ALL THE PEOPLE
By R. A. LAFFERTY
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine April 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Tin Tony Trotz had only one job—to
watch out for something a little
odd—in a universe that was insane!
Anthony Trotz went first to the politician, Mike Delado. "How manypeople do you know, Mr. Delado?"
"Why the question?"
"I am wondering just what amount of detail the mind can hold."
"To a degree I know many. Ten thousand well, thirty thousand by name,probably a hundred thousand by face and to shake hands with."
"And what is the limit?" Anthony inquired.
"Possibly I am the limit." The politician smiled frostily. "The onlylimit is time, speed of cognizance and retention. I am told that thelatter lessens with age. I am seventy, and it has not done so with me.Whom I have known I do not forget."
"And with special training could one go beyond you?"
"I doubt if one could—much. For my own training has been quitespecial. Nobody has been so entirely with the people as I have. I'vetaken five memory courses in my time, but the tricks of all of them Ihad already come to on my own. I am a great believer in the commonalityof mankind and of near equal inherent ability. Yet there are some, saythe one man in fifty, who in degree if not in kind do exceed theirfellows in scope and awareness and vitality. I am that one man infifty, and knowing people is my specialty."
"Could a man who specialized still more—and to the exclusion of otherthings—know a hundred thousand men well."
"It is possible. Dimly."
"A quarter of a million?"
"I think not. He might learn that many faces and names, but he wouldnot know the men."
Anthony went next to the philosopher, Gabriel Mindel.
"Mr. Mindel, how many people do you know?"
"How know? Per se? A se? Or In Se? Per suam essentiam, perhaps?Or do you mean Ab alio? Or to know as Hoc aliquid? There is afine difference there. Or do you possibly mean to know in Substantiaprima, or in the sense of comprehensive noumena?"
"Somewhere between the latter two. How many persons do you know byname, face, and with a degree of intimacy?"
"I have learned over the years the names of some of my colleagues,possibly a dozen of them. I am now sound on my wife's name, andI seldom stumble over the names of my offspring—never more thanmomentarily. But you may have come to the wrong man for—whatever youhave come for. I am notoriously poor at names, faces, and persons. Ihave even been described (vox faucibus haesit) as absent-minded."
"Yes, you do have the reputation. But perhaps I have not come to thewrong man in seeking the theory of the thing. What is it that limitsthe comprehensive capacity of the mind of man? What will it hold? Whatrestricts?"
"The body."
"How is that?"
"The brain, I should say, the material tie. The mind is limited by thebrain. It is skull-bound. It can accumulate no more than its cranialcapacity, though not one tenth of that is ordinarily used. An unbodiedmind would (in esoteric theory) be unlimited."
"And how in practical theory?"
"If it is practical, a pragma, it is a thing and not a theory."
"Then we can have no experience with the unbodied mind, or thepossibility of it?"
"We have not discovered