THE ALTERNATIVES BEFORE SOCIETY
SIR,—Reviewing Mr. T. S. Eliot's latest book in your columns, Mr. Charles Smyth says that " there are only two alternatives before our society—it must become either Pagan or Christian."
This is apparently a somewhat sweeping and unimaginative statement. Is it not possible that there may be some spiritual way of life which is neither Pagan nor Christian? All eternity being before us, there is a sense in which the world is young. Who can affirm that no new faith, to which Western society at least can subscribe, will emerge in the near or remote future?
Mr. Smyth goes on to quote Mr. Eliot as saying that " we must treat Christianity with a great deal more intellectual respect than is our wont ; we must treat it as being for the individual a matter primarily of thought and not of feeling."
Is it not because Christianity has received so much intel- lectual respect in the past that it is now regarded by many as being fundamentally unsound? Can anything more unneces- sary be imagined than that God should give a Son to save the world? A limited, anthropomorphic deity, surely! Why create a world which needs saving?
Christ's impressive sayings must, of course, continue to be treated with intellectual respect. But would not an exact valuation of them be sooner established if they came to be more generally recognised as those of a man of genius with a man's limitations?
Life is apparently inexplicable—and for the best of reasons, perhaps—but it does not follow that our situation is neces- sarily desperate. Individuals may fail of fulfilment, but there is that in the spirit of mankind which goes on seeking truth in the hope of finding it, and carries on in the meantime as
best it can.—Yours sincerely, HENRY SAVAGE. Winchelsea.
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