ways, but to win them to the life that he considers good by the portrayal of its delights. The holders of power, reinforced by their sycophants among parsons and professors, view the lines of others as consisting essentially of work, with only such intervals of rest as are physiologically necessary. Mr Havelock Ellis views life as essentially play, interrupted by the need of a certain minimum of work to secure the necessaries of existence. He begins with a chapter on the art of dancing, and goes on to maintain that all life ought to be as like a dance as possible. This is not suggested in Bacchic spirit, as a way of drowning our sorrows; the mood is not that of:
"Is it not fine to dance and sing
While the bells of death do ring?"
The tragic facts of human life seem to have lost their sting for him, and to have been somehow harmonized as they are in tragic drama. This is explained by his very interesting account of his conversion to mysticism at the age of nineteen—a conversion which was permanent in spite (or because) of its almost complete freedom from dogma.
"My whole attitude towards the universe was changed. It was no longer an attitude of hostility and dread, but of confidence and love. My self was one with the Not-self, my will one with the universal will. I seemed to walk in light; my feet scarcely touched the ground; I had entered a new world."
This mystic illumination underlies the views set forth on thought, on religion, and on morals, all of which spring from the elimination of Satan. There are many people—the present reviewer is among them—who find it harder to give up Satan than any other item of orthodox religion. Mr Havelock Ellis has given him up, and has abandoned along with him all the sterner side of morals and religion and thought. He does not believe, with Jeremiah, that "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Consequently morality is not to be restrictive, but expansive: it is to be more like the training of an athlete, designed to cultivate a natural excellence. It is not, however, to be a matter of obedience to a set of rules, but must at every moment depend on feeling.
