28 JUNE 1913, Page 14

Vital Lies. By Vernon Lee. 2 vols. (John Lane. 10s.

net.) —Taking her title from a passage in The Wild Duck, where Ibsen scoffs at the misconceptions of truth which lead on the one hand to needless revelations and on the other to the use of "vital lies" or salutary illusions as a "stimulating principle" of conduct, Vernon Lee arraigns the fallacies of Pragmatism. Objecting to "practical," as opposed to scientific, tests of truth, she stands on the orthodox platform of Huxley and Clifford, and uncom- promisingly combats the tendency that has converted the one- time sceptics of religion into the sceptics of science.