Chapter III: Part 3

"Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt
upon democracy because it is not aristocratic. 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 civilized cities, it is true, the
context shows that he means the communists; 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, however, may say to die Nietzsche
school, so as not to be misunderstood: We do not ask of
the Napoleons to have pity, nor of the predatory barons
to do justice. They will find it convenient for their own
welfare to make terms with men who have learned of Stirner
what a man can be who worships nothing, bears allegiance
to nothing. To Nietzsche's rhodomontade of eagles in
baronial form, born to prey on industrial lambs, we rather
tauntingly oppose the ironical question: Where are your
claws? What if the 'eagles' are found to be plain barnyard
fowls on which more silly fowls have fastened steel spurs
to hack the victims, 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 regulation
deemed convenient, and for this only _our_ convenience
is consulted. Thus there will be general liberty only
when the disposition toward tyranny is met by intelligent
opposition that will no longer submit to such a rule.
Beyond this the manly sympathy 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 individual 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."

It is not our intention to enter here into a detailed criticism of Stirner's book. We will only point out that society will practically remain the same whether we consider social arrangements as voluntary contracts or as organically developed social institutions, or as imposed upon mankind by the divine world-order, or even if czars and kings claim to govern "by the grace of God." Whatever religious or natural sanction any government may claim to possess, the method of keeping order will be the same everywhere. Wrongs have been done and in the future may still be committed in the name of right, and injustice may again and again worst justice in the name of the law. On the other hand, however, we can notice a progress throughout the world of a slow but steady improvement of conditions. Any globe-trotter will find by experience that his personal safety, his rights and privileges are practically the same in all civilized countries, whether they are republics like Switzerland, France and the United States, or monarchies like Sweden, Germany and Italy. At the same time murders, robberies, thefts and other crimes are committed all over the world, even in the homes of those who pride themselves on being the most civilized nations. The world-conception lying behind our different social theories is the same wherever the same kind of civilization prevails. Where social evils prevail, dissatisfaction sets in which produces theories and reform programs, and when they remain unheeded, a climax is reached which leads to revolution.

Stirner's book begins with a short exhortation headed with Goethe's line,

"My trust in nothingness is placed."

He discusses the character of human life (Chap. I) and contrasts men of the old and the new eras (Chap. II). He finds that the ancients idealized bodily existence while Christianity incarnates the ideal. Greek artists transfigure actual life; in Christianity the divine takes abode in the world of flesh, God becomes incarnate in man. The Greeks tried to go beyond the world and Christianity came; Christian thinkers are pressed to go beyond God, and there they find spirit. They are led to a contempt of the world and will finally end in a contempt of spirit. But Stirner believes that the ideal and the real can never be reconciled, and we must free ourselves from the errors of the past. The truly free man is not the one who has become free, but the one who has come into his own, and this is the sovereign ego.

As Achilles had his Homer so Stirner found his prophet in a German socialist of Scotch Highlander descent, John Henry Mackay. The reading public should know that Mackay belongs to the same type of restless reformers, and he soon became an egoistic anarchist, a disciple of Stirner. His admiration is but a natural consequence of conditions. Nevertheless Mackay's glorification of Stirner proves that in Stirner this onesided world-conception has found its classical, its most consistent and its philosophically most systematic presentation. Whatever we may have to criticize in anarchism, Stirner is a man of uncommon distinction, the leader of a party, and the standard-bearer of a cause distinguished by the extremeness of its propositions which from the principle of individualism are carried to their consistent ends.

Mackay undertook the difficult task of unearthing the history of a man who, naturally modest and retired, had nowhere left deep impressions. No stone remained unturned and every clue that could reveal anything about his hero's life was followed up with unprecedented devotion. He published the results of his labors in a book entitled "Max Stirner, His Life and His Work."[2] The report is extremely touching not so much on account of the great significance of Stirner's work which to impartial readers appears exaggerated, but through the personal tragedy of a man who towers high above his surroundings and suffers the misery of poverty and failure.

Mr. Mackay describes Stirner as of medium height, rather less so than more, well proportioned, slender, always dressed with care though without pretension, having the appearance of a teacher, and wearing silver-or steel-rimmed spectacles. His hair and beard were blonde with a tinge of red, his eyes blue and clear, but neither dreamy nor penetrating. His thin lips usually wore a sarcastic smile, which, however, had nothing of bitterness; his general appearance was sympathetic. No portrait of Stirner is in existence except one pencil sketch which was made from memory in 1892 by the London socialist, Friedrich Engels, but the criticism is made by those who knew Stirner that his features, especially his chin and the top of his head, were not so angular though nose and mouth are said to have been well portrayed, and Mackay claims that Stirner never wore a coat and collar of that type.

Stirner was of purely Frankish blood. His ancestors lived for centuries in or near Baireuth. His father, Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt of Anspach, a maker of wind-instruments, died of consumption in 1807 at the age of 37, half a year after the birth of his son. His mother, Sophie Eleanora, née Reinlein of the city of Erlangen, six months later married H. F. L. Ballerstedt, the assistant in an apothecary shop in Helmstedt, and moved with him to Kulm on the Vistula. In 1818 the boy was sent back to his native city where his childless god-father and uncle, Johann Caspar Martin Sticht, and his wife took care of him.

Young Johann Caspar passed through school with credit, and his schoolmates used to call him "Stirner" on account of his high forehead (_Stirn_) which was the most conspicuous feature of his face. This name clung to him throughout life. In fact his most intimate friends never called him by any other, his real name being almost forgotten through disuse and figuring only in official documents.

Stirner attended the universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Königsberg, and finally passed his examination for admission as a teacher in gymnasial schools. His stepfather died in the summer of 1837 in Kulm at the age of 76. It is not known what became of his mother who had been mentally unsound for some time.

Neither father nor stepfather had ever been successful, and if Stirner ever received any inheritance it must have been very small. On December 12 of 1837 Stirner married Agnes Clara Kunigunde Burtz, the daughter of his landlady.

Their married life was brief, the young wife dying in a premature child-birth on August 29th. We have no indication of an ardent love on either side. He who wrote with passionate fire and with so much insistence in his philosophy, was calm and peaceful, subdued and quiet to a fault in real life.

Having been refused appointment in one of the public or royal schools Stirner accepted a position in a girls' school October 1, 1839. During the political fermentation which preceded the revolutionary year of 1848, he moved in the circle of those bold spirits who called themselves _Die Freien_ and met at Hippel's, among whom were Ludwig Buhl, Meyen, Friedrich Engels, Mussak, C. F. Köppen, the author of a work on Buddha, Dr. Arthur Müller and the brothers Bruno, Egbert and Edgar Bauer. It was probably among their associates that Stirner met Marie Dähnhardt of Gadebusch near Schwerin, Mecklenberg, the daughter of an apothecary, Helmuth Ludwig Dähnhardt. She was as different from Stirner as a dashing emancipated woman can be from a gentle meek man, but these contrasts were joined together in wedlock on October 21, 1843. Their happiness did not last long, for Marie Dähnhardt left her husband at the end of three years.

The marriage ceremony of this strange couple has been described in the newspapers and it is almost the only fact of Stirner's life that stands out boldly as a well-known incident. That these descriptions contain exaggerations and distortions is not improbable, but it cannot be denied that much contained in the reports must be true.

On the morning of October 21, a clergyman of extremely liberal views, Rev. Marot, a member of the Consistory, was called to meet the witnesses of the ceremony at Stirner's room. Bruno Bauer, Buhl, probably also Julius Faucher, Assessor Kochius and a young English woman, a friend of the bride, were present. The bride was in her week-day dress. Mr. Marot asked for a Bible, but none could be found. According to one version the clergyman was obliged to request Herr Buhl to put on his coat and to have the cards removed. When the rings were to be exchanged the groom discovered that he had forgotten to procure them, and according to Wilhelm Jordan's recollection Bauer pulled out his knitted purse and took off the brass rings, offering them as a substitute during the ceremony. After the wedding a dinner with cold punch was served to which Mr. Marot was invited. But he refused, while the guests remained and the wedding carousal proceeded in its jolly course.

In order to understand how this incident was possible we must know that in those pre-revolutionary years the times were out of joint and these heroes of the rebellion wished to show their disrespect and absolute indifference to a ceremony that to them had lost all its sanctity.

Stirner's married life was very uneventful, except that he wrote the main book of his life and dedicated it to his wife after a year's marriage, with the words,

"Meinem Liebchen
Marie Dähnhardt."

Obviously this form which ignores the fact that they were married, and uses a word of endearment which in this connection is rather trivial, must be regarded as characteristic of their relation and their life principles. Certain it is that she understood only the negative features of her husband's ideals and had no appreciation of the genius that stirred within him. Lauterbach, the editor of the Reclam edition of Stirner's book, comments ironically on this dedication with the Spanish motto _Da Dios almendras al que no tiene muelas_, "God gives almonds to those who have no teeth."

Marie Dähnhardt was a graceful blonde woman rather under-sized, with heavy hair which surrounded her head in ringlets according to the fashion of the time. She was very striking and became a favorite of the round table of the _Freien_ who met at Hippel's. She smoked cigars freely and sometimes donned male attire, in order to accompany her husband and his friends on their nightly excursions. It appears that Stirner played the most passive part in these adventures, but true to his principle of individuality we have no knowledge that he ever criticized his wife.

Marie Dähnhardt had lost her father early and was in possession of a small fortune of 10,000 thalers, possibly more. At any rate it was considered quite a sum in the circle of Stirner's friends, but it did not last long. Having written his book, Stirner gave up his position so as to prevent probable discharge and now they looked around for new resources. Though Stirner had studied political economy he was a most unpractical man; but seeing there was a dearth of milk-shops, he and his wife started into business. They made contracts with dairies but did not advertise their shop, and when the milk was delivered to them they had large quantities of milk on hand but no patrons, the result being a lamentable failure with debts.

In the circle of his friends Stirner's business experience offered inexhaustible material for jokes, while at home it led rapidly to the dissolution of his marriage. Frau Schmidt complained in later years that her husband had wasted her property, while no complaints are known from him. One thing is sure that they separated. She went to England where she established herself as a teacher under the protection of Lady Bunsen, the wife of the Prussian ambassador.

Frau Schmidt's later career is quite checkered. She was a well-known character in the colony of German exiles in London. One of her friends there was a Lieutenant Techow. When she was again in great distress she emigrated with other Germans, probably in 1852 or 1853, to Melbourne, Australia. Here she tasted the misery of life to the dregs. She made a living as a washerwoman and is reported to have married a day laborer. Their bitter experiences made her resort to religion for consolation, and in 1870 or 1871 she became a convert to the Catholic Church. At her sister's death she became her heir and so restored her good fortune to some extent. She returned to London where Mr. Mackay to his great joy discovered that she was still alive at the advanced age of eighty. What a valuable resource her reminiscences would be for his inquiries! But she refused to give any information and finally wrote him a letter which literally reads as follows: "Mary Smith _solemnly avowes_ that she will have _no more_ correspondence on the subject, and authorizes Mr. -------[3] to return all those writings to their owners. She is ill and prepares for death."

The last period of Stirner's life, from the time when his wife left him to his death, is as obscure as his childhood days. He moved from place to place, and since his income was very irregular creditors pressed him hard. His lot was tolerable because of the simple habits of his life, his only luxury consisting in smoking a good cigar. In 1853 we find him at least twice in debtor's prison, first 21 days, from March 5 to 26,1853, and then 36 days, from New Year's eve until February 4 of the next year. In the meantime (September 7) he moved to Philippstrasse 19. It was Stirner's last home. He stayed with the landlady of this place, a kind-hearted woman who treated all her boarders like a mother, until June 25, 1856, when he died rather suddenly as the result of the bite of a poisonous fly. A few of his friends, among them Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Buhl, attended his funeral; a second-class grave was procured for one thaler 10 groats, amounting approximately to one American dollar.

During this period Stirner undertook several literary labors from which he possibly procured some remuneration. He translated the classical authors on political economy from the French and from the English, which appeared under the title _Die National-Oekonomen der Franzosen und Engländer_ (Leipsic, Otto Wigand, 1845-1847).

He also wrote a history of the Reaction which he explained to be a mere counter-revolution. This _Geschichte der Reaction_ was planned as a much more comprehensive work, but the two volumes which appeared were only two parts of the second volume as originally intended.

The work is full of quotations, partly from Auguste Comte, partly from Edmund Burke. None of these works represent anything typically original or of real significance in the history of human thought.

His real contribution to the world's literature remains his work _Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_, the title of which is rendered in English _The Ego and His Own_, and this, strange to say, enthrones the individual man, the ego, every personality, as a sovereign power that should not be subject to morality, rules, obligations, or duties of any kind. The appeal is made so directly that it will convince all those unscientific and half-educated minds who after having surrendered their traditional faith find themselves without any authority in either religion or politics. God is to them a fable and the state an abstraction. Ideas and ideals, such as truth, goodness, beauty, are mere phrases. What then remains but the concrete bodily personality of every man of which every one is the ultimate standard of right and wrong?

[1] See also R. Schellwien, _Max Stirner und Friedrich Nietzsche_; V. Basch, _L'individualisme anarchiste, Max Stirner_, 1904.

[2] _Max Stirner, sein Leben und sein Werk_. Berlin, 1898.

[3] The name of the gentleman she mentions is replaced by a dash at his express wish in the facsimile of her letter reproduced in Mr. Mackay's book (p. 255).

EGO-SOVEREIGNTY

Strange that neither of these philosophers of individuality, Nietzsche or Stirner, ever took the trouble to investigate what an individual is! Stirner halts before this most momentous question of his world-conception, and so he overlooks that his ego, his own individuality, this supreme sovereign standing beyond right and wrong, the ultimate authority of everything, is a hazy, fluctuating, uncertain thing which differs from day to day and Anally disappears.

The individuality of any man is the product of communal life. No one of us could exist as a rational personality were he not a member of a social group from which he has imbibed his ideas as well as his language. Every word is a product of his intercourse with his fellow-beings. His entire existence consists in his relations toward others and finds expression in his attitude toward social institutions. We may criticize existent institutions but we can never do without any. A denial of either their existence or their significance proves an utter lack of insight into the nature of personality.

We insert here a few characteristic sentences of Stirner's views, and in order to be fair we follow the condensation of John Henry Mackay (pp. 135-192) than whom certainly we could find no more sympathetic or intelligent student of this individualistic philosophy.

Here are Stirner's arguments:

The ancients arrived at the conclusion that man was spirit. They created a world of spirit, and in this world of spirit Christianity begins. But what is spirit? Spirit has originated from nothing. It is its own creation and man makes it the center of the world. The injunction was given, Thou shalt not live to thyself but to thy spirit, to thy ideas. Spirit is the God, the ego and the spirit are in constant conflict. Spirit dwells beyond the earth. It is in vain to force the divine into service here for I am neither God nor man, neither the highest being nor my being. The spirit is like a ghost whom no one has seen, but of whom there are innumerable creditable witnesses, such as grandmother can give account of. The whole world that surrounds thee is filled with spooks of thy imagination. The holiness of truth which hallows thee is a strange element. It is not thine own and strangeness is a characteristic of holiness. The specter is truly only in thine ownhood..... Right is a spleen conferred by a spook; might, that is myself. I am the mighty one and the owner of might.... Right is the royal will of society. Every right which exists is created right. I am expected to honor it where I find it and subject myself to it. But what to me is the right of society, the right of all? What do I care for equality of right, for the struggle for right, for inalienable rights? Right becomes word in law. The dominant will is the preserver of the states. My own will shall upset them. Every state is a despotism. All right and all power is claimed to belong to the community of the people. I, however, shall not allow myself to be bound by it, for I recognize no duty even though the state may call crime in me what it considers right for itself. My relation to the state is not the relation of one ego to another ego. It is the relation of the sinner to the saint, but the saint is a mere fixed idea from which crimes originate (Mackay, pages 154-5).

It will sometimes be difficult to translate Stirner's declarations in their true meaning; for instance: "I am the owner of mankind, I am mankind and shall do nothing for the benefit of another mankind. The property of mankind is mine. I do not respect the property of mankind. Poverty originates when I can not utilize my own self as I want to. It is the state which hinders men from entering into a direct relation with others. On the mercy of right my private property depends. Only within prescribed limits am I allowed to compete. Only the medium of exchange, the money which the state makes, am I allowed to use. The forms of the state may change, the purpose of the state always remains the same. My property, however, is what I empower myself to. Let violence decide, I expect all from my own.

"You shall not lure me with love, nor catch me with the promise of communion of possessions, but the question of property will be solved only through a war of all against all, and what a slave will do as soon as he has broken his fetters we shall have to see. I know no law of love. As every one of my sentiments is my property, so also is love. I give it, I donate it, I squander it merely because it makes me happy. Earn it if you believe you have a right to it. The measure of my sentiments can not be prescribed to me, nor the aim of my feelings determined. We and the world have only one relation toward each other, that of usefulness. Yea, I use the world and men." (Pp. 156-157.)

As to promises made and confidence solicited Stirner would not allow a limitation of freedom. He says: "In itself an oath is no more sacred than a lie is contemptible." Stirner opposes the idea of communism. "The community of man creates laws for society. Communism is a communion in equality." Says Stirner, "I prefer to depend on the egotism of men rather than on their compassion." He feels himself swelled into a temporary, transient, puny deity. No man expresses him rightly, no concept defines him; he, the ego, is perfect. Stirner concludes his book: "Owner I am of my own power and I am such only when I know myself as the only one. In the only one even the owner returns into his creative nothingness from which he was born. Any higher being above, be it God or man, detracts from the feeling of my uniqueness and it pales before the sun of this consciousness. If I place my trust in myself, the only one, it will stand upon a transient mortal creator of himself, who feeds upon himself, and I can say,

"_Ich hab mein Sach' auf nichts gestellt._"
"My trust in nothingness is placed.'"

We call attention to Stirner's book, "The Only One and His Ownhood," not because we are strongly impressed by the profundity of his thought but because we believe that here is a man who ought to be answered, whose world-conception deserves a careful analysis which finally would lead to a justification of society, the state and the ideals of right and truth.

Society is not, as Stirner imagines, an artificial product of men who band themselves together in order to produce a state for the benefit of a clique. Society and state, as well as their foundation the family, are of a natural growth. All the several social institutions (kind of spiritual organisms) are as much organisms as are plants and animals. The co-operation of the state with religious, legal, civic and other institutions, are as much realities as are individuals, and any one who would undertake to struggle against them or treat them as nonentities will be implicated in innumerable struggles.

Stirner is the philosopher of individualism. To him the individual, this complicated and fluctuant being, is a reality, indeed the only true reality, while other combinations, institutions and social units are deemed to be mere nonentities. If from this standpoint the individualism of Stirner were revised, the student would come to radically different conclusions, and these conclusions would show that not without good reasons has the individual developed as a by-product of society, and all the possessions, intellectual as well as material, which exist are held by individuals only through the assistance and with the permission of the whole society or its dominant factors.

Both socialism and its opposite, individualism, which is ultimately the same as anarchism, are extremes that are based upon an erroneous interpretation of communal life. Socialists make society, and anarchists the individual their ultimate principle of human existence. Neither socialism nor anarchism are principles; both are factors, and both factors are needed for preserving the health of society as well as comprehending the nature of mankind. By neglecting either of these factors, we can only be led astray and arrive at wrong conclusions.

Poor Stirner wanted to exalt the ego, the sovereign individual, not only to the exclusion of a transcendent God and of the state or any other power, divine or social, but even to the exclusion of his own ideals, be it truth or anything spiritual; and yet he himself sacrificed his life for a propaganda of the ego as a unique and sovereign being. He died in misery and the recognition of his labors has slowly, very slowly, followed after his death. Yea, even after his death a rival individualist, Friedrich Nietzsche, stole his thunder and reaped the fame which Stirner had earned. Certainly this noble-minded, modest, altruistic egotist was paid in his own coin.

Did Stirner live up to his principle of ego sovereignty? In one sense he did; he recognized the right of every one to be himself, even when others infringed upon his own well-being. His wife fell out with him but he respected her sovereignty and justified her irregularities. Apparently he said to himself, "She has as much right to her own personality as I have to mine." But in another sense, so far as he himself was concerned, he did not. What became of his own rights, his ownhood, and the sweeping claim that the world was his property, that he was entitled to use or misuse the world and all mankind as he saw fit; that no other human being could expect recognition, nay not even on the basis of contracts, or promises, or for the sake of love, or humaneness and compassion? Did Stirner in his poverty ever act on the principle that he was the owner of the world, that there was no tie of morality binding on him, no principle which he had to respect? Nothing of the kind. He lived and died in peace with all the world, and the belief in the great ego sovereignty with its bold renunciation of all morality was a mere Platonic idea, a tame theory which had not the slightest influence upon his practical life.

Men of Stirner's type do not fare well in a world where the ego has come into its own. They will be trampled under foot, they will be bruised and starved, and they will die by the wayside. No, men of Stirner's type had better live in the protective shadow of a state; the worst and most despotic state will be better than none, for no state means mob rule or the tyranny of the bulldozer, the ruffian, the brutal and unprincipled self-seeker.

Here Friedrich Nietzsche comes in. Like Stirner, Nietzsche was a peaceful man; but unlike Stirner, Nietzsche had a hankering for power. Being pathological himself, without energy, without strength and without a healthy appetite and a good stomach, Nietzsche longed to play the part of a bulldozer among a herd of submissive human creatures whom he would control and command. This is Nietzsche's ideal, and he calls it the "overman." Here Nietzsche modified and added his own notion to Stirner's philosophy.

Individualistic philosophies are therefore based on an obvious error by misunderstanding the nature of the individual man, by forgetting the reality of society and its continued significance for the individual life. A careful investigation of the nature of the state as well as of our personality would have taught Stirner that both the state and the individual are realities. The state and society exist as much as the individuals of which they are composed,[1] and no individual can ignore in his maxims of life the rules of conduct, the moral principles, or whatever you may call that something which constitutes the conditions of his existence, of his physical and social surroundings. The dignity and divinity of personality does not exclude the significance of super-personalities; indeed, the two, super personal presences with their moral obligations and concrete human persons with their rights and duties, co-operate with each other and produce thereby all the higher values of life.

Stirner is onesided but, within the field of his onesided view, consistent. Nietzsche spurns consistency but accepts the field of notions created by Stirner, and, glorying in the same extreme individualism, proclaims the gospel of that individual who on the basis of Stirner's philosophy would make the best of a disorganized state of society, who by taking upon himself the functions of the state would utilize the advantages thus gained for the suppression of his fellow beings; and this kind of individual is dignified with the title "overman."

Nietzsche has been blamed for appropriating Stirner's thoughts and twisting them out of shape from the self-assertion of every ego consciousness into the autocracy of the unprincipled man of power; but we must concede that the common rules of literary ethics can not apply to individualists who deny all and any moral authority. Why should Nietzsche give credit to the author from whom he drew his inspiration if neither acknowledges any rule which he feels obliged to observe? Nietzsche uses Stirner as Stirner declares that it is the good right of every ego to use his fellows, and Nietzsche shows us what the result would be--the rise of a political boss, a brute in human shape, the overman.

Nietzsche is a poet, not a philosopher, not even a thinker, but as a poet he exercises a peculiar fascination upon many people who would never think of agreeing with him. Most admirers of Nietzsche belong to the class which Nietzsche calls the "herd animals," people who have no chance of ever asserting themselves, and become hungry for power as a sick man longs for health.

Individualism and anarchism continue to denounce the state, when they ought to reform it and improve its institutions. In the meantime the world wags on. The state exists, society exists, and innumerable social institutions exist. The individual grows under the influence of other individuals, his ideas--mere spooks of his brain--yet the factors of his life, right or wrong, guide him and determine his fate. There are as rare exceptions a few lawless societies in the wild West where a few outlaws meet by chance, revolver in hand, but even among them the state of anarchy does not last long, for by habit and precedent certain rules are established, and wherever man meets man, wherever they offer and accept one another's help, they co-operate or compete, they join hands or fight, they make contracts, form alliances, and establish rules, the result of which is society, the state, with all the institutions of the state, the administration, the legislature, the judiciary, with all the intricate machinery that regulates the interrelations of man to man.

The truth is that man develops into a rational, human and humane being through society by his intercourse with other men. Man is not really an individual in the sense of Stirner and Nietzsche, a being by himself and for himself, having no obligations to his fellows. Man is a part of the society through which he originated and to which he belongs and to overlook, to neglect and to ignore his relations to society, not to recognize definite obligations or rules of conduct which we formulate as duties is the grossest mistake philosophers can make, and this becomes obvious if we consider the nature of man as a social being as Aristotle has defined it.

[1] See the author's _The Nature of the State_, 1894, and _Personality_, 1911.

ANOTHER NIETZSCHE

The assertion of selfhood and the hankering after originality make Nietzsche the exponent of the absolute uniqueness of everything particular, and he goes to the extreme of denying all kinds of universality--even that of formal laws (the so-called uniformities of nature), reason, and especially its application in the field of practical life, morality. His ideal is "Be thyself! Be unique! Be original!" Properly speaking, we should not use the term ideal when speaking of Nietzsche's maxims of life, for the conception of an ideal is based upon a recognition of some kind of universality, and Nietzsche actually sneers at any one having ideals. The adherents of Nietzsche speak of their master as "_der Einzige_," i. e., "the unique one," and yet (in spite of the truth that every thing particular is in its way unique) the uniformities of nature are so real and unfailing that Nietzsche is simply the representative of a type which according to the laws of history and mental evolution naturally and inevitably appears whenever the philosophy of nominalism reaches its climax. He would therefore not be unique even if he were the only one that aspires after a unique selfhood; but the fact is that there are a number of Nietzsches, he happening to be the best known of his type. Other advocates of selfhood, of course, will be different from Nietzsche in many unimportant details, but they will be alike in all points that are essential and characteristic. One of these Nietzsches is George Moore, a Britain who is scarcely familiar with the writings of his German double, but a few quotations from his book, _Confessions of a Young Man_, will show that he can utter thoughts which might have been written by Friedrich Nietzsche himself. George Moore says:

"I was not dissipated, but I loved the abnormal" (p. 18).

"I was a model young man indeed" (p. 20).

"I boasted of dissipations" (p. 19).

"I say again, let general principles be waived; it
will suffice for the interest of these pages if it be
understood that brain-instincts have always been, and
still are, the initial and the determining powers of my
being" (p. 47).

George Moore, like Nietzsche, is one of Schopenhauer's disciples who has become sick of pessimism. He says:

"That odious pessimism! How sick I am of it" (p. 310).

When George Moore speaks of God he thinks of him in the old-fashioned way as a big self, an individual and particular being. Hence he denies him. God is as dead as any pagan deity. George Moore says:

"To talk to us, the legitimate children of the nineteenth
century, of logical proofs of the existence of God,
strikes us in just the same light as the logical proof of
the existence of Jupiter Ammon" (p. 137).

George Moore is coarse in comparison with Nietzsche. Nietzsche is no cynic; he is pure-hearted and noble by nature. Moore is voluptuous and vulgar. Both are avowed immoralists, and if the principle of an unrestrained egotism be right, George Moore is as good as Nietzsche, and any criminal given to the most abominable vices would not be worse than either.

Nietzsche feels the decadence of the age and longs for health; but he attributes the cause of his own decadence to the Christian ideals of virtue, love, and sympathy with others. George Moore cherishes the same views; he says:

"We are now in a period of decadence, growing steadily
more and more acute" (p. 239).

"Respectability ... continues to exercise a meretricious
and enervating influence on literature" (p. 240).

"Pity, that most vile of all vile virtues, has never been
known to me. The great pagan world I love knew it not" (p.
200).

"The philanthropist is the Nero of modern times" (p. 185).

Both Nietzsche and Moore long for limitless freedom; but Moore seems more consistent, for he lacks the ideal of the overman and extends freedom to the sex relation, saying:

"Marriage--what an abomination! Love--yes, but not
marriage...freedom limitless" (p. 168-169).

Moore loves art, but his view of art is cynical, and here too he is unlike Nietzsche; he says:

"Art is not nature. Art is nature digested. Art is a
sublime excrement" (p. 178).

Both believe in the coming of a great social deluge. George Moore says:

"The French revolution will compare with the revolution
that is to come, that must come, that is inevitable, as a
puddle on the road-side compares with the sea. Men will
hang like pears on every lamp-post, in every great quarter
of London, there will be an electric guillotine that will
decapitate the rich like hogs in Chicago" (p. 343).

Ideals are regarded as superstitions, and belief in ideas is deemed hypocritical. George Moore says:

"In my heart of hearts I think myself a cut above you,
because I do not believe in leaving the world better than
I found it; and you, exquisitely hypocritical reader,
think that you are a cut above me because you say you
would leave the world better than you found it" (p. 354).

The deeds of a man, his thoughts and aspirations, which constitute his spiritual self, count for nothing; the body alone is supposed to be real, and thus after death a pig is deemed more useful than a Socrates. Continues Moore:

"The pig that is being slaughtered as I write this line
will leave the world better than it found it, but you will
leave only a putrid carcass fit for nothing but the grave"
(p. 353).

Wrong is idealized:

"Injustice we worship; all that lifts us out of the
miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice.

"Man would not be man but for injustice" (p. 203).

"Again I say that all we deem sublime in the world's
history are acts of injustice; and it is certain that if
mankind does not relinquish at once and for ever, its
vain, mad, and frantic dream of justice, the world will
lapse into barbarism" (p. 205).

George Moore gives a moment's thought to the ideal of "a new art, based upon science, in opposition to the art of the old world that was based on imagination, an art that should explain all things and embrace modern life in its entirety, in its endless ramifications, be it, as it were, a new creed in a new civilization ... that would continue to a more glorious and legitimate conclusion the work that the prophets have begun"; but he turns his back upon it. It would be after all a product of development; it would be the tyranny of a past age, and he says, "as well drink the dregs of yesterday's champagne" (p. 128).

NIETZSCHE'S DISCIPLES

It is said that barking dogs do not bite, and this being true, we must look upon Nietzsche's philosophy as a harmless display of words and a burning desire for power without making any attempt to practice what he preached. His philosophy, so far as he is concerned, is a purely Platonic love of an unattainable star whose brilliance dazzled the imagination of a childlike peaceful weakling. Suppose, however, for argument's sake, that Nietzsche had been a man of robust health, and that he had been born at the time of great disturbances, offering unlimited chances to an unscrupulous ambition, would he under these circumstances have led the life he preached, and in case he had done so, would he have boldly and unreservedly admitted his principles while carrying out his plans? Did ever Cæsar or Napoleon or any usurper, such as Richard III, who unscrupulously aspired for power, own that he would shrink from nothing to attain his aim? Such a straightforward policy for any schemer would be the surest way of missing his aim. Such men, on the contrary, have played hypocrites, and have pretended to cherish ideals generally approved by the large masses of the people whom Nietzsche calls the herd. So it is obvious that the philosophy of Nietzsche if it were ever practically applied, would have become a secret doctrine known only to the initiated few, while the broad masses would be misguided by some demonstrative show of moral principles that might be pleasing to the multitudes and yet at the same time conceal the real tendency of the overman to gain possession of his superior position.

Nietzsche's influence upon professional philosophers is comparatively weak. Whenever mentioned by them, it is in criticism, and he is generally set aside as onesided, and perhaps justly, because he was truly no philosopher in the strict sense of the word. He was no reasoner, no logician, and we can not, properly speaking, look upon his philosophy as a system or even a systematized view of the world. Nietzsche made himself the exponent of a tendency, and as such he has his followers among large masses of those very people whom he despised as belonging to the herds. As Nietzsche idealized this very quality in which he was lacking, so his followers recruit themselves from the ranks of those people who more than all others would be opposed to the rule of the overman. His most ardent followers are among the nihilists of Russia, the socialists and anarchists of all civilized countries. The secret reason of attraction, perhaps unknown to themselves, seems to be Nietzsche's defense of the blind impulse and the privilege which he claims for the overman to be himself in spite of law and order and morality, and also his contempt for rules, religious, philosophical, ethical or even logical, that would restrict the great sovereign passion for power.

Nietzsche's philosophy has taken a firm hold of a number of souls who rebel against the social, the political, the religious, and even the scientific, conditions of our civilization. Nietzsche is the philosopher of protest, and, strange to say, while he himself is aristocratic in his instincts, he appeals most powerfully to the masses of the people.

Nietzsche's disciples are not among the aristocrats, not among the scholars, not among the men of genius. His followers are among the people who believe in hatred and hail him as a prophet of the great deluge. His greatest admirers are anarchists, sometimes also socialists, and above all those geniuses who have failed to find recognition. Nietzsche's thought will prove veritable dynamite if it should happen to reach the masses of mankind, the disinherited, the uneducated, the proletariat, the Catilinary existences. Nietzsche's philosophy is an intoxicant to those whom he despised most; they see in him their liberator, and rejoice in his invectives.

Invectives naturally appeal to those who are as unthinking as the brutes of the field, but feel the sufferings of existence as much as do the beasts of burden. They are impervious to argument, but being full of bitterness and envy they can be led most easily by any kind of denunciations of their betters. Nietzsche hated the masses, the crowd of the common people, the herd. He despised the lowly and had a contempt for the ideals of democracy. Nevertheless, his style of thought is such as to resemble the rant of the leaders of mobs, and it is quite probable that in the course of time he will become the philosopher of demagogues.

A great number of Nietzsche's disciples share their master's eccentricities and especially his impetuosity. Having a contempt for philosophy as the work of the intellect, they move mainly in the field of political and social self-assertion; they are anarchists who believe that the overman is coming in labor troubles, strikes, and through a subversion of the authority of government in any form.

The best known German expounders of Nietzsche's philosophy have been Rudolph Steiner and Alexander Tille.[1] Professor Henri Lichtenberger of the University of Nancy was his interpreter in France,[2] and the former editor of The Eagle and the Serpent, known under the pseudonym of Erwin McCall, in England. This periodical, which flourished for a short time only, characterized its own tendency as follows:

"_The Eagle and the Serpent_ is a bi-monthly journal of egoistic philosophy and sociology which teaches that in social science altruism spells damnation and egoism spells salvation. In the war against their exploiters the exploited cannot hope to succeed till they act as a unit, an 'ego.'"

A reader of _The Eagle and the Serpent_ humorously criticised the egoistic philosophy as follows:

"Dear Eagle and Serpent.--I am one of those unreasonable
persons who see no irreconcilable conflict between egoism
and altruism. The altruism of Tolstoy is the shortest
road to the egoism of Whitman. The unbounded love and
compassion of Jesus made him conscious of being the son
of God, and that he and the Father were one. Could egoism
go further than this? I believe that true egoism and true
altruism grow in precisely equal degree in the soul, and
that the alleged qualities which bear either name and
attempt to masquerade alone without their respective
make-weights are shams and counterfeits. The real
desideratum is balance, and that cannot be permanently
preserved on one leg. However, you skate surprisingly well
for the time being on one foot, and I have enjoyed the
first performance so well that I enclose 60 cents for a
season-ticket--ERNEST H. CROSBY. Rhinebeck, N. Y., U. S.
A."

A German periodical _Der Eigene_, i. e., "he who is his own," announced itself as "a journal for all and nobody," and sounded "the slogan of the egoists," by calling on them to "preserve their ownhood."

Another anarchistic periodical that stood under the influence of Nietzsche appeared in Budapest,[3] Hungary, in German and Hungarian under the name Ohne Staat, ("Without Government") as "the organ of ideal anarchists," under the editorship of Karl Krausz.

Perhaps the most worthy exponent of Nietzsche in England to-day is his translator Thomas Common. He does not consider himself an orthodox Nietzsche apostle but thinks that Nietzsche has given the world a very important revelation and that his new philosophy of history and his explanation of the role of Christianity are among the most wonderful discoveries since Darwin. At the same time Mr. Common pronounces Nietzsche's doctrine of eternal recurrence "very foolish" and believes his use of the terms "good" and "evil" so perverted that he was frequently confused about them and so misled superficial readers. Mr. Common published at regular intervals during the years 1903 to 1909 ten numbers of a small periodical entitled variously _Notes for Good Europeans and The Good European Point of View_, and expects to resume its publication soon. Its motto is from Nietzsche, "In a word--and it shall be an honorable word--we are Good Europeans ... the heirs of thousands of years of the European spirit." Its purpose is expressed in its first number as follows: "Our general purpose is to spread the best and most important knowledge relating to human well-being among those who are worthy to receive it, with a view to reducing the knowledge to practice, after some degree of unanimity has been attained.... As Nietzsche's works, notwithstanding some limitations, exaggerations and minor errors, embody the foremost philosophical thought of the age, it will be one of our special objects to introduce these works to English readers."

These numbers contain many bibliographical and other notes of interest to friends or critics of the Nietzsche propaganda. Mr. Common has published selections from Nietzsche's works under the title, _Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet_.[4]

In America Nietzsche's philosophy is represented by a book of Ragnar Redbeard, entitled _Might is Right, the Survival of the Fittest._[5] The author characterizes his work as follows:

"This book is a reasoned negation of the Ten
Commandments--the Golden Rule--the Sermon on the
Mount--Republican Principles--Christian Principles--and
Principles' in general.

"It proclaims upon scientific evolutionary grounds,
the unlimited absolutism of Might, and asserts that
cut-and-dried moral codes are crude and immoral
inventions, promotive of vice and vassalage."

The author is a most ardent admirer of Nietzsche, as may be learned from his verses made after the pattern of Nietzsche's poetry. He sings:

"There is no 'law' in heaven or earth that man must needs
obey! Take what you can, and all you can; and take it
while you--may.

"Let not the Jew-born Christ ideal unnerve you in the
fight. You have no 'rights,' except the rights you win
by--might.

"There is no justice, right, nor wrong; no truth, no good,
no evil. There is no 'man's immortal soul,' no fiery,
fearsome Devil.

"There is no 'heaven of glory:' No!--no 'hell where
sinners roast' There is no 'God the Father,' No!--no Son,
no 'Holy Ghost.'

"This world is no Nirvâna where joy forever flows. It is a
grewsome butcher shop where dead 'lambs' hang in--rows.

"Man is the most ferocious of all the beasts of prey. He
rangeth round the mountains, to love, and feast, and--slay.

"He sails the stormy oceans, he gallops o'er the plains,
and sucks the very marrow-bones of captives held
in--chains.

"Death endeth all for every man,--for every 'son of
thunder'; then be a lion (not a 'lamb') and--don't be
trampled under."

A valuable recent addition to the discussion of egoism is _The Philosophy of Egoism_ by James L. Walker, (Denver, 1905).

We know of no American periodical which stands for Nietzsche's views, except, perhaps, _The Lion's Paw_ (Chicago) which claims to follow no one. In the last years of the nineteenth century Clarence L. Swartz published at Wellesley, Mass., an egoistic periodical called the _I_. This magazine is no longer in existence, but Mr. Swartz is very active in the International Intelligence Institute whose aims are universal language, universal nationality and universal peace. He still maintains the same philosophical view which he held as editor of the _I_, but his philosophical egoism has led him in far different paths from those of Nietzsche--into the paths of peace and not of struggle. He expresses his present conception as follows:

"In the last analysis there is no right but might. Such is the common ordinary rule of every-day life, from which there is no escape, even were escape desirable. Any attempt to overthrow or circumvent or even dispute the exercise of this prerogative of the mighty is but to assert or oppose a greater might. Expediency always dictates how might should be exercised. Politically, I hold that the non-coercion of the non-invasive individual is the part of wisdom. The individual is supreme, and should be preserved as against society, for in no other way can evolution perform its perfect work."

_The Free Comrade_ edited by J. Wm. Lloyd and Leonard Abbott, an avowedly socialistic and individualistic paper, originally under the sole editorship of Lloyd, stood for Nietzsche and his egoism, but can no longer be said to do so.