by the Very Reverend W. R. Inge. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1926. 8vo. xiii + 302 pp. $3.00.
THIS volume is one of a series of thirteen, each of which deals with the condition of a nation to-day rather than with either its immediate or its remote past. Seven of these volumes, including those on Germany, Ireland, and India, have already been published. Dean Inge believes that the present can be understood only in the light of the past, ‘ the living past,’ and a very considerable part of his book is devoted to centuries long anteceding the present. In fact, he starts with the Pleistocene.
In the five chapters which form his main divisions he discusses ‘The Land and Its Inhabitants,’ ‘The Soul of England,’ ‘Empire,’ ‘Industrialism,’ and ‘Democracy.’ He touches, with Episcopalian caution and deep depression, upon a vast number of social and economic topics. The reviewer agrees with the author that his ‘knowledge of some of them — perhaps all of them — is very amateurish.’ After admitting the failure of the book as a work of research, the Dean adds that ‘it contains the only thing which I could contribute to it as my own — the expression of my personal point of view, with my reasons for holding it.’ The volume, therefore, scarcely fits in with the object of the series. It is not a competent study of the life of a nation, but of the mind of a dean. That is quite a different matter.
It is from this standpoint that the book should be approached. As Dean of St. Paul’s the author occupies a high ecclesiastical position. Add to this an excellent style in writing and we explain his frequent appearance in print. Add again a flair for spectacular pessimism and we can understand the vogue of his writings among a certain class of readers. But this does not mean that the Dean possesses a great mind or that he expresses the outlook upon his nation and its life that is held by the more sane, intelligent, and courageous minds among his countrymen.
Known as ‘the gloomy Dean,’ one does not have to read his latest book to learn that he believes England has seen her best days, that the Empire may break up, that the labor struggle is ‘civil war,’ that the working classes have insufferably bad taste, and that everything is going to the dogs. From his tower of ivory he surveys the world of struggling men and finds it very evil. It is. But it always has been and it is not so bad as the Dean believes, though only a shallow mind can be very optimistic in these years. The book is personal, illogical, emotional. One feels that the author’s universe is oriented around his digestion. In preaching defeatism he has rendered a great disservice to England. In insulting the United States, on whose friendship he thinks England depends, he has rendered a greater disservice to the world. But, as we have said, the book should be considered as a revelation of a soul, not as a study of conditions or an authoritative expression of national opinion. It is the story of a fastidious, intellectual, Tory ecclesiastic suffering in the Purgatory of post-war Democracy. But God is kinder than the Church, and even the Dean may get to Heaven some day.
JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS