ABSTRACT
When I speak of scientific government I ought, perhaps, to explain what I mean by the term. I do not mean simply a government composed of men of science. There were many men of science in the government of Napoleon, including Laplace, who, however, proved so incompetent that he had to be dismissed in a very short time. I should not consider Napoleon’s government scientific while it contained Laplace, or unscientific when it lost him. I should define a government as in a greater or less degree scientific in proportion as it can produce intended results: the greater the number of results that it can both intend and produce, the more scientific it is. The framers of the American Constitution, for example, were scientific in safeguarding private property, but unscientific in attempting to introduce a system of indirect election for the Presidency. The governments which made the first world war were unscientific, since they all fell during the course of it. There was, however, one exception, namely Serbia, which was completely scientific, as the result of the War was exactly what was intended by the Serbian
government which was in power at the time of the Serajevo murders.
