Part 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every State is a _despotism_, be the despot one or many, or (as one is likely to imagine about a republic) if all be lords, _i. e._ despotize one over another. For this is the case when the law given at any time, the expressed volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth to be _law_ for the individual, to which _obedience is due_ from him, or toward which he has the _duty_ of obedience. If one were even to conceive the case that every individual in the people had expressed the same will, and hereby a complete "collective will" had come into being, the matter would still remain the same. Would I not be bound to-day and henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will would in this case be _frozen_. Wretched _stability_! My creature--to wit, a particular expression of will--would have become my commander. But I in my will, I the creator, should be hindered in my flow and my dissolution. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such my life long. So in the State-life I am at best--I might just as well say, at worst--a bondman of myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, I am to-day without will: yesterday voluntary, to-day involuntary.

How change it? Only by recognizing no _duty_, _i. e._ not _binding_ myself nor letting myself be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no law either.

"But they will bind me!" My will nobody can bind, and my disinclination remains free.

"Why, everything must go topsy-turvy if every one could do what he would!" Well, who says that every one can do everything? What are you there for, pray, you who do not need to put up with everything? Defend yourself, and no one will do anything to you! He who would break your will has to do with you, and is your _enemy_. Deal with him as such. If there stand behind you for your protection some millions more, then you are an imposing power and will have an easy victory. But, even if as a power you overawe your opponent, still you are not on that account a hallowed authority to him, unless he be a simpleton. He does not owe you respect and regard, even though he will have to consider your might.

We are accustomed to classify States according to the different ways in which "the supreme might" is distributed. If an individual has it--monarchy; if all have it--democracy; etc. Supreme might then! Might against whom? Against the individual and his "self-will." The State practises "violence," the individual must not do so. The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime." Crime,[137] then,--so the individual's violence is called; and only by crime does he overcome[138] the State's violence when he thinks that the State is not above him, but he above the State.

Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously, I might, as a well-meaning person, admonish you not to make laws which impair my self-development, self-activity, self-creation. I do not give this advice. For, if you should follow it, you would be unwise, and I should have been cheated of my entire profit. I request nothing at all from you; for, whatever I might demand, you would still be dictatorial lawgivers, and must be so, because a raven cannot sing, nor a robber live without robbery. Rather do I ask those who would be egoists what they think the more egoistic,--to let laws be given them by you, and to respect those that are given, or to practise _refractoriness_, yes, complete disobedience. Good-hearted people think the laws ought to prescribe only what is accepted in the people's feeling as right and proper. But what concern is it of mine what is accepted in the nation and by the nation? The nation will perhaps be against the blasphemer; therefore a law against blasphemy. Am I not to blaspheme on that account? Is this law to be more than an "order" to me? I put the question.

Solely from the principle that all _right_ and all _authority_ belong to the _collectivity of the people_ do all forms of government arise. For none of them lacks this appeal to the collectivity, and the despot, as well as the president or any aristocracy, etc., acts and commands "in the name of the State." They are in possession of the "authority of the State," and it is perfectly indifferent whether, were this possible, the people as a _collectivity_ (all individuals) exercise this State-_authority_, or whether it is only the representatives of this collectivity, be there many of them as in aristocracies or one as in monarchies. Always the collectivity is above the individual, and has a power which is called _legitimate_, _i. e._ which is _law_.

Over against the sacredness of the State, the individual is only a vessel of dishonor, in which "exuberance, malevolence, mania for ridicule and slander, frivolity," etc., are left as soon as he does not deem that object of veneration, the State, to be worthy of recognition. The spiritual _haughtiness_ of the servants and subjects of the State has fine penalties against unspiritual "exuberance."

When the government designates as punishable an play of mind _against_ the State, the moderate liberals come and opine that fun, satire, wit, humor, etc., must have free play anyhow, and _genius_ must enjoy freedom. So not the _individual man_ indeed, but still _genius_, is to be free. Here the State, or in its name the government, says with perfect right: He who is not for me is against me. Fun, wit, etc.,--in short, the turning of State affairs into a comedy,--have undermined States from of old: they are not "innocent." And, further, what boundaries are to be drawn between guilty and innocent wit, etc.? At this question the moderates fall into great perplexity, and everything reduces itself to the prayer that the State (government) would please not be so _sensitive_, so _ticklish_; that it would not immediately scent malevolence in "harmless" things, and would in general be a little "more tolerant." Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, its avoidance may be a praiseworthy virtue; but in time of war one cannot be sparing, and what may be allowed under peaceable circumstances ceases to be permitted as soon as a state of siege is declared. Because the well-meaning liberals feel this plainly, they hasten to declare that, considering "the devotion of the people," there is assuredly no danger to be feared. But the government will be wiser, and not let itself be talked into believing anything of that sort. It knows too well how people stuff one with fine words, and will not let itself be satisfied with this Barmecide dish.

But they are bound to have their play-ground, for they are children, you know, and cannot be so staid as old folks; boys will be boys.

Only for this play-ground, only for a few hours of jolly running about, they bargain. They ask only that the State should not, like a splenetic papa, be too cross. It should permit some Processions of the Ass and plays of fools, as the church allowed them in the Middle Ages. But the times when it could grant this without danger are past. Children that now once come _into the open_, and live through an hour without the rod of discipline, are no longer willing to go into the _cell_. For the open is now no longer a _supplement_ to the cell, no longer a refreshing _recreation_, but its _opposite_, an _aut--aut_. In short, the State must either no longer put up with anything, or put up with everything and perish; it must be either sensitive through and through, or, like a dead man, insensitive. Tolerance is done with. If the State but gives a finger, they take the whole hand at once. There can be no more "jesting," and all jest, such as fun, wit, humor, etc., becomes bitter earnest.

The clamor of the Liberals for freedom of the press runs counter to their own principle, their proper _will_. They will what they _do not will_, _i. e._ they wish, they would like. Hence it is too that they fall away so easily when once so-called freedom of the press appears; then they would like censorship. Quite naturally. The State is sacred even to them; likewise morals, etc. They behave toward it only as ill-bred brats, as tricky children who seek to utilize the weaknesses of their parents. Papa State is to permit them to say many things that do not please him, but papa has the right, by a stern look, to blue-pencil their impertinent gabble. If they recognize in him their papa, they must in his presence put up with the censorship of speech, like every child.

* * * * *

If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no less let yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. Alongside right goes wrong, alongside legality _crime_. What are _you_?--_You_ are a----_criminal_!

"The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own crime!" says Bettina.[139] One may let this sentiment pass, even if Bettina herself does not understand it exactly so. For in the State the unbridled I--I, as I belong to myself alone--cannot come to my fulfilment and realization. Every ego is from birth a criminal to begin with against the people, the State. Hence it is that it does really keep watch over all; it sees in each one an--egoist, and it is afraid of the egoist. It presumes the worst about each one, and takes care, police-care, that "no harm happens to the State," _ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat_. The unbridled ego--and this we originally are, and in our secret inward parts we remain so always--is the never-ceasing criminal in the State. The man whom his boldness, his will, his inconsiderateness and fearlessness lead is surrounded with spies by the State, by the people. I say, by the people! The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted folks, what you have in the people)--the people is full of police sentiments through and through.--Only he who renounces his ego, who practises "self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people.

In the book cited Bettina is throughout good-natured enough to regard the State as only sick, and to hope for its recovery, a recovery which she would bring about through the "demagogues";[140] but it is not sick; rather is it in its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues who want to acquire something for the individuals, for "all." In its believers it is provided with the best demagogues (leaders of the people). According to Bettina, the State is to[141] "develop mankind's germ of freedom; otherwise it is a raven-mother[142] and caring for raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in its very caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would have to be the "humane" or "free" State to begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it. How rightly speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:[143] "What? the State has no other duty than to be merely the attendant of incurable invalids?--That isn't to the point. From of old the healthy State has relieved itself of the diseased matter, and not mixed itself with it. It does not need to be so economical with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without hesitation, that the others may bloom.--Do not shiver at the State's harshness; its morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. Accuse it of no want of feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but its experience finds safety only in this severity! There are diseases in which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes the disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb after a shorter or longer sickness!" Frau Rat's question, "If you apply death as a drastic remedy, how is the cure to be wrought then?" isn't to the point. Why, the State does not apply death against itself, but against an offensive member; it tears out an eye that offends it, etc.

"For the invalid State the only way of salvation is to make man flourish in it."[144] If one here, like Bettina, understands by man the concept "Man," she is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the flourishing of "Man," for, the more infatuated the individuals are with "Man," the better it serves the State's turn. But, if one referred it to the individuals, to "all" (and the authoress half does this too, because about "Man" she is still involved in vagueness), then it would sound somewhat like the following: For an invalid band of robbers the only way of salvation is to make the loyal citizen flourish in it! Why, thereby the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band of robbers; and, because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot every one who has a leaning toward becoming a "steady man."

In this book Bettina is a patriot, or, what is little more, a philanthropist, a worker for human happiness. She is discontented with the existing order in quite the same way as is the title-ghost of her book, along with all who would like to bring back the good old faith and what goes with it. Only she thinks, contrariwise, that the politicians, place-holders, and diplomats ruined the State, while those lay it at the door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the people."