Alb

Vol. 61 No. 3 MARCH 1956 Threepence

Notes of the Month Custos

Benjamin Franklin S. K. Ratcliffe

The Greeks and Evolution W. E. Swinton

Marlowe and Shakespeare Archibald Robertson

A Warning to Anthologists Professor Sir Ernest Kennaway

Conway Discussion Circle Book Reviews

South Place News Society's Activities

• SOUTH PLACE ETHICAk SOCIETY SUNDAY MORNING MEETINGS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK

March 4—MRS. D. PICKLES, MA., B.S.c.—"Fmnce anal Race Problems in North Africa". Bass Solos by G. C. DOWMAN Still wie die Nacht .. Carl Bohm Si tra i Ceppi Handel Hyinn: No. 81 March 11—Dr. W. E. SWINTON, Ph.D.—"Scventeenth and Eighteenth Century Evolutionists". Violin and Piano Solo by MARGOT MACGIBBON and FREDERIC JACKSON. Sonatina Dvorak Hymn: No. 67 March 18—ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON, M.A.—"Remission of Sins or Righting of Wrongs?" • Piano Solos by FIONA CAMERON Sonata in C Scarlatti Schnnetterling G rice; Malaguena A then iz Hymn: No. 227 March 25—LORD BOYD ORR, D.S.O., M.D., F.R.S.—"The Morals of Power-. Soprano Solos by PAMELA WOOLMORE Hymn: No. 103 (Questions after the lectures)

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS, 65th SEASON Concerts 6.30 p.m. (Doors open 6 p.m.) Admission Is. 6d. March 4— Lennox Berkeley Sextet for String Quartet. Clarinet and Horn. Schubert . March 11—ROBERT MASTERS PIANO QUARTET Mozart in G minor, 1(478; Brahms in A,•Op. 26 Piano Quartets. Beethoven Introduction and Variations in G, Op. 121a Piano Trio. March 18—ALLEGRI STRING QUARTET. CECIL ARONOWITZ. Mozart in G, K387 String Quartet. Schubert in C, Op. 163 Two Cello Quintet. Brahms in G, Op. 36 . March 25—AEOLIAN STRING QUARTET. STEPHEN SHINGLES Bartok No. 6 String Quartet, Mozart in D, 1(593; in E flat 1(614 String Quintets. April 1—NO CONCERT Officers Hon. Treasurer: E. J. FAIRIIALL Hon. Registrar: MRS. T. C. LINDSAY F Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.I Secretary: J. HurroN HYND - The Monthly Record is posted free to Members and Associates. The Annual charge to subscribers is 4s. 6d, Matter for publication in the April issue should reach the Editor, G. C. Dowman, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.I, by March 10. The --Objects of the Society are the study. and dissemination of ethical principles and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment. Any person in sympathy with these objects is cordially invited to become a Member (minimum annual subscription is 10s.), or Associate (minimum annual subscription 5s.). Life membership flO 10s. Associates arc not eligible to vote or hold office. Enquiries should be made of the Registrar to whom subscriptions should be paid.

• The MONTHLY

• RECORD Vol. 61 No. 3 MARCH 1956 Threepence

CONTENTS PAGE NOTES OF THE MONTH, C/istos 3 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN„S. K. Ratcliffe.. 5 THE GREEKS AND EVOLUTION,W. E. Swinton.. 7 MARLOWE AND SHAKESPEARE, Archibald Robertson - 9 A WARNING TO ANTHOLOGISTS, Sir Ernest Kennaway CONWAY DISCUSSION CIRCLE 15. BOOK REVIEWS.. 17 SOUTH PLACE NEWS 19 SOCIETY'SACTIVITIES 19

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

Notes of the Month

WE ARE PLEASED TO introduce two distinguished -newcomers as Sunday morning speakers in March: Mrs. Dorothy Pickles, on March 4, and Lord Boyd Orr on March 25: It is hoped that a large audience of members and friends will be present to hear the speakers on each occasion. Mrs. Dorothy Pickles, M.A., B.S.c. (Econ.), writer and broadcaster and lecturer, is on the staff of Morley College, and a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. As an authority on French affairs, she, will discuss "France and Race Problems in North Africa". The race problem has many manifestations, and a knowledge of each may •help us to comprehend the problem as a whole in seeking a solution. Lord Boydd Orr, D.S.O., M.D., F.R.S., as Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, with his world-wide experience and his deep personal interest in promoting friendly relations among the peoples of the world, has special qualifications and authority in dealing with the subject of his own choice, "The Morals

3 of Power". Lord Boyd Orr is preparing now to go abroad to take part in conferences on World Government, and to advise Pakistan and India on their agricultural development. As President of the National Peace Council, his address will close the special series which has engaeed the Conway Discussion Circle during the current season.

Testing the Bomb The Bishop of Chichester is to be congratulated on his courageous appeal to President Eisenhower and Sir Anthony Eden to pledge themselves to renounce all further tests of the hydrogen bomb even if they are not yet ready for a complete prohibition of nuclear weapons of all types with adequate international safeguards. It is unlikely that much notice will be taken of appeals on moral grounds, but there are surely very good material reasons for postponing the series of tests that are planned for this year. Systematic studies are being made by scientists of the possible harm that may result from increasing the amount of radio-activity in the atmosphere. There are differences of opinion among the experts about the amount of pollution that can be tolerated without genetical damage. This is a question of fact, and a positive answcr should soon be forthcoming. The ethics of atomic warfare are, of course, a matter of individual opinion. But as the Bishop points out, civilised nations are committed to some extent by various international agreements. Thus the Hague Conference of 1907 laid down the principle that -the right of belligerents to choose the means of inflicting damage upon the enemy is not unlimited". Again, the Treaty of Washington, 1922, and the Geneva Protocol, 1925, both forbid the use of poison gas or bacteriological warfare. It is difficult to see how mass extermination can be reconciled with the definition at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 of crimes against humanity. The prcsent position seems to be that most people give uneasy approval to nuclear weapons provided they are only used in a game of bluff—or what Mr. Dulles has called "the necessary art" of going to the brink of war but.no further. It would be interesting to hear some pronounce- ment on the ethics of bluff.

The Curse of Eve Until the nineteenth century the pious belief that women ought to bring forth children "in sorrow" and so share the punishment inflicted on Eve for her dreadful sin in starting the human race was almost universally held. Queen Victoria, to her lasting credit, would have none of this nonsense and demanded chloroform. Since then, public opinion has undergone a whole- some change. Even the Roman Church, despite its fundamentalist attitude to the Bible, no longer holds that childbirth should be as painful as possible. In an address to some 700 gyruecologists, the Pope gave his blessing to the system of psychological preparation advocated in this country by Dr. Grantly Dick Read. He went even further and expressed approval of the technique employed in Russia which is based on the theory of conditioned reflexes worked out by Pavlov. He added the warning, however, that "the ideology of a researcher or scientist is not in itself the truth and value of what he has found and described". Some good, therefore, can come even out of Russia. "In punishing Eve", the Pope said, "God did not wish to forbid nor did He forbid mothers to make use of means which render childbirth less painful." Nevertheless, anwsthetics are treated with reserve and hypnotism is not permitted. Moreover, pregnancy must not be prematurely terminated in order to save the mother's life. However, it is something that a gleam of common sense should penetrate the dark and ancient windows of the Vatican. 4 International Humanist and Ethical Union The proceedings of the LII.E.U. regional conference at Antwerp, August 27-31, 1955, have been published. Among those who made contributions to the conference were Mr. Joseph Reeves, Chairman of the Rationalist Press Association, who gave informa- tion about the R.P.A. and Ethical Societies in England. But was he altogether correct in saying that the first Ethical Society was born almost at the same time as the Fabian Society? Mr. H. J. Blackham spoke on philosophical questions, and with Mr. J. H. Lloyd joined in discussions. Copies of this report may be ordered from the Administration of I.H.E.U., Bleyenburg-straat I, Utrecht, at the price of Hf1.1,50, or 3s., or 40 cents, or equivalent currency, post free. '

Religious Television Alan Taylor, writing in the Daily Herald on January 11, calls attention to the decision of commercial television to give religious services on a Sunday evening. In order to be fair, a committee of three has been set up consisting of a Roman Catholic, an Anglican, and a Non-Conformist. But, writes Mr. Taylor, is this fair? The Christian religion is the religion of only a minority of the people of this country. "Is it right that the repre- sentatives of this ageing minority should monopolise Sunday evenings?" He thinks that to be really fair, ought we not to "follow every Christian preacher with a Rationalist, Freethinker, Atheist or whatever you like to call .him?"

Clements Memorial Prize 1955 There were eighteen entries for the annual competition but the adjudicators, John Addison, Arthur Benjamin and Geoffrey Bush made no award. Honourable mention was given to H. J. Wild of Sheffield for a wind quintet. Particulars of the 1956 competition may be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Conway Hall. Cus-ros

Benjamin Franklin

Y S. K. RATCLIFFE

Tim 250iu ANNIVERSARY of Benjamin Franklin's birth has lately been cele- brated with tributes from every part of the world. He shares with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson the narrow summit of creative genius in the making of the United States. It would be difficult to name another man of his century or the succeeding age who could be described as so thoroughly and variously interested, nor can we think of any man who more completely represents the American self-made type. Born at Boston in 1706, he lived until 1790. He was the fifteenth child of his father, a struggling tallow-chandler, and thus provides a ticklish problem for the extreme advocates of birth-control. Benjamin never found reason for complaint in the circumstances 'of his early life. His schooling was hardly worthy of mention, and he would doubtless have asserted that, for a lad such as himself, there would have been no advantage whatever in any form of academie training. He was a born man of science with an insatiable desire to apply his discoveries to the common needs of life. He could never for a moment have understood the love of pure knowledge or abstract thought divorced from every day. In his late teens he transferred himself to Philadelphia and made that city his home for the remainder of life, and beginning as a printer, he became an all-round citizen. His mind was ever alert, crowded with projects for general improvement. It was not Franklin but Henry Ford who a hundred years later threw off the sound maxim that there was nothing done in the world that could not be better done. Philadelphia and the new nation 'were indebted to him for a newspaper, the first circulating library, and the pioneer society for Philosophic Inquiry. His inventions were not seldom adopted out of hand, as in the case of bifocal spectacles, the light- ning rod, and the stove that is still in use in all the northern States. His interest in scientific discovery and invention did not, as in so many cases, cut him off from literary expression. He worked hard at the writing of English prose, and rather curiously devoted much labour to the imitation of Addison. Not a few admiring readers of his autobiography would contend that the care and clarity of its sentences were alone sufficient to show that he owed nothing to any stylist of the Augustan age. There was no man of his time whose intellectual interests were broader, and he had the right to feel that he had the great experience of a life fulfilled. There can have been few men in any age capable of employing their gifts to greater advantage for themselves and their fellows. Alone among his contemporaries he stood as high in the esteem of the leaders of the governing class as in that of the scientists who treated him, in France and in England, as an equal. His many years in London before the American War gave him a place with the statesmen and the most skilful diplomatists. He was loyal to the British connection and had a deep admiration for the English way of life. He was not by any means alone among the leading men of the Colonies in beliehing that the British connection should be continued, and certainly none worked with greater consistency for this cause than himself. When, however, he realised in London that George III and his Ministers had made the situation impossible, he never had a moment's doubt concerning independence as the inevitable result. He devoted his mind in its fullness to the long debate on the constitutional problems of the new Republic. Benjamin Franklin was a complete rationalist, an ethical thinker in 'full harmony with the governing ideas in his age of the open mind, and the duty of free enquiry. There is no evidence that in his early manhood he was troubled by any doubts as to the convictions he had reached early in his mature experience, or that to the end of his life he was led to modify his views in any important particular. One fact of exceptional interest is that notwithstanding his entire detachment from the• doctrines and practices of orthodoxy, he never lost his interest in popular religion or its expression. This may be, noted particularly in his attitude to Methodism and the labours of its leading eiponents who made so great an impression upon the life of England from 1740 onwards. As a matter of fact, Franklin has left us the most vivid description of George Whitefield's dramatic sermons, the unequalled range of his voice, and his power over any kind of con- gregation. There is one department of Franklin's work which should not be omitted in any summary of his public services for either the multitude or the minority. In his early years as a printer in Philadelphia, he began publica- tion of Poor Richards Almanac, an annual compilation that attained a measure of popularity never since approached. Here, in the simplest words and the plainest sentences were the maxims for a modern nation consisting of men and women assumed to be all alike labourers in the vineyard. 6 They inculcated the common virtues of everyday life—early rising, hard work, thrift, courtesy and thoughtfulness in the family. Foreign observers of social life in the new .Republic could hardly have failed to infer that Poor Richard was writing the real bible of the people; and yet it would not be difficult to argue that as the country grew and prospered there was no land of the Western world which exhibited so little of the essential spirit embodied in a life of caution, economy and continuous care for the details of conduct. Franklin accepted without reservation the moral of the Greek maxim that the unexamined life is not worth living. It was highly characteristic that he should apply this principle in the most thoroughgoing fashion; and being what he was, a moralist who never willingly overlooked any duty, however small, he was led into a precise daily evaluation of his defects and what he looked upon as his successes in good conduct. We should not be mistaken in thinking of this means of self-regulation as on the whole in accord with his mental habit; although to us in these so different days it seems mechanical and even rather absurd. Yet it would be unreasonable to look in a man of this unceasing activity and self-consciousness for a mode of daily living in which there was no fault to be found.

The Greeks and Evolution B Y

W. E. SWINTON

THE IDEA THAT the theory of Evolution is comparatively recent is so ingrained into many minds that it is worth while stressing its own ancient lineage. Evolution is an unfolding, and perhaps the word transformism really expresses its meaning more accurately: That the idea existed before Darwin so eloquently suggested one method, by which he thought it had occurred, is well known to many readers, for Darwin's own grandfather, the famous Erasmus Darwin, wrote on Evolution too. Yet it may seem that to suggest the Greeks as evolutionists is carrying the story too far. None the less, in that golden age, when the world was young, and freethought and speculation without great experimentation .were not unusual, many discoveries were made; made and forgotten, to be redis- covered much nearer to our own day. ' . The Greek world, that of the city states, their world of. ideas and the empire of Greelc speech, saw the beginnings of the age of reason. Thales and Anaximander, who lived from the seventh to the sixth centuries B.C., were amongst the first to dismiss supernatural beliefs for more observational explanations. The latter especially believed that the world was in a, state of flux and that changes of condition were pOssible. I-le certainly envisaged men arising, like Venus, from the sea. The importance of this argument is not so much whether the facts were true or not, but in the clear recognition of the possibility of transformism. Obviously men were not specially created and planted on the surface of the earth; they could apparently be derived from other substances or other forms of life. It is in this that Anaximander would appear to be the distant forerunner of Darwin, Wallace and Lamarck. His pupil Anaximenes (588-524 ffe.) inherited something of the belief but he considered the pervading power and influence to be the air. Diogenes, another member of the same school but at a later date, believed in the generating powers of slime from which could be derived both plants and animals. 7 But perhaps the greatest of this range of natural philosophers was Xeno- phanes (576-480 n.c.), who may be credited with the first recognition of fossils. In his travels he observed fossil seashells, or perhaps more properly one may say that he saw shells lying on ground where it was manifest no sea had been for many years. He therefore correctly deduced that the sea had once been more extensive and might well have covered great tracts of the earth's surface. This led him further to the idea that all life had come from the sea. In this, of course, he was quite correct though not precisely in the manner we must assume he meant. It was very many years afterwards before it was known that the earliest forms of life were, in fact, engendered in the sea and that the first conquest of the land was from the fresh waters. In the year that Xenophanes died Empedocles of Agrigentum was only fifteen years old, but he was to succeed to the mantle of science and philo- sophy of the other and was one of the most able men of whom we have knowledge. Apart from this he was a poet and a musician, an embryologist, so far as he could be with the materials and the methods of his time, and he has very strong claims to the title of Father of Evolution. In accordance with some of the teaching of the time he accepted the fundamental materials of nature as the four elements: fire, water, air and earth, but he affirmed that these were merely materials for further construction and development by the factors of love and hate. Men and women by using love could make a new amalgam of the whole, whereas hate was the separator and the weakener. He believed that plant life was the first to appear on the earth and that after many trials and vicissitudes animal life had been developed. He thus recognised the fact that all life was not synchronous in origin and was not always of the same quality: he saw the essential dependence of life upon other forms of life; that some kinds of life had prospered and that others had declined. He was thus an unrecognised apostle of the struggle for survival. It could be said that by the time of his death, aged sixty, in 435 B.C., the foundations of transformism had been laid. Anaxagoras (500-428 B.c.) also supported the pre-existence.of life as the reason for the living things of his time and believed that the germs of all things were to be found in the air. He was not founding Bacteriology when he formulated this theory but that science has, of .course, substantiated some of his ideas. More important, however, was his belief that the whole development and distribution of life were the result of intelligent design. Thus there was begun a battle that has not yet ended, the contending parties divided over design or chance in the firmament. Anaxagoras was partly•contemporaneous with Democritus, who was born in 450 or 460 B.C., but the date of whose death is unknown. He was a philosopher of great observational gifts, though he was not very worried about the plan of the world or the universe. He was principally interested in structure, not causes. He made some investigations and postulations about the nature of plants and animals, and earned the title of the first comparative anatomist from no less a person than Cuvier. His discoveries in a physical sense were of much greater importance and he was the original discoverer, or suggestor, of an atomic theory. Some of his ideas and experiments were very much in advance of his time. • The works and records of many of these progenitors of the great scientists of the last two hundred years are largely lost and much of their philosophy is reflected in the works of others. But one of the greatest of all naturalists speaks to us in his own right. He was Aristotle, who can be stated to have created Natural History as a study. His observations were acute and were sometimes remarkably correct, although his thought was inevitably per- meated by many of the concepts of his time. His History of Animals is 8 still a work of interest, if not of frequent reference, and some of the brilliant translations and commentaries, such as that by Sir D'Arcy Thomp- son, are still of value to a serious student. But much of the ancient Greek thought comes to-us through the writings of a less ancient poet who was not a Greek. Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet whose famous work De rerum naturae has been excellently rendered in several delightful translations. Through his pages, as from a mirror, gleams much of the lost thought of the youth of Natural History. The Greeks had, we can see, a word for it and quite often the right one. The rise of other philosophies, usually less free and speculative, was, however, to inhibit that early birth. Some of the ideas have been lost, some killed, but there still existed a nucleus that had to wait many hundred years for amplification. (Summary of an address delivered on January 15)

Marlowe and Shakespeare

Y 'ARCHIBALD ROBERTSON

Tim NUMBER OF MEN who wrote the plays of Shakespeare grows and grows. It used to be simply Bacon. Then the anti-Stratfordians discovered a new candidate in Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Now, according to Mr. Calvin Hoffman, author of The Man Who Was Shakespeare, it is Christopher Marlowe. The one person who, if you want to be up to date, you must not say wrote any of the plays is William Shakespeare himself. However, there are compensations. This among others, that the hyper- critics annihilate one another. Every Baconian argumcnt is an argument against Oxford and Marlowe. Every argument for Oxford excludes Marlowe and Bacon. And Mr. Hoffman, in building up a case for Marlowe, may be said to have settled the hash of the Baconians and Oxfordians for ever and a day. What are the facts about Marlowe and Shakespeare? Christopher Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker, was born at Canterbury in 1564. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, taking his degree in 1583. At Cambridge he mUst have been acquainted with Francis Ket, fellow and tutor of his college, who in 1588, after Marlowe went down, was burnt for "divers detestable opinions against Christ our Saviour". Marlowe may have learnt from Ket the "atheist" opinions that got him, too, into trouble later on. There is evidence that he was employed by Elizabeth's government on secret service in 1587 or thereabouts. He went on the stage in London and made his name as a playwright, but in 1593 was denounced to the Privy Council as an atheist. Proceedings were pending when in May of that year he was fatally stabbed at Deptford by a man named Ingram Frizer. According to the official inquest it was after dinner in a dispute over the reckoning; according to another story it was over rivalry in "lewd love". The killer received a free pardon—the Council, I suppose, taking the view that to kill an atheist was good riddance of bad rubbish. But, according to Mr. Hoffman, the inquest was a frame-up. Marlowe was not killed, but smuggled away to the Continent by his patron, Sir Thomas Walsingham, who arranged for another man to be killed and for the body to be identified as Marlowe's. The real Marlowe lived on, writing plays and passing them off as Shakespeare's. But why should not Shakespeare have written his own plays? ' 9 Here we come to the stock anti-Stratfordian argument. We know so very little about Shakespeare. He was born at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, the same year as Marlowe. He married Anne Hathaway in 1582 and had three children. He begins tO be known as a poet in 1593, just after Marlowe's• death. This, according to Mr. Hoffman, is all we know of Shakespeare for the first thirty years of his life. We do not even know that he went to school. In short—"the clown of Stratford!" As a matter of fact this is not quite all. We know that his father was John Shakespcare, a burgess of Stratford, who in 1565 was chosen alderman and in 1568 became high bailiff and justice of the peace. That says quite a lot. It makes it extremely unlikely that William had no schooling, and knocks one brick out of the anti-Stratfordian edifice. The son of an alderman and high bailiff does not have to produce a school certificate as evidence of education. True, John Shakespeare in the 1570s fell on hard times and, no doubt for that reason, never sent his son to a university. We do not know what William did between 1585, when his two youngest children were born, and 1592, when we hear of him in connection with the London stage. In that year Robert Greene, attacking the theatrical profession in his Groat's - worth of Wit. mentions "an upstart crow . . . that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide . . is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie". Mr. Hoffman will not have it that this refers to Shakespeare. But if not Shakespeare, whom? There is a direct reference to 3 Henry VI, Act I, Sc. iv ("O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!"). The pun on "Shake-scene" is transparent. And Greene does not mean Marlowe, for he has attacked •im, "that Atheist Tamburlaine"' just before. Evidently in 1592 Marlowe and Shakespeare were both well known in the theatrical world. As it was a very small world (there were then only, two theatres in London), the two could -hardly have helped meeting. This knocks another brick out of Mr. Hoffman's edifice; for one of his arguments, repeated with damnable iteration through the book, is that Marlowe and Shakespeare never met, that one cannot have influenced the other, and that coincidences of phrasing in the two poets are therefore proof that they were one and the same man. We may concede this at least to Mr. Hoffman: Marlowe is a more impressive candidate for the authorxhip of Shakespeare's works than Bacon, Oxford or any other aristocrat. He was a great poet in his own right; and but for that dagger at Deptford, who knows what he would have done? But the parallelisms in the poems are not enough to overthrow the evidence of the inquest, and the testimony of every contemporary who knew anything of the matter, that Marlowe died in 1593. The probability that Marlowe and Shakespeare met in that small Elizabethan stage-world is overwhelming; and if they met, why should they not collaborate, as competent scholars are of opinion that they did? And why should not Shakespeare after . Marlowe's death have again and again. betrayed the influence of his great predecessor? Mr. Hoffman's only answer is that in that case Shakespeare would have been a thief. I am tempted to retort in Shakespeare's language. "Convey the wise it call. Steal? foh! a fico for the phrase!" The moral impoSsibility of a poet—who anyway used other men's plots—using other men's lines is a poor reason for rewriting literary history. The final argument for the authenticity of Shakespeare's plays is the direct testimony of Ben Jonson, who knew him and, in his own famous phrase, "loved the man, and did honour his memory (on this side Idolatry) as much as any". In his commendatory verses prefixed in 1623 to the First Folio, Jonson does justice to the man who, with "small Latin and less- Greek", overtopped ancient and modern playwrights and "was not of an age, but for all time". Jonson is a hard nut for Mr. Hoffman or any other anti- 10 Stratfordian to crack. In fact he can only be cracked in one of two ways —by supposing him such a fool as to think an all but illiterate actor (as Shakespeare was according to the theory) the writer of the greatest plays in the world; or by supposing him such a knave as to lend himself to a colossal fraud. Mr. Hoffman has no scruples, and rates Jonson both fool and knave. It is the only way of disposing of his testimony. Otherwise we must take rare Ben's word about still rarer Will. Mr. Hoffman thinks that if certain papers are found in Sir Thomas Walsinghamls grave at Chislehurst. his case for Marlowe will be proved. But if they are not found, he will still believe it. Of course he will. Some people will believe anything. I suppose it is a matter of regular practice before breakfast. A Warning to Anthologists B Y PROFESSOR SIR ERNEST KENNAWAY TEN YEARS AGO, soon after the War, I compiled an anthology of descriptive' passages, to be called The Genius of Description, and sent it to fourteen publishers, and received it, of course after most careful consideration, generally by return of post, often with an explanation implying that it was totally impossible to publish anything about anything. (On these occasions one ignores the stream of about 19,000 books on every possible subject issuing yearly from the Press of this country, to which I drew attention in the Monthly Record*.) Of course a publisher has only to estimate profit or loss and may or may not have any literary sense; similarly; a racing tipster may or may not be an authority on the anatomy and physiology of the horse. The notes which follow constitute a more modest attempt at an anthology of the conventional type. The emotional appreciation of literature is often inborn and is no more meritorious than is the blackness of a negro's skin. My father, whose scanty education, consisting chiefly of brutal caning, stopped when he was sixteen, possessed it in good measure, while my mother was devoid of it altogether. But of course, whatever capacity for appreciation-a child possesses must be brought into contact with literature. My schoolmaster, who detested teaching and had not the slightest capacity for it (nor for anything else except garden- ing), had a very real love of poetry. He was Homeric in 'appearance, and with flashing eyes would shout Tennyson's Lotos Eaters at us for dictation. If a child's emotions are not affected by that simple poem, well, it is just too bad, but he should have chosen his parents differently. What is the most beautiful single line in poetry? In this matter, if in no other, a rationalist can agree with G. K. Chesterton. His choice was "Over the Hills and Far Away." That line is so extraordinarily musical that I find it difficult to say it without singing it. What is the most beautiful name ever given to a country? I would suggest Ao Te Roa, the Maori name for New Zealand, which means "The Long White Cloud". One may imagine that on one of those amazing voyages by which the islands of the Pacific were peopled, the survivors of a canoe-load of Maoris, almost dead with thirst, saw ahead the long line of the Southern Alps, snow-covered, and wondered if this was only a cloud, and ever after- wards retained that name for it. I have no idea whether this story is true, Out fancy I have read something like it somewhere. Another very beautiful geographical name in a native tongue was first heard by Livingstone. One of the greatest of his discoveries was the upper — * v. 59, August, page 15. .1 I course of the Zambesi river, and the Victoria Falls, which are revealed far away by the sound of the water and the ascending columns of spray rising from it. The native name of the falls is Mosioatunya, "The Smoke that .Sounds". This lovely name is enshrined in a language unintelligible to us, but the translation lays bare the stupidity of those people who still think that literary expression requires a conventional classical education. Another form of description of scenery is the Japanese type of poem .consisting of a single line, of which I know only this example: "Long, long, the lonely line of a river in a land covered with snow.- 'This picture reminds one of the lines from Pope's Dunciad: "Lot where Maeotis sleeps and hardly flows The freezing Tanais through a waste of snows." What is the shortest statement, in poetry or prose, which expresse-s the sreatest amount of wisdom? One might suggest the line, again from Pope, in the Essay on Man: "In .doubt, to deem himself a God, or Beast", which comprises a large part of psychology. One man created all the music of Beethoven, and one man instigated all the horrors of Belsen and of Auschwitz. Some other selections might be: "I say, there is no Darkness but Ignor- ance", which Shakespeare, characteristically enough, puts into thc mouth of a "Clown" (Twelfth Night, Act IV, Scene ii). Another choice might be, from Ruskin: "There is no Wealth but Life." Ruskin developed this idea in a passage which is very well known, but •hich one may, perhaps, quote again. . "And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this—that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine or to form a single living spirit never enters into our estimate of advan- tages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to' teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be met only by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degrada- tion of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour." (Stones of Venice H, Chapter XI) What is the most perfect title ever given to a book? One might take, again from Ruskin: Praeterita - Outlines of Scenes and Thoughts Perhaps Worthy of Memory in My Past Life. The perfect title, and the perfect cadence. Ruskin, who is now famous for quite other reasons, was regarded formerly as a writer. To a writer, such a title is a sacred thing, with a life of its own; and so is every sentence. Ruskin designed, not only the wording of his titles, but their visual presenta- tion and drew the whole title-page in 'pen-and-ink so that the typography should be exactly as he wished. The genius of Shakespeare creates pathos when, using nothing but the prosaic words of a coarse old woman (wife of Pistol, née Quickly), he describes the death of Falstaff. "Nay, sure he's not in hell : he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a finer end and went away an it had been 12 any christom child; a' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now, Sir John?' quoth I: `what man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God, I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone." (King Henry V. Act II, Scene iii) If one reads the obituary notices which appear in the Press, one gets the impression that the world is inhabited solely by heroes and angels, and an anthology of this material would be very dull. But in any such collection one might urge the inclusion of the tribute to Arnkel in the Icelandic saga The Story of Thorolf HaMoot. Arnkel was killed in a feud, with many wounds, fighting alone against a party of nine -adversaries. He "was laid in howe* beside the sea out by Vadils-head and that is a big howe, as big as a big stackgarth. And great grief was that to all men, for that he was the doughtiest of all men of the ancient faith in all matters; the wisest of men, of good mind fashioned, and great-hearted, and the boldest of all men, single-hearted, and exceeding

Someone with a wide knowledge of poetry•might select passages showing Onomatopoeia, which term denotes the naming of a sound by an imitation of it; such words as "bang'', "pop", "splash" are simple examples. In poetry, of course, the matter is more complicated, and one would like to know whether the result was wholly unintentional. The only two examples I know are from Shelley. In his Ode to the West Wind the line "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is" suggests the voice of a south-westerly gale striking a row of tall elms, and the leaves are left rustling as the gust passes onward. Again in his poem Time: "Unfathomable Sea whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality! And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm. Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?" In the seventh line one hears the thunderous breaking of the wave, and then the surf rushes seething up over the shingle. The genius of Shelley charges such lines to the full with changing music. While quoting passages descriptive of the sea, may I, as a filial duty, quote something, written, in the sentimental style of his day, by my father who, a hundred and five years ago, landed in New Zealand at the age of seventeen, to become a sheep farmer? *A cairn. I. Translation by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson (The Saga Library, 1892). SeeThe Monthly Record, v. 59, November 1954; page 10. 13 "Where the sea and the land meet, the line is marked by a curve of shining foam stretching away for a hundred and thirty miles, unbroken, save at one point, where the hills of Bank's Peninsula, jutting into the sea, form the harbour we had so lately entered. It was as if a great line of beach swept up the English Channel front Dartmouth to Southampton, only one isolated block of hill or bay breaking the crescent of foam from end to end. With an onshore wind, we could hear all day long the great hollow moaning of this hundred miles of sea, rolling in from the Pacific, and breaking day and night on this silent unpeopled coast. Very silent it was and unpeopled, if I except one tenant of the whole—the only one • before we came—his resting place (not far from where we camped) juSt beyond the reach of the waves, marked by a single rude grave, with a piece of ship-timber for a head-board, on which could just be traced Lnitials something like H.L., roughly cut, and thc date, 1822: the spot where the crew of some old whaler, years ago, had landed, and laid one of their number who could weather no more storms with them, but who had .gone away where perhaps a weatherbeaten old South Sea Whaler would find a safe haven for always." A scientific colleague of mine said to mc that most scientific papers could be shortened, by someone other than the author, tO the extent of perhaps 30 per cent, by omission of superfluous words and the adoption of shorter constructions. Here are two prose passages; the first is surely one of the greatest master- pieces of all literature, the second may be new to many readers. One might try to re-write these passages ind (a) use fewer words, (b) use simpler words, and (c) give a more vivid impression of the whole incident. "Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria .to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, 'Give me to drink'. For his disciples were gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, 'How is it that thou being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?' (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans). Jesus answered and said unto her, 'If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water'. The woman saith unto him `Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with:and the well is deep; from whence then hast thou that living water?' Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle?' Jesus answered and said unto her 'Everyone that drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst: but the water that shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life'. The woman said unto him `Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw'. Jesus saith unto her, 'Go, call thy husband and come hither'. The woman answered and said unto him, '1 have no husband'. Jesus saith unto her, 'Thou saidst ,well I have no husband; for thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: this hast thou said truly'. The woman •aith unto him, 'Sir, I perceive that thou art a Prophee." (John. iv, 6-19) A rationalist will not believe that a woman's life-history can be read by any supernatural process, or that Jesus possessed any such powers. One wonders how many of the millions who have read the whole of this wonderful story, which•is not quoted here; have noticed that the woman's simple wordaare far too well adapted. to elicit the message which Jesus has 14 to deliver, through her alone, to all men and to all time. The whole passage has been planned, as might be a supposedly spontaneous dialogue of the B.B.C. The second instance is taken from "The Robber of Khagan", in Tales of Travel by the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. He was travelling in the Khagan valley in North West India, with a Gurkha escort, his baggage carried on mules. "Soon after midnight I woke, not with a start, but with the conscious- ness of which I had often read, though I had never before experienced it, . that I was not alone in the tent. The darkness was black as pitch . and thick as velvet; and though I listened intently without moving a muscle. I heard no sound. Half unconsciously I put out my left hand and dropped

. it tetween the bed and the canvas wall of the tent which the bed all but touched. It fell plumb, as though my fingers had alighted upon a billiard ball, on the shaven head of a man. I could feel the prickle of the sprouting hair against my palm. But in the same moment the object slid out of my grasp and a rustle indicated the stealthy withdrawal of the intruder. By this time I was wide awake. Springing up, I struck a match, seized my revolver, and dashed in my pyjamas out of the tent shouting to the Gurkhas as I emerged. Not a man was to be seen. I rushed up the short slope to the guard tent and tore aside the flap. The eight guards were all lying fast asleep on the ground." I doubt whether anyone can improve Curzon's description; his economy of words conveys to the reader the speed of the actual incident. Those of us who went to church every Sunday morning during the ten susceptible years from seven to seventeen heard the incomparable English of "The Order for Morning Prayer" five hundred and twenty times, perhaps not always with close attention, but one could hardly escape some influence from it. Surely this was a school of English with no compulsion to convert, and contort, it into something alleged to be its equivalent in Latin or Greek. What is the most perfect piece of prose ever written? One might suggest "A Prayer of Saint Chrysostom", which accompanies the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer. "Almighty God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto Thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in Thy Name Thou wilt grant their requests: Fulfil now, 0 Lord, the desires and petitions of Thy servants, as may be most expedient for, them; granting us in this world knowldege of Thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting." Those truly magical cadences with which the prayer ends depict, for many of us, an unreal world which has passed away; we are doubtful of any absolute truth, and do not look for, and perhaps do not desire, life everlasting.

Conway Discussion Circle On Tuesday, December 6, 1955, Mr. John Pinder spoke on "Uranium Diplomacy", the third talk of a series arranged jointly with the National Peace Council. He said that during recent years mankind had acquired great knowledge and power which could be used for harm or for good. Although atomic energy could give great material benefits used industrially, one could not forget it could also destroy. In contrast to the last decade with its Cold War, thousands of skilled scientists •and technicians had met 15 in Geneva in a greater assembly than ever known before, and the con- ference had discussed peaceful uses of atomic energy; such uses would have a far-reaching effect upon the life of all peoples. Atomic power would not affect undeveloped countries in the near future, but it was of great importance to this country, and had arrived in the nick of time as in a hundred years our resources of coal would have been used up. Eventually there would have been insufficient power to support all the peoples of the world, but now fortunately we had enough power for everyone and possibly for always, which used wisely would lead to fuller and better lives. With the advent of atomic power mankind had been saved from a fierce struggle for coal and oil which might have occurred in 1970 to 1980_ The timing was important, as the intensification of the struggle for world power resources would not now take place as it might have done. By 1965 the structure of world power would hardly be affected by atomic energy, as it was only just developing. R was prophesied that in ten years a fifteenth of power would be atomic, and that by the end of the next decade half of the electrical energy produced would be from atomic power. Up to 1975 it would be dearer than coal, but after that time it should be cheaper. An important effect in the international sphere was that countries who thought they would be short of power would not in fact be so, and would not decline. Great Britain could continue to be prosperous and powerful. Undeveloped countries, however, would not be greatly affected until 1975 to 1985. India was concentrating on hydro-electric power, which was of greater importance to her than to other countries, as it brought food as well as light. If power from atomic fusion could be achieved in twenty to thirty years as Professor Bhabba had hoped at Geneva, India might develop her economy and become a prosperous power. She had an influence for peace, and men might follow her. Palestine was a desert ' but might yet flower through atomic energy, which could make Israel prosperous, and would greatly affect the whole of the Middle East eventu- ally, where so much energy was used for pumping water. There was now the chance that the arid regions of the world could be made habitable. At Geneva Australia had spoken of plans to air-condition houses and factories and so enable people to work in conditions no longer intolerable_ In tropical countries by air-conditioning more creative work could be done, . and life be transformed. Three countries were developing atomic energy on a large scale, Britain. America and Russia, but only Britain was in urgent need, as both America and Russia still had resources of coal sufficient for many years. The wide distribution over the world of raw materials for atomic power would have a great effect, for uranium was found in Canada, the Belgian Congo, South Africa, Australia and Czechoslovakia, and there were phosphates in Israel, and thorium in Brazil, India and Ceylon, so that all nations would benefit.. There was also the point that whereas there used to be the Big Five, in the future other nations would have a greater voice in world affairs, for smallcountries would find they could equal large ones in destructive capacity. However, the important implication of this great amount of power was the chance it gave to nations of the world to combine. There could be greater unity between countries if 'we controlled atomic energy and used it for good. There were the suggestions of tighter Europear. co-Operation, and of an organisation that would undertake technical researches, and give material where needed, and sell in a common market.. He hoped that Britain would join this pool; the decision would be made next year. Transport would be cheaper, and everyone would benefit. At the same time it would be necessary to think over many proposals, and consider international inspections, and Mr. Pinder thought that a system of inspection should be set up. If AmeriCa and Russia had inspectors, and 16 India kept watch, it would tend to break down nationalisation. The decisive- period would be the next decade when we could see our bombs turned Into power stations or leave them as bombs. The future of humanity depended upon us as it had never depended on peoples in history before. We were faced with problems and could not fail; for posterity's sake we must unite. L. L. B.

Book Reviews

DEMOCRACY IN OUR WORKING LIVES, published by the Progressive League. 47 pp. Is. 6d. L. A. G. Strong has written a foreword to this useful booklet. He is President of the Progressive League and says: "I commend this Report, and warmly too, for what it has taught me". He is confident that the inter- ested reader is told a great deal of technical matters "which could easily be made dull, in a warm human way". The concept of occupational democracy? The benefits of human relations in industry are warmly espoused. Dictators arc not favoured even when they bring prosperity to a business, because it means the enslavement of man's spirit. This has always been a self-evident fact to a naturally demo- cratic nation. Yet, as with all good facts, it often needs reiteration. When we come to the conditions of occupational democracy, the problem is not so clear-cut. As the post-war years have shown, it is easy to arrive at a dictatorship from the other end. "The consumer has to be protected against exploitation by sectional interests" and -The individual or body supplying the capital is entitled to a share in the control. Public ownership is not necessarily any better than private ownership. Even in cases where both control and ownership are vested in the workers themselves, actual practice may still fall short of genuine democracy". In order to recommend occupational democracy, the writer of this pamphlet cites instances of companies whose experiments in it have been successful, giving the methods of the working of it. There are also chapters on co-operative partnerships and the Communitarian movement, instancing the Italian company of Olivetti. There are examples taken from other countries. • Altogether this is a useful publication, and it may be obtained at the Conway Hall bookstall. THE RATIONALIST ANNUAL, 1956. 3s. 6d. (Watts and Co.) With such a collection of names as J. B. S. Haldane, Hyman Levy, Lord Chorley, J. C. Flugcl, Naomi Mitchison, A. D. Howell Smith, S. Chandra- sekhar, A. Kazhdan, Archibald Robertson and F. H. George, wc would expect a wealth of good reading matter. We are not disappointed. There is a clever and scientifically reasoned article on Miracles by J. B. S. Haldane. Let us take an example. He says that for many Hindus the sun has no existence apart from the experience of various sentient beings who are aware of it. Then one may say that any event may have happened for some people and not for others. The miracle of Fatima may be explained in this way. Yet such arguments would not stand very strong questioning. The Chaos in Scientific Recruitment. Hyman Levy discusses the acute shortage of science teachers for schools. Just one of those things that are happening, due to a lack of social planning? Or may we still be feeling the loss of the best part of a male generation wasted by the carnage of the- First World War and the national service of today? Profcssor Levy wonders whether scientifically qualified young men, eligible for military service, 17' should receive exemption if they will undertake to enter the teaching. profession. Lord Chorley raises something of the utmost importance to Rationalists in Freedom of Discussion Today. They should be in the forefront of the defenders of this liberty. One of Britain's leading psychologists, the late Dr. J. C. Flugel, discusses Humour: Some Modern Approaches to an Ancient Problem. Humour is a quality which defies explanation. What is amusing to certain races ledves others unmoved. And it is closely allied to tragedy. So much so that certain playwrights, who have a feeling for both, realise that after a most dramatic situation it is often advisable for them to relieve the feelings of their audience by creating a humorous situation. This was well defined in a play a few years ago—The Ghost Train. Dickens could provide humour to remove the sting of poverty from the most sordid circumstances. Bible Criticism Today by A. D. Howell Smith. A scholarly article bringing Bible criticism more into line with later discoveries as far as the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. A neat little story with an evolutionary slant Is told by Naomi Mitchison : One Couldn't Tell the Papers. Cultural Barriers to Family Planning in Under-DeveloPed Countries by S. Chandrasekhar. He points out that "certain economically and technicallY. advanced countries do not possess all the features of a real welfare state. Nor are the poor countries devoid of all the factors of a balanced economy". In his discussion of the problem of family planning he says: "It is often wrongly assumed that the question of birth control can be settled merely by stating the case for it. This may be thc experience in certain advanced countries and where the mass-media for the dissemination of knowledge are taken for granted. Even in these countries, despite obvious aids, severe battles had to be fought for nearly fifty years before family planning could be made acceptable and respectable". How right he is! Dr. Chandrasekhar is concerned a good deal with the plight of those countries which are in "abject poverty in the midst of relative plenty". The Myth Theory—Symposium by A. Kazhdan and Archibald Robert- son. Mr. Robertson wrote The Origins of Christianity. Mr. Kazhdan reviewed the book in Vestnik Drevnei Istorii, No. 4, 1954. This is printed in the symposium and Mr. Robertson replies to it. He finds himself gratified by Kazhdan's "fair and objective treatment". Mr. Robertson is also fair and objective in his reply. Both these men are well informed in Bible literature, and those who are interested in the subject may profit by reading the arguments of each of the protagonists. This number of The Rationalist Annual is as good as any we can remember. CREATIVE IDEALS by George E. O'Dell. This booklet of forty pages has been published, this year, by the New York Society of Ethical Culture and contains about a dozen articles. Some have already appeared in the Monthly Record. We know Mr. O'Dell as a man of the highest ethical ideals, and herein is contained his philosophy of life. Call it a religion if you will! His ideals permeate the whole book and they are of the essence of - an Ethical Society. He has one article entitled Fellowship in an Ethical Society. He speaks of an Ethical Society as being a requirement "in order to provide an atmosphere of approval, disapproval, sympathy, and help, such as shall foster observance of principles". No one can quarrel with such a statement. 18 South Place News Obituary George Henry Kuttner died January 15, aged 78. The funeral ceremony took place on January 23 at Golders Green Crematorium, the service being conducted by J. Hutton Hynd. George Kuttner was an old and valued member of the Society dating back some forty years. He was well known and much respected in the fur world and recently was the recipient of a presentation from the Fur Guild. Also he had conducted classes on the furriers' business at the Northampton Institute, London, for many years.

Thursday Evening Socials On January 19, J. A. Sandapan described -A Day in an Indian Village'. It was interesting to hear "how the other half lives", particularly when , related by the pleasant voice of Mr. Sandapan. The day in an Indian village began at 3 a.m, with the arrival of the soothsayer and finished late at night.

Children's Party. There was a lively gathering on January 14 at the Children's Party when, in thc decorated Library, games were played and, after tea, Geoffrey Robinson entertained with some conjuring. He was, of course, recognised by the children who had seen television's "Whirligig". There were many there who were able to explain "how the tricks were done". Even so they were smilingly "foxed" by Mr. Robinson. Miss Halls and members of the Socials Committee supplied the excellent tea.

The Orpington Humanist Group Sunday, March 11 at 7 p.m. at Sherry's Restaurant, High Street, Orpington. Joseph Reeves, M.P.:"Humanism and World Government"

Society's Activities Thursday Evening Socials March 1—Whist Drive. 8—No Meeting. I5—Victor Thurdin: Film Show. 22—Victor Howlett: "Spanish Life Today". 29—No Meeting.

Sunday Social On March 18 in the Library at 3 p.m. Mrs. J. R. Hinchliff (member of a delegation from the Fabian Society, invited by the Yugoslavian Govern- ment in 1955): "Looking Below the Surface in Yugoslavia".

Ramble Sunday, March 4. Victor Howlett will conduct a topographical ramble of the district, starting from Conway Hall at 3 p.m. 19 Baker (Secretary, National Peace Council),.H. Blackham

Conway Discussion Circle • - Meets on Tuesdays at 7.15 p.m. March 6—(Arranged jointly with National Peace Council) Panel Discussion: "Resources of Power and International Relations" (Review and Summary of the Series). Eric

(Secretary, Ethical Union), G. R. Dalvi (Indian Economist). 13—Joseph Reeves, M.P. (Chairman, Rationalist Press Associa- tion): "Can we have 'National Security' within 'World Authorit y'?" 20—Miss Kathleen Nott (Critic; Author, "The Emperor's Clothes"): "Contemporary Christian Writers—A Critical Review." 27—General Discussion: Social Occasion. Reviewing 1955-56 Season; suggestions for 1956-57 Season.

The Library, Conway Hall The Librarian will be in attendance on Sunday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Friday Discussion Group (for members and friends under 35 years of age) Meetings at 7.30 p.m. in the-Library. March 23—Cedric Dover: "Science and Peace."

Obituary On going to press, we are grieved to hear of the passing of Mr. Eric H. Elkan. An appreciation will appear in the April issue of the Monthly Record.

Continental holiday The Progressive League has arranged its fifth continental holiday in Corsica. The entire journey will be by air. Dates: June 16 or 17 for fifteen days. The charge of .forty-five guineas is inclusive. Full particulars may be obtained from the Holiday Organiser, 10 Park Drive, N.W.11.

Change of Address of Members Mr. D. G. Holliday, 5 Raydean Road, Barnet, Herts; Mr. F. Webster, 26 Burton Grove, Walworth, S.E.17. • New Associates Mrs. M. E. Elder, 21 Oxford Street, Oldham; 1908923 Sgt. G. N. Roberts, Sergeants Mess, R.A.F. Hereford, Credenhill, Hereford.

Prinied by Farhiel Press Ltd. (7.11. all depts.), Beechwood Rise, Watford, Herts.