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.