Atlas Shrugged Read Free Page A

perfection).
    But when and if I have discovered such new knowledge, I am not interested in stating it in its abstract, general form, that is, as knowledge. I am interested in using it, in applying it—that is, in stating it in the concrete form of men and events, in the form of a fiction story. This last is my final purpose, my end; the philosophical knowledge or discovery is only the means to it. For my purpose, the non-fiction form of abstract knowledge doesn’t interest me; the final, applied form of fiction, of story, does. (I state the knowledge to myself, anyway; but I choose the final form of it, the expression, in the completed cycle that leads back to man.)
    I wonder to what extent I represent a peculiar phenomenon in this respect. I think I represent the proper integration of a complete human being. Anyway, this should be my lead for the character of John Galt. He, too, is a combination of an abstract philosopher and a practical inventor; the thinker and the man of action together ...
    In learning, we draw an abstraction from concrete objects and events. In creating, we make our own concrete objects and events out of the abstraction; we bring the abstraction down and back to its specific meaning, to the concrete; but the abstraction has helped us to make the kind of concrete we want the concrete to be. It has helped us to create—to re-shape the world as we wish it to be for our purposes.
     
    I cannot resist quoting one further paragraph. It comes a few pages later in the same discussion.
     
    Incidentally, as a sideline observation: if creative fiction writing is a process of translating an abstraction into the concrete, there are three possible grades of such writing: translating an old (known) abstraction (theme or thesis) through the medium of old fiction means, (that is, characters, events or situations used before for that same purpose, that same transtation)—this is most of the popular trash; translating an old abstraction through new, original fiction means—this is most of the good literature; creating a new, original abstraction and translating it through new, original means. This, as far as I know, is only me—my kind of fiction writing. May God forgive me (Metaphor!) if this is mistaken conceit! As near as I can now see it, it isn’t. (A fourth possibility—translating a new abstraction through old means—is impossible, by definition: if the abstraction is new, there can be no means used by anybody else before to translate it.)
     
    Is her conclusion “mistaken conceit”? It is now forty-five years since she wrote this note, and you are holding Ayn Rand’s masterwork in your hands.
    You decide.
     
     
    -Leonard Peikoff
September 1991

PART I
    NON-CONTRADICTION

CHAPTER I
    THE THEME
    “Who is John Galt?”
    The light was ebbing, and Eddie Willers could not distinguish the bum’s face. The bum had said it simply, without expression. But from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the eyes looked straight at Eddie Willers, mocking and still—as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him.
    “Why did you say that?” asked Eddie Willers, his voice tense.
    The bum leaned against the side of the doorway; a wedge of broken glass behind him reflected the metal yellow of the sky.
    “Why does it bother you?” he asked.
    “It doesn‘t,” snapped Eddie Willers.
    He reached hastily into his pocket. The bum had stopped him and asked for a dime, then had gone on talking, as if to kill that moment and postpone the problem of the next. Pleas for dimes were so frequent in the streets these days that it was not necessary to listen to explanations, and he had no desire to hear the details of this bum’s particular despair.
    “Go get your cup of coffee,” he said, handing the dime to the shadow that had no face.
    “Thank you, sir,” said the voice, without interest, and the face leaned forward for a moment. The face was