MAGNA CARTA OF WISDOM
Sm,—I had wished to be brief, and not unfriendly; but I am obliged to remark, what Mr. Cave might perhaps have guessed for himself, that the substitution of "domestic " for "democratic " in my letter was a misprint. The point remains that if Mr. Cave's classification of " geography, history, politics and economics " as "Democratic Knowledge " means anything, it must presumably mean that these subjects are to be used—I will not say, manipulated—to inculcate and foster sentiments in favour of the democratic type of government ; in which case the label " Democratic Knowledge " is no less tendentious than "National-Socialist Anthropology " or " Marxist Economics " or " Catholic Truth." E.g., as an historian by trade, I try to teach history, not " Democratic Knowledge." Is this unworthy or improper? If not, need the old neutral label (" Social Sciences ") be changed?
The question whether Ethics is the basis of Religion or vice versa is, as your correspondent rightly says, more fundamental. It has indeed been observed that very often those who talk of Ethics as the basis of Religion are tacitly disposed to leave the superstructure optional and to regard the basis as sufficient in itself. But, in any case, if Ethics is to be the basis of Religion, what then (apart from the ephemeral authority of the schoolmaster) is to be the basis of Ethics? Humanly speaking, ethical conduct is determined either by intellectual conviction (religion, doctrine, ideology) or by the pressure of social convention ; and one would expect an educationist, at least, to be biassed in favour of the former. I cannot follow Mr. Cave's peculiar analogy between a Creed and a Police Force: nor Can I prefer the authority of Professor Sidgwick to that of the New . Testament. For better or for worse, my generation is not interested in the cultural aberrations or the amiable credulities of its agnostic late- Victorian grandfathers. We have outgrown the tyranny of liberalism.
But in the authentic tradition of that tyranny is this itch to enforce a dogmatic basis for the teaching of " geog., hist., poles., econcs.," where it is highly undesirable, and to prohibit it for the teaching of
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