The Point of View | Page 5

tossed it to the table, feeling
suddenly a little foolish at the sight of the grin on the face of the
professor.
"That is hardly the spirit which has led science to its great
achievements, Dixon," he observed amiably. "Suppose you describe the
nature of the insults, and if possible, something about the workings of
the attitudinizor as well. After all, that is what you were supposed to be

observing."
I flushed, grumbled a little, and complied. Van Manderpootz listened
with great interest to my description of the difference in our physical
worlds, especially the variations in our perceptions of form and color.
"What a field for an artist!" he ejaculated at last. "Unfortunately, it is a
field that must remain forever untapped, because even though an artist
examined a thousand viewpoints and learned innumerable new colors,
his pigments would continue to impress his audience with the same old
colors each of them had always known." He sighed thoughtfully, and
then proceeded. "However, the device is apparently quite safe to use. I
shall therefore try it briefly, bringing to the investigation a calm,
scientific mind which refuses to be troubled by the trifles that seem to
bother you."
He donned the attitudinizor, and I must confess that he stood the shock
of the first trial somewhat better than I did. After a surprised "Oof!" he
settled down to a complacent analysis of my point of view, while I sat
somewhat self-consciously under his calm appraisal. Calm, that is, for
about three minutes.
Suddenly he leaped to his feet, tearing the device from a face whose
normal ruddiness had deepened to a choleric angry color. "Get out!" he
roared. "So that's the way van Manderpootz looks to you! Moron! Idiot!
Imbecile! Get out!"
* * * * *
It was a week or ten days later that I happened to be passing the
University on my way from somewhere to somewhere else, and I fell to
wondering whether the professor had yet forgiven me. There was a
light in the window of his laboratory over in the Physics Building, so I
dropped in, making my way past the desk where Carter labored, and the
corner where Miss Fitch sat in dull primness at her endless task of
transcribing lecture notes.
Van Manderpootz greeted me cordially enough, but with a curious

assumption of melancholy in his manner. "Ah, Dixon," he began, "I am
glad to see you. Since our last meeting, I have learned much of the
stupidity of the world, and it appears to me now that you are actually
one of the more intelligent contemporary minds."
This from van Manderpootz! "Why--thank you," I said.
"It is true. For some days I have sat at the window overlooking the
street there, and have observed the viewpoints of the passers-by. Would
you believe"--his voice lowered--"would you believe that only seven
and four-tenths percent are even aware of the existence of van
Manderpootz? And doubtless many of the few that are, come from
among the students in the neighborhood. I knew that the average level
of intelligence was low, but it had not occurred to me that it was as low
as that."
"After all," I said consolingly, "you must remember that the
achievements of van Manderpootz are such as to attract the attention of
the intelligent few rather than of the many."
"A very silly paradox!" he snapped. "On the basis of that theory, since
the higher one goes in the scale of intelligence, the fewer individuals
one finds, the greatest achievement of all is one that nobody has heard
of. By that test you would be greater than van Manderpootz, an obvious
reductio ad absurdum."
He glared his reproof that I should even have thought of the point, then
something in the outer laboratory caught his ever-observant eye.
"Carter!" he roared. "Is that a synobasical interphasometer in the
positronic flow? Fool! What sort of measurements do you expect to
make when your measuring instrument itself is part of the experiment?
Take it out and start over!"
He rushed away toward the unfortunate technician. I settled idly back
in my chair and stared about the small laboratory, whose walls had seen
so many marvels. The latest, the attitudinizor, lay carelessly on the
table, dropped there by the professor after his analysis of the mass

viewpoint of the pedestrians in the street below.
I picked up the device and fell to examining its construction. Of course
this was utterly beyond me, for no ordinary engineer can hope to grasp
the intricacies of a van Manderpootz concept. So, after a puzzled but
admiring survey of its infinitely delicate wires and grids and lenses, I
made the obvious move. I put it on.
My first thought was the street, but since the evening was well along,
the walk