Sin,—" Who am I that I should pretend to comprehend
the Inscrutable? said Dean Swift. A finite mind can never grasp that which is Julian In esoteric matters the human intellect can pursue a line of enquiry u to a point at which it must stop. It is thereafter a question of Bch or Disbelief. It cannot (I submit) explain the ultimate purpose of Lif or of Creation. A Belief, therefore, founded on logical grounds. demanded by the questing thinker. The old Faith, based upon su grounds, is one in which, after much study and research into the his of Comparative Religion, I find Truth, Happiness, Beauty, and, above Humility.
To those who think they can find Truth in a test-tube, Happiness a hedonistic heterodoxy, Humility in a huddle of dialectical Dons,
Beauty in a " Brains-Trust," I would say that their credulity is greater ban mine.
To Cecil G. Brown I would suggest that the wealth of culture so well lisplayed in the work of Professor Gilbert Murray, of which I am not tntirely ignorant, would be the more exquisite if it were infused with a tincture of Christianity. The same observation applies to the learning A Sir James Frazer. But if what one might call the "argumenzum ad haminem " applies, I am content to share the beliefs of such men as Leonardo da Vinci, St. Thomas Aquinas (whose arguments against the Mstence of God far transcend those of the Nationalist Press!), Mendel, Pasteur or Marconi. And indeed if pure mathematics is a good test )1 Reason, who is more illustrious in that field today than Professor Whitehead, F.R.S.—another " irrational " convert to that Church whose Klherents so far outnumber those of all the non-Catholic sects in ;:hristendom.
But, Sir, the consideration of great names is unprofitable as is the 'undamentalism referred to by Mr. Brown which, as I understand it, was it no time a dogma of the Catholic Church.
The outstanding evil (though unintentional) of pagan materialism is he concentration on matter rather than spirit, and warlike Prussia is an trample of its results. For these reasons I believe the B.B.C. to be right m moral grounds.
However, Sir, I am taught, and believe, that he who lives and acts iccording to the dictates of his own conscience is a spiritual member i God's Church on earth. Between honest pagans and honest believers herefore—"Palmam qui meruit ferat." And this "intolerant dogmatism " rill not, I hope, upset Mr. Percy Pigott.
I shall continue, of course, to take my Spectator.—Yours faithfully,
HERBERT MALONE.
Burford House, Derby Road, Caversham, Berks.
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