I. Looking to each one's own welfare, Stirner rejects law, and that without any limitation to particular spatial or temporal conditions.

Law[231] exists not by the individual's recognizing it as favorable to his interests, but by his holding it sacred. "Who can ask about 'right' if he is not occupying the religious standpoint just like other people? Is not 'right' a religious concept, i. e. something sacred?"[232] "When the Revolution stamped liberty as a 'right' it took refuge in the religious sphere, in the region of the sacred, the ideal."[233] "I am to revere the sultanic law in a sultanate, the popular law in republics, the canon law in Catholic communities, etc. I am to subordinate myself to these laws, I am to count them sacred."[234] "The law is sacred, and he who outrages it is a criminal."[235] "There are no criminals except against something sacred";[236] crime falls when the sacred disappears.[237] Punishment has a meaning only in relation to something sacred.[238] "What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets forth to him the great wrong of having by his act desecrated that which was hallowed by the State, its property (in which, you will see, the lives of those who belong to the State must be included)."[239]

But law is no more sacred than it is favorable to the individual's welfare. "Right—is a delusion, bestowed by a ghost."[240] Men have "not recovered the mastery over the thought of 'right,' which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them."[241] "Let the individual man claim ever so many rights; what do I care for his right and his claim?"[242] I do not respect them.—"What you have the might to be you have the right to be. I deduce all right and all entitlement from myself; I am entitled to everything that I have might over. I am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc., if I can; if I cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and in the might as against me."[243]

"Right crumbles into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by force,"[244] "but with the concept the word too loses its meaning."[245] "The people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; hence a law against blasphemy. Shall I therefore not blaspheme? Is this law to be more to me than an order?"[246] "He who has might 'stands above the law'."[247] "The earth belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not merely the earth, but also the right to it, belongs to him. This is egoistic right; i. e., it suits me, therefore it is right."[248]

II. Self-welfare commands that in future it itself should be men's rule of action in place of the law.

Each of us is "unique,"[249] "a world's history for himself,"[250] and, when he "knows himself as unique,"[251] he is a "self-owner."[252] "God and mankind have made nothing their object, nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise make myself my object, who am, as well as God, the nothing of all else, who am my all, who am the Unique."[253] "Away then with every business that is not altogether my business! You think at least the 'good cause' must be my business? What good, what bad? Why, I myself am my business, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me. What is divine is God's business, what is human 'Man's.' My business is neither what is divine nor what is human, it is not what is true, good, right, free, etc., but only what is mine; and it is no general business, but is—unique, as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!"[254]

"What a difference between freedom and self-ownership! I am free from what I am rid of; I am owner of what I have in my power."[255] "My freedom becomes complete only when it is my—might; but by this I cease to be a mere freeman and become a self-owner."[256] "Each must say to himself, I am all to myself and I do all for my sake. If it ever became clear to you that God, the commandments, etc., do you only harm, that they encroach on you and ruin you, you would certainly cast them from you just as the Christians once condemned Apollo or Minerva or heathen morality."[257] "How one acts only from himself, and asks no questions about anything further, the Christians have made concrete in the idea of 'God.' He acts 'as pleases him'."[258]

"Might is a fine thing and useful for many things; for 'one gets farther with a handful of might than with a bagful of right.' You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself. See, he who has might 'stands above the law.' How does this prospect taste to you, you 'law-abiding' people? But you have no taste!"[259]