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.

§ 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

Barrère 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 régime_ 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 _prolétariat_; 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 _prolétariat_, and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature,

are called "unruly fellows."

Such a broad sense has the so-called _prolétariat_, 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 mediæval "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 _protégé_.

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 _régime_ 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.

§ 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.

§ 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 _régime_ 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.