(a) The brief account of events in Spain since 1931, given on earlier pages, shows the vivid contrast between the weakness of the Republican-Socialist Government of 1931-1933 and the strength of the Republican Government of 1936.

(b) It would be incredible blindness for anyone in the working class or on the side of democracy and liberty, not to see what made this change possible.

(c) It was the developing strength of the working class as a whole; and this, in turn, was made possible by the developing strength of the Communist Party, and the triumph of its policy of unity and resolute class-struggle.

(d) As in other countries, the leadership of the Socialist Party was hostile to the Communist Party, hostile to a policy of class-struggle, filled with illusions of a peaceful, democratic constitutionalism.

(e) This led to the policy of holding back and even repressing the militant struggle of the rank and file in 1933.

(Spain, by Emile Bums, published by the Communist Party of Great Britain, page 11.)

The italics are those of the pamphlet. I am writing this not as a politician, nor in the interest of politics, but solely in the interests of the poor and of peace.

1. I need not point out that this honest self-witness of the Communist Party dispenses us from the almost impossible task of finding out the truth about the alleged terrorism on one side or the other. For the moment the only available evidence is of one side about the other; in other words, it is admittedly the weakest of all evidence.

The present cannot be understood if we do not keep in mind the past, the immediate past at least. Not that the present necessarily should be a continuation of the past, the result of a natural evolution the origin of which is to be found in the immediate past. The present can be a sort of reaction against the past. Qualis pater, talis filius does not apply to nations, it does not even apply always to father and son.

Take the present state of things in Europe. Democracy is either dead or questioned in most of the Continental nations; yet President Wilson wanted to “make the world safe for democracy.” After-war statesmen felt the acute need for an international economic organization; yet economic nationalism is rampant everywhere; Herr Hitler last month uttered a speech in which he announces his determination of making Germany an entirely self-supporting country. Article 8 of the Covenant of the League of Nations reads as follows: “The Members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations”; yet competition in armaments is active throughout Europe, including Great Britain.

Has the Great War been fought in vain? Have we done away with autocrats, emperors and kings, only to throw ourselves into the arms of dictators? Have we improved in so notable a way all means of transport, making the earth smaller and smaller, in order eventually to pen up all nations within the narrow limits of a sort of economic wall of China?

The question of property is now again receiving the attention it needs. Catholics have for too long assumed that there is no difficulty about it. They have taken for granted that Communists and Socialists wished all the means of production, distribution and exchange to be public property and that Capitalists supported private property. They have taken for granted that it is a principle of Christian teaching that private property is a natural human right and that, therefore, Capitalists were on the whole in favour of Christianity, or at least that Capitalism was not anti-Christian. The development of Capitalism in the direction of large combines, cartels and monopolies has been so gradual that it has passed unnoticed that this development has involved the destruction of private property among the masses of the people. The growth of Communism and Socialism has therefore seemed to be mere wickedness.

But the events of recent years have opened our eyes. At last we are able to see that the development of Capitalism with its accompanying development of machine industry has in fact undermined and to a large extent destroyed the reality of private ownership and individual appropriation, and that, in consequence, the development of Communism and Fascism is inevitable, that in fact these movements are the logical conclusion and consummation of Capitalism.

Take as a simple example such a thing as the Great Western Railway. Before the coming of the railways there were the Stage Coach and the Carrier. Any man with a horse and cart could run a passenger service or could carry goods from town to town.

To say of psychology that it is the science of the soul, whilst this is in accordance with the literal meaning of the word, is not to take us very far. We need to know at the outset something of what the soul is in itself and how its investigation may best be undertaken. In truth an account of the definition of psychology is to a large extent an epitome of its history. The conflict of opinion already alluded to in our previous articles is by no means a contemporary development, as some of our readers may have been led to suppose, though it has undoubtedly assumed, in some respects, a new form. It is our purpose here, therefore, to trace to their sources in a summary manner these conflicting ideas as to the nature and scope of psychology.

The main issues turn in the first place upon the origin and meaning of the word “soul” and the relation of that which is so called to the body, as well as upon the standpoint from which the study of soul has proceeded. It will be remarked, secondly, however, that a new standpoint was adopted round about the seventeenth century when the earlier accepted notion of soul came to be replaced by that of mind and consciousness, which thus became the primary concern of the psychologist. In a very general way, the earlier standpoint may be described as “objective,” the later as “subjective.” A third phase came to pass when psychology began to be defined as the science of immediate or individual experience; the word “psyche” or soul being used for the totality of individual human experience.

When St. Thomas wrote his Summa to embrace the whole of theology, he did not think it necessary to divide his treatise in two independent parts, Dogma and Morals. The division, adopted many years later for pedagogical reasons, was not an improvement on St.Thomas’s method. To treat the truths of faith separately from the virtues and vices was an easier method of teaching the queen of the sciences, yet results have shown that the easy division has been allowed to develop into a fatal dichotomy. It is now generally considered, implicitly at least, that dogmas have little effect on everyday life and that for practical purposes the all-important subject is “Morals.” The sermon in nine cases out of ten is a moral exhortation, while the discussions of the “schoolmen” are considered as far removed from the realities of life.

Unfortunately the latter allegation cannot be wholly disproved. Whether we hold that the beginning of the world can be shown only by faith, or maintain its proof by natural reason to be possible, our lives remain unaffected by the discussion. On the other hand, the great dogmas contained in divine revelation concerning God, the Holy Trinity, Grace or the Incarnation should have an infinitely greater effect upon our behaviour than the clearest notions about contraception or the evils of capitalism. There are, moreover, many discussions in theology which possess the power of altering very profoundly one’s relations with God and one’s personal life in grace.

A very actual and important example, to which the above remarks are intended as a preface, is that of the nature of the Mass.

In Henri Ghéon’s Secret of the Curé d’Ars we read the following statement: “M. Vianney was terrified to learn that in the long roll of the ages not a single parish-priest had been raised to the Church's altars as a saint. Popes had been canonized, cardinals, bishops, religious and laymen; but of parish-priests not one; not the shadow of one. The melancholy inference was that there was no condition in the whole world in which sanctity was more difficult to attain.” (Translated and ed. Sheed & Ward, p. 123.)

This statement is not merely a depressing one, but, if true, a disturbing one to clergy and laity alike. As a matter of historical fact we hope to show that it is an extremely inaccurate one. Who makes the statement? Not Ghéon, he records it. Not the Curé, he learnt it; but whether orally or by reading we are not told.

In the first place, what exactly is meant by the office of parish-priest? Surely nothing else than the charge or, to use the canonical term, the cure of souls in a defined district. In this sense parish-priests have existed since the peace given to the Church by Constantine in the fourth century; possibly as early as the third century in the comparatively long gaps between the persecutions. What is meant by ‘‘being raised to the Church’s altars as a saint”? Does explicit or even tacit approval of a saint’s cult by the Holy See suffice?

We have seen, in the first place, how indispensably, supremely necessary it is for us to know God—necessary for us even in order to know ourselves and to be ourselves and to fulfil the purposes for which we exist. We have seen too what sort of a knowledge this is—not an abstract, academic knowledge, but a knowledge which we have to live, a knowledge which must permeate our whole being and give unity, direction, purpose to all we think or say or do; that it is also a knowledge of a Person, a personal God; not the knowledge of an abstract science or system; that, nevertheless, if we are to know God we must have some sort of creed, some sort of dogma. Our minds are so made that knowledge cannot be conveyed to us or by us except through words, by stringing together ideas in sentences, formulas, propositions. A creedless religion is an impossibility. We must conclude, therefore, that if the knowledge of God is necessary for us, so too must be dogmas, creeds, doctrines. We cannot do without them.

We must now take our inquiry a short stage further. For we are no pragmatists. We cannot jump to the immediate conclusion that because dogmas work, because they are necessary to our mental make-up, dogmas and creeds are therefore true or even can be true; still less that the dogmas and creeds of the Catholic Church are true.