The Ego and His Own Part 20

But that the State makes me responsible for my principles, and demands certain ones from me, might make me ask, what concern has it with the "wheel in my head" (principle)? Very much, for the State is the--_ruling principle_. It is supposed that in divorce matters, in marriage law in general, the question is of the proportion of rights between Church and State. Rather, the question is of whether anything sacred is to rule over man, be it called faith or ethical law (morality). The State behaves as the same ruler that the Church was. The latter rests on G.o.dliness, the former on morality.

People talk of the tolerance, the leaving opposite tendencies free, and the like, by which civilized States are distinguished. Certainly some are strong enough to look with complacency on even the most unrestrained meetings, while others charge their catchpolls to go hunting for tobacco-pipes. Yet for one State as for another the play of individuals among themselves, their buzzing to and fro, their daily life, is an _incident_ which it must be content to leave to themselves because it can do nothing with this. Many, indeed, still strain out gnats and swallow camels, while others are shrewder. Individuals are "freer" in the latter, because less pestered. But _I_ am free in _no_ State. The lauded tolerance of States is simply a tolerating of the "harmless," the "not dangerous"; it is only elevation above pettymindedness, only a more estimable, grander, prouder--despotism. A certain State seemed for a while to mean to be pretty well elevated above _literary_ combats, which might be carried on with all heat; England is elevated above _popular turmoil_ and--tobacco-smoking. But woe to the literature that deals blows at the State itself, woe to the mobs that "endanger" the State.

In that certain State they dream of a "free science," in England of a "free popular life."

The State does let individuals _play_ as freely as possible, only they must not be in _earnest_, must not forget _it_. Man must not carry on intercourse with man _unconcernedly_, not without "superior oversight and mediation." I must not execute all that I am able to, but only so much as the State allows; I must not turn to account _my_ thoughts, nor _my_ work, nor, in general, anything of mine.

The State always has the sole purpose to limit, tame, subordinate, the individual--to make him subject to some _generality_ or other; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and it is only the clearly-marked _restriction of me_, my limitation, my slavery. Never does a State aim to bring in the free activity of individuals, but always that which is bound to the _purpose of the State_. Through the State nothing _in common_ comes to pa.s.s either, as little as one can call a piece of cloth the common work of all the individual parts of a machine; it is rather the work of the whole machine as a unit, _machine work_. In the same style everything is done by the _State machine_ too; for it moves the clockwork of the individual minds, none of which follow their own impulse. The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its supervision, its police, and holds this hindering to be its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation. The State wants to make something out of man, therefore there live in it only _made_ men; every one who wants to be his own self is its opponent and is nothing. "He is nothing" means as much as, The State does not make use of him, grants him no position, no office, no trade, and the like.

E. Bauer,[164] in the "_Liberale Bestrebungen_," II, 50, is still dreaming of a "government which, proceeding out of the people, can never stand in opposition to it." He does indeed (p. 69) himself take back the word "government": "In the republic no government at all obtains, but only an executive authority. An authority which proceeds purely and alone out of the people; which has not an independent power, independent principles, independent officers, over against the people; but which has its foundation, the fountain of its power and of its principles, in the sole, supreme authority of the State, in the people. The concept government, therefore, is not at all suitable in the people's State."

But the thing remains the same. That which has "proceeded, been founded, sprung from the fountain" becomes something "independent" and, like a child delivered from the womb, enters upon opposition at once. The government, if it were nothing independent and opposing, would be nothing at all.

"In the free State there is no government," etc. (p. 94). This surely means that the people, when it is the _sovereign_, does not let itself be conducted by a superior authority. Is it perchance different in absolute monarchy? Is there there for the _sovereign_, perchance, a government standing over him? _Over_ the sovereign, be he called prince or people, there never stands a government: that is understood of itself. But over _me_ there will stand a government in every "State," in the absolute as well as in the republican or "free." _I_ am as badly off in one as in the other.

The republic is nothing whatever but--absolute monarchy; for it makes no difference whether the monarch is called prince or people, both being a "majesty." Const.i.tutionalism itself proves that n.o.body is able and willing to be only an instrument. The ministers domineer over their master the prince, the deputies over their master the people. Here, then, the _parties_ at least are already free,--_videlicet_, the office-holders' party (so-called people's party). The prince must conform to the will of the ministers, the people dance to the pipe of the chambers. Const.i.tutionalism is further than the republic, because it is the _State_ in incipient _dissolution_.

E. Bauer denies (p. 56) that the people is a "personality" in the const.i.tutional State; _per contra_, then, in the republic? Well, in the const.i.tutional State the people is--a _party_, and a party is surely a "personality" if one is once resolved to talk of a "political" (p. 76) moral person anyhow. The fact is that a moral person, be it called people's party or people or even "the Lord," is in no wise a person, but a spook.

Further, E. Bauer goes on (p. 69): "guardianship is the characteristic of a government." Truly, still more that of a people and "people's State"; it is the characteristic of all _dominion_. A people's State, which "unites in itself all completeness of power," the "absolute master," cannot let me become powerful. And what a chimera, to be no longer willing to call the "people's officials" "servants, instruments,"

because they "execute the free, rational law-will of the people!" (p.

73). He thinks (p. 74): "Only by all official circles subordinating themselves to the government's views can unity be brought into the State"; but his "people's State" is to have "unity" too; how will a lack of subordination be allowable there? subordination to the--people's will.

"In the const.i.tutional State it is the regent and his _disposition_ that the whole structure of government rests on in the end." (_Ibid._, p.

130.) How would that be otherwise in the "people's State"? Shall _I_ not there be governed by the people's _disposition_ too, and does it make a difference _for me_ whether I see myself kept in dependence by the prince's disposition or by the people's disposition, so-called "public opinion"? If dependence means as much as "religious relation," as E.

Bauer rightly alleges, then in the people's State the people remains _for me_ the superior power, the "majesty" (for G.o.d and prince have their proper essence in "majesty") to which I stand in religious relations.--Like the sovereign regent, the sovereign people too would be reached by no _law_. E. Bauer's whole attempt comes to a _change of masters_. Instead of wanting to make the _people_ free, he should have had his mind on the sole realizable freedom, his own.

In the const.i.tutional State _absolutism_ itself has at last come in conflict with itself, as it has been shattered into a duality; the government wants to be absolute, and the people wants to be absolute.

These two absolutes will wear out against each other.

E. Bauer inveighs against the determination of the regent by _birth_, by _chance_. But, when "the people" have become "the sole power in the State" (p. 132), have _we_ not then in it a master from _chance_? Why, what is the people? The people has always been only the _body_ of the government: it is many under one hat (a prince's hat) or many under one const.i.tution. And the const.i.tution is the--prince. Princes and peoples will persist so long as both do not _col_lapse, _i. e._ fall _together_.

If under one const.i.tution there are many "peoples,"--_e. g._ in the ancient Persian monarchy and to-day,--then these "peoples" rank only as "provinces." For me the people is in any case an--accidental power, a force of nature, an enemy that I must overcome.

What is one to think of under the name of an "organized" people (_ibid._, p. 132)? A people "that no longer has a government," that governs itself. In which, therefore, no ego stands out prominently; a people organized by ostracism. The banishment of egos, ostracism, makes the people autocrat.

If you speak of the people, you must speak of the prince; for the people, if it is to be a subject[165] and make history, must, like everything that acts, have a _head_, its "supreme head." Weitling sets this forth in the "Trio," and Proudhon declares, "_une societe, pour ainsi dire acephale, ne peut vivre_."[166]

The _vox populi_ is now always held up to us, and "public opinion" is to rule our princes. Certainly the _vox populi_ is at the same time _vox dei_; but is either of any use, and is not the _vox principis_ also _vox dei_?

At this point the "Nationals" may be brought to mind. To demand of the thirty-eight States of Germany that they shall act as _one nation_ can only be put alongside the senseless desire that thirty-eight swarms of bees, led by thirty-eight queen-bees, shall unite themselves into one swarm. _Bees_ they all remain; but it is not the bees as bees that belong together and can join themselves together, it is only that the _subject_ bees are connected with the _ruling_ queens. Bees and peoples are dest.i.tute of will, and the _instinct_ of their queens leads them.

If one were to point the bees to their beehood, in which at any rate they are all equal to each other, one would be doing the same thing that they are now doing so stormily in pointing the Germans to their Germanhood. Why, Germanhood is just like beehood in this very thing, that it bears in itself the necessity of cleavages and separations, yet without pushing on to the last separation, where, with the complete carrying through of the process of separating, its end appears: I mean, to the separation of man from man. Germanhood does indeed divide itself into different peoples and tribes, _i. e._ beehives; but the individual who has the quality of being a German is still as powerless as the isolated bee. And yet only individuals can enter into union with each other, and all alliances and leagues of peoples are and remain mechanical compoundings, because those who come together, at least so far as the "peoples" are regarded as the ones that have come together, are _dest.i.tute of will_. Only with the last separation does separation itself end and change to unification.

Now the Nationals are exerting themselves to set up the abstract, lifeless unity of beehood; but the self-owned are going to fight for the unity willed by their own will, for union. This is the token of all reactionary wishes, that they want to set up something _general_, abstract, an empty, lifeless _concept_, in distinction from which the self-owned aspire to relieve the robust, lively _particular_ from the trashy burden of generalities. The reactionaries would be glad to smite a _people_, a _nation_, forth from the earth; the self-owned have before their eyes only themselves. In essentials the two efforts that are just now the order of the day--to wit, the restoration of provincial rights and of the old tribal divisions (Franks, Bavarians, etc., Lusatia, etc.), and the restoration of the entire nationality--coincide in one.

But the Germans will come into unison, _i. e._ unite _themselves_, only when they knock over their beehood as well as all the beehives; in other words, when they are more than--Germans: only then can they form a "German Union." They must not want to turn back into their nationality, into the womb, in order to be born again, but let every one turn in _to himself_. How ridiculously sentimental when one German grasps another's hand and presses it with sacred awe because "he too is a German"! With that he is something great! But this will certainly still be thought touching as long as people are enthusiastic for "brotherliness," _i. e._ as long as they have a "_family disposition_." From the superst.i.tion of "piety," from "brotherliness" or "childlikeness" or however else the soft-hearted piety-phrases run,--from the _family spirit_,--the Nationals, who want to have a great _family of Germans_, cannot liberate themselves.

Aside from this, the so-called Nationals would only have to understand themselves rightly in order to lift themselves out of their juncture with the good-natured Teutomaniacs. For the uniting for material ends and interests, which they demand of the Germans, comes to nothing else than a voluntary union. Carriere, inspired, cries out,[167] "Railroads are to the more penetrating eye the way to a _life of the people_ such as has not yet anywhere appeared in such significance." Quite right, it will be a life of the people that has nowhere appeared, because it is not a--life of the people.--So Carriere then combats himself (p. 10): "Pure humanity or manhood cannot be better represented than by a people fulfilling its mission." Why, by this nationality only is represented.

"Washed-out generality is lower than the form complete in itself, which is itself a whole, and lives as a living member of the truly general, the organized." Why, the people is this very "washed-out generality,"

and it is only a man that is the "form complete in itself."

The impersonality of what they call "people, nation," is clear also from this: that a people which wants to bring its I into view to the best of its power puts at its head the ruler _without will_. It finds itself in the alternative either to be subjected to a prince who realizes only _himself, his individual_ pleasure--then it does not recognize in the "absolute master" its own will, the so-called will of the people--, or to seat on the throne a prince who gives effect to _no_ will of his _own_--then it has a prince _without will_, whose place some ingenious clockwork would perhaps fill just as well.--Therefore insight need go only a step farther; then it becomes clear of itself that the I of the people is an impersonal, "spiritual" power, the--law. The people's I, therefore, is a--spook, not an I. I am I only by this, that I make myself; _i. e._ that it is not another who makes me, but I must be my own work. But how is it with this I of the people? _Chance_ plays it into the people's hand, chance gives it this or that born lord, accidents procure it the chosen one; he is not its (the "_sovereign_"

people's) product, as I am _my_ product. Conceive of one wanting to talk you into believing that you were not your I, but Tom or Jack was your I!

But so it is with the people, and rightly. For the people has an I as little as the eleven planets counted together have an _I_, though they revolve around a common _centre_.

Bailly's utterance is representative of the slave-disposition that folks manifest before the sovereign people, as before the prince. "I have,"

says he, "no longer any extra reason when the general reason has p.r.o.nounced itself. My first law was the nation's will; as soon as it had a.s.sembled I knew nothing beyond its sovereign will." He would have no "extra reason," and yet this extra reason alone accomplishes everything.

Just so Mirabeau inveighs in the words, "No power on earth has the _right_ to say to the nation's representatives, It is my will!"

As with the Greeks, there is now a wish to make man a _zoon politicon_, a citizen of the State or political man. So he ranked for a long time as a "citizen of heaven." But the Greek fell into ignominy along with his _State_, the citizen of heaven likewise falls with heaven; we, on the other hand, are not willing to go down along with the _people_, the nation and nationality, not willing to be merely _political_ men or politicians. Since the Revolution they have striven to "make the people happy," and in making the people happy, great, and the like, they make Us unhappy: the people's good hap is--my mishap.

What empty talk the political liberals utter with emphatic decorum is well seen again in Nauwerk's "On Taking Part in the State." There complaint is made of those who are indifferent and do not take part, who are not in the full sense citizens, and the author speaks as if one could not be man at all if one did not take a lively part in State affairs, _i. e._ if one were not a politician. In this he is right; for, if the State ranks as the warder of everything "human," we can have nothing human without taking part in it. But what does this make out against the egoist? Nothing at all, because the egoist is to himself the warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the State except "Get out of my sunshine." Only when the State comes in contact with his ownness does the egoist take an active interest in it. If the condition of the State does not bear hard on the closet-philosopher, is he to occupy himself with it because it is his "most sacred duty"? So long as the State does according to his wish, what need has he to look up from his studies? Let those who from an interest of their own want to have conditions otherwise busy themselves with them. Not now, nor evermore, will "sacred duty" bring folks to reflect about the State,--as little as they become disciples of science, artists, etc., from "sacred duty."

Egoism alone can impel them to it, and will as soon as things have become much worse. If you showed folks that their egoism demanded that they busy themselves with State affairs, you would not have to call on them long; if, on the other hand, you appeal to their love of fatherland and the like, you will long preach to deaf hearts in behalf of this "service of love." Certainly, in your sense the egoists will not partic.i.p.ate in State affairs at all.

Nauwerk utters a genuine liberal phrase on p. 16: "Man completely fulfils his calling only in feeling and knowing himself as a member of humanity, and being active as such. The individual cannot realize the idea of _manhood_ if he does not stay himself upon all humanity, if he does not draw his powers from it like Antaeus."

In the same place it is said: "Man's relation to the _res publica_ is degraded to a purely private matter by the theological view; is, accordingly, made away with by denial." As if the political view did otherwise with religion! There religion is a "private matter."

If, instead of "sacred duty," "man's destiny," the "calling to full manhood," and similar commandments, it were held up to people that their _self-interest_ was infringed on when they let everything in the State go as it goes, then, without declamations, they would be addressed as one will have to address them at the decisive moment if he wants to attain his end. Instead of this, the theology-hating author says, "If there has ever been a time when the _State_ laid claim to all that are _hers_, such a time is ours.--The thinking man sees in partic.i.p.ation in the theory and practice of the State a _duty_, one of the most sacred duties that rest upon him"--and then takes under closer consideration the "unconditional necessity that everybody partic.i.p.ate in the State."

He in whose head or heart or both the _State_ is seated, he who is possessed by the State, or the _believer in the State_, is a politician, and remains such to all eternity.

"The State is the most necessary means for the complete development of mankind." It a.s.suredly has been so as long as we wanted to develop mankind; but, if we want to develop ourselves, it can be to us only a means of hindrance.

Can State and people still be reformed and bettered now? As little as the n.o.bility, the clergy, the church, etc.: they can be abrogated, annihilated, done away with, not reformed. Can I change a piece of nonsense into sense by reforming it, or must I drop it outright?

Henceforth what is to be done is no longer about the _State_ (the form of the State, etc.), but about me. With this all questions about the prince's power, the const.i.tution, etc., sink into their true abyss and their true nothingness. I, this nothing, shall put forth my _creations_ from myself.

To the chapter of society belongs also "the party," whose praise has of late been sung.

In the State the _party_ is current. "Party, party, who should not join one!" But the individual is _unique_,[168] not a member of the party. He unites freely, and separates freely again. The party is nothing but a State in the State, and in this smaller bee-State "peace" is also to rule just as in the greater. The very people who cry loudest that there must be an _opposition_ in the State inveigh against every discord in the party. A proof that they too want only a--State. All parties are shattered not against the State, but against the ego.[169]

One hears nothing oftener now than the admonition to remain true to his party; party men despise nothing so much as a mugwump. One must run with his party through thick and thin, and unconditionally approve and represent its chief principles. It does not indeed go quite so badly here as with closed societies, because these bind their members to fixed laws or statutes (_e. g._ the orders, the Society of Jesus, etc.). But yet the party ceases to be a union at the same moment at which it makes certain principles _binding_ and wants to have them a.s.sured against attacks; but this moment is the very birth-act of the party. As party it is already a _born society_, a dead union, an idea that has become fixed. As party of absolutism it cannot will that its members should doubt the irrefragable truth of this principle; they could cherish this doubt only if they were egoistic enough to want still to be something outside their party, _i. e._ non-partisans. Non-partisan they cannot be as party-men, but only as egoists. If you are a Protestant and belong to that party, you must only justify Protestantism, at most "purge" it, not reject it; if you are a Christian and belong among men to the Christian party, you cannot go beyond this as a member of this party, but only when your egoism, _i. e._ non-partisanship, impels you to it. What exertions the Christians, down to Hegel and the Communists, have put forth to make their party strong! they stuck to it that Christianity must contain the eternal truth, and that one needs only to get at it, make sure of it, and justify it.

In short, the party cannot bear non-partisanship, and it is in this that egoism appears. What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who _unite_ with me without swearing allegiance to my flag.

He who pa.s.ses over from one party to another is at once abused as a "turncoat." Certainly _morality_ demands that one stand by his party, and to become apostate from it is to spot oneself with the stain of "faithlessness"; but ownness knows no commandment of "faithfulness, adhesion, etc.," ownness permits everything, even apostasy, defection.

Unconsciously even the moral themselves let themselves be led by this principle when they have to judge one who pa.s.ses over to _their_ party,--nay, they are likely to be making proselytes; they should only at the same time acquire a consciousness of the fact that one must commit _immoral_ actions in order to commit his own,--_i. e._ here, that one must break faith, yes, even his oath, in order to determine himself instead of being determined by moral considerations. In the eyes of people of strict moral judgment an apostate always shimmers in equivocal colors, and will not easily obtain their confidence; for there sticks to him the taint of "faithlessness," _i. e._ of an immorality. In the lower man this view is found almost generally; advanced thinkers fall here too, as always, into an uncertainty and bewilderment, and the contradiction necessarily founded in the principle of morality does not, on account of the confusion of their concepts, come clearly to their consciousness. They do not venture to call the apostate immoral downright, because they themselves entice to apostasy, to defection from one religion to another, etc.; still, they cannot give up the standpoint of morality either. And yet here the occasion was to be seized to step outside of morality.

Are the Own or Unique[170] perchance a party? How could they be _own_ if they were such as _belonged_ to a party?

Or is one to hold with no party? In the very act of joining them and entering their circle one forms a _union_ with them that lasts as long as party and I pursue one and the same goal. But to-day I still share the party's tendency, and by to-morrow I can do so no longer and I become "untrue" to it. The party has nothing _binding_ (obligatory) for me, and I do not have respect for it; if it no longer pleases me, I become its foe.

In every party that cares for itself and its persistence, the members are unfree (or better, unown) in that degree, they lack egoism in that degree, in which they serve this desire of the party. The independence of the party conditions the lack of independence in the party-members.

A party, of whatever kind it may be, can never do without a _confession of faith_. For those who belong to the party must _believe_ in its principle, it must not be brought in doubt or put in question by them, it must be the certain, indubitable thing for the party-member. That is: One must belong to a party body and soul, else one is not truly a party-man, but more or less--an egoist. Harbor a doubt of Christianity, and you are already no longer a true Christian, you have lifted yourself to the "effrontery" of putting a question beyond it and haling Christianity before your egoistic judgment-seat. You have--_sinned_ against Christianity, this party cause (for it is surely not _e. g._ a cause for the Jews, another party). But well for you if you do not let yourself be affrighted: your effrontery helps you to ownness.

So then an egoist could never embrace a party or take up with a party?

Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and taken up by the party. For him the party remains all the time nothing but a _gathering_: he is one of the party, he takes part.