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[XLI.1.]
possible continuation [from XXXIV.1
on affirmation? Ed/GT.]
If man's feelings, passions, etc., are not merely anthropological phenomena
in the [above/narrower (the word is not clear, according
to previous editors, who insert a heading at the top of this page: 'The
Power of Money'--GT.).] sense, but truly ontologcal affirmations
of being (of nature), and if they are only really affirmed because their
object exists for them as a sensual object, then it is clear that:
(1) They have by no means merely one mode of affirmation, but rather that
the distinct character of their existence, of their life, is constituted
by the distinct mode of their affirmation. In what manner the object exists
for them, is the characteristic mode of their gratification.
(2) Wherever sensual affirmation is the direct annulment of the object
in its independent form (as in eating, drinking, working up of the object,
etc.), this is the affirmation of the object.
(3) Insofar as man, and hence also his feeling, etc., is human, the affirmation
of the object by another is likewise his own gratification.
(4) Only through developed industry--i.e., through the medium of private
property--does the ontological essence of human passion come into being,
in its totality as well as in its humanity; the science of man is therefore
itself a product of man's own practical activity.
(5) The meaning of private property--apart from its estrangement--is the
existence of essential objects for man, both as objects of enjoyment and
as objects of activity.
By possessing the property of buying everything, by possessing the property
of appropriating all objects, money is thus the object of eminent possession.
The universality of its property is the omnipotence of its being. It is
therefore regarded as omnipotent.... Money is the procurer between man's
need and the object, between his life and his means of life. But that
which mediates my life for me, also mediates the existence of other people
for me. For me it is the other person.
"What, man! confound it, hands and feet
And head and backside, all are yours!
And what we take while life is sweet,
Is that to be declared not ours?
Six stallions, say, I can afford,
Is not their strength my property?
I tear along, a sporting lord,
As if their legs belonged to me."
Goethe: Faust (Mephistopheles)
[ Goethe, Faust, Part 1, Faust's Study;
(the English translation is taken from Goethe's Faust, Part 1,
translated by Philip Wayne, Penguin, 1949, p. 91).]
[XLII.1.]
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[XLI.2.]
Shakespeare in Timon of Athens:
"Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, Gods, I am no idle
votarist! ...
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides, Pluck stout men's
pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed; Make the hoar leprosy
adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation With senators on the bench:
This is it
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds
Among the rout of nations."
And also later:
"0 thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce 'Twixt natural son and
sire! thou bright defiler Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars! Thou
ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer, Whose blush doth thaw the
consecrated snow
That lies on Dian's lap! Thou visible God! That solder'st close
impossibilities
And makest them kiss! That speak'st with every tongue,
[XLII.2.]
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