What Now ?
IT is not likely that, as a brilliant conspectus of the history— political, physical and ideological—of our century so far, Mr.
Heard's book will have a rival. All of us, of course, would have written it slightly differently if we could have written it at all, because we should have wished to stress certain facets more heavily or more lightly than Mr. Heard has done. But allowing for individual idiosyncrasies; such as Mr. Heard's profound suspicion of surgery, we can suppose that the general analysis, the picture in its main outlines and colouring, will stand. It is a piece of masterly compression, carried out with an amazing sense of ease, enlivened, as the wrapper states, with pungent criticism.
There are, however, two literary objections to be made. The first, startling as it may appear, is that it is too well written. The whole thing flows so rapidly that we are never given time to think, even to consider. This is the highest possible virtue in narrative prose, but where thought is required we need to be made to pause, to slow up now and again. The best contemplative prose—and after all the object of this book is to make us contemplate—demands something of the reader. Mr. Heard does it all for us. This may sound ungrateful, but though the years are hurrying, we do not want to be hurried over them quite so fast : the book would be more effective if it were harder tp read. The second objection is the occasional epigram which gives an air of super- ficiality to much that is not necessarily superficial, and also imparts an air of irrelevance. Take the statement that soldiers are always superstitious, supported by the cases of Septimius Severus, Saul, and Macbeth. To one reader, at least, who was brought up among soldiers and was himself a regular, soldier for eight years, the remark is dubious : he has met City men, farmers, actors—the point need not be pressed. But these things apart, the book as history is admirable, with its clean unravelling of policies, motives, ideas, its pictures of our astonishing progress in knowledge of all kinds, including the knowledge of our ignorance. What strikes Mr. Heard, as it does all of us, is the amazing rapidity with which civilization is changing in form, in under- lying ideas, in command of the physical universe : thirty years now are as three centuries in the old days: That a whole new conception of the universe, of our minds, of our powers, should have come upon us well within the span of a generation is naturally unsettling. We simply don't know where we are : we have no notion of where we are going : we are nearly at our wit's end to know what to do. The foundations of our dwelling place have crumbled, and we don't know how to rebuild it, or in what direction it is to stand. Thus, the most absorbing part of the book, faced as we are with urgencies, is that in which Mr. Heard deals with our position today. What is going on at present, he suggests, is a struggle between two notions :
" The real issue is between Realism and Humanitarianism, between those who believe that outer conditions as we have per- ceived them must dictate ever more thoroughly our social organiza- tion and our personal values, and. those who hold that values must be developed until they can assert themselves as facts in social relations and throughout the practical world." •
For him the solution would appear to be that, in kindliness and faith, our generation should realize that its hope rests in " understanding and benefiting its fellow-creature, that, in fact its own individuality is only a phase in its growth, and that it is evolving the next stage of its being by co-operation with other individuals." I confess that this may seem a tame conclusion ; but here, for once, Mr. Heard does not appear to have expressed his thought fully. For there is nothing new in that statement : what is new is Mr. Heard's belief in some sort of group-consciousness, aided, it would seem, by tele- pathy, which lures Mr. Heard as the apple lured Eve. We must increase our understanding of our nature, he tells us, rather than increase our power over the outer Universe.
But it is in this last, most compelling portion of his fas- cinating book that we are conscious of a weakening of grasp in Mr. Heard's apprehension. He seems to take certain results too much for granted. To speak personally, I am very doubtful indeed whether our new conception of space, of space-time, and the Quantum Theory really affect our lives very much. The idea so favoured by the astronomical mathe- maticians that the Universe is a creation of our minds is, after all, at least as old as Berkeley, and taken by them in much the same direction as Berkeley took it. The world is an idea in the mind of God : so Berkeley, so Sir James Jeans. God geometrizes, Spinoza told a world which proceeded to develop, according to one analysis, along the lines of economic materialism. It is only ideas of a certain range, the main implications of which can be grasped by everybody, such as Newtonisrn or Darwinism, that really affect life ; arid these, perhaps, not half so much as we might like to think. No doubt anthropology and psycho-analysis have altered the outlook of certain groups of people : but do the ideas derived from them influence the actions of the rulers of the world ? Have they really added anything to Mr. Buchman's technique ?
So, after reading Mr. Heard's book—but not while reading it—one wonders, one wonders a little. The book is immensely stimulating and exciting, but it fails to crystallize into any- thing. One would wish it a little more pondered, with things sifted out into relations, into less vague values. It is difficult to find his conclusion, that a consciousness of the whole is necessary to the individual, so startling and so painful as he thinks we shall find it. But at all events, whatever his book does or does not do, it makes us look at ourselves again, assess our experiences, define our hopes ; and these are valuable services. His preliminary warning that with new powers in our hands we must aim at new ends, and not try• to recapture the old, is vigorously salutary.
BONAMY DOBREE.
Previous page
