II. THE OWNER

I -- do I come to myself and mine through liberalism? Whom does the liberal look upon as his equal? Man! Be only man -- and that you are anyway -- and the liberal calls you his brother. He asks very little about your private opinions and private follies, if only he can espy "Man" in you.

But, as he takes little heed of what you are *privatim --* nay, in a strict following out of his principle sets no value at all on it -- he sees in you only what you are *generatim*. In other words, he sees in you, not you, but the *species;* not Tom or Jim, but Man; not the real or unique one,(1)but your essence or your concept; not the bodily man, but the *spirit*.

As Tom you would not be his equal, because he is Jim, therefore not Tom; as man you are the same that he is. And, since as Tom you virtually do not exist at all for him (so far, to wit, as he is a liberal and not unconsciously an egoist), he has really made "brother-love" very easy for himself: he loves in you not Tom, of whom he knows nothing and wants to know nothing, but Man.

To see in you and me nothing further than "men," that is running the Christian way of looking at things, according to which one is for the other nothing but a *concept* (*e. g.* a man called to salvation, etc.), into the ground.

Christianity properly so called gathers us under a less utterly general concept: there we are "sons of God" and "led by the Spirit of God."(2) Yet not all can boast of being God's sons, but "the same Spirit which witnesses to our spirit that we are sons of God reveals also who are the sons of the devil."(3) Consequently, to be a son of God one must not be a son of the devil; the sonship of God excluded certain men. To be *sons of men* -- *i. e.*, men -- on the contrary, we need nothing but to belong to the human *species*, need only to be specimens of the same species. What I am as this I is no concern of yours as a good liberal, but is my *private affair* alone; enough that we are both sons of one and the same mother, to wit, the human species: as "a son of man" I am your equal.

What am I now to you? Perhaps this *bodily* I as I walk and stand? Anything but that. This bodily I, with its thoughts, decisions, and passions, is in your eyes a "private affair" which is no concern of yours: it is an "affair by itself." As an "affair for you" there exists only my concept, my generic concept, only *the Man*, who, as he is called Tom, could just as well be Joe or Dick. You see in me not me, the bodily man, but an unreal thing, the spook, *i.e.* a *Man*.

In the course of the Christian centuries we declared the most various persons to be "our equals," but each time in the measure of that *spirit* which we expected from them -- *e. g.* each one in whom the spirit of the need of redemption may be assumed, then later each one who has the spirit of integrity, finally each one who shows a human spirit and a human face. Thus the fundamental principle of "equality" varied.

Equality being now conceived as equality of the *human spirit*, there has certainly been discovered an equality that includes *all* men; for who could deny that we men have a human spirit, *i. e.*, no other than a human!

But are we on that account further on now than in the beginning of Christianity? Then we were to have a *divine spirit*, now a *human;* but, if the divine did not exhaust us, how should the human wholly express what *we* are? Feuerbach *e. g.* thinks, that if he humanizes the divine, he has found the truth. No, if God has given us pain, "Man" is capable of pinching us still more torturingly. The long and the short of it is this: that we are men is the slightest thing about us, and has significance only in so far as it is one of our *qualities*,(4) *i. e.* our property.(5) I am indeed among other things a man, as I am *e. g.* a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, a Berliner, etc.; but he who chose to have regard for me only as a man, or as a Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very unimportant to me. And wherefore? Because he would have regard only for one of my *qualities*, not for *me*.

It is just so with the *spirit too*. A Christian spirit, an upright spirit, etc. may well be my acquired quality, my property, but I am not this spirit: it is mine, not I its.

Hence we have in liberalism only the continuation of the old Christian depreciation of the I, the bodily Tom. Instead of taking me as I am, one looks solely at my property, my qualities, and enters into marriage bonds with me only for the sake of my -- possessions; one marries, as it were, what I have, not what I am. The Christian takes hold of my spirit, the liberal of my humanity.

But, if the spirit, which is not regarded as the *property* of the bodily ego but as the proper ego itself, is a ghost, then the Man too, who is not recognized as my quality but as the proper I, is nothing but a spook, a thought, a concept.

Therefore the liberal too revolves in the same circle as the Christian. Because the spirit of mankind, *i.e.* Man, dwells in you, you are a man, as when the spirit of Christ dwells in you are a Christian; but, because it dwells in you only as a second ego, even though it be as your proper or "better" ego, it remains otherworldly to you, and you have to strive to become wholly man. A striving just as fruitless as the Christian's to become wholly a blessed spirit!

One can now, after liberalism has proclaimed Man, declare openly that herewith was only completed the consistent carrying out of Christianity, and that in truth Christianity set itself no other task from the start than to realize "man," the "true man." Hence, then, the illusion that Christianity ascribes an infinite value to the ego (as *e. g.* in the doctrine of immortality, in the cure of souls, etc.) comes to light. No, it assigns this value to *Man* alone. Only *Man* is immortal, and only because I am Man am I too immortal. In fact, Christianity had to teach that no one is lost, just as liberalism too puts all on an equality as men; but that eternity, like this equality, applied only to the *Man* in me, not to me. Only as the bearer and harborer of Man do I not die, as notoriously "the king never dies." Louis dies, but the king remains; I die, but my spirit, Man, remains. To identify me now entirely with Man the demand has been invented, and stated, that I must become a "real generic being."(6)

The human *religion* is only the last metamorphosis of the Christian religion. For liberalism is a religion because it separates my essence from me and sets it above me, because it exalts "Man" to the same extent as any other religion does its God or idol, because it makes what is mine into something otherworldly, because in general it makes out of what is mine, out of my qualities and my property, something alien -- to wit, an "essence"; in short, because it sets me beneath Man, and thereby creates for me a "vocation." But liberalism declares itself a religion in form too when it demands for this supreme being, Man, a zeal of faith, "a faith that some day will at last prove its fiery zeal too, a zeal that will be invincible."(7) But, as liberalism is a human religion, its professor takes a *tolerant* attitude toward the professor of any other (Catholic, Jewish, etc.), as Frederick the Great did toward every one who performed his duties as a subject, whatever fashion of becoming blest he might be inclined toward. This religion is now to be raised to the rank of the generally customary one, and separated from the others as mere "private follies," toward which, besides, one takes a highly *liberal* attitude on account of their unessentialness.

One may call it the *State-religion*, the religion of the "free State," not in the sense hitherto current that it is the one favored or privileged by the State, but as that religion which the "free State" not only has the right, but is compelled, to demand from each of those who belong to it, let him be *privatim* a Jew, a Christian, or anything else. For it does the same service to the State as filial piety to the family. If the family is to be recognized and maintained, in its existing condition, by each one of those who belong to it, then to him the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of piety, of respect for the ties of blood, by which every blood-relation becomes to him a consecrated person. So also to every member of the State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is the highest to the State must likewise be the highest to him.

But what concept is the highest to the State? Doubtless that of being a really human society, a society in which every one who is really a man, *i. e.*,*not an un-man*, can obtain admission as a member. Let a State's tolerance go ever so far, toward an un-man and toward what is inhuman it ceases. And yet this "un-man" is a man, yet the "inhuman" itself is something human, yes, possible only to a man, not to any beast; it is, in fact, something "possible to man." But, although every un-man is a man, yet the State excludes him; *i.e.* it locks him up, or transforms him from a fellow of the State into a fellow of the prison (fellow of the lunatic asylum or hospital, according to Communism).

To say in blunt words what an un-man is not particularly hard: it is a man who does not correspond to the *concept* man, as the inhuman is something human which is not conformed to the concept of the human. Logic calls this a "self-contradictory judgment." Would it be permissible for one to pronounce this judgment, that one can be a man without being a man, if he did not admit the hypothesis that the concept of man can be separated from the existence, the essence from the appearance? They say, he *appears* indeed as a man, but *is* not a man.

Men have passed this "self-contradictory judgment" through a long line of centuries! Nay, what is still more, in this long time there were only -- *un-men*. What individual can have corresponded to his concept? Christianity knows only one Man, and this one -- Christ -- is at once an un-man again in the reverse sense, to wit, a superhuman man, a "God." Only the -- un-man is a *real* man.

Men that are not men, what should they be but *ghosts?* Every real man, because he does not correspond to the concept "man," or because he is not a "generic man," is a spook. But do I still remain an un-man even if I bring Man (who towered above me and remained otherworldly to me only as my ideal, my task, my essence or concept) down to be my *quality*, my own and inherent in me; so that Man is nothing else than my humanity, my human existence, and everything that I do is human precisely because *I* do it, but not because it corresponds to the *concept* "man"? *I* am really Man and the un-man in one; for I am a man and at the same time more than a man; *i.e.* I am the ego of this my mere quality.

It had to come to this at last, that it was no longer merely demanded of us to be Christians, but to become men; for, though we could never really become even Christians, but always remained "poor sinners" (for the Christian was an unattainable ideal too), yet in this the contradictoriness did not come before our consciousness so, and the illusion was easier than now when of us, who are men act humanly (yes, cannot do otherwise than be such and act so), the demand is made that we are to be men, "real men."

Our States of today, because they still have all sorts of things sticking to them, left from their churchly mother, do indeed load those who belong to them with various obligations (*e. g.* churchly religiousness) which properly do not a bit concern them, the States; yet on the whole they do not deny their significance, since they want to be looked upon as *human societies*, in which man as man can be a member, even if he is less privileged than other members; most of them admit adherence of every religious sect, and receive people without distinction of race or nation: Jews, Turks, Moors, etc., can become French citizens. In the act of reception, therefore, the State looks only to see whether one is a *man*. The Church, as a society of believers, could not receive every man into her bosom; the State, as a society of men, can. But, when the State has carried its principle clear through, of presupposing in its constituents nothing but that they are men (even the North Americans still presuppose in theirs that they have religion, at least the religion of integrity, of responsibility), then it has dug its grave. While it will fancy that those whom it possesses are without exception men, these have meanwhile become without exception *egoists*, each of whom utilizes it according to his egoistic powers and ends. Against the egoists "human society" is wrecked; for they no longer have to do with each other as *men*, but appear egoistically as an *I* against a *You* altogether different from me and in opposition to me.

If the State must count on our humanity, it is the same if one says it must count on our *morality*. Seeing Man in each other, and acting as men toward each other, is called moral behavior. This is every whit the "spiritual love" of Christianity. For, if I see Man in you, as in myself I see Man and nothing but Man, then I care for you as I would care for myself; for we represent, you see, nothing but the mathematical proposition: A = C and B = C, consequently A = B -- *i.e.* I nothing but man and you nothing but man, consequently I and you the same. Morality is incompatible with egoism, because the former does not allow validity to *me*, but only to the Man in me. But, if the State is a *society of men*, not a union of egos each of whom has only himself before his eyes, then it cannot last without morality, and must insist on morality.

Therefore we two, the State and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this "human society," I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it; but to be able to utilize it completely I transform it rather into my property and my creature; *i. e.*, I annihilate it, and form in its place the *Union of Egoists*.

So the State betrays its enmity to me by demanding that I be a man, which presupposes that I may also not be a man, but rank for it as an "un- man"; it imposes being a man upon me as a *duty*. Further, it desires me to do nothing along with which *it* cannot last; so *its permanence* is to be sacred for me. Then I am not to be an egoist, but a "respectable, upright," *i.e.* moral, man. Enough: before it and its permanence I am to be impotent and respectful.

This State, not a present one indeed, but still in need of being first created, is the ideal of advancing liberalism. There is to come into existence a true "society of men," in which every "man" finds room. Liberalism means to realize "Man," *i.e.* create a world for him; and this should be the *human* world or the general (Communistic) society of men. It was said, "The Church could regard only the spirit, the State is to regard the whole man."(8) But is not "Man" "spirit"? The kernel of the State is simply "Man," this unreality, and it itself is only a "society of men." The world which the believer (believing spirit) creates is called Church, the world which the man (human or humane spirit) creates is called State. But that is not *my* world. I never execute anything *human* in the abstract, but always my *own* things; *my* human act is diverse from every other human act, and only by this diversity is it a real act belonging to me. The human in it is an abstraction, and, as such, spirit, *i.e.* abstracted essence.

Bruno Bauer states (*e. g. Judenfrage*, p. 84) that the truth of criticism is the final truth, and in fact the truth sought for by Christianity itself --to wit, "Man." He says, "The history of the Christian world is the history of the supreme fight for truth, for in it -- and in it only! -- the thing at issue is the discovery of the final or the primal truth -- man and freedom."

All right, let us accept this gain, and let us take *man* as the ultimately found result of Christian history and of the religious or ideal efforts of man in general. Now, who is Man? *I* am! *Man*, the end and outcome of Christianity, is, as *I*, the beginning and raw material of the new history, a history of enjoyment after the history of sacrifices, a history not of man or humanity, but of -- *me. Man* ranks as the general. Now then, I and the egoistic are the really general, since every one is an egoist and of paramount importance to himself. The Jewish is not the purely egoistic, because the Jew still devotes *himself* to Jehovah; the Christian is not, because the Christian lives on the grace of God and subjects *himself* to him. As Jew and as Christian alike a man satisfies only certain of his wants, only a certain need, not *himself:* a half-egoism, because the egoism of a half-man, who is half he, half Jew, or half his own proprietor, half a slave. Therefore, too, Jew and Christian always half-way exclude each other; *i.e.* as men they recognize each other, as slaves they exclude each other, because they are servants of two different masters. If they could be complete egoists, they would exclude each other *wholly* and hold together so much the more firmly. Their ignominy is not that they exclude each other, but that this is done only *half-way*. Bruno Bauer, on the contrary, thinks Jews and Christians cannot regard and treat each other as "men" till they give up the separate essence which parts them and obligates them to eternal separation, recognize the general essence of "Man," and regard this as their "true essence."

According to his representation the defect of the Jews and the Christians alike lies in their wanting to be and have something "particular" instead of only being men and endeavoring after what is human -- to wit, the "general rights of man." He thinks their fundamental error consists in the belief that they are "privileged," possess "prerogatives"; in general, in the belief in *prerogative*.(9)In opposition to this he holds up to them the general rights of man. The rights of man! --

*Man is man in general*, and in so far every one who is a man. Now every one is to have the eternal rights of man, and, according to the opinion of Communism, enjoy them in the complete "democracy," or, as it ought more correctly to be called -- anthropocracy. But it is I alone who have everything that I -- procure for myself; as man I have nothing. People would like to give every man an affluence of all good, merely because he has the title "man." But I put the accent on *me*, not on my being *man*.

Man is something only as *my* quality(10) (property(11)), like masculinity or femininity. The ancients found the ideal in one's being *male* in the full sense; their virtue is *virtus* and *arete* -- *i.e.* manliness. What is one to think of a woman who should want only to be perfectly "woman?" That is not given to all, and many a one would therein be fixing for herself an unattainable goal. *Feminine*, on the other hand, she is anyhow, by nature; femininity is her quality, and she does not need "true femininity." I am a man just as the earth is a star. As ridiculous as it would be to set the earth the task of being a "thorough star," so ridiculous it is to burden me with the call to be a "thorough man."

When Fichte says, "The ego is all," this seems to harmonize perfectly with my thesis. But it is not that the ego *is* all, but the ego *destroys* all, and only the self-dissolving ego, the never-being ego, the -- *finite* ego is really I. Fichte speaks of the "absolute" ego, but I speak of me, the transitory ego.

How natural is the supposition that *man* and *ego* mean the same! And yet one sees, *e. g.*, by Feuerbach, that the expression "man" is to designate the absolute ego, the *species*, not the transitory, individual ego. Egoism and humanity (humaneness) ought to mean the same, but according to Feuerbach the individual can "only lift himself above the limits of his individuality, but not above the laws, the positive ordinances, of his species."(12) But the species is nothing, and, if the individual lifts himself above the limits of his individuality, this is rather his very self as an individual; he exists only in raising himself, he exists only in not remaining what he is; otherwise he would be done, dead. Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of. To be a man is not to realize the ideal of *Man*, but to present *oneself*, the individual. It is not how I realize the *generally human* that needs to be my task, but how I satisfy myself. I am my species, am without norm, without law, without model, etc. It is possible that I can make very little out of myself; but this little is everything, and is better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State. Better -- if the talk is to be of better at all -- better an unmannerly child than an old head on young shoulders, better a mulish man than a man compliant in everything. The unmannerly and mulish fellow is still on the way to form himself according to his own will; the prematurely knowing and compliant one is determined by the "species," the general demands -- the species is law to him. He is *determined*(13) by it; for what else is the species to him but his "destiny,"(14) his "calling"? Whether I look to "humanity," the species, in order to strive toward this ideal, or to God and Christ with like endeavor, where is the essential dissimilarity? At most the former is more washed-out than the latter. As the individual is the whole of nature, so he is the whole of the species too.

Everything that I do, think -- in short, my expression or manifestation -- is indeed *conditioned* by what I am. The Jew *e. g.* can will only thus or thus, can "present himself" only thus; the Christian can present and manifest himself only Christianly, etc. If it were possible that you could be a Jew or Christian, you would indeed bring out only what was Jewish or Christian; but it is not possible; in the most rigorous conduct you yet remain an *egoist*, a sinner against that concept -- *i.e.*, *you* are not the precise equivalent of Jew. Now, because the egoistic always keeps peeping through, people have inquired for a more perfect concept which should really wholly express what you are, and which, because it is your true nature, should contain all the laws of your activity. The most perfect thing of the kind has been attained in "Man." As a Jew you are too little, and the Jewish is not your task; to be a Greek, a German, does not suffice. But be a -- man, then you have everything; look upon the human as your calling.

Now I know what is expected of me, and the new catechism can be written. The subject is again subjected to the predicate, the individual to something general; the dominion is again secured to an *idea*, and the foundation laid for a new *religion*. This is a *step forward* in the domain of religion, and in particular of Christianity; not a step out beyond it.

To step out beyond it leads into the *unspeakable*. For me paltry language has no word, and "the Word," the Logos, is to me a "mere word."

My *essence* is sought for. If not the Jew, the German, etc., then at any rate it is -- the man. "Man is my essence."

I am repulsive or repugnant to myself; I have a horror and loathing of myself, I am a horror to myself, or, I am never enough for myself and never do enough to satisfy myself. From such feelings springs self-dissolution or self-criticism. Religiousness begins with self-renunciation, ends with completed criticism.

I am possessed, and want to get rid of the "evil spirit." How do I set about it? I fearlessly commit the sin that seems to the Christian the most dire, the sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. "He who blasphemes the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness forever, but is liable to the eternal judgment!"(15) I want no forgiveness, and am not afraid of the judgment.

*Man* is the last evil *spirit* or spook, the most deceptive or most intimate, the craftiest liar with honest mien, the father of lies.

The egoist, turning against the demands and concepts of the present, executes pitilessly the most measureless -- *desecration*. Nothing is holy to him!

It would be foolish to assert that there is no power above mine. Only the attitude that I take toward it will be quite another than that of the religious age: I shall be the *enemy* of -- every higher power, while religion teaches us to make it our friend and be humble toward it.

The *desecrator* puts forth his strength against every *fear of God*, for fear of God would determine him in everything that he left standing as sacred. Whether it is the God or the Man that exercises the hallowing power in the God-man -- whether, therefore, anything is held sacred for God's sake or for Man's (Humanity's) -- this does not change the fear of God, since Man is revered as "supreme essence," as much as on the specifically religious standpoint God as "supreme essence" calls for our fear and reverence; both overawe us.

The fear of God in the proper sense was shaken long ago, and a more or less conscious "atheism," externally recognizable by a wide-spread "unchurchliness," has involuntarily become the mode. But what was taken from God has been superadded to Man, and the power of humanity grew greater in just the degree that of piety lost weight: "Man" is the God of today, and fear of Man has taken the place of the old fear of God.

But, because Man represents only another Supreme Being, nothing in fact has taken place but a metamorphosis in the Supreme Being, and the fear of Man is merely an altered form of the fear of God.

Our atheists are pious people.

If in the so-called feudal times we held everything as a fief from God, in the liberal period the same feudal relation exists with Man. God was the Lord, now Man is the Lord; God was the Mediator, now Man is; God was the Spirit, now Man is. In this three fold regard the feudal relation has experienced a transformation. For now, firstly, we hold as a fief from all-powerful Man our *power*, which, because it comes from a higher, is not called power or might, but "right" -- the "rights of man"; we further hold as a fief from him our position in the world, for he, the mediator, mediates our *intercourse* with others, which therefore may not be otherwise than "human"; finally, we hold as a fief from him ourselves -- to wit, our own value, or all that we are worth -- inasmuch as we are worth nothing when *he* does not dwell in us, and when or where we are not "human." The power is Man's, the world is Man's, I am Man's.

But am I not still unrestrained from declaring *myself* the entitler, the mediator, and the own self? Then it runs thus:

My power is *my* property.

My power *gives* me property.

My power *am* I myself, and through it am I my property.

1. My Power

Right(16) is the *spirit of society*. If society has a *will* this will is simply right: society exists only through right. But, as it endures only exercising a *sovereignty* over individuals, right is its SOVEREIGN WILL. Aristotle says justice is the advantage of *society*.

All existing right is -- *foreign law;* some one makes me out to be in the right, "does right by me." But should I therefore be in the right if all the world made me out so? And yet what else is the right that I obtain in the State, in society, but a right of those *foreign* to me? When a blockhead makes me out in the right, I grow distrustful of my rightness; I don't like to receive it from him. But, even when a wise man makes me out in the right, I nevertheless am not in the right on that account. Whether I am in the right is completely independent of the fool's making out and of the wise man's.

All the same, we have coveted this right till now. We seek for right, and turn to the court for that purpose. To what? To a royal, a papal, a popular court, etc. Can a sultanic court declare another right than that which the sultan has ordained to be right? Can it make me out in the right if I seek for a right that does not agree with the sultan's law? Can it, *e. g.*, concede to me high treason as a right, since it is assuredly not a right according to the sultan's mind? Can it as a court of censorship allow me the free utterance of opinion as a right, since the sultan will hear nothing of this *my* right? What am I seeking for in this court, then? I am seeking for sultanic right, not my right; I am seeking for -- *foreign* right. As long as this foreign right harmonizes with mine, to be sure, I shall find in it the latter too.

The State does not permit pitching into each other man to man; it opposes the *duel*. Even every ordinary appeal to blows, notwithstanding that neither of the fighters calls the police to it, is punished; except when it is not an I whacking away at a you, but, say, the *head of a family* at the child. The *family* is entitled to this, and in its name the father; I as Ego am not. The *Vossische Zeitung* presents to us the "commonwealth of right." There everything is to be decided by the judge and a *court*. It ranks the supreme court of censorship as a "court" where "right is declared." What sort of a right? The right of the censorship. To recognize the sentences of that court as right one must regard the censorship as right. But it is thought nevertheless that this court offers a protection. Yes, protection against an individual censor's error: it protects only the censorship-legislator against false interpretation of his will, at the same time making his statute, by the "sacred power of right," all the firmer against writers.

Whether I am in the right or not there is no judge but myself. Others can judge only whether they endorse my right, and whether it exists as right for them too.

In the meantime let us take the matter yet another way. I am to reverence sultanic law in the sultanate, popular law in republics, canon law in Catholic communities. To these laws I am to subordinate myself; I am to regard them as sacred. A "sense of right" and "law-abiding mind" of such a sort is so firmly planted in people's heads that the most revolutionary persons of our days want to subject us to a new "sacred law," the "law of society," the law of mankind, the "right of all," and the like. The right of "all" is to go before *my* right. As a right of all it would indeed be my right among the rest, since I, with the rest, am included in all; but that it is at the same time a right of others, or even of all others, does not move me to its upholding. Not as a right *of all* will I defend it, but as *my* right; and then every other may see to it how he shall likewise maintain it for himself. The right of all (*e. g.,* to eat) is a right of every individual. Let each keep this right unabridged for *himself*, then all exercise it spontaneously; let him not take care for all though -- let him not grow zealous for it as for a right of all.

But the social reformers preach to us a *"law of society"*. There the individual becomes society's slave, and is in the right only when society *makes him out* in the right, *i.e.* when he lives according to society's *statutes* and so is -- *loyal*. Whether I am loyal under a despotism or in a "society" *àla* Weitling, it is the same absence of right in so far as in both cases I have not *my* right but *foreign* right.

In consideration of right the question is always asked, "What or who gives me the right to it?" Answer: God, love, reason, nature, humanity, etc. No, only *your might, your* power gives you the right (your reason, *e. g.,*, may give it to you).

Communism, which assumes that men "have equal rights by nature," contradicts its own proposition till it comes to this, that men have no right at all by nature. For it is not willing to recognize, *e. g.*, that parents have "by nature" rights as against their children, or the children as against the parents: it abolishes the family. Nature gives parents, brothers, etc., no right at all. Altogether, this entire revolutionary or Babouvist principle(17) rests on a religious, *i. e.*, false, view of things. Who can ask after "right" if he does not occupy the religious standpoint himself? Is not "right" a religious concept, *i.e.* something sacred? Why, *"equality of rights"*, as the Revolution propounded it, is only another name for "Christian equality," the "equality of the brethren," "of God's children," "of Christians"; in short, *fraternité*. Each and every inquiry after right deserves to be lashed with Schiller's words:

Many a year I've used my nose To smell the onion and the rose; Is there any proof which shows That I've a right to that same nose?

When the Revolution stamped equality as a "right," it took flight into the religious domain, into the region of the sacred, of the ideal. Hence, since then, the fight for the "sacred, inalienable rights of man." Against the "eternal rights of man" the "well-earned rights of the established order" are quite naturally, and with equal right, brought to bear: right against right, where of course one is decried by the other as "wrong." This has been the *contest of rights*(18) since the Revolution.

You want to be "in the right" as against the rest. That you cannot; as against them you remain forever "in the wrong"; for they surely would not be your opponents if they were not in "their right" too; they will always make you out "in the wrong." But, as against the right of the rest, yours is a higher, greater, *more powerful* right, is it not? No such thing! Your right is not more powerful if you are not more powerful. Have Chinese subjects a right to freedom? Just bestow it on them, and then look how far you have gone wrong in your attempt: because they do not know how to use freedom they have no right to it, or, in clearer terms, because they have not freedom they have not the right to it. Children have no right to the condition of majority because they are not of age, *i.e.* because they are children. Peoples that let themselves be kept in nonage have no rights to the condition of majority; if they ceased to be in nonage, then only would they have the right to be of age. This means nothing else than "What you have the *power* to be you have the *right* to." I derive all right and all warrant from *me ;* I am *entitled* to everything that I have in my power. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I *can ;* if I cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in power as against me, and what I do will be to fear their right and their power in impotent "god-fearingness," to keep their commandments and believe that I do right in everything that I do according to *their* right, about as the Russian boundary-sentinels think themselves rightfully entitled to shoot dead the suspicious persons who are escaping, since they murder "by superior authority," *i.e.* "with right." But I am entitled by myself to murder if I myself do not forbid it to myself, if I myself do not fear murder as a "wrong." This view of things lies at the foundation of Chamisso's poem, "The Valley of Murder," where the gray-haired Indian murderer compels reverence from the white man whose brethren he has murdered. The only thing I am not entitled to is what I do not do with a free cheer, *i. e.* what I do not entitle myself to.

I decide whether it is the *right thing* in me; there is no right *outside* me. If it is right for *me*,(19) it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; *i. e.*, their care, not mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me, *i. e.*, I wanted it, then I would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how to value *himself*, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for might goes before right, and that -- with perfect right.

Because I am "by nature" a man I have an equal right to the enjoyment of all goods, says Babeuf. Must he not also say: because I am "by nature" a first-born prince I have a right to the throne? The rights of man and the "well-earned rights" come to the same thing in the end, *i.e.* to *nature*, which *gives* me a right, *i. e.* to *birth* (and, further, inheritance, etc.). "I am born as a man" is equal to "I am born as a king's son." The natural man has only a natural right (because he has only a natural power) and natural claims: he has right of birth and claims of birth. But *nature* cannot entitle me, *i.e.* give me capacity or might, to that to which only my act entitles me. That the king's child sets himself above other children, even this is his act, which secures to him the precedence; and that the other children approve and recognize this act is their act, which makes them worthy to be -- subjects.

Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, etc., does so, all of *i. e.*, the same *foreign* right, a right that I do not give or take to myself.

Thus the Communists say, equal labor entitles man to equal enjoyment. Formerly the question was raised whether the "virtuous" man must not be "happy" on earth. The Jews actually drew this inference: "That it may go well with thee on earth." No, equal labor does not entitle you to it, but equal enjoyment alone entitles you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy, then you are entitled to enjoyment. But, if you have labored and let the enjoyment be taken from you, then -- "it serves you right."

If you *take* the enjoyment, it is your right; if, on the contrary, you only pine for it without laying hands on it, it remains as before, a, "well-earned right" of those who are privileged for enjoyment. It is *their* right, as by laying hands on it would become your right.

The conflict over the "right of property" wavers in vehement commotion. The Communists affirm(20) that "the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its products to those who bring them out." I think it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not only the earth, but the right to it too, belongs to him. This is *egoistic right*: *i.e.* it is right for *me*, therefore it is right.

Aside from this, right does have "a wax nose." The tiger that assails me is in the right, and I who strike him down am also in the right. I defend against him not my *right*, but *myself.*

As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, *i.e.* "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. It will be objected, the children had nevertheless "by nature" the right to exist; only the Spartans refused *recognition* to this right. But then they simply had no right to this recognition -- no more than they had to recognition of their life by the wild beasts to which they were thrown.

People talk so much about *birthright* and complain:

There is alas! -- no mention of the rights That were born with us.(21)

What sort of right, then, is there that was born with me? The right to receive an entailed estate, to inherit a throne, to enjoy a princely or noble education; or, again, because poor parents begot me, to -- get free schooling, be clothed out of contributions of alms, and at last earn my bread and my herring in the coal-mines or at the loom? Are these not birthrights, rights that have come down to me from my parents through *birth?* You think -- no; you think these are only rights improperly so called, it is just these rights that you aim to abolish through the *real birthright*. To give a basis for this you go back to the simplest thing and affirm that every one is by birth *equal* to another -- to wit, a *man*. I will grant you that every one is born as man, hence the new-born are therein *equal* to each other. Why are they? Only because they do not yet show and exert themselves as anything but bare -- *children of men*, naked little human beings. But thereby they are at once different from those who have already made something out of themselves, who thus are no longer bare "children of man," but -- children of their own creation. The latter possesses more than bare birthrights: they have *earned* rights. What an antithesis, what a field of combat! The old combat of the birthrights of man and well-earned rights. Go right on appealing to your birthrights; people will not fail to oppose to you the well-earned. Both stand on the "ground of right"; for each of the two has a "right" against the other, the one the birthright of natural right, the other the earned or "well-earned" right.

If you remain on the ground of right, you remain in -- *Rechthaberei*.(22) The other cannot give you your right; he cannot "mete out right" to you. He who has might has -- right; if you have not the former, neither have you the latter. Is this wisdom so hard to attain? Just look at the mighty and their doings! We are talking here only of China and Japan, of course. Just try it once, you Chinese and Japanese, to make them out in the wrong, and learn by experience how they throw you into jail. (Only do not confuse with this the "well-meaning counsels" which -- in China and Japan -- are permitted, because they do not hinder the mighty one, but possibly *help him on*.) For him who should want to make them out in the wrong there would stand open only one way thereto, that of might. If he deprives them of their *might*, then he has *really* made them out in the wrong, deprived them of their right; in any other case he can do nothing but clench his little fist in his pocket, or fall a victim as an obtrusive fool.

In short, if you Chinese or Japanese did not ask after right, and in particular if you did not ask after the rights "that were born with you," then you would not need to ask at all after the well-earned rights either.

You start back in fright before others, because you think you see beside them the *ghost of right*, which, as in the Homeric combats, seems to fight as a goddess at their side, helping them. What do you do? Do you throw the spear? No, you creep around to gain the spook over to yourselves, that it may fight on your side: you woo for the ghost's favor. Another would simply ask thus: Do I will what my opponent wills? "No!" Now then, there may fight for him a thousand devils or gods, I go at him all the same!

The "commonwealth of right," as the *Vossische Zeitung* among others stands for it, asks that office-holders be removable only by the *judge*, not by the *administration*. Vain illusion! If it were settled by law that an office-holder who is once seen drunken shall lose his office, then the judges would have to condemn him on the word of the witnesses. In short, the law-giver would only have to state precisely all the possible grounds which entail the loss of office, however laughable they might be (*e. g.* he who laughs in his superiors' faces, who does not go to church every Sunday, who does not take the communion every four weeks, who runs in debt, who has disreputable associates, who shows no determination, etc., shall be removed. These things the law-giver might take it into his head to prescribe, *e. g.*, for a court of honor); then the judge would solely have to investigate whether the accused had "become guilty" of those "offenses," and, on presentation of the proof, pronounce sentence of removal against him "in the name of the law."

The judge is lost when he ceases to be *mechanical*, when he "is forsaken by the rules of evidence." Then he no longer has anything but an opinion like everybody else; and, if he decides according to this *opinion*, his action is *no longer an official action*. As judge he must decide only according to the law. Commend me rather to the old French parliaments, which wanted to examine for themselves what was to be matters of right, and to register it only after their own approval. They at least judged according to a right of their own, and were not willing to give themselves up to be machines of the law-giver, although as judges they must, to be sure, become their own machines.

It is said that punishment is the criminal's right. But impunity is just as much his right. If his undertaking succeeds, it serves him right, and, if it does not succeed, it likewise serves him right. You make your bed and lie in it. If some one goes foolhardily into dangers and perishes in them, we are apt to say, "It serves him right; he would have it so." But, if he conquered the dangers, *i.e.* if his *might* was victorious, then he would be in the *right* too. If a child plays with the knife and gets cut, it is served right; but, if it doesn't get cut, it is served right too. Hence right befalls the criminal, doubtless, when he suffers what he risked; why, what did he risk it for, since he knew the possible consequences? But the punishment that we decree against him is only our right, not his. Our right reacts against his, and he is -- "in the wrong at last" because -- we get the upper hand.

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But what is right, what is matter of right in a society, is voiced too -- in the law.(23)

Whatever the law may be, it must be respected by the -- loyal citizen. Thus the law-abiding mind of Old England is eulogized. To this that Euripidean sentiment (Orestes, 418) entirely corresponds: "We serve the gods, whatever the gods are." *Law as such, God as such*, thus far we are today.

People are at pains to distinguish*law* from arbitrary *orders*, from an ordinance: the former comes from a duly entitled authority. But a law over human action (ethical law, State law, etc.) is always a *declaration of will*, and so an order. Yes, even if I myself gave myself the law, it would yet be only my order, to which in the next moment I can refuse obedience. One may well enough declare what he will put up with, and so deprecate the opposite of the law, making known that in the contrary case he will treat the transgressor as his enemy; but no one has any business to command *my* actions, to say what course I shall pursue and set up a code to govern it. I must put up with it that he treats me as his *enemy*, but never that he makes free with me as his *creature*, and that he makes *his* reason, or even unreason, my plumbline.

States last only so long as there is *a ruling will* and this ruling will is looked upon as tantamount to the own will. The lord's will is -- law. What do your laws amount to if no one obeys them? What your orders, if nobody lets himself be ordered? The State cannot forbear the claim to determine the individual's will, to speculate and count on this. For the State it is indispensable that nobody have an *own will ;* if one had, the State would have to exclude (lock up, banish, etc.) this one; if all had, they would do away with the State. The State is not thinkable without lordship and servitude (subjection); for the State must will to be the lord of all that it embraces, and this will is called the "will of the State."

He who, to hold his own, must count on the absence of will in others is a thing made by these others, as the master is a thing made by the servant. If submissiveness ceased, it would be over with all lordship.

The *own will* of Me is the State's destroyer; it is therefore branded by the State as "self-will." Own will and the State are powers in deadly hostility, between which no "eternal peace" is possible. As long as the State asserts itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile opponent, as unreasonable, evil; and the latter lets itself be talked into believing this -- nay, it really is such, for no more reason than this, that it still lets itself be talked into such belief: it has not yet come to itself and to the consciousness of its dignity; hence it is still incomplete, still amenable to fine words, etc.

Every State is a *despotism*, be the despot one or many, or (as one is likely to imagine about a republic) if all be lords, *i. e.* despotize one over another. For this is the case when the law given at any time, the expressed volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth to be *law* for the individual, to which *obedience is due* from him or toward which he has the *duty* of obedience. If one were even to conceive the case that every individual in the people had expressed the same will, and hereby a complete "collective will" had come into being, the matter would still remain the same. Would I not be bound today and henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will would in this case be *frozen*. Wretched *stability!* My creature -- to wit, a particular expression of will -- would have become my commander. But I in my will, I the creator, should be hindered in my flow and my dissolution. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such my life long. So in the State-life I am at best -- I might just as well say, at worst -- a bondman of myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, I am today without will: yesterday voluntary, today involuntary.

How change it? Only be recognizing no *duty*, not *binding* myself nor letting myself be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no law either.

"But they will bind me!" My will nobody can bind, and my disinclination remains free.

"Why, everything must go topsy-turvy if every one could do what he would!" Well, who says that every one can do everything? What are you there for, pray, you who do not need to put up with everything? Defend yourself, and no one will do anything to you! He who would break your will has to do with you, and is your *enemy*. Deal with him as such. If there stand behind you for your protection some millions more, then you are an imposing power and will have an easy victory. But, even if as a power you overawe your opponent, still you are not on that account a hallowed authority to him, unless he be a simpleton. He does not owe you respect and regard, even though he will have to consider your might.

We are accustomed to classify States according to the different ways in which "the supreme might" is distributed. If an individual has it -- monarchy; if all have it -- democracy; etc. Supreme might then! Might against whom? Against the individual and his "self-will." The State practices "violence," the individual must not do so. The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime." Crime, then(24) -- so the individual's violence is called; and only by crime does he overcome(25) the State's violence when he thinks that the State is not above him, but he is above the State.

Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously, I might, as a well-meaning person, admonish you not to make laws which impair my self-development, self-activity, self-creation. I do not give this advice. For, if you should follow it, you would be unwise, and I should have been cheated of my entire profit. I request nothing at all from you; for, whatever I might demand, you would still be dictatorial law-givers, and must be so, because a raven cannot sing, nor a robber live without robbery. Rather do I ask those who would be egoists what they think the more egoistic -- to let laws be given them by you, and to respect those that are given, or to practice *refractoriness*, yes, complete disobedience. Good-hearted people think the laws ought to prescribe only what is accepted in the people's feeling as right and proper. But what concern is it of mine what is accepted in the nation and by the nation? The nation will perhaps be against the blasphemer; therefore a law against blasphemy. Am I not to blaspheme on that account? Is this law to be more than an "order" to me? I put the question.

Solely from the principle that all *right* and all *authority* belong to the *collectivity of the people* do all forms of government arise. For none of them lacks this appeal to the collectivity, and the despot, as well as the president or any aristocracy, acts and commands "in the name of the State." They are in possession of the "authority of the State," and it is perfectly indifferent whether, were this possible, the people as a *collectivity* (all individuals) exercise this State -- *authority*, or whether it is only the representatives of this collectivity, be there many of them as in aristocracies or one as in monarchies. Always the collectivity is above the individual, and has a power which is called *legitimate*, *i.e.* which is *law*.

Over against the sacredness of the State, the individual is only a vessel of dishonor, in which "exuberance, malevolence, mania for ridicule and slander, frivolity," etc., are left as soon as he does not deem that object of veneration, the State, to be worthy of recognition. The spiritual *haughtiness* of the servants and subjects of the State has fine penalties against unspiritual "exuberance."

When the government designates as punishable all play of mind *against* the State, the moderate liberals come and opine that fun, satire, wit, humor, must have free play anyhow, and *genius* must enjoy freedom. So not the *individual man* indeed, but still *genius*, is to be free. Here the State, or in its name the government, says with perfect right: He who is not for me is against me. Fun, wit, etc. -- in short, the turning of State affairs into a comedy -- have undermined States from of old: they are not "innocent." And, further, what boundaries are to be drawn between guilty and innocent wit, etc.? At this question the moderates fall into great perplexity, and everything reduces itself to the prayer that the State (government) would please not be so *sensitive*, so *ticklish ;* that it would not immediately scent malevolence in "harmless' things, and would in general be a little "more tolerant." Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, its avoidance may be praiseworthy virtue; but in time of war one cannot be sparing, and what may be allowed under peaceable circumstances ceases to be permitted as soon as a state of siege is declared. Because the well-meaning liberals feel this plainly, they hasten to declare that, considering "the devotion of the people," there is assuredly no danger to be feared. But the government will be wiser, and not let itself be talked into believing anything of that sort. It knows too well how people stuff one with fine words, and will not let itself be satisfied with the Barmecide dish.

But they are bound to have their play-ground, for they are children, you know, and cannot be so staid as old folks; boys will be boys. Only for this playground, only for a few hours of jolly running about, they bargain. They ask only that the State should not, like a splenetic papa, be too cross. It should permit some Processions of the Ass and plays of fools, as the church allowed them in the Middle Ages. But the times when it could grant this without danger are past. Children that now once come *into the open*, and live through an hour without the rod of discipline, are no longer willing to go into the *cell*. For the open is now no longer a *supplement* to the cell, no longer a refreshing *recreation*, but its *opposite*, an *aut-aut*. In short, the State must either no longer put up with anything, or put up with everything and perish; it must be either sensitive through and through, or, like a dead man, insensitive. Tolerance is done with. If the State but gives a finger, they take the whole hand at once. There can be no more "jesting," and all jest, such as fun, wit, humor, becomes bitter earnest.

The clamor of the Liberals for freedom of the press runs counter to their own principle, their proper *will*. They will what they *do not will*, *i.e.* they wish, they would like. Hence it is too that they fall away so easily when once so-called freedom of the press appears; then they would like censorship. Quite naturally. The State is sacred even to them; likewise morals. They behave toward it only as ill-bred brats, as tricky children who seek to utilize the weaknesses of their parents. Papa State is to permit them to say many things that do not please him, but papa has the right, by a stern look, to blue-pencil their impertinent gabble. If they recognize in him their papa, they must in his presence put up with the censorship of speech, like every child.

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If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no less let yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. Alongside right goes wrong, alongside legality *crime*. What are you? -- You are a -- *criminal!*

"The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own crime!" says Bettina.(26) One may let this sentiment pass, even if Bettina herself does not understand it exactly so. For in the State the unbridled I -- I, as I belong to myself alone -- cannot come to my fulfillment and realization. Every ego is from birth a criminal to begin with against the people, the State. Hence it is that it does really keep watch over all; it sees in each one an -- egoist, and it is afraid of the egoist. It presumes the worst about each one, and takes care, police-care, that "no harm happens to the State," *ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat*. The unbridled ego -- and this we originally are, and in our secret inward parts we remain so always -- is the never-ceasing criminal in the State. The man whom his boldness, his will, his inconsiderateness and fearlessness lead is surrounded with spies by the State, by the people. I say, by the people! The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted folks, what you have in the people) -- the people is full of police sentiments through and through. -- Only he who renounces his ego, who practices "self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people.

In the book cited Bettina is throughout good-natured enough to regard the State as only sick, and to hope for its recovery, a recovery which she would bring about through the "demagogues";(27) but it is not sick; rather is it in its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues who want to acquire something for the individuals, for "all." In its believers it is provided with the best demagogues (leaders of the people). According to Bettina, the State is to(28) "develop mankind's germ of freedom; otherwise it is a raven-mother(29) and caring for raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in its very caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would have to be the "humane" or " free" State to begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it. How rightly speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:(30) "What? the State has no other duty than to be merely the attendant of incurable invalids? -- that isn't to the point. From of old the healthy State has relieved itself of the diseased matter, and not mixed itself with it. It does not need to be so economical with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without hesitation, that the others may bloom. -- Do not shiver at the State's harshness; its morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. Accuse it of no want of feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but its experience finds safety only in this severity! There are diseases in which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes the disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb after a shorter or longer sickness." Frau Rat's question, "If you apply death as a drastic remedy, how is the cure to be wrought then?" isn't to the point. Why, the State does not apply death against itself, but against an offensive member; it tears out an eye that offends it, etc.

"For the invalid State the only way of salvation is to make man flourish in it."(31) If one here, like Bettina, understand by man the concept "Man," she is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the flourishing of "Man," for, the more infatuated the individuals are with "Man," the better it serves the State's turn. But, if one referred it to the individuals, to "all" (and the authoress half-does this too, because about "Man" she is still involved in vagueness), then it would sound somewhat like the following: For an invalid band of robbers the only way of salvation is to make the loyal citizen nourish in it! Why, thereby the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band of robbers; and, because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot every one who has a leaning toward becoming a "steady man."

In this book Bettina is a patriot, or, what is little more, a philanthropist, a worker for human happiness. She is discontented with the existing order in quite the same way as is the title-ghost of her book, along with all who would like to bring back the good old faith and what goes with it. Only she thinks, contrariwise, that the politicians, place-holders, and diplomats ruined the State, while those lay it at the door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the people."

What is the ordinary criminal but one who has committed the fatal mistake of endeavoring after what is the people's instead of seeking for what is his? He has sought despicable *alien* goods, has done what believers do who seek after what is God's. What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets before him the great wrong of having desecrated by his act what was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, of course, must be included even the life of those who belong to the State); instead of this, he might rather hold up to him the fact that he has befouled *himself* in not despising the alien thing, but thinking it worth stealing; he could, if he were not a parson. Talk with the so-called criminal as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not that he transgressed against your laws and goods, but that he considered your laws worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed that he did not -- despise you and yours together, that he was too little an egoist. But you cannot talk egoistically with him, for you are not so great as a criminal, you -- commit no crime! You do not know that an ego who is his own cannot desist from being a criminal, that crime is his life. And yet you should know it, since you believe that "we are all miserable sinners"; but you think surreptitiously to get beyond sin, you do not comprehend -- for you are devil-fearing -- that guilt is the value of a man. Oh, if you were guilty! But now you are "righteous."(32) Well -- just put every thing nicely to rights(33) for your master!

When the Christian consciousness, or the Christian man, draws up a criminal code, what can the concept of *crime* be there but simply -- *heartlessness?* Each severing and wounding of a *heart relation*, each *heartless behavior* toward a sacred being, is crime. The more heartfelt the relation is supposed to be, the more scandalous is the deriding of it, and the more worthy of punishment the crime. Everyone who is subject to the lord should love him; to deny this love is a high treason worthy of death. Adultery is a heartlessness worthy of punishment; one has no heart, no enthusiasm, no pathetic feeling for the sacredness of marriage. So long as the heart or soul dictates laws, only the heartful or soulful man enjoys the protection of the laws. That the man of soul makes laws means properly that the *moral* man makes them: what contradicts these men's "moral feeling," this they penalize. How, *e. g.*, should disloyalty, secession, breach of oaths -- in short, all *radical breaking off*, all tearing asunder of venerable *ties --* not be flagitious and criminal in their eyes? He who breaks with these demands of the soul has for enemies all the moral, all the men of soul. Only Krummacher and his mates are the right people to set up consistently a penal code of the heart, as a certain bill sufficiently proves. The consistent legislation of the Christian State must be placed wholly in the hands of the -- *parsons*, and will not become pure and coherent so long as it is worked out only by -- the *parson-ridden*, who are always only *half-parsons*. Only then will every lack of soulfulness, every heartlessness, be certified as an unpardonable crime, only then will every agitation of the soul become condemnable, every objection of criticism and doubt be anathematized; only then is the own man, before the Christian consciousness, a convicted -- *criminal* to begin with.

The men of the Revolution often talked of the people's "just revenge" as its "right." Revenge and right coincide here. Is this an attitude of an ego to an ego? The people cries that the opposite party has committed "crimes" against it. Can I assume that one commits a crime against me, without assuming that he has to act as I see fit? And this action I call the right, the good, etc.; the divergent action, a crime. So I think that the others must aim at the *same* goal with me; *i.e.*, I do not treat them as unique beings(34) who bear their law in themselves and live according to it, but as beings who are to obey some "rational" law. I set up what "Man" is and what acting in a "truly human" way is, and I demand of every one that this law become norm and ideal to him; otherwise he will expose himself as a "sinner and criminal." But upon the "guilty" falls the "penalty of the law"!

One sees here how it is "Man" again who sets on foot even the concept of crime, of sin, and therewith that of right. A man in whom I do not recognize "man" is "sinner, a guilty one."

Only against a sacred thing are there criminals; you against me can never be a criminal, but only an opponent. But not to hate him who injures a sacred thing is in itself a crime, as St. Just cries out against Danton: "Are you not a criminal and responsible for not having hated the enemies of the fatherland?" --

If, as in the Revolution, what "Man" is apprehended as "good citizen," then from this concept of "Man" we have the well-known "political offenses and crimes."

In all this the individual, the individual man, is regarded as refuse, and on the other hand the general man, "Man," is honored. Now, according to how this ghost is named -- as Christian, Jew, Mussulman, good citizen, loyal subject, freeman, patriot, etc. -- just so do those who would like to carry through a divergent concept of man, as well as those who want to put *themselves* through, fall before victorious "Man."

And with what unction the butchery goes on here in the name of the law, of the sovereign people, of God, etc.!

Now, if the persecuted trickily conceal and protect themselves from the stern parsonical judges, people stigmatize them as St. Just, *e. g.*, does those whom he accuses in the speech against Danton.(35) One is to be a fool, and deliver himself up to their Moloch.

Crimes spring from *fixed ideas*. The sacredness of marriage is a fixed idea. From the sacredness it follows that infidelity is a *crime*, and therefore a certain marriage law imposes upon it a shorter or longer *penalty*. But by those who proclaim "freedom as sacred" this penalty must be regarded as a crime against freedom, and only in this sense has public opinion in fact branded the marriage law.

Society would have *every one* come to his right indeed, but yet only to that which is sanctioned by society, to the society-right, not really to *his* right. But I give or take to myself the right out of my own plenitude of power, and against every superior power I am the most impenitent criminal. Owner and creator of my right, I recognize no other source of right than -- me, neither God nor the State nor nature nor even man himself with his "eternal rights of man," neither divine nor human right.

Right "in and for itself." Without relation to me, therefore! "Absolute right." Separated from me, therefore! A thing that exists in and for itself! An absolute! An eternal right, like an eternal truth!

According to the liberal way of thinking, right is to be obligatory for me because it is thus established by *human reason*, against which *my reason* is "unreason." Formerly people inveighed in the name of divine reason against weak human reason; now, in the name of strong human reason, against egoistic reason, which is rejected as "unreason." And yet none is real but this very "unreason." Neither divine nor human reason, but only your and my reason existing at any given time, is real, as and because you and I are real.

The thought of right is originally my thought; or, it has its origin in me. But, when it has sprung from me, when the "Word" is out, then it has "become flesh," it is a *fixed idea*. Now I no longer get rid of the thought; however I turn, it stands before me. Thus men have not become masters again of the thought "right," which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them. This is absolute right, that which is absolved or unfastened from me. We, revering it as absolute, cannot devour it again, and it takes from us the creative power: the creature is more than the creator, it is "in and for itself."

Once you no longer let right run around free, once you draw it back into its origin, into you, it is *your* right; and that is right which suits you.

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Right has had to suffer an attack within itself, *i.e.* from the standpoint of right; war being declared on the part of liberalism against "privilege."(36)

*Privileged* and *endowed with equal rights --* on these two concepts turns a stubborn fight. Excluded or admitted -- would mean the same. But where should there be a power -- be it an imaginary one like God, law, or a real one like I, you -- of which it should not be true that before it all are "endowed with equal rights," *i. e.*, no respect of persons holds? Every one is equally dear to God if he adores him, equally agreeable to the law *if* only he is a law- abiding person; whether the lover of God and the law is humpbacked and lame, whether poor or rich, etc., that amounts to nothing for God and the law; just so, when you are at the point of drowning, you like a Negro as rescuer as well as the most excellent Caucasian -- yes, in this situation you esteem a dog not less than a man. But to whom will not every one be also, contrariwise, a preferred or disregarded person? God punishes the wicked with his wrath, the law chastises the lawless, you let one visit you every moment and show the other the door.

The "equality of right" is a phantom just because right is nothing more and nothing less than admission, *a matter of grace*, which, be it said, one may also acquire by his desert; for desert and grace are not contradictory, since even grace wishes to be "deserved" and our gracious smile falls only to him who knows how to force it from us.

So people dream of "all citizens of the State having to stand side by side, with equal rights." As citizens of the State they are certainly all equal for the State. But it will divide them, and advance them or put them in the rear, according to its special ends, if on no other account; and still more must it distinguish them from one another as good and bad citizens.

Bruno Bauer disposes of the Jew question from the standpoint that "privilege" is not justified. Because Jew and Christian have each some point of advantage over the other, and in having this point of advantage are exclusive, therefore before the critic's gaze they crumble into nothingness. With them the State lies under the like blame, since it justifies their having advantages and stamps it as a "privilege." or prerogative, but thereby derogates from its calling to become a "free State."

But now every one has something of advantage over another -- *viz*., himself or his individuality; in this everybody remains exclusive.

And, again, before a third party every one makes his peculiarity count for as much as possible, and (if he wants to win him at all) tries to make it appear attractive before him.

Now, is the third party to be insensible to the difference of the one from the other? Do they ask that of the free State or of humanity? Then these would have to be absolutely without self-interest, and incapable of taking an interest in any one whatever. Neither God (who divides his own from the wicked) nor the State (which knows how to separate good citizens from bad) was thought of as so indifferent. But they are looking for this very third party that bestows no more "privilege." Then it is called perhaps the free State, or humanity, or whatever else it may be.

As Christian and Jew are ranked low by Bruno Bauer on account of their asserting privileges, it must be that they could and should free themselves from their narrow standpoint by self-renunciation or unselfishness. If they threw off their "egoism," the mutual wrong would cease, and with it Christian and Jewish religiousness in general; it would be necessary only that neither of them should any longer want to be anything peculiar.

But, if they gave up this exclusiveness, with that the ground on which their hostilities were waged would in truth not yet be forsaken. In case of need they would indeed find a third thing on which they could unite, a "general religion," a "religion of humanity," etc.; in short, an equalization, which need not be better than that which would result if all Jews became Christians, by this likewise the "privilege" of one over the other would have an end. The *tension*(37) would indeed be done away, but in this consisted not the essence of the two, but only their neighborhood. As being distinguished from each other they must necessarily be mutually resistant,(38) and the disparity will always remain. Truly it is not a failing in you that you stiffen(39) yourself against me and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way or renounce yourself.

People conceive the significance of the opposition too *formally* and weakly when they want only to "dissolve" it in order to make room for a third thing that shall "unite." The opposition deserves rather to be *sharpened*. As Jew and Christian you are in too slight an opposition, and are contending only about religion, as it were about the emperor's beard, about a fiddlestick's end. Enemies in religion indeed, *in the rest* you still remain good friends, and equal to each other, *e. g.* as men. Nevertheless the rest too is unlike in each; and the time when you no longer merely *dissemble* your opposition will be only when you entirely recognize it, and everybody asserts himself from top to toe as *unique*.(40) Then the former opposition will assuredly be dissolved, but only because a stronger has taken it up into itself.

Our weakness consists not in this, that we are in opposition to others, but in this, that we are not completely so; that we are not entirely *severed* from them, or that we seek a "communion," a "bond," that in communion we have an ideal. One faith, one God, one idea, one hat, for all! If all were brought under one hat, certainly no one would any longer need to take off his hat before another.

The last and most decided opposition, that of unique against unique, is at bottom beyond what is called opposition, but without having sunk back into "unity" and unison. As unique you have nothing in common with the other any longer, and therefore nothing divisive or hostile either; you are not seeking to be in the right against him before a *third* party, and are standing with him neither "on the ground of right" nor on any other common ground. The opposition vanishes in complete -- *severance* or singleness.(41) This might indeed be regarded as the new point in common or a new parity, but here the parity consists precisely in the disparity, and is itself nothing but disparity, a par of disparity, and that only for him who institutes a "comparison."

The polemic against privilege forms a characteristic feature of liberalism, which fumes against "privilege" because it itself appeals to "right." Further than to fuming it cannot carry this; for privileges do not fall before right falls, as they are only forms of right. But right falls apart into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by might, *i.e.* when one understands what is meant by "Might goes before right." All right explains itself then as privilege, and privilege itself as power, as -- *superior power*.

But must not the mighty combat against superior power show quite another face than the modest combat against privilege, which is to be fought out before a first judge, "Right," according to the judge's mind?

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Now, in conclusion, I have still to take back the half-way form of expression of which I was willing to make use only so long as I was still rooting among the entrails of right, and letting the word at least stand. But, in fact, with the concept the word too loses its meaning. What I called "my right" is no longer "right" at all, because right can be bestowed only by a spirit, be it the spirit of nature or that of the species, of mankind, the Spirit of God or that of His Holiness or His Highness, etc. What I have without an entitling spirit I have without right; I have it solely and alone through my power.

I do not demand any right, therefore I need not recognize any either. What I can get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I have no right to, nor do I give myself airs, or consolation, with my imprescriptible right.

With absolute right, right itself passes away; the dominion of the "concept of right" is canceled at the same time. For it is not to be forgotten that hitherto concepts, ideas, or principles ruled us, and that among these rulers the concept of right, or of justice, played one of the most important parts.

Entitled or unentitled -- that does not concern me, if I am only *powerful*, I am of myself *empowered*, and need no other empowering or entitling.

Right -- is a wheel in the head, put there by a spook; power -- that am I myself, I am the powerful one and owner of power. Right is above me, is absolute, and exists in one higher, as whose grace it flows to me: right is a gift of grace from the judge; power and might exist only in me the powerful and mighty.

2. My Intercourse

In society the human demand at most can be satisfied, while the egoistic must always come short. Because it can hardly escape anybody that the present shows no such living interest in any question as in the "social," one has to direct his gaze especially to society. Nay, if the interest felt in it were less passionate and dazzled, people would not so much, in looking at society, lose sight of the individuals in it, and would recognize that a society cannot become new so long as those who form and constitute it remain the old ones. If, *e. g.*, there was to arise in the Jewish people a society which should spread a new faith over the earth, these apostles could in no case remain Pharisees.

As you are, so you present yourself, so you behave toward men: a hypocrite as a hypocrite, a Christian as a Christian. Therefore the character of a society is determined by the character of its members: they are its creators. So much at least one must perceive even if one were not willing to put to the test the concept "society" itself.

Ever far from letting *themselves* come to their full development and consequence, men have hitherto not been able to found their societies on *themselves;* or rather, they have been able only to found "societies" and to live in societies. The societies were always persons, powerful persons, so-called "moral persons," *i.e.* ghosts, before which the individual had the appropriate wheel in his head, the fear of ghosts. As such ghosts they may most suitably be designated by the respective names "people" and "peoplet": the people of the patriarchs, the people of the Hellenes, etc., at last the -- people of men, Mankind (Anacharsis Clootz was enthusiastic for the "nation" of mankind); then every subdivision of this "people," which could and must have its special societies, the Spanish, French people, etc.; within it again classes, cities, in short all kinds of corporations; lastly, tapering to the finest point, the little peoplet of the --family. Hence, instead of saying that the person that walked as ghost in all societies hitherto has been the people, there might also have been named the two extremes -- to wit, either "mankind" or the "family," both the most "natural-born units." We choose the word "people"(42) because its derivation has been brought into connection with the Greek *polloi*, the "many" or "the masses," but still more because "national efforts" are at present the order of the day, and because even the newest mutineers have not yet shaken off this deceptive person, although on the other hand the latter consideration must give the preference to the expression "mankind," since on all sides they are going in for enthusiasm over "mankind."

The people, then -- mankind or the family -- have hitherto, as it seems, played history: no *egoistic* interest was to come up in these societies, but solely general ones, national or popular interests, class interests, family interests, and "general human interests." But who has brought to their fall the peoples whose decline history relates? Who but the egoist, who was seeking *his* satisfaction! If once an egoistic interest crept in, the society was "corrupted" and moved toward its dissolution, as Rome, *e. g.* proves with its highly developed system of private rights, or Christianity with the incessantly-breaking-in "rational self-determination," "self-consciousness," the "autonomy of the spirit," etc.

The Christian people has produced two societies whose duration will keep equal measure with the permanence of that people: these are the societies *State* and *Church*. Can they be called a union of egoists? Do we in them pursue an egoistic, personal, own interest, or do we pursue a popular (*i.e.* an interest of the Christian *people*), to wit, a State, and Church interest? Can I and may I be myself in them? May I think and act as I will, may I reveal myself, live myself out, busy myself? Must I not leave untouched the majesty of the State, the sanctity of the Church?

Well, I may not do so as I will. But shall I find in any society such an unmeasured freedom of maying? Certainly no! Accordingly we might be content? Not a bit! It is a different thing whether I rebound from an ego or from a people, a generalization. There I am my opponent's opponent, born his equal; here I am a despised opponent, bound and under a guardian: there I stand man to man; here I am a schoolboy who can accomplish nothing against his comrade because the latter has called father and mother to aid and has crept under the apron, while I am well scolded as an ill-bred brat, and I must not "argue": there I fight against a bodily enemy; here against mankind, against a generalization, against a "majesty," against a spook. But to me no majesty, nothing sacred, is a limit; nothing that I know how to overpower. Only that which I cannot overpower still limits my might; and I of limited might am temporarily a limited I, not limited by the might *outside* me, but limited by my *own* still deficient might, by my *own impotence*. However, "the Guard dies, but does not surrender!" Above all, only a bodily opponent!

I dare meet every foeman Whom I can see and measure with my eye, mettle fires my mettle for the fight -- etc.

Many privileges have indeed been cancelled with time, but solely for the sake of the common weal, of the State and the State's weal, by no means for the strengthening of me. Vassalage, *e. g.*, was abrogated only that a single liege lord, the lord of the people, the monarchical power, might be strengthened: vassalage under the one became yet more rigorous thereby. Only in favor of the monarch, be he called "prince" or "law," have privileges fallen. In France the citizens are not, indeed, vassals of the king, but are instead vassals of the "law" (the Charter). *Subordination* was retained, only the Christian State recognized that man cannot serve two masters (the lord of the manor and the prince); therefore one obtained all the prerogatives; now he can again *place* one above another, he can make "men in high place."

But of what concern to me is the common weal? The common weal as such is not *my weal*, but only the furthest extremity of *self- renunciation*. The common weal may cheer aloud while I must "down";(43) the State may shine while I starve. In what lies the folly of the political liberals but in their opposing the people to the government and talking of people's rights? So there is the people going to be of age, etc. As if one who has no mouth could be *mündig*!(44) Only the individual is able to be *mündig*. Thus the whole question of the liberty of the press is turned upside down when it is laid claim to as a "right of the people." It is only a right, or better the might, of the *individual*. If a people has liberty of the press, then I, although in the midst of this people, have it not; a liberty of the people is not *my* liberty, and the liberty of the press as a liberty of the people must have at its side a press law directed against *me*.

This must be insisted on all around against the present-day efforts for liberty:

Liberty of the *people* is not *my* liberty!

Let us admit these categories, liberty of the people and right of the people: *e. g.*, the right of the people that everybody may bear arms. Does one not forfeit such a right? One cannot forfeit his own right, but may well forfeit a right that belongs not to me but to the people. I may be locked up for the sake of the liberty of the people; I may, under sentence, incur the loss of the right to bear arms.

Liberalism appears as the last attempt at a creation of the liberty of the people, a liberty of the commune, of "society," of the general, of mankind; the dream of a humanity, a people, a commune, a "society," that shall be of age.

A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism, banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.

How they do praise Socrates for his conscientiousness, which makes him resist the advice to get away from the dungeon! He is a fool that he concedes to the Athenians a right to condemn him. Therefore it certainly serves him right; why then does he remain standing on an equal footing with the Athenians? Why does he not break with them? Had he known, and been able to know, what he was, he would have conceded to such judges no claim, no right. That *he did not escape* was just his weakness, his delusion of still having something in common with the Athenians, or the opinion that he was a member, a mere member of this people. But he was rather this people itself in person, and could only be his own judge. There was no *judge over him*, as he himself had really pronounced a public sentence on himself and rated himself worthy of the Prytaneum. He should have stuck to that, and, as he had uttered no sentence of death against himself, should have despised that of the Athenians too and escaped. But he subordinated himself and recognized in the *people* his *judge;* he seemed little to himself before the majesty of the people. That he subjected himself to *might* (to which alone he could succumb) as to a "right" was treason against himself: it was *virtue*. To Christ, who, it is alleged, refrained from using the power over his heavenly legions, the same scrupulousness is thereby ascribed by the narrators. Luther did very well and wisely to have the safety of his journey to Worms warranted to him in black and white, and Socrates should have known that the Athenians were his *enemies*, he alone his judge. The self-deception of a "reign of law," etc., should have given way to the perception that the relation was a relation of *might*.

It was with pettifoggery and intrigues that Greek liberty ended. Why? Because the ordinary Greeks could still less attain that logical conclusion which not even their hero of thought, Socrates, was able to draw. What then is pettifoggery but a way of utilizing something established without doing away with it? I might add "for one's own advantage," but, you see, that lies in "utilizing." Such pettifoggers are the theologians who "wrest" and "force" God's word; what would they have to wrest if it were not for the "established" Word of God? So those liberals who only shake and wrest the "established order." They are all perverters, like those perverters of the law. Socrates recognized law, right; the Greeks constantly retained the authority of right and law. If with this recognition they wanted nevertheless to assert their advantage, every one his own, then they had to seek it in perversion of the law, or intrigue. Alcibiades, an intriguer of genius, introduces the period of Athenian "decay"; the Spartan Lysander and others show that intrigue had become universally Greek. Greek *law*, on which the Greek *States* rested, had to be perverted and undermined by the egoists within these States, and the *States* went down that the *individuals* might become free, the Greek people fell because the individuals cared less for this people than for themselves. In general, all States, constitutions, churches, have sunk by the *secession* of individuals; for the individual is the irreconcilable enemy of every *generality*, every *tie*, *i.e.* every fetter. Yet people fancy to this day that man needs "sacred ties": he, the deadly enemy of every "tie." The history of the world shows that no tie has yet remained unrent, shows that man tirelessly defends himself against ties of every sort; and yet, blinded, people think up new ties again and again, and think, *e.g.*, that they have arrived at the right one if one puts upon them the tie of a so-called free constitution, a beautiful, constitutional tie; decoration ribbons, the ties of confidence between

"-- -- --," do seem gradually to have become somewhat infirm, but people have made no further progress than from apron-strings to garters and collars.

*Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter*.

Everything sacred is and must be perverted by perverters of the law; therefore our present time has multitudes of such perverters in all spheres. They are preparing the way for the break-up of law, for lawlessness.

Poor Athenians who are accused of pettifoggery and sophistry! poor Alcibiades, of intrigue! Why, that was just your best point, your first step in freedom. Your Æeschylus, Herodotus, etc., only wanted to have a free Greek *people;* you were the first to surmise something of *your* freedom.

A people represses those who tower above *its majesty*, by ostracism against too-powerful citizens, by the Inquisition against the heretics of the Church, by the -- Inquisition against traitors in the State.

For the people is concerned only with its self-assertion; it demands "patriotic self-sacrifice" from everybody. To it, accordingly, every one *in himself* is indifferent, a nothing, and it cannot do, not even suffer, what the individual and he alone must do -- to wit, *turn him to account*. Every people, every State, is unjust toward the *egoist*.

As long as there still exists even one institution which the individual may not dissolve, the ownness and self-appurtenance of Me is still very remote. How can I, *e.g.* be free when I must bind myself by oath to a constitution, a charter, a law, "vow body and soul" to my people? How can I be my own when my faculties may develop only so far as they "do not disturb the harmony of society" (Weitling)?

The fall of peoples and mankind will invite *me* to my rise.

Listen, even as I am writing this, the bells begin to sound, that they may jingle in for tomorrow the festival of the thousand years' existence of our dear Germany. Sound, sound its knell! You do sound solemn enough, as if your tongue was moved by the presentiment that it is giving convoy to a corpse. The German people and German peoples have behind them a history of a thousand years: what a long life! O, go to rest, never to rise again -- that all may become free whom you so long have held in fetters. -- The *people* is dead. -- Up with *me*!

O thou my much-tormented German people -- what was thy torment? It was the torment of a thought that cannot create itself a body, the torment of a walking spirit that dissolves into nothing at every cock-crow and yet pines for deliverance and fulfillment. In me too thou hast lived long, thou dear -- thought, thou dear -- spook. Already I almost fancied I had found the word of thy deliverance, discovered flesh and bones for the wandering spirit; then I hear them sound, the bells that usher thee into eternal rest; then the last hope fades out, then the notes of the last love die away, then I depart from the desolate house of those who now are dead and enter at the door of the -- living one:

For only he who is alive is in the right.

Farewell, thou dream of so many millions; farewell, thou who hast tyrannized over thy children for a thousand years!

Tomorrow they carry thee to the grave; soon thy sisters, the peoples, will follow thee. But, when they have all followed, then -- -- mankind is buried, and I am my own, I am the laughing heir!

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The word *Gesellschaft* (society) has its origin in the word *Sal* (hall). If one hall encloses many persons, then the hall causes these persons to be in society. They *are* in society, and at most constitute a parlor-society by talking in the traditional forms of parlor speech. When it comes to real *intercourse*, this is to be regarded as independent of society: it may occur or be lacking, without altering the nature of what is named society. Those who are in the hall are a society even as mute persons, or when they put each other off solely with empty phrases of courtesy. Intercourse is mutuality, it is the action, the *commercium*, of individuals; society is only community of the hall, and even the statues of a museum-hall are in society, they are "grouped." People are accustomed to say "they *haben inne*(45) this hall in common," but the case is rather that the hall has us *inne* or in it. So far the natural signification of the word society. In this it comes out that society is not generated by me and you, but by a third factor which makes associates out of us two, and that it is just this third factor that is the creative one, that which creates society.

Just so a prison society or prison companionship (those who enjoy(46) the same prison). Here we already hit upon a third factor fuller of significance than was that merely local one, the hall. Prison no longer means a space only, but a space with express reference to its inhabitants: for it is a prison only through being destined for prisoners, without whom it would be a mere building. What gives a common stamp to those who are gathered in it? Evidently the prison, since it is only by means of the prison that they are prisoners. What, then, determines the *manner* of life of the prison society? The prison! What determines their intercourse? The prison too, perhaps? Certainly they can enter upon intercourse only as prisoners, *i.e.* only so far as the prison laws allow it; but that *they themselves* hold intercourse, I with you, this the prison cannot bring to pass; on the contrary, it must have an eye to guarding against such egoistic, purely personal intercourse (and only as such is it really intercourse between me and you). That we *jointly* execute a job, run a machine, effectuate anything in general -- for this a prison will indeed provide; but that I forget that I am a prisoner, and engage in intercourse with you who likewise disregard it, brings danger to the prison, and not only cannot be caused by it, but must not even be permitted. For this reason the saintly and moral-minded French chamber decides to introduce solitary confinement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut off "demoralizing intercourse." Imprisonment is the established and -- sacred condition, to injure which no attempt must be made. The slightest push of that kind is punishable, as is every uprising against a sacred thing by which man is to be charmed and chained.

Like the hall, the prison does form a society, a companionship, a communion (*e. g.* communion of labor), but no *intercourse*, no reciprocity, no *union*. On the contrary, every union in the prison bears within it the dangerous seed of a "plot," which under favorable circumstances might spring up and bear fruit.

Yet one does not usually enter the prison voluntarily, and seldom remains in it voluntarily either, but cherishes the egoistic desire for liberty. Here, therefore, it sooner becomes manifest that personal intercourse is in hostile relations to the prison society and tends to the dissolution of this very society, this joint incarceration.

Let us therefore look about for such communions as, it seems, we remain in gladly and voluntarily, without wanting to endanger them by our egoistic impulses.

As a communion of the required sort the *family* offers itself in the first place. Parents, husbands and wife, children, brothers and sisters, represent a whole or form a family, for the further widening of which the collateral relatives also may be made to serve if taken into account. The family is a true communion only when the law of the family, piety(47) or family love, is observed by its members. A son to whom parents, brothers, and sisters have become indifferent *has been* a son; for, as the sonship no longer shows itself efficacious, it has no greater significance than the long-past connection of mother and child by the navel-string. That one has once lived in this bodily juncture cannot as a fact be undone; and so far one remains irrevocably this mother's son and the brother of the rest of her children; but it would come to a lasting connection only by lasting piety, this spirit of the family. Individuals are members of a family in the full sense only when they make the *persistence* of the family their task; only as *conservative* do they keep aloof from doubting their basis, the family. To every member of the family one thing must be fixed and sacred -- *viz*., the family itself, or, more expressively, piety. That the family is to *persist* remains to its member, so long as he keeps himself free from that egoism which is hostile to the family, an unassailable truth. In a word: -- If the family is sacred, then nobody who belongs to it may secede from it; else he becomes a "criminal" against the family: he may never pursue an interest hostile to the family, *e. g.* form a misalliance. He who does this has "dishonored the family," "put it to shame," etc.

Now, if in an individual the egoistic impulse has not force enough, he complies and makes a marriage which suits the claims of the family, takes a rank which harmonizes with its position, etc.; in short, he "does honor to the family."

If, on the contrary, the egoistic blood flows fierily enough in his veins, he prefers to become a "criminal" against the family and to throw off its laws.

Which of the two lies nearer my heart, the good of the family or my good? In innumerable cases both go peacefully together; the advantage of the family is at the same time mine, and *vice versa*. Then it is hard to decide whether I am thinking *selfishly* or *for the common benefit*, and perhaps I complacently flatter myself with my unselfishness. But there comes the day when a necessity of choice makes me tremble, when I have it in mind to dishonor my family tree, to affront parents, brothers, and kindred. What then? Now it will appear how I am disposed at the bottom of my heart; now it will be revealed whether piety ever stood above egoism for me, now the selfish one can no longer skulk behind the semblance of unselfishness. A wish rises in my soul, and, growing from hour to hour, becomes a passion. To whom does it occur at first blush that the slightest thought which may result adversely to the spirit of the family (piety) bears within it a transgression against this? Nay, who at once, in the first moment, becomes completely conscious of the matter? It happens so with Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet." The unruly passion can at last no longer be tamed, and undermines the building of piety. You will say, indeed, it is from self-will that the family casts out of its bosom those wilful ones that grant more of a hearing to their passion than to piety; the good Protestants used the same excuse with much success against the Catholics, and believed in it themselves. But it is just a subterfuge to roll the fault off oneself, nothing more. The Catholics had regard for the common bond of the church, and thrust those heretics from them only because these did not have so much regard for the bond of the church as to sacrifice their convictions to it; the former, therefore, held the bond fast, because the bond, the Catholic (*i.e.* common and united) church, was sacred to them; the latter, on the contrary, disregarded the bond. Just so those who lack piety. They are not thrust out, but thrust themselves out, prizing their passion, their wilfulness, higher than the bond of the family.

But now sometimes a wish glimmers in a less passionate and wilful heart than Juliet's. The pliable girl brings herself as a *sacrifice* to the peace of the family. One might say that here too selfishness prevailed, for the decision came from the feeling that the pliable girl felt herself more satisfied by the unity of the family than by the fulfillment of her wish. That might be; but what if there remained a sure sign that egoism had been sacrificed to piety? What if, even after the wish that had been directed against the peace of the family was sacrificed, it remained at least as a recollection of a "sacrifice" brought to a sacred tie? What if the pliable girl were conscious of having left her self-will unsatisfied and humbly subjected herself to a higher power? Subjected and sacrificed, because the superstition of piety exercised its dominion over her!

There egoism won, here piety wins and the egoistic heart bleeds; there egoism was strong, here it was -- weak. But the weak, as we have long known, are the -- unselfish. For them, for these its weak members, the family cares, because they *belong* to the family, do not belong to themselves and care for themselves. This weakness Hegel, *e. g.* praises when he wants to have match- making left to the choice of the parents.

As a sacred communion to which, among the rest, the individual owes obedience, the family has the judicial function too vested in it; such a "family court" is described *e. g.* in the *Cabanis* **of Wilibald Alexis. There the father, in the name of the "family council," puts the intractable son among the soldiers and thrusts him out of the family, in order to cleanse the smirched family again by means of this act of punishment. -- The most consistent development of family responsibility is contained in Chinese law, according to which the whole family has to expiate the individual's fault.

Today, however, the arm of family power seldom reaches far enough to take seriously in hand the punishment of apostates (in most cases the State protects even against disinheritance). The criminal against the family (family-criminal) flees into the domain of the State and is free, as the State-criminal who gets away to America is no longer reached by the punishments of his State. He who has shamed his family, the graceless son, is protected against the family's punishment because the State, this protecting lord, takes away from family punishment its "sacredness" and profanes it, decreeing that it is only --"revenge": it restrains punishment, this sacred family right, because before its, the State's, "sacredness" the subordinate sacredness of the family always pales and loses its sanctity as soon as it comes in conflict with this higher sacredness. Without the conflict, the State lets pass the lesser sacredness of the family; but in the opposite case it even commands crime against the family, charging, *e. g.*, the son to refuse obedience to his parents as soon as they want to beguile him to a crime against the State.

Well, the egoist has broken the ties of the family and found in the State a lord to shelter him against the grievously affronted spirit of the family. But where has he run now? Straight into a new *society*, in which his egoism is awaited by the same snares and nets that it has just escaped. For the State is likewise a society, not a union; it is the broadened *family* ("Father of the Country -- Mother of the Country -- children of the country").

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What is called a State is a tissue and plexus of dependence and adherence; it is a *belonging together*, a holding together, in which those who are placed together fit themselves to each other, or, in short, mutually depend on each other: it is the *order* of this *dependence*. Suppose the king, whose authority lends authority to all down to the beadle, should vanish: still all in whom the will for order was awake would keep order erect against the disorders of bestiality. If disorder were victorious, the State would be at an end.

But is this thought of love, to fit ourselves to each other, to adhere to each other and depend on each other, really capable of winning us? According to this the State should be *love* realized, the being for each other and living for each other of all. Is not self-will being lost while we attend to the will for order? Will people not be satisfied when order is cared for by authority, *i.e.* when authority sees to it that no one "gets in the way of" another; when, then, the *herd* is judiciously distributed or ordered? Why, then everything is in "the best order," and it is this best order that is called -- State!

Our societies and States *are* without our *making* them, are united without our uniting, are predestined and established, or have an independent standing(48) of their own, are the indissolubly established against us egoists. The fight of the world today is, as it is said, directed against the "established." Yet people are wont to misunderstand this as if it were only that what is now established was to be exchanged for another, a better, established system. But war might rather be declared against establishment itself, the *State*, not a particular State, not any such thing as the mere condition of the State at the time; it is not another State (*e. g.* a "people's State") that men aim at, but their *union*, uniting, this ever-fluid uniting of everything standing. -- A State exists even without my co-operation: I am born in it, brought up in it, under obligations to it, and must "do it homage."(49) It takes me up into its "favor,"(50) and I live by its "grace." Thus the independent establishment of the State founds my lack of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism, demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That *it* may be able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the shears of "civilization"; it gives me an education and culture adapted to it, not to me, and teaches me *e. g.* to respect the laws, to refrain from injury to State property (*i.e.* private property), to reverence divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to be -- *unpunishable*, "sacrificing" my ownness to "sacredness" (everything possible is sacred; *e. g.* property, others' life, etc.). In this consists the sort of civilization and culture that the State is able to give me: it brings me up to be a "serviceable instrument," a "serviceable member of society."

This every State must do, the people's State as well as the absolute or constitutional one. It must do so as long as we rest in the error that it is an *I*, as which it then applies to itself the name of a "moral, mystical, or political person." I, who really am I, must pull off this lion-skin of the I from the stalking thistle-eater. What manifold robbery have I not put up with in the history of the world! There I let sun, moon, and stars, cats and crocodiles, receive the honor of ranking as I; there Jehovah, Allah, and Our Father came and were invested with the I; there families, tribes, peoples, and at last actually mankind, came and were honored as I's; there the Church, the State, came with the pretension to be I -- and I gazed calmly on all. What wonder if then there was always a real I too that joined the company and affirmed in my face that it was not my *you* but my real *I*. Why, *the* Son of Man *par excellence* had done the like; why should not *a* son of man do it too? So I saw my I always above me and outside me, and could never really come to myself.

I never believed in myself; I never believed in my present, I saw myself only in the future. The boy believes he will be a proper I, a proper fellow, only when he has become a man; the man thinks, only in the other world will he be something proper. And, to enter more closely upon reality at once, even the best are today still persuading each other that one must have received into himself the State, his people, mankind, and what not, in order to be a real I, a "free burgher," a "citizen," a "free or true man"; they too see the truth and reality of me in the reception of an alien I and devotion to it. And what sort of an I? An I that is neither an I nor a you, a *fancied* I, a spook.

While in the Middle Ages the church could well brook many States living united in it, the States learned after the Reformation, especially after the Thirty Years' War, to tolerate many churches (confessions) gathering under one crown. But all States are religious and, as the case may be, "Christian States," and make it their task to force the intractable, the "egoists," under the bond of the unnatural, *e. g.*, Christianize them. All arrangements of the Christian State have the object of *Christianizing the people*. Thus the court has the object of forcing people to justice, the school that of forcing them to mental culture -- in short, the object of protecting those who act Christianly against those who act un-Christianly, of bringing Christian action to *dominion*, of making it *powerful*. Among these means of force the State counted the *Church* too, it demanded a -- particular religion from everybody. Dupin said lately against the clergy, "Instruction and education belong to the State."

Certainly everything that regards the principle of morality is a State affair. Hence it is that the Chinese State meddles so much in family concerns, and one is nothing there if one is not first of all a good child to his parents. Family concerns are altogether State concerns with us too, only that our State -- puts confidence in the families without painful oversight; it holds the family bound by the marriage tie, and this tie cannot be broken without it.

But that the State makes me responsible for my principles, and demands certain ones from me, might make me ask, what concern has it with the "wheel in my head" (principle)? Very much, for the State is the -- *ruling principle*. It is supposed that in divorce matters, in marriage law in general, the question is of the proportion of rights between Church and States. Rather, the question is of whether anything sacred is to rule over man, be it called faith or ethical law (morality). The State behaves as the same ruler that the Church was. The latter rests on godliness, the former on morality.

People talk of the tolerance, the leaving opposite tendencies free, etc., by which civilized States are distinguished. Certainly some are strong enough to look with complacency on even the most unrestrained meetings, while others charge their catchpolls to go hunting for tobacco-pipes. Yet for one State as for another the play of individuals among themselves, their buzzing to and fro, their daily life, is an *incident* which it must be content to leave to themselves because it can do nothing with this. Many, indeed, still strain out gnats and swallow camels, while others are shrewder. Individuals are "freer" in the latter, because less pestered. But *I* am free in *no* State. The lauded tolerance of States is simply a tolerating of the "harmless," the "not dangerous"; it is only elevation above pettymindedness, only a more estimable, grander, prouder -- despotism. A certain State seemed for a while to mean to be pretty well elevated above *literary* combats, which might be carried on with all heat; England is elevated above *popular turmoil* and -- tobacco-smoking. But woe to the literature that deals blows at the State itself, woe to the mobs that "endanger" the State. In that certain State they dream of a "free science," in England of a "free popular life."

The State does let individuals *play* as freely as possible, only they must not be in *earnest*, must not forget *it*. Man must not carry on intercourse with man *unconcernedly*, not without "superior oversight and mediation." I must not execute all that I am able to, but only so much as the State allows; I must not turn to account *my* thoughts, nor *my* work, nor, in general, anything of mine.

The State always has the sole purpose to limit, tame, subordinate, the individual -- to make him subject to some *generality* or other; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and it is only the clearly-marked *restriction of me*, my limitation, my slavery. Never does a State aim to bring in the free activity of individuals, but always that which is bound to the *purpose of the State*. Through the State nothing *in common* comes to pass either, as little as one can call a piece of cloth the common work of all the individual parts of a machine; it is rather the work of the whole machine as a unit, *machine work*. In the same style everything is done by the *State machine* too; for it moves the clockwork of the individual minds, none of which follow their own impulse. The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its supervision, its police, and holds this hindering to be its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation. The State wants to make something out of man, therefore there live in it only *made* men; every one who wants to be his own self is its opponent and is nothing. "He is nothing" means as much as, the State does not make use of him, grants him no position, no office, no trade, etc.

Edgar Bauer,(51) in the *Liberale Bestrebungen* (vol. II, p.50), is still dreaming of a "government which, proceeding out of the people, can never stand in opposition to it." He does indeed (p.69) himself take back the word "government": "In the republic no government at all obtains, but only an executive authority. An authority which proceeds purely and alone out of the people; which has not an independent power, independent principles, independent officers, over against the people; but which has its foundation, the fountain of its power and of its principles, in the sole, supreme authority of the State, in the people. The concept government, therefore, is not at all suitable in the people's State." But the thing remains the same. That which has "proceeded, been founded, sprung from the fountain" becomes something "independent" and, like a child delivered from the womb, enters upon opposition at once. The government, if it were nothing independent and opposing, would be nothing at all.

"In the free State there is no government," etc. (p.94). This surely means that the people, when it is the *sovereign*, does not let itself be conducted by a superior authority. Is it perchance different in absolute monarchy? Is there *there* for the *sovereign*, perchance, a government standing over him? *Over* the sovereign, be he called prince or people, there never stands a government: that is understood of itself. But over *me* there will stand a government in every "State," in the absolute as well as in the republican or "free." I am as badly off in one as in the other.

The republic is nothing whatever but -- absolute monarchy; for it makes no difference whether the monarch is called prince or people, both being a "majesty." Constitutionalism itself proves that nobody is able and willing to be only an instrument. The ministers domineer over their master the prince, the deputies over their master the people. Here, then, the *parties* at least are already free -- *videlicet*, the office-holders' party (so-called people's party). The prince must conform to the will of the ministers, the people dance to the pipe of the chambers. Constitutionalism is further than the republic, because it is the *State* in incipient *dissolution*.

Edgar Bauer denies (p.56) that the people is a "personality" in the constitutional State; *per contra*, then, in the republic? Well, in the constitutional State the people is -- a *party*, and a party is surely a "personality" if one is once resolved to talk of a "political" (p.76) moral person anyhow. The fact is that a moral person, be it called people's party or people or even "the Lord," is in no wise a person, but a spook.

Further, Edgar Bauer goes on (p.69): "guardianship is the characteristic of a government." Truly, still more that of a people and "people's State"; it is the characteristic of all *dominion*. A people's State, which "unites in itself all completeness of power," the "absolute master," cannot let me become powerful. And what a chimera, to be no longer willing to call the "people's officials" "servants, instruments," because they "execute the free, rational law-will of the people!" (p.73). He thinks (p.74): "Only by all official circles subordinating themselves to the government's views can unity be brought into the State"; but his "people's State" is to have "unity" too; how will a lack of subordination be allowed there? subordination to the -- people's will.

"In the constitutional State it is the regent and his *disposition* that the whole structure of government rests on in the end." (p. 130.) How would that be otherwise in the "people's State"? Shall *I* not there be governed by the people's *disposition* too, and does it make a difference *for me* whether I see myself kept in dependence by the prince's disposition or by the people's disposition, so-called "public opinion"? If dependence means as much as "religious relation," as Edgar Bauer rightly alleges, then in the people's State the people remains *for me* the superior power, the "majesty" (for God and prince have their proper essence in "majesty") to which I stand in religious relations. -- Like the sovereign regent, the sovereign people too would be reached by no *law*. Edgar Bauer's whole attempt comes to a *change of masters*. Instead of wanting to make the *people* free, he should have had his mind on the sole realizable freedom, his own.

In the constitutional State *absolutism* itself has at last come in conflict with itself, as it has been shattered into a duality; the government wants to be absolute, and the people wants to be absolute. These two absolutes will wear out against each other.

Edgar Bauer inveighs against the determination of the regent *by birth*, by *chance*. But, when "the people" have become "the sole power in the State" (p. 132), have *we* not then in it a master from *chance?* Why, what is the people? The people has always been only the *body* of the government: it is many under one hat (a prince's hat) or many under one constitution. And the constitution is the -- prince. Princes and peoples will persist so long as both do not *col*lapse, *i. e.*, fall *together*. If under one constitution there are many "peoples" -- as in the ancient Persian monarchy and today --then these "peoples" rank only as "provinces." For me the people is in any case an --accidental power, a force of nature, an enemy that I must overcome.

What is one to think of under the name of an "organized" people (p. 132)? A people "that no longer has a government," that governs itself. In which, therefore, no ego stands out prominently; a people organized by ostracism. The banishment of egos, ostracism, makes the people autocrat.

If you speak of the people, you must speak of the prince; for the people, if it is to be a subject(52) and make history, must, like everything that acts, have a *head*, its "supreme head." Weitling sets this forth in [*Die Europäische*] Triarchie, and Proudhon declares, *"une société, pour ainsi dire acéphale, ne peut vivre*."(53)

The *vox populi* is now always held up to us, and "public opinion" is to rule our princes. Certainly the *vox populi* is at the same time *vox dei;* but is either of any use, and is not the *vox principis* also *vox dei*?

At this point the "Nationals" may be brought to mind. To demand of the thirty-eight States of Germany that they shall act as *one nation* can only be put alongside the senseless desire that thirty-eight swarms of bees, led by thirty-eight queen-bees, shall unite themselves into one swarm. *Bees* they all remain; but it is not the bees as bees that belong together and can join themselves together, it is only that the *subject* bees are connected with the *ruling* queens. Bees and peoples are destitute of will, and the *instinct* of their queens leads them.

If one were to point the bees to their beehood, in which at any rate they are all equal to each other, one would be doing the same thing that they are now doing so stormily in pointing the Germans to their Germanhood. Why, Germanhood is just like beehood in this very thing, that it bears in itself the necessity of cleavages and separations, yet without pushing on to the last separation, where, with the complete carrying through of the process of separating, its end appears: I mean, to the separation of man from man. Germanhood does indeed divide itself into different peoples and tribes, *i.e.* beehives; but the individual who has the quality of being a German is still as powerless as the isolated bee. And yet only individuals can enter into union with each other, and all alliances and leagues of peoples are and remain mechanical compoundings, because those who come together, at least so far as the "peoples" are regarded as the ones that have come together, are *destitute of will*. Only with the last separation does separation itself end and change to unification.

Now the Nationals are exerting themselves to set up the abstract, lifeless unity of beehood; but the self-owned are going to fight for the unity willed by their own will, for union. This is the token of all reactionary wishes, that they want to set up something *general*, abstract, an empty, lifeless *concept*, in distinction from which the self-owned aspire to relieve the robust, lively *particular* from the trashy burden of generalities. The reactionaries would be glad to smite a *people, a nation*, forth from the earth; the self-owned have before their eyes only themselves. In essentials the two efforts that are just now the order of the day - to wit, the restoration of provincial rights and of the old tribal divisions (Franks, Bavarians, Lusatia, etc.), and the restoration of the entire nationality -- coincide in one. But the Germans will come into unison, *i.e.* unite *themselves*, only when they knock over their beehood as well as all the beehives; in other words, when they are more than -- Germans: only then can they form a "German Union." They must not want to turn back into their nationality, into the womb, in order to be born again, but let every one turn in to *himself*. How ridiculously sentimental when one German grasps another's hand and presses it with sacred awe because "he too is a German!" With that he is something great! But this will certainly still be thought touching as long as people are enthusiastic for "brotherliness," *i.e.* as long as they have a *"family disposition"*. From the superstition of "piety," from "brotherliness" or "childlikeness" or however else the soft-hearted piety-phrases run -- from the *family spirit* -- the Nationals, who want to have a great *family of Germans*, cannot liberate themselves.

Aside from this, the so-called Nationals would only have to understand themselves rightly in order to lift themselves out of their juncture with the good-natured Teutomaniacs. For the uniting for material ends and interests, which they demand of the Germans, comes to nothing else than a voluntary union. Carrière, inspired, cries out,(54) "Railroads are to the more penetrating eye the way to a *life of the people* *e. g.* has not yet anywhere appeared in such significance." Quite right, it will be a life of the people that has nowhere appeared, because it is not a -- life of the people. -- So Carrière then combats himself (p. 10): "Pure humanity or manhood cannot be better represented than by a people fulfilling its mission." Why, by this nationality only is represented. "Washed-out generality is lower than the form complete in itself, which is itself a whole, and lives as a living member of the truly general, the organized." Why, the people is this very "washed-out generality," and it is only a man that is the "form complete in itself."

The impersonality of what they call "people, nation," is clear also from this: that a people which wants to bring its I into view to the best of its power puts at its head the ruler *without will*. It finds itself in the alternative either to be subjected to a prince who realizes only *himself, his individual pleasure --* then it does not recognize in the "absolute master" its own will, the so-called will of the people -- or to seat on the throne a prince who gives effect to no will of his own -- then it has a prince *without will*, whose place some ingenious clockwork would perhaps fill just as well. -- Therefore insight need go only a step farther; then it becomes clear of itself that the I of the people is an impersonal, "spiritual" power, the -- law. The people's I, therefore, is a -- spook, not an I. I am I only by this, that I make myself; *i.e.* that it is not another who makes me, but I must be my own work. But how is it with this I of the people? *Chance* plays it into the people's hand, chance gives it this or that born lord, accidents procure it the chosen one; he is not its (the *"sovereign"* people's) product, as I am *my* product. Conceive of one wanting to talk you into believing that you were not your I, but Tom or Jack was your I! But so it is with the people, and rightly. For the people has an I as little as the eleven planets counted together have an I, though they revolve around a common *center*.

Bailly's utterance is representative of the slave-disposition that folks manifest before the sovereign people, as before the prince. "I have," says he, "no longer any extra reason when the general reason has pronounced itself. My first law was the nation's will; as soon as it had assembled I knew nothing beyond its sovereign will." He would have no "extra reason," and yet this extra reason alone accomplishes everything. Just so Mirabeau inveighs in the words, "No power on earth has the *right* to say to the nation's representatives, It is my will!"

As with the Greeks, there is now a wish to make man a *zoon politicon*, a citizen of the State or political man. So he ranked for a long time as a "citizen of heaven." But the Greek fell into ignominy along with his *State*, the citizen of heaven likewise falls with heaven; we, on the other hand, are not willing to go down along with the *people*, the nation and nationality, not willing to be merely *political* men or politicians. Since the Revolution they have striven to "make the people happy," and in making the people happy, great, etc., they make us unhappy: the people's good hap is -- my mishap.

What empty talk the political liberals utter with emphatic decorum is well seen again in Nauwerck's "On Taking Part in the State". There complaint is made of those who are indifferent and do not take part, who are not in the full sense citizens, and the author speaks as if one could not be man at all if one did not take a lively part in State affairs, *i.e.* if one were not a politician. In this he is right; for, if the State ranks as the warder of everything "human," we can have nothing human without taking part in it. But what does this make out against the egoist? Nothing at all, because the egoist is to himself the warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the State except "Get out of my sunshine." Only when the State comes in contact with his ownness does the egoist take an active interest in it. If the condition of the State does not bear hard on the closet-philosopher, is he to occupy himself with it because it is his "most sacred duty?" So long as the State does according to his wish, what need has he to look up from his studies? Let those who from an interest of their own want to have conditions otherwise busy themselves with them. Not now, nor evermore, will "sacred duty" bring folks to reflect about the State -- as little as they become disciples of science, artists, etc., from "sacred duty." Egoism alone can impel them to it, and will as soon as things have become much worse. If you showed folks that their egoism demanded that they busy themselves with State affairs, you would not have to call on them long; if, on the other hand, you appeal to their love of fatherland etc., you will long preach to deaf hearts in behalf of this "service of love." Certainly, in your sense the egoists will not participate in State affairs at all.

Nauwerck utters a genuine liberal phrase on p. 16: "Man completely fulfills his calling only in feeling and knowing himself as a member of humanity, and being active as such. The individual cannot realize the idea of *manhood* if he does not stay himself upon all humanity, if he does not draw his powers from it like Antaeus."

In the same place it is said: "Man's relation to the *res publica* is degraded to a purely private matter by the theological view; is, accordingly, made away with by denial." As if the political view did otherwise with religion! There religion is a "private matter."

If, instead of "sacred duty," "man's destiny," the "calling to full manhood," and similar commandments, it were held up to people that their *self-interest* was infringed on when they let everything in the State go as it goes, then, without declamations, they would be addressed as one will have to address them at the decisive moment if he wants to attain his end. Instead of this, the theology-hating author says, "If there has ever been a time when the *State* laid claim to all that are hers, such a time is ours. -- The thinking man sees in participation in the theory and practice of the State a *duty*, one of the most sacred duties that rest upon him" -- and then takes under closer consideration the "unconditional necessity that everybody participate in the State."

He in whose head or heart or both the *State* is seated, he who is possessed by the State, or the *believer in the State*, is a politician, and remains such to all eternity.

"The State is the most necessary means for the complete development of mankind." It assuredly has been so as long as we wanted to develop mankind; but, if we want to develop ourselves, it can be to us only a means of hindrance.

Can State and people still be reformed and bettered now? As little as the nobility, the clergy, the church, etc.: they can be abrogated, annihilated, done away with, not reformed. Can I change a piece of nonsense into sense by reforming it, or must I drop it outright?

Henceforth what is to be done is no longer about the *State* (the form of the State, etc.), but about me. With this all questions about the prince's power, the constitution, etc., sink into their true abyss and their true nothingness. I, this nothing, shall put forth my *creations* from myself.

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To the chapter of society belongs also "the party," whose praise has of late been sung.

In the State the *party* is current. "Party, party, who should not join one!" But the individual is *unique*,(55) not a member of the party. He unites freely, and separates freely again. The party is nothing but a State in the State, and in this smaller bee- State "peace" is also to rule just as in the greater. The very people who cry loudest that there must be an *opposition* in the State inveigh against every discord in the party. A proof that they too want only a --State. All parties are shattered not against the State, but against the ego.(56)

One hears nothing oftener now than the admonition to remain true to his party; party men despise nothing so much as a mugwump. One must run with his party through thick and thin, and unconditionally approve and represent its chief principles. It does not indeed go quite so badly here as with closed societies, because these bind their members to fixed laws or statutes (*e. g.* the orders, the Society of Jesus, etc.). But yet the party ceases to be a union at the same moment at which it makes certain principles *binding* and wants to have them assured against attacks; but this moment is the very birth-act of the party. As party it is already a *born society*, a dead union, an idea that has become fixed. As party of absolutism it cannot will that its members should doubt the irrefragable truth of this principle; they could cherish this doubt only if they were egoistic enough to want still to be something outside their party, *i.e.* non-partisans. Non-partisans they cannot be as party-men, but only as egoists. If you are a Protestant and belong to that party, you must only justify Protestantism, at most "purge" it, not reject it; if you are a Christian and belong among men to the Christian party, you cannot be beyond this as a member of this party, but only when your egoism, *i.e.* non-partisanship, impels you to it. What exertions the Christians, down to Hegel and the Communists, have put forth to make their party strong! They stuck to it that Christianity must contain the eternal truth, and that one needs only to get at it, make sure of it, and justify it.

In short, the party cannot bear non-partisanship, and it is in this that egoism appears. What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who *unite* with me without swearing allegiance to my flag.

He who passes over from one party to another is at once abused as a "turncoat." Certainly *morality* demands that one stand by his party, and to become apostate from it is to spot oneself with the stain of "faithlessness"; but ownness knows no commandment of "faithlessness"; adhesion, etc., ownness permits everything, even apostasy, defection. Unconsciously even the moral themselves let themselves be led by this principle when they have to judge one who passes over to *their* party -- nay, they are likely to be making proselytes; they should only at the same time acquire a consciousness of the fact that one must commit *immoral* actions in order to commit his own -- *i.e.* here, that one must break faith, yes, even his oath, in order to determine himself instead of being determined by moral considerations. In the eyes of people of strict moral judgment an apostate always shimmers in equivocal colors, and will not easily obtain their confidence; for there sticks to him the taint of "faithlessness," *i.e.* of an immorality. In the lower man this view is found almost generally; advanced thinkers fall here too, as always, into an uncertainty and bewilderment, and the contradiction necessarily founded in the principle of morality does not, on account of the confusion of their concepts, come clearly to their consciousness. They do not venture to call the apostate downright immoral, because they themselves entice to apostasy, to defection from one religion to another, etc.; still, they cannot give up the standpoint of morality either. And yet here the occasion was to be seized to step outside of morality.

Are the Own or Unique(57) perchance a party? How could they be *own* if they were *e. g.* *belonged* to a party?

Or is one to hold with no party? In the very act of joining them and entering their circle one forms a union with them that lasts as long as party and I pursue one and the same goal. But today I still share the party's tendency, as by tomorrow I can do so no longer and I become "untrue" to it. The party has nothing binding (obligatory) for me, and I do not have respect for it; if it no longer pleases me, I become its foe.

In every party that cares for itself and its persistence, the members are unfree (or better, unown) in that degree, they lack egoism in that degree, in which they serve this desire of the party. The independence of the party conditions the lack of independence in the party- members.

A party, of whatever kind it may be, can never do without a *confession of faith*. For those who belong to the party must *believe* in its principle, it must not be brought in doubt or put in question by them, it must be the certain, indubitable thing for the party-member. That is: One must belong to a party body and soul, else one is not truly a party-man, but more or less -- an egoist. Harbor a doubt of Christianity, and you are already no longer a true Christian, you have lifted yourself to the "effrontery" of putting a question beyond it and haling Christianity before your egoistic judgment-seat. You have -- *sinned* against Christianity, this party cause (for it is surely not *e. g.* a cause for the Jews, another party.) But well for you if you do not let yourself be affrighted: your effrontery helps you to ownness.

So then an egoist could never embrace a party or take up with a party? Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and taken up by the party. For him the party remains all the time nothing but a gathering: he is one of the party, he takes part.

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The best State will clearly be that which has the most loyal citizens, and the more the devoted mind for *legality* is lost, so much the more will the State, this system of morality, this moral life itself, be diminished in force and quality. With the "good citizens" the good State too perishes and dissolves into anarchy and lawlessness. "Respect for the law!" By this cement the total of the State is held together. "The law is *sacred*, and he who affronts it a *criminal"*. Without crime no State: the moral world -- and this the State is -- is crammed full of scamps, cheats, liars, thieves, etc. Since the State is the "lordship of law," its hierarchy, it follows that the egoist, in all cases where *his* advantage runs against the State's, can satisfy himself only by crime.

The State cannot give up the claim that its *laws* and ordinances are *sacred*.(58) At this the individual ranks as the *unholy*(59) (barbarian, natural man, "egoist") over against the State, exactly as he was once regarded by the Church; before the individual the State takes on the nimbus of a saint.(60) Thus it issues a law against dueling. Two men who are both at one in this, that they are willing to stake their life for a cause (no matter what), are not to be allowed this, because the State will not have it: it imposes a penalty on it. Where is the liberty of self-determination then? It is at once quite another situation if, as *e. g.* in North America, society determines to let the duelists bear certain evil *consequences* of their act, *e. g.* withdrawal of the credit hitherto enjoyed. To refuse credit is everybody's affair, and, if a society wants to withdraw it for this or that reason, the man who is hit cannot therefore complain of encroachment on his liberty: the society is simply availing itself of its own liberty. That is no penalty for sin, no penalty for a *crime*. The duel is no crime there, but only an act against which the society adopts counter-measures, resolves on a *defense*. The State, on the contrary, stamps the duel as a crime, *i.e.* as an injury to its sacred law: it makes it a *criminal case*. The society leaves it to the individual's decision whether he will draw upon himself evil consequences and inconveniences by his mode of action, and hereby recognizes his free decision; the State behaves in exactly the reverse way, denying all right to the individual's decision and, instead, ascribing the sole right to its own decision, the law of the State, so that he who transgresses the State's commandment is looked upon as if he were acting against God's commandment -- a view which likewise was once maintained by the Church. Here God is the Holy in and of himself, and the commandments of the Church, as of the State, are the commandments of this Holy One, which he transmits to the world through his anointed and Lords-by-the-Grace-of-God. If the Church had *deadly sins*, the State has *capital crimes;* if the one had *heretics*, the other has *traitors;* the one *ecclesiastical penalties*, the other *criminal penalties;* the one *inquisitorial* processes, the other *fiscal;* in short, there sins, here crimes, there inquisition and here -- inquisition. Will the sanctity of the State not fall like the Church's? The awe of its laws, the reverence for its highness, the humility of its "subjects," will this remain? Will the "saint's" face not be stripped of its adornment?

What a folly, to ask of the State's authority that it should enter into an honourable fight with the individual, and, as they express themselves in the matter of freedom of the press, share sun and wind equally! If the State, this thought, is to be a *de facto* power, it simply must be a superior power against the individual. The State is "sacred" and must not expose itself to the "impudent attacks" of individuals. If the State is *sacred*, there must be censorship. The political liberals admit the former and dispute the inference. But in any case they concede repressive measures to it, for -- they stick to this, that State is *more* than the individual and exercises a justified revenge, called punishment.

*Punishment* has a meaning only when it is to afford expiation for the injuring of a*sacred* thing. If something is sacred to any one, he certainly deserves punishment when he acts as its enemy. A man who lets a man's life continue in existence *because* to him it is sacred and he has a *dread* of touching it is simply a -- *religious* man.

Weitling lays crime at the door of "social disorder," and lives in the expectation that under Communistic arrangements crimes will become impossible, because the temptations to them, *e. g.* money, fall away. As, however, his organized society is also exalted into a sacred and inviolable one, he miscalculates in that good-hearted opinion. *e. g.* with their mouth professed allegiance to the Communistic society, but worked underhand for its ruin, would not be lacking. Besides, Weitling has to keep on with "curative means against the natural remainder of human diseases and weaknesses," and "curative means" always announce to begin with that individuals will be looked upon as "called" to a particular "salvation" and hence treated according to the requirements of this "human calling." *Curative means* or *healing* is only the reverse side of *punishment*, the *theory of cure* runs parallel with the *theory of punishment;* if the latter sees in an action a sin against right, the former takes it for a sin of the man *against himself*, as a decadence from his health. But the correct thing is that I regard it either as an action that *suits me* or as one that *does not suit me*, as hostile or friendly to *me*, *i.e.* that I treat it as my *property*, which I cherish or demolish. "Crime" or "disease" are not either of them an *egoistic* view of the matter, *i.e.* a judgment *starting from me*, but starting from *another --* to wit, whether it injures *right*, general right, or the *health* partly of the individual (the sick one), partly of the generality (*society*). "Crime" is treated inexorably, "disease" with "loving gentleness, compassion," etc.

Punishment follows crime. If crime falls because the sacred vanishes, punishment must not less be drawn into its fall; for it too has significance only over against something sacred. Ecclesiastical punishments have been abolished. Why? Because how one behaves toward the "holy God" is his own affair. But, as this one punishment, *ecclesiastical punishment*, has fallen, so all *punishments* must fall. As sin against the so-called God is a man's own affair, so is that against every kind of the so-called sacred. According to our theories of penal law, with whose "improvement in conformity to the times" people are tormenting themselves in vain, they want to *punish* men for this or that "inhumanity"; and therein they make the silliness of these theories especially plain by their consistency, hanging the little thieves and letting the big ones run. For injury to property they have the house of correction, and for "violence to thought," suppression of "natural rights of man," only --representations and petitions.

The criminal code has continued existence only through the sacred, and perishes of itself if punishment is given up. Now they want to create everywhere a new penal law, without indulging in a misgiving about punishment itself. But it is exactly punishment that must make room for satisfaction, which, again, cannot aim at satisfying right or justice, but at procuring *us* a satisfactory outcome. If one does to us what we *will not put up with*, we break his power and bring our own to bear: we satisfy *ourselves* on him, and do not fall into the folly of wanting to satisfy right (the spook). It is not the *sacred* that is to defend itself against man, but man against man; as *God* too, you know, no longer defends himself against man, God to whom formerly (and in part, indeed, even now) all the "servants of God" offered their hands to punish the blasphemer, as they still at this very day lend their hands to the sacred. This devotion to the sacred brings it to pass also that, without lively participation of one's own, one only delivers misdoers into the hands of the police and courts: a non-participating making over to the authorities, "who, of course, will best administer sacred matters." The people is quite crazy for hounding the police on against everything that seems to it to be immoral, often only unseemly, and this popular rage for the moral protects the police institution more than the government could in any way protect it.

In crime the egoist has hitherto asserted himself and mocked at the sacred; the break with the sacred, or rather of the sacred, may become general. A revolution never returns, but a mighty, reckless, shameless, conscienceless. proud --*crime*, does it not rumble in distant thunders, and do you not see how the sky grows presciently silent and gloomy?

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He who refuses to spend his powers for such limited societies as family, party, nation, is still always longing for a worthier society, and thinks he has found the true object of love, perhaps, in "human society" or "mankind," to sacrifice himself to which constitutes his honor; from now on he "lives for and serves *mankind*."

*People* is the name of the body, *State* of the spirit, of that *ruling person* that has hitherto suppressed me. Some have wanted to transfigure peoples and States by broadening them out to "mankind" and "general reason"; but servitude would only become still more intense with this widening, and philanthropists and humanitarians are as absolute masters as politicians and diplomats.

Modern critics inveigh against religion because it sets God, the divine, moral, etc., *outside* of man, or makes them something objective, in opposition to which the critics rather transfer these very subjects *into* man. But those critics none the less fall into the proper error of religion, to give man a "destiny," in that they too want to have him divine, human, and the like: morality, freedom and humanity, etc., are his essence. And, like religion politics too wanted to *"educate"* man, to bring him to the realization of his "essence," his "destiny," to *make* something out of him -- to wit, a "true man," the one in the form of the "true believer," the other in that of the "true citizen or subject." In fact, it comes to the same whether one calls the destiny the divine or human.

Under religion and politics man finds himself at the standpoint of *should: he should* become this and that, should be so and so. With this postulate, this commandment, every one steps not only in front of another but also in front of himself. Those critics say: You should be a whole, free man. Thus they too stand in the temptation to proclaim a new *religion*, to set up a new absolute, an ideal -- to wit, freedom. Men *should* be free. Then there might even arise *missionaries* of freedom, as Christianity, in the conviction that all were properly destined to become Christians, sent out missionaries of the faith. Freedom would then (as have hitherto faith as Church, morality as State) constitute itself as a new *community* and carry on a like "propaganda" therefrom. Certainly no objection can be raised against a getting together; but so much the more must one oppose every renewal of the old *care* for us, of culture directed toward an end -- in short, the principle of *making something* out of us, no matter whether Christians, subjects, or freemen and men.

One may well say with Feuerbach and others that religion has displaced the human from man, and has transferred it so into another world that, unattainable, it went on with its own existence there as something personal in itself, as a "God": but the error of religion is by no means exhausted with this. One might very well let fall the personality of the displaced human, might transform God into the divine, and still remain religious. For the religious consists in discontent with the *present* men, in the setting up of a "perfection" to be striven for, in "man wrestling for his completion."(61) ("Ye therefore *should* be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." Matt. 5, 48): it consists in the fixation of an ideal, an absolute. Perfection is the "supreme good," the *finis bonorum;* every one's ideal is the perfect man, the true, the free man, etc.

The efforts of modern times aim to set up the ideal of the "free man." If one could find it, there would be a new -- religion, because a new ideal; there would be a new longing, a new torment, a new devotion, a new deity, a new contrition.

With the ideal of "absolute liberty," the same turmoil is made as with everything absolute, and according to Hess, *e. g.*, it is said to "be realizable in absolute human society."(62) Nay, this realization is immediately afterward styled a "vocation"; just so he then defines liberty as "morality": the kingdom of "justice" (equality) and "morality" (*i.e.* liberty) is to begin, etc.

Ridiculous is he who, while fellows of his tribe, family, nation, rank high, is -- nothing but "puffed up" over the merit of his fellows; but blinded too is he who wants only to be "man." Neither of them puts his worth in *exclusiveness*, but in *connectedness*, or in the "tie" that conjoins him with others, in the ties of blood, of nationality, of humanity.

Through the "Nationals" of today the conflict has again been stirred up between those who think themselves to have merely human blood and human ties of blood, and the others who brag of their special blood and the special ties of blood.

If we disregard the fact that pride may mean conceit, and take it for consciousness alone, there is found to be a vast difference between pride in "belonging to" a nation and therefore being its property, and that in calling a nationality one's property. Nationality is my quality, but the nation my owner and mistress. If you have bodily strength, you can apply it at a suitable place and have a self-consciousness or pride of it; if, on the contrary, your strong body has you, then it pricks you everywhere, and at the most unsuitable place, to show its strength: you can give nobody your hand without squeezing his.

The perception that one is more than a member of the family, more than a fellow of the tribe, more than an individual of the people, has finally led to saying, one is more than all this because one is man, or, the man is more than the Jew, German, etc. "Therefore be every one wholly and solely -- man." Could one not rather say: Because we are more than what has been stated, therefore we will be this, as well as that "more" also? Man and Germans, then, man and Guelph, etc.? The Nationals are in the right; one cannot deny his nationality: and the humanitarians are in the right; one must not remain in the narrowness of the national. In *uniqueness*(63) the contradiction is solved; the national is my quality. But I am not swallowed up in my quality -- as the human too is my quality, but I give to man his existence first through my uniqueness.

History seeks for Man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious *essence*, as the divine, first as *God*, then as Man (humanity, humaneness, and mankind), he is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one.

I am owner of humanity, am humanity, and do nothing for the good of another humanity. Fool, you who are a unique humanity, that you make a merit of wanting to live for another than you are.

The hitherto-considered relation of me to the *world of men* offers such a wealth of phenomena that it will have to be taken up again and again on other occasions, but here, where it was only to have its chief outlines made clear to the eye, it must be broken off to make place for an apprehension of two other sides toward which it radiates. For, as I find myself in relation not merely to men so far as they present in themselves the concept "man" or are children of men (children of *Man*, as children of God are spoken of), but also to that which they have of man and call their own, and as therefore I relate myself not only to that which they *are* through man, but also to their human *possessions:* so, besides the world of men, the world of the senses and of ideas will have to be included in our survey, and somewhat said of what men call their own of sensuous goods, and of spiritual as well.

According as one had developed and clearly grasped the concept of man, he gave it to us to respect as this or that *person of respect*, and from the broadest understanding of this concept there proceeded at last the command "to respect Man in every one." But if I respect Man, my respect must likewise extend to the human, or what is Man's.

Men have somewhat of their *own*, and *I* am to recognize this own and hold it sacred. Their own consists partly in outward, partly in inward *possessions*. The former are things, the latter spiritualities, thoughts, convictions, noble feelings, etc. But I am always to respect only *rightful* or *human* possessions: the wrongful and unhuman I need not spare, for only *Man's* own is men's real own. An inward possession of this sort is, *e. g.*, religion; because *religion* is free, *i. e.* is Man's, *I* must not strike at it. Just so *honor* is an inward possession; it is free and must not be struck at my me. (Action for insult, caricatures, etc.) Religion and honor are "spiritual property." In tangible property the person stands foremost: my person is my first property. Hence freedom of the person; but only the *rightful* or human person is free, the other is locked up. Your life is your property; but it is sacred for men only if it is not that of an inhuman monster.

What a man as such cannot defend of bodily goods, we may take from him: this is the meaning of competition, of freedom of occupation. What he cannot defend of spiritual goods falls a prey to us likewise: so far goes the liberty of discussion, of science, of criticism.

But *consecrated* goods are inviolable. Consecrated and guarantied by whom? Proximately by the State, society, but properly by man or the "concept," the "concept of the thing"; for the concept of consecrated goods is this, that they are truly human, or rather that the holder possesses them as man and not as un-man.(64)

On the spiritual side man's faith is such goods, his honor, his moral feeling -- yes, his feeling of decency, modesty, etc. Actions (speeches, writings) that touch honor are punishable; attacks on "the foundations of all religion"; attacks on political faith; in short, attacks on everything that a man "rightly" has.

How far critical liberalism would extend the sanctity of goods -- on this point it has not yet made any pronouncement, and doubtless fancies itself to be ill-disposed toward all sanctity; but, as it combats egoism, it must set limits to it, and must not let the un-man pounce on the human. To its theoretical contempt for the "masses" there must correspond a practical snub if it should get into power.

What extension the concept "man" receives, and what comes to the individual man through it -- what, therefore, man and the human are -- on this point the various grades of liberalism differ, and the political, the social, the humane man are each always claiming more than the other for "man." He who has best grasped this concept knows best what is "man's." The State still grasps this concept in political restriction, society in social; mankind, so it is said, is the first to comprehend it entirely, or "the history of mankind develops it." But, if "man is discovered," then we know also what pertains to man as his own, man's property, the human.

But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because Man or the concept man "entitles" him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for his right and his claim? If he has his right only from Man and does not have it from *me*, then for *me* he has no right. His life, *e. g.*, counts to *me* only for what it is *worth* to *me*. I respect neither a so-called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods) nor yet his right to the "sanctuary of his inner nature" (or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his gods, remain un-aggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, are *mine*, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of my -- might.

In the *property question* lies a broader meaning than the limited statement of the question allows to be brought out. Referred solely to what men call our possessions, it is capable of no solution; the decision is to be found in him "from whom we have everything." Property depends on the *owner*.

The Revolution directed its weapons against everything which came "from the grace of God," *e. g.*, against divine right, in whose place the human was confirmed. To that which is granted by the grace of God, there is opposed that which is derived "from the essence of man."

Now, as men's relation to each other, in opposition to the religious dogma which commands a "Love one another for God's sake," had to receive its human position by a "Love each other for man's sake," so the revolutionary teaching could not do otherwise than, first, as to what concerns the relation of men to the things of this world, settle it that the world, which hitherto was arranged according to God's ordinance, henceforth belongs to "Man."

The world belongs to "Man," and is to be respected by me as his property.

Property is what is mine!

Property in the civic sense means *sacred* property, such that I must *respect* your property. "Respect for property!" Hence the politicians would like to have every one possess his little bit of property, and they have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by this effort. Each must have his bone on which he may find something to bite.

The position of affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I need to "respect" nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!

With this view we shall most easily come to an understanding with each other.

The political liberals are anxious that, if possible, all servitudes be dissolved, and every one be free lord on his ground, even if this ground has only so much area as can have its requirements adequately filled by the manure of one person. (The farmer in the story married even in his old age "that he might profit by his wife's dung.") Be it ever so little, if one only has somewhat of his own -- to wit, a *respected* property! The more such owners, such cotters,(65) the more "free people and good patriots" has the State.

Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on *respect*, humaneness, the virtues of love. Therefore does it live in incessant vexation. For in practice people respect nothing, and every day the small possessions are bought up again by greater proprietors, and the "free people" change into day- laborers.

If, on the contrary, the "small proprietors" had reflected that the great property was also theirs, they would not have respectfully shut themselves out from it, and would not have been shut out.

Property as the civic liberals understand it deserves the attacks of the Communists and Proudhon: it is untenable, because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but a property-less man, one who is everywhere *shut out*. Instead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own even the paltry point on which he turns around.

Proudhon wants not the *propriétaire* but the *possesseur* or *usufruitier*.(66) What does that mean? He wants no one to own the land; but the benefit of it -- even though one were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit, this fruit -- is at any rate one's property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it; still less he who, as Proudhon would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not required for his wants; but he is the proprietor of the share that is left him. Proudhon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not *property* itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to *ourselves*, we unite ourselves to this end, form a union, a *société*, that makes *itself* proprietor; if we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed proprietors. And, as from the land, so we can drive them out of many another property yet, in order to make it *our* property, the property of the -- *conquerors*. The conquerors form a society which one may imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity; but so-called humanity too is as such only a thought (spook); the individuals are its reality. And these individuals as a collective (mass will treat land and earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so-called *propriétaire*. Even so, therefore, *property* remains standing, and that as exclusive" too, in that *humanity*, this great society, excludes the *individual* from its property (perhaps only leases to him, gives his as a fief, a piece of it) as it besides excludes everything that is not humanity, *e. g.* does not allow animals to have property. -- So too it will remain, and will grow to be. That in which *all* want to have a *share* will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone: it is made a *common estate*. As a *common estate* every one has his *share* in it, and this share is his *property*. Why, so in our old relations a house which belongs to five heirs is their common estate; but the fifth part of the revenue is, each one's property. Proudhon might spare his prolix pathos if he said: "There are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others will from now on lay claim or -- siege. Let us take them, because one comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present we are still deprived came to the proprietors likewise only by taking. It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of us *all* than if the few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery (*vol*)." -- Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor, of imprescriptible right; against it the so-called proprietors have become thieves (*La propriété c'est le vol*); if it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only availing itself of its imprescriptible right. -- So far one comes with the spook of society as a *moral person*. On the contrary, what man can obtain belongs to him: the world belongs to *me*. Do you say anything else by your opposite proposition? "The world belongs to *all"*? All are I and again I, etc. But you make out of the "all" a spook, and make it sacred, so that then the "all" become the individual's fearful *master*. Then the ghost of "right" places itself on their side.

Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against *egoism*. Therefore they are continuations and consistent carryings-out of the Christian principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something general, something alien. They complete in property, *e. g.,* only what has long been extant as a matter of fact -- to wit, the propertylessness of the individual. When the laws says, *Ad reges potestas omnium pertinet, ad singulos proprietas; omnia rex imperio possidet, singuli dominio*, this means: The king is proprietor, for he alone can control and dispose of "everything," he has *potestas* and *imperium* over it. The Communists make this clearer, transferring that *imperium* to the "society of all." Therefore: Because enemies of egoism, they are on that account -- Christians, or, more generally speaking, religious men, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality (God, society, etc.). In this too Proudhon is like the Christians, that he ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him (*e. g.* page 90) the Propriétaire of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot think away the *proprietor as such;* he comes to a proprietor at last, but removes him to the other world.

Neither God nor Man ("human society") is proprietor, but the individual.

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Proudhon (Weitling too) thinks he is telling the worst about property when he calls it theft (*vol*). Passing quite over the embarrassing question, what well-founded objection could be made against theft, we only ask: Is the concept "theft" at all possible unless one allows validity to the concept "property"? How can one steal if property is not already extant? What belongs to no one cannot be *stolen;* the water that one draws out of the sea he does *not steal*. Accordingly property is not theft, but a theft becomes possible only through property. Weitling has to come to this too, as he does regard everything as the *property of all:* if something is "the property of all," then indeed the individual who appropriates it to himself steals.

Private property lives by grace of the *law*. Only in the law has it its warrant -- for possession is not yet property, it becomes "mine" only by assent of the law; it is not a fact, not *un fait* as Proudhon thinks, but a fiction, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate property, guarantied property. It is mine not through *me* but through the -- *law*.

Nevertheless, property is the expression for *unlimited dominion* over somewhat (thing, beast, man) which "I can judge and dispose of as seems good to me." According to Roman law, indeed, *jus utendi et abutendi re sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur*, an *exclusive* and *unlimited right;* but property is conditioned by might. What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing; if it gets away from me again, no matter by what power, *e. g.* through my recognition of a title of others to the thing -- then the property is extinct. Thus property and possession coincide. It is not a right lying outside my might that legitimizes me, but solely my might: if I no longer have this, the thing vanishes away from me. When the Romans no longer had any might against the Germans, the world-empire of Rome *belonged* to the latter, and it would sound ridiculous to insist that the Romans had nevertheless remained properly the proprietors. Whoever knows how to take and to defend the thing, to him it belongs till it is again taken from him, as liberty belongs to him who *takes* it.--

Only might decides about property, and, as the State (no matter whether State or well-to-do citizens or of ragamuffins or of men in the absolute) is the sole mighty one, it alone is proprietor; I, the unique,(67) have nothing, and am only enfeoffed, am vassal and as such, servitor. Under the dominion of the State there is no property of *mine*.

I want to raise the value of myself, the value of ownness, and should I cheapen property? No, as I was not respected hitherto because people, mankind, and a thousand other generalities were put higher, so property too has to this day not yet been recognized in its full value. Property too was only the property of a ghost, *e. g.* the people's property; my whole existence "belonged to the fatherland"; *I* belonged to the fatherland, the people, the State, and therefore also everything that I called *my own*. It is demanded of States that they make away with pauperism. It seems to me this is asking that the State should cut off its own head and lay it at its feet; for so long as the State is the ego the individual ego must remain a poor devil, a non-ego. The State has an interest only in being itself rich; whether Michael is rich and Peter poor is alike to it; Peter might also be rich and Michael poor. It looks on indifferently as one grows poor and the other rich, unruffled by this alternation. As *individuals* they are really equal before its face; in this it is just: before it both of them are -- nothing, as we "are altogether sinners before God"; on the other hand, it has a very great interest in this, that those individuals who make it their ego should have a part in *its* wealth; it makes them partakers in *its property*. Through property, with which it rewards the individuals, it tames them; but this remains *its* property, and every one has the usufruct of it only so long as he bears in himself the ego of the State, or is a "loyal member of society"; in the opposite case the property is confiscated, or made to melt away by vexatious lawsuits. The property, then, is and remains *State property*, not property of the ego. That the State does not arbitrarily deprive the individual of what he has from the State means simply that the State does not rob itself. He who is State-ego, *i.e.* a good citizen or subject, holds his fief undisturbed as *such an ego*, not as being an ego of his own. According to the code, property is what I call mine "by virtue of God and law." But it is mine by virtue of God and law only so long as -- the State has nothing against it.

In expropriations, disarmaments, etc. (as, when the exchequer confiscates inheritances if the heirs do not put in an appearance early enough) how plainly the else-veiled principle that only the *people*, "the State," is proprietor, while the individual is feoffee, strikes the eye!

The State, I mean to say, cannot intend that anybody should *for his own sake* have property or actually be rich, nay, even well-to-do; it can acknowledge nothing, yield nothing, grant nothing to me as me. The State cannot check pauperism, because the poverty of possession is a poverty of me. He who *is* nothing but what chance or another -- to wit, the State -- makes out of him also *has* quite rightly nothing but what another gives him. And this other will *give* him only what he *deserves*, *i.e.* what he is worth by *service*. It is not he that realizes a value from himself; the State realizes a value from him.

National economy busies itself much with this subject. It lies far out beyond the "national," however, and goes beyond the concepts and horizon of the State, which knows only State property and can distribute nothing else. For this reason it binds the possessions of property to *conditions --* as it binds everything to them, *e. g.* marriage, allowing validity only to the marriage sanctioned by it, and wresting this out of my power. But property is my property only when I hold it *unconditionally* : only I, an *unconditional* ego, have property, enter a relation of love, carry on free trade.

The State has no anxiety about me and mine, but about itself and its: I count for something to it only as its *child*, as "a son of the country"; as *ego* I am nothing at all for it. For the State's understanding, what befalls me as ego is something accidental, my wealth as well as my impoverishment. But, if I with all that is mine am an accident in the State's eyes, this proves that it cannot comprehend *me: I* go beyond its concepts, or, its understanding is too limited to comprehend me. Therefore it cannot do anything for me either.

Pauperism is the *valuelessness of me*, the phenomenon that I cannot realize value from myself. For this reason State and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me come to my value, and continues in existence only through my valuelessness: it is forever intent on *getting benefit* from me, *i.e.* exploiting me, turning me to account, using me up, even if the use it gets from me consists only in my supplying a *proles* (proletariat); it wants me to be "its creature."

Pauperism can be removed only when I as ego *realize value* from myself, when I give my own self value, and make my price myself. I must rise in revolt to rise in the world.

What I produce, flour, linen, or iron and coal, which I toilsomely win from the earth, is my work that I want to realize value from. But then I may long complain that I am not paid for my work according to its value: the payer will not listen to me, and the State likewise will maintain an apathetic attitude so long as it does not think it must "appease" me that *I* may not break out with my dreaded might. But this "appeasing" will be all, and, if it comes into my head to ask for more, the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-claws: for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle. If I refuse to be content with the price that it fixes for my ware and labor, if I rather aspire to determine the price of my ware myself, *e. g.*, "to pay myself," in the first place I come into a conflict with the buyers of the ware. If this were stilled by a mutual understanding, the State would not readily make objections; for how individuals get along with each other troubles it little, so long as therein they do not get in its way. Its damage and its danger begin only when they do not agree, but, in the absence of a settlement, take each other by the hair. The State cannot endure that man stand in a direct relation to man; it must step between as --*mediator*, must *-- intervene*. What Christ was, what the saints, the Church were, the State has become -- to wit, "mediator." It tears man from man to put itself between them as "spirit." The laborers who ask for higher pay are treated as criminals as soon as they want to *compel* it. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a determination of price by the ego, a genuine, free realization of value from his property, which it cannot admit of. What then are the laborers to do? Look to themselves and ask nothing about the State? -- --

But, as is the situation with regard to my material work, so it is with my intellectual too. The State allows me to realize value from all my thoughts and to find customers for them (I do realize value from them, *e. g.* in the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, etc.); but only so long as *my* thoughts are --*its* thoughts. If, on the other hand, I harbor thoughts that it cannot approve (*i.e.* make its own), then it does not allow me at all to realize value from them, to bring them into *exchange* into *commerce. My* thoughts are free only if they are granted to me by the State's *grace*, *i.e.* if they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize freely only so far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; *against* the State I must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its "deficiencies," "furthering" it. -- Therefore, as I may behave only as an ego most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its testimonial of legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me to realize value from what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which I hold as fief from it. My ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; my thoughts its thoughts, else it stops my mouth.

The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and nothing must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that offers itself to me for *realizing value* from myself. *I* am the deadly enemy of the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, it or I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not letting *me* have a standing, but also on keeping down what is *mine*. In the State there is no property, *i.e.* no property of the individual, but only State property. Only through the State have I what I have, as I am only through it what I am. My private property is only that which the State leaves to me of *its, cutting off* others from it (depriving them, making it private); it is State property.

But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there is still left me a great might, the might over myself, *i.e.* over everything that pertains only to me and that *exists* only in being my own.

What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer its thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In *my* thoughts, which I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have my real property, a property with which I can trade. For as mine they are my *creatures*, and I am in a position to give them away in return for *other* thoughts: I give them up and take in exchange for them others, which then are my new purchased property.

What then is *my* property? Nothing but what is in my *power!* To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I -- *empower* myself.(68) I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's *power*, full power, empowerment.

Everything over which I have might that cannot be torn from me remains my property; well, then let might decide about property, and I will expect everything from my might! Alien might, might that I leave to another, makes me an owned slave: then let my own might make me an owner. Let me then withdraw the might that I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my *own* might! Let me say to myself, what my might reaches to is my property; and let me claim as property everything that I feel myself strong enough to attain, and let me extend my actual property as far as *I* entitle, *i. e.* -- empower, myself to take.

Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the principle of *love*, not love-motives like mercy, gentleness, good-nature, or even justice and equity (for *justitia* too is a phenomenon of -- love, a product of love): love knows only *sacrifices* and demands "self-sacrifice."

Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it wants; it simply decides, what I want I must have and will procure.

All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay of *love* into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and Communism cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from the community of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence. The distributing *board of equity* lets me have only what the sense of equity, its *loving* care for all, prescribes. For me, the individual, there lies no less of a check in *collective wealth* than in that of *individual others;* neither that is mine, nor this: whether the wealth belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to individual possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide about either of the two. On the contrary, Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, *viz*., on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the "State," what it intends is itself again a State, a *status*, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity.

Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does not say: Wait for what the board of equity will -- bestow on you in the name of the collectivity (for such bestowal took place in "States" from the most ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and therefore according to the measure in which each was able to *deserve* it, to acquire it by *service*), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With this the war of all against all is declared. I alone decide what I will have.

"Now, that is truly no new wisdom, for self-seekers have acted so at all times!" Not at all necessary either that the thing be new, if only *consciousness* of it is present. But this latter will not be able to claim great age, unless perhaps one counts in the Egyptian and Spartan law; for how little current it is appears even from the stricture above, which speaks with contempt of "self-seekers." One is to know just this, that the procedure of taking hold is not contemptible, but manifests the pure deed of the egoist at one with himself.

Only when I expect neither from individuals nor from a collectivity what I can give to myself, only then do I slip out of the snares of --love; the rabble ceases to be rabble only when it *takes hold*. Only the dread of taking hold, and the corresponding punishment thereof, makes it a rabble. Only that taking hold is *sin*, crime -- only this dogma creates a rabble. For the fact that the rabble remains what it is, it (because it allows validity to that dogma) is to blame as well as, more especially, those who "self-seekingly" (to give them back their favorite word) demand that the dogma be respected. In short, the lack of *consciousness* of that "new wisdom," the old consciousness of sin, alone bears the blame.

If men reach the point of losing respect for property, every one will have property, as all slaves become free men as soon as they no longer respect the master as master. *Unions* will then, in this matter too, multiply the individual's means and secure his assailed property.

According to the Communists' opinion the commune should be proprietor. On the contrary, *I* am proprietor, and I only come to an understanding with others about my property. If the commune does not do what suits me, I rise against it and defend my property. I am proprietor, but property is *not sacred*. I should be merely possessor? No, hitherto one was only possessor, secured in the possession of a parcel by leaving others also in possession of a parcel; but now *everything* belongs to me, I am proprietor of *everything that I require* and can get possession of. If it is said socialistically, society gives me what I require -- then the egoist says, I take what I require. If the Communists conduct themselves as ragamuffins, the egoist behaves as proprietor.

All swan-fraternities,(69) and attempts at making the rabble happy, that spring from the principle of love, must miscarry. Only from egoism can the rabble get help, and this help it must give to itself and -- will give to itself. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is a power. "People would lose all respect if one did not coerce them into fear," says bugbear Law in *Der gestiefelte Kater*.

Property, therefore, should not and cannot be abolished; it must rather be torn from ghostly hands and become *my* property; then the erroneous consciousness, that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I require, will vanish. --

"But what cannot man require!" Well, whoever requires much, and understands how to get it, has at all times helped himself to it, as Napoleon did with the Continent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact point is that the respectful "rabble" should learn at last to help itself to what it requires. If it reaches out too far for you, why, then defend yourselves. You have no need at all to good-heartedly -- bestow anything on it; and, when it learns to know itself, it -- or rather: whoever of the rabble learns to know himself, he -- casts off the rabble-quality in refusing your alms with thanks. But it remains ridiculous that you declare the rabble "sinful and criminal" if it is not pleased to live from your favors because it can do something in its own favor. Your bestowals cheat it and put it off. Defend your property, then you will be strong; if, on the other hand, you want to retain your ability to bestow, and perhaps actually have the more political rights the more alms (poor-rates) you can give, this will work just as long as the recipients let you work it.(70)

In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the Socialists, yes, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all. The poor become free and proprietors only when they -- *rise*. Bestow ever so much on them, they will still always want more; for they want nothing less than that at last -- nothing more be bestowed.

It will be asked, but how then will it be when the have- nots take heart? Of what sort is the settlement to be? One might as well ask that I cast a child's nativity. What a slave will do as soon as he has broken his fetters, one must --await.

In Kaiser's pamphlet, worthless for lack of form as well as substance (*"Die Persönlichkeit des Eigentümers in Bezug auf den Socialismus und Communismus*," etc.), he hopes from the *State* that it will bring about a leveling of property. Always the State! Herr Papa! As the Church was proclaimed and looked upon as the "mother" of believers, so the State has altogether the face of the provident father.

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*Competition* shows itself most strictly connected with the principle of civism. Is it anything else than *equality* (*égalité*)? And is not equality a product of that same Revolution which was brought on by the commonalty, the middle classes? As no one is barred from competing with all in the State (except the prince, because he represents the State itself) and working himself up to their height, yes, overthrowing or exploiting them for his own advantage, soaring above them and by stronger exertion depriving them of their favorable circumstances -- this serves as a clear proof that before the State's judgment-seat every one has only the value of a "simple individual" and may not count on any favoritism. Outrun and outbid each other as much as you like and can; that shall not trouble me, the State! Among yourselves you are free in competing, you are competitors; that is your *social* position. But before me, the State, you are nothing but "simple individuals"!(71)

What in the form of principle or theory was propounded as the equality of all has found here in competition its realization and practical carrying out; for *égalité* is -- free competition. All are, before the State --simple individuals; in society, or in relation to each other -- competitors.

I need be nothing further than a simple individual to be able to compete with all others aside from the prince and his family: a freedom which formerly was made impossible by the fact that only by means of one's corporation, and within it, did one enjoy any freedom of effort.

In the guild and feudality the State is in an intolerant and fastidious attitude, granting *privileges;* in competition and liberalism it is in a tolerant and indulgent attitude, granting only *patents* (letters assuring the applicant that the business stands open (patent) to him) or "concessions." Now, as the State has thus left everything to the *applicants*, it must come in conflict with all, because each and all are entitled to make application. It will be "stormed," and will go down in this storm.

Is "free competition" then really "free?" nay, is it really a "competition" -- to wit, one of *persons --* as it gives itself out to be because on this title it bases its right? It originated, you know, in persons becoming free of all personal rule. Is a competition "free" which the State, this ruler in the civic principle, hems in by a thousand barriers? There is a rich manufacturer doing a brilliant business, and I should like to compete with him. "Go ahead," says the State, "I have no objection to make to your *person* as competitor." Yes, I reply, but for that I need a space for buildings, I need money! "That's bad; but, if you have no money, you cannot compete. You must not take anything from anybody, for I protect property and grant it privileges." Free competition is not "free," because I lack the THINGS for competition. Against my *person* no objection can be made, but because I have not the things my person too must step to the rear. And who has the necessary things? Perhaps that manufacturer? Why, from him I could take them away! No, the State has them as property, the manufacturer only as fief, as possession.

But, since it is no use trying it with the manufacturer, I will compete with that professor of jurisprudence; the man is a booby, and I, who know a hundred times more than he, shall make his class-room empty. "Have you studied and graduated, friend?" No, but what of that? I understand abundantly what is necessary for instruction in that department. "Sorry, but competition is not 'free' here. Against your person there is nothing to be said, but the *thing*, the doctor's diploma, is lacking. And this diploma I, the State, demand. Ask me for it respectfully first; then we will see what is to be done."

This, therefore, is the "freedom" of competition. The State, *my lord*, first qualifies me to compete.

But do *persons* really compete? No, again *things* only! Moneys in the first place, etc.

In the rivalry one will always be left behind another (*e. g.* a poetaster behind a poet). But it makes a difference whether the means that the unlucky competitor lacks are personal or material, and likewise whether the material means can be won by *personal energy* or are to be obtained only by *grace*, only as a present; as when *e. g.* the poorer man must leave, *i. e.* present, to the rich man his riches. But, if I must all along wait for the State's *approval* to obtain or to use (*e. g.* in the case of graduation) the means, I have the means by the *grace of the State*.(72)

Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to earn the *State's goods and largesse*. Therefore all do chase after havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of honor, etc.), after the *things*.

In the mind of the commonalty every one is possessor or "owner." Now, whence comes it that the most have in fact next to nothing? From this, that the most are already joyful over being possessors at all, even though it be of some rags, as children are joyful in their first trousers or even the first penny that is presented to them. More precisely, however, the matter is to be taken as follows. Liberalism came forward at once with the declaration that it belonged to man's essence not to be property, but proprietor. As the consideration here was about "man," not about the individual, the how-much (which formed exactly the point of the individual's special interest) was left to him. Hence the individual's egoism retained room for the freest play in this how- much, and carried on an indefatigable competition.

However, the lucky egoism had to become a snag in the way of the less fortunate, and the latter, still keeping its feet planted on the principle of humanity, put forward the question as to how-much of possession, and answered it to the effect that "man must have as much as he requires."

Will it be possible for *my* egoism to let itself be satisfied with that? What "man" requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me and my needs; for I may have use for less or more. I must rather have so much as I am competent to appropriate.

Competition suffers from the unfavorable circumstance that the *means* for competing are not at every one's command, because they are not taken from personality, but from accident. Most are *without means*, and for this reason *without goods*.

Hence the Socialists demand the *means* for all, and aim at a society that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence -- to wit, your *working force*. In the possession of a property, or as "possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not "put out of this property."

The possessor is competent, but only so far as the others are incompetent. Since your ware forms your competence only so long as you are competent to defend it (*i.e.* as *we* are not competent to do anything with it), look about you for another competence; for we now, by our might, surpass your alleged competence.

It was an extraordinarily large gain made, when the point of being regarded as possessors was put through. Therein bondservice was abolished, and every one who till then had been bound to the lord's service, and more or less had been his property, now became a "lord." But henceforth your having, and what you have, are no longer adequate and no longer recognized; *per contra*, your working and your work rise in value. We now respect your *subduing* things, as we formerly did your possessing them. Your work is your competence! You are lord or possessor only of what comes by *work*, not by *inheritance*. But as at the time everything has come by inheritance, and every copper that you possess bears not a labor-stamp but an inheritance-stamp, everything must be melted over.

But is my work then really, as the Communists suppose, my sole competence? or does not this consist rather in everything that I am competent for? And does not the workers' society itself have to concede this, *e. g.,* in supporting also the sick, children, old men -- in short, those who are incapable of work? These are still competent for a good deal, *e. g.* for instance, 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 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 to 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*(73) it to them, competition leaves it to their appraisal(74) or their estimation, and demands a price(75) for it.