Not a promise, at any rate, "If I were bound to-day and hereafter to my will of yesterday," my will would "be benumbed. My creature, _viz._, a particular expression of will, would have become my dominator. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such all my life."[278] "The union is my own creation, my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as any association of whatever sort. As I am not willing to be a slave to my maxims, but lay them bare to my constant criticism without any warrant, and admit no bail whatever for their continuance, so still less do I pledge myself to the union for my future and swear away my soul to it as men are said to do with the devil, and as is really the case with the State and all intellectual authority; but I am and remain more to myself than State, Church, God, and the like, and, consequently, also infinitely more than the union."[279] Rather, men are to be held together in the union by the advantage which each individual has from the union at every moment. If I can "use" my fellow-men, "then I am likely to come to an understanding and unite myself with them, in order to strengthen my power by the agreement, and to do more by joint force than individual force could accomplish. In this joinder I see nothing at all else than a multiplication of my strength, and only so long as it is my multiplied strength do I retain it."[280] Hence the union is something quite different from "that society which Communism means to found."[281] "You bring into the union your whole power, your ability, and assert yourself; in society you with your labor-strength are spent. In the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a 'member in the body of this Lord'. You owe to society what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are--possessed by 'social duties'; you utilize the union, and, undutiful and unfaithful, give it up when you are no longer able to get any use out of it. If society is more than you, then it is of more consequence to you than yourself; the union is only your tool, or the sword with which you sharpen and enlarge your natural strength; the union exists for you and by you, society contrariwise claims you for itself and exists even without you; in short, society is sacred, the union is your own; society uses you up, you use up the union."[282] 2. But what form may such a social life take in detail? In reply to his critic, Moses Hess, Stirner gives some examples of unions that already exist.