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178
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
the exclusive, single person himself !
Or does he perhaps think that the situation would
be better if all became " men " and gave up exclusive-
ness? Why, for the very reason that " all " means
" every individual " the most glaring contradiction is
still maintained, for the " individual " is exclusiveness
itself. If the humane liberal no longer concedes to
the individual anything private or exclusive, any pri-
vate thought, any private folly; if he criticises every-
thing away from him before his face, since his hatred
of the private is an absolute and fanatical hatred; if
he knows no tolerance toward what is private, because
everything private is unhuman,--yet he cannot criti-
cise away the private person himself, since the hard-
ness of the individual person resists his criticism, and
he must be satisfied with declaring this person a " pri-
vate person " and really leaving everything private to
him again.
What will the society that no longer cares about
anything private do? Make the private impossible?
No, but " subordinate it to the interests of society,
and, e. g., leave it to private will to institute holidays
as many as it chooses, if only it does not come in col-
lision with the general interest."* Everything pri-
vate is left free ; i. e. it has no interest for society.
" By their raising of barriers against science the
church and religiousness have declared that they are
what they always were, only that this was hidden
under another semblance when they were proclaimed
to be the basis and necessary foundation of the State
* Bruno Bauer, "Judenfrage," p. 66
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 179
a matter of purely private concern. Even when
they were connected with the State and made it Chris-
tian, they were only the proof that the State had not
yet developed its general political idea, that it was
only instituting private rights they were only the
highest expression for the fact that the State was a
private affair and had to do only with private affairs.
When the State shall at last have the courage and
strength to fulfil its general destiny and to be free;
when, therefore, it is also able to give separate inter-
ests and private concerns their true position,--then
religion and the church will be free as they have never
been hitherto. As a matter of the most purely pri-
vate concern, and a satisfaction of purely personal
want, they will be left to themselves; and every indi-
vidual, every congregation and ecclesiastical commun-
ion, will be able to care for the blessedness of their
souls as they choose and as they think necessary.
Every one will care for his soul's blessedness so far
as it is to him a personal want, and will accept and
pay as spiritual caretaker the one who seems to him
to offer the best guarantee for the satisfaction of his
want. Science is at last left entirely out of the
game."*
What is to happen, though? Is social life to have
an end, and all companionableness, all fraternization,
everything that is created by the love or society prin-
ciple, to disappear?
As if one will not always seek the other because he
needs him ; as if one must not accommodate, himself to
* Bruno Bauer, "Die gute Sache der Freiheit," pp 62-63