[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.] S IR, May I be
permitted a few observations prompted by the Bishop of Ripon's article, " Prayer and Genius," in your issue of March 17th ? I admit that " ThingS are in the saddle and ride the world," but I wish to suggest that according to my experience the inferiority complex which this situation has given rise to is starting to give way in this country to a hope complex. This is the beginning of a feeling that there is something in life beyond practical conditions. I think this because it is my business to propound a new artistic idea which has a profound aesthetic side, and a severely practical form of expression.
I have found that practically all to whom I have talked, _ .
Whether philosopher, soldier, or working man take the keenest possible interest in the possibility of a new art form which may assist to uplift mankind. The art form to which .I am refer- ring is Colour-Music, which is based on the theory that changing colours rhythmically affect human beings emotion- ally as, changing sounds rhythmically (music) do. However, it is not my purpoie here to discuss Colour-Music, but to suggest that if Such widely different types all take the greatest possible interest in a completely new (to them) conception which appears to be capable of creating aesthetic enjoyment, that there is likely to be a soil ready for production of genius. At all events, it is .a smaller step for people from appreciation of a new artistic conception to moral genius than from a mechanistic one.
I fear that a large part of the blame for the lack of personality must be laid at the door of the Church, since her representatives have been decidedly lacking themselves in this. However, the fact that one of our leading intellectual bishops can use the term scientific in connexion with prayer fills me with hope that this line will be appreciated by the man in the street, and lead to a new type of age of faith based on a scientific conception of prayer. Then we shall have a more synthetic and therefore fuller expression of religion in an up- to-date form which will take the people with it, because it is no longer put out in a form applicable to mankind before the mechanical age.—I am, Sir, &c.,.
2 East Chapel Rt., W.11, C. B. BLACKER.
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