president's address. 9 



for the study of one of the most abstruse branches of knowledge may- 

 be expressed in terms which bring them down to the level at which 

 comparison with other subjects is possible. Applying the same 

 reasoning to other occupations, the same conclusion is inevitable. The 

 commercial man, the politician, and the artist must all possess the type 

 of memory best suited to concentrate in the field of mental vision 

 their own experiences as well as what they have learned from the 

 experience of others ; and, further, they must have the power of select- 

 ing out of a multitude of possible lines of action the one that leads to 

 success : it is this power which Poincare calls the inventive faculty. 



The argument must not be pushed too far, as it would be absurd to 

 affirm that all differences in the capability of deahng successfully with 

 the peculiar problems that occur in the various professions may be 

 reduced to peculiarities of memory. I do not even wish to assert that 

 Poincar^'s conclusions should be accepted without qualification in the 

 special case discussed by him. What is essential, to my mind, is to 

 treat the question seriously, and to dismiss the vague generalities 

 which, by drawing an artificial barrier between different groups of 

 professions, try to cure real or imaginary defects through plausible 

 though quite illusory remedies. All these recommendations are based on 

 the fallacy that special gifts are associated with different occupations. 

 Sometimes we are recommended to hand over the affairs of the nation 

 to men of business; sometimes we are told that salvation can only 

 be found in scientific methods— what is a man of business, and what is a 

 scientific method ? If you define a man of business to Ibe one capable of 

 managing large and complicated transactions, the inference becomes self- 

 evident; but if it be asserted that only the specialized training in com- 

 mercial transactions can develop the requisite faculties, the only proof of 

 the claim^ that could be valid would be the one that would show that the 

 great majority of successful statesmen, or political leaders, owed their 

 success to their commercial experience. On the other hand, every 

 method that leads to a correct result must be called a scientific method, 

 and what requires substantiating is that scientific training is better than 

 other training for discovering the correct method. This proof, as well as 

 the other, has not been, and, I think, cannot be, given. When, there- 

 fore, one man calls for the conduct of affairs ' on business lines ' and the 

 other clamours for scientific methods, they either want the same thing or 

 they talk nonsense. The v,'eak point of these assertions contrasting 

 different classes of human efforts is that each class selects its own 

 strongest men for comparison with the weakest on the other side. 

 Where technical knowledge is required, the specialist should be con- 

 sulted, but in questions of general policy he is seldom the best guide. 

 The most fatal distinction that can be made is the one which brings 



