4. Obituary for " M. Hess"
"What Engels and Marx could not yet do, M. Hess has accomplished."
Such is the great, divine transition which — owing to the relative "can" and "cannot" be done of the evangelists — has taken so firm a hold of the holy man's fingers that it has to find a place, relevantly or irrelevantly, in every article of the church father.
"What Engels and Marx could not yet do, M. Hess has accomplished." But what is this "what" that "Engels and Marx could not yet do"? Nothing more nor less, indeed, than — to criticise Stirner. And why was it that Engels and Marx "could not yet" criticise Stirner? For the sufficient reason that — Stirner's book had not yet appeared when they wrote Die heilige Familie.
This speculative trick — of joining together everything and bringing the most diverse things into an apparent causal relation — has truly taken possession not only of the head of our saint but also of his fingers. With him it has become devoid of any contents and degenerates into a burlesque manner of uttering tautologies with an important mien. For example, already in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (I, 5) we read:
"The difference between my work and the pages which, for example, a Philippson covers with writing" (that is, the empty pages on which, "for example, a Philippson" writes) "must, therefore, be so constituted as in fact it «"!!!a
"M. Hess", for whose writings Engels and Marx take absolutely no responsibility, seems such a strange phenomenon to the saintly critic that he is only capable of copying long excerpts from Die letzten Philosophen and passing the judgment that "on some points this criticism has not understood Feuerbach or also" (O theology!) "the vessel wishes to rebel against the potter". Cf. Epistle to the Romans, 9 : 20-21. Having once more performed the "hard work" of quoting, our saintly critic finally arrives at the conclusion that Hess copies from Hegel, since he uses the two words "united" and "development". Saint Bruno, of course, had in a round-about way to try to turn against Feuerbach the proof given in Die heilige Familie of his own complete dependence on Hegel.
"See, that is how Bauer had to end! He fought as best he could against all the Hegelian categories", with the exception of self-consciousness— particularly in the glorious struggle of the Literatur-Zeitung against Herr Hinrichs. How he fought and conquered them we have already seen. For good measure, let us quote Wigand, page 110, where he asserts that
the "true" (1) "solution" (2) "oj contradictions" (3) "in nature and history" (4), the "true unity" (5) "of separate relations" (6), the "genuine" (7) "basis" (8) "and abyss" (9) "of religion, the truly infinite" (10), "irresistible, self-creative" (11) "personality" (12) "has not yet been found".
These three lines contain not two doubtful Hegelian categories, as in the case of Hess, but a round dozen of "true, infinite, irresistible" Hegelian categories which reveal themselves as such by "the true unity of separate relations"—"see, that is how Bauer had to end"! And if the holy man thinks that in Hess he has discovered a Christian believer, not because Hess "hopes"—as Bruno says — but because he does not hope and because he talks of the "resurrection", then our great church father enables us, on the basis of this same page 110, to demonstrate his very pronounced Judaism. He declares there
"that the true, living man in the flesh has not yet been born"IV. (a new elucidation about the determination of the "unique sex") "and the mongrel produced" (Bruno Bauer?!?} "is not yet able to master all dogmatic formulas", etc.
That is to say, the Messiah is not yet born, the son of man has first to come into the world and this world, being the world of the Old Testament, is still under the rod of the law, of "dogmatic formulas".
Just as Saint Bruno, as shown above, made use of "Engels and Marx" for a transition to Hess, so now the latter serves him to bring Feuerbach finally into causal connection with his excursions on Stirner, Die heilige Familie and Die letzten Philosophen.
"See, that is how Feuerbach had to end!" "Philosophy had to end picusly", etc. (Wigand, p. 145.)
The true causal connection, however, is that this exclamation is an imitation of a passage from Hess' Die letzten Philosophen aimed against Bauer, among others (Preface, p. 4):
Saint Bruno ends his speech for the prosecution against Feuerbach and his alleged accomplices with the reproach to Feuerbach that all he can do is to "trumpet", to "blow blasts on a trumpet", whereas Monsieur B. Bauer or Madame la critique, the "mongrel produced", to say nothing of the continual "destruction", "drives forth in his triumphal chariot and gathers new triumphs" (p. 125), "hurls down from the throne" (p. 119), "slays" (p. Ill), "strikes down like thunder" (p. 115), "destroys once and for all" (p. 120), "shatters" (p. 121), allows nature merely to "vegetate" (p. 120), builds "stricter" (!) "prisons" (p. 104) and, finally, with "crushing" pulpit eloquence expatiates, on p. 105, in a brisk, pious, cheerful and free3 fashion on the "stably-strongly-firmly-existing", hurling "rock-like matter and rocks" at Feuerbach's head (p. 110) and, in conclusion, by a side thrust vanquishes Saint Max as well, by adding "the most abstract abstractness" and "the hardest hardness" (on p. 124) to "critical criticism", "social society" and "rock-like matter and rocks".
All this Saint Bruno accomplished "through himself, in himself and with himself", because he is "He himself"; indeed, he is "himself always the greatest and can always be the greatest" (is and can be!) "through himself, in himself and with himself" (p. 136). That's that.
Saint Bruno would undoubtedly be dangerous to the female sex, for he is an "irresistible personality", if "in the same measure on the other hand" he did not fear "sensuousness as the barrier against which man has to deal himself a mortal blow". Therefore, "through himself, in himself and with himself" he will hardly pluck any flowers but rather allow them to wither in infinite longing and hysterical yearning for the "irresistible personality", who "possesses this unique sex and these unique, particular sex organs".*
* [The following passage is crossed out in the manuscript:]
5. Saint Bruno in His "Triumphal Chariot"
Before leaving our church father "victorious and confident of victory", let us for a moment mingle with the gaping crowd that comes up running just as eagerly when he "drives forth in his triumphal chariot and gathers new triumphs" as when General Tom Thumb with his four ponies provides a diversion. It is not surprising that we hear the humming of street-songs, for to be welcomed with street-songs "belongs after all to the concept" of triumph "in general".