But, as is the situation with regard to my material work, so it is with my intellectual too. The State allows me to realize value from all my thoughts and to find customers for them (I do realize value from them, _e. g._, in the very fact that they bring me honor from the listeners, and the like); but only so long as my thoughts are--_its_ thoughts. If, on the other hand, I harbor thoughts that it cannot approve (_i. e._ make its own), then it does not allow me at all to realize value from them, to bring them into _exchange_, into _commerce_. _My_ thoughts are free only if they are granted to me by the State's _grace_, _i. e._ if they are the State's thoughts. It lets me philosophize freely only so far as I approve myself a "philosopher of State"; _against_ the State I must not philosophize, gladly as it tolerates my helping it out of its "deficiencies," "furthering" it.--Therefore, as I may behave only as an ego most graciously permitted by the State, provided with its testimonial of legitimacy and police pass, so too it is not granted me to realize value from what is mine, unless this proves to be its, which I hold as fief from it. My ways must be its ways, else it distrains me; my thoughts its thoughts, else it stops my mouth. The State has nothing to be more afraid of than the value of me, and nothing must it more carefully guard against than every occasion that offers itself to me for _realizing value_ from myself. _I_ am the deadly enemy of the State, which always hovers between the alternatives, it or I. Therefore it strictly insists not only on not letting _me_ have a standing, but also on keeping down what is _mine_. In the State there is no--property, _i. e._ no property of the individual, but only State property. Only through the State have I what I have, as I am only through it what I am. My private property is only that which the State leaves to me of _its, cutting off_ others from it (depriving them, making it private); it is State property. But, in opposition to the State, I feel more and more clearly that there is still left me a great might, the might over myself, _i. e._ over everything that pertains only to me and that _exists_ only in being my own. What do I do if my ways are no longer its ways, my thoughts no longer its thoughts? I look to myself, and ask nothing about it! In _my_ thoughts, which I get sanctioned by no assent, grant, or grace, I have my real property, a property with which I can trade. For as mine they are my _creatures_, and I am in a position to give them away in return for _other_ thoughts: I give them up and take in exchange for them others, which then are my new purchased property. What then is _my_ property? Nothing but what is in my _power_! To what property am I entitled? To every property to which I--_empower_ myself.[181] I give myself the right of property in taking property to myself, or giving myself the proprietor's _power_, full power, empowerment.