
Translator's Preface
TO THE ENGLISH EDITIONS OF 'THE EGO AND HIS OWN', MAX STIRNER
   
   If the style of this book is found unattractive, it will show that I 
have done my work ill and not represented the author truly; but, if it 
is found odd, I beg that I may not bear all the blame. I have simply 
tried to reproduce the author's own mixture of colloquialisms and 
technicalities, and his preference for the precise expression of his 
thought rather than the word conventionally expected.
   One especial feature of the style, however, gives the reason why this 
preface should exist. It is characteristic of Stirner's writing that the 
thread of thought is carried on largely by the repetition of the same 
word in a modified form or sense. That connection of ideas which has 
guided popular instinct in the formation of words is made to suggest the 
line of thought which the writer wishes to follow. If this echoing of 
words is missed, the bearing of the statements on each other is in a 
measure lost; and, where the ideas are very new, one cannot afford to 
throw away any help in following their connection.Therefore, where a 
useful echo (and then are few useless ones in the book) could not be 
reproduced in English, I have generally called attention to it in a 
note. My notes are distinguished from the author's by being enclosed in 
parentheses.
   One or two of such coincidences of language, occurring in words which 
are prominent throughout the book, should be borne constantly in mind as 
a sort of Keri perpetuum; for instance, the identity in the original of 
the words "spirit" and "mind," and of the phrases "supreme being" and 
"highest essence." In such cases I have repeated the note where it 
seemed that such repetition might be absolutely necessary, but have 
trusted the reader to carry it in his head where a failure of his memory 
would not be ruinous or likely.
   For the same reasonQthat is, in order not to miss any indication of 
the drift of the thought Q I have followed the original in the very 
liberal use of italics, and in the occasional eccentric use of a 
punctuation mark, as I might not have done in translating a work of a 
different nature.
   I have set my face as a flint against the temptation to add notes 
that were not part of the translation. There is no telling how much I 
might have enlarged the book if I had put a note at every sentence which 
deserved to have its truth brought out by fuller elucidation Q or even 
at every one which I thought needed correction. It might have been 
within my province, if I had been able, to explain all the allusions to 
contemporary events, but I doubt whether any one could do that properly 
without having access to the files of three or four well-chosen German 
newspapers of Stirner's time. The allusions are clear enough, without 
names and dates, to give a vivid picture of certain aspects of German 
life then. The tone of some of them is explained by the fact that the 
book was published under censorship.
   I have usually preferred, for the sake of the connection, to 
translate Biblical quotations somewhat as they stand in the German, 
rather than conform them altogether to the English Bible. I am sometimes 
quite as near the original Greek as if I had followed the current 
translation.
   Where German books are referred to, the pages cited are those of the 
German editions even when (usually because of some allusions in the 
text) the titles of the books are translated.
   
   STEVEN T. BYINGTON
   


