long way into the complexity of the problem, and the need for survey, if
a society is to act with wisdom, is already apparent to him. But most
men in the past have acted simply, without much argument: they said,
"Here is a need; I can supply it," and the societies were the feeders of
such men. Naturally. So one hospital and a doctor was the point of a
sword which in twenty years' time was stuck fast in the rock; and then
the hospital was enlarged and became a medical school under the fervent
direction of a doctor who was a natural teacher; and then it became an
institution, and then part of a college. And in all this there may have
been no definite policy, any more than there was any definite policy in
the guidance of its twin brother, which, instead of changing its
character, remained what it had always been, the point of a sword, only
buried in a rock, competing feebly with a Government institution. When
one writes of mixed motives, and mixed policies, and mixed methods, it
is natural to use mixed metaphors.

But to return to our point. It is not easy to say what some hospitals
are there for. If we knew, we could at least formulate tables to set out
the progress which they have made towards the object proposed. That
would be reasonable survey as we have defined it. To collect all
possible information concerning all the things which the doctor or
hospital might do, or may be doing, unrelated to any end, is to collect
a mass of information which we cannot use; and that we have declined to
do. What course then can we pursue? We propose first to accept the
notion that the medical mission is there to supply a medical need of the
people, and to consider how far it does that; and then to look at the
medical work at the station as definitely designed to assist the
evangelisation of the people, as evangelistic in its purpose. We have,
therefore, designed a double set of tables to serve these two purposes.