he pronounced with decision.

"Man fears death because he loves life. That's how I understand it," I
observed, "and that's determined by nature."

"That's abject; and that's where the deception comes in." His eyes
flashed. "Life is pain, life is terror, and man is unhappy. Now all is
pain and terror. Now man loves life, because he loves pain and terror,
and so they have done according. Life is given now for pain and terror,
and that's the deception. Now man is not yet what he will be. There will
be a new man, happy and proud. For whom it will be the same to live or
not to live, he will be the new man. He who will conquer pain and terror
will himself be a god. And this God will not be."

"Then this God does exist according to you?"

"He does not exist, but He is. In the stone there is no pain, but in the
fear of the stone is the pain. God is the pain of the fear of death. He
who will conquer pain and terror will become himself a god. Then there
will be a new life, a new man; everything will be new... then they will
divide history into two parts: from the gorilla to the annihilation of
God, and from the annihilation of God to..."

"To the gorilla?"

"... To the transformation of the earth, and of man physically. Man
will be God, and will be transformed physically, and the world will
be transformed and things will be transformed and thoughts and all
feelings. What do you think: will man be changed physically then?"

"If it will be just the same living or not living, all will kill
themselves, and perhaps that's what the change will be?"

"That's no matter. They will kill deception. Every one who wants the
supreme freedom must dare to kill himself. He who dares to kill himself
has found out the secret of the deception. There is no freedom beyond;
that is all, and there is nothing beyond. He who dares kill himself is
God. Now every one can do so that there shall be no God and shall be
nothing. But no one has once done it yet."

"There have been millions of suicides."

"But always not for that; always with terror and not for that object.
Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear will become a
god at once."

"He won't have time, perhaps," I observed.

"That's no matter," he answered softly, with calm pride, almost disdain.
"I'm sorry that you seem to be laughing," he added half a minute later.

"It seems strange to me that you were so irritable this morning and are
now so calm, though you speak wi