THE PATH OF SCIENCE 235 



such as the present, that the men chosen as administrators 

 should be selected with the utmost care. 



The selection of the best methods of procedure in govern- 

 ment, as in science, depends eventually upon judgment, and 

 judgment depends upon the natural capacity of the judge 

 and on his training and experience. In any judgment there 

 will be error, and errors will occur in accordance with the 

 laws of probability. The judgment will be better as the 

 probable error is smaller, but there will always be some error. 

 The administrator, moreover, will suffer from bias. If he is 

 sufficiently objective in mind and sufficiently experienced, he 

 will recognize that and will attempt to make a correction for 

 it just as we correct precision measurements for the "personal 

 equation." We should, therefore, select our methods of gov- 

 ernment so that there is a maximum chance of arriving at 

 the best judgment, a minimum opportunity for bias, and a 

 probability that the best judgment that can be arrived at will 

 be applied. 



In so far as our present methods do not meet these require- 

 ments, they should be changed. The most important matter, 

 however, is that we must be prepared to seek out specifically 

 the best men that we have for the functions of government— 

 not always the best in ability but often the best in character, 

 since a man might have first-class judgment and yet be so 

 biased by his ambitions that his decisions would be affected. 



In addition to selecting the most suitable leaders, however, 

 the public must be willing to accept their leadership, to value 

 the expression of intelligent thought, and to discount all 

 appeals to emotion and to sectional interests. As Sir Ronald 

 Ross says: 



We must not accept any speculations merely because 

 they now appear pleasant, flattering, or ennobling to us. 

 We must be content to creep upwards step by step, plant- 

 ing each foot on the firmest finding of the moment, using 

 the compass and such other instruments as we have, observ- 

 ing without either despair or contempt the clouds and 

 precipices above and beneath us. Especially our duty at 



