But only look at that Sultan who cares so lovingly for his people. Is he not pure unselfishness itself, and does he not hourly sacrifice himself for his people? Oh, yes, for "his people." Just try it; show yourself not as his, but as your own; for breaking away from his egoism you will take a trip to jail. The Sultan has set his cause on nothing but himself; he is to himself all in all, he is to himself the only one, and tolerates nobody who would dare not to be one of "his people." And will you not learn by these brilliant examples that the egoist gets on best? I for my part take a lesson from them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving those great egoists, rather to be the egoist myself. God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for _myself_, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one.[4] If God, if mankind, as you affirm, have substance enough in themselves to be all in all to themselves, then I feel that _I_ shall still less lack that, and that I shall have no complaint to make of my "emptiness." I am nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything. Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You think at least the "good cause" must be my concern? What's good, what's bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is _mine_, and it is not a general one, but is--_unique_,[5] as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself! Part First Man _Man is to man the supreme being_, says Feuerbach. _Man has just been discovered_, says Burno Bauer. Then let us take a more careful look at this supreme being and this new discovery. I A HUMAN LIFE From the moment when he catches sight of the light of the world a man seeks to find out _himself_ and get hold of _himself_ out of its confusion, in which he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture. But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself in turn against his attacks, and asserts its own persistence. Accordingly, because each thing _cares for itself_ and at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, the _combat_ of self-assertion is unavoidable. _Victory_ or _defeat_--between the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the _subject_: the former exercises _supremacy_ and "rights of supremacy," the latter fulfils in awe and deference the "duties of a subject."