第69章 CHAPTER V(7)

All this may seem too much like loose generality. With a view to such precision as the case admits, it may be remarked that this province of academic science as habitually pursued, is commonly occupied with questions of what ought to be done, rather than with theories of the genesis and causation of the present-day state of things, or with questions as to what the present-day drift of things may be, as determined by the causes at work. As it does in popular speculation, so also in this academic quasi-science, the interest centres on what ought to be done to improve conditions and to conserve those usages and conventions that have by habit been imbedded in the received scheme of use and wont, and so have come to be found good and right. It is of the essence of popular speculations on this range of topics that they are focussed on questions of use; that they are of a teleological order; that they look to the expediency of the observed facts and to their exploitation, rather than to a scientific explanation of them. This attitude, of course, is the attitude of expediency and homiletics, not of scientific inquiry.

A single illustrative instance of the prevalence of this animus in the academic social sciences may be in place. It is usual among economists, e.g., to make much of the proposition that economics is an "art" -- the art of expedient management of the material means of life; and further that the justification of economic theory lies in its serviceability in this respect. Such a quasi-science necessarily takes the current situation for granted as a permanent state of things; to be corrected and brought back into its normal routine in case of aberration, and to be safeguarded with apologetic defence at points where it is not working to the satisfaction of all parties. It is a "science"of complaisant interpretations, apologies, and projected remedies.

The academic leaders in such a quasi-science should be gifted with the aspirations and limitations that so show up in its pursuit. Their fitness in respect of this conformity to the known middle-class animus and apprehension of truth may, as it expediently should, be considered when their selection for academic office and rank is under advisement; but, provided the choice be a wise one, there need be no shadow of constraint during their incumbency. The incumbent should be endowed with a large capacity for work, particularly for "administrative" work, with a lively and enduring interest in the "practical" questions that fall within his academic jurisdiction, and with a shrewd sense of the fundamental rightness of the existing order of things, social, economic, political, and religious. So, by and large, it will be found that these accredited leaders of scientific inquiry are fortunate enough not narrowly to scrutinize, or to seek particular explanation of, those institutional facts which the conservative common sense of the elderly businessman accepts as good and final; and since their field of inquiry is precisely this range of institutional facts, the consequence is that their leadership in the science conduces more to the stability of opinions than to the advancement of knowledge.

The result is by no means that nothing is accomplished in this field of science under this leadership of forceful mediocrity, but only that, in so far as this leadership decides, the work done lies on this level of mediocrity. Indeed, the volume of work done is large and of substantial value, but it runs chiefly on compilation of details and on the scrutiny and interpretation of these details with a view to their conformity with the approved generalizations of the day before yesterday, --generalizations that had time to grow into aphoristic commonplaces at a date before the passing generation of businessmen attained their majority.

What has just been said of this academic leadership in the social sciences, of course, applies only with due qualification.