Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov Page A

Everything.”
    “I’m delighted you think so,” said Dors.
    Seldon looked about. There were a bank of windows in one wall and while actual sunlight did not enter (he wondered if, after a while, he would learn to be satisfied with diffuse daylight and would cease to look for patches of sunlight in a room), the place was light enough. In fact, it was quite bright, for the local weather computer had apparently decided it was time for a sharp, clear day.
    The tables were arranged for four apiece and most were occupied by the full number, but Dors and Seldon remained alone at theirs. Dors had called over some of the men and women and had introduced them. All had been polite, but none had joined them. Undoubtedly, Dors intended that to be so, but Seldon did not see how she managed to arrange it.
    He said, “You haven’t introduced me to any mathematicians, Dors.”
    “I haven’t seen any that I know. Most mathematicians start the day early and have classes by eight. My own feeling is that any student so foolhardy as to take mathematics wants to get that part of the course over with as soon as possible.”
    “I take it you’re not a mathematician yourself.”
    “Anything but,” said Dors with a short laugh. “
Anything
. History is my field. I’ve already published some studies on the rise of Trantor—I mean the primitive kingdom, not this world. I suppose that will end up as my field of specialization—Royal Trantor.”
    “Wonderful,” said Seldon.
    “Wonderful?” Dors looked at him quizzically. “Are you interested in Royal Trantor too?”
    “In a way, yes. That and other things like that. I’ve never really studied history and I should have.”
    “Should you? If you had studied history, you’d scarcely have had time to study mathematics and mathematicians are very much needed—especially at this University. We’re full to here with historians,” she said, raising her hand to her eyebrows, “and economists and political scientists, but we’re short on science and mathematics. Chetter Hummin pointed that out to me once. He called it the decline of science and seemed to think it was a general phenomenon.”
    Seldon said, “Of course, when I say I should have studied history, I don’t mean that I should have made it a life work. I meant I should have studied enough to help me in my mathematics. My field of specialization is the mathematical analysis of social structure.”
    “Sounds horrible.”
    “In a way, it is. It’s very complicated and without my knowing a great deal more about how societies evolved it’s hopeless. My picture is too static, you see.”
    “I can’t see because I know nothing about it. Chetter told me you were developing something called psychohistory and that it was important. Have I got it right? Psychohistory?”
    “That’s right. I should have called it ‘psychosociology,’ but it seemed to me that was too ugly a word. Or perhaps I knew instinctively that a knowledge of history was necessary and then didn’t pay sufficient attention to my thoughts.”
    “Psychohistory does sound better, but I don’t know what it is.”
    “I scarcely do myself.” He brooded a few minutes, looking at the woman on the other side of the table and feeling that she might make this exile of his seem a little less like an exile. He thought of the other woman he had known a few years ago, but blocked it off with a determined effort. If he ever found another companion, it would have to be one who understood scholarship and what it demanded of a person.
    To get his mind onto a new track, he said, “Chetter Hummin told me that the University is in no way troubled by the government.”
    “He’s right.”
    Seldon shook his head. “That seems rather unbelievably forbearing of the Imperial government. The educational institutions on Helicon are by no means so independent of governmental pressures.”
    “Nor on Cinna. Nor on any Outworld, except perhaps for one or two of the largest. Trantor