To do this I vowed myself, soul and limb.
"But I mistook my means, I took the wrong path, led away by pride.

I gazed on power alone, and on power won by knowledge alone.

This I thought was the only note and aim of man, and it was to be won, at once and in the present, without any care for all that man had already done.
I rejected all the past.

I despised it as a record of weakness and disgrace.

Man should be all-sufficient now; a single day should bring him to maturity.