NEW BOOKS ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22823, 23 September 1939, Page 16

NEW BOOKS ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE

GITA The Original Gita. By Rudolph Otto, Allen and Unwin. 309 pp. (15/nct.)

As the author explains, the Bhagavadgita occupies in India the same position in religious devotion that the New Testament does with us. The Gita is the song of the Supreme Exalted One, namely, the Only and Eternal God of the Universe, Who, in His incarnate Form, is known as Khrishna. The Hindu Bhakti, or religion of devotion, finds its fundamental doctrinal text in this book; Here we have'a religion of Grace, of trust, faith, and love in a personal God. But Dr. Otto believes, as do most authorities, that the original Gita was not one of doctrinal literature but the masterpiece of a great epic poet. . The material which does not belong to the original Gita consists of individual doctrinal treatises. The Gita, in its first form, is earlier than the third century 8.C., but the individual treatises were inserted very much later. The book before us consists of eight, chapters, of which the first contains the original- Git#, as Otto imagines it to have exist*! • Chapters four to six develop his analysis of the present day Gita into its component parts, and display the evidence that s (Otto thinks) justifies his discriminations. He finds that his “higher criticism of the poem adds to his reverence for “the great unknown Hindu who could visualise such a magnificent drama as is related in his eleventh chapter and who succeeded in giving it its present form.” The valuable appendices and notes to this excellently produced volume make it a storehouse of information for the student of Hindu religious literature. The translation of the Gita text is based on that of Dr. Thomas. The whole work has been rendered into English by Dr. J. E. Turner, Reader in Philosophy, in the University of Liverpool.

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL

ORDER

Communism and Socialism. By Arnold Lunn. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 259 pp. (6s net.)

Mr Lunn gives us in this book a refutation of political heresies. He calls it a study in revolutionary technique. Mr Lunn sees in Nazi National Socialism the result of the Russian revolution. But, he-adds, the Nazi regime must not be thought of as inherently in opposition to the so-called Communism of Russia, Nazi Germany “is approximating more and more in its economic structure to the Socialism of Soviet Russia.” Mr Lunn, like most of his contemporaries, must needs take sides in the Spanish War, and he declares, with strange logic, that “those who supported . . . the cause of Republican Spain are the principal architects of such influence as Italy and Germany may possess in the new Spain.” This book surveys a very wide field. Communism and war, the standard of living in Russia, the Bolshevik persecution of religion, Karl Marx '("the Great Escapist”), and his theory of value are only some of the subjects with which the author deals, Mr Lunn does not think of Communism or Socialism merely as political or economic heresies. They are l at once a criticism and a protest against a Social Order which has refused to draw the logical conclusion from the religious premisses which are the foundation 'of Christian civilisation.” The views of Mr Lunn are far from -being impartial, and his suggestions for a remedy for pur troubles may be lacking in concreteness; but readers of his book will not lack information on the topics on which he writes. Moreover, he has prepared for each chapter a very, useful bibliography.

INTERPRETATION OF Jesus

Jesus the Heretic. By Conrad Noel. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 222 pp. (5/- net.)

The indefatigable Vicar of Thaxted has supplemented his commuii" istic “Life of Jesus" by the present work, in which he pursues ' his theme that, “the Son of Man . . . was Himself destroyed for political and theological heresy,” Father Noel believes that the Blessed Trinity can be regarded as "the basis, of a new world order.” For this reason his book is an attack on pietism which divorces “Jesus entirely from His passion for the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, to be founded upon the righteousness or justice of God.” with this as his thesis, the author has written a book which can rightly be called “challenging," He challenges not only pietists but non-religious communists, imperialists, and theologians. Much of this book is well informed, if somewhat one-sided. The chapter on the monarchy can, however, only be described -■ as Stupid.

THE JAPANESE, MIND. The Rise of a Pagan State. By A. Morgan Young*. Allen and Unwin. (Is 6d net.)

This study of Japan’s religious, background is very opportune, and is a work both of discernment and knowledge. Mr Young traces the history of Japan back to its earliest dim beginnings. There are considerable periods of which we have only barest tradition, and others for which we have no information at,all. As for the origin of the Japanese, Mr Young’is inclined to the view that they are more Malay than Mongol. As a people, they are extraordinarily uncreative, except in, art, which, however, reached its highest achievements only under the influence of Buddhism. The Japanese capacity for borrowing culture Is unlimited, as its imitation of Europe shows. But all its Westernisation is combined with an extremely primitive outlook in religion and politics. In every school, the children are taught that the Emperor is of divine descent. For a grown-up person to publicly deny the royal relationship to the sun-goddess is to risk imprisonment and even death. Christian converts and foreign ambassadors must bow humbly before the shrines of the god-Emperor, but the acknowledgement of -his divinity has no religious significance according to the Japanese Government! It is merely a civil ceremony, an act of filial reverence towards the Imperial Family. Japan has always been devoted to militarism, and its present ruthless campaign in China is marked by a savagery which is no new thing in the history of the Japanese state. Mr Young is of opinion that England, France and America must offer a vigorous resistance to Japanese policy in the East, but that a change of heart can only come from within that country, whose present ruling ideal is a primitive paganism. RENUNCIATION The Convent. By Alyse Simpson. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 278 pp. (8/6 net.) In this book the author gives what is said, and seems, to be a genuine account of her life in the novitiate of the Convent of the Mystic Rose, near Benwyl in naturally told story without any of the wretched scandal-mongering to be found in some of the literature of conventual life. Against the will of her parents, and disappointed in a love affair, the writer betook herself to the nun’s life; but her temperament and disposition were certain to lead to failure. Any indictment of the ascetic ideal illustrated in this book is only incidental to the story. The most serious error in this particular nunnery was hygienic, for the nuns had neither sufficient food, nor fresh air, nor fresh water. Some of them went mad; a larger number became consumptive. On the spiritual side, there was a good deal of unwholesome and neurotic piety. Ir the end, the writer fled the place, with the aid of an inn-keeper’s daughter. In the train home she met the priest who was chaplain of her convent. The encounter was both grim and amusing. One interesting feature of the book is the portrayal of the effects of the ascetic life in different characters. Twenty years later, Mrs Simpson .visited the convent and was kindly received by those nuns who remembered her. The Oxford University Press has issued the first seven in a series of "Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs.’’ Each is of about 32 pages; the English price is 3d net. The pamphlets are: The Prospects of Civilisation (Sir Alfred.Zimmern), The British Empire (H. V. Hodson), Herr Hitler’s Self-Disclosure in “Mein Kampf” (R. C. K. Ensor), Economic Self-Sufficiency (A. G. B. Fisher), “Race” in Europe (Julian Huxley), The Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles (G. M. Gathorne-Hardy), and Colonies and Raw Materials (H. D. Henderson). The series is established on a foundation of high subject-interest and expert but simple treatment.

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Three Harbours. By F. van Wyck Mason. Jarrolds. 623 pp. (8/o). Through Whltcombe and Tombs Ltd.

The three harbours of Mr Mason’s story are Castle Harbour, in the Bermudas, Norfolk, and Boston. One end-paper map shows the islands in detail, as a great part of the action js placed there; the other shows the Charles river, Breed’s Hill, and Bunker’s Hill, with the old redoubts, batteries, breastworks, and Morton’s Point, the site of the British landing. For this is another novel of the American War of Independence; and the Battle of Bunker’s Hill is its chief set-piece. Little more need be said than that it is an excellent example of a now popular kind of book, and excellent, particularly, in its historical justice and completeness. Not all text-books—-so falsely is history simplified—remind readers to-day, as Mr Mason carefully reminds them, that the issues of the war were by no means clear-cut and the choice of the American citizen, in interest or in loyalty, by no means unembarrassed. But Mr Mason is no abstractarian. His view of history is intensely dramatised; and a very long and complete story lives through every page. DEATH IN A COWL When the Devil Was Sick. By Carol Camac. Peter Davies. 294 pp. The historic ghost, of the Saint Clere family materialised, sitting at the table which had been spread for it, once a year, through the centuries: the cowled' figure that sat there was Blaise Saint Clere, eldest son, a wanderer returned after 30 years. He was dead; of prussic acid poisoning. The sight of the mm> dered masquerader killed his mother. Thus suggestive possibilities of motive linked the surviving “mad Saint Cleres” in suspicion. The murder of old Field the butler did not concentrate it, but raised the new question of what he had known and why he had been silenced. Then Denis Saint Clere, whose stamped passport gave him an alibi in France for the night of Blaise’s death, drove to his doom; the brakes of his car had been deliberately loosened. And if the reader thinks that Inspector Ryvet wastes too much time in boxing with major and minor characters, the reader is wrong.

THE ’45

Diplomacy Versus Courage. By Norman Sadd. Auckland Printing and Publishing Co. 205 pp.

“Diplomacy versus Courage” is a pious and patriotic novel about the Young Pretender in the Highlands. It is written with "grave interest and thoroughness. Mr Sadd has obviously lived long with his characters, meditated their motives and natures, and has told his tale because he has felt it to be a duty. The expression is conscientious rather than distinguished, and some of the dialogue seems a little too racy to be true; but nothing Is pretentious. One of Mr Sadd’s pet historical convictions—he has several—is in the following sentence: Why do not our schools and universities tell the simple truth about the matter, and say that England’s commercial rivalry with France, added to the' greed of the Whig land hunters, was wtiat kept the Stewarts off tye Throne of Great Britain and Ireland, and that as usual religion was the mask used to delude the people. TWO AND TWO Week-end Rhapsody. By Joan Hewett. Duckworth, 320 pp. Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. Joan Hewett’s first novel, “A Divorce Has Been Arranged,” showed that plot wasjher first consideration. Her second book shows that she has not changed. The plot belongs to the machine-made variety, in which all begins badly and ends well, even though it involves four or more couples.