12 JUNE 1920, Page 16

[To THE EDITOR Of THE " SPECTATOR "]

Sip,—Dean Inge's view of the progress or otherwise of humanity is robbed of its value by reason of its limited scope. When anthropologists need 700.000 years, or much longer, to account for the known phenomena, it is not reasonable to compare the men of Athens, who are almost as recent as the men of London, with the present day. Progress is a matter of almost unlimited time, but is none the less certain, but comparison can with greater utility be drawn between the Le Moustier man or the man of the Piltdown skull, or of the Mentone caves, than with those the scholarly Dean makes use of.—I am, Sir, &c.,