DEAN INGE’S PROPHECY

Evening Star, Issue 22687, 29 June 1937, Page 10

DEAN INGE’S PROPHECY

DOES HOT BELIEVE WAR COMING NATIONS UNABLE TO AFFORD IT “The revolutionary is always trying to build a tree, which cannot bo done, especially as ho wants to build it without roots. “I know what the critics say—that the great schools of art and literature have achieved all that can bo done on those lines. Every art can develop until it reaches its culmination, and no further. Greek sculpture reached one kind of perfection; lire we merely to copy it, knowing that our copies must always bo inferior to the originals? “bo with architecture and painting and even with poetry. We cannot surpass Raphael or Milton or the builders of (Jartros. Are wo to bo only laughed at and abused if wo try something new?”—The Very Rev. W. R. Inge, D.D., in his now book, ‘ A Rustic Moralist.” There will bo many who will bo grateful that Dr Inge, now that he is no longer Dean of St. Paul’s, is devoting some of his leisure to the writing of books. His new volume, ‘ A Rustic Moralist,’ reveals that his vigour of stylo is still maintained. “ There are one or two prophecies which I shall be rash enough to make,” says Dr Inge in his preface. “ The opinion on the Continent is that we are approaching a new and terrible European war. Here again I will have the-courage of my opinions and say that Ido not believe it. The (Conditions are quite unlike those of 1914. Then all the great nations were rich; their credit stood high. Although the cost of the war far surpassed all expectations, they found it possible to finance it by borrowing. “ But most of the war debts were repudiated, so that in future no one will look on war loan as an investment. At the present time, all the nations which might be suspected of desiring war, except Russia, are virtually bankrupt. Wo are often told that a nation can always pay its soldiers as it goes along. I do not-believe it. Xdo not believe that either Germany or Italy could finance a great war Germany is in such a plight financially that I have grave doubts whether the Hitler regime can last out the year, and Italy is not m a much better case. Italian militarism seems to be merely a perverted romanticism like that which brought Napoleon to his ruin. A revival of the Mediterranean empire ot ancient Rome is a fantastic dream. Iho condition for its realisation does not “ Nor could Germany attack Russia, which would bo aided by France with any chance of success. Russia, which is moving cautiously in the direction of an industrial and peasant republic, is more stable, both politically and financially, than Germany, where a declaration of war would release a huge volume of violent discontent against the existing regime. The German bayonets are not' for use against France, still less against ourselves. The Germans are honestly afraid of the immense Russian army and of a Communist rising within their own border.” “ By all means let them try something new,” Dr Inge goes on after the sentences quoted at the beginning of this page in his chapter on Ugliness. “ I can admire some of the skyscrapers of New York, and still more the new town hall at Stockholm. ■ I appreciate the brutal but effective swagger of the railway station at Milan. “ There may bp successful new experiments in painting and sculpture, and in music, which I, unluckily, do not understand. (But this plea does not touch deliberate ugliness. “ An age of science ought, wo are sometimes told, to have its distinctive forms of art, Some would add that an age of equality ought to have its own art. But this is difficult. Uniformity is always really ugly. Compare an old-fashioned village, such as that where I Hive, with the monotonous rows of small.houses, all exactly alike, which are now springing up. . li A countryside spotted all over with bungaloid growths must make an artist sigh for the bad old times when the rich man in his castle lived in a noble park, and the poor man at his gate had a picturesque black and white cottage, which, externally at least, was a thing of beauty. “ As for a possible alliance between Science and Beauty, was there any symbolic meaning in that unfortunate scandal on Olympus, described by Homer?

“ Aphrodite (Venus) the goddess of love and beauty, was a wife of Hephaestus (Vulcan), a very able,' practical scientist, hut unhappily lame and rather dirty. Aphrodite was unfaithful to him, and had an affair with Ares (Mars), the dashing and handsome war god. Hephicstus found them together ; he enclosed them in a net, and invited all the gods and goddesses to come and see. The gods came and enjoyed the joke hugely, but ‘ tho lady goddesses,’ says Homer, ‘ remained each in her house for shame.’ !

“ Well, is there any chance that Hephiestiis, no longer lame or dirty, may make it up with Aphrodite, now that Mars, as we hope, will soon be permanently caged, or expolled from Olympiis ? “Some will say that I take these exhibitions of bad taste far too seriously. They may be only a passing fashion. But if our age is really resolved to heap scorn on all that mankind have loved and admired since they began to find in Beauty a vision of God, we must bo prepared for what in very old-fashioned language was called the coming of Antichrist.” The author writes on psychology, of other topics. The contemporary history, science, literature, and a host scene is never overlooked, and Dr Inge, whatever the past history of tho subject on which he writes, contrives to give a message for tho day.