What wise men see not by their wisdom's artIs practised simply by a childlike heart.[56]
What wise men see not by their wisdom's artIs practised simply by a childlike heart.[56]
It takes this childlike heart, this eye for the divine, to make a philosopher. The first-named man has only a "common" consciousness, but he who knows the divine, and knows how to tell it, has a "scientific" one. On this ground Bacon was turned out of the realm of philosophers. And certainly what is called English philosophy seems to have got no further than to the discoveries of so-called "clear heads", such as Bacon and Hume. The English did not know how to exalt the simplicity of the childlike heart to philosophic significance, did not know how to make—philosophers out of childlike hearts. This is as much as to say, their philosophy was not able to becometheologicalortheology, and yet it is only as theology that it can reallylive itself out, complete itself. The field of its battle to the death is in theology. Bacon did not trouble himself about theological questions and cardinal points.
Cognition has its object in life. German thought seeks, more than that of others, to reach the beginnings and fountain-heads of life, and sees no life till it sees it in cognition itself. Descartes'scogito, ergo sumhas the meaning "One lives only when one thinks." Thinking life is called "intellectual life"! Only mind lives, its life is the true life. Then, just so in nature only the "eternal laws," the mind or the reason of nature, are its true life. In man, as in nature, only the thought lives; everything else is dead! To this abstraction, to the life of generalities or of that which islifeless, the history of mind had to come. God, who is spirit, alone lives. Nothing lives but the ghost.
How can one try to assert of modern philosophy or modern times that they have reached freedom, since they have not freed us from the power of objectivity? Or am I perhaps free from a despot when I am not afraid of the personal potentate, to be sure, but of every infraction of the loving reverence which I fancy I owe him? The case is the same with modern times. They only changed theexistingobjects, the real ruler, etc., intoconceivedobjects,i. e.intoideas, before which the old respect not only was not lost, but increased in intensity. Even if people snapped their fingers at God and the devil in their former crass reality, people devoted only the greater attention to their ideas. "They are rid of the Evil One; evil is left."[57]The decision having once been made not to let oneself be imposed on any longer by the extant and palpable,little scruple was felt about revolting against the existing State or overturning the existing laws; but to sin against theideaof the State, not to submit to theideaof law, who would have dared that? So one remained a "citizen" and a "law-respecting," loyal man; yes, one seemed to himself to be only so much more law-respecting, the more rationalistically one abrogated the former defective law in order to do homage to the "spirit of the law." In all this the objects had only suffered a change of form; they had remained in their prepollence and pre-eminence; in short, one was still involved in obedience and possessedness, lived inrefection, and had an object on which one reflected, which one respected, and before which one felt reverence and fear. One had done nothing but transform thethingsintoconceptionsof the things, into thoughts and ideas, whereby one'sdependencebecame all the more intimate and indissoluble. So,e. g., it is not hard to emancipate oneself from the commands of parents, or to set aside the admonitions of uncle and aunt, the entreaties of brother and sister; but the renounced obedience easily gets into one's conscience, and the less one does give way to the individual demands, because he rationalistically, by his own reason, recognizes them to be unreasonable, so much the more conscientiously does he hold fast to filial piety and family love, and so much the harder is it for him to forgive himself a trespass against theconceptionwhich he has formed of family love and of filial duty. Released from dependence as regards the existing family, one falls into the more binding dependence on the idea of the family; one is ruled by the spirit ofthe family. The family consisting of John, Maggie, etc., whose dominion has become powerless, is only internalized, being left as "family" in general, to which one just applies the old saying, "We must obey God rather than man," whose significance here is this: "I cannot, to be sure, accommodate myself to your senseless requirements, but, as my 'family,' you still remain the object of my love and care"; for "the family" is a sacred idea, which the individual must never offend against.—And this family internalized and desensualized into a thought, a conception, now ranks as the "sacred," whose despotism is tenfold more grievous because it makes a racket in my conscience. This despotism is broken only when the conception, family, also becomes anothingto me. The Christian dicta, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"[58]"I am come to stir up a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,"[59]and others, are accompanied by something that refers us to the heavenly or true family, and mean no more than the State's demand, in case of a collision between it and the family, that we obeyitscommands.
The case of morality is like that of the family. Many a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the conception, "morality." Morality is the "idea" of morals, their intellectual power, their power over the conscience; on the other hand, morals are too material to rule the mind, and do not fetter an "intellectual" man, a so-called independent, a "freethinker."
The Protestant may put it as he will, the "holy[60]Scripture," the "Word of God," still remains sacred[61]for him. He for whom this is no longer "holy" has ceased to—be a Protestant. But herewith what is "ordained" in it, the public authorities appointed by God, etc., also remain sacred for him. For him these things remain indissoluble, unapproachable, "raised above all doubt"; and, asdoubt, which in practice becomes abuffeting, is what is most man's own, these things remain "raised" above himself. He who cannotget awayfrom them will—believe; for to believe in them is to beboundto them. Through the fact that in Protestantism thefaithbecame a more inward faith, theservitudehas also become a more inward servitude; one has taken those sanctities up into himself, entwined them with all his thoughts and endeavors, made them a "matter of conscience," constructed out of them a "sacred duty" for himself. Therefore what the Protestant's conscience cannot get away from is sacred to him, andconscientiousnessmost clearly designates his character.
Protestantism has actually put a man in the position of a country governed by secret police. The spy and eavesdropper, "conscience," watches over every motion of the mind, and all thought and action is for it a "matter of conscience,"i. e.police business. This tearing apart of man into "natural impulse" and "conscience" (inner populace and inner police) is what constitutes the Protestant. The reason of the Bible (in place of the Catholic "reason of thechurch") ranks as sacred, and this feeling and consciousness that the word of the Bible is sacred is called—conscience. With this, then, sacredness is "laid upon one's conscience." If one does not free himself from conscience, the consciousness of the sacred, he may act unconscientiously indeed, but never consciencelessly.
The Catholic finds himself satisfied when he fulfils thecommand; the Protestant acts according to his "best judgment and conscience." For the Catholic is only alayman; the Protestant is himself aclergyman.[62]Just this is the progress of the Reformation period beyond the Middle Ages, and at the same time its curse,—thatthe spiritualbecame complete.
What else was the Jesuit moral philosophy than a continuation of the sale of indulgences? only that the man who was relieved of his burden of sin now gained also aninsightinto the remission of sins, and convinced himself how really his sin was taken from him, since in this or that particular case (Casuists) it was so clearly no sin at all that he committed. The sale of indulgences had made all sins and transgressions permissible, and silenced every movement of conscience. All sensuality might hold sway, if it was only purchased from the church. This favoring of sensuality was continued by the Jesuits, while the strictly moral, dark, fanatical, repentant, contrite, praying Protestants (as the true completers of Christianity, to be sure) acknowledged only the intellectual and spiritual man. Catholicism, especially theJesuits, gave aid to egoism in this way, found involuntary and unconscious adherents within Protestantism itself, and saved us from the subversion and extinction ofsensuality. Nevertheless the Protestant spirit spreads its dominion farther and farther; and, as, beside it the "divine," the Jesuit spirit represents only the "diabolic" which is inseparable from everything divine, the latter can never assert itself alone, but must look on and see how in France,e. g., the Philistinism of Protestantism wins at last, and mind is on top.
Protestantism is usually complimented on having brought the mundane into repute again,e. g.marriage, the State, etc. But the mundane itself as mundane, the secular, is even more indifferent to it than to Catholicism, which lets the profane world stand, yes, and relishes its pleasures, while the rational, consistent Protestant sets about annihilating the mundane altogether, and that simply byhallowingit. So marriage has been deprived of its naturalness by becoming sacred, not in the sense of the Catholic sacrament, where it only receives its consecration from the church and so is unholy at bottom, but in the sense of being something sacred in itself to begin with, a sacred relation. Just so the State, etc. Formerly the pope gave consecration and his blessing to it and its princes; now the State is intrinsically sacred, majesty is sacred without needing the priest's blessing. The order of nature, or natural law, was altogether hallowed as "God's ordinance." Hence it is saide. g.in the Augsburg Confession, Art. 11: "So now we reasonably abide by the saying, as the jurisconsults havewisely and rightly said: that man and woman should be with each other is a natural law. Now, if it is anatural law, then it is God's ordinance, therefore implanted in nature, and therefore adivinelaw also." And is it anything more than Protestantism brought up to date, when Feuerbach pronounces moral relations sacred, not as God's ordinance indeed, but, instead, for the sake of thespiritthat dwells in them? "But marriage—as a free alliance of love, of course—issacred of itself, by thenatureof the union that is formed here.Thatmarriage alone is areligiousone that is atrueone, that corresponds to theessenceof marriage, love. And so it is with all moral relations. They areethical, are cultivated with a moral mind, only where they rank asreligious of themselves. True friendship is only where thelimitsof friendship are preserved with religious conscientiousness, with the same conscientiousness with which the believer guards the dignity of his God. Friendship is and must besacredfor you, and property, and marriage, and the good of every man, but sacredin and of itself."[63]
That is a very essential consideration. In Catholicism the mundane can indeed beconsecratedorhallowed, but it is not sacred without this priestly blessing; in Protestantism, on the contrary, mundane relations are sacredof themselves, sacred by their mere existence. The Jesuit maxim, "the end hallows the means," corresponds precisely to the consecration by which sanctity is bestowed. No means are holy or unholy in themselves, but their relation to the church,their use for the church, hallows the means. Regicide was named as such; if it was committed for the church's behoof, it could be certain of being hallowed by the church, even if the hallowing was not openly pronounced. To the Protestant, majesty ranks as sacred; to the Catholic only that majesty which is consecrated by the pontiff can rank as such; and it does rank as such to him only because the pope, even though it be without a special act, confers this sacredness on it once for all. If he retracted his consecration, the king would be left only a "man of the world or layman," an "unconsecrated" man, to the Catholic.
If the Protestant seeks to discover a sacredness in the sensual itself, that he may then be linked only to what is holy, the Catholic strives rather to banish the sensual from himself into a separate domain, where it, like the rest of nature, keeps its value for itself. The Catholic church eliminated mundane marriage from its consecrated order, and withdrew those who were its own from the mundane family; the Protestant church declared marriage and family ties to be holy, and therefore not unsuitable for its clergymen.
A Jesuit may, as a good Catholic, hallow everything. He needs onlye. g.to say to himself: "I as a priest am necessary to the church, but serve it more zealously when I appease my desires properly; consequently I will seduce this girl, have my enemy there poisoned, etc.; my end is holy because it is a priest's, consequently it hallows the means." For in the end it is still done for the benefit of the church. Why should the Catholic priest shrink from handing Emperor Henry VII the poisoned wafer for the—church's welfare?
The genuinely—churchly Protestants inveighed against every "innocent pleasure," because only the sacred, the spiritual, could be innocent. What they could not point out the holy spirit in, the Protestants had to reject,—dancing, the theatre, ostentation (e. g.in the church), and the like.
Compared with this puritanical Calvinism, Lutheranism is again more on the religious,i. e.spiritual, track,—is more radical. For the former excludes at once a great number of things as sensual and worldly, andpurifiesthe church; Lutheranism, on the contrary, tries to bringspiritinto all things as far as possible, to recognize the holy spirit as an essence in everything, and so tohalloweverything worldly. ("No one can forbid a kiss in honor." The spirit of honor hallows it.) Hence it was that the Lutheran Hegel (he declares himself such in some passage or other: he "wants to remain a Lutheran") was completely successful in carrying the idea through everything. In everything there is reason,i. e.holy spirit, or "the real is rational." For the real is in fact everything, as in each thing,e. g.each lie, the truth can be detected: there is no absolute lie, no absolute evil, and the like.
Great "works of mind" were created almost solely by Protestants, as they alone were the true disciples and consummators ofmind.
How little man is able to control! He must let the sun run its course, the sea roll its waves, themountains rise to heaven. Thus he stands powerless before theuncontrollable. Can he keep off the impression that he ishelplessagainst this gigantic world? It is a fixedlawto which he must submit, it determines hisfate. Now, what did pre-Christian humanity work toward? Toward getting rid of the irruptions of the destinies, not letting oneself be vexed by them. The Stoics attained this in apathy, declaring the attacks of natureindifferent, and not letting themselves be affected by them. Horace utters the famousNil admirari, by which he likewise announces the indifference of theother, the world; it is not to influence us, not to arouse our astonishment. And thatimpavidum ferient ruinaeexpresses the very sameimperturbabilityas Ps. 46.3: "We do not fear, though the earth should perish." In all this there is room made for the Christian proposition that the world is empty, for the Christiancontempt of the world.
Theimperturbablespirit of "the wise man," with which the old world worked to prepare its end, now underwent aninner perturbationagainst which no ataraxy, no Stoic courage, was able to protect it. The spirit, secured against all influence of the world, insensible to its shocks andexaltedabove its attacks, admiring nothing, not to be disconcerted by any downfall of the world,—foamed over irrepressibly again, because gases (spirits) were evolved in its own interior, and, after themechanical shockthat comes from without had become ineffective,chemical tensions, that agitate within, began their wonderful play.
In fact, ancient history ends with this,—thatIhave struggled till I won my ownership of the world."All things have been delivered, to me by my Father" (Matt. 11.27). It has ceased to be overpowering, unapproachable, sacred, divine, etc., for me; it isundeified, and now I treat it so entirely as I please that, if I cared, I could exert on it all miracle-working power,i. e.power of mind,—remove mountains, command mulberry trees to tear themselves up and transplant themselves into the sea (Luke 17.6), and do everything possible,i. e. thinkable: "All things are possible to him who believes."[64]I am thelordof the world, mine is the "glory."[65]The world has becomeprosaic, for the divine has vanished from it: it is my property, which I dispose of as I (to wit, the mind) choose.
When I had exalted myself to be theowner of the world, egoism had won its first complete victory, had vanquished the world, had becomeworldless, and put the acquisitions of a long age under lock and key.
The first property, the first "glory," has been acquired!
But the lord of the world is not yet lord of his thoughts, his feelings, his will: he is not lord and owner of the spirit, for the spirit is still sacred, the "Holy Spirit," and the "worldless" Christian is not able to become "godless." If the ancient struggle was a struggle against theworld, the mediæval (Christian) struggle is a struggle againstself, the mind; the former against the outer world, the latter against the inner world. The mediæval man is theman "whose gaze is turned inward," the thinking, meditative man.
All wisdom of the ancients isthe science of the world, all wisdom of the moderns isthe science of God.
The heathen (Jews included) got through with theworld; but now the thing was to get through with self, thespirit, too;i. e.to become spiritless or godless.
For almost two thousand years we have been working at subjecting the Holy Spirit to ourselves, and little by little we have torn off and trodden under foot many bits of sacredness; but the gigantic opponent is constantly rising anew under a changed form and name. The spirit has not yet lost its divinity, its holiness, its sacredness. To be sure, it has long ceased to flutter over our heads as a dove; to be sure, it no longer gladdens its saints alone, but lets itself be caught by the laity too, etc.; but as spirit of humanity, as spirit of Man, it remains still analienspirit to me or you, still far from becoming our unrestrictedproperty, which we dispose of at our pleasure. However, one thing certainly happened, and visibly guided the progress of post-Christian history: this one thing was the endeavor to make the Holy Spiritmore human, and bring it nearer to men, or men to it. Through this it came about that at last it could be conceived as the "spirit of humanity," and, under different expressions like "idea of humanity, mankind, humaneness, general philanthropy," etc., appeared more attractive, more familiar, and more accessible.
Would not one think that now everybody could possess the Holy Spirit, take up into himself the ideaof humanity, bring mankind to form and existence in himself?
No, the spirit is not stripped of its holiness and robbed of its unapproachableness, is not accessible to us, not our property; for the spirit of humanity is notmyspirit. Myidealit may be, and as a thought I call it mine; thethoughtof humanity is my property, and I prove this sufficiently by propounding it quite according to my views, and shaping it to-day so, to-morrow otherwise; we represent it to ourselves in the most manifold ways. But it is at the same time an entail, which I cannot alienate nor get rid of.
Among many transformations, the Holy Spirit became in time the "absolute idea," which again in manifold refractions split into the different ideas of philanthropy, reasonableness, civic virtue, etc.
But can I call the idea my property if it is the idea of humanity, and can I consider the Spirit as vanquished if I am to serve it, "sacrifice myself" to it? Antiquity, at its close, had gained its ownership of the world only when it had broken the world's overpoweringness and "divinity," recognized the world's powerlessness and "vanity."
The case with regard to thespiritcorresponds. When I have degraded it to aspookand its control over me to acranky notion, then it is to be looked upon as having lost its sacredness, its holiness, its divinity, and then Iuseit, as one usesnatureat pleasure without scruple.
The "nature of the case," the "concept of the relationship," is to guide me in dealing with the case or in contracting the relation. As if a concept of thecase existed on its own account, and was not rather the concept that one forms of the case! As if a relation which we enter into was not, by the uniqueness of those who enter into it, itself unique! As if it depended on how others stamp it! But, as people separated the "essence of Man" from the real man, and judged the latter by the former, so they also separate his action from him, and appraise it by "human value."Conceptsare to decide everywhere, concepts to regulate life, concepts torule. This is the religious world, to which Hegel gave a systematic expression, bringing method into the nonsense and completing the conceptual precepts into a rounded, firmly-based dogmatic. Everything is sung according to concepts, and the real man,i. e.I, am compelled to live according to these conceptual laws. Can there be a more grievous dominion of law, and did not Christianity confess at the very beginning that it meant only to draw Judaism's dominion of law tighter? ("Not a letter of the law shall be lost!")
Liberalism simply brought other concepts on the carpet,viz., human instead of divine, political instead of ecclesiastical, "scientific" instead of doctrinal, or, more generally, real concepts and eternal laws instead of "crude dogmas" and precepts.
Now nothing butmindrules in the world. An innumerable multitude of concepts buzz about in people's heads, and what are those doing who endeavor to get further? They are negating these concepts to put new ones in their place! They are saying: "You form a false concept of right, of the State, of man, of liberty, of truth, of marriage, etc.; the concept ofright, etc., is rather that one which we now set up." Thus the confusion of concepts moves forward.
The history of the world has dealt cruelly with us, and the spirit has obtained an almighty power. You must have regard for my miserable shoes, which could protect your naked foot, my salt, by which your potatoes would become palatable, and my state-carriage, whose possession would relieve you of all need at once; you must not reach out after them. Man is to recognize theindependenceof all these and innumerable other things: they are to rank in his mind as something that cannot be seized or approached, are to be kept away from him. He must have regard for it, respect it; woe to him if he stretches out his fingers desirously; we call that "being light-fingered!"
How beggarly little is left us, yes, how really nothing! Everything has been removed, we must not venture on anything unless it is given us; we continue to live only by thegraceof the giver. You must not pick up a pin, unless indeed you have gotleaveto do so. And got it from whom? Fromrespect! Only when this lets you have it as property, only when you canrespectit as property, only then may you take it. And again, you are not to conceive a thought, speak a syllable, commit an action, that should have their warrant in you alone, instead of receiving it from morality or reason or humanity. Happyunconstraintof the desirous man, how mercilessly people have tried to slay you on the altar ofconstraint!
But around the altar rise the arches of a church,and its walls keep moving further and further out. What they enclose is—sacred. You can no longer get to it, no longer touch it. Shrieking with the hunger that devours you, you wander round about these walls in search of the little that is profane, and the circles of your course keep growing more and more extended. Soon that church will embrace the whole world, and you be driven out to the extreme edge; another step, and theworld of the sacredhas conquered: you sink into the abyss. Therefore take courage while it is yet time, wander about no longer in the profane where now it is dry feeding, dare the leap, and rush in through the gates into the sanctuary itself. If youdevour the sacred, you have made it yourown! Digest the sacramental wafer, and you are rid of it!
The ancients and the moderns having been presented above in two divisions, it may seem as if the free were here to be described in a third division as independent and distinct. This is not so. The free are only the more modern and most modern among the "moderns," and are put in a separate division merely because they belong to the present, and what is present, above all, claims our attention here. I give "the free" only as a translation of "the liberals," but must with regard to the concept of freedom (as in general with regard to so many other things whose anticipatory introduction cannot be avoided) refer to what comes later.
After the chalice of so-called absolute monarchy had been drained down to the dregs, in the eighteenth century people became aware that their drink did not taste human—too clearly aware not to begin to crave a different cup. Since our fathers were "human beings" after all, they at last desired also to be regarded as such.
Whoever sees in us something else than human beings, in him we likewise will not see a human being, but an inhuman being, and will meet him as an unhuman being; on the other hand, whoever recognizes us as human beings and protects us against the danger of being treated inhumanly, him we will honor as our true protector and guardian.
Let us then hold together and protect the man in each other; then we find the necessary protection in ourholding together, and in ourselves,those who hold together, a fellowship of those who know their human dignity and hold together as "human beings." Our holding together is theState; we who hold together are thenation.
In our being together as nation or State we are only human beings. How we deport ourselves in other respects as individuals, and what self-seeking impulses we may there succumb to, belongs solely to ourprivatelife; ourpublicor State life is apurely humanone. Everything un-human or "egoistic" that clings to us is degraded to a "private matter" and we distinguish the State definitely from "civil society," which is the sphere of "egoism's" activity.
The true man is the nation, but the individual is always an egoist. Therefore strip off your individuality or isolation wherein dwells discord and egoistic inequality, and consecrate yourselves wholly to the true man,—the nation or the State. Then you will rank as men, and have all that is man's; the State, the true man, will entitle you to what belongs to it, and give you the "rights of man"; Man gives you his rights!
So runs the speech of the commonalty.
The commonalty[66]is nothing else than the thought that the State is all in all, the true man, and that the individual's human value consists in being a citizen of the State. In being a good citizen he seeks his highest honor; beyond that he knows nothing higher than at most the antiquated—"being a good Christian."
The commonalty developed itself in the struggle against the privileged classes, by whom it was cavalierly treated as "third estate" and confounded with thecanaille. In other words, up to this time the State had recognized caste.[67]The son of a nobleman was selected for posts to which the most distinguished commoners aspired in vain, etc. The civic feeling revolted against this. No more distinction, no giving preference to persons, no difference of classes! Let all be alike! Noseparate interestis to be pursued longer, but thegeneral interest of all. The State isto be a fellowship of free and equal men, and every one is to devote himself to the "welfare of the whole," to be dissolved in theState, to make the State his end and ideal. State! State! so ran the general cry, and thenceforth people sought for the "right form of State," the best constitution, and so the State in its best conception. The thought of the State passed into all hearts and awakened enthusiasm; to serve it, this mundane god, became the new divine service and worship. The properlypoliticalepoch had dawned. To serve the State or the nation became the highest ideal, the State's interest the highest interest, State service (for which one does not by any means need to be an official) the highest honor.
So then the separate interests and personalities had been scared away, and sacrifice for the State had become the shibboleth. One must give uphimself, and live only for the State. One must act "disinterestedly," not want to benefithimself, but the State. Hereby the latter has become the true person, before whom the individual personality vanishes; not I live, but it lives in me. Therefore, in comparison with the former self-seeking, this was unselfishness andimpersonalityitself. Before this god—State—all egoism vanished, and before it all were equal; they were without any other distinction—men, nothing but men.
The Revolution took fire from the inflammable material ofproperty. The government needed money. Now it must prove the proposition that it isabsolute, and so master of all property, sole proprietor; it musttaketo itselfitsmoney, which was only in the possession of the subjects, not their property. Instead ofthis, it calls States-general, to have this moneygrantedto it. The shrinking from strictly logical action destroyed the illusion of anabsolutegovernment; he who must have something "granted" to him cannot be regarded as absolute. The subjects recognized that they werereal proprietors, and that it wastheirmoney that was demanded. Those who had hitherto been subjects attained the consciousness that they wereproprietors. Bailly depicts this in a few words: "If you cannot dispose of my property without my assent, how much less can you of my person, of all that concerns my mental and social position? All this is my property, like the piece of land that I till; and I have a right, an interest, to make the laws myself." Bailly's words sound, certainly, as ifevery onewas a proprietor now. However, instead of the government, instead of the prince, the—nationnow became proprietor and master. From this time on the ideal is spoken of as—"popular liberty"—"a free people," etc.
As early as July 8, 1789, the declaration of the bishop of Autun and Barrère took away all semblance of the importance of each and everyindividualin legislation; it showed the completepowerlessnessof the constituents; themajority of the representativeshas becomemaster. When on July 9 the plan for division of the work on the constitution is proposed, Mirabeau remarks that "the government has only power, no rights; only in thepeopleis the source of allrightto be found." On July 16 this same Mirabeau exclaims: "Is not the people the source of allpower?" The source, therefore, of all right, and the source ofall—power![68]By the way, here the substance of "right" becomes visible; it is—power. "He who has power has right."
The commonalty is the heir of the privileged classes. In fact, the rights of the barons, which were taken from them as "usurpations," only passed over to the commonalty. For the commonalty was now called the "nation." "Into the hands of the nation" allprerogativeswere given back. Thereby they ceased to be "prerogatives":[69]they became "rights."[70]From this time on the nation demands tithes, compulsory services; it has inherited the lord's court, the rights of vert and venison, the—serfs. The night of August 4 was the death-night of privileges or "prerogatives" (cities, communes, boards of magistrates, were also privileged, furnished with prerogatives and seigniorial rights), and ended with the new morning of "right," the "rights of the State," the "rights of the nation."
The monarch in the person of the "royal master" had been a paltry monarch compared with this new monarch, the "sovereign nation." Thismonarchywas a thousand times severer, stricter, and more consistent. Against the new monarch there was no longer any right, any privilege at all; how limited the "absolute king" of theancien régimelooks in comparison! The Revolution effected the transformation oflimited monarchyintoabsolute monarchy. From this time on every right that is not conferred by this monarch is an "assumption"; but every prerogative that he bestows, a "right." The times demandedabsolute royalty, absolute monarchy; therefore down fell that so-called absolute royalty which had so little understood how to become absolute that it remained limited by a thousand little lords.
What was longed for and striven for through thousands of years,—to wit, to find that absolute lord beside whom no other lords and lordlings any longer exist to clip his power,—thebourgeoisiehas brought to pass. It has revealed the Lord who alone confers "rightful titles," and without whose warrantnothing is justified. "So now we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other god save the one."[71]
Againstrightone can no longer, as against a right, come forward with the assertion that it is "a wrong." One can say now only that it is a piece of nonsense, an illusion. If one called it wrong, one would have to set upanother rightin opposition to it, and measure it by this. If, on the contrary, one rejects right as such, right in and of itself, altogether, then one also rejects the concept of wrong, and dissolves the whole concept of right (to which the concept of wrong belongs).
What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all enjoy "equality of political rights"? Only this,—that the State has no regard for my person, that to it I, like every other, am only a man, without having another significance that commands its deference. I do not command its deference as an aristocrat, anobleman's son, or even as heir of an official whose office belongs to me by inheritance (as in the Middle Ages countships, etc., and later under absolute royalty, where hereditary offices occur). Now the State has an innumerable multitude of rights to give away,e. g.the right to lead a battalion, a company, etc.; the right to lecture at a university; and so forth; it has them to give away because they are its own,i. e.State rights or "political" rights. Withal, it makes no difference to it to whom it gives them, if the receiver only fulfils the duties that spring from the delegated rights. To it we are all of us all right, and—equal,—one worth no more and no less than another. It is indifferent to me who receives the command of the army, says the sovereign State, provided the grantee understands the matter properly. "Equality of political rights" has, consequently, the meaning that every one may acquire every right that the State has to give away, if only he fulfils the conditions annexed thereto,—conditions which are to be sought only in the nature of the particular right, not in a predilection for the person (persona grata): the nature of the right to become an officer brings with it,e. g., the necessity that one possess sound limbs and a suitable measure of knowledge, but it does not have noble birth as a condition; if, on the other hand, even the most deserving commoner could not reach that station, then an inequality of political rights would exist. Among the States of to-day one has carried out that maxim of equality more, another less.
The monarchy of estates (so I will call absolute royalty, the time of the kingsbeforethe revolution) keptthe individual in dependence on a lot of little monarchies. These were fellowships (societies) like the guilds, the nobility, the priesthood, the burgher class, cities, communes, etc. Everywhere the individual must regard himselffirstas a member of this little society, and yield unconditional obedience to its spirit, theesprit de corps, as his monarch. More,e. g., than the individual nobleman himself must his family, the honor of his race, be to him. Only by means of hiscorporation, his estate, did the individual have relation to the greater corporation, the State,—as in Catholicism the individual deals with God only through the priest. To this the third estate now, showing courage to negateitself as an estate, made an end. It decided no longer to be and be called anestatebeside other estates, but to glorify and generalize itself into the "nation." Hereby it created a much more complete and absolute monarchy, and the entire previously rulingprinciple of estates, the principle of little monarchies inside the great, went down. Therefore it cannot be said that the Revolution was a revolution against the first two privileged estates: it was against the little monarchies of estates in general. But, if the estates and their despotism were broken (the king too, we know, was only a king of estates, not a citizen-king), the individuals freed from the inequality of estate were left. Were they now really to be without estate and "out of gear," no longer bound by any estate, without a general bond of union? No, for the third estate had declared itself the nation only in order not to remain an estatebesideother estates, but to become thesole estate. This soleestateis the nation, the "State." What had the individual now become? A political Protestant, for he had come into immediate connection with his God, the State. He was no longer, as an aristocrat, in the monarchy of the nobility; as a mechanic, in the monarchy of the guild; but he, like all, recognized and acknowledged only—one lord, the State, as whose servants they all received the equal title of honor, "citizen."
Thebourgeoisieis thearistocracy ofDESERT; its motto, "Let desert wear its crowns." It fought against the "lazy" aristocracy, for according to it (the industrious aristocracy acquired by industry and desert) it is not the "born" who is free, nor yet I who am free either, but the "deserving" man, the honestservant(of his king; of the State; of the people in constitutional States). Throughserviceone acquires freedom,i. e.acquires "deserts," even if one served—mammon. One must deserve well of the State,i. e.of the principle of the State, of its moral spirit. He whoservesthis spirit of the State is a good citizen, let him live to whatever honest branch of industry he will. In its eyes innovators practise a "breadless art." Only the "shopkeeper" is "practical," and the spirit that chases after public offices is as much the shopkeeping spirit as is that which tries in trade to feather its nest or otherwise to become useful to itself and anybody else.
But, if the deserving count as the free (for what does the comfortable commoner, the faithful office-holder, lack of that freedom that his heart desires?), then the "servants" are the—free. The obedientservant is the free man! What glaring nonsense! Yet this is the sense of thebourgeoisie, and its poet, Goethe, as well as its philosopher, Hegel, succeeded in glorifying the dependence of the subject on the object, obedience to the objective world, etc. He who only serves the cause, "devotes himself entirely to it," has the true freedom. And among thinkers the cause was—reason, that which, like State and Church, gives—general laws, and puts the individual man in irons by thethought of humanity. It determines what is "true," according to which one must then act. No more "rational" people than the honest servants, who primarily are called good citizens as servants of the State.
Be rich as Crœsus or poor as Job—the State of the commonalty leaves that to your option; but only have a "good disposition." This it demands of you, and counts it its most urgent task to establish this in all. Therefore it will keep you from "evil promptings," holding the "ill-disposed" in check and silencing their inflammatory discourses under censors' cancelling-marks or press-penalties and behind dungeon walls, and will, on the other hand, appoint people of "good disposition" as censors, and in every way have amoral influenceexerted on you by "well-disposed and well-meaning" people. If it has made you deaf to evil promptings, then it opens your ears again all the more diligently to goodpromptings.
With the time of thebourgeoisiebegins that ofliberalism. People want to see what is "rational," "suited to the times," etc., established everywhere. The following definition of liberalism, which is supposed to be pronounced in its honor, characterizes it completely: "Liberalism is nothing else than the knowledge of reason, applied to our existing relations."[72]Its aim is a "rational order," a "moral behavior," a "limited freedom," not anarchy, lawlessness, selfhood. But, if reason rules, then thepersonsuccumbs. Art has for a long time not only acknowledged the ugly, but considered the ugly as necessary to its existence, and taken it up into itself; it needs the villain, etc. In the religious domain, too, the extremest liberals go so far that they want to see the most religious man regarded as a citizen—i. e.the religious villain; they want to see no more of trials for heresy. But against the "rational law" no one is to rebel, otherwise he is threatened with the severest—penalty. What is wanted is not free movement and realization of the person or of me, but of reason,—i. e.a dominion of reason, a dominion. The liberals arezealots, not exactly for the faith, for God, etc., but certainly forreason, their master. They brook no lack of breeding, and therefore no self-development and self-determination; theyplay the guardianas effectively as the most absolute rulers.
"Political liberty," what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual'ssubjectionin the State and to the State's laws. But why "liberty"? Because one is no longer separated from the State by intermediaries, but stands in direct and immediate relation to it; because one isa—citizen, not the subject of another, not even of the king as a person, but only in his quality as "supreme head of the State." Political liberty, this fundamental doctrine of liberalism, is nothing but a second phase of—Protestantism, and runs quite parallel with "religious liberty."[73]Or would it perhaps be right to understand by the latter an independence of religion? Anything but that. Independence of intermediaries is all that it is intended to express, independence of mediating priests, the abolition of the "laity," and so direct and immediate relation to religion or to God. Only on the supposition that one has religion can he enjoy freedom of religion; freedom of religion does not mean being without religion, but inwardness of faith, unmediated intercourse with God. To him who is "religiously free" religion is an affair of the heart, it is to him hisown affair, it is to him a "sacredly serious matter." So, too, to the "politically free" man the State is a sacredly serious matter; it is his heart's affair, his chief affair, his own affair.
Political liberty means that thepolis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I amridof them. It does not meanmyliberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of mydespots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave,andtheirliberty ismyslavery. That in this they necessarily follow the principle, "the end hallows the means," is self-evident. If the welfare of the State is the end, war is a hallowed means; if justice is the State's end, homicide is a hallowed means, and is called by its sacred name, "execution," etc.; the sacred Statehallowseverything that is serviceable to it.
"Individual liberty," over which civic liberalism keeps jealous watch, does not by any means signify a completely free self-determination, by which actions become altogethermine, but only independence ofpersons. Individually free is he who is responsible to noman. Taken in this sense,—and we are not allowed to understand it otherwise,—not only the ruler is individually free,i. e., irresponsible toward men("before God," we know, he acknowledges himself responsible), but all who are "responsible only to the law." This kind of liberty was won through the revolutionary movement of the century,—to wit, independence of arbitrary will, oftel est notre plaisir. Hence the constitutional prince must himself be stripped of all personality, deprived of all individual decision, that he may not as a person, as anindividual man, violate the "individual liberty" of others. Thepersonal will of the rulerhas disappeared in the constitutional prince; it is with a right feeling, therefore, that absolute princes resist this. Nevertheless these very ones profess to be in the best sense "Christian princes." For this, however, they must become apurely spiritualpower, as the Christian is subject only tospirit("God is spirit"). The purely spiritual power is consistentlyrepresented only by the constitutional prince, he who, without any personal significance, stands there spiritualized to the degree that he can rank as a sheer, uncanny "spirit," as anidea. The constitutional king is the trulyChristianking, the genuine, consistent carrying-out of the Christian principle. In the constitutional monarchy individual dominion,—i. e., a real ruler thatwills—has found its end; here, therefore,individual libertyprevails, independence of every individual dictator, of every one who could dictate to me with atel est notre plaisir. It is the completedChristianState-life, a spiritualized life.
The behavior of the commonalty isliberalthrough and through. Everypersonalinvasion of another's sphere revolts the civic sense; if the citizen sees that one is dependent on the humor, the pleasure, the will of a man as individual (i. e.as not authorized by a "higher power"), at once he brings his liberalism to the front and shrieks about "arbitrariness." In fine, the citizen asserts his freedom from what is calledorders(ordonnance): "No one has any business to give me—orders!"Orderscarries the idea that what I am to do is another man's will, whilelawdoes not express a personal authority of another. The liberty of the commonalty is liberty or independence from the will of another person, so-called personal or individual liberty; for being personally free means being only so free that no other person can dispose of mine, or that what I may or may not do does not depend on the personal decree of another. The liberty of the press, for instance, is such a liberty of liberalism, liberalism fighting only against the coercion of the censorship as that of personal wilfulness, but otherwise showing itself extremely inclined and willing to tyrannize over the press by "press laws";i. e., the civic liberals want liberty of writingfor themselves; for, as they arelaw-abiding, their writings will not bring them under the law. Only liberal matter,i. e.only lawful matter, is to be allowed to be printed; otherwise the "press laws" threaten "press-penalties." If one sees personal liberty assured, one does not notice at all how, if a new issue happens to arise, the most glaring unfreedom becomes dominant. For one is rid ofordersindeed, and "no one has any business to give us orders," but one has become so much the more submissive to the—law. One is enthralled now in due legal form.
In the citizen-State there are only "free people," who arecompelledto thousands of things (e. g.to deference, to a confession of faith, and the like). But what does that amount to? Why, it is only the—State, the law, not any man, that compels them!
What does the commonalty mean by inveighing against every personal order,i. e.every order not founded on the "cause," on "reason," etc.? It is simply fighting in the interest of the "cause"[74]against the dominion of "persons"! But the mind's cause is the rational, good, lawful, etc.; that is the "good cause." The commonalty wants animpersonalruler.
Furthermore, if the principle is this, that only the cause is to rule man—to wit, the cause of morality,the cause of legality, etc.,—then no personal balking of one by the other may be authorized either (as formerly,e. g.,the commoner was balked of thearistocraticoffices, the aristocrat of common mechanical trades, etc.);i. e. free competitionmust exist. Only through the thing[75]can one balk another (e. g.the rich man balking the impecunious man by money, a thing), not as a person. Henceforth only one lordship, the lordship of theState, is admitted; personally no one is any longer lord of another. Even at birth the children belong to the State, and to the parents only in the name of the State, which,e. g., does not allow infanticide, demands their baptism, etc.
But all the State's children, furthermore, are of quite equal account in its eyes ("civic or political equality"), and they may see to it themselves how they get along with each other; they maycompete.
Free competition means nothing else than that every one can present himself, assert himself, fight, against another. Of course the feudal party set itself against this, as its existence depended on an absence of competition. The contests in the time of the Restoration in France had no other substance than this,—that thebourgeoisiewas struggling for free competition, and the feudalists were seeking to bring back the guild system.
Now, free competition has won, and against the guild system it had to win. (See below for the further discussion.)
If the Revolution ended in a reaction, this onlyshowed what the Revolutionreallywas. For every effort arrives at reaction when itcomes to discreet reflection, and storms forward in the original action only so long as it is anintoxication, an "indiscretion." "Discretion" will always be the cue of the reaction, because discretion sets limits, and liberates what was really wanted,i. e.the principle, from the initial "unbridledness" and "unrestrainedness." Wild young fellows, bumptious students, who set aside all considerations, arereallyPhilistines, since with them, as with the latter, considerations form the substance of their conduct; only that as swaggerers they are mutinous against considerations and in negative relations to them, but as Philistines, later, they give themselves up to considerations and have positive relations to them. In both cases all their doing and thinking turns upon "considerations," but the Philistine isreactionaryin relation to the student; he is the wild fellow come to discreet reflection, as the latter is the unreflecting Philistine. Daily experience confirms the truth of this transformation, and shows how the swaggerers turn to Philistines in turning gray.
So too the so-called reaction in Germany gives proof that it was only thediscreetcontinuation of the warlike jubilation of liberty.
The Revolution was not directed againstthe established, but againstthe establishment in question, against aparticularestablishment. It did away withthisruler, not withtheruler—on the contrary, the French were ruled most inexorably; it killed the old vicious rulers, but wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely established position,i. e.it simply setvirtue in the place of vice. (Vice and virtue, again, are on their part distinguished from each other only as a wild young fellow from a Philistine.) Etc.
To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to assail onlyoneoranotherparticular establishment,i. e.bereformatory. Much as may beimproved, strongly as "discreet progress" may be adhered to, always there is only anew masterset in the old one's place, and the overturning is a—building up. We are still at the distinction of the young Philistine from the old one. The Revolution began inbourgeoisfashion with the uprising of the third estate, the middle class; inbourgeoisfashion it dries away. It was not theindividual man—and he alone isMan—that became free, but thecitizen, thecitoyen, thepoliticalman, who for that very reason is notManbut a specimen of the human species, and more particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, afree citizen.
In the Revolution it was not theindividualwho acted so as to affect the world's history, but apeople; thenation, the sovereign nation, wanted to effect everything. A fanciedI, an idea, such as the nation is, appears acting;i. e., the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this idea, and act as "citizens."
The commonalty has its power, and at the same time its limits, in thefundamental law of the State, in a charter, in a legitimate[76]or "just"[77]prince who himself is guided, and rules, according to "rational laws"; in short, inlegality. The period of thebourgeoisieis ruled by the British spirit of legality. An assembly of provincial estates,e. g., is ever recalling that its authorization goes only so and so far, and that it is called at all only through favor and can be thrown out again through disfavor. It is always reminding itself of its—vocation. It is certainly not to be denied that my father begot me; but, now that I am once begotten, surely his purposes in begetting do not concern me a bit and, whatever he may havecalledme to, I do what I myself will. Therefore even a called assembly of estates, the French assembly in the beginning of the Revolution, recognized quite rightly that it was independent of the caller. Itexisted, and would have been stupid if it did not avail itself of the right of existence, but fancied itself dependent as on a father. The called one no longer has to ask "what did the caller want when he created me?" but "what do I want after I have once followed the call?" Not the caller, not the constituents, not the charter according to which their meeting was called out, nothing will be to him a sacred, inviolable power. He isauthorizedfor everything that is in his power; he will know no restrictive "authorization," will not want to beloyal. This, if any such thing could be expected from chambers at all, would give a completelyegoisticchamber, severed from all navel-string and without consideration. But chambers are always devout, and therefore one cannot be surprised if so much half-way or undecided,i. e.hypocritical, "egoism" parades in them.
The members of the estates are to remain within thelimitsthat are traced for them by the charter, by theking's will, and the like. If they will not or can not do that, then they are to "step out." What dutiful man could act otherwise, could put himself, his conviction, and his will as thefirstthing? who could be so immoral as to want to asserthimself, even if the body corporate and everything should go to ruin over it? People keep carefully within the limits of theirauthorization; of course one must remain within the limits of hispoweranyhow, because no one can do more than he can. "My power, or, if it be so, powerlessness, be my sole limit, but authorizations only restraining—precepts? Should I profess this all-subversive view? No, I am a—law-abiding citizen!"
The commonalty professes a morality which is most closely connected with its essence. The first demand of this morality is to the effect that one should carry on a solid business, an honorable trade, lead a moral life. Immoral, to it, is the sharper, the demirep, the thief, robber, and murderer, the gamester, the penniless man without a situation, the frivolous man. The doughty commoner designates the feeling against these "immoral" people as his "deepest indignation." All these lack settlement, thesolidquality of business, a solid, seemly life, a fixed income, etc.; in short, they belong, because their existence does not rest on asecure basis, to the dangerous "individuals or isolated persons," to the dangerousprolétariat; they are "individual bawlers" who offer no "guarantee" and have "nothing to lose," and so nothing to risk. The forming of family ties,e. g., bindsa man: he who is bound furnishes security, can be taken hold of; notso the street-walker. The gamester stakes everything on the game, ruins himself and others;—no guarantee. All who appear to the commoner suspicious, hostile, and dangerous might be comprised under the name "vagabonds"; every vagabondish way of living displeases him. For there are intellectual vagabonds too, to whom the hereditary dwelling-place of their fathers seems too cramped and oppressive for them to be willing to satisfy themselves with the limited space any more: instead of keeping within the limits of a temperate style of thinking, and taking as inviolable truth what furnishes comfort and tranquillity to thousands, they overleap all bounds of the traditional and run wild with their impudent criticism and untamed mania for doubt, these extravagating vagabonds. They form the class of the unstable, restless, changeable,i. e.of theprolétariat, and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature, are called "unruly fellows."
Such a broad sense has the so-calledprolétariat, or pauperism. How much one would err if one believed the commonalty to be desirous of doing away with poverty (pauperism) to the best of its ability! On the contrary, the good citizen helps himself with the incomparably comforting conviction that "the fact is that the good things of fortune are unequally divided and will always remain so—according to God's wise decree." The poverty which surrounds him in every alley does not disturb the true commoner further than that at most he clears his account with it by throwing an alms, or finds work and food for an "honest and serviceable" fellow. But so much the more does he feel his quiet enjoyment clouded byinnovatinganddiscontentedpoverty, by those poor who no longer behavequietlyand endure, but begin torun wildand become restless. Lock up the vagabond, thrust the breeder of unrest into the darkest dungeon! He wants to "arouse dissatisfaction and incite people against existing institutions" in the State—stone him, stone him!
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 ofmediocrity, of the golden mean: a little birth and a little labor,i. e., aninterest-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 theadvantageof power,the laymen had tosuffersubjection. 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" ofmoney; 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, butmoneybringsconsideration.[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 theState's assent? What I have without this ittakesfrom 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 thelegal title, the commonalty rests. The commoner is what he is through theprotection 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 theprotégé.
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 therégimeof 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 cannotrealizeon 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 anddominionof the State, the labors of high Stateservants. 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 itsvalue; it is exploited,[79]aspoil[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. Iflaborbecomesfree, the State is lost.
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?—Weare 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 frompersons, from personal dominion, from themaster; 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 becomeequal, yet theirpossessionshave not. And yet the poor manneedsthe 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 aperson, but needs him as agiver, and thus as one who has something to give, as holder or possessor. So what hehasmakes theman. And inhaving, or in "possessions," people are unequal.