THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 17 



for adoption for human benefit, under a form of society quicker to 

 realise their advantage, readier to raise the capital required, readier 

 to pay any price for dislocation and to adjust the framework of 

 society accordingly. A formidable list of these potentialities can 

 be prepared, and there is little doubt that with a mentality adjusted 

 for change, society could advance much more rapidly. But there 

 is a real distinction between the methods of adopting whatever it 

 is decided to adopt, and the larger question of a more thoroughgoing 

 adoption. In proportion as we can improve the impact of the 

 present amount of innovation, we can face the problem of a larger 

 amount or faster rate. Unless most scientific discoveries happen 

 to come within the scope of the profit motive, and it is worth some- 

 one's while to supply them to the community, or unless the com- 

 munity can be made sufficiently scientifically minded to include 

 this particular demand among their general commercial demands, 

 or in substitution for others, nothing happens — the potential never 

 becomes actual. It has been computed that a benevolent dictator 

 could at a relatively small expense, by applying our modern know- 

 ledge of diet, add some two inches to the average stature and seven 

 or eight pounds to the average weight of the general population, 

 besides enormously increasing their resistance to disease. But 

 dictators have disadvantages, and most people prefer to govern their 

 own lives indifferently, rather than to be ideal mammals under 

 orders. To raise their own standard of scientific appreciation of 

 facts is the better course, if it is not Utopian. It has been clear for 

 long enough that a diversion of part of the average family budget 

 expenditure from alcohol to milk would be of great advantage. 

 But it has not happened. If the individual realised the fact, it 

 certainly might happen. It is ironically remarked that the giving 

 of free milk to necessitous children, with all the net social gain that 

 it may bring about, has not been a considered social action for its 

 own sake, but only the by-product emergency of commercial pres- 

 sure — not done at the instance of the Ministry of Health or the 

 Board of Education, but to please the Milk Marketing Board by 

 reducing the surplus stocks of milk in the interests of the producer ! 

 Scientists see very clearly how, if politicians were more intelligent, 

 if business men were more disinterested and had more social 

 responsibility, if governments were more fearless, far-sighted, and 

 flexible, our knowledge could be more fully and quickly used to the 

 great advantage of the standard of life and health — the long lag could 

 be avoided, and we should work for social ends. It means, says 

 Mr. Julian Huxley, ' the replacement of the present socially irrespon- 

 sible financial control by socially responsible planning bodies.' Also, 

 it obviously involves very considerable alterations in the structure 

 and objectives of society, and in the occupations and pre-occupations 



