moved, to which men are enslaved, for which men afflict themselves, have no powerover you; you are no longer afraid of them, for you know them to be your own ideals, made in your own mind, for your ownpleasure, to be changed or ignored, just as you choose to change or ignore them. They are your own little pets, to be playedwith, not to be feared."The State" or "The Government" is idealized by the many as a thing above them, to be reverenced and feared. They call it "MyCountry," and if you utter the magic words, they will rush to kill their friends, whom they would not injure by so much as a pinscratch, if they were not intoxicated and blinded by their ideal. Most men are deprived of their reason under the influence oftheir ideals. Moved by the ideal of "religion" or patriotism" or "morality," they fly at each others' throats - they, who areotherwise often the gentlest of men! But their ideals are for them like the "fixed ideas" of lunatics. They become irrational andirresponsible under the influence of their ideals. They will not only destroy others, but they will quite sink their own interests, andrush madly to destroy themselves as a sacrifice to the all-devouring ideal. Curious, is it not, to one who looks on with aphilosophical mind?But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts for hisown interest, not for the interest of ideals. He will neither hang a man nor whip a child in the interest of "morality," if it isdisagreeable to him to do so.He has no reverence for "The State." He knows that "The Government" is but a set of men, mostly as big fools as he is himself,many of them bigger. If the State does things that benefit him, he will support it; if it attacks him and encroaches on his liberty,he will evade it by any means in his power, if he is not strong enough to withstand it. He is a man without a country."The Flag," that most men adore, as men alway...
