|
THE OWNER 401 |
jail built about the mind of man by religion: he sent him back
to France locked fast in invisible chains, what wonder if Francis
sought to escape and sawed the chains apart? No man would have
taken it amiss of him if he had secretly fled from Madrid, for
he was in an enemy's power; but every good Christian cries out
upon him, that he wanted to loose himself from God's bonds too.
(It was only later that the pope absolved him from his oath.)
It is despicable to deceive a confidence
that we voluntarily call forth; but it is no shame to egoism to
let every one who wants to get us into his power by an oath bleed
to death by the failure of his untrustful craft. If you have wanted
to bind me, then learn that I know how to burst your bonds.
The point is whether I give the
confider the right to confidence. If the pursuer of my friend
asks me where he has fled to, I shall surely put him on a false
trail. Why does he ask precisely me, the pursued man's friend?
In order not to be a false, traitorous friend, I prefer to be
false to the enemy. I might certainly in courageous conscientiousness,
answer, "I will not tell" (so Fichte decides the case);
by that I should salve my love of truth and do for my friend as
much as -- nothing, for, if I do not mislead the enemy, he may
accidentally take the right street, and my love of truth would
have given up my friend as a prey, because it hindered me from
the --courage for a lie. He who has in the truth an idol, a sacred
thing, must humble himself before it, must not defy its
demands, not resist courageously; in short, he must renounce the
heroism of the lie. For to the lie belongs not less
| 402 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
courage than to the truth: a courage that young men are most apt
to be defective in, who would rather confess the truth and mount
the scaffold for it than confound the enemy's power by the impudence
of a lie. To them the truth is "sacred," and the sacred
at all times demands blind reverence, submission, and self-sacrifice.
If you are not impudent, not mockers of the sacred, you are tame
and its servants. Let one but lay a grain of truth in the trap
for you, you peck at it to a certainty, and the fool is caught.
You will not lie? Well, then, fall as sacrifices to the truth
and become -- martyrs! Martyrs! -- for what? For yourselves, for
self-ownership? No, for your goddess -- the truth. You know only
two services, only two kinds of servants: servants of
the truth and servants of the lie. Then in God's name serve the
truth!
Others, again, serve the truth also;
but they serve it "in moderation," and make, e.
g. a great distinction between a simple lie and a lie sworn
to. And yet the whole chapter of the oath coincides with that
of the lie, since an oath, everybody knows, is only a strongly
assured statement. You consider yourselves entitled to lie, if
only you do not swear to it besides? One who is particular about
it must judge and condemn a lie as sharply as a false oath. But
now there has been kept up in morality an ancient point of controversy,
which is customarily treated of under the name of the "lie
of necessity." No one who dares plead for this can consistently
put from him an "oath of necessity." If I justify my
lie as a lie of necessity, I should not be so pusillanimous as
to rob the justified lie of the strongest corroboration. Whatever
I do,
|
THE OWNER 403 |
why should I not do it entirely and without reservations (reservatio
mentalis)? If I once lie, why then not lie completely, with
entire consciousness and all my might? As a spy I should have
to swear to each of my false statements at the enemy's demand;
determined to lie to him, should I suddenly become cowardly and
undecided in face of an oath? Then I should have been ruined in
advance for a liar and spy; for, you see, I should be voluntarily
putting into the enemy's hands a means to catch me. -- The State
too fears the oath of necessity, and for this reason does not
give the accused a chance to swear. But you do not justify the
State's fear; you lie, but do not swear falsely. If, e. g.
you show some one a kindness, and he is not to know it, but he
guesses it and tells you so to your face, you deny; if he insists,
you say, "honestly, no!" If it came to swearing, then
you would refuse; for, from fear of the sacred, you always stop
half way. Against the sacred you have no will of
your own. You lie in -- moderation, as you are free "in
moderation," religious "in moderation" (the clergy
are not to "encroach"; over this point the most rapid
of controversies is now being carried on, on the part of the university
against the church), monarchically disposed "in moderation"
(you want a monarch limited by the constitution, by a fundamental
law of the State), everything nicely tempered, lukewarm,
half God's, half the devil's.
There was a university where the
usage was that every word of honor that must be given to the university
judge was looked upon by the students as null and void. For the
students saw in the demanding of
|
404 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
it nothing but a snare, which they could not escape otherwise
than by taking away all its significance. He who at that same
university broke his word of honor to one of the fellows was infamous;
he who gave it to the university judge derided, in union with
these very fellows, the dupe who fancied that a word had the same
value among friends and among foes. It was less a correct theory
than the constraint of practice that had there taught the students
to act so, as, without that means of getting out, they would have
been pitilessly driven to treachery against their comrades. But,
as the means approved itself in practice, so it has its theoretical
probation too. A word of honor, an oath, is one only for him whom
I entitle to receive it; he who forces me to it obtains only a
forced, i.e. a hostile word, the word of a foe,
whom one has no right to trust; for the foe does not give us the
right.
Aside from this, the courts of the
State do not even recognize the inviolability of an oath. For,
if I had sworn to one who comes under examination that I would
not declare anything against him, the court would demand my declaration
in spite of the fact that an oath binds me, and, in case of refusal,
would lock me up till I decided to become -- an oath-breaker.
The court "absolves me from my oath"; -- how magnanimous!
If any power can absolve me from the oath, I myself am surely
the very first power that has a claim to.
As a curiosity, and to remind us
of customary oaths of all sorts, let place be given here to that
which Emperor Paul commanded the captured Poles (Kos-
|
THE OWNER 405 |
ciuszko, Potocki, Niemcewicz, and others) to take when he released
them: "We not merely swear fidelity and obedience to the
emperor, but also further promise to pour out our blood for his
glory; we obligate ourselves to discover everything threatening
to his person or his empire that we ever learn; we declare finally
that, in whatever part of the earth we may be, a single word of
the emperor shall suffice to make us leave everything and repair
to him at once."
In one domain the principle of love
seems to have been long outsoared by egoism, and to be still in
need only of sure consciousness, as it were of victory with a
good conscience. This domain is speculation, in its double manifestation
as thinking and as trade. One thinks with a will, whatever may
come of it; one speculates, however many may suffer under our
speculative undertakings. But, when it finally becomes serious,
when even the last remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity"
is to be done away, then the pulse of religious conscience beats,
and one at least professes humanity. The avaricious speculator
throws some coppers into the poor-box and "does good,"
the bold thinker consoles himself with the fact that he is working
for the advancement of the human race and that his devastation
"turns to the good" of mankind, or, in another case,
that he is "serving the idea"; mankind, the idea, is
to him that something of which he must say, It is more to me than
myself.
To this day thinking and trading
have been done for -- God's sake. Those who for six days were
trampling down everything by their selfish aims sacrificed
| 406 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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, etc. 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
(God's, who himself is love); in short, not the egoistic, but
the religious; a love that springs from their fancy that they
must discharge a tribute of love, i.e. that
they must not be "egoists."
If we want to deliver the
world from many kinds of unfreedom, we want this not on its account
but on ours; for, as we are not world-liberators by profession
and out of "love," we only want to win it away from
others. We want to make it our own; it is not to be any
longer owned as serf by God (the church) nor by the law
(State), but to be our own; therefore we seek to "win"
it, to "captivate" it, and, by meeting it halfway and
"devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as
it belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the force that
it turns against us. If the world is ours, it no longer attempts
any force against us, but only with us. My selfishness
has an interest in the liberation of the world, that it may become
-- my property.
Not isolation or being alone, but
society, is man's
|
THE OWNER 407 |
original state. Our existence begins with the most intimate conjunction,
as we are already living with our mother before we breathe; when
we see the light of the world, we at once lie on a human being's
breast again, her love cradles us in the lap, leads us in the
go-cart, and chains us to her person with a thousand ties. Society
is our state of nature. And this is why, the more we
learn to feel ourselves, the connection that was formerly most
intimate becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the original
society more unmistakable. To have once again for herself the
child that once lay under her heart, the mother must fetch it
from the street and from the midst of its playmates. The child
prefers the intercourse that it enters into with its
fellows to the society that it has not entered into,
but only been born in.
But the dissolution of society
is intercourse or union. A society does assuredly
arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by a thought
-- to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the
thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make
themselves fast) from the thought. If a union* has crystallized
into a society, it has ceased to be a coalition; ** 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) di-
*[Verein]
**[Vereinigung]
|
408 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
minishes my liberty offends me little. Why, I have to
let my liberty be limited by all sorts of powers and by every
one who is stronger; nay, by every fellow-man; and, were I the
autocrat of all the R. . . . . ., I yet should not enjoy absolute
liberty. But ownness I will not have taken from me. And
ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely
what is to succumb to its power.
A society which I join does indeed
take from me many liberties, but in return it affords me other
liberties; neither does it matter if I myself deprive myself of
this and that liberty (e. g. by any contract). On the
other hand, I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community
has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the fullness
of its power, to become an authority to its members and
to set limits for them: it asks, and must ask, for a
"subject's limited understanding"; it asks that those
who belong to it be subjected to it, be its "subjects";
it exists only by subjection. In this a certain tolerance
need by no means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will
welcome improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are
calculated for its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning,"
it may not be "insolent and disrespectful" -- in other
words, one must leave uninjured, and hold sacred, the substance
of the society. The society demands that those who belong to it
shall not go beyond it and exalt themselves, but remain
"within the bounds of legality," e. g., allow
themselves only so much as the society and its law allow them.
There is a difference whether my
liberty or my ownness is limited by a society. If the former only
is the
|
THE OWNER 409 |
case, it is a coalition, an agreement, a union; but, if ruin is
threatened to ownness, it is a power of itself, a power
above me, a thing unattainable by me, which I can indeed
admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and consume,
and that for the reason that I am resigned. It exists
by my resignation, my self-renunciation, my
spiritlessness,* called --
HUMILITY.** My humility 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; etc. 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 over-straining and overwroughtness that
finally liberty itself, absolute liberty, was exalted
into an ideal, and thus the nonsense of the impossible to come
glaringly to the light. -- The union will assuredly offer a greater
measure of liberty, as well as (and especially because
*[Muthlösigkeit]
**[Demuth]
***[Muth]
| 410 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
by it one escapes all the coercion peculiar to State and society
life) admit of being considered as "a new liberty";
but nevertheless it will still contain enough of unfreedom and
involuntariness. For its object is not this -- liberty (which
on the contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but only ownness.
Referred to this, the difference between State and union is great
enough. The former is an enemy and murderer of ownness,
the latter a son and co-worker of it; the former a spirit that
would be adored in spirit and in truth, the latter my work, my
product ; the State is the lord of my spirit, who demands faith
and prescribes to me articles of faith, the creed of legality;
it exerts moral influence, dominates my spirit, drives away my
ego to put itself in its place as "my true ego" -- in
short, the State is sacred, and as against me, the individual
man, it is the true man, the spirit, the ghost; but the union
is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power
above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort.
As I am not willing to be a slave of my maxims, but lay them bare
to my continual criticism without any warrant, and admit
no bail at all for their persistence, so still less do I obligate
myself to the union for my future and pledge my soul to it, as
is said to be done with the devil, and is really the case with
the State and all spiritual authority; but I am and remain more
to myself than State, Church, God, etc.; consequently infinitely
more than the union too.
That society which Communism wants
to found seems to stand nearest to coalition. For it
is to aim at the "welfare of all," oh, yes, of all,
cries Weitling
|
THE OWNER 411 |
innumerable times, of all! That does really look as if in it no
one needed to take a back seat. But what then will this welfare
be? Have all one and the same welfare, are all equally well off
with one and the same thing? If that be so, the question is of
the "true welfare." Do we not with this come right to
the point where religion begins its dominion of violence? Christianity
says, Look not on earthly toys, but seek your true welfare, become
-- pious Christians; being Christians is the true welfare. It
is the true welfare of "all," because it is the welfare
of Man as such (this spook). Now, the welfare of all is surely
to be your and my welfare too? But, if you and
I do not look upon that welfare as our welfare, will
care then be taken for that in which we feel well? On
the contrary, society has decreed a welfare as the "true
welfare," if this welfare were called e. g. "enjoyment
honestly worked for"; but if you preferred enjoyable laziness,
enjoyment without work, then society, which cares for the "welfare
of all," would wisely avoid caring for that in which you
are well off. Communism, in proclaiming the welfare of all, annuls
outright the well-being of those who hitherto lived on their income
from investments and apparently felt better in that than in the
prospect of Weitling's strict hours of labor. Hence the latter
asserts that with the welfare of thousands the welfare of millions
cannot exist, and the former must give up their special
welfare "for the sake of the general welfare." No, let
people not be summoned to sacrifice their special welfare for
the general, for this Christian admonition will not carry you
through; they will better understand the
|
412 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
opposite admonition, not to let their own welfare be
snatched from them by anybody, but to put it on a permanent foundation.
Then they are of themselves led to the point that they care best
for their welfare if they unite with others for this
purpose,
e. g., "sacrifice a part of their liberty,"
yet not to the welfare of others, but to their own. An appeal
to men's self-sacrificing disposition end self- renouncing love
ought at least to have lost its seductive plausibility when, after
an activity of thousands of years, it has left nothing behind
but the -- misère of today. Why then still fruitlessly
expect self-sacrifice to bring us better time? 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 owner. Communism, and, consciously,
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 -- law-giver. 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; e. g., 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
|
THE OWNER 413 |
society's or community's, be it of the society, "family"
(Lar, Penates) or of a "people" ("national god")
or of "all men" ("he is a Father of all men").
Consequently one has a prospect
of extirpating religion down to the ground only when one antiquates
society and everything that flows from this principle.
But it is precisely in Communism that this principle seeks to
culminate, as in it everything is to become common for
the establishment of -- "equality." If this "equality"
is won, "liberty" too is not lacking. But whose liberty?
Society's! Society is then all in all, and men are only
"for each other." It would be the glory of the -- love-State.
But I would rather be referred to
men's selfishness than to their "kindnesses,"* their
mercy, pity, etc. The former demands reciprocity (as
thou to me, so I to thee), does nothing "gratis," and
may be won and -- bought. But with what shall I obtain
the kindness? It is a matter of chance whether I am at the time
having to do with a "loving" person. The affectionate
one's service can be had only by -- begging, be it by
my lamentable appearance, by my need of help, my misery, my --
suffering. What can I offer him for his assistance? Nothing!
I must accept it as a --present. Love is unpayable, or
rather, love can assuredly be paid for, but only by counter-love
("One good turn deserves another"). What paltriness
and beggarliness does it not take to accept gifts year in and
year out without service in return, as they are regularly collected
e. g. from the poor day-laborer? What can
*[Literally, "love-services."]
| 414 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
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 I nor you are speakable, we are unutterable,
because only thoughts are speakable and consist in speaking.
Let us therefore not aspire to community,
but to one-sidedness. Let us not seek the most comprehensive
commune, "human society," but let us seek in others
only means and organs which we may use as our property! As we
do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the presupposition
that others are our equals springs from a hypocrisy.
No one is my equal, but I regard him, equally with all
other beings, as my property. In opposition to this I am told
that I should be a man among "fellow-men" (Judenfrage,
p. 60); I should "respect" the fellow-man in them. For
me no one is a person to be respected, not even the fellow-man,
but solely, like other beings, an object in which I take
an interest or else do not,
|
THE OWNER 415 |
an interesting or uninteresting object, a usable or unusable person.
And, if I can use him, I doubtless
come to an understanding and make myself at one with him, in order,
by the agreement, to strengthen my power, and by combined
force to accomplish more than individual force could effect. In
this combination I see nothing whatever but a multiplication of
my force, and I retain it only so long as it is my multiplied
force. But thus it is a -- union.
Neither a natural ligature nor a
spiritual one holds the union together, and it is not a natural,
not a spiritual league. It is not brought about by one blood,
not by one faith (spirit). In a natural league -- like
a family, a tribe, a nation, yes, mankind -- the individuals have
only the value of specimens of the same species or genus;
in a spiritual league -- like a commune, a church -- the individual
signifies only a member of the same spirit; what you
are in both cases as a unique person must be -- suppressed. Only
in the union can you assert yourself as unique, because the union
does not possess you, but you possess it or make it of use to
you.
Property is recognized in the union,
and only in the union, because one no longer holds what is his
as a fief from any being. The Communists are only consistently
carrying further what had already been long present during religious
evolution, and especially in the State; to wit, propertylessness,
the feudal system.
The State exerts itself to tame
the desirous man; in other words, it seeks to direct his desire
to it alone,
|
416 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
and to content that desire with what it offers. To sate
the desire for the desirous man's sake does not come into the
mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "egoistic man"
the man who breathes out unbridled desire, and the "egoistic
man" is its enemy. He is this for it because the capacity
to agree with him is wanting to the State; the egoist is precisely
what it cannot "comprehend." Since the State (as nothing
else is possible) has to do only for itself, it does not take
care for my needs, but takes care only of how it make away with
me, i.e. make out of me another ego, a good citizen.
It takes measures for the "improvement of morals." --
And with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself,
i.e. with what is the State's, with State property.
It will be unremittingly active in making all participants in
its "goods," providing all with the "good things
of culture"; it presents them its education, opens to them
the access to its institutions of culture, capacitates them to
come to property (i.e. to a fief) in the way of industry,
etc. For all these fiefs it demands only the just rent
of continual thanks. But the "unthankful" forget
to pay these thanks. -- Now, neither can "society" do
essentially otherwise than the State.
You bring into a union your whole
power, your competence, and make yourself count; in a
society you are employed, with your working power; in
the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, i.e.
religiously, as a "member in the body of this Lord";
to a society you owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it,
are -- possessed by "social duties"; a union you utilize,
and give it up undutifully and un-
|
THE OWNER 417 |
faithfully 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; consumes you, you consume the
union.
Nevertheless people will not be
backward with the objection that the agreement which has been
concluded may again become burdensome to us and limit our freedom;
they will say, we too would at last come to this, that "every
one must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the generality."
But the sacrifice would not be made for the "generality's"
sake a bit, as little as I concluded the agreement for the "generality's"
or even for any other man's sake; rather I came into it only for
the sake of my own benefit, from selfishness.* But, as
regards the sacrificing, surely I "sacrifice" only that
which does not stand in my power, i. e., I "sacrifice"
nothing at all.
To come back to property, the lord
is proprietor. Choose then whether you want to be lord, or whether
society shall be! On this depends whether you are to be an owner
or a ragamuffin! The egoist is owner, the Socialist a
ragamuffin. But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the sense
of feudalism, of the feudal system which since the last century
has only changed its overlord, putting "Man" in the
place of God, and
|
418 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
accepting as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from
the grace of God. That the ragamuffinism of Communism is carried
out by the humane principle into the absolute or most ragamuffinly
ragamuffinism has been shown above; but at the same time also,
how ragamuffinism can only thus swing around into ownness. The
old feudal system was so thoroughly trampled into the
ground in the Revolution that since then all reactionary craft
has remained fruitless, and will always remain fruitless, because
the dead is -- dead; but the resurrection too had to prove itself
a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for in
another world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body,
the new feudalism under the suzerainty of "Man."
Christianity is not annihilated,
but the faithful are right in having hitherto trustfully assumed
of every combat against it that this could serve only for the
purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it has really
only been glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is the
-- human Christianity. We are still living entirely in
the Christian age, and the very ones who feel worst about it are
the most zealously contributing to "complete" it. The
more human, the dearer has feudalism become to us; for we the
less believe that it still is feudalism, we take it the more confidently
for ownness and think we have found what is "most absolutely
our own" when we discover "the human."
Liberalism wants to give me what
is mine, but it thinks to procure it for me not under the title
of mine, but under that of the "human." As if it were
| THE OWNER 419 |
attainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious work
of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in me entitles*
me to this and that; I as individual, i.e. as this man,
am not entitled, but Man has the right and entitles me. Hence
as man I may well be entitled; but, as I am more than man, to
wit, a special man, it may be refused to this very me,
the special one. If on the other hand you insist on the value
of your gifts, keep up their price, do not let yourselves be forced
to sell out below price, do not let yourselves be talked into
the idea that your ware is not worth its price. do not make yourself
ridiculous by a "ridiculous price," but imitate the
brave man who says, I will sell my life (property) dear,
the enemy shall not have it at a cheap bargain; then
you have recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct thing,
and the word then is not "Give up your property!" but
"Get the value out of your property!"
Over the portal of our time stands
not that "Know thyself" of Apollo, but a "Get
the value out of thyself!"
Proudhon calls property "robbery"
(le vol). But alien property -- and he is talking of
this alone -- is not less existent by renunciation, cession, and
humility; it is a present. Why so sentimentally call
for compassion as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a
foolish, cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the fault
on others as if they were robbing us, while we ourselves do bear
the fault in leaving the others unrobbed? The poor are to
*[Literally, furnishes me with a right.]
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420 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
blame for there being rich men.
Universally, no one grows indignant
at his, but at alien property. They do not in
truth attack property, but the alienation of property. They want
to be able to call more, not less, theirs; they
want to call everything theirs. They are fighting, therefore,
against alienness, or, to form a word similar to property,
against alienty. And how do they help themselves therein? Instead
of transforming the alien into own, they play impartial and ask
only that all property be left to a third party, e. g.
human society. They revindicate the alien not in their own name
but in a third party's. Now the "egoistic" coloring
is wiped off, and everything is so clean and -- human!
Propertylessness or ragamuffinism,
this then is the "essence of Christianity," as it is
essence of all religiousness (i.e. godliness, morality,
humanity), and only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad
tidings, became a gospel capable of development, in the "absolute
religion." We have before us the most striking development
in the present fight against property, a fight which is to bring
"Man" to victory and make propertylessness complete:
victorious humanity is the victory of --Christianity. But the
"Christianity exposed" thus is feudalism completed.
the most all-embracing feudal system, i.e. perfect ragamuffinism.
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
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THE OWNER 421 |
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; insurrection 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 passes 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 purpose 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
questions, as the social talents too were uncommonly inventive
in societary arrangements (phalansteries etc.). The insurgent***
strives to become constitutionless.
*[Empörung]
**[sich auf-oder empörzurichten]
***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.
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422 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
While, to get greater clearness,
I am thinking up a comparison, the founding of Christianity comes
unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is noted as
a bad point in the first Christians 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
themselves against their own temporal government! In short, how
popular was "political discontent!" Those Christians
would hear nothing of it; would not side with the "liberal
tendencies." The time was politically so agitated that, as
is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse the
founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned
him for "political intrigue," 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 demagogue,
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,
| THE OWNER 423 |
but wanted to walk his own way, untroubled about, and
undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him
than the government 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 Christians) 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 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
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424 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
reserved to themselves -- 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. g. 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 fall
upon us ourselves. All powers that dominate me I then reduce to
serving me. The idols exist
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THE OWNER 425 |
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 characteristic 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. "Nothing 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 enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment.
Intercourse is the enjoyment of the world, and
belongs to my -- self-enjoyment.
We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for nothing but the gain of life, took 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 hank-