Hence the Socialists demand the _means_ for all, and aim at a society

that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer

recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence,--to

wit, your _working force_. In the possession of a property, or as

"possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this

reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his

standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not

"put out of this property."

The possessor is competent, but only so far as the others are

incompetent. Since your ware forms your competence only so long as you

are competent to defend it (_i. e._, as _we_ are not competent to do

anything with it), look about you for another competence; for we now, by

our might, surpass your alleged competence.

It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being

regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was

abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's

service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord."

But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate

and no longer recognized; _per contra_, your working and your work rise

in value. We now respect your _subduing_ things, as we formerly did your

possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor

only of what comes by _work_, not by _inheritance_. But as at the time

everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess

bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance stamp, everything must be

melted over.

But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole

competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am

competent for? And does not the workers society itself have to concede

this, _e. g._ in supporting also the sick, children, old men,--in short,

those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good

deal, _e. g._ to preserve their life instead of taking it. If they are

competent to cause you to desire their continued existence, they have a

power over you. To him who exercised utterly no power over you, you

would vouchsafe nothing; he might perish.

Therefore, what you are _competent_ for is your _competence_! If you are

competent to furnish pleasure to thousands, then thousands will pay you

an honorarium for it; for it would stand in your power to forbear doing

it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are not competent to

_captivate_ any one, you may simply starve.

Now am I, who am competent for much, perchance to have no advantage over

the less competent?

We are all in the midst of abundance; now shall I not help myself as

well as I can, but only wait and see how much is left me in an equal

division?

Against competition there rises up the principle of ragamuffin

society,--_partition_.

To be looked upon as a mere _part_, part of society, the individual

cannot bear--because he is _more_; his uniqueness puts from it this

limited conception.

Hence he does not await his competence from the I sharing of others, and

even in the workers' society there arises the misgiving that in an equal

partition the strong will be exploited by the weak; he awaits his

competence rather from himself, and says now, What I am competent to

have, that is my competence. What competence does not the child possess

in its smiling, its playing, its screaming! in short, in its mere

existence! Are you capable of resisting its desire? or do you not hold

out to it, as mother, your breast; as father, as much of your

possessions as it needs? It compels you, therefore it possesses what you

call yours.

If your person is of consequence to me, you pay me with your very

existence; if I am concerned only with one of your qualities, then your

compliance, perhaps, or your aid, has a value (a money value) for me,

and I _purchase_ it.

If you do not know how to give yourself any other than a money value in

my estimation, there may arise the case of which history tells us, that

Germans, sons of the fatherland, were sold to America. Should those who

let themselves be traded in be worth more to the seller? He preferred

the cash to this living ware that did not understand how to make itself

precious to him. That he discovered nothing more valuable in it was

assuredly a defect of his competence; but it takes a rogue to give more

than he has. How should he show respect when he did not have it, nay,

hardly could have it for such a pack!

You behave egoistically when you respect each other neither as

possessors nor as ragamuffins or workers, but as a part of your

competence, as "_useful bodies_." Then you will neither give anything to

the possessor ("proprietor") for his possessions, nor to him who works,

but only to him whom _you require_. The North Americans ask themselves,

Do we require a king? and answer, Not a farthing are he and his work

worth to us.

If it is said that competition throws every thing open to all, the

expression is not accurate, and it is better put thus: competition makes

everything purchasable. In _abandoning_[186] it to them, competition

leaves it to their appraisal[187] or their estimation, and demands a

price[188] for it.

But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to make themselves buyers:

they have no money. For money, then, the purchasable things are indeed

to be had ("For money everything is to be had!"), but it is exactly

money that is lacking. Where is one to get money, this current or

circulating property? Know then, you have as much money[189] as you

have--might; for you count[190] for as much as you make yourself count

for.

One pays not with money, of which there may come a lack, but with his

competence, by which alone we are "competent";[191] for one is

proprietor only so far as the arm of our power reaches.

Weitling has thought out a new means of payment,--work. But the true

means of payment remains, as always, _competence_. With what you have

"within your competence" you pay. Therefore think on the enlargement of

your competence.

This being admitted, they are nevertheless right on hand again with the

motto, "To each according to his competence!" Who is to _give_ to me

according to my competence? Society? Then I should have to put up with

its estimation. Rather, I shall _take_ according to my competence.

"All belongs to all!" This proposition springs from the same

unsubstantial theory. To each belongs only what he is competent for. If

I say, The world belongs to me, properly that too is empty talk, which

has a meaning only in so far as I respect no alien property. But to me

belongs only as much as I am competent for, or have within my

competence.

One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from

him; one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it.

They raise a mighty uproar over the "wrong of a thousand years" which is

being committed by the rich against the poor. As if the rich were to

blame for poverty, and the poor were not in like manner responsible for

riches! Is there another difference between the two than that of

competence and incompetence, of the competent and incompetent? Wherein,

pray, does the crime of the rich consist? "In their hardheartedness."

But who then have maintained the poor? who have cared for their

nourishment? who have given alms, those alms that have even their name

from mercy (_eleemosyne_)? Have not the rich been "merciful" at all

times? are they not to this day "tender-hearted," as poor-taxes,

hospitals, foundations of all sorts, etc., prove?

But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless, then, they are to _share_

with the poor? Now you are demanding that they shall abolish poverty.

Aside from the point that there might be hardly one among you who would

act so, and that this one would be a fool for it, do ask yourselves: why

should the rich let go their fleeces and give up _themselves_, thereby

pursuing the advantage of the poor rather than their own? You, who have

your thaler daily, are rich above thousands who live on four groschen.

Is it for your interest to share with the thousands, or is it not rather

for theirs?-- --

With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing _best_

than the intention to make it as _profitable_, as productive, as

possible. Hence people study to get into the civil service (pot-boiling

study), study cringing and flattery, routine and "acquaintance with

business," work "for appearances." Hence, while it is apparently a

matter of doing "good service," in truth only a "good business" and

earning of money are looked out for. The job is done only ostensibly for

the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One

would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be--advanced; one

would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best

convictions, but one is afraid of transference or even dismissal; one

must, above all things,--live.

Thus these goings-on are a fight for _dear life_, and, in gradation

upward, for more or less of a "good living."

And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care brings in for most

only "bitter life" and "bitter poverty." All the bitter painstaking for

this!

Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm

_enjoyment_: we do not get the comfort of our possessions.

But the organization of labor touches only such labors as others can do

for us, _e. g._ slaughtering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic,

because, _e. g._, no one can in your stead elaborate your musical

compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can

replace Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of a unique person,[192]

which only he is competent to achieve, while the former deserved to be

called "human," since what is anybody's _own_ in them is of slight

account, and almost "any man" can be trained to it.

Now, as society can regard only labors for the common benefit, _human_

labors, he who does anything _unique_ remains without its care; nay, he

may find himself disturbed by its intervention. The unique person will

work himself forth out of society all right, but society brings forth no

unique person.

Hence it is at any rate helpful that we come to an agreement about

_human_ labors, that they may not, as under competition, claim all our

time and toil. So far Communism will bear its fruits. For before the

dominion of the commonalty even that for which all men are qualified, or

can be qualified, was tied up to a few and withheld from the rest: it

was a privilege. To the commonalty it looked equitable to leave free all

that seemed to exist for every "man." But, because left[193] free, it

was yet given to no one, but rather left to each to be got hold of by

his _human_ power. By this the mind was turned to the acquisition of the

human, which henceforth beckoned to every one; and there arose a

movement which one hears so loudly bemoaned under the name of

"materialism."

Communism seeks to check its course, spreading the belief that the human

is not worth so much discomfort, and, with sensible arrangements, could

be gained without the great expense of time and powers which has

hitherto seemed requisite.

But for whom is time to be gained? For what does man require more time

than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labor? Here Communism

is silent.

For what? To take comfort in himself as the unique, after he has done

his part as man!

In the first joy over being allowed to stretch out their hands toward

everything human, people forgot to want anything else; and they competed

away vigorously, as if the possession of the human were the goal of all

our wishes.

But they have run themselves tired, and are gradually noticing that

"possession does not give happiness." Therefore they are thinking of

obtaining the necessary by an easier bargain, and spending on it only so

much time and toil as its indispensableness exacts. Riches fall in

price, and contented poverty, the care-free ragamuffin, becomes the

seductive ideal.

Should such human activities, that every one is confident of his

capacity for, be highly salaried, and sought for with toil and

expenditure of all life-forces? Even in the every-day form of speech,

"If I were minister, or even the ..., then it should go quite

otherwise," that confidence expresses itself,--that one holds himself

capable of playing the part of such a dignitary; one does get a

perception that to things of this sort there belongs not uniqueness, but

only a culture which is attainable, even if not exactly by all, at any

rate by many; _i. e._ that for such a thing one need only be an ordinary

man.

If we assume that, as _order_ belongs to the essence of the State, so

_subordination_ too is founded in its nature, then we see that the

subordinates, or those who have received preferment, disproportionately

_overcharge_ and _overreach_ those who are put in the lower ranks. But

the latter take heart (first from the Socialist standpoint, but

certainly with egoistic consciousness later, of which we will therefore

at once give their speech some coloring) for the question, By what then

is your property secure, you creatures of preferment?--and give

themselves the answer, By our refraining from interference! And so by

_our_ protection! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and disdain you

give to the "common people"; police supervision, and a catechism with

the chief sentence "Respect what is _not yours_, what belongs to

_others_! respect others, and especially your superiors!" But we reply,

"If you want our respect, _buy_ it for a price agreeable to us. We will

leave you your property, if you give a due equivalent for this leaving."

Really, what equivalent does the general in time of peace give for the

many thousands of his yearly income? another for the sheer

hundred-thousands and millions yearly? What equivalent do you give for

our chewing potatoes and looking calmly on while you swallow oysters?

Only buy the oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes of

you, then you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do

not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry over

_violence_ if we reach out our hands and help consume them, and you are

right. Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by

doing violence to us.

But take the oysters and have done with it, and let us consider our

nearer property, labor; for the other is only possession. We distress

ourselves twelve hours in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a few

groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. Are you not

willing? You fancy that our labor is richly repaid with that wage, while

yours on the other hand is worth a wage of many thousands. But, if you

did not rate yours so high, and gave us a better chance to realize value

from ours, then we might well, if the case demanded it, bring to pass

still more important things than you do for the many thousand thalers;

and, if you got only such wages as we, you would soon grow more

industrious in order to receive more. But, if you render any service

that seems to us worth ten and a hundred times more than our own labor,

why, then you shall get a hundred times more for it too; we, on the

other hand, think also to produce for you things for which you will

requite us more highly than with the ordinary day's wages. We shall be

willing to get along with each other all right, if only we have first

agreed on this,--that neither any longer needs to--_present_ anything to

the other. Then we may perhaps actually go so far as to pay even the

cripples and sick and old an appropriate price for not parting from us

by hunger and want; for, if we want them to live, it is fitting also

that we--purchase the fulfilment of our will. I say "purchase," and

therefore do not mean a wretched "alms." For their life is the property

even of those who cannot work; if we (no matter for what reason) want

them not to withdraw this life from us, we can mean to bring this to

pass only by purchase; nay, we shall perhaps (maybe because we like to

have friendly faces about us) even want a life of comfort for them. In

short, we want nothing presented by you, but neither will we present you

with anything. For centuries we have handed alms to you from

good-hearted--stupidity, have doled out the mite of the poor and given

to the masters the things that are--not the masters'; now just open your

wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in price quite enormously. We do

not want to take from you anything, anything at all, only you are to pay

better for what you want to have. What then have you? "I have an estate

of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will henceforth attend

to your fields only for one thaler a day wages. "Then I'll take

another." You won't find any, for we plowmen are no longer doing

otherwise, and, if one puts in an appearance who takes less, then let

him beware of us. There is the housemaid, she too is now demanding as

much, and you will no longer find one below this price. "Why, then it is

all over with me." Not so fast! You will doubtless take in as much as

we; and, if it should not be so, we will take off so much that you shall

have wherewith to live like us. "But I am accustomed to live better." We

have nothing against that, but it is not our lookout; if you can clear

more, go ahead. Are we to hire out under rates, that you may have a good

living? The rich man always puts off the poor with the words, "What

does your want concern me? See to it how you make your way through the

world; that is _your affair_, not mine." Well, let us let it be our

affair, then, and let us not let the means that we have to realize value

from ourselves be pilfered from us by the rich. "But you uncultured

people really do not need so much." Well, we are taking somewhat more in

order that for it we may procure the culture that we perhaps need. "But,

if you thus bring down the rich, who is then to support the arts and

sciences hereafter?" Oh, well, we must make it up by numbers; we club

together, that gives a nice little sum,--besides, you rich men now buy

only the most tasteless books and the most lamentable Madonnas or a pair

of lively dancer's legs. "O ill-starred equality!" No, my good old sir,

nothing of equality. We only want to count for what we are worth, and,

if you are worth more, you shall count for more right along. We only

want to be _worth our price_, and think to show ourselves worth the

price that you will pay.

Is the State likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so

forceful a self-consciousness in the menial? Can it make man feel

himself? nay, may it even do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it

want the individual to recognize his value and realize this value from

himself? Let us keep the parts of the double question separate, and see

first whether the State can bring about such a thing. As the unanimity

of the plowmen is required, only this unanimity can bring it to pass,

and a State law would be evaded in a thousand ways by competition and in

secret. But can the State bear with it? The State cannot possibly bear

with people's suffering coercion from another than it; it could not,

therefore, admit the self-help of the unanimous plowmen against those

who want to engage for lower wages. Suppose, however, that the State

made the law, and all the plowmen were in accord with it: could the

State bear with it then?

In the isolated case--yes; but the isolated case is more than that, it

is a case of _principle_. The question therein is of the whole range of

_the ego's self-realization of value from himself_, and therefore also

of his self-consciousness _against_ the State. So far the Communists

keep company; but, as self-realization of value from self necessarily

directs itself against the State, so it does against _society_ too, and

therewith reaches out beyond the commune and the communistic--out of

egoism.

Communism makes the maxim of the commonalty, that every one is a

possessor ("proprietor"), into an irrefragable truth, into a reality,

since the anxiety about _obtaining_ now ceases and every one _has_ from

the start what he requires. In his labor-force he _has_ his competence,

and, if he makes no use of it, that is his fault. The grasping and

hounding is at an end, and no competition is left (as so often now)

without fruit, because with every stroke of labor an adequate supply of

the needful is brought into the house. Now for the first time one is a

_real possessor_, because what one has in his labor-force can no longer

escape from him as it was continually threatening to do under the system

of competition. One is a _care-free_ and assured possessor. And one is

this precisely by seeking his competence no longer in a ware, but in his

own labor, his competence for labor; and therefore by being a

_ragamuffin_, a man of only ideal wealth. _I_, however, cannot content

myself with the little that I scrape up by my competence for labor,

because my competence does not consist merely in my labor.

By labor I can perform the official functions of a president, a

minister, etc.; these offices demand only a general culture,--to wit,

such a culture as is generally attainable (for general culture is not

merely that which every one has attained, but broadly that which every

one can attain, and therefore every special culture, _e. g._ medical,

military, philological, of which no "cultivated man" believes that they

surpass his powers), or, broadly, only a skill possible to all.

But, even if these offices may vest in every one, yet it is only the

individual's unique force, peculiar to him alone, that gives them, so to

speak, life and significance. That he does not manage his office like an

"ordinary man," but puts in the competence of his uniqueness, this he is

not yet paid for when he is paid only in general as an official or a

minister. If he has done it so as to earn your thanks, and you wish to

retain this thankworthy force of the unique one, you must not pay him

like a mere man who performed only what was human, but as one who

accomplishes what is unique. Do the like with your labor, do!

There cannot be a general schedule-price fixed for my uniqueness as

there can for what I do as man. Only for the latter can a schedule-price

be set.

Go right on, then, setting up a general appraisal for human labors, but

do not deprive your uniqueness of its desert.

_Human_ or _general_ needs can be satisfied through society; for

satisfaction of _unique_ needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a

friendly service, or even an individual's service, society cannot

procure you. And yet you will every moment be in need of such a service,

and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you.

Therefore do not rely on society, but see to it that you have the

wherewithal to--purchase the fulfiment of your wishes.

Whether money is to be retained among egoists?--To the old stamp an

inherited possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid

with it, it is ruined: if you do nothing for this money, it loses all

power. Cancel the _inheritance_, and you have broken off the executor's

court-seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether it be already

inherited or await its heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be

sealed up from you? why do you respect the seal?

But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the

ware in taking from it the hereditary stamp? Now, money is a ware, and

an essential _means_ or competence. For it protects against the

ossification of resources, keeps them in flux and brings to pass their

exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, go ahead; yet it will

be a "money" again. It is not the money that does you damage, but your

incompetence to take it. Let your competence take effect, collect

yourselves, and there will be no lack of money--of your money, the money

of _your_ stamp. But working I do not call "letting your competence

take effect." Those who are only "looking for work" and "willing to work

hard" are preparing for their own selves the infallible upshot--to be

out of work.

Good and bad luck depend on money. It is a power in the _bourgeois_

period for this reason, that it is only wooed on all hands like a girl,

indissolubly wedded by nobody. All the romance and chivalry of _wooing_

for a dear object come to life again in competition. Money, an object of

longing, is carried off by the bold "knights of industry."[194]

He who has luck takes home the bride. The ragamuffin has luck; he takes

her into his household, "society," and destroys the virgin. In his house

she is no longer bride, but wife; and with her virginity her family name

is also lost. As housewife the maiden Money is called "Labor," for

"Labor" is her husband's name. She is a possession of her husband's.

To bring this figure to an end, the child of Labor and Money is again a

girl, an unwedded one and therefore Money, but with the certain descent

from Labor, her father. The form of the face, the "effigy," bears

another stamp.

Finally, as regards competition once more, it has a continued existence

by this very means, that all do not attend to _their affair_ and come to

an _understanding_ with each other about it. Bread, _e. g._, is a need

of all the inhabitants of a city; therefore they might easily agree on

setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave the furnishing

of the needful to the competing bakers. Just so meat to the butchers,

wine to the wine-dealers, etc.

Abolishing competition is not equivalent to favoring the guild. The

difference is this: In the _guild_ baking, etc., is the affair of the

guild-brothers; in _competition_, the affair of chance competitors; in

the _union_, of those who require baked goods, and therefore my affair,

yours, the affair of neither the guildic nor the concessionary baker,

but the affair of the _united_.

If _I_ do not trouble myself about _my_ affair, I must be _content_ with

what it pleases others to vouchsafe me. To have bread is my affair, my

wish and desire, and yet people leave that to the bakers and hope at

most to obtain through their wrangling, their getting ahead of each

other, their rivalry,--in short, their competition,--an advantage which

one could not count on in the case of the guild-brothers who were lodged

_entirely_ and _alone_ in the proprietorship of the baking

franchise.--What every one requires, every one should also take a hand

in procuring and producing; it is _his_ affair, his property, not the

property of the guildic or concessionary master.

Let us look back once more. The world belongs to the children of this

world, the children of men; it is no longer God's world, but man's. As

much as every man can procure of it, let him call his; only the true

man, the State, human society or mankind, will look to it that each

shall make nothing else his own than what he appropriates as man,

_i. e._ in human fashion. Unhuman appropriation is that which is not

consented to by man, _i. e._ it is a "criminal" appropriation, as the

human, _vice versa_, is a "rightful" one, one acquired in the "way of

law."

So they talk since the Revolution.

But my property is not a thing, since this has an existence independent

of me; only my might is my own. Not this tree, but my might or control

over it, is what is mine.

Now, how is this might perversely expressed? They say I have a _right_

to this tree, or it is my _rightful_ property. So I have _earned_ it by

might. That the might must last in order that the tree may also be

_held_,--or better, that the might is not a thing existing of itself,

but has existence solely in the _mighty ego_, in me the mighty,--is

forgotten. Might, like other of my _qualities_ (_e. g._ humanity,

majesty, etc.), is exalted to something existing of itself, so that it

still exists long after it has ceased to be _my_ might. Thus transformed

into a ghost, might is--_right_. This _eternalized_ might is not

extinguished even with my death, but is transferred or "bequeathed."

Things now really belong not to me, but to right.

On the other side, this is nothing but a hallucination of vision. For

the individual's might becomes permanent and a right only by others

joining their might with his. The delusion consists in their believing

that they cannot withdraw their might. The same phenomenon over again;

might is separated from me. I cannot take back the might that I gave to

the possessor. One has "granted power of attorney," has given away his

power, has renounced coming to a better mind.

The proprietor can give up his might and his right to a thing by giving

the thing away, squandering it, and the like. And _we_ should not be

able likewise to let go the might that we lend to him?

The rightful man, the _just_, desires to call nothing his own that he

does not have "rightly" or have the right to, and therefore only

_legitimate property_.

Now, who is to be judge, and adjudge his right to him? At last, surely,

Man, who imparts to him the rights of man: then he can say, in an

infinitely broader sense than Terence, _humani nihil a me alienum puto_,

_i. e._ the _human is my property_. However he may go about it, so long

as he occupies this standpoint he cannot get clear of a judge; and in

our time the multifarious judges that had been selected have set

themselves against each other in two persons at deadly enmity,--to wit,

in God and Man. The one party appeal to divine right, the other to human

right or the rights of man.

So much is clear, that in neither case does the individual do the

entitling himself.

Just pick me out an action to-day that would not be a violation of

right! Every moment the rights of man are trampled under foot by one

side, while their opponents cannot open their mouth without uttering a

blasphemy against divine right. Give an alms, you mock at a right of

man, because the relation of beggar and benefactor is an inhuman

relation; utter a doubt, you sin against a divine right. Eat dry bread

with contentment, you violate the right of man by your equanimity; eat

it with discontent, you revile divine right by your repining. There is

not one among you who does not commit a crime at every moment; your

speeches are crimes, and every hindrance to your freedom of speech is no

less a crime. Ye are criminals altogether!

Yet you are so only in that you all stand on the _ground of right_;

_i. e._, in that you do not even know, and understand how to value, the

fact that you are criminals.

Inviolable or _sacred_ property has grown on this very ground: it is a

_juridical concept_.

A dog sees the bone in another's power, and stands off only if it feels

itself too weak. But man respects the other's _right_ to his bone. The

latter action, therefore, ranks as _human_, the former as _brutal_ or

"egoistic."

And as here, so in general, it is called "_human_" when one sees in

everything something _spiritual_ (here right), _i. e._ makes everything

a ghost and takes his attitude toward it as toward a ghost, which one

can indeed scare away at its appearance, but cannot kill. It is human to

look at what is individual not as individual, but as a generality.

In nature as such I no longer respect anything, but know myself to be

entitled to everything against it; in the tree in that garden, on the

other hand, I must respect _alienness_ (they say in one-sided fashion

"property"), I must keep my hand off it. This comes to an end only when

I can indeed leave that tree to another as I leave my stick, etc., to

another, but do not in advance regard it as alien to me, _i. e._ sacred.

Rather, I make to myself no _crime_ of felling it if I will, and it

remains my property, however long I resign it to others: it is and

remains _mine_. In the banker's fortune I as little see anything alien

as Napoleon did in the territories of kings: we have no _dread_ of

"_conquering_" it, and we look about us also for the means thereto. We

strip off from it, therefore, the _spirit_ of _alienness_, of which we

had been afraid.

Therefore it is necessary that I do not lay claim to anything more _as

man_, but to everything as I, this I; and accordingly to nothing human,

but to mine; _i. e._ nothing that pertains to me as man, but--what I

will and because I will it.

Rightful, or legitimate, property of another will be only that which

_you_ are content to recognize as such. If your content ceases, then

this property has lost legitimacy for you, and you will laugh at

absolute right to it.

Besides the hitherto discussed property in the limited sense, there is

held up to our reverent heart another property against which we are far

less "to sin." This property consists in spiritual goods, in the

"sanctuary of the inner nature." What a man holds sacred, no other is to

gibe at; because, untrue as it may be, and zealously as one may "in

loving and modest wise" seek to convince of a true sanctity the man who

adheres to it and believes in it, yet _the sacred_ itself is always to

be honored in it: the mistaken man does believe in the sacred, even

though in an incorrect essence of it, and so his belief in the sacred

must at least be respected.

In ruder times than ours it was customary to demand a particular faith,

and devotion to a particular sacred essence, and they did not take the

gentlest way with those who believed otherwise; since, however,

"freedom of belief" spread itself more and more abroad, the "jealous God

and sole Lord" gradually melted into a pretty general "supreme being,"

and it satisfied humane tolerance if only every one revered "something

sacred."

Reduces to the human expression, this sacred essence is "man himself"

and "the human." With the deceptive semblance as if the human were

altogether our own, and free from all the otherworldliness with which

that divine is tainted,--yes, as if Man were as much as I or you,--there

may arise even the proud fancy that the talk is no longer of a "sacred

essence" and that we now feel ourselves everywhere at home and no longer

in the uncanny,[195] _i. e._ in the sacred and in sacred awe: in the

ecstasy over "Man discovered at last" the egoistic cry of pain passes

unheard, and the spook that has become so intimate is taken for our true

ego.

But "Humanus is the saint's name" (see Goethe), and the humane is only

the most clarified sanctity.

The egoist makes the reverse declaration. For this precise reason,

because you hold something sacred, I gibe at you; and, even if I

respected everything in you, your sanctuary is precisely what I should

not respect.

With these opposed views there must also be assumed a contradictory

relation to spiritual goods: the egoist insults them, the religious man

(_i. e._ every one who puts his "essence" above himself) must

consistently--protect them. But what kind of spiritual goods are to be

protected, and what left unprotected, depends entirely on the concept

that one forms of the "supreme being"; and he who fears God, _e. g._,

has more to shelter than he (the liberal) who fears Man.

In spiritual goods we are (in distinction from the sensuous) injured in

a spiritual way, and the sin against them consists in a direct

_desecration_, while against the sensuous a purloining or alienation

takes place; the goods themselves are robbed of value and of

consecration, not merely taken away; the sacred is immediately

compromised. With the word "irreverence" or "flippancy" is designated

everything that can be committed as _crime_ against spiritual goods,

_i. e._ against everything that is sacred for us; and scoffing,

reviling, contempt, doubt, and the like, are only different shades of

_criminal flippancy_.

That desecration can be practised in the most manifold wise is here to

be passed over, and only that desecration is to be preferentially

mentioned which threatens the sacred with danger through an

_unrestricted press_.

As long as respect is demanded even for one spiritual essence, speech

and the press must be enthralled in the name of this essence; for just

so long the egoist might "trespass" against it by his _utterances_, from

which thing he must be hindered by "due punishment" at least, if one

does not prefer to take up the more correct means against it, the

preventive use of police authority, _e. g._ censorship.

What a sighing for liberty of the press! What then is the press to be

liberated from? Surely from a dependence, a belonging, and a liability

to service! But to liberate himself from that is every one's affair,

and it may with safety be assumed that, when you have delivered yourself

from liability to service, that which you compose and write will also

belong to you as your _own_ instead of having been thought and indited

_in the service_ of some power. What can a believer in Christ say and

have printed, that should be freer from that belief in Christ than he

himself is? If I cannot or may not write something, perhaps the primary

fault lies with _me_. Little as this seems to hit the point, so near is

the application nevertheless to be found. By a press-law I draw a

boundary for my publications, or let one be drawn, beyond which wrong

and its _punishment_ follows. I myself _limit_ myself.

If the press was to be free, nothing would be so important as precisely

its liberation from every coercion that could be put on it in the _name

of a law_. And, that it might come to that, I my own self should have to

have absolved myself from obedience to the law.

Certainly, the absolute liberty of the press is like every absolute

liberty, a nonentity. The press can become free from full many a thing,

but always only from what I too am free from. If we make ourselves free

from the sacred, if we have become _graceless_ and _lawless_, our words

too will become so.

As little as _we_ can be declared clear of every coercion in the world,

so little can our writing be withdrawn from it. But as free as we are,

so free we can make it too.

It must therefore become our _own_, instead of, as hitherto, serving a

spook.

People do not yet know what they mean by their cry for liberty of the

press. What they ostensibly ask is that the State shall set the press

free; but what they are really after, without knowing it themselves, is

that the press become free from the State, or clear of the State. The

former is a _petition_ to the State, the latter an _insurrection

against_ the State. As a "petition for right," even as a serious

demanding of the right of liberty of the press, it presupposes the State

as the _giver_, and can hope only for a _present_, a permission, a

chartering. Possible, no doubt, that a State acts so senselessly as to

grant the demanded present; but you may bet everything that those who

receive the present will not know how to use it so long as they regard

the State as a truth: they will not trespass against this "sacred

thing," and will call for a penal press-law against every one who would

be willing to dare this.

In a word, the press does not become free from what I am not free from.

Do I perhaps hereby show myself an opponent of the liberty of the press?

On the contrary, I only assert that one will never get it if one wants

only it, the liberty of the press; _i. e._ if one sets out only for an

unrestricted permission. Only beg right along for this permission: you

may wait forever for it, for there is no one in the world who could give

it to you. As long as you want to have yourselves "entitled" to the use

of the press by a permission, _i. e._ liberty of the press, you live in

vain hope and complaint.

"Nonsense! Why, you yourself, who harbor such thoughts as stand in your

book, can unfortunately bring them to publicity only through a lucky

chance or by stealth; nevertheless you will inveigh against one's

pressing and importuning his own State till it gives the refused

permission to print?" But an author thus addressed would perhaps--for

the impudence of such people goes far--give the following reply:

"Consider well what you say! What then do I do to procure myself liberty

of the press for my book? Do I ask for permission, or do I not rather,

without any question of legality, seek a favorable occasion and grasp it

in complete recklessness of the State and its wishes? I--the terrifying

word must be uttered--I cheat the State. You unconsciously do the same.

From your tribunes you talk it into the idea that it must give up its

sanctity and inviolability, it must lay itself bare to the attacks of

writers, without needing on that account to fear danger. But you are

imposing on it; for its existence is done for as soon as it loses its

unapproachableness. To _you_ indeed it might well accord liberty of

writing, as England has done; you are _believers in the State_ and

incapable of writing against the State, however much you would like to

reform it and 'remedy its defects.' But what if opponents of the State

availed themselves of free utterance, and stormed out against Church,

State, morals, and everything 'sacred' with inexorable reasons? You

would then be the first, in terrible agonies, to call into life the

_September laws_. Too late would you then rue the stupidity that earlier

made you so ready to fool and palaver into compliance the State, or the

government of the State.--But I prove by my act only two things. This

for one, that the liberty of the press is always bound to 'favorable

opportunities,' and accordingly will never be an absolute liberty; but

secondly this, that he who would enjoy it must seek out and, if

possible, create the favorable opportunity, availing himself of his _own

advantage_ against the State, and counting himself and his will more

than the State and every 'superior' power. Not in the State, but only

against it, can the liberty of the press be carried through; if it is to

be established, it is to be obtained not as the consequence of a

_petition_ but as the work of an _insurrection_. Every petition and

every motion for liberty of the press is already an insurrection, be it

conscious or unconscious: a thing which Philistine halfness alone will

not and cannot confess to itself until, with a shrinking shudder, it

shall see it clearly and irrefutably by the outcome. For the requested

liberty of the press has indeed a friendly and well-meaning face at the

beginning, as it is not in the least minded ever to let the 'insolence

of the press' come into vogue; but little by little its heart grows more

hardened, and the inference flatters its way in that really a liberty is

not a liberty if it stands in the _service_ of the State, of morals, or

of the law. A liberty indeed from the coercion of censorship, it is yet

not a liberty from the coercion of law. The press, once seized by the

lust for liberty, always wants to grow freer, till at last the writer

says to himself, Really I am not wholly free till I ask about nothing;

and writing is free only when it is my _own_, dictated to me by no power

or authority, by no faith, no dread; the press must not be free--that is

too little--it must be _mine_:--_ownness of the press_ or _property in

the press_, that is what I will take.

"Why, liberty of the press is only _permission of the press_, and the

State never will or can voluntarily permit me to grind it to nothingness

by the press.

"Let us now, in conclusion, bettering the above language, which is still

vague, owing to the phrase 'liberty of the press,' rather put it thus:

_Liberty of the press_, the liberals' loud demand, is assuredly possible

in the State; yes, it is possible only _in_ the State, because it is a

_permission_, and consequently the permitter (the State) must not be

lacking. But as permission it has its limit in this very State, which

surely should not in reason permit more than is compatible with itself

and its welfare: the State fixes for it this limit as the _law_ of its

existence and of its extension. That one State brooks more than another

is only a quantitative distinction, which alone, nevertheless, lies at

the heart of the political liberals: they want in Germany, _e. g._, only

a '_more extended, broader_ accordance of free utterance.' The liberty

of the press which is sought for is an affair of the _people's_, and

before the people (the State) possesses it I may make no use of it. From

the standpoint of property in the press, the situation is different. Let

my people, if they will, go without liberty of the press, I will manage

to print by force or ruse; I get my permission to print only

from--_myself_ and my strength.

"If the press is _my own_, I as little need a permission of the State

for employing it as I seek that permission in order to blow my nose. The

press is my _property_ from the moment when nothing is more to me than

myself; for from this moment State, Church, people, society, and the

like, cease, because they have to thank for their existence only the

disrespect that I have for myself, and with the vanishing of this

undervaluation they themselves are extinguished: they exist only when

they exist _above me_, exist only as _powers and power-holders_. Or can

you imagine a State whose citizens one and all think nothing of it? it

would be as certainly a dream, an existence in seeming, as 'united

Germany.'

"The press is my own as soon as I myself am my own, a self-owned man: to

the egoist belongs the world, because he belongs to no power of the

world.

"With this my press might still be very _unfree_, as _e. g._, at this

moment. But the world is large, and one helps himself as well as he can.

If I were willing to abate from the _property_ of my press, I could

easily attain the point where I might everywhere have as much printed as

my fingers produced. But, as I want to assert my property, I must

necessarily swindle my enemies. 'Would you not accept their permission

if it were given you?' Certainly, with joy; for their permission would

be to me a proof that I had fooled them and started them on the road to

ruin. I am not concerned for their permission, but so much the more for

their folly and their overthrow. I do not sue for their permission as if

I flattered myself (like the political liberals) that we both, they and

I, could make out peaceably alongside and with each other, yes, probably

raise and prop each other; but I sue for it in order to make them bleed

to death by it, that the permitters themselves may cease at last. I act

as a conscious enemy, overreaching them and _utilizing_ their

heedlessness.

"The press is _mine_ when I recognize outside myself no _judge_ whatever

over its utilization, _i. e._ when my writing is no longer determined by

morality or religion or respect for the State laws or the like, but by

me and my egoism!"--

Now, what have you to reply to him who gives you so impudent an

answer?--We shall perhaps put the question most strikingly by phrasing

it as follows: Whose is the press, the people's (State's) or mine? The

politicals on their side intend nothing further than to liberate the

press from personal and arbitrary interferences of the possessors of

power, without thinking of the point that to be really open for

everybody it would also have to be free from the laws, _i. e._ from the

people's (State's) will. They want to make a "people's affair" of it.

But, having become the people's property, it is still far from being

mine; rather, it retains for me the subordinate significance of a

_permission_. The people plays judge over my thoughts; it has the right

of calling me to account for them, or, I am responsible to it for them.

Jurors, when their fixed ideas are attacked, have just as hard heads and

hearts as the stiffest despots and their servile officials.

In the "_Liberale Bestrebungen_"[196] E. Bauer asserts that liberty of

the press is impossible in the absolutist and the constitutional State,

whereas in the "free State" it finds its place. "Here," the statement

is, "it is recognized that the individual, because he is no longer an

individual but a member of a true and rational generality, has the right

to utter his mind." So not the individual, but the "member," has liberty

of the press. But, if for the purpose of liberty of the press the

individual must first give proof of himself regarding his belief in the

generality, the people; if he does not have this liberty _through might

of his own_,--then it is a _people's liberty_, a liberty that he is

invested with for the sake of his faith, his "membership." The reverse

is the case: it is precisely as an individual that every one has open to

him the liberty to utter his mind. But he has not the "right": that

liberty is assuredly not his "sacred right." He has only the _might_;

but the might alone makes him owner. I need no concession for the

liberty of the press, do not need the people's consent to it, do not

need the "right" to it, nor any "justification." The liberty of the

press too, like every liberty, I must "take"; the people, "as being the

sole judge," cannot _give_ it to me. It can put up with the liberty that

I take, or defend itself against it; give, bestow, grant it it cannot. I

exercise it _despite_ the people, purely as an individual; _i. e._ I get

it by fighting the people, my--enemy, and obtain it only when I really

get it by such fighting, _i. e. take_ it. But I take it because it is my

property.

Sander, against whom E. Bauer writes, lays claim (page 99) to the

liberty of the press "as the right and the liberty of the _citizen in

the State_." What else does E. Bauer do? To him also it is only a right

of the free _citizen_.

The liberty of the press is also demanded under the name of a "general

human right." Against this the objection was well-founded that not every

man knew how to use it rightly, for not every individual was truly man.

Never did a government refuse it to _Man_ as such; but _Man_ writes

nothing, for the reason that he is a ghost. It always refused it to

_individuals_ only, and gave it to others, _e. g._ its organs. If then

one would have it for all, one must assert outright that it is due to

the individual, me, not to man or to the individual so far as he is man.

Besides, another than a man (_e. g._ a beast) can make no use of it. The

French government, _e. g._, does not dispute the liberty of the press as

a right of man, but demands from the individual a security for his

really being man; for it assigns liberty of the press not to the

individual, but to man.

Under the exact pretence that it was _not human_, what was mine was

taken from me! what was human was left to me undiminished.

Liberty of the press can bring about only a _responsible_ press; the

_irresponsible_ proceeds solely from property in the press.

* * * * *

For intercourse with men an express law (conformity to which one may

venture at times sinfully to forget, but the absolute value of which one

at no time ventures to deny) is placed foremost among all who live

religiously: this is the law--of _love_, to which not even those who

seem to fight against its principle, and who hate its name, have as yet

become untrue; for they also still have love, yes, they love with a

deeper and more sublimated love, they love "man and mankind."

If we formulate the sense of this law, it will be about as follows:

Every man must have a something that is more to him than himself. You

are to put your "private interest" in the background when it is a

question of the welfare of others, the weal of the fatherland, of

society, the common weal, the weal of mankind, the good cause, and the

like! Fatherland, society, mankind, etc., must be more to you than

yourself, and as against their interest your "private interest" must

stand back; for you must not be an--egoist.

Love is a far-reaching religious demand, which is not, as might be

supposed, limited to love to God and man, but stands foremost in every

regard. Whatever we do, think, will, the ground of it is always to be

love. Thus we may indeed judge, but only "with love." The Bible may

assuredly be criticised, and that very thoroughly, but the critic must

before all things _love_ it and see in it the sacred book. Is this

anything else than to say he must not criticise it to death, he must

leave it standing, and that as a sacred thing that cannot be upset?--In

our criticism on men too, love must remain the unchanged key-note.

Certainly judgments that hatred inspires are not at all our _own_

judgments, but judgments of the hatred that rules us, "rancorous

judgments." But are judgments that love inspires in us any more our

_own_? They are judgments of the love that rules us, they are "loving,

lenient" judgments, they are not our _own_, and accordingly not real

judgments at all. He who burns with love for justice cries out, _fiat

justitia, pereat mundus_! He can doubtless ask and investigate what

justice properly is or demands, and _in what_ it consists, but not

_whether_ it is anything.

It is very true, "He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."

(I John 4. 16.) God abides in him, he does not get rid of God, does not

become godless; and he abides in God, does not come to himself and into

his own home, abides in love to God and does not become loveless.

"God is love! All times and all races recognize in this word the central

point of Christianity." God, who is love, is an officious God: he cannot

leave the world in peace, but wants to make it _blest_. "God became man

to make men divine."[197] He has his hand in the game everywhere, and

nothing happens without it; everywhere he has his "best purposes," his

"incomprehensible plans and decrees." Reason, which he himself is, is to

be forwarded and realized in the whole world. His fatherly care deprives

us of all independence. We can do nothing sensible without its being

said, God did that! and can bring upon ourselves no misfortune without

hearing, God ordained that; we have nothing that we have not from him,

he "gave" everything. But, as God does, so does Man. God wants perforce

to make the world _blest_, and Man wants to make it _happy_, to make all

men happy. Hence every "man" wants to awaken in all men the reason which

he supposes his own self to have: everything is to be rational

throughout. God torments himself with the devil, and the philosopher

does it with unreason and the accidental. God lets no being go _its

own_ gait, and Man likewise wants to make us walk only in human wise.

But whoso is full of sacred (religious, moral, humane) love loves only

the spook, the "true man," and persecutes with dull mercilessness the

individual, the real man, under the phlegmatic legal title of measures

against the "un-man." He finds it praiseworthy and indispensable to

exercise pitilessness in the harshest measure; for love to the spook or

generality commands him to hate him who is not ghostly, _i. e._ the

egoist or individual; such is the meaning of the renowned

love-phenomenon that is called "justice."

The criminally arraigned man can expect no forbearance, and no one

spreads a friendly veil over his unhappy nakedness. Without emotion the

stern judge tears the last rags of excuse from the body of the poor

accused; without compassion the jailer drags him into his damp abode;

without placability, when the time of punishment has expired, he thrusts

the branded man again among men, his good, Christian, loyal brethren!

who contemptuously spit on him. Yes, without grace a criminal "deserving

of death" is led to the scaffold, and before the eyes of a jubilating

crowd the appeased moral law celebrates its sublime--revenge. For only

one can live, the moral law or the criminal. Where criminals live

unpunished, the moral law has fallen; and, where this prevails, those

must go down. Their enmity is indestructible.

The Christian age is precisely that of _mercy, love_, solicitude to have

men receive what is due them, yes, to bring them to fulfil their human

(divine) calling. Therefore the principle has been put foremost for

intercourse, that this and that is man's essence and consequently his

calling, to which either God has called him or (according to the

concepts of to-day) his being man (the species) calls him. Hence the

zeal for conversion. That the Communists and the humane expect from man

more than the Christians do does not change the standpoint in the least.

Man shall get what is human! If it was enough for the pious that what

was divine became his part, the humane demand that he be not curtailed

of what is human. Both set themselves against what is egoistic. Of

course; for what is egoistic cannot be accorded to him or vested in him

(a fief); he must procure it for himself. Love imparts the former, the

latter can be given to me by myself alone.

Intercourse hitherto has rested on love, _regardful_ behavior, doing for

each other. As one owed it to himself to make himself blessed, or owed

himself the bliss of taking up into himself the supreme essence and

bringing it to a _vérité_ (a truth and reality), so one owed it to

_others_ to help them realize their essence and their calling: in both

cases one owed it to the essence of man to contribute to its

realization.

But one owes it neither to himself to make anything out of himself, nor

to others to make anything out of them; for one owes nothing to his

essence and that of others. Intercourse resting on essence is an

intercourse with the spook, not with anything real. If I hold

intercourse with the supreme essence, I am not holding intercourse with

myself, and, if I hold intercourse with the essence of man, I am not

holding intercourse with men.

The natural man's love becomes through culture a _commandment_. But as

commandment it belongs to _Man_ as such, not to _me_; it is my

_essence_,[198] about which much ado[199] is made, not my property.

_Man_, _i. e._ humanity, presents that demand to me; love is _demanded_,

it is my _duty_. Instead, therefore, of being really won for _me_, it

has been won for the generality, _Man_, as his property or peculiarity:

"it becomes man, _i. e._ every man, to love; love is the duty and

calling of man," etc.

Consequently I must again vindicate love for _myself_, and deliver it

out of the power of Man with the great M.

What was originally _mine_, but _accidentally_ mine, instinctively mine,

I was invested with as the property of Man; I became feoffee in loving,

I became the retainer of mankind, only a specimen of this species, and

acted, loving, not as _I_, but as _man_, as a specimen of man, _i. e._

humanly. The whole condition of civilization is the _feudal system_, the

property being Man's or mankind's, not _mine_. A monstrous feudal State

was founded, the individual robbed of everything, everything left to

"man." The individual had to appear at last as a "sinner through and

through."

Am I perchance to have no lively interest in the person of another, are

_his_ joy and _his_ weal not to lie at my heart, is the enjoyment that I

furnish him not to be more to me than other enjoyments of my own? On the

contrary, I can with joy sacrifice to him numberless enjoyments, I can

deny myself numberless things for the enhancement of _his_ pleasure, and

I can hazard for him what without him was the dearest to me, my life, my

welfare, my freedom. Why, it constitutes my pleasure and my happiness to

refresh myself with his happiness and his pleasure. But _myself, my own

self_, I do not sacrifice to him, but remain an egoist and--enjoy him.

If I sacrifice to him everything that but for my love to him I should

keep, that is very simple, and even more usual in life than it seems to

be; but it proves nothing further than that this one passion is more

powerful in me than all the rest. Christianity too teaches us to

sacrifice all other passions to this. But, if to one passion I sacrifice

others, I do not on that account go so far as to sacrifice _myself_, nor

sacrifice anything of that whereby I truly am myself; I do not sacrifice

my peculiar value, my _ownness_. Where this bad case occurs, love cuts

no better figure than any other passion that I obey blindly. The

ambitious man, who is carried away by ambition and remains deaf to every

warning that a calm moment begets in him, has let this passion grow up

into a despot against whom he abandons all power of dissolution: he has

given up himself, because he cannot _dissolve_ himself, and consequently

cannot absolve himself from the passion: he is possessed.

I love men too,--not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them

with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes _me_

happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I

know no "commandment of love." I have a _fellow-feeling_ with every

feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes

me too; I can kill them, not torture them. _Per contra_, the

high-souled, virtuous Philistine prince Rudolph in "The Mysteries of

Paris," because the wicked provoke his "indignation," plans their

torture. That fellow-feeling proves only that the feeling of those who

feel is mine too, my property; in opposition to which the pitiless

dealing of the "righteous" man (_e. g._ against notary Ferrand) is like

the unfeelingness of that robber who cut off or stretched his prisoners'

legs to the measure of his bedstead: Rudolph's bedstead, which he cuts

men to fit, is the concept of the "good." The feeling for right, virtue,

etc., makes people hard-hearted and intolerant. Rudolph does not feel

like the notary, but the reverse; he feels that "it serves the rascal

right"; that is no fellow-feeling.

You love man, therefore you torture the individual man, the egoist; your

philanthropy (love of men) is the tormenting of men.

If I see the loved one suffer, I suffer with him, and I know no rest

till I have tried everything to comfort and cheer him; if I see him

glad, I too become glad over his joy. From this it does not follow that

suffering or joy is caused in me by the same thing that brings out this

effect in him, as is sufficiently proved by every bodily pain which I do

not feel as he does; his tooth pains him, but his pain pains me.

But, because _I_ cannot bear the troubled crease on the beloved

forehead, for that reason, and therefore for my sake, I kiss it away. If

I did not love this person, he might go right on making creases, they

would not trouble me; I am only driving away _my_ trouble.

How now, has anybody or anything, whom and which I do not love, a

_right_ to be loved by me? Is my love first, or is his right first?

Parents, kinsfolk, fatherland, nation, native town, etc., finally

fellow-men in general ("brothers, fraternity"), assert that they have a

right to my love, and lay claim to it without further ceremony. They

look upon it as _their property_, and upon me, if I do not respect this,

as a robber who takes from them what pertains to them and is theirs. I

_should_ love. If love is a commandment and law, then I must be educated

into it, cultivated up to it, and, if I trespass against it, punished.

Hence people will exercise as strong a "moral influence" as possible on

me to bring me to love. And there is no doubt that one can work up and

seduce men to love as one can to other passions,--_e. g._, if you like,

to hate. Hate runs through whole races merely because the ancestors of

the one belonged to the Guelphs, those of the other to the Ghibellines.

But love is not a commandment, but, like each of my feelings, _my

property_. _Acquire_, _i. e._ purchase, my property, and then I will

make it over to you. A church, a nation, a fatherland, a family, etc.,

that does not know how to acquire my love, I need not love; and I fix

the purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure.

Selfish love is far distant from unselfish, mystical, or romantic love.

One can love everything possible, not merely men, but an "object" in

general (wine, one's fatherland, etc.). Love becomes blind and crazy by

a _must_ taking it out of my power (infatuation), romantic by a

_should_ entering into it, _i. e._ the "object's" becoming sacred for

me, or my becoming bound to it by duty, conscience, oath. Now the object

no longer exists for me, but I for it.

Love is a possessedness, not as my feeling--as such I rather keep it in

my possession as property--, but through the alienness of the object.

For religious love consists in the commandment to love in the beloved a

"holy one," or to adhere to a holy one; for unselfish love there are

objects _absolutely lovable_ for which my heart is to beat,--_e. g._

fellow-men, or my wedded mate, kinsfolk, etc. Holy love loves the holy

in the beloved, and therefore exerts itself also to make of the beloved

more and more a holy one (_e. g._ a "man").

The beloved is an object that _should_ be loved by me. He is not an

object of my love on account of, because of, or by, my loving him, but

is an object of love in and of himself. Not I make him an object of

love, but he is such to begin with; for it is here irrelevant that he

has become so by my choice, if so it be (as with a _fiancée_, a spouse,

and the like), since even so he has in any case, as the person once

chosen, obtained a "right of his own to my love," and I, because I have

loved him, am under obligation to love him forever. He is therefore not

an object of _my_ love, but of love in general: an object that _should_

be loved. Love appertains to him, is due to him, or is his _right_,

while I am under _obligation_ to love him. My love, _i. e._ the toll of

love that I pay him, is in truth _his_ love, which he only collects from

me as toll.

Every love to which there clings but the smallest speck of obligation

is an unselfish love, and, so far as this speck reaches, a

possessedness. He who believes that he _owes_ the object of his love

anything loves romantically or religiously.

Family love, _e. g._, as it is usually understood as "piety," is a

religious love; love of fatherland, preached as "patriotism," likewise.

All our romantic love moves in the same pattern: everywhere the

hypocrisy, or rather self-deception, of an "unselfish love," an interest

in the object for the object's sake, not for my sake and mine alone.

Religious or romantic love is distinguished from sensual love by the

difference of the object indeed, but not by the dependence of the

relation to it. In the latter regard both are possessedness; but in the

former the one object is profane, the other sacred. The dominion of the

object over me is the same in both cases, only that it is one time a

sensuous one, the other time a spiritual (ghostly) one. My love is my

own only when it consists altogether in a selfish and egoistic interest,

and when consequently the object of my love is really _my_ object or my

property. I owe my property nothing, and have no duty to it, as little

as I might have a duty to my eye; if nevertheless I guard it with the

greatest care, I do so on my account.

Antiquity lacked love as little as do Christian times; the god of love

is older than the God of Love. But the mystical possessedness belongs to

the moderns.

The possessedness of love lies in the alienation of the object, or in my

powerlessness as against its alienness and superior power. To the egoist

nothing is high enough for him to humble himself before it, nothing so

independent that he would live for love of it, nothing so sacred that he

would sacrifice himself to it. The egoist's love rises in selfishness,

flows in the bed of selfishness, and empties into selfishness again.

Whether this can still be called love? If you know another word for it,

go ahead and choose it; then the sweet word love may wither with the

departed world; for the present I at least find none in our _Christian_

language, and hence stick to the old sound and "love" _my_ object,

my--property.

Only as one of my feelings do I harbor love; but as a power above me, as

a divine power (Feuerbach), as a passion that I am not to cast off, as a

religious and moral duty, I--scorn it. As my feeling it is _mine_; as a

principle to which I consecrate and "vow" my soul it is a dominator and

_divine_, just as hatred as a principle is _diabolical_; one not better

than the other. In short, egoistic love, _i. e._, my love, is neither

holy nor unholy, neither divine nor diabolical.

"A love that is limited by faith is an untrue love. The sole limitation

that does not contradict the essence of love is the self-limitation of

love by reason, intelligence. Love that scorns the rigor, the law, of

intelligence, is theoretically a false love, practically a ruinous

one."[200] So love is in its essence _rational_! So thinks Feuerbach;

the believer, on the contrary, thinks, Love is in its essence

_believing_. The one inveighs against _irrational_, the other against

_unbelieving_, love. To both it can at most rank as a _splen__didum

vitium_. Do not both leave love standing, even in the form of unreason

and unbelief? They do not dare to say, irrational or unbelieving love is

nonsense, is not love; as little as they are willing to say, irrational

or unbelieving tears are not tears. But, if even irrational love, etc.,

must count as love, and if they are nevertheless to be unworthy of man,

there follows simply this: love is not the highest thing, but reason or

faith; even the unreasonable and the unbelieving can love; but love has

value only when it is that of a rational or believing person. It is an

illusion when Feuerbach calls the rationality of love its

"self-limitation"; the believer might with the same right call belief

its "self-limitation." Irrational love is neither "false" nor "ruinous";

it does its service as love.

Toward the world, especially toward men, I am to _assume a particular

feeling_, and "meet them with love," with the feeling of love, from the

beginning. Certainly, in this there is revealed far more free-will and

self-determination than when I let myself be stormed, by way of the

world, by all possible feelings, and remain exposed to the most

checkered, most accidental impressions. I go to the world rather with a

preconceived feeling, as if it were a prejudice and a preconceived

opinion: I have prescribed to myself in advance my behavior toward it,

and, despite all its temptations, feel and think about it only as I

have once determined to. Against the dominion of the world I secure

myself by the principle of love; for, whatever may come, I--love. The

ugly--_e. g._--makes a repulsive impression on me; but, determined to

love, I master this impression as I do every antipathy.

But the feeling to which I have determined and--condemned myself from

the start is a _narrow_ feeling, because it is a predestined one, of

which I myself am not able to get clear or to declare myself clear.

Because preconceived, it is a _prejudice_. _I_ no longer show myself in

face of the world, but my love shows itself. The _world_ indeed does not

rule me, but so much the more inevitably does the spirit of _love_ rule

me. I have overcome the world to become a slave of this spirit.

If I first said, I love the world, I now add likewise: I do not love it,

for I _annihilate_ it as I annihilate myself; _I dissolve it_. I do not

limit myself to one feeling for men, but give free play to all that I am

capable of. Why should I not dare speak it out in all its glaringness?

Yes, _I utilize_ the world and men! With this I can keep myself open to

every impression without being torn away from myself by one of them. I

can love, love with a full heart, and let the most consuming glow of

passion burn in my heart, without taking the beloved one for anything

else than the _nourishment_ of my passion, on which it ever refreshes

itself anew. All my care for him applies only to the _object of my

love_, only to him whom my love _requires_, only to him, the "warmly

loved." How indifferent would he be to me without this--my love! I feed

only my love with him, I _utilize_ him for this only: I _enjoy_ him.

Let us choose another convenient example. I see how men are fretted in

dark superstition by a swarm of ghosts. If to the extent of my powers I

let a bit of daylight fall in on the nocturnal spookery, is it

perchance because love to you inspires this in me? Do I write out of

love to men? No, I write because I want to procure for _my_ thoughts an

existence in the world; and, even if I foresaw that these thoughts would

deprive you of your rest and your peace, even if I saw the bloodiest

wars and the fall of many generations springing up from this seed of

thought,--I would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will and

can, that is your affair and does not trouble me. You will perhaps have

only trouble, combat, and death from it, very few will draw joy from it.

If your weal lay at my heart, I should act as the church did in

withholding the Bible from the laity, or Christian governments, which

make it a sacred duty for themselves to "protect the common people from

bad books."

But not only not for your sake, not even for truth's sake either do I

speak out what I think. No--

I sing as the bird sings

That on the bough alights;

The song that from me springs

Is pay that well requites.

I sing because--I am a singer. But I _use_[201] you for it because

I--need[202] ears.

Where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--I

consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing

but--my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We

have only one relation to each other, that of _usableness_, of utility,

of use. We owe _each other_ nothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe

at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you

likewise, then your cheeriness is of consequence to _me_, and my air

serves _my_ wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do

not show it.

* * * * *

One has to be educated up to that love which founds itself on the

"essence of man," or, in the ecclesiastical and moral period, lies upon

us as a "commandment." In what fashion moral influence, the chief

ingredient of our education, seeks to regulate the intercourse of men

shall here be looked at with egoistic eyes in one example at least.

Those who educate us make it their concern early to break us of lying

and to inculcate the principle that one must always tell the truth. If

selfishness were made the basis for this rule, every one would easily

understand how by lying he fools away that confidence in him which he

hopes to awaken in others, and how correct the maxim proves, Nobody

believes a liar even when he tells the truth. Yet, at the same time, he

would also feel that he had to meet with truth only him whom _he_

authorized to hear the truth. If a spy walks in disguise through the

hostile camp, and is asked who he is, the askers are assuredly entitled

to inquire after his name, but the disguised man does not give them the

right to learn the truth from him; he tells them what he likes, only not

the fact. And yet morality demands, "Thou shalt not lie!" By morality

those persons are vested with the right to expect the truth; but by me

they are not vested with that right, and I recognize only the right

that I impart. In a gathering of revolutionists the police force their

way in and ask the orator for his name; everybody knows that the police

have the right to do so, but they do not have it from the

_revolutionist_, since he is their enemy; he tells them a false name

and--cheats them with a lie. The police do not act so foolishly either

as to count on their enemies' love of truth; on the contrary, they do

not believe without further ceremony, but have the questioned individual

"identified" if they can. Nay, the State everywhere proceeds

incredulously with individuals, because in their egoism it recognizes

its natural enemy; it invariably demands a "voucher," and he who cannot

show vouchers falls a prey to its investigating inquisition. The State

does not believe nor trust the individual, and so of itself places

itself with him in the _convention of lying_; it trusts me only when it

has _convinced_ itself of the truth of my statement, for which there

often remains to it no other means than the oath. How clearly, too, this

(the oath) proves that the State does not count on our credibility and

love of truth, but on our _interest_, our selfishness: it relies on our

not wanting to fall foul of God by a perjury.

Now, let one imagine a French revolutionist in the year 1788, who among

friends let fall the now well-known phrase, "the world will have no rest

till the last king is hanged with the guts of the last priest." The king

then still had all power, and, when the utterance is betrayed by an

accident, yet without its being possible to produce witnesses,

confession is demanded from the accused. Is he to confess or not? If he

denies, he lies and--remains unpunished; if he confesses, he is candid

and--is beheaded. If truth is more than everything else to him, all

right, let him die. Only a paltry poet could try to make a tragedy out

of the end of his life; for what interest is there in seeing how a man

succumbs from cowardice? But, if he had the courage not to be a slave of

truth and sincerity, he would ask somewhat thus: Why need the judges

know what I have spoken among friends? If I had _wished_ them to know, I

should have said it to them as I said it to my friends. I will not have

them know it. They force themselves into my confidence without my having

called them to it and made them my confidants; they _will_ learn what I

_will_ keep secret. Come on then, you who wish to break my will by your

will, and try your arts. You can torture me by the rack, you can

threaten me with hell and eternal damnation, you can make me so

nerveless that I swear a false oath, but the truth you shall not press

out of me, for I _will_ lie to you because I have given you no claim and

no right to my sincerity. Let God, "who is truth," look down ever so

threateningly on me, let lying come ever so hard to me, I have

nevertheless the courage of a lie; and, even if I were weary of my life,

even if nothing appeared to me more welcome than your executioner's

sword, you nevertheless should not have the joy of finding in me a slave

of truth, whom by your priestly arts you make a traitor to his _will_.

When I spoke those treasonable words, I would not have had you know

anything of them; I now retain the same will, and do not let myself be

frightened by the curse of the lie.

Sigismund is not a miserable caitiff because he broke his princely word,

but he broke the word because he was a caitiff; he might have kept his

word and would still have been a caitiff, a priest-ridden man. Luther,

driven by a higher power, became unfaithful to his monastic vow: he

became so for God's sake. Both broke their oath as possessed persons:

Sigismund, because he wanted to appear as a _sincere_ professor of the

divine _truth_, _i. e._ of the true, genuinely Catholic faith; Luther,

in order to give testimony for the gospel _sincerely_ and with entire

truth, with body and soul; both became perjured in order to be sincere

toward the "higher truth." Only, the priests absolved the one, the other

absolved himself. What else did both observe than what is contained in

those apostolic words, "Thou hast not lied to men, but to God"? They

lied to men, broke their oath before the world's eyes, in order not to

lie to God, but to serve him. Thus they show us a way to deal with truth

before men. For God's glory, and for God's sake, a--breach of oath, a

lie, a prince's word broken!

How would it be, now, if we changed the thing a little and wrote, A

perjury and lie for--_my sake_? Would not that be pleading for every

baseness? It seems so assuredly, only in this it is altogether like the

"for God's sake." For was not every baseness committed for God's sake,

were not all the scaffolds filled for his sake and all the _auto-da-fes_

held for his sake, was not all stupefaction introduced for his sake? and

do they not to-day still for God's sake fetter the mind in tender

children by religious education? Were not sacred vows broken for his

sake, and do not missionaries and priests still go around every day to

bring Jews, heathen, Protestants or Catholics, etc., to treason against

the faith of their fathers,--for his sake? And that should be worse with

the _for my sake_? What then does _on my account_ mean? There people

immediately think of "filthy lucre." But he who acts from love of filthy

lucre does it on his own account indeed, as there is nothing anyhow that

one does not do for his own sake,--among other things, everything that

is done for God's glory; yet he, for whom he seeks the lucre, is a slave

of lucre, not raised above lucre; he is one who belongs to lucre, the

money-bag, not to himself; he is not his own. Must not a man whom the

passion of avarice rules follow the commands of this _master_? and, if a

weak good-naturedness once beguiles him, does this not appear as simply

an exceptional case of precisely the same sort as when pious believers

are sometimes forsaken by their Lord's guidance and ensnared by the arts

of the "devil"? So an avaricious man is not a self-owned man, but a

servant; and he can do nothing for his own sake without at the same time

doing it for his lord's sake,--precisely like the godly man.

Famous is the breach of oath which Francis II committed against Emperor

Charles V. Not later, when he ripely weighed his promise, but at once,

when he swore the oath, King Francis took it back in thought as well as

by a secret protestation documentarily subscribed before his

councillors; he uttered a perjury aforethought. Francis did not show

himself disinclined to buy his release, but the price that Charles put

on it seemed to him too high and unreasonable. Even though Charles

behaved himself in a sordid fashion when he sought to extort as much as

possible, it was yet shabby of Francis to want to purchase his freedom

for a lower ransom; and his later dealings, among which there occurs yet

a second breach of his word, prove sufficiently how the huckster spirit

held him enthralled and made him a shabby swindler. However, what shall

we say to the reproach of perjury against him? In the first place,

surely, this again: that not the perjury, but his sordidness, shamed

him; that he did not deserve contempt for his perjury, but made himself

guilty of perjury because he was a contemptible man. But Francis's

perjury, regarded in itself, demands another judgment. One might say

Francis did not respond to the confidence that Charles put in him in

setting him free. But, if Charles had really favored him with

confidence, he would have named to him the price that he considered the

release worth, and would then have set him at liberty and expected

Francis to pay the redemption-sum. Charles harbored no such trust, but

only believed in Francis's impotence and credulity, which would not

allow him to act against his oath; but Francis deceived only

this--credulous calculation. When Charles believed he was assuring

himself of his enemy by an oath, right there he was freeing him from

every obligation. Charles had given the king credit for a piece of

stupidity, a narrow conscience, and, without confidence in Francis,

counted only on Francis's stupidity, _i. e._ conscientiousness: he let

him go from the Madrid prison only to hold him the more securely in the

prison of conscientiousness, the great jail built about the mind of man

by religion: he sent him back to France locked fast in invisible chains,

what wonder if Francis sought to escape and sawed the chains apart? No

man would have taken it amiss of him if he had secretly fled from

Madrid, for he was in an enemy's power; but every good Christian cries

out upon him, that he wanted to loose himself from God's bonds too. (It

was only later that the pope absolved him from his oath.)

It is despicable to deceive a confidence that we voluntarily call forth;

but it is no shame to egoism to let every one who wants to get us into

his power by an oath bleed to death by the unsuccessfulness of his

untrustful craft. If you have wanted to bind me, then learn that I know

how to burst your bonds.

The point is whether _I_ give the confider the right to confidence. If

the pursuer of my friend asks me where he has fled to, I shall surely

put him on a false trail. Why does he ask precisely me, the pursued

man's friend? In order not to be a false, traitorous friend, I prefer to

be false to the enemy. I might certainly, in courageous

conscientiousness, answer "I will not tell" (so Fichte decides the

case); by that I should salve my love of truth and do for my friend as

much as--nothing, for, if I do not mislead the enemy, he may

accidentally take the right street, and my love of truth would have

given up my friend as a prey, because it hindered me from the--courage

for a lie. He who has in the truth an idol, a sacred thing, must

_humble_ himself before it, must not defy its demands, not resist

courageously; in short, he must renounce the _heroism of the lie_. For

to the lie belongs not less courage than to the truth: a courage that

young men are most apt to be defective in, who would rather confess the

truth and mount the scaffold for it than confound the enemy's power by

the impudence of a lie. To them the truth is "sacred," and the sacred at

all times demands blind reverence, submission, and self-sacrifice. If

you are not impudent, not mockers of the sacred, you are tame and its

servants. Let one but lay a grain of truth in the trap for you, you peck

at it to a certainty, and the fool is caught. You will not lie? Well,

then, fall as sacrifices to the truth and become--martyrs! Martyrs!--for

what? For yourselves, for self-ownership? No, for your goddess,--the

truth. You know only two _services_, only two kinds of servants:

servants of the truth and servants of the lie. Then in God's name serve

the truth!

Others, again, serve the truth also; but they serve it "in moderation,"

and make, _e. g._, a great distinction between a simple lie and a lie

sworn to. And yet the whole chapter of the oath coincides with that of

the lie, since an oath, everybody knows, is only a strongly assured

statement. You consider yourselves entitled to lie, if only you do not

swear to it besides? One who is particular about it must judge and

condemn a lie as sharply as a false oath. But now there has been kept up

in morality an ancient point of controversy, which is customarily

treated of under the name of the "lie of necessity." No one who dares

plead for this can consistently put from him an "oath of necessity." If

I justify my lie as a lie of necessity, I should not be so pusillanimous

as to rob the justified lie of the strongest corroboration. Whatever I

do, why should I not do it entirely and without reservation

(_reservatio mentalis_)? If I once lie, why then not lie completely,

with entire consciousness and all my might? As a spy I should have to

swear to each of my false statements at the enemy's demand; determined

to lie to him, should I suddenly become cowardly and undecided in face

of an oath? Then I should have been ruined in advance for a liar and

spy; for, you see, I should be voluntarily putting into the enemy's

hands a means to catch me.--The State too fears the oath of necessity,

and for this reason does not give the accused a chance to swear. But you

do not justify the State's fear; you lie, but do not swear falsely. If,

_e. g._, you show some one a kindness, and he is not to know it, but he

guesses it and tells you so to your face, you deny; if he insists, you

say "honestly, no!" If it came to swearing, then you would refuse; for,

from fear of the sacred, you always stop half way. _Against_ the sacred

you have no _will of your own_. You lie in--moderation, as you are free

"in moderation," religious "in moderation" (the clergy are not to

"encroach"; over this point the most vapid of controversies is now being

carried on, on the part of the university against the church),

monarchically disposed "in moderation" (you want a monarch limited by

the constitution, by a fundamental law of the State), everything nicely

_tempered_, lukewarm, half God's, half the devil's.

There was a university where the usage was that every word of honor that

must be given to the university judge was looked upon by the students as

null and void. For the students saw in the demanding of it nothing but

a snare, which they could not escape otherwise than by taking away all

its significance. He who at that same university broke his word of honor

to one of the fellows was infamous; he who gave it to the university

judge derided, in union with these very fellows, the dupe who fancied

that a word had the same value among friends and among foes. It was less

a correct theory than the constraint of practice that had there taught

the students to act so, as, without that means of getting out, they

would have been pitilessly driven to treachery against their comrades.

But, as the means approved itself in practice, so it has its theoretical

probation too. A word of honor, an oath, is one only for him whom _I_

entitle to receive it; he who forces me to it obtains only a forced,

_i. e._ a _hostile_ word, the word of a foe, whom one has no right to

trust; for the foe does not give us the right.

Aside from this, the courts of the State do not even recognize the

inviolability of an oath. For, if I had sworn to one who comes under

examination that I would not declare anything against him, the court

would demand my declaration in spite of the fact that an oath binds me,

and, in case of refusal, would lock me up till I decided to become--an

oath-breaker. The court "absolves me from my oath";--how magnanimous! If

any power can absolve me from the oath, I myself am surely the very

first power that has a claim to.

As a curiosity, and to remind us of customary oaths of all sorts, let

place be given here to that which Emperor Paul commanded the captured

Poles (Kosciusko, Potocki, Niemcewicz, etc.) to take when he released

them: "We not merely swear fidelity and obedience to the emperor, but

also further promise to pour out our blood for his glory; we obligate

ourselves to discover everything threatening to his person or his empire

that we ever learn; we declare finally that, in whatever part of the

earth we may be, a single word of the emperor shall suffice to make us

leave everything and repair to him at once."

* * * * *

In one domain the principle of love seems to have been long outsoared by

egoism, and to be still in need only of sure consciousness, as it were

of victory with a good conscience. This domain is speculation, in its

double manifestation as thinking and as trade. One thinks with a will,

whatever may come of it; one speculates, however many may suffer under

our speculative undertakings. But, when it finally becomes serious, when

even the last remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity" is to be

done away, then the pulse of religious conscience beats, and one at

least _professes_ humanity. The avaricious speculator throws some

coppers into the poor-box and "does good," the bold thinker consoles

himself with the fact that he is working for the advancement of the

human race and that his devastation "turns to the good" of mankind, or,

in another case, that he is "serving the idea"; mankind, the idea, is to

him that something of which he must say, It is more to me than myself.

To this day thinking and trading have been done for--God's sake. Those

who for six days were trampling down everything by their selfish aims

sacrificed on the seventh to the Lord; and those who destroyed a

hundred "good causes" by their reckless thinking still did this in the

service of another "good cause," and had yet to think of

another--besides themselves--to whose good their self-indulgence should

turn: of the people, mankind, and the like. But this other thing is a

being above them, a higher or supreme being; and therefore I say, they

are toiling for God's sake.

Hence I can also say that the ultimate basis of their actions

is--_love_. Not a voluntary love however, not their own, but a tributary

love, or the higher being's own (_i. e._ God's, who himself is love); in

short, not the egoistic, but the religious; a love that springs from

their fancy that they _must_ discharge a tribute of love, _i. e._ that

they must not be "egoists."

If _we_ want to deliver the world from many kinds of unfreedom, we want

this not on its account but on ours; for, as we are not world-liberators

by profession and out of "love," we only want to win it away from

others. We want to make it our own; it is not to be any longer _owned as

serf_ by God (the church) nor by the law (State), but to be _our own_;

therefore we seek to "win" it, to "captivate" it, and, by meeting it

half-way and "devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as it

belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the force that it turns

against us. If the world is ours, it no longer attempts any force

_against_ us, but only _with_ us. My selfishness has an interest in the

liberation of the world, that it may become--my property.

Not isolation or being alone, but society, is man's original state. Our

existence begins with the most intimate conjunction, as we are already

living with our mother before we breathe; when we see the light of the

world, we at once lie on a human being's breast again, her love cradles

us in the lap, leads us in the go-cart, and chains us to her person with

a thousand ties. Society is our _state of nature_. And this is why, the

more we learn to feel ourselves, the connection that was formerly most

intimate becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the original society

more unmistakable. To have once again for herself the child that once

lay under her heart, the mother must fetch it from the street and from

the midst of its playmates. The child prefers the _intercourse_ that it

enters into with _its fellows_ to the _society_ that it has not entered

into, but only been born in.

But the dissolution of _society_ is _intercourse_ or _union_. A society

does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by a

thought,--to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the

thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make

themselves fast) from the thought. If a union[203] has crystallized into

a society, it has ceased to be a coalition;[204] for coalition is an

incessant self-uniting; it has become a unitedness, come to a

standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is--_dead_ as a union, it is

the corpse of the union or the coalition, _i. e._ it is--society,

community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by the _party_.

That a society (_e. g._ the society of the State) diminishes my

_liberty_ offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by

all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every

fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R......, I yet should

not enjoy absolute liberty. But _ownness_ I will not have taken from me.

And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely

what is to succumb to its power.

A society which I join does indeed take from me many liberties, but in

return it affords me other liberties; neither does it matter if I myself

deprive myself of this and that liberty (_e. g._ by any contract). On

the other hand, I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community

has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the fulness of its

power, to become an _authority_ to its members and to set _limits_ for

them: it asks, and must ask, for a "subject's limited understanding"; it

asks that those who belong to it be subject to it, be its "subjects"; it

exists only by _subjection_. In this a certain tolerance need by no

means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will welcome

improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are calculated for

its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning," it may not be "insolent

and disrespectful,"--in other words, one must leave uninjured, and hold

sacred, the substance of the society. The society demands that those who

belong to it shall not go _beyond it_ and exalt themselves, but remain

"within the bounds of legality," _i. e._ allow themselves only so much

as the society and its law allow them.

There is a difference whether my liberty or my ownness is limited by a

society. If the former only is the case, it is a _coalition_, an

agreement, a union; but, if ruin is threatened to ownness, it is a

_power of itself_, a power _above me_, a thing unattainable by me, which

I can indeed admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and

consume, and that for the reason that I _am resigned_. It exists by my

_resignation_, my _self-renunciation_, my spiritlessness,[205]

called--HUMILITY.[206] My humility makes its courage,[207] my

submissiveness gives it its dominion.

But in reference to _liberty_ State and union are subject to no

essential difference. The latter can just as little come into existence,

or continue in existence, without liberty's being limited in all sorts

of ways, as the State is compatible with unmeasured liberty. Limitation

of liberty is inevitable everywhere, for one cannot get _rid_ of

everything; one cannot fly like a bird merely because one would like to

fly so, for one does not get free from his own weight; one cannot live

under water as long as he likes, like a fish, because one cannot do

without air and cannot get free from this indispensable necessity; and

the like. As religion, and most decidedly Christianity, tormented man

with the demand to realize the unnatural and self-contradictory, so it

is to be looked upon only as the true logical outcome of that religious

overstraining and overwroughtness that finally _liberty itself, absolute

liberty_, was exalted into an ideal, and thus the nonsense of the

impossible had to come glaringly to the light.--The union will assuredly

offer a greater measure of liberty, as well as (and especially because

by it one escapes all the coercion peculiar to State and society life)

admit of being considered as "a new liberty"; but nevertheless it will

still contain enough of unfreedom and involuntariness. For its object is

not this--liberty (which on the contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but

only _ownness_. Referred to this, the difference between State and union

is great enough. The former is an enemy and murderer of _ownness_, the

latter a son and co-worker of it; the former a spirit that would be

adored in spirit and in truth, the latter my work, my _product_; the

State is the lord of my spirit, who demands faith and prescribes to me

articles of faith, the creed of legality; it exerts moral influence,

dominates my spirit, drives away my ego to put itself in its place as

"my true ego,"--in short, the State is _sacred_, and as against me, the

individual man, it is the true man, the spirit, the ghost; but the union

is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above

my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not

willing to be a slave of my maxims, but lay them bare to my continual

criticism without _any warrant_, and admit no bail at all for their

persistence, so still less do I obligate myself to the union for my

future and pledge my soul to it, as is said to be done with the devil

and is really the case with the State and all spiritual authority; but I

am and remain _more_ to myself than State, Church, God, and the like;

consequently infinitely more than the union too.

That society which Communism wants to found seems to stand nearest to

_coalition_. For it is to aim at the "welfare of all," oh, yes, of all,

cries Weitling innumerable times, of all! That does really look as if

in it no one needed to take a back seat. But what then will this welfare

be? Have all one and the same welfare, are all equally well off with one

and the same thing? If that be so, the question is of the "true

welfare." Do we not with this come right to the point where religion

begins its dominion of violence? Christianity says, Look not on earthly

toys, but seek your true welfare, become--pious Christians; being

Christians is the true welfare. It is the true welfare of "all," because

it is the welfare of Man as such (this spook). Now, the welfare of all

is surely to be _your_ and _my_ welfare too? But, if you and I do not

look upon that welfare as _our_ welfare, will care then be taken for

that in which _we_ feel well? On the contrary, society has decreed a

welfare as the "true welfare"; and, if this welfare were called _e. g._

"enjoyment honestly worked for," but you preferred enjoyable laziness,

enjoyment without work, then society, which cares for the "welfare of

all," would wisely avoid caring for that in which you are well off.

Communism, in proclaiming the welfare of all, annuls outright the

well-being of those who hitherto lived on their income from investments

and apparently felt better in that than in the prospect of Weitling's

strict hours of labor. Hence the latter asserts that with the welfare of

thousands the welfare of millions cannot exist, and the former must give

up _their_ special welfare "for the sake of the general welfare." No,

let people not be summoned to sacrifice their special welfare for the

general, for this Christian admonition will not carry you through; they

will better understand the opposite admonition, not to let their _own_

welfare be snatched from them by anybody, but to put it on a permanent

foundation. Then they are of themselves led to the point that they care

best for their welfare if they _unite_ with others for this purpose,

_i. e._ "sacrifice a part of their liberty," yet not to the welfare of

others, but to their own. An appeal to men's self-sacrificing

disposition and self-renouncing love ought at last to have lost its

seductive plausibility when, after an activity of thousands of years, it

has left nothing behind but the--_misère_ of to-day. Why then still

fruitlessly expect self-sacrifice to bring us better times? why not

rather hope for them from _usurpation_? Salvation comes no longer from

the giver, the bestower, the loving one, but from the _taker_, the

appropriater (usurper), the owner. Communism, and, consciously or

unconsciously, egoism-reviling humanism, still count on _love_.

If community is once a need of man, and he finds himself furthered by it

in his aims, then very soon, because it has become his principle, it

prescribes to him its laws too, the laws of--society. The principle of

men exalts itself into a sovereign power over them, becomes their

supreme essence, their God, and, as such,--lawgiver. Communism gives

this principle the strictest effect, and Christianity is the religion of

society, for, as Feuerbach rightly says although he does not mean it

rightly, love is the essence of man; _i. e._ the essence of society or

of societary (Communistic) man. All religion is a cult of society, this

principle by which societary (cultivated) man is dominated; neither is

any god an ego's exclusive god, but always a society's or community's,

be it of the society "family" (Lar, Penates) or of a "people" ("national

god") or of "all men" ("he is a Father of all men").

Consequently one has a prospect of extirpating religion down to the

ground only when one antiquates _society_ and everything that flows from

this principle. But it is precisely in Communism that this principle

seeks to culminate, as in it everything is to become _common_ for the

establishment of--"equality." If this "equality" is won, "liberty" too

is not lacking. But whose liberty? _Society's!_ Society is then all in

all, and men are only "for each other." It would be the glory of

the--love-State.

But I would rather be referred to men's selfishness than to their

"kindnesses,"[208] their mercy, pity, etc. The former demands

_reciprocity_ (as thou to me, so I to thee), does nothing "gratis," and

may be won and--_bought_. But with what shall I obtain the kindness? It

is a matter of chance whether I am at the time having to do with a

"loving" person. The affectionate one's service can be had only

by--_begging_, be it by my lamentable appearance, by my need of help, my

misery, my--_suffering_. What can I offer him for his assistance?

Nothing! I must accept it as a--present. Love is _unpayable_, or rather,

love can assuredly be paid for, but only by counter-love ("One good turn

deserves another"). What paltriness and beggarliness does it not take to

accept gifts year in and year out without service in return, as they are

regularly collected _e. g._ from the poor day-laborer? What can the

receiver do for him and his donated pennies, in which his wealth

consists? The day-laborer would really have more enjoyment if the

receiver with his laws, his institutions, etc., all of which the

day-laborer has to pay for though, did not exist at all. And yet, with

it all, the poor wight _loves_ his master.

No, community, as the "goal" of history hitherto, is impossible. Let us

rather renounce every hypocrisy of community, and recognize that, if we

are equal as men, we are not equal for the very reason that we are not

men. We are equal _only in thoughts_, only when "we" are _thought_, not

as we really and bodily are. I am ego, and you are ego: but I am not

this thought-of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is only _my

thought_. I am man, and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a

generality; neither you nor I are speakable, we are _unutterable_,

because only _thoughts_ are speakable and consist in speaking.

Let us therefore not aspire to community, but to _one-sidedness_. Let us

not seek the most comprehensive commune, "human society," but let us

seek in others only means and organs which we may use as our property!

As we do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the

presupposition that others are _our equals_ springs from a hypocrisy. No

one is _my equal_, but I regard him, equally with all other beings, as

my property. In opposition to this I am told that I should be a man

among "fellow-men" ("_Judenfrage_," p. 60); I should "respect" the

fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be respected, not even

the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, an _object_ in which I

take an interest or else do not, an interesting or uninteresting

object, a usable or unusable person.

And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make

myself at one with him, in order, by the agreement, to strengthen _my

power_, and by combined force to accomplish more than individual force

could effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but a

multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so long as it is _my_

multiplied force. But thus it is a--union.

Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the union together,

and it is not a natural, not a spiritual league. It is not brought about

by one _blood_, not by one _faith_ (spirit). In a natural league--like a

family, a tribe, a nation, yes, mankind--the individuals have only the

value of _specimens_ of the same species or genus; in a spiritual

league--like a commune, a church--the individual signifies only a

_member_ of the same spirit; what you are in both cases as a unique

person must be--suppressed. Only in the union can you assert yourself as

unique, because the union does not possess you, but you possess it or

make it of use to you.

Property is recognized in the union, and only in the union, because one

no longer holds what is his as a fief from any being. The Communists are

only consistently carrying further what had already been long present

during religious evolution, and especially in the State; to wit,

propertylessness, _i. e._ the feudal system.

The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in other words, it

seeks to direct his desire to it alone, and to _content_ that desire

with what it offers. To sate the desire for the desirous man's sake does

not come into its mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "egoistic

man" the man who breathes out unbridled desire, and the "egoistic man"

is its enemy. He is this for it because the capacity to agree with him

is wanting to the State; the egoist is precisely what it cannot

"comprehend." Since the State (as nothing else is possible) has to do

only for itself, it does not take care for my needs, but takes care only

of how it shall make away with me, _i. e._ make out of me another ego, a

good citizen. It takes measures for the "improvement of morals."--And

with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself, _i. e._ with

what is the State's, with _State property_. It will be unremittingly

active in making all participants in its "goods," providing all with the

"good things of culture": it presents them its education, opens to them

the access to its institutions of culture, capacitates them to come to

property (_i. e._ to a fief) in the way of industry, etc. For all these

_fiefs_ it demands only the just rent of continual _thanks_. But the

"unthankful" forget to pay these thanks.--Now, neither can "society" do

essentially otherwise than the State.

You bring into a union your whole power, your competence, and _make

yourself count_; in a society you are _employed_, with your working

power; in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly,

_i. e._ religiously, as a "member in the body of this Lord"; to a

society you owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it,

are--possessed by "social duties"; a union you utilize, and give it up

undutifully and unfaithfully when you see no way to use it further. If

a society is more than you, then it is more to you than yourself; a

union is only your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen and

increase your natural force; the union exists for you and through you,

the society conversely lays claim to you for itself and exists even

without you; in short, the society is _sacred_, the union your _own_;

the society consumes _you_, _you_ consume the union.

Nevertheless people will not be backward with the objection that the

agreement which has been concluded may again become burdensome to us and

limit our freedom; they will say, we too would at last come to this,

that "every one must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the

generality." But the sacrifice would not be made for the "generality's"

sake a bit, as little as I concluded the agreement for the

"generality's" or even, for any other man's sake; rather I came into it

only for the sake of my own benefit, from _selfishness_.[209] But, as

regards the sacrificing, surely I "sacrifice" only that which does not

stand in my power, _i. e._ I "sacrifice" nothing at all.

To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. Choose then whether

you want to be lord, or whether society shall be! On this depends

whether you are to be an _owner_ or a _ragamuffin!_ The egoist is owner,

the Socialist a ragamuffin. But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the

sense of feudalism, of the feudal system, which since the last century

has only changed its overlord, putting "Man" in the place of God, and

accepting as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from the grace

of God. That the ragamuffinism of Communism is carried out by the humane

principle into the absolute or most ragamuffinly ragamuffinism has been

shown above; but at the same time also, how ragamuffinism can only thus

swing around into ownness. The _old_ feudal system was so thoroughly

trampled into the ground in the Revolution that since then all

reactionary craft has remained fruitless, and will always remain

fruitless, because the dead is--dead; but the resurrection too had to

prove itself a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for

in another world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body, the

_new_ feudalism under the suzerainty of "Man."

Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are right in having

hitherto trustfully assumed of every combat against it that this could

serve only for the purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it

has really only been glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is

the--_human Christianity_. We are still living entirely in the Christian

age, and the very ones who feel worst about it are the most zealously

contributing to "complete" it. The more human, the dearer has feudalism

become to us; for we the less believe that it still is feudalism, we

take it the more confidently for ownness and think we have found what is

"most absolutely our own" when we discover "the human."

Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it thinks to procure it

for me not under the title of mine, but under that of the "human." As if

it were attainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious

work of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in me

_entitles_[210] me to this and that; I as individual, _i. e._ as this

man, am not entitled, but Man has the right and entitles me. Hence as

man I may well be entitled; but, as I am more than man, to wit, a

_special_ man, it may be refused to this very me, the special one. If on

the other hand you insist on the _value_ of your gifts, keep up their

price, do not let yourselves be forced to sell out below price, do not

let yourselves be talked into the idea that your ware is not worth its

price, do not make yourselves ridiculous by a "ridiculous price," but

imitate the brave man who says, I will _sell_ my life (property) dear,

the enemy shall not have it at a cheap _bargain_; then you have

recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct thing, and the word

then is not "Give up your property!" but "_Get the value out of_ your

property!"

Over the portal of our time stands not that "Know thyself" of Apollo,

but a "_Get the value out of thyself!_"

Proudhon calls property "robbery" (_le vol_). But alien property--and he

is talking of this alone--is not less existent by renunciation, cession,

and humility; it is a _present_. Why so sentimentally call for

compassion as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish,

cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the fault on others as if

they were robbing us, while we ourselves do bear the fault in leaving

the others, unrobbed? The poor are to blame for there being rich men.

Universally, no one grows indignant at _his_, but at _alien_ property.

They do not in truth attack property, but the alienation of property.

They want to be able to call _more_, not less, _theirs_; they want to

call everything _theirs_. They are fighting, therefore, against

_alienness_, or, to form a word similar to property, against alienty.

And how do they help themselves therein? Instead of transforming the

alien into own, they play impartial and ask only that all property be

left to a third party (_e. g._ human society). They revendicate the

alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now the "egoistic"

coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and--human!

Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the "essence of

Christianity," as it is the essence of all religiousness (_i. e._

godliness, morality, humanity), and only announced itself most clearly,

and, as glad tidings, became a gospel capable of development, in the

"absolute religion." We have before us the most striking development in

the present fight against property, a fight which is to bring "Man" to

victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious humanity is the

victory of--Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus is

feudalism completed, the most all-embracing feudal system, _i. e._

perfect ragamuffinism.