NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22469, 13 July 1936, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY Creative social advance becomes possible when we accept the divine right of human personality and the equally divine right of human sociality, and of these two create and bring to birth a new manner of living, writes Dr. Howard E. Collier in his book "Toward a Now Manner of Living." Some people to-day are obsessed by the importance of "social unity," and forget the importance of "a really unified individual." They say in effect, "look after society and the individual will be ablo to look after himself." It is not generally realised that this was the view upon which the medieval synthesis was built, and that it needed the strife and persecutions of the Reformation to destroy it. Others are obsessed by the fundamental importance of individual personality. They say, in effect, "make men really free, then society will order itself according to the pattern of the Kingdom of God." But if we look carefully at these two alternatives, we shall realise that they are not "alternatives" at all. They are two aspects of the same thing—the per-sonal-social unity of life.

ANGLO-AMERICAN AMITY A warning that Great Britain and America could not depend upon ties of common blood to prevent war between the two countries was given by Dr. B. iddings Bell, Canon of Providence, Khodc Island, at St. Margaret's, Westminster, when he addressed a service held in connection with American Memorial Day. "Somo believers in Anglo-American amity." said Dr. Bell, "believe it is impossible that the two countries should ever fight one another again. Let us not be too sure of our Anglo-American friendship. Unfortunately it is only too likely that we may fight one another in the future unless we take pains now to understand our common destiny. America is not English. The average American when he comes to visit Europe finds himself much more at home in Munich. Berlin, Rotterdam or Milan than in London. There is little anti-English feeling in America, even in the Irish sections of it, but there is little pro-English feeling. The hope of continued peace between America and England is to be found in co-operation for the larger welfare of the whole wide world." CORONATION AND DUTY The Coronation next year will be the third within the memory of the middle-aged, and, much as it Will have in common with former ceremonies, it will differ from them in some essentials of mood and spirit, remarks the London Observer. We are a people too honest with ourselves to affect a complacency that all critical sense and observation belie. In bringing together the insignia of our history and our far-flung dominion, we shall be conscious of their challenge equally with their inspiration. Into the acclamation of our earnest and wide-eyed King there will enter a realisation in some degree of what he and we together may have to face in the vindication of our heritage. Neither Empire nor liberty itself is to be held but on the terms on which they were won. Our lot in this generation is set in a grimly perturbed world in which many of our ideals have been discarded and our most cherished standards are mocked. Freedom and democracy, honour and uprightness, as we conceive them, are dismissed as shibboleths by great and powerful aggregations of humanity that share with us the shaping of the future. Our principles and our mission in the world are to be maintained only by unity, faith, courage and sacrifice. SCIENTIFIC POTTAGE The scientific discoveries .of the last half-century have given us a civilisation increasingly rich in material blessings, and infinitely varied in the opportunities it affords us for happiness and self-fulfilment in creative activity, writes Mr. Peter Fletcher in his new book, "Somo Thread of Life." Yet it is apparent that, because we persistently confuse the temporal with the eternal, we are rapidly reducing life to a tragic absurdity. Wo have sought many without troubling to inquire to what ends the spiritual temper of the ago will direct the work of our hands, until we are already in danger of destruction by the scientific toys we have made. We have tried to reverse the order of cosmic progress. For us, the things that are seen are eternal, and the things that are unseen are illusion. We exalt a visible and external accuracy to the spiritual stature of truth. Falling, in love with science, we have banished from Qur midst the love of man that alone can make scientific knowledge tolerable and creative in a world of spiritual beings. We have laughed to scorn that faith in God which alone breeds reverence for human personality, substituting for it a faith in our own ignorance that degrades even knowledge into superstition. Wo have sold our souls for facts and bartered our spiritual birthright for an unholy mess of scientific pottage. A BISHOP ON TERRITORIALS

The Bishop of Liverpool, Dr. David, devotes a message in the Diocesan Leaflet to the subject of "War and the Territorials." The Bishop points out that "a war may well be the lesser of two evils," and says that, if so, it is a Christian as well as a civic duty to enter into it. Christ, he adds, expects every servant of His to follow his own conscience. If ho cannot reconcile it with his conscience to fight, then he must decline to fight. But first he must enlighten his conscience by considering the issue, not as it affects himself only but othors also, and as many others as ho can take into his reckoning. Those who think it wrong to take life may well bo reminded that since the War British troops have saved a thousandfold more lives than they have taken. All this polico work they can do because they have a citizen army of volunteers, tho Territorials, behind them, which has already relieved them of tho work of coast and air defence at homo. I want to urge all young men who can face facts and have a senso of national duty to join this force, the Bishop continues. Let them not think that they can wait till they are needed, for they are needed now. In tho old days a soldier could bo trained for his work in a few weeks. Now that warfare is scientific and mechanised the training is a long one. They will bo hotter men from the experience even if they are never called to fight. That military training makes men militarist is in Britain quite untrue.