{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(Philosophy 9, January 15th, 1954.)

...and you must try to answer this. It will bring us right into the heart of our problem of the family, and of religion, of the art to live in two generations, and in the two sexes as representative of everything ever created and ever to be created. You remember, you are not surprised when I show you a spirochete in syphilis, which is hanging together with the veins of the human body by these kind of -- of whips, of flagella. Spirochaeta means, as you know, being able to have a such a hook, by which they hook on.

I -- you yesterday asked me what the family represents. Well, it represents the totality of creation. Here it throws out its flagellum to the last moment of time. Here, it throws it backward. Here it throws it into the outer world, in rejection, in defense. And here it throws it out in expanse, in conquest, in embrace, in comprehensiveness. And in -- although people do not think this is funny when it's put on such a scheme in -- in humanity and history, they don't think anything when you put it on in a -- in bacteria, or in -- in -- in little things. I don't see the difference. It is obvious that we, as human beings, behave in the universe exactly as any little bacterium does, trying to get a foothold in space and time, and to live eternally and at this moment represent everything ever created. That's why Mr. Freud can -- could come and show that in any family, all the primordial times of life of -- -- of -- of history are relived, because obviously all the ages of mankind must come again to the fore in any such family relation. So this -- the Oedipus is just only one of them, I mean. Kingship, royalty, priesthood, prophecy, all these things develop again in any one moment where you group in such a way together.

This is so hard for you to understand, gentlemen, because parents today have abdicated all their spiritual tasks to schools. I mean -- we have talked about this. Since parents have no authority, and decline to have authority, and since the children are in the -- authority at home, I find time and again that a mother who feels that her child is naughty says, "Well, I send him to school, then he -- he'll learn." With which means just that today it is so complicated to find the family relations, because it is not represented by the carnal parents, you see, but by some teacher relationship, or by some doctor, or by some analyst, or by some psychologist. But don't think that they all together do not simply form mother -- your mother and your father. So you go to Mr. McKenna, because you're short of parents. But they together form parenthood. And we here are expected to be even your wet-nurse, because you don't seem to have enough.

The other day, a lady told me that -- after all at home, children went on each other's nerves. So one wants to have the radio going, and the other doesn't. "So I sent him away to school," she said, of her older son.

Well, I looked at her in amazement and said, "So, you think that instead of let- -- teaching this boy to behave at home with one sister or brother, you have to send him to such a stable of cows, and bulls, and oxen, of hundreds of them called Exeter, Andover, where they have -- have to do this -- for discipline's sake, because it's half military?"

But that's how today is -- for you it is so difficult to find the family. But all -- what I do, gentlemen, is just to do what your father doesn't find time to, and what he hasn't learned to do, to tell you about the past and its laws. And what your girl has to do, you -- to draw you into the future of the -- humanity. Yet she doesn't, because she has nerves, and she went to Smith, so she had learned psychology. She is semi-destroyed. So obviously you will have to go to sensations, and to burlesque shows, and to Italy, and to India, and have to get airplanes. They're very expensive, you know. If your wife doesn't do the trick, to turn you into the future, then you get it from -- from -- artificial semination.

But you see, that this -- the problem is the same. You are drawn into these four directions, and you are cursed if you do not fulfill them. And I have used the family as the integrated form of this all. But you, poor people, you have to find it in 27-and-a-half psychology textbooks, or something like that. But it is the same. And the psychologist demands from you to be read, with the same authority formerly a mother or father claimed, or a grandfather to be read, you see. The funny thing about psychologists is never that they say something. They say very little, I always feel. But they want to be bought. That is, they claim authority.

And in this sense, they simply line up -- with you -- against you as the older people, I mean, as all science does, to the layman, and says, "Listen to me. I know." You cannot ever find -- how these scoundrels falsify the truth, or what they omit. You just buy them.

Now, since most people however think they have not such desire to represent the universe, to represent -- the -- that strange creature of which the -- we are told that God created man in the singular, you are, of course, very unhappy, because you are little mice. You are men in the plural. As soon as the man knows that he represents the creative son of man -- of God on this earth at this moment, through his love of the past, his love of the future, his love of unanimity, and his love to exist, to resist evil is -- when he doesn't have the singular, this great feeling that he at this moment stands for the creative process itself, and has the right therefore to decide what's dead and what's living, if he

isn't there in the power of the word, which the Greeks in the New Testament call logos, in the power of defining what is dead and what is alive, that's logos. Will you take this down, gentlemen? Logos is the power to say what is dead and what is alive. What is who and what is what. That is logos. You'll never find it in any modern textbooks. They have forgotten it. It begins, as you know, the Gospel of St. John, says: "In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God."

Well, what's God's power? God's power is to decide what's dead and what's alive. He's -- he lets people die and lets them come to life again. He says of whole nations that they are -- it's over with them. We -- we now try to imitate him with Mr. -- Mr. Toynbee's 23 civilizations or the Decline of the West of Spengler. You see, that God tells us all the time. Tell us what is gone, you see. Your old family is dying at this moment. You can't help it. It's just the time is up. And if you listen to God, you know it. If you are however a dwarf, you go to Mr. McKenna and -- and howl and say, "I must have my mother's apron strings." Then you are not -- have not the logos, but then you have just superstition.

Superstition is an attempt not to say what is dead and what is alive, you see, but to hang onto something that is already dead too long.

Now whenever we have this power, gentlemen, to decide what is dead and what is alive, we are the single man of -- whom God has created. We are all one. As soon as you say, "I don't know. I'm intimidated. I'd better not stick my neck out," you are just one little Lilliputian, grain of dust. You are "men" in the plural.

Now the story. A young French girl fell in love with a boy. She was 18, he was 24. They lived together as husband and wife -- or as lovers -- for six months. A story like Manon Lescaut, if you know the great story of Manon. Do you? No? Who knows Manon? Greatest love story in France. { } to know. And -- don't you even know the opera? "Isn't it my hand that holds thy hand?" Don't you know this wonderful aria? Ja?

Well, these two lived like Manon Lescaut and her chevalier. And after six months, the girl said, or wrote, "Nothing can now excel -- transcend this bliss. There is no life that can be better than this. I'm perfectly happy," and she took her life and went out of this world.

And the man -- boy, one of you who was good enough to tell me this story, enjoined that I should go on from there, and show you what happens if there is this queer feeling. This girl for six months was immort- -- felt immortality. That is, through her, God is -- the divine life breathes, so to speak. She was in

perfect bliss. And then she said, "This -- since this cannot last, let's say goodbye." And she did. Very un-American.

But I think you have here a very clear case, gentlemen, between the usual pluralistic worth- -- good-for-nothing American pluralist who says, "Don't quote me," and therefore is only running all the time and never is -- "man" in the singular, because he has neither ties with the past, nor with the future, nor with the outer world, nor with himself. He is schizophrenic, as you know, and therefore he has to travel all the time, poor old man. Always on the go. So that he cannot even catch himself, you see. There's no time for that.

This is something different. You see, here is this girl who fulfills completely the situation of the bride. The situation of the bride is not one who's courted, but who is before giving birth to a child, before becoming a mother, you remember? All the beauty is before with her, whether she has -- lives with a man or is just -- allows herself to be loved by a man. Don't draw the line between this virginity business. That's all nonsense. The decisive line for a woman is whether she gives birth to a child or not. You can be married for 10 years and still be a virgin in any actual sense of the word. As you know, that's even in the Old Testament, the tradition -- "young woman" Mary is called, you see. Before she has given birth, she is on this -- in this realm of beauty, and of future, and of promise, and of transformation, and of waiting to be called by her new name as this man's soul.

So this girl was on this -- on this segment of the cross of reality. A beautiful soul, obviously. And living what? Living uniqueness, gentlemen, and from fear that the -- this might become trite, you see, she gave this up because -- there is an old tradition in -- in Judaism, in -- Hasidism that the Baal-Shem, the great wizard, should only -- in his great love should only sleep with the wife of his choice once. That's enough. And since this was perfect, and he had waited for her years and years, and she had -- couldn't ever -- you see, it could never become many.

Now, don't laugh at these things. There -- from this French example, and from this great Baal-Shem legend, you may see how profound in man is the question of the unique, the doing something once, only.

I want to stress that this young woman is the opposite from the joiner, and the -- and the Rotarian, and the 90,000 a miles a year -- 90,000-miles-a-year owner of a Chrysler, or of a race- -- sport car. She is here totally, but she has this one great fear of losing this singleness, you see, this singularity of her existence.

Since you have to make your womenfolks happy, you must understand

that every woman wants to feel that to her husband she is somebody unique. If you lose this touch, you must do exactly like this French girl.

Now what is wrong then with this young woman? I want you to understand that the real man is between this young French woman, and what you have as the run-of-the-mill student today. It is neither this nor the other. And you cannot simply say "no" to this case. I think these great cases like Romeo and Juliet, who after all, never see the fulfillment of their love, and whom we all need for our own fulfillment, as a play, to -- as -- for our education, that these cases, gentlemen, are ex- -- marginal cases, and so that we are pushed back into life. That is, since the ordinary 2,800 students in Dartmouth try to be nobodies, very hard -- as hard as they can, and since this girl on this other hand tries to be once forever and never again, our life is, so to speak, fixed in by these two extreme warnings. I think her life is no more tragic than the life of 2,000 of the students who come to this college, out of 2,800. They never come to life, and she only comes to life once. There's not much difference to me in -- in the -- or -- in the way of missing life.

What is wrong here, gentlemen? The mystery of life, in a representative, crucial situation where we -- in even our smallest family group, our smallest friendship, represent all of Church, all of state, all of art, all of science, because "father" means to represent everything that must be, you see, gained for the sis- -- the sustenance of our -- of our wherewithal, so to speak, our livelihood. The mother represents any dignity, any value, you see, ever created, so -- and so on. When we live this way, in some such connection, there is something unique every minute. This young woman was correct that she felt this love cannot last. It cannot. Marriage is not first love, you see. The honeymoon does pass. It would be ab- -- absolutely artificial to say that it doesn't become weekday living. It does. Everything unique is finally routine. What we said about the act, and the habit, and the character, you cannot change this, really. At the end, it -- it's a rut. But the strange thing about real life is, gentlemen, that something else equally unique, like having your first child, for example, takes, you see, the place of uniqueness. We all have to keep what we have and to be reborn into something unique what we have not yet.

The mystery, gentlemen, of life is -- let me put it this way, you see -- that known qualities are newly created. Newly created, and then they must stay with us. This is very strange. The Baal-Shem and this French heroine are both right in that they tell us -- and remind you that love is nothing if it doesn't strike you as unique. It isn't love. It -- then it's just mating, and you can do this on the -- in the cattleyard. If it isn't unique, it is not love. Love is the highest selection, and the Baal-Shem only -- just said the selection is not just between one man and one woman; it is even -- even between the climactic, high day of their lives of

this one man and this one woman.

And I think if you want to understand life, jot this down as an extreme case which is necessary for your understanding of living. This young woman and the Baal-Shem are no perverts. They are no aberrations, gentlemen. They are tremendous object lessons of what you and I are surrounded by, and are challenged into. If there is nothing unique in your life ever, you better were not born at all.

Now what it is, whether it's the love of a woman, or an heroic action when you dri- -- jump into the Connecticut River to save a -- comrade or a little child, or what- -- whenever this unique event befalls you in life, or out in Korea, or in an airplane, I don't know -- nobody knows, but that you should know that man is finally the man who does something unique. This you all should know. Mr. Lindbergh remains for the rest of his life the man who flew to Paris, you see. He can -- can't get out of this. That's his fate, it's his mis- -- calamity, it's his prosperity, It's his happiness, it's his fulfillment. But after he had flown, he -- the -- you see -- what was it called? The -- of St. Louis -- wie?

(Spirit of St. Louis.)

The Spirit of -- he was no longer the same man. He was the man of this one act.

Now you and I, gentlemen, don't forget it, we become the -- the representatives of -- of our best action. And never fall behind it. Many people -- may live this, their best act, no -- without ever telling anybody what their best act --. But I assure you that you all know. You all know it, you see, who -- what in your life really made you take your hat off to yourself, because you were surprised by yourself. You didn't know you could do that.

So in -- in -- in life, gentlemen, and in the arts -- the arts especially, but here it is the case in life with this young wo- -- French woman, these are the great signposts on your road through life. Respect them. Don't say of this young woman anything but "Heed her. Heed her." She does take this life, not just as an individual; but she does it because she finds that other people throw away such love. And in this disgust, she is not able to pray for anything but to singularize, to unique -- to make unique this experience, you see, of the great merger of two young lovers.

But as I said, in Mary's case, it is her son. She forgets Joseph, and everything is in the relation of mother and son, and the -- Church worships there, that her whole relation to the rest of the family is of a very doubtful character. We

don't know. But I mean, obviously, the Church tries of concentrate all the limelight on this singularity of Mary's relation to her son. Which is a great injustice, I'm sure, to poor old Joseph.

(I don't see how you can say that the girl committing suicide was -- was such great love. To me, suicide { } self-love. I don't see --)

You have learned this by heart, {Chasman.} It's just a quotation. To you it isn't self-love, but to somebody who told you so, because you have never been tempted by suicide obviously. If you were -- had been, Sir, at least, you knew it was -- despair is not self-love. I mean, have you never been despondent? This is ridiculous to -- to say. This is a definition from the psychology textbook.

I'll talk to a man about suicide who has bought a pistol and tried to shoot himself. And before, I will not.

Gentlemen, it is very important that we should have this very clear before us. This girl represents one moment's absolute value and -- and claim. Now we discover therefore in our own life this -- which is -- you see, it isn't self-love that this girl commits suicide. It is the love of the permission she has received to fulfill something to perfection. You see, she is willing -- this is not her self-love at all. Not -- it's just -- I mean, your definition is perfectly arbitrary. Here she is loved, and she knows this is an exaltation by which she has been deified. And she walks in Olympus, in the -- heavens, and she says, "I don't {come to --}." Yes, and then you make such a face. You don't deserve to be told such a good story. I'm sorry. But you are -- all great lit- -- you have no right to read Hamlet or to read -- or to read Ophelia, or to read Romeo and Julia, or -- if you say suicide is self-love. Do you think Ophelia committed suicide from self-love? Fantastic!

(I wonder if you could explain why this girl and her lover didn't culminate this in marriage?)

Pardon me?

(Why didn't they -- were they married?)

We have a -- now. Pardon me, you see, the only thing I know is...

(But I said it's { }.)

...that this man is now is 28 and -- doesn't want to have anything to do with any woman.

(Because you said they were lovers and { }.)

Well, obviously, you are quite right. The contra- -- it's very easy for you and me to detect the contradiction in this situ- -- whenever a person speaks, and she di- -- they did speak to each other, and whenever she says, "This is perfect bliss," they are of course in the whole ocean of truth. That is, you can only judge any one part of life by being inside the whole of it, so -- because this young woman, you see, and here you come with the real problem of suicide, Sir. It isn't self-love, you see. But it is your own judgment that you are the -- your own judge, which is the opposite from self-love, you see. Yet you sit in judgment over yourself, and don't judge, lest ye be judged. I mean, we are not judges of our own life. This is to be said against the suicide. But that doesn't help us in the sense that you -- if and when, into a person this false philosophy creeps that she says -- or he says, you see, "I am the judge," you see, then he only imitates what every heretic today says, that he is a captain of his own soul. Or all these people who send around.

I just got from a medical student from -- from Harvard, who -- who had offended me greatly, in order to make up for it, he thought, I -- he sent me a paper in which he stated his religious beliefs. So I -- I just -- write back and said, "I'm not interested. I haven't asked you." There is no situation in -- in which one makes such a confession. All these people who send around today their statements about their personal convictions, are -- I mean, to me just sick, very sick. Shameless. There's no real situation.

This girl, and this man -- this brings out this question -- had -- were unwilling and unable to create another situation in which something else would have to be said and emphasized, like marriage. Perfection being here, in this El Dorado, in this -- in these six months. And -- can't you see it? Can't you think that people really live -- away perhaps from their parents, away from professional urges, away from financial straits, just -- they are able to go on a little journey, you see, for -- let's say for a week. It hasn't even to be six weeks -- six months. This -- week they can live in perfect bliss. The reality, so to speak, can be forgotten. They have enough in their checkbook, so to speak, to pay all the bills that come in. And they are not bothered with the return of all these problems, the recurrence of his -- their income. The -- the -- that they have to take an examination, or they have to go home, or they have to pay rent or what-not. I mean, for six -- a week, every one of you can ea- -- easily fathom such a paradisiacal situation. It's a little more difficult for six months. But it -- is already something extremely long.

Goethe has once said he has never been happy for more than six weeks in his whole life. And he was 82 and is considered one of the happiest of mortals.

You and I, gentlemen, nobody is allowed to be happy for more than six weeks. If you live, if you do -- not just have this refrigerator temperature, which most of you have, of 35 degrees. But the anabiotic existence, which you lead here in college, I mean, that's not living. But it's this tin-can existence.

But any original life, gentlemen, is full of pain, and full of bliss, and full of happiness, and is no longer -- more than six weeks. So this girl, from my point of view, had a right to say, "This is unique, because we had no quarrel, and we had no worry, and we were outside the -- the wear and tear of the routine, of mere -- you see, routine life for six months."

What irks me with you, gentlemen, is that you do not know how rare any little perfection is in life. That to live six weeks -- or six months in perfect bliss is so rare, that I have to stand in -- in awe before this and say, "That's more than most people ever get." Because you have this fiction that you can be happy for 70 years, except for the dentist. You aren't happy -- you aren't -- either unhappy nor happy because you have no reason to live at all. You just -- keeping breathing very -- sup- -- suppressedly. But that's not living.

Anybody who takes on the world, gentlemen, has every reason for rejoicing and for mourning, for weeping and for laughing. But you only have -- try to keep smiling. So you never are really exuberant. And so you never are very low. Now you keep in the middle, most of you. Not all. My story of course brings out that this girl felt -- she was given something that was beyond expectation, six months. Being passionate, and being French, she knew a little bit about the unstability -- instability of -- of -- of your situation. Of la condition humaine, as they say in Paris now so gladly of the human situation.

So what you can say of suicide in such a -- of s- -- such fulfillment is two things. It remains representative of man's temptation to go to the limit of any one situation and say it is unique, you see. And that's something positive. And you can say that the heresy, the error -- the dogmatic error of this person is that she s- -- wants to judge this, that she wants to label this herself as what it is worth, and compare it with things not lived -- with situations not experienced. Outside this uniqueness, she doesn't accept that God may send her other ways, you see, that also have to be trodden with the same devotion, the same originality. But it won't be the love to a man, you see. That -- I think she is right when she says, "I won't have another lover." You see. You understand this?

So we -- I am very anxious, gentlemen, that you should not come and say, "This girl should have just gone on loving." I say she should have gone on living, but she -- had the privilege and honor to let this stand as unique. This is, I think, the problem which you and I have to solve together, gentlemen. You

think that nothing is unique. Or you are tempted, because here you see the bad outcome. Because she thinks it's unique, she takes her life.

Now I say, if nothing is unique, then we should take our lives, because then we are just insects, mosquitoes. What makes a man stand his ownness? What does Hamlet say about this? He says, "As a unique person, I cannot commit suicide." That's the content of "To be or not to be." That he -- he will be judged as Hamlet. And he cannot say the delay of the law, you see, and what else is it? The -- wie?

(I think it's the -- I can't remember all of it.)

If I figure all the humiliations which I -- to -- had to go through in my life, gentlemen, do you think that I -- sometimes really I am disgusted with myself that I took it -- or sta- -- stood it all. Why should one? Why should one have all that -- these innumerable humiliations which an -- absolutely -- well, disgusting, mass, world of masses and mobs, inflicts on you?

(Wasn't Hamlet's hesitance to commit suicide more a fear of death rather than expectation of a -- of an uplifting experience which would justify his life?)

He was quite indifferent to death, and physical death. He says because there's something after death. Now, what the people in 1600 call "after" there is the personal judgment, that you may -- make your own fate so incomparable to anybody else's, which is uniqueness, you see. The judgment over the quick and the dead, which Christ is expected to deliver -- and I think -- I believe this -- is your own life singled out as not just anybody's life, you see, but a life that was under your own care and administration, you see. The uniqueness of your life.

So by the word "death," you have just postponed your understanding of the term. We mean by "death" that everybody dies his own death, you see. -- Millions of people born, as in nature -- I mean, chickens, and so on, but the way you consume this life entrusted to you, that is yours. You must -- if you want to understand what people in other -- older generations meant by -- by Hamlet's dialogue or by the Last Judgment, you must simply say it's what you have to answer this young woman. You must say, "You are right, dear Margaret, or dear -- dear Elizabeth, or dear Charlotte," or what does -- this girl's name was, you see, or -- "You are right that you cle- -- crave to your life as unique, but the more unique it is, the more it is given, and received. And the less it is done by yourself."

And that's Hamlet's experience. That's the greatness of the play, that he has to wait until everything is dissolved. What is the greatness of Hamlet? That

he doesn't take the law into his own hands arbitrarily, you see, but that he allows all these scoundrels to -- reveal -- and unveil themselves. So at the end is peace. When Hamlet goes, we are all reconciled to the world. If you go to Orestes, in the Greeks, you see, he murders -- he kills his mother, and then for three generations, there is a curse. And when Hamlet dies, the curse is dissolved. And that's his Christian message, and his Christian inheritance. That's why Hamlet is a Christian tragedy, not because they confess any Christianity, but because his life is lived in this double way, not -- as this young woman, as unique, you see. But under much greater difficulties, from s- -- act to act, so that although he does love Ophelia, you see. But he does have to play the madman. He has to go on from one fa‡on de vivre, one phase of life into the next and into the next.

Hamlet is still before you, gentlemen. You haven't solved the problem of Hamlet. Hamlet is your and my hero, because there is this double play in Hamlet, that it is something unique in every moment. In every one scene, Hamlet is up to a unique situation. And different from this young woman, he cannot take his life after he has fulfilled { }. Why shouldn't he have taken his life after the first act?

You are quite wrong when you say he fears death. That's not a word of truth. He's a very courageous man. He fights. He's a duel- -- he's aggressive. What he has to learn is not to be aggressive. It's all nonsense what the -- your textbooks say. Just read the text. Here he has not -- no cowardice whatsoever. He doesn't fear death, but he does fear that he -- we all, gentlemen, carry in our hands, as a tightrope walker, a -- a glass of water, the water of life. And you can spill that.

And therefore, just as Jesus couldn't -- couldn't always stand up in the -- in the temple and provoke the high priest, but had to evade the issue and hadn't to rush to the Cross, you see, but had to hide, so Hamlet is not allowed just to take a dagger and make a tremendous noise as though he was a -- six-foot-six football hero. Not at all. He is carrying the water of life, and he must not spill this. And so every one of us walks. And you don't know when you are allowed to drink this glass -- cup -- or empty it. It takes a longer time in one case than the other. This young woman, you see, wanted to empty the cup herself, so to speak, and say this -- and throw it away, you see.

This water of life is -- is very easily spilled. The glass is easily broken in which we carry it, you see, with any impatience. Can you see this? The -- the simile I think is quite adequate to show you that in Hamlet's case, if I -- if God says to me, "You carry this glass of water," it's not a question of cowardice or courage any more, you see. I know what's coming, you see, in every one

moment. Somebody is attacking this glass, I'll -- I'll kill the dragon, slay the dragon, you see. Otherwise I have no -- on the other hand, I have no right to say that -- I'm not carrying this glass of water, you see, arbitrarily. I cannot. It's entrusted to me. So is your life, gentlemen.

Your life is very frail and very delicate. That's why I do not like your attitude, either boasting with what you know -- and confessing your -- your -- giving your dogmatic statement on faith, and then always -- always these dogmatic statements -- also of this doctor student who says, "Of course, there's nothing dogmatic about my faith, but it runs like this." Well, if this isn't dogmatic, I don't know what is. This is very -- very much liked on this campus, that people, without being asked, write down their personal faith, and then they say, "But I'm all against dogma."

No, gentlemen. The -- life is en- -- this -- this young woman knew that something was entrusted to her. But she thought it was limited, you see, to this one fulfillment, you see. And it is only the breaking-off the long journey, you see, and saying -- it would have been as though Ophelia was the heroine of the play, and not Hamlet, you see. Isn't that right?

Now gentlemen, the -- no -- what is it?

(Well, I was going to ask you. You say that a person who states his personal feeling about faith is dogmatic. Well, where -- when isn't he dogmatic? I mean, if he give a...)

As an answer. As an answer to a question. When you have to -- when you have such a young woman, she wants to take her life, then you have to pray that God puts on her this word of faith, you see, which He will take as never being spoken before, and never hereafter, as a new word -- it must be unique, you see. It must be so personal that she will carry on, you see. Because -- since she comes from a unique life and can't stand the triteness of everyday life, if you just repeat something that you have thought out, or read somewhere before, you see, as a general truth, she'll spit at you, and she'll say, "Well, I feel that now I -- certainly I have to take my life, because this man is coming with commonplace comfort -- consolation."

But if you are able to say something that is as singular, as unsaid before, as Jesus says to the adulteress, you see, then the adulteress can be saved. What is the greatness of Jesus's words in the New Testament? That they had never been said before. That He says to the adulteress anyth- -- anybody who wants to judge you, you see, may cast -- who -- who feels without -- fail, you remember Paul -- may cast the first stone. Well, this is just out of the ordinary, you see. So

everybody is saved. The judges go home, and the adulteress is acquitted without being acquitted. It's a new, unique situation.

Now take this with this young woman. Certainly she could only have been saved by somebody who had this deep faith in God's -- being God's creature, and therefore not being your own judge, you see. But having this trust. But to express this to this young woman, the man would have had to be equal to her lover in uniqueness, through his word. Not as lover, but as teacher, or as minister, or as whatever -- I mean, as comforter, or as mother. But the word had to hit her so that she, through this word, would have been able to enter a new relationship. The word spoken to her in this moment, you see, would have been like an outstretched hand inviting her to cross the bridge from her first paradise to the next paradise. Can you see that?

That's why to speak, gentlemen, is an act of God in every case. You must know this. I -- you must know that sometimes a roommate just plays this part in a dangerous situation, with his -- with his roommate, that he -- simply by s- -- being there and saying one word, he changes the whole -- the whole aspect.

I know that a boy here was saved from suicide, just from -- by his roommate who at the right moment just opened un- -- opened up, and -- and could speak in this -- in this personal and direct manner. Not very -- not very learned, not very emphatic, but the boy felt it was he whom this roommate turned his wholehearted attention. That's all that's needed. That be- -- is beginning or -- you see, of creating a new entity, a new dualism, a new group, you see. When this person, and in this case of the young woman, you see how difficult it was for anybody. Obviously the ordinary run-of-the-mill priest couldn't do it. He just said, "Suicide is sick." He didn't understand that she wanted to -- to live now in a second uniqueness, you see. So she had to find somebody to say it to her, as though it -- nobody had ever said it to anybody. Can you see the difference? These quotations of -- of dogma don't help anybody.

Well, gentlemen, this young woman has rendered us a great service, because she simply says, "There is no reason to be afraid to die." Now all Americans have only one dogma. They don't want to die. And religion, gentlemen, comes into the picture when you and I be- -- come to know that life and death are not ultimate choices. That there is a good life, and a good death; and there is a wicked life, and there is a wicked death.

There are four ways, gentlemen. Life can be minus, and life can be plus; and death can be minus, and death can be plus. If you say that every death -- the death on the battlefield, the death in saving somebody else, the death on the Cross of Jesus -- is futile, you are this side of reality, of truth, because obviously

you and I -- even the man who says the Crucifixion was futile, must die. And he then says, "I want to judge my life this side of death, not including this, what is coming to me. From my first day since I am born, this particle of dust which I am is just as much destined to die as it is to live. It is both."

I have found in order to help you on -- again -- as against this young French woman, gentlemen, I have found a very strange epitaph at -- on a tombstone in Italy, in Florence. It was put there in the year 1000. That's a long time ago. Or 1001, I mean. We don't know the year for sure. But about this, 1001, probably. And it was for a -- the ruler of Tuscany. Florence is the s- -- capital of Tuscany in Italy. As you know, the most beautiful, really the town -- the most beautiful town in -- in Italy. And -- I hope I have brought this -- I know -- this verse with me. Ja.

And there you read a whole poem, and the -- perhaps you take this down, although it's Latin. But it's a very strange sentence. Well, everybody who knows English knows Latin, because English is only poorer Latin. Especially American English. {Fluctuat in terris}. You can understand this very easily. {Qui semper vivere queret}. Really, it's one of the scandals that you are told that you speak English -- speak English. If you analyze what you speak, you speak Latin. There is nine-tenths Latin in what an American boy speaks, and what he calls with some sentimentality, "English."

And if you were told that it is not Latin, you would all believe that you can read Latin. It would all open up your whole vista, here. Or make it even easier. You know what "quest" is, and "query." So the word "{quere}" here at the end means he -- he -- queries -- he seeks. "He fluctuates on this earth who wants to live forever."

Now you'll remember this girl was very steadfast and bold. And she was able to live on the top of life for six months. That's more than any one of y- -- us ordinary mortals can, because we are to -- everyday specimens and editions. On the other hand, gentlemen, all these pluralistic gentlemen who say, "Don't quote me," who live with the devil, who -- are the people who can never live steadily. "He fluctuates on this earth who queries to live forever." {Fluctuat in terris qui semper vivere queret}. Semper -- always; vivere -- live; qui -- who. He fluctuates. And terra you know from "territory," of course, on -- on earth.

Now this is -- was said of the ruler of Tuscany, that he was a ruler who had this steadfastness, because it didn't matter. You are -- what you expect from any general -- from General Patton, that he attacks regardless whether he is shot dead or not. Other- -- he can't be a general.

Gentlemen, I expect of you the same. I hope that any one of you behaves like a young mother, who bear -- carries her child -- bears her child regardless whether she loses her life in the process or not. Obviously you are no man if you do not come up to the same achievement of a young woman. You expect from your wife that she is willing to risk her life on the birth of your children. And you just accept that. You can only accept that if you know that there are a number of issues on which you will decide regardless of the outcome. May the chips fall where they -- where they -- you see, where they may.

A man who doesn't say this, cannot be spoken to. He is just a prattler. He's a joiner. I have nothing to do with him, because he doesn't know what the truth is. The truth is that the decision for which makes no difference regardless of whether I die in the process or not. If you have no such truth or no such value, gentlemen, you are below parity. You must understand, gentlemen, that the essence of any knowledge about real life depends on your power to treat life and death with equanimity. Otherwise you are just biased. You are partisan. And if your life comes first, you see, you certainly are not apt to know the truth.

Gentlemen, the knowledge of the truth depends on your indifference to life. And that's why so very few people know the truth, and why the truth is hated. Gentlemen, the corollary of this sentence, that only he can know the truth who is indifferent to the outcome, with regard to his own physical existence -- take any Quaker who risked his life in Massachusetts when he confessed that he was a Quaker. Take any Jew who, under Hitler, forfeited his existence when he said that he was a Jew. -- And {yet} you say what -- one word, one name you give to yourself can mean to your very existence. You can just go.

When you -- see this, gentlemen, then you will understand that most people today must hate the truth, because you are all told that there is no truth that is worth your precious life. Your precious life is more precious than any value of the community. Now gentlemen, that is not true about the women anyway, and that's why man today is degraded in this country. That's why the women spit at you, and all dominate you. The woman is superior to man in America at this moment, because she is not -- at least has not completely struck against -- getting children. But where are your children whom you beget as a danger of life?

Now what compares to the begetting children, gentlemen, in your own existence? The sticking out of the truth, of the next necessary thing to be said. You have to say this at the danger of life. This young man -- lover -- lover probably didn't want to risk his love. So he didn't strike out and change, being a lover, in time with his sweetheart; and she took her life, because she wa- -- he was wrapped -- up in this love affair. If he had really been a real man, he would have

also undertaken, you see, to put their love in the light of the universal life. And he would have made her listen and also learned himself to speak.

You see, no marriage can last if the two people do not believe in God. We have -- I have here a friend who married for love. It was a great love affair, a Dartmouth boy. And great sacrifices. Very great difficulties. She was in college in the second year, a girls' college, and they -- they had to marriage -- they married in a clandestine -- marriage, because these old spinsters in that girls' college, you see, wouldn't have allowed her being married. And so on. They are divorced now. Why? Because he go -- the man became a Communist. And he asked his wife to canvass the state of Vermont for Earl Browder.

Well, if you invoke free love yourself, which is after all one of the tenets of Communism, you see, and poke fun at the sacrament of marriage, you cannot blame the woman who after two years ran away with another Dartmouth student. He brought it on himself, because he did not speak outside the situation of making love, you see. He did not put first things first.

Gentlemen, we speak in order to relate, in order to relate the present moment to its proper place in space and time. And now we come -- I mean, this young man -- you cannot blame him, he was young -- did not do his full duty by this girl, you see, because he allowed her to remain wrapped in this one situation. But he didn't speak as a husband would have, you see, of this as one chapter in a -- in life eternal.

But that is not the girl's work. That's the husband's work. Now, what do you do? You get engaged, and you go to the Episcopal Church or have a wonderful mass celebrated in your favor, all stone, and all -- just routine of old. Nothing of your own doing. You just submit, and then you are silent about the gods, like Confucius, never say a word again about your religion. Allow the children to be sent to Sunday school. She goes to the women's club, maybe the religious fellowship. You go to the Rotarians, you go to your business, the friends -- you go to the natural -- history museum or whatever -- interests you. And you never speak about the -- God, and the power that allows every one chapter of life to be the singular realization at this moment of the eternal singular. Then you wonder that she either runs away with somebody else, or that she has -- tells all her bed chamber secrets to her female friends, which is equally disgusting, or what-not. Or that she dominates her children because she wants to be at home somewhere. She has nothing to share with you. The only thing a woman has to receive from her husband is his belief in God. All the rest is money.

If you don't give her this, gentlemen, she cannot love you. She may like

you. She may like to go to bed with you, sensually, you see. But she cannot respect you. A woman must have -- since she lives in the moment, she must have this one certainty that her husband is in connection with the higher powers. And that's -- is your honor, gentlemen.

You go into the whole of history: wherever there is Juno and Jupiter, or wherever there is Apollo and -- and Artemis, the woman is holding onto what is created; the man is bringing in the next chapter, the movement. That's the relation between husband and wife. And in this -- what do we have here? The whole noise, and the whole erratic nervousness comes in from the Barbara Huttons. That is, they must represent the change, the civilization, the sensation, the great art. The -- they hire Mr. Stokowsky, and marry him, even; and -- and the men, they pay the bill. That's all they do. But they do not represent faith.

It is the man who must repre- -- you remember Mr. {Simon}. Why is he not a real man, you see? Because at that moment when he was unemployed, he had to represent real faith and not fiction to his wife, you see. So he -- he -- he built up a -- a sham, you see, theater before her. Instead of taking her into the depths of this change of decoration, you see, by which he would have of course emerged victoriously as the real man in the picture.

Now will you kindly see this? Most human beings, if they are not warned by -- in time live in this manner, gentlemen. They look back -- you look back at your family. You have your bright ideas, and your statement about the universe. And you have outside the resisting world, that's the frontier, or that is the world, or that is business, or these are the 60 million jobs, however you call this outside world on which you are looking. Most of you live, you see, as idealists, as you call the -- yourself, or as practical routineers, or as sons of your family, Junior, or Number 3 or Number 4 Vanderbilt, or Rockefeller and -- as juniors. That is, most of you, gentlemen, live in three dimensions. Mr. Einstein lives this way, you see. He -- all the -- all the phys- -- all the naturalists, all the scientists, they have -- there is a tradition, yes. You -- {Kant had to} admit this. He wears, after all, tuxedos at times, and a hat. I mean, that's all background knowledge, background tradition. He's a doctor. He's a professor. He has his own ideas, then he faces the universe. And this is life without death. Life without death, gentlemen. That is the general picture of a student in college. Most of you even think that this is only dualistic, subject and object. Put here your subjective ideas about the world, and here are the objective -- is the objective world, and you live -- and, but in fact you have also your mother, and she watches out that you don't give in too much to your ideas, or to the object of your adoration. She wants to be adored herself. That is -- it's not a -- fun, gentlemen. It's very important that you see.

You live mentally, consciously in a dual world. That is, you are subjects, and there are objects. But in fact, and I think you will admit it in -- in analysis, you are here in Dartmouth, which is all background, which is all history, which is all here, 150 years. And therefore, you really all live in the three aspects of life. This is past life, gentlemen. This is inner life, and this is external life. Very often it isn't very much alive. It's very often concrete and steel. But these are the three aspects of life.

Now gentlemen, as you well know, God has wanted us to die. And the future life, or prophecy, or anything important in life always must include death. What's the difference between a prediction and a prophet, gentlemen? That a prophet is not allowed to see a day of fulfillment, that his death and the death of Jerusalem, the destruction of Jerusalem, lies between him and the Messiah's coming. The important thing of the Old Testament's insight into real life is that they knew that God made indispensable that a whole generation or many generations have to die in order to rejuvenate life on this earth. That the children -- Moses was not allowed to see the Promised Land himself. He had to wait four years. And in order to allow the gener- -- next generation to enter the -- the Promised Land, he had to die.

Gentlemen, you decline to admit that you only live because other people have died. That is, your rhythm of life is this way, here, from birth to death. And then somebody else is born and dies, and then somebody else is born and dies. This is your hectic bri- -- right. Here, A -- from A -- from birth to death.

Now gentlemen, I don't live that way. And the whole Church is based on the assumption that we couldn't live if not somebody had died. That is, we wouldn't know the direction of our lives. The problem of the four founders, gentlemen, is this: that they are -- their death is already there when you wake up to li- -- live. And that's why -- that you know how to live. It isn't the question that you are interested in their philosophy. Neither Buddha, nor Lao-Tzu, nor Jesus, nor Abraham had anything to do with consciousness or with thought, or with dogma. The only thing is that they are there. Before you come into life, they have died. They have resigned. They have renounced. And by renouncing life, they have given your life meaning.

You will now understand that this young woman has very much to do with us, because as an object lesson, she -- is on the side of the founders of religion. It isn't my business and yours to judge her because she took her life. That's God's business. We have not to sit in judgment over this young woman, you see. But she's there, very seriously there. That is, we cannot -- one such case is more important than 10,000 million people who have died in the process of li- -- on this earth. She's more interesting. We have to waste -- don't waste -- we have to speak

of her. She deserves it, because she has taken death into her hands. And that's a tremendous question mark for our life: how to -- in which direction should we channelize it? Where should it go? Not that we have to follow her example, you see, but it is there. And you cannot exclude it. Once you hear this story, gentlemen, it stays with you. And woe to you if you forgot it -- forget it and say, that's just self- -- what do you say? Well, how do you call it? Suicide? Well, for Heaven's sake, all the criminals, gentlemen, protect you against going to Sing-Sing. That's the meaning of -- of -- of the -- of crime, that you don't have to do it. And it isn't -- they are much more important for -- for the good life, gentlemen, the people who do wrong, than the people who do good. Nobody follows the people who do good. But very peo- -- many people avoid the peop- -- the wrongdoers. Oh, you moralists, you ethicists, who look away from crime. Where would we be without the criminals?

But gentlemen, you don't want to hear this. {Fluctuat in terris qui semper vivere queret}. Since you want not to include this fruitful death into your life's thinking, you hate it. You become childish. You remain childish. That is, you go with every wind and every wave, and every mood of every day with the stock exchange, and with the message to the nation. You depend on external broadcasts, on commentators who tell you what to think, and so on and so forth. Where is your own steadfastness? Where is your own faith? And where is your own knowledge of -- about the direction in which life -- your life has to go? You don't have it, because you fluctuate. You have made it a dogma.

There has never been a more dogmatic generation, gentlemen, than the last two American generations. And every one of these Americans, when I talk to them, say they have no dogma. Always mistrust a person who says he has no dogma, because he -- at least he has this dogma, that he has none. If this isn't a dogma, I don't know. There is no person that has no dogma. That doesn't exist. You all have dogmas. But I think you have accidental dogmas, and very stupid dogmas. I think I have very clever ones, because I am in -- in agreement with the rest of humanity for the last 5,000 years. I have their dogma. And I think therefore I'm in tune with the real man. You haven't. You have just some self-made dogma.

Why? Because my dogma includes death. I say that my first dogma is that God created us mortal. My second dogma is that those men who remember this fact of their mortality live differently from those who try to forget it, you see. And I also say that the people who live with this direction projected into them by their knowledge of their finiteness, of their -- of their -- the -- becomes free. And that they matter. That a man who doesn't fear death is the only decent fellow to live with in this world. And that all the joiners and all the people who are afraid to pay the penalty of death cannot -- neither know truth, nor beauty, nor love,

nor sacrifice, nor hope, nor faith. They are just what we call "secular," cut off from the real tree of life. They have no connection with the meaning of our existence on this earth, because you only get this when you are utterly indifferent to the question, "What's the outcome?"

(Why do you say the "penalty"?)

Wie?

(Why are you saying "the penalty" -- { }.)

Well, it's just a phrase. I mean, nobody likes to -- to die, you see. Isn't that true? We are reluctant. It's difficult.

(Well, it sounds as if you're...)

[tape interruption]

...how to -- to -- to tease you, throw sand into your eyes, I mean. He's the exponent of -- of your -- of your lack of -- of meaning and direction. A terrible man, because he didn't include li- -- death into life. Didn't want to. So he had to live 94 years. As you know, he was -- became a nuisance to himself and others in the end.

We all can only pray that we live and die at the right time. You can live too long. You can die too early. I mean, nobody knows how this goes together. Very few people have this blissful existence that their physical existence and their meaningful life absolutely coincide.

(Would you call a six-months' period of real living { }?)

Well, Jesus walked one year in perfect bliss on this earth. It's very short, for a rede- -- yet He redeemed the whole of -- of mankind. Lao-Tzu died and went away in middle age. So our examples are very contradictory. You can't tell -- Abraham died as an old man. But Jesus was 33. He hadn't done anything before he was 30. At best, He lived three years in bliss. Now this young woman certainly had only a partial experience. She was a {messiahess} of the age, but six months is a long period.

I can only tell you, gentlemen. I once had here a group of young Dartmouth and Harvard students together. I mentioned it to you. And in those -- in those -- in this period, they knew they could do anything. They -- like Cort‚s, they -- we could have conquered Mexico. Only 200 people. We were 100. This is a

fantastic story, as you know, that Cort‚s was able to -- to conquer Mexico. It's just -- can't be explained to this day. They had sublime powers. They were completely indifferent to the question of life or death. They just knew that this had to be done.

And the interesting thing is, Sir, that -- a few days ago, one of the participants who still knows that this has been his real life there, and then said, "You know, always when I come to think of this period, it has seemed to me to have lasted many years. And yet it was only three months. And I can't understand it," he said. "Because it's so rich, it's so abundant what happened in those three months. We were -- all our life was there. Everything came from it. Everything centers around it." So Sir, what are six months? Everything. What are six months? Nothing. You can't judge it from the outside. If -- if you ever have really lived a great life, gentlemen, you will know that it can have -- if it has lasted four weeks, it can have been endless. It -- has the quality of infinity.

I have to talk to you as a -- I mean, to the -- as to blind -- or color-blind. I'm sorry. But you have just to believe this, you see, that the high days of life do not underline your chronometry by your -- by your clockwork. That's not true. You can have in these six months everything -- absolutely everything. And more than that. And as I said, if you think that to this day every Sunday millions of people really are refreshed by the wisdom enshrined in three years of the Lord's life on this earth, then you see that this life contains infinity. What are three years? It's ridiculous. As I said, there's only -- disputation, as you know, whether it's one year or three years of His walk on life. I'm inclined to think even that's one year. Well, let's assume it's three years. But after all, for 1950 years now, the people are fed by this, more or less, but certainly with an incredible variety of -- of adaptations, abdications.

How is this possible, gentlemen? Because it is just as possible as that in your little family, you represent the infinity of all life's processes. If you don't believe this, gentlemen, don't get married. Don't live at all. It isn't true that your life and another man's life, and 2 billion people's life compose life. This is your materialistic fiction of all these idealists. All the liberals think, "Here's a man. There's a man. There's a woman. There's a child. There's a teacher. There's a professor. There's a farmer. And then all of them together live the good life." It's all utter nonsense! Nothing is true of this. But you live the whole of life, just as any leaf on the tree is the whole tree, and has the shape of the whole tree. It's no use to say that these leaves compose the tree. The main point is that the leaf itself is the tree.

So with this -- with the dates, Sir, with the times, with the phasing, with the chronomic, metric thing, be very careful. You will admit. You take a mosqui-

to. How long does it live? Six- -- hours? Twenty-four hours? I have no idea. Who knows? Does anybody know the -- the--?

(A fly lives a day.)

Wie?

(A fly lives a day.)

Well, you would admit that inside her life cycle, all the phases of your and my biography in some form appear. There appears birth, and there appears mating, and there appears exploration, and there appears metabolism, and digestion, and growth, and death, and decline, everything.

Now there was a very interesting Frenchman, Nouy. Has anybody heard of Nouy? Biological Time? Have you heard of this? Lecomte de Nouy. And he has a very much parallel -- from his biological idea. He says that there is biological time. That is, that -- that a wound has its own life story, for example. Inside the eight days of one small wound, or the four weeks of a big wound, the same processes take place; one telescopical, one microscopical, you see. And the same is true of your and my life, and the life of humanity. Inside your life, all the features are there. This is called biological time, because the times, the length of time is in reference, you see, to the life cycle. Can you understand? Therefore, five years in my life, and one hour in a mosquito's life may mean absolutely the same. And I suggest that in the life of the human race, of the -- humanity -- hundred years mean exactly what one year means in your life. You see, or even -- ja, ja, very good.

And free yourself from the assumption that organic life, organic time has anything to do with the -- what these physicists call "time." They don't know what time is. It's just platitude, I mean. They call time an expanse in -- in space. That something stays. This has nothing to do with -- your and my time comes from the rhythm of breathing, and all breathing is life-giving, but also prepares death. The more you breathe, the more your lungs are used up, and finally your organism, simply by the act of living, dies, fulfilling himsel- -- itself, you see. Life itself brings on death.

Therefore the length of my lifetime, and the length of the humanity's or civilization's lifetime are very much comparable, once you see that inside your life you can have every experience. The whole of hu- -- the human race has. And it is -- with the human race, too, gentlemen. One war, one crusade, one discovery of America may conc- -- concentrate into one year so much awareness, so much interest. And then you get 50 years of drabness, and indifference, and peace, you

see, what people call "peace." And it's perfectly legitimate to say that people in the World War did some thinking, and now they don't. Now they only recall the -- the car sales and the department store sales. Is that thinking? I mean, if you see what -- what -- is to be read in our papers today, the -- the community does no thinking at this moment, but they did a very hard thinking 1943, and '42.

In order to show you that life can be lived in -- in such a way that one year means a lot, and in another context, one year means nothing. It means just dusk and dawn. We don't live in the same -- in -- with the same intensity in every moment.

So gentlemen, these four men -- Jesus, Abraham, Buddha, and Lao-Tzu -- can only strike you as relevant, as waiting to be answered to, to be -- take up, if you admit the strange situation in which you find them, you can only meet them. You can only meet them once you assume that their death and your life do both not matter. For a Christian, Christ is more alive, although He was -- died, than you -- he is yourself. We are dead in our sins, and He is a live despite His crucifixion. If you can't believe this, don't say that you know what Christianity is. And of course, you don't know what Christianity is.

All the children who in this unfortunate country today have to go to Sunday school are deprived of their privilege of knowing what Christianity is, because Christianity begins with the -- on the other side of the grave. It begins only when a person knows that death is not more different from his own existence than life. If you can't even think this -- and most Americans cannot even conceive this, don't go to Church. It's ridiculous. I mean, the -- modern American Christianity is sham and fiction because it has abolished death. If Christianity is a belief this side of the grave, it has nothing to do with Christ. Absolutely nothing. Every word of the New Testament tells you this.

But this is all a happy-go-lucky, keep-smiling, you see, be -- be -- be a Boy Scout, et cetera, do-a-good-deed-every-day family. It's all this side of the grave. Well, that's not interesting, gentlemen. From this you cannot get direction. But you can get direction when you come to the conclusion that certain people, although they have died, are much more alive than you and I. We are really much deader. And -- that's why we still mention these four people, because they exert power. They are there. And we have some ambition to enter this strange realm in which the dead and the living, the quick and the dead, are under the same stream of life, or inside the same stream of life eternal. And you have -- perhaps today you have great doubts whether any of these four people is able to reach you, because you have absolutely walled yourself in this side of death. And you are tin-canned. You have not made these contact with people to whom it made no difference whether they died or lived, if they only did, at everything -- every

moment that what had to be done.

Because gentlemen, the rhythm of real creation contains death as much as life. And we have just to die as often as we live. This young girl had to die to her love. Only she, so to speak, threw a -- cast out the -- the -- the baby with the bath, you see. If she had just said, "The time for the great love is over," she would have been right, you see. Only she consumed everything else with it. But that's a minor thing. She strikes me as somebody from whom you can learn that we must die in order to come to life. And you -- I -- I'm sure that this is -- doesn't meet with your approval.

And therefore, gentlemen, modern man has no religion. It is quite true that, what Nietzsche said, that God is dead. But the reason is very pro- -- -- profound, you see. God always is dead in a society which only wants to live. If you have all the life, then God gets all the death.

This is more -- much more than, gentlemen, than my private saying, you see. If you do not see that at this moment there is not America, but there are certain elements of a -- of this -- on the scene which must -- we must bury, and we much -- weed out and -- in ourselves and in this civilization, which have to -- be declared to be dead, dead, dead, and others which we have to cry into life -- if you do not see that at this very moment your and my decision to say what is alive and what is dead, you see. Unless you do this, death is meaningless. But you and I are executioners. We are grave diggers. This grave digger in Hamlet, you see, is a very profound person. We have to dig the grave of the things dead. And this we can only know when we form a judgment -- what and how much of us is -- deserves to be -- to be executed, to be buried, to be left aside, to left behind. We have a relation to death which is very practical. It has nothing to do with your physical death, gentlemen.

But for example, take your alumni belongings. Take your family sentimentality. Take your descent from -- as an illegitimate child from a Scotch king, as so many Americans boast to. I don't know how many whores these Scotch kings seem to have -- seems to have made pregnant. But they are innumerable. As you know, there is a whole association here of -- of people of royal descent in this country. But when you look into the membership, they all claim to be illegitimate descendants of some Bruce or some -- some James, or some, you see, some other murderer. And -- a very bloody history, the Scotch history, you know.

And -- but what do we bury out of this ancestry? -- What do we deny, so to speak, a place in our evaluation? Well, here we have the topic of the last week. We have here a class on -- on next Friday? Take -- take this as the topic, gentlemen: how far are we alive, and how far are these four men alive? If you

really can say that they are still there, then you suddenly enter this tremendous, strange realm inside which death and life are minor questions, as we understand life and death, physical death and physical life.

Thank you.