232 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



their hands; and, second, that most existing scientists are 

 manifestly totally unfitted to exercise such control." * 



There are, indeed, certain characteristics of scientific think- 

 ing that make it difficult for scientists to operate in the po- 

 litical sphere. The age-old foe of the scientific method is 

 authority, and for a scientist to accept authority is to abandon 

 his faith. But an almost equally objectionable idea to the 

 scientific mind is that a decision should be made under the 

 influence of emotion, and in politics emotion plays a very 

 great part. In most political matters we do not think; we 

 feel. One who claimed to know him praised a certain na- 

 tional statesman, whereupon his listener reminded him that 

 though the statesman might be the wisest and noblest of man- 

 kind, he was yet a man and not a god. When, a few years 

 later, the eulogist had changed his political views, he was 

 reminded that the statesman might be the vilest and basest 

 of mankind, but he was a man and not a devil. 



The cleavage in intellectual outlook and mental habits be- 

 tween the political leader and the scientist, the engineer, 

 or, for that matter, the industrialist is a very real and funda- 

 mental one and is by no means to be dismissed summarily. 

 It is common for scientists and industrialists to discuss the 

 methods of the politician as if he were either merely stupid 

 or deliberately wicked, f while the views of the political ex- 

 pert on the "intellectuals" are often scornful in the extreme. 



As long as men's actions are controlled by their emotions, 

 an objective thinker who discusses every proposition without 

 emotion can have no part in modern political life, since a 

 politician must understand the effect of emotional thought 

 and must be prepared to utilize emotional appeal if he is to 



* Bernal, The Social Function of Science, p. 398. 



•f An antidote for this error can be found in F. W. Oliver's The End- 

 less Adventure (London, Macmillan and Co., 1930), The section "Some 

 Modern Dilemmas" should be of particular value to those prone to 

 facile criticism, while that "In Praise of Politicians" presents an excel- 

 lent picture of the debt we owe to those who govern us. See also "The 

 Magnitude of the Task of the Politician," F. M. Davenport, Harvard 

 Business Review, III. 468 (1933). 



