Hence he does not await his competence from the I sharing of others, and even in the workers' society there arises the misgiving that in an equal partition the strong will be exploited by the weak; he awaits his competence rather from himself, and says now, What I am competent to have, that is my competence. What competence does not the child possess in its smiling, its playing, its screaming! in short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its desire? or do you not hold out to it, as mother, your breast; as father, as much of your possessions as it needs? It compels you, therefore it possesses what you call yours.
If your person is of consequence to me, you pay me with your very existence; if I am concerned only with one of your qualities, then your compliance, perhaps, or your aid, has a value (a money value) for me, and I _purchase_ it.
If you do not know how to give yourself any other than a money value in my estimation, there may arise the case of which history tells us, that Germans, sons of the fatherland, were sold to America. Should those who let themselves be traded in be worth more to the seller? He preferred the cash to this living ware that did not understand how to make itself precious to him. That he discovered nothing more valuable in it was assuredly a defect of his competence; but it takes a rogue to give more than he has. How should he show respect when he did not have it, nay, hardly could have it for such a pack!
You behave egoistically when you respect each other neither as possessors nor as ragamuffins or workers, but as a part of your competence, as "_useful bodies_." Then you will neither give anything to the possessor ("proprietor") for his possessions, nor to him who works, but only to him whom _you require_. The North Americans ask themselves, Do we require a king? and answer, Not a farthing are he and his work worth to us.
If it is said that competition throws every thing open to all, the expression is not accurate, and it is better put thus: competition makes everything purchasable. In _abandoning_[186] it to them, competition leaves it to their appraisal[187] or their estimation, and demands a price[188] for it.
But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to make themselves buyers: they have no money. For money, then, the purchasable things are indeed to be had ("For money everything is to be had!"), but it is exactly money that is lacking. Where is one to get money, this current or circulating property? Know then, you have as much money[189] as you have--might; for you count[190] for as much as you make yourself count for.
One pays not with money, of which there may come a lack, but with his competence, by which alone we are "competent";[191] for one is proprietor only so far as the arm of our power reaches.
Weitling has thought out a new means of payment,--work. But the true means of payment remains, as always, _competence_. With what you have "within your competence" you pay. Therefore think on the enlargement of your competence.
This being admitted, they are nevertheless right on hand again with the motto, "To each according to his competence!" Who is to _give_ to me according to my competence? Society? Then I should have to put up with its estimation. Rather, I shall _take_ according to my competence.
"All belongs to all!" This proposition springs from the same unsubstantial theory. To each belongs only what he is competent for. If I say, The world belongs to me, properly that too is empty talk, which has a meaning only in so far as I respect no alien property. But to me belongs only as much as I am competent for, or have within my competence.
One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from him; one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it.
They raise a mighty uproar over the "wrong of a thousand years" which is being committed by the rich against the poor. As if the rich were to blame for poverty, and the poor were not in like manner responsible for riches! Is there another difference between the two than that of competence and incompetence, of the competent and incompetent? Wherein, pray, does the crime of the rich consist? "In their hardheartedness." But who then have maintained the poor? who have cared for their nourishment? who have given alms, those alms that have even their name from mercy (_eleemosyne_)? Have not the rich been "merciful" at all times? are they not to this day "tender-hearted," as poor-taxes, hospitals, foundations of all sorts, etc., prove?
But all this does not satisfy you! Doubtless, then, they are to _share_ with the poor? Now you are demanding that they shall abolish poverty. Aside from the point that there might be hardly one among you who would act so, and that this one would be a fool for it, do ask yourselves: why should the rich let go their fleeces and give up _themselves_, thereby pursuing the advantage of the poor rather than their own? You, who have your thaler daily, are rich above thousands who live on four groschen. Is it for your interest to share with the thousands, or is it not rather for theirs?-- -- With competition is connected less the intention to do the thing _best_ than the intention to make it as _profitable_, as productive, as possible. Hence people study to get into the civil service (pot-boiling study), study cringing and flattery, routine and "acquaintance with business," work "for appearances." Hence, while it is apparently a matter of doing "good service," in truth only a "good business" and earning of money are looked out for. The job is done only ostensibly for the job's sake, but in fact on account of the gain that it yields. One would indeed prefer not to be censor, but one wants to be--advanced; one would like to judge, administer, etc., according to his best convictions, but one is afraid of transference or even dismissal; one must, above all things,--live.
Thus these goings-on are a fight for _dear life_, and, in gradation upward, for more or less of a "good living."
And yet, withal, their whole round of toil and care brings in for most only "bitter life" and "bitter poverty." All the bitter painstaking for this!
Restless acquisition does not let us take breath, take a calm _enjoyment_: we do not get the comfort of our possessions.
But the organization of labor touches only such labors as others can do for us, _e. g._ slaughtering, tillage, etc.; the rest remain egoistic, because, _e. g._, no one can in your stead elaborate your musical compositions, carry out your projects of painting, etc.; nobody can replace Raphael's labors. The latter are labors of a unique person,[192] which only he is competent to achieve, while the former deserved to be called "human," since what is anybody's _own_ in them is of slight account, and almost "any man" can be trained to it.
Now, as society can regard only labors for the common benefit, _human_ labors, he who does anything _unique_ remains without its care; nay, he may find himself disturbed by its intervention. The unique person will work himself forth out of society all right, but society brings forth no unique person.
Hence it is at any rate helpful that we come to an agreement about _human_ labors, that they may not, as under competition, claim all our time and toil. So far Communism will bear its fruits. For before the dominion of the commonalty even that for which all men are qualified, or can be qualified, was tied up to a few and withheld from the rest: it was a privilege. To the commonalty it looked equitable to leave free all that seemed to exist for every "man." But, because left[193] free, it was yet given to no one, but rather left to each to be got hold of by his _human_ power. By this the mind was turned to the acquisition of the human, which henceforth beckoned to every one; and there arose a movement which one hears so loudly bemoaned under the name of "materialism."
Communism seeks to check its course, spreading the belief that the human is not worth so much discomfort, and, with sensible arrangements, could be gained without the great expense of time and powers which has hitherto seemed requisite.
But for whom is time to be gained? For what does man require more time than is necessary to refresh his wearied powers of labor? Here Communism is silent.
For what? To take comfort in himself as the unique, after he has done his part as man!
In the first joy over being allowed to stretch out their hands toward everything human, people forgot to want anything else; and they competed away vigorously, as if the possession of the human were the goal of all our wishes.
But they have run themselves tired, and are gradually noticing that "possession does not give happiness." Therefore they are thinking of obtaining the necessary by an easier bargain, and spending on it only so much time and toil as its indispensableness exacts. Riches fall in price, and contented poverty, the care-free ragamuffin, becomes the seductive ideal.
Should such human activities, that every one is confident of his capacity for, be highly salaried, and sought for with toil and expenditure of all life-forces? Even in the every-day form of speech, "If I were minister, or even the..., then it should go quite otherwise," that confidence expresses itself,--that one holds himself capable of playing the part of such a dignitary; one does get a perception that to things of this sort there belongs not uniqueness, but only a culture which is attainable, even if not exactly by all, at any rate by many; _i. e._ that for such a thing one need only be an ordinary man.
If we assume that, as _order_ belongs to the essence of the State, so _subordination_ too is founded in its nature, then we see that the subordinates, or those who have received preferment, disproportionately _overcharge_ and _overreach_ those who are put in the lower ranks. But the latter take heart (first from the Socialist standpoint, but certainly with egoistic consciousness later, of which we will therefore at once give their speech some coloring) for the question, By what then is your property secure, you creatures of preferment?--and give themselves the answer, By our refraining from interference! And so by _our_ protection! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and disdain you give to the "common people"; police supervision, and a catechism with the chief sentence "Respect what is _not yours_, what belongs to _others_! respect others, and especially your superiors!" But we reply, "If you want our respect, _buy_ it for a price agreeable to us. We will leave you your property, if you give a due equivalent for this leaving." Really, what equivalent does the general in time of peace give for the many thousands of his yearly income? another for the sheer hundred-thousands and millions yearly? What equivalent do you give for our chewing potatoes and looking calmly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the oysters of us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes of you, then you may go on eating them. Or do you suppose the oysters do not belong to us as much as to you? You will make an outcry over _violence_ if we reach out our hands and help consume them, and you are right. Without violence we do not get them, as you no less have them by doing violence to us.
But take the oysters and have done with it, and let us consider our nearer property, labor; for the other is only possession. We distress ourselves twelve hours in the sweat of our face, and you offer us a few groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. Are you not willing? You fancy that our labor is richly repaid with that wage, while yours on the other hand is worth a wage of many thousands. But, if you did not rate yours so high, and gave us a better chance to realize value from ours, then we might well, if the case demanded it, bring to pass still more important things than you do for the many thousand thalers; and, if you got only such wages as we, you would soon grow more industrious in order to receive more. But, if you render any service that seems to us worth ten and a hundred times more than our own labor, why, then you shall get a hundred times more for it too; we, on the other hand, think also to produce for you things for which you will requite us more highly than with the ordinary day's wages. We shall be willing to get along with each other all right, if only we have first agreed on this,--that neither any longer needs to--_present_ anything to the other. Then we may perhaps actually go so far as to pay even the cripples and sick and old an appropriate price for not parting from us by hunger and want; for, if we want them to live, it is fitting also that we--purchase the fulfilment of our will. I say "purchase," and therefore do not mean a wretched "alms." For their life is the property even of those who cannot work; if we (no matter for what reason) want them not to withdraw this life from us, we can mean to bring this to pass only by purchase; nay, we shall perhaps (maybe because we like to have friendly faces about us) even want a life of comfort for them. In short, we want nothing presented by you, but neither will we present you with anything. For centuries we have handed alms to you from good-hearted--stupidity, have doled out the mite of the poor and given to the masters the things that are--not the masters'; now just open your wallet, for henceforth our ware rises in price quite enormously. We do not want to take from you anything, anything at all, only you are to pay better for what you want to have. What then have you? "I have an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will henceforth attend to your fields only for one thaler a day wages. "Then I'll take another." You won't find any, for we plowmen are no longer doing otherwise, and, if one puts in an appearance who takes less, then let him beware of us. There is the housemaid, she too is now demanding as much, and you will no longer find one below this price. "Why, then it is all over with me." Not so fast! You will doubtless take in as much as we; and, if it should not be so, we will take off so much that you shall have wherewith to live like us. "But I am accustomed to live better." We have nothing against that, but it is not our lookout; if you can clear more, go ahead. Are we to hire out under rates, that you may have a good living? The rich man always puts off the poor with the words, "What does your want concern me? See to it how you make your way through the world; that is _your affair_, not mine." Well, let us let it be our affair, then, and let us not let the means that we have to realize value from ourselves be pilfered from us by the rich. "But you uncultured people really do not need so much." Well, we are taking somewhat more in order that for it we may procure the culture that we perhaps need. "But, if you thus bring down the rich, who is then to support the arts and sciences hereafter?" Oh, well, we must make it up by numbers; we club together, that gives a nice little sum,--besides, you rich men now buy only the most tasteless books and the most lamentable Madonnas or a pair of lively dancer's legs. "O ill-starred equality!" No, my good old sir, nothing of equality. We only want to count for what we are worth, and, if you are worth more, you shall count for more right along. We only want to be _worth our price_, and think to show ourselves worth the price that you will pay.
Is the State likely to be able to awaken so secure a temper and so forceful a self-consciousness in the menial? Can it make man feel himself? nay, may it even do so much as set this goal for itself? Can it want the individual to recognize his value and realize this value from himself? Let us keep the parts of the double question separate, and see first whether the State can bring about such a thing. As the unanimity of the plowmen is required, only this unanimity can bring it to pass, and a State law would be evaded in a thousand ways by competition and in secret. But can the State bear with it? The State cannot possibly bear with people's suffering coercion from another than it; it could not, therefore, admit the self-help of the unanimous plowmen against those who want to engage for lower wages. Suppose, however, that the State made the law, and all the plowmen were in accord with it: could the State bear with it then?
In the isolated case--yes; but the isolated case is more than that, it is a case of _principle_. The question therein is of the whole range of _the ego's self-realization of value from himself_, and therefore also of his self-consciousness _against_ the State. So far the Communists keep company; but, as self-realization of value from self necessarily directs itself against the State, so it does against _society_ too, and therewith reaches out beyond the commune and the communistic--out of egoism.
Communism makes the maxim of the commonalty, that every one is a possessor ("proprietor"), into an irrefragable truth, into a reality, since the anxiety about _obtaining_ now ceases and every one _has_ from the start what he requires. In his labor-force he _has_ his competence, and, if he makes no use of it, that is his fault. The grasping and hounding is at an end, and no competition is left (as so often now) without fruit, because with every stroke of labor an adequate supply of the needful is brought into the house. Now for the first time one is a _real possessor_, because what one has in his labor-force can no longer escape from him as it was continually threatening to do under the system of competition. One is a _care-free_ and assured possessor. And one is this precisely by seeking his competence no longer in a ware, but in his own labor, his competence for labor; and therefore by being a _ragamuffin_, a man of only ideal wealth. _I_, however, cannot content myself with the little that I scrape up by my competence for labor, because my competence does not consist merely in my labor.
By labor I can perform the official functions of a president, a minister, etc.; these offices demand only a general culture,--to wit, such a culture as is generally attainable (for general culture is not merely that which every one has attained, but broadly that which every one can attain, and therefore every special culture, _e. g._ medical, military, philological, of which no "cultivated man" believes that they surpass his powers), or, broadly, only a skill possible to all.
But, even if these offices may vest in every one, yet it is only the individual's unique force, peculiar to him alone, that gives them, so to speak, life and significance. That he does not manage his office like an "ordinary man," but puts in the competence of his uniqueness, this he is not yet paid for when he is paid only in general as an official or a minister. If he has done it so as to earn your thanks, and you wish to retain this thankworthy force of the unique one, you must not pay him like a mere man who performed only what was human, but as one who accomplishes what is unique. Do the like with your labor, do!
There cannot be a general schedule-price fixed for my uniqueness as there can for what I do as man. Only for the latter can a schedule-price be set.
Go right on, then, setting up a general appraisal for human labors, but do not deprive your uniqueness of its desert.
_Human_ or _general_ needs can be satisfied through society; for satisfaction of _unique_ needs you must do some seeking. A friend and a friendly service, or even an individual's service, society cannot procure you. And yet you will every moment be in need of such a service, and on the slightest occasions require somebody who is helpful to you. Therefore do not rely on society, but see to it that you have the wherewithal to--purchase the fulfiment of your wishes.
Whether money is to be retained among egoists?--To the old stamp an inherited possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid with it, it is ruined: if you do nothing for this money, it loses all power. Cancel the _inheritance_, and you have broken off the executor's court-seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether it be already inherited or await its heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be sealed up from you? why do you respect the seal?
But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the ware in taking from it the hereditary stamp? Now, money is a ware, and an essential _means_ or competence. For it protects against the ossification of resources, keeps them in flux and brings to pass their exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, go ahead; yet it will be a "money" again. It is not the money that does you damage, but your incompetence to take it. Let your competence take effect, collect yourselves, and there will be no lack of money--of your money, the money of _your_ stamp. But working I do not call "letting your competence take effect." Those who are only "looking for work" and "willing to work hard" are preparing for their own selves the infallible upshot--to be out of work.
Good and bad luck depend on money. It is a power in the _bourgeois_ period for this reason, that it is only wooed on all hands like a girl, indissolubly wedded by nobody. All the romance and chivalry of _wooing_ for a dear object come to life again in competition. Money, an object of longing, is carried off by the bold "knights of industry."[194] He who has luck takes home the bride. The ragamuffin has luck; he takes her into his household, "society," and destroys the virgin. In his house she is no longer bride, but wife; and with her virginity her family name is also lost. As housewife the maiden Money is called "Labor," for "Labor" is her husband's name. She is a possession of her husband's.
To bring this figure to an end, the child of Labor and Money is again a girl, an unwedded one and therefore Money, but with the certain descent from Labor, her father. The form of the face, the "effigy," bears another stamp.
Finally, as regards competition once more, it has a continued existence by this very means, that all do not attend to _their affair_ and come to an _understanding_ with each other about it. Bread, _e. g._, is a need of all the inhabitants of a city; therefore they might easily agree on setting up a public bakery. Instead of this, they leave the furnishing of the needful to the competing bakers. Just so meat to the butchers, wine to the wine-dealers, etc.
Abolishing competition is not equivalent to favoring the guild. The difference is this: In the _guild_ baking, etc., is the affair of the guild-brothers; in _competition_, the affair of chance competitors; in the _union_, of those who require baked goods, and therefore my affair, yours, the affair of neither the guildic nor the concessionary baker, but the affair of the _united_.
If _I_ do not trouble myself about _my_ affair, I must be _content_ with what it pleases others to vouchsafe me. To have bread is my affair, my wish and desire, and yet people leave that to the bakers and hope at most to obtain through their wrangling, their getting ahead of each other, their rivalry,--in short, their competition,--an advantage which one could not count on in the case of the guild-brothers who were lodged _entirely_ and _alone_ in the proprietorship of the baking franchise.--What every one requires, every one should also take a hand in procuring and producing; it is _his_ affair, his property, not the property of the guildic or concessionary master.
Let us look back once more. The world belongs to the children of this world, the children of men; it is no longer God's world, but man's. As much as every man can procure of it, let him call his; only the true man, the State, human society or mankind, will look to it that each shall make nothing else his own than what he appropriates as man, _i. e._ in human fashion. Unhuman appropriation is that which is not consented to by man, _i. e._ it is a "criminal" appropriation, as the human, _vice versa_, is a "rightful" one, one acquired in the "way of law."
So they talk since the Revolution.
But my property is not a thing, since this has an existence independent of me; only my might is my own. Not this tree, but my might or control over it, is what is mine.
Now, how is this might perversely expressed? They say I have a _right_ to this tree, or it is my _rightful_ property. So I have _earned_ it by might. That the might must last in order that the tree may also be _held_,--or better, that the might is not a thing existing of itself, but has existence solely in the _mighty ego_, in me the mighty,--is forgotten. Might, like other of my _qualities_ (_e. g._ humanity, majesty, etc.), is exalted to something existing of itself, so that it still exists long after it has ceased to be _my_ might. Thus transformed into a ghost, might is--_right_. This _eternalized_ might is not extinguished even with my death, but is transferred or "bequeathed."
Things now really belong not to me, but to right.
On the other side, this is nothing but a hallucination of vision. For the individual's might becomes permanent and a right only by others joining their might with his. The delusion consists in their believing that they cannot withdraw their might. The same phenomenon over again; might is separated from me. I cannot take back the might that I gave to the possessor. One has "granted power of attorney," has given away his power, has renounced coming to a better mind.
The proprietor can give up his might and his right to a thing by giving the thing away, squandering it, and the like. And _we_ should not be able likewise to let go the might that we lend to him?
The rightful man, the _just_, desires to call nothing his own that he does not have "rightly" or have the right to, and therefore only _legitimate property_.
Now, who is to be judge, and adjudge his right to him? At last, surely, Man, who imparts to him the rights of man: then he can say, in an infinitely broader sense than Terence, _humani nihil a me alienum puto_, _i. e._ the _human is my property_. However he may go about it, so long as he occupies this standpoint he cannot get clear of a judge; and in our time the multifarious judges that had been selected have set themselves against each other in two persons at deadly enmity,--to wit, in God and Man. The one party appeal to divine right, the other to human right or the rights of man.
So much is clear, that in neither case does the individual do the entitling himself.
Just pick me out an action to-day that would not be a violation of right! Every moment the rights of man are trampled under foot by one side, while their opponents cannot open their mouth without uttering a blasphemy against divine right. Give an alms, you mock at a right of man, because the relation of beggar and benefactor is an inhuman relation; utter a doubt, you sin against a divine right. Eat dry bread with contentment, you violate the right of man by your equanimity; eat it with discontent, you revile divine right by your repining. There is not one among you who does not commit a crime at every moment; your speeches are crimes, and every hindrance to your freedom of speech is no less a crime. Ye are criminals altogether!
Yet you are so only in that you all stand on the _ground of right_; _i. e._, in that you do not even know, and understand how to value, the fact that you are criminals.
Inviolable or _sacred_ property has grown on this very ground: it is a _juridical concept_.
A dog sees the bone in another's power, and stands off only if it feels itself too weak. But man respects the other's _right_ to his bone. The latter action, therefore, ranks as _human_, the former as _brutal_ or "egoistic."
And as here, so in general, it is called "_human_" when one sees in everything something _spiritual_ (here right), _i. e._ makes everything a ghost and takes his attitude toward it as toward a ghost, which one can indeed scare away at its appearance, but cannot kill. It is human to look at what is individual not as individual, but as a generality.
In nature as such I no longer respect anything, but know myself to be entitled to everything against it; in the tree in that garden, on the other hand, I must respect _alienness_ (they say in one-sided fashion "property"), I must keep my hand off it. This comes to an end only when I can indeed leave that tree to another as I leave my stick, etc., to another, but do not in advance regard it as alien to me, _i. e._ sacred. Rather, I make to myself no _crime_ of felling it if I will, and it remains my property, however long I resign it to others: it is and remains _mine_. In the banker's fortune I as little see anything alien as Napoleon did in the territories of kings: we have no _dread_ of "_conquering_" it, and we look about us also for the means thereto. We strip off from it, therefore, the _spirit_ of _alienness_, of which we had been afraid.
Therefore it is necessary that I do not lay claim to anything more _as man_, but to everything as I, this I; and accordingly to nothing human, but to mine; _i. e._ nothing that pertains to me as man, but--what I will and because I will it.
Rightful, or legitimate, property of another will be only that which _you_ are content to recognize as such. If your content ceases, then this property has lost legitimacy for you, and you will laugh at absolute right to it.
Besides the hitherto discussed property in the limited sense, there is held up to our reverent heart another property against which we are far less "to sin." This property consists in spiritual goods, in the "sanctuary of the inner nature." What a man holds sacred, no other is to gibe at; because, untrue as it may be, and zealously as one may "in loving and modest wise" seek to convince of a true sanctity the man who adheres to it and believes in it, yet _the sacred_ itself is always to be honored in it: the mistaken man does believe in the sacred, even though in an incorrect essence of it, and so his belief in the sacred must at least be respected.
In ruder times than ours it was customary to demand a particular faith, and devotion to a particular sacred essence, and they did not take the gentlest way with those who believed otherwise; since, however, "freedom of belief" spread itself more and more abroad, the "jealous God and sole Lord" gradually melted into a pretty general "supreme being," and it satisfied humane tolerance if only every one revered "something sacred."
Reduces to the human expression, this sacred essence is "man himself" and "the human." With the deceptive semblance as if the human were altogether our own, and free from all the otherworldliness with which that divine is tainted,--yes, as if Man were as much as I or you,--there may arise even the proud fancy that the talk is no longer of a "sacred essence" and that we now feel ourselves everywhere at home and no longer in the uncanny,[195] _i. e._ in the sacred and in sacred awe: in the ecstasy over "Man discovered at last" the egoistic cry of pain passes unheard, and the spook that has become so intimate is taken for our true ego.
But "Humanus is the saint's name" (see Goethe), and the humane is only the most clarified sanctity.
The egoist makes the reverse declaration. For this precise reason, because you hold something sacred, I gibe at you; and, even if I respected everything in you, your sanctuary is precisely what I should not respect.
With these opposed views there must also be assumed a contradictory relation to spiritual goods: the egoist insults them, the religious man (_i. e._ every one who puts his "essence" above himself) must consistently--protect them. But what kind of spiritual goods are to be protected, and what left unprotected, depends entirely on the concept that one forms of the "supreme being"; and he who fears God, _e. g._, has more to shelter than he (the liberal) who fears Man.
In spiritual goods we are (in distinction from the sensuous) injured in a spiritual way, and the sin against them consists in a direct _desecration_, while against the sensuous a purloining or alienation takes place; the goods themselves are robbed of value and of consecration, not merely taken away; the sacred is immediately compromised. With the word "irreverence" or "flippancy" is designated everything that can be committed as _crime_ against spiritual goods, _i. e._ against everything that is sacred for us; and scoffing, reviling, contempt, doubt, and the like, are only different shades of _criminal flippancy_.
That desecration can be practised in the most manifold wise is here to be passed over, and only that desecration is to be preferentially mentioned which threatens the sacred with danger through an _unrestricted press_.
As long as respect is demanded even for one spiritual essence, speech and the press must be enthralled in the name of this essence; for just so long the egoist might "trespass" against it by his _utterances_, from which thing he must be hindered by "due punishment" at least, if one does not prefer to take up the more correct means against it, the preventive use of police authority, _e. g._ censorship.