How is it with mankind, whose cause we are to make our own? Is its cause that of another, and does mankind serve a higher cause? No, mankind looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only, mankind is its own cause. He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. “Should God take up the cause of truth if he were not himself truth?” He cares only for his cause, but, because he is all in all, therefore all is his cause! But we, we are not all in all, and our cause is altogether little and contemptible therefore we must “serve a higher cause.” – Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. Now, what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of us, made an alien cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are shocked by this misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God’s cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God is himself truth and love you are shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in furthering an alien cause as his own. And you do not conceal the Lord’s doings, either. You have much profound information to give about God, and have for thousands of years “searched the depths of the Godhead,” and looked into its heart, so that you can doubtless tell us how God himself attends to “God’s cause,” which we are called to serve. Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns – they for whose cause we are to labour, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic. “Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!” What is not supposed to be my concern ! First and foremost, the good cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes.
This edition was reprinted several times by several publishers in New York and London up to 1931.Īll Things are Nothing to Me First Part: MAN
Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1845 įirst English edition: The Ego and His Own, trans. First Published: in German as Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.
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