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Some seventy years ago, sixty-eight, to be exact, Walter Bagehot published a notable little volume entitled Physics and Politics, described in a subtitle as "Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance' to Political Society." Actually the volume sought to sketch in outline a natural history of political society, and to describe the process or processes by which later, more elaborate, and more liberal forms of association have emerged, from the dissolution of earlier, simpler, and more rigid, if not oppressive, forms.Society, or at least political society, as Bagehot conceived it, is a kind of super-organism, having a social structure which is maintained by a social process. This structure is imbedded in and cemented by custom. Man is a custom-making animal. The process in this instance which is not otherwise defined, is what we know elsewhere as "the historical process." Its function is to weave and reweave the web of custom and tradition in which the individuals who are destined to live together and eventually act together as a political unit, are ineluctably bound together.Always there is a more or less inflexible tradition which imposes upon each new generation the pattern of the inherited social order. But always there are the liberating and individuating influences of other social processes—competition, conflict, and discussion—which represent what Bagehot describes as man's "propensity to variation," or, to use a political rather than a biological term, his propensity for non-conformity, "which," he adds, "is the principle of progress."

The ceaseless struggle of opposing ideas is the historical continuum of political theory. However concrete the situation which launches a particular conflict, all too often the struggle of ideas continues long after the objective scene of the conflict has moved on to quite different fields, long after new problems have outmoded old solutions, and long after new ways of thinking should have revised or displaced old concepts. This intellectual problem of continuity of ideas and of modes of thought is, of course, no more than the reflection of the larger issue of the liberation of human society from the "dead hand of the past." The solution of this problem is no easy one, entailing as it does careful discrimination and emphasis upon the quality of "deadness," but many reasoned attempts are being made toward this end.The forms which these attempts are taking in the field of political theory (including the concept of sovereignty, which is the subject of this paper) and of political science in general are several. We have had an increasing, and productive, "realistic presentation of the facts of the governmental process" which has served to deflate such overweening concepts as that of sovereignty.

Planning has always been regarded as a matter for the experts. Laymen affected by the plans have usually participated in the process only by accepting or rejecting through their representatives planning projects drawn up by technicians. The necessary importance of the rôle of technicians and the inevitable conflict between technical considerations, which must determine the recommendations of the experts, and political considerations, which must determine the attitude of representatives, have led many to regard the whole idea of systematic planning (in any large field of production) as undemocratic in its general trend. The whole idea of planning, they insist, points necessarily toward bureaucratic centralization of responsibility. The significance of the recently launched County Land Use Planning program lies in the effort to achieve from the first stages of the process and at the most local levels of organization that fusion between the skill and experience of the expert and the political choices of laymen which is the essence of modern democracy. Decentralization and localization of planning is, of course, particularly essential in agriculture because of the need to adapt methods for attaining general objectives to widely varying sectional differences. At the same time, lay participation in agricultural planning can mean widespread participation because of the wide spread of individual responsibility for individual farm enterprises. It may well be, therefore, that the lessons to be learned from this experiment in democratic planning for agriculture are not readily transferable to other fields of productive enterprise. That is a question that I must leave to others.

In his address at the 200th convocation of the University of Chicago, June 11, 1940, President Hutchins invited American youth to reexamine the principles which make life worth living.This enterprise is most urgently necessary in removing the intellectual unpreparedness of the nation. Far worse than the military and economic deficiencies in equipment and armament are the spiritual dissensions among the various groups of our time. In the universal conflict those nations will prevail whose unity results from spontaneous and free devotion to values which are recognized as worth living and dying for. We can reintegrate the nation, when we succeed in breaking the continuous secularization which, parallel to the rapid industrialization after the Civil War, is undermining the ethos of American life. The ethos which made this commonwealth great, was the fighting spirit of enlightenment. The backbone of the political principles of the Constitution, is the spirit of the Christian Law of Nature; that means political freedom as the fullfilment of the rules of the Almighty. This unity between the three spheres: nature, man and God was discarded by the process of secularization. The ethics of enlightenment shifted to the demand for universal comfort and for good living. The attitude of a boundless optimism prevailed which considered history an unending process of perfection. It was thought that this state of continuous improvement would result from the scientific organization of social and political institutions; their progress would eliminate eventually what the less scientific past had ascribed to the finiteness and sinfulness of man.

A conflict of interests is implicit in most administrative problems, and the successful adjustment of these forces within a predicated legal framework means that the purpose of the governmental agency has been achieved. This consummation is beset with difficulties. The interplay of economic and political influences must be examined in connection with the statutory and formalistic competence of a given governmental bureau if any understanding of the process of administration is to be obtained. Only if the problem is first narrowed to one field, and then focussed upon a single agency, can the component factors be brought to direct and concrete analysis. An effort will be made here to examine the Interstate Commerce Commission in terms of the group pressures that are exerted upon it in its regulatory capacity. The purpose is to discuss the nature of the relations that arise between a regulatory body and the interests touched by its authority and to call attention to the possibilities and problems inherent in such a contact. In short, What political and economic forces make up the environment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and how does it adapt itself to this environment?

When the American form of government and our democratic way of life hang in the balance of armed conflict, the political scientist feels impelled more than ever to rally to the defense of these values. He Writes volumes to defend our system and to attack the systems of our enemies. He writes political philosophy and political ethics—just plain politics is forgotten.The uninformed layman might expect from his title that the political scientist would be an expert in the analysis of political processes in his own community. He would be disappointed. The following comment made by Aristotle centuries ago applies with equal validity to the problem of political science today: "Must we not admit that the political science plainly does not stand on a similar footing to that of other sciences and faculties? I mean that while in all other cases those who impart the faculties and themselves exert them are identical (physicians and painters, for instance), matters of Statesmanship the Sophists profess to teach, but not one of them practices it, that being left to those actually engaged in it: and these might really very well be thought to do it by some singular knack and by mere practice rather than by any intellectual process; for they neither write nor speak on these matters (though it might do more to their credit than composing speeches for the courts or the assembly)…." Since the politician of today remains inarticulate when it comes to discussing his methods for publication, the responsibility of building a science of politics, if there is to be such a science, continues to rest with the political scientists.

Naval fleets are maintained by development and replacement because their possessors dare not fail to make provision for a maritime war in which they may be participants. No means yet devised and accepted for the amicable adjustment of international differences have removed from responsible statesmen a sense of the necessity of anticipating such a contingency. Despite increasing efforts in every quarter to cultivate wills for peace and abhorrence of armed conflict, as well as a desire to adjust grave differences by judicial process or through commissions of conciliation, war is still regarded as a contingency which must be reckoned with, and as one which is as dangerous as it is seemingly remote. In making provision as against a contingency which none would welcome or hasten, the governments of maritime states do not necessarily encourage war or indicate approval of recourse to it. A particular conference of maritime states may in fact uplift the hopes of prospective belligerents which resent and oppose agreements restricting recourse to measures and instrumentalities on which they expect to rely. On the other hand, general arrangements respecting belligerent activities may serve to lessen a zeal for war and to remove its very approach further from the horizon. Everything depends upon the ambitions of the states which consent to confer. The point to be observed is that agreements for the regulation of maritime war in so far as they purport to proscribe or check the use of particular instrumentalities or recourse to particular measures, are not to be deemed bellicose in design or effect. Such regulatory agreements are advocates of peace rather than of war. Moreover, as will be seen, they may be the means of encouraging states to reduce armaments which would otherwise be maintained.

Economists of the past century generally believed that, beneath the appearance of social conflict, there was a fundamental harmony, if not identity, of economic interest, and that this harmony of interest existed not only for different social classes and occupational groups, but also for different regions within a nation state and even for different nation states themselves. This belief in a universal community of interest, which led to the notion of a world policy which would serve human welfare conceived as a whole, rested on certain explicit and implied articles of faith, viz. (1) on the proposition derived from Pareto's law, that all social classes benefit from an increase, and suffer from a diminution, of the national real income; (2) on the assumption of mobility of labour and capital within the national state and even across international borders; (3) on the laissez-faire theory of international trade, which invoked the principle of comparative advantage; (4) on the belief that competitive private enterprise, if left alone, naturally achieved the maximization of production along the most economic lines. Competition among sellers led to the adoption of the most efficient processes and the extension of production to the point of least profitability, that is, to the point where the least efficient firm in the industry earned no profits above "normal" interest on capital and average wages of management. Competition among buyers was likewise an operative principle for social good, for it resulted in the allocation of the productive resources so as to satisfy in the order of their importance the most urgent social wants. A final assumption was that social welfare, consisting of the sum of satisfactions, could be measured in pecuniary terms. Thus an addition to the money income of a large group was held more than to offset the real sacrifices of any small group, regardless of the level of subsistence enjoyed by the two groups before the change occurred. The natural corollary of these assumptions was that the test of national policy was its effect on the national real income. But this could not always be determined or, with respect to future policy, accurately predicted. Since, however, profitability was regarded both as the guide to the most urgent in the hierarchy of social wants and as the single stimulus to increased production, it was believed that the anticipation of high profits was a rough and ready indication of an increase in the national real income. Hence profitability was the criterion of welfare and the compass of national policy. In policy so conceived and so directed all classes were held to have a common interest.