14 MAY 1948, Page 16

Stu,—I feel we all owe a debt of gratitude to

Dr. C. K. Allen for his masterly and erudite synthesis of some aspects—and those of universal interest—of resistentialism. On considering his letter I wondered whether this quotation from Rudyard Kipling might not perhaps help in elucidating, or at any rate clarifying, the problems he so ably presents: "The forward cylinder was depending on the unknown force men call the pertinacity of materials, which now and then balances that other heart- breaking power, the perversity of inanimate things." I should have wel- comed some attempt to reach a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon of the connection between the behaviour of the common garden rake when trodden on by the human foot and nasal concussion.—Yours, &c.,