This reflection is, moreover, demanded from each one of you who can
still consider for himself something lying obviously before his eyes.
You have time for this; events will not take you unawares; the records
of the negotiations conducted with you will remain before your eyes.
Lay them not from your hands until you are in unity with your selves.
Neither let, oh, let not yourselves be made supine by reliance upon
others or upon anything whatsoever that lies outside yourselves, nor
yet through the unintelligent belief of our time that the epochs of
history are made by the agency of some unknown power without any aid
from man. These 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.
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