NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23275, 18 February 1939, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS

THE ART OF LISTENING Those who set out to teach the arts of popularity and social success, particularly to young girls, always attach the utmost importance to good listening, says the Times in a recent article on "Professional Listening." There is no need, tlioy explain, to commit to memory a string of entertaining anecdotes, still less to practise repartee. What is much more important is to learn to sit with a rapt expression, the eyes if possible slightly protuberant, the mouth a little agape, but silent except for an occasional "Go on," the ears Avaggling to miss nothing. For the world cries out for sympathetic listeners; and, as the correspondence schools teach more and more people to express themselves forcefully and fluently, the demand for audiences grows always greater, while the wireless has now come to pre-empt an excessive slice of what listening there is available. Many a successful doctor knows that what he can really do to help his patients is to listen to them, heavy work at times, but j eminently humane. STARS AND THE FUTURE Whether or not science ever supports the astrologers, says the Times in a recent article, it must be a benighted mind that cannot see some fascination in a study which takes for its vast realm "this brave overhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire," and which of all modes of seeking to pierce the future is the most ancient and mystical. The most credulous could never be rallied to a passionate defence of divination b.v palmistry, or even by scapuloniancy, the inspection of shoulder-blades.; nor would Gladstone have postponed the introduction of his first Home Rule Bill (as he admitted doing on hints from astrological friends) if someone had merely shown him an unpropitious House of Commons teacup. But the names of the planets and constellations' Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Aquarius, Libra, Leo —make a noble roll-call. Only the astronomers, stiffnecked as their telescopes, decline to be moved; and, since the Air Ministry's weather forecasts can still bo denounced in law as witchcraft, Greenwich may decide to challenge broadcast horoscopes in the Courts. Their opponents will already have divined the verdict.

AN UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT The greatest of the elements that render Great Britain invincible is the unconquerable spirit of the people, states the Times, in commenting on a recent speech by Sir Samuel Hoare, condemning alarmists and scaremongers. It has been proved too often in history for doubt to remain that even the horrors of an air attack upon civilians would be powerless to break it. But, if this high spirit of the English is to exercise in these days its fullest effect for good, two things are necessary. First, there must be an abatement of the panic-mongering of those who undermine public confidence by going "about the world with white faces and trembling lips asking each other which day of the week and of the month the world war is going to begin." The second necessity is that the resolution of the people should be publicly displayed, and reinforced by discipline. The opportunity is now extended by the call to national service, and the fate of Europe may well be deflected into happier courses if the British people, who would certainly play their parts without faltering in any emergency of war, give prompt proof of their resolution by fitting themselves for it here and now. THE FUTURE OF INDIA

A distinguished modern Indian declared that "India is many countries packed into one geographical receptacle," states the Daily Telegraph in commenting on a book, "Social Service in India," which Sir Edward Blunt has edited for the British Government. The peoples which make up her 338,000,000 inhabitants differ far more widely than the peoples of Europe. Nevertheless, Sir Edward comes to the conclusion that "an Indian nation is now in process of formation." The most difficult problem of India's future may well be the growth of her population. In ten years it increased by 32,000,000. Her ability to feed her people, we are told, is not yet in doubt, but the danger of a population greater than the soil can support looms ahead. At present India is not making full use of her resources. The area of land under cultivation could not perhaps be much increased, but the methods of cultivation are capable of much improvement. Forests and minerals have by no means yielded their full toll. Industrial expansion, on the other hand, has been rapid, as our cotton trade knows to its cost. Sir Edward notes that the Indian tariff has had "a protective effect which was never intended." The prosperity of India is a valuable asset to the wholo Empire. Equitablo arrangements in Imperial trade will not diminish it. SPIRITUAL VALUES The "turning point in life" is described by Dr. William Brown in his new book, "Psychological Methods of Healing." "The period which may be called the prime of life," he says, "varies from one person to another according to physique, type of mind, past history, and the extent to which the individual has escaped physical or mental illness. But sooner or later the gradual decline begins and the individual has to adapt himself to this situation and to carry on the process of sublimation in spite of it. This is a very definite moment in life. It is a point at which many relatively normal people feel ill and come to us for help. They have difficulty in reconciling themselves to the falling-off of power, to the relinquishment of ambitions, to the knowledge that they cannot expect the same success in the future as has rewarded them in the past. The late forties and early fifties may be a time of very great demand upon the individual from the ethical point of view. Before him is the possibility of the process of sublimation, which is a spiritual process, meaning the choice of the higher aspect of existence, a passage from narrower to more inclusive values, to those that are super-temporal, beyond time, the good, the beautiful and the true. The process of sublimation is the psychological aspect of the process of spiritualisation. If one is writing in psychological terms,_ one will speak of sublimation j if in religious terms, one will talk of the development of the spiritual nature."