THAT PEACE CANNOT BE SECURED BY INTELLECTUAL AGREEMENT

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21087, 12 February 1934, Page 15

THAT PEACE CANNOT BE SECURED BY INTELLECTUAL AGREEMENT

•10 'IIIB EDITOH ')» TIIK HIESU Sir—For the sake of clearness of term:; and ideas, Dr. Mac-Gibbon's letter cannot remain uncontradicted. Psycho-analysis is a method of analytical approach to the phenomena of the soul. It is by the application of such inductive methods that the ( office of modern science has been *T-lit ud )n every case the methodofoi sequence was (l) the discovery of a certain volume of facts (2'then explanation on the basis of a working hypothesis, and (3) the proofs thihypothesis by experimental methods. It would never do for a i * chemist, or a biologist lo hwe lox a -working hypothesis" a P.™. loßo^" 1 or religious conception winch eo ipso would be inaccessible to test and Dr. MacG.bbon seems to be iU in turned if ho assumes, that the teachm«s of psycho-analysis are cs> P inn live as he would like to make them appear, fie ncßlccts entirely the principle of "sublimation, wh cultural, religious, and sociological values. Lint were it even that a scientific methocl-and that jpsyeho analysis can claim this designation could hardly be denied by an unbiased opponent-acre to prove _ that -hunger and love" are at the basis cj all our instincts and we should have to accept this conclusion, unpleasant as it may be unless a counter-proof on a sound scientific basis were forthcoming. Science cannot shun "unpleasant" facts, merely for the reason that they concern ourselves, instead of the more custo-

Mary experimental organisms among animals and plants. Science has established evolution as an irrefutable principle of organic life. On the lines of Dr. Mac Gibbon's, argument, this principle would be unacceptable, since it makes probable the derivation of man from apelike animals, which to some may have an unpleasant flavour.—Yours, etc., O.H.F. February 11, 1034. j