"The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own crime!" says Bettina.[139] One may let this sentiment pass, even if Bettina herself does not understand it exactly so. For in the State the unbridled I—I, as I belong to myself alone—cannot come to my fulfilment and realization. Every ego is from birth a criminal to begin with against the people, the State. Hence it is that it does really keep watch over all; it sees in each one an—egoist, and it is afraid of the egoist. It presumes the worst about each one, and takes care, police-care, that "no harm happens to the State," ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat. The unbridled ego—and this we originally are, and in our secret inward parts we remain so always—is the never-ceasing criminal in the State. The man whom his boldness, his will, his inconsiderateness and fearlessness lead is surrounded with spies by the State, by the people. I say, by the people! The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted folks, what you have in the people)—the people is full of police sentiments through and through.—Only he who renounces his ego, who practises "self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people.
In the book cited Bettina is throughout good-natured enough to regard the State as only sick, and to hope for its recovery, a recovery which she would bring about through the "demagogues";[140] but it is not sick; rather is it in its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues who want to acquire something for the individuals, for "all." In its believers it is provided with the best demagogues (leaders of the people). According to Bettina, the State is to[141] "develop mankind's germ of freedom; otherwise it is a raven-mother[142] and caring for raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in its very caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would have to be the "humane" or "free" State to begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it. How rightly speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:[143] "What? the State has no other duty than to be merely the attendant of incurable invalids?—That isn't to the point. From of old the healthy State has relieved itself of the diseased matter, and not mixed itself with it. It does not need to be so economical with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without hesitation, that the others may bloom.—Do not shiver at the State's harshness; its morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. Accuse it of no want of feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but its experience finds safety only in this severity! There are diseases in which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes the disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb after a shorter or longer sickness!" Frau Rat's question, "If you apply death as a drastic remedy, how is the cure to be wrought then?" isn't to the point. Why, the State does not apply death against itself, but against an offensive member; it tears out an eye that offends it, etc.
"For the invalid State the only way of salvation is to make man flourish in it."[144] If one here, like Bettina, understands by man the concept "Man," she is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the flourishing of "Man," for, the more infatuated the individuals are with "Man," the better it serves the State's turn. But, if one referred it to the individuals, to "all" (and the authoress half does this too, because about "Man" she is still involved in vagueness), then it would sound somewhat like the following: For an invalid band of robbers the only way of salvation is to make the loyal citizen flourish in it! Why, thereby the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band of robbers; and, because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot every one who has a leaning toward becoming a "steady man."
In this book Bettina is a patriot, or, what is little more, a philanthropist, a worker for human happiness. She is discontented with the existing order in quite the same way as is the title-ghost of her book, along with all who would like to bring back the good old faith and what goes with it. Only she thinks, contrariwise, that the politicians, place-holders, and diplomats ruined the State, while those lay it at the door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the people."
What is the ordinary criminal but one who has committed the fatal mistake of endeavoring after what is the people's instead of seeking for what is his? He has sought despicable alien goods, has done what believers do who seek after what is God's. What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets before him the great wrong of having desecrated by his act what was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, of course, must be included even the life of those who belong to the State); instead of this, he might rather hold up to him the fact that he has befouled himself in not despising the alien thing, but thinking it worth stealing; he could, if he were not a parson. Talk with the so-called criminal as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not that he transgressed against your laws and goods, but that he considered your laws worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed that he did not—despise you and yours together, that he was too little an egoist. But you cannot talk egoistically with him, for you are not so great as a criminal, you—commit no crime! You do not know that an ego who is his own cannot desist from being a criminal, that crime is his life. And yet you should know it, since you believe that "we are all miserable sinners"; but you think surreptitiously to get beyond sin, you do not comprehend—for you are devil-fearing—that guilt is the value of a man. Oh, if you were guilty! But now you are "righteous."[145] Well,—just put every thing nicely to rights[146] for your master!
When the Christian consciousness, or the Christian man, draws up a criminal code, what can the concept of crime be there but simply—heartlessness? Each severing and wounding of a heart relation, each heartless behavior toward a sacred being, is crime. The more heartfelt the relation is supposed to be, the more scandalous is the deriding of it, and the more worthy of punishment the crime. Every one who is subject to the lord should love him; to deny this love is a high treason worthy of death. Adultery is a heartlessness worthy of punishment; one has no heart, no enthusiasm, no pathetic feeling for the sacredness of marriage. So long as the heart or soul dictates laws, only the heartful or soulful man enjoys the protection of the laws. That the man of soul makes laws means properly only that the moral man makes them: what contradicts these men's "moral feeling," this they penalize. How, e. g., should disloyalty, secession, breach of oaths,—in short, all radical breaking off, all tearing asunder of venerable ties,—not be flagitious and criminal in their eyes? He who breaks with these demands of the soul has for enemies all the moral, all the men of soul. Only Krummacher and his mates are the right people to set up consistently a penal code of the heart, as a certain bill sufficiently proves. The consistent legislation of the Christian State must be placed wholly in the hands of the—parsons, and will not become pure and coherent so long as it is worked out only by—the parson-ridden, who are always only half-parsons. Only then will every lack of soulfulness, every heartlessness, be certified as an unpardonable crime, only then will every agitation of the soul become condemnable, every objection of criticism and doubt be anathematized; only then is the own man, before the Christian consciousness, a convicted—criminal to begin with.
The men of the Revolution often talked of the people's "just revenge" as its "right." Revenge and right coincide here. Is this an attitude of an ego to an ego? The people cries that the opposite party has committed "crimes" against it. Can I assume that one commits a crime against me, without assuming that he has to act as I see fit? And this action I call the right, the good, etc.; the divergent action, a crime. So I think that the others must aim at the same goal with me; i. e., I do not treat them as unique beings[147] who bear their law in themselves and live according to it, but as beings who are to obey some "rational" law. I set up what "Man" is and what acting in a "truly human" way is, and I demand of every one that this law become norm and ideal to him; otherwise he will expose himself as a "sinner and criminal." But upon the "guilty" falls the "penalty of the law"!
One sees here how it is "Man" again who sets on foot even the concept of crime, of sin, and therewith that of right. A man in whom I do not recognize "Man" is "a sinner, a guilty one."
Only against a sacred thing are there criminals; you against me can never be a criminal, but only an opponent. But not to hate him who injures a sacred thing is in itself a crime, as St. Just cries out against Danton: "Are you not a criminal and responsible for not having hated the enemies of the fatherland?"—
If, as in the Revolution, what "Man" is is apprehended as "good citizen," then from this concept of "Man" we have the well-known "political offences and crimes."