Chapter II: Men of the Old Time and the New (5)

But from these identical discontented ones comes a reasoning somewhat as follows: It need not make any difference to the "good citizens" who protects them and their principles, whether an absolute king or a constitutional one, a republic, etc., if only they are protected. And what is their principle, whose protector they always "love"? Not that of labor; not that of birth either. But that of _mediocrity_, of the golden mean: a little birth and a little labor, _i. e._, an _interest-bearing possession_. Possession is here the fixed, the given, inherited (birth); interest-drawing is the exertion about it (labor); _laboring capital_, therefore. Only no immoderation, no ultra, no radicalism! Right of birth certainly, but only hereditary possessions; labor certainly, yet little or none at all of one's own, but labor of capital and of the--subject laborers.

If an age is imbued with an error, some always derive advantage from the error, while the rest have to suffer from it. In the Middle Ages the error was general among Christians that the church must have all power, or the supreme lordship on earth; the hierarchs believed in this "truth" not less than the laymen, and both were spellbound in the like error. But by it the hierarchs had the _advantage_ of power, the laymen had to _suffer_ subjection. However, as the saying goes, "one learns wisdom by suffering"; and so the laymen at last learned wisdom and no longer believed in the mediæval "truth."--A like relation exists between the commonalty and the laboring class. Commoner and laborer believe in the "truth" of _money_; they who do not possess it believe in it no less than those who possess it: the laymen, therefore, as well as the priests.

"Money governs the world" is the keynote of the civic epoch. A destitute aristocrat and a destitute laborer, as "starvelings," amount to nothing so far as political consideration is concerned; birth and labor do not do it, but _money_ brings _consideration_.[78] The possessors rule, but the State trains up from the destitute its "servants," to whom, in proportion as they are to rule (govern) in its name, it gives money (a salary).

I receive everything from the State. Have I anything without the _State's assent_? What I have without this it _takes_ from me as soon as it discovers the lack of a "legal title." Do I not, therefore, have everything through its grace, its assent?

On this alone, on the _legal title_, the commonalty rests. The commoner is what he is through the _protection of the State_, through the State's grace. He would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the State's power were broken.

But how is it with him who has nothing to lose, how with the proletarian? As he has nothing to lose, he does not need the protection of the State for his "nothing." He may gain, on the contrary, if that protection of the State is withdrawn from the _protégé_.

Therefore the non-possessor will regard the State as a power protecting the possessor, which privileges the latter, but does nothing for him, the non-possessor, but to--suck his blood. The State is a--_commoners' State_, is the estate of the commonalty. It protects man not according to his labor, but according to his tractableness ("loyalty"),--to wit, according to whether the rights entrusted to him by the State are enjoyed and managed in accordance with the will, _i. e._ laws, of the State.

Under the _régime_ of the commonalty the laborers always fall into the hands of the possessors,--_i. e._ of those who have at their disposal some bit of the State domains (and everything possessible is State domain, belongs to the State, and is only a fief of the individual), especially money and land; of the capitalists, therefore. The laborer cannot _realize_ on his labor to the extent of the value that it has for the consumer. "Labor is badly paid!" The capitalist has the greatest profit from it.--Well paid, and more than well paid, are only the labors of those who heighten the splendor and _dominion_ of the State, the labors of high State _servants_. The State pays well that its "good citizens," the possessors, may be able to pay badly without danger; it secures to itself by good payment its servants, out of whom it forms a protecting power, a "police" (to the police belong soldiers, officials of all kinds, _e. g._ those of justice, education, etc.,--in short, the whole "machinery of the State") for the "good citizens," and the "good citizens" gladly pay high tax-rates to it in order to pay so much lower rates to their laborers.

But the class of laborers, because unprotected in what they essentially are (for they do not enjoy the protection of the State as laborers, but as its subjects they have a share in the enjoyment of the police, a so-called protection of the law), remains a power hostile to this State, this State of possessors, this "citizen kingship." Its principle, labor, is not recognized as to its _value_; it is exploited,[79] a _spoil_[80] of the possessors, the enemy.

The laborers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they would only have to stop labor, regard the product of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labor disturbances which show themselves here and there.

The State rests on the--_slavery of labor_. If _labor_ becomes _free_, the State is lost.

§ 2.--SOCIAL LIBERALISM

We are freeborn men, and wherever we look we see ourselves made servants of egoists! Are we therefore to become egoists too? Heaven forbid! we want rather to make egoists impossible! We want to make them all "ragamuffins"; all of us must have nothing, that "all may have."

So say the Socialists.

Who is this person that you call "All"?--It is "society"!--But is it corporeal, then?--_We_ are its body!--You? Why, you are not a body yourselves;--you, sir, are corporeal to be sure, you too, and you, but you all together are only bodies, not a body. Accordingly the united society may indeed have bodies at its service, but no one body of its own. Like the "nation" of the politicians, it will turn out to be nothing but a "spirit," its body only semblance.

The freedom of man is, in political liberalism, freedom from _persons_, from personal dominion, from the _master_; the securing of each individual person against other persons, personal freedom.

No one has any orders to give; the law alone gives orders.

But, even if the persons have become _equal_, yet their _possessions_ have not. And yet the poor man _needs_ the rich, the rich the poor, the former the rich man's money, the latter the poor man's labor. So no one needs another as a _person_, but needs him as a _giver_, and thus as one who has something to give, as holder or possessor. So what he _has_ makes the _man_. And in _having_, or in "possessions," people are unequal.

Consequently, social liberalism concludes, _no one must have_, as according to political liberalism _no one was to give orders_; _i. e._, as in that case the _State_ alone obtained the command, so now _society_ alone obtains the possessions.

For the State, protecting each one's person and property against the other, _separates_ them from one another; each one _is_ his special part and _has_ his special part. He who is satisfied with what he is and has finds this state of things profitable; but he who would like to be and have more looks around for this "more," and finds it in the power of other _persons_. Here he comes upon a contradiction; as a person no one is inferior to another, and yet one person _has_ what another has not but would like to have. So, he concludes, the one person is more than the other, after all, for the former has what he needs, the latter has not; the former is a rich man, the latter a poor man.

He now asks himself further, are we to let what we rightly buried come to life again? are we to let this circuitously restored inequality of persons pass? No; on the contrary, we must bring quite to an end what was only half accomplished. Our freedom from another's person still lacks the freedom from what the other's person can command, from what he has in his personal power,--in short, from "personal property." Let us then do away with _personal property_. Let no one have anything any longer, let every one be a--ragamuffin. Let property be _impersonal_, let it belong to--_society_.

Before the supreme _ruler_, the sole _commander_, we had all become equal, equal persons, _i. e._ nullities.

Before the supreme _proprietor_ we all become equal--_ragamuffins_. For the present, one is still in another's estimation a "ragamuffin," a "have-nothing"; but then this estimation ceases. We are all ragamuffins together, and as the aggregate of Communistic society we might call ourselves a "ragamuffin crew."

When the proletarian shall really have founded his purposed "society" in which the interval between rich and poor is to be removed, then he _will be_ a ragamuffin, for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a ragamuffin, and might lift "Ragamuffin" to be an honorable form of address, just as the Revolution did with the word "Citizen." Ragamuffin is his ideal; we are all to become ragamuffins.

This is the second robbery of the "personal" in the interest of "humanity." Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the State took the former, society the latter.

Because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt, therefore the oppressed especially, and consequently the members in the lower regions of society, think they find the fault in society, and make it their task to discover the _right society_. This is only the old phenomenon,--that one looks for the fault first in everything but _himself_, and consequently in the State, in the self-seeking of the rich, etc., which yet have precisely our fault to thank for their existence.

The reflections and conclusions of Communism look very simple. As matters lie at this time,--in the present situation with regard to the State, therefore,--some, and they the majority, are at a disadvantage compared to others, the minority. In this _state_ of things the former are in a _state of prosperity_, the latter in a _state of need_. Hence the present _state_ of things, _i. e._ the State, must be done away with. And what in its place? Instead of the isolated state of prosperity--a _general state of prosperity_, a _prosperity of all_.

Through the Revolution the _bourgeoisie_ became omnipotent, and all inequality was abolished by every one's being raised or degraded to the dignity of a _citizen_: the common man--raised, the aristocrat--degraded; the _third_ estate became sole estate,--_viz._, the estate of--_citizens of the State_. Now Communism responds: Our dignity and our essence consist not in our being all--the _equal children_ of our mother, the State, all born with equal claim to her love and her protection, but in our all existing _for each other_. This is our equality, or herein we are _equal_, in that we, I as well as you and you and all of you, are active or "labor" each one for the rest; in that each of us is a _laborer_, then. The point for us is not what we are _for the State_ (_viz._, citizens), not our _citizenship_ therefore, but what we are _for each other_,--_viz._, that each of us exists only through the other, who, caring for my wants, at the same time sees his own satisfied by me. He labors, _e. g._, for my clothing (tailor), I for his need of amusement (comedy-writer, rope-dancer, etc.), he for my food (farmer, etc.), I for his instruction (scientist, etc.). It is _labor_ that constitutes our dignity and our--equality.

What advantage does citizenship bring us? Burdens! And how high is our labor appraised? As low as possible! But labor is our sole value all the same; that we are _laborers_ is the best thing about us, this is our significance in the world, and therefore it must be our consideration too and must come to receive _consideration_. What can you meet us with? Surely nothing but--_labor_ too. Only for labor or services do we owe you a recompense, not for your bare existence; not for what you are _for yourselves_ either, but only for what you are _for us_. By what have you claims on us? Perhaps by your high birth, etc.? No, only by what you do for us that is desirable or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing to be worth to you only so much as we do for you; but you are to be held likewise by us. _Services_ determine value,--_i. e._ those services that are worth something to us, and consequently _labors for each other_, _labors for the common good_. Let each one be in the other's eyes a _laborer_. He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, or--all laborers (laborers, of course, in the sense of laborers "for the common good," _i. e._ communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the laborer is worth his wages,[81] let the wages too be equal.

As long as faith sufficed for man's honor and dignity, no labor, however harassing, could be objected to if it only did not hinder a man in his faith. Now, on the contrary, when every one is to cultivate himself into man, condemning a man to _machine-like labor_ amounts to the same thing as slavery. If a factory-worker must tire himself to death twelve hours and more, he is cut off from becoming man. Every labor is to have the intent that the man be satisfied. Therefore he must become a _master_ in it too, _i. e._ be able to perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-factory only puts on the heads, only draws the wire, etc., works, as it were, mechanically, like a machine; he remains half-trained, does not become a master: his labor cannot _satisfy_ him, it can only _fatigue_ him. His labor is nothing taken by itself, has no object _in itself_, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into another's hands, and is _used_ (exploited) by this other. For this laborer in another's service there is no _enjoyment of a cultivated mind_, at most crude amusements: _culture_, you see, is barred against him. To be a good Christian one needs only to _believe_, and that can be done under the most oppressive circumstances. Hence the Christian-minded take care only of the oppressed laborers' piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only so long as the downtrodden classes were _Christians_ could they bear all their misery: for Christianity does not let their murmurings and exasperation rise. Now the _hushing_ of desires is no longer enough, but their _sating_ is demanded. The _bourgeoisie_ has proclaimed the gospel of the _enjoyment of the world_, of material enjoyment, and now wonders that this doctrine finds adherents among us poor: it has shown that not faith and poverty, but culture and possessions, make a man blessed; we proletarians understand that too.

The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbitrariness of individuals. But that arbitrariness was left which springs from the conjuncture of situations, and may be called the fortuity of circumstances; favoring _fortune_, and those "favored by fortune," still remain.

When _e. g._ a branch of industry is ruined and thousands of laborers become breadless, people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is not the individual who must bear the blame, but that "the evil lies in the situation."

Let us change the situation then, but let us change it thoroughly, and so that its fortuity becomes powerless, and a _law_! Let us no longer be slaves of chance! Let us create a new order that makes an end of _fluctuations_. Let this order then be sacred!

Formerly one had to suit the _lords_ to come to anything; after the Revolution the word was "Grasp _fortune_!" Luck-hunting or hazard-playing, civil life was absorbed in this. Then, alongside this, the demand that he who has obtained something shall not frivolously stake it again.

Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction. Competition, in which alone civil or political life unrolls itself, is a game of luck through and through, from the speculations of the exchange down to the solicitation of offices, the hunt for customers, looking for work, aspiring to promotion and decorations, the second-hand dealer's petty haggling, etc. If one succeeds in supplanting and outbidding his rivals, then the "lucky throw" is made; for it must be taken as a piece of luck to begin with that the victor sees himself equipped with an ability (even though it has been developed by the most careful industry) against which the others do not know how to rise, consequently that--no abler ones are found. And now those who ply their daily lives in the midst of these changes of fortune without seeing any harm in it are seized with the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in naked form and "breeds misfortune" as--_hazard-playing_. Hazard-playing, you see, is too clear, too barefaced a competition, and, like every decided nakedness, offends honorable modesty.

The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of chance, and to form a society in which men are no longer dependent on _fortune_, but free.

In the most natural way in the world this endeavor first utters itself as hatred of the "unfortunate" against the "fortunate," _i. e._, of those for whom fortune has done little or nothing, against those for whom it has done everything.

But properly the ill-feeling is not directed against the fortunate, but against _fortune_, this rotten spot of the commonalty.

As the Communists first declare free activity to be man's essence, they, like all work-day dispositions, need a Sunday; like all material endeavors, they need a God, an uplifting and edification alongside their witless "labor."

That the Communist sees in you the man, the brother, is only the Sunday side of Communism. According to the work-day side he does not by any means take you as man simply, but as human laborer or laboring man. The first view has in it the liberal principle; in the second, illiberality is concealed. If you were a "lazybones," he would not indeed fail to recognize the man in you, but would endeavor to cleanse him as a "lazy man" from laziness and to convert you to the _faith_ that labor is man's "destiny and calling."

Therefore he shows a double face: with the one he takes heed that the spiritual man be satisfied, with the other he looks about him for means for the material or corporeal man. He gives man a twofold _post_,--an office of material acquisition and one of spiritual.

The commonalty had _thrown open_ spiritual and material goods, and left it with each one to reach out for them if he liked.

Communism really procures them for each one, presses them upon him, and compels him to acquire them. It takes seriously the idea that, because only spiritual and material goods make us men, we must unquestionably acquire these goods in order to be man. The commonalty made acquisition free; Communism _compels_ to acquisition, and recognizes only the acquirer, him who practises a trade. It is not enough that the trade is free, but you must _take it up_.

So all that is left for criticism to do is to prove that the acquisition of these goods does not yet by any means make us men.

With the liberal commandment that every one is to make a man of himself, or every one to make himself man, there was posited the necessity that every one must gain time for this labor of humanization, _i. e._ that it should become possible for every one to labor on _himself_.

The commonalty thought it had brought this about if it handed over everything human to competition, but gave the individual a right to every human thing. "Each may strive after everything!"

Social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled with the "may," because may means only "it is forbidden to none" but not "it is made possible to every one." Hence it affirms that the commonalty is liberal only with the mouth and in words, supremely illiberal in act. It on its part wants to give all of us the _means_ to be able to labor on ourselves.

By the principle of labor that of fortune or competition is certainly outdone. But at the same time the laborer, in his consciousness that the essential thing in him is "the laborer," holds himself aloof from egoism and subjects himself to the supremacy of a society of laborers, as the commoner clung with self-abandonment to the competition-State. The beautiful dream of a "social duty" still continues to be dreamed. People think again that society _gives_ what we need, and we are _under obligations_ to it on that account, owe it everything.[82] They are still at the point of wanting to _serve_ a "supreme giver of all good." That society is no ego at all, which could give, bestow, or grant, but an instrument or means, from which we may derive benefit; that we have no social duties, but solely interests for the pursuance of which society must serve us; that we owe society no sacrifice, but, if we sacrifice anything, sacrifice it to ourselves,--of this the Socialists do not think, because they--as liberals--are imprisoned in the religious principle, and zealously aspire after--a sacred society, such as the State was hitherto.

Society, from which we have everything, is a new master, a new spook, a new "supreme being," which "takes us into its service and allegiance"!

The more precise appreciation of political as well as social liberalism must wait to find its place further on. For the present we pass this over, in order first to summon them before the tribunal of humane or critical liberalism.

§ 3.--HUMANE LIBERALISM

As liberalism is completed in self-criticising, "critical"[83] liberalism, in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond the principle of liberalism, Man,--this may distinctively be named after Man and called the "humane."

The laborer is counted as the most material and egoistical man. He does nothing at all _for humanity_, does everything for _himself_, for his welfare.

The commonalty, because it proclaimed the freedom of _Man_ only as to his birth, had to leave him in the claws of the un-human man (the egoist) for the rest of life. Hence under the _régime_ of political liberalism egoism has an immense field for free utilization.

The laborer will _utilize_ society for his _egoistic_ ends as the commoner does the State. You have only an egoistic end after all, your welfare! is the humane liberal's reproach to the Socialist; take up a _purely human interest_, then I will be your companion. "But to this there belongs a consciousness stronger, more comprehensive, than a _laborer-consciousness_." "The laborer makes nothing, therefore he has nothing; but he makes nothing because his labor is always a labor that remains individual, calculated strictly for his own want, a labor day by day."[84] In opposition to this one might, for instance, consider the fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain individual, but begot innumerable children, and still lives to-day; it was calculated for the want of humanity, and was an eternal, imperishable labor.

The humane consciousness despises the commoner-consciousness as well as the laborer-consciousness: for the commoner is "indignant" only at vagabonds (at all who have "no definite occupation") and their "immorality"; the laborer is "disgusted" by the _idler_ ("lazybones") and his "immoral," because parasitic and unsocial, principles. To this the humane liberal retorts: The unsettledness of many is only your product, Philistine! But that you, proletarian, demand the _grind_ of all, and want to make _drudgery_ general, is a part, still clinging to you, of your pack-mule life up to this time. Certainly you want to lighten drudgery itself by _all_ having to drudge equally hard, yet only for this reason, that all may gain _leisure_ to an equal extent. But what are they to do with their leisure? What does your "society" do, that this leisure may be passed _humanly_? It must leave the gained leisure to egoistic preference again, and the very _gain_ that your society furthers falls to the egoist, as the gain of the commonalty, the _masterlessness of man_, could not be filled with a human element by the State, and therefore was left to arbitrary choice.

It is assuredly necessary that man be masterless: but therefore the egoist is not to become master over man again either, but man over the egoist. Man must assuredly find leisure: but, if the egoist makes use of it, it will be lost for man; therefore you ought to have given leisure a human significance. But you laborers undertake even your labor from an egoistic impulse, because you want to eat, drink, live; how should you be less egoists in leisure? You labor only because having your time to yourselves (idling) goes well after work done, and what you are to while away your leisure time with is left to _chance_.

But, if every door is to be bolted against egoism, it would be necessary to strive after completely "disinterested" action, _total_ disinterestedness. This alone is human, because only Man is disinterested, the egoist always interested.

* * * * *

If we let disinterestedness pass unchallenged for a while, then we ask, do you mean not to take an interest in anything, not to be enthusiastic for anything, not for liberty, humanity, etc.? "Oh, yes, but that is not an egoistic interest, not _interestedness_, but a human, _i. e._ a--_theoretical_ interest, to wit, an interest not for an individual or individuals ('all'), but for the _idea_, for Man!"

And you do not notice that you too are enthusiastic only for _your_ idea, _your_ idea of liberty?

And, further, do you not notice that your disinterestedness is again, like religious disinterestedness, a heavenly interestedness? Certainly benefit to the individual leaves you cold, and abstractly you could cry _fiat libertas, pereat mundus_. You do not take thought for the coming day either, and take no serious care for the individual's wants anyhow, not for your own comfort nor for that of the rest; but you make nothing of all this, because you are a--dreamer.

Do you suppose the humane liberal will be so liberal as to aver that everything possible to man is _human_? On the contrary! He does not, indeed, share the Philistine's moral prejudice about the strumpet, but "that this woman turns her body into a money-getting machine"[85] makes her despicable to him as "human being." His judgment is, The strumpet is not a human being; or, So far as a woman is a strumpet, so far is she unhuman, dehumanized. Further: The Jew, the Christian, the privileged person, the theologian, etc., is not a human being; so far as you are a Jew, etc., you are not a human being. Again the imperious postulate: Cast from you everything peculiar, criticise it away! Be not a Jew, not a Christian, etc., but be a human being, nothing but a human being. Assert your _humanity_ against every restrictive specification; make yourself, by means of it, a human being, and _free_ from those limits; make yourself a "free man," _i. e._ recognize humanity as your all-determining essence.

I say: You are indeed more than a Jew, more than a Christian, etc., but you are also more than a human being. Those are all ideas, but you are corporeal. Do you suppose, then, that you can ever become "a human being as such"? Do you suppose our posterity will find no prejudices and limits to clear away, for which our powers were not sufficient? Or do you perhaps think that in your fortieth or fiftieth year you have come so far that the following days have nothing more to dissipate in you, and that you are a human being? The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss. What do you need that later liberty for? If you meant to esteem yourself as nothing before you had become a human being, you would have to wait till the "last judgment," till the day when man, or humanity, shall have attained perfection. But, as you will surely die before that, what becomes of your prize of victory?

Rather, therefore, invert the case, and say to yourself, _I am a human being_! I do not need to begin by producing the human being in myself, for he belongs to me already, like all my qualities.

But, asks the critic, how can one be a Jew and a man at once? In the first place, I answer, one cannot be either a Jew or a man at all, if "one" and Jew or man are to mean the same; "one" always reaches beyond those specifications, and,--let Isaacs be ever so Jewish,--a Jew, nothing but a Jew, he cannot be, just because he is _this_ Jew. In the second place, as a Jew one assuredly cannot be a man, if being a man means being nothing special. But in the third place--and this is the point--I can, as a Jew, be entirely what I--_can_ be. From Samuel or Moses, and others, you hardly expect that they should have raised themselves above Judaism, although you must say that they were not yet "men." They simply were what they could be. Is it otherwise with the Jews of to-day? Because you have discovered the idea of humanity, does it follow from this that every Jew can become a convert to it? If he can, he does not fail to, and, if he fails to, he--cannot. What does your demand concern him? what the _call_ to be a man, which you address to him?

* * * * *

As a universal principle, in the "human society" which the humane liberal promises, nothing "special" which one or another has is to find recognition, nothing which bears the character of "private" is to have value. In this way the circle of liberalism, which has its good principle in man and human liberty, its bad in the egoist and everything private, its God in the former, its devil in the latter, rounds itself off completely; and, if the special or private person lost his value in the State (no personal prerogative), if in the "laborers' or ragamuffins' society" special (private) property is no longer recognized, so in "human society" everything special or private will be left out of account; and, when "pure criticism" shall have accomplished its arduous task, then it will be known just what we must look upon as private, and what, "penetrated with a sense of our nothingness," we must--let stand.

Because State and society do not suffice for humane liberalism, it negates both, and at the same time retains them. So at one time the cry is that the task of the day is "not a political, but a social, one," and then again the "free State" is promised for the future. In truth, "human society" is both,--the most general State and the most general society. Only against the limited State is it asserted that it makes too much stir about spiritual private interests (_e. g._ people's religious belief), and against limited society that it makes too much of material private interests. Both are to leave private interests to private people, and, as human society, concern themselves solely about general human interests.

The politicians, thinking to abolish _personal will_, self-will or arbitrariness, did not observe that through _property_[86] our _self-will_[87] gained a secure place of refuge.

The Socialists, taking away _property_ too, do not notice that this secures itself a continued existence in _self-ownership_. Is it only money and goods, then, that are a property, or is every opinion something of mine, something of my own?

So every _opinion_ must be abolished or made impersonal. The person is entitled to no opinion, but, as self-will was transferred to the State, property to society, so opinion too must be transferred to something _general_, "Man," and thereby become a general human opinion.

If opinion persists, then I have _my_ God (why, God exists only as "my God," he is an opinion or my "faith"), and consequently _my_ faith, my religion, my thoughts, my ideals. Therefore a general human faith must come into existence, the "_fanaticism of liberty_." For this would be a faith that agreed with the "essence of man," and, because only "man" is reasonable (you and I might be very unreasonable!), a reasonable faith.

As self-will and property become _powerless_, so must self-ownership or egoism in general.

In this supreme development of "free man" egoism, self-ownership, is combated on principle, and such subordinate ends as the social "welfare" of the Socialists, etc., vanish before the lofty "idea of humanity." Everything that is not a "general human" entity is something separate, satisfies only some or one; or, if it satisfies all, it does this to them only as individuals, not as men, and is therefore called "egoistic."

To the Socialists _welfare_ is still the supreme aim, as free _rivalry_ was the approved thing to the political liberals; now welfare is free too, and we are free to achieve welfare, just as he who wanted to enter into rivalry (competition) was free to do so.

But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be _commoners_; to take part in the welfare, only to be _laborers_. Neither reaches the point of being synonymous with "man." It is "truly well" with man only when he is also "intellectually free"! For man is mind: therefore all powers that are alien to him, the mind,--all superhuman, heavenly, unhuman powers,--must be overthrown, and the name "man" must be above every name.

So in this end of the modern age (age of the moderns) there returns again, as the main point, what had been the main point at its beginning: "intellectual liberty."

To the Communist in particular the humane liberal says: If society prescribes to you your activity, then this is indeed free from the influence of the individual, _i. e._ the egoist, but it still does not on that account need to be a _purely human_ activity, nor you to be a complete organ of humanity. What kind of activity society demands of you remains _accidental_, you know; it might give you a place in building a temple or something of that sort, or, even if not that, you might yet on your own impulse be active for something foolish, therefore unhuman; yes, more yet, you really labor only to nourish yourself, in general to live, for dear life's sake, not for the glorification of humanity. Consequently free activity is not attained till you make yourself free from all stupidities, from everything non-human, _i. e_. egoistic (pertaining only to the individual, not to the Man in the individual), dissipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea of humanity: in short, when you are not merely unhampered in your activity, but the substance too of your activity is only what is human, and you live and work only for humanity. But this is not the case so long as the aim of your effort is only your _welfare_ and that of all; what you do for the society of ragamuffins is not yet anything done for "human society."

Laboring does not alone make you a man, because it is something formal and its object accidental; the question is who you that labor are. As far as laboring goes, you might do it from an egoistic (material) impulse, merely to procure nourishment and the like; it must be a labor furthering humanity, calculated for the good of humanity, serving historical (_i. e._ human) evolution,--in short, a _humane_ labor. This implies two things: one, that it be useful to humanity; next, that it be the work of a "man." The first alone may be the case with every labor, as even the labors of nature, _e. g._ of animals, are utilized by humanity for the furthering of science, etc.; the second requires that he who labors should know the human object of his labor; and, as he can have this consciousness only when he _knows himself as man_, the crucial condition is--_self-consciousness_.

Unquestionably much is already attained when you cease to be a "fragment-laborer,"[88] yet therewith you only get a view of the whole of your labor, and acquire a consciousness about it, which is still far removed from a self-consciousness, a consciousness about your true "self" or "essence," Man. The laborer has still remaining the desire for a "higher consciousness," which, because the activity of labor is unable to quiet it, he satisfies in a leisure hour. Hence leisure stands by the side of his labor, and he sees himself compelled to proclaim labor and idling human in one breath, yes, to attribute the true elevation to the idler, the leisure-enjoyer. He labors only to get rid of labor; he wants to make labor free, only that he may be free from labor.

In fine, his work has no satisfying substance, because it is only imposed by society, only a stint, a task, a calling; and, conversely, his society does not satisfy, because it gives only work.

His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of that, it satisfies society; society ought to treat him as a man, and it treats him as--a rag-tag laborer, or a laboring ragamuffin.

Labor and society are of use to him not as he needs them as a man, but only as he needs them as an "egoist."

Such is the attitude of criticism toward labor. It points to "mind," wages the war "of mind with the masses,"[89] and pronounces communistic labor unintellectual mass-labor. Averse to labor as they are, the masses love to make labor easy for themselves. In literature, which is to-day furnished in mass, this aversion to labor begets the universally-known _superficiality_, which puts from it "the toil of research."[90]

Therefore humane liberalism says: You want labor; all right, we want it likewise, but we want it in the fullest measure. We want it, not that we may gain spare time, but that we may find all satisfaction in it itself. We want labor because it is our self-development.

But then the labor too must be adapted to that end! Man is honored only by human, self-conscious labor, only by the labor that has for its end no "egoistic" purpose, but Man, and is Man's self-revelation; so that the saying should be _laboro, ergo sum_, I labor, therefore I am a man. The humane liberal wants that labor of the _mind_ which _works up_ all material; he wants the mind, that leaves no thing quiet or in its existing condition, that acquiesces in nothing, analyzes everything, criticises anew every result that has been gained. This restless mind is the true laborer, it obliterates prejudices, shatters limits and narrownesses, and raises man above everything that would like to dominate over him, while the Communist labors only for himself, and not even freely, but from necessity,--in short, represents a man condemned to hard labor.

The laborer of such a type is not "egoistic," because he does not labor for individuals, neither for himself nor for other individuals, not for _private_ men therefore, but for humanity and its progress: he does not ease individual pains, does not care for individual wants, but removes limits within which humanity is pressed, dispels prejudices which dominate an entire time, vanquishes hindrances that obstruct the path of all, clears away errors in which men entangle themselves, discovers truths which are found through him for all and for all time; in short--he lives and labors for humanity.

Now, in the first place, the discoverer of a great truth doubtless knows that it can be useful to the rest of men, and, as a jealous withholding furnishes him no enjoyment, he communicates it; but, even though he has the consciousness that his communication is highly valuable to the rest, yet he has in no wise sought and found his truth for the sake of the rest, but for his own sake, because he himself desired it, because darkness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured for himself light and enlightenment to the best of his powers.

He labors, therefore, for his own sake and for the satisfaction of _his_ want. That along with this he was also useful to others, yes, to posterity, does not take from his labor the _egoistic_ character.

In the next place, if he did labor only on his own account, like the rest, why should his act be human, those of the rest unhuman, _i. e._ egoistic? Perhaps, because this book, painting, symphony, etc., is the labor of his whole being, because he has done his best in it, has spread himself out wholly and is wholly to be known from it, while the work of a handicraftsman mirrors only the handicraftsman, _i. e._ the skill in handicraft, not "the man"? In his poems we have the whole Schiller; in so many hundred stoves, on the other hand, we have before us only the stove-maker, not "the man."

But does this mean more than "in the one work you see _me_ as completely as possible, in the other only my skill"? Is it not _me_ again that the act expresses? And is it not more egoistic to offer _oneself_ to the world in a work, to work out and shape _oneself_, than to remain concealed behind one's labor? You say, to be sure, that you are revealing Man. But the Man that you reveal is you; you reveal only yourself, yet with this distinction from the handicraftsman,--that he does not understand how to compress himself into one labor, but, in order to be known as himself, must be searched out in his other relations of life, and that your want, through whose satisfaction that work came into being, was a--theoretical want.

But you will reply that you reveal quite another man, a worthier, higher, greater, a man that is more man than that other. I will assume that you accomplish all that is possible to man, that you bring to pass what no other succeeds in. Wherein, then, does your greatness consist? Precisely in this, that you are more than other men (the "masses"), more than _men_ ordinarily are, more than "ordinary men"; precisely in your elevation above men. You are distinguished beyond other men not by being man, but because you are a "unique"[91] man. Doubtless you show what a man can do; but because you, a man, do it, this by no means shows that others, also men, are able to do as much; you have executed it only as a _unique_ man, and are unique therein.

It is not man that makes up your greatness, but you create it, because you are more than man, and mightier than other--men.

It is believed that one cannot be more than man. Rather, one cannot be less!

It is believed further that whatever one attains is good for Man. In so far as I remain at all times a man--or, like Schiller, a Swabian; like Kant, a Prussian; like Gustavus Adolphus, a near-sighted person--I certainly become by my superior qualities a notable man, Swabian, Prussian, or near-sighted person. But the case is not much better with that than with Frederick the Great's cane, which became famous for Frederick's sake.

To "Give God the glory" corresponds the modern "Give Man the glory." But I mean to keep it for myself.

Criticism, issuing the summons to man to be "human," enunciates the necessary condition of sociability; for only as a man among men is one _companionable_. Herewith it makes known its _social_ object, the establishment of "human society."

Among social theories criticism is indisputably the most complete, because it removes and deprives of value everything that _separates_ man from man: all prerogatives, down to the prerogative of faith. In it the love-principle of Christianity, the true social principle, comes to the purest fulfilment, and the last possible experiment is tried to take away exclusiveness and repulsion from men: a fight against egoism in its simplest and therefore hardest form, in the form of singleness,[92] exclusiveness, itself.

"How can you live a truly social life so long as even one exclusiveness still exists between you?"

I ask conversely, How can you be truly single so long as even one connection still exists between you? If you are connected, you cannot leave each other; if a "tie" clasps you, you are something only _with another_, and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands of you a people, millions of you humanity.

"Only when you are human can you keep company with each other as men, just as you can understand each other as patriots only when you are patriotic!"

All right; then I answer, Only when you are single can you have intercourse with each other as what you are.

It is precisely the keenest critic who is hit hardest by the curse of his principle. Putting from him one exclusive thing after another, shaking off churchliness, patriotism, etc., he undoes one tie after another and separates himself from the churchly man, from the patriot, etc., till at last, when all ties are undone, he stands--alone. He, of all men, must exclude all that have anything exclusive or private; and, when you get to the bottom, what can be more exclusive than the exclusive, single person himself!

Or does he perhaps think that the situation would be better if _all_ became men and gave up exclusiveness? Why, for the very reason that "all" means "every individual" the most glaring contradiction is still maintained, for the "individual" is exclusiveness itself. If the humane liberal no longer concedes to the individual anything private or exclusive, any private thought, any private folly; if he criticises everything away from him before his face, since his hatred of the private is an absolute and fanatical hatred; if he knows no tolerance toward what is private, because everything private is _unhuman_,--yet he cannot criticise away the private person himself, since the hardness of the individual person resists his criticism, and he must be satisfied with declaring this person a "private person" and really leaving everything private to him again.

What will the society that no longer cares about anything private do? Make the private impossible? No, but "subordinate it to the interests of society, and, _e. g._, leave it to private will to institute holidays, as many as it chooses, if only it does not come in collision with the general interest."[93] Everything private is _left free_; _i. e._ it has no interest for society.

"By their raising of barriers against science the church and religiousness have declared that they are what they always were, only that this was hidden under another semblance when they were proclaimed to be the basis and necessary foundation of the State----a matter of purely private concern. Even when they were connected with the State and made it Christian, they were only the proof that the State had not yet developed its general political idea, that it was only instituting private rights----they were only the highest expression for the fact that the State was a private affair and had to do only with private affairs. When the State shall at last have the courage and strength to fulfil its general destiny and to be free; when, therefore, it is also able to give separate interests and private concerns their true position,--then religion and the church will be free as they have never been hitherto. As a matter of the most purely private concern, and a satisfaction of purely personal want, they will be left to themselves; and every individual, every congregation and ecclesiastical communion, will be able to care for the blessedness of their souls as they choose and as they think necessary. Every one will care for his soul's blessedness so far as it is to him a personal want, and will accept and pay as spiritual caretaker the one who seems to him to offer the best guarantee for the satisfaction of his want. Science is at last left entirely out of the game."[94]

What is to happen, though? Is social life to have an end, and all companionableness, all fraternization, everything that is created by the love or society principle, to disappear?

As if one will not always seek the other because he _needs_ him; as if one must not accommodate himself to the other when he _needs_ him. But the difference is this, that then the individual really _unites_ with the individual, while formerly they were _bound together_ by a tie; son and father are bound together before majority, after it they can come together independently; before it they _belonged_ together as members of the family, after it they unite as egoists; sonship and fatherhood remain, but son and father no longer pin themselves down to these.

The last privilege, in truth, is "Man"; with it all are privileged or invested. For, as Bruno Bauer himself says, "privilege remains even when it is extended to all."[95]

Thus liberalism runs its course in the following transformations: "First, the individual _is_ not man, therefore his individual personality is of no account: no personal will, no arbitrariness, no orders or mandates!

"Second, the individual _has_ nothing human, therefore no mine and thine, or property, is valid.

"Third, as the individual neither is man nor has anything human, he shall not exist at all: he shall, as an egoist with his egoistic belongings, be annihilated by criticism to make room for Man, 'Man, just discovered'."

But, although the individual is not Man, Man is yet present in the individual, and, like every spook and everything divine, has its existence in him. Hence political liberalism awards to the individual everything that pertains to him as "a man by birth," as a born man, among which there are counted liberty of conscience, the possession of goods, etc.,--in short, the "rights of man"; Socialism grants to the individual what pertains to him as an _active_ man, as a "laboring" man; finally, humane liberalism gives the individual what he has as "a man," _i. e._ everything that belongs to humanity. Accordingly the single one[96] has nothing at all, humanity everything; and the necessity of the "regeneration" preached in Christianity is demanded unambiguously and in the completest measure. Become a new creature, become "man"!

One might even think himself reminded of the close of the Lord's Prayer. To Man belongs the _lordship_ (the "power" or _dynamis_); therefore no individual may be lord, but Man is the lord of individuals;--Man's is the _kingdom_, _i. e._ the world, consequently the individual is not to be proprietor, but Man, "all," commands the world as property;--to Man is due renown, _glorification_ or "glory" (_doxa_) from all, for Man or humanity is the individual's end, for which he labors, thinks, lives, and for whose glorification he must become "man."

Hitherto men have always striven to find out a fellowship in which their inequalities in other respects should become "non-essential"; they strove for equalization, consequently for _equality_, and wanted to come all under one hat, which means nothing less than that they were seeking for one lord, one tie, one faith ("'Tis in one God we all believe"). There cannot be for men anything more fellowly or more equal than Man himself, and in this fellowship the love-craving has found its contentment: it did not rest till it had brought on this last equalization, leveled all inequality, laid man on the breast of man. But under this very fellowship decay and ruin become most glaring. In a more limited fellowship the Frenchman still stood against the German, the Christian against the Mohammedan, etc. Now, on the contrary, _man_ stands against men, or, as men are not man, man stands against the un-man.

The sentence "God has become man" is now followed by the other, "Man has become I." This is _the human I_. But we invert it and say: I was not able to find myself so long as I sought myself as Man. But, now that it appears that Man is aspiring to become I and to gain a corporeity in me, I note that, after all, everything depends on me, and Man is lost without me. But I do not care to give myself up to be the shrine of this most holy thing, and shall not ask henceforward whether I am man or un-man in what I set about; let this _spirit_ keep off my neck!

Humane liberalism goes to work radically. If you want to be or have anything especial even in one point, if you want to retain for yourself even one prerogative above others, to claim even one right that is not a general "right of man," you are an egoist.