6 APRIL 1956, Page 17

`REASON AND LIFE'

SIR,—In reviewing Sr. Marfas's book Reason and Life Mr. J. W. N. Watkins seems hardly to have realised that the author was setting out to show why we in our age need to philosophise, why people ever needed to philosophise, and what philosophy was when it was started. All this is superfluous or a matter of words only if one naively takes for granted the kind of philosophy practised in one's own circle and the importance of practising it.—Yours faithfully,

A. MACO. ARMSTRONG 12 Edward Road, Bromley, Kent