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

...elect what parts of you shall remain. I have ceased to be a German. I am an American. I have dropped a part of my nature. As far as it goes, I have tried to excise it. I've rejected it. You all can -- and must reject a part of your heri- -- heritage in order to insist on other parts that to you seem valid and valuable. Nobody can -- I said before -- can go without some selection. In this very moment, the word enters your nature. Your heresy, you see, the chemicists' heresy, Mr. Einstein's heresy is that they think the universe exists without the word. It doesn't. You do not understand me. You think I'm just insane. I know.

But so have all Jews, and all Christians, and all Greeks, and all people who have ever believed in any god, or deity, or spirit been insane in your eyes, because you just think that man is an animal. But you speak about being an animal, and no animal can say, "I'm an animal." Any man who says, "I am an animal," knows who God is, because God is the power to speak. That is the word. That's the -- all -- of course, these fundamental texts, the ABC of human life to you have become some -- chosen books which can arbitrarily be discarded. Do you think the New Testament or the Old Testament can be arbitrarily discarded as denominational bias? They cannot. They are much more fundamental than any ABC or the -- or any mathematics. They're true. They're so simply true that you live by this.

Your whole freedom, the whole independence, all your rights of being a student at Dartmouth College, all your rights to be -- live in a democratic society depend on our conviction that you can appropriate the spirit of the institution in which you live by the power of the word. By saying, "I am an American," we begin to trust you. That's democracy. Democracy means that any man is not just by the nature of things born into society, but he can, by rising to the spirit of society one day say, "On my word, this is my society." And in saying so, the society begins to live, to a certain amount, by -- from the spirit. And on the basis of the spirit, you exhale, because you are now giving back to this institution some of the spirit which has been imparted to you before. And you cease to be just a child of nature, and suddenly the word, which you have freely chosen, begins to carry the institution.

And you are -- instead of becoming a product of your environment, you become the creator of your environment -- the re-creator of your environment, by this strange volunteering for the affirmation. People today have, of course, you see, obliterated -- they speak of "conscious life." All right, you can also do this. Conscious life is a different kind of life from unconscious life. And you -- human beings have to lead conscious lives. This is just another form of saying

they have to speak. Conscious life is not simply life. But that's the life into which you are destined.

Therefore you are not an animal, because -- Sir, my body carries me into the power of speaking to you, of connecting the times and the places. I can build railroads. I can send telegrams. I can make speeches. I can print books. That is, I use my body, certainly -- my animal body -- so that I may build up connections through time and space which no -- an animal is not interested in. A {dog} is born; it dies to itself. You are not this way, and I am not this way.

We are, therefore, not animals, because anybody who says he is an animal is, in the process of saying this, divine. And so man is this strange mixture of divinity and animality. And you can't get out of this. Anybody who speaks is in this quandary, because he speaks the truth. And the truth is valid for anybody who can -- hear to -- listen to you. Or you can cheat. Or you are a liar. So there are either gods or the devils. There is no way out for you, gentlemen. You cannot live innocently in a refrigerator. You cannot live in {anarchy} all his life at 35 degrees of Fahrenheit. That's all -- every American boy tries to do that. He tries to stay out of trouble, by never saying anything, never sticking his neck out, always saying, "Yes, yes, yes, yes."

Somebody says -- then speaks for you. That's what I tried to put on the -- on the blackboard. I have said you are { }. You see, you may make attempts to say, "I'm just an animal." And there are pigs, and hogs, and -- and asinine people. { }. But there is some devil who -- who takes advantage of their votes who -- I mean, who -- whose henchman there -- he is. You are the henchmen of all the people who -- whom you allow to speak for you. Because you want to have peace of mind, you allow them to make war. Here, once more -- as you are lived today, at this moment, sitting here innocently, you say, "Well, if we are born animals, then we can -- don't have to go into history," you see.

By saying this, you are abusing your power of speech, which all American boys at this moment do, you see. No -- 50 years ago, your grandfather would have blushed if he -- anybody had doubted that he had a soul, and that he had to live up to his soul's requirements. But you don't feel ashamed at all. You think that's very funny. And you think it's wonderful -- it's intelligent even to call yourself an animal. Intelligent.

Unfortunately, you see, you have lost your innocence because you have the power to say, "I am an animal," and you can only say this if you know what God and man is. Because otherwise your sentence, that you are an animal, makes no sense. You fight off something by saying "I'm just an animal." "Just" gives you away. The word "just" gives you away as soon as you know of other categories of

life.

How do you know something? Because you are not natural. The only reason why you know this, because you know for sure that the animal does not know what man and God is. Just look at the poor animal. It is bewitched. If you do not -- don't domesticate it, it is full of fear. It can't even sleep at night. Must stay awake. But you can have such peace that you sleep deeply at night, and are awake in the -- in the morning. The poor animals can only -- so to speak, rest in daytime, when the sun is out. And all day -- night long, they must -- they must fear their -- their enemy. But they cannot make peace. They cannot speak.

Everybody -- you live, of course, on all these beliefs, but it is so -- you are so uninterested, you see, because you prefer to have this wonderful silky curtain drawn before your real existence, and to daydream some philosophy, which is so cheap, called -- whatever is realism, or material- -- I don't care, I mean, or psychology or something -- and just look at some ridiculous, arbitrary selection of reality in yourself.

But when it comes to choices, and when your children will be ungrateful to you, you'll be very much surprised what you have done to them, because you haven't brought them up in any faith. Very much surprised. And when your friends betray you, and when you go to a man and you ask him for a loan, or you ask him to help out, you just take it for granted that he will. Why he should, you cannot explain if you are an animal. Why he should.

John Quincy Adams, when the slaves, you see, petitioned for freedom, he could have answered, "They're just animals." But he said, "The right of petition," which then the Southern states, you see, wanted to gag in the Congress, "cannot be denied. It is a natural right born with man's nature -- man's nature, if he is to implore." It's a very great saying: to implore. No animal can go down on his knees and implore. It's a wonderful saying.

The old ge- -- man who certainly was a very -- was a realistic, and sober, and very, very caustic man. Not a very amiable -- you must not think that John Quincy Adams had any sweetness or light in him. Not at all. He was very drastic, and very crude, you may say. But he knew one thing, that the gift of man, of imploring his fellow man as his alter ego, as being just as much entitled to live, that this lifts man above the animal. And there is no law and no order {in this government}, except among people who recognize this, that they are not animals together, but they are, under God, forming the lawful order, in which therefore anybody who can listen also can speak, and because anybo- -- if this -- relation exists, then I -- you, while speaking, already invite the agreement and consent of all the people who listen. And therefore you identify yourself with the

whole tree of the human race.

And that's why you know that the story of humanity started 6,000 years ago, and you have to be in agreement with the great direction of the stream of human life. And that no human -- no animal is asked to know. But you have to know who your ancestors are. You have to know whether you come -- stem from Caliban or from Prospero. It's your choice, Sir. If you choose Caliban, we'll kill you. I will -- be the first to vote for your immediate execution.

I -- if a man wants to be an animal, let him be it. Out he goes. You don't see that you forfeit your life by saying that man is an animal. I have no reason to let you live if you say you are an animal or if you say I am an animal. In both cases, the enmity is eternal.

Animals have no friendship and solidarity. They cannot. Eat -- they have to eat. And what I eat, you cannot eat. And what you eat, I cannot eat. It's mutually exclusive. Ask the Arabs, and the Israelis how they feel about each other, because they think that just a sw- -- one is a swine, the other is a son of a bitch.

It's very serious, Sir. The peace of the world depends on your -- on what you think of yourself. You are not allowed to think arbitrarily about your own nature. Man has no nature. Man's destiny is to be built into the temple of humanity as one brick -- living brick. And that's all. That's your -- your destination. So you have no nature, because your whole body and soul has to be used up, has to be re-molded. You have to give up your nature. That's meant with the sentence, "He who doesn't lose his soul," you see, "cannot gain it."

Why -- why is it -- forbidden for man to look in the mirror? Why is it forbidden for us to be vain? Why is it forbidden for us to be -- live purposively? Why do we have to be humble and -- and free and open-minded? Because our destiny is always larger than the physical equipment which we have received at this moment. Why is any person greater who overcomes the obstacle and the handicap in his equipment? Why is a great singer -- a greater singer or greater -- Demosthenes a greater speaker because he had -- he was a stammerer? Because man has no nature. Your natural equipment does not determine what you are going to be.

But the calling which you hear, the vocation, what's needed in the world -- do you think the -- Helen Keller has by nature any right to exist? Yet she has done more for humanity, because she has overcome all her -- obstacles, because her nature was just not there. She has no nature, to speak of.

And when I received a letter from her the other day about the blind, I said

to Mrs. Huessy, "Well, it can't be helped. It is Helen Keller who has signed this letter, and although I have not in- -- no interest in the cause, I have to give something." Because she has set an example how to overcome her nature.

Man begins where you declare that your nature isn't good enough. And the animal begins when you say, "That's all I have." Anybody who acquiesces his animal nature has given up the right to be defended in court. Why should animals be defended in court? They can be slaughtered. Pardon me?

(I said they could -- { } just as good as man.)

No, they cannot, because they cannot render, you see, this same altruistic loyalty. They want to eat first. You have never seen an animal -- an animal willingly share his food with somebody else.

(Yes, I have.)

Don't do it. Wie?

(I have.)

Well, the kittens -- as long as they are very young under the same mother. But not older. Impossible. Ja?

(Sir, I deny that you can base your entire thesis on the assumption that Christianity is an unassailable truth.)

Well um- -- I mean by -- my dear little Sir, certainly you want to -- live with the apes in 5000 B.C. I still believe that for the last 8,000 years, we have found certain things to be true, as the Constitution -- fathers of the Declaration of Independence also believed. If you really think that we have to wait for you, till you tell us what we have done -- had to do for the last 7,000 years, I'll say, "Please, you are absolutely entitled to do this, but I'll take an axe and I'll kill you," and you can't complain. You have no right to exist.

You have no right to have excluded yourself from the society in which you are entitled to tolerance, and to listening, and hearing, and to a -- an opportunity. Opportunity is only within history. There is no opportunity in nature.

This is so cheap, I mean, if a 10-year-old boy begins to say this. But that a 20-year-old man of your stature should -- should really try to play backward and say, "I know nothing. I'm just ignorant." It is very -- people at 14 formerly could -- had already to make declarations of faith, and they knew what they were saying

200 years ago. But you just want not to know anything, so I grant you, you don't know anything. But I -- why should I respect this? Ignorance is not a title to -- to respect, because you don't want to know.

(I don't want to -- I don't want to accept anything that's the truth which I do not know.)

But -- while you are trying to accept the truth, your own truth, I'll give you -- you must know that you are living in the good faith and the tolerance of others. We give you these 20 years to make up your own mind. Sir, you owe -- grant human loyalty to the people who gave you these 20 years for your silliness and inanities. If you admit that at this moment you don't know, I'm perfectly happy then to admit that it is the -- the -- the graciousness of -- of -- of the historical humanity which says, "Every apple should ripen himself, and so we give you, as the future apple, a chance. And in this time, you may say as -- what you please." {Certainly}, you are unassailable in your stupidity, to use your expression. And you -- are unassailable, you see. Only, you live at the mercy of us. And this one sentence, "Thank you, gentlemen, that you allow me to be so stupid," you have to say it first. That is your real creed. You believe at this moment in humanity at large, which allows one of its members to be at this moment so silly. That is unassailable, Sir.

And this is enough to build a whole -- a whole theology, and a whole philosophy on this. If it is true that you have to be allowed to make up your own mind for 25 long years -- in which nothing what you say must be held against you, in which you can be as silly, and inept, and contradictory as you please -- then this is a very wonderful society, that puts tremendous faith in you as a human being, which thinks that man's spirit is so divine that after he has been allowed to wallow in the mire, like the prodigal son, he'll become a saint, and a hero, and a leader of the community. As long as you keep all these doors open, if you understand the meaning of the freedom you enjoy at this moment, you are {utterly entitled}.

But you -- you cannot say that you have { } and therefore the other fact of the matter, that the -- we are under law to give you this freedom, doesn't exist. If you admit that we are under law, duty-bound to allow you to be stupid, then we can begin talking, because then you presuppose our -- that we have to be religious, while you can be frivolous. That's all right. As long as you see that we allow you to be frivolous and ridiculous, but that we have to be terribly serious to make sure that you have something to eat, and that you have friends, and that you have schooling, and that you have service, and peace, and aren't shot dead while you are making up your mind -- if you see this, then you admit that we must have a religion, you see. It is only -- it isn't your religion. You want to have

a better religion.

And then you -- the second point is that not only must we have a religion which secures your livelihood, your life, your existence, freedom, liberty, pursuit of happiness, that is, our -- must be our religion at this moment, but also, Sir -- now comes the -- the terrible thing -- { } whatever you find in your own 25 years to be true must not be less than this, which now at this moment we grant you. That is, your religion may be better than my religion, but it is not allowed to be worse. You cannot backslide before -- into the society in which all the children which a father did not like could be just murdered -- you see, thrown into { } as the Spartans did.

You are already bound by my religion to -- to the fact, or to the task, or to the responsibility, that whatever you find to be true in the future must be better than what I have found. Under this condition, you are free. Absolutely free. Certainly can find anything better. But as soon as you say, "I'm not bound at all; I can find that man is just an animal," I say, "Sorry, out you go." Out you go, because you have broken the covenant. You have broken the covenant under which you have been granted this freedom. You have abused it.

This is the situation in which you are. {Granted}, I want you to be free, Sir. But the conditions of this freedom are very clear. You cannot do less than we are doing for you. The -- the society which you have to establish by your own deeds has already certain minimum requirements. And they are unassailable, Sir.

Now, if you are so uneducated not to know that they are the Christian pre-requisites of life, I don't quibble about the word. You call it "American democracy." Well, American democracy is a secular translation of "Christianity." So I mean I -- if you are so ignorant, you see, that's a minor matter. You just don't know {it}. But the freedom which you have not to know is based on very precise conditions and premises. If you deny these premises from which it springs that you enjoy at this moment this -- this freedom of saying, "I know, I don't know," you see, then you are -- have excommunicated yourself. It's the Calibans in America. They run around by {the thousands}, the people who take to the back hills, the people who say, "Society is not for me."

There is a Swedish sculptor who has written a book, Caliban. It's in the library. I recommend it to your care, you see. That is the real description. You aren't anything like this man, but he has taken the consequences, which you, so to speak, { } talk, mention that nothing has been proved. { } He wants to -- to find out {only} by himself. So he abuses every woman and every man he meets in life. And he had even the guts to write this up. It -- it's a tremen- -- he calls it even Caliban. So he even knows what a -- that he lives, because others are

not Caliban, because of course, a man can only commit all his heresies and all his crimes against humanity, you see, because the others still assume that he must act as a human being, and he never does. The second already wouldn't get away with murder. And the third, even less. It's like the kidnaper. The first kidnaper gets away, and then you pass a kidnaping law.

Sir. This is the -- this is -- for a student, is not much of a performance to say that this is unassailable, as you did. There are very clear conditions under which you can say that you do not believe in the truth of Christianity. If you analyze under which conditions it is permissible for you to say this, then you will see that you are already far advanced in history, in the historical { }. They only say this in the year of the Lord 1953. And that -- 2000 B.C., you would have been burned, and tor- -- and quar- -- and -- and -- how do you say? -- quartered. Put in a bag and -- and thrown into the river.

What time is it? Oh. Gentlemen, this is not what I was going to say at all. Perhaps in this six -- seven minutes I have left, I may connect this problem of beginning to think from the point where two generations meet into some great story in the -- of the Bible. Despite your remark, I hope you won't take issue with me on this.

Anything important is only important when a listener and a speaker meet, because only when at least two people become one will there be any effect in history -- in reality left. Anything that is enshrined into your thought and never leaves the of your brain obviously cannot make much effect on the { }. In some form, it has to ooze out. And so I take as a minimum supply of energy in the universe of human history this meeting, where one listener agrees to what a speaker says. And I took the father and a son as being the -- the most -- simplest form of such a process, you see, of some point where the electric current of -- that goes through you -- the human race, is closed, is -- the negative and the positive pole are so brought together that the current can run through.

And I advise you, gentlemen, this is really so simple. If you begin instead of thi- -- speaking of cooperation in space, or between people here and there, you see, you begin always to ask yourself how a truth that has been older than you is established and which bears a fruit -- is made to bear fruit by the simple fact that you hear it. And then you begin to think how you want to influence your youngsters in a camp, or in a -- in a Sunday school class, or in -- in -- in -- your own family, a younger child -- how important it is that this child should understand and believe what you're telling him. You will find that it is very fruitful to treat the listener and the hearer of a wor- -- word spoken and -- and heard, and -- as potential father and son, or potential ancestor and founder, and heir and successor. They are the purer forms of hearing and listening than what we do

here.

You see, you are a little younger than I, and yet obviously in a teacherstudent situation, this is a father-son situation. And I use the father-son situation, because I think it seems to be the most recurrent, and the -- in which all other situation of listening and hearing are contained. A father of his country, you see, a Washington, you see, is in this sense the speaker, the father, in one, unified. You see this. Th- -- I'm -- I'm not meaning this in any sentimental sense -- father and son -- but I mean it in this very logical, philosophical, abstract sense, that the speaker is representing something that has already been known before, and the son is inheriting this truth -- a younger man.

I would say that if you should be teachers of a 50-year-old girl, or woman, or man in -- in some capacity of yours, you would be the older, and he would be the younger. You would be the father, and he is the son. Whenever a man opens his mouth to convey knowledge, or convey instructions, you see, or advice, to another peop- -- person, the listener is in the position of being younger, and the speaker is in the position of being older, because both in the process of continuation, you see, of the spiritual life obviously represent first and second degree -- predecessor and successor.

What I'm driving at is that all these terms, "son and father," "heir and ancestor," "student and teacher," they are all only amplifications and ramifications of the one great problem: how does the truth get on? How do the directions of life continue to be followed? How does an historical humanity, that began to speak at 5000 years B.C., or 7000 years B.C., you see, still speak the same language -- Indo-European, or Semitic? It's all one great language, after all, which we still carry on. You still say 1, 2, 3, 4. Why do you count? Why did people find -- find -- find it useful to speak as our { }? Because we need these numbers. They have done something useful for you and me. You can't get out of speaking. You have to -- just continue to speak.

Therefore, the people who make you learn your language are your parents. And we call anybody who makes us take up the direction of history our parents. And we owe them, as I said -- religious gratitude, because we believe in their religious dutifulness, of telling us that -- their best truth. You believe this, too, that I'm now at this moment -- although you may not -- dislike what I say, but you still believe that I'm trying to do my darnedest, you see. Don't shoot the pianist. He's doing his darnedest, as you know.

Now, gentlemen, in the Old Testament, in the end, in the 24th of the 24 books of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi has a strange prediction. He says the earth must be cursed, and will perish, unless the parents turn their

hearts to their children, and the children turn their hearts to their parents. And you know, the New Testament is considered the fulfillment of the Old. And if you open it, however, you find a very strange distortion of this old text, because in Luke, which is written 1900 years ago, only the one-half of the prophecy is fulfill- -- is declared to be fulfilled. When Jesus comes, He says that the hearts of the parents now are turned towards their children. But the other half, gentlemen, that the hearts of the children must be turned toward their parents, is left to the Americans and to your generation to fulfill -- even to understand its implication.

What I'm trying to tell you about Henry James, and William James, goes back to the tremendous problem of the ancient people, who felt that the greatest achievement of humanity would only come when the children would grow up in complete freedom, but not in the freedom of arbitrariness. Not in the freedom of anarchy, but in the freedom that would lead them -- what I have tried to show you already in the figure of Henry and -- and -- and William James, to a certain extent, where the children would -- after having been made sure of their independence, would turn back their hearts to their parents and begin to understand what these parents were trying to solve and to do, and would identify themselves, because when your heart turns to your -- to somebody, you understand him, you support him. "Understand" means to stand under his task, and -- and booth and don- -- not knock. What he's trying to do then becomes a part of your own task.

Now, it's very strange, gentlemen, that you have in this -- on -- in -- on this soil in America, in this strange family history an anticipation of the last, unfulfilled promise of the ancient peoples, because the Old Testament there only stands for that which all the -- the natural people, the nations of the world, before they were welded in one faith, always felt. The authority of the parents was so firmly established, because it was taken for granted that the children would run away like the animals, young animals, and forget their ancestors.

Now, in the long process of thousands of years, we feel so settled, and you feel so settled, that you think that you can forget your ancestors, because they are so good to you. And so you say, "Christianity is not unassailable." You don't know what you're saying by this. You're just denying your whole background. All right. We do this, but with this criterion, Sir, that you must listen to this grave promise: after you have been -- become independent, and have denied everything, you will still have to look for the genius of the parents behind their authority. Deny my authority, my dear man, but don't deny the genius of all the nations, and people, the generations that have been before you. If you can -- as William James, you see, came -- to believe in the genius of his father, away with the father's authority, that's all right, you see. You can say the authority is not unassailable, but the genius of the people who have created the world in which

you live, that is unassailable. But we are waiting for { }.

Thank you.