T h e  A n s w e r : Those who apply the law, may apply it to others after first applying  it to  themselves. If you  apply a principle  to others which  you  have not applied to  yourselves, you are infringing and opposing your own principle and law before anyone. You want to apply this law of absolute equality to me. So I say this:

Whenever a common soldier rises to the social rank of a field marshal and shares in the respect and acclaim the nation shows to the field marshal and is the object of acclaim and  respect the same as  him; or whenever the field marshal becomes as common as the soldier  and assumes the soldier’s lowly position and he retains no value  whatsoever  outside  his   duty;  and  whenever  the  most  brilliant  military commander  who  leads  the  army to  victories  receives public  acclaim,  respect  and affection equal to that of the dimmest common soldier; then as required by this law of equality of yours, you can tell me: “Don’t call yourself a hoja! Don’t accept respect! Deny your virtue! Serve the servants, and take beggars as your friends!”

I f  y o u  s a y : “Respect, social position, and public attention are in regard to functions and particular to those who perform them when they are performing them. But you have no function, so you may not accept the people’s respect as though you did have one.”

T h e  A n s w e r : If man consisted only of a body, and he were going to live in this world for ever, and if the door of the grave were closed and death had been killed, then his  duties and  functions would  have been  limited  to  those of the  army and government  officials, and what you say would have had some meaning. But since man does not consist only of a body, and his heart, tongue, mind, and brain cannot be plucked  out  to  feed  his  body;  they  cannot  be  annihilated;  they  too  have  to  be administered.

And since the door of the grave does not close, and since anxiety for the future beyond the grave is the most pressing question for everyone, then the duties based on the respect and obedience of the nation are not restricted to the social, political, and military duties looking to its worldly life. Yes, just as it is a duty to give a passport to those travelling abroad, so is it a duty to give a passport to those travelling to post- eternity and to give them a light for that  dark way, and there is no other duty so important. It is a duty that can be denied only by denying death and giving the lie to the testimony of the thirty thousand witnesses who every day set their signatures with the seals of their corpses on the claim “Death is a reality,” affirming it.