SCIENCE AND ADMINISTRATION 



CHARLES M. DOUGLAS, M.A., D.Sc. 



Author of "Ethics of John Stuart Mill" 



THE oldest demand for science in administra- 

 tion is Plato's nobly defiant claim that " until 

 philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of 

 this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, 

 and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, 

 and those commoner natures who pursue either 

 to the exclusion of the other are compelled to 

 stand aside, cities will never have rest from their 

 evils no, nor the human race, as I believe." 1 



The paradox that society can only be regenerated 

 as a result of that union of wisdom and power 

 which would itself be the final achievement of a 

 reformed human life, is less difficult in a Greek 

 conception of society than in one in which the 

 idea of democracy has become vital. But it con- 

 veys, in an undeveloped form, a truth which, long 

 forgotten, has emerged from the political strife of 

 centuries as an essential element in the idea of 

 government. 



Two great tendencies have led up to this result. 



After the long wars of contending dynasties, the 



i Plato's " Republic," Jouste's translation, vol. iii. p. 170. 

 207 



