25 APRIL 1925, Page 28

In Hypatia (Kegan Paul) Mrs. Bertrand Russell writes' with a

more than Amazonian feminism. " Hypatia," she says in her preface, " was a University lecturer denounced by Church dignitaries and torn to pieces by Christians. Such will probably be the fate of this book : therefore it bears her name. What I have written here I believe, and shall not retract or change for similar episcopal denunciations." She denounces the marriage contract as the chief indignity which women suffer. She denounces Puritanism, aseetieism, masculine philosophy and Christianity. She may at any rate be consoled in reflecting that it is now only a book which is in any danger of being torn to -pieces.