concern early to break us of lying +and to inculcate the principle that one must always tell the truth. If +selfishness were made the basis for this rule, every one would easily +understand how by lying he fools away that confidence in him which he +hopes to awaken in others, and how correct the maxim proves, Nobody +believes a liar even when he tells the truth. Yet, at the same time, he +would also feel that he had to meet with truth only him whom _he_ +authorized to hear the truth. If a spy walks in disguise through the +hostile camp, and is asked who he is, the askers are assuredly entitled +to inquire after his name, but the disguised man does not give them the +right to learn the truth from him; he tells them what he likes, only not +the fact. And yet morality demands, "Thou shalt not lie!" By morality +those persons are vested with the right to expect the truth; but by me +they are not vested with that right, and I recognize only the right +that I impart. In a gathering of revolutionists the police force their +way in and ask the orator for his name; everybody knows that the police +have the right to do so, but they do not have it from the +_revolutionist_, since he is their enemy; he tells them a false name +and--cheats them with a lie. The police do not act so foolishly either +as to count on their enemies' love of truth; on the contrary, they do +not believe without further ceremony, but have the questioned individual +"identified" if they can. Nay, the State everywhere proceeds +incredulously with individuals, because in their egoism it recognizes +its natural enemy; it invariably demands a "voucher," and he who cannot +show vouchers falls a prey to its investigating inquisition. The State +does not believe nor trust the individual, and so of itself places +itself with him in the _convention of lying_; it trusts me only when it +has _convinced_ itself of the truth of my statement, for which there +often remains to it no other means than the oath. How clearly, too, this +(the oath) proves that the State does not count on our credibility and +love of truth, but on our _interest_, our selfishness: it relies on our +not wanting to fall foul of God by a perjury. + +Now, let one imagine a French revolutionist in the year 1788, who among +friends let fall the now well-known phrase, "the world will have no rest +till the last king is hanged with the guts of the last priest." The king +then still had all power, and, when the utterance is betrayed by an +accident, yet without its being possible to produce witnesses, +confession is demanded from the accused. Is he to confess or not? If he +denies, he lies and--remains unpunished; if he confesses, he is candid +and--is beheaded. If truth is more than everything else to him, all +right, let him die. Only a paltry poet could try to make a tragedy out +of the end of his life; for what interest is there in seeing how a man +succumbs from cowardice? But, if he had the courage not to be a slave of +truth and sincerity, he would ask somewhat thus: Why need the judges +know what I have spoken among friends? If I had _wished_ them to know, I +should have said it to them as I said it to my friends. I will not have +them know it. They force themselves into my confidence without my having +called them to it and made them my confidants; they _will_ learn what I +_will_ keep secret. Come on then, you who wish to break my will by your +will, and try your arts. You can torture me by the rack, you can +threaten me with hell and eternal damnation, you can make me so +nerveless that I swear a false oath, but the truth you shall not press +out of me, for I _will_ lie to you because I have given you no claim and +no right to my sincerity. Let God, "who is truth," look down ever so +threateningly on me, let lying come ever so hard to me, I have +nevertheless the courage of a lie; and, even if I were weary of my life, +even if nothing appeared to me more welcome than your executioner's +sword, you nevertheless should not have the joy of finding in me a slave +of truth, whom by your priestly arts you make a traitor to his _will_. +When I spoke those treasonable words, I would not have had you know +anything of them; I now retain the same will, and do not let myself be +frightened by the curse of the lie. + +Sigismund is not a miserable caitiff because he broke his princely word, +but he broke the word because he was a caitiff; he might have kept his +word and would still have been a caitiff, a priest-ridden man. Luther, +driven by a higher power, became unfaithful to his monastic vow: he +became so for God's sake. Both broke their oath as possessed persons: +Sigismund, because he wanted to appear as a _sincere_ professor of the +divine _truth_, _i. e._ of the true, genuinely Catholic faith; Luther, +in order to give testimony for the gospel _sincerely_ and with entire +truth, with body and soul; both became perjured in order to be sincere +toward the "higher truth." Only, the priests absolved the one, the other +absolved himself. What else did both observe than what is contained in +those apostolic words, "Thou hast not lied to men, but to God"? They +lied to men, broke their oath before the world's eyes, in order not to +lie to God, but to serve him. Thus they show us a way to deal with truth +before men. For God's glory, and for God's sake, a--breach of oath, a +lie, a prince's word broken! + +How would it be, now, if we changed the thing a little and wrote, A +perjury and lie for--_my sake_? Would not that be pleading for every +baseness? It seems so assuredly, only in this it is altogether like the +"for God's sake." For was not every baseness committed for God's sake, +were not all the scaffolds filled for his sake and all the _auto-da-fes_ +held for his sake, was not all stupefaction introduced for his sake? and +do they not to-day still for God's sake fetter the mind in tender +children by religious education? Were not sacred vows broken for his +sake, and do not missionaries and priests still go around every day to +bring Jews, heathen, Protestants or Catholics, etc., to treason against +the faith of their fathers,--for his sake? And that should be worse with +the _for my sake_? What then does _on my account_ mean? There people +immediately think of "filthy lucre." But he who acts from love of filthy +lucre does it on his own account indeed, as there is nothing anyhow that +one does not do for his own sake,--among other things, everything that +is done for God's glory; yet he, for whom he seeks the lucre, is a slave +of lucre, not raised above lucre; he is one who belongs to lucre, the +money-bag, not to himself; he is not his own. Must not a man whom the +passion of avarice rules follow the commands of this _master_? and, if a +weak good-naturedness once beguiles him, does this not appear as simply +an exceptional case of precisely the same sort as when pious believers +are sometimes forsaken by their Lord's guidance and ensnared by the arts +of the "devil"? So an avaricious man is not a self-owned man, but a +servant; and he can do nothing for his own sake without at the same time +doing it for his lord's sake,--precisely like the godly man. + +Famous is the breach of oath which Francis II committed against Emperor +Charles V. Not later, when he ripely weighed his promise, but at once, +when he swore the oath, King Francis took it back in thought as well as +by a secret protestation documentarily subscribed before his +councillors; he uttered a perjury aforethought. Francis did not show +himself disinclined to buy his release, but the price that Charles put +on it seemed to him too high and unreasonable. Even though Charles +behaved himself in a sordid fashion when he sought to extort as much as +possible, it was yet shabby of Francis to want to purchase his freedom +for a lower ransom; and his later dealings, among which there occurs yet +a second breach of his word, prove sufficiently how the huckster spirit +held him enthralled and made him a shabby swindler. However, what shall +we say to the reproach of perjury against him? In the first place, +surely, this again: that not the perjury, but his sordidness, shamed +him; that he did not deserve contempt for his perjury, but made himself +guilty of perjury because he was a contemptible man. But Francis's +perjury, regarded in itself, demands another judgment. One might say +Francis did not respond to the confidence that Charles put in him in +setting him free. But, if Charles had really favored him with +confidence, he would have named to him the price that he considered the +release worth, and would then have set him at liberty and expected +Francis to pay the redemption-sum. Charles harbored no such trust, but +only believed in Francis's impotence and credulity, which would not +allow him to act against his oath; but Francis deceived only +this--credulous calculation. When Charles believed he was assuring +himself of his enemy by an oath, right there he was freeing him from +every obligation. Charles had given the king credit for a piece of +stupidity, a narrow conscience, and, without confidence in Francis, +counted only on Francis's stupidity, _i. e._ conscientiousness: he let +him go from the Madrid prison only to hold him the more securely in the +prison of conscientiousness, the great jail built about the mind of man +by religion: he sent him back to France locked fast in invisible chains, +what wonder if Francis sought to escape and sawed the chains apart? No +man would have taken it amiss of him if he had secretly fled from +Madrid, for he was in an enemy's power; but every good Christian cries +out upon him, that he wanted to loose himself from God's bonds too. (It +was only later that the pope absolved him from his oath.) + +It is despicable to deceive a confidence that we voluntarily call forth; +but it is no shame to egoism to let every one who wants to get us into +his power by an oath bleed to death by the unsuccessfulness of his +untrustful craft. If you have wanted to bind me, then learn that I know +how to burst your bonds. + +The point is whether _I_ give the confider the right to confidence. If +the pursuer of my friend asks me where he has fled to, I shall surely +put him on a false trail. Why does he ask precisely me, the pursued +man's friend? In order not to be a false, traitorous friend, I prefer to +be false to the enemy. I might certainly, in courageous +conscientiousness, answer "I will not tell" (so Fichte decides the +case); by that I should salve my love of truth and do for my friend as +much as--nothing, for, if I do not mislead the enemy, he may +accidentally take the right street, and my love of truth would have +given up my friend as a prey, because it hindered me from the--courage +for a lie. He who has in the truth an idol, a sacred thing, must +_humble_ himself before it, must not defy its demands, not resist +courageously; in short, he must renounce the _heroism of the lie_. For +to the lie belongs not less courage than to the truth: a courage that +young men are most apt to be defective in, who would rather confess the +truth and mount the scaffold for it than confound the enemy's power by +the impudence of a lie. To them the truth is "sacred," and the sacred at +all times demands blind reverence, submission, and self-sacrifice. If +you are not impudent, not mockers of the sacred, you are tame and its +servants. Let one but lay a grain of truth in the trap for you, you peck +at it to a certainty, and the fool is caught. You will not lie? Well, +then, fall as sacrifices to the truth and become--martyrs! Martyrs!--for +what? For yourselves, for self-ownership? No, for your goddess,--the +truth. You know only two _services_, only two kinds of servants: +servants of the truth and servants of the lie. Then in God's name serve +the truth! + +Others, again, serve the truth also; but they serve it "in moderation," +and make, _e. g._, a great distinction between a simple lie and a lie +sworn to. And yet the whole chapter of the oath coincides with that of +the lie, since an oath, everybody knows, is only a strongly assured +statement. You consider yourselves entitled to lie, if only you do not +swear to it besides? One who is particular about it must judge and +condemn a lie as sharply as a false oath. But now there has been kept up +in morality an ancient point of controversy, which is customarily +treated of under the name of the "lie of necessity." No one who dares +plead for this can consistently put from him an "oath of necessity." If +I justify my lie as a lie of necessity, I should not be so pusillanimous +as to rob the justified lie of the strongest corroboration. Whatever I +do, why should I not do it entirely and without reservation +(_reservatio mentalis_)? If I once lie, why then not lie completely, +with entire consciousness and all my might? As a spy I should have to +swear to each of my false statements at the enemy's demand; determined +to lie to him, should I suddenly become cowardly and undecided in face +of an oath? Then I should have been ruined in advance for a liar and +spy; for, you see, I should be voluntarily putting into the enemy's +hands a means to catch me.--The State too fears the oath of necessity, +and for this reason does not give the accused a chance to swear. But you +do not justify the State's fear; you lie, but do not swear falsely. If, +_e. g._, you show some one a kindness, and he is not to know it, but he +guesses it and tells you so to your face, you deny; if he insists, you +say "honestly, no!" If it came to swearing, then you would refuse; for, +from fear of the sacred, you always stop half way. _Against_ the sacred +you have no _will of your own_. You lie in--moderation, as you are free +"in moderation," religious "in moderation" (the clergy are not to +"encroach"; over this point the most vapid of controversies is now being +carried on, on the part of the university against the church), +monarchically disposed "in moderation" (you want a monarch limited by +the constitution, by a fundamental law of the State), everything nicely +_tempered_, lukewarm, half God's, half the devil's. + +There was a university where the usage was that every word of honor that +must be given to the university judge was looked upon by the students as +null and void. For the students saw in the demanding of it nothing but +a snare, which they could not escape otherwise than by taking away all +its significance. He who at that same university broke his word of honor +to one of the fellows was infamous; he who gave it to the university +judge derided, in union with these very fellows, the dupe who fancied +that a word had the same value among friends and among foes. It was less +a correct theory than the constraint of practice that had there taught +the students to act so, as, without that means of getting out, they +would have been pitilessly driven to treachery against their comrades. +But, as the means approved itself in practice, so it has its theoretical +probation too. A word of honor, an oath, is one only for him whom _I_ +entitle to receive it; he who forces me to it obtains only a forced, +_i. e._ a _hostile_ word, the word of a foe, whom one has no right to +trust; for the foe does not give us the right. + +Aside from this, the courts of the State do not even recognize the +inviolability of an oath. For, if I had sworn to one who comes under +examination that I would not declare anything against him, the court +would demand my declaration in spite of the fact that an oath binds me, +and, in case of refusal, would lock me up till I decided to become--an +oath-breaker. The court "absolves me from my oath";--how magnanimous! If +any power can absolve me from the oath, I myself am surely the very +first power that has a claim to. + +As a curiosity, and to remind us of customary oaths of all sorts, let +place be given here to that which Emperor Paul commanded the captured +Poles (Kosciusko, Potocki, Niemcewicz, etc.) to take when he released +them: "We not merely swear fidelity and obedience to the emperor, but +also further promise to pour out our blood for his glory; we obligate +ourselves to discover everything threatening to his person or his empire +that we ever learn; we declare finally that, in whatever part of the +earth we may be, a single word of the emperor shall suffice to make us +leave everything and repair to him at once." + + * * * * * + +In one domain the principle of love seems to have been long outsoared by +egoism, and to be still in need only of sure consciousness, as it were +of victory with a good conscience. This domain is speculation, in its +double manifestation as thinking and as trade. One thinks with a will, +whatever may come of it; one speculates, however many may suffer under +our speculative undertakings. But, when it finally becomes serious, when +even the last remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity" is to be +done away, then the pulse of religious conscience beats, and one at +least _professes_ humanity. The avaricious speculator throws some +coppers into the poor-box and "does good," the bold thinker consoles +himself with the fact that he is working for the advancement of the +human race and that his devastation "turns to the good" of mankind, or, +in another case, that he is "serving the idea"; mankind, the idea, is to +him that something of which he must say, It is more to me than myself. + +To this day thinking and trading have been done for--God's sake. Those +who for six days were trampling down everything by their selfish aims +sacrificed on the seventh to the Lord; and those who destroyed a +hundred "good causes" by their reckless thinking still did this in the +service of another "good cause," and had yet to think of +another--besides themselves--to whose good their self-indulgence should +turn: of the people, mankind, and the like. But this other thing is a +being above them, a higher or supreme being; and therefore I say, they +are toiling for God's sake. + +Hence I can also say that the ultimate basis of their actions +is--_love_. Not a voluntary love however, not their own, but a tributary +love, or the higher being's own (_i. e._ God's, who himself is love); in +short, not the egoistic, but the religious; a love that springs from +their fancy that they _must_ discharge a tribute of love, _i. e._ that +they must not be "egoists." + +If _we_ want to deliver the world from many kinds of unfreedom, we want +this not on its account but on ours; for, as we are not world-liberators +by profession and out of "love," we only want to win it away from +others. We want to make it our own; it is not to be any longer _owned as +serf_ by God (the church) nor by the law (State), but to be _our own_; +therefore we seek to "win" it, to "captivate" it, and, by meeting it +half-way and "devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as it +belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the force that it turns +against us. If the world is ours, it no longer attempts any force +_against_ us, but only _with_ us. My selfishness has an interest in the +liberation of the world, that it may become--my property. + +Not isolation or being alone, but society, is man's original state. Our +existence begins with the most intimate conjunction, as we are already +living with our mother before we breathe; when we see the light of the +world, we at once lie on a human being's breast again, her love cradles +us in the lap, leads us in the go-cart, and chains us to her person with +a thousand ties. Society is our _state of nature_. And this is why, the +more we learn to feel ourselves, the connection that was formerly most +intimate becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the original society +more unmistakable. To have once again for herself the child that once +lay under her heart, the mother must fetch it from the street and from +the midst of its playmates. The child prefers the _intercourse_ that it +enters into with _its fellows_ to the _society_ that it has not entered +into, but only been born in. + +But the dissolution of _society_ is _intercourse_ or _union_. A society +does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by a +thought,--to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the +thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make +themselves fast) from the thought. If a union[203] has crystallized into +a society, it has ceased to be a coalition;[204] for coalition is an +incessant self-uniting; it has become a unitedness, come to a +standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is--_dead_ as a union, it is +the corpse of the union or the coalition, _i. e._ it is--society, +community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by the _party_. + +That a society (_e. g._ the society of the State) diminishes my +_liberty_ offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by +all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every +fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R......, I yet should +not enjoy absolute liberty. But _ownness_ I will not have taken from me. +And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely +what is to succumb to its power. + +A society which I join does indeed take from me many liberties, but in +return it affords me other liberties; neither does it matter if I myself +deprive myself of this and that liberty (_e. g._ by any contract). On +the other hand, I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community +has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the fulness of its +power, to become an _authority_ to its members and to set _limits_ for +them: it asks, and must ask, for a "subject's limited understanding"; it +asks that those who belong to it be subject to it, be its "subjects"; it +exists only by _subjection_. In this a certain tolerance need by no +means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will welcome +improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are calculated for +its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning," it may not be "insolent +and disrespectful,"--in other words, one must leave uninjured, and hold +sacred, the substance of the society. The society demands that those who +belong to it shall not go _beyond it_ and exalt themselves, but remain +"within the bounds of legality," _i. e._ allow themselves only so much +as the society and its law allow them. + +There is a difference whether my liberty or my ownness is limited by a +society. If the former only is the case, it is a _coalition_, an +agreement, a union; but, if ruin is threatened to ownness, it is a +_power of itself_, a power _above me_, a thing unattainable by me, which +I can indeed admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and +consume, and that for the reason that I _am resigned_. It exists by my +_resignation_, my _self-renunciation_, my spiritlessness,[205] +called--HUMILITY.[206] My humility makes its courage,[207] my +submissiveness gives it its dominion. + +But in reference to _liberty_ State and union are subject to no +essential difference. The latter can just as little come into existence, +or continue in existence, without liberty's being limited in all sorts +of ways, as the State is compatible with unmeasured liberty. Limitation +of liberty is inevitable everywhere, for one cannot get _rid_ of +everything; one cannot fly like a bird merely because one would like to +fly so, for one does not get free from his own weight; one cannot live +under water as long as he likes, like a fish, because one cannot do +without air and cannot get free from this indispensable necessity; and +the like. As religion, and most decidedly Christianity, tormented man +with the demand to realize the unnatural and self-contradictory, so it +is to be looked upon only as the true logical outcome of that religious +overstraining and overwroughtness that finally _liberty itself, absolute +liberty_, was exalted into an ideal, and thus the nonsense of the +impossible had to come glaringly to the light.--The union will assuredly +offer a greater measure of liberty, as well as (and especially because +by it one escapes all the coercion peculiar to State and society life) +admit of being considered as "a new liberty"; but nevertheless it will +still contain enough of unfreedom and involuntariness. For its object is +not this--liberty (which on the contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but +only _ownness_. Referred to this, the difference between State and union +is great enough. The former is an enemy and murderer of _ownness_, the +latter a son and co-worker of it; the former a spirit that would be +adored in spirit and in truth, the latter my work, my _product_; the +State is the lord of my spirit, who demands faith and prescribes to me +articles of faith, the creed of legality; it exerts moral influence, +dominates my spirit, drives away my ego to put itself in its place as +"my true ego,"--in short, the State is _sacred_, and as against me, the +individual man, it is the true man, the spirit, the ghost; but the union +is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above +my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not +willing to be a slave of my maxims, but lay them bare to my continual +criticism without _any warrant_, and admit no bail at all for their +persistence, so still less do I obligate myself to the union for my +future and pledge my soul to it, as is said to be done with the devil +and is really the case with the State and all spiritual authority; but I +am and remain _more_ to myself than State, Church, God, and the like; +consequently infinitely more than the union too. + +That society which Communism wants to found seems to stand nearest to +_coalition_. For it is to aim at the "welfare of all," oh, yes, of all, +cries Weitling innumerable times, of all! That does really look as if +in it no one needed to take a back seat. But what then will this welfare +be? Have all one and the same welfare, are all equally well off with one +and the same thing? If that be so, the question is of the "true +welfare." Do we not with this come right to the point where religion +begins its dominion of violence? Christianity says, Look not on earthly +toys, but seek your true welfare, become--pious Christians; being +Christians is the true welfare. It is the true welfare of "all," because +it is the welfare of Man as such (this spook). Now, the welfare of all +is surely to be _your_ and _my_ welfare too? But, if you and I do not +look upon that welfare as _our_ welfare, will care then be taken for +that in which _we_ feel well? On the contrary, society has decreed a +welfare as the "true welfare"; and, if this welfare were called _e. g._ +"enjoyment honestly worked for," but you preferred enjoyable laziness, +enjoyment without work, then society, which cares for the "welfare of +all," would wisely avoid caring for that in which you are well off. +Communism, in proclaiming the welfare of all, annuls outright the +well-being of those who hitherto lived on their income from investments +and apparently felt better in that than in the prospect of Weitling's +strict hours of labor. Hence the latter asserts that with the welfare of +thousands the welfare of millions cannot exist, and the former must give +up _their_ special welfare "for the sake of the general welfare." No, +let people not be summoned to sacrifice their special welfare for the +general, for this Christian admonition will not carry you through; they +will better understand the opposite admonition, not to let their _own_ +welfare be snatched from them by anybody, but to put it on a permanent +foundation. Then they are of themselves led to the point that they care +best for their welfare if they _unite_ with others for this purpose, +_i. e._ "sacrifice a part of their liberty," yet not to the welfare of +others, but to their own. An appeal to men's self-sacrificing +disposition and self-renouncing love ought at last to have lost its +seductive plausibility when, after an activity of thousands of years, it +has left nothing behind but the--_misere_ of to-day. Why then still +fruitlessly expect self-sacrifice to bring us better times? why not +rather hope for them from _usurpation_? Salvation comes no longer from +the giver, the bestower, the loving one, but from the _taker_, the +appropriater (usurper), the owner. Communism, and, consciously or +unconsciously, egoism-reviling humanism, still count on _love_. + +If community is once a need of man, and he finds himself furthered by it +in his aims, then very soon, because it has become his principle, it +prescribes to him its laws too, the laws of--society. The principle of +men exalts itself into a sovereign power over them, becomes their +supreme essence, their God, and, as such,--lawgiver. Communism gives +this principle the strictest effect, and Christianity is the religion of +society, for, as Feuerbach rightly says although he does not mean it +rightly, love is the essence of man; _i. e._ the essence of society or +of societary (Communistic) man. All religion is a cult of society, this +principle by which societary (cultivated) man is dominated; neither is +any god an ego's exclusive god, but always a society's or community's, +be it of the society "family" (Lar, Penates) or of a "people" ("national +god") or of "all men" ("he is a Father of all men"). + +Consequently one has a prospect of extirpating religion down to the +ground only when one antiquates _society_ and everything that flows from +this principle. But it is precisely in Communism that this principle +seeks to culminate, as in it everything is to become _common_ for the +establishment of--"equality." If this "equality" is won, "liberty" too +is not lacking. But whose liberty? _Society's!_ Society is then all in +all, and men are only "for each other." It would be the glory of +the--love-State. + +But I would rather be referred to men's selfishness than to their +"kindnesses,"[208] their mercy, pity, etc. The former demands +_reciprocity_ (as thou to me, so I to thee), does nothing "gratis," and +may be won and--_bought_. But with what shall I obtain the kindness? It +is a matter of chance whether I am at the time having to do with a +"loving" person. The affectionate one's service can be had only +by--_begging_, be it by my lamentable appearance, by my need of help, my +misery, my--_suffering_. What can I offer him for his assistance? +Nothing! I must accept it as a--present. Love is _unpayable_, or rather, +love can assuredly be paid for, but only by counter-love ("One good turn +deserves another"). What paltriness and beggarliness does it not take to +accept gifts year in and year out without service in return, as they are +regularly collected _e. g._ from the poor day-laborer? What can the +receiver do for him and his donated pennies, in which his wealth +consists? The day-laborer would really have more enjoyment if the +receiver with his laws, his institutions, etc., all of which the +day-laborer has to pay for though, did not exist at all. And yet, with +it all, the poor wight _loves_ his master. + +No, community, as the "goal" of history hitherto, is impossible. Let us +rather renounce every hypocrisy of community, and recognize that, if we +are equal as men, we are not equal for the very reason that we are not +men. We are equal _only in thoughts_, only when "we" are _thought_, not +as we really and bodily are. I am ego, and you are ego: but I am not +this thought-of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is only _my +thought_. I am man, and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a +generality; neither you nor I are speakable, we are _unutterable_, +because only _thoughts_ are speakable and consist in speaking. + +Let us therefore not aspire to community, but to _one-sidedness_. Let us +not seek the most comprehensive commune, "human society," but let us +seek in others only means and organs which we may use as our property! +As we do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the +presupposition that others are _our equals_ springs from a hypocrisy. No +one is _my equal_, but I regard him, equally with all other beings, as +my property. In opposition to this I am told that I should be a man +among "fellow-men" ("_Judenfrage_," p. 60); I should "respect" the +fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be respected, not even +the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, an _object_ in which I +take an interest or else do not, an interesting or uninteresting +object, a usable or unusable person. + +And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make +myself at one with him, in order, by the agreement, to strengthen _my +power_, and by combined force to accomplish more than individual force +could effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but a +multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so long as it is _my_ +multiplied force. But thus it is a--union. + +Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the union together, +and it is not a natural, not a spiritual league. It is not brought about +by one _blood_, not by one _faith_ (spirit). In a natural league--like a +family, a tribe, a nation, yes, mankind--the individuals have only the +value of _specimens_ of the same species or genus; in a spiritual +league--like a commune, a church--the individual signifies only a +_member_ of the same spirit; what you are in both cases as a unique +person must be--suppressed. Only in the union can you assert yourself as +unique, because the union does not possess you, but you possess it or +make it of use to you. + +Property is recognized in the union, and only in the union, because one +no longer holds what is his as a fief from any being. The Communists are +only consistently carrying further what had already been long present +during religious evolution, and especially in the State; to wit, +propertylessness, _i. e._ the feudal system. + +The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in other words, it +seeks to direct his desire to it alone, and to _content_ that desire +with what it offers. To sate the desire for the desirous man's sake does +not come into its mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "egoistic +man" the man who breathes out unbridled desire, and the "egoistic man" +is its enemy. He is this for it because the capacity to agree with him +is wanting to the State; the egoist is precisely what it cannot +"comprehend." Since the State (as nothing else is possible) has to do +only for itself, it does not take care for my needs, but takes care only +of how it shall make away with me, _i. e._ make out of me another ego, a +good citizen. It takes measures for the "improvement of morals."--And +with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself, _i. e._ with +what is the State's, with _State property_. It will be unremittingly +active in making all participants in its "goods," providing all with the +"good things of culture": it presents them its education, opens to them +the access to its institutions of culture, capacitates them to come to +property (_i. e._ to a fief) in the way of industry, etc. For all these +_fiefs_ it demands only the just rent of continual _thanks_. But the +"unthankful" forget to pay these thanks.--Now, neither can "society" do +essentially otherwise than the State. + +You bring into a union your whole power, your competence, and _make +yourself count_; in a society you are _employed_, with your working +power; in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, +_i. e._ religiously, as a "member in the body of this Lord"; to a +society you owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it, +are--possessed by "social duties"; a union you utilize, and give it up +undutifully and unfaithfully when you see no way to use it further. If +a society is more than you, then it is more to you than yourself; a +union is only your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen and +increase your natural force; the union exists for you and through you, +the society conversely lays claim to you for itself and exists even +without you; in short, the society is _sacred_, the union your _own_; +the society consumes _you_, _you_ consume the union. + +Nevertheless people will not be backward with the objection that the +agreement which has been concluded may again become burdensome to us and +limit our freedom; they will say, we too would at last come to this, +that "every one must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the +generality." But the sacrifice would not be made for the "generality's" +sake a bit, as little as I concluded the agreement for the +"generality's" or even, for any other man's sake; rather I came into it +only for the sake of my own benefit, from _selfishness_.[209] But, as +regards the sacrificing, surely I "sacrifice" only that which does not +stand in my power, _i. e._ I "sacrifice" nothing at all. + +To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. Choose then whether +you want to be lord, or whether society shall be! On this depends +whether you are to be an _owner_ or a _ragamuffin!_ The egoist is owner, +the Socialist a ragamuffin. But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the +sense of feudalism, of the feudal system, which since the last century +has only changed its overlord, putting "Man" in the place of God, and +accepting as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from the grace +of God. That the ragamuffinism of Communism is carried out by the humane +principle into the absolute or most ragamuffinly ragamuffinism has been +shown above; but at the same time also, how ragamuffinism can only thus +swing around into ownness. The _old_ feudal system was so thoroughly +trampled into the ground in the Revolution that since then all +reactionary craft has remained fruitless, and will always remain +fruitless, because the dead is--dead; but the resurrection too had to +prove itself a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for +in another world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body, the +_new_ feudalism under the suzerainty of "Man." + +Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are right in having +hitherto trustfully assumed of every combat against it that this could +serve only for the purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it +has really only been glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is +the--_human Christianity_. We are still living entirely in the Christian +age, and the very ones who feel worst about it are the most zealously +contributing to "complete" it. The more human, the dearer has feudalism +become to us; for we the less believe that it still is feudalism, we +take it the more confidently for ownness and think we have found what is +"most absolutely our own" when we discover "the human." + +Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it thinks to procure it +for me not under the title of mine, but under that of the "human." As if +it were attainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious +work of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in me +_entitles_[210] me to this and that; I as individual, _i. e._ as this +man, am not entitled, but Man has the right and entitles me. Hence as +man I may well be entitled; but, as I am more than man, to wit, a +_special_ man, it may be refused to this very me, the special one. If on +the other hand you insist on the _value_ of your gifts, keep up their +price, do not let yourselves be forced to sell out below price, do not +let yourselves be talked into the idea that your ware is not worth its +price, do not make yourselves ridiculous by a "ridiculous price," but +imitate the brave man who says, I will _sell_ my life (property) dear, +the enemy shall not have it at a cheap _bargain_; then you have +recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct thing, and the word +then is not "Give up your property!" but "_Get the value out of_ your +property!" + +Over the portal of our time stands not that "Know thyself" of Apollo, +but a "_Get the value out of thyself!_" + +Proudhon calls property "robbery" (_le vol_). But alien property--and he +is talking of this alone--is not less existent by renunciation, cession, +and humility; it is a _present_. Why so sentimentally call for +compassion as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish, +cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the fault on others as if +they were robbing us, while we ourselves do bear the fault in leaving +the others, unrobbed? The poor are to blame for there being rich men. + +Universally, no one grows indignant at _his_, but at _alien_ property. +They do not in truth attack property, but the alienation of property. +They want to be able to call _more_, not less, _theirs_; they want to +call everything _theirs_. They are fighting, therefore, against +_alienness_, or, to form a word similar to property, against alienty. +And how do they help themselves therein? Instead of transforming the +alien into own, they play impartial and ask only that all property be +left to a third party (_e. g._ human society). They revendicate the +alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now the "egoistic" +coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and--human! + +Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the "essence of +Christianity," as it is the essence of all religiousness (_i. e._ +godliness, morality, humanity), and only announced itself most clearly, +and, as glad tidings, became a gospel capable of development, in the +"absolute religion." We have before us the most striking development in +the present fight against property, a fight which is to bring "Man" to +victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious humanity is the +victory of--Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus is +feudalism completed, the most all-embracing feudal system, _i. e._ +perfect ragamuffinism. + +Once more then, doubtless, a "revolution" against the feudal system?-- + +Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The +former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established +condition or _status_, the State or society, and is accordingly a +_political_ or _social_ act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable +consequence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from +it but from men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, +but a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the +arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new +_arrangements_; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be +arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on +"institutions." It is not a fight against the established, since, if it +prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working +forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is +dead and passes into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an +established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not +a political or social but (as directed toward myself and my ownness +alone) an _egoistic_ purpose and deed. + +The revolution commands one to make _arrangements_, the +insurrection[211] demands that he _rise or exalt himself_.[212] What +_constitution_ was to be chosen, this question busied the revolutionary +heads, and the whole political period foams with constitutional fights +and constitutional questions, as the social talents too were uncommonly +inventive in societary arrangement (phalansteries and the like). The +insurgent[213] strives to become constitutionless. + +While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a comparison, the +founding of Christianity comes unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal +side it is noted as a bad point in the first Christians that they +preached obedience to the established heathen civil order, enjoined +recognition of the heathen authorities, and confidently delivered a +command, "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's." Yet how much +disturbance arose at the same time against the Roman supremacy, how +mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans show themselves against their +own temporal government! in short, how popular was "political +discontent"! Those Christians would hear nothing of it; would not side +with the "liberal tendencies." The time was politically so agitated +that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse +the founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned him +for "political intrigue," and yet the same gospels report that he was +precisely the one who took least part in these political doings. But why +was he not a revolutionist, not a demagogue, as the Jews would gladly +have seen him? why was he not a liberal? Because he expected no +salvation from a change of _conditions_, and this whole business was +indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist like _e. g._ Caesar, but +an insurgent; not a State-overturner, but one who straightened _himself_ +up. That was why it was for him only a matter of "Be ye wise as +serpents," which expresses the same sense as, in the special case, that +"Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's"; for he was not +carrying on any liberal or political fight against the established +authorities, but wanted to walk his _own_ way, untroubled about, and +undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the +government were its enemies, for neither understood what he wanted, and +he had only to keep them off from him with the wisdom of the serpent. +But, even though not a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or +revolutionist, he (and every one of the ancient Christians) was so much +the more an _insurgent_, who lifted himself above everything that seemed +sublime to the government and its opponents, and absolved himself from +everything that they remained bound to, and who at the same time cut off +the sources of life of the whole heathen world, with which the +established State must wither away as a matter of course; precisely +because he put from him the upsetting of the established, he was its +deadly enemy and real annihilator; for he walled it in, confidently and +recklessly carrying up the building of _his_ temple over it, without +heeding the pains of the immured. + +Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, will the +Christian order fare likewise? A revolution certainly does not bring on +the end if an insurrection is not consummated first! + +My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the +enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want +to win it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want +only _my_ power over them, I want to make them my property, _i. e._ +_material for enjoyment_. And, if I do not succeed in that, well, then I +call even the power over life and death, which Church and State +reserved to themselves,--mine. Brand that officer's widow who, in the +flight in Russia, after her leg has been shot away, takes the garter +from it, strangles her child therewith, and then bleeds to death +alongside the corpse,--brand the memory of the--infanticide. Who knows, +if this child had remained alive, how much it might have "been of use to +the world"! The mother murdered it because she wanted to die _satisfied_ +and at rest. Perhaps this case still appeals to your sentimentality, and +you do not know how to read out of it anything further. Be it so; I on +my part use it as an example for this, that _my_ satisfaction decides +about my relation to men, and that I do not renounce, from any access of +humility, even the power over life and death. + +As regards "social duties" in general, another does not give me my +position toward others, therefore neither God nor humanity prescribes to +me my relation to men, but I give myself this position. This is more +strikingly said thus: I have no _duty_ to others, as I have a duty even +to myself (_e. g._ that of self-preservation, and therefore not suicide) +only so long as I distinguish myself from myself (my immortal soul from +my earthly existence, etc.). + +I no longer _humble_ myself before any power, and I recognize that all +powers are only my power, which I have to subject at once when they +threaten to become a power _against_ or _above_ me; each of them must be +only one of _my means_ to carry my point, as a hound is our power +against game, but is killed by us if it should fall upon us ourselves. +All powers that dominate me I then reduce to serving me. The idols +exist through me; I need only refrain from creating them anew, then +they exist no longer: "higher powers" exist only through my exalting +them and abasing myself. + +Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything +for it "for God's sake," I do nothing "for man's sake," but what I do I +do "for my sake." Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is +characteristic of the religious standpoint, in which I include the moral +and humane also, that from it everything remains a _pious wish_ (_pium +desiderium_), _i. e._ an other-world matter, something unattained. Thus +the general salvation of men, the moral world of a general love, eternal +peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Nothing in this world is perfect." +With this miserable phrase the good part from it, and take flight into +their closet to God, or into their proud "self-consciousness." But we +remain in this "imperfect" world, because even so we can use it for +our--self-enjoyment. + +My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so +consuming it for my self-enjoyment. _Intercourse_ is the _enjoyment of +the world_, and belongs to my--self-enjoyment. + + +III.--MY SELF-ENJOYMENT + +We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought +for nothing but the gain of life, took care for--_life_. For whether all +activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the +other, for the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for +"daily bread" ("Give us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true +bread from heaven"; "the bread of God, that comes from heaven and _gives +life_ to the world"; "the bread of life," John 6), whether one takes +care for "dear life" or for "life to eternity,"--this does not change +the object of the strain and care, which in the one case as in the other +shows itself to be _life_. Do the modern tendencies announce themselves +otherwise? People now want nobody to be embarrassed for the most +indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one to feel secure as +to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this life to +attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without vain care for +another. + +Let us take up the same thing from another side. When one is anxious +only to _live_, he easily, in this solicitude, forgets the _enjoyment_ +of life. If his only concern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have +my dear life," he does not apply his full strength to using, _i. e._ +enjoying, life. But how does one use life? In using it up, like the +candle, which one uses in burning it up. One uses life, and consequently +himself the living one, in _consuming_ it and himself. _Enjoyment of +life_ is using life up. + +Now--we are in search of the _enjoyment_ of life! And what did the +religious world do? It went in search of _life_. "Wherein consists the +true life, the blessed life, etc.? How is it to be attained? What must +man do and become in order to become a truly living man? How does he +fulfil this calling?" These and similar questions indicate that the +askers were still seeking for _themselves_,--to wit, themselves in the +true sense, in the sense of true living. "What I am is foam and shadow; +what I shall be is my true self." To chase after this self, to produce +it, to realize it, constitutes the hard task of mortals, who die only to +_rise again_, live only to die, live only to find the true life. + +Not till I am certain of myself, and no longer seeking for myself, am I +really my property; I have myself, therefore I use and enjoy myself. On +the other hand, I can never take comfort in myself so long as I think +that I have still to find my true self and that it must come to this, +that not I but Christ or some other spiritual, _i. e._ ghostly, self +(_e. g._ the true man, the essence of man, and the like) lives in me. + +A vast interval separates the two views. In the old I go toward myself, +in the new I start from myself; in the former I long for myself, in the +latter I have myself and do with myself as one does with any other +property,--I enjoy myself at my pleasure. I am no longer afraid for my +life, but "squander" it. + +Henceforth the question runs, not how one can acquire life, but how one +can squander, enjoy it; or, not how one is to produce the true self in +himself, but how one is to dissolve himself, to live himself out. + +What else should the ideal be but the sought-for, ever-distant self? One +seeks for himself, consequently one does not yet have himself; one +aspires toward what one _ought_ to be, consequently one is not it. One +lives in _longing_ and has lived thousands of years in it, in _hope_. +Living is quite another thing in--_enjoyment_! + +Does this perchance apply only to the so-called pious? No, it applies to +all who belong to the departing period of history, even to its men of +pleasure. For them too the work-days were followed by a Sunday, and the +rush of the world by the dream of a better world, of a general happiness +of humanity; in short, by an ideal. But philosophers especially are +contrasted with the pious. Now, have they been thinking of anything else +than the ideal, been planning for anything else than the absolute self? +Longing and hope everywhere, and nothing but these. For me, call it +romanticism. + +If the _enjoyment of life_ is to triumph over the _longing for life_ or +hope of life, it must vanquish this in its double significance, which +Schiller introduces in his "Ideal and Life"; it must crush spiritual and +secular poverty, exterminate the ideal and--the want of daily bread. He +who must expend his life to prolong life cannot enjoy it, and he who is +still seeking for his life does not have it and can as little enjoy it: +both are poor, but "blessed are the poor." + +Those who are hungering for the true life have no power over their +present life, but must apply it for the purpose of thereby gaining that +true life, and must sacrifice it entirely to this aspiration and this +task. If in the case of those devotees who hope for a life in the other +world, and look upon that in this world as merely a preparation for it, +the tributariness of their earthly existence, which they put solely into +the service of the hoped-for heavenly existence, is pretty distinctly +apparent; one would yet go far wrong if one wanted to consider the most +rationalistic and enlightened as less self-sacrificing. Oh, there is to +be found in the "true life" a much more comprehensive significance than +the "heavenly" is competent to express. Now, is not--to introduce the +liberal concept of it at once--the "human" and "truly human" life the +true one? And is every one already leading this truly human life from +the start, or must he first raise himself to it with hard toil? Does he +already have it as his present life, or must he struggle for it as his +future life, which will become his part only when he "is no longer +tainted with any egoism"? In this view life exists only to gain life, +and one lives only to make the essence of man alive in oneself, one +lives for the sake of this essence. One has his life only in order to +procure by means of it the "true" life cleansed of all egoism. Hence one +is afraid to make any use he likes of his life: it is to serve only for +the "right use." + +In short, one has a _calling in life_, a task in life; one has something +to realize and produce by his life, a something for which our life is +only means and implement, a something that is worth more than this life, +a something to which one _owes_ his life. One has a God who asks a +_living sacrifice_. Only the rudeness of human sacrifice has been lost +with time; human sacrifice itself has remained unabated, and criminals +hourly fall sacrifices to justice, and we "poor sinners" slay our own +selves as sacrifices for "the human essence," the "idea of mankind," +"humanity," and whatever the idols or gods are called besides. + +But, because we owe our life to that something, therefore--this is the +next point--we have no right to take it from us. + +The conservative tendency of Christianity does not permit thinking of +death otherwise than with the purpose to take its sting from it +and--live on and preserve oneself nicely. The Christian lets everything +happen and come upon him if he--the arch-Jew--can only haggle and +smuggle himself into heaven; he must not kill himself, he must +only--preserve himself and work at the "preparation of a future abode." +Conservatism or "conquest of death" lies at his heart; "the last enemy +that is abolished is death."[214] "Christ has taken the power from death +and brought life and _imperishable_ being to light by the gospel."[215] +"Imperishableness," stability. + +The moral man wants the good, the right; and, if he takes to the means +that lead to this goal, really lead to it, then these means are not +_his_ means, but those of the good, right, etc., itself. These means are +never immoral, because the good end itself mediates itself through them: +the end sanctifies the means. They call this maxim jesuitical, but it is +"moral" through and through. The moral man acts _in the service_ of an +end or an idea: he makes himself the _tool_ of the idea of the good, as +the pious man counts it his glory to be a tool or instrument of God. To +await death is what the moral commandment postulates as the good; to +give it to oneself is immoral and bad: _suicide_ finds no excuse before +the judgment-seat of morality. If the religious man forbids it because +"you have not given yourself life, but God, who alone can also take it +from you again" (as if, even talking in this conception, God did not +take it from me just as much when I kill myself as when a tile from the +roof, or a hostile bullet, fells me; for he would have aroused the +resolution of death in me too!), the moral man forbids it because I owe +my life to the fatherland, etc., "because I do not know whether I may +not yet accomplish good by my life." Of course, for in me good loses a +tool, as God does an instrument. If I am immoral, the good is served in +my _amendment_; if I am "ungodly," God has joy in my _penitence_. +Suicide, therefore, is ungodly as well as nefarious. If one whose +standpoint is religiousness takes his own life, he acts in forgetfulness +of God; but, if the suicide's standpoint is morality, he acts in +forgetfulness of duty, immorally. People worried themselves much with +the question whether Emilia Galotti's death can be justified before +morality (they take it as if it were suicide, which it is too in +substance). That she is so infatuated with chastity, this moral good, as +to yield up even her life for it is certainly moral; but, again, that +she fears the weakness of her flesh is immoral.[216] Such +contradictions form the tragic conflict universally in the moral drama; +and one must think and feel morally to be able to take an interest in +it. + +What holds good of piety and morality will necessarily apply to humanity +also, because one owes his life likewise to man, mankind or the species. +Only when I am under obligation to no being is the maintaining of +life--my affair. "A leap from this bridge makes me free!" + +But, if we owe the maintaining of our life to that being that we are to +make alive in ourselves, it is not less our duty not to lead this life +according to _our_ pleasure, but to shape it in conformity to that +being. All my feeling, thinking, and willing, all my doing and +designing, belongs to--him. + +What is in conformity to that being is to be inferred from his concept; +and how differently has this concept been conceived! or how differently +has that being been imagined! What demands the Supreme Being makes on +the Mohammedan; what different ones the Christian, again, thinks he +hears from him; how divergent, therefore, must the shaping of the lives +of the two turn out! Only this do all hold fast, that the Supreme Being +is to _judge_[217] our life. + +But the pious who have their judge in God, and in his word a book of +directions for their life, I everywhere pass by only reminiscently, +because they belong to a period of development that has been lived +through, and as petrifactions they may remain in their fixed place right +along; in our time it is no longer the pious, but the liberals, who +have the floor, and piety itself cannot keep from reddening its pale +face with liberal coloring. But the liberals do not adore their judge in +God, and do not unfold their life by the directions of the divine word, +but regulate[218] themselves by man: they want to be not "divine" but +"human," and to live so. + +Man is the liberal's supreme being, man the _judge_ of his life, +humanity his _directions_, or catechism. God is spirit, but man is the +"most perfect spirit," the final result of the long chase after the +spirit or of the "searching in the depths of the Godhead," _i. e._ in +the depths of the spirit. + +Every one of your traits is to be human; you yourself are to be so from +top to toe, in the inward as in the outward; for humanity is your +_calling_. + +Calling--destiny--task!-- + +What one can become he does become. A born poet may well be hindered by +the disfavor of circumstances from standing on the high level of his +time, and, after the great studies that are indispensable for this, +producing _consummate_ works of art; but he will make poetry, be he a +plowman or so lucky as to live at the court of Weimar. A born musician +will make music, no matter whether on all instruments or only on an +oaten pipe. A born philosophical head can give proof of itself as +university philosopher or as village philosopher. Finally, a born dolt, +who, as is very well compatible with this, may at the same time be a +sly-boots, will (as probably every one who has visited schools is in a +position to exemplify to himself by many instances of fellow-scholars) +always remain a blockhead, let him have been drilled and trained into +the chief of a bureau, or let him serve that same chief as bootblack. +Nay, the born shallow-pates indisputably form the most numerous class of +men. And why, indeed, should not the same distinctions show themselves +in the human species that are unmistakable in every species of beasts? +The more gifted and the less gifted are to be found everywhere. + +Only a few, however, are so imbecile that one could not get ideas into +them. Hence people usually consider all men capable of having religion. +In a certain degree they may be trained to other ideas too, _e. g._ to +some musical intelligence, even some philosophy, etc. At this point then +the priesthood of religion, of morality, of culture, of science, etc., +takes its start, and the Communists, _e. g._, want to make everything +accessible to all by their "public school." There is heard a common +assertion that this "great mass" cannot get along without religion; the +Communists broaden it into the proposition that not only the "great +mass," but absolutely all, are called to everything. + +Not enough that the great mass has been trained to religion, now it is +actually to have to occupy itself with "everything human." Training is +growing ever more general and more comprehensive. + +You poor beings who could live so happily if you might skip according to +your mind, you are to dance to the pipe of schoolmasters and +bear-leaders, in order to perform tricks that you yourselves would never +use yourselves for. And you do not even kick out of the traces at last +against being always taken otherwise than you want to give yourselves. +No, you mechanically recite to yourselves the question that is recited +to you: "What am I called to? What _ought_ I to do?" You need only ask +thus, to have yourselves _told_ what you ought to do and _ordered_ to do +it, to have your _calling_ marked out for you, or else to order +yourselves and impose it on yourselves according to the spirit's +prescription. Then in reference to the will the word is, I will to do +what I _ought_. + +A man is "called" to nothing, and has no "calling," no "destiny," as +little as a plant or a beast has a "calling." The flower does not follow +the calling to complete itself, but it spends all its forces to enjoy +and consume the world as well as it can,--_i. e._ it sucks in as much of +the juices of the earth, as much air of the ether, as much light of the +sun, as it can get and lodge. The bird lives up to no calling, but it +uses its forces as much as is practicable; it catches beetles and sings +to its heart's delight. But the forces of the flower and the bird are +slight in comparison to those of a man, and a man who applies his forces +will affect the world much more powerfully than flower and beast. A +calling he has not, but he has forces that manifest themselves where +they are because their being consists solely in their manifestation, and +are as little able to abide inactive as life, which, if it "stood still" +only a second, would no longer be life. Now, one might call out to the +man, "use your force." Yet to this imperative would be given the meaning +that it was man's task to use his force. It is not so. Rather, each one +really uses his force without first looking upon this as his calling: at +all times every one uses as much force as he possesses. One does say of +a beaten man that he ought to have exerted his force more; but one +forgets that, if in the moment of succumbing he had had the force to +exert his forces (_e. g._ bodily forces), he would not have failed to do +it: even if it was only the discouragement of a minute, this was yet +a--destitution of force, a minute long. Forces may assuredly be +sharpened and redoubled, especially by hostile resistance or friendly +assistance; but where one misses their application one may be sure of +their absence too. One can strike fire out of a stone, but without the +blow none comes out; in like manner a man too needs "impact." + +Now, for this reason that forces always of themselves show themselves +operative, the command to use them would be superfluous and senseless. +To use his forces is not man's _calling_ and task, but is his _act_, +real and extant at all times. Force is only a simpler word for +manifestation of force. + +Now, as this rose is a true rose to begin with, this nightingale always +a true nightingale, so I am not for the first time a true man when I +fulfil my calling, live up to my destiny, but I am a "true man" from the +start. My first babble is the token of the life of a "true man," the +struggles of my life are the outpourings of his force, my last breath is +the last exhalation of the force of the "man." + +The true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing, but lies, +existent and real, in the present. Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous +and suffering, a child or a graybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep +or in waking, I am it, I am the true man. + +But, if I am Man, and have really found in myself him whom religious +humanity designated as the distant goal, then everything "truly human" +is also _my own_. What was ascribed to the idea of humanity belongs to +me. That freedom of trade, _e. g._, which humanity has yet to +attain,--and which, like an enchanting dream, people remove to +humanity's golden future,--I take by anticipation as my property, and +carry it on for the time in the form of smuggling. There may indeed be +but few smugglers who have sufficient understanding to thus account to +themselves for their doings, but the instinct of egoism replaces their +consciousness. Above I have shown the same thing about freedom of the +press. + +Everything is my own, therefore I bring back to myself what wants to +withdraw from me; but above all I always bring myself back when I have +slipped away from myself to any tributariness. But this too is not my +calling, but my natural act. + +Enough, there is a mighty difference whether I make myself the +starting-point or the goal. As the latter I do not have myself, am +consequently still alien to myself, am my _essence_, my "true essence," +and this "true essence," alien to me, will mock me as a spook of a +thousand different names. Because I am not yet I, another (like God, the +true man, the truly pious man, the rational man, the freeman, etc.) is +I, my ego. + +Still far from myself, I separate myself into two halves, of which one, +the one unattained and to be fulfilled, is the true one. The one, the +untrue, must be brought as a sacrifice; to wit, the unspiritual one. The +other, the true, is to be the whole man; to wit, the spirit. Then it is +said, "The spirit is man's proper essence," or, "man exists as man only +spiritually." Now there is a greedy rush to catch the spirit, as if one +would then have bagged _himself_; and so, in chasing after himself, one +loses sight of himself, whom he is. + +And, as one stormily pursues his own self, the never-attained, so one +also despises shrewd people's rule to take men as they are, and prefers +to take them as they should be; and, for this reason, hounds every one +on after his should-be self and "endeavors to make all into equally +entitled, equally respectable, equally moral or rational men."[219] + +Yes, "if men were what they _should_ be, _could_ be, if all men were +rational, all loved each other as brothers," then it would be a +paradisiacal life.[220]--All right, men are as they should be, can be. +What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they +be? Not more, again, than they--can, _i. e._ than they have the +competence, the force, to be. But this they really are, because what +they are not they are _incapable_ of being; for to be capable +means--really to be. One is not capable for anything that one really is +not; one is not capable of anything that one does not really do. Could a +man blinded by cataract see? Oh, yes, if he had his cataract +successfully removed. But now he cannot see because he does not see. +Possibility and reality always coincide. One can do nothing that one +does not, as one does nothing that one cannot. + +The singularity of this assertion vanishes when one reflects that the +words "it is possible that ..." almost never contain another meaning +than "I can imagine that ...," _e. g._, It is possible for all men to +live rationally, _i. e._ I can imagine that all, etc. Now,--since my +thinking cannot, and accordingly does not, cause all men to live +rationally, but this must still be left to the men themselves,--general +reason is for me only thinkable, a thinkableness, but as such in fact a +_reality_ that is called a possibility only in reference to what I _can_ +not bring to pass, to wit, the rationality of others. So far as depends +on you, all men might be rational, for you have nothing against it; nay, +so far as your thinking reaches, you perhaps cannot discover any +hindrance either, and accordingly nothing does stand in the way of the +thing in your thinking; it is thinkable to you. + +As men are not all rational, though, it is probable that they--cannot be +so. + +If something which one imagines to be easily possible is not, or does +not happen, then one may be assured that something stands in the way of +the thing, and that it is--impossible. Our time has its art, science, +etc.; the art may be bad in all conscience; but may one say that we +deserved to have a better, and "could" have it if we only would? We have +just as much art as we can have. Our art of to-day is the _only art +possible_, and therefore real, at the time. + +Even in the sense to which one might at last still reduce the word +"possible," that it should mean "future," it retains the full force of +the "real." If one says, _e. g._, "It is possible that the sun will rise +to-morrow,"--this means only, "for to-day to-morrow is the real future"; +for I suppose there is hardly need of the suggestion that a future is +real "future" only when it has not yet appeared. + +Yet wherefore this dignifying of a word? If the most prolific +misunderstanding of thousands of years were not in ambush behind it, if +this single concept of the little word "possible" were not haunted by +all the spooks of possessed men, its contemplation should trouble us +little here. + +The thought, it was just now shown, rules the possessed world. Well, +then, possibility is nothing but thinkableness, and innumerable +sacrifices have hitherto been made to hideous _thinkableness_. It was +_thinkable_ that men might become rational; thinkable, that they might +know Christ; thinkable, that they might become moral and enthusiastic +for the good; thinkable, that they might all take refuge in the Church's +lap; thinkable, that they might meditate, speak, and do, nothing +dangerous to the State; thinkable, that they _might_ be obedient +subjects; but, because it was thinkable, it was--so ran the +inference--possible, and further, because it was possible to men (right +here lies the deceptive point: because it is thinkable to me, it is +possible to _men_), therefore they _ought_ to be so, it was their +_calling_; and finally--one is to take men only according to this +calling, only as _called_ men, "not as they are, but as they ought to +be." + +And the further inference? Man is not the individual, but man is a +_thought_, an _ideal_, to which the individual is related not even as +the child to the man, but as a chalk point to a point thought of, or as +a--finite creature to the eternal Creator, or, according to modern +views, as the specimen to the species. Here then comes to light the +glorification of "humanity," the "eternal, immortal," for whose glory +(_in majorem humanitatis gloriam_) the individual must devote himself +and find his "immortal renown" in having done something for the "spirit +of humanity." + +Thus the _thinkers_ rule in the world as long as the age of priests or +of schoolmasters lasts, and what they think of is possible, but what is +possible must be realized. They _think_ an ideal of man, which for the +time is real only in their thoughts; but they also think the possibility +of carrying it out, and there is no chance for dispute, the carrying out +is really--thinkable, it is an--idea. + +But you and I, we may indeed be people of whom a Krummacher can _think_ +that we might yet become good Christians; if, however, he wanted to +"labor with" us, we should soon make it palpable to him that our +Christianity is only _thinkable_, but in other respects _impossible_; if +he grinned on and on at us with his obtrusive _thoughts_, his "good +belief," he would have to learn that we do not at all _need_ to become +what we do not like to become. + +And so it goes on, far beyond the most pious of the pious. "If all men +were rational, if all did right, if all were guided by philanthropy, +etc."! Reason, right, philanthropy, etc., are put before the eyes of +men as their calling, as the goal of their aspiration. And what does +being rational mean? Giving oneself a hearing?[221] No, reason is a book +full of laws, which are all enacted against egoism. + +History hitherto is the history of the _intellectual_ man. After the +period of sensuality, history proper begins; _i. e._, the period of +intellectuality,[222] spirituality,[223] non-sensuality, +supersensuality, nonsensicality. Man now begins to want to be and become +_something_. What? Good, beautiful, true; more precisely, moral, pious, +agreeable, etc. He wants to make of himself a "proper man," "something +proper." _Man_ is his goal, his ought, his destiny, calling, task, +his--_ideal_; he is to himself a future, otherworldly he. And _what_ +makes a "proper fellow" of him? Being true, being good, being moral, and +the like. Now he looks askance at every one who does not recognize the +same "what," seek the same morality, have the same faith; he chases out +"separatists, heretics, sects," etc. + +No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper sheep, a proper +dog"; no beast has its essence appear to it as a task, _i. e._ as a +concept that it has to realize. It realizes itself in living itself out, +_i. e._ dissolving itself, passing away. It does not ask to be or to +become anything _other_ than it is. + +Do I mean to advise you to be like the beasts? That you ought to become +beasts is an exhortation which I certainly cannot give you, as that +would again be a task, an ideal ("How doth the little busy bee improve +each shining hour.... In works of labor or of skill I would be busy +too, for Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do"). It +would be the same, too, as if one wished for the beasts that they should +become human beings. Your nature is, once for all, a human one; you are +human natures, _i. e._ human beings. But, just because you already are +so, you do not still need to become so. Beasts too are "trained," and a +trained beast executes many unnatural things. But a trained dog is no +better for itself than a natural one, and has no profit from it, even if +it is more companionable for us. + +Exertions to "form" all men into moral, rational, pious, human, etc., +"beings" (_i. e._ training) were in vogue from of yore. They are wrecked +against the indomitable quality of I, against own nature, against +egoism. Those who are trained never attain their ideal, and only profess +with their _mouth_ the sublime principles, or make a _profession_, a +profession of faith. In face of this profession they must in _life_ +"acknowledge themselves sinners altogether," and they fall short of +their ideal, are "weak men," and bear with them the consciousness of +"human weakness." + +It is different if you do not chase after an _ideal_ as your "destiny," +but dissolve yourself as time dissolves everything. The dissolution is +not your "destiny," because it is present time. + +Yet the _culture_, the religiousness, of men has assuredly made them +free, but only free from one lord, to lead them to another. I have +learned by religion to tame my appetite, I break the world's resistance +by the cunning that is put in my hand by _science_; I even serve no man: +"I am, no man's lackey." But then it comes, You must obey God more than +man. Just so I am indeed free from irrational determination by my +impulses, but obedient to the master _Reason_. I have gained "spiritual +freedom," "freedom of the spirit." But with that _I_ have then become +subject to that very _spirit_. The spirit gives me orders, reason guides +me, they are my leaders and commanders. The "rational," the "servants of +the spirit," rule. But, if _I_ am not flesh, I am in truth not spirit +either. Freedom of the spirit is servitude of me, because I am more than +spirit or flesh. + +Without doubt culture has made me _powerful_. It has given me power over +all _motives_, over the impulses of my nature as well as over the +exactions and violences of the world. I know, and have gained the force +for it by culture, that I need not let myself be coerced by any of my +appetites, pleasures, emotions, etc.; I am their--_master_; in like +manner I become, through the sciences and arts, the _master_ of the +refractory world, whom sea and earth obey, and to whom even the stars +must give an account of themselves. The spirit has made me +_master_.--But I have no power over the spirit itself. From religion +(culture) I do learn the means for the "vanquishing of the world," but +not how I am to subdue _God_ too and become master of him; for God "is +the spirit." And this same spirit, of which I am unable to become +master, may have the most manifold shapes: he may be called God or +National Spirit, State, Family, Reason, also--Liberty, Humanity, Man. + +_I_ receive with thanks what the centuries of culture have acquired for +me; I am not willing to throw away and give up anything of it: _I_ have +not lived in vain. The experience that I have _power_ over my nature, +and need not be the slave of my appetites, shall not be lost to me; the +experience that I can subdue the world by culture's means is too +dear-bought for me to be able to forget it. But I want still more. + +People ask, what can man do? what can he accomplish? what goods procure? +and put down the highest of everything as a calling. As if everything +were possible to _me_! + +If one sees somebody going to ruin in a mania, a passion, etc. (_e. g._ +in the huckster-spirit, in jealousy), the desire is stirred to deliver +him out of this possession and to help him to "self-conquest." "We want +to make a man of him!" That would be very fine if another possession +were not immediately put in the place of the earlier one. But one frees +from the love of money him who is a thrall to it, only to deliver him +over to piety, humanity, or some principle else, and to transfer him to +a _fixed standpoint_ anew. + +This transference from a narrow standpoint to a sublime one is declared +in the words that the sense must not be directed to the perishable, but +to the imperishable alone: not to the temporal, but to the eternal, +absolute, divine, purely human, etc.,--to the _spiritual_. + +People very soon discerned that it was not indifferent what one set his +affections on, or what one occupied himself with; they recognized the +importance of the _object_. An object exalted above the individuality of +things is the _essence_ of things; yes, the essence is alone the +thinkable in them, it is for the _thinking_ man. Therefore direct no +longer your _sense_ to the _things_, but your _thoughts_ to the +_essence_. "Blessed are they who see not, and yet believe"; _i. e._, +blessed are the _thinkers_ for they have to do with the invisible and +believe in it. Yet even an object of thought, that constituted an +essential point of contention centuries long, comes at last to the point +of being "no longer worth speaking of." This was discerned, but +nevertheless people always kept before their eyes again a self-valid +importance of the object, an absolute value of it, as if the doll were +not the most important thing to the child, the Koran to the Turk. As +long as I am not the sole important thing to myself, it is indifferent +of what object I "make much," and only my greater or lesser +_delinquency_ against it is of value. The degree of my attachment and +devotion marks the standpoint of my liability to service, the degree of +my sinning shows the measure of my ownness. + +But finally, and in general, one must know how to "put everything out of +his mind," if only so as to be able to--go to sleep. Nothing may occupy +us with which _we_ do not occupy ourselves: the victim of ambition +cannot run away from his ambitious plans, nor the God-fearing man from +the thought of God; infatuation and possessedness coincide. + +To want to realize his essence or live conformably to his concept (which +with believers in God signifies as much as to be "pious," and with +believers in humanity means living "humanly") is what only the sensual +and sinful man can propose to himself, the man so long as he has the +anxious choice between happiness of sense and peace of soul, so long as +he is a "poor sinner." The Christian is nothing but a sensual man who, +knowing of the sacred and being conscious that he violates it, sees in +himself a poor sinner: sensualness, recognized as "sinfulness," is +Christian consciousness, is the Christian himself. And if "sin" and +"sinfulness" are now no longer taken into the mouths of moderns, but, +instead of that, "egoism," "self-seeking," "selfishness," and the like, +engage them; if the devil has been translated into the "un-man" or +"egoistic man,"--is the Christian less present then than before? Is not +the old discord between good and evil,--is not a judge over us, man,--is +not a calling, the calling to make oneself man--left? If they no longer +name it calling, but "task" or, very likely, "duty," the change of name +is quite correct, because "man" is not, like God, a personal being that +can "call"; but outside the name the thing remains as of old. + + * * * * * + +Every one has a relation to objects, and more, every one is differently +related to them. Let us choose as an example that book to which millions +of men had a relation for two thousand years, the Bible. What is it, +what was it, to each? Absolutely, only what he _made out of it_! For him +who makes to himself nothing at all out of it, it is nothing at all; for +him who uses it as an amulet, it has solely the value, the significance, +of a means of sorcery; for him who, like children, plays with it, it is +nothing but a plaything; etc. + +Now, Christianity asks that it shall _be the same for all_: say, the +sacred book or the "sacred Scriptures." This means as much as that the +Christian's view shall also be that of other men, and that no one may +be otherwise related to that object. And with this the ownness of the +relation is destroyed, and one mind, one disposition, is fixed as the +"_true_," the "only true" one. In the limitation of the freedom to make +of the Bible what I will, the freedom of making in general is limited; +and the coercion of a view or a judgment is put in its place. He who +should pass the judgment that the Bible was a long error of mankind +would judge--_criminally_. + +In fact, the child who tears it to pieces or plays with it, the Inca +Atahualpa who lays his ear to it and throws it away contemptuously when +it remains dumb, judges just as correctly about the Bible as the priest +who praises in it the "Word of God," or the critic who calls it a job of +men's hands. For how we toss things about is the affair of our _option_, +our _free will_: we use them according to our _heart's pleasure_, or, +more clearly, we use them just as we _can_. Why, what do the parsons +scream about when they see how Hegel and the speculative theologians +make speculative thoughts out of the contents of the Bible? Precisely +this, that they deal with it according to their heart's pleasure, or +"proceed arbitrarily with it." + +But, because we all show ourselves arbitrary in the handling of objects, +_i. e._ do with them as we _like_ best, at our _liking_ (the philosopher +likes nothing so well as when he can trace out an "idea" in everything, +as the God-fearing man likes to make God his friend by everything, and +so, _e. g._, by keeping the Bible sacred), therefore we nowhere meet +such grievous arbitrariness, such a frightful tendency to violence, +such stupid coercion, as in this very domain of our--_own free will_. If +_we_ proceed arbitrarily in taking the sacred objects thus or so, how is +it then that we want to take it ill of the parson-spirits if they take +us just as arbitrarily _in their fashion_, and esteem us worthy of the +heretic's fire or of another punishment, perhaps of the--censorship? + +What a man is, he makes out of things; "as you look at the world, so it +looks at you again." Then the wise advice makes itself heard again at +once, You must only look at it "rightly, unbiasedly," etc. As if the +child did not look at the Bible "rightly and unbiasedly" when it makes +it a plaything. That shrewd precept is given us, _e. g._, by Feuerbach. +One does look at things rightly when one makes of them what one _will_ +(by things objects in general are here understood, such as God, our +fellow-men, a sweetheart, a book, a beast, etc.). And therefore the +things and the looking at them are not first, but I am, my will is. One +_will_ bring thoughts out of the things, _will_ discover reason in the +world, _will_ have sacredness in it: therefore one shall find them. +"Seek and ye shall find." _What_ I will seek, _I_ determine: I want, +_e. g._, to get edification from the Bible; it is to be found; +I want to read and test the Bible thoroughly; my outcome will be +a thorough instruction and criticism--to the extent of my powers. +I elect for myself what I have a fancy for, and in electing I show +myself--arbitrary. + +Connected with this is the discernment that every judgment which I pass +upon an object is the _creature_ of my will; and that discernment again +leads me to not losing myself in the _creature_, the judgment, but +remaining the _creator_, the judger, who is ever creating anew. All +predicates of objects are my statements, my judgments, my--creatures. If +they want to tear themselves loose from me and be something for +themselves, or actually overawe me, then I have nothing more pressing to +do than to take them back into their nothing, _i. e._ into me the +creator. God, Christ, trinity, morality, the good, etc., are such +creatures, of which I must not merely allow myself to say that they are +truths, but also that they are deceptions. As I once willed and decreed +their existence, so I want to have license to will their non-existence +too; I must not let them grow over my head, must not have the weakness +to let them become something "absolute," whereby they would be +eternalized and withdrawn from my power and decision. With that I should +fall a prey to the _principle of stability_, the proper life-principle +of religion, which concerns itself with creating "sanctuaries that must +not be touched," "eternal truths,"--in short, that which shall be +"sacred,"--and depriving you of what is _yours_. + +The object makes us into possessed men in its sacred form just as in its +profane; as a supersensuous object, just as it does as a sensuous one. +The appetite or mania refers to both, and avarice and longing for heaven +stand on a level. When the rationalists wanted to win people for the +sensuous world, Lavater preached the longing for the invisible. The one +party wanted to call forth _emotion_, the other _motion_, activity. + +The conception of objects is altogether diverse, even as God, Christ, +the world, etc., were and are conceived of in the most manifold wise. In +this every one is a "dissenter," and after bloody combats so much has at +last been attained, that opposite views about one and the same object +are no longer condemned as heresies worthy of death. The "dissenters" +reconcile themselves to each other. But why should I only dissent (think +otherwise) about a thing? why not push the thinking otherwise to its +last extremity, _viz._, that of no longer having any regard at all for +the thing, and therefore thinking its nothingness, crushing it? Then the +_conception_ itself has an end, because there is no longer anything to +conceive of. Why am I to say, let us suppose, "God is not Allah, not +Brahma, not Jehovah, but--God"; but not, "God is nothing but a +deception"? Why do people brand me if I am an "atheist"? Because they +put the creature above the creator ("They honor and serve the creature +more than the Creator"[224]) and require a _ruling object_, that the +subject may be right _submissive_. I am to bend _beneath_ the absolute, +I _ought_ to. + +By the "realm of thoughts" Christianity has completed itself; the +thought is that inwardness in which all the world's lights go out, all +existence becomes existenceless, the inward man (the heart, the head) is +all in all. This realm of thoughts awaits its deliverance, awaits, like +the Sphinx, Oedipus's key-word to the riddle, that it may enter in at +last to its death. I am the annihilator of its continuance, for in the +creator's realm it no longer forms a realm of its own, not a State in +the State, but a creature of my creative--thoughtlessness. Only together +and at the same time with the benumbed _thinking_ world can the world of +Christians, Christianity and religion itself, come to its downfall; only +when thoughts run out are there no more believers. To the thinker his +thinking is a "sublime labor, a sacred activity," and it rests on a firm +_faith_, the faith in truth. At first praying is a sacred activity, then +this sacred "devotion" passes over into a rational and reasoning +"thinking," which, however, likewise retains in the "sacred truth" its +un-derangeable basis of faith, and is only a marvelous machine that the +spirit of truth winds up for its service. Free thinking and free science +busy _me_--for it is not I that am free, not _I_ that busy myself, but +thinking is free and busies me--with heaven and the heavenly or +"divine"; that is, properly, with the world and the worldly, not this +world but "another" world; it is only the reversing and deranging of the +world, a busying with the _essence_ of the world, therefore a +_derangement_. The thinker is blind to the immediateness of things, and +incapable of mastering them: he does not eat, does not drink, does not +enjoy; for the eater and drinker is never the thinker, nay, the latter +forgets eating and drinking, his getting on in life, the cares of +nourishment, etc., over his thinking; he forgets it as the praying man +too forgets it. This is why he appears to the forceful son of nature as +a queer Dick, a _fool_,--even if he does look upon him as holy, just as +lunatics appeared so to the ancients. Free thinking is lunacy, because +it is _pure movement of the inwardness_, of the merely _inward man_, +which guides and regulates the rest of the man. The shaman and the +speculative philosopher mark the bottom and top rounds on the ladder of +the _inward_ man, the--Mongol. Shaman and philosopher fight with ghosts, +demons, _spirits_, gods. + +Totally different from this _free_ thinking is _own_ thinking, _my_ +thinking, a thinking which does not guide me, but is guided, continued, +or broken off, by me at my pleasure. The distinction of this own +thinking from free thinking is similar to that of own sensuality, which +I satisfy at pleasure, from free, unruly sensuality to which I succumb. + +Feuerbach, in the "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future," is +always harping upon _being_. In this he too, with all his antagonism to +Hegel and the absolute philosophy, is stuck fast in abstraction; for +"being" is abstraction, as is even "the I." Only _I am_ not abstraction +alone: _I am_ all in all, consequently even abstraction or nothing; +I am all and nothing; I am not a mere thought, but at the same time +I am full of thoughts, a thought-world. Hegel condemns the own, +mine,[225]--"opinion."[226] "Absolute thinking" is that thinking which +forgets that it is _my_ thinking, that I think, and that it exists only +through _me_. But I, as I, swallow up again what is mine, am its master; +it is only my _opinion_, which I can at any moment _change_, _i. e._ +annihilate, take back into myself, and consume. Feuerbach wants to smite +Hegel's "absolute thinking" with _unconquered being_. But in me being is +as much conquered as thinking is. It is _my_ being, as the other is +_my_ thinking. + +With this, of course, Feuerbach does not get further than to the proof, +trivial in itself, that I require the _senses_ for everything, or that I +cannot entirely do without these organs. Certainly I cannot think if I +do not exist sensuously. But for thinking as well as for feeling, and so +for the abstract as well as for the sensuous, I need above all things +_myself_, this quite particular myself, this _unique_ myself. If I were +not this one, _e. g._ Hegel, I should not look at the world as I do look +at it, I should not pick out of it that philosophical system which just +I as Hegel do, etc. I should indeed have senses, as do other people too, +but I should not utilize them as I do. + +Thus the reproach is brought up against Hegel by Feuerbach[227] that he +misuses language, understanding by many words something else than what +natural consciousness takes them for; and yet he too commits the same +fault when he gives the "sensuous" a sense of unusual eminence. Thus it +is said, p. 69, "the sensuous is not the profane, the destitute of +thought, the obvious, that which is understood of itself." But, if it is +the sacred, the full of thought, the recondite, that which can be +understood only through mediation,--well, then it is no longer what +people call the sensuous. The sensuous is only that which exists for +_the senses_; what, on the other hand, is enjoyable only to those who +enjoy with _more_ than the senses, who go beyond sense-enjoyment or +sense-reception, is at most mediated or introduced by the senses, +_i. e._ the senses constitute a _condition_ for obtaining it, but it is +no longer anything sensuous. The sensuous, whatever it may be, when +taken up into me becomes something non-sensuous, which, however, may +again have sensuous effects, _e. g._ by the stirring of my emotions and +my blood. + +It is well that Feuerbach brings sensuousness to honor, but the only +thing he is able to do with it is to clothe the materialism of his "new +philosophy" with what had hitherto been the property of idealism, the +"absolute philosophy." As little as people let it be talked into them +that one can live on the "spiritual" alone without bread, so little will +they believe his word that as a sensuous being one is already +everything, and so spiritual, full of thoughts, etc. + +Nothing at all is justified by _being_. What is thought of _is_ as well +as what is not thought of; the stone in the street _is_, and my notion +of it _is_ too. Both are only in different _spaces_, the former in airy +space, the latter in my head, in _me_; for I am space like the street. + +The professionals, the privileged, brook no freedom of thought, _i. e._ +no thoughts that do not come from the "Giver of all good," be he called +God, pope, church, or whatever else. If anybody has such illegitimate +thoughts, he must whisper them into his confessor's ear, and have +himself chastised by him till the slave-whip becomes unendurable to the +free thoughts. In other ways too the professional spirit takes care that +free thoughts shall not come at all: first and foremost, by a wise +education. He on whom the principles of morality have been duly +inculcated never becomes free again from moralizing thoughts, and +robbery, perjury, overreaching, and the like, remain to him fixed ideas +against which no freedom of thought protects him. He has his thoughts +"from above," and gets no further. + +It is different with the holders of concessions or patents. Every one +must be able to have and form thoughts as he will. If he has the patent, +or the concession, of a capacity to think, he needs no special +_privilege_. But, as "all men are rational," it is free to every one to +put into his head any thoughts whatever, and, to the extent of the +patent of his natural endowment, to have a greater or less wealth of +thoughts. Now one hears the admonitions that one "is to honor all +opinions and convictions," that "every conviction is authorized," that +one must be "tolerant to the views of others," etc. + +But "your thoughts are not my thoughts, and your ways are not my ways." +Or rather, I mean the reverse: Your thoughts are _my_ thoughts, which I +dispose of as I will, and which I strike down unmercifully; they are my +property, which I annihilate as I list. I do not wait for authorization +from you first, to decompose and blow away your thoughts. It does not +matter to me that you call these thoughts yours too, they remain mine +nevertheless, and how I will proceed with them is _my affair_, not a +usurpation. It may please me to leave you in your thoughts; then I keep +still. Do you believe thoughts fly around free like birds, so that every +one may get himself some which he may then make good against me as his +inviolable property? What is flying around is all--_mine_. + +Do you believe you have your thoughts for yourselves and need answer to +no one for them, or, as you do also say, you have to give an account of +them to God only? No, your great and small thoughts belong to me, and I +handle them at my pleasure. + +The thought is my _own_ only when I have no misgiving about bringing it +in danger of death every moment, when I do not have to fear its loss as +a _loss for me_, a loss of me. The thought is my own only when I can +indeed subjugate it, but it never can subjugate me, never fanaticizes +me, makes me the tool of its realization. + +So freedom of thought exists when I can have all possible thoughts; but +the thoughts become property only by not being able to become masters. +In the time of freedom of thought, thoughts (ideas) _rule_; but, if I +attain to property in thought, they stand as my creatures. + +If the hierarchy had not so penetrated men to the innermost as to take +from them all courage to pursue free thoughts, _i. e._ thoughts perhaps +displeasing to God, one would have to consider freedom of thought just +as empty a word as, say, a freedom of digestion. + +According to the professionals' opinion, the thought is _given_ to me; +according to the freethinkers', _I seek_ the thought. There the _truth_ +is already found and extant, only I must--receive it from its Giver by +grace; here the truth is to be sought and is my goal, lying in the +future, toward which I have to run. + +In both cases the truth (the true thought) lies outside me, and I aspire +to _get_ it, be it by presentation (grace), be it by earning (merit of +my own). Therefore, (1) The truth is a _privilege_, (2) No, the way to +it is _patent_ to all, and neither the Bible nor the holy fathers nor +the church nor any one else is in possession of the truth; but one can +come into possession of it by--speculating. + +Both, one sees, are _propertyless_ in relation to the truth: they have +it either as a _fief_ (for the "holy father," _e. g._, is not a unique +person; as unique he is this Sixtus, Clement, etc., but he does not have +the truth as Sixtus, Clement, etc., but as "holy father," _i. e._ as a +spirit) or as an _ideal_. As a fief, it is only for a few (the +privileged); as an ideal, for _all_ (the patentees). + +Freedom of thought, then, has the meaning that we do indeed all walk in +the dark and in the paths of error, but every one can on this path +approach _the truth_ and is accordingly on the right path ("All roads +lead to Rome, to the world's end, etc."). Hence freedom of thought means +this much, that the true thought is not my _own_; for, if it were this, +how should people want to shut me off from it? + +Thinking has become entirely free, and has laid down a lot of truths +which _I_ must accommodate myself to. It seeks to complete itself into a +_system_ and to bring itself to an absolute "constitution." In the State +_e. g._ it seeks for the idea, say, till it has brought out the +"rational State," in which I am then obliged to be suited; in man +(anthropology), till it "has found man." + +The thinker is distinguished from the believer only by believing _much +more_ than the latter, who on his part thinks of much less as signified +by his faith (creed). The thinker has a thousand tenets of faith where +the believer gets along with few; but the former brings _coherence_ into +his tenets, and takes the coherence in turn for the scale to estimate +their worth by. If one or the other does not fit into his budget, he +throws it out. + +The thinkers run parallel to the believers in their pronouncements. +Instead of "If it is from God you will not root it out," the word is "If +it is from the _truth_, is true, etc."; instead of "Give God the +glory,"--"Give truth the glory." But it is very much the same to me +whether God or the truth wins; first and foremost _I_ want to win. + +Aside from this, how is an "unlimited freedom" to be thinkable inside of +the State or society? The State may well protect one against another, +but yet it must not let itself be endangered by an unmeasured freedom, a +so-called unbridledness. Thus in "freedom of instruction" the State +declares only this,--that it is suited with every one who instructs as +the State (or, speaking more comprehensibly, the political power) would +have it. The point for the competitors is this "as the State would have +it." If the clergy, _e. g._, does not will as the State does, then it +itself excludes itself from _competition_ (_vid._ France). The limit +that is necessarily drawn in the State for any and all competition is +called "the oversight and superintendence of the State." In bidding +freedom of instruction keep within the due bounds, the State at the same +time fixes the scope of freedom of thought; because, as a rule, people +do not think farther than their teachers have thought. + +Hear Minister Guizot: "The great difficulty of to-day is the _guiding +and dominating of the mind_. Formerly the church fulfilled this mission; +now it is not adequate to it. It is from the university that this great +service must be expected, and the university will not fail to perform +it. We, the _government_, have the duty of supporting it therein. The +charter calls for the freedom of thought and that of conscience."[228] +So, in favor of freedom of thought and conscience, the minister demands +"the guiding and dominating of the mind." + +Catholicism haled the examinee before the forum of ecclesiasticism, +Protestantism before that of biblical Christianity. It would be but +little bettered if one haled him before that of reason, as Ruge, +_e. g._, wants to.[229] Whether the church, the Bible, or reason (to +which, moreover, Luther and Huss already appealed) is the _sacred +authority_ makes no difference in essentials. + +The "question of our time" does not become soluble even when one puts it +thus: Is anything general authorized, or only the individual? Is the +generality (such as State, law, custom, morality, etc.) authorized, or +individuality? It becomes soluble for the first time when one no longer +asks after an "authorization" at all, and does not carry on a mere fight +against "privileges."--A "rational" freedom of teaching, which +"recognizes only the conscience of reason,"[230] does not bring us to +the goal; we require an _egoistic_ freedom of teaching rather, a freedom +of teaching for all ownness, wherein _I_ become _audible_ and can +announce myself unchecked. That I make myself "_audible_,"[231] this +alone is "reason,"[232] be I ever so irrational; in my making myself +heard, and so hearing myself, others as well as I myself enjoy me, and +at the same time consume me. + +What would be gained if, as formerly the orthodox I, the loyal I, the +moral I, etc., was free, now the rational I should become free? Would +this be the freedom of me? + +If I am free as "rational I," then the rational in me, or reason, is +free; and this freedom of reason, or freedom of the thought, was the +ideal of the Christian world from of old. They wanted to make +thinking--and, as aforesaid, faith is also thinking, as thinking is +faith--free; the thinkers, _i. e._ the believers as well as the +rational, were to be free; for the rest freedom was impossible. But the +freedom of thinkers is the "freedom of the children of God," and at the +same time the most merciless--hierarchy or dominion of the thought; for +_I_ succumb to the thought. If thoughts are free, I am their slave; I +have no power over them, and am dominated by them. But I want to have +the thought, want to be full of thoughts, but at the same time I want to +be thoughtless, and, instead of freedom of thought, I preserve for +myself thoughtlessness. + +If the point is to have myself understood and to make communications, +then assuredly I can make use only of _human_ means, which are at my +command because I am at the same time man. And really I have thoughts +only as _man_; as I, I am at the same time _thoughtless_.[233] He who +cannot get rid of a thought is so far only man, is a thrall of +_language_, this human institution, this treasury of _human_ thoughts. +Language or "the word" tyrannizes hardest over us, because it brings up +against us a whole army of _fixed ideas_. Just observe yourself in the +act of reflection, right now, and you will find how you make progress +only by becoming thoughtless and speechless every moment. You are not +thoughtless and speechless merely in (say) sleep, but even in the +deepest reflection; yes, precisely then most so. And only by this +thoughtlessness, this unrecognized "freedom of thought" or freedom from +the thought, are you your own. Only from it do you arrive at putting +language to use as your _property_. + +If thinking is not _my_ thinking, it is merely a spun-out thought; it is +slave work, or the work of a "servant obeying at the word." For not a +thought, but I, am the beginning for my thinking, and therefore I am its +goal too, even as its whole course is only a course of my +self-enjoyment; for absolute or free thinking, on the other hand, +thinking itself is the beginning, and it plagues itself with propounding +this beginning as the extremest "abstraction" (_e. g._ as being). This +very abstraction, or this thought, is then spun out further. + +Absolute thinking is the affair of the human spirit, and this is a holy +spirit. Hence this thinking is an affair of the parsons, who have "a +sense for it," a sense for the "highest interests of mankind," for "the +spirit." + +To the believer, truths are a _settled_ thing, a fact; to the +freethinker, a thing that is still to be _settled_. Be absolute thinking +ever so unbelieving, its incredulity has its limits, and there does +remain a belief in the truth, in the spirit, in the idea and its final +victory: this thinking does not sin against the holy spirit. But all +thinking that does not sin against the holy spirit is belief in spirits +or ghosts. + +I can as little renounce thinking as feeling, the spirit's activity as +little as the activity of the senses. As feeling is our sense for +things, so thinking is our sense for essences (thoughts). Essences have +their existence in everything sensuous, especially in the word. The +power of words follows that of things: first one is coerced by the rod, +afterward by conviction. The might of things overcomes our courage, our +spirit; against the power of a conviction, and so of the word, even the +rack and the sword lose their overpoweringness and force. The men of +conviction are the priestly men, who resist every enticement of Satan. + +Christianity took away from the things of this world only their +irresistibleness, made us independent of them. In like manner I raise +myself above truths and their power: as I am supersensual, so I am +supertrue. _Before me_ truths are as common and as indifferent as +things; they do not carry me away, and do not inspire me with +enthusiasm. There exists not even one truth, not right, not freedom, +humanity, etc., that has stability before me, and to which I subject +myself. They are _words_, nothing but words, as all things are to the +Christian nothing but "vain things." In words and truths (every word is +a truth, as Hegel asserts that one cannot _tell_ a lie) there is no +salvation for me, as little as there is for the Christian in things and +vanities. As the riches of this world do not make me happy, so neither +do its truths. It is now no longer Satan, but the spirit, that plays the +story of the temptation; and he does not seduce by the things of this +world, but by its thoughts, by the "glitter of the idea." + +Along with worldly goods, all sacred goods too must be put away as no +longer valuable. + +Truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words ([Greek: logos]); brought +into connection, or into an articulate series, they form logic, science, +philosophy. + +For thinking and speaking I need truths and words, as I do foods for +eating; without them I cannot think nor speak. Truths are men's +thoughts, set down in words and therefore just as extant as other +things, although extant only for the mind or for thinking, they are +human institutions and human creatures, and, even if they are given out +for divine revelations, there still remains in them the quality of +alienness for me; yes, as my own creatures they are already alienated +from me after the act of creation. + +The Christian man is the man with faith in thinking, who believes in the +supreme dominion of thoughts and wants to bring thoughts, so-called +"principles," to dominion. Many a one does indeed test the thoughts, and +chooses none of them for his master without criticism, but in this he is +like the dog who sniffs at people to smell out "his master": he is +always aiming at the _ruling_ thought. The Christian may reform and +revolt an infinite deal, may demolish the ruling concepts of centuries; +he will always aspire to a new "principle" or new master again, always +set up a higher or "deeper" truth again, always call forth a cult again, +always proclaim a spirit called to dominion, lay down a _law_ for all. + +If there is even one truth only to which man has to devote his life and +his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, +law, etc.; he is a servingman. It is supposed that, _e. g._, man, +humanity, liberty, etc., are such truths. + +On the other hand, one can say thus: Whether you will further occupy +yourself with thinking depends on you; only know that, _if_ in your +thinking you would like to make out anything worthy of notice, many hard +problems are to be solved, without vanquishing which you cannot get far. +There exists, therefore, no duty and no calling for you to meddle with +thoughts (ideas, truths); but, if you will do so, you will do well to +utilize what the forces of others have already achieved toward clearing +up these difficult subjects. + +Thus, therefore, he who will think does assuredly have a task, which +_he_ consciously or unconsciously sets for himself in willing that; but +no one has the task of thinking or of believing.--In the former case it +may be said, You do not go far enough, you have a narrow and biased +interest, you do not go to the bottom of the thing; in short, you do not +completely subdue it. But, on the other hand, however far you may come +at any time, you are still always at the end, you have no call to step +farther, and you can have it as you will or as you are able. It stands +with this as with any other piece of work, which you can give up when +the humor for it wears off. Just so, if you can no longer _believe_ a +thing, you do not have to force yourself into faith or to busy yourself +lastingly as if with a sacred truth of the faith, as theologians or +philosophers do, but you can tranquilly draw back your interest from it +and let it run. Priestly spirits will indeed expound this your lack of +interest as "laziness, thoughtlessness, obduracy, self-deception," and +the like. But do you just let the trumpery lie, notwithstanding. No +thing,[234] no so-called "highest interest of mankind," no "sacred +cause,"[235] is worth your serving it, and occupying yourself with it +for _its sake_; you may seek its worth in this alone, whether it is +worth anything to _you_ for your sake. Become like children, the +biblical saying admonishes us. But children have no sacred interest and +know nothing of a "good cause." They know all the more accurately what +they have a fancy for; and they think over, to the best of their powers, +how they are to arrive at it. + +Thinking will as little cease as feeling. But the power of thoughts and +ideas, the dominion of theories and principles, the sovereignty of the +spirit, in short the--_hierarchy_, lasts as long as the parsons, _i. e._ +theologians, philosophers, statesmen, philistines, liberals, +schoolmasters, servants, parents, children, married couples, Proudhon, +George Sand, Bluntschli, etc., etc., have the floor; the hierarchy will +endure as long as people believe in, think of, or even criticise, +principles; for even the most inexorable criticism, which undermines +all current principles, still does finally _believe_ in _the principle_. + +Every one criticises, but the criterion is different. People run after +the "right" criterion. The right criterion is the first presupposition. +The critic starts from a proposition, a truth, a belief. This is not a +creation of the critic, but of the dogmatist; nay, commonly it is +actually taken up out of the culture of the time without further +ceremony, like _e. g._ "liberty," "humanity," etc. The critic has not +"discovered man," but this truth has been established as "man" by the +dogmatist, and the critic (who, besides, may be the same person with +him) believes in this truth, this article of faith. In this faith, and +possessed by this faith, he criticises. + +The secret of criticism is some "truth" or other: this remains its +energizing mystery. + +But I distinguish between _servile_ and _own_ criticism. If I criticise +under the presupposition of a supreme being, my criticism _serves_ the +being and is carried on for its sake: if, _e. g._, I am possessed by the +belief in a "free State," then everything that has a bearing on it I +criticise from the standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, +for I _love_ this State; if I criticise as a pious man, then for me +everything falls into the classes of divine and diabolical, and before +my criticism nature consists of traces of God or traces of the devil +(hence names like Godsgift, Godmount, the Devil's Pulpit, etc.), men of +believers and unbelievers, etc.; if I criticise while believing in man +as the "true essence," then for me everything falls primarily into the +classes of man and the un-man, etc. + +Criticism has to this day remained a work of love: for at all times we +exercised it for the love of some being. All servile criticism is a +product of love, a possessedness, and proceeds according to that New +Testament precept, "Test everything and hold fast the _good_."[236] "The +good" is the touchstone, the criterion. The good, returning under a +thousand names and forms, remained always the presupposition, remained +the dogmatic fixed point for this criticism, remained the--fixed idea. + +The critic, in setting to work, impartially presupposes the "truth," and +seeks for the truth in the belief that it is to be found. He wants to +ascertain the true, and has in it that very "good." + +Presuppose means nothing else than put a _thought_ in front, or think +something before everything else and think the rest from the +starting-point of this that has _been thought_, _i. e._ measure and +criticise it by this. In other words, this is as much as to say that +thinking is to begin with something already thought. If thinking began +at all, instead of being begun, if thinking were a subject, an acting +personality of its own, as even the plant is such, then indeed there +would be no abandoning the principle that thinking must begin with +itself. But it is just the personification of thinking that brings to +pass those innumerable errors. In the Hegelian system they always talk +as if thinking or "the thinking spirit" (_i. e._ personified thinking, +thinking as a ghost) thought and acted; in critical liberalism it is +always said that "criticism" does this and that, or else that +"self-consciousness" finds this and that. But, if thinking ranks as the +personal actor, thinking itself must be presupposed; if criticism ranks +as such, a thought must likewise stand in front. Thinking and criticism +could be active only starting from themselves, would have to be +themselves the presupposition of their activity, as without being they +could not be active. But thinking, as a thing presupposed, is a fixed +thought, a _dogma_; thinking and criticism, therefore, can start only +from a _dogma_, _i. e._ from a thought, a fixed idea, a presupposition. + +With this we come back again to what was enunciated above, that +Christianity consists in the development of a world of thoughts, or that +it is the proper "freedom of thought," the "free thought," the "free +spirit." The "true" criticism, which I called "servile," is therefore +just as much "free" criticism, for it is not _my own_. + +The case stands otherwise when what is yours is not made into something +that is of itself, not personified, not made independent an a "spirit" +to itself. _Your_ thinking has for a presupposition not "thinking," but +_you_. But thus you do presuppose yourself after all? Yes, but not for +myself, but for my thinking. Before my thinking, there is--I. From this +it follows that my thinking is not preceded by a _thought_, or that my +thinking is without a "presupposition." For the presupposition which I +am for my thinking is not one _made by thinking_, not one _thought of_, +but it is _posited_ thinking _itself_, it is the _owner_ of the thought, +and proves only that thinking is nothing more than--_property_, _i. e._ +that an "independent" thinking, a "thinking spirit," does not exist at +all. + +This reversal of the usual way of regarding things might so resemble an +empty playing with abstractions that even those against whom it is +directed would acquiesce in the harmless aspect I give it, if practical +consequences were not connected with it. + +To bring these into a concise expression, the assertion now made is that +man is not the measure of all things, but I am this measure. The servile +critic has before his eye another being, an idea, which he means to +serve; therefore he only slays the false idols for his God. What is done +for the love of this being, what else should it be but a--work of love? +But I, when I criticise, do not even have myself before my eyes, but am +only doing myself a pleasure, amusing myself according to my taste; +according to my several needs I chew the thing up or only inhale its +odor. + +The distinction between the two attitudes will come out still more +strikingly if one reflects that the servile critic, because love guides +him, supposes he is serving the thing [cause] itself. + +_The_ truth, or "truth in general," people are bound not to give up, but +to seek for. What else is it but the _etre supreme_, the highest +essence? Even "true criticism" would have to despair if it lost faith in +the truth. And yet the truth is only a--_thought_; but it is not merely +"a" thought, but the thought that is above all thoughts, the +irrefragable thought; it is _the_ thought itself, which gives the first +hallowing to all others; it is the consecration of thoughts, the +"absolute," the "sacred" thought. The truth wears longer than all the +gods; for it is only in the truth's service, and for love of it, that +people have overthrown the gods and at last God himself. "The truth" +outlasts the downfall of the world of gods, for it is the immortal soul +of this transitory world of gods, it is Deity itself. + +I will answer Pilate's question, What is truth? Truth is the free +thought, the free idea, the free spirit; truth is what is free from you, +what is not your own, what is not in your power. But truth is also the +completely unindependent, impersonal, unreal, and incorporeal; truth +cannot step forward as you do, cannot move, change, develop; truth +awaits and receives everything from you, and itself is only through you; +for it exists only--in your head. You concede that the truth is a +thought, but say that not every thought is a true one, or, as you are +also likely to express it, not every thought is truly and really a +thought. And by what do you measure and recognize the thought? By _your +impotence_, to wit, by your being no longer able to make any successful +assault on it! When it overpowers you, inspires you, and carries you +away, then you hold it to be the true one. Its dominion over you +certifies to you its truth; and, when it possesses you, and you are +possessed by it, then you feel well with it, for then you have found +your--_lord and master_. When you were seeking the truth, what did your +heart then long for? For your master! You did not aspire to _your_ +might, but to a Mighty One, and wanted to exalt a Mighty One ("Exalt ye +the Lord our God!"). The truth, my dear Pilate, is--the Lord, and all +who seek the truth are seeking and praising the Lord. Where does the +Lord exist? Where else but in your head? He is only spirit, and, +wherever you believe you really see him, there he is a--ghost; for the +Lord is merely something that is thought of, and it was only the +Christian pains and agony to make the invisible visible, the spiritual +corporeal, that generated the ghost and was the frightful misery of the +belief in ghosts. + +As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself, and +you are a--_servant_, a--_religious man_. You alone are the truth, or +rather, you are more than the truth, which is nothing at all before you. +You too do assuredly ask about the truth, you too do assuredly +"criticise," but you do not ask about a "higher truth,"--to wit, one +that should be higher than you,--nor criticise according to the +criterion of such a truth. You address yourself to thoughts and notions, +as you do to the appearances of things, only for the purpose of making +them palatable to you, enjoyable to you, and your _own_: you want only +to subdue them and become their _owner_, you want to orient yourself and +feel at home in them, and you find them true, or see them in their true +light, when they can no longer slip away from you, no longer have any +unseized or uncomprehended place, or when they are _right for you_, when +they are your _property_. If afterward they become heavier again, if +they wriggle themselves out of your power again, then that is just their +untruth,--to wit, your impotence. Your impotence is their power, your +humility their exaltation. Their truth, therefore, is you, or is the +nothing which you are for them and in which they dissolve: their truth +is their _nothingness_. + +Only as the property of me do the spirits, the truths, get to rest; and +they then for the first time really are, when they have been deprived of +their sorry existence and made a property of mine, when it is no longer +said "the truth develops itself, rules, asserts itself; history (also a +concept) wins the victory," and the like. The truth never has won a +victory, but was always my _means_ to the victory, like the sword ("the +sword of truth"). The truth is dead, a letter, a word, a material that I +can use up. All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in +the same way as my lungs are alive,--to wit, in the measure of my own +vitality. Truths are material, like vegetables and weeds; as to whether +vegetable or weed, the decision lies in me. + +Objects are to me only material that I use up. Wherever I put my hand I +grasp a truth, which I trim for myself. The truth is certain to me, and +I do not need to long after it. To do the truth a service is in no case +my intent; it is to me only a nourishment for my thinking head, as +potatoes are for my digesting stomach, or as a friend is for my social +heart. As long as I have the humor and force for thinking, every truth +serves me only for me to work it up according to my powers. As reality +or worldliness is "vain and a thing of naught" for Christians, so is the +truth for me. It exists, exactly as much as the things of this world go +on existing although the Christian has proved their nothingness; but it +is vain, because it has its _value_ not _in itself_ but _in me_. _Of +itself_ it is _valueless_. The truth is a--_creature_. + +As you produce innumerable things by your activity, yes, shape the +earth's surface anew and set up works of men everywhere, so too you may +still ascertain numberless truths by your thinking, and we will gladly +take delight in them. Nevertheless, as I do not please to hand myself +over to serve your newly discovered machines mechanically, but only help +to set them running for my benefit, so too I will only use your truths, +without letting myself be used for their demands. + +All truths _beneath_ me are to my liking; a truth _above_ me, a truth +that I should have to _direct_ myself by, I am not acquainted with. For +me there is no truth, for nothing is more than I! Not even my essence, +not even the essence of man, is more than I! than I, this "drop in the +bucket," this "insignificant man!" + +You believe that you have done the utmost when you boldly assert that, +because every time has its own truth, there is no "absolute truth." Why, +with this you nevertheless still leave to each time its truth, and you +quite genuinely create an "absolute truth," a truth that no time lacks, +because every time, however its truth may be, still has a "truth." + +Is it meant only that people have been thinking in every time, and so +have had thoughts or truths, and that in the subsequent time these were +other than they were in the earlier? No, the word is to be that every +time had its "truth of faith"; and in fact none has yet appeared in +which a "higher truth" has not been recognized, a truth that people +believed they must subject themselves to as "highness and majesty." +Every truth of a time is its fixed idea, and, if people later found +another truth, this always happened only because they sought for +another; they only reformed the folly and put a modern dress on it. +For they did want--who would dare doubt their justification for +this?--they wanted to be "inspired by an idea." They wanted to be +dominated,--possessed, by a _thought_! The most modern ruler of this +kind is "our essence," or "man." + +For all free criticism a thought was the criterion; for own criticism I +am, I the unspeakable, and so not the merely thought-of; for what is +merely thought of is always speakable, because word and thought +coincide. That is true which is mine, untrue that whose own I am; true, +_e. g._, the union; untrue, the State and society. "Free and true" +criticism takes care for the consistent dominion of a thought, an idea, +a spirit; "own" criticism, for nothing but my _self-enjoyment_. But in +this the latter is in fact--and we will not spare it this +"ignominy"!--like the bestial criticism of instinct. I, like the +criticising beast, am concerned only for _myself_, not "for the cause." +_I_ am the criterion of truth, but I am not an idea, but more than idea, +_i. e._ unutterable. _My_ criticism is not a "free" criticism, not free +from me, and not "servile," not in the service of an idea, but an _own_ +criticism. + +True or human criticism makes out only whether something is _suitable_ +to man, to the true man; but by own criticism you ascertain whether it +is suitable to _you_. + +Free criticism busies itself with _ideas_, and therefore is always +theoretical. However it may rage against ideas, it still does not get +clear of them. It pitches into the ghosts, but it can do this only as it +holds them to be ghosts. The ideas it has to do with do not fully +disappear; the morning breeze of a new day does not scare them away. + +The critic may indeed come to ataraxy before ideas, but he never gets +_rid_ of them, _i. e._ he will never comprehend that above the _bodily +man_ there does not exist something higher,--to wit, liberty, his +humanity, etc. He always has a "calling" of man still left, "humanity." +And this idea of humanity remains unrealized, just because it is an +"idea" and is to remain such. + +If, on the other hand, I grasp the idea as _my_ idea, then it is already +realized, because _I_ am its reality; its reality consists in the fact +that I, the bodily, have it. + +They say, the idea of liberty realizes itself in the history of the +world. The reverse is the case; this idea is real as a man thinks it, +and it is real in the measure in which it is idea, _i. e._ in which I +think it or _have_ it. It is not the idea of liberty that develops +itself, but men develop themselves, and, of course, in this +self-development develop their thinking too. + +In short, the critic is not yet _owner_; because he still fights with +ideas as with powerful aliens,--as the Christian is not owner of his +"bad desires" so long as he has to combat them; for him who contends +against vice, vice _exists_. + +Criticism remains stuck fast in the "freedom of knowing," the freedom of +the spirit, and the spirit gains its proper freedom when it fills itself +with the pure, true idea; this is the freedom of thinking, which cannot +be without thoughts. + +Criticism smites one idea only by another, _e. g._ that of privilege by +that of manhood, or that of egoism by that of unselfishness. + +In general, the beginning of Christianity comes on the stage again in +its critical end, egoism being combated here as there. I am not to make +myself (the individual) count, but the idea, the general. + +Why, warfare of the priesthood with _egoism_, of the spiritually-minded +with the worldly-minded, constitutes the substance of all Christian +history. In the newest criticism this war only becomes all-embracing, +fanaticism complete. Indeed, neither can it pass away till it passes +thus, after it has had its life and its rage out. + + * * * * * + +Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is +human, liberal, humane, whether unhuman, illiberal, inhuman, what do I +ask about that? If only it accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy +myself in it, then overlay it with predicates as you will; it is all +alike to me. + +Perhaps I too, in the very next moment, defend myself against my former +thoughts; I too am likely to change suddenly my mode of action; but not +on account of its not corresponding to Christianity, not on account of +its running counter to the eternal rights of man, not on account of its +affronting the idea of mankind, humanity, and humanitarianism, +but--because I am no longer all in it, because it no longer furnishes me +any full enjoyment, because I doubt the earlier thought or no longer +please myself in the mode of action just now practised. + +As the world as property has become a _material_ with which I undertake +what I will, so the spirit too as property must sink down into a +_material_ before which I no longer entertain any sacred dread. Then, +firstly, I shall shudder no more before a thought, let it appear as +presumptuous and "devilish" as it will, because, if it threatens to +become too inconvenient and unsatisfactory for _me_, its end lies in my +power; but neither shall I recoil from any deed because there dwells in +it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St. +Boniface pleased to desist, through religious scrupulousness, from +cutting down the sacred oak of the heathens. If the _things_ of the +world have once become vain, the _thoughts_ of the spirit must also +become vain. + +No thought is sacred, for let no thought rank as "devotions";[237] no +feeling is sacred (no sacred feeling of friendship, mother's feelings, +etc.), no belief is sacred. They are all _alienable_, my alienable +property, and are annihilated, as they are created, by _me_. + +The Christian can lose all _things_ or objects, the most loved persons, +these "objects" of his love, without giving up himself (_i. e._, in the +Christian sense, his spirit, his soul) as lost. The owner can cast from +him all the _thoughts_ that were dear to his heart and kindled his zeal, +and will likewise "gain a thousandfold again," because he, their +creator, remains. + +Unconsciously and involuntarily we all strive toward ownness, and there +will hardly be one among us who has not given up a sacred feeling, a +sacred thought, a sacred belief; nay, we probably meet no one who could +not still deliver himself from one or another of his sacred thoughts. +All our contention against convictions starts from the opinion that +maybe we are capable of driving our opponent out of his intrenchments of +thought. But what I do unconsciously I half do, and therefore after +every victory over a faith I become again the _prisoner_ (possessed) of +a faith which then takes my whole self anew into its _service_, and +makes me an enthusiast for reason after I have ceased to be enthusiastic +for the Bible, or an enthusiast for the idea of humanity after I have +fought long enough for that of Christianity. + +Doubtless, as owner of thoughts, I shall cover my property with my +shield, just as I do not, as owner of things, willingly let everybody +help himself to them; but at the same time I shall look forward +smilingly to the outcome of the battle, smilingly lay the shield on the +corpses of my thoughts and my faith, smilingly triumph when I am beaten. +That is the very humor of the thing. Every one who has "sublimer +feelings" is able to vent his humor on the pettinesses of men; but to +let it play with all "great thoughts, sublime feelings, noble +inspiration, and sacred faith" presupposes that I am the owner of all. + +If religion has set up the proposition that we are sinners altogether, I +set over against it the other: we are perfect altogether! For we are, +every moment, all that we can be; and we never need be more. Since no +defect cleaves to us, sin has no meaning either. Show me a sinner in the +world still, if no one any longer needs to do what suits a superior! If +I only need do what suits myself, I am no sinner if I do not do what +suits myself, as I do not injure in myself a "holy one"; if, on the +other hand, I am to be pious, then I must do what suits God; if I am to +act humanly, I must do what suits the essence of man, the idea of +mankind, etc. What religion calls the "sinner," humanitarianism calls +the "egoist." But, once more: if I need not do what suits any other, is +the "egoist," in whom humanitarianism has borne to itself a new-fangled +devil, anything more than a piece of nonsense? The egoist, before whom +the humane shudder, is a spook as much as the devil is: he exists only +as a bogie and phantasm in their brain. If they were not +unsophisticatedly drifting back and forth in the antediluvian opposition +of good and evil, to which they have given the modern names of "human" +and "egoistic," they would not have freshened up the hoary "sinner" into +an "egoist" either, and put a new patch on an old garment. But they +could not do otherwise, for they hold it for their task to be "men." +They are rid of the Good One; good is left![238] + +We are perfect altogether, and on the whole earth there is not one man +who is a sinner! There are crazy people who imagine that they are God +the Father, God the Son, or the man in the moon, and so too the world +swarms with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners; but, as the +former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are--not sinners. +Their sin is imaginary. + +Yet, it is insidiously objected, their craziness or their possessedness +is at least their sin. Their possessedness is nothing but what +they--could achieve, the result of their development, just as Luther's +faith in the Bible was all that he was--competent to make out. The one +brings himself into the madhouse with his development, the other brings +himself therewith into the Pantheon and to the loss of--Valhalla. + +There is no sinner and no sinful egoism! + +Get away from me with your "philanthropy"! Creep in, you philanthropist, +into the "dens of vice," linger awhile in the throng of the great city: +will you not everywhere find sin, and sin, and again sin? Will you not +wail over corrupt humanity, not lament at the monstrous egoism? Will you +see a rich man without finding him pitiless and "egoistic"? Perhaps you +already call yourself an atheist, but you remain true to the Christian +feeling that a camel will sooner go through a needle's eye than a rich +man not be an "un-man." How many do you see anyhow that you would not +throw into the "egoistic mass"? What, therefore, has your philanthropy +[love of man] found? Nothing but unlovable men! And where do they all +come from? From you, from your philanthropy! You brought the sinner with +you in your head, therefore you found him, therefore you inserted him +everywhere. Do not call men sinners, and they are not: you alone are the +creator of sinners; you, who fancy that you love men, are the very one +to throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into +vicious and virtuous, into men and un-men, the very one to befoul them +with the slaver of your possessedness; for you love not _men_, but +_man_. But I tell you, you have never seen a sinner, you have +only--dreamed of him. + +Self-enjoyment is embittered to me by my thinking I must serve another, +by my fancying myself under obligation to him, by my holding myself +called to "self-sacrifice," "resignation," "enthusiasm." All right: if I +no longer serve any idea, any "higher essence," then it is clear of +itself that I no longer serve any man either, but--under all +circumstances--_myself_. But thus I am not merely in fact or in being, +but also for my consciousness, the--unique.[239] + +There pertains to _you_ more than the divine, the human, etc.; _yours_ +pertains to you. + +Look upon yourself as more powerful than they give you out for, and you +have more power; look upon yourself as more, and you have more. + +You are then not merely _called_ to everything divine, _entitled_ to +everything human, but _owner_ of what is yours, _i. e._ of all that you +possess the force to make your own;[240] _i. e._ you are +_appropriate_[241] and capacitated for everything that is yours. + +People have always supposed that they must give me a destiny lying +outside myself, so that at last they demanded that I should lay claim to +the human because I am = man. This is the Christian magic circle. +Fichte's ego too is the same essence outside me, for every one is ego; +and, if only this ego has rights, then it is "the ego," it is not I. But +I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. +Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about +me is unique. And it is only as this unique I that I take everything for +my own, as I set myself to work, and develop myself, only as this. I do +not develop man, nor as man, but, as I, I develop--myself. + +This is the meaning of the--_unique one_. + + + + +III + +THE UNIQUE ONE + + +Pre-Christian and Christian times pursue opposite goals; the former +wants to idealize the real, the latter to realize the ideal; the former +seeks the "holy spirit," the latter the "glorified body." Hence the +former closes with insensitiveness to the real, with "contempt for the +world"; the latter will end with the casting off of the ideal, with +"contempt for the spirit." + +The opposition of the real and the ideal is an irreconcilable one, and +the one can never become the other: if the ideal became the real, it +would no longer be the ideal; and, if the real became the ideal, the +ideal alone would be, but not at all the real. The opposition of the two +is not to be vanquished otherwise than if _some one_ annihilates both. +Only in this "some one," the third party, does the opposition find its +end; otherwise idea and reality will ever fail to coincide. The idea +cannot be so realized as to remain idea, but is realized only when it +dies as idea; and it is the same with the real. + +But now we have before us in the ancients adherents of the idea, in the +moderns adherents of reality. Neither can get clear of the opposition, +and both pine only, the one party for the spirit, and, when this +craving of the ancient world seemed to be satisfied and this spirit to +have come, the others immediately for the secularization of this spirit +again, which must forever remain a "pious wish." + +The pious wish of the ancients was _sanctity_, the pious wish of the +moderns is _corporeity_. But, as antiquity had to go down if its longing +was to be satisfied (for it consisted only in the longing), so too +corporeity can never be attained within the ring of Christianness. As +the trait of sanctification or purification goes through the old world +(the washings, etc.), so that of incorporation goes through the +Christian world: God plunges down into this world, becomes flesh, and +wants to redeem it, _i. e._ fill it with himself; but, since he is "the +idea" or "the spirit," people (_e. g._ Hegel) in the end introduce the +idea into everything, into the world, and prove "that the idea is, that +reason is, in everything." "Man" corresponds in the culture of to-day to +what the heathen Stoics set up as "the wise man"; the latter, like the +former, a--_fleshless_ being. The unreal "wise man," this bodiless "holy +one" of the Stoics, became a real person, a bodily "Holy One," in God +_made flesh_; the unreal "man," the bodiless ego, will become real in +the _corporeal ego_, in me. + +There winds its way through Christianity the question about the +"existence of God," which, taken up ever and ever again, gives testimony +that the craving for existence, corporeity, personality, reality, was +incessantly busying the heart because it never found a satisfying +solution. At last the question about the existence of God fell, but only +to rise up again in the proposition that the "divine" had existence +(Feuerbach). But this too has no existence, and neither will the last +refuge, that the "purely human" is realizable, afford shelter much +longer. No idea has existence, for none is capable of corporeity. The +scholastic contention of realism and nominalism has the same content; in +short, this spins itself out through all Christian history, and cannot +end _in_ it. + +The world of Christians is working at _realizing ideas_ in the +individual relations of life, the institutions and laws of the Church +and the State; but they make resistance, and always keep back something +unembodied (unrealizable). Nevertheless this embodiment is restlessly +rushed after, no matter in what degree _corporeity_ constantly fails to +result. + +For realities matter little to the realizer, but it matters everything +that they be realizations of the idea. Hence he is ever examining anew +whether the realized does in truth have the idea, its kernel, dwelling +in it; and in testing the real he at the same time tests the idea, +whether it is realizable as he thinks it, or is only thought by him +incorrectly, and for that reason unfeasibly. + +The Christian is no longer to care for family, State, etc., as +_existences_; Christians are not to sacrifice themselves for these +"divine things" like the ancients, but these are only to be utilized to +make the _spirit alive_ in them. The _real_ family has become +indifferent, and there is to arise out of it an _ideal_ one which would +then be the "truly real," a sacred family, blessed by God, or, according +to the liberal way of thinking, a "rational" family. With the ancients +family, State, fatherland, etc., is divine as a thing _extant_; with +the moderns it is still awaiting divinity, as extant it is only sinful, +earthly, and has still to be "redeemed," _i. e._ to become truly real. +This has the following meaning: The family, etc., is not the extant and +real, but the divine, the idea, is extant and real; whether _this_ +family will make itself real by taking up the truly real, the idea, is +still unsettled. It is not the individual's task to serve the family as +the divine, but, reversely, to serve the divine and to bring to it the +still undivine family, _i. e._ to subject everything in the idea's name, +to set up the idea's banner everywhere, to bring the idea to real +efficacy. + +But, since the concern of Christianity, as of antiquity, is for the +_divine_, they always come out at this again on their opposite ways. At +the end of heathenism the divine becomes the _extramundane_, at the end +of Christianity the _intramundane_. Antiquity does not succeed in +putting it entirely outside the world, and, when Christianity +accomplishes this task, the divine instantly longs to get back into the +world and wants to "redeem" the world. But within Christianity it does +not and cannot come to this, that the divine as _intramundane_ should +really become the _mundane itself_: there is enough left that does and +must maintain itself unpenetrated as the "bad," irrational, accidental, +"egoistic," the "mundane" in the bad sense. Christianity begins with +God's becoming man, and carries on its work of conversion and redemption +through all time in order to prepare for God a reception in all men and +in everything human, and to penetrate everything with the spirit: it +sticks to preparing a place for the "spirit." + +When the accent was at last laid on Man or mankind, it was again the +idea that they "_pronounced eternal_." "Man does not die!" They thought +they had now found the reality of the idea: _Man_ is the I of history, +of the world's history; it is he, this _ideal_, that really develops, +_i. e._ _realizes_, himself. He is the really real and corporeal one, +for history is his body, in which individuals are only members. Christ +is the I of the world's history, even of the pre-Christian; in modern +apprehension it is man, the figure of Christ has developed into the +_figure of man_: man as such, man absolutely, is the "central point" of +history. In "man" the imaginary beginning returns again; for "man" is as +imaginary as Christ is. "Man," as the I of the world's history, closes +the cycle of Christian apprehensions. + +Christianity's magic circle would be broken if the strained relation +between existence and calling, _i. e._ between me as I am and me as I +should be, ceased; it persists only as the longing of the idea for its +bodiliness, and vanishes with the relaxing separation of the two: only +when the idea remains--idea, as man or mankind is indeed a bodiless +idea, is Christianity still extant. The corporeal idea, the corporeal or +"completed" spirit, floats before the Christian as "the end of the days" +or as the "goal of history"; it is not present time to him. + +The individual can only have a part in the founding of the Kingdom of +God, or, according to the modern notion of the same thing, in the +development and history of humanity; and only so far as he has a part +in it does a Christian, or according to the modern expression human, +value pertain to him; for the rest he is dust and a worm-bag. + +That the individual is of himself a world's history, and possesses his +property in the rest of the world's history, goes beyond what is +Christian. To the Christian the world's history is the higher thing, +because it is the history of Christ or "man"; to the egoist only _his_ +history has value, because he wants to develop only _himself_, not the +mankind-idea, not God's plan, not the purposes of Providence, not +liberty, and the like. He does not look upon himself as a tool of the +idea or a vessel of God, he recognizes no calling, he does not fancy +that he exists for the further development of mankind and that he must +contribute his mite to it, but he lives himself out, careless of how +well or ill humanity may fare thereby. If it were not open to confusion +with the idea that a state of nature is to be praised, one might recall +Lenau's "Three Gypsies."--What, am I in the world to realize ideas? To +do my part by my citizenship, say, toward the realization of the idea +"State," or by marriage, as husband and father, to bring the idea of the +family into an existence? What does such a calling concern me! I live +after a calling as little as the flower grows and gives fragrance after +a calling. + +The ideal "Man" is _realized_ when the Christian apprehension turns +about and becomes the proposition, "I, this unique one, am man." The +conceptual question, "what is man?"--has then changed into the personal +question, "who is man?" With "what" the concept was sought for, in order +to realize it; with "who" it is no longer any question at all, but the +answer is personally on hand at once in the asker: the question answers +itself. + +They say of God, "Names name thee not." That holds good of me: no +_concept_ expresses me, nothing that is designated as my essence +exhausts me; they are only names. Likewise they say of God that he is +perfect and has no calling to strive after perfection. That too holds +good of me alone. + +I am _owner_ of my might, and I am so when I know myself as _unique_. In +the _unique one_ the owner himself returns into his creative nothing, +out of which he is born. Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it +man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only before the sun +of this consciousness. If I concern myself for myself,[242] the unique +one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who +consumes himself, and I may say: + +All things are nothing to me.[243] + + +THE END + + + + +INDEX + + +The following index to this translation of "_Der Einzige und sein +Eigentum_" is intended to help one, after reading the book, to find a +passage which he remembers. It is not a concordance to aid in analytical +study. Hence the designations of the matter referred to are in a form +intended to be recognized by the person who remembers the passage; I +have generally preferred, so far as convenience permitted, to use the +words of the text itself, being confident that a description of the +subject-matter in words more appropriate to the summary form of the +index would never help any person to find his passage. If the +designations are recognizable, I have permitted them to be rough. + +Of necessity the index has been made hastily, and I hereby confess it to +be guilty of all the faults that an index can possess, though I hope +that the page numbers will prove to be accurate. The faults that I am +most ashamed of are the incompleteness which usually omits the shorter +occurrences of a given word or idea and the indefiniteness of the "ff." +which does not tell the reader how far the reference extends. It has +actually not been in my power to avoid either of these faults, and I +hope they will not prevent the index from being of very considerable use +to those who pay continued attention to the book. These two faults will +be found least noticeable in the references to proper names and +quotations: therefore the reader who wants to find a passage will do +best to remember, if possible, a conspicuous proper name or a quotation +whose source is known--perhaps oftenest from the Bible--and look up his +passage by that. In the indexing of quotations, however, I have omitted +anonymous proverbs, lines of German hymns, and quotations of whose +authorship I was (whether pardonably or unpardonably) ignorant. + +The abbreviations are: ftn., "footnote"; f., "and next page"; ff., "and +following pages." + + S. T. B. + + + Age: coming of age, 220. + + Alcibiades: 282 f. + + Alexis, Wilibald: "Cabanis," 291. + + Algiers: 343. + + Alien: the same in German as "strange," 47 ftn. + + America: + citizens presumed respectable, 233. + duelists how treated, 314. + Germans sold to, 351. + kings not valued in, 351. + + Ananias and Sapphira: 102. + + Anarchism: xv ff. + + Ancients: 17 ff. + conquered the world, 120 ff. + + Aristippus: 26. + + Aristotle: "_zoon politicon_," 56, 307. + + Arnim: see Bettina. + + Art: support of, 360. + + Atahualpa: 448. + + Athanasius: "God making men divine," 382. + + Athenians: age of their popular freedom, 281 ff. + + Augsburg Confession: Art. 11, 117 f. + + Authorization: limits constitutional legislatures, etc., 146 f. + + Autun and Barrere, bishop of: 131. + + + Babeuf, Babouvism, 245, 248. + + Bacon: "clear head," no philosopher, 111. + + Bailly: + "no extra reason," 306. + what is my property, 131. + + Bauer, Bruno: + "_Anekdota_" 2.152, 108. + "_Denkwuerdigkeiten_" 6.6-7: 96, 102. + "_Die gute Sache der Freiheit_" pp. 62-63: 178 f. + "_Judenfrage_" + p. 60: 180, 414. + 61: 229. + 66: 178. + 84: 235. + 114: 185. + "_Lit. Ztg._" + 5.18: 164. + No. 8: 190 ff. + 8.22: 321. + "man just discovered," 8, 180, 326, 467. + treats Jew question as relating to privilege, 271 ff. + who he was, 163 ftn. + + Bauer, E.: "_Liberale Bestrebungen_" + 2.50-94: 299 ff. + 2.95 ff.: 378 f. + 2.130: 301. + 2.132: 302. + + Bavaria: its government worth more than a man, 345 ftn. + + Beasts: how they live, 435, 442 f. + + Becker, A.: + "_Volksphilosophie unserer Tage_" p. 22 f.: 103, 249. + 32: 103. + + Bee: + in beehood, 303 ff. + little busy, 442. + + Being: + in Feuerbach's philosophy, 453 ff. + same word in Grennan as "essence," 41 ftn. + see also Essence; also Supreme. + + Bettina: "This book belongs to the King" pp. 374-385: 261 ff. + + Bible: + Gen. 22.1-12: 198. + Ex. 20.13: 65. + Deut. 5.16: 216, 249. + 32.3: 459. + Ps. 46.3: 121. + 99.9: 471. + Prov. 3.2: 216. + Is. 55.8: 338, 456. + 55.9: 26. + Jer. 13.16: 459. + Matt. 4.1-11: 464. + 5.18: 125. + 5.22: 56. + 5.48: 321. + 6.11: 426. + 6.13: 181. + 6.24: 279. + 6.34: 166. + 7.7: 449. + 8.22: 19. + 9.11: 70. + 10.16: 22, 422. + 10.35: 114. + 11.27: 122. + 12.30: 259. + 12.45: 102. + 13.25: 213. + 16.24: 215. + 16.26: 36. + 18.3: 466. + 19.21: 102. + 19.24: 481. + 22.21: 359, 422. + 23.24: 297. + 26.53: 282. + Mark 2.21: 480. + 3.29: 240. + 9.23: 122. + 10.29: 11, 19. + Luke 5.11: 102. + 6.20: 428. + 10.7: 157. + 11.13: 14. + 14.11: 46, 105. + 17.6: 122. + 23.2: 422. + John 1.14: 269. + 1.18 Revised Version margin: 34. + 2.4: 114. + 3.4: 304. + 3.6: 34, 35. + 4.24a: 14, 23, 33, 39, 40, 60, 112, 140, 433, 444, 472. + 4.24b: 410. + 6.32-35: 426. + 8.44: 240. + 16.33: 33. + 18.36: 13. + 18.38: 13, 28, 471. + 20.22: 42. + 20.29: 446. + Acts 5.1-2: 102. + 5.4: 398. + 5.29: 11, 215, 444. + 5.39: 459. + Rom. 1.25: 451. + 6.18: 205. + 8.9: 42. + 8.14, 16: 226. + 8.21: 461. + 9.21: 259. + 12.1: 429. + 1 Cor. 2.10: 3, 13, 33, 433. + 3.16: 42. + 8.4: 133. + 15.26, 55: 430. + 2 Cor. 5.17: 30. + 6.15: 212. + Gal. 2.20: 66, 93, 427. + 4.26: 19, 205. + Phil. 2.9: 170. + 1 Thess. 5.21: 468. + 2 Tim. 1.10: 430. + Heb. 11.13: 18, 34. + James 1.17: 455. + 2.12: 206. + 1 Pet. 2.16(?): 205. + 5.2: 399. + 1 John 3.10: 226. + 4.8: 4, 51, 61, 74, 382. + 4.16: 382. + different men's relation to, 447 ff. + quotations from, xx. + + Birthright: 248 ff. + + Blanc, Louis: "_Histoire des Dix Ans_" I. 138: 139. + + Bluntschli: 466. + + Body recognized in manhood: 14 ff. + + Boniface, St.: + cuts down sacred oak, 218, 478. + risks life as missionary, 77. + + _Bourgeoisie_: see Commonalty. + + Burns, Robert: 433. + + + Caitiff: 398. + + Calling: + helping men to realize, 383 f. + no calling, one does what he can, 433 ff. + + Calvinism: puritanical, 120. + + Capacities: + common to all, 434. + differ, 433 f., 438 f. + + Carriere: + "_Koelner Dom_," 305. + + Catholicism: lets the profane world stand, 116 ff. + + Catholics: had regard for church, 290. + + Cause: mine and others, 3 ff. + + Censorship: more legal than murder, 65. + + Chamisso: "Valley of Murder," 247. + + Charles V: 399 ff. + + Children: 9 ff. + competent to get a living, 350 f. + + Chinese: family responsibilty, 291. + + Chinese ways: 86 ff. + + Christ: + no revolutionist, 422. + would not call legions of angels, 282. + + Christianity: + founding of, 422 f. + liberalism completes, 226 ff. + + Christianizing: 296. + + Christians: + asserting their distinctiveness, 271 ff. + trying to conquer the Spirit, 122 ff. + + Cicero: 28. + + Clericalism: 98 ff. + + Clootz, Anacharsis: 276. + + Commonalty: + holds that a man's a man, 129 ff. + magnifies desert, 136. + + Communism: + see Proudhon, Socialism, Weitling. + all for society, 412 f. + an advanced feudalism, 415 ff. + not advantageous to all, 410 ff. + runs to regulations, 340. + useful, 355 f. + + Competence: 348 ff. + + Competition: + characteristic of _bourgeois_ society, 344. + how to abolish, 364 f. + produces poor work, 354. + restricted by control of opportunities, 345 ff. + + Confidence: breach of, 400 ff. + + Conscience in Protestantism, 115. + + Consequences are not penalties, 314 f. + + Constitutional Monarchy: 300 ff. + + Corporeity the modern wish, 485 ff. + + Cotters: 327 f. + + Crime: + a man's own affair, 317. + results from the recognition of Man and right, 266 ff. + the only way to beat the law, 258. + treatment as disease, 316 f. + + Criminal: + how to make him ashamed, 265. + ill treated, 383. + made by the State, 261 ff. + + Cripples: wages to, 358 f. + + Crispin, St.: 64 f. + + Critical philosophy: its new morality, 72 ff. + + Criticism: + limited by love, 381 f. + makes progress, 190 ff. + of Bible, 163 ftn, 381, 448 f. + servile and own, 467 ff. + starts from presuppositions, 467 ff. + victorious, 195. + what it was, 163 ftn. + + Crito: 72. + + Culture: its results, 443 ff. + + Cultured people: 94 ff. + + Curative means against crime: 316 f. + + Curtius leaps into chasm, 99. + + Custom makes earth a heaven, 87 ff. + + + Daehnhardt, Marie: xi. + + Descartes: _Cogito, ergo sum_, "I think, therefore I am," 25, 109 f., + 112, 173. + + Despicable: 401. + + Desert, watchword of _bourgeoisie_, 136. + + Devil, natural objects named after, 467. + + Diogenes: 26. + "Get out of my sunshine," 307. + + Directions for life: 432 f. + + Disgruntlement: 192. + + Dissolving: the price of liberty, 188. + + Divine: ancient and modern times are concerned for the, 486 ff. + + Dogma: 194 f. + + Dueling: + boycotted in America, 314 f. + prohibited by State, 243. + + Dupin: 296. + + + Education: 320 f. + + Ego: in title of this book, ix f. + + Egoism: + everybody repudiates, 185 ff. + exemplified in God, races, States, etc., 3 ff. + hypocritical, 216 f. + remains under democracy and Socialism, 163 ff. + the enemy of liberalism, 185 ff. + + Egoists: + all bodies of men are unjust to, 284. + have brought peoples to ruin, 277 ff. + involuntary, 46. + + _Einzige_ (_der_): translation of the word, ix f. + + Ends: 78 f. + + England: + allows free press, 374. + disregards popular turmoil, 297 f. + law-abiding, 254. + + Enjoyment: rather than life, as object, 426 ff. + + Epicureans: 27 f. + + Equal: who are our equals? 225 ff. + + Equality: + of political rights, 133 ff. + to result from Communism, 154 ff. + + Essence: + essences are spooks, 50 ff. + higher and highest essences, 47 ff. See also Supreme Being. + of man, as supreme, 40 f. + recognized in men, 52 ff. + same as "being," 41 ftn. + + Established: 293 f. + + Estates: previous to Revolution, 134 f. + + Euripides: "Orestes," 418: 254. + + Exclusiveness: + criticism excludes, 176 ff. + in Jew and Christian, 271 ff. + + + Faith: in morality, 57 ff. + + Family: + as court judging son, 291. + depends on piety, 288 ff. + respect for idea of, 113 f. + self must be sacrificed to, 289 ff. + + Fellow-feeling: 386 f. + + Feudalism: ended by Revolution, 132 ff. + + Feuerbach: + "_Anekdota_" 2.64: 60. + "Essence of Christianity," 40 ff. + p. 394: 391 f. + 401: 238. + 402: 41. + 402, 403: 74. + 403: 118. + 408: 75. + "Principles of the Philosophy of the Future," 453 ff. + humanizing the divine, 227. + insists on "being," 453 ff. + look "rightly and unbiasedly," 449. + love a divine power, 391. + love is the essence of man, 412. + "man the supreme being," 8, 189. + opposes Hegel, 453 ff. + religion displaces the human, 320. + the "divine" exists, 486. + "theology is anthropology," 74. + "the world a truth to the ancients," 18, 30. + + Fichte: + his ego is not I, 482. + on casuistry of lying, 401. + "The ego is all," 237. + + Fixed idea: 55 ff. + + Forces: man is to exert, 435 f. + + Fortune: weak point of present society, 158 ff. + + France: laws about education, 459 f. + + Francis II (of France): 399 f. + + Franke: 77. + + Frederick the Great: + his cane, 176. + tolerant, 230. + + Freedom: + all want freedom, but not the same freedom, 208 ff. + an ignoble cause, 214. + if given, is a sham, 219 ff. + is riddance, 203 ff., 214 f. + of press, 259 ff. + of thought, 455 ff. + thirsting for, 203 ff. + + Fun prohibited, 259 ff. + + + Galotti, Emilia: 70, 431. + + German unity: 303 ff. + a dream, 377. + + Germany: millennial anniversary, 284 f. + + God: + my God and the God of all, 189 f. + natural objects named after, 467. + + God-man: 202, 241. + + Goethe: + "Faust," 159: 108. + 1624-5: 250, 252. + 2154: 112, 215, 480. + "_Vanitas! vanitatum vanitas!_" 3, 196, 328, 330, 353, 377, 490. + "Venetian Epigrams," 46. + "Humanus the saint's name," 370. + "The spirit 'tis that builds itself the body," 110. + poet of _bourgeoisie_, 137. + in lucky circumstances, 433. + + Good intentions: as pavement (proverbially), 96. + + Government: everybody feels competent for, 356 f. + + Grandmother: saw spirits, 42. + + Greeks: + intrigue ended their liberty, 282 f. + their philosophy, 19 f. + + Guerrillas in Spain: 65. + + Guizot: 460. + + Gustavus Adolphus: 176. + + Gutenberg: served mankind, 164. + + + Habit: see Custom. + + Half: see Hypocrisy. + + Hartmann, Eduard von: xiii f. + + Heart: + cultivated by Socrates, 20 ff. + cultivated by the Reformation, 31. + + Heartlessness: is crime, 265 f. + + Heautontimorumenos: 216. + + Heaven-storming: 88 f. + + Hegel: + "absolute philosophy," 453 ff. + condemns "opinion" and what is "mine," 453. + finds his own speculations in Bible, 448. + in Christian party, 311. + insists on reality, "things," 95. + it is impossible to tell a lie, 464. + personifies thinking, 468. + philosopher of _bourgeoisie_, 137. + proves philosophy religious, 62. + puts the idea into everything, 485. + systematizes religion, 125. + wants match-making left to parents, 291. + wants to remain Lutheran, 120. + + Henry VII, Emperor: 120. + + Hess: + "_Ein und zwanzig Bogen_," p. 12: 138. + 89 ff.: 321. + "_Triarchie_," p. 76: 234. + + Hierarchy: 95 ff. + + Higher world: "introduction of," 43, 91. + + Highest: same as "supreme," 41 ftn. + + Hinrichs: "_Politische Vorlesungen_," 1.280: 345 ftn. + + History: as dominant thought, 473, 488 f. + + Holbach: head of "plot," 57. + + Holy: the same in German as "sacred," 50 ftn. + + Holy Spirit: has to be conquered by Christians, 122 ff. + + Horace: + "_impavidum ferient ruinae_" 121. + "_nil admirari_," 121. + his philosophy, 28. + + Human: + exclusive regard for general human interests, 168 ff. + you are more than human being, 166 f. + human beings desire democracy, 128. + + Humanism: 30. + + Humanity: + labor must relate to, 170 ff. + laborers must be allowed to develop, 157 ff. + + Hume: "clear head," 111. + + Huss: 460. + + Hypocrisy: half moral and half egoist, 66 ff. + + + Idea: + accepted as truth, and fixed, 474 ff. + as object of respect, 112 ff. + see Fixed. + + Ideal: + constitutes religion, 321. + versus real, 484 ff. + + Immoral: only class known to moralists besides "moral," 69 ff. + + Imparted feelings: 82 ff. + + Inca: 448. + + Individual: "simple," 344 f. + + Inequality: see Equality. + + Infanticide: 424. + + Insurrection: 420 ff. + + Intercourse: + not made by a hall, 285 ff. + preferred to society, 407. + + Interests: ideal and personal, 98 ff. + + Ireland: suffrage in, 343. + + + Jesuits: + substantially grant indulgences, 116 f. + "the end hallows the means," 118 ff., 140, 430. + + Jews: + asserting their distinctiveness, 271 ff. + emancipated, 220 f. + heathen, 29, 123. + not altogether egoistic or exclusive, 235 f. + unspiritual, 24. + whether they are men, 166 ff. + will not read this book, 35 f. + + Judge: + Supreme Being as, 432 f. + + Judges: + mechanical: 253. + what makes them unreliable, 223 f. + + Juliet: 290. + + Justice: a hate commanded by love, 383. + + + Kaiser: worthless pamphlet, 344. + + Kant: 176. + + Klopstock: 83. + + Koerner: 77. + + "_Kommunisten in der Schweiz_": + report on, p. 3: 245. + pp. 24, 63: 438. + + Kosciusko: 404. + + Kotzebue: 64 f. + + Krummacher: 58, 266, 441. + + + Labor: + fundamental in Communist society, 156 ff. + human vs. unique, 354 ff. + lofty and petty, 174 ff. + must be thoroughly human, 170 ff. + must not be drudgery, 157 ff. + of the right kind develops man, 173 ff. + problem, 149 ff. + too narrow, 163 ff. + wanting higher pay, 336 f. + + Lais: 80. + + Lang, Ritter von: 69. + + Lavater: 450. + + Law: + common or general law, same word in German as "right," 242 ftn. + particular law, not same word as "right," 254 ftn. + how to break, 258. + is a declaration of will, 255 f. + is impersonal, 141 f. + paralyzes will, 256 ff. + sacred in the State, 313 ff. + to be respected as such, 254 ff. + + Leisure: + to be enjoyed humanly, 164 f., 172. + to be enjoyed uniquely, 356. + + Lenau: "Three Gypsies," 489. + + Lessing: + "Emilia Galotti," 70, 431. + "Nathan der Weise," 71. + + Level: rascal and honest man on same, 69 f. + + Liberalism: + completes Christianity, 226 ff. + has made valuable gains, 188 f. + rational, 137 f. + sees only Man in me, 225 ff. + + Liberals: the most modern moderns, 127. + + Liberty: + individual, does not mean the individual is free, 140 ff. + political, means direct subjection State, 138 ff. + of the people, is not mine, 280 ff. + no objection to its diminution, 408 ff. + + Lie: 395 ff. + + Life: + caring for, 425 ff. + should conform to the Supreme Being, 432 ff. + true, 426 ff. + + "_Lit. Ztg._": + 5.12 ff: 185. + 5.15, 23: 185. + 5.24: 173, 186. + 5.26: 166. + No. 8: 190 ff. + see also Bauer. + + Love: + as law of our intercourse, 380 ff. + how it goes wrong, 388 ff. + how originated, 388. + in egoism, 385 ff. + + Lunatics: see Fixed Idea. + + Lusatia: 304. + + Luther: + appealed to reason, 460. + broke his vow, 398. + demanded safe conduct to Worms, 282. + did his best, 481. + "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," 78. + "He who believes is a God," 109. + not understood at first, 30. + shows the way to truth, 107 ff. + + Lutheranism: goes beyond Puritanism, 120. + + + Mackay, John Henry: vii f., xi, xiii, 163 ftn. + + Making something out of us: 320 f. + + Man (adult male): 14 ff. + + Man (with capital M): + by being man we are equal, 225 ff. + cared for to the disregard of men, 100 ff. + criticism begins to gibe at, 194. + every laborer must be, 170 ff. + I am not, 41. + I am the real, 233 ff. + I am true man, 436 ff. + nothing else recognized in me, 225 ff. + takes the place of God in the new morality, 72 ff. + see also Human, Humanity. + + Manlius: 99. + + Marat: 99. + + Marriage: against will of family, 289 ff. + + Marx: "_Deutsch-franzoesische Jahrbuecher_" p. 197: 229. + + Masses: + attacked by criticism, 185 ff. + attacked as "a spiritual being by criticism," 191 ff. + + Maxim: as fixed idea, 80 f. + + Metternich: "path of genuine freedom," 209. + + Middle class: not idealistic, 96 f., 99, 102. + + Might: stereotyped into right, 366 f. + + Mind: + in antiquity, 19 ff. + in youth, 11 ff. + same German word as "spirit," 10 ftn. + + Mirabeau: 131. + the people the source of right and power, 131. + no power may command the nation's representatives, 306. + + Misalliance: 289 ff. + + Moderation: 403. + + Moderns: 30 ff. + + Monarchy: Revolution produces an absolute, 132 ff. + + Money: what we shall do about, 363 ff. + + Mongolism. 85 ff. + + Montgelas: 345 ftn. + + Moral influence: 105 ff. + + Morality: + a form of faith, and Christian, 57 ff. + becomes a religion when critically completed, 73 ff. + in critical philosophy, 72 ff. + is religious, 59 ff. + + + Napoleon: + did not object to conquering, 369. + helped himself, 343. + + Nationality: 322. + + "Nationals" of Germany: 303 ff. + + Nauwerk: 307 ff. + + Negroid age of Caucasian history: 86. + + Nero: 68 ff. + + Nietzsche: viii, xiv ff. + + Ninon: 80. + + + Oath: 399 ff., 402 ff. + + O'Connell: his motives, 77 f. + + Old: wages to, 358 f. + + Opposition ends when completed, 273 f. + + Opposition party: 66 ff. + + Order: in State, 293. + + Orders: must not be given, 141 f. + + Origen: 71. + + Ownness: + inalienable, 206 ff. + meaning, 203 ftn. + must be defended against society, 408 ff. + served by union, 410 ff. + + + Pages cited: xx. + + Parcellation: 327 ff. + + Party: 310 ff. + + Paul, Emperor of Russia: 404. + + Pauperism a consequence of the State, 333 ff. + + Penalty: product of right, 266 ff. + + People: + general name for societies, 276 f. + German, its thousand years' history, 284 f. + hound the police on, 318. + its liberty is not mine, 280 ff. + peoples have filled history, 276 ff. + + Periclean age: 19 ff., 281 ff. + + Personification: 468 f. + + Pettifoggery: 282 f. + + Philanthropism: 100 f. + + Philanthropy: hates men, 481 f. + + Philosophy: + Greek, see Ancients. + modern, 109 ff. + + Piety: + family depends on, 288 ff. + meaning of word, 288 ftn. + + Pilate: 13, 28, 471 f. + + Plowmen: wages for, 359 ff. + + Plumb-line: xvii. + + Poles: oath imposed upon, 404 f. + + Poor-rates: voting by, 343. + + Possession: the how much of, 347 f. + + Possessions: + depend on the State, 150 ff. + fundamental in _bourgeois_ society, 147 ff. + inward or spiritual, 324 ff., 369 ff. + to be respected, 126 f., 323 ff. + + Possibility: + coincides with reality, 438 ff. + means thinkableness, 439 ff. + + Precepts: are Mongoloid, 87 ff. + + Press: + why not left free, 259 ff. + liberty of, how to get, 371 ff. + + Presupposition: 199 f., 467 ff. + + Principle: as fixed idea, 80 f. + + Prison society and intercourse: 286 ff. + + Private: + criticism has to leave the private free, 178 f. + the private not recognized by liberalism, 168 ff. + + Privilege: 270 ff. + + _Proletariat_: 147 ff. + + Propaganda: 320. + + Property: + civic and egoistic, contrasted, 326 ff. + definitions in Roman law, 331 ff. + derived from man through Right, 365 ff. + individual, opposed by Socialism, 154 ff. + is what men really want when they say freedom, 204 ff. + mine is what I make my might cover, 338 ff. + Proudhon on, 328 ff. + recognition of under egoism, 369. + see Possessions. + + Proprietors, small: 327 ff. + + Protestantism: + conscientious, 115 ff. + consecrates everything, 116 ff. + + Proudhon: + "_Creation de l'Ordre_," 60. + p. 414: 162. + 485: 302. + "_Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_" + p. 83: 328. + 90: 391. + as parson, 466. + property a fact, 332. + "property is robbery," 100, 330 ff., 419. + substantially agrees with Stirner, xv. + + Provence, Count of: 209. + + Punishment: involves sacredness, 315 ff. + + Pyrrho: 28. + + + Rabble: 341 ff. + + Ragamuffin: 152 ff. + going beyond ragamuffinhood, 184. + + Raphael: 355. + + Rational: etymology of "rational" in German, 81 ftn. + + Reality: versus ideality, 484 ff. + + Realizing value from self: 335 ff., 360 f. + + Reason: as supreme, 460 f. + + Reciprocity: 413 f. + + References to pages: xx. + + Reform is Mongoloid, 86 ff. + + Reformation (the Protestant): + takes hold of heart, 31. + alters hierarchy, 107 ff. + + Regulus: 99. + + Reimarus: "Most Notable Truths of Natural Religion," 62 f. + + Reisach, Count von: 345 ftn. + + Relation: of different persons to objects, 447 ff. + + Religion: + is freedom of mind, 62 f. + morality is religious, 59 ff. + of humanity, 229 f. + tolerance in, 229 ff. + + Republic: 299 f. + + Revenge: + the people's just, 266 ff. + + Reverence: 92 ff. + + Revolution (the French): + began over property, 130. + equality of rights, 246. + established absolute government, 132 ff. + immoral, 72. + its true nature, 143 ff. + made men citizens, 155 f. + + Revolutionist: is to lie, 396 f. + + Rid: freedom is being rid, 203 ff., 214 f. + + Right: + absolute, 269. + as basis of property, 366 ff. + commonwealth of (_Rechtsstaat_), 244, 253. + equality of, 270 ff. + is a law foreign to me, 242 ff. + my right derived from myself, 245 ff. + rights by birth, 248 ff. + same word in German as "law," 242 ftn. + serves him right, 254. + well-earned rights, 248 ff. + rights change hands at the Revolution, 132 ff. + + Robespierre: 77. + a priest, 99. + consistent, 102. + devoted to virtue, 77. + not serviceable to middle class, 102 f. + + Romans: + in philosophy, 28. + killed children, 250. + + Romanticists: + rehabilitate the idea of spirits, 43. + + Rome: decline and fall of, 277 f. + + Rousseau: hostile to culture, 96 ftn. + + Rudolph (in Sue's story): 387. + + Ruge: "_Anekdota_" 1. 120, 127: 460. + + Russia: + boundary sentinels, 247. + flight of army in, 424. + + Russians: as Mongolian, 86. + + + Sacred: + gibing at, 369 ff. + the same in German as "holy," 50 ftn. + things are sacred of themselves, 118 ff. + wherein the sacred consists, 92 ff. + + Sacred things: + their diagnosis and extension, 45 ff. + + Sacrifice: when I sacrifice somebody else's comfort to my principles, + etc., 97 f. + + "_Saechsische Vaterlandsblaetter_": 57. + + Saint-Just: 99. + "Political Speeches," 10, p. 153: 268. + "criminal for not hating," 267. + + Sake: + acting for one's own sake, 210 ff. + immoralities for God's sake and for mine, 398 f. + + Sand, George: 466. + + Sand (murderer of Kotzebue): 64 f. + + Sander: 379. + + Schiller: + "Ideal and Life," 428. + "The Maiden from a Foreign Land," 35. + "_Worte des Glaubens_," 111. + complete in his poems, 175. + have I a right to my nose? 246. + Swabian, 176. + + Schlemihl, Peter: 25. + + Schlosser: "_Achtzehntes Jahrhundert_," 57. + + Scholarships at universities: 347 ftn. + + Seducing young people to morality, 212 f. + + Self: + as starting-point or goal, 427 f., 437 f. + + Self-discovery: + first, 11. + second, 15. + + Selfishness: + groundlessly decried, 221 ff. + in "unselfish" acts, 77 f. + the only thing that is really trusted, 223 f. + + Self-renunciation: of holy and unholy men, 75 ff. + + Self-sacrificing: + discussion of the implications of the German word, 96 ff. + literal force of the German word, 97 ftn. + + Self-seekers always acted so: 341. + + Sensuality: in Protestantism and Catholicism, 116 ff. + + September laws: 374. + + Seriousness: 85. + + Settled life: necessary to respectability, 147 f. + + Shabbiness: 400. + + Shakspere: "Romeo and Juliet," 290. + + Sick: wages to, 358 f. + + Sigismund: 398. + + Simonides: 26. + + Sinner: does not exist, 479 ff. + + Skeptics (Greek): 22, 28. + + Small properties: 327 ff. + + Socialism: 152 ff. + + Society: + is to be sole owner, 153 ff. + its character depends on its members, 276 f. + made by a hall, 285 ff. + man's state of nature, 406 ff. + may provide consequences where State provides penalties, 314 f. + + Socrates: + in history of philosophy, 20 f. + should not have respected the sentence of the court, 281 f. + too moral to break jail, 72. + + Sophists: 19 ff. + + Sordidness: 400. + + Spartans: killed children, 250. + + Speculation: 405. + + Sphinx: 451. + + Spirit: + as the essential part of man, 36 ff. + free from the world, 32 ff. + has to be conquered by moderns, 122 ff. + same German word as "mind," 10 ftn. + the seat of equality, 226 ff. + + Spirits: are all around us, 42 ff. + + Spiritual goods: shall we hold them sacred? 369 ff. + + Spook: "essences" are spooks, 50 ff. + + Spy: 395, 403. + + Standpoint: as fixed idea, 80 ff. + + State: + a fellowship of human beings, 128 ff. + cannot exist if I have a will of my own, 255 ff. + cares not for me, but for itself, 333 ff. + Christianizes people, 296. + claims to be a person, 295 f. + criticism gives up, 190 f. + has to be harsh, 259 ff., 262 ff. + holds laws sacred, 313 ff. + is the established, 293 f. + its relation to property, 333 ff. + means order, 293. + officials and plutocrats overcharge us, 151 f., 357 f. + sick, 262. + taking part in, 307 ff. + + Stein: his disloyalty to a "simple individual," 345 ftn. + + Stirner: motives for writing, 393 f., 406. + + Stoics: 27 f. + apathy, 121. + "wise man," 121, 485. + + Strange: the same in German as "alien," 47 ftn. + + Strike: 359 ff. + + Students: + are immature Philistines, 144. + custom of, as to word of honor, 403 f. + + Sue: "Mysteries of Paris," 387. + + Suicide: 429 ff. + + Suit: "it suits me" expressed in German by "right," 248 ftn. + + Supreme: same as "highest," 41 ftn. + + Supreme Being: + according to Feuerbach, 40 ff. (See also Feuerbach.) + see also Essence (highest). + + Swan-knights: 342 f. + + + Tak Kak: vii, xi ff. + + Terence: + "Heautontimorumenos," 25, 216. + "_humani nihil alienum puto_," 367. + + Theft: 99 f. + depends on property, 331 f. + + Things: essential in competition, 346 ff. + + Third: end of opposition, 484. + + Thinkable: real sense of "possible," 122, 439 ff. + + Thinker: characteristics of 452 ff. + + Thought: + freedom of, 455 ff. + I do not respect your independence of, 456 f. + necessary conditions of, 465 ff. + optional, 465 f. + realm of, 451 ff. + + Thoughts: + as owned, 477 ff. + combated by disregard, 196 ff. + combated by force, 197 ff. + combated by thinking, 194 ff. + criticism moves only in, 194 ff. + + Tie: + everything sacred is, 283. + man the enemy of, 283. + + Tieck: "_Der gestiefelte Kater_," 342. + + Timon: 28. + + Title of this book: ix f. + + Tolerance: 229 ff. + + Training: 434 f., 443 ff. + + Truth: + telling, 395 ff. + to possess truth you must be true, 106 ff. + what is, 471 ff. + I am above truths, 463 ff. + + + Understanding: in antiquity, 19 ff. + + Unhuman: an artificial name for the real, 193. + + Union: + distinction from society, 407 ff., 415 ff. + everything is mine in, 415 ff. + + Uniqueness: constitutes greatness, 175 f. + + Un-man: + real man, 230 ff. + the "devil" of liberalism, 184 ff. + + Unselfishness: + literal sense of the German word, 77 ftn. + supposed, and real, 77 ff. + + + Vagabonds: 147 ff. + + Value: + of me, 86, 333 ff. + to be realized from self, 335 ff., 360 f. + + Von Hartmann: xiii f. + + "_Vossische Zeitung_": 244, 253. + + + Wages: + instead of alms, 358 f. + of the upper classes and the lower, 151 f., 357 ff. + + Walker, James L.: vii, xi ff. + + War of all against all: 341, 343. + + Weitling: + "Trio," on head of people 302. + Communism seeks welfare of all, 410. + "harmony of society," 284. + hours of labor, 411. + on crime and "curative means," 316 f. + on property, 331 f. + preaches "society," 245. + substitutes work for money, 352. + + Welcker: on dependence of judges, 223 f. + + Wheels in the head: + formal aspects of, 75 ff. + what are such, 54 ff. + + Will: + incompatible with the State, 255 ff. + law is a declaration of, 255 f. + law paralyzes, 255 ff. + morality commands submission of, 66 ff. + the only practical agency of reform, 68 ff. + + Words: + power of, 462 ff. + Stirner's style of using, xix f. + + Work: + for pay's sake, 354. + is not the only competence, 349 ff. + + World: + among ancients, 18 ff. + conquered by the ancients, 120 ff. + is haunted, and is itself a ghost, 43 f. + spirit free from, 32 ff. + + Writing: Stirner's motives for, 393 f., 406. + + + Youth: 11 ff. + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + + [1] ["_Ich hab' Mein' Sach' auf Nichts gestellt_," first + line of Goethe's poem, "_Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!_" + Literal translation: "I have set my affair on nothing."] + + [2] [_Sache_] + + [3] [_Sache_] + + [4] [_der Einzige_] + + [5] [_einzig_] + + [6] [_Geist._ This word will be translated sometimes "mind" and + sometimes "spirit" in the following pages.] + + [7] Luke 11. 13. + + [8] Heb. 11. 13. + + [9] Mark 10. 29. + + [10] Italicized in the original for the sake of its + etymology, _Scharfsinn_--"sharp-sense." Compare next + paragraph. + + [11] 2 Cor. 5. 17. [The words "new" and "modern" are the + same in German.] + + [12] [Title of a poem by Schiller.] + + [13] [The reader will remember (it is to be hoped he has + never forgotten) that "mind" and "spirit" are one and the + same word in German. For several pages back the connection + of the discourse has seemed to require the almost exclusive + use of the translation "spirit," but to complete the sense + it has often been necessary that the reader recall the + thought of its identity with "mind," as stated in a previous + note.] + + [14] "Essence of Christianity." + + [15] [Or, "highest essence." The word _Wesen_, which means + both "essence" and "being," will be translated now one way + and now the other in the following pages. The reader must + bear in mind that these two words are identical in German: + and so are "supreme" and "highest."] + + [16] Cf. _e. g._ "Essence of Christianity," p. 402. + + [17] [That is, the abstract conception of man, as in the + preceding sentence.] + + [18] _E. g._, Rom. 8. 9, 1 Cor. 3. 16, John 20. 22, and + innumerable other passages. + + [19] [_Heil_] + + [20] [_heilig_] + + [21] How the priests tinkle! how important they + Would make it out, that men should come their way + And babble, just as yesterday, to-day! + + Oh! blame them not! They know man's need, I say; + For he takes all his happiness this way, + To babble just to-morrow as to-day. + + --_Translated from Goethe's "Venetian Epigrams."_ + + [22] [_fremd_] + + [23] [_fremd_] + + [24] [_einzig_] + + [25] ["the supreme being."] + + [26] [_heilig_] + + [27] [_heilig_] + + [28] [_einzig_] + + [29] [_gefangen und befangen_, literally "imprisoned and + prepossessed."] + + [30] [_besessene_] + + [31] [_versessen_] + + [32] "_Achtzehntes Jahrhundert_," II, 519. + + [33] "_De la Creation de l'Ordre_" etc., p. 36. + + [34] "_Anekdota_," II, 64. + + [35] [_dieselbe Phantastin wie die Phantasie_] + + [36] [The same word as "intellectual" as "mind" and "spirit" + are the same.] + + [37] "Essence of Christianity," second edition, p. 402. + + [38] P. 403. + + [39] P. 408. + + [40] [Literally "the man."] + + [41] [_Uneigennuetzigkeit_, literally "un-self-benefitingness."] + + [42] [_vernuenftig_, derived from _vernehmen_, to hear.] + + [43] [A German idiom for destructive radicalism.] + + [44] [The same word that has been translated "custom" + several times in this section.] + + [45] [_Ehrfurcht_] + + [46] [_gefuerchtet_] + + [47] [_geehrt_] + + [48] Rousseau, the Philanthropists, and others were hostile + to culture and intelligence, but they overlooked the fact + that this is present in _all_ men of the Christian type, and + assailed only learned and refined culture. + + [49] [Literally, "sacrificing"; the German word has not the + prefix "self."] + + [50] "_Volksphilosophie unserer Tage_," p. 22. + + [51] [_Muth_] + + [52] [_Demuth_] + + [53] [Called in English theology "original sin."] + + [54] [Goethe, "Faust."] + + [55] "_Anekdota_," II, 152. + + [56] [Schiller, "_Die Worte des Glaubens_."] + + [57] [Parodied from the words of Mephistopheles in the + witch's kitchen in "Faust."] + + [58] John 2. 4. + + [59] Matt. 10. 35. + + [60] [_heilig_] + + [61] [_heilig_] + + [62] [_Geistlicher_, literally "spiritual man."] + + [63] "Essence of Christianity," p. 403. + + [64] Mark 9. 23. + + [65] [_Herrlichkeit_, which, according to its derivation, + means "lordliness."] + + [66] [Or "citizenhood." The word (_das Buergertum_) means + either the condition of being a citizen, or citizen-like + principles, or the body of citizens or of the middle or + business class, the _bourgeoisie_.] + + [67] [_Man hatte im Staate "die ungleiche Person angesehen,"_ + there had been "respect of unequal persons" in the State.] + + [68] [_Gewalt_, a word which is also commonly used like the + English "violence," denoting especially unlawful violence.] + + [69] [_Vorrechte_] + + [70] [_Rechte_] + + [71] 1 Corinthians 8.4. + + [72] "_Ein und zwanzig Bogen_," p. 12. + + [73] Louis Blanc says ("_Histoire des Dix Ans_," I, p. 138) + of the time of the Restoration: "_Le protestantisme devint + le fond des idees et des moeurs._" + + [74] [_Sache_, which commonly means _thing_.] + + [75] [_Sache_] + + [76] [Or "righteous." German _rechtlich_.] + + [77] [_gerecht_] + + [78] [_das Geld gibt Geltung._] + + [79] [_ausgebeutet_] + + [80] [_Kriegsbeute_] + + [81] [In German an exact quotation of Luke 10.7.] + + [82] Proudhon ("_Creation de l'Ordre_") cries out, _e. g._, + p. 414, "In industry, as in science, the publication of an + invention is the first and _most sacred of duties_!" + + [83] [In his strictures on "criticism" Stirner refers to a + special movement known by that name in the early forties of + the last century, of which Bruno Bauer was the principal + exponent. After his official separation from the faculty of + the university of Bonn on account of his views in regard to + the Bible, Bruno Bauer in 1843 settled near Berlin and + founded the _Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung_, in which he and + his friends, at war with their surroundings, championed the + "absolute emancipation" of the individual within the limits + of "pure humanity" and fought as their foe "the mass," + comprehending in that term the radical aspirations of + political liberalism and the communistic demands of the + rising Socialist movement of that time. For a brief account + of Bruno Bauer's movement of criticism, see John Henry + Mackay, "_Max Stirner_. _Sein Leben und sein Werk._"] + + [84] Br. Bauer. "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 18. + + [85] "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 26. + + [86] [_Eigentum_, "owndom."] + + [87] [_Eigenwille_, "own-will."] + + [88] [Referring to minute subdivision of labor, whereby the + single workman produces, not a whole, but a part.] + + [89] "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 24. + + [90] "_Lit. Ztg._" _ibid._ + + [91] ["_einziger_"] + + [92] [_Einzigkeit_] + + [93] Bruno Bauer, "_Judenfrage_," p. 66. + + [94] Bruno Bauer, "_Die gute Sache der Freiheit_," pp. + 62-63. + + [95] Bruno Bauer, "_Judenfrage_," p. 60. + + [96] [_Einzige_] + + [97] [_einzig_] + + [98] [It should be remembered that to be an _Unmensch_ + ("un-man") one must be a man. The word means an inhuman or + unhuman man, a man who is not man. A tiger, an avalanche, a + drought, a cabbage, is not an un-man.] + + [99] "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 23; as comment, V. 12 ff. + + [100] "_Lit. Ztg._" V. 15. + + [101] [_Rechthaberei_, literally the character of always + insisting on making one's self out to be in the right.] + + [102] [_einzig_] + + [103] [_des Einzigen_] + + [104] [This is a literal translation of the German word + _Eigenheit_, which, with its primitive _eigen_, "own," is + used in this chapter in a way that the German dictionaries + do not quite recognize. The author's conception being new, + he had to make an innovation in the German language to + express it. The translator is under the like necessity. In + most passages "self-ownership," or else "personality," would + translate the word, but there are some where the thought is + so _eigen_, that is, so peculiar or so thoroughly the + author's _own_, that no English word I can think of would + express it. It will explain itself to one who has read Part + First intelligently.] + + [105] [_Eigenheit_] + + [106] Rom. 6. 18. + + [107] 1 Pet. 2. 16. + + [108] James 2. 12. + + [109] [See note, p. 112.] + + [110] [Meaning "German." Written in this form because of the + censorship.] + + [111] [_Einzige_]. + + [112] [I take _Entbehrung_, "destitution," to be a misprint + for _Entehrung_.] + + [113] [_Eigennutz_, literally "own-use."] + + [114] [_Einzigen_] + + [115] Rom. 8. 14. + + [116] Cf. 1 John 3. 10 with Rom. 8. 16. + + [117] [_Eigenschaften_] + + [118] [_Eigentum_] + + [119] _E. g._ Marx in the "_Deutsch-franzoesische + Jahrbuecher_," p. 197. + + [120] Br. Bauer, "_Judenfrage_," p. 61. + + [121] Hess, "_Triarchie_," p. 76. + + [122] [_Vorrecht_, literally "precedent right."] + + [123] [_Eigenschaft_] + + [124] [_Eigentum_] + + [125] "Essence of Christianity," 2d ed., p. 401. + + [126] [_bestimmt_] + + [127] [_Bestimmung_] + + [128] Mark 3. 29. + + [129] [This word has also, in German, the meaning of "common + law," and will sometimes be translated "law" in the + following paragraphs.] + + [130] Cf. "_Die Kommunisten in der Schweiz_," committee + report, p. 3. + + [131] [_Rechtsstreit_, a word which usually means "lawsuit."] + + [132] [A common German phrase for "it suits me."] + + [133] A. Becker, "_Volksphilosophie_," p. 22 f. + + [134] [Mephistopheles in "Faust."] + + [135] "I beg you, spare my lungs! He who insists on proving + himself right, if he but has one of these things called + tongues, can hold his own in all the world's despite!" + [Faust's words to Mephistopheles, slightly misquoted.--For + _Rechthaberei_ see note on p. 185.] + + [136] [_Gesetz_, statute; no longer the same German word as + "right."] + + [137] [_Verbrechen_] + + [138] [_brechen_] + + [139] "This Book Belongs to the King," p. 376. + + [140] P. 376. + + [141] P. 374. + + [142] [An unnatural mother] + + [143] P. 381. + + [144] P. 385. + + [145] [_Gerechte_] + + [146] [_macht Alles huebsch gerecht_] + + [147] [_Einzige_] + + [148] See "Political Speeches," 10, p. 153. + + [149] [Literally, "precedent right."] + + [150] [_Spannung_] + + [151] [_gespannt_] + + [152] [_spannen_] + + [153] [_einzig_] + + [154] [_Einzigkeit_] + + [155] [_Volk_; but the etymological remark following applies + equally to the English word "people." See Liddell & Scott's + Greek lexicon, under _pimplemi_.] + + [156] [_kuschen_, a word whose only use is in ordering dogs + to keep quiet.] + + [157] [This is the word for "of age"; but it is derived from + _Mund_, "mouth," and refers properly to the right of + speaking through one's own _mouth_, not by a guardian.] + + [158] ["occupy"; literally, "have within"] + + [159] [The word _Genosse_, "companion," signifies originally + a companion in _enjoyment_.] + + [160] [This word in German does not mean religion, but, as + in Latin, faithfulness to family ties--as we speak of + "filial piety." But the word elsewhere translated "pious" + (_fromm_) means "religious," as usually in English.] + + [161] [It should be remembered that the words "establish" + and "State" are both derived from the root "stand."] + + [162] [_huldigen_] + + [163] [_Huld_] + + [164] What was said in the concluding remarks after Humane + Liberalism holds good of the following,--to wit, that it was + likewise written immediately after the appearance of the + book cited. + + [165] [In the philosophical sense (a thinking and acting being), + not in the political sense.] + + [166] ["_Creation de l'Ordre_," p. 485.] + + [167] ["_Koelner Dom_," p. 4.] + + [168] [_einzig_] + + [169] [_am Einzigen_] + + [170] [_Einzigen_] + + [171] [_heilig_] + + [172] [_unheilig_] + + [173] [_Heiliger_] + + [174] B. Bauer. "_Lit. Ztg._" 8.22. + + [175] "_E. u. Z. B._," p. 89 ff. + + [176] [_Einzigkeit_] + + [177] [See note on p. 184.] + + [178] [The words "cot" and "dung" are alike in German.] + + [179] _E. g._, "_Qu'est-ce que la Propriete?_" p. 83. + + [180] [_Einzige_] + + [181] [A German idiom for "take upon myself," "assume."] + + [182] [Apparently some benevolent scheme of the day; compare + note on p. 343.] + + [183] In a registration bill for Ireland the government made + the proposal to let those be electors who pay L5 sterling of + poor-rates. He who gives alms, therefore, acquires political + rights, or elsewhere becomes a swan-knight. [See p. 342.] + + [184] Minister Stein used this expression about Count von Reisach, + when he cold-bloodedly left the latter at the mercy of the + Bavarian government because to him, as he said, "a + government like Bavaria must be worth more than a simple + individual." Reisach had written against Montgelas at + Stein's bidding, and Stein later agreed to the giving up of + Reisach, which was demanded by Montgelas on account of this + very book. See Hinrichs, "_Politische Vorlesungen_," I, 280. + + [185] In colleges and universities, etc., poor men compete + with rich. But they are able to do so in most cases only + through scholarships, which--a significant point almost all + come down to us from a time when free competition was still + far from being a controlling principle. The principle of + competition founds no scholarship, but says, Help yourself, + _i. e._ provide yourself the means. What the State gives for + such purposes it pays out from interested motives, to + educate "servants" for itself. + + [186] [_preisgeben_] + + [187] [_Preis_] + + [188] [_Preis_] + + [189] [_Geld_] + + [190] [_gelten_] + + [191] [Equivalent in ordinary German use to our "possessed + of a competence."] + + [192] [_Einzige_] + + [193] [Literally, "given."] + + [194] [A German phrase for sharpers.] + + [195] [Literally, "unhomely."] + + [196] II, p. 91 ff. (See my note above.) + + [197] Athanasius. + + [198] [_Wesen_] + + [199] [_Wesen_] + + [200] Feuerbach, "Essence of Chr.," 394. + + [201] [_gebrauche_] + + [202] [_brauche_] + + [203] [_Verein_] + + [204] [_Vereinigung_] + + [205] [_Muthlosigkeit_] + + [206] [_Demuth_] + + [207] [_Muth_] + + [208] [Literally, "love-services."] + + [209] [Literally, "own-benefit."] + + [210] [Literally, furnishes me with a _right_.] + + [211] [_Empoerung_] + + [212] [_sich auf-oder emporzurichten_] + + [213] To secure myself against a criminal charge I superfluously + make the express remark that I choose the word "insurrection" + on account of its _etymological sense_, and therefore am not + using it in the limited sense which is disallowed by the + penal code. + + [214] 1 Cor. 15. 26. + + [215] 2 Tim. 1. 10. + + [216] [See the next to the last scene of the tragedy: + + ODOARDO. Under the pretext of a judicial investigation he + tears you out of our arms and takes you to Grimaldi.... + + EMILIA. Give me that dagger, father, me!... + + ODOARDO. No, no! Reflect--You too have only one life to + lose. + + EMILIA. And only one innocence! + + ODOARDO. Which is above the reach of any violence.-- + + EMILIA. But not above the reach of any seduction.--Violence! + violence! who cannot defy violence? What is called violence + is nothing; seduction is the true violence.--I have blood, + father; blood as youthful and warm as anybody's. My senses + are senses.--I can warrant nothing. I am sure of nothing. I + know Grimaldi's house. It is the house of pleasure. An hour + there, under my mother's eyes--and there arose in my soul so + much tumult as the strictest exercises of religion could + hardly quiet in weeks.--Religion! And what religion?--To + escape nothing worse, thousands sprang into the water and + are saints.--Give me that dagger, father, give it to me.... + + EMILIA. Once indeed there was a father who, to save his + daughter from shame, drove into her heart whatever steel he + could quickest find--gave life to her for the second time. + But all such deeds are of the past! Of such fathers there + are no more! + + ODOARDO. Yes, daughter, yes! (_Stabs her._) + + [217] [Or, "_regulate_" (_richten_)] + + [218] [_richten_] + + [219] "_Der Kommunismus in der Schweiz_," p. 24. + + [220] _Ibid._ p. 63. + + [221] [Cf. note p. 81.] + + [222] [_Geistigkeit_] + + [223] [_Geistlichkeit_] + + [224] Rom. 1. 25. + + [225] [_das Meinige_] + + [226] [_die_--"_Meinung_"] + + [227] P. 47 ff. + + [228] Chamber of peers, Apr. 25, 1844. + + [229] "_Anecdota_," 1. 120. + + [230] "_Anecdota_," 1. 127. + + [231] [_vernehmbar_] + + [232] [_Vernunft_] + + [233] [Literally "thought-rid."] + + [234] [_Sache_] + + [235] [_Sache_] + + [236] 1 Thess. 5. 21. + + [237] [_Andacht_, a compound form of the word "thought."] + + [238] [See note on p. 112.] + + [239] [_Einzige_] + + [240] [_eigen_] + + [241] [_geeignet_] + + [242] [_Stell' Ich auf Mich meine Sache._ Literally, "if I set + my affair on myself."] + + [243] ["_Ich hab' Mein' Sach' auf Nichts gestellt._" Literally, + "I have set my affair on nothing." See note on p. 3.] + + * * * * * + + + + + Send for + + BENJ. R. TUCKER'S + Unique Catalogue of + Advanced Literature + + THE LITERATURE + THAT MAKES FOR + + EGOISM IN PHILOSOPHY + ANARCHISM IN POLITICS + ICONOCLASM IN ART + +128 pages, representing more than 400 authors and listing nearly 1,000 +titles, besides being enriched by about 600 pithy and epigrammatic +quotations, of an Anarchistic and Egoistic character, from some of the +works catalogued. + +Benj. R. Tucker carries the most complete line of advanced literature in +the English language offered for sale at any one place in the entire +world. + +All books listed in his catalogue are carried constantly in stock, and +may be seen at + + Benj. R. Tucker's Bookstore + 225 Fourth Avenue, Room 13 + NEW YORK CITY + + * * * * * + + LIBERTY + + BENJ. R. TUCKER, _Editor_ + +An Anarchistic journal, expounding the doctrine that in Equal Liberty is +to be found the most satisfactory solution of social questions, and that +majority rule, or democracy, equally with monarchical rule, is a denial +of Equal Liberty. + + _APPRECIATIONS_ + + G. BERNARD SHAW, _author of_ "_Man and Superman_": + "Liberty is a lively paper, in which the usual proportions of a + half-pennyworth of discussion to an intolerable deal of + balderdash are reversed." + + ERNEST H. CROSBY, _author of_ "_Captain Jinks, Hero_": + "In these days of running after false gods, it is refreshing to + find one American remaining unflinchingly true to Liberty, and + using in her defence not his emotions, but a peculiarly keen and + vigorous intellect and style." + + JOHN COTTON DANA, _Librarian of the Free Public Library, Newark, + N.J._: + "Liberty is good for your intellectuals, being full of plain, + hard thinking." + + HENRY BOOL, _merchant_, _manufacturer_, _farmer_, _dairyman_, + _and florist_, _Ithaca, N. Y._: + "Pursuing its policy of equal liberty with consummate ability + and unswerving purpose, Liberty is the unrivaled exponent of + Absolute Free Trade." + + SAMUEL W. COOPER, _counsellor at law, Philadelphia_: + "Liberty is a journal that Thomas Jefferson would have loved." + + EDWARD OSGOOD BROWN, _Judge of the Illinois Circuit Court_: + "I have seen much in Liberty that I agreed with, and much that I + disagreed with, but I never saw any cant, hypocrisy, or + insincerity in it, which makes it an almost unique publication." + + _Published Bimonthly. Twelve Issues, $1.00_ + _Single Copies, 10 Cents_ + + ADDRESS: + BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEW YORK CITY + + * * * * * + + MODERN MARRIAGE + BY + Emile Zola + + TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY + BENJ. R. TUCKER + +In this story Zola takes four typical marriages,--one from the nobility, +one from the _bourgeoisie_, one from the _petite bourgeoisie_, and one +from the working people,--and describes, with all the power of his +wondrous art, how each originates, by what motive each is inspired, how +each is consummated, and how each results. + +A new edition from new plates, and at a reduced price. + + _Price, 10 cents_ + + * * * * * + + CARLOTTA CORTINA + BY + FRANCIS DU BOSQUE + +A very remarkable story of New York's Italian quarter,--in fact, one of +the best short stories ever written in America. + + _Price, 10 cents_ + + * * * * * + + Here's Luck to Lora + AND + OTHER POEMS + + BY + WILLIAM WALSTEIN GORDAK + +Mr. Gordak comes entirely unannounced, but his verse speaks well for +him. He is a natural poet who writes evenly and melodiously of the +beauties of nature and the daintier side of love. Nothing in his little +book is cheap. His muse has a lofty flight, and his teachings +uplift.--_Oregonian_, Portland, Ore. + + _PRICE, ONE DOLLAR_ + + * * * * * + + The Anarchists + + A Picture of Civilization at the Close + of the Nineteenth Century + + BY + JOHN HENRY MACKAY + + _Translated from the German by_ + GEORGE SCHUMM + + PRESS COMMENTS + + _New York Morning Journal._--"'The Anarchists' is one of the + very few books that have a right to live. For insight into life + and manners, for dramatic strength, for incisiveness of phrase, + and for cold, pitiless logic, no book of this generation equals + it." + + _St. Louis Republic._--"The book is a prose poem." + + _Cloth, One Dollar; Paper, Fifty cents_ + + * * * * * + + JOSIAH WARREN + The First American Anarchist + + A Biography, with portrait + + BY + WILLIAM BAILIE + +The biography is preceded by an essay on "The Anarchist Spirit," in +which Mr. Bailie defines Anarchist belief in relation to other social +forces. + + _Price, One Dollar_ + + * * * * * + + The Philosophy of Egoism + + BY + JAMES L. WALKER + + (Tak Kak) + + My nose I've used for smelling, and I've blown it: + But how to prove the RIGHT by which I own it? + SCHILLER, _freely translated_ + + "No more concise exposition of the philosophy of Egoism has ever + been given to the world. In this book Duty, Conscience, + Moralism, Right, and all the fetiches and superstitions which + have infested the human intellect since man ceased to walk on + four feet, are annihilated, swept away, relegated to the rubbish + heap of the waste of human intelligence that has gone on through + the progress of the race from its infancy."--_Liberty._ + + _Cloth, 75 cents; Paper, 35 cents_ + + * * * * * + + Slaves to Duty + + BY + JOHN BADCOCK, JR. + +Assailing the morality superstition as the foundation of the various +schemes for the exploitation of mankind. Max Stirner himself does not +expound the doctrine of Egoism in bolder fashion. + + _Price, 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + + State Socialism + AND + Anarchism + + _How Far They Agree and Wherein They Differ_ + + BY + BENJ. R. TUCKER + +The opening chapter of "Instead of a Book," reprinted separately. The +best pamphlet with which to meet the demand for a compact exposition of +Anarchism. + + _Price, 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + + The Attitude of Anarchism + TOWARD + Industrial Combinations + + BY + BENJ. R. TUCKER + +An address delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, on September 14, +1899, before the Conference on Trusts held under the auspices of the +Civic Federation. + + _Chicago Chronicle._--"The speech which roused the most intense + degree of enthusiasm and called forth the greatest applause at + yesterday's sessions of the trust conference fell in rounded + periods and with polished utterance from the lips of a professed + Anarchist." + + _Prof. Edward W. Bemis in the New York Journal._--"Benj. R. + Tucker, the famous Anarchist writer, gave the most brilliant + literary effort of the conference thus far." + + _Prof. John R. Commons in the Chicago Tribune._--"The most + brilliant piece of pure logic that has yet been heard. It + probably cannot be equaled. It was a marvel of audacity and + cogency. The prolonged applause which followed was a magnificent + tribute to pure intellect. That the undiluted doctrines of + Anarchism should so transport a great gathering of all classes + here in Chicago would not have been predicted." + + _Price, 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + + MUTUAL BANKING + + BY + WILLIAM B. GREENE + +Showing the radical deficiency of the existing circulating medium, and +the advantages of a free currency; a plan whereby to abolish interest, +not by State intervention, but by first abolishing State intervention +itself. + +A new edition, _from new plates_, of one of the most important works on +finance in the English language, and presenting, for the first time, a +portrait of the author. + + _Price, 10 cents_ + + * * * * * + + _CHARLES A. DANA'S_ + _PLEA FOR ANARCHY_ + + Proudhon + and + His "Bank of the People" + + BY + CHARLES A. DANA + +A defence of the great French Anarchist; showing the evils of a specie +currency, and that interest on capital can and ought to be abolished by +a system of free and mutual banking. + +The series of newspaper articles composing this pamphlet appeared +originally in the New York "Tribune," of which Mr. Dana was then +managing editor, and a little later in "The Spirit of the Age," a weekly +paper published in New York in 1849 by Fowlers & Wells and edited by +Rev. William Henry Channing. Editor Channing accompanied the publication +of the series by a foot-note, in which he stated that the articles had +already appeared in the "Tribune," but that "Mr. Dana, judging them +worthy of being preserved in a form convenient for binding, has +consented to revise them for our paper." + + _Price, 5 cents; in leatherette, 10 cents_ + + * * * * * + + The Ballad of Reading Gaol + + BY C. 3. 3 + [OSCAR WILDE] + +A poem of more than 600 lines, dedicated to the memory of a trooper of +the Horse Guards who was hanged in Reading Gaol during the poet's +confinement there. An English classic. + + _Cloth, One Dollar; Paper, Ten Cents_ + +The cloth edition has covers of blue and vellum, and is beautifully +printed from large type on hand-made antique deckle-edge paper. It is a +sumptuous book of 96 pages, and should be in every library. + + _PRESS COMMENTS_ + + _Albany Press._--"Strong writing, almost too strong; it is + horrible, gruesome, uncanny, and yet most fascinating and + highly ethical.... One of the greatest poems of the century, a + permanent addition to English literature.... It is the best + Lenten and Easter sermon of the year." + + _Brooklyn Citizen._--"Many of the stanzas are cries out of the + lowest hell. The poem, indeed, takes rank with the most + extraordinary psychological phenomena of this or any time." + + _Indianapolis Journal._--"The work is one of singular power, + holding the reader fascinated to the last line. Nothing + approaching it in strength has been produced in recent years." + + _Philadelphia Conservator._--"People who imagine themselves + superior to the prisoners in jails should read this poem. + People who love invasive laws should read this poem. People who + think existing governmental methods of meeting social invasion + civilized should read this poem. People who do not know that + laws may make as well as punish crime should read this poem. In + fact, everybody should read this poem. For somewhere it touches + everybody, accuses everybody, appeals to everybody." + + * * * * * + + God and the State + + BY + MICHAEL BAKOUNINE + + TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY + BENJ. R. TUCKER + + "One of the most eloquent pleas for liberty ever written. + Paine's 'Age of Reason' and 'Rights of Man' consolidated and + improved. It stirs the pulse like a trumpet-call."--_The Truth + Seeker._ + + _Price, 15 Cents_ + + * * * * * + + Free Political Institutions + _Their Nature, Essence, and Maintenance_ + + AN ABRIDGMENT AND REARRANGEMENT OF + LYSANDER SPOONER'S "TRIAL BY JURY" + + EDITED BY + VICTOR YARROS + + _One of the most important works in the propaganda of Anarchism_ + + CHAPTERS + + I.--Legitimate Government and Majority Rule. II.--Trial by Jury + as a Palladium of Liberty. III.--Trial by Jury as Defined by + Magna Carta. IV.--Objections Answered. V.--The Criminal Intent. + VI.--Moral Considerations for Jurors. VII.--Free Administration + of Justice. VIII.--Juries of the Present Day Illegal. + + _Price, 15 cents_ + + * * * * * + + A Blow at Trial by Jury + + BY + BENJ. R. TUCKER + +An examination of the special jury law passed by the New York +legislature in 1896. A speech delivered by the editor of Liberty at a +mass meeting held in Cooper Union, New York, June 25, 1897, under the +auspices of the Central Labor Union, Typographical Union No. 6, and +other labor organizations. Distribution of this pamphlet among lawyers +and legislators will tend indirectly to interest them in Anarchism. + + _Price, 5 cents_ + + * * * * * + + Instead of a Book + + BY A MAN TOO BUSY TO WRITE ONE + + A FRAGMENTARY EXPOSITION OF + PHILOSOPHICAL ANARCHISM + + _Culled from the writings of_ + BENJ. R. TUCKER + EDITOR OF LIBERTY + + _With a Full-Page Half-Tone Portrait of the Author_ + +A large, well-printed, and excessively cheap volume of 524 pages, +consisting of articles selected from Liberty and classified under the +following headings: (1) State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They +Agree, and Wherein They Differ; (2) The Individual, Society, and the +State; (3) Money and Interest; (4) Land and Rent; (5) Socialism; (6) +Communism; (7) Methods; (8) Miscellaneous. The whole elaborately +indexed. + + _Cloth, One Dollar; Paper, Fifty cents_ + + * * * * * + +MAILED, POST-PAID, BY + +BENJ. R. TUCKER, P. O. Box 1312, NEW YORK CITY + + * * * * * + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + +1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. + +2. The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version +these letters have been replaced with transliterations. + +3. Certain words use oe ligature in the original text. + +4. The following misprints have been corrected: + "p." corrected to "p. 7," (page 96) + "aristotocratic" corrected to "aristocratic" (page 143) + "woful" corrected to "woeful" (page 222) + "peoplet" corrected to "people" (page 277) + "heiling" corrected to "heilig" (footnote 20) + +5. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies +in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been +retained. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ego and His Own, by Max Stirner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EGO AND HIS OWN *** + +***** This file should be named 34580.txt or 34580.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/5/8/34580/ + +Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |