In one domain the principle of love seems to have been long outsoared by egoism, and to be still in need only of sure consciousness, as it were of victory with a good conscience. This domain is speculation, in its double manifestation as thinking and as trade. One thinks with a will, whatever may come of it; one speculates, however many may suffer under our speculative undertakings. But, when it finally becomes serious, when even the last remnant of religiousness, romance, or "humanity" is to be done away, then the pulse of religious conscience beats, and one at least _professes_ humanity. The avaricious speculator throws some coppers into the poor-box and "does good," the bold thinker consoles himself with the fact that he is working for the advancement of the human race and that his devastation "turns to the good" of mankind, or, in another case, that he is "serving the idea"; mankind, the idea, is to him that something of which he must say, It is more to me than myself. To this day thinking and trading have been done for--God's sake. Those who for six days were trampling down everything by their selfish aims sacrificed on the seventh to the Lord; and those who destroyed a hundred "good causes" by their reckless thinking still did this in the service of another "good cause," and had yet to think of another--besides themselves--to whose good their self-indulgence should turn: of the people, mankind, and the like. But this other thing is a being above them, a higher or supreme being; and therefore I say, they are toiling for God's sake. Hence I can also say that the ultimate basis of their actions is--_love_. Not a voluntary love however, not their own, but a tributary love, or the higher being's own (_i. e._ God's, who himself is love); in short, not the egoistic, but the religious; a love that springs from their fancy that they _must_ discharge a tribute of love, _i. e._ that they must not be "egoists." If _we_ want to deliver the world from many kinds of unfreedom, we want this not on its account but on ours; for, as we are not world-liberators by profession and out of "love," we only want to win it away from others. We want to make it our own; it is not to be any longer _owned as serf_ by God (the church) nor by the law (State), but to be _our own_; therefore we seek to "win" it, to "captivate" it, and, by meeting it half-way and "devoting" ourselves to it as to ourselves as soon as it belongs to us, to complete and make superfluous the force that it turns against us. If the world is ours, it no longer attempts any force _against_ us, but only _with_ us. My selfishness has an interest in the liberation of the world, that it may become--my property.