Professor Harry Elmer Barnes has delivered another ultimatum to the world. Defying his critics to "scare him away," the expounder of historical sociology at Smith College serves notice that although of course he did not mean to begin a controversy in his recent address before the scientific congress he will now light to the finish. Then in a delicate touch the professor remarks that if his opponents had only kept quiet there would have been no public discussion of the question. But of course if they do take notice of him. Dr. Barnes will "raise the ante and stay in the game."

The new religion, the professor gives us to understand, must secure its facts from science. Just why facts are necessary to religious concepts or just what facts we know outside the realm of science. Dr. Barnes has not seen fit to reveal. Most scientists put their primary interest in the observed conditions of life and are content to base their religion on then inmost individual thoughts. Now in his speech before a society of Free Thinkers Professor Barnes lays down the one and only "scientific" view of the cosmos.

It is quite possible that he has a workable religion of his own. Most educated men have. But if the professor pretends to be a scientist, he might find it more tactful to confine his oratory to subjects on which he really does know the facts.