ese addresses have never wearied in impressing upon you
that absolutely nothing can help you but yourselves, and they find it
necessary to repeat this to the last moment. Rain and dew, fruitful or
unfruitful years, may indeed be made by a power which is unknown to us
and is not under our control; but only men themselves--and absolutely
no power outside them--give to each epoch its particular stamp. Only
when they are all equally blind and ignorant do they fall the victims
of this hidden power, though it is within their own control not to
be blind and ignorant. It is true that to whatever degree, greater
or less, things may go ill with us, in part depends upon that unknown
power; but far more is it dependent upon the intelligence and the good
will of those to whom we are subjected. Whether, on the other hand,
it will ever again be well with us depends wholly upon ourselves;
and surely nevermore will any welfare whatsoever come to us unless we
ourselves acquire it for ourselves--especially unless each individual
among us toils and labors in his own way as though he were alone and
as though the salvation of future generations depended solely upon
him.

This is what you have to do; and these addresses adjure you to do this
without delay.

They adjure you, young men! I, who have long since ceased to belong
to you, maintain--and I have also expressed my conviction in these
addresses--that you are yet more capable of every thought transcending
the commonplace, and are more easily aroused to all that is good and
great, because your time of life still lies closer to the years of
childish innocence and of nature. Very differently does the majority
of the older generation regard this fundamental trait in you. It
accuses you of arrogance, of a rash, presumptuous judgment which soars
beyond your strength, of obstinacy, and of desire of innovation; yet
it merely smiles good-naturedly at these, your errors. All this, it
thinks, is based simply on your lack of knowledge of the world, that
is, of universal human corruption, since it has eyes for nothing else
on earth. You are now supposed to have courage only because you hope
to find help-mates like-minded with yourselves and because you do not
know the grim and stubborn resistance which will be opposed to your
projects of improvement. When the youthful fire of your imagination
shall once have vanished, when you shall have perceived the universal
selfishness, idleness, and horror of w