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Foundation

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Foundation

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It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child,

“Subjective matter of opinion, Gaal. If you’re born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown. They make the children come up here once a year, after they’re five. I don’t know if it does any good. They don’t get enough of it, really, and the first few times they scream themselves into hysteria. They ought to start as soon as they’re weaned and have the trip once a week.”

Gaal said, “As Trantor becomes more specialized, it becomes more vulnerable, less able to defend itself. Further, as it becomes more and more the administrative center of Empire, it becomes a greater prize. As the Imperial succession becomes more and more uncertain, and the feuds among the great families more rampant, social responsibility disappears.”

Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty.

The fall of Empire, gentlemen, is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors.

By saving the knowledge of the race. The sum of human knowing is beyond any one man; any thousand men. With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know. They will be helpless and useless by themselves. The bits of lore, meaningless, will not be passed on. They will be lost through the generations. But, if we now prepare a giant summary of all knowledge, it will never be lost. Coming generations will build on it, and will not have to rediscover it for themselves. One millennium will do the work of thirty thousand.

“I shall not be alive half a decade hence,” said Seldon, “and yet it is of overpowering concern to me. Call it idealism. Call it an identification of myself with that mystical generalization to which we refer by the term, ‘humanity.’

“Because, my boy, in a plan such as ours, the actions of others are bent to our needs.

A great psychologist such as Seldon could unravel human emotions and human reactions sufficiently to be able to predict broadly the historical sweep of the future. And what would that mean?

“Violence,” came the retort, “is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past—never on yourselves.”

The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It’s the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect—but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.

“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”

Religion is one of the great civilizing influences of history and in that respect, it’s fulfilling—”

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works,

A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself. And you, Lee, have got to worry even if you must kill yourself to invent something to worry about.”

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right!”

‘To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.’

There’s no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I’ll have it in the face of death, or it’s useless.

Why do you talk of law to me, of a law made by men? There are higher laws.

“You can have both, for it is possible to gather gold with one hand and love with the other.”

“That is easily enough done, and poor though I am, deprives me of nothing.

“Memories sting when they come suddenly.

“I adhere to law, and not to custom.” “There are times when custom can be the higher law.”

“Now any dogma, primarily based on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.

“The whole war is a battle between those two systems; between the Empire and the Foundation; between the big and the little. To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with little things, useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits. “A king, or a Commdor, will take the ships and even make war. Arbitrary rulers throughout history have bartered their subjects’ welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and conquest. But it’s still the little things in life that count—and Asper Argo won’t stand up against the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years.”

Mallow lifted his gloomy face, and exclaimed fiercely, “What business of mine is the future? No doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now. Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today.”

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