The strangest thing about this remarkable book consists in the many coincidences with Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. It is commonly deemed impossible that the famous spokesman of the overman should not have been thoroughly familiar with this failure in the philosophical book market; but while Stirner was forgotten the same ideas transplanted into the volumes of the author of Thus Spake Zarathustra found an echo first in Germany and soon afterwards all over the world.
Stirner's book has been Englished by Stephen T. Byington with an introduction by J. L. Walker at the instigation of Benjamin R. Tucker, the representative of American peaceful anarchism, under the title The Ego and His Own. They have been helped by Mr. George Schumm and his wife, Mrs. Emma Heller Schümm. These five persons, all interested in this lonely and unique thinker, must have had much trouble in translating the German original and though the final rendering of the title is not inappropriate, the translator and his advisers agree that it falls short of the mark. For the accepted form Mr. B. R. Tucker is responsible, and he admits in the preface that it is not an exact equivalent of the German. Der Einzige means "the unique man," a person of a definite individuality, but in the book itself our author modifies and enriches the meaning of the term. The unique man becomes the ego and an owner (ein Eigener), a man who is possessed of property, especially of his own being. He is a master of his own and he prides himself on his ownhood, as well as his ownership. As such he is unique, and the very term indicates that the thinker who proposes this view-point is an extreme individualist. In Stirner's opinion Christianity pursued the ideal of liberty from the world; and in this sense Christians speak of spiritual liberty. To become free from anything that oppresses us we must get rid of it, and so the Christian to rid himself of the world becomes a prey to the idea of a contempt of the world. Stirner declares that the future has a better lot in store for man. Man shall not merely be free, which is a purely negative quality, but he shall be his own master; he shall become an owner of his own personality and whatever else he may have to control. His end and aim is he himself. There is no moral duty above him. Stirner explains in the very first sentence of his book:
"What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost, the good cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. 'Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!"
Stirner undertakes to refute this satirical explanation in his book on the unique man and his own, and a French critic according to Paul Lauterbach (p. 5) speaks of his book as un livre qu'on quitte monarque, "a book which one lays aside a king."
Stirner is opposed to all traditional views. He is against church and state. He stands for the self-development of every individual, and insists that the highest duty of every one is to stand up for his ownhood.
J. L. Walker in his Introduction contrasts Stirner with Nietzsche and gives the prize of superiority to the former, declaring him to be a genuine anarchist not less than Josiah Warren, the leader of the small band of New England anarchists. He says:
"In Stirner we have the philosophical foundation for political liberty. His interest in the practical development of egoism to the dissolution of the state and the union of free men is clear and pronounced, and harmonizes perfectly with the economic philosophy of Josiah Warren. Allowing for difference of temperament and language, there is a substantial agreement between Stirner and Proudhon. Each would be free, and sees in every increase of the number of free people and their intelligence an auxiliary force against the oppressor. But, on the other hand, will any one for a moment seriously contend that Nietzsche and Proudhon march together in general aim and tendency—that they have anything in common except the daring to profane the shrine and sepulcher of superstition?
"Nietzsche has been much spoken of as a disciple of Stirner, and, owing to favorable cullings from Nietzsche's writings, it has occurred that one of his books has been supposed to contain more sense than it really does—so long as one had read only the extracts.
"Nietzsche cites scores or hundreds of authors. Had he read everything, and not read Stirner?
"But Nietzsche is as unlike Stirner as a tight-rope performance is unlike an algebraic equation.
"Stirner loved liberty for himself, and loved to see any and all men and women taking liberty, and he had no lust of power. Democracy to him was sham liberty, egoism the genuine liberty.
"Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt upon democracy because it is not aristocratic. He is predatory to the point of demanding that those who must succumb to feline rapacity shall be taught to submit with resignation. When he speaks of 'anarchistic dogs' scouring the streets of great civilized cities, it is true, the context shows that he means the communists; but his worship of Napoleon, his bathos of anxiety for the rise of an aristocracy that shall rule Europe for thousands of years, his idea of treating women in the Oriental fashion, show that Nietzsche has struck out in a very old path—doing the apotheosis of tyranny. We individual egoistic anarchists, however, may say to die Nietzsche school, so as not to be misunderstood: We do not ask of the Napoleons to have pity, nor of the predatory barons to do justice. They will find it convenient for their own welfare to make terms with men who have learned of Stirner what a man can be who worships nothing, bears allegiance to nothing. To Nietzsche's rhodomontade of eagles in baronial form, born to prey on industrial lambs, we rather tauntingly oppose the ironical question: Where are your claws? What if the 'eagles' are found to be plain barnyard fowls on which more silly fowls have fastened steel spurs to hack the victims, who, however, have the power to disarm the sham 'eagles' between two suns?
"Stirner shows that men make their tyrants as they make their gods, and his purpose is to unmake tyrants.
"Nietzsche dearly loves a tyrant.
"In style Stirner's work offers the greatest possible contrast to the puerile, padded phraseology of Nietzsche's Zarathustra and its false imagery. Who ever imagined such an unnatural conjuncture as an eagle 'toting' a serpent in friendship? which performance is told of in bare words, but nothing comes of it. In Stirner we are treated to an enlivening and earnest discussion addressed to serious minds, and every reader feels that the word is to him, for his instruction and benefit, so far as he has mental independence and courage to take it and use it The startling intrepidity of this book is infused with a whole-hearted love for all mankind, as evidenced by the fact that the author shows not one iota of prejudice or any idea of division of men into ranks. He would lay aside government, but would establish any regulation deemed convenient, and for this only our convenience is consulted. Thus there will be general liberty only when the disposition toward tyranny is met by intelligent opposition that will no longer submit to such a rule. Beyond this the manly sympathy and philosophical bent of Stirner are such that rulership appears by contrast a vanity, an infatuation of perverted pride. We know not whether we more admire our author or more love him.
"Stirner's attitude toward woman is not special. She is an individual if she can be, not handicapped by anything he says, feels, thinks, or plans. This was more fully exemplified in his life than even in this book; but there is not a line in the book to put or keep woman in an inferior position to man, neither is there anything of caste or aristocracy in the book."
It is not our intention to enter here into a detailed criticism of Stirner's book. We will only point out that society will practically remain the same whether we consider social arrangements as voluntary contracts or as organically developed social institutions, or as imposed upon mankind by the divine world-order, or even if czars and kings claim to govern "by the grace of God." Whatever religious or natural sanction any government may claim to possess, the method of keeping order will be the same everywhere. Wrongs have been done and in the future may still be committed in the name of right, and injustice may again and again worst justice in the name of the law. On the other hand, however, we can notice a progress throughout the world of a slow but steady improvement of conditions. Any globe-trotter will find by experience that his personal safety, his rights and privileges are practically the same in all civilized countries, whether they are republics like Switzerland, France and the United States, or monarchies like Sweden, Germany and Italy. At the same time murders, robberies, thefts and other crimes are committed all over the world, even in the homes of those who pride themselves on being the most civilized nations. The world-conception lying behind our different social theories is the same wherever the same kind of civilization prevails. Where social evils prevail, dissatisfaction sets in which produces theories and reform programs, and when they remain unheeded, a climax is reached which leads to revolution.
Stirner's book begins with a short exhortation headed with Goethe's line,