"Right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by force,"[244] "but with the concept the word too loses its meaning."[245] "The people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against blasphemy. Shall I therefore not blaspheme? Is this law to be more to me than an order?"[246] "He who has might 'stands above the law'."[247] "The earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it, belongs to him. This is egoistic right; i. e., it suits me, therefore it is right."[248]
II. Self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law.
Each of us is "unique,"[249] "a world's history for himself,"[250] and, when he "knows himself as unique,"[251] he is a "self-owner."[252] "God and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as God, the nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the Unique."[253] "Away then with every business that is not altogether my business! You think at least the 'good cause' must be my business? What good, what bad? Why, I myself am my business, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. What is divine is God's business, what is human 'Man's.' My business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is not what is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no general business, but is—unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!"[254]
"What a difference between freedom and self-ownership! I am free from what I am rid of; I am owner of what I have in my power."[255] "My freedom becomes complete only when it is my—might; but by this I cease to be a mere freeman and become a self-owner."[256] "Each must say to himself, I am all to myself and I do all for my sake. If it ever became clear to you that God, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from you just as the Christians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen morality."[257] "How one acts only from himself, and asks no questions about anything further, the Christians have made concrete in the idea of 'God.' He acts 'as pleases him'."[258]
"Might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for 'one gets farther with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might 'stands above the law.' How does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? But you have no taste!"[259]
4.—THE STATE
I. Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, just as unconditionally, the legal institution which is called State. Without law the State is not possible. "'Respect for the statutes!' By this cement the whole fabric of the State is held together."[260]
The State as well as the law, then, exists, not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but rather by his counting it sacred, by "our being entangled in the error that it is an I, as which it applies to itself the name of a 'moral, mystical, or political person.' I, who really am I, must pull off this lion's skin of the I from the parading thistle-eater."[261] The same holds good of the State as of the family. "If each one who belongs to the family is to recognize and maintain that family in its permanent existence, then to each the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must be that of family piety, of respect for the ties of blood, whereby every blood-relative becomes hallowed to him. So, also, to every member of the State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is supreme to the State must be supreme to him too."[262] The State is "not only entitled, but compelled, to demand" this.[263]
But the State is not sacred. "The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence 'law', but that of the individual 'crime'."[264] If I do not do what it wishes, "then the State turns against me with all the force of its lion-paws and eagle-talons; for it is the king of beasts, it is lion and eagle."[265] "Even if you do overpower your opponent as a power, it does not follow that you are to him a hallowed authority, unless he is a degenerate. He does not owe you respect, and reverence, even if he will be wary of your might."[266]
Nor is the State favorable to the individual's welfare. "I am the mortal enemy of the State."[267] "The general welfare as such is not my welfare, but only the extremity of self-denial. The general welfare may exult aloud while I must lie like a hushed dog; the State may be in splendor while I starve."[268] "Every State is a despotism, whether the despot be one or many, or whether, as people usually conceive to be the case in a republic, all are masters, i. e. each tyrannizes over the others."[269] "Doubtless the State leaves the individuals as free play as possible, only they must not turn the play to earnest, must not forget it. The State has never any object but to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subject him to something general; it lasts only so long as the individual is not all in all, and is only the clear-cut limitation of me, my limitedness, my slavery."[270]