MODERN IDEAS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1294, 24 November 1911, Page 5

MODERN IDEAS.

fr. : EXTRACTS FROM INTERESTING ARTICLES. BALFOUR AND BERGSON. Mr. A. J. Balfour, M.P., discusses M. Bergson's book, "Creative Evolution," in the "Hibbert Journal." He says that tho most suggestive portion of Bergson's doctrine iu his theory of knowledge. "In M. Bergson's view not reason hut instinct brings us into tho closest touch, the directest relation, with what, is most real in the universe. For reason is at home, not with life and freedom, but witli matter, mechanism, and space—the waste products of flifi creative impulse. lns,tinct which finds its greatest development, among bees and nuts, though incom' parably inferior to reason in its range, is vet in touch with a higher order of birth, for it is in touch with life itself. How comes it that if instinct be Iho appropriate orgau for apprehending free reality, bees and ant.-, whoso range of freedom is small, should have so much of it r How comes it that man, tho freest animal of them all, should specially delight himself iu" tho exercise of reason, the faculty brought into existonce to deal with matter and necessity?" "In its essence M. Bergson's system, as interpreted by-Mr. Balfour, is truly religious," says the "Times." "There is at work a Power that tabes sides and has sympathies in the ever-moving drama: there is behind life an immense impulse to climb higher and higher; this primordial consciousness from which life comes is not absolutely indifferent to tho 'values' which are everything to humanity. But having advanced so far, must net the thinker go still further? Must he not fall into line with teachers of a wholly dilferent school? 'Why should lie banish teleology:-"'—tho science of tho end for which things wore created—asks Mr. Balfour.

THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. "The point ou which the public opinion of English gentlemen is stilt in the most rotter, condition is on the moral question," says the Bishop of London in tho "Hibbert Journal." "Agaiu and afrain the same feeble, untruo things are passed from lip to lip in tho oflice or the club, and th« sumo stories told in tho smoking-room. Now the least which can bo asked from English gentlemen is to verify tho statements which they make; and I am prepared (o produce tho statement of a hundred of tho leading London physicians that vice is mischievous to body as well as soul, that it is wholly unnecessary, and, instead of being helpful, is destructive to a true man's life." "THE OLD LABOURER." "Lord Morley tells us that Mr. Gladstone, enumerating clergymen who had written poetry, mentioned Frederick Faber, 'who had written at least ono good poem—"Tho Old Labourer."' " writes Mr. G. W. E. Russell in tho "Manchester Guardian." "Tho present writer hn_s some reason to believo that he, indirectly, brought; this poem under Gladstone's notice, and certainly ho has always loved it for ils melodious pathos. Faber, in his Anglican days, had lived and worked among the agricultural poor, and ho knew by observation tho hidden tragedy which so often underlies their apparently vapid lives. "Peace!" ho is dying nowj No light is ou his brow; Ho makes no sign, but without sign departs. The poor die oflen so,— - And yet they long to go, To take to God their ovcr-weighled hearts.

"Born only to endure, Tho patient, passivo poor Seem useful chiefly by their multitude; Tor they are men who keep Their lives secret and deep; Alas! the poor are seldom understood." , MAURICE MAETERLINCK "It were a salutary thing for cach oi us to ttotlc out his idpa of death in tho light of his days and tho strength of his intelligence, and to learn to stand by it," writes Maeterlinck in the "Foihiightly Review." lie would say to Death: '"Instead of the terrible prayer of tho dying, which is tho prayer of the depths, ho would say his own prayer, that of the peaks of his life, where would bo gathered,' like angels of peace, the most limpid. I.lie most pellucid thoughts of his life. Is not that the prayer of prayers? After all. what is a true and worthy prayer, if not tho most ardent and disinterested effort to reach and grasp tho unknown ?" CRITICISM AND TEE BIBLE. "Tho ono fatal thing against, which I would presume to protest; is tho vague, careless, and lazy habit of dismissing the Tliblo from your interest because you have heard, because Gashmu hath said it. that criticism has knockc-d tho bottom out of tho Biblo and left tho sides to fall in," writes Dr. Forsyth in the "Hibhert Journal." "Voir do not really know that it is so, but yo'ti havo vaguely heard it. The real students of tho Biblo do not. =prak in that way, the men you do not. hear so much about, but who really settle things. It is only the casual, the shallow, tho go-sips of that region who talk so. And to judge tho Gospel by gossin, or the Church by chit-chat, is as if you should be engrossed by tho tattle of strangers about the frail and iised body in which your mother carries still a spirit , so high and a faith so eternal." "THE 'SECRET OP INFLUENCE." The Right Hon. James Bryce, writing 011 "Tho Secret of Influenco" in "Chambers's Journal," says:— "Foroe, fervour, intensity—these are the qualities which havo given their power to great loaders in all tho movements by which the world has been swayed. Sometimes they have been present in men who left so little written memorial or whoso efforts were so foiled by adverso circumstances that we can note only the fact that they must havo been remarkable because their contemporaries admired and followed them. They possessed the secret of influence, though we cannot, tell how they manifested it. They are simoug the riddles of history." LABOUR MEMBERS. "To-day the number of men in all classes of society who never touch alcohol is enormous, and is growing," writes Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P. "One of the first to set tho example was tho Duko of Westminster. "Tho most ascotic party in the House of Commons are the Labour men. This used not to bo the caso in tho old days. To-day the Labour men can be. seen in a row at tablo with glasses of water beside them. Iveir liardie is a teetotaller: Ramsay Mac Donald, tho present Labour leader, is'a teetotaller: Thomas Burt, tho first Labour member of tho House of Comuions, and still the most universally respected, is a teetotaller; and so one might go through the list." THE MUSIC HALL. "The whole question of tho music-hall and its rapid evolution is distinctly interesting." said Madame Bernhardt in "T.P.'s Weekly." "It is interesting to note that tlie one man (Mr. Stall) who has made a great fortune and established an international reputation in tho musichall world has from the very first banned anything approaching the vulgar. In all probability tho music-hall of the future will tako the place of many theatres— everything depends upon tho iuusic-lia.ll. Very many perhups it would bo 110 exaggeration to say the majority—of those 011 tho Continent are sucu that im woman should enter them, either .as performer or audience.'"