Page 14 of 26
[7] "Ich bin so gar nicht zum Hassen und zum Feind sein gemacht!"
[8] See, e. g., Leben, I., p. 135, where he speaks of a new "Freigeisterei," denouncing the "libres penseurs" as "unverbesserliche Flachkpfe und Hanswrste," adding, "Sie glauben allesammt noch an's 'Ideal.'"
[9] "Dass das Gewlbe wiederhallt,"—a quotation from Goethe's "Faust."
[10] Reproduced as the frontispiece of this book.
[11]
"Ja, ich weiss woher ich stamme!
Ungesttigt gleich der Flamme,
Glhe und verzehr ich mich,
licht wird alles was ich fasse,
Kohle alles was ich lasse:
Flamme bin ich sicherlich!"
Friedrich Nietzsche, the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra and the inventor of the new ideal called the "overman," is commonly regarded as the most extreme egotist, to whom morality is non-existent and who glories in the coming of the day in which a man of his liking—the overman—would live au grand jour. His philosophy is an individualism carried to its utmost extreme, sanctioning egotism, denouncing altruism and establishing the right of the strong to trample the weak under foot. It is little known, however, that he followed another thinker, Johann Caspar Schmidt, whose extreme individualism he adopted. But this forerunner who preached a philosophy of the sovereignty of self and an utter disregard of our neighbors' rights remained unheeded; he lived in obscurity, he died in poverty, and under the pseudonym "Max Stirner" he left behind a book entitled Der Einzige und sein Eigentum.
The historian Lange briefly mentioned him in his History of Materialism, and the novelist John Henry[Pg 75] Mackay followed up the reference which led to the discovery of this lonely comet on the philosophical sky.[1]
The strangest thing about this remarkable book consists in the many coincidences with Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. It is commonly deemed impossible that the famous spokesman of the overman should not have been thoroughly familiar with this failure in the philosophical book market; but while Stirner was forgotten the same ideas transplanted into the volumes of the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra found an echo first in Germany and soon afterwards all over the world.
Stirner's book has been Englished by Stephen T. Byington with an introduction by J. L. Walker at the instigation of Benjamin R. Tucker, the representative of American peaceful anarchism, under the title The Ego and His Own. They have been helped by Mr. George Schumm and his wife, Mrs. Emma Heller Schmm. These five persons, all interested in this lonely and unique thinker, must have had much trouble in translating the German original and though the final rendering of the title is not inappropriate, the translator and his advisers agree that it falls short of the mark. For the accepted form Mr. B. R. Tucker is responsible, and he admits in the preface that it is not[Pg 76] an exact equivalent of the German. Der Einzige means "the unique man," a person of a definite individuality, but in the book itself our author modifies and enriches the meaning of the term. The unique man becomes the ego and an owner (ein Eigener), a man who is possessed of property, especially of his own being. He is a master of his own and he prides himself on his ownhood, as well as his ownership. As such he is unique, and the very term indicates that the thinker who proposes this view-point is an extreme individualist. In Stirner's opinion Christianity pursued the ideal of liberty from the world; and in this sense Christians speak of spiritual liberty. To become free from anything that oppresses us we must get rid of it, and so the Christian to rid himself of the world becomes a prey to the idea of a contempt of the world. Stirner declares that the future has a better lot in store for man. Man shall not merely be free, which is a purely negative quality, but he shall be his own master; he shall become an owner of his own personality and whatever else he may have to control. His end and aim is he himself. There is no moral duty above him. Stirner explains in the very first sentence of his book:
"What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost, the good cause, 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!"
Stirner undertakes to refute this satirical explanation in his book on the unique man and his own, and a French critic according to Paul Lauterbach (p. 5) speaks of his book as un livre qu'on quitte monarque, "a book which one lays aside a king."
Stirner is opposed to all traditional views. He is against church and state. He stands for the self-development of every individual, and insists that the highest duty of every one is to stand up for his ownhood.
J. L. Walker in his Introduction contrasts Stirner with Nietzsche and gives the prize of superiority to the former, declaring him to be a genuine anarchist not less than Josiah Warren, the leader of the small band of New England anarchists. He says:
"In Stirner we have the philosophical foundation for political liberty. His interest in the practical development of egoism to the dissolution of the state and the union of free men is clear and pronounced, and harmonizes perfectly with the economic philosophy of Josiah Warren. Allowing for difference of temperament and language, there is a substantial agreement between Stirner and Proudhon. Each would be free, and sees in every increase of the number of free people and their intelligence an auxiliary force against the oppressor. But, on the other hand, will any one for a moment seriously contend that Nietzsche and Proudhon march together in general aim and tendency—that they have anything in common except the daring to profane the shrine and sepulcher of superstition?
"Nietzsche has been much spoken of as a disciple of Stirner, and, owing to favorable cullings from Nietzsche's writings, it has occurred that one of his books has been[Pg 78] supposed to contain more sense than it really does—so long as one had read only the extracts.
"Nietzsche cites scores or hundreds of authors. Had he read everything, and not read Stirner?
"But Nietzsche is as unlike Stirner as a tight-rope performance is unlike an algebraic equation.
"Stirner loved liberty for himself, and loved to see any and all men and women taking liberty, and he had no lust of power. Democracy to him was sham liberty, egoism the genuine liberty.
"Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt upon democracy because it is not aristocratic. He is predatory to the point of demanding that those who must succumb to feline rapacity shall be taught to submit with resignation. When he speaks of 'anarchistic dogs' scouring the streets of great civilized cities, it is true, the context shows that he means the communists; but his worship of Napoleon, his bathos of anxiety for the rise of an aristocracy that shall rule Europe for thousands of years, his idea of treating women in the Oriental fashion, show that Nietzsche has struck out in a very old path—doing the apotheosis of tyranny. We individual egoistic anarchists, however, may say to die Nietzsche school, so as not to be misunderstood: We do not ask of the Napoleons to have pity, nor of the predatory barons to do justice. They will find it convenient for their own welfare to make terms with men who have learned of Stirner what a man can be who worships nothing, bears allegiance to nothing. To Nietzsche's rhodomontade of eagles in baronial form, born to prey on industrial lambs, we rather tauntingly oppose the ironical question: Where are your claws? What if the 'eagles' are found to be plain barnyard fowls on which more silly fowls have fastened steel spurs to hack the victims, who, however, have the power to disarm the sham 'eagles' between two suns?
