nclusions drawn from scientific analysis must in large
measure be contingent rather than exact.

Although we cannot always isolate our factors, control our processes,
and otherwise apply scientific method, with results as conclusive as
those obtained in laboratories of chemistry, physics, or biology, we
need not therefore reject scientific method in favor of a
rule-of-thumb. We should, however, be suspicious of too sweeping claims
based on any but the most careful and painstaking analysis of facts by
persons who are thoroughly trained in the kind of analysis they
undertake.

While a scientific approach will help in solving many problems of
business detail, the substitution of scientific method for a
rule-of-thumb approach will realize its object most completely in the
influences exerted upon fundamental long-time policy, influences which
cannot bear fruit in a day or a year. The circumstances of our history
have retarded the acceptance of a long-time scientific viewpoint in
business, but forces now at work are making powerfully for a scientific
approach to business management. First among these is a realization
that our resources are measured in finite terms. We have begun to take
account of what we have, and we are able in a rough way to figure the
loss from what we have squandered. The situation is not desperate, but
we can see that it may become so. To insure against possible disaster
in the future we need to exercise effective economy in turning
resources into finished goods, and we need to eliminate waste in the
distribution and the consumption of these goods. In private business
the need for such economy is reflected in rising prices for raw
materials. In its public aspect we have labeled the problem,
conservation.

A second force making for a scientific approach to business is found in
the beginnings of a social policy to which I have referred. This policy
is showing itself in limitations upon the way in which materials and
men may be utilized and in a sharper definition of the business man's
obligations to employees, to competitors and consumers. As long as
resources are to be had for the asking, while cheap labor can be
imported and utilized without restraint, and where no questions are
asked in marketing the product, there is not the right incentive to do
things in a scientific way. As business becomes more and more the
subject of legal definition, as the tendency grows of regarding it as a
definite servic