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TheISSN 00141690

Ethical RecordVol. 94 No. 1 JANUARY 1989

EDITORIALThe Editor was called to hospital urgently. He was about to write theEditorial, so readers get the programme first this month!

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS COMING TO CONWAY HALL

JANUARY — FEBRUARY

Sunday (morning) Lecture (Free—collection)(Afternoon) Forums and Socials (Free)

South Place Sunday (evening) Concerts (tickets £2.00)*All the Society's Meetings, Forums, Socials and Classes

are held in the Library (unless otherwise indicated)Concerts are held in the Main Hall

JANUARY 1989Sunday January 8at 6.30 pm Concert: Maggini String Quartet. MOZART G K387, PROKOFIEV

No. 2, BEETHOVEN CnOpus 59 No. 3. g”toe.

Saturday January 14at 6.30 pm South Place New Year Pany for Members, Friends and others.until The evening will include musical and other Entertainment, includ-10.00 pm ing (it is hoped) a performance of songs by DAME FLORIBUNDA.

Drinks and refreshments. Tickets : 52.50. Please book in advancewith the office (tickets also available at meetings).

Sunday January 15at 11.00 am JAMES HEMMING:The Rules of the Life Game. James Hemming,

a Life Member of the Society and author of /ndividua/ Ma/Wiry,Instead of God and other seminal books states: "At a time wheneveryone is pontificating about 'morality', it is good thathumanists should review their position".

CONTENTS PagePolitical Models and Political Prediction: H. J. BLACICHAM • 4Philosopher of Egoism: S. E. PARKER . . . 7What is Ethical Rationality—Part II: Tom RUBENS . . 8SPES Library Book List Part II 12After Strange Gods: T. F. EvArts 14Viewpoints 17

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

Published by the South Place Ethical Society Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London.

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYThe Humanist Centre, Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Telephone: 01-831 7723

Hall Lettings: 01-242 8032. Lobby: 01-405 4125

Appointed Lecturers: Harold Blackham, Richard Clements* 0.B.E., T. F. Evans,Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe, NicolasWalter. (*Died November 1, 1988).Trustees: Harold Blackham, Sam Beer, Christine Eondi, Louise Booker, JohnBrown, Anthony Chapman, Peter Heales, Ray LovecY, Ian MacKillop, Victor•Rose, Barbara Smoker, Harry Stopes-Roe.Honorary Representative: Barbara Smoker. Chairman General Committee:Norman Bacrac. Deputy Chairman: Louise Booker. Honorary Registrar: LesleyDawson. Honorary Treasurer: Don Liversedge. Secretary: Nicholas Hyman. HallManager: Geoffrey Austin. Honorary Librarian: Edwina Palmer. Editor, TheEthical Record Peter Hunot. Concerts Committee Chairman: Lionel Elton.General Committee: The Officers and Jim Addison, Richard .Benjamin, CynthiaBlezard, Martin Harris, Ellis Hillman, Naomi Lewis, Lisa Monks, Terry Mullins,Diane Murray and Les Warren.

Sunday January 15—continuedat 3.00 pm Forum: SAM BEER : The Work of the National Peace Council.

Sam Beer is the Society's representative at the meetings of thistransnational and important organisation.

at 6.30 pm Concert: Alexander Baillie (cello), Ian Brown (piano). BOCCHERINISonata in A, Bridge Sonata (1917), COLIN MArritews ThreeEnigmas, BRAHMS F Op 99.

-Sunday January 22at .11.00 am Lecture: JOHN'tenon—Inequality in Britain. The author of The

Rich Get Richer appraises the have lots, haves and have nots ofthis society.

at 3.00 pm Forum: LEN&Arm—Pathways into the Past. Folklore in the studyof history and prehistory is is rfar-reaching theme of the speaker.

at 6.30 pm Concert: Paris Arpeggione Quartet, Robin Colville (piano). HAYDNGmi Op 74 No 3, BORODIN D No. 2 (string quartets), ELGAR PianoQuintet A mi Op 84.

Sunday January 29at 11.00 am Lecture: GEORGE HAYConcrete Reality and Science Fiction. A

founder of Foundation, and- enthusiast for a range of novelists(from Walter de la Mare and W. H. Hudson to Mary Gentle andArthur C. Clarke) explains the burgeoning links between hard(and soft) SF and the real contours of our shared planet.

The Ethical Record is posted free to members. The annual charge to Subscribersis £4. Matter for publication should reach the Editor, Peter Hunot, 17 AnsonRoad, London N7 ORB (01-609 2677) no later than the first of the month for

ublication in the following month's issue.

2 Ethical Record, January 1989

Sunday January 29—continuedat 3.00 pm Forum: DAVID WEBB — Peoples History and the Bishopsgate

Institute. The Reference Librarian of the Bishopsgate Institute(230 Bishopsgate, London EC2) explains, the context of specialcollections including those of the National Secular Society and theFreedom Association.

at 6.30 pm Concert: Ruth Waterman (violin), Anthony Goldstone (piano).BACH Sonata No. 1 •B mi, BEETHOVEN A Op 30 No. 1, VILLA-LOBOS Sonata-fantasy No. 1, DVORAK Sonatina G Op 100,WIENIAWSKI Two Folk Mazurkas Op 19.

FEBRUARY 1989Sunday February 5 •at 11.00 am Lecture: BRENDA ALmoND—HumanBonds. Stoic, existentialist

and feminist worldviews "which would favour unbonding, ordetachment from emotional ties" are considered in an attempt todecide whether "personal bonds have fundamental priority in thelives of human beings."

at 2.00 pm Policy and Programme Committee (Open Meeting).at 6.30 pm Concert: Delos String Quartet, Wilfred Goddard (clarinet).

SCHUBERT C 1111 Quartettsatz, GRIFFES Two Sketches on IndianThemes, DOHNANYI D flat Op 15 (string quartets) COLERIDGE-TAYLOR F sh mi, MOZART A K58I (clarinet quintets).

Sunday February 12at 11.00 am Lecture: .JimHERRICK—Marguerite Yourcenar and "The Abyss".

The novels of Marguerite Yourcenar, including Memoirs ofHadrian as well as The Abyss and Coup de Grace, explicitly con-vey the free thinker's jeopardy in ancient and medieval times.The parallel with possible transformation in our century offascism, persecution of minorities and revived fundamentalismare important.

at 3.00 pm Forum: TIMOTHY HYMAN— Max Beckmann and the "New Objec-tivity". The painter and critic explores •the context in WeinarGermany of art which speaks to our epoch (illustrated talk).

at 6.30 pm Concert: Daphne Baden (harp), Jonathan Hellyer Jones (harpsi-chord). Harp: GLINKA, HANDEL, NADERMAN, NATRA, SALZEDO,TOURN1ER, Harpsichord: KUHNAU Biblical Sonata, HANDEL SuiteB flat, BACH Capriccio, BOHM Chaconne, BACH Italian Concerto.

MONDAY SERIES (FORTNIGHTLY)London Sceptical Students (of all ages) 7.00 pm

Note — The following meetings will be held in the University of London Unionbuilding opposite Dillons bookshop in Malet Street, London WC1 (GoodgeStreet Tube).

Monday January 23Extraterrestrial life and U.F.O.'s (IAN RIDPAT11).

Monday February 6Alternative practitioners, the witch doctors of today? (COLINBREWER).

Ethical Record, January 1989 3

POLITICAL MODELS AND KILITICAL PREDICTION

H. J. BLACKHAMSummary of the Lecture delivered on Sunday, November 27, 1988

MODELS, IN THE WAY THGY FACILITATE THOUGHT, make the best of both worlds:they are at the same time abstract and concrete. They are used to represent theinvisible, as in particle physics or micro-biology; or to represent what is designed,not yet in production, a prototype; or to represent what is general, a type or ascheme. Early simple exainples would be a globe, an architectural model andEuclid's triangles. A model of understanding is the taking apart and puttingtogether 'again of a machine, so that one sees how it works—analysis andsynthesis.

How has this method been applied to society? It is easier first to see how itis applied to social phenomena. Economic thinking has to use models: a stand-point has to be taken; certain assumptions have to be made; say, full employmentor low inflation or balanced books. That means alternatives. Similarly, strategicthinking assumes certain initiatives on the part of a hypothetical enemy, andworks out alternative responses. All this is in aid of predictability, that is to say,control.

Applied to society as a whole, one is likely to think first of the utopian model.Any Utopia in its totality is, by definition, totally unreal. To try to make it realby government makes it totalitarian, and self-contradictory. PLATO composed hisRepublic as his definition .of '"Justice", on the false assumption that justice existsas a thing in itself.

THOMAS MORE concluded his Utopia:

"I confess and grant that many things be in the Utopian weal public, which in ourcities I may rather wish for, than hope after".For it assumed a different human nature. •DAVID HUME recognized that Utopias were chimerical and useless, and said so

plainly, yet proposed his own in -"Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth". Havingdetailed a form of government to which he can find no objection in theory, he

• goes on to saY that. there is evidence that it is practicable because it closelyresembles the government of the Netherlands. In another essay, "That Politicsmay be- reduced to a Scieoce", he believes that it is possible to devise "a systemof laws to regulate the administration of public affairs to the latest posterity", andthat a sound constitution is "the most valuable legacy that can be left to futureages". He points to the ruin of Athens and Rome as famous examples of theresult of•defectiVe constitutions.

This was a- time when it was hoped that it could be learned from a study ofhistory hoW to preserve 'society, and move toward a "perfect Commonwealth".The case of Rome dominated the discussion. Rome was the inheritance of Europe;indeed, its mother. Moreover, it spread "the greatest, perhaps, and most awfulscene in the history of mankind" (GIBBON).

MACHIAVELLI may be said to have initiated the quest with his Discourses onLivy, taking the Roman Republic as his model, and assuming that human natureis always and everywhere the same: by studying past responses, one can learn •what to expect and. how to deal with it, or prevent it. His fellow FlorentineFRANCESCO GUICCIARDINL who had experience of public office, rejected thisapproach directly in Considerations on the "Discourses" of Machiavelli.

Events had to be -understood in their particular contexts, and could not begeneralized. Foresight is gained by your experience in your time and place, notfrom books. "It is a great mistake to speak of the affairs of the world ... by rule,as every case is different and exceptional". Out of office, he devoted himself to


collecting materials for a seasoned view of what he had witnessed. fie was apioneer in the modern writing of history.

But Machiavelli's example was noted, and followed in succeeding generations,with a wider range of examples and a more inventive approach. MONTESQUIEU

made •the most lasting impact, with his Esprit de Lois, which had been precededby Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence des Romains.

He sees the familiar forms of governments as types, to be understood by whatthey mainly depended on for political control, civic virtue in a republic, fearunder a despotism, the majesty of a monarchy. This was the source of vitalityin the State, and infused all its institutions. It was the clue to how history works.The more knowledge was acquired on these lines, the more control was promised.

VOLTAIRE pioneered in the writing of history by making his subject the historyof culture, instead of politics. The real subject should be the history of civilization.The wide diversity of manners and customs and opinions had at its centre theconstant of human nature, and the constant within human nature was reason,which required maturation through learning. The process by which it emergesand becomes conscious of itself is the fundamental meaning of history. Themathematician D'ALEMBERT, joint editor with EfinERor of the famousL'Encyclopedie, regards the history of science in the same way as the self-development of methodology. GOETHE recalled how in his youth Voltaire and hisgreat contemporaries "governed the whole civilized world".

This approach to the study of mankind and of human nature through historywas balanced throughout these centuries by an approach through geography.GIBBON speaks of his "delight in frequent perusal of Montesquieu", but at Oxfordat the age of 15 he had devoured a popular series Universal History that appearedover 14 years, putting together in readable form what was being learned aboutmankind by European travellers.

From the Voyages of HAKLUYT in 1582 to Captain COOK'S narrative of hissecond voyage in 1777, books of travel had an immense vogue and were producedin great number. Entertainment was the biggest market, and most fictional. Butthere was authenticated information to satisfy commercial and scientific interests.

The Royal Society declared a •new branch of learning, and ROBERT BOYLE, asSecretary, issued a guide for travellers -with headings on what to look for andreport on in studying a country. As BURKE wrote in a letter: —

"now the Great Map of Mankind is unrolled at once; and there is no State orgradation of barbarism, and ho mode of refinement which we have not at the sameinstant under our View".Private collections brought home by travellers were being merged in public

museums; the British Museum by an Act of 1753. Europeans were learning piece-meal about mankind as inhabitants of the earth. This new branch of learningmerged with the new scientific study of natural history as developed by BUFFON

in the 15 volumes of his Histoire Naturelle (1749-67). An agenda was set. WILLIAMMARSDEN in his History of Sumatra (1783) wrote:

"The study of our own species is doubtless the most interesting and important thatcan claim the attention of mankind; and this science, like all others, it is impossibleto improve by abstract speculation, merely. A regular series of authenticated facts iswhat alone can enable us to rise towards a perfect knowledge in it".Abstrect speculations there had been in abundance for generations, on the

origin of society and of government, on the supposed "social contract", on the"state of nature". LOCKE, one of the few who was acquainted with a rare earlyinformed study of how a primitive people actually lived, was the most realistic ofsocial philosophers, and the chief British theoretician, whose ideas were embodiedin the Revolution of 1688.

Self-preservation was taken as the first law of nature. A people's first act forthis purpose was to establish a legislature, in which their power and authority wasvested. They could resume it if and when a •term was set, or if the power vested


were abused. This was a formulation of the principle of utility, the mainstreamempirical political principle of British liberal political thought.

tialtAx, a prime manipulator in the 1688 moves, was called the "Trimmer".He wrote The Character of a Trimmer to explain and justify himself. He alsowrote A Character of King Charles 11, who was also a "trimmer" of a differentstamp: the one was in the public interest, the other in the line of self-indulgence.Halifax was one of the wisest and most honourable men in the history ofBritish politics; he demonstrated the meaning and efficacy of utility andexpediency in the conduct of affairs, against hard-line adherence to party orprinciple. (His Advice to a Daughter is worth reading by a modern feminist).

At the end of the 18th century, two major events supervened in the politicaldebate, the French Revolution and the American Revolution. Burke's famousReflections on the French Revolution broached the first, with THOMAS PAINE'Sreply, The Rights of Man. Montesquieu had predicted that under such conditionsas prevailed in the French Revolution, a leader would emerge to take the unlimitedpower of the people, and become a despot. NAPOLEON moreover saw himself asCHARLEMAGNE, the inheritor and restorer of Rome. Montesquieu had alsopredicted in general terms the Terror, foreseeing the futility of trying to imposealterations of what is deeply established in customs or the nature of things.Abstract principles can "transform men into savages".

When a people claimed to speak to peoples, and the French invited the peoplesof Europe to revolt, and promised their aid, war with England became inevitable:a man identified with his people had raised himself above mankind. Reform ofthe British Parliament which was on the political agenda was postponed for ageneration. It Was CONDORCET, in hiding from the Terror in 1795, who expressedthe spirit of the age in his Sketch for an historical picture of the progress of thehuman mind. After sketching advances on all fronts of human activity in ninestages, he concludes in a Tenth Stage with indications of the natural sequence infuture progress of the human mind, which proved substantially accurate duringthe next two centuries. •

Condorcet had his heirs in SAINT-SIMON, COMTE, and GUIZOT. But it was Hegeland the Germans who 'dominated thought in the 19th century. HEGEL applied tohistory Plato's analysis of discourse: thesis produces antithesis, which producessynthesis, and the cycle repeats itself.

MARX took this over, and turned it over, applying it not to the.interpretationof history, but to the events, in terms of economic development by class conflict.He formed a theory of "scientific socialism" against the current French forms of"utopian socialism"; but his predictions were based on unverifiable assumptionsabout capitalist economics, and he projected a utopia in forecasting that when theproletariat took the economic machine into their own hands, liquidating theoppressive class and producing plenty for all, the State would be dissolvedbecause the source of all conflicts of interest would have been quenched. Historywould come to an end. By the time of the First World War, SPENGLER had writtenhis Decline of the West, predicting the self-destruction of democracy, manipula-ted by the power of money and the Press, with success as the only recognizedstandard, provoking in the long-run a return of politics, but in the form ofCaesarism.• These historical predictions have been dated and fated by an historical dividethat has put an end to their possibility. That divide came with the explosion that•ended World War II. But that nuclear explosion was a token and symbol of twomore radical explosions that have transformed the world, and its future course;an explosion of knowledge; and an explosion of population, related to it. Infor-mation technology, jet air transport, and international environmental damage havemade one world actual; and the jump into a new orbit of human capability hasmade a common future inevitable. That future is not predictable, but is prescribed,in terms of global tasks to be undertaken by humanity and dangers to be


prevented or minimized, for the sake of self-preservation, the old law of nature.now thought of as human survival.

The world that ended with World War II was one in which centuries ofEuropean national rivalry overflowed in the rise of racial nationalism of NaziFascism. Gov:macs noted in his Diaries:

"The old Holy Roman Empire was the greatest political creation of the post-Romanera. It took its European character from the Roman Empire, and we. shall assumethat mantle now. Because of our organisational brilliance and racial selectivity, worlddomination will automatically fall to us".Mussolini, too, took Rome as his model. The word "fascism" betokens it. This

was the last bid for restoration of the Roman imperium. The "Wealth of Nations"had been consummated in the British Empire. The "Decline of the West" camemore dramatically than Spengler had predicted.

The new human capability that makes humanity responsible for its own future,which therefore cannot be predicted, is shared world-wide with technology. It con-stitutes a new heritable attribute of human nature, and shows that human natureis not a constant, but is historical, like societies. 0

MAX STIRNER: PHILOSOPHER OF EGOISM

S. E. PARKER

Summary of a lecture given on October 23, 1988 to the Sunday Forum of the Society

EGOISM HAS BEEN ALMOST UNIVERSALLY DENOUNCED AS “SINFUL". Conservatives

and anarchists, Humanists and Buddhists, liberals and socialists, Judaists andfascists, have all joined in condemning the egoist. There was one philosopher,however, who was an unabashed egoist and said so in his major work The Egoand His Own. This was MAx STIanna (JOHANN CASPAR SCHMIDT) 1806-1856.

Stirner begins The Ego and His Own by asking what is to be his concern. Theusual answers are God, Mankind, Society, Truth, Justice and so on. "Only mycause", he observes, "is never to be my concern. 'Shame on the egoist who thinksonly of himself!' " I am not to serve myself, but some abstraction. Stirner cansee no good reason why his interests ought to be sacrificed to the supposedinterests of abstractions. Therefore "away with every concern that is not altogethermy concern. You think at least the 'good cause' must be my concern?" That isnot the case. I am my own concern and my concern "is neither the divine nor thehuman . . . but solely what is mine; and it is not a general one, but is unique,as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself'.

This, is of course, selfishness, but not selfishness as it is conventionally under-stood: a grubbing after material advantage to the exclusion of anything else.Stirner regards selfishness as the negation of any idea that has become fixed,which has become a conceptual imperative. To be unselfishness is to have an endthat is our master. To be selfish is to have the end in our power and to "disposeof it at our pleasure". Those who pursue the ideal of Mammon are as possessedas those who pursue the ideal of God. Self-ownership is the pivot of selfishnessor egoism. "I am my own when I am master of myself, instead of being mastered. . . by anything else (God, man, authority, law, State, Church, etc); what is ofuse to me, the self-owned or self-appertaining one, my selfishness pursues".

In The Ego and His Own Stirner analyses many aspects of life and thoughtfrom this egoistic standpoint. The concept "freedom", for instance, is idolizedby many, yet little of it remains when looked at critically. Freedom is not apositive state of being, but an activity of "free-ing", a getting rid of something


that is an obstacle or an impediment. If I am rid of a headache I am "free" of it.How free I am depends on what power I have. Whatever I am competentto achieve I will achieve. If I am incompetent in any respect, then in this respectI am "unfree". Donated or granted "freedom" is of no value to an egoist—forwhat can be given to me can be taken away. Only what is within my power ismine—whether it is freedom or anything else.

Stirner takes a similar position regarding "rights". That "right" prevails thathas the most might behind it. "I decide what it the right thing in me, there is noright outside me. If it is right for me, it is right". In the final analysis "might"is the only "right". "What I have without an entitling spirit I have without right:I have it solely and alone through my power".

As for "man" or the "human", Stirner points out that those who, like hiscontemporary Ludwig Feuerbach, substitute a belief in Man for a belief in Godhave not rid themselves of the religious attitude. "Man with the great M is onlyan ideal . .. to be a man is not to realize the ideal of Man, but to present oneself,the individual. It is not how I realize the generally human that needs to be mytask, but how I satisfy myself . . . the human religion is only the last metamor-phosis of the Christian religion." Thus to say of me that I am a human being isto describe me as a member of a certain species, but to demand of me that I behuman is to prescribe for me a model of behaviour to which I ought to conform.I am to cease to be my own and become the "human"s.

An egoist rejects fixed ideas and spurns the sacred in every form. He joyfullyprizes himself as more important than any totality. His concern is not with thereformation of mankind in the name of idealized fallacies such as "the moral","the free", or "the equal" ("liberty, equality and fraternity" are mere emptyphrases), but with himself and his interests. The life he lives is his own. Such isMax Stirner's philosophy of egoism. 0

WHAT IS ETHICAL RATIONALITY?-PART IITOM RUBENS

The Lecture delivered to the Society on Sunday, July 31, 1988 Part 1 of this Lecture was published in the NovemberlDecember 1988 issue

The latter, the issue of events over which he has had no control, will inevitablycondition all future conduct. The dye of unreason, so to speak, has been cast.Future ethical thought, like present, will grow from the soil of the irrational andwill remain, via environmental channelling, the voice of biological forces.

The primacy of unreason in human conduct applies even to the practice ofscience. There are two reasons for doing science. One is for the practical andmaterial benefits it brings. The other is for the sheer satisfaction of knowing.Both are.grounded in feeling and value. The first involves valuing benefits because 'they ensure physical survival and enhance the pleasures and comforts of life.

The second involves valuing knowledge for its own sake. Neither of theseattitudes is derived from knowledge or reason. The former springs instinctivelyfrom the pre-rational will to live. The latter too is pre-rational since there is nopurely rational basis for valuing knowledge per se; it is, in essence, an emotionalcommitment to truth, a love of truth, and, like all love, is not arrived at by aprocess of reasoning.

The attempt, incidentally, to establish a rational justification for truth-love byadvancing the consequentialist argument that such love leads to honesty andtruthfulness with oneself and others, succeeds only in establishing a non-rationaljustification; for when one considers why 'veracity is valued in the first place,one is led back to feeling and predilection.


Neotenic Structure Results In InquisitivenessThe source of truth-love is probably neoteny, the evolutionary development by

which man has inherited from his ape-like ancestors a brain structure similar tothat of the ancestors at their infant stage. Such a structure results in greaternatural inquisitiveness and curiosity than does that of the adult brain. Nowneoteny is a biological condition, mechanistically evolved by the natural selectionprocess; as such, it automatically produces psychological consequences: states ofmind which are not the upshot of rationclination even though they give rise to it.

lf, as seems likely, truth-love emanates from such a state, it may justly bedescribed as irrational.

To speak of the irrational mainsprings of scientific activity is not, of course, todeny the absolutely rational character of scientific reasoning as defined earlier. Itis simply to note that, in science as much as in ethics, the irrational can producethe rational. It is, also, to distinguish between scientific rationality and the motivesfor pursuing that rationality. The former is, once again, dependent on knowledge,the latter not.

The role of the irrational in conduct has been one of the major themes inphilosophy and psychology over the last 150 years. It had been stressed not onlyby Santayana but by thinkers as diverse as SCHOPENHAUER, NIETZSCHE, BERGSON,

FREUD and PARETO. Indeed, we can go back further; in ethical thought, theargument advanced in this talk was cogently summarised in 1751 by Hume whenhe observed in An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals, that "moralityis determined by sentiment". Hume of course did not have the benefit of a post-Darwinian perspective, whereas we, who do, can appreciate the full ramificationsof his insight. The realisation that ethical rationality is necessarily relative mustremain central to all circumspect Humanists.

Assuming that human evolution will be an on-going process, what changes canwe expect in the form that future moral reason will take? If it is true that biologyis what primarily conditions psychology and morality, what mental alterations willaccompany future physical change? We have in fact no way of knowing, althoughwe can safely predict that evolution in the direction of greater complexity willproduce a wider emotional life and therefore a more intricate kind of moralsensibility. The function of ethical reason will then be to serve and harmonize aneven greater number of irrational interests than is at present the case.

The result of this service will be a form of happiness appropriate only to thebiological context in which it occurs. To quote Nietzsche again, •this time fromDaybreak: "every stage of evolution possesses a special and incomparablehappiness neither higher nor lower but simply its own".

Each phase of evolution is only capable of the kind of happiness which physicalstructure permits; and since evolution has no goal, no physical structure orconcomitant kind of happiness can be considered superior or inferior to any other.None is nearer to or further from a state which could be objectively describedas a summit of development. A process without an aim can have no culminatingmoment.

The corollary of this fact is that concepts of evolutionary progress and advanceare—like so much else—subjective. We regard ourselves as more advanced than,say horno habilis, because we enjoy the benefits and advantages (mainly in termsof mastery over the environment) which a more complex physical structure hasgiven us.

We like being what we are, and exercising the abilities we possess, It is becausewe enjoy these advantages that we value them—not the other way round—and thisis another illustration of •the way values are constituted by emotion. Future manwill, no doubt, regard himself as more advanced than we are, but all he will beable to say objectively is that he is different; which is all we can objectively sayin comparing ourselves with earlier forms of man.


To be different is to be more complex, or IS; but it is only by subjectiVelyvaluing complexity that one would then go on to claim that to be more complexis to be "higher", to be less complex "lower". As RUSSELL once wittily put thematter in Mysticism and Logic:

"Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoonto the philosopher; and this development, we are assured, is indubitably anadvance. Unfortunately, it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who givesus this assurance."

•No Objective Basis For A Right to Exist

-In re-emphasising the dependence of values on feeling, I'd like now to take acloser look at a subject that was briefly mentioned earlier: the right to exist.That the concept of this right has no objective basis is clear from the fact thatthe entire phenomenon of life on earth is an accident. It is futile to look for anargument to support it; in addition tO being non-scientific, it cannot be treatedas valid simply because it is felt to be so (the so-called "gut feeling" argument).

However, rationality can apply t6 the emotion underlying the concept. If weabandon the idea of a right to exist, and replace it with that of a desire to exist,we profitably exchange legalistic language for a language of pure feeling. Hence"we have a right to exist" becomes "we desire to exist and therefore declare it isgood to exist"; this is followed by "we will act on that declaration in order tosecure our existence". •

Here then is the typical ethical rationale: value premise leading to a logic oftechnique. Emotion is acknowledged as lying at the root of life-affirmation andeverything else follows from that. The kind of language that is used to expressthis acknowledgement is in a •sense primitive—the articulation of volition; butit arises from a sophisticated and penetrating insight not available to the personwho employs legalistic language from simplistic belief in a right to life.

As regards the other human rights, again the fundamental role of feeling revealsitself. People advocate human rights because they wish people to enjoy the benefitsthese rights bring; in fact, as many people as possible..

Let's now move on to look at the difference between moral assertions in generaland statements which, while connected with morality, are of a different type. Amoral assertion, I would argue, Must champion a moral value; it must advocateon emotional grounds that a particular ethos.and the activity arising from it aregood or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.

The most.obvious assertion of this sorf is an unconditional statement such as:"Benefitting people is good" or. "Exploiting people is bad". However, assertionscontaining a conditional element may alsO be ethical if they can be re-phrased ascommitments to moral value. For instance, "If you love someone, you ought tobe prepared to make sacrifices for that person"' can be re-phrased as "Lovewarrant personal sacrifices". (Mite how, in this eiample, the way the two. ideasin the first statement are combined implies the idea in the second statement.)

On the other hand, there are some conditional statements which are not morallyassertive because ethically neutral. For instance, "If you are in love with some-one and you think that love warrants personal sacrifices, you ought to be pre-pared to make them". This cannot be re-phrased as a- moral -assertion becauseits point is purely logical. It is saying that, if you have a particular opinion aboutlove, you should; as a matter of logical consistency, accept the implications ofthat opinion. In referring to a moral value ("love warrants personal sacrifices")without -either supporting or opposing it, it is ethically neutral. The. "ought" istherefore of the logical as distinct from the moral kind.

This is not to say that the statement is completely value-free. It does assert avalue—that of adherence to logic. But of course logical values are not moral ones.Adherence to logic and nothing else can lead to morally dubious contentions suchas: "If you think that verbal offensiveness is sufficient justification for killing


someone, you ought to shoot the man who insulted -you yesterday". This cannotbe faulted for logical consistency, but it clashes with almost everybody's emotionalattitudes.

Another way the logical "ought" can be employed is : "If you want to behealthy, you ought to eat sufficient food". .Again, no moral value is beingadvocated; whether or pot it is a good thing to be healthy is not under discussion.All that is being stated. is that, given -a particular moral approach, other thingsfollow logically from it.

•Some Points About Emotional Repugnance And Moral Outrage

I'd like now, in the light of the previous, discussion of Nazism, to say somethingmore about the emotional repugnance and moral outrage we fed toward certainactions and outlooks-. The -negative reaction stems partly- from a sense of thechallenge to our own complexity which the offending action or outlook represents.The latter's crudity or primitiveness is an affront ,to the depth, breadth -andintricacy of feeling of which we kncrw ourselves capable. Thus our repulsion isbound up with a sense of outspacing and transcending the mentality of themalefactor; it would not be felt so strongly if we did not value. our,own morecomplex and capaceous state of being; and the rationality we use to castigate thewrongdoer draws much of its strength from that value-feeling.

Finally, I'd like to draw some general conclusions from these considerations.Perhaps the most obvious one is that science by itself can never oiler moral

guidance. • •As has often been said, "Science can give you the facts but it can't tell you

what to do with them". It is an illusion—and one that Was particularly prominentin the last century—that science can become the ultimate arbiter in human affairs.It cannot, because always, prior to and along with knowledge, there are attitudesto knowledge. Only via these attitudes can facts have importance for us andinfluence us; attitudes invariably stand between us and the data that Science offers,and we can no more escape the former than-we-can our own shadows. '

Attitudes to knowledge are never formed by —knowledge as Such; preciselybecause they are anterior to it": hence-their origin and histork are not dependenton science: Indeed, as we have seen,•the pursuit of science is dependent on them.Thus scientific rationality will always be enclosed within the very differentrationality of .values.

This would remain the case even if total -and exhaustive scientific knowledgewere achieVed, because the central issue will always be, not facts, but our senseof the worth and significande of facts. That sense determines how we relateourselves to knowledge, and knowledge to conduct.

The second conclusion is-that, granted the primacy and subjectivity of values,Humanism should always be aware of the problematic aspects of morality.

It must realise it will never know equivalents of the certainties and assuranceswhich attach to theological ethics. In accepting the irrational basis of its morality, .ih perceiving that there exist no ethical "truths" to be intuited or discovered, itexperiences anguish. Its moral choices and decisions cannot be vindicated byscience, and there are no objective-guidelines; -hence Humanism is alone with itsattitudes in 'an otherwise value-void -universe.

Its attitudes are ultimately all it has to work with, and it inevitably encountersextreme anxiety in coming to decisions which must- be made on crucial matters oflife and death. In abandoning all claim to objective knowledge of right and wrong,it -sheds the protective coating of false certitude and so exposes itself to theiciness of a universe without mind, a universe which not only Offers no values butis indifferent to those men create.-

With such -a perspective, the Hum- anist is no stranger to far-reaching doubt,perplexity and hesitation; but also no stranger to final resolutions, however difficultto reach these may be.

Ethical Record, January 1989 Il

Lastly, the aim of Humanist ethics is to create a purposive order—a cosmos—from what is otherwise chaos.

Because that order serves human aims, it can be described as an area of pilotedirrationality within a universe of unpiloted irrationality. As Santayana says: "Weare part of the blind energy behind Nature, but by virtue of that energy we imposeour purposes on the part of Nature which we constitute or control". (op. cit.)

This imposition of purpose leads to ethical reason, which is, as it were, thecompass the rest of the universe lacks. Every force in nature is engaged in aprocess of self-unfolding; but of these forces only the human can bring rationality—deliberative, systematic and extended thought—to bear on the process.

The task and rewards of employing reason to minister to human aspirations arememorably expressed by Santayana, and it is with another quotation from himthat I would like to close:

" We can turn from the stupefying contemplation of an alien universe to thebuilding of our own house, knowing that, alien as it is, the universe has chanced toblow its energy also into our will and to allow itself to be partially dominated byour intelligence. Our mere existence, and the modicum of success we have attainedin society, science and art are the living proofs of this human power. The exerciseof this power is the task appointed for us by the indomitable promptings of ourown spirit, a task in which we need not labour without hope.

"For as the various plants and animals have found foothold and room to grow,maintaining for long periods the life congenial to them, so the human race maybe able to achieve something like its perfection and its ideal, maintaining for anindefinite time all that it values, not by virtue of an alleged intentional protectionof Providence, but by its own watchful art and exceptional good fortune. The idealis itself a function of the reality and cannot therefore be altogether out of harmonywith the conditions of its own birth and persistence. Civilisation is precarious, but itneed not be short-lived. Its inception is already a proof that there exists anequilibrium of forces which is favourable to its existence; and there is no reasonto suppose this equilibrium to be less stable than that which keeps the planetsrevolving in their orbits. There is no impossibility therefore in the hope that thehuman will may have time to understand itself, and, having understood itself, torealise the objects of its rational desire...."What we should do is to make a modest inventory of our possessions and a just

' estimate of our powers in order to apply both, with what strength we have, to therealisation of our ideals in society, in art, and in science. These will constitute ourCosmos .. "(op sit)

A brief, final comment : when Santayana speaks of "rational desire", I takehim to mean "realistic desire", that which is seen to be capable of realisation—not desire which originates in reason.

The latter meaning would be at odds with his previous defmition of man asthe product of irrationality: with, that is, the true situation.

SPES LIBRARY RECEIVES NEW BOOKSThe following list of books (the first part published in the Ethical Record last

month) have been added and catalogued into the SPES Lending Library in recentmonths has been compiled from books bought by the Society from moniesallocated by the General Committee. It also covers many second-hand booksgenerously donated by the following members and others—Sam Beer, NormanBacrac, Edwina Palmer, Joyce Hoare, Dev Deodhekar and Nicholas Hyman.

Members wishing to borrow books from the Library should fill in (in BrockLETTERS please) a Loan Slip before taking a book out. A period of four week'sretention is allowable, but please request an extension if this proves necessary.

EDWINA PALMER,Honorary Librarian.

Human Values in Medicine & Health Care. N. Shmavonian.Leader's Manual For Health & Human Values. United Ministries in Education.Biomedical Ethical Issues (Digest of Law & Policy). Frank M. Harron.


A.Fantasy of Reason (Life & Thought of Wm. Godwin). Don Locke.Arthur Koestler Bricks to Babel. Koestler (Selected Writings).Gordano Bruno & the Hernietic Tradition. Francis Yates.Personality's Superstructure. S. J. Velinsky, Phd.Before Igor (Memoirs of a Soviet Youth). Svetlana Gouzenko.Issues in Education-Plain View. Ronald Fletcher.Tract-On Creative Thinking. Marjorie Hourd.Tract-Poetry & the Language of Feeling. Bernard Harrison.The Social Education of the Adolescent. B. Davies & A. Gibson.Coleman's Drive. John Coleman. •Kim il Sung (On the Korean People's Struggle). Kim il Sung.Russian Thinkers. Isaiah Berlin.Voltaire The Age of Louis XIV. Hugh Trevor Roper.The Sun in the East. M. Fersi.Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984? Andrei Amalrik.The Birth of ,Communist China. C. P. Fitzgerald.FONTANA MODERN MASTERS

lames Joyce. John Gross.George Orwell. Raymond Williams.Charles Levi -Strauss. Edmund Leach.Albert •Camus. Conor Cruise O'Brien.Samuel Beckett. A. Alvarez.Chomsky. John Lyons.

The Last Puritan. George Santayana.A Year's Letters by Algernon Charles Swinburne. F. J. Sypher.Katherine Anne Porter Collected Stories. K. A. Porter.Sugar & Other Stories. A. S. Byatt.The Abyss. Marguerite Yourcenar.World Society-A Symposium. Landheer, Loenen, Polak (Ed.).The Moonstone. Wilkie Collins.Anglo Saxon Attitudes. Angus Wilson.The Woman who Rode Away & other Stories. D. H. Lawrence.A Cruel Madness. Colin Hubron. •A House for Mr. Biswas. V. S. Naipaul.Humourists of the • 18th Century (Swift, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith.

Jane Austen). G. G. Unwin.Look Back in Anger. John Osborne.Great Tales of Old Russia (Chekov, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Gorki & others).

David Markson.Man and the Cosmos. Ritchie Calder.The Nature of Emotion. ivt. B. Arnold.Food Resources-Conventional and Novel. N. W. Pirie.

00. The Pursuit of the Millenium. Norman Cohn.Economic Philosophy. Joan Robinson.Hypnosis-Fact and Fiction. F. L. Marcuse.Totemism. Claude Levi-Strass.Belief in Society. Nigel Harris.Modern Economics. Jan Pan.Self and Others. R. D. Laing.•The Psychology of Study. C. A. Mace.On the Experience of Time. Robert E. Ornstein.How to Take a Chance.Before the Deluge. Herbert Wendt.The House of Commons at Work. Eric Taylor.The Structure of Life. Royston Clowes.Relativity for the Layman. James A. Coleman.We are not Alone-The Search for Intelligent Life on Other Worlds. Walter

Sullivan.

God Reprimanded0 Almighty Lord God, who for the sin of man didst once drown all the world

except eight persons and afterwards of thy great mercy didst promise never todestroy it so again. Prayer for Rain which used to be in the English Prayerbook.Ethical Record, January 1989 13

T. S. ELIOT: AFTER STRANGE GODS

Summary of his Lecture to the Society on Sunday, October 16, 1988

The broad-backed hippopotamus -Rests on his belly in the mud;Although he seems so firm to usHe is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,Susceptible to nervous shock;While the True Church can never failFor it is based upon a rock.

IN 1928, T. S. ELIOT PUBLISHED A BOOK OF SHORT ESSAYS with the title, ForLancelot Andrewes and the descriptive sub-title "Essays on Style and Order".The book, just over 100 pages long, comprised eight essays on different writers.These ranged from LANCELOT ANDREWES, Bishop of Winchester, who died in1626, to an American humanist, IRVING Barium, who did not die until 1933.because of the "purity and single-mindedness of his passion" to the French poet,Other writers included MACHIAVELLI, whom Eliot considered a great writer,because of the 'purity and single-mindedness of his passion' to the French poet,BAUDELAIRE, in whom many have found more sin than sanctity but who was, for

'Eliot "essentially a Christian born out of his due time, and a classicist,, born outof his due time".

The thing that bound these, at first sight disparate, writers together in Eliot'smind, was that they all combined a sense of order in life and the ability toexpress that sense in writing of the finest style. It may be enough to quote whatEliot says about Andrewes. He declared that "no religion can survive the judg-ment of history unless the best minds of its time have collaborated in its construc-tion". He thought that the Church of the first Queen Elizabeth was worthy of theage of such writers as SHAKESPEARE and JONSON because of the work of some ofits own best writers of whom Andrewes was one. Eliot so admired the sermonsof Andrewes that he borrowed some of his phrases, particularly for his poem,"The Journey of the Magi". Eliot, therefore, whose reputation at this time as poetand literary critic was already quite considerable, was concerned to insist on theimportance of good writing but to insist also that good writing could not existin a vacuum. This particular belief of Eliot has attracted little attention in thecentenary tributes that have recently appeared.

The preface to this small volume is very important to a study of Eliot. In it,he said that he wished to make his present position clear:

The general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist inpolitics, and anglo-catholic in religion. I am quite aware that the first term is com-

pletely vague, and easily lends itself to clap-trap; I am aware that the second term is at present without definition, and easily lends itself to what is almost worse than

• clap-trap, I mean temperate conservatism; the third term does not rest with me todefine. The uncommon reader who is interested by these scattered papers may pos-sibly be interested by the small volumes which I have in preparation: The School ofDonne: The Outline of Royalism: and The Principles of Modern Heresy.

On the facing page, there is a note to the 1970 edition which informs thereader that the three books "were unfortunately never written".

Those readers of For Lancelot Andrewes whose appetite was aroused by thethought of the three books that were to follow may not have been wholly dis-appointed. In 1934, Eliot published the text of three lectures that he had deliveredat the University of Virginia the year before. The title was After Strange Godsand the sub-title was described as "A Primer of Modern Heresy".14 Ethical Record, January 1989

For those who may not be immediately familiar with the word, "heresy" meansbeliefs or opinions that are unconventional or perhaps more specifically opposedto those of the predominating religious community or establishment. It is onlyfair to explain at this stage that Eliot, if he did not exactly disown After StrangeGods, showed a later dissatisfaction with the book and never reprinted it withhis other works.

He did not give a full explanation of his reasons but let it be known that hethought the book the product of a period of his life when, for various causes,both his thought and expression fell below the standards he would have wishedto reach. This view was connected with his unfortunate personal situation at thetime that he went to America to deliver the lectures. In spite of this, however,there is much in the small book .that fits in very closely with the lines on whichEliot's views• had developed at that time and on which they were to develop inthe future.

The book may be summarised briefly. First, Eliot returns to the subjeci thathad concerned him in previous writings, the relation between tradition and theindividual writer. He distrusted the view of literature and art that said that whatwas important was that the writer or artist should express his personality. ForEliot, as he had said in a previous essay, the progress of an artist was "a continualself-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality".

For the artist, therefore, it was necessary to have guidance. It could not bethe guidance that he found within himself and in After Strange Gods, Eliotrefers to "the Inner Light, the most untrustworthy and deceitful guide that everoffered itself to wandering humanity". -Eliot came very close to saying that unlessa writer were informed by some sense of religion—dogma or revelation—hecould not be considered a good writer. In case this interpretation may be thoughtextreme or possibly unfair, Eliot tries to give substantial ground for it. In themiddle lecture of the three that make up After Strange Gods, Eliot looks at threeshort stories, each by a distinguished writer. The stories are"Bliss" by KATHERINEMANSFIELD,"The Shadow in the Rose Garden" by D. H. LAWRENCE and -"TheDead" by JAMES JOYCE. All the stories deal with husband and wife discoveringfacts or truths about their relationship that had not previously been revealed tothem.

Eliot goes through the stories in turn. He finds "Bliss" a slight piece and mostreaders would agree. His objection to the Lawrence story is that none of thecharacters show moral sense or "even the most commonplace kind of con-science". He thinks the Joyce story the best of the three and probably mostreaders would agree. It is longer and there are both greater colour and depth.Joyce goes into much greater detail in his presentation of the background andthe setting and in his analysis of the actions and reactions of the principal charac-ters, the husband and wife. It is a most artistic story and, while firmly written, itis sensitive and delicate and deeply moving. Eliot's reasons for giving it the prize,as it were, are different. He explains:

We are not concerned with the authors' beliefs, but with orthodoxy of sensibilityand with the sense of tradition, our degree of approaching 'that region where dwellthe vast hosts of the dead'. [Eliot is quoting from the last lines of the story.] AndLawrence is for my purposes, an almost perfect example of the heretic. And themost ethically orthodox of the more eminent writers of my time is Mr. Joyce. Iconfess that I do not know what to make of a generation which ifgnores these con-siderations.

This really makes everything clear. The personality of the artist hardly matters.Eliot says of THOMAS HARDY for example: '

He seems to me to have written as nearly for the sake of 'self-expression as a manwell can: and the self which he had to express does not strike me as a particularlywholesome or edifying matter of communication.

He deplores the shortcomings in . D. H. Lawrence's upbringing and connectsthem with "the vague hymn-singing pietism which seems to have consoled the

Ethical Record, January 1989 IS

miseries of Lawrence's mother". It is a matter for deep regret that readers havebeen deprived of the very great writers who might have grown up in Dorset andNottinghamshire if only Hardy and Lawrence had had their minds properlytrained, either in the Church of Rome in which Joyce grew up, even though heabandoned it or the Church of England in which Eliot was not brought up butwhich he espoused in later life with the kind of enthusiasm that causedShakespeare to declare that "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds". Whatmakes a great writer in Eliot's opinion is the fact that he adheres to and isfashioned by an orthodox, established church.

It is possible to admire Eliot, the poet and dramatist, and yet be unable tofollow his critical theories and the social and political attitudes into which theyled hm. Nobody has identified with greater shrewdness, irony and sensitivity andin language of such musical cadences the predicament of the xxth century thanEliot the poet. It is hard for anyone who responds to poetry at all not to be drawnto him. Yet, Eliot the critic, the commentator on religion, society and politicsis by no means so attractive. There is a high-nosed superiority about his attitudewhich contrasts strikingly with what seems his genuine humility as a poet.

From After Strange Gods in which he writes of "a society like ours, worm-eaten with Liberalism" to later writings in which, if not so extreme of phrase,his general implications are much the same, he frequently antagonises manywho start with a sympathetic attitude. In his later years, he spent more of hisenergies, and be was not in the best of health, on prose rather than poetry.

He had said in After Strange Gods that in prose he could be concerned withideals, "whereas in the writing of verse one can only deal with actuality". Totake him at his word, it has to be said that his ideals can commend themselvesto a few only. In a world in which the authority of established religion is diminish-ing, he continued in such works as The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes

towards the Definition of Culture, the one just before the outbreak of war in1939, the other two years after the end, to write as if Britain, instead of themainly secular society that it had become with many other societies in the world,was still a largely Church-centred community.

There were times when Eliot spoke in a more or less direct political vein. Thus,in 1955, he addressed the London Conservative Union on "The Literature ofpolitics". He said that all the audience could "without any prompting, repeat inchorus" the names of four "classic" Conservative writers. These were, someof the audience might not have been able to name in chorus: BOLINGBROKE,BURKE, COLERIDGE and DISRAELI". He did not always overlook the chance ofputting some "Leftist" writers in their place. Thus he said that "between theinfluence of a BERNARD SHAW or an H. G. WELLS, and the influence of a Coleridgeor a NEWMAN, I can conceive no common scale of measurement".

No better comment has been made on Eliot's insistence on this line of thoughtthan the words of the American critic, EDMUND WILSON, written in 1929 whenhe had first read After Strange Gods. Wilson was a great admirer of Eliot, thepoet and had been one of the first critics to understand the value of the newnotes that he had brought to the poetry of the xxth century. On his prose writings,he had this to say:

The answer to Mr. Eliot's assertion that 'it is doubtful whether civilization can en-dure without religion' is that we have got to make it endure. Nobody will pretendthat this is going to be easy; but it can hardly be any more difficult than persuadingoneself that the leadership of the future will be supplied by the Church of Englandor by the Roman Catholic Church or by any church whatsoever. 0

Virginia Woolf (1882-4941)VIRGINIA WOOLF took part in the H.M.S. Dreadnought hoax in 1910, when she

accompanied the Emperor of Abyssinia (so-called) and spoke Latin backwards.She was offered many honours which she refused. She often wondered why the


dome of the British Museum Reading Room contained only masculine namesand not AUSTEN or BRONTE.

She wrote two strongly feminist books—A Room of One's Own (1929) andThree Guineas (1938). It is ironic to remember that her father, Sir LESLIE STEPHEN,was an agnostic Victorian patriarch who edited the Dictionary of NationalBiography. Virginia Woolf wrote:

"We daughters of educated men are between the devil and the deep sea.Behind us lies the patriarchial system, the private house with its nullity, itsimmorality, its hypocrisy, its servility. Before us lies the public world, the profes-sional system, its possessiveness, its jealousy, its pugnacity, its greed. The one shutsus up like slaves in a harem; the other forces us to circle like caterpillars round andround the sacred tree of property."

"Of course—are we not commoners, outsiders?—we shall trample many flowersand bruise much ancient grass. But let us bear in mind a piece of advice that aneminent Victorian who was also an eminent pedestrian once gave to walkers:'Whenever you see a board up with TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTEDtrespass atonee'."

S.B.

ViewpointsDespite agreeing with most of What Tom BUBENS (What is Ethical Rationality

ER November/December '88 p.4) says on the fact/value distinction, it seems thathe still makes some profound mistakes, showing he has not fully grasped the saiddistinction.

He seems to think that in some cases we can have values without facts to holdthem up. He also seems to think we can have subjective items without an objec-tive grounding in the world. This is part of the same error.

The world is objective, but the part of it of which we are conscious is alsosubjectively known ipso facto. He mentions rights. These cannot be purely amatter of value but must also stand for some factual response that the upholderwants to see established, or maintained.

Tom Rubens tells us that rationality is about coherence and logic. He thenseems to assume that, because values are not facts, the logic is somehow affected.But logic is about validity, not fact or truth. It's true that validity, like values,can become second order facts e.g. it's true, or false, whether McX has a validargument, or whether O'Y holds that we ought to have a given right. Tom Rubenstells us that there are different kinds of consistency, but logic still has only onesubject-matter.

When thinkers like WEBER set out to say that science was value-free, what theymeant is that values were not germane. Any values at all would still let us seethe facts. They may have added the paradox that values are "value-free" too, forif I make an ethical or factual attack on McX then the ideas, or memes, I usewill get to him quite objectively, and the slightly less scope that I have in notreferring to testable facts will not make a fat difference.

Ethics is not a science. It is still an organised study, and logic can play a fullrole even if there are no facts. In practice, the fact/value distinction rarelymatters. That Ethics is not a science is academic. It is rarely relevent.

Natural selection is not the work of a creator, nor is it chance. Reason wasnot behind the process of evolution, but nor was it irrational in any way. Ouremotions are not given prior to reason. I suspect that Tom Rubens has nothingthat is true to say on irrationality. As Popper says "Psychology follows logic".

D. MCDONAGH,Birmingham, 21/11/88.


Videos of Their Lives at Funerals?

Referring to Jane Wynne Wellson's Is there a place for Rituals in Humanism?— (ER November/December '88, page 9) perhaps we do not know enough yetabout how we function, to understand if and why we need ceremonies and rituals.

For instance, it appears that when bereaved people need not only support duringwhat is called the period of acute grief, but they need a formal ceremonialacknowledgment of the end which is called death.

For a couple of friends, I have prepared a video showing them talking brieflyabout their lives, with a few pictures of the main events in their lives .and withsome short comments and messages they would wish to be associated with theirmemory. These videos are to be played at their cremation ceremony, where thedeceased will be the main actors addressing the bereaved directly.

Afterwards the video is left to their heirs.Any comment?

DAVID May, London NW 11, 23/11/'88.

Company like with like — "Bad" Marxists and "Good" Christians

When I was bold enough to reprove SIR HERMAN BONDI today for bracketingmarxism with the religions for allegedly being "absolutist", he wriggled out of itby saying that he had only been referring to "bad" marxists.

I'm afraid I was not quick enough to spot the logical fallacy: that of notcomparing like with like. You can't compare "bad" marxists with "good"Christians because all Christians are "absolutist" in Sir Herman's sense. Marxdidn't say: "I am the way and the light, etc";. what he did say was: "I'm not amarxist!"

Why is it that eminent progressives so often feel the need to take these side-swipes at marxism? Similarly, LORD SOPER once said, (on Any Questions): I'mnot a marxist—and I've got an American visa to prove it!" Surely only asimpleton would take Lord Soper for a marxist. Perhaps he felt that, havinglived for so long in the shadow of HEWLETT JOHNSON, he had to lift the hem ofhis robe to avoid contamination?

H. D. CORBISHLEY,Ealing, London WI3, 6/11/ '88.

I am a member of S.P.E.S., and I have seen it suggested that tape recordingsmight be made of some of the lectures—but I have no means of reproducingthese. As I can no longer come to meetings (as I am 80 years old and live too faraway), I enjoy reading the magazine, especially the reports of lectures.

(Mrs.) I. B. BULL, Reading, 2/11/'88.

(Note : Mrs. Bull then requested a copy of Professor Bondi's lecture deliveredon November 6. Text for this is still awaited—Editor).

Ethical Record for November/December mentions humanist rituals. Manyyears ago two humanist friends of mine went to Conway Hall to ask about awedding ceremony. The hall manager explained what was available and then, asthe dewy-eyed young couple were leaving, he added: "And we do a lovelyfuneral"!

GEORGE WALFORD,London NI, 27/11 /'88.


National Peace Council

The AGM of the National Peace Council took place in -the rather•lush premisesof the Jesuit Youth Centre in Fitzjohns Avenue, Hampstead, November 26-27.

Thanks to about a dozen volunteers and LUCY BECK (NPC vice-chair) filling inwhen staff were ill or absent, the NPC has had a successful Year, particularly overKURDISTAN.

The new Caisis RESPONSE NETWORK was activated but the crisis is not over.It was revealed that the Depahrnent of Trade and Industry continues to tradewith IRAQ and IRAN, ignoring anything said by the Foreign Office. Gas-masks usedby Iraq were made in U.K.

For years the NPC has. been trying to get to grips with the Irish Problem andnow has an Irish Working Party •which includes the Green Party. But the starof the AGM was undoubtedly BRENDAN O'LE.Arty, Lecturer in Government at theLSE and author of the Labour Party policy statement on Ireland, who -lucidlydisposed of many stereotypes about Ireland. By diagrams he showed how seg- •mented Ireland is: eyed the two niain factions are divided. -He discounted religionin favour of economics.

Northern Ireland was poor, with antiquated industry: the Republic had amodem economy. He seemed to place his trust in the -EEC -and AmericanEmployers of Irish labour who will.not tolerate religious restrictions. He thoughtthat "Troops Out" would. only result in Northern Irish U.D.I. or civil war. He didnot favour a United Ireland. Labour Party policy (which he wrote) aims at:-

1. Equal opportunities; 2. Administration of real justice (with juries); 3. a Billof Rights; and. 4. equal school funding.

It was noted that even in -the media Ireland is rising to the.top of the politicalagenda because (said O'Leary) the.Government is unable to convince us (in U.K.)that its policy is working:

On the- sale of the NPC. building at .29, Gt. James Street, the Council were .offered three alternatives: - 1. to sell outright; 2. not to sell and attempt to refur-bish at enormous expense; and, 3. to keep the lease but sell the premises. Changesin property tax make the last the most lucrative and the Council agreed thisproposal. Not much will change until 1991.

The Sunday session-was more horrific because it consisted of: -

I. Professor STEPHEN ROSE on Chemical Weapons; 2:Kampuchea and slides byTONY JACKSON(Oxfam); and 3._ The International Peace Bureau in Sydney.

Professor Rose said thalMarch 16, 1988 was a turning-point in history becauseon that day Kurdistan was bombed first with mustard gas and then.with nerve gas.It was NOT like the gas warfare of 1914-18. The silence of the international com-munity was ominous: they wanted Iraq to win. Professor Rose said chemicalwarfare is being employed -by powers with military superiority to suppress smallnations. NIXON made a Biological- and Toxin .Treaty - in 1972 but the New -Biology has created a new menace with genetic engineering.

Tony Jackson said Oxfam became involved in Kampuchea by accident because;owing to diplomatic niceties, no other agency could tell the -world of the grimsituation there. Poi. Por is still around building up his army in camps just out-side the Kampuchean border. There is no way of stopping him either returning topower or creating a new civil war unless China and Thailand change their presentattitude. Pol Pot should really be tried for War Crimes and Genocide (TonyJackson's personal view).

The NPC secretary, AL MACLEOD, was rammed by the Ark Royal when he tookpart in a day of protest in Sydney Harbour against Port Calls. There are 32 USbases in Australia but two Australian Senators are active for peace.

SAM BEER


Montesquieu 1689-1755

We may not now think much of the workings of the U.S. Constitution but theFrenchman who most influenced it was born 300 years ago. He was CHARLESLOUIS DE SECONDAT DE LA BREDE ET DE MONTESQUIEU.

Montesquieu wrote Persian Letters in 1721 and began a fashion of writingsatirical letters from imaginary Orientals about Europe which was taken up bythe Irish playwright OLIVER GOLDSMITH among many others. I quote: - -

Letter 29. Ricca •to Ibben at Smyrna. The Pope is the chief of the Christians;he is an ancient idol worshipped chiefly from habit. Once he was formidable evento princes for he would depose them as easily as our magnificent sultans deposethe Kings of Iremetia or Georgia. But nobody fears him any longer. He claims tobe the successor of one of the earliest Christians called Saint Peter and it is cer-tainly a rich succession, for his treasure is immense and he has a great countryunder his control.

When we remember that Montesquieu antedates VOLTAIRE, this disrespectfulattitude to the Papacy may be a surprise, but Montesquieu was a lawyer whosupported Gallicanism, the traditional independent attitude of the French Church.No wonder the Persian Letters were placed on the Index.

So also wasde L'esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws), Montesquieu's moreserious work on politics (1748). The French word esprit also means wit and thiswork was described as L'Esprit sur (on) des Lois by Madame DEFFAND, a famousblue-stocking and •lover of HORACE WALPOLE. Montesquieu had travelled withLord CHESTERFIELD and visited England from 1729 to 1731. -

This book shows a preference for constitutional monarchy and is againstslavery, aggressive war, religious intolerance, the persecution of witches and theatrocities of the French penal code.

Its most influential ideas were (1) the Separation of Powers (2) Federation and(3) the climatic interpretation of history.

Montesquieu was admitted to the French Academy in 1727. His article on Tastewas included in the famous Encyclopedie and he enjoyed the respect of all the-Encyclopedists. Montesquieu wrote poems but seemed to despise poetry. Anotherbook by him on the greatness and decline of the Romans has been praised as anearly, scientific, non-religious history.

SAM BEER

The Pre-Raphaelites

We thought that after W. M. RossEril died in 1919 (he was the brother ofD.G.) that was the end of the Pre-Raphaelites. WILLIAM MORRIS died in 1896.But no! In 1958 F. C. COWPEK painted La Belle Dame sans Merci in magnificentcolour. Are there any more P.R.'s7

The William Morris Journal for autumn 1988 has arrived with an engraving ofWilliam Morris In The Home Mead which could have come out of News fromNowhere and a poem in praise of W.M. by NORMAN TALBOT in alliterative verse.William Morris's tour of Iceland in 1860 is described from newspaper cuttings ofthe time and how he flew at one poor innocent who mistook an Icelander for aDane.

S.B.

"Nixon in China"Believe it or not, this is the title of a new OPERA. We can now expect as operas

"REAGAN IN THE SOVIET UNION""THATCHER IN SCOTLAND (or Buenos Aires)""THE ARCHBISHOP IN ALBANIA""BARBARA SMOKER IN THE VATICAN".

Pelted by St. Peters Press Ltd., 654 St. Peters Street, St Albans, Herts All SEA. Telepticen: 0727 11341

00141690 record - conwayhall.org.uk

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