Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

by Walter Benjamin

Travel writings, essays on Brecht, philosophical texts, the autobiographical Berlin Chronicle, and other pieces attest to the noted German-Jewish writer's stature and insights as a critic

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Theory, Nonfiction, Art, Literary Criticism, History

348 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

We can
remark in passing that there is no better starting point for thought than laughter. In particular, thought usually has a
better chance when one is shaken by laughter than when one’s mind is shaken and upset. The only extravagance of
the epic theatre is its amount of laughter.

This is a much more disparate collection than Illuminations. Surely this is to be expected The isfting and editing. The indecision. Reflections' opening section A Berlin Chronicle is a cartographic autobiography. It is a spatial narrative in the weirdest sense. There is a disorientation present. I also liked the Conversations With Brecht and the Author as Producer though my attentions waned upon approaching the lengthy piece on Karl Kraus. The concluding fragments appear rich with insight but frankly I was spent by that time.

[AK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really should revisit this book, as I only remember these two sentences, but it is perhaps my favorite quote of ever:

The treasure-dispensing giant in the green pine forest or the fairy who grants one wish - they appear to each of us at least once in a lifetime. But only Sunday's children remember the wish they made, and so it is only a few who recognize its fulfillment in their own lives.

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

PART ONE
A Berlin Chronicle - Honestly I groaned when I realized it was an autobiographical piece, even though the subtitle clearly has the word in it. I don't really care for them unless I really like the individual and I dont know Benjamin all that great. However, as it went on I found myself more and more interested in his life growing up in Berlin. Benjamin has a low-key captivating writing style that is hard to describe - it is easy to digest but sophisticated and well-constructed. I enjoyed read this but im not going to lie was glad when it was over. 3/5

One-way Street (Selection) - Some aphorisms, this was neat, I liked some of them but to be honest a couple flew past my head. 3/5

PART TWO

Moscow - I loved this one. A travel diary (which I also tend not to care for, I did not care at all about Camus's travels in Algeria or whatever) but this is set in the winter of 1926-1927 Soviet Russia, and being a communist, the setting excited me greatly. It was very cool to read about the daily life and how Benjamin even notes life seems fuller than in his native Berlin. However, he does say (criticize? probably) the Soviet government is too involved in the lives of people. Despite this, the people seem lively. 5/5

Marseilles & Hashish in Marseilles - Marseilles is a short description of Marseilles and I feel like is a setup for Hashish in Marseilles. The latter is essentially a diary/trip report of Benjamin getting high on Hashish and walking around Marseilles. Its fun and good and I love when philosophers and scholars do trip reports and get high. 4.5/5

Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century - It was very interesting how he related a figure to each architectural design. I thought this was an interesting read, it was a nice description of Paris. 3.5/5

Naples - Written with Asja Lascis, honestly a bit forgettable except for the obese lady anecdote and how obsessed Neapolitans are with trade. Not big on travel diaries about places I don't care about and I don't really care about naples! Still wasnt badly written or anything just not my thing. 2/5

PART THREE
Surrealism - A panegyric to the Surrealist movement. I couldn't quite figure out if Benjamin was criticizing them at the end but he did correctly predict that where they were headed now they might as well join the Communist party, or were close to it or something, which they eventually did. I love reading about Surrealism and Benjamin is a really good writer, I am a bit surprised to see him write so highly of it though. 4/5

Brecht's Threepenny Novel & Conversations with Brecht - These were interesting, I haven't read the Novel, only the Opera (no idea a threepenny novel even existed) but it was interesting to read the changes Brecht made. And the conversations with Brecht was really good, lots of politics talk of course but also a bit of talk about being a writer. Cool stuff. 4.5/5

The Author as Producer - A Marxist analysis of the relationship between the writer, their work, and capitalism. Very good article, I liked this a lot, I think it was basically trying to get authors to be aware of their situatedness in the role of capitalist production and create truly revolutionary proletariat works of art. 4/5

Karl Kraus - An interesting analysis of Karl Kraus, a writer I previously haven't heard of until this book (Benjamin quotes him in an earlier essay, then repeats it and explains it, its a wonderful quote: ""The more closely you look at a word, the more distantly it looks back."). It was an interesting read, and Kraus seems like an interesting writer, and I thought section 3 "Monster" was especially good, and parts in that are very poetic and metaphorical that could apply to any writer. I would have liked this more if I was more familiar with Kraus's work, but Benjamin still made someone who I'll probably never read interesting to read about. 4/5

PART FOUR
Critique of Violence - This essay disappointed me, mainly because I was expecting something like is revolutionary justified or something like that. And that's vaguely touched on and this is an essay critiquing violence vis-a-vis the Law through a Marxist(I guess?)-Sorelian lens. Things get strange when the essay starts getting mytho-poetical, talking about divine and mythical violence. I didn't quite understand that part. It seemed sort of vital to his argument. He does say that the only legal subject entitled to violence other than the State is organized labor. He points out contradictions in the Law in sanctioned/unsanctioned violence, etc. It was okay but honestly I expected different. 2.5/5

Destructive Character - felt like some moral rules or things he did to keep from the "destructive character". not really sure what this was...pretty mysterious! short and well-writtent hough. 3/5

Fate and Character - this was nearly inscrutable to me but it seems very theological/mystical, it deals with "fate" and "character" which i guess is a way to frame the debate between determinism and free will but in terms of a play? and benjamin argues i think that at least fate has primacy over character....but im not really sure what any of this actually meant or what implications it has...pretty tough text. I'll go N/A / 5 officially because i didnt relaly get it at all but 3/5 unofficially because i thought from what i grasped of it it sounded really strange and counterintuitive.

Theologico-Political Fragment - Interesting anti-theocracy argument. The arrow analogy is tough to conceive in my head, a diagram might help but it sounds very interesting. The last paragraph of nature passing away and the task of world politics becoming nihilism is pretty ominous. 3.5/5

On Language as Such and on the Language of Man - Weird essay. I think a big thesis is : "The absolute relation of name to knowledge exists only in God, only there is name, because it is inwardly identicalw ith the creative word, the pure medium of knowledge. That means: God made things knowable in their names. Man, however, names them according to knowledge." The name is how we know God. But I should back up, this essay is I guess what language is? or what language communicates? Anyway, it starts out good enough saying its something like a material thing communicating a mental entity but it ends up where in order to buy into his theory that Genesis is true because he uses Judaeo-Christian mythology as key arguments for certain things. He lost me on its believability though it was still interesting to read. However, this is disappointing as a Marxist because he criticizes other language theories as "bourgeois" which to me implies he thinks his proletarian in some way. I don't think so, i don't think know if it's bourgeois, but it's definitely an theologico-idealist mystification of language rather than a materialist clarification. Interesting read but he posits the Holy Bible having some sort of argumentative power in this topic but doesn't really argue for it, so I can't really accept the rest of his argument. Perhaps its some mythological allegory and he's using the Holy Bible as an allegory - I don't know. Still worth reading though. 3/5

On the Mimetic Faculty - A nice little essay on the relationship between mimesis and language and play. This was good because he didn't bring God into it but he could resist ending the book on "magic". 3/5


Overall, I enjoyed this book. Part 1 is by far the weakest part, probably skippable. But parts 2-4 are all worth reading. In one essay, cant remember which, he identifies power has being "formless" which made me think of a proto or ur-Foucauldian analysis of power where it's distributed throughout a network and doesnt really take a form. My favorite essay was probably Moscow, Surrealism, and the Brecht correspondence. I did know Benjamin had a mystic element to him but Part 4 has a theological miasma, at least, if not out right imprint on every essay that I didn't much care for as I felt it diminished the force of some of his arguments. I feel like he was making a convincing theory of language until he brought in the book of Genesis in his "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man". I also thought Fate and Character was a very strange essay, that was probably the hardest one for me to understand. He definitely alternates between being lowkey readable and captivating and abstruse, mysti(cal/fying). Definitely interesting thoughts, anecdotes, theories are contained in this book and there is a reason why Benjamin is revered as he is as a thinker not just in Marxist circles.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is meaning? "Not what the moving red neon sign says – but the fiery pool reflecting it in the asphalt" (p.91).

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Benjamin represents the type of intellectual who, excited by the limitless horizon for political changes that echoed throughout Marx's Communist Manifesto, executes a type of literary backtracking where he exemplifies the critical principle that the act of creation justifies its own work; he is decidedly in favor of supporting a work's coherence to the essential principles of art which he believes stand for its internal and wholly authentic meaning. Upon reflection, when comparing my own striving towards the heights of intellectualism with Benjamin's literary and philosophical endeavors, I observe that I am now 52 years old, four years older than Benjamin was when he ingested morphine in a fatal action to prevent him being shipped to the Nazi-controlled Gestapo forces in 1940, but I wonder whether am I as good a writer as he was at the time of his death? I feel my work is at times not under the narcissistic spell of literature and, if I may be so bold, I believe his essays show a somewhat irritating feature in that they may be criticized for being so unduly so. Other than that, I feel that another way my writings do not suffer from the defects of Benjamin's writing is that I do not discuss economics in a vain way, seeking to cross half-grasped economic epiphenomenon with a distinctly literary representation of the idea of essentialism which is the driving force and intellectual fulcrum of this most noteworthy work, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." However, it remains the case that I feel I am unable to say I have written as much as he did in his half-finished life, nor can I say I will meet a death that is half as worthy as the one he did. But then again, upon further reflection it occurs to me that if Theo Logos or Dessaus Reprobate are correct in suggesting that artificial intelligence is currently being used to harvest the information content of Goodreads reviews like mine as a way to prevent contemporary intellectuals from identifying with the spiritual needs of the working class, then it seems to me I am in fact doing a disservice to the proletarians who Benjamin identifies as the agents of progressive social change. In fact, I may be labelled an agent provocateur (if not downright reactionary) in the sense that, by recommending a way out of their impoverished social and intellectual circumstances, I am in fact hemming the underclass in more tightly by constructively enforcing a tightening of the grip of large-scale language models based on the cultural logic of suppression. It seems to me that the state of affairs that Benjamin decried by saying that the writer who does not teach other writers, in fact teaches nothing at all has become, in the modern American landscape, a situation where the supposed privileged of the nobles and the educated has become the fashionable decadence of a declining social order. Three stars.

[Caroline Loftus · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5er. Benjamin is great, but this essay collection is slightly less packed with the heavy hitters compared to the other one I have read. Also, the editor’s introduction of this particular edition hits all of my pet peeves regarding editor’s introductions! “One-Way Street,” “On Surrealism,” “Hashish in Marseilles,” and “The Author as Producer” are my favorites.

[Kate Savage · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In his memoirs as in his essays, he seemed to require of every perception that it be a revolution. It was his premise that nothing is what it appears to be, and this made him into a scholar of appearances. He had an unappeasable appetite for the marginal and the idiosyncratic, because deviance looked to him like an epistemological advantage. Nothing that was not neglected could be true." -Preface to the book, by Leon Wieseltier

Such an uneven compilation. There were moments as brilliant as the essays in Illuminations, and then others that felt like an editor had over-zealously hoarded all of Benjamin's bed-side post-it notes and assumed they were all worth publishing.

I probably just don't understand its significance, but I could be happy never having read the tedious recounting of detailed memories in "A Berlin Chronicle." And I got through "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" only by holding my nose.

But the raggedy "One-Way Street" is remarkable, as well as some of the notes from conversations with Brecht. I found the direction Marxism and class analysis take in "Surrealism" and "The Author as Producer" to be all kinds of thought-provoking (and argument-generating, like all the best ideas).

Unfortunately, because Benjamin is such a weird Marxist, it's considered completely appropriate for the foremost Benjamin scholars to be tepid liberals, such as the author of this book's introduction (Peter Demetz), who has a few insights and then spends pages decrying Benjamin's political commitments.

I recommend reading Illuminations and then venturing into this volume only if you have a lot of patience, to read through the mind-numbing until you reach the odd Benjaminial gem like this bit from "One-Way Street":

"If a person very close to us is dying, there is something in the months to come that we dimly apprehend -- much as we should have liked to share it with him -- could only happen through his absence. We greet him at the last in a language that he no longer understands."

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm one of those people, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, who felt that Illuminations, the first book of Benjamin people traditionally read, was totally awesome, and not nearly as mindcrushingly difficult as I'd been led to expect-- so what did I do, but buy another book, the seemingly traditional second book by Benjamin people read (I think from here, if you're so inclined, you get the massive two volume Arcades Project that my weird office mate David had).

I didn't find this one nearly as interesting or fun as Illuminations.... In fact, I think that it strangely shows the limits of Benjamin's talents, since I think his philosophical writing, which this contains tracts of, especially in later sections, is kind of junk. This is especially true when he tries to tackle linguistics ("On Language as such"), but also his critique of violence, and in a couple other sections where, well, I think Benjamin is out of his depth (Political-religious fragment, or whatever it's called). Interspersed with that, there's no doubt some delightful writing-- some of the travel stuff, which maybe reappears in Arcades? is pretty great... there's a lot of intriguing prose here, little fragments that aren't quite as dense as Minima Moralia, but still deep and engaged.

I don't know-- I think I've reached the end of my interest in Benjamin, or rather, I've read all I need to, and what I enjoy next will be going back to the work I think is great, instead of hunting out new stuff.

[Andrew]

Being considered the "other" collection of Benjamin essays after Illuminations, it shouldn't shock me that these weren't as stunning. That said, they are still fantastic. This volume includes many of Benjamin's more personal, less theoretical writings, including the lengthy, wonderfully Germanic childhood reminiscence that opens the book. You get Benjamin the traveller, Benjamin the romantic, even Benjamin the goofy stoner kid. I feel rather conflicted about the presence of a fragment of the lengthy essay/aphorism collection "One-Way Street." The whole thing is so coruscant that it feels like a damn shame to only print part of it, but even reading part of it is enough to send me into rapture.

[Katrinka · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are certain essays in here ("Critique of Violence," for example) that are solid fives. Demetz's introduction, with some modification/caveats, and whether for good or ill, pinpoints a large part of what draws me to Benjamin: "his philosophy, sustained by utter loneliness, rather than by the concerns of the masses, particularly attracts those intellectuals who restlessly search for a better world and yet shy away from the grubbbier commitments of a practical kind."

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The travel writings that start this book are excellent and worth the read. I’m not sure if Benjamin was an influence on the Situationalist concept of psychogeography that arose in the decades after his death, but the impressions he records of Berlin, Moscow, Marseilles, and indeed the fragments pulled here from his vast project on the arcades of Paris combine a keen eye and profound political insight. So much travel writing is better fit for a Lonely Planet article than a place on a bookshelf for literature - Benjamin seeks to understand and catalogue a place with his writing about cities, and as with all good writing, encourages speculation beyond the confines of the work itself, and makes us think about our own cities.

The latter half of the book is filled with a lot of pseudophilosophy that I found it harder to connect with. It seems like a lot of these writings may have been pulled of journals and diaries. Anyone who writes knows that the stuff you write in your private notebooks might be inscrutable to others - while writing to yourself, you use a kind of shorthand, tracing invisible, sketchy lines between ideas that seem clear to you, but would look like a tangled mess to anyone who doesn’t understand the internal logic. I often felt like these pieces were Benjamin talking to himself - long, dense sentences filled with ideas and details that needed to be unpacked and slowed down if I was to get any clarity from them. Maybe I’m just not the intended audience, or maybe I just don’t have the intellectual background, but I feel like Benjamin is a much more interesting writer when he’s aiming at more down to earth topics.

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first three parts of this book are incredible fragments of critical reflection, providing an arsenal of tools for a critic in understanding cities, newspapers, novels, buildings, operas, and a myriad other sources. Interspersed within them are moments of remarkable political and anthropological suggestion. But really, I read this book to get to the final chapter, and it utterly blew me away when I did. Part four feels like an unfolding revelation, a picture of messianic arrival which is as vivid as it is radically coherent. I'm glad I read it linearly if only to tantalize myself with that prize. The coherence of it, admittedly, is sweetened by the mind-breaking confusion of some of the earlier chapters (looking at you, Karl Kraus). But it's worth reading in its entirety, even the bits I'm less sure were written (or translated?) to be entirely understood.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These writings start under the influence of Proust and end up as Marxist, Jewish, and mystical reflections. They are all over the place - but nevertheless are fresh, insightful, and thought-provoking. I found those on language, violence, theology and politics, fate and character, and authors great. It seems to me that the main goal of these reflections is to shake everything and show how hollow some of the entrenched ideas are. Imitations of Benjamin - along with those in the style of pseudo-philosophers like Zizek - explain the current literature and critical theory in America: an army of high paid and Marxist academics hoping to somehow replicate or even to take further the original insights and style.

[Gwendoline Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I was in doubts about this book, but it actually surprised me and turned out to be a very good one. I love Walter's works, but first ones always no-so-good. This one collection, however, brings joy and food for thought. That's why I consider it as good. Also, this great source, I believe, can help everyone to see the beauty in reflection essays and autobiographical writings, too.

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Wow! Wow! I read nearly all the essays in this book on one lonely Tuesday!!
How, how how much do I long that I be able to write in this brief life, one line that reads like Benjamin. One line that carries the fizz of Marxist radicalism, yet while reaching out to the illuminating power of mysticism, of whichever kind possible. Please Benjamin, be my spirit animal. Will you not walk with me, and see the world with me? And teach me to see it like you do? Hmm?

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slog in the final part, in the last section of essays. The section on Berlin was wonderful, as was the essay on surrealism. It's always worth digging through For the insights, the aphorisms, the way he gets to the heart of language and culture.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fairly uneven collection of Benjamin's essays. Two of them I consider outstanding and among his best, Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century and Critique of Violence (which I now remember plays a large roll in Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception).

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fairly uneven collection of Benjamin's essays. Two of them I consider outstanding and among his best, Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century and Critique of Violence (which I now remember plays a large roll in Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception).

[Al Maki]

I loved and will recommend the essay on Naples, co-authored with Asja Lacis, and for which I got the book. I tried a number of other pieces but was unable to finish any. His style doesn’t work for me.

[Fionan]

first section (a berlin chronicle) is a sloooooog but it picks up afterwards. highlights were the writers technique in thirteen theses, the author as producer, and critics of violence (all of section four really)

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

+ One Way Street; Moscow; Paris, Capital of...; Conversations with Brecht; Author as Producer; Critique of Violence

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Critique of Violence"

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt way too dumb for this book lol. It was really hard to get through and understand but when it made sense it was revolutionary.

[Tom Garvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as earth shaking and gaze orienting as Illuminations, but several of the essays in this collection are more than worth investigating, particularly the lasr section of the book.

[Kieran Darnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the Naples, Weed and Surrealism essays. The last one I found to be more enjoyable and resonant than his ‘mechanical reproduction’ essay; and I liked the affinities with Frye’s structural theories of literary mode. Maybe someday I’ll attempt Arcades Project

[Kristi Siegel · Rating 4 out of 5]

While self-exposure provides power, the promise of identity as well as the perverse pleasures of vertigo and exposure, it is also a means of re-collection. The past recaptured. Walter Benjamin qualifies his mode of collecting the past, referring to the process as one of gathering reminiscences rather than writing autobiography, which implies a chronological flow of time.

Benjamin’s recollection of life emerges as a form of respect, a reverence for pockets of time perfectly restored and finished. Benjamin appears as a collector par excellence. The process of collection—of objects, of images—requires great delicacy, the “cautious probing of the spade in the dark loam” of memory (Reflections 26). Like an archeologist, Benjamin gently chips away at the smooth surfaces of remembrance, until he exposes “the real treasure hidden within the earth: the images, severed from all earlier associations, that stand—like precious fragments or torsos in a collector’s gallery—in the prosaic rooms of our later understanding” (26).

Benjamin’s severed objects/images do not seek an existence beyond themselves, as part of an organizing totality. Importantly, their significance may only be achieved by their fragmentation. Benjamin’s objects and images, endowed with a type of Keatsian negative capability, may only achieve value by their dis-connection, their lack of closure.


From an earlier publication

[John]

I love cities. I love rambling, long walks. I love side streets and quaint, hidden coffee shops. So does Walter Benjamin. Therefore, I love Benjamin.

Although he was in many ways a tragic individual, and his brilliant life ended both tragically and ironically, still he brought new light to and ways of looking at everything around me: from the city streets that I walk down, to the way that I walk; from art, to friendship, to something as simple as the coffee shop that I choose to drink in and the way that it evolves through space and time.

From the unfinished Arcades Project, to these essays, Benjamin reduces philosophy to the grandness of the mysterious heavens on one page and then raises it down to the minutia of everyday life the next. Even Lefebvre didn't do the philosophy of everyday like Benjamin does. I will say this about W.B: W.B, everywhere I go, I travel with thee; you are a true companion!

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually enjoyed this more than the favored Illuminations collection. It gives greater insight into Benjamin's unconventional way of thinking and ties together some of his literary theory with his philosophy. "Critique of Violence" is, of course, exceptionally amazing. I also really enjoyed the pieces on Brecht, "Theologio-Political Fragment," "The Destructive Character," and "Paris, Capital of the 19th Centruy."

[Stephen Coates · Rating 4 out of 5]

This posthumously-published collection of essays, covers a variety of topics from his life in pre-WWII Berlin, the theatre, time with Bertolt Brecht, language and time spent in Moscow, Paris, Naples and Marseille. These were fascinating and insightful and his memories of Berlin have prompted me to consider perhaps making stylistic changes to my own autobiography. It’s one of those books that invite the reader to re-read an essay or two ever so often.

[רות · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more antagonistic a person is toward the traditional order, the more inexorably he will subject his private life to the norms that he whishes to elevate as legislators of a future society. It is as if these laws, nowhere yet realised, placed him under obligation to enact them in advance at least in the confines of his own existance.