Part 30 (2/2)
criticism takes care for the consistent dominion of a thought, an idea, a spirit; ”own” criticism, for nothing but my _self-enjoyment_. But in this the latter is in fact--and we will not spare it this ”ignominy”!--like the b.e.s.t.i.a.l criticism of instinct. I, like the criticising beast, am concerned only for _myself_, not ”for the cause.”
_I_ am the criterion of truth, but I am not an idea, but more than idea, _i. e._ unutterable. _My_ criticism is not a ”free” criticism, not free from me, and not ”servile,” not in the service of an idea, but an _own_ criticism.
True or human criticism makes out only whether something is _suitable_ to man, to the true man; but by own criticism you ascertain whether it is suitable to _you_.
Free criticism busies itself with _ideas_, and therefore is always theoretical. However it may rage against ideas, it still does not get clear of them. It pitches into the ghosts, but it can do this only as it holds them to be ghosts. The ideas it has to do with do not fully disappear; the morning breeze of a new day does not scare them away.
The critic may indeed come to ataraxy before ideas, but he never gets _rid_ of them, _i. e._ he will never comprehend that above the _bodily man_ there does not exist something higher,--to wit, liberty, his humanity, etc. He always has a ”calling” of man still left, ”humanity.”
And this idea of humanity remains unrealized, just because it is an ”idea” and is to remain such.
If, on the other hand, I grasp the idea as _my_ idea, then it is already realized, because _I_ am its reality; its reality consists in the fact that I, the bodily, have it.
They say, the idea of liberty realizes itself in the history of the world. The reverse is the case; this idea is real as a man thinks it, and it is real in the measure in which it is idea, _i. e._ in which I think it or _have_ it. It is not the idea of liberty that develops itself, but men develop themselves, and, of course, in this self-development develop their thinking too.
In short, the critic is not yet _owner_; because he still fights with ideas as with powerful aliens,--as the Christian is not owner of his ”bad desires” so long as he has to combat them; for him who contends against vice, vice _exists_.
Criticism remains stuck fast in the ”freedom of knowing,” the freedom of the spirit, and the spirit gains its proper freedom when it fills itself with the pure, true idea; this is the freedom of thinking, which cannot be without thoughts.
Criticism smites one idea only by another, _e. g._ that of privilege by that of manhood, or that of egoism by that of unselfishness.
In general, the beginning of Christianity comes on the stage again in its critical end, egoism being combated here as there. I am not to make myself (the individual) count, but the idea, the general.
Why, warfare of the priesthood with _egoism_, of the spiritually-minded with the worldly-minded, const.i.tutes the substance of all Christian history. In the newest criticism this war only becomes all-embracing, fanaticism complete. Indeed, neither can it pa.s.s away till it pa.s.ses thus, after it has had its life and its rage out.
Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, liberal, humane, whether unhuman, illiberal, inhuman, what do I ask about that? If only it accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in it, then overlay it with predicates as you will; it is all alike to me.
Perhaps I too, in the very next moment, defend myself against my former thoughts; I too am likely to change suddenly my mode of action; but not on account of its not corresponding to Christianity, not on account of its running counter to the eternal rights of man, not on account of its affronting the idea of mankind, humanity, and humanitarianism, but--because I am no longer all in it, because it no longer furnishes me any full enjoyment, because I doubt the earlier thought or no longer please myself in the mode of action just now practised.
As the world as property has become a _material_ with which I undertake what I will, so the spirit too as property must sink down into a _material_ before which I no longer entertain any sacred dread. Then, firstly, I shall shudder no more before a thought, let it appear as presumptuous and ”devilish” as it will, because, if it threatens to become too inconvenient and unsatisfactory for _me_, its end lies in my power; but neither shall I recoil from any deed because there dwells in it a spirit of G.o.dlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St.
Boniface pleased to desist, through religious scrupulousness, from cutting down the sacred oak of the heathens. If the _things_ of the world have once become vain, the _thoughts_ of the spirit must also become vain.
No thought is sacred, for let no thought rank as ”devotions”;[237] no feeling is sacred (no sacred feeling of friends.h.i.+p, mother's feelings, etc.), no belief is sacred. They are all _alienable_, my alienable property, and are annihilated, as they are created, by _me_.
The Christian can lose all _things_ or objects, the most loved persons, these ”objects” of his love, without giving up himself (_i. e._, in the Christian sense, his spirit, his soul) as lost. The owner can cast from him all the _thoughts_ that were dear to his heart and kindled his zeal, and will likewise ”gain a thousandfold again,” because he, their creator, remains.
Unconsciously and involuntarily we all strive toward ownness, and there will hardly be one among us who has not given up a sacred feeling, a sacred thought, a sacred belief; nay, we probably meet no one who could not still deliver himself from one or another of his sacred thoughts.
All our contention against convictions starts from the opinion that maybe we are capable of driving our opponent out of his intrenchments of thought. But what I do unconsciously I half do, and therefore after every victory over a faith I become again the _prisoner_ (possessed) of a faith which then takes my whole self anew into its _service_, and makes me an enthusiast for reason after I have ceased to be enthusiastic for the Bible, or an enthusiast for the idea of humanity after I have fought long enough for that of Christianity.
Doubtless, as owner of thoughts, I shall cover my property with my s.h.i.+eld, just as I do not, as owner of things, willingly let everybody help himself to them; but at the same time I shall look forward smilingly to the outcome of the battle, smilingly lay the s.h.i.+eld on the corpses of my thoughts and my faith, smilingly triumph when I am beaten.
That is the very humor of the thing. Every one who has ”sublimer feelings” is able to vent his humor on the pettinesses of men; but to let it play with all ”great thoughts, sublime feelings, n.o.ble inspiration, and sacred faith” presupposes that I am the owner of all.
If religion has set up the proposition that we are sinners altogether, I set over against it the other: we are perfect altogether! For we are, every moment, all that we can be; and we never need be more. Since no defect cleaves to us, sin has no meaning either. Show me a sinner in the world still, if no one any longer needs to do what suits a superior! If I only need do what suits myself, I am no sinner if I do not do what suits myself, as I do not injure in myself a ”holy one”; if, on the other hand, I am to be pious, then I must do what suits G.o.d; if I am to act humanly, I must do what suits the essence of man, the idea of mankind, etc. What religion calls the ”sinner,” humanitarianism calls the ”egoist.” But, once more: if I need not do what suits any other, is the ”egoist,” in whom humanitarianism has borne to itself a new-fangled devil, anything more than a piece of nonsense? The egoist, before whom the humane shudder, is a spook as much as the devil is: he exists only as a bogie and phantasm in their brain. If they were not unsophisticatedly drifting back and forth in the antediluvian opposition of good and evil, to which they have given the modern names of ”human”
and ”egoistic,” they would not have freshened up the h.o.a.ry ”sinner” into an ”egoist” either, and put a new patch on an old garment. But they could not do otherwise, for they hold it for their task to be ”men.”
They are rid of the Good One; good is left![238]
We are perfect altogether, and on the whole earth there is not one man who is a sinner! There are crazy people who imagine that they are G.o.d the Father, G.o.d the Son, or the man in the moon, and so too the world swarms with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners; but, as the former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are--not sinners.
Their sin is imaginary.
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