NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21493, 17 May 1933, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS

NEUROSIS OF HURRY "The Nineteenth Century will go down to history as the period of human existence when everybody was in a hurry," writes the medical correspondent of the Times Trade and Engineering Supplements "But all this has now been changed. Hurry has reached such a point that its true character is revealed. Having learned how to travel at hundreds of miles an hour, we wish, many of us at any rate, to 'stay put' in our gardens. Why bother to get on or get thero when 'there' is so tiresome a place that having arrived we desire only to leave again? And so tho worship of hurry is growing cold. Men, and women too, are beginning to learn how to sit still and, think. It is a good sign, even though ono has to use spectacles, so far, to see it. For it means that tho neurotic symptoms which have characterised the world during so many years will begin to pass away."

SCIENCE AND STATESMANSHIP "We have lately heard much vaguo talk about a body of doctrine—if that is not too serious a phrase for it — called technocracy, a name which seems to suggest that the muddled business of ruling the world should be taken out of the hands of statesmen and entrusted to the cleverer fingers of the technical expert. I have seen that urged as a way out of our distresses. Wo should, I think, pause before exchanging the frying-pan for the fire," writes Sir Alfred Ewing in the Hibbcrt Journal on "Science and Social Problems." "It is easy to discover in the politician material for criticism, but I recognise that he should have, and often docs have, qualities different from those that make for success in the pursuit of science and its applications. 1 see no prospect of advantage in taking men from jobs which they do well, jobs that require a special kind of aptitude trained along narrow lines, and turning them instead to tasks that demand a different temper and a wider outlook. It is true th.it the scientific man's habit in his own subject is to take a dispassionate view, and there are public questions in which that would be of no small service. But he is little likely, to be successful in gauging and controlling the emotions of the crowd. I don't think that an eye accustomed, so to speak, to the microscope is best fitted for a comprehensive survey of international relations, or even for a discerning vision of national affairs. * THE INDIAN MIND Sir S. Radhakrishnan delivered the Convocation address at the Nagpur University. "Equip yourself for the new era of social harmony and, progress of which you can in your own way be the creators," he said. " The function of pur university must be not only to produce scholars with the prophetic vision, but also leaders of the new democracy. Butthis democracy is not rule by a rabble or a caucus. It is not submission to mass opinion or obedience to dictators. There is no finer definition of democracy than that of Mazzini, who said that 'it is the progress of all, through all, under the leadership of the wisest and best'; 'the wisest and best,' not merely the best born. We want leaders who are not anxious to keep their seats of leadership, but who are prepared to tell the truth and guide us to a right solution of our problems. There is a temptation for an uneducated or half-educated democracy to put in places of power men of forensic ability, political dexterity or money power. Such a temptation is difficult to overcome unless the electorate has intelligence and ability, public spirit and independence, qualities which cannot be got to order. . , . Those who secure for us the vision of a new order of sdciety and help us to emerge from the ignoranco and brutality of a merely science-bred civilisation and realise the splendid powers of life are. our benefactors." MASTERS OF ECONOMICS "A man who has never studied geology for an adequate period under a qualified instructor will seldom undertake to determine for himself whether a given statement, relative to the underlying strata of the earth, is geological truth or geological error. There are exceptions, but they do no more than prove the rule," says Professor B. K. Sandwell in the journal of the Canadian Bankers' Association. "But a man who has never studied economies will not hesitate to determine for himself, and for anybody elso uho will listen to him, whether a givcu statement relating to economic phenomena is economic truth or economic error. He will mako this venture for any one of a score of reasons, many of them of tlio most frivolous character. Ho will do it on account of his religious convictions; ho will do it on account of his personal financial interests; and there is scarcely a single economic question calling for solution to-day that does not touch the pockets of half the citizenry. He will do it because of his political party. He will do it because of his fraternal society. Ho will do it for no reason at all except a lively certainty that ho knows just as much about economics as an economics professor, and probably more, because he has not wasted all his time in an economics library. He will do ib becauso ho believes that economics is not a thing that needs to be studied anyhow; a really intelligent man knows all about economics just as he knows all about women, because God made Jiirn that way^"