Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/749

Rh experience—that is, on science—but the mere fact that statesmen are constantly impelled to act at once in directions which very imperfectly correspond to their own conceptions of what is really best throws a shadow of doubt and uncertainty over the scientific character of the studies concerned. It is felt, not unreasonably, that if those who are most concerned to be acquainted with the best methods of political research forbear to turn these methods to account at the moment of the utmost need, this is at least as likely to result from the inherently imperfect and illogical nature of the branch of knowledge in question as from any other cause. To this comprehensive skepticism some of the classes of facts above adverted to may be held to supply an answer. The unscientific character of a policy adopted at any crisis has often been an exact measure of the amount of external pressure applied through the competition of factions, or through the impetuosity of a populace only jaded into an unwonted attention to political affairs by exceptional events. Where this pressure is not at hand, rulers still may, indeed, through unworthy influences and motives, prefer the worse to the better way; but enough instances of the persistent maintenance of a deliberately adopted policy in the face of the most seductive allurements to fluctuation have been exhibited to show that it can not be fairly alleged that Politics must necessarily be unscientific because few in the real business of life have time, or liberty, or tenacity of purpose, sufficient to withstand the impetuous torrent of popular zeal generated by sudden crises or catastrophes.

Probably the most real and enduring objection to the claims of Politics to assume the rank of a true science is the confessedly immature and imperfectly developed character of the component or preparatory studies, apart from which, in their combination with each other, the study of Politics can not be pursued. It has already been noticed that the complex and composite nature of political studies is of itself a presumption against the facility, if not against the possibility, of ever imparting to those studies the rigorous certainty essential to Science. But this presumption is greatly increased by the fact that in such broad but indispensable preparatory studies confessedly of a scientific aspect—as Ethics, Economics, and Jurisprudence, there are to be found only the very smallest' number of uncontroverted propositions. And, even as to the logical methods applicable in each branch of knowledge, no generally assented-to decisions have yet been accepted.

There is thus afforded to the skeptically-minded a wide opening for treating as unscientific a study which, like that of Politics, must be built up on conclusions yet to be established in those other regions of knowledge, but none of which are as yet established with a certainty which is beyond debate. Nevertheless, if it be admitted that those component studies are capable of being placed on a strictly scientific foundation, and only wait for longer time and attention to assume