Sander, against whom E. Bauer writes, lays claim (page 99) to the liberty of the press "as the right and the liberty of the citizen in the State." What else does E. Bauer do? To him also it is only a right of the free citizen.
The liberty of the press is also demanded under the name of a "general human right." Against this the objection was well-founded that not every man knew how to use it rightly, for not every individual was truly man. Never did a government refuse it to Man as such; but Man writes nothing, for the reason that he is a ghost. It always refused it to individuals only, and gave it to others, e. g. its organs. If then one would have it for all, one must assert outright that it is due to the individual, me, not to man or to the individual so far as he is man. Besides, another than a man (e. g. a beast) can make no use of it. The French government, e. g., does not dispute the liberty of the press as a right of man, but demands from the individual a security for his really being man; for it assigns liberty of the press not to the individual, but to man.
Under the exact pretence that it was not human, what was mine was taken from me! what was human was left to me undiminished.
Liberty of the press can bring about only a responsible press; the irresponsible proceeds solely from property in the press.
For intercourse with men an express law (conformity to which one may venture at times sinfully to forget, but the absolute value of which one at no time ventures to deny) is placed foremost among all who live religiously: this is the law—of love, to which not even those who seem to fight against its principle, and who hate its name, have as yet become untrue; for they also still have love, yes, they love with a deeper and more sublimated love, they love "man and mankind."
If we formulate the sense of this law, it will be about as follows: Every man must have a something that is more to him than himself. You are to put your "private interest" in the background when it is a question of the welfare of others, the weal of the fatherland, of society, the common weal, the weal of mankind, the good cause, and the like! Fatherland, society, mankind, etc., must be more to you than yourself, and as against their interest your "private interest" must stand back; for you must not be an—egoist.
Love is a far-reaching religious demand, which is not, as might be supposed, limited to love to God and man, but stands foremost in every regard. Whatever we do, think, will, the ground of it is always to be love. Thus we may indeed judge, but only "with love." The Bible may assuredly be criticised, and that very thoroughly, but the critic must before all things love it and see in it the sacred book. Is this anything else than to say he must not criticise it to death, he must leave it standing, and that as a sacred thing that cannot be upset?—In our criticism on men too, love must remain the unchanged key-note. Certainly judgments that hatred inspires are not at all our own judgments, but judgments of the hatred that rules us, "rancorous judgments." But are judgments that love inspires in us any more our own? They are judgments of the love that rules us, they are "loving, lenient" judgments, they are not our own, and accordingly not real judgments at all. He who burns with love for justice cries out, fiat justitia, pereat mundus! He can doubtless ask and investigate what justice properly is or demands, and in what it consists, but not whether it is anything.
It is very true, "He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." (I John 4. 16.) God abides in him, he does not get rid of God, does not become godless; and he abides in God, does not come to himself and into his own home, abides in love to God and does not become loveless.
"God is love! All times and all races recognize in this word the central point of Christianity." God, who is love, is an officious God: he cannot leave the world in peace, but wants to make it blest. "God became man to make men divine."[197] He has his hand in the game everywhere, and nothing happens without it; everywhere he has his "best purposes," his "incomprehensible plans and decrees." Reason, which he himself is, is to be forwarded and realized in the whole world. His fatherly care deprives us of all independence. We can do nothing sensible without its being said, God did that! and can bring upon ourselves no misfortune without hearing, God ordained that; we have nothing that we have not from him, he "gave" everything. But, as God does, so does Man. God wants perforce to make the world blest, and Man wants to make it happy, to make all men happy. Hence every "man" wants to awaken in all men the reason which he supposes his own self to have: everything is to be rational throughout. God torments himself with the devil, and the philosopher does it with unreason and the accidental. God lets no being go its own gait, and Man likewise wants to make us walk only in human wise.