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176
THE EGO AND HIS OWN
cause you are a "unique"* man. Doubtless you show
what a man can do; but because you, a man, do it,
this by no means shows that others, also men, are
able to do as much; you have executed it only as a
unique man, and are unique therein.
It is not man that makes up your greatness, but
you create it, because you are more than man, and
mightier than other--men.
It is believed that one cannot be more than man.
Rather, one cannot be less!
It is believed further that whatever one attains is
good for Man. In so far as I remain at all times a
man--or, like Schiller, a Swabian; like Kant, a Prus-
sian; like Gustavus Adolphus, a near-sighted person
--I certainly become by my superior qualities a not-
able man, Swabian, Prussian, or near-sighted per-
son. But the case is not much better with that than
with Frederick the Great's cane, which became famous
for Frederick's sake.
To " Give God the glory " corresponds the modern
" Give Man the glory." But I mean to keep it for
myself.
Criticism, issuing the summons to man to be " hu-
man," enunciates the necessary condition of sociabil-
ity; for only as a man among men is one companion-
able. Herewith it makes known its social object, the
establishment of "human society."
Among social theories criticism is indisputably the
most complete, because it removes and deprives of
value everything that separates man from man: all
* ["einziger"]
MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 177
prerogatives, down to the prerogative of faith. In it
the love-principle of Christianity, the true social prin-
ciple, comes to the purest fulfilment, and the last pos-
sible experiment is tried to take away exclusiveness
and repulsion from men: a fight against egoism in its
simplest and therefore hardest form, in the form of
singleness,* exclusiveness, itself.
" How can you live a truly social life so long as
even one exclusiveness still exists between you?"
I ask conversely, How can you be truly single so
long as even one connection still exists between you?
If you are connected, you cannot leave each other; if
a " tie " clasps you, you are something only with
another, and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands
of you a people, millions of you humanity.
" Only when you are human can you keep company
with each other as men, just as you can understand
each other as patriots only when you are patriotic! "
All right; then I answer, Only when you are single
can you have intercourse with each other as what you
are.
It is precisely the keenest critic who is hit hardest
by the curse of his principle. Putting from him one
exclusive thing after another, shaking off churchlincss,
patriotism, etc., he undoes one tie after another and
separates himself from the churchly man, from the
patriot, etc., till at last, when all ties are undone, he
stands--alone. He, of all men, must exclude all that
have anything exclusive or private; and, when you
get to the bottom, what can be more exclusive than
* [Einzigkeit]