“Unfortunately, an uninformed public tends to confuse scholarship with magicianry […]”

One of the subtexts of the Foundation series is that people tend to mistake high technology for magic. Thus, planets beyond the range of the old Empire’s technical know-how are easily influenced by Foundation Traders who bring miraculous devices to their shores. 

“‘Where the stars are scattered thinly,’ quoted Barr, ‘And the cold of space seeps in.’ ‘Is that poetry?’ Riose frowned. Verse seemed frivolous at the moment.”

Barr responds to Riose’s question about magicians who live at the edge of the Galactic Empire and who may pose a threat to Imperial power. His quotation serves as a warning: Those magicians are in fact the technologists of the Foundation; they bring their engineering know-how to the breakaway worlds of the galactic edge, to keep those planets from sinking into barbarism. To the average citizen, and lately to the leaders of the deteriorating central Empire, that technology can seem magical. Barr’s point is that the chill of the darkly distant realms is also a warning of doom for the Empire, a threat that comes violently true in later decades. Riose, a man of action rather than deep thought, misses the implication to his ultimate regret. 

“After all, the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it.”

Foundation fleet owner Sennett Forell explains the underlying attitude of a commercial enterprise: that risks must be calculated, and those with the best odds must be undertaken. Such an approach doesn’t always win, but over time it does so more often than not.