What is this thing called love?’ The question has been debated times without number: by the great poets, philosophers, mystics; by alert little logicians and portentous statisticians; by playwrights, novelists, songsters; and of course by lovers of various kinds, from those who indulge in a fever of passionate introspection to the simpler souls who sometimes briefly wonder in a bemused and befogged sort of way what has hit them. The plain man may well find himself confused by the variety of often conflicting answers given to the question, the variety of names given to the experience or to different aspects of it. In an interesting analysis of Moral Values in the Ancient World Professor John Ferguson discusses such concepts as the Greek eros, philia, philanthropia, homonoia, the Latin amicitia, pietas, humanitas, and the Hebrew chesed and ‘ahabah—the former of these last two being the steadfast, covenanted loving-kindness of God and pietas of man, the latter the deeper, unconditioned love that has in it something alike of eros and of philanthropia. But the two worlds of thought, the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman, were fundamentally different and could impinge but little on one another until Christianity brought to the world its new inspiration, its new concept of love, and what was in effect a new word to describe it: agape.

Again there has been a great deal of discussion about the difference, and the relationship, between eros and agape; and again the discussion has led to confusion because of the varying interpretations or emphases put on the words by various writers.

Moderator: The subject of this disputation is a fundamental one and touches the centre of every moral dilemma—for the individual as well as for the community at large. Conscience and law. Are they enemies, and is the most we can hope to achieve an armed neutrality, so that the conflict between them can at least be kept within bounds? Or are they brothers, twins—and Siamese twins at that, so that one must necessarily imply the other? Of course we must first want to see what the words mean, for here, as always, we are at the mercy of the labels we use to avoid the painful work of thinking. Conscience—too easily it can be the name for the spontaneous response of anarchy or anguish: law—as easily it can be the title for no nonsense, the totalitarian’s eternal alibi.

To decide what is their relationship, then, must demand a careful scrutiny of what their function is: a function that is proper to the human person, with a mind to know and a will to implement his knowledge. That is why the form of this disputation may be specially useful, demanding as it does a patient definition of terms, and a guarded inspection of their use in argument.

Of the method of concession-and-denial I think I need say nothing now: most people are now familiar with this kind of argument. But perhaps I should point out one difference of procedure which we have introduced in order to extend the dialectic as usefully as we may. The disputation will proceed in two directions.

The spectacular increase in recent years of serious crime, especially among young men, has created an inevitable reaction of disquiet, indeed of anger. The need, it is suggested (and not only by reactionary opinion), is for severe punishment, exemplary in its unpleasantness, which will dissuade the gangster and the man with the gun. And even lesser crimes of violence must be sharply punished: the restoration of the birch and the cat, it is argued, will achieve far more than the assumptions of a remedial penalty—whether it be probation or Borstal training.

Much of the propaganda for such measures is intelligible enough as a reflection of public indignation. But it is often irresponsibly expressed, as in a petition for the return to corporal punishment which was displayed in many Glasgow shops recently and immediately received hundreds of enthusiastic signatures. The case for such a grave step was not stated; no argument was offered but that of instinctive aggression. The Home Secretary has on several occasions resisted such proposals, and has pointed out that, even at the statistical level, there is no evidence that offences previously allowing for a sentence of corporal punishment have in fact increased since such punishment was abolished.

The Home Secretary, instead of giving way to the storm (which, it must be admitted, is by no means as spontaneous as some newspapers make it seem to be), has urged the need for much greater research into the causes of crime, and to that end the Cambridge Institute of Criminal Science is to have more substantial help for its work.

‘It seems to be a lesson of history that the commonplace may be understood as a reduction of the exceptional, but that the exceptional cannot be understood by amplifying the commonplace.’ These words from the closing passage of a most important recent book, Professor Edgar Wind’s Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance, draw attention to a great misconception in the usual interpretation of that movement, spread over a considerable stretch of time, which we call ‘The Renaissance’. It is most often thought that this movement represented simply a revival of classical learning, an enthusiasm for technique, for style in all aspects of life, and a deepening sense of wonder at the mystery of Man himself. All these were features of the situation naturally, but its core is lacking if we merely consider them. Professor Wind has given us the missing heart: the heart of Renaissance art, architecture, poetry, music and science. What he presents to us is, of course, a religious vision, for nothing else could have had these effects. An esoteric vision, which is why he says that he deals with the exceptional, and one that verges often on heresy. But something which has nevertheless deep roots in the Christian past.

What was this vision? What brought these mighty manifestations into being? Briefly, a belief that it is the spiritual and not the material which is the essence of man, and that the truth of Christ existed in the world before Christ. These might seem unexceptionable truths, but in them lurked grave dangers.