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

on you; only know that, if in your thinking you would

like to make out anything worthy of notice, many hard problems are to be

solved, without vanquishing which you cannot get far. There exists, therefore,

no duty and no calling for you to meddle with thoughts (ideas, truths); but,

if you will do so, you will do well to utilize what the forces of others have

already achieved toward clearing up these difficult subjects.

Thus, therefore, he who will think does assuredly have a task, which he

consciously or unconsciously sets for himself in willing that; but no one has

the task of thinking or of believing. In the former case it may be said, "You

do not go far enough, you have a narrow and biased interest, you do not go to

the bottom of the thing; in short, you do not completely subdue it. But, on

the other hand, however far you may come at any time, you are still always at

the end, you have no call to step farther, and you can have it as you will or

as you are able. It stands with this as with any other piece of work, which

you can give up when the humor for it wears off. Just so, if you can no longer

believe a thing, you do not have to force yourself into faith or to busy

yourself lastingly as if with a sacred truth of the faith, as theologians or

philosophers do, but you can tranquilly draw back your interest from it and

let it run. Priestly spirits will indeed expound this your lack of interest as

"laziness, thoughtlessness, obduracy, self-deception," etc. But do you just

let the trumpery lie, notwithstanding. No thing,(121) no so-called "highest

interest of mankind," no "sacred cause,"(122) is worth your serving it, and

occupying yourself with it for its sake; you may seek its worth in this

alone, whether it is worth anything to you for your sake. Become like

children, the biblical saying admonishes us. But children have no sacred

interest and know nothing of a "good cause." They know all the more accurately

what they have a fancy for; and they think over, to the best of their powers,

how they are to arrive at it.

Thinking will as little cease as feeling. But the power of thoughts and ideas,

the dominion of theories and principles, the sovereignty of the spirit, in

short the -- hierarchy, lasts as long as the parsons, i.e., theologians,

philosophers, statesmen, philistines, liberals, schoolmasters, servants,

parents, children, married couples, Proudhon, George Sand, Bluntschli, etc.,

etc., have the floor; the hierarchy will endure as long as people believe in,

think of, or even criticize, principles; for even the most inexorable

criticism, which undermines all current principles, still does finally

believe in the principle.

Every one criticises, but the criterion is different. People run after the

"right" criterion. The right criterion is the first presupposition. The critic

starts from a proposition, a truth, a belief. This is not a creation of the

critic, but of the dogmatist; nay, commonly it is actually taken up out of the

culture of the time without further ceremony, like e. g. "liberty,"

"humanity," etc. The critic has not "discovered man," but this truth has been

established as "man" by the dogmatist, and the critic (who, besides, may be

the same person with him) believes in this truth, this article of faith. In

this faith, and possessed by this faith, he criticises.

The secret of criticism is some "truth" or other: this remains its energizing

mystery.

But I distinguish between servile and own criticism. If I criticize under

the presupposition of a supreme being, my criticism serves the being and is

carried on for its sake: if e. g. I am possessed by the belief in a "free

State," then everything that has a bearing on it I criticize from the

standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, for I love this State;

if I criticize as a pious man, then for me everything falls into the classes

of divine and diabolical, and before my criticism nature consists of traces of

God or traces of the devil (hence names like Godsgift, Godmount, the Devil's

Pulpit), men of believers and unbelievers; if I criticize while believing in

man as the "true essence," then for me everything falls primarily into the

classes of man and the un-man, etc.

Criticism has to this day remained a work of love: for at all times we

exercised it for the love of some being. All servile criticism is a product of

love, a possessedness, and proceeds according to that New Testament precept,

"Test everything and hold fast the good."(123) "The good" is the touchstone,

the criterion. The good, returning under a thousand names and forms, remained

always the presupposition, remained the dogmatic fixed point for this

criticism, remained the -- fixed idea.

The critic, in setting to work, impartially presupposes the "truth," and seeks

for the truth in the belief that it is to be found. He wants to ascertain the

true, and has in it that very "good."

Presuppose means nothing else than put a thought in front, or think

something before everything else and think the rest from the starting-point of

this that has been thought, i.e. measure and criticize it by this. In

other words, this is as much as to say that thinking is to begin with

something already thought. If thinking began at all, instead of being begun,

if thinking were a subject, an acting personality of its own, as even the

plant is such, then indeed there would be no abandoning the principle that

thinking must begin with itself. But it is just the personification of

thinking that brings to pass those innumerable errors. In the Hegelian system

they always talk as if thinking or "the thinking spirit" (i.e. personified

thinking, thinking as a ghost) thought and acted; in critical liberalism it is

always said that "criticism" does this and that, or else that "self-

consciousness" finds this and that. But, if thinking ranks as the personal

actor, thinking itself must be presupposed; if criticism ranks as such, a

thought must likewise stand in front. Thinking and criticism could be active

only starting from themselves, would have to be themselves the presupposition

of their activity, as without being they could not be active. But thinking, as

a thing presupposed, is a fixed thought, a dogma; thinking and criticism,

therefore, can start only from a dogma, i. e. from a thought, a fixed idea,

a presupposition.

With this we come back again to what was enunciated above, that Christianity

consists in the development of a world of thoughts, or that it is the proper

"freedom of thought," the "free thought," the "free spirit." The "true"

criticism, which I called "servile," is therefore just as much "free"

criticism, for it is not my own.

The case stands otherwise when what is yours is not made into something that

is of itself, not personified, not made independent as a "spirit" to itself.

Your thinking has for a presupposition not "thinking," but you. But thus

you do presuppose yourself after all? Yes, but not for myself, but for my

thinking. Before my thinking, there is -- I. From this it follows that my

thinking is not preceded by a thought, or that my thinking is without a

"presupposition." For the presupposition which I am for my thinking is not one

made by thinking, not one thought of, but it is posited thinking

itself, it is the owner of the thought, and proves only that thinking is

nothing more than -- property, i. e. that an "independent" thinking, a

"thinking spirit," does not exist at all.

This reversal of the usual way of regarding things might so resemble an empty

playing with abstractions that even those against whom it is directed would

acquiesce in the harmless aspect I give it, if practical consequences were not

connected with it.

To bring these into a concise expression, the assertion now made is that man

is not the measure of all things, but I am this measure. The servile critic

has before his eyes another being, an idea, which he means to serve; therefore

he only slays the false idols for his God. What is done for the love of this

being, what else should it be but a -- work of love? But I, when I criticize,

do not even have myself before my eyes, but am only doing myself a pleasure,

amusing myself according to my taste; according to my several needs I chew the

thing up or only inhale its odor.

The distinction between the two attitudes will come out still more strikingly

if one reflects that the servile critic, because love guides him, supposes he

is serving the thing (cause) itself.

The truth, or "truth in general," people are bound not to give up, but to

seek for. What else is it but the Être suprême, the highest essence? Even

"true criticism" would have to despair if it lost faith in the truth. And yet

the truth is only a -- thought; but it is not merely "a" thought, but the

thought that is above all thoughts, the irrefragable thought; it is the

thought itself, which gives the first hallowing to all others; it is the

consecration of thoughts, the "absolute," the "sacred" thought. The truth

wears longer than all the gods; for it is only in the truth's service, and for

love of it, that people have overthrown the gods and at last God himself. "The

truth" outlasts the downfall of the world of gods, for it is the immortal soul

of this transitory world of gods, it is Deity itself.

I will answer Pilate's question, What is truth? Truth is the free thought, the

free idea, the free spirit; truth is what is free from you, what is not your

own, what is not in your power. But truth is also the completely

unindependent, impersonal, unreal, and incorporeal; truth cannot step forward

as you do, cannot move, change, develop; truth awaits and receives everything

from you, and itself is only through you; for it exists only -- in your head.

You concede that the truth is a thought, but say that not every thought is a

true one, or, as you are also likely to express it, not every thought is truly

and really a thought. And by what do you measure and recognize the thought? By

your impotence, to wit, by your being no longer able to make any successful

assault on it! When it overpowers you, inspires you, and carries you away,

then you hold it to be the true one. Its dominion over you certifies to you

its truth; and, when it possesses you, and you are possessed by it, then you

feel well with it, for then you have found your -- lord and master. When you