Scientism (Foundation) - Disestablishment

Disestablishment

A hundred years after its establishment, Scientism has lost its utility as an instrument for the extension of the Foundation's political power. No world will allow Church missionaries to come and proselytize, and this in turn limits the worlds open to the Foundation's traders, who customarily encourage the priesthood to follow in their train.

In "The Merchant Princes", a Master Trader named Hober Mallow realizes that the power of religion is played out. Upon his election as Mayor of the Foundation, Mallow assumes the position of Chief Primate as well, the first man to hold both offices since Hardin. Mallow ends the policy of combining economic control with religious control, and encourages the Foundation's traders to sell their wares without bothering to help establish a priesthood.

The wisdom of Mallow's policy is demonstrated when the Republic of Korell declares war on the Foundation. Mallow had previously sold a vast array of nuclear-powered devices to the Korellians without bothering to establish a priestly hierarchy to control them. The Korellians had assumed that this left them free to conquer the Foundation, but they discovered that they still needed Foundation technical assistance to maintain the Foundation's technology. Once the Foundation-made goods begin failing, the Korellians find their industrial economy collapsing. Unable to carry on the war, the Korellians surrender to the Foundation.

There is no further mention made of the Church of Science in subsequent stories. Whether the Church has died out, or whether it continues to be the chief religion of the four kingdoms, is never made clear. It is even possible that with the end of the Foundation's policy of religious control, the restrictions against missionary activity by the Church have been removed, and that the Church continues to spread among the worlds of the Galaxy, ignored by the leaders of the Foundation.