Part 16 (1/2)
This State, not a present one indeed, but still in need of being first created, is the ideal of advancing liberalism. There is to come into existence a true ”society of men,” in which every ”man” finds room.
Liberalism means to realize ”Man,” _i. e._ create a world for him; and this should be the _human_ world or the general (Communistic) society of men. It was said, ”The Church could regard only the spirit, the State is to regard the whole man.”[121] But is not ”Man” ”spirit”? The kernel of the State is simply ”Man,” this unreality, and it itself is only a ”society of men.” The world which the believer (believing spirit) creates is called Church, the world which the man (human or humane spirit) creates is called State. But that is not _my_ world. I never execute anything _human_ in the abstract, but always my _own_ things; _i. e._, _my_ human act is diverse from every other human act, and only by this diversity is it a real act belonging to me. The human in it is an abstraction, and, as such, spirit, _i. e._ abstracted essence.
Br. Bauer states (_e. g._ ”_Judenfrage_,” p. 84) that the truth of criticism is the final truth, and in fact the truth sought for by Christianity itself,--to wit, ”Man.” He says, ”The history of the Christian world is the history of the supreme fight for truth, for in it--and in it only!--the thing at issue is the discovery of the final or the primal truth--man and freedom.”
All right, let us accept this gain, and let us take _man_ as the ultimately found result of Christian history and of the religious or ideal efforts of man in general. Now, who is Man? _I_ am! _Man_, the end and outcome of Christianity, is, as _I_, the beginning and raw material of the new history, a history of enjoyment after the history of sacrifices, a history not of man or humanity, but of--_me_. _Man_ ranks as the general. Now then, I and the egoistic are the really general, since every one is an egoist and of paramount importance to himself. The Jewish is not the purely egoistic, because the Jew still devotes _himself_ to Jehovah; the Christian is not, because the Christian lives on the grace of G.o.d and subjects _himself_ to him. As Jew and as Christian alike a man satisfies only certain of his wants, only a certain need, not _himself_: a _half_-egoism, because the egoism of a half-man, who is half he, half Jew, or half his own proprietor, half a slave. Therefore, too, Jew and Christian always half-way exclude each other; _i. e._, as men they recognize each other, as slaves they exclude each other, because they are servants of two different masters.
If they could be complete egoists, they would exclude each other _wholly_ and hold together so much the more firmly. Their ignominy is not that they exclude each other, but that this is done only _half-way_.
Br. Bauer, on the contrary, thinks Jews and Christians cannot regard and treat each other as ”men” till they give up the separate essence which parts them and obligates them to eternal separation, recognize the general essence of ”Man,” and regard this as their ”true essence.”
According to his representation the defect of the Jews and the Christians alike lies in their wanting to be and have something ”particular” instead of only being men and endeavoring after what is human,--to wit, the ”general rights of man.” He thinks their fundamental error consists in the belief that they are ”privileged,” possess ”prerogatives”; in general, in the belief in _prerogative_.[122] In opposition to this he holds up to them the general rights of man. The rights of man!--
_Man is man in general_, and in so far every one who is a man. Now every one is to have the eternal rights of man, and, according to the opinion of Communism, enjoy them in the complete ”democracy,” or, as it ought more correctly to be called,--anthropocracy. But it is I alone who have everything that I--procure for myself; as man I have nothing. People would like to give every man an affluence of all good, merely because he has the t.i.tle ”man.” But I put the accent on me, not on my being _man_.
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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sert that there is no power above mine. Only the att.i.tude 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 G.o.d_, for fear of G.o.d would determine him in everything that he left standing as sacred. Whether it is the G.o.d or the Man that exercises the hallowing power in the G.o.d-man,--whether, therefore, anything is held sacred for G.o.d's sake or for Man's (Humanity's),--this does not change the fear of G.o.d, since Man is revered as ”supreme essence,” as much as on the specifically religious standpoint G.o.d as ”supreme essence” calls for our fear and reverence; both overawe us.
The fear of G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d of to-day, and fear of Man has taken the place of the old fear of G.o.d.
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 G.o.d.
Our atheists are pious people.
If in the so-called feudal times we held everything as a fief from G.o.d, in the liberal period the same feudal relation exists with Man. G.o.d was the Lord, now Man is the Lord; G.o.d was the Mediator, now Man is; G.o.d 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 ent.i.tler, the mediator, and the own self? Then it runs thus:
My power _is_ my property.