The Non-Statistical Man Read online

  “The homing ability of the ‘lower species’ is traditional. We use ‘bird-brain’ as a term of insult—but it takes quite a few tons of iron and glass even to approach a duplication of the functions of a two or three ounce bird brain.” “Are you suggesting, then,” said Bascomb with a superior smile, “that Main should take a backward step and pick up some of the abilities of his distant forebears?”

  “Is it anything to boast of that Man lacks the abilities of the lower species?” Magruder snapped. “Actually, they’re not lost; Man doesn’t have to go back. What I’m suggesting is that he merely bring into full play those abilities he has—for he does indeed stand at the top of the evolutionary ladder!

  “Man’s homing ability is superior to that of the pigeon, or of the elephant, fish, or bat—which have it in abundance. His natural radar sense excels that of the Nile fish; his sonar is better than that found in bats and rats. And his prescience of disaster far outdistances that of the swift.”

  “You mean we have all these mechanisms, unused, within the structure of our bodies?”

  Magruder shook his head. “No. The mechanisms we see in the lower species are clumsy experimental models. In Man, Nature has installed the final production model which incorporates all the prior successes without their bugs, as I believe an engineer would say it.

  “This final production model we call ‘intuition.’ ” Bascomb choked; for a moment he felt like laughing out loud. He had a flashing vision of Sarah before him— arms akimbo and lips pressed tightly while she exclaimed, “I don’t care what you say, Charles Bascomb, I know what’s right, and that’s the way it’s going to be done!”

  It made no difference what ‘it’ was. Sarah’s feeling of just knowing could be applied to anything.

  And then Bascomb had a mental picture, too, of Mrs. Davidson and Mrs. Harpersvirg, and Dr. Sherridan.

  He permitted only a faint smile as he finally answered, “You believe you have tamed man’s ability to do things by hunch and guesswork?”

  “Unreasonable, isn’t it?” said Magruder. “It helps just a little if you use the proper terminology, however. Intuition is a definite, precise faculty of the human organism; evolutionwise, it stands at the peak of all those faculties we have been talking about in the lower species. It supplants them all, and goes beyond anything they can accomplish. And human beings have it. All of them.”

  “That’s a large order of unsubstantiated statements.” Magruder’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought I’d given you some rather remarkable evidence in your own field. You want more? Very well, I’ll give you the names of an even dozen people in Wallsenburg where I finished a series of lectures last month. They will buy policies—not necessarily with your company—and will make claims within a month. You’ll find them, if you check; can I give you any more evidence?”

  Bascomb shifted uncomfortably. “Let’s say for the moment that I accept your thesis. Why, then, has intuition— particularly among the female of the species—become a stock joke? Why have men, generally, never been able to rely on the intuition they’re supposed to have? How are you able to do anything about making it usable? Surely, these colored pills, and the nonsense you lecture about—” “Did you ever watch a person read with his lips moving, forming every word?” said Magruder. “Irritating as the devil, isn’t it? You want to tell him to quit flapping his chops—that he can read ten times as fast if he’ll go about it right.

  “Men don’t always choose to use the maximum ability that is in them; the answer to your question is as simple as that. Men decided a long time ago not to use intuitive powers, and employ something else.”

  “What else?” asked Bascomb.

  “Statistics,” said Magruder.

  Bascomb felt a warm anger rising within him. That was the kind of thing you could expect, he supposed, from a broken down professor turned quack. He forgot his recent interviews for a moment.

  “I fail to see any need for an attack on the principles of statistics,” he said. “Statistics enable predictions to be made, which would be impossible otherwise.”

  “Predictions about a group,” said Magruder; “not individuals. Consider your own business. Statistical laws enable the insurance company to function, and make a profit for its shareholders. But what does statistics do for the policyholder? Not one damn’ thing!

  “Think it over; you’re not working for the policyholder. He’s absolutely defenseless against whatever assessment your statistics tell you is legitimate to levy against him. The individual gets absolutely nothing from your work. The group—the shareholders of the company—are the only ones who benefit.”

  “I’ve never heard anything quite so ridiculous in my whole life!” said Basoomb heatedly.

  “No?” Magruder smiled softly. “Let’s consider the alternative situation then^-one in which the policyholder is on an even-Stephen basis, so to speak, with the company.

  “Suppose he is able to discern—as a number of people you’ve met recently can do—the precise need for insurance which may come his way. He doesn’t need to pay premiums uselessly for twenty or thirty years, and get nothing for them; but when he sees an unavoidable emergency approaching a month or so away, he can take out a policy to cover it. There’s something he can really benefit from!”

  “Quite obviously, you don’t understand the principles of the insurance business at all,” said Bascomb. “It would simply cease to exist if what you described were a widespread possibility.”

  “Ah, yes,” sighed Magruder, “that is quite true. Insurance would become obsolete as an institution, and would be replaced by common sense planning on the part of the individual. Any remnant of the insurance concept would have to be strictly on a loan basis.

  “The same fate will be true for numerous other institutions that operate for the group at the expense of the individual—our concept of education, the jury system and criminal punishment. The advertising business as we know’ it will disappear; mass media of communication will operate only during the infrequent intervals, when there’s something to communicate—”

  “You speak as if you considered the Group as some all-powerful enemy the individual must combat for his own survival!”

  “To a large extent that is true.”

  “To a greater extent it’s absolute nonsense, and the psychiatrists have a word for it.”

  “Yes,” Magruder agreed. “They have a word for nearly everything—I wonder what they will call your bankrupt insurance company.”

  “I don’t consider that my company is in any danger whatever. I am quite certain that, while your hypotheses are very entertaining, I can eventually find a sound statistical explanation for this sudden run of claims on short time policies.”

  “And for my prediction of an additional dozen?” Magruder spread his hands inquiringly.

  Bascomb didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Why were you expecting me to come to see you? Why did you want me to come?”

  “Because I need the understanding of men like you. I need men who know what it’s like to be on both sides of the statistical fence, so to speak. 1 thought you were capable of becoming one.”

  “I’m sorry you were wrong, and have had to waste much valuable time,” said Bascomb. “I must admit that I have a great curiosity about your insistent attack on statistics. You’ve made no case against it; and certainly it operates well enough—in a society of us non-intuitionists, at least.”

  “Which is the only place it will work,” said Magruder. “Admittedly, this concept of intuition is so foreign to our present thinking that it appears to be an approach to insanity. We are so accustomed in our culture to the dominance of Society over Individual that we are unable to realize it as unnecessary.

  “No historical era can match today’s demand by the Individual for security and assurance from sources outside himself; no era can match this one for such complete overshadowing of the Individual by Society, the Nation, the Empire—not even ancient times when slavery was an acceptable cult
ure. The slaves would revolt on occasion; the Individual does not revolt today!”

  “And so you envision the ultimate anarchy!” Bascomb exclaimed in astonishment. “The wild lawlessness of the individual supreme, unimpeded by the restrictions of government?”

  “I have said no such thing,” Magruder said angrily. “Man’s optimum functioning demands his membership in a group. It’s impossible for him to go it alone—on a cultural level, at least. But neither can he function optimally until he invents a society that does not oppress him to its own supposed advantage—until one man’s worth is adequately balanced against that of the entire Society.”

  “So our Society is the enemy to be fought then?” Bas-comb thought he had Magruder’s number now, and he was ready to laugh. Being taken in by a mere subversive!

  “No.” Magruder smiled now as if reading Bascomb’s thoughts. “No—Man is his own enemy—by misarrangement. He invented Society, and didn’t know he could do so much better; it is up to him to correct his own error.”

  Bascomb felt a little wave of cold. He spoke with increased care. “So your objective is to destroy Society? That’s a trifle ambitious, to say the least. There’ve been a good many attempts to do that same thing in the past, but it manages to struggle along.”

  “Shocking thought, is it not?” said Magruder. “Well, fortunately, it’s a misconception. My objective is not, of course, to destroy Society, as such, but rather to permit the emergence of a kind of man who will no longer have use for what we call Society.

  “Please understand, there’s nothing sacred whatever in the word or the thing we call Society. It’s an invention of mankind—who has as much right to change, repair, or substitute for it as he has with any of his other inventions. First, there was Man; Society came later. Let’s go back and consider the time when there was only Man.

  “He was an infant, just learning to read, if you will. And the job was tough, because it required that he be self-taught. He didn’t learn the best way; he learned to read by moving his lips, and he never tried seriously to improve upon this.

  “To drop the analogy now for the real circumstances: Man found there were numerous ways of solving problems and* reaching generalizations about the world around him. He could get his own answer on an individual basis and go ahead and apply it, for one way. But he’d already learned that, on a strictly physical level, there was strength in numbers; so he was suspicious of the solitary approach to anything. He developed the method of comparing proposed solutions to problems with his fellows. Sometimes there was a radical difference—the same problem affected different Individuals in widely varying ways. But it seemed like a good idea to stick together instead of going it alone. Compromises were made; the concensus of opinion was taken, and the majority decision accepted by all.

  “Thus was bom Society—and with it the art of statistics, the submergence of the Individual in the Group.”

  “I don’t know where you learned your sociology, Professor—but if anything like the scene you describe actually occurred, that was the birth of Man’s triumph over a nature he could not combat singlehanded. It was the birth of his realization that the combined effort of many Individuals can accomplish what none of them can do done.”

  “No,” said Magruder. “This is not what was bom at that time. A concerted attack on Man’s problems does not depend on his present Society. Cooperation is more easily obtained through much different instruments.

  “Without exerting himself to work out such different instruments, however, Man was forced to cling desperately to the tool of his invention, Society. Inherent within it was the concept that the Individual was a servant of the group. In any question of conflicting welfare the Individual expected automatic defeat; sometimes he has fought against it, but never with any heart or expectancy of winning.

  “Statistical methods were the obvious intellectual tools with which to manipulate and describe Man as he functioned in Society. The Individual was of no import, so why bother devising a means of accommodating him? In writing insurance policies, it is important to you to know only that one out of a certdn dozen men will die of cancer. Which one is of no concern to you—unless it is yourself or someone for whom you have an affection. In this case, however, you have lost your usefulness to Society as an impartial statistician, and Society will replace you.

  “As a method of reasoning, which would fit his Society, Man developed logic—statistical induction of generdizations from many individual instances. It works fine in predicting the characteristics of the group, but no individual instance can be deduced from it.

  “But from time to time there have appeared short bursts of a stronger, more subtle, and completely incomprehensible means of reaching a generalization—the one Man bypassed when he invented Society; the non-logical process called intuition.

  “Within the framework of our culture it has been impossible to describe, and the conclusions reached could not be defended in any logical manner acceptable to Society.”

  Bascomb shifted uneasily. “And now you have corrected these defects?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Magruder. “Man can now be taught how to reach generalizations through the method of intuition. And please note that the inductive operation by the intuitive method yields a different type of generalization. The intuitive generalization is of the type of the Natural Law, which, unlike the Statistical Generalization, does permit deduction of individual instances.

  “The intuitive method, therefore, is the only one that does an individual any good!”

  “And you can no doubt prove as well as teach what you say,” said Bascomb.

  Magruder smiled. “The proof, as well as the method, is one which Society is loathe to accept. The pragmatic test —in itself a non-logical method—is the only one applicable. I think, however, it has been applied sufficiently to allow you to reach a conclusion!”

  “A man would have to possess a very large dose of sheer faith in order to live by intuition if he could never prove a hypothesis until it had been tried in actual experience.”

  “Yes,” Magruder nodded soberly. “I would say that faith is a large component of intuition.”

  “There is only one thing you have left out: the mechanism by which these weird exercises of body and mind, and the little colored pills are supposed to restore one’s intuition.”

  “That, too,” said Magruder, “is something which can only be tested pragmatically. You understand, of course, that these methods do not restore anything. You have never learned to use intuition in any degree; your wife is considerably more proficient. Yet, comparatively speaking, you are both readers who move your lips. You have to learn to do it by scanning—and the only proof that this is better is in learning it.

  “So, if you continue, you will learn how to use your intuitive powers. The little pills contain a shading of vitamins to satisfy those curious enough to analyze them. The active ingredient is the other material which is necessary to subdue the automatic reaction of fear in dropping statistical thinking. This fear is very real and dominating; it says that use of intuition is a defiance of the billions of a man’s fellows who have lived since the beginning of the race. It says they will crush him for daring to step out on his own and be an Individual who does not consult and bow to their wishes.

  “Without a proper biochemical compensation of this fear, it would be all but impossible for a man to ever command his intuitive powers. So do not attempt it without use of the pills; it would tear you to pieces.”

  “And one final question,” said Bascomb. “If I were to believe all this, and become one of your men who ‘know what it’s like to be on both sides of the statistical fence,’ what use would you make of me?”

  “I would ask you to assist in the spread of these methods, particularly among your own professional group, which is among the strongest fortresses that intuition has to attack. Such attack can best be done by someone from the inside.”

  “I see.” Bascomb rose suddenly and took up his
hat. “It has been most entertaining, Professor; many thanks for your time.”

  “Not at all.” Magruder smiled and accompanied him to the door. “I will expect you at the next lecture.”

  “It is doubtful I will be there,” said Bascomb. “Quite doubtful.”

  5

  Bascomb had it in mind to return to the office as he left Magruder’s hotel room, but once out on the street he knew this was impossible. His brain churned with the impossible mixture of fantasy and faintly-credible truth which Magruder had dispensed.

  He turned down the street in the direction away from his up-town office and moved slowly, dimly aware of his surroundings, murmuring apologies to his fellow pedestrians with whom he collided at intervals. Finally, he stopped and found an empty bench in Moller’s Park; he sat down, the pigeons clustering expectantly about his feet.

  He had nothing to feed them, but their random motion and the sharp whine of their wings served to bring him in closer touch with the present moment.

  A decision had to be made and made quickly. There was no use quibbling mentally over what Magruder could or could not do. The critical fact was that he could do something. Charles Bascomb had no doubt of this; he simply could not deny the run of policy claims. How much of all that nonsense about intuition was true Bascomb didn’t know; for the moment he didn’t care. Magruder was far more than a harmless quack; he was a crank—and a dangerous one at that. If his mysterious doings were extended any further, he could actually undermine the foundations of the nation’s insurance business.

  He could.

  And how much more beyond that, Bascomb didn’t know; there would be tffne enough to find out when Magruder was safely stopped.

  He considered going to the police with his story, but almost at once the futility of this was obvious. What desk sergeant, detective, or even police chief would listen to such a tale without being tempted to throw him behind bars for drunkenness?