The Iron Heel by Jack London Read Free Book Online

cocksureness irritated them. “The wise heads have puzzled so sorely over truth because they went up into the air after it. Had they remained on the solid earth, they would have found it easily enough—ay, they would have found that they themselves were precisely testing truth with every practical act and thought of their lives.”
    â€œThe test, the test,” Dr. Hammerfield repeated impatiently. “Never mind the preamble. Give us that which we have sought so long—the test of truth. Give it us, and we will be as gods.”
    There was an impolite and sneering scepticism in his words and manner that secretly pleased most of them at the table, though it seemed to bother Bishop Morehouse.
    â€œDr. Jordan 8 has stated it very clearly,” Ernest said. “His test of truth is: ‘Will it work? Will you trust your life to it?’ ”
    â€œPish!” Dr. Hammerfield sneered. “You have not taken Bishop Berkeley 9 into account. He has never been answered.”
    â€œThe noblest metaphysician of them all,” Ernest laughed. “But your example is unfortunate. As Berkeley himself attested, his metaphysics didn’t work.”
    Dr. Hammerfield was angry, righteously angry. It was as though he had caught Ernest in a theft or a lie.
    â€œYoung man,” he trumpeted, “that statement is on a par with all you have uttered to-night. It is a base and unwarranted assumption.”
    â€œI am quite crushed,” Ernest murmured meekly. “Only I don’t know what hit me. You’ll have to put it in my hand, Doctor.”
    â€œI will, I will,” Dr. Hammerfield spluttered. “How do you know? You do not know that Bishop Berkeley attested that his metaphysics did not work. You have no proof. Young man, they have always worked.”
    â€œI take it as proof that Berkeley’s metaphysics did not work, because—” Ernest paused calmly for a moment. “Because Berkeley made an invariable practice of going through doors instead of walls. Because he trusted his life to solid bread and butter and roast beef. Because he shaved himself with a razor that worked when it removed the hair from his face.”
    â€œBut those are actual things!” Dr. Hammerfield cried. “Metaphysics is of the mind.”
    â€œAnd they work—in the mind?” Ernest queried softly.
    The other nodded.
    â€œAnd even a multitude of angels can dance on the point of a needle—in the mind,” Ernest went on reflectively. “And a blubber-eating, fur-clad god can exist and work—in the mind; and there are no proofs to the contrary—in the mind. I suppose, Doctor, you live in the mind?”
    â€œMy mind to me a kingdom is,” was the answer.
    â€œThat’s another way of saying that you live up in the air. But you come back to earth at meal-time, I am sure, or when an earthquake happens along. Or, tell me, Doctor, do you have no apprehension in an earthquake that that incorporeal body of yours will be hit by an immaterial brick?”
    Instantly, and quite unconsciously, Dr. Hammerfield’s hand shot up to his head, where a scar disappeared under the hair. It happened that Ernest had blundered on an apposite illustration. Dr. Hammerfield had been nearly killed in the Great Earthquake 10 by a falling chimney. Everybody broke out into roars of laughter.
    â€œWell?” Ernest asked, when the merriment had subsided. “Proofs to the contrary?”
    And in the silence he asked again, “Well?” Then he added, “Still well, but not so well, that argument of yours.”
    But Dr. Hammerfield was temporarily crushed, and the battle raged on in new directions. On point after point, Ernest challenged the ministers. When they affirmed that they knew the working class, he told them fundamental truths about the working class that they did not know, and challenged them for disproofs. He gave them facts, always facts, checked their