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170
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
self-ownership or egoism in general.
In this supreme development of "free man" egoism,
self-ownership, is combated on principle, and such sub-
ordinate ends as the social "welfare" of the Social-
ists, etc., vanish before the lofty " idea of humanity."
Everything that is not a "general human" entity is
something separate, satisfies only some or one ; or, if it
satisfies all, it does this to them only as individuals,
not as men, and is therefore called " egoistic."
To the Socialists welfare is still the supreme aim, as
free rivalry was the approved thing to the political
liberals; now welfare is free too, and we are free to
achieve welfare, just as he who wanted to enter into
rivalry (competition) was free to do so.
But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be
commoners; to take part in the welfare, only to be
laborers. Neither reaches the point of being synony-
mous with "man." It is "truly well" with man only
when he is also " intellectually free"! For man is
mind: therefore all powers that are alien to him, the
mind,--all superhuman, heavenly, unhuman powers,--
must be overthrown, and the name "man" must be
above every name.
So in this end of the modern age (age of the mod-
erns) there returns again, as the main point, what had
been the main point at its beginning: "intellectual
liberty."
To the Communist in particular the humane liberal
says: If society prescribes to you your activity, then
this is indeed free from the influence of the individual,
i. e. the egoist, but it still does not on that account
need to be a purely human activity, nor you to be a
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 171
complete organ of humanity. What kind of activity
society demands of you remains accidental, you know;
it might give you a place in building a temple or
something of that sort, or, even if not that, you might
yet on your own impulse be active for something fool-
ish, therefore unhuman; yes, more yet, you really
labor only to nourish yourself, in general to live, for
dear life's sake, not for the glorification of humanity.
Consequently free activity is not attained till you
make yourself free from all stupidities, from every-
thing non-human, i. e. egoistic (pertaining only to the
individual, not to the Man in the individual), dissi-
pate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea
of humanity: in short, when you are not merely un-
hampered in your activity, but the substance too of
your activity is only what is human, and you live and
work only for humanity. But this is not the case so
long as the aim of your effort is only your welfare and
that of all; what you do for the society of ragamuf-
fins is not yet anything done for "human society."
Laboring does not alone make you a man, because
it is something formal and its object accidental; the
question is who you that labor are. As far as labor-
ing goes, you might do it from an egoistic (material)
impulse, merely to procure nourishment and the like;
it must be a labor furthering humanity, calculated for
the good of humanity, serving historical (i. e. human)
evolution,--in short, a humane labor. This implies
two things: one, that it be useful to humanity; next,
that it be the work of a "man." The first alone may
be the case with every labor, as even the labors of
nature, e. g. of animals, are utilized by humanity for