f we may so say, and the divine plan of the
universe in the creation of a human race--a plan which, indeed, exists
only to be thought out by man and to be realized by man--adjures you
to save its honor and its existence. Whether those are justified
who have believed that mankind must always grow better, and that
the conception of a certain order and dignity among them is no empty
dream, but the prophecy and the pledge of an ultimate actuality,
or whether those are to prevail who slumber on in their animal and
vegetative life, and who mock every flight to higher worlds-upon these
alternatives it is left to you to pass a final and decisive judgment.
The ancient world with its magnificence and with its grandeur, and
also with its faults, has sunk through its own unworthiness and
through your fathers' prowess. If there is truth in what has been
presented in these addresses, then, among all modern peoples, it is
you in whom the germ of the perfecting of humanity most decidedly
lies, and on whom progress in the development of this humanity is
enjoined. If you perish as a nation, all the hope of the entire human
race for rescue from the depths of its woe perishes together with you.
Do not hope and console yourselves with the imaginary idea, counting
on mere repetition of events that have already happened, that once
more, after the fall of the old civilization, a new one, proceeding
from a half-barbarous nation, will arise upon the ruins of the first.
In antiquity such a nation, equipped with all the requisites for
this destiny, was at hand, and was very well known to the nation of
culture, and was described by them; had they been able to imagine
their destruction, they themselves might have found in that
half-barbarous nation the means of their restoration. To us, also, the
entire surface of the earth is very well known, and all the peoples
that live upon it. Do we, then, now know any such people, like to
the aborigines of the New World, of whom similar expectations may be
entertained? I believe that every one who has not merely a fanatical
opinion and hope, but who thinks after profound investigation, will
be compelled to answer this question in the negative. There is,
therefore, no escape; if you sink, all humanity sinks with you, devoid
of hope of restoration at any future time.

This it was, gentlemen, that at the close of these addresses I felt
compelled to impress upon you as representatives of the nation and,
through y