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03 - Anthem - Ayn Rand · Science Fiction Books - Daily

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  Chapter three. We equality seven two five two one have discovered a new power
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  of nature, and we have discovered it alone, and we are to know
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  it. It is said, now let us be lashed for it, if
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  we must. The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things
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  which exist, and therefore all the things which are not known by all do
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  not exist. But we think that the Council of Scholars is blind. The
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  secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for
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  those who will seek them. We know, for we have found a secret
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  unknown to all our brothers. We know not what this power is, nor
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  whence it comes, but we know it is nature. We have watched it
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  and worked with it. We saw it first two years ago. One night
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  we were cutting open the body of a dead fraud when we saw its leg
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  jerking. It was dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to men
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  was making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many
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  tests, we found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire
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  of copper, and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent
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  a strange power to the copper through the brine of the FOG's body. We
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  put a piece of copper and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine.
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  We touched a wire to them, and there under our fingers was a
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  miracle which had never occurred before, a new miracle and a new power.
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  This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our studies.
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  We worked with it, We tested it in more ways than we can describe,
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  and each step was another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know
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  that we had found the greatest power on earth, for it defies all the
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  laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn on the compass,
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  which we stole from the house of scholars. But we had been taught,
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  when still a child, that the load stone points to the north,
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  and this is a law which nothing can change. Yet our new power defies
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  all laws. We found that it causes lightning, and never have men known
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  what causes lightning in thunder storms. We raised a tall rod of iron by
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  the side of our hole and watched it from below. We have seen the
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  lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metal draws the
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  power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it.
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  Forth, we have built strange things with this discovery of ours, we used
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  it for the copper wires which we found here under the ground. We have
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  walk the length of our tunnel with a candle lighting the way. We could
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  go no further than a half a mile, for earth and rock had fallen
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  at both ends. But we gathered all the things we found, and we
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  brought them to our workplace. We found strange boxes with bars of metal inside,
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  with many cords and strands and coils of metal. We found wires that
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  led to strange little globes of glass on the walls. They contained threads of
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  metal thinner than a spider's web. These things help us in our work.
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  We do not understand them, but we think that the men of the unmentionable
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  times had known our power of the sky, and these things had some relation
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  to it. We do not know, but we shall learn. We cannot
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  stop now, even though it frightens us that we are alone in our knowledge.
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  No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many scholars who are elected
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  by all men for the wisdom. Yet we can, we do. We
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  have fought against saying it, but now it is said. We do not
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  care. We forget all men, all laws, and all things save our
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  metals and our wires. So much is still to be learned. So long
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  a road lies before us, And what care we if we must travel it
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  alone? End of Chapter three