The Philosophy of Egoism

I

Мы стремимся к пониманию фактов для руководства в действии, для избежания ошибок и страданий, а также для отставки неизбежного. Это утверждение может охватывать главные цели человечества в интеллектуальном обсуждении, игнорируя теперь то, что является просто учебным упражнением. Я не поддерживаю аргумент в стиле дебатационной школы, просто чтобы обострить остроумие. Искренность слишком драгоценна, чтобы быть запятнанной практикой которой легко генерирует злу обстоятельства, чтобы он не прижимал себя на непримиримые предрассудки. Следовательно, если дублирование имеет свое использование, не нужно страх того, что она не будет развиваться без согласованных усилий для тех, кто ищет интеллектуального света.

Я поместил отставку в последнюю очередь, хотя это может быть первым значением для некоторых людей. Я считаю, что жизненные силы достаточно сильны в большинстве моих читателей, чтобы источать побуждение к действию, которое должно перемещать вещи, при либеральной симпатии, которая будет передавать другим любым обнаруженным средствам для достижения условий большей гармонии.

Разве это не факт, что существует значительное количество желающих, и в то же время и сложные серии взаимных повреждений, практикуемых человечеством, например, не обнаружены ни в каком другом виде на Земле? Тогда, можем ли мы спросить, каковы причины зла в обществе, могут ли они быть обобщенными, и какова природа или принцип эффективного средства правовой защиты? Если теперь слова Laissez Faire встречаются с читателем, он легко помнит, что все животные, кроме человека, практикуют в соответствии с этим принципом. Мы слышим о фанатизме среди них, о борьбе с видом, за исключением защиты их лиц и имущества или по вопросу соперничества между мужчинами? Но что мы читаем в истории человечества, кроме проблем, войн, преследований и катастроф, и все это связано с определением человечества, чтобы вмешиваться в действия друг друга, мысли и чувства с целью создания людей. лучше и вести себя лучше, как задумано?

Богословский либерал никогда не устал подтвердить, что величайшие жестокости совершены фанатиками, действующими искренне за религиозные права, как они понимали это; Тем не менее, среди богословских либералов можно найти запретителей и налогообложения, проявляющих святой ужас мужчины или женщины, которые просто хотят быть не говоря уже о том, что он или она позволяет другим в одиночку, и кто отказывается присоединиться к любой схеме или принуждению. Они настаивают на том, что он не может пользоваться такой свободой без ущерба для общества, и их гнев поднимается при мышлении, что он нечувствителен к моральному принципу, поскольку они рассматривают вопрос. Они фанатики не знают.

Но есть ли такие люди, как я упоминал, кто практикует правило laissez faire ? Конечно, есть. (Эти слова французские и означают «пусть они сделают» или «пусть другие люди в одиночестве, насколько вы можете».) Правильно понято и проводится в политологии, как и Proudhon, рациональная система анархии развивается из девиза Полем Анархия в его строгом и правильном философском смысле означает «нет тирании» - в целом регулирование бизнеса по добровольному и взаимному контракту.

С некоторыми читателями восприятие этих отношений в отношении религиозных убеждений и политических институтов, и это сравнение человеческой непереносимости с лучшей привычкой других видов, на что и для их собственного бизнеса, будет предложить фундаментальную мысль, к которой я приду. Сейчас мы копаем для нижних фактов; Не пытаясь изобретать какое -либо искусственное правило, но чтобы найти полезную реальность в природе, если там есть что -нибудь для нас, и найти в сети нормальных действий во всех случаях, оставив после обсуждения, если бы целесообразно, была ли какая -либо искусственная замена или нет. возможно или похвально.

Теперь не моя цель - предположить, что мужчины должны были схривать после любого другого вида животных. Мы находим другого Животные действуют естественным образом, ищут своего же блага, идя каждый по -своему и позволяя друг другу в одиночку, за исключением определенных условий, которые вызвали мгновенный конфликт индивидуальных интересов. Мы находим человеческую жизнь, полную искусственности, извращения и страданий, большая часть которой может быть непосредственно прослежена до вмешательства, худшее из этого вмешательства не имеет шансов на увековечение, за исключением определенной веры в ее социальную необходимость, из -за чего вера возникает или переплетается с Веги в отношении деталей поведения, например, в том, что распространение человеческого вида не произойдет в хорошей форме, если не будет официально контролировать, и т. Д. Привлечение таких сравнений, вывод, по -видимому, должен стать естественным, не в том смысле, чтобы отказаться от искусства и материального комфорта жизни, а в обработке людей видами другими и в их коллективном действии.

Я могу здесь ожидать возражение. Кто -то спросит, притворяюсь ли я, что эгоизм означает то же самое, что и laissez faire . На это я говорю «нет», но распространенность эгоизма уменьшит вмешательство, даже из -за невежественных, до размеров их более неоспоримого интереса к делам других, устраняя каждый мотив фанатичного персонажа. Инвазивные события эгоизма, которые больше не подкрепляются силой множества под заклинанием личного магнетизма, вероятно, не будут очень трудно иметь дело; Затем из -за отсутствия успеха такие разработки будут ослаблены или заброшены в виде. Таким образом, эгоизм, очевидно, является семенем политики и привычки общей терпимости. И если бдительность будет цена Либерти, которая будет отрицать, что в эгоистических пределах тенденция в испаривании, неэгоистические философы придаст терпимость к облачному банк-фонду настроений и попытки возобновить с прекрасными словами восхвалы можно убедить отказаться от любого преимущества, которое они могут воспользоваться другими. Как и проповедники, которые изображают удовольствие от греха и призывают людей воздерживаться от этого, их попытки неизбежно бесполезны.

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Пришло время удовлетворить спрос на определение эгоизма. Словарии должны быть прибегнуты для объяснения значений большинства слов, но в любой науке, искусстве или философии есть некоторые ведущие термины, понятые более точным, чем общее представление или масса почти связанных значений, приведенных в словаре под одним срок. Словарь похож на карту мира, которая показывает, где страна связана со всеми другими странами. Определение словаря просто объективно, не тесно аналитическое. Его язык популярен, как и в «Черно -белом» как цвета. Все это достаточно хорошо. Людям нужна информация, которая будет верной для выступлений, для практических целей и нуждается в такой широкой степени в умеренном компасе, что они рады получить краткие объяснения или даже намеки на значения, подготовленные мужчинами, квалифицированными в классификации лингвистических ротов. Следовательно, однако, они иногда считают популярные определения как хорошие, но не лучше, чем определять сыр как сгущенное молоко. Так называемые синонимы имеют разные оттенки значения, но споры легко уступают искушению принять идентичный импорт в двух терминах, злой коннотации, который придерживается другого; И наоборот, слушатель обычно может немедленно понять, является ли оратор, если искренен, дружелюбен или враждебен по отношению к объекту, просто отметив термины, выбранные при ссылке на его существование. Мы редко находим много предложений вместе без морального суждения. Такие суждения, с эгоистической точки зрения, могут быть проиллюстрированы, представляя нищего, превозносившей благотворительность.

Определение специалиста, с другой стороны, похоже на карту, которая показывает границу между двумя странами, но не пытается показать ничего другого. К земле навигатора находится под его сосудом, который не является водой. Для политического экономиста озеро и ложе угля являются одинаково землей. Два специалиста обеспокоены двумя разными сериями идей, поэтому с различными аспектами объекта.

Лучшее, что можно сказать об определении эгоизма Вебстера, - это то, что читатель, который уже уже Понимает этот термин, поскольку он использовался в практической философии более сорока лет, может едва признавать эту идею как один из них, который является алмазом в пыле. «Привычка ... судить обо всем по его отношению к интересам или важности» - это ближайший подход Вебстера. В каком смысле человек и его интересы могут быть иными, кроме важных для человека? Только в том смысле, что для того, чтобы отвергнуть эгоизм, его интересы не следует понимать как включение его интеллектуальных и сентиментальных интересов в объектах, включая других лиц. Но эгоист избавится от свободы, чтобы узнать, как кто -то может быть вовлечен в оценку чего -либо, не заинтересовавшись этим. Давайте предположим, что новый производитель словаря вставляет в свою работу такого абзаца:

Эгоизм, н. Принцип себя; доктрина индивидуальности; личный интерес; эгоизм.

Затем я комментирую, сказав, что «доктрина индивидуальности» является более счастливым выражением, чем отдельное слово индивидуальность, поскольку последнее обычно используется для передачи идеи отличительных, заметных особенностей характера. Самообеспечения обычно ограничиваются денежным интересом и тому подобным, игнорируя то, что является взаимным в удовольствиях общения и что дает интеллектуальное удовлетворение. Эгоизм обычно используется для обозначения самоотверженности в игнорировании чувств других. Все эти слова указывают на эгоизм, но они указывают на это с особыми определениями. В слове эгоистично заканчивает, арестовывает внимание. Обычно это уничижительно; Либо связано с плохими словами, либо придает им презрительный оттенок, связанный с плохими словами, либо дает им презрительный оттенок смысла, как намоточный, тревожный, глупый, моряшник, книжный, монахие, папе. Следовательно, когда мужчина действует определенным образом, вызывая отвращение к другим людям, они объявляют его действия эгоистичными, - не просто проявлением себя, но и то, что они направляют катирование, добавляя прекращение, выражающее отвращение и презрение. Лингвистический инстинкт кажется правильным в этой степени, однако неверным может быть популярным суждением относительно определенных действий, которые, таким образом, стигматизируются. За эту мысль некоторые писатели выложили все популярное суждение, выраженное в упреке эгоизма, на счет оппозиции принципу себя. Это, безусловно, много. Конечно, это эльсолизм, которые протестуют, и эгоизм, который больше протестует против эгоизма других и против принципа себя в других. Эгоизм утверждает, что его пастбище будет более зеленым и богаче по пропорции, поскольку другие, в частности, дадут желания проповеди бескорыстия и самооплаты, однако, в полном смысле, очевидно, безумие, в то время как бескорыстием может быть только эелвизм без каких-либо особен рассчитывать, чтобы пробудить антипатию других людей (то есть о себе). Этот новый анализ, и я не притворяюсь, что пользователи слова «бескорыстное», как правило, осознают какую-либо силу в прекращении, к которой может применяться частный префикс, но я имею в виду определения эгоизма и самолюбия Вебстера соответственно для поддержки в отношении Использование.

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Эгоизм - это (1) теория воли как реакции себя на мотив; (2) каждая такая реакция на самом деле. Это двойное определение соответствует обычной широте из -за несовершенства языка, в результате которого идентичный термин охватывает теорию, индивидуальный факт и массу фактов. Я понимаю, что, сделав это фундаментальное определение, я спровоцировал несогласие некоторых читателей, достаточно хорошо основанных на умственной философии, чтобы понять, что при принятии определения они должны быстро подать любые претензии на эготистическую философию в сферу умственных капризов. Они обвинят меня в том, что я попросил вопрос в определении; Но я не могу захотеть установить определение менее фундаментальное, чем то, что будет найдено достаточно полным и точным во всех отношениях рационального мотива и возникающих воле и действия. Когда я сделаю справедливость, чтобы «альтруизм», будет видно, что здесь нет никакого попрошайничества. Альтернативы, которые предлагают «альтруисты», могут соответствовать такими собственными концепциями, которые они хотят терпеть «эгоизм», с которым, однако, у меня нет соучастия.

Под «мотивом» я имею в виду любое влияние - зрение, звук, давление, мысли или другая энергия, - действуя на себя, и тем самым вызывая изменения в себе, под каким процессом он реагирует, чтобы захватить то, что способствует его удовлетворению или отталкивает или избежать того, что производит или угрожает его дискомфорту или нежелательному разрушению.

Если мое определение будет несовершенным, разрыв в том, чтобы упомянуть рефлекторное действие вместе с Уиллом. Я считаю рефлекторное действие, вероятно, связано с видом воли в нервных центрах (и в других пластиковых веществах у самых низких животных). Однако это может быть, рефлекторные действия не подвержены серьезным спорам ни в каком спекулятивном моральном аспекте. Следовательно, упущение, если таковое имеется, касается исчерпывания определения, а не его качества. Но заслуга определения не в его исчерпывании; Это в рисунке линии в нужном месте. Поскольку я не стремлюсь к дальнейшему определению «воли», я просто скажу, что это еще предстоит сделать, чтобы универсализировать, согласно этим взглядам, признание эгоистической теории - это установить все определения добровольной деятельности как реакции, а также сознание в мозге, как рефлекторные действия без него. Любые противоречия против эгоистской теории будут варьироваться вдоль линии добровольного действия; Следовательно, эта часть линии эгоизма - все, что важно, чтобы быть введенным в определение. Но если я пропустил рефлекторное действие в (1) теории, я не игнорировал его в (2) «таких реакции на самом деле» для «такого» относится к себе.

Консультационное удобство, я написал «Я», будь то, по-видимому, значит, все координированные энергии себя или привлечение и отталкивание любого органа или его члена. Вероятно, никогда не было целых энергий какого -либо животного сразу же под стимулом какого -либо мотива или комбинации мотивов; Следовательно, общее выражение является преувеличением.

Курс чтения в истории, философии и науке, особенно стандартной литературе по эволюции, а также личным наблюдениям за животными, включая человеческую жизнь, постепенно убедит любого разумного человека, что все добровольные акты, включая определенный класс по популярности актов, но ошибочно называемые не -Волученные, вызваны мотивами, действующими на чувство и причину эго, и что реакция эго на мотив возникает как наверняка в соответствии с композицией эго и мотивом, как и любая химическая реакция; что единственная трудность для нашего понимания заключается в сложности мотивного влияния (мотивов) и состава субъекта. Чтобы избежать такого вывода, догматисты говорили о мотивах, как будто это было что-то самооригаемое в мыслях. Ясно, что мотив - это любое влияние, которое вызывает движение. Там должна быть причина для каждой мысли, а также для каждого ощущения. Эта причина должна влиять на эго, и эго не может не реагировать, если затронут, - поэтому в соответствии с характером мотива и способом и степени, в которой на эго воздействует в любую из его частей, в противном случае не будет никакой природы, нет непрерывность явлений. Короче говоря, человек во всем находится в области природы; То есть регулярная преемственность, по-видимому, самокорреляционных явлений.

Мотив, посаженный в эго (то есть в «я»), можно сравнить с семенами, посаженным в земле. Предполагая, что он прорастает, обычно наблюдаемый эффект представляет собой восходящий рост стебля и фруктов, аналогичный добровольному действию; Но я определил эгоизм, ссылаясь на пружину такого действия, а не ссылкой на действие как явление, по причине, которая будет понята, следуя аналогии. Помимо роста вверх, существует формирование корня. Стебель некоторых растений может быть неоднократно отрезано, но хотя корень жив, есть вероятность другого роста. Это наиболее общепринято с молодыми растениями. Хотя ментальный анализ должен уменьшить волю к простому абстрактному термину удобства для воображаемой связи между мотивами и действием, и о том, становится ли воля дифференцироваться, чтобы нести более точный и активный смысл, необходимо иметь концепцию, коррелирующую возобновляемую деятельность с прежними те, что, как воспринимается в повторении или последовательно, без посадки новых семян. Это встречается не в простой и знакомой иллюстрации семян, лежащих без прорастания в течение некоторого времени, а в невидимом росте под поверхностью, обеспечивая энергию и решимость к формам, которые неоднократно появляются, а затем принимают различные направления соответственно, когда они сталкиваются с препятствиями.

IV

Помимо людей, мы сталкиваемся с группами по -разному цементированы вместе, контролируя идеи; Такими группами являются семьи, племена, государства и церкви. Более почти группа подходит к условию, сдерживающемуся заинтересованности его членов, не ограничиваясь, осуществляемых по сравнению с другими членами, тем более группа сама по себе приближается к характеру эго. Наблюдение и размышление показывают, что группа, или коллективная, еще никогда не составленная полностью из просвещенных людей, соединяющихся и придерживающихся в группе посредством индивидуального соглашения, всегда не соответствуют приближению, которое можно для группы для независимого эгоистического характера. Семья, племя, государство и церковь доминируют физически или умственно некоторыми людьми. Эти группы, например, они были известны во всей истории, никогда не могли существовать с непропорциональными полномочиями и влиянием их членов, но для преобладающих убеждений, которые уменьшаются до невежества, страха и подчинения в массе членов.

С этим исследованием и соответствующим пособием, о группе можно рассматривать как приблизительно эгоистические по своему характеру. Даже когда индивидуальные члены, семья, нация и церковь, наименьшее, что народы являются совершенно сельскими. Эти составные индивидуальности, так как некоторые авторы, которые они считают их, напрасны, чтобы предоставить исключение из эгоистического принципа. Когда Джек навязывает невежество Джилл или на привычки, приобретенных во время взаимной помощи, и Джилл слишком доверяет, чтобы отследить сделки до фундаментальных элементов и расчетов взаимной выгоды, этот вопрос легко поддается эгоизму Джека, который, конечно, хвалит ее жертвы. Приветствую соблюдение; Но когда семья требует сильной жертвы каждого члена, моралисты в основном привлекают внимание в пользу семьи и необходимости таких жертв, никогда не для явления безжалостной формы эгоизма в семье, навязывая ее члена почувствовали некоторые из преимуществ, а затем уступили претензиям, которые не будут анализировать, или отслеживать фактическое описание потери и прибыли. Таким образом, мужчине говорят, что ему нужна жена, для женщины, что ей нужен муж, и детям, которым они нуждаются в родителях, и будет нуждаться в послушании от своих детей. В силе этих взглядов различные жертвы счастья мужчины и молодежи могут быть осуществлены, в то время как они не задают точно, что им нужно индивидуально и как они могут получить, по крайней мере, затраты на несчастье.

Семья, пытаясь стать эго, рассматривает своих членов как эго, естественно, рассматривает доступную органическую или неорганическую материю. Направляется сырье. Человек имеет возможность уйти в отставку и позволить себе захватить и работать как материал любым другим реальным или потенциальным эго, которые находятся в поисках питания и баз работы. Большее потенциальное эго, «социальный организм», укрепляет потребность в семье с убеждением, которое колеблется без ошибок, но сначала подавляет человека с некоторой общей логикой относительно нашей потребности друг друга, чем с лесть За неудобства похвалы, внешняя и внутренняя, все время проявляя моральный терроризм над каждым разумом, достаточно слабым, чтобы допустить его, и все, чтобы подчинить реальное эго сложному потенциальному, но невозможному эго. Ибо не добро, но само по себе является объектом государства и «социального организма». Государство Прат святости семьи, но относится к нему скудной вежливостью, когда его собственный интерес противоречит интересу семьи. «Социальный организм» усиливает семью против человека и государства против семьи, это уже угрожает семье, и, очевидно, он будет угрожать государству, поскольку это можно выделить для сообщества; То есть «социальный организм» не будет иметь постоянного использования для отдельных стран.

Но, говоря таким образом, мы не должны забывать, что группа или коллективность отражают волю некоторых мастер -ума или, в наибольшей степени воли большого числа под влиянием определенных убеждений. Либо одна или две или три лошади может нарисовать плуг, и его движения будут разными. Сложность движения от трех лошадей, безусловно, является явлением, которое нужно изучать, но способ не игнорировать элементарные мотивы, которые формируют результат по их комбинации; И так и с обществом. Его явления будут в соответствии с условиями информации и обстоятельствами, которые определяют направление личных желаний. Уверенность желания и отвращения как мотивов, основанных на самосохранении, обнаружена в природе органического, отличающегося от неорганического существования. Все желания и антипатии, действия и противодействие, создают так называемую социальную волю, более удобную, чем точную абстракцию. Сделать из этого сущность - это метафизическая фантазия. Единство воли - это знак индивидуальности. Подобие социального «я», кроме людей, очевидно, возникает из -за общего согласия завещания. Они не могли сделать иначе, чем бегать по параллельным линиям наименьшего сопротивления, но интеллектуальная призма разделяет смешанные социальные лучи.

Церковь является важной группой под богословской верой. Примитивный характер его доминирующей идеи находит ее дополнительное выражение в простом и прозрачном эгоизме его непосредственных мотивов. Личный правитель, судья и вознаграждает, существующий в убеждениях, командования и угрожает. Человек жертвует часть своего удовольствия, чтобы умиловать этого хозяина, потому что он боится своей силы. Привычки надзора и расследующий дух терроризируется как личной верой, так и страхом перед другими страхами верующих, бдительных и нетерпимых. Надежда на небеса и страх наказания имеют самый простой эгоизм. Мораль на одном и том же самолете включает в себя страх перед человеком и надежду на пользу от мужчин, усложняется верой в взаимное соблюдение церковных обязанностей, и это как обязанность. Становится метафизическим, несомненно, более сложным анализом, но эта вторичная или переходная стадия ума уже утилизируется в целом философией, так что эволюционист предсказывает проход своих явлений и их замену положительными идеями процессов. Метафизическая стадия сойдет, хотя ее формулы полностью пренебрегают продвинутой оппозицией. Фактически, заклинание и мистифицированный человек освобождается от мужества, чтобы оторваться от цепи фантазий, которая преуспела в цепочке богословского страха. В этом прогрессе пример предполагает и даже демонстративно, и новые привычки позитивного, конкретного исследования дают интеллектуальное мастерство себя и эмоции, которые поработили его.

Подводя итог этой части предмета, пусть те, кто проповедовать антиэгостические доктрины во имя божества, общества или коллективного человечества, расскажут нам о божестве, которое не является эгоистом автократом, или у которых есть поклонники, которые не склоняются к его, потому что они думают, что разумно подчиняться; семьи, которая приносится в жертву отдельным лицам, а не надежды и желает людей; сообщества или политического или социального государства, которое отходит от правления самообороны и самоуправления; Из любого агрегации, притворяясь постоянством, это не для себя и против каждой индивидуальности, которая вычтет из ее силы и влияния; из коллективного человечества, которое не для себя, коллективность, хотя было необходимо препятствовать и подавлять любую индивидуальную свободу, которую коллективность не считала хорошо расположенной в отношении коллектива или, по крайней мере, наверняка будет действовать в соответствии с ее окончательной выгодой. Я - это мысль и цель во всех. Самоубие - это их общая характеристика. Без этого они были бы элементарными веществами, неразрешимой пищи для других ростов.

v

Можно ли включить альтруистику в эгоистические? В соответствии со стандартным определением, Цитируемый и принятый в словаре Вебстера, из эклектичного обзора, ответ, похоже, заключается в том, что он может. Это определение гласит следующее:

Альтруистический, а. [от лат. Альтер, другие]. Уважать других; гордиться или посвященный другими; против эгоистического.

Если бы эгоизм был таким же, как узкий по значению, как egotistic , конечно, на вопрос должен был быть иначе ответить. Но эгоизм несет то же самое с эгоизмом, что и термин эгоизм, используемый с целью в уничижительном слоге, придерживается моего вновь придуманного термина, самооценка; Следовательно, мы установим его, что некоторое конструктивное использование для термина альтруистика не является необходимостью, исключенной из эгоистической философии. Но пусть будет замечено, что претензии, представленные для альтруизма, основанные на невежественном или капризном ограничении значения эгоизма, и прославления доктрины преданности другим, предназначенного для создания привычки самоотдачи, проводятся в нашем режиме мысли о том, чтобы быть пагубным и приписывать, в выводах нашего анализа, дефектным наблюдениям и рассуждениям, а также с тонкой работой эгоизма. Чтобы быть уважающим других в рамках разумного, в первую очередь является разумным эгоизмом, но прежде чем мы уйдем далеко в этом, мы проведем различие между такими другими, которые стоит, и такие, как другие, не присутствуют, чтобы не относиться к бесплодной и суеверной форме Уважайте навязчиво и заявляет о «других», потому что они «другие» - делает достоинство тонущего себя перед тем, что является внешним по отношению к себе. Это принцип поклонения, ментального рабства, суеверия, антиэгостической мысли. Гордиться другими, правильного рода для нас, является одной из форм эгоистического радости. Когда отражение эффективно выполнило свою работу по привычке заботы о других, правильного вида для нас, продолжается до тех пор, пока не будет проверено каким -то встречным опытом; Но пусть привычка станет сильной, пусть пути к уважению не будет охраняться, и настроение поклонения узурпирует место здравого смысла, тогда эго отменено. Он похож на моряк, который установил, сказал и бросил свой руль в фиксированном положении, заснул и вошел в другой ток под изменяющимся ветром.

Некоторые альтруистические писатели напоминают мне о православных богословах. Перед лицом фактов физической науки теолог признает, что все в этом мире продолжается в соответствии с неизменным порядком, но настаивает на том, чтобы дать ему волшебное, призрачное происхождение. Альтруистические писатели также признают, что непосредственный выбор действия каждого человека на каждом шагу в его карьере определяется по причинам с точностью, но они просят о альтруистическом образовании, альтруистическом импульсе, так что в дальнейшем реакцию человека на данный Причины могут быть следующими: он найдет свое удовольствие в социальном обеспечении. Я говорю, что если он находит свое удовольствие в этом, он эгоистически продвигает это; И если эти авторы получают удовольствие от планирования большего социального обеспечения, их первоначальные усилия в этом вопросе эгоистичны. Отражающий человек может понять, что есть место для ошибок относительно того, что такое социальное обеспечение. Доктрина, которая требует, чтобы человек отказался от некоторого удовольствия, не имея осознанной убежденности, что тем самым он делает мудрый индивидуальный выбор, отвечает за определенное немедленное снижение благосостояния в какой -то момент. Кроме того, это может быть иллюзия невежества.

Вера, которая в свое время преобладает в отношении того, что для социального обеспечения, широко разные от тех, кто сбивает их с толку. Как только общество было признано вредным для общества, чтобы научить раба читать и, следовательно, вредно терпеть в рабовладельческом содружестве присутствие свободного человека, который рискнул следовать своей либеральной склонности в этом отношении к разумному рабом достойного характера и поведения. Те, кто уступил этим социальным убеждениям, которое они разделяли, а не делали исключение, следуя личному склонности, уступили тому, что с тех пор обычно произносится как вредная ошибка. В настоящее время преобладают убеждения, что супружеские права человека на человека являются способствующими социальному обеспечению; что дети обязаны верности своим родителям, а отношения к крови своеобразные обязательства друг другу; что граждане должны чувствовать другие связи, которые их собственные заинтересованные расчеты и спонтанная доброжелательность; и поэтому я мог бы продолжить с множеством фантомных заявителей, требовавших обязанности отдельного верующего, предписывая то, что он должен и не должен делать, чтобы быть достойным промоутером социального обеспечения; В то время как в целом никогда не было никакого социального обеспечения, понятого или осознаваемого, но в то же время, преобладающие в прошлом и настоящем веровах, наполнили мир индивидуальными страдами.

Некоторые из альтруистов утверждают, что их идеальный человек мудрее, чем служить убеждениям общества. Он работает на свой собственный идеал со своей собственной причиной для своего гида. Они опасаются, что если он потеряет настоящее чувство долга перед идеалом, он перестал бы трудиться для лучшего состояния вещей. Теперь это с их стороны, когда заявляется, коварная даже бессознательная вызов нам, эгоистам, чтобы показать им, что эгоизм - лучший альтруизм, чем сам альтруизм. Таким образом, этот вопрос представляет, что альтруисты хотят узнать или обсудить, является ли эгоизм «правильным», лучше для общества, и так далее. Возможно, это разрушит все общества, которые существуют в настоящее время, и составит новые моральные миры, что делает возможным новые идеалы; Возможно, Liberality of Mind будет подсказывать все и больше, чем самый разумный и просвещенный альтруист, который ожидает от настроения; Но, как бы то ни было, мы, эгоисты, не спорят о праве эгоизма, которое будет судить. Мы пытаемся объяснить, что эгоизм является главным фактом или органическим существованием - его универсальными характеристиками.

Давайте проанализируем альтруизм со ссылкой на занятия вместо того, чтобы ограничивать все наше внимание людям. Новое знакомство и новая вещь - это одинаковые объекты к эго. Его цель - использовать их. Ментальный калибр эго и его пристрастия, наследственность или привычки в отношении ассоциации, отличия его как человека, демонстрируются в оценке, которую он показывает для некоторых объектов, которые можно использовать как средства для получения или уменьшения для использования, Дальнейшие объекты. Менее отражающий человек находит зерно и потребляет все это, находит древесину и использует все виды для топлива. Человек, более рассуждающий, спасает немного зерна для семян, культивирует его и получает больше, сохраняет твердую древесину для некоторого прочного использования, делает инструменты металла и изучает его будущее благосостояние, планируя средства для концов, а не живя из рук ко рту. Поскольку он, имея дело с людьми или вещами, сохраняет отсрочку или сдачу непосредственного удовольствия, он явно действует с эгоистическим суждением. Даже когда, проверяя серию явлений, он устанавливает правило и допускает привычки к надзору, спасая себя проблемой постоянного повторения проверки, он по -прежнему является тем же эгоистом; Но если он теряет нормальный контроль над своим усилием со ссылкой на объекты и концы, которые сначала были для него, значит для других целей, он становится идеалистическим альтруистом в том смысле, в котором альтруизм отличается от эгоизма. Другими словами, он становится иррациональным или безумным. Поскольку некоторые люди имеют достаточно ум, чтобы быть привычно осторожны с другими в соответствии с их достоинствами, некоторые ремесленники обычно осторожны со своими инструментами и более систематическими и устойчивыми в своих методах работы, чем другие. Утверждает ли это, что они менее селтимии или просто утверждают, что они более теоретические и, с отличной причиной на основе, иллюстрируют закон характера, посредством которого процесс рассуждения был урегулирован, промежуточные связи в некоторых цепях рассуждения , стать знакомым, проходили без самосознания? Самоубие фермера, который выходит на холод, чтобы спасти его запасы, за счет ему только от некоторого дискомфорта, не меньше в количестве, но связан с большим интеллектом, чем тот, кто избегает холода и позволяет его запас страдает. Но фермер, возможно, стал настолько скучным, что он заморозит свои конечности в своем увлечении, чтобы сэкономить годовалую ради нескольких долларов, которые он ему стоит. Любовь к деньгам в разуме явно является эгоистическим проявлением, но когда страсть получает человека, когда деньги становятся его идеалом, Его Бог, мы должны классифицировать его как альтруист. Существует характеристика «преданности другому», независимо от того, что другой не является ни человеком, ни социальным благополучием, ничем иным, как увлекательным золотым теленком или ряд фигур. Мы эгоисты проводим линию различия между эгоистом и преданным. Это то же самое логически, когда человек становится покрытым другим противоположным полом, чтобы потерять суждение и самоконтроль, хотя этот вид очарования обычно излечим по опыту, в то время как безумие скупы не может быть достигнуто. Мужчина или женщина любовью имеют иллюзию, разветвленную контактом с конкретным человеком, который вызвал его; Но в некоторых случаях отсутствие или смерть предотвращают применение лекарства, а в некоторых из этих случаев психическое заболевание на протяжении всей жизни. «Преданность другим», как будет замечено, может быть сделана из текста для других проповедей, чем те, которые исходят от дружелюбных моралистов, которые гордятся предполагаемым превосходством безоговорочно альтруистической привычки мысли.

vi

Человек, у которого есть пятьдесят или сотня костюмов ткани, созданные для его воображаемого использования, женщина, которая держит колонию кошек, человек, который заполняет частный хранилище всевозможными инструментами, которые он никогда не сможет использовать, являются одинаково иллюстрациями подрывных препаратов разума и должен быть классифицирован как альтруисты в той степени, в которой альтруизм вытесняет рациональный эгоизм. Давайте рассмотрим эти случаи и рассмотрим их подробно. Иметь более одного костюма из ткани - это в основном мудрый положение для будущего, следовательно, цель эгоистична, но с того момента, когда аккумулятор теряет из виду концом, для которого его забота и неприятности и становятся рабом Идея тканей, он перестает быть интеллектуальным своим собственным хозяином; Он попадает под доминирование фиксированной идеи и в этом отношении как фанатик. Разница между ним и фанатиком заключается в том, что его промежуточная связь - это просто пустая трата времени и средств, в то время как фиксированная идея фанатика - это то, что она подстрекает к своему рабам к какому -то бессмысленному вмешательству в поведение других людей. Фанатик тоже идеалистический альтруист. Если бы его угнетение других было продолжено в соответствии с эгоистичным расчетом, он не был бы фанатиком.

Женщина, которая держит абсурдное количество кошек, воплощает преувеличение первоначально рационального идеи, что это полезный курс, чтобы иметь одну или две кошки о доме, чтобы удержать мышей. Забота о полезной домашней кошке, не рассуждая по этому вопросу постоянно, так же альтруистично и не более, чем справедливое отношение к добрым соседям или соседям, которые, вероятно, были бы опасны, если бы несправедливо обращались. Уважание для кошек-это тот же вид альтруизма, что и то, что диктует целое самопожертвование для воображаемого блага других людей.

Можно потребоваться множество приборов, но есть рациональный предел скопления инструментов. Вполне чисто, что некоторые мужчины проходят этот предел и делают коллекции таких вещей хобби, а не для выставки и обучения, потому что они с нетерпением будут накапливать дюжину или пятьдесят таких статей, и не для торговли. Эта легкая форма безумия не может быть классифицирована иначе, чем дегенерация от рационального эгоизма, посредством альтруистического процесса до сверхъестественного альтруизма.

Я остановился на этих примерах отчасти потому, что иногда предполагается, что профессорные эгоисты не должны использовать ни предвидение, ни пруденциальное самоотречение. Критики, которые предполагают спорить таким образом, обращаются к человеку к непреднамеренным видам животных и забывают даже белку. Это вполне согласуется с эгоистической философией и практикой, которую следует использовать, и особые удовольствия отказались, и что следует сформировать привычки пруденциального самоотречения, при условии поиска обзора и готового самоконтроля, тем более окружение.

И теперь, проследив дегенерацию ограниченной альтруистической фазы эгоизма (рациональное отсрочке немедленных целей на средствах отсутствия ценности в себе, а только для достижения эгоистических целей), другими словами, рассматривая эгоизм как частично стремление к средствам и средствам и средствам Таким образом, рациональный курс и эгоистически альтруистические привычки как дальнейшую рациональную экономику времени, вместо бесконечного мельчайшего обследования и расчетов последствий, - объяснив с эгоистической точки зрения, как, когда эго в некотором случае намеренно отклонило немедленное. Сравнение себя, он может и иногда не может вернуться к нему из-за недостатков достопримечательностей, памяти и размышлений, я бы спросил, было ли какое-либо лучшее объяснение происхождения безумия самооплаты; Я имею в виду в реальном, экстремальном неэгоистическом смысле слова; жертва без ожидания компенсации человеку. Ограниченная альтруистическая фаза эгоизма неизбежна для сложного существа. Это включает в себя описанный опасность. Он рискует вступить в сверхъестественный альтруизм, так же, как моряк, преднамеренно выходя из земли, чтобы добраться до другой земли, подвергает любого риска, чтобы забыть о объекте, с которым он совершил путешествие или потерять свой компас, и никогда не возвращаться; Или как оратор, входя на цветочный путь иллюстраций, может быть очарован изображениями его модного и совершенно забыть о логическом заключении, которое он намеревался лишь на мгновение отложить, чтобы достичь его с большим эффектом.

Как хобби, скупые привычки и т. Д., Похоже, не признаются ни о каком другом объяснении, чем представленное, и как фанатизм с его жестокими делами, по общему признанию, возникает из -за заботы о других, в сочетании с убеждением, что некоторые из их доктрин являются ошибками, и, таким образом, идентифицируется, несмотря на его плачевные характеристики, как выраженные альтруизмом, и все же, в результате этих характеристик, он не будет защищать заявленными альтруистами, но они будут признаны, чтобы они возникали в неразумно способ учет всех явно злых форм альтруизма. Но очевидно, что зло и глупые фазы альтруизма, по -видимому, такие же интенсивные, как и те фазы, которые так много восхваляются и экспрессируются исповедующими альтруистами, и, следовательно, предположительно требуют равной формирующей энергии. Следовательно, до тех пор, пока не будет показано обратное, мы будем так же полностью оправданы в разуме, если предположить, что, если один набор был объяснен нашей теорией развития доминирующей силы идей и настроений, другой может быть объяснен в том же. способ; Точно, как мы можем сказать, что если теория физического развития будет допущена, чтобы объяснить змею и ястреб, она будет принята для учета овец и оленей. И, кроме того, когда показано, что процесс разработки сохраняется хорошо, немывая проблема фактов заключается не только в том, можно ли предположить другой и радикально другой вид объяснения для коррелятивных фактов, но и презумпция общего единства процесса очень сильный. Пусть будет допущена любая значительная часть вышеизложенного рассуждения, и нам предоставлено, что конкретное хорошее или, казалось бы, хорошее в альтруизме в эгоизме. Тогда можно с уверенностью сделать вывод, что он должен быть подвергнут проверке по эгоистической причине его существования; В каждом случае развития альтруистического мотива вопрос будет: это исправная проекция, косвенное средство эгоистического достижения, или это иррациональное движение, аберрация, к которому мы видели постоянную тенденцию? Теперь причина, по которой нам нужно с осторожностью говорить о кажущемся хорошем в альтруизме, не основана ни в каком сомнений, что рационально ограниченный альтруизм является мудрым и необходимой части человеческого эгоизма, но в обстоятельствах, по -видимому, альтруизм был создан Некоторые писатели как принцип, отделенный от эгоизма, как будто последние были предварительной лестницей, проходящей от того, что они исповедуют, чтобы достичь своей сверхъестественной структуры, после чего они пнули лестницу из -под них. На данный момент мы, эгоисты, решаем, что такой альтруизм, считающийся принципом, не является частями более или менее хорошей, но является соперником антагонистического утверждения, и, следовательно, с эгоистической точки зрения, совершенно плохой. Здесь для иллюстрации мы можем пройти аналогию того, что называется правительством. Если мы говорим, что каждый человек нуждается в защите от насилия и комбинаций насилия, поэтому честные люди должны объединиться, чтобы обеспечить такую защиту, это хорошо; Но если на этом основе строится государственная власть, которая оказывается репрессивной, мы отрицаем, что такое правительство хорошее, какими бы хорошими действиями оно может выполнять.

VII

All the appetites and passions afford subjects for observation and study of the process traced in several of the preceding paragraphs, but it is not my purpose to give an exhaustive review of the various fixed ideas and fascinations, or forms of mental slavery. I would suggest, as a useful exercise to the student of this philosophy of the actual, that other forms of subserviency to fixed ideas be analyzed as instances present themselves.

Sometimes it will be necessary to look beyond the individual experience of the subject. Indeed it is certain that heredity plays an important part in predisposing the individual to one or other craze, so that he falls into it when the inciting cause arises, or else in organizing him with well-balanced powers so that he happens to be happily proof against their influence. For example it may be interesting to the reader to take up for himself the passion of revenge, study its origin in the facts of warring species, families and individuals, self-defense and precaution, habits of thought becoming fixed, the destructive propensity developed perhaps beyond the need of the individual in actual circumstances, while the sense of relation between means and ends is blunted or lost; consequently when some hurt is experienced or apprehended, — or it may be an insult to his “honor” or a bundle of Altruistic beliefs,-the person seeking self-protection or vindication will act as if what has been destroyed were still to be preserved by annihilating the destroyer, or on a menace he will act with the energy of concentrated race experiences, and in sympathy with his family, nation or race will generalize an injury to someone as being precisely the same as an injury to another or himself, though in the case it may be really otherwise, as a cool judgment might determine. Thus what is primarily self-defence leads, under the influence of this passion, and perhaps quite as often or oftener than philanthropy, to the sacrifice of his own life by the subject. Such action has the mark of that supernal Altruism already abundantly illustrated and clearly distinguished from a rational altruism consonant with the reign of self-interest.

We have now dealt with Altruism as fact, but we have yet to consider it as a preachment of duty. Before entering upon a consideration of the claims of the preachers of “moral duty” and showing what their alleged obligatory Altruism is, putting it to the test, whereupon I apprehend that it will be found to be easier for a man to pass through a needle’s eye than to enter into the moral kingdom of heaven, I wish to anticipate an objection or criticism which some reader may have raised in his own mind while we were discussing the illustrations of fixed ideas. The miser took pleasure in hoarding gold, but because he was under a fixed idea I classified him as in the bad sense Altruistic; yet for an individual to act under the rule of pleasure is Egoistic. This is the seemingly difficult. It is resolved, of course, by disregarding verbal quibbles. The mesmerized subject seems to act as an individual but he is under foreign control. The miser seems likewise to act as an individual but he is intoxicated or mesmerized by the force of the idea which has obtained an ascendancy incompatible with the reign of individual reason.

A further remark seems appropriate here, and I have brought this case up partly to explain how far the philosophy of Egoism differs from the logomachy of the Moralists, who, not content with dividing men into sheep and goats, would be glad to divide ideas of facts in the same way and on the lines of their own prejudices. With them the facts must be opposites, absolute opposites all the way through, if there be opposition in them in some relation. They have right and wrong, good and evil, Altruism and Egoism in their brains as opposites. Though nothing in fact is simpler to sound reason than the conformity of the crazy man’s conduct to the order of the sane man’s conduct, barring the substitution of an abnormal motive which practically supplants individual reason, the genuine Moralistic theorist does not want an analysis of the facts. He is on the lookout for some peg whereon to hang a charge of inconsistency in argument. Verbiage is his stronghold for such occasions. He may be painfully surprised to learn that we Egoists profess to find the Altruistic subject manifesting Egoistic modes of operation as nearly as the nature of the craze will allow, and that we find in this an expected corroboration of the central fact of organized, sensitive existence. A little shock or whirl of this kind will prepare the less fossilized among my Moralistic readers for the greater astonishment which they must undergo when they for the first time read of right and wrong as they will be treated in these pages, as conceptions having each a separate and independent origin and not logically requiring the usual forced moralistic treatment as if they were necessary and invariable opposites. Just at this point, however, I need only say that modest altruism confesses its foundation and haughty Altruism is self-betrayed, as surely as there is method in madness. Altruism is conspicuously selfish to make gains for Altruism. Method is a prime characteristic of sanity. There may be such madness as shows no method, but it is rare. The Altruism that contains no Egoistic alloy is still more rare if it exists at all. We have yet to look about and see whether it can be found and to examine whether or not it will appear to be a vain profession of self-deluded men who have never contemplated the sacrifices which it would involve if consistently and diligently carried into action.

VIII

To plead before a tribunal is generally understood to be an acknowledgment of its jurisdiction. The intelligent Egoist does not seek to justify his views or conduct according to rules or principles of Moralism which works by awe, aping theology and religion, of which this Moralism is the ghost. Such words as morals, morality, right and wrong, duty and obligation have not lost their limited Egoistic meanings. The theoretical Egoist may be termed a moralist in so far as he thinks out a course of conduct in conformity with his observation and reason. If in a genial way he soars above business calculations then he “sings as the birds sing.” To him duties imply persons who have wants and make the non-satisfaction of those wants a source of discomfort to him. But supernal Moralism with its absolute Duty he apprehends as a claim of an essentially religious character fettering with ghostly terror or enthrallment all who yield to the mystic spell.

Persons who have been reared in a religious belief find themselves years after they have become disbelievers in the doctrines taught them in childhood still so far under the influence of religious sentiment that light remarks on the subject give them a shock, and apparently in the same way a generation that does not know God or ecclesiastical authority, a generation that does not know the sacred political State and the sacred authoritative family of its fathers, still retains some portion of the conscience that would fain subjugate Egoistic reason. For thousands of years preachers in the service of rulers have been preaching Duty, humility, submission, piety to the people, and Egoism has been their unspeakable horror. In our day the results of criticism applied to religious belief are apparent in general scepticism regarding the foundation of their authority, of their dogmas. Still the heredity of preaching, exhorting and warning must find its outlet, to say nothing of calculations made by men whose wealth is insured by the system of belief and submission preached, and to say nothing of calculations by ex-preachers of theology whose prospect of an income seems limited to finding something on which to preach and by which to obtain contributions, and thus the relations of man with man, philanthropy for equity, sentiment for science, serve to continue the comedy-tragedy of preaching and servility.

If Shylock does not go to church he takes a magazine and enables the publisher to pay a few dollars a page for essays on ethics, the purport of which is that Morality, Conscience, Duty reign where God formerly reigned and with much the same restraining effect; that all honorable men will agree that these forces are indispensable, ineradicable and necessary for the conservation of property, the family, government and social order, hence a proof of Moral Being in man, while self-interest as a principle would be subversive of Moral sentiment and ruinous to society; wherein it is assumed that society is about as it is desirable to keep it. By such process Shylock makes 5000 per cent on his investment in Moralistic literature simply in the economic sphere, as he is protected by the State. He accepts any incidental assistance toward keeping women in a receptive and docile condition of mind as being so much clear profit, though really if the enterprise had to be sustained for this purpose alone he must be a miser only or else a free lover and not a “proper family man,” if he did not see the advisibility of paying out the few dollars even with this sole end in view.

All reformers who are not intelligent Egoists or endowed with the genius of Egoism continually render themselves ridiculous by complaining of monopolists and tyrants. Thereby they proclaim their Moralistic superstition. Their method is abortive. It can at the best lead people from one form of trustful dependence to another. At the worst and often it causes people to commit acts of ill considered hostility and to indulge in sentimental declarations which enable cool and intelIigent masters to incite stronger forces against the reformers. Reform, indeed, is a word for conservative mediocrity. Egoism when understood by the many means nothing less than a complete revolution in the relations of mankind, for it is the exercise of the powers of individuals at their pleasure, and not a plea for their “rights.”

The Moralists, or Altruists, come with a tale of Duty, or moral obligation. They say that I ought to love my neighbor as myself and to put aside my selfy pleasure. It is horrifying to them that I act on consciousness of satisfaction, on genial impulse, on calculation of gain, and not in submission to the Moralistic judgment of “conscience.” I understand very well that it is their ignorant fear of an independent person that is at the bottom of their pleading. They are accustomed to think of a man as a dangerous animal unless controlled by “conscience.” Few of them have met one who does not profess to defer to such a “spiritual guide.” I however regard their “conscience” as identical with the superstition which impels Hindoos to throw themselves beneath the wheels of the sacred car and to allow sacred animals and sacred men to devour their substance.

Are the Altruists, the Moralists, willing to examine the logic of their principle and carry it out to its consequence? Will they follow where it leads? Then we need not insist upon the prominence of the oppressive idea of Duty and its degradation of the individual, but we may take their own favorite idea of pure, disinterested love expelling self-interest wherever the two conflict. Of course the intelligent Egoist will perceive that I am trying to accommodate the Altruists, to get as near their position as possible, but that nevertheless there is something of falsehood, of contradiction, in the idea that love can be other than a personal interest in the object when love overcomes other interests without a sentiment of sacrifice arising; and that if the consciousness of sacrifice be present the motive is Duty, not love. However, I am discussing an alleged possibility,—a life of Altruistic devotion,—and I do not expect in the statement of the question to succeed better than the Moralists themselves in making the fanciful scheme appear wholly real.

Apart from theology with its gross dogmatism about “souls” in men and the animals as “soulless” machines of flesh and blood, the dogma of Moralism, the duty of love to others, obviously bears a direct and essential relation to the capacity of others to enjoy and to suffer, and no radical distinction can be made between a human subject and any other animal. The anti-vivisection Moralists stand up to the logic of their principle in one particular when they insist that pain ought to be inflicted upon the inferior animals for the advancement of science intended for the benefit of mankind and not for the species or individual animals operated upon.

The consistent Moralist will now see what his principle requires of him. Though the animal, by reason of its inferior intelligence and want of speech and hands, cannot fully express its complaints, assert its “rights,” and maintain its liberty, he will neither use his superior ability to enslave it nor permit others to do such wrong if it be within his power to prevent them. The animal’s inability to participate as an equal in social affairs is ground for certain exclusions, but not for usurpation, detention, subjugation, castration, enforced labor, shearing off the natural coat, robbery of the mother’s milk and driving to the slaughter house. By what right does the Moralist shoot deer or crows, cut off the heads of chickens and turkeys, and cast his line or his net for fish? If by the authority of God, I reply that God is the archetype of personal despotism, Egoism without the balancing force of approximately equal powers in different individuals; and that there is no such authority. The philosophical Altruist has left that ground. I refuse to recognize the plea. I look to the Altruistic Moralist for a less barbarian answer. And let him remember the incapable of his species, the idiot, the maniac. Does he exploit them with a good conscience, as he tames and rides a horse? Does he refrain from fattening and killing them only because he thinks they are not good eating? Where and what is his conscience, then, as to other animals?

Permit me to suggest that a man is safe in reflecting that he will never be a buffalo or a rat,—unless he believes in transmigration, whereupon his unconfessed Egoism crops out, keenly self-regardful. Hence buffaloes and rats have no rights that a man even though a professed Moralist need respect, except the right of exemption from torture. (Torture is a bad example. It can be inflicted upon men as well as upon other animals and it does not minister to any demand of enlightened self-interest.) But what man may not be accused of feeble-mindedness or suffer some accident which will impair his mental powers? How then can self-concern be silent when one of his species is ill treated? The other animals—indeed he is never to be one of them: what does it matter to him how you use them so that you do not cultivate cruelty in yourself? (The cruel man is dangerous to us and ours.)

I call upon the Moralist to vindicate his doctrine by applying it consistently to the treatment of all animals. Confining it to our own species is too Egoistic to be deemed pure Moralism. I shall be very much surprised if any such practical response comes as to disprove my new version of scripture, which says that the Moral kingdom of heaven is inaccessible to men of ordinary sanity. Who will rejoice to see the grasshopper getting his fill, and keep sacrilegious hands out of the hen’s nest? Who will feed the lambs and neither feed upon lamb nor wrap in woolen blankets, for conscience sake? One Moralist has one hobby and another has another hobby, but if there be one who proposes to live a life of self-denial for the happiness of all other sentient beings as far as they are capable of experiencing pleasure, to respect their liberty and embryonic offspring as conscientiously as any Moralist does those of his own species, I shall regard his appearance upon this scene as the exception which will very strikingly illustrate the rule in individual conduct, and I shall be glad to have an opportunity of learning how he manages to live.

IX

If self-renunciation be a virtue, certainly it is the purer when the sacrifice is made for individuals of another and widely different species. In caring for our own species we may obtain a return, and we can cherish the imagination thereof if it seems improbable; and so it is in caring for one of any other species between which and ourselves there is some communication of mutual intelligence and mutual sympathy; but if a man wants to show pure disinterestedness let him sacrifice his pleasure, his comfort and his life for other species that will neither understand nor return the manifestations of benevolence. Such a supernal Altruist will reject cleanliness as a sin, if convinced, as he must be by ordinary observation, that parasites thrive best on the human body when there is an entire avoidance of soap and water. Such a self-denying Moralist will not dress a wound or purify his blood, for these practices mean death to animalcules. Here I am reminded of a story of the devout Hindoo who was horrified on looking at a drop of water through a powerful microscope. He found to his consternation that he could not drink without destroying life.

Supernal Moralism should be viewed sometimes from the point of view of universal animal motives and conduct, excluding the idea of selflessness. If the survival of the fittest be not an empty phrase, supernal Moralism is an excessively silly insanity. The “sacredness” of the germs of human life is impressed upon the mind of the devotee of Moralism, and in some cases the result is that a child is born as the offspring of rape. The simple, pious people may wonder that “God” can assist in giving effect to crime. The supernal Moralist who prides himself on scientific acquirements may well feel confused when a hybrid form appears as a practical commentary upon the alleged “sacredness.”

Spiritual terror, the strangest, most melancholy phenomenon in human motive, is essentially the same influence, while it lasts, in the man or woman claiming to be emancipated from theological dogmas, as in the believer in those dogmas. It usually remains after its generally supposed root is destroyed, in the Agnostic, like an air-plant. This indicates that its foundation is not precisely where some antitheological writers suppose. Mere disbelief in Jehovah may leave the agnostic mind subject to fixed ideas of a most irrational character. The belief in Jehovah in the first place occupied an ignorant mind and when that belief is expelled neither ignorance nor fear is altogether banished. There is some improvement in the prospect for positive Egoistic thought and sentiment to occupy its own. There remain, however, numerous fixed ideas of Duty to Society, Duty to the State, Duty to Humanity, and such rubbish, which are fertile of intoxicating and paralyzing influences, and our talking Freethinkers in general still shudder to contemplate a person uncontrolled by such “restraining influences.” They imagine, after all, that he will go to the devil or run amuck without moral “restraint.” The triumph of sanity, then, lies not in the expulsion of anyone form of insanity, but in the acquisition of an Egoistic consciousness and self-control.

X

Under the head of Religion Webster’s dictionary says: “As distinguished from morality, religion denotes the influences and motives to human duty which are found in the character and will of God, while morality describes the duties to man, to which true religion always influences.” Granted belief in a personal ruler, submission to his will is prudence and prudence is Egoistic. With this conception the duty spoken of is not mysterious: it is service by a subject,—the slave’s submission to the power which he fears. He believes that the sovereign ruler has laid upon him special commands favoring his species and therefore he must treat men better than other animals. If this belief be an error, still there is no line to be drawn between the alleged duty and his interest. There is no disinterestedness or generosity in religious duty or moral duty, or say rather in duty to God or man, for both are ultimately duty to the supposed heavenly master.

But Moralists, having gained some rational ideas of mutual relation, while unhappily ignoring the fact that these ideas are the proper foundation of willingly assumed mutual duties, fancy that they have discovered the justice of the alleged divine command or will, which is nothing but a reflection of their own thoughts, and thenceforth they fall under the hallucination of mystic Duty, independent of either calculation or pleasure. It is one task of Egoistic philosophy to analyze this notion of theirs as a confusion of ideas. They go so far in some instances as to dismiss belief in a moral lawgiver of the universe and yet remain under the same fascination to Duty as if they had him, and his will were equitable, and their servility were swallowed up in admiration of his justice. What they lack is the insight to perceive that conduct which makes for the good of the species is naturally agreeable to the feeling of each well developed individual, hence that the conception of Duty is scepticism as to spontaneity. The fixed idea of Duty unrelated to interest and not reducible to calculation, arises by abstraction and fascination like other aberrations reviewed in preceding pages. It reaches clear insanity in self-sacrifice if this occur in unreasoning ecstasy.

Of course one self-inflicted pain of some particular kind or even death is sometimes chosen in order to terminate anguish which none but the subject can appreciate. In such cases the action is Egoistic, though it may be of a terribly ignorant sort, as for example, when the cause of the pain is an imaginary object or such a real relation as is humiliating to the person’s feeling only because of irrational notions about it.

If morality be regarded from the point of view of the social utilitarian, as that course of conduct which promotes the welfare of the species, it is only necessary to repeat that the species acts as Egoistically as it can. It cheerfully sacrifices individuals to its own welfare. It has a subtle economy of means in planting Altruistic conceits in those that are willing to entertain them. When intelligence comes to recognize mutual interests this instinctive trickery of social influence will vanish, no longer seeming to be needed.

As for the virtues, such as benevolence, every observing person knows that we seek to get rid of painful impressions. Such, usually, are those of suffering in others. Many writers have pointed out how pity is stirred by the sight of wasted bodies and hearing the cry of pain, and how much weaker it is when only an ordinary description is given of the occasion; also how much more ready the poor are to help other poor people than the rich are. What has perhaps not been so generally observed is the reason for this, viz., that the rich do not feel that they are likely to need alms, while the poor are on the edge of such need. There is quite enough in the difference of circumstances to make it instructive, although at the same time, personal character varying in susceptibility, it is doubtless true also that those most inclined to benevolence are most likely to be poor in a society like ours, where money is supposed to grow by lending and profits are consolidated from the results of unpaid labor.

XI

The suggestion has been heard that if all acts are Egoistic this term has no distinctive meaning. The same thing has often been said as to “matter” when the Materialist has affirmed that there is no “spirit,”—no opposite of matter. Matter then becomes synonymous simply with existence. The Materialist replies that he is content with the conclusion that there is no alleged existence unrelated to other and known existence; none exempt from manifestation according to a regular order or subject to the inherent law of its being, to speak according to appearances. There is a regular order of succession of phenomena. The Spiritual theory asserts a break in what is popularly called “the reign of natural law,” Materialism denies such assertion and exists as a distinctive ism to deny and disprove it. This statement will indicate in part what is the proper reply when it is charged that Egoism is almost meaningless if it embraces all acts. It was believed that a man acted disinterestedly. Closer examination finds the motive and the form of their interest. Thus a parallel to the progress made from the time when men believed in miracles to the time when they have learned enough of natural law to expel the former belief.

By referring to the definition already given of Egoism it will be seen that it covers a theory as well as facts. If every act of every animal were perfectly Egoistic, nevertheless the demands of intelligence would not be satisfied without understanding the phenomena, which are explained according to natural law as reactions of individual will to motives presented in circumstances. To act Egoistically is universal, but to be in part ignorant of the fact seems to be also nearly universal. The theory of Egoism has its opposite in the theory of Altruism, evidently joined to Spiritualism by ignoring and denying the necessary sequence in phenomena. (I make no allusion to modern Spiritualism, which professes to be Materialistic.)

But beyond this it can be firmly said that until the Egoistic theory is understood and has had its full influence upon character, those irrational actions will continue which are the fruit of error, illusion, fascination, fixed ideas, rendering the individual practically not an Ego,—not in the possession of his faculties,—hence there will be, as there are, actions not properly Egoistic, but insane, though not generally so understood. Thus the Egoistic theory has a practical purpose. The half insane,—that is to say all worshipers, religious, political or personal,—are to come to consciousness of their individuality and become wholly sane. As to submissive actions performed simply under fear or hope, their Egoistic character is quite clear.

XII

The word right has the same fundamental meaning as straight. When no obstacle stands or lies between an animal and the object of its desire, the shortest way, which is a straight line, is the way the animal takes to reach the object; but when approach by a right line is impracticable the nearest known path is chosen, all considerations such as safety being weighed according to intelligence. This is then the line of least resistance,—the one most approximating in convenience to a right line. The right hand is so named because usually the stronger and more serviceable. A man’s right is his straight way to the satisfaction of his desires, and he takes no other way except under adverse circumstances or hallucination.

It will be objected by Moralists that such an exposition of right reduces it to nothing but might. In this inference they are correct, but their objection does not disturb Egoistic philosophy, which regards their alleged supernal, sacred Right as a superstition. I have a right to do what I can take and openly keep, and another has a right to take it from me if he can. Those, however, who believe that a superior authority has laid down a rule to which they must conform, will take up that rule or law as they understand it, and their idea of right will be that of conformity to the command of the authority. The Moralist is under an impression that instead of pursuing his own pleasure he has to fulfill a purpose which may be at variance with his pleasure. His conception of Right is not an Egoistic conception. He has surrendered himself, and with himself his Own right, and has begun to serve an abstraction. He is in the way to commit great folly and wrong to himself. To the Moralist Right and Wrong are two fixed ideas, forever in opposition in all senses. To the intelligent Egoist they are two words generally perverted from their meaning and used as scarecrows. There is a frequent clash between the right of one and the right of another, and they fight it out. It is settled by the triumph of one and the defeat of the other. Max Stirner in his matchless book, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (The Individual and his Property), says: Ist es mir recht, so ist es recht (If it suits me, it is right.) The Moralist would say: if it be right for me; thus implying that he is under some mysterious authority. The Egoist would not Use the the latter preposition except when recognizing some law or definite arrangement which prescribes certain rights. When I say: “if it be right for me—,” I admit an authority. Now in fact I must often admit one,—that is a power,—but I admit it simply as a power, not at all as the Moralist admits it. I do not bow down to it in my thought or regard it as anything but an enemy to my freedom, and if it cease to assert its power and to compel me by penalty or the prospect of penalty, I assert my full power to do my own pleasure and nothing but my own pleasure. The Moralist consents to serve as his own jailer; not so the Egoist. Assert your right, your power, your pleasure. I claim none of that, I assert my own. I appeal to no Moral law of the world. I recognize none. We shall find our interests coincide or we shall give each other battle or we shall steer clear of each other, according to circumstances.

In words you can assert my right, but when you attempt to do so in deeds you succeed only in asserting your own right. I alone can prove my right by deeds.

The Moralist pretends to be under an obligation to respect the rights of others and never do them any wrong; but he defines their rights and does not allow them all their rights. He abdicates his own and cripples theirs and then flatters himself that the mutilation and effacement constitute superior Right. He protests against Egoism because it wrongs his system. At times he imagines that the Egoist must talk in the language of Moralism and must mean that in acting with Egoistic right the Egoist would pretend not to do wrong to another; wherein the Moralist becomes absurd, for the Egoist does not pretend that he can always exercise his right without wrong to another. It is a matter of expediency with the Egoist what wrong to another he shall do.

“Right wrongs no man,” exclaims the landlord, and drives the tenant out of a house. The inclement weather beats upon the unsheltered, and their nerves are wrung. The landlord exercises his right, but lies moralistically.

The word wrong is a variation upon the past participle of the verb to wring, to twist. Victor and vanquished are two, and the Moralist simply looks away from the facts of life when he preaches a universal natural Right and ignores individuals with their various wants and powers and the probability that what is good to one may entail some ill upon another.

But the species? The Moralist, driven from the former position of a divinity ordering all things in harmony in the world, or at least the conceit that his own species is favored at the expense of all below it, and this not by its intelligence but by a divine decree arbitrarily making the spoliation of the world and rule over inferior animals Right, takes refuge in a belief that the welfare of the species may give Moral law to the individual. Hence the dogma that the individual exists for the species. Were it so, the individual might insist upon existing at any cost, assuming that he is what he knows best of the species, and that his stubborn will might probably be a provision for the species. That is Right, says the Moralist, which best serves the species. And what best serves the species? The Moralist will generally reply; “that which is Right,” thus completing a little circle in dogmatism. Nature, however, seems to say that species survive by the survival of their individuals. The Egoist will find in himself certain loves and aversions, and he may think that the species is taking care of itself just in proportion as he is following those paths which give him satisfaction.

The Moralist, becoming more philosophical, suggests that the war of interests will cease as men understand their similar needs and the possibility of mutual benefit, hence wrongs in the species may become fewer or cease. With all our heart, say the Egoists, only you are not to begin by sacrificing us. If the later Moralism be merely a prophetic dream of a harmony of interests through wisdom, we are not without hope that at last the dreamers will recognize individuality as the condition precedent to the fulfillment of their hopes. The fellow feeling in the species is a certain fact. Let us take it for what we find it to be and not attempt to place it in antagonism to our individualities. As these are developed the necessity will appear for each one to recognize somewhat the individuals of his species, and thus the “claims of the species” will be recognized.

XIII

Self-interest masks itself and says suavely “we seek the good of the species,” instead of saying bluntly, “we gladly pick up all that other individuals let slip from their grasp.” Are not we the species as contradistinguished from any individual? When we go so far as to urge sacrifices for the good of the species what are we but beggars and hypocrites? Persuasion is mingled freely with flattery administered to the vanity of the individual, and it is not to be ignored that the Moral philosopher flatters himself as he proceeds to render what he vainly imagines to be a service to his species. Assuming the point of view that he is spokesman for the species, the dictum that that is good conduct which promotes the interests of the species, is a subtle mendicancy or a veiled terror in the supposed interest of the crowd. But assuming an individual point of view the question is differently shaped. It then becomes; what use can I make of the species, of the crowd?

A summary of ethical teachings of Herbert Spencer says that postulating the desirability of the preservation and prosperity of the given species, there emerges the general conclusion that “in order of obligation the preservation of the species takes precedence of the preservation of the individual.” The species he admits, “has no existence save as an aggregate of individuals,” and hence, “the welfare of the species is an end to be subserved only as subserving the welfare of individuals,” but, continues the summary, “since disappearance of the species involves absolute failure in achieving the end, whereas disappearance of individuals makes fulfillment simply somewhat more difficult, ‘the preservation of the individual must be subordinated to the preservation of the species where the two conflict.’”

There are several features of sophistry in this. Let us, however, note first the admission that “the species” is simply a convenient term. Now, where confusion is possible the safe way is to lay aside the term. When this is done it will be found that in restating the foregoing propositions it becomes necessary to speak, instead, either of all the individuals concerned except one or of all the individuals concerned, without exception. But he has seemingly used the term species in both senses or else, with his “order of obligation,” he has affirmed an obligation to subordinate the preservation of one individual to that of another. As this is intelligible for the purpose of the crowd dealing with individuals but not for the individual acting for himself with himself as the victim, the immediate inference at this point is that Spencer is expounding the Egoistic logic of the crowd.

If the welfare of others is subserved only as subserving my welfare, it can never be true that I must subordinate my preservation to that of others, for this is to divert the general rule, which applies while I am one of the crowd, to the exceptional case wherein I am set apart from the crowd. All conditions of benefit imply at least preservation. When I am counted out for non-preservation, for the good of others, it must be the others, not I, who do the counting out. In the first premise Spencer speaks for the individual treating the crowd from his proper motive; but in the conclusion he speaks for the crowd or some of its preserved part contemplating the sacrifice of an individual, yet these shifting points of view are included in a syllogism. The welfare of the crowd a mediate end: that is reasonable to the individual. The preservation of the individual a mediate end to the crowd; that is reasonable from the crowd’s point of view; but analysis of the diverse points of view is needed, not an attempt to link the two in a syllogism the conclusion of which is merely the crowd’s conclusion.

Now examine the second premise of the syllogism: “the disappearance of the species involves absolute failure in achieving the end.” Why, in fact? Because the disappearance of all others of the species but myself involves it? Not at all; but because the term species includes myself. But as far as my existence is concerned it would be the same if I alone disappeared. Do you say: the preservation of the alphabet is of no use to A except as A combines with other letters; but the disappearance of the alphabet would involve the disappearance of A; hence the preservation of one letter (A) is less important than the preservation of all the other letters? The letter A answers: “Bosh!”

Speaking for the individual, how does the doctrine of subordination of the preservation of the individual accord with evolutionary theory regarding the origin of species? Do species originate by individuals taking care of themselves under whatever circumstances, if possible, or by the contrary rule of their benevolence toward the pre- existing species? The reader can pursue this inquiry for himself; but I should like to suggest that what has been considered regarding the individual and the species can be paraphrased with reference to the species and the genus under which it is classified, thus:

The welfare of the genus is to be sub served only as subserving the welfare of the species, but since the disappearance of the genus involves absolute failure, whereas disappearance of particular species makes fulfillment simply somewhat more difficult, therefore the preservation of the species must be subordinated to the preservation of the genus where the two conflict.. The fallacy of this sort of reasoning may appear without comment, inasmuch as the individual will easily maintain the point of view of the interested species, and will not practically allow himself to slide over to the position of the presuming genus. A supplementary remark may be indulged. The genus never licenses or encourages the origination of new species; but then the verbal sophistry of the genus would not prove to be a preventive.

I pass by the small occasion of confusion in the use of the word “end,” the second time, in the foregoing statement. Total failure may be assumed to refer to failure of the ultimate aim.

XIV

Duty is that which is due. I ought is I owe or lowed. Some duties I assume for duties assumed by others toward me. This is reciprocity. Some alleged duties the Moralist tells me that I ought to acknowledge and perform from a sense of Duty. If I then say that it is a superstition he perhaps severs himself for the moment from the superstitious crowd and claims that it is only a generalization, meaning fitness, saving tiresome repetition of analysis; it is my interest after all. He is somewhat disingenuous here, for if it be only my interest embodied in a thought-saving generalization, it will bear analysis and always come out as my interest. But he has the “social organism” in mind, to the preservation of which my individual welfare is to be subordinated, according to his idea. The “social organism” idea has captured him and he is using decoy argument to obtain from me a sacrifice of myself to his idol, his spiritual monster.

A man is hired to do certain work, and that is then called his duty; or exchange of services grows into a mutual understanding; the debt is first on one side and then on the other, and what at any time is expected, to balance the account or turn the scale as usual and create another claim so as to continue the mutually advantageous arrangement or understanding, is also called one’s duty. Where service is compulsory it is likewise called duty.

Moralism, when it has gained enlightenment enough to reject slavery to a person, under the subjection of mind overawed by physical force, denies that the slave’s duty is Duty. But if the slave has yielded his mind to his master the phenomenon is clearly that of Duty. When the Egoist is conscripted he does not argue that his assigned duty is not Duty. It is servitude contrary to his interest, and this consideration is enough. The fact that some slaves are governed by a sense of Duty furnishes the plainest evidence that Duty is mental slavery.

But the Moralist will claim for Duty that it is not always mental slavery. It is true that he can confuse the issue by using the word Duty to describe all those habitual actions in the doing of which no immediate benefit to self is thought of; but let us keep to the plain sense. Duty is what is due. The domination of a fixed idea begins when one admits something due and yet not due to any person or something due without benefit coming to one in return; and of course when a return benefit is calculated upon the idea is interest.

When interest is sublimated so as to lose sight of self it assumes the form of love in the absence of oppression. Evidently the presence of fear in the causative circumstances corrupts the sublimating process and results in the oppressive sense of Duty. It is possible for the Moralist, finding a series of admirable actions which are well-nigh perfect love or gratitude, to call these Duty, on an examination which will show that were the doer to study his conduct he could find in it the elements which would serve to construct a wise scheme of reciprocal duties. If the Moralist talks of Duty when the fact is spontaneity,- whether gratitude, love, overflowing pride or generosity advancing to aid all that is seen to make for our good, he talks at random. His system of thought has predicated that men need to be controlled by a sense of Duty. Let him stick to that or leave it. We duty it. The doctrine of hell-fire was long upheld under the same idea that it was needed to control men. Moralistic Duty is the hardened dregs of fear. Generosity is the overflowing fullness of a successful, satisfied and hopeful individuality.

“I ought” is no stumbling block to the intelligent Egoist. Two persons are playing at draughts and a bystander says of one: “He ought to have captured the man to the left, not the one to the right.” There is no sense of moral obligation conveyed in the remark. It is assumed that each player is trying to win, and the words “he ought” introduce a suggestion of what was wanting to produce the result. A pirate endeavoring to capture a merchantman and taking the wrong course would say: “I ought to have sailed on the other tack.” To whom was the obligation? To himself. So men speak of their duty to themselves, meaning the attending to supplying what is lacking to their welfare.

These words duty and ought are not words to be rejected. They are in constant correct use in everyday life, and it is not the use of the Moralist, but it can be observed that every humbug politician harps on the “sacred duty” of the citizens to do this or that, something that he and his party are interested in and that he cannot readily prove to be to the interest of the citizens addressed, or he would do so instead of trying to get them with him on an appeal to “sacred duty.”

XV

The supposed inward monitor which warns the Moralist against breaking the sacred law of Right, as it admonishes the believer against offending God, is that which “doth make cowards of us all,” in the language of the dramatist. That is conscience. One thinks he knows his Duty and with this thought come vague fear and self-reproach for not having obeyed the Moral law; not simple fear in the Moralist, rather a confused feeling, but a feeling as clearly distinguishable from the simple fear of consequences as Moralism is distinguishable from a calculation of interest. The dread is as undefined as the Authority or the reach of consequences, or both, are indefinite and dimly apprehended.

The fact that the dictates of conscience are the result of so-called “education” (really indoctrination) is established by the strongest proof on every hand. Every religion has its commandments and however absurd they may appear to others than the believers, conscience enforces their observance. Moralism continues in a general way the religious terror, making humanity or it may be more broadly animal life the sacred object.

Egoism, on the contrary, regards conscience as superstition. It is true that by a simple analysis of the word, which yields con, with, and science, knowledge, we can have the definition: the sensation, sentiment or reflection regarding ourselves which accompanies knowledge of our voluntary action. But as an Egoist has simply either satisfaction or regret and does not judge himself by reference to any standard of Duty, he cannot have a guilty conscience.

It is most to the purpose, therefore, of Egoistic philosophy to look into the means of destroying the superstition habit, for it is a notorious fact that self condemnation continues somewhat after reason has assured the subject of the error of the doctrine which claimed his allegiance.

A silly conscience is to be extinguished, like other inconvenient habits, by resolute action. I have known a compositor who seemingly could not place a letter in line without first making an unnecessary motion with it against the side of his composing stick; a statesman who could not or dared not go to bed without first placing his boots as he wore them; a youth whose reason rejected the orthodox Christian doctrines in which he had been reared but who had qualms, which surprised him, about studying on Sunday; an infidel who had killed a man but had nothing to fear from the law, who nevertheless had the horrors in his dreams, and several persons with freelove ideas but inconsistent in practice in a way that showed the rule of their old conscience. Some of these things will strike everyone as being ridiculous. Of the instances cited only one did not admit of correction by Emerson’s rule of doing the thing you fear to do. I firmly believe that if the man who had a life on his conscience had taken the rational method of doing all else which he knew to be sensible, his mind would have been much strengthened to overcome his trouble of blood-guiltiness. The Sunday school young man realized that his conscience was awry, or the habit of a superstitious belief, and in a moderate time he overcame it. Others have had similar experiences as to books and conversation of a “blasphemous” character and breaches of the so-called law of morality in the sexual relation. Reasoning is well in its place, but action is necessary to make a free man or woman when one has been trained to have a conscience in any particular. I mean only action which combines pleasure with safety. It is no part of philosophic Egoism to pay more for advancement than it is worth.

XVI

The origin of the guilty conscience may be in mishaps, such as defeat, capture and slavery. When men from exercising mastery and even cruelty, are subjected to the rule of the stronger and more warlike, their energies are turned inward in bitterness against themselves. Upon this gnawing of ill humor comes the suggestion from religious belief, that these uncomfortable feelings are sent by the tribal god as a warning. This is readily believed by people who already believe that defeat and misfortune are punishments for some lapse of duty to their deity. The checking of an active career and humbling of the vanquished produces a bilious temper and morbid spirit, ready for ascetic rites on misdirection, because ever ready to attribute misfortunes to something other than their simple natural causes.

The guilty conscience precedes the good conscience. The latter is nothing but the consciousness of the guilty conscience removed—by expiation, atonement or however beliefs run.

Before the guilty conscience there was the spontaneity of the free savage. After the guilty and the good conscience there is the serenity of the self-conscious, sovereign, intelligent Ego. For convenience I will hereafter speak of him simply as the Egoist. While all men are Egoists in so far as they are not visionaries or madmen, nearly all men are in fact partly blinded, ashamed of themselves, not fully possessed of themselves. They do things for conscience sake—Egoistic method in madness;—they reject religious doctrine, but have a “sense of sin;” they have a horror of certain acts because condemned by a “moral standard,” and so forth. They do not even understand that they cannot be “sinners” except by admitting a religious standard of “righteousness;” that they cannot be “immoral,” wicked, without thinking as saints and Moralists think of “guilt,” “disobedience” in natural acts. They cannot even call themselves Egoists to their satisfaction because the religious world has branded every natural impulse as vile and “unsanctified;” consequently Egoism — self-direction — as the sum of all villainy, and they are hampered by accepting their language from the religious world.

The real Egoist is not even he who has merely seen through the cheat of Moralism, but he who has outgrown its habitual sway, broken its scepter, desecrated every shrine of superstition in his heart or else been more happily born and reared than one in ten thousand of those who live today or ever lived.

XVII

The Egoist hears voices saying: “Forgive us our sins.” His thoughts take a humorous turn and he asks: Why do not the idiots think of forgiving themselves each one his own sins? Why cannot they be like the father? If “I and my father are one,” I can do the acts of the father and forgive my own sin. He who dares not say: “I do most cheerfully forgive myself all sins and misdeeds I have ever committed or shall ever care to commit,” is certainly not an Egoist.

Moralists propound the question: “Does the end justify the means?” He who argues on either side of it, shows not the quality of Egoism. It is a question for Moralists, to be answered by reference to their standards of duty. The Egoist will ask whether the game is worth the powder and in this sense he could use the very words quoted in the question; meaning, however, only a particular application of means to a particular end-a question of expenditure or risk and probability of gain. Every case being decided on the principle of economy or of strategy, the general moral question disappears. The Moralist is left to answer his own question as to whether or not he will venture to break a “moral law” in order to accomplish what he considers a moral good.

Another way of putting our criticism is that the question can be parodied: “Does the evidence warrant the verdict?” But then, you say, we must know what verdict and what evidence are referred to. Quite so; and the question: “Does the end justify the means?” is equally void of meaning unless we learn what end is sought and what means are proposed.

But suppose we become more specific and ask: “Is the killing of a heretic justified by the probability of saving one thousand souls from perdition?” To this I say it concerns the Moralist, not the Egoist. In order to kill, no justification before the tribunal of conscience is necessary to, say, the Egoistic statesman; for that is a piece of superstition. In this respect “all things are lawful” for him, “but all things are not expedient.” The heretic has to thank the thousand other heretics for his immunity from being killed for heresy. A common interest unites them in some measures for self-protection. Their danger is but the greater because fanatics exist who in addition to the brutal instincts of mankind are possessed with the idea of a moral pardoning power encouraging men to do violence as a service, not to themselves but to a creed of church or society. The Egoist wastes no breath to persuade the fanatic that the end would not justify the means. He knows that the wish was father to the thought. The doctrine of exceptional justification was the inevitable excuse, like the wolf’s brief remarks to the lamb at the stream. That wolf was not a natural wolf, but a moralizing wolf; still, altogether a wolf in fact. The moralizing man is less frank and more cunning than the wolf. He would paralyze his enemies by teaching that not all courses are “justifiable;” then when they spare him and he gets them in his power he does not spare them. The end never justifies the means when a Moralist is being hurt; always when a Moralist is getting the best of the fight by unusual artifice and usurpation.

XVIII

The idea of justice precedes that of justice. Dr. Maurice de Fleury in his book, L’Ame du Criminel, says: Assuming the legend of Cain and Abel to be true, the brothers had a quarrel and when Cain struck Abel, the latter struck back. The fight continued for some time. Just when Abel was directing a blow, his arm was struck and fell helpless by his side. The impulse to deliver the blow returned to the brain as consciousness of purpose frustrated and this was the first sense of that want of correspondence which is called injustice.

If at such a juncture a tree or rock should happen to fall upon the victor or a lion make him his prey, and the vanquished escape, the latter would thank a supposed providential interference, build an altar and found a worship.

Out of a great number of cases of hurts — injustice — the sufferers build such theory of justice as corresponds with their idea of the satisfaction of their demands.

“Just right” is what fits a place or case. Adjustment and even justification are words used in a mechanical sense. Justice, however, cannot be predicated till we come to relations between persons. It is evident that in the notion or sentiment of justice there are present two elements: first, fitness in general, as in common with accuracy; secondly a recognition of something more, which may be the sentient nature of the object. We do not speak of injustice save where there is a possibility of suffering.

There are a great many applications of the term justice, but in all of them it has some relation to sentient beings and to fitness. The differences apparently spring from different standards of authority, rules of privilege, right, immunity, etc. Every uproar among men is a proof of injustice, in the same way as the creaking or screeching of a machine is an evidence of parts ill adjusted.

The loudest advocates of justice complacently overlook the fact that nobody extends justice to the inferior animals.

The adjustment of relations between man and man will probably be best where each one is alive to his own interests and convenience. In the absence of this condition justice is the warcry in quixotic campaigns, the success of which in any instance serves to destroy some privilege and emancipate some ignorant, helpless folk to become tools of fanatics and victims of speculators. The free are those who free themselves. These and these only can or will do themselves justice and they are prevented from doing themselves and each other justice most of all by the prevailing belief in justice as a “ruling principle.” The motto: “Let justice be done though the heavens fall,” is a perfect example of fanaticism, equal to insisting on some one performance, though any amount of loss and suffering results. But the very men who harp on justice are the ones who delegate the trial and execution to functionaries chosen haphazard, and make a religious duty of submitting to injustice whenever these functionaries are ignorant, corrupt, prejudiced or mistaken in their judgment. The idea that any person might do himself justice, though no doubt existed that the act were justice, is horrifying to the good socialists, because the executioner was not appointed by society. Justice, then, is a prerogative of society, a favor rather than a right, in their view. They become involved in perplexities. The heavens may fall, but not the dignity of the state. They deny justice to save respect for its mechanism. An unjust law is enforced by the same authority which enforces a just law. It is enforced all knowing that it is unjust, and because it is unjust, to the end that it may be repealed. Somebody is made a victim of injustice in order that by forcible wrong, thus done by authority, another branch of authority may be induced to alter a decree and issue another decree (which will be certain to accomplish another wrong to somebody).

Revenge is not justice, but simply the impulse to do hurt for hurt. It lacks measure, balance. It is at most a propensity which makes for the extermination or humbling of aggressors.

The Egoist does not worship justice. He recognizes the impossibility of its existing as a donation. Thc ruler or the society which decrees justice is the shepherd who manages his flock, not for the sake of the flock, but for his interest in it. The Egoist aims at the accommodation of interests according to the capacity of the contracting parties. Egoist with Egoist must recognize, and on reflection will rejoice at the prospect of a rule of not trespassing where-he had better not. From this he can arrive at a position of comfort in having allies of great value to him, through their not being afflicted with any superstition. They multiply his power and he adds to theirs.

As to justice in the sense of meting out punishment to persons according to their alleged moral delinquencies, the idea gives place to that of protecting ourselves and serving our convenience. We may suppress a dangerous madman and a dangerous sane man as a measure of prevention, not having the old Moralistic horror of responsibility in the case of ourselves dealing with the madman, and not having the Moralistic furor against the sane offender. We need not therefore resort to casuistry in case of slight doubt if we are determined that it is unsafe to risk permitting either to live. Thus Egoists will not let an offender off on technicalities or scruples if they deem it necessary to expel him or kill him, and thus, too, if one has killed another the inquiry will be as to whether or not the slayer merely anticipated an intelligent verdict by a jury.

Let us beware of the craze for justice. It is the mask of social tyranny. It demands a delegated authority and a prerogative in this authority. Thus it builds a citadel of injustice; so that the man who does himself justice is declared by the law to be guilty of a crime against it, the monopoly of administration of justice.

XIX

What of equal liberty! Egoism is interior liberty, which of course makes for equal liberty of Egoists. But this is on the basis of their common ability, whereas democracy and aristocracy have a common principle in the affirmation of birthright: In democracy liberty is the sacred birthright of every man. In aristocracy liberty and privilege are the right of those born or admitted to aristocratic rank. The spirit of democracy is, to fashion each individual on its model, and endow him with political equality in contradistinction to class privileges, but as a member of the democracy into which his passport is his humanity, not his personal assertion and demonstration of his power and will to command equal liberty. Aristocracy commands its members to maintain their rank. Democracy commands its members to maintain an equal status for all. Egoism awaits the coming of the free, who will recognize each other, but not by virtue of any birthright.

Contrasts between men as lions and lambs, eagles and doves, are fanciful and overdrawn. Nature has not endowed them with such extreme and transmissible differences of organism. When they shake off old beliefs and indoctrination and realize their powers as individuals, equal liberty follows from the practically equal assertion of similar physical powers in self-conscious Egoism. When each of us has determined to be as free as he can, to yield only to effective force in restraint of the liberty he wills to exercise, there will be more liberty and substantially equal liberty for us if we be numerous, even while far from a majority.

The idea of liberty for man as Man, as something to be respected for its own sake, though the man be a slavish animal, the sacredness of Man, is a different notion altogether. While I am, indeed, an example of man in general, I base my claim to consideration at the hands of Egoists on the fact of my being this man who can be known to be neither tyrant whom they must combat nor slave incapable of requiting their aid. I will be a useful ally for certain purposes. I will not spend my strength in contending for equal guardianship, miscalled equal liberty, but I will seek allies like-minded. Not knowing whether I shall find one yonder in a born aristocrat or there in a toiling plebeian, I will put out the sign of equal liberty to exist among allies and of a readiness to take allies for equal liberty as a working rule, not as a religion.

Republicans think they abolished the community of plebeians when they abolished aristocratic rank. Far from it. They reduced the aristocrats to the plebeian level before the law and set up an aristocracy of office-holders and of wealth, which traffics in the making and administration of the laws. Equal liberty remains entirely unknown, because liberty is unknown as an objective reality. There can be no liberty of action till it is understood that each of us finds his law in his will and pleasure and that wherein our wills and pleasures agree we make our law, which we enforce on others who come into our domain, because we must or it is our convenience so to do, Thus only, liberty and law are synonymous, Be not unequally yoked together with non-Egoists. They cannot maintain your liberty. Your right and liberty, apart from what you can do for yourself, is that part of your will and pleasure which receives the support of allies lending you the aid of their power, as their right and liberty has the same extension by recognition and aid from you and others. The Egoist does not commit the mistake of battling for emancipation and endowment with power, misnamed equal liberty, of a herd of human cattle. More precious to me than ten thousand of these is one person capable of asserting all attainable liberty, Still, I came from the herd and by this and like signs I know that the herd contains my precious allies in the making, I send, among those who can hear, the word of awakening. Come to me and I will recognize in you equal liberty; I will give myself, if you will, a duty toward you, to be performed on pain of losing your esteem and support. I have already the pleasure of seeking and the hope of finding you. Life is worth less without you than it will be with you. Your precious force is my strength from the moment that you understand that I have no greater hope than in your fullest assertion of your liberty. We will not allow the world to wait for the overman. We are the overmen.

Aristocracy has not that fascination for me that it has for F. Nietzsche. Whatever pleasure a man may feel in wielding power in association with bold and strong companions, a reflecting man must despise an hereditary system which is subject to the following defects: that in order to transmit power to one of his sons he must consent to place his other sons in an inferior position; that he must aid in maintaining a special prerogative for the degenerate sons of his original colleagues; that he must give his daughters to such inferior scions to be their marital slaves; that to support the system he must aid in employing those vermin, the priests; that to keep down the plebeians he must slay many a brave and intelligent fellow of plebeian birth.

XX

One can feign a selfish motive to obtain opportunity to do an act of personal kindness; that is, one feigns other self-interested purpose in order to accomplish another self-interested purpose — to overcome the pride of independence in another person. A number of the most delightful stories have this point. The generosity which thus disguises itself differs fundamentally from abstract philanthropy or theoretical Altruism. The reader perceives in every such story how thoroughly the generous heart enjoys its success in aiding particular persons of merit who have attracted its good will. But one never feigns a selfish interest in order to do a disinterested act. On the other hand, how well mankind know that hypocrites profess disinterestedness while their aims are selfish.

In the generous act there is spontaneous, personal motive; no dread duty; no bending before a master power. Do you say the master power is there? Well, it comes through the doer’s organism as a genial impulse, interesting him, and so is Egoistic. Do you complain that thus we make of Egoism what you call selfishness and what you call unselfishness? We show you that there is a common element of genuine personality, even of pleasurable action, in both. Opposite are the acts in which the person yields his will, subjugated by an ideal, the powers of which arc awe, dread and lashing duty. I do not care to quarrel about a word with those whose idea is beckoning-duty. If it comes through my sense of what is worthy of me, due to fulfill my honor and dignity, that too is distilled in ‘my consciousness or subconsciousness and is of my aliment and flowering and of the fruitage of my sentiment, intellect and will—is Egoistic.

XXI

Since the publication of these chapters began, I have seen in libertarian papers several flippant remarks and attempted refutations. We hear that Egoism is a very old thing, which is true; but that is one cause why the sour critics have missed understanding it, for they have gone to old books in which they found the idea of Egoism as viewed in the light of the science, philosophy and politics of past ages; or they have gathered opinions from superficial writings. Many show absolutely no understanding of Egoism. It is an affair of objective classification of acts, they suppose. Thus if I have an apple and eat it, that is Egoism, they suppose. If I give the apple to my friend, that is Altruism, they suppose. How simple! Then I, being an Egoist and liking to see some of my friends eat my apples, must not indulge in this pleasure unless I can stand certain persons’ charges of inconsistency. Let me give them a point: I select my friends. My apples are not for everybody to help himself. Let me give them another point. The man who eats his own apple, not because he likes it, but because he thinks it is Egoistic to eat it, not to talk of duty, is only a deluded Egoist, by which I mean that he has missed being an Egoist in the definite sense in which I am using the word in these closing chapters.

One correspondent demolishes Egoism thus: that Egoism is Hedonism or Eudemonism, the pursuit of pleasure; that it is absurd to say that the pleasure of professing Christianity outweighed the pain of being burned at the stake; that hence it is not true that the pursuit of pleasure is the greatest motive.

“The pursuit of pleasure,” is an expression which has conveyed to many persons the idea that Egoism consists for all men in satiating certain appetites; but the truth is that philosophically “pleasure” stands for sovereignty-is used in contradistinction to servitude.

Egoists do not accept the state of mind of a Christian martyr as being normal. He believed that a crown of glory awaited those faithful to death; that exclusion from the presence of the Lord awaited the “apostate.” Qualified by these beliefs undoubtingly held, how can we deny the martyr’s (deluded) Egoism? The apostolic “fishers for men” baited their hooks with promises and threats addressed to self-interest and repeated: “Fear not them that kill the body,” etc. Are only those who secure good bargains to be credited with the intention to secure them?

The critic makes a ludicrously false comparison when he sets the physical pain of burning against the mental pain of apostasy. At the moment when the Christian martyr made a choice of constancy to his religion and a crown of glory, he had not felt the physical agony of having his flesh consumed by fire. As much as possible he fixed his thought on the promised heaven and thus lessened the anticipation of pain. Whatever pain there was in the expectation of burning it was not the pain of actual burning. We do not know what the final suffering was nor what the final thoughts were. We read of one on the cross, when too late, exclaiming: “My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” and we read that the servant shall not be above his lord. Moreover if the Christian martyr could be supposed to fully appreciate the pain of death that awaited him, he must also be supposed to appreciate as fully the hell which awaited the apostate and endless death in the lake of fire. How then must such a terrified believer decide on the Egoistic principle as distorted by his faith? To us there is no more difficulty in his case than there is in the principle of gravitation illustrated by a ball rolling down an inclined plane when that is the nearest approach it can make to perpendicular descent.

But while we may suppose a martyr possibly logical in his course, given his absurd belief, we feel warranted in thinking that the majority of those who sought martyrdom were excited beyond the control of reason, as in the case with men acting under the dominion of passion in the commission of certain offences. Craziness is essentially an inability to weigh conditions and apprehend consequences.

Another thinks that Egoism kills sympathy and thus, he thinks, hinders the care of children.

The prevailing opinion that general betterment depends upon increased sympathy is one which I am more and more decided to pronounce a stupendous error. Sympathy diverts energy from one channel to turn it into another. An illustration showing the ruin caused by an irrational excess of grief may cause some to re-examine their opinion. B was married three years ago. Lately his wife died, leaving a child a year old. B was so much affected by the death of his wife that he went to the cemetery day after day and lay down on the ground crying. There he contracted an infectious disease and he also died, thus leaving the child an orphan.

Another is shocked at Egoism, as it has no reverence for anything sacred, not even for Feuerbach’s jugglery that “love is divine” and “man is godlike” or can be by thinking himself so. Also that Egoism puts no premium on “courage”, but rather on cowardice.

It is well to be shocked in default of any other way of getting intelligence awakened. Be sure that Egoism has nothing sacred, and therefore accepts no imposture or hallucination and remember that it requires courage to be a coward and appear a coward. Where “courage” is folly, it is Egoistic to be a “coward.” Certainly it is only Egoism that can ridicule sacred things of man as well as of God: I mean ridicule in action as well as iu word. Pecksniff, even if an Atheist in woman’s clothes, should be snubbed, and the Egoist will snub him, without regard to his or her sex.

XXII

What is good? What is evil? These words express only appreciations. A good fighter is a “good man,” or a “bad man,” both words expressing the same idea of ability, but from different points of view. To the beggar a generous giver is a good man. To the master a servant is good when he cheerfully slaves for the master. A good subject is one obedient to his prince. A good citizen is one who gives no trouble to the state, but contributes to its revenues and stability. Evil is only what we do not find to our good, but what we have to combat. A horse is not good because strong and swift if he be “vicious;” that is, if we find him hard to tame. A breed of dogs is good if readily susceptible of training to hunt all day or watch all night for the benefit of the owner. A wife is “good” if she will not be good to any man but her husband.

Why do the lion and the eagle enjoy such a reputation? The eagle attacks nobody except babes. The lion is a large animal, deliberate in his movements and reputed to give a man a chance to get away. There are “worse” animals.

In all varieties of Moralism obedience is the cardinal virtue, which is wholly on the principle of procuring “good” subjects for those who have the effrontery to set up as rulers over fools and simpletons. “Be good and you will be happy.” “Virtue is its own reward.” These proverbs are an appeal to self-interest beguiled to accept some current teaching as to what is “good” conduct, “virtue.” What if one be happy and healthy and the same believers in these maxims tell him that his happiness is not good? They show that their idea of goodness is obedience to certain commands or rules. But the Egoist will prove most things and hold fast to that which he finds to be good for him. That which he finds to be “its own reward” he holds to be virtue enough. The positions are opposites. The Moralist says: “This course is virtue; believe it and follow instructions, and you will find happiness in the thought of doing right.” The Egoist perceives that such instruction is a trap for credulity. The experience of mankind is all very well, but most of the time your Moralist deprecates experiment. It is remarkable that in “the most important relation in life” two persons must have a legal contract for permanent union before they have any knowledge of each other in the relation; then bear it if they dislike it, and this is regarded as virtue. I do not say that all Moralists teach such doctrine, but all Moralists have some doctrine which they enforce by sentiment demanding individual sacrifice, absolutely and not merely as individually expedient.

XXIII

Truth, the agreement between thinking and thing, — between thought and that, — is as desirable as seeing and hearing without illusion or confusion. Truth, the agreement between thinking and expression, is made a duty by Moralists, yet generally with reservations. Maya man lie to assassins to save his life, or to robbers to save treasure committed to his care, or to a sick person to conceal news which would be a serious shock? The gravity with which such questions are argued points to something further,—that Truth, like Right and Justice, is erected into a deity and men go crazy or pretend to go crazy over the worship thereof. This is the hypocrite’s opportunity. So people bind themselves with an oath and lend a spurious importance to words spoken by men who care only for immunity, but who are shrewd enough not to profess what they think and how independent they feel.

How curious that men generally feel it “right” to cut and hack natural forms, but not to take any liberty with “truth” even in the verbal representation of such forms!

But on the other hand they say: “All’s fair in love and war.” Now everything that is not love can be viewed as war (and the “love” here spoken of is war too). This maxim is more often used to excuse lying than for any other purpose. Lying is a very common practice and I perceive no reason to expect its abatement unless individuals in large numbers (1) cease to pretend to exact from others action which is inconvenient, when they cannot or do not really exact it; (2) make it to the interest of others to tell them the truth or leave others alone as to telling anything about matters on which they now tell lies. So there might be less “war.”

To the Egoist truth is an economy, where practicable. The chief condition is mutual intelligence.

Honesty,—truth in action,—is commonly said to be “the best policy,” and perhaps as commonly disbelieved to be unconditionally so. Where honesty is reciprocal, it brings that mutual advantage which attaches to truthfulness, but honest conduct in an individual in dealing with dishonest persons, is too simple. Honesty is a pleasure, often a luxury.

XXIV

Moralism reaches its acme in the craze for a supposed perfection the opposite way from individuality. Even when philosophy has pronounced that its aim is to lead man to find himself, the spirit of perversion is such that it takes Man, the general idea of the species, as an ideal for the individual and teaches individuals to torture their personal mind in order to conform to the idea formed about the species. Thus it is said our “mission” is to be true men, more perfect men, more perfect women. This notion prompts to imitation of what has been exemplified in others, not to development of that which is most genuinely myself or yourself. If I am to be a conforming man, striving to be something set before me, I cannot be I. As Stirner remarks, “every man who is not deformed is a true or perfect man, but each one is more than this. He is this unique man.” What he is that another is not, we cannot say in advance of knowing him. Egoism is this: that this man acts out himself. Every woman may be assumed to be a true or perfect woman, and she is cheated if taught to assume otherwise. That is not the aim; that is the starting point with us Egoists. Be easy about perfection of Man. The individual needs first to be free from any yoke or assigned task, in order to normally possess, enjoy, develop and exhibit himself or herself. I shall develop the species, if I have nothing more distinctive to develop. A woman will be merely a “true and perfect woman” if she has nothing of her own, only the species. The very moment, however, that she knows herself to be already a “true and perfect woman,” as the zero or horizon of individuality, that moment is the individual energy set free to work out whatever it takes pleasure in, — or as free as conscious reflection can make us while old habits and affections persist in some degree. To come to ourselves, to find ourselves, is to know that what we have of the species is ours, so far as it suits us to keep it and that we have neither obligation nor mission but what each one may give himself.

XXV

A woman is — possibly an Egoist. Apart from this possibility she is — simply a female. If an Egoist, she will determine her actions with precisely that interior freedom possessed by the male Egoist.

Marriage, whether as polygamy or monogamy, is an agreement among men in a given state to respect each other’s property in one or more women, according to the law of the tribe or state. It depends upon deluded Egoism. The supposed happiness of exclusive possession as a right to be enforced is resolvable into several factors such as (1) The certain immediate desire for possession; (2) The notion that the person possessed is passive and a constant quantity; (3) The seeming accumulation of happiness by monopolizing that which others would use if permitted, the defeating of their desire being supposed to be the securing of one’s own. Some men, however, marry because they see that the desired woman will be married by another and hence lost to them unless they take her on the customary contract.

Men flatter themselves that they can perpetuate themselves and not merely the race; a simple error, for if we allow half the effect to each parent, the result is that A’s offspring is half A; his grandchild is one-fourth A; his great-grandchild is one-eighth A; the next generation one-sixteenth A, and thus his descendents will have nothing more in common with him than any of the individuals of his race.

Some learned men argue that while men are naturally polygamous, women are naturally monogamous; but their discourse soon turns into censure of any woman who does not come up to the mark, as being a perverted creature. Are they blind to the vast amount of fear, reserve and duplicity in women? Can the subjugation of woman through all past time have failed to make her seem and act as though her nature were different from man’s? Is not the watch kept upon her a proof that the preachers have no deep faith in her nature being different from their own? But what would be the fate of an author who should terrify society by assimilating the nature of the two sexes, while affirming man’s polygamous instinct? He would be accused of a tendency to corrupt virtuous womanhood.

All agree that jealousy is a cruel and tormenting passion. Is it not, then, self-evidently a sign of perverted Egoism? The temper which is not jealous, which can love and let love, and enjoy the love that is spontaneously given because attracted, is undoubtedly happier than the jealous disposition. Such a temper will be willing to let the nature of woman display itself in freedom, and not until more of such a temper is shown is it to be expected that men will be privileged to know from women what women really are.

The wife enjoys a status. To forfeit it is to forfeit reputation. The husband is judged differently. It looks as if the modern woman, for the present, were mostly contenting herself with keeping her reputation and using the status in which man has placed her, for what there is in it. Liberty is not hers, but some power she can wield. Such power cannot fail to be a curtailing of the husband’s resources, liberty or convenience, honesty, growth; and if he is fool enough to presume too far on his prerogative, he is sure in many instances to be deceived, for woman’s wit has been forced in the direction of deception as much as to submission. The latter implies the former.

With the discovery by men that the perpetuation of their individuality is an illusion, that the expectation of happiness by the exercise of authority over woman is a gross mistake, that the person possessed is not a constant quantity but a variable one, a good to be elicited by wise treatment and not by rule of thumb, Egoism comes into the relation of the sexes, without delusion. The woman will have her way in the matter of procreation and will have the control of her children till they are wise enough to assert the control of themselves.[1] What have we onlookers to do with the relations of mother and infant? Nothing.

Those who are in the married state sometimes pretend that if they were single they would remain single. They are not to be believed because they say so. Marriage to very many is a sacred thing in some aspect or the demon of deluded selfishness is stronger than they confess. What if we say to them: Please for a moment regard your marriage as the marriage of a pair of doves or canaries. When so regarded what is there to talk about in the question whether you are married or not, apart from bare legal powers? [2]

Related to this is the idea that crimes of jealousy, even outside of marital relations, can be traced to the idea of marital rights. The man and woman who have cohabited have talked or thought of marriage and come to regard their connection as a marriage without the ceremony. Marriage and the possibility of marriage are in this way responsible for those crimes which simulate marital vengeance.

Some people contrast love with selfishness. They surely cannot mean sexual love. Te quiero is translated either “I love thee” or “I want thee.” By common understanding love that is not selfish enough to break some law in order to satisfy a personal want, is not strong enough to hold a spirited mate.

Others find in sex an argument against Egoism. They say you cannot be an independent individual, because you are incomplete without one of the opposite sex, We may reply that a man is very much sooner done for if deprived of food or water than if unable to meet with an agreeable woman; consequently if there were anything in the above argument it would lead to the conclusion that the having any physical requirements militates against Egoism. But, on the contrary, we find they all afford scope for Egoism. We are likely to find in our surroundings the objects essential to our existence, and this comes out with regard to companionship just as with regard to materials for food, clothing and shelter. Egoism lies entirely in our attitude toward objects, not in our being constituted to have no need of them. We cannot fly, and we are subject to hunger and other appetites. Our needs serve to awaken our powers to activity and gives various occasions for converting threatened suffering into enjoyment, if we meet everything in a thoroughly intrepid, Egoistic spirit. Even our need of social conversation is no derogation from Egoism. The man who uses and appropriates to himself the benefits of intercourse with others — of his choosing — is an intelligent Egoist, whereas the shrinking, solitary man is weaker: he attaches too much importance to something and he permits it to drive him from the field of activity and enyoument.

Theoretically and practically the position of a married woman is in all essential respects the opposite of that which an Egoist would choose. Still, there is no position in which one may accieentally find oneself (short of actual imprisonment) that can make any difference to the individual comparable in effect to the difference between Egoism (mental liberty) and non-Egoism (mental slavery).

If a woman had sold herself into chattel slavery which the law forbids, she would feel no hesitation in repudiating the bargain. What is the difference in marriage? The difference lies in the social sanction. The victims await emancipation by social opinion. This is not Egoism, but its opposite.

XXVI

Reared in Evangelical Christianity I passed, between the ages of 15 and 18, through the stages of Biblical criticism and disbelief in Providence, on the ground of the supremacy of natural law, to Athesim.

As my religion had been an undoubting faith in and obedience to an ideal Ego — God — when I unbound myself from the web of theology, I fell heir to the sovereign attributes, — the liberty ad the benevolence, — of the God who then became a myth. I did not cheat myself a day with Moral commandments without a Moral Lawgiver. Yet I felt and foresaw that what was gained by the intellect would not be easily translated into feeling and action for many years to come, such was the Moral susceptibility and force of habits, from early indoctrination. I said to myself as a youth: “I feel that not unitil I am 40 years of age shall I be able to act in all things as my judgment decides for my own interest.” It was even so.

Thus in the first half of the sixtyies I was an Atheist and self-conscious Egoist. I associated with Atheists and took part in their propaganda before I was 20 and for years after. But I found a false note among the Atheists, that theirs was the religion of Humanity with a Morality not less impresswive upon the conscience than that connected with theology, purer because freed from superstition. They challenghed comparison as to the Morality of their leaders and members with Christians, — the Christian standard being usually implied as to what constituted Morality. There were among them men impressed with the philosophy of Epicurus, of Hobbes, of D’Holbach and Spinoza, self-love as the foundation and sum of morals, but the drift of their discourses was that good morals would grow out of self-love, and still the morals were Christian morals. When an Atheist ceased to take an interest in the iconoclastic propaganda, he usually settled down into a selfish individual, a nonentity of ordinary morals, His Egoism was after the current ideas of rudimentary Egoism which orthodox Moralists propagate and his former associates simply regretted that he was no longer militant or contributory to the Atheistic church.

From the first of my mental independence, or Atheism, I repudiated conscience and a Moral standard; and I was equally dissatisfied with the attempted limitation of self-love, to grubbing for advantages over other people; certain that it was purely my pleasure or prudence which impelled me to any act, I declared in print, prior to 1870, that when an Atheist acts honestly toward another person it is because it is his pleasure to do so. This aroused a critic who affirmed the “sense of justice” governing Atheists. A pretty term, but when we have arrived at a “sense of justice” why do we inconvenience ourselves for it? I affirm a pleasure, a sentiment of good will and of art. There is no “must” about it with the Egoist. But with my Atheistic critic there was a spice of dictation, as who should say “you must yield to a sense of Duty to Humanity.” Hard by lurks bigotry.

Feuerbach’s inversion of theology, turning “God is love,” into “love is divine,” did not fascinate me. I saw in it a play on words, In my infancy God was a stern fact and when he became a myth, why, love was-love, not divine; goodness was what we find to make for our good; that is to say there was nothing divine; no such thing as goodness or badness except as relative to our welfare and no better reason why I should not be a cruel man than that I took no pleasure in cruelty, found no sense in it.

I have always rather pitied those who run passionately after the so-called good things which Christians and Moralists generally suppose must be the sole aim of Egoists. What fools are the fretful lusters after power, men covetous of others’ goods, toilsome accumulators of what they cannot enjoy! Deluded Egoists![3]

During the period I have mentioned and until the spring of 1872 I had no knowledge of Max Stirner’s work, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (The Individual and his Property). But believe me that I devoured it so soon as I got hold of it. There for the first time I saw most plainly stated, my own thought, borne out by illustrations that will test the nerve of every professed Egoist. Who but Stirner has dared to suggest that the tie of blood is a superstition? Were it not that we have assurance of the speedy appearance of an English translation of his great work, I would here give something of a summary of its contents; but now, under the pleasing expectation, I may confine myself to a mention of one feature of that wonderful book. The author shows us the world divided into three epochs: first, Antiquity, in which men were terrorized by the forces of nature. Second, Christendom. Christ introduces the rule of the spirit, which destroys the fear of material things, but establishes the tyranny of the Idea. There is now a spook in every object. Third, the Unit, by the might of his own understanding and will, dismisses the spirits, the spooks; the rule of Ideas is broken. The Unit, — the Ego, — is not an abstract I. He is you, yourself, just as you are in flesh and blood, become simply sovereign, disdainful of all rule of Ideas, as Christ was of all rule of material powers.

Of the author’s character as shown by his actions I will emphasize only one feature. He recognized in the woman the individual, as free as she cares to be, precisely as he did in the man. When we read of another German author as Stirner’s disciple, who differs from him so radically in this, we may think that author somewhat of a plagiarist, perhaps, but certainly not a disciple, as alleged.

Others again are springing up to classify the Ego and Egoism in philosophy. The Unit of Stirner is — yourself, if you like. You, as a person of flesh and blood, will not be successfully classified in “philosophy,” I think, if you grasp the idea and act on it. The old so-called philosophic Egoism was a disquisition on the common characteristics of men, a sort of generality. The real living Egoism is the fact of untrammeled mind in this or that person and the actions resulting, the end of the tyranny of general ideas.

[1] Will the Union of Egoist legislate on the “debt” of grown children to their mother? Our Union will be based simply on our common interests. The interest must be clear to each Unit in order to command support for any rule. Only a minority can have a pecuniary interest in the above suggested claim. We may first eliminate all the men, as the children belong only to the mothers. We can also leave out all the women who have no children that are under our jurisdiction or likely to come under it, and those mothers who are content with the unrestricted control of their infant children to train and impress them as they will; content to blame themselves if a child proves ungrateful after ten or fifteen years of such opportunity to form its disposition. To my thinking the policy of awarding compensation in after years, would imply the policy of interfering with the mother’s absolute control over the child during infancy, for in this control lies the making or spoiling of the child’s character. I prefer to trust her entirely and leave her to face the results of her training of her child.

[2] You say certain birds are monogamous and that this argues that man may be so. Accept the assurance that Egoists will be content to see the question resolved by the free play of instinct in the species, as you suggest. But the action of mankind, by legislation and social censure on the matter, looks very like a confession that they regard themselves as naturally constituted with an inclination to variety in love and needing a deal of dragooning to make them good monogamists or passable counterfeits thereof.

[3] A dwarfed, stunted conception of Egoism finds expression in the remark: “I do not believe in self-interest. I would not take another man’s job.” Indeed, sir, if you have a determination not to take it I am sure you will not take it-unless some stronger interest of yours comes into play. We will wait and see what you do. Professions are cheap.