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02 - A Human Life - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

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  Part. First, man, man is to man, the supreme being,
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  says Feuerbach. Man has just been discovered, says Bruno Bauer. Let us
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  then take a more careful look at this supreme being and this new discovery.
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  Chapter one, a human life. From the moment when he catches sight of
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  the light of the world, a man seeks to find out himself and get
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  hold of himself out of its confusion, in which he, with everything else,
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  is tossed about in motley mixture. But everything that comes into contact with
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  the child defends itself in turn against his attacks and asserts its own persistence.
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  Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at the same time comes into
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  constant collision with other things, the combat of self assertion is unavoidable. Victory
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  or defeat between the two alternatives, the fate of the combat waivers. The
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  victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the subject. The former exercises supremacy
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  and the rights of supremacy. The latter fulfills in awe and deference the duties
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  of a subject. But both remain enemies and always lie in wait. They
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  watch for each other's weaknesses. Children for those of their parents, and parents
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  for those of their children their fear. For example, either the stick conquers
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  the man or the man conquers the stick. In childhood, liberation takes the
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  direction of trying to get to the bottom of things, to get at what
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  is back of things. Therefore we spy out the weak points of everybody,
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  for which it is well known. Children have a sure instinct. Therefore we
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  like to smash things, like to rummage through hidden corners, pry after what
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  is covered up or out of the way, and try what we can do
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  with everything. When we once get at what is back of things, we
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  know we are safe. When we have got at the fact that the rod
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  is too weak against our obduracy, we no longer fear it, have outgrown
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  it. Back of the rod mightier than it stands our obduracy, our obdurate
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  courage. By degrees, we get at what is back of everything that was
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  mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously dreaded might of the rod, the
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  father's stern look, et cetera. And back of all we find our ataraxia,
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  our imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter forces, our odds of strength,
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  our invincibility before that which formerly inspired in us fear and deference. We no
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  longer retreat shyly, but take courage back of everything. We find our courage,
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  our superiority, back of the sharp command of parents and authorities. Stands
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  after all our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel
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  ourselves, the smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our
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  trickery, shrewdness, courage, obduracy, what else but mind? Through a
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  considerable time we are spare a fight that is so exhausting. Later, the
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  fight against reason, the fairest part of childhood, passes without the necessity of
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  coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all about it, do
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  not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to be persuaded
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  to anything by conviction, and our deft to good arguments and principles. On
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  the other hand, coaxing, punishment and the like are hard for us to
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  resist. This stern life and death combat with reason enters later and begins a
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  new phase in childhood. We scamper about without racking our brains much. Mind
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  is the name of the first self discovery, the first undeification of the divine
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  that is of the uncanny, the spooks, the powers above our fresh feeling
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  of youth. This feeling of self now defers to nothing. The world is
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  discredited, for we are above it. We are mind. Now for the
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  first time we see that hitherto we have not looked at the world intelligently at
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  all, but only stared at it. We exercise the beginnings of our strength
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  on natural powers. We defer to parents as a natural power. Later we
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  say father and mother are to be forsaken, all natural power to be counted
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  as riven. They are vanquished. For the rational, the intellectual man,
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  there is no family as a natural power. A renunciation of parents, brothers,
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  et cetera makes its appearance. If these are born again as intellectual rational
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  powers, they are no longer at all what they were before. And not
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  only parents, but men in general, are conquered by the young man.
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  They are no hindrance to him, and are no longer regarded For now,
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  he says, one must obey God rather than men. From this high standpoint,
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  everything earthly recedes into contemptible remoteness, for the standpoint is the heavenly.
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  The attitude is now altogether reversed. The youth takes up an intellectual position,
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  while the boy, who did not yet feel himself as mind, grew up
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  on mindless learning. The former does not try to get hold of things,
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  for instance, to get into his head the data of history, but of
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  the thoughts that lie hidden in things, and so therefore of the spirit of
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  history. On the other hand, the boy understands connections no doubt, but
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  not ideas the spirit. Therefore he strings together whatever can be learned without proceeding
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  a priori and theoretically without looking for ideas. As in childhood, one had
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  to overcome the resistance of the laws of the world. So now in everything
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  that he proposes, he is met by an objection of the mind, of
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  reason, of his own conscience. That is unreasonable, unchristian, unpatriotic,
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  and the like cries conscience to us and frightens us away from it. Not
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  the might of the avenging Eumenides, not Poseidon's wrath, not God far as
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  he sees the hidden, Not the father's rod of punishment do we fear,
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  but conscience. We run after our thoughts now and follow their commands, just
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  as before we followed parental human ones. Our course of action is determined by
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  our thoughts, ideas, conceptions, faith as it is in childhood, by
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  the commands of our parents. For all that we were already thinking when we
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  were children, only our thoughts were not fleshless, abstract, absolute, that
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  is, nothing but thoughts a heaven in themselves, a pure world of thought,
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  logical thoughts. On the contrary, they had been only thoughts that we
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  had about a thing. We thought of the thing so or so. Thus
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  we may have thought God made the world that we see there, but we
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  did not think of search the depths of the Godhead itself. We may have
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  thought that is the truth about the matter, but we did not think of
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  truth itself, nor unite into one sentence. God is truth, the depths
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  that the Godhead, who is truth. We did not touch over such purely
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  logical theological questions. What is truth? Pilot does not stop, though he
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  does not therefore hesitate to ascertain an individual case, what truth there is in
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  the thing, whether the thing is true. Any thought bound to a thing
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  is not yet nothing but a thought, absolute thought. To bring to light
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  the pure thought, or to be of its party, is the delight of
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  youth and shapes of light in the world of thought, Like truth, freedom
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  humanity. Man illumine and inspire the youthful soul. But when the spirit is
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  recognized as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is
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  poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit. The
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  spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire, an empire that
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  is not of this world, the world just conquered. Thus then it longs
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  to become all in all to itself. For although I am Spirit, I
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  am not yet perfected spirit, and must first seek the complete Spirit. But
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  with that, I, who had just now found myself as spirit, lose
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  myself again at once, bowing before the complete spirit is one not my own,
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  but supernal and feeling my emptiness. Spirit is the essential point for everything
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  to be sure. But then is every spirit the right spirit? The right
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  and true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the holy Spirit. It is
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  not my or your spirit, but just an ideal supernal one. It is
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  God. God is Spirit, and this supernal Father in Heaven gives it to
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  those that pray to him. The man is distinguished from the youth by the
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  fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it
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  amiss and wanting to improve it, model it after his ideal. In him,
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  the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest,
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  not according to his idea, becomes confirmed. So long as one knows himself
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  only as spirit, and feels that all the value of his existence consists in
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  being spirit, it becomes easy for the youth to give his life, the
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  bodily life, for nothing for the silliest point of honor. So long it
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  is only thoughts that one has, ideas that he hopes to be able to
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  realize some day when he has found a sphere of action. Thus one has
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  meanwhile only ideals, unexecuted ideas or thoughts. Not till one has fallen in
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  love with his corporeal self and takes a pleasure in himself as a living,
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  flesh and blood person. But it is in mature years in the man that
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  we find it so not till then has one a personal or egoistic interests,
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  an interest not only of our spirit, for instance, but of total satisfaction,
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  satisfaction of the whole chap, a selfish interest. Just compare a man
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  with the youth, and see if he will not appear to you harder,
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  less magnanimous, more selfish. Is he therefore worse, No, you say,
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  he has only become more definite, or, as you also call it,
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  more practical. But the main point is this that he makes himself more
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  the center than does the youth, who is infatuated about other things, for
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  example, God, fatherland, and so on. Therefore the man shows a
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  second self discovery. The youth found himself as spirit and lost himself again in
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  the general spirit, the complete holy spirit, man, mankind. In short,
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  all ideals, the man finds himself as embodied spirit. Boys had only
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  unintellectual interests, those interests devoid of thoughts and ideas. Youths only intellectual ones.
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  The man has bodily personal, egoistic interests. If the child has not
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  an object that it can occupy itself with, it feels ennui, for it
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  does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself. The youth, on
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  the contrary, throws the object aside, because for him thoughts arose out of
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  the object. He occupies himself with his thoughts, his dreams, occupies himself
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  intellectually, or his mind is occupied. The young man includes everything not intellectual
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  under the contemptuous name of externalities. If he nevertheless sticks to the most trivial
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  externalities, such as the customs of students, clubs, and other formalities,
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  it is because and when he discovers mind in them, when they are symbols
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  to him. As I find myself back of things, and that as mind,
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  so I must later find myself also back of thoughts, to wit as
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  their creator and owner. In the time of spirits, thoughts grew till they
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  overtopped my head. Whose offspring they yet were? They hovered about me and
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  convulsed me like fever phantasies an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on
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  their own account, were ghosts such as God, Emperor, Pope, fatherland,
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  et cetera. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back
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  into mine, and say, I alone am corporeal. And now I take
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  the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property.
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  I refer all to myself. If as spirit I had thrust away the
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  world in the deepest contempt, so as owner I thrust spirits or ideas away
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  into their vanity. They have no longer any power over me, as no
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  earthly might has power over the spirit. The child was realistic, taken up
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  with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting
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  at what was back of those very things. The youth was idealistic and inspired
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  by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became the man,
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  the egoistic man who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure,
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  and sets his personal interest above everything. Finally, the old man.
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  When I become one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.
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  End of Chapter