Only against a sacred thing are there criminals; you against me can never be a criminal, but only an opponent. But not to hate him who injures a sacred thing is in itself a crime, as St. Just cries out against Danton: "Are you not a criminal and responsible for not having hated the enemies of the fatherland?"-- If, as in the Revolution, what "Man" is is apprehended as "good citizen," then from this concept of "Man" we have the well-known "political offences and crimes." In all this the individual, the individual man, is regarded as refuse, and on the other hand the general man, "Man," is honored. Now, according to how this ghost is named,--as Christian, Jew, Mussulman, good citizen, loyal subject, freeman, patriot, etc.,--just so do those who would like to carry through a divergent concept of man, as well as those who want to put _themselves_ through, fall before victorious "Man." And with what unction the butchery goes on here in the name of the law, of the sovereign people, of God, etc.! Now, if the persecuted trickily conceal and protect themselves from the stern parsonical judges, people stigmatize them as "hypocrites," as St. Just, _e. g._, does those whom he accuses in the speech against Danton.[148] One is to be a fool, and deliver himself up to their Moloch. Crimes spring from _fixed ideas_. The sacredness of marriage is a fixed idea. From the sacredness it follows that infidelity is a _crime_, and therefore a certain marriage law imposes upon it a shorter or longer _penalty_. But by those who proclaim "freedom as sacred" this penalty must be regarded as a crime against freedom, and only in this sense has public opinion in fact branded the marriage law. Society would have _every one_ come to his right indeed, but yet only to that which is sanctioned by society, to the society-right, not really to _his_ right. But _I_ give or take to myself the right out of my own plenitude of power, and against every superior power I am the most impenitent criminal. Owner and creator of my right, I recognize no other source of right than--me, neither God nor the State nor nature nor even man himself with his "eternal rights of man," neither divine nor human right. Right "in and for itself." Without relation to me, therefore! "Absolute right." Separated from me, therefore! A thing that exists in and for itself! An absolute! An eternal right, like an eternal truth! According to the liberal way of thinking, right is to be obligatory for me because it is thus established by _human reason_, against which _my reason_ is "unreason." Formerly people inveighed in the name of divine reason against weak human reason; now, in the name of strong human reason, against egoistic reason, which is rejected as "unreason." And yet none is real but this very "unreason." Neither divine nor human reason, but only your and my reason existing at any given time, is real, as and because you and I are real.