That is a virtue, but it becomes a very thin virtue when it is merely
a corrective for the unwholesome position of social science. For the
scholar is condemned to guess as shrewdly as he can why in a situation
not clearly understood something or other may have happened. But the
expert who is employed as the mediator among representatives, and as
the mirror and measure of administration, has a very different control
of the facts. Instead of being the man who generalizes from the facts
dropped to him by the men of action, he becomes the man who prepares
the facts for the men of action. This is a profound change in his
strategic position. He no longer stands outside, chewing the cud
provided by busy men of affairs, but he takes his place in front of
decision instead of behind it. To-day the sequence is that the man of
affairs finds his facts, and decides on the basis of them; then, some
time later, the social scientist deduces excellent reasons why he did
or did not decide wisely. This ex post facto relationship is academic
in the bad sense of that fine word. The real sequence should be one
where the disinterested expert first finds and formulates the facts
for the man of action, and later makes what wisdom he can out of
comparison between the decision, which he understands, and the facts,
which he organized.
4
For the physical sciences this change in strategic position began
slowly, and then accelerated rapidly.
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