The Ego and His Own. Max Stirner

powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my—conscience.

      Sacred is everything which for the egoist is to be unapproachable, not to be touched, outside his power—i.e. above him; sacred, in a word, is every matter of conscience, for "this is a matter of conscience to me" means simply "I hold this sacred."

      For little children, just as for animals, nothing sacred exists, because, in order to make room for this conception, one must already have progressed so far in understanding that he can make distinctions like "good and bad," "warranted and unwarranted," etc.; only at such a level of reflection or intelligence—the proper standpoint of religion—can unnatural (i.e. brought into existence by thinking) reverence, "sacred dread," step into the place of natural fear. To this sacred dread belongs holding something outside oneself for mightier, greater, better warranted, better, etc.; i.e. the attitude in which one acknowledges the might of something alien—not merely feels it, then, but expressly acknowledges it, i.e. admits it, yields, surrenders, lets himself be tied (devotion, humility, servility, submission, etc.) Here walks the whole ghostly troop of the "Christian virtues."

      Everything toward which you cherish any respect or reverence deserves the name of sacred; you yourselves, too, say that you would feel a "sacred dread" of laying hands on it. And you give this tinge even to the unholy (gallows, crime, etc.) You have a horror of touching it. There lies in it something uncanny, i.e. unfamiliar or not your own.

      "If something or other did not rank as sacred in a man's mind, why, then all bars would be let down to self-will, to unlimited subjectivity!" Fear makes the beginning, and one can make himself fearful to the coarsest man; already, therefore, a barrier against his insolence. But in fear there always remains the attempt to liberate oneself from what is feared, by guile, deception, tricks, etc. In reverence,[45] on the contrary, it is quite otherwise. Here something is not only feared,[46] but also honored[47]: what is feared has become an inward power which I can no longer get clear of; I honor it, am captivated by it and devoted to it, belong to it; by the honor which I pay it I am completely in its power, and do not even attempt liberation any longer. Now I am attached to it with all the strength of faith; I believe. I and what I fear are one; "not I live, but the respected lives in me!" Because the spirit, the infinite, does not allow of coming to any end, therefore it is stationary; it fears dying, it cannot let go its dear Jesus, the greatness of finiteness is no longer recognized by its blinded eye; the object of fear, now raised to veneration, may no longer be handled; reverence is made eternal, the respected is deified. The man is now no longer employed in creating, but in learning (knowing, investigating, etc.), i.e. occupied with a fixed object, losing himself in its depths, without return to himself. The relation to this object is that of knowing, fathoming, basing, etc., not that of dissolution (abrogation, etc.) "Man is to be religious," that is settled; therefore people busy themselves only with the question how this is to be attained, what is the right meaning of religiousness, etc. Quite otherwise when one makes the axiom itself doubtful and calls it in question, even though it should go to smash. Morality too is such sacred conception; one must be moral, and must look only for the right "how," the right way to be so. One dares not go at morality itself with the question whether it is not itself an illusion; it remains exalted above all doubt, unchangeable. And so we go on with the sacred, grade after grade, from the "holy" to the "holy of holies."

      Men are sometimes divided into two classes, cultured and uncultured. The former, so far as they were worthy of their name, occupied themselves with thoughts, with mind, and (because in the time since Christ, of which the very principle is thought, they were the ruling ones) demanded a servile respect for the thoughts recognized by them. State, emperor, church, God, morality, order, etc., are such thoughts or spirits, that exist only for the mind. A merely living being, an animal, cares as little for them as a child. But the uncultured are really nothing but children, and he who attends only to the necessities of his life is indifferent to those spirits; but, because he is also weak before them, he succumbs to their power, and is ruled by—thoughts. This is the meaning of hierarchy.

      Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind!

      We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who are supported by thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred.

      But the two are always clashing, now one and now the other giving the offence; and this clash occurs, not only in the collision of two men, but in one and the same man. For no cultured man is so cultured as not to find enjoyment in things too, and so be uncultured; and no uncultured man is totally without thoughts. In Hegel it comes to light at last what a longing for things even the most cultured man has, and what a horror of every "hollow theory" he harbors. With him reality, the world of things, is altogether to correspond to the thought, and no concept to be without reality. This caused Hegel's system to be known as the most objective, as if in it thought and thing celebrated their union. But this was simply the extremest case of violence on the part of thought, its highest pitch of despotism and sole dominion, the triumph of mind, and with it the triumph of philosophy. Philosophy cannot hereafter achieve anything higher, for its highest is the omnipotence of mind, the almightiness of mind.[48]

      Spiritual men have taken into their head something that is to be realized. They have concepts of love, goodness, and the like, which they would like to see realized; therefore they want to set up a kingdom of love on earth, in which no one any longer acts from selfishness, but each one "from love." Love is to rule. What they have taken into their head, what shall we call it but—fixed idea? Why, "their head is haunted." The most oppressive spook is Man. Think of the proverb, "The road to ruin is paved with good intentions." The intention to realize humanity altogether in oneself, to become altogether man, is of such ruinous kind; here belong the intentions to become good, noble, loving, etc.

      In the sixth part of the "Denkwuerdigkeiten" p. 7, Bruno Bauer says: "That middle class, which was to receive such a terrible importance for modern history is capable of no self-sacrificing action, no enthusiasm for an idea, no exaltation; it devotes itself to nothing but the interests of its mediocrity; i.e. it remains always limited to itself, and conquers at last only through its bulk, with which it has succeeded in tiring out the efforts of passion, enthusiasm, consistency—through its surface, into which it absorbs a part of the new ideas." And (p. 6) "It has turned the revolutionary ideas, for which not it, but unselfish or impassioned men sacrificed themselves, solely to its own profit, has turned spirit into money.—That is, to be sure, after it had taken away from those ideas their point, their consistency, their destructive seriousness, fanatical against all egoism." These people, then, are not self-sacrificing, not enthusiastic, not idealistic, not consistent, not zealots; they are egoists in the usual sense, selfish people, looking out for their advantage, sober, calculating, etc.

      Who, then, is "self-sacrificing"?[49] In the full sense, surely, he who ventures everything else for one thing, one object, one will, one passion, etc. Is not the lover self-sacrificing who forsakes father and mother, endures all dangers and privations, to reach his goal? Or the ambitious man, who offers up all his desires, wishes, and satisfactions to the single passion, or the avaricious man who denies himself everything to gather treasures, or the pleasure-seeker, etc.? He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices.

      And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not selfish, not egoists? As they have only one ruling passion, so they provide for only one satisfaction, but for this the more strenuously; they are wholly absorbed in it. Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism; it is possessedness.

      "Why, those are petty passions, by which, on the contrary, man must not let himself be enthralled. Man must make sacrifices for a great idea, a great cause!" A "great idea," a "good cause," is, it may be, the honor of God, for which innumerable people have met death; Christianity, which has found its willing martyrs; the Holy Catholic Church, which has greedily demanded sacrifices of heretics; liberty and equality, which were waited on by bloody guillotines.

      He who lives for a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine,