RADIO THE programme of the week, for me, was the
Mediaeval Disputation on the Third Programme. This debate which was held in the Old Hall of Lincoln's Inn, was on the thesis of "the Necessity of an Ethical basis of Human Action," and was conducted according to the forms of the old schools of logic by a Defender, an Objector and a Moderator. Now I confess that, untrained in these matters, I followed the disputation only with the greatest strain, though with the greatest delight. The exordium was grotesquely over-long. even for the deliberate Third; I wished they would cut the cackle and come to the syllogisms. And, when these came, I felt that "ethical basis of human action" was fairly tough work for us. It was not the subject but the form—the ritpalistic "I distinguish," the con- clusive "therefore the argument fails "—that was so fascinating, this and the parade-ground manoeuvres of drilled minds. It would have served as well, or even better, to debate something easy, like the wetness of the sea, or how many civil servants could dance on a point of the Wages and Catering Bill. Few of us except the logically- read could do more than keep up with the method of mediaeval disputation ; and we were too exhausted to deal with human action and ethical basis. To borrow a formula from the programme—that the form was fascinating, I admit ; that the matter in this case mattered, I deny !
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