Notes and Discussions

THE EASTER VESPERS AT ST. NICHOLAS

St. Nicholas stood old and gray in the lowering afternoon of a French Easter. The byzantine figures of its portico had weathered the storms of more than seven hundred years. Its ancient tower watched the Templars riding forth to guard the pilgrim roads to Palestine for their one chapel still stands dishonored and neglected not far away. Within,-the service had begun but there was a vacant chair near the door, one of the kind used either for sitting or kneeling. As the congregation was at prayer the overseas man slipped into the vacant place, next which knelt a woman in mourning and beside her a little boy. As the service progressed the stranger felt a childish hand pass adoringly along the Sam Browne belt, and a moment later the tiny form had found the protection of his arm.

I know not what was in the heart of the boy, who clasped with joy the new franc piece the overseas man had intended for the offering, but the heart of the man was miles away and his thoughts were of his own. The mass went on its sing-song course, but neither the flaming candles of the altar nor the voice of the priest nor the responses of the choir, could divert attention from the deeper communings of the spirit that had come to the man out of this little flash of comradeship and confidence, the confidence of a little child. It was as if this fellowship stood for all fellowship. It mingled with the thought of devoted friends and family so far away and with the consciousness of Him "for whom all the families in heaven and earth are named."

Is it not always so? Are not our moments of deepest comradeship also our moments of deepest intuition? Is it not hard to find God alone? Surely the best there is in us comes to bloom out of these human fellowships. If we are to be at home with God at the end of the trail will it not be because we have brought some other soul with us along the way of spiritual adventure. To save one's own soul and that alone must be thought well-nigh impossible for that would be to come with empty hands.

The

The service reached its climax and ceased. The people, radiant with absolution streamed forth, and with them the man. benediction which lingered in his heart was not of the black-frocked priest but of the child. The vespers had not been in vain. “A little child shall lead them."

"THOSE TERRIBLE (FREUDIAN) FEARS"

A valued subscriber writes:

"I have just read your criticism of pyschoanalysts. You have achieved a fine logical appreciation of your case against them. It is to be regretted that you do [not?] have an equally good psychologic understanding of what they are driving at. But of course those fears, those terrible fears which everywhere in the article (especially pp. 31-33) you manifest would not permit. It is inevitable that such fears should preclude a sympathetic understanding of the aims, theory or practice of psychoanalysts.

"I am sending you some reprints which cannot help you overcome your fears, but may show you something of the workings of a mind which is a little less influenced by fear than your own.

"With my subscription and greetings I send you good wishes for the new year and remain,

"Most cordially,

We differ with our genial friend in this that if we have fears we are not conscious of them. We stand on our own feet, have no obsessions save the ones natural to philosophers, eat three meals a day, and so long as we can face the world squarely, paying our debts, and doing our Christian duty by our fellows, shall continue to have no fear of man, king, potentate, ecclesiastical authority, or devil. We do aim to fear God who is the only party to whom fear is due, and this not from any dread of what He may do to us, but from a dread of sin itself and its unmanning and dwarfing results for time and eternity. We expect to keep reasonably clear of fears as long as with this program in mind we keep out of the hands of the psychoanalysts. We would be less than human if we were not beset by certain ugly temptations, entrance into which would undo us, but so long as we repel them they have no power over us. We know of no assistance to this perpetual conquest of

the lowest that can in any degree compare with prayer, not to a psychoanalyst but to God himself. We believe in making our confession where there is help and not to one as weak as ourselves who might if ill-disposed make the confession the opportunity for blackmail.

The editor of Blackwood's writes in the January number, reviewing Mordell's recent book "The Erotic Motive in Literature": "Lombroso believed that all literary men were mad; Herr Freud seems to believe them incestuous. Herr Freud does not use the same jargon as Lombroso, and his conclusion is not quite the same. But gossip, of doubtful accuracy, is the foundation of both methods, and for folly there isn't a pin to choose between them. . . . "Incest motive"! that is the pith of the whole matter. Herr Freud and his scholars are obsessed by perversity. They detect vice, unconscious if you will, in all the decent relations of life. To Mr. Mordell, for instance, Cowper's poem, "On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture," is "the best example of the Oedipus Complex to be found in English literature." Thus, to serve no decent purpose, the pupils of Herr Freud crawl like slugs, leaving a filthy trail behind them, over whatever is noble and comely in poetry and prose," and, we would add, in life also.

THE NEW PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION
OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

The first gathering of the professional philosophers in Southern California took place during the Christmas holidays at Claremont. Representatives from Pomona College, Occidental College and the University of Southern California were present. Three papers were read and discussed: "Personal and Impersonal Groups," by Professor Wieman of Occidental, Dewey's "Reconstruction in Philosophy," a review, by Professor Williams of Pomona, and "The Pseudo-science in Psycho-analysis," by Professor Flewelling of the University of Southern California.

A short business meeting served to provide a tentative organization of the Philosophical Association of Southern California. A permanent organization will be established at the next meeting, to take place in June at the University of Southern California.

Those present at this initial meeting were: Professors Ewer, Williams, Nichol and Dennison of Pomona, Wieman of Occidental, Long, Dixon, Todd and Flewelling of the University of Southern California. HENRY NELSON WIEMAN, Secretary.

Along the Bookshelf

THE ORIENT IN BIBLE TIMES, by ELIHU GRANT, Professor of Biblical Literature in Haverford College. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1920. Pp. VIII and 332.

There has long been need for an account of the general historical and political conditions in the Orient of Bible times. This need is met in a surprisingly concise and readable way by Dr. Grant. Heretofore the information has not to our knowledge been available except by the circuitous path of many references and syntheses. This setting of the matter not only collates the material giving valuable bibliographies as it goes along, but sets it out so clearly that the book will be of value to all classes of readers. We welcome the volume as putting into the hand of the average Bible student the collateral information necessary to the deeper understanding of the Bible itself. To the beginner it offers a fascinating text book on the subject, while to the scholar it provides a convenient guide and handbook. We recommend it as worthy of purchase by all Bible students. The binding, typography, and illustrations are of a very high order.

BERGSON AND PERSONAL REALISM. By RALPH TYLER FLEWELLING, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Southern California. The Abingdon Press, New York, 1920. Pp. 304.

Professor Bowne once remarked that he had often thought of writing a history of philosophy, but that if he did so his aim would be primarily critical and constructive rather than historical. He would make the systems of the past the occasion for the exposition of his own fundamental ideas. Somewhat the same purpose seems to have been in Dr. Flewelling's mind as he wrote the book above mentioned. This book is not a systematic exposition of Bergson's philosophy as a whole, but rather a critique of some of its fundamental ideas from the personalistic standpoint. The main thesis of the book is that Bergson's philosophy of change is inadequate and inconsistent, in so far as it falls short of a true personalism.

That Bergson is headed in a theistic direction is evident, but there is much of the impersonalistic that still clings both to his phraseology and his concepts. And to point this out and show how the most fruitful and original ideas in his philosophy find their logical and natural completion in personal idealism or "personal realism," as the author terms it, and in it alone, is the chief purpose of the volume.

This is a new approach to Bergson and gives to Dr. Flewelling's book a distinctive character. Other books on Bergson, such as those by Miller and by Ruhe and Paul, have dealt with his religious ideas, but none of them have discussed in the same critical and constructive way the relation of his philosophy to the personalistic type of thought. Dr. Flewelling shows that such characteristic Bergsonian concepts as "duration" and "pure memory" either imply or are practically synonymous with "personality." He also makes it clear that the "elan vital" can fulfill the function attributed to it by Bergson only as it is raised to the personal plane. The discussion of Bergson thus leads up to the exposition of "personal realism," which forms the latter part of the volume. Here the author develops the idea that the fundamental categories of thought can be understood only in the light of personal experience. It is personality that explains the categories rather than the categories that explain personality. In the last chapter an interesting distinction is made between "individualism" and "personalism." Individualism is selfish. It expresses itself in the "doctrine of Superman developed at the expense of the many and without moral regard," and so is antithetical to "personalism which contends for the inalienable cultural rights of all men."

The book is written in the lucid and chaste style characteristic of the author, and is a welcome addition alike to Bergsonian literature and to the literature of personalism. At times the criticisms passed upon Bergson seem a little severe, and the author confesses that they may appear to some as "hypercritical." One also misses to some extent those positive expressions of sympathy with the idealistic drift of Bergson's thought that might have been expected from a personalist. But this is probably due to the definite purpose which the author set himself. His task was to apply the plummet line of personal idealism to the Bergsonian philosophy, and to judge it by that standard. It is in the light of this avowed purpose that we are to understand such a judgment as that with