5 OCTOBER 1956, Page 17

Godless in Luton

EEN correspondents wanted among non-Marxist atheists interested in philosophy, ethics, psychology, languages. Special interest—pure mathematics. Write in Spanish, French or English to Mr. X.' An address in Luton followed.

This advertisement appears in the current issue of a maga- zine called The Humanist, which some inscrutable well- wisher sends me regularly, and a transient sadness overcame me when I read it. How shallow, how restricted, is our know- ledge of our fellow-men ! How difficult it is, despite the lavish clues with which he provides us, to visualise Mr. X waiting, godless in Luton, for the postman's knock ! Like some wise men, and almost all fools, I rather fancy myself as a student of human nature. Piqued at my complete inability to conjure up even a nebulous vision of Mr. X, I embarked on an attempt to reconstruct him.

His wish that his correspondents should be keen is easy to understand and quite likely, I. should think, to be gratified. `Some of the boys here,' my son once wrote home from his private school, 'find it difficult to think of anything to put in their letters. I tell you this because I am one of them.' Any fool can see that, if one wishes to receive letters in Spanish about pure mathematics from a stranger, it is in a spirit much less languid and bemused that the writer is expected to take up his pen. One hopes for a more zestful approach.

The Humanist is devoted to the interests of Rationalism. This I take to be a superior brand of atheism, a sort of Pullman coach in the long, slow train which is carrying us all towards, and as some hope beyond, the frontiers of physical dissolu- tion. It is natural that an advertiser in its columns should wish to be put en rapport with his fellow-disbelievers. But why does Mr. X stipulate that his correspondents should be non-Marxist atheists? There may, of course, be something deuxieme, some- thing rather provincial, about Marxist atheists; but unless there is a snobbish or doctrinal reason for his embargo on them, I should have expected Mr. X to welcome the cut and thrust of ideological polemics to which their letters would give him the entree. Little though I know of him, this note of caution, almost of intolerance, seems out of character. - And what—now one conies to think of it—does he want these correspondents for? The five branches of learning in which Mr. X declares an interest have between them an enormous scope, and I find it difficult to believe that he has read everything that has been written, in Spanish, French and English, by the leading authorities in so vast a field. If he aims merely to increase his knowledge, there are less random methods of setting about it. if on the other hand he looks forward to a brisk exchange of views, to a battle of wits which will enliven the long winter evenings while snow mantles the quaint mediwval rooftops of Luton, he may court a series of disappointments; for the intellectual calibre of non-Marxist atheists, like that of Cabinet Ministers, masters of otter-hounds and other human beings, varies widely between one individual and the next.

It might, too, have been wise to be more specific about the languages he is interested in. If a red-hot agnostic in Bilbao writes him a ten-page letter about Erse or Ki-Swahili, and if Mr. X is either indifferent to these tongues or is already hock-deep in letters about Pushtu, Croatian or Fukienese, how is he to avoid acting less considerately than a non-Marxist atheist should? And how, in any case, does one correspond about a foreign language with a complete stranger?

Dear Mr. X,

I expect you know that the French word for a water-wagtail is une bergeronnette, but it seems possible that you are ignorant of the derivation of this enchanting polysyllable. According to Des Tripes, with whose earlier works you may conceivably be unfamiliar, the bird was once believed . . .

A keen correspondent could, one imagines, go on churning out this sort of stuff by the ream; but it must be a hit-or-miss business, since he has no means of telling whether or not X already possesses the knowledge which he seeks to impart. If X is already in the picture, the letter rather misses its point. I am bound to say that pure mathematics strike me as a better bet than languages. You cannot look the answers up in a dictionary and pretend that you knew them already; and it is a subject some of whose devotees must, if the doctrine of fair shares has any meaning, include some non-Marxist atheists.

But as I beat my head, with uncharitable curiosity, against the brick wall of Mr. X's proclaimed enthusiasms, I began to wonder what Mr. X would make of mine. If he could see me wading in a steady downpour through an enormous bog in search of the common snipe (a small, elusive and often irritating bird whose tiny carcass has no economic value, contains few calories and normally costs even the best shot two shillings' worth of cartridges by the end of the day), would he not find me at least as incomprehensible as I find him?

I think he would. I wish him luck in a quest which I now see is no more improbable than many others, and thank him for the reminder that it takes all sorts to make a world.