AECvol. s4 No. 11 ,cOVEMBER 1949 Threepence

"Necessary Untruth" S. K. Raicliffe

Law and Ethics in the Eighteenth CenturyProfessor G. W. Keeton

Some of Our Adversaries S. K. Ratcliffe

Notes of the Month Conway Discussion Circle

Correspondence South Place News

"Recent Additions to the Library Society's Activities -

Published byMUM RACE Eng L it0C,BE1TYConway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WCI

Cha ncery 8032

CA

SOUTH PLACE ETHICA-L SOCIETYSUNDAY MORNING MEETINGS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK

November 6.—PROFESSOR G. W. KEETON, M.A., LL.D.—"Law and Ethics in

the Eighteenth Century. 2. Lord Hardwick and Equity"

Bass Solos by G. C. DowMAN:

Within these Sacred Bowers .., Mozart

0 Ruddier than the Cherry . -.. Handel

Hymns: 'Nos. 1 and 16

November 13.—S. K. RATCLIFFE.—"Our National Destiny"

Mak, Solo by ELLA lvIslov :

First and Last Movements of Sonata in A M4jor Mozart

Hymns: 92 and 102 '-

November 20.—SURGEON VICE-ADMIRAL SIR SHELDON F. DUDLEY, F.R.S.

—"The Problem of Growing Old"

Soprano and Bass Duets by GWEN EN1BLIW and G. C. DOWNIAN:

Calm Silent Night Carl Goetz

0 Lovely Peace .. Handel

Hymns: Nos. 151 and 76

November 27.—ARCDIBALD ROBERTSON, M.A.—"The Riddle of Christian Origins:

Loisy versus Couchoud"

Vic(lin Solo by MARGO!' MAC,GIBBON:

Sonata in A Major .... HandelHymns: Nos 147 and 5.'

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS. 59111, SEASON

Concerts 6.30 p.m. (doors open 6 p.m.). Admission Is.

November 6.—MacGibbon String Quartet. Beethoven, Op. 130 in B flat;Cheruhini, No. 2 in C; jean Coullhard (Clements Memorial'Prize-Winning Work, Joint Award, 1948).

13.—Martin String Quartet. _Haydn, Op. 76, No. 5 in D; Dvorak,Op. 51 in E flat; Beethoven, Op. 59, No. 1 in F.

20.--z-The Goethe Bicentenary Celebration Concert, FloraNeilsen. Hubert Greenslade, Accompanist. Rudolf Schoch.Hilde Flatter, Accompanist. Cyril Preedy, Solo Pianoforte.Lieder by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Wolfand Pepping. Mozart Fantasia and Sonata in C minor,Mendelssohn Variations Serieuses in D minor, Piano Solos.

7)27. — Aeolian String Quartet. Bartok, No. 2 in A minor, Op. 17;

Beethoven, Op. IS, No. 2 in G; Mozart, K.464 in A.

The Objects of the Society are the study and dissemination of ethical principlesand the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment.

Any person in sympathy with these objects is cordially invited to become a Member(minimum annual subscription 10s.), or Associate (minimum annual subscription Ss.).Associates are not eligible to vote or hold office. Enquiries should be- made of theRegistrar to whom subscriptions should be paid.

TheMONTHLY.RECORD

Vol. 54. No. 11 NOVEMBER 1949 Threepence

'CONTENTS PACE

MOPES OF THW MONTH .. .. .. .. , .. 3

NECESSARY UNTROM ", S. K. Ratcliffe .. .. 5LAW AND ETHICS IN THE 61MM:1:NM CENTURY, Professor G. W. KeP/on .. 7SOME OF OUR ADVERSARIES. S. K. Ratcliffe .. ,. 9CONWAY DISCUSSION CIRCLE .. .. .. .. I ICORRESPONDENCE .. 15

SOUTH PLACE NEWS .. .. 18

RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY 19

SOCIEIV'S ACTIVITIES .. .. 19

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

Notes of the Month

What is Humanism ?It would have required unusual optimism to expect much common agree-

ment to be reached at the international conference of Humanists heldrecently in Switzerland. Marxists, Catholics, and Existentialists were all toowell represented. Jaspers spoke for Existentialism and Karl Barth, the mostinfluential of contemporary Protestants, for the Neo-Calvinism with whichhe is associated. .Many people may wonder what mysterious connotationis possessed by the word " Humanism to draw such a motley gathering tothe same platform. Catholics and Marxists have a fairly clear understand-ing of one another,, both are authoritarian. How far Jaspers has asignificance for Humanists is difficult to decide. Few of his writings havebeen translated; an excellent analysis of his work is made by Mr. H. J.Blackham in the current issue of The Plain View. It is important todiscover what he stands for because he undoubtedly exercises an influence'on Humanist thought. Barth, on" the other hand, is the strangest of bed-fellows to find in a liberal and progressive movement. He does not merelyprotest against " man's self-sufficiency "; he holds that man's nature is sodepraved that he can achieve nothing without supernatural aid. It seemsobvious enough that unless the definition of " Humanism" is to become sewide as to be practically meaningless, a stand will soon have to be made.We cannot hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. The Ethical andRationalist movements are like streams that flow into the Humanist pool,parallel but not identical; but they cannot mix with the more obscurantistforms or with the fashionable gospel of despair. There is an urgent needfor a reaffirmation of aims. Humanism is not forever condemned to occupya no-man's land between religious orthodoxy and Communism.

3

Eleanor Rathhone• It may safely be said that for readers of this Record no biography of theyear will have greater interest than the life of Eleanor Rathbone by MaryStocks (Gollancz, 21s.): This devoted M.R who converted the nation tothe principle of family allowances belonged to the Liverpool family whichfor 100 years had been known for enlightened citizenship. Eleanor wentto Somerville College, Oxford, and would have liked to make philosophyher life studY. Instead of this she went into social-survey work among theLiverpool dockers and the poorest widows. Her inquiries had hardly begunwhen family endowment came to her as the 'principle of an urgent reform.No insurance or pensions scheme would help the working-class mother,whom she saw as the most neglected unit in our industrial society. Formany years she was a lone reformer. Political leaders regarded her planas dangerously unorthodox. The trade unions were hostile. In ParliamentEleanor Rathbone gave ardent support to all the good causes, while neverlosing sight of "the disinherited family". The children's allowance becamelaw just before her death. She was the most effective private M.P. of hertime. She was profound rather than clever, thoroughly informed, a liberalhumanist in everything: always, says Mrs. Stocks, surprised and regretfulwhen finding "educated human beings less reasonable than she consideredthey should be-.

The Hibbert TrustIn the spate of centenaries celebrated this year we have special reason to

honour the memory of Robert Hibbert (1770-1849) Whose benefaction hasdone so much to liberalise religion in this country. The original object ofthe famous Hibbert Trust was to establish university scholarships, lecture-ships, and vacation schools for religious studies of an advanced kind. TheTrustees were enjoined to apply the income of the fund in ways 'mostconducive to the spread of Christianity in its most simple and intelligibleform, and to the unfettered exercise of the right of private judgment inmatters of religion-. They were obliged to meet every twenty-five yearsto pass under review any scheme on which the income was being expended.and to revise it if necessary. How wisely they have exercised their powersis illustrated by the famous series of Hibbert Lectures, inaugurated in 1878,and the progress of the Hibbert Journal, launched in 1902 with Dr. L. P.Jacks as first editor. The Hi bbert Lectures included such outstandingscholars as Max Muller, Ernest Renan, and:A. H. Sayce. More recently,L. P. Jacks, Radhakrishnan, Tagore, and Gilbert Murray have contributedto the series. Other lectures sponsored by the.Trust have been given byFelix Adler, Sabatier, William James, and Rudolph Eucken. It will be seenat once that the terms of the Trust were generously interpreted. In thewords of the late L. G. Montefiore, himself a Hibbert Lecturer: "TheHibbert Lectures were written 'by men of diverse opinions, and the Hibbert

'Journal has been from the 'first `open to contributors of all schools ofthought' and to men belonging to all forms of Christianity, and indeedto writers belonging to all religions and even to none." It is something ofa paradox that Robert Hibbert's fortune was derived from Jamaican sugarplantations run by slave labour and that the Trust was augmented (in1883) by George Case, a Roman Catholic priest who broke with the Churchbecause he could not accept the pronouncements of the Vatican Council.Hibbert himself was a Unitarian in theologY and a liberal in politics. Herejoiced when slavery was abolished by law, though it cost him some £30,000.

Scientists in CouncilFor two years running the Presidential address to the British Association

has sounded a note of Warning and encouragement. Last year Sir Henry

Tizard emphasised that we had sufficient technical knowledge even now to solve the worst of our material problems. In the 1949 meeting Sir John Russell pointed out that there need be no immediate alarm about the growth of the world's population provided that measures were, taken to check soil erosion, increase production by the use of fertilisers and irrigation, thereby reclaiming land that is not cultivated, and combat pests which destroy nearly as much food as is consumed. But lest we become complacent again there is another side to the picture—one which all who feel deeply about the ethical as well as the economic issues, must not seek to evade. Dr. Brock Chisholm, director-general of the World Health Organisation, has just been giving a sombre warning about the consequences of using for destructive purposes the knowledge that science has recently made available to governments. There is no possible protection, he says, against biological warfare, because bacteria know no frontiers. While some scientists are working on how to make the deserts bear crops again, others are engaged on research that would make vast :areas of the world a desert that neither man nor beast could enter for a thousand years. Dr. Chisholm expressed the view that another war, utilis-

ing the atomic and biological weapons now ready, might well bring about a catastrophe comparable_to the Ice Age and kill 90 per cent of the human

•race.

"Necessary- Untruth "n 1(

S. K. RATCLIFFE

Tms IS A significant headline, and all the more so because it appeared at thehead of a leading article in the Manchester Guardian on the morrow ofDevaluation. One of the popular dailies had listed nine occasions upon:which Sir Stafford Cripps made evasive Or misleading statements with regardto devaluing the pound 'Hie Guardian's comment was that, imview of thedisastrous consequences certain to follow a leak, there could be " no plaineror more necessary duty " for a Chancellor of the Exchequer than to dcnyuntil the last moment that pounds might soon be worth less abroad. Thisarticle, as the editor doubtless expected, provoked a lively correspondence,and it led Mr. Churchill to remark that for the present the great newspaperwas perhaps a better guide in economics than in ethics.

The question, as we are all aware, is of cardinal importance, and it is farwider in scope than the dilemma constantly facing the statesman and thebusiness man—namely, how can the exact truth, when known, be statedin defiance of all consequences? As a matter of fact„Sir Stafford Cripps,repeatedly pressed during several months, was able to avoid a categoricalavowal, while laying stress upon the Government's intention to uphold thepound. Nevertheless, in his defence he made his point in the plainest terms.Turning aside from his closely written manuscript, he said: " Even if wehad then had some future intention of altering the exchange rate . . . noresponsible Minister could haye done otherwise than deny such intention."There, then, we have it—the moral right to lie, when some vital interestcuts across the principle of verbal adherence to the truth.

The incident and the defence gave the nation a jolt because of the specialreputation enjoyed by this Minister. He has been esteemed as a statesmanof exceptional integrity. There might be some dubiety concerning state-ments coming from this or that Member of the Cabinet, but•all parties alikethought of Sir Stafford Cripps as a man of his word. Henceforward, accord-ing to Mr. Churchill, it will be impossible ":for anyone to believe or accept

5

any statement he might make as Chancellor". That is .hard saying butnot easy to contradict. The average man long ago gave up believing officialcommuniqués, but he has continued to look Upon certain public men asstanding apart.

Among the letters evoked by the Manchester Guardian leader were Severalfrom prominent Churchmen. The Bishop of Carlisle, greatly daring, was" firmly of the opinion that it is always right to tell the truth whatever theconsequences ". Canon Peter Green (acute and interesting as " Artifexalthough ultra-orthodox) countered. with a reference to " the very commonmistake of supposing that it is always possible to act with ideal rightness:it is not ". A Lakeland vicar adds that " we may have to break the morallaw in order to do what we ought to do ", and what, in given circumstances,we ought to do is the right course for .us to take. The Guardian's reply onthe debate was to the effect that a supreme necessity (e.g., the launchingof the Western Front in 1944) must override the strict obligation to avoidlying.

There are plenty of kindred examples from other walks of life—forinstance among writers trying hard to maintain anonymity. Sir Walter Scottis the best of all illustrations. He denied the authorship of the WaverleyNovels for years. On one occasion, being asked point-blank, he said No,arid then added that even if he had written them he would give the sameanswer.

. Here, once again, is the unending problem of the Absolute Standard, preachedas the ideal while being, always and of necessity, violated. lo our age the mostconspicuous champion of absolute dogma in ethics was M. K. Gandhi. " Forme ", he wrote, " Truth is the sovereign principle: not only the relative truthof our conception but Absolute Truth, the eternal principle that is God."He convinced himself that, in private conduct and public policy, he wassubject to this Absolute; and yet when he came up against an ultiniate testthe principle gave way. The instances were sometimes trivial, as when hegot round his vow to abstain from milk. At other times they were mattersof high consequence, as when he, the world's most famous non-resistant,claimed authority over an Indian National ArmV, or, as a declared enemyof Western • medicine and. surgery, most wisely chose an Englishman toperform the operation for appendicitis. Gandhi acted in plain • humanfashion whenever the need arose. He found the Absolute to be impossibleand confessed with his customary naiveté: The very insistence on the truthhas taught me to appreciate the beauty of compromise." It may be per-missible-to suggest that in this sentence " beauty " is not quite the nun tune.Perhaps G. K. Chesterton put the point more effectively in his reminderthat compromise includes the great word Promise. Both words belong tothe essential substance of our country and its tradition. And at the momentwe may be sure that Sir Stafford Cripps is not alone in echoing WilliamJames's celebrated objurgation, Damn the Absolute!" Yet all the samewe must, whenever possible, speak truly and be faithful to our pledged word

The first part of custom's corruption is the banishment of truth; for,as Pindarus said, to be sincerely true is the beginning of a great vihue andthe first article Plato requireth in the Governor of his Commonwealth.We are more' sharply offended with the reproach of the vice of lying, soordinary in us, than with any other; it is the extremest injury that maybe done us in words to upbraid and reproach us with a lie. Therein I findthat it is natural for a man to defend himself most from such defects as weare most tainted with.—Montaigne.

6

Law and Ethics in the Eighteenth Century I. LORD MANSFIELD AND THE COMMON LAW

B Y

PROFESSOR G. W. KEETON

THE ENGLISH COMMON LAW is the product of centuries of continual delimi-tation of private rights by the judges in the Central Courts, as distinct fromcodified law where the field of legal obligation is mapped out at one time.It therefore consists of a number of specific decisions on particular points,from which general principles arc discovetable. With these, there is also acontinuous process of reinterpretation by the courts of the general principlesof social obligation. This is fundamentally an ethical question, to which thejudges give anSwers in terms of legal tules. In the twentieth century, legalanswers are given to many;of these ethical questions by statute, i.e. the RentActs, and Workmen's Compensation Acts, although these statutes still requireinterpretation by the courts. Where statute does not intervene, however,there is continuous re-interpretation by the courts, in the course of which newanswers to suit changed social conditions are frequently given. Sometirfiesthis process of re-interpretation is more apparent than {a other times, par-ticularly in times cif rapid social change, such as .we live in• today. It wasalso the case in the eighteenth century, when our Common Law was restatedto fit the needs of an age of rationalism, enlightenment and toleration.

Great judges differ from their lesser colleagues in the degree of their sensi-tiveness to the prevailing ethical theories of the times. A great judge will notpreserve a rule if its social value for the age in which he lives is non-existent.

The eighteenth century produced a new outlook on society, born of secu-larisation, and of the vast extensions in knowledge and philosophical inquiry.Moreover, in England, the prevailing outlook on society, was coloured, ifnot formed, by the finality of the Settlement of 1688, the predominance 'ofWhiggery in politics, and by the commercial expansion of England in allparts of the world. All these factors tended to make religion a code ofgood conduct, rather than an intolerant belief as it had been a centurybefore, and they were directly responsible for the twin-growths of tolera-tion of opposing beliefs and of scepticism towards revealed religion amongthe upper classes. At the end of the century, this attitude had even spreadto the lower middle classes, and was responsible for (1) the hostility to estab-lished religion shown by many of the admirers of the French revolution,

the Methodist revival (a protest against indifference and secularism), andthe foundation of communities such as the South Place Society re-

jecting the authoritarian tradition in religion. I) is proposed in this lecture.and the one which follows it to discover how far all these important factorswere incorporated into English law by (I) an analysis of the 'work of thegreatest Common Law judge of the eighteenth century, Lord Mansfield, and(2) an analysis of the work of the greatest Equity judge of the eighteenthcentury, Lord Hardwicke,

The Common Law grew up in the King's Courts as a unifietl system afterthe Norman Conquest. At first very flexible, it became rigid and technicalonce the ecclesiastical judges and practitioners were replaced by trainedlawyers. Accordingly suitors who were denied justice for lack of a remedyin the King's Courts petitioned the King for redress. The King submittedthese petitions to the Lord Chancellor for decision. Out of this, the Courtof -Chancery. administering Equity, grew up. Equity was thus a secondsystem of legal rules, redressing cases of hardship not reached by the CommonLaw courts. This curious dualism in courts and laws reached its maximumdevelopment in the eighteenth century. Hardwicke made Eqtfity into a philo-sophical system. Mansfield and his subordinates in the Common Law

7

courts restated the Common Law in the light of eighteenth-century philo-Sophy, and in so doing introduced a number of genuinely equitable principlesinto the Common Law.

Lord Mansfield, born in 1705, was the son of an impoverished Scottishpeer, and although his education was predominantly English, his approachto legal reasoning has the breadth and maturity which we associate with aScottish legal training. William Murray, as he then was, was called to theBar in 1730, having studied ancient and modern history, Boman, Scots.French and, international law, as well as English law. He rapidly made hismark at the' Bar, often taking part in Scottish appeals, and being noted forhis .cloquence. In 1742, under the patronage of the Duke of Newcastle, hewas made Solicitor-General, and a safe seat in the House of Commons wasfound for him. In 1754 he was made Attorney-General, and he handledmany famous international law cases on behalf of the Crown. In the Houseof Commons he was equally successful, being reckoned inferior in oratoryand power only to the elder Pitt. In 1756. he necepted the office of LordChief Justice and retired from the House of Commons to the Lords, remain-ing, however, a member of the Government until 1763. In 1778, he votedfor a bill to remove the disabilities of Roman Catholics, for which his housewas destroyed by a mob during the Gordon riots. He continued to preside inthe King's Bench until 1788 (thirty-two years) and died in 1793—one of thecompany of very long-lived lawyers.

Lora Mansfield's life, therefore, completely spans the eighteenth century,of which he is an eminent representative. His learning and intellectual powerhave influenced every branch of English law, and some of his reforms, thoughabandoned by his successors, have been revived in our own day. He wasparticularly concerned over the delays, intricacies and ,defects of Englishlegal procedure, and he brought about extensive reforms in procedure toshorten trials, which enabled him to clear up all arrears of cases awaitingtrial, and he sought to fuse the two systems of Common Law and Equityby incorporating rules of Equity into the Common Law. But although hemade some headway, the conservatism of his colleagues and successors pre-vented any substantial change in this direction. It is only in our own timethat the question is being taken up again, and if it is successfully completedit will be by codification of English Law.

Lord Mansfield also added a new body of principles—Mercantile Law—to the English Common Law, thereby completing the work of some of thegreatest of his predecessors in the office of Lord Chief Justice. Mercantilelaw was the creation of the merchants of Europe in. the Middle Ages, out-side any national system of law. The merchants secured charters and privi-leges to apply this law in mercantile courts in the great ports and tradingcities of Europe. Consequently the Common Law failed to develop a systcmof mercantile rules. In Tudor times the mercantile courts decayed. Thegreat Common Lawyers, and especially Mansfield. set to work to remedy thedefects and fill in the gaps in the Common Law, by incorporating the customsof the merchants. Until legislation in the second half of the nineteenthcentury, mercantile law was almost exclusively a judicial product. LordMansfield worked with trained jurors of merchants from the City of London,with whom he discussed problems of mercantile law. Alt6gether apart frommercantile law, Lord Mansfield sought to remould the law of Contracts. Thistook shape in the later Middle Ages, and by the eighteenth century it had be-come extremely intricate and technical. Mansfield's philosophical approachrejected the subleties. He wanted to establish the position that if a contract

•was either in writing, or there was consideration, or it was founded on anatural obligation, it was legally enforceable, but once again his fellow-judgesand successors rejected this interpretation, and today we are still grapplingwith This problem.

One of Mansfield's most interesting decisions was in Sommersett's Case.1771. A tiCgro slave was brought to England from Jamaica by his master.Whilst here he escaped, and his master sought from the court an order forhis return to his control. Lord Mansfield refused it. English law, he said,based as it was on the Law of Nature, could not recognise the right of oneman to have property in another. This was'a reflection of the growing move-ment for Me suppression of the slave trade, which eventually culminated inthe campaign by Wilberforce and the Younger Pitt for abolition (whichEngland wrote into the Treaties of Peace at Vienna in 1815).

The eighteenth century was a calm, reflective and philosophical age, ac-.customed to judging great issues by reason, not emotion. In that it standsin direct contrast with our own. Mansfield perfectly reflected this, and hiscorrespondence shows him to have been in close and constant contact withthe great intellects of his time. In our day we look to Parliament to reformabuses, whilst in the eighteenth century people looked to the courts, andthe judicial office acquired a prestige hitherto unapproached. Great judgeswere great statesmen also, and they took all knowledge for their province.The eighteenth century has many lessons for the twentieth, not the least ofthem being the superiority of reason as applied -to the solution of humanproblems, over emotion and prejudice.

(Summary of an address delivered on October 2)

Some of Our AdversariesB Y

S. K. RATCLIFFE

WHAT DOES one mean by Our, and who are We? This is a preliminaryquestion that is not hard to answer. Societies such as ours take for grantedthe authority of Reason with the method and spirit of science. We believein the unfettered intelligence and the duty of free inquiry. We count our-selves among the heirs of the great Enlightenment, and as suchjliving in themain stream of modern life and experience; for surely, there is no need toprove that the immense majority of our contemporaries reveal by their dailywords and actions that they accept without question the conquests of themodern spirit. Our modest progressive societies and their little meetings donot indicate the general fact, which is that' sensible men and women every-where no longer live in the prison of outworn creeds. But that, of ,course,is by no means the whole story.

Throughout the past half-century it has been evident enough that therevolt against Reason had become a major influence of the age, and it isindubitable that the phenomena in these days are more varied and morevexatious than they were when Dr. Gilbert Murray and other valuableguides began their light against the tendency. As we look upon it 'in ourtroubled time, we may note one large danger and a great many tributarystreams of influence in the service of reaction and obscurantism.

The larger danger, or enemy, may be recognised in a vague belief orsuspicion that the past victories, the great discoveries, of science arc notenduring; that is to say, that a triumph of the mind, however splendid, maysomehow be reversed—as in the quite common notion that Albert Einsteinhas eclipsed the glory of Isaac Newton, that the concept of Evolution hasbeen overturned in the post-Darwin era, or that the marvels of nuclearphysics are revealing a universe utterly different from the. Cosmos thatdominated the thought and experiment of the nineteenth century. But howand why, it may be asked, do, the revolutionary advances of our time

9

diminish the greatness of the pioneers who liberated the mind, shaped thegoverning generalisations; and laid the foundations of modern knowledge?The great victories are always conclusive. They cannot be reversed. Sciendeis continuous discovery and modification. Every generalisation is subject torevision. There is only one method of research, and that is to go forward.The inquiry and the debate are held within the arena of research andunder the iegis of natural law. Einstein and Rutherford are not adventuringinto a chaotib universe. And if the maryels they unfold are too much forthe average mind and imagination, can we not be certain of at least onething—namely, that in order to find our way in this overwhelming newworld of knowledge, it cannot be right to leap back oyer the centuries ofdiscovery and conquest and seek refuge in St. Thomas Aquinas?

In one respect the Victorians were fortunately situated in the conflict overfundamentals. The dominant issues were relatively simple and the menthemselves were eminent. Carlyle and Ruskin, Huxley and J. S. .Mill andMatthew Arnold were national figures. Everybody recognised them andknew what they were fighting about. So also was it in the next generation,when !Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and G. K. Chesterton were in their prime.The affray was in the open and the contestants found delight in the battle.Moreover,, they were handling big and plain things, and they were close tothe people. Our case is different. The issues are confusing, and there isin England today a notable lack of intellectual leaders of commandingstature and popular appeal. Hence it is that the road is open for thecliques and propagandist groups, and they are making effective play withtheir opportunities. How many of such groups, one may ask, can be namedas influential and hostile to the things we, stand for?

In the forefront. some among us would argue, are the European literarypropagaridists who are either Roman Catholics or else fellow-travellers notranking, in effect, as other than emissaries of the Church. Maritain and hisassociates have the advantage of being laymen. Their translators are alert,so that they reach the Englisli-speaking public. They are aided by theprevailing confusion, by the curiosity as regards religion and general ideasthat exists in an ever-increiising multitude, and by the hunger for authorityand security which we know to be insistent among the young. Thisimportant school can, undoubtedly, look with approval upon the most con-spicuous philosophic historian of our time, Arnold Toynbee, whose viewsof the break-up of civilisation are being more eagerly canvassed in Americathan in England. Dr. Toynbee seeS the only salvation for a civifisation indecay to be a restoration of the Spiritual Power. But that Power in hiStoricEurope is the Papacy alone; and who among us can envisage this fulfilmentin Britain and the Commonwealth?• We are confronted by influences, or adversaries, of •a sharply contrasted .kind when we turn to other groups that must be classed as hostile to themodern temper, if by that term we mean reason and intelligent order. Nomovement of our epoch has caused a mental overturn comparable with thatwroueht bv experimental psychology and the wide acceptance of Freudiantheories. Freud's contribution, needless to say,, is of immense value. Thetrouble has come chiefly through his disciples and sectional followers. Afull recognition of the fierce strength that lies in the basic elements ofhuman nature is obviously essential; but is it not desirable, or imperative,that we should resist the exaltation of the irrational and merely animalforces within? The impudent young person's notion that all the evils oflife and society come from self-control is not a tenable hypothesis.

There is one other school or clique now in evidence that calls for a word—the 'distributed adherents Of a philosophy clumsily named Existentialism.The peculiarity of this label is that the writers who use it avoid definition,while assuming that in principle and method it is new—as though any theory10

or system of thought were conceivable apart from Existence. Those whoaccept the label are agreed upon one point, that their. originator wasKierkegaard, the Danish theologian whose name is now everywhere. Hewas a violent and intolerant Christian dogmatist, his hand against everyman, and it has been his singular destiny to inspire alike the neo-Calvinismof Karl Barth and the downright atheism of Jean-Paul Sartre, leader ofthe French existentialists. Kierkegaard was a tortured egoist, 'without arecognisable centre or basis. What kind of thinker, then, is he whosedoctrine produces two brigades of disciples, standing at the polar extremesof belief _and denial?

Among numerous conclusions suggested by any survey of conflictinggroups in the chaos of the present-day, one stands out in a clearness thatshould be encouraging. The fancies and despairs of the cliques here glancedat are altogether outside the realm of public affairs within which the tasksof recovery and reconstruction are beine grappled with. Generally speak-ing, all men and women of our way of thinking hold on to the faith ofreason and the ordered intelligence, and necessarily, therefore, to the hopeof Western revival. In national and international affairs such faith andhope make us approving of positive and co-operative effort towards there-establishment of free constitutions, with tolerance and mutual aid. Ina word, of those movements that are clearly in harmony with our tradition.British power has declined to an extent that might well have seemedimpossible thirty years ago; but British influence may still be of inestimablevalue to the world.

(Sununary of 'an address delivered October 9)

Conway Discussion Circle" RATIONALISM IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY "

THE Conway Discussion Circle resumed its Tuesday evening meetings onOctober 4 with the first of a series of three talks on Rationalism in theTwentieth Century ". The opening address was given by Mr. A. D. HowellSmith, a director of the Rationalist Press Association and author of anumber of books on Rationalism.

Mr. Smith said that Rationalism was the only real hope of mankind. Itmeans being reasonable in all things, facing everything fearlessly, includingfacts about ourselves as well as facts about the world. As a Rationalisthe believed in being. scientific, thoroueh, and systematic. To be a truescientist was to be a true Rationalist.

In .all ages there had been people who had reacted against the orthodoxyof their day, and suffered in consequence. With the exception of ThomasHobbes and Spinoza, modern Rationalism • dated from the eighteenthcentury which had produced Voltaire. In this century there had developedgradually biblical criticism which manifested itself chiefly in France andGermany. In the nineteenth century a further advance came with thepublication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species, while in 1863 ThomasHuxley was lecturing on "Man's !Baser Nature-, and showing that if theanthropoid ape was not an ancestor of man it was at least a distant cousin.Science was progressing and becoming highly specialised, and its trend wasopposed to the whole point of view of the Church.

The continued and growing criticism of the Bible, however, remainedchiefly in the hands of .elerics who had leisure and academic knowledge.Mr. Howell Smith feared that there was a public growing up who knew,nothing of how their forefathers had struggled against orthodoxy. The

II

young tended to concentrate on progress in 'connection with social andeconomic problems. But in order to be a good reformer one must be agood sociologist and also a good historian. One had to have broad know-ledge, and to know the history of civilisation it was essential to study thehistory of religions, which were not merely a collection of idiosynerasiesbut organised social forces.

Ever since Thomas Paine's Age of Reason Freethought had always beenassociated with democracy. The Socialist movement, especially in France,-Italy, and Germany, had become anti-Christian and developed further intoCommunism. The Soviet Union was the centre of anti-Christianity.Although forms of religion were permitted they were not allowed to interferewith what the Government wished to achieve. Communism could not besquared with what the Church of Rome stood for, and the Pope felt themovement to be a danger. In threatening excommunication, however, heaimed at the leaders and tended to leave alone the rank and file who mightonly be muddled Catholics ".

Science of necessity attacked the ideologies of the Church, Mit it was •essential for Rationalists to be on guard against unscientific attitudes inother fields. Science could be used to exploit or bless mankind but wasin itself neutral. There could; however, be prostitution of science for anti-.social aims. The Nazis abused science by trying to make it substantiateridiculous race theories. In R ussia there was a growing .tendency toprostitute science so that it served the interests of the Soviet State. Inthe case of the Lysenko controversy, while Mr. Howell Smith agreed thatresults had been achieved by a particular method of plant breeding, thedanger lay in the fact that all opposition had been crushed. The Soviet Unionwere likely to put obstacles in the way of research because of ideologicalreasons. The'Russians did not like.the geneticists. Marxism admitted nolimitation to the theory that every one was born equal, and, given the samechances and environment, could rise to any heights. The geneticists stressedheredity and held that there would alwa9s be inequality. The Russianstended to tolerate the scientist only as long as his experiments gave themwhat they wanted. This was wrong. The scientist should be left alone.One must have freedom, free criticism, and free publication in a scientificworld. It behoved the Rationalist therefore not only to turn his attentionto criticising the Church but also any trend to make science subservient tothe State.

Tendencies of TodayGiving the second of the talks on "Rationalism in the Twentieth Century"

on Tuesday evening, October I I, Dr. J. A. C. Brown said he intended todkcuss the reason why people were less interested in Rationalism today thanin the nineteenth century and why they were more irrational than everbefore. He thought the lack of interest was due to scientific and sociologicalreasons. Firstly, people were influenced by two great thinkers. Freud andKarl Marx. Prior to Freud, people had thought there was one thing calledreason and another called emotion (or instinct or original sin). they werespoken of as two different processes. Freud showed that emotion was themotive force behind all thought and action, and nearly all schools ofpsychology now accepted that concept. McDougall Was-by no means pro-f:mud, but he too intimated that instinct was the prime mover in all actions.Bernard Shaw. too, -wrote that a profession of rationalism meant not ohlymethod but motive. Dr. Brown gave reason as a means of determining theend, taut it did not and could not explain What the end was. Biologicallyand psychologically, emotional power was needed to attain ends:

It had been said that reason was not more •capable of finding out truththan a pig's snout. People always gaye respectable reasons for what they'did

and so tried to hide real motives. This did not apply to a few cranky people,but to Rationalists, Christians, Ethical Society members, and RomanCatholics alike. Thus a rebel against his rather might become an atheist inlater life. By denying the existence of God he would feel he was defyingand discrediting his own father. A clerk with a feeling of inferiority mightbecome anti-Semitic, so that he could feel superior. iPeople jealous ofbrothers or sisters might become Communists. Sadistic people mightbecome butchers or surgeons. Mentally unbalanced people perhaps mightbecome psychiatrists!

Marx came before Freud, but took longer to influence people. The im-portant part of his theory, however, was now accepted by anthropologistsand historians. - Whereas Freud said respectable beliefs could be traced toless respectable causes, Marx thought that beliefs and theories depended onthe economic and technical basis of Society. An agricultural, people like theancient Egyptians would naturally believe in a corn god, in fertility rites,and be interested in the seasons, and so on. In the eighteenth centurypsychology was in its early stages. There were static social conditions, anda belief in materialism. Mental disorder was attributed to physical diseaseof the brain. But in the nineteenth century conflict grew because of pro-gress. Freud declared that mental disturbances were not due to physicalcauses but to conflicting ideas in the brain. Today this had not alteredgreatly. but it was looked at in a different way. Neurosis was a socialdisease., and was due to tension between the iffdividual and his culture.Biologically in the eighteenth century fixity of species was accepted. but inthe nineteenth century there was conflict when people heard of NaturalSelection. Lysenko maintained that conflict in species did not occur: heemphasised the importance of environment against heredity. It becameapparent that beliefs were influenced by social backgrounds.

The main reason, however, for the lack of interest in Rationalism wasfundamentally sociological. 'It was thie to the upheavals of the presentcentury and consequent -insecurity. This led to emotional disturbances, andpeople felt so insecure that they experienced a need to believe in religion.

Dr. Brown considered that Rationalism was a bad name for the movementand what it stood. for. In history, philosophers believed in the power- ofunaided reason to attain truth, which was ridiculous. Thomas Aquinas hadthought this. A Greek philosopher had tried absurdly to prove by reasonthat an arrow in flight was not moving. Dr. Brown asserted that Rationalismmeant the use of reason and a scientific experimental approach and con-tinual apPeal to reality.

There existed a continual attempt to discredit the motives of people. Itwas extremely difficult to argue with either a Freudian or a Marxist,especially if they were getting the worst of it, as the former might say thatall was rationalisation. In that case. surely Freud could be accused of'rationalisation too, and could not claim to be any nearer the truth than otherpeople . The Marxist would assert that all theories depended on the social -state at the time: and thus it might be argued that the theories of Marx couldonly be accepted at that value. In attempting to argue with a psycho-analyst who was losing ground, he might end by saying' that one suffered

ffrom an unsolved Oedipus complex. In the same way people analysing"Hamlet" were apt to say that Shakespeare suffered from the same complex.

Someone had said that Rationalist and Humanist had nothing in commonbecaiise the one believed in reason and the other in helping his fellow man.Dr. Brown did not believe this, as he declared that ethics and values werevery important and involved in everything to a far greater extent than peonlerealised. -At the R.P.A. Conference at Oxford. the question of being avegetarian had been discussed, but before the matter could nronerly bedebated there were two problems to face, firstly: whether being a vegetarianenabled a person to live longer, and seéondly. why anyone should want to

.13

live longer, and this involved a question of values. So often what seemedto be a statement of fact was merely a statement of preference; and evenwith facts these were conditional. There were hardly any facts that couldbe called universal. The releasing of a stone so that it fell to the groundonly held good for this world, and might not elsewhere.

If the older-fashioned Rationalists would stop looking at Darwin, and'producing anti-God literature, they would see that the movement hadentered a new sphere. Reason has been applied to the social sphere, andsocial psychology was practical. By experimenting with a group of people,an authoritarian group, or democratic or any group structure, it was possibleto show conditions under which members behaved in the most normal way,with thc minimum neurosis. etc., and then apply this to factories. If thingswere arranged in the wrong way, people could feel frustrated, but with theright way better results were achieved, although they could never be idealas the factory system itself was not ideal. It had been' thought that moral.behaviour was difficult, but this was only because people were not livingnormally. Anthropfflogists stated that in primitive tribes there •was verylittle crime, and no neurosis.

According to Hobbes, all men were enemies, and he found it difficult to-explaiff how, they ever co-operated, but there was no need to do this, forpeople were sociable and friendly, and what one had to explain was whythey ever acted in an irrational way, or were aggressive. The laws, love oneanother, and do unto others as you would be done by. were fundamental;and society was by definition a state in which we lived largely in co-operation.

In summing up, Dr. -Brown reaffirmed that reason and emotion were notopposites; that there was only mental energy: that reason was the' part of thentnd in contact with the outside world, and if one allowed complexes frominside to distort images of reality, one became irrational. Unreason andirrational behaviour were due to social and personal insecurity. Theirrational person allowed self to be impressed by past emotions. TheRationalist in oar time must be an unbeliever. The most human thing aboutpeople was the little voice that said "I don't believe 112. It was good totake notice of it; good that people should not be too convinced that theywere right. or too complacent. It was good sometimes .to fling a dead caton the altar, to criticise God, and Stalin ffnd everything else, and the pro-fessed Rationalist did all that.

Rationalism and the World CrisisThe third and concluding discussion on "Rationalism in the Twentieth

Century" was opened on Tuesday. October 18, by Mr. Hector Hawton.secretary of the South Place Ethical Society and author of various -bookson Rationalism. Mr. H. J.,Blackham took the chair. Mr. Hawton said thathe agreed with a great deal in the two previous addresses, particularly withthe view that Rationalism was in no sense a metaphysical creed but ratheran extension of 'scientific method. Science could not solve all our problemsbecause it was not concerned with values. It could shoW us the best way ofrealising our desires, and whether they were incapable of attainment, butit could hot tell us what to desire. A desire, or wish, was ultimate, and thetask of reason.was to predict its probable consequences and point the roadto fulfilment if we still intended to pursue it. Contemporary criticisms ofRationalism fell under three . headings: (1) Rationalists were often said tobe too preoccupied with religion and to be flogging a dead horse, since beliefin religious dogmas had suffered a -widespread decline; .(2) ecclesiasticalditics had declared that Rationalist propaganda rested on a basis of obsoleteVictorian scienee: (3) from many quarters came the charge that Rationalismwas cold, intellectualist, unsatisfying to the deeper feelings.

Mr. Hawton deplored any attempt to "laugh off" constantly reiteratedcriticisms; but he thought a careful distinction should be made between14

methods of propaganda and fundamental principles. The trouble with the.ffiead horse" was that it might well turn out to be a Trojan Horse and wina thirprising victory unless •we were vigilant. The Catholic Church wascertainly very much alive and its propaganda machine in first-class condition.The more obscurantist type of Protestantism was also becoming active again,acquiring a false air of intellectual respectability under the aegis of Kierke-gaard and his disciples. As for erecting a superficial philosophy on the basisof nineteenth-century science, such•a procedure would be impossible if weaccepted the view that Rationalism was synonymous with Scientific Method.In Mr. Hawtoffis view there was a danger in some popular versions ofRationalism of over-simplifying the problem and giving the impression thatRationalism offered a synthetic philosophy which might even harden into anorthodoxy. It was necessary to form a picture of the universe, but we mustremember that it is a moving picture—continually modified by fresh dis-coveries. The great intellectual revolution effected in the twentieth centuryby Freud, Einstein, and Quantum Physics—not to mention the New Logic—had yet to be assimilated.

Finally, the objection that Rationalism was the product, as it were, ofCold Comfort Farm missed the point. Rationalism is concerned withknowing, not with feeling. If it is simply a scientific attitude to problemsof knowledge it naturally does not intrude on the life of the imagination,the realm of feeling in which values are born, the world of the poet andartist. But humanity is faced with such a supreme crisis that a scientificattitude towards our .practicffi problems is the only thing that stands betweenus and catastrophe. The world cannot feed its growing population unless itutilises scientific knowledge to the utmost. Unimaginable misery anddesolation would follow a world war waged by atomic and bacteriologicalweapons. Yet the Churches were deliberately softening resistance to suchan unparalleled disaster. Religion was being misused to create defeatism atthe very moment that technology had placed in man's hands the knowledgethat alone could save him.. The Rationalist mission in the twentiethcentury must be .to expose the monstrous falsehoods that frustrate sciencein its creative task and serve those enemies of mankind who would use it towipe out civilisation in order to save themselves. L. L. B.

Correspondence-To the Editor of The Monthly Record.

Northwood .Farni.Hayling Island, Hants.

DEAR Sig—I would like- to disagree with Hector Hawton on one point.He says in "Ourselves in the Mirror" that it is urgently necessary to attractthe younger generation into the Society. But is that so? Is it possible?Surely to be a member of an Ethical, Rationalist or Humanist Society meansthat the individual has grown up, at least to some extent? Now, althoughmost people are physically mature at twenty or thereabouts, how many arementally so. at forty? born we admit that when we look for physicalbeauty in young people, but character in older people? I suggest that ittakes a long time to reach anything approaching maturity; that it is, if it isto be worth anything, a slow and gradual growth of the mental processes,arising out of understanding and tolerance, and that it is quite impossible foryoung people to have either. This is not their fault, it is simply that theyhave not been sufficiently long in the School of Life.

Have we not just been told- by Lord LindSay of Dither that the universi-ties are producing large numbers of "clever asses"? (My men on the farmput it this way. "they may have brains, but they have no savvy!") I suggest

15

that just as you can't make bread before the wheat is mature, so you cannothave and ought not to want, youngsters old before their time. You cartconvert a cad or a criminal into a saved Christian overnight, but you certainlycannot 'suddenly become a Humanist or Rationalist or Ethicist. But if theyounger generation see that the members of these societies have somethingthat is not to be found in orthodox societies, I think they may then desiremembership. and a small dlite body of people, who think as they do, and arewhat they are because they have travelled a long road surely is to be.preferred to a large body of converts.

The Communists have something to teach us here..Very sincerely yours.

. ' A. H. BROWN.

Ourselves in the MirrorTo the Editor of The Monthly Record.

• Broomwood, Kettlewell Hill,Woking.

DEAR SIR—The problem raised under the above title by Mr. Hector Hawton.is of vital importance to our Society and merits the fullest discussion.

. My suggestion, "a poor thing but my own", will, I feel, receive scantyconsideration, but as an old member of South Place I put it forward in thehope that it may provoke discussion anthalternative ideas. It is, that we goback to one-man leadership—retaining of course a certain number of Sundaysset apart for discourses from suitable speakers.

With the Society's finances now on a firm footing, a good emolument couldbe offered—while the post itself, with an old and established Society withits important place in the world of Rationalist thought might well attractan energetic if unknown leader, wholly acceptable to the Society. Why notrevive the Sunday School and later on a Children's Service once a quarter?.I think that with a suitable leader—not necessarily resident—a closer andmore personal atmosphere would develop and members would once againfeel that they were really a Society—not a collection of more or less strangersheld together rather loosely by the slender chain of a famous past.

Yours sincerely,R. H. VICKERS.

EqualityTo the Editor of The Monthly Record.DEAR SIR—N1r. E..A. McDonald's criticism, in your August issue of mystrictures in respect of equality does not seem to be relevant to my point. Ientirely agree that many intellectuals are starved of intellectual food; thatmany Teal objects of art are acquired by coarse money jugglers incapable ofappreciating them, and obtained solely in a spirit of ostentation; that thepay of Hollywood "artists", pugilists and other such, often worse thanuseless, individuals, is a reflection of the still primitiveness of civilisation;that there are navvies who, had they been given the opportunity, would havedeveloped into intellectuals, and that an equitable social system shouldprovide equal opportunity to all. But the sole purpose of my argument wasto support my opinion that the dictum "all men are born equal- is simplynot true, and that there would be no sense in wasting upon men the cost ofpleiasures they are incapable of appreciating when much less costly oneswould be understood and valued by them.

Socialism recognises this, for payment is according to the value of servicesrendered to the community, and Communism even more so, for citizenswould receive according to their needs, and needs are intellectual as well asphysical.

September 4, 1949. Yours faithfully,

J. WESTON.16

Superstition, or Experiment ?TO the Editor of The Monthly Record,DEAR Sin—With reference to the first paragraph of " Notes of the Month "for October, the fact should not be overlooked that mankind is now sensingthe possibility of escape from the dead-level of materialism to the next stageof evolution. It is quite natural for it to seize upon anything which tendstowards wholeness.

Was •the V.C. officer really deluded? He had tried avery conventionalmeans of aiding his wife, and so could hardly be blamed for trying theunconventional. Did space here permit, thc scientific fact 'could be demon-strated that the child.mighi have been able to aid the lady.

The objection raised in the second paranraph to popular newspapercolumns hardly justifies the description of astrology as " clotted nonsense ".The published stuff is nothing to go by; the principles of astrology are suchthat, when applied to the individual by a real master of them, the resultcan be amazingly accurate. The trouble is that the attainment of expert-nds is so difficult, not that astrology is merely superstition.

Again, at the end of the second paragraph, a 'rather different complexionis put upon the Mount Ararat expedition by the recent announcement thatit was not really to search for Noah's Ark remnants; but to establish a postto listen for the exploSion of atom bombs in Russia!

Yours faithfully,ERNEST BOARDMAN.

Scunthorpc, Lind

Education for CitizenshipTo the Editor ot The Monthly Record.DEAR SIR—Universal suffrage is the prerequisite of Democracy in theory andpractice, and requires that everybody entitled to decide on the, welfare of thecommunity should be sufficiently well educated to form a clear opinionthrough discussion of &very issue arising.

The knowledge imparted to future citizens at schools is now mostly wastedon irrelevancies, unverifiable news and questionable views, to create suspicionof one's neighbours, to incite instead of to enlighten them, to make themdespair to the point of cynicism, callousness and neurosis.

As Professor Heath once apdy remarked from our platform, the antidoteof insufficient thinking is not less thinking but more. Therefore what werequire now is more and better education. Our technical education isprobably second to none. Can we say with equal certainty that the men andwomen on whose ultimate decisions will depend the form Of our governmentand its actions, can grasp the requirements and reactions of other nations? !Wars have never solved problems; they only increase the difficulties whichcould have been straightened out much more easily round a table before theresort to arms. Probably there is not much glory in such a method, hutcertainly there is much more steady progress accomplished by it.

Education for citizenship, grounded on unbiased knowledge of history,geography, economic facts and potentialities of our own as well as of othercountries with whom we have or wish to have relations, is essential, and weshould ceaselessly endeavour to meet the ever-changing conditions created bydiscoveries in the rdalm of the sciences, and by the re-awakening of thosewho are often mistakenly called backward peoples. Ideological and racialdisputes like religious wars must become obsolete. The welfare of our neigh-bours in the Far East is now as much 'our concern as that of our neighboursdown the road. •

Yours sincerely,L. CAMERMAN.

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To the Editor of. The Monthly Record. •DEAR Siu—There are neighbouring institutions which maintain the intdestof their students by means of discussion classes rather than lecture classes.This tendency is evidently the result of experience and our Society woulddo well to consider such an approach to the junior member problem.

There is already a little interest in a junior diseussion circle, free to talkon any subject, to meet weekly. If any persons able to join such a group willwrite to me at Conway Hall, I will approach the authorities and see whatcan be done.

B. 0. WARWICK.

South Place NewsOwing to shortage of time, we were obliged to rely on press reports,

which were not altogether reliable in the details, when announcing in theSeptember Record the news of Mr. H. L. Bullock's appointment to thechairmanship of the T.U.C. Instead of being sixty-seven years of age, wenow hear that Mr. Bullock will not be sixty-five until January next, whenhe would be due to retire from his post as a National Industrial Officerto the National Union of General and Municipal Workers; but so that hecould hold the highest office in the Trade Union movement his service withthat union has been extended for eight months.

•We are happy to announce the arrival of a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Jack

Green. Jennifer Avril Green was born on August 4, and we understandthat her brother was delighted to welcome baby `Jen'.

The Thursday Social Evenings recommenced on October 6 with a very goodattendance. Beethoven pianoforte solon were excellently played by BerthaChanning, J. Cummins told some very good stories in his usual entertainingfashion, G. C. Dowman sang three songs, and •Miss Walters held the closeattention of her audience while she read a Grand Guienol one-act play.

The programme was much appreciated and we are looking forward tohearing new talent on the next "open evening-.

Library NotesThe General Committee has consented to provide funds for the purchase

of one'newly published book per month to be added to the library. A sug- •trestion book is being provided in which members may suggest the purchaseof any book they wish to read. Decisions as to purchase will be made bythe Library Committee. All these newly purchased books will be placedon a shelf in case "F" and labelled as such. The•Library is open on Sundaymornings and Thursday evenings. -

ObituaryThe passing of Ada Carpenter will be felt with sorrow by some of our

older members. She was ninety-four and her membership with this Societydates back to the time of Moncure Conway.

Miss Carpenter will be remembered as an energetic member of the SundayConcerts Committee, who, until not many years ago, sold the musical scoresat the concerts.

" The younger a man is, the less he believes in goodness, though he ismore credulous of evil."—Tolstoy.

18

Recent Additions to the Library

Religions of the Past and of the Future ..Life and DestinyLyeurgus

•Tide

Songs of England ..Songs of Scotland ..Songs of Ireland .. Peterborough CathedralThomas Paine ..CremonaEncyclopiedia BiblicaThe Doctor's DilemmaGetting MarriedThe Shewing Up of Blanco PosnetThe Man With Two Left Feet'Out of Great TribulationSchool for SaintsChildren of the Ghetto'A Room of One's OwnProse WorksPoems ..Listenerc LureReligion of DutyThe Ethical Movement

The Existence of GodThreshold of Sex ..Divsorce .. ..Modern Woman .. ..Divorce, Nullity, and SeparationThe Cost of English Morals ..Josephine Butler .. ..

Author Ref.

Q.2Q.2Q.2

Thomas Craddock Q.2John E. Remsburg Q.2W. H. Quarrel, M.A. Q,2

Q.4

.. George Bernard Shaw G.I

.. P. G. Wodehouse 0.1

.. Horace Annesley Vachell 0.1

.. John Oliver Hobbes 0.1I. Zangwill 0.1

.. Virginia Woolf G.1

.. John Milton U.1

.. Christina Rossetti 11.1

..E. V. Lucas 0.1

..- Felix AdlerHorace J. Bridges,

Stanton Coit,G. E. O'Dell, andHarry Snell

Joseph McCabe• F. J. Gould

• Earl Russell -• Florence Farr• Alfred Skelt• Janet Chance• Millicent G. Fawcett,

G.B.E.. andE. M. Turner

SenexFelix AdlerIL S. P Haynes

X.2X.3

A.A.5A.A.5A.A.5

- A.A 5A.A.5

OAQ.1Q.1is4.1

- Society's ActivitiesConway Discussion Circle

Weekly discussions will be held in the Library on Tuesday evenings,at 7 p.m.

November 1949November 1.—M rs. Lan Freed (author of Social Pthgmatistiz), " Is

There a M oral A uthority ?"8.—R. C. Fitzgerald, Ia. (Faculty of Laws, University

College, London), " The Law on Insanity ".15.—H. L. Beales, MA. (London School of Economics),

" The Future' of Germany ".22.—R. S. W. Pollard, J.P. (Chairman, Marriage Law Re-

form Committee), " Marriage Law Reform ".29.—Ashlon Burall, " Poetry and Mr. T. S. Eliot".

19

December 1949

December 6.—Charles Solomon, " The Rebirth of Israel ".

13:—Guilfoyle \Villiams, " Some. Implications of PsychicalResearch ".

Admission free. Collection.

New Members and Changes of Address

Miss W. Berry, 70 Ashley Road, Stroud Green, N.I9; Mr. Denys Ives,to 15 Ennerdale Road. Kew, Surrey; Mr. R. C. Friend, to 32 Old Park

Road, Palmers Green, N.I3.

New Associates and Changes of Address

Mr. V. V. Desai, London School of Economics, London, W.C.2: Miss

E. F. Harburn. to 22A Craven Hill Gardens, Paddington, W.2; Mr. P.Scammell, to 46 Vale Drive, Horsham.

Dancer—Saturday, November 5, at 7.30 p.m. Tickets 3's., including

refreshments, are available at Conway Hall, or can be obtained from theHon. Secreiary, C. E. Barralet, Hill Cottage. Farnborough, Kent. Phonereservations, CHAncery 8032 or FARnborough (Kent) 3867.

Sunday Social.—Novemher 20, at 3 p.m. in the Library. Mr. E. J. Fair-

hall—Holidays Abroad in 1949.

Thursday Evenings in the Library at 7 p.m.

November 3.—Mrs. M. Idiens—A talk on Finland.

_10.—Whist Drive.

17.—Miss I. Percival—Tennyson in a new aspect.

24.—South Place Entertainers. Social Evening.

Rambles.—Saturday, November 12. Permission has been granted for aparty of twenty to visit the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons ofEngland, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.2. 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Notify Miss George

if you wish to attend.

Saturday, November 19.. Around Hampstead with Percy Merriman,

former Hon. Sec. of the Dickens Fellowship, and leader of the famousRoosters' Concert Party. Meet,Hampstead Tube Station 2.30 p.m. Please

notify if you would like tea booked at cost of 2s. per head.

Sunday,.November 27. Meet Loughton Station 2.30 p.m. (Central Line).

Eieldpath walk to nuckhurst Hill fo'r tea at Queen's Tea Rooms in goodtime for those wishing to return to Conway Hall for evening Concert. Theevening ramble will continue to Chingford. Leader: B. 0. Warwick.

South Place String Orchestra—Conductor : Eric Sawyer

Practices take place in the Library on Fridays, 7 to 9 p.m. There arevacancies for compeOnt amateurs. Particulars may be obtained from the

Hon. Secretary;E. J. Fairhall, Conway Hall, W.C.1.

The Monthly Record is posted free to Members and Associates. The annual charge

to subscribers is 4s. Matter for publication in the November issue should reach the

Editor, G. C. DOWE1AN, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.I, by October 10. -

Officers

Hon. Treasurer: E. J. FAIRHALL

Hon. Registrar: Mrs. T. C. LINDSAY Conway Hall, Red Lion. Square, W.C.1.

Secretary:. HECTOR HAVVLON

EAELEIGII PRESS LTD. (T.D.), ICEECIIW ODD RIFE, WATFORD.

Readings.