THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AND REVIEWS.

ENGLAND AND THE YOUNG.

PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY,

The centenary of the death of William Hazlitt, critic and essayist, falls next week. An article on Hazlitt, hy Mr. Charles Wilson, will be found on page one.

It is eo fatally easy to think" that freedom means doing what you like.— Mr. Baldwin.

Christianity is a revolutionary idealism which estranges revolutionaries because it is idealistic and conservatives because it ie revolutionary.—Dean Inge.

Common sense is not enough. If a soldier had only common sense he would stay comfortably at home. —Sir Francis Youngliusband.

Closing an article on plays that epeedily "date," Mr. St. John Ervine turns to ■the possibility that the quantity of ephemeral literary stuff that reveals its weakness in this way, may diminish: —

[ It is possible, of course, that the whole business of writing, which is now too common, may pass into disrepute and that a man's friends and relations will whisper to each other: "Poor Bob, he's taken to writing !'■' and will subscribe money to get him out of the country. "Is that a remittance man? -, people in Australia and Canada wiJl inquire, and they will be told : "No, he's u novelist!" In these times, when every young lady who has been surreptitiously kissed feels that she must fill at least three hundred pages with an account of hsr emotions during the ordeal, one may wish that the bulk of the population were illiterate, but perhaps there will come a reaction, and none will write unless he or she has something important to say. We may then obtain books that will less precipitately "date" than do some that are now issued from the, presses; for many of the novols that are printed to-day "date" before the reviews of them can be published. PROBLEMS OF « PROGRESS." NOTABLE PHILOSOPHICAL WORK. Mr. Archibald Weir, the author of "The Dark" (Basil Blackwell, Oxford), is convinced that philosophy is something more —and more important—than a mere subject of instruction and examination in universities. Those who study its problems ought to be aware that they are handling just those difficulties which beset the average human being who has lived long enough to suspect that he has been given all sorts of wants and aspirations which life cannot satisfy, and who, in the absence of any solution, is in danger of relapsing into bitteruess and disgust. In a very able and well-written book Mr. Weir seeks to show to what extent and how those capable of pliiloeo-' phic thinking can set about discharging the apparent obligation to their fellows thus arising. His theme is in some respects a.common one to-day, namely, the dependence of conscious experience on unconscious sources, but his analysis of these latter is quite different from that of the psycho-analysts. For, over and above the unconscious influences, which come from the stored-up experiences of the individual's past; and the results of racial evolution, Mr. Weir holds that we must recognise certain influences which are not assignable to these sources and which operate largely in opposition to them, but yet are precisely those to which we owe the distinctively human elements in our life. Civilised minds must, he holds, acknowledge that their humanity depends on following precepts quite inconsistent with the impulses to mere self-preservation, and that these precepts have been forced on them by leaders who were susceptible to influences superior to common methods of survival. Herein man's innate desire for freedom obtains cosmic justification. From a "reign of freedom" come all the-autliori-tative agencies which have forced animal existence to limit its ferocity and to expend energy in opposing the consequences of crude material struggle. The trouble is, however, that the great majority of mankind show little inclination or capacity to share the inspiration which their leaders enjoy. There is thus the distinct possibility that as "progress" puts more and more persons above the line of material want, without in any way supplementing the motives of mere survival, a general boredom and disgust with life may ensue.

What are the thinkers to do? Mere philanthropy, as hitherto understood, is no solution, because that does not rise above the mere substitution of co-opera-tion for struggle in the achievement of material goods. Indeed, much &o-called philanthropy, as Mr. Weir sees it, is only an outlet for self-assertive and domineering tendencies. The real responsibility to, or, ra.ther in respect of, their fellowmen that belongs to the spiritually awake is quite different. It is, in a sober recognition of the limits of what is possible, to induct the mass into the first stepstowards the possession of their own insight. Hitherto this has been the task of religious dogma, and dogma in some form, the author thinks, must still, however paradoxically, be for most people the patli to freedom. But it must be dogma administered with intelligence, and that means, according to Mr. Weir, that the type of dogma which seeks a basis in historical events (in his opinion the most precarious basis possible) must be discarded. The great need is that the average man should learn humility, which is to be induced by securing attention to certain fundamental facts of human existence. "Undoubtedly the first fact for a man to dwell upon is that b« arrived in this world alone, and that, in spite of passionate alliances with all sorts of others, he will leave this world alone. Next a man must remember that he is cast into this world with obligations, the obligation to breatl'e to start with, then to feed, then to receive nurture, and \iltimately to enter into all manner of cooperative associations with his fellows in order to be allowed to go on living. And then —theso obligations were imposed without any consent on the part of the man or woman who has to endure them." Mr. Weir enforces his argument with oreat patience and resource from many different angles. He can fairly be said to have succeeded in avoiding the pitfalls which beset a position like that he seeks to occupy—on the one hand sentimental ism, on the other intellectual snobbery. One might be inclined to ask if his sharp antithesis between the struggle for existence and the spiritual life is justified, and if human society, even in its most primitive forms, can ever, be explained on the simple principle of co-operation in pursuit of the material necessaries of life. But the merit of the book lies in the questions its provokes, and this is a great i merit in a philosophical work. <