Bailly's utterance is representative of the slave-disposition that folks manifest before the sovereign people, as before the prince. "I have," says he, "no longer any extra reason when the general reason has pronounced itself. My first law was the nation's will; as soon as it had assembled I knew nothing beyond its sovereign will." He would have no "extra reason," and yet this extra reason alone accomplishes everything. Just so Mirabeau inveighs in the words, "No power on earth has the _right_ to say to the nation's representatives, It is my will!"
As with the Greeks, there is now a wish to make man a _zoon politicon_, a citizen of the State or political man. So he ranked for a long time as a "citizen of heaven." But the Greek fell into ignominy along with his _State_, the citizen of heaven likewise falls with heaven; we, on the other hand, are not willing to go down along with the _people_, the nation and nationality, not willing to be merely _political_ men or politicians. Since the Revolution they have striven to "make the people happy," and in making the people happy, great, and the like, they make Us unhappy: the people's good hap is--my mishap.
What empty talk the political liberals utter with emphatic decorum is well seen again in Nauwerk's "On Taking Part in the State." There complaint is made of those who are indifferent and do not take part, who are not in the full sense citizens, and the author speaks as if one could not be man at all if one did not take a lively part in State affairs, _i. e._ if one were not a politician. In this he is right; for, if the State ranks as the warder of everything "human," we can have nothing human without taking part in it. But what does this make out against the egoist? Nothing at all, because the egoist is to himself the warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the State except "Get out of my sunshine." Only when the State comes in contact with his ownness does the egoist take an active interest in it. If the condition of the State does not bear hard on the closet-philosopher, is he to occupy himself with it because it is his "most sacred duty"? So long as the State does according to his wish, what need has he to look up from his studies? Let those who from an interest of their own want to have conditions otherwise busy themselves with them. Not now, nor evermore, will "sacred duty" bring folks to reflect about the State,--as little as they become disciples of science, artists, etc., from "sacred duty." Egoism alone can impel them to it, and will as soon as things have become much worse. If you showed folks that their egoism demanded that they busy themselves with State affairs, you would not have to call on them long; if, on the other hand, you appeal to their love of fatherland and the like, you will long preach to deaf hearts in behalf of this "service of love." Certainly, in your sense the egoists will not participate in State affairs at all.