Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/867

Rh on the one hand and depletion on the other. We want neither over-nutrition nor innutrition. We want brain-direction, but we want spontaneous activity in local centers. We want a proper division of labor, a proper specialization of function. We want a stable equilibrium of society such as results from free contact with natural influences and conditions. To say that a knowledge of the normal and pathological conditions of the human body would be of no advantage—would be even a drawback—for the understanding of social phenomena and the guidance of social action, seems to us a most unreasonable position. We should say that it would be a great and signal advantage provided only—as we have already hinted—that the physiologist knew enough to recognize that social facts call for somewhat wider canons of interpretation than physiological ones.

But there is positively no science that will not bring its own quota of aid to statesmanship. Chemistry, with its definite laws of combination, its resemblances concealed under differences and differences concealed under resemblances, throws many a gleam of light on the phenomena of human action. So with physics, so even with mathematics. But when we speak of science aiding statesmanship, be it understood that we mean statesmanship, and not merely the art of the political manager. The statesman can afford to have a mind widened and enriched by every variety of knowledge. Why? Because it is his concern to know the truth about everything, in order that he may consult for the general good to the best possible advantage; because he wishes to mark out such lines for political activity as run parallel with those that Nature has traced in bringing man up to the political stage; because he wishes to build on Nature's foundations, and so help to establish a natural and durable order of things in the political world. The party manager, on the other hand, has nothing to do with these things: he wants to organize victory for his party, and for that purpose he only requires the aid of a very special science—the science of catching votes. At present there is not much science in our politics. Madame Adam need not tremble lest accomplished physiologists should disturb the American system with methods borrowed from the laboratory. We keep all such people at a safe distance, and pay honor only to the manipulator of the caucus and the primaries. But when politics comes to be recognized as the science of good government instead of as the science of getting hold of the governments the need for statesmanship will begin to be felt; and with the demand for statesmanship will come a recognition of the fact that the highest and widest knowledge can nowhere be more profitably or honorably employed than in the service of the community.

of war continue to reach us from abroad, and appear to grow more serious with each succeeding repetition. They are often accompanied, it is true, by expressions of a desire for peace, emanating in some cases from those highest in authority; but these seem to be little more than the shallowest pretense, for they are belied by the systematic and unremitting preparations for conflict so generally apparent. Yet these very preparations are in turn impudently justified as tending to the preservation of peace and good-will. Taking advantage of the excitement and solicitude that the prospect of a great European war is calculated to arouse, the spendthrift politicians of our own country are vigorously urging their schemes for the multiplication and improvement of our coast defenses and the increase of our naval armament. These measures are