II Variations on a Theme of Responsibility: A Discussion of Vols. III and IV of the Preparatory Studies

Extract

IT is not easy to know how best to deal with the two notable volumes named above. Some attempt ought certainly to be made to present their contents and message to readers of the Journal. But many of them must already themselves have studied the volumes; and no doubt the best thing to say to those who have not done so is to emphasise their importance and plead for their being read. The Archbishop of Canterbury in a closing address, we are told, remarked that the total number of words spoken at the Assembly must have attained to the fantastic region of the numbers used to represent distance between the earth and the farthest stars. All these words were recorded—but not, one hastens to add, in the four volumes of preparatory studies and the single volume of the Official Report. But even so the scope of the volumes is prodigious, and the weight of the contributions most imposing.