The Ego and his Own - Max Stirner (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📗
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will be general liberty only when the disposition toward tyranny is met by
intelligent opposition that will no longer submit to such a rule. Beyond this
the manly sympathy and philosophical bent of Stirner are such that rulership
appears by contrast a vanity, an infatuation of perverted pride. We know not
whether we more admire our author or more love him.
Stirner's attitude toward woman is not special. She is an individual if she
can be, not handicapped by anything he says, feels, thinks, or plans. This was
more fully exemplified in his life than even in this book; but there is not a
line in the book to put or keep woman in an inferior position to man, neither
is there anything of caste or aristocracy in the book. Likewise there is
nothing of obscurantism or affected mysticism about it. Everything in it is
made as plain as the author could make it. He who does not so is not Stirner's
disciple nor successor nor co-worker. Some one may ask: How does plumb-line
Anarchism train with the unbridled egoism proclaimed by Stirner? The
plumb-line is not a fetish, but an intellectual conviction, and egoism is a
universal fact of animal life. Nothing could seem clearer to my mind than that
the reality of egoism must first come into the consciousness of men, before we
can have the unbiased Einzige in place of the prejudiced biped who lends
himself to the support of tyrannies a million times stronger over me than the
natural self-interest of any individual. When plumb-line doctrine is
misconceived as duty between unequal-minded men, -- as a religion of humanity,
-- it is indeed the confusion of trying to read without knowing the alphabet
and of putting philanthropy in place of contract. But, if the plumb-line be
scientific, it is or can be my possession, my property, and I choose it for
its use -- when circumstances admit of its use. I do not feel bound to use it
because it is scientific, in building my house; but, as my will, to be
intelligent, is not to be merely wilful, the adoption of the plumb-line
follows the discarding of incantations. There is no plumb-line without the
unvarying lead at the end of the line; not a fluttering bird or a clawing cat.
On the practical side of the question of egoism versus self-surrender and for
a trial of egoism in politics, this may be said: the belief that men not moved
by a sense of duty will be unkind or unjust to others is but an indirect
confession that those who hold that belief are greatly interested in having
others live for them rather than for themselves. But I do not ask or expect so
much.
I am content if others individually live for themselves, and thus cease in so
many ways to act in opposition to my living for myself, -- to our living for
ourselves.
If Christianity has failed to turn the world from evil, it is not to be
dreamed that rationalism of a pious moral stamp will succeed in the same task.
Christianity, or all philanthropic love, is tested in non-resistance. It is a
dream that example will change the hearts of rulers, tyrants, mobs. If the
extremest self-surrender fails, how can a mixture of Christian love and
worldly caution succeed? This at least must be given up. The policy of Christ
and Tolstoi can soon be tested, but Tolstoi's belief is not satisfied with a
present test and failure. He has the infatuation of one who persists because
this ought to be. The egoist who thinks "I should like this to be" still has
the sense to perceive that it is not accomplished by the fact of some
believing and submitting, inasmuch as others are alert to prey upon the
unresisting. The Pharaohs we have ever with us.
Several passages in this most remarkable book show the author as a man full of
sympathy. When we reflect upon his deliberately expressed opinions and
sentiments, -- his spurning of the sense of moral obligation as the last form
of superstition, -- may we not be warranted in thinking that the total
disappearance of the sentimental supposition of duty liberates a quantity of
nervous energy for the purest generosity and clarifies the intellect for the
more discriminating choice of objects of merit?
J. L. WALKER.
---- * ----
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
If the style of this book is found unattractive, it will show that I have done
my work ill and not represented the author truly; but, if it is found odd, I
beg that I may not bear all the blame. I have simply tried to reproduce the
author's own mixture of colloquialisms and technicalities, and his preference
for the precise expression of his thought rather than the word conventionally
expected.
One especial feature of the style, however, gives the reason why this preface
should exist. It is characteristic of Stirner's writing that the thread of
thought is carried on largely by the repetition of the same word in a modified
form or sense. That connection of ideas which has guided popular instinct in
the formation of words is made to suggest the line of thought which the writer
wishes to follow. If this echoing of words is missed, the bearing of the
statements on each other is in a measure lost; and, where the ideas are very
new, one cannot afford to throw away any help in following their connection.
Therefore, where a useful echo (and then are few useless ones in the book)
could not be reproduced in English, I have generally called attention to it in
a note. My notes are distinguished from the author's by being enclosed in
parentheses.
One or two of such coincidences of language, occurring in words which are
prominent throughout the book, should be borne constantly in mind as a sort of
Keri perpetuum; for instance, the identity in the original of the words
"spirit" and "mind," and of the phrases "supreme being" and "highest essence."
In such cases I have repeated the note where it seemed that such repetition
might be absolutely necessary, but have trusted the reader to carry it in his
head where a failure of his memory would not be ruinous or likely.
For the same reason--that is, in order not to miss any indication of the drift
of the thought -- I have followed the original in the very liberal use of
italics, and in the occasional eccentric use of a punctuation mark, as I might
not have done in translating a work of a different nature.
I have set my face as a flint against the temptation to add notes that were
not part of the translation. There is no telling how much I might have
enlarged the book if I had put a note at every sentence which deserved to have
its truth brought out by fuller elucidation -- or even at every one which I
thought needed correction. It might have been within my province, if I had
been able, to explain all the allusions to contemporary events, but I doubt
whether any one could do that properly without having access to the files of
three or four well-chosen German newspapers of Stirner's time. The allusions
are clear enough, without names and dates, to give a vivid picture of certain
aspects of German life then. The tone of some of them is explained by the fact
that the book was published under censorship.
I have usually preferred, for the sake of the connection, to translate
Biblical quotations somewhat as they stand in the German, rather than conform
them altogether to the English Bible. I am sometimes quite as near the
original Greek as if I had followed the current translation.
Where German books are referred to, the pages cited are those of the German
editions even when (usually because of some allusions in the text) the titles
of the books are translated.
Steven T. Byington
---- * ----
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
All Things Are Nothing To Me(1)
What is not supposed to be my concern!(2) First and foremost, the Good
Cause,(3) then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of
humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my
fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only
my cause is never to be my concern. "Shame on the egoist who thinks only of
himself!"
Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns -- they for whose
cause we are to labor, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic.
You have much profound information to give about God, and have for thousands
of years "searched the depths of the Godhead," and looked into its heart, so
that you can doubtless tell us how God himself attends to "God's cause," which
we are called to serve. And you do not conceal the Lord's doings, either. Now,
what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of us, made an alien cause, the
cause of truth or love, his own? You are shocked by this misunderstanding, and
you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but
that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God is himself truth
and love; you are shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor
worms in furthering an alien cause as his own. "Should God take up the cause
of truth if he were not himself truth?" He cares only for his cause, but,
because he is all in all, therefore all is his cause! But we, we are not all
in all, and our cause is altogether little and contemptible; therefore we must
"serve a higher cause." -- Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his,
busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself
before his eyes; woe to all that is not well-pleasing to him. He serves no
higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is -- a purely egoistic
cause.
How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make our own? Is its cause that
of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind looks only at
itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only, mankind is its own
cause. That it may develop, it causes nations and individuals to wear
themselves out in its service, and, when they have accomplished what mankind
needs, it throws them on the dung-heap of history in gratitude. Is not
mankind's cause -- a purely egoistic cause?
I have no need to take up each thing that wants to throw its cause on us and
show that it is occupied only with itself, not with us, only with its good,
not with ours. Look at the rest for yourselves. Do truth, freedom, humanity,
justice, desire anything else than that you grow enthusiastic and serve them?
They all have an admirable time of it when they receive zealous homage. Just
observe the nation that is defended by devoted patriots. The patriots fall in
bloody
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