The Ego and his Own by Max Stirner (most read books txt) 📕

an absolute value of it, as if the doll were not the

most important thing to the child, the Koran to the Turk. As long as I am not

the sole important thing to myself, it is indifferent of what object I "make

much," and only my greater or lesser delinquency against it is of value. The

degree of my attachment and devotion marks the standpoint of my liability to

service, the degree of my sinning shows the measure of my ownness.

But finally, and in general, one must know how to "put everything out of his

mind," if only so as to be able to -- go to sleep. Nothing may occupy us with

which we do not occupy ourselves: the victim of ambition cannot run away

from his ambitious plans, nor the God-fearing man from the thought of God;

infatuation and possessedness coincide.

To want to realize his essence or live comfortably to his concept (which with

believers in God signifies as much as to be "pious," and with believers in

humanity means living "humanly") is what only the sensual and sinful man can

propose to himself, the man so long as he has the anxious choice between

happiness of sense and peace of soul, so long as he is a "poor sinner." The

Christian is nothing but a sensual man who, knowing of the sacred and being

conscious that he violates it, sees in himself a poor sinner: sensualness,

recognized as "sinfulness," is Christian consciousness, is the Christian

himself. And if "sin" and "sinfulness" are now no longer taken into the mouths

of moderns, but, instead of that, "egoism," "self-seeking," "selfishness,"

etc., engage them; if the devil has been translated into the "un-man" or

"egoistic man" -- is the Christian less present then than before? Is not the

old discord between good and evil -- is not a judge over us, man -- is not a

calling, the calling to make oneself man -- left? If they no longer name it

calling, but "task" or, very likely, "duty," the change of name is quite

correct, because "man" is not, like God, a personal being that can "call"; but

outside the name the thing remains as of old.

Every one has a relation to objects, and more, every one is differently

related to them. Let us choose as an example that book to which millions of

men had a relation for two thousand years, the Bible. What is it, what was it,

to each? Absolutely, only what he made out of it! For him who makes to

himself nothing at all out of it, it is nothing at all; for him who uses it as

an amulet, it has solely the value, the significance, of a means of sorcery;

for him who, like children, plays with it, it is nothing but a plaything, etc.

Now, Christianity asks that it shall be the same for all: say the sacred

book or the "sacred Scriptures." This means as much as that the Christian's

view shall also be that of other men, and that no one may be otherwise related

to that object. And with this the ownness of the relation is destroyed, and

one mind, one disposition, is fixed as the "true", the "only true" one. In the

limitation of the freedom to make of the Bible what I will, the freedom of

making in general is limited; and the coercion of a view or a judgment is put

in its place. He who should pass the judgment that the Bible was a long error

of mankind would judge -- criminally.

In fact, the child who tears it to pieces or plays with it, the Inca Atahualpa

who lays his ear to it and throws it away contemptuously when it remains dumb,

judges just as correctly about the Bible as the priest who praises in it the

"Word of God," or the critic who calls it a job of men's hands. For how we

toss things about is the affair of our option, our free will: we use them

according to our heart's pleasure, or, more clearly, we use them just as we

can. Why, what do the parsons scream about when they see how Hegel and the

speculative theologians make speculative thoughts out of the contents of the

Bible? Precisely this, that they deal with it according to their heart's

pleasure, or "proceed arbitrarily with it."

But, because we all show ourselves arbitrary in the handling of objects,

i.e. do with them as we like best, at our liking (the philosopher likes

nothing so well as when he can trace out an "idea" in everything, as the

God-fearing man likes to make God his friend by everything, and so, e. g.,

by keeping the Bible sacred), therefore we nowhere meet such grievous

arbitrariness, such a frightful tendency to violence, such stupid coercion, as

in this very domain of our -- own free will. If we proceed arbitrarily in

taking the sacred objects thus or so, how is it then that we want to take it

ill of the parson-spirits if they take us just as arbitrarily, *in their

fashion*, and esteem us worthy of the heretic's fire or of another punishment,

perhaps of the -- censorship?

What a man is, he makes out of things; "as you look at the world, so it looks

at you again." Then the wise advice makes itself heard again at once, You must

only look at it "rightly, unbiasedly," etc. As if the child did not look at

the Bible "rightly and unbiasedly" when it makes it a plaything. That shrewd

precept is given us, e. g. by Feuerbach. One does look at things rightly

when one makes of them what one will (by things objects in general are here

understood, e. g. God, our fellowmen, a sweetheart, a book, a beast, etc.).

And therefore the things and the looking at them are not first, but I am, my

will is. One will brings thoughts out of the things, will discover reason

in the world, will have sacredness in it: therefore one shall find them.

"Seek and ye shall find." What I will seek, I determine: I want, e. g., to

get edification from the Bible; it is to be found; I want to read and test the

Bible thoroughly; my outcome will be a thorough instruction and criticism --

to the extent of my powers. I elect for myself what I have a fancy for, and in

electing I show myself -- arbitrary.

Connected with this is the discernment that every judgment which I pass upon

an object is the creature of my will; and that discernment again leads me to

not losing myself in the creature, the judgment, but remaining the

creator, the judge, who is ever creating anew. All predicates of objects are

my statements, my judgments, my -- creatures. If they want to tear themselves

loose from me and be something for themselves, or actually overawe me, then I

have nothing more pressing to do than to take them back into their nothing,

into me the creator. God, Christ, Trinity, morality, the good, etc., are such

creatures, of which I must not merely allow myself to say that they are

truths, but also that they are deceptions. As I once willed and decreed their

existence, so I want to have license to will their non- existence too; I must

not let them grow over my head, must not have the weakness to let them become

something "absolute," whereby they would be eternalized and withdrawn from my

power and decision. With that I should fall a prey to the *principle of

stability*, the proper life-principle of religion, which concerns itself with

creating "sanctuaries that must not be touched," "eternal truths" -- in short,

that which shall be "sacred" -- and depriving you of what is yours.

The object makes us into possessed men in its sacred form just as in its

profane, as a supersensuous object, just as it does as a sensuous one. The

appetite or mania refers to both, and avarice and longing for heaven stand on

a level. When the rationalists wanted to win people for the sensuous world,

Lavater preached the longing for the invisible. The one party wanted to call

forth emotion, the other motion, activity.

The conception of objects is altogether diverse, even as God, Christ, the

world, were and are conceived of in the most manifold wise. In this every one

is a "dissenter," and after bloody combats so much has at last been attained,

that opposite views about one and the same object are no longer condemned as

heresies worthy of death. The "dissenters" reconcile themselves to each other.

But why should I only dissent (think otherwise) about a thing? Why not push

the thinking otherwise to its last extremity, that of no longer having any

regard at all for the thing, and therefore thinking its nothingness, crushing

it? Then the conception itself has an end, because there is no longer

anything to conceive of. Why am I to say, let us suppose, "God is not Allah,

not Brahma, not Jehovah, but -- God"; but not, "God is nothing but a

deception"? Why do people brand me if I am an "atheist"? Because they put the

creature above the creator ("They honor and serve the creature more than the

Creator"(111)) and require a ruling object, that the subject may be right

submissive. I am to bend beneath the absolute, I ought to.

By the "realm of thoughts" Christianity has completed itself; the thought is

that inwardness in which all the world's lights go out, all existence becomes

existenceless, the inward. man (the heart, the head) is all in all. This realm

of thoughts awaits its deliverance, awaits, like the Sphinx, Oedipus's key-

word to the riddle, that it may enter in at last to its death. I am the

annihilator of its continuance, for in the creator's realm it no longer forms

a realm of its own, not a State in the State, but a creature of my creative --

thoughtlessness. Only together and at the same time with the benumbed

thinking world can the world of Christians, Christianity and religion

itself, come to its downfall; only when thoughts run out are there no more

believers. To the thinker his thinking is a "sublime labor, a sacred

activity," and it rests on a firm faith, the faith in truth. At first

praying is a sacred activity, then this sacred "devotion" passes over into a

rational and reasoning "thinking," which, however, likewise retains in the

"sacred truth" its underangeable basis of faith, and is only a marvelous

machine that the spirit of truth winds up for its service. Free thinking and

free science busy me -- for it is not I that am free, not I that busy

myself, but thinking is free and busies me -- with heaven and the heavenly or

"divine"; e. g., properly, with