19 SEPTEMBER 1914, Page 24

In A Theory of Civilisation (T. Fisher Unwin, 5s. net)

Mr. Sholto 0. G. Douglas undertakes to prove that "civilisation only exists as the resultant of faith "—or, as he prefers to put it, that " civilisation always has been connected inseparably with some antecedent psychic illusion." He considers the two main civilisations of Western Europe as respectively based on "the Olympian illusion" and "the Christian illusion," and looks forward to the rise of yet a third civilisation based on "the potential psychic illusion of the future." His ideas might have made an entertaining newspaper article, but grow rather thin when expanded into a volume.