Well, the egoist has broken the ties of the family and found in the State a lord to shelter him against the grievously affronted spirit of the family. But where has he run now? Straight into a new _society_, in which his egoism is awaited by the same snares and nets that it has just escaped. For the State is likewise a society, not a union; it is the broadened _family_ ("Father of the Country--Mother of the Country--children of the country").
What is called a State is a tissue and plexus of dependence and adherence; it is a _belonging together_, a holding together, in which those who are placed together fit themselves to each other, or, in short, mutually depend on each other: it is the _order_ of this _dependence_. Suppose the king, whose authority lends authority to all down to the beadle, should vanish: still all in whom the will for order was awake would keep order erect against the disorders of bestiality. If disorder were victorious, the State would be at an end.
But is this thought of love, to fit ourselves to each other, to adhere to each other and depend on each other, really capable of winning us? According to this the State would be _love_ realized, the being for each other and living for each other of all. Is not self-will being lost while we attend to the will for order? Will people not be satisfied when order is cared for by authority, _i. e._ when authority sees to it that no one "gets in the way of" another; when, then, the _herd_ is judiciously distributed or ordered? Why, then everything is in "the best order," and it is this best order that is called--State!
Our societies and States _are_ without our _making_ them, are united without our uniting, are predestined and established, or have an independent standing[161] of their own, are the indissolubly established against us egoists. The fight of the world to-day is, as it is said, directed against the "established." Yet people are wont to misunderstand this as if it were only that what is now established was to be exchanged for another, a better, established system. But war might rather be declared against establishment itself, _i. e._ the _State_, not a particular State, not any such thing as the mere condition of the State at the time; it is not another State (such as a "people's State") that men aim at, but their _union_, uniting, this ever-fluid uniting of everything standing.--A State exists even without my co-operation: I am born in it, brought up in it, under obligations to it, and must "do it homage."[162] It takes me up into its "favor,"[163] and I live by its "grace." Thus the independent establishment of the State founds my lack of independence; its condition as a "natural growth," its organism, demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it. That _it_ may be able to unfold in natural growth, it applies to me the shears of "civilization"; it gives me an education and culture adapted to it, not to me, and teaches me _e. g._ to respect the laws, to refrain from injury to State property (_i. e._ private property), to reverence divine and earthly highness, etc.; in short, it teaches me to be--_unpunishable_, "sacrificing" my ownness to "sacredness" (everything possible is sacred, _e. g._ property, others' life, etc.). In this consists the sort of civilization and culture that the State is able to give me: it brings me up to be a "serviceable instrument," a "serviceable member of society."