396 THE CLASS STRUGGLE CONCERNING THE JEWISH QUESTION 397 The Christian state can be related to the Jew only in the manner of the Christian state, that is, in the manner of privilege, permitting the segregation of the Jew from the remaining subjects, but at the same time making him feel the pressure of the other segregated spheres, and the more acutely so, since he stands in contradiction to the dominating religion. On the other hand, the relation of the Jew to the state can be only a Jewish one, that is, the relation of a stranger, asserting his chimerical nationality in the face of his real nationality, his illusory law in the face of the real law, deeming himself entitled to se gregation from the rest of humanity, consistently taking no part in the historical process, awaiting a future which has nothing in common with the general future of man, regarding himself as a member of the Jewish race and the Jewish race as the chosen people.
On what account then do you Jews demand emancipation?
Because of your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion. As citizens? There are no citizens in Germany. As human beings? You are not human beings, any more than those to whom you appeal.
Bauer has formulated the question of Jewish emancipation anew after giving a criticism of previous stands and previous solutions of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be emancipated, of the Christian state which is to emancipate him? He answers by a criticism of the Jewish religion, analyzing the religious contradiction between Judaism and Christianity, giving information about the nature of the Christian state, all this with boldness, keenness, intelligence, and thoroughness, in a style that is as precise as it is pithy and energetic.
How, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result? The formulation of a question is its solution.
The criticism of the Jewish question is the answer to the Jewish question. Briefly, it is this: We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others.
The most obstinate difference between the Jew and the Christian is the religious difference. How can a difference be neutralized. By making it impossible. How is a religious difference made impossible? By doing away with religion. As soon as Jew and Christian come to regard their respective religions merely as different stages of development of the human spirit, as so many snake skins which history has shed, Man being the snake which has molted in them, they will no longer stand in a religious but only a critical, scientific, in a human relation to one another. Science is then their unity. For contradictions in science are resolved by science itself.
The German Jew in particular is confronted by the absence of general political emancipation and by the pronounced Christianity of the state. In the sense of Bauer, however, the Jewish question possesses a general importance apart from the specifically German conditions. It is the problem of the relation of religion to the state, the contradiction of religious prejudice and political emancipation. Emancipation from religion is made a condition for the Jew who desires political emancipation, as well as for the state which desires to emancipate and to be itself emancipated.
Very well, it is said, and the Jew says it himself, then the Jew shall not be emancipated as a Jew, not because of his Judaism, not because he possesses such an excellent universal principle of mortality, on the contrary the Jew will yield to the citizen, and be a citizen despite the fact that he is a Jew and will (wishes to remain a Jew which really means, he is and remains a Jew despite the fact that he is a citizen living under universally human conditions; his Jewish and limited self ever takes final precedence over his human and political obligations.
The prejudice is retained although transcended by general considerations. But if it remains it is more certain to itself transcend everything else in the end. Only sophistically, that is, only to outward appearances, could the Jew remain a Jew in national life; so that, if he desired to remain a Jew, mere outwards appearances would be made the essential the dominating principle which means that his life in the state would be only a form, or a momentary exception to the real essential and the rule. The Capability of present day Jews and Christians to become free. Twenty one Leaflets, 57. Let us see on the other hand what Bauer considers to be the duty of the state: France, we read, has recently (proceedings in the Chamber of Deputies, December 26, 1840. given us with regard to the Jewish question, as always in political questions, an insight into a life which is free but which revokes its liberty through its laws (in other words, admits this liberty to be a delusion) and, on the other hand, nullifies its free laws through the acts of its government. Jewish question, 64. Complete freedom is not yet law in France, the Jewish question likewise is not yet solved, because freedom under the law meaning that all citizens are equal is circumscribed in actual life, which is still governed by religious privi