The ISSN 001 4-1 690 Ethical Record Vol. 89 No. 9 OCTOBER 1984

EDITORIAL presently alive. Words and Meanings Take five items (of interest in themselves), plucked at random THE SPOKEN WORD ZIPS around the from your editor's recent listening, world (aided by the innumerable viewing and reading. Certain words new technologies) at an ever-in- creasing tempo. Stopping long used here and in the rest of the enough to make sure we understand editorial are given in SMALL CAPITALS to underline our need to what we say becomes more difficult. know what is meant. (The same, of course, applies to the written or printed word.) Billy Graham is on tour in the In this month's Ethical Record USSR—will have or will be the Viewpoints section has many addressing 23 main audiences. items of interest in this respect; He has declared that he wishes the words we bandy about in South to increase TRUST between the Place seem to need much more superpowers to enable PRO- thought than we supposed. And GRESS towards nuclear dis- what people actually mean is in armament. He also is said to urgent and continual need of have announced that there was clarification; as are the supposed "more RELIGIOUS FREEDOM (in qualities of understanding and the Soviet Union) than the humanistic outlook of leading West supposed". figures in the fields of philosophy, On the Pope's second day in science, politics and literature— Canada, addressing, it is both those from the past and Continued on page 15

CONTENTS Coming to Conway Hall: Alfred Ayer, David Berman, Fenner Brockway, Govind Deodhekar, Ellis Hillman, William Horsley, Nicholas Hyman, Leslie Jones, Ludovic Kennedy, John Padel, Frank Ridley, Barry Till, Audrey Williamson ...... 2 The Coming Concerts: The Alberni, Allegri, Hanson, Locrian and Roth String Quartets, Ian and Jennifer Partridge . . . . 3 Determined But Unpredictable: Richard Scorer . . 3 Short Items: The Race Between Education and Catas- trophe; Women Composers; Lord Byron; Men and Women Merely Players; Poland . . . . . 5-8 Viewpoints: Ray Lovecy, George Walford, P. Ross, Albert Standley, II. J. Blackham, Colin Mills, G. F. Westcott, David Ibry 9-13 Arthur Schopenhauer: Sam Beer . . 13 The Open University Humanist Society . 14

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society. Microfilm and reprints available—details on request.

PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON WC1R 4R1 Telephone: 01-242 8032 (Answering machine out of hours) SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

Appointed Lecturers: H. J. Blackham, Lord Brockway, Richard Clements, OBE, T. F. Evans, Peter Heales, Harry Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter Hall Manager: Geoffrey Austin (tel. 01-242 8032) Secretary: Jean Bayliss (Wed-Fri, tel. 01-242 8033) Honorary Representative: Ray Lovecy Chairman General Committee: Fanny Cockerell Deputy Chairman: Betty Beer Honorary Registrar: John Brown Honorary Treasurer: Ben Roston Honorary Librarian: Editor, The Ethical Record: Peter Hunot

COMING TO CONWAY HALL Sunday Morning LECTURES at 11.00 am in the Library October 7. AUDREYWILLIAMSON. King Richard III — a Quincentenary Mystery. October 14. JOHN PADEL.Shakespeare's Sonnets—Telling Fact from Fiction. October 21. BARRYTILL. The Place of Adult Education in Contemporary Society. October 28. JEREMYCORBYN. The Denials of Freedom and Centralisation of Power that is continuing in Britain. November 4. FENNERBROCKWAY. Is Disarmament Possible? November II. DAVID BERMAN.Mietzche's Three Phases of Atheism.

Sunday FORUMS at 3.00 pm in the Library October 7. JOHN WILDE. Eliminating Poverty and Unemployment. October 14. FRANKRIDLEY. Mahomet v Jesus Christ—Invasion of Islam. October 28. WILLIAMHORSLEY. Economics. November 4. LESLIE JONES. William Morris—From the Earthly Paradise to News From Nowhere. November 1 I. ELLIS HILLMAN.The Earth is Flatter Than you Think. Sunday Social—in the Library at 3.00 pm. Tea at 4.30 pm Sunday, October 21. GOVIND DEODHEKAR(DEV) will speak on: My Recent Visit to the Soviet Union.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS London University Extra-Mural Cotuse A 24-session class will be held weekly on Tuesdays from 7.15-9.15 pm in the Library at Conway Hall commencing on October 2, 1984. The tutor will again be N. HYMAN,RA., and the title of his course is: Zones of Tension and Hope on a Shared Planet 1945-1984.

1984 VOLTAIRE Memorial Lecture—in Conway Hall Monday, October 8 af 7.00 pm. LUDOVIC KENNEDY.An. End to Belief? Chairman—SIR ALFREDAYER. (See leaflet with this issue.) 2 Determined But Unpredictable By RICHARD SCORER

Summary of his lecture to SPES on Sunday July 15, 1984 ONE MIGHT ATTEMPT A SHORT-CUT LO an answer GE the question of deter- minacy by remarking that the human brain is only a tiny part of the universe and can therefore contain only a superficial view of its reality because the information required to represent the reality is far beyond the capacity of the brain to understand. Determinacy, meaning "being deter- mined by a chain of causation" is not really in doubt, as we shall see; but the question is whether we can ever discover the details of the chain. Is it helpful to say that through science we can, in principle, discover the laws of causation and thereby predict the future given the requisite present circumstances? Hermann Bondi recently wrote on the theme "Why mourn the passing of determinacy?" But doubt in the existence of an all pervasive chain of causation has not in the least been shaken : what has happened is that those who believe in the existence of forces operating on the physical world which are in some sense outside or superior to physics have latched on to the other meaning of determinacy and imagine that physics has discovered how

APE vs BCS—Evolution or Creation? APE (Association for the Protection of Evolution) has challenged the Biblical Creation Society (BCS) to a debate on : Creation or Evolution (focussing on the evolution of birds and archeopteryx) Speakers: GERALD DUFFET for BCS and MIKE HOWGATE for APE, and contributions from the floor. In the chair: Norman Bacrac. Place: Conway Hall. Time: 2.30 pm. Date: Saturday, October 27, 1984. Tea: at 4.30 pm.

October Concerts at Conway Hall at 6.30 pm—£1.20 Sunday, October 7. Allegri String Quartet. MOZART, BARTOK, BEETHOVEN. Sunday, October 14. Ian and Jennifer Partridge. SCHUBERT (Song Cycle). Sunday, October 21. Locrian String Quartet. MOZART, ELGAR, BEETHOVEN. Sunday, October 28. Hanson String Quartet, Andrew Marriner. MOZART, BEETHOVEN, BRAHMS.

November Sunday Concerts Sunday, November 4. Alberni String Quartet. MOZART, HAYDN, BEETHOVEN. Sunday, November 11. Roth Quartet. MOZART, SOSTAKOVICH, BRAHMS.

RESERVED SEAT TICKETS. A ticket of admission to the 11 Concerts from October 7 to December 16 which entitles the holder to a reserved seat up to 6.20 pm can be obtained from the Honorary Treasurer, 129 West Hill Road, SW18 5HN (stamped, addressed envelope, please) or at Conway Hall before each Concert, price £6.60. 3 non-physical influences can play a part in determining events, making them seem unpredictable and arbitrary. What Heisenberg did was to show that there are severe limitations on the accuracy with which we can know details on the atomic scale of the physical world. Therefore, whether there was a rigid chain of causation or not, we could not know the details which would be required to make a prediction of the future state. Many physicists asserted that the random motion of the atoms could influence human-sized events, such as the weather, at a later time. Mathematicians had shown that certain possible states of the atmosphere were unstable so that something below the level of detection could be the influence that tipped the system one way rather than another. This, however is fallacious, or at least irrelevant because the scales are never so finely balanced. Furthermore, because of the utter complexity we are unable to handle influences which are well above the level of detection with the accuracy required for prediction.

Maxwell's "Demons" Do Not Exist A more serious argument which preceded this one was that the laws of physics are "only statistical" and are therefore open to violation. Neverthe- less no-one has ever produced a case of violation and shown that it was the cause of something unusual. Events at the atomic level, such as the motion of the molecules of a gas, cannot conspire to cause the laws of physics, in this case the gas laws, to be flouted. This is not really a case of the statistical probability being so low as to be negligible for practical purposes. That probability is actually zero: Maxwell's "demons" which he invented for the purpose of theoretical discussion had the ability to recruit an excess of one category of molecules into a conspiracy to violate the statistical (so- called) laws of physics; but they do not exist. The laws fail only when the portion of gas under consideration contains very few molecules. The description of the motion of the atoms as "random" merely means that we have no way of predicting what a particular one will do because we cannot specify the condition of its environment adequately. That does not mean that its motion is therefore freed from the normal process of causation. The uncertainties of atomic physics have nothing to do with features of the world which we perceive at the human-sized level. And supposing that spirits or other non-material influences were able to operate at the level of individual electrons there is no way in which that could change events at the human-sized level.

Causation and Determinacy Reign Supreme At the other, cosmological, extreme prediction is of little interest. Science at present is spending its time on understanding how the universe as we know it came to be like it is. Causation and determinacy reign supreme and the same difficulty as at the atomic level bedevils popular understanding for only in human-sized mechanics and physics does the mathematics represent the laws in terms of concepts like force, mass and time which are familiar. Although everything in nature is very complicated we have been able to extract the basic materials and describe their properties in the laws: the human-sized complications are those of "geography", which are so important that we can describe real situations only approximately, the errors being small to start with, but still very large indeed compared with the uncertainties of atomic physics. When we try to use the methods of mechanics and physics in other sciences—biology, economics, and so on, we do not have the basic raw material with constant properties which physicists and engineers have, such as copper, monochromatic light, and uniform fluids, in terms of which to 4 express our laws. Thus the so-called "law of supply and demand" in economics may be violated by government restrictions on the market (e.g. the food surpluses in the EEC), by wars, by extremes of poverty and wealth which widen the gap between demand and need as precise and meaningful concepts. The laws of economics of early expanding industrial capitalism and those of capitalism up against population pressures and exhaustion of resources are different; and we are in the transition. Prediction has become more difficult during the 20th century.

An Overwhelming Unpredictability Finally there is the creative evolutionary mechanism at work not only in biology but also in the field of human institutions. The new environments which people are creating produce new species of insect, of virus, of birds and animals, and new climates of human thought all of which are in principle unpredictable because we do not know the limits of mutations that might arise and have no experience on which to base our predictions of how the selection mechanisms of evolution will work in the new situations. This selection process is an interaction between human-sized events, in a cosmological context, affecting the atomic world of genes and ideas. That is a scene whose unpredictability is overwhelming; but I would remind you that even the most religious or mystical person, believing in powers allegedly beyond the world of classical (i.e. human-sized) physics, is still using a thought process which looks for causes, and is as deterministic as any materialist philosophy. This apparent contradiction—determined but unpredictable—is really a contrast between the inanimate world of physics and the human world of thought. But however much we advance in science, we become more aware that knowledge is finite while ignorance remains always infinite, and therefore overwhelming. 0

A Provocation "The Race Between Education and Catastrophe" (H. G. Wells, Outline of History. chapter 15) By SAM BEER The trouble with Education is that everyone thinks he or she is an authority on it. The poor classroom teacher is watched by his/her head- master/headmistress, head of department, other staff, school governors, education officers, parents, the press and occasionally by psychologists and inspectors. He or she is also watched by the children who are generally more understanding and tolerant than the others. Whenever an international problem cannot be solved the cry goes up "We need more education". The idea (fostered by Sophia Loren) that British schools are the best in the world is a myth. We have only to look at their products in the Cabinet to see that this cannot be true. The fact is that the system on the arts side has always been 40 years out-of-date. No author later than D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is permitted. Whether the science side has got past Einstein I doubt after hearing the Conway Memorial Lecture. As regards Modern Languages, Latin has not yet been liquidated while Russian and Chinese were started in some schools and then abandoned. (No member of the Cabinet speaks a foreign language. Mrs. Thatcher recently said she 5 regretted being unable to converse with her opposite number in his own language.) History is suffering a decline and fall in most schools. As it was described by Gibbon as "a register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind" it is dangerous to leave the new generation unaware of the ghastly mistakes of the past. Geography, which used to be regarded as the Cinderella of the syllabus, is one subject that is lively although parents complain that their children do not know where Reykjavik (say) is. Anyone who has sat in a park watching youngsters climb everything in sight knows there's not much wrong with their Physical Education. Over their Religious Education I draw a veil. Art and music have gone commercial. Many teachers regard the idea that Education should have Aims in the same way as many humanists regard the idea that the universe should have a purpose. It involves defining Education and that is as difficult as defining Poetry, Electricity, Love and Nature. It is usually left to professional Prizegivers.

A Basis for Exams? Whether it will ever be possible to loosen the grip of the 12 Examining Boards "a sa proie attach& (attached to their prey) in the near future seems doubtful. There is much to be said for the old Oxford scheme by which the college staff gave every candidate a pile of white paper and then, just after 9 a.m., a college don, who had obviously just jumped out of bed and was clutching his gown around him, would appear and say "The horns of Elfland are blowing" or some other line of verse. You then had to write for three hours. The ancient Chinese exams were like this and the Chinese Empire endured for 2,000 years. William Morris and Bernard Shaw did not approve of schools at all and said many harsh things about them. Whether a E200 computer based on Reader's Digest is going to be a good substitute for our infants and adolescents seems unlikely. School camps seem more appropriate. South Place Ethical Society has neglected Education and this article is intended as a provocation. But we all start at a disadvantage because all our educations have been neglected. We are not the people we might have been. Stephen Leacock once wrote an article on the remains of his education after 20 years. It was a pathetic pile of facts he had managed NOT to forget or distort. Admirers of H. G. Wells who remember Mr. Polly's terrible education may wonder if, 74 years later, our little Pollys are faring any better.

Women Composers Out of 53 members of the Bach family only 10 were women. No comment. AMELIE-JULIE CANDEILLE, 1767-1834, composed operas and songs, CECILE CHAMINADE,1857-1944, composed a comic opera and a ballet CARLO Coccia who wrote 40 operas. MARIA Cocci& 1759-1833, wrote a cantata, but most of her works are lost. MARY HARVEY, 1629-1704, was pupil of Henry Lawes, friend of Milton. The German musical tradition started early with St. Hildegard, 1098— 1179, abbess of Disisbodenberg. ELIZABETH LA GUERRE, 1659-1729, was harpsichordist to Louis XIV. MARY LUCAS 1882-1924 composed ballets, a masque and a rhapsody. The masque was of Blake's Book of Thel. ELIZABETH MACONCHY, born 1907 composed ballets and set Gerard Manley Hopkins to music. 6 NINA MAKAROVA, born 1908,, married Khatchaturian and composed Courage, an opera, and many songs. MARIA WALPURGA, 1724-1780, daughter of the Emperor Charles VII, composed two operas, The Triumph of Fidelity and the Queen of the Amazons. Oratorios were written by MARIANNE MART1NES, 1744-1812, pupil of Haydn. MADDALENA MEZARI century), composed Venetian madrigals. IRENE POLDOWSKI, 1879-1932, Polish-English composer of songs, nocturnes and suites, became Lady Dean Paul. ELIZABETH POSTON, born 1905, director of music at BBC, must have been heard by many readers. CLARA SCHUMANN, 1819-1896, composed a concerto and many songs. Her marital problems are well known. LADK JOHN Scorr, 1810-1900, composedAnnie Laurie. DAME ETHEL SMYTH, 1858-1944, composed many operas, includingThe Wreckers. INGEBORG STARCK, 1840-1913, was a Swedish composer who made an opera of Byron's Manfred. ELIZABETH STIRLING, 1819-1895, was organist and composer. PHYLLIS TATE, born 1911, wrote an opera The Lodger and an operetta The Policeman's Serenade based on A. P. Herbert. PAULINE VIARDOT-GARCIA, 1821-1910, composed operettas to librettos by Turgenev. With many more too numerous to mention. SAM BEER

Lord Byron Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded that all the Apostles would have done as they did. DON JUAN, Canto 1 stanza 83 The author of the above died 160 years ago on April 19, 1824. He was fighting for the Greeks against the Turks. He had a rough upbringing in Aberdeen but succeeded unexpectedly to the title in 1788 and was able to live at Newstead Abbey, to which there is an annual pilgrimage by members of the 24 Byron Societies all over the world. On April 25, 1816 Byron, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," decided to leave England for ever and, after being pursued by tourists with binoculars in Geneva, eventually settled in Nsa, where he and Shelley composed poetry together. He carved his name in the Chateau de Chillon on Lake Geneva and wrote a sonnet about a man imprisoned there. At one time every schoolboy knew The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold and There was a sound of revelry by night. Byron spent much time plotting against the Austrian Government which then ruled Italy and in the House of Lords he spoke up for the factory workers. S.B.

Men and Women Merely Players The history of women is full of surprises eg the women of military Sparta were much freer and more outspoken than those of so-called liberal democratic Athens. The Greek sun-god Apollo was more of a menace to women than the thunder-god Zeus who disguised himself as a bull to fool Europa, a shower of gold to fool Danae and as Amphitryon, husband of Alcmene, in order to fool Alcmene and beget Hercules. In one tragedy Aeschylus argues that the mother is not a parent, only a carrier. 7 In some religions the Sun is female and the Moon male. Charlotte Bronte's Villette is a satire on men's attitude to women. She describes Rubens's Cleopatra as a "coarse and preposterous canvas" and "an enormous piece of claptrap". She wants to know why this "indolent gipsy giantess" should be lounging when she is well fed and weighs 14 to 16 stone. J. S. Mill said "Women are said to be better than men. Why then does the better have to obey the worse?" Women predominate in the Minoan frescoes in Crete. There were women Pharaohs. Many Greek heroes and Centaurs fought against Amazons and Lemnos was believed to be occupied by them. The first women's demonstra- tion was in Rome in 195 BC against the Oppian Law (a war tax). It was a sad day for women when Christianity triumphed over the cult of ISIS. For this you should read The Golden Ass by Apuleius, which con- tains Cupid and Psyche and which gave Shakespeare the idea of turning Bottom into an ass. OBERON

Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (Poland) United under the Piast dynasty in the late xth century, Poland became a kingdom in 1025. Boleslaw III (1102-38) divided Poland among his sons but it was reunited by Wladyslaw (1320). Casimir III (1330-70) transformed Poland into an empire and formed a union with Lithuania. By the late xvth century Poland stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea and members of the Jagellon royal family ruled Bohemia and Hungary. After long wars with Sweden Russia and Turkey it lost most of its territory and (even worse) adopted a parliamentary "system" whereby any MP could veto any law. After 1700 it was divided by Russia, Prussia and Austria in three partitions (1772, 1793, 1795). Napolean created a Grand Duchy of Warsaw. There were many revolts in the xixth century and Poland became independent again in 1918. From 1926 to 1935 it was ruled by the dictator Pilsudski after preventing a link-up between the Soviet Union and Socialist Germany in 1920. In 1939 it refused to allow Soviet troops to cross into Germany and soon found itself smashed to pieces by Goering's Luftwaffe and divided between Hitler and the Soviet Union. In 1945 its eastern and western borders were shifted westward (Danzig, Breslau and Stettin became Polish) and in 1952 it became a People's Republic. Its most famous citizens are Copernicus and the Curies. Most people have heard of Chopin and Paderewski. King Augustus the Strong had 365 children. S. B. ZANY

Country Dancing Saturday, October 20-3.00 to 6.00 pm in the Library. Beginners welcome, for whom EDA COLLINS gives tuition for the first half-hour.

Owing partly to the shortage of summaries of lectures (provided by the lecturers), we have included in this issue a number of short and varied contributions from members which we consider to be of interest and/or concern to readers. These items merge into "Viewpoints", in which members take up more specific points. The next (November/December) issue may be late—so details of the meetings and concerts up to November I l are included on pages 2 and 3—Editor.

8 Viewpoints from the Honorary Representative Science's Contribution to Ethics Discussions of science and morals, etc, usually predicate certain distinc- tions between the nature of scientific truth and religious or moral belief, which is not acceptable without examination. In varied forms, the notion is perpetuated that science makes no claim to deal with the absolute, or ultimate realities even of material things and thus has almost no relevance to or point of contact with such things of the spirit as goodness, beauty and truth. The scientist recognises the limitations of his information and his com- prehension. This he does not as an exercise in self abnegation (as is all too often supposed) but because he has learnt (and indeed can make no pretension to scientific status if he had not learnt) that constant readiness to adjust his concepts, even the most basic ones, in the light of new observa- tion or fresh interpretation is no less essential to the advancement of his subject than is a constant awareness of the distinction between what is demonstrable and what is inferred. Turning to the rest of the proposition, ie the things of the spirit, one feels less confident that a searching analysis has been achieved, or even attempted. We are all so farthliar with the notion that science conveys only a peculiar and restricted meaning when it says some fact is "true" that we naturally look to the moralist, not the scientist, for guidance on "right" and "wrong".

Facts and Values Require Same Standards of Logical Integrity Long established and widely accepted though they are, these contrasted attitudes to "facts" and "values" are open to serious question. Nobody would deny that moralist and scientist alike are concerned not merely with propositions, but with their logical relationships, implications and bearing upon our actions. Thus, even though the basic premises and scope of interest may be widely disparate, yet the same processes of reasoning, the same standards of logical integrity, must be accepted by both. What then is the explanation of the strict refusal of the scientist, amassing and examining a vast total and variety of observational information, to claim any knowledge of fundamental or ultimate reality, where the moralist accepts that his precepts, if followed, will fulfil the profound and absolute laws of creation. Would it not be more reasonable to make no greater claim for the "right" and "wrong" of the moralist than for •that of the scientist? To the latter "right" indicates conformity with prevailing informed and impartial opinion. If the majority of individuals concerned find that the proposition 2 + 2 4 can be relied upon consistently and is useful, they may very properly deem it to be "right", whereas other propositions such as 2 + 2 = 5 would have to be deemed wrong. The "opinion" from which the rightness and wrongness of propositions can be settled must be informed and impartial; the latter does not necessarily mean unbiased. Provided bias can be looked for and acknowledged whenever it can be found, it will do less serious harm than futile attempts to ignore its insidious pervasiveness. Similarly, "informed" opinion simply means opinion among those who freely share the available information, limited though it may be; and of Course this involves adequate means of communication. The thorough-going moralist will no doubt object that this at once opens the door to whole systems of error being called "right" merely because 9 people accept them. For instance, a society might at one time possess a particular code of morals, and later, through this being flouted consistently, a distinct and contrasting situation would develop that nevertheless would be equally moral by the estimate of acceptability. This objection is not to be refuted, as it illustrates precisely the main purpose and advantage of the approach suggested. RAYLOVECY

An Irrational Belief in Humanists In the July/August issue of the Ethical Record the editor says, rightly, that "Stephen Houseman, in his lecture Why Man Must Be Rational, asserts that "understanding is unique among goals, in that once achieved, it spreads indefinitely amongst mankind". The same editorial says (again, rightly) "A Billy Graham can bring out hundreds of thousands for irrational beliefs". After generations of humanist effort, a humanist meeting attracting a few score is reckoned an encouraging success while meetings to promote irrational beliefs attract hundreds of thousands. This does not look as though the understanding humanists are striving to promote is spreading indefinitely. It looks, rather, as if the belief that such understanding spreads indefinitely is one of those irrational beliefs the humanist movement, and SPES in particular, is bound to oppose. GEORGEWALFORD 186 Upper Street, London, NI 1RH

The Affluent West and Developing Countries I have been especially interested in recent articles in the Ethical Record regarding the affluent west and relating to the poor, third world. However, I hear rebuttals of arguments for and from people who have lived in the third world. Here are examples : "Some of the aid groups are 'naive'. Governments often spend aid money on arms (bought, we are told, from Russia) " "Africans don't have any idea of the Protestant work ethic . . . they are lazy." "Well look at their birth rates ..." "Hong Kong has grown without any aid ..." "It will take them as long to evolve to our (Europe's) stage of civilisation as we did when the Romans left us." "If we don't supply them with tanks, bombs, etc, the Russians will . "All the servants rob you blind ..." 1 "South Africa is the only stable African regime ..." "All Asia is corrupt ..." Could the Oxfam organisation revive its excellent poster, which carried some similar comments, but, as so many. good folk lack a sense of irony, rebut some of these statements? P. Ross

Is Too Much Thought, Too Little Action Rational? A fairly "new boy", I can no longer resist the temptation to say how glad I am that the SPES exists; how particularly interesting, perceptive and intellectually rigorous are its lectures and the contributions to its journal; how pleasant it is to be in this "society of friends" (with its secularly-tuned 10 echoes of That Other Society), and how surprising it is to have discovered it so recently and accidentally. Would much more publicity, money and "opening up" of Conway Hall help to save the world or would it only damage the SPES spirit? I suppose the answer to that may be : "Come to meetings more, join in discussion more, and you'll find out". If it is, I'll try. I'd like to try now, anyway, to add to the debate which Stephen House- man's lecture, "Why must man be rational?" (The Ethical Record, June and July/August, 1984) must surely have stimulated. I cannot follow his argument that part of what is meant by rational behaviour results from a fully interconnected scheme of goals and sub-goals in a conscious mind. Such a mind seems to me to be more like that which some have posited of a god than that of a human animal. Many humans have some well-defined, "conscious" goals and objectives, usually (I think) mixed to some degree or another with "unconscious" ones. Might not a maximally extensive network, however, consciously and continuously dwelt upon and anxiously refined and redefined, result in "too-much" thought and "too-little" action? Would that be "rational"? I also find it difficult to accept the reductive-why? sort of questioning, which Mr Houseman seems to proffer, as the supreme goal for rationalists: it seems more like a sort of marathon-trot through a thicket of objectives towards a misty and ever-receding goal. I don't think I consciously have, or wish to have, any supreme goal. I just want to get by through the day so that I can sleep soundly a-nights on a decently full belly. Yet I hug to myself my little bit of rationality—even humanity? ALBERT STANDLEY 55a Netley Road, Barkingside, Ilford, Essex IG2 7NR

Start For a New Lecture Series? Having just read with pleasure and profit Sir Alan Cottrell's Conway Lecture (and Dame Margaret Weston's neat Introduction), I write to con- gratulate those responsible for the choice. I hope that this augurs and and inaugurates a new series of Conway Lectures that will regain and maintain the high reputation which they had 50 years ago. In that hope, I am sending a donation to the Lecture fund, as invited in the note at the end. I like the format, lay-out, and type; and regret one or two misprints. H. J. BLACKHAM Ballingham, Hereford HR2 6NL

God, Faith, Emotion and Extrascientific Phenomena 'Agnosticism is usually—among humanists, anyway—atheism, for the (philosophically) elementary reason that if there is no evidence or proof for the existence of an entity, then by Occam's Razor that entity must be eliminated. Eiloart (Viewpoints, Ethical Record, September 1984, page 10) objects to the assertion that god cannot exist; but if it is accepted that the concept of god is logically incoherent—as is admitted even by some theo- logians (eg Michael Durrant in The Logical Status of God, MacMillan, 1973) then the concept cannot correspond to a real entity. Barbara Smoker has not helped to clarify the definition of faith. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives three classes of definition—(l) the theological definition—"the spiritual apprehension of divine truth", which to a humanist is vacuous; (2) assertion or assurance; (3) trustworthiness. 11 Reliance on unsupported assertion is a very dangerous practice, and trust- worthiness is best presumed on good rational grounds. Eiloart, in asserting that everyone holds many opinions for which they themselves have no hard evidence or cogent argument, misses the point that the faithful believe that such opinions are somehow eternal truths rather than merely opinions. Jim Herrick quotes in the August Freethinker, Shaw's description of Moody's orations as "characterised by an excess of vehement assertion and a total absence of logic", and says of Luis Palau, "you cannot reason with assertion and lack of logic". Eiloart's suggestion that emotion is as valid an aspect of argument as rationality is disturbingly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's call to the German people to think with their blood. Emotional tricks may serve to win debating points, but they are basically "crooked arguments" in Thouless's sense. The extrascientific phenomena mentioned by Eiloart seem never to be subjected by their devotees to cogent analyses or backed up by reproducible fact; that is why they are extrascientific. A competent professional magician can often account for the alleged phenomena. In short, Eiloart's comments are misconceived. One wonders what sort of irrational, chaotic universe he thinks we live in. May I suggest in closing that SPES members who take other humanist magazines—eg the Freethinker, New Humanist, Humanist News, Gay Humanist, Secular Socialist News—may care to comment on items in them in the columns of the Ethical Record." COLIND. J. MILLS 70 Chestnut Lane, Amersham on the Hill, Bucks HP6 6EH

• However, space is very limited, so what is published would have tobe selective —Editor.

At Slx Years Old, I Knew Noah's Ark was Impossible! I recently visited the Exhibition of Egyptian objective remains at the British Museum and saw nothing remotely connected with the miraculous account given in the Bible of the crossing of the Dead Sea on dry land. As early as my sixth year, I was able to see that the account in the Bible of Noah's Ark was quite impossible. All religions, I think, are false, and can be proved to be so, by the strict application of the methods of objective science. Science does not claim final truth; but only that by following its strict methods, one tends to get nearer and nearer to the truth. I have shown that the religion of Christianity, and those which rely on Bible truth, are false; but think that it is best to leave it to other scientific experts to prove that other religions and philosophies are also false. G. F. WESTCOTT 1 Netherlands Court, Eaton Road, Sutton, Surrey

What Do Humanists Mean by 'Human Welfare"? Colin Mills (page 9, Ethical Record, September 1984) states that "Humanism seeks to promote human welfare" but to my mind Humanism does not and could not promote human welfare, though undoubtedly individual humanists may or may not wish to promote what they consider to be human welfare. I believe that Humanism expresses a theory where the human world is explained by placing humans right at the centre of it, so when it comes to 12 human welfare, humanism should explore what is meant by human welfare and why is it that so many human beings hold totally different views with regard to human welfare. When exploring and trying to understand human behaviour and human motivation, I think that Humanism has the great advantage of being entirely free of any sort of supernatural dogma, which, by being a dogma, would have eventually to be proved right in whatever exploration. However individual humanists, when exploring the human world, would not be free of their personal political persuasions and social ideologies and would, even unwarily, try their best to prove right what is dear to them. This is perhaps one of the greatest human challenges : to understand the human emotions which motivate our opinions. DAVID DM 59 Golders Gardens, London, NW11 9BS

Cheerful Pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860 On May 13 this year, during Roy Mason's excellent talk on George Eliot (1819-80) there was a dispute over how good her book Rornola was. We also discovered that her companion G. H. Lewes (1817-78) had written a History of Philosophy which had been the first in this country to carry out a hatchet job on G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel was the German philosopher whom Marx claimed to have turned upside down although Marx borrowed from Hegel the famous Dialectic (thesis—antithesis— synthesis). It also emerged that another German philosopher had carried out a hatchet job on Hegel and was still resting in obscurity. His name was Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), usually dismissed as a Pessimist with an interest in Buddhism. We are most of us familiar with Berkeley's theory that the world was his idea and that Dr Johnson "refuted" it by kicking his boot against a stone. He knew he could not refute it and it is beginning to look as if Berkeley was right but not quite in the form Berkeley stated it. David Hume (1711-76) had upset the philosophical world by announcing that the law of Cause and Effect could not be proved. This woke Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804) in KOnigsberg from (as he said) "his dogmatic slumber" and he set out restoring the status quo by his Categories. He realised that human knowledge had limits because our faculties are limited and the Thing-in- itself will always remain unknowable. Modern science, as we gathered from the last Conway Memorial Lecture, is beginning to agree with him. Schopenhauer referred to "the divine Plato and the astonishing Kant" and methodically developed Kant's ideas. As I understand him, the world is not my idea, as Berkeley said, but the idea of all human beings because we are all constructed in the same way. We have a picture of the world which disappears every night when we sleep and reappears next morning. This takes some swallowing but we all know from the history of science that the most despised theory frequently turns out to be the right one. A cat, obviously, does not see the universe as we see it and no space-person from Proxima Centauri (the nearest star. 4.2 light years away) is likely to regard our cities with the same eyes as ours. Schopenhauer enjoyed the respect of all the great minds of the xixth century—Tolstoy, Turgenev, Wagner, Nietzsche, Hardy, Conrad, Thomas Mann and Freud. He did not live long enough to read Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) but anticipated many of Darwin's ideas. Darwin even mentions 13 him once. Wagner and the novelists appreciated his tragic view of life. He was the first Western philosopher to make use of Oriental ideas and the alert reader will see a resemblance between my crude summary of his Idealism and Buddhism. He wrote one large work The World as Will and Idea (1818). Witt. is the a-moral force which drives the universe. Schopenhauer was an atheist and did not believe in an after-life. His other work has the off-putting title Parerga and Paralipomena which only means Sidelines and Supplement. Now try to remember that Conway Hall is not there unless someone is looking at it. SAM BEER, 58 Weir Road, London SW12 ONA

The Open University Humanist Society The Open University was set up in 1969 to provide access to higher education. The University was one of the 1964-1970 Labour government's major success stories, in that it has provided tens of thousands of people with an opportunity to continue their studies beyond secondary level, continuing a tradition begun by the Workers Education Association in 1909. It has become one of Britain's best known universities, respected for the quality of its courses. It provides not just degree courses, but also Com- munity Education, Post Experience, and Personal and Cultural Education courses. However, the Open University is currently facing a threat which is the most serious in its existence, from cuts in government expenditure on education, which are forcing fees uP, and cutting student places as well as course provision. The Government is under the misapprehension that the OU has largely achieved its objectives, although undergraduate applications continue at 40,000 a year, and 100,000 people are currently studying OU courses! The OU needs support in its "Defend the OU" campaign. The Open University Humanist Society (OUHS) was founded in 1979, 0-nd promotes secular humanist ideals, providing a rational alternative to religious groups and ideas within the Open University. The OUHS also serves as a platform for free speech, and supports the right to choice of the individual in such matters as abortion and censorship. It seeks to encourage contact between OU students and staff who wish to promote the objects of the society. The OUHS is presently seeking to expand and diversify its activities. The new committee is working hard on a number of new ideas. It hopes to organise dayschools and other events in addition to the publication of its journal, Open Humanist, which serves as a forum for correspondence and discussion. The new officers of the OUHS, elected at its AGM in February, are:

Chairman — Cohn Mills, 70 Chestnut Lane, Amersham on the Hill, Bucks HP6 6EH.Tel. Amersham 6103. Secretary — Cohn Hook, Demelza, Parc-an-dix, Phillack, Hayle, Cornwall TR27 5AB. '

Treasurer — Richard Patterson, 12 Monmouth Way, Boverton, Llantwit Major, South Glamorgan CF6 1FT. Tel. Llantwit Major 3699.

Editor — Julie Webb, The Thatches, 28 Churchway, Haddenham, Bucks HP17 8AA. Tel. Haddenham 290773. The OUTIS subscription is £1, though some members give more, and includes Open Humanist A sample newsletter is obtainable from the Secretary (please enclose sae). Open Humanists live up •to their name, and would welcome as associate members, those who sympathise with its aims and are interested in the OU. SPARTACUS 14 Corrections, please! The following corrections should be made to the information on pages 13/14 of the September 1984 issue of theEthical Record: Trustees: Christine (not Margaret) Bondi. Add to Lectures and Discussions Committee: John Brown. Add to Standing Orders Committee: Sam Beer; Edwina Palmer is not serving on this Committee. (Corrections supplied by Louise Booker.)

Continued from page one And are we gathering together alleged, a quarter of a million "those who reject SUPERNAT- people at one meeting, he de- URAL CREEDS" whom we invite manded a move away from (see back page) to "membership". MATERIALISM and for "greater And what other ways can we use HUMANITY" (combining EVER- than those we do at present? LASTING VALUES With MODERN-Should there be more DEBATES ny and without eroding (how about Jack Parsons of Popu- FAITH). lation vs Liberty? with Julian L. Simon of On Breakfast Time (12/9r84) The Ultimate Resource', an actor says Shakespeare was or Robert Jungk of The Nuclear "probably the greatest HUMAN- States with Herman Bondi)? Or IST who ever lived". perhaps we should organise more In the Humanist "Dipper'", COURSES, SEMINARS, day and week- recently published by the end CONFERENCES on topics where BHA, there are a list (with ETHICAL, RATIONAL, HUMANIST and comments) of HUMANIST ANTI-SUPERNATURAL beliefs are of VALUES AND PRINCIPLES and the greatest consequence? of the DEVELOPMENT OF Please, you readers, write in to HUMANIST THOUGHT. There are let us know your views—how about also several pages of those con- some of you who have not so far sidered to be humanists (from contributed? Your trouble in think- the past and present). ing about the issues and writing in Out last month was Mary your Viewpoints will clear us of Midgley's new hook—WICKED- the accusation of the evil of SLOTH ! ! NESS : a Philosophical Essay', Let us have a good ex- discussed by Ann Shearer (in change of views to put alongside the Guardian, p.13, 12/9/'84) the reports of lectures in the TO SIN IS HUMAN, who reports Ethical Record. Mary Midgley's belief that "we Incidentally, apart from wonder- need to recognise how much ing what Billy Graham is doing in EVIL is caused by quiet, res- the USSR and at the ambivalence pectable and unaggressive of those rejecting population con- motives like sloth, fear, avar- trol but wanting to move away ice and greed, and that the from materialism, we have the feel- harm can be done by not ing that much of the world) thinking is literally immeasur- evil and wickedness appears to us to derive from IGNORANCE, able". ECONOMIC CONDITIONS and POWER/ But, in this emphasis on PRIVILEGE STRUCTURES. WORDS, we perhaps escape the need to ACT. Are we in SPES effec- I 95p, postfree from BHA, 13 Prince tively "disseminating ethical prin- of Wales Terrace, London W8 5PG. ciples or CULTIVATING a RATIONAL It was to be reviewed in this issue, and HUMANE WAY OF LIFE? Does but that review is delayed. this mean we should be doing this 2 Routledge, Kegan Paul, £14.95. 3 Pemberton Books, 1971. among members or to a much Martin Robertson. 1981, £9.50. wider audience: if the latter, are 5 John Calder, 1979 — paperback, we going about 'it the right ways? £2.95. 15 South Place Ethical Society FOUNDED in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aim is the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, and the cultivation of a rational way of life. We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and find themselves in sympathy with our views. At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of cultural activities, including discussions, lectures, concerts, dances, rambles and socials. A comprehensive reference and lending library is available, and all Members and Associates receive the Society's journal, The Ethical Record, free. The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved international renown. Memorial and.Funeral Services are available to members. Membership is by £1 enrolment fee and an annual Subscription. Minimum subscriptions are: Members, £4 p.a.; Life Members, £84 (Life membership is available only to members of at least one year's standing). It is of help to the Society's officers if members pay their subscriptions by Banker's Order, and it is of further financial benefit to the Society if Deeds of Covenant are entered into. Members are urged to pay more than the not minimum subscription whenever possible, as the present amount is sufficient to cover the cost of this journal. A suitable form of bequest for those wishing to benefit the Society by their wills is available from the office, as are Banker's Order and Deeds of Covenant Forms.

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