POLITICS AND IMMORTALITY
The Beinved.Consmunity, - By-Reger'Lloyzit: -(Nisbet. 7s. 6c1.) ANYONE who believed that human history is a drama staged by. a celestial ironist would not -lack evidence for his' creed today. The reversal of men's hopes and predictions and the falsification of their unquestioned axiomshas been so complete in our own' time that it might well seem to 'the onlooker to be specially designed in order to " lam " us. In particular it is being made clear that civilisation without Christianity is too illiberal to be called civilised. After half a century of enlightenment, during which the mind of the West-has sought-freedom by repudiating religious " superstitions," ChristianitY now stands almost alone as the guardian of intellectual liberty. In politics, too, we are met by the same paradox ; the most completely fay and secular States are those in which freedom has been not merely lost but passionately disowned as an ideal. It is now becoming fashionable to assume (as Canon Lloyd remarks in his opening sentence) " that although Man may have been born free it is, better for himself, as well as for others, that he should be every7 where in chains." And every day makes it more certain that only upon a Christian foundation can a vital belief in freedom
be sustained. . _ '•
But what can be meant by freedom in the coming age ?. For it certainly looki. as though economic :pressure will drive the whole world further towards collectivism ; and in face of these mighty collectivist forces the pre-War liberal individualism must seem both sentimental and futile. The real choice, as Christopher Dawson says, " is not between an individualistic humanism and some form of collectivism, but- between a collectivism that is purely mechanistic and one that is spiritual." This able and thoughtful book by Canon Lloyd is really a commentary on this theme. The standing problem of history and politics is, he says, the adjustment of the tension between the community and the individual. It cannot be resolved by short cuts ; either by anarchic individualism or by. the methods of the Power States which emerge from the conflict- " with the lady inside " and personal rights utterly annihilated. The tension is both inevitable and necessary, and both its constituent elements must be safeguarded. But it can be made fruitful and creative instead of sterile and destructive only if it is kept on a level which transcends the mere flux of history.
If Man is a product of merely natural processes, whether biological or economic,, he' can have no vilue in his own right,. and no claim against the overriding community. If Man is. confined within the stream of space-time, then the whole must be more important than its parts. But if he is a spiritual per- - sonality—in religious language, a child of God—then he is an" end in himself, and every community exists to serve him. It will be found impossible in the long run to defend the" human " claims and rights of persons except by the Christian faith in God and Man. But, on the other hand, says the author, a corn- munity which is thus composed of persons must itself—to , some uridefmeci extentl---partake in a life which is super temporal. Community, too, is a " spiritual " fact.. Only when both these factors are recognised can ive hope to, construct a common life which is both an organic community and the home- of personal life and freedom. The Christian Church is the one true community : in principle, and already in part in fact, it is pointing the world towards the true solution. The Christian interpretation of personality provides, in feet, the only live , alternative to individualism on the one side and to Communism and Fascism on the other.
Indeed the whole Christian philosophy=conceived in personal terms through and through—may be held to offer the one effective synthesis between these two seeming contradic- tories. It supplies a justification for community as the fellow- , ship of spiritual persons ; and a justification for freedom because it is persons who are to b!.. reconciled, through the act of. a " personal " God in Christ Jesus. Communism can really show no cause why community should exist at all, save as a bond of economic_inteiest. The various forinsof Fascist philosophy which conceive God, in pantheistic fashion, as immanent in a Folk or a State and through them incarnate in its leader, can never find any real room for persons.
In a short notice I can only indicate the main trend of Canon .LIcoyd's argument. He has once more given us a good book, which marks a further stage- in his thinking. He always writes well, and about real questions. I hope, there is still inch more to come. - - F.R. BmutY.
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