From the Other Shore

Other questions and other conflicts will arise in your life... there will be no shortage of suffering or toil. You are fifteen, and you have already experienced terrible blows.

Do not look for solutions in this book; they are not here, and indeed, the modern person does not possess them at all. What has been decided is finished, and the coming upheaval is only just beginning.

We are not building, we are breaking; we are not proclaiming a new revelation, but clearing away the old lies. The modern person, a sorrowful Pontifex Maximus Supreme Bridge-builder, merely lays a bridge; someone else, unknown, a future generation, will walk across it. Perhaps you will see them... Do not remain on the old shore... It is better to perish with it than to find salvation in the poorhouse of reaction.

The religion of the coming social transformation is the one religion I bequeath to you. It is without paradise, without reward, except for one's own consciousness, except for one's conscience... In your own time, go and preach it to our people; they once loved my language, and perhaps they will remember me.

. . . I bless you on this path in the name of human reason, personal liberty, and brotherly love!