7 DECEMBER 1945, Page 4

Someone complained in the House of Commons the other day

that while the Hous f. contained some seventy lawyers, it included not one scientist. That sounds on the face of it a little anomaldus, but I am not very sure, all the same, that the House is the right place for scientists—right,^I mean primarily from their point of view. They have their own peculiar and all-important field—to

Follow knowledge like a sinking star

Beyond the utmost bounds of human thought— and it is very different from the House's field. One of the most distinguished scientists of the day, Professor A. V. Hill, sat in the House from 1940, but when the Dissolution came he felt the call of his laboratory more compelling than the call of St. Stephen's, and went back to it. A scientist whose inclinations turned to politics (there have generally been a few able doctors at Westminster) could no doubt be of considerable value there, but most of them can be of even greater value somewhere else.