Individuality -- Fiction; Love stories; Men -- Psychology -- Fiction; Psychological fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
When I shall have read all the books and learned my new way, when
my home will be ready and my earth tilled, I shall steal one day,
for the last time, into the cursed City of my birth. I shall call
to me my friend who has no name save International 4-8818, and
all those like him, Fraternity 2-5503, who cries without reason,
and Solidarity [-9-6347-] {+8-6347+} who calls for help in the night, and a few
others. I shall call to me all the men and the women whose spirit
has not been killed within them and who suffer under the yoke of
their brothers. They will follow me and I shall lead them to my
fortress. And here, in this uncharted wilderness, I and they, my
chosen friends, my fellow-builders, shall write the first chapter
in the new history of man.
These are the {+last+} things before me. And as I stand here at the
door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon
the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I
wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was
the spirit of man's freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from
what? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him,
save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.
That is freedom. That and nothing else.
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their
chains. [-The-] {+Then+} he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their
chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race.
But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a
man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take
away from him, no matter what their number, for his is the right
of man, and there is no right on earth above this right. And he
stood on the threshold of [-the-] freedom for which the blood of the
centuries behind him had been spilled.
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his
savage beginning.
What brought it to pass? What disaster took their reason away
from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and
submission? The worship of the word "We."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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