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174
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
in short, represents a man condemned to hard labor.
The laborer of such a type is not " egoistic," be-
cause he does not labor for individuals, neither for
himself nor for other individuals, not for private men
therefore, but for humanity and its progress : he does
not ease individual pains, does not care for individual
wants, but removes limits within which humanity is
pressed, dispels prejudices which dominate an entire
time, vanquishes hindrances that obstruct the path of
all, clears away errors in which men entangle them-
selves, discovers truths which are found through him
for all and for all time; in short--he lives and labors
for humanity.'
Now, in the first place, the discoverer of a great
truth doubtless knows that it can be useful to the rest
of men, and, as a jealous withholding furnishes him no
enjoyment, he communicates it; but, even though he
has the consciousness that his communication is highly
valuable to the rest, yet he has in no wise sought and
found his truth for the sake of the rest, but for his
own sake, because he himself desired it, because dark-
ness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured
for himself light and enlightenment to the best of his
powers.
He labors, therefore, for his own sake and for the
satisfaction of his want. That along with this he was
also useful to others, yes, to posterity, does not take
from his labor the egoistic character.
In the next place, if he did labor only on his own
account, like the rest, why should his act be human,
those of the rest unhuman, i. e. egoistic? Perhaps
because this book, painting, symphony, etc., is the
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 175
labor of his whole being, because he has done his best
in it, has spread himself out wholly and is wholly to
be known from it, while the work of a handicraftsman
mirrors only the handicraftsman, i. e. the skill in
handicraft, not "the man"? In his poems we have
the whole Schiller; in so many hundred stoves, on the
other hand, we have before us only the stove-maker,
not " the man."
But does this mean more than " in the one work
you see me as completely as possible, in the other only
my skill"? Is it not me again that the act expresses?
And is it not more egoistic to offer oneself to the
world in a work, to work out and shape oneself, than
to remain concealed behind one's labor? You say, to
be sure, that you are revealing Man. But the Man
that you reveal is you ; you reveal only yourself, yet
with this distinction from the handicraftsman,--that
he does not understand how to compress himself into
one labor, but, in order to be known as himself, must
be searched out in his other relations of life, and that
your want, through whose satisfaction that work came
into being, was a--theoretical want.
But you will reply that you reveal quite another
man, a worthier, higher, greater, a man that is more
man than that other. I will assume that you accom-
plish all that is possible to man, that you bring to
pass what no other succeeds in. Wherein, then, does
your greatness consist? Precisely in this, that you
are more than other men (the " masses"), more than
men ordinarily are, more than "ordinary men "; pre-
cisely in your elevation above men. You are distin-
guished beyond other men not by being man, but be-