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158
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
itself, is nothing complete in itself; he labors only into
another's hands, and is used (exploited) by this other.
For this laborer in another's service there is no enjoy-
ment of a cultivated mind, at most crude amusements :
culture, you see, is barred against him. To be a good
Christian one needs only to believe, and that can be
done under the most oppressive circumstances. Hence
the Christian-minded take care only of the oppressed
laborers' piety, their patience, submission, etc. Only
so long as the downtrodden classes were Christians
could they bear all their misery : for Christianity does
not let their murmurings and exasperation rise. Now
the hushing of desires is no longer enough, but their
sating is demanded. The bourgeoisie has proclaimed
the gospel of the enjoyment of the world, of material
enjoyment, and now wonders that this doctrine finds
adherents among us poor: it has shown that not faith
and poverty, but culture and possessions, make a man
blessed; we proletarians understand that too.
The commonalty freed us from the orders and arbi-
trariness of individuals. But that arbitrariness was
left which springs from the conjuncture of situations,
and may be called the fortuity of circumstances ; fa-
voring fortune, and those " favored by fortune," still
remain.
When e. g. a branch of industry is ruined and
thousands of laborers become breadless, people think
reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is not the
individual who must bear the blame, but that " the
evil lies in the situation."
Let us change the situation then, but let us change
it thoroughly, and so that its fortuity becomes power-
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 159
less, and a law! Let us no longer be slaves
OP
chance!
Let us create a new order that makes an end of fluctu-
ations. Let this order then be sacred !
Formerly one had to suit the lords to come to any-
thing; after the Revolution the word was " Grasp
fortune ! " Luck-hunting or hazard-playing, civil
life was absorbed in this. Then, alongside this, the
demand that he who has obtained something shall not
frivolously stake it again.
Strange and yet supremely natural contradiction.
Competition, in which alone civil or political life un-
rolls itself, is a game of luck through and through,
from the speculations of the exchange down to the so-
licitation of offices, the hunt for customers, looking for
work, aspiring to promotion and decorations, the
second-hand dealer's petty haggling, etc. If one suc-
ceeds in supplanting and outbidding his rivals, then
the " lucky throw " is made ; for it must be taken as a
piece of luck to begin with that the victor sees himself
equipped with an ability (even though it has been de-
veloped by the most careful industry) against which
the others do not know how to rise, consequently that
--no abler ones are found. And now those who ply
their daily lives in the midst of these changes of for-
tune without seeing any harm in it are seized with the
most virtuous indignation when their own principle
appears in naked form and " breeds misfortune " as
--hazard-playing. Hazard-playing, you see, is too
clear, too barefaced a competition, and, like every de-
cided nakedness, offends honorable modesty.
The Socialists want to put a stop to this activity of
chance, and to form a society in which men are no