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THE EGO AND HIS OWN

all---power ! * By the way, here the substance of
" right " becomes visible ; it is--power. " He who
has power has right."

The commonalty is the heir of the privileged classes.

In fact, the rights of the barons, which were taken
from them as " usurpations," only passed over to the
commonalty. For the commonalty was now called the
" nation." " Into the hands of the nation " all pre-
rogatives were given back. Thereby they ceased to
be " prerogatives " : they became " rights." From
this time on the nation demands tithes, compulsory
services; it has inherited the lord's court, the rights
of vert and venison, the--serfs. The night of August
4 was the death-night of privileges or " prerogatives "
(cities, communes, boards of magistrates, were also
privileged, furnished with prerogatives and seigniorial
rights), and ended with the new morning of " right,"
the " rights of the State," the " rights of the nation."

The monarch in the person of the " royal master "

had been a paltry monarch compared with this new
monarch, the " sovereign nation." This monarchy
was a thousand times severer, stricter, and more con-
sistent. Against the new monarch there was no
longer any right, any privilege at all; how limited
the " absolute king " of the ancien régime looks in
comparison! The Revolution effected the transforma-
tion of limited monarchy into absolute monarchy.
From this time on every right that is not conferred by
this monarch is an " assumption"; but every prerog-

* [Gewalt, a word which is also commonly used like the English " vio-
lence," denoting especially unlawful violence ]

[Vorrechte]

[Rechte]

MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 133

ative that he bestows, a " right." The times de-
manded absolute royalty, absolute monarchy; there-
fore down fell that so-called absolute royalty which
had so little understood how to become absolute that
it remained limited by a thousand little lords.

What was longed for and striven for through thou-

sands of years,--to wit, to find that absolute lord be-
side whom no other lords and lordlings any longer ex-
ist to clip his power,--the bourgeoisie has brought to
pass. It has revealed the Lord who alone confers
" rightful titles," and without whose warrant nothing
is justified. " So now we know that an idol is noth-
ing in the world, and that there is no other god save
the one."*

Against right one can no longer, as against a right,

come forward with the assertion that it is " a wrong."
One can say now only that it is a piece of nonsense, an
illusion. If one called it wrong, one would have to
set up another right in opposition to it, and measure
it by this. If, on the contrary, one rejects right as
such, right in and of itself, altogether, then one also
rejects the concept of wrong, and dissolves the whole
concept of right (to which the concept of wrong be-
longs).

What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all en-

joy " equality of political rights " ? Only this,--
that the State has no regard for my person, that to it
I, like every other, am only a man, without having
another significance that commands its deference.
I do not command its deference as an aristocrat, a

* 1 Corinthians 8 4