13 OCTOBER 1923, Page 38

The Hibbert Journal.

The fact that this excellent quarterly has completed its twenty-first year and has a large and increasing circulation, does credit to the editor, Dr. L. P. Jacks, and to the Hibbert Trustees. It is also a welcome proof of the profound interest that is taken by the English-speaking public in the serious discussion of religious and ethical problems, without distinction of church or creed. In the October number Dr. Jacks begins a series of editorial articles with a caustic enquiry into "Gov- ernment by Talk." He contrasts two Edinburgh Rectorial addresses—that of Carlyle in 1866, and that of Mr. Lloyd George last spring, the one denouncing and the other glorifying government by talk. He then proceeds to explain why the belief that we can be governed by talk may cause us to be "misgoverned by clap-trap." Mr. Baldwin has recently denounced the mere rhetorician in terms which show that he sides with Carlyle and Dr. Jacks, so that the danger is perhaps averted for the time in Great Britain. Two extremely able articles to which we would direct attention are those by Professor Felix Adler, of New York, on "Permanence or Impermanence of Marriage," and by the Rev. Leonard Hodgson, of Magdalen College, Oxford, on "Birth-Control and Christian Ethics " ; these grave questions are discussed with rare breadth of view, and the conclusions are clear and definite. Professor Clement Webb contributes an admirable critique of the late Mr. Bernard Bosanquet's philosophy of religion, Sir Oliver Lodge writes on "The Larger Self," while Mr. Bishop Harman, from the medical standpoint, deals in an extremely interesting way with "Religion and the New Psychology," and shows that the modem teaching strengthens the belief in immortality.