On the contrary, from you is demanded a determination which
is identical with action and with life itself, and which will continue
and control, unwavering and unchilled, until it gains its goal.
Or is perchance the root, from which alone can grow a tenacity of
purpose which takes hold upon life, utterly eradicated and vanished
within you? Or is your whole being actually rarefied into a hollow
shade, devoid of sap and blood and of individual power of movement, or
dissolved to a dream in which, indeed, a motley array of faces arise
and busily cross one another, but the body lies stiff and dead? Long
since it has been openly proclaimed to our generation and repeated
under every guise, that this is very nearly its condition. Its
spokesmen have believed that this was declared merely in insult, and
have regarded themselves as challenged to return the insults, thinking
that thus the affair would resume its natural course. As for the rest,
there was not the slightest trace of change or of improvement. If
you have heard this, and if it was capable of rousing your
indignation--well then, through your very actions, give the lie to
those who thus think and speak of you. Once show yourselves to be
different before the eyes of all the world, and before the eyes of all
the world they will be convicted of their falsehood. It may be that
they have spoken thus harshly of you with the precise intention of
forcing this refutation from you, and because they despaired of any
other means of arousing you.
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