SIR,—Like other humanists, Miss Kathleen Nott is confused about absolutes
and relatives. She says, A humanist does not believe in absolute values. For him values are dis- covered in the actual experience of the human situation.' No value can be discovered in any situation unless it is seen against a back. ground to which it is related. What is that going to be ? For the Christian it is God and He is the sole absolute. The humanist who denies God has no choice but to create an absolute out of his own ego. Years ago Auguste Comte saw the difficulty and invented a Religion of Humanity. What was that but his ego inflating itself, like the frog in Aesop's fable ?
I am not accusing Miss Nott of being a solipsist, but of smuggling in Christian values without admitting their source or seeing what makes them valuable. Men frequently fail to behave as brothers towards other men; that is as far as observed facts go. Why should they or how could they so behave unless God were their father ?—Yours faithfully, University of Edinburgh
A. D. RITCHIE
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