At last quiet
is restored.)

Aslaksen. As Chairman, I call upon the speaker to withdraw the
ill-considered expressions he has just used.

Dr. Stockmann. Never, Mr. Aslaksen! It is the majority in our community
that denies me my freedom and seeks to prevent my speaking the truth.

Hovstad. The majority always has right on its side.

Billing. And truth too, by God!

Dr. Stockmann. The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say!
That is one of these social lies against which an independent,
intelligent man must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority
of the population in a country? Is it the clever folk, or the stupid? I
don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid
people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over.
But, good Lord!--you can never pretend that it is right that the stupid
folk should govern the clever ones I (Uproar and cries.) Oh, yes--you
can shout me down, I know! But you cannot answer me. The majority has
might on its side--unfortunately; but right it has not. I am in the
right--I and a few other scattered individuals. The minority is always
in the right. (Renewed uproar.)

Hovstad. Aha!--so Dr. Stockmann has become an aristocrat since the day
before yesterday!

Dr. Stockmann. I have already said that I don't intend to waste a word
on the puny, narrow-chested, short-winded crew whom we are leaving
astern. Pulsating life no longer concerns itself with them. I am
thinking of the few, the scattered few amongst us, who have absorbed
new and vigorous truths. Such men stand, as it were, at the outposts,
so far ahead that the compact majority has not yet been able to come up
with them; and there they are fighting for truths that are too
newly-born into the world of consciousness to have any considerable
number of people on their side as yet.

Hovstad. So the Doctor is a revolutionary now!

Dr. Stockmann. Good heavens--of course I am, Mr. Hovstad! I propose to
raise a revolution against the lie that the majority has the monopoly
of the truth. What sort of truths are they that the majority usually
supports? They are truths that are of such advanced age that they are
beginning to break up. And if a truth is as old as that, it is also in
a fair way to become a lie, gentlemen. (Laughter and mocking cries.)
Yes, believe me or not, as you like; but truths are by no means as
long-lived at Methuselah--as some folk imagine. A normally constituted
truth