The Mentat Handbook

      Above all else, the Mentat must be a generalist, not a

specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment

monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you

quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit

picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The Mentat-

generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-

making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off

from the broad sweep of what is happening in this universe.

He must remain capable of saying: “There’s no real mystery

about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may

prove wrong later, but we’ll correct that when we come to

it.” The Mentat-generalist must understand that anything

which we can identify as our universe is merely part of

larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks

into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The

generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles,

knowing full well that such principles change, that they

develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that

the Mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent

catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must

look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking

yourself: “Now what is this thing doing?”

      -The Mentat Handbook