The Ego and His Own Part 15

The cry for "freedom" rings loudly all around. But is it felt and known what a donated or chartered freedom must mean? It is not recognized in the full amplitude of the word that all freedom is essentially--self-liberation,--_i. e._, that I can have only so much freedom as I procure for myself by my ownness. Of what use is it to sheep that no one abridges their freedom of speech? They stick to bleating. Give one who is inwardly a Mohammedan, a Jew, or a Christian, permission to speak what he likes: he will yet utter only narrow-minded stuff. If, on the contrary, certain others rob you of the freedom of speaking and hearing, they know quite rightly wherein lies their temporary advantage, as you would perhaps be able to say and hear something whereby those "certain" persons would lose their credit.

If they nevertheless give you freedom, they are simply knaves who give more than they have. For then they give you nothing of their own, but stolen wares: they give you your own freedom, the freedom that you must take for yourselves; and they _give_ it to you only that you may not take it and call the thieves and cheats to an account to boot. In their slyness they know well that given (chartered) freedom is no freedom, since only the freedom one _takes_ for himself, therefore the egoist's freedom, rides with full sails. Donated freedom strikes its sails as soon as there comes a storm--or calm; it requires always a--gentle and moderate breeze.

Here lies the difference between self-liberation and emanc.i.p.ation (manumission, setting free). Those who to-day "stand in the opposition"

are thirsting and screaming to be "set free." The princes are to "declare their peoples of age," _i. e._ emanc.i.p.ate them! Behave as if you were of age, and you are so without any declaration of majority; if you do not behave accordingly, you are not worthy of it, and would never be of age even by a declaration of majority. When the Greeks were of age, they drove out their tyrants, and, when the son is of age, he makes himself independent of his father. If the Greeks had waited till their tyrants graciously allowed them their majority, they might have waited long. A sensible father throws out a son who will not come of age, and keeps the house to himself; it serves the noodle right.

The man who is set free is nothing but a freedman, a _libertinus_, a dog dragging a piece of chain with him: he is an unfree man in the garment of freedom, like the a.s.s in the lion's skin. Emanc.i.p.ated Jews are nothing bettered in themselves, but only relieved as Jews, although he who relieves their condition is certainly more than a churchly Christian, as the latter cannot do this without inconsistency. But, emanc.i.p.ated or not emanc.i.p.ated, Jew remains Jew; he who is not self-freed is merely an--emanc.i.p.ated man. The Protestant State can certainly set free (emanc.i.p.ate) the Catholics; but, because they do not make themselves free, they remain simply--Catholics.

Selfishness and unselfishness have already been spoken of. The friends of freedom are exasperated against selfishness because in their religious striving after freedom they cannot--free themselves from that sublime thing, "self-renunciation." The liberal's anger is directed against egoism, for the egoist, you know, never takes trouble about a thing for the sake of the thing, but for his sake: the thing must serve him. It is egoistic to ascribe to no thing a value of its own, an "absolute" value, but to seek its value in me. One often hears that pot-boiling study which is so common counted among the most repulsive traits of egoistic behavior, because it manifests the most shameful desecration of science; but what is science for but to be consumed? If one does not know how to use it for anything better than to keep the pot boiling, then his egoism is a petty one indeed, because this egoist's power is a limited power; but the egoistic element in it, and the desecration of science, only a possessed man can blame.

Because Christianity, incapable of letting the individual count as an ego,[111] thought of him only as a dependent, and was properly nothing but a _social theory_,--a doctrine of living together, and that of man with G.o.d as well as of man with man,--therefore in it everything "own"

must fall into most woeful disrepute: selfishness, self-will, ownness, self-love, etc. The Christian way of looking at things has on all sides gradually re-stamped honorable words into dishonorable; why should they not be brought into honor again? So _Schimpf_ (contumely) is in its old sense equivalent to jest, but for Christian seriousness pastime became a dishonor,[112] for that seriousness cannot take a joke; _frech_ (impudent) formerly meant only bold, brave; _Frevel_ (wanton outrage) was only daring. It is well known how askance the word "reason" was looked at for a long time.

Our language has settled itself pretty well to the Christian standpoint, and the general consciousness is still too Christian not to shrink in terror from everything unchristian as from something incomplete or evil.

Therefore "selfishness" is in a bad way too.

Selfishness,[113] in the Christian sense, means something like this: I look only to see whether anything is of use to me as a sensual man. But is sensuality then the whole of my ownness? Am I in my own senses when I am given up to sensuality? Do I follow myself, my _own_ determination, when I follow that? I am _my own_ only when I am master of myself, instead of being mastered either by sensuality or by anything else (G.o.d, man, authority, law, State, Church, etc.); what is of use to me, this self-owned or self-appertaining one, _my selfishness_ pursues.

Besides, one sees himself every moment compelled to believe in that constantly-blasphemed selfishness as an all-controlling power. In the session of February 10, 1844, Welcker argues a motion on the dependence of the judges, and sets forth in a detailed speech that removable, dismissable, transferable, and pensionable judges--in short, such members of a court of justice as can by mere administrative process be damaged and endangered,--are wholly without reliability, yes, lose all respect and all confidence among the people. The whole bench, Welcker cries, is demoralized by this dependence! In blunt words this means nothing else than that the judges find it more to their advantage to give judgment as the ministers would have them than to give it as the law would have them. How is that to be helped? Perhaps by bringing home to the judges' hearts the ignominiousness of their venality, and then cheris.h.i.+ng the confidence that they will repent and henceforth prize justice more highly than their selfishness? No, the people does not soar to this romantic confidence, for it feels that selfishness is mightier than any other motive. Therefore the same persons who have been judges. .h.i.therto may remain so, however thoroughly one has convinced himself that they behaved as egoists; only they must not any longer find their selfishness favored by the venality of justice, but must stand so independent of the government that by a judgment in conformity with the facts they do not throw into the shade their own cause, their "well-understood interest," but rather secure a comfortable combination of a good salary with respect among the citizens.

So Welcker and the commoners of Baden consider themselves secured only when they can count on selfishness. What is one to think, then, of the countless phrases of unselfishness with which their mouths overflow at other times?

To a cause which I am pus.h.i.+ng selfishly I have another relation than to one which I am serving unselfishly. The following criterion might be cited for it: against the one I can _sin_ or commit a _sin_, the other I can only _trifle away_, push from me, deprive myself of,--_i. e._ commit an imprudence. Free trade is looked at in both ways, being regarded partly as a freedom which may _under certain circ.u.mstances_ be granted or withdrawn, partly as one which is to be held _sacred under all circ.u.mstances_.

If I am not concerned about a thing in and for itself, and do not desire it for its own sake, then I desire it solely as a _means to an end_, for its usefulness; for the sake of another end; _e. g._, oysters for a pleasant flavor. Now will not every thing whose final end he himself is serve the egoist as means? and is he to protect a thing that serves him for nothing,--_e. g._, the proletarian to protect the State?

Ownness includes in itself everything own, and brings to honor again what Christian language dishonored. But ownness has not any alien standard either, as it is not in any sense an _idea_ like freedom, morality, humanity, and the like: it is only a description of the--_owner_.

II

THE OWNER

I--do I come to myself and mine through liberalism?

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

But, as he takes little heed of what you are _privatim_,--nay, in a strict following out of his principle sets no value at all on it,--he sees in you only what you are _generatim_. In other words, he sees in you, not _you_, but the _species_; not Tom or Jim, but Man; not the real or unique one,[114] but your essence or your concept; not the bodily man, but the _spirit_.

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

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

Christianity properly so called gathers us under a less utterly general concept: there we are "sons of G.o.d" and "led by the Spirit of G.o.d."[115]

Yet not all can boast of being G.o.d's sons, but "the same Spirit which witnesses to our spirit that we are sons of G.o.d reveals also who are the sons of the devil."[116] Consequently, to be a son of G.o.d one must not be a son of the devil; the sons.h.i.+p of G.o.d 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 pa.s.sions, 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 d.i.c.k. 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 a.s.sumed, 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 G.o.d has given us pain, "Man"

is capable of pinching us still more torturingly. The long and the short of it is this: that we are men is the slightest thing about us, and has significance only in so far as it is one of our _qualities_,[117]

_i. e._ our property.[118] I am indeed among other things a man, as I am, _e. g._, a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, a Berliner, and the like; but he who chose to have regard for me only as a man, or as a Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very unimportant to me. And wherefore? Because he would have regard only for one of my _qualities_, not for _me_.

It is just so with the _spirit_ too. A Christian spirit, an upright spirit, and the like may well be my acquired quality, _i. e._ my property, but I am not this spirit: it is mine, not I its.

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

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

Therefore the liberal too revolves in the same circle as the Christian.

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

One can now, after liberalism has proclaimed Man, declare openly that herewith was only completed the consistent carrying out of Christianity, and that in truth Christianity set itself no other task from the start than to realize "man," the "true man." Hence, then, the illusion that Christianity ascribes an infinite value to the _ego_ (as _e. g._ in the doctrine of immortality, in the cure of souls, etc.) comes to light. No, it a.s.signs this value to _Man_ alone. Only _Man_ is immortal, and only because I am man am I too immortal. In fact, Christianity had to teach that no one is lost, just as liberalism too puts all on an equality as men; but that eternity, like this equality, applied only to the _Man_ in me, not to me. Only as the bearer and harborer of Man do I not die, as notoriously "the king never dies." Louis dies, but the king remains; I die, but my spirit, Man, remains. To identify me now entirely with Man the demand has been invented, and stated, that I must become a "real generic being."[119]

The HUMAN _religion_ is only the last metamorphosis of the Christian religion. For liberalism is a religion because it separates my essence from me and sets it above me, because it exalts "Man" to the same extent as any other religion does its G.o.d or idol, because it makes what is mine into something otherworldly, because in general it makes out of what is mine, out of my qualities and my property, something alien,--to wit, an "essence"; in short, because it sets me beneath Man, and thereby creates for me a "vocation." But liberalism declares itself a religion in form too when it demands for this supreme being, Man, a zeal of faith, "a faith that some day will at last prove its fiery zeal too, a zeal that will be invincible."[120] But, as liberalism is a human religion, its professor takes a _tolerant_ att.i.tude 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 fas.h.i.+on 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_ att.i.tude on account of their unessentialness.

One may call it the _State-religion_, the religion of the "free State,"

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

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

To say in blunt words what an un-man is is not particularly hard: it is a man who does not correspond to the _concept_ man, as the inhuman is something human which is not conformed to the concept of the human.

Logic calls this a "self-contradictory judgment." Would it be permissible for one to p.r.o.nounce 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 pa.s.sed 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 "G.o.d."

Only the--un-man is a _real_ man.

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

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

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

If the State must count on our humanity, it is the same if one says it must count on our _morality_. Seeing Man in each other, and acting as men toward each other, is called moral behavior. This is every whit the "spiritual love" of Christianity. For, if I see Man in you, as in myself I see Man and nothing but Man, then I care for you as I would care for myself; for we represent, you see, nothing but the mathematical proposition: A = C and B = C, consequently A = B,--_i. e._, I nothing but man and you nothing but man, consequently I and you the same.

Morality is incompatible with egoism, because the former does not allow validity to _me_, but only to the Man in me. But, if the State is a _society of men_, not a union of egos each of whom has only himself before his eyes, then it cannot last without morality, and must insist on morality.

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

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