ABSTRACT
It is the question of how to make the best use of the expert that constitutes one of the crucial issues for the administration of criminal justice to-day. So far, criminal courts have not been altogether fortunate in their handling of this intricate matter. Their difficulties are of a twofold character: there is, first, the general mistrust of the expert which many a magistrate shares with the man in the street. 1 Both are equally apt to regard the “rule of the expert” as the mortal danger to the rule of law and to democracy. They refuse to see that most of the ills from which modern society suffers are due not to an excessive but to an insufficient or at least one-sided use of expert knowledge. It is perhaps not out of place at this time of the day to quote Professor Webster's recent description of peace-making after the last war,
how men, who came entirely new to diplomatic problems, grasped at solutions of whose imperfection they were dimly aware. The experts were often thrust on one side when they produced inconvenient conclusions, and amateur schemes were hastily adopted. Some of the worst points in the treaties came without intention by the use of such methods. 2
