The individuality of any man is the product of communal life. No one of us could exist as a rational personality were he not a member of a social group from which he has imbibed his ideas as well as his language. Every word is a product of his intercourse with his fellow-beings. His entire existence consists in his relations toward others and finds expression in his attitude toward social institutions. We may criticize existent institutions but we can never do without any. A denial of either their existence or their significance proves an utter lack of insight into the nature of personality.
We insert here a few characteristic sentences of Stirner's views, and in order to be fair we follow the condensation of John Henry Mackay (pp. 135-192) than whom certainly we could find no more sympathetic or intelligent student of this individualistic philosophy.
Here are Stirner's arguments:
The ancients arrived at the conclusion that man was spirit. They created a world of spirit, and in this world of spirit Christianity begins. But what is spirit? Spirit has originated from nothing. It is its own creation and man makes it the center of the world. The injunction was given, Thou shalt not live to thyself but to thy spirit, to thy ideas. Spirit is the God, the ego and the spirit are in constant conflict. Spirit dwells beyond the earth. It is in vain to force the divine into service here for I am neither God nor man, neither the highest being nor my being. The spirit is like a ghost whom no one has seen, but of whom there are innumerable creditable witnesses, such as grandmother can give account of. The whole world that surrounds thee is filled with spooks of thy imagination. The holiness of truth which hallows thee is a strange element. It is not thine own and strangeness is a characteristic of holiness. The specter is truly only in thine ownhood..... Right is a spleen conferred by a spook; might, that is myself. I am the mighty one and the owner of might.... Right is the royal will of society. Every right which exists is created right. I am expected to honor it where I find it and subject myself to it. But what to me is the right of society, the right of all? What do I care for equality of right, for the struggle for right, for inalienable rights? Right becomes word in law. The dominant will is the preserver of the states. My own will shall upset them. Every state is a despotism. All right and all power is claimed to belong to the community of the people. I, however, shall not allow myself to be bound by it, for I recognize no duty even though the state may call crime in me what it considers right for itself. My relation to the state is not the relation of one ego to another ego. It is the relation of the sinner to the saint, but the saint is a mere fixed idea from which crimes originate (Mackay, pages 154-5).
It will sometimes be difficult to translate Stirner's declarations in their true meaning; for instance: "I am the owner of mankind, I am mankind and shall do nothing for the benefit of another mankind. The property of mankind is mine. I do not respect the property of mankind. Poverty originates when I can not utilize my own self as I want to. It is the state which hinders men from entering into a direct relation with others. On the mercy of right my private property depends. Only within prescribed limits am I allowed to compete. Only the medium of exchange, the money which the state makes, am I allowed to use. The forms of the state may change, the purpose of the state always remains the same. My property, however, is what I empower myself to. Let violence decide, I expect all from my own.
"You shall not lure me with love, nor catch me with the promise of communion of possessions, but the question of property will be solved only through a war of all against all, and what a slave will do as soon as he has broken his fetters we shall have to see. I know no law of love. As every one of my sentiments is my property, so also is love. I give it, I donate it, I squander it merely because it makes me happy. Earn it if you believe you have a right to it. The measure of my sentiments can not be prescribed to me, nor the aim of my feelings determined. We and the world have only one relation toward each other, that of usefulness. Yea, I use the world and men." (Pp. 156-157.)
As to promises made and confidence solicited Stirner would not allow a limitation of freedom. He says: "In itself an oath is no more sacred than a lie is contemptible." Stirner opposes the idea of communism. "The community of man creates laws for society. Communism is a communion in equality." Says Stirner, "I prefer to depend on the egotism of men rather than on their compassion." He feels himself swelled into a temporary, transient, puny deity. No man expresses him rightly, no concept defines him; he, the ego, is perfect. Stirner concludes his book: "Owner I am of my own power and I am such only when I know myself as the only one. In the only one even the owner returns into his creative nothingness from which he was born. Any higher being above, be it God or man, detracts from the feeling of my uniqueness and it pales before the sun of this consciousness. If I place my trust in myself, the only one, it will stand upon a transient mortal creator of himself, who feeds upon himself, and I can say,
"Ich hab mein Sach' auf nichts gestellt."
"My trust in nothingness is placed.'"
We call attention to Stirner's book, "The Only One and His Ownhood," not because we are strongly impressed by the profundity of his thought but because we believe that here is a man who ought to be answered, whose world-conception deserves a careful analysis which finally would lead to a justification of society, the state and the ideals of right and truth.