If very many individuals think thus, there will soon be a great
whole uniting into a single, close-knit power. If, on the contrary,
each one, excluding himself, relies on the rest and relinquishes the
affair to others, then there are no others at all, for, even though
combined, all remain just as they were before. Make it on the
spot--this resolution! Do not say, "Yet a little more sleep, a
little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep," until,
perchance, improvement shall come of itself. It will never come of
itself. He who has once missed the opportunity of yesterday, when
clear perception would have been easier, will not be able to make
up his mind today, and will certainly be even less able to do so
tomorrow. Every delay only makes us still more inert and but lulls us
more and more into gentle acquiescence to our wretched plight. Neither
could the external stimulations to reflection ever be stronger and
more insistent, for surely he whom these present conditions do not
arouse has lost all feeling. You have been called together to make
a last, determined resolution and decision--not by any means to give
commands and mandates to others, or to depute others to do the work
for you. No, my purpose is to urge you to do the work yourself. In
this connection that idle passing of resolutions, the will to will,
some time or other, are not sufficient, nor is it enough to remain
sluggishly satisfied until self-improvement sets in of its own
accord.
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