522 
NATURE 
[APRIL 21, 1923 

Suppose that there rises to the top at rare intervals , 
a scientific admiral, “ M.G.O.,” or ‘Member for 
Supply and Research,” it still remains the fact that 
in the absence of provision for securing by the law 
of the land that there shall be a man of wide scientific 
attainments on those councils, we cannot depend 
that, when a problem arises in council, its possible 
relation to science will be automatically and early 
considered. In many cases science will not be thought 
to touch the matter at all—and no attempt be made 
to get such advice. Unless there be some one, with 
full rights of membership, to probe into what can 
“per impossibile”’ be got from science, it is no comfort 
to know that there exist outside the Council advisers of 
great skill—since they wouldnot be consulted—nay, they 
could not be consulted owing to the difficulty for the in- 
expert to pose the question even if he suspects the want. 
A strong case can be made out for a scientific 
member of council—present at the fountain-head of 
war policy—at the place where the large problems 
arise, just as there is, at present, a finance member 
of council. The analogy of the finance member is 
apt because the public mind is far more financially sensi- 
tive and sane than scientifically acute and trained. 
Indeed, these councils themselves are almost certainly 
more awake to finance than they are to science. Is 
there not a House of Commons and a Press with money 
sense and taxation sensitiveness? But there is no 
similar power behind the scientific aspects of the case. 
It is not worth while to pose the false dilemma: which 
won the war, money or science? But it may be said 
that it is no use thinking the nation can safeguard its 
money if it does not safeguard its science. The aware- 
“ness in money matters of the public due to its daily 
preoccupations, its annual state accountancy, etc., has 
ensured for money a representative at headquarters, 
but science has nothing of the kind. 
No doubt the appeal of science would be better 
appreciated if it were expressed on terms of money. 
As an illustration of this the following episode is 
worth relating. The war council of a certain State 
was in session. A grave question had to be settled: 
advisers were outside the sacred chamber whence a 
member of council emerged, and, taking aside a man 
of science of European reputation who was in at- 
tendance and in the employ of that Army, propounded 
a question. As happens in such cases the inquiry 
sounded like: ‘“‘ How far is it from Somaliland to 
Good Friday ?” so that the reply (and who has not 
gone through this ordeal!) began by hypothecating 
the alternative possible meanings and an inquiry as to 
which was intended. ‘I am not here to be interro- 
gated but to be answered,” was the reply inspired by 
a very proper fear of disclosing a clue to the secret 
policy in contemplation. The representative of science 
NO. 2790, VOL. III] 

then gave an elementary lecture in which he reserved 
with dramatic instinct the essence of his reply for the 
climax. Before that was reached, however, the august 
member had excused himself and returned to his 
colleagues—fortified as a schoolboy would be for the 
reading of Plato by a knowledge of his subject limited 
to the alphabet. In the sequel some millions (not 
of marks) were expended on the scheme, which, how- 
ever, was unfruitful. : 
Events and actions of this kind can be avoided 
only if the following principles are borne in mind : 
(x) It is difficult even to ask for scientific advice 
so as to get it—unless the inquirer has scientific training. — 
(2) After asking for advice it cannot be taken without 
scientific training. : =e 
(3) When advice is taken it cannot be made effective 
without scientific training. 
(4) However scientifically competent a man may 
be, he cannot advise on a case without knowing a fond 
how the problem arose and when, what qualifies it, 
and what alternatives might be employed to bye-pass 
the difficulty while still arriving at the goal. 
It must be accepted that a genuine and thorough 
scientific training is not compatible with the multi- 
farious changes of duty, changes of locality, changes 
of personnel, etc., essential to naval, military, and air 
force training. The development of a versatile, more 
or less uniformly trained force requires a rota of occupa- 
tions by which officers and men, at stated periods of 
two or three years, are moved on to the various forms 
or classes which constitute the war school we call the 
Army, Navy, and Air Force. It is an accepted prin- — 
ciple that no fighting man must become an indispensable 
expert ; his loss would be too severe a discomfiture— — 
his zpse dixit too formidable a threat to authority— 
his specialised training, and the unexpected bye-paths 
into which the laws of Nature would lead him, too 
incompatible with the whole principle of a versatile 
force of obedient and capable units united by a sedul- 
ously cultivated esprit de corps. 
This is sound policy, and its acceptance leads to the 
conclusion that the scientific member of council can- 
not, any more than the finance member, be one of the 
routine organisation as we know it. We need scarcely 
plead here, after the War, that there is not, in a man 
of distinguished scientific attainments, any inherent 
unworthiness to be entrusted with State secrets. There 
is nothing peculiar about a suitably selected major- 
general that makes him a more acceptable recipient 
of such secrets than an equally well-chosen man of 
science. Nor yet is administrative ability incompatible 
with the widest range of scientific attainments. 
The present-day divorce between the science which 
must infuse the war machine and the men who ad- 
minister it is mot of all time. Of old, as now, transport, 




