Science and Administration 



itself scientific to bring into the service of its 

 departments the most expert scientific skill to 

 submit its proposals to the scrutiny of those who 

 are best trained to estimate their real effect on the 

 people who are concerned. 



There is, indeed, one sense in which the Platonic 

 demand that rulers should be philosophers does 

 not go out of date. For Plato, the wisdom which 

 philosophy seeks is something larger than the 

 knowledge of causes and effects that constitutes 

 positive science. It is also an insight into the 

 purpose and meaning of things, which does not 

 merely enable its possessor vaguely or clearly to 

 foresee their consequences, but trains him also to 

 grasp their ideal significance to choose between 

 objects of pursuit, and to protect himself from 

 vulgar errors of judgment by principles of choice 

 and action that are integral to his mind. However 

 remote this may seem from the opportunism of 

 what we call " politics/' it is an attribute without 

 which no one can be fully qualified to govern ; 

 and the degree in which any people can be well 

 governed depends on the degree in which this 

 instinctive wisdom is latent in whatever may be 

 the really sovereign power, and developed in those 

 who are the prime instruments of administration. 

 There is no other protection than this against the 

 inroads of private interest and the abandonment 

 of the best ideals. 



But the conditions of modern life demand more 

 than this. The life of an industrial community 

 must be scientific, because it must be organised. 



209 O 



