I sing as the bird singsThat on the bough alights;The song that from me springsIs pay that well requites.
I sing as the bird singsThat on the bough alights;The song that from me springsIs pay that well requites.
I sing because—I am a singer. But Iuse[201]you for it because I—need[202]ears.
Where the world comes in my way—and it comes in my way everywhere—I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but—my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that ofusableness, of utility, of use. We oweeachothernothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you likewise, then your cheeriness is of consequence tome, and my air servesmywish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do not show it.
One has to be educated up to that love which founds itself on the "essence of man," or, in the ecclesiastical and moral period, lies upon us as a "commandment." In what fashion moral influence, the chief ingredient of our education, seeks to regulate the intercourse of men shall here be looked at with egoistic eyes in one example at least.
Those who educate us make it their concern early to break us of lying and to inculcate the principle that one must always tell the truth. If selfishness were made the basis for this rule, every one would easily understand how by lying he fools away that confidence in him which he hopes to awaken in others, and how correct the maxim proves, Nobody believes a liar even when he tells the truth. Yet, at the same time, he would also feel that he had to meet with truth only him whomheauthorized to hear the truth. If a spy walks in disguise through the hostile camp, and is asked who he is, the askers are assuredly entitled to inquire after his name, but the disguised man does not give them the right to learn the truth from him; he tells them what he likes, only not the fact. And yet morality demands, "Thou shalt not lie!" By morality those persons are vested with the right to expect the truth; but by me they are not vested with thatright, and I recognize only the right that I impart. In a gathering of revolutionists the police force their way in and ask the orator for his name; everybody knows that the police have the right to do so, but they do not have it from therevolutionist, since he is their enemy; he tells them a false name and—cheats them with a lie. The police do not act so foolishly either as to count on their enemies' love of truth; on the contrary, they do not believe without further ceremony, but have the questioned individual "identified" if they can. Nay, the State everywhere proceeds incredulously with individuals, because in their egoism it recognizes its natural enemy; it invariably demands a "voucher," and he who cannot show vouchers falls a prey to its investigating inquisition. The State does not believe nor trust the individual, and so of itself places itself with him in theconvention of lying; it trusts me only when it hasconvinceditself of the truth of my statement, for which there often remains to it no other means than the oath. How clearly, too, this (the oath) proves that the State does not count on our credibility and love of truth, but on ourinterest, our selfishness: it relies on our not wanting to fall foul of God by a perjury.
Now, let one imagine a French revolutionist in the year 1788, who among friends let fall the now well-known phrase, "the world will have no rest till the last king is hanged with the guts of the last priest." The king then still had all power, and, when the utterance is betrayed by an accident, yet without its being possible to produce witnesses, confession is demanded from the accused. Is he to confess or not?If he denies, he lies and—remains unpunished; if he confesses, he is candid and—is beheaded. If truth is more than everything else to him, all right, let him die. Only a paltry poet could try to make a tragedy out of the end of his life; for what interest is there in seeing how a man succumbs from cowardice? But, if he had the courage not to be a slave of truth and sincerity, he would ask somewhat thus: Why need the judges know what I have spoken among friends? If I hadwishedthem to know, I should have said it to them as I said it to my friends. I will not have them know it. They force themselves into my confidence without my having called them to it and made them my confidants; theywilllearn what Iwillkeep secret. Come on then, you who wish to break my will by your will, and try your arts. You can torture me by the rack, you can threaten me with hell and eternal damnation, you can make me so nerveless that I swear a false oath, but the truth you shall not press out of me, for Iwilllie to you because I have given you no claim and no right to my sincerity. Let God, "who is truth," look down ever so threateningly on me, let lying come ever so hard to me, I have nevertheless the courage of a lie; and, even if I were weary of my life, even if nothing appeared to me more welcome than your executioner's sword, you nevertheless should not have the joy of finding in me a slave of truth, whom by your priestly arts you make a traitor to hiswill. When I spoke those treasonable words, I would not have had you know anything of them; I now retain the same will, and do not let myself be frightened by the curse of the lie.
Sigismund is not a miserable caitiff because he broke his princely word, but he broke the word because he was a caitiff; he might have kept his word and would still have been a caitiff, a priest-ridden man. Luther, driven by a higher power, became unfaithful to his monastic vow: he became so for God's sake. Both broke their oath as possessed persons: Sigismund, because he wanted to appear as asincereprofessor of the divinetruth,i. e.of the true, genuinely Catholic faith; Luther, in order to give testimony for the gospelsincerelyand with entire truth, with body and soul; both became perjured in order to be sincere toward the "higher truth." Only, the priests absolved the one, the other absolved himself. What else did both observe than what is contained in those apostolic words, "Thou hast not lied to men, but to God"? They lied to men, broke their oath before the world's eyes, in order not to lie to God, but to serve him. Thus they show us a way to deal with truth before men. For God's glory, and for God's sake, a—breach of oath, a lie, a prince's word broken!
How would it be, now, if we changed the thing a little and wrote, A perjury and lie for—my sake? Would not that be pleading for every baseness? It seems so assuredly, only in this it is altogether like the "for God's sake." For was not every baseness committed for God's sake, were not all the scaffolds filled for his sake and all theauto-da-fesheld for his sake, was not all stupefaction introduced for his sake? and do they not to-day still for God's sake fetter the mind in tender children by religious education? Were not sacred vows broken for his sake, and do notmissionaries and priests still go around every day to bring Jews, heathen, Protestants or Catholics, etc., to treason against the faith of their fathers,—for his sake? And that should be worse with thefor my sake? What then doeson my accountmean? There people immediately think of "filthy lucre." But he who acts from love of filthy lucre does it on his own account indeed, as there is nothing anyhow that one does not do for his own sake,—among other things, everything that is done for God's glory; yet he, for whom he seeks the lucre, is a slave of lucre, not raised above lucre; he is one who belongs to lucre, the money-bag, not to himself; he is not his own. Must not a man whom the passion of avarice rules follow the commands of thismaster? and, if a weak good-naturedness once beguiles him, does this not appear as simply an exceptional case of precisely the same sort as when pious believers are sometimes forsaken by their Lord's guidance and ensnared by the arts of the "devil"? So an avaricious man is not a self-owned man, but a servant; and he can do nothing for his own sake without at the same time doing it for his lord's sake,—precisely like the godly man.
Famous is the breach of oath which Francis II committed against Emperor Charles V. Not later, when he ripely weighed his promise, but at once, when he swore the oath, King Francis took it back in thought as well as by a secret protestation documentarily subscribed before his councillors; he uttered a perjury aforethought. Francis did not show himself disinclined to buy his release, but the price that Charles put on it seemed to him too high and unreasonable. Even though Charles behaved himself in a sordid fashion when he sought to extort as much as possible, it was yet shabby of Francis to want to purchase his freedom for a lower ransom; and his later dealings, among which there occurs yet a second breach of his word, prove sufficiently how the huckster spirit held him enthralled and made him a shabby swindler. However, what shall we say to the reproach of perjury against him? In the first place, surely, this again: that not the perjury, but his sordidness, shamed him; that he did not deserve contempt for his perjury, but made himself guilty of perjury because he was a contemptible man. But Francis's perjury, regarded in itself, demands another judgment. One might say Francis did not respond to the confidence that Charles put in him in setting him free. But, if Charles had really favored him with confidence, he would have named to him the price that he considered the release worth, and would then have set him at liberty and expected Francis to pay the redemption-sum. Charles harbored no such trust, but only believed in Francis's impotence and credulity, which would not allow him to act against his oath; but Francis deceived only this—credulous calculation. When Charles believed he was assuring himself of his enemy by an oath, right there he was freeing him from every obligation. Charles had given the king credit for a piece of stupidity, a narrow conscience, and, without confidence in Francis, counted only on Francis's stupidity,i. e.conscientiousness: he let him go from the Madrid prison only to hold him the more securely in the prison of conscientiousness, the greatjail built about the mind of man by religion: he sent him back to France locked fast in invisible chains, what wonder if Francis sought to escape and sawed the chains apart? No man would have taken it amiss of him if he had secretly fled from Madrid, for he was in an enemy's power; but every good Christian cries out upon him, that he wanted to loose himself from God's bonds too. (It was only later that the pope absolved him from his oath.)
It is despicable to deceive a confidence that we voluntarily call forth; but it is no shame to egoism to let every one who wants to get us into his power by an oath bleed to death by the unsuccessfulness of his untrustful craft. If you have wanted to bind me, then learn that I know how to burst your bonds.
The point is whetherIgive the confider the right to confidence. If the pursuer of my friend asks me where he has fled to, I shall surely put him on a false trail. Why does he ask precisely me, the pursued man's friend? In order not to be a false, traitorous friend, I prefer to be false to the enemy. I might certainly, in courageous conscientiousness, answer "I will not tell" (so Fichte decides the case); by that I should salve my love of truth and do for my friend as much as—nothing, for, if I do not mislead the enemy, he may accidentally take the right street, and my love of truth would have given up my friend as a prey, because it hindered me from the—courage for a lie. He who has in the truth an idol, a sacred thing, musthumblehimself before it, must not defy its demands, not resist courageously; in short, he must renounce theheroism of the lie. For to the lie belongs not lesscourage than to the truth: a courage that young men are most apt to be defective in, who would rather confess the truth and mount the scaffold for it than confound the enemy's power by the impudence of a lie. To them the truth is "sacred," and the sacred at all times demands blind reverence, submission, and self-sacrifice. If you are not impudent, not mockers of the sacred, you are tame and its servants. Let one but lay a grain of truth in the trap for you, you peck at it to a certainty, and the fool is caught. You will not lie? Well, then, fall as sacrifices to the truth and become—martyrs! Martyrs!—for what? For yourselves, for self-ownership? No, for your goddess,—the truth. You know only twoservices, only two kinds of servants: servants of the truth and servants of the lie. Then in God's name serve the truth!
Others, again, serve the truth also; but they serve it "in moderation," and make,e. g., a great distinction between a simple lie and a lie sworn to. And yet the whole chapter of the oath coincides with that of the lie, since an oath, everybody knows, is only a strongly assured statement. You consider yourselves entitled to lie, if only you do not swear to it besides? One who is particular about it must judge and condemn a lie as sharply as a false oath. But now there has been kept up in morality an ancient point of controversy, which is customarily treated of under the name of the "lie of necessity." No one who dares plead for this can consistently put from him an "oath of necessity." If I justify my lie as a lie of necessity, I should not be so pusillanimous as to rob the justified lie of the strongest corroboration. Whatever I do,why should I not do it entirely and without reservation (reservatio mentalis)? If I once lie, why then not lie completely, with entire consciousness and all my might? As a spy I should have to swear to each of my false statements at the enemy's demand; determined to lie to him, should I suddenly become cowardly and undecided in face of an oath? Then I should have been ruined in advance for a liar and spy; for, you see, I should be voluntarily putting into the enemy's hands a means to catch me.—The State too fears the oath of necessity, and for this reason does not give the accused a chance to swear. But you do not justify the State's fear; you lie, but do not swear falsely. If,e. g., you show some one a kindness, and he is not to know it, but he guesses it and tells you so to your face, you deny; if he insists, you say "honestly, no!" If it came to swearing, then you would refuse; for, from fear of the sacred, you always stop half way.Againstthe sacred you have nowill of your own. You lie in—moderation, as you are free "in moderation," religious "in moderation" (the clergy are not to "encroach"; over this point the most vapid of controversies is now being carried on, on the part of the university against the church), monarchically disposed "in moderation" (you want a monarch limited by the constitution, by a fundamental law of the State), everything nicelytempered, lukewarm, half God's, half the devil's.
There was a university where the usage was that every word of honor that must be given to the university judge was looked upon by the students as null and void. For the students saw in the demanding ofit nothing but a snare, which they could not escape otherwise than by taking away all its significance. He who at that same university broke his word of honor to one of the fellows was infamous; he who gave it to the university judge derided, in union with these very fellows, the dupe who fancied that a word had the same value among friends and among foes. It was less a correct theory than the constraint of practice that had there taught the students to act so, as, without that means of getting out, they would have been pitilessly driven to treachery against their comrades. But, as the means approved itself in practice, so it has its theoretical probation too. A word of honor, an oath, is one only for him whomIentitle to receive it; he who forces me to it obtains only a forced,i. e.ahostileword, the word of a foe, whom one has no right to trust; for the foe does not give us the right.
Aside from this, the courts of the State do not even recognize the inviolability of an oath. For, if I had sworn to one who comes under examination that I would not declare anything against him, the court would demand my declaration in spite of the fact that an oath binds me, and, in case of refusal, would lock me up till I decided to become—an oath-breaker. The court "absolves me from my oath";—how magnanimous! If any power can absolve me from the oath, I myself am surely the very first power that has a claim to.
As a curiosity, and to remind us of customary oaths of all sorts, let place be given here to that which Emperor Paul commanded the captured Poles (Kosciusko, Potocki, Niemcewicz, etc.) to take when he released them: "We not merely swear fidelity and obedience to the emperor, but also further promise to pour out our blood for his glory; we obligate ourselves to discover everything threatening to his person or his empire that we ever learn; we declare finally that, in whatever part of the earth we may be, a single word of the emperor shall suffice to make us leave everything and repair to him at once."
In one domain the principle of love seems to have been long outsoared by egoism, and to be still in need only of sure consciousness, as it were of victory with a good conscience. This domain is speculation, in its double manifestation as thinking and as trade. One thinks with a will, whatever may come of it; one speculates, however many may suffer under our speculative undertakings. But, when it finally becomes serious, when even the last remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity" is to be done away, then the pulse of religious conscience beats, and one at leastprofesseshumanity. The avaricious speculator throws some coppers into the poor-box and "does good," the bold thinker consoles himself with the fact that he is working for the advancement of the human race and that his devastation "turns to the good" of mankind, or, in another case, that he is "serving the idea"; mankind, the idea, is to him that something of which he must say, It is more to me than myself.
To this day thinking and trading have been done for—God's sake. Those who for six days were trampling down everything by their selfish aims sacrificed onthe seventh to the Lord; and those who destroyed a hundred "good causes" by their reckless thinking still did this in the service of another "good cause," and had yet to think of another—besides themselves—to whose good their self-indulgence should turn: of the people, mankind, and the like. But this other thing is a being above them, a higher or supreme being; and therefore I say, they are toiling for God's sake.
Hence I can also say that the ultimate basis of their actions is—love. Not a voluntary love however, not their own, but a tributary love, or the higher being's own (i. e.God's, who himself is love); in short, not the egoistic, but the religious; a love that springs from their fancy that theymustdischarge a tribute of love,i. e.that they must not be "egoists."
Ifwewant to deliver the world from many kinds of unfreedom, we want this not on its account but on ours; for, as we are not world-liberators by profession and out of "love," we only want to win it away from others. We want to make it our own; it is not to be any longerowned as serfby God (the church) nor by the law (State), but to beour own; therefore we seek to "win" it, to "captivate" it, and, by meeting it half-way and "devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as it belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the force that it turns against us. If the world is ours, it no longer attempts any forceagainstus, but onlywithus. My selfishness has an interest in the liberation of the world, that it may become—my property.
Not isolation or being alone, but society, is man'soriginal state. Our existence begins with the most intimate conjunction, as we are already living with our mother before we breathe; when we see the light of the world, we at once lie on a human being's breast again, her love cradles us in the lap, leads us in the go-cart, and chains us to her person with a thousand ties. Society is ourstate of nature. And this is why, the more we learn to feel ourselves, the connection that was formerly most intimate becomes ever looser and the dissolution of the original society more unmistakable. To have once again for herself the child that once lay under her heart, the mother must fetch it from the street and from the midst of its playmates. The child prefers theintercoursethat it enters into withits fellowsto thesocietythat it has not entered into, but only been born in.
But the dissolution ofsocietyisintercourseorunion. A society does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by a thought,—to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make themselves fast) from the thought. If a union[203]has crystallized into a society, it has ceased to be a coalition;[204]for coalition is an incessant self-uniting; it has become a unitedness, come to a standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is—deadas a union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition,i. e.it is—society, community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by theparty.
That a society (e. g.the society of the State) diminishes mylibertyoffends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R......, I yet should not enjoy absolute liberty. ButownnessI will not have taken from me. And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely what is to succumb to its power.
A society which I join does indeed take from me many liberties, but in return it affords me other liberties; neither does it matter if I myself deprive myself of this and that liberty (e. g.by any contract). On the other hand, I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community has the propensity, stronger or weaker according to the fulness of its power, to become anauthorityto its members and to setlimitsfor them: it asks, and must ask, for a "subject's limited understanding"; it asks that those who belong to it be subject to it, be its "subjects"; it exists only bysubjection. In this a certain tolerance need by no means be excluded; on the contrary, the society will welcome improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are calculated for its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning," it may not be "insolent and disrespectful,"—in other words, one must leave uninjured, and hold sacred, the substance of the society. The society demands that those who belong to it shall not gobeyond itand exalt themselves, but remain "within the bounds of legality,"i. e.allow themselves only so much as the society and its law allow them.
There is a difference whether my liberty or my ownness is limited by a society. If the former only is thecase, it is acoalition, an agreement, a union; but, if ruin is threatened to ownness, it is apower of itself, a powerabove me, a thing unattainable by me, which I can indeed admire, adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and consume, and that for the reason that Iam resigned. It exists by myresignation, myself-renunciation, my spiritlessness,[205]called—HUMILITY.[206]My humility makes its courage,[207]my submissiveness gives it its dominion.
But in reference tolibertyState and union are subject to no essential difference. The latter can just as little come into existence, or continue in existence, without liberty's being limited in all sorts of ways, as the State is compatible with unmeasured liberty. Limitation of liberty is inevitable everywhere, for one cannot getridof everything; one cannot fly like a bird merely because one would like to fly so, for one does not get free from his own weight; one cannot live under water as long as he likes, like a fish, because one cannot do without air and cannot get free from this indispensable necessity; and the like. As religion, and most decidedly Christianity, tormented man with the demand to realize the unnatural and self-contradictory, so it is to be looked upon only as the true logical outcome of that religious overstraining and overwroughtness that finallyliberty itself, absolute liberty, was exalted into an ideal, and thus the nonsense of the impossible had to come glaringly to the light.—The union will assuredly offer a greater measure of liberty, as well as (and especially becauseby it one escapes all the coercion peculiar to State and society life) admit of being considered as "a new liberty"; but nevertheless it will still contain enough of unfreedom and involuntariness. For its object is not this—liberty (which on the contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but onlyownness. Referred to this, the difference between State and union is great enough. The former is an enemy and murderer ofownness, the latter a son and co-worker of it; the former a spirit that would be adored in spirit and in truth, the latter my work, myproduct; the State is the lord of my spirit, who demands faith and prescribes to me articles of faith, the creed of legality; it exerts moral influence, dominates my spirit, drives away my ego to put itself in its place as "my true ego,"—in short, the State issacred, and as against me, the individual man, it is the true man, the spirit, the ghost; but the union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not willing to be a slave of my maxims, but lay them bare to my continual criticism withoutany warrant, and admit no bail at all for their persistence, so still less do I obligate myself to the union for my future and pledge my soul to it, as is said to be done with the devil and is really the case with the State and all spiritual authority; but I am and remainmoreto myself than State, Church, God, and the like; consequently infinitely more than the union too.
That society which Communism wants to found seems to stand nearest tocoalition. For it is to aim at the "welfare of all," oh, yes, of all, cries Weitlinginnumerable times, of all! That does really look as if in it no one needed to take a back seat. But what then will this welfare be? Have all one and the same welfare, are all equally well off with one and the same thing? If that be so, the question is of the "true welfare." Do we not with this come right to the point where religion begins its dominion of violence? Christianity says, Look not on earthly toys, but seek your true welfare, become—pious Christians; being Christians is the true welfare. It is the true welfare of "all," because it is the welfare of Man as such (this spook). Now, the welfare of all is surely to beyourandmywelfare too? But, if you and I do not look upon that welfare asourwelfare, will care then be taken for that in whichwefeel well? On the contrary, society has decreed a welfare as the "true welfare"; and, if this welfare were callede. g."enjoyment honestly worked for," but you preferred enjoyable laziness, enjoyment without work, then society, which cares for the "welfare of all," would wisely avoid caring for that in which you are well off. Communism, in proclaiming the welfare of all, annuls outright the well-being of those who hitherto lived on their income from investments and apparently felt better in that than in the prospect of Weitling's strict hours of labor. Hence the latter asserts that with the welfare of thousands the welfare of millions cannot exist, and the former must give uptheirspecial welfare "for the sake of the general welfare." No, let people not be summoned to sacrifice their special welfare for the general, for this Christian admonition will not carry you through; they will better understand theopposite admonition, not to let theirownwelfare be snatched from them by anybody, but to put it on a permanent foundation. Then they are of themselves led to the point that they care best for their welfare if theyunitewith others for this purpose,i. e."sacrifice a part of their liberty," yet not to the welfare of others, but to their own. An appeal to men's self-sacrificing disposition and self-renouncing love ought at last to have lost its seductive plausibility when, after an activity of thousands of years, it has left nothing behind but the—misèreof to-day. Why then still fruitlessly expect self-sacrifice to bring us better times? why not rather hope for them fromusurpation? Salvation comes no longer from the giver, the bestower, the loving one, but from thetaker, the appropriater (usurper), the owner. Communism, and, consciously or unconsciously, egoism-reviling humanism, still count onlove.
If community is once a need of man, and he finds himself furthered by it in his aims, then very soon, because it has become his principle, it prescribes to him its laws too, the laws of—society. The principle of men exalts itself into a sovereign power over them, becomes their supreme essence, their God, and, as such,—lawgiver. Communism gives this principle the strictest effect, and Christianity is the religion of society, for, as Feuerbach rightly says although he does not mean it rightly, love is the essence of man;i. e.the essence of society or of societary (Communistic) man. All religion is a cult of society, this principle by which societary (cultivated) man is dominated; neither is any god an ego's exclusive god, but always asociety's or community's, be it of the society "family" (Lar, Penates) or of a "people" ("national god") or of "all men" ("he is a Father of all men").
Consequently one has a prospect of extirpating religion down to the ground only when one antiquatessocietyand everything that flows from this principle. But it is precisely in Communism that this principle seeks to culminate, as in it everything is to becomecommonfor the establishment of—"equality." If this "equality" is won, "liberty" too is not lacking. But whose liberty?Society's!Society is then all in all, and men are only "for each other." It would be the glory of the—love-State.
But I would rather be referred to men's selfishness than to their "kindnesses,"[208]their mercy, pity, etc. The former demandsreciprocity(as thou to me, so I to thee), does nothing "gratis," and may be won and—bought. But with what shall I obtain the kindness? It is a matter of chance whether I am at the time having to do with a "loving" person. The affectionate one's service can be had only by—begging, be it by my lamentable appearance, by my need of help, my misery, my—suffering. What can I offer him for his assistance? Nothing! I must accept it as a—present. Love isunpayable, or rather, love can assuredly be paid for, but only by counter-love ("One good turn deserves another"). What paltriness and beggarliness does it not take to accept gifts year in and year out without service in return, as they are regularly collectede. g.from the poor day-laborer? What canthe receiver do for him and his donated pennies, in which his wealth consists? The day-laborer would really have more enjoyment if the receiver with his laws, his institutions, etc., all of which the day-laborer has to pay for though, did not exist at all. And yet, with it all, the poor wightloveshis master.
No, community, as the "goal" of history hitherto, is impossible. Let us rather renounce every hypocrisy of community, and recognize that, if we are equal as men, we are not equal for the very reason that we are not men. We are equalonly in thoughts, only when "we" arethought, not as we really and bodily are. I am ego, and you are ego: but I am not this thought-of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is onlymy thought. I am man, and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a generality; neither you nor I are speakable, we areunutterable, because onlythoughtsare speakable and consist in speaking.
Let us therefore not aspire to community, but toone-sidedness. Let us not seek the most comprehensive commune, "human society," but let us seek in others only means and organs which we may use as our property! As we do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the presupposition that others areour equalssprings from a hypocrisy. No one ismy equal, but I regard him, equally with all other beings, as my property. In opposition to this I am told that I should be a man among "fellow-men" ("Judenfrage," p. 60); I should "respect" the fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be respected, not even the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, anobjectin which I take an interest or else do not,an interesting or uninteresting object, a usable or unusable person.
And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make myself at one with him, in order, by the agreement, to strengthenmy power, and by combined force to accomplish more than individual force could effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but a multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so long as it ismymultiplied force. But thus it is a—union.
Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the union together, and it is not a natural, not a spiritual league. It is not brought about by oneblood, not by onefaith(spirit). In a natural league—like a family, a tribe, a nation, yes, mankind—the individuals have only the value ofspecimensof the same species or genus; in a spiritual league—like a commune, a church—the individual signifies only amemberof the same spirit; what you are in both cases as a unique person must be—suppressed. Only in the union can you assert yourself as unique, because the union does not possess you, but you possess it or make it of use to you.
Property is recognized in the union, and only in the union, because one no longer holds what is his as a fief from any being. The Communists are only consistently carrying further what had already been long present during religious evolution, and especially in the State; to wit, propertylessness,i. e.the feudal system.
The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in other words, it seeks to direct his desire to it alone,and tocontentthat desire with what it offers. To sate the desire for the desirous man's sake does not come into its mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an "egoistic man" the man who breathes out unbridled desire, and the "egoistic man" is its enemy. He is this for it because the capacity to agree with him is wanting to the State; the egoist is precisely what it cannot "comprehend." Since the State (as nothing else is possible) has to do only for itself, it does not take care for my needs, but takes care only of how it shall make away with me,i. e.make out of me another ego, a good citizen. It takes measures for the "improvement of morals."—And with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself,i. e.with what is the State's, withState property. It will be unremittingly active in making all participants in its "goods," providing all with the "good things of culture": it presents them its education, opens to them the access to its institutions of culture, capacitates them to come to property (i. e.to a fief) in the way of industry, etc. For all thesefiefsit demands only the just rent of continualthanks. But the "unthankful" forget to pay these thanks.—Now, neither can "society" do essentially otherwise than the State.
You bring into a union your whole power, your competence, andmake yourself count; in a society you areemployed, with your working power; in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly,i. e.religiously, as a "member in the body of this Lord"; to a society you owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are—possessed by "social duties"; a union you utilize, and give it up undutifully and unfaithfully when you see no way to use it further. If a society is more than you, then it is more to you than yourself; a union is only your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen and increase your natural force; the union exists for you and through you, the society conversely lays claim to you for itself and exists even without you; in short, the society issacred, the union yourown; the society consumesyou,youconsume the union.
Nevertheless people will not be backward with the objection that the agreement which has been concluded may again become burdensome to us and limit our freedom; they will say, we too would at last come to this, that "every one must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the generality." But the sacrifice would not be made for the "generality's" sake a bit, as little as I concluded the agreement for the "generality's" or even, for any other man's sake; rather I came into it only for the sake of my own benefit, fromselfishness.[209]But, as regards the sacrificing, surely I "sacrifice" only that which does not stand in my power,i. e.I "sacrifice" nothing at all.
To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. Choose then whether you want to be lord, or whether society shall be! On this depends whether you are to be anowneror aragamuffin!The egoist is owner, the Socialist a ragamuffin. But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the sense of feudalism, of the feudal system, which since the last century has only changed its overlord, putting "Man" in the place of God, andaccepting as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from the grace of God. That the ragamuffinism of Communism is carried out by the humane principle into the absolute or most ragamuffinly ragamuffinism has been shown above; but at the same time also, how ragamuffinism can only thus swing around into ownness. Theoldfeudal system was so thoroughly trampled into the ground in the Revolution that since then all reactionary craft has remained fruitless, and will always remain fruitless, because the dead is—dead; but the resurrection too had to prove itself a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for in another world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body, thenewfeudalism under the suzerainty of "Man."
Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are right in having hitherto trustfully assumed of every combat against it that this could serve only for the purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it has really only been glorified, and "Christianity exposed" is the—human Christianity. We are still living entirely in the Christian age, and the very ones who feel worst about it are the most zealously contributing to "complete" it. The more human, the dearer has feudalism become to us; for we the less believe that it still is feudalism, we take it the more confidently for ownness and think we have found what is "most absolutely our own" when we discover "the human."
Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it thinks to procure it for me not under the title of mine, but under that of the "human." As if it wereattainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious work of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in meentitles[210]me to this and that; I as individual,i. e.as this man, am not entitled, but Man has the right and entitles me. Hence as man I may well be entitled; but, as I am more than man, to wit, aspecialman, it may be refused to this very me, the special one. If on the other hand you insist on thevalueof your gifts, keep up their price, do not let yourselves be forced to sell out below price, do not let yourselves be talked into the idea that your ware is not worth its price, do not make yourselves ridiculous by a "ridiculous price," but imitate the brave man who says, I willsellmy life (property) dear, the enemy shall not have it at a cheapbargain; then you have recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct thing, and the word then is not "Give up your property!" but "Get the value out ofyour property!"
Over the portal of our time stands not that "Know thyself" of Apollo, but a "Get the value out of thyself!"
Proudhon calls property "robbery" (le vol). But alien property—and he is talking of this alone—is not less existent by renunciation, cession, and humility; it is apresent. Why so sentimentally call for compassion as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish, cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the fault on others as if they were robbing us, while we ourselves do bear the fault in leaving the others, unrobbed? The poor are toblame for there being rich men.
Universally, no one grows indignant athis, but atalienproperty. They do not in truth attack property, but the alienation of property. They want to be able to callmore, not less,theirs; they want to call everythingtheirs. They are fighting, therefore, againstalienness, or, to form a word similar to property, against alienty. And how do they help themselves therein? Instead of transforming the alien into own, they play impartial and ask only that all property be left to a third party (e. g.human society). They revendicate the alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now the "egoistic" coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and—human!
Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the "essence of Christianity," as it is the essence of all religiousness (i. e.godliness, morality, humanity), and only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad tidings, became a gospel capable of development, in the "absolute religion." We have before us the most striking development in the present fight against property, a fight which is to bring "Man" to victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious humanity is the victory of—Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus is feudalism completed, the most all-embracing feudal system,i. e.perfect ragamuffinism.
Once more then, doubtless, a "revolution" against the feudal system?—
Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition orstatus, the State or society, and is accordingly apoliticalorsocialact; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at newarrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on "institutions." It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but (as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) anegoisticpurpose and deed.
The revolution commands one to makearrangements, the insurrection[211]demands that herise or exalt himself.[212]Whatconstitutionwas to be chosen, this question busied the revolutionary heads, and the whole political period foams with constitutional fights and constitutional questions, as the social talents too were uncommonly inventive in societary arrangement (phalansteries and the like). The insurgent[213]strives to become constitutionless.
While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a comparison, the founding of Christianity comes unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is noted as a bad point in the first Christians that they preached obedience to the established heathen civil order, enjoined recognition of the heathen authorities, and confidently delivered a command, "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's." Yet how much disturbance arose at the same time against the Roman supremacy, how mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans show themselves against their own temporal government! in short, how popular was "political discontent"! Those Christians would hear nothing of it; would not side with the "liberal tendencies." The time was politically so agitated that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse the founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned him for "political intrigue," and yet the same gospels report that he was precisely the one who took least part in these political doings. But why was he not a revolutionist, not a demagogue, as the Jews would gladly have seen him? why was he not a liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change ofconditions, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist likee. g.Cæsar, but an insurgent; not a State-overturner, but one who straightenedhimselfup. That was why it was for him only a matter of "Be ye wise as serpents," which expresses the same sense as, in the special case, that "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's"; for he was not carrying on any liberal or political fight against the established authorities,but wanted to walk hisownway, untroubled about, and undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the government were its enemies, for neither understood what he wanted, and he had only to keep them off from him with the wisdom of the serpent. But, even though not a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or revolutionist, he (and every one of the ancient Christians) was so much the more aninsurgent, who lifted himself above everything that seemed sublime to the government and its opponents, and absolved himself from everything that they remained bound to, and who at the same time cut off the sources of life of the whole heathen world, with which the established State must wither away as a matter of course; precisely because he put from him the upsetting of the established, he was its deadly enemy and real annihilator; for he walled it in, confidently and recklessly carrying up the building ofhistemple over it, without heeding the pains of the immured.
Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, will the Christian order fare likewise? A revolution certainly does not bring on the end if an insurrection is not consummated first!
My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want to win it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want onlymypower over them, I want to make them my property,i. e.material for enjoyment. And, if I do not succeed in that, well, then I call even the power over life and death, which Church and Statereserved to themselves,—mine. Brand that officer's widow who, in the flight in Russia, after her leg has been shot away, takes the garter from it, strangles her child therewith, and then bleeds to death alongside the corpse,—brand the memory of the—infanticide. Who knows, if this child had remained alive, how much it might have "been of use to the world"! The mother murdered it because she wanted to diesatisfiedand at rest. Perhaps this case still appeals to your sentimentality, and you do not know how to read out of it anything further. Be it so; I on my part use it as an example for this, thatmysatisfaction decides about my relation to men, and that I do not renounce, from any access of humility, even the power over life and death.
As regards "social duties" in general, another does not give me my position toward others, therefore neither God nor humanity prescribes to me my relation to men, but I give myself this position. This is more strikingly said thus: I have nodutyto others, as I have a duty even to myself (e. g.that of self-preservation, and therefore not suicide) only so long as I distinguish myself from myself (my immortal soul from my earthly existence, etc.).
I no longerhumblemyself before any power, and I recognize that all powers are only my power, which I have to subject at once when they threaten to become a poweragainstoraboveme; each of them must be only one ofmy meansto carry my point, as a hound is our power against game, but is killed by us if it should fall upon us ourselves. All powers that dominate me I then reduce to serving me. The idols existthrough me; I need only refrain from creating them anew, then they exist no longer: "higher powers" exist only through my exalting them and abasing myself.
Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it "for God's sake," I do nothing "for man's sake," but what I do I do "for my sake." Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is characteristic of the religious standpoint, in which I include the moral and humane also, that from it everything remains apious wish(pium desiderium),i. e.an other-world matter, something unattained. Thus the general salvation of men, the moral world of a general love, eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Nothing in this world is perfect." With this miserable phrase the good part from it, and take flight into their closet to God, or into their proud "self-consciousness." But we remain in this "imperfect" world, because even so we can use it for our—self-enjoyment.
My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment.Intercourseis theenjoyment of the world, and belongs to my—self-enjoyment.
We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for nothing but the gain of life, took care for—life. For whether all activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for "daily bread" ("Give us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven"; "the bread of God, that comes from heaven andgives lifeto the world"; "the bread of life," John 6), whether one takes care for "dear life" or for "life to eternity,"—this does not change the object of the strain and care, which in the one case as in the other shows itself to belife. Do the modern tendencies announce themselves otherwise? People now want nobody to be embarrassed for the most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this life to attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without vain care for another.
Let us take up the same thing from another side. When one is anxious only tolive, he easily, in this solicitude, forgets theenjoymentof life. If his only concern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have my dear life," he does not apply his full strength to using,i. e.enjoying, life. But how does one use life? In using it up, like the candle, which one uses in burning it up. One uses life, and consequently himself the living one, inconsumingit and himself.Enjoyment of lifeis using life up.
Now—we are in search of theenjoymentof life! And what did the religious world do? It went in search oflife. "Wherein consists the true life, the blessed life, etc.? How is it to be attained? What must man do and become in order to become a truly living man? How does he fulfil this calling?" These and similar questions indicate that the askers were still seeking forthemselves,—to wit, themselves in thetrue sense, in the sense of true living. "What I am is foam and shadow; what I shall be is my true self." To chase after this self, to produce it, to realize it, constitutes the hard task of mortals, who die only torise again, live only to die, live only to find the true life.
Not till I am certain of myself, and no longer seeking for myself, am I really my property; I have myself, therefore I use and enjoy myself. On the other hand, I can never take comfort in myself so long as I think that I have still to find my true self and that it must come to this, that not I but Christ or some other spiritual,i. e.ghostly, self (e. g.the true man, the essence of man, and the like) lives in me.
A vast interval separates the two views. In the old I go toward myself, in the new I start from myself; in the former I long for myself, in the latter I have myself and do with myself as one does with any other property,—I enjoy myself at my pleasure. I am no longer afraid for my life, but "squander" it.
Henceforth the question runs, not how one can acquire life, but how one can squander, enjoy it; or, not how one is to produce the true self in himself, but how one is to dissolve himself, to live himself out.
What else should the ideal be but the sought-for, ever-distant self? One seeks for himself, consequently one does not yet have himself; one aspires toward what oneoughtto be, consequently one is not it. One lives inlongingand has lived thousands of years in it, inhope. Living is quite another thing in—enjoyment!
Does this perchance apply only to the so-called pious? No, it applies to all who belong to the departing period of history, even to its men of pleasure. For them too the work-days were followed by a Sunday, and the rush of the world by the dream of a better world, of a general happiness of humanity; in short, by an ideal. But philosophers especially are contrasted with the pious. Now, have they been thinking of anything else than the ideal, been planning for anything else than the absolute self? Longing and hope everywhere, and nothing but these. For me, call it romanticism.
If theenjoyment of lifeis to triumph over thelonging for lifeor hope of life, it must vanquish this in its double significance, which Schiller introduces in his "Ideal and Life"; it must crush spiritual and secular poverty, exterminate the ideal and—the want of daily bread. He who must expend his life to prolong life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking for his life does not have it and can as little enjoy it: both are poor, but "blessed are the poor."
Those who are hungering for the true life have no power over their present life, but must apply it for the purpose of thereby gaining that true life, and must sacrifice it entirely to this aspiration and this task. If in the case of those devotees who hope for a life in the other world, and look upon that in this world as merely a preparation for it, the tributariness of their earthly existence, which they put solely into the service of the hoped-for heavenly existence, is pretty distinctly apparent; one would yet go far wrong if one wanted to consider the most rationalistic and enlightened as less self-sacrificing. Oh, there is to be found in the "true life" a much more comprehensive significancethan the "heavenly" is competent to express. Now, is not—to introduce the liberal concept of it at once—the "human" and "truly human" life the true one? And is every one already leading this truly human life from the start, or must he first raise himself to it with hard toil? Does he already have it as his present life, or must he struggle for it as his future life, which will become his part only when he "is no longer tainted with any egoism"? In this view life exists only to gain life, and one lives only to make the essence of man alive in oneself, one lives for the sake of this essence. One has his life only in order to procure by means of it the "true" life cleansed of all egoism. Hence one is afraid to make any use he likes of his life: it is to serve only for the "right use."
In short, one has acalling in life, a task in life; one has something to realize and produce by his life, a something for which our life is only means and implement, a something that is worth more than this life, a something to which oneoweshis life. One has a God who asks aliving sacrifice. Only the rudeness of human sacrifice has been lost with time; human sacrifice itself has remained unabated, and criminals hourly fall sacrifices to justice, and we "poor sinners" slay our own selves as sacrifices for "the human essence," the "idea of mankind," "humanity," and whatever the idols or gods are called besides.
But, because we owe our life to that something, therefore—this is the next point—we have no right to take it from us.
The conservative tendency of Christianity does not permit thinking of death otherwise than with the purpose to take its sting from it and—live on and preserve oneself nicely. The Christian lets everything happen and come upon him if he—the arch-Jew—can only haggle and smuggle himself into heaven; he must not kill himself, he must only—preserve himself and work at the "preparation of a future abode." Conservatism or "conquest of death" lies at his heart; "the last enemy that is abolished is death."[214]"Christ has taken the power from death and brought life andimperishablebeing to light by the gospel."[215]"Imperishableness," stability.
The moral man wants the good, the right; and, if he takes to the means that lead to this goal, really lead to it, then these means are nothismeans, but those of the good, right, etc., itself. These means are never immoral, because the good end itself mediates itself through them: the end sanctifies the means. They call this maxim jesuitical, but it is "moral" through and through. The moral man actsin the serviceof an end or an idea: he makes himself thetoolof the idea of the good, as the pious man counts it his glory to be a tool or instrument of God. To await death is what the moral commandment postulates as the good; to give it to oneself is immoral and bad:suicidefinds no excuse before the judgment-seat of morality. If the religious man forbids it because "you have not given yourself life, but God, who alone can also take it from you again" (as if, even talking in this conception, God did not take it from me just as much when I kill myself as when a tile from theroof, or a hostile bullet, fells me; for he would have aroused the resolution of death in me too!), the moral man forbids it because I owe my life to the fatherland, etc., "because I do not know whether I may not yet accomplish good by my life." Of course, for in me good loses a tool, as God does an instrument. If I am immoral, the good is served in myamendment; if I am "ungodly," God has joy in mypenitence. Suicide, therefore, is ungodly as well as nefarious. If one whose standpoint is religiousness takes his own life, he acts in forgetfulness of God; but, if the suicide's standpoint is morality, he acts in forgetfulness of duty, immorally. People worried themselves much with the question whether Emilia Galotti's death can be justified before morality (they take it as if it were suicide, which it is too in substance). That she is so infatuated with chastity, this moral good, as to yield up even her life for it is certainly moral; but, again, that she fears the weakness of her flesh is immoral.[216]Such contradictions form the tragic conflict universally in the moral drama; and one must think and feel morally to be able to take an interest in it.
What holds good of piety and morality will necessarily apply to humanity also, because one owes his life likewise to man, mankind or the species. Only when I am under obligation to no being is the maintaining of life—my affair. "A leap from this bridge makes me free!"
But, if we owe the maintaining of our life to that being that we are to make alive in ourselves, it is not less our duty not to lead this life according toourpleasure, but to shape it in conformity to that being. All my feeling, thinking, and willing, all my doing and designing, belongs to—him.
What is in conformity to that being is to be inferred from his concept; and how differently has this concept been conceived! or how differently has that being been imagined! What demands the Supreme Being makes on the Mohammedan; what different ones the Christian, again, thinks he hears from him; how divergent, therefore, must the shaping of the lives of the two turn out! Only this do all hold fast, that the Supreme Being is tojudge[217]our life.
But the pious who have their judge in God, and in his word a book of directions for their life, I everywhere pass by only reminiscently, because they belong to a period of development that has been lived through, and as petrifactions they may remain in their fixed place right along; in our time it is nolonger the pious, but the liberals, who have the floor, and piety itself cannot keep from reddening its pale face with liberal coloring. But the liberals do not adore their judge in God, and do not unfold their life by the directions of the divine word, but regulate[218]themselves by man: they want to be not "divine" but "human," and to live so.
Man is the liberal's supreme being, man thejudgeof his life, humanity hisdirections, or catechism. God is spirit, but man is the "most perfect spirit," the final result of the long chase after the spirit or of the "searching in the depths of the Godhead,"i. e.in the depths of the spirit.
Every one of your traits is to be human; you yourself are to be so from top to toe, in the inward as in the outward; for humanity is yourcalling.
Calling—destiny—task!—
What one can become he does become. A born poet may well be hindered by the disfavor of circumstances from standing on the high level of his time, and, after the great studies that are indispensable for this, producingconsummateworks of art; but he will make poetry, be he a plowman or so lucky as to live at the court of Weimar. A born musician will make music, no matter whether on all instruments or only on an oaten pipe. A born philosophical head can give proof of itself as university philosopher or as village philosopher. Finally, a born dolt, who, as is very well compatible with this, may at the same time be a sly-boots, will (as probably every one who has visitedschools is in a position to exemplify to himself by many instances of fellow-scholars) always remain a blockhead, let him have been drilled and trained into the chief of a bureau, or let him serve that same chief as bootblack. Nay, the born shallow-pates indisputably form the most numerous class of men. And why, indeed, should not the same distinctions show themselves in the human species that are unmistakable in every species of beasts? The more gifted and the less gifted are to be found everywhere.
Only a few, however, are so imbecile that one could not get ideas into them. Hence people usually consider all men capable of having religion. In a certain degree they may be trained to other ideas too,e. g.to some musical intelligence, even some philosophy, etc. At this point then the priesthood of religion, of morality, of culture, of science, etc., takes its start, and the Communists,e. g., want to make everything accessible to all by their "public school." There is heard a common assertion that this "great mass" cannot get along without religion; the Communists broaden it into the proposition that not only the "great mass," but absolutely all, are called to everything.
Not enough that the great mass has been trained to religion, now it is actually to have to occupy itself with "everything human." Training is growing ever more general and more comprehensive.
You poor beings who could live so happily if you might skip according to your mind, you are to dance to the pipe of schoolmasters and bear-leaders, in order to perform tricks that you yourselves would never useyourselves for. And you do not even kick out of the traces at last against being always taken otherwise than you want to give yourselves. No, you mechanically recite to yourselves the question that is recited to you: "What am I called to? WhatoughtI to do?" You need only ask thus, to have yourselvestoldwhat you ought to do andorderedto do it, to have yourcallingmarked out for you, or else to order yourselves and impose it on yourselves according to the spirit's prescription. Then in reference to the will the word is, I will to do what Iought.
A man is "called" to nothing, and has no "calling," no "destiny," as little as a plant or a beast has a "calling." The flower does not follow the calling to complete itself, but it spends all its forces to enjoy and consume the world as well as it can,—i. e.it sucks in as much of the juices of the earth, as much air of the ether, as much light of the sun, as it can get and lodge. The bird lives up to no calling, but it uses its forces as much as is practicable; it catches beetles and sings to its heart's delight. But the forces of the flower and the bird are slight in comparison to those of a man, and a man who applies his forces will affect the world much more powerfully than flower and beast. A calling he has not, but he has forces that manifest themselves where they are because their being consists solely in their manifestation, and are as little able to abide inactive as life, which, if it "stood still" only a second, would no longer be life. Now, one might call out to the man, "use your force." Yet to this imperative would be given the meaning that it was man's task to use his force. It is not so. Rather,each one really uses his force without first looking upon this as his calling: at all times every one uses as much force as he possesses. One does say of a beaten man that he ought to have exerted his force more; but one forgets that, if in the moment of succumbing he had had the force to exert his forces (e. g.bodily forces), he would not have failed to do it: even if it was only the discouragement of a minute, this was yet a—destitution of force, a minute long. Forces may assuredly be sharpened and redoubled, especially by hostile resistance or friendly assistance; but where one misses their application one may be sure of their absence too. One can strike fire out of a stone, but without the blow none comes out; in like manner a man too needs "impact."
Now, for this reason that forces always of themselves show themselves operative, the command to use them would be superfluous and senseless. To use his forces is not man'scallingand task, but is hisact, real and extant at all times. Force is only a simpler word for manifestation of force.
Now, as this rose is a true rose to begin with, this nightingale always a true nightingale, so I am not for the first time a true man when I fulfil my calling, live up to my destiny, but I am a "true man" from the start. My first babble is the token of the life of a "true man," the struggles of my life are the outpourings of his force, my last breath is the last exhalation of the force of the "man."
The true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the present. Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous and suffering,a child or a graybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep or in waking, I am it, I am the true man.
But, if I am Man, and have really found in myself him whom religious humanity designated as the distant goal, then everything "truly human" is alsomy own. What was ascribed to the idea of humanity belongs to me. That freedom of trade,e. g., which humanity has yet to attain,—and which, like an enchanting dream, people remove to humanity's golden future,—I take by anticipation as my property, and carry it on for the time in the form of smuggling. There may indeed be but few smugglers who have sufficient understanding to thus account to themselves for their doings, but the instinct of egoism replaces their consciousness. Above I have shown the same thing about freedom of the press.
Everything is my own, therefore I bring back to myself what wants to withdraw from me; but above all I always bring myself back when I have slipped away from myself to any tributariness. But this too is not my calling, but my natural act.
Enough, there is a mighty difference whether I make myself the starting-point or the goal. As the latter I do not have myself, am consequently still alien to myself, am myessence, my "true essence," and this "true essence," alien to me, will mock me as a spook of a thousand different names. Because I am not yet I, another (like God, the true man, the truly pious man, the rational man, the freeman, etc.) is I, my ego.