The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever (15 page)

If therefore the
whole
German development did not exceed the German
political
development, a German could at the most have the share in the problems of the present that a
Russian
has. But, when the separate individual is not bound by the limitations of the nation, the nation as a whole is still less liberated by the liberation of one individual. The fact that Greece had a Scythian among its philosophers did not help the Scythians to make a single step towards Greek culture.

Luckily we Germans are not Scythians.

As the ancient peoples went through their pre-history in imagination, in
mythology
, so we Germans have gone through our post-history in thought, in
philosophy.
We are
philosophical
contemporaries of the present without being its
historical
contemporaries. German philosophy is the
ideal prolongation
of German history. If therefore, instead of the
œuvres incomplètes of
our real history, we criticize the
œuvres posthumes
of our ideal history,
philosophy
, our criticism is in the midst of the questions of which the present says:
that is the question
. What in progressive nations is a
practical
break with modern state conditions is in Germany, where even those conditions do not yet exist, at first a
critical
break with the philosophical reflexion of those conditions.

German philosophy of right and state
is the only
German history
which is
al pari
with the
official
modern present. The German nation must therefore join this its dream-history to its present conditions and subject to criticism not only these existing conditions, but at the same time their abstract continuation. Its future cannot be
limited
either to the immediate negation of its real conditions of state and right or to the immediate implementation of its ideal state and right conditions, for it has the immediate negation of its real conditions in its ideal conditions, and it has almost
outlived
the immediate implementation of its ideal conditions in the contemplation of neighbouring nations. Hence it is with good reason that the
practical
political party in Germany demands the
negation of philosophy.
It is wrong, not in its demand, but in stopping at the demand, which it neither seriously implements nor can implement. It believes that it implements that negation by turning its back to philosophy and its head away from it and muttering a few trite and angry phrases about it. Owing to the limitation of its outlook it does not include philosophy in the circle of
German
reality or it even fancies it is
beneath
German practice and the theories that serve it. You demand that
real life embryos
be made the starting-point but you forget that the real life embryo of the German nation has grown so far only inside its
cranium
. In a word—
You cannot abolish philosophy without making it a reality.

The same mistake, but with the factors
reversed
, was made by the
theoretical
party originating from philosophy.

In the present struggle it saw
only the critical struggle of philosophy against the German world
; it did not give a thought to the fact that
philosophy up to the present
itself belongs to this world and is its
completion
, although an ideal one. Critical towards its counterpart, it was uncritical towards itself when, proceeding from the
premises
of philosophy, it either stopped at the results given by philosophy or passed off demands and results from somewhere else as immediate demands and results of philosophy, although these, provided they are justified, can be obtained only by the
negation of philosophy up to the present
, of philosophy as such. We reserve ourselves the right to a more detailed description of this section. Its basic deficiency may be reduced to the following:
It thought it could make philosophy a reality without abolishing it
.

The criticism of
the German philosophy of state and right,
which attained its most consistent, richest and last formulation through
Hegel
, is both a critical analysis of the modern state and of the reality connected with it, and the resolute negation of the whole
manner of the German consciousness in politics and right
as practised hereto, the most distinguished, most universal expression of which, raised to the level of a
science
, is the
speculative philosophy of right
itself. If the speculative philosophy of right, that abstract extravagant
thinking
on the modern state, the reality of which remains a thing of the beyond, if only beyond the Rhine, was possible only in Germany, inversely the
German
thought-image of the modern state which makes abstraction of
real man
was possible only because and insofar as the modern state itself makes abstraction of
real man
or satisfies
the whole
of man only in imagination. In politics the Germans
thought
what other nations
did
. Germany was their
theoretical conscience
. The abstraction and presumption of its thought was always in step with the one-sidedness and lowliness of its reality. If therefore the
status quo
of
German statehood
expresses
the completion of the ancien régime,
the completion of the thorn in the flesh of the modern state, the
status quo of German state science
expresses the
incompletion of the modern state,
the defectiveness of its flesh itself.

Already as the resolute opponent of the previous form of
German
political consciousness the criticism of speculative philosophy of right strays, not into itself, but into
problems
which there is only one means of solving—
practice.

It is asked: can Germany attain a practice
à la hauteur des principes, i.e.,
a
revolution
which will raise it not only to the
official level
of the modern nations but to the
height of humanity
which will be the near future of those nations?

The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates
ad hominem,
and it demonstrates
ad hominem
as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But for man the root is man himself. The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of its practical energy, is that it proceeds from a resolute
positive
abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that
man is the highest essence for man,
hence with the
categoric imperative to overthrow all relations
in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings!

Even historically, theoretical emancipation has specific practical significance for Germany. For Germany’s
revolutionary
past is theoretical, it is the
Reformation. As
the revolution then began in the brain of the
monk, so
now it begins in the brain of the
philosopher.

Luther,
we grant, overcame bondage out of
devotion
by replacing it by bondage out of
conviction
. He shattered faith in authority because he restored the authority of faith. He turned priests into laymen because he turned laymen into priests. He freed man from outer religiosity because he made religiosity the inner man. He freed the body from chains because he enchained the heart.

But if Protestantism was not the true solution of the problem it was at least the true setting of it. It was no longer a case of the layman’s struggle against the
priest outside himself
but of his struggle against
his own priest inside himself,
his
priestly nature
. And if the Protestant transformation of the German laymen into priests emancipated the lay popes, the
princes,
with the whole of their priestly clique, the privileged and philistines, the philosophical transformation of priestly Germans into men will emancipate the
people.
But
secularization
will not stop at the
confiscation of church estates
set in motion mainly by hypocritical Prussia any more than emancipation stops at princes. The Peasant War, the most radical fact of German history, came to grief because of theology. Today, when theology itself has come to grief, the most unfree fact of German history, our
status quo,
will be shattered against philosophy. On the eve of the Reformation official Germany was the most unconditional slave of Rome. On the eve of its revolution it is the unconditional slave of less than Rome, of Prussia and Austria, of country junkers and philistines.

Meanwhile, a major difficulty seems to stand in the way of a
radical
German revolution.

For revolutions require a
passive
element, a
material
basis. Theory is fulfilled in a people only insofar as it is the fulfillment of the needs of that people. But will the monstrous discrepancy between the demands of German thought and the answers of German reality find a corresponding discrepancy between civil society and the state and between civil society and itself? Will the theoretical needs be immediate practical needs? It is not enough for thought to strive for realization, reality must itself strive towards thought.

But Germany did not rise to the intermediary stage of political emancipation at the same time as the modern nations. It has not yet reached in practice the stages which it has surpassed in theory. How can it do a
somersault
, not only over its own limitations, but also at the same time over the limitations of the modern nations, over limitations which it must in reality feel and strive for as for emancipation from its real limitations? Only a revolution of radical needs can be a radical revolution and it seems that precisely the preconditions and ground for such needs are lacking.

If Germany has accompanied the development of the modern nations only with the abstract activity of thought without taking an effective share in the real struggle of that development, it has, on the other hand, shared the
sufferings
of that development, without sharing in its enjoyment or its partial satisfaction. To the abstract activity on the one hand corresponds the abstract suffering on the other. That is why Germany will one day find itself on the level of European decadence before ever having been on the level of European emancipation. It will be comparable to a
fetish worshipper
pining away with the diseases of Christianity.

If we now consider the
German governments
we find that because of the circumstances of the time, because of Germany’s condition, because of the standpoint of German education and finally under the impulse of its own fortunate instinct, they are driven to combine the
civilized shortcomings of the modern state world,
the advantages of which we do not enjoy, with the
barbaric deficiencies of the ancien régime,
which we enjoy in full; hence Germany must share more and more, if not in the reasonableness, at least in the unreasonableness of those state formations which are beyond the bounds of its
status quo.
Is there in the world, for example, a country which shares so naively in all the illusions of constitutional statehood without sharing in its realities as so-called constitutional Germany? And was it not perforce the notion of a German government to combine the tortures of censorship with the tortures of the French September laws which provide for freedom of the press? As you could find the
gods
of all nations in the Roman Pantheon, so you will find in the Germans’ Holy Roman Empire all the
sins
of all state forms. That this eclecticism will reach a so far unprecedented height is guaranteed in particular by the
political-aesthetic gourmanderie
of a German king who intended to play all the roles of monarchy, whether feudal or bureaucratic, absolute or constitutional, autocratic or democratic, if not in the person of the people, at least in his own person, and if not for the people, at least for
himself
.
Germany, as the deficiency of the political present constituted as a world of its own,
will not be able to throw down the specific German limitations without throwing down the general limitation of the political present.