Four Book Reviews

Abstract

This book¹ contains eleven of Professor Broad’s articles and lectures. All of them have been published before; but several of them were not easily accessible, and one, the lecture on ‘War Thoughts in Peace Time’, has long been out of print. The book is divided into three sections, (I) Psychical Research, (II) Religion, and (III) Politics. It would not be relevant here to comment on Section III, though it is of great interest to philosophers because it contains Professor Broad’s only published contributions to political philosophy. On the other hand, students of psychical research should not neglect Section II. At the beginning of the paper on ‘The Validity of Belief in a Personal God’ there is an analysis of the concept of Personality (pp. 159–62). Towards the end of the paper on ‘Arguments for the Existence of God’ there is a discussion of mystical experience and of the grounds for accepting some ‘queer’ experiences as veridical and rejecting others as delusive (pp. 193–201, cf. also p. 242). In the paper on ‘Bishop Butler as a Theologian’ there are some remarks on the survival hypothesis (pp. 209–16). And finally, the paper on ‘The Present Relations of Science and Religion’ contains a discussion of miracles, in which ‘a miracle’ is equated with ‘a supernormal event’ (pp. 224–34); and in the same paper there are some further remarks on the survival hypothesis and on the evidence for and against it (pp. 234–7).