Apart from size, tortoises all look very much the same; mostly shell, and an unvarying, somewhat expressionless countenance — when it emerges. However, a recent correspondence in The Times has drawn attention to the range of individuality possessed by these creatures. Mr. and Mrs. Shelley are now famous characters, and the tortoise who nibbles the tennis shoes of visitors; then there is one who thrives on a diet of ground bones, another who has his shell brightened with furniture polish. Some are surly, but many recognize with pleasure their masters and mistresses. Once you know them, almost all betray different characteristics. Antony and Cleopatra in the garden at Blackfriars have quite distinct ways of their own, but watching them this morning it struck me that they have very much in common, after all; that were they just entirely different substances we should never distinguish them from the pansies they have savaged; that, in short, the idea of a tortoise covers them almost as completely as their shell does.

Unconsciously and lazily, I was thinking my way across the ground of the disputes on the nature of universals which occupied the early middle ages; but I was led to reflect that the problem is still very much to the point. If Gerbert and Roscelin thought of it in terms of logical forms, and I was considering it in regard to the realness of tortoiseness, a present and urgent interest applies to the matter of human conduct.

The film industry to-day is a huge commercial organization involving something like £500,000,000 of capital, of which about four-fifths is invested in the United States, and this industry stretches itr great bulk into every corner of the globe. It caters for all classes of people; it provides comfort, cheapness and continuity of performance, as well as recreation, distraction and relaxation after the daily monotony of business and working hours. It transplants the visitors into a new world of surroundings (very often, however, to the detriment of home life), and exerts an influence far beyond the auditorium. It saves time and money in buying and reading books, and, in some cases, supplies the mind with an increase of knowledge of other nation', races, countries, their customs and manners, and this without appealing to any intellectual exertion on the part of the visitor.

If we pause for a moment to consider the work conditions in Hollywood, the most important hive of the industry. we gather from press reports and other eve-witness accounts that the atmosphere brought about by scandal and divorce is not at all conducive to persons fit for theresponsihilitv of producing world entertainment. Such an attitude towards life is bound to show itself in the work. The standards of morality, whether of the performers, producer, director or scenarist, express themselves most clearly in the films they make. If these people disregard the real issue between self-control and immoral self-gratification it seems to follow that they view life in one aspect only, and therefore are incapable of giving the world true art through this powerful medium.

Herman Bahr's death in Munich on the 14th of January awakened many literary memories. A patriarch in the world of letters, Bahr's name had been identified with many of the thought-phases that had passed over Europe in the last fifty years. Though an unbeliever for the greater part of his life, Herman Bahr astonished his friends and associates by returning in later life to the faith of his lathers, as he had astonished them by accepting wholeheartedly the old Austrian regime after being a political innovator, even a socialist. His mind was a prism which had reflected the colours of many men's minds, a sort of kaleidoscope which recorded the passing pictures of his time, but with a certain and very marked stamp of his own. This is his special claim to interest.

Full of sympathy with the world in which he lived, a sympathy which never left him—for he remained a young writer in spite of his years—Bahr was always the man with his finger on the pulse of the times, who felt instinctively every change before it had declared itself; he was the literary barometer foretelling every variation in art and literature before such variations were observed by others. He called himself and was called by others the ‘man of tomorrow,’ and when he appeared as the man of yesterday it was because he saw in some distant yesterday an inevitable tomorrow.

An essayist, a novelist, a playwright, a wit, condensing into words the thought-fluids of his time, Bahr's mind changed with every passing year, until it moulded itself finally within the philosophy of the Catholic Church.

Many recognize in Mr. Hilaire Belloc not only gicat achievement of literary genius, with sincerity and courage, but also a realistic judgment of practical allairs which has over and over again been proved right by the logic of events. His considered verdict, on the claims of Social Credit is therefore an event of sonic importance. It is given in an article published over Mr. Belloc's name in G.K.’s Weekly for June 14th.

Few men of Mr. Belloc's generation seem to be still capable of the mental application, the few houi-s of serious reading and critical thought, necessary to form an opinion of their own about monetary reform. Some distinguished contemporaries of his are still unable to take in (for instance) the ordinary quite undeniable facts of credit-creation; or again, they cannot hold steadily in their mind (even when the); have perceived and admitted it) the fact that abundance of production has now abolished all excuse for poverty.

None of these failings can be imputed to Mr. Belloc. He realizes fully that we have entered upon a new’ epoch in the world's history; the long ages 01 scarcity, of man’s desperate struggle to gain a living, are over; for good or for evil, the age of plenty has come.

Science and invention, he says, have ‘made a vast increase of production possible. We have conic to an era of potential ahundance . . . This is even true, in a large measure, of organic raw materials . . .

The story of the recognition and treatment of those peculiarities of the personality known as neuroses, or psychoneuroses, is one in which a good deal of charlatanism has acconipanied much genuine investigation. Differing from actual insanity, these states of mind are so varied in their expression and causes, that it was a long time before any very clear conception of their nature and origin was reached. That they are now generally recognized as having to a great extent a psychological rather than a physical basis is due to the labours of the Viennese psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who by his special technique of psychoanalysis gave a different complexion to this branch of psychological medicine.

The interest in this study begins with the rise of mesmerism and hypnotism. Soniewhere about the year 1760, Mesmer, a young Austrian student of medicine, happened to see some cures obtained by the use of magnetised plates, and being attracted by this new mode of treatment, discovered that the human hand could be just as effective a means of magnetising as a metal plate. The human body was then thought to possess a magnetic influence, which came to be known as animal magnetism. Mesmer eventually settled in Paris, where he became famous! whilst ‘mesmerism,’ as it was called, spread rapidly throughout Europe. This aroused at the same time much opposition, commissions being appointed to investigate the alleged cures, the upshot of which was the denial of magnetism of any kind as a cause of the cures, which, though admitted to be real, were thought to proceed, like the illness itself, from imagination.

In his recent booklet on The Catholic Conscience, Fr. Joseph Keating, S.J., states that ‘the chief obstacle to the conversion of the world to the Catholic Faith is not the opposition of its enemies, but the unworthiness of those who already possess it,’ and lie goes on to ask. ‘Why are Catholics not conspicuously better than those less bountifully endowed?’ May not the answer lie in part in a relative lack of emphasis on the practice of the simple Christian virtues, and a certain absence of precision in working out the practical application of these virtues to the circumstances of everyday life?

The problem is of course, the attainment of a true balance; we need a perception of the relative importance of the different factors of the Christian life. A discussion of this sort is apt to seem ungracious in the midst of so much that is excellent, yet it may be argued that, just as the activities and outlook of the individual tend to become unbalanced and call for adjustment, so also does the Catholic. body in this country need from time to time to review its position and restore its equilibrium.

External circumstances are constantly changing, and in this matter of the Christian virtues the attitude of the world differs greatly from what it was in the not distant past. As a sequel to the general lack of confidence in religious doctrine, it has become customary to doubt those things which have been commonly associated with religion; and aided by the ingenuity of the playwright, the novelist, the scientist and the philosopher, each of the Christian virtues has been examined with suspicion, and speciously undermined.

All systems of government are ultimately supported upon three bases: the value of property, the value of life and the value of emotion. Oligarchy rests most strongly upon the first, democracy upon the second and dictatorship on the third. The ideal, of course, is an equal distribution of weight: as should theoretically obtain in England, where the Lords stand for land and money, the Commons for the average man, and the King for the old and moving tradition of a living country. But oligarchy is passing: democracy drags out a mechanized existence: young, ardent and austere minds turn to follow with a dedicated loyalty the leadership of a minority or of a man, the proletariat, the dictator, the monarch. Russia is ruled by the tiny Communist party, Italy by Mussolini, Germany by Hitler; Austria and Hungary meditate the restoration of the Hapsburgs.

The desire for political leadership springs from one of two causes. The first is the possession of a life so busy and emotionally so satisfying as to leave neither time nor energy for political activities: this is usually to be perceived among peasants and housewives, and is the foundation of monarchy. In the King the peasant secs the living embodiment of the loved land: in the Royal Family the woman finds the prototype of her own. The drama of marriage, child-bearing, and death, celebrated in magnificence for them, is charged with meaning for her: their life is symbolic and universal.