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ABSTRACT MR. CURLE is like the road-mender who, when accused of pessimism, said “I ain't no pessimist; I thinks badly o' most things and most people—that's all”. Mr. Curie

declares himself to be no pessimist; but he sees the world as a series of problems or riddles. Thus: Nature, on one hand a thing of beauty and perfection, on the other is “a spectacle of

overwhelming cruelty and horror”, which makes “the idea of a Living, Personal God” behind it “a nightmare” and unthinkable; Christianity is dying after nearly two thousand years; Western

civilisation is nearly at an end; and science “deeply enheartening when we think of genetics, psychology, bio-chemistry, and medicine; deeply disconcerting when we think of aspects of

relativity, of physics, of bacteriology, of poison gas, of weapons of war”. We need pursue the list no further. The problems are such as present themselves to all who are not content with a

blind acceptance of things as they are, and a familiar symptom of the questioning spirit, which for our good, if not for our comfort, has been all pervasive since the War. This World First.

By J. H. Curie. Pp. v + 212. (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1932.) 6_s_. net. ARTICLE PDF RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Miscellany.

_Nature_ 130, 622 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130622b0 Download citation * Issue Date: 22 October 1932 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130622b0 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the

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