THE SOUL'S PROGRESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 496, 24 December 1948, Page 12

THE SOUL'S PROGRESS

SEEK PARADISE, by Constance Sitwell. Jonathon Cape, London. (CONSTANCE SITWELL has collected from many different ‘sources the opinions about a future life uttered by

wise men of different ages and races, She believes that the thought of personal immortality should be more influential than it seems to be in the lives of ordinary people. "Surely," she writes in her foreword, " ... this is the master. key to happiness. It transforms life, gives it an aim, a meaning, and a most inspiring outlook. It did not. surprise me that men didn’t believe in it: it did surprise "me that they wefe not interested." There are, of coufse, many people who, while willing to announce their belief in another world, to which they will presently be . summoned, behave as if they will live here forever; and there ate other people, avowed agnostics, who behave as if the thought of immortality were constantly with them, These are mysteries of behaviour which cannot be solved easily, though it may be fait to suggest that the business of the world requifes a continuing attention which makes it harder to acquire contemplative habits, and that the mystic who returns from his visions with renewed vigour and wisdom for daily tasks is as rare as other forms of human greatness. It is doubtful, however, if this anthology will* bring about any widespread change of heart. Some of the

quotations are impressive; but others are mere assertions which, cut off from the argument which precedes them, can have little effect on the unbeliever. It does not help, for instance, to read the words of Socrates: "Beyond question the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world." St. Paul seems to be stating the obvious when, in a passage separated from its context, he is made to inform us: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." And we wonder only at the logic of Emerson when he declares: "Our dissatisfaction with any other solution is the blazing evidence of immortality." There are passages in this book which ate long enough and rich enough to be satisfying in their wisdom-if "wisdom" is the word which should be used to describe deep intuitions. But for the most part they are separated too violently from arguments which give them their persuasive quality. The mystic or the poet convinces us by ‘writing which reachés its effect through a crescendo of religious feeling or philosophical argument. There may be grandeur at the summit; but only the man who has followed his guide throughout the climb will feel it break around him like a panorama in moonlight.

M. H.

Holcroft