Peter Stubbs

Reviews of Book: Some Aspects of the Conflict between Science and ReligionSome Aspects of the Conflict between Science and Religion by PriceH. H.. Pp. 53 (Cambridge University Press) 3s. 6d.

No one of course is an outcast if he is in good faith and no doubt the heart of Christianity lies in the love of God and our redemption through Christ, but to the Catholic the whole of the faith is divinely taught. We prefer, however, as we close the book to remember the many pages which the Catholic can accept with gratitude. Indeed it would be surprising if there were not these pages. The learning, eloquence, the sensitiveness on which Canon Raven insists so much, the deep religion and the charity of the writing make a lasting impression

Reviews of Book: St Thomas and the Existence of GodSt Thomas and The Existence of God: Three Interpretations by BryarWilliam. Pp. xxv + 252 (Henry Regnery Co., Chicago)

AUTHOR of the Barat College Plan in philosophy and theology (whereby the required hours in those subjects are employed »over a period of four years in reading St Thomass Summa as a great book) , Professor Bryar raises hopes of our having from his pen an important and interesting study. This book, he writes, will seek to set forth in its conclusion a proper understanding of the proof for the existence of God from motion in the Summa Theologiae I, q.z, a.3, in view of its setting within this work and the general thought of St Thomas. Frankly, the present reviewer found it virtually unreadable, so arid is the style and so obscure the form of presentation. Inspired by certain modern philosophies of language, the author seeks to clarify the opposition among commentators over the interpretation of St Thomass argument by means of a linguistic analysis designed to show that it allows of a variety of interpretations, none of which is exactly characterized by the traditional division into metaphysical and physical. The evidence suggesting the proposed line of treatment is found in the existence in St Thomass text of certain families of terms : essence existence, creation, creature, creative power is one such family; God, simple, infinite, unique, immutable, another. The hypothesis is that St Thomass Cardinal Meanings can be educed from the diverse themes or interpretations generated by different types of judgements. The detailed elaboration, through some one hundred and twenty pages, of three of these irreducible lines of meaning forms the substance of the book.

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form than it can genuinely bear that Dr Farrers treatment is not only impressive but a significant advance in the clarification of the vital logic of theistic thinking. In the end, then, we are left in doubt about what Mr Mascalls position really is. He is excessively chary of directly expressing his own view; he comes nearest to it in a demure endorsement of Gilson: It is, I suggest, in virtue of the inherently existential element in all our affirmations about God -that the possibility of analogical knowledge of God and of analogical discourse about him can be maintained (p. 119). May we invite Mr Mascall to give us his own unambiguous word on a subject on which, as he told us on a previous occasion, he felt that Penido had not said the last?

Reviews of Book: Morality and GodMorality and God by HirstEdward Wales. Pp. 86 (Epworth Press) 6s.

By PETER STUBBS T HE appearance of Prof. Patons detailed and sympathetic exposition of the fundamental principles of Kanf s moral philosophyt furnished an opportunity of looking once again at one or two of the salient characteristics of a system that may be rejected but cannot be ignored. Kants ethics would be generally characterized as according priority to the ideas of law and duty over those of natural end and good. Yet two of the five formulations of the celebrated categorical imperative are couched in the language of ends: So act as to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means; So act as if you were through your maxims a law-making member of a kingdom of ends .2 Furthermore, the opening paragraph of The Fundamental Principles l?[ the Metapo/sic l?[ Morals enunciates a thesis not of law and duty but of the nature of absolute good: Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification except a Good Will .a Kant is famous, Fr Jos. Rickaby once remarked, for a trick of replacing with his left hand what his right hand has taken away. However, with a thinker of Kants stature the effort to understand the reason for this rather disconcerting trick can hardly fail to be worth while. To begin with, it is to be noted that he himself explicitly acknowledges the paradox of method involved in his critique of practical reason, namely, that the concept of good and evil must not be determined

A Note on Kant'S Ethics

avoids stating that an act according to an erroneous conscience is morally good: he merely says that in certain circumstances it is free from fault. St Thomas is thus much more anxious to safeguard and to reconcile the objective standard of morality with the subjective standard than are some more modern theologians who, with St Alphonsus, go so far as-to say that the act of an erroneous conscience may even be meritorious. . Much more might be said of the other chapters of this important and interesting work. But we must leave the student to explore it for himself, and to follow Dom Lottin in the examination of the historical developments. It only remains to remark that the synthetic utilization of all this new historical material has already been attempted by Dom . Odo himself, for last year he published two volumes of Principes de Morale, the first containing a general exposition of fundamental moral principles, and the second giving an outline of the historical development which is more abundantly studied in the present work. Finally, a wo~d of praise is due for the excellent way in which this important book has been printed. E. C. MESSENGER.

Reviews of Book: The Idea of Perfection in the Western WorldThe Idea of Perfection in the Western World by FossMartin. Pp. 102 (Princeton University Press: London, Geoffrey Cumberlege) 1946.

school, will sense a certain lack of precision. This comes out in the authors treatment of the relation between the imperium of the will and its corporeal effects, though he does indicate that a problem of considerable difficulty is involved. Emphasis is also laid on the dividing lines separating animals and plants on the one hand, and living and inanimate beings on the other; in both cases the distinction is one of extreme difficulty to determine precisely. Another set of difficulties is involved in considering the persistence or disappearance of the substantial forms of organisms during fission or conjugation. Still further difficulties, this time of a metaphysical nature, attend the notion that animals have a libre psychistne, though the author makes it clear that there is no question of moral freedom at issue. When we remember, however, that Professor Vignons intention is to record a testament of his own fundamental conclusions rather than to go into philosophical minutiae, the preceding criticisms are perhaps irrelevant. Readers will certainly concur with the prefatory remarks of Paul Claudel who congratulates him on his courage in casting away the traditional materialism that has long characterized French science. It is fitting that he should conclude with an excursus on human immortality. He accepts the Thomist view that this tenet is demonstrable by natural reason, yet he goes on to show how far this is from rendering redundant the assurance of immortality given in Divine Revelation. And in referring to the historical grounds for accepting the latter, he alludes appropriately to the investigation for which he will perhaps be principally remembered, his studies on the authenticity of the Holy Shroud of Turin.

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bigger canvas (as the Romantic writers required tomes to say what the more precise Classic writers could say in a few pages). Mr Browne writes simply, though at times too colloquially for his subject. Doubtless he would not object to being called illogical, since he is attempting to express the unutterable, and regards logic as wholly quantitative. He has so many private definitions of this kind that he is obliged to preface his book by a glossary which is more confusing than helpful. He defines fact as quantitative, and awareness as qualitative, which makes for confusion when he speaks of fear as quantitative along with the bomber and the gun and manual labour. Such an outlook easily leads to the modernist position that qualitatively it makes no difference . . . whether the quantitative source of Christian Tradition was the son of a Galilean carpenter or the protagonist in a Mystery-Play or the Incarnation of a demiurge. In the general vagueness of the book it is difficult to see whether he regards God as one or many (The Knower ... is a Person; not a Person in place-time, yet a Person. Or, perhaps I should say, the Knowers are Persons), or whether the self is abolished in the Divine union (They are I, and I they). Yet in spite of the criticism the book invites, we can agree with its general conclusion, and admire the authors sincerity. God is indeed our last end; but man has to live in, and make the best of, the world in which Christ lived.