Free The Non-Statistical Man by Raymond F. Jones Page B

the attempt to call off the campaign. He shook his head and gave up the problem for the present.
    His inability to put on a demonstration for Hap troubled him, but he felt his explanation had been right. He had something that was growing within him; it couldn’t be forced or pushed. It had to come at its own rate, and he was willing to give it time. But he couldn’t afford to be backed into a comer like that again until it was fully matured.
    Finally, he wanted desperately to talk to somebody who could understand him. He thought momentarily of Magruder himself, but that was out. He felt that he and the Professor were going to be very bitter enemies over exploitation of intuitive processes, and only one of them could survive that straggle.
    There was no one—except Sarah.
    He glanced at the clock on the comer. She’d be startled to see him coming home in the middle of the day; and old Sprock would run a fever if he ever found out—perhaps even fire him. Somehow, that was becoming less and less important as the day went on.
    Sarah greeted him with a smile, opening the door before he was halfway up the walk. “I thought you’d be on the earlier train,” she said.
    Bascomb stopped, then smiled back at her; he should have known.
    They sat in the living room, and he told her about the events of the morning. He told of the interview with Sprock, and the sudden burst of intuitive knowledge that overwhelmed him. He told of the encounters with the strangers on the street, just as he’d told it to Hap Johnson. And he described the reaction of the reporter.
    Sarah listened responsively, as if it were all something she’d heard before and had expected to hear again; but when he was through Bascomb realized that he hadn’t come home merely for the purpose of telling her these things. He arose and stood by their modem picture window overlooking the landscaped back yard. There was still a great deal to say and he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.
    “It must be that a statistician is essentially a coward,” he said finally. “I’ve spent my life running—fleeing as hard as I could from contact with individual factors. I don’t know why; maybe it was because I felt helpless in the presence of an individual—whether it was a figure or a human being.
    “But in dealing with groups, and predicting their behavior—there was power in that!” He turned to Sarah, facing her motionless figure across the room. “Can you understand that, darling? Can you understand what it meant to be able to comprehend a mass of individuals when I was completely frightened by the randomness of a single one?”
    “Yes—I can understand it,” Sarah said softly.
    “Now, it’s gone,” Bascomb went on in a low voice. “The terror of an individual is gone—and so is the sense of power over any group whose action I can predict. It’s more than my professional career that’s involved; it’s the basic postulates of my whole life. I can quit hiding behind my ridiculous little rows of black figures, my summations, my media, my extremes. I can quit being the absurd fool I have been all my life!”
    Sarah shook her head. “If you had been a fool, you would never have been able to see what you have been doing. You have merely gained sight which you never had before—and you mustn’t forget that you still live in a world of the blind.”
    “How close am I?” Bascomb said. “You’re so far ahead of me—can you tell me how close I am to getting full use of my intuitive capacity so that I can depend on it?”
    Sarah shook her head. “I can’t even see the end of the road for myself; sometimes I think there may not be any. It may be like a skill that can grow and increase as long as you live. And I’m not so far ahead of you, either; not really. I never had very much; I was just willing to trust and use what I had. It works that way. The more you use it, the more reliable it becomes.”
    He crossed the room and sat down beside her again. He