However conscientiously and intensely the expert may apply himself to
his problem, it will be impossible to work at it with real interest if
he finds no co-operation, no interest, and no understanding among those
for whom he, at least formally, is at work. We may be certain that the
paucity of respect we get from the scientific representatives of other
disciplines (let us be honest,--such is the case) comes particularly
from those relations we have with them as experts, relations in which
they find us so unintelligent and so indifferent with regard to matters
of importance. If the experts speak of us with small respect and the
attitude spreads and becomes general, we get only our full due. Nobody
can require of a criminal judge profound knowledge of all other
disciplines besides his own--the experts supply that--but the judge
certainly must have some insight into them in so far as they affect his
own work, if he is not to meet the expert unintelligent and
unintelligible, and if he is to co-operate with and succeed in
appraising the expert’s work. In a like fashion the judge may be
required to take interest in the experts’ result. If the judge receives
their report and sticks to the statutes, if he never shows that he was
anxious about their verdict, and merely views it as a number, it is no
wonder that in the end the expert also regards his work as a mere
number, and loses interest. No man is interested in a thing unless it is
made interesting, and the expert is no exception. Naturally no one would
say that the judge should pretend interest,--that would be worst of
all;--he must be possessed of it, or he will not do for a judge. But
interest may be intensified and vitalized. If the judge perceives that
the finding of the experts is very important for his case he must at
least meet them with interest in it. If that is present he will read
their reports attentively, will note that he does not understand some
things and ask the experts for elucidation. One question gives rise to
another, one answer after another causes understanding, and
understanding implies an ever-increasing interest. It never happens that
there should be difficulties because of a request to judicial experts to
explain things to the judge. I have never met any in my own practice and
have never heard any complaints. On the contrary, pleasure and
efficiency are generally noticeable in such connections, and the state,
above all, is the gainer. The simple explanation lies here in the fact
that the expert is interested in his profession, interested in just that
concrete way in which the incomparably greater number of jurists are
not. And this again is based upon a sad fact, for us. The chemist, the
physician, etc., studies his subject because he wants to become a
chemist, physician, etc., but the lawyer studies law not because he
wants to become a lawyer, but because he wants to become an official,
and as he has no especial interest he chooses his state position in that
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