Seldon, Hari — It is customary to think of Hari Seldon only in connection with psychohistory, to see him only as Mathematics and as social change personified. There is no doubt that he himself

Encouraged this for at no time in his formal writings did he give any hint as to how he came to solve the various problems of
Psychohistory. His leaps of thought might have all been plucked From

Air, for all he tells us. Nor does he tell us of the blind alleys

Into which he crept or the wrong turnings he may have made.

…As for his private life, it is a blank. Concerning his parent and Siblings,

We know a handful of factors, nor more. His only son,

Raych Seldon, is known to have been adopted, but how that

Came about is not known. Concerning his wife, we only

Know that she existed. Clearly, Seldon wanted to a cipher

Except where psychohistory was concerned. It is as though he felt — Or wanted it to be felt — that he did not live, he merely psychohistorified.

The image of Hari Seldon reached into open air and the book once more appeared in his hand. He opened it and said: "But whatever devious course your future history may take, impress it always upon your descendants that the path has been marked out, and that at its end is a new and greater Empire!

In fact,' said Fara, happily, 'you all seem to forget that Seldon was the greatest psychologist of our time and that he was the founder of our Foundation. It seems reasonable to assume that he used his science to determine the probable course of the history of the immediate future. If he did, as seems likely, I repeat, he would certainly have managed to find a way to warn us of danger and, perhaps, to point out a solution. The Encyclopedia was very dear to his heart, you know.

And after that, there was only the ship, large and glistening; the cool production of 12,000 years of Imperial progress; and himself, with his doctorate in mathematics freshly obtained and an invitation from the great Hari Seldon to come to Trantor and join the vast and somewhat mysterious Seldon Project.

Foundation Number One was a world of physical scientists. It represented a concentration of the dying science of the Galaxy under the conditions necessary to make it live again. No psychologists were included. It was a peculiar distortion, and must have had a purpose. The usual explanation was that Seldon's psychohistory worked best where the individual working units — human beings — had no knowledge of what was coming, and could therefore react naturally to all situations. Do you follow me, my dear — " "Yes, Doctor." "Then listen carefully. Foundation Number Two was a world of mental scientists. It was the mirror image of our world. Psychology, not physics, was king." Triumphantly. "You see?" "I don't." "But think, Bayta, use your head. Hari Seldon knew that his psychohistory could predict only probabilities, and not certainties. There was always a margin of error, and as time passed that margin increases in geometric progression. Seldon would naturally guard as well as he could against it. Our Foundation was scientifically vigorous. It could conquer armies and weapons. It could pit force against force. But what of the mental attack of a mutant such as the Mule?" "That would be for the psychologists of the Second Foundation!" Bayta felt excitement rising within her. "Yes, yes, yes! Certainly!" "But they have done nothing so far." "How do you know they haven't?" Bayta considered that, "I don't. Do you have evidence that they have?" "No. There are many factors I know nothing of. The Second Foundation could not have been established full-grown, any more than we were. We developed slowly and grew in strength; they must have also. The stars know at what stage their strength is now. Are they strong enough to fight the Mule? Are they aware of the danger in the first place? Have they capable leaders?" "But if they follow Seldon's plan, then the Mule must be beaten by the Second Foundation.

You're coming to work for him, aren't you?" "Well yes, I'm a mathematician. Why does he predict disaster? What kind of disaster?" "What kind would you think?" "I'm afraid I wouldn't have the least idea. I've read the papers Dr. Seldon and his group have published. They're on mathematical theory." "Yes, the ones they publish." Gaal

All of history is a malleable instrument in my hands. Ohhh, I have accumulated all of these pasts and I possess every fact — yet the facts are mine to use as I will and, even using them truthfully, I change them.

How then can you research history?
"We don't use the same methods as our applied among those of the Evening Countries—or rather, those which were used there. The fundaments of those methods were logical conclusions and empirical research: excavations, the study of archives, the deciphering of inscriptions. These sources are deceiving: they can have different explanations, are vague, can be ambiguous and are generally superficial. We try to approach true history along clearer and more secure paths: by looking with the inner, sympathetic senses, using our minds to draw spiritual conclusions, not logical but intuitive ones. In this way a clear, faultless view of whatever happened in world history, forward as well as backward, is shown to the Blessed among us in a series of pure images."

When Hari Seldon established the Foundation here, it was for the ostensible purpose of producing a great Encyclopedia, and for fifty years we followed that will-of-the-wisp, before discovering what he was really after. By that time, it was almost too late. When communications with the central regions of the old Empire broke down, we found ourselves a world of scientists concentrated in a single city, possessing no industries and surrounded by newly created kingdoms, hostile and largely barbarous. We were a tiny island of atomic power in this ocean of barbarism, and an infinitely valuable prize. 'Anacreon, then as now, the most powerful of the Four Kingdoms, demanded and actually established a military base upon Terminus, and the then rulers of the City, the Encyclopedists, knew very well that this was only a preliminary to taking over the entire planet. That is how matters stood when I … uh … assumed actual government. What would you have done?

Declare the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future.

Undoubtedly his greatest contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found the field little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound statistical science.… … The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography

Everyone believes it just the same. I mean all this talk about the Prophet Hari Seldon and how he appointed the Foundation to carry on his commandments that there might some day be a return to the Earthly Paradise: and how anyone who disobeys his commandments will be destroyed for eternity. They believe it. I've presided at festivals, and I'm sure they

It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.

I would fain make two reports in my Journal, first the incidents and observations of to-day; and by to-morrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part. I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow's memory.