Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/137

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MORALS AND LAW
135

sume the headship of a family, hereditary slavery may be foreseen in it.

Let us put this view of the case on one side for a moment. We assume that we are convinced by Herr Duehring's maxim and that we are zealous for the full equalisation of the two wills, for the "universal sovereignty of man" for the "sovereignty of the individual," magnificent expressions, in comparison with which Stirner's "individual" with his private property is a mere bungler though he might claim his modest part therein. Then we are all free and independent. All? No, not even now. There are still "occasional dependent relations" but these are to be explained "on grounds which must be sought not in the action of two wills as such but in a third consideration, in the case of children, for example, in the inadequateness of their self-assertion."

Indeed, the foundations of independence are not to be sought in the realisation of the two wills as such. Naturally not, since the realisation of one of the wills is thus interfered with. But they must be sought in a third direction. And what is the third direction? The actual fixing of a subjected will as an inadequate one. So far has our realistic philosopher departed from reality that will, the real content, the characteristic determination of this will serves him as a third ground, for abstract and indefinite speech. However this may be we must agree that equality has its exceptions. It does not apply to a will which is infected with inadequateness of self expression.

Further, "Where the animal and the human are intermingled in one person can one in the name of a second fully developed human being demand the same actions as in the case of a single human being … our supposition is here of two morally unequal persons of which