ly wisdom, would probably fare
no better in the more perfect Anarchist world than the poor
schoolmaster Caspar Schmidt in our _bourgeois_ society, who suffered
all the pangs of hunger and greeted Death as his redeemer.

* * * * *

Stirner did not form any school of followers in Germany in his own
time, but Julius Faucher (1820-78) who was known as a publicist and a
rabid Freetrader, represented his ideas in his newspaper _Die
Abendpost_ (_The Evening Post_), published in Berlin in 1850. This
paper was, of course, soon suppressed, and the only apostle of
Stirner's gospel thereupon left the Continent and went to England, to
turn to something more practical than Anarchism, or (to use Stirner's
own jargon) to realise his "Ego" more advantageously. How strange and
anomalous Stirner's individualism appeared even to the most advanced
Radicals of Germany in that period appears very clearly from a
conversation recorded by Max Wirth,[3] which Faucher had with the
stalwart Republican Schloeffel, in an inn frequented by the Left party
in the Parliament of Frankfort. "Schloeffel loved to boast of his
Radical opinions, just as at that time many men took a pride in being
as extreme as possible among the members of the Left. He expressed his
astonishment that Faucher held aloof from the current of politics. 'It
is because you are too near the Right party for me,' answered Faucher,
who delighted in astonishing people with paradoxes. Schloeffel stroked
his long beard proudly, and replied, 'Do you say that to _me_?' 'Yes,'
continued Faucher, 'for you are a Republican incarnate; you still want
a State. Now _I_ do not want a State at all, and, consequently, I am a
more extreme member of the Left than you.' It was the first time
Schloeffel had heard these paradoxes, and he replied: 'Nonsense; who
can emancipate us from the State?' 'Crime,' was Faucher's reply,
uttered with an expression of pathos. Schloeffel turned away, and left
the drinking party without saying a word more. The others broke out
laughing at the proud demagogue being thus outdone: but no one seems
to have suspected in the words of Faucher more than a joke in
dialectics." This anecdote is a good example of the way in which
Stirner's ideas were understood, and shows that Faucher was the only
individual "individual" among the most Radical politicians of that
time.[4] On the other hand, Proudhon's doctrines, which in their
native France could not