Anthem Read online

  PART THREE

  We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And we havediscovered it alone, and we alone are to know it.

  It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council ofScholars has said that we all know the things which exist and thereforethe things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think thatthe Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of this earth are not forall men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for wehave found a secret unknown to all our brothers.

  We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know itsnature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it first two yearsago. One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we sawits leg jerking. It was dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to menwas making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many tests,we found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; andit had been the metal of our knife which had sent the strange powerto the copper through the brine of the frog's body. We put a piece ofcopper and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wireto them, and there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had neveroccurred before, a new miracle and a new power.

  This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all ourstudies. We worked with it, we tested it in more ways than we candescribe, and each step was as another miracle unveiling before us.We came to know that we had found the greatest power on earth. For itdefies all the laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn onthe compass which we stole from the Home of the Scholars; but we hadbeen taught, when still a child, that the loadstone points to the northand that this is a law which nothing can change; yet our new powerdefies all laws. We found that it causes lightning, and never have menknown what causes lightning. In thunderstorms, we raised a tall rod ofiron by the side of our hole, and we watched it from below. We haveseen the lightning strike it again and again. And now we know that metaldraws the power of the sky, and that metal can be made to give it forth.

  We have built strange things with this discovery of ours. We used forit the copper wires which we found here under the ground. We have walkedthe length of our tunnel, with a candle lighting the way. We could gono farther than half a mile, for earth and rock had fallen at both ends.But we gathered all the things we found and we brought them to our workplace. We found strange boxes with bars of metal inside, with manycords and strands and coils of metal. We found wires that led to strangelittle globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metalthinner than a spider's web.

  These things help us in our work. We do not understand them, but wethink that the men of the Unmentionable Times had known our power of thesky, and these things had some relation to it. We do not know, but weshall learn. We cannot stop now, even though it frightens us that we arealone in our knowledge.

  No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who areelected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. We have foughtagainst saying it, but now it is said. We do not care. We forget allmen, all laws and all things save our metals and our wires. So much isstill to be learned! So long a road lies before us, and what care we ifwe must travel it alone!