16 AUGUST 1940, Page 13

Sm,—The Dean of St. Paul's says in his article entitled

" Pacificism as Vocation " published in your issue of August 9th, " a pacificist is one who holds that it is wrong in any circumstances to fight, and conse- quently that it is his duty to dissuade others from fighting." This is not true. What may be true is that a pacificist is one who holds that it is wrong, in any circumstances, for him to fight, and consequently that it is not necessarily his duty to dissuade others from fighting.

If there be justification for so modifying the Dean's dogmatic asser- tion, surely the major part of the structure of the argument in his article collapses.—Yours, &c.,