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DR. EDITH SUMMERSKILL is reported to have told an audience in the capital of the Holy Land that if she could have a family in the next world she 'would bring all the children up as Confucians,' so deep had been the impression made on her by Chinese philosophy during her three-week sojourn among its adherents. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food during some pretty lean years Dr. Summerskill showed a marked ability for making up her mind at short notice about the merits of unfamiliar commodities like snoek; and this talent has clearly proved its value on her excursion into com- parative philosophy. Nevertheless, the more I ponder her pronouncement the harder I find it to pick up my metaphysical bearings. Which next world does she intend to patronise? If she is speaking as a Buddhist it is fair enough to expect reincarnation, with in any luck in human form; but she won't, strictly speaking, be in the next world, but back in this one. On this basis her project for the religious education of her putative offspring would seem to stand a sporting chance of being im- plemented; but if she was speaking as a Christian she was surely talking, not to put too fine a point upon it, through her hats. • • •
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