Although I have found it a more natural usage to speak more often of ‘scientific method’ than of ‘scientism’, yet nothing I have written so far has meant to preclude the possibility that the logic of ‘the science of politics’ could be based upon a misunderstanding of ‘scientific method’ or ‘science’ rather than upon a misapplication. It can confidently be said, even before entering into this obscure and often passionate realm, that ‘the scientific spirit’ can in no manner be blamed for bad political theory. What I regard as Professor Lasswell’s repudiation of the great and good Western tradition of constitutional politics does not flow from the spirit of modern science, but from his own culturally conditioned (but not determined)1

understanding and envy of technology. We all know that the pure scientist himself often has to fight hard against the practical, financial and psychological allurements of applied research. I have not suppressed Merriam and Lasswell’s writings on the philosophy of science; they simply do not exist. But I think that I have already shown, perhaps more than fully, the great concern of Lasswell to reduce politics to a series of statistical techniques. But, be this as it may, there still remains the question of what grounds there are for the belief that there is a method or methods of natural science which can be extended to the so-called social sciences.