"Then there's the caliber of scientist we have working for the government now. The few first-rate men we have are so harassed by the security setup--and by the constant suspicion that's focused on them because they are top men in their fields, and hence anything they might leak would be particularly valuable that it takes them years to solve what used to be very simple problems. As for the rest well, our staff at Standards consisted almost entirely of third raters: some of them were very dogged and patient men indeed, but low on courage and even lower on imagination. They spent all their time operating mechanically by the cookbook the routine of scientific method and had less to show for it every year."

"Everything you've said could be applied to the spaceflight research that's going on now, without changing a comma," Wagoner said. "But, Seppi, if scientific method used to be sound, it should still be sound. It ought to work for anybody, even thirdraters. Why has it suddenly turned sour now after centuries of unbroken successes?"

"The time lapse," Corsi said somberly, "is of the first importance. Remember, Bliss, that scientific method is not a natural law. It doesn't exist in nature, but only in our heads; in short, it's a way of thinking about things a way of sifting evidence. It was bound to become obsolescent sooner or later, just as sorites and paradigms and syllogisms became obsolete before it. Scientific method works fine while there are thousands of obvious facts lying about for the taking, fact as obvious and measurable as how fast a stone falls, or what the order of the colors is in a rainbow. But the more subtle the facts to be discovered become the more they retreat into the realms of the invisible, the intangible, the unweighable, the submicroscopic, the abstract the more expensive and time-consuming it is to investigate them by scientific method.

"And when you reach a stage where the only research worth doing costs millions Of dollars per experiment, then those experiments can be paid for only by government. Governments can make the best use only of thirdrate men, men who can't leaven the instructions in the cookbook with the flashes of insight you need to make basic discoveries. The result is what you see: sterility, stasis, dry rot."

"Then what's left?' Wagoner said. "What are we 9oing to do now? I know you well enough to suspect that you're not going to give up all hope."

"No," Corsi said, "I haven't given up, but I'm quite helpless to change the situation you're complaining about After all, I'm on the outside. Which is probably good for me." He paused, and then said suddenly: "There's no hope of getting the government to drop the security system completely?"

"Completely?'

"Nothing else would do."

"No," Wagoner said. "Not even partially, I'm afraid. Not any longer."

Corsi sat down and leaned forward, his elbows on his knobby knees, staring into the dying coals. "Then I have two pieces of advice to give you, Bliss. Actually they're two sides of the same coin. First of all, begin by abandoning these multimillion dollar, Manhattan District approaches. We don't need a newer, still finer measurement of electron resonance one-tenth so badly as we need new pathways, new categories of knowledge. The colossal research project is defunct; what we need now is pure skullwork."