Atlas Shrugged [219]
"This book may have no philosophical value whatever, but it has a great psychological value."
"Just what is that?"
"You see, Dr. Stadler, people don't want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they'll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking. Anyone who makes a virtue-a highly intellectual virtue-
out of what they know to be their sin, their weakness and their guilt."
"And you propose to pander to that?"
"That is the road to popularity."
"Why should you seek popularity?"
Dr. Ferris' eyes moved casually to Dr. Stadler's face, as if by pure accident. "We are a public institution," he answered evenly, "supported by public funds."
"So you tell people that science is a futile fraud which ought to be abolished!"
"That is a conclusion which could be drawn, in logic, from my book.
But that is not the conclusion they will draw."
"And what about the disgrace to the Institute in the eyes of the men of intelligence, wherever such may be left?"
"Why should we worry about them?"
Dr. Stadler could have regarded the sentence as conceivable, had it been uttered with hatred, envy or malice; but the absence of any such emotion, the casual ease of the voice, an ease suggesting a chuckle, hit him like a moment's glimpse of a realm that could not be taken as part of reality; the thing spreading down to his stomach was cold terror.
"Did you observe the reactions to my book, Dr. Stadler? It was received with considerable favor."
"Yes-and that is what I find impossible to believe." He had to speak, he had to speak as if this were a civilized discussion, he could not allow himself time to know what it was he had felt for a moment.
"I am unable to understand the attention you received in all the reputable academic magazines and how they could permit themselves to discuss your book seriously. If Hugh Akston were around, no academic publication would have dared to treat this as a work admissible into the realm of philosophy."
"He is not around."
Dr. Stadler felt that there were words which he was now called upon to pronounce-and he wished he could end this conversation before he discovered what they were.
"On the other hand," said Dr, Ferris, "the ads for my book-oh, I'm sure you wouldn't notice such things as ads-quote a letter of high praise which I received from Mr. Wesley Mouch."
"Who the hell is Mr. Wesley Mouch?"
Dr. Ferris smiled. "In another year, even you won't ask that question, Dr. Stadler. Let us put it this way: Mr. Mouch is the man who is rationing oil-for the time being."
"Then I suggest that you stick to your job. Deal with Mr. Mouch and leave him the realm of oil furnaces, but leave the realm of ideas to me."
"It would be curious to try to formulate the line of demarcation,"
said Dr. Ferris, in the tone of an idle academic remark. "But if we're talking about my book, why, then we're talking about the realm of public relations." He turned to point solicitously at the mathematical formulas chalked on the blackboard. "Dr. Stadler, it would be disastrous if you allowed the realm of public relations to distract you from the work which you alone on earth are capable of doing."
It was said with obsequious deference, and Dr. Stadler could not tell what made him hear in it the sentence: "Stick to your blackboard!"
He felt a biting irritation and he switched it against himself, thinking angrily that he had to get rid of these suspicions.
"Public relations?" he said contemptuously. "I don't see any practical purpose in your book. I don't see what it's intended to accomplish."
"Don't you?" Dr. Ferris1 eyes flickered briefly to his face; the sparkle of insolence was too swift to be identified with