Science and Government

Abstract

A LECTURE entitled "Science and Government", recently delivered to the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow by Prof. J. Graham Kerr, raises questions of the widest concern. Its theme is the utilization of science in the interests of the community and the inculcation of scientific methods of thought into governance-matters outside the sphere of party politics. Prof. Graham Kerr is a believer in democracy and prefers our bureaucratic system to that of totalitarian States; the former is slow in action but flexible, while the latter, though more speedy in action, has a certain rigidity, and its dependence on the ability and principles of the individual renders it liable to a sudden collapse. He compares the bureaucratic machine to an organism. Its increase in size contains its own elements of danger in the development of a longer and longer chain of organization, which is liable to have weak links and thus to break down under strain.