The thought of right is originally my thought; or, it has its origin in me. But, when it has sprung from me, when the "Word" is out, then it has "become flesh," it is a _fixed idea_. Now I no longer get rid of the thought; however I turn, it stands before me. Thus men have not become masters again of the thought "right," which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them. This is absolute right, that which is absolved or unfastened from me. We, revering it as absolute, cannot devour it again, and it takes from us the creative power; the creature is more than the creator, it is "in and for itself." Once you no longer let right run around free, once you draw it back into its origin, into you, it is _your_ right; and that is right which suits you. * * * * * Right has had to suffer an attack within itself, i. e. from the standpoint of right; war being declared on the part of liberalism against "privilege."[149] _Privileged_ and _endowed with equal rights_--on these two concepts turns a stubborn fight. Excluded or admitted--would mean the same. But where should there be a power--be it an imaginary one like God, law, or a real one like I, you--of which it should not be true that before it all are "endowed with equal rights," _i. e._ no respect of persons holds? Every one is equally dear to God if he adores him, equally agreeable to the law if only he is a law-abiding person; whether the lover of God and the law is humpbacked and lame, whether poor or rich, and the like, that amounts to nothing for God and the law; just so, when you are at the point of drowning, you like a negro as rescuer as well as the most excellent Caucasian,--yes, in this situation you esteem a dog not less than a man. But to whom will not every one be also, contrariwise, a preferred or disregarded person? God punishes the wicked with his wrath, the law chastises the lawless, you let one visit you every moment and show the other the door. The "equality of right" is a phantom just because right is nothing more and nothing less than admission, _i. e._ a _matter of grace_, which, be it said, one may also acquire by his desert; for desert and grace are not contradictory, since even grace wishes to be "deserved" and our gracious smile falls only to him who knows how to force it from us. So people dream of "all citizens of the State having to stand side by side, with equal rights." As citizens of the State they are certainly all equal for the State. But it will divide them, and advance them or put them in the rear, according to its special ends, if on no other account; and still more must it distinguish them from one another as good and bad citizens.