The Complete Compleat Enchanter Read Free

your—uh—conceptualistic structure on an absolutists rather than a relativistic basis. But I’ll come back to that later. Allow me to continue my exposition.
    “As you know, you can build up a self-consistent logic on almost any set of assumptions—”
    Bayard opened his half-closed eyes and injected another sharp observation: “Isn’t there a flaw in the structure there, Doctor? Seems to me your hypothesis makes transference to the future possible. We should then become aware of natural laws not yet discovered and inventions not yet made. But the future naturally won’t be ignorant of our method of transference. Therefore we could return to the present with a whole list of new inventions. These inventions, launched into the present, would anticipate the future, and, by anticipating, change it.”
    “Very ingenious, Walter,” said Chalmers. “But I’m afraid you overlook something. You might indeed secure transference to a future, but it would not necessarily be the future, the actual future of our own empirico-positivist world. A mental frame of reference is required. That is, we need a complete set of concepts of the physical world, which concepts condition the impressions received by the mind. The concepts of the future will be the product of numerous factors not now known to us. That is—”
    “I see,” said Shea. “The frame of reference for the actual future is not yet formed, whereas the frames of reference for all past worlds are fixed.”
    “Precisely. I would go beyond that. Transference to any world exhibiting such a fixed pattern is possible, but to such worlds only. That is, one could secure admission to any of H.G. Wells’ numerous futures. We merely choose a series of basic assumptions. In the case of the actual future we are ignorant of the assumptions.
    “But speculative extrapolation from our scanty supply of facts has already carried us—uh—halfway to Cloud-Cuckooland. So let us return to our own time and place and devote ourselves to the development of an experimental technique wherewith to attack the problems of para-physics.
    “To contrive a vehicle for transposition from one world to another, we face the arduous task of extracting from the picture of such a world as that of the Iliad its basic assumptions, and expressing these in logical form—”
    Shea interrupted: “In other words, building us a syllogismobile?”
    Chalmers looked vexed for an instant, then laughed. “A very pithy way of expressing it, Harold. You are wasting your talents, as I have repeatedly pointed out, by not publishing more. I suggest, however, that the term ‘syllogismobile’ be confined for the present to discussions among us members of the Garaden Institute. When the time comes to try to impress our psychological colleagues with the importance of paraphysics, a somewhat more dignified mode of expression will be desirable.”
    ###
    Harold Shea lay on his bed, smoked, and thought. He smoked expensive English cigarettes, not because he liked them especially, but because it was part of his pattern of affectation to smoke something unusual. He thought about Chalmers’ lecture.
    It would no doubt be dangerous, as Chalmers had warned. But Shea was getting unutterably bored with life. Chalmers was able but stuffy; if brilliance and dullness could be combined in one personality, Reed Chalmers combined them. While in theory all three members of the Institute were researchers, in practice the two subordinates merely collected facts and left to the erudite Doctor the fun of assembling them and generalizing from them.
    Of course, thought Shea, he did get some fun out of his little poses, but they were a poor substitute for real excitements. He liked wearing his new breeches and boots, but riding a horse had been an excruciating experience. It also had none of the imaginary thrill of swinging along in a cavalry charge, which he had half-unconsciously promised himself. All he got was the fact that his