CHAPTER V

STIRNER'S TEACHING

1.--GENERAL

1. Johann Kaspar Schmidt was born in 1806, at Bayreuth in Bavaria. He studied philosophy and theology at Berlin from 1826 to 1828, at Erlangen from 1828 to 1829. In 1829 he interrupted his studies, made a prolonged tour through Germany, and then lived alternately at Koenigsberg and Kulm till 1832. From 1832 to 1834 he studied at Berlin again; in 1835 he passed his tests there as _Gymnasiallehrer_. He received no government appointment, however, and in 1839 became teacher in a young ladies' seminary in Berlin. He gave up this place in 1844, but continued to live in Berlin, and died there in 1856.

In part under the pseudonym Max Stirner, in part anonymously, Schmidt published a small number of works, mostly of a philosophical nature.

2. Stirner's teaching about law, the State, and property is contained chiefly in his book "_Der Einzige und sein Eigentum_" (1845).

--But here arises the question, Can we speak of such a thing as a "teaching" of Stirner's?

Stirner recognizes no _ought_. "Men are such as they should be--can be. What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they be? Not more, again, than they--can, _i. e._ than they have the ability, the strength, to be."[209] "A man is 'called' to nothing, and has no 'proper business,' no 'function,' as little as a plant or beast has a 'vocation.' He has not a vocation; but he has powers, which express themselves where they are, because their being consists only in their expression, and which can remain idle as little as life, which would no longer be life if it 'stood still' but for a second. Now one might cry to man, 'Use your power.' But this imperative would be given the meaning that it was man's proper business to use his power. It is not so. Rather, every one really does use his power, without first regarding this as his vocation; every one uses in every moment as much power as he possesses."[210]

Nay, Stirner acknowledges no such thing as truth. "Truths are phrases, ways of speaking, words (_logos_); brought into connection, or arranged by ranks and files, they form logic, science, philosophy."[211] "Nor is there a truth,--not right, not liberty, humanity, etc.,--which could subsist before me, and to which I would submit."[212] "If there is a single truth to which man must consecrate his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law, etc.; he is a man in service."[213] "As long as you believe in truth, you do not believe in yourself; you are a--servant, a--religious man. You alone are truth; or rather, you are more than truth, which is nothing at all before you."[214]

If one chose to draw the extreme inference from this, Stirner's book would be only a self-avowal, an expression of thoughts without any claim to general validity; in it Stirner would not be informing us what he thinks to be true, or what in his opinion we ought to do, but only giving us an opportunity to observe the play of his ideas. Stirner did not draw this inference,[215] and one should not let the style of the book, which speaks mostly of Stirner's "I," lead him to think that Stirner did draw it. He calls that man "blinded, who wants to be only 'Man'."[216] He takes the floor against "the erroneous consciousness of not being able to entitle myself to as much as I want."[217] He mocks at our grandmothers' belief in ghosts.[218] He declares that "penalty must make room for satisfaction,"[219] that man "should defend himself against man."[220] And he asserts that "over the door of our time stands not Apollo's 'Know thyself,' but a 'Turn yourself to account!'"[221] So Stirner intends not only to give us information about his inward condition at the time he composed his book, but to tell us what he thinks to be true and what we ought to do; his book is not a mere self-avowal, but a scientific teaching.

3. Stirner does not call his teaching about law, the State, and property "Anarchism." He prefers to use the epithet "anarchic" to designate political liberalism, which he combats.[222]

2.--BASIS

_According to Stirner the supreme law for each one of us is his own welfare._

What does one's own welfare mean? "Let us seek out the enjoyment of life!"[223] "Henceforth the question is not how one can acquire life, but how he can expend it, enjoy it; not how one is to produce in himself the true ego, but how he is to dissolve himself, to live himself out."[224] "If the enjoyment of life is to triumph over the longing or hope for life, it must overcome it in its double significance which Schiller brings out in 'The Ideal and Life'; it must crush spiritual and temporal poverty, abolish the ideal and--the want of daily bread. He who must lay out his life in prolonging life cannot enjoy it, and he who is still seeking his life does not have it, and can as little enjoy it; both are poor."[225]

Our own welfare is our supreme law. Stirner recognizes no duty.[226] "Whether what I think and do is Christian, what do I care? Whether it is human, humane, liberal, or unhuman, inhumane, illiberal, what do I ask about that? If only it aims at what I would have, if only I satisfy myself in it, then fit it with predicates as you like; it is all one to me."[227] "So then my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it 'for God's sake', I do nothing 'for man's sake', but what I do I do 'for my sake'."[228] "Where the world comes in my way--and it comes in my way everywhere--I devour it to appease the hunger of my egoism. You are to me nothing but--my food, just as I also am fed upon and used up by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of utility, of usableness, of use."[229] "I too love men, not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no 'commandment of love'."[230]

3.--LAW

I. _Looking to each one's own welfare, Stirner rejects law, and that without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions._

Law[231] exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his interests, but by his holding it sacred. "Who can ask about 'right' if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people? Is not 'right' a religious concept, _i. e._ something sacred?"[232] "When the Revolution stamped liberty as a 'right' it took refuge in the religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."[233] "I am to revere the sultanic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics, the canon law in Catholic communities, etc. I am to subordinate myself to these laws, I am to count them sacred."[234] "The law is sacred, and he who outrages it is a criminal."[235] "There are no criminals except against something sacred";[236] crime falls when the sacred disappears.[237] Punishment has a meaning only in relation to something sacred.[238] "What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that which was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, you will see, the lives of those who belong to the State must be included)."[239]

But law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's welfare. "Right--is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost."[240] Men have "not recovered the mastery over the thought of 'right,' which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them."[241] "Let the individual man claim ever so many rights; what do I care for his right and his claim?"[242] I do not respect them.--"What you have the might to be you have the right to be. I deduce all right and all entitlement from myself; I am entitled to everything that I have might over. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I can; if I cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as against me."[243]

"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]

"A State never aims to bring about the free activity of individuals, but only that activity which is bound to the State's purpose."[271] "The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its oversight, its police, and counts this hindering as its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation."[272] "I am not allowed to do all the work I can, but only so much as the State permits; I must not turn my thoughts to account, nor my work, nor, in general, anything that is mine."[273] "Pauperism is the valuelessness of Me, the phenomenon of my being unable to turn myself to account. Therefore State and pauperism are one and the same. The State does not let me attain my value, and exists only by my valuelessness; its goal is always to get some benefit out of me, _i. e._ to exploit me, to use me up, even if this using consisted only in my providing a _proles_ (_proletariat_); it wants me to be 'its creature'."[274]

"The State cannot brook man's standing in a direct relation to man; it must come between as a--mediator, it must--intervene. It tears man from man, to put itself as 'spirit' in the middle. The laborers who demand a higher wage are treated as criminals so soon as they want to get it by compulsion. What are they to do? Without compulsion they don't get it, and in compulsion the State sees a self-help, a price fixed by the ego, a real, free turning to account of one's property, which it cannot permit."[275]

II. _Every man's own welfare demands that a social human life solely on the basis of its precepts should take the place of the State._ Stirner calls this sort of social life "the union of egoists."[276]

1. Even after the State is abolished men are to live together in society. "Self-owners will fight for the unity which is their own will, for union."[277] But what is to keep men together in the union?

Not a promise, at any rate, "If I were bound to-day and hereafter to my will of yesterday," my will would "be benumbed. My creature, _viz._, a particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such all my life."[278] "The union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their continuance, so still less do I pledge myself to the union for my future and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and as is really the case with the State and all intellectual authority; but I am and remain more to myself than State, Church, God, and the like, and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."[279]

Rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which each individual has from the union at every moment. If I can "use" my fellow-men, "then I am likely to come to an understanding and unite myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. In this joinder I see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do I retain it."[280]

Hence the union is something quite different from "that society which Communism means to found."[281] "You bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. In the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a 'member in the body of this Lord'. You owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are--possessed by 'social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use out of it. If society is more than you, then it is of more consequence to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and exists even without you; in short, society is sacred, the union is your own; society uses you up, you use up the union."[282]

2. But what form may such a social life take in detail? In reply to his critic, Moses Hess, Stirner gives some examples of unions that already exist.

"Perhaps at this moment children are running together under his window for a comradeship of play; let him look at them, and he will espy merry egoistic unions. Perhaps Hess has a friend or a sweetheart; then he may know how heart joins itself to heart, how two of them unite egoistically in order to have the enjoyment of each other, and how neither 'gets the worst of the bargain.' Perhaps he meets a few pleasant acquaintances on the street and is invited to accompany them into a wine-shop; does he go with them in order to do an act of kindness to them, or does he 'unite' with them because he promises himself enjoyment from it? Do they have to give him their best thanks for his 'self-sacrifice' or do they know that for an hour they formed an 'egoistic union' together?"[283] Stirner even thinks of a "German Union."[284]

5.--PROPERTY

I. _Together with law Stirner necessarily has to reject also, and just as unconditionally, the legal institution of property._ This "lives by grace of the law. It has its guarantee only in the law; it is not a fact, but a fiction, a thought. This is law-property, legal property, warranted property. It is mine not by me, but by--law."[285]

Property in this sense, as well as the law and the State, is based not on the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his welfare, but on his counting it sacred. "Property in the civil sense means sacred property, in such a way that I must respect your property. 'Have respect for property!' Therefore the political liberals would like every one to have his bit of property, and have in part brought about an incredible parcellation by their efforts in this direction. Every one must have his bone, on which he may find something to bite."[286]

But property is not sacred. "I do not step timidly back from your property, be you one or many, but look upon it always as my property, in which I have no need to 'respect' anything. Now do the like with what you call my property!"[287]

Nor is property favorable to the individual's welfare. "Property, as the civic liberals understand it, is untenable, because the civic proprietor is really nothing but a propertyless man, a man everywhere excluded. Instead of the world's belonging to him, as it might, there belongs to him not even the paltry point on which he turns around."[288]

II. _Every one's own welfare commands that a distribution of commodities based solely on its precepts should take the place of property._ When Stirner designates as "property" the share of commodities assigned to the individual by these precepts, it is in the improper sense in which he constantly uses the word property: in the proper sense only a share of commodities assigned by law can be called property.[289]

Now, according to the decrees of his own welfare, every man should have all that he is powerful enough to obtain.

"What they are not competent to tear from me the power over, that remains my property: all right, then let power decide about property, and I will expect everything from my power! Alien power, power that I leave to another, makes me a slave; then let own power make me an owner."[290] "To what property am I entitled? To any to which I--empower myself. I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's power, plenary power, empowerment."[291] "What I am competent to have is my 'competence.'"[292] "The sick, children, the aged, are still competent for a great deal; _e. g._ to receive their living instead of taking it. If they are competent to control you to the extent of having you desire their continued existence, then they have a power over you."[293] "What competence the child possesses in its smile, its play, its crying,--in short, in its mere existence! Are you capable of resisting its demand? or do you not hold out to it, as a mother, your breast,--as a father, so much of your belongings as it needs? It puts you under constraint, and therefore possesses what you call yours."[294]

"Property, therefore, should not and cannot be done away with; rather, it must be torn from ghostly hands and become my property; then will the erroneous consciousness that I cannot entitle myself to as much as I want vanish.--'But what cannot a man want?' Well, he who wants much, and knows how to get it, has in all times taken it to him, as Napoleon did the continent, and the French Algeria. Therefore the only point is just that the respectful 'lower classes' should at length learn to take to themselves what they want. If they reach their hands too far for you, why, defend yourselves."[295] "What 'man' wants does not by any means furnish a scale for me and my needs; for I may have a use for more, or for less. Rather, I must have as much as I am competent to appropriate to myself."[296]

2. "In this matter, as well as in others, unions will multiply the individual's means and make secure his assailed property."[297] "When it is our will no longer to leave the land to the land-owners, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves for this purpose; we form a union, a _societe_, which makes itself owner; if we are successful, they cease to be land-owners. And, as we chase them out from land and soil, so we can also from many another property, to make it our own, the property of the--conquerors. The conquerors form a society, which one may conceive of as so great that by degrees it embraces all mankind; but so-called mankind is also, as such, only a thought (ghost); its reality is the individuals. And these individuals as a collective mass will deal not less arbitrarily with land and soil than does an isolated individual."[298]

"What all want to have a share in will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone; it is made a common possession. As a common possession every one has a share in it, and this share is his property. Just so, even in our old relations, a house which belongs to five heirs is their common possession; but the fifth part of the proceeds is each one's property. The property which for the present is still withheld from us can be better made use of when it is in the hands of us all. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery."[299]

6.--REALIZATION

_According to Stirner the change which every one's own welfare requires is to come about in this way,--that men in sufficient number first undergo an inward change and recognize their own welfare as their highest law, and that these men then bring to pass by force the outward change also: to wit, the abrogation of law, State, and property, and the introduction of the new condition._

I. The first and most important thing is the inward change of men.

"Revolution and insurrection must not be regarded as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the existing condition or state, the State or society, and so is a political or social act; the latter has indeed a transformation of conditions as its inevitable consequence, but starts not from this but from men's discontent with themselves, is not a lifting of shields but a lifting of individuals, a coming up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new arrangements: the Insurrection leads to no longer having ourselves arranged but arranging ourselves, and sets no brilliant hope on 'institutions.' It is not a fight against the existing order, since, if it prospers, the existing order collapses of itself; it is only a working my way out of the existing order. If I leave the existing order, it is dead and passes into decay. Now, since my purpose is not the upsetting of an existing order but the lifting of myself above it, my aim and act are not political or social, but, as directed upon myself and my ownness alone, egoistic."[300]

Why was the founder of Christianity "not a revolutionist, not a demagogue as the Jews would have liked to see him; why was he not a Liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of _conditions_, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist, like Caesar for instance, but an insurgent; not an overturner of the State, but one who straightened _himself_ up. He waged no Liberal or political war against the existing authorities, but wanted to go his own way regardless of these authorities and undisturbed by them."[301]

"Everything sacred is a bond, a fetter. Everything sacred will be, must be, perverted by perverters of law; therefore our present time has such perverters by the quantity in all spheres. They are preparing for the break of the law, for lawlessness."[302] "Regard yourself as more powerful than they allege you to be, and you have more power; regard yourself as more, and you are more."[303] "The poor become free and proprietors only when they--'rise'."[304] "Only from egoism can the lower classes get help, and this help they must give to themselves and--will give to themselves. If they do not let themselves be constrained into fear, they are a power."[305]

II. Furthermore, in order to bring about the "transformation of conditions"[306] and put the new condition in the place of law, State, and property, violent insurrection against the condition that has hitherto existed is requisite.

1. "The State can be overcome only by a violent arbitrariness."[307] "The individual's violence [_Gewalt_] is called crime [_Verbrechen_], and only by crime does he break [_brechen_] the State's authority [_Gewalt_] when he opines that the State is not above him, but he above the State."[308] "Here too the result is that the thinkers' combat against the government is wrong, _viz._ in impotence, so far as it cannot bring into the field anything but thoughts against a personal power (the egoistic power stops the mouths of the thinkers). The theoretical combat cannot complete the victory, and the sacred power of thought succumbs to the might of egoism. It is only the egoistic combat, the combat of egoists on both sides, that clears up everything."[309]

"The property question cannot be solved so gently as the Socialists, even the Communists, dream. It is solved only by the war of all against all."[310] "Let me then retract the might which I have conceded to others out of ignorance regarding the strength of my own might! Let me say to myself, 'Whatever my might reaches to is my property,' and then claim as property all that I feel myself strong enough to attain; and let me make my real property extend as far as I entitle (_i. e._ empower) myself to take."[311] "In order to extirpate the unpossessing rabble, egoism does not say, 'Wait and see what the Board of Equity will--donate to you in the name of the collectivity', but 'Put your hand to it and take what you need!'"[312]

In this combat Stirner agrees to all methods. "I will not draw back with a shudder from any act because there dwells in it a spirit of godlessness, immorality, wrongfulness, as little as St. Boniface was disposed to abstain from chopping down the heathens' sacred oak on account of religious scruples."[313] "The power over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves, this too I call--mine."[314] "The life of the individual man I rate only at what it is worth. His goods, the material and the spiritual alike, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor to the extent of my--might."[315]

2. Stirner depicts for us a single event in this violent transformation of conditions. He assumes that certain men come to realize that they occupy a disproportionately unfavorable position in the State as compared with others who receive the preference.

"Those who are in the unfavorable position take courage to ask the question, 'By what, then, is your property secure, you favored ones?' and give themselves the answer, 'By our refraining from interference! By our protection, therefore! And what do you give us for it? Kicks and contempt you give the "common people"; police oversight, and a catechism with the chief sentence "Respect what is not yours, what belongs to others! respect others, and especially superiors!" But we reply, "If you want our respect, buy it for a price that shall be acceptable to us." We will leave you your property, if you pay duly for this leaving. With what, indeed, does the general in time of peace pay for the many thousands of his yearly income? or Another for the sheer hundred-thousands and millions? With what do you pay us for chewing potatoes and looking quietly on while you swallow oysters? Only buy the oysters from us as dear as we have to buy the potatoes from you, and 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 about violence if we take hold and help eat 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 done with it, and let us come to what is in a closer way our property (for this other is only possession)--to labor. We toil twelve hours in the sweat of our foreheads, and you offer us a few groschen for it. Then take the like for your labor too. We will come to terms all right if only we have first agreed on the point that neither any longer needs to--donate anything to the other. For centuries we have offered you alms in our kindly--stupidity, have given the mite of the poor and rendered to the masters what is--not the masters'; now just open your bags, for henceforth there is a tremendous rise in the price of our ware. We will take nothing away from you, nothing at all, only you shall pay better for what you want to have. What have you then? "I have an estate of a thousand acres." And I am your plowman, and will hereafter do your plowing only for a thaler a day wages. "Then I'll get another." You will not find one, for we plowmen are no longer doing anything different, and if one presents himself who takes less, let him beware of us.'"[316]

FOOTNOTES:

[209] Stirner p. 439. [The page-numbers of Stirner's first edition, here cited, agree almost exactly with those of the English translation under the title "The Ego and His Own." Any passage quoted here will in general be found in the English translation either on the page whose number is given or on the preceding page; for the early pages, subtract two or three from the number.]

[210] _Ib._ pp. 435-6.

[211] _Ib._ p. 465.

[212] _Ib._ p. 464.

[213] _Ib._ p. 466.

[214] Stirner p. 473.

[215] No more do his adherents, _e. g._ Mackay, "Stirner" pp. 164-5.

[216] Stirner p. 322.

[217] _Ib._ p. 343.

[218] _Ib._ p. 45.

[219] _Ib._ p. 318.

[220] _Ib._ p. 318.

[221] _Ib._ p. 420.

[222] _Ib._ pp. 189-90.

[223] Stirner p. 427.

[224] _Ib._ p. 428.

[225] _Ib._ p. 429.

[226] _Ib._ p. 258.

[227] _Ib._ p. 478.

[228] _Ib._ p. 426.

[229] Stirner p. 395.

[230] _Ib._ p. 387.

[231] [To understand some of the following citations it is necessary to remember that in German "law" (in the sense of common law, or including this) and "right" are one and the same word.--While it is probably not fair to say that these assaults of Stirner are directed only against some laws, it does seem fair to say that they deny to the laws only some sorts of validity. We have very little material for compiling the constructive side of Stirner's teaching, for he avoided specifying what things the Egoists or their unions were to do in his future social order; he said explicitly that the only way to know what a slave will do when he breaks his fetters is to wait and see. But, while he may nowhere have stated a law which is to obtain in the good time coming, neither has he said anything which authorizes us to declare that none of his unions will ever make laws on such a basis as (for instance) the rules of the Stock Exchange. On page 114 below is quoted a passage where he distinctly and approvingly contemplates the possibility that a union of his followers may fix a minimum wage, and may threaten violence to any person who consents to work below the scale. This would be law, and might easily be the germ of a State. On pages 108 and 109 are quoted passages which strongly suggest that the Egoistic union would undertake to defend its member against all interference with his possession of certain goods; this would be both law and property.]

[232] Stirner p. 247.

[233] Stirner p. 248.

[234] _Ib._ p. 246.

[235] _Ib._ p. 314.

[236] _Ib._ p. 268.

[237] _Ib._ p. 317.

[238] _Ib._ pp. 317, 316.

[239] _Ib._ pp. 265-6.

[240] _Ib._ p. 276.

[241] _Ib._ p. 270.

[242] _Ib._ pp. 326-7.

[243] _Ib._ pp. 248-9.

[244] Stirner p. 275.

[245] _Ib._ p. 275.

[246] _Ib._ pp. 259, 256.

[247] _Ib._ p. 220.

[248] _Ib._ p. 251. [The German idiom for "it suits me" is "it is right to me"].

[249] _Ib._ p. 8.

[250] _Ib._ p. 490.

[251] _Ib._ p. 491.

[252] _Ib._ p. 491.

[253] _Ib._ p. 7.

[254] Stirner p. 8.

[255] _Ib._ p. 207.

[256] _Ib._ p. 219.

[257] _Ib._ p. 214.

[258] _Ib._ p. 212.

[259] _Ib._ p. 220.

[260] Stirner p. 314.

[261] _Ib._ p. 295.

[262] _Ib._ pp. 231-2.

[263] _Ib._ p. 231.

[264] _Ib._ p. 259.

[265] _Ib._ p. 337.

[266] Stirner p. 258.

[267] _Ib._ p. 339.

[268] _Ib._ p. 280.

[269] _Ib._ p. 257.

[270] _Ib._ p. 298.

[271] _Ib._ p. 298.

[272] _Ib._ p. 299.

[273] Stirner p. 298.

[274] _Ib._ p. 336.

[275] _Ib._ pp. 337-8.

[276] _Ib._ p. 235; Stirner "_Vierteljahrsschrift_" p. 192.

[277] Stirner p. 304.

[278] Stirner p. 258.

[279] _Ib._ p 411.

[280] _Ib._ p. 416.

[281] _Ib._ p. 411.

[282] Stirner pp. 417-18.

[283] Stirner "_Vierteljahrsschrift_" pp. 193-4.

[284] Stirner p. 305.

[285] _Ib._ p. 332.

[286] _Ib._ pp. 327-8.

[287] _Ib._ pp. 328, 326.

[288] Stirner pp. 328-9.

[289] Zenker fails to recognize this when he asserts (p. 80) that Stirner demands property based on the right of occupation

[290] Stirner p. 340.

[291] _Ib._ p. 339.

[292] _Ib._ p. 351.

[293] Stirner p. 351.

[294] _Ib._ pp. 351-2.

[295] _Ib._ pp. 343-4.

[296] _Ib._ p. 349.

[297] _Ib._ p. 342.

[298] Stirner pp. 329-30. [See footnote on page 97.]

[299] _Ib._ p. 330.

[300] Stirner pp. 421-2.

[301] Stirner p. 423.

[302] _Ib._ p. 284.

[303] _Ib._ p. 483.

[304] _Ib._ p. 344.

[305] _Ib._ p. 343.

[306] _Ib._ p. 422.

[307] _Ib._ p. 199.

[308] _Ib._ 259.

[309] Stirner pp. 198-9.

[310] _Ib._ p. 344. [But Stirner does not mean that all are to fight against all; they are merely to declare themselves no longer bound by the obligations of peace, and then those who are able to agree with each other can at once make terms to suit themselves.]

[311] _Ib._ p. 340.

[312] _Ib._ p. 341.

[313] Stirner p. 479.

[314] _Ib._ p. 424.

[315] _Ib._ pp. 326-7.

[316] Stirner pp. 359-60.