The Dominion. MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1911. THE LOGICIAN IN BABEL.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1266, 23 October 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1911. THE LOGICIAN IN BABEL.

<■ In the course of his Charge to \ the Auckland Diocesan Synod last }' week Bishop Ckossley discussed two ' extremely thorny questions of the ' day in a fashion that will surely re- c ccive the long and careful considera- n tion of all thoughtful persons. AV'o '. are not going to discuss the questions concemed—the li(|uor question, and the question of religious teaching in schools—but only the extremely, and unfortunately, rare point of view from which the Bishop approaches them. On the liquor question he said, "I am sensitive on the subject of liberty." The dangers t of' Prohibition to "national char- i acter," he proceeded. " are subtle, .« and I think are real. I am not do- I terred from this, my personal state t of mind, by the cheap retort that the | dangers of drunkenness arc still more s real. I am deeply sensible of those f: dangers and quite ready to make c even a big experiment to avert them. ] . . . At the same time I will not f be precipitated into a line of action, c the ultimate wisdom of which I am as i yet unconvinced of. . . . Have i we really exhausted our remedies ,1 yet?" As to religious leaching in c, schools, he said lliat "Hie curse of i colonial life," as he had observed it, r was "suspicion." He naturally has c not any doubt that Biblo-toadurut in | schools will bo aa excellent thing for J c

JAMES DYKES, Secretary. the children and for the nation, but, ho is the reverse of dogmatic on the difficult practical points: "I confess that I still need a little conviction to satisfy me that it is right or wise to impose upon a headmaster, who may be a conscientious unbeliever, the duty of teaching the Bible even as a literary handbook." What Bishop Okossley is here advancing is a point of. view that we cannot feel optimistic enough to think will ever for any long period become the dominant point of view in the settlement of the problems of society. In one sense his attitude is the attitude of an agnostic; one can also find means of calling ids views latituclinarian; yet it is neither agnosticism (in the political sense, we need hardly say) nor latitudinarianism that informs the opinions we have quoted from his Charge. He knows well enough just where he stands on both questions, so far as every fundamental is concerned; he halts only when he comes to a point upon which there is just room enough for argument to make a dogmatic attitude improper, and hostile to the interests of truth. "Room for argument" on any question means, to sincere and ' intelligent people, merely the absence of 'conclusive evidence. Unfortunately the decisive factor in the problems discussed by the Bishop is the inclination of the ordinary man to become dogmatic .just when he should cease to make affirmations. On the liquor question, for example, they are really very few who have not made up their minds very firmly. There are those _ who believe that the use of alcoholic liquor is productive of such ■ great evils that the abolition of the liquor traffic is more important even than the saving of souls, the spreading of Christian doctrines, the abolition of political corruption or the provision of a sound national estate for posterity. There are others who hold that the abolition of licenses to ', sell liquor in retail will lead to in- i credibly gross evils of other kinds. They arc very few who strive pain- < \ fully to reach the pure truth of the ; J .whole matter. Uishop Crossley is ; one of those. And it is in the very nature of democracy that they will always be few. The ordinary honest : man in a democracy, when he meets what he recognises as an intellectual ! difficulty in his thought upon any political or social problem, almost i always leaps over the obstacle on tho ] vaulting pole pof prejudice. But \ usually the average man in a domoc- ' racy refuses to admit the existence j of intellectual difficulties. He shuts i his eyes, grows dogmatic, and votes ' with energy and gusto. ; To a political society mainly com- \ posed of such minds the voice of logic \ calls in vain. Bishop Crossley will ■. not lead a single convinced Prohi- 1 hitionist to reconsider his position; ' nor will he cause a single ardent J member of the opposite party to j think the question over again in a ( perfectly open and sincere fashion. 1 He will satisfy nobody. That is the ' fate of the honest logician in all ages J and all countries, and it will be his j fate so long as men are governed less j by their intellect than by their feel- 1 ings. That man is very hard to find ; who prefers, and who is also able, to < let his head and his love of truth j order out of court his feelings, the j vestiges of the primal man in him, j and the events of his individual life, ( when he begins to consider any great < social or political question. That J is why tho party system cannot be ( eradicated from constitutional poli- j tics. When the bulk of mankind has 1 learned to desire truth and has be- j come able to seek it and recognise it —when every man asks, in Bishop Crossley's words, "Have we really exhausted our remedies yet?"—then the party system will go. But we are afraid that that day w 7 ill never come in this world. In tho meantime, the o logician need not despair in the face j of a society hot with rival dogma- '\ tisms. He may convert few men to I his views, but he can pour forth a c stream of truths which, however eo- a cicty may mangle or misuse them, a must make in the end for good re- a suits, for better results than if he had not spoken. He can open up avenues of thought which few, may c pursue to the end and arrive at j, truth, but which multitudes will look 'j into and follow some little way. So, i although Bishop Ckossley's state- l> ments upon the two questions alluded to may seem for the time to have > no effect, it may happen that they a will have had effect in the settle- :' ment. It is idle, in the most rigid '; sense of; the word, to deplore the un- 'j willingness of men in the mass to be s wholly guided by their heads. Per- '■ haps, too, it is in tho end as well *■ that society should struggle along, I erring and recovering from error, and fulfilling its destiny out of tho j mingled nobility and baseness, s; frailty and strength, of man. o