rong.
The French Materialists always preached "Virtue," and preached it with
such unlimited zeal that Grimm could, not without reason, make fun of
their _capucinades_ on the subject. The question of egoism presented to
them a double problem. (1) Man is all sensation (this was the basis of
all their speculations upon man); by his very nature he is forced to
shun suffering and to seek pleasure; how comes it then that we find men
capable of enduring the greatest sufferings for the sake of some idea,
that is to say, in its final analysis, in order to provide agreeable
sensations for their fellow-men. (2) Since man is all sensation he will
harm his fellow-man if he is placed in a social environment where the
interests of an individual conflict with those of others. What form of
legislation therefore can harmonise public good and that of
individuals? Here, in this double problem, lies the whole significance
of what is called the materialist ethics of the 18th century. Max
Stirner pursues an end entirely opposed to this. He laughs at "Virtue,"
and, far from desiring its triumph, he sees reasonable men only in
egoists, for whom there is nothing above their own "Ego." Once again, he
is the theorist _par excellence_ of egoism.

The good bourgeois whose ears are as chaste and virtuous as their hearts
are hard; they who, "drinking wine, publicly preach water," were
scandalised to the last degree by the "immorality" of Stirner. "It is
the complete ruin of the moral world," they cried. But as usual the
virtue of the philistines showed itself very weak in argument. "The real
merit of Stirner is that he has spoken the last word of the young
atheist school" (_i.e._, the left wing of the Hegelian school), wrote
the Frenchman, St. Rene Taillandier. The philistines of other lands
shared this view of the "merits" of the daring publicist. From the point
of view of modern Socialism this "merit" appears in a very different
light.

To begin with, the incontestable merit of Stirner consists in his having
openly and energetically combated the sickly sentimentalism of the
bourgeois reformers and of many of the Utopian Socialists, according to
which the emancipation of the proletariat would be brought about by the
virtuous activity of "devoted" persons of all classes, and especially of
those of the possessing-class. Stirner knew perfectly what to expect
from the "devotion" of the exploiters. The "rich" are harsh,
hard-hearted, but the "poor" (the