Allow me to congratulate you with all my heart on the New Year’s delight which the splendid Nobel foundation must have given you, of course modified by the drop of wormwood which the death of such a spirit and heart mixed with the nectar. _Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit_ can be truthfully said of this great man now passed away. He left behind no sanitary train for future gladiatorial baiting of the nations, for it was far from his idea to wish to put to sleep the consciences of the mighty and to make them believe that he thought it possible for the disgrace to be repeated. He has not founded a hospital, either, for the other sick, who are not innocently condemned by society to wounds and death. But millions in days to come will rejoice in brighter life and health, and perhaps not one in a thousand will ever suspect that he owes it to Nobel alone that he is not a cripple or a candidate for an infirmary. Could we have believed it possible that Mammon, Mammon sprung from dynamite, should be so ennobled? I am happy to have lived until this day; it has been the richest joy of my life. I kiss your hand with the profoundest respect. Moritz Adler Indeed, yes; this foundation was a deep gratification to me; again something new had come into the world: not the donors of alms, nor the lawgivers, least of all the conquerors, have been held up as the benefactors of mankind, but the discoverers and explorers, and the poets inspired by high ideals, and, in the same category, the workers in the service of international peace. Already the news of this last will and testament has aroused general attention; and every year, at the time when the prizes are awarded, this sensation will be repeated. It has been openly declared to the world, not by an overexcited dreamer, but by an inventor of genius (an inventor of war material into the bargain), that the brotherhood of nations, the diminution of armies, the promotion of Peace Congresses, belong to the things that signify most for the well-being of mankind. Thus a guiding star is fixed in the sky, and the clouds that have hitherto obscured it are breaking away more and more; the name of this star is Human Happiness. But as long as men legally threaten one another’s lives, as long as they are at feud instead of being helpful one to another, there will be no universal happiness. Yet it must and will come. The increasing spirit of research puts into man’s hand a nature-controlling power which can make of him a god or a devil. “Here you have a material,” said the living Nobel to his own generation, “with which you can annihilate everything and yourself as well....” But the dead Nobel compels us to look at yonder star and says to future generations, “Grow nobler, and you will attain happiness.”