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KNUT HAMSUN, any novels. Box 619.

ADAM FOX, "Meet the Greek Testament,S.C.M. Box 620.

A GOOD UNIFORM by Joan Clifford Hale, 1967. A SONG' OF EIREANN by R. Harbenson, Faber 1960. Box 618. "TWINS AT CASTLE CHARMING" by E. J. Oxenham. Other early titles, first editions same author. Box 617.

CHRISTINE FORSYTH OF FINGOLAND by W. P. Living. stone. R. McMillan, Hermitage, Newbury, Berks. GHOSTS OF GREENLAND by Francis Berry. J. N. Kaler, 1 Tyrone Drive, Rochdale, Lancs.

ALMANAC OE GOTHA (late 19th or early 20th century), A. Kenny, 32 Castle Street, Wicklow, Eire. STUDENTS AND WORKERS by John Gretton. Macdonald,' and other books on the French Revolution (1968) -? R. B. CUNNINGHAME-GRAHAM. any of his works on Latin American subjects. Box 615. NOTES ON THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS. SEVENOAKS, by John Rooker (Salmon 1910) and others on Sevenoaks and area (not Dunlop). Mrs. S. Stagg, Librarian, Sevenoaks School, Sevenoaks, Kent. Tel. Sevenoaks 55133.

ANY -BOOKS by H. C. Bosman, Stuart Cloete, Alan Paton', Lawrence Green, Laurens Van Der Post, Peter

Abrahams, Daphne Rooke, Nadine Gardiner, Dan Jacob son, Francis Carey Slater, Roy Campbell, Uys Krige, Anthony Delins, Frank Brownlee, Guy Butler, Lady Anne Barnard, Thomas Pringle, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, Kingsley Fairbridge, Pauline Smith, Sarah Gertrude Millin and Elizabeth Webster. Box 611.

CORK, History and Architectural Journals, bound or unbound, long or short runs. Box 610. GALSWORTHY'S "SWANSONG." Box 609.

GIBBON: DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Methuen 1909-14) edited by J. B. Bury, demi-octavo edition, illustrated. Mrs. Stagg, Methuen, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4. Tel. 01-583 9855.

BALLAD COUNTRY by Madge Elder and ROMAN WALL by Bryher. Davis, 34 Parliament Hill, London, NW3. THE ANNOTATED INDEX TO THE 'CANTOS OF EZRA POUND John Hamilton Edwards and William V. Vasse. University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles) 1957. Box 593. SOULS FOR AUCTION (author?) an account of the Turkish Armenian massacres, Box 594.

ESCAPE TO FREEDOM by T. C. F. Prittie, EXPERIENCES OF A PRESENT-DAY EXORCIST by Canon Omand. Peter Jackson, 61 Spring Park Road,/ Shirley, Croydon, Surrey CRO. 5EL.

NUMBERS AND SUCH by A. N. Feldjamen (Prentice. Hall 1968). C. D. Lester, 913 Ridean Road, Calgary, Canada.

R. L. STEVENSON a biographical, etc., library and works (not 'Swanston'): small Dutch library ,too. McCulloch, 2 Trinity Grove, Edinburgh 5.

THE RADAR MAN by John Rowland (Lutterworth Press 1963). R. S. L. Scott, 25 Penbanc, Fishguard, Pembs., Dyfed.

-I, SAID THE SPARROW," by Paul West. Box 595. L'INTRODUCTION DU MACHINISME DANS L'INDUSTRIE

FRANCAISE by G. Ballot (1923). L'INDUSTRIALISATION DE LA SIDERURGIE FRANCAISE, 1814-1964, by Jean Vial (1967): COAL AND STEEL IN WESTERN EUROPE (Pounds & Parker 1957). K. Dobson Priors, Jackass Lane, Keaton BR2 6AN.

PELMAN FRENCH CORRESPONDENCE COURSE. Vol. tura Press, Peterhead, Scotland.

A CHILD OF OUR TIME by OdOn Hovath (Methuen 1938). Phillips, West Winds, Stonesfield, Oxon, LABOUR, CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL PARTIES ANNUAL CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS (1948 to present) Box 591 (See also Classified pages under 'Publications') WHAT TO LISTIN FOR IN MUSIC by Aaron Copland. N. H. Gale, 12 North Hinksey Village, Oxford 0X2 ONA. TALMUDIC MISCELLANY by P. I. Hershon (Trnoner 1880). Box LANDSCAPE DRAWING by G. E. Hutchings (Methuen 1960). David, Geography Department, St. David's College, Llandudno, Gwynedd, Wales. VALIANT CRUSADE (History of the RSPCA) by A. W. Moss (Cassel 1961). Kay, Coley Park Pool, W. Yorks, LS21 1EE.

LIFE OF JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN by J. L. Garvin, Vol 4 (MacMillan). L. Thomas, 30 Farleigh Road, Warlingham, Surrey.

CARICATURES OF TIEPOLO: Introduced by Osbert Lan. caster 1948. Box 602.

NOTES ON THE PARISH CHURCH of ,St. Nicholas, Sevenoaks by John Rooker (Salmon 1910), and others on Sevenoaks and area (not Dunlop). Librarian, Seven. oaks, Sevenoaks, Kent.

THE NATZWEILER TRIAL by A. M. Webb. MADELEINE by Jean Overton Fuller. NOAH'S ARK by Merle Madeline Fourcade. Box 596.

ORIGEN OPERA OMNIA ed. De la Rue Paris 1733-59, Vol II and IV, any condition. M. Parmentier, 2 Os. borne Close. Oxford OX2 88Q.

REFLECTIONS ON HISTORY by Jacob Burchhardt, trans. Hollinger. Thompson, 2 Jervis Crescent, Streetly. Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.

A FAMILY HISTORY, 1410-1688. THE WYNDHAMS OF NORFOLK AND SOMERSET by the Hon H. A. Wyndham (OUP? 1939): EARLY LIFE AND DIARIES OF WILLIAM WINDHAM by R. W. Ketton-Cremer (Ruper Hart-Davis 1930). Box 601.

CONVERSATIONAL GERMAN by J. Harvard. Beginner's Do. Chipper, 15 Lindens, Peterborough, .PE1 2514. TALMUDIC MISCELLANY by P. I. Hershon (Tmoner 1880) L. Lautenberg, 50 Widnes Road, Widnes, Cheshire, WAS 6AP.

personal conceptions of 'God' are "based upon. our early childhood-parent relationships." Again: men's need for a parent-figure God is an inheritance from the origins of man as a hunter in a pack it is transferred loyalty, once going to the pack-leader, best described in a comparison of the relationships between a dog and its owner. "You have only to look into the eyes of a dog to see this," he says, "Are they not like the eyes of the devout kneeling at the altar rail?" As it happens, they are not. But with a remorseless urge to fit everything into his thesis, Sir Alister is not arrested by the possible harm this sort of reflection does to the inherent spiritual sense it is his declared purpose to uphold. And why need to be? He has himself beckoned forth the witnesses.1-Ils biological 'God', he truly says, "is surely a less shocking notion than the ideas suggested by the titles of such books as Radical Theology and the Death of God and The Gospel of Christian Atheism, which have recently been much to the fore in some theological circles." But lest the reader assume some critical note in Sir Alister at this point, let him read on: "my book is intended more in the spirit of John Robinson's Exploration into God; it could in fact be described as the quest of a naturalist in the same direction." After which admission there is very little need for the spiritually sensitive to read further.

The reward for endurance, in fact, is another bludgeoning. Sir Alister's diagnosis of the modern spiritual malaise may be quite right; but his remedies are atrocious. He means so well; he is so careful to write of religious faith with respect. But not since Charles Raven has anyone done up the commonplaces of the science-and-religion banger to look so much like a real blow-out. What he actually understands by 'God' is a provisionally contrived paper Leviathan dependent upon the latest discoveries in science and the newest fashions in theology. It would be tempting to say that he displays all the reverence for the humanities which men of science who swot up what used to be called "the two cultures" always have. But the truth is that the same sort of reverence for indifferent intellectual constructiont; is not the exclusive preserve of literate scientists they are only too typical of luminaries of the humanities themselves.

Sir Alister's ideas are certain to attract a good deal of approval; for they are the sort which win acclaim in all those glossy television series on History and Life and Culture, and all that sort of thing -the programmes in which everything illustrates a lucid and fashionable theme. Expert opinion in each of the actual episodes used to illustrate the 'truth' of such surveys always knows how absurdly wrong they are. But expert opinion generally lacks the comprehensive 'vision' needed to project a counterexplanation in the same sort of genre. Sir Alister, indeed, uses evidence from Lord Clark's "brilliant television programmes on Civilisation", and he cites the synthesising ideas of Bronowski. But of Teilhard de Chardin he is critical: his work, says Sir Alister, is not scientific despite its claims science is not a field in which Teilhard had expert opinion. And so it is with Sir Alister's own views on religion. Were it not that the present generation of theologians appear to be as bad at their trade as he is at it, this would be more easily evident to the most uninitiated reader. As it is, Sir Alister can find his neo-Deism echoed in the 'Process Theology' of Whitehead, and in the speculations of the late Paul Tillich and the late Ian Ramsey. Sir Alister actually misses an opportunity here to test his ideas (particularly in view of his openess, revealed in chapter seven, to physical phenomena). For several years ago Bishop Pike, who was consulting an American medium about his dead son, actually got through to Paul Tillich; and from beyond the grave Tillich was still apparently giving off all the vacuous stuff about the need to discover "true humanity" which earned him the admiration of radical thinkers and their hangers-on in his lifetime. Sir Alister is concerned with 'the records of man's experience'. Authentic religion, for him, is based upon actual experiences which people have the sort which his research unit at Oxford is collecting. Some of these are printed in this book: people walking along a street are suddenly struck with a great sense of "joy", or "peace", or "oneness". Sir Alister often refers to , qualities which he personally finds indicative of "Divinity": they are "the emotions evoked by great music or masterpieces of art", the love of nature, "the glories of a sunset". Such things, he imagines, are clearly of value to everyone; whereas spiritual experiences in the more orthodox sense are only real to those who feel them. This is not a line of thought likely to appeal to those who suppose the emotions set off by art, culture, sunsets, etc are just stylised responses to cultural conditioning. Basing religious truth upon immediate personal experience is A very dodgy thing to do. Yet it is familiar enough. It is a sort of secularised version of the old Evangelical conversion experience. Who once was convinced of 1is sin in a momentary realisation of his inherent wretchedness is, in the new Deism, now at one with 'God' through a great human experience, or a quick squint into the setting sun.

Christianity, of course, is not established upon such relative or individualistic responses to emotional contrivance. It is not dependent for its truth or its transmission upon immediate experience although for those who have learned how to recognise the materials of faith some experiences are known as authentic intimations ofthe Divine. Christianity is learned: it is an infolding spiritual tradition, handing down the knowledge of God to each generation of those in whom Christ is present. It is a spiritual body, to which men are initiated. They are then at one with a wider company than their own contemporaries, and they are independent of the sensations of each passing moment of culture when it comes to establishing the title-deeds of their habitation. Jesus and his first followers did not hang about at the lakeside observing the sunset; they were among the poor suffering people of the world teaching the knowledge of God and initiating men into the realities of the unseen Kingdom.

Christians have always known what Sir Alister is at such pains to establish that the Creation is real, that matter is real; that metaphysical truths are known through empiricism; that knowledge of the mechanics of human life discloses the means by which the spiritual realities are conducted. But Christianity is explicit and exact about what actually is conducted. Sir Alister is an enemy of dogma. His is an eclectic religion, the gatherings from the floor of the intellectual abattoir, all minced up to constitute an enormous meal. His new 'theology' will "recognise that the expressions of religion are likely to be as various as the ways in which members of the same people may experience what they call God or the sense of transcendence." And Christianity will have to be re-moulded, too, in "an admirable step forwards towards a progressive theology which, like science, is prepared to change its theories as new facts are revealed by scholarship." But, as Sir Alister notes, "the older, more orthodox members of the Church will no doubt resist the change." So, no doubt, will the younger ones. The most extraordinary thing about all this is how very old-fashioned it seems. Apart from the top-dressing'about DNA, and all that, Sir Alister's book could have been written in the 'twenties. Perhaps it actually was.

Edward Norman is the Dean of Peterho use The full index to issues of The Spectator from July to December, 1974, is now available, price £3.00 post free, from: The Sales Manager, 99 Gower Street, London WC IE 6AE