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THE MODERN LIBRARY 
 
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 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
Turn to the end of this 
 volume for a complete 
 list of titles in the 
 Modern Library. 
 
THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 By MAX STIRNER 
 
 Translated from the German by 
 STEVEN T. BYINGTON 
 
 With an Introduction by 
 J. L. WALKER 
 
 m 
 
 BONI and LIVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
TO MY SWEETHEART 
 
 MARIE DAHNHARDT 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/egohisownOOstir_0 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Fifty years sooner or later can make little difference in the 
 case of a book so revolutionary as this.. 
 
 It saw the light when a so-called revolutionary movement was 
 preparing in men's minds, which agitation was, however, only a 
 disturbance due to desires to participate in government, and to 
 govern and to be governed, in a manner different to that which 
 prevails. The ''revolutionists" of 1848 were bewitched with an 
 idea. They were not at all the masters of. ideas. Most of those 
 who since that time have prided themselves upon being revolu- 
 tionists have been and are likewise but the bondmen of an idea 
 — that of the different lodgment of authority. 
 
 The temptation is, of course, present to attempt an explanation 
 of the central thought of this work; but such an effort appears 
 to be unnecessary to one who has the volume in his hand. The 
 author's care in illustrating his meaning shows that he realized 
 how prone the possessed man is to misunderstand whatever is 
 not moulded according to the fashions in thinking. The author's 
 learning was considerable, his command of words and ideas 
 may never be excelled by another, and he judged it needful 
 to develop his argument in manifold ways. So those who enter 
 into the spirit of it will scarcely hope to impress others with the 
 same conclusion in a more summary manner. Or, if one might 
 deem that possible after reading Stirner, still one cannot think 
 that it could be done so surely. The author has made certain 
 work of it even though he has to wait for his public; but still, 
 the reception of the book by its critics amply proves the truth of 
 the saying that one can give another arguments, but not under- 
 standing. The system-makers and system-believers thus far 
 cannot get it out of their heads that any discourse about the 
 nature of an ego must turn upon the common characteristics of 
 egos, to make a systematic scheme of what they share as a 
 generality. The critics inquire what kind of man the author is 
 talking about. They repeat the question : What does he believe 
 in? They fail to grasp the purport of the recorded answer: 
 'T believe in myself" ; which is attributed to a common soldier 
 long before the time of Stirner. They ask. What is the principle 
 of the self-conscious egoist — the Einzige? To this perplexity 
 
 vii 
 
viii 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Stirner says: Change the question; put "who?" instead of 
 "what?" and an answer can then be given by naming him! 
 
 This, of course, is too simple for persons governed by ideas, 
 and for persons in quest of new governing ideas. They wish to 
 classify the man. Now, that in me which you can classify is not 
 my distinguishing self. '"Man" is the horizon or zero of my 
 existence as an individual. Over that I rise as I can. At least 
 I am something more than ^'man in general." Pre-existing wor- 
 ship of ideals and disrespect for self had made of the ego at the 
 very most a Somebody, oftener an empty vessel to be filled with 
 the grace or the leavings of a tyrannous doctrine; thus a No- 
 body. Stirner dispels the morbid subjection, and recognizes 
 each one who knows and feels himself as his own property to be 
 neither humble Nobody nor befogged Somebody, but henceforth 
 fiat-footed and level-headed Mr. Thisbody, who has a character 
 and good pleasure of his own, just as he has a name of his own. 
 
 The critics who attacked this work and were answered in the 
 author's minor writings, rescued from oblivion by John Henry 
 Mackay, nearly all display the most astonishing triviality and 
 impotent malice. 
 
 We owe to Dr. Eduard von Hartmann the unquestionable 
 service which he rendered by directing attention to this book in 
 his ''Philosophie des Unbewussten/' the first edition of which 
 was published in 1869, and in other writings. I do not begrudge 
 Dr. von Hartmann the liberty of criticism which he used; and I 
 think the admirers of Stirner's teaching must quite appreciate 
 one thing which Von Hartmann did at a much later date. In 
 *'Der Eigene" of August 10, 1896, there appeared a letter writ- 
 ten by him and giving, among other things, certain data from 
 which to judge that, when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his later 
 essays, Nietzsche was not ignorant of Stirner's book. 
 
 Von Hartmann wishes that Stirner had gone on and developed 
 his principle. Von Hartmann suggests that you and I are really 
 the same spirit, looking out through two pairs of eyes. Then, 
 one may reply, I need not concern myself about you, for in my- 
 self I have — us ; and at that rate Von Hartmann is merely accus- 
 ing himself of inconsistency: for, when Stirner wrote this book. 
 Von Hartmann's spirit was writing it ; and it is just the pity that 
 Von Hartmann in his present form does not indorse what he said 
 in the form of Stirner — that Stirner was different from any other 
 man ; that his ego was not Fichte's transcendental generality, 
 but "this transitory ego of flesh and blood." It is not as a gen- 
 erality that you and I differ, but as a couple of facts which are 
 not to be reasoned into one. "I" is somewise Hartmann, and 
 thus Hartmann is "I"; but I am not Hartmann, and Hartmann 
 is not — I. Neither am I the *T' of Stirner; only Stirner him- 
 self was Stirner's "1." Note how comparatively indifferent a 
 matter it is with Stirner that one is an ego, but how all-impor- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ix 
 
 tant it is that one be a self-conscious ego — a self-cons-cious, self- 
 willed person. 
 
 Those not self-conscious and self-willed are constantly acting 
 from self-interested motives, but clothing these in various garbs. 
 Watch those people closely in the light of Stirner's teaching, 
 and they seem to be hypocrites, they have so many good moral 
 and religious plans of which self-interest is at the end and 
 bottom ; but they, we may believe, do not know that this is more 
 than a coincidence. 
 
 In Stirner we have the philosophical foundation for political 
 liberty. His interest in the practical development of egoism to 
 the dissolution of the State and the union of free men is clear 
 and pronounced, and harmonizes perfectly with the economic 
 philosophy of Josiah Warren. Allowing for difference of 
 temperament and language, there is a substantiell agreement 
 between Stirner and Proudhon. Each would be free, and sees 
 in every increase of the number of free people and their intelli- 
 gence an auxiliary force against the oppressor. But, on the 
 other hand, will any one for a moment seriously contend that 
 Nietzsche and Proudhon march together in general aim and 
 tendency — that they have anything in common except the daring 
 to profane the shrine and sepulchre of superstition? 
 
 Nietzsche has been much spoken of as a disciple of Stirner, 
 and, owing to favorable cullings from Nietzsche's writings, it 
 has occurred that one of his books has been supposed to contain 
 more sense than it really does — so long as one had read only the 
 extracts. 
 
 Nietzsche cites scores or hundreds of authors. Had he read 
 everything, and not read Stirner? 
 
 But Nietzsche is as unlike Stirner as a tight-rope performance 
 is unlike an algebraic equation. 
 
 Stirner loved liberty for himself, and loved to see any and all 
 men and women taking liberty, and he had no lust of power. 
 Democracy to him was sham liberty, egoism the genuine liberty. 
 
 Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt upon 
 democracy because it is not aiistocratic. He is predatory to 
 the point of demanding that those who must succumb to feline 
 rapacity shall be taught to submit with resignation. When he 
 speaks of "Anarchistic dogs'* scouring the streets of great civi- 
 lized cities, it is true, the context shows that he means the Com- 
 munists ; but his worship of Napoleon, his bathos of anxiety for 
 the rise of an aristocracy that shall rule Europe for thousands of 
 years, his idea of treating women in the oriental fashion, show 
 that Nietzsche has struck out in a very old path — doing the 
 apotheosis of tyranny. We individual egoistic Anarchists, how- 
 ever, may say to the Nietzsche school, so as not to be misunder- 
 stood : We do not ask of the Napoleons to have pity, nor of the 
 predatory barons to do justice. They will find it convenient for 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 their own welfare to make terms with men who have learned of 
 Stirner what a man can be who worships nothing, bears alle- 
 giance to nothing. To Nietzsche's rhodomontade of eagles in 
 baronial form, born to prey on industrial lambs, we rather taunt- 
 ingly oppose the ironical question: Where are your claws? 
 What if the "eagles" are fqund to be plain barnyard fowls on 
 which more silly fowls have fastened steel spurs to hack the vic- 
 tims, who, however, have the power to disarm the sham ''eagles" 
 between two suns ? 
 
 Stirner shows that men make their tyrants as they make their 
 gods, and his purpose is to unmake tyrants. 
 
 Nietzsche dearly loves a tyrant. 
 
 In style Stirner's work offers the greatest possible contrast to 
 the puerile, padded phraseology of Nietzsche's Zarathustra' 
 and its false imagery. Who ever imagined such an unnatural 
 conjuncture as an eagle '*toting" a serpent in friendship? which 
 performance is told of in bare words, but nothing comes of it. 
 In Stirner we are treated to an enlivening and earnest discussion 
 addressed to serious minds, and every reader feels that the word 
 is to him, for his instruction and benefit, so far as he has mental 
 independence and courage to take it and use it. The startling 
 intrepidity of this book is infused with a whole-hearted love for 
 all mankind, as evidenced by the fact that the author shows not 
 one iota of prejudice or any idea of division of men into ranks. 
 He would lay aside government, but would establish any regula- 
 tion deemed convenient, and for this only our convenience is 
 consulted. Thus there will be general liberty only when the dis- 
 position toward tyranny is met by intelligent opposition that will 
 no longer submit to such a rule. Beyond this the manly sym- 
 pathy and philosophical bent of Stirner are such that rulership 
 appears by contrast a vanity, an infatuation of perverted pride. 
 We know not whether we more admire our author or more love 
 him. 
 
 Stirner's attitude toward woman is not special. She is an in- 
 dividual if she can be, not handicapped by anything he says, 
 feels, thinks, or plans. This was more fully exemplified in his 
 life than even in this book ; but there is not a line in the book to 
 put or keep woman in an inferior position to man, neither is 
 there anything of caste or aristocracy in the book. 
 
 Likewise there is nothing of obscurantism or affected mystic- 
 ism about it. Everything in it is made as plain as the author 
 could make it. He who does not so is not Stirner's disciple nor 
 successor nor co-worker. 
 
 Some one may ask: How does plumb-line Anarchism train 
 with the unbridled egoism proclaimed by Stirner? The plumb- 
 line is not a fetish, but an intellectual conviction, and egoism is 
 a universal fact of animal life. Nothing could seem clearer to 
 my mind than that the reality of egoism must first come into the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 xi 
 
 consciousness of men, before we can have the unbiased Einzige 
 in place of the prejudiced biped who lends himself to the sup- 
 port of tyrannies a million times stronger over me than the nat- 
 ural self-interest of any individual. When plumb-line doctrine 
 is misconceived as duty between unequal-minded men — as a reli- 
 gion of humanity — it is indeed the confusion of trying to read 
 without knowing the alphabet and of putting philanthropy in 
 place of contract. But, if the plumb-line be scientific, it is or 
 can be my possession, my property, and I choose it for its use — 
 when circumstances admit of its use. I do not feel hound to use 
 it because it is scientific, in building my house; but, as my will, 
 to be intelligent, is not to be merely wilful, the adoption of the 
 plumb-line follows the discarding of incantations. There is no 
 plumb-line without the unvarying lead at the end of the line; 
 not a fluttering bird or a clawing cat. 
 
 On the practical side of the question of egoism versus self-sur- 
 render and for a trial of egoism in politics, this may be said : the 
 belief that men not moved by a sense of duty will be unkind or 
 unjust to others is but an indirect confession that those who hold 
 that belief are greatly interested in having others live for them 
 rather than for themselves. But I do not ask or expect so much. 
 I am content if others individually live for themselves, and thus 
 cease in so many ways to act in opposition to my living for my- 
 self — to our living for ourselves. 
 
 If -Christianity has failed to turn the world from evil, it is not 
 to be dreamed that rationalism of a pious moral stamp will suc- 
 ceed in the same task. Christianity, or all philanthropic love, is 
 tested in non-resistance. It is a dream that example will change 
 the hearts of rulers, tyrants, mobs. If the extremest self-surren- 
 der fails, how can a mixture of Christian love and worldly cau- 
 tion succeed? This at least must be given up. The policy of 
 Christ and Tolstoi can soon be tested, but Tolstoi's belief is not 
 satisfied with a present test and failure. He has the infatuation 
 of one who persists because this ought to be. The egoist who 
 thinks "I should like this to be" still has the sense to perceive 
 that it is not accomplished by the fact of some believing and 
 submitting, in asmuch as others are alert to prey upon the un- 
 resisting. The Pharaohs we have ever with us. 
 
 Several passages in this most remarkable book show the author 
 as a man full of sympathy. When we reflect upon his deliber- 
 ately expressed opinions and sentiments — his spurning of the 
 sense of moral obligation as the last form of superstition — may 
 we not be warranted in thinking that the total disappearance of 
 the sentimental supposition of duty liberates a quantity of 
 nervous energy for the purest generosity and clarifies the intellect 
 for the more discriminating choice of objects of merit? 
 
 J. L. Walker. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 If the style of this book is found unattractive, it will show 
 that I have done my work ill and not represented the author 
 truly; but, if it is found odd, I beg that I may not bear all the 
 blame. I have simply tried to reproduce the author's own mix- 
 ture of colloquialisms and technicalities, and his preference for 
 the precise expression of his thought rather than the word con- 
 ventionally expected. 
 
 One especial feature of the style, however, gives the reason 
 why this preface should exist. It is characteristic of Stirner's 
 writing that the thread of thought is carried on largely by the 
 repetition of the same word in a modified form or sense. That 
 connection of ideas which has guided popular instinct in the 
 formation of words is made to suggest the line of thought which 
 the writer wishes to follow. If this echoing of words is missed, 
 the bearing of the statements on each other is in a mixture lost ; 
 and, where the ideas are very new, one cannot afford to throw 
 away any help in following their connection. Therefore, where 
 a useful echo (and there are few useless ones in the book) could 
 not be reproduced in English, I have generally called attention 
 to it in a note. My notes are distinguished from the author's by 
 being enclosed in brackets. 
 
 One or two of such coincidences of language, occurring in 
 words which are prominent throughout the book, should be borne 
 constantly in mind as a sort of Keri perpetuum: for instance, the 
 identity in the original of the words "spirit" and "mind," and of 
 the phrases "supreme being" and "highest essence." In such 
 cases I have repeated the note where it seemed that such repetition 
 might be absolutely necessary, but have trusted the reader to 
 carry it in his head where a failure of his memory would not 
 be ruinous or likely. 
 
 For the same reason — ^that is, in order not to miss any indi- 
 cation of the drift of the thought — I have followed the original 
 in the very liberal use of italics, and in the occasional eccentric 
 use of a punctuation mark, as I might not have done in transla- 
 ting a work of a different nature. 
 
 xiii 
 
xiv 
 
 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 I have set my face as a flint against the temptation to add 
 notes that were not part of the translation. There is no telling 
 how much I might have enlarged the book if I had put a note at 
 every sentence which deserved to have its truth brought out by 
 fuller elucidation — or even at every one which I thought needed 
 correction. It might have been within my province, if I had 
 been able, to explain all the allusions to contemporary events, 
 but I doubt whether any one could do that properly without 
 having access to the files of three or four well-chosen German 
 newspapers of Stirner's time. The allusions are clear enough, 
 without names and dates, to give a vivid picture of certain 
 aspects of German life then. The tone of some of them is ex- 
 plained by the fact that the book was published under censorship. 
 
 I have usually preferred, for the sake of the connection, to 
 translate Biblical quotations somewhat as they stand in the Ger- 
 man, rather than conform them altogether to the English Bible. 
 I am sometimes quite as near the original Greek as I had fol- 
 lowed the current translation. 
 
 Where German books are referred to, the pages cited are 
 those of the German editions even when (usually because of 
 some allusions in the text) the titles of the books are translated. 
 
 Steven T, Byington. 
 
THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
ALL THINGS ARE NOTHING TO ME* 
 
 What is not supposed to be my concern If First and 
 foremost, the Good Cause,J then God's cause, the cause 
 of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; 
 further, the cause of my people, my prince, my father- 
 land; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand 
 other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. 
 ''Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself !" 
 
 Let us look and see, then, how they manage their con- 
 cerns — they for whose cause we are to labor, devote our- 
 selves, and grow enthusiastic. 
 
 You have much profound information to give about 
 God, and have for thousands of years "searched the 
 depths of the Godhead," and looked into its heart, so that 
 you can doubtless tell us how God himself attends to 
 ''God's cause,'' which we are called to serve. And you 
 do not conceal the Lord's doings, either. Now, what is 
 his cause ? Has he, as is demanded of us, made an alien 
 cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are 
 shocked by this misunderstanding, ' and you instruct us 
 that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but 
 that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God 
 is himself truth and love ; you are shocked by the assump- 
 tion that God could be like us poor worms in furthering 
 an alien cause as his own. "Should God take up the 
 cause of truth if we were not himself truth?" He cares 
 only for his cause, but, because he is all in all, therefore 
 all is his cause ! But we, we are not all in all, and our 
 
 * [''Ich hah' Mein' SacW auf Nichts gestellt,'* first line of 
 Goethe's poem, "Vanitas! Vanitatum VanitasT Literal translation : 
 "I have set mv affair on nothing."] 
 
 t [Sache] X [Sache] 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 cause is altogether little and contemptible; therefore we 
 must ''serve a higher cause/' — Now it is clear, God cares 
 only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, 
 thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his 
 eyes; woe to all that is not well-pleasing to him! He 
 serves no higher preson, and satisfies only himself. His 
 cause is — a purely egoistic cause. 
 
 How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make 
 our own ? Is its cause that of another, and does mankind 
 serve a higher cause ? No, mankind looks only at itself, 
 mankind is its own cause. That it may develop, it causes 
 nations and individuals to wear themselves out in its 
 service, and, when they have accomplished what mankind 
 needs, it throws them on the dung-heap of history in 
 gratitude. Is not mankind's cause — a purely egoistic 
 cause ? 
 
 I have no need to take up each thing that wants to 
 throw its cause on us and show that it is occupied only 
 with itself , not with us, only with its good, not with ours. 
 Look at the rest for themselves. Do truth, freedom, 
 humanity, justice, desire anything else than that you 
 grow enthusiastic and serve them? 
 
 They all'have an admirable time of it when they re- 
 ceive zealous homage. Just observe the nation that is 
 defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in bloody 
 battle or in the fight with hunger and want; what does 
 the nation care for that ? By the manure of their corpses 
 the nation comes to "its bloom!" The individuals have 
 died "for the great cause of the nation," and the nation 
 sends some words of thanks after them and — ^has the 
 profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism. 
 
 But only look at that Sultan who cares so lovingly for 
 his people. Is he not pure unselfishness itself, and does 
 he not hourly sacrifice himself for his people ? Oh, yes, 
 for "his people." Just try it ; show yourself not as his, 
 but as your own ; for breaking away from his egoism you 
 will take a trip to iail. The Sultan has set his cause on 
 nothing but himself ; he is to himself all in all, he is to 
 
ALL THINGS ARE NOTHING TO ME 
 
 5 
 
 himself the only one, and tolerates nobody who would 
 dare not to be one of ^'his people.'' 
 
 And will you not learn by these brilliant examples that 
 the egoist gets on best? I for my part take a lesson from 
 them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving 
 those great egoists, rather to be the egoist myself. 
 
 God and mankind have concerned themselves for 
 nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then like- 
 wise concern myself for mysellf, who am equally with 
 God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the 
 only one.* 
 
 If God, if mankind, as you affirm, have substance 
 enough in themselves to be all in all to themselves, then I 
 feel that / shall still less lack that, and that I shall have 
 no complaint to make of my "emptiness." I am not 
 nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative 
 nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator 
 create everything. 
 
 Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether 
 my concern ! You think at least the ''good cause" must 
 be my concern? Whafs good, what's bad? Why, I 
 myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. 
 Neither has meaning for me. 
 
 The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My 
 concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, 
 good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not 
 a general one, but is — unique, \ as I am unique. 
 
 Nothing is more to me than myself ! 
 
 * [der Einsiga] 
 
 t [einzig] 
 
PART FIRST 
 
 'MAN 
 
Man is to man the supreme being, says Feuerbach. 
 
 Man has just been discovered, says Brnno Bauer. 
 
 Then let us take a more careful look at this supreme being and 
 
 this new discovery. 
 
I 
 
 A HUMAN LIFE 
 
 From the moment when he catches sight of the light of 
 the world a man seeks to find out himself and get hold 
 of himself out of its confusion, in whcih he, with every- 
 thing else, is tossed about in motley mixture. 
 
 But everything that comes in contact with the child 
 defends itself in turn against his attacks, and asserts its 
 own persistence. 
 
 Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at 
 the same time comes into constant collison with other 
 things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable. 
 
 Victory or defeat — between the two alternatives the 
 fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, 
 the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises 
 supremacy and ''rights of supremacy,'' the latter fulfils in 
 awe and deference the ''duties of a subject.'' 
 
 But both remain enemies, and always lie in wait : they 
 watch for each other's weaknesses — children for those 
 of their parents and parents for those of their children 
 (e. g. their fear) ; either the stick conquers the man, or 
 the man conquers the stick. 
 
 In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying 
 to get to the bottom of things, to get at what is "back of" 
 things; therefore we spy out the weak points of every- 
 body, for which, it is well known, children have a sure 
 instinct ; therefore we like to smash things, like to rum- 
 mage through hidden corners, pry after what is covered 
 up or out of the way, and try what we can do with every- 
 thing. When we once get at what is back of the things, 
 we know we are safe; when, e. g., we have got at the 
 
 9 
 
10 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 fact that the rod is too weak against our obduracy, then 
 we no longer fear it, "have outgrown it." 
 
 Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our — obduracy, 
 our obdurate courage. By degrees we get at what is back 
 of everything that was mysterious and uncanny to us, 
 the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father's 
 stern look, etc., and back of all we find our — ataraxy, i. e. 
 imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our odds 
 of strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly 
 inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat 
 shyly, but take courage. Back of everything we find our 
 courage, our superiority ; back of the sharp command of 
 parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous 
 choice of our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we 
 feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which before 
 seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewd- 
 ness, courage, obduracy? What else but — mind!^ 
 
 Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that 
 is so exhausting later — the fight against reason. The 
 fairest part of childhood passes without the necessity of 
 coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all 
 about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are 
 not to be persuaded to anything by conviction, and are 
 deaf to good arguments, principles, etc. ; on the other 
 hand, coaxing, punishment, and the like are hard for us 
 to resist. 
 
 This stern life-and-death combat with reason enters 
 later, and begins a new phase; in childhood we scamper 
 about without racking our brains much. 
 
 Mind is the name of the first self-discovery, the first 
 undeification of the divine, i. e, of the uncanny, the 
 spooks, the "powers above." Our fresh feeling of youth, 
 this feeling of self, now defers to nothing; the world is 
 discredited, for we are above it, we are mind. 
 
 Now for the first time we see that hitherto we have not 
 
 * \Geist. This word will be translated sometimes "mind" and 
 sometimes "spirit" in the following pages.] 
 
A HUMAN LIFE 
 
 11 
 
 looked at the world intelligently at all, but only stared 
 at it. 
 
 We exercise the beginnings of our strength on natural 
 powers. We defer to parents as a natural power; later 
 we say : Father and mother are to be forsaken ; all natural 
 power to be counted as riven. They are vanquished. For 
 the rational, i. e. ''intellectuar' man there is no family 
 as a natural power; a renunciation of parents, brothers, 
 etc., makes its appearance. If these are "born again" as 
 intellectual, rational powers, they are no longer at all what 
 they were before. 
 
 And not only parents, but men in general, are con- 
 quered by the young man ; they are no hindrance to him, 
 and are no longer regarded ; for now he says : One must 
 obey God rather than men. 
 
 From this high standpoint everything ''earthly' recedes 
 into contemptible remoteness; for the standpoint is — the 
 heavenly. 
 
 The attitude is now altogether reversed; the youth 
 takes up an intellectual position, while the boy, who did 
 not feel himself as mind, grew up in mindless learning. 
 The former does not try to get hold of things (e, g. to 
 get into his head the data of history), but of the thoughts 
 that lie hidden in things, and so, e. g,, of the spirit of 
 history. On the other hand, the boy understands con- 
 nections no doubt, but not ideas, the spirit; therefore he 
 strings together whatever can be learned, without pro- 
 ceeding a priori and theoretically, i. e, without looking for 
 ideas. 
 
 A3 in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of 
 the laws of the world, so now in everything that he pro- 
 poses he is met by an objection of the mind, of reason, of 
 his own conscience. "That is unreasonable, unchristian, 
 unpatriotic,'' and the like, cries conscience to us, and — 
 frightens us away from it Not the might of the avenging 
 Eumenides, not Poseidon's wrath, not God, far as he sees 
 the hidden, not the father's rod of punishment, do we 
 fear, but — conscience. 
 
12 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 We ''run after our thoughts'' now, and follow their 
 commands just as before we followed parental, human 
 ones. Our course of action is determined by our thoughts 
 (ideas, conceptions, faith), as it is in childhood by the 
 commands of our parents. 
 
 For all that, we were already thinking when we were 
 children, only our thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, 
 absolute, i. e, nothing but thoughts, a heaven in 
 themselves, a pure world of thought, logical thoughts. 
 
 Qn the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we 
 had about a thing; we thought of the thing so or so. 
 Thus we may have thought ''God made the world that 
 we see there," but we did not think of (''search") the 
 "depths of the Godhead itself"; we may ^"»ave thought 
 "that is the truth about the matter," but we did not think 
 of Truth itself, nor unite into one sentence "God is truth." 
 The "depths of the Godhead, who is truth," we did not 
 touch. Over such purely logical, i. e. theoligical ques- 
 tions, "What is truth ?" Pilate does not stop, though he 
 does not therefore hesitate to ascertain in an individual 
 case "what truth there is in the thing," i. e, whether the 
 thing is true. 
 
 Any thought bound to a thing is not yet nothing hut a 
 thought, absolute thought. 
 
 To bring to light the pure thought, or to be of its party, 
 is the delight of youth ; and all the shapes of light in the 
 world of thought, like truth, freedom, humanity, Man, 
 etc., illumine and inspire the youthful soul. 
 
 But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential 
 thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is. poor 
 or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit ; 
 the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire — 
 an empire that is not of this world, the world just con- 
 quered. Thus, then, it longs to become all in all to itself : 
 i. e., although I am spirit, I am not yet perfected spirit, 
 and must first seek the complete spirit. 
 
 But with that I, who had just now found myself as 
 spirit, lose myself again at once, bowing before the com- 
 
A HUMAN LIFE 
 
 13 
 
 plete spirit as one not my own but supernal, and feeling 
 my emptiness. 
 
 Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure 
 but then is every spirit the "right'' spirit? The right and 
 true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the ''Holy Spirit." It. is 
 not my or your spirit, but just — an ideal, supernal one, 
 it is "God." ''God is spirit." And this supernal "Father 
 in heaven gives it to those that pray to him."* 
 
 The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact 
 that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere 
 fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it,.f. e, model it 
 after his ideal ; in him the view that one must deal with 
 the world according to his interest, not according to* his 
 ideals, becomes confirmed. 
 
 So long as one knows himself only 3,s, spirit, and feels 
 that all the value of his existence consists in being spirit 
 (it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the 
 "bodily life," for amothing, for the silliest point of honor), 
 so long it is. only thoughts that one has, ideas that he 
 hopes to be able to realize some day when he has found 
 a sphere of action; thus one has meanwhile only ideals. 
 
 Not till one has fallen in love with his corporeal self, 
 and takes a pleasure in himself as living flesh-and-blood 
 person — but it is in mature years, in the man, that we 
 find it so — not till then has one a personal or egoistic in- 
 terest, i. e. an interest not only of our spirit, for instance, 
 but of total satisfaction, satisfaction of the whole chap, a 
 selfish interest. Just compare a man with a youth, and 
 see if he will not appear to you harder, less magnanimous, 
 more selfish. Is he therefore worse? No, you say; he 
 has only become more definite, or, as you also call it, 
 more " practical." But* the main point is this, that he 
 makes himself more the centre than does the youth, who 
 is infatuated about other, things, e. g. God, fatherland, 
 and so on. 
 
 Therefore the man shows a second self-discovery. The 
 
 *Luke 11, 13. 
 
14 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 youth has found himself as spirit and lost himself again 
 m the general spirit, the complete, holy spirit, in spirit, 
 Man,, mankind — in short, all ideals; the man finds him- 
 self as embodied spirit. 
 
 Boys had only uninteUectual interests {i. e. interests 
 devoid of thoughts and ideas), youths only intellectual 
 ones ; the man has bodily, personal, egoistic interests. 
 
 If the child has not an object that it can occupy itself 
 with, it feels ennui; for it does not yet know how to occupy 
 itself' with itself. The youth, on the contrary, throws the 
 object aside, because for him thoughts arose out of the 
 object; he occupies himself with his thoughts, his dreams, 
 occupies himself, intellectually, or ''his mind is occupied.'' 
 
 The young man includes everything not intellectual 
 under the contemptuous name of "externalities." If he 
 nevertheless sticks to the most trivial externalities {e. g. 
 the customs of students' clubs and other formalities), it 
 is because, and when, he discovers mind in them, i. e. 
 when they are symbols to him. 
 
 As I find myself back of things, and that as mind, so I 
 must later find myself also back of thoughts — to wit, as 
 their creator and owner. In the time of spirits thoughts 
 grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they 
 yet were ; they hovered about me and convulsed me like 
 fever-phantasies — an awful power. The thoughts had 
 become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, such 
 as God, Emperor, Pope, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy 
 their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say : 
 *T alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as 
 what it is to me, as mine, as my property ; I refer all to 
 myself. 
 
 If as spirit I had thrust away the world in the deepest 
 contempt, so as owner I thrust spirits or ideas away into 
 their ^Vanity." They have no longer any power over me, 
 as no ''earthly might" has power over the spirit. 
 
 The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this 
 world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at what 
 was back of these very things; the youth was idealistic, 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW IS 
 
 inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where 
 he became the man, the egoistic man, who deals with 
 things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure, and 
 sets his personal interest above everything. Finally, the 
 old man? When I become one, there will still be time 
 enough to speak of that. 
 
 II 
 
 MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 
 
 How each of us developed himself, what he strove for, 
 attained, or missed, what objects he formerly pursued 
 and what plans and wishes his heart is now set on, what 
 transformations his views have experienced, what per- 
 turbations his principles — in short, how he has to-day 
 become what yesterday or years ago he was not — this he 
 brings out again from his memory with more or less ease, 
 and he feels with especial vividness what changes have 
 taken place in himself when he has before his eyes the 
 unrolling of another's life. 
 
 Let us therefore look into the activities our forefathers 
 busied themselves with. 
 
 I.— THE ANCIENTS 
 
 Custom having once given the name of "the ancients'' 
 to our pre-Christian ancestors, we will not throw it up 
 against them that, in comparison with us experienced 
 people, they ought properly to be called children, but will 
 rather continue to honor them as our good old fathers. 
 But how have they come to be antiquated, and who could 
 displace them through his pretended newness ? 
 
 We know, of course, the revolutionary innovator and 
 
16 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 disrespectful heir, who even took away the sanctity of 
 the fathers' sabbath to hallow his Sunday, and inter- 
 rupted the course of time to begin at himself with a new 
 chronology; we know him, and know that it is — the 
 Christian. But does he remain forever young, and is he 
 to-day still the new man, or will he too be superseded, as 
 he has superseded the ''ancients" ? 
 
 The fathers must doubtless have themselves begotten 
 the young one who entombed them. Let us then peep 
 at this act of generation. 
 
 'To the ancients the world was a truth," says Feuer- 
 bach, but he forgets to make the important addition, "a 
 truth whose untruth they tried to get back of, and at 
 last really did." What is meant by those words of Feuer- 
 bach will be easily recognized if they are put alongside the 
 Christian thesis of the "vanity and transitoriness of the 
 world." For, as the Christian can never convince himself 
 of the vanity of the divine word, but believes in its eternal 
 and unshakeable truth, which, the more its depths are 
 searched, must all the more brilliantly come to light and 
 triumph, to the ancients on their side lived in the feeling 
 that the world and mundane relations g, the natural 
 ties of blood) were the truth before which their power- 
 less 'T" must bow. The very thing on which the ancients 
 set the highest value is spurned by Christians as the 
 valueless, and what they recognized as truth these brand 
 as idle lies; the high significance of the fatherland dis- 
 appears, and the Christian must regard himself as ''a 
 stranger on earth";* the sanctity of funeral rites, from 
 which sprang a work of art like the Antigone of Sopho- 
 cles, is designated as a paltry thing ("Let the dead bury 
 their dead") ; the infrangible truth of family ties is repre- 
 sented as an untruth which one cannot promptly enough 
 get clear of ;t and so in everything. 
 
 If we now see that to the two sides opposite things ap- 
 pear as truth, to one the natural, to the other the intel- 
 
 *Heb. 11, 13. 
 
 tMark 10, 29. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 17 
 
 lectual, to one earthly things and relations, to the other 
 heavenly (the heavenly fatherland, ''Jerusalem that is 
 above," etc.), it still remins to be considered how the new 
 time and that undeniable reversal could come out of 
 antiquity. But the ancients themselves worked toward 
 making their truth a lie. 
 
 Let us plunge at once into the midst of the most brilliant 
 years of the ancients, into the Periclean century. Then 
 the Sophistic culture was spreading, and Greece made a 
 pastime of what had hitherto been to her a monstrously 
 serious matter. 
 
 The fathers had been enslaved by the undisturbed 
 power of existing things too long for the posterity not to 
 have to learn by bitter experience to feel themselves. 
 Therefore the Sophists, with courageous sauciness, pro- 
 nouncing the reassuring words, "Don't be bluffed V and 
 diffuse the rationalistic doctrine, *'Use your understanding, 
 your wit, your mind, against everything; it is by having 
 a good and v/ell-drilled understanding that one gets 
 through the world best, provides for himself the best lot, 
 the pleasantest life!' Thus they recognize in mind man's 
 true weapon against the world. This is why they lay 
 such stress on dialetic skill, command of language, the 
 art of disputation, etc. They announce that mind is to be 
 used against everything; but they are still far removed 
 from the holiness of the Spirit, for to them it is a means, 
 a weapon, as trickery and defiance serve children for the 
 same purpose ; their mind is the unbribable understanding. 
 
 To-day we should call that a one-sided culture of the 
 understanding, and add the warning, ''Cultivate not only 
 your understanding, but also, and especially, your heart." 
 Socrates did the same. For, if the heart did not become 
 free from its natural impulses, but remained filled with 
 the rriost fortuitous contents and, as an uncriticised 
 avidity^ altogether in the power of things, i. e. nothing 
 but a vessel of the most various appetites — ^then it was 
 unavoidable that the free understanding must serve the 
 
 ft 
 
18 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 "'bad hearf and was ready to justify everything that the 
 v/icked heart desired. 
 
 Therefore Socrates says that it is not enough for one to 
 use his understanding in all things, but it is a question 
 of what cause one exerts it for. We should now say, one 
 must serve the "good cause." But serving the good cause 
 is — being moral. Hence Socrates is the founder of ethics. 
 
 Certainly the principle of the Sophistic doctrine must 
 lead to the possibility that the blindest and most depend- 
 ent slave of his desires might yet be an excellent sophist, 
 and, with keen understanding, trim and expound every- 
 thing in favor of his coarse heart. What could there be 
 for which a ''good reason" might not be found, or which 
 might not be defended through thick and thin? 
 
 Therefore Socrates says : "You must be 'pure-hearted 
 if your shrewdness is to be valued." At this point begins 
 the second period of Greek liberation of the mind, th« 
 period of purity of heart. For the first was brought h 
 a close by the Sophists in their proclaiming the omni- 
 potence of the understanding. But the heart remained 
 worldly-minded, remained a servant of the world, always 
 affected by worldly wishes. This coarse heart was to be 
 cultivated from now on — the era of culture of the heart. 
 But how is the heart to be cultivated ? What the under- 
 standing, this one side of the mind, has reached — to wit, 
 the capability of playing freely with and over every con- 
 cern — awaits the heart also; everything worldly must 
 come to grief before it, so that at last family, common- 
 wealth, fatherland, and the like, are given up for the 
 sake of the heart, i. e, of blessedness, the heart's blessed- 
 ness. 
 
 Daily experience confirms the truth that the under- 
 standing may have renounced a thing many years before 
 the heart has ceased to beat for it. So the Sophistic 
 understanding too had so far become master over the 
 dominant, ancient powers that they now needed only to be 
 driven out of the heart, in which they dwelt unmolested., 
 to have at last no part at all left in man. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 19 
 
 This war is opened by Socrates, and not till the dying 
 day of the old world does it end in peace. 
 
 The examination of the heart takes its start with 
 Socrates, and all the contents of the heart are sifted. In 
 their last extremest struggles the ancients threw all con- 
 tents out of the heart and let it no longer beat for any- 
 thing; this was the deed of the Skeptics. The same pur- 
 gation of the heart was now achieved in the Skeptical age, 
 as the understanding had succeeded in establishing in the 
 Sophistic age. 
 
 The Sophistic culture has brought it to pass that one's 
 understanding no longer stands still before anything, and 
 the Skeptical, that his heart is no longer removed by any- 
 thing. 
 
 So long as man is entangled in the movements of the 
 '.vorld and embarrassed by relations to the world — and 
 ae is so till the end of antiquity, because his heart still has 
 .o struggle for independence from the worldly — so long 
 ae is not yet spirit ; for spirit is without body, and has no 
 elations to the world and corporality; for it the world 
 loes not exist, nor natural bonds, but only the spiritual, 
 md spiritual bonds. Therefore man must first become so 
 completely unconcerned and reckless, so altogether with- 
 out relations, as the Skeptical culture presents him — so 
 altogether indifferent to the world that even its falling in 
 ruins would not move him — before he could feel himself 
 as worldless, i. e. as spirit. And this is the result of the 
 gigantic work of the ancients : that man knows himself as 
 a being without relations and without a world, as spirit. 
 
 Only now, after all worldly care has left him, is he all 
 n all to himself, is he only for himself, i. e. he is spirit for 
 :lie spirit, or, in plainer language, he cares only for the 
 spiritual. 
 
 In the^Christian wisdom of serpents and innocence of 
 doves the two sides — understanding and heart — of the 
 ancient liberation of mind are so completed that they ap- 
 pear young and new again, and neither the one nor the 
 
20 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWI^ 
 
 other lets itself be bluffed any longer by the worldly and 
 natural. 
 
 Thus the ancients mounted to spirit, and strove to be- 
 come spiritual. But a man who wishes to be active as 
 spirit is drawn to quite other tasks than he was able to 
 set himself formerly: to tasks which really give some- 
 thing to do to the spirit and not to mere sense of acute- 
 ness,* which exerts itself only to become master of things. 
 The spirit busies itself solely about the spiritual, and seeks 
 out the ^'traces of mind" in everything; to the believing 
 spirit ''everything comes from God," and interests him 
 only to the extent that it reveals this origin ; to the philo- 
 sophic spirit everything appears with the stamp of reason, 
 and interests him only so far as he is able to discover in it 
 reason, i, e. spiritual content. 
 
 Not the spirit, then, which has to do with absolutely 
 nothing unspiritual, with no thing^ but only with the es- 
 sence which exists behind and above things, with thoughts 
 — not that did the ancients exert, for they did not yet have 
 it ; no, they had only reached the point of struggling and 
 longing for it, and therefore sharpened it against their too- 
 powerful foe, the world of sense (but what would not 
 have been sensuous for them, since Jehovah or the gods 
 of the heathen were yet far removed from the conception 
 "God is spirit/' since the ''heavenly fatherland" had not 
 yet stepped into the place of the sensuous, etc.?) — they 
 sharpened against the world of sense their sense, their 
 acuteness. To this day the Jews, those precocious children 
 of. antiquity, have got no farther; and with all the subtlety 
 and strength of their prudence and understanding, which 
 easily becomes master of things and forces them to obey 
 it, they cannot discover spirit, which takes no account 
 whatever of things. 
 
 The Christian has spiritual interests, because he allows 
 himself to be a spiritual man; the Jew does not even 
 
 * Italicized in the original for the sake of its etymology, 
 Scharfsinn =:'*sharp-sense** Compare next paragraph. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 21 
 
 understand these interests in their, purity, because he does 
 not allow himself to assign no value to things. He does 
 not arrive at pure spirtuality, a spirituality such as is 
 religiously expressed, e, g. in the faith of Christians, 
 which alone (i. e. without works) justifies. Their un- 
 spirituality sets Jews forever apart from Christians ; for 
 the spiritual man is incomprehensible to the unspiritual, 
 as the unspiritual is contemptible to the spiritual. But 
 the Jews have only ''the spirit of this world." 
 
 The ancient acuteness and profundity lies as far from 
 the spirit and the spirituality of the Christian world as 
 earth from heaven. 
 
 He who feels himself as free spirit is not oppressed and 
 made anxious by the things of this world, because he does 
 not care for them ; if one is still to feel their burden, he 
 must be narrow enough to attach weight to them — as is 
 evidently the case, for instance, when one is still con- 
 cerned for his *'dear life." He to whom everything 
 centres in knowing and conducting himself as a free spirit 
 gives little heed to how scantily he is supplied meanwhile, 
 and does not reflect at all on how he must make his ar- 
 rangements to have a thoroughly free or enjoyable life. 
 He is not disturbed by the inconveniences of the life that 
 depends on things, because he lives only spiritually and 
 on spiritual food, while aside from this he only gulps 
 things down like a beast, hardly knowing it, and dies 
 bodily, to be sure, when his fodder gives out, but knows 
 himself immortal as spirit, and closes his eyes with an 
 adoration or a thought. His life is occupation with the 
 spiritual, is — thinking; the rest does not bother him; let 
 him busy himself with the spiritual in any way that he can 
 and chooses — in devotion, in contemplation, or in philo- 
 sophic cognition — his doing is always thinking ; and there- 
 fore Descartes, to whom this had at last become quite 
 clear, could lay down the proposition: "I think, that is—r- 
 I am." This means, my thinking is my being or my life ; 
 only when I live spiritually do I live ; only as spirit am I 
 really, or — I am spirit through and through and nothing 
 
22 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 but spirit Unlucky Peter Schlemihl, who has lost his 
 shadow, is the portrait of this man become a spirit; for 
 the spirit's body is shadowless. — Over against this, how 
 different among* the ancients! Stoutly and manfully as 
 they might bear themselves against the might of things, 
 they must yet acknowledge the might itself, and got no 
 farther than to protect their life against it as well as 
 possible: Only at a late hour did they recognize that their 
 *'true life" was not that which they led in the fight against 
 the things of the world, but the ''spiritual life,'' ''turned 
 away" from these things ; and, when they saw this, they 
 became — Christians, i. e. the moderns and innovators upon 
 the ancients. But the life turned away from things, the 
 spiritual life, no longer draws any nourishment from 
 nature, but "lives only on thoughts," and therefore is no 
 longer "life," but — thinking. 
 
 Yet it must not be supposed now that the ancients were 
 without thoughts, just as the most spiritual man is not to 
 be conceived of as if he could be without life. Rather, 
 they had their thoughts about everything, about the 
 world, man, the gods, etc., and showed themselves keenly 
 active in bringing all this to their consciousness. But they 
 did not know thought, even though they thought of all 
 sorts of things and "worried themselves with their 
 thoughts." Compare with their position the Christian 
 saying, "My thoughts are not your thoughts ; as the 
 heaven is higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher 
 than your thoughts," and remember what was said above 
 about our child-thoughts. 
 
 What is antiquity seeking, then? The true enjoyment 
 of life! You will find that at bottom it is all the same as 
 "the true life." 
 
 The Greek poet Simonides sings : "Health is the noblest 
 good for mortal man, the next to this beauty, the third 
 riches acquired without guile, the fourth the eniovment 
 of social pleasures in the company of youns^ friends." 
 These are all good things of life, pleasures of life. What 
 else was Diogenes of Sinope seeking for than the true 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 23 
 
 enjoyment of life, which he discovered in having the least 
 possible wants? What else Aristippus, who found it in 
 a cheery temper under all circumstances ? They are seek- 
 ing for cheery, unclounded life- courage, for cheeriness; 
 they are seeking tc "be of good cheer ^ 
 
 The Stoics want to realize the zvise man, the man with 
 practical philosophy, the man who knozvs how to live — 
 a wise life, therefore ; they find him in contempt for the 
 world, in a life without development, without spreading; 
 out, without friendly relations with the world, i. e. in the 
 isolated life, in life as life, not in life with others; only 
 the Stoic lives, all else is dead for him. The Epicureans^ 
 on the contrary, demand a moving life. 
 
 The ancients, as they want to be of good cheer, desire 
 good living (the Jews especially a long life, blessed with 
 children and goods), eudaemonia, well-being in the most 
 A^arious forms. Democritus, e, g., praises as such the 
 "calm of the soul" in which one "lives smoothly, without 
 fear and without excitement." 
 
 So what he thinks is that with this he gets on best, pro- 
 vides for himself the best lot, and gets through the world 
 best. But as he cannot get rid of the world — and in fact 
 cannot for the very reason that his whole activity is taken 
 up in the effort to get rid of it, that is, in repelling the 
 7vorld (for which it is yet necessary that what can be and 
 is repelled should remain existing, otherwise there would 
 no longer be anything to repel) — he reaches at most an 
 extreme degree of liberation, and is distinguishable only 
 in degree from the less liberated. If he even got as far 
 as the deadening of the earthly sense, which at last admits 
 only the monotonous whisper of the word ''Brahm," he 
 nevertheless would not be essentially distinguishable from 
 the sensual man. 
 
 Even the Stoic attitude and manly virtue amounts only 
 to this — that one must maintain and assert himself against 
 the world; and the ethics of the Stoics (their only 
 science, since they could tell nothing about the spirit but 
 how it should behave toward the world, and of nature 
 
24 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 [physics] only this, that the wise man must assert himself 
 against it) is not a doctrine of the spirit, but only a doc- 
 trine of the repelling of the world and of self-assertion 
 against the world. And this consists in "imperturbability 
 and equanimity of life," and so in the most explicit Roman 
 virtue. 
 
 The Romans too (Horace, Cicero, etc.) went no further 
 than this practical philosophy. 
 
 The comfort (hedone) of the Epicureans is the same 
 practical philosophy the Stoics teach, only trickier, more 
 deceitful. They teach only another behavior toward the 
 world, exhort us only to take a shrewd attitude toward 
 the world ; the world must be deceived, for it is my enemy. 
 
 The break with the world is completely carried through 
 by the Skeptics. My entire relation to the world is 
 ''worthless and truthless." Timon says, ''The feelings 
 and thoughts which we draw from the world contain no 
 truth.'' "What is truth?" cries Pilate. According to 
 Pyrrho's doctrine the world is neither good nor bad, 
 neither beautiful nor ugly, etc., but these are predicates 
 which I give it. Timon says that "in itself nothing is 
 either good or bad, but man only thinks it thus or thus" ; 
 to face the world only ataraxia (unmovedness) and 
 aphasia (speechlessness — or, in other words, isolated in- 
 wardness) are left. There is "no longer any truth to be 
 recognized" in the world; things contradict themselves; 
 thoughts about things are without distinction (good and 
 bad are all the same, so that what one calls good another 
 finds bad) ; here the recognition of 'truth" is at an end, 
 and only the man without power of recognition, the man 
 who finds in the world nothing to recognize, is left, and 
 this man just leaves the truth- vacant w^orld where it is and 
 takes no account of it. 
 
 So antiquity gets through with the world of things, the 
 order of the world, the world as a whole ; but to the order 
 of the world, or the things of this world, belong not only 
 nature, but all relations in which man sees himself placed 
 by nature, e. g, the family, the community — in short, the 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 25 
 
 so-called ''natural bonds/' With the world of the spirit 
 Christianity then begins. The man who still faces the 
 world armed is the ancient, the — heathen (to which class 
 the Jew, too, as non-Christian, belongs) ; the man who 
 has come to be led by nothing but his ''heart's pleasure, 
 his fellow-feeling, his — spirit, is the modern, the— - 
 Christian. 
 
 As the ancients worked toward the conquest of the 
 world and strove to release man from the heavy trammels 
 of connection with other things, at last they came also to 
 the dissolution of the State and giving preference to 
 everything private. Of course community, family, etc., 
 as natural relations, are burdensome hindrances which 
 diminish my spiritual freedom. 
 
 IL— THE MODERNS 
 
 "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; the old 
 is passed away, behold, all is become nezv^^ 
 
 As it was said above, "To the ancients the world was a 
 truth,'' we must say here, "To the modern the spirit was a 
 truth" ; but here, as there, we must not omit the supple- 
 ment, "a truth whose untruth they tried to get back of, 
 and at last they really do." 
 
 A course similar to that which antiquity took may be 
 demonstrated in Christianity also, in that the understand- 
 ing was held a prisoner under the dominion of the Chris- 
 tian dogmas up to the time preparatory to the Reforma- 
 tion, but in the pre-Reformation century asserted itself 
 sophistically and played heretical pranks with all tenets 
 of the faith. And the talk then was, especially in Italy 
 and at the Roman court, "If only the heart remains 
 Christian-minded, the understanding may go right on 
 taking its pleasure." 
 Long before the Reformation people were so thoroughly 
 
 * 2 Cor. 5, 17. [The words ''new" and "modern" are the same 
 in German.] 
 
26 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 accustomed to fine-spun "wranglings" that the pope, and 
 most others, looked on Luther's appearance too as a mere 
 ^'wranghng of monks" at first. Humanism corresponds 
 to Sophisticism, and, as in the time of the Sophists, Greek 
 Hfe stood in its fullest bloom (the Periclean age), so the 
 most brilliant things happened in the time of Humanism, 
 or, as one might perhaps also say, of Machiavellianism 
 (printing, the New World, etc.). At this time the heart 
 was still far from wanting to relieve itself of its Christian 
 contents. 
 
 But finally the Reformation, like Socrates, took hold 
 seriously of the heart itself, and since then hearts have 
 kept growing visibly — more unchristian. As with Luther 
 people began to take the matter to heart, the outcome ot 
 this step of the Reformation must be that the heart also 
 gets lightened of the heavy burden of Christian faith. 
 The heart, from day to day more unchristian, loses the 
 contents with w^hich it had busied itself, till at last nothing 
 but empty zvarmheartedness is left it, the quite general 
 love of men, the love of Mmt, the consciousness of free- 
 dom, ''self-consciousness." 
 
 Only so is Christianity complete, because it has become 
 bald, withered, and void of contents. There are now no 
 contents whatever against which the heart does not mut- 
 iny, unless indeed the heart unconsciously or without ''self- 
 consciousness" lets them slip in. The heart criticises to 
 death with hard-hearted mercilessness everything that 
 wants to make its way in, and is capable (except, as be- 
 fore, uncon'^ciously or taken bv surprise) of no friendship, 
 no love. What could there be in men to love, since they 
 are all alike "egoists," none of them maw as such, i. e. none 
 spirit onlyf The Christian loves only the spirit; but 
 where could one be found who should be really nothing 
 but spirit? 
 
 To have a liking for the corporeal man with hide and 
 hair — why, that would no longer be a "spiritual" warm- 
 heartedness, it would be treason against "pure" warm- 
 heartedness, the "theoretical regard." For pure warm- 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 27 
 
 heartedness is by no means to be conceived as like that 
 kindliness that gives everybody a friendly hand-shake ; on 
 the contrary, pure, warm-heartedness is warm-hearted 
 toward nobody, it is only a theoretical interest, concern 
 for man as man, not as. a person. The person is repulsive 
 to it because of being "egoistic,'' because of not being that 
 abstraction, Man. But it is only for the abstraction that 
 one can have a theoretical regard. To pure warm- 
 heartedness or pure theory men exist only to be criticised, 
 scoffed at, and thoroughly despised ; to it, no less than to 
 the fanatical parson, they are only ''filth" and other such 
 nice things. 
 
 Pushed to this extremity of disinterested warm-hearted- 
 ness, we must finally become conscious that the spirit, 
 which alone the Christian loves, is nothing; in other words, 
 that the spirit is — a lie. 
 
 What has here been set down roughly, summarily, and 
 doubtless as yet incomprehensibly, will, it is to be hoped, 
 become clear as we go on. 
 I Let us take up the inheritance left by the ancients, and, 
 as active workmen, do with it as much as — can be done 
 with it! The world lies despised at our feet, far beneath 
 us and our heaven, into which its mighty arms are no 
 longer thrust and its stupefying breath does not come. 
 Seductively as it may pose, it can delude nothing but our 
 sense; it cannot lead astray the spirit — and spirit alone, 
 after all, we really are. Having once got back of things, 
 the spirit has also got above them, and become free from 
 their bonds, emancipated, supernal, free. So speaks 
 "spiritual freedom." 
 
 To the spirit which, after long toil, has got rid of the 
 world, the worldless spirit, nothing is left after the loss 
 of the world and the worldly but — the spirit and the 
 spiritual. 
 
 Yet, as it has only moved away from the world and 
 made of itself a being free from the world, without being 
 able really to annihilate the world, this remains to it a 
 stumbling-block that cannot be cleared away, a discredited 
 
28 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 existence ; and, as, on the other hand, it knows and recog- 
 nizes nothing but the spirit and the spiritual, it must 
 perpetually carry about with it the longing to spiritualize 
 the world, i. e, to redeem it from the ''black list." There- 
 fore, like a youth, it goes about with plans for the re- 
 demption or improvement of the world. 
 
 The ancients, we saw, served the natural, the worldly, 
 the natural order of the world, but they incessantly asked 
 themselves whether they could not, then, relieve them- 
 selves of this service : and, when they had tired them- 
 selves to death in ever-renewed attempts at revolt, then, 
 among their last sighs, was born to them the God, the 
 ''conqueror of the world." All their doing had been 
 nothing but wisdom of the world, an effort to get back of 
 the world and above it. And what is the wisdom of the 
 many following centuries ? What did the moderns try to 
 get back of? No longer to get back of the world, for 
 the ancients had accomplished that ; but back of the God 
 whom the ancients bequeathed to them, back of the God 
 who "is spirit," back of everything that is the spirit's, the 
 spiritual. But the activity of the spirit, which "searches 
 even the depths of the Godhead," is theology. If the 
 ancients have nothing to show but wisdom of the world, 
 the modern never did nor do make their way further than 
 theology. We shall see later that even the newest revolts 
 against God are nothing but the extremest efforts of "the- 
 ology," i. e. theological insurrections. 
 
 § 1. — The Spirit 
 
 The realm of spirits is monstrously great, there is an 
 infinite deal of the spiritual ; yet let us look and see what 
 the spirit, this bequest of the ancients, properly is. 
 
 Out of their birth-pangs it came forth, but they them- 
 selves could not utter themselves as spirit ; they could give 
 birth to it, it itself must speak. The "born God, the Son 
 of Man," is the first to utter the word that the spirit, i. e. 
 he, God, has to do with nothing earthly and no earthly 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 29 
 
 relationship, but solely with the spirit and spiritual re- 
 lationships. 
 
 Is my courage, indestructible under all the world's 
 blows, my inflexibility and my obduracy, perchance 
 already spirit in the full sense, because the world cannot 
 touch it? Why, then it would not yet be at enmity with 
 the world, and all its action would consist merely in not 
 succumbing to the world. No, so long as it does not 
 busy itself with itself alone^ so long as it does not have to 
 do with its world, the spiritual alone, it is not free spirit, 
 but only the ''spirit of this world," the spirit fettered to it 
 The spirit is free spirit, i. e. really spirit, only in a world 
 of its own; in ''this," the earthly world, it is a stranger. 
 Only through a spiritual world is the spirit really spirit, 
 for "this" world does not understand it and does not 
 know how to keep "the maiden from a foreign land"* 
 from departing. 
 
 But where is it to get this spiritual world ? Where but 
 out of itself? It must reveal itself ; and the words that it 
 speaks, the revelations in which it unveils itself, these are 
 its world. As a visionary lives and has his world only in 
 the visionary pictures that he himself creates, as a crazy 
 man generates for himself his own dream-world, without 
 which he could not be crazy, so the spirit must create for 
 itself its spirit world, and is not spirit till it creates it. 
 
 Thus its creations make it spirit, and by its creatures 
 we know it, the creator; in them it lives, they are its 
 world. 
 
 Now, what is the spirit? It is the creator of a spiritual 
 world! Even in you and me people do not recognize 
 spirit till they see that we have appropriated to ourselves 
 something spiritual — i. e,y though thoughts may have been 
 set before us, we have at least brought them to life in 
 ourselves; for, as long as we were children, the most 
 edifying thoughts might have been laid before us without 
 our wishing, or being able to reproduce them in ourselves. 
 
 * [Title of a poem -by Schiller.] 
 
30 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 So the spirit also exists only when it creates something 
 spiritual; it is real only together with the spiritual, its 
 creature. 
 
 As, then, we know it by its works, the question is what 
 these works are. But the works or children of the spirit 
 are nothing else but — spirits. 
 
 If I had before me Jews, Jews of the true metal, I 
 should have to stop here and leave them standing before 
 this mystery as for almost two thousand years they have 
 remained standing before it, unbelieving and without 
 knowledge. But, as you, my dear reader, are at least 
 not a full-blooded Jew — for such a one will not go astray 
 as far as this — we will still go along a bit of road together, 
 till perhaps you too turn your back on me because I laugh 
 in your face. 
 
 If somebody told you you were altogether spirit, you 
 would take hold of your body and not believe him, but 
 answer: ''I have a spirit, no doubt, but do not exist only 
 as spirit, but am a man with a body." You would still 
 distinguish yourself from *'your spirit." ''But," replies 
 he, "it is your destiny, even though now you are yet going 
 about in the fetters of the body, to be one day a 'blessed 
 spirit,' and, however you may conceive of the future 
 aspect of your spirit, so much is yet certain, that in death 
 you will put off this body and yet keep yourself, i. e. your 
 spirit, for all eternity; accordingly your spirit is the 
 eternal and true in you, the body only a dwelling here 
 below, which you may leave and perhaps exchange for 
 another." 
 
 Now you believe him! For the present, indeed, you 
 are not spirit only; but, when you emigrate from the 
 mortal body, as one day you must, then you will have to 
 help yourself without the body, and therefore it is needful 
 that you be prudent and care in time for your proper self. 
 ^'What should it profit a man if he gained the whole world 
 and yet suffered damage in his soul ?" 
 
 But, even granted that doubts, raised in the course of 
 time against the tenets of the Christian faith, have long 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 31 
 
 since robbed you of faith in the immortaHty of your 
 spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenet undisturbed, 
 and still ingenuously adhere to the one truth, that the 
 spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has 
 greater claims on you than anything else. Despite all 
 your atheism, in zeal against egoism you concur with the 
 believers in immortality. 
 
 But whom do you think of under the name of egoist ? 
 A man who, instead of living to an idea — i, e, a spiritual 
 thing — and sacrificing to it his personal advantage, serves 
 the latter. A good patriotic, e. g., brings his sacrifice to the 
 altar of the fatherland ; but it cannot be disputed that the 
 fatherland is an idea, since for beasts incapable of mind,* 
 or children as yet without mind, there is no fatherland 
 and no patriotism. Now, if any one does not approve 
 himself as a good patriot, he betrays his egoism with 
 reference to the fatherland. And so the matter stands 
 in innumerable other cases: he who in human society 
 takes the benefit of a prerogative sins egoistically against 
 the idea of equality ; he who exercises dominion is blamed 
 as an egoist against the idea of liberty — etc. 
 
 You despise the egoist because he puts the spiritual in 
 the background as compared with the personal, and has 
 his eyes on himself where you would like to see him act 
 to favor an idea. The distinction between you is that he 
 makes himself the central point, but you the spirit ; or 
 that you cut your identity in two and exalt your ''proper 
 self,'' the spirit, to be ruler of the paltrier remainder, while 
 he will hear nothing of this cutting in two, and pursues 
 spiritual and material interests just as he pleases. You 
 think, to be sure, that you are falling foul of those only 
 
 * [The reader will remember (it is to be hoped he has never 
 forgotten) that ''mind" and ''spirit" are one and the same word in 
 German. For several pages back the connection of the discourse 
 has seemed to require the almost exclusive use of the translation 
 ''spirit," but to complete the sense it has often been necessary 
 that the reader recall the thought of its identity with "mind^'* 
 as stated in a previous note.] 
 
32 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 who enter into no spiritual interest at all, but in fact you 
 curse at everybody who does not look on the spiritual 
 interest as his "true and highest" interest. You carry 
 your knightly service for this beauty so far that you 
 affirm her to be the only beauty of the world. You live 
 not to yourself, but to your spirit and to what is the 
 spirit's — i. e. ideas. 
 
 x\s the spirit exists only in its creating of the spiritual, 
 let us take a look about us for its first creation. If only 
 it has accomplished this, there follows thenceforth a 
 natural propagation of creations, as according to the myth 
 only the first human beings needed to be created, the rest 
 of the race propagating itself. The first creation, on the 
 other hand, must come forth ''out of nothing" — i. e., the 
 spirit has toward its realization nothing but itself, or 
 rather it has not yet even itself, but must create itself ; 
 hence its first creation is itself, the spirit. Mystical as 
 this sounds, we yet go through it as an every-day experi- 
 ence. Are you a thinking being before you think? In 
 creating the first thought you create yourself, the thinking 
 one ; for you do not think before you thing a thought, i. e. 
 have a thought. Is it not your singing that first makes 
 you a singer, your talking that makes you a talker ? Now, 
 so too it is the production of the spiritual that first makes 
 3^ou a spirit. 
 
 Meantime, as you distinguish yourself from the thinker, 
 singer, and talker, so you no less distinguish yourself from 
 the spirit, and feel very clearly that you are something 
 beside spirit. But, as in the thinking ego hearing and 
 sight easily vanish in the enthusiasm of thought, so you 
 also have been seized by the spirit-enthusiasm, and you 
 now long with all your might to become wholly spirit 
 and to be dissolved in spirit. The spirit is your ideal, the 
 unattained, the other-worldly ; spirit is the name of your 
 — god, ''God is spirit.'' 
 
 Against all that is not spirit you are a zealot, and there- 
 fore you play the zealot against yourself who cannot get 
 rid of a remainder of the non-spiritual. Instead of say- 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 33 
 
 ing, 'T am more than spirit/' you say with contrition, 'T 
 am less than spirit; and spirit, pure spirit, or the spirit 
 that is nothing but spirit, I can only think of, but am not ; 
 and, since I am not it, it is another, exists as another, 
 whom I call 'God'/' 
 
 It lies in the nature of the case that the spirit that is to 
 exist as pure spirit must be another worldly one, for, since 
 I am not it, it follows that it can only be outside me; 
 since in any case a human being is not fully compre- 
 hended in the concept "spirit,'' it follows that the pure 
 spirit, the spirit as such, can only be outside of men, be- 
 yond the human world — not earthly, but heavenly. 
 
 Only from this disunion in which I and the spirit lie; 
 only because 'T" and "spirit" are not names for one and 
 the same thing, but different names for completely dif- 
 ferent things ; only because I am not spirit and spirit not 
 I — only from this do we get a quite tautological explana- 
 tion of the necessity that the spirit dwells in the other 
 world, i, e. is God. 
 
 But from this it also appears how thoroughly theo- 
 logical is the liberation that Feuerbach* is laboring to 
 give us. What he says is that we had only mistaken our 
 own essence, and therefore looked for it in the other 
 world, but that now, when we see that God was only our 
 human essence, we must recognize it again as ours and 
 move it back out of the other world into this. To God, 
 who is spirit, Feuerbach gives the name "Our Essence/' 
 Can we put up with this, that "Our Essence" is brought 
 into opposition to tis — that we are split into an essential 
 and an unessential self? Do we not therewith go back 
 into the dreary misery of seeing ourselves banished out 
 of ourselves? 
 
 What have we gained, then, when for a variation we 
 have transferred into ourselves the divine outside us? 
 Are we that which is in us? As little as we are that 
 which is outside us. I am as little my heart as I am my 
 
 * Essence of Christianity." 
 
34 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 sweetheart, this ''other self" of mine. Just because we 
 are not the spirit that dwells in us, just for that reason 
 we had to take it and set it outside us ; it was not we, did 
 not coincide with us, and therefore we could not think of 
 it as existing otherwise than outside us, on the other side 
 from us, in the other w^orld. 
 
 With the strength of despair Feuerbach clutches at the 
 total substance of Christianity, not to throw it away, no, 
 to drag it to himself, to draw it, the long-yearned-for, 
 ever-distant, out of its heaven with a last effort, and keep 
 it by him forever. Is not that a clutch of the uttermost 
 despair, a clutch for life or death, and is it not at the same 
 time the Christian yearning and hungering for the other 
 world ? The hero wants not to go into the other world, 
 but to draw the other world to him, and compel it to 
 become this world ! And since then has not all the world, 
 with more or less consciousness, been crying that ''this 
 world'' is the vital point, and heaven must come dow^n on 
 earth and be experienced even here ? 
 
 Let us, in brief, set Feuerbach's theological view and 
 our contradiction over against each other ! "The essence 
 of man is man's supreme being now by religion, to be 
 sure, the supreme being is called God and regarded as an 
 objective essence, but in truth it is only man's own essence ; 
 and therefore the turning point of the world's history is 
 that henceforth no longer God, but man, is to appear to 
 man as God/'f 
 
 To this we reply: The supreme being is indeed the 
 essence of man, but, just because it is his essence and not 
 he himself, it remiains quite immaterial whether we see it 
 outside him and view it as "God," or find it in him and 
 call it "Essence of Man" or "Man." / am neither God nor 
 
 * [Or, "highest essence." The word Wesen, which means both 
 "essence" and "being," will be translated now one way and now 
 the other in the following pages. The reader must bear in mind 
 that these two words are identical in German ; and so are "su- 
 preme" and "highest."] 
 
 t Cf. e. g. "Essence of Christianity," p. 402. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 35 
 
 Man,^ neither the supreme essence nor my essence, and 
 therefore it is all one in the main whether I think of the 
 essence as in me or outside me. Nay, we really do always 
 think of the supreme being as in both kinds of otherworld- 
 liness, the inward and outward, at once; for the "Spirit 
 of God'' is, according to the Christian view, also ''our 
 spirit,'' and ''dwells in us."t It dwells in heaven and 
 dwells in us; we poor things are just its "dwelHng," and, 
 if Feuerbach goes on to destroy its heavenly dwelling and 
 force it to move to us bag and baggage, then we, its 
 earthly apartments, will be badly overcrowded. 
 
 But after this digression (which, if we were at all 
 proposing to work by line and level, we should have had 
 to save for later pages in order to avoid repetition) we 
 return to the spirit's first creation, the spirit itself. 
 
 The spirit is something other than myself. But this 
 other, what is it? 
 
 § 2. — The Possessed 
 
 Have you ever seen a spirit? "No, not I, but my 
 grandmother." Now, you see, it's just so with me too; 
 I myself haven't seen any, but my grandmother had them 
 running between her feet all sorts of ways, and out of 
 confidence in our grandmothers' honesty we believe in the 
 existence of spirits. 
 
 But had we no grandfathers then, and did they not 
 shrug their shoulders every time our grandmothers told 
 about their ghosts? Yes, those were unbelieving men 
 who have harmed our good religion much, those rational- 
 ists ! We shall feel that ! What else lies at the bottom 
 of this warm faith in ghosts, if not the faith in "the exist- 
 ence of spiritual beings in general," and is not this latter 
 
 * [That is, the abstract conception of man, as in the preceding 
 sentence.] 
 
 t£. g., Rom. 8, 9, 1 Cor. 3, 16, John 20, 22, and innumerable 
 other passages. 
 
36 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 itself disastrously unsettled if saucy men of the under- 
 standing may disturb the former? The Romanticists 
 were quite conscious what a blow the very belief in God 
 suffered by the laying aside of the belief in spirits or 
 ghosts, and they tried to help us out of the baleful con- 
 sequences not only by their reawakened fairy world, but 
 at last, and especially, by the "intrusion of a higher 
 world/' by their somnambulists, prophetesses of Prevorst, 
 etc. The good believers and fathers of the church did not 
 suspect that with the belief in ghosts the foundation of 
 religion was withdrawn, and that since then it had been 
 floating in the air. He who no longer believes in any 
 ghost needs only to travel on consistently in his unbelief 
 to see that there is no separate being at all concealed be- 
 hind things, no ghost or — what is naively reckoned as 
 synonymous even in our use of words — no "spirit.'' 
 
 ''Spirits exist Look about in the world, and say for 
 yourself whether a spirit does not gaze upon you out of 
 everything. Out of the lovely little flower there speaks 
 to you the spirit of the Creator, who has shaped it so 
 wonderfully ; the stars proclaim the spirit that established 
 their order.; from the mountain-tops a spirit of sublimity 
 breathes down; out of the waters a spirit of yearning 
 murmurs up ; and — ^^out of men millions of spirits speak. 
 The mountains may sink, the flowers fade, the world of 
 stars fall in ruins, the men die — what matters the wreck 
 of these visible bodies ? The spirit, the "invisible spirit/' 
 abides eternally! 
 
 Yes, the whole world is haunted! Only is haunted? 
 Nay, it itself "walks," it is uncanny through and through, 
 it is the wandering seeming-body of a spirit, it is a spook. 
 What else should a ghost be, then, than an apparent body, 
 but real spirit ? Well, the world is "empty,'' is "naught,'' 
 is only glamorous "semblance"; its truth is the spirit 
 alone ; it is the seeming-body of a spirit. 
 
 Look out near or far, a ghostly world surrounds you 
 everywhere; you are always having "apparitions" or 
 visions. Everything that appears to you is only the 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 37 
 
 phantasm of an indwelling spirit, is a ghostly ''appari- 
 tion"; the world is to you only a ''world of appearances," 
 behind which the spirit walks. You "see spirits." 
 
 Are you perchance thinking of comparing yourself with 
 the ancients, who saw gods everywhere ? Gods, my dear 
 modern, are not spirits; gods do not degrade the world 
 to a semblance, and do not spiritualize it. 
 
 But to you the whole world is spiritualized, and has 
 become an enigmatical ghost; therefore do not wonder 
 if you likewise find in yourself nothing but a spook. Is 
 not your body haunted by your spirit, and is not the 
 latter alone the true and real, the former only the "transi- 
 tory, naught" or a "semblance" ? Are we not all ghosts, 
 uncanny beings that wait for "deliverance" — ^to wit, 
 "spirits" ? 
 
 Since the spirit appeared in the world, since "the Word 
 became flesh," since then the world has been spiritualized, 
 enchanted, a spook. 
 
 You have spirit, for you have thoughts. What are 
 your thoughts? "Spiritual entities." Not things, then? 
 "No, but the spirit of things, the main point in all things, 
 the inmost in them, their — idea." Consequently what 
 you think is not only your thought? "On the contrary, 
 it is that in the world which is most real, that which is 
 properly to be called true; it is the truth itself ; if I only 
 think truly, I think the truth. I may, to be sure, err with 
 regard to the truth, and fail to recognize it; but, if I 
 recognize truly, the object of my cognition is the truth." 
 So, I suppose, you strive at all times to recognize the 
 truth ? "To me the truth is sacred. It may well happen 
 that I find a truth incomplete and replace it with a better, 
 but the truth I cannot abrogate. I believe in the truth, 
 therefore I search in it; nothing transcends it, it is 
 eternal." 
 
 Sacred, eternal is the truth; it is the Sacred, the 
 Eternal. But you, who let yourself be filled and led by 
 this sacred thing, are yourself hallowed. Further, the 
 sacred is not for your senses — and you never as a sensual 
 
38 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 man discover its trace — but for your faith, or, more 
 definitely still, for your spirit; for it itself, you know, 
 is a spiritual thing, a spirit — is spirit for the spirit. 
 
 The sacred is by no means so easily to be set aside as 
 many at present affirm, who no longer take this ''unsuit- 
 able" word into their mouths. If even in a single respect 
 I am still upbraided as an "egoist," there is left the 
 thought of something else which I should serve more than 
 myself, and which must be to me more important than 
 everything; in short, somewhat in which I should have 
 to seek my true welfare,"^ something — ''sacred. "f How- 
 ever human this sacred thing may look, though it be the 
 Human itself, that does not take away its sacredness, but' 
 at most changes it from an unearthly to an earthly sacred 
 thing, from a divine one to a human. 
 
 Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not 
 acknowledge himself, the involuntary egoist, for him who 
 is always looking after his own and yet does not count 
 himself as the highest being, who serves only himself and 
 at the same time always thinks he is serving a higher 
 being, who knows nothing higher than himself and yet is 
 infatuated about something higher ; in short, for the 
 egoist who would like not to be an egoist, and abases 
 himself (i. e. combats his egoism), but at the same time 
 abases himself only for the sake of "being exalted," and 
 therefore of gratifying his egoism. Because he would 
 like to cease to be an egoist, he looks about in heaven and 
 earth for higher beings to serve and sacrifice himself to; 
 but, however much he shakes and disciplines himself, in 
 the end he does all for his own sake, and the disreputable 
 egoism will not come ofif him. On this account I call him 
 the involuntary egoist. 
 
 His toil and care to get away from himself is nothing i 
 but the misunderstood impulse to self-dissolution. If you 
 are bound to your past hour, if you must babble to-day 
 
 * [Heil ] 
 
 t [heiligl 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 39 
 
 because you babbled yesterday,* if you cannot transform 
 yourself each instant, you feel yourself fettered in slavery 
 and benumbed. Therefore over each minute of your 
 existence a fresh minute of the future beckons to you, 
 and, developing yourself, you get away ''from yourself" — 
 i. e. from the self that was at that moment. As you are 
 at each instant, you are your own creature, and in 
 this very ''creature'' you do not wish to lose yourself, 
 the creator. You are yourself a higher being than you 
 are, and surpass yourself. But that yon are the one who 
 is higher than you — i. e. that you are not only creature, 
 but likewise your creator — just this, as an involuntary 
 egoist, you fail to recognize; and therefore the "higher 
 essence" is to you — an alienf essence. Every higher es- 
 sence, such as truth, mankind, etc., is an essence over us. 
 
 Alienness is a criterion of the "sacred." In everything 
 sacred there lies something "uncanny," i, e, strange, t 
 such as we are not quite familiar and at home in. What 
 is sacred to me is not my own; and if, e. g. the property 
 of others was not sacred to me, I should look on it as 
 mine, which I should take to myself when occasion of- 
 fered. Or, on the other side, if I regard the face of the 
 Chinese emperor as sacred, it remains strange to my eye, 
 which I close at its appearance. 
 
 Why is an incontrovertible mathematical truth, which 
 lijight even be called eternal according to the common 
 understanding of words, not — sacred? Because it is not 
 revealed, or not the revelation of a higher being. If by 
 revealed we understand only the so-called religious truths, 
 we go far astray, and entirely fail to recognize the breadth 
 
 * How the priests tinkle ! how important they 
 Would make it out, that men should come their way 
 And babble, just as yesterday, to-day! 
 Oh ! blame them not ! They know man's need, I say : 
 For he takes all his happiness this way, 
 To babble just to morrow as to-day. 
 
 — Translated from Goethe*s ''Venetian Epigrams!* 
 t [fremdl t \ fremd] 
 
40 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of the concept "higher being/' Atheists keep up their 
 scoffing at the higher being, which was also honored under 
 the name of the "highest" or etre supreme, and trample 
 in the dust one "proof of his existence'' after another, 
 without noticing that they themselves, out of need for a 
 higher being, only annihilate the old to make room for a 
 new. Is "Man" perchance not a higher essence than an 
 individual man, and must not the truths, rights, and ideas 
 which result from the concept of him be honored and — 
 counted sacred, as revelations of this very concept ? For, 
 even though we should abrogate again many a truth that 
 seemed to be made manifest by this concept, yet this 
 would only evince a misunderstanding on our part, with- 
 out in the least degree harming the sacred concept itself 
 or taking their sacredness from those truths that must 
 "rightly" be looked upon as its revelations. Man reaches 
 beyond every individual man, and yet — though he be "his 
 essence" — is not in fact his essence (which rather would 
 be as single* as he the individual himself), but a general 
 and "higher," yes, for atheists "the highest essence. "f 
 And, as the divine revelations were not written down by 
 God with his own hand, but made public through "the 
 Lord's instruments," so also the new highest essence does 
 not write out its revelations itself, but lets them come to 
 our knowledge through "true men." Only the new es- 
 sence betrays, in fact, a more spiritual style of conception 
 than the old God, because the latter was still represented 
 in a sort of embodiness or form, while the undimmed 
 spirituality of the new is retained, and no special material 
 body is fancied for it. And withal it does not lack cor- 
 poreity, which even takes on a yet more seductive appear- 
 ance because it looks more natural and mundane and con- 
 sists in nothing less, than in every bodily man — yes, or 
 outright in "humanity" or "all men." Thereby the 
 spectralness of the spirit in a seeming-body has once again 
 become really solid and popular. 
 
 * [einzig] 
 
 t ["the supreme being."] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 41 
 
 Sacred, then, is the highest essence and everything in 
 which this highest essence reveals or will reveal itself ; 
 but hallowed are they who recognize this highest essence 
 together with its own, i, e. together with its revelations. 
 The sacred hallows in turn its reverer, who by his worship 
 becomes himself a saint, as likewise what he does is 
 saintly, a saintly walk, saintly thoughts and actions, 
 imaginations and aspirations, etc. 
 
 It is easily understood that the conflict over what is 
 revered as the highest essence can be significant only so 
 long as even the most embittered opponents concede to 
 each other the main point — that there is a highest essence 
 to which worship or service is due. If one should smile 
 compassionately at the whole struggle over a highest 
 essence, as a Christian might at the war of words between 
 a Shiite and a Sunnite or between a Brahman and a 
 Buddhist, then the hypothesis of a highest essence would 
 be null in his eyes, and the conflict on this basis an idle 
 play. Whether then the one God or the three in one, 
 whether the Lutheran God or the etre supreme or not 
 God at all, but "Man," may represent the highest essence, 
 that makes no diflference at all for him who denies the 
 highest essence itself, for in his eyes those servants of a 
 highest essence are one and all— pious people, the most 
 raging atheist not less than the most faith-filled Christian. 
 
 In the foremost place of the sacred,* then, stands the 
 highest essence and the faith in this essence, our "holyf 
 faith." 
 
 The Spook 
 
 With ghosts we arrive in the spirit-realm, in the realm 
 of essences. 
 
 What haunts the universe, and has its occult, "incom- 
 prehensible" being there, is precisely the mysterious spook 
 that we call highest essence. And to get to the bottom 
 
 * [heilig] 
 
 t [heilig'] 
 
42 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of this spook, to comprehend it, to discover reality in it 
 (to prove "the existence of God") — this task men set to 
 themselves for thousands of years ; with the horrible im- 
 possibility, the endless Danaid-labor, of transforming the 
 spook into a non-spook, the unreal into something real, 
 the spirit into an entire and corporeal person — with this 
 they tormented themselves to death. Behind the existing 
 world they sought the *'thing in itself/' the essence; 
 behind the thing they sought the im-thing. 
 
 When one looks to the bottom of anything, i. e. searches 
 out its essence, one often discovers something quite other 
 than what it seems to be ; honeyed speech and a lying 
 heart; pompous words and beggardly thoughts, etc. By 
 bringing the essence into prominence one degrades the 
 hitherto misapprehended appearance to a bare semblance, 
 a deception. The essence of the world, so attractive and 
 splendid, is for him who looks to the bottom of it — 
 emptiness; emptiness is = world's essence (world's 
 doings). Now, he who is religious does not occupy him- 
 self with the deceitful semblance, with the empty appear- 
 ances, but looks upon the essence, and in the essence has 
 — 'the truth. 
 
 The essences which are deduced from some appear-- 
 ances are the evil essences, and conversely from others 
 the good. The essence of human feeling, e. g. is love; 
 the essence of human will is the good; that of one's 
 thinking, the true ; etc. 
 
 What at first passed for existence, such as the world 
 and its like, appears now as bare semblance, and the 
 truly existent is much rather the essence, whose realm 
 is filled with gods, spirits, demons, i. e. with good or 
 bad essences. Only this inverted world, the world of 
 essences, truly exists now. The human heart may be 
 loveless, but its essence exists, God, "who is love"; hu- 
 man thought may wander in error, but its essence, truth, 
 exists ; "God is truth" — etc. 
 
 To know and acknowledge essences alone and nothing 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 43 
 
 but essences, that is religion; its realm is a realm of 
 essences, spooks, and ghosts. 
 
 The longing to make the spook comprehensible, or to 
 realize nonsense, has brought about a corporeal ghost, 
 a ghost or sp'rit with a real body, an embodied ghost. 
 How the strongest and most talented Christians have tor- 
 tured themselves to get a conception of his ghoslly ap- 
 parition ! But there always remained the contradiction of 
 two natures, the divine and human, i. e. the ghostly and 
 sensual ; there remained the most wondrous spook, a 
 thing that was not a thing. Never yet was a ghost more 
 soul-torturing, and no shaman, who pricks himself to 
 raving fury and nerve-lacerating cramps to conjure a 
 ghost, can endure such soul-torment as Christians suf- 
 fered from that most incomprehensible ghost. 
 
 But through Christ the truth of the matter had at 
 the same time come to light, that the veritable spirit 
 or ghost is — man. The corporeal or embodied spirit 
 is just man; he himself is the ghastly being and at the 
 same time the being's appearance and existence. Hence- 
 forth man no longer, in typical cases, shudders at ghosts 
 outside him, but at himself ; he is terrified at himself. 
 In the depth of his breast dwells the spirit of sin; even 
 the faintest thought (and this is itself a spirit, you 
 know) may be a devil, etc. — The ghost has put on a 
 body, God has become man, but now man is himself the 
 gruesome spook which he seeks to get back of, to exor- 
 cise, to fathom, to bring to reality and to speech ; man is — 
 spirit. What matter if the body wither, if only the spirit 
 is saved? everything rests on the spirit, and the spirit's or 
 ''soul's" welfare becomes the exclusive goal. Man has 
 become to himself a ghost, an uncanny spook, to which 
 there is even assigned a distinct seat in the body (dis- 
 pute over the seat of the soul, whether in the head, etc.). 
 
 You are not to me, and I am not to you, a higher 
 essence. Nevertheless a higher essence may be hidden 
 in each of us, and call forth a mutual reverence. To 
 take at once the most general, Man lives in you and 
 
44 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 me. If I did not see Man in you, what occasion should 
 I have to respect you ? To be sure, you are not Man 
 and his true and adequate form, but only a mortal veil 
 of his, from which he can withdraw without himself 
 ceasing; but yet for the present this general and higher 
 essence is housed in you, and you present before me 
 (because an imperishable spirit has in you assumed a 
 perishable body, so that really your form is only an *'as- 
 sum.ed" one) a spirit that appears, appears in you, with- 
 out being bound to your body and to this particular 
 mode of appearance — therefore a spook. Hence I do not 
 regard you as a higher essence, but only respect that 
 higher essence which 'Svalks" in you; I ''respect Man 
 in you." The ancients did not observe anything of this 
 sort in their slaves, and the higher essence "Man" found 
 as yet little response. To make up for this, they saw in 
 each other ghosts of another sort. The People is a higher 
 essence than an individual, and, like Man or the Spirit 
 of Man, a spirit haunting the individual — the Spirit of 
 the People. For this reason they revered this spirit, and 
 only so far as he served this or else a spirit related to it 
 (e. g, the Spirit of the Family, etc.) could the individual 
 appear significant; only for the sake of the higher es- 
 sence, the People, was consideration allowed to the ''mem- 
 ber of the people." As you are hallowed to us by "Man" 
 who haunts you, so at every time men have been hal- 
 lowed by some higher essence or other, like People. 
 Family, and such. Only for the sake of a higher essence 
 has any one been honored from of old, only as a ghost has 
 he been regarded in the light of a hallowed, i. e., pro- 
 tected and recognized person. If I cherish you because 
 I hold you dear, because in you my heart finds nourish- 
 ment, my need satisfaction, then it is not done for the 
 sake of a higher essence whose hallowed body you are, 
 not on account of my beholding in you a ghost, i.e., an 
 appearing spirit, but from egoistic pleasure; you your- 
 self with your essence are valuable to me, for your es- 
 sence is not a higher one, is not higher and more general 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 45 
 
 than you, is unique* like you yourself, because it is 
 you. 
 
 But it is not only man that "haunts'"; so does every- 
 thing. The higher essence, the spirit, that walks in 
 everything, is at the same time bound to nothing, and 
 only — " appears'' in it. Ghosts in every corner ! 
 
 Here would be the place to pass the haunting spirits 
 in review, if they were not to come before us again fur- 
 ther on in order to vanish before egoism. Hence let only 
 a few of them be particularized by way of example, in 
 order to bring us at once to our attitude toward them. 
 
 Sacred above all, e, g,, is the ''holy Spirit,'' sacred 
 the truth, sacred are right, law, a good cause, majesty, 
 marriage, the common good, order, the fatherland, etc. 
 
 Wheels in the Head. 
 
 Man, your head is haunted ; you have wheels in your 
 head ! You imagine great things, and depict to yourselt 
 a whole world of gods that has an existence for you, a 
 spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, 
 an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea ! 
 
 Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figura- 
 tively when I regard those persons who cling to thq 
 Higher, and (because the vast majority belongs under 
 this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable 
 fools, fools in a madhouse. What it is, then, that is 
 called a ''fixed idea" ! An idea that has subjected the 
 man to itself. When you recognize, with regard to such 
 a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave up in 
 an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which 
 we are not to doubt; the majesty of (e. g.) the people, 
 which we are not to strike at (he who does is guilty of — 
 lese-majesty) ; virtue, against which the censor is not 
 to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure ; etc. — 
 are these not "fixed ideas" ? Is not all the stupid chatter 
 
 * [einj:{g] 
 
46 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of (e, g.) most of our newspapers the babble of fools 
 f who suffer from the fixed idea of morality, legality, 
 Christianity, etc., and only seem to go about free be- 
 cause the madhouse in which they walk takes in so broad 
 a space? Touch the fixed idea of such a fool, and you 
 will at once have to guard your back against the lunatic's 
 stealthy malice. For these great lunatics are like the 
 little so-called lunatics in this point, too — that they assail 
 by stealth him who touches their fixed idea. They first 
 steal his weapon, steal free speech from him, and then 
 they fall upon him with their nails. Every day now lays 
 bare the cowardice and vindictiveness of these maniacs, 
 and the stupid populace hurrahs for their crazy meas- 
 ures. One must read the journals of this period, and 
 must hear the Philistines talk, to get the horrible convic- 
 tion that one is shut up in a house with fools. ''Thou 
 shalt not call thy brother a fool; if thou dost — etc. 
 But I do not fear the curse, and I say, my brothers are 
 arch-fools. Whether a poor fool of the insane asylum 
 is possessed by the fancy that he is God the Father, Em- 
 peror of Japan, the Holy Spirit, etc., or whether a citi- 
 zen in comfortable circumstances conceives that it is his 
 mission to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a 
 loyal citizen, a virtuous man, etc. — both these are one 
 and the same ''fixed idea." He who has never tried and 
 dared not to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, 
 a virtuous man, etc., is possessed and prepossessed by 
 faith, virtuousness, etc. Just as the schoolmen philoso- 
 phized only inside the belief of the church ; as Pope Ben- 
 edict XIV wrote fat books inside the papist superstition, 
 without ever throwing a doubt upon this belief ; as 
 authors fill whole folios on the State without calling in 
 question the fixed idea of the State itself; as our news- 
 papers are crammed with politics because they are con- 
 jured into the fancy that man was created to be a soon 
 politicon — so also subjects vegetate in subjection, virtuous 
 
 * [gefangen und befangen^ literally ^'imprisoned and pre- 
 possessed."] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 47 
 
 people in virtue, liberals in humanity, etc., without ever 
 putting to these fixed ideas of theirs the searching knife 
 of criticism. Undislodgeable, like a madman's delusion, 
 those thoughts stand on a firm footing, and he who doubts 
 them — lays hands on the sacred! Yes, the ''fixed idea/' 
 that is the truly sacred ! 
 
 Is it perchance only people possessed by the devil that 
 meet us, or do we as often come upon people possessed 
 in the contrary way — possessed by "the good," by virtue, 
 morality, the law, or some ''principle" or other? Posses- 
 sions of the devil are not the only ones. God works on 
 us, and the devil does; the former "workings of grace," 
 the latter "workings of the the devil." Possessed * people 
 are set f in their opinions. 
 
 If the word "possession" displeases you, then call it 
 prepossession ; yes, since the spirit possesses you, and all 
 "inspirations" come from it, call it — inspiration and en- 
 thusiasm. I add that complete enthusiasm — for we can- 
 not stop with the sluggish half-way kind — is called 
 fanaticism. 
 
 It is precisely among cultured people that fanaticism is 
 at home ; for man is cultured so far as he takes an inter- 
 est in spiritual things, and interest in spiritual things, 
 when it is alive, is and must be fanaticism; it is a fanatical 
 interest in the sacred (fanum). Observe our liberals, 
 look into the Saechsischen V aterlandshlaetter ^ hear what 
 Schlosser says : % "Holbach's company constituted a reg- 
 ular plot against the traditional doctrine and the exist- 
 ing system, and its members were as fanatical on behalf 
 of their unbelief as monks and priests, Jesuits and Piet- 
 ists, Methodists, missionary and Bible societies, com- 
 monly are for mechanical worship and orthodoxy." 
 
 Take notice how a "moral man" behaves, who to-day 
 often thinks he is through with God and throws off 
 Christianity as a bvgone thing. If vou ask him whether 
 he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and 
 
 "^[hessessene] ^[versessen] X' Achtzehntes Jahrhundert^* II, 519. 
 
48 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 sister is incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, 
 that filial piety is a sacred duty, etc., then a moral shud- 
 der will come over him at the conception of one's being 
 allowed to touch his sister as wife also, etc. And whence 
 this shudder? Because he believes in those moral com- 
 mandments. This moral faith is deeply rooted in his 
 breast. Much as he rages against the pious Christians, 
 he himself has nevertheless as thoroughly remained a 
 Christian — to wit, a moral Christian. In the form of 
 morality Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner 
 under faith. Monogamy is to be something sacred, and 
 he who may live in bigamy is punished as a criminal; 
 he who commits incest suffers as a criminal. Those who 
 are always crying that religion is not to be regarded in 
 the State, and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the 
 Christian, show themselves in accord with this. Is not 
 this of incest and monogamy a dogma of faith? Touch 
 it, and you will learn by experience how this moral man 
 is a hero of faith too, not less than Krummacher, not less 
 than Philip II. These fight for the faith of the Church, 
 he for the faith of the State, or the moral laws of the 
 State ; for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts 
 otherwise than their faith will allow. The brand of 
 *'crime" is stamped upon him, and he may languish in 
 reformatories, in jails. Moral faith is as fanatical as 
 religious faith ! They call that ^'liberty of faith" then, 
 when brother and sister, on account of a relation that they 
 should have settled with their "conscience," are thrown 
 into prison. *'But they set a pernicious example." Yes, 
 indeed : others might have taken the notion that the State 
 had no business to meddle with their relation, and there- 
 upon "purity of morals" would go to ruin. So then the 
 religious heroes of faith are zealous for the "sacred God," 
 the moral ones for the "sacred good." 
 
 Those who are zealous for something sacred often look 
 very little like each other. How the strictly orthodox or 
 old-style believers differ from the fighters for "truth, 
 light, and justice," from the Philalethes, the Friends of 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 49 
 
 Light, the RationaHsts, etc. And yet, how utterly un- ir 
 essential is this difference ! If one buffets single traditional 
 truths (e, g. miracles, unlimited power of princes, etc.), 
 then the rationalists buffet them too, and onl} the old- 
 style believers wail. But, if one buffets truth itself, he 
 immediately has both, as believers, for opponents. So 
 with moralities; the strict believers are relentless, the 
 clearer heads are more tolerant. But he who attacks 
 morality itself gets both to deal with. "Truth, morality, 
 justice, light, etc., are to be and remain "sacred." What 
 any one finds to censure in Christianity is simply sup- 
 posed to be "unchristian" according to the view of these 
 rationalists ; but Christianity must remain a "fixture," to 
 buffet it is outrageous, "an outrage." To be sure, the 
 heretic against pure faith no longer exposes himself to 
 the earlier fury of persecution, but so much the more 
 does it now fall upon the heretic against pure morals. 
 
 Piety has for a century received so many blows, and 
 had to hear its superhuman essence reviled as an "in- 
 human" one so often, that one cannot feel tempted to 
 draw the sword against it again. And yet it has almost 
 always been only moral opponents that have appeared in 
 the arena, to assail the supreme essence in favor of — 
 another supreme essence. So Proudhon, unabashed, 
 says :* "Man is destined «to live without religion, but the 
 moral law is eternal and absolute. Who would dare to-day 
 to attack morality?" Moral people skimmed off the best 
 fat from religion, ate it themselves, and are now having a 
 tough job to get rid of the resulting scrofula. If, there- 
 fore, we point out that religion has not by any means 
 been hurt in its inmost part so long as people reproach 
 it only with its superhuman essence, and that it takes its 
 final appeal to the "spirit" alone (for God is spirit), then 
 we have sufficiently indicated its final accord with moral- 
 ity, and can leave its stubborn conflict with the latter 
 
 * '*De la Creation de VOrdre'' etc., p. 36. 
 
50 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 lying behind us. It is a question of a supreme essence 
 with both, and whether this is a superhuman or a human 
 one can make (since it is in any case an essence over me, 
 a super-mine one, so to speak) but Httle difference to me. 
 In the end the relation to the human essence, or to ''Man," 
 as soon as ever it has shed the snake-skin of the old 
 religion, will yet wear a religious snake-skin again. 
 
 So Feuerbach instructs us that, ''if one only inverts 
 fpeculative philosophy, i. e. always makes the predicate 
 ihe subject, and so makes the subject the object and prin- 
 ciple, one has the undraped truth, pure and clean.''"^ 
 Herewith, to be sure, we lose the narrow religious stand- 
 point, lose the God, who from this standpoint is subject; 
 but we take in exchange for it the other side of the re- 
 ligious standpoint, the moral standpoint. E. g., we no 
 longer say "God is love/' but "Love is divine.'' If we 
 further put in place of the predicate "divine" the equiv- 
 alent "sacred," then, as far as concerns the sense, all the 
 old comes back again. According to this, love is to be the 
 good in man, his divineness, that which does him honor, 
 his true humanity (it "makes him Man for the first time," 
 makes for the first time a man out of him). So then it 
 would be more accurately worded thus : Love is what is 
 human in man, and what is inhuman is the loveless egoist. 
 But precisely all that which Christianity and with it 
 speculative philosophy (i. e. theology) offers as the good 
 the absolute, is to self-ownership simply not the good 
 
 or, what means the same, it is only the good). Conse- 
 quently, by the transformation of the predicate into the 
 subject, the Christian essence (and it is the predicate that 
 contains the essence, you know) would only be fixed yet 
 more oppressively. God and the divine would entwine 
 themselves all the more inextricably with me. To expel 
 God from his heaven and to rob him of his ''transcend- 
 ence'' cannot yet support a claim of complete victory, if 
 therein he is only chased into the human breast and gifted 
 
 * ''Anekdota/' II, 64. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 51 
 
 with indelible immanence. Now they say, ''The divine 
 is the truly human!" 
 
 The same people who oppose Christianity as the basis 
 of the State, i. e. oppose the so-called Christian State, do 
 not tire of repeating that morality is "the fundamental 
 pillar of social life and of the State/' As if the dominion 
 of morality were not a complete dominion of the sacred, 
 a ''hierarchy." 
 
 So we may here mention by the way that rationalist 
 movement which, after theologians had long insisted that 
 only faith was capable of grasping religious truths, that 
 only to believers did God reveal himself, etc., and that 
 therefore only the heart, the feelings, the believing fancy 
 was religious, broke out with the assertion that the 
 "natural understanding," human reason, was also capable 
 of discerning God. What does that mean but that the 
 reason laid claim to be the same visionary as the fancy?* 
 In this sense Reimarus wrote his "Most Notable Truths 
 of Natural Religion." It had to come to this — that the 
 whole man with all his faculties was found to be religions; 
 heart and affections, understanding and reason, feeling, 
 knowledge, and will — in short, everything in man — ap- 
 peared religious. Hegel has shown that even philosophy 
 is religious. And what is not called religion to-day ? The 
 "religion of love," the "religion of freedom," "political 
 religion" — in short, every enthusiasm. So it is, too, in 
 fact. 
 
 To this day we use the Romance word "religion," which 
 expresses the concept of a condition of being bound. To 
 be sure, we remain bound, so far as religion takes pos- 
 I session of our inward parts ; but is the mind also bound ? 
 \ On the contrary, that is free, is sole lord, is not our mind, 
 [ but absolute. Therefore the correct affirmative transla- 
 tion of the word religion would be ''freedom of mind" ! 
 In whomsoever the mind is free, he is religious in just 
 the same way as he in whom the senses have free course is 
 
 * [dieselbe Phuntastin wie die Phantasie^ 
 
■52 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 called a sensual man. The mind binds the former, the 
 desires the latter. Religion, therefore, is boundness or 
 religio with reference to me — I am bound ; it is freedom 
 with reference to the mind — the mind is free, or has free- 
 dom of mind. Many know from experience how hard it 
 is on us when the desires run away with us, free and 
 unbridled; but that the free mind, splendid intellectuality, 
 enthusiasm for intellectual interests, or however this jewel 
 may in the most various phrase be named, bring us into 
 yet more grievous straits than even the wildest impro- 
 priety, people will not perceive ; nor can they perceive it 
 without being consciously egoists. 
 
 Reimarus, and all who have shown that our reason, 
 our hearts, etc., also lead to God, have therewithal shown 
 that we are possessed through and through. To be sure, 
 they vexed the theologians, from whom they took away | 
 the prerogative of religious exaltation ; but for religion, ! 
 for freedom of mind, they thereby only conquered yet 
 more ground. For, when the mind is no longer limited 
 to feeling or faith, but also, as understanding, reason, and 
 thought in general, belongs to itself the mind — when, 
 therefore, it may take part in the spiritual"^' and heavenly 
 truths in the form of understanding, etc., as well 
 as in its other forms — then the whole mind is occu- 
 pied only with spiritual things, i. ^. with itself, and. 
 is therefore free. Now we are so through-and-through 
 religious that ''jurors," i. e, ''sworn men," condemn us to 
 death, and every policeman, as a good Christian, takes us 
 to the lock-up by virtue of an "oath of ofifice/' 
 
 Morality could not come into opposition with piety till 
 after the time when in general the boisterous hate of 
 everything that looked like an "order" (decrees, com- 
 mandments, etc.) spoke out in revolt, and the personal 
 "absolute lord" was scoffed at and persecuted; conse- 
 quently it could arrive at independence only through 
 
 * [The same word as "intellectual." as "mind" and "spirit'' are 
 the same.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 53 
 
 liberalism, whose first form acquired significance in the 
 world's history as ^'citizenship/' and weakened the 
 specifically religious powers (see ''Liberalism'' below). 
 For, when morality not merely goes alongside of piety, 
 but stands on feet of its own, then its principle lies no 
 longer in the divine commandments, but in the law of 
 reason, from which the commandments, so far as they 
 are still to remain valid, must first await justification for 
 their validity. In the law of reason man determines him- 
 self out of himself, for "Man" is rational, and out of the 
 "essence of Man" those laws follow of necessity. Piety 
 and morality part company in this — that the former 
 makes God the lawgiver, the latter Man. 
 
 From a certain standpoint of morality people reason 
 about as follows : Either man is led by his sensuality, and 
 is, following it, immoral, or he is led by the good, which, 
 taken up into the will, is called moral sentiment (senti- 
 ment and prepossession in favor of the good) ; then he 
 shows himself moral. From this point of view how, e. g., 
 can Sand's act against Kotzebue be called immoral? 
 What is commonly understood by unselfish it certainly 
 was, in the same measure as (among other things) St. 
 Crispin's thieveries in favor of the poor. "He should not 
 have murdered, for it stands written. Thou shalt not 
 murder!" Then to serve the good, the welfare of the 
 people, as Sand at least intended, or the welfare of the 
 poor, like Crispin — is moral ; but murder and theft are 
 immoral ; the purpose moral, the means immoral. Why ? 
 "Because murder, assassination, is something absolutely 
 bad." When the Guerrillas enticed the enemies of the 
 country into ravines and shot them down unseen from 
 the bushes, do you suppose that was not assassination? 
 According to the principle of morality, which commands 
 us to serve the good, you could really ask only whether 
 murder could never in any case be a realization of the 
 good, and would have to endorse that murder which 
 realized the good. You cannot condemn Sand's deed at 
 all; it was moral, because in the service of the good, 
 
54 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 because unselfish; it was an act of punishment, which 
 the individual inflicted, an — execution inflicted at the risk 
 of the executioner's life. What else had his scheme 
 been, after all, but that he wanted to suppress writings 
 by brute force? Are you not acquainted with the same 
 procedure as a '^legal" and sanctioned one? And what 
 can be objected against it from your principle of 
 morality? — ''But it was an illegal execution." So the 
 immoral thing in it was the illegality, the disobedience to i 
 law? Then you admit that the good is nothing else , 
 than — law, morality nothing else than loyalty. And to 
 this externality of ''loyalty'' your morality must sink, to 
 this righteousness of works in the fulfilment of the law, 
 only that the latter is at once more tyrannical and more re- 
 volting than the old-time righteousness of works. For 
 in the latter only the act is needed, but you require the 
 disposition too; one must carry in himself the law, the 
 statute; and he who is most legally disposed is the most 
 moral. Even the last vestige of cheerfulness in Catholic 
 life must perish in this Protestant legality. Here at last 
 the domination of the law is for the first time complete. 
 "Not I live, but the law lives in me.'' Thus I have really 
 come so far as to be only the '"vessel of its glory." 
 "Every Prussian carries his gendarme in his breast," says 
 a high Prussian officer. 
 
 Why do certain opposition parties fail to flourish? 
 Solely for the reason that they refuse to forsake the path 
 of morality or legality. Hence the measureless hypocrisy 
 of devotion, love, etc., from whose repulsiveness one may 
 get the most thorough nausea at this rotten and hypo- 
 critical relation of a "lawful opposition." — In the moral 
 relation of love and fidelity a divided or opposed will 
 cannot have place; the beautiful relation is disturbed if 
 the one wills this and the other the reverse. But now, 
 according to the practice hitherto and the old prejudice 
 of the opposition, the moral relation is to be preserved 
 above all. What is then left to the opposition ? Perhaps 
 the will to have a liberty, if the beloved one sees fit to 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 55 
 
 deny it? Not a bit! It may not will to have the free- 
 dom, it can only wish for it, ''petition'' for it, lisp a 
 'Tlease, please What would come of it, if the opposi- 
 ton really willed^ willed with the full energy of the will ? 
 No, it must renounce will in order to live to love, re- 
 nounce liberty — for love of morality. It may never 
 *'claim as a right" what it is permitted only to "beg as 
 a favor/' Love, devotion, etc., demand with undeviating 
 definiteness that there be only one will to which the 
 others devote themselves, which they serve, follow, love. 
 Whether this will is regarded as reasonable or as un- 
 reasonable, in both cases one acts morally when one 
 follows it, and immorally when one breaks away from 
 it. The will that commands the censorship seems to 
 many unreasonable ; but he who in a land of censorship 
 evades the censoring of his book acts immorally, and he 
 who submits it to the censorship acts morally. If some 
 one let his moral judgment go, and set up e. g. a secret 
 press, one would have to call him immoral, and imprudent 
 into the bargain if he let himself be caught; but will 
 such a man lay claim to a value in the eyes of the 
 ''moral"? Perhaps! — That is, if he fancied he was 
 serving a ^'higher morality." 
 
 The web of the hypocrisy of to-day hangs on the 
 frontiers of two domains, between which our time 
 swings back and forth, attaching its fine threads of de- 
 ception and self-deception. No longer vigorous enough 
 to serve morality without doubt or weakening, not yet 
 reckless enough to live wholly to egoism, it trembles now 
 toward the one and now toward the other in the spider- 
 web of hypocrisy, and, crippled by the curse of halfness, 
 catches only miserable, stupid flies. If one has once 
 dared to make a "free" motion, immediately one waters 
 it again with assurances of love, and — shams resignation; 
 if, on the other side, they have had the face to reject the 
 free motion with moral appeals to confidence, etc., im- 
 mediately the moral courage also sinks, and they assure 
 one how they hear the free words with special pleasure. 
 
56" THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 etc.; they — sham approval. In short, people would like 
 to have the one, but not go without the other ; they would 
 like to have a free will, but not for their lives lack the 
 moral will. Just come in contact with a servile loyalist, 
 you Liberals. You will sweeten every word of freedom 
 with a look of the most loyal confidence, and he will 
 clothe his servilism in the most flattering phrases of - 
 freedom. Then you go apart, and he, like you, thinks 
 *'I know you, fox!" He scents the devil in you as much 
 as you do the dark old Lord God in him. 
 
 A Nero is a ''bad" man only in the eyes of the . 
 *'good" ; in mine he is nothing but a possessed man, as 
 are the good too. The good see in him an archvillain, 
 and relegate him to hell. Why did nothing hinder him 
 in his arbitrary course ? Why did people put up with so 
 much? Do you suppose the tame Romans, who let all 
 their will be bound by such a tyrant, were a hair the 
 better? In old Rome they would have put him to death 
 instantly, would never have been his slaves. But the 
 contemporary "good" among the Romans opposed to 
 him only moral demands, not their will; they sighed that 
 their emperor did not do homage to morality, like them ; 
 they themselves remained ''moral subjects," till at last 
 one found courage to give up "moral, obedient subjec- 
 tion." And then the same "good Romans" who, as 
 "obedient subjects," had borne all the ignominy of 
 having no will, hurrahed over the nefarious, immoral 
 act of the rebel. Where then in the "good" was the 
 courage for the revolution, that courage which they now 
 praised, after another had mustered it up? The good 
 could not have this courage, for a revolution, and an 
 insurrection into the bargain, is always something 
 "immoral," which one can resolve upon only when one 
 ceases to be "good" and becomes either "bad" or^ — 
 neither of the'two. Nero was no viler than his time, in 
 which one could only be one of the two, good or bad. 
 The judgment of his time on him had to be that he was 
 bad, and this in the highest degree : not a milksop, but an 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 57 
 
 arch-scoundrel All moral people can pronounce only this 
 judgment on him. Rascals such as he was are still living 
 here and there to-day (see e. g, the Memoirs of Ritter 
 von Lang) in the midst of the moral. It is not convenient 
 to live among them certainly, as one is not sure of his 
 life for a moment; but can you say that it is more con- 
 venient to live among the motal? One is just as little 
 sure of his life there, only that one *is hanged "in the 
 way of justice/' but least of all is one sure«of his honor, 
 and the national cockade is gone before you -can say 
 Jack Robinson. The hard fist of morality treats the noble 
 nature of egoism altogether without compassion. 
 
 ''But surely one cannot put a rascal and an honest 
 man on the same level !" Now, no human being does 
 that oftener than you judges of morals; 'yes, still more 
 than that, you imprison as a criminal an honest man 
 who speaks openly against the existing constitution, 
 against the hallowed institutions, etc., and you entrust 
 portfolios and still more important things to a crafty 
 rascal. So in praxi you have nothing to reproach me 
 with. "But in theory!'' Now there I do put both on the 
 same level, as two opposite poles — to with, both on the 
 level of the moral law. Both have meaning only in the 
 "moral" world, just as in the pre-Christian time a Jew 
 who kept the law and one who broke it had meaning 
 and signifiance only in respect to the Jewish law; be- 
 fore Jesus Christ, on the contrary, the Pharisee was no 
 more than the "sinner and publican." So before self- 
 ownership the moral Pharisee amounts to as much as 
 the immortal sinner. 
 
 Nero became very inconvenient by his possessedness. 
 But a self -owning man would not sillily oppose to him 
 the "sacred," and whine if the tyrant does not regard 
 the sacred; he would oppose to him his will. How 
 often the sacredness of the inalienable rights of man 
 has been held up to their foes, and some liberty or 
 or other shown and demonstrated to be a "sacred right 
 of man"! Those who do that deserve to be laughed 
 
58 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 out of court — as they actually are — were it not that 
 in truth they do, even though unconsciously, take the 
 road that leads to the goal. They have a presentiment 
 that, if only the majority is once won for that liberty, 
 it will also will the liberty, and will then take what it 
 zuill have. The sacredness of the liberty, and all pos- 
 sible proofs of this sacredness, will never procure it; 
 lamenting and petitioning only shows beggars. 
 
 The moral man is necessarily narrow in that he 
 knows no other enemy than the ''immoral'' man. ''He 
 who is not moral is immoral!" and accordingly repro- 
 bate, despicable, etc. Therefore the moral man can 
 never comprehend the egoist. Is not unwedded co- 
 habitation an immorality? The moral man may turn 
 as he pleases, he will have to stand by this verdict; 
 Emilia Galotti gave up her life for this moral truth. 
 And it is true, it is an immorality. A virtuous girl may 
 become an old maid : -a virtuous man may pass the time 
 in fighting his natural impulses till he has perhaps dulled 
 them, he may castrate himself for the sake of virtue 
 as St. Origen did for the sake of heaven: he thereby 
 honors sacred wedlock, sacred chastity, as inviolable ; 
 he is — moral. Unchastity can never become a moral 
 act. However indulgently the moral man may judge and 
 excuse him who committed it, it remains a transgres- 
 sion, a sin against a moral commandment; there clings 
 to it an indelible stain. As chastity once belonged to 
 the monastic vow, so it does to moral conduct. Chastity 
 is a — good. — For the egoist, on the contrary, even chastity 
 is not a good without which he could not get along; he 
 cares nothing at all about it. AMiat now follows from 
 this for the judgment of the moral man? This: that 
 he throws the egoist into the only class of men that 
 he knows besides moral men. into that of the — immoral. 
 He cannot do otherwise : he must find the egoist im- 
 moral in evervthing in which the egoist disregards 
 moralit}'. If he did not find him so, then he would al- 
 ready have become an apostate from morality without 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 59 
 
 confessing it to himself, he would already no longer be 
 a truly moral man. One should not let himself be led 
 astray by such phenomena, which at the present day 
 are certainly no longer to be classed as rare, but should 
 reflect that he who yields any point of morality can as 
 little be counted among the truly moral as Lessing was 
 a pious Christian when, in the well-known parable, he 
 compared the Christian religion, as well as the Moham- 
 medan and Jewish, to a ''counterfeiting ring/' Often 
 people are already further than they venture to confess 
 to themselves. For Socrates, because in culture he stood 
 on the level of morality, it would have been an immor- 
 ality if he had been willing to follow Crito's seductive 
 incitement and escape from the dungeon ; to remain was 
 the only moral thing. But it was solely because Socrates 
 was — a moral man The "unprincipled, sacrilegious" men 
 of the Revolution, on the contrary, had sworn fidelity to 
 Louis XVI, and decreed his deposition, yes, his death; 
 but the act was an immoral one, at which moral per- 
 sons will be horrified to all eternity. 
 
 Yet all this applies, more or less, only to *'civic mor- 
 ality,'' on which the freer look down with contempt. 
 For it (like civism, its native ground in general) is still 
 too little removed and free from the religious heaven 
 not to transplant the latter's laws without criticism or 
 further consideration to its domain instead of produc- 
 ing independent doctrines of its own. Morality cuts a 
 quite different figure when it arrives at the consciousness 
 of its dignity, and raises its principle, the essence of 
 man, or ''Man," to be the only regulative power. Those 
 who have worked their way through to such a decided 
 consciousness break entirely with religion, whose God 
 no longer finds any place alongside their "Man," and, 
 as they (see below) themselves scuttle the ship of State, 
 so too they crumble away that "morality" which flourish- 
 es only in the State, and logically have no right to use 
 even its name any further. For what this "critical" 
 
60 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 party calls morality is very positively distinguished from 
 the so-called ''civic or political morality/' and must ap- 
 pear to the citizen like an ''insensate and unbridled lib- 
 erty." But at bottom it has only the advantage of 
 the ''purity of the principle/' which, freed from its de- 
 filement with the religious, has now reached universal 
 power in its clarified definiteness as "humanity." There- 
 fore one should not wonder that the name ''morality" 
 is retained along with others, like freedom, benevol- 
 ence, self-consicousness, etc., and is only garnished now 
 and then with the addition, a "free" moralitv^ — just as, 
 though the civic State is abused, yet the State is to rise 
 again as a "free State," or, if not even so, yet as a "free 
 society." 
 
 Because this morality completed into humanity has 
 fully settled its accounts with the religion out of which 
 it historically came forth, nothing hinders it from be- 
 coming a religion on its own account. For a distinc- 
 tion prevails between religion and morality only so 
 long as our dealings with the w^orld of men are regu- 
 lated and hallowed by our relation to a superhuman 
 being or so long as our doings is a doing "for God's 
 sake." If, on the other hand, it comes to the point that 
 *'man is to man the supreme being," then that distinction 
 vanishes, and morality, being removed from its subor- 
 dinate position, is completed into — religion. For then 
 the higher being who had hitherto been subordinated 
 to the highest, Man, has ascended to absolute height, and 
 we are related to him as one is related to the highest 
 being, i, e. religiously. Morality and piety are now as 
 synonymous as in the beginning of Christianity, and it 
 is only because the supreme being has come to be a dif- 
 ferent one that a holy walk is no longer called a "holy" 
 one, but a "human" one. If morality has conquered, 
 then a complete — change of masters has taken place. 
 
 After the annihilation of faith Feuerbach thinks to 
 put in to the supposedly safe harbor of love. "The first 
 and highest law must be the love of man to man. Homo 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 61 
 
 homini Deus est — this is the supreme practical maximum, 
 this the turning point of the world's history/'"^ But, 
 properly speaking, only the god is changed — the deus; 
 love has remained: there love to the superhuman God, 
 here love to the human God, to homo as Deus. There- 
 fore man is to me — sacred. And everything "truly hu- 
 man'' is to me — sacred! '^Marriage is sacred of itself. 
 And so it is with all moral relations. Friendship is and 
 must be sacred- ior you, and property, and marriage, and 
 the good of every man, but sacred in and of itself ."f 
 Haven't we the priest again there ? Who is his God ? Man. 
 with a great M ! What is the divine ? The human ! Then 
 the predicate has indeed only been changed into the sub- 
 ject, and instead of the sentence ''God is love," they say 
 ''love is divine" ; instead of "God has become man," "Man 
 has become God," etc. It is nothing more or less than a 
 new — religion, "All moral relations are ethical, are culti- 
 vated with a moral mind, only where of themselves (with- 
 out religious consecration by the priest's blessing) they 
 are counted religious!' Feuerbach's proposition, "The- 
 ology in anthropology," means only "religion must be 
 ethics, ethics alone is religion." 
 
 Altogether Feuerbach accomplishes only a transposi- 
 tion of subject and predicate, a giving of preference to- 
 the latter. But, since he himself says, "Lfove is not (and 
 has never been considered by men) sacred through be- 
 ing a predicate of God, but it is a predicate of God be- 
 cause it is divine in and of itself," he might judge that 
 the fight against the predicates themselves, against love 
 and all sanctities, must be commenced. How could he 
 hope to turn men away from God when Tie left them the 
 divine? And if, as Feuerbach says, God himself has 
 never been the main thing to them, but only his pre- 
 dicates, then he might have gone on leaving them the 
 tinsel longer yet, since the doll, the real kernel, was left 
 at any rate. He recognizes, too, that with him it is 
 
 "Essence of Giristianity,'' second edition, p. 402 
 
62 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 "'only a matter of annihilating an illusion";* he thinks, 
 however, that the effect of the illusion on men is "down- 
 right ruinous, since even love, in itself the truest, most 
 inward sentiment, becomes an obscure, illusory one 
 through religiousness, since religious love loves manf 
 only for God's sake, therefore loves man only apparently, 
 but in truth God only." Is this different with moral love? 
 Does it love the man, this man for this man's sake, or 
 for morality's sake, for Mans sake, and so — for homo 
 homini Deus — for God's sake? 
 
 The wheels in the head have a number of other for- 
 mal aspects, some of which it may be useful to indicate 
 here. 
 
 Thus self-renunciation is common to the holy with 
 the unholy, to the pure and the impure. The impure 
 man renounces all ''better feelings," all shame, even 
 natural timidity, and follows only the appetite that rules 
 him. The pure man renounces his natural relation to 
 the world (''renounces the world") and follows only the 
 "desire" which rules him. Driven by the thirst for 
 money, the avaricious man renounces all admonitions of 
 conscience, all feeling of honor, all gentleness and all com- 
 passion; he puts all considerations out of sight; the ap- 
 petite drags him along. The holy man behaves similarly. 
 He makes himself the "laughing-stock of the world," is^ 
 hard-hearted and "strictly just"; for the desire drags 
 him along. As the unholy man renounces himself before 
 Mammon, so the holy man renounces himself before God 
 and the divine laws. We are now living in a time when 
 the shamlessness of the holy is every day more and more 
 felt and 'uncovered, whereby it is at the same time com- 
 pelled to unveil itself, and lay itself bare, more and 
 more every day. Have not the shamelessness and stupid- 
 ity of the reasons with which men antagonize the "pro- 
 gress of the age" long surpassed all measure and all ex- 
 
 * P. 408. 
 
 t [Literally ''the man."] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 63 
 
 pectation ? But it must be so. The self-renouncers must, 
 as holy men, take the same course that they do as un- 
 holy men; as the latter little by little sink to the fullest 
 measure of self-renouncing vulgarity and lowness, so 
 the former must ascend to the most dishonorable exalta- 
 tion. The mammon of the earth and the God of heaven 
 both demand exactly the same degree of — self-renuncia- 
 tion. The low man, like the exalted one, reaches out for 
 a ''good,'' — the former for the material good, the latter 
 for the ideal, the so-called "supreme good"; and at last 
 both complete each other again too, as the ''materially- 
 minded" man sacrifices everything to an ideal phantasm, 
 his vanity^ and the "spiritually-minded" man to a ma- 
 terial gratification, the life of enjoyment. 
 
 Those who exhort men to "unselfishness" * think they 
 are saying an uncommon deal. What do they understand 
 by it? Probably something like what they understand 
 by self-renunciation." But who is this self that is to 
 be renounced and to have no benefit ? It seems that you 
 yourself are supposed to be it. And for whose benefit is 
 unselfish self-renunciation recommended to you? Again 
 for your benefit and behoof, only that through unselfish- 
 ness you are procuring your "true benefit." 
 
 You are to benefit yourself, and yet you are not to 
 seek your benefit. 
 
 People regard as unselfishness the benefactor of men, 
 a Franke who founded the orphan asylum, an O'Connell 
 who works tirelessly for his Irish people; but also the 
 fanatic who, like St. Boniface, hazards his life for the 
 conversion of the heathen, or, like Robespierre, sacri- 
 fices everything to virtue — like Koerner, dies for God, 
 king, and fatherland. Hence, among others, O'Connell's 
 opponents try to trump up against him some selfishness 
 or merenariness, for which the O'Connell fund seemed to 
 give them a foundation; for, if they were successful in 
 
 * [Uneigennuetzigkeit, literally "un-self-benefitingness."] 
 
64 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 casting suspicion on his '^unselfishness/' they would easily 
 separate him from his adherents. 
 
 Yet what could they show further than that O'Connell 
 was working for another end than the ostensible one? 
 But, whether he may aim at making money or at liberat- 
 ing the people, it still remains certain, in one case as 
 in the other, that he is striving for an end, and that his 
 end; selfishness here as there, only that his national 
 self-interest would be beneficial to others too, and so 
 would be for the common interest. 
 
 Now, do you suppose unselfishness is unreal and no- 
 where extant? On the contrary, nothing is more ordin- 
 ry! One may even call it an article of fashion in the 
 civilized world, which is considered so indispensable 
 that, if it costs too much in solid material, people at 
 least adorn themselves with its tinsel counterfeit and 
 feign it. Where does unselfishness begin? Right where 
 an end ceases to be our end and our property, which we, 
 as owners, can dispose of at pleasure ; where it becomes 
 a fixed end or a — fixed idea; where it begins to inspire, 
 enthuse, f anaticize us ; in short, where it passes into our 
 stubbornness and becomes our — master. One is not un- 
 selfish so long as he retains the end in his power; one 
 becomes so only at that ''Here I stand, I cannot do other- 
 wise," the fundamental maxim of all the possessed; one 
 becomes so in the case of a sacred end, through the cor- 
 responding sacred zeal. — 
 
 I am not unselfish so long as the end remains my own, 
 and I, instead of giving myself up to be the blind means 
 of its fulfilment, leave it always an open question. My 
 zeal need not on that account be slacker than the most 
 fanatical, but at the same time I remain toward it 
 frostily cold, unbelieving, and its most irreconcilable 
 enemy ; I remain its judge, beause I am its owner. 
 
 Unselfishness grows rank as far as possessedness 
 reaches, as much on possessions of the aevil as on those 
 of a. good spirit: there vice, folly, etc.; here humility, 
 devotion, etc. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 65 
 
 Where could one look without meeting victims of 
 self-renunication? There sits a girl opposite me, who 
 perhaps has been making bloody sacrifices to her soul 
 for ten years already. Over the buxom form droops a 
 deathly-tired head, and pale cheeks betray the slow 
 bleeding away of her youth. Poor child, how often the 
 passions may have beaten at your heart, and the rich 
 powers of youth have demanded their right ! When your 
 head rolled in the soft pillow, how awakening nature 
 quivered through your limbs, the blood swelled your 
 veins, and fiery fancies poured the gleam of voluptuous- 
 ness into your eyes! Then appeared the ghost of the 
 soul and its eternal bliss. You were terrified, your hands 
 folded themselves, your tormented eye turned its look 
 upward, you — prayed. The storms of nature were 
 hushed, a calm glided over the ocean of your appetites. 
 Slowly the weary eyelids sank over the life extinguished 
 under them, the tension crept out unperceived from the 
 rounded limbs, the boisterous waves dried up in the 
 heart, the folded hands themselves rested a powerless 
 weight on the unresisting bosom, one last faint "Oh 
 dear!" moaned itself away, and — the soul was at rest. 
 You fell asleep, to awake in the morning to a new combat 
 and a new — prayer. Now the habit of renunciation cools 
 the heat of your desire, and the roses of your youth are 
 growing pale in the — chlorosis of your heavenliness. 
 The soul is saved, the body may perish ! O Lais, O 
 Ninon, how well you did to scorn this pale virtue ! One 
 free grisette against a thousand virgins grown gray in 
 virtue ! 
 
 The fixed idea may also be perceived as ''maxim," 
 ''principle," "standpoint," and the like. Archimedes, to 
 move the earth, asked for a standpoint outside it. Men 
 sought continually for this standpoint, and every one 
 seized upon it as well as he was able. This foreign 
 standpoint is the world of mind, of ideas, thoughts, cpn- 
 cepts, essences, etc. ; it is heaven. Heaven is the "stand- 
 point" from which the earth is moved, earthly doings 
 
66 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 surveyed and — despised. To assure to themselves 
 heaven, to occupy the heavenly standpoint firmly and for 
 ever — how painfully and tirelessly humanity struggled 
 for this ! 
 
 Christianity has aimed to deliver us from a life de- 
 termined by nature, from the appetites as actuating us, 
 and so has meant that man should not let himself be 
 determined by his appetites. This does not involve the 
 idea that he was not to have appetites, but that the ap- 
 petites were not to have him, that they were not to be- 
 come fixed, uncontrollable, indissoluble. Now could 
 not what Christianity (religion) contrived against the 
 appetites be applied by us to its own precept that mind 
 (thought, conceptions, ideas, faith, etc.) must determine 
 us; could we not ask that neither should mind, or the 
 conception, the idea, be allowed to determine us, to be- 
 come fixed and inviolable or "sacred''? Then it would 
 end in the dissolution of mind, the dissolution of all 
 thoughts, of all conceptions. As we there had to say 
 ''We are indeed to have appetites, but the appetites are 
 not to have us," so we should now say "We are indeed to 
 have mind, but mind is not to have us." If the latter 
 seems lacking in sense, think e. g. of the fact that with so 
 many a man a thought becomes a "maxim," whereby he 
 himself is made prisoner to it, so that it is not he that 
 has the maxim, but rather it that has him. And with 
 the maxim he has a "permanent standpoint" again. The 
 doctrines of the catechism becomes our principles be- 
 fore we find it out, and no longer brook rejection. Their 
 thought, or — mind, has the sole power, and no protest 
 of the "flesh" is further listened to. Nevertheless it 
 is only through the "flesh" that I can break the tyranny 
 of mind ; for it is only when a man hears his flesh along 
 with the rest of him that he hears himself wholly, and 
 it is only when he wholly hears himself that he is a hear- 
 ing or rational* being. The Christian does not hear 
 
 * [vernuenfHg, derived from vernehmen, to hear.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 67 
 
 the agony of his enthralled nature, but lives in humil- 
 ity'' ; therefore he does not grumble at the wrong which 
 befalls his person; he thinks himself satisfied with the 
 ''freedom of the spirit." But, if the flesh once takes the 
 floor, and its tone is "passionate," ''indecorous," "not 
 well-disposed," "spiteful," etc. (as it cannot be other- 
 wise), then he thinks he hears voices of devils, voices 
 against the spirit (for decorum, passionlessness, kindly 
 disposition, and the like, is — spirit), and is justly zeal- 
 ous against them. He could not be a Christian if he were 
 willing to endure them. He listens only to morality, and 
 slaps unmorality in the mouth ; he listens only to legality, 
 and gags the lawless word. The spirit of morality and 
 legality holds him a prisoner ; a rigid, unbending master. 
 They call that the "mastery of the spirit" — it is at the 
 same time the standpoint of the spirit. 
 
 And now whom do the ordinary liberal gentlemen 
 mean to make free? Whose freedom is it that they cry 
 out and thirst for? The spirifs! That of the spirit of 
 morality, legality, piety, the fear of God, etc. That is 
 what the anti-liberal gentlemen also want, and the whole 
 contention between the two turns on a matter of advan- 
 tage — whether the latter are to be the only speakers, or 
 the former are to receive a "share in the enjoyment of 
 the same advantage." The spirit remains the absolute 
 lord for both, and their only quarrel is over who shall 
 occupy the hierarchical throne that pertains to the "Vice- 
 gerent of the Lord." The best of it is that one can calm- 
 ly look upon the stir with the certainty that the wild 
 beasts of history will tear each other to pieces just like 
 those of nature; their putrefying corpses fertilize the 
 ground for — our crops. 
 
 We shall come back later to many another wheel in 
 the head — for instance, those of vocation, truthfulness, 
 love, tec. 
 
 When one's own is contrasted with what is imparted to 
 him, there is no use in objectng that we cannot have any- 
 
68 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 thing isolated, but receive everything as a part of the 
 universal order, and therefore through the impression of 
 what is around us, and that consequently we have it as 
 something ''imparted"; for there is a great difference 
 between the feelings and thoughts which are aroused in 
 me by other things and those which are given to me. God, 
 immortality, freedom, humanity, etc., are drilled into us 
 from childhood as thoughts and feelings which move our 
 inner being more or less strongly, either ruling us with- 
 out our knowing it, or sometimes in richer natures mani- 
 festing themelves in systems and works of art; but are 
 always not aroused, but imparted, feelings, because we 
 must believe in them and cling to them. That an Absol- 
 ute existed, and that it must be taken in, felt, and thought 
 by us, was settled as a faith in the minds of those who 
 spent all the strength of their mind on recognizing it and 
 setting it forth. The feeling for the Absolute exists there 
 as an imparted one, and thenceforth results only in the 
 most manfold revelations of its own self. So in Klop- 
 stock the religious feeling was an imparted one, which 
 in the ''Messiad'' simply found artistic expression. If, 
 on the other hand, the religion with which he was con- 
 fronted had been for him only an incitation to feeling 
 and thought, and if he had known how to take an atti- 
 tude completely his own toward it, then there would have 
 resulted, instead of religious inspiration, a dissolution and 
 consumption of the religion itself. Instead of that, he 
 only continued in mature years his childish feelings re-^ 
 ceived in childhood, and squandered the powers of his 
 manhood in decking out his childish trifles. 
 
 The difference is, then, whether feelings are imparted 
 to me or only aroused. Those which are aroused are 
 my own, egoistic, because they are not as feelings drilled 
 into me, dictated to me, and pressed upon me; but those 
 which are imparted to me I receive, with open arms — 
 I cherish them in me as a heritage, cultivate them, and 
 am possessed by them. Who is there that has never, 
 more or less consciously, noticed that our whole educa- 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 69 
 
 tion is calculated to produce feelings in us, i. e, impart 
 them to us, instead of leaving their production to our- 
 selves however they may turn out ? If we hear the name 
 of God, we are to feel veneration; if we hear that of 
 the prince's majesty, it is to be received with reverence, 
 deference, submission; if we hear that of morality, we 
 are to think that we hear something inviolable; if we 
 hear of the Evil One or evil ones, we are to shudder; 
 etc. The intention is directed to these feelings, and he 
 who e. g. should hear with pleasure the deeds of the 
 ''bad'' would have to be ''taught what't what" with the 
 rod of discipline. Thus stuffed with imparted feelings. 
 we appear before the bar of majority and are "pronounc- 
 ed of age." Our equipment consists of "elevating feel- . 
 ings, lofty thoughts, inspiring maxims, eternal princi- 
 ples," etc The young are of age when they twitter like 
 the old; they are driven through school to learn the old 
 song, and, when they have this by heart, they are declared 
 of age. 
 
 We must not feel at every thing and every name that 
 comes before us what we could and would like to feel 
 thereat ; e. g., at the name of God we must think of noth- 
 ing laughable, feel nothing disrespectful, it being pre- 
 scribed and imparted to us what and how we are to feel 
 and think at mention of that name. 
 
 That is the meaning of the care of souls — ^that my soul 
 or my mind be tuned as others think right, not as I 
 myself would like it. How much trouble does it not 
 cost one, finally to secure to oneself a feeling of one's 
 own at the mention of at least this or that name, and to 
 laugh in the face of many who expect from us a holy 
 face and a composed expression at their speeches. What 
 is imparted is alien to u^, is not our own, and therefore, 
 is "sacred," and it is hard work to lay aside the "sacred 
 dread of it." 
 
 To-day one again hears "seriousness" praised, "seri- 
 ousness in the presence of highly important subjects and 
 discussions," "German seriousness," etc. This sort of 
 
70 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 seriousness proclaims clearly how old and grave lunacy 
 and possession have already become. For there is noth- 
 ing more serious than a lunatic when he comes to the 
 central point of his lunacy; then his great earnestness 
 incapacities him for taking a joke. (See madhouses.) 
 
 § 3. — The Hierarchy 
 
 The historical reflections on our Mongolisni which I 
 propose to insert episodically at this place are not given 
 with the claim of thoroughness, or even of approved 
 soundness, but solely because it seems to me that they 
 may contribute toward making the rest clear. 
 
 The history of the world, whose shaping properly 
 belongs altogether to the Caucasian race, seems till now 
 to have run through two Caucasian ages, in the first 
 of which we had to work out and work off our innate 
 negroidity; this was followed in the second by Mongolo- 
 idity (Chineseness), which must likewise be terribly made 
 an end of. Negroidity represents antiquity, the time of 
 dependence on things (on cocks' eating, birds' flight, on 
 sneezing, on thunder and lightning, on the rusting of 
 sacred trees, etc.) ; M^ngoloidity the time of depend- 
 ence on thoughts, the Christian time. Reserved for the 
 future are the words am owner of the world of things 
 and I am owner of the world of mind." 
 
 In the negroid age fall the campaigns of Sesostris and 
 the importance of Egypt and of northern Africa in gen- 
 eral. To the Mongoloid age belongs the invasions of the 
 Huns and Mongols, up to the Russians. 
 
 The value of me cannot possibly be rated high so long 
 as the hard diamond of the not-me bears so enormous a 
 price as was the case both with God and with the world. 
 The not-me is still too stony and indomitable to be con- 
 suming it. It is the bustle of vermin, the assiduity of 
 with extraordinary bustle on this immovable entity, i. e. 
 on this substance, like parasitic animals on a body from 
 whose juices they draw nourishment, yet without con- 
 suming it. It is the bustle of vermin, the assiduity of 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 71 
 
 Mongolians. Among the Chinese, we know, everything 
 remains as it used to be, and nothing ''essentiaF' of "sub- 
 stantiaF' suffers a change; all the more actively do they 
 work away at that which remains, which bears the name 
 of the ''old/' ''ancestors,'' etc. 
 
 Accordingly, in our Mongolian age all change has been 
 only reformatory or ameliorative, not destructive or con- 
 suming and annihilating. The substance, the object re- 
 mains. All our assiduity was only the activity of ants 
 and the hopping of fleas, jugglers' tricks on the immov- 
 able tight-rope of the objective, corz^^^-service under the 
 lordshp of the unchangeable or "eternad." The Chinese 
 are doubtless the most positive nation, because totally 
 buried in precepts; but neither has the Christian age 
 come out from the positive, i. e, from "limited freedom," 
 freedom "within certain limits.'^ In the most advanced 
 stage of civilization this activity earns the name of 
 scientific activity, of working on a motionless presupposi- 
 tion, a hypothesis that is not to be upset. 
 
 In its first and most unintelligible form morality shows 
 itself as habit. To act according to the habit and usage 
 (morem) of one's country — is to be moral there. There- 
 fore pure moral action, clear, unadulterated morality, is 
 most straightforwardly practised in China; they keep to 
 the old habit and usage, and hate each innovation as a 
 crime worthy of death. For innovation is the deadly 
 enemy of habit, of the old, of permanence. In fact, too, 
 it admits of no doubt that through habit man secures 
 himself against the obstrusiveness of things, of the 
 world, and founds a world of his own in which alone he 
 is and feels at home, i. e. builds himself a heaven. Why, 
 heaven has no other meaning than that it is man's proper 
 home, in which nothing alien regulates and rules him any 
 longer, no influence of the earthly any longer makes 
 him himself alien; in short, in which the dross of the 
 earthly is thrown off, and the combat against the world 
 has found an end — in which, therefore, nothing is any 
 longer denied him. Heaven is the end of abnegation. 
 
72 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 it is free enjoyment. There man no longer denies him- 
 self anything, because nothing is any longer alien and 
 hostile to him. But now habit is a **second nature," 
 which detaches and frees man from his first and original 
 natural condition, in securing him against every casualty 
 of it. The fully elaborated habit of the Chinese has pro- 
 vided for all emergencies, and everything is ''looked out 
 for'' ; whatever may come, the Chinaman always knows 
 how he has to behave, and does not need to decide first 
 according to the circumstances ; no unf orseen case throws 
 him down from the heaven of his rest. The morally 
 habituated and inured Chinaman is not surprised and 
 taken off his guard; he behaves with equanimity (i. e. 
 with equal spirit or temper) toward everything, because 
 his temper, protected by the precaution of his traditional 
 usage, does not lose its balance. Hence, on the ladder 
 of culture or civilization humanity mounts the first 
 round through habit ; and, as it conceives that, in climb- 
 ing to culture, it is at the same time climbing to heaven, 
 the realm of culture or second nature, it really mounts 
 the first round of the — ladder to heaven. 
 
 If Mongoldom has settled the existence of spiritual 
 beings — if it has created a world of spirits, a heaven, — 
 the Caucasians have wrestled for thousands of years with 
 these spiritual beings, to get to the bottom of them. 
 What were they doing, then, but building on Mongolian 
 ground? They have not built on sand, but in the air, 
 they have wrestled with Mongolism, stormed the Mongo- 
 lian heaven, Tien. When will they at last annihilate this 
 heaven? When will they at last become really Caucas- 
 ians, and find themselves? When will the ''immortal- 
 ity of the soul,'' which in these latter days thought it 
 was giving still more security if it presented itself as 
 "immortality of mind," at last change to the mortality of 
 mind? 
 
 It was when, in the industrious struggle of the Mongo- 
 lian race, men had hiiilt a heaven, that those of the Cau- 
 casian race, since in their Mongolian complexion they 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 73 
 
 have to do with heaven, took upon themselves the op- 
 posite task, the task of storming that heaven of custom, 
 heaven-storming'^ activity. To dig under all human 
 ordinance, in order to set up a new and — better one on 
 the cleared site, to wreck all customs in order to put 
 new and — better customs in their place, etc. — their act 
 is limited to this. But is it thus already purely and really 
 what it aspires to be, and does it reach its final aim? 
 No, in this creation of a ''better' it is tainted with Mon- 
 golism. It storms heaven only to make a heaven again, 
 it overthrows an old power only to legitimate a new pow- 
 er, it only— improves. Nevertheless the point aimed at 
 often as it may vanish from the eyes at every new at- 
 tempt, is the real, complete downfall of heaven, customs, 
 etc. — in short, of man secured only against the world, of 
 the isolation or inwardness of man. Through the hea- 
 ven of culture man seeks to isolate himself from the 
 world, to break its hostile power. But this isolation of 
 heaven must likewise be broken, and the true end of 
 heaven-storming is the — downfall of heaven, the anni- 
 hilation of heaven. Improving and reforming is the 
 Mongolism of the Caucasian, because thereby he is al- 
 ways setting up again what already existed — ^to wit, a 
 precept, a generality, a heaven. He harbors the most 
 irreconcilable enmity to heaven, and yet builds new 
 heavens daily ; piling heaven on heaven, he only crushes 
 one by another; the Jews' heaven destroys the Greeks', 
 the Christians' the Jews', the Protestants' the Catholics' 
 etc. — If the heaven-storming men of Caucasian blood 
 throw off their Mongolian skin, they will bury the 
 emotional man under the ruins of the monstrous world 
 of emotion, the isolated man under his isolated world, 
 the paradisiacal man under his heaven. And heaven is 
 the realm of spirits, the realm of freedom of the spirit. 
 
 The realm of heaven, the realm of spirits and ghosts, 
 has found its right standing in the speculative philosophy. 
 
 ♦ [A German idiom for destructive radicalism.] 
 
74 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 Here it was stated as the realm of thoughts, concepts, 
 and ideas; heaven is peopled with thoughts and ideas, 
 and this ''realm of spirits'' is then the true reality. 
 
 To want to win freedom for the spirit is Mongolism ; 
 freedom of the spirit is Mongolian freedom, freedom of 
 feeling, moral freedom, etc. 
 
 We may find the word ''morality" taken as synony- 
 mous with spontaneity, self-determination. But that is 
 not involved in it ; rather has the Caucasian shown him- 
 self spontaneous only in spite of his Mongolian morality. 
 The Mongolian heaven, or morals,"^ remained the strong 
 castle, and only by storming incessantly at this castle 
 did the Caucasian show himself moral; if he had not 
 had to do with morals at all any longer, if he had not 
 had therein his indomitable, continual enemy, the re- 
 lation to morals would cease, and consequently morality 
 would cease. That his spontaneity is still a moral spon- 
 taneity, therefore, is just the Mongoloidity of it— is a 
 sign that in it he has not arrived at himself. "Moral 
 spontaneity" corresponds entirely with "religious and 
 orthodox philosophy," "constitutional monarchy," "the 
 Christian State," "freedom within certain limits,'* "the 
 limited freedom of the press," or, in a figure, to the hero 
 fettered to a sick-bed. 
 
 Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its ^ 
 spooks till he possesses the strength to lay aside not 
 only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, but also the belief in 
 the spirit. 
 
 He who believes in a spook no more assumes the 
 "introduction of a higher world" than he who believes ' 
 in the spirit, and both seek behind the sensual world a 
 supersensual one ; in short, they produce and believe an- 
 other world, and this other zvorld, the product of their 
 mind, is a spiritual world; for their senses grasp and 
 know nothing of another, a non-sensual world, only their 
 
 * [The same word that has been translated "custom" several 
 times in this section.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 75 
 
 spirit lives in it. Going on from this Mongolian belief in 
 the existence of spiritual beings to the point that the 
 proper being of man too is his spirit, and that all care 
 must be directed to this alone, to the ''welfare of his 
 soul,'' is not hard. Influence on the spirit, so-called 
 ''moral influence,'' is hereby assured. 
 
 Hence it is manifest that Mongolism represents utter 
 absence of any rights of the sensuous, represents non- 
 sensuousness and unnature, and that sin and the con- 
 sciousness of sin was our Mongolian torment that lasted 
 thousands of years. 
 
 Bu who, then, will dissolve the spirit into its noth- 
 ing? He who by means of the spirit set forth nature as 
 the null, finite, transitory^ he alone can bring down the 
 spirit too to like nullity. / can; each one among you 
 can, who does his will as an absolute I ; in a word, the 
 egoist can. 
 
 Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and 
 all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble at- 
 titude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but 
 by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judg- 
 ment, my bending the knee; in short, by my — con- 
 science. 
 
 Sacred is everything which for the egoist is to be un- 
 approachable, not to be touched, outside his power — i, e. 
 above him; sacred, in a word, is every matter of consci- 
 ence, for *'this is a matter of conscience to me" means 
 simply "I hold this sacred." 
 
 For little children, just as for animals, nothing sacred 
 exists, because, in order to make room for this concep- 
 tion, one must already have progressed so far in under- 
 standing that he can make distinctions like "good and 
 bad," "warranted and unwarranted," etc. ; only at such 
 a level of reflection or intelligence — the proper stand- 
 point of religion — can unnatural (i. e. brought into ex- 
 istence by thinking) reverence, "sacred dread," step into 
 the place of natural fear. To this sacred dread belongs 
 
76 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 holding something outside oneself for mightier, greater, 
 bttter warranted, better, etc.; i. e. the attitude in wjiich 
 one acknowledges the might of something alien — not 
 merely feels it, then, but expressly acknowledges it, i. e, 
 admits it, yields, surrenders, lets himself be tied (devo- 
 tion, humility, servility, submission, etc.) Here walks 
 the whole ghostly troop of the ''Christian virtues." 
 
 Everything toward which you cherish any respect or 
 reverence deserves the name of sacred; you yourselves, 
 too, say that you would feel a ''sacred dread'' of laying 
 hands on it. And you give this tinge even to the un- 
 holy (gallows, crime, etc.) You have a horror of touch- 
 ing it. There lies in it something uncanny, i. e. unfa- 
 miliar or not your ozvn. 
 
 "Ii something or other did not rank as sacred in a 
 man's mind, why, then all bars would be let down to 
 self-will, to unlimited subjectivity!" Fear makes the be- 
 gmning, and one can make himself fearful to the coars- 
 est man; already, therefore, a barrier against his insol- 
 ence. But in fear there always remains the attempt to 
 liberate oneself from what is feared, by guile, deception, 
 tricks, etc. In reverence,"^ on the contrary, it is quite other- 
 wise. Here something is not only f eared, f but also 
 honored:!:: what is feared has become an inward power 
 which I can no longer get clear of ; I honor it, am captiv- 
 ated by it and devoted to it, belong to it; by the honor 
 which I pay it I am completely in its power, and do not 
 even attempt liberation any longer. Now I am attached 
 to it with all the strength of faith ; I believe. I and what 
 I fear are one ; ''not I live, but the respected lives in me !" 
 Because the spirit, the infinite, does not allow of com- 
 ing to any end, therefore it is stationary ; it fears dying, 
 it cannot let go its dear Jesus, the greatness of finiteness 
 is no longer recognized by its blinded eye; the object of 
 fear, now raised to veneration, may no longer be handled ; 
 reverence is made eternal, the respected is deified. The 
 
 * [Ehrfurcht} 
 
 t [gefuerchtet] J [geehrt] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 77 
 
 man is now no longer employed in creating, but in learn- 
 mg (knowing, investigating, etc.), i. e, occupied with a 
 fixed object, losing himself in its depths, without return 
 to himself. The Yelation to this object is that of knowing, 
 fathoming, basing, etc., not that of dissolution (abroga- 
 tion, etc.). ''Man is to be religious," that is settled; 
 therefore people busy themselves only with the question 
 how this is to be attained, what is the right meaning of 
 religiousness, etc. Quite otherwise when one makes the 
 axiom itself doubtful and calls it in question, even 
 though it should go to smash. Morality too is such a 
 sacred conception ; one must be moral, and must look only 
 for the right ''how,'' the right way to be so. One dares 
 not go at morality itself with the question whether it is 
 not itself an illusion; it remains exalted above all doubt, 
 unchangeable. And so we go on with the sacred, grade 
 after grade, from the "holy'' to the "holy of holies." 
 
 Men are sometimes divided into two classes, cultured 
 and uncultured. The former, so far as they were worthy 
 of their name, occupied themselves with thoughts, with 
 mind, and (because in the time since Christ, of which the 
 very principle is thought, they w^ere the ruling ones) de- 
 manded a servile respect for the thoughts recognized by 
 them. State, emperor, church, God, morality, order, etc., 
 are such thoughts or spirits, that exist only for the mind. 
 A merely living being, an animal, cares as little for them 
 as a child. But the uncultured are really nothing but 
 children, and he who attends only to the necessities of 
 his life is indifferent to those spirits ; but, because he is 
 also weak before them, he succumbs to their power, and 
 is ruled by — thoughts. This is the meaning of hierarchy. 
 
 Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind! 
 
 We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who 
 are supported by thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred. 
 
 But the two are always clashing, now one and now 
 the other giving the offence : and this clash occurs, not 
 only in the collision of two men, but in one and the 
 
78 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 same man. For no cultured man is so cultured as not to 
 find enjoyment in things too, and so be uncultured; 
 and no uncultured man is totally without thoughts. In 
 Hegel it comes to light at last what a longing for things 
 even the most cultured man has, and what a horror of 
 every ''hollow theory" he harbors. With him reality, 
 the world of things, is altogether to correspond to the 
 thought, and no concept to be without reality. This caused 
 Hegel's system to be known as the most objective, as 
 if in it thought and thing celebrated their union. But 
 this was simply the extremest case of violence on the part 
 of thought, its highest pitch of despotism and sole do- 
 minion, the triumph of mind, and with it the triumph of 
 philosophy. Philosophy cannot hereafter achieve any- 
 thing higher, for its highest is the omnipotence of mind, 
 the almightiness of mind."^ 
 
 Spiritual men have taken into their head something 
 that is to be realized. They have concepts of love, good- 
 ness, and the like, which they would like to see realized; 
 therefore they want to set up a kingdom of love on earth, 
 in which no one any longer acts from selfishness, but each 
 one ''from love." Love is to rule. What they have taken 
 into their head, what shall we call it but — fixed idea? 
 Why, "their head is haunted/' The most oppressive 
 spook is Man. Think of the proverb, "The road to ruin 
 is paved with good intentions." The intention to realize 
 humanity altogether in oneself, to become altogether 
 man, is of such ruinous kind ; here belongs the intentions 
 to become good, noble, loving, etc. 
 
 In the sixth part of the ''Denkwuerdigkeiten," p. 7, 
 Bruno Bauer says : "That middle class, which was to re- 
 ceive such a terrible importance for modern history, is 
 capable of no self-sacrificing action, no enthusiasm for 
 an idea, no exaltation; it devotes itself to nothing but 
 
 * Rousseau, the Philanthropists, and others were hostile to 
 culture and intelligence, but they overlooked the fact that this ts 
 present in all men of the Christian type, and assailed only learned 
 and refined culture. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 79 
 
 the interests of is mediocrity; i, e. it remains always 
 limited to itself, and conquers at last only through its 
 bulk, with which it has succeeded in tiring out the efforts 
 of passion, enthusiasm, consistency — through its surface, 
 into which it absorbs a part of the new ideas." And 
 (p. 6) ''It has turned the revolutionary ideas, for which 
 not it, but unselfish or impassioned men sacrificed them- 
 elves solely to its own profit, has turned spirit into money. 
 — That is, to be sure, after it had taken away from those 
 ideas their point, their consistency, their destructive seri- 
 ousness, fanatical against all egoism." These people, 
 then, are not self-sacrificing, not enthusiastic, not ideal- 
 istic, not consistent, not zealots; they are egoists in the 
 usual sense, selfish people, looking out for their advant- 
 age, sober, calculating, etc. 
 
 Who, then, is "self-sacrificing" P"^' In the full sense, 
 surely, he who ventures everything else for one thing, 
 one object, one will^ one passion, etc. Is not the lover 
 self-sacrificing who forsakes father and mother, endures 
 all dangers and privations, to reach his goal? Or the 
 ambitious man, who offers up all his desires, wishes, and 
 satisfactions to the single passion, or the avaricious man 
 who denies himself everything to gather treasures, or 
 the pleasure-seeker, etc.? He is ruled by a passion to 
 which he brings the rest as sacrifices. 
 
 And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not sel- 
 fish, not egoists? As they have only one ruling passion, 
 so they provide for only one satisfaction, but for this 
 the more strenuously; they are wholly absorbed in it. 
 Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a onesided, un- 
 opened, narrow egoism ; it is possessedness. 
 
 ''Why, those are petty passions, by which, on the con- 
 trary, man must not let himself be enthralled. Man 
 must make sacrifices for a great idea, a great cause!" 
 A "great idea," a "good cause," is^ it may be, the honor 
 
 * [Literally, ''sacrificing"; the German word has not the prefix 
 "self."] 
 
80 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of God, for which innumerable pople have met death, 
 Christianity, which has found its wiUing martyrs; the 
 Holy Catholic Church, which has greedily demanded 
 sacrifices of heretics; liberty and equality, which were 
 vvaited on by bloody guillotines. 
 
 He who lives for a great idea, a good cause, a doc- 
 trine, a system, a lofty calling, may not let any worldly 
 lusts, any self-seeking interest, spring up in him. Here 
 we have the concept of clericalism, or, as it may also 
 be called in its pedagogic activity, school-masterliness ; 
 for the idealist play the schoolmaster over us. The 
 clergyman is especially called to live to the idea and to 
 work for the idea, the truly good cause. Therefore the 
 people feel how little it befits him to show worldly 
 haughtiness, to desire good living, to join in such pleas- 
 ures as dancing and gaming — in short, to have any other 
 than a ''sacred interest." Hence too, doubtless, is derived 
 the scanty salary of teachers, who are to feel themselves 
 repaid by the sacredness of their calling alone, and to 
 ^'renounce'' other enjoyments. 
 
 Even a directory of the sacred ideas, one or more of 
 which man is to look upon at his calling, is not lacking. 
 Family, fatherland, science, etc., may find in me a serv- 
 ant faithful to his calling. 
 
 Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world, 
 which has not yet learned to do without clericalism— 
 that to live and work for an idea is man's calling, and 
 according to the faithfulness of its fulfilment his human 
 worth is measured. 
 
 This is the dominion of the idea; in other words, it 
 is clericalism. E. g., Robespierre, St. Just, etc., were 
 priests through and through, inspired by the idea, en- 
 thusiasts, consistent instruments of this idea, idealistic 
 •men. So St. Just exclaims in a speech, ''There is some- 
 thing terrible in the sacred love of country; it is so ex- 
 clusive that it sacrifices everything to the public interest 
 without mercy, without fear, without human considera- 
 tion. It hurls Manlius down the precipice ; it sacrifices 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 81 
 
 its private inclinations ; it leads Regulus to Carthage, 
 throws a Roman into the chasm, and sets Marat, as a 
 victim of his devotion, in the Pantheon." 
 
 Now, over against these representatives of ideal or 
 sacrec interests stands a world of innumerable "person- 
 al" profane interests. No idea, no system, no sacred 
 cause is so great as never to be outrivaled and modified 
 by these personal interests. Even if they are silent mo- 
 mentarily, and in times of rage and fanaticism, yet they 
 soon come uppermost again through "the sound sense of 
 the people." Those ideas do not completely conquer till 
 they are no longer hostile to personal interests, i. e, till 
 they satisfy egoism. 
 
 The man who is just now crying herrings in front of 
 my window has a personal interest in good sales, and, 
 if his wife or anybody else wishes him the like, this re- 
 mains a personal interest all the same. If, on the other 
 hand, a thief deprived him of his basket, then there 
 would at once arise an interest of many, of the whole 
 city, of the whole country, or, in a word, of all who 
 abhor theft ; an interest in which the herring-seller's per- 
 son would become indifferent, and in its place the cate- 
 gory of the "robbed man" would come into the fore- 
 ground. But even here all might yet resolve itself into 
 a personal interest, each of the partakers reflecting that 
 he must concur in the punishment of the theft because 
 impunished stealing might otherwise become general and 
 cause him too to lose his own. Such a calculation, how- 
 ever, can hardly be assumed on the part of many, and we 
 shall rather hear the cry that the thief is a "criminal." 
 Here we have before us a judgment, the thief's action 
 receiving its expression in the concept "crime." Now 
 the matter stands thus: even if a crime did not cause 
 the slightest damage either to me or to any of those in 
 whom I take an Interest, I should nevertheless denounce 
 it. Why? Because I am enthusiastic for morality, filled 
 with the idea of morality : what is hostile to it I every- 
 where assail. Because In his mind theft ranks as abom- 
 
82 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 inable without any question, Proudhon, e. g., thinks that 
 with the sentence ^'Property is theft'' he has at once 
 put a brand on property. In the sense of the priestly, 
 theft is always a crime, or at least a misdeed. 
 
 Here the personal interest is at an end. This par- 
 ticular person who has stolen the basket is perfectly 
 indifferent to my. person; it is only the thief, this con- 
 cept of which that person presents a specimen, that I 
 take an interest in. The thief and man are in my mind 
 irreconcilable opposites ; for one is not truly man when 
 one is a thief ; one degrades Man or ''humanity" in him- 
 self when one steals. Dropping out of personal con 
 cern, one gets into philanthropism, friendliness to man, 
 which is usually misunderstood as if it was a love to men, 
 to each individual, while it is nothing but a love of Man, 
 the unreal concept, the spook. It is not toü ; avöpcoT cue 
 men, but Vox(j)dQ/^» ^^oi Man, that the philanthropist 
 carries in his heart. To be sure, he cares for each indi- 
 vidual, but only because he wants to see his beloved ideal 
 realized everywhere. 
 
 So there is nothing here of care for me, you, us; 
 that would be personal interest, and belongs under the 
 head of ''worldly love." Philanthropism is a heavenly, 
 spiritual, a — priestly love. Man must be restored in us, 
 even if thereby we poor devils should come to grief. It 
 is the same priestly principle as that famous fiat justitia, 
 pereat mundiis; man and justice are ideas, ghosts, for 
 love of which everything is sacrificed; therefore the 
 priestly spirits are the "self-sacrificing" ones. 
 
 He who infatuated with Man leaves persons out of 
 account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in 
 an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see, is not a person, 
 but an ideal, a spook. 
 
 Now, things as different as possible can belong to Man 
 and be so regarded. If one finds Man's chief reauire- 
 ment in piety, there arises relisrious clericalism: if one 
 sees it in morality, then moral clericalism raises its head. 
 On this account the priestly spirits of our day want to 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 83 
 
 make a ^'religion'' of everything, a ''religion of liberty," 
 ^'religion of equality," etc., and for them every idea be- 
 comes a ''sacred cause," e, g, even citizenship, politics, 
 freedom of the press, trial by jury, etc. 
 
 Now, what does ''unselfishness" mean in this sense? 
 Having only an ideal interest, before which no respect of 
 persons avail ! 
 
 The stiff head of the worldly man opposes this, but 
 for centuries has always been worsted at least so far as 
 to have to bend the unruly neck and "honor the higher 
 power"; clericalism pressed it down. When the worldly 
 egoist had shaken off a higher power {e. g. the Old 
 Testament law, the Roman pope, etc.), then at once a 
 seven times higher one was over him again, e. g. faith in 
 the place of the law, the transformation of all laymen 
 into divines in place of the limited body of clergy, etc. 
 His experience was like that of the possessed man into 
 whom seven devils passed when he thought he had 
 freed himself from one. 
 
 In the passage quoted above all ideality, etc., is 
 denied to the middle class. It certainly schemed against 
 the ideal consistency with which Robespierre wanted to 
 carry out the principle. The instinct of its interest told 
 it that this consistency harmonized too little with what its 
 mind was set on, and that it would be acting against 
 itself if it were willing to further the enthusiasm for 
 principle. Was it to behave so unselfishly as to abandon 
 all its aims in order to bring a harsh theory to its 
 triumph? It suits the priests admirably, to be sure, when 
 people listen to their summons, "Cast away everything 
 and follow me," or "Sell all that thou hast and give to 
 the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and 
 come, follow me." Some decided idealists obey this call ; 
 but most act like Ananias and Sapphira, maintaining a 
 behavior half clerical or religious and half worldly, 
 serving God and Mammon. 
 
 I do not blame the middle class for not wanting to let 
 its aims be frustrated by Robespierre, i, e. for inquiring 
 
84 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of its egoism how far it might give the revolutionary 
 idea a chance. But one might blame (if blame were in 
 place here anyhow) those who let their own interests 
 be frustrated by the interests of the middle class. How- 
 ever, will not they likew^ise sooner or later learn to 
 understand what is to their advantage? Aug^^st Becker 
 says:"^ ''To win the producers (proletarians) ^ negation 
 of the traditional conception of right is by no means 
 enough. Folks unfortunately care little for the theoreti- 
 cal victory of the idea. One must demonstrate to them 
 ad oculos how this victory can be practically utilized in 
 life.'' And (p. 32) : ^'You must get hold of folks by 
 their real interests if you want to work upon them." 
 Immediately after this he shows how a fine looseness of 
 morals is already spreading among our peasants, because 
 they prefer to follow their real interests rather than the 
 commands of morality. 
 
 Because the revoluntionary priests or schoolmasters 
 «erved Man, they cut ofif the heads of men. The revo- 
 lutionary laymen, those outside the sacred circle, did not 
 feel any greater horror of cutting off heads, but were 
 less anxious about the rights of Man than about their 
 own. 
 
 How comes it, though, that the egoism of those who 
 affirm personal interest, and always inquire of it, is never- 
 the less forever succumbing to a priestly or schoolmas- 
 terly (/ e. an ideal) interest? Their person seems to them 
 too small, too insignificant — and is so in fact — to lay 
 claim to everything and be able to put itself completely 
 in force. There is a sure sign of this in their dividing 
 themselves into two persons, an eternal and a temporal, 
 and always caring either only for the other, on Sunday 
 for the eternal, on the work-day for the temporal, in 
 prayer for the former, in work for the latter. They have 
 the priest in themselves, therefore they do not get rid of 
 him, but hear themselves lectured inwardly every Sunday. 
 
 "Volksphilosophie unserer Tage, ' p. 22. | 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 85 
 
 How men have struggled and calculated to get at a 
 solution regarding these dualistic essences! Idea fol- 
 lowed upon idea, principle upon principle, system upon 
 system, and none knew how to keep down permanently 
 the contradiction of the ''worldly" man, the so-called 
 ''egoist/' Does not this prove that all those ideas were 
 too feeble to take up my whole will into themselves and 
 satisfy it? They were and remained hostile to me, even 
 if the hostility lay concealed for a considerable time. Will 
 it be the same with self -ownership? Is it too only an 
 attempt at mediation? Whatever principle I turned to, 
 it might be to that of reason, I always had to turn away 
 from it again. Or can I always be rational, arrange my 
 life according to reason in everything? I can, no doubt, 
 strive after rationality. I can love it, just as I can also 
 love God and every other idea. I can be a philosopher, a 
 lover of wisdom, as I love God. But what I love, what 1 
 strive for, is only in my idea, my conception, my 
 thoughts ; it is in my heart, my head, it is in me like the 
 heart, but it is not I, I am not it. 
 
 To the activity of priestly minds belongs especially 
 what one often hear? called ''moral influence!' 
 
 Moral influence takes its start where humiliation be- 
 gins ; yes, it is nothing else than this humiliation itself, 
 the breaking and bending of the temper* down to 
 humility, If I call to some one to run away when a rock 
 is to be blasted, I exert no moral influence by this 
 demand ; if I say to a child "You will go hungry if you 
 will not eat what is put on the table," this is not moral 
 influence. But, if I say to it "You will pray, honor your 
 parents, respect the crucifix, speak the truth, etc., for this 
 belongs to man and is man's calling," or even "this is 
 God's will," then moral influence is complete : then a man 
 is to bend before the calling of man, be tractable, become 
 humble, .i^-ive up his will for an alien one which is set up 
 as rule and law ; he is to ahase himself before something 
 
 * [Muth] 
 
 t [Demuth] 
 
86 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 higher; self-abasement. ''He that abaseth himself shall 
 be exalted." Yes, yes, children must early be made to 
 practise piety, godliness, and propriety ; a person of good 
 breeding is one into whom "good maxims'' have been 
 installed and impressed, poured in through a funnel, 
 thrashed in and preached in. 
 
 If one shrugs his shoulders at this, at once the good 
 wring their hands despairingly, and cry: "But, for 
 heaven's sake, if one is to give children no good instruc- 
 tion, why^ then they will run straight into the jaws of 
 sin, and become good-for-nothing hoodlums !" Gently, 
 you prophets of evil. Good-for-nothing in your sense 
 they certainly become : but your sense happens to be a 
 very good-for-nothing sense. The impudent lads will no 
 longer let anything be whined and chattered into them by 
 you, and will have no sympathy for all the follies for 
 which you have been raving and driveling since the 
 memory of man began ; they will abolish the law of 
 inheritance, i, e. they will not be willing to inherit your 
 stupidities as you inherited them from your fathers; 
 they destroy inherited sin."^ If you command them, 
 "Bend before the Most High," they will answer: "If he 
 wants to bend us, let him come himself and do it ; we, at 
 least, will not bend of our own accord." And, if you 
 threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, thev 
 will take it like being tlireatened with the bogie-man. If 
 you are no longer successful in making them afraid of 
 ghosts, then the dominion of ghosts is at an end, and 
 nurses' tales find no — faith. 
 
 And is it not precisely the liberals again that press for 
 good education and improvement of the educational 
 system? For how could their liberalism, their "liberty 
 within the bounds of law," come about without discipline? 
 Even if they do not exactly educate to the fear of God, 
 yet thev demand the fear of Man all the more strictly, 
 and awaken "enthusiasm for the truly human calling" 
 by discipline. 
 
 ^ [Called in English theology "original sin."] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 87 
 
 A long time passed away, in which people were satis- 
 fied with the fancy that they had the truth, without think- 
 ing seriously whether perhaps they themselves must be 
 true to possess the truth. This time was the Middle Ages, 
 With the common- consciousness — i, e. the consciousness 
 which deals with things, that consciousness which has 
 receptivity only for things, or for what is sensuous and 
 sense-moving — they thought to grasp what did not deal 
 with things and was not perceptible by the senses. As 
 one does indeed also exert his eye to see the remote, or 
 laboriously exercise his hand till its fingers have become 
 dexterous enough to press the keys correctly, so they 
 chastened themselves in the most manifold ways, in order 
 to become capable of receiving the supersensual wholly 
 into themselves. But what they chastened was, after all, 
 only the sensual man, the common consciousness, so- 
 called finite or objective thought. Yet as this thought, 
 this understanding, which Luther decries under the name 
 of reason, is incapable of comprehending the divine, its 
 chastening contributed just as much to the understanding 
 of the truth as if one exercised the feet year in and year 
 out in dancing, and hoped that in this way they would 
 finally learn to play the flute. Luther, with whom the 
 so-called Middle Ages end, was the first who understood 
 that the man himself must become other than he was if 
 he wanted to comprehend truth — must become as true 
 as truth itself. Only he who already has truth in his 
 belief, only he who believes in it, can become a partaker 
 of it ; i, e.y only the believer finds it accessible and sounds 
 its depths. Only that organ of man which is able to 
 blow can attain the further capacity of flute-playing, and 
 only that man can become a partaker of truth who has 
 the right organ for it. He who is capable of thinking only 
 what is sensuous, objective, pertaining to things, figures 
 to himself in truth only what pertains to things. But 
 truth is spirit, stuff altogether inappreciable by the senses 
 and therefore only for the ''higher consciousness," not 
 for that which is ''earthly-minded. " 
 
88 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 With Luther, accordingly, dawns the perception that 
 truth, because it is a thought, is only for the thinking 
 man. And this is to say that man must henceforth take 
 an utterly different standpoint, viß., the heavenly, believ- 
 ing, scientific standpoint, or that of thought in relation 
 to its object, the — thought — that of mind in relation to 
 mind. Consequently : only the like apprehend the like. 
 *'You are like the spirit that you understand." 
 
 Because Protestantism broke the mediaeval hierarchy, 
 the opinion could take root that hierarchy in general had 
 been shattered by it, and could be wholly overlooked that 
 it was precisely a ''reformation," and so a reinvigoration 
 of the antiquated hierarchy. That mediaeval hierarchy 
 had been only a weakly one, as it had to let all possible 
 barbarism of unsanctified things run on uncoerced beside 
 it, and it was the Reformation that first steeled the power 
 of hierarchy. If Bruno Bauer thinks :j ''As the Refor- 
 mation was mainly the abstract rending of the religious 
 principle from art. State, and science, and so its libera- 
 tion from those powers with which it had joined itself 
 in the antiquity of the church and in the hierarchy of the 
 Middle Ages, so too the theological and ecclesiastical 
 movements which proceeded from the Reformation are 
 only the consistent carrying out of this abstraction of the 
 religious principle from the other powers of humanity," 
 I regard precisely the opposite as correct, and think that 
 the dominion of spirits, or freedom of mind (which 
 comes to the same thing), was never before so all-em- 
 bracing and all powerful, because the present one, instead 
 of rending the religious principle from art. State, and 
 science, lifted the latter altogether out of secularity into 
 the ''realm of spirit" and made them religious. 
 
 Luther and Descartes have been appropriately put side 
 by side in their "He who believes is a God" and "I think, 
 therefore I am" (cogito, ergo sum), Man's heaven is 
 thought — mind. Everything can be wrested from him. 
 
 ^ [Goethe, "Fiaust."] 
 
 t ''Anekdota;' II, 152. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 89 
 
 except faith. Particular faith, Hke faith in Zeus, Astarte, 
 Jehovah, Allah, etc., may be destroyed, but faith itself 
 is indestructible. In thought is freedom. What I need 
 and what I hunger for is no longer granted to me by any 
 grace, by the Virgin Mary, by intercession of the saints, 
 or by the binding and loosing church, but I procure it 
 for myself. In short, my being (the sum) is a living in 
 the heaven of thought, of mind, a cogitare. But I my- 
 self am nothing else than mind, thinking mind (accord- 
 ing to Descartes), believing mind (according to 
 Luther). My body I am not; my flesh may suffer from 
 appetites or pains. I am not my flesh, but / am mind, 
 only mind. 
 
 This thought runs through the history of the Refor- 
 mation till to-day. 
 
 Only by the more modern philosophy since Descartes 
 has a serious efifort been made to bring Christianity to 
 complete efficacy, by exalting the ''scientific conscious- 
 ness'' to be the only true and valid one. Hence it begins 
 with absolute doubt^ diibitare, with grinding common con- 
 sciousness to atoms, with turning away from ever3rthing 
 that ''mind," "thought,'' does not legitimate. To it Nature 
 counts for nothing; the opinion of men, their "human 
 precepts," for nothing: and it does not rest till it has 
 brought reason into everything, and can say "The real 
 is the rational, and only the rational is the real." Thus 
 it has at last brought mind, reason, to victory ; and every- 
 thing is mind, because everything is rational, because all 
 nature, as well as even the perversest opinions of men, 
 contains reason; for "all must serve for the best," i. e. 
 lead to the victory of reason. 
 
 Descarte's dubitare contains the decided statement that 
 only cogitare, thought, mind — is. A complete break with 
 "common" consciousness, which ascribes reality to irra- 
 tional things ! Only the rational is, only mind is ! This 
 is the principle of modern philosophy, the genuine 
 Christian principle. Descartes in his own time discrim- 
 
90 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 inated the body sharply from the mind, and "the spirit 
 'tis that builds itself the body/' says Goethe. 
 
 But this philosophy itself, Christian philosophy, still i 
 does not get rid of the rational, and therefore inveighs I 
 against the "merely subjective," against ''fancies, fortu- 
 ities, arbitrariness," etc. What it wants is that the divine 
 should become visible in everything, and all consciousness 
 become a knowing of the divine, and man behold God 
 everywhere ; but God never is, without the devil. 
 
 For this very reason the name of philosopher is not 
 to be given to him who has indeed open eyes for the 
 things of the world, a clear and undazzled gaze, a cor- 
 rect judgment about the world, but who sees in the 
 world just the world, in objects only objects, and, in 
 short, everything prosaically as it is; but he alone is a 
 philosopher who sees, and points out or demonstrates, 
 heaven in the world, the supernal in the earthly, the — 
 divine in the mundane. The former may be ever so wise, 
 there is no getting away from this: 
 
 What wise men see not by their wisdom's art 
 Is practised simply by a childlike heart.* 
 
 It takes this childlike heart, this eye for the divine, to 
 make a philosopher. The first-named man has only a 
 "common" consciousness, but he who knows the divine, 
 and knows how to tell it, has a "scientific" one. On 
 this ground Bacon was turned out of the realm of philoso- 
 phers. And certainly what is called English philosophy 
 seems to have got no further than to the discoveries of 
 so-called "clear heads," such as Bacon and Hume. The 
 English did not know how to exalt the simplicity of the 
 childlike heart to philosophic significance, did not know 
 how to make — ^philosophers out of childlike hearts. This 
 is as much as to say, their philosophy was not able to 
 become theological or theology, and yet it is onlv as 
 theology that it can really live itself out, complete itself. 
 The field of its battle to the death is in theology. Bacon 
 
 * [Schiller, *'Die Worte des Glavhms'''' 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 91 
 
 did not trouble himself about theological questions and 
 cardinal points. 
 
 Cognition has its object in life. German thought seeks, 
 more than that of others, to reach the beginnings and 
 fountain-heads of life, and sees no life till it sees it in 
 cognition itself. Descarte's cogito, ergo sum has the 
 meaning ''One lives only when one thinks." Thinking 
 life is called ''intellectual life'M Only mind lives, its 
 life is the true life. Then, just so in nature only the 
 "eternal laws,'' the mind or the reason of nature, are its 
 true life. In man, as in nature, only the thought lives; 
 everything else is dead ! To this abstraction, to the life of 
 generalities or of that which is lifeless, the history of 
 mind had to come. God, who is spirit, alone lives. Noth- 
 mg lives but the ghost. 
 
 How can one try to assert of modern philosophy or 
 modern times that they have reached freedom, since they 
 have not freed us from the power of objectivity? Or 
 am I perhaps free from a despot when I am not afraid of 
 the personal potentate, to be sure, but of evÄ^y infraction 
 of the loving reverence which I fancy I owe him? The 
 case is the same with modern times. They only changed 
 the existing objects, the real ruler, etc., into conceived 
 objects, i. e. into ideas, before which the old respect not 
 only was not lost, but increased in intensity. Even if 
 people snapped their fingers at God and the devil in their 
 former crass reality, people devoted only the greater 
 attention to their ideas. "They are rid of the Evil One; 
 evil is left.''''' The decision having once been made not 
 to let oneself be imposed on any longer by the extant and 
 palpable, little scruple was felt about revolting against 
 the existing State or overturning the existing laws ; but 
 to sin against the idea of the State, not to submit to the 
 idea of law, who would have dared that? So one 
 remained a "citizen" and a "law-respecting," loyal man; 
 
 * [Parodied from the words of Mephistopheles in the witch's 
 kitchen in "Faust."] 
 
92 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 yes, one seemed to himself to be only so much more law- 
 respecting, the more rationalistically one abrogated the 
 former defective law in order to do homage to the "spirit 
 of the law." In all this the objects had only suffered a 
 change of form ; they had remained in their prepollence 
 and pre-eminence; in short, one was still involved in 
 obedience and possessedness, lived in reflection, and had 
 an object on which one reflected, which one respected, and 
 before which one felt reverence and fear. One had 
 done nothing but transform the things into conceptions 
 of the things, into thoughts and ideas, whereby one's 
 dependence became all the more intimate and indissoluble. 
 So, e, g,y it is not hard to emancipate oneself from the 
 commands of parents, or to set aside the admonitions of 
 uncle and aunt, the entreaties of brother and sister; but 
 the renounced obedience easily gets into one's conscience, 
 and the less one does give way to the individual demands, 
 because he rationalistically, by his own reason, recognizes 
 them to be unreasonable, so much the more conscientious- 
 ly does he hold fast to filial piety and family love, and so 
 much the harder is it for him to forgive himself a tres- 
 pass against the conception which he has formed of fam- 
 ily love and of filial duty. Released from dependence as 
 regards the existing family, one falls into the more bind- 
 ing dependence on the idea of the family ; one io ruled by 
 the spirit of the family. The family consisting of John, 
 Maggie, etc., whose dominion has become powerless is 
 only internalized, being left as ''family" in general, to 
 which one just applies the old saying, ''We must obey God 
 rather than man," whose significance here is this : "I can- 
 not, to be sure, accommodate myself to your senseless 
 requirements, but, as my 'family,' you still remain the ob- 
 ject of my love and care for "the family" is a sacred idea, 
 which the individual must never offend against. — And 
 this family internalized and desensualized into a thought, 
 a conception, now ranks as the "sacred," whose despotism 
 is tenfold more grievous because it makes a racket in my 
 conscience. This despotism is broken only when the con- 
 ception, family, also becomes a nothing to me. The 
 
* MEN OF THE DLD TIME AND THE NEW 93 
 
 Christian dicta, ''Woman, what have I to do with thee?''* 
 *'I am come to stir up a man against his father, and a 
 daughter against her mother,"t and others, are accom- 
 panied by something that refers us to the heavenly or 
 true family, and mean no more than the State's demand, 
 in case of a collision between it and the family, that we 
 obey its commands. 
 
 The case of morality is like that of the family. Many 
 a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the con-^ 
 ception, ''morality." Morality is the "idea" of morals,, 
 their intellectual power, their power over the conscience ; 
 on the other hand, morals are too material to rule the 
 mind, and do not fetter an "intellectual" man ; a so-called 
 independent, a "freethinker." 
 
 The Protestant may put it as he will, the "holyf 
 Scripture," the "Word of God," still remains sacred§ for 
 him. He for whom this is no longer "holy" has ceased 
 to — be a Protestant. But herewith what is "ordained" 
 in it, the public authorities appointed by God, etc., also 
 remain sacred for him. For him these things remain 
 indissoluble, unapprochable, "raised above all doubt" ; 
 and, as doubt, which in practice becomes a buffeting, 
 is what is most man's own, these things remain "raised" 
 above himself. He who cannot get away from them will — 
 believe; for to believe in them is to be hound to them, 
 indissoluble, unapproachable, "raised above all doubt"; 
 Through the fact that in Protestantism the faith became a 
 more inward faith, the servitude has also become a more 
 inward servitude; one has taken those sanctities up into 
 himself, entwined them with all his thoughts and en- 
 deavors, made them a ''matter of conscience construct- 
 ed out of them a ''sacred duty'' for himself. Therefore 
 what the Protestant's conscience cannot get away from 
 is sacred to him, and conscientiousness most clearly de- 
 signates his character. 
 
 Protestantism has actually put a man in the position 
 of a country governed by secret police. The spy and 
 eavesdropper, "conscience," watches over every motion 
 
 -"John 2, 4. tMatt. 10, 35. t [heilig] § [heilig\ 
 
94 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of the mind, and all thought, and action is for it a "mat- 
 ter of conscience/' i, e, police business. This tearing 
 apart of man into ^'natural impulse'' and ^^conscience" 
 (inner populace and inner police) is what constitutes the 
 Protestant. The reason of the Bible (in place of the 
 Catholic ''reason of the church") ranks as sacred, and 
 this feeling and consciousness that the word of the Bible 
 is sacred is called — conscience. With this, then, sacred- 
 ness is "laid upon one's conscience." If one does not 
 free himself from conscience, the consciousness of the 
 sacred, he may act unconscientiously indeed, but never 
 consciencelessly. 
 
 The Catholic finds himself satisfied when he fulfils 
 the command; the Protestant acts according to his "best 
 judgment and conscience." For the Catholic is only a 
 layman; the Protestant is himself a clergyman."^ Just 
 this is the progress of the Reformation period beyond 
 the Middle Ages, and at the same time its curse — that 
 the spiritual became complete. 
 
 What else was the Jesuit moral philosophy than a 
 continuation of the sale of indulgences? only that the 
 man who was relieved of his burden of sin now gained 
 also an insight into the remission of sins, and convinced 
 himself how really his sin was taken from him, since 
 in this or that particular case (Casuists) it was so clearly 
 no sin at all that he committed. The sale of indulgences 
 had made all sins and transgressions permissible, and 
 silenced every movement of conscience. All sensuality 
 might hold sway, if it was only purchased from the 
 church. This favoring of sensuality was continued by 
 the Jesuits, while the strictly moral, dark, fanatical, 
 repentant, contrite, praying* Protestants (as the tru^ 
 completers of Christianity, to be sure) acknowledged 
 only the intellectual and spiritual man. Catholicism, 
 especially the Jesuits, gave aid to egoism in this way, 
 found involuntary and unconscious adherents within 
 Protestantism itself, and saved us from the subversion 
 
 * [Geistlicher, literally "spiritual man.'*] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 95 
 
 and extinction of sensuality. Nevertheless the Protestant 
 spirit spreads its dominion farther and farther; and, as, 
 beside it the ^'divine," the Jesuit spirit represents only 
 the ''diabolic" which is inseparable from everything di- 
 vine, the latter can never assert itself alone, but must 
 look on and see how in France, e, g., the Philistinism of 
 Protestantism wins at last, and mind is on top. 
 
 Protestantism is usually complimented on having 
 brought the mundane into repute again, e, g, marriage, 
 the State, etc. But the mundane itself as mundane, the 
 secular, is even more indifferent to it than to Catholicism, 
 which lets the profane world stand, yes, and relishes its 
 pleasures, while the rational, consistent Protestant sets 
 simply by hallowing it. So marriag e has been depx ived 
 of it s naturalness by_becommg sacred, not in the sense 
 of the Catholic sacrament, where it only receives its 
 consecration from the church and so is unholy at bottom, 
 but in the sense of being something sacred in itself to 
 begin with, a sacred relation. Just so the State, etc. 
 Formerly the pope gave consecration and his blessing to 
 it and its princes; now the State is intrinsically sacred, 
 majesty is sacred without needing the priest's blessing. 
 The order of nature, or natural law, was altogether 
 hallowed as "God's ordinance." Hence it is said e, g. 
 in the Augsburg Confession, Art. 11: ''So now we rea- 
 sonably abide by the saying, as the jurisconsults have 
 wisely and rightly said : that man and woman should be 
 with each other is a natural law. Now, if it is a natural 
 law, then it is God's ordinance, therefore implanted in 
 nature, and therefore a divine law also." And is ittany- 
 thing more than Protestantism brought up to date, when 
 Feuerbach pronounces moral relations sacred, not as 
 God's ordinance indeed, but, instead, for the sake of 
 the spirit that dwells in them? "But marriage — as a free 
 alliance of love, of course — is sacred of itself, by the 
 nature of the union that is formed here. That marriage 
 alone is a religious one that is a true one, that corre- 
 spond to the essense of marriage, love. And so it is 
 with all moral relations. They are ethical, are cultivated 
 
96 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 with a moral mind, only where they rank as religious of 
 themselves. True friendship is only where the limits 
 of friendship are preserved with religious conscientious- 
 ness, with the same conscientiousness with which the 
 believer guards the dignity of his God. Friendship is 
 and must be sacred for you, and property, and marriage 
 and the good of every man, but sacred in and of 
 itself:'^ 
 
 That is a very essential consideration. In Catholicism 
 the mundane can indeed be consecrated or hallowed, but 
 it is not sacred without this priestly blessing ; in Protes- 
 tantism, on the contrary, mundane relations are sacred 
 of themselves, sacred by their mere existence. The 
 Jesuit maxim, ''the end hallows the means,'' corresponds 
 precisely to the consecration by which sanctity is be- 
 stowed. No means are holy or unholy in themselves, 
 but their relation to the church, their use for the church, 
 hallows the means. Regicide was named as such; if 
 it was committed for the church's behoof, it could be 
 certain of being hallowed by the church, even if the 
 hallowing was not openly pronounced. To the Protestant, 
 majesty ranks as sacred; to the Catholic only that maj- 
 esty which is consecrated by the pontiff can rank as such ; 
 and it does rank as such to him only because the pope, 
 even though it be without a special act, confers this 
 sacredness on it once for all. If he retracted his con- 
 secration, the king would be left only a ''man of the world 
 or layman,'^ an "unconsecrated" man, to the Catholic. 
 
 If the Protestant seeks to discover a sacredness in 
 the sensual itself, that he miay be linked only to what is 
 holy> the Catholic strives rather to banish the sensual 
 from himself into a separate domain, where it, like the 
 rest of nature, keeps its value for itself. The Catholic' 
 church eliminated mundane marriage from its consecrated 
 order, and withdrew those who were its own from the 
 mundane family ; the Protestant church declared marriage 
 and family ties to be holy, and therefore not unsuitable 
 for its clergymen. 
 
 * "Essence of Christianity," p. 403. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 97 
 
 A Jesuit may, as a good Catholic, hallow everything. 
 He needs only e, g, to say to himself: 'T as a priest am 
 necessary to the churchy but serve it more zealously when 
 I appease my desires properly ; consequently I will seduce 
 this girl, have my enemy there poisoned, etc. ; my end is 
 holy because it is a priest's, consequently it hallows the 
 means." For in the end it is still done for the benefit of 
 the church. Why should the Catholic priest shrink from 
 handing Emperor Henry VH the poisoned wafer for the 
 — church's welfare? 
 
 The genuinely — churchly Protestants inveighed against 
 every ''innocent pleasure/' because only the sacred, the 
 spiritual, could be innocent What they could not point 
 out the holy spirit in the Protestants had to reject — 
 dancing, the theatre, ostentation {e, g. in the church), and 
 the like. 
 
 Compared with this puritanical Calvanism, Luther- 
 anism is again more on the religious i, e. spiritual, track 
 — is more radical. For the former excludes at once 
 a great number of things as sensual and worldly, 
 and purifies the church ; Lutheranism, on the contrary, 
 tries to bring spirit into all things as far as possible, to 
 recognize the holy spirit as an essense in everything, and 
 so to hallow everything worldly. ("No one can forbid a 
 kiss in honor." The spirit of honor hallows it.) Hence 
 it was that the Lutheran Hegel (he declares himself such 
 in some passage or other : he "wants to remain a Luther- 
 an") was completely successful in carrying the idea 
 through everything. In everything there is reason, i. e, 
 holy spirit, or "the real is rational." For the real is in 
 fact everything, as in each thing, e. g. each lie, the truth 
 can be detected : there is no absolute lie, no absolute evil, 
 and the like. 
 
 Great "works of mind" were created almost solely by 
 Protestants, as they alone were the true disciples and 
 consummators of mind. 
 
 How little man is able to control! He must let the 
 sun run its course, the, sea roll its waves, the mountains 
 
98 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 rise to heaven. Thus he stands powerless before the 
 uncontrollable. Can he keep off the impression that he 
 is helpless against this gigantic world ? It is a fixed law 
 to which he must submit, it determines his fate. Now, 
 what did pre-Christian humanity work toward ? Toward 
 getting rid of the irruptions of the destinies, not letting 
 oneself be vexed by them. The Stoics attained this in 
 apathy, declaring the attacks of nature indifferent, and 
 not letting themselves be affected by them. Horace utters 
 the famous Nil admirari, by which he likewise announces 
 the indifference of the other, the world; it is not to 
 influence us, not to arouse our astonishment. And that 
 impavidum ferient ruinae expresses the very same im- 
 perturbability as Ps. 46, 3 : ''We do not fear, though the 
 earth should perish." In all this there is room made for 
 the Christian proposition that the world is empty, for 
 the Christian contempt of the world. 
 
 The imperturbable spirit of ''the wise man," with 
 which the old world worked to prepare its end, now 
 underwent an inner perturbation against which no atar- 
 axy, no. Stoic courage, was able to protect it. The spirit, 
 secured against all influence of the world, insensible to 
 its shocks and exalted above its attacks, admiring»nothing, 
 not to be disconcerted by any downfall of the world- 
 foamed over irrepressibly again, because gases (spirits) 
 were evolved in its own interior, and, after the mechanical 
 shock that comes from without had become ineffective, 
 chemical tensions, that agitate within, began their wonder- 
 ful play. 
 
 In fact, ancient history ends with this — ^that / have 
 struggled till I won my ownership of the world, "All 
 things have been delivered to me by my Father" (Matt> 
 11. 27). It has ceased to be overpowering, unapproach- 
 able, sacred, divine, etc., for me ; it is undeißed, and now 
 I treat it so entirely as I please that, if I cared, I could 
 exert on it all miracle-working power, i. e, power of 
 mind — remove mountains, command mulberry trees to 
 tear themselves up and transplant themselves into the sea 
 (Luke 17. 6), and do everything possible, i, e. thinkable: 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 99 
 
 ''All things are possible to him who ibelieves/'"^ I am the 
 lord of the world, mine is the ''gloryf''\ The world 
 has become prosaic, for the divine has vanished from it ; 
 it is my property, which I dispose of as I (to wit, the 
 mind) choose. 
 
 When I had exalted myself to be the owner of the 
 world, egoism had won its first complete victory, had 
 vanquished the world, had become worldless, and put 
 the acquisitions of a long age under lock and key. 
 
 The first property, the first ''glory,'' has been ac- 
 quired ! 
 
 But the lord of the world is not yet lord of his 
 thoughts, his feelings, his will; he is not lord and 
 owner of the spirit, for the spirit is still sacred, the 
 "Holy Spirit," and the "worldless" Christian is not 
 able to become "godless." li the ancient struggle was« 
 a struggle against the world, the mediaeval (Christian)! 
 struggle is a struggle against self, the mind; the for- 
 mer against the outer world, the latter against the in- 
 ner world. The mediaeval man is the man "whose gaze 
 IS turned inward," the thinking, meditative man. 
 
 All wisdom of the ancients is the science of the 
 world, all wisdom of the moderns is the science of God. 
 
 The heathen (Jews included) got through with the 
 world; but now the thing was to get through with 
 self, the spirit, too ; i. e, to become spiritless or godless. 
 
 For almost two thousand years we have been work- 
 ing at subjecting the Holy Spirit to ourselves, and little 
 by little we have torn off and trodden under foot many 
 bits of sacredness: but the gigantic opponent is con- 
 stantly rising anew under a changed form and name. 
 The spirit has not yet lost its divinity, its holiness, its 
 sacredness. To be sure, it has long ceased to flutter 
 over our heads as a dove ; to be sure, it no longer glad- 
 dens its saints alone, but lets itself be taught by the 
 
 * Mark 9, 23. 
 
 t [Herrlichkeit, which, according to its derivation, means lord- 
 liness."] 
 
100 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 laity too, etc. ; but as spirit of humanity, as spirit of 
 
 Man, it remains still an alien spirit to me or you, still 
 far from becoming our unrestricted property, which we 
 dispose of at our pleasure. However, one thing cer- 
 tainly happened, and visibly guided the progress of post- 
 Christian history ; this one thing was the endeavor to 
 make the Holy Spirit more hitman, and bring it nearer 
 to men, or men to it. Through this it came about that 
 at last it could be conceived as the "spirit of human- 
 ity,'' and, under different expressions like ''idea of hu- 
 manity, mankind, humaneness, general philanthropy," 
 etc., appeared more attractive, more familiar and more 
 accessible. 
 
 Would not one think that now everybody could 
 possess the Holy Spirit, take up into himself the idea 
 of humanity, bring mankind to form and existence in 
 himself? 
 
 No, the spirit is not stripped of its holiness and 
 robbed of its unapproachableness, is not accessible to 
 us, not our property; for the spirit of humanity is not 
 my spirit. My ideal it may be, and as a thought I 
 call it mine ; the thought of humanity is my property, 
 and I prove this sufficiently by propounding it quite ac- 
 cording to my views, and, shaping it to-day so, to- 
 morrow otherwise ; we represent it to ourselves in the 
 most manifold ways. But it is at the same time an 
 entail, which I cannot alienate nor get rid of. 
 
 Among many transformations, the Holy Spirit be- 
 came in time the ''absolute idea/' which again in mani- 
 fold refractions split into the different ideas of phil- 
 anthropy, reasonableness, civic virtue, etc. 
 
 But can I call the idea my property if it is the idea 
 of humanity, and can I consider the Spirit as van- 
 quished if I am to serve it, "sacrifice myself" to it? 
 Antiquity, at its close, had gained its ownership of the 
 world only when it had broken the world's overpower- 
 ingness and "divinity," recognized the world's power- 
 lessness and "vanity." 
 
 The case with regard to the spirit corresponds. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 101 
 
 When I have degraded it to a spook and its control 
 over me to a cranky notion, then it is to be looked upon 
 as having lost its sacredness, its holiness, its divinity, 
 and then I use it, a one uses nature at pleasure without 
 scruple. 
 
 The ''nature of the case," the "concept of the rela- 
 tionship,'' is to guide me in dealing with the case or 
 in contracting the relation. As if a concept of the 
 case existed on its own account, and was not rather 
 the concept that one forms of the case! As if a rela- 
 tion which we enter into was not, by the uniqueness of 
 those who enter into it, itself unique! As if it de- 
 pended on how others stamp it! But, as people sepa- 
 rated the ''essence of Man" from the real man, and 
 judged the latter by the former, so they also separate 
 his action from him, and appraise it by "human value." 
 Concepts are to decide everywhere, concepts to regu- 
 late life, concepts to rule. This is. the religious world, 
 to which Hegel gave a systematic expression, bringing 
 method into the nonsense and completingf the con- 
 ceptual precepts into a rounded, firmly-based dogmatic. 
 Everything is sung according to concepts, and the real 
 man, i. e. I, am compelled to live according to these 
 conceptual laws. Can there be a more grievous do- 
 minion of law, and did not Christianity confess at the 
 very beginning that it meant only to draw Judaism's 
 dominion of law tighter? ("Not a letter of the law 
 shall be lost!") 
 
 Liberalism simply brought other concepts on the car- 
 pet, vi::., human instead of divine, political instead of 
 ecclesiastical, "scientific" instead of doctrinal, or, more 
 generally, real concepts and eternal laws instead of 
 ^'crude dogmas" and precepts. 
 
 Now nothing but mind rules in the world. An in- 
 numerable multitude of concepts buzz about in peo- 
 ple's heads, and what are those doing who endeavor to 
 get further? Thev are negating these concepts to put 
 new ones in their place! They are saying: "You 
 form a false concept of right, of the State, of man, of 
 
102 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 liberty, of truth, of marriage, etc. ; the concept of right, 
 etc., is rather that one which we now set up." Thus the 
 confusion of concepts moves forward. 
 
 The history of the world has dealt cruelly with us. 
 and the spirit has obtained an almighty power. You 
 must have regard for my miserable shoes, which could 
 protect your naked foot, my salt, by which your pota- 
 toes would become palatable, and my 3tate-carriag'e, 
 whose possession would relieve you of all need at once ; 
 you must not reach out after them. Man is to recog- 
 nize the independence of all these an^ innumerable other 
 things ; they are to rank in his mind as something that 
 cannot be seized or approached, are to be kept away 
 from him. He must have regard for it, respect it; woe 
 to him if he stretches out his fingers desirously ; we call 
 that ''being light-fingered 
 
 How beggarly little is left us, yes, how really noth- 
 ing! Everything has been removed, we must not ven- 
 ture on anything unless it its given us; we continue to 
 live only by the grace of the giver. You must not pick 
 up a pin, unless indeed you have got leave to do so. 
 And got it from whom? From respect! Only when 
 this lets you have it as property, only when you can 
 respect it as property, only then you may take it. And 
 again, you are not to conceive a thought, speak a syllable, 
 commit an action, that should have their warrant in you 
 alone, instead of receiving it from morality or reason 
 or humanity. Happy unconstraint of the desirous man, 
 how mercilessly people have tried to slay you on the 
 altar of constraint! 
 
 But around the altar rise the arches of a church, 
 and its walls keep moving further and further out. 
 What they enclose is — sacred. You can no longer get 
 to it, no longer touch it. Shrieking with the hunger 
 that devours you, you wander round about these walls 
 in search of the little that is profane, and the circles 
 of your course keep growing more and more extended. 
 Soon that church will embrace the whole world, and 
 you be driven out to the extreme edge ; another step. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 103 
 
 and the world of the sacred has conquered: you sink 
 into the abyss. Therefore take courage while it is yet 
 time, wander about no longer in the profane where 
 now it is dry feeding, dare the leap, and rush in through 
 the gates into the sanctuary itself. If you devour the 
 sacred, you have made it your own! Digest the sac- 
 ramental wafer, and you are rid of it ! 
 
 III.— THE FREE 
 
 The ancients and the moderns having been presented 
 above in two divisions, it may seem as if the free were 
 here to be described in a third division as independent 
 and distinct. This is not so. The free are only the 
 more modern and most modern among the ''moderns," 
 and are put in a separate division merely because they 
 belong to the present, and what is present, above all, 
 claims our attention here. I give ''the free" only as 
 a translation of "the liberals," but must with regard to 
 the concept of freedom (as in general with regard to 
 so many other things whose anticipatory introduction 
 cannot be avoided) refer to what comes later. 
 
 § 1. — Political Liberalism 
 
 After the chalice of so-called absolute monarchy had 
 been drained down to the dregs, in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury people became aware that their drink did not taste 
 human — too clearly aware not to begin to crave a differ- 
 ent cup. Since our fathers were "human beings" after 
 all, they at last desired also to be regarded as such. 
 
 Whoever sees in us something else than human be- 
 ings, in him we likewise will not see a human being, 
 but an inhuman being, and will meet him as an unhuman 
 being ; on the other hand^ whoever recognizes us as 
 
104 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 human beings and protects us against the danger of 
 being treated inhumanly, him we will honor as our 
 true protector and guardian. 
 
 Let us then hold together and protect the man in 
 each other ; then we find the necessary protection in 
 our holding together, and in ourselves, those who hold 
 together, a fellowship of those who know their human 
 dignity and hold together as ''human beings/' Our 
 holding together is the State; we who hold together are 
 the nation. 
 
 In our being together as nation or State we are only 
 human beings. How we deport ourselves in other re- 
 spects as individuals, and what self-seeking impulses 
 we may there succumb to^ belongs solely to our private 
 life ; our public or State life is a purely human one. 
 Everything un-human or ''egoistic'' that clings to us is 
 degraded to a "private matter" and we distinguish the 
 State definitely from "civil society," which is the sphere 
 of "egoism's" activity. 
 
 The true man is the nation, but the individual is 
 always an egoist. Therefore strip ofif your individuality 
 or isolation wherein dwells discord and egoistic ine- 
 quality, and consecrate yourselves wholly to the true 
 man — ^the nation or the State. Then you will rank as 
 men, and have all that is man's ; the State, the true man, 
 will entitle you to what belongs to it, and give you the 
 "rights of man"; Man gives you his rights! 
 
 So runs the speech of commonalty. 
 
 The commonalty* is nothing else than the thought 
 that the State is all in all, the true man, and that the 
 individual's human value consists in being a citizen of 
 the State. In being a good citizen he seeks his highest 
 honor ; beyond that he knows nothing higher than at 
 most the antiquated— "being a good Christian." 
 
 The commonalty developed itself in the struggle 
 
 * [Or "citizenhood.'' The word (das Buerger turn) mean.s 
 either the condition of being a citizen, or citizen-like principles, 
 or the body of citizens or of the middle or business class, the 
 bourgeoisie.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 105 
 
 against the privileged classes, by whom it was cava- 
 lierly treated as "third estate" and confounded with 
 the canaille. In other words, up to this time the State 
 had recognized caste.* The son of a nobleman was 
 selected for posts to which the most distinguished com- 
 moners aspired in vain, etc. The civic feeling revolted 
 against this. No more distinction, no giving preference 
 to persons, no difference of classes ! Let all be alike ! 
 No separate interest is to be pursued longer, but the 
 general interest of all. The State is to be a fellowship 
 of free and equal men, and every one is to devote him- 
 self to the ''welfare of the whole," to be dissolved in 
 the State, to make the State his end and ideal. State! 
 State ! so ran the general cry, and thenceforth people 
 sought for the ''right form of State." the best constitu- 
 tion, and so the State in its best conception. The thought 
 of the State passed into all hearts and awakened en- 
 thusiasm ; to serve it, this mundane god, became the 
 new divine service and worship. The properly political 
 epoch had dawned. To serve the State or the nation 
 became the highest ideal, the State's interest the highest 
 interest. State service (for which one does not by any 
 means need to be an official) the highest honor. 
 
 So then the separate interests and personalities had 
 been scared away, and sacrifice for the State had be- 
 come the shibboleth. One must give up himself, and 
 live only for the State. One must act "disinterestedly," 
 not want to benefit himself, but the State. Hereby the 
 latter has become the true person, before whom the 
 individual personality vanishes: not I live, but it lives 
 in me. Therefore, in comparison with the former self- 
 seeking, this was unselfishness and impersonality itself. 
 Before this god — State — all egoism vanished, and before 
 it all were equal: they were without any other distinc- 
 tion — men, nothing but men. 
 
 The Revolution took fire from the inflammable ma- 
 
 * [Man hatte im Staate ''die ungleiche Person angesehen^ 
 there had been "respect of unequal persons" in the State.] 
 
106 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 terial of property. The government needed money. 
 Now it must prove the proposition that it is absolute, 
 and so master of all property, sole proprietor ; it must 
 take to itself its money^, v^^hich was only in the posses- 
 sion of the subjects, not their property. Instead of 
 this, it calls States-general, to have this money granted 
 to it. The shrinking from strictly logical action de- 
 stroyed the illusion of an absolute government; he who 
 must have something ''granted" to him cannot be re- 
 garded as absolute. The subjects recognized that they 
 were real proprietors, and that it was their money that 
 was demanded. Those who had hitherto been subjects 
 attained the consciousnses that they were proprietors, 
 Bailly depicts this in a few words: 'Tf you cannot dis- 
 pose of my property without my assent, how much less 
 can you of my person, of all that concerns my mental 
 and social position? All this is my property, like the 
 piece of land that I till ; and I have a right, an interest, 
 to make the laws myself.'' Bailly's words sound, cer- 
 tainly, as if every one was a proprietor now. However, 
 instead of the government, instead of the prince, the — 
 nation now becomes proprietor and master. From this 
 time on the ideal is spoken of as — ''popular liberty'' — "a 
 free people," etc. 
 
 As early as July 8, 1789, the declaration of the Bishop 
 of Autun and Barrere took away all semblance of the 
 importance of each and every individual in legislation; 
 it showed the complete powerlessness of the constitu- 
 ents: the majority of the representatives has become 
 master. When on July 9 the plan for division of the 
 work on the constitution is proposed, Mirabeau remarks 
 that "the government has only power, no rights ; only 
 in the people is the source of all right to be found." 
 On July 16 this same Mirabeau exclaims: "Is not the 
 people the source of all power f The source, there- 
 fore, of all right, and the source of all — power!''' By 
 
 * [Gewalty a word which is also commonly used like the Eng- 
 lish 'Violence," denoting especially unlawful violence.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 107 
 
 the way, here the substance of ''right" becomes visible ; 
 it is — pozver. ''He who has power has right." 
 
 The commonalty is the heir of the privileged classes. 
 In fact, the rights of the barons, which were taken from 
 them as "usurpations,'' only passed over to the com- 
 monalty. For the commonalty was now called the "na- 
 tion." "Into the hands of the nation" all prerogatives 
 were given back. Thereby they ceased to be "preroga- 
 tives"* they became "rights. "f From this time on 
 the nation demands tithes, compulsory services; it has 
 inherited the lord's court, the rights of vert and venison, 
 the — serfs. The night of August 4 was the death-night 
 of privileges or "prerogatives" (cities, communes, 
 boards of magistrates, were also privileged, furnished 
 with prerogatives and seigniorial rights), and ended 
 with the new morning of "right," the "rights of the 
 State," the "rights of the nation." 
 
 The monarch in the person of the "royal master" had 
 been a paltry monarch compared with this new mon- 
 arch, the "sovereign nation." This monarchy was a 
 thousand times severer, stricter, and more consistent. 
 Against the new monarch there was no longer any right, 
 any privilege at all ; how limited the "absolute king" of 
 the ancien regime looks in comparison! The Revolu- 
 tion effected the transformation of limited monarchy 
 into absolute monarchy. From this time on every right 
 that is not conferred by this monarch is an "assump- 
 tion" ; but every prerogative that he bestows, a "right." 
 The times demanded absolute royalty, absolute mon- 
 archy; therefore down fell that so-called absolute roy- 
 alty which had so little understood how to become abso- 
 lute that it remained limited by a thousand little lords. 
 
 What was longed for and striven for through thou- 
 sands of years — to wit, to find that absolute lord be- 
 side whom no other lords and lordings any longer exist 
 to clip his power — the bourgeoisie has brought to pass. 
 It has revealed the ord who alone confers "rightful 
 
 * [Vorrechte], 
 
 t [Rechte^ 
 
108 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 titles/^ and without whose warrant nothing is justified. 
 ''So now we know that an idol is nothing in the world, 
 and that there is no other god save the one/'"^ 
 
 Against right one can no longer, as against a right, 
 come forward with the assertion thnt it is "a wrong/ 
 One can say now only that it is a piece of nonsense, an 
 illusion. If one called it wrong, one ewould have to 
 set up another right in opposition to it, and measure 
 it by this. If, on the contrary, one rejects right as such, 
 right in and of itself, altogether, then one also rejects 
 the concept of wrong, and dissolves the whole concept 
 of right (to which the concept of wrong belongs). 
 
 What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all en- 
 joy ''equality of political rig'hts"? Only this — that the 
 Stale has no regard for my person, that to it T, like 
 every other, am only a man, without having another 
 significance that command its deference. I do not 
 command its deference as an aristocrat, a nobleman's 
 son, or even as heir of an official whose office belongs to 
 me by inheritance (as in the Middle Ages countships, 
 etc., and later under absolute royalty, where hereditary 
 offices occur). Now the State has an innumerable mul- 
 titude of rights to give away e. g. the right to lead a bat- 
 talion, a company, etc. ; the right to lecture at a uni- 
 versity ; and so forth ; it has them to give away because 
 they are its own, i. e. State rights or ''politicaF' rights. 
 Withal it makes no difference to it to whom it gives 
 them, if the receiver only fulfils the duties that spring 
 from the delegated rights. To it we are all of us all right, 
 and — equal — one worth no more and no less than an- 
 other. It is indifferent to me who receives the command 
 of the army, says the sovereign State, provided the 
 grantee understand the matter properly. ''Equality of 
 political rights'' has, consequently, the meaning that 
 every one may acquire every right that the State has 
 to give away, if only he fulfils the conditions annexed 
 thereto — conditions Which are to be sought only in the 
 
 * 1 Corinthians 8, 4. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME A.ND THE NEW 109 
 
 nature of the particular right, not in a predilection for 
 the person (persona grata) : the nature of the right to 
 become an officer brings with it e. g., the necessity that 
 one possess sound limbs and a suitable meaure of knowl- 
 edge, but it does not have noble birth as a condition ; 
 if, on the other hand, even the most deserving com- 
 moner could not reach that station, then an inequality 
 of political rights would exist. Among the States of 
 to-day one has carried out that maxim of equalitv more, 
 another less. 
 
 The monarchy of estates (so I will call absolute roy- 
 alty, the time of the kings before the revolution) kept 
 the individual in dependence on a lot of little mon- 
 archies. These were fellowships (societies) like the 
 guilds, " the nobility, the priesthood, the burgher class, 
 cities, communes, etc. Everywhere the individual must 
 regard himself first as a member of this little society, 
 and yield unconditional obedience to its spirit, the esprit 
 de corps, as his monarch. More, e. g., than the individual 
 nobleman himself must his family, the honor of his race, 
 be to him. Only by means of his corporation, his estate, 
 did the individual have relation to the greater corpora- 
 tion, the State — as in Catholicism the individual deals 
 with God only through the priest. To this the third 
 estate now, showing courage to negate itself as an estate, 
 made an end. It decided no longer to be and be called 
 an estate beside other estates, but to glorify and general- 
 ize itself into the ''nation/' Hereby it created a much 
 more complete and absolute monarchy, and the entire 
 previously ruling principle of estates, the principle of 
 little monarchies inside the great, went down. There- 
 fore it cannot be said that the Revolution was a revolution 
 against the first two privileged estates : it was against 
 the little monarchies of estates in general. But, if the 
 estates and their despotism were broken (the king too, we 
 know, was only a king of estates, not a citizen-king), the 
 individuals freed from the inequality of estate were left. 
 Were they now really to be without estate and "out of 
 gear," no longer bound by any estate, without a general 
 
no 
 
 THE EGO AND ^IS OWN 
 
 bond oi union? No, for the third estate had declared 
 itself the nation only in order not to remain an estate 
 beside other estates, but to become the sole estate. This 
 sole estate is the nation, the ''State/' What had the indi- 
 vidual now become? A political Protestant, for he had 
 come into immediate connection with his God, the State. 
 He was no longer, as an aristocrat, in the monarchy of 
 the nobility ; as a mechanic, in the monarchy of the guild ; 
 but he, like all, recognized and acknowledged only — one 
 lord, the State, as whose servants they all received the 
 equal title of honor, ''citizen/' 
 
 The bourgeoisie is the aristocracy of desert ; its motto, 
 ''Let desert wear its crowns." It fought against the 
 "lazy" aristocracy, for according to it (the industrious 
 aristocracy acquired by industry and desert) it is not 
 the "born" who is free, nor yet I who am free either, 
 but the "deserving" man, the honest servant (of his 
 king; of the State ; of the people in constitutional States). 
 Through service one acquires freedom, i. e. acquires 
 "deserts," even if one served — mammon. One must de- 
 serve well of the State, i. e. of the principle of the State, 
 of its moral spirit. He who serves this spirit of the 
 State is a good citizen, let him live to whatever honest 
 branch of industry he will. In its eyes innovators prac- 
 tise a "breadless art. ' Only the "shopkeeper" is "prac- 
 tical," and the spirit that chases after public offices is 
 as much the shopkeeping spirit as is that which tries 
 in trade to feather its nest or otherwise to become useful 
 .to itself and anybody else. 
 
 \ But, if the deserving count as the free (for what does 
 Hhe comfortable commoner, the faithful office-holder, | 
 lack of that freedom that his heart desires?), then the 
 "servants" are the — free. The obedient servant is the 
 free man! What glaring nonsense! Yet this is the 
 sense of the bourgeoisie^ and its poet, Goethe, as well 
 as its philosopher, Hegel, succeeded in glorifying the de- j 
 pendence of the subject on the object, obedience to thei 
 objective world, etc. He who only serves the cause,! 
 "devotes himself entirely to it," has the true freedom.! 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 111 
 
 And among thinkers the cause was — reason, that which, 
 hke State and Church, gives — general laws, and puts 
 the individual man in irons by the thought of hMnanity. 
 It determines what is "true/' according to which one 
 must then act. No more "rational" people than the honest 
 servants, who primarily are called good citizens as ser- 
 vants of the State. 
 
 Be rich as Croesus or poor as Job — the State of the 
 commonalty leaves that to your option; but only have 
 a "good disposition." This it demands of you, and counts 
 it its most urgent task to establish this in all. There- 
 fore it will keep you from "evil promptings," hold- 
 ing the "ill-disposed" in check and silencing their inflam- 
 matory discourses under censors' cancelling-marks or 
 press-penalties and behind dungeon walls, and will, on 
 the other hand, appoint people of "good disposition" as 
 censors, and in every way have a moral influence exerted 
 on you by "well-disposed and well-meaning" people. If 
 it has made you deaf to evil promptings, then it opens 
 your ears again all the more diligently to good prompt- 
 ings. 
 
 With the time of the bourgeoisie begins that of lib- 
 eralism. People want to see what is "rational," "suited 
 to the times," etc.,^ established everywhere. The follow- 
 ing definition of liberalism, which is supposed to be pro- 
 nounced in its honor, characterizes it completely: "Lib- 
 eralism is nothing else than the knowledge of reason, 
 applied to our existing relations."* Its aim is a "rational 
 order," a "moral behavior," a "limited freedom," not 
 anarchy, lawlessness, selfhood. But, if reason rules, then 
 the person succumbs. Art has for a long time not only 
 acknowledged the ugly, but considered the ugly as neces- 
 sary to its existence, and taken it up into itself ; it needs 
 the villain, etc. In the religious domain, too, the ex- 
 tremest liberals go so far that they want to see the most 
 religious man regarded as a citizen — i. e. the religious 
 villain; they want to see no more of trials for heresy. 
 
 * "Ein und zwanzig Bogen,'' p. 12. 
 
112 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 But against the "rational law'' no one is to rebel, other- 
 wise he IS threatened with the severest — penalty. What 
 is w^anted is not free movement and realization of the 
 person or of me, but of reason — i, e. a dominion of rea- 
 son, a dominion. The liberals are zealots^ not exactly 
 for the faith, for God, etc., but certainly for reason, their 
 master. They brook no lack of breeding, and therefore 
 no self-development and self-determination; they play 
 the guardian as effectively as the most absolute rulers. 
 
 ''Political liberty," what are we to understand by 
 that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State 
 and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual's 
 subjection in the State and tp the State's laws. But why 
 ''liberty' ? Because one is no longer separated from the 
 State by intermediaries, but stands in direct and im- 
 mediate relation to it; because one is a — citizen, not the 
 subject of another, not even of the king as a person, but 
 only in his quality as "supreme head of the State." Politi- 
 cal liberty, this fundamental doctrine of liberalism, is 
 nothing but a second phase of — Protestantism, and runs 
 quite parallel with "religious liberty.""^ Or would it per- 
 haps be right to understand by the latter an independ- 
 ence of religion? Anything but that. Independence of 
 intermediaries is all that it is intended to express, in- 
 dependence of mediating priests, the abolition of the 
 "laity," and so direct and immediate relation to religion 
 or to God. Only on the supposition that one has religion 
 can he enjoy freedom of religion; freedom of religion 
 does not mean being without religion, but inwardness of 
 faith, unmediated intercourse with God. To him who 
 is /'religiously free" religion is an afifair of the heart, it 
 is to him his own affair, it is to him a "sacredly serious 
 matter." So, too, to the "politically free" man the State 
 is a sacredly serious matter; it is his heart's affair, his 
 chief affair, his own affair. 
 
 Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free ; 
 
 * Louis Blanc says C'Histoire des Dix Ans,'' I, p. 138) of the 
 time of the Restoration : ''Le protestantisme devint le fond des 
 idees et des mcetirs." 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 113 
 
 freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of 
 conscience signifies that conscience is free; not^ there- 
 fore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from 
 conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean 
 my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and 
 subjugates me ; it means that one of my despots, like 
 State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, con- 
 science, these despots, make me a slave, and their liberty 
 is my slavery. That in this they necessarily follow the 
 principle, ''the end hallows the means," is self-evident. 
 If the welfare of the State is the end, war is a hallowed 
 means ; if justice is the State's end, homicide is a hallowed 
 means, and is called by its sacred name, "execution," 
 etc. ; the sacred State hallows everything that is service- 
 able to it. 
 
 Individual liberty," over which civic liberalism keeps 
 jealous watch, does not by any means signify a completely 
 free self-determination, by which actions become alto- 
 gether mine, but only independence of persons. Indi- 
 vidually free is he who is responsible to no ma7t. Taken 
 in this sense — and we are not allowed to understand it 
 otherwise — not only the ruler is individually free, i. e., 
 irresponsible tozvard men (''before God," we know, he 
 acknowledges himself responsible), but all who are "re- 
 sponsible only to the law. ' This kind of liberty was won 
 through the revolutionary movemert of the century — to 
 wit, independence of arbitrary will, of fel est notre plaisir. 
 Hence the constitutional prince must himself be strip- 
 ped of all personality, deprived of all individual deci- 
 sion, that he may not as a person, as an individual Tfian, 
 violate the "individual liberty" of others. The per- 
 sonal ivill of the ruler has disappeared in the constitu- 
 tional prince; it is with a right feeling, therefore, that 
 absolute princes resist this. Nevertheless these very ones 
 profess to be in the best sense "Christian princes." For 
 this, however, they must become a purely spiritual power, 
 as the Christian is subject only to spirit ("God is spirit"). 
 The purely spiritual power is consistently represented ^ 
 only by the constitutional prince, he who, without any 
 
114 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 personal significance, stands there spiritualized to the 
 degree that he can rank as a sheer, uncanny "spirit/' as 
 an idea. The constitutional king is the truly Christian 
 king, the genuine, consistent carrying-out of the Chris- 
 tian principle. In the constitutional monarchy individual 
 dominion — i. e., a real ruler that wills — has found its 
 end ; here, therefore, individual liberty prevails, inde- 
 pendence of every individual dictator, of every one who 
 could dictate to me with a tel est notre plaisir. It is 
 the completed Christian State-life, a spiritualized life. 
 
 The behavior of the commonalty is liberal through 
 and through. Every personal invasion of another's sphere 
 revolts the civic sense ; if the citizen sees that one is 
 dependent on the humor, the pleasure, the will of a man 
 as individual (i. e. as not authorized by a "higher pow- 
 er"), at once he brings his liberalism to the front and 
 shrieks about "arbitrariness." In fine, the citizen as- 
 serts his freedom from what is called orders {ordon- 
 nance) : "No one has any business to give me — orders!'' 
 Orders carries the idea that what I am to do is another 
 man's will, while lazv does not express a personal author- 
 ity of another. The liberty of the commonalty is liberty 
 or independence from the will of another person, so- 
 called personal or individual liberty; for being personally 
 free means being only so free that no other person can 
 dispose of mine, or that what I may or may not do does 
 not depend on the personal decree of another. The lib- 
 erty of the press, for instance, is such a liberty of liberal- 
 ism, liberalism fighting only against the coercion of the 
 censorship as that of personal wilfulness, but otherwise 
 showing itself extremely inclined and willing to tyran- 
 nize over the press by "press laws" ; i. e,, the civic lib- 
 erals want liberty of writing for themselves; for, as they 
 are law-abiding, their writings will not bring them under 
 the law.- Only liberal matter, i. e. only lawful matter, is, 
 to be allowed to be printed : otherwise the ''press laws" 
 threaten "press-penalties." If one sees personal liberty 
 assured, one does not notice at all how, if a new issue 
 happens to arise, the most glaring unfreedom becomes 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 115 
 
 dominant. For one is rid of orders indeed, and ''no one 
 has any business to give us orders/' but one has become 
 so much the more submissive to the — law. One is en- 
 thralled now in due legal form. 
 
 In the citizen-State there are only ''free people," who 
 are compelled to thousands of things {e. g. to deference, 
 to a confession of faith, and the like). But what does 
 that amount to? Why, it is only the — State, the law, 
 not any man, tha compels them ! 
 
 What does the commonalty mean by inveighing against 
 every personal order, i. e. every order not founded on 
 the "cause," on "reason," etc.? It is simply fighting in 
 the interest of the "cause"* against the dominion of 
 "persons" ! But the mind's cause is the rational, good, 
 lawful, etc. ; that is the "good cause." The commonaltv 
 wants an impersonal ruler. 
 
 Furthermore, if the principle is this^ that only the 
 cause is to rule man — to wit, the cause of morality, the 
 cause of legality, etc. — then no personal balking of one 
 by the other may be authorized either (as formerly, 
 e. g., the commoner was balked of the aristocratic of- 
 fices, the aristocrat of common mechanical trades, etc.) ; 
 i, e, free competition must exist. Only through the thingf 
 can one balk another {e, g, the rich man balking the im- 
 pecunious man by money, a thing), not as a person. 
 Henceforth only one lordship, the lordship of the 
 is admitted ; personally no one is any longer lord of an- 
 other. Even at birth the children belong to the State, 
 and to the parents only in the name of the State, which, 
 e. g., does not allow infanticide, demands their bap- 
 tism, etc. 
 
 But all the State's children, furthermore, are of quite 
 equal account in its eyes ("civic or political equality*'), 
 and they may see to it themselves how they get along 
 with each other; they may compete. 
 
 Free competition means nothing else than that every 
 one can present himself, assert himself, fight, against an- 
 
 * [Sache, which commonly means thing.] 
 
 t [*Sache] 
 
116 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 other. Of course the feudal party set itself against this, 
 as its existence depended on an absence of competition. 
 The contests in the time of the Restoration in France 
 had no other substance than this — that the bourgeoisie 
 was struggling for free competition, and the feudalists 
 were seeking to bring back the guild system. 
 
 Now, free competition has won, and against the guild 
 system it had to win. (See below for the further dis- 
 cussion.) 
 
 If the Revolution ended in a reaction, this only showed 
 what the Revolution really. W2is. For every effort arrives 
 at reaction when it comes to discreet reflection, and 
 storms forward in the original action only so long as 
 it is an intoxication, an ''indiscretion.'' ''Discretion'' 
 will always be the cue of the reaction, because discretion 
 sets limits, and liberates what was really wanted, i. e. 
 the principle, from the initial "unbridledness" and "un- 
 restrainedness." Wild young fellows, bumptious stu- 
 dents, who set aside all considerations, are really Philis- 
 tines, since with them, as with the latter, considerations 
 form the substance of their conduct ; only that as swag- 
 gerers they are mutinous against considerations and in 
 negative relations to them, but as Philistines, later, they 
 give themselves up to considerations and have positive 
 relations to them. In both cases all their doing and think- 
 ing turns upon "considerations," but the Philistine is re- 
 actionary in relation to the student ; he is the wild fellow 
 come to discreet reflection, as the latter is the unreflect- 
 tmg Philistine. Daily experience confirms the truth of 
 this transformation, and shows how the swaggerers turn 
 to Philistines in turning gi*ay. 
 
 So too the so-called reaction in Germany gives proof 
 that it was only the discreet continuation of the warlike 
 jubilation of liberty. 
 
 The Revolution was not directed against the estab- 
 lished, but against the establishment in question, against 
 a particular establishment. It did away with this ruler, 
 not with the ruler — on the contrary, the French were 
 ruled most inexorably ; it killed the old vicious rulers, but 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW ll^ 
 
 wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely estab- 
 lished position, i. e. it simply set virtue in the place of 
 vice. (Vice and virtue, again, are on their part distin- 
 guished from each other only as a wild young fellow from 
 a Philistine.) Etc. 
 
 To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no 
 farther than to assail only one or another particular estab- 
 lishment, i, e. be reformatory. Much as may be im- 
 proved, strongly as ''discreet progress'' may be adhered 
 to, always there is only a new master set in the old one's 
 place, and the overturning is a — building up. We are 
 still at the distinction of the young Philistine from the 
 old one. The Revolution began in bourgeois fashion with 
 the uprising of the third estate, the middle class ; in bour- 
 geois fashion it dries away. It was not the individual man 
 — and he alone is Man — that became free, but the citizen, 
 the citoyen, the political man, who for that very reason is 
 not Man but a specimen of the human species, and more 
 particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, a free 
 citizen. 
 
 In the Revolution it was not the individual who acted 
 so as to affect the world's history, but a people; the 
 nation, the sovereig nation, wanted to effect everything. 
 A fancied I, an idea, such as the nation is, appears acting ; 
 t. e., the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this 
 idea, and act as ''citizens." 
 
 The commonalty has its power, and at the same time 
 its limits, in the fundam'ental law of the State, in a 
 charter, in a legitimate* or "jusff prince who himself 
 is guided, and rules, according to "rational laws"; in 
 short, in legality. The period of the bourgeoisie is ruled 
 by the British spirit of legality. An assembly of provin- 
 cial estates, e. g., is ever recalling that its authorization 
 goes only so and so far, and that it is called at all only 
 through favor and can be thrown out again through dis- 
 favor. It is always reminding itself of its — vocation. 
 It is certainly not to be denied that my father begot me ; 
 
 ^ [Or "righteous.'' German rechtlich.} 
 
 t [gerecht] 
 
118 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 but, now that I am once begotten, surely his purposes in 
 begetting do not concern me a bit and, whatever he may 
 have called me to, I do what I myself will. Therefore 
 even a called assembly of estates, the French assembly 
 in the beginning of the Revolution, recognized quite right- 
 ly that it was independent of the caller. It existed, and 
 would have been stupid if it did not avail itself of the 
 right of existence, but fancied itself dependent as on a 
 father. The called one no longer has to ask "what did 
 the caller want when he created me?" but "what do I 
 want after I have once followed the call?'' Not the 
 caller, not the constituents, not the charter according to 
 which their meeting was called out, nothing will be to 
 him a sacred, inviolable power. He is authorized for 
 everything that is in his power ; he will know no restric- 
 tive ^'authorization," will not want to be loyal. This, if 
 any such thing could be expected from chambers at all, 
 would give a completely egoistic chamber, severed from 
 all navelstring and without consideration. But chambers 
 are always devout, and therefore one cannot be sur- 
 prised if so much half-way or undecided, i, e. hypocritical, 
 ^'egoism" parades in them. 
 
 The members of the estates are to remain within the 
 limits that are traced for them by the charter, by the 
 king's will, and the like. If they will not or can not 
 do that, then they are to "step out.'' What dutiful man 
 could act otherwise, could put himself, his conviction, 
 and his will as the first thing? who could be so immoral 
 as to want to assert himself, even if the body corporate 
 and everything should go to run over it? People keep 
 carefully within the limits of their authorisation; of 
 course one must remain within the limits of his power 
 anyhoWj, because no one can do more than he can. "My 
 power, or, if it be so, powerlessness, be my sole limit, 
 but authorizations only restraining — ^precepts? Should 
 I profess this all-subversive view? No, I am a — law- 
 abiding citizen 
 
 The commonalty professes a morality which is most 
 closely connected with its essence. The first demand 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 119 
 
 of this morality is to the effect that one should carry 
 on a solid business, an honorable trade, lead a moral 
 life. Immoral, to it, is the sharper^ the demirep, the 
 thief, robber, and murderer, the gamester, the penni- 
 less man without a situation, the frivolous man. The 
 doughty commoner designates tHe feeling against these 
 ''immoraF' people as his ''deepeest indignation.'' All 
 these lack settlement, the solid quality of business, a 
 solid, seemly life, a fixed income, etc.; in short, they 
 belong, because their existence does not rest on a 
 secure basis, to the dangerous ''individuals or isolated 
 persons/' to the dangerous proletariat; they are ''indi- 
 vidual bawlers" who offer no "guarantee" and have 
 "nothing to lose," and so nothing to risk. The forming 
 of family ties e, g., binds a man ; he who is bound fur- 
 nishes security, can be taken hold of ; not so the street- 
 walker. The gamester stakes everything on the game, 
 ruins himself and others — no guarantee. All who ap- 
 pear to the commoner suspicious, hostile, and danger- 
 ous might be comprised under the name "vagabonds" ; 
 every vagabondish way of living displeases him. For 
 there are intellectual vagabonds too, to whom the he- 
 reditary dwelling-place of their fathers seems toO' 
 cramped and oppressive for them to be willing to sat- 
 isfy themselves with the limited space any more ; instead 
 of keeping within the limits of a temperate style of 
 thinking, and taking as inviolable truth what furnishes 
 comfort and tranquillity to thousands, they overleap 
 all bounds of the traditional and run wild with their 
 impudent criticism and untamed mania for doubt, these 
 extravagating vagabonds. They form the class of the 
 unstable, restless, changeable, i, e. of the proletariat, 
 and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature, are 
 called "unruly fellows." 
 
 Such a broad sense has the so-called proletariat, or 
 pauperism. How much one would err if one believed 
 the commonalty to be desirous of doing away with pov- 
 erty (pauperism) to the best of its ability! On the 
 contrary, the good citizen helps himself with the incom- 
 
120 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 parably comforting conviction that ''the fact is that the 
 good things of fortune are unequally divided and will 
 always remain so — according to God's wise decree." 
 The poverty which surrounds him in every alley does 
 not disturb the true commoner further than that at 
 most he clears his account with it by throwing an alms, 
 or finds work and food for an ''honest and serviceable" 
 fellow. But so much the more does he feel his quiet 
 enjoyment clouded by innovating and discontented pov- 
 erty, 'by those poor who no longer behave quietly and 
 endure, but begin to run wild and become restless. Lock 
 up the vagabond, thrust the breeder of unrest into the 
 darkest dungeon! He wants to "arouse dissatisfaction 
 and incite people against existing institutions" in the 
 State — ^^stone him, stone him! 
 
 But from these identical discontented ones comes a 
 reasoning somewhat as follows: It need not make any 
 difference to the "good citizens" who protects them 
 and their principles, whether an absolute king or a con- 
 stitutional one, a republic, etc., if only they are protect- 
 ed. And what is their principle, whose protector they 
 always "love"? Not that of labor; not that of birth 
 either. But that of mediocrity, of the golden mean ; a 
 little birth and a little labor, i, e,, an interest-hearing 
 possession. Possession is here the fixed, the given, in- 
 herited (birth) ; interest-drawing is the exertion about 
 it (labor) ; laboring capital, therefore. Only no immod- 
 eration, no ultra, no radicalism! Right of birth cer- 
 tainly, but only hereditary possessions: labor certainly, 
 yet little or none at all of one's own, but labor and capital 
 and of the — subject laborers. 
 
 If an age is imbued with an error, some always de- 
 rive advantage from the error, while the rest have to 
 suffer from it. In the Middle Ages the error was gen- 
 eral among Christians that the church must have all 
 power, or the supreme lordship on earth: the hier- 
 archs believed in this "truth" not less than the laymen, 
 and both were spellbound in the like error. But by it 
 the hierarchs had the advantage of power, the laymen^ 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 121 
 
 had to suffer subjection. However, as the saying goes, 
 ''one learns wisdom by suffering" ; and so the laymen 
 at last learned wisdom and no longer believed in the 
 mediaeval ''truth/' — A like relation exists between the 
 commonalty and the laboring class. Commoner and 
 laborer believe in the "truth'' of money; they who do not 
 possess it believe in it no less than those who possess 
 it ; the laymen, therefore, as well as the priests. 
 
 "Money governs the world" is the keynote of the 
 civic epoch. A destitute aristocrat and a destitute labor- 
 er, as "starvelings," amount to nothing so far as politi- 
 cal consideration is concerned; birth and labor do not 
 do it, but money brings consideration.'^ The possessors 
 rule, but the State trains up from the destitute its "serv- 
 ants/'to whom, in proportion as they are to rule (gov- 
 ern) in its name, it gives money (a salary). 
 
 I receive everything from the State. Have I any- 
 thing without the State s assent f What I have without 
 this it takes from me as soon as it discovers the lack 
 of a "legal title." Do I not, therefore, have everything 
 through its grace, its assent? 
 
 On this alone, on the legal title, the commonalty 
 rests. The commoner is what he is through the pro- 
 tection of the State, through the State's grace. He 
 would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the 
 State's power were broken. 
 
 But how is it with him who has nothing to lose, 
 how with the proletarian? As he has nothing to lose, 
 he does not need the protection of the State for his 
 "nothing." He may gain, on the contrary, if that pro- 
 tection of the State is withdran from the protege. 
 
 Therefore the non-possessor will regard the State as 
 a power protecting the possessor, which privileges the 
 latter, but does nothing for him, the non-possessor, but 
 to — suck his blood. The State is a — commoners' State, 
 is the estate of the commonalty. It protects man not 
 according to his labor, but according to his tractable- 
 
 [das Geld gibt Geltung,] 
 
122 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ness ('loyalty") — to wit, according to whether the 
 rights entrusted to him by the State are enjoyed and 
 managed in accordance with the will, i. e. laws, of the 
 State. 
 
 Under the regime of the commonalty the laborers 
 always fall into the hands of the possessors — i, e. of 
 those who have at their disposal some bit of the State 
 domains (and everything possessible is State domain, 
 belongs to the State, and is only a fief of the individ- 
 ual), especially money and land; of the capitalists, there- 
 fore. The laborer cannot realize on his labor to the 
 extent of the value that it has for the consumer. ''La- 
 bor is badly paid!" The capitalist has the greatest 
 profit from it. — Well paid, and more than well paid 
 are only the labors of those who heighten the splendor 
 and dominion of the State, the labors of high State 
 servants. The State pays well that its "good citizens/' 
 the possessors, may be able to pay badly, without dan- 
 ger; it secures to itself by good payments its servants, 
 out of whom it forms a protecting power, a "police" 
 (to the police belong soldiers, officials of all kinds, 
 e, g., those of justice, education, etc. — in short, the 
 whole "machinery of the State") for the "good citi- 
 zens," and the "good citizens" gladly pay high taxes to 
 it in order to pay so much lower rates to their laborers. 
 
 But the class of laborers, because unprotected in what 
 they essentially are (for they do not enjoy the protec- 
 tion of the State as laborers, but as its subjects they 
 have a share in the enjoyment of the police, a so-called 
 protection of the law), remains a power hostile to this 
 State, this State of possessors, this "citizen kingship." 
 Its principle, labor, is not recognized as to its value; it 
 is exploited,* a spoilf of the possessors, the enemy. 
 
 The laborers have the most enormous power in their 
 hands, and, if they once become thoroughly conscious 
 of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they 
 would only have to stop labor, regard the product of 
 
 * [ansgebeutet] 
 
 t [Kriegsbeute] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 123 
 
 labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the 
 labor diturbances which show themselves here and 
 there. 
 
 The State rests on the — slavery of labor. If labor 
 becomes free, the State is lost. 
 
 §. 2. — Social Liberalism 
 
 We are freeborn men, and wherever we look we see 
 ourselves made servants of egoists! Are we therefore 
 to become egoists too ? Heaven forbid ! we want rather 
 to make egoists impossible ! We want to make them all 
 ''ragamuffins" ; all of us must have nothing, that ''all 
 may have.'' 
 
 So say the Socialists. 
 
 Who is this person that you call "All"? — It is "socie- 
 ty"! — But is it corporeal, then? — We are its body! — 
 You? Why, you are not a body yourselves; — you, sir, 
 are corporeal to be sure, you too, and you, but you all to- 
 gether are only bodies, not a body. Accordingly the 
 united society may indeed have bodies at its service, but 
 no one body of its own. Like the "nation" of the politi- 
 cians, it will turn out to be nothing but a "spirit," its 
 body only semblance. 
 
 The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, freedom 
 from persons^ from personal dominion, from the master; 
 the securing of each individual person against other per- 
 sons, personal freedom. 
 
 No one has any orders to give; the law alone gives 
 orders. 
 
 But, even if the persons have become equal, yet their 
 possessions have not. And yet the poor man needs the 
 rich, the rich the poor, the former the rich man's money, 
 the latter the poor man's labor. So no one needs an- 
 other as a person, but needs him as a giver, and thus as 
 one who has something to give, as holder or possessor. 
 So what he has makes the man. And in having, or in 
 "possessions," people are unequal. 
 
 Consequently, social liberalism concludes, no one must 
 
124 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 have, as according to political liberalism no one was to 
 give orders; i. e., as in that case the State alone obtained 
 the command, so now society alone obtains the posses- 
 sions. 
 
 For the State, protecting each one's person and prop- 
 erty against the other, separates them from one another; 
 each one is his special part and has his special part. He 
 who is satisfied with what he is and has finds this state 
 of things profitable; but he who would like to be and 
 have more looks around for this *'more," and finds it in 
 the power of other persons. Here he comes upon a con- 
 tradiction ; as a person no one is inferior to another, and 
 yet one person has what another has not but would like 
 to have. So, he concludes, the one person is more than 
 the other, after all, for the former has what he needs, 
 the latter has not; the former is a rich man, the latter 
 a poor man. 
 
 He now asks himself further, are we to let what we 
 rightly buried come to life again? are we to let this circuit- 
 ously restored inequality of persons pass ? No ; on the con- 
 trary, we must bring quite to an end what was only half 
 accomplished. Our freedom from another's person still 
 lacks the freedom from what the other's person can com- 
 mand, from what he has in his personal power — in short, 
 from ''personal property.'' Let us then do away with 
 personal property. Let no one have anything any longer, 
 let every one be a — ragamuffin. Let property be imper- 
 sonal, let it belong to — society. 
 
 Before the supreme ruler, the sole commander^ we 
 had all become equal, equal persons, i. e. nullities. 
 
 Before the supreme proprietor we all become equal 
 — ragamuffins. For the present, one is still in another's 
 estimation a ''ragamuffin," a "have-nothing" ; but then this 
 estimation ceases. We are all ragamuffins together, and 
 as the aggregate of Cummunistic society we might call 
 ourselves a "ragamuffin crew." 
 
 When the proletarian shall really have founded his 
 purposed "society" in which the interval between rich 
 and poor is to be removed, then he will be a ragamuffin. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 125 
 
 for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a 
 ragamuffin, and might lift ''Ragamuffin'' to be an hon- 
 orable form of address, just as the Revolution did with 
 the word "Citizen/' Ragamuffin is his ideal; we are all 
 to become ragamuffins. 
 
 This is the second robbery of the "personal'' in the 
 interest of "humanity." Neither command nor prop- 
 erty is left to the individual; the State took the for- 
 mer, society the latter. 
 
 Because in society the most oppressive evils make 
 themselves felt, therefore the oppressed especially, and 
 consequently the members in the lower regions of so- 
 ciety, think they find the fault in society, and make it 
 their task to discover the right society. This is only 
 the old phenomenon — that one looks for the fault first 
 in everything but himself, and consequently in the State, 
 in the self-seeking of the rich, etc., which yet have pre- 
 cisely our fault to thank for their existence. 
 
 The reflections and conclusions of Communism look 
 very simple. As matters lie at this time — in the pres- 
 ent situation with regard to the State, therefore — some, 
 and they the majority, are at a disadvantage compared to 
 others, the minority. In this state of things the former 
 are in a state of prosperity, the latter in a state of need. 
 Hence the present state of things, i. e, the State, must be 
 done away with. And what in its place? Instead of the 
 isolated state of prosperity — a general state of prosperity^ 
 a prosperity of all. 
 
 Through the Revolution the bourgeoisie became ommip- 
 otent, and all inequality was abolished by every one's 
 being raised or degraded to the dignity of a citizen: the 
 common man — raised, the aristocrat — degraded ; the third 
 estate became sole estate — viz,, the estate of — citizens of 
 the State. Now Communism responds: Our dignity and 
 our essence consist not in our being all — the equal rhil- 
 dren of our mother, the State, all born with equal claim 
 to her love and her protection, but in our all existing for 
 each other. This is our equality, or herein we are equal 
 in that we, I as well as you and you and- all of you, are 
 
126 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 active or **labor'' each one for the rest; in that each of 
 lis is a laborer, then. The point for us is not what we are 
 for the State {viz., citizens), not our citizenship, there- 
 fore, but what we are for each other — viz., that each of us 
 exists only through the other, who, caring for my wants, 
 at the same time sees his own satisfied by me. He labors, 
 e. g., for my clothing (tailor), I for his need of amuse- 
 ment (comedy- writer, rope-dancer, etc.), he for my food 
 (farmer, etc.), I for his instruction (scientist, etc.). It 
 is labor that constitutes our dignity and our — equality. 
 
 What advantage does citizenship bring us ? Burdens ! - 
 And how high is our labor appraised? As low as pos- 
 sible ! But labor is our sole value all the same ; that we 
 are laborers is the best thing about us, this is our signifi- 
 cance in the world, and therefore it must be our con- 
 sideration too and must come to receive consideration. 
 What can you meet us with? Surely nothing but — labor 
 too. Only for labor or services do we owe you a recom- 
 pense, not for your bare existence ; not for what you are 
 for yourselves either, but only for what you are for us. 
 By what have you claims on us ? Perhaps by your high 
 birth, etc.? No, only by what you do for us that is desir- 
 able or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing to be 
 worth to you only so much as we do for you ; but you are 
 to be held likewise by us. Services determine value— 
 i. e. those services that are worth something to us, and 
 consequently labors for each other, labors for the com- 
 mon good. Let each one be in the other^s eyes a laborer. 
 He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, 
 or — all laborers (laborers, of course, in the sense of 
 laborers "for the common good," i. e. communistic labor- 
 ers) are equal. But, as the laborer is worth his wages.* 
 let the wages too be equal. 
 
 As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dignity, 
 no labor, however harassing, could be objected to if it 
 only did not hinder a man in his faith. Now, on the 
 contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into man, 
 
 * rin German an exact quotaition of Luke IQ, 7.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 127 
 
 condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the 
 same thing as slavery. If a factory- worker must tire 
 himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off 
 from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent 
 that the man be satisfied. Therefore he must become a 
 master in it too, i, e, 'be able to perform it as a totality. 
 He who in a pin-factory only puts on the heads, only 
 draws the wire, etc., works, as it were, mechanically, like 
 a machine; he remains half -trained, does not become a 
 master : his labor cannot satisfy him, it can only fatigue 
 him. His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object 
 in itself, is nothing complete in itself ; he labors only into 
 another's hands, and is used (exploited) by this other. 
 For this laborer in another's service there is no enjoy- 
 ment of a cultivated mind, at most crude amusements: 
 culture, you see, is barred against him. To be a good 
 Christian one needs only to believe, and that can be done 
 under the most oppressive circumstances. Hence the 
 Christian-minded take care only of the oppressed laborers' 
 piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only so long as the 
 downtrodden classes were Christians could they bear all 
 their misery : for Christianity does not let their murmur- 
 ings and exasperation rise. Now the hushing of desires 
 is no longer enough, but their sating is demanded. The 
 bourgeoisie has proclaimed the gospel of the enjoyment 
 of the world, of material enjoyment, and now wonders 
 that this doctrine finds adherents among us poor : it has 
 shown that not faith and poverty, but culture and pos- 
 sessions, make a man blessed ; we proletarians understand 
 that too. 
 
 The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbi- 
 trariness of individuals. But that arbitrariness was left 
 which springs from the conjecture of situations, and may 
 be called the fortuity of circumstances ; favoring fortune, 
 and those "favored by fortune," still remain. 
 
 When e, g. a branch of industry is ruined and thou- 
 sands of laborers become breadless, people think reason- 
 ably enough to acknowledge that it is not the individual 
 
128 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 who must bear the blame, but that ''the evil lies in the 
 situation." 
 
 Let us change the situation then, but let us change it 
 thoroughly, and so that its fortuity becomes powerless, 
 and a law! Let us no longer be slaves of chance! Let 
 us create a new order that makes an end of fluctuations. 
 Let this order then be sacred ! 
 
 Formerly one had to suit the lords to come to anything ; 
 after the Revolution the word was "Grasp fortune T 
 Luck-hunting or hazard-playing, civil life was absorbed 
 in this. Then, alongside this, the demand that he who 
 has obtained something shall not frivolousl. stake it again. 
 
 Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Com- 
 petition, in which alone civil or political life unrolls itself, 
 is a game of luck through and through, from the specula- 
 tions of the exchange down to the solicitation of offices, 
 the hunt for customers, looking for work, aspiring to 
 promotion and decorations, the second-hand dealer's 
 petty haggling, etc. If one succeeds in supplanting and 
 outbidding his rivals, then the "lucky throw" is made; 
 foi it must be taken as a piece of luck to begin with that 
 the victor sees himself equipped with an ability (even 
 though it -has been developed by the most careful in- 
 dustry) against which the others do not know how to 
 rise, consequently that — no aibler ones are found. And 
 now those who ply their daily lives in the midst of these 
 changes of fortune without seeing any harm in it are 
 seized with the most virtuous indignation when their own 
 principle appears in naked form and "breeds misfortune" 
 as — hazard-playing. Hazard-playing, you see, is too clear, 
 too barefaced a competition, and, like every decided 
 nakedness, offends honorable modesty. 
 
 The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of 
 chance, and to form a society in which men are no longer 
 dependent on fortune, but free. 
 
 In the most natural way in the world this endeavor first 
 utters itself as hatred of the "unfortunate" against the 
 "fortunate," i. e,, of those for whom fortune has done 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 129 
 
 httle or nothing, against those for whom it has done 
 everything. 
 
 But properly the ill-feeling is not directed against the 
 fortunate, but against fortune, this rotten spot of the 
 commonalty. 
 
 As the Communists first declare free activity to be 
 man's essence, they, like all work-day dispositions, need 
 a Sunday; like all material endeavors, they need a God, 
 ail uplifting and edification alongside their witless *'labor/' 
 
 That the Communist sees in you the man, the brother, 
 IS only the Sunday side of Communism. According to the 
 work-day side he does not by any means take you as man 
 simply, but as human laborer or laboring man. The first 
 view has in it the liberal principle ; in the second, illiber- 
 ality is concealed. If you were a ''lazybones," he would 
 not indeed fail to recognize the man in you, but would 
 endeavor to cleanse him as a ''lazy man" from laziness 
 and to convert you to the faith that labor is man's "des- 
 tiny and calling." 
 
 Therefore he shows a double face: with the one he 
 takes heed that the spiritual man be satisfied, with the 
 other he looks about him for means for the material or 
 corporeal man. He gives man a twofold post — an office of 
 material acquisition and one of spiritual. 
 
 The commonalty had thrown open spiritual and ma- 
 terial goods, and left it with each one to reach out for 
 <hem if he liked. 
 
 Communism really procures them for each one, presses 
 them upon him, and compels him to acquire them. It takes 
 seriously the idea that, because only spiritual and material 
 goods make us men, we must unquestionably acquire these 
 goods in order to be man. The commonalty made acquisi- 
 tion free; Communism compels to acquisition, and recog- 
 nizes only the acquirer, him who practises a trade. It is 
 not enough that the trade is free, but you must take it up. 
 
 So all that is left for criticism to do is to prove that • 
 the acquisition of these goods does not yet by any means 
 make us men. 
 
 With the liberal commandment that every one is to 
 
130 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 make a man of himself, or every one to make himself 
 man, there was posited the necessity that every one must 
 gain time for this labor of humanization, i, e, that it should 
 become possible for every one to labor for himself. 
 
 The commonalty thought it had brought this about if it 
 handed over everything human to competition, but gave 
 the individual a right to every human thing. ''Each may 
 strive after ever)rthing !" 
 
 Social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled 
 with the "may/' because may means only "it is forbid- 
 den to none" but not "it is made possible to every one 
 Hence it affirms that the commonalty is liberal only with 
 the mouth and in words, supremely illiberal in act. It on 
 its part wants to give all of us the means to be able to 
 labor on ourselves. 
 
 By the principle of labor that of fortune or competition 
 is certainly outdone. But at the san.e time the laborer, in 
 his consciousness that the essential thing in him is "the 
 laborer," holds himself aloof from egoism and subjects 
 himself to the supremacy of a society of laborers, as the 
 commoner clung with self -abandonment to the competi- 
 tion-State. The beautiful dream of a "social duty" still 
 continues to be dreamed. People think again that society 
 gives what we need and we are under obligations to it on 
 that account, owe it everything."^ They are still at the 
 point of wanting to serve a "supreme giver of all good." 
 That society is no ego at all, which could give, bestow, or 
 grant, but an instrument or means, from which we may 
 derive benefit ; that we have no social duties, but solely in- 
 terests for the pursuance of which society must serve us ; 
 that we owe society no sacrifice, but, if we sacrifice any - 
 thing, sacrifice it ourselves— of this the Socialists do not 
 think, because they — as liberals — are imprisoned in the 
 religious principle, and zealously aspire after— a sacred 
 society, such as the State was hitherto. 
 
 Society, from which we have everything, is a new 
 
 * Proudhon C^Creation de r Ordre'*) cries out, e. g.y p. 414, 
 "In industry as in science, »the publication of an invention is the. 
 first and most sacred of duties T* i 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 131 
 
 master, a new spook, a new ''supreme being,'' which 
 ''takes us into its service and allegiance'' ! 
 
 The more precise appreciation of political as well as 
 social liberalism must wait to find its place further on. 
 For the present we pass this over, in order first to sum- 
 mon them before the tribunal of humane or critical lib- 
 eralism. 
 
 § 3. — Humane Liberalism. 
 
 As liberalism is completed in self-critising, "criticar''^' 
 liberalism — in which the critic remains a liberal and does 
 not go beyond the principle of liberalism, Man — this may 
 distinctively be named after Man and called the "hu- 
 mane." 
 
 The laborer is counted as the most material and egoisti- 
 cal man. He does nothing at all for humanity, does 
 everything for himself, for his welfare. 
 
 • The commonalty, because it proclaimed the freedom 
 of Man only as to his birth, had to leave him in the claws 
 of the un-human man (the egoist) for the rest of life. 
 Hence under the regime of political liberalism egoism 
 has an immense field for free utilization. 
 
 The laborer will utilize society for his egoistic ends- 
 as the commoner does the State. You have only an 
 egoistic end after all, your welfare! is the humane lib- 
 eral's reproach to the Socialist; take up a purely human 
 interest^ then I will be your companion. "But to this. 
 
 * [In his strictures on "criticism'* Stirner refers to a special 
 movement known by that name in the early forties of the last 
 century, of which Bruno Bauer was the principal -exponent. After 
 his official separation from the faculty of the university of Bonn 
 on account of hrs views in regard to the Bible, Bruno Bauer in 
 1843 settled near Berlin -and founded the Allgemeine Literatur- 
 Zeitung, in which he and his friends, at war with ttheir surround-, 
 ings, championed the "absolute emancipation" of the individual 
 within the limits of *'pure humanity" and fought as their foe 
 "the mass/' comprehending in that term the radical aspirations 
 of political liberalism and the communistie demands of the rising 
 Socialist movement of that time. For a brief account of Bruno 
 Bauer's movement of criticism, see John Henry Mackay, ''Max 
 Stirner. Sein Leben und sein Werk.''] 
 
132 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 there belongs a consciousness stronger, more comprehen- 
 sive, than a laborer-consciousness/' *'The laborer makes 
 nothing, therefore he has nothing; but he makes nothing 
 because his labor is always a labor that remains individ- 
 ual, calculated strictly for his own want, a labor day by 
 day/''^ In opposition to this one might, for instance, 
 consider the fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain 
 mdividual, but begot innumerable children, and still lives 
 to-day ; it was calculated for the want of humanity, and 
 was an eternal, imperishable labor. 
 
 The humane consciousness despises the commoner-con- 
 sciousness as well as the laborer-consciousness; for the 
 commoner is ''indignant'' only at vagabonds (at all who 
 have ''no definite occupation") and their "immorality"; 
 the laborer is "disgusted" by the idler ("lazybones") 
 and his "immoral," because parasitic and unsocial, prin- 
 ciples. To this the humane liberal retorts: The unset- 
 tledness of many is only your product, Philistine! But 
 that you, proletarian, demand the grijid of all, and want 
 to make drudgery general, is a part, still clinging to you, 
 of your packmule life up to this time. Certainly you 
 want to lighten drudgery itself by all having to drudge 
 equally hard, yet only for this reason, that all may gain 
 leisure to an equal extent. But what are they to do with 
 their leisure? What does your "society" do, that this 
 leisure may be passed humanly f It must leave the 
 gained leisure to egoistic preference again, and the very 
 aain that your society furthers falls to the egoist, as the 
 gain of the commonalty, the masterlessness of man, could 
 not be filled with a human element by the State, and 
 therefore was left to arbitrary choice. 
 
 It is assuredly necessary that man be masterless : but 
 therefore the egoist is not to become master over man 
 again either, but man over the egoist. Man must as- 
 suredly find leisure: but, if the egoist makes use of it, 
 it will be lost for man : therefore you ought to have given 
 leisure a human significance. But you laborers under- 
 take even your labor from an egoistic impulse, because 
 
 * Br. Bauer, ''Lit. Ztgr V. 18. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 133 
 
 you want to eat, drink, live ; how should you be less egoists 
 in leisure? You labor only because having your time to 
 yourselves (idling) goes well after work done, and what 
 you are to while away your leisure time with is left 
 to chance. 
 
 But, if every door is to be bolted against egoism, it 
 would be necessary to strive after completely "disinter- 
 ested" action, total disinterestedness. This alone is hu- 
 man, because only Man is disinterested, the egoist always 
 interested. 
 
 If ye let disinterestedness pass unchallenged for a while, 
 then we ask, do you mean not to take an interest in any- 
 thing, not to be enthusiastic for anything, not for liberty, 
 humanity, etc.? ''Oh, yes, but that is not an egoistic 
 interest, not interestedness, but a human, i. e. a — theoreti- 
 cal interest, to wit, an interest not for an individual or 
 individuals ('alF), but for the idea, for Man!" 
 
 And you do not notice that you too are enthusiastic 
 only for your idea, your idea of liberty? 
 
 And, further, do you not notice that your disinter- 
 estedness is again, like religious disinterestedness, a heav- 
 enly interestedness ? Certainly benefit to the individual 
 leaves you cold, and abstractly you could cry fiat libertas, 
 per eat mundus. You do not take thought for the com- 
 ing day either, and take no serious care for the in- 
 dividual's wants anyhow, not for your own comfort nor- 
 for that of the rest; but you make nothing of all this, 
 because you are a — dreamer. 
 
 Do you suppose the humane liberal will be so Hberai 
 as to aver that everything possible to man is human f 
 On the contrary ! He does not, indeed, share the Philis- 
 tine's moral prejudice about the strumpet, but "that this 
 woman turns her body into a money-getting machine"* 
 makes her despicable to him as "human being." His 
 judgment is, The strumpet is not a human bein^; or. So 
 far as a woman is a strumpet, so far is she unhuman, do- 
 
 "Lit. Ztgr V, 26. 
 
134 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 humanized. Further: The Jew, the Christian, th^ pri- 
 vileged person, the theologian, etc., is not a human being ; 
 so far as you are a Jew, etc., you are not a human being. 
 Again the imperious postulate: Cast from you everything 
 peculiar, criticize it away ! Be not a Jew, not a Christian, 
 etc., but be a human being, nothing but a human being. 
 Assert your humanity against every restrictive specifica- 
 tion; make yourself, by means of it, a human being, and 
 free irom those limits; make yourself a "free man," 
 i, e.^ recognize humanity as your all-determining essence. 
 
 I say: You are indeed more than a Jew, more than 
 a Christian, etc., but you are also more than a human 
 being. Those are all ideas, but you are corporeal. Do 
 you suppose, then, that you can ever become "a human 
 being as such"? Do you suppose our posterity will find 
 no prejudices and limits to clear away, for which our 
 powers were not suf?icient? Or do you perhaps think 
 that in your fortieth or fiftieth year you have come so 
 far that the following days have nothing more to dissi- 
 pate in you, and that you are a human being ? The men 
 of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty 
 that we do not even miss. What do you need that later 
 liberty for? If you meant to esteem yourself as nothing 
 before you had become a human being, you would have 
 to wait till the "last judgment," till the day when man, 
 or humanity, shall have attained perfection. But, as 
 you will surely die before that, what becomes of your 
 prize of victory? 
 
 Rather, therefore, invert the case, and say to yourself, 
 / am a human being! I do not need to begin by produc- 
 ing the human being in myself, for he belongs to me 
 already, like all my qualities. 
 
 But, asks the critic, how can one be a Jew and a man 
 at once? In the first place, I answer, one cannot be 
 either a Jew or a man at all, if "one" and Jew or man are 
 to mean the same: "one" alwavs reaches bevond those 
 specifications, and — let Isaacs be ever so Jewish — a Jew, 
 nothine but a Tew, he cannot be. iust because he is this 
 Jew. In the second place, as a Tew one assuredlv cannot 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 135 
 
 be a man, if being a man means being nothing special. 
 But in the third place — -and this is the point — can, as 
 a Jew, be entirely what I — can be. From Samuel or 
 Moses, and others, you hardly expect that they should 
 have raised themselves above Judaism, although you must 
 say that they were not yet "men/' They simply were 
 what they could be. It is otherwise with the Jews of to- 
 day? Because you have discovered the idea of human- 
 ity, does it follow from this that every Jew can become a 
 convert to it ? If he can, he does not fail to, and, if he fails 
 to, he cannot. What does your demand concern him? 
 What the call to be a man, which you address to him ? 
 
 As a universal principle, in the ''human society'' which 
 the humane liberal promises, nothing "special" which 
 one or another has is to find recognition, nothing which 
 bears the character of ''private" is to have value. In 
 this way the circle of liberalism, which has its good prin- 
 ciple in man and human liberty, its bad in the egoist and 
 everything private, its God in the former, its devil in 
 the latter, rounds itself off completely ; and, if the special 
 or private person lost his value in the State (no personal 
 prerogative), if in the "laborers' or ragamuffins' society" 
 special (private) property is no longer recognized, so in 
 "human society" everything special or private will be left 
 out of account ; and, when "pure criticism" shall have ac- 
 complished its arduous task, then it will be known just 
 what we must look upon as private, and what, "penetrated 
 with a sense of our nothingness," we must — let stand. 
 
 Because State and society do not suffice for humane 
 liberalism, it negates both, and at the same time retains 
 them. So at one time the cry is that the task of the day 
 is "not a political, but a social one," and then again the 
 "free State" is promised for the future. In truth, "hu- 
 man society" is both — the most general State and the 
 most general society. Only against the limited State is 
 it asserted that it makes too much stir about spiritual 
 private interests (c. g. people's religious belief), and 
 against limited society that it makes too much of ma- 
 
136 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 terial private interests. Both are to leave private inter- 
 ests to private people, and, as human society, concern 
 themselves solely about general human interests. 
 
 The politicians, thinking to abolish personal will, self- 
 will or arbitrariness, did not observe that through prop- 
 erty"^ our self-will'\ gained a secure place of refuge. 
 
 The Socialists, taking away property too, do not no- 
 tice that this secures itself a continued existence in self- 
 ownership. Is it only money and goods, then, that are 
 a property, or is every opinion something of mine, some- 
 thing of my own? 
 
 So every opinion must be abolished or made imper- 
 sonal. The person is entitled to no opinion, but, as 
 self-will was transferred to the State, property to society, 
 so opinion too must be transferred to something gen- 
 eral, "Man,'' and thereby become a general human 
 opinion. 
 
 If opinion persists, then I have my God (why, God 
 exists only as ''my God," he is an opinion or my "faith"), 
 and consequently my faith, my religion, my thoughts, 
 my ideals. Therefore a general human faith must come 
 into existence, the ''fanaticism of liberty." For this 
 would be a faith that agreed with the "essence of man,'* 
 and, because only "man" is reasonable (you and I might 
 be very unreasonable !), a reasonable faith. 
 
 As self-will and property become powerless, so must 
 self-ownership or egoism in general. 
 
 In this supreme development of "free man" egoism, 
 self-ownership, is combated on principle, and such sub- 
 ordinate ends as the social "welfare" of the Socialists, 
 etc., vanish before the lofty "idea of humanity." Every- 
 thing that is not a "general human" entity is something 
 separate, satisfies only some or one ; or, if it satisfies all, 
 it does this to them only as individuals, not as men, and 
 is therefore called "egoistic." 
 
 To the Socialists welfare is still supreme aim, as free 
 rivalry was the approved thing to the political liberals; 
 now welfare is free too, and we are free to achieve wel- 
 
 * [Eigentum^ **owndom."] t [Eigenwille, "own-will."] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 137 
 
 fare, just as he who wanted to enter into rivalry (com- 
 petition) was free to do so. 
 
 But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be 
 commoners; to take part in the welfare, only to be lab- 
 orers. Neither reaches the point of being synonymous 
 with "man.'' It is "truly well" with man only when he 
 is also "intellectually free"! For man is mind: there- 
 fore all powers that are alien to him, the mind — all super- 
 human, heavenly, unhuman powers — must be overthrown, 
 and the name "man" must be above every name. 
 
 So in this end of the modern age (age of the moderns) 
 there returns again, as the main point, what had been 
 the main point at its beginning: "intellectual liberty." 
 
 To the Communist in particular the humane liberal 
 says : If society prescribes to you your activity, then this 
 is indeed free from the influence of the individual, i, e. 
 the egoist, but it still does not on that account need to 
 be a purely human activity, nor you to be a complete or- 
 gan of humanity. What kind of activity society demands 
 of you remains accidental, you know ; it might give you 
 a place in building a temple or something of that sort, 
 or, even if not that, you might yet on your own impulse 
 be active for something foolish, therefore unhuman; yes, 
 more yet, you really labor only to nourish yourself, in 
 general to live, for dear life's sake, not for the glorifica- 
 tion of humanity. Consequently free activity is not at- 
 tained till you make yourself free from all stupidities, 
 from everything non-human, i. e. egoistic (pertaining only 
 to the individual, not to the Man in the individual), dis- 
 sipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea 
 of humanity : in short, when you are not merely unham- 
 pered in your activity, but the substance too of your 
 activity is only what is human, and you live and work 
 only for humanity. But this is not the case so long as the 
 aim of your effort is only your welfare and that of all ; 
 what you do for the society of ragamuffins is not yet 
 anything done for "human society." 
 
 Laboring does not alone make you a man, because it- 
 is something formal and its object accidental; the ques- 
 
138 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 tion is who you that labor are. As far as laboring goes, 
 you might do it from an egoistic (material) impulse, 
 merely to procure nourishment and the like ; it must be a 
 labor furthering humanity, calculated for the good of 
 humanity, serving historical (i. e. hurnan) evolution — in 
 short, a humane labor. This implies two things ; one, that 
 it be useful to humanity; next, that it be the work of a 
 ''man.'' The first alone may be the case with every labor, 
 as even the labors of nature, e, g. of animals, are utilized 
 by humanity for the furthering of science, etc. ; the sec- 
 ond requires that he who labors should know the human 
 object of his labor; and, as he can have this conscious- 
 ness only when he knows himself as man, the crucial con- 
 dition is — self-consciotisness. 
 
 Unquestionably much is already attained when you 
 cease to be a "'fragment-laborer,''"^ yet therewith you only 
 get a view of the whole of your labor, and acquire a con- 
 sciounsness about it, which is still far removed from a 
 self-consciousness, a consciousness about your true '^self " 
 or "essence," Man. The laborer has still remaining the 
 desire for a "higher consciousness," which, because the 
 activity of labor is unable to quiet it, he satisfies in a 
 leisure hour. Hence leisure stands by the side of his 
 labor ^ and he sees himself compelled to proclaim labor 
 and idling human in one breath, yes, to attribute the 
 true elevation to the idler, the leisure-en j oyer. He labors 
 only to get rid of labor ; he wants to make labor free, only 
 that he may be free from labor. 
 
 In fine, his work has no satisfying substance, because 
 it is only imposed by society, only a stint, a task, a call- 
 ing; and, conversely, his society does not satisfy, be- 
 cause it gives only work. 
 
 His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of 
 that, it satisfies society; society ought to treat him as 
 a man, and it treats him as — a rag-tag laborer, or a lab- 
 oring ragamuffin. 
 
 * [Referring to minute subdivision of labor, whereby the single 
 workman produces, not a whole, but a part.] 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 139 
 
 Labor and society are of use to him not as he needs 
 them as a man, but only as he needs them as an "egoist/' 
 
 Such is the attitude of criticism toward labor. It 
 points to "mind/' wages the war "of mind with the 
 masses,""^ and pronounces communistic labor unintel- 
 lectual mass-labor. Averse to labor as they are, the 
 masses love to make labor easy for themselves. In lit- 
 erature, which is to-day furnished in mass, this aversion 
 to labor begets the universally-known superficiality, 
 which puts from it ^'the toil of research. "f 
 
 Therefore humane liberalism says : You want labor ; 
 all right, we want it likewise, but we want it in the 
 fullest measure. We want it, not that we may gain 
 spare time, but that we may find all satisfaction in it 
 itself. We want labor because it is our self -develop- 
 ment. 
 
 But then the labor too must be adapted to that end! 
 Man is honored only by human, self-conscious labor, 
 only by the labor that has for its end no "egoistic" pur- 
 pose, but Man, and is Man's sei f -revelation ; so that 
 the saying should be laboro, ergo sum, I labor, therefore 
 I am a man. The humane liberal wants that labor of 
 the mind which works np all material ; he wants the 
 mind, that leaves no thing quiet or in its existing condi- 
 tion, that asquiesces in nothing, analyzes everything, 
 criticises anew every result that has been gained. This 
 restless mind is the true laborer, it obliterates preju- 
 dices, shatters limits and narrownesses, and raises man 
 above everything that would like to dominate over him, 
 while the Communist labors only for himself, and not 
 even freely, but from necessity — in short, represents a 
 man condemned to hard labor. 
 
 The laborer of such a type is not "egoistic,'' because 
 he does not labor for individuals, neither for himself nor 
 for other individuals, nor for private men therefore, but 
 for humanity and its progress ; he does not ease individual 
 pains, does not care for individual wants, but removes 
 
 * ''Lit. Ztgr V. 2L 
 
 f "Lit. 'Ztg.'' ibid. 
 
140 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 limits within which humanity is pressed, dispels preju- 
 dices which dominate an entire time, vanquishes hin- 
 drances that obstruct the path of all, clears away errors 
 in which men entangle themselves, discovers truths 
 which are found through him for all and for all time; 
 in short — he lives and labors for humanity. 
 
 Now, in the first place^ the discoverer of a great truth 
 doubtless knows that it can be useful to the rest of 
 men, and, as a jealous withholding furnishes him no 
 enjoyment, he communicates it; but, even though he 
 has the consciousness that his communication is highly 
 valuable to the rest, yet he has in no wise sought and 
 found his truth for the sake of the rest, but for his 
 own sake, because he himself desired it, because dark- 
 ness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured 
 for himself light and enlightenment to the best of his 
 powers. 
 
 He labors, therefore, for his own sake and for the 
 satisfaction of his want. That along with this he 
 was also useful to others, yes, to posterity, does not take 
 from his labor the egoistic character. 
 
 In the next place, if he did labor only on his own 
 account, like the rest, why should his act be human, 
 those of the rest unhuman, i. e. egoistic? Perhaps 
 because this book, painting, symphony, etc., is the labor 
 of his whole being, because he has done his best in it, 
 has spread himself out wholly and is wholly to be 
 known from it, while the work of a handicraftsman 
 mirrors only the handicraftsman, i. e. the skill in han- 
 dicraft, not *'the man''? In his poems we have the 
 whole Schiller ; in so many hundred stoves, on the other 
 hand, we have before us only the stove-maker, not ''the 
 man." 
 
 But does this mean more than ''in the one work you 
 see me as completely as possible, in the other only my 
 skill"? Is it not me again that the act expresses? And 
 is it not more egoistic to ofifer oneself to the world in 
 a work, to work out and shape oneself, than to remain 
 concealed behind one's labor? You say, to be sure, 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 141 
 
 that you are revealing Man. But the Man that you 
 reveal is you; you reveal only yourself, yet with this 
 distinction from the handicraftsman — that he does not 
 understand how to compress himself into one labor, 
 but, in order to be known as himself, must be searched 
 out in his other relations of life, and that your want, 
 through whose satisfaction that work came into being, 
 was a — theoretical want. 
 
 But you will reply that you reveal quite another man, 
 a worthier,, higher, greater, a man that is more man than 
 that other. I will assume that you accomplish all that 
 is possible to man, that you bring to pass what no other 
 succeeds in. Wherein, then, does yor greatness consist? 
 Precisely in this, that you are more than other men 
 (the "masses''), more than mot ordinarily are, more 
 than "ordinary men" ; precisely in your elevation above 
 men. You are distinguished beyond other men not by 
 being man, but because you are a "unique''"^ man. Doubt- 
 less you show what a man can do ; but because you, a 
 man, do it, this by no means shows that others, also 
 men, areable to do as much ; you have executed it only 
 as a unique man, and are unique therein. 
 
 It is not man that makes up your greatness, but you 
 create it, because you are more than man, and mightier 
 than other — men. 
 
 It is believed that one cannot be more than man. 
 Rather, one cannot be less! 
 
 It is believed further that whatever one attains is 
 good for Man. In so far as I remain at all times a 
 man — or, like Schiller, a Swabian ; like Kant, a Prus- 
 sian; like Gustave Adolphus, a near-sighted person 
 — I certainly become by my superior qualities a notable 
 man, Swabian, Prussian, or near-sighted person. But 
 the case is not much better with that than with Fred- 
 erick the Great's cane, which became famous for Fred- 
 erick's sake. 
 
 To "Give God the glory'' corresponds the modern 
 
 * einziger'^ 
 
142 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ''Give Man the glory." But I mean to keep it for my- 
 self. 
 
 Criticism, issuing the summons to man to be ''hu- 
 man/' enunciates the necessary condition of sociability; 
 for only as a man among men is one companionable. 
 Herewith it makes known its social object, the estab- 
 lishment of "human society." 
 
 Among social theories criticism is indisputably the 
 most complete, because it removes and deprives of value 
 everything that separates man from man; all preroga- 
 tives, down to the prerogative of faith. In it the love- 
 principle of Christianity, the true social principle, comes 
 to the purest fulfilment, and the last possible experiment 
 is tried to take away exclusiveness and repulsion from 
 men : a fight against egoism in its simplest and there- 
 fore hardest form, in the form of singleness,"^ exclu- 
 isveness itself. 
 
 "How can you live a truly social life so long as even 
 one exclusiveness still exists between you ?" 
 
 I ask conversely. How can you be truly single so 
 long as even one connection still exists between you? 
 If you are connected, you cannot leave each other; if 
 a "tie" clasps you, you are something only with anotherj, 
 and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands of you a 
 people, millions of you humanity. 
 
 "Only when you are human can you keep company 
 with each other as men, just as you can understand 
 each other as patriots only when you are patriotic!" 
 
 All right; then I answer, Only when you are single 
 can you have intercourse with each other as what you 
 are. 
 
 • It is precisely the keenest critic who is hit hardest 
 by the curse of his principle. Putting from him one 
 exclusive thing after another, shaking oflF churchliness, 
 patriotism, etc., he undoes one tie after another and sepa- 
 rates himself from the churchly man, from the patriot, 
 etc., till at last, when all ties are undone, he stands — 
 
 * [Einzigkeit] 
 
 I 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 143 
 
 alone. He, of all men, must exclude all that have 
 anything exclusive or private; and, when you get to the 
 bottom, what can be more exclusive than the exclusive, 
 single person himself ! 
 
 Or does he perhaps think that the situation would 
 be better if all became "men" and gave up exclusive- 
 ness? Why, for the very reason that "slV means ''every 
 individual" the most glaring contradiction is still main- 
 tained, for the ''individual" is exclusiveness itself. If 
 the humane liberal no longer concedes to the individual 
 anything private or exclusive, any private thought, any 
 private folly ; if he criticises everything away from him 
 before his face, since his hatred of the private is an 
 absolute and fanatical hatred ; if he knows no tolerance 
 toward what is private, because everything private is 
 unhuman — yet he cannot criticise away the private per- 
 son himself, since the hardness of the individual person 
 resists his criticism, and he must be satisfied with de- 
 claring this person a ''private person" and really leav- 
 ing everything private to him again. 
 
 What will the society that no longer cares about any- 
 thing private do? Make the private impossible? No, 
 but "subordinate it to the interests of society, and, e. g., 
 leave it to private will to institute holidays as many 
 as it chooses, if only it does not come in collision with 
 the general interest."* Everything private is left free; 
 i, e. it has no interest for society. 
 
 "By their raising of barriers against science the 
 church and religiousness have declared that they are 
 what they always were, only that this was hidden under 
 another semblance when they were proclaimed to be 
 the basis and necessary foundation of the State — 
 a matter of purely private concern. Even when they 
 were connected with the State and made it Christian, 
 they were only the proof that the State had not yet 
 developed its general political idea, that it was only 
 instituting private rights — they were only the high- 
 
 * BrunO' Bauer, ''Judenfrage'' p. 66. 
 
144 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 est expression for the fact that the State was a private 
 affair and had to do only with private affairs. When 
 the State shall at last have the courage and strength to 
 fulfil its general destiny and to be free ; when, there- 
 fore, it is also able to give separate interests and pri- 
 vate concerns their true position — then religion and the 
 church will be free as they have never been hitherto. 
 
 ' As a matter of the most purely private concern, and a 
 satisfaction of purely personal want, they will be left 
 
 I to themselves ; and every individual, every congregation 
 and ecclesiastical communion, will be able to care for 
 the blessedness of their souls as they choose and as 
 they think necessary. Every one will care for his souFs 
 blessedness so far as it is to him a personal want, and 
 will accept and pay as spiritual caretakeer the one who 
 seems to him to offer the best guarantee for the satis- 
 faction of his want. Science is at last left entirely out 
 of the game."''' 
 
 What is to happen, though? Is social life to have 
 an end, and all companionableness, all fraternization, 
 everything that is created by the love or society prin- 
 ciple, to disappear? 
 
 As if one will not always seek the other because he 
 needs him; as if one must not accommodate himself to 
 the other when he needs him. But the difference is 
 this, that then the individual really unites with the in- 
 dividual, while formerly they were bound together by 
 a tie ; son and father are bound together before major- 
 ity, after it they can come together independently; 
 before it they belonged together as members of the fam- 
 ily, after it they unite as egoists ; sonship and father- 
 hood remain, but son and father no longer pin them- 
 selves down to these. 
 
 The last privilege, in truth, is "Man" ; with it all are 
 privileged or invested. For, as Bruno Bauer himself 
 says, "privilege remains even when it is extended to all.^f 
 
 * Bruno Bauer, '^Die gute Sache der Freiheit'' pp. 62-63. 
 t Bruno Bauer, ''Judenfrage" p. 60. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 145 
 
 Thus liberalism runs its course in the following trans- 
 formations: 'Tirst, the individual is not man, there- 
 fore his individual personality is of no account: no 
 personal will, no arbitrariness, no orders or mandates 1 
 
 ''Second, the individual has nothing human, there- 
 fore no mine and thine, or property, is valid. 
 
 ''Third, as the individual neither is man nor has any- 
 thing human, he shall not exist at all: he shall, as an 
 egoist with his egoistic belongings, be annihilated by 
 criticism to make room for Man, 'Man, just discov- 
 ered\" 
 
 But, although the individual is not Man, Man is yet 
 present in the individual, and, like every spook and 
 everything divine, has its existence in him. Hence po- 
 litical liberalism awards to the individual everything 
 that pertains to him as "a man by birth,'' as a born 
 man, among which there are counted liberty of con- 
 science, the possession of goods, etc. — in short, the 
 "rights of man'' ; Socialism grants to the individual what 
 pertains to him as an active man, as a "laboring" man ; 
 finally, humane liberalism gives the individual what he 
 has as "a man," i. e, everything that belongs to human- 
 ity. Accordingly the single one* has nothing at all, hu- 
 manity everything; and the necessity of the "regenera- 
 tion" preached in Christianity is demanded unambigu- 
 ously and in the completest measure. Become a new 
 creature, become "man" ! 
 
 One might even think himself reminded of the close 
 of the Lord's Prayer. To Man belongs the lordship 
 (the "power" or dynamis) ; therefore no individuals may 
 be lord, but Man is the lord of individuals: — Man's is 
 the kingdom, i. e. the world, consequently the individual 
 is not to be proprietor, but Man, "all," commands 
 the world as property; — to Man is due renown, glori- 
 ßcation or "glory" (doxa) from all, for Man or hu- 
 manity is the individual's end, for which he labors, 
 
 * [Emsige] 
 
146 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 thinks, lives, and for whose glorification he must become 
 "man." 
 
 Hitherto men have always striven to find out a fel- 
 lowship in which their inequalities in pther respects 
 should become ''non-essentiar' ; they strove for equali- 
 zation, consequently for equality, and wanted to come 
 all under one hat, which means nothing less than that 
 they were seeking for one lord, one tie, one faith ('^'Tis 
 in one God we all believe''). There cannot be for men 
 anything more fellowly or more equal than Man him- 
 self^ and in this fellowship the love-craving has found 
 its contentment; it did not rest till it had brought on 
 this last equalization, leveled all inequality, laid man on 
 the breast of man. But under this very fellowship de- 
 cay and ruin become most glaring. In a more limited 
 fellowship the Frenchman still stood against the Ger- 
 man, the Christian against the Mohammedan, etc. Now, 
 on the contrary, man stands against men, or, as men 
 are not man, man stands against the un-man. 
 
 The sentence "God has become man" is now followed 
 by the other, "Man has become I." This is the human 
 L But we invert it and say : I was not able to find 
 myself so long as I sought myself as Man. But, now 
 that it appears that Man is aspiring to become I and 
 to gain a corporeity in me, I note that, after all, every- 
 thing depends on me, and Man is lost without me. But 
 I do not care to give myself up to be the shrine of this 
 most holy thing, and shall not ask henceforward whether 
 I am man or un-man in what I set about; let this spirit 
 keep off my neck ! 
 
 Humane liberalism goes to work radically. If you want 
 to be or have anything especial even in one point, if you 
 want to retain for yourself even one prerogative above 
 others, to claim even one right that is not a "general 
 right of man," you are an egoist. 
 
 Very good! I do not want to have or be anything 
 especial above others, I do not want to claim any pre- 
 rogative against them, but — I do not measure myself 
 by others either, and do not want to have any right 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 147 
 
 whatever. I want to be all and have all that I can be 
 and have. Whether others are and have anything sim- 
 ilar, what do I care? The equal, the same, they can 
 neither be nor have. I cause no detriment to them, as 
 I cause no detriment to the rock by being ''ahead of it" 
 in having motion. If they could have it, they would 
 have it. 
 
 To cause other men no detriment is the point of the 
 demand to possess no prerogative; to renounce all ''be- 
 ing ahead," the strictest theory of renunciation. One 
 is not to count himself as "anything especial," such as 
 e. g. a Jew or a Christian. Well, I do not count myself 
 as anything especial, but as unique,"^' Doubtless I have 
 similarity with others ; yet that holds good only for 
 comparison or reflection ; in fact I am incomparable, 
 unique. My flesh is not their flesh, my mind is not 
 their mind. If you bring them under the generalities 
 "flesh, mind," those are your thoughts, which have noth- 
 ing to do with my flesh, my mind, and can least of all 
 issue a "call" to mine. 
 
 I do not want to recognize or respect in you any thing, 
 neither the proprietor nor the ragamuffin, nor even the 
 man, but to use you. In salt I find that it makes food 
 palatable to me, therefore I will dissolve it; in the 
 fish I recognize an aliment, therefore I eat it; in you I 
 discover the gift of making my life agreeable, therefore 
 I chose you as a companion. Or, in salt I study crys- 
 tallization,, in the fish animality, in you men, etc. But 
 to me you are only what you are for me — to wit, my ob- 
 ject; and, because my object, therefore my property. 
 
 In humane liberalism ragamuffinhood is completed. 
 We must first come down to the most ragamuffin-like, 
 most poverty-stricken condition if we want to arrive 
 at ownness, for we must strip off everything alien. But 
 nothing seems more ragamuffin-like than naked — Man. 
 
 It is more than ragamuffinhood, however, when I 
 throw away Man too because I feel that he too is alien 
 
 * [einsig] 
 
148 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 to me and that I can make no pretensions on that basis. 
 This is no longer mere ragamuffinhood : because even 
 the last rag has fallen off, here stands real nakedness, 
 denudation of everything alien. The ragamuffin has 
 stripped off ragamuffinhood itself, and therewith has 
 ceased to be what he was, a ragamuffin. 
 
 I am no longer a ragamuffin, but have been one. 
 
 Up to this time the discord could not come to an 
 outbreak, because properly there is current only a con- 
 tention of modern liberals with antiquated liberals, a 
 contention of those who understand ''freedom'' in a 
 small measure and those who want the ''full measure'' 
 of freedom ; of the moderate and measureless, therefore. 
 Everything turns on the question, how free must man 
 be? That man must be free, in this all believe; there- 
 fore all are liberal too. But the un-man'*' who is some- 
 where in every individual, how is he blocked? How 
 can it be arranged not to leave the un-man free at the 
 same time with man? 
 
 Liberalism as a whole has a deadly enemy, an invin- 
 cible opposite, as God has the devil : by the side of man 
 stands always the un-man, the individual, the egoist. 
 State, society, humanity, do not master this devil. 
 
 Humane liberalism has undertaken the task of show- 
 ing the other liberals that they still do not want "free- 
 dom." 
 
 If the other liberals had before their eyes only iso- 
 lated egoism and were for the most part blind, radical 
 liberalism has against it egoism "in mass," throws among 
 the masses all who do not make the cause of freedom 
 their own as it does, so that now man and un-man, rigor- 
 ously separated, stand over against each other as ene- 
 mies, to wit, the "masses" and "criticism" ;t namely, 
 
 * [It should be remembered that to be an Unmensch ("un- 
 man") one must be a man. The word means an inhuman or un- 
 human man, a man who is not man. A tiger, an avalanche, a 
 drought, a cabbage, is not an un-man.] 
 
 t "Liu Ztgr V.23;sLS comment, V. 12 ff. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 149 
 
 ^'free, human criticism/' as it is called Judenfrage,'' p. 
 114), in opposition to crude, e. g. religious, criticism. 
 
 Criticism expresses the hope that it will be victorious 
 over all the masses and "give them a general certificate 
 of insolvency.'^* So it means finally to make itself out 
 m the right, and to represent all contention of the '^faint- 
 hearted and timorous" as an egoistic stuhbornness,X as 
 pettiness, paltriness. All wrangling loses significance, 
 and petty dissensions are given up, because in criticism a 
 common enemy enters the field. *'You are egoists alto- 
 gether, one no better than another!" Now the egoists 
 stand together against criticism. 
 
 Really the egoists? No, they fight against criticism 
 precisely because it accuses them of egoism ; they do not 
 plead guilty of egoism. Accordingly criticism and the 
 masses stand on the same basis; both fight against ego- 
 ism, both repudiate it for themselves and charge it to 
 each other. 
 
 Criticism and the masses pursue the same goal, free- 
 dom from egoism, and wrangle only over which of them 
 approaches nearest to the goal or even attains it. 
 
 The Jews, the Christians, the absolutists, the men of 
 darkness and men of light, politicians, Communists — all, 
 in short — hold the reproach of egoism far from them; 
 and, as criticism brings against them this reproach in 
 plain terms and in the most extended sense, all justify 
 themselves against the accusation of egoism, and com- 
 bat — egoism, the same enemy with whom criticism wages 
 war. 
 
 Both, criticism and masses, are enemies of egoists, and 
 both seek to liberate themselves from egoism, as well by 
 clearing or whitewashing themselves as by ascribing it 
 to the opposite party. 
 
 The critic is the true "spokesman of the masses'' who 
 gives them the "simple concept and the phrase" of ego- 
 ism, while the spokesmen to whom the triumph is denied 
 
 ZtgrY. 1S~ 
 
 t [Rechthaberei^ literally the character of always insisting on 
 making one*s self out to be in the right.] 
 
150 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 in ''Lit. ^tg/' V. 24 were only bunglers. He is their 
 prince and general in the war against egoism for free- 
 dom; what he fights against they fight against. But at 
 the same time he is their enemy too, only not the enemy 
 before them, but the friendly enemy who wields the knout 
 behind the timorous to force courage into them. 
 
 Hereby the opposition of criticism and the masses is 
 reduced to the following contradiction : ''You are ego- 
 ists'' ! No, we are nof ! *T will prove it to you'' ! "You 
 shall have our justification"! 
 
 Let us then take both for what they give themselves 
 out for, non-egoists and what they take each other for, 
 egoists. They are egoists and are not. 
 
 Properly criticism says: You must liberate your ego 
 from all limitedness so entirely that it becomes a human 
 ego. I say: Liberate yourself as far as you can, and 
 you have done your part ; for it is not given to every one 
 to break through all limits, or, more expressively: not 
 to every one is that a limit which is a limit for the rest. 
 Consequently, do not tire yourself with toiling at the 
 limits of others ; enough if you tear down yours. Who 
 has ever succeeded in tearing down even one limit for 
 all men? Are not countless persons to-day, as at all times, 
 running about with all the ''limitations of humanity"? 
 He who overturns one of his limits may have shown 
 others the way and the means ; the overturning of their 
 limits remains their afifair. Nobody does anything else 
 either. To demand of people that they become wholly 
 men is to call on them to cast down all human limits. That 
 IS impossible, because Man has no limits. I have some 
 indeed, but then it is only mine that concern me any, and 
 only they can be overcome by me. A human ego I can- 
 not become, just because I am I and not merely man. 
 
 Yet let us still see whether criticism has not taught us 
 something that we can lay to heart ! I am not free if I 
 am not without interests, not man if I am not disinterest- 
 ed? Well, even if it makes little difference to me to be 
 free or man, yet I do not want to leave unused anv oc- 
 casion to realize myself or make myself count. Criticism 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 151 
 
 offers me this occasion by the teaching that, if anything 
 plants itself firmly in me, and becomes indissoluble, I 
 become its prisoner and servant, i, e, a possessed man. 
 An interest, be it for what it may, has kidnapped a slave 
 in me if I cannot get away from it, and is no longer my 
 property, but I am its. Let us therefore accept criticism's 
 lesson to let no part of our property become stable, and 
 to feel comfortable only in — dissolving it. 
 
 So, if criticism says : You are man only when you are 
 restlessly criticising and dissolving ! then we say : Man 
 I am without that, and I am I likewise ; therefore I want 
 only to be careful to secure my property to myself ; and, 
 in order to secure it, I continually take it back into my- 
 self, annihilate in it every movement toward indepen- 
 dence, and swallow it before it can fix itself and become 
 a "fixed idea'' or a ''mania." 
 
 But I do that not for the sake of my ''human calling," 
 but because I call myself to it. I do not strut about dis- 
 solving everything that it is possible for a man to dis- 
 solve, and, e. g,, while not yet ten years old I do not 
 criticize the nonsense of the Commandments, but I am 
 man all the same, and act humanly in just this — that I 
 still leave them uncriticised. In short, I have no calling, 
 and follow none, not even that to be a man. 
 
 Do I now reject what liberalism has won in its various 
 exertions ? Far be the day that anything won should be 
 lost! Only, after "Man" has become free through lib- 
 eralism, I turn my gaze back upon myself and confess to 
 myself openly : What Man seems to have gained, / alone 
 have gained. 
 
 Man is free when "Man is to man the supreme being.''' 
 So it belongs to the completion of liberalism that every 
 other supreme being be annulled, theology overturned by 
 anthropology, God and his grace laughed down, "athe- 
 ism" universal. 
 
 The egoism of property has given up the last that it 
 had to give when even the "My God" has become sense- 
 less; for God exists only when he has at heart the in- 
 dividual's welfare, as the latter seeks his welfare in him. 
 
152 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 > Political liberalism abolished the inequality of masters 
 and servants: it made people masterless, anarchic. The 
 master was now removed from the individual, the ''ego- 
 ist," to become a ghost — the law or the State. Social 
 liberalism abolishes the inequality of possession, of the 
 poor and rich, and makes people possessionless or prop- 
 ertyless. Property is withdrawn from the individual and 
 surrendered to ghostly society. Humane liberalism makes 
 people godless, atheistic. Therefore the individual's God, 
 "my God," must be put an end to. Now masterlessness is 
 indeed at the same time freedom from service, posses- 
 sionlessness at the same time freedom from care, and 
 godlessness at the same time freedom from prejudice: 
 for with the master the servant falls away ; with posses- 
 sion, the care about it; with the firmly-rooted God, pre- 
 judice. But, since the master rises again as State, the 
 servant appears again as subject; since possession be- 
 comes the property of society, care is begotten anew as 
 labor; and, since God as Man becomes a prejudice, there 
 arises a new faith, faith in humanity or liberty. For the 
 individual's God the God of all, vi^.^ "Man," is now 
 exalted; "for it is the highest thing in us all to be man." 
 But, as nobody can become entirely what the idea "man" 
 imports, Man remains to the individual a lofty other 
 world, an unattained supreme being, a God. But at the 
 same time this is the "true God," because he is fully 
 adequate to us — to wit, our own ''self ; we ourselves, 
 but separated from us and lifted above us. 
 
 POSTCRIPT 
 
 The foregoing review of "free human criticism" was 
 written by bits immediately after the appearance of the 
 books in question, as was also that which elsewhere refers 
 to writings of this tendency, and I did little more than 
 bring together the fragments. But criticism is restlessly 
 pressing forward, and thereby makes it necessary for me 
 to come back to it once more, now that my book is fin- 
 ished, and insert this concluding note. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 153 
 
 I have before me the latest (eighth) number of the 
 Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung ' of Bruno Bauer. 
 
 There again ''the general interests of society'' stand at 
 the top. But criticism has reflected, and given this ''socie- 
 ty'' a specification by which it is discriminated from a 
 form which previously had still been confused with it: 
 the "State," in former passages still celebrated as "free 
 State," is quite given up because it can in no wise ful- 
 fil the task of "human society." Criticism only "saw it- 
 self compelled to identify for a moment human and 
 political affairs" in 1842; but now it has found that the 
 State, even as "free State," is not human society, or, as 
 it could likewise say, that the people is not "man." We 
 saw how it got through with theology and showed clearly 
 that God sinks into dust before Man; we see it now come 
 to a clearence with politics in the same way, and show 
 that before Man peoples and nationalities fall : so we 
 see how it has its explanation with Church and State, 
 declaring them both unhuman, and we shall see — for it 
 betrays this to us already — how it can also give proof that 
 before Man the "masses," which it even calls a "spiritual 
 being," appear worthless. And how should the lesser 
 "spiritual beings" be able to maintain themselves before 
 the supreme spirit? "Man" casts down the false idols. 
 
 So what the critic has in view for the present is the 
 scrutiny of the "masses," which he will place before 
 *'Man" in order to combat them from the standpoint of 
 Man. "What is now the object of criticism?" "The mass- 
 es, a spiritual being!" These the critic will "learn to 
 know," and will find that they are in contradiction with 
 Man; he will demonstrate that they are unhuman, and 
 will succeed just as well in this demonstration as in the 
 former ones, that the divine and the national, or the 
 concerns of Church and of State, were the unhuman. 
 
 The masses are defined as "the most significant prod- 
 uct of the Revolution, as the deceived multitude which 
 the illusions of political Illumination, and in general the 
 entire Illumination movement of the eighteenth century, 
 have given over to boundless disgruntlement." The Rev- 
 
154 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 olution satisfied some by its result, and left others unsatis- 
 fied; the satisfied part is the commonalty (bourgeoisie, 
 etc.), themnsatisfied is the — masses. Does not the critic, 
 so placed, himself belong to the "masses"? 
 
 But the unsatisfied are still in great mistiness, and 
 their discontent utters itself only in a ''boundless dis- 
 gruntlement/' This the likewise unsatisfied critic now 
 wants to master : he cannot want and attain more than 
 to bring that "spiritual being," he masses, out of its dis- 
 gruntlement, and to "uplift" those who were only dis- 
 gruntled, i. e. to give them the right attitude toward those 
 results of the Revolution which are to be overcome ; — he 
 can become the head of the masses, their decided spokes- 
 man. Therefore he wants also to "abolish the deep 
 chasm vv^hich parts him from the multitude." From those 
 who want to "uplift the lower classes of the people" he 
 is distinguished by wanting to deliver from "disgruntle- 
 ment," not merely these, but himself too. 
 
 But assuredly his consciousness does hot deceive him 
 either, when he takes the masses to be the "natural op- 
 ponents of theory," and foresees that, "the more this 
 theory shall develop itself, so much the more will it make 
 the masses compact." For the critic cannot enlighten or 
 satisfy the masses with his presupposition, Man. If 
 over against the commonalty they are only the "lower 
 classes of the people," politically insignificant masses, 
 over against "Man" they must still more be mere "mass- 
 es," humanly insignificant — yes, unhuman — masses, or a 
 multitude of un-men. 
 
 The critic clears away everything human; and, start- 
 ing from the presupposition that the human is the true, 
 he works against himself, denying it wherever it had 
 been hitherto found. He proves only that the human is 
 to be found nowhere except in his head, but the unhuman 
 everywhere. The unhuman is the real, the extant on all 
 hands, and by the proof that it is "not human" the critic 
 only enunciates plainly the tautological setntence that it 
 is the unhuman. 
 
 But what if the unhuman, turning its back on itself 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 155 
 
 with resolute heart, should at the same time turn away 
 from the disturbing critic and leave him standing, un- 
 touched and unstung by his remonstrance? ''You call me 
 the unhuman," it might say to him, ''and so I really am 
 — for you; but I am so only because you bring me into 
 opposition to the human, and I could despise myself only 
 so long as I let myself be hypnotized into this opposition, 
 I was contemptible because I sought my 'better self out- 
 side me; I was the unhuman because I dreamed of the 
 'human' ; I resembled the pious who hunger for their 
 *true self and always remain 'poor sinners' ; I thought 
 of myself only in comparison to another; enough 
 I was not all in all, was not — unique,"^ But now I cease 
 to appear to myself as the unhuman, cease to measure 
 myself and let myself be measured by man, cease to 
 recognize anything above me : consequently — adieu, hu- 
 mane critic! I only have been the unhuman, am it now 
 no longer, but am the unique, yes, to your loathing, the 
 egoistic; yet not the egoistic as it lets itself be measured 
 by the human, humane, and unselfish, but the egoistic 
 as the — unique/' 
 
 We have to pay attention to still another sentence of 
 the same number. "Criticism sets up no dogmas and 
 wants to learn to know nothing but things/' 
 
 The critic is afraid of becoming "dogmatic" or set- 
 ting up dogmas. Of course: why, thereby he would 
 become the opposite of the critic — the dogmatist; he 
 would now become bad, as he is good as critic or would 
 become from an unselfish man an egoist, etc. "Of all 
 things, no dogma!" this is his — dogma. For the critic 
 remains on one and the same ground with the dogmatist — 
 that of thoughts. Like the latter he always starts from 
 a thought, but varies in this,, that he never ceases to 
 keep the principle-thought in the process of thinking, 
 and so does not let it become stable. He only asserts 
 the thought-process against the thought-faith, the prog- 
 ress of thinking against stationariness in it. From critic- 
 
 * [einsig] 
 
156 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ism no thought is safe, since criticism is thought or th^ 
 thinking mind itself. 
 
 Therefore I repeat that the reHgious world — ^and this 
 is the world of thoughts — reaches its completion in 
 criticism, where thinking extends its encroachments over 
 every thought, no one of which may ''egoistically" estab- 
 lish itself. Where would the ''purity of criticism," the 
 purity of thinking, be left if even one thought escaped 
 the process of thinking? This explains the fact that the 
 critic has even begun already to gibe gently here and there 
 at the thought of Man, of humanity and humaneness, 
 because he suspects that here a thought is approaching 
 dogmatic fixity. But yet he cannot decompose this thought 
 till he has found a — ''higher" in which it dissolves ; for 
 he moves only — in thoughts. This higher thought might 
 be enunciated as that of the movement or process of 
 thinking itself, i. e. as the thought of thinking or of 
 criticism. 
 
 Freedom of thinking has in fact become complete 
 hereby, freedom of mind celebrates its triumph : for the 
 individual, "egoistic" thoughts have lost their dogmatic 
 truculence. There is nothing left but the — dogma of free 
 thinking or of criticism. 
 
 Against everything that belongs to the world of thought, 
 criticism is in the right, i. e, in might: it is the victor. 
 Criticism, and criticism alone, is "up to date." From 
 the standpoint of thought there is no power capable of 
 being an overmatch for criticism's, and it is a pleasure to 
 see how easily and sportively this dragon swallows all 
 other serpents of thought. Each serpent twists, to be 
 sure, but criticism crushes it in all its "turns." 
 
 I am no opponent of criticism, i. e. I am no dogmatist, 
 and do not feel myself touched by the critic's tooth with 
 which he tears the dogmatist to pieces. If I were a 
 ''dogmatist," I should place at the head a dogma, i. e. a 
 thought, an idea, a principle, and should complete this 
 as a "systematist," spinning it out to a system, i. e. a 
 structure of thought. Conversely, if I were a critic, vis., 
 an opponent of the dogmatist, I should carry on the 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 157 
 
 fight of free thinking against the enthralling thought, I 
 sliould defend thinking against what was thought. But 
 I am neither the champion of a thought nor the champion 
 of thinking; for *T," from whom I sart, am not a thought, 
 nor do I consist in thinking. Against me, the unname- 
 able, the realm of thoughts, thinking, and mind is shat- 
 tered. 
 
 Criticism is the possessed man's fight against posses- 
 sion as such, against all possession : a fight which is found- 
 ed in the consciousness that everywhere possession, or, 
 as the critic calls it, a religious and theological attitude, 
 is extant. He knows that people stand in a religious or 
 believing attitude not only toward God, but toward other 
 ideas as well, like right, the State, law, etc. ; i. e, he 
 recognizes possession in all places. So he wants to break 
 up thoughts by thinking; but I say, only thoughtlessness 
 really saves me from thoughts. It is not thinking, but 
 my thoughtlessness, or I the unthinkable, incompre- 
 hensible, that frees me from possession. 
 
 A jerk does me the service of the most anxious think- 
 ing, a stretching of the limbs shakes off the torment of 
 thoughts, a leap upward hurls from my breast the night- 
 mare of the religious world, a jubilant Hoopla throws off 
 year-long burdens. But the monstrous significance of 
 unthinking jubilation could not be recognized in the long 
 night of thinking and believing. 
 
 "What clumsiness and frivolity, to want to solve the 
 most difficult problems, acquit yourself of the most com- 
 prehensive tasks, by a breaking off!" 
 
 But have you tasks if you do not set them to your- 
 self? So long as you set them, you will not give them 
 up, and I certainly do not care if you think, and, think- 
 ing, create a thousand thoughts. But you who have set 
 the tasks, are you not to be able to upset them again? 
 Must you be bound to these tasks, and must they be- 
 come absolute tasks? 
 
 To cite only one thing, the government has been 
 disparaged on account of its restoring to forcible means 
 against thoughts, interfering against the press by means 
 
158 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of the police power of the censorship, and making a 
 personal fight out of a literary one. As if it were solely 
 a matter of thoughts, and as if one's attitude toward 
 thoughts must be unselfish, self-denying, and self-sacri- 
 ficing ! Do not those thoughts attack the governing par- 
 ties themselves, and so call out egoism? And do the 
 thinkers not set before the attacked ones the religious 
 demand to reverence the power of thought, of ideas? 
 They are to succumb voluntarily and resignedly, because 
 the divine power of thought, Minerva, fights on their 
 enemies' side. Why, that would be an act of posses- 
 sion, a religious sacrifice. To be sure, the governing 
 parties are themselves held fast in a religious bias, and 
 follow the leading power of an idea or a faith ; but they 
 are at the same time unconfessed egoists, and right here, 
 against the enemy, their pent-up egoism breaks loose : 
 possessed in their faith, they are at the same time un- 
 possessed /by their opponents' faith, i. e. they are ego- 
 ists toward this. If one wants to make them a reproach, 
 it could only be the converse — to wit, that they are pos- 
 sessed by their ideas. 
 
 Against thoughts no egoistic power is to appear, no 
 police power and the like. So the believers in thinking 
 believe. But thinking and its thoughts are not sacred to 
 me, and I defend my skin against them as against other 
 things. That may be an unreasonable defence; but, if I 
 am in duty bound to reason, then I, like Abraham, must 
 sacrifice my dearest to it! 
 
 In the kinglom of thought, which, like that of faith, 
 IS the kingdom of heaven, every one is assuredly wrong 
 who uses unthinking force, just as every one is wrong 
 who in the kingdom of love behaves unlovingly, or, 
 although he is a Christian and therefore lives in the 
 kingdom of love, yet acts unchristianly in these king- 
 doms, to which he supposes himself to (belong though 
 he nevertheless throws off their laws, he is a ''sinner" 
 or "egoist." But it is only when he becomes a criminal 
 against these kingdoms that he can throw off their 
 dominion. 
 
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 159 
 
 Here too the result is this, that the fight of the think- 
 ers against the government is indeed in the right, viz,, 
 in might — so far as it is carried on against the govern- 
 ment's thoughts (the government is dumb, and does 
 not succeed in making any literary rejoinder to speak 
 of), but is, on the other hand, in the wrong, viz., in im- 
 potence, so far as it does not succeed in bringing into 
 the field anything but thoughts against a personal power 
 (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). 
 The theoretical fight cannot complete the victory, and 
 the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of 
 egoism. Only the egoistic fight, the fight of egoists on 
 both sides, clear up everything. 
 
 This last now, to make thinking an aflfair of egoistic 
 option, an affair of the single person,"^ a mere pas- 
 time or hobby as it were, and to take from it the im- 
 portance of ''being the last decisive power" ; this degra- 
 dation and desecration of thinking; this equalization 
 of the unthinking and thoughtful ego ; this clumsy but 
 real ''equality" — criticism is not able to produce, be- 
 cause it itself is only the priest of thinking, and sees 
 nothing beyond thinking but — the deluge. 
 
 Criticism does indeed afiirm^ e, g., that free criticism 
 may overcome the State, but at the same time it de- 
 fends itself against the reproach which is laid upon it 
 by the State government, hat it is "self-will and im- 
 pudence" ; it thinks, then, that "self-will and impu- 
 dence' may not overcome, it alone may. The truth is 
 rather the reverse : the State can be really overcome only 
 by impudent self-will. 
 
 It may now, to conclude with this, be clear that in 
 the critic's new change of front he has not transformed 
 himself, but only "made good an oversight," "disen- 
 tangled a subject," and is saying too much when he 
 speaks of "criticism criticising itself" ; it, or rather he, 
 has only criticised its "oversight" and cleared it of its 
 "inconsistencies." If he wanted to criticise criticism, 
 
 * [des Einzigen] 
 
160 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 he would have to look and see if there was anything in its 
 presupposition. 
 
 I on my part start from a presupposition in presup- 
 posing myself; but my presupposition does not struggle 
 for its perfection like ''Man struggling for his perfec- 
 tion/' but only serves me to enjoy it and consume it. 
 I consume my presupposition, and nothing else, and ex- 
 ist only in consuming it. But that presupposition is 
 therefore not a presupposition at all : for, as I am the 
 Unique^ I know nothing of the duality of a presuppos- 
 ing and a presupposed ego (an ''incomplete'' and a 
 "complete" ego or man) ; but this that I consume my- 
 self, means only that I am. I do not presuppose myself, 
 because I am every moment just positing or creating 
 myself, and am I only by being not presupposed but 
 posited, and, again, posited only in the moment when I 
 posit myself ; i. e., I am creator and creature in one. 
 
 If the presuppositions that have hitherto been cur- 
 rent are to melt away in a full dissolution, they must 
 not be dissolved into a higher presupposition again — 
 i. e. a thought, or thinking itself, criticism. For that 
 dissolution is to be for my good ; otherwise itt would 
 belong only in the series of the innumerable dissolu- 
 tions which, in favor of others, (e. g. this very Man, 
 God, the State, pure morality, etc.), declared old truths 
 to be untruths and did away with long-fosered pre- 
 suppositions. 
 
FART SECOND 
 
 I 
 
At the entrance of the modern time stands the "God-man." 
 At its exit will only the God in the God-man evaporate? and can 
 the God-man really die if only the God in him dies? They did 
 not think of this question, 'and thought they were through when 
 in our days they brought to a victorious end the work of the 
 Illumination, the vanquishing of God ; they did not notice that 
 Man has killed God in order to become now — "sole God on high." 
 The other world outside us is indeed brushed away, and the 
 great undertaking of the Illuminators completed; but the other 
 world in us has become a new heaven and calls us forth to 
 renewed heaven-storming: God has had to give place, yet not to 
 us, but to — Man. How can you believe that the God-man is dead 
 before the Man in him, besides the God, is dead? 
 
I 
 
 OWNNESS* 
 
 *'Does not the spirit thirst for freedom?" — Alas, not 
 my spirit alone, my body too thirsts for it hourly ! When 
 before the odorous castle-kitchen my nose tells my 
 palate of the savory dishes that are being prepared 
 therein, it feels a fearful pining at its dry bread; when 
 my eyes tell the hardened back about soft down on 
 which one may lie more delightfully than on its com- 
 pressed straw, a suppressed rage seizes it ; when — ^but 
 let us not follow the pains further. — And you call that 
 a longing for freedom? What do you want to become 
 free from, then? From your hardtack and your straw 
 bed ? Then throw them away ! — But that seems not to 
 serve you: you want rather to have the freedom to enjoy 
 delicious foods and downy beds. Are men to give you 
 this "freedom" — are they to permit it to you? You 
 do not hope that from their philanthropy, because you 
 know they all think like — you : each is the nearest to 
 himself! How, therefore, do you mean to come to 
 
 * [This is a literal translation of the German word Eigenheit^ 
 which, with its primitive eigen, "own," is used in this chapter in 
 a way that the German dictionaries do not quite recognize. The 
 author's conception being new, he had to make an innovation in 
 the German language to express it. The translator is under the 
 like necessity. In most passages ''self-ownership," or else ''per- 
 sonality," would translate the word, but there are some where 
 the thought is so eigen, that is, so peculiar or so thoroughly the 
 author's own, that no English word I can think of would express 
 it. It will explain itself to one who has read Part First intelli- 
 gently.] 
 
 163 
 
164 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 the enjoyment of those foods and beds? Evidently 
 not otherwise than in making them your property! 
 
 If you think it over rightly, you do not want the 
 freedom to have all these fine things, for with this 
 freedom you still do not have them ; you want really 
 to have them^ to call them yours and possess them as 
 your property. Of what use is a freedom to you, in- 
 deed, if it brings in nothing? And, if you became free 
 from everything, you would no longer have anything; 
 for freedom is empty of substance. Whoso knows not 
 how to make use of it, for bim it has no value, this use- 
 less permission ; but how I make use of it depends on 
 my personality.''' 
 
 I have no objection to freedom, but I wish more than 
 freedom for you : you should not merely be rid of what 
 you do not want, you should also have what you want: 
 you should not only be a ''freeman,'' you should be an 
 "owner'' top. 
 
 Free — from what? Oh! what is there that cannot be 
 shaken off? The yoke of serfdom, of sovereignty, of 
 aristocracy and princes, the dominion of the desires and 
 passions: yes, even the dominion of ones own will, of 
 self-will, for the completest self-denial is nothing but 
 freedom — freedom, to wit, from self-determination, 
 from one's own self. And the craving for freedom as 
 for something absolute, worthy of every praise, de- 
 prived us of ownness: it created self-denial. However, 
 the freer I become, the more compulsion piles up before 
 my eyes ; and the more impotent I feel myself. The 
 unfree son of the wilderness does not yet feel anything 
 of all the limits that crowd a civilized man: he seems 
 to himself freer than this latter. In the measure that 
 I conquer freedom for myself I create for myself new 
 bounds and new tasks: if I have invented railroads, 
 I feel myself weak again because I cannot yet sail 
 through the skies like the bird; and, if I have solved a 
 problem whose obscurity disturbed my mind, at once 
 
 * [Eigenheit'] 
 
OWNNESS 
 
 165 
 
 there await me innumerable others, whose perplexities 
 impede my progress, dim my free gaze, make the lim- 
 its of my freedom painfully sensible to me. ''Now that 
 you have become free from sin, you have become serv- 
 ants of righteousness/'"^ Republicans in their broad 
 freedom, do they not become servants of the law ? How 
 true Christian hearts at all times longed to "become free/' 
 how they pined to see themselves delivered from the 
 "bonds of this earth-Hfe" ! they looked out toward the 
 land of freedom. ("The Jerusalem that is above is the 
 freewoman; she is the mother of us all." Gal. 4. 26). 
 
 Being free from anything — means only being clear 
 or rid. "He is free from headache" is equal to "he is 
 rid of it." "He is free from this prejudice" is equal 
 to "he has never conceived it" or "he has got rid of it." 
 In "less" we complete the freedom recommended by 
 Christianity, in sinless, godless, moralityless, etc. 
 
 Freedom is the doctrine of Christianity. "Ye, dear 
 brethren, are called to freedom. "f "So speak and so 
 do, as those who are to be judged by the law of free- 
 dom."t 
 
 Must we then, because freedom betrays itself as a 
 Christian ideal, give it up? No, nothing is to be lost, 
 freedom no more than the rest; but it is to become our 
 own, and in the form of freedom it cannot. 
 
 What a difference between freedom and ownness! 
 One can get rid of a great many things, one yet does 
 not get rid of all ; one becomes free from much, not 
 from everything. Inwardly one may be free in spite 
 of the condition of slavery, although, too, it is again 
 only from all sorts of things, not from everything; but 
 from the whip, the domineering temper, etc., of the 
 master, one does not as slave become free. "Freedom 
 lives only in the realm of dreams !" Ownness, on the 
 contrary, is my whole being and existence, it is I myself. 
 I am free from what I am rid of, owner of what I have 
 in my power or what I control. My ozvn I am at all 
 
 * Rom. 6, 18. 1 1 Pet. 2, 16. t James 2, 12. 
 
166 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 times and under all circumstances, if I know how to 
 have myself and do not throw myself away on others. 
 To be free is something that I cannot truly zvill, because 
 I cannot make it, cannot create it : I can only wish it and 
 — aspire toward it, for it remains an ideal, a spook. 
 The fetters of reality cut the sharpest welts in my flesh 
 every moment. But my own I remain. Given up as 
 serf to a master^ I think only of myself and my advan- 
 tage; his blows strike me indeed, I am not free from 
 them ; but I endure them only for my benefit , perhaps in 
 order to deceive him and make him secure by the sem- 
 blance of patience, or, again, not to draw worse upon 
 myself by contumacy. But, as I keep my eye on myself 
 and my selfishness, I take by the forelock the first good 
 opportunity to trample the slaveholder into the dust. 
 That I then become free from him and his whip is only 
 the consequence of my antecedent egoism. Here one 
 perhaps says I was ''free" even in the condition of 
 slavery — to wit, ''intrinsically" or "inwardly." But 
 "intrinsically free" is not "really free," and "inwardly" 
 is not "outwardly." I was own, on the other hand, my 
 own, altogether, inwardly and outwardly. Under the 
 dominion of a cruel master my body is not "free" from 
 torments and lashes ; but it is my bones that moan un- 
 der the torture, my fibres that quiver under the blows, 
 and / moan because my body moans. That / sigh and 
 shiver proves that I have not yet lost myself, that I am 
 still my own. My leg is not "free" from the master's 
 stick, r iut it is my leg and is inseparable. Let him tear 
 it off me and look and see if he still has my leg! He 
 retains in his hand nothing but the — corpse of my leg, 
 which is as little my leg as a dead dog is still a dog: a 
 dog has a pulsating heart, a so-called dead dog has none 
 and is therefore no longer a dog. 
 
 If one opines that a slave may yet be inwardly free, 
 he says in fact only the most indisputable and trivial thing. 
 For who is going to assert that any man is wholly with- 
 out freedom? If I am an eye-servant, can I therefore 
 not be free from innumerable things, e. g. from faith in 
 
OWNNESS 
 
 167 
 
 Zeus, from the desire for fame, and the Hke? Why 
 then should not a whipped slave also be able to be in- 
 wardly free from unchristian sentiments, from hatred 
 of his enemy, etc.? He then has ''Christian freedom," is 
 rid of the unchristian; but has he absolute freedom, free- 
 dom from everything, e. g, from the Christian delusion, 
 or from bodily pain, etc.? 
 
 In the meantime, all this seems to be said more against 
 names than against the thing. But is the name indif- 
 ferent, and has not a word, a shibboleth, always inspired 
 and — fooled men? Yet between freedom and ownness 
 there lies still a deeper chasm than the mere difference 
 of the words. 
 
 All the world desires freedom, all long for its reign 
 to come. O enchantingly beautiful dream of a blooming 
 ''reign of. freedom," a "free human race" ! — who has not 
 dreamed it? So men shall become free, entirely free, 
 free from all constraint ! From all constraint, really from 
 all ? Are they never to put constraint on themselves any 
 more? "Oh yes, that, of course; don't you see, that is 
 no constraint at all?" Well, then at any rate they are 
 to become free from religious faith, from the strict duties 
 of morality, from the inexorability of the law, from — 
 "What a fearful misunderstanding!" Well, what are 
 they to be free from then, and what not? 
 
 The lovely dream is dissipated; awakened, one rubs 
 his half-opened eyes and stares at the prosaic questioner. 
 "What men are to be free from?" — From blind credulity, 
 cries one. What's that? exclaims another, all faith is 
 blind credulity; they must become free from all faith. 
 No, no, for God's sake — inveighs the first again — do 
 not cast all faith from you, else the power of brutality 
 breaks in. We must have the republic — a third makes 
 himself heard — and become — free from all commanding 
 lords. There is no help in that, says a fourth : we only 
 get a new lord then, a "dominant majority"; let us 
 rather free ourselves from this dreadful inequality. — O 
 hapless equality, already I hear your plebeian roar again ! 
 How I had dreamed so beautifully just now of a para- 
 
168 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 dise of freedom, and what — impudence and licentiousness 
 now raises its wild clamor ! Thus the first laments, and 
 gets on his feet to grasp the sword against ''unmeasured 
 freedom/' Soon we no longer hear anything but the 
 clashing of the swords of the disagreeing dreamers of 
 freedom. 
 
 What the craving for freedom has always come to has 
 been the desire for a particular freedom, e, g, freedom of 
 faith; i. e., the believing man wanted to be free and 
 independent; of what? of faith perhaps? no! but of the 
 inquisitors of faith. So now "political or civil" freedom. 
 The citizen wants to become free not from citizenhood, 
 but from bureaucracy, the arbitrariness of princes, and 
 the like. Prince Metternich once said he had ''found a 
 way that was adapted to guide men in the path of genuine 
 freedom for all the future.'' The Count of Provence ran 
 away from France precisely at the time when she was pre- 
 paring the "reign of freedom," and said : "My imprison- 
 ment had become intolerable to me ; I had only one pas- 
 sion, the desire for — freedom; I thought only of it." 
 
 The craving for a particular freedom always includes 
 the purpose of a new dominion, as it was with the Revolu- 
 tion, which indeed "could give its defenders the uplifting 
 feeling that they were fighting for freedom," but in truth 
 only because they were after a particular freedom, there- 
 fore a new dominion, the "dominion of the law." 
 
 Freedom you all want, you want freedom. Why then 
 do you higgle over a more or less ? Freedom can only be 
 the whole of freedom; a piece of freedom is not freedom. 
 You despair of the possibility of obtaining the whole of 
 freedom, freedom from everything — yes, you consider it 
 insanity even to wish this? — ^Well, then leave off chasing 
 after the phantom, and spend your pains on something 
 better than the — unattainable . 
 
 "Ah, but there is nothing better than freedom !" 
 
 What have you then when you have freedom, vis. — 
 for I will not speak here of your piecemeal bits of free- 
 dom — complete freedom? Then you are rid of everv- 
 thine that embarrasses you, everything, and there is prob- 
 
OWNNESS 
 
 169 
 
 ably nothing that does not once in your life embarrass you 
 and cause you inconvenience. And for whose sake then, 
 did you want to be rid of it? Doubtless for your sake, 
 because it is in your way! But, if something were not 
 inconvenient to you ; if, on the contrary, it were quite to 
 your mind {e. g. the gently but irresistibly commmiding 
 look of your loved one) — then you would not want to be 
 rid of it and free from it. Why not? For your sake 
 again ! So you take yourselves as measure and judge over 
 all. ''You gladly let freedom go when unfreedom, the 
 sweet service of love,'' suits you; and you take up your 
 freedom again on occasion when it begins to suit you 
 better — that is, supposing, which is not the point here, 
 that you are not afraid of such a Repeal of the Union 
 for other .(perhaps religious) reasons. 
 
 Why will you not take courage now to really make 
 yourselves the central point and the main thing altogether ? 
 Why grasp in the air at freedom, your dream? Are 
 you your dream? Do not begin by inquiring of your 
 dreams, your notions, your thoughts, for that is all "hol- 
 low theory/' Ask yourselves and ask after yourselves — 
 that is practical, and you know you want very much to be 
 "practical." But there the one barkens what his God (of 
 course what he thinks of at the name God is his God) 
 may be going to say to it, and another what his moral 
 feelings, his conscience, his feeling of duty, may deter- 
 mine about it, and a third calculates what folks will think 
 of it — and, when each has thus asked his Lord God (folks 
 are a Lord God just as good as, nay, even more compact 
 than, the other-wordly and imaginary one : vox populi, 
 vox dei) then he accommodates himself to his Lord's 
 will and listens no more at all for what he himself would 
 like to say and decide. 
 
 Therefore turn to yourself rather than to your gods 
 or idols. Bring out from yourselves what is in you, bring 
 it to the light, bring yourselves to revelation. 
 
 How one acts only from himself, and asks after noth- 
 ing further, the Christians have realized in the notion 
 **God." He acts "as it pleases him." And foolish man, 
 
170 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 who could do just so, is to act as it "pleases God" instead. 
 — If it is said that even God proceeds according to eter- 
 nal laws, that too fits me, since I too cannot get out of my 
 skin, but have my law in my whole nature, i. e. in myself. 
 
 But one needs only admonish you of yourselves to bring 
 you to despair at once. ''What am I?'' each of you asks 
 himself. An abyss of lawless and unregulated impulses, 
 desires, wishes, passions, a chaos without light or guiding 
 star ! How am I to obtain a correct answer, if, without re- 
 gard to God's commandments or to the duties which 
 morality prescribes, without regard to the voice of reason, 
 which in the course of history, after bitter experiences, 
 has exalted the best and most reasonable thing into law, 
 I simply appeal to myself ? My passion would advise me 
 to do the most senseless thing possible. — Thus each deems 
 himself the — devil-' for, if, so far as he is unconcerned 
 about religion, etc, he only deemed himself a beast, he 
 would easily find that the beast, which does follow only 
 its impulse (as it were, its advice), does not advise and 
 impel itself to do the ''most senseless" things, but takes 
 very correct steps. But the habit of the religious way of 
 thinking has biased our mind so grievously that we are — 
 terrified at ourselves in our nakedness and naturalness ; it 
 has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved by 
 nature, born devils. Of course it comes into your head at 
 once that your calling requires you to do the "good," the 
 moral, the right. Now, if you ask yourselves what is to be 
 done, how can the right voice sound forth from you, the 
 voice which points the way of the good, the right, the 
 true, etc. ? What concord have God and Belial ? 
 
 But what would you think if one answered you by say- 
 ing: "That one is to listen to God, conscience, duties, 
 laws, etc., is flim-^flam with which people have stuffed 
 your head and heart and made you crazy"? And if he 
 asked you how it is you know so surely that the voice of 
 nature is a seducer? And if he even demanded of you 
 to turn the thing about and actuallv to deem the voice 
 of God and conscience to be the deviFs work? There are 
 such s^raceless men; how will you settle them? You can- 
 
OW'NNESS 
 
 171 
 
 not appeal to your parsons, parents, and good men, for 
 precisely these are designated by them as your seducers, as 
 the true seducers and corrupters of youth, who busily sow 
 broadcast the tares of self-contempt and reverence to 
 God, who fill young hearts with mud and young heads 
 with stupidity. 
 
 But now those people go on and ask: For whose sake 
 do you care about God's and the other commandments? 
 You surely do not suppose that this is done merely out of 
 complaisance toward God? No, you are doing it — for 
 your sake again. — Here too, therefore, you are the main 
 thing, and each must say to himself, / am everything to 
 myself and I do everything on my account. If it ever 
 became clear to you that God, the commandments, etc., 
 only harm you, that they reduce and ruin you, to a cer- 
 tainty you would throw them from you just as the Chris- 
 tians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen 
 morality. They did indeed put in the place of these Christ 
 and afterward Mary, as well as a Christian morality ; but 
 they did this for the sake of their souls' welfare too, there- 
 fore out of egoism or ownness. 
 
 And it was by this egoism, this ownness, that they got 
 rid of the old world of gods and became free from it. 
 Ownness created a new freedom; for ownness is the crea- 
 tor of everything, as genius (a definite ownness), which 
 is always originality, has for a long time already been 
 looked upon as the creator of new productions that have 
 a place in the history of the world. 
 
 If your efforts are ever to make "freedom" the issue, 
 then exhaust freedom's demands. Who is it that is to 
 become free? You, I, we. Free from what? From 
 ever3rthing that is not you, not I, not we. I, therefore, 
 am the kernel that is to be delivered from all wrappings 
 and — freed from all cramping shells. What is left when 
 I have been freed from everything that it not I ? Only I ; 
 nothing but I. But freedom has nothing to offer to this 
 I himself. As to what is now to happen further after I 
 have become free, freedom is silent — as our governments, 
 
172 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 when the prisoner's time is up, merely let him go, thrust- 
 ing him out into abandonment. 
 
 Now why, if freedom is striven after for love of the 
 I after all — why not choose the I himself as beginning, 
 middle, and end? Am I not worth more than freedom? 
 Is it not I that make myself free, am not I the first? 
 Even unfree, even laid in a thousand fetters, I yet am; 
 and I am not, like freedom, exant only in the future and 
 in hopes, but even as the most abject of slaves I am — 
 present. 
 
 Think that over well, and decide whether you will place 
 on your banner the dream of "freedom" or the resolution 
 of *'egoism," of ''ownness.'' ''Freedom'' awakens your 
 rage against everything that is not you; ''egoism" calls 
 you to joy over yourselves, to self-enjoyment ; "freedom" 
 is and remains a longing, a romantic plaint, a Christian 
 hope for unearthliness and futurity; "ownness" is a 
 Ideality, which of itself removes just so much unfreedom 
 as by barring your own way hinders you. What does not 
 disturb you, you will not want to renounce; and, if it 
 begins to disturb you, why, you know that "you must obey 
 yourselves rather than men!" 
 
 Freedom teaches only: Get yourself rid, relieve your- 
 selves, of everything burdensome; it does not teach you 
 who you yourself are. Rid, rid ! so rings its rallying-cry, 
 and you, eagerly following its call, get rid even of your- 
 selves, "deny yourselves." But ownness calls you back to 
 yourselves, it says "Come to yourself!" Under the aegis 
 of freedom you get rid of many kinds of things, but 
 something new pinches you again: "you are rid of the 
 Evil One; evil is left.""^ As own you are really rid of 
 everything, and what clings to you you have accepted;' 
 it is your choice and your pleasure. The own man is 
 the free-born, the man free to begin with; the free man, 
 on the contrary, is only the eleutheromaniac, the dreamer 
 and enthusiast. 
 
 The former is originally free, because he recognizes 
 
 * [See note, p. 112.] 
 
173 
 
 nothing but himself ; he does not need to free himself 
 first, because at the start he rejects everything outside 
 himself, because he prizes nothing more than himself, 
 rates nothing higher, because, in short, he starts from 
 himself and ''comes to himself." Constrained by child- 
 ish respect, he is nevertheless already working at "free- 
 ing" himself from this constraint. Ownness works in 
 the little egoist, and procures him the desired — freedom. 
 
 Thousands of years of civilization have obscured to 
 you what you are, have made you believe you are not 
 egoist, but are called to be idealists (''good men"). Shake 
 that oi¥!, Do not seek for freedom, which does precisely 
 deprive you of yourselves, in ''self-denial" ; but seek for 
 yourselves, become egoists, become each of you an 
 almighty ego. Or, more clearly: Just recognize your- 
 selves again, just recognize what you really are, and let 
 go your hypocritical endeavors, your foolish mania to be 
 something else than you are. Hypocritical I call them 
 because you have yet remained egoists all these thousands 
 of years, but sleeping, self-deceiving, crazy egoists, you 
 Heautontimorumenoses, you self-tormentors. Never yet 
 has a religion been able to dispense with "promises," 
 whether they referred us to the other world or to this 
 ("long life," etc.) ; for man is mercenary and does noth- 
 ing "gratis." But how about that "doing the good for 
 the good's sake" without prospect of reward? As if 
 here too the pay was not contained in the satisfaction 
 that it is to afford. Even religion, therefore, is founded 
 on our egoism and — exploits it ; calculated for our desires, 
 it stifles many others for the sake of one. This then 
 gives the phenomenon of cheated egoism, where I satisfy, 
 not myself, but one of my desires, e, g. the impulse toward 
 blessedness. Religion promises me the — "supreme good" ; 
 to gain this I no longer regard any other of my desires, 
 and do not slake them. — All your doings are unconfessed, 
 secret, covert, and concealed egoism. But because they 
 are egoism that you are unwilling to confess to yourselves, 
 that you keep secret from yourselves, hence not manifest 
 and public egoism, consequently unconscious egoism — 
 
174 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 therefore they are not egoism, but thraldom, service, self- 
 renunciation ; you are egoists, and you are not, since you 
 renounce egoism. Where you seem most to be such, you 
 have drawn upon the word "egoist'' — loathing and con- 
 tempt. 
 
 I secure my freedom with regard to the world in the 
 degree that I make the world my own, i. e. ''gain it and 
 take possession of it" for myself, by whatever might, by 
 that of persuasion, of petition, of categorical demand, 
 yes, even by hypocrisy, cheating, etc. ; for the means that 
 I use for it are determined by what I am. If I am weak, 
 I have only weak means, like the aforesaid, which yet are 
 good enough for a considerable part of the world. 
 Besides, cheating, hypocrisy, lying, look worse than they 
 are. Who has not cheated the police, the law? who has 
 not quickly taken on an air of honorable loyalty before 
 the sheriff's officer who meets him, in order to conceal an 
 illegality that may have been committed, etc.? He who 
 has not done it has simply let violence be done to him ; he 
 was a weakling from — conscience. I know that my free- 
 dom is diminished even by my not being able to carry 
 out my will on another object, be this other something 
 without will, like a rock, or something with will, like a 
 government, an individual, etc. ; I deny my ownness when 
 — in presence of another — I give myself up, i. e, give way, 
 desist, submit; therefore by loyalty^ submission. For 
 it is one thing when I give up my previous course because 
 it does not lead to the goal, and therefore turn out of a 
 wrong road ; it is another when I yield my self a prisoner. 
 I get around a rock that stands in my way, till I have 
 powder enough to blast it; I get around the laws of a 
 people, till I have gathered strength to overthrow them. 
 Because I cannot grasp the moon, is it therefore to be 
 "sacred" to me, an Astarte? If I only could grasp you, 
 I surely would, and if I only find a means to get up to 
 you, you shall not frighten me! You inapprehensible 
 one, you shall remain inapprehensible to me only till I 
 have acquired the might for apprehension and call vou 
 my own; I do not give myself up before you, but only 
 
OW'NNESS 
 
 175 
 
 bide my time. Even if for the present I put up with my 
 inabihty to touch you, I yet remember it against you. 
 
 Vigorous men have always done so. When the "loyaF' 
 had exalted an unsubdued power to be their master and 
 had adored it, when they had demanded adoration from 
 all, then there came some such son of nature who would 
 not loyally submit, and drove the adored power from its 
 inaccessible Olympus. He cried his "Stand still" to the 
 rolling sun, and made the earth go round ; the loyal had 
 to make the best of it ; he laid his axe to the sacred oaks, 
 and the ''loyal" were astonished that no heavenly fire con- 
 sumed him ; he threw the pope off Peter's chair, and the 
 ''loyal" had no way to hinder it; he is tearing down the 
 divine-right business, and the ''loyal" croak in vain, and 
 at last are silent. 
 
 My freedom becomes complete only when it is my — 
 might; but by this I cease to be a merely free man, and 
 become an own man. Why is the freedom of the peoples 
 a "hollow word"? Because the peoples have no might! 
 With a breath of the living ego I blow peoples over, be it 
 the breath of a Nero, a Chinese emperor, or a poor writer. 
 
 Why is it that the G * legislatures pine in vain 
 
 for freedom, and are lectured for it by the cabinet min- 
 isters ? Because they are not of the "mighty" ! Might is 
 a fine thing, and useful for many purposes ; for "one goes 
 further with a handful of might than with a bagful of 
 right." You long for freedom? You fools! If you took 
 might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has 
 might "stands above the law." How does this prospect 
 taste to you, you "law-abiding" people? But you have no 
 taste ! 
 
 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 
 
 * [Meaning "German." Written in this form because of the 
 censorship.} - 
 
176 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 Moham- 
 medan, 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 
 emancipation (manumission, setting free). Those who 
 to-day "stand in the opposition" are thirsting and scream- 
 ing to be ''set free." The princes are to "declare their 
 peoples of age," i. e. emancipate 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 declara- 
 tion 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 
 Uhertinus, a dog dragging a piece of chain with him: he 
 
OWNNESS 
 
 177 
 
 is an unfree man in the garment of freedom, like the 
 ass in the hon's skin. Emancipated Jews are nothing bet- 
 tered 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, emancipated or not emancipated, 
 Jew remains Jew ; he who is not self-freed is merely an — 
 emancipated man. The Protestant State can certainly set 
 free (emancipate) 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 sel- 
 fishness because in their religious striving after freedom 
 they cannot — free themselves from that sublime thing, 
 "self-renunciation/' The liberaFs 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 repul- 
 sive 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, * 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 God as well as 
 of man with man — ^therefore in it everything "own" must 
 fall into most woful disrepute : selfishness, self-will, own- 
 ness, self-love, etc. The Christian way of looking at 
 things has on all sides gradually re-istamped honorable 
 
 * [Einzige] 
 
178 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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, * 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 Chris- 
 tian standpoint, and the general consciousness is still too 
 Chri^ian not to shrink in terror from everything unchris- 
 tion as from something incomplete or evil. Therefore 
 ^'selfishness'' is in a bad way too. 
 
 Selfishness, f 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 mas- 
 tered either by sensuality or by anything else (God, 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 re- 
 movable, dismissable, transferable, and pensionable 
 judges — in short, such members of a court of justice as 
 can by mere administrative process be damaged and en- 
 dangered — are wholly without reliability, yes. lose all 
 respect and all confidence amon^ the people. The whole 
 bench, Welcker cries, is demoralized by this dependence ! 
 In blunt words this means nothing else than that the 
 
 * ri take Entbehrung, "destitution," to be a misprint for 
 Entehrung,"] 
 
 f [Eigennutz, literally "own use."] 
 
OWNNESS 
 
 179 
 
 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? Per- 
 haps by bringing home to the judges' hearts the ignomini- 
 ousness of their venality, and then cherishing the con- 
 fidence 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 self- 
 ishness is mightier than any other motive. Therefore the 
 dame persons who have been judges hitherto may remam 
 jio, however thoroughly one has convinced himself tnat 
 they, behaved as egoists ; only they must not any longer 
 find their selfishness favored by the venality of justice, 
 but mijst 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-under- 
 stood interest,'' but rather secure a comfortable combina- 
 tion 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 selfish- 
 ness. 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 pushing 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 azvay. 
 push from me, deprive myself of — i. e. commit an im- 
 prudence. Free trade is looked at in both ways, being 
 regarded partly as a freedom which may under certain 
 circumstances be granted or withdrawn, partly as one 
 which is to be held sacred under all circumstances. 
 
 If I am not concerned about a thing in and for itself, 
 and do not desire it for its own sake, then T 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 
 
180 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 gets no 
 value at all on it — he sees in you only what you are gen- 
 eratim. In other words, he sees in you, not yon, but the 
 species; not Tom or Jim, but Man; not the real or unique 
 one,"^ but your essence or your concept; not the bodily 
 man, but the spirit. 
 
 As Tom you would not be his equal, because he is him, 
 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 uncon- 
 sciously 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 
 
 * [Einzigen] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 181 
 
 is running the Christian way of looking at things accord- 
 ing 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 less 
 utterly general concept: there we are ''sons of God" and 
 'led by the Spirit of God/''^ 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. t 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 f 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 declare 
 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 hu- 
 man 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 equalitv 
 that includes all men : for who could deny that we men 
 have a human spirit, i. e. no other than a human! 
 
 * Rom. 8, 14. 
 
 t€f. 1 John 3, 10 with Rom. 8, 16. 
 
182 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 
 zve are ? Feuerbach, e, g., thinks that, if he humanizes the 
 divine, be has found the truth. No, if God has given 
 us pain, ''Man'' is capable of pinching us still more tor- 
 turingly. The long and the short of it is this: that we 
 are men i|l the slightest thing about us, and has significance 
 only in so far as it is one of our qualities,^ i. e. our prop- 
 erty.f I am indeed among other things a man, as I am, 
 e. g., a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, 
 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 where- 
 fore? Because he would have regard only for one of my 
 qualities, not iov me. 
 
 It is just so with the spirit too. A Christian spirit, an 
 upright spirit, and the like may well be my acquired qual- 
 ity, 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 mar- 
 ries, as it were, what I have, not what I am. The Chris- 
 tian takes hold of my spirit, the liberal of my humanity. 
 
 But, if the spirit, which is not regarded as the prop- 
 erty 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,i 
 dwells in you, you are a man as when the spirit of Christ 
 dwells in you, you are a Christian ; but, because it dwells 
 
 * [Etaenschaffen] 
 
 t [Eigentum] 
 
I • THE OWNER 183 
 
 in you only as a second ego, even though it be as your 
 proper or ''better" ego, it remains otherwordly 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 con- 
 sistent 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 illu- 
 sion 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 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."* 
 
 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 otherwordly, 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 
 
 * E, g. Marx in the "Deutsch-fransoesische Jahrhuechery^ p. 
 197. 
 
 t Br. Bauer, Juden frage,''' p. 61. 
 
184 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 its fiery zeal too, a zeal that will be invincible."t B^t, 
 as liberalism is a human religion, its professor takes a 
 tolerant attitude toward the professor of any other (Cath- 
 olic, Jewish, etc.), as Frederick the Great did toward 
 every one who performed his duties as a subject, what- 
 ever fashion of becoming blest he might be inclined to- 
 ward. 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 
 tmessentialness. 
 
 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 be- 
 long 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 recog- 
 nized 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 com- 
 munity 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 ? Doubt- 
 less that of being a really human society, a society in 
 which every one who is really a man, i, e.y 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, 
 semething "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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 185 
 
 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 par- 
 ticularly 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 ap- 
 pearance? 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 in- 
 dividual can have corresponded to his concept? Chris- 
 tianity 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 f 
 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 otherwordly 
 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 exist- 
 ence, and everything that I do is human precisely because 
 / do it, but not because it corresponds to the concept 
 "man"? / 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 
 
186 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 contradictoriness did not come before our consciousness 
 so, and the illusion was easier than now when of us, 
 who are men and act humanly (yes, cannot do otherwise 
 than be such and act so), the demand is made that we 
 are to be men, "real men/' 
 
 Our States of to-day, because they still have all sorts 
 of things sticking to them, left from their churchly 
 mother, do indeed load those who belong to them with 
 various obligations (e. g. churchly religiousness) which 
 properly do not a bit concern them, the States; yet on 
 the whole they do not deny their significance, since they 
 want to be looked upon as human societies, in which man 
 as man can be a member, even if he is less privileged than 
 other members; most of them admit adherents of every 
 religious sect, and receive people without distinction of 
 race or nation: Jews, Turks, Moors, etc., can become 
 French citizens. In the act of reception, therefore, the 
 State looks only to see whether one is a man. The Church, 
 as a society of believers, could not receive every man into 
 her bosom; the State, as a society of men, can. But, 
 when the State has carried its principle clear through, of 
 presupposing in its constituents nothing but that they 
 are men (even the North Americans still presuppose in 
 theirs that they have religion, at least the religion of in- 
 tegrity, of respectability), then it has dug its grave. While 
 it will fancy that those w^hom 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 ''hu- 
 man society'^ is wrecked ; for they no longer have to do 
 with each other as men, but appear egoistically as an / 
 against a You altogether different from me and in opposi- 
 tion 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 187 
 
 you as I would care for myself ; for we represent, you 
 see, nothing but the mathematical proposition: A=C and 
 B=C, consequently A::::::B — i. e., i nothing but man and 
 you nothing but man, consequently I and you the same. 
 Morality is incompatible with egoism, because the former 
 does not allow validity to me, but only to the Man in me. 
 But, if the State is a society of men, not a union of egos 
 each of whom has only himself before his eyes, then it 
 cannot last without morality, and must insist on morality. 
 
 Therefore we two, the State and I, are enemies. I, 
 the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this ''human 
 society," I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it ; but to 
 be able to utilize it completely I transform it rather into 
 my property and my creature — i. e., I annihilate it, and 
 form in its place the Union of Egoists. 
 
 So the State betrays its enmity to me by demanding 
 that I be a man, which presupposes that I may also not be 
 a man, but rank for it as an ''un-man"; it imposes being 
 a man upon me as a duty. Further, it desires me to do 
 nothing along with which it cannot last ; so its permanence 
 is to be sacred for me. Then I am not to be an egoist, 
 but a ''respectable, upright/' i. e. moral, man. Enough, 
 before it and its permanence I am to be impotent and 
 respectful — etc. 
 
 This State, not a present one indeed, but still in need 
 of being first created, is the ideal of advancing liberalism. 
 There is to come into existence a true "society of men," in 
 which every "man" finds room. Liberalism means to 
 realize "Man," i. e. create a world for him ; and this 
 should be the human world or the general (Communistic) 
 society of men. It was said, "The Church could regard 
 only the spirit, the State is to regard the whole man."''' 
 But is not "Man" "spirit"? The kernel of the State is 
 simply "Man," this unreality, and it itself is only a "so- 
 ciety of men." The world which the believer (believing 
 spirit) creates is called Church, the w^orld which the man 
 (human or humane spirit) creates is called State. But 
 
 * Hess, "Triarchie/' p. 76. 
 
188 
 
 THE EGO AND BIS OWN 
 
 that is not my world. I never execute anything human 
 m the abstract, but always my own things ;i. e., my human 
 act is diverse from every other human act, and only by 
 this diversity is it a real act belonging to me. The human 
 in it is an abstraction, and, as such, spirit, i, e, abstracted 
 essence. 
 
 Br. Bauer states {e, g, ''Jtidenfrage/' 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 his- 
 tory 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 ma;i 
 as the ultimately found result of Christian history and 
 of the religious or ideal efforts of man in general. Now, 
 who is Man? / am! Man, the end and outcome of 
 Christianity, is, as /, 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 Jew- 
 ish 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-egoisniy 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 halfway ex- 
 clude each other ; i. e., as man they recognize each other, 
 as slaves they exclude each other, because they are ser- 
 vants of two different masters. If they could be com- 
 plete egoists, they would exclude each other wholly and 
 hold together so much the more firmly. Their ignominy 
 is not that they exclude each other, but that this is done 
 only half-way, Br. Bauer, on the contrary, thinks Jews 
 and Christians cannot regard and treat each other as 
 
THE OWNER 189 
 
 "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 "gen- 
 eral 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/'' 
 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^ ( property ij:), 
 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 'Vom- 
 an" ? That is not given to all, and many a one would 
 therein be fixing for herself an unattainable goal. Femi- 
 nine, 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 hein^ 
 a "thorough star," so ridiculous it is to burden me with 
 the call to be a "thorough man." 
 
 * [Vorrecht, literally ''precedent right."] f f Eigenschaft] 
 t [Eigentum]. 
 
190 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 When Fichte says, ''The ego is all," this seems to 
 harmonize perfectly with my theses. But it is not that 
 the ego is all, but the ego destroys all, and only the self- 
 dissolving ego, the never-being ego, the — finite ego is real- 
 ly 1. Fichte speaks of the "absolute'' ego, but I speak of 
 me, the transitory ego. 
 
 How natural is the supposition that man and ego rhean ^ 
 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 him- 
 self above the limits of his individuality, but not above 
 the laws, the positive ordinances, of his species."''' 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 him- 
 self, he exists only in not remaining what he is; other- 
 wise 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 
 one-self y the individual. It is not how I realize the gen- 
 erally human that needs to be my task, but how I satisfy 
 myself. / am my species, am without norm, without law, 
 without model, and the like. It is possible that I can make 
 very little out of myself ; but this little is everything, 
 and is better than what I allow to be made out of me by 
 the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, 
 the laws^ the State, etc. Better — if the talk is to be of 
 better at all — better an unmannerly child than an old head 
 on young shoulders, better a mulish man than a man com- 
 pliant in everything. The unmannerly and mulish fellow 
 is still on the way to form himself according to his own 
 will ; the prematurely knowing^ and compliant one is 
 determined by the "species," the general demands, etc. 
 — the species is law to him. He is determined^ by it: 
 for what else is the species to him but his "destiny,":|: 
 
 * "Essence of Christianity/' 2d ed., p. 401. 
 
 t [bestimmt] J [Bestimmung] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 191 
 
 his ''calling" ? Whether I look to ''humanity/' the species, 
 in order to strive toward this ideal, or to God and Christ 
 with like endeavor, where is the essential dissimilarity? 
 At most the former is more washed-out than the latter. 
 As the individual is the whole of nature, so he is the 
 whole of the species too. 
 
 Everything that I do, think, etc. — in short, my expres- 
 sion or manifestation — is indeed conditioned by what I 
 am. The Jew, e. g., can will only thus or thus, can "pres- 
 ent 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 indeea 
 bring out only what was Jewish or Christian; but it is 
 not possible ; in the most rigorous conduct you yet remam 
 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 in- 
 quired for a more perfect concept which should really 
 wholly express what you are, and which, because it is 
 your true nature, should contain all the laws of your 
 activity. The most perfect thing of the kind has been 
 attained in "Man." As a Jew you are too little, and the 
 Jewish is not your task ; to be a Greek, a German, does 
 not suffice. But be a — man, then you have everything; 
 look upon the human as your calling. 
 
 Now I know what is expected of me, and the new 
 catechism can be written. The subject is again subjected 
 to the predicate, the individual to something general ; the 
 dominion is again secured to an idea, and the foundation 
 laid for a new religion. This is a step forward in the 
 domain of religion, and in particular of Christianity ; not 
 a step out beyond it. 
 
 The step out beyond it leads into the unspeakable. For 
 me paltry language has no word, and "the Word," the 
 Logos, is to me a "mere word." 
 
 My essence is sought for. If not the Jew, the German, 
 etc., then at any rate it is — the man. "Man is my es- 
 sence." 
 
 I am repulsive or repugnant to myself ; I have a horror 
 
192 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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-dissolu- 
 tion or self-criticism. Religiousness begins with self- 
 renunciation, ends with completed criticism. 
 
 I am possessed and want to get rid of the ''evil spirit." 
 How do I set about it ? I fearlessly commit the sin that 
 seems to the Christian the direst, the sin and blasphemy 
 against the Holy Spirit. ''He who blasphemes the Holy 
 Spirit has no forgiveness forever, but is liable to the 
 eternal judgment 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 m 
 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 sage 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 in- 
 voluntarily become the mode. But what was taken from 
 
 * Mark 3, 29. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 193 
 
 God has been superadded to Man, and the power of hu- j 
 manity grew greater in just the degree that that of piety 
 
 lost weight: "Man'' is the God of to-day, and fear of ' 
 
 Man has taken the place of the old fear of God. • 
 
 But^ because Man represents only another Supreme ^ 
 
 Being, nothing has in fact taken place but a metamor- ] 
 
 phosis in the Supreme Being, and the fear of Man is • 
 
 merely an altered form of the fear of God. i 
 
 Our atheists are pious people. i. 
 If in the so-called feudal times we held everything as 
 
 a fief from God, in the liberal period the same feudal S 
 relation exists with Man. God was the Lord, now Man 
 is the Lord ; God was the Mediator, now Man is ; God 
 
 was the Spirit, now Man is. In this threefold regard the ;| 
 
 feudal relation has experienced a transformation. For ;| 
 now, firstly, we hold as a fief from all-powerful Man our 
 
 pozvcr, which, because it comes from a higher, is not ^ 
 
 called powxr or might, but ''right'' — the ''rights of man'' ; .J 
 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 "hu- 3 
 
 man" ; finally, we hold as a fief from him ourselves — to i 
 
 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. iji 
 
 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. ^ ii 
 
 My power gives me property. ' 
 
 My power am I myself, and through it am I my 
 property. ß i 
 
194 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 I— MY POWER 
 
 Right^ 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 by 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 / am in the right is completely in- ' 
 dependent 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's law ? Can it, e. g., concede to me high treason 
 in the right if I seek for a right that does not agree with 
 the sultan's la'w? 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. 
 
 * FThis word has also, in German, the meaning of "common 
 law," and will sometimes be translated "law" in the following 
 paragraphs.] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 19b 
 
 The State does not permit pitching into each other 
 man to man; it opposes the dueL Even every ordinary 
 appeal to blows, nothwithstanding 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 Leitung' presents to us the ''common- 
 wealth 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 never- 
 theless that this court offers a protection. Yes, protec- 
 tion 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 com- 
 munities, etc. To these laws I am to subordinate my- 
 self ; 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 head 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 inclined 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 
 
196 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 so- 
 ciety/' 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" a la Weitling, it is the same absence of 
 right in so far as in both cases I have not my right but 
 foreign right. 
 
 In considerations 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 chil- 
 dren as against the parents: it abolishes the family. 
 Nature gives parents, brothers, etc., no right at all. 
 Altogether, this entire revolutionary or Babouvist prin- 
 ciple* 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 breth- 
 ren," "of God's children," "of Christians," etc. ; in short, 
 fraternite. 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 Fve a right to that same nose ? 
 
 * Cf. "Die Kommunisten in der Schweis/' committee report, 
 p. 3. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 197 
 
 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'^ 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 op- 
 ponents 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 ma- 
 jority because they are not of age, i. e. because they are 
 children. Peoples that let themselves be kept in non- 
 age have no right 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 de- 
 rive 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 can- 
 not, 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-fearing- 
 ness," to keep their commandments and believe that I 
 do right in everything that I do according to their right, 
 
 * [Rechtsstreit^ a word which usually means "lawsuit."] 
 
198 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 about as the Russian boundary-sentinels think themselves 
 rightfully entitled to shoot dead the suspicious persons 
 who are escaping, since they murder ''by superior au- 
 thority/' 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 Ghamisso'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 / do not entitle myself to. 
 
 / decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is 
 no right outside me. If it is right for me,'^ it is right. 
 Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the 
 rest ; that is their care, not mine : let them defend them- 
 selves. 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, to wit, to nature, which gives me a right, i. e. 
 to hirth (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 natural power) and natural claims: he has right of 
 birth and claims of birth. But nature c^innot 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 
 
 * [A common German phrase for "it suits me.**] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 199 
 
 recognize this act is their act, which makes them wor- 
 thy to be — subjects. 
 
 Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, 
 the people's choice, etc., does so, all of that is the same 
 ■foreign right, a right that / do not give or take to myself. 
 
 Thus the Communists say, equal lahor 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 en- 
 joyment 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 it would become your right. 
 
 The conflict over the "right of property" wavers in 
 vehement commotion. The Communists affirm* that 
 "the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its 
 products to those who bring them out." I think it be- 
 longs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not 
 let it be taken from him, does not let himself be de- 
 prived 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. "con- 
 cede," to each other. If the right to existence is con- 
 ceded to new-born children, then they have the right ; 
 if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the 
 
 *A. Becker, "Volksphilosophie/' p. 22 i 
 
200 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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: 
 
 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 school- 
 ing, 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 f 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 them- 
 selves, who thus are no longer bare "children of men," 
 but — ^children of their own creation. The latter possess 
 more than bare birthrights ; they have earned rights. 
 What an antithesis, what a field of combat! The old 
 combat of birthrights of man and well-earned rights. Go 
 
 There is — alas ! — no mention of the rights 
 That were born with us.* 
 
 * [Meohistopheles in "Faust."] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 201 
 
 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 ''righf' 
 against the other, the one the birthright or natural right, 
 the other the earned or ''well-earned" right. 
 
 If you remain on the ground of right, you remain in 
 — RechthatereiJ^ 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 per- 
 mitted, because they do not hinder the mighty one, but 
 possibly help him on.) For him who should want tQ 
 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 and Japanese did not ask 
 after right, and in particular if you .did not ask aftei 
 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 ; 
 
 * "I beg you, spare my lungs ! He who insists on proving him- 
 ^ ij if he but has one of these things called tongues, can 
 
 hold his own in all the world's despite!" [Faust's words to 
 Mephistopheles, slightly misquoted.--For Rechthaberei see note 
 on p. 185.] 
 
202 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 Zeit- 
 ung' among others stands for it, asks that office-holders 
 be removable only by the judge, not by the administra- 
 tion. 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, etc. In short, the lawgiver 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 determina- 
 tion, etc., shall be removed. These things the lawgiver 
 might take it into his head to prescribe, e. g., for a court 
 of honor) ; then the judge would solely have to investi- 
 gate whether the accused had ''become guilty" of those 
 "offences," 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 acccording to this opinion, his 
 action is no longer an official action. As judge he must 
 decide only acccording to the law. Commend me rather 
 to the old French parliaments, which wanted to examine 
 for themselves what was to be matter of right, and 'to 
 register it only after their own approval. They at least 
 judgfed 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 criminars right. But 
 impunity is just as much his right. If his undertaking 
 succeeds, it serves him right, and, if it does not succeed. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 203 
 
 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 sufifers what he risked ; why, what did he risk it 
 for, since he knew the possible consequences? But the 
 punishment that we degree 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. 
 
 But what is right, what is matter of right in a society, 
 is voiced too — in the law. 
 
 Whatever the law may be, it must be respected by the 
 — loyal citizen. Thus the law-abiding mind of Old Eng- 
 land 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 to-day. 
 
 People are at pains to distinguish lazv 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 3, 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 depre- 
 cate the opposite by a 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 gov- 
 ern it. I must put up with it that he treats me as his 
 enemy ^ but never that he makes free with me as his 
 
 * [Gesetz, statute; no longer the same German word as 
 "right."] 
 
204 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 creature, and that he makes his reason, or even unreason, 
 my plumb-Hne. 
 
 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 for- 
 bear the claim to determine the individuaFs will, to spec- 
 ulate 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 (subjec- 
 tion) ; 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 all over with lordship. 
 
 The ozun will of Me is the State's destroyer; it is there- 
 fore 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, etc. ; and the latter lets itself be talked 
 into believing this — nay, it really is such, for no more 
 leason than this, that it still lets itself be talked into such 
 belief : it has not yet come to itself and to the conscious- 
 ness of its dignity ; hence it is still incomplete, still amen- 
 able 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 voli- 
 tion 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 205 
 
 would still remain the same. Would I not be bound to-day 
 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 wilier yesterday, I am to-day without will : yester- 
 day voluntary, to-day involuntary. 
 
 How change it. Only by recognizing no duty, i. e. 
 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 disclination 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 ene- 
 my. 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 distri- 
 buted. 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 practises "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~-| 
 
 * [Verbrechen] 
 
206 
 
 THE EGOi AND HIS OWN 
 
 so the individual's violence is called ; and only by crime 
 does he overcome* the State's • violence when he thinks 
 that the State is not above him, but he above the State. 
 
 Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously, I might, as a 
 well-meaning person, admonish you not to make law^? 
 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 lawgivers, 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 practise 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 blasphem- 
 er; 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, etc., 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 Stste-aiithority, 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 individ- 
 
 * [brechen] 
 
THE 0\¥NER 
 
 207 
 
 ual 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, etc., 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 moderate fall into great perplexity, and 
 everything reduces itself to the prayer that the State (gov- 
 ernment) would please not be so sensitive, so ticklish; that 
 it would not immediately scent malevolence in "harm- 
 less" things, and would in general be a little "more toler- 
 ant." Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, 
 its avoidance may be a praiseworthy virtue ; but in time 
 of war one cannot be sparing, and what may be allowed 
 under peaceable circumstances cease 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 
 this 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 play-ground, only for a few hours of 
 jolly running about, they bargain. They ask only that 
 
208 
 
 THE EGO AND HI'S OWN 
 
 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 no 
 longer a supplement to the cell, no longer a refreshing 
 recreation, but its opposite, an aut — aiit. 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, etc., 
 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, etc. 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. 
 
 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 
 yoM? — Yon are a — criminal \ 
 
 "The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 209 
 
 crime!'' says Bettina. 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 
 rnyself alone — cannot come to my fulfilment and realiza- 
 tion. Every ego is from birth a criminal to begin with 
 against the people, the State. Hence it is that it does 
 leally 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 senti- 
 ments through and through.— Only he who renoimces his 
 ego, who practises ''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" ;t but it is not sick ; rather 
 is it in its full strength, when it puts from it the demago- 
 gues 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 J "develop mankind's germ of free- 
 dom ; otherwise it is a raven-mother§ and caring for 
 raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in its very 
 caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would have to be 
 the "humane" of "free" State to begin with) the "indi- 
 vidual" is raven-fodder for it. How rightly speaks the 
 burgomaster, on the other handiH "What? the State 
 
 * "This Book Belongs to the King," p. 376. 
 t P. 374. § [An unnatural mother] 
 
 tP. 376. 
 IFF. 381 
 
210 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 has no other duty than to be merely the attendant of incur- 
 able 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 recog- 
 nizes 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, 'Tf 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."* If one here, like Bettina, 
 understands 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 fol- 
 lowing : For an invalid band of robbers the only way of 
 salvation is to make the loyal citizen flourish in it ! Why, 
 thereby the band of robbers would" simply go to ruin as 
 a band of robbers ; and, because it perceives this, it pre- 
 fers to shoot every one who has a leaning toward becom- 
 ing 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 
 
 * P. 385. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 211 
 
 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 politic- 
 ians, 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 com- 
 mitted 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 con- 
 sidered 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, or 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 'Sve are all miserable sin- 
 ners" ; 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." * Well — just put every thing 
 nicelv to rights f 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— heartlessnessf Each severing 
 
 * [Gerechte] 
 
 t [macht Alles huehsch gerecht] 
 
212 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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. Every one 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 souls makes laws 
 means properly only that the moral man makes them: 
 what contradicts these men's ''moral feelings," 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 213 
 
 must aim at the same goal with me ; i. e,, I do not treat 
 them as unique beings * 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 "a 
 rsinner, 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 crirqinal and responsible for not having hated the 
 enemies of the fatherland?" — 
 
 If, as in the Revolution, what "Man" is is apprehended 
 as "good citizen," then from this concept of "Man" we 
 nave the well-known "political offences 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, 
 i 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 victori- 
 ous "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 stig- 
 matize them as "hypocrites," as St. Just, e. g., does those 
 whom he accuses in the speech against Danton.f One 
 is to be a fool, and deliver himself up to their Moloch. 
 
 * [Einzige'] 
 
 t See "Political Speeches." 10, p. 153 
 
214 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 i 
 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, I 
 but yet only to that which is sanctioned by society, to the i 
 society-right, not really to his right. But / give or take ! 
 to myself the right out of my own plenitude of power, ; 
 and against every superior power I am the rnost impeni- 
 tent criminal. Owner and creator of my right, I recognize 
 no other source of right than — me, neither God nor the j 
 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, p 
 therefore ! "Absolute right." Separated from me, there- ^ 
 fore ! A thing that exists in and for itself ! An absolute ! I 
 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 "unrea- 1 
 son." Neither divine nor human reason, but only your 
 and my reason existing at any given time, is real, as and i 
 because you and I are real. 
 
 The thought of right is originally my thought; or, iti ' 
 has its origin in me. But, when it has sprung from me, ' 
 when the "Word" is out, then it has "become flesh," it is 
 I 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, cannol 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 215 
 
 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. 
 
 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/' * 
 
 Privileged and endowed with equal rights — on these 
 two concepts turns a stubborn fight. Excluded or admit- 
 ted — 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 hold? 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, and 
 the like, 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, contrari- 
 wise, 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, i. e. 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." All citizens of the 
 
 * [Literally, "precedent right."] 
 
216 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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— z/i^., himself or his individuality ; in this every- 
 body 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 Br. 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 ofif their "e^-oism," the mutual wrong would cease, 
 and with it Christian and Jewish religiousness in general ; 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 217 
 
 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 hostiles 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/' and the 
 like ; in short, an equalization, which need not be better 
 than that which would result if all Jews became Chris- 
 tians, by which likewise the "privilege'' of one over the 
 other would have an end. The tension * 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 resist- 
 ant,t and the disparity will always remain. Truly it is 
 not a failing in you that you stiffen X 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.% 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 opposi- 
 tion to others, but in this, that we are not completely so : 
 t, e. that we are not entirely severed from them, or that we 
 seek a "communion," a "bond," that in communion we 
 
 \Spannung\ f [gespannt] i [spannen] § [einj^igl 
 
218 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 opposi- 
 tion, 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. * This might indeed be regarded as the new 
 point in common or a new parity, but here the parity con- 
 sists precisely in the disparity, and is itself nothing but dis- 
 parit}% and that only for him who institutes a "com- 
 parison.'' 
 
 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 swal- 
 lowed up by might, i. e. when one understands what is 
 meant by "flight goes before right." All right explains 
 itself then as privilege, and privilege itself as power, as — 
 superior ponder. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 
 
 * [Einsigkeit] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 219 
 
 I called ''my right'' is no longer ''right'' at an, 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 of 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 recog- 
 nize 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 cancelled 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 concepts of right, or of justice, played one 
 of the most important parts. 
 
 Entitled or unentitled — that does not concern me; if 
 1 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. 
 
 IL— 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 
 
220 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 to- 
 ward men; a hypocrite as a hypocrite, a Christian as a 
 Christian. Therefore the character of a society is deter- 
 mined by the character of its members : they are its crea- 
 tors. 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 per- j 
 sons, 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 "man- 
 kind" or the "family," both the most "natural-born units.'' 
 We choose the word "people" * 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 
 
 * Wölk; btit the etvmolo^^ical remark followincr applies eowally 
 to the English word "people." See Liddell & Scott*s Greek 
 
 lexicon, under pimplemt.] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 221 
 
 off this deceptive person, although on the other hand the 
 latter consideration must give the preference to the ex- 
 pression "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 inter- 
 ests, and ''general human interest." 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 ''cor- 
 rupted" 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 peo- 
 ple), 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 as I will. But shall I find in any 
 society such an unmeasured freedom of maying? Cer- 
 tainly 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 oppon- 
 ent'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 noth- 
 ing 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 
 
THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ''argue'': there I fight against a bodily enemy; nere 
 against mankind, against a generalization, against a 
 "majesty,'' against spook. But to me no majesty, noth- 
 ing sacred, is a limit ; nothing that I know how to over- 
 power. 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. How- 
 ever, ''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, 
 Whose 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, etc.) ; 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 mav cheer aloud while I must "down" ; * the State 
 mav shine while T starve. In what lies the follv of the 
 political liberals but in their opposing^ the people to the 
 government and talkine of people's riehts? So there is 
 the people going to be of age, etc. As if one who has no 
 
 * J kuschen, a word whose only use is in ordering dogs to keep| 
 quiet.] ' I 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 223 
 
 mouth could be muendig!"^ Only the individual is able to 
 be muendig. 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 /, 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 every- 
 body 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 indi- 
 vidual'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 peo- 
 ple, precisely at its freest time', created ostracism, ban- 
 ished 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 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 foot- 
 ing with the Athenians ? Why does he not break with 
 
 * [This is the word for "of age"; but it is derived from Mund, 
 "mouth," and refers properly to the right of speaking through 
 one's own mouth, not by a guardian.] 
 
224 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 waa 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 pro- 
 nounced 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 him- 
 self, 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 war- 
 ranted 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 lib- 
 erty 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 "estab- 
 lished order." They are all perverters, like those per- 
 verters of the law. Socrates recognized law, right; the 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 225 
 
 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, intruduces the period of xA.thenian 
 '""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 migh become free, 
 the Greek people fell because the individuals cared less 
 for this people than for themselves. In general, all States, 
 constitutions, churches, etc., 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 con- 
 stitution, a beautiful, constitutional tie; decoration rib- 
 bons, 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 per- 
 verters of the law ; therefore our present time has multi- 
 tudes of such perverters in all spheres. They are pre- 
 paring 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 
 ^schylus, 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. 
 
226 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 by ostracism against too-powerful citizens, by the In- 
 quisition against the heretics of the Church, by the — 
 Inquisition against traitors in the State, etc. 
 
 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 noth- 
 ing, 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 con- 
 stitution, 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 to-morrow 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 presentment that 
 it is giving convoy to a corpse. The German people and 
 German peoples have behind them a history of a thou- 
 sand 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 can- 
 not create itself a body, the torment of a walking spirit 
 that dissolves into nothing at every cock-crow and yet 
 pines for deliverance and fulfilment In me too thou hast 
 lived long, thou dear — thought, thou dear — spook. Al- 
 ready I almost fancied I had found the word of Ihy 
 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 227 
 
 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 ! 
 
 To-morrow 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! 
 
 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^ 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 
 
 * ["occupy" ; literally, "have within"] 
 
228 
 
 THE EGO AND HiliS OWN 
 
 who enjoy"^ the same prison). H^re 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 in- 
 habitants : for it is a prison only through being destined 
 for prisoners, without whom it would be a mere build- 
 ing. 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 in- 
 tercourse 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 such egoistic, ' 
 purely personal intercourse (and only as such is it really 
 intercourse betwen 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-mind- 
 ed French chamber decides to introduce solitary con- 
 finement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut 
 off "demoralizing intercourse." Imprisonment is the es- 
 tablished and — sacred condition, to injure which no at- 
 tempt 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 com- 
 panionship, a communion (e. g. communion of labor), but 
 no intercourse, no reciprocity, no union. On the con- 
 trary, every union in the prison bears within it the dan- 
 gerous seed of a ''plot,'' which under favorable circum- 
 stances might spring up and bear fruit. 
 
 * [The word Genosse, "companion," signifies originally a com- 
 panion in enjoyment\ 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 229 
 
 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 dissolu- 
 tion 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. Parent, husband and wife, child- 
 ren, 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 ac- 
 count. The family is a true communion only when the 
 law of the family, piety* or family love, is observed by 
 its members. A son to whom parents, brothers, and sis- 
 ters have become indifferent has been a son ; for, as the 
 sonship no longer shows itself eflficacious, 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 mem- 
 ber 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 meml3er, 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 
 
 * [This word in German does not mean religion, but, as in 
 Latin, faithfulness to family ties— as we speak of "filial piety." 
 But the word elsewhere translated "pious" {fromm) means 
 ''religious," as usually in En^Ji b.] 
 
230 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS. OWN 
 
 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 harmon- 
 izes with its position, and the like; 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 peace- 
 fully together; the advantage of the family is at the 
 same time mine, and vice versa. Then it is hard to de- 
 cide 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 ap- 
 pear 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 pietv. 
 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 pietv : the good Pro- 
 testants used the same excuse with much success against 
 the Catholics, and believed in it themselves. But it is 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 231 
 
 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 di sacrifice to the peace of the family. One 
 might say that here too selfishness prevailed, for the de- 
 cision came from the feeling that the pliable girl felt her- 
 self more satisfied by the unity of the family than by 
 the fulfilment of her wish. That might be; but what 
 if there remained a sure sign that egoism had been sacri- 
 ficed to piety? What if, even after the wish, that had 
 been directed against the peace of the family was sacri- 
 ficed, 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 de- 
 scribed e. g. in the "Cabanis" of Wilibald Alexis. There 
 
232 
 
 THE EGO AND HBS OWN 
 
 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 con- 
 sistent development of family responsibility is contained 
 in Chinese law, according to which the whole family has 
 to expiate the individual's fault. 
 
 To-day, however, the arm of family power seldom 
 reaches far enough to take seriously in hand the punish- 
 ment of apostates (in most cases the State protects even 
 against disinheritance). The criminal against the fam- 
 ily (family-criminal) flees into the domain of the State 
 and is free, as the State criminal who gets away to Amer- 
 ica is no longer reached by the punishments of his State. 
 He who has shamed his family, the graceless son, is 
 protected aginst the family's punishment because the 
 State, this protecting lord, takes away from family pun- 
 ishment 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"). 
 
 What is called a State is a tissue and plexus of de- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 233 
 
 pendence 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. Sup - 
 pose 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 orders of bestiality. If disorder were vic- 
 torious, 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 would 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 estab- 
 lished, or have an independent standing* of their own, 
 are the indissolubly established against us egoists. The 
 fight of the world to-day is, as it is said, directed against 
 the ''established.-' Yet people are wont to misunder- 
 stand 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 estab- 
 lishment itself, i. e. 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 (such as 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 should be remembered that the words "establish" and 
 "State" are both derived from the root "stand."] 
 
234 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 it, under obligations to it, and must ''do it homage."* 
 
 It takes me up into its ''favor,''t 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 high- 
 ness, 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 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 
 w4th 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 
 /. 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. 
 
 * [huldigen] t [Huld] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 235 
 
 I never believed in myself; I never believed in my 
 present, I saw myself only in the future. The boy be- 
 lieves 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 to-day 
 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 de- 
 votion 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, i. e. 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 men- 
 tal culture — in short, the object of protecting those who 
 act Christianly against those who act unchristianly, 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. Dtipin said lately against the clergy, "In- 
 struction 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 con- 
 cerns with us too, only that our State — puts confidence 
 in the families without painful oversight; it holds the 
 
236 
 
 THE EGO AND flllS OWN 
 
 family bound by the marriage tie, and 'this tie cannot be 
 broken without it. 
 
 But that the State makes me responsible for my prin- 
 ciples, 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 mar- 
 riage law in general, the question is of the proportion 
 of rights between Church and State. Rather, the ques- 
 tion 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 
 later rests on godliness, the former on morality. 
 
 People talk of the tolerance, the leaving opposite ten- 
 dencies free, and the like, by which civilized States are 
 distinguished. Certainly some are strong enough to look 
 with complacency on even the most unrestrained meet- 
 ings, 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 noth- 
 ing 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 / 
 am free in no State. The lauded tolerance of States is i 
 simply a tolerating of th^ ''harmless,'' the "not danger- 
 ous" ; 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 ele- ;^ 
 vated 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 uncon- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 237 
 
 cernedly, not without "superior oversight and media- 
 tion/' 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 restric- 
 tion 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 cojuinon 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 some- 
 thing out of man, therefore there live in it only made 
 men; every one who wants to be his own self is its op- 
 ponent 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, and the like. 
 
 E. Bauer,* in the ''Liberale Bestrehungen'' H, 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 "govern- 
 ment" : "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, inde- 
 
 *What was said in the concluding remarks after Humane 
 Liberalism holds good of the following — to wit, that it was like- 
 wise written immediately after the appearance of the book cited. 
 
238 THE EGO AND HDS OWN 
 
 pendent officers, over against the people ; but wliich has 
 its foundation, the fountain of its power and of its prin- 
 ciples, 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 things re- 
 mains 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. Th::; government, if it 
 were nothing independent and opposing, would be noth- 
 ing at all. 
 
 'Tn 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 mon- 
 archy ? 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 govern- 
 ment: that is understood of itself. But over me there 
 will stand a government in every ''State/' in the abso- 
 lute as well as in the republican or "free." / am as badly 
 off in one as in the other. 
 
 The republic is nothing whatever but — absolute mon- 
 archy ; for it makes no difference whether the monarch 
 is called prince or people, both being a "majesty." Con- 
 stitutionalism itself proves that nobody is able and will- 
 ing 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. 
 
 E. Bauer denies (p. 56) that the people is a "per- 1 
 sonality" 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 "personalitv" if one 
 is once resolved to talk of a "political" (p. 76) moral 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 239 
 
 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, E. 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 char- 
 acteristic of all dominion. A people's State, which 
 "unites in itself all completeness of power/' the "abso- 
 lute 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 subordi- 
 nating 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." (Ibid,, p. 130). How would that be 
 otherwise in the "people's State"? Shall / 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"? li dependence 
 means as much as "religious relation," as E. Bauer right- 
 ly 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. 
 E. 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 
 
240 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 people wants to be absolute. These two absolutes will 
 wear out against each other. 
 
 E. 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 F 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 constitu- 
 tion is the — prince. Princes and peoples will persist so 
 long as both do not collapse, i. e, fall together. If under 
 one constitution there are many ''peoples"—^, g, in the 
 ancient Persian monarchy and to-day — then these "peo- 
 ples" 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 "organ- 
 ized" people {ibid,, p. 132) ? A people "that no longer 
 has a government," that governs itself. In which, there- 
 fore, 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"^ and make 
 history, must, like everything that acts, have a head, its 
 "supreme head." Weitling sets this forth in the "Trio," 
 and Proudhon declares, '%ine societe, pour mnsi dire 
 acephale, ne peut vivre/'f 
 
 The vox populi is now always held up to us, and "pub- 
 lic 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 deif 
 
 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 
 
 * [In the philosophical sense (a thinking and acting being), not 
 in the political sense.] 
 
 t ''Creation de 1' Ordre/' p. 485. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 241 
 
 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 to- 
 gether, 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 storm- 
 ily in pointing the Germans to their Germanhood. Why, 
 Gerfnanhood is just like beehood in this very thing, 
 that it bears in itself the necessity of cleavages and sepa- 
 rations, yet without pushing on to the last separation, 
 where, with the complete carrying through of the pro- 
 cess of separating, its end appears : I mean, to the separa- 
 tion 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 in- 
 dividuals can enter into union with each other, and all 
 alliances and leagues of peoples are and remain mechan- 
 ical 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 them- 
 selves. 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, 
 
242 
 
 THE EGO AND HIIS OWN 
 
 etc., Lusatia, etc.), and the restoration of the entire na- 
 tionahty — coincide in one. But the Germans will come 
 mto 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 him- 
 self. How ridiculously sentimental when one German 
 grasps another's hand and presses it with sacred awe be- 
 cause ''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 "child- 
 likeness" 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 them- 
 selves. 
 
 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. Carriere, inspired, 
 cries out,"^ "Railroads are to the more penetrating eye 
 the way to a life of the people such as has not yet any- j 
 where appeared in such significance." Quite right, it will ^ 
 be a life of the people that has nowhere appeared, be- 
 cause it is not a — life of the people. — So Carriere 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." 
 
 * "Koelner Dom'' p. 4. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 243 
 
 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 as its 
 head the ruler without will. It finds itself in the alter- 
 native either to be subjected to a prince who realizes only 
 himself, his individual pleasure — then it does not recog- 
 nize 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, w^hose 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 1. 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 prod- 
 uct. 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 /, though they revolve around a common centre. 
 
 Bailly's utterance is representative of the slave-disposi- 
 tion that folks manifest before the sovereign people, as 
 before the prince. "I have," says he, "no longer any ex- 
 tra reason when the general reason has pronounced it- 
 self. 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, 
 
244 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 Revolu- 
 tion they have striven to ''make the people happy," and 
 in making the people happy, great, and the like, they 
 make Us unhappy: the people's good hap is — my mis- 
 hap. 
 
 What empty talk the political liberals utter with em- 
 ohatic decorum is well seen again in Nauwerk'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 with- 
 out taking part in it. But what does this make out against 
 the egoist? Nothing at all, because the egoist is to him- 
 self 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 
 low, 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 father- 
 land and the like, you will long preach to deaf hearts 
 in behalf of this "service of love." Certainly, in your 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 245 
 
 sense the egoists will not participate in State affairs 
 at all. 
 
 Nauwerk utters a genuine liberal phrase on p. 16 : ''Man 
 completely fulfils 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 relig- 
 ion! There religion is a "private matter." 
 
 If, instead of "sacred duty," "man's destiny," the "call- 
 ing to full manhood," and similar commandments, it 
 were held up to people that their self-interest was in- 
 fringed on when they let everything in the State go as it 
 goes, then, without declamations, they would be ad- 
 dressed 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 neces- 
 sity 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 com- 
 plete 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, 
 
246 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 constitu- 
 tion, etc., sink into their true abyss and their true noth- 
 ingness. I, this nothing, shall put forth my creations 
 from myself. 
 
 To the chapter of society belongs also ''the party,'' 
 whose praise has of late been sung. 
 
 In the State the party is current. 'Tarty, party, who 
 should not join one!" But the individual is unique,"^ 
 not a member of the party. He unites freely, and sepa- 
 rates 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 in- 
 veigh 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.f 
 
 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 
 
 * \ einzig] 
 
 t \am Einzigen] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 247 
 
 outside their party, i, e. non-partisans. Non-partisan 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 Chris- 
 tian party, you cannot go beyond this as a member of 
 this party, but only when your egoism, i, e. non-partisan- 
 ship, 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 faithfulness, ad- 
 hesion, 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 contra- 
 diction necessarily founded in the principle of morality 
 does not, on account of the confusion of their concepts^ 
 
248 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 come clearly to their consciousness. They do not ven- 
 ture to call the apostate immoral downright, 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"^ perchance a party? How 
 could they be own if they were such as belonged to a 
 party ? 
 
 Or is one to hold with no party? In the very act of 
 joning 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 to-day I still share the party's 
 tendency, and by to-morrow 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 de- 
 gree, 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 partv'-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 partvO. 
 But well for you if you do not let yourself be affrighted : 
 your effrontery helps you to ownness. 
 [Einzig enl 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 249 
 
 So then an egoist could never embrace a party or 
 take up with a party? Oh, yes, only he cannot let him- 
 self 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. 
 
 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. ''Re- 
 spect 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 
 ordiances are sacred."^ At this the individual ranks as 
 l\ie unholyt (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. :|: Thus it issues a law against dueling. 
 Two men who are both at one in this, that they are will- 
 ing 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 situa- 
 tion 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 re- 
 fuse 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 lib- 
 
 * [heilig] 
 
 t [unheilig] % [Heiliger] 
 
250 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 erty: the society is simply availing itself of its own lib- 
 erty. 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 de- 
 fence. 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 conse- 
 quences 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 individ- 
 ual'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 command- 
 ments of the Church as of the State, are the command- 
 ments 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 sinners, here criminals, there in- 
 quisition 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 "sub- 
 jects," will this remain? Will the "saint's" face not be 
 stripped of its adornment ? 
 
 Wliat a folly, to ask of the State's authority that it 
 should enter into an honorable fight with the individual, 
 and, as they express themselves m the matter of freedom 
 of the press, share sun and wind equally. If the State, 
 this thought, is to be a de facto pozver, 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 for- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 251 
 
 mer and dispute fthe 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 some- 
 thing is sacred to any one, he certainly deserves punish- 
 ment when he acts as its enemy. A man who lets a 
 man's life continue in existence because to him it is sa- 
 cred 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, how- 
 ever, his organized society is also exalted into a sacred 
 and inviolable one, he miscalculates in that good-hearted 
 opinion. Such as 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 re- 
 mainder of human diseases and weaknesses,'' and "cura- 
 tive means" always announce to begin with that individ- 
 uals will be looked upon as "called" to a particular "sal- 
 vation/' 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 start- 
 ing from another — to wit, whether it injures right, gen- 
 eral right, or 'the health partly of the individual (the sick 
 one), partly of the generality (society). "Crime" is 
 
252 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 treated inexorably, ''disease" with ''loving gentleness^ 
 compassion," and the like. 
 
 Punishment follows crime, li crime falls because the 
 sacred vanishes, punishment must not less be drawn into 
 it fall ; for it too has significance only over against some- 
 thing sacred. Ecclesiastical punishments have been abol- 
 ished. Why? Because how one behaves toward the 
 "holy God" is his own affair. But, as this one punish- 
 ment, ecclesiastical punishment^ has fallen, so all punish- 
 ments must fall. As sin against the so-called God is a 
 man's own affair, so 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 let- 
 ting 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— represen- 
 tations 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 ^ls a satisfactory out- 
 come. If one does to us what we will not put up with, 
 we break his power and bring our own to bear : we sat- 
 isfy 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 
 secred brings it to pass also that, without lively partici- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 253 
 
 pation of one's own, one only delivers misdoers into the 
 hands of the police and courts : a non-participating mak- 
 ing 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 pop- 
 ular 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? 
 
 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, poli- 
 tics too wanted to ''educate" man, to bring him to the 
 realization of his "essence," his "destiny," to make some- 
 
254 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 thing 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 command- 
 ment, 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 temp- 
 tation to proclaim a new religion, to set up a new abso- 
 lute, 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 free- 
 men 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 per- 
 sonal 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 
 man, i. e. in the setting up of a "perfection" to be striven 
 for, in "man wrestling for his completion."* ("Ye 
 therefore should be perfect as your father in heaven is 
 perfect." Matt. 5. 48) : it consists in the fixation of an 
 
 * B. Bauer, ''Lit. Ztg^ 8, 22. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 255 
 
 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."'^ Nay, this realization is immediately afterward 
 styled a "vocation"; just so he then defines ftberty as 
 "morality" : the kingdom of "justice" (i. e, equality) and 
 "morality" (i. e, liberty) is to begin, etc. 
 
 Ridiculous is he who, while fellows of his tribe, family, 
 nation, etc., 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 nation- 
 ality, of humanity. 
 
 Through the "Nationals" of to-day the conflict has 
 again been stirred up between those who think them- 
 selves 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 of 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 h and without squeezing him. 
 
 * u. Z. B.r p. 89 ff . 
 
256 
 
 THE EGO AND HES OWN 
 
 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, etc.^ has finally led to saying, 
 one is more fhan 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 German, then, man and Guelph, etc.? The 
 Nationals are in the right; one cannot deny his nation- 
 ality: and the 'humanitarians are in the right; one must 
 not remain in the narrowness of the national. In unique^ 
 iiess^ the contradiction is solved ; the national is my qual- 
 ity. 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 radi- 
 ates. 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, beside^, the world of men, 
 the world of the senses and of ideas will have to be in- 
 
 * [Einzigkeit] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 257 
 
 eluded 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 under- 
 standing of this concept there proceeded at last the com- 
 mand ''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 / am to recog- 
 nize this own and hold it sacred. Their own consists 
 partly in outward, partly in inward possessions. The 
 former are things, the latter spiritualities, thoughts, con- 
 victions, noble feelings, etc. But I am always to respect 
 only rightful or human possessions ; the wrongful and 
 unhuman I need not spare, for only Mans 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, / must 
 not strike at it. Just so honor is an inward possession ; 
 it is free and must not be struck at by me. (Action for 
 insult, caricatures, etc.) Religion and honor are ''spiritual 
 property." Intangible property the person stands fore- 
 most: 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 in- 
 human monster. 
 
 What a man as such cannot defend of bodily goods, 
 we may take from .him : this is the meaning of competi- 
 tion, of freedom of occupation. What he cannot defend 
 of spiritual good falls a prey to us likewise : so far goes 
 the liberty of discussion, of science, of criticism. 
 
 But consecrated goods are inviolable. Consecrated 
 and guaranteed by whom? Proximately by the State, 
 society, but properly by man or the "concept," the "con- 
 cept of the thing" : for the concept of consecrated goods 
 is this, that they are truly human, or rather that the 
 holder possesses them as ma n and not as un-man.* 
 
 * [See note on p. 148.] 
 
258 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 foundation of all 
 religion'' ; attacks on political faith ; in short, attacks on 
 everything that a man ''righly'' has. 
 
 How far critical liberalism would extend the sanctity 
 of goods — on this point it has not yet made any pro- 
 nouncement, 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 con- 
 cept 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, i. e. because his .being man does it : what do / 
 care for his right and his claim? H 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 
 gods, remain unaggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as 
 gods, remain unaggrieved). His gt>ods, the sensuous as 
 well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as 
 proprietor, in the measure of my — might. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 259 
 
 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 
 only in him ''from whom we have everything/' Prop- 
 erty depends on the owner. 
 
 The Revolution directed its weapons against every- 
 thing 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 op- 
 posed 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 an- 
 other for God's sake," had to receive its human position 
 by a "Love each other for man's sake," so the revolu- 
 tionary 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 ar- 
 ranged acording 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 prop- 
 erty!" 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 aflfairs 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 used to "re- 
 spect" nothing. Pray do the like with what you call 
 my property ! 
 
 With this view we shall most easily come to an under- 
 standing with each other. 
 
 The poHtical liberals are anxious that, if possible, all 
 servitudes be dissolved, and every one be free lord on his 
 
260 
 
 THE EGO AND HIIS OWN 
 
 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,'^ 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 re- 
 spect 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 re- 
 flected 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 unten- 
 able, because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but 
 a propertyless man, one who is everywhere shut out. In- 
 stead of owning the world, as he might, he does not own 
 even the paltry point on which he turns around. 
 
 Proudhon wants not the proprietaire but the posses- 
 seur or usufruitier.'f 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 had 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. Proud- 
 hon, therefore, denies only such and such property, not 
 property itself. If we want no longer to leave the land 
 
 * [The words "cof and ''dung" are alike in German.] 
 t E. g., ''Qu'est-ce que la Propriete/' p. 83. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 261 
 
 to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to our* 
 selves, we unite ourselves to this end, form a union, a 
 societe, that makes itself proprietor; if we have good 
 luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed prop- 
 rietors. 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 arbitra- 
 rily than an isolated individual or so-called proprietaire. 
 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 him 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 com- 
 mon 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 like- 
 wise 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 rob- 
 bery (vol),'' — Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe 
 that society is the original possessor and the sole proprie- 
 tor, of imprescriptible right; against it the so-called pro- 
 prietors have become thieves (La propriete c'est le vol); 
 
262 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 if it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, 
 it robs him of nothing, as it is only avaiHng 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 ö//"f 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 fear- 
 ful master. Then the ghost of "right" places itself on 
 their side. 
 
 Proudhon, like the Communists, fights against egoism. 
 Therefore they are continuations and consistent carry- 
 ing-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 — viz. the propertylessness of the indi- 
 vidual. When the law says. Ad reges potestas omnium 
 pertinet, ad singulos proprietas ; omnia rex imperio pos- 
 sidet, singiili dominio, this means: The king is proprietor, 
 for he alone can control and dispose of ''everything," he 
 has potestas and imperiiim 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 Proprietaire 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. 
 
 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 263 
 
 objection could be made against theft, we only ask: Is 
 the concept "theft'' c^t all possible unless one allows va- 
 lidity 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 prop- 
 erty, it becomes "mine" >only by assent of the law — ; it 
 is not a fact, not un fait as Proudhon thinks, but a fic- 
 tion, a thought. This is legal property, legitimate prop- 
 erty. It is mine not through me but through the — law. 
 
 Nevertheless, property is the expression for unlimited 
 dominion over somewhat (thing, ibeast, man) which "I 
 can judge and dispose of as seems good to me." Ac- 
 cording to Roman law, indeed, jus utendi et abutendi re 
 sua, quatenus juris ratio patitur, an exclusive and un- 
 limited 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 prop- 
 erty and possession coincide. It is not a right lying out- 
 side 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 proprie- 
 tors. 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 
 
264 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 (no matter whether State of 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,* 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 own- 
 ness, and should I cheapen property? *'No, as I was not 
 respected hitherto because people, mankind, and a thou- 
 sand 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'' : / belonged to the fatherland, the people, the 
 State, and therefore also ever3rthing 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 re- 
 main a poor devil, a non-ego. The State has an inter- 
 est 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, unruflled by this alternation. As m- 
 dividuals 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, 
 H 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 prop- 
 erty, with which it rewards the individuals, it tames them ; 
 but this remains its property, and every one has the usu- 
 fruct 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 
 
 * [Einzige] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 265 
 
 the State does not arbitraril}^ deprive the individual of 
 what he has from the State means simply that the State 
 does not rob itself. He who is a 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, and the like (as, 
 e, g,, 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 posses- 
 sion 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 possession 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, as unconditioned 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 
 
266 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 : / go beyond its concepts, or, its under- 
 standing is too limited to comprehend me. Therefore it 
 cannot do anything for me either. 
 
 Pauperism is the valuelessness of me, the phenome- 
 non 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 form the earth, etc.^ 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 / 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. 
 "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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 267 
 
 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 be- 
 tween as — mediator, must — intervene. What Christ was, 
 what the saints, the Church were, the State has be- 
 come — 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 com- 
 pulsion 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 cus- 
 tomers for them (I do realize value from them, e. g. in 
 the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, 
 and the like) ; 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 nor 
 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 
 
268 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 value of me, and nothing must it more carefully guard 
 against than every occasion that offers itself to me for 
 realizing value from myself. / am the deadly enemy of 
 the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, 
 it or I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not let- 
 ting 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 sanc- 
 tioned 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.* I give myself 
 the right of property in taking property to myself, or 
 giving myself the proprietor's power, full power, empow- 
 erment. 
 
 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 
 
 * [A German idiom for "take upon myself/' "assume."] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 269 
 
 me an owner. Let me then withdraw the might that 
 I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the 
 strength of my ow7i 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 / entitle, i. ^.—empower, myself to take. 
 
 Here egoism, selfishness, must decide; not the prin- 
 ciple 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 know- 
 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 con- 
 fers 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 aboli- 
 tion of all personal property, only presses me back still 
 more into dependence on another, vis., 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. Commmunism rightly revolts against the 
 pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; 
 
270 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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-possess- 
 ing rabble. It does not say: Wait for what the board 
 of equity will — bestow on you in the name of the col- 
 lectivity (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 ser- 
 vice), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With 
 this the war of all against all is declared. / alone de- 
 cide 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 pres- 
 ent. 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 tak- 
 ing 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 fav'- 
 orite 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 resnect 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, multiplv the 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 271 
 
 individuaFs means and secure his assailed prop- 
 erty. 
 
 According to the Communists' opinion the commune 
 should be proprietor. On the contrary, / 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 prop- 
 rietor, but property is not sabred. 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 raga- 
 muffins, the egoist behaves as proprietor. 
 
 All swan-fraternities,* 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 it- 
 self. If it does not let itself be coerced into fear, it is 
 a power. 'Teople would lose all respect if one did not 
 coerce them so 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 re- 
 quires much, and understands how to get it, has at all 
 times helped himself to it, as Napoleon did with the Con- 
 tinent and France with Algiers. Hence the exact point 
 is that the respectful ''rabble" should learn a 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: who- 
 
 * [Apparently some benevolent scheme of the day; compare 
 note on p. 272.1 
 
272 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ever 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 prop- 
 erty, then you will be strong ; if, on the other hand, you 
 want to retain your ability to bestow, and perhaps actual- 
 ly have the more political rights the more alms (poor- 
 ' rates) you can give, this will work just as long as the 
 recipients let your work it.* 
 
 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 al- 
 ways 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 Persoenlichkeit des Eigentuemers 
 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. 
 
 Competition shows itself most strictly connected with 
 the principle of civism. Is it an3i:hing else than equality 
 (egalite)? And is not equality a product of that same 
 
 *Tn a resristration bill for Ireland the government made the 
 T)roposal to let those be electors who pay £S sterling ^of poor-rates. 
 He who gives alms, therefore, acquires political rights, or else- 
 where becomes a swan-knight . fSee p. 271.] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 273 
 
 Revolution which was brought on by the commonalty, 
 the middle classes? As no one is barred from com- 
 peting 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 judg- 
 ment-seat every one has only the value of a ''simple in- 
 dividual" and may not count on any favoritism. Out- 
 run 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" !* 
 
 What in the form of principle or theory was pro- 
 pounded as the equality of all has found here in compe- 
 tition its realization and practical carrying out ; for egalite 
 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 corpora- 
 tion, 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 competi- 
 tion and liberalism it is in a tolerant and indulgent atti- 
 tude, granting only patents (letters assuring the applicant 
 that the business stands open [patent] to him) or ''con- 
 cessions.'' Now, as the State has thus left everything 
 
 * Minister Stein used this expression about Count von Reisach, 
 when he cold-bloodedly left the latter at the mercy of the 
 Bavarian government because to him, as he said, "a government 
 like Bavaria must be worth more than a simple individual.'* 
 Reisach had written against Montgelas at Stein's bidding, and 
 Stein later agreed to the giving up of Reisach, which was de- 
 rnanded by Montgelas on account of this very book. See Hen- 
 richs, ''Politische Vorlesungen/* I, 280. 
 
274 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 to the applicants, it must come in conflict with all, be- 
 cause 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 bril- 
 liant 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 prop- 
 erty 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 manufac- 
 turer? 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 in- 
 struction 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 
 respectfullv first ; then we will see what is to be done.'' 
 
 This, therefore, is the "freedom" of competition. The 
 State, wv lord, first qualifies me to compete. 
 
 But do persons really compete? No, again things 
 only ! Moneys in the first place, etc. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 275 
 
 In the rivalry one will always be left behind another 
 {e. g, a poetaster behind a poet). But it makes a differ- 
 ence 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 Statej^ 
 
 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 largess. Therefore all do chase after havings, hold- 
 ings, 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 dec- 
 laration that it belonged to man's essence not to be prop- 
 erty, 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- 
 
 * In colleges and universities, etc., poor men compete with rich. 
 But they are able to do so in most cases only through scholar- 
 ships, which — a significant point — almost all come down to us 
 from a time when free competition was still far from being a 
 controlling principle. The principle of competition founds no 
 scholarship, but says, Help yourself, i. e. provide yourself the 
 means. What the State gives for such purposes it pays out from 
 interested motives, to educate "servants" for itself. 
 
276 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 the how-much of possession, and an- 
 swered it to the effect that *'man must have as much as 
 he requires." 
 
 Will it be possible for my egoism to let itself be satis- 
 fied 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 everyone's com- 
 mand, 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 ''com- 
 petence" ; 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 de- 
 fend 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 bond service 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 277 
 
 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 zvork, 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 sup- 
 pose, 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 com- 
 petent for a good deal, e, g, to preserve their life instead 
 of taking it. f they are competent to cause you to de- 
 sire 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 com- 
 petence! 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 do- 
 ing it, hence they must purchase your deed. If you are 
 not competent to captivate any one, you ma^ 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 unique- 
 ness 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 
 
278 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 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 com- 
 petent 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 pur- 
 chase it. 
 
 If you do not know how to give yourself any other 
 than a money value in my estimation, there may arise 
 the case of which history tells us, that Germans, sons 
 of the fatherland, were sold to America. Should those 
 who let themselves be traded in be worth more to the 
 seller? He preferred the cash to this living ware that 
 did not understand how to make itself precious to him. 
 That he discovered nothing more valuable in it was 
 assuredly a defect of his competence; but it takes a 
 rogue to give more than he has. How should he show 
 respect when he did not have it, nay, hardly could have 
 it for such a pack ! 
 
 You behave egotistically 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 ("pro- 
 prietor") 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 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 279 
 
 abandoning'^ it to them, competition leaves it to their 
 appraisalf or their estimation, and demands a priced 
 for it. 
 
 But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to 
 make themselves buyers: they have no money. For 
 money, then, the purchasable things are indeed to be 
 had ("For money everything is to be had!''), but it is 
 exactly money that is lacking. Where is one to get 
 money, this current or circulating property ? Know then^, 
 you have as much money§ as you have — might ; for you 
 county for as much as you make yourself count for. 
 
 One pays not with money, of which there may come 
 a lack, but with his competence, by which alone we are 
 ''competent" ;TI for one is proprietor only so far as the 
 arm of our power reaches. | 
 
 Weitling has thought out a new means of payment — 
 work. But the true means of payment remains, as al- 
 ways, ^competence. With what you have ''within your 
 competence" you pay. Therefore think on the enlarge- 
 ment of your competence. 
 
 This being admitted, they are nevertheless right on 
 hand again with the motto, "To each according to his 
 competence!" Who is to give to me according to my 
 competence? Society? Then I should have to put up 
 with its estimation. Rather, I shall take according to 
 my competence. 
 
 "A'll belongs to all!" This proposition springs from 
 the same unsubstantial theory. To each belongs only 
 what he is competent for. If I say, The world belongs 
 to me, properly that too is empty talk, which has a mean- 
 ing only in so far as I respect no alien property. But 
 to me belongs only as much as I am competent for, or 
 have within my competence. 
 
 One is not worthy to have what one, through weak- 
 
 * [preisgeben] f [Preis] t [Preis] § [Geld] \\ [gelten] 
 If [Equivalent in ordinary German use to our "possessed of a 
 competence."] 
 
280 
 
 THE EGO' AND HIS OWN 
 
 ness, lets be taken from him; one is not worthy of it 
 because one is not capable of it. 
 
 They raise a mightly uproar over the '^wrong of a 
 thousand years'' wihich is being committed by the rich 
 against the poor. As if the rich were to blame for pov- 
 erty, and the poor were not in like manner responsible 
 for riches ! Is there another difference between the two 
 than that of competence and incompetence, of the com- 
 petent and incompetent? Wherein, pray, does the crime 
 of the rich consist? 'Tn their hardheartedness.'' But 
 who then ^have maintained the poor ? who have cared for 
 their nourishment ? who have given alms, those alms that 
 have even their name from mercy (eleemosyne) ? Have 
 not the rich been ''mercifur' at all times? are they not 
 to this day ''tender-hearted/' as poor-taxes, hospitals, 
 foundations of all sorts, etc., prove? 
 
 But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless then, 
 they are to share with the poor. Now you are demand- 
 ing that they shall abolish poverty. Aside from the 
 point that there might be hardly one among you who 
 would act so, and that this one would be a fool for it, 
 do ask yourselves : why should the rich let go their fleeces 
 and give up themselves^ thereby pursuing the advantage 
 of the poor rather than their own? You, who have your 
 thaler daily, are rich above thousands who live on four 
 groschen. Is it for your interest to sihare with the thou- 
 sands, or is it rather for theirs? 
 
 With competition is connected less the intention to 
 do the thing best than he intention to make it as profit- 
 able, as productive, as possible. Hence people study to 
 get into the civil service (pot-boiling study), study cring- 
 ing and flattery, routine and ''acquaintance with busi- 
 ness," work "for appearances." Hence, while it is ap- 
 parently a matter of doing "good service/' in truth only 
 a "good business" and earning of money are looked out 
 for. The job is done only ostensibly for the job's sake, 
 but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One 
 would indeed prefer not tO' be censor, but one wants to 
 be — advanced ; one would like to judge, administer, etc., 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 281 
 
 according to his best convictions, but one is afraid of 
 transference or even dismissal ; one must, above all things 
 — ^^live. 
 
 Thus these goins-on are a fight for dear life, and, in 
 gradation upward, for more or less of a "good living/' 
 
 And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care 
 brings in for most only ''bitter life'' and ''bitter poverty." 
 All the bitter painstaking for this! 
 
 Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take 
 a calm enjoyment-' we do not get the comfort of our 
 possessions. 
 
 But the organization of labor touches only such labors 
 as others can do for us^ e. g. slaughtering, tillage, etc. ; 
 the rest remain egoistic, because, e. g. no one can in 
 your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry 
 out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace 
 Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of a unique 
 person,* which only he is competent to achieve, while 
 the former deserved to be called "human," since what 
 is anybody's ozim in them is of slight account, and almost 
 "any man" can be trained to it. 
 
 Now, as society can regard only labors for the com- 
 mon benefit, human labors^, ihe who does anything unique 
 remains without its care ; nay, he may find himself dis- 
 turbed by its intervention. The unique person will work 
 himself forth out of society all right, but society brings 
 forth no unique person. 
 
 Hence it is at any rate helpful that we come to an 
 agreement about human labors, that they may not, as 
 under competition, claim all our time and toil. So far 
 Communism will bear its fruits. For before the dominion 
 of the commonalty even that for which all men are qual- 
 ified, or can be quahfied, was tied up to a few and with- 
 held from the rest: it was a privilege. To the com- 
 monalty it looked equitable to leave free all that seemed 
 to exist for every "man." But, because leftt free, it was 
 yet given to no one, but rather left to each to be got hold 
 
 [Einzige^ 
 
 t [Literally, "given."] 
 
282 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 of by his human power. By this the mind was turned 
 to the acquisition of the human, which henceforth beck- 
 oned to every one ; and there arose a movement which 
 one hears so loudly bemoaned under the name of "ma- 
 terialism/' 
 
 Communism seeks to check its course, spreading the 
 belief that tlie human is not worth so much discomfort, 
 and, with sensible arrangements, could be gained without 
 the great expense of time and powers which has hitherto 
 seemed requisite. 
 
 But for whom is time to be gained? For what does 
 man require more time than is necessary to refresh his 
 wearied powers of labor? Here Communism is silent. 
 
 For what? To take comfort in himself as the unique, 
 after he has done his part as man! 
 
 In the first joy over being allowed to stretch out their 
 hands toward everything human, people forgot to want 
 anything else ; and they competed away vigorously, as if 
 the possession of the human were the goal of all our 
 wishes. 
 
 But they have run themselves tired, and are gradually 
 noticing that "possession does not give happiness." 
 Therefore they are thinking of obtaining the necessary 
 by an easier bargain, and spending on it only so much 
 time and toil as its indispensableness exacts. Riches fall 
 in price, and contented poverty, the care-free ragamuffin, 
 becomes the seductive ideal. 
 
 Should such human activities, that every one is con- 
 fident of his capacity for, be highly salaried, and sought 
 for with toil and expenditure of all life-forces? Even 
 in the every-day form of speech, "If I were minister, 
 or even the . . . ., then it should go quite otlherwise,'^ 
 that confidence expresses itself — that one holds him- 
 self capable of playing the part of such a dignitary; one 
 does get a perception that to things of this sort there 
 belongs not uniqueness, but only a culture which is at- 
 tainable, even if not exactly by all, at any rate by many; 
 i. e. that for such a thing one need only be an ordinary 
 man. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 283 
 
 If we assume that, as. order belongs to the essence of 
 the State, so subordination too is founded in its nature^ 
 then we see that the subordinates, or those who have re- 
 ceived preferment, disproportionately overcharge and 
 overreach those who are put in the lower ranks. But the 
 latter take heart (first from the Socialist standpoint, but 
 certainly with egoistic consciousness later, of which we 
 will tlherefore at once give their speech some coloring) 
 for the question, By what then is your property secure, 
 you creatures of preferment? — and give themselves the 
 answer. By our refraining from interference! And so 
 by our protection ! And what do you give us for it ? 
 Kicks and disdain you give to the ''common people'' ; 
 police supervision, and a catechism with the dhief sen- 
 tence ''Respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! 
 respect others, and especially your superiors!'' But we 
 reply, "If you want our respect, buy it for a price agree- 
 able to us. We will leave you your property, if you 
 give a due equivalent for this leaving." Really, what 
 equivalent does the general in time of peace give for the 
 many thousands of his yearly income? another for the 
 sheer hundred-thousands and millions yearly? What 
 equivalent do you give for our chewing potatoes and 
 looking calmly on while you swallow oysters? Only 
 buy the oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the pota- 
 toes of you, then you may go on eating them. Or do you 
 suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to 
 you ? You will make an outcry over violence if we reach 
 out our hands and help consume them, and you are right. 
 Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have 
 them by doing violence to us. 
 
 But take the oysters and have done with it, and let 
 us consider our nearer property, labor ; for the other 
 is only possession. We distress ourselves twelve hours 
 in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a few groschen 
 for it. Then take the like for your labor too. Are you 
 not willing? You fancy that our labor is richly repaid 
 with that wage, wihile yours on the other hand is worth 
 a wage of many thousands. But, if you did not rate 
 
284 
 
 THE EGO' AND HIS OWN 
 
 yours so high, and gave us a better chance to realize 
 value from ours, then we migfht well, if the case demand- 
 ed it, bring to pass still more important things than you 
 do for the many thousand thalers ; and, if you got only 
 such wages as we^ you would soon grow more industrious 
 in order to receive more. But, if you render any service 
 that seems to us worth ten and a hundred times more 
 than our own labor, why, then you shall get a hun- 
 dred times more for it too; we, on the other hand, think 
 also to produce for you things for which you will requite 
 us more highly than with the ordinary day's wages. We 
 shall be willing to get along with each other all right, if 
 only we have first agreed on this — that neither any longer 
 needs to — present anything to the other. Then we may 
 perhaps actually go so far as to pay even the cripples 
 and sick and old an appropriate price for not parting 
 from us by hunger and want ; for, if we want them to 
 live, it is fitting also that we — purchase the fulfilment of 
 our will. I say ''purchase/' and therefore do not mean 
 a wretched "alms." For their life is the property even 
 of those who cannot work ; if we (no matter for what 
 reason) want them not to withdraw this life from us, 
 we can mean to bring this to pass only by purchase ; nay, 
 we shall perhaps (maybe because we like to have friend- 
 ly faces about us) even want a life of comfort for them. 
 In short, we want nothing presented by you, but neither 
 will we present you with anything. For centuries we 
 have handed alms to you from good-hearted — stupidity, 
 have doled out the mite of the poor and given to the 
 masters the things that are — not the masters'; now just 
 open your wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in price 
 quite enormously. We do not want to take from you 
 anything, anything at all, only you are to pay better for 
 what you Vv^ant to have. What then have you? 'T have 
 an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plow- 
 man, and will henceforth attend to your fields only for 
 one thaler a day wages. 'Then I'll take another." You 
 won't find any, for we plowmen are no longer doing 
 otherwise, and, if one puts in an appearance who takes 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 285- 
 
 less, then let him beware of us. There is the housemaid, 
 she too is now demanding as much^ and you will no longer 
 find one below this price. ''Why, then it is all over with 
 me." Not so fast ! You will doubtless take in as much 
 as we ; and, if it should not be so, we will take ofif so 
 much that you shall have wherewith to live like us. ''But 
 I am accustomed to live better.'' We have nothing 
 against that, but it is not our lookout; if you can clear 
 more, go ahead. Are we to hire out under rates, that 
 you may have a good living ? The rich man always puts 
 off the poor with the words, "What does your want con- 
 cern me? See to it how you make your way through 
 the world ; that is your affair, not mine." Well, let us 
 let it be our affair, then, and let us not let the means that 
 we have to realize full value from ourselves be pilfered 
 from us by the rich. "But you uncultured people really 
 do not need so much." Well, we are taking somewhat 
 more in order that for it we may procure the culture that 
 we perhaps need. "But, if you thus bring down the rich, 
 who is then to support the arts and sciences hereafter?" 
 Oh, well, we must make it up by numbers ; we club to- 
 gether, that gives a nice little sum — besides, you rich 
 men now buy only the most tasteless books and the most 
 lamentable Madonnas or a pair of lively dancer's legs. 
 "O ill-starred equality !" No, my good old sir, nothing 
 of equality. We only want to count for what we are 
 worth, and, if you are worth more, you shall count for 
 more right along. We only want to be worth our price, 
 and think to show ourselves worth the price that you 
 will pay. 
 
 Is the State likely to be able to awaken so secure a 
 temper and so forceful a self-consciousness in the men- 
 ial? Can it make man feel himself? nay, may it even 
 do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it want the 
 individual to recognize his value and realize this value 
 from himself? Let us keep the parts of the double 
 question separate, and see first whether the State can 
 bring about such a thing. As the unanimity of the plow- 
 men is required, only this unanimity can bring it to pass. 
 
286 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS DW'N 
 
 and a State law would be evaded in, a thousand ways by 
 competition and in secret. But can the State bear with 
 it? The State cannot possibly bear with people's suffering 
 coercion from another than it ; it could not, therefore, 
 admit the self-help of the unanimous plowmen against 
 those who want to engage for lower wages. Suppose, ' 
 however, that the State made the law, and all the plow- 
 men were in accord with it: could the State bear witth 
 it tihen? 
 
 In the isolated case — yes ; but the isolated case is more 
 than that;, it is a case of principle. The question therein 
 is of the whole range of the ego's self-realization of value 
 from himself, and therefore also of his self -consciousness 
 against the State. So far the Communists keep com- 
 pany; but, as self-realization of value from self neces- 
 sarily directs itself against the State, so it does against 
 society too, and therewith reaches out beyond the com- 
 mune and the communisitc — out of egoism. 
 
 Communism makes the maxim of the- commonalty, that 
 every one is a possessor ("proprietor''), into an irre- 
 fragable truth, into a reality, since the anxiety about 
 obtaining now ceases and every one has from the start 
 what he requires. In his labor-force he has his compe- 
 tence, and, if he makes no use of it, that is his fault. The 
 grasping and hounding is at an end, and no competition 
 is left (as so often now) without fruit, because with 
 every stroke of labor and adequate supply of the need- 
 ful is brought into the house. Now for the first time 
 one is a real possessor, because what one has in his labor- 
 force can no longer escape from him as it was continually 
 threatening to do under the system of competition. One 
 is a care-free and assured possessor. And one is this 
 precisely by seeking his competence no longer in a ware, 
 but in his own labor, his competence for labor ; and there- 
 fore by being ragamuffin, a man of only ideal wealth. 
 /, however, cannot content myself with the little that I 
 scrape up by my competence for labor, because my com- 
 petence does not consist merely in my labor. 
 
 By labor I can perform the official functions of a pres- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 287 
 
 ident, a minister, etc. : these offices demand only a general 
 culture — to wit, such a culture as is generally attainable 
 (for general culture is not merely that which every one 
 has attained, but broadly that which every one can attain, 
 and therefore every special culture, e, g. medical, mili- 
 tary, philological, of which no ''cultivated man" believes 
 that they surpass his powers), or, broadly, only a skill 
 possible to all. 
 
 But, even if these offices may vest in every one, 
 yet it is only the individual's unique force, peculiar to 
 him alone, that gives them, so to speak, life and signifi- 
 cance. That he does not manage his office like an ''ordi- 
 nary man/' but puts in the competence of his uniqueness, 
 this he is not yet paid for when he is paid only in gen- 
 eral as an official or a minister. If he has done it so as 
 to earn your thanks, and you wish to retain this thank- 
 worthy force of the unique one, you must hot pay him 
 like a mere man who performed only what was human, 
 but as one who accomplishes what is unique. Do the like 
 with your labor, do! 
 
 There cannot be a general schedule-price fixed for my 
 uniqueness as there can for what I do as man. Only lor 
 the latter can a schedule-price be set. 
 
 Go right on, then, setting up a general appraisal for 
 human labors, but do not deprive your uniqueness of 
 its desert. 
 
 Human or general needs can be satisfied through so- 
 ciety ; for satisfaction of unique needs you must do some 
 seeking. A friend and a friendly service, or even an 
 individual's service, society cannot procure you. And yet 
 you will every moment be in need of such a service, and 
 on the slightest occasions require somebody who is help- 
 ful to you. Therefore do not rely on society, but see to 
 it that you have the wherewithal to — purchase the fulfil- 
 ment of your wishes. 
 
 Whether money is to be retained among egoists? — To 
 the old stamp an inherited possession adheres. If you no 
 longer let yourselves be paid with it, it is ruined: if 
 you do nothing for this money, it loses all power. Cancel 
 
288 
 
 THE EGO' AND HIS OWN 
 
 the inheritance, and you have broken off the executor's 
 court-seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether 
 it be already inherited or await its heir. If it is yours, 
 wherefore do you let it be sealed up from you? why do 
 you respect the seal? 
 
 But why should you not create a new money ? Do you 
 then annihilate the ware in taking from it the hereditary 
 stamp? Now, money is a ware, and an essential means 
 or competence. For it protects against the ossification 
 of resources, keeps them in flux and brings to pass their 
 exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, 
 go ahead; yet it will be a "money'' again. It is not the 
 money that does you damage, but your incompetence to 
 take it. Let your competence take effect, collect your- 
 selves, and there will be no lack of money — of your 
 money, the money of your stamp. But working I do not 
 call '^letting your competence take effect." Those who 
 are only "looking for work" and "willing to work hard" 
 are preparing for their own selves the infallible upshot 
 — to be out of work. 
 
 Good and bad luck depend on money. It is a power 
 in the bourgeois period for this reason, that is only 
 wooed on all hands like a girl, indissolubly wedded by 
 nobody. All the romance and chivalry of wooing for a 
 dear object come to life again in competition. Money, an 
 object of longing, is carried off by the bold "knights of 
 industry.""^' 
 
 He who has luck takes home the bride. The raga- 
 muffin has luck; he takes her into his household, "soci- 
 ety," and destroys the virgin. In his house she is no 
 longer bride, but wife ; and with her virginity her family 
 name is also lost. As housewife the maiden Money is 
 called "Labor," for "Labor" is her husband's name. She 
 is a possession of her husband's. 
 
 To brin^ this fi^re to an end, the child of Labor and 
 Monev is aeain a eirl, an unwedded one and therefore 
 Money, but with the certain descent from Labor, her 
 
 * [A German phrase for sharpers.] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 289 
 
 father. The form of the face, the "effigy/ bears another 
 stamp. 
 
 Finally, as regards competition once more, it has a 
 continued existence by this very means, that all do not 
 attend to their affair and come to an understanding with 
 each other about it. Bread, e, g., is a need of all the in- 
 habitants of a city ; therefore they might easily agree on 
 setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave 
 the furnishing of the needful to the competing bakers. 
 Just so meat to the butchers, wine to the wine-dealers, etc. 
 
 xA.bolishing competition is not equivalent to favoring 
 the guild. The difference is this : In the guild baking, etc , 
 IS the affair of guild-brothers; in competition, the affair 
 of chance competitors; in the union, of those who re- 
 quire baked goods, and therefore my affair, yours, the 
 affair of neither the guildic nor the concessionary baker, 
 but the affair of the united. 
 
 If / do not trouble myself about my affair, I must be 
 content with what it pleases others to vouchafe me. To 
 have bread is my affair, my wish and desire, and yet 
 people leave that to the bakers and hope at most to ob- 
 tain through their wrangling, their getting ahead of each 
 other, their rivalry — in short, their competition — and ad- 
 vantage which one could not count on in the case of the 
 guild-brothers who were lodged entirely and alone in the 
 proprietorship of the baking franchise. — What every one 
 requires, every one should also take a hand in procuring 
 and producing ; it is his affair, his property, not the prop- 
 erty of the guildic or concessionary master. 
 
 Let us look back once more. The world belongs to 
 the children of this world, the children of men ; it is no 
 longer Gods world, but man's. As much as every man 
 can procure of it, let him call his; only the true man, 
 the State, human society or mankind, will look to it that 
 each shall make nothing else his own than what he ap- 
 propriates as man, i. e. in human fashion. Unhuman ap- 
 propriation is that which is not consented to by man, i, e, 
 it is a ''criminal" appropriation, as the human vice versa, 
 is a ''rightful" one, one acquired in the "way of law." 
 
290 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 So they talk since the Revolution. 
 
 But my property is not a thing, since this has an exist- 
 ence independent of me ; only my might is my own. Not 
 this tree, but my might or control over it, is what is 
 mine. 
 
 Now, how is this might perversely expressed? They 
 say I have a right to this tree, or it is my rightful prop- 
 erty. So I have earned it by might. That the might 
 must last in order that the tree may also be held — or 
 better, that the might is not a thing exising of itself, but 
 has existence solely in the mighty ego, in me the mighty 
 — is forgotten. Might, like other of my qualities (e, g. 
 humanity, majesty, etc.), is exalted to something exist- 
 ing of itself, so that it still exists long after it has ceased 
 to be my right. Thus transformed into a ghost, mi£ht 
 is — right. This eternalized might is not extinguished even 
 with my death, but is transferred or ''bequeathed." 
 
 Things now really belong not to me, but to right. 
 
 On the other side, this is nothing but a hallucination 
 of vision. For the individual's might becomes perman- 
 ent and a right only by others joining their might with 
 his. The delusion consists in their believing that they 
 cannot withdraw their might. The same phenomenon 
 over again; might is separated from me. I cannot take 
 back the might that I give to the possessor. One has 
 ''granted power of attorney,'' has given away his power, 
 has renounced coming to a better mind. 
 
 The proprietor can give up his might and his right 
 to a thing by giving the thing away, squandering it, and 
 the like. And we should not be able likewise to let go 
 the might that we lend to him? 
 
 The rightful man, the just, desires to call nothing his 
 own that he does not have "rightly" or have the right to, 
 and therefore only legitimate property. 
 
 Now, who is to be judge, and adjudge his right to 
 him? At last, surely, Man, who imparts to him the 
 rights of man; then he can say, in an infinitely broader 
 sense than Terence, humani nihil a me alienum puto, i. e. 
 the human is my property. However he mav go about it, 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 291 
 
 so long as he occupies this standpoint he cannot get clear 
 of a judge; and in our time the multifarious judges that 
 had been selected have set themselves against each other 
 in two persons at deadly enmity — to wit, in God and 
 Man. The one party appeal to divine right, the other 
 to human right or the rights of man. 
 
 So much is clear, that in neither case does the in- 
 dividual do the entitling himself. 
 
 Just pick me out an action to-day that would not be 
 a violation of right ! Every moment the rights of man are 
 trampled under foot by one side, while their opponents 
 cannot open their mouth without uttering a blasphemy 
 against divine right. Give an alms, you mock at a right 
 of man, because the relation of beggar and benefactor is 
 an inhuman relation; utter a doubt, you sin against a 
 divine right. Eat dry bread with contentment, you violate 
 the right of man by your equanimity ; eat it with discon- 
 tent, you revile divine right by your repining. There is 
 not one among you who does not commit a crime at 
 every moment ; your speeches are crimes, and every hind- 
 rance to your freedom of speech is no less a crime. Ye 
 are criminals altogether! 
 
 Yet you are so only in that you all stand on the ground 
 of right; i, e., in that you do not even know, and under- 
 stand how to value, the fact that you are criminals. 
 • Inviolable or sacred property has grown on this very 
 ground : it is a juridical concept. 
 
 A dog sees the bone in another's power, and stands 
 off only if it feels itself too weak. But man respects the 
 other's right to his bone. The latter action, therefore, 
 ranks as human, the former as brutal or ''egoistic.'' 
 
 And as here, so in general, it is called ''human'' when 
 one sees in everything something spiritual (here right )^ 
 i e. makes everything a ghost and takes his attitude to- 
 ward it as toward a ghost, which one can indeed scare 
 away as its appearance, but cannot kill. It is human to 
 look at what is individual not as individual, but as a 
 generality. 
 
 In nature as such I no longer respect anything, but 
 
292 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 know myself to be entitled to everything against it; in the i 
 tree that in that garden, on the other hand, I must respect 
 alienness (they say in one-sided fashion ''property"), I 
 must keep my hand off it. This comes to an end only 
 when I can indeed leave that tree to another as I leave 
 my stick, etc., to another, but do not in advance regard 
 it a£ alien to me, i. e. sacred. Rather, I make to myself 
 no crime of felling it if I will, and it remains my prop- ^ 
 erty, however long I resign it to others: it is and re- 
 mains mine. In the banker's fortune I as little see any- 
 thing alien as Napoleon did in the territories of kings : 
 w^e have no dread of ''conquering ' it, and we look about 
 us also for the means thereto. We strip off from it, 
 therefore, the spirit of alienness, of which we had been 
 afraid. 
 
 Therefore it is necessary that I do not lay claim to 
 anything more as man, but to everything as I, this I; 
 and accordingly to nothing human, but to mine; i, e, 
 nothing that pertains to me as man, but — what I will and 
 because I will it. 
 
 Rightful, or legitimate, property of another will be 
 only that which you are content to recognize as such. If 
 your content ceases, then this property has lost legitimacy 
 for you, and you will laugh at absolute right to it. 
 
 Besides the hitherto discussed property in the limited 
 sense, there is held up to our reverent heart another prop- 
 erty against which we are far less "to sin.'' This prop- 
 erty consists in spiritual goods, in the '"sanctuary of the 
 inner nature." What a man holds sacred, no other is to 
 gibe at ; because, untrue as it may be, and zealously as 
 one may ''in loving and modest wise" seek to convince 
 of a true sanctity the man who adheres to it and believes in 
 it, yet the sacred itself is always to be honored in it: the 
 mistaken man does believe in the sacred, even though in 
 an incorrect essence of it, and so his belief in the sacred 
 must at least be respected. 
 
 In ruder times than ours it was customarv to demand 
 a particular faith, and devotion to a particular sacred 
 essence, and they did not take the gentlest way with 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 293 
 
 those who beheved otherwise; since, however, ireedom 
 of beUef spread itself more and more abroad, the ''jeal- 
 ous God and sole Lord'' gradually melted into a pretty 
 general ''supreme being," and it satisfied humane toler- 
 ance if only every one revered "something sacred." 
 
 Reduced to the most human expression, this sacred 
 essence is "man himself" and "the human." With the 
 deceptive semblance as if the human were altogether our 
 own, and free from all the other worldliness with which 
 the divine is tainted — yes, as if Man were as much as 
 I or you — there may arise even the proud fancy that the 
 talk is no longer of a "sacred essence" and that we now 
 feel ourselves everywhere at home and no longer in the 
 uncanny,"^ i. e. in the sacred and in sacred awe: in the 
 ecstasy over "Man discovered at last" the egoistic cry of 
 pain passes unheard, and the spook that has become so 
 intimate is taken for our true ego. 
 
 But "Humanus is the saint's name" (see Goethe), and 
 the humane is only the most clarified sanctity. 
 
 The egoist makes the reverse declaration. For this 
 precise reason, because you hold something sacred, I 
 gibe at you; and, even if I respected everything in you, 
 your sanctuary is precisely what I should not respect. 
 
 With these opposed views there must also be assumed 
 a contradictory relation to spiritual goods : the egoist in- 
 sults them, the religious man (i. e, every one who puta 
 his "essence" above himself) must consistently — protect 
 them. But what kind of spiritual goods are to be pro- 
 tected, and what left unprotected, depends entirely on the 
 concept that one forms of the "supreme being" ; and he 
 who fears God, e. g., has more to shelter than he (the 
 liberal) who fears Man. 
 
 In spiritual goods we are (in distinction from the 
 sensuous) injured in a spiritual way, and the sin against 
 them consists in a direct desecration, while against the 
 sensuous a purloining or alienation takes place ; the goods 
 themselves are robbed of value and of consecration, not 
 
 * [Literally, "unhomely."] 
 
294 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 merely taken away; the sacred is immediately com- 
 promised. With the word ''irreverence" or ^'flippancy" 
 is designated everything that can be committed as crime 
 against spiritual goods, i, e, against everything that is 
 sacred for us ; and scoffing, reviling, contempt, doubt, : 
 and the like, are only different shades of criminal flip- | 
 pancy. 
 
 That desecration can oe practised in the most mani- 
 fold wise is here to be passed over, and only that desecra- j 
 tion is to be preferentially mentioned which threatens 1 
 the sacred with danger through an unrestricted press. 
 
 As long as respect is demanded even for one spirit- 
 ual essence, speech and the press must be enthralled in 
 the name of this essence ; for just so long the egoist 
 might "trespass" against it hy his utterances, from which 
 thing he must be hindered by ''due punishment" at least, 
 if one does not prefer to take up the more correct means 
 against it, the preventive use of police authority, e. g. 
 censorship. 
 
 What a sighing for liberty of the press! What then 
 is the press to be liberated from? Surely from a de- 
 pendence, a belonging, and a liability to service! But 
 to liberate himself from that is every one's affair, and 
 it may with safety be assumed that, when you have 
 delivered yourself from liability to service, that which 
 you compose and write will also belong to you as your 
 own instead of having been thought and indited in the 
 service of some power. What can a believer in Christ 
 say and have printed, that should be freer from that be- 
 lief in Christ than he himself is? HI cannot or may 
 not write something, perhaps the primary fault lies with 
 me. Little as this seems to hit the point, so near is the 
 application nevertheless to be found. By a press-law I 
 draw a boundary for my publications, or let one be 
 drawn, beyond which wrong and its punishment follows. 
 I myself limit myself. 
 
 If the press was to be free, nothing would be so im- 
 portant as precisely its liberation from every coercion 
 that could be put on it in the name of a law. Ar\d, that 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 295 
 
 it might come to that, I my own self should have to have 
 absolved myself from obedience to the law. 
 
 Certainly, the absolute liberty of the press is like 
 every absolute liberty, a nonentity. The press can be- 
 come free from full many a thing, but always only from 
 what I too am free from. If we make ourselves free 
 from the sacred, if we have become graceless and law- 
 less, our words too will become so. 
 
 As little as we can be declared clear of every coer- 
 cion in the world, so little can our writing be withdrawn 
 from it. But as free as we are, so free we can make 
 it too. 
 
 It must therefore become our own, instead of, as 
 hitherto, serving a spook. 
 
 People do not yet know what they mean by their cry 
 for liberty of the press. What they ostensibly ask is that 
 the State shall set the press free; but what they are 
 really after, without knowing it themselves, is that the 
 press become free from the State, or clear of the State. 
 The former is a petition to the State, the latter an in- 
 surrection against the State. As a ''petition for right,'' 
 even as a serious demanding of the right of liberty of 
 the press, it presupposes the State as the giver, and can 
 hope only for a present, a permission, a chartering. Pos- 
 sible, no doubt, that a State acts so senselessly as to 
 grant the demanded present ; but you may bet everything 
 that those who receive the present will not know how 
 to use it so long as they regard the State as a truth : they 
 will not trespass against this ''sacred thing," and will 
 call for a penal press-law against every one who would 
 be willing to dare this. 
 
 In a word, the press does not become free from what 
 I am not free from. 
 
 Do I perhaps hereby show myself an opponent of the 
 liberty of the press? On the contrary, I only assert that 
 one will never get it if one wants only it, the liberty of 
 the press, i, e. if one sets out only for an unrestricted 
 permission. Only beg right along for this permission : 
 you may wait forever for it, for there is no one in the 
 
296 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 world who could give it to you. As long as you want 
 to have yourselves ''entitled" to the use of the press by 
 a permission, i. e. liberty of the press, you live in vain 
 hope and complaint. 
 
 ''Nonsense! Why, you yourself, who harbor such 
 thoughts as stand in your book^ can unfortunately bring 
 them to publicity only through a lucky chance or by 
 stealth ; nevertheless you will inveigh against one's press- 
 ing and importuning his own State till it gives the refused 
 permission to print?" But an author thus addressed 
 would perhaps — for the impudence of such people goes 
 far — give the following reply : "Consider well what you 
 say! What then do I do to procure myself liberty of 
 th^ press for my book? Do I ask for permission, or do 
 I not rather, without any question of legality, seek a 
 favorable occasion and grasp it in complete recklessness 
 of the State and its wishes? I — the terrifying word 
 must be uttered — I cheat the State. You unconsciously 
 do the same. From your tribunes you talk it into the 
 idea that it must give up its sanctity and inviolability, it 
 must lay itself bare to the attacks of writers, without 
 needing on that account to fear danger. But you are 
 imposing on it ; for its existence is done for as soon as 
 it loses its unapproachableness. To you indeed it might 
 well accord liberty of writing, as England has done ; yon 
 are believers in the State and incapable of writing against 
 the State, however much you would like to reform it 
 and 'remedy its defects.' But what if opponents of the 
 State availed themselves of free utterance, and stormed 
 out against Church, State, morals, and everything 'sacred' 
 with inexorable reasons? You would then be the first, 
 in terrible agonies, to call into life the September laws. 
 Too late would you then rue the stupidity that earlier 
 made you so ready to fool and palaver into compli- 
 ance the State, or the government of the State. — But 
 I prove by my act only two things. This for one, 
 that the liberty of the press is always bound to 'favor- 
 able opportunities,' and accordingly will never be an ab- 
 solute liberty ; but secondly this, that he who would enjoy 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 297 
 
 it must seek out and, if possible, create the favorable 
 opportunity, availing himself of his own advantage 
 against the State, and counting himself and his will more 
 than the State and every 'superior* power. Not in the 
 State, but only against it, can the liberty of the press be 
 carried through ; if it is to be established, it is to be ob- 
 tained not as the consequence of a petition but as the 
 work of an insurrection. Every petition and every motion 
 for liberty of the press is already an insurrection, be it con- 
 scious or unconscious: a thing which Philistine halfness 
 alone will not and cannot confess to itself until, with a 
 shrinking shudder, it shall see it clearly and irrefutably 
 by the outcome. For the requested liberty of the press 
 has indeed a friendly and well-meaning face at the be- 
 ginning, as it is not in the least minded ever to let the 
 ^insolence of the press' come into vogue; but little by 
 little its heart grows more hardened, and the inference 
 flatters its way in that really a liberty is not a liberty if 
 it stands in the service of the State, of morals, or of the 
 law. A liberty indeed from the coercion of censorship, 
 it is yet not a liberty from the coercion of law. The 
 press, once seized by the lust for liberty, always wants 
 to grow freer, till at last the writer says to himself, Really 
 I am not wholly free till I ask about nothing; and writing 
 is free only when it is my own, dictated to me by no power 
 or authority, by no faith, no dread ; the press must not be 
 free — that is too little — it must be mine! — ownness of 
 the press or property in the press, that is what I will take. 
 
 'Why, liberty of the press is only permission of the 
 press, and the State never will or can voluntarily permit 
 me to grind it to nothingness by the press. 
 
 ''Let us now^ in conclusion, bettering the above lan- 
 guage, which is still vague, owing to the phrase 'liberty 
 of the press,' rather put it thus : Liberty of the press, the 
 liberals' loud demand, is assuredly possible in the State ; 
 yes, it is possible only in the State, because it is a per- 
 mission, and consequently the permitter (the State) 
 must not be lacking. But as permission it has its limit 
 in this very State, which surely should not in reason 
 
298 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 permit more than is compatible with itself and its wel- 
 fare : the State fixes for it this limit as the law of its ex- 
 istence and of its extension. That one State brooks more 
 than another is only a quantitative distinction, which 
 alone, nevertheless, lies at the heart of the political lib- 
 erals : they want in Germany, e. g., only a 'more ex- 
 tended, broader accordance of free utterance/ The lib- 
 erty of the press which is sought for is an affair of the 
 people's, and before the people (the State) possesses it 
 I may make no use of it. From the standpoint of prop- 
 erty in the press, the situation is different. Let my peo- 
 ple, if they will, go without liberty of the press, I will 
 manage to print by force or ruse; I get my permission to 
 print only from — myself and my strength. 
 
 ^*If the press is my own, I as little need a permission 
 of the State for employing it as I seek that permission 
 in order to blow my nose. The press is my property from 
 the moment when nothing is more to me than myself; 
 for from this moment State, Church, people, society, and 
 the like, cease, because they have to thank for their exist- 
 ence only the disrespect that I have for myself, and with 
 the vanishing of this undervaluation they themselves are 
 extinguished: they exist only when they exist above me, 
 exist only as powers and power-holders. Or can you 
 imagine a State whose citizens one and all think nothing 
 of it? it would be as certainly a dream, an existence in 
 seeming, as ^united Germany.' 
 
 ''The press is my own as soon as I myself am my own, 
 a self-owned man: to the egoist belongs the world, be- 
 cause he belongs to no power of the world. 
 
 "With this my press might still be very unfree, as e. g.y 
 at this moment. But the world is large, and one helps 
 himself as well as he can. If I were willing to abate from 
 the property of my press, I could easily attain the point 
 where I might everywhere have as much printed as my 
 fingers produced. But, as I want to assert my property, 
 I must necessarily swindle my enemies. Would you not 
 accept their permission if it were given you?' Certainly, 
 with joy ; for their permission would be to me a proof 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 299 
 
 that I had fooled them and started them on the road to 
 ruin. I am not concerned for their permission, but so 
 much the more for their folly and their overthrow. I do 
 not sue for their permission as if I flattered myself (like 
 the political liberals) that we both, they and I, could 
 make out peaceably alongside and with each other, yes,, 
 probably raise and prop each other; but I sue for it in 
 order to make them bleed to death by it, that the per- 
 mitters themselves may cease at last. I act as a con- 
 scious enemy, overreaching them and utilizing their heed- 
 lessness. 
 
 "The press is mine when I recognize outside myself no 
 judge whatever over its utilization, i. e, when my writing 
 is no longer determined by morality or religion or re- 
 spect for the State laws or the like, but by me and my 
 egoism 
 
 Now, what have you to reply to him who gives you 
 so impudent an answer ? — We shall perhaps put the ques- 
 tion most strikingly by phrasing it as follows : Whose is 
 the press, the people's (State's) or mine? The politicals 
 on their side intend nothing further than to liberate the 
 press from personal and arbitrary interferences of the 
 possessors of power, without thinking of the point that 
 to be really open for everybody it would also have to be 
 free from the laws, i. e, from the people's (State's) will. 
 They want to make a ''people's affair" of it. 
 
 But, having become the people's property, it is still 
 far from being mine; rather, it retains for me the sub- 
 ordinate significance of a permission. The people plays 
 judge over my thoughts; it has the right of calling me 
 to account for them, or, I am responsible to it for them. 
 Jurors, when their fixed ideas are attacked, have just 
 as hard heads and hearts as the stiffest despots and their 
 servile officials. 
 
 In the ''Liberale Bestrebungen''"^ E. Bauer asserts that 
 liberty of the press is impossible in the absolutist and the 
 constitutional State, whereas in the ''free State" it finds 
 
 *II, p. 91 ff. (See my note above.) 
 
300 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 its place. ''Here/' the statement is, ''it is recognized 
 that the individual, because he is no longer an individual 
 but a member of a true and rational generality, has the 
 right to utter his mind." So not the individual, but the 
 "member," has liberty of the press. But, if for the pur- 
 pose of liberty of the press the individual must first give 
 proof of himself regarding his belief in the generality, 
 the people ; if he does not have this liberty through might 
 of his own — then it is a people s liberty, a liberty that he 
 is invested with for the sake of his faith, his "member- 
 ship." The reverse is the case : it is precisely as an in- 
 dividual that every one has open to him the liberty to 
 utter his mind. But he has not the "right" ; that liberty 
 is assuredly not his "sacred right." He has only the 
 might; but the might alone makes him owner. I need 
 no concession for the liberty of the press, do not need the 
 people's consent to it, do not need the "right" to it, nor 
 any "justification." The liberty of the press too, like 
 every liberty, I must "take" ; the people, "as being the 
 sole judge," cannot give it to me. It can put up with the 
 liberty that I take, or defend itself against it; give, be- 
 stow, grant it it cannot. I exercise it despite the people, 
 purely as an individual ]i. e.l get it by fighting the people, 
 my — enemy, and obtain it only when I really get it by 
 such fighting, i. e, take it. But I take it because it is my 
 property. 
 
 Sander, against whom E. Bauer writes, lays claim (page 
 99) to the liberty of the press "as the right and the lib- 
 erty of the citizen of the State/' What else does E. Bauer 
 do? To him also it is only a right of the free citizen. 
 
 The liberty of the press is also demanded under the 
 name of a "general human right." Against this the ob- 
 jection was well-founded that not every man knew how to 
 use it rightly, for not every individual was truly man. 
 Never did a government refuse it to Man as such; but 
 Man writes nothing, for the reason that he is a ghost, 
 It always refused it to individuals only, and gave it to 
 others, e. g. its organs. If then one would have it for 
 all, one must assert outright that it is due to the in- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 301 
 
 dividual, me, not to man or to the individual so far as 
 he is man. Besides, another than a man (e. g. a beast) 
 can make no use of it. The French government, e. g., 
 does not dispute the liberty of the press as a right of 
 man, but demands from the individual a security for his 
 really being man; for it assigns liberty of the press not 
 to the individual, but to man. 
 
 Under the exact pretence that it was not human what 
 was mine was taken from me ! what was human was left 
 to me undiminished. 
 
 Liberty of the press can bring about only a responsible 
 press; the irresponsible proceeds solely from property in 
 the press. 
 
 For intercourse with men an express law (conformity 
 to which one may venture at times sinfully to forget, 
 but the absolute value of which one at no time ventures 
 to deny) is placed foremost among all who live religious- 
 ly : this is the law — of love, to which not even those who 
 seem to fight against its principle, and who hate its name, 
 have as yet become untrue ; for they also still have love, 
 yes, they love with a deeper and more sublimated love, 
 they love "man and mankind.'' 
 
 If we formulate the sense of this law, it will be about 
 as follows : Every man must have a something that is 
 more to him than himself. You are to put your ''private 
 interest" in the background when it is a question of the 
 welfare of others, the weal of the fatherland, of society, 
 the common weal, the weal of mankind, the good cause, 
 and the like! Fatherland, society, mankind, etc., must 
 be more to you than yourself, and as against their in- 
 terest your ''private interest" must stand back; for you 
 must not be an egoist. 
 
 Love is a far-reaching religious demand, which is not, 
 as might be supposed, limited to love to God and man, 
 but stands foremost in every regard. Whatever we do, 
 think, the ground of it is always to be love. Thus we 
 may indeed judge, but only "with love.'' The Bible may 
 assuredly be criticized, and that very thoroughly, but the 
 
302 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 critic must before all things love it and see in it the 
 sacred book. Is this anything else than to say he must 
 not criticise it to death, he must leave it standings and 
 that as a sacred thing that cannot be upset? — In our 
 criticism on men too, love must remain the unchanged 
 key-note. Certainly judgments that hatred inspires are 
 not at all our own judgments but judgments of the hatred 
 that rules us, ^'rancorous judgments." But are judg- 
 ments that love inspires in us any more our ozvn? They 
 are judgments of the love that rules us, they are ^'loving, 
 lenient" judgments^ they are not our own, and according- 
 ly not real judgments at all. He who burns with love 
 for justice cries out, fiat justitia, pereat mundus. He 
 can doubtless ask and investigate what justice properly 
 is or demands, and in what it consists, but not whether it 
 is anything. 
 
 It is very true, ''He who abides in love abides in God, 
 and God in him." (John 4, 16.) God abides in him, he 
 does not get rid of God, does not become godless; and 
 he abides in God, does not come to himself and into his 
 own home, abides in love to God and does not become 
 loveless. 
 
 ''God is love ! All times and all races recognize in this 
 word the central point of Christianity." God, who is 
 love, is an officious God: he cannot leave the world in 
 peace, but wants to make it blest. "God became man to 
 make men divine.""^ He has his hand in the game every- 
 where, and nothing happens without it; everywhere he 
 has his "best purposes," his "incomprehensible plans and 
 decrees." Reason, which he himself is, is to be for- 
 warded and realized in the whole world. His fatherly 
 care deprives us of all independence. We can do noth- 
 ing sensible without its being said, God did that! and 
 can bring upon ourselves no misfortune without hearing, 
 God ordained that ; we have nothing that we have not 
 from him, he "gave" everything. But, as God does, so 
 does Man. God wants perforce to make the world 
 
 Athanasius. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 303 
 
 blest, and Man wants to make it happy, to make all men 
 happy. Hence every ''man" wants to awaken in all men 
 the reason which he supposes his own self to have: 
 everything is to be rational throughout. God torments 
 himself with the devil, and the philosopher does it with 
 unreason and the accidental. God lets no being go 2/^ 
 own gait, and Man likewise wants to make us walk only 
 in human wise. 
 
 But whoso is full of sacred (religious, moral, humane) 
 love loves only the spook, the ''true man,'' and persecutes 
 with dull mercilessness the individual, the real man, under 
 the phlegmatic legal title of measures against the "un- 
 man." He finds it praiseworthy and indispensable to 
 exercise pitilessness in the harshest measure ; for love 
 to the spook or generality commands him to hate him 
 who is not ghostly, i. e. the egoist or individual; such 
 is the meaning of the renowned love-phenomenon that is 
 called "justice." 
 
 The criminally arraigned man can expect no forbear- 
 ance, and no one spreads a friendly veil over his unhappy 
 nakedness. Without emotion the stern judge tears the 
 last rags of excuse from the body of the poor accused; 
 without compassion the jailer drags him into his damp 
 abode; without placability, when the time of punish- 
 ment has expired, he thrusts the branded man again 
 among men, his good. Christian^ loyal brethren! who 
 contemptuously spit on him. Yes, without grace a crim- 
 inal "deserving of death" is led to the scaffold, and be- 
 fore the eyes of a jubilating crowd the appeased moral 
 law celebrates its sublime — revenge. For only one can 
 live, the moral law or the criminal. Where criminals 
 live unpunished, the moral law has fallen; and, where 
 this prevails, those must go down. Their enmity is in- 
 destructible. 
 
 The Christian age is precisely that of mercy , love, solici- 
 tude to have men receive what is due them, yes, to bring 
 them to fulfil their bumnn (divine) calling. Therefore 
 the T.rinciple has been p^- Foremost for intercourse^ that 
 this nd that is man's ( ice and consequently his call- 
 
304 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ing, to which either God has called him or (according to 
 the concepts of to-day) his being man (the species) calls 
 him. Hence the zeal for conversion. That the Com- 
 munists and the humane expect from man more than 
 the Christians do does not change the standpoint in the 
 least. Man shall get what is human ! If it was enough 
 for the pious that what was divine became his part, the 
 humane demand that he be not curtailed of what is hu- 
 man. Both set themselves against what is egoistic. Of 
 course ; for what is egoistic cannot be accorded to him or 
 vested in him (a fief) ; he must procure it for himself. 
 Love imparts the former, the latter can be given to me 
 by myself alone. 
 
 Intercourse hitherto has rested on love, regardful be- 
 havior, doing for each other. As one owed it to him- 
 self to make himself blessed, or owed himself the bliss 
 of taking up into himself the supreme essence and bring- 
 ing it to a V er lie (a truth and reality), so one owed it to 
 others to help them realize their essence and their call- 
 ing: in both cases one owed it to the essence of man to 
 contribute to its realization. 
 
 But one owes it neither to himself to make anything 
 out of himself, nor to others to make anything out of 
 them; for one owes nothing to his essence and that of 
 others. Intercourse resting on essence is an intercourse 
 with the spook, not with anything real. If I hold inter- 
 course with the supreme essence, I am not holding inter- 
 course with myself, and, if I hold intercourse with the 
 essence of man, I am not holding intercourse with men. 
 
 The natural man's love becomes through culture a 
 commandment. But as commandment it belongs to Man 
 as such, not to me; it is my essence^ about which much 
 adof is made, not my property. Man, i. e. humanity, 
 presents that demand to me : love is demanded, it is my 
 duty. Instead, therefore, of being really won for me, it 
 has been won for the generality, Man, as his property or 
 
 * [Wesen] 
 
 t [Wesen] 
 
THE OWNEk 
 
 305 
 
 peculiarity: "it becomes man, i. e, every man, to love; 
 love is the duty and calling of man/' etc. 
 
 Consequently I must again vindicate love for myself, 
 and deliver it out of the power of Man with the great M. 
 
 What was originally mine, but accidentally mine, in- 
 stinctively mine, I was invested with as the property of 
 Man; I became feoffee in loving, I became the retainer 
 of mankind, only a specimen of this species, and acted, 
 loving^ not as I, but as man, as a specimen of man, i. e, 
 humanly. The whole condition of civilization is the 
 feudal system, the property being Man's or mankind's, 
 not mine. A monstrous feudal State was founded, the 
 individual robbed of everything, everything left to ''man." 
 The individual had to appear at last as a ''sinner through 
 and through." 
 
 Am I perchance to have no lively interest in the per- 
 son of another, are his joy and his weal not to lie at my 
 heart, is the enjoyment that I furnish him not to be 
 more to me than other enjoyments of my own? On the 
 contrary, I can with you sacrifice to him numberless en- 
 joyments, I can deny myself numberless things for the 
 enhancement of his pleasure, and I can hazard for him 
 what without him was the dearest to me, my life, my 
 welfare, my freedom. Why, it constitutes my pleasure 
 and my happiness to refresh myself with his happiness 
 and his pleasure. But myself, my own self, I do not 
 sacrifice to him, but remain an egoist and — enjoy him. 
 If I sacrifice to him everything that but for my love to 
 him I should keep, that is very simple, and even more 
 usual in life, than it seems to be ; but it proves nothing 
 further than that this one passion is more powerful in 
 me than all the rest. Christianity too teaches us to sacri- 
 fice all other passions to this. But, of to one passion I 
 sacrifice others, I do not on that account go so far as to 
 sacrifice myself, nor sacrifice anything of that whereby I 
 truly am myself ; I do not sacrifice my peculiar value, 
 my ownness. Where this bad case occurs, love cuts no 
 better figure than any other passion that I obey blindly. 
 The ambitious man, who is carried away by ambition 
 
306 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 and remains deaf to every warning that a calm moment 
 begets in him^ has let this passion grow up into a despot 
 against whom he abandons all power of dissolution: he 
 has given up himself, because he cannot dissolve him- 
 self, and consequently cannot absolve himself from the 
 passion: he is possessed. 
 
 I love men too — not merely individuals, but every one. 
 But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I 
 love them because love makes me happy, I love because 
 loving is natural to me, because it pleases me I know no 
 ' commandment of love.'' I have a fellow feeling with 
 every feeling being, and their torment torments, their re- 
 freshment refreshes me too; I can kill them, not torture 
 them. Per contra, the high-souled, virtuous Philistine 
 prince Rudolph in ''The Mysteries of Paris," because 
 the wicked provoke his ''indignation,'' plans their torture. 
 That fellow-feeling proves only that the feeling of those 
 who feel is mine too^, my property ; in opposition to which 
 the pitiless dealing of the "righteous" man (e. g. against 
 notary Ferrand) is like the unfeelingness of that robber 
 who cut off or stretched his prisoners' legs to the meas- 
 ure of his bedstead: Rudolph's bedstead, which he cuts 
 men to fit, is the concept of the "good." The feeling for 
 right, virtue, etc., makes people hard-hearted and in- 
 tolerant. Rudolph does not feel like the notary, but the 
 reverse; he feels that "it serves the rascal right"; that 
 is no fellow-feeling. 
 
 You love man, therefore you torture the individual 
 man, the egoist; your philanthropy (love of men) is the 
 tormenting of men. 
 
 If I see the loved one suffer, I suffer with him, and 
 I know no rest till I have tried everything to comfort and 
 cheer him ; if I see him glad, I too become glad over his 
 joy. From this it does not follow that suffering or joy 
 is caused in me by the same thing that brings out this 
 effect in him, as insufficiently proved by every bodily 
 pain which I do not feel as he does : his tooth pains him, 
 but his pain pains me. 
 
 But, because / cannot bear the troubled crease on 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 307 
 
 the beloved forehead, for that reason, and therefore for 
 my sake, I kiss it away. If I did not love this person, 
 he might go right on making creases, they would not 
 trouble me ; I am only driving away my trouble. 
 
 How now, has anybody or anything, whom and which 
 I do not love, a right to be loved by me ? Is my love first, 
 or is his right first? Parents, kinsfolk, fatherland, na- 
 tion, uative town, etc., finally fellow-men in general 
 ("brothers, fraternity''), assert that they have a right 
 to my love, and lay claim to it without further ceremony. . 
 They look upon it as the property, and upon me, if I do 
 not respect this, as a robber who takes from them what 
 pertains to them and is theirs. I should love. If love 
 is a commandment and law, then I must be educated into 
 it, cultivated up to it, and, if I trespass against it, pun- 
 ished. Hence people will exercise as strong a ''moral 
 influence'' as possible on me to bring me to love. And 
 there is no doubt that one can work up and seduce men 
 to love as one can to other passions — e, g., if you like, to 
 hate. Hate runs through whole races merely because the 
 ancestors of the one belonged to the Guelphs, those of the 
 other to the Ghibellines. 
 
 But love is not a commandment, but, like each of my 
 feelings, my property. Acquire^ i. e. purchase, my prop- 
 erty, and then I will make it over to you. A church, a 
 nation, a fatherland, a family, etc., that does not know 
 how to acquire my love, I need not love and I fix the 
 purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure. 
 
 Selfish love is far distant from unselfish, mystical or 
 romantic love. One can love everything possible, not 
 merely men, but an ''object" in general (win one's father- 
 land, etc.) Love becomes blind and crazy by a must 
 taking it out of my power (infatuation), romantic by a 
 should entering into it, i. e. the "object's" becoming 
 sacred for me, or my becoming bound to it by duty, con- 
 
 ience, oath. Now the object no longer exists for me, 
 but I for it. 
 
 Love is a possessedness, not as my feeling — as such I 
 'ather keep it in my possession as property — but through 
 
THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 the alienness of the object. For rehgious love consists in 
 the commandment to love in the beloved a "holy one," 
 or to adhere to a holy one ; for unselfish love there are 
 objects absolutely lovable for which my heart is to beat — 
 e. g, fellow-men, or my wedded mate, kinsfolk, etc. Holy 
 love loves the holy in the beloved, and therefore exerts 
 itself also to make of the beloved more and more a holyl 
 one {e. g. a "man''). 
 
 The beloved is an object that should be loved by meJ 
 He is not an object of my love on account of, because of, 
 or by, my loving him, but is an object of love in and of 
 himself. Not I make him an object of love, but he is 
 such to begin with ; for it is here irrelevant that he has 
 become so by my choice, if so it be as with a fiancee, a| 
 spouse, and the like), since even so he has in any case,!: 
 as the person once chosen, obtained a "right of his own to 
 my love," and I, because I have loved him, am under 
 obligation to love him forever. He is therefore not am 
 object of my love, but of love in general: an object thatj 
 should be loved. Love appertains to him, is due to him, 
 or is his right, while I am under obligation to love him. 
 My love, i, e. the toll of love that I pay him, is in truth 
 his love, which he only collects from me as toll. , 
 
 Every love to which there clings but the smallest speck . 
 of obligation is an unselfish love, and, so far as this speck , 
 reaches, a possessedness. He who believes that he owes \ 
 the object of his love anything loves romantically or relig- 
 iously. 
 
 Family love, e, g., as it is usually understood a "piety," ! 
 is a religious love ; love of fatherland preached as "patriot-r ^ 
 ism," likewise. All our romantic love moves in the samer^ 
 pattern: everywhere the hypocrisy, or rather self-decep-!:^ 
 tion, of an "unselfish love," an interest in the object forL^ 
 the object's sake, not for my sake and mine alone. V ^ 
 
 Religious or romantic love is distinguished from sensual! ^ 
 love by the difference of the object indeed, but not bv| 
 the dependence of the relation to it. In the latter regard; 
 both are possessedness ; but in the former the one object |^ 
 is profane, the other sacred. The dominion of the ob- 
 
 II 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 309 
 
 ject over me is the same in both cases, only that it is one 
 tniie a sensuous one the other time a spiritual (ghostly) 
 one. My love is my own only when it consists altogether 
 in a selfish and egoistic interest, and when consequently 
 the object of my love is really my object or my prop- 
 erty. I owe my property nothing, and have no duty to 
 it, as little as I might have a duty to my eye ; if neverthe- 
 less I guard it with the greatest care, I do so on my 
 account. 
 
 Antiquity lacked love as little as do Christian times; 
 the god of love is older than the God of Love. But the 
 mystical possessedness belongs to the modern. 
 
 The possessedness of love lies in the alienation of the 
 object, or in my powerlessness as against its alienness and 
 superior power. To the egoist nothing is high enough for 
 him to humble himself before it, nothing so independent 
 that he would live for love of a nothing so sacred that 
 he would sacrifice himself to it. The egoist's love rises in 
 selfishness, flows in the need of selfishness, and empties 
 into selfishness again. 
 
 . Whether this can still be called love? If you know an- 
 other word for it, go ahead and choose it ; then the sweet 
 word love may wither with the departed world ; for 
 the present I at least find none in our Christian language, 
 and hence stick to the old sound and ''love" my object, 
 my — property. 
 
 Only as one of my feelings do I harbor love ; but as 
 a power above me, as a divine power (Feuerbach), as a 
 passion that I am not to cast off, as a religious and moral 
 duty, I — scorn it. As my feeling it is mine ; as a prin- 
 ciple to which I consecrate and "vow" my soul it is a 
 dominator and divine, just as hatred as a principle is 
 diabolical; one not better than the other. In short, egois- 
 tic love, i. e., my love, is neither holy nor unholy, neither 
 divine nor diabolical. 
 
 ''A love that is limited by faith is an untrue love. The 
 sole limitation that does not contradict the essence of 
 love is the self-limitation of love by reason, intelligence. 
 Love that scorns the rigor, the law, of intelligence, is 
 
310 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 theoretically a false love, practically a minous one."* So 
 love is in its essence rational! So thinks Feuerbach; the 
 believer, on the contrary, thinks, Love is in its essence 
 believing. The one inveighs against irnational, the other 
 against unbelieving, love. To both it can at most rank as 
 a splendidum vitium. Do not both leave love standing, 
 even in the form of unreason and unbelief ? They do not 
 dare to say, irrational or unbelieving love is nonsense, is 
 not love ; as little as they are willing to say, irrational or 
 unbelieving tears are not tears. But, if even irrational 
 love, etc.^ must count as love, and if they are nevertheless 
 to be unworthy of man, there follows simply this : love 
 is not the highest thing, but reason or faith; even the 
 unreasonable and the unbelieving can love ; but love has 
 value only when it is that of a rational or believing per- 
 son. It is an illusion when Feuerbach calls the rationality 
 of love its "self-limitation" ; the believer might with the 
 same right call belief its "self-limitation." Irrational love 
 is neither "false" nor "ruinous"; it does its service as 
 love. 
 
 Toward the world, especially toward men, I am to 
 assume a particular feeling, and "meet them with love," 
 with the feeling of love, from the beginning. Certainly, 
 in this there is revealed far more free-will and self- 
 determination than when I let myself be stormed, by way 
 of the world, by all possible feeling, and remain exposed 
 to the most checkered, most accidental impressions. I 
 go to the world rather with a preconceived feelinsr, as if 
 it were a prejudice and a preconceived opinion; I have 
 prescribed to myself in advance my behavior toward it, 
 and, despite all its temptations, feel and think about it 
 onlv as I have once determined to. Against the dominion 
 of the world I secure mvself by the principle of love ; for 
 whatever mav come, I — love. The usflv — e. g. — makes 
 a repulsive impression on me ; but, determined to love I 
 master this impression as I do every antipathy. 
 
 But the feeling to which I have determined and — con- 
 
 * Feuerbach, "Essence of Chr.," 394. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 311 
 
 demned myself from the start is a narrow feeling, be- 
 cause it is a predestined one, of which I myself am not 
 able to get clear or to declare myself clear. Because 
 preconceived, it is a prejudice, I no longer show myself 
 in face of the world, but my love shows itself. The 
 world indeed does not rule me, but so much the more 
 inevitably does the spirit of love rule me. I have over- 
 come the world to become a slave of this spirit. 
 
 If I first said, I love the world, I now add likewise : 
 I do not love it, for I annihilate it as I annihilate myself ; 
 / dissolve it. I do not limit myself to one feeling for men, 
 but give free play to all that I am capable of. Why 
 should I not dare speak it out in all its glaringness ? Yes, 
 / utilize the world and men! With this I can keep my- 
 self open to every impression without being torn away 
 from myself by one of them. I can love, love with a 
 full heart, and let the most consuming glow of passion 
 burn in my heart, without taking the beloved one for any- 
 thing else than the nourishment of my passion, on which 
 it ever refreshes itself anew. All my care for him ap- 
 plies only to the object of my love, only to him whom 
 my iQve requires, only to him, the ^'warmly loved.'' How 
 indifferent would he be to me without this — my love ! 
 I feed only my love with him, I utilize him for this only : 
 I enjoy him. 
 
 Let us choose another convenient example. I see how 
 men are fretted in dark superstition by a swarm of ghosts. 
 If to the extent of my powers I let a bit of daylight fall 
 in on the nocturnal spookery^ is it perchance because love 
 to you inspires this in me ? Do I write out of love to men ? 
 No, I write because I was to procure for my thoughts an 
 existence in the world ; and, even if I foresaw that these 
 thoughts would deprive you of your rest and your peace, 
 even if I saw the bloodiest wars and the fall of many 
 generations springing up from this seed of thought — I 
 would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will 
 and can, that is your affair and does not trouble me. You 
 will perhaps have only trouble, combat, and death from 
 it, very few will draw joy from it If your weal lay at 
 
312 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 my heart, I should act as the church did in withholding 
 the Bible from the laity, or Christian governments, which 
 make it a sacred duty for themselves to ''protect the com- 
 mon people from bad books/' 
 
 But not only not for your sake, not even for truth's 
 sake either do I speak out what I think. No — 
 
 I sing as the bird sings 
 
 That on the bough alights ; 
 The song that from me springs 
 
 Is pay that well requites. 
 
 I sing because — I am a singer. But I use^ you for it 
 because I — needf ears. 
 
 Where the world comes in my way— and it comes in my 
 way everywhere — I consume it to quiet the hunger of 
 my egoism. For me you are nothing but — my food, even 
 as I too am fed upon and turned to uses by you. We 
 have only one relation to each other that of usahleness, 
 of utility, of use. We owe each other nothing, for what 
 I seem to owe you I owe at most to myself. If I show 
 you a cheery air in order to cheer you likewise, then your 
 cheeriness is of consequence to me^ and my air serves 
 my wish! to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to 
 cheer, I do not show it. 
 
 One has to be educated up to that love which founds 
 itself on the "essence of man" or, in the ecclesiastical 
 and moral period, lies upon us as a "commandment." In 
 what fashion moral influence, the chief ingredient of 
 our education, seeks to regulate the intercourse of men 
 shall here be looked at with egoistic eyes in one example 
 at least. 
 
 Those who educate us make it their concern early to 
 break us of lying and to inculcate the principle that one 
 must always tell the truth. If selfishness were made the 
 basis for this very rule, every one would easily under- 
 stand how by lying he fools away that confidence in him 
 
 * [gebrauche] 
 
 t [brauche] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 313 
 
 which he hopes to awaken in others, and how correct the 
 maxim proves, Nobody believes a liar even when he tells 
 the truth. Yet, at the same time, he would also feel that 
 he had to meet with, truth only him whom he authorized 
 to hear the truth. If a spy walks in disguise through 
 the hostile camp, and is asked who he is, the askers are 
 assuredly entitled to inquire after his name, but the dis- 
 guised man does not give him the right to learn the 
 truth from him; he tells them what he likes, only not 
 the fact. And yet morality demands, ''Thou shalt not 
 lie By morality those persons are vested with the 
 right to expect the truth ; but by me they are not vested 
 with that right, and I recognize only the right that / 
 impart. In a gathering of revolutionists the police force 
 their way in and ask the orator for his name ; everybody 
 knows that the police have the right to do so, but they 
 do not have it from the revolutionist, since he is their 
 enemy; he tells them a false name and — cheats them 
 with a lie. The police do not act so foolishly either as 
 to count on the enemies' love of truth ; on the contrary, 
 they do not believe without further ceremony, but have 
 the questioned individual ''identified" if they can. Nay, 
 the State everywhere proceeds incredulously with indi- 
 viduals, because in their egoism it recognizes its natural 
 enemy; it invariably demands a "voucher,'' and he who 
 cannot show vouchers falls a prey to its investigating 
 inquisition. The State does not believe nor trust the 
 individual, and so of itself places itself with him in the 
 convention of lying; it trusts me only when it has con- 
 vinced itself of the truth of my statement, for which 
 there often remains to it no other means than the oath. 
 How clearly, too, this (the oath) proves that the State 
 does not count on our credibility and love of truth, but 
 on onr interest, our selfishness : it relies on our not want- 
 ing to fall foul of God by a perjury. 
 
 Now, let one imagine a French revolutionist in the 
 year 1788, who among friends let fall the now well- 
 known phrase, "the world will have no rest till the last 
 king is hanged v/ith the guts of the last priest." The 
 
314 
 
 THE EGO AND^ HIS OWN 
 
 king then still had all power, and, when the utterance 
 is betrayed by an accident, yet without its being possible 
 to produce witnesses, confession is demanded from the 
 accused. Is he to confess or not? If <he denies, he lies 
 and — remains unpunished ; if he confesses, he is candid 
 and — is beheaded. If truth is more than everything else 
 to him, all right, let him die. Only a paltry poet could 
 try to make a tragedy out of the end of his life; for 
 what interest is there in seeing how a man succumbs 
 from cowardice? But, if he had the courage not to be 
 a slave of truth and sincerity, he would ask somewhat 
 thus: Why need the judges know what I have spoken 
 among friends? If I had wished them to know, I should 
 have said it to them as I said it to my friends. I will 
 not have them know it. They force themselves into my 
 confidence without my having called them to it and made 
 them my confidants ; they will learn what I will keep 
 secret. Come on then, you who wish to break my will by 
 your will, and try your arts. You can torture me by the 
 rack, you can threaten me with hell and eternal damna- 
 tion, you can make me so nerveless that I Gwear a false 
 oath, but the truth you shall not press out of me, for I 
 will lie to you because I have given you no claim and 
 no right to my sincerity. Let God, ''who is truth," look 
 down ever so threateningly on me, let lying come ever 
 so hard to me, I have nevertheless the courage of a lie ; 
 and, even if I were weary of my life, even if nothing 
 appeared to me more welcome than your executioner's 
 sword, you nevertheless should not have the joy of find- 
 ing in me a slave of truth, whom by your priestly arts 
 you make a traitor to his will. When I spoke treason- 
 able words, I would not have had you know anything 
 of them ; I now retain the same will, and do not let my- 
 self be frightened by the curse of the lie. 
 
 Sigismund is not a miserable caitiff because he broke 
 his princely word, but he broke the word because he was 
 a caitiff ; he might have kept his word and would still 
 have been a caitiff, a priest-ridden man. Luther, driven 
 by a higher power, became unfaithful to his monastic 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 315 
 
 vow: he became so for God's sake. Both broke their 
 oath as possessed persons : Sigismund, because he wanted 
 to appear as a sincere professor of the divine truth, i. e. 
 of the true, genui^iely Catholic faith ; Luther, in order 
 to give testimony for the gospel sincerely and with entire 
 truth, with body and soul; both became perjured in order 
 to be sincere toward the ''higher truth." Only, the priests 
 absolved the one, the other absolved himself. What else 
 did both observe than what is contained in those apos- 
 tolic words, 'Thou hast* not lied to me, but to God"? 
 They lied to men, broke their oath before the world's 
 eyes, in order not to lie to God, but to serve him. Thus 
 they show us a way to deal with truth before men. For 
 God's glory, and for God's sake, a — breach of oath, a 
 lie, a prince's word broken ! 
 
 How would it be, now, if we changed the thing a 
 little and wrote, A perjury and lie for — my sake? Would 
 not that be pleading for every baseness? It seems so 
 assuredly, only in this it is altogether like the "for God's 
 sake."- For was not every baseness committed for God's 
 sake, were not all the scaffolds filled for his sake and all 
 the auto-da-fes held for his sake, was not all stupefac- 
 tion introduced for his sake? and do they not to-day 
 still for God's sake fetter the mind in tender children 
 by religious education? Were not sacred vows broken 
 for his sake, and do not missionaries and priests still go 
 arotmd every day to bring Jews, heathen, Protestants 
 or Catholics, etc., to treason against the faith of their 
 fathers — for his sake? And that should be worse with 
 the for my sake? What then does on my account mean? 
 There people immediately think of "filthy lucre." But 
 he who acts from love of filthy lucre does it on his own 
 account indeed, as there is nothing anyhow that one does 
 not do for his own sake- — among other things, everything 
 that is done for God's glory : yet he, for whom he seeks 
 the lucre, is a slave of lucre, not raised above lucre ; he 
 is one who belongs to lucre, the money-bag, not to him- 
 self; he is not his own. Must not a man whom the 
 passion of avarice rules follow the commands of this 
 
316 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 master? and, if a weak good-naturedness once beguiles 
 him, does this not appear as simply an exceptional case 
 of precisely the same sort as when pious believers are 
 sometimes forsaken by their Lord's guidance and en- 
 snared by the arts of the ''devil" ? So an avaricious man 
 is not a self-owned man, but a servant; and he can do 
 nothing for his own sake without at the same time doing 
 it for his lord's sake — -precisely like the godly man. 
 
 Famous is the breach of oath which Francis H com- 
 mitted against Emperor Charles V. Not later, when he 
 ripely weighed his promise, but at once, when he swore 
 the oath, King Francis took it back in thought as well 
 as by a secret protestation documentarily subscribed be- 
 fore his councillors; he uttered a perjury aforethought. 
 Francis did not show himself disinclined to buy his re- 
 lease, but the price that Charles put on it seemed to him 
 too high and unreasonable. Even though Charles be- 
 haved himself in a sordid fashion when he sought to 
 extort as much as possible, it was yet shabby of Francis 
 to want him to purchase his freedom for a lower ran- 
 som; and his later dealings, among which there occurs 
 yet a second breach of his word, prove sufficiently how 
 the huckster spirit held him enthralled and made him 
 a shabby swindler. However, what shall we say to the 
 reproach of perjury against him? In the first place, 
 surely, this again: that not the perjury, but his sordid- 
 ness, shamed him ; that he did not deserve contempt for 
 his perjury, but made himself guilty of perjury because 
 he was a contemptible man. But Francis's perjury, re- 
 garded in itself, demands another judgment. One might 
 say Francis did not respond to the confidence that Charles 
 put in him in setting him free. But, if Charles had really 
 favored him with confidence, he would have named to 
 him the price that he considered the release worth, and 
 would then have set him at liberty and expected Francis ' 
 to pay the redemption-sum. Charles harbored no such | 
 trust, hut only believed in Francis's impotence and ere- j 
 dulity, which would not allow him to act against his " 
 oath ; but Francis deceived only this — credulous calcula- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 317 
 
 tion. When Charles believed he was assuring himself 
 of his enemy by an oath, right there he was freeing him 
 from every obligation. Charles had given the king credit 
 for a piece of stupidity, a narrow conscience, and, with- 
 out confidence in Francis, counted only on Francis's stu- 
 pidity^ i. e, conscientiousness : he let him go from the 
 Madrid prison only to hold him the more securely in the 
 prison of conscientiousness, the great jail built about 
 the mind of man by religion : he sent him back to France 
 locked fast in invisible chains, what wonder if Francis 
 sought to escape and sawed the chains apart? No man 
 would have taken it amiss of him if he had secretly fled 
 from Madrid, for he was in an enemy's power ; but every 
 good Christian cries out upon him, that he wanted to- 
 loose himself from God's bonds too. (It was only later 
 that the pope absolved him from his oath.) 
 
 It is despicable to deceive a confidence that we volun- 
 tarily call forth ; but it is no shame to egoism to let every 
 one who wants to get us into his power by an oath bleed 
 to death by the unsuccessfulness of his untrustful craft.- 
 If you have wanted to bind me, then learn that I know 
 how to burst your bonds. 
 
 The point is whether / give the confider the right to 
 confidence. If the pursuer of my friend asks me where 
 he has fled to, I shall surely put him on a false trail- 
 Why does he ask precisely me, the pursued man's friend ? 
 In order not to be a false, traitorous friend, I prefer to 
 be false to the enemy. I might certainly, in courageous 
 conscientiousness, answer 'T will not tell" (so Fichte 
 decides the case) ; by that I should salve my love of 
 truth and do for my friend as much as — nothing, for, if 
 I do not mislead the enemy, he may accidentally take the 
 right street, and my love of truth would have given up 
 my friend as a prey, because it hindered me from the — 
 courage for a lie. He who has in the truth an idol, a 
 sacred thing, must humble himself before it, must not defy 
 its demands, not resist courageously ; in short, he must 
 renounce the heroism of the lie. For to the lie belongs 
 not less courage than to the trutli : a courage that young 
 
318 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 men are most apt to be defective in, who would rather 
 confess the truth and mount the scaffold for it than con- 
 found the enemy's power by the impudence of a lie. To 
 them the truth is ''sacred/' and the sacred at all times 
 demands blind reverence, submission, and self-sacrifice. 
 If you are not impudent, not mockers of the sacred, you 
 are tame and its servants. Let one but lay a grain of 
 truth in the trap for you, you peck at it to a certainty, 
 and the fool is caught. You will not lie? Well, then, 
 fall as sacrifices to the truth and become — martyrs ! 
 Martyrs! — for what? For yourselves, for self -owner- 
 ship? No, for your goddess — the truth. You know 
 only two services, only two kinds of servants : servants 
 of the truth and servants of the lie. Then in God's 
 name serve the truth ! 
 
 Others, again, serve the truth also ; but they serve it 
 ''in moderation," and make, e, g., a great distinction be- 
 tween a simple lie and a lie sworn to. And yet the whole 
 chapter of the oath coincides with that of the lie, since 
 an oath, everybody knows, is only a strongly assured 
 statement. You consider yourselves entitled to lie, if 
 only you do not swear to it besides? One who is par- 
 ticular about it m.ust judge and condemn a lie as sharply 
 as a false oath. But now there has been kept up in 
 morality an ancient point of controversy, which is cus- 
 tomarily treated of under the name of the "lie of neces- 
 sity." No one who dares plead for this can consistently 
 put from him an "oath of necessity." If I justify my 
 lie as a lie of necessity, I should not be so pusillanimous 
 as to rob the justified lie of the strongest corroboration. 
 Whatever I do, why should I not do it entirely and with- 
 out reservation (reservatio mentalis) ? If I once lie, why 
 then not lie completely, with entire consciousness and all 
 my might? As a spy I should have to swear to each of 
 my false statements at the enemy's demand; determined 
 to lie to him, should I suddenly become cowardly and 
 undecided in the face of an oath? Then I should have 
 been ruined in advance for a liar and spy; for, you 
 see, I should be voluntarily putting into the enemy's 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 319 
 
 hands a means to catch me. — The State too fears 
 the oath of necessity, and for this reason does not give 
 the accused a chance to swear. But you do not justify 
 ^'he State's fear; you He, but do not swear falsely. If, 
 e. g., you show some one a kindness, and he is not to 
 know it, but he guesses it and tells you so to your face, 
 you deny; if he insists, you say ''honestly, no!" If it 
 came to swearing, then you would refuse; for, from 
 fear of the sacred, you always stop half way. Against 
 the sacred you have no will of your own. You lie in 
 — ^^moderation, as you are free ''in moderation," religious 
 "in moderation" (the clergy are not to "encroach"; over 
 this point the most vapid of controversies is now being 
 carried on, on the part of the university agamst the 
 church), monarchically disposed "in moderation" (you 
 want a monarch limited by the constitution, by a funda- 
 mental law of the State), everything nicely tempered, 
 lukewarm, half God's, half the devil's. 
 
 There was a university where the usage was that every 
 word of honor that must be given to the university judge 
 was looked upon by the students as null and void. For 
 the students saw in the demanding of it nothing but a 
 snare, which they could not escape otherwise than by 
 taking away all its significance. He who at that same 
 university broke his word of honor to one of the fellows 
 was infamous ; he who gave it to the university judge 
 .derided, in union with these very fellows, the dupe who 
 fancied that a word had the same value among friends 
 and among foes. It was less a correct theory than the 
 constraint of practice that had there taught the students 
 to act so, as, without the means of getting out, they would 
 have been pitilessly driven to treachery against their 
 comrades. But, as the means approved itself in practice, 
 so it has its theoretical probation too. A word of honor, 
 an oath, is one only for him whom / entitle to receive 
 it; he who forces me to it obtains only a forced, i. e. a 
 hostile word, the word of a foe, whom one has no right 
 to trust ; for the foe does not give us the right. 
 
 Aside from this, the courts of the State do not even 
 
320 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 recognize the inviolability of an oath. For, if I had 
 sworn to one who comes under examination that I would 
 not declare anything against him, the court would de- 
 mand my declaration in spite of the fact that an oath 
 binds me, and, in case of refusal, would lock me up till 
 I decided to become — an oath-breaker. The court ''ab- 
 solves me from my oath" ; — how magnanimous ! If any 
 power can absolve me from the oath, I myself am surely 
 the very first power that has a claim to. 
 
 As a curiosity, and to remind us of customary oaths 
 of all sorts, let place be given here to that which Em- 
 peror Paul commanded the captured Poles (Kosciusko, 
 Potocki, Niemcewicz, etc.) to take when he released them : 
 ^'We not merely swear fidelity and obedience to the em- 
 peror, but also further promise to pour out our blood 
 for his glory ; we obligate ourselves to discover every- 
 thing threatening to his person or his empire that we 
 ever learn ; we declare finally that, in whatever part of 
 the earth we may be, a single word of the emperor shall 
 suffice to make us leave everything and repair to him at 
 once." 
 
 In one domain the principle of love seems to have been 
 long outsoared by egoism, and to be still in need only of 
 sure consciousness, as it were of victory with a good 
 conscience. This domain is speculation, in its double 
 manifestation as thinking and as trade. One thinks with 
 a will, whatever may come of it; one speculates, how- 
 ever many may suflfer under our speculative undertakings. 
 But, when it finally becomes serious, when even the last 
 remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity'' is 
 to be done away, then the pulse of religious conscience 
 bets, and one at least professes humanity. The avaricious 
 speculator throws some coppers into the poor-box and 
 *'does good," the bold thinker consoles himself with the 
 fact that he is working for the advancement of the 
 human race and that his devastation "turns to the 
 good'" of mankind, or, in another case, that he is serv- 
 ing the idea": mankind, the idea, is to him that some- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 321 
 
 thing of which he must say, It is more to me than 
 myself. 
 
 I To this day thinking and trading have been done for 
 j —God's sake. Those who for six days were trampHng 
 '■' down everything by their selfish aims sacrificed on the 
 seventh to the Lord ; and those who destroyed a hundred 
 "'good causes" by their reckless thinking still did this in 
 the service of another ''good cause," and had yet to think 
 of another — besides themselves — to whose good their self- 
 indulgence should turn; of the people, mankind, and the 
 like. But this other thing is a being above them, a higher 
 or supreme being; and therefore I say, they are toiling 
 for God's sake. 
 
 Hence I can also say that the ultimate basis of their 
 actions is — love. Not a voluntary love however, not their 
 own, but a tributary love, or the higher being's own (i, e. 
 God's, who himself is love) ; in short, not the egoistic, 
 •but t-he religious ; a love that springs from their fancy 
 that they must discharge a tribute of love, i. e. that they 
 must not be '^egoists." 
 
 If we want to deliver the world from many kinds of 
 unf reedom, we want this not on its account but on ours ; 
 for, as we are not world-liberators by profession and 
 out of ''love," we only want to win it away from others. 
 We want to make it our own ; it is not to be any longer 
 owned as serf by God (the church) nor by the law 
 (State), but to be our own; therefore we seek to "win'' 
 it, to ''captivate" it, and, by meeting it half-way and 
 "devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as 
 it belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the 
 force that it turns against us. If the world is ours, it 
 no longer attempts any force against us, but only with 
 •us. My selfishness has an interest in the liberation of the 
 world, that it may become — my property. 
 
 Not insolation or being alone, but society, is man's 
 original state. Our existence begins with the most in- 
 timate conjunction, as we are already living with our 
 mother before we breathe ; when we see the light of the 
 world, we at once lie on a human being's breast again, 
 
322 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 her love cradles us in the lap, leads us in the go-cart, and 
 chains us to her person with a thousand ties. Society is 
 our state of nature. And this is why, the more we learn 
 to feel ourselves^ the connection that was formerly most 
 intimate becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the 
 original society more unmistakable* To have once again 
 for herself the child that once lay under her heart, the 
 mother must fetch it from the street and from the midst 
 of its playmates. The child prefers the intercourse that 
 it enters into with its fellows to the society that it has not 
 entered into, but only been born in. 
 
 But the dissolution of society is intercourse or union. 
 'A society does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a 
 fixed idea arises by a thought — to wit, by the vanishing 
 of the energy of the thoughts (the thinking itself, this 
 restless taking back all thoughts that make themselves 
 fast) from the thought. If a union''' has crystallized into 
 a society, it has ceased to be a coalition ;t for coalition is 
 an incessant self-uniting ; it has become a unitedness, come 
 to a standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is — dead as 
 a union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition, 
 i. e. it is — society, community. A striking example of 
 this kind is furnished by the party. 
 
 That a society (e, g. the society of the State) diminishes 
 my liberty offends me little. Why, I have to let my lib- 
 erty be limited by all sorts of powers and by every one 
 who is stronger ; nay, by every fellow-man ; and, were I 
 the autocrat of all the R . . . ., I yet should not en- 
 joy absolute liberty. But ownness I will not have taken 
 from me. And ownness is precisely what every society 
 has designs on, precisely what is to succumb to its power. 
 
 A society which I join does indeed take from me many 
 liberties, but in return it affords me other liberties ; neither 
 does it matter if I myself deprive myself of this and that 
 liberty (e. q. by any contract). On the other hand, I 
 want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every commun- 
 ity has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the 
 
 * [Verein] 
 
 t [Vereinigung] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 323 
 
 fulness of its power, to become an authority to its mem- 
 bers and to set limits for them : it asks, and must ask, for 
 a ''subject's limited understanding" ; it asks that those who 
 belong to it be subject to it, be its "subjects"; it exists 
 only by subjection. In this a certain tolerance need by 
 no means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will 
 welcome improvements, corrections, and blame, so far 
 as such are calculated for its gain : but the blame must be 
 ''well-meaning," it may not be "insolent and disrespectful" 
 — in other words, one must leave uninjured, and hold 
 sacred, the substance of the society. The society de- 
 mands that those who belong to it shall not go beyond it 
 and exalt themselves, but remain "within the bounds of 
 legality," i. e. allow themselves only so much as the 
 society and its law allow them. 
 
 There is a difference whether my liberty or my own- 
 ness is limited by a society. If the former only is the 
 case, it is a coalition, an agreement, a union ; but, if ruin 
 is threatened to ownness, it is a power of itself , a power 
 above me, a thing unattainable by me, which I can in- 
 deed admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot sub- 
 due and consume, and that for the reason that I am 
 resigned. It exists by my resignation, my self -renuncia- 
 tion, my spiritlessness,* called — HUMiLTY.f My humil- 
 ity makes its courage,^ my submissiveness gives it its 
 dominion. 
 
 But in reference to liberty State and union are subject 
 to no essential difference. The latter can just as little 
 come into existence, or continue in existence, without 
 liberty's being limited in all sorts of ways, as the State 
 is compatible with unmeasured liberty. Limitation of 
 liberty is inevitable everywhere, for one cannot get rid 
 of everything; one cannot fly like a bird merely because 
 one would like to fly so, for one does not get free from 
 his own weight ; one cannot live under water as long as 
 he likes, like a fish, because one cannot do without air 
 and cannot get free from this indispensable necessity ; and 
 
 * [Muthlosigkeit] f [Demuth] t [Muth] 
 
324 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 the like. As religion^ and most decidedly Christianity, 
 tormented man with the demand to realize the unnatural 
 and self-contradictory, so it is to be looked upon only 
 as the true logical outcome of that religious overstraining 
 and overwroughtness that finally liberty itself, absolute 
 liberty, was exalted into an ideal, and thus the nonsense 
 of the impossible had to come glaringly to the light. — 
 The union will assuredly offer a greater measure of lib- 
 erty, as well as (and especially because by it one escapes 
 all the coercion peculiar to State and society life) admit 
 of being considered as " a new liberty" ; but nevertheless 
 it will still contain enough of unfreedom and involuntari- 
 ness. For its object is not this — liberty (which on the 
 contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but only ownness. Re- 
 ferred to this, the difference between State and union is 
 great enough. The former is an enemy and murderer 
 of ownness, the latter a son and co-worker of it ; the for- 
 mer a spirit that would be adored in spirit and in truth, 
 the latter my work, my product; the State is the lord of 
 my spirit, who demands faith and prescribes to me articles 
 of faith, the creed of legality; it exerts moral influence, 
 dominates my spirit, drives away my ego to put itself 
 in its place as "my true ego" — in short, the State is sacred, 
 and as against me, the individual man, it is the true man, 
 the spirit, the ghost; but the union is my own creation, 
 my x:reature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my 
 spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As 
 I am not willing to be a slave of my maxims, but lay 
 them bare to my continual criticism without any warrant, 
 and admit no bail at all for their persistence, so still less 
 do I obligate myself to the union for my future and 
 pledge my soul to it, as is said to be done with the devil 
 and is really the case with the State and all spiritual 
 authority; but I am and remain more to myself than 
 State, Church, God, and the like; consequently infinitely 
 more than the union too. 
 
 That society which Communism wants to found seems 
 to stand nearest to coalition. For it is to aim at the "wel- 
 fare of all," oh, yes, of all, cries Weitling innumer- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 325 
 
 able times, of all! That does really look as if in it 
 no one needed to take a back seat. But what then will 
 this welfare be? Have all one and the same welfare, 
 are all equally well off with one and the same thing? 
 If that be so, the question is of the ''true welfare.'' Do 
 we not with this come right to the point where religion 
 begins its dominion of violence? Christianity says, Look 
 not on earthly toys, but seek your true welfare, become 
 — pious Christians ; being Christians is the true welfare. 
 It is the true welfare of ''all,'' because it is the welfare 
 of Man as such (this spook). Now, the welfare of all 
 is surely to be your and my welfare too? But, if you 
 and I do not look upon that welfare as our welfare, will 
 care then be taken for that in which we feel well? On 
 the contrary, society has decreed a welfare as the ''true 
 welfare"; and, if this welfare were called e. g. "enjoy- 
 ment honestly worked for," but you preferred enjoyable 
 laziness, enjoyment without work, then society, which 
 cares for the "welfare of all," would wisely avoid caring 
 for that in which you are well off. Communism, in pro- 
 claiming the welfare of all, annuls outright the well- 
 being of those who hitherto lived on their income from 
 investments and apparently felt better in that than in the 
 prospect of Weitling's strict hours of labor. Hence the 
 latter asserts that with the welfare of thousands the 
 welfare of millions cannot exist, and the former must 
 give up their special welfare "for the sake of the general 
 welfare." No, let people not be summoned to sacrifice 
 their special welfare for the general, for this Christian 
 admonition will not carry you through ; they will better 
 understand the opposite admonition, not to let their own 
 welfare be snatched from them by anybody, but to put 
 it on a permanent foundation. Then they are of them- 
 selves led to the point that they care best for their wel- 
 fare if they unite with others for this purpose, i. e. "sac- 
 rifice a part of their liberty," yet not to the welfare of 
 others, but to their own. An appeal to men's self-sacri- 
 ficing disposition and self-renouncing love ought at last 
 to have lost its seductive plausibility when, after an 
 
326 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 activity of thousands of years, it has left nothing behind 
 but the — misere of to-day. Why then still fruitlessly 
 expect self-sacrifice to bring us better times? why not 
 rather hope for them from usurpation? Salvation comes 
 no longer from the giver, the bestower, the loving one, 
 but from the taker, the appropriator (usurper), the own- 
 er. Communism, and, consciously or unconsciously, 
 egoism-reviling humanism, still count on love. 
 
 If community is once a need of man, and he finds 
 himself furthered by it in his aims, then very soon, 
 because it has become his principle, it prescribes to him 
 its laws too, the laws of — society. The principle of men 
 exalts itself into a sovereign power over them, becomes 
 their supreme essence, their God, and, as such — -lawgiver. 
 Communism gives this principle the strictest effect, and 
 Christianity is the religion of society, for, as Feuerbach 
 rightly says although he does not mean it rightly, love is 
 the essence of man ; i. e. the essence of society or of 
 societary (Communistic) man. All religion is a cult of 
 society, this principle by which societary (cultivated) 
 man is dominated ; neither is any god an ego's exclusive 
 god, but always a society's or community's, be it of the 
 society ''family" (Lar. Penates) or of a ''people" 
 ("national god") or of "all men" ("he is a Father of 
 all men").. 
 
 Consequently one has a prospect of extirpating religion 
 down to the ground only when one antiquates society and 
 everything that flows from this principle. But it is pre- 
 cisely in Communism that this principle seeks to culmin- 
 ate, as in it everything is to become common for the estab- 
 lishment of — "equality." If this "equality" is won, 
 "liberty" too is not lacking. But whose liberty? Society s! 
 Society is then all in all, and men are only "for each 
 other." It would be the glory of the — love-State. 
 
 But I would rather be referred to men's selfishness 
 than to their "kindnesses,"* their mercy, pity, etc. The 
 former demands reciprocity (as thou to me, so I to 
 
 * [Literally, "Jove-services."] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 327 
 
 thee), does nothing ''gratis/' and may be won and — 
 bought. But with what shall I obtain the kindness? It 
 is a matter of chance whether I am at the time having 
 to do with a ''loving'' person. The affectionate one's 
 service can be had only by — begging, be it by my lament- 
 able appearance, by my need of help, my misery, my — 
 suffering. What can I offer him for his assistance? 
 Nothing! I must accept it as a — present. Love is im- 
 payable, or rather, love can assuredly be paid for, but 
 only by counter-love ("One good turn deserves an- 
 other"). What paltriness and beggarliness does it not 
 take to accept gifts year in and year out without service 
 in return, as they are regularly collected e. g, from the 
 poor day-laborer ? What can the receiver do for him and 
 his donated pennies, in which his wealth consists? The 
 day-laborer would really have more enjoyment if the 
 receiver with his laws, 'his institutions, etc., all of which 
 the day-laborer has to pay for though, did not exist at all. 
 And yet, with it all, the poor wight loves his master. 
 
 No, community, as the "goal" of history, hitherto, is 
 impossible. Let us rather renounce every hypocrisy of 
 community, and recognize that, if we are equal as men, 
 we are not equal for the very reason that we are not 
 men. We are equal only in thoughts, only when "we'* 
 are thought, not as we really and bodily are. I am ego, 
 and you are ego: but I am not this thought-of ego; this 
 ego in which we are all equal is only my thought. I am 
 man, and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a 
 generality; neither you nor I are speakable, we are un- 
 utterable, because only thoughts are speakable and con- 
 sist in speaking. 
 
 Let us therefore not aspire to community, but to one- 
 side dness. Let us not seek the most comprehensive com- 
 mune, "human society," but let us seek in others only 
 means and organs which we may use as our property ! 
 As we do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the 
 presupposition that others are our equals springs from a 
 hypocrisy. No one is my equal, but I regard him, equally 
 with all other beings, as my property. In opposition to 
 
328 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 this I am told that I should be a man among ^^fellow- 
 men'' {''Judenfrage'' p. 60) ; I should ''respect" the 
 fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be 
 respected, not even the fellow-man, but solely, like other 
 beings, an object in which I take an interest or else do 
 not, an interesting or uninteresting object, a usable or 
 unusable person. 
 
 And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an under- 
 standing and make myself at one with him, in order, by 
 the agreement, to strengthen my power, and by combined 
 force to accomplish more than individual force could 
 effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but 
 a multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so long 
 as it is my multiplied force. But thus it is a — union. 
 
 Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the 
 union together, and it is not a natural, not a spiritual 
 league. It is not brought about by one blood, not by one 
 faith (spirit). In a natural league — like a family, a tribe, 
 a nation, yes, mankind— the individuals have only the 
 value of specimens of the same species or genus ; in a 
 spiritual league — like a commune, a church — the indi- 
 vidual signifies only a member of the same spirit; what 
 you are in both cases as a unique person must be — sup- 
 pressed. Only in the union can you assert yourself as 
 unique, because the union does not possess you, but you 
 possess it or make it of use to you. 
 
 Property is recognized in the union, and only in the 
 union, because one no longer holds what is his as a fief 
 from any being. The Communists are only consistently 
 carrying further what had already been long present dur- 
 ing religious evolution, and especially in the State ; to 
 wit, propertylessness, i. e. the feudal system. 
 
 The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in 
 ohter words, it seeks to direct his desire to let it alone, 
 and to content that desire with what it offers. To state 
 the desire for the desirous man's sake does not come 
 into his mind : on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "ego- 
 istic man" the man who breathes out unbridled desire, 
 and the ''egoistic man" is its enemy. He is this for it 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 329 
 
 because the capacity to agree with him is wanting to the 
 State; the egoist is precisely what it cannot "compre- 
 hend/" Since the State (as nothing else is possible) 
 has to do only for itself, it does not take care for my 
 needs, but takes care only of how it shall make away 
 with me, i. e, make out of me another ego, a good citi- 
 zen. It takes measures for the ''improvement of mor-^ 
 als/' — And with what does it win individuals for itself? 
 With iself, i. e. with what is the State's, with State prop- 
 erty. It will be unremitting'ly active in making all par- 
 ticipants in its ''goods,'' providing all with the "good 
 things of culture" ; its presents them its education, opens, 
 to them the access to its institutions of culture, capaci- 
 tates them to come to property (i. e. to a fief) in the 
 way of industry, etc. For all these fiefs it demands only 
 the just rent of continual thanks. But the "unthankful" 
 forget to pay these thanks. — Now, neither can "society" 
 do essentially otherwise than the State. 
 
 You bring into a union your whole power, your com- 
 petence, and make yourself count; in a society you are 
 employed, with your working power ; in the former you 
 live egoistically, in the latter humanly, i. e. religiously, 
 as a "member in the body of this Lord" : to a society you 
 owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are — 
 possessed by "social duties" ; a union you utilize, and 
 give it up undutifully and unfaithfully when you see 
 no way to use it further. If a society is more than you, 
 then it is more to you than yourself ; a union is only 
 your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen 
 and increase your natural force ; the union exists for you 
 and through you, the society conversely lays claim to you 
 for itself and exists even without you; in short, the 
 society is sacred, the union your own; the society con- 
 sumes you, you consume the union. 
 
 Nevertheless people will not be backward with the 
 objection that the agreement which has been concluded 
 may again become burdensome to us and limit our free- 
 dom ; they will say, we too would at last come to this, 
 that "every one must sacrifice a part of his freedom 
 
330 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 for the sake of the generality." But the sacrifice would 
 not be made for the ''generality's'' sake a bit, as little 
 as I concluded the agreement for the ''generality's" or 
 even for any other man's sake; rather I came into it 
 only for the sake of my own benefit, from selfishness,'^ 
 But, as regards the sacrificing, surely "sacrifice" only 
 that which does not stand in my power, i. e, I "sacrifice" 
 nothing at all. 
 
 To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. 
 Choose then whether you want to be lord, or whether 
 society shall be! On this depends whether you are to 
 be an owner or a ragamuffin! The egoist is owner, the 
 Socialist a ragamuffin. But ragamufiinism or property- 
 lessness is the sense of feudalism, of the feudal system, 
 which since the last century has only changed its over- 
 lord, putting "Man" in the place of God, and accepting 
 as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from 
 the grace of God. That the ragamuffinism of Com- 
 munism is carried out by the humane principle into the 
 absolute or most ragamuffinly ragamuffinism has - been 
 shown above ; but at the same time also, how ragamuffin- 
 ism can only thus swing around into ownness. The old 
 feudal system was so thoroughly trampled into the 
 ground in the Revolution that since then all reactionary 
 craft has remained fruitless, and will remain fruitless, 
 because the dead is — dead ; but the resurrection too had 
 to prove itself a truth in Christian history, and has so 
 proved itself ; for in another world feudalism is risen 
 again with a glorified body, the new feudalism under the 
 suzerainty of "Man." 
 
 Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are . 
 right in having hitherto truthfully assumed of every 
 combat against it that this could serve only for the pur- 
 gation and confirmation- of Christianity; for it has really 
 only been glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is the — 
 human Christianity, We are still living entirely in the 
 Christian age, and the very ones who feel worst about 
 
 * [Literally, "own-benefit."] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 331 
 
 it are the most zealously contributing to ''complete^' it. 
 The more human, the dearer has feudalism become to 
 us; for we the less believe that it still is feudalism, we 
 take it the more confidently for ownness and think we 
 have found what is ''most absolutely our own'* when 
 we discover ''the human/' 
 
 Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it 
 thinks to procure it for me not under the title of mine, 
 but under that of the "human/' As if it were attain- 
 able under this mask ! The rights of man, the precious 
 work of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man 
 in me entities'^ me to this and that ; I as individual, i, e, 
 as this man, am not entitled, but Man has the right and 
 entitles me. Hence as man I may well be entitled ; but, 
 as I am more than man, to wit, a special man, it may be 
 refused to this very me, the special one. If on the other 
 hand you insist on the value of your gifts, keep up their 
 price, do not let )^ourselves be forced to sell out below 
 price, do not let yourselves be talked into the idea that 
 your ware is not worth its price, do not make yourselves 
 ridiculous by a "ridiculous price,'' but imitate the brave 
 man who says, I will sell my life (property) dear, the 
 enemy shall not have it at a cheap bargain; then you have 
 recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct 
 thing, and the word then is not "Give up your property !" 
 but ''Get the value out of your property !" 
 
 Over the portal of our time stands not that "Know 
 thyself" of Apollo, but a ''Get the value out of thyself T 
 
 Proudhon calls property "robbery" (le vol). But 
 alien property — and he is talking of this alone — if not 
 less existent by renunciation, cession, and humility ; it 
 is a present. Why so sentimentally call for compassion 
 as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish, 
 cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the 
 fault on others as if they were robbing us, while we 
 ourselves do bear the fault in leaving the others un- 
 
 * [Literally, furnishes me with a right.] 
 
332 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 robbed? The poor are to blame for there being rich 
 men. 
 
 Universally, no one grows indignant at his, but at 
 alien property. They do not in truth attack property, 
 but the alienation of property. They want to be able 
 to call more, not less, theirs; they want to call every- 
 thing theirs. They are fighting, therefore, against alien- 
 ness, or, to form a word similar to property, against 
 alienty. And how do they help themselves therein? 
 Instead of transforming the alien into own, they play 
 impartial and ask only that all property be left to a 
 third party {e. g. human society). They revendicate 
 the alien not in their own name but in a third party's. 
 Now the "egoistic" coloring is wiped ofif, and everything 
 is so clean and — human ! 
 
 Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the 
 ''essence of Christianity," as it is the essence of all re- 
 ligiousness {i. e. godliness, morality, humanity), and 
 only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad tidings, 
 became as gospel capable of development, in the ''abso- 
 lute religion." We have before us the most striking 
 development in the present fight against property, a fight 
 which is to bring "Man" to victory and make property- 
 lessness complete : victorious humanity is the victory of 
 — Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus is 
 feudalism completed, the most all-embracing feudal sys- 
 tem, i. e, perfect ragamuffinism. 
 
 Once more then, doubtless, a "revolution" against the 
 feudal system? 
 
 Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon 
 as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning 
 of conditions, of the established condition or status, the 
 State or society, and is accordingly a political or social 
 act ; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence 
 a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start 
 from it but from men's discontent with themselves, is 
 not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting 
 up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from 
 it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insur- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 3oJ 
 
 rection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, 
 but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on 
 ''institutions." It is not a fight against the established, 
 since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; 
 it is only a working forth of me out of the established. 
 If I leave the established, it is dead and passe^^ into 
 decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an 
 established order but my elevation above it, my purpose 
 and deed are not a political or social but (as directed 
 toward myself and my ownness alone) an egoiStic pur- 
 pose and deed. 
 
 The revolution commands one to make arrangements, 
 the insurrection* demands that he rise or exalt himself 
 What constitution was to be chosen, this question busied 
 the revolutionary heads, and the whole political period 
 foams with constitutional fights and constitutional ques- 
 tions, as the social talents too were uncommonly in- 
 ventive in societary arrangements (phalansteries and the 
 like). The insurgent:}: strives to become constitution- 
 less. 
 
 While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a 
 comparison, the founding of Christianity comes unex- 
 pectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is noted 
 as a bad point in the first Chris'tians that they preached 
 obedience to the established heathen civil order, enjoined 
 recognition of the heathen authorities, and confidently 
 delivered a command, ''Give to the emperor that which 
 is the emperor's.'' Yet how much disturbance arose 
 at the same time against the Roman supremacy, how 
 mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans show them- 
 selves against their own temporal government ! in short, 
 how popular was "political discontent"! Those Chris- 
 tians would hear nothing of it; would not side with the 
 
 * [Empoerung] f [sich auf-oder emporsurichtenl 
 
 % To secure myself against a criminal charge I superfluously 
 make the express remark that I choose the word "insurrection" 
 on account of its etymological sense, and therefore am not using 
 it in the limited sense which is disallowed by the penal code. 
 
334 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 ''liberal tendencies." The time was politically so agi- 
 tated that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they 
 could not accuse the founder of Christianity more suc- 
 cessfully than if they arraigned him for ''political in- 
 trigue,'' and yet the same gospels report that he was 
 precisely the one who took least part in these political 
 doings. But why was he not a revolutionist, not a dema- 
 gogue, as the Jews would gladly have seen him? why 
 was he not a liberal? Because he expected no salvation 
 from a change of conditions, and this whole business was 
 indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist like e, g. 
 Caesar, but an insurgent ; not a State-overturner, but one 
 who straightened himself up. That was why it was for 
 him only a matter of "Be ye wise as serpents,'' which 
 expresses the same sense as, in the special case, that 
 "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's" ; for 
 he was not carrying on any liberal or political fight 
 against the established authorities, but wanted to walk 
 his own way, untroubled about, and undisturbed by, these 
 authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the gov- 
 ernment were its enemies, for neither understood what 
 he wanted, and he had only to keep them off from him 
 with the wisdom of the serpent. But, even though not 
 a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or 
 revolutionist, he (and every one of the ancient Chris- 
 tians) was so much the more an insurgent, who lifted 
 himself above everything that seemed sublime to the 
 government and its opponents, and absolved himself 
 from everything that they remained bound to, and who 
 at the same time cut off the sources of life of the whole 
 heathen world, with which the established State must 
 wither away as a matter of course ; precisely because 
 he put from him the upsetting of the established, he was 
 its deadly enemy and real annihilator ; for he walled it 
 in, confidently and recklessly carrying up the building 
 of his temple over it, without heeding the pains of the 
 immured. 
 
 Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, 
 will the Christian order fare likewise? A revolution 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 335 
 
 certainly does not (bring on the end if an insurrection 
 is not consummated first! 
 
 My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at ? 
 I want to have the enjoyment of it, therefore it must 
 be my property, and therefore I want to win it. I do 
 not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want 
 only my power over them, I want to make them my 
 property, i. e. material for enjoyment. And, if I do not 
 succeed in that, well, then I call even the power over 
 life and death, which Church and State reserved to them- 
 selves — mine. Brand that officer's widow who, in the 
 flight in Russia, after her leg has been shot away, takes 
 the garter from it, strangles her child therewith, and 
 then bleeds to death alongside the corpse — brand the 
 memory of the — infanticide. Who knows, if this child 
 had remained alive, how much it might have ''been of 
 use to the world" ! The mother murdered it because 
 she wanted to die satisfied and at rest. Perhaps this 
 case still appeals to your sentimentality, and you do 
 not know how to read out of it anything further. Be 
 it so; I on my part use it as an example for this, that 
 my satisfaction decides about my relation to men, and 
 that I do not renounce, from any access of humility, even 
 the power over life and death. 
 
 As regards ''social duties" in general, another does 
 not give me my position toward others, therefore neither 
 God nor humanity prescribes to me my relation to men, 
 but I give myself this position. This is more strikingly 
 said thus : I have no duty to others, as I have a duty even 
 to myself {e, ig. that of self-preservation, and therefore 
 not suicide) only so long as I distinguish myself from 
 myself (my immortal soul from my earthly existence, 
 etc.). 
 
 I no longer humble myself before any power, and I 
 recognize that all powers are only my power, which I 
 have to subject at once when they threaten to become 
 a power against or above me ; each of them must be 
 only one of my means to carry my point, as a hound is 
 our power against game, but is killed by us if it should 
 
336 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 fall upon us ourselves. All powers that dominate me 
 I then reduce to serving me. The idols exist through 
 me ; I need only refrain from creating them anew, then 
 they exist no longer : "higher powers" exist only through 
 my exalting them and abasing myself. 
 
 Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no ' 
 longer do anything for it "for God's sake," I do nothing 
 "for man's sake," but what I do I do "for my sake." 
 Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is charac- 
 teristic of the religious standpoint, in which I include 
 the moral and humane also, that from it everything 
 remains a pious wish (pium desiderium) , i. e, an other- 
 world matter, something unattained. Thus the general 
 salvation of men, the moral world of a general love, 
 eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Noth- 
 ing in this world is perfect." With this miserable phrase 
 the good part from it, and take flight into their closet to 
 God, or into their proud "self-consciousness." But we 
 remain in this "imperfect" world, because even «so we 
 can use it for our — self -enjoyment. 
 
 My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoy- 
 ing it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment. Ifi^ 
 tercourse is the enjoyment of the world, and belongs to 
 my — sei f -en j oy^ent. 
 
 III.— MY SELF-ENJOYMENT 
 
 We stand at the boundary of a period. The world 
 hitherto took thought for nothing but the gain of life, 
 to care for — life. For whether all activity is put on 
 the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for 
 the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers 
 for "daily bread" ("Give us our daily bread") or for 
 "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven"; "the bread 
 of God, that comes from heaven and gives life to the 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 337 
 
 world"; ''the bread of life/' John 6), whether one takes 
 care for "dear life'' or for 'life to eternity" — this does 
 not change the object of the strain and care, which in 
 the one case as in the other shows itsel to be life. Do 
 the modern tendencies announce themselves otherwise? 
 People now want nobody to be embarrassed for the 
 most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every 
 one to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand 
 they teach that man has this life to attend to and the 
 real world to adapt himself to, without vain care for 
 another. 
 
 Let us take up the same thing from another side. 
 When one is anxious only to live, he easily, in this so- 
 licitude, forgets the enjoyment of life. If his only con- 
 cern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have my dear 
 life," he does not apply his full strength to using, i. e, 
 enjoying, life. But how does one use life? In using it 
 up, like the candle, which one uses in burning it up. 
 One uses life, and consequently himself the living one, 
 in consuming it and himself. Enjoyment of life is using 
 life up. 
 
 Now — we are in search of the enjoyment of life! 
 And what did the religious world do ? It went in search 
 of life. "Wherein consists the true life, the blessed 
 life, etc.? How is it to be attained? Wliat must man 
 do and become in order to become a truly living man? 
 How does he fulfil this calling?" These and similar 
 questions indicate that the askers were still seeking for 
 themselves — to wit, themselves in the true sense, in the 
 sense of true living. "What I am is foam and shadow; 
 what I shall be is my true self." To chase after this 
 self, to produce it, to realize it, constitutes the hard task 
 of mortals, who die only to rise again, live only to die, 
 live only to find the true life. 
 
 Not till I am certain of myself, and no longer seek-- 
 ing for myself, am I really my property ; I have myself, 
 therefore I use and enjoy myself. On the other hand, 
 I can never take comfort in myself so long as I think 
 that I have still to find my true self and that it must 
 
338 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 come to this, that not I but Christ or some other spir- 
 itual, i. e. ghostly, self (e. g, the true man, the essence 
 of man, and the like) lives in me. 
 
 A vast interval separates the two views. In the old 
 I go toward myself, in the new I start from myself ; in 
 the former I long for myself, in the latter I have myself 
 and do with myself as one does with any other property 
 — I enjoy myself at my pleasure. I am no longer afraid 
 for my life, but "squander" it. 
 
 Henceforth the question runs, not how one can ac- 
 quire life, but how one can squander, enjoy it or; not 
 how one is to produce the true self in himself, but how 
 one is to dissolve himself, to live himself out. 
 
 What else should the ideal be but the sought-for, ever- 
 distant self? One seeks for himself, consequently one 
 does not yet have himself ; one aspires toward what one 
 ought to be, consequently one is not it. One lives in 
 longing and has lived thousands of years in it, in hope. 
 Living is quite another thing in — enjoyment! 
 
 Does this perchance apply only to the so-called pious? 
 No, it applies to all who belong to the departing period 
 of history, even to its men of pleasure. For them too 
 the work-days were followed by a Sunday, and the rush 
 of the world by the dream of a better world, of a gen- 
 eral happiness of humanity; in short, by an ideal. But 
 philosophers especially are contrasted with the pious. 
 Now, have they been thinking of anything else than 
 the ideal, been planning for anything else than the abso- 
 lute self? Longing and Jiope everywhere, and nothing 
 but these. For me, call it romanticism. 
 
 If the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the long- 
 ing for life or hope of life, it must vanquish this in its 
 double significance, which Schiller introduces in his 
 ''Ideal and Life'' ; it must crush spiritual and secular 
 poverty, exterminate the ideal and — the want of daily 
 bread. He who must expend his life to prolong life 
 cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking for his life 
 does not have it and can as little enjoy it : both are poor, 
 but ''blessed are the poor.'' 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 339 
 
 Those who are hungering for the true life have no 
 power over their present Hfe, but must apply it for the 
 purpose of thereby gaining that true life, and must sac- 
 rifice it entirely to this aspiration and this task. If in 
 the case of those devotees who hope for a life in the 
 other world, and look upon that in this world as merely 
 a preparation for it, the tributariness of their earthly 
 existence, which they put solely into the service of the 
 hoped-for heavenly existence, is pretty distinctly appar- 
 ent: one would yet go far wrong is one wanted to con- 
 sider the most rationalistic and enlightened as less self- 
 sacrificing. Oh, there is to be found in the "true life'' a 
 much more comprehensive significance than the "heaven- 
 ly'' is competent to express. Now, is not— to introduce 
 the liberal concept of it at once — the "human" and "truly 
 human" life the true one? And is every one already 
 leading the truly human life from the start, or must 
 he first raise himself to it with hard toil? Does he al- 
 ready have it as his present life, of must he struggle for 
 it as his future life, which will become his part only 
 when he "is no longer tainted with any egoism"? In 
 this view life exists only to gain life, and one lives only 
 to make the essence of man alive in oneself, one lives 
 for the sake of this essence. One has his life only in 
 order to procure by means of it the "true" life cleansed 
 of all egoism. Hence one is afraid to make any use he 
 likes of his life: it is to serve only for the "right use." 
 
 In short, one has a calling in life, a task in life ; one 
 has something to realize and produce by his life, a some- 
 thing for which our life is only means and implement, a 
 something that is worth more than thisJife, a something 
 to which one owes his life. One has a God who asks 
 a living sacrifice. Only the rudeness of human sacrifice 
 has been lost with time ; human sacrifice itself has re- 
 mained unabated, and criminals 4iourly fall sacrifices 
 to justice, and we "poor sinners" slay our own selves as 
 sacrifices for "the human essence," the "idea of man- 
 kind," ''humanity," and whatever the idols or gods are 
 called besides. 
 
340 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 But, because we owe our Jife to that something, there- 
 fore — ^this is the next point — we have no right to take 
 it from us. 
 
 The conservative tendency of Christianity does not per- 
 mit thinking of death otherwise than with the purpose to 
 take its sting from it and — Hve on and preserve oneself 
 nicely. The Christian lets everything happen and come 
 upon him if he — ^the arch-Jew — can only haggle and 
 struggle himself into heaven; he must not kill himself, he 
 must only — preserve himself and work at the "prepara- 
 tion of a future abode/' Conservatism or ^'conquest of 
 death'' lies at his heart; ''the last enemy that is abolished 
 is death.""^ ''Christ has taken the power from death and 
 brought life and imperishable being to light by the gos- 
 pel."t 'Tmperishableness," stability. 
 
 The moral man wants the good, the right; and, if he 
 takes to the means that lead to this goal, really lead to it, 
 then these means are not his means, but those of the 
 good, right, etc., itself. These means are never immoral, 
 because the good end itself mediates itself through them: 
 the end sanctifies the means. They call this maxim Jesuit- 
 ical, but it is "moral" through and through. The moral 
 man acts in the service of an end or an idea : he makes 
 himself the tool of the idea of the good, as the pious 
 man counts it his glory to be a tool or instrument of 
 God. To await death is what the moral commandment 
 postulates as the good; to give it to oneself is immoral 
 and bad: suicide finds no excuse before the judgment- 
 seat of morality. If the religious man forbids it because 
 "you have not given yourself life, but God, who alone 
 can also take it from you again" (as if, even talking in this 
 conception, God did not take it from me just as much 
 when I kill myself as when a tile from the roof, or a 
 hostile bullet, fells me; for he would have aroused the 
 resolution of death in me too!), the moral man forbids 
 it because I owe my life to the fatherland, etc., "because 
 I do not know whether I may not yet accomplish good 
 
 * 1 Cor. 15, 26. 
 
 t2 Tim. 1, 10. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 341 
 
 by my life." Of course, for in me good loses a tool, as 
 God does an instrument. If I am immoral, the good is 
 served in my amendment; if I am ^'ungodly," God has 
 joy in my penitence. Suicide, therefore, is ungodly as 
 i well as nefarious. If one whose standpoint is religious- 
 ness takes his own life, he acts in forgetfulness of God; 
 but, if the suicide's standpoint is morality, he acts in for- 
 getfulness of duty, immorality. People worried them- 
 selves much with the question whether Emilia Galotti's 
 death can be justified before morality (they take it as if 
 it were suicide, which it is too in substance). That she is 
 so infatuated with chastity, this moral good, as to yield 
 up even her life for it is certainly moral ; but, again, that 
 she fears the weakness of her flesh is immoral."^ Such 
 contradictions form the tragic conflict universally in the 
 moral drama; and one must think and feel morally to 
 be able to take an interest in it. 
 
 What holds good of piety and morality will necessarily 
 apply to humanity also, because one owes his life like- 
 
 * [See the next to the last scene of the tragedy: 
 
 Odoardo. Under the pretext of a judicial investigation he 
 tears you out of our arms and takes you to Grimaldi. . . . 
 
 Emilia. Give me that dagger, father, me ! . . . 
 
 Odoardo. No, no ! Reflect — You too have only one life to lose 
 
 Emilia. And only one innocence ! 
 
 Odoardo. Which is above the reach of any violence. — 
 
 Emilia. But not above the reach of any seduction. — Violence ! 
 violence! who cannot defy violence? What is called violence is 
 nothing; seduction is the true violence. — I have blood, father; 
 blood as youthful and warm as anybody's. My senses are senses. 
 — I can warrant nothing. I am sure of nothing. I know Grim- 
 aldi's house. It is the house of pleasure. An hour there, under 
 my mother's eyes — and there arose in my soul so much tumult as 
 the strictest exercises of religion could hardly quiet in weeks.— 
 Religion ! And what religion ? — To escape nothing worse, thou- 
 sands sprang into the water and are saints. — Give me that dagger, 
 father, give it to me. ... 
 
 Emilia.. .Once indeed there was a father who, to save his 
 daughter from shame, drove into her heart whatever steel he 
 could quickest find — gave life to her for the second time. But 
 all such deeds are of the past! Of such fathers there are no 
 more. 
 
 Odoardo. Yes, daughter, yes! (Stabs her,)] 
 
342 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 wise to man, mankind or the species. Only when I am 
 under obHgation to no being is the maintaining of life— ' 
 my affair. leap from this bridge makes me freeT' 
 
 But, if we owe the maintaining of our life to that 
 being that we are to make alive in ourselves, it is not 
 less our duty not to lead this life according to our pleas- 
 ure, but to shape it in conformity to that being. All my 
 feeling, thinking, and willing, all my doing and designing, 
 belongs to — him. I 
 
 What is in conformity to that being is to be inferred ll 
 from his concept ; and how (differently has this concept 
 been conceived ! or how differently has that being been 
 imagined ! What demands the Supreme Being makes on 
 the Mohammedan; what different ones the Christian, 
 again, thinks he hears from him ; how divergent, there- 
 fore, must the shaping of the lives of the two turn out ! ^ 
 Only this do all hold fast, that the Supreme Being is^ 
 to judged our life. 
 
 But the pious who have their judge in God, and in hisi; 
 word a book of directions for their life, I everywhere' 
 pass by only reminiscently, because they belong to ai 
 period of development that has been lived through, and 
 as petrifactions they may remain in their fixed place right 
 along; in our time it is no longer the pious, but the lib- 
 erals, who have the floor, and piety itself cannot keep l 
 from reddening its pale face with liberal coloring. But 
 the liberals do not adore their judge in God, and do not 
 tmfold their life by the directions of the divine word, 
 out regulatef themselves by man : they want to be not | 
 **divine'' but "human," and to live so. 
 
 Man is the liberal's supreme being, man the judge of | 
 his life, humanity his directions, or catechism. God is 
 spirit, but man is the "most perfect spirit," the final result 
 of the long chase after the spirit or of the "searching in ; 
 the depths of the Godhead," i, e, in the depths of the | 
 spirit. I 
 
 Every one of your traits is to be human ; you yourself 
 
 *rOr, ''regulate" {richten)] 
 
 t [richten'] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 343 
 
 n are to be so from top to toe, in the inward as in the 
 - outward ; for humanity is your calling. 
 ' CalHng — destiny — task ! — 
 
 What one can become he does become. A born poet 
 jt may well be hindered by the disfavor of circumstances 
 from standing on the high level of his time, and, after 
 y the great studies that are indispensable for this, produc- 
 M ing consummate works of art ; but he will make poetry, 
 be he a plowman or so lucky as to live at the court 
 J of Weimar. A born musician will make music, no 
 t matter whether on all instruments or only on an oaten 
 n pipe. A born philosophical head can give proof of itself 
 n as university philosopher or as village philosopher. Fin- 
 i ally, a born dolt, who, as is very well compatible with this, 
 i- may at the same time be a sly-boots, will (as probably 
 :! every one who has visited schools is in a position to 
 s exemplify to himself by many instances of fellow- 
 scholars) always remain a blockhead, let him have been 
 s drilled and trained into the chief of a bureau, or let him 
 e serve that same chief as bootblack. Nay, the born shal- 
 a low-pates indisputably form the most numerous class of 
 d men. And why, indeed, should not the same distinctions 
 It show themselves in the human species that are unmis - 
 h takable in every species of beasts? The more gifted and 
 p .he less gifted are to be found everywhere, 
 it Only a few, however, are so imbecile that one could 
 i not get ideas into them. Hence people usually consider 
 1. all men capable of having religion. In a certain degree 
 t they may be trained to other ideas too, e, g, to some 
 musical intelligence, even some philosophy, etc. At this 
 f point then the priesthood of religion, of morality, of 
 s culture, of science, etc., takes its start, and the Com- 
 [ munists, e, g., want to make everything accessible to all 
 1 by their "public school." There is heard a common asser- 
 j tion that this ''great mass" cannot get along without 
 religion ; the Communists broaden it into the proposition 
 f that not only the ''great mass," but absolutely all, are 
 . called to everything. 
 
 Not enough that the great mass has been trained to 
 
344 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 religion, now it is actually to have to occupy itself with 
 ' everything human/' Training is growing ever more 
 general and more comprehensive. 
 
 You poor beings who could live so happily if you 
 might skip according to your mind, you are to dance to 
 the pipe of schoolmasters and bear-leaders, in order to 
 perform tricks that you yourselves would never use your- 
 selves for. And you do not even kick out of the traces 
 at last against being always taken otherwise than you 
 want to give ourselves. No, you mechanically recite 
 to yourselves the question that is recited to you : ''What 
 am I called to? What ought I to do?" You need only 
 ask thus, to have yourselves told what you ought to do 
 and ordered to do it, to have your calling marked out for. 
 you, or else to order yourselves and impose it on your- 
 selves according to the spirit's prescription. Then in ref- 
 erence to the will the word is, I will to do what I ought, 
 
 A man is "called'' to nothing, and has no "calling," 
 no "destiny," as little as a plant or a beast has a "call- 
 ing." The flower does not follow the calling to complete 
 itself, but it spends all its forces to enjoy and consume 
 the world as well as it can — i. e. it sucks in as much of the 
 juices of the earth, as much air of the ether, as much 
 light of the sun, as it can get and lodge. The bird lives 
 up to no calling, but it uses its forces as much as is prac- 
 ticable ; it catches beetles and sings to its heart's delight. 
 But the forces of the flower and the bird are slight in 
 comparison to those of a man, and a man who applies his 
 forces will affect the world much more powerfully than 
 flower and beast. A calling he has not, but he has forces 
 that manifest themselves where they are because their 
 being consists solely in their manifestation, and are as 
 little able to abide inactive as life, which, if it "stood 
 still" only a second, would no longer be life. Now, one 
 might call out to the man, "use your force." Yet to this 
 imperative would be j^iven the meaning that it was 
 man's task to use his force. It is not so. Rather, each \ 
 one reallv uses his force without first looking upon this 
 as his calling: at all times every one uses as much force 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 345 
 
 as he possesses. One does say of a beaten man that he 
 ought to have exerted his force more; but one forgets 
 that, if in the moment of succumbing he had had the 
 force to exert his forces {e. g. bodily forces), he would 
 not have failed to do it : even if it was only the discourage- 
 ment of a minute, this was yet a — destitution of force 
 a minute long. Forces may assuredly be sharpened 
 and redoubled, especially by hostile resistance or friendly 
 assistance ; but where one misses their application one 
 may be sure of their absence too. One can strike fire 
 out of a stone, but without the blow none comes out; 
 in like manner a man too needs ''impact." 
 
 Now, for this reason that forces always of themselves 
 show themselves operative, the command to use them 
 would be superfluous and senseless. To use his forces 
 is not man's calling and task, but is his act, real and ex- 
 tant at all times. Force is only a simpler word for mani- 
 festations of force. 
 
 Now, as this rose is a true rose to begin with, this 
 nightingale always a true nightingale, so I am not for 
 the first time a true man when I fulfil my calling, live 
 up to my destiny, but I am a "true man" from the start. 
 My first babble is the token of the life of a ''true man," 
 the struggles of my life are the outpourings of his force, 
 my last breath is the last exhalation of the force of the 
 "man." 
 
 The true man does not lie in the future, an object 
 of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the present. 
 Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous and suffering, 
 a child or a graybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep 
 or in waking, I am it, I am the true man. 
 
 But, if I am Man, and have really found in myself 
 him whom religious humanity designated as the distant 
 goal, then everything "truly human" is also my own. 
 What was ascribed to the idea of humanity belongs to 
 me. That freedom of trade, e. g., which humanity has 
 yet to attain — and which, like an enchanting dream, 
 people remove to humanity's golden future — I take by 
 anticipation as my property, and carry it on for the time 
 
346 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 in the form of smuggling. There may indeed be out few 
 smugglers who have sufficient understanding to thus ac- 
 count to themselves for their doings, but the instinct of 
 egoism replaces their consciousness. Above I have shown 
 the same thing about freedom of the press. 
 
 Everything is my own, therefore I bring back to my- 
 self what wants to withdraw from me; but above all I 
 always bring myself back when I have slipped away from 
 myself to any tributariness. But this too is not my call- 
 ing, but my natural act. 
 
 Enough, there is a mighty difference whether I make 
 myself the starting-point or the goal. As the latter I 
 do not have myself, am consequently still alien to my- 
 self, am my essence, my ''true essence,'' and this ''true 
 essence,'' alien to me, will mock me as a spook of a thou- 
 sand different names. Because I am not yet I, another 
 (like God, the true man, the truly pious man, the rational 
 man, the freeman, etc.) is I, my ego. 
 
 Still far from myself, I separate myself into two halves, 
 of which one, the one unattained and to be fulfilled, is 
 the true one. The one, the untrue, must be brought as 
 a sacrifice; to wit, the unspiritual one. The other, the 
 true, is to be the whole man ; to wit, the spirit. Then' it 
 is said, "The spirit is man's proper essence," or, "man 
 exists as man only spiritually." Now there is a greedy 
 rush to catch the spirit, as if one would then have bagged 
 himself; and so, in chasing after himself, one loses sight 
 of himself, whom he is. 
 
 And, as one stormily pursues his own self, the never- 
 ittained, so one also despises shrewd people's rule to take 
 men as they are, and prefers to take them as they should 
 be : and, for this reason, hounds every one on after his 
 should-be self and "endeavors to make all into equallv en- 
 titled respectable, equallv moral or rational man."* 
 
 Yes, "if men were what thev should be. could be. if 
 all men were rational. loved each other as brothers,^' 
 then it would be a paradisiacal life.t All right, men are 
 as they should be, can be. What should they be? Surely 
 
 * "Der Kommunismus in der Schweiz'' p. 24. f Ihid. p. 63. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 347 
 
 not more than they can be ! And what can they be ? Not 
 more, again, than they — can, i. e. than they have the com- 
 petence, the force, to be. But this they really are, be- 
 cause what they are not they are incapable of being; for 
 to be capable means — really to be. One is not capable for 
 anything that one really is not; one is not capable of 
 anything that one does not really do. Could a man blinded 
 by cataract see? Oh, yes, if he had his cataract success- 
 fully removed. But now he cannot see because he does 
 not see. Possibility and reality always coincide. One 
 can do nothing that one does not, as one does nothing that 
 one cannot. 
 
 The singularity of this assertion vanishes when one 
 reflects that the words ''it is possible that . . almost 
 never contain another meaning than 'T can imagine 
 that . . e, g., It is possible for all men to live ration- 
 ally, i. e. I can imagine that all, etc. Now — since my 
 thinking cannot, and accordingly does not, cause all men 
 to live rationally, but this must still be left to the men 
 themselves — general reason is for me one thinkable, a 
 thinkableness, but as such in fact a reality that is called 
 a possibility only in reference to what I can not bring 
 to pass, to wit, the rationality of others. So far as de- 
 pends on you, all men might be rational, for you have 
 nothing against it ; nay, so far as your thinking reaches, 
 you perhaps cannot discover any hindrance either, and 
 accordingly nothing does stand in the way of the thing 
 in your thinking ; it is thinkable to you. 
 
 As men are not all rational, though, it is probable that 
 they — cannot be so. 
 
 If something which one imagines to be easily possible 
 is not, or does not happen, then one may be assured that 
 something stands in the way of the thing, and that it is — 
 impossible. Our time has its art, science, etc. ; the art 
 may be bad in all conscience ; but may one say that we de- 
 served to have a better, and ''could" have it if we only 
 would? We have just as much art as we can have. Our 
 art of to-day is the only art possible, and therefore real, 
 at the time. 
 
348 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 Even in the sense to which one might at last still re- 
 duce the word ''possible/' that it should mean ''future/' 
 it retains the full force of the "real/' If one says, e, g,, 
 "It is possible that the sun will rise to-morrow" — ^this 
 means only, "for to-day to-morrow is the real future"; 
 for I suppose there is hardly need of the suggestion that 
 a future is real "future" only when it has not yet ap- 
 peared. 
 
 Yet wherefore this dignifying of a word? If the most 
 prolific misunderstanding of thousands of years were 
 not in ambush behind it, if this single concept of the 
 little word "possible" were not haunted by all the spooks 
 of possessed men, its contemplation should trouble us 
 little here. 
 
 The thought, it was just now shown, rules the pos- 
 sessed world. Well, then, possibility is nothing but think- 
 ableness, and innumerable sacrifices have hitherto been 
 made to hideous thinkableness. It was thinkable that 
 men might become rational; thinkable, that they might 
 know Christ; thinkable, that they might become moral 
 and enthusiastic for the good ; thinkable, that they might 
 all take refuge in the Church's lap; thinkable, that they 
 might meditate, speak, and do, nothing dangerous to the 
 State; thinkable, that they might be obedient subjects; 
 but, because it was thinkable, it was — so ran the infer- 
 ence — possible, and further, because it was possible to 
 men (right here lies the deceptive point: because it is 
 thinkable to me, it is possible to men), therefore they 
 ought to be so, it was their calling; and finally — one is to 
 take men only according to this calling, only as called 
 men, "not as they are, but as they ought to be." 
 
 And the further inference ? Man is not the individual, 
 but man is a thought, an ideal, to which the individual 
 is related not even as the child to the man, but as a chalk 
 point to a point thought of, or as a — finite creature to the 
 eternal Creator, or, according to modern views, as the 
 specimen to the species. Here then comes to light the 
 glorification of "humanity/' the "eternal, immortal," for 
 whose glory (in majorem humanitatis gloriam) the in- 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 349 
 
 dividual must devote himself and find his "immortal 
 renown" in having done something for the "spirit of hu- 
 manity." 
 
 Thus the thinkers rule in the world as long as the 
 age of priest or of schoolmasters lasts, and what they 
 think of is possible, but what is possible must be real- 
 ized. They think an ideal of man, which for the time 
 IS real only in their thoughts; but they also think the 
 possibility of carrying it out, and there is no chance for 
 dispute, the carrying out is really — thinkable, it is an 
 — idea. 
 
 But you and I, we may indeed be people of whom a 
 Krummacher can think that we might yet become good 
 Christians; if, however^ he wanted to "labor with" us, 
 we should soon make it palpable to him that our Chris- 
 tianity is only thinkable, but in other respects impossible ; 
 if he grinned on an on at us with his obstrusive thoughts, 
 his "good belief," he would have to learn that we do 
 not at all need to become what we do not Hke to become. 
 
 And so it goes on, far beyond the most pious of the 
 pious. "If all men were rational, if all did right, if all 
 were guided by philanthropy, etc." ! Reason, right, 
 philanthropy, etc., are put before the eyes of men as their 
 calling, as the goal of their aspiration. And what does 
 being rational mean? Giving oneself a hearing?* No, 
 reason is a book full of laws, which are all enacted 
 against egoism. 
 
 History hitherto is the history of the intellectual man. 
 After the period of sensuality, history proper begins; 
 i. e.y the period of intellectuality,t spirituality,:!: non- 
 sensuality supersensuality nonsensicality. Man now 
 begins to want to be and become something. What? 
 Good, beautiful, true ; more precisely, moral, pious, agree- 
 able, etc. He wants to make of himself a "proper man," 
 "something proper." Man is his goal, his ought, his 
 destiny, calling, task, his — ideal; he is to himself a fu- 
 ture, otherworldly he. And what makes a "proper fellow"' 
 of him? Being true, being goo d, being moral, and the 
 
 * [Cf. note p. 81.] t [Geistigkeit] t [Geistlichkeit] 
 
350 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 like. Now he looks askance at every one who does not 
 recognize the same ''what/' seek the same moraHty, have j 
 the same faith; he chases out ''separatists, heretics, | 
 sects/' etc. j 
 
 No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper 1 1 
 sheep, a proper dog" ; no beast has its essence appear to | ' 
 it as a task, i, e, as a concept that it has to reaHze. It ( 
 reaHzes itself in living itself out, i. e, dissolving itself, | j 
 passing away. It does not ask to be or to become any- j 
 thing other than it is. , 
 
 Do I mean to advise you to be like the beasts ? That 1 1 
 you ought to become beasts is an exhortation which I I, 
 certainly cannot give you, as that would again be a task, ( 
 an ideal ("How doth the little busy bee improve each I, 
 shinning hour ... In works of labor or of skill I , 
 would be busy too, for Satan finds some mischief still , 
 for idle hands to do"). It would be the same, too, as ! 
 if one wished for the beasts that they should become hu- | , 
 man beings. Your nature is, once for all, a human one ; j 
 you are human natures, i, e. human beings. But, just | , 
 because you already are so, you do not still need to be- | , 
 come so. Beasts too are "trained," and a trained beast , 
 executes many unnatural things. But a trained dog is no j 
 better for itself than a natural one, and has no profit j 
 from it, even if it is more companionable f of us. , , 
 
 Exertions to "form" all men into moral, rational, pious, ij 
 human, etc., "beings" (i. e, training) were in vogue from j| 
 of yore. They are wrecked against the indomitable qual- \ | 
 ity of I, against own nature, against egoism. Those who I , 
 are trained never attain their ideal, and only profess with i j 
 their mouth the sublime principles, or make a profession, , 
 a profession of faith. In face of this profession they j 
 must in life "acknowledge themselves sinners altogether," i j 
 and they fall short of their ideal, are "weak men," and , , 
 bear with them the consciousness of "human weakness." | 
 
 It is different if you do not chase after an ideal as \ \ 
 your "destiny/' but dissolve yourself as time dissolves , 
 everything. The dissolution is not your "destiny," be- , 
 cause it is present time. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 351 
 
 Yet the culture, the reHgiousness, of men has assuredly 
 made them free, but only free from one lord, to lead 
 them to another. I have learned by religion to tame my 
 appetite, I break the world's resistance by the cunning 
 that is put in my hand by science; I even serve no man; 
 ''I am no man's lackey." But then it comes, You must 
 obey God more than man. Just so I am indeed free 
 from irrational determination by my impulses, but obed- 
 ient to the master Reason. I have gained ''spiritual free- 
 dom," "freedom of the spirit." But with that I have 
 then become subject to that very spirit. The spirit gives 
 me orders, reason guides me, they are my leaders and 
 commanders. The ''rational," the "servants of the spirit," 
 rule. But, if I am. not flesh, I am in truth not spirit 
 either. Freedom of the spirit is servitude of me, be- 
 cause I am more than spirit or flesh. 
 
 Without doubt culture has made me powerful. It has 
 given me power over all motives, over the impulses of my 
 nature as well as over the exactions and violences of the 
 world. I know, and have gained the force for it by 
 culture, that I need not let myself be coerced by any 
 appetites, pleasures, emotions, etc.; I am their — master; 
 in like manner I become, through the sciences and arts, 
 the master of the refractory world, whom sea and earth 
 obey, and to whom even the stars must give an account of 
 themselves. The spirit has made me master. — But I 
 have no power over the spirit itself. From religion (cul- 
 ture) I do learn the means for the "vanquishing of the 
 world," but not how I am to subdue God too and become 
 master of him ; for God "is the spirit." And this same 
 spirit, of which I am unable to become master, may have 
 the most manifold shapes : he may be called God or Na- 
 tional Spirit, State, Family, Reason, also — Liberty, Hu- 
 manity, Man. 
 
 I receive with thanks what the centuries of culture 
 have acquired for me ; I am not willing to throw away and 
 give up anything of it: I have not lived in vain. The 
 experience that I have po7ver over my nature, and need 
 not be the slave of my appetites, shall not be lost to me ; 
 
352 
 
 THE EGO' AND HIS OWN 
 
 the experience that I can subdue the world by culture's 
 means is too dear-bought for me to be able to forget it. 
 But I want still more. 
 
 People ask, what can man do? what can he accom- 
 plish? what goods procure? and put down the highest 
 of everything as a calling. As if everything were possible 
 to me! 
 
 Ii one sees somebody going to ruin in a mania, a 
 passion, etc. (e, g. in the huckster-spirit, in jealousy), the 
 desire is stirred to deliver him out of this possession and 
 to help him to ''self-conquest.'' 'We want to make a 
 man of him!" That would be very fine if another 
 possession were not immediately put in the place of the 
 earlier one. But one frees from the love of money him 
 who is a thrall to it, only to deliver him over to piety, 
 humanity, or some principle else, and to transfer him 
 to a fixed standpoint anew. 
 
 This transference from a narrow standpoint to a su- 
 blime one is declared in the words that the sense must 
 not be directed to the perishable, but to the imperishable 
 alone: not to the temporal, but to the eternal, absolute, 
 divine, purely human, etc., — to the spiritual. 
 
 People very soon discerned that it was not indifferent 
 what one set his affections on, or what one occupied him- 
 self with; they recognized the importance of the ob- 
 ject. An object exalted above the individuality of things 
 is the essence of things ; yes, the essence is alone the 
 thinkable in them, it is for the thinking man. Therefore 
 direct no longer your sense to the things, but your thoughts \ 
 to the essence. "Blessed are they who set not, and yet 
 believe" ; i. e. blessed are the thinkers, for they have to 
 do with the invisible and believe in it. Yet even an object 
 of thought, that constituted an essential point of conten-l 
 tion centuries long, comes at last to the point of being 
 **no longer worth speaking of." This was discerned, 
 but nevertheless people always kept before their eyes 
 again a self-valid importance of the object, an absolute 
 value of it, as if the doll were not the most important 
 thing to the child^ the Koran to the Turk. As long as Ij 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 353 
 
 am not the sole important thing to myself, it is indifferent 
 of what object I ''make much," and only my greater or 
 lesser delinquency against it is of value. The degree of 
 my attachment and devotion marks the standpoint of my 
 liability to service, the degree of my sinning shows the 
 measure of my ownness. 
 
 But finally, and in general, one must know how to ''put 
 everything out of his mind," if only so as to be able to 
 — go to sleep. Nothing may occupy us with which we 
 do not occupy ourselves : the victim of ambition cannot 
 run away from his ambitious plans, nor the God-fearing 
 man from the thought of God ; infatuation and possessed- 
 ness coincide. 
 
 To want to realize his essence or live conformably to 
 his concept (which with believers in God signifies as 
 much as to be "pious," and with believers in humanity 
 means living "humanly") is what only the sensual and 
 sinful man can propose to himself, the man so long as 
 he has the anxious choice between happiness of sense and 
 peace of soul, so long as he is a "poor sinner." The 
 Christian is nothing but a sensual man who. knowing of 
 the sacred and being conscious that he violates it, sees 
 in himself a poor sinner : sensualness, recognized as "sin- 
 fulness," is Christian consciousness, is the Christian him- 
 self. And if "sin" and "sinfulness" are now no longer 
 taken into the mouths of moderns, but, instead of that, 
 "egoism," "self-seeking," "selfishness," and the like, en- 
 gage them ; if the devil has been translated into the "un- 
 man" or "egoistic man," — is the Christian less present 
 then than before? Is not the old discord between good 
 and evil, — is not a judge over us, man — is not a calling, 
 the calling to make oneself man — left? If they no longer 
 name -it calling, but '*task" or, very likely, "duty," the 
 change of name is quite correct, because "man" is not, 
 like God, a personal being that can "call" ; but outside 
 the name the thing remains as of old. 
 
 Every one has a relation to objects, and more, every 
 one is differently related to them. Let us choose as an 
 
354 THE EGOi AND HIS OWN 
 
 example that book to which millions of men had a rela- 
 tion for two thousand years, the Bible. What is it, what 
 was it, to each? Absolutely, only what he made out of 
 it! For him who makes to himself nothing at all out of 
 it, it is nothing at all ; for him who uses it as an amulet, 
 it has solely the value, the significance, of a means of 
 sorcery ; for him who, like children, plays with it, it is 
 nothing but a plaything; etc. 
 
 Now, Christianity asks that it shall be the same for all' 
 say, the sacred book or the ''sacred Scriptures." This 
 means as much as that the Christian's view shall also 
 be that of other men, and that no one may be otherwise 
 related to that object. And with this the ownness of the 
 relation is destroyed, and one mind, one disposition, is 
 fixed as the ''true/' the ''only true" one. In the limitation 
 of the freedom to make of the Bible what I will, the 
 freedom of making in general is limited; and the coercion 
 of a view or a judgment is put in its place. He who 
 should pass the judgment that the Bible was a long error 
 of mankind would judge — criminally. 
 
 In fact the child who tears it to pieces or plays with 
 it, the Inca Atahualpa who lays his ear to it and throws it 
 away contemptuously when it remains dumb, judges just 
 as correctly about the Bible as the priest who praises in 
 it the "Word of God," or the critic who calls it a job of 
 men's hands. For how we toss things about is the affair 
 of our option, our free will-' we use them according to our 
 heart's pleasure, or, more clerxly, we use them just as 
 we can. Why, what do the parsons scream about when 
 they see how Hegel and the speculative theologians make 
 speculative thoughts out of the contents of the Bible? 
 Precisely this, that they deal with it according to their 
 heart's pleasure, or "proceed arbitrarily with it." 
 
 But, because we all show ourselves arbitrary in the 
 handling of objects, i. e. do with them as we like best, at 
 our liking (the philosopher likes nothing so well as when 
 he can trace out an "idea" in everything, as the God- 
 fearing man likes to make God his friend by everything, 
 and so, e, g. by keeping the Bible sacred), therefore we 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 355 
 
 nowhere meet such grievous arbitrariness, sucn a fright- 
 ful tendency to violence, such stupid coercion, as in this 
 very domain of our — own free will. If we proceed 
 arbitrarily in taking the sacred objects thus or so, how 
 is it then that we want to take it ill of the parson-spirits 
 if they take us just as arbitrarily in their fashion, and 
 esteem us worthy of the heretic's fire or of another pun- 
 ishment, perhaps of the — censorship? 
 
 What a man is, he makes out of things ; *'as you look 
 at the world, so it looks at you again." Then the wise 
 advice makes itself heard again at once, You must only 
 look at it ''rightly, unbiasedly,'' etc. As if the child did 
 not look at the Bible ''rightly and unbiasedly" when it 
 makes it a plaything. That shrewd precept is given us, 
 e. g, by Feuerbach. One does look at things rightly when 
 one makes of them what one will (by things objects in 
 general are here understood, such as God, our fellow- 
 men, a sweetheart, a book, a beast, etc.). And therefore 
 the things and the looking at them are not first, but I 
 am, my will is. One will bring thoughts out of the things, 
 will discover reason in the world, will have sacredness in 
 it: therefore one shall find them. *'Seek and ye shall 
 find.'' What I will seek, / determine: I want, e, g,, to 
 get edification from the Bible ; it is to be found ; I want 
 to read and test the Bible thoroughly; my outcome will 
 be a thorough instruction and criticism — to the extent 
 of my powers. I elect for myself what I have a fancy 
 for, and in electing I show myself — arbitrary. 
 
 Connected with this is the discernment that every judg- 
 ment which I pass upon an object is the creature of my 
 will; and that discernment again leads me to not losing 
 myself in the creature, the judgment, but remaining the 
 creator, the judger, who is ever creating anew. All pre- 
 dicates of objects are my statements, my judgments, my 
 — creatures. If they want to tear themselves loose from 
 me and be something for themselves, or actually overawe 
 me, then I have nothing more pressing to do than to take 
 them back into their nothing, i. e. into me the creator. 
 God, Christ, trinity, morality, the good, etc., are such 
 
356 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 creatures, of which I must not merely allow myself to 
 say that they are truths, but also that they are deceptions. 
 As I once willed and decreed their existence, so I want to 
 have license to will their non-existence too; I must not 
 let them grow over my head, must not have the weak- 
 ness to let them become something ''absolute," whereby 
 they would be eternalized and withdrawn from my power 
 and decision. With that I should fall a prey to the prin- 
 ciple of stability, the proper life-principle of religion, 
 which* concerns itself with creating '^sanctuaries that must 
 not be touched," "eternal truths," — in short, that which 
 shall be ''sacred" — and depriving you of what is yours. 
 
 The object makes us into possessed men in its sacred 
 form just as in its profane; as a supersensuous object, 
 just as it does as a sensuous one. The appetite or mania 
 refers to both, and avarice and longing for heaven stand 
 on a level. When the rationalists wanted to win people 
 for the sensuous world, Lavater preached the longing 
 for the invisible. The one party wanted to call forth 
 emotion, the other motion, activity. 
 
 The conception of, objects is altogether diverse, even 
 as God, Christ, the world, etc., were and are conceived of 
 in the most manifold wise. In this every one is a "dis- 
 senter," and after bloody combats so much has at last 
 been attained, that opposite views about one and the 
 same object are no longer condemned as heresies worthy 
 of death. The "dissenters" reconcile themselves to each 
 other. But why should I only dissent (think other- 
 wise) about a thing? why not push the thinking other- 
 wise to its la&t extremity, vi^,, that of no longer having 
 any regard at all for the thing, and therefore thinking 
 its nothingness, crushing it? Then the conception itself 
 has an end, because there is no longer anything to con- 
 ceive of. Why am I to say, let us suppose, "God is not 
 Allah, not Brahma, not Jehovah, but — ^God"; but not, 
 "God is nothing but a deception"? Why do people brand 
 me if I am an "atheist" ? Because they put the creature 
 above the creator ("They honor and serve the creature 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 357 
 
 more than the Creator''*) and require a ruling object, 
 that the subject may be right submissive, I am to bend 
 beneath the absolute, I ought to. 
 
 By the ''realm of thoughts" Christianity has completed 
 itself ; the thought is that inwardness in which all the 
 world's lights go out, all existence becomes existenceless, 
 the inward man (the heart, the head) is all in all. This 
 realm of thoughts awaits its deliverance, awaits, like the 
 Sphinx, CEdipus's key-word to the riddle, that it may 
 enter in at last to its death. I am the annihilator of its 
 continuance, for in the creator's realm it no longer forms 
 a realm of its own, not a State in the State, but a creature 
 of my creative — thoughtlessness. Only together and at 
 the same time with the benumbed thinking world can the 
 world of Christians, Christianity and religion itself, come 
 to its downfall; only when thoughts run out are there 
 no more believers. To the thinker his thinking is a ''su- 
 blime labor, a sacred activity," and it rests on a firm 
 faith, the faith in truth. At first praying is a sacred 
 activity, then this sacred "devotion" passes over into a 
 rational and reasoning ''thinking," which, however, like- 
 wise retains in the "sacred truth" its underangeable basis 
 of faith, and is only a marvelous machine that the spirit 
 of truth winds up for its service. Free thinking and free 
 science busy me — for it is not I that am free, not / that 
 busy myself, but thinking is free and busies me — ^with 
 heaven and the heavenly or "divine"; that is, properly, 
 with the world and the worldly, not this world but "an 
 other" world ; it is only the reversing and deranging of 
 the world, a busying with the essence of the world, there- 
 fore a derangement. The thinker is blind to the im- 
 rnediateness of things, and incapable of mastering them: 
 he does not eat, does not drink, does not enjoy; for the 
 eater and drinker is never the thinker, nay, the latter 
 forgets eating and drinking, his getting on in life, the 
 cares of nourishment, etc., over his thinking; he forgets 
 it as the praying man too forgets it. This is why he ap- 
 pears to the forceful son of nature as a queer Dick, a 
 
 * Rom. 1, 25. 
 
358 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 fool — even if he does look upon him as holy, just as 
 lunatics appeared so to the ancients. Free thinking is 
 lunacy, because it is pure movement of the inwardness, 
 of the merely inward man, which guides and regulates 
 the rest of the man. The shaman and the speculative 
 philosopher mark the bottom and top rounds on the lad- 
 der of the inward man, the — Mongol. Shaman and philos- 
 opher fight with ghosts, demons, spirits, gods. 
 
 Totally different from this free thinking is own think- 
 ing, my thinking, a thinking which does not guide me, 
 but is guided, continued, or broken off, by me at my 
 pleasure. The distinction of this own thinking from free 
 thinking is similar to that of own sensuality, which I 
 satisfy at pleasure, from free, unruly sensuality to which 
 I succomb. 
 
 Feuerbach, in the "Principles of the Philosophy of 
 the Future," is always harping upon being. In this he 
 too, with all his antagonism to Hfegel and the absolute 
 philosophy, is stuck fast in abstraction ; for ''being" is 
 abstraction, as is even "the I." Only / am not abstrac- 
 tion alone : / am all* in all, consequently even abstraction 
 or nothing; I am all and nothing: I am not a mere 
 thought, but at the same time I am full of thoughts, a 
 thought-world. Hegel condemns the own, mine* — "opin- 
 ion."f "Absolute thinking" is that thinking which for- 
 gets that it is my thinking, that / think, and that it exists 
 only through me. But I, as I, swallow up again what 
 is mine, am its master; it is only my opinion, which I 
 can at any moment change, i. e. annihilate, take back 
 into myself, and consume. Feuerbach wants to smite 
 Hegel's "absolute thinking" with unconquered being. But 
 in me being is as much conquered as thinking is. It 
 is my being, as the other is my thinking. 
 
 With this, of course, Feuerbach does not get further 
 than to the proof, trivial in itself, that I require the 
 senses for everything, or that I cannot entirely do with- 
 out these organs. Certainly I cannot think if I do not 
 
 * [das Meinige] f [die— "Meinung''] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 359 
 
 exist sensuously. But for thinking as weli as for feel- 
 ing, and so for the abstract as well as for the sensuous, 
 I need above all things myself, this quite particular my- 
 self, this unique myself. If I were not this one, e. g, 
 Hegel, I should not look at the world as I do look at 
 it, I should not pick out of it that philosophical system 
 which just I as Hegel do, etc. I should indeed have 
 senses, as do other people too, but I should not utilize 
 them as I do. 
 
 Thus the reproach is brought up against Hegel by 
 Feuerbach* that he misuses language, understanding by 
 many words something else than what natural conscious- 
 ness takes them for ; and yet he too commits the same 
 fault when he gives the ''sensuous'' a sense of unusual 
 eminence. Thus, it is said, p. 69, ''the sensuous is not 
 the profane, the destitute of thought, the obvious, that 
 which is understood of itself.'' But, if it is the sacred, 
 the full of thought, the recondite, that which can be 
 understood only through mediation — well, then it is no 
 longer what people call the sensuous. The sensuous 
 is only that which exists for the senses; what, on the 
 other hand, is enjoyable only to those who enjoy with 
 7nore than the senses, who go beyond sense-enjoyment 
 or sense-reception, is at most mediated or introduced 
 by the senses, i. e. the senses constitute a condition for 
 obtaining it, but it is no longer anything sensuous. The 
 sensuous, whatever it may be, when taken up into me 
 becomes something non-sensuous, which, however, m^ay 
 again have sensuous effects, e. g. by the stirring of my 
 emotions and my blood. 
 
 It is well that Feuerbach brings sensuousness to honor, 
 but the only thing he is able to do with it is to clothe 
 the materialism of his "new philosophy" with what had 
 hitherto been the property of idealism, the "absolute phil- 
 osophy." As little as people let it be talked into them 
 that one can live on the "spiritual" alone without bread, 
 so little will they believe his word that as a sensuous 
 
 * P. 47 ff . 
 
360 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 being one is already everything, and so spiritual, full of 
 thoughts, etc. 
 
 Nothing at all is justified by being. What is thought 
 of is as well as what is not thought of ; the stone in the 
 street is, and my notion of it is too. Both are only in 
 different spaces, the former in airy space, the latter in 
 my head, in me; for I am space like the street. 
 
 The professionals, the privileged, brook no freedom 
 of thought, i. e. no thoughts that do not come from the 
 ''Giver of all good," be he called God, pope, church, or 
 whatever else. Ii anybody has such illegitimate thoughts, 
 he must whisper them into his confessor's ear, and have 
 himself chastised by him till the slave-whip becomes 
 unendurable to the free thoughts. In other ways too 
 the professional spirit takes care that free thoughts shall 
 not come at all : first and foremost, by a wise education. 
 He on whom the principles of morality have been duly 
 inculcated never becomes free again from moralizing 
 thoughts, and robbery, perjury, overreaching, and the 
 like, remain to him fixed ideas against which no free- 
 dom of thought protects him. He has his thouglits 
 ''from above," and gets no further. 
 
 It is different with the holders of concessions or pat- 
 ents. Every one must be able to have and form thoughts 
 as he will. If he has the patent, or the concession, of a 
 capacity to think, he needs no special privilege. But, 
 as "all men are rational," it is free to every one to put 
 into his head any thoughts whatever, and, to the extent 
 of the patent of his natural endowment, to have a greater 
 or less wealth of thoughts. Now one hears the admoni- 
 tions that one "is to honor all opinions and convictions," 
 that "every conviction is authorized," that one must be 
 "tolerant to the views of others," etc. 
 
 But "your thoughts are not my thoughts, and your 
 ways are not my ways." Or rather, I mean the reverse: 
 "Your thoughts are my thoughts, which I dispose of as 
 I will, and which I strike down unmercifully ; they are 
 my property, which I annihilate as I list. I do not wait 
 for authorization from you first, to decompose and blow 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 361 
 
 away your thoughts. It does not matter to me that you 
 call these thoughts yours too, they remain mine never- 
 theless, and how I will proceed with them is my aifair, 
 not a usurpation. It may please me to leave you in your 
 thoughts; then I keep still. Do you believe thoughts 
 fly around free like birds, so that every one may get 
 Himself some which he may then make good against me 
 as his inviolable property? What is flying around is 
 all — mine. 
 
 Do you believe you have your thoughts for your- 
 selves and need answer to no one for them, or, as you 
 do also say, you have to give an account of them to God 
 only? No, your great and small thoughts belong to me, 
 and I handle them at my pleasure. 
 
 The thought is my own only when I have no misgiv- 
 ing about bringing it in danger of death every moment, 
 when I do not have to fear its loss as a loss for me, a 
 loss to me. The thought is my own only when I can 
 indeed subjugate it, but it never can subjugate me, never 
 fanaticizes me, makes me the tool of its realization. 
 
 So freedom of thought exists when I can have all pos- 
 sible thoughts ; but the thoughts become property only 
 by not being able to become masters. In the time of 
 freedom of thought, thoughts (ideas) rule ; but, if I at- 
 tain to property in thought, they stand as my creatures. 
 
 If the hierarchy had not so penetrated men to the mner- 
 most as to take from them all courage to pursue free 
 thoughts, i, e. thoughts perhaps displeasing to God, one 
 would have to consider freedom of thought just as 
 empty a word as, say, a freedom of digestion. 
 
 According to the professionals' opinion, the thought is 
 given to me ; according to the freethinkers', / seek the 
 thought. There the truth is already found and extant, 
 only I must — receive it from its Giver by grace; here the 
 truth is to be sought and is my goal, lying in the future, 
 toward which I have to run. 
 
 In both cases the truth (the true thought) lies out- 
 side me, and I aspire to get it, be it by presentation 
 (grace), be it by earning (merit of my own). Therefore, 
 
362 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 (1) The truth is a privilege, (2) No, the way to it is 
 patent to all, and neither the Bible nor the holy fathers 
 nor the church nor any one else is in possession of the 
 truth ; but one can come into possession of it by — specu- 
 lating. 
 
 Both, one sees, are propertyless in relation to the 
 truth; they have it either as a fief (for the ''holy father," 
 e. g., is not a unique person ; as unique he is this Sixtus, 
 Clement, etc., but he does not have the truth as Sixtus, 
 Clement, etc., but as ''holy father,'' i. e. as a spirit) or as 
 an ideal. As a fief, it is only for a few (the privileged) ; 
 as an ideal, for all (the patentees). 
 
 Freedom of thought, then, has the meaning that we 
 do indeed all walk in the dark and in the paths of error, 
 but every one can on this path approach the truth, and 
 is accordingly on the right path ("All roads lead to 
 Rome, to the world's end, etc."). Hence freedom of 
 thought means this much, that the true thought is not my 
 own; for, if it were this, how should people want to shut 
 me off from it? 
 
 Thinking has become entirely free, and has laid down 
 a lot of truths which / must accommodate myself to. It 
 seeks to complete itself into a system and to bring itself 
 to an absolute "constitution." In the State e. g, it seeks 
 for the ideä, say, till it has brought out the "rational 
 State," in which I am then obliged to be suited ; in man 
 (anthropology), till it "has found man." 
 
 The thinker is distinguished from the believer only by 
 believing much more than the latter, who on his part 
 thinks of much less as signified by his faith (creed). The 
 thinker has a thousand tenets of faith where the believer 
 gets along with few ; but the former brings coherence 
 into his tenets, and takes the coherence in turn for the 
 scale to estimate their worth by. If one or the other does 
 not fit into his budget, he throws it out. 
 
 The thinkers run parallel to the believers in their pro- 
 nouncements. Instead of "If it is from God you will not 
 root it out," the word is "If it is from the truth, is true, 
 etc." ; instead of "Give God the glory" — "Give truth the 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 363 
 
 glory/* But it is very much the same to me whether God 
 or the truth wins ; first and foremost / want to win. 
 
 Aside from this, how is an ''unHmited freedom'' to be 
 thinkable inside of the State or society ? The State may 
 well protect one against another, but yet it must not let 
 itself be endangered by an unmeasured freedom, a so- 
 called unbridledness. Thus in ''freedom of instruction'' 
 the State declares only this — that it is suited with every 
 one who instructs as the State (or, speaking more com- 
 prehensibly, the political power) would have it. The 
 point for the competitors is this ''as the State would have 
 it." If the clergy, e, g., does not will as the State does, 
 then it itself excludes itself from competition {vid. 
 France) . The limit that is necessarily drawn in the State 
 for any and all competition is called "the oversight and 
 superintendence of the State." In bidding freedom of 
 instruction keep within the due bounds, the State at the 
 same time fixes the scope of freedom of thought; be- 
 cause, as a rule, people do not think farther than their 
 teachers have thought. 
 
 Hear Minister Guizot: *'The great difficulty of to-day 
 is the guiding and dominating of the mind. Formerly the 
 church fulfilled this mission ; now it is not adequate to it. 
 It is from the university that this great service must be 
 expected, and the university will not fail to perform it. 
 We, the government, have the duty of supporting it 
 therein. The charter calls for the freedom of thought 
 and that of conscience."* So, in favor of freedom of 
 thought and conscience, the minister demands "the 
 guiding and dominating the mind." 
 
 Catholicism haled the examinee before the forum of 
 ecclesiasticism. Protestantism before that of biblical 
 Christianity. It would be but little bettered if one haled 
 him before that of reason, as Ruge, e. g,, wants to.f 
 Whether the church, the Bible, or reason (to which, 
 moreover, Luther and Huss already appealed) is the 
 sacred authority makes no difTerence in essentials. 
 
 * Chamber of peers. Apr. 25. 1844. t "Anecdota,'* 1, 120. 
 
364 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 The /'question of our time" does not become soluble 
 even when one puts it thus : Is anything general author- 
 ized, or only the individual? Is the generality (such as 
 State, law, custom, morality, etc.) authorized, or individ- 
 uality? It becomes soluble for the first time when one 
 no longer asks after an ''authorization'' at all, and does 
 not carry on a mere fight against "privileges." — A 
 "rational" freedom of teaching, which "recognizes only 
 the conscience of reason,"''' does not bring us to the goal ; 
 we require an egoistic freedom of teaching rather, a free- 
 dom of teaching for all ownness, wherein / become 
 audible and can announce myself unchecked. That I 
 make myself "audible/'f this alone is "reason,"^ be I 
 ever so irrational; in my making myself heard, and so 
 hearing myself, others as well as I myself enjoy me, and 
 at the same time consume me. 
 
 What would be gained if, as formerly the orthodox I, 
 the loyal I, the moral I, etc., was free, now the rational I 
 should become free? Would this be the freedom of me? 
 
 If I am free as "rational I," then the rational in me, 
 or reason, is free ; and this freedom of reason, or freedom 
 of the thought, was the ideal of the Christian world from 
 of old. They wanted to make thinking — and, as afore- 
 said, faith is also thinking, as thinking is faith — free; 
 the thinkers, i. e. the believers as well as the rational, were 
 to be free ; for the rest freedom was impossible. But the 
 freedom of thinkers is the "freedom of the children of 
 God," and at the same time the most merciless — hierarchy 
 or dominion of the thought ; for / succumb to the thought. 
 If thoughts are free, I am their slave; I have no power 
 over them, and am dominated by them. But I want to 
 have the thought, want to be full of thoughts, but at the 
 same time I want to be thoughtless, and, instead of free- 
 dom of thought, I preserve for myself thoughtlessness. 
 
 If the point is to have myself understood and to make 
 communications, then assuredly I can make use only of 
 human means, which are at my command because I am 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 365 
 
 at the same time man And really I have thoughts only 
 as man; as I, I am at the same time thoughtless,"^ He 
 who cannot get rid of a thought is so far only man, is a 
 thrall of language, this human institution, this treasury 
 of human thoughts. Language or ''the word" tyrannizes 
 hardest over us, because it brings up against us a whole 
 army of fixed ideas. Just observe yourself in the act of 
 reflection, right now, and you will find how you make 
 progress only by becoming thoughtless and speechless 
 every moment. You are not thoughtless and speechless 
 merely in (say) sleep, but even in the deepest reflection; 
 yes, precisely then most so. And only by this thought- 
 lessness, this unrecognized ''freedom of thought" or free- 
 dom from the thought, are you your own. Only from 
 it do you arrive at putting language to use as your 
 property. 
 
 If thinking is not my thinking, it is merely a spun-out 
 thought ; it is slave work, or the work of a "servant obey- 
 ing at the word." For not a thought, but I, am the be- 
 ginning for my thinking, and therefore I am its goal too, 
 even as its whole course is only a course of my self- 
 enjoyment ; for absolute or free thinking, on the other 
 hand, thinking itself is the beginning, and it plagues itself 
 with propounding this beginning as the extremest "ab- 
 straction" {e, g. as being). This very abstraction, or this 
 thought, is then spun out further. 
 
 Absolute thinking is the affair of the human spirit, and 
 this is a holy spirit. Hence this thinking is an affair of 
 the parsons, who have "a sense for it," a sense for the 
 "highest interests of mankind," for "the spirit." 
 
 To the believer, truths are a settled thing, a fact; to 
 the freethinker, a thing that is still to be settled. Be ab- 
 solute thinking ever so unbelieving, its incredulity has its 
 limits, and there does remain a belief in the truth, in the 
 spirit, in the idea and its final victory : this thinking does 
 not sin against the holy spirit. But all thinking that does 
 not sin against the holy spirit is belief in spirits or 
 ghosts. 
 
 * [Literally ''thought-rid."] 
 
366 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 I can as little renounce thinking as feeling, the spirit's 
 activity as little as the activity of the senses. As feeling 
 is our sense for things, so thinking is our sense for es- 
 sences (thoughts). Essences have their existence in 
 everything sensuous, especially in the word. The power 
 of words follows that of things; first one is coerced by 
 the rod, afterward by conviction. The might of things 
 overcomes our courage, our spirit ; against the power of 
 a conviction, and so of the word, even the rack and the 
 sword lose their overpoweringness and force. The men 
 of conviction are the priestly men, who resist every 
 enticement of Satan. 
 
 Christianity took away from the things of this world 
 only their irresistibleness, made us independent of them. 
 In like manner I raise myself above truths and their 
 power : as I am supersensual, so I am super-true. Before 
 me truths are as common and as indifferent as things ; 
 they do not cai-ry me away, and do not inspire me with 
 enthusiasm. There exists not even one truth, not right, 
 not freedom, humanity, etc., that has stability before me, 
 and to which I subject myself. They are words, nothing 
 but words, as all things are to the Christian nothing but 
 'Vain things.'' In words and truths (every word is a 
 truth, as Hegel asserts that one cannot tell a lie) there is 
 no salvation for me, as little as there is for the Christian 
 in things and vanities. As the riches of this world do 
 not make me happy, so neither do its truths. It is now 
 no longer Satan, but the spirit, that plays the story of the 
 temptation ; and he does not seduce by the things of this 
 world, but by its thoughts, by the ''glitter of the idea." 
 
 Along with worldly goods, all sacred goods too must 
 be put away as no longer valuable- 
 
 Truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words (Xoyoq) ; 
 brought into connection, or into an articulate series, they 
 form logic, science, philosophy. 
 
 For thinking and speaking I need truths and words, 
 as I do foods for eating; without them I cannot think 
 nor speak. Truths are men's thoughts, set down in words 
 and therefore just as extant as other things, although 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 367 
 
 extant only for the mind or for thinking. They are 
 human institutions and human creatures, and, even if they 
 are given out for divine revelations, there still remains 
 in them the quality of alienness for me ; yes, as my own 
 creatures they are already alienated from me after the 
 act of creation. 
 
 The Christian man is the man with faith in thinking, 
 who believes in the supreme dominion of thoughts and 
 wants to bring thoughts, so-called ''principles," to 
 dominion. Many a one does indeed test the thoughts, and 
 chooses none of them for his master without criticism, 
 but in this he is like the dog who sniffs at people to smell 
 out ''his master" ; he is always aiming at the ruling 
 thought. The Christian may reform and revolt an infinite 
 deal, may demolish the ruling concepts of centuries ; he 
 will always aspire to a new "principle" or new master 
 again, always set up a higher or "deeper" truth again, 
 always call forth a cult again, always proclaim a spirit 
 called to dominion, lay down a law for all. 
 
 If there is even one truth only to which man has to 
 devote his life and his powers because he is man, then 
 he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc. ; he is a 
 servingman. It is supposed that, e. g., man, humanity, 
 liberty, etc., are such truths. 
 
 On the other hand, one can say thus : Whether you will 
 further occupy yourself with thinking depends on you ; 
 only know that, if in your thinking you would like to 
 make out anything worthy of notice, many hard problems 
 are to be solved, without vanquishing which you cannot 
 get far. There exists, therefore, no duty and no calling 
 for you to meddle with thoughts (ideas, truths) ; but, if 
 you will do so, you will do well to utilize what the forces 
 of others have already achieved toward clearing up these 
 difficult subjects. 
 
 Thus, therefore, he who will think does assuredly have 
 a task, which he consciously or unconsciously sets for 
 himself in willing that ; but no one has the task of think- 
 ing or of believing. — In the former case it may be said. 
 You do not go far enough, you have a narrow and biased 
 
368 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN. 
 
 interest, you do not go to the bottom of the thing ; in 
 short, you do not completely subdue it. But, on the other 
 hand, however far you may come at any time, you are 
 still always at the end, you have no call to step farther, 
 and you can have it as you will or as you are able. It 
 stands with this as with any other piece of work, which 
 you can give up when the humor for it wears off. Just so, ^ 
 if you can no longer believe a thing, you do not have to 
 force yourself into faith or to busy yourself lastingly as 
 if with a sacred truth of the faith, as theologians or 
 philosophers do, but you can tranquilly draw back your 
 interest from it and let it run. Priestly spirits will indeed 
 expound this your lack of interest as "'laziness, thought- 
 lessness, obduracy, self-deception," and the like. But do 
 you just let the trumpery lie, notwithstanding. No thing,* 
 no so-called ''highest interest of mankind,'' no "sacred 
 cause,''t is worth your serving it, and occupying your- 
 self with it for its sake; you may seek its worth in this 
 alone, whether it is worth anything to you for your sake, 
 ßecome like children, the biblical saying admonishes us. 
 But children have no sacred interest and know nothing 
 of a "good cause." They know all the more accurately 
 what they have a fancy for ; and they think over, to the 
 best of their powers, how they are to arrive at it. 
 
 Thinking will as little cease as feeling. But the power 
 of thoughts and ideas, the dominion of theories and prin- 
 ciples, the sovereignty of the spirit, in short the — hier- 
 archy, lasts as long as the parsons, i. e. theologians, phil- 
 osophers, statesmen, philistines, liberals, schoolmasters, 
 servants, parents, children, married couples, Proudhon, 
 George Sand, Bluntschli, etc., etc., have the floor ; the 
 hierarchy will endure as long as people believe in, think 
 of, or even criticise, principles ; for even the most inex- 
 orable criticism, which undermines all current principles, 
 still does finally believe in the principle. 
 
 Every one criticises, but the criterion is different. Peo- 
 ple run after the "right" criterion. The right criterion is 
 
 * [Sachel 
 
 t [Sache] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 369 
 
 the first presupposition. The critic starts from a proposi- 
 tion, a truth, a behef . This is not a creation of the critic, 
 but of the dogmatist ; nay, commonly it is actually taken 
 up out of the culture of the time without further cere- 
 mony, like e. g. ''liberty,'' ''humanity," etc. The critic 
 has not "discovered man," but this truth has been estab- 
 lished as "man" by the dogmatist, and the critic (who, be- 
 sides, may be the same person with him) believes in this 
 truth, this article of faith. In this faith, and possessed 
 by this faith, he criticises. 
 
 The secret of criticism is some "truth" or other: this 
 remains its energizing mystery. 
 
 But I distinguish between servile and own criticism. 
 If I criticise under the presupposition of a supreme being, 
 my criticism serves the being and is carried on for its sake : 
 if, e. g., I am possessed by the belief in a "free State," then 
 everything that has a bearing on it I criticise from the 
 standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, for I 
 love this State ; if I criticise as a pious man, then for me 
 everything falls into the classes of divine and diabolical, 
 and before my criticism nature consists of traces of God 
 or traces of the devil (hence names like Godsgift, God- 
 mount, the Devil's Pulpit, etc.), men of believers and 
 unbelievers, etc. ; if I criticise while believing in man as the 
 "true essence," then for me everything falls primarily into 
 the classes of man and the un-man, etc. 
 
 Criticism has to this day remained a work of love : for 
 at all times we exercised it for the love of some being. All 
 servile criticism is a product of love, a possessedness, and 
 proceeds according to that New Testament precept, "Test 
 everything and hold fast the goodf^ . "The good" is the 
 touchstone, the criterion. The good, returning under a 
 thousand names and forms, remained always the pre- 
 supposition, remained the dogmatic fixed point for this 
 criticism, remained the — fixed idea. 
 
 The critic, in setting to work, impartially presupposes 
 the "truth," and seeks for the truth in the belief that it is 
 
 * 1 Thess. 5, 21. 
 
370 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 to be found. He wants to ascertain the true, and has 
 in it that very ^'good/' 
 
 Presupposes means nothing else than put a thought in 
 front, or think something before everything else and think 
 the rest from the starting-point of this that has been 
 thought, i. e, measure and criticise it by this. In other 
 words, this is as much as to say that thinking is to begin 
 with something already thought. If thinking began at 
 all, instead of being begun, if thinking were a subject, an 
 acting personality of its own, as even the plant is such, 
 then indeed there would be no abandoning the principle 
 that thinking must begin with itself. But it is just the 
 personification of thinking that brings to pass those in- 
 numerable errors. In the Hegelian system they always 
 talk as if thinking or "the thinking spirit'' (i. e. personi- 
 fied thinking, thinking as a ghost) thought and acted ; in 
 critical liberalism it is always said that ''criticism'' does 
 till and that, or else that ''self-consciousness" finds this 
 and that. But, if thinking ranks as the personal actor, 
 thinking itself must be presupposed ; if criticism ranks as 
 such, a thought must likewise stand in front. Thinking 
 and criticism could be active only starting from them- j 
 selves, would have to be themselves the presupposition of [ 
 their activity, as without being they could not be active. 
 But thinking, as a thing presupposed, is a fixed thought, 
 a dogma; thinking and criticism, therefore, can start only 
 from a dogma, i. e, trom a thought, a fixed idea, a pre- 
 supposition. 
 
 With this we come back again to what was enunciated 
 above, the Christianity consists in the development of a 
 world of thoughts or that it is the proper "freedom 
 of thought," ' the "free thought," the "free spirit." 
 The "true" criticism, which I called "servile," is there- 
 fore just as much "free" criticism, for it is not my own. 
 
 The case stands otherwise when what is yours is not 
 made into something that is of itself, not personified, not 
 made independent as a "spirit" to itself. Your thinking 
 has for a presupposition not "thinking," but you. But 
 thus you do presuppose yourself after all? Yes, but not 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 371 
 
 for myself, but for my thinking. Before my thinking, 
 there is — I. From this it follows that my thinking is not 
 preceded by a thought, or that my thinking is without a 
 "presupposition/' For the presupposition which I am for 
 my thinking is not one made by thinking, not one thought 
 of , but it is posited thinking itself, it is the ozvner of the 
 thought, and proves only that thinking is nothing more 
 than — property, i. e, that an '^independent" thinking, a 
 ^'thinking spirit," does not exist at all. 
 
 This reversal of the usual way of regarding things 
 might so resemble an empty playing with abstractions that 
 even those against whom it is directed would acquiesce in 
 the harmless aspect I give it, if practical consequences 
 were not connected With it. 
 
 To bring these into a concise expression, the assertion 
 now made is that man is not the measure of all things, 
 ut I am this measure. The servile critic has before his 
 ^ye another being, an idea, which he means to serve ; 
 .:hereiore^h€ only slays the false idols for his God. What 
 is done for the love of this being, what else should it be 
 but a — work of love ? But I, when I criticise, do not even 
 have myself before my eyes, but am only doing myself a 
 pleasure, amusing myself according to my taste ; accord- 
 ing to my several needs I chew the thing up or only 
 inhale its odor. 
 
 The distinction between the two attitudes will come 
 out still more strikingly if one reflects that the servile 
 critic, because love guides him, supposes he is serving 
 the thing [cause] itself. 
 
 The truth, or *'truth in general," people are bound not 
 to give up, but to seek for. What else it is but the etre 
 supreme, the highest essence? Even ''true criticism" 
 would have to despair if it lost faith in the truth. And 
 yet the truth is only a — thought; but it is not merely "a" 
 thought, but the thought that is above all thoughts, the 
 irrefragable thought; it is the thought itself, which gives 
 the first hallowing to all others ; it is the consecration of 
 thoughts, the "absolute," the "sacred" thought. The 
 truth wears longer than all the gods ; for it is only in the 
 
372 THE EGO' AND HIS OWN 
 
 truth's service, and for love of it, that people have over-; 
 thrown the gods and at last God himself. "The truth" 
 outlasts the downfall of the world of gods, for it is the 
 immortal soul of this transitory world of gods, it is Deity 
 itself. 
 
 I will answer Pilate's question, What is truth? Truth 
 is the free thought, the free idea, the free spirit ; truth is 
 what is free from you, what is not your own, what is not 
 in your power. But truth is also the completely uninde- 
 pendent, impersonal, unreal, and incorporeal; truth can- 
 not step forward as you do, cannot move, change, de- 
 velop; truth awaits and receives everything from you, 
 and itself is only through you ; for it exists only — in 
 your head. You concede that the truth is a thought, but 
 say that not every thought is a true one, or, as you are 
 also likely to express it, not every thought is truly and 
 really a thought. And by what do you measure and 
 recognize the thought? By your impotence, to wit, by 
 your being no longer able to make any successful assault ! 
 on it ! When it overpowers you, inspires you, and carries 
 you away, then you hold it to be the true one. Its do- 
 minion over you certifies to you its truth ; and, when it ; 
 possesses you, and you are possessed by it, then you feel' 1 
 well with it, for then you have found your — lord and 
 master. When you were seeking the truth, what did your 
 heart then long for? For your master! You did not 
 aspire to your might, but to a Mighty One, and wanted I 
 to exalt a Mighty One (''Exalt ye the Lord our God!"). 
 The truth, my dear Pilate, is — the Lord, and all who seek 
 the truth are seeking and praising the Lord. Where does ^ 
 the Lord exist? Where else but in your head? He is | 
 only spirit, and, wherever you believe you really see him, 
 there he is a — ghost; for the Lord is merely something < 
 that is thought of, and it was only the Christian pains and « 
 agony to make the invisible, visible, the spiritual cor- I ' 
 poreal, that generated the ghost and was the frightful 1^ 
 misery of the belief in ghosts. ^ 
 
 As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe 
 in yourself, and you are a — servant, a — religious man, * 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 373 
 
 You alone are the truth, or rather, you are more than the 
 truth, which is nothing at all before you. You too do 
 assuredly ask about the truth, you too do assuredly 
 ^'criticise," but you do not ask about a "higher truth'' — 
 to wit, one that should be higher than you — nor criticise 
 according to the criterion of such a truth. You address 
 yourself to thoughts and notions, as you do to the appear- 
 ances of things, only for the purpose of making them 
 palatable to you, enjoyable to you, and your own: you 
 want only to subdue them and become their owner, you 
 want to orient yourself and feel at home in them, and 
 you find them true, or see them in their true light, when 
 they can no longer slip away from you, no longer have 
 any unseized or uncomprehended place, or when they 
 are right for you, when they are your property. If after- 
 ward they become heavier again, if they wriggle them- 
 selves out of your power again, then that is just their 
 untruth — to wit, your impotence. Your impotence is their 
 power, your humility their exaltation. Their truth, 
 therefore, is you, or is the nothing which you are for 
 them and in which they dissolve: their truth is their 
 nothingness. 
 
 Only as the property of me do the spirits, the truths, 
 get to rest; and they then for the first time really are, 
 when they have been deprived of their sorry existence 
 ^nd made a property of mine, when it is no longer said 
 ''the truth develops itself, rules, asserts itself ; history 
 (also a concept) wins the victory,'' and the like. The 
 truth never has Von a victory, but was always my means 
 to the victory, like the sword (''the sword of truth"). 
 The truth is dead, a letter, a word, a material that I 
 can use up. All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is 
 alive only in the same way as my lungs are alive — to wit, 
 in the measure of my own vitality. Truths are material, 
 like vegetables and weeds; as to whether vegetable or 
 weed, the decision lies in me. 
 
 Objects are to me only material that I use up. Wher- 
 ever I put my hand I grasp a truth, which I trim for 
 myself. The truth is certain to me, and I do not need 
 
374 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 to long after it. To do the truth a service is in no case t 
 my intent ; it is to me only a nourishment for my think- i ' 
 ing head, as potatoes are f or my digesting stomach, or as ! ( 
 a friend is for my social heart. As long as I have the ,j 
 humor and force for thinking, every truth serves me only i t 
 for me to work it up according to my powers. As reality j 
 or worldliness is ^'vain and a thing of naught'' for Chris- j 
 tians, so is the truth for me. It exists, exactly as much \ 
 as the things of this world go on existing although the I | 
 Christian has proved their nothingness ; but it is vain, be- ( 
 cause it has its value not in itself but in me. Of itself it 
 is valueless. The truth is a — creature. ; ( 
 
 As you produce innumerable things by your activity, i i 
 yes, shape the earth's surface anew and set up works of \ 
 men everywhere, so too you may still ascertain number- ' 
 less truths by your thinking, and we will gladly take | | 
 delight in them. Nevertheless, as I do not please to hand j 
 myself over to serve your newly discovered machines ( 
 mechanically, but only help to set them running for my j 
 benefit, so too I will only use your truths, without letting j 
 myself be used for their demands. 1 
 All truths beneath me are to my liking ; a truth above j 
 me, a truth that I should have to direct myself by, I am j 
 not acquainted with. For me there is no truth, for noth- [ 
 ing is more than I! Not even my essence, not even the ( 
 essence of man, is more than I ! than I, this *'drop in the| c 
 bucket," this ^^insignificant man"! 
 
 You believe that you have done the utmost when yoU| | 
 boldly assert that, because every time has its own truth, | ^ 
 there is no "absolute truth." Why, with this you never- 1 
 theless still leave to each time its truth, and thus you quite | j 
 genuinely create an "absoloite truth,'' a truth that no timcj j 
 lacks, because every time, however its truth may be, still | , 
 has a "truth." ^ ^ 1 1 
 
 Is it meant only that people have been thinking in ever]! ^ 
 time, and so have had thoughts or truths, and that in the { 
 subsequent time these were other than they were in the 
 earlier? No, the word is to be that every time had its { 
 **truth of faith" ; and in fact none has yet appeared in 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 375 
 
 which a ''higher truth" has not been recognized, a truth 
 that people beHeved they m-ust subject themselves to as 
 ''highness and majesty/' Every truth of a time is its 
 fixed idea, and, if people later found another truth, this 
 always happened only because they sought for another;; 
 they only reformed the folly and put a modern dress on 
 it. For they did want — who would dare doubt their justi- 
 fication for this? — they wanted to be "inspired by an 
 idea/' They wanted to be dominated — possessed, by a 
 thought! The most modern ruler of this kind is "our 
 essence,'' or "man/' 
 
 For all free criticism a thought was the criterion; for 
 own criticism I am, I the unspeakable, and so not the 
 merely thought-of; for what is merely thought of is 
 always speakable, because word and thought coincide. 
 That is true which is mine, untrue that whose own* I am; 
 true, e, g., the union ; untrue, the State and society. "Free 
 and true" criticism takes care for the consistent dominion 
 of a thought, an idea, a spirit ; "own" criticism, for noth- 
 ing but my self-enjoyment. But in this the latter is in 
 fact — and we will not spare it this "ignominy" ! — like the 
 bestial criticism of instinct. I, like the criticising beast, 
 am concerned only for myself, not "for the cause." / 
 am the criterion of truth, but I am not an idea, but more 
 than idea, i. e. unutterable. My criticism is not a "free" 
 criticism, not free from me, and not "servile/' not in the 
 service of an idea, but an own criticism. 
 
 True or human criticism makes out only whether some- 
 thing is suitable to man, to the true man ; but by own* 
 criticism you ascertain whether it is suitable to you. 
 
 Free criticism busies itself with ideas, and therefore is 
 always theoretical. However it may rage against ideas; 
 it still does not get clear of them. It pitches into the 
 ghosts, but it can do this only as it holds them to be 
 ghosts. The ideas it has to do with do not fully dis- 
 appear ; the.morning breeze of a new day does not scare 
 them away. 
 
 The critic may indeed come to ataraxy before ideas, 
 but he never gets rid of them, i. e. -he will never compre- 
 
376 
 
 THE EGO AND- HIS OWN 
 
 hend that above the bodily man there does not exist some- 
 thing higher — to wit, liberty, his. humanity, etc. He 
 always has a ''calling'' of man still left, ''humanity." And 
 this idea of humanity remains unrealized, just because it 
 is an "idea" and is to remain such. 
 
 If, on the other hand, I grasp the idea as my idea, then 
 it is already realized, because / am its reality ; its* reality 
 consists in the fact that I, the bodily, have it. 
 
 They say, the idea of liberty realizes itself in the his- 
 tory of the world. The reverse is the case ; this idea is 
 real as a man thinks it, and it is real in the measure in 
 which it is idea, i. e, in which I think it or have it. It is 
 not the idea of liberty that develops itself, but men de- 
 velop themselves, and, of course, in this self-development 
 develop their thinking too. 
 
 In short, the critic is not yet owner, because he still 
 fights with ideas as with powerful aliens — as the Chris- 
 tian is not owner of his "bad desires" so long as he has 
 to combat them ; for him who contends against vice, vice 
 exists. 
 
 Criticism remains stuck fast in the "freedom of know- 
 ing," the freedom of the spirit, and the spirit gains its 
 proper freedom when it fills itself with the pure, true 
 idea; this is the freedom of thinking, which cannot be 
 without thoughts. 
 
 Criticism smites one idea only by another, e, g. that of 
 privilege by that of manhood, or that of egoism by that| 
 of unselfishness. I 
 
 In general, the beginning of Christianity comes on the^ 
 stage again in its critical end, egoism being combated here 
 as there. I am not to make myself (the individual) count, 
 but the idea, the general. 
 
 Why, warfare of the priesthood with egoism, of the 
 spiritually-minded with the worldly-minded, constitutes 
 the substance of all Christian history. In the newest criti- 
 cism this war only becomes all-embracing, fanaticism 
 complete. Indeed, neither can it pass away till it passses 
 thus, after it has had its life and its rage out. 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 377 
 
 Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I 
 care ? Whether it is humane, liberal, whether unhuman, 
 illiberal, inhuman, what do I ask about that? If only it 
 accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in it, 
 then overlay it with predicates as you will ; it is all alike to 
 me. 
 
 Perhaps I too, in the. very next moment, defend myself 
 against my former thoughts; I too am likely to change 
 suddenly my mode of action ; but not on account of its not 
 corresponding to Christianity, not on account of its run- 
 ning counter to the eternal rights of man, not on account 
 of its affronting the idea of mankind, humanity, and hu- 
 manitarianism, but — because I am no longer all in it, be- 
 cause it no longer furnishes me any full enjoyment, 
 because L doubt the earlier thought or no longer please my- 
 self in the mode of action just now practised. 
 
 As the world as property has become a material with 
 which I undertake what I will, so the spirit too, as prop- 
 erty must sink down into a material before which I no 
 longer entertain any sacred dread. Then, firstly, I shall 
 shudder no more before a thought, let it appear as pre- 
 sumptuous and ''deviHsh" as it will, because, if it threatens 
 to become too inconvenient and unsatisfactory for me, its 
 end lies in my power; but neither shall I recoil from any 
 deed because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, im- 
 morality, wrongfulness, as little as St. Boniface pleased to 
 desist, through religious scrupulousness, from cutting 
 down the sacred oak of the heathens. If the things of 
 the world have once become vain, the thoughts of the 
 spirit must also become vain. 
 
 No thought is sacred, for let no thought rank as "de- 
 votions" ;* no feehng is sacred (no sacred feeling of 
 friendship, mothers feelings, etc.), no belief is sacred. 
 They are all alienable, my alienable property, and are an- 
 nihilated, as they are created, by me. 
 
 The Christian can lose all things or objects, the most 
 loved persons, these "objects" of his love, without giving 
 up himself (i.e., in the Christian sense, his spirit, his sou l) 
 
 * [Andachty a compound form of the word ''thought."] 
 
378 
 
 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 as lost. The owner can cast from him all the thoughts 
 that were dear to his heart and kindled his zeal, and will 
 likewise ''gain a thousandfold again," because he, their 
 creator, remains. 
 
 Unconsciously and involuntarily we all strive toward 
 ownness, and there will hardly be one among us who has 
 not given up a sacred feeling, a sacred thought, a sacred 
 belief ; nay, we probably meet no one who could not still 
 deliver himself from one or another of his sacred thoughts. 
 All our contention against convictions starts from the 
 opinion that maybe we are capable of driving our oppo- 
 nent out of his intrenchments of thought. But what I do 
 unconsciously. I half do, and therefore after every victory 
 over a faith I become again the prisoner (possessed) of a 
 faith which then takes my whole self anew into its service, 
 and makes me an enthusiast for reason after I have 
 ceased to be enthusiastic for the Bible, or an enthusiast 
 for the idea of humanity after I have fought long enough 
 for that of Christianity. 
 
 Doubtless, as owner of thoughts, I shall cover my prop- 
 erty with my shield, just as I do not, as owner of things, 
 willingly let everybody help himself to them ; but at the 
 same time I shall look forward smilingly to the outcome 
 of the battle, smilingly lay the shield on the corpses of my 
 thoughts and my faith, smilingly triumph when I am 
 beaten. That is the very humor of the thing. Every one 
 who has ''sublimer feelings'' is able to vent his humor on 
 the pettinesses of men ; but let it play with all "great 
 thoughts, sublime feelings, noble inspiration, and sacred 
 faith'' presupposes that I am the owner of all. 
 
 If religion has set up the proposition that we are sin- 
 ners altogether, I set over against it the other: we are 
 perfect altogether! For we are, every moment, all that 
 we can be ; and we never need be more. Since no defect 
 cleaves to us, sin has no meaning either. Show me a 
 sinner in the world still, if no one any longer needs to do 
 what suits a superior! If I only need do what suits my- 
 self, I am no sinner if I do not do what suits mvself, as I 
 do not injure in myself a "holy one" ; if, on the other hand, 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 379 
 
 I am to be pious, then I must do what suits God ; if I am to 
 act humanly, I must do what suits the essence of man, the 
 idea of mankind, etc. What rehgion calls the ''sinner,'' 
 humanitarianism calls the ''egoist." But, once more: if I 
 need not do what suits any other, is the "egoist,'' in whom 
 humanitarianism has borne to itself a new-fangled devil, 
 anything more than a piece of nonsense ? The egoist, be- 
 fore whom the humane shudder, is a spook as much as the 
 devil is : he exists only as a bogie and phantasm in their 
 brain. If they were not unsophisticatedly drifting back 
 and forth in the antediluvian opposition of good and evil, 
 to which they have given the modern names of ''human" 
 and "egoistic," they would not have freshened up the 
 hoary "sinner" into an "egoist" either, and put a new 
 patch on an old garment. But they could not do otherwise, 
 for they hold it for their task to be "men." They are rid 
 of the Good One ; good is left 
 
 We are perfect altogether, and on the whole earth there 
 is not one man who is a sinner ! There are crazy people 
 who imagine that they are God the Father, God the Son, 
 or the man in the moon, and so too the world swarms 
 with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners; but, as 
 the former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are 
 — not sinners. Their sin is imaginary. 
 
 Yet, it is insidiously objected, their craziness or their 
 possessedness is at least their sin. Their possessedness is 
 nothing but what they — could achieve, the result of their 
 development, just as Luther's faith in the Bible was all 
 that he was — competent to make out. The one brings 
 himself into the madhouse with his development, the other 
 brings himself therewith into the Pantheon and to the loss 
 of— Valhalla. 
 
 There is no sinner and no sinful egoism ! 
 
 Get away from me with your "philanthropy'*! Creep 
 in, you philanthropist, into the "dens of vice," linger 
 awhile in the throng of the great city : will you not every- 
 where find sin, and sin, and again sin ? Will you not wail 
 
 * fSee note on p. 91.] 
 
380 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 over corrupt humanity, not lament at the monstrous ego- 
 ism? Will you see a rich man without finding him pitiless 
 and ^'egoistic"? Perhaps you already call yourself an 
 atheist, but you remain true to the Christian feeling that a 
 camel will sooner go through a needle's eye than a rich 
 man not be an ''un-man/' How many do you see anyhow 
 that you would not throw into the "egoistic mass"? 
 What, therefore, has your philanthropy [love of man] 
 found ? Nothing but unlovable men ! And where do they 
 all come from ? From you, from your philanthropy ! You 
 brought the sinner with you in your head, therefore you 
 found him, therefore you inserted him everywhere. Do 
 not call men sinners, and they are not : you alone are the 
 creator of sinners ; you, who fancy that you love men, are 
 the very one to throw them into the mire of sin, the very 
 one to divide them into vicious and virtuous, into men and 
 un-men, the very one to befoul them with the slaver of 
 possessedness ; for you love not men, but man. But I tell 
 you, you have never seen a sinner, you have only — dream- 
 ed of him. 
 
 Self enjoyment is embittered to me by my thinking I 
 must serve another, by my fancying myself under obliga- 
 tion to him, by my holding myself called to '^self-sacrifice,'' 
 ^^resignation," ^'enthusiasm." All right: if I no longer 
 serve any idea, any "higher essence," then it is clear of 
 itself that I no longer serve any man either, but — under all 
 circumstances — myself. But thus I am not merely in fact 
 or in being, but also for my consciousness, the unique.* 
 
 There pertains to you more than the divine, the human, 
 etc. ; yours pertains to you. 
 
 Look upon yourself as more powerful than they give 
 you out for, and you have more power ; look upon yourself 
 as more, and you have more. 
 
 You are then not merely called to everything divine, 
 entitled to everything human, but ozvner of what is 
 yours, i.e. of all that you possess the force to make your 
 own ; i. e. you appropriate^ and capacitated for everything 
 that is yours. 
 
 * [Einsipe] t [eigen] t [geeignet] 
 
THE OWNER 
 
 381 
 
 People have always supposed that they must give me a 
 destiny lying outside myself, so that at last they de- 
 manded that I should lay claim to the human because I 
 am = man. This is the Christian magic circle. Fichte's 
 ego too is the same essence outside me, for every one is 
 ego; and if only this ego has rights, then it is "the ego,'' it 
 is not 1. But I am not an ego along with other egos, but 
 the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are 
 unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is 
 unique. And it is only as this unique I that I take every- 
 thing for my own, as I set myself to work, and develop 
 myself, only as this. I do not develop man, nor as man, 
 but, as I, I develop — myself. 
 
 This is the meaning of the — unique one. 
 
382 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 III 
 
 THE UNIQUE ONE 
 
 Pre-Christian and Giristian times pursue opposite 
 goals ; the former wants to idealize the real, the latter to 
 realize the ideal ; the former seeks the ''holy spirit/' the 
 latter the ''glorified body/' Hence the former closes with 
 insensitiveness to the real, with "contempt for the world'' ; 
 the latter will end with the casting off of the ideal, with 
 "contempt for the spirit." 
 
 The opposition of the real and the ideal is an irrecon- 
 cilable one, and the one can never become the other: if 
 the ideal became the real, it would no longer be the ideal ; 
 and, if the real became the ideal, the ideal alone would be, 
 but not at all the real. The opposition of the two is not 
 to be vanquished otherwise than if some one annihilates 
 both. Only in this "some one," the third party, does the 
 opposition find its end ; otherwise idea and reality will 
 ever fail to coincide. The idea cannot be so realized as 
 to remain idea, but is realized only when it dies as idea ; 
 and it is the same with the real. 
 
 But now we have before us in the ancients adherents 
 of the idea, in the moderns adherents of reality. Neither 
 can get clear of the opposition, and both pine only, the 
 one party for the spirit, and, when this craving of the 
 ancient world seemed to be satisfied and this spirit to have 
 come, the others immediately for the secularization of this 
 spirit again, which must forever remain a "pious wish." 
 
 The pious wish of the ancients was sanctity, the pious 
 wish of the moderns is corporeity. But, as antiquity had 
 to go down if its longing was to be satisfied (for it con- 
 
THE UNIQUE ONE 
 
 383 
 
 sisted only in the longing), so too corporeity can never 
 be attained within the ring of Christianness. As the trait 
 of sanctification or purification goes through the old world 
 (the washings, etc.), so that of incorporation goes 
 through the Christian world : God plunges down into this 
 world, becomes flesh, and wants to redeem it, i, e, fill it 
 with himself ; but, since he is ''the idea" or ''the spirit," 
 people {e. g. Hegel) in the end introduce the idea into 
 everything, into the world, and prove "that the idea is, 
 that reason is, in everything." "Man" corresponds in the 
 culture of to-day to what the heathen Stoics set up as 
 "the wise man" ; the latter, like the former, a — fleshless 
 being, he unreal "wise man," this bodiless "holy one" of 
 the Stoics, became a real person, a bodily "Holy One," 
 in God made flesh; the unreal "man," the bodiless ego, 
 will become real in the corporeal ego, in me. 
 
 There winds its way through Christianity the question 
 about the "existence of God," which, taken up ever and 
 ever again, gives testimony that the craving for existence, 
 corporeity, personality, reality, was incessantly busying 
 the heart because it never found a satisfying solution. At 
 last the question about the existence of God fell, but only 
 to rise up again in the proposition that the "divine" had 
 existence (Feuerbach). But this too has no existence, and 
 neither will the last refuge, that the "purely human" is 
 realizable, afford shelter much longer. No idea has exist- 
 ence, for none is capable of corporeity. The scholastic 
 contention of realism and nominalism has the same con- 
 tent ; in short, this spins itself out through all Christian 
 history, and cannot end in it. 
 
 The world of Christians is working at realizing ideas in 
 the individual relations of life, the institutions and laws 
 of the Church and the State ; but they make resistance, 
 and always keep back something unembodied (unrealiz- 
 able). Nevertheless this embodiment is restlessly rushed 
 after, no matter in what degree corporeity constantly fails 
 to result. 
 
 For realities matter little to the realizer, but it matters 
 everything that they be realizations of the idea. Hence 
 
384 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 he is ever examining anew whether the realized does in 
 truth have the idea, its kernel, dwelling in it; and in 
 testing the real he at the same time tests the idea, whether 
 it is realizable as he thinks it, or is only thought by him 
 incorrectly, and for that reason unfeasibly. 
 
 The Christian is no longer to care for family, State, 
 etc., as existences; Christians are not to sacrifice them- 
 selves for these ''divine things'' like the ancients, but 
 these are only to be utilized to make the spirit alive in 
 them. The real family has become indifferent, and there 
 is to arise out of it an ideal one which would then be the 
 ''truly real,'' a sacred family, blessed by God, or, accord- 
 ing to the liberal way of thinking, a "rational' family. 
 With the ancients family. State, fatherland, etc., is divine 
 as a thing extant; with the moderns it is still awaiting 
 divinity, as extant it is only sinful, earthly, and has still 
 to be "redeemed," i. e. to become truly real. This has the 
 following meaning: The family, etc., is not the extant 
 and real, but the divine, the idea, is extant and real ; 
 whether this family will make itself real by taking up the 
 truly real, the idea, is still unsettled. It is not the indi- 
 vidual's task to serve the family as the divine, but, re- 
 versely, to serve the divine and to bring to it the still un- 
 divine family, i. e. to subject everything in the idea's 
 name, to set up the idea's banner everywhere, to bring 
 the idea to real efficacy. 
 
 But, since the concern of Christianity, as of antiquity, 
 is for the diz'ine, they always come out at this again on 
 their opposite ways. At the end of heathenism the divine 
 becomes the extraimindane, at the end of Christianity the 
 intrarniindanc. Antiquity does not succeed in putting 
 it entirely outside the world, and, when Christianity 
 accomplishes this task, the divine instantly longs to get 
 back into the world and wants to "redeem" the world. 
 But within Christianity it does not and cannot come to 
 this, that the divine as intramiindane should really become 
 the mundane itself: there is enough left that does and 
 must maintain itself unpenetrated as the "bad," irrational, 
 accidental, "egoistic," the "mundane" in the bad sense. 
 
THE UNIQUE ONE 
 
 385 
 
 Christianity begins with God's becoming man, and carries 
 on its work of conversion and redemption through all 
 time in order to prepare for God a reception in all men 
 and in everything human, and to penetrate everything 
 w^ith the spirit: it sticks to preparing a place for the 
 ^'spirit/' 
 
 When the accent was at last laid on Man or mankind, 
 it was again the idea that they ''pronounced eternal/' 
 ''Man does not die!" They thought they had now found 
 the reality of the idea: Man is the I of history, of the 
 world's history; it is he, this ideal, that really develops, 
 i, e, realises, himself. He is the really real and corporeal 
 one, for history is his body, in which individuals are only 
 members. Christ is the I of the world's history, even of 
 the pre-Christian ; in modern apprehension it is man, the 
 figure of Christ has developed into the ßgiire, of man: 
 man as such, man absolutely, is the ''central point" of 
 history. In "man" the imaginary beginning returns 
 again ; for "man" is as imaginary as Christ is. "Man," 
 as the I of the world's history, closes the cycle of Chris- 
 tian apprehensions. 
 
 Christianity's magic circle would be broken if the 
 strained relation between existence and calling, i. e, be- 
 tween me as I am and me as I should be, ceased ; it per- 
 sists only as the longing of the idea for its bodihness, and 
 vanishes with the relaxing separation of the two : only 
 when the idea remains — idea, as man or mankind is in- 
 deed a bodiless idea, is Christianity still extant. The 
 corporeal idea, the corporeal or "completed" spirit, floats 
 before the Christian as "the end of the days" or as the 
 "goal of history" ; it is not present time to him. 
 
 The individual can only have a part in the founding 
 of the Kingdom of God, or, according to the modern 
 notion of the same thing, in the development and history 
 of humanity ; and only so far as he has a part in it does a 
 Christian, or according to the modern expression human, 
 value pertain to him; for the rest he is dust and a worm- 
 bag. 
 
 That the individual is of himself a world's history, and 
 
386 THE EGO AND HIS OWN 
 
 possesses his property in the rest of the world's history, 
 goes beyond what is Christian. To the Christian the 
 world's history is the higher thing, because it is the history 
 of Christ or "'man"; to the egoist only his history has 
 value, because he wants to develop only himself, not the 
 mankind-idea, not God's plan, not the purposes of Provi- 
 dence, not liberty, and the like. He does not look upon 
 himself as a tool of the idea or a vessel of God, he 
 recognizes no calling, he does not fancy that he exists for 
 the further development of mankind and that he must 
 contribute his mite to it, but he lives himself out, careless 
 of how well or ill humanity may fare thereby. If it were 
 not open to confusion with the idea that a state of nature 
 is to be praised, one might recall Lenau's "Three Gyp- 
 sies." — What, am I in the world to realize ideas? To 
 do my part by my citizenship, say, toward the realization 
 of the idea ''State," or by marriage, as husband and 
 father, to bring the idea of the family into an existence ? 
 What does such a calling concern me! I live after a 
 calling as little as the flower grows and gives fragrance 
 after a calling. 
 
 The ideal "Man" is realized when the Christian appre- 
 hension turns about and becomes the proposition, 'T, this 
 unique one, am man." The conceptional question, "what 
 is man?" — has then changed into the personal question, 
 "who is man?" With "what" the concept was sought for, 
 in order to realize it ; with "who" it is no longer any 
 question at all, but the answer is personally on hand at 
 once in the asker : the question answers itself. 
 
 They say of God, "Names name thee not." That holds 
 good of me: no concept expresses me, nothing that is 
 designated as my essence exhausts me ; they are only 
 names. Likewise they say of God that he is perfect and 
 has no calling to strive after perfection. That too holds 
 good of me alone. 
 
 I am owner of my might, and I am so when I know 
 m3^self as unique. In the unique one the owner himself 
 returns into his creative nothing, out of which he is born. 
 Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it man. 
 
THE UNIQUE ONE 
 
 387 
 
 weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only 
 before the sun of this consciousness. If I concern rny- 
 self for myself,* the unique one, then my concern rests 
 on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, 
 and I may say : 
 
 All things are nothing to me.f 
 
 * [Stell* Ich auf Mich meine Sache, Literally, ''if I set my 
 affair on myself."] 
 
 t V'Ich hah' Mein' SacK auf Nichts gestellt.** Literally, "I 
 have set my affair on nothing." See note on p. 3.] 
 
 THE END 
 
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