In his Rectorial Address to the Edinburgh students Mr. Baldwin
took for his subject truth, with particular reference to truth in politics. He described the excep- tional temptations which beset politicians to overstate, and he showed that the harsh judgments passed upon them, though they were no doubt salutary, did not take into account the real difficulties. Politicians habitually spoke of matters which aroused public passion, and generally they could not express themselves with the precision -which they might use when talking to their equals in education because of the intellectual deficiencies of their audiences. Moreover, politics could never be an exact science. Obviously a politician was never deal- ing, as investigators in some happier fields deal, with things that can be accurately weighed and measured.
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