Chapter II: The Owner (1)

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

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

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

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

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

Christianity properly so called gathers us under a less utterly general concept: there we are "sons of God" and "led by the Spirit of God."[115] Yet not all can boast of being God's sons, but "the same Spirit which witnesses to our spirit that we are sons of God reveals also who are the sons of the devil."[116] Consequently, to be a son of God one must not be a son of the devil; the sonship of God excluded certain men. To be _sons of men_,--_i. e._ men,--on the contrary, we need nothing but to belong to the human _species_, need only to be specimens of the same species. What I am as this I is no concern of yours as a good liberal, but is my _private affair_ alone; enough that we are both sons of one and the same mother, to wit, the human species: as "a son of man" I am your equal.

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

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

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

But are we on that account further on now than in the beginning of Christianity? Then we were to have a _divine spirit_, now a _human_; but, if the divine did not exhaust us, how should the human wholly express what we are? Feuerbach, _e. g._, thinks that, if he humanizes the divine, he has found the truth. No, if God has given us pain, "Man" is capable of pinching us still more torturingly. The long and the short of it is this: that we are men is the slightest thing about us, and has significance only in so far as it is one of our _qualities_,[117] _i. e._ our property.[118] I am indeed among other things a man, as I am, _e. g._, a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, a Berliner, and the like; but he who chose to have regard for me only as a man, or as a Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very unimportant to me. And wherefore? Because he would have regard only for one of my _qualities_, not for _me_.

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

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

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

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

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

The HUMAN _religion_ is only the last metamorphosis of the Christian religion. For liberalism is a religion because it separates my essence from me and sets it above me, because it exalts "Man" to the same extent as any other religion does its God or idol, because it makes what is mine into something otherworldly, because in general it makes out of what is mine, out of my qualities and my property, something alien,--to wit, an "essence"; in short, because it sets me beneath Man, and thereby creates for me a "vocation." But liberalism declares itself a religion in form too when it demands for this supreme being, Man, a zeal of faith, "a faith that some day will at last prove its fiery zeal too, a zeal that will be invincible."[120] But, as liberalism is a human religion, its professor takes a _tolerant_ attitude toward the professor of any other (Catholic, Jewish, etc.), as Frederick the Great did toward every one who performed his duties as a subject, whatever fashion of becoming blest he might be inclined toward. This religion is now to be raised to the rank of the generally customary one, and separated from the others as mere "private follies," toward which, besides, one takes a highly _liberal_ attitude on account of their unessentialness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This State, not a present one indeed, but still in need of being first created, is the ideal of advancing liberalism. There is to come into existence a true "society of men," in which every "man" finds room. Liberalism means to realize "Man," _i. e._ create a world for him; and this should be the _human_ world or the general (Communistic) society of men. It was said, "The Church could regard only the spirit, the State is to regard the whole man."[121] But is not "Man" "spirit"? The kernel of the State is simply "Man," this unreality, and it itself is only a "society of men." The world which the believer (believing spirit) creates is called Church, the world which the man (human or humane spirit) creates is called State. But that is not _my_ world. I never execute anything _human_ in the abstract, but always my _own_ things; _i. e._, _my_ human act is diverse from every other human act, and only by this diversity is it a real act belonging to me. The human in it is an abstraction, and, as such, spirit, _i. e._ abstracted essence.

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

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

According to his representation the defect of the Jews and the Christians alike lies in their wanting to be and have something "particular" instead of only being men and endeavoring after what is human,--to wit, the "general rights of man." He thinks their fundamental error consists in the belief that they are "privileged," possess "prerogatives"; in general, in the belief in _prerogative_.[122] In opposition to this he holds up to them the general rights of man. The rights of man!--

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

Man is something only as _my quality_[123] (property[124]), like masculinity or femininity. The ancients found the ideal in one's being _male_ in the full sense; their virtue is _virtus_ and _arete_,--_i. e._ manliness. What is one to think of a woman who should want only to be perfectly "woman"? That is not given to all, and many a one would therein be fixing for herself an unattainable goal. _Feminine_, on the other hand, she is anyhow, by nature; femininity is her quality, and she does not need "true femininity." I am a man just as the earth is a star. As ridiculous as it would be to set the earth the task of being a "thorough star," so ridiculous it is to burden me with the call to be a "thorough man."

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

How natural is the supposition that _man_ and _ego_ mean the same! and yet one sees, _e. g._, by Feuerbach, that the expression "man" is to designate the absolute ego, the _species_, not the transitory, individual ego. Egoism and humanity (humaneness) ought to mean the same, but according to Feuerbach the individual can "only lift himself above the limits of his individuality, but not above the laws, the positive ordinances, of his species."[125] But the species is nothing, and, if the individual lifts himself above the limits of his individuality, this is rather his very self as an individual; he exists only in raising himself, he exists only in not remaining what he is; otherwise he would be done, dead. Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of. To be _a_ man is not to realize the ideal of _Man_, but to present _oneself_, the individual. It is not how I realize the _generally human_ that needs to be my task, but how I satisfy myself. _I_ am my species, am without norm, without law, without model, and the like. It is possible that I can make very little out of myself; but this little is everything, and is better than what I allow to be made out of me by the might of others, by the training of custom, religion, the laws, the State, etc. Better--if the talk is to be of better at all--better an unmannerly child than an old head on young shoulders, better a mulish man than a man compliant in everything. The unmannerly and mulish fellow is still on the way to form himself according to his own will; the prematurely knowing and compliant one is determined by the "species," the general demands, etc.,--the species is law to him. He is _determined_[126] by it; for what else is the species to him but his "destiny,"[127] his "calling"? Whether I look to "humanity," the species, in order to strive toward this ideal, or to God and Christ with like endeavor, where is the essential dissimilarity? At most the former is more washed-out than the latter. As the individual is the whole of nature, so he is the whole of the species too.

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

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

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

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

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

I am possessed, and want to get rid of the "evil spirit." How do I set about it? I fearlessly commit the sin that seems to the Christian the direst, the sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. "He who blasphemes the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness forever, but is liable to the eternal judgment!"[128] I want no forgiveness, and am not afraid of the judgment.

_Man_ is the last evil _spirit_ or spook, the most deceptive or most intimate, the craftiest liar with honest mien, the father of lies.

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

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

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

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

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

Our atheists are pious people.

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

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

My power _is_ my property.

My power _gives_ me property.

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

I.--MY POWER

_Right_[129] is the _spirit of society_. If society has a _will_, this will is simply right: society exists only through right. But, as it endures only by exercising a _sovereignty_ over individuals, right is its SOVEREIGN WILL. Aristotle says justice is the advantage of _society_.

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

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

The State does not permit pitching into each other man to man; it opposes the _duel_. Even every ordinary appeal to blows, notwithstanding that neither of the fighters calls the police to it, is punished; except when it is not an I whacking away at a you, but, say, the _head of a family_ at the child. The _family_ is entitled to this, and in its name the father; I as Ego am not.

The "_Vossische Zeitung_" presents to us the "commonwealth of right." There everything is to be decided by the judge and a _court_. It ranks the supreme court of censorship as a "court" where "right is declared" What sort of a right? The right of the censorship. To recognize the sentences of that court as right one must regard the censorship as right. But it is thought nevertheless that this court offers a protection. Yes, protection against an individual censor's error: it protects only the censorship-legislator against false interpretation of his will, at the same time making his statute, by the "sacred power of right," all the firmer against writers.

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

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

But the social reformers preach to us a "_law of society_." There the individual becomes society's slave, and is in the right only when society _makes him out_ in the right, _i. e._ when he lives according to society's _statutes_ and so is--_loyal_. Whether I am loyal under a despotism or in a "society" _à la_ Weitling, it is the same absence of right in so far as in both cases I have not _my_ right but _foreign_ right.

In considerations of right the question is always asked, "What or who gives me the right to it?" Answer: God, love, reason, nature, humanity, etc. No, only _your might_, _your_ power gives you the right (your reason, _e. g._, may give it to you).

Communism, which assumes that men "have equal rights by nature," contradicts its own proposition till it comes to this, that men have no right at all by nature. For it is not willing to recognize, _e. g._, that parents have "by nature" rights as against their children, or the children as against the parents: it abolishes the family. Nature gives parents, brothers, etc., no right at all. Altogether, this entire revolutionary or Babouvist principle[130] rests on a religious, _i. e._ false, view of things. Who can ask after "right" if he does not occupy the religious standpoint himself? Is not "right" a religious concept, _i. e._ something sacred? Why, "_equality of rights_," as the Revolution propounded it, is only another name for "Christian equality," the "equality of the brethren," "of God's children," "of Christians," etc.: in short _fraternité_. Each and every inquiry after right deserves to be lashed with Schillers words:

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

When the Revolution stamped equality as a "right," it took flight into the religious domain, into the region of the sacred, of the ideal. Hence, since then, the fight for the "sacred, inalienable rights of man." Against the "eternal rights of man" the "well-earned rights of the established order" are quite naturally, and with equal right, brought to bear: right against right, where of course one is decried by the other as "wrong." This has been the _contest of rights_[131] since the Revolution.

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

_I_ decide whether it is the _right thing_ in _me_; there is no right _outside_ me. If it is right for _me_,[132] it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is their care, not mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me, _i. e._ I wanted it, then I would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how to value _himself_, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for might goes before right, and that--with perfect right.

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

Whether nature gives me a right, or whether God, the people's choice, etc., does so, all of that is the same _foreign_ right, a right that _I_ do not give or take to myself.

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

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

The conflict over the "right of property" wavers in vehement commotion. The Communists affirm[133] that "the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its products to those who bring them out." I think it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not only the earth, but the right to it too, belongs to him. This is _egoistic right_: _i. e._, it is right for _me_, therefore it is right.

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

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

People talk so much about _birthright_, and complain:

There is--alas!--no mention of the rights
That were born with us.[134]

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

If you remain on the ground of right, you remain in--_Rechthaberei_.[135] The other cannot give you your right; he cannot "mete out right" to you. He who has might has--right; if you have not the former, neither have you the latter. Is this wisdom so hard to attain? Just look at the mighty and their doings! We are talking here only of China and Japan, of course. Just try it once, you Chinese and Japanese, to make them out in the wrong, and learn by experience how they throw you into jail. (Only do not confuse with this the "well-meaning counsels" which--in China and Japan--are permitted, because they do not hinder the mighty one, but possibly _help him on_.) For him who should want to make them out in the wrong there would stand open only one way thereto, that of might. If he deprives them of their _might_, then he has _really_ made them out in the wrong, deprived them of their right; in any other case he can do nothing but clench his little fist in his pocket, or fall a victim as an obtrusive fool.

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

But what is right, what is matter of right in a society, is voiced too--in the _law_.[136]

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

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

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

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

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