Absolute Criticism begins its third campaign against the Mass with the question: In the same number of the Literatur-Zeitung we find the information: According to this, all things are the object of Criticism. It would be senseless to inquire about some particular, definite object peculiar to Criticism. The contradiction is easily resolved when one remembers that all things merge into Critical things and all Critical things into the Mass, as the Object of Absolute Criticism . First of all, Herr Bruno describes his infinite pity for the Mass. He makes the gap that separates him from the crowd an object of persevering study. He wants to find out the significance of that gap for the future (this is what above was called knowing all things) and at the same time to abolish it . In truth he therefore already knows the significance of that gap. It consists in being abolished by him. As each man s self is nearest to him, Criticism first sets about abolishing its own mass nature, like the Christian ascetics who begin the campaign of the spirit against the flesh with the mortification of their own flesh. The flesh of Absolute Criticism is its really massive literary past, amounting to 20-30 volumes. Herr Bauer must therefore free the literary biography of Criticism which coincides exactly with his own literary biography from its mass-like appearance; he must retrospectively improve and explain it and by this apologetic commentary place its earlier works in safety . He begins by explaining by a double cause the error of the Mass, which until the end of the Deutsche Jahrb cher and the Rheinische Zeitung  regarded Herr Bauer as one of its supporters. Firstly the mistake was made of regarding the literary movement as not purely literary . At the same time the opposite mistake was made, that of regarding the literary movement as a merely or purely literary movement. There is no doubt that the Mass was mistaken in any case, if only because it made two mutually incompatible errors at the same time. Absolute Criticism takes this opportunity of exclaiming to those who ridiculed the German nation as a blue stocking": In his Critical naivety Herr Bruno separates the pen from the subject who writes, and the subject who writes as abstract writer from the living historical man who wrote. This allows him to go into ecstasy over the wonder-working power of the pen . He might just as well have demanded to be told of a historical movement which was not outlined beforehand by poultry or the goose girl . Later we shall be told by the same Herr Bruno that so far not one historical epoch, not a single one, has become known. How could the pen , which so far has been unable to outline any single historical epoch after the event, have been able to outline them all beforehand? Nevertheless, Herr Bruno proves the correctness of his view by deeds, by himself outlining beforehand his own past with apologetic strokes of the pen . Criticism, which was involved on all sides not only in the general limitation of the world and of the epoch, but in quite particular and personal limitations, and which nevertheless assures us that it has been absolute, perfect and pure Criticism in all its works for as long as man can think, has only accommodated itself to the prejudices and power of comprehension of the Mass, as God is wont to do in his revelations to man. But because Criticism, here called Theory for a change, comes to nothing, but everything, on the contrary, comes from it; because it develops not inside but outside the world, and has predestined everything in its divine immutable consciousness, the breach with its former ally was a new turn only in appearance, only for others, not in itself and not for Criticism itself. The Christian theologian must tread cautiously. (Bruno Bauer, Das entdeckte Christenthum, p. 99.) How did it happen that cautious Criticism nevertheless did get ensnared and did not already at that time express its proper meaning clearly and audibly? Why did it not speak out bluntly? Why did it let the illusion of its brotherhood with the Mass persist? 'Away with reason and language! says the Critic. For had Herr Bauer really and not just apparently been ensnared with the Mass, Absolute Criticism would not be absolute in its revelations, it would be mortally insulted. Criticism s efforts had just not been noticed; therefore the Mass was to blame. On the other hand, Criticism admits that its efforts could not be noticed because it itself was not yet capable of making them noticeable. Criticism therefore appears to be to blame. God help us! Criticism was forced violence was used against it sincerely to consider its opponent s premises and to take them seriously for an instant . A fine sincerity, a truly theological sincerity, which does not really take a thing seriously but only takes it seriously for an instant ; which has always, therefore every instant, been careful not to get itself ensnared in its opponent s premises, and nevertheless, for an instant sincerely takes these very premises into consideration. Its sincerity is still greater in the closing part of the sentence. It was in the same instant when Criticism sincerely took into consideration the premises of the Mass that it was not yet fully capable of destroying the illusion about the unity of its cause and the cause of the Mass. It was not yet capable, but it already had the will and the thought of it. It could not yet outwardly break with the Mass but the break was already complete inside it, in its mind complete in the same instant when it sincerely sympathised with the Mass! In its involvement with the prejudices of the Mass, Criticism was not really involved in them; on the contrary, it was, properly speaking, free from its own limitation and was only not yet completely capable of informing the Mass of this. Hence all the limitation of Criticism was pure appearance; an appearance which without the limitation of the Mass would have been superfluous and would therefore not have existed at all. It is therefore again the Mass that is to blame. Insofar as this appearance, however, was supported by the inability , the impotence of Criticism to express its thought, Criticism itself was imperfect. This it admits in its own way, which is as sincere as it is apologetic. Criticism won its friends through its incomplete appearance of engaging in politics. Had it completely appeared to engage in politics, it would inevitably have lost its political friends. In its apologetic anxiety to wash itself free of all sin, it accuses the false appearance of having been an incomplete false appearance, not a complete false one. By substituting one appearance for the other, Criticism can console itself with the thought that if it had the complete appearance of wishing to engage in politics, it does not have, on the other hand, even the incomplete appearance of anywhere or at any time having dissolved politics. Not completely satisfied with the incomplete appearance , Absolute Criticism again asks itself: Bauer the theologian takes it as a matter of course that Criticism had to indulge endlessly in speculative theology for he, Criticism , is indeed a theologian ex professo. But to engage in politics? That must be motivated by very special, political, personal circumstances! Why, then, had Criticism to engage even in politics? It was accused that is the answer to the question. At least the mystery of Bauer s politics is thereby disclosed; at least the appearance, which in Bruno Bauer s Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meine eigene Sache links its own cause to the mass-linked cause of freedom by means of an and , cannot be called non-political. But if Criticism pursued not its own cause in the interest of politics, but politics in the interest of its own cause, it must be admitted that not Criticism was taken in by politics, but politics by Criticism. So Bruno Bauer was to be dismissed from his chair of theology: he was accused; Criticism had to engage in politics, that is to say, to conduct its , i.e., Bruno Bauer s, suit. Herr Bauer did not conduct Criticism s suit, Criticism conducted Herr Bauer s suit. Why did Criticism have to conduct its suit? In order to justify itself! It may well be; only Criticism is far from limiting itself to such a personal, vulgar reason. It may well be; but not solely for that reason, but mainly in order to bring out the contradictions of its opponents , and, Criticism could add, in order to have bound together in a single book old essays against various theologians see among other things the wordy bickering with Planck,  that family affair between Bauer-theology and Strauss-theology. Having got a load off its heart by admitting the real interest of its politics , Absolute Criticism remembers its suit and again chews the old Hegelian cud (see the struggle between Enlightenment and faith in the Ph nomenologie, see the whole of the Ph nomenologie) that the old which resists the new is no longer really the old , the cud which it has already chewed over at length in Die gute Sache der Freiheit. Critical Criticism is a ruminant animal. It keeps on warming up a few crumbs dropped by Hegel, like the above-quoted proposition about the old and the new , or again that about the development of the extreme out of its opposite extreme , and the like, without ever feeling the need to deal with speculative dialectic in any other way than by the exhaustion of Professor Hinrichs. Hegel, on the contrary, it continually transcends Critically by repeating him. For example: When I transform something I make it something essentially different. Since every form is also an external limitation , no form is susceptible of being transformed into an external limitation any more than an apple of being transformed into an apple. Admittedly, the form which Criticism gives to the investigation is not susceptible of being transformed into any external limitation for quite another reason. Beyond every external limitation it is blurred into an ash-grey, dark-blue vapour of nonsense. But why does not the old deal with this question theoretically? Because this, however, is least of all possible for it in the beginning, since at the moment of surprise (i.e., in the beginning) it knows neither itself nor the new , i.e., it deals theoretically neither with itself nor with the new. It would be quite impossible if impossibility , unfortunately, were not impossible! When the Critic from the theological faculty further admits that he erred intentionally, that he committed the mistake deliberately and after mature reflection (all that Criticism has experienced, learnt, and done is transformed for it into a free, pure and intentional product of its reflection) this confession of the Critic has only an incomplete appearance of truth. Since the Kritik der Synoptiker [B. Bauer, Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte der Synoptiker] has a completely theological foundation, since it is through and through theological criticism, Herr Bauer, university lecturer in theology, could write and teach it without mistake or error . The mistake and error were rather on the part of the theological faculties, which did not realise how strictly Herr Bauer had kept his promise, the promise he gave in Kritik der Synoptiker, Bd. 1, Foreword, p. xxiii. Herr Bauer intentionally separates the Lord Jesus and his principle in order to free the positive meaning of his promise from all semblance of ambiguity. And Herr Bauer has really made the creative power of the Lord Jesus and of his principle so evident that his infinite self-consciousness and the Spirit are nothing but creations of Christianity. If Critical Criticism s dispute with the Bonn theological faculty explained so well its politics at that time, why did Critical Criticism continue to engage in politics after the dispute had been settled? Listen to this: What a delightful apologetic phrase! Criticism should have come to a halt if only it had been possible ... to be able to come to a halt"! Who should come to a halt? And who should have done what it would not have been possible ... to be able to do"? On the other hand! Criticism should have proceeded if only, on the other hand, there had not been a far too strict historical law, etc. Historical laws are also far too strict with Absolute Criticism! If only they did not stand on the opposite side to Critical Criticism, how brilliantly the latter would proceed! But la guerre comme la guerre! In history, Critical Criticism must allow itself to be made a sorry story of! Criticism was forced into political weaknesses by the all too strict laws of history, but it entreats it will at the same time be admitted that it was above those weaknesses, if not in reality, at least in itself. Firstly, it had overcome them, in feeling , for it always felt uncertain in its demands ; it felt ill at ease in politics, it could not make out what was the matter with it. More- than that! It came into contradiction with its true elements. And finally the greatest thing of ally The contradiction with its true elements into which it came found its solution not in the course of Criticism s development, but had , on the contrary, already found its solution in Criticism s true elements existing independently of the contradiction! These Critical elements can claim with pride: before Abraham was, we were. Before the opposite to us was produced by development, it lay yet unborn in our chaotic womb, dissolved, dead, ruined. But since Criticism s contradiction with its true elements had already found its solution in the true elements of Criticism, and since a solved contradiction is not a contradiction, it found itself, to be precise, in no contradiction with its true elements, in no contradiction with itself, and the general aim of self-apology seems attained. Absolute Criticism s self-apology has a whole apologetical dictionary at its disposal: Not so very long ago Absolute Criticism said the following about apologetic phrases of this kind:
The Holy Family by Marx and Engels