171

FRENCH MATERIALISM 180

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 196

SELECTED ESSAYS

A CRITICISM OF THE HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT

As far as Germany is concerned the criticism of religion is
practically completed, and the criticism of religion is the basis of
all criticism.

The profane existence of error is threatened when its heavenly _oratio
pro aris et focis_[1] has been refuted.

He who has only found a reflexion of himself in the fantastic reality
of heaven where he looked for a superman, will no longer be willing to
find only the semblance of himself, only the sub-human, where he seeks
and ought to find his own reality.

The foundation of the criticism of religion is: Man makes religion,
religion does not make man. Religion indeed is man's self-consciousness
and self-estimation while he has not found his feet in the universe.
But Man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the
world of men, the State, society. This State, this society produces
religion, which is an inverted world-consciousness, because they are an
inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its
encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritualistic
_Point d'honneur_, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn
complement, its general basis of consolation and justification. It is
the fantastic realization of the human being, inasmuch as the human
being possesses no true reality. The struggle against religion is
therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual
aroma is religion.

Religious misery is in one mouth the expression of real misery, and in
another is a protestation against real misery. Religion is the moan of
the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, as it is
the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion, as the illusory happiness of the people, is
the demand for their real happiness. The demand to abandon the
illusions about their condition is a demand to abandon a condition
which requires illusions. The criticism of religion therefore
contains potentially the criticism of the Vale of Tears whose aureole
is religion.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers which adorned the chain,
not that man should wear his fetters denuded of fanciful
embellishment, but that he should throw off the ch