page 22

Correspondence

Will you allow an old student the hospitality of your columns for a few remarks in relation to Mr. de la Mare's article "A Judgment of Solomon"? I am a student of so long ago as 1902, and you will find my name in this issue together with Mr. de la Mare, as one of the originators of the Inter-University College Tournament.

The crux of Mr. de la Mare's position appears in the sentence "These arguments seemed to carry weight until the demands of abstract truth were placed in juxtaposition to Anglican theology" and again in his concluding sentences when he speaks of "the ancient faith of Universities, the faith in freedom, the faith in honest doubt, the faith in truth for its own sake" and he concludes—"Let our shrine be not a Church, but a University."

In this argument there seems to be a clash of two notions regarding truth; one that it is in part attainable and the other that it is unattainable and ever to be sought.

The position of the Church is that certain items of truth have been definitely ascertained. These items are put together and called creeds. It is foolish therefore to pour scorn on creeds, as such, though individuals may differ as to what creeds they can assent to. Mr. de la Mare deprecates creeds, but curiously enough we find him advocating one of his own in connection with the University. "Is it not our profession that the University is the one institution of man dedicated solely to the cause of abstract truth," he asks, and what is a profession, but a creed? That is by the way however. The point is that creeds are mere statements of items of truth held to have been in some way or other ascertained. It is nothing to the point to ask how the items were ascertained; whether by revelation, acceptance, intuition, experience, etc., or a combination of any of these. I am dealing with the fact alone that creeds are ascertained items of truth.

Science has its "creeds" in "assured results," Science is ever investigating, it is true, and ever correcting its assured results. Yet there is a residuum of truth left after such corrections. To take a simple example. Science discovered that the world was round, not flat. Later science discovered that it was not entirely round; it was flattened at the poles. But this does not vitiate the original discovery of roundness as against flatness in the whole body. That is an assured result—part of the creed of science. This then is one aspect of the quest for truth. It asserts, that in that quest certain items can be definitely discovered or attained to and held as permanent facts in existence.

The other aspect is that so strenuously and sincerely urged by Mr. de la Mare, the relent-less search. The University, as the Teachers' Association says, should be the "home of relent-less questioning." It should be "dedicated to abstract truth" and have "faith in honest doubt," and "faith in truth for its own sake." Quite so. But can it be seriously argued that honest doubts can never be resolved? Must relentless questions never have an answer? While holding as firmly as anyone else that honest doubts and relentless questions are to be both respected and encouraged, I submit that both are worthless unless they look for resolvings and answers. And it is unreasonable to worship them in themselves. Relentless questioning, though useful for the elucidation of truth, should not be regarded as an end in itself; neither should it exalt itself above the truth it elucidates.

Are not these two aspects of truth, the search and the acquisition, necessarily complementary? Why should the one endeavour to despise the other or show a kind of hostile attitude to it? Are not both aspects worthy of the best consideration of students?