THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF SOCIOLOGY 



the most widely voiced criticism of modern democracy, namely tliat 

 it is inefficient as compared with totalitarian or authoritarian rule. 

 This criticism is not one which can be waved aside. Those of us who 

 have had experience of existing national organisations such as the 

 labour movement, realise only too well the creaking slowness with 

 which such bodies react to the stream of events. I knew a trade 

 unionist once who only consented to become secretary of his local 

 Trades Council on condition that he was not obliged to instal a 

 telephone at his house, fearing too many calls on his time; and this 

 in a period when Europe was being shaken to its foundations by the 

 aggressions of the fascist powers. If an executive committee is accus- 

 tomed to meet on the first Tuesday of every month, the heavens 

 might fall before it would agree to be called together at an intermediate 

 time. But all dirough evolution, organisms have been forced to resort 

 to ever more efficient machinery for the control of their growing 

 complexity. At the present time, human society has not yet developed 

 the technique which it needs for looking after its affairs. The solution 

 of the fascists, to abandon democratic principles, is a false one, since 

 it involves treating human beings as units less highly organised than 

 in fact they are. The proper solution is the "mechanisation" of 

 democracy. 



Perhaps I can explain what I mean by this phrase if I refer to the 

 meeting of the International Physiological Congress in Moscow in 

 1935. At the plenary session, each delegate was supplied with head- 

 phones which he could plug in to one of a number of sockets in the 

 desk before him. According to which one he chose he could hear 

 the speech being delivered, either in the language of the speaker, or 

 in French, German, English or Russian, spoken more or less sentence 

 for sentence with the visible speaker, by hidden broadcasters from 

 previously prepared translations. This is the kind of mechanisation 

 of which we ought to have far more. There is nothing except prejudice 

 and financial reasons which prevents each member of an executive 

 committee, for example, being able to confer with the secretary at 

 any time, possibly by small radio sets. These can be developed well 

 enough for the purposes of war but so far have been not applied for 

 making the machinery of democracy work in peace-time. In his book 

 T/ie Social Relations of Science, J. G. Crowther has written; 



"At present science is developing in the direction of big 

 instruments and organisations. It seems probable that it will 



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