Principia Politica. By Leonard Woolf. (Hogarth Press. 25s.) Principia Politica
is described as a continua- tion of the first two volumes of After the Deluge, which have been re-issued, at 21s. and 15s . respectively, in a format uniform with the present book. Mr. Woolf says Maynard Keynes urged him to call his first book Principia Politica, and adds "I have followed his advice posthumously"; which is rather like saying Maynard Keynes had urged him to back the favourite in the 1.30, so he has "followed his advice" and backed the favourite in the 2.15. It is inconceivable that Maynard Keynes would have recom- mended so austere and academic a title for Mr. Woolf's new book, in which platitudes and whimsy are juxtaposed to produce a curious alternation of fatigue and bharm, but from which very little instruction can be gleaned. With its echoes of Principia Ethica and Principia Mathematica, the title will first attract the readers whom the contents will most repel, and deter those readers who might perhaps find the book a nice woolly companion for a winter evening. Mr. Woolf begins with a refreshing memoir of life in Kensington's more splendid days, proceeds to some general reflections on liberty and authority, and having both implied and denied that bed-wetting can be cured by smacking, he makes the astonishing assertion that the problems of domestica- ting animals is the same as that of civilising human beings." Dogs, this prompts him to allege, have a sense of guilt which cats have not, but the reader is left to work out the relevance of this distinction unaided. In the later pages of the book .Mr. Woolf engages in a spirited but ill-directed attack on Xerxes, Stalin, Hitler and other tyrants, and he proclaims himself very ardently on the side of Pericles and freedom. But then, in the words of a famous play, aren't we all? M. C.
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