Democracy and the Expert

THE giving of a course of popular lectures at the Harvard Medical School is a matter of public importance, and marks, as I believe, a new era, not only in the history of medicine, but in the history of democracy. In giving these lectures, the School has definitely adopted the policy of educating the people on the subject of disease, and has thereby taken a radical departure from the traditional attitude of the medical profession. The main service that the school has thus rendered has not been in the saving of lives of persons who might otherwise have resorted to the popular American expedient of consulting the fence or the newspaper for revelations concerning their physical welfare, nor even in setting the example of an effective way of such saving of life and health. I believe that the great, and what I think will some time be called epoch-making, service that the Harvard Medical School has performed by becoming a pioneer in this new direction is in the fact that such a proceeding on their part means the taking of a long first step in making up the old standing quarrel between democracy and the expert.

That such a quarrel exists is sufficiently recognized. Unwillingness to trust and adequately reward the expert is one of the standing reproaches against democracy. It is more than a mere shortcoming; it seems often to amount to a positive enmity, to a dislike of fitness as such, to a perverse preference for the incompetent. We sometimes seem to delight in humiliating true accomplishment, and in entrusting our business to quacks.

Especially is this the case in public affairs, as to which democracy has its fullest swing. If a man has devoted years to special study of a matter that comes before a legislative committee, that very fact goes far to disqualify him as a witness. Successful appeal will be very apt to be made from him to “ common sense,” or to “ the judgment of business men,” which phrases are among the ordinary pet names for ignorant prejudice and incompetence. Genuine achievement is habitually passed over in favor of something “ equally as good,” —pure gold for tinsel. We have made ourselves the laughing-stock of the world by our easy credulity toward any political quack who will take the trouble to flatter our conceit. We are more easily, and more contentedly, fleeced by sharpers, poisoned by quacks, and ruined by shyster lawyers, than any people on earth. We allow ourselves to be governed by dishonest and impudent pretenders, and sometimes to be led in war by braggart and not always courageous charlatans. Our unwillingness to pay our judges such salaries as will command the highest legal ability costs us millions of dollars every month, through the preposterous length of court proceedings, the not infrequent perversion of justice, and the general lowering of standard in the whole administration of the law which inevitably results.

And the worst of it all is that our fault is not merely a mental one: it has a moral quality in it, and the loss accordingly is not merely a material but a moral one. Our easy victimizing results not wholly from mental incapacity to distinguish between the true and the counterfeit. It arises partly from a certain meanness in which democracy is seen at its very worst; from jealousy, from the sneaking envy of the incapable or uneducated man toward those of better training or greater ability than himself. That a mountebank like General Butler came to be chosen representative of a Massachusetts district in Congress, in preference to a citizen of the known worth and capacity of Judge Hoar, was not because anybody was deceived as to the comparative merits of the men, but partly because Hoar was no flatterer, and partly because of the very fact that every voter felt in his bones that he was the superior man. No man felt uneasy in the presence of Butler’s virtue.

Democracy’s attitude toward the expert is a mean and foolish attitude. No greater service can be rendered to the democratic cause than that which shall cleanse it of this fault. Generous, whole-hearted, enthusiastic recognition of superior ability and training, a reverent appreciation of high character and high attainment, and a capacity to trust and value these as they deserve: these are virtues which democracy cannot set itself too resolutely to attain, nor can it value too highly any lesson that will assist it in their cultivation.

But the need of such enlightenment has, as I have said, been long and clearly recognized. What has not been recognized is the fact that the fault has not been altogether upon one side, that for the making up of the quarrel it is necessary, not only that democracy should experience a change of heart, but that the expert should recognize that he also has something to learn and to amend. Indeed the bottom fact of all, and one which has hitherto received no recognition whatever, is that the fault of the expert has been the deeper and the more responsible of the two. If democracy has sinned against the expert, the expert has sinned more deeply against democracy; and his sin has been of such a nature as to constitute an offense not only against democracy, but also against good manners and good sense, and against the eternal principles of truth. It is primarily from this fault on the part of the expert that the whole quarrel has arisen, and no fundamental and lasting reconciliation can take place until this fault is cured.

What has been through all the ages the expert’s attitude toward the common people? What has been the customary answer of the lawyer, the doctor, the man of science, when asked for proofs or explanations, when questioned as to the sources of his knowledge or the basis of his claim to public confidence? What is at the present time, or at least what has been until very recently, the answer of our railroad presidents when the surviving members of the public have inquired as to the reasons for the slaughter of their friends and relatives, or the ruin of their business through illegal favoritism? Has not the expert’s answer in all ages been practically the same ? “ Keep off, ye profane.” “ Seek not to penetrate mysteries too high for you.” “Meddle not with matters above your sphere.” “Aspire not beyond thy goose, O tailor.” “ Shoemaker, stick to your last.” “ A little learning is a dangerous thing.”

No layman, we are assured, can hope to understand the secrets of the railroad business. One great specialist has asserted that few even of the railroad men themselves can understand it. Any attempt on the part of the public to penetrate the causes of these slaughters and discriminations is presumptuous interference. It is better to pay with a thankful heart our annual tribute of killed and maimed and burned, of ruined business, than to unsettle by unskillful interference such mighty and such delicate concerns. Just so were the military snobs in Thackeray’s time, with the greatest military expert then living, the Iron Duke, at their head, assuring everybody that flogging, even to the death, was a necessary incident to the maintenance of an army, and that the lay intellect had best not meddle with things beyond its depth. “ Go your way and be thankful that there are those who know better than you, whose business it is to deal with matters such as these.” And as we retreat, dumbfounded, abashed, some Kipling or Carlyle rushes out from beneath the shrine and barks at us, shrieking that we are “ mostly fools,” and rendering other expert opinions as to our mental capacity, mingled with assertions that any man with sufficient impudence to make the claim, and master of the more brutal arts of leadership, is our natural king.

To such an attitude, what ought the people to respond ? Assuming that we on our side keep our temper, what, in all meekness and humility, and with every desire to recognize the expert’s real superiority, is it possible for us to answer ? You say that democracy does not appreciate the expert, docs not trust him as he deserves. But how can we trust him if the only ground on which human confidence can be based — if all opportunity of understanding — is taken from us ? How can we properly appreciate those who declare that appreciation — the setting of a price — as to the things in which they deal is a feat beyond our strength ? Our very attempt to appreciate or to understand is, we are made to feel, presumptuous and profane. Is democracy so greatly to be blamed if it has replied, —

“Great sir, exalted brother of the Sun and Moon, I salute and bow to thee. Far be it from such as I to assume to penetrate these mysteries or to set a price on them. They are, as thou hast said, far beyond the humble comprehension of thy servant. And as touching this matter of the disputed toll, or of my wife that thou hast slain, I now will trouble thee no more; but I will place in charge of these my railroads— for in truth they are mine as being created under my franchise, built largely by my money, and as my life and fortune are daily entrusted to them — I will put in charge of these, I say, and also of other interests hitherto entrusted to other great magicians like thyself, certain humble men whose words and whose dealings I can understand, leaving to thee and to thy august fraternity the untroubled pursuit of those loftier studies for which, by your sublime attainments, ye are fitted.”

In this, or in some such way, democracy, it would seem, is constrained to answer if it is to accept the expert’s own interpretation of the nature of his acquirements and of the people’s capacity for valuing these. In the way of the only alternative — that of humble acceptance of the expert on his own terms — certain difficulties arise. In the first place, there is a practical difficulty. Democracy — the world, in fact— is not altogether without experience of experts, and of those claiming to be such. And this experience has not in all instances been reassuring. Time was when the specialist was met with the sort of faith that he requires of us. For many centuries men submitted to the bandage over their eyes when they approached the sanctum or the laboratory. But more recently it has come to light, at first by slow degrees, but now fully and conclusively, that something of the supposed necessity for such observance arose, not from respect for sacred mysteries, but rather from a tender regard for the frail constitution and delicate susceptibilities of humbug. The augurs have been seen snickering to one another too often, and sound reasons for their doing so have been too frequently revealed, to admit of a continuance of our earlier and more childlike faith.

Nor has disillusion affected our opinion only of the quacks. Certain experiences have raised inevitable question even of the soundness of the sound. It has sometimes turned out that even the genuine, instructed, sincere practitioner has not been leading us upon the right road, as tested by the mere human criterion of results. It has sometimes even seemed as though it were inevitably the man who is not an expert — the outsider, the amateur — to whom we have to look for the larger achievements, so far at least as the great steps of progress are concerned.

The common people have seen with interest the country gentleman, Oliver Cromwell, largely self-taught so far as military knowledge was concerned, give the professionals some lessons in the art of war. They have seen legal procedure remodeled by the layman Bentham, and medicine revolutionized by the biologist Pasteur. And they have seen the experts in these two latter instances kicking and struggling in a very panic of professional resentment against any acceptance of the newer light. More recently they have seen the crusade for the prevention of tuberculosis — indeed, a great part of the advance of preventive medicine — led by laymen, and have witnessed the slow and reluctant acceptance by the medical profession of the teachings of outsiders in regard to the mental element in disease. They have seen reason even to suspect that, in the highest profession of all, the very priesthood has not always furnished such safe guidance in spiritual affairs as have the prophets, always from among the laity, to whom they are so invariably opposed.

The doctrine of the expert in government — the ancient faith that wisdom in affairs of state is definitely imparted to the king, or, as Plato taught, is the especial possession of the trained and intellectual classes — has suffered in popular esteem by comparison of the old régime in Europe with the new. It has been further shaken by the exhibition recently afforded by Russia, the extremest example of what unreserved trust in the governmental expert, not merely trained from childhood to his business, but especially bred and selected for it, is able to accomplish. Nor is it possible to remain uninfluenced by contemplation of the effects that the King of Belgium has been able to produce in those portions of his dominions along the Congo River whose fortune it has been to be left wholly to his expert guidance and control. What town meeting, what assembly of a primeval horde, — nay, what herd of buffalo or pack of wolves, —ever mismanaged its affairs as these most supreme and fully trained and trusted of experts have mismanaged theirs ?

The expert himself, it will be seen, has placed certain obstacles in the way of the faith which he demands. And then, supposing us possessed of such faith, to whom does it attach ? How can we tell the true expert from the counterfeit ? Even supernatural guidance presupposes a capacity in the believer for recognizing a miracle when he sees one. Clearly the professing expert’s claim is not sufficient. In the absence of a sign from Heaven, the sign over your door does not suffice.

Plato has well stated the expert’s view of the matter in saying that when you want to take ship for Delos you hire, not a shoemaker or some other amiable citizen, but a pilot; to which the democrat is constrained to answer, “ Most true, O Plato; but forgive me if I suggest that it is I that am going to Delos, and that the necessity is thereby placed upon me to judge of the pilot’s capacity to take me there; that I am therefore; by this necesity, constrained to seek such evidence as may be convincing to my own humble and limited intelligence, both, upon the one hand, as to whether the pilot is a pilot in truth, and also, upon the other, as to whether he intends to take me to Delos and to no other place. You will, perhaps, remember my cousin who took ship, indeed, for Delos, but was landed in Crete, and my aunt who, having made a similar arrangement, was never landed at all. Forgive me, therefore, if, with your kind permission, I make a few trifling inquiries, such as in this matter seem to me to be necessary, before I go aboard.”

It is not because of perversity, but by necessity, that democracy refuses to be blindfolded, that it objects to the notice, “Leave your brains in the umbrella stand when you come in.” — “ Excuse me, sir, but they are the only brains I have. If I am not to use my mind, whose shall I use, and by the use of whose judgment shall I decide to use it? ”

But the practical difficulties in the way of the blind faith that the expert requires of us are as nothing compared to those raised by the terms in which the demand itself is put. In the last analysis, the expert’s claim is a claim to the exemption of himself, and the subjects with which he deals, from the ordinary jurisdiction of the human mind. His attitude toward the common people has been not merely that they do not understand because they have not had time to give to his particular subject, but that they are constitutionally incapable of understanding it. It has been not merely, “You do not know,” but, “ You cannot know. The things I deal with are of a sort from the comprehension of which you are by nature excluded. No amount of study on your part, no explanation on mine, would be of any use.”

Explanation, indeed, has consistently been regarded as worse than useless. According to the tradition of the learned, the common people are still profane. “ Neither meddle nor mell with things above your sphere.” “ The belly and its members: — it is yours to be hands and feet; seek not either to govern or digest.”

And any knowledge of the inner mysteries that the layman may seem to acquire is necessarily false and spurious. What looked to you like knowledge is, by a reversal of the fable of the fairy gold, turned to dross when once you cross the threshold of the sanctuary.

To the anxious inquirer, being no expert but a mere stockholder troubled in his conscience about the source of the dividends he receives, the mill treasurer responds, “ Your question is a vain and foolish one. We have no machines made low for the use of children; the idea is preposterous and absurd.” — “But, most wise, august, and financially respectable Sir, I have seen such machines. They certainly are machines; they are too low for grown people to use; they are used by children; and the superintendent told me that they were intended for such use. You see my difficulty.” To this the expert, “ The things you saw may have looked to you like machines, and the creatures using them like children; and you may have thought the machines were low ones. But we who are learned in this business know that you could not have seen these things. What you really saw, indeed, it is not permitted, nor even possible, to reveal. At least know this: mill management is a mystery, deep and dangerous, whose whole structure would be imperiled by the touch, even by the approach, of the profane.”

In fact, the essence of the expert’s position, in the final analysis, is that expert knowledge is of a different kind from other knowledge: that it is peculiar, esoteric; that it partakes, in short, of the miraculous. It is regarded, not as the product of the purely human faculties, but as revealed, conferred by some sort of initiation or laying on of hands which has raised the acolyte into a sphere which the outsider can never hope to penetrate. The plea is a plea to the jurisdiction. It is a denial of the catholicity and sovereignty of the human mind.

This attitude, indeed, is not deliberately assumed. It is unconsciously accepted by the expert of to-day as he finds it embodied in time-honored tradition. It descends from the days when all learning savored in the popular imagination something of magic and the black art, and when the scholar himself was not quite sure whether the matters he was dealing with were lawful; from the time when the chemist was the alchemist, when it was considered only the normal accompaniment of scientific attainment that the Devil and Doctor Faustus should be on such intimate terms, and when even the craftsman’s skill was called his mystery. It comes down, indeed, from a time anterior even to that, from a time when all experts were assumed as a matter of course to be possessed of inspiration of some sort, either from below or from above, whether as king or judge or oracle or priest or wizard or medicine man.

Of this traditional expert attitude the doctor may, I think, be taken as the typical exponent. He is the expert of the experts. He appears, to the present day, with the tall cap still visible above his brows and the long pictured robe trailing behind, as immortalized by Molière. He comes before us not quite in the daylight of ordinary ascertainable truth, but still something in the manner of the Ghost in Hamlet, trailing clouds of mystery suggestive of some superhuman association. It is perhaps natural that the doctor especially should derive his traditions from the sorcerer and the medicine man; that there should, accordingly, still linger about him something of the atmosphere of magic, of necromancy, a flavor of incantation, “ of charm, of lamen, sigil, talisman, spell, crystal, pentacle, magic mirror, and geomantie figure; of periapts, and abracadabras; of mayfern and vervain; ” a reminiscence of

The doctor has, in its intensest form, the traditional contempt of the specialist for the layman’s knowledge and capacity. “ A little knowledge dangerous ? It is all but fatal.” “ Open your mouth and shut your eyes, and I ’ll give you something to make you — better; wise you cannot hope to be.” Even the plainest facts of medicine are perilous stuff, too heavily charged with potentialities for the layman to be permitted to deal with them. A woman who is trusted to look in her children’s faces, to see whether they look heavy-eyed, seem listless, whether their color is clear and their temper what it ought to be, is often, even to the present day, discouraged from using a clinical thermometer. Of course, there are excellent reasons. A mother must not be too fussy. She will begin to worry about the children if she is permitted to take their temperature. She may, it is true, be safely allowed to observe those other more subtle symptoms about which a person might well imagine things; but when it comes to seeing which scratch on a glass tube a column of mercury has got opposite to, then the danger signal is hung out. That is too difficult a task for her mere maternal mind to cope with.

There are, as I have said, excellent reasons for such warning off. There is also a real reason, though one not conscious on the doctor’s part, namely, that there still lingers in the medical mind a feeling that a medical instrument is an instrument of art, with a little of the quality of enchantment still clinging to it, not to be handled by laymen without incurring the punishment of those who approach forbidden secrets. What if, by her unskillful use, she should unwittingly raise the genie of the thermometer ? Or what if, by using it at all, she should find that there is nothing magic about it, and so should come to doubt the talismanic character of other instruments, to question the supernatural element in the whole of medical science and therapeutics ? If it were a man, the case would not be quite so bad, but woman is the last and most persistent of believers. In her, illusion still survives. Let us not unsettle her belief.

The dissent on the part of democracy from the traditional expert attitude is, as I have indicated, deeper than a question of manners, or even than one of common sense. The issue is not superficial; it is not the result of misunderstanding; nor does it arise from practical considerations alone. It is radical, fundamental, and inevitable.

The cardinal doctrine of democracy — the thing for which it stands, on its intellectual side — is faith in the human mind. Democracy believes that the thing to be forever trusted and followed in this world is the human reason; that guidance in human affairs is to be sought not primarily in tradition, in special revelation, or in any mysteries, or from any sources whatsoever, that are not germane to the human intellect, and that do not hold their credentials from it. This is the democratic principle of equality, the fundamental article of the democratic faith. Not, as glib and superficial critics so readily assume, equality in virtue, or in ability, in fortune, in strength or weight, in stature or in color; not equality in any outward or measurable respect; not an arithmetical equality at all, not quantitative; not a question of amount, but of kind.

The democratic belief in equality is the belief that all men alike are subject to the moral law of obedience to their own best thought, that the supreme authority declares itself, not from the outside but from within. Theologically expressed, it is the belief that God speaks in every human soul, and that it is not in the power of man to overrule his word or supersede his authority. It is the faith announced by Elijah when he declared that God spoke not in the wind nor in the earthquake nor in the fire, but in the still small voice; the faith whose greater prophet proclaimed that the kingdom of Heaven is within you. This faith in the inner voice — faith in equality in the sense that all men are equally, because absolutely, responsible to the best thought of their own unbribed intelligence — is democracy on its intellectual side; just as fraternity, or the love and reverence for the divine element in every man, is the sentiment of democracy, and as the pursuit of liberty, the striving that the divine nature in each may have its way — make ye smooth the way of the Lord — is its active expression.

Democracy cannot recognize limits to the jurisdiction of the human mind not prescribed by the nature of the mind itself. It believes in the authority, and in the obligation, of the human intellect to read the universe unexpurgated, as it stands, unterrified by the notices of “ private way, dangerous,” that individuals, however august, may have taken upon themselves the liberty to set up.

And the thing to be forever recognized in this matter is, that democracy is eternally in the right and the expert in the wrong. The attitude of the expert is essentially a false attitude. It is false with the most irreconcilable kind of falseness. It is contrary not only to particular truths but to the nature of truth itself. There are not two kinds of knowledge in this world, but only one; and there is, correspondingly, but one way in which knowledge can be attained. One man may have more mind than another or a better mind, or he may put his mind to a better use. But no man has a different kind of mind. There is in human acquirement no jumping-off place where the jurisdiction of the human intellect comes to an end and some other jurisdiction takes its place. Columbus sails farther than others, but it is upon the same ocean and by grace of the same wind. Democracy’s dissent from the traditional expert position is based upon the eternal principles of truth, and from that dissent no man who has received the democratic faith can ever truthfully recede.

This democratic creed of ours does not preclude trust in the expert. On the contrary, it is the only creed that makes truly possible that or any other kind of trust. What it does prescribe is the basis of our faith. It requires that whatever trust we place in the expert, or in any other source, shall result from our trust in our own reason and shall derive whatever strength it has from that. Whomever else you hold of, you hold ultimately of the king. If the expert is to have a standing in the world as it really is, it must be through discarding all pretensions to esoteric knowledge and appealing solely to that common human intelligence which he has hitherto despised.

And with the making of such appeal the expert’s ancient quarrel with democracy will disappear. Democracy has no antipathy to specialization as such, no inherent unwillingness to accept the fact that, as we cannot all do everything, we must recognize the superiority of each in his own domain; that, when you keep a dog to bark, you should not bark yourself.

It is true that the function of the expert will always be a subordinate function; that, though he can help you to carry out your purpose, the purpose must be forever, intimately and concretely, your own. His employment must always be to specific ends which you have prescribed, and not for general purposes; and even within the specific end the trust is always revocable. The one act of sovereignty that the mind cannot perform is to abdicate.

There are, also, certain rules of evidence, not technical, nor arbitrarily assumed, but such as are imposed by the nature of the mind itself. As a rule, we prefer to judge of your performance by its fruits, that being the method by which, as it happens, the human mind is most susceptible of being perfectly convinced. Whistler, with characteristic petulance, repudiates all judgment of the artist but by his fellow-artists. We have no quarrel with such judging; on the contrary, there is much that is commendable in a professional standard, and we outsiders can, when necessary, permit ourselves to be guided by it. But such reliance is not always safe. You cannot always choose your architect by the standard of architects, your messenger boy by the standard of messenger boys, your cook by the standard of cooks. Opinion, like the building which the architect erects, cannot wholly support itself; it must rest at some point on the solid ground. Do the buildings actually stand up ? Do the messages get delivered ? Are the puddings, after all, such as one can eat ? It has, unfortunately, sometimes happened that a whole profession has got off upon a side track, each one calling to his neighbor that, as all are traveling together, all must still be on the road. Let the artists by all means judge of one another’s work. But if the picture does not restore my soul. of what use is it to me ?

But, whatever the rules of evidence, the main question is not of the rules, but of the tribunal for whose use, and by whose authority, the rules are made.

Let the expert and all others remember that, whatever the rules, it is for me and not for you to make them. It is I who am making the judgment, and the evidence must be such as to satisfy the court. We of the democratic faith hold ourselves responsible, and utterly responsible, not only for the ends we seek, but for our choice of means. Not that we shall choose right, but that we shall choose in accordance with the only guide we have; that we shall trust, and utterly trust, the judgment of the one supreme tribunal, and shall permit no divided jurisdiction. It may be difficult for me to understand the matter, but except so far as I do understand I cannot judge, and therefore am not at liberty to follow.

And in all this question of when and how to trust, and whom to follow, though judging may in any given case be difficult, there is one comparatively simple test, and one that democracy very generally applies. Does he recognize the jurisdiction of the court ? Does he appeal to your intelligence or against it? Does he say, “ Use your mind, enter, examine, test, and draw your own conclusions ” ? or does he say, “ This is a great mystery; keep out. Seek not to understand” ? According to this test the expert has been tried, and has been found wanting. He is, so far, in contempt of court; and it is this contempt that is the cause of his quarrel with democracy.

It has been this false attitude on the part of the real expert that has given the quack his opportunity; and he has been quick to see and take advantage of it. Just where the honest practitioner has made his one false step, the charlatan has put forward his single claim to stand on solid ground. He has won what share he possesses of the public confidence by appealing, or at least pretending to appeal, to the only thing there is in this world to which an honest appeal can be made,— the natural, unbiased judgment of the human mind. “ Magnetism explained.” “ The mysteries of medical science laid bare.” “ Come and examine our processes.” “Read our testimonials.” “ Send for a booklet.” “ If I could take you over my factory.” The quack does, it is true, make use of mystery and of the fascination of the unknown. Indeed, he uses such means to the utmost. But through it all he pretends always to appeal to reason. He never denies the people’s right to judge, but on the contrary affirms and seems to rely upon it. His constant profession is eagerness to instruct, implying at least a potential ability in the public to understand. People have turned from the true physician to the quack, not wholly from love of quackery and humbug, but because of his apparent truth in this one respect; because in this important matter of trusting or not trusting the human intelligence, the true doctor has been the quack, and the quack has assumed to occupy the true position.

Let the expert once frankly submit himself to the judgment of the lay intelligence and he will not find us exacting as to the sort of testimony lie presents. We will put ourselves in his hands, relying on hearsay evidence, or on the opinion of the profession if need be, provided only that our faith is not inhibited by pretensions that we must regard as false. The people permit Lincoln, in a supreme crisis of their affairs, to spend their money as to him seems best, and accept the fact that Grant must sometimes act as he finds necessary without taking them into his confidence. They can even trust against the evidence, as their pathetic faith in the cook, the steamboat captain, even in railroad management, — a faith that no experience seems able to overthrow, — sufficiently attests. Let us once be assured that the solid ground on which we are accustomed to walk extends unbroken into your sanctum, without pitfall or jumping-off place, and our faith will go forth to you unchecked.

Especially may a profession possessing a standard for its own members that will lead some of them to face death rather than suffer an unverified conclusion as to the cause of a disease, confidently entrust its fortunes to the verdict of the public heart.

And now, if there is anything of truth in my diagnosis of the underlying cause of the estrangement between the expert and democracy, is it not evident that these popular lectures at the Harvard Medical School do constitute in truth an epoch-making event ? Here we have the specialist in his most specialized form, the expert of experts and magician of magicians, the high priest and guardian of the innermost circle, the very medicine man himself, drawing aside the curtain, throwing wide the portals of the sanctuary, haranguing in the very market place, expounding sacred mysteries in language that the people can understand, appealing to, seeking to convince, the lay intelligence. Here, at last and indeed, is Saul among the prophets. And notable, in my opinion, will be the order of the prophesying which it will henceforth be our privilege to hear. If a little learning is in truth a dangerous thing, we are now going to find it out. For learning in smallest doses, and upon the most immediately dangerous of all subjects, is henceforward to be administered broadcast and by those as coming from whose hands it is bound to have its maximum effect.

And is it not evident also what the result must be ? Is it not clear that the effect on the expert of such a change of attitude must be, not his deposition but his inauguration, his coming into his own? He is now to stand before the world, for the first time in history, in a true and not a false position. With the withdrawal of the old false claim to an imaginary superiority, based on the possession of a kind of knowledge that does not exist, there will flow out to him for the first time the full sustaining tide of genuine public confidence and recognition. In place of the pious supposition that as he pretends so much he must probably know something of the subject with which he deals, he will now receive, as has never been permitted to him before, that real spontaneous appreciation of which wages are the sacrament and symbol. It is such true mutual relations, reaching freely and in reality from mind to mind, that constitute the expert’s true character and position, that make his function possible. Compared with those that have hitherto existed, the experts that we are to see will be what grass grown in the open field is to that raised in a cellar or under a board-walk.

But in this matter it is the greater, the spiritual, values that we are mainly dealing with. And among these the greatest arise from what we are permitted to give, not from what we receive. To the expert the greatest gain will be, not from the increased respect in which he will be held, but in his new respect for his fellow citizens, both as customers from whose free assessment of his services his true standing is derived, and as fellow servants whose claims, so far as they render true service, through mastery each in his particular line, are precisely similar to his own. While the greatest gain of all will be that of the common citizen of the democracy, a gain of which the disappearance of the quacks — of the Hearsts and Morans in politics, the Butlers and Bankses in war, and all the rest of the motley company — will be but a symptom or by-product; the gain in being permitted heartily to reverence high attainment without, being, or fearing to be, untrue to democracy’s abiding conviction of the authority and integrity of the human mind.