Part 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our atheists are pious people.

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

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

My power _is_ my property.

My power _gives_ me property.

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

I.--MY POWER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People talk so much about _birthright_, and complain:

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