The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-27
SCIENCE AND POLITICS.
The Difference Between Knowing
Things and. Doing Them.


London Spectator: There must be
some reason for the fact upon which
the Duke of Devonshire dweIt in his
address to- the Royal society, that
statesmen have never been men of
science, nor men of science statesmen.
OF the fact itself there is, we conceive,
no kind of serious doubllt Two of the
Ptolemies We're deeply interested in
scientific research, and promoted in
Testigation in every way they could,
but there is no proof that they them
selves did more than facilitate and
perhaps understand, the labOrs of
other men. Some of the princes of the
Renaissance loved art, and understood
engineering; but art is not science and
NAV be even a great engineer
Brindley and Stephenson, for example
without any attainment of knowledge
that can properly be called scientific.
Napoleon knew something of mathe-
mates, and through life protected in
quirers, displaying a willingness even
to spend money upon some kinds of
research; but he threw away a solid
chance OF the empire of the world be-
cause he could not understand Fulton's
explanation of the principle of his
steamboat. In our own day no man
of high scientific repute has obtained
even a prominent place in politics ex-
cept NJ. Paul Bert, and he failed in it:
while we know Of no king or other
ruler of men whom the Royal society.
voting on scientific grounds alone,
would admit into it's ranks Lord
Salisbury loves chemistry, and might.
had fortune favored him, have rivaled
OF. surpassed Lord Kelvin; but fortune
did not favor him, and if he has learned
much in science, he has done nothing.
The fact IS the more striking because
for many ages the most successful
statesmen were also soldiers, and there
is something in the military art which
inclines the masters of it toward
scientific inquiry.
1t was rot a soldier, however, who
discovered gunpowder, nor will it prob
ably be 2 soldier who will solve the
problem of directing military balloons
or find out method of destroying
fleets at sea without risking a fleet in
the operation, or teach US how to use
electricity as a weapon in war. Indeed,
one would have thought that science
would fascinate statesmen, for, after
all, the most pressing problems before
the kings are how to feed their people,
and how to fill their treasures, and
scientific agriculture and scientific To-
comotion might have removed both diff
ficulties from the path. The statesmen
have not, however, shown either pa
tience o. inyentiveness in such mat
ters, and the reason why is clearly not
upon the surface. The Duke of Devon
shire suggests that it is lack of time:
but that is only one of the thoughts
that come to man while he is speak
ing It does not explain in the least
why Laplace, who won q dukedOm, was
exceptionally a blunderer in politics, or
why the endless leisure of many kings
has not been made pleasant by investi-
VHT Il 70 n
as a broad proposition, whether there
ever is such a thing as lack of time:
whether. that is, a man ever fails to
find time for that which interests him
strongly, be it to pursue pleasure or to
practice art, or to master some absorb
ing study. Science may be hobby like
another, and for his hobby every man
has time. II have no time,' one hears
a politician say, with a sigh which is
not cutie spontaneous, even to open
a book" but he never did half Mr..
Gladstone's work, and where is the
book Mr. Gladstone has not opened?
We should be inclined to suggest to
the Duke of Devonshire and all Eel
lows of the Royal Society that scientific
men are seldom statesmen. because
the two pursuits require radically diff
ferent qualities of mind. To be a sue
cessful ruler, a man must understand
men, not things, and must use results
rather than seek to discover how they
came. Eager curiosity, which is the
first condition of a great man of re-
search, is no qualification for a king,
or, rather it is a disqualification, his
mind wasting itself, as that of the last
emperor of Brazil wasted itself, upon
inquiry into processes. That worthy
sovereign was devoted to scientific in
quiry, and was dethroned more easily
than any chairman of a village meet
ing. A great king sets himself to dis
cover great agents, and then, if he sup
ports them, his work is done; but in
discovering them, the habit of patient
investigation into nature will not help
him one whit. The predecessor of VIII
liam l of Germany, who was a man Of
fine brains, if he had possessed all the
scientific powers of Professor Roent-
gen, would not have discerned Won
Moltke or have supported Bismarck
when he was most inconvenient; while,
had his successor, the least intellectual
of men, devoted himself to astronomy
most ennobling of sciences-he would
not have made a nation. Bacon, who
had the perfectly scientific mind as well
as much scientific knowledge, made a
sad mess of his own career, and few
men will believe that Sir Isaac Newton,
first among observers of genius, would
have ruled England half as well as Sir
Robert Walpole, who was at bottom
registering country squire, with a ca
pacity for managing Englishmen. The
modern statesman VINO is not q king,
and who is bound, therefore, to do his
Work for himself, has to understand
the mind of the people, to make his
will and their will fit and to utilize
every opportunity without inquiring
too closely how the opportunity
arose. He mas to deal on a great
scale with phenomena, and interest in
the causes of those phenomena, which
acts like a dragging force on the man
of science, would only district his at
tention.
If you set a great electrician to drive
a motor cab through the city you should
send after him carefully driven am
xulance. What said a friend to a
vHry great man of science, will the
Roentgen ray''-then newly discovered
do for us?'' L don't know" was
the reply, and I don't care. I want
to know what the Roentgen ray is
The questioner was not a statesman,
but it was he and not his far ADLER
intercolutOr who had the statesnans
mind. It is nothing to the latter to
know why a new explosive FcatterS
death; it is everything to be clear as to
what it can and cannot do, to find the
artillerist who can use it, and to form
an accurate judgment as to what kind
of troops will fear it's deadly effects
the least The difference between the
man of science and the statesman COW
ers the whole distance between the in
curing mind and the mind of judd
merlt and we might as we'll expect