and ought to be diminished. Vast communities lead to small individuals; and the real worth of any community lies in the worth of its individuals... The individual comes to feel himself a mere drop in the ocean; and feeling impotent, he grows irresponsible... Vast democracies cannot keep the virtues of democracy." If population-growth went unchecked, he felt, "the damage to national efficiency might drive governments to act more intelligently"; but better would be "a concentrated drive for population-planning, despite the formidable practical, scientific and psychological obstacles". "Far more, however," he added, "depends on the individual and his power to realise his own plight. Hence the need for constant and frank discussion, instead of leaving the subject, as now, in a conspiracy of uneasy silence; and the need for patient and tireless propaganda against man's reckless propagation." He singled out the Vatican for particular criticism. "Common sense percolates," he had written in 1934, "despite the Roman Church; which with its half-cynical sense of reality will doubtless end by swallowing the inevitable, as with Copernicus and Darwin, and evolve some doctrine of Immaculate Contraception." He later pointed out the illogicality of the doctrine declaring it lawful to juggle with the calendar but otherwise unlawful to practise contraception. He was not optimistic about post-war immigration to the UK, believing that in the modern world overbreeding was not solved by migration, which in turn could bring new social problems. "Persons of liberal principles are shocked if one views this influx with misgiving. But the advantages are far from certain. Principles, however liberal, are no substitute for common sense." In Literature and Psychology (1951) he had conjectured that the end of civilisation might come, not from war or famine, but from a decay of man's intelligence and self-control under the strain of a too artificial way of life. His only science-fiction story, 'Last Act' (1937), set in a not-too-distant future, had depicted the beginning of the end for "the desolator, Man", in an overpopulated, over-technological, and rapidly overheating biosphere. Works Books Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 1922 ; C.U.P. paperback 2009, ) Euripides and his Influence (Marshall Jones, Boston, 1923 ; Harrap, London, 1924; Literary Licensing LLC paperback 2012, ) Euripides: Medea, partly in the original and partly in translation; with introduction and notes (Oxford University Press, 1923) Euripides: Medea; verse translation, with introduction and notes (Oxford University Press, 1924) Ferenc Békássy: 'Adriatica'