A selection of the best from recent issues of the Philosopher

 Nicolas Walter says that unfortunately, despite having diagnosed the problem, Schiller and no one since, has managed to surmount the obstacle of defining the word, and this slim volume is intended "to fill the gap".

 After an introduction to the roots of humanism in Ancient Greece, when Protagoras said that 'Man is the measure of all things', to the development of the notion during the Renaissance, when Humanitas was used to signify the sort of education described by Cicero in Ancient Rome as "the art of living well and blessedly through learning and instruction in the fine arts", to the official, 1996, definition of the term by the International Humanist Association as "...a democratic and ethical stance which affirms that human beings have the right and the responsibility to give meaning and shape to their lives."

 Humanism, the Association goes on to suggest, is "not theistic and does not accept supernatural views of reality." However, at once there are dissenters. After all, there are groups who call themselves 'Christian Humanists', or 'Religious Humanists', as opposed to 'Rational Humanists' and 'Scientific Humanists'. Walter says that, the fact is, humanism has been used to describe many things, and that many of these have involved religion, indeed, that "many of the non-religious senses are unclear without qualification". You don't even need to like people or share the notion of equal human worth to be some sort of humanist. Nietzsche, who had both these traits in abundance is sometimes considered to be an ultra-humanist or super-humanist. Julian Huxley spoke of 'trans-humanism' and some west-coast Americans today aim at post-humanism, through use of genetic engineering techniques.

 If this looks like a recipe for confusion, it gets worse. Walter explains that "many of the people who are now considered as Humanists didn't call themselves Humanists, and many of the people who have called themselves Humanists aren't now considered Humanists".

 From time to time, the British Humanist Association published newspapers, entitled predictably enough, The Humanist, but they veered politically to the left or to the right and had frequently to be discontinued by the Association for having become mere propaganda. Benito Mussolini dubbed his new creed of fascism "new Humanism", whilst Communist Party pamphlets in the Soviet Union were able to speak of "a spirit of collectivism, industry and humanism."

 Walter concludes that one objection to Humanism is that it tried to be all things to all men, (by which he means women too) and therefore ended up being nothing to any. Another objection was that it was little more than a Christian heresy, or the work of a Fifth Column within the Freethought movement.

 So where, as our American friends might say, where's the beef? What does it matter how we define the term 'humanism'? Nicolas Walter uses Bertrand Russell's words to conclude: 

Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

 Reviewed by Martin Cohen