Interesting and Constructive

The lecture was, and needed to be general to interest students with little philosophy. Three topics were clearly stated and the matter interesting and well supported, even though many tremendous assumptions were necessary.

The propositions that civilisation's decline was due to University philosophy and that Scholasticism and Commonsense were part and parcel were not denied or queried. Critics and questioners showed little sign of constructive philosophical thinking.

Dr. Duggan submitted his theses to public disputation, a rare event at Victoria and received little encouragement from the Staff most of whom were not present.

His clearest exposition was the tracing of the "nonsense" of Idealism from Descartes onwards and downwards to Bertrand Russell. On this "nonsense" Mr. Lee partially agreed with him, but Dr. Duggan did fail to answer the Idealists of the philosophy-stifling syntactical school on their own ground once he had been lured there.

M. F. McIntyre.