1. The State belongs to a low stage of evolution.
"Man takes the first step from his bestial existence to a human existence by religion; but so long as he remains religious he will never reach his goal; for every religion condemns him to absurdity, guides him into a wrong course, and makes him seek the divine in place of the human."[353] "All religions, with their gods, demigods, and prophets, their Messiahs and saints, are products of the credulous fancy of men who had not yet come to the full development and entire possession of their intellectual powers."[354] This holds good also, and particularly, of Christianity: it is "the complete inversion of common-sense and reason."[355]
The State is a product of religion. "In all lands it is born of a marriage of violence, robbery, spoliation,—in short, of war and conquest,—with the gods whom the religious enthusiasm of the nations had gradually created."[356] "He who speaks of revelation speaks thereby of revealers enlightened by God, of Messiahs, prophets, priests, and lawgivers; and, if once these are recognized on earth as representatives of the Deity, as sacred teachers of mankind chosen by God himself, then of course they have unlimited authority. All men owe them blind obedience; for no human reason, no human justice, is valid against the divine reason and justice. As slaves of God, men must be also slaves of the Church, and of the State so far as the Church hallows the State."[357]
"No State is without religion, and none can be without religion. Take the freest States in the world,—for instance, the United States of America or the Swiss Confederacy,—and see what an important part divine providence plays in all public utterances there."[358] "It is not without good reason that governments hold the belief in God to be an essential condition of their power."[359] "There is a class of people who, even if they do not believe, must necessarily act as if they believed. This class embraces all mankind's tormentors, oppressors, and exploiters. Priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, financiers, office-holders of all sorts; policemen, gendarmes, jailers, and executioners; capitalists, usurers, heads of business, and house-owners; lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades,—all of them, down to the smallest grocer, will always repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that, if there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him; 'for must not the populace have its religion?' It is the very safety-valve."[360]
2. The characteristics of the State correspond to the low stage of evolution to which it belongs.
The State enslaves the governed. "The State is force; nay, it is the silly parading of force. It does not propose to win love or to make converts; if it puts its finger into anything, it does so only in an unfriendly way; for its essence consists not in persuasion, but in command and compulsion. However much pains it may take, it cannot conceal the fact that it is the legal maimer of our will, the constant negation of our liberty. Even when it commands the good, it makes this valueless by commanding it; for every command slaps liberty in the face; as soon as the good is commanded, it is transformed into the evil in the eyes of true (that is, human, by no means divine) morality, of the dignity of man, of liberty; for man's liberty, morality, and dignity consist precisely in doing the good not because he is commanded to but because he recognizes it, wills it, and loves it."[361]
At the same time the State depraves those who govern. "It is characteristic of privilege, and of every privileged position, that they poison the minds and hearts of men. He who is politically or economically privileged has his mind and heart depraved. This is a law of social life, which admits of no exceptions and is applicable to entire nations as well as to classes, corporations, and individuals. It is the law of equality, the foremost of the conditions of liberty and humanity."[362]
"Powerful States can maintain themselves only by crime, little States are virtuous only from weakness."[363] "We abhor monarchy with all our hearts; but at the same time we are convinced that a great republic too, with army, bureaucracy, and political centralization, will make a business of conquest without and oppression within, and will be incapable of guaranteeing happiness and liberty to its subjects even if it calls them citizens."[364] "Even in the purest democracies, such as the United States and Switzerland, a privileged minority faces the vast enslaved majority."[365]
3. But the stage of mankind's evolution to which the State belongs will soon be left behind.