intentionally, philosophical about" his investigation', but I have good grounds for believing that he admits that his theory has nothing whatever to do with what he calls "psychological space and time"; by which he means time and space as these are present to consciousness in sense-perception. I I hope erelong to procure from him a published statement on this point which will place beyond all doubt the fact that he deals always and only with our scientific concepts of the units and methods of spatio-temporal measurement, and not directly with time and space as these are immediately perceived.

This distinction can not be too strongly emphasized. For it is the true nature of space and time which constitutes, inter alia, the question at issue between realism and idealism. To assume therefore that Einstein's theory directly implies that perceived space and time, in themselves as such and as distinct from spatio-temporal units and systems—a distinction of vital importance which is however, consistently ignored—are through and through relative to finite experience or to individual knowledge, is not only totally incorrect as a matter of fact, but also prejudges, without the slightest justification, the whole ideal-realist controversy; and I have never understood why the eminent American counsel for realism have allowed their case to go by default, as they certainly seem to me to have done hitherto. Of course my impression may be a wholly mistaken one.

Scientific relativity, in other words, is concerned solely with the physical theory of the external or material universe. It has therefore no bearing on the nature of mind or knowledge or experience. Philosophic relativity, on the contrary, deals primarily with experience, and only secondarily with external Nature. If we keep this elementary truth in mind, it is easy to understand that the two subjects are poles apart; and it is extremely unfortunate, in the interests of clear thinking, that the term "Relativity" should be shared in common by both physicists and philosophers. This has resulted, so far, in endless confusion; and I should be glad to see some of the many able realists, who have done so much for American philosophy, wielding a stout cudgel in defense of their essential principles on all these points, so that we may be saved from a recrudescence of subjectivism. If they will allow me to say so, their position is much more firmly based than they seem to have realized.

Liverpool, Eng.

J. E. TURNER.

Out of Eden

"Katy-did-it", that is, she brought to our vacating minds the first sense of the summer's end. Yet there were many other signs had we been so open-visaged as to have seen them. The little river had grown lower and lower under the constant evaporation of the late summer heats. The halfsubmerged crock which held the company victuals had to be moved farther into the stream, the little cascade that united Wannellyn Brook with the

1 Nature, June 16, 1921, p. 504.

San Gabriel had become but a misty wedding veil of water, the larger trout could now be found only in the deeper rapids and more secluded pools. Hands had become calloused with protracted toil, stomachs accustomed to the ubiquitous bacon and flap-jacks. Over the mind as one lounged stretched out at length before the evening fire of logs had crept a vast content unbroken by newspapers or the exactions of letters. How simple life had become. Ninety-five per cent of the toil of modern life is caused by the frills. It is the five per cent alone that is necessary for happiness and comfort. If Adam was condemned to live by the sweat of his brow something more than providing for physical needs must have been involved, for Nature is not harsh but kind in most of her moods.

Just then a Katy-did began to chirp upon the hearth and the spell was broken. "I shall make over the gray voile" murmured lady Brown Bonnet, and we knew the end had come.

Two days later the burros were at the door, and we left behind us the lovely mountain vistas with their haze of blue. And the golden rod was the flaming sword of the angel lifted up at our departure out of Eden.

Along the Bookshelf

Is Belief in Immortality Passing

IMMORTALITY AND THE MODERN MIND, by KIRSOPP LAKE, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Harvard University, Harvard University Press, 1922. Pp. 51.

IMMORTALITY AND THEISM, by WILLIAM WALLACE FENN, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School. Pp. 41.

THE BELIEF IN GOD AND IMMORTALITY, by JAMES H. LEUBA, Professor of Psychology at Bryn Mawr College, Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago 1921. Pp. xxi-333.

The recent appearance of these books on Immortality will raise the question in many minds whether the belief in immortality is likely to survive the assaults being made upon it by the disbelieving modern psychology on the one hand, and the materialistic spiritualism on the other.

The confusion of the average mind upon the subject is set before us in the Ingersoll Lecture of Professor Lake, Immortality and the Modern Mind. He calls attention to the change which has taken place in the present age respecting physical survival. The former generation believed in actual physical survival, whereas we do not. The chief alternative which he sees is the establishment of proofs, like those sought by the society for Psychical Research in modern spiritualism, in which he confesses little confidence.

He takes his own appeal to mysticism, by which he thinks to discover such assurance as there may be for a doctrine of immortality in the im material character of personality.

Dean Fenn, in Immortality and Theism (the Ingersoll Lecture of the preceding year) rests his belief in immortality upon his belief in God.

"For me theism means belief in personality as the source and sum of all values and ideals, best apprehended by us intellectually in the form of purpose animating and unifying all reality, a purpose which finds its progressive fulfillment in the growth of moral ideals and human efforts for their realization."

"A rationally significant world requires that these human values laboriously won shall continue to exist, if not here then elsewhere, but that means immortality, for human values inhere only in human personalities. They cannot be floating, unattached, abstract existences and unless we are prepared to say that having been attained by us human beings they survive only in the personality of God which we have served thus to enrich, which would mean that human love nourishes divine selfishness, there is no other alternative than the conclusion that a rationally significant world implies the immortality of human personalities."

The feeling of the devout believer in immortality could scarcely be better expressed than in these words:

"Can man ever reach a point at which his actual self shall be perfectly coincident with his real self, at which all his possibilities shall be fully realized and he is no longer conscious of an ideal call? That seems to me quite inconceivable; for us, always, the Pilgrims' Chorus, instead of the complacent chant of the arrived; in God's purpose concerning us there is always the progressive fulfillment both in us individually and by us in the world. In other words, the religious view of life presents itself to me as the endless pursuit of an ever advancing goal, that is what God's purpose for us means, that purpose never is fulfilled, the process of self-realization is never complete when death comes, but God's purpose carries over the physical experience and man keeps on forever. Thus it is that a religiously significant world means immortality."

We wish that every minister of the gospel might read Professor Leuba's book The Belief in God and Immortality,not because we agree with his conclusions, but because he presents facts which, however disconcerting, every teacher of religion ought to face. After the allowance has been made for the form of his questionaire, the first one of which would have been offensive to ninetyfive per cent of cultured believers in immortality, the facts probably are as stated, that a great proportion of college students and educators believe neither in a personal God nor in immortality. The great reason is not far to seek.

We are at present impatient of any knowledge which does not yield itself to the material measurements of science. It is the fashion of the hour to scoff at the deeper values of life, which cannot be so measured, as unreal. We are told by the blasé that even love is naught but a chemical reaction, and we drive our heads to believe what our hearts deny, fearing that someone will accuse us of being unscientific. This is the strange and ridiculous obsession of our time, this despising of human, moral, and religious values. But Leuba actually gives us the confused notion of the average intelligentsia who know enough to be profoundly sure about a partial knowledge, but who do not think deeply enough to coordinate knowledge with life itself.

Professor Leuba's book should be calmly read and judicially received, and we deplore the bitter attacks that have been made upon him. Nevertheless we feel that the conclusions of the final section of the book are not scientifically warranted. He overestimates the effect of his book in the interests of unbelief. Christian belief in immortality has survived many attacks quite as strong as his, and the alternative he suggests is not true, that one must either accept his book or else surrender the position of the fearless inquirer and assume that of the ostrich.

His statistics regarding the future of belief in immortality would sustain his conclusion only were he to bring statistics which would show the scholarly attitude of the past to have been essentially different. Scholarship and skepticism have not just now begun to walk together. In spite of this, Christianity has ever fostered the means of higher education. She has

survived with ever growing intelligence, feeding upon her own "destruction". Why? Because she has been founded on life rather than on Theology, and in the end, the life and soul of man is greater even than his mind.

Christianity (and with this the Christian belief in immortality) must stand upon its ability to respond to the deepest human needs, not on historicity or dogmatism of any kind. The sooner institutional Christianity recognizes that fact, the sooner will it demonstrate universally its all-conquering power. It need not deny the facts which Leuba presents. It need quarrel only with conclusions which spring from his prejudices and are not necessitated by the facts invoked. The belief in immortality has survived because Christianity is not primarily a belief, but a life, a way of life to which immortality is essential. We do not believe in immortality because it is comfortable or acceptable, nor because we could not live decently without it, but because the Christian soul looks forward to a life of growing knowledge, self-realization and power. In the light of this belief, grow the virtues of patience, balance and sanity in the face of misfortune and loss. It is not a question that can be settled by science, nor by a majority vote of the 'greater' minds. Beliefs, at the best, are never final; only life is final. Even skepticism is never final, though such is its confident boast. It is characteristic of Christianity that it can receive into itself just the changes of which Professor Leuba complains and survive and prosper by the increment. This it could not do if it were not a life. The survival of change is the principal fact about life.

Our radical friends in theology, economics and politics seem constitutionally careless of spelling and proof-reading in a way that detracts from their influence. We noticed six mispelled words in one-half page of eighteen lines. This is very bad in a book that lays claim to scientific accuracy.

Synthesizing Modern Thought

THE REIGN OF RELATIVITY, by VISCOUNT HALDANE. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1921. Pp. xxiii and 480.

To the thought of the editor this is one of the most significant works in philosophy that has appeared in several years. It catches its interest and importance from its attempt to gather the standpoints and results of present day science and philosophy into a synthesis of meaning. Inasmuch as both science and philosophy, in spite of all dogmatisms to the contrary, are very much at sea such an attempt upon the part of so clear a thinker as Viscount Haldane is sure to be fruitful and valuable.

The synthesis is made about the modern theory of relativity as applicable not only to science but likewise to philosophy and depends upon a doctrine of degrees. The author distinguishes the Victorian outlook from our own by calling attention to the notion of contrast between mind and spirit, natural and supernatural, which characterized the thinking of that period with the new synthetic power put in our hands by the doctrine of relativity. Einstein has shown us that the whole system of sidereal movements is taken from a single set of coordinates but in being so taken presents a single and limited phase of the truth. As the old astronomy based upon the as