Political liberalism abolished, the inequality of masters and servants:
it made people _masterless_, anarchic. The master was now removed from
the individual, the "egoist," to become a ghost,--the law or the State.
Social liberalism abolishes the inequality of possession, of the poor
and rich, and makes people _possessionless_ or propertyless. Property is
withdrawn from the individual and surrendered to ghostly society. Humane
liberalism makes people _godless_, atheistic. Therefore the individual's
God, "my God", must be put an end to. Now masterlessness is indeed at
the same time freedom from service, possessionlessness at the same time
freedom from care, and godlessness at the same time freedom from
prejudice: for with the master the servant falls away; with possession,
the care about it; with the firmly-rooted God, prejudice. But, since the
master rises again as State, the servant appears again as subject; since
possession becomes the property of society, care is begotten anew as
labor; and, since God as Man becomes a prejudice, there arises a new
faith, faith in humanity or liberty. For the individual's God the God of
all, _viz._, "Man," is now exalted; "for it is the highest thing in us
all to be man." But, as nobody can become entirely what the idea "man"
imports, Man remains to the individual a lofty other world, an
unattained supreme being, a God. But at the same time this is the "true
God," because he is fully adequate to us,--to wit, our own "_self_"; we
ourselves, but separated from us and lifted above us.
POSTSCRIPT
The foregoing review of "free human criticism" was written by bits
immediately after the appearance of the books in question, as was also
that which elsewhere refers to writings of this tendency, and I did
little more than bring together the fragments. But criticism is
restlessly pressing forward, and thereby makes it necessary for me to
come back to it once more, now that my book is finished, and insert this
concluding note.
I have before me the latest (eighth) number of the "_Allgemeine
Literatur-Zeitung_" of Bruno Bauer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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