II. - Conway Hall · D. Black of the New York Ethical Culture group and a friend of Mr. Hutton...

Vol. 68, No. 3 MARCH 1963 Sixpence

Editorial

The Direction of Human Development—II Dr. James Hemming

New Worlds for Old Dr. John Lewis

Existentialist Ethics II. J. Blackburn, B.A.

How Much Freedom of Speech? Lord Chorley

Looking Back in Pride Otto Wolfgang

Book Review South Place News

Society's Other Activities

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SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYSUNDAY MORNING MEETINGS AT ELEVEN O'CLOCK

March 3—F. H. A. MICKLEWRIGHT,, MA., F.R.Hist.S.Despotisrhs, Old and NewBass Solos by G. C. Dowman

March 1B—MAURICE GRANSTON, M.A., B.Litt. The Rights of Man in 1963Piano Solos by Joyce Langley

March 17—DR. JOHN LEWISWorld Hunger—Material and SPiritual:Wherewith shall we be Fed? ..Piano Solo by Joyce Langley and Soprano Solo by Pamela Wool-more (acc., Joyce Langley), "Witffi Verdure Clad" - HaVdn ' f:"!

(See editorial note, Freedom from Hunger Campaign)

March 24—REGINALD W. SORENSEN, M.P. (recently in Orient)The Orient in Transition -Baritone Solos by Patrick Connor

March 31—PROFESSOR T. H. PEAR (Social Psychologist)Scientific or Popular Exposition? The Psychologist's DilemmaContralto Solos by Irene Clements

April 7—DR. D. STARK MURRAY, B.Sc., M.B.

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY EVENING CONCERTS, 72nd Season, 1962-63 Concerts at 630 p.m. (Doors open 6 p.m.) Admission 3s.

March 3—EDINBURGH STRING QUA;RTETMozart in A, K. 464; Nielsen No. 4 in F, op. 44; Beethoven in Aminor, op. 132

March 10—MARTIN STRING QUARTETHaydn in C, op. 33, No. 3; Beethoven in C, op. 59, No. 3; Dvorakin A flat, op. 105

'March 17—MEWS ENSEMBLEMozart in E flat, K. 498 for piano, clarinet and viola; Bliss Clarinetquintet; Schumann in E flat, op. 44, piano quintet -

March 24—GORDON IIONEY, ROBERT SUTHERLANDSchubert' song cycle: "Winterreisse," op. 89

March 31—ARIELI-PINI TRIOMozart in C, K. 548; Shostalcovfch, op. Beethoven in B flat, op.97

The Monthly Record is posted free to members and Associates. The Annualcharge to subscribers is 8s. Matter for publication in the April issue shouldreach the Editor, G. C. Dowman, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1, byMarch 6.

OfficersSecretary: J. HUTTON HYNDHon. Treasurer: A. FENTONHon. Registrar: Mrs. T. C. LINDSAYAsst. Hon. Registrar: Miss NV. L. GEORGEExecutive Secretary: Miss E. PALMER

Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1

TheMONTHLYRECORD

Vol. 68, No. 3 .1N1ARCH 1963 Sixpence

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL 3THE DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT-1Lby James Hemming .. 5

NEW WORLDS FOR OLD, by Dr. John Lewis .. 7

EXISTENTIALIST ETHICS,by H. J. Blacklunn 10How MUCH FREEDOM OF SPEECH?by Lord Chorley 12LOOKING BACK IN PRIDE, by Otto Wolfgang 14BOOK REVIEW 17SOUTH PLACE NEWS .. 18SOCIETY'S OTIIER ACTIVITIES 19

The views es'pressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

EDITORIALFreedom From Hunger Campaign

The Sunday morning meeting, March 17th (lF a.m.-12.30) is a specialone on our calendar. Members and friends are urged to make a note of it.It is the wish of the General Committee that the meeting should markthe Society's interest in the nation-wide effort which will be made onbehalf of the Freedom From Hunger Campaign during the week ofMarch 17th. Dr. John Lewis will give the address, "World Hunger—Material and Spiritual: Wherewith Shall We be Fed?"

A cordial invitation to attend is being sent to all groups associated withthe Humanist Council; representatives of the groups will be platformguests. Brief Readings will be presented by Mrs. E. Venton, NationalSecular Society; Mr. Michael Lines, Ethical Union; and Mr. Joseph Reeves,Rationalist Press Association. Music by Miss Joyce Langley (piano) andMiss Pamela Woolmore (soprano). Our Secretary, Mr. J. Hutton Hynd,will preside. As host, our Society should be well represented in the audience.And of course the public is very cordially invited.

During the week of .March 17th, cinemas will show a short FreedomFrom Hunger Campaign film, and a collection for the Campaign will be

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taken. The cinemas are asking for volunteers to help with the collecting. Miss Rose Bush, our Campaign chairman, will be glad to give particulars.

Montreal Humanist FellowshipWe have had the good news from Mr. Patrick Dowman that the Montreal

Humanist Fellowship are "getting followers quite astonishingly". AlgernonD. Black of the New York Ethical Culture group and a friend of Mr. HuttonHynd, addressed them before Christmas, and in March they are to beaddressed by Corliss Lamont (author of The Philosophy of Humanism). Likethem, we "expect big results" from the endeavours of this young group ingetting two such fine speakers.

Charles BradlaughThe American Rationalist for November - December, 1962, prints a

biographical article at the anniversary of the birth of one of the great free-thinkers, by his grandson, C. Bradlaugh Bonner. The article traces the life ofBradlaugh from his birth in Hoxton on September 26, 1833, until the erectionof the plaque to his memory at Turner Street, London, in 1962.

It reveals the virtues of this much maligned man: "despite the need toearn his living, despite the unpaid time he gave to Parliament, he devotedthe first hours of his day to helping others, to advising seamen, to helpingsoldiers to obtain pensions, and to helping Zulus."

T. P. O'Connor wrote of him: "Bradlaugh was adored by those who werebrought into contact with him; this great, strong, domineering man hadplenty of softness and tenderness."

CatholicsThe editorial of The American Rationalist makes strong attacks against

Catholicism. Pope John in his new encyclical entitled "Paentitentiam Agere",addressed to those who are "filially docile" to the Vatican, expressed hisanticipation that the council will "bring about a truly great increase in theCatholic religion".

The Catholic Church has many enemies throughout the world andalthough they may appear to be contemptuous of this opposition, this is theone hope for freedom of conscience and of belief. It will be such societiesas ours who would suffer the most should the Catholics ever gain sufficientpower to influence the country unduly.

Thin-Skinned?An American broadcast by Edward P. Morgan on December 21 alterna-

tely decries Britain and lauds the U.S.A. His somewhat veiled criticismof Britain contains one of the best phrases of the pot-kettle technique whenhe starts his broadcast with the words: "Irritating as the thin-skinnedaccusatory defensiveness of Britain is—furthcr inflamed by the gratingchauvinism of the British press—and maddening as the austere arroganceof President de Gaulle can be, we Americans must try to put ourselves in theposition of the British and the French in order better to understand themand this acrimonious hubbub over the West's nuclear forces. This is not aWI-ripest in a teapot nor are we without blame in it. Nor does the Nassauagreement, hopeful as it is, solve it.

"What we are trying to do is the impossible. We are trying to devise aformula whereby we can give our European allies in NATO, a (theoretically)collectively controlled nuclear striking force while at the same time holdingthe key strings to the disposition and use of these weapons ourselves."

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The Wealth and Power of America ,Mr. Morgan goes on to point out that America owns and/or controls the

nuclear striking power with which the West confronts the Communistbloc

All this may sound frightening to enemies and suppose that the West issaying in advance what those enemies might expect, instead of the laissez-faire attitude adopted in the past two wars. Boasting and threats can act indifferent ways. They may either strengthen or weaken the resistance of theopposition. Both East and West are composed of human beings—who possesshuman emotions.

The Direction of Human Development—IIB Y

DR. JAMES HEM-MING

WE SEE, THEN, that these three predictable trends in the Cosmic Process areoperative in our society today even though they may mot be recognised ferwhat they are.

We are now in a position to ask what form of society we have to createin order that we may go along with these trends instead of obstructing them.What form should the future human society take?

Plainly its political structure must be democratic in the widest sense—meaning that, at every level of organisation, those involved are drawninto active creative consultation .and participation. No other kind of rela-tionship between persons, whether at the level of home, school, 'college,industrial or commercial institution, or nations can extend awareness andoffer opportunities for individual fulfilment. Any other organisation but thedemocratic is anachronistic and will crumple under the pressures of modernconditions. This may seem to be a wild statement to make in view of thedecline of political democracy in our age. But I think this is only a throw-back, a temporary phase. Apart from our political systems, other institu-tions are becoming democratised at an extraordinary rate. Authoritarianismis on its way out in almost every field of life. The subordinate elements inthe world community are gaining a say in their own affairs in their ownright. This is true of women, children, subject peoples. Nor .do I blanchif someone points towards the Soviet Union or China. The Stalinist auto-cracy was but a brief despotism and now freedom is rapidly expanding inthe U.S.S.R. I am not one who dreads the coming of some 1984 or other.Such a regime would so suppress human zest and creativity, and wouldbecome so rigid in its mode of functioning that it could not long survive.Hitler's new order that was to have lasted a thousand years crumpled fromwithin, let us notice, as well as being overwhelmed from without. The studyof our trends assures us that autocratic government has had its day how-ever it may plash around before it disappears for ever.

The economic system of the future must clearly embrace not onlynational planning and regional planning, but world planning of food,resources and manufactures. Free enterprise capitalism in its 19th centuryform is already dead. Teams of firms are participating in the big projectsof India and elsewhere. We find Government money being used to financeindustrial drives. Even this watered down form of competitive priVateindustry cannot survive for long. The advanced technological nations can-not prosper merely by taking in each others washing machines, motor carsand television sets. This sort of unplanned catch-as-catch-can system isroaring towards its final dissolution. The capitalist areas of the wdrld willnot have to be annihilated, in spite of Mao Tse Tung's conviction that they

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must. Under pressure of events they will gradually be transformed intoplanned economies on national and regional levels. Reciprocal arrange-ments between the regions will then complete the job. Nationalism is on itsway out. Even the exuberant emergent new nationalisms in Africa arcdiscussing regionalisation from the moment of their birth.

The future's social systems will be participant, fraternal, concerned withthe individual as precious in his own right and precious as the unit of zest,initiative, creativity. Young people, I find, take the rightness of such asocial system for granted. Hence their vituperative fun at the expense of theestablishment. Hence their tendency towards a non-belligerent anarchism.The young are "with it" in evolutionary terms, as one might expect.

Morally the world will inevitably move towards a core of universallyaccepted human values. A co-ordinated world needs common values throughwhich it may conduct its affairs. Such common values can only be humanist.It is quite obvious that the world as a whole will never adopt one par-ticular religious code or other. Briefly, these values will be the ones thatpermit nations to conduct their mutual affairs honestly in the service ofthe fulfilment of people everywhere.

Educationally we face a huge challenge. Our educational system is atpresent strained and creaking to breaking point. Even those who succeedwithin it are beginning to reject it—and many fail wretchedly. The directionof human development I have suggested makes it clear how halting and outof date our educational system is. It is barely preparing for personal life inour age; let aim:win the future. The future will require a much higher levelof general 'maturity of personality within society than was necessary, orattained, in the past. Those, in the future, who fail to reach the minimumlevel of maturity necessary to deal with the contemporary environment willbe stressed beyond endurance by the kind of world now on its way in. Theworld we are moving into will require the kind of person, to quote Pro-fessor Carstairs, who "shows a realistic grasp of his environment, a senseof conviction abont his 'own identity, an ability to cope with his practicaltasks, and an ability to establish deep mutual relationships with otherpeople". Each will need to have developed—now I quote Sir Julian Huxley—"an integrated personality at war neither with itself nor with society".In the terms I have been using, education has to foster the capacity to dealwith a complex environment, a maximum awareness and sensitivity, anda fully realised creative individuality.

Although we have a very long way to go in education, I am not pessi-mistic. Here, too, we see stirrings leading in the expected direction.• One can spend a lot of time relating one thing to another in this pictureof the future and seeing where the kind of things I have been talking aboutlead in terms of everyday life. For one thing, I suggest that the prevailingemphasis on quantitative values will gradually give way to qualitative ones.Gracious living will come to be admired at a new level in place of therushed half-living of contemporary civilisation. Creative spontaneity willbe valued in. place of routinised enjoyment. The uselessly frustrating inany form will not be lightly tolerated in a society that really values humanfulfilment. A dreary marriage, for example, will not be considered a vir-tuous endurance but a waste of life. The narrow specialist will be regardedas miseducated. And so on. The implications are endless. But rather Allanfollow these tempting side-paths of humanity in the future I must nowcome back to the immediate and most intense challenge of our times—the population explosion.

11do not regard this as an obstacle on the road to the future but themeans by which the future may be started on its way. The only possibleway to solve the problem of over-population is through world co-operation

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finding a unifying purpose in a humanist approach to a human problem.Why not overbreed until the Earth is swarming with us everywhere? Whatis wrong with that as a possible future? Why not have world rationingand sea-farming so that we all keep alive somehow. Why not settle downto a diet of artificial protein treated with synthetic flavouring? The answeris that we yearn for something better than these unattractive solutions.We yearn for a kind of world in which a good life is possible for all, inwhich each individual may attain self fulfilment within a world whoseresources and beauty have been conserved as a rich background to theexperience of living. We can create what we yearn for if we combine inthe purpose of achieving it. It cannot be (produced by competitive region-alism. Thus, through tackling the greatest problem of our time we canmove together into the world of the future and bring its values to birthin the process of doing so.

By such action we accept the direction of the Cosmic Process and movewith it. We solve our urgent problem as we bring into being a world ofgreater complexity, greater awareness, greater sensitivity, richer individua-tion. In planned moyement with the Cosmic Process lies our best hopefor the future.

My final point is for the benefit of those who are inclined to say, when-ever the obvious is pointed out in human advance, "It will never happen.You can't change human nature." The frailty of such pessimism is that itfails to take into account the time-scale within which the Cosmic Processoperates. In the past, first one species and then another 'has been dominanton Earth, just as the human species is dominant now. Each span of domi-nance has been lengthy. The giant lizards, for example, were dominant for50 million years or so. Man's dominance is in its very early days. We havebeen' in the saddle for something like a million years. By comparison withthe giant lizards we are only infants in our expectable lifetime as a species.A million years! We are only beginners—absolute beginners. There is nocause to lose heart.

(Completion of a lecture delivered on January 6)

New Worlds for OldB Y

DR. JOHN LEWIS

THERE ARE TWO VIEWS of our modern world—according to the first we livein the Free World, sustained by our Western values, inspired by the prin-ciples of Christianity. We are a progressive, affluent society, graduallyeliminating social evils, abolishing class strife and deeply desirous of worldpeace. Our future happiness depends on the maintenance of our democraticway of life and thc further spread of that enlightenment which is the puristsource of moral and spiritual improvement This is the philosophy and faithof the liberal rationalism of our time and its optimism.

There is quite another view—which sees our society as desperately sick.This is clearly set forth in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain where the worldis likened to a hospital full of diseaSed and dying people, all of them becom-ing more and more aware of their condition, more conscious, awakened,emerging from within the world to face it; the fever of deadly knowledgeindicated by rising temperatures. This is not the evil side of our world, inconflict with more healthy tendencies; it is what our whole world is becom-ing, it is the destiny, the fate of the very world we thought so secure. Itis the working out of the fatal dynamic of our civilisation.

Faith in progress, in life's purpose, in the meaning which 'socialists and

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radicals, and Christians too, have discerned in it, is now regarded as puredelusion. Life is utterly without meaning. This is also the teaching ofcoriteMporary philosophy which has abandoned the search for life's mean-ing as no part of its task. And it looks as though the philosophical analystshave analysed out of existence not only metaphysics but political theory aswell. There is no basic principle of social and political life, we are nowinformed by our leading political theorists, such as Mr. Oakshott of theL.S.E.—"Political philosophy" is dead. Today we face the world, if weaccept their teaching, equipped only with the .justification for political in-activity and social scepticism. Nothing is left to us but expediency, livinghand to mouth, getting out of each new difficulty as it appears as best wecan, and falling back on custom and tradition when we can think of nothingelse.

When the world becomes- not the scene of purposeful development andhuman advance but a tale told by an idiot,•full of sound and fury and sig-nifying nothing, what happens to the individual? We have only to turn tothe modern novel on the one hand and to the theatre of the Absurd on theother, to see the total disintegration of the human spirit which has resulted.The plays of Pinter, Beckett, N. F. Simpson, Iffilesco and the rest show usthe interior life of man as chaotic, confused and meaningless. SamuelBeckett, the most important of them, shows us that the world meaning wehave hitherto accepted is only an appearance of order which we have im-posed on our experience to make it tolerable. We only know our ownexperiences and our own ways of fitting them into some kind of coherence.There is no objective world, no shared truth—for each man lives in his ownprivate world.

In such a predicament some of us lapse into disgust and despair, otherswith a futile and pernicious optimism try to persuade themselves like thewoman in Beckett's recent play that they are enjoying "happy days" whenit is perfectly clear that she is buried in the desert sands, slowly disappearingas they pile up over her, bereft of everything but her foolishness and herpetty routine habits of filing her nails and making up her face.

This subjectivism appears again in the historians and philosophers whosee in' history nothing but "one emergency following upon another as wavefollows wave", only the play of chance and the unforeseen, they, too, likeSir Isaiah Berlin and Professor Popper have 'retreated to an extreme sub-jectivism—nothing is left but the individual adrift in a wild and uncon-trollable ocean.

How are we to explain this?Is it no more than a failure of nerve? Is everything all right really if we

could only pull ourselves together? Or is the world really as Shaw oncedescribed it—the lunatic asylum of the Universe? Are we simply to throwup the sponge and say to the prophets of woe—how right you are?

I do not think it is a failure of nerve; but neither do I think the ultimatetruth is that life is meaningless.

The plain fact is that the whole structure of the world is changing, as itchanged from the physical-astronomical point of view at the time of Galileoand from the biological point of view at the time of Darwin. These revolu-tions in human thought were alarming enough, but the re-formation of thesocial and political structure of the world itself is even more terrifying.

As Whitehead told us the history of the world is the story of successiveand radically different forms of order or social pattern. If we attempt tounderstand a new age as it slowly dawns in terms of the form of order, ormental categories of the one to which we are accustomed we shall see mereconfusion—and this is what our philosophers and historians and dramatistsand novelists and poets see today. -

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41)

There is nothing to be alarmed about—the very essence of life is to befound in these frustrations and suspensions of the established order. But wedo not like it, when for human experience quick changes arrive, humannature easily passes into hysteria and when fundamental transformationarrives, while for the understanding eye heaven dawns, for those who donot comprehend or are unwilling to accept the new, hell yawns open.

What is the nature of this change?It is the modification of social structure to fit the changing functions of

a developed industrialism. The economic and social forms of what we havecalled capitalism were useful enough in their time; but their very successhas brought into existence economic forces and profound social and econo-mic problems, for which the economic laws and the political system ofcapitalism are inadequate. It is the urgent necessity of reorganising the socialsystem to cope with this emergency that is responsible for the mental con-fusion of those who do not understand what is happening.

What makes it difficult to accept the inevitable changes that confront usis the fact that the economic interests of important sections of the com-munity are bound up with the existing orders, so that in so far as they havepolitical power they will tend to perpetuate social institutions which operateto their advantage, long after their usefulness has passed.

Now let us see how such a situation affects our understanding of life andhistory and human nature.

As Professor Carr points out—History was full of meaning so longas things were going our way and our interests were satisfied; now that ithas taken a wrong turning belief in the meaning of history has disappeared.

The moment we draw back from the future because it doesn't suit us ourminds cease to comprehend not only the future but the past. Only if weare possessed by a social purpose which is in harmony with the realities oftoday and with the forward movement of our own generation can we find ameaning in life and in history.

It follows that all those whose interests are tied to the decayingcivilisation want to believe at this stage in the essential incomprehensibilityof things, because a real understanding, a scientific analysis and diagnosispoints in a direction we are unwilling to go.

And it is because we dare not question the presuppositions of moderncapitalism, because we want to consider them as eternal, unalterable; partof the very nature of things that when we look at the way our society, basedon these principles, is presenting us with problems and contradictions of allsorts, that we begin to talk of the permanent predicament of man in relationto his universe or of the incomprehensibility of life. But it is we who havemade life incomprehensible, it is we who have put man into this predicamentand if we want to find sense and order in the universe, we have got to putsense and order into it, by re-building it in a rational way to satisfy humanneeds.

Advance to a firmer ground while refusing to question and reform ourbasic assumptions and categories is impossible. The question is—have wethe courage and intelligence to face the future and its demands?

Toynbee tells us that in the decline of a civilisation when some lose hope,some jump clear into new beliefs.

That means the recognition of the forces of change working in the worldtoday.

What we have to do is not to find a religion or philosophical explanation

of the world muddle, which will reconcile us to it without changing it. Ifthe world is in a muddle we don't have to explain it we have to alter it.What we have to fall back on is not a new philosophy or a new religionto cope with things as they are, but the redirective activity of human beings

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to transform them into something different—something more rational.Periods of collapse are also periods in which reconstruction offers us

boundless hope, if we have the courage and faith to engage upon it.But the difficulty here is that too many of us want to be given a new

faith as mere spectators. No such faith will be given to any but participantsin the reconstruction of society. What is necessary is personal involvement.

Tillich says that Truth must be love in order to be recognised. Without atransformation of reality no true knowledge of reality is possible.

Truth is the revolutionary thing, not abstract truth, but concretetruth, willed, created, maintained and conquered through social struggleby men who work for the liberation of man from the shackles of the pastand the building of a new commonwealth based on human needs.

(Summary of an address delivered on January 13)

Existentialist EthicsB Y

1- 1 . J. BLACKHAMSOCRATES IS 1HE FATHER of ethics. Pre-Socratic philosophy is usually treatedin the history of Western philosophy as vain speculation about the natureof Being. Socrates brought thinking down to earth and humanised it. Post-Socratic philosophies are ethical—philosophies of life. Similarly, Kierkegaardand Nietzsche in modern times are supposed to have brought philosophyback to "existential" problems and situations from vain metaphysical flightsand interminable epistemological wrangles. Yet Existentialist philosophershave written no books on ethics, and some of them have returned to glorifythe pre-Socratics at the expense of Plato and all that followed. Why?

There are two reasons. (I) They argue that we have learned so well theanswers of Plato and Aristotle to the questions raised by philosophers thatwe have forgotten what the questions were: therefore it is time to raiseagain the pre-Socratic question, What is Being? which may be more impor-tant for us than the Socratic or ethical question, How shall I live? After all,Kant showed the limits of human reason, and there remains the "unthink-able" which cannot be reduced to the categories of scientific knowledge. Theunique, the spontaneous, choice, decision, these rather than "principle", arethe categories in which to do ethical thinking about real personal respon-sibility in actual situations such as the Nazi occupation of Europe. "Whatis man?" is not a question to be answered with definitions, but, rather, withan experience of human reality. • •

(2) Human reality has no built-in perfection, as the Socratic philosopherssupposed, so that one has only to gain true knowledge of that nature inorder to "follow nature" and attain excellence. On the contrary, humanreality is a built-in freedom; man, in Sartre's phrase, is "condemned to befree". Man in the constitution of his consciousness separates himself fromwhat he has been and from all that is; he is in this sense "pure possibility-,condemned to be free. He projects himself, he chooses, he decides; andnever once for all. Fle does this even if he fails to do it deliberately. Thisfreedom condemns him also to total ethical responsibility. His ethical res-ponsibility is total in the sense that it is wholly and solely his, because itconstitutes him what he is, and nobody can relieve him of any part of it.And it is total in its extent, for he is responsible for his whole world 'andall there is in it. Obviously, there are events which he did nothing to bringabout, and of which he is indeed the victim; but these events are in his lifewhat he makes of them, and he alone is wholly responsible for that.

This recalls the Stoic philosophy, which insisted that a man's will was10

wholly and solely in his own power: he might not be able to determinewhat happened; nobody else could determine for him his relation to whathappened; in this realm he was condemned to rule. The Stoics regardedmost men as sick, in need of the therapy of philosophic awakening.Similarly, existentialist writers speak of most men as "inauthentic" or of"bad faith", in so far as they seek to escape from their real situation, toclose their eyes to their human reality, by taking over the ready-made lifeprovided for them on all hands. All the forms in which modern life promotesthe impersonal without regard to human reality make stock topics ofexistentialist literature. Thus, like Stoicism, existentialist philosophy is acall rather than a doctrine, an ethical awakening. The response can neverbe "once for all", like the learning and acceptance of a doctrine. If a manwas a hero yesterday, he is in question again today and, whatever his record,will be so again tomorrow. He is always what he will be, never definitivelyanything. That is why existentialism is an unpopular philosophy: it givesnobody any ease, respite, nor security. Yet without the future in which to beother than one has been, in which to be what one would be, life is hell: atleast, that is the picture in Sartre's play Huis C7os,where the three charac-ters are cut off, condemned to remain as they are in the eyes of each other.

Not only is one beyond knowledge in one's own spontaneity, choice, andpossibilities, since knowledge is only of what is past, the "other", the objectof knowledge, is also a subject and cannot be known in his otherness.Knowledge in this field is presumptuous and false. Between I and thouthere can be only encounter and communication, not the reduction ofknowledge and description. When individual human beings discover andrealise their spontaneous human reality and become authentic persons bymaking independent decisions and relating themselves to others in com-munication they create community. Individualism and collectivism are notopposed; on the contrary, the isolated individual conforms to the require-ments of the collective to save himself from unbearable loneliness; in thissense, the collective is a mass of individuals, externally related. The trueopposite of the individual unit is the person in his human reality related toother persons in community.

Existentialist philosophy, then, does not teach an ethics, in the sense ofproviding an answer to the question, How shall I live? It disallows thelegitimacy of any such answer, for the question must be resolved by eachfor himself on his own unaided responsibility. Nevertheless, existentialistthinkers do undertake to awaken us to human reality and to illumine thepath for us on the way to becoming authentic persons able to make ourown decisions and to encounter other persons in their otherness and toenter into communication with them—which may of course be a form ofconflict.

Existentialist philosophy does not offer to reconcile or to abolish thepersistent oppositions in philosophy, such as belief and unbelief, subjectiveand objective. Rather, it proposes to maintain, and to increase, the tensionbetween them. Dogmatic belief and dogmatic unbelief, subjective philo-sophies and objective philosophies are all solutions which leave men with afalse sense of security; because there is no real security on these terms.It is in the bracing, risky, uncomfortable positions between and beyondthese alternatives that men have to live if they seek human reality and thetruth of their situation. Thus one may find in existentialism a dogmatichumanism and an equivocal faith, in the sense that the.humanism is foundedon definite teaching about the structure of human 'reality, inescapableresponsibility, and the need for decision—instead of aesthetic or intellectualinterest in all things human; and the faith is not a once-for-all decision tobelieve, but a perpetual need to call out, to appeal. In the same way, the

existentialists refuse the alternatives of idealism and materialism. Theyshift all these radical and persistent oppositions to another level; or, rather,they seek to employ a new category of thought in dealing with them. How-ever divided, as their exemplars Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were, they areunited in outright rejection of dogmatism, fideism, determinism, immanent-ism, because they build everything on the human reality which can ithagineand choose and enter into reciprocal relations with the other who remains"other". Human reality thus characterised is ethical, and existentialism isheavy with ethical accents: spontaneity, openness, decision, responsibility,authenticity, communication, and renewal without ceasing. There is noexistentialist philosophy as such, and existentialist thinking is intended tobe an awakening, an illumination, which includes the ethical but does notbegin nor end with it. These writers are preoccupied with the structure ofhuman reality, and they leave those with ethical concerns to draw theirown conclusions.

(Summary of an address delivered on January 20)

How Much Freedom of Speech?Y

LORD CTIORLEY

MANY OF YOU will haVe been present here when Mr. Hutton Hynd, a fewmonths ago, gave his thoughtful address on Freedom of Speech. I once gavea Conway Memorial Lecture on this subject which is I imagine the reasonwhy he suggested to me that I should come here this morning, and con-tinue the discussion, than which I agree with him there is no more importantsubject.

What has worried Mr. Hynd, as it has worried many others of ourgeneration is whether you should allow freedom of speech to those who willuse it in an attempt to secure political power which if attained they woulduse to stifle the freedom of speech of all their opponents. He therefore gavehis address the challenging title of How Much Freedom of Speech?

I am afraid that like most westerners who have discussed this problemhe did not answer his own question, or at any rate answer it very clearly,or decidedly. Nor do I claim to know the answer. Indeed I am not surethat there is an answer. Certainly since the rise of totalitarian ideologies inEurope which has brought these problems to a head many political phil-osophers of the western world have been turning over again the problemof freedom of speech. Noteworthy among these is Professor Hallett Carrwhose work Mr. Hynd referred to—one could also mention ProfessorHarold Laski, Mr. Middleton M urray, Mr. Catlin, Lord Shawcross andothers. Some of them haite made noteworthy contributions to the problemof liberty, but clearly none of them has solved it. Maybe one day a greatphilosopher will appear who will be able to provide the solution, but I verymuch doubt it. I think that it is much more likely that there is no cut anddried solution of the kind that thinkers like, whether philosophers or naturalscientists.

And I think that Professor Carr in the phrase which M r. Hynd quotedmore than once, viz, that the question is not an academic one, recognises thisfact, though I do not think that he was using the word academic in quitethe same sense as I am. Academic solutions arc intellectual solutions whichhold good generally. Thus two and two always make four, and water isalways made up of oxygen and hydrogen. But liberty is a conception inquite a different class from these. It has no hard edges, and it works outdifferently in different societies, and in different ways according to whether

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the emphasis is placed upon political, social, economic or moral aspects.Freedom of speech is a particular aspect of liberty, the aspect with whichI am especially concerned thi§ morning, but I do not wish to isolate it toocompletely from the wider aspects.

Essentially the answer to the problem of freedom, and particularly tothat of freedom of speech, or rather the answers, because I believe thatthe answers may vary a good deal from nation to nation, and from genera-tion to generation, which is one reason why I have already said that I donot think there is any one answer—the answers will I think be discoveredempirically according to the felt needs of the various communities in theworld, and according to the interplay of the various political and economicforces exerting influence in any one community. The result will be a some-what different series of conceptions in the different national communities.Different conceptions will naturally lead to differences in working out thepractical handling of concrete situations on the spot. But 'in actual factthese different practical handlings will depend much more on what appearto those in control of events to be the political necessities of the times. Ithink also that national and social history plays an important part in thepractical administration of liberty: again the tradition varies from countryto country.

We can illustrate what I have just been saying by a comparison betweenGreat Britain and the U.S.S.R. I could talk for a long time about thissubject which is very much in the minds of all who are concerned aboutfreedom, and was obviously central to Mr. Hynd's discourse, though henever expressly referred to the U.S.S.R., at any rate in his summary in theMonthly Record. However, at this stage at any rate I will content myselfwith making two points. The first is that the British regard themselves, andhave done so for a very long time as the freest people in the world, andregard the Russians as among the least free. However there are quite honest,intelligent and well informed Russians who regard the British as far fromfree especially in the economic field, and who maintain that they are them-selves reasonably free, since to them freedom is not an absolute, but con-sists in people adjusting themselves to what is required for the maintenanceof society and its progressive developments towards providing a better andfuller life for all its members. This idea of a freedom which is not inour conception, free at all is difficult for us to grasp.

My second point will be that these very different conceptions stem verylargely from the different historical experiences of the British and theRussian peoples and can only be understood on that basis, and understand:ing is very necessary. Indeed if there is one thing essential to the peacefulfuture of humanity it is that the peoples should understand one another,and not denounce one another because they find that they are thinkingdifferently, and using radically different methods for getting things done.If I have a criticism to make of M r. Hynd's address it is rather that hetends to accept the British conception as one not only of universal, butalso of compelling validity. For to be a free society he says the citizensmust have freedom of speech. Even in England this statement requiriesqualification, which Mr. Hynd himself makes. In some other countrieswhich follow a different tradition, some of them well to this side of theiron curtain these qualifications would be much more extensive and muchmore serious.

Although I would not entirely disagree with the criticisms of my Russianfriend I think that we British have in fact a right to be proud of ourcontribution both to the theory, and practice of liberty, and I admired theeloquent way in which Mr. Hynd stated our position.

The fact is that we were the first of the nations in the modern world to

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appreciate the importance of persuasion in politics. Machiavelli had saidin his famous treatise on the art of politics, The Prince, that there weretwo ways of dealing with men. You could either caress them or annihilatethem. To caress is not quite the same as to persuade, but it is getting onthat way. However at that time most governments preferred to take thestrong line.

In England the great struggle between the King and the Parliament in theseventeenth century was chiefly conducted by argument, and was indeedan object lesson to the world. We owe this valuable feature in our politicalhistory largely I think to the predominant part played by lawyers in thisstruggle. The English common law was, and is, largely administered argu-mentative discussion, and when lawyers entered Parliament as they did inlarge numbers from an early period, they made use of the methods alreadyfamiliar to them.

Considering that this dispute developed into a bloody civil war it isremarkable how the protagonists continued to argue the case throughout.I do not mean to say that there was no censorship, but it is surprising thatthere was not more. When the civil war was at its height Milton publishedhis great tract in support of freedom of speech, the areopagitica—it is truethat he was as much, or more, concerned to be free to publish his unortho-dox views on divorce as to make his political faith known. But in this mostdifficult period a certain freedom of expression continued throughout. ThusAndrew Marvel in a great poem in praise of Cromwell included some linesabout King Charles his enemy which are certainly the most touching everpenned about that unhappy monarch.

(First part of an address delivered on January 27).

A Horatian ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland.He nothing common did or meanUpon that memorable scene,But with his keener eyeThe axe's edge did try;Nor called the gods with vulgar spiteTo vindicate his helpless right,But bowed his comely headDown, as upon a bed.

Looking Back in PrideY

OTTO WOLFGANG

PROFESSOR THEODOR HARTWIG, my late compatriot and friend, would havebeen 90 now. Somehow or other he managed to survive the Hitler oecupationof Czechoslovakia, the only nation without a Quisling.

When Hartwig died in 1958, he left many unpublished papers; his workof a lifetime was destroyed, and the Freethought movements of Europe hadto be rebuilt from scratch; freed from our opposition, religious obscurantismhad wormed its way into every avenue of public life, and there arc still nopublishers bold enough to venture the publication of anti-religious books(unless written by some great agnostic, always ready to compromise). Amongthese papers waiting for publication is an autobiographical manuscript con-taining interesting glimpses into the formative years of continental free-thought. •

The first world war started the ball rolling, when even believers wereashame0 at seeing the various Churches blessing deadly atfits and uniting

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with jingoism to preach hatred and murder. A certain Berlin pastor, D..Philippe, welcomed war as an instrument of providence—"the great scalpelof the Great Surgeon to lance the stinking boil on the body of the world".And, he made it even clearer : "Yes, shoot well, ye warriors, thrust yourbayonets deep into the enemy's ribs, since this is your holy duty, your DivineService!"

The Church learnt her lesson and became somewhat more cautious duringthe second world war. In December, 1942, the Pope proclaimed full indul-gence for pilots who when releasing their bombs prayed the words "0 Jesus—mercy". Common sense found this despicable and it gave a great impetusto our movement; however,

"religious movements are nothing but the reflection of real socialcauses. . . . The drying-up process in our movement no less results frompolitical and economic factors. It had not been their clever agitationwhich had led to the great successes of the Freethought movements, butthe fact that between the world wars the entire structure of our societyhad come apart; the wars added to 'the psychological shock of thepopulation. And yet, there were still many who in their spiritual distresssought refuge in religion, who out from the powder-smoke fled intointoxicating incense. However, the growing emptiness of all churchesshows only too well that the psychological lulling machine is no longerin working order."

The most effective propaganda against religion was not spread by itinerantagitators (of whom Hartwig had been one himself), but synthetic manure,the tractor and the assurance companies: they were more efficient. thanprayers and rain magic by processions. "The machine educates its keeperto sober thinking. A peasant may succeed in spurring on his ox by shouting,but nothing else but expert knowledge will do with the tractor."

The "religious crisis" of that period stemmed from the very real crisis ofthe capitalist system around 1929. The Church could no longer claim to be apurely spiritual and disinterested institution. More and more in the welterof material life this mask was torn to shreds and her real aspect divulgedas the handmaid of reaction and suppression.

Ernst Haeckel, the German neo-Darwinist, founded the "Monist.' move-ment as an exponent of the bourgeois intelligentsia. A later organisation inLeipzig (Volksbund fuer Geistesfreiheit) was built on a broader basis, includ-ing the upper stratum of workers with a certain tendency to socialism. This,in turn led to the setting up of a League of Proletarian Freethinkers inLeipzig and later in Vienna and Bodenbach (Czechoslovakia). Quite natur-ally these bodies leaned for support upon the workers' party of the country,the so-called Social Democrats who paid lip service to Marxism excludingthe "Opium of Religion"; for this they had found a fine fence-sitting wayout by declaring Religion a matter of private conviction of each individual.*As a party the Social Democrats gave lukewarm support to their Freethoughtorganisations only as a recruiting reservoir, but insisted that the leadershiphad to be made up of their party members. The more the crisis of continen-tal democracy deepened, the wider grew the gulf between the timid Partyleadership and the militant rank and file. Hartwig goes on:

"The RC Church, in clear contradistinction, has never concealed thatthere can be no compromise between Socialism and Religion, asshown by Pius XI and Leo XIII in their encyclicals . . . stating,'Christian Socialism is a contradiction in 'terms; it is impossible to beboth at the same time, a good Socialist and a real Catholic'. — — It

*There were a few exceptions, particularly Augustus Rebel with his famousdictum: Socialism and Religion are as incompatible as water and fire.

15

could not be otherwise as the bourgeois governments expected inexchange for their not insignificant financial gifts to the Church quitedefinite performances—in particular thc prevention of explosions ofpopular unrest. All pious pretence of 'Religion as a private affair'could not undo the hard fact that the secular power of the State couldnot afford the weakening or even destruction of the Church as the trustedapparatus for the appeasement of the exploited. . . . This gave thereligious critique of the Freethinkers a new trend, although they stillmaintained old arguments from the times of medieval scholastics andlater enlightenment. Examples of this kind of bourgeois argumentationare: How the churches can explain the existence of evil in this'best of all possible worlds' (Leibnitz); or they tried to explode thevarious theological 'evidences'. This all did not hurt too much our

-shrewd priestcraft. . . . Far more did they feel the weapon of ourhistorical critique of religion. Its effect was, as Friedrich Engels put it,'like a cannon ball amidst an army of knights whose armour wasintended to protect in close hand-to-hand combat. Therefore theologywas compelled to grant certain concessions. . . . Even more powerfulproved the arguments of natural science. . . . However, it must beadmitted that nowadays there are again scientists of repute who foundtheir way back into the fold, owing to the deepening of world crises andthe fear of wars of even greater horror.

"The freethinkers from the bourgeois camp—and this is easilyexplained out of their class consciousness—have assiduously overlookedthe social causes of religion and pretended that religious belief could bedestroyed by dint of reason. . . . It is significant that the French free-thought paper is called 'La Raison' (the Italian 'La Ragione). TheChurch knows better : it is not common sense or reason which directsour acts, they are a reaction to realities of social life and the positionof the individual in society. Or do you think most of our womenfolkgo to church simply because they are daft? No, their equality is morefictitious than real, in fact they still labour under certain disqualifica-tions and this makes them, in a greater degree than men, susceptible tothe 'Solace of Religion'. — — Unless our propaganda does not recog-nise the social roots of religion, we can never succeed and will alwaysgrope in the dark. Reformation and the growth of sectarianism inmedieval times finds a useful explanation only after one has grasped thesocial position of the peasants who in their despair had no better sloganthan religious flags. Equally, the later 'religious wars' were economicalstruggles fought under the guise of Religion.

"Take the modern sect of 'Jehovah's Witnesses'; they originally beganto flourish in districts where production was mainly limited to homeworkers. In one squalid room the whole family sat and toiled frommorning to late evening, earning hardly their naked living. These poorpeople, left uneducated, had nothing else to think of than God and howit was that such existence as theirs could be tallied with the Scriptures,unless there were certain misunderstandings."

In 1924 the way of the bourgeois and socialist freethinkers parted, and twoInternationals were set up, with Hartwig as the first Chairman or Presidentof the 1117 (Internationale of Proletarian Freethinkers). As a token of cour-tesy, their "Directives" were sent to their bourgeois counterparts in Brussels,but no hopes were held out that these could be accepted. The more thepolitical crises aggravated, the more the various Labour parties retreated inthe face of fascist attacks and when the "proletarian" Freethought organisa-tions nevertheless stuck to their political friends, the Marxist freethinkersseceded and formed uncompromising organisations.

Fascism destroyed them piecemeal.

16 .

Book Review ,IN PRESENTING Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in Francein the same paper binding as Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man, DolphinBooks have done more than present a slice of late eighteenth centuryhistory. Like oil and water that will not mix, these two works show in veryfrank and direct terms what constituted the essence of opposing class views—views that have not been substantially superseded today.

Written within a few months of each other, these two books were con-ceived at a time when capitalism had not developed to be what we know ittoday, and socialism had not been invented. Yet, Burke, despite his fan-tastically undemocratic views, weaves in some well-expressed flashes ofwisdom as skilfully as any modern Conservative intellectual might. Whocould contradict Burke that "Flattery corrupts both the receiver and thegiver." Paine, a far greater coiner of memorable sayings, understood theproblems of the underdog, and in this (as well as in other writings) helpedto sow the seeds that later Socialist pioneers watered and tended.

Both writers were concerned with affairs in this country, though theirtexts were taken from the French Revolution. With the ruling circles ofBritain Burke was afraid of the liberation ideas that were crossing theChannel from France and were finding fertile ground in a land, where theCourt was responsible for much corruption, poverty and oppression, andhe developed the theory that the people of England had utterly disclaimedfor all time any right to choose their Government and that they would"resist the practical assertion of it with their lives and fortunes." It was inthe throne, he claimed, that the popular franchise lay.

Such a view may appear at first glance to be very extraordinary today,but I suggest its modern equivalent is found in the ways the Establishmentstill clings to the view that the monarch is important in the conduct ofpublic affairs, and that, given a few advances in social security, educationand, above all, escapist leisure-time occupations (religion having witheredconsiderably), the workers need not bother their little heads too much aboutpolitics. Burke's dubbing of the people as "the swinish multitude" is todayan unexpressed attitude of the rulers, even if never put publicly into words.

Burke's Reflections, which was first published in November 1790, wasintended as a rallying-point of the Courts of Europe against France, andthirty-thousand elegantly bound copies were presented to the right peoplethroughout Europe.

Paine, who was staying at the Angel Inn in Islington at the time, straightaway started to write his reply—and a classic was born. Castigating Burke,Paine wrote in the first paragraph of the first part of The Rights of Man:"When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is theman not the subject that becomes exhausted", reminding one in neat turnof phrase of what Bernard Shaw once said, when as chairman, he wantedto close a meeting: "The subject is not exhausted, but we are!"

Then Paine demolishes Burke's extraordinary anti-democratic theory:"That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and fortunes,

not to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have not rights, is anentirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical genius

.of Mr. Burke."If there was bitterness in dealing with Burke, it was fully justified, for

Burke, who supported the American Revolution, had now become a rene-gade. Paine then proceeds to lay down in his typically clear and straight-forward style the basic principles of government in what is one of the bestexpositions of democracy in its widcst sense. He analyses Burke's distortions

17

of the French Revolution, writing with some first-hand knowledge, havingbeen in France a short while earlier; here he makes constant comparisonswith Britain's own history.

Paine's love of the people told him that constitutional freedom is notenough—it must be allied to economic freedom. So it was that towards theend of the second part of The Rights of Man Paine came to enumeratea social security plan, and in the practical manner that is so typical of hisworks Paine shows how the money could be raised and administered. Thiswas 1791, and Britain had to wait over 150 years before the struggles of thepeople put into force the Beveridge Plan, which contained many of theproposals that Paine had pioneered.

Thomas Paine was not the only one to refute Burke's attack on theFrench Revolution, but his Rights of Man became what in modern languagecan truly be described as "an instant best-seller."

In an age, when political parties as we know them, had not developed,organisations like the Corresponding Societies gave expression to democraticsentiments, and The Rights of Man became their hand-book. The mostfamous was the London Corresponding Society, which appealed both tosuch professional men as John Home Tooke and Thomas Holcroft, andto such as Francis Place and the working population as well.

Authority had been frightened by America's Declaration of Independence(in. which Paine had played a prominent part), then—nearer home—by theFrench Revolution; so, with thc spreading of similar ideas among "theswinish multitude" here, something drastic had to be done. Burke himselfdeclared that the only reply to Paine could'be "that of criminal justice."So it was, and Paine was charged with High Treason, as were many otherswho published or distributed his works.

Even when this resulted in long terms of imprisonment for printers andpublishers, it did not stop the multitude of editions coming out of The Rights

of Man—and to this day they have continued to be issued •in a variety oflanguages.

This present edition of Paine's great work and of Burke's Reflections onthe Revohaion in France seems to be an accurate reprinting of earlyeditions; Dolphin Books evidently have taken as much trouble over thisas they did with Paine's Common Sense and The Crisis, also published inone paper-backed volume, and they are to be congratulated. This is anAmerican printing, and W. H. Allen are distributing it here at 10s., whichis cheap by modern standards for over 500 pages.

CHRISTOPHER BRUNEL

South Place NewsEthical Union Annual Congress 1%3

Members are invited to attend the Annual Congress of the Ethical Unionto be held in the Library, Conway Hall at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday, March30, to be followed by a Dance. MC. Nigel Barnes.

World Union of Freethinkers

The General Committee met last July 26th-29th at Vienna, and resolved tohold an International Congress at Duisburg on the Rhine next July 26th-

18

29th. The German Freeth-ought FederatiOn will be the hosts and responsiblefor local organisation. The subjects for discussion will be (1) How Free-thought may profit by the widespread interest in Scientific Developments; (2)The Defence of Freedoms ,against Clerical Encroachment (Defense de laLaicite); (3) The Current Vatican Council.

The Austrian Federation, president ,Hofrat -Fritz Kernmeier, were thehosts at Vienna and the joint meeting on Saturday evening was well atten-ded, overfldwing into the adjoining corridors. ' • • •

Bertrand Russell has agreed to make a tape-recording of an openingaddress to the Duisburg Congress; Prof, Hyman Levy to speak on the firstsubject, and Mr. F. A. Ridley tin the, last for. British Freethinker's. Mr.Walter Hoops will speak far the American Rationalist Federation,-,Whopropose to charter a 'plhne for 'their delegatel. The 'Belgian and AustiranFederations have already laid plans fO-r strong`delegations to the congressand it is hoped that this country will not be behind half& Readers whomay,be interested 'should write to Mr. C.. McCall,.103 Borough High Street,London, S.E.1. A novelty at the congress will.be, instead of the customarydinner, a lunch on board a Rhine steamer as pari of ad •exciiision up therWer.' •

ther• •

tiSociety s O. Activi es •, .

Conway DiscussionsTuesdays in the Library at 7.30 p.m.

March 5—A Common Language for a Common Markei—Should Esperantobe Taught in our Schools?

Raif H. M. Markarian, M.A., F.B.E.A.12—Atheism and Moral Sanctions

F. A. Ridley (President, National Secular Society)19—The Changing Pattern of Sexual Relationships

Address delivered at joint conference, E.U.-R.P.A., Nottingham,1962, by J. H. Wallis (Training Officer, Marriage Guidance

Council). (Tape recording by courtesy of Ethical Union andR.P.A.)

26—On Young and Old—The Modern Pressure to ConforritH. L. Beales, M.A. (Social Historian, London School of! Economics) .

April 2—The New Industrial Revolution: Are Strikes and Lock-Outs Out. .of Date? .

Dr. J. A. C. Brown (Author, ..,"The • Social Psychology ofIndustry")

Conway Hall Library • • •The Librarian will be in' attendan& on Sunday Mornings and Tuesday

and. Thursday evenings.

Country DancingSaturday, March 23 in the Library, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., in conjunction with

the Progressive League. Instructress: Eda Collins. Admission 2s. Newmembers and beginners especially welcome.

19

SOUTH ,PLACETire South Place Ethical Society is a progressive movement dating. from 1793 which

today advocates an ethical humanism, the study and dissemination of ethical principles

and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment, and believes that the moral life

may stand independently in its own right.

We invite to membership all those who have abandoned supernatural creeds and

find themselves in sympathy with our views.

At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in many kinds of cultural

activities, including Discussions, Lectures, Concerts, Dances, Rambles and Socials. A

Library is available and all members receive,the Society's journal, The Monthly Record,

free. The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved

international renown.. -

- The minimum subscriptions are: '-lvlembers,:-12s. 6d. pa.; Associates (ineligible

to vote or hold office), 7s. 6d. ma.; Life Metfibers, £.13 2s. 6d.

Services available to Members and Associates include: The Naming Ceremony of

Welcome to Children, the Solemnisation of Marriage, Memorial and Funeral Seivieei.

The Story of South Place, by S. K. Ratcliffe (25. from Conway Hall), is a history of

the Society and its interesting development within liberal thought.

OFFICERS: .

Secretary: J. Hutton Hynd lion. Registrar: Mrs. T. C. Lindsay

Hon. Treasurer: A. Fenton Hon. Asst. Registrar: Miss W. L. George

Executive Secretary: Miss E. Palmer Editor, -The Monthly Record": G.C. Dowman

Address: Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, W.C.I. (Tel.: CHAncery 8032)

MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM

To Tim HON. REGISTRAR,CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON W.C.I.

I desire to become a "Member/Associate of South Place Ethical Society and

enclose entitling me (according to the Rules of the Society) to

membership for one year from the date of enrolment.

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