Well, I may not do as I will. But shall I find in any society such an
unmeasured freedom of maying? Certainly no! Accordingly we might be
content? Not a bit! It is a different thing whether I rebound from an
ego or from a people, a generalization. There I am my opponent's
opponent, born his equal; here I am a despised opponent, bound and under
a guardian: there I stand man to man; here I am a schoolboy who can
accomplish nothing against his comrade because the latter has called
father and mother to aid and has crept under the apron, while I am well
scolded as an ill-bred brat, and I must not "argue": there I fight
against a bodily enemy; here against mankind, against a generalization,
against a "majesty," against a spook. But to me no majesty, nothing
sacred, is a limit; nothing that I know how to overpower. Only that
which I cannot overpower still limits my might; and I of limited might
am temporarily a limited I, not limited by the might _outside_ me, but
limited by my _own_ still deficient might, by my _own impotence_.
However, "the Guard dies, but does not surrender!" Above all, only a
bodily opponent!
I dare meet every foeman
Whom I can see and measure with my eye,
Whose mettle fires my mettle for the fight,--etc.
Many privileges have indeed been cancelled with time, but solely for the
sake of the common weal, of the State and the State's weal, by no means
for the strengthening of me. Vassalage, _e. g._, was abrogated only that
a single liege lord, the lord of the people, the monarchical power,
might be strengthened: vassalage under the one became yet more rigorous
thereby. Only in favor of the monarch, be he called "prince" or "law,"
have privileges fallen. In France the citizens are not, indeed, vassals
of the king, but are instead vassals of the "law" (the Charter).
_Subordination_ was retained, only the Christian State recognized that
man cannot serve two masters (the lord of the manor and the prince,
etc.); therefore one obtained all the prerogatives; now he can again
_place_ one above another, he can make "men in high place."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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