Prelude to Foundation (Foundation, #6)

by Isaac Asimov

Hummin finally said, “You are an ingenious fellow, Hari, but I fail to see why I must admit that I am a robot and why I have no choice but to do so. Everything you say may be true as facts—your own behavior, Dors’s behavior, Sunmaster’s, Tisalver’s, the Wyan generals’—all, all may have happened as you said, but that doesn’t force your interpretation of the meaning of the events to be true. Surely, everything that happened can have a natural explanation. You trusted me because you accepted what I said; Dors felt your safety to be important because she felt psychohistory to be crucial, herself being a historian; Sunmaster and Tisalver were beholden to me for favors you know nothing of, the Wyan generals resented being ruled by a woman, no more. Why must we flee to the supernatural?” Seldon said, “See here, Hummin, do you really believe the Empire to be falling and do you really consider it important that it not be allowed to do so with no move made to save it or, at the least, cushion its Fall?” “I really do.” Somehow Seldon knew this statement was sincere. “And you really want me to work out the details of psychohistory and you feel that you yourself cannot do it?” “I lack the capability.” “And you feel that only I can handle psychohistory—even if I sometimes doubt it myself?” “Yes.” “And you must therefore feel that if you can possibly help me in any way, you must.” “I do.” “Personal feelings—selfish considerations—could play no part?”