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SHORT REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTES

PETERS, R. S ., Reason, Morality and Religion, London, Friends HomeService Committee, 1972, pp . ioi, 4op .

Professor R . S . Peters is well known for his many scholarly works in thefields of ethics and education. Introducing this more popular (in the bestpossible sense of that word) short book, he expresses misgiving and astonish-ment at being invited to deliver in 1972 the Swarthmore Lecture of whichthe book is an extended version . Many readers, especially those activelyengaged in `moral education', or in work in Colleges of Education relatedto this area of the teacher's responsibility, will rejoice that Peters overcamehis modest fears and as a result has provided this clear and orderly dis-cussion of some key problems . What kind of problems? `About thebalance of tradition and innovation, between authority and freedom,between group consensus and individual assertion' (p . i) . Peters outlinesthe contrasting attitudes of traditionalism and the romantic reaction to itand offers instead a middle way, based upon reason. His outline of a rationalmorality (Chapter i) follows lines well known from his other recent works,whilst his discussion of authority and autonomy (Chapter 2) indicates away forward from `conventional code-encased morality' without 'un-disciplined satisfaction' or the assertion of the `lonely and empty will' of theindividual (p . 44,) . But the reviewer found most enlightening the secondhalf of the book : Chapter 3 on `Reason, Passion and Levels of Life' (notethe allusions to the magnificent book by J. Passmore The Perfectability ofMan, Duckworth 1970), and Chapter 4 on the `The Religious Dimensionof Morality' with its searching observations on religious experience andworship as these are understood in the Society of Friends . Professor Petershas enabled that Society to make a worthy addition to its series of Swarth-more lectures .

E.H.P .

WRIGHT, DEREK, A Review ofEmpirical Studies in the Psychology of Religion .(Bulletin of the Association for Religious Education, Extended Supplement One) .Sutton Coldfield, 1972, 66 pp., 8op .

We are offered a survey in the Argyle/Spinks tradition, slighter, but usefulfor being up to date. Uncertainty about just what the `psychology of re-ligion' involves continues to be evidenced . Wright claims `The design ofstudies in the psychology of religion is necessarily correlational' (p . lo) .Yet his interest in meditation and prayer verges on what others might calla phenomenological study of religious experience . Thus he argues (p . 50)that `By studying these practices we may come much closer to realknowledge of the `religious' states which have given currency to words suchas God, Void and Self.' Somehow the psychology of religion has to dojustice to both these concerns .

M.P .