SCIENCE AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 275 



society. It works from the bottom, by changing material 

 conditions in such a way that new horizons are opened. It 

 works from the top, by challenging old ideas and traditional 

 schemes of social organization. The conservative function 

 has its value, but the radical function gives us new worlds 

 for old. 



THE SCIENTIFIC VERSUS THE LEGALISTIC MIND 



As intimated in the preceding section, two contrasting 

 points of view appear within the social field. It is not that 

 human minds are sharply divided in two different sorts, but 

 that two states of mind, which all men possess in some 

 degree, contend for the mastery. On the one hand is what 

 may be described as the legalistic frame of mind, and on the 

 other the scientific. The use of the term legalistic does not 

 imply that the former attitude is the exclusive possession of 

 one profession, although it is well exemplified by the mental 

 outlook of many lawyers. This word is used, because it is 

 more expressive than such a term as conservative. The 

 radical and forward-looking nature of the scientific mind has 

 been sufficiently explained. The obstacles to its expansion 

 can be illustrated by a comparison with the antithetical 

 spirit of legalism. 



What is here designated as legalistic is the spirit which is 

 tied to the past, and which looks for guidance to what has 

 been done, rather than to what might be done in any social 

 situation. This mental state appears: in the lawyer, who 

 believes that constitutions should be the molds for society 

 rather than being molded by society; in the churchman, 

 who believes that men exist to glorify the Church and not 

 the Church to express the idealism of men; in the political 

 Bourbon, who harps upon the democratic ideals of the past 

 without making their obvious applications in the present; 

 in the military man, enmeshed in red-tape and unable to 

 find his way out; and in the industrial magnate, who, having 



