THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH
Publishers:

Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City

VoL. V coMPLETE

JANUARY,

1943

EDITORIAL

T

HIS present issue of THE THoMIST is dedicated to

Jacques Maritain on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. M. Maritain's outstanding position in the field
of philosophical letters, his tireless labors and courageous
thought, merit much more than can be given him by any such
tribute. Nevertheless, THE THoMIST is honored to be the
instrument of that tribute; and its readers will understand
and share that honor.
Obviously, not all the authors contributing to this issue are
Thomists; but all the contributors, Thomists and non- Thomists
alike, have had the same aim, that of paying tribute to a
Thomist in the one way that is at the same time a recognition
of and a compliment to the goals of Thomism: by studies that
play their humble part in bringing men closer to the perennial
goal of lasting truth.

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Though the tribute of the present contributors to THE
THoMIST is primarily a personal one, it is, at the same time,
very much more than that, for this tribute has been built by
minds too widely separated to be commanded merely by a
striking personality. At the very least, this tribute is a mark
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EDITORIAL

of keen interest in the fields of M. Maritain's labors, the
sources of his thought, and the fruits of the years of work he
has spent in those fields inspired by those sources. In other
words, these authors, in striking variety, have paid a tribute
to Thomism, as it lives and breathes in the twentieth century,
as well as to a living Thomist. There is no mystery about this
particular Thomist's claim to such a tribute; but there might
very well be much mystery, even in the minds of those who
have paid the tribute, about Thomism's claim upon the interest
of non-Thomists of this age of ours.

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Yet the mystery is by no means insoluble if we take the very
small trouble to place Thomism and our times side by side.
Perhaps the one characteristic that immediately emerges as a
common denominator is that of turmoil, the roar of combat
and the confusion of battle.
Historically, at least, Thomism has been a child of battle.
Thomas's whole career was a fighting one that demanded every
ounce of his prodigious strength and every item of his incredible genius; the Thomism he left behind him, wherever it
has deserved the name, has never been out of the battle zone.
There has been one hard-won offensive after another as the
forces of error and falsehood slowly gave way, yielding another
outpost of truth to be fortified while the advance forces pushed
relentlessly on. Often enough the fight has been bitter; more
often, it has been won with a discouraging slowness; always, it
has been a fight without compromise or negotiation.
Defensively, the battle has been no less constant. Guerrilla
warfare, that constant sniping that is more an annoyance than
a threat unless it be disregarded, has been measured only by
man's capacity for inaccuracy and his fear of truth, and the
mysteriously dark attraction of truth's perversion. Here and
there, down through the ages there have been all-out battles,
waged with a ferocity born of a full recognition of the final
character of the fight; battles where the issue was a matter of
life or death for truth.

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EDITORIAL

Men of our time are immersed in a war of the world. It is a
war of ideas as well as a war of bullets, and the roar and confusion is not confined to the war of bullets. Sometimes both
have been defined as wars to determine whether those fundamental principles which are truths will survive at all. At other
times, the issue has rather seemed to be a determination of
what principle the world will live by, a false one or a true one.
The bitterness and universality of the struggle has been seen
as the result of a clash of principles that make the difference
between a life worth living and a life without meaning for the
individual; on this count the sides would seem to have been
badly chosen, for, with some of the opponents, the battle would
seem to be a clashing of proponents of the same principle in a
fight to determine who will be the concrete embodiment of
that principle. Quite fundamentally, the ordinary man has
seen much of the struggle as the deep, unyielding resistance of
men to an open attempt to enslave them.
Long before the battle of bullets, and long after it, the battle
of ideas goes on. Indeed, further procrastination of the battle
of bullets might easily lose humanity the battle of ideas. For
ideas, particularly enervating and disintegrating ideas, are
easily laughed off as harmless idiocies by the contented mass
of men. After all, a naked idea is not apt to startle a man
from his sleep, to strip him of his comfort, deprive him of his
food, or rob him of his life.
Only the particularly alert, i. e., those who take their own
principles in deadly earnest, not for granted, see the turn of
the war of ideas before the hum of bullets wakens men from
their lethargy. These are the watchdogs of humanity, though,
not infrequently, they are cuffed into silence by men who do
not wish to be disturbed.

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Beyond all doubt, the interest of the men of our age in
Thomism is not an historical one; such an interest may well be
practically nonexistent on the part of non-Thomists. Rather,
Thomism has caught the eyes of our age as the possessor of

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EDITORIAL

principles, of enduring truths worthy of any sacrifice and of
the utmost loyalty and the hardest battle; for the men of our
time have fully awakened to the solemn fact that there are
things more precious than life itself. They have seen Thomism
as a fighting champion of truths; and the men of our time
know what a lie can do and what a fight is.

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It has not been hard to recognize Jacques Maritain as one of
those watchdogs of humanity, taking his own principles in
deadly earnest and alertly catching the tide of the battle of
ideas while other men slept on. He writes with all the courage
demanded of a man of foresight who tries to move his blinder
fellows, and with all the love of humanity evident in the successful effort he has made to bring the present and the future
to men in language they could understand.
If the tribute contained in this volume were merely a tribute
to M. Maritain, it would be of little more than passing interest
as heartening evidence of our admiration for human endeavor
courageously furthered. But M. Maritain's labors cannot be
divorced from the principles that have inspired them. M. Maritain is a Thomist; and Thomism cannot be casually brushed
off once contact is made with it. This tribute to a Thomist
and to Thomism is, then, a major event, not only for the past
it recognizes, not only for M. Maritain to whom it offers a
feeble human reward, but for the men and women who paused
to make the tribute and for all those who, through them,
will feel the repercussions of interested contact with living
Thomism.
The Editors wish to express their indebtedness to the Special
Committee: Dr. William O'Meara of Fordham University, Dr.
Mortimer J. Adler of the University of-Chicago, and Dr. Yves
R. Simon of the University of Notre Dame, for the invaluable
assistance rendered in the preparation of this Maritain volume.

JACQUES MARITAIN: A BIOGRAPHICAL
IMPRESSION.
By HARRY LORIN BINSSE

I

T comes somewhat as a shock to realize that nearly ten
years have gone by since one day in early spring when
Maurice Lavanoux and I were given the job of showing
Jacques Maritain the sights of New York-or at least certain
rather definite sights he himself had elected to see. The itinerary was simple enough, but carried us from end to end of
Manhattan, no one of the " sights " being any too near connecting subway lines. The extravagance of a taxicab seemed
the most practical solution; and since those were the days of
deepest depression, when " independent " drivers were glad to
listen to reason as long as the trip was fairly long, it was not an
unduly expensive solution, either.
So we skidded gaily from East Fifteenth Street to the
Harlem Y. M. C. A., laughing most of the time, for Hitler was
not then long installed in his chancellery and the only refugees
we knew were some old-standing Russians. The New Deal was
new and shiny, and the future looked hopeful enough. For
that is what I chiefly remember of him from those first days.
A great deal more mirth than was in our own lives, and a great
deal more sanctity.
Those two ingredients are still paramount, even if the first
has been tempered a bit-and in all of us-by events whose
issue is so vast it is beyond appraisal. One can only shudder
and be sad and fear a little, and try one's best to understand.
There, almost, is Jacques Maritain's character, in abstraction.
Gaiety, which means love and proportion and humility; sadness
at the world's woe; trying to understand by the light of the
wisdom God has given him. Always trying to understand.

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The bones of biography make up a simple skeleton.
He was born in Paris sixty years ago-November 18, 18825

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HARRY LORIN BINSSE

near the Place Clichy. (Very Parisian. He really has no eye at
all for nature, and a keen eye for art. The country is a necessary evil in which to accomplish the annual task of relaxation
and from which, mysteriously, the city draws its sustenance.)
His parents: Paul Maritain, lawyer, and Genevieve Favre,
daughter of a great Consul of the Third Republic. One sister,
no brothers. A nosegay of Lycees: Condorcet, Carnot, Henri
IV. The University of Paris: the Sorbonne. Marriage. Conversion. Heidelberg and Hans Driesch.
His specialty: biology, gradually shifting to philosophy, without which-and in those days there was little of it-natural
science is a tale signifying nothing.
Which brings us to 1908. The fashions of the academies like
cobwebs had been brushed from his mind, but there was no true
gossamer to take their place. What was needed also was time
to refashion the underpinnings. But there were mouths to be
fed, and an income needed to feed them. Charles Peguy pulled
the rabbit out of a big publisher's hat: would he accept the
general editorship of a Dictionnaire de la Vie Pratique? One
cannot help slyly wondering whether, while La Philosophie
Bergsonienne was maturing in the parlor, the Dictionnaire did
not serve its own purpose of sweeping out the kitchen. It has
remained well swept ever since. . .
Once the underpinning was firm and strong, the natural
career of teaching-at the College Stanislas and the Institut
Catholique, later at Toronto, Chicago, Columbia, Princeton,
Yale-reasserted its sovereignty, and has remained sovereign.

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*

Apart from obvious things then-defense of the defenseless,
eloquence and a new breath of life in the perennial philosophy, a
scrupulous love for man and truth, and love of God-here is
the substance of a life the world, our world above all, could ill
have spared.
" The Commonweal,"
New York City

ON MARITAIN'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
By WALDEMAR

GURIAN

T

HE SIGNIFICANCE of Maritain's political philosophy
will remain hidden to those who judge it by its acceptance in contemporary France. An impressive proof of
its independent character is that it has been praised and rejected in the same camps. Untii 199l6 conservative rightist
Catholics, taking advantage of the modernist crisis, claimed
Maritain for themselves as the great philosopher of order and
intelligence. He published many articles in the Revue Universelle, a periodical edited by Bainville, a friend of the head of
L'Action Fran(}aise, Charles Maurras. 1 The social and democratic Catholics then regarded him with some distrust. 2 But
after 199l6, when the Action
was condemned by Pope
Pius XI and Maritain accepted and emphatically defended this
condemnation 8 (until this time he had been concerned primarily with speculative philosophy; henceforth he was to turn
towards political philosophy) , he was attacked not only by the
Action
but even in the Revue Universelle.4 The
1 Cf. Charles O'Donnell,
The Ideal of a New Christendom. The Cultural and
Political Philosophy of Jacques Maritain. A doctoral dissertation of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., (1940). Typed Manuscript. This well-documented
study is indispensable to all interested in Maritain's biography and relations to
French intellectual, literary, and social movements. "Maritain contributed three
or four articles a year to La Revue Universelle until the condemnation of L'Action
(p. 26). Later on he participated in and inspired the foundation of the
democratic periodicals La Vie lntellectuelle, Esprit and Temps Present.
• Cf. P. Archambault, Les Jeunes MaUres, Paris, 1926, 81-116; on Maritain's
political philosophy, pp. 106-111.
• Cf. Primaute du Spirituel, Paris, 1927 (English: The Things That Are Not
Caesar's, New York, 1931); the two volumes edited in collaboration with a number
of theologians and philosophers, Pourquoi Rome a parle, Paris, 1928, and Clairvoyance de Rome, Paris, 1929. As there was some hope that the Actwn
would accept the decision of the Church, Maritain wrote his pamphlet, Une Opinion
sur Charles Maurras et le devoir des Catholiques, Paris, 1926, which is several
times quoted in The Things That Are Not Caesar's.
• Cf. Charles O'Donnell, op. cit. He writes about J. Desclausais' article in the
Revue Universelle of June 15, 1936: " ... sweepingly accuses Maritain of every

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WALDEMAR

GURIAN

antipathy towards his work and public activities increased
steadily among the rightist French Catholics, until it reached
a climax during the Spanish Civil War. On the other hand,
Maritain now won more and more friends and admirers among
progressive Catholics. One of their writers, Vialatoux, contributed to Maritain's Bibliotheque fran9aise de la philosophie. 5
The periodical Esprit was strongly influenced by his personalism. The attitude towards Maritain's political philosophy was
often unfortunately determined by practical politics, though
Maritain himself insisted on remaining a philosopher, standing
above all parties and objectively grasping their particular spirit
and psychologies, as his characterization of the left and right
in Lettre sur l'Independance (Paris, 1936) shows
so impressively.
Is it possible to conclude from this change in Maritain's
French audience that his political
social philosophy has
changed too? Is it justifiable to oppose the Maritain of the
first period, down to 1926, in which he fought particularly the
errors of modern democratism, the author of Antimoderne,
Theonas, and Three Reformers, to the Maritain of the second
period, beginning with his polemic against the Action Fran<;aise,
after which he became the most prominent spokesman of those
Catholics who looked for a new democracy under Christian
inspiration and rejected all attempts to restore the political
forms of the past?
It seems to me that this distinction between periods in Maritain's work only helps to illustrate the unity of the central
motives of his thought and activities. Maritain has been a
Thomistic philosopher since he started to write for the general
public. After a youth outside the Church, after becoming a
heresy condemned by the Church. A charitable estimate of the attack would
regard it as a canard." (p. 451 f.) Those interested in the various attacks on Maritain by rightist Catholics, adherents of Action Frano;aise, etc., should read the
documented accounts of Charles O'Donnell.
6 Maritain's Primaute r!Ju Spirituel (French edition), contains a friendly discussion
with J. Vialatoux, who later contributed a volume, Essais cfe Philosophie Economique, to Maritain's series and another volume, Morale et Politique, to Questions
disputees, edited by Abbe Ch. Journet and Maritain (Paris, Desclee de Brouwer).

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

9

member of the circle around Peguy and after having been
impressed by Bergson's lectures, 6 he, became a convert under
the influence of Leon Bloy. 7 Philosophy did not matter for
Bloy, for he lived in the world of supernatural symbols and
realities; but Maritain studied the works of St. Thomas Aquinas
with the guidance of the Dominican Father Clerissac and
accepted Thomism because for him Thomism is, in its substance, the expression of universal truth, able to incorporate
the truth of all times and capable of being liberated from
purely historical elements and additions. He has remained a
Thomist. 8 His attitude toward the changing currents of
thought, as well as his attempts to understand present political
and social problems in a more perfect and a profounder way,
has always been determined by his Thomism. It is not accidental that in True Humanism the doctrine of the plurality of
civilizations, which destroys the acceptance of the Middle Ages
as an obligatory model for all times, is developed with the
help of a Thomistic terminology. Thomism is for Maritain
neither a catalogue of terms, whose meaning and application is
fixed definitely, nor an encyclopedia which has only to be
consulted for the solutions of problems. The young Maritain
emphatically opposed all attempts to modernize Thomism,
e. g., to let it appear as a kind of Bergsonism and thereby to
sacrifice its. supratemporal features. 9 But that is not a contradiction to the endeavors of Maritain to demonstrate the vitality
of Thomism by showing how it leads to a deeper understanding
of the trends of our time.
• Cf. Ransoming the Time, New York, 1941, p. 53.
7 Cf. Maritain,
Quelques Pages sur Leon Bloy, Paris, Cahier,
8 I quote only one of the many passages from the work of Maritain expressing
his fundamental philosophical attitude: " It took centuries of Christian work and
effort for the mind finally to emerge into the integral universalism which truth requires. St. Thomas Aquinas is the great exponent of such universalism developed
in the intelligence under the light of faith. . . . The philosophy of St. Thomas
welcomes all being, because it is absolutely docile to being. Its structure being as
hard as steel, it is as extensible as may be. Its discipline being the strictest possible,
it enjoys the utmost freedom." (The Things That Are Not Caesar's, New York:
Scribners, 1930, p. 104). On Maritain's philosophy and its importance in general,
cf. Gerald B. Phelan, Jacques Maritain, New York, 1937.
° Cf. Antimoderne, Paris,
p. 156-157.

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WALDEMAR

GURIAN

It is not too difficult to grasp the foundations of Maritain's
political and social philosophy, which is determined by
Thomism. To use a simple formula: Maritain professes to
have a political philosophy, he does not hide it behind claims
to have a science without aims, based on pure facts or derived
exclusively from practical activity. Political philosophy deals
with societies demanded by the nature of man. The decisive
influence of Aristotle is obvious, hardly surprising for a disciple
of St. Thomas. The societies demanded by human nature have,
of course, not only an exterior, protective, or material function.
They are necessary not only for life, but for a good life, that is,
for a moral and intellectual life. Here Maritain goes-{vjth St.
Thomas-beyond Aristotle. A purely natural political philosophy cannot know the ultimate end of man/ 0 Aristotelian
contemplation is not the beatitude of the Christian religion.
Revelation liberates political philosophy-as all philosophy 11from the limitations which are the consequences of the factual
weakness of the human reason. Furthermore, it puts before the
human reason realities which, like grace and supernatural
virtues, could never be found by reason's own faculties.
One example may illustrate Maritain's views on Christian
political philosophy. Man as an individual, or as a part of a
whole, is subordinated to society. 12 Society is seen not as some1 ° Cf. The Things That Are Not Caesar's, New York: Scribners, 1930, p.
fi.:
" The subordination of politics to ethics is absolute and even infinite, being based on
the subordination of ends; for the good of the state is not God Himself, and remains
far, far inferior to the supreme beatitude of man." And Maritain quotes from his
Une opinion sur Charles Maurras " •.. The subordination is such-it is indeed
infinite-that the strongest expression employed to indicate it will always be exceeded
by the reality. The Ancients, even Aristotle himself, did not fully realize it, because
they did not perceive with sufficient clarity that the supreme good of human
is
God Himself. Christianity was needed to make that fully clear." Cf. also p. U6,
where Maritain discusses the superiority in kind of integral political science
(" which if truly complete must have reference to t-he domain of theology ") to
inductive political science. (Again quoted from Une opinion sur Charles Maurras.)
11 Cf. De la philosophie chretienne, Paris, 1933. (The important introduction to
the Austrian edition written by B. Schwarz deserves to be translated into
English.)
12 Cf. Three Reformers, New York, 1934, and Freedom in the Modern World,

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

11

thing exterior and material, but as something necessary for the
good, moral life. But society is, on the other hand, subordinated
to man as a person-a man is not only an individual, but also
a person. The salvation of the person lies beyond the temporal
good of society, though a rightly ordered society is not in
opposition to the end of the person, but a way of attaining it.
The true temporal bonum commune is subordinated to the
naturally and supernaturally supratemporal end of each person-but in its order it is supreme. This distinction between
individual and person which was inspired by remarks of the
famous Dominican theologian, Garrigou-Lagrange, 13 makes
clear the limits of Aristotle, who could not grasp fully the
notion of personality. Therefore, the relation between polis,
the highest society, and the member of the polis fluctuated for
him. On the one side, the polis was the good life, the end of
man; on the other side, it was a means of making possible
contemplative, theoretical life. This life, of course, did not
transcend the world; there is for Aristotle no revelation, no
supranatural order, determining the ultimate end of the person
and making it necessary to regard the temporal bonum commune as supreme only in its realm, whose right order in itself is
no ultimate end.
The whole importance of Maritain's Christian political phiNew York, 1936, p. 46 ff. On p. 49 it is emphasized that the" person as such aspires
naturally to the social life. . . . There can be a society of pure persons," but
" only in God " . . . " Everywhere else the persons who are members of the
society are also parts of it; that is to say, the society is not a society of pure
persons but a society of persons who are also individual beings . . . " A more recent
formnlation of the distinction between. person and individual is to be found in
Scholasticism and Politics, New York, 1940, p. 59, in the article, "The Human
Person and Society." Maritain's personalism, for which the person is above stars,
atoms and society-as seen from below, ordained towards the temporal common
good--does not regard the person as isolated being: " . . . the subjectivity of the
person has nothing in common with the unity without doors and windows of the
Leibnitzian Monad. It demands the communication of intelligence and love."
(Scholasticism and Politics, p. 64.)
13 R. Garrigou-Lagrange,
Le Sens Commun, 3 ed., Paris,
p.
ff. "Par
notre individualite, nous sommes essentiellement dependants de tel milieu, de tel
climat, de telle heredite. . . . La personnalite, au contraire, vient de l'ame, c'est
meme la subsistence de l'ame independamment du corps."

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WALDEMAR

GURIAN

losophy can be realized fully only if it is studied not in its most
abstract formulation, e. g., in the distinction of individual and
person, but in its connection with historical and temporal movements. Maritain's thought illuminates intellectual and historical types and developments which would remain unintelligible
without it. Therefore, it is impressive and valuable also for
those non-Christian or non-Catholic students who are unable
to accept its last foundation, the Christian revelation, which
does not destroy, but completes nature. In their eyes revelation
appears only as a natural historical or psychological fact. They
do not believe that God has really spoken to the world and
to them.
All politics is based on specific images of man and on specific
views of the ultimate end of human life. Scientism and positivism are also metaphysics-in spite of their denials. A political science based apparently and exclusively on statistics and
empirical observations, unconsciously, and therefore uncritically, makes those decisions which determine the selection of
the statistics and the direction of the observations. The fecundity of the Aristotelian- Thomistic philosophy in the hands
of Maritain is manifested by the many insights into the history
of ideas which can be found in the works of the French philosopher. Here we can observe a certain change in his attitude,
some shift of emphasis in the points of view of the two periods.
The younger Maritain-the Maritain concerned above all with
speculative
inclined to study the modern world
in its movements of defection and apostasy .14 He observed
primarily the spiritual and intellectual secularization characteristic of n ..Jdern times. He analyzed the transposition of aims
from a superior to an inferior order (e. g., the case of Rousseau
for whom sentiment is the highest all-determining power). He
noted the ignorance of human limitations, e. g., the case of
Descartes who identified human knowledge with that of the
angels. These studies, especially Three Reformers, have been
u Cf. Antimodeme, Paris, 1922; Thionas (2 ed., Paris, 1925, Engl., 1933, New
York) Trois Reformateurs (New ed., 1925, Engl., 1934).

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

13

misunderstood as expressions of a narrow-minded fanaticism,
hating blindly and without discrimination. Some people noted
only the ironical remarks and the polemics. But it may be
of interest to point out that a prominent living French philosopher, glancing through the chapter on Descartes in Three
Reformers, stated that he would not have anything to do with
Maritain. Later, however, after a careful study of Maritain's
works, he declared: " I am not at all sure that even we who
admire him so
are fully alive to the lasting significance
of his work."
Particularly important in this first period are Maritain's
polemics against the modern belief in progress and against
Rousseauistic Democratism. 15 The belief in automatic progress
is rejected, because it misunderstands the ends of political and
social life. Technical and material improvements alone cannot
determine the ends. Rousseauistic Democratism is opposed
because its sentimental equality makes all social order impossible. This criticism of modern dogmas (those of nineteenthcentury Europe) has made Maritain appear to be an ally of
the party of order. Owing to a misunderstanding he was on
friendly terms with some of its intellectuals, but in his heart
he remained always alien to this party. Even during the period
when he was an appreciated contributor to the periodical of
Bainville, La Revue Universelle, he rejected the belief in a
political and social order fixed in itself 16 and he fought against
belief in automatic progress and a Rousseauistic Democracy

"TI

15 Against myth of progress cf. Theonas
and Vlli; and for a more comprehensive analysis, Freedom in the Modem World, New York, 1935, and True
Humanism, New York, 1936; against Rousseau's democratism cf. Three Reformers,
ill, Rousseau, and for particularly short and striking formulations cf. Ransoming
the Time, p. 16 (" ... a pseudo-Christian error"); cf. also The Things That Are
Not Caesar's, p. 132: "Democratism, or democracy as conceived by Rousseau
... the religious myth of Democracy, an entirely different thing from the legitimate
democratic regime. . . . " But American Democracy owes " little to Rousseau "
and is regarded very favorably by Maritain (Scholasticism and Politics, p. 90).
The same chapter repeats the criticism of Rousseau, p. 93.
16 Cf. e. g., Antimoderne, especially "Reflexions
sur le Temps present," p. 195.
"Tout ordre n'est pas bon par soi seul (il y a un ordre chez les demons)."

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WALDEMAR GURIAN

from the point of view of human freedom, because he regarded
them as dangerous attempts to deprive the men of modern
times of their true homes and their true spirit by abandoning
them to non-human and subhuman conditions.
One can observe a certain apocalyptic trend in Maritain's
writings, especially of this first period. 17 The world approaches
a catastrophe. The dominant political and social powers completely ignore a true order. Most men are de facto bad. As
St. Thomas puts it, they live only by their senses. There is an
awareness of the true order in his political thought before 1926,
but this appears in a more negative form, as a general interpretation of the secularization typical of modem times.
The period in which he actually entered the field of political
and social philosophy is characterized by a more differentiating
attitude towards the modern world, but without change in his
fundamental principles. The primacy of the spiritual 18 is
opposed even more emphatically to a belief in a self-sufficient
order, which makes a temporal form into a final end. A purely
empirical investigation, as conducted by the Action Fran<;aise,
is described as unsatisfactory, incapable of replacing the missing
true political philosophy. Maritain's Christian political philosophy, developing after 1926, emphasized more and more the
17 Antimoderne, "Refiexions sur le Temps present," p. 174: "A vrai dire, depuis
le declin du moyen age l'histoire moderne est-elle autre chose que l'histoire de
l'agonie et de Ia mort de Ia chretiente? ... Jeanne d'Arc, si elle a reussi a delivrer
la France, a echoue dans sa mission de rappeler Ia terre au respect du Droit
chretien."
18 Cf. The Things That Are Not Caesar's, p. 4, where St. Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theol., II-II, 58, 5 is quoted: "Homo non ordinatur ad communitatem
politicam secundum se totum et secundum omnia sua." Then Maritain continues
in order to prove the superior character of the Church: " But in that order of
eternal life the individual is no more self-sufficient.,..-even less than in the temporal.
By the very fact of being ordered to the beatific vision, he is parcel of a superior
whole, of a State which is a more perfect unit than the terrestrial State . . . we
need the terrestrial State for the normal development of our nature, not for participation in the essence of humanity itself, whereas none can be made to share
through sanctifying grace in the divine nature without belonging either visibly or
invisibly to the Church." Cf. also p. 125, Appendix: Politics and Theology
(Quotation from Une Opinion sur Charles Maurras.)

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

15

dignity and the proper ends of nature and temporal historythat of course is completely in the line of Thomistic thought. 19
What Maritain had begun in several works-Religion and
Culture, Freedom in the Modern World-found its clearest
expression in True Humanism, a series of lectures delivered in
Santander shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil
War. 20 The careful student of its principles and fundamental
attitudes will note that nothing essential of the first period is
abandoned or altered. The Christian political philosophy .remains. The negative aspects and movements of the modern
world continue to be described and condemned; also Maritain's
latest book, Les Droits de l'Homme, attacks Rousseauistic
Democratism as sharply as Three Reformers.
But we observe two important developments: The insight
that there are several ideals of Christian civilization appears
and becomes more and more important. The civilizations are
not equivocal, not absolutely different from each other, having
only the name civilization in common. Nor are they univocal,
that is, in substance identical. Their pluralism is based upon
their analogical character-they realize in different ways and
from different aspects the principles of the one supratemporal
truth and reality. This insight is connected with a comparative
description of the sacral medieval, of the anthropocentric liberal
or absolutistic, and of the Christian-inspired humanistic ideals
of civilization. We note here how helpful Thomistic terms are
for Maritain. In medieval civilization the profane realm tended
to be regarded as purely instrumental; in the coming Christianinspired humanism it will be an independent but subordinated
end (fin intermediaire), whereas in the anthropocentric-deter19 With the rise of totalitarianism,
Maritain insisted more and more upon the
fundamental values of a democratic philosophy of life and society. Cf. his
Christianity and Demouracy, to be published soon.
•• Religion and Culture, Paris, 1980. (Engl. ed., New York, 1981); Du ReginnB
Temporel et de la Liberte (Engl. ed., Freedom in the Modem World, New York,
1985); Humanisme Integral (Engl. ed., True Humanism, New York, 1987).
Ransoming the Time contains the most important study on Equality, indispensable
for the student of Maritain's attitude towards democracy and of his metaphysical
opposition to all opinions which neglect the dignity of man.

16

WALDEMAR

GURIAN

mined civilization it is an ultimate end, either in an individualistic way or by making a temporal order absolute.
These descriptions of the spirit, of the ideal-typical attitude
of different civilizations contain the most impressive rejection
of the program: "We have to restore the Middle Age and its
sacral civilization." The Middle Ages appear as an expression
of a finished period, which has realized a definite form and order.
To the accentuation of the organic unity and of the sacral
Maritain opposes not the decadence of an absolutism closed in
itself and of an anthropocentric individualism, but the personalism of a New Christendom. This New Christendom, the
soul and heart of the true humanism, will recognize the existence
of different religious beliefs and corresponding religious groups
as a fact which has to be accepted. That, of course, does not
mean a dogmatic toleration in which no dogma matters, because
all can be true or all can be wrong. But the civil toleration
does not exclude the orientation of all communities towards the
temporal common good. Maritain believes that only the Christians who are citizens of the one supratemporal polis, the
Church, know about the deepest foundation and ultimate finality of this common good, but it remains given to all groups,
though in a more or less imperfect way, and not as an expression
of a minimum of theoretical philosophical agreement, but as a
common duty and work. The unity of the new civilization and
its society will be determined less by exterior means than by
friendship and the will to mutual understanding and cooperation. This Christian-inspired personalism is most different from
a " religion of order " which regards exterior unity and acceptance of commands as decisive. It is at the same time opposed
to an individualism which knows only societies mechanically
united by interests, and which does not understand that persons
can sacrifice themselves to the community just in behalf of
other persons. Maritain's personalism is finally opposed to all
kinds of totalitarianism which either deal with persons as a
means and part of political and racial-telluric movements
(Fascism and National Socialism) or, like Marxian commu-

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

17

nism, deny their intellectual and spiritual nature and therefore
see their ultimate end in a material-economic order.
The dignity of the human person is the center of Maritain's
New Christendom, destined to be the interior mover of the
profane personalistic, pluralistic, and humanistic new civilization, and representing the form of worldly activity in our time
by the members of the one church which is itself above all civilizations. Maritain's personalism permits him to appreciate
democracy in a positive way. He no longer regards it in a traditional way as one of the political regimes nor does he identify it
with an individualist Rousseauistic Democratism. Recognition
of the rights of men which are based on Natural Law and on the
Eternal Law of the Creator, is decisive for the democracy
praised by Maritain. Active participation of all human persons
in political life, control of the state by the people, and fraternal
cooperation in common work under a leadership based not on
inherited privileges and hereditary selection but on the necessity of having an authority to determine unity of action, are
characteristic of this democracy, which is inspired by Christi,anity even though its members may not be Christians.
Maritain does not share the belief according to which special
groups destined to exercise authority are the necessary expression of a supratemporal order. Authority can be exercised
in different ways and under different forms. Maritain's democracy has not only a political but also, and perhaps primarily, a
social character. It excludes antagonistic classes and does not
hold the belief that the solution of economic and social problems will be brought about by substitution of the state for
capitalists. Work for common tasks in communities, a kind
of industrial democracy, appears to Maritain as a solution of
the fruitless conflict between capitalistic and proletarian
interests.
Speculative political philosophy has been connected by
Maritain with an observation and interpretation of historical
periods and temporal movements, which, as the author of the
study Freedom in the Modern World himself emphasizes, have
2

18

WALDEMAR

GURIAN

no character of necessity. Maritain does not believe in an immanent compulsory development of history. He hopes that the
new Christendom and the civilization moved and vivified by it
will become a reality-but this coming is not inevitable, only a
possibility. A catastrophe also is a possibility. 21 Politics does
not belong to the realm of pure ideas and essences, but to the
realm of contingent existences. Maritain is neither a utopian
nor a cynic. He is not utopian because his concrete ideal of
civilizations seeks only to grasp possible trends, but does not
constitute an abstraction without relation to existing conditions
and forces. His ideal is not a construction beyond space and
time. Neither is Maritain a cynic, as are so many disabused
idealists or believers in supernaturalism, who abandons the evil
world to the forces of destruction. He does not separate the
heaven of perfect principles from the realm of imperfect contingencies.22 He realizes that historical time does not correspond
to human time--one second of historical time can embrace
whole human generations. 23 But he believes that there is a
justice in history which is the work of providence, though, in
the details of its realization, inaccessible to men. He rejects a
01 Cf. Le Crepuscule de la CiviLisation, Montreal,
1940 (Lecture given in Paris,
1989, before the war.)
·•• Cf. " End of Machiavellianism," The Review of Politics, IV, 1 (Jan.
p. 6: " ... the toleration of some existing evil-if there is no furthering of or
for avoiding a greater evil or for
cooperating with the same-may be
slowing down and progressively reducing this very evil. Even dissimulation is
not always bad faith or knavery. It would not be moral, but foolish, to open up
one's heart and inner thoughts to whatsoever dull or mischievous fellow." This
article must be read by all students of Maritain's political philosophy.
28 Cf. End of Machiavellianism, p. 16: "In saying that evil and injustice do
not succeed in politics, I mean a more profound philosophical truth. . . . The true
philosophical answer (to the question: Evil succeeds? W. G.) consists in taking into
account the dimension of time, the duration proper to the historical turns of nations
and states, which considerably exceeds the duration of a man's life. According to
this political duration . . . I do not say that a just politics will, even in a distant
future, always actually succeed, nor that Machiavellianism will, even in a distant
future, always actually fail." And p. 19: " ... the ruler who sacrifices everything
to the desire of his own eyes to see the triumph of his policy is a bad ruler and
perverts politics, even if he lacks personal ambition and loves his country disinterestedly: because he measures the time of maturation of the political good
according to the short years of his own personal time of activity."

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

19

perfectionism unable to understand the character of prudential
decisions which have to take into account the conditions and
the mentality of the environment, of friends and enemies; this
perfectionism is very often only the hypocrisy of those who
excuse their own inability to act by pointing out general imperfections or faults of others. On the other hand, he rejects a
political amoralism incapable of understanding the ethics necessary for the good life of the community .24 Political wisdom
cannot be replaced by political techniques, nor the common
good as political aim by power and expansion.
Particularly striking in Maritain's philosophy is its ability to
unite supratemporal principles with a sense of concrete human
and social problems, but always seen in their universal significance. Maritain sees temporal events primarily in their relation to a supratemporal order; that is demonstrated in a
particularly moving way in his. attitude towards France and
towards the French catastrophe of 1940.25 Sometimes he has
been accused of being a French Nationalist, who ascribes to
France attributes of universal human character. But nothing
is more erroneous. Maritain regards the French nation sub
specie aeternitatis, from the aspect of a French spiritual and
intellectual mission, not replacing but representing and serving
humanity. The French catastrophe appears to him as a consequence of a rupture between people and ruling groups. The
people, in its substance uncorrupted despite all weaknesses
and human errors, committed the fault of a too passive indifference towards political decisions and activities. It tolerated
the more or less cynical behavior of its rulers, who had either
lost belief in their own principles, or accepted openly a cynical
amoralism. Maritain is not interested in analyzing concrete
End of Machiavellianism, p. 17: " Success in politics is not material power
nor material wealth nor world domination, but the achievement of the common
good, with the conditions of material prosperity which it involves . . . these very
conditions of material prosperity . . . are not and cannot be put in jeopardy or to
destruction by use of justice itself, if historical duration is taken into account and
if the specific effect of this use of justice is considered in itself, apart from the
effect of the other factors at play."
•• France My Country (French: A traversle deaastre), New York, 1941.

20

WALDEMAR

GURIAN

events and concrete forces in their interplay and mutual relations, but in the understanding of the moral significance of
general trends. His political, practical philosophy retains
always a speculative character and its interest in concrete
events remains a moral and spiritual one. Maritain does not
seek to be a political scientist, but remains always a political
philosopher. He regards not technical activity, but the good
life-a life which, as Christian life, is elevated in the realm of
grace-as the last aim of men and of all human societies. The
political philosophy of Maritain understands the concrete character of all politics, bound to time and its contingencies. He is
neither a practical politician nor an adviser in practical matters,
though a philosopher of the political praxis. A political scientist
is obliged to take Maritain seriously, for' he must understand
the principles and general directions which determine his
studies and interests.
Maritain has a particular position among Thomists (and
perhaps not only among them) on the ground of his unique
gift for utilizing the principles of his philosophy in order to
understand the present day. Technical terms like analogy,
discussions about the hierarchy of types of knowledge, open up
astonishing insights into realities which are of importance not
only for specialists and philosophers but for everyone. Nothing
is more alien to Maritain than a mechanical dialectic moved
only by a limitless urge to dissect terms. His political philosophy is aware on the one hand of the metaphysical and the
ethical and on the other hand of the contingent, practical character of politics. Maritain's own development proves that he is
in touch with life without having submitted to a dictatorship
of changes recurring in a perpetual flux. The principles of his
philosophy remain always the same; their understanding and
application is perfected more and more.
But the most profound cause for the impression made by
Maritain's political philosophy upon everyone who is anxious
to understand it and who does not a priori suspect Maritain as
a particularly clever propaganda agent, is the fact that his philosophy transcends philosophy. The Thomist Maritain is not

ON MARITAIN'S

POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY

21

only the careful investigator of the structures and realms of
being, whose unity as well as distinctions he tries to grasp. He
is a man dominated and overpowered by the experience of
reality. That unites him with those philosophers and great
scientists who surely would not accept his interpretation of
ultimate reality, but whose thought dominated their whole
existence, and in such a way that their existence remained unexhausted by their thought. What gives Maritain a particular
position is the fact that he is living in a great tradition, that his
concepts are not only his concepts, and that he (as his Catholic
students say) tries to participate in a wisdom which is not a
created wisdom. During his first period, he seemed to be upset
or impatient about the fact that the world was unwilling to
accept the salvation which he himself had accepted. This anger
and this impatience have become milder, have even disappeared. Maritain is today much more interested in the Christian
background of all civilizations than in the description and condemnation of their negative moments, of their decay and
apostasy. But his kindness conceals sorrow that the forces of
evil in the world are stronger and more active than the forces
of good. This sorrow over blindness and imperfections does not
prevent him from feeling himself responsible for this world, this
actual contingent world. The insufficiencies of the political
praxis do not refute a political philosophy, which knows the
natural and-with the help of revelation-the supernatural end
of man and his civilization, whose variety is a proof of the supraabundance of the Creator. The Creator is reflected in the
images not only of each man, but in the whole of humanity and
in all civilizations. No finite order, no civilization, can exhaust
Him, Who is above the world, beginning and ending in Him.
Maritain's political philosophy reaches its aim in contemplation, but a contemplation which is not an escape from time
and its struggles. The temporal common good is directed toward the ultimate good. The terrestrial cities must help the
attainment of the Celestial City. Of course, the ultimate end
remains, even if opposed by terrestrial conditions. But Maritain is not a sectarian regarding a world in which only saints

WALDEMAR

GURIAN

can really live as a normal situation. His religious belief is
not anti-humanistic, but a True Humanism-not rejecting but
trying to develop fully all human and social possibilities. Not
despair but hope of redemption is the last leit-motif behind all
his attempts to understand and to rescue society and politics
in our time.
The Review of Politics,
Notre Dame, Indiana

THE THEOLOGICAL INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

By J. C. OsBOURN, 0. P.

j\ NY peace pact among men which relies solely upon the

£"\.. enlightenment of philosophies is doomed to ultimate

failure. The
metaphysic of the idealist philosophies at one extreme has constantly elaborated over-pretentious dreams about the spiritual side of man only to see these
dissolved and cancelled out by the opposite trend of materialist or romanticist naturalism which has always endeavored to
compress the nature of man within the narrow and stuffy confines of matter. Between these two extreme and dehumanizing
viewpoints stands the mean, the perennial philosophy of the
Aristotelians; but this, too, is frequently forced to a frank
avowal of its incompetency to gauge adequately the total dimensions of man's nature. There are realities and potentialities, vitalities and wells of energy hidden in the nature of man
which escape the finest insights of mere philosophy. Among
such realities it would be altogether fitting and proper to enumerate peace, since it is the mature fruit of truly human living,
the connatural result, as we shall see, of a fuller evolution and
understanding of human nature. On account ·of philosophy's
inability to do full justice to the stature of. human nature, it
has failed and will consistently fail to prescribe the satisfactory
formula for a lasting peace among men. Human peace, like
human nature, thrusts its roots deep down below the surface
realities of philosophy and draws its nourishment from sources
which can be successfully tapped and analyzed only with the
more precisioned tools of theology.
From a theological standpoint, however, the most significant
account of man's moral, mental, and even physiological dimensions is unmistakably set down in Genesis to the effect that
man was created to the image and likeness of God; 1 whereas
1

Goo., i,

28

J. C. OSBOURN

the theological conception of peace as the tranquillity of order 2
has undeniably close affinities with the Gospel message, " Glory
to God in the highest: and on earth peace to men of good
will." 3 What are the tangible connections between these two
Biblical statements? What bearing has the aforesaid theological evaluation of human nature upon the problem of peace
conceived in terms of order and good will? What are the
chances of a workable peace formula based upon such a comparative analysis? Can it be said-indeed, must it be saidthat the essential conditions, the truly theological ingredients
of peace among men, are to be distilled from just such premises
as these? These vital questions will be examined in the following pages from the theological viewpoint in which they were
invariably conceived and pondered by St. Thomas and his disciples. Our aim, therefore, can be accomplished only through a
clear statement of St. Thomas's position on the following points
of doctrine.
I. The doctrine of divine likeness in man.
II. The divine exemplar at work in the world.
III. The influence of the divine exemplar upon divine likeness.

I.

THE DocTRINE

oF DIVINE LIKENEss

IN MAN

As to the general prerequisites for an image, St. Thomas is
brief and to the point. To be truly the image of another, he
tells us, a thing must proceed from that other according to a
likeness in species, that is, in nature or at least according to
some likeness which signifies the other's nature. 4 Two essential
conditions, therefore, must be realized in an image. First, it
must be a similitude derived from or expressed from its prototype. Secondly, there must also be found in the image, not
just any kind of likeness, but a similitude in nature or in some
sign, especially the figure/ proper to that nature. Unless these
two conditions be realized a thing cannot be properly called
an image.
• Summa Theol., II-II, q. !'l9, a. 1, ad 1.
3 Luke, ii, 14.

• Summa Theol:, I, q. 85, a. 1, c.

• Ibid., I, q. 98, a. 2, c.

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

fl5

The first condition, then, involves a matter of origin. This
procession or origin from its prototype which is demanded of
an image may take place in two ways. First, generation offers
the most patent example of origin or procession from another,
and this, the most perfect mode of origin, is generally found
in the line of efficient causality. The other case of origin or
derivation from a prototype is that founded directly upon
exemplar causality in which a copy is taken from the original,
frequently, though not always, through the agency of some efficient cause other than the prototype itself. St. Thomas points
out in this regard that an egg, for example, should not be called
the image of its fellow for the simple reason that one egg does
not originate from another in either of the two ways mentioned
above and consequently fails to meet one of the essential
conditions of an image. 6
The second essential requirement calls for specific likeness in
the image, and here again St. Thomas concedes as much elasticity as the necessary distinctions will permit. First of all,
this condition will best be realized in cases of origin like that
of son from father, in which the image, namely a son, is derived
from the original according to specific equality or identity of
nature. In another, less perfect way likeness sufficient to
answer the demands of this condition can be found in a sign,
such as figure, although the image and its prototype be of
diverse natures. For instance, the figure of a king or president,
which is nothing but the qualitative termination of his proper
quantity, can be impressed upon a coin or carved out of stone.
The stone or material of the coin differs widely from the man
in nature, but not in figure provided the artistic figure has been
copied from the natural figure of the man. This artistic figure,
then, since it was derived from the man and signifies his proper
nature by reason of similar configuration, can be called a true
image of him. Let it be noted here again, however, that a man,
no matter how close the resemblance, should never be referred
to as an image of his statue, because he could not possibly have
originated from it. It is only the converse, therefore, that ful• Ibid., q. 35, a. 1.

J. C. OSBOURN

fills the conditions of an image and this even to the point of
warranting a title to specific likeness through the mediation
of sign or connotation of proper accident. H likeness is not
found in either of these two ways, that is, in an equality of
specific nature or in a sign of specific connotation, then there
can be no specific similitude, since the second condition essential
for an image will be absent.
It is altogether important to note a further distinction regarding the likeness found in signs. It belongs to the very
nature of a sign, as well as to that of an image, to signify something other than itself or to call this other thing to the attention of those beings capable of reading signs or detecting
images. With this in mind the Thomists have generally classified signs under the headings of instrumental sign and formal
sign. 7 The instrumental sign serves the purely vicarious role
of representing another from which it has been derived. It
may be called an image of mere representation or configuration such as is found in the statue of some statesman. The
formal sign carries its vicarious function in such a perfect manner as to retain formal, though cognitional, identity with its
exemplar or original. This sort of sign is called an image of
conformity and is realized only in the phenomenon of knowledge wherein the knowing subject, without losing its own
identity or destroying the identity of the object known, becomes formally identical with the object known through the
determinative influence of the object's perfect vicar, namely,
the image of conformity. The image of conformity, being
cognitionally identical with the exemplar from which it is
derived, justly claims far greater perfection in the line of similitude than the image of mere representation, which has only a
dim and analogical likeness to the original, such for example
as the likeness of a healthy complexion to the formal health in
an animal. Since, therefore, the knowing subject becomes in
a cognitional way the object known by coming into possession
of the object's formal sign or image of conformity, the possibilities which such an image, cognitionally possessed, has for
7

John of St. Thomas, Cursus Pkiloaopkicus, I, Lib. I, c. !!.

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

27

rendering the knowing subject also an image of conformity
with respect to the object known are ll;nmediately evident. It
is this point which concerns us more than any other in our .
efforts to discover a divine likeness in the nature of man.
With these preliminary notions of an image before us, the
more serious problem of squaring them with human nature in
reference to God must now be tackled. Immediately it may
be reasonably assumed that the first condition raises no grave
difficulties to the ·mind of the theologian. Even philosophy
can trace the origin of man to God on fairly solid grounds. St.
Thomas, molding the finest testimonials of philosophy on this
point into the general structure of his doctrine on creation 8
and bringing the cumulative weight of all learning to the
service of theology, has built up an impregnable case for man's
origin from God as from first efficient and exemplar cause.
Nearly as much, however, can be said with equal certainty of
all creatures, since all proceed in one way or another from
God. Our real problem here, then, resolves itself primarily to
determining the difference between man and other inferior
creatures in their reference to God as exemplar. The answer to
this difficulty will reveal the essential distinction to be made
between an image and a mere vestige of any original, and its
ultimate solution will hinge directly upon the second general
condition mentioned above as essentially required for an
Image.
The question conceived from this angle shifts our attention
momentarily to a somewhat closer inspection of God, the
divine exemplar. It must be set down as a certainty from the
very start that God, on account of His absolute simplicity,
uttermO'st perfection, goodness, and other entitative attributes, can in no way be bracketed within the ten categories
of Aristotle by any sort of univocal predication. God and
creature, then, cannot be conceived of as univocally similar by
reason of a common genus and differentiated by some proper
characteristic which would set them off into variant species of
being. According to St. Thomas, God is not contained in any
8

Summa Theol., I, qq. 44, 45, 46; qq. 90, 91.

28

J. C. OSBOURN

genus or species. 9 He is Being unparticipated and limitless. St.
Thomas establishes this truth about God firmly enough by
pursuing the classic quinque viae 10 through to their more evident implications. 11 In other words, from a consideration of
limited, contingent, and participated being St. Thomas can
definitely decide upon the existence of the unparticipated and
all-perfect being whom we call God. In this way and according to our mode of apprehension God is understood and known
under this most abstract and analogical concept of being as the
First Uncaused Cause of all creatures. Moreover, this most
general attribute, which we call being, is observed by reason
to reside in finite creatures. according to various degrees or
grades of perfection in so far as some are corporeal or inanimate beings merely, others are living, others are cognitive,
and still others are intellectual. This note of intellectuality
along with its inseparable companion, volition, is verily the
highest endowment discernible in the creatures of God. It is
by this very perfection that man is differentiated specifically
from all other creatures inferior to himself and shares in a certain communion of nature with the angels. Intellectuality,
being an unmixed perfection with none of the dross of matter
implied in its concept, is certainly compatible with the divine
simplicity. In fact St. Thomas's proofs for the existence of God
culminate in the demand for a divine intelligence whose nature
is intellectual. 12 Furthermore, since God's purpose in creating
the universe is to manifest himself as He truly is, and since
no other conceivably higher perfection than intellectuality has
been manifested either by nature or revelation, it follows that
intellectuality not only belongs to God but stands at the very
pinnacle of divine perfections in our way of understanding, so
that it is the specific nature and proper life of the Deity. God's
life, then, and also His being, since the life of the living is
their being/ 3 not only as to the unity of the divine nature but
10 Ibid., q. 2, a. 3.
11 Ibid., q. 3-11.
• Ibid., I, q. 3, a, 5.
Ibid., q. 2, a. 3: "Quinta via sumitur ex gubernatione rerum ..· .. Ergo est

12

aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem:
13 Ibid., I, q. 18, a. 2.

"

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

29

as to the Trinity of Persons, consists properly and specifically
in knowing and loving Himself according to the intellectual
processions of the divine Word and the Holy Spirit of love. 14
A true image of God, therefore, must be derived from God
by some mode of origin and endowed with life which consists
in knowing and loving itself, but more especially in knowing
and loving God as God knows and loves Himself. We may
set it down, therefore, as a general principle that the closer
any being approaches the divine exemplar in intellectual nature
or life the more secure will be its claims to a verification of the
conditions required of a divine image. It is also a plain fact of
theology which St. Thomas does not fail to remark that, " the
First-Begotten of every creature is the perfect image of God,
perfectly commensurate with that of which He is the image." 15
And certainly no creature could possibly ever realize the divine
likeness in such a degree of perfection.
Irrational or non-intellectual creatures fall short of the barest
essentials of God's image. True, they are imperfectly assimilated to God as the primary source of being, life, and knowledge in so far as they exist, live, and enjoy the paltry scraps
of knowledge collected by the senses; but such similarity warrants no claims to divine likeness that would satisfy the exigencies of an image. They manifest by dim analogy the fact
of divine
and for this reason are said to be vestiges
merely of their Primary Cause. They do not represent the
proper or specific form and nature of this First Cause, as an
image must, since it differs from a vestige precisely in that it
represents the form of its cause,. whereas the vestige represents
only the fact of causality. 16 Not even as a sign diverse in
nature but signifying at any rate the proper or specific nature
of its original do they represent the intellectual nature of God.
The reason underlying this contention is based ultimately upon
"Ibid., q. !i!7, a. 8: " ... in divinis sunt duae processiones, scilicet, processio
verbi, et quaedam alia. . . . quae est processio amoris."
15 Ibid., I, q. 98, a. 1, ad !i!: " ... 'Primogenitus
omnis creaturae' est imago Dei
perfecta, perfecte implens illud cujus imago est: et ideo dicitur Imago, et nunquam
ad imaginem."
16 Ibid., q. 45, a. 8.

30

J. C. OSBOURN

the fact that immateriality is at the root of all knowledge and
that intellectual knowledge and natures also as such are independent of matter. Now the most perfect of irrational creatures, namely, sentient animals, enjoy a very limited range of
freedom from the restrictions of matter in that the particular
forms of sensible reality are accessible to and capable of being
imbibed by their faculties apart from the grossest bulk of matter. Yet the material conditions of singularity, such as time
and space, cannot be transcended in this process.u A seal set
upon pliant wax does not leave imbedded in the folds of wax
the iron or other metal of which it is made, but it leaves its
figure impressed there and according to the material conditions
of measurement, space and time. In some such way as this,
knowledge of particulars is effected in sentient creatures, but
this process is patently incompatible with intellectual natures
since they. remain· independent of matter and the conditions
of matter. For this reason irrational creatures are incapable
of attaining the lofty heights of intellectuality. For the same
reason they are not apt subjects for the reception of divine
grace in a formal way and, what is more to the point here, they
are also incapable of becoming images of God.
On this horizon, then:, between sentient or corporeal and
intellectual or spiritual life looms the nature of man. It is also
at this vantage point that St. Thomas stations himself for his
most telling discernments of human nature. "Naturally," he
tells us, " the soul is capable of grace: for by the very fact that
it was made to the image of God, it is capable of God through
grace." 1.s Thus stationed, St. Thomas can glance down the
descending slopes of man's being to the wells of matter where
it is rooted in nature or he can fix his gaze upon the lofty
peaks of the supernatural to which the fuller evolution of man's
nature connaturally aspires and where alone man will ultimately find his most peaceful repose. The advantage of such a
position from the theologian's viewpoint will become apparent.
Ibid., q. U, a. 4, ad 2.
Ibid., I-II, q. 113, a. 10: " ... naturaliter anima est gratiae capax; eo enim
ipso quod facta est ad imaginem Dei, capax est Dei' per gratiam, ut Augustinus
dicit."
17
18

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It opens up two avenues of investigation both of which converge upon and radiate from man considered as image of God.
First of all, at the very confluence of grace and nature, but
still on the side of nature, the faint outlines of a divine image
can be discerned in man. By his very nature man shares imperfectly in the prerogatives of intellectuality. He is at least
dimly conscious of this by reason of the fact that he is conscious of a natural capacity for universal truth and goodness.
He is conscious of the capacity to place himself outside the
material world about him as an impersonal onlooker. For that
matter, he can stand outside himself, through the process of
reflection at least/ 9 which in the opinion of St. Thomas transcends the range of corporeal or sentient being, 20 and pass
judgment dispassionately upon himself ap_d upon his own
actions; he can observe himself critically, approving or disapproving himself as well as his own doings. In other words, he
has the capacity of knowing and loving himself, and such a
transcendency over matter and its restrictions already places
him far closer to a realization of divine likeness than any creature inferior to himself could possibly approach. Under the
abstract and analogical concept of being man can apprehend
God, the First Uncaused Cause, as an intellectual and volitional being who knows and loves Himself as First Cause.
Thus man naturally learns of his origin from God and of his
similarity to God, a being of self-knowledge and self-love, in
this his very own capacity of knowing and loving himself as he
is. By reason of his intellectuality, therefore, man bears the
dim lineaments of a divine image.
From his careful survey of the downward slopes of man's
nature, that is, of the sense and vegetative vitalities immersed
in the corporeal organisms, St. Thomas can find nothing more
than a material, dispositive, and secondary groundwork for the
divine likeness in man. His sober decisions upon this phase
of human nature certainly skirt the pitfalls of idealism and
u Ibid., I, q. 87, a. 1, 8.
"" IV Cont. Gent., 11: " ... non enim aliqua potentia
reflectitur."

sensitiva in seipsam

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materialism with a balanced security, since they flow directly
from the doctrine of matter and form or of substantial union
between body and souP 1 The body is not a prison violently
restraining the soul's natural vitality; not a burden to be
shaken off by the spirit of man, nor a shameful minion to be
spurned by the intuitions of virtue as the Platonists and Stoics
would have us believe. On the other hand, man is not, as the
Romanticists suppose, so utterly a child of nature that his
vision cannot look beyond the narrow horizons of body and
what is materiaP 2 According to St. Thomas man is a substantial composite of body and spirit. The body naturally :fills
the role of a docile companion to the soul. So also the vegetative and sense powers, intimately correlated as they are to
their respective spheres of the corporeal organism, form a cordon of helpful co-workers about the central and superior region
of man's nature, namely, his intellectuality. In fact the close
affinities between corporeal and intellectual elements in man
demand a special configuration and coaptation of bodily structure which sets his off from all other bodies and gives meaningfu! significance to the Biblical assertion that man's body was
fashioned directly by the Creator. 23 It is precisely this intimate relation between body and soul which seems to tempt
St. Thomas to exploit the possibilities of discovering a divine
image in man's body to their utmost and to suggest to him a
so-called secondary similitude of God founded upon the fact
that the entire human soul informs the whole body and all of
its parts just as God !s present in the whole universe and all
of its parts. 24 But St. Thomas has to admit in the end that
such a likeness can be only secondary and dispositive with
21 Summa Theol., I, q. 76, a. 1, a. 5: " ... cum forma non sit propter materiam,
sed potius materia propter formam; ex forma oportet rationem accipere quare
materia sit talis, et non e converso. Anima autem intellectiva, . . . secundum
ordinem naturae, infimum gradum in substantiis intellectualibus tenet; ... "
•• Summa Theol., I, q. 77, a.
locates man on the borderline between idealism
and naturalism in the following terms: " . . . anima humana abundat diversitate
potentiarum: videlicet quia est in confinio spiritualium et corporalium creaturarum,

"
·•• Gen., ii, 7. See Summa Theol., I, q. 91,
•• Summa Theol., I, q. 98, a. 8.

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respect to the divine image realized properly by reason of
man's intellectuality. 25 Hence the lower regions of man's nature reflect God not as an image but as a mere vestige, differentiated from that of irrational creatures only in its peculiar
adaptation for underlying the true and proper image of God
:found in intellectual nature.
This natural image of God impressed upon intellectual nature betrays, however, all the imperfections of an image of
mere representation which we described above. In reference
to its exemplar it is as imperfect, considered from the viewpoint of nature alone, as a statue with respect to its living
original. It is of a nature utterly diverse from the divine
nature, and yet human nature stands forth as an instrumental
sign tracing its origin to God and leading the mind to a conviction of God's existence and of His specific attribute of intellectuality. This image, like all images, being essentially relative or referable to its exemplar, can be reduced to the
:following terms: Man knowing and loving himself as he is
represents God who knows and loves Himself as He is. Human
nature, therefore, according to its note of intellectuality is an
image of mere representation with respect to God and :for this
reason the preposition to (ad), according to St. Thomas, is
inserted into the Biblical expression, " made to the image," in
order to emphasize its imperfection. 26
Another and more significant :feature of this divine likeness
found in man is its elusiveness to the natural light of reason.
On the surface, it might seem a bit paradoxical to say there is
a natural image of God in man's nature which escapes man's
natural powers of perception. But it is noteworthy that St.
Thomas never presumes to demonstrate philosophically the
existence of a divine likeness in man from the :fact of his intellectuality. St. Thomas never presumes to demonstrate man's
capacity for grace and glory from the fact of a natural desire
for these gifts, but frankly admits that this is a matter beyond
the natural light of reason or, in his own words, "praete·r
rationem." 27 Neither does he presume to demonstrate the exIbid., a. 4, ad S.

3

26

Ibid., a. 1, ad

'"Ibid., q. U, a. 1.

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istence of the Trinity from the fact of man's intellectuality. 28
He supposes the existence of the Trinity, and the existence
of a capacity for grace and glory in man, just as he supposes
the existence of a divine likeness in man's nature, on grounds
of faith and revelation. This is evident from St. Thomas's
mode of procedure, which usually takes as the point of departure in this matter a Sed Contra based upon authorities
such as Genesis and the Fathers. 29 Once the fact of a divine
likeness in man has been revealed, then St. Thomas, as every
good theologian should, begins to call philosophy into the service of faith with a view to exposition and illustration. It must
be kept in mind, then, that here at the very pinnacle of man's
nature and 'still on the side of nature is a reality, namely, the
natural capacity for grace and glory or, what amounts to the
same thing, a true image of God, which escapes the discernments of natural reason and consequently philosophy's deepest
insights.
The reason underlying the crucial point just made is to be
found in the nature of an image. It will be recalled that an
image as such is essentially relative or referable to its exemplar just as a statue is essentially referable to and unintelligible except in terms of its originaL Unless the statue has some
possible reference of similitude to its original, unless it is at
least capable of representing or signifying an original, it is not
a statue, not an image at all but only a lump of marble or
bronze. Now we have seen how man is essentially referable
to God and is a true image of representation in that he enjoys
an intellectual nature which necessarily implies the capacity
of intellection and volition. Our difficulty here, then, is to
determine whether man by the light of natural reason can
actually see that reference which really exists between himself
and God as between image and exemplar. If he cannot, he is
in the position of the amateur gaping at a fine statue of Julius
28 Summa Theol., I, q. 27, accepts the fact of two processions in God as a matter
of faith and from this premise offers an argument of fittingness from similar processions found in intellectual creatures.
29 Summa Theol., I, q. 93, a. 1, Sed Contra; a. 2, Sed Contra.

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Caesar without appreciation because he has never heard of its
original. The statue means nothing to him and as far as he is
concerned fulfills none of the conditions of an image. I£, on
the other hand, man's unaided reason can actually see this
reference, then it can also know God as He really is and knows
Himself. This is an accomplishment, in St. Thomas's opinion,
that involves the impossible. 80
The transparency of the term involved in the relative character of an image, therefore, directly conditions its perceptibility. Man can naturally perceive a faint analogy between
himself and God in that his own capacity of knowing and
loving himself leads him to affirm a similar perfection in God,
the First Cause. This First Cause, however, the original of
man as copy, besides Its unity of nature is also a Trinity of
Persons knowing and loving Itself as It really is. Here then
is the step which natural reason cannot take alone. Man in
knowing himself knows by reflection that this very process of
intellection is vitally expressed and kept living before his attention by what the Thomists call the species expressa or mental
word. 81 He cannot without further enlightenment, however,
conclude from this, his own intellectual life, that the analogous
process in the First Cause is terminated by a Subsistent, Consubstantial, and Coeternal Word. 82 Man's intellectual nature,
therefore, is naturally an imperfect though proper image of the
Trinity, since God as triune is the cause of creatures and
also knows Himself in this way. But intellectual nature concretized in creatures cannot explore or even dream of this
triune term of reference which specifies its tendential status
"" Ibid., I, q.
a. 4.
81 lbid., I, q. 93, a. 7: "Verbum autem in anima nostra sine actuali cogitatione
esse non potest." Cajetan, in Summa Theol., I, q.
a. 1, n. XVI; Ferrariensis,
in Contr. Gent., I, 53, n. IV; John of St. Thomas, De Sacro Trinitatis Myaterio,
Disp. XII, a. 4, n.
•• Summa Theol., I, q.
a. 1: "Non ergo accipienda est processio secundum
quod est in corporalibus, vel per motum localem, vel per actionem alicujus causae
in exteriorem effectum, . . . sed secundum emanationem intelligibilem, utpote
intelligibilia a dicente, quod manet in ipso. Et sic fides catholica processionem ponit
in divinis."

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as image without the assistance of gratuitous revelation. This
very significant fact about man's status as image of God
explains the inability of philosophy to dictate more than a
dispositive groundwork for peace among men.
At this point we are prepared to cross over the line of demarcation between nature and grace in search of a more perfectly developed image of the Trinity superimposed upon the
natural image, which we have just been exploring. Already we
have seen that the intellectual nature of man is naturally an
image of God by mere representation and not by conformity,
because the abyss between God known indirectly or mediately
through the mirror of creation and God known immediately
as He really is in Himself cannot be crossed by the natural
light of reason alone. But., mindful that the natural image in
man is also a capacity for grace, we should not be surprised to
find here in man's state of gratuitous elevation that the natural image following the fortunes of grace has evolved into what
St. Thomas is pleased to call an image of conformity. 88 Certainly an image of mere representation in the line of knowledge has a natural tendency to become an image of conformity,
just as the imperfect tends to the perfect, for knowledge is essentially assimilative. It is a natural capacity for attaining
God in those ways which are proper to such an attainment,
namely, through the process of intellection and volition further
actuated by grace. To know God as First Cause fans up the
flame of natural desire to know Him as He is. But the actual
passage from desire to realization, the actual reference of conformity between God and man in the line of knowledge, depends both in its inception and in its consummation upon
supernatural grace, namely, the light of faith and of divine
glory.
•• Q. D. de Ver., q. 10, a. 7: "Sed in cognitione qua mens nostra cognoscit se
ipsam, est representatio Trinitatis increatae secundum analogiam, in quantum
hoc modo mens cognoscens se ipsam verbum sui gignit, et ex utroque procedit amor.
Sic Pater se ipsum dicens, Verbum suum genuit ab aeterno, et ex utroque procedit
Spiritus Sanctus. Sed in cognitione ipsa qua mens ipsum Deum cognoscit mens ipsa
Deo conformatur, sicut omne cognoscens, in quantum hujusmodi, assimilatur
cognito." Also Summa Tkeol., I, q. 98, aa. 4, 8.

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The theological reasoning of St. Thomas runs along the
following lines: God could not enjoy infinite bliss and peace,
in fact could not be God, except in the absolutely perfect
realization of an eternally uninterrupted and unlimited act of
knowing and loving Himself· as He really is, since He is really
the most perfect intellectual nature both subjectively and objectively.84 Neither can man ever be perfectly happy and completely at peace until his destiny is reached, until his capacity
for possessing God intellectually through the light of glory
has been realized. His eternal destiny de facto consists solely
in the uninterrupted and unhampered activity of his highest
faculties, namely, intellect and will, bent to fullest capacity
upon the most noble object accessible to them. Anything, St.
Thomas adds, realizes its destiny in so far as it is conjoined
proportionately to its immediate principle, since the end of a
thing corresponds to the principle of that thing. 35 But God
known through the supernatural light of revelation is the immediate principle of man's soul and intellectuality. Therefore,
God seen under the same aspect is the ultimate end of man.
This is eternal life for man, namely, beatific vision and love
of God as He knows and loves Himself. To be conjoined with
God directly or immediately by knowledge and love implies
intellectual (cognitional and volitional) identity or conformity
with God. To attain God in such a manner requires Godlike
activity.
The glaring disproportion between such activity and man's
natural activity can only be toned down and balanced by the
divine light of glory. 36 Since the divine essence, to our way of
understanding, is the root principle of God's activity, then the
light of divine glory must be a formal, though accidental, participation of the divine essence. For it fortifies, not as objective
but as subjective intermediary, 37 the natural vitalities of man's
intellectuality to such a pitch that he can look upon God
directly and see Him objectively as He sees Himself, though
•• Summa Theol., I, q.
•• Summa Theol., I, q.
•• Ibid., a. 5.

a.

a. 1.
87 Cf. Banez and John of St. Thomas on I, q.

a. 5.

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infinitely less comprehensively. 38 This light of glory, then, is
demanded, not as an impressed or expressed species to render
God, the one perfectly intelligible object, more intelligible, but
rather to elevate man to the supernatural plane of conformity
with the divine essence so that as knowing subject he becomes
cognitionally the object known. A more perfect conformity
between God and man is inconceivable. This is the highest
degree of evolution of which the divine similitude in man is
capable. It is a consummation to be realized only in heaven
where eternal peace or the tranquillity of order reigns supreme.
In this life as wayfarer man may come to reflect a less perfectly developed phase of the same image of conformity which
is impressed by divine grace and its inseparable companions,
namely, the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost. Glory
after all is nothing but the crown and consummation of divine
grace. Grace is the seed of eternal life dropped down upon the
soil of rational nature by the divine bounty, destined to grow
heavenward and to flower into the ripened fruits of glory. The
essential role of grace, like that of glory, is to elevate intellectual nature 39 to a plane of Godlike activity which ultimately, telescoped through the subjective virtues of divine
faith and charity, puts us in immediate contact with God cognitionally and volitionally, as He really is. It is true that our
actual communion with and explicit reference to God, the
supernatural exemplar, is in this life imperfect, fragmentary,
and frequently broken. But grace and its cordon of supernaturally operative habits supplies a permanently fixed point of
reference underlying the vicissitudes of our earthly affairs. By
grace we are " made partakers of the divine nature " 40 and
images of conformity to God.
88 Summa Tkwl., I, q. U, a. 7.
•• Ibid., I-II, q. 110,
also Q. D. cleVer., q. 8, a. 1, where St. Thomas remarks:

" Restat ergo ut illud quo intellectus creatus Deum ·per essentiam videt, sit essentia
divina. Non autem oportet quod ipsa divina essentia fiat forma intellectus ipsius,
sed quoad se habeat ad ipsum ut forma, quae est pars rei, et materia efficitur
unum ens actu, ita, licet dissimili modo, ex essentia divina et intellectu creato fiat
unum in intelligendo, dum intellectus intelligit et essentia divina per se ipsam
intelligitur."
•• II Peter, i, 4.

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Thus St. Thomas reduces the various phases of divine likeness in man to three, which he names image of creation (by
reason of intellectual nature), image of re-creation (by reason
of grace), and image of similitude or glory (by reason of divine
glory) .41 The last two are phases of an image of conformity,
the latter more perfect than the former. The first is only an
image of representation. The last-mentioned image once possessed cannot be destroyed or lost, cannot even suffer diminution or tarnish by reason of sin, since such a state is beyond
the possibility ofsin. 42 The second, that is, the image of grace,
can be utterly lost, because it is a sheer gift, not an inherent
right of nature, bestowed upon man while yet a wayfarer subject to the shifting aims of a flexible will. In fact man lost the
first grace with which he was created 48 and thereby involved
the entire race in his fall to the extent that Christ, the Redeemer, was needed as the champion of restoration and reparation. Hence the image of re-creation is so named from the healing grace of Christ. The first image, namely, of representation,
cannot be lost because it belongs to the nature of man, but it
can be diminished and broken by sin.
In St. Thomas's opinion the fallen and unregenerated nature
of man is a broken image of God. All of the essential parts and
properties of human nature remain after sin, but they need
to be rearranged like the scattered parts of a jig-saw puzzle or
of a broken statue before they can reflect the meaning which
they were intended to convey. The propriety and worth of
such a metaphor is proved by the fact that St. Thomas thinks
of sin as implying essentially a deordination and groups the
various effects of sin on the part of the sinner under the term
wounds. Just as the continuity of the body surface, he reminds
us, is broken by a wound so also by sin the original harmony
and order of parts in man's nature are disrupted. The natural
energies and inclinations of man's faculties, originally centered,
coordinated, and subordinated to the supreme good of God,
under the wounds of sin become sluggish, dispersive, atomistic,
u Summa Theol., I, q. 98, a. 4.
.,. Ibid., I-ll, q. 5, a. 4.

"" Ibid., I, q. 95, a. 1.

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greedy for the temporal good of the numerous petty kingdoms
in man divided against themselves and prone to ordinations
positively contrary to the good of reason. 44 Original justice
consisted essentially in that special grace whereby reason (intellect and will) was immediately subordinated to God, the
lower vitalities to reason, and the body to the soul. 45 Original
sin, then, in effect was the first privation or disruption of this
order of parts, and all further excursions into personal sin on the part of the sinner essentially amount to a
widening of the breach in this unity of order constituted by
grace. Serious sin, therefore, completely obliterates the image
of conformity from the soul of man, because it destroys the
capacity for actual (conscious) and habitual ordering or reference of himself to God, his supernatural end known as He is
in Himself. The capacity for grace, however, remains, and
consequently the image of representation founded on intellectual nature; but it is shattered and broken by
sin.
St. Thomas finds a vestige of the Trinity in all creatures in
so far as all are compounds of the celebrated Augustinian
formula, namely, mode, species, and order/ 6 which applies also
to unregenerated man. Besides this vestige in man, his status
as image of representation, though shattered, still perdures
because his representative reference or order to God as First
Cause, though diminished, remains. It remains because the
analogy, man is to his self-knowledge and self-love as God to
His, still stands; it is diminished because knowledge and love
of true self are proportionately weakened and shattered as man
.. Ibid., I-II, q. 85, a. 3. It should be remembered that a great deal of discussion
has arisen on this point among theologians. For example, Thomas Lemos, Panoplia
Gratiae, Tom. I, Part ft, tract. I, and Sylvius, on this article of St. Thomas hold
that man in the state of fallen nature is differentiated from man in the state of
pure nature just as a wounded man is distinguished from a man who is naked.
Bellarmine (De Gratia primi hominis), Suarez (De Gratia, proleg. 4, c. 8), and
many others insist that man by original sin lost nothing of natural perfection but
only the gratuitous gifts, so that there is only a rational distinction between man
in the state of fallen nature and in the state of pure nature. St. Thomas steers a
middle course between these two extremes.
•• Ibid., I, q. 95, a. I.
•• Ibid., I, q. 45, a. 7.

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becomes more deeply immersed in sin. From this reaction to
sin suffered in the order of man's parts to each other and to
God, we can already dimly guess the fate of peace conceived
of as the tranquillity of order and proposed to or by unregenerated man.
This fragmentary image remaining after sin can be repaired
only by the healing grace of Christ. Christ's office as Mediator
and High Priest of the New Law constitutes Him the masterkey to all the treasuries of grace, with full dominion over its
distribution.
Normally, then, regeneration comes through
Christ's divinely instituted channels, namely, the Sacraments,
which are continuations and prolongations of His priesthood.
Besides the grace of the Sacraments whereby we are made
images of conformity to Christ as well as to the Trinity, some
of the Sacraments also confer the sacramental character which
renders us images of configuration with respect to Christ considered precisely as Mediator and High Priest. The sacramental character, St. Thomas tells us, is a participation of the
priesthood of Christ. 47 It officially deputes us to receive or
dispense those "greatest and most precious promises" by
which we " may be made partakers of the divine nature " 48
and which pertain to Christian worship. 49 Therefore, the character is an instrumental sign and not a formal sign, an image
of configuration or representation and not of conformity with
respect to that priesthood of Christ's which deputes Him to
Christian worship as its author. 50 The character too, like the
natural image of God in man's nature, remains under the
ravages of sin; being also essentially instrumental, it, like the
representative image of the Trinity, has a tendency or capacity, not a positive exigency/ 1 to become an image of conformity, which as we have seen is constituted by the grace of
Christ. 5 2
•• Ibid., III, q. 68, a. S.
•• II Peter, i, 4.

•• Summa Theol., III, q. 63, a. S.
•• Ibid., ad 2.
61 Fr. Mannes Matthijs,
0. P., has discussed this problem in a masterly way in
his article: " Quomodo Anima Humana Sit Naturaliter Capax Gratiae Secundum
Doctrinam S. Thomae," Angelicum, Vol. XIV, 1987.
•• Summa Theol., I, q. 93, a. 4: "Alio modo, secundum quod homo actu vel

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There remains one more very important point to be made
concerning St. Thomas's doctrine on the divine likeness in man.
It is this, that St. Thomas finds the most perfect expression
of the various phases of divine likeness realized on the plane
of activity. This is evident from his mode of procedure. He
proposes his treatise on the divine likeness toward the end of
a long and thorough discussion of God as Creator, declaring by
the very title over the entire question 53 that a divine likeness
in man is the term or end (finis operis) of the production of
man. But it is well known that St. Thomas frequently holds
up activity as the end for which operative creatures exist. 54
Moreover, he has a special article under this general question
in which he asks expressly if the image of God in man appears
there by reason of man's powers, or his habits, or his acts. 5 5 His
answer is that our first and foremost glimpse of divine likeness
in man is to be had on the plane of action, since in this especially man imitates the Trinity of Persons in God, which is indeed founded upon the processions of actual knowledge and
love. 56 Only secondarily or virtually is the divine likeness detected in the intellectual nature, powers, and habits of man,
that is, in a manner similar to that of a full-blown reality in
its undeveloped germ. 57 Finally, in his general prologue to the
treatise on moral acts, which he previously referred to as dealing with the motion of rational creatures back to God, 58 St.
Thomas, taking his cue from St. John Damascene, proposes to
follow up his treatise on God, the divine exemplar, with a discussion of the image of God, namely, man considered precisely
habitu Deum cognoscit et amat, sed tamen imperfecte: et haec est imago per conformitatem gratiae."
•• Ibid., q. 98: "De Fine sive Termino Productionis Hominis."
•• Ibid., q. 12, a. 1: "Cum enim ultima hominis beatitudo in altissima ejus
operatione consistat, ... " Cf. also I-ll, q. 8, a. 2.
•• Ibid., I, q. 98, a. 7.
•• Ibid., " Et ideo primo et principaliter attenditur imago Trinitatis in mente
secundum actus, prout scilicet ex notitia quam habemus, cogitando interius verbum
formamus, et ex hoc amorem prorumpimus."

•• Ibid.
•• Ibid., I, q. 2, in Prolog.:
Deum; ... "

" ... secundo, de motu

rationalis

creaturae

in

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in so far as he is the principle of human activity. 59 It is certain,
therefore, that he conceived of the fullest expression of divine
likeness in man under the aspect of operation.
In view of this notable fact we shall now press our investigation beyond the bare lineaments of divine similitude, that is,
beyond intellectual nature and powers into the sphere of more
complete evolution where virtue and especially virtuous activity hold pre-eminence. An image is essentially imitative of its
exemplar, as we have already learned from St. Thomas. 60 We
have also seen that man's nearest approach to the divine exemplar is effected in beatific acts of vision and love for God
as He knows and loves Himself. Such actions, we noted with
St. Thomas, result in the joy, peace, and tranquillity of heaven.
But our problem here in these pages is more concerned with a
divine similitude, with a peace and order here on earth among
men as wayfarers, where a pattern of activity far more complex than simple knowledge and love is demanded for peaceful
concourse. Again, therefore, we must look to God, the exemplar of man, not this time to His most intimate life as lived in
the Trinity, but rather to His operations as manifested in the
order and harmony of the universe about us. It is only from
such a study of the exemplar that we can hope to determine
what activities on the part of man as image of God will be
required as ingredients of peace among men.

II.

THE DIVINE EXEMPLAR AT WoRK IN THE WoRLD

This second step in our general procedure finds a convenient
point of departure in St. Thomas's very theological evaluation
of the universe as a whole. The feature of this universe which
St. Thomas singles out as being the noblest and best of all is
its order or harmony, that is, of part to part and of whole to
•• Ibid., 1-11, q. 1, in Prolog.: " ... postquam praedictum est de exemplari,
scilicet de Deo, . . . ; restat ut consideremus de ejus imagine, id est de homine,
secundum quod et ipse est suorum operum principium, . . . "
60 Ibid., I, q. 98, a. 4:
" ... secundum hoc est maxime ad imaginem Dei,
secundum quod intellectualis natura Deum maxime imitari potest."

44

J. C. OSBOURN

God. 61 Therefore, the order of the universe, he continues, is
properly and primarily intended by God as the intrinsic end
(finis operis) of its creation. 62 It is this marvelous order in the
universe which moves St. Thomas and the Thomists to affirm
that the present universe is the best possible one in view of
God's purposes in creating. 63 However, when pressed to a judgment upon the merits of any one detail of the universe, St.
Thomas was quick to say that the humanity of Christ, the
prince of peace, holds pre-eminence among all creatures of the
whole universe and is preferred even to the angels of heaven. 64
If, therefore, we limit ourselves to a scrutiny of the divine
activity as manifested in these two outstanding monuments of
God's operative attributes, namely, the order in the universe
and the order of our redemption, this should be sufficient to
yield a fairly accurate view of the original upon which must be
patterned order and peace among men as images of God.
Lying at the roots of the universe and all of its multitudinous detail, and even beyond the operative attributes of God
which immediately influence the world's intrinsic design, we
can discern the divine goodness. St. Thomas tells us it is the
fountainhead of all laws regulating the universe 65 and of all
divine motives qualifying or molding the universal order of
things. 66 The communication and manifestation of the divine
goodness is God's purpose behind all things which He does
outside of the divine life in the bosom of the Trinity. 67 The
divine goodness, therefore, is the extrinsic final cause of the
61 Ibid., I, q. 15, a.
"Tilud autem quod est optimum in rebus existens, est
bonum ordinis universi, . . . "
•• Ibid.: " Ordo igitur universi est proprie a Deo intentus, et non per accidens
proveniens . . . "
•• Ibid., I, q.
a. 6, ad 3: " ... universum, suppositis istis rebus, non potest
esse melius; propter decentissimum ordinem his rebus attributum a Deo, in quo
bonum universi consistit. Quorum si unum aliquod esset melius, corrumperetur
proportio ordinis: sicut, si una chorda plus debito intenderetur, corrumperetur
citharae melodia." Cf. Hugon, Tract., Dogmatici, Vol. I, p.
•• Ibid., q.
a. 4, ad 1; III, q. 1, a. 3, ad
65 Ibid., II-II,
q. 67, a. 4, ad
"Non tamen remittit (Deus) poenam niSI
secundum quod decet suam bonitatem, quae est omnium legum radix."
•• Ibid., I, q.
a. 3; q. 44, a. 4; q. 47, a. 1.

•• Ibid.

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

45

universe and so does not enter immediately into its intrinsic
design and order. Moreover, the divine goodness is listed by
St. Thomas as an entitative attribute and according to our
human way of understanding it emerges to the plane of activity
only through the channels of other divine attributes which are
more immediately operative and are more proximate exemplars of the order and design of the universe. It is with these
latter that we are principally concerned.
Among these operative attributes divine wisdom seems to
hold first place if we are to follow St. Thomas's scale of values.
Divine wisdom or intelligence engages his attention before any
of the
and it figures most prominently and radically
in the order of the universe. On one occasion St. Thomas saw
fit to remark that the divine goodness would, in accordance
with a tendency native to goodness, have proceeded to an
infinite diffusion of itself into created effects were it not for
the limits imposed by divine wisdom. 69 This response he bases
upon a text of Wisdom to the effect that divine wisdom has
"ordered all things in measure and .number and weight," 70
which expression parallels the Augustinian formula, mode,
species, and order. The response harks back to the problem
of possible infinity in creation, which St. Thomas as philosopher could never solve definitively 71 but as theologian has answered to his own satisfaction. God by His ordinary power,
namely, the divine power as tempered by divine wisdom, cannot effect an infinitude in creation. St. Thomas's reason for
this conclusion is that infinity in effects would clash with the
order of the universe demanded by divine wisdom in view of
the ultimate purpose for which God creates. A creature infinite as to essence is impossible, says St. Thomas, because it
could not originate from any cause or principle and would be
68 Ibid., I, q. 14: "De Scientia Dei."
•• Ibid., 1-11, q. I, a. 4, ad I.
70 Wis., II, !'l1 as cited in Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 1, a. 4, ad I.
71 Cf. Opusc. De Aetl!!rnitate Mundi: "Et tamen non est adhuc demonstratum
quod Deus non possit facere infinita esse in actu." This statement represents St.
Thomas's last word upon the matter, since it was written in l!t70 and consequently
after the Summa and his other works upon the same subject.

46

J. C. OSBOURN

equal in essence to God, the Uncaused. 72 But the idea and influence of a principle is essentially involved in order of any
kind. 73 If we suppose a creature to be infinite dimensionally,
numerically, or in any accidental endowment of his being, then
we immediately run foul of the statement that determinate or
limited essences require limited accidents. 74 This statement
seems to be philosophically sound; but in any case an infinite
magnitude actually existing would preclude the possibility of
intrinsic order and design in the corporeal universe, since it
would of its very nature preclude the possibility of plurality/ 5
without which there can be no order at all. 76 On the other
hand, infinite multitude actually existing necessarily supposes
infinite magnitude actually divided. 77 Therefore, the impossibility of the latter depends upon the impossibility of the former
and both in final analysis collide with the order which divine
wisdom requires and constitutes in the universe. Hence we
put divine wisdom down as an essential ingredient of order.
We also find St. Thomas devoting special questions to divine
providence and predestination/ 8 These too he accepts as
operative attributes on the side of intelligence, but they are
not without their admixture of the volitional element. They
are by definition the divine plan pre-existing in God's intellect
whereby all things are ordered and led to their ultimate end. 79
If, therefore, we disregard the volitional aspect and attend only
to the feature of order involved in the aforesaid attributes, it
becomes evident immediately that they are reducible to divine
wisdom as to a central ingredient of order. For this reason and
on account of limited space we shall pass on to an examination
of the divine will in its bearing upon the order of the universe.
72 Summa Theol., I, q. 7, a. 2.
•• Ibid., I, q.
a. 8; q.
a. 8; 11-11, q.
a. 1, ad 8.
74 Ibid., I, q. 7, a. 8: " ... cum igitur ad formam substa.ntialem
consequantur

accidentia, necesse est quod ad determinatam
accidentia; inter quae est qua.ntitas."

formam consequa.ntur

determinata

•• Ibid.
•• Ibid., I, q.
a. 8.
77 Ibid., I, q. 7, a. 4: "Sed esse multitudinem
infinitam in potentia possibile est.
Quia augmentum multitudinis
•• Ibid., I, qq.

consequitur

divisionem magnitudinis:
•• Ibid.

"

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

47

Those divine virtues or virtuous acts 80 formally pertaining
to the will of God and most intimately touching the order of
the universe are none other than charity, mercy, and justice.
It is true that the first mentioned among these usually goes by
the name of love throughout St. Thomas's question on this
matter. 81 But this is due to the fact that he is discussing here
the divine will's bearing upon all things in general rather than
upon rational creatures in particular, and not, as is evident
from his express substitution of the term charity in the very
first Sed Contra, to any intention of quibbling over a supposed difference between love and charity as found in the will
of God. In any case divine love, the first spark of life breathed
into the cool blueprint of divine wisdom, certainly plays a key
role in the order of the universe. It is here especially that St.
Thomas emphasizes his faith in the grand principle of divine
predilection. Since the love of God is the cause of goodness in
all creatures, he tells us, no one creature would be better than
another were it not for the fact that God wishes greater good
for this one than for the other. 82 This principle applies, therefore, both in the order of grace and in the order of nature. A
stone is inferior to a plant, plants to animals, animals to men,
and men to angels because the quickening love of God breathes
more deeply upon one than upon the other. Among angels and
men in the supernatural order, the degree of _grace or glory possessed by each is a sign of the measure of divine love which
each enjoys. 88 Inequality, distinction, and multitude, which
are indispensable to order, all reflect the trace of divine love or
charity in the universe. Therefore this divine attribute has a
prominent place among the formal elements of world order and
harmony.
The quality of mercy, charity's eldest daughter, must be
attributed to God maximally, 84 says St. Thomas, and later on
he insists that it is the greatest of all virtues according to the
80 God is pure act. Therefore, St. Thomas does not conceive of Him as possessing
potential principles of activity as man does.
81 Summa Theol., I, q. 20.
83 Ibid., a. 4, ad 4.
84 Ibid., q. 21, a. 1.
82 Ibid., a. 8.

48

J. C. OSBOURN

order which it constitutes between God and man. 85 Shakespeare gave a thumbnail sketch of St. Thomas's treatise when
he said of mercy, "'Tis mightiest in the mightiest." 86 Of its
very nature it stoops down to the miseries and defects of
others with relief from above. In the order of grace and in the
reparation of God's broken image in fallen man mercy shines
forth most brilliantly. It adds a mosaic touch to the more
general world- order of divine love by diverting the plans of
God's wisdom from the ordinary ways of divine providence
into the by-passes of predestination where tHe· charts of freedom call for richer variety in the order of the universe. 87
Figuratively we may think of mercy as telescoping the general
effusions of divine love into the more transparent order (humanly speaking) of divine justice. At any rate divine mercy
cannot be omitted from the pattern of formal exemplars which
enter into the order of the universe.
St. Thomas, coming finally to justice, discovers only one
species of particular justice existing formally in God, namely,
distributive justice, which effects an order of balanced proportions between creature and creature in their respective reference to the superior good. 88 Commutative justice, regulating as it does social relations between equals, involves in its
concept a shadow of inferiority and imperfection which forbids
its formal predication of God. God does not, nor could He,
owe any creature a debt save what is self-imposed by divine
wisdom in view of the particular degree of glory He wishes to
be reflected from the order of the universe. 89 This degree of
glory and this order once decreed, God owes it to Himself as
bountiful distributor of all goods to effect a proportional equality among His creatures so as to compass His original designs. 90
Ibid., 11-11, q. 80, a. 4.
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.
•• Summa Theol., I, q. 21, a. 8: " Communicatio enim perfectionum, absolute
considerata, pertinet ad bonitatem, (i.e. ad amorem, as can be seen from a. 1, ad
85

'86

4 of this same question) . . . lnquantum vero perfectiones
omnem defectum expellunt, pertinet ad misericordiam."
88 Ibid., a. I, c. & ad 8.
90 Ibid.
•• Ibid., ad 8.

datae rebus a Deo,

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

49

This, however, is the proper function of distributive justice
which, St. Thomas reminds us, is manifested in all of God's
works, but never to the prejudice of divine mercy and the other
formal attributes mentioned above. At the same time it must
be remembered that there is not even a foundation for a distribution of favors to creatures according to the exigencies of
justice unless it be that good pre-established in creatures according to a priority of nature, by divine mercy and the other
operative attributes which forerun the designs of justice. 91
Hence distributive justice puts the final touches to the order
found in the universe, and with it St. Thomas closes his discussion of the absolute attributes of God which may be proposed as formal exemplars of order.
The order of the universe, therefore, in its constitution and
conservation depends upon the four operative attributes which
we have just sketched from St. Thomas's fuller treatment of
this same matter. St. Thomas later on will give a treatise on
the divine power, 92 but this he considers to be on the side of
divine execution rather than on the side of exemplar causality; 98 for here especially God's activity bearing upon creatures, always formally immanent, assumes an aspect under
which it is referred to as virtually transient. 94 Liberality also is
mentioned more rarely by St. Thomas as belonging to God; but
the Thomists prefer to think of this virtue in terms of divine
mercy or as easily reducible to mercy and consequently as following the fortunes of that virtue. 95 The present phase of our
analysis, therefore, will be complete if we can establish unmistakable traces of divine wisdom, charity, mercy, and justice
in the work of our redemption.
Ibid., a. 4.
I, q. fl5.
•• Ibid., a. 1, ad 4: " ... potentia non ponitur in Deo ut aliquid differens a
scientia et voluntate secundum rem, sed solum secundum rationem; inquantum
scilicet potentia importat rationem principii exequentis id quod voluntas inperat."
Cf. also John of St. Thomas, Oursus Tkeolagieus, Vol. I, lsagoge, p. 153 (Solesmes
Edition).
•• Ibid. Also John of St. Thomas commenting on this article.
•• Cf. John of St. Thomas, ibid., lsagoge, p. 152.
91

u Ibid.,

4

50

J. C. OSBOURN

All that St. Thomas ever had to say about the economy of
our redemption can be summed up in the following principle:
According to the divine wisdom, love, mercy, and justice the
Son of God assumed a perfect human nature, underwent the
Passion, and laid down His life to satisfy for and to redeem
fallen man. St. Thomas thinks God could never permit such an
evil as that of sin, were it not for the possibilities of His drawing from it a greater good, namely, the Incarnation. 96 From
man's point of view, therefore, and in the order of execution,
the objective motive for the Incarnation, as a matter of fact
and according to the present order of providence, is none other
than the redemption of mankind. 97 On God's side, however,
the subjective motives for the marvelous order of reparation
are divine wisdom, love, mercy, and justice. 98 The principle
just enunciated implicitly contains every statement defended,
every conclusion deduced, every corollary set down by the
Thomists concerning Christ. It is the touchstone and gist of the
whole divine economy of God to fallen nature; it· regulates all
that Thomists think or say about the redemption; it decides
ultimately all problems about the "Word made flesh," about
what He said or did while dwelling among us as visible image of
the Father. The motives of wisdom, love, mercy, and justice
dictated the sublime policy of an Immaculate Virgin Mother
and of a miraculous conception under the influence of the Holy
Ghost. Christ's wondrous prerogative of beatific vision perpetually enjoyed in His human intellect, His infused and experimental knowledge, His plenitude of divine grace, His quasi
infinite power are all resolvable to His office as Mediator or
High Priest and this in turn to the four motives already so
frequently mentioned. Christ's human will and whole human
existence here on earth gave unquestionable evidence of an
•• Sumnna Theol., ill, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3: "Deus enim permittit mala fieri, ut inde
aliquid melius eliciat. Unde dicitur ad Rom., v,
Ubi abundavit delictum,
superabundavit et gratia. Unde et in benedictione cerei paschalis dicitur: 0 felix
culpa, quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem."
•• Ibid., a. 3.
•• Ibid., I, q.
a.. 3; ill, q. 1, a. 1, & ad 3; a. 2.

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

OF PEACE

51

inflexible harmony with God's motives for the Incarnation.
Nothing proves this fidelity of Christ's will and life to the
aforesaid motives quite so convincingly as the Gospel narrative
itself. St. Luke, the physician, notes with a suggestion of
wonder that a man who had suffered such a loss of energy and
blood could still cry out in a loud voice. 99 Still more significantly St. John observes how the Redeemer, conscious of His
fulfillment of the law and prophets in His regard, deliberately,
and with perfect dominion over the whole drama to the very
last, finally bows His head and dies. 100 In death more than
ever before the aspects of a divinely wise, loving, merciful, and
just retribution leave their traces deeply impressed upon the
sacred huinanity of Christ as over against diabolical intrigue
and the spiteful, merciless, and unjust passions of men. St.
Thomas and his disciples, taking full account of all these things,
have rightfully insisted upon wisdom, charity, mercy, and
justice as the. divine motives and exemplars on God's part for
the entire order of our redemption.
It will be noted finally that throughout the present step of
our analysis special emphasis has been persistently laid upon
the term formal exem.plar. This implies no intention of belittling the role of efficient and final causality played by the
divine attributes under discussion. St. Thomas would be one
of the very last to dream of such a caricature of the divine
architect. 101 But our problem has pointed all along in the
direction of extrinsic formal causes or exemplars of order in
the economy of our redemption and in, the universe as a whole,
because the essential relationship between image and prototype
makes a last stand upon this species of causality. Moreover,
St. Thomas himself gives us full sanction for just such a shading
of emphasis when he declares categorically that the divine
;virtues are exemplars of our virtues, some of which pertain
properly or formally to the divine nature and others only by
reflection in the divine wisdom. 102 We have found wisdom,
•• Luke, xxiii, 46.
l ohn, xix, 28-liO.

100

101
102

Summa Theol., I, q. 6, a. 4.
I Oontr. Gent., c. 98.

52

J. C. OSBOURN

charity, mercy, and justice existing formally in God as exemplars of the order resulting from His activity in this world.
Divine wisdom, charity, mercy, and justice, therefore, are
bound by the law of causality to stand out as essential details
in any reliable pattern from which man as image of God can
and must on the plane of activity copy the ingredients indispensable for order and peace among men.
There remains just one point to be made. It is to indicate
briefly but more particularly how St. Thomas conceives of
peace as the normal result of man's activity fashiop.ed upon the
exemplars which we have just proposed.
III.

THE INFLUENCE

OF THE DIVINE EXEMPLAR

UPON

DIVINE LIKENESS

The redeeming grace of Christ, we pointed out above, heals
radically the wounds of fallen nature by endowing the soul with
a Godlike mode of being and its faculties with similar principles of operation. The intellect of man is the first faculty to
be reinstated in a divine viewpoint of things by the supernatural virtue of faith. 108 Without the light of faith the mind
gropes about the blind alleys of reality unable to detect its
ultimate principle of order and unity with a sufficient measure
of accuracy and certitude. It sees and judges all things in terms
of nature or principles immersed in and drawn from sensible,
materialistic sources. Thus unappreciative of the order of
things as they flow from God, their First Cause, it cannot
escape the cosmo-centric point of view which ignores much of
reality as a welter of meaningless detail and begets a mental
synthesis entirely out of touch with, or even contradictory to,
divine wisdom. Divinely infused faith, on the other hand,
makes the mind thea-centric, that is, anchored to God, the
author of the supernatural, as to first principle and ultimate
end of its speculations and practical ordinations bearing upon
action. This is the only way open to man here upon earth of
imitating the divine wisdom in his mental synthesis of reality
103

Summa Theol., 11-IT, q. 4, a. 7; q. 10, a. 8.

THE THEOLOGICAL

INGREDIENTS

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53

or in his practical dominion over its richer fruits as befits the
creature claiming the dignity of human personality. The wayfarer, therefore, makes his nearest approach to divine wisdom
or to God's viewpoint of things through the acceptance and
direction of supernatural faith.
The will of fallen man also must be reorientated and coordinated to the higher exigencies of reality by the cumulative
influence of charity, mercy, and justice. Mental culture alone, in
which modern programs of education vainly hope to find a
remedy for aU of man's defects, will only engender proud Stoics
intolerably enamored of their doctrine of self-sufficiency. If,
on the other hand, the affective side of our nature is allowed to
usurp the throne of faith and reason, then man quickly degenerates to the law of tooth and claw or becomes a pithy reed
rooted in the lower swamps of animality to be shaken by the
winds of every passion. There are, therefore, two main dependabilities about reality which reason enlightened by faith
cannot possibly ignore: they are God and society. Unless man
recognizes his dependence upon these his will becomes egocentric, atomistic in tendency and out of harmony with the
prerequisites of order and peace. Charity alone can re-address
man's will securely to its true ultimate end, which is the sole
principle of unity capable of re-grouping all of his vitalities
under the banner of peace. 104 :Mercy, the first-born of charity
and her dutiful handmaid, will also be indispensable for peaceful concourse with our neighbor, since the doctrine of sufficiency 105 by which mercy is guided will always be presupposed
104 In view of the principles
which we have discussed it is easy to understand
why St. Thomas places his ex professo treatise on peace in the very heart of the
tract on charity (q. !Z9, especially a. 3), immediately after the principal, interior act
of that virtue and even before his discussion of the virtue of mercy (q. 30). Peace
will follow from the virtue of charity on the plane of action (just as joy necessarily
follows from the beatific vision), even if we had no neighbor as material for the
virtue of mercy. But granted that man is social and must to some extent live
among men, then mercy enters into the veey fabric of peace.
105 St. Thomas
does not conceive of the doctrine of sufficiency as a one-sided
affair in the manner of many moderns. It involves both rich and poor: the poor in
so far as it demands provision for their needs; the rich in so far as it commands

54

J. C. OSBOURN

in any peace pact among men worthy of the name. Distributive
justice, found principally in rulers, framers of treaties, or custodians of the commonweal and secondarily in the people under
the aspect of a volitional readiness to accept and abide by
truly just distributions, will finally set the stage of social living
for a program of activity whose normal results can be none
other than order and peace among men. But the insights o.f
philosophy alone, which are limited to the ethical order of
commutative and vindictive justice, cannot put the human will
in contact with those influences of charity, mercy, and distributive justice which are conditions absolutely indispensable for
peace on earth and glory to God in the highest. 106 A truly good
will depends upon the light of revelation and the guidance of
Christian theology. Unless the framers of treaties and the inaugurators of war are in contact with the aforesaid exemplars
as vital motives, we cannot hope for a lasting peace on this
earth, because these are the essential ingredients of peace among
men.
In view of the principles which have been submitted to discussion throughout this paper, the reader will easily be able to
draw many practical conclusions and damaging inferences concerning Capitalism, Communism, Naziism, and Fascism. It
will be sufficient here to sum up the preceding argumentation in
the following manner: Man is an image of God which reaches
its fullest expression in Godlike activity from which alone results true peace among men. But the characteristic actions of
God among men are wisdom, charity, mercy, and justice.
Therefore these are the essential ingredients of peace.
Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. 0.

them to unburden themselves of their superfluities over and above their personal
needs and what is required for the dignity of their state.
108 This is the reason why St. Thomas
relegates commutative justice to the
status of a material prerequisite for peace and does not propose it as an essential
exemplar of peace. He says: " . . . pax est opus justitiae indirecte, inquantum
scilicet removet prohibens " (Summa Theol., II-II, q. 29, a. 8, ad 8).

THE VIRTUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND
INTERNATIONAL LIFE
By FRANcis E. McMAHON

"THE

distribution of goods among men and the division
even of men into peoples and nations must not alter
the common society of the human race." 1 Bossuet
spoke as a philosopher and as a theologian, deeply conscious
of the essential oneness of human nature and of its common
call to a supernatural destiny. He said this in a time characterized by a rapidly developing nationalism, and he was no
doubt aware of the existence of great societies of peoples
having little or no contact with the civilization of which he
was a part. Yet these factors of division did not obscure for
him the truth of the unity of mankind.
We of this century, and especially of the present decade, require little or no persuasion to accept this truth. With the
press carrying regularly articJes about world-wide economic
programs and possible world-wide applications of the " Four
Freedoms," there is rather a tendency to deny cultural disparities, and a temptation to engage in the practice of daydreaming about the quick realization of Utopia for all mankind
after the present war. At the same time we are in a less
advantageous position in certain respects than the thinkers of
Bossuet's time. We have for the most part abandoned the
unity of philosophical vision they possessed, however imperfectly, as we have discarded to a great extent their deep faith in
Christian teaching. The conviction as to the unity of mankind
is today forced upon us more by material circumstances than
by metaphysical or religious principles. I do not mean that the
latter, however, have not played a part.
Cardinal Verdier was struck by the small attention given
to the bonds uniting men across national frontiers in the social
1

Bossuet, Politique Tiree de l'EcTiture Sainte, lib. I, art. 5.

55

56

FRANCIS E. MCMAHON

sphere. It is surely strange that philosophers, for example,
have rarely talked about social justice in relation to the" common society of the human race." It is a fact that in the past
social justice has been almost exclusively considered in relation
to the particular political or social unit. It has been assumed
or stated that the individual had duties in social justice to his
particular society, but that duties in charity alone existed in
relation to the whole human race. Nations, as moral persons,
were supposed, it is true, to be subjected to both classes of
duties, but the nature of the justice in question was generally
left unspecified. Commonly it seemed to mean commutative
justice alone.
Has not the time arrived to review this position? Why
should social justice be restricted to the particular state? What
reasons militate against the proposition that peoples as well as
nations have obligations in social justice to all mankind? What
positive proofs can be offered in support of this proposition?
The following constitutes the beginning of some reflections
upon these and cognate questions. I do not profess to know
the answers to all the questions connected with this problem.
But I believe it to be a very legitimate problem, and the type
of problem with which philosophers at the present time should
be concerned.
There is no need of discussing in extenso the nature of
social justice in these pages. 2 It is the moral virtue which
ordains men's actions to the common good. It is distinguished
thereby from commutative justice, which regulates actions between private individuals; and from distributive justice, which
regulates actions between the social whole and the private
citizen or group. Social justice resides both in the ruler and
the ruled: in the ruler radically as in its source; in the ruled
formally, as in those acting for the common good in accordance
with law. The common good of course is specifically distinct
from the sum of the individual goods or the good of the
greatest majority of the citizens. It is the good of the whole
D

Vd. Philip Hyland, 0. P., "The Field of Social Justice," THE THOMIST, Vol.

I, pp. 295-330.

VIRTUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND INTERNATIONAL

LIFE

57

social body in proper balance with the good of each part of
that body.
" There exists for all the States together a common international good to be promoted and served, just as there exists for
citizens and governors within each of these (States) a common
good more near and less extended to be promoted and served." 3
No one can reasonably question this proposition of the now
reigning Pontiff. One might argue perhaps that in a world
where societies of men exist, having absolutely no contact with
one another, an actual common good of a temporal character
does not exist. It might be difficult to establish upon the basis
merely of the specific unity of human nature the existence of
any save a potential common good. But postulate that these
societies are in communication with one another, postulate also
that they are interdependent, and it would seem to follow with
demonstrative force that they participate in one common good.
Men desire not merely to live, but to live well. It is this
natural inclination which gives rise to the state, for the perfect
temporal development of the human personality demands the
cooperation of men in a common undertaking to provide for
the good of all and of each. Interdependence in the satisfaction
of the material needs and of the cultural aspirations of men
is responsible for the emergence of a common good.
But one cannot logically today affirm the existence of a
common good for each of the states and deny its existence for
the whole of humanity. The facts and principles which demand it in the one case likewise demand it in the other. Dr.
Wright has very properly said that " the same social exigencies
which elicited the moral ties by which the national community
was constituted, demand on the same principle and with the
same validity the recognition of the subordination of the national community to the wider world society embracing individuals and nations alike." 4
• Cardinal Pacelli, Secretary of State, in a letter to members of the Semaine
Sociale de France (Lille session). Quoted in National Patriotism in Papal Teaching,
by Rev. John J. Wright, Boston, 1942, p. 219.
Op. cit., p. 197.

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FRANCIS E. MCMAHON

It is almost superfluous to dwell upon the facts of the interdependence of the peoples of the world today. The world wars
of the present century are in large part the ,result of ignoring this interdependence, while attempting vainly to pursue a
policy of selfish and unbridled nationalism. Peoples may try
to revert to the spirit and practices of tribal nationalism today,
but they cannot sever the links, forged in a thousand ways,
that bind them one to another in the modem world. Hayes
and Moon summed up the mattel' when they declared:
The horizon of the civilized world is no longer limited to a single
continent, but includes the entire globe. As a result of exploration,
of travel, of oceanic steamships and world commerce, of world
politics, and of the intermingling of races by migration, our mental
outlook has become incomparably broader. Moreover, we have
built up an economic structure that is world-wide, with the result
that each continent is dependent upon the others for everyday
articles of food and commerce. No nation, no continent, can now
shut itself off from the rest of the world as in bygone days. 5
But if there is a common good transcending national lines,
there certainly exist obligations towards that common good.
The part must subserve the whole, precisely because it is a
part. What are these obligations of the temporal order save
those of social justice? This is the virtue specifically of the
common good, the virtue that gathers up and gives direction
to the acts of the other virtues, pointing them towards the
good of the whole as such. Social justice pertains to the
international order.
H the previous reflections are well-founded, it seems inevitable that the common good proper to humanity as a whole is
superior in its nature and in its claims to the common good of
a particular state .. But how express the relations existing between the greater and the lesser common good? It is rash, I
believe, to regard the common good of a particular state as a
mere means to the realization of the superior good. Such a
view would be in conflict with the manifest character of the
modem state. While the latter is not an autonomous entity
5

Hayes and Moon, Modem History, p. 818.

VIRTUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND INTERNATIONAL

LIFE

59

in the cultural or economic spheres, it does nevertheless have
an attentuated self-existence, in contrast at least with the social, economic, and political units within the state itself. The
common good of a particular state must be regarded as an end,
but an end secundum quid, whereas the common good of
humanity must be regarded as an end simpliciter, recalling
always that we are confining ourselves to the temporal order
of things. It is in this fashion, I believe, that the claims of
patriotism and of internationalism can be reconciled.
Each state as a moral person has obligations in social justice
to the international common good. But these obligations also
touch directly individuals apart from national divisions. Man
is prior to the state; humanity precedes national distinctions. 6
While in practice the task of world reconstruction will be
effected through the various national states, the value of stressing the obligations of the individual as such in relation to the
universal common good should not be ignored; for the vigor
and resolution with which states will fulfill their specific obligations will depend upon the vigor and resolution of their
constituent members.
Social justice, we have declared, resides radically in the
rulers, formally in the ruled. We have, however, the extraordinary anomaly in the modern world of an international
community without adequate organs of expression and direction. Posterity may find nothing more astonishing than this.
It will certainly find in this lack a partial explanation for
twentieth-century warfare. The world has been long overripe
for the juridical institutions essential for the right direction of
nations and individuals towards attainment of the supreme
temporal common good. So long as it sees fit to dispense with
such institutions, so long will it continue to substitute material
force of arms for moral right.
6.'" The emphasis
in papal teaching appears . . . to warrant our concluding
that the international community exists not so much as the aggregate of the
national communities to which the individuals belong, but as a community enjoying its proper existence in transcendence of the relations to one another of the
nations, and exacting its own claims directly on the individual simultaneously
with and superior to the claims of the national community." Wright, op. cit., p.
!t04.
\

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FRANCIS E. MCMAHON

There is no obligation of social justice today more pressing
than that of establishing some form of international organization by which disputes of nations can be settled peacefully, and
by which the various problems of a social and economic character-now so largely international in scope-can be solved in
the interest of all mankind. It has been recently suggested
with much force that the specific act of social justice consists
in the formation and reformation of institutions. 7 Such a view
would give added force and clarity to the point. The alternative facing the world is either a world society or perpetual
chaos.
The notion of social justice has been strait-jacketed long
enough in our philosophy. Thomism, rightly understood, can
make one's vision as large as the world. It can make one think
in something more than parochial terms. If we leave to others
the task of working out the basis for " the century of the
common man everywhere," then we shall be unfaithful to the
great tradition of which we are the heirs.
University of Notre DameJ,
NotreJ Dame, Indiana

7 Rev. William Ferree, S. M:, reviewing "The History and Meaning of the Term
Social Justice" by Leo W. Shields. New Scholasticism, Vol. XVI, No.
April,
pp. 188-190. Father Ferree's manuscript on this subject will shortly be published. Most writers hitherto have maintained that social justice has no special
act which is not the act of another virtue.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:
EDMUND BURKE
By RoBERT M. HuTCHINS

I

I

N Scholasticism and Politics 1 M. Maritain sets forth the
reasons for his faith in universal suffrage: "Because it
offers the people a recourse against political enslavement;
perhaps particularly because of its value as a symbol; and because it attests, according to the specific law of democracy, the
right of human persons to political life, and of the multitude
to the constitution of the authoritative organism of the city,it is because of all this that modern people are so strongly and
so justly attached to it."
The great name in opposition to this faith is Burke. The
interrogation of democracy, resulting from the temporary
triumph of states dominated by a conviction of the political
incompetence of the masses, makes it useful to consider Burke's
position and the arguments he advanced to establish it.
The task of discovering what that position was is not altogether free from difficulty. No doubt Burke began his political
career by urging that the weight and independence of British
voters would be increased if their numbers were lessened. 2 But
the next year he said that the House of Commons was in a distinct sense the representative of the people, not because its
power was derived from them, but because the virtue and
essence of it consisted in being the express image of the feeling
of the nation. 3
Morley 4 and MacCunn 5 say that these words are not to be

'P. 113.
• Obsf!!T"vationson a Late State of the Nation, 1769, Works II, (London, 1803)
135-36.
• Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, Works II, !l17, 287-88, 34243. See also Plan of Economical Reform, Speeches II, (London, 1816) 43.
• Burke, English Men of Letters Series, 165.
• The Political Philosophy of Burke, 26.

61

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

taken in any democratic sense. It may be so, though they are
strong words. But neither of these writers mentions the fact
that in his speeches on America Burke explicitly attacked the
unreformed condition of Parliament. The lack of representation
accorded Manchester and other considerable places then proved
to him that the British government was only an approximation
to the right; the inequalities of representation were one of the
shameful parts of the British constitution, a weakness, an
opprobrium, and "the slough of slavery, which we are not able
to work off." 6 He commended the highly popular character of
the American governments 7 and scoffed at the notion that the
colonists should be persuaded that their liberty would be more
secure if held in trust for them by the British as their guardians
during a perpetual minority. 8
At this time he ridiculed virtual representation, the doctrine
according to which those elected by a few were assumed to
represent all. Could an American seriously be expected to think
his country a part of the manor of Greenwich? 9 Wales, Chester,
and Durham had been granted real representation. "What!
does the electric force of virtual representation more easily
pass over the Atlantic, than pervade Wales, which lies in your
neighbourhood: or than Chester and Durham, surrounded by
abundance of representation that is actual and palpable? But,
Sir, your ancestors thought this sort of virtual representation,
however ample, to be totally insufficient for the freedom of the
inhabitants of territories that are so near, and comparatively
so inconsiderable. How then can I think it sufficient for those
which are infinitely greater, and infinitely more remote?" 10
Nor was virtual representation good enough for the Catholics
in Ireland, not even late in Burke's life, when for many years
• On American Taxation, 1774, Speeches I, 178, 286.
On CCYfi.Ciliationwith the Colonies, 1775, Speeches I, 289.
"Ibid. 298.
• On the Address on the Disturbances in North America, 1775, Speeches I, 262.
Cf. "It is material to us to be represented really and bona fide, and not in forms,
in. types, and shadows, and fictions of law." On Middlesex elections in Thoughts
on the Cause of the Present Discontents, supa, note 8, 804-05.
10 On CCYfi.Ciliationwith the Colonies, supra, note 7, 814.
7

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

63

he had poured his scorn on those who sought to enlarge the
franchise and reform the House of Commons. In the case of
the Irish Catholics, instead of proposing to increase the weight
of the voters by diminishing their number, he asks whether the
best way to secure the building is to narrow its foundations.
" The body of disfranchised men," he says, " will not be perfectly satisfied to remain always in that state; if they are not
satisfied, you have two millions of subjects in your bosom, full
of uneasiness . . . that you will not permit them to profit of
the protection of a common father, or the freedom of common
citizens. . . . This way of proscribing men by whole nations,
as it were, from all the benefits of the constitution to which
they were born, I never can believe to be politick or expedient,
much less necessary for the existence of any state or church in
the world." u

n
It is impossible to reconcile these contradictions. We shall
see later whether it is possible to explain them. There can be
no doubt that Burke approved the extension of representation
to Wales, Chester, Durham, and Ireland.and would have approved it to America except for the difficulties of distance. In
every other connection he opposed the slightest change in the
suffrage or in the constitution of the House of Commons. And
this he did in spite of the fact that the body of disfranchised
men was far greater in England than in Ireland. The total
electorate of England and Wales in 1780 was estimated at
!ll4,000 out of a population of 8,000,000. 12 Of the two million
people of Scotland, !l,643 were electors; 13 and they voted for
forty-five members. It need scarcely be added, for it is notorious, that in Burke's day the majority of the House of Commons were in effect the appointees and the representatives of
the Crown and the landed aristocracy rather than the electorate, limited as that electorate was.
A Lettl'/1" to Sir Hercules Langrishe, M.P., 1792, Works VI, 881, 86().
Veitch, The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform, (London, 1918) 2.
13 Wilkie, The Representation
of Scotland, (1895) 888. The number was only
4000 in 1881. Woodward, The Age of Reform, (Oxford, 1988) 24.
11

1 ·•

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

Nevertheless Burke held that virtual representation was
better for the people than actual. Only in Ireland is disfranchisement a grievance; only in Middlesex is an ens rationis an
unsatisfactory substitute for an actual choice. Virtual representation is equal representation, because "you have men
equally interested in the prosperity of the whole, who are involved in the general interest and the general sympathy." It
is the best of all representation, because those places which do
elect representatives will be above the local passions of those
which do not and will therefore "preserve the balance of the
parts, and with a more general view, and a more steady hand,
than the rest." a
Virtual representation is, of course, merely a theory. It is
worse; it is a fiction, and a disingenuous one. Representation,
if it means anything, means that the representative must be
responsible to the represented. As Burke often says, representation is trusteeship, and it is the essence of trusteeship
that the trustee shall be accountable to the beneficiary. 15 Since
the virtually represented have no votes, they have no way of
calling their virtual representatives to account except by revolution, which Burke would be the last to recommend. He offers
them instead "the interposition of the body of the people," 16
which sounds like universal suffrage or revolution, but which
apparently means petitions, letters, and public meetings. Since
Burke himself often tried these devices without producing the
slightest impression on Parliament, and since he did not welcome them when used. to advance causes of which he disapproved, such as Reform, it is hard to believe that he could have
really regarded them as an adequate substitute for votes against
derelict representatives.
The theory or fiction of virtual representation is one which
we should expect to find especially repulsive to Burke, the
avowed enemy of all theories and most fictions. A Letter to
" On the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, 1784,
Speeches III, 49-50.
15
16

On Mr. Fox's East India Bill, 1788, Speeches II, 411.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, supra, note 8, 824.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

65

the Sheriffs of Bristol 11 states concisely the position he took in
regard to Ireland, America, India, and many abuses at home.
"If you ask me what a free government is, I answer that, for
any practical purpose, it is what the people think so; and that
they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges
of this matter." It is the feelings of the people and not theories
of their rights which are the best guide for the policy of government.18 The theory of virtual representation and the kind of
virtual representation offered could, in Burke's day, have
aroused no feelings but indifference and hostility.
Moreover, the doctrine proves too much. If a citizen does
not need a vote to be well represented, why should any citizens
have votes? Hit would be bad for Manchester to send a member to Parliament, how can it be good for Bristol to send two?
If virtual representation is the best representation, why should
there be any actual representation? Why, in short, should the
House of Commons exist? According to Burke, " The king is
the representative of the people; so are the lords; so are the
judges. They are all trustees for the people." 19 Virtual representation makes a case for eliminating actual representation.
It even makes a case for absolute monarchy. 20 It makes none
at all for Burke's position that the franchise and the House of
Commons should be left alone.

III
The doctrine of virtual representation might be tolerable if
it provided for the government of the best in the interest of alL
But here at once we are met by another fiction. Virtue and
1777, Works III, 183.
On Mr. Fox's Motion for the Repeal of Certain Penal Statutes Respecting
Religious Opinions, 1791!, Speeches IV, 58.
19 Thoughts on the Came of the Present Discontents, loc. cit., supra, note 3.
20 The implications of such a remark as this are somewhat startling:
"He (Burke)
laid it down as a maxim, that monarchy was the basis of all good government, and
the nearer to monarchy any government approached, the more perfect it was, and
vice versa . ... " On the Quebec Government Bill, 1791, Speeches IV, 1!0. Cf.
"Kings are naturally lovers of low company." On His Plan of Economical Reform,
1780, Sttpra, note 3, 69.
17
18

5

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

wisdom are, says Burke, the only qualifications for government;
but they are of two kinds, actual and presumptive. Those who
have land, leisure, and information, and especially land, are
presumed to be virtuous and wise, and apparently the presumption is irrebuttable. "A true natural aristocracy . . . is
formed out of a class of legitimate presumptions, which, taken
as generalities, must be admitted for actual truths. . . . " 21
Though actual virtue and wisdom doubtless exist among those
without land, leisure, and information, care must be taken that
they are not too lightly admitted to as-osociationwith presumed
wisdom and virtue. "I do not hesitate to say, that the road
to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to
be made. too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit
be the rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some
sort of probation." 22 The great and rich are required to display
no merit except that they are great and rich, and need pass
through no probation.
To Burke the ownership of land, and the more land the better,
was the clearest indication of virtue and wisdom. Property, by
which he almost always means landed property/ 3 is the basis
of religion, morality, and law; and the moment. that equality
and the sovereignty of the people are adopted as a rule of government, property, and with it religion, morality, and law, will
be at an end. 24 Any government that protects property is a
good government. "Let it be a pure monarchy, a democracy,
or an aristocracy, or all mixed, he (Burke) cared not, provided
a government did exist, the first principle of which must necessarily be security to property, because for the protection of
property, all governments were instituted. First, therefore,
restore property, and afterwards let that property find a government for itself. . . . If the formation of government was
committed to the no-property people the first thing they would
do, obviously would be to plunder and massacre each other.
An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, 1791, Works VI,
Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, Works V, 106.
'23 A much narrower
meaning than that given by Locke, Second Essay af Civil
Government, sec.
"'Ow Mr. Sheridanls Motion Relative to the
uf Seditiaus Practices,
•i
22

1793, Speeches IV, U6.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

67

Mter all, if it were asked, did he prefer property to virtue?
his answer would be no. To honour?-No. To morals?-No.
To arts and literature?-No. But he respected property in as
much as it was the basis upon which they were all erected, the
soul that animated, the genius that protected them." 25 The
worst abuses are justified in the name of property. The game
laws look odious, but one consideration that causes reflecting
men to consent to their being adhered to and enforced is -the
liking of their country which they create in gentlemen's minds. 26
It is a
defense of the rotten-borough system that
those who oppose it are trying to defeat the operation of property in elections. 27 And finally we rise to the flat statement
that the property of the nation is the nation. 28
Ability must be represented in the state, but as property is
sluggish, inert, and timid, 29 it must be out of all proportion
predominant in order to be safe from ability; and the greater
the accumulation, the greater should be the predominance,
because the greater the temptation to the envy and rapacity
of ability. 80 Actual virtue and wisdom, then, are rather to be
·•• On the Bill to Enable Subjects of France to' Enlist as Soldiers, etc., 1793,
Speeches, IV, 166. In the Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, M. P.,
supra,
note 11, 371, we learn that in Ireland something is due the multitude as men, and
besides that, as collective, though not individual, holders of great property. They
must have protection, security, even consideration; but they must not predominate.
26 On the Athol Claim, 1790, Speeches III, 490.
•• Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, 1793, Works VII,
28 Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796, Works VIII, 190. Cf. "The revenue of the
state is the state." Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note
403.
Cf. Caivin Coolidge: " The business of this country is business."
29 This was too much for Gladstone.
See Morley's Life, ill, 469.
30 Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note
106. See also Letters
on a Regicide Peace, supra, note
170: " Jacobinism is the revolt of the entertalents of a country against its property." Cf. On Mr. Grenville's Bill for
Regulating the Trials of Controverted Elections, 1770, Speeches I, 38-40, " He
(Burke) then shewed, that parliament was not meant to be a representation of the
landed property only, but of the commercial interest chiefly, as appeared from the
establishment of the boroughs. . . . He then compared the benefit derived to society
from the unactuated load of landed abilities, which descended from generation to
generation, in the useless members of the community, and that which derived from
the acquirements, improvements, and activity of mental abilities, and shewed that
either might be pernicious, and yet that both were of real benefit wherever and
whenever they mixed, but always more so when acting in mutual aid of each other."

68

ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

feared than encouraged. As qualifications for government they
cannot compare with the fictitious merit which inevitably
attaches to the ownership of land.

IV
Burke often proclaims that government is for the common
good, but this is a fiction, too. "The object of the state is (as
far
may be) the happiness of the whole." 81 " Government
is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by
this wisdom." 32 "He who gave our nature to be perfected by
our virtue, willed also the necessary means of its perfectionHe willed therefore the state .... " 33 But there is some doubt
whether the poor and middling ranks of the people belong to
the community at all. In Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, 84
Burke says that the landed proprietors of France number about
seventy thousand and adds, "I am sure that if half that number of the same description were taken out of this country, it
would leave hardly any thing that I should call the people of
England." In the Letters on a Regicide Peace,S5 he makes a
more elaborate calculation with the same spiritual, though not
numerical, result. "I have often endeavoured," he says, "to
compute and to class those who, in any political view are to be
called the people. . . . In England and Scotland, I compute
that those of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable leisure
for such discussions, and of some means of information, and
who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such)
may amount to about four hundred thousand." This is the
British people. They have land, leisure, and information; but
only a little more than half of them had the vote. Burke will
not give the franchise even to those who seem clearly entitled
to it on his own principles.
What of those who are not within the magic circle of the
thirty-five or four hundred thousand? They should be taught
31 On Mr. Fox's Motion
for the Repeal of Certain Penal Statutes Respecting
Religious Opinions, loc. cit., supra, note 18.
82 Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note !'l!'l, 12!'l-!'l3.
35 Supra, note 28, 140.
•• Ibid. 186.
..1793, Works Vll, 140-41.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

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69

that happiness may be found in virtue; that the condition of
the great and rich is more splendid, but not more happy;
that thoughts of political equality can. only embitter the real
inequality which can never be removed; and that there is a
future life in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when
they will be equal by nature and may be more than equal by
virtue. 36 "The body of the people must not find the principles
of natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds.
They must respect that property of which they cannot partake.
They must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained;
and when they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice." 37 "There is
in nature and reason a principle which, for their own benefit,
postpones, not the interest but the judgment, of those who are
numero plures, to those who are virtute et honore majores." 38
If political equality is not in the interest of the multitude,
what is their interest? It is difficult to see what wants of the
people Burke would allow government to gratify, or how it was
to assist in the perfection of the virtue and nature of common
men. The state is not to play any role in improving the economic condition of the poor. Though Brougham 39 and Morley 40
thought highly of Burke's economic views, and Adam Smith is
alleged to have congratulated him upon them, 41 they are inconsistent 42 and, where they are clear, represent the most heartless
extreme of laissez faire.
Those who are ground under the great wheel of circulation
86 Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note 22, 84, 187.
"Ibid. 482.
•• An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, sup7a, note 21, 216.
•• Historical Sketches of Statesmen, (London, 1889) I, 167.
•o Op. cit., sup7a, note 4, 202, Rae, Life of Adam Smith, 887-888.
" 1 Cobban, Edmund Burke, 198.

•• Burke both opposed and favored restrictions on Irish trade. His speech against
Pitt's commercial treaty with France is absurd in itself and contradictory to almost
all his other expressions on international trade. Except for the speech on the
Address in 1767, Speeches I, 10, he never suggested that the state had any responsibility to improve the lot of the poor. As early as 1772 Burke said on the Bill To
Regulate the Importation and Exportation of Corn, Speeches I, 125-26, "Sir, I am
no enemy to the poor. On the contrary, I sympathize with their distresses. On this

70

ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

are necessary sacrifices to the general good. 48 The state can do
nothing about those "innumerable servile, degrading, unseemly,
unmanly, and often most unwholesome and pestiferous occupations, to which by the social economy so many wretches are
inevitably doomed." 44 Nature, or God, regulates the great
wheel of circulation. 45 Labor is a commodity like any other,
and rises and falls with the demand. This is in the nature of
things. The interest of the employer and the worker are always
the same, and· it is absolutely impossible that their contracts
can be onerous to either party. The worker must earn a profit
for the employer so that the employer may keep the "instrument he employs" in good working order. The more avaricious
the employer is, the better the worker·should like it, for the
better the care the employer will take of him. Burke's workers
are hardly distinguishable from slaves.
If the necessity of the seller of labor exceeds the necessity of
the buyer, even to the extent that the seller cannot subsist on
occasion I give way to the present bill, not because I approve of the measure in
itself, but because I think it prudent to yield to the spirit of the times. The people
will have it so, and it is not for their representatives to say nay." This from the
independent representative who will not sacrifice the people's interest to their will!
"I cannot, however, help entering my protest against the. general principles of
policy on which it is supported, because I think them extremely dangerous. . . .
I would have the people of this island know, that if they would be relieved, they
must relieve themselves by an increase of industry. There is no other possible
remedy. People may talk of charity and parliamentary aid, but I am afraid these
will in the end prove ineffectual. . . . Let us rather inculcate this maxim, that they
must work out their salvation' with their own hand."
•• That Burke made his usual exception in favor of Ireland is suggested by Two
Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, 1778, Works III, 224: "The author of our nature
has written it strongly in that nature . . . that man shall eat his bread by his
labour; and I am persuaded, that no man, and no combination of men, for their own
ideas of their particular profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say, that
he shall not do so; that they have no sort of right, either to prevent the labour,
or to withhold the bread." Burke's description of the dreadful poverty he saw in
Ireland in his youth is given in Samuels, The Early Life Correspondence and Writings of Edmund Burke, (Cambridge, 1923) 172.
•• Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note 22, 291-92.
•• Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795, Works VII, 376, 404; Letters on a
Regicide Peace, supra, note 28, 368-69. Woodrow Wilson said of the former work,
" every line . . . spoke the hopeful, the informed, the philosophical economist."
Edmund Burke and the French Revolution, The Century Magazine, 1901, LXII,
784, 785.

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71

what the buyer will pay, the remorseless and immutable laws
of economics and political science tell us that there is nothing
that economics or political science can do for him. Such a man
has no claims according to the rules of commerce and the principles of justice. "He passes out of that department, and comes
within the jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing to do." If the magistrate does interfere in
the dispensation of charity, he is violating that property which
it is his office to protect. "Without all doubt charity to the
poor is a direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next
in order after the payment of debts, full as strong, and by
nature made infinitely more delightful to us .... But the manner, mode, time, choice of objects, and proportion, are left to
private discretion. . . . " 46
It is clear, therefore, that government can do nothing for the
economic condition of the common man. " Numbers in their
nature imply poverty." 47 If the autonomous economic system
reduces a man to starvation, he must starve, unless charity,
which is wholly a private matter, relieves him. The state does
its full duty if it refrains from interfering against him. It has
no positive obligations to him.
Nor has it any positive obligations, aside from the maintenance of an established church, to his moral, intellectual, or
spiritual life. The state will preserve order; it will prevent men
from breaking the law. But when God willed the state to perfect our nature and our virtue, he apparently intended it to
accomplish this aim without doing anything about our education, our leisure, or our minds. No political thinker of similar
reputation has ever had so little to say about education as
Burke. We learn that in Ireland, at least, the prohibition of
the means of improving our rational nature is the worst species
of tyranny that the insolence and perseverance of mankind
•• Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, supra, note 45, 380-91. Apparently Burke
would not even favor poor relief, upon which £2,000,000 of public money was spent
in 1785. Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, (2nd Ed.
New York, 1927) 448.
•• Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, supra, note 45, 376.

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

ever dared to exercise. 48 We discover that French education is
bad because it includes vice, namely, the study of the bold experimenters in morality, 49 and because this education, founded
in a knowledge of the physical wants of men and carried to an
identification of enlightened self-interest with the public interest, is offered as a substitute for religion. 50 But Burke cares
no more for the education of the people than he does for supplying them with leisure or rescuing them from poverty. When
he thinks of education, he thinks of "our young nobility and
gentlemen" on the Grand Tour. 51

v
If, as Burke reminds us on the authority of Ecclesiasticus,
wisdom comes only with leisure, why did he not suggest the
possibility o£ increasing the leisure of the masses so that they
could get wisdom? If a well-informed man can see that a man
who has no property has as much interest in the constitution
and good order of society as a man who has much, 52 why not
obviate the dangers of the ill-informed man's ignorance by trying to see to it that he is well-informed? Why should Burke
insist that these particular people and their children must
always be poor, overworked, and ignorant, while the privileged
classes and their descendants, however worthless, must remain
forever privileged? Why should the only want which the
unprivileged have a right to have provided by the wisdom of
government be the want of a restraint on their passions? The
explanation offered is another group of fictions: prescription,
presumption, and convention. They are Burke's answer to the
Rights of Man.
48 A Letter to a Peer of; Ireland on the Penal Laws against the Irish Catholics,
1789l, Works VI, 9l89l.
•• A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791, Works VI, il9.
50 Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note ilil, 9l70-71.
61 Ibid., 189.
See also, Mr. Burke's Table Talk, Crewe, Miscellanies of Philobiblian Society (London, 1869l-'8), sec. 15. Jennings estimates that at this time
not more than one in twenty of the working classes could read. A History of the
Economic and Social Progress of European Peoples, (1986) 9l29.
52 On Mr. Sheridan's Motion Relative
to the Existence of Seditious Practices,
supra, note 24, 126.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

73

Prescription means that whatever is old comers a right, and
nothing confers a right unless it is old. The sole authority of
the constitution is that it has existed time out of mind. "The
individual is foolish. The multitude, for the moment is foolish,
when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise,
and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts
right." 53
When, in the debate on the Navy Estimates in 1772, Lord
North's government had ventured to plead prescription, Burke
replied with the best answer to his own use of the same doctrine: "How weak an argument prescription is in this case,
they do not seem to feel; for, where interest is concerned, what
will not men think an argument? Stare super vias antiquas
is their political creed. What then! is this maxim to preclude
every improvement, however obvious and necessary, in the
constitution? The first enquiry, before we proceed to walk
upon this old road is, whether we can be said star bene, and
the next is whether, if this be the case, we cannot star meglio.
If the latter part of the alternative is beyond our reach, then sto
qui becomes a necessary, as well as a prudential conclusion." 54
Prescription is the most disingenuous of all Burke's arguments for opposing the extension of the suffrage and the reform
of the House of Commons. He knew that in 1430 great numbers
of the people had been disfranchised. If antiquity is to be our
guide, why not revert to the status of 1429? He knew that the
representation had been frequently altered. Between the reigns
of Henry VIII and Charles II, 130 members had been added
by royal charters. Scotland got 45 members in 1707. And we
have seen that he cordially approved the extension of representation to Wales, Chester, and Durham. What Wales, Chester,
53 On the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, supra,
note 14, 46-47. Cf. An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, supra, note 21,
" In their political arrangements, men have no right to put the well-being of the
present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with
any certainty in our hands is the care of our own times." The strongest and clearest
statement on prescription is found in the Letter to Captain Mercer, 1790, Corres.
(Fitzwilliam Ed. London, 1844) ill, 141.
•• Speeches I, 140.

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

and Durham had to have in spite of prescription, Manchester
cannot have because of it.
The truth is that prescription is not an argument; it is a practice, and one that is indispensable in quieting titles to real
estate. But if there is a right that government shall in its wisdom provide for human wants, the title to this provision can
never be quieted by long neglect or abuse. " There is a time,
when men will not suffer bad things because their ancestors
have suffered worse." 55 When a man acquires title to land by
prescription, he does indeed deprive others of the ownership of
that particular property; but he does not prevent them from
owning land at all. To say that because a few have for a long
time held a monopoly of participation in government they can
bar others from participation in it is to beg the important questions, among them the questions of the nature of man and the
purpose of the state. Nor does it follow that because one man
has a vote he may claim the prescriptive right to prevent me
from having one, too. If I have one I leave his prescriptive title
to his own intact.
Presumption means that no matter how many times or in
how many ways a nation shows that it dislikes certain existing
political arrangements, nevertheless, if those arrangements
exist, the nation will be presumed to have chosen them and
will be presumed to wish to retain them. The fact of the existence of these arrangements raises a presumption which is ten
thousand times better than an actual choice, for an actual
choice is likely to be tumultuary and giddy. 56 It is perhaps
unnecessary to say anything more about this fiction than that
it is completely fictitious and not eminently consolatory to a
body of men full of uneasiness because they are disfranchised.
Convention does not mean agreement; Burke has little use
for the social contract. Convention means convenience. "The
moment you abate anything from the full rights of men, each
to govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation
upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization
On His Plan of Eccmomical Reform, supra, note
On the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, loc. cit.,
supra, note 58.
55

56

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

75

of government becomes a consideration of convenience." 57 And
this is the man who in 1777 had said, " All the ancient, honest
juridical principles and institutions of England . . . were invented for this one good purpose; that what was not just should
not be convenient." 58
To the questions whose convenience is to be consulted and
what is inconvenient, Burke replies that those who benefit by
the established order are those whose convenience is at stake,
and that since any change would alter the established order
and the privileges of those who benefit by it, any change is
inconvenient. "I know there is an order, that keeps things fast
in their place; it is made to us, and we are made to it. Why
not ask another wife, another body, another mind? " 59
With prescription, presumption, and convention Burke beats
down talk of principles, 60 popular sovereignty, 61 and human
rights. 62 He who opposed the slave trade, a prescriptive branch
Reflections on tlw Revolution in France, supra, note
123.
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, supra, note 17, 140.
•• On tlw Reform of tlw Representation of the Commons in. Parliament, supra,
note 14, 51. Cf. "Our country is not a thing of mere physical locality. It consists,
in a great measure, in the ancient order into which we were born." An Appeal from
the New. to the Old Whigs, supTa, note
"We procure reverence to our
civil institutions on the principle on which nature teaches us to reverence individual
men; on account of their age; and on account of those from whom they are de80-81. It will
scended." Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note
be noted that nature does not teach us to reverence either men or institutions on
account of their justice.
60 " To ask whether a thing, which has always been the same, stands to its usual
principle, seems to m,e perfectly absurd; for how do you know the principles but
from the construction? " On the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in
Parliament, supra, note 14, 48.
61 "In talking of the English nation, they talked of the sovereignty of the people:
the constitution of this country knew no such sovereignty; the king was sovereign
of the Lords and of the Commons; the King, Lords, and Commons, were the representatives of the country at home; the king was its only representative abroad.
They talked of the nation: we knew of no nation as a distinct body from the representative powers. We talked indeed of the people, but the sovereignty of the people
was a phrase not recognized by law, and inconsistent with our constitution." On the
Alien Bill,
Speeches IV, 93. " The sovereignty of the people was the most
false, wicked, and mischievous doctrine that ever could be preached to them." On
Mr. Sheridan's Motion Relative to the Existence of Seditious Practices, supra, note
57
58

6 ' " In the famous law of the 3d of Charles I called the Petition
of Right, the
parliament says to the king, 'Your subjects have inherited this freedom,' claiming

76

ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

of commerce i£ there ever was one, on the basis of natural right,
" abstracted from all political, personal, and local considerations," 63 who said of India that the rights of mankind are not
to be made subservient to the practice of government, 64 and
who observed that the Irish Catholics suffered from a "deprivation of all the rights of human nature," 65 held that the addition
of sixteen members would be the death and burial of the constitution 66 and referred to the movement for reform as " wild
and savage insurrection." 67

VI
The state, then, though willed by God to perfect our nature
and our virtue, comes to play the purely negative role of preserving the status quo. "The state ought to confine itself to
what regards the state, or the creatures of the state, namely,
the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its
revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations
that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything
that is truly and properly publick, to the publick peace, to the
publick safety, to the publick order, to the publick prosperity." 68
We have already seen that the way in which the state is to
promote the public prosperity is to leave it alone. "Let government protect and encourage industry, secure property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all they have
to do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these affairs
the better; the rest is in the hands of our Master and theirs." 69
their franchises not on abstract principles ' as rights of men,' but as the rights of
Englishmen .... " Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note 22, 76.
63 On the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Speeches III, 343.
6 ' Impeachment
of Warren Hastings, 1788, Speeches IV, 357. See also On Mr.
Fox's East India Bill, supra, note 15, 409.
65 A Letter to a Peer of Ireland on the Penal Laws against the Irish Catholics,
loc. cit., supra, note 48.
66 On the Address on the King's Speech, 1785, Speeches III, 89.
67 A Letter to a Noble Lord, 1796, Works VIII, 18. Cf. A Letter to the Sheriffs
of Bristol, supra, ·note 17: "But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise
publick counsel to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours,
with how little, not how much of this restraint, the community can subsist. For
liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened."
•• Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, supra, note 45, 416.
69 Letters on a Regicide Peace, supra, note 28, 867.

THE THEORY OF OLIGARCHY:

EDMUND BURKE

77

It is obviously impossible to defend by reason the proposition that the status quo is perfect simply because it is the
status quo; and Burke gave up trying. He appealed from
natural rights to natural feelings. "Why do I feel so differently
from the Reverend Dr. Price, and those of his lay :flock, who
will choose to adopt the sentiments of his discourse?-for this
plain reason-because it is natural I should. . . . " 10 "We fear
God; we look up with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and
with respect to nobility. Why? Because when such ideas are
brought before our minds, it is natural to be so affected .... " 11
There is no arguing about feelings. In asserting that his
feelings were right and Dr. Price's wrong Burke was committing
the sin which he most often condemned, the sin of being a judge
in one's own cause. Dr. Price could with justice reply that his
feelings were as good as Burke's and that, whether they were
or not, he felt like retaining them.
Burke's conclusion involves the abdication of reason. But a
political thinker must think. Burke's failure must be ascribed
in part to the difficulty inherent in constructing a defensible
theory in support of an indefensible position 72 and in part to
the diverse conditions under which he tried to defend it.
In his early days the great Whig families were fighting the
King 13 ; and Burke fought everything Lord North proposed,
•• Reflections on the Revolution in France, supra, note !'l!'l, 156.
Ibid. 166. Cf. Letter from Philip Francis, 1790, Burke's corres., III, 168-69.
" When thousands after thousands are dragooned out of their own country for the
sake of their religion, or sent to row in the galleys for selling salt against law,-when
the liberty of every individual is at the mercy of every prostitute, pimp, or parasite,
that has access to the hand of power, or to any of its basest substitutes-my mind,
I own, is not at once prepared to be satisfied with gentle palliatives for such disorders. Why? Because, as you say, it is not natural that it should."
72 Adler and Farrell, The Theory of Democracy, Part IV, sec. 5, to appear in
THE THOMIST VI, No. 1; and ibid., Part V, sec. 1 and !'l, to appear in THE THoMIST
VI, No. !'l.
•• The Duke of Portland summed the matter up in 1794 by saying, " It will not
be denied to me that the characteristic feature of the present Reign has been its
uniform and almost unremitting attention and study to debase and vilify the
natural Aristocracy of the country, and under the popular pretence of abolishing all
party distinctions, to annihilate, if possible, the Whig Party." Burke-Windham
Correspondence, (Gibson Ed., Cambridge, 1910) 97.
11

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ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

including his attempts to regulate the East India Company. 74
The American policy was the King's policy. Burke therefore
fought, and fought brilliantly, against it. In the struggle he
expressed ideas of the purposes of government and the participation of the people in it which, even if they are to be
understood as applying solely to the 400,000 whom he later
called the people, contradict the spirit and even the letter of
his final views. This contradiction can only be explained by
the fact that he was determined to protect the aristocracy from
attack from: any quarter. If it came from the King, he would
use the people against him; if it came from the people, he would
retort on them with the glories and virtues of the established
order, and in so doing would forget or abandon the claims he
had made for the people. When the issue was one in which the
interests of the landed aristocracy were not involved, or where
their interests happened to coincide with those of humanity,
Burke exercised his noble talents in behalf of liberty and justice. His bias did not prevent him from being on many occasions a far-sighted statesman, gifted with amazing intuitive
and even prophetic powers. His speeches and writings remain
a mine of political maxims, of wise saws and modern instances.
In defense of oligarchy he is, as always, a splendid rhetorician
and advocate. But he is not a seeker after truth; he is not a
philosopher. 75
The University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois.
74 Burke was also influenced by his acute concern over the e:ffect of these measures
on the stock-jobbing operations of his friend William Burke. See Magnus, Edmund
Burke, (London, 1989) 72-75.
•• Cf. Sir James Mackintosh, " The greatest philosopher in practice whom the
world ever saw," quoted in Brougham, op. cit., supra, note 89, p. 171; Morley, " The
largest master of civil wisdom in our tongue," op. cit., supra, note 29, p. 814;
MacCunn, " a great mind . . . instinct with the philosophic spirit," op. cit., supra,
note 5, p. 15; Laski, Political Thought from Locke to Bentham, p. 278, "hardly a
greater figure in the history of political thought in England "; Cobban, op. cit.,
supra, note 41, p. 87, one of "the two greatest figures in the history of English
political thought "; McGann, " The Political Philosophy of Edmund Burke," Thought
V, p. 474, " the foremost position among political philosophers"; Millar, " The
Modern State and Catholic Principles," Thought V, pp. 42, 51, "the greatest
philosopher-statesman thus far known to history."

JACQUES MARITAIN
EST, EST, NON, NON.
By RuTH NANnA ANsHEN

W

HEN one who is a sympathetic observer of the calm
solidity of Christian thought comes into the presence
of Jacques Maritain, when one is overwhelmed by
the genius of his thought and by the ontological profundity of
his analysis of truth in accordance with his hypothesis, one may
well be convinced that the dark world of satanic powers will
pass from one's mind. Here one discerns the possibility of finding oneself ultimately in the presence of an Ideal Judge who
knows all Good and Evil. The world as we approached it seemed
so restless, so disheartening, without teleological validity. The
world of our postulates was a brighter one only because we
determined to make it so. But there was something lonely and
isolated in the thought that the postulates received, as a response from the world of reality, only their own echo-and often
not even that. Their world was rather their own creation than
an external and universal truth that gave them independent
substance and support. Frequently there seemed nothing solid
that could reverberate at all. But Jacques Maritain is convinced
that we all may look upon a truth that is indeed dependent on
no subjective longings of ours, no whims of social tradition, no
demands of our personal narrow lives. He has rediscovered for
himself and for others the fact that all truth is known to One
Thought, and that Thought, Infinite. It is infinite Intelligence
which is above all and through all, embracing everything, judging everything, infallible, pe.Hect. This is Jacques Maritain's
contribution to contemporary philosophy-an apostrophe to
Reason and its decisive influence on the life of humanity. M.
Maritain points out the disastrous dehumanization in the existential continuum of the life of man when Reason is abandoned,
and he eloquently indicates the ineluctable necessity of sur-

79

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RUTH NANDA ANSHEN

rendering the fluctuating will to an immanent and common
Reason.
Ever since the Middle Ages, the world has lost an integrating
principle. There has been a futile effort to substitute scientific
explanation for metaphysical meaning. The medieval thinkers,
St. Thomas Aquinas in particular, were warmly aware that the
community is based upon the guiding and shaping power of a
spiritual value and in the adaptation of the laws of nature. This
transcending and shaping power, Maritain warns, is not contained either in the idea of scientific empiricism, moral empiricism, in the idea of bourgeois society or in the concepts of
some collective consciousness. All lack the concrete substance,
the existential value of an idea which is capable of integrating
life beyond the borders of the subordination of ends to means.
The substitution of the idea of indefinite progress for the idea of
meaning and purpose has resulted in a metaphysical agnosticism, an educational secularism and a bourgeois humanism
which has left the soul of man bewildered, full of fear, lost and
without hope.
Furthermore, Jacques Maritain teaches that as soon as men
refuse to be ruled primarily by God, they condemn themselves
to be ruled primarily by man; and if they decline to receive
from God the leading principles of their moral and social conduct, they are bound to accept them from the king, or from the
state, or from their race, or from their own social class. In all
cases, there will be a state-decreed philosophical, moral,
historical, and even scientific, truth, just as tyrannical in its
pretensions, and much more effective in its oppressions of individual conscience than any state religion may ever have been
in the past.
Maritain warns us against the encroachments of the totalitarian state in its various forms, and points out that our
only conceivable protection, humanly speaking at least, is in
a powerful revival of the genuine feeling for the universal
character of truth. I say feeling, because it is a natural temptation for everyone to coin a truth of his own, made after his
own image and likeness, so that this anthropomorphism may

JACQUES MARITAIN

81

give us at the same time the solipsistic pleasure of self-contemplation. It has so often been thought and written that the discovery of truth is a personal affair, that we have almost come
to think that truth is a personal affair. Yet the most commonplace truth itself is infinitely better than a whole system of the
most original errors. Now, perhaps, is the time for us to remind
ourselves of the ancient Greek prindple that unity is better
than multiplicity. Not uniformity, which is the mere lack of
diversity, but unity, that is to say the rational ordering of a
manifold reality. Maritain believes that truth is one, consonant
with itself throughout the irreducible multiplicity of the degrees
of knowledge. Maritain is convinced that truth consists of
finding out an order where there is one as in nature and putting
it where there is none, or not enough of it, as in moral, social
and political life. Maritain affirms that and upon these
tions depends the future of the mind and of what is left of its
liberty.
If it is our conviction that truth is one in its diversity, it will
be an absolute duty to accept Reason as the only adequate form
of philosophy. Humanly and naturally speaking, there is no
unifying force above Reason. Speaking from the point of view
of the absolute, what Maritain calls divine Reason itself is the
only unifying force. What is true from the point of view of
Reason is true from the point of view of th«:! universe; for the
only thing that lies behind truth is reality itself, which is the
same for all. Not so with feeling; not so with intuition, be it the
highest form of aesthetic or metaphysical intuition; and still less
than with anything else, with the will, its passions, desires or
interests of any kind. Each time philosophy yields to the temptation of giving up Reason as an organizing power, it axiomatically brings about the triumph of those obscure forces whose
self-assertion is their only possible justification. Deep intuition is
always one's own intuition; good taste is always one's own taste;
sacred feelings are always one's own feelings, and, in the final
analysis, lawful interests are always one's own interests. Where
these forces do not serve individual selfishness, they serve the
still more tyrannical selfishness of social groups and national
6

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RUTH NANDA ANSHEN

groups. The only thing in the natural order that is unconditionally and unreservedly neither mine nor yours, but ours, is
Reason. But what is the proper use of Reason?
M. Maritain informs us that Reason consists in using it according to its own nature, which is to judge things according to
what they are. Sound Reason is at the same time realism. In
spite of their many differences, all varieties of idealism agree
precisely in this, that nature is determined by laws of the
human mind. Realism in accordance with M. Maritain, on the
contrary, always stands firm in the Greek conviction that the
human mind is right when it conforms to reality. In other
words, Reason, taken in its purest form, is always intertwined
with some sort of realism. Now it is a fact that ever since the
17th century, realism has been considered by most philosophers
as a naive and antiquated position. Until the realistic reaction
that has recently occurred, particularly in England and in the
United States, scholasticism remained, as Maritain points out,
the only upholder of a seemingly lost cause. We are now
beginning to be cognizant of the vital issues which were at
stake, in the most concrete order of reality, behind those academic discussions. When it is pursued to its ultimate conclusions, reason of the idealistic type always considers itself
justified in prescribing what reality ought to be. As he rejects
all material and external criteria of what is true or false, the
idealist usually ends by establishing what is his own individual
truth as a universally valid dogma. Reason itself then becomes
the very reverse of what is should be; instead of a unifying
force it acts as a principle of intellectual and social division.
Jacques Maritain points out the dangers of solipsism. It is a
common experience of mankind that the ideas of the individual
prove of profound, egocentric satisfaction to -himself. Man has
an alarming ingenuity for building theories, or a general interpretation of an enormous number of facts, on the knowledge of
a very small number of facts. And once his convictions have
been formed, man with his strange congenital alacrity adheres
to them, in spite of all that other people, equally satisfied with
their own convictions, may say to the contrary. What does this

JACQUES

MARITAIN

88

mean, if not that man is naturally, normally, sadly, the
prisoner of his own convictions? What is tenable for the daily
convictions of man is also tenable for philosophy and science.
By deciding that the human mind is free to prescribe its own
laws to things, idealism has, under the pretense of liberating
the human mind from those things, enslaved the mind to itself.
This is the reason why man is today confronted with the multiplicity of scientific interpretations of the world, each of which
is equally dogmatic in itself and diametrically opposed to the
others. As to contemporary philosophy, it is indisputable that
each philosopher has his own system, and that' far from being
disturbed at the idea that his system is not accepted by others,
that in fact it may be repudiated, he rather derives a martyr's
joy from it. Modern philosophers for the most part disagree;
it is their very essence, because they are idealists, while the
only thing which can reconcile different minds is the recognition
of an independent reality upon the existence and nature of
which they can agree. There must be a common agreement on
a certain number of fundamental doctrines and all philosophers
must admit the existence of an order of things and endeavor
to express it. Unfortunately, in contemporary philosophy, as M.
Maritain makes us poignantly aware, the effort of an idealist
has no other object than to express his mind, which results in
the impoverished condition of a multiplicity of sterile philosophies and a paucity 9f fecund minds.
Indeed, what is a mind that feeds upon itself? It is empty.
The real function of the human mind is not to describe things
as it sees them, but as they are. Either we shall be free from
things, and slaves to our minds, or free from our minds because
submitted to things, or rather to the intelligible truth which is
embodied in them and akin to our mind. Reason always was
and will forever remain the source of our personal liberty, and
also will forever remain the only guarantee of our social liberty.
Jacques Maritain, upon whose metaphysical and generous
heart lie heavily the burdens and sadness of contemporary
existence, stresses that the condition of our intellectual and
moral healing is the acknowledgment that truth, morality,

84

RUTH NANDA ANSHEN

social justice and beauty are necessary and universal in their
own right. It will then become known that there is a spiritual order of realities whose absolute right it is to judge
even the state, and eventually to liberate mankind from its
oppressions. As M. Maritain explains, not an anthropocentric
but a theocentric humanism must be achieved, for in the conviction that there is nothing in the world above universal truth
lies the very essence of intellectual and social freedom. The
gospel does not demand of us: it seems to me, hence it is so, or,
it does not seem to me, hence it is not so, but rather, est, est;
non, non.
Man is not isolated although in him alone the life current
overcomes resistance that elsewhere has arrested its advance.
Yet he is different; for in him we find no limit set to that advance nor do we see any resistance that shall bring it to an end,
not even, perhaps, the barrier of death. An implacable law
decrees that spirit must encounter the resistance of matter, that
life cannot advance without bruising that which lives, and that
great moral results are purchased by much blood and many
tears. But for Jacques Maritain humanity is saved in the midst
of material suffering from moral downfall while the people appealing in their desolation to the heroism of love, raise on high
the paean of deliverance from the depths of ruin and of grief.
To the force which feeds only on its own brutality M. Maritain
opposes that which seeks outside and above itself a principle
of life and renovation. While the .one is gradually spending
itself, the other is continually remaking itself, and reveals to
us our creative power in a life that has become our own-a
life we guide and determine towards the fulfillment of our
destiny. To Jacques Maritain we owe an everlasting debt of
gratitude, gratitude for the reassurance that the life of the spirit
is not dead, and that Reason will ultimately inspire us, will be
our beacon light in the valley of the shadow.
New York, N. Y.

MARITAIN'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCIENCES
By YVEs R. SIMoN

T

HE upholders of the Thomistic revival which began
late in the nineteenth century were soon confronted
with the following challenge: Because the philosophical
principles of Thomism had been established at a time when
positive science was in its infancy, it was asserted that
Thomism was forbidden ever to deal successfully with the
problems of our time. There could be no provision made in the
system of St. Thomas for the interpretation of either the results
or the spirit of modern science, both of which influence so
deeply the very statement of our philosophical problems. The
collapse of Aristotelian physics had entailed the general ruin of
the Thomistic philosophy; against this verdict, rendered at the
time of Galileo and Descartes, there could be no appeal.
Thomism was at best a remarkable phase in the development
of Western thought. If something of it could be revived, it was
a certain inspiration, a certain aspiration, a certain frame of
mjnd, but not any part of the systematic synthesis actually
known under the name of Thomism.
Such was the only possible attitude for those who did not
believe that any part of philosophy is independent of the data
of positive science. Less radical-minded persons were willing to
make an exception for metaphysics, considering that our knowledge of the one, the true, and the good is little affected by what
happens in physics and mathematics. But when there is a
question of cosmology, psychology, even of logic, the restoration of a philosophy conceived in the Middle Ages was deemed
plainly impossible. The result was a number of eclectic constructions in which St. Thomas was permitted to supply a few
general truths but not any refined and detailed achievement
On the other hand, scholars convinced of the perennial truth
of St. Thomas's philosophy were engaging in an ambiguous
task: that of finding points of agreement between the teaching
of St. Thomas and that of modern sciences. In the domain of
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psychology in particular, there is quite a literature about St.
Thomas co:rroborated by the most modern and positive research.
As a matter of fact, in order to know how far Thomism was
affected by modern developments in the positive sciences, a
group of preliminary questions had to be investigated. What
about the object of philosophy? Has philosophy any distinct
object? What about the unity of philosophy? Is philosophy a
science or not? One science or several? What is the significance
of the distinction between philosophical and positive knowledge?
Is it a necessary and everlastingly indispensable distinction, or a
merely provisional one? What about the kind of truth that
belongs to philosophy? To positive knowledge? Is it the same
or not? All these questions have received invaluable elaboration from the critical research whose climax was the publicaof The Degrees of Knowledge. 1
tion, in
The pioneers of the Thomistic revival had rather vague ideas
about the nature of the disciplines which some of them practiced with great ability. It seems that they were not particularly
interested in problems pertaining to the specification of philosophical sciences. Today we consider it a paradox that
Thomists have ever accepted a division' of philosophy which
was initiated by Wolff, consolidated by Kant, popularized by
the Eclectics of the school of Cousin, and was fundamentally
at variance with that upheld by St. Thomas. Our old masters
undertook the restoration of the Thomistic philosophy without
having asked themselves what conception of philosophy and of
its divisions a philosophy must adopt in order to be consistently
Thomistic. Rediscovering the genuine Thomistic concept of
philosophy, reasserting it against many sorts of eclectic combinations-this is a task that l\!Iaritain has carried out with an
uncompromising spirit of exactness and accuracy.

*

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*

*

Main writings of Maritain concerning the philosophy of sciences: Ref!exions sur
['intelligence, Paris, 1924, Ch. 6 and 7; Distinguer pour unir ou les Degres du
savoir, Paris, 1982 (English translation, The Degrees of Knowledge, Scribner's, New
York, 1988); La Philosophie de la nature, Paris, 1985; Science and Wisdom, Scribner's, New York, 1940; Scholasticism and Politics, Macmillan, New York, 1940,
Ch. 2.
1

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It is now currently known that the whole doctrine of St.
Thomas concerning the theory of science and philosophy is
commanded by the distinction of three orders of speculative
abstraction. In an early treatise, the Expositio super Boetium
de Trinitate, St. Thomas develops, explains, and justifies the
tripartite division of theoretical knowledge which had been
outlined by Aristotle. Some theoretical objects are such that
they can neither exist nor be thought of without matter, i.e.,
apart from the principle which makes things both perishable
and observable. Others are such that they can be thought of
without any reference to sensible qualities and the principles of
mobility, although they cannot exist except in corruptible and
observable subjects. Finally, some theoretical objects are
determined by such a law of abstraction that they can both be
thought of and exist apart from matter. The general division
of theoretical knowledge based upon the consideration of the
orders of abstraction is most profoundly objective, since it
proceeds from the characteristics of the scientific object as
such. Theoretical knowledge is primarily divided into physics,
mathematics, and metaphysics.
This primary division which is the indispensable foundation
of all Thomistic speculation about science and philosophy was
strangely disregarded by the Thomists of the nineteenth century. According to the categories set up by Wolff, their
metaphysics falls into a general metaphysics, and a special
metaphysics itself divided into three disciplines: cosmology, psychology, natural theology (the latter being designated, to make
things worse, by the absurd term "theodicy ") . Such a conception upsets radically concepts which play an essential role
in the Thomistic synthesis. Considering the philosophy of the
world (cosmology) and the philosophy of the soul (psychology)
as parts of metaphysics is, from a Thomistic point of view,
completely nonsensical; for the whole observable world, including the human soul which is the form of a perishable body,
belongs to the order of objects which can neither exist nor be
thought of apart from matter.
Maritain has devoted unflagging effort to the restoration of

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the concept of philosophy of nature. Badly discredited in the
nineteenth century by the romantic N aturphilosophie, this concept had never been satisfactorily defined, inasmuch as the
disciples of Aristotle never succeeded in distinguishing clearly
philosophy of nature from positive science. St. Thomas uses
promiscuously the expressions philosophia naturalis, scientia
naturalis, physica. The problem is whether there is room within
the first order of abstraction for more than one approach to the
physical world.
In this connection, the Thomistic tradition includes possibilities of which the Thomists themselves were not sufficiently
aware. Each order of abstraction admits of an inner differentiation. The great commentator of St. Thomas whom Maritain
knows so well and loves so dearly, John of St. Thomas, points
out with his usual clarity that within one and the same order,
various .degrees of abstraction determine so many distinct
sciences. For instance, within the second order the Thomists
distinguish the degree of abstraction proper to geometry and
the higher degree proper to arithmetic. Within the third order
of abstraction three degrees and correspondingly three sciences
are distinguished: logic, metaphysics, theology. John of St.
Thomas explains that the abstraction which defines an order is
an initial one and consists in the disregarding of some sort of
material data: individual matter in physics, sensible matter in
mathematics, all matter in metaphysics. Once this initial
abstraction is effected, the mind has entered into an order of
intelligibility which should not be compared with a bi-dimensional plane but rather with a tri-dimensional space. For within
this sphere of intelligibility the mind still enjoys the freedom of
moving up and down in such a way as to reach various degrees
of terminal abstraction.
Ancient Scholastics had only vague hints of the inner differentiation of the first order of abstraction. Applying to the first
order the principles which had satisfactorily accounted for the
inner differentiation of the second and third was to be attempted. Marit_ain restored and purified the Thomistic concept
of philosophy of nature through a mere elaboration of an undeveloped aspect of historical Thomism.

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Every representation concerning the observable world shows
a dualistic or bipolar character inasmuch as it refers to an
intelligible object expressing itself through a stream of sense
appearances, and to a stream of sense appearances stabilized by
a center of intelligibility. This bipolar character of the physical
object and its representation is clearly suggested by the traditional definition of physics as the science of the ens mobile seu
sensibile. The physical object is both intelligible (ens) and
observable (mobile seu sensibile). Neither of these opposite
characteristics can be disregarded without its specific nature
being destroyed. Leave out the words mobile seu sensibile and
we are no longer dealing with something physical. Leave out
the word ens and we fall below the level of intellectual
knowledge.
Yet physical thinking, while bound to adhere to the two
aspects of its object, can put a particular emphasis on either
one. If the emphasis is put on ens, we have a form of knowledge both ontological and physical, a philosophical physics,
a philosophy of nature. If the emphasis is put on mobile seu
sensibile, we have a discipline of a physical and non-ontological
character, an. empiriological science. This point must be insisted upon: the privilege granted to either pole of the physical
qbject is only a matter of emphasis. The philosopher of nature
is not a metaphysician, and his definitions ought to imply some
reference to data of sense experience. On the other hand the
empiriologist is not a mere dealer in sense experiences, for the
observable regularities with which he deals owe their constancy and their consistency to their being organized by some
ratio entis. In this connection it is fitting to stress the felicitous
character of this newly coined expression, empiriological
sciences. Speaking of empirical sciences is objectionable, though
customary, since empiricism is said in contradistinction to
scientific knowledge. Empiriological sciences are not mere
empiricism, but a system of experience organized by an essential
reference to a principle of intelligibility, l.pmt.tpCa JMTa Ml'ov.
How physical thinking organizes itself around either pole of
its object can be best evidenced by investigating the way
physical definitions are constructed and justified. A typology

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of physical concepts is the real key to the opposition between
philosophy of nature and positive science.
Let us try a rigorous ascertainment of the meaning of a word
found both in philosophical and in positive contexts. The example chosen may be very simple. To the question what does
the word man mean? the answer will be "rational animal";
now, none of the elements of this definition presents a character
of irreducible clarity. Take one of them, for instance, animal.
What does this word mean? A correct definition would be: " a
living body endowed with sense knowledge," and these are so
many terms which badly need clarification. Take one of them,
for instance, " living." I would say that a body is a living
one when it moves itself, when it is the active origin of its own
development. H we go any step farther, we go beyond the
limits of physical thought. In order to render the idea of life
clearer, we would have to define it as self-actuation. The concept of self-actuation does not imply any reference to the proper
principles of corruptible and observable things: it is a metaphysical concept. Its elements are identity and causality.
Identity is the first property of being. Causality can be analysed into potency and act. Identity, potency, and act are so
many concepts directly reducible to that of being, which is, in
an absolute sense, the first and the most intelligible of all concepts. We have reached the ultimate term of the analysis, the
notion which neither needs to be nor can be defined and which
does not admit of any beyond.
This is the kind of analysis that the word man suggests when
it is used in certain contexts. Everybody would agree that a
discourse which demands such an analysis is a philosophical
one. But the same word man is often used in contexts which
neither demand nor could stand such an analysis. I happen to
find the word man in a treatise on zoology: explaining it in the
way we did just now would seem perfectly ridiculous. An analysis whose term is the concept of being has obviously nothing
to do with the behavior, the method, the spirit and the principles of the whole discipline we call zoology. Should a univocally-minded philosopher try to enlighten a zoologist by
giving him explanations about self-actuation as a particular

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form of relationship between potency and act, no doubt the
zoologist would burst into laughter arid declare that all these
stories are perfectly nonsensical for him as a scientist.
The zoologist would be right and the philosopher would be
univocally-minded. Both philosopher and zoologist consider
man, but they have a different way of defining objects and of
answering the question what does it mean? For the zoologist,
man is a mammal of the order of Primates. How would he
define such a term as mammal? A vertebrate characterized by
the presence of special glands secreting a liquid called milk.
How is milk defined? In terms of color, taste, average density,
biological function, chemical components, etc.
Here the ultimate and undefinable element is some sense
datum; it is the object of an intuition for which no logical
construction can be substituted and upon which all the logical
constructions of the science of nature finally rest. In some
cases, the explanation of a positive definition quickly demands
recourse to sense experience. This often happens in the least
elaborated parts of science. The elaboration of scientific
concepts generally postpones the time when the recourse to
sense intuition appears indispensable. But sooner or later it
always imposes itself unmistakably. It is the possibility of
being ascertained through sense experience which gives the
concept its positive meaning. Every concept is meaningless for
the positive scientist which cannot be, either directly or indirectly, explained in terms of sensations.
The philosophy of nature can be defined as a physical consideration whose conceptual instruments call for an ascending
analysis, positive science as a physical consideration whose
conceptual instruments call for a descending analysis. ·The
very opposition of the two analyses provides an invaluable rule
for the determination of the _point of view prevailing in our
studies about nature. Let us think of the ambiguous literature
which stands on the borderline between philosophy and positive
science. When a philosopher informed of positive science or a
scientist interested in philosophy considers philosophical problems raised by the study of positive questions, the philosophical
and the positive point of view appear successively in his ex-

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poSitiOns; generally the writer is not aware of the shifL The
resulting confusion can easily be removed provided we carry out
the analysis of a few key concepts. According as this analysis
goes up or down, according as the concept demands to be explained in more and more characteristically ontological terms
or in terms which refer more and more directly to definite
experiences, we know whether we have to do with a philosophical or a positive treatment.

*

*

*

*

This description of positive science as a consideration of the
ens mobile seu sensibile which puts the emphasis upon mobile
seu sensibile and centers around the observable aspects of things
throws a novel light on the notion of the science of phenomena.
Let us have a glance at the adventurous history of this notion.
At the dawn of Greek philosophy, a science of phenomena
is deemed impossible both by Parmenides and by Heraclitus.
Science demands an unchangeable and necessary object; the
phenomenal universe shows only a stream of changing appearances. The phenomenon, owing to its mutability, is thoroughly
uncongenial to the spirit of scientific knowledge. This negation
persists in Plato. The phenomenal world is the object of a
merely opiniative knowledge; science finds its object in a
transcendent world of numbers and ideas. 2 With Aristotle the
picture is quite differenL Aristotle realizes that there are immutable types immanent in the physical world: these are universal natures which reveal themselves through the regularities
that are observed in the very order of phenomena. Accordingly,
the phenomenon no longer has the character of an enemy of
scientific thought" It is the phenomenon which, through its
regularities, leads the scientific mind to its object: the universal
types of things, their essences, their forms of being. The science
so defined is a philosophy of nature, an ontology of the physical
world" It does not reach its end until it is able to answer the
question "What is the thing under consideration?" Neither
Aristotle nor any of his Thomistic followers has ever construed
• It goes without saying that in this sketch we content ourself with pointing out
major features of the systems under consideration.

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the unwarranted idea of an intuitive perception of essences.
Yet their scientific ideal is definitely attached to the disclosure,
the understanding of the intelligible types immanent in the
observable world. However essential may be the observation of
phenomena in such a science, this science is by no means a
science of phenomena. It is exclusively, or rather claims to
be-for Aristotle did in fact perform great achievements in
empiriological disciplines-a science of the essences located
beyond the phenomena.
It can be safely said that the science of phenomena did
not receive any epistemological charter before Kant. The
charter it was given by Kant is an idealistic one. Hardly conscious of its nature in the era preceding the Kantian Critique,
the science of phenomena, from then onward, was to be
acknowledged as a distinct and fully legitimate epistemological
species. But how is the old problem answered in the Critique
of Kant? What sort of solution is given to the difficulty resulting from the sharp conflict between the requirements of the
scientific spirit-necessity, universality, intersubjectivabilityand the most obvious characteristics of the phenomenal world,
its endless diversity, its thorough unsteadiness? There can be
no doubt about it: the principles which, according to Kant,
organize nature, do not lie in nature, but in the mind. The
scientific object, with its characteristics of orderliness, determination, and universality, results from the application of
mental categories to the diversity of sense-experience data.
Most men of science, ever since the Kantian reformation,
have assented to the fundamentally idealistic view that the
characteristics of the scientific object, its aptitude to fit in an
intelligible system and, above all, to comply with the requirements of causal identification, are a proper effect of the constructive or synthetic activity of the mind. This stubborn
adherence to an idealistic justification of positive science conflicts strikingly with the spontaneous realism of scientific
thought. Men of science, willingly or not, receive their philosophical ideas from philosophers; they could not rid themselves of idealistic prejudices while philosophers were teaching
idealism as the only doctrine that may account for the un-

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questionable ability of the mind to treat m an orderly and
causal manner the universe of phenomena.
In his dealing with phenomena, Aristotle has no other purpose than that of utilizing their regularities in order to know
essences. Maritain calls dianoetical intellection the act of the
mind which penetrates an essence and perceives what the thing
is. For instance, the philosophical definition of man as analysed above expresses an intellection which, inexhaustive and
non-intuitive though it is, has succeeded in penetrating the
whatness of human nature. We know that such a triumph of
the theoretical intellect is a rare achievement. In most cases we
cannot disclose the essences of sensible things in their specificity, we cannot accomplish a dianoetical intellection of their
whatness. All we can do is to distinguish them through a definition calling for a descending analysis. The intellection expressed by such a definition does not imply any penetration of
the physical essence, it only implies a circumscription of it
within a steadily connected ensemble of observable regularities.
Nobody can say what the essence of silver is; yet silver is a
perfectly distinct chemical species. The undisclosed essence
called silver is clearly and certainly distinguished from any
other essence 3 by the system of observable regularities which
taken together belong exclusively to it. In this connection let
us call attention to a difficulty often experienced by positive
scientists when they try to give their definitions a logically satisfactory form. We include in the definition of silver the property
of melting at 960.5° centigrade, the property of boiling at
2000°, etc. But in the proposition, silver melts at 960.5°, what
does the subject, silver, refer to, if not to something which is
specified precisely by the fact that it melts at 960.5°? The vice
of circularity seems inevitable. The statement that silver melts
at 960.5° resembles very much the statement that a black cat
is black. Or, if we wish to avoid mentioning the predicate in
the logical subject, we are confronted with a host of predicates
hailing upon nothingness as a subject. In fact a subject is not
• I abstract from the question whether an empiriological species like silver
coincides with an ontological species, or is merely a sub-determination of a broader
ontological species.

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lacking, but whereas the many predicates belong to the order of
phenomena, the subject belongs to another order. Throughout
the chapter of chemistry which constitutes a definition of silver,
a certain ontological x unreflectingly designated by this name,
silver, is present, though undisclosed, to the mind. The logically
satisfactory definition of silver would be: x melts at 960.5°,
boils at 2000°, etc.; we give the name of silver to the hidden
essence which we circumscribe by this steadily connected set of
observable regularities. Whereas the being of things is successfully penetrated by the dianoetical intellection used in philosophy of nature, it is only circumscribed by the perinoetical
intellection of empiriological science. The intelligible element
which enables empiriological knowledge to transcend empiricism is not revealed to the mind; it is neither constructed by
the mind nor imposed by it upon the phenomenal matter. It is
grasped by the mind inside a system of phenomenal regularities,
circumscribed by this observable system and never disengaged
from it. Thus the science of which Aristotle had no clear notion
-although he practiced it a great deal-, the science which has
for its object the phenomenal regularities themselves, is defined
as possible on a realistic basis. The orderly character of the
phenomena is guaranteed by the ontological x which is confusedly grasped together with them by the empiriological analysis. With Maritain, the science of phenomena was given for
the first time a justification which owed nothing to the idealistic
interpretation of the mind's activity.
It is clear that in this conception a positive science of nature
can exist independently of any mathematical treatment of
natural phenomena. The Kantian statement that" the amount
of genuine science found in each department of natural knowledge cannot be greater than the amount of mathematics found
in it " shockingly conflicts with the fact that most important
developments whose scientific character can hardly be questioned seem to be by nature refractory to mathematical forms
(in biology and psychology especially) "» Whenever the mind
seizes an essence, a ratio entis, albeit in the blind way proper
to the perinoetical intellection, a genuinely scientific treatment
remains possible. Any universal and necessary form of being,

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however obscure may be the way it is grasped, constitutes a
matter to which the mind can apply the principles of scientific
thought, that is, causal and explanatory schemes. With great
care Maritain pointed out that causal ideas and principles,
when applied in empiriological sciences, have to be reshaped or
refashioned. The concept of efficient cause, for instance, is originally an ontological concept, that is, a concept, defined by
reference to being; in this original condition it is not directly
applicable outside the ontological order. When we go down to
the empiriologicallevel, the concept of being undergoes a transformation. Here, being no longer appears as the lighted spot of
the thing under consideration, but merely as an undisclosed
principle of orderliness which guarantees the steady character
of the phenomenal regularities upon which light is concentrated.
Causal concepts have to undergo a transmutation completely
analogous to that undergone by the concept of being. This
operation can make them hard to recognize, and this is how
some extreme forms of positivism have been able to construe
the ideal of a purely legal science which would owe nothing to
causal concepts. But it is well known that the spontaneous
development of positive sciences has constantly given the lie to
this ideal limit of positivism.

*

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Considering again the current contention that Thomism
cannot account for modern epistemological developments, let us
now remark that it refers especially to the mathematical aspect
of modern science. Did not the Cartesian reformation consist
in the substitution of a mathematical interpretation of the
physical world for the Aristotelian interpretation of nature in
terms of ontology?
The mathematical treatment of physical nature was not
totally unknown to ancient and medieval Aristotelianism.
Astronomy, optics, and acoustics are referred to in the works of
Aristotle and his medieval followers as so many mixed sciences,
whose form is mathematical and whose matter is physical. In
this connection, it is necessary to correct current statements
concerning the lack of explicit distinction between philosophy

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and positive science in ancient and medieval philosophers. Old
Aristotelians failed to distinguish clearly two types of thought,
corresponding to distinct degrees of abstraction within the first
order, and the term physicus is taken by them as entirely synonymous with the term philosophus naturalis. In that sense it
is true that up to the modern era philosophy embraced all
sciences of nature. But this holds only so far as positive research assumes purely physical ways. Ancient and medieval
philosophers seem to be rather keenly aware of a discrepancy
between the ways proper to the philosophia naturalis and those
proper to physico-mathematical sciences. Whereas it never
occurs to them to set in opposition the physicus and the philosophus naturalis, they currently set in opposition the philosophus physicus and the astronomer, thus showing some realization of the non-philosophical character of the mathematical
interpretation of nature.
Maritain describes the epistemological crisis which broke out
at the time of Galileo and Descartes and is still so far from
being settled as a tragic misunderstanding. 4 When the historic
conflict between the Aristotelian physics and the new physics
opened, both sides were equally convinced that this was a conflict between two philosophies of nature. The physico-mathematical science founded by Descartes was taken by its very
founder as a philosophy of nature and the only possible one.
The decadent Aristotelians with whom Descartes was confronted did not even think that the Cartesian world-picture
was possibly a physico-mathematics sophisticated into an ontology. Then it happened that the Cartesian mechanism
achieved the obliteration of the old distinction between the
philosopher of nature (physicus) and the mathematical interpreter of nature (astronomus, musicus ... ) . When we reread the great work of Newton significantly entitled Philosophire N aturalis Principia M athematica, we realize that the
Newtonian science, once considered by positivists as the archetype of positive knowledge, was far from having rid itself of
ontological ambitions.
"See The Conflict of Methods at the end of the Middle Ages, TBE THoMIST,
Oct. 1941.

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Thanks to his felicitous description of a non-philosophical
approach to the physical world within the first order of abstraction, Maritain found himself in a favorable position to investigate the principles of physico-mathematical knowledge and to
account for the increasingly complete autonomy which marked
its latest developments. In this undertaking, Maritain had at
hand two effective instruments: one was his theory on perinoetical intellection and descending analysis; the other was the
conception of the mathematical object as a preter-real entity
always affected by some conditio rationis and which often turns
out to be a mere ens rationis with a foundation in the real.
It is comparatively easy to see how the law of the descending
analysis which prevails in all fields of positive knowledge applies to the mathematical interpretation of nature. Whereas in
the case of a non-mathematical positive science the law of
descending analysis amounts to the necessity of resolving all
concepts into observable data, this law, when applied to a
science of physico-mathematical type, signifies the necessity of
resolving all concepts into measurable data. Nothing makes
sense for the positive scientist in general except what can be
explained in terms of observations. Nothing makes sense for
the physico-mathematician except what can be explained in
terms of measurements. A great deal of confusion often results
from the fact that the philosopher of nature and the physicist
use the same terms without in most cases being aware of their
referring to widely different objects. One and the same term
refers to the being of things when used by the philosopher and,
when used by the physicist, to the aptitude of things to be
the matter of accurate measurements. No wonder that such
widely different points of view give birth to statements which
in appearance conflict sharply. The conflict generally vanishes
as soon as we understand that ide"ntical words convey typically
different concepts and refer to distinct objects. The clearest
example we can think of is furnished by the recent discussion
about the determination of natural phenomena. Many philosophers and scientists attribute to the so-called indeterminism
of modern physics revolutionary consequences with regard to our
philosophical conception of the natural and even of the human

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world. Yet it should be remarked that the point of reference
used by the physicist in his definition of determinism is quite
distinct from the point of reference used by the philosopher in
the definition of a concept which bears the same name. True to
the law of ascending analysis which is that of all philosophical
thought, the philosopher considers that an event is determined
when in some way or other it happens necessarily; necessity
itself is defined as the property of that which cannot be otherwise than it is. The reference is ontological; the concept
explains itself in terms of being. A concept so defined makes
absolutely no sense for the physicist. Being and the possibility of being otherwise are not things which fall under his
measurements. Accordingly, in order to be of any real use
in physics the concept of determinism has to be reshaped so
as to satisfy the following proportion: the determinism of the
physicist is to the determinism of the philosopher as the measurable is to being. Thus we are led to realize that whereas
the philosopher understands by determined event an event
which follows from its causes in such a way that it cannot fail
to happen, the physicist understands by determined event an
event whose coordinates at the time t can be accurately calculated on the basis of an initial system of spatio-temporal data.
The determinism of the physicist is an empirio-metrical
determinism.
Because of the intervention of the mathematical ens rationis
the gap is wider between philosophy of nature and physicomathematics than between philosophy of nature and the other
parts of positive science. In so far as physics is a formally
mathematical science, in so far as it obeys the law which is that
of its form, it participates in the indifference of mathematics to
the reality of its object. This consideration accounts for the
particular form taken in our times by the old conflict between
science and common sense.
The congeries of current notions that we call common sense
is far from being homogeneous. Maritain distinguishes in it a
system of images and a rudimentary ontology. The imagery of
common sense expresses mostly the laziness of uncultured intellects and their willingness to content themselves with cheap

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representations. No wonder that this imagery has always conflicted with science and generally with every form of rational
thinking. But inasmuch as physics incorporates entia rationis
and follows the mathematical tendency to treat indifferently
entia rationis and entia realia, even the sound part of common
sense, its ontology, may enter into conflict with the most sound
scientific speculations. The concept of relative simultaneity, for
instance, appears very shocking to common sense; common
sense unhesitatingly believes that the question whether two
events happen at the same time must be answered by yes or no.
Onto logically considered, simultaneity is absolute. Yet the
concept of relative simultaneity makes sense if referred to definite possibilities of accurate measurements; this reference is
thoroughly unfamiliar to common sense. Relative simultaneity
is a physico-mathematical ens rationis founded in the real and
inescapably imposed upon the mind of the physicist by the
very nature of his scientific point of view.
From this it does not follow that the constructions of the
physicist should be considered as mere " hypotheses " or conventions incapable of apprehending the real in any way. Maritain would not agree with the superficial statement that the
philosopher has never to worry about agreements or disagreements with the physicist, on the ground that philosophy an•'
physics are two separate domains of thought. His epistemological pluralism is by no means absolute. Let us give an idea
of the distinctions which should be made and of the phases
which should be surveyed in order to appreciate the bearing of
physical theories with regard to the knowledge of the real.
1. The principles previously developed make it clear that a
concept may be a genuine expression of the real without pertaining to the ontological type. A description of a non-ontological character is not thereby deprived of real bearing. Real,
being, knowledge are so many analogical terms. An ontological
description is more real than a non-ontological one, yet a nonontological description may well be a description of the real.
2. Even within the first order of abstraction the mind often
uses fictitious constructions in its approach to the real. Yet, so
long as we remain within the first order of abstraction, the

MARITAIN'S

PHILOSOPHY

OF THE SCIENCES

101

realistic spirit of science is not held in check. Except for possible failures, fictions never play more than a transitional role;
they are used as mere means in view of achieving a representation of the real which cannot be brought about in a more direct
fashion.
3. As soon as positive science assumes a mathematical form,
something entirely novel takes place. The very nature of mathematical abstraction renders mathematical thought indifferent
to the reality of its object. Consequently physico-mathematical
.science, in so far as it yields to the attraction of its mathematical form, tends to make no difference between ens reale and
ens rationis.
4. Should this tendency prevail without check, it could be
said truly that physical theories do not trace phenomena to
their real causes and cannot tell anything about the real course
of physical events. Such is apparently the conception of physics
upheld by Pierre Duhem. For Maritain this interpretation,
though not without basis, amounts to an oversimplification. As
a matter of fact, the attraction exercised on physics by its
mathematical form is not unchecked. If the form is mathematical, the matter remains physical and accordingly there is in
the very structure of the science a counteracting tendency to
stick to the real and to look for explanations by real causes.
Actual science· is probably a compromise between these two
opposite and complementary tendencies.

*

*

*

*

*

However incomplete it may be, this exposition sufficiently
shows that for Maritain the problem of the relationship between
science and philosophy does not admit of any easy solution.
Maritain is quite aware of the great improvements in knowledge which can be expected from the cooperation of the philosopher and the scientist; but he does not seem to believe that
such a cooperation can ever work smoothly and without
frictions. The vast ensemble of our knowledges of nature-philosophical, empiriological, empiriometrical-is apparently destined to present everlastingly a spectacle of restlessness, of precarious equilibrium, with sharp conflicts breaking out in times

YVES R. SIMON

of crisis. Such a lack of harmony would be sufficiently accounted for by the psychology of the scientist and that of the
philosopher. It is difficult, not to say impossible, for each of
them not to be biased by his own habitus to the point of being
unable to understand his partner. But even if a perfect philosopher were also a perfect physicist, or vice versa, there still would
be within the mind provided with such habitus ground for conflicts between the two visions of the world. Maritain says that
there is some melancholy in the realization that no complete
continuity can be established among our various approaches to
the natural world. It is not the least merit of his extensive and
profound exploration of the most diverse fields of rational
activity. to have removed the optimistic illusion of a perfect
harmony among the functions of the mind.
Compared with the teaching which prevailed of Thomistic
textbooks thirty years ago, Maritain's philosophy of sciences
appears as a tremendous novelty. Yet whoever is familiar with
the physical and epistemological writings of St. Thomas will
admit that no Thomist has ever written a more authentically
Thomistic book than the Degrees of Knowledge. This great
work testifies that the most living and timely expression of
Thomism is not reached through eclectic combinations, but
through a faithful and consistent adherence to the principles of
St. Thomas. How does it happen that several philosophers,
consistently faithful to St. Thomas, can do no better than voice
lifeless truths, badly handicapped in the struggle against living
errors? I think I understood what is wrong with these respectable thinkers when Maritain not long ago pointed out, .in a
letter to me, that the commentators of St. Thomas have the
arduous duty of disentangling the precious stuff, bit by bit and
indefatigably, from the vast amount of gangue in which it is
hidden. Then, alluding to some persons whom we know well,
he added: "They believe they have just to crack the shell to
get the nut."
University of Notre Dame,
Notre Dame, Indiana

THE ROLE OF DOGMA IN JUDAISM
By Loms FINKELSTEIN

V

ARIOUS students, from Moses Mendelsohn in the
eighteenth century to our own day, have maintained
that "Judaism has no dogmas." There is doubtless
some justification for this sweeping assertion in the fact that
Judaism does not have any universally accepted, authoritative
creed. The creed of Maimonides, drafted as part of his Commentary on the Mishna, when he was in his twenties, remains
the best-known formulation of Jewish beliefs and has been
taken over into the liturgy of the synagogue. Yet this creed
does not possess the type of authority which attaches, for
example, to Maimonides' Code of Jewish Law. Differences of
view regarding the Code of Maimonides apply only to detailed
regulations; no one has suggested that the work in toto is without merit. But such men as Crescas and Albo have maintained
that Maimonides' creed as such is without authority, and that
it is based entirely on principles which have no standing in
Jewish tradition. Obviously such disagreement among the most
eminent authorities in Judaism makes it possible for scholars
to assert that no creed can be formulated for Judaism, because
it is a religion without dogma.
On the other hand so critical a student of Judaism as Morris
R. Cohen has observed that the very existence of Judaism implies some agreement regarding its fundamental assumptions.
Clearly no religion could be preserved as a unit, or survive
generation after generation, if it had no basic principles.
The difficulty which the scholar has encountered in analyzing
these principles derives from failure to realize that verbal propositions, which are of superlative importance in the speculative
realm, constitute but one way of articulating ideas. The use
of symbols as substitutes for words and their greater precision
and clarity, whether mathematical, scientific, logical, diagrammatical, or topographical, is widely understood. Less general

108

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LOUIS

perhaps is the realization that ideas and truths are also expressed in works of art and music and that these forms of
expression have distinctive advantages, despite their lack of
the precision and clarity of symbols or even verbal propositions.
These advantages lie primarily in fascination and ability to
hold the interest of the observer or hearer and impress him.
Words themselves may be utilized to express truths after the
manner of the arts and music, or they may bear, according to
different scales of significance,. diverse meanings, based on the
literal one. Thus the records in Genesis, whether interpreted
factually or allegorically, convey moral and theological lessons.
The story of the Creation in the first chapter of Genesis contains a number of such truths. For example, the statement
" male and female created He them " (Gen. 1. 27) , while relating directly to the fact of Creation, implies also a moral
meaning which might be expressed by the proposition " men
and women are equal in the sight of God."
But Biblical Judaism had another even more effective manner
of expressing its ideas through prescribed action. To observe
the Sabbath is, in Judaism, to assert first that God created the
world and second that He brought Israel out of bondage (Exod.
19. 11; Deut. 6. 15) . This observance, translated into formal
logical language, would be equivalent to the proposition: " God
is the Creator and Redeemer of mankind and the world." The
implication derives from the fact that the culmination of the
work of creation was marked by the Sabbath (Gen. 2. 1 ff.),
and that its observance implies freedom from human overlordship.
The doctrine that man is made in the image of God is expressed not as a verbal assertion of faith, but through acts o£
affection toward one's neighbor (Lev. 19. 19) and in refraining
from injury to anyone (Gen. 9. 6).
Judaism for this reason sees the Will of God sanctifying men
through His commandments, rather than through verbal confession of faith. This is apparently the basis for the distinction
between Judaism and Christianity, drawn by St. Paul, emphasizing Judaism as a religion of Law and Christianity as a religion
of Faith.

THE ROLE OF DOGMA IN JUDAISM

105

" Propositions expressed in action," as we may term the
juristic form of articulating ideas, share the fascination but also
the vagueness, fluidity, and ambiguity of artistic, musical, and
narrative forms of expression. Vivid enough for those who are
sensitive to them, such propositions expressed in action or commandments have little or no meaning for anyone outside the
group. This is perhaps one of the reasons that Judaism never
became a religion of large masses of mankind, while Christianity spread throughout the civilized world. To understand the
idea implicit in the Sabbath or the other commandments required a long discipline in Jewish ritual and lifelong habits; the
pagan. world was destined to be won to monotheism only by
clearly expressed verbal propositions regarding theology and
religion.
The method of expressing ideas in action is not instrumentalism. Instrumentalism holds that a truth derives its
meaning from its practical expression; in Judaism, behavior
derives its meaning from the ideas it implies and symbolizes.
There are instructive parallels to this method of expression in
Hinduism, to which Professor Jacques Maritain has referred on
occasion; though of course, in Judaism, it is the Will of God
which is expressed through His commandments, and not a
purely mundane aspect of truth.
Jurisprudence, too, has an analogous manner of expressing
ideas. In law, frequently a decision as to right and wrong is
reached on the basis of practical reasoning in the decision of the
judges. The task of the legal philosopher is to extract from
this decision, reached through practical reason, the speculative
ideas involved. The value of the propositional formulation of
the philosophical concept derives from the ease with which it
can then be utilized in effecting other decisions, and even in
shedding light on other fields of knowledge. However, as a
religion, Judaism for many centuries avoided formulating the
speculative truths implied in its commandments, preferring to
let the ideas remain expressed only in terms of prescribed action.
Although Biblical and Pre-Pharisaic Judaism had no logically formulated propositions of dogma or creed, Pharisaic

106

LOUIS FINKELSTEIN

Judaism did, through historical accident, develop certain statements of required belief. By the age of Maimonides, these could
be expanded into a creed; though to this day there is no universally accepted authoritative creed.
Pharisaic dogma had its origin in the impact on Judaism of
Persian, Egyptian, and Greek doctrines, as well as of Greek
modes of expressing ideas. Hence the first verbally formulated
dogmas of Judaism appear in the third and second centuries

B.C.
In those centuries, for the first time, differences regarding
formulated theological concepts became religious issues in Judaism. The subjects of the controversies were the teachings of the
Authority of the Oral Law, the Resurrection of the Dead, the
Existence of Personal Angels, and the Divine Foreknowledge
and Determination of Human Actions.
In regard to each of these issues, the Pharisees held affirmative and the Sadducees negative views. As G. F. Moore puts
the matter, the Sadducees " were in contemporary eyes, a religious party in Judaism, characterized by the distinguishing beliefs
-or negations (italics mine) -which have been set forth
above" (G. F. Moore, Judaism, 1927, I, p. 70). My own studies
on Pharisaism have followed this usually accepted view, attributing the origin of dogma in Judaism to the Pharisees and
regarding the Sadducean views simply as negations of the
Pharisaic dogmas.
We tend to regard the Sadducean teachings as negative, and
the Pharisaic teachings as positive, because we are dependent
mainly on Pharisaic traditions for our information regarding the
intellectual and spiritual conditions in Palestine during the
second century B. C. More careful analysis of the historical
situation in Palestine during the last half of the third century
and the first half of the second century B. C., and a study of
the traces of Sadducean and proto-Sadducean thought which
have survived, e. g., in Sadducean arguments preserved in Rabbinic literature, suggests the possibility that the Sadducean
teachings were originally formulated as positive dogmas, which
the Pharisees negated. The Sadducees, in other words, did not

THE ROLE OF DOGMA IN JUDAISM

107

simply deny the validity of the Oral Law; they held that belief
in it was heresy, because they considered it a denial of the sole
authority of the Temple hierarchy. The Sadducees also regarded as heretical belief in the Resurrection, in that it denied
what they regarded as a cornerstone of Judaism, the ephemeral
character of the individual human life, the utter helplessness of
the dead, and the futility of all forms of animistic doctrine.
Similarly denial of the Existence of Personal Angels was from
the Sadducean point of view an affirmation of the unity of God
as the sole spiritual Being. Their denial of Divine Foreknowledge and Determination of Human Actions was-as in this
instance Josephus recognizes-an affirmation of absolute freedom of the will.
There is some evidence to the effect that the view of the
Pharisees in the earliest stage of the existence of the sect was in
each of these instances a negation of the Sadducean view rather
than an affirmation of a contrary doctrine (such as developed
later). Thus the Pharisaic belief in the Oral Law was in the first
instance not a dogmatic assertion that any particular system of
tradition was authoritative or divinely inspired. Indeed, this
could not be; for the Pharisees were not agreed among themselves in their interpretation of the Law. As late as the beginning of the Christian Era, the differences among the Pharisees
were so great that (as a Rabbinic authority of the second century reminds us) "the Law became as though it were two
Laws." True, the Pharisees in those days overcame the difficulty
involved in claiming authority for the " Oral Law " while disagreeing among themselves regarding its contents, by developing the principle that " both views are the words of the living
God." This highly sophisticated teaching, if enunciated at the
beginning of the sectarian dissension, might have militated
against the view that the Sadducean interpretation of the Law
was definitely not inspired. The Sadducees claimed that their
views derived from their tradition, just as the different types of
Pharisee each maintained that its views derived from its tradition. What touchstone then was applied by Pharisaism to
accept certain systems as within the Oral Law, and to reject
the Sadducean as outside the Oral Law?

108

LOUIS FINKELSTEIN

The Pharisees rejected the claim of the Sadducees that their
priestly interpretation of the Law alone was authoritative. This
rejection of the sole authority of the Temple hierarchy was expressed in a demand for respect for the learning and the traditions of the lay Scribes. It was only the Sadducean insistence
that the lay Scribes had no authority, that in the end led the
Pharisees to the extreme of declaring the traditions of these
Scribes alone authoritative, as having come down from Moses
himself. When this claim was ultimately made, its rejection by
the Sadducees seemed to be nothing more than a negation;
whereas originally it was the Sadducees who had promulgated a
positive teaching in the authority of the priests, and it was the
Pharisees who, as opposition, challenged this authority.
The Pharisaic assertion of the truth of the Resurrection might
probably have originated, likewise, in nothing more emphatic
than the toleration of this doctrine as consistent with Biblical
Judaism. The Sadducees and their predecessors probably considered this doctrine related to Egyptian funerary practices, to
animism, etc. The Pharisees may originally have held simply
that the belief might be true; and only as the Sadducees became outspoken in denunciation of it, may the Pharisees have
been moved finally to declare the denial of the Resurrection a
denial of a basic tenet of Judaism.
This theory offers a more satisfactory explanation than has
thus far been available for the difference in emphasis by Pharisees on various doctrinal questions. The doctrines of the
Resurrection and the Oral Tradition were held vital. The
doctrines of the Existence of Personal Angels and of Divine
Foreknowledge and Determination of Human Actions are
hardly mentioned in Rabbinic tradition, and indeed seem to
have been the subject of considerable disagreement among the
Pharisees and the later Talmudic scholars themselves. Yet
Josephus and the Book of Acts tell us that these doctrines were
matters of sectarian controversy between the Pharisees and the
Sadducees. Clearly, the Sadducees considered the belief in the
Existence of Personal Angels and in Divine Foreknowledge
heretical. These teachings were held admissible by the Phari-

THE ROLE OF DOGMA IN JUDAISM

109

sees, though they were far from unanimous as to whether the
tenets were valid.
Pharisaic unanimity regarding belief in the Oral Law and the
Resurrection of the Dead may thus have been simply a result
of the ferocity with which the Sadducees opposed these teachings. The Existence of Personal Angels and Divine Foreknowledge continued to be permitted, rather than affirmed, doctrines
in Pharisaism, because, although the Sadducees opposed them,
they were not made vital issues.
The sectarian controversy bore fruit in the appearance of a
new aspect of religious Judaism: the verbal assertion of dogma.
The Mishna knows of two dogmas in Judaism: the beliefs in
the Resurrection of the Dead and in the Divine Inspiration of
the Oral Law.
Despite this fact, and the further development of dogma by
Maimonides and other mediaeval writers, the ultimate expression of Jewish doctrine remains to this day that of "propositions in action." This gives Jewish concepts a great fluidity,
and explains the enormous variety of .interpretation which can
be put on these concepts without departing from the faith.
When Maimonides tried to read out of Judaism all those who
held anthropomorphic views of God, his great critic, Rabbi
Abraham ben David of Posquieres, asked how Maimonides
could dare utter these words when " many who were greater
and better than he held these views." Rabbi Abraham could
make this stricture because the Jewish aversion to anthropomorphism is expressed in a commandment, rather than dogma.
The translation of this commandment into a verbal proposition leaves room for a wide variety of talent and great difference
of opinion.
It would. be a great injustice to Maimonides and his critic to
regard their difference, despite the virulence of the language
both men used,. as involving diametrically opposed interpretations of God. The opposition appears only when the natural
form of expression of Jewish concepts-that of action-is replaced with another form of expression. Essentially, Maimonides and Rabbi Abraham are trying to express the same

110

LOUIS

idea, namely, that involved in the first and second commandments of the Decalogue.
It is basic agreement on concepts when expressed in action
and religious symbolism, which gives Judaism unity not only in
any one period but across the ages. W. F. Albright expresses
this thought effectively, when, discussing the monotheism of
Moses, he remarks: " H by ' monotheist ' is meant a thinker
with views specifically like those of Philo Judaeus or Rabbi
Aqiba, of St. Paul or St. Augustine, of Mohammed or Maimonides, of St. Thomas or Calvin, of Mordecai· M. Kaplan or
H. N. Wieman, Moses was not one. If, on the other hand, the
term ' monotheist ' means one who teaches the existence of
only one God, the creator of everything, the source of justice,
who is equally powerful in Egypt, in the desert, and in Palestine, who has no sexuality, and no mythology, who is human in
form but cannot be seen by human eye and cannot be represented in any form-then the founder of Y ahwism was certainly
a monotheist." In other words, the effort to express Judaism in
verbal propositions has the same effect on the understanding of
the faith that a Mercator's map has on understanding of the
world. Both forms of depiction indicate wide separations and
distances, even among things which, seen in their own reality,
are very near to one another and are indeed identical.
Jewish Theological Smninary of America,
New York City

THE THOMISTIC CONCEP'l' OF CULTURE
By RoBERT E. BRENNAN, O.P.

A

I.

WORDS AND REALITIES

GREAT deal of contemporary literature, by writers
outside the Catholic tradition, has been devoted to
the problem of culture and its phenomena. When it
is all sifted down, two things become quite obvious: first, that
there is very little agreement among these writers about the
nature and ideals of culture; second, that many errors, touching
matters of both doctrine and history, have been spread abroad
in the name of human progress and human enlightenment.
Perhaps we can best describe the spirit of such literature by
saying what it is not. Thus, it is not humanistic, in the sense
of being faithful to the rational insights and rational desires
of men. It is not intellectual, in the sense of correctly estimating
the potentialities of the human mind. It is not ethical, in the
sense of recognizing the value of the moral virtues for human
living. Above all, it is not christian, in the sense of properly
judging the goods of our present existence as merely a prelude
to the enjoyment of the beatific vision. This last point is of
special significance. For if there is a common agreement on
which the anti-traditional philosophers of culture rest their
cause, it is precisely this refusal to see any prize or hope or
fulfillment of desire beyond the present existence. Being enemies of Christ and worshippers of the gods of materialism, they
find a united front in their opposition to christianity and all
its cultural claims and achievements.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote no special treatise on the subject
of culture. As a matter of fact, he does· not use the word at all
in its modern connotation. His cultural philosophy is simply
part of a larger historical development which emerges out of
the wide trend of his ideas, or of what the moderns call his
world view. What we shall try to do here is to piece together,
111

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

from works widely separated in time and subject matter, the
system that integrates his views on the phenomena of culture
and makes such views consistent. It will then be apparent, I
think, that he knew all the principles that form the groundwork of a philosophy of culture; and, moreover, that the culture
he envisioned was not a static thing, but full of dynamic forces. 1
One of the charges made against the Angelic Doctor is that he
regarded the intellectual achievements of Aristotle as the ne
plus ultra of human learning, beyond whose heights any further
development was simply inconceivable, " a perennial peak, a
timeless expression of wisdom and knowledge," in the words of
Rudolf Eucken. 2 Before examining this charge against the
Angelic Doctor (and I should like to say that it is a very common reproach of men outside the tradition) , let us dwell for a
moment on the meaning of culture-as a word and as a reality.
Among the ancients, the term culture referred to the tilling
of the soil. In time, its use was broadened out to include other
objects upon which much energy and care was expended. Ovid
speaks of the culture of the body; Varro of the culture of the
home. From material things the term gradually made its way
into the realm of the spiritual; so that Cicero could discourse
on the culture of mind and the culture of morals. Finally, the
word was employed to signify all those human goods and
human operations which are usually indicated in the modern
richly-laden meaning of the term culture.
With so many and such diverse elements entering into its
1 I cannot help referring at once to the scholar in whose honor this essay has
been written. Jacques Maritain's fertile genius has given us a most profound and
searching analysis of the problems of modem culture; and everywhere he has
sought inspiration in the principles of Thomas Aquinas. Thus, in establishing the
Angelic Doctor's essentially spiritual and dynamic attitude towards the movements of human history, Maritain points to the dual warfare which the Saint was
constantly called upon to wage: first, against the excessive conservatism of certain
schoolmen who clung to the purely accidental elements of the christian tradition;
second, against the equally excessive liberalism of the philosophy of A verroes which
came to flower when man, instead of God, was made the center of the universe.
(Cf. True Humanism: New York, Scribner's Sons, 1988, pp. !W!!-08.)
2 Cf. Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino und die Oultur der Neuzeit: Halle,
1886.

THE THOMISTIC

CONCEPT OF CULTURE

118

present-day usage, it would seem difficult to reduce culture to a
formal definition. Yet, I think it can be done if we conceive of
it as a universal excellence of human nature, with emphasis on
the earthly and social features of man's development. So that I
quite . concur with Father Donat when he defines culture as
perfectio naturae humanae socialiter possessa; that is to say,
the perfection of man's nature in its specifically human and
social aspects. 3 It is not my purpose to contrast this definition
with all the false notions that have grown up around the meaning of culture; but simply to propose a traditionally faithful
concept of the essence of culture, in order to have a basis for
comparison with the views of Aquinas. By this method it can be
shown, I believe, that the Angelic Doctor has a rightful claim
to being recognized as one of the great philosophers of culture. 4
If culture implies the social development of man, it also, by
that very fact, implies a close relation of human progress to
the goods of our life on earth. There are several ways of indicating this truth. Thus, we can speak of culture in an active
sense, and thereby include all the multifarious works-material,
intellectual, and moral-that enter into its composition. This
is the culture that cuts through the life of a people, laying bare
the very core of their being and genius. As a dynamic phenomenon, it may be thought of as a progressive movement that
grows and enlarges itself with the slow grandeur of centuries,
into which the life-blood of wise and practical and virtuous
men of every age is distilled.
Culture may also be used in an objective sense to signify the
whole complexus of goods that perfect human nature. These
are the fruits, so to speak, of active culture. Man can point
with pride to his highly-specialized arts and sciences, his technological achievements, his laws and social institutions, and all
the marvellous physical effects of his conquest over matter,
space, and time.
Correlative with this aspect of man's development is his sub8 Ethica Generalis: Oeniponti, 1920, p. 52.
• Cf. A. Fischer-Colbrie: De Philosophia Culturae, in Jahrbuch fur Philooophie
und Spekulative Theologie: volume 17, pp. 455 ff.

8

114

ROBERT E. BRENNAN

jective culture which is nothing more or less than the actual
possession of the goods that are understood to perfect human
nature. We speak of men or races as having a higher or lower
culture in proportion to their command over the physical,
mental, moral and social.accomplishments of humanity.
It is obvious at once that neither St. Thomas nor the men of
his day used the word culture in any of the senses that we have
just explained. Yet, all the ingredients that enter into our
modern notion of culture were surely known to the Angelic
Doctor and recognized as part of his christian inheritance.
Even before the advent of christianity, we can discern the
traces of a philosophy of culture that was to become firmer in
outline with the spread of the New Law and its evangelical
counsels and commands. "No one," exclaims Horace, "is
so wild that he cannot be tamed, if only he be willing to lend an
ear to culture.""
Accepting, then, the notion of culture as a perfection of
human nature directed to man's social progress, let us see how
the Angelic Doctor analyzed the causal factors that enter into
its composition. 6
II.

THE ESSENTIAL

FORM OF CULTURE

If we regard culture as an organismic whole, then we can
refer to human perfection as the soul of culture; and to all the
material, intellectual, and moral goods that constitute human
perfection in its social aspects as the body of culture. This kind
of excellence, with its social orientation, was clearly known to
St. Thomas. Indeed, he has laid down all the basic laws that
govern both the genesis and the development of culture as a
human activity. In numerous passages throughout his writings he extols the proper operations of the creature as its high• Ep. I, 1, 89.
• The clearest and most concise discussion I have seen of St. Thomas's views on
culture and its causes is found in Bishop Augustin Fischer-Colbrie's Quid Sanctus
Thomas de Cultura Doceat: Xenia Thomistica, Roma, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis,
1925, pp. 588-51. Even the most casual reading of the Bishop's scholarly essay
will reveal my deep indebtedness to him for most of the material of this paper.

THE THOMISTIC

CONCEPT

OF CULTURE

115

est perfection, next to that most profound and ultimate perfection of all which is its being or existence. 7 Such a fertile concept,
rightly understood in its application to man's rational nature,
is almost enough in itself to furnish an integral theory of
culture. For, the proper function of human nature is to think,
to direct itself towards a goal of wisdom and goodness, to
select prudently the means that will assure it of reaching the
term of its natural happiness.
Culture in its objective aspects is referred to by the Angelic
Doctor when he treats of human knowledge, of art and morality, of material goods, of the social order of human life, and of
the juridical institutions that have been set up as a result of
human enterprise.
Finally, the subjective features of culture are explained by
Aquinas in his numerous discussions of perfection in general
and of human excellence in particular. Thus:
The perfection of a thing is twofold: ... first, that according to
which it is substantially perfect, this perfection being the form of
the whole, which results from the whole having its parts complete;
... second, the end, which is either an operation (as the end of
the harpist is to play the harp) or something accomplished by an
operation (as the end of the builder is the house he makes by building) . Further, the first perfection is the cause of the second, since
the form is the principle of operation. Hence, the final perfection
towards which the whole universe is directed as a goal is the consummate happiness of the blessed at the end of the world. The
initial perfection of the universe, on the other hand, is its completeness at the first moment of its foundation. 8
III.

THE OBJECTIVE

RANGE OF CULTURE

The field of cultural activity is enormous. It embraces all the
human goods that have significance for man's earthly and social
life. Three groups of these goods immediately suggest themContra Gentiles: b. III, c. 25; also Summa Theologica: p. II-II, q. 184, a. 1.
Summa Theologica: p. I, q. 73, a. 1. For the further elaboration of this idea,
read p. I, q. 63; q. 103, a. 1; q. 105, a. 5. Also, p. I-II, q. 3, a. 2; q. 98, a. 2, reply
to obj. 1; q. 161, a. 1, reply to obj. 4; q. 184, a. 1. Also, p. III, q. 27, a. 5, reply
to obj. 2; q. 29, a.
7

8

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selves: those concerned with our physical or material welfare;
those that have a bearing on our intellectual lives, whether
they fall within the sphere of knowledge or of art or of moral
action; and those that have a part to play in the social ordering of our human existence.
First, in regard to the material aspects of man's life, the
Angelic Doctor's teaching is clear and decisive. Man is a creature who envisions two horizons in his innermost life: the
horizon of matter and the horizon of spirit. " Two things Thou
hast made," exclaims Augustine to his Creator, "the one almost Thee and the other almost nothing." 9 These are the
worlds of spirit and matter; and man is a meeting place for both.
Matter and spirit are of the very essence of his being. Standing between beast and angel, he shares something of the nature
of both. As a staunch defender of the substantial union of body
and soul, Aquinas was compelled to champion the rights of the
corporeal organism and all the things in human culture that
pertain to the body. Man is bound by a natural debt to live
in physical contact with other men, to communicate by sensible
signs, to share his material pleasures, to give his body the care,
attentions and recreations that befit it as an essential part of
his person. From these considerations, we infer the existence
of grave obligations of justice in regard to material goods. The
whole set-up of material prosperity, which is grounded on the
labor and craftsmanship of human hands and the rightful possession of properties that accrue from human diligence, foresight and industry, is to be regulated by the offices of christian
charity as well as christian justice. His teaching on these points
is both remedial and prophylactic, a bulwark against the invasion of false socialistic theories, inhuman forms of capitalism,
and usurious practices that tear apart the fabric of a true christian economy of life. Material goods must be visualized in their
proper perspective, which is the perspective of eternity. As the
Apostle tells us, they are to be used as though we used them
not. "For, the figure of this world passeth away." 10
• Confessions: b. XII, c. viii.

10

I Corinthians: c. 7.

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117

The goods that have immediate reference to man's rational
nature perfect his intellect in two ways: first, speculatively, by
the various lrnowledges that he acquires; second, practically,
by the habits of art and prudence which he develops.
As to the knowledges that are possible to man, Aquinas himself established a tradition in philosophic and theological lore
which endures to this day. 11 According to the Angelic Doctor,
man's highest dignity is reposed in his intellectual nature, where
we find the image of God in its purest earthly form. The proper
action of man is to rationalize and so to grow in knowledge. 12
Reason is man's most precious gift, and the pursuit of truth is
his first and most fundamental duty. From truth is born love;
so that whatever will-power is able to accomplish, it owes to the
faculty of intellect which is the faculty of being, yea, even the
faculty of God, since the essence of human happiness is to be
found in the intellectual vision of the Divine Nature. This
primacy of intellect is seen analogously in God's own mind,
which is the ultimate measure of all things-their essences, the
laws that govern their being, their ordered arrangement and
the providential planning that directs them to their end. 13 And
so, departing from the views of some of his predecessors, St.
Thomas regards knowledge not only as a useful accomplishment, but also as a bonum honestum: a value that is worthy of
being pursued for its own sake. " All knowledge is good because
it is a perfection of man as man; and not only good, but also
honorable." 14
11 The cultural value of the Thomistic synthesis is most easily shown, I should
say, by reference to the assimilative qualities of Aquinas's philosophy: its universal outlook; its sweeping vision of reality, a vision that can interpret the experience of today as coherently as it did the experience of the ancients; its rationalization of whatever is worthwhile in modern metaphysics.
Cf. R. GarrigouLagrange: La puissance d'assimilation du thomisme, Revue Thomiste, avril-juin,
1939, pp. 271-84.
12 Summa Theologica: p. I, q. 93, a. 4. Also, p. I-II, q. 167, a. 1, corpus and reply
to obj. 1.
13 On this point, v. G. Manser:
Das Wesen des Thomismus: Die wissenschaftliche
Personlichkeit des H. Thomas v. Aquin. F. Riitschi, Freiburg, 1935.
14 In De Anima:
b. I, l. 1. Cf. Contra Gentiles: b. III, c. 25. Also, Sum7rUJ;
Theologica: p. II-II, q. 167, a. l.

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With regard to the aesthetic features of culture, it is quite
sufficient to note the manifold references in the writings of
Aquinas to beauty and its relation to life and reality, as well
as his exposition of the Aristotelian concept of art as a habit
of practical reason. To the cult of art for art's sake, that is,
art without moral polarity, he would give no countenance.
Art without ethical moorings is like a ship without a rudder:
each is in imminent danger of destruction. It is inconceivable
that man, as a human being, should have a code of action
which holds him responsible to his Maker while man, as an
artist, should be free of all moral obligation. The reason is
obvious enough, since " the same human being cannot have
several ultimate ends." On the contrary, " there is but one final
goal for all men." 15 If only modem art had been more faithful
to the christian ideal on which the aesthetic of St. Thomas is
founded, it would certainly have saved itself from the sensualism and gross irrationalities of taste into which it has fallen. 16
Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. I, aa. 5 and 7.
AsP. Sertillanges points out, art for art's sake is Epicureanism transplanted into
the field of aestheti<'.s. In principle, it can lead to almost anything. Epicurus himself was a temperate man; yet history is practically unaware of the fact. Why?
Because his moderation was almost exclusively one of his personal qualities, because it derived from his temperament rather than from his principles, and because once he was dead-and even while he was alive--his principles produced in
his disciples all the effects that were naturally to be expected. The same holds
true in aesthetics. Epicurus, we say, was a sober man; so art for art's sake is a sober
theory. But the Epicureans and the artists present an altogether different problem.
From the moment that a power like human sensuality is freed of the bonds that
hold it in check, it runs to the worst excesses. Art for art's sake is the systematic
suppression of all restraints; and sensuality is the permanent peril of mankind.
L'Art et la Morale, Paris, Librairie Bloud et Barbal, 1899, p. 19.
On the other hand, one can point to the existence among Catholics of a widespread ignorance in regard to the evolution of modern art, as well as a strange
apathy to the moral welfare of the artists themselves. Ask these good christians
about the changes that have taken place in artistic production within the past
fifty years, and you will almost certainly be disappointed by their lack of information and interest. This is most unfortunate and calls for a new apostolate. If
disintegration can be detected in artistic life, one of the reasons of it is the
separation of the artists from the ensemble of the cultured public and especially
from the christian public. Add to this the withdrawal of creative imagination
from the control of both intellect and will, and you have two potent causes for
16
18

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119

Moral culture is illustrated jn practically every piece of writing that the Angelic Doctor produced. AU the acumen of his
singular genius and all the incomparable energy of his apostolic
spirit were given over to the cultivation of both natural and
supernatural ethics, about which he writes with such utter intimacy. His life was an example of the rule of action that he
preached to others: " Prius vita quam doctrina; vita enim
ducit ad scientiam veritatis: first living and then learning; for,
living leads to the learning of truth." 17 From the widespread
confusion among ethical systems in vogue today, it is quite
manifest that nothing can save the world from complete disintegration except a return to the christian way of life, so admirably e:l>.'J)Ounded by Thomas in his treatises on the norms
of morality, the raison d' etre and binding power of law, and the
individual obligations of mankind.
Finally, the social aspects of human culture also have been
wisely explained by the Angelic Doctor; and the things he has
to say are most timely for our age. As Leo XIII tells us in his
encyclical on the revival of Thomism, Aquinas has left us all
the principles on which a sane domestic and civil society must
be founded. 18 Indeed, not a few of the ideas which scholars are
the disorder witnessed in the world of art today. I fear that Catholic opinion generally is not aware of this state of affairs; or if it is, the matter is looked on as
something extrinsic to the obligations of the christian life--a form of snobbery or a
coup de boursf!! perpetrated by money-minded art critics and art dealers. (Cf. M.
A. Couturier, 0. P., Art e:t Catholicisme: Montreal, Editions de l'Arbre, 1941, pp.
76-77.)
17 This passage occurs in St. Thomas's
well known homily on the art of preaching: In Matthaeum: c. 5. It is quoted by Pius XI in his Encyclical Studiorum
Ducem.
18 Aeterni Patris: "We all see the great dangers which threaten
family life, and
even civil society itself, because of the pestilence of perverse opinions. Truly all
civil society would be much more tranquil and much safer if healthier teaching
were given in universities and schools; a doctrine more in unison with the perpetual teaching office of the Church, such as is contained in the volumes of
Thomas Aquinas. He disputes about the true nature of liberty which, in these
days, is passing into lawlessness; about the divine origin of all authority; about
laws and their binding force; about the paternal and just government of sovereign
princes, with our obedience to higher powers, and the common love that should be
among all. The words of Thomas about these things, and others of a like nature,

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putting forward today as of recent discovery, may be clearly
discerned in the doctrines of Thomas. 19 There is the story, for
example, of the great Roman jurist de Ihering who, after the
publication of his classical Der Zweok im Recht, admitted that
he might never have written the work had he known how
lucidly St. Thomas describes the duties and functions of human
society.
IV.

THE BUILDERS

OF CULTURE

Modern authors have written at great length and not always
in the clearest manner on the efficient cause of culture. The
conceptions of Aquinas, brief and lineamental, form a most
interesting contrast. Deeply imbedded in human nature is an
urge to happiness: an appetite for the goods that perfect man
as a rational animal and especially as a social animal. This
urge to be happy is a constant stimulus to action. Beatitude is the ultimate perfection of man. But a thing Is perfect in
so far as it is in act, since a faculty that is bereft of operation
is lacking in excellence.20
The Creator has made most excellent provision for human
happiness. No other creature on earth can boast of man's
powers of insight, powers of conforming his actions to right
reason, powers of searching into the hidden forces of nature
and of subjecting these forces to his own will, powers of building both a domestic and a civil society in accordance with the
dictates of prudence. All these gifts have been given to him to
help him achieve a relative degree of excellence in this life and
to furnish him with a foretaste of what his perfect happiness is
to be like in the world to come. 21
As with every other operable plan of man, the designs of
have the greatest strength, indeed a resistless strength, to overcome the principles of
this new jurisprudence, which is manifestly dangerous to th.e peaceful order of
society and to public safety."
19 Cf. S. Deploige: Le Oonflit de la Morale et de la Sociologie,
Edition, Paris:
Librairie Felix Alcan, I9U, pp. 300-IO.
q.
aa. I and
q. 83, a. I, reply
•• Cf. Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q. 60, a.
to obj. 5. Also, p. 1-11, q. 3, a. 6; q. 5, aa. I and 8; q. IO, a. I ..
21 Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q.
aa. 3 and 5. Also, p. 1-11, q. 3, a. 5.

THE THOMISTIC

CONCEPT OF CULTURE

culture must be submitted to practiGal reason for guidance,
judgment, and revision. 22 The works of practical reason are
classified in two ways: as things to be done, and things to be
made. The first type of work is immanent in its effect and is
the result of prudential virtue. The second type aims at exterior
production and is the result of artistic virtue-using the term
art in its broadest meaning. 23
Here, then, are the two agents involved in all human culture:
the one remote, which is human nature with its inextinguishable craving for perfection and happiness; the other proximate,
which is practical reason whose habits of prudence and art are
the immediate instruments used by man in designing and
executing his plans of cultural progress. 24
Aristotle, before Aquinas, had discerned the functions of
practical intellect as the true principle of human progress.
Thus:
What affirmation and negation are to intellect, pursuit and avoidance are to appetite; so that, since moral virtue is a habit concerned
with choice, and since choice is a deliberated appetite, therefore intellect must be true and appetite must be righteous if choice is to
be good. Truth and falsehood are the good and bad habits, respectively, of speculative intellect; whereas the good habit of practical
intellect is truth which is in conformity with right desire. The
efficient (not the final) cause of action is choice: and the principle
of choice is appetite plus reason which is directed to an end. Hence,
there can be no question of choice without understanding and
reason and moral habit. For good behavior and its opposite are
simply inconceivable where there is no understanding, no rational
procedure, and no moral character.
Thinking, of itself, does not accomplish anything, but only
Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 91, a. 8, reply to obj. 8.
Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 57, aa. 8 and 4.
·•• On this important concept of practical reason as the rule and measure of man's
culture, v. A. Dyroff: Ueber den Kulturbegriff der "Quaestiones Disputatae de
Veritate," in the Philoaophisches Jahrbuch df!IT' Gorresgesellschaft: 1928, pp. 88-92.
Also, S. Deploige, op. cit., p. 282 and pp. 804-810. As Dyroff observes (p. 88), the
conception that man's practical intellect mediates all his culture contains a whole
theory of culture in seedling form. St. Thomas grasped this idea so clearly that
whatever one may say on the matter henceforward will be nothing more than a
broadening out of the Angelic Doctor's teaching on the subject of art and morality.
22
23

ROBERT E. BRENNAN

thinking which is for an end and practical in nature. This is also
the rule for thinking which is concerned with the creative production of things, since a person who produces something makes it
with a view to an end. Observe, however, that the end for which
something is made is not the end in an absolute sense but only the
end of a particular operation. The end of what is done, on the other
hand, is an end without qualification; and appetite aims at such an
end. For this reason, choice may be defined either as rational
appetite or as appetitive reason. 25

St. Thomas remarks on this passage:
Appetite is concerned with the end and whatever leads to the
end. Now, man's end is already determined for him by nature;
whereas the things that lead to his end are not thus determined,
but must be discovered by his reason. It is manifest, then, that
rectitude of appetite in regard to end is the measure of truth for
practical intellect. From this point of view, the truth of practical
intellect is determined by its concordance with right appetite. On
the other hand, the truth of practical intellect is the measure of
rectitude of appetite in regard to the things that lead to the end.
From this point of view, appetite is said to be rectified when it
follows the dictates of right reason. . . .
A maker always makes things with a view to their being used for
a further purpose. For instance, the carpenter builds a house in
order to provide a place of habitation. And so the goal of the maker
is always factum et non actum: an object to be made and not a
deed to be done. Why something to be made and not something
to be done? Because, in the case of things to be done, the good
action is an end in itself. Hence, to have proper desires and to
exhibit righteous angers are actions that are good in themselves. 26

The significance of the distinction which Aquinas here draws
is of capital importance for culture. Thus, the goal of artistic
production is not an end to be sought in and for itself. At best,
it represents only a relative perfection of human nature. The
goal of the moral virtues, on the the other hand, is something
that men are urged to seek for its own sake. For, artistic habits
can make us competent only in a certain order; for example,
good poets, good painters, good craftsmen, and so forth. But
the moral habits can make us completely perfect by making
Ethica Nichomachea: 11S9a 21-11S9b 5.
•• In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. VI, I. !ll.

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123

us good men. And since culture aims at the total perfection of
human nature, it is obvious at once that the development of the
moral virtues is much more important than the formation of
artistic habits, as a ground of lasting cultural advances.
The motives that urge men to work towards a superior
culture are analyzed by Aquinas in a striking passage from his
Summa:
Because good has the nature of an end and evil the nature of
what is contrary thereto, it follows that all the things towards which
man has a natural inclination are naturally apprehended by reason
as good and consequently as objects of pursuit; whereas their contraries are discerned as evils and objects of avoidance. Wherefore,
according to the order of natural inclinations we find an order in the
precepts of the natural law.
Thus, there is in man, first of all, an inclination to good according
to the nature that he possesses in common with all substances: inasmuch as every substance tends to preserve its own existence
according to its nature. And by virtue of this inclination, whatever
is a means of preserving human life and of eliminating its obstacles,
belongs to the natural law.
Secondly, man has an inclination to things that appertain to him
more particularly because of the nature which he shares with the
beasts: and by reason of this inclination, those things are said to
belong to the natural law "which nature has taught all animals"
(as we read in the Pandect of Justinian, I, 1), such as sexual intercourse, nurture of offspring, and so forth.
Thirdly, man exhibits an inclination to good according to the
nature of his reasoning faculty which is proper to him. Thus, he
has a natural impulse to know truth and to live in society: and in
this regard whatever pertains to such an inclination belongs to the
natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending
those with whom we have to live, and matters of this sort. 27

Such are the driving forces-in the development of the individual, in the ordering of family life, and in the genesis of intellectual, moral, and social ideals-behind humanity's effort
to create a cultural milieu which is in harmony with the laws
of nature. 28
Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 94, a. 2.
•• Cf. Deploige, op. cit., pp: 310-44. Also, F. Sawicki. Philosophie der Geschichte,
Kempten, 1922, p. 82 ff.
07

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

But human nature, with its faculty of practical judgment, is
not something existing in vacuo. It has its personal characteristics as well as its racial features; its tendency to form into
units for special kinds of group-action; its geographical setting
and climatic surround; its ethical and juridical background;
its place as a phase in the movement of history. All these
factors have a definite influence upon the shape into which its
culture is moulded.
The pattern of individual traits is clearly recognized by
Aquinas. One man differs from another by natural aptitude
and disposition, by temperament and education, by nurture and
environmental influences. As a result, the range of human
activities is enormously diversified. There is one thing, however, in which all human beings are alike: the common desire
to secure happiness and a certain level of perfection in the
activities of human nature. 29 Yet, even in respect to their
common goal, the widest play of human faculties is possible.
This is due, in part, to the fact that men do not prize the same
things as conducive to happiness; 30 in part, to the existence
of personal equations that mark some people as highly endowed, others as mediocre in talent; some as industrious, others
as lazy; some as physiologically disposed to virtue, others as
inclined by instinct to vice.81 The whole problem of individual
differences, in the domain of intellectual, moral, and physical
principles of action, was quite well known to St. Thomas.
Peculiarities of race and ethnological background must also be
reckoned among the factors that modify a people's cultural
achievements. Nor are the psychological and moral differences
between racial groups overlooked by the Angelic Doctor. If
primitive men are uncivilized and dull of understanding, it may
be explained, to some degree at least, by their struggle against
the harsh and elemental forces of nature; by the growth of
habits of an unethical character, due in the main to ignorance;
Summa Theologica: p. I-ll, q. 1, a. 7, reply to obj. !i!; q. IS, a. 6.
In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. I, II. 4 and 5.
31 Sumnna Theologica: p. I-ll, q. 51, a. 1; q. 5!i!, a. 1. Also, p. I, q. 85, a. 7.

29

THE THOMISTIC

CONCEPT

OF CULTURE

125

and by the bad example of other peoples with whom there is
social or economic commerce. 82
Group action gives rise to a special kind of phenomenon
which is explained by the principles of mass-psychology. While
the science itself is new, the experiential facts of mass-psychology are as old as humanity, and its fundamental features
were known to both Aristotle and Aquinas. Thus, a multitude
of human beings is not simply a summation of the individuals who compose it. The inter-communication of human
thoughts, human decisions, and human feelings, required in
the pattern of mass-action, immediately endows a multitude
with new mental and moral characteristics. 88
Cultural evolution is deeply affected by geographical factors
and conditions of climate. It makes a difference when a people
are encompassed by oceans, rivers, or mountains; when they
live in torrid, temperate, or frigid zones. Aquinas speaks of
these regional influences and how, when unfavorable, they
tend to produce. material dispositions of body that in time
may have their effect on the mental output and moral temper
of inhabitants. True, human thought and human volition have
transformed the face of the earth without demanding any
appreciable amounts of the energies of the physical universe.
Yet, because the body of man is so intimately linked to his soul
and the faculties of his soul, his intellectual and moral activities have been profoundly modified by the land on which he
lives, the air he breathes, the food that makes up his diet.
The strength and weakness of races, their mental aptitudes and
moral habits, their cultural rise and decline, have all been connected in some way with the various kinds of chemicals on
which they have had to depend for bodily sustenance. 34
What we called a moment ago the ethical environment of a
people must also be reckoned as one of the important factors
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 99, a. reply to obj.
Also, In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. VII, I. 5; and Quaestiones Disputatae de Malo: q. 15, a. 1.
aa In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. I, I. 1. Also, Deploige, op. cit., p.
fl'.
In Libras Politicorum: b. I, I. 1. Also, In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. VII,
I. 5.

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in the advance of culture. It is a commonplace observation
that the moral habits of individuals are both infectious and
interactive. From this principle arises the value of good example as well as the necessity of avoiding acts of a scandalous
nature. 85 More significant and fundamental, however, is the
relation that obtains between good morals and good human
legislation. "Law," says St. Thomas,
is framed as a rule or measure of human acts. Now a measure
should be one in kind with the thing that it measures, since different things are measured by different standards. For this reason, the
laws that are imposed on men should be in keeping with their condition. For, as Isidore says in his Etymologiae (v:
law should
be " possible both in respect to nature and in respect to the customs
of the country." But, a possibility or faculty of action is due to an
interior habit or disposition; wherefore, the same thing is not possible to one who is lacking in virtue, as to one who possesses such a
habit. For instance: a child is not able to do the things that a full
grown man does: and so the law for children is not the same as the
law for adults, since many things are permitted to children which
in an adult are punishable by law or at any rate are open to censure.
In like manner, many things are permissible to men who are not
yet perfect in virtue that would be intolerable in a perfectly good
man. 36
By juridical environment we mean the social and political
regime under which a man lives. The cultural significance of
such a surround is expressed by the Angelic
in several
places. A few texts will suffice.
Just as the physician does not look at the problem of health in the
abstract only, but also considers it in relation to this or that particular patient ... so the political ruler is not merely concerned
with the form of government that is absolutely the best, but also
takes cognizance of actual historical circumstances, so as to judge
properly the form that is suitable and practicable for a given
people. 37
And in the same text he adds:
•• Su'TTIITTUI, Theologica: p. I-II, q. 84, a. 1. Also, p. II-II, q. 48.
Cf. Contra Gentiles: b. III, c. III; and
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 96, a.
In Libras Ethicorum: b. I, 1. 8.
In Libras Politicorum: b. IV, I. I.

THE THOMISTIC

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127

It is quite impossible to establish identical laws for a popular
state (democracy) and for a regime that is controlled by the
few (aristocracy); neither are the same laws suitable to all the
modes in which government by the few is operated.
From this St. Thomas concludes that with a change of politics,
a change in the pattern of legislation inevitably follows.
The judicial precepts established by men retain their binding force
constantly so long as the state of government remains the same.
But if the state or nation pass to another form of government, the
laws must be changed. Thus, a democracy, which is government by
the people, demands laws that are different from those of an
oligarchy, which is government by the rich. 38

It is obvious that Aquinas was aware of what is called the
historical moment in culture changes. Even individuals, within
the span of a lifetime, experience such moments. Thus, there is
a great deal of difference between the inexpertness and rash
enthusiasm of youth and the mellowed prudence of old age.
Prudence is rather in the old, not only because their natural
disposition has a calming effect on the animal passions, but also
because of their long experience.
Yet, some men never appear to get control over their feelings.
Such is the person
who never grows up in morality and fails of his goal which is right
moral conduct. His deficiency, in this case, is not due to time, but
rather to the fact that he gives free reign to his emotions and follows the whims of his concupiscent nature. 39
V.

THE SUBJECT

OF CULTURE

Errors of the gravest nature have been committed about
the subject of culture; that is to say, about the persons or
moral beings who are the legitimate heirs, custodians, and
propagators of the goods of culture. Among the ancient pagans, such goods were commonly denied to foreigners, servants,
38 Summa
Theologica: p. I-II, q. 104, a. 3, reply to obj. 2. Also, In Libras
Politicorum: b. IV, I. I.
39 In Ethicam Nichomacheam: b. I, I. 3. Cf. Summa Theologica: p. II-11, q. 47, a.
15, reply to obj. 2.

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and women. Modern pagan nations exhibit the same exclusiveness. The difference here is simply one of historical setting.
The concept of supermen, exempt from all law and obligation,
trampling upon the rabble and rejoicing in the havoc they
have wrought, is as old as the Egyptian tyrants and as new
as the Prussian oligarchs. In basic opponency to such oligarchism, St. Thomas teaches that every man is at once the subject
of natural rights and the object of christian charity. Hence,
no human being is to be deprived of the advantages of culture
or excluded from its goods, unless he be too immature to appreciate them or too vicious to deserve them. Women, like men,
have been created in the image and likeness of God. They
communicate in the rational nature which has been conferred
upon the human race. 40 So, too, with the other members of the
human family-foreigners, bondsmen, servants. The essential
benefits of culture are to be shared by everybody, each according to his status in life.
One man may be bound to obey another in works that have to be
done externally by means of the body; yet, because aU men are
equal in nature, one man is not obligated to another in matters
touching the nature of the body: for example, in things that relate
to the support of the body or to the begetting of children. Hence,
servants are not bound to obey their masters, or children their
parents, when it is a question of contracting marriage or of remaining in a state of virginity, or any other decision of a like character.n

Further, in regard to people whose cultural level is low and
primitive, St. Thomas is a stout defender of natural rights.
Such people may be ill-instructed and even grossly ignorant of
principles that pertain to the natural law. They may be sinners and enemies of one's nation. Yet, they are to be considered as rightful subjects of justice and worthy of our
benevolence. 42
Culture, we said at the outset, is a perfection that is socially
•• Summa Theologica: p. I, q. 98, a. 4, reply to obj. l.
Summa Theologica: p. II-II, q. 104, a. 5. Also, p. III, q. 52, a. 2.
42 Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 94, aa. 4 and 6. Also, p. II-II, q. 25, aa. 1, 6,
and 8; q. 58, a. 11. Also, p. III, q. 54, a. 8, reply to obj. 2. Also, In Libras
corum: b. I, I. 1. Also, ln Ethicam Nichomacheam; b. VII, I. 5.
41

THE THOMISTIC

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129

possessed. This means that the subjects of the goods of culture
are societies as well as individuals. The very notion of culture
would imply this, since it designates a good that is commonly
shared by the world at large or by a race or community and
often through a long period of history. Neither is this common good a matter of summating the goods of particular
individuals.
The common good of a polity and the particular good of a
person do not differ by much and little only, but also by a formal
difference. As a matter of fact, the notion of common good differs
from the notion of individual good just as much as the notion of
whole differs from the notion of part. 43
VI.

THE ESSENTIAL DYNAMISM OF CULTURE

Total culture, like the moral perfection which is an integral
part of it, must be constantly on the march. This is the price it
must pay for being a living phenomenon and essentially perfectible. If it is not progressing, it is slipping back. The prognosis for present-day cultural ills shows a wide diversity of
attitudes among philosophers and historians. The optimists
contend that forward movement is an inevitable law of human
nature: that by a psychological necessity the human race is
constantly improving itself. The pessimists deny practically
any development. Particularly would they refuse to grant any
advances in the moral goods of culture. The problem is of
capital moment and one that St. Thomas thought about most
earnestly. That he held for the gradual improvement of the
human race and admitted at least a moderate progress in
cultural phenomena is beyond question or doubt.
First of all, the notion of advancement from a state of imperfection to one of relative excellence is frequently stressed in
his writings. He asks, for example, if there is ground for changing human laws in the course of time. His reply is affirmative
on two counts: first, from the standpoint of human reason;
second, from the consideration of
historical con•• Summa Theologica: p. ll-ll, q. 58, a. 7, reply to obj. !e.

9

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

text against which human nature operates. Thus, " it seems
natural to human reason to advance by stages from the imperfect to the perfect"; and again," law can be rightly changed
on account of the altered conditions of man, to whom different
things are expedient according to differences in his status." 44
Moreover, "a thing is not brought to perfection at once and
from the very beginning but rather through the orderly
progress of time. So, one is first a child and then a man." 45
Such historical progress is verified in the theoretic as well as
in the practical dimensions of human achievement.
In the speculative knowledges, we observe that the teachings of
the older philosophers were imperfect and that their doctrines were
made more perfect by men who followed. So, too, in practical matters: those who first tried to invent things of use to the human
community, not being able by themselves to take everything into
consideration, set up institutions that were defective in many ways;
and these were changed by subsequent lawmakers who erected
institutions that would prove less defective in regard to the common
weal.46
From the study of the ancients St. Thomas could discern a
double advantage: on the one hand, the inheritance of precious
truths which these early thinkers were able to discover by
unaided reason; on the other, the discrimination of errors into
which they lapsed through no fault, perhaps, except their immaturity and early historical position in the line of philosophic
development. 47
Moral progress and moral corruption are part of the pattern
of human history. Here the views of Aquinas coincide with
those of Augustine:
If people have a sense of moderation and responsibility and are
careful guardians of the common weal, it is right to enact a law that
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 97, a. I.
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 106, a. 8.
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 97, a. I.
47 In de Anima: b. I, l. 2. Cf. P. Manser: Die Wissenschaftliche Personlichkeit
des hi. Thomas von Aquin, in Divus Thomas: 1923, pp. 218-32. Also, M. Grabmann: Thomas of Aquin, translated by Virgil Michel, New York, Longmans, Green,
1928, pp. 40-44.

THE THOMISTIC

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allows such people to choose their own magistrates for the government of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people
become so corrupt as to sell their votes and entrust their government to scoundrels and criminals, then the right of electing their
public officials is justly forfeit to them and the power of choice
devolves upon a few good men. 48
Yet the possibility of a constant moral progression is explicitly
recognized by St. Thomas:
The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly
but by degrees. Hence it does not impose on the generality of mankind the task of abstaining from all evil since this is a burden that
only those accomplished in virtue can carry. Otherwise, the imperfect citizens, who are unable to fulfill such a precept, would
lapse into still greater evils. As it is written in the Book of Proverbs
(c. 30) "He that violently bloweth his nose, bringeth out blood";
and in Matthew (c. 9) if "new wine," which is figurative of the
precepts of a perfect life, is "put into old bottles," that is, into imperfect men, "the bottles break and the wine runneth out "; that is
to say, the precepts are despised, and those already very imperfect,
moved by contempt, will surely break out into evils of a more
serious nature. 49
The changeable character of human lawmaking is often :referred to in the teaching of St. Thomas. The clearest proof of
such mutability is to be found in historical experience. "We
see that ancient laws were very simple and even barbaric in
form, irrational in conception and extraneous in their objectives. . . . Apparently, primitive men were lacking in prudential judgment and ignorant; and so it appears most unseemly that anyone (nowadays) should be forced to abide by
such laws and statutes." 50 As Cicero tells us in the second
book of his Rhetorica: the beginning of all law must be traced
to nature itself. Next, certain forms of legislation arose from
considerations of utility. Finally, both the laws springing from
•• De Libera Arbitrio: b. I, c. 6. Quoted by St. Thomas, Suwma Tkeologica:
p. I-II, q. 97, a. 1.

•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 96, a. S, :reply to obj. 2.
60 In Libras Politicorum;
b. ll, l. 11. Cf. Su'TTI/lYLa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 98, a.
2; q. 94, a. 5; q. 96, a. 2.

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

nature and the laws based on utility were sanctioned by fear
and religion. 51
The advance made by the Mosaic law over the law of nature
is a case in point of human progress. 52 And within the period
over which the Mosaic Law exerted its influence, variations in
the moral conduct of the Jewish people are to be noted. The
same phenomenon is witnessed in the New Law, which represents the highest ideal of the good life humanity 'has ever
known. As St. Thomas sums it up:The state of the world may change in two respects: first, by a
change of law; and from this point of view, no other state will succeed the state of the New Law, since the state of the New Law
succeeded the state of the Old Law as a more perfect law succeeds
a less perfect one. . . . Secondly, by a change in regard to one
and the same law according as it is lived more or less perfectly.
Thus the state of the Old Law underwent many changes, since at
times the laws were well kept and at other times were completely
disregarded. So, too, the state of the New Law is subject to change
in regard to variation of times, places, and persons, as the grace
of the Holy Ghost abides in a man more or less perfectly. 53

If the christian dispensation is an improvement over the law
of Moses, a fortiori it is superior to any purely pagan culture.
This is particularly the case with ethical principles, regarding
which there were many false notions among the gentiles. St.
Thomas points to the christianizing of the sexual impulses as
an example of true progress. The ethics of womanhood and
property rights, the sanctification of person and the counselled
altruism of love are further instances of christian advances
over pagan ideals. 54 It is a fact, however, that among the
adherents of the Catholic faith, there have been lapses as well
as forward motions in matters of morality, as we pointed out
a moment ago. Christianity is no guarantee of culture if its
followers are false to its principles.
51 Quoted by St. Thomas, Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 91, a. 8.
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 98, a. 6.
•• Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 106, a. 4.
•• Cf. e. g. the views of Aquinas in Summa Theologica: p. I-II, q. 94, a. 4. Also,
p. III, supplement, q. 65, a. 8.

THE THOMISTIC
VII.

CONCEPT

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133

THE VALUE AND END OF CULTURE

The prophets of pessimism see little or no hope for human
culture. With them St. Thomas WOl.Jld not agree. For him,
the cause of culture is human nature, tending towards goods
that perfect it in the acquisition of knowledge, in the cultivation of moral habits, in the conquest of the forces of physical
nature. He is perfectly aware of the effects of original sin which
manifest themselves in the inherent laziness of men and in
their strong predilection for evil pleasures. Yet, he staunchly
maintains that the human intellect is naturally designed to
recognize truth and that error is only incidental to it. 55 He is
also a firm defender of the natural tendency of man towards
good. So true is this that when a person chooses an evil course
of action he always does so under some aspect of goodness. 56
Culture, therefore, cannot be blamed if men decline into evil
ways. At most, it can furnish only an occasion for the false
pretences that drag men down, in its name, to bestial levels
of luxury. 57 On the other hand, culture must not be apotheosized to the point where it is worshipped as the summit of
goodness, the highest goal of human striving, the ultimate norm
of all morality. Here Aquinas is adamant.
There is no goal of human living that is not subordinated to
God, Who, alone, can be the absolutely ultimate end of human
culture. He alone is goodness without reserve. Hence, everything that man does is directed, in its last analysis, to God as to
his highest good and final end. 58 The supernatural destiny of
man, which is the vision of the Divine Essence, does not prevent
him from having a natural destiny, which is earthly happiness;
but the temporal end is subordinated to the eternal. If cultural
happiness, therefore, is one of man's terrestrial goals, it is
subject to the providential movement of God who directs all
things finally to Himself.
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q. 85, a. 6.
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q.
a. I.
67 Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q. 49, a. I. Also, p. 1-11, q. 75, a. I.
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q. I, a. 7, reply to obj. 2; q.
a.
reply to obj. 2.
Also, p. 1-11, q. I, a. 8.

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

As for the goal of culture itself, a distinction must be drawn
between the end of the worker and the end of the work. 59 And
so we have to differentiate between the thing which man, in
his cultural efforts, intends to secure; and the thing to which
culture, by its very nature and in the Wisdom of the Creator, is
ordained. What man intends or should intend is his natural
happiness and his supernatural beatitude. Every man desires
happiness; and when this craving is analyzed in its ·ultimate
implications, it is seen to resolve itself into a craving for union
with God. Hence, as St. Thomas teaches, everything that man
desires, he desires under the aspect of beatitude, whether he
realizes it or not. 60 It is a property of human nature that man,
in distinction to the animals, is able to recognize the object of
his happiness and to ordain himself to this happiness. The
irrational creature, on the other hand, is determined by its
instincts to the happiness which it can naturally secure. 61 Thus,
in all his operable tasks man employs his rational faculty
and his power of choice: to the end that he may produce a
culture that is specifically his own. 62
Now the goods in which man naturally seeks his happiness
are the operations that are suitable to his human nature. 68
Though capable of being performed with an eye to eternity,
many of these operations pertain immediately to the order of
his earthly existence and are properly classified as goods of
culture. 64
But all goods, including those of the cultural order, are ordained to man's final happiness, to which he may order even
the actions that are performed out of a spirit of good humor,
conviviality, pleasure and relaxation. 65 For, it is not allowable
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. IT-II, q. 141, a. 6, reply to obj. 1.
•• Summa Tkedogica: p. I, q. 19, aa. 1 and 10; q. 60, a.
q.
aa. 1 and
q.
q. 5, a.
88, a. 1, reply to obj. 5. Also, p. 1-11, q. 1, a. 6; q. 8, a. 6, reply to obj.
4; q. 10, aa. 1 and
q. 18, a. 6.
61 Contra Gentiles: b. III, c.
62 Summa Tkeologica: p. I-ll, q. 9, a. 1, reply to obj.
q.
a.
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. 1-11, q. 8, a.
64 Summa Tkeologica: p. I, q.
a. I. Also, p. 1-11, q. 8, a. 5 and a. 6, reply
to obj.
q. 4, a. 7. Also, p. 11-ll, q. 186, a. S, reply to obj. 4.
86 Summa Tkeologica: p. 1-11, q. 1, q. 6, reply to obj. I.

THE THOMISTIC

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to man to place his goal in this life or to fixate on the goods of
earth as though these were his ultimate end: because the final
beatitude of the rational creature simply cannot be secured in
this life. 66 The particular ends that he may set up for himself are ordered to a more common end and finally to the
supreme end, which is God. 67
Hence, for the Angelic Doctor human culture receives its
moral dignity not only from the law of nature but also from the
law of christian revelation. This moral dignity it retains and
expands precisely because it is conceived and executed with a
view to eternity, being designed for the greater honor and glory
of God. The goal of all energizing in created nature is to exhibit a dynamic image of the perfection of the Creator, and, by
participation in His excel1ence, to be assimilated to Him.
Through his active use of culture, man has at his command a
special tool for bringing him closer to his Creator. This human
assimilation to God is effected in the several ways that we
have already analyzed: by the development of knowledge,
morality and the arts, all of which are perfections of man's
rational powers; by the proper use of material goods over which
he acquires a more perfect dominion from day to day as his
knowledge of nature is applied to production; by the growth of
peaceful intercourse with his fellow men; and, in the case of
nations of men, by pacts of justice and charity that will
guarantee tranquility of order.
St. Thomas sums up the whole problem of the end of human
culture in a passage filled with the savor of angelic wisdom:
We observe that in the course of nature, the intellectual creature
uses all other creatures for its own purposes: either to perfect its
intellectual faculty, which sees truth in them as in a mirror; or to
exercise its power and develop its knowledge, as when the craftsman gives outward expression to his ideas by incorporating them
in matter; or to sustain the body which, in man's case, is united to
an intellectual soul.68
•• Summa Tkeologica: p. I-II, q. 2; q. 91, a. 4.
81 Summa Tkeologica: p. I-II, q. 1, a. 6; q. 2, a. 8; q. 21, a. 4.
•• Contra Gentiles: b. III, c. 112.

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ROBERT E. BRENNAN

It appears quite evident, then, that St. Thomas has many
things to teach us about the philosophy of culture which he
quite manifestly understood in all its essential principles. True,
such principles are not expounded by him from a strictly
cultural point of view; yet the very other-world perspective in
which he discusses their meaning for the christian way of life
makes them all the more valuable and significant today. For if
modern materialism is not to swallow up entirely what is left
of humanistic worth in our cultural history, it will be because
we have recaptured the supernatural medium in which alone
our culture can thrive and progress. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added
unto you." 69
The Thomistic Institute,
Providence COllege,
Providence, R. I.

•• Matthew: c. 6.

TO BE-THAT IS THE ANSWER
By EMMANUEL

I.

I

CHAPMAN

THE STATE OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY:
ITS SICKNESS AND RENEWAL

N the first quarter of this century-the century of progress
you will remember-philosophy, and society too, were in
quite a moribund condition. Both Scholastic and nonScholastic philosophy, to use a highly convenient but unphilosophical division, were in an ailing state. Among the so-called
" neo-Scholastics," notwithstanding the rousing calls of Leo
XIII and some of his successors, the ghost of Descartes had not
yet been fully exorcised by the real St. Thomas. The Cartesianinfected hybrid, which kept to itself, was not feared by the nonScholastic or, more precisely, the anti-Scholastic philosophers,
most of whom were slumbering dogmatically in the shadows
still cast by Kant and Comte.
Though the bachelor of Koenigsberg had long since gone to
his rest convinced that he had succeeded in finally sterilizing
metaphysics as positive knowledge and relegating it to the
sphere of transcendental illusions, metaphysical monsters continued to be begotten. The acid of Kantian criticism did its
damage: instead of digesting experience, criticism was feeding
upon itself.
Some of Comte's followers, on the other hand, fastened themselves upon the success of the sciences of nature, from the leavings of which they hoped to do a lively business. Others doted
on the younger social sciences. These positivists were not content with guarding jealously the sciences of phenomena.
Against whom, one wonders. For philosophy could only benefit
by being relieved of the task it was not fit to do, and so too
could religion. They vehemently sought to destroy any kind of
knowing which was not in conformity with that of the empirical
sciences. The positivists were so intent upon denying philoso-

187

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EMMANUEL

CHAPMAN

phy that they failed to perceive the incongruity of how their
very denial affirmed it. This could be likened, if it were not for
the more serious consequences, to the stock comedy situation
from which movie audiences used to get such a laugh, in which
someone was pictured blithely denying a danger, say a ferocious
bear, while unknown to him it advanced behind his back.
A new promise for philosophy, however, was beginning to
stir in the early works of Husser! in Germany, and Bergson in
France. Across the Atlantic, William James hailed enthusiastically the philosopher of the elan vital for having emancipated
him from logic.
Such, in brief, was the state of philosophy when Jacques
Maritain's first philosophical work, a critical study of Bergson, appeared a year before the outbreak of World War I.
By comparing it with his two essays on Bergson in Ransoming
the Time, written twenty-seven years later, in the second year
of World War IT, the internal development of Maritain's
thought can be measured. But tempting as the pleasure would
be of tracing this progression in depth and width, it will be sacrificed here. Conscious of the contribution of Maritain and a few
others, some of whom are not Scholastics, this essay is concerned with showing how philosophy is restored to health by
being brought into living contact with the real, and how, by no
longer being separated from every source of life and experience,
either above or below it, philosophy becomes again the full
intellectual activity of the whole man confronting the whole of
experience.
II.

EMPffiiCISM

FEELS ITSELF CHALLENGED BY SCHOLASTICISM

The renewal of philosophy, naturally expected in the philosophia perennis, the common philosophy worked out collectively
through the centuries, is also affecting those varieties which
have diverted themselves from the main stream. Only recently,
for example, one of the more enlightened exponents of empiricism called upon his fellow-empiricists to purify their own
philosophy in order to meet the challenge of Scholasticism.
Anyone concerned with truth
sympathize with the courage-

TO BE-THAT

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189

ous criticism of Professor Charles W. Morris, who points
out that the empiricist "remains his own worst enemy," and
shows that " he has not merely himself failed to round out his
own life, but he has often seemed to belittle, to restrain, to
frustrate those forms of human activity in the arts and religion
which, in a purified form, he should encourage and release. It
is a serious question whether the empiricist can rise to the contemporary challenge and crisis." 1
The personal shortcomings of the empiricist should not be
blamed for the failure of empiricism, which is intrinsically a selffrustrating philosophy. Its attempt to defend itself, culture,
and religion, tried before by Comte and others, has failed, and
must by its very nature always fail, as the history of philosophy
is there to show if it is understood philosophically. This failure,
however, does not make this new attempt any the less significant. Its self-criticism is all to the good, and it may some day
correct itself sufficiently to deliver the half-truths held captive
by it.
The empiricist is
by Professor Morris to meet the
challenge which he sees in Scholasticism: " The empiricist
should boldly accept this challenge. . . . It is not enough that
he limit his activities to the formulation and confirmation of
scientific statements in the special fields of science. He must
question the analyses of contemporary culture with which he is
confronted and in terms of which he is damned; he must attack
the metaphysical super-structure which his opponents graft
upon the edifice he so laboriously and cautiously erects. . . . " 2
Were the empiricist to learn that Scholasticism does not
make even the slightest pretence of basing itself upon the latest
conclusions of the empirical sciences, he might have to look
elsewhere for an opponent. It would be to his advantage, however, were he to examine first his naive assumption that the
philosophical empiricist and the scientist are identical, which
is certainly not the case. He might also cease presupposing,
1 "Empiricism,
Religion, and Democracy," Charles W. Morris, in Science, Philosophy, and Religion (Second Symposium). New York: 1942, p. 214.
"Ibid., p. 218.

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EMMANUEL

CHAPMAN

without demonstrating, what is by no means self-evident,
namely, that the only valid knowledge is the knowledge of the
empirical sciences. Yet if he does feel challenged by Scholasticism, should he not, in accordance with his professed empiricism, get to know what it really is, and not spend his
energies shadow-boxing with a hollow caricature?
III.

THE CHALLENGE

WITHIN SCHOLASTICISM

Far from feeling superior or complacent that empiricism
finds it necessary to strengthen itself in order to meet the
challenge of Scholasticism-can one really be complacent or
superior in possessing truth, and not suffer with those who are
in error?-should not the Scholastics examine their own philosophical conscience? Are they not much to blame for their
failure to make Scholasticism better understood by their contemporaries? This failure is due not only to their deficiencies of
communication, for the causes go much deeper. In getting at
some of these causes, Scholastic philosophy will have to acquire
a more explicit knowledge of itself, and by so doing rid itself of
false accretions, and release its further potentialities of growth.
Now that philosophy has long since lost its original innocence,
and is, if anything, too highly self-conscious, the lack of a
proper consciousness of itself on the part of Scholastic philosophy would be a serious shortcoming. May this not account
partly for the different versions among the Scholastics themselves as to what Scholastic philosophy is?
All of them would not accept its characterization, still given
by some of them, as " both a system and a method." They
would deny, in the first place, that Scholasticism is a system in
the sense in which this word is usually understood. Indeed,
the very notion of a closed system is a negation of the true
nature of philosophy. Witness to this are the wrecks, to which
some truths still cling, of the rationalistic constructions of
Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, and others, which could not withstand the rising waves of reality beating against their closed
doors. Scholastic philosophy, it need hardly be added, can
rescue some of the truths still clinging to the magnificent ruins

TO BE-THAT

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141

of the methodical system-builders of philosophy. If the term
method can still be applied to philosophy, even after it is purified of the meanings given to it by Descartes, then the
" method " of Scholasticism is not to ossify into the rigidity of
a system, but to keep itself organically open to further explorations of reality, in fresh contact with, and philosophically
alive to, all things.
Some Scholastics would disagree even more strongly with
those of its adherents who still mistakenly give as a characteristic of the " method " of Scholasticism, " its preoccupation
with logic, deduction, system, and its literary form of syllogistic
argumentation." 8 This, they would rightly insist, is a most apt
description of decadent Scholasticism. No other philosophy has
distinguished more sharply between the logical and ontological
orders: the unreal, mental being of logic arrived at by a total
abstraction, a blanket-like and contentless abstraction of being
as the widest class, greatest in extension
least in comprehension; and the real being both actual and possible with which
philosophy concerns itself, arrived at through an abstractive
intuition, much. deeper than the formal abstractions on the
physical and mathematical levels, which penetrates into the
most essential features of being. What is grasped, implicitly at
first, and simultaneously, in the metaphysical intuition of being,
is so rich in ontological content that all the conceptualizations
by which metaphysics renders it explicit can never be exhaustive.
Being and its first principles, as well as the self-evident first
principles of the intellect, are seen intuitively by the intellect,
which acquires a progressively deeper understanding of them,
and by them. They are not deduced, or induced, as this is
usually understood in the sense given to it by empirical logic,
but are seen abstractively in one concrete instance or embodiment. Neither are they a priori, or a posteriori, as this division
is commonly used. Because they are transcendental, that is,
common to all that is, and not confined to any one class, the
• "Scholasticism,'' H. G., p. 281, The Dictirmary of Philo11ophy, Phil011ophicol
Library, New York: 1942.

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EMMANUEL

CHAPMAN

first principles of being cannot be defined. Neither can they be
demonstrated, for what is self-evident does not require demon..stration. These most superficial remarks concerning them
should at least suggest the metaphysical fecundity of these
first principles. Philosophical thought moves not only horizontally from the particular to the most general, as is usually supposed, bu:t also vertically to greater depths of more determinate
and distinct intelligibility.
No Scholastic, nor any healthy mind for that matter, can
fail to assent to the first principles of being and thought, but
some Scholastics are not sufficiently aware of how a first principle has a radically different meaning and function in their
philosophy from that, say, in any idealist system. Descartes'
cogito ergo sum, for example, is a first principle because everything else in his philosophy is supposed to be deduced from it
with mathematical rigor. It is obvious how this differs in every
way from the role of a first principle in Scholastic realism. At
the slightest idealistic touch, the first principles of being and
thought wither up. Torn from their ontological soil, which
alone can nourish them, these living roots shrivel into the
emptiness of the unreal, mental being of logic. This .idealist
blight, unfortunately, has contaminated most of the textbooks
of Scholastic philosophy in use in Catholic colleges. Is it any
wonder, then, that no harvest has been reaped?
Genuine exponents of Scholastic philosophy, furthermore,
would object to the statement, that it is " directly and immediately subordinated to theology." 4 Without the necessary
qualifications, such a characterization puts it in an entirely
false light and can bring only further misunderstandings. In
its sphere, philosophy is not a handmaid but its own mistress,
independent in its principles, and even more secure in its work
of reason because it knows that its rational truths, arrived at in
its own way, cannot be in contradiction to the truths of faith.
Philosophy is a handmaid only in the sphere of theology, higher
than philosophy in its content but not in its mode of knowing,
because it is employed there in making explicit what is con-

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tained implicitly in the revealed data of faith. Faith, it will be
remembered, has a twofold content: certain truths infinitely
above man's reason, bearing on what God is in His own nature;
and certain truths which human reason could obtain by its own
light but never did, in fact, without an admixture of error
before they were revealed, as the existence of God and some of
the divine attributes.
Though philosophy ·has benefited in its own work of reason
from the light of revealed truth illuminating man's darkness in
such matters, the fact that so much of Scholastic philosophy
was unfolded within a theological context has had certain consequences which can easily turn into disadvantages if they are
not given sufficient attention. As was to be expected from the
theological setting in which they were brought forth, many of
the philosophical truths of Scholasticism are delivered much too
rapidly, for sacred theology glances swiftly at the created things
which it looks at in the light of the revealed heights of God.
These truths require a fuller elaboration in an organic philosophical body, really distinct from the theological matrix in which
they were first unfolded. Unlike theology, philosophy pays a
different kind of attention, and puts other questions, to things
which are its starting point: it lingers with them much longer,
listens attentively to all their creaturely articulations, patiently
explores them in its own light, and slowly ascends to the divine
heights. Having come of age, and truly conscious of itself,
Scholastic philosophy should no longer seek to be carried in the
arms of theology. One of the disastrous consequences resulting from a failure to exercise its proper independence would be
the atrophy of its own philosophical legs and its organs of
growth and further development.
Regimentation, of course, in Scholastic philosophy would be
unwelcome, for as in any living adventure of the mind this
would mean death. But there should be certain basic agreements, without which there cannot be creative differences, not
on a number of conclusions-for philosophy is not a body of
conclusions-but on certain fundamental principles, from which
these and constantly new consequences flow. Scholastic phi-

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losophy, from within, challenges its holders to re-examine its
principles and see more deeply into them.
IV.

THE THOMISTIC REVOLUTION

"The senses indeed do not know existence, except under the
conditions of here and now, whereas the intellect apprehends
existence absolutely, and for all time . ... " 5

Not everyone who speaks in the name of Scholasticism truly
represents it, and even among the Scholastics there are those
who cannot distinguish its genuine expression from the neoA:ristotelianism promoted in its name. The daring innovations
of St. Thomas, the greatest of the Scholastics, are so hidden
behind the language of Aristotle that they remain hidden even
to this day, and many still fail to see the radical differences
between the two. This is aU the more reason why creative
Thomists are impelled to translate St. Thomas's original insights into a more appropriate language. In this way they are
continuing to develop the philosophy of the Schoolmen-those
who taught in the great centers of learning when the university
was still organically linked with the vital currents of society,
and whose philosophy, which had a long history before and
after SL Thomas gave it such unique expression, may be
properly called Scholastic, if by that is meant its openness to
learn from all of reality and from the great teachers who transmit it. Some Thomists would fail to see the real St. Thomas
in the learned article on Aquinas recently published by one of
his followers, and they would disagree with the assertion that
" To be an Aristotelian under such circumstances was the problem St. Thomas set himself." 6 The fact that St. Thomas used
the ready-made Aristotelian language of essence to express his
unique metaphysical intuition of existence has prevented many
from detecting the revolution effected by him. With St.
Thomas, philosophy for the first time in its long history was
able to reach deeper than the level of inextinguishable essences
to the fathomless undercurrents of existence irradiated by them.
• Summa Theologioo, I, Q. 75, Art. 6, c.
• "Aquinas, Thomas," A. C. P., p. 16, The Dictionary of Philosophy.

TO BE-THAT

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Though expressed in Aristotle's language, St. Thomas's fivefold proof for the existence of God is rooted in the deeper plane
of existence penetrated by his philosophical intelligence. The
first proof is concerned not with abstract motion reaching to
the Aristotelian unmoved mover, a thought thinking itself,
(could anyone ever pray to such an abstraction?) , but with the
existence of motion, the actuality of that which is in potentiality, starting from which the intellect rises to an unmoved
mover who is I AM WHO AM, who is existence itself, self-existence by essence in all its illimitable plenitude. The four other
interrelated proofs, or rather the other ways of the one and the
same fundamental proof, also move on· the plane of existence
into which they go more and more deeply. The second goes from
causal efficiency, or the existential action with which beings are
empowered, to the existing source from which all causal efficacy
flows; the third, the center of them all, goes from contingent
existence to a necessary self-existence; the fourth proceeds from
the degrees of the perfections of existence, goodness, truth, and
other perfections, to an absolutely perfect existence; the fifth
from the order inviscerated in existence to an intelligent being,
who by communicating existence communicates order and all
the co-ingredients that go with existence. By starting with the
contingent existence held so precariously by essences, the intellect can laboriously rise by the way of causality, which makes
sense only if it is understood as a communication of existence,
to a necessary self-existence. Though St. Thomas placed much
higher the experiential awareness of God as He is in Himself,
attained in the authentic mystical experience, and immediately
below this the knowledge of God as He revealed Himself, which
is the object of sacred theology, he appreciated the true worth
of the philosophical proofs which are the humble work of
reason in demonstrating the existence of God. The more brilliant evidence which he possessed in the mystical experience,
and as a theologian, never tempted him to disparage the less
brilliant evidence which reason manages to see after its
laborious efforts.
St. Thomas's existential perspective enabled him to bring
10

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into the most intimate unity what he distinguished so sharply
but did not separate, the essentially different activities of philosophy and theology. Each of these had sought to swallow up
the other before St. Thomas's genius taught these fierce energies
to live together harmoniously and mutually benefit one another
in man, their concrete subject of operation. These distinct activities are exercised by the whole man, in whom a vital synergy
is established between the interacting natural and infused intellectual gifts, habitus, and also the moral virtues. Though radically distinct in the order of essence, or specification, there is a
living interchange in the
of existence or exercise between
the differe1;1t wisdoms, sciences, and arts, and such is their
existential i.nterflow and solidarity that if one suffers they all
suffer, and the good of one affects the good of all. Thus, for
example, when later the empiriological sciences, distinguished
in principle by St. Thomas and prepared for in a subtle way by
his having oriented the intellect towards existence, came into
being, they had to tear themselves away violently from the
decadent philosophy which stupidly tried to hinder them in
their growth, not, however, without injury both to science and
philosophy.
The whole of St. Thomas's philosophy flows from the simple,
yet inexhaustible, metaphysical intuition, seen through the
transparency of concepts but which can never be fully conceptualized, that to be means the act of existence (actual or
possible) of an essence, the primordial energy whereby it
stands outside of its causes, infinitely opposed to nothingness,
the innermost first principle of a thing, the act by which a thing
is undivided or one, adequate to an intellect or true, desirable
in itself and to others or good, delectably apprehensible or
beautiful, a first subject of existence or substantial, existing in
another or accidental, communicating existence to others or a
cause.
The philosophical awareness of existence opens the intellect
to the metaphysical drama of how beings composed of essen<;e
and existence, potentiality and actuality, and, if they are material, form and :matter, struggle to realize themselves more fully

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in existence by achieving more unity, truth, goodness, beauty,
substantiality, and accidence, while at the same time resisting
the pull towards non-being, multiplicity, falsity, evil, and ugliness. Even at the successful conclusion of this drama, the gap
between essence and existence branding all contingent beings
will not be completely overcome, and will point to the Being
whose essence is existence, self-subsisting act, absolute unity,
truth, goodness, beauty, and all else that He is infinitely.
In the light of this philosophical perception of the irreducible
value of existence as the highest perfection of any reality, the
analogy of being discloses itself. Existence is proportioned to the
essences in which it is realized: contingent or necessary existence, relative or absolute, changing or permanent, material or
spiritual, individual or social, created or uncreated, finite or
infinite, etc. The diversity of beings is not obliterated univocally by the sterile monism of materialism, idealism or
pantheism, which chokes out all differences. Nor is reality
pulverized by a radical pluralism. The analogical recognition
rises from the lowliest existence to the highest, and in encompassing all existence respects differences and at the same time
time relates everything in a proportional unity.
All the profound answers given by St. Thomas to the
persistent questions of philosophy came from his unique, philosophical perception of existence. The mystery of the cognitive
act whereby the mind is all the tnore itself in being, or intentionally becoming, the other, as other, can be appreciated only
from the standpoint of existence. In the incandescent interchange of the act of knowing, there is an identity between the
mind knowing and the thing known, and at the same time a
radical disconformity in the mode of existence of the same
essence in the mind and in reality: in its natural existence
in reality, the essence exists concretely, individually, and, if
it is a material thing, materially; in its intentional existence in
the mind, the same thing exists abstractly, under the conditions
of universality, immaterially. The issue between nominalism
and exaggerated realism on the problem of how man's intellectual knowledge through universal ideas conforms to indi-

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vidual things, as well as the other fundamental questions in
epistemology, are resolved by the philosophical recognition of
existence and its different modes as really distinct from essence.
The most elementary consideration of the judgment, the
more perfect knowledge in which truth is had, brings out even
more emphatically the reference to existence, actual or possible.
In the preparatory act traditionally called " simple apprehension," essential aspects, whether substantial or accidental,
are abstracted from existence, and these intelligible determinations or patterns are seen intuitively by the intellect, through
and in its concepts, in the order of signification, as static meanings disengaged or considered apart from existence. Thus, from
any one existing thing a multiplicity of objects of thought can
be objectivated, and these are present to the intellect as signified intelligibility, apprehended as simple intelligibles uncomposed with existence. What has been torn apart by the
intellect, so to speak, in its preparatory act· of simple apprehension is restored in the dynamic act of the judgment. In its
judgmental act, the intellect moves from the plane of essences
into the dimension of existence, not as signified but as exercised, as held by a subject in the life of the mind, or carried
on in reality. Thus, for example, in the judgment Maritain is
a philosopher; deeper than the level of signification, 'the two
formally different objects of thought signified in the logical
subject and predicate are affirmed to be the same in the subject
exercising existence in the mind and in reality. The judgment
is true, if what the intellect combines or divides is found together or apart in existence, actual or possible, as exercised by
a subject, lived in the life of the mind, and also carried on
extra-mentally. Reflecting on his judgmental act, man may
grasp intuitively, if his intellect is so gifted and can rid itself of
certain natural distractions, the exercised, substantial existence
of his own soul. This is charged with important consequences
which philosophical psychology has yet to explore more fully.
Only from the point of view of existence could St. Thomas
resolve successfully the problem of the unity ofman, over which
Christian thinkers had struggled for more than a thousand
years in their effort to reconcile the conflicting elements of the

TO BE--THAT

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Platonic soul-as-substance and the Aristotelian soul-as-form
heritage. The differences between St. Thomas's and Aristotle's
philosophical psychology are hinted at by the respective titles
given to their important contributions in this field, Aristotle's
treatise on the soul, and St. Thomas's treatise on man. Not
the
but man, becomes the proper subject matter of
philosophical psychology, man's whole nature and all the
integrated powers, acts and habits which flow from his soul,
substantially united to his bodily matter-the vegetative,
locomotive, instinctive, emotional, sense-cognitive, sense-appetitive, intellectual-appetitive, and intellectual-cognitive powers
held together undividedly by one act of existence. Because it
is spiritual, man's form has such substantiality that it will be
able to continue to subsist after it is separated from its body,
without which in this
it could not have come into its own
operationally, and for which it will continue to long until it is
united to the body again, and the human being, the substantial
union of the two, is restored. New dimensions of the meaning
of personality were also opened. Of all the beings in the material
universe, only man is a person, an individual substance of a
rational-free nature subsisting as a spiritual whole, possessing
its own existence in an absolutely incommunicable way, and
communicating through intelligence and love with itself and
other persons.
It is also by a genuine existential approach that the deeper
answers can be developed to the fundamental questions in
ethics and its branches of social and political philosophy. A
philosophically adequate ethics cannot enter into its fullness
unless it takes into account the nature of man, not in the abstract, but in the existential state and the concrete conditions
in which man's nature is exercised. Exploring the existential
dimensions in which the essence of man is realized, this more
adequate consideration will be profoundly aware of how the
essence of man is helped or hindered in its realization by the
concrete conditions of existence-the religious, cultural, social,
political, economic, etc. This existential approach in social
philosophy would be philosophically aware that too great a
tension between the essence of society and its existential con-

life

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ditions of realization can result in the breakdown of a particular society. The common good of civil society would be
considered both as an essence, formally different from individual goods or their sum total, and existentially as circulating
throughout the whole of a given society by flowing to each and
all of its members and not being frozen into any one group.
Not only would the essence of government be considered, even
of the best kind of government, but also its conditions of existential realization. Such a philosophical exploration, not to be
confused in any way with an historical examination of different
types of government, would have important philosophical consequences, hardly developed as yet in an adequate social
philosophy.
With St. Thomas, philosophy for the first time became truly
existential, and henceforth had to remain so or lose its very
existence. Yet despite Maritain's philosophical contributions
and Gilson's historical confirmation, how many Scholastics
today understand the true meaning of philosophy's existentialism? This is not to be confused with any of the so-called
existential philosophies with their anti-intellectual approaches
which attempt to get at reality biologically, emotionally,
and in other irrational ways. .These extra-philosophical experiences can in no way substitute for the intellectual intuition of being by which the intellect is awakened to a philosophical awareness of the existential dimension of any being:
beings that are fully actual and not subject to the torrent of
change, as well as those the essences of which have possible
existence and are pulled, as it were, by the more powerful
energy of actual existence, calling them to the ultimate fulfillment of actuality; and also material beings immersed in the
stream of change in which they move towards the realization of
their potentialities to fulfillment or destruction.
The metaphysical intuition, with which few philosophers
have been gifted, should not be confused with the sensible intuition of being through which the human mind must stoop
before gaining entrance into its :qtetaphysical homeland. Every
man is endowed with this sensible intuition of being whereby

TO BE--THAT

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151

the intellect through the senses is put in immediate touch with
the actual existence concretized in a material thing. The senses
can frequently be deceived about the material properties of a
thing, or how it exists, yet there can be infallible certainty in the
order of sense knowledge about the actual existence of things.
To the objection, " But what if you are dreaming that you are
actually experiencing things, or are having an hallucination?"
the reply, stated in its most simple terms, would be that this
very question presupposes the certainty of the knowledge of the
actual existence of material things, and the recognition of its
difference from a state of dreaming or hallucination. If it were
further objected that "We experience not the properties of
objects but the properties of our own nervous systems. We
can thus have no direct knowledge of reality beyond the symbols that we learn to agree upon with others who have similar'
nervous systems," 7 the same reply could be given, that this
presupposes that we are certain of the direct knowledge of the
actual existence of our nervous system and that of others. Were
you to attempt, at the idealist's behest, to prove the existence
of the external world, or your own existence, you would be
falling into his trap: these are immediately and directly evident
and as such cannot be proved, nor do they require proof. The
same is true of the indemonstrable, self-evident, first principles
of identity and contradiction upon which all demonstration
rests. They would have to be used in any attempt to prove
them, a contradictory undertaking, and they cannot be denied
without at the same time being affirmed. These principles
which are first discovered in being before they are translated
into the intellect as the first principles of reason, as well as the
proximate principle of causality, and the primitive certainty of
the actual existence of material things cannot be defended by
common sense, because it holds them unreflectively and uncritically, but by the philosopher who possesses them consciously and critically.
By reducing to absurdity all who deny them, and showing
7 "Some Comments on Science and Faith," Hudson Hoagland, in Science, PMlosophy, and Religion (Second Symposium), p. 85.

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how they cannot be denied without at the same time being
affirmed, that is, without contradiction, the philosopher defends what is genuine in common sense. Once he has purified
common sense of the false meanings attributed to it, and the
irrational prejudices, opinions, and beliefs usually masquerading under its name, the philosopher shows that it refers
specifically to the three primal certainties just mentioned,
which come into play with the spontaneous use of sense and
reason in their native vigor, without any special scientific or
philosophical training.
The crude knowledge of genuine common sense, charged with
ontological densities, unrefined as yet by the special techniques
of the empirical and mathematical sciences, must be defended
philosophically against both the idealist and the empiricist,
who will not admit any knowledge as valid other than what
conforms to their own preconceived notions. The philosophy
of critical-realism does not dismiss, nor look down upon, but
justifies, what is valid in the pre-scientific knowledge of
common sense. Growing out of common sense, but differing
radically from it in its mode of knowing, the philosophy which
is also a wisdom knows that it will wither at its very roots if
it alienates itself from the vital certainties which are the natural
endowment of the common man.
The consequences of considering philosophy itself existentially have hardly been glimpsed. To say the least, once aware
of its own conditions of existence, philosophy can be master of
its own destiny by controlling the factors which hinder or
advance it, the internal ones and the social, political, and
economic developments with which, though it has its own independence, it is vitally connected. The perennial philosophy
by its very nature must be always actual, for what is eternally
true must be always freshly present. Not ancient or neo, but
current and living, it should be ready to answer the most crucial
questions of today. The philosophy in touch with existence
has the challenge within itself to deepen and perfect itself, and
keep itself in a constant state of renewal.
Fordham University,
New York

JUSTICE AND FRIENDSHIP 1
By GERALD B. PHELAN

I

T is a commonplace of social and political history that
European civilization has come down to us as a heritage
from classical antiquity. Everybody repeats, whether to
rejoice in the fact or to regret it, that culturally we are Greeks. 2
Not everybody, however, is conscious of the vast difference
between the Graeco-Roman culture, to which we owe so much,
and the Christian culture of Western Europe, from which we
have inherited the most and best of what we still possess of
civilized existence.
Before Professor Etienne Gilson published those epochmaking Gifford Lectures on the Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy,
how few, even among the learned, were actually aware of the
extent to which Christian thought, especially the fully developed Christian philosophy and theology of St. Thomas
Aquinas, had transformed, nay, literally transfigured, the legacy
of Greece and Rome!
Few as they were who realized at all vividly the gulf that
separated the pagan from the Christian culture of Europe,
fewer still were those who had any clear conception of how
utterly we moderns have broken with our own traditions and
how definitely our contemporaries (not among totalitarian
nations alone, be they Fascist, Nazi, or Communist, but among
our own people, and in our own lands, as well) have cut their
moorings in the Christian past and drifted from the course
which classical antiquity and Christian tradition, combined,
had set. When the same Professor Gilson published his James
1 This paper, the substance of which was given as the St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture, 194!t, at the College of the Sacred Heart, Manhattanville, was written at the
suggestion of M. Jacques Maritain after a long conversation about justice and
friendship in the teachings of Aristotle and St. Thomas.
"' " . . . a chorus from Euripides," said Stanley Baldwin, " awakens an echo in
our souls, reviving memories which are ancestral." Presidential Address, The Classical Association, London, 19!t6.

158

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GERALD B. PHELAN

Lectures on the Unity of Philosophical Experience and Professor Maritain wrote those penetrating and provocative studies,
The Three Reformers and Integral Humanism, many of their
readers began to recognize for the first time that our modern
conceptions of human life, human thought, and human culture
had thoroughly abandoned the high ideals of civilization which
had been laboriously acquired through long centuries of Christian reflection, Christian practice, and Christian prayer.
In this paper I propose briefly to discuss two· of these basic
concepts, which modern men have either completely lost or
distorted beyond all recognition, viz., the concepts of justice
and friendship - those two virtues which pagan Greece and
pagan Rome regarded as essential to sound social life and which
the sublime teachings of Christian revelation, particularly as
expressed in the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas
Aquinas, transformed into forces of incredible beneficence and
elevated to a realm of efficacy transcending,. while preserving
intact, the whole order of man's temporal social and political
llie. Our Holy Father the Pope has sadly noted the fact that
men no longer understand the true meaning of the words justice,
charity, and friendship. The consequence is that our leaders,
thinkers, responsible guides, and legitimate rulers are at a loss
to find a stable basis upon which the upbuilding of a just and
peaceful human order of society could even be envisaged, much
less actually accomplished.
It would carry us far afield were we to pause to consider and
criticize the aberrations of modern thought upon the subject
of these virtues or even to pass in review the various distortions
which modern ethicians and social philosophers have wrought
upon those fundamental notions of social morality. Rather, I
shall attempt briefly to indicate what justice and friendship
meant to the Greeks and to point out how St. Thomas Aquinas
carried the thought of those great pagan thinkers to heights
beyond their loftiest speculation.
Read, if you will, the praise of justice which Socrates pronounces in Plato's dialogue Gorgias and in those eloquent dis-

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155

cussions in the first, second, and fourth books of the Republic,
where Socrates extols justice as the essential virtue of the state,
the bond of union among all members of society, and the most
proper virtue of man. Justice, says Socrates (and through the
voice of Socrates Plato speaks), is compounded of wisdom,
temperance, and courage. 8 Through justice men may live in
friendship and harmony by virtue of the humane equality it
establishes in man's relations with man. 4 In the thought of
Plato and of Socrates, justice lies at the very root of social life
and organization; while injustice eradicates every vestige of
communal life, disrupts the harmony upon which peace depends, degrades the individual and leads to conflict, strife, and
social chaos. 5 Listen to the Athenian (no doubt, Plato's ideal
man of Athens) who speaks in the Dialogue on the Laws:
" Goods," he says, "are of two kinds; there are the human
goods and the divine, and the human goods depend upon the
divine; and the state which attains the greater at the same time
acquires the less, or having not the greater, has neither. Of the
lesser goods the first is health, the second beauty, and the third
strength; and the fourth is wealth, for Pluto is no blind god
provided he has wisdom for his companion. For wisdom is the
chief and leader in the divine class of goods and next follows
temperance and from the union of these two with courage
springs justice." 6 "To justice, he who would be happy holds
fast and follows in her company with all humility and order." 7
For justice produces harmony and issues in friendship, that
sweet force which "binds together heaven and earth and gods
and men and makes a universe which we call Cosmos or order,
not disorder or misrule." 8
Plato's conception of justice is, indeed, sublime; it corresponds more or less accurately to that general condition of the
individual soul and the social group which might be described
as righteousness. The just man, for Plato, was the virtuous
• Cf. Republic 4. 488.
• Cf. Gorgias 508.
• Cf. Laws 8,.696 b; 4, 709 E; Lysis !!14; Republic 1. 881; Laws 906 A.
8 Cf. Laws I. 681.
7 Cf. Laws IV. 715.
" Cf. Gor{Jias 508.

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GERALD B. PHELAN

man, the man who lived his life in conformity with the highest
norms and standards of truly human existence. 9 Friendship in
its truest sense- which for Plato implies justice 10 - is fostered
by equality 11 and makes for benevolence towards others accompanied with kindly sentiments and common sympathies;
it can therefore exist only among the virtuous. 12 Wickedness
or injustice vitiates friendship and ultimately destroys it. 13
Nowhere in his Dialogues, however, does Plato attempt to
give an accurate analysis of justice or assign to it a more precise meaning or function than that of a general condition of
virtuous and righteous living. But it is obvious from many
passages of his writings that due observance of the proper
measure in relation to the rights of one's fellow-man is included
in that general condition of virtue which Socrates and Plato
call justice.
While Socrates and Plato praised and exalted justice as a
general virtue issuing from the cultivation of all that is best in
human living and human conduct, Aristotle pursued the course
of analysis with a view to determining more precisely the exact
nature, role, and function of justice as a special virtue concerned with the rectification of undue inequalities among members of the social group, and for the purpose of setting forth its
importance both for the perfection of the individual and for the
establishment and maintenance of peace and harmony in society
and in the state. Nowhere in the literature of pagan antiquity
has the virtue of justice been more keenly examined or more
accurately described than in the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle and nowhere have the implications of that virtue for social
and political life been more thoroughly canvassed than in his
treatise on Politics.
In the moral and political philosophy of Aristotle there is a
place for the general condition of righteous living which results
from the cultivation of all the virtues and which Plato calls
• Cf. Republic 4, 443.
'" Cf. Republic 1, 351 fl'.
u Cf. Phaedrus

u
11

Cf. Lysis
Cf. Lysis

fl'.

Phaedrus

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157

justice. Aristotle sees in it a disposition arising from the due
observance of all moral laws and the cultivation of all good
habits whose end is the preservation of that happy mean in
which virtue consists. Because of its reference to the conforming of life and conduct to the laws of morality, Aristotle gives
the technical name of "legal" justice to this universal or common virtue which embraces all virtues and makes for the proper
exercise of all one's faculties and powers towards the living of
the good life. 14
Aristotle gives much more attention, however, to the particular virtue of justice which is concerned with rectifying
undue inequalities among the members of society and which
deals specifically with the exchange of goods between individuals and the fair distribution of honors and burdens among
the various members of the community. Commutative justice,
by establishing a certain arithmetical equality between the
values of things which men need, sets up a standard in which
equity in the exchange of goods may be attained and things
which are equal in value be traded for equally valuable things. 15
Distributive justice, by establishing a like equality, this time
not arithmetical but proportional or geometrical, between the
members of the community, lays the foundation for an equitable distribution of the honors and burdens of the common
life among the individuals who comprise the group, each receiving his proportionate share in view of his dignity and position in the social order. From this twofold source of equitable
dealing arise harmony and proportional equality among men,
as from a double root of one fair virtue, which flowers and bears
fruit in mutual good feeling, benevolence, and friendship. 16
Essential as is the virtue of justice and the establishment of
that equality among members of society upon which fair and
equitable communication depends, justice does not constitute
the social bond which links the members of the community
together in practice of their common life. Justice predisposes
14

Cf. Ethics V. 8, 1129b-ll80a.

Cf. Ethics V. 5, ll80b-ll3la; V. 6, 113la.
1 ° Cf. Ethics V. 6, ll8la-V. 7, ll3lb.

15

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GERALD B. PHELAN

men for friendship and prepares the ground upon which the
union of men in mutual affection and benevolence may rise.
Friendship is the very soul of society and of the common life; 17
society, indeed, is but another name for the union of men in
friendship; and the various kinds of friendship-domestic, civic,
professional, educational, commercial, or other-constitute the
norm upon which various ·sorts of societies are organized and
conducted and serve to differentiate one society from another. 18
For friendship implies communication in some common good
mutually and reciprocally possessed by all those who are friends.
And since every good is either a useful good, a delectable good,
or a good desirable in its own right and for itself, friendships
may arise and societies be established for utilitarian purposes
of all sorts, for various purposes of pleasure, or for purely virtuous reasons. In each and all of them there is community of
interests, common aims, mutual agreement, reciprocal advantage- in a word, communication in some common good, or
friendship. 19 Praiseworthy as friendships that arise from communion in useful or delectable goods may be when they pursue
utility or pleasure in due moderation and measure, the noblest
friendships are those which are centered in the good which is
desirable in itself, the common good of man as man. Of such
are the natural societies or friendships of the domestic community-the family-and the political community-the state. 20
The love of the home, that is, the friendship among parents
and children-the pietas of Latin literature and culture, and
the love of one's country, patriotism-the love of the patria,
are the noblest of the friendships men may cherish on this earth.
Friendship, for Aristotle, is indeed a noble virtue. In its
purity it is the highest kind of love-the mutual benevolence
(well-wishing, well-willing) of man for man, the effective desire
of good for one another entertained and reciprocated among
human beings. It is an affection (amatio) motivated not by
the prospect of personal gain or advantage, pleasure or profit,
but by desire for the good of those who are our friends and for
17
18

Cf. Ethics VIII. 9, 1158b.
Cf. Ethics VIII. 14, 1161b.

19

Cf. Ethios VIII. 14, 1161b.

'"° Cf. Ethics VIII. 15, 1162a.

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their advantage and prosperity. A friend is as an alter ego,
another self, and friendship is the love of another as if he were
one's very sel£.21
For this reason, friendship can reign only among equals.
Equality is essential to it. Friendship is the love of equals for
equals. And friendship is the soul of society. Justice is therefore essential to the social order; for without justice equality
cannot be established and friendship becomes impossible.
Justice, therefore, is a conditio sine qua non, a necessary prerequisite, for all unity and harmony and order in society. But
when equality is achieved the work of justice is at an end, for
the role of justice is to make equals. It belongs to friendship
to avail itself of the equality which justice accomplishes. For
the ultimate fruit of justice is equality, but equality is only the
beginning of friendship. 22
The equality of which Aristotle speaks, however, is not a
mere matter of arithmetic. That is all very well for the establishment of equality between things and for the consequent
measurement of the value of goods exchanged, which can be
measured in terms of symbols of coinage or money. True, it is
impossible to achieve the more human equality of proportionate
dignity and worth before the community until that commutative equality is assured. But the equality upon which friendship
rests is not that equality which commutative justice secures.
Father and son, ruler and subject, are not equal in the same
way in which one measure of corn is equal to two measures of
barley. There is, however, a proportion between each of them
and the society to which they belong which constitutes the
basis of the equality upon which friendship rests. 23
For Aristotle, therefore, society constitutes an ordered hierarchy of friendships based upon justice operating towards the
happy communication of all its constituent members in the
common good, each in proportion to his dignity and deserts
Cf. Ethics VIIT. 2, ll55b.
Cf. Ethics VIII. 8, ll58b-ll59b.
23 Cf. Ethics VITI. 6, ll57a-H58b.

21

22

Cf. St. Thomas, in VIII

l. 7, n. 1682.

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GERALD B. PHELAN

and all to the fullest possible extent. This is the good life and
its fruit is happiness.
These noble conceptions of justice and friendship in the social
order, which I have so sketchily summarized from the writings
of the two great thinkers of Greece, form the glorious legacy
which antiquity bequeathed to the civilization of Western
Europe, of which the most adequate philosophical and theological expression is found in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Sublime as Plato's conception of justice was and accurate as
was the analysis of that notion which Aristotle made, neither of
these great thinkers could find-or, indeed, made any attempt
to find-a place in the human society of friends for the helot,
the slave. True, both Aristotle and Plato spoke feelingly of the
kindness and consideration which good masters ought to show
towards their slaves. But such kindness and consideration
could find justification only on the basis of utilitarian motives.
Slaves were but chattels and were therefore debarred from the
advantages of civil friendship. They could not communicate with
citizens on the basis of proportional equality. They were thus
incapable of sharing the benefits of civic friendship in a truly
human manner. Because they were but chattels, they could
not be loved for themselves, for their own sakes, but only for
the advantage, comfort, service, or utility of their masters.
Such a conception of human relations could not fit a society
rooted in Christian teaching, according to which there are, in
the Kingdom of God,·neither Jews nor Gentiles nor bondmen
nor slaves. Aristotle and Plato had gone as far as might reasonably be expected of human reason unaided by the light of divine
revelation, but they fell far short in this particular from the
true conception of society as God had created it.
Another and immeasurably more serious defect in the tradition of Greek social philosophy was its failure to provide for
the possibility of friendship between God and man. Such a
failure was no doubt inevitable among men who, as Professor
Gilson has admirably established in his recent little study on
God and Philosophy, had no adequate notion of God. Plato

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indeed had said that God avenges the unjust who fall short of
the divine law 24 and that friendship links heaven and earth
and the gods and men together in one. vast Cosmos of order
and harmony. But who is that God? And who are those gods?
Is it not but the inexorable· Destiny of which the Stoics later
were to speak, the inevitable fate which, in the mythology
from which Plato never completely escaped, is identified with
the deeper will of Zeus? At all events that God was not a
benign Creator, the Alpha and the Omega of all creatures whom
all creatures could love because of His benevolence and who
loved all creatures because of His goodness. The Platonic God
or gods could not be loved by men with the love of friendship
though they might and must be obeyed and served with
humility and resignation. The case of Aristotle, however, is
even more serious. In an interesting passage of the Nicomachaean Ethics Aristotle discusses the problem whether we,
indeed, wish for our friends the greatest of goods since we cannot wish them to become gods, for then they could no longer
be our friends and they would lose that good which is their
friendship for us. The reason for this is that friendship implies
equality and, although it is possible to achieve equality between
men of every station and condition, be it only by a very remote
proportion, the distance which separates men from the realm
of the divine is so great that friendship is impossible. "It is
true," he says, " that we cannot fix a precise limit . . . up to
which men can still be friends; the gap may go on widening and
the friendship still remain; but when one becomes very remote
from the other, as God is remote from man, friendship can
continue no longer." 25 The point is clear; according to Aristotle,
there can be no love or friendship between God and man. How
vastly that conception of friendship differs from Christian
charity we shall have occasion to see in a few minutes. It becomes still more striking when we consider that the God of
Aristotle was but the Thought of Thoughts, the most divine of
all divine beings, but not transcendent to the whole order of
Cf. Laws IV. 715.
•• Cf. Ethics VITI. 5-6, 1159a5.

24

11

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GERALD B. PHELAN

beings possessed of divine nature; while the Christian God is
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
the God who told Moses that His name was Jahve, I am Who
am, the one eternal God, the Creator of all that is, who said,
"I am the Lord thy God and thou shalt not have strange gods
before me."
Despite these deficiencies of the Greek notions of justice and
friendship, there is in the tradition of Greek moral, political,
and social philosophy a perennially valuable body of sound
ethical doctrine which the greatest of Christian philosophers,
St. Thomas Aquinas, was not slow to recognize, appreciate,
and adopt. The principles of Aristotelian ethics form the warp
and woof' of the Thomistic teaching on moral and social problems, particularly in dealing with questions concerning the
temporal city, the human social order, which enjoys a quasiautonomy of its own within the larger sphere of the supernatural and spiritual order, and which presents problems to the
moral philosopher whose solution depends upon specifically
human principles. But even within the larger sphere -the
sphere of the spiritual order, which constitutes the state in
which all moral values must be judged in their concrete, actual
realization - St. Thomas Aquinas does not depart from the
moral principles of Aristotle. He sublimates those principles,
transforms them, and raises them to heights undreamed of by
any Greek and to a level which it could enter into the heart of
no man to conceive had not God sent His Only-Begotten Son
to reveal His truth to us and to give us a new and more glorious
social life in the Mystical Body of Christ.
In dealing with the problems of practical life in the new order
which Christ established on earth, however, there is one broad
principle from which St. Thomas never departs, viz., that grace
does no violence to nature. Grace neither destroys nor invalidates nature; it raises and elevates it. Whatever is natural to
man is good and remains good when nature is raised to the level
of the supernatural. Natural virtues, natural rights, natural
relations, far from being eliminated by grace, are rendered even

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more sacred and inviolable, because the whole order of nature
to which those virtues, rights, and relations belong is sanctified
and reorientated towards an end surpassing every natural
capacity and power. The whole natural order itself remains
intact, though sublimated, within the Christian economy. And
for this very reason St. Thomas was able to take over and did
take over all those profound truths and principles of human
natural morality which the genius of the Greeks had discovered.
The good life which Plato and Socrates extolled so highly and
which Aristotle so penetratingly analyzed still remains, in an
even higher and nobler sense, the aim and object of human
culture and civilization. The fact that a higher end than earthly
happiness is proposed to man, that his whole terrestrial life and
temporal existence can no longer be regarded as the ultimate
and final purpose of his being, does not alter that other fact,
viz., that the essence of man, his intrinsic human nature, remains unchanged but is rather taken such as it is and redirected
as a whole to a nobler and more sublime destiny. The conditions under which this earthly life must function are not nullified but the status in which the natural functions, duties, rights,
and all the natural activities of human beings are exercised is no
longer the status of a purely natural order but the status of
supernature. The specific character and the essential conditions
of those moral relations remain unchanged. To honor and
revere one's parents is no less a virtue in conformity with nature
for the Christian than it was for the pagan Greek; to murder
and to steal are no less violations of the natural law for the one
than for the other.
No one who has read even superficially in St. Thomas can
fail to see how emphatic is his teaching on the necessity of
justice as the indispensable condition of a sound and healthy
communication among men. Whether it be in questions concerning commutative justice- fair dealing in barter and exchange, the just price, interest and usury and monetary problemfl generally, the just remuneration of workmen for their
labor and hosts of like questions-or in questions concerning
the obligations, duties, rights, privileges, and prerogatives of

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GERALD B. PHELAN

wives and husbands, parents and children, rulers and subjects,
judges and officials, administration in political affairs and other
problems which depend upon distributive justice for a fair solution and settlement, St. Thomas invariably appeals to principles whose matrix may be found in the Ethics and Politics of
Aristotle.
Justice and friendship, therefore, must always remain essential 'to the establishment, maintenance, and upbuilding of the
common life of men upon this earth. Charity does not supersede and eliminate justice as the virtue which establishes that
proportional equality among men upon which sane social relations rest; nor does it destroy friendship as the formal cause of
society, the very soul of communal life, but perfects it and
renders it more efficacious. St. Thomas Aquinas, therefore,
regards justice as the basic virtue of the social life, the foundation of domestic and political order. True, in the domestic
order, where love and friendship reign, justice is less obviously
basic to the common family life. However, justice remains
fundamental to this as to every other social group and (to take
an illustration from the chaotic condition of family life in
modern times) the spectacle of wrecked homes and unhappy
marriages in our day ought to be sufficient to show us how basic
to domestic life is the observance of that justice wherein conjugal, parental, and filial rights and duties are respected and
fulfilled. It is noteworthy, also, that the Popes, and notably
Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI, have abundantly confirmed
and corroborated St. Thomas's teaching on justice as the very
foundation of social and political order.
In dealing with the problem of friendship, however, St.
Thomas retains all that the Greeks had taught about the bond
of union effected by benevolence, mutual affection, and good
will among the members of the community but transports the
whole discussion of those questions to another and higher level.
In this connection it is instructive to remark that in commenting upon the Ethics of Aristotle St. Thomas devotes much time
and attention to that great Greek thinker's treatment of the
question of friendship but in the Summa Theologica, where the

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Angelic Doctor's own teaching is expounded, the treatment of
friendship as such is restricted to one solitary question in which
amicitia is dealt with as that part of justice which impels one
to exhibit due external recognition of the personal dignity of
one's fellow-man by the practice of that urbanity which marks
polite human intercourse. The principle of mutual and reciprocal communication in a common good (benevolence, or wellwilling) - that principle which Aristotle used to develop his
whole teaching on friendship-is dealt with by St. Thomas in
connection with the theological virtue of charity.
It is at this point that we see how far the social and political
thought of St. Thomas transcended the outlook of the ancient
Greeks. For in the last analysis the Christian and the pagan
conceptions o£ the ultimate common good in which all members
of society are called upon to participate are poles apart. What
we have said above in regard to the complete reorientation of
human life in virtue of the Incarnation and Redemption suggests how far the Christian conception of the value, aim, and
purpose of human society, while still preserving the noblest ideals
of the sages of Greece, transcended their highest aspirations.
For the loftiest speculations and the highest aspirations of
even the greatest Greek thinkers never succeeded in reaching
the conception of the God of the Jews, the Creator of man and
of society and of all things in heaven and on earth, and their
thought was still further incapable of conceiving anything like
the Christian order of life which the Only-Begotten Son of God
made Man established in the world. The Incarnation of the
Word of God marked a new era in the history of the world.
Nothing human was or could be the same after that event
which renewed the face of the earth. Society could no longer
be regarded as the union of men in justice and friendship merely
for the pursuit of man's well-being and happiness in that short
period bounded by the nothingness that precedes birth and the
nothingness that follows death. The ancient Jews well knew
that human society was more than that and their knowledge
and tradition, derived from God's revelation as set forth in the

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GERALD B. PHELAN

Old Testament, was the spiritual promise of which Christian
conceptions of life and society were the fulfillment. But the
Greeks knew nothing of all that, and because they envisaged
no loftier purpose in society than what they termed "the good
life," i.e., a life of virtuous and happy living on this earth, they
could not conceive of any sort of equality which could furnish
a basis for friendship between God and man. No doubt their
souls were troubled with the thought that death might mean
the end of all things. The reflections of Socrates before his
death, as reported both by Plato and by Zenophon, reveal the
deep concern of that great Greek sage for what "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns"
might he. But the eyes of the Greeks could not pierce the veil
because they had not been told by God what lies behind it.
St. Thomas Aquinas was moved to pity for the great men of the
past whose vision was limited to the
of mere earthly
existence. "Quantas angustias patiebantur eorum magna ingenial" (What deep anguish those great geniuses have suffered) he exclaims in considering the failure of Aristotle and of
his commentators Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Arabian
Averroes to see a loftier destiny in human life and human
society than the brief and passing happiness of the good life
here on earth. They did not know that Adam once walked the
garden in the friendship of God and that the second Adam,
Christ, had come to restore what Adam, by his sin, had lost and
in that restoration established a twofold basis of equality upon
which men might be united once more in friendship with their
God.
By the Incarnation God had spanned the gap between the
divine and the human which Aristotle regarded as the impassable distance separating God from man and rendering all
friendship between them utterly impossible. For by the Incarnation the Son of God became man and through the fruits of
the Redemption men were made partakers of the divine nature,
adopted sons of God. Upon the basis of this twofold equalityproportional equality, indeed-true friendship was established
and mutual communication in a common good-in this case

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human nature possessed in common by Christ and by all mankind on the one hand and divine nature possessed by Christ in
His own right and by men by grace of adoption, on the other
hand. As St. Augustine has aptly said, " The Son of God became the Son of man that we who are the sons of man might
become sons of God." 26
By the gift of divine grace, merited by Christ upon the Cross
and given to men in Baptism, men are born into a life and
receive a nature (as it is the function and purpose of all birth
to bestow). It is the life of God operating through the infused
theological and moral virtues and the nature of God bestowed
upon the adopted sons of the Eternal Father. In virtue of this
new life and this new nature society is transformed and a new
basis of justice and friendship is laid down. Men are one, now,
in a new association whose common good is no longer merely
temporal and earthly but spiritual and heavenly. The reign of
Christ in the society of men is henceforth and forever established. Human society in all its forms and functions is permeated with fresh vigor, given a nobler purpose, and consolidated by a bond of union transcendent and divine. All men
without exception are united in that common life, and every
human institution, natural or voluntary, is embraced within
that higher life of the supernatural society of men with God.
In a word, because all moral and social values must be judged
by reference to the end of human acts and conduct, there can
no longer be any ultimately and truly real value in the actual,
concrete doings and works of men except in so far as they are
orientated towards that single and sole end which is the friendship and the love of God. It is this very friendship-the common possession of all whom Christ redeemed-that constitutes
the new social bond among men. Charity thus replaces merely
human friendship as the constitutive element in human society.
All men live in that supernatural order whether they are aware
of it or not and cannot henceforth live in any other.
The consequences of this Christian revelation for society are
"" Cf. De Civitate Dei, XXI. 15.

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GERALD B. PHELAN

radical and far-reaching. Domestic society, i.e., family life,
with all its implications, takes on a fresh significance. Marriage
among the children of God is no longer a mere human contract
but a sacred, holy union, a symbol of the union of Christ with
the souls of men redeemed by His blood. The procreation,
nourishment, education, and upbringing of children is no longer
a m,erely temporal and material concern; it is the bringing of
new members into the society of God's friendship, the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God upon earth and the preparation of human beings for His kingdom in heaven. Political
society, no less than domestic society, attains a new dignity and
importance. Its rulers are no longer mere representatives and
depositories of human authority but representatives and depositories of the authority of God himself, destined to govern
their fellow-men in justice and honor so that the peace of Christ
may reign in the kingdom of Christ and men may live an integral human and Christian life upon this earth. Every
voluntary society which men may form for purposes of education, industry, commerce, recreation, culture, or progress is
dominated by a loftier aim than its specific purpose may provide
because Christ has redeemed all human things and given to
them a dignity which nature alone could never give.
The Christian conception of the relation of justice to friendship in society may be roughly recapitulated in the following
statements.
1. All society, all social life, subsists by friendship. Society is

but another name for friendship and societies are differentiated from one another according to the particular
friendships they aim to foster.
2. Society-or friendship-cannot be established except upon
the basis of justice, for justice rectifies the undue inequalities among the members of a group and makes for
that proportional equality upon which friendship rests.
3. Justice is therefore the necessary prerequisite, the dispository cause of society; friendship is its formal cause, its
very soul.

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4. The Greeks developed a high and noble conception of
human justice and friendship which remained in Christian thought, and especially in the doctrine of St.
Thomas Aquinas, the norm of judgment on matters of
purely natural and human intercourse.
5. The deficiences of the Greek outlook on society were principally two-their failure to embrace all men (even
slaves) within the common human life and their inability
to conceive of any quality of friendship between God
and man.
6. This failure was inevitable in the Greek view of life, which
proposed only a natural end for man and for society.
7. With the Judaeo-Christian outlook upon the destiny of
man, the problem of establishing a basis for friendship
between God and man was solved by the divine dispensation according to which God raised man to the supernatural order and gave him the gift of supernatural
grace, which is a participation in divine nature.
8. In the Christian dispensation the grace which Adam lost
for mankind by his sin of pride and disobedience was
restored by Christ.
9. By the Incarnation of the Son of God a twofold basis of
proportional equality between God and man was established: God became man that men might share in the
nature of God by adoption.
10. The results of this divine economy for the personal and
social life of men were radical. A new order of means to
ends was constituted. Man's ultimate aim in life could no
longer be conceived of as a purely natural end. Justice,
therefore, could come only through men giving to God
and to one another what the supernatural condition of
man demanded, and friendship among men was transformed into fraternal charity based upon the common
possession of the love and friendship of God.
11. Social life and relations in all their multifarious forms assumed a new and nobler significance, for, despite the fact
that nature remains intact within the supernatural, the

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GERALD B. PHELAN

whole order of natural rights, duties, and responsibilities
is :redirected towards a loftier destiny and purpose.
12. That purpose is the reign of Christ on earth, through an
integral realization of truly human living based upon
justice and constituted by the supernatural friendship
of charity, and the reign of Christ in heaven, in the
kingdom of God beyond the portals of death.
Upon the basis of these Christian conceptions of society and
human life St. Thomas raised the whole edifice of his political
doctrines.
Within the infinite scope of truly Christian charity there is
no room for hatred of any man. Truth must indeed remain inviolable and heresy, error, and all forms of falsehood must be
inexorably opposed. But men of all nations, races, and creedsdespite their errors or their vices-are still the chosen children
of God and as such are our brothers, our friends, ou:r kindred.
So in these trying times when nation is set against nation,
people against people, and men against men, it is fruitful to
remember that we may fight but never hate, oppose but always
respect the human and divine dignity of our very enemies. St.
Thomas lived in trying times when the German Emperor was
striving to subdue the Pope; St. Thomas's brothers were officers
in the service of that Emperor; his father's castle was captured
and occupied by the German conquerors; the monastery where
the boy Thomas went to school, the famous Abbey of Monte
Casino, was :ravaged by the invaders; yet throughout the whole
great volume of his writings St. Thomas makes no mention of
these trying experiences" Doing in his day what our present
Holy Father has never ceased to do, he aimed to teach and to
inculcate in all who heard his words or read his works the love
of truth and the love of God and, for the sake of God and truth,
the love of our fellow-men and the absolute necessity of justice
and friendship for the maintenance of a Christian human society
upon this earth"
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
Toronto, Canada

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL
By L. S. BoNDY, C. S. B.

T

HOUGH there is a wide range of opinion in estimating
the quality and the value of the Catholic Revival in
contemporary French Literature, its existence is no
longer questioned even by the most unsympathetic critics and
historians. It is an acknowledged fact that during the last
eighty or ninety years, a very notable part of French Literature,
I mean literature properly so called, literature as one of the
fine arts, shows evidence of a profound and increasing influence
of Catholic doctrine, Catholic morality, Catholic life. It is an
influence that is not content with the role of a surface accessory
but is reaching down to essentials, to the very well-springs of
literary production. A detailed study of the movement would
carry us far beyond the scope of this article. However we can
hardly hope to reach an intelligent appreciation of Paul Claudel
without first situating him in the movement to which he owes
so much and which in turn he has enriched more, perhaps, than
any other writer. We shall limit ourselves to those parts of the
Catholic Revival which seem to have exercised a definite influence on our poet.
In the Middle Ages, Europe had witnessed a similar flowering
of Catholic letters. This is not surprising when we realize to
what extent the whole civilization of the period was Catholic.
To find a rose growing on a rose-bush is not astonishing. But
when we find a particularly luxuriant rose apparently emerging
from a stock of poison-ivy, the event should at least arouse our
curiosity. And indeed, one needs to be very charitable and
even highly imaginative to discern in the society of the Second
Empire and the Third Republic a particularly Catholic form of
civilization. It would not be very difficult, a priori, to marshal
an imposing array of reasons to prove that, at that time, a
Catholic revival of letters simply could not happen. Yet happen
it did; and there seems to be no good reason to think that it

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has spent itself. It is even quite possible that it has not reached
its peak. What will happen when the present cataclysm is over,
no one can prophecy. But this, I think, we know: the forces
at work in this movement are so strong and vital that they are
least likely to be destroyed and may even emerge with added
strength from the horrible bath of blood and destruction.
The sources of any literary movement, if we push our inquiry
far enough will generally lead us as far back as our patience
will endure. For literature bears a close resemblance to life,
and life is as mysterious a word as can be found in any language.
I need not say how arbitrary are the dates we professors assign
to such things as classicism, romanticism and symbolism. How
can we speak of Boileau without conjuring up Horace and
Aristotle? And did not Sainte-Beuve go to the sixteenth century to find ancestors for his contemporary romantic friends?
If then we place Charles Baudelaire at the beginning of the
Catholic Revival, it is because we must begin somewhere and
the author of Les Fleurs du Mal and especially of Mon Cceur
mis anu does mark a well characterized if embryonic stage in
the development of the movement. This assumption is by no
means universally accepted. The life of Baudelaire with all its
wild eccentricities, his taste for mystification, his insufferable
arrogance, his pornographic reputation, his categorical denials
of Christian faith, are all poor recommendations for the role
of father of a Catholic movement. Such an excellent critic as
Abbe Calvet firmly believes that nothing soundly Catholic can
ever come from such a questionable source.
A good deal of misunderstanding will be avoided if we note
at the outset that there is no question here of canonizing
Baudelaire. Whether or not Baudelaire saved his soul, is a
matter of rather serious importance for Baudelaire. It has however, very little bearing on the question we are now discussing.
We must not forget that our problem is primarily a literary
problem and in this field it is not at all impossible that a Catholic movement should begin under auspices that are far from
being orthodox. You know what the philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas owes to Aristotle; the theology of St. Augustine to

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC

REVIVAL

178

Plato. Yet the Bishop of Hippo and the Angel of the Schools
are still comfortably removed from the Index Expurgatorius.
Several critics have gone to considerable pains to defend the
Catholicism of Baudelaire. The work of Gonzague de Reynold,
of Charles DuBos, of Stanislaus Fumet needs no introduction.
I cannot help thinking that all this is beside the point. The
important fact is that, consciously or not, he blew a clarion call
that invited French poetry and literature in general away from
the miasma of morbid sentimentality and along paths where it
could meet Catholic influence and, at times, recognize in it not
only a kindred trend but even an inseparable companion. That
it was thereby also exposed to another and a contradictory
influence perhaps authentically diabolical is also true as we
have abundant reason to know. French literature had succeeded in creating for itself a world where sin was no longer
recognized. Human joys and sorrows were quite generally divorced from any consequences in a world beyond the grave.
Much of Lamartine's poetry is a morbid mixture of love for
another man's wife and respect for a rather hazy deity. Musset's
best work is a threnody over the faithlessness of one who was
little more than a prostitute. To call these things by their name
seems an almost necessary preface to any real improvement.
Maritain has well stated the case:
It is through the experience of sin and in the grief of despair that
the nineteenth century will see spirituality awaken in partibus in:fidelium: by a Baudelaire, by a Rimbaud. An ambiguous spirituality,
good for heaven, if grace takes hold on it, good for hell if pride steps
in. Many of our contemporaries will seek in anti-reason and below
reason food for their souls which should only be sought above
reason.1
It was in 1846 or 1847 that Baudelaire became acquainted
with the work of Edgar Allen Poe. To say he was profoundly
influenced is, I believe, an exaggeration. He was twenty-five
years old and had already given ample evidence that he was
Charles Baudelaire who never really learned much or at least
never accepted much knowledge except that which came through
1

Le Songe de Descartes, pp. 274-275.

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L. S. BONDY

personal experience. De Quincey's Confessions of an OpiumEater had to be tested in the dive before they could find a
place in Les Paradis artificiels. He took from others only what
he considered as being already his own. This is perhaps the
best explanation of his failure to use quotation marks when he
gave an almost literal translation of an important passage of
Poe's Poetic Principle. I suppose we have all had the sad experience of seeing some of our finest discoveries used by someone who just happened to be born before us. It is this quotation
that will mark a turning point in the best of modern poetry:
An immortal instinct, deep within the spirit of man, is thus
plainly, a sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to
his delight in the manifold forms and sounds and odors and sentiments amid which he exists. And just as the lily is repeated in the
lake, and the eyes of Amaryllis in the mirror, so is the mere oral
or written repetition of these forms and sounds and colors and
odors and sentiments a duplicate source of delight. But this mere
repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing, with however
glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid truth of description, of
the sights and sounds and odors and colors and sentiments which
greet him in common with all mankind-he, I say has yet failed to
prove his divine title. There is still something in the distance which
he has been unable to attain. We still have a thirst unquenchable,
to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This thirst
belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and
an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth
for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but
a wild effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an exstatic
prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of Time, to
attain a portion of the Loveliness whose very elements, perhaps,
appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by Poetry-or when by
Music, the most entrancing of the Poetic moods-we find ourselves
melted into tears, it is not . . . through excess of pleasure, but
through a certain petulant, impatient sorrow at our own inability
to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at once and forever, those
divine and rapturous joys, .of which through the poem, or through
the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. 2

The last part of this quotation appears twice in Baudelaire's
• E. A. Poe, The Poetic Principle.

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175

works. It should be noted that neither Poe nor Baudelaire
seem to arrive at this theory of poetry from a religious idea or
for a religious motive. Both apparently followed a path that
was exactly the reverse and thereby, perhaps unconsciously,
opened the road to what Stanislaus Fumet considers the distinctively characteristic and important note in modem art: .
That is why Baudelaire had, almost without knowing it, to invent
another art which will be modern art, that compromise between art
as such and a mystic intuition, or more properly a compromise
between poetry and religion. He did not know what he was doing
and he was joining forces with the presentiments of Wagner, he was
begetting at once Rimbaud and the best Verlaine; he was uniting
himself to the Catholicism of Ernest Hello and preparing that of
Leon Bloy and Paul Claudel. 3
In this art the external world is indeed what it seems to be but
it is also something more. It speaks a mysterious language and
is a means of reaching a higher reality, a nobler truth which
alone can reconcile man with the necessity of dragging out
weary days of his dreary existence.
La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles
Qui l' observent avec des regards familiers.
Comme de longs echos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une tenebreuse et profonde unite,
V aste comme la nuit et comme la clarte,
Les parfums, les couleurs et lessons se repondenU

To reach a vantage point where the mysterious communications
become perceptible, is the poet's privilege and to enjoy it he
must rise above the ordinary level of humanity.
So, the principle of poetry is strictly and simply the human aspiration for a superior beauty, and the manifestation of this principle
is in an enthusiasm, an exciting of the soul,-an enthusiasm which
is entirely independent of passion which is the intoxication of the
heart, and truth which is the food of reason.5
Notre Baudilaire (Pion, 1926), p. 58. • Baudelaire, Corresporulances.
Baudelaire, Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe. Oeuvres completes (N. R. F. 19!t8),
vol. XI, p. 31.
8

5

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L. S. BONDY

Or again in his celebrated prose poem Enivrez-vous: " One
must be always intoxicated . . . but with what? With wine,
poetry or virtue at your choice. But get intoxicated." 6 The
tragedy of Baudelaire's life came largely from the forbidden and
futile forms of intoxication he used in a vain attempt to reach
his goal. But he had begun a kind of experimentation which is
still going on and which had made the poet's vocation extremely
hazardous since it forces him into contact with the supernatural
at one end or the other of the human scale. This is the profound
truth contained in Barbey d'Aurevilly's remark to Baudelaire
after the publication of Les Fleurs du Mal, that after such a
book, his only logical choice was to throw himself at the foot of
the cross or blow out his brains. We have good reason to think
that Baudelaire finally chose the cross.
There is another point on which Baudelaire has profoundly
influenced modern poetry. In his study of the world in order to
wrest from it its secret message of the world beyond, the poet is
forced to deal with external nature as he sees it mirrored in
the depths of his own soul. Only by constant introspection, by
the observing not merely of his conscious self but of the sporadic
manifestations rising from the sub-conscious will he be able
gradually to learn his important lesson. Only by an absolute
candor and honesty will he be able to communicate it to others.
Here again Baudelaire finds himself in complete agreement
with, if not under the direct influence of, Poe who wrote in his
Marginalia:
If an ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort,
the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human
sentiment, the opportunity is his own; the road to immortal renown
lies straight, open, and unincumbered before him. All that he has
to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be
simple, a few plain words: My Heart Laid Bare. But this little
book must be true to its title. 7

Baudelaire did not live long enough to publish Mon Cmur mis
a nu but the notes he left behind have played an important
role in contemporary poetry.
• Petit8 Poemes en Prose, p. 106.

7

Marginalia XLI.

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC

REVIVAL

177

It was in 1857 that Baudelaire published Les Fleurs du Mal.
He was arrested, convicted of immorality and fined. He had
but few defenders. In 1866 appeared the first edition of Le
Parnasse Contemporain.
Baudelaire was included but for
reasons and qualities quite foreign to those that were to determine his real influence. The day of that influence had not yet
dawned. This is the generation that marks the acceptance of
the factual, precise sculptural parnassian ideal in poetry; and
the materialistic, deterministic, positivist naturalism in the
novel. This is the world of Lecomte de Lisle, of Flaubert and
Zola, of Renan and Taine. It would be. difficult to imagine a
more uncongenial soil for the growth of the movement that was
to spring from Baudelaire. The men of that .generation who
were deprived of religious faith passed into an intellectual world
where on every side the horizon was, so to speak, walled off.
Philosophy, which comes next to theology in the hierarchy of
our sources of knowledge, had definitely capitulated to mathematico-physical science. Kant and Auguste Comte, to mention
but two, had succeeded in relegating metaphysics to thecategory of outworn myths and superstitions. The directors of the
lay conscience were Hypolite Taine and Ernest Renan. The
Naturalists were holding up as the model of all art the photographic reproduction of material reality. Claudel has given us
a graphic picture of the atmosphere of his youth in Paris:
Just recall those sad years of the eighties, the period of the full
flowering of naturalistic literature. Never did the reign of matter
seem more securely established. Everything that had a name in art,
in science and in literature was irreligious. All the (self-styled)
great men of the finishing century were particularly distinguished
for their hostility to the Church. Renan reigned. He presided at
the last Commencement exercises I attended at the lycee Louis-leGrand, . . . Victor Hugo had just disappeared in an apotheosis. 8

And again a little later in one of his great odes:
0 mon Dieu, je me rappelle ces tenebres ou nous etions face
a face tous les deux, ces sombres apres-midi d'hiver
a Notre-Dame,
8

Ma Conversion, p. 84.

12

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L. S. BONDY

Moi tout seul, tout en bas, eclairant la face du grand Christ
de bronze avec un cierge de 25 centimes.
Tous les hommes alors etaient contre nous et je ne repondais rien, la science, la raison.
La foi seule etait en moi et je vous regardais en silence
comme un homme qui prefere son ami. 9

Readers of Claudel are all familiar with the magnificant strains
of thanksgiving in his Magnificat:
Soyez beni, Mon Dieu, qui m'avez delivre des idoles,
Et qui faites que je n'adore que Vous seul, et non point Isis
et Osiris,
Ou la Justice, ou le Progres, ou la Verite, ou la Divinite,
ou l'Humanite, ou les Lois de la Nature ou l'Art ou
la Beaute,
Et qui n'avez pas permis d'exister a toutes ces chases qui
ne sont pas, ou le Vide laisse par votre absence. 10

It seems that everything possible was being done to limit man's
life and all his interests to this earth. But, as Professor Gilson
says in The Unity of Philosophical Experience, man is not only
a rational animal, he is also a metaphysical animaL Any
attempt to keep his eyes fixed on material things, to wean his
curiosity from soaring into the why and wherefor of things
and particularly of his own life, any such attempt is doomed to
short-lived success. The means he uses to slake his thirst may
not be adequate, may even serve only to increase his thirst.
But he must try something. At this stage the revolt is incarnate
in the mysterious and troubling person of Arthur Rimbaud.
I once had a professor who dealt with Rimbaud in one phrase:
"Ce fou d'Arthur Rimbaud!" This method had the advantage
of shortening the course and sparing us much mental fatigue
but that is about all that can be said in its favor. With the
exception of Baudelaire, I know no modern poet who has exercised a more wide-spread influence, good and bad- I fear rather
bad than good. However since he made a public confession
and passed severe judgment, we can be more lenient; the more
so because it is unjust to place all the blame on his shoulders.
9

Cinq Grandes Odes, pp. 164-165.

1

° Cinq Grandes Odes, pp. 85-86.

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL

179

In condemning a rebellion it is well to bear in mind the conditions that provoked it, else we may find ourselves indirectly
approving things we really want to oppose. His experiment in
many ways proved disastrous but it at least made it more difficult for thinking men to live satisfied in the stifling dungeon of
a naturalist and positivist society. His was not a reasoned
revolt. It appeared in him as a child, which may not appear
very strange in view of his particular home environment. But
what is very strange is that by the time he is sixteen, he is
already in possession of a poetical technique as perfect as that
of any poet of the century with the possible exception of Victor .
Hugo; and it would not be hard to find critics who would rule
out even that exception. The life and work of Rimbaud has
encountered every rating from the most exaggerated praise to
patently unjust condemnation. Paterne Berrichon and his wife
Isabelle Rimbaud have carried fraternal affection to a point
that strains our credulity but Marcel Coulon and Fran!;!ois
Porche seem to have gone to the other extreme. Since we are
particularly interested in Claudel, let us see his explanation of
this strange genius because, as he says, " I am one of those who
have .accepted his word, one of those who have trusted him." 11
In'1908 he writes to Jacques Riviere:
Rimbaud has been the capital influence of my life. Others, and
particularly Shakespeare; Eschylus, Dante and Dostoievsky have
been my masters and have shown me the secrets of my art. But
Rimbaud alone has exercised an influence which I shall call seminal
and paternal and which makes me really believe in generation in
the order of spirits as well as in that of bodies. I shall always
remember that morning of June 1886 when I bought that little issue
of La Vogue which contained the beginning of Les Illuminations.
It was really one for me. I was at last emerging from that hideous
world of Taine, of Renan and the other Molochs of the nineteenth
century, from that dungeon, from that aweful mechanical world
entirely governed by perfectly inflexible laws and, which was the
limit of the horrible, laws that were knowable and teachable.
I had the revelation of the supernaturaU' 2
11
12

Positions et Propositions, I, p. 145.
Oorrespondance avec Jacques Riviere, pp. 142-148.

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L. S. BONDY

Claude! sees three periods in the testimony of Rimbaud. The
first is the period of revolt and violence. " The demon of
Rimbaud," says Marcel Raymond, " is that of revolt and
destruction. What bears the name of civilization and the
Western Man is what he dreams of pouncing on like a beast of
prey: the state, public order and its constraints, ' established
happiness,' the conventional style of love and families, christianity, morals, in short all the products of the human mind he
denies and ridicules." 13
In the second period, Rimbaud is trying to find and reveal a
way out of all these difficulties. This is the period of Les
Illuminations. We stand in need of a certain knowledge not
only for the enrichment but for the very living of our lives.
This knowledge our intelligence is powerless to give. Yes, even
the combined efforts of intelligence which we call civilization
have failed miserably in their attempt to give a meaning to our
lives, to make our lives worth living. It is to find this secret
and so necessary knowledge that Rimbaud launches into extraintellectual channels. Of Baudelaire's experiments, he retains
at this time nothing but the ambitious dreams, apparently
oblivious of the confession of failure written on nearly every
page of Les Fleurs du Mal. Baudelaire is for him: " Le premier
voyant, un vrai dieu "-the first of seers, a veritable god. The
crushing conviction of the futility of his efforts will come to him
much more quickly than it did to Baudelaire. What is Une
Saison en Enfer but a less musical though perhaps more profound Voyage aCythere or Cloche Felee? But at this stage he
believes that the poet must become a seer-un voyant. The
famous letter of May 15th, 1871, to Izambard remains a capital
text:
The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is his own
knowledge in its entirety. He searches for his soul, inspects it, tries
it, learns it. . . . It is a question of making the soul monstrous
. . . like a man who would plant and cultivate warts on his face.
I say that one must be a seer, must make himself a seer. The Poet
makes himself a seer by a long, immense and reasoned disordering
13

De Baudelaire au Surrealisme, p. 39.

CLAUDEL AND THE .CATHOLIC

REVIVAL

181

of all his senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he
searches for and exhausts in himself all the poisons to keep of them
nothing but the quintessence. An ineffable torture in which he
needs superhuman faith and strength, in which he becomes the
greatest of sick men, the greatest criminal, the most accursedand supreme in his knowledge-because he arrives at the unknown. 14
He realizes that such experiments are very dangerous. But
what does it matter? If he falls by the way, he will at least
have revealed the existence of the magic land and other" seers"
will come and start where he leaves off. Since that day, Baudelaire and Rimbaud have never been without disciples and imitators. You will note that we are not dealing here with the
age-old story of sin; man yielding to temptation and closing
his eyes to the consequences for fear of having to struggle
against it. We have to do here with a deliberate attempt to
experiment with sin in an attempt and a hope of finding a cure
for the terrible ennui that seems to be weighing more and more
heavily on poor mortals. It is easy for us to predict the inevitable failure of such experiments and their devastating results
on those who attempt them. But let us not forget that, if we
are able to do that, it is by virtue of a knowledge which we owe
to our God-given faith. The society of that day and, for that
matter, the society in which we live has done its best to close
the doors that lead to that faith and is rapidly destroying the
last links that bound it to Christ. The thorough-going practical
Christian is becoming more and more abnormal and the day
seems not far distant when the living of a Catholic life will
require something close to heroism. We might note here, as a
parenthesis, that the study of contemporary literature is not
without its dangers. Teaching it to adolescents gives rise to
problems that are frightening. Teaching it in an expurgated
form with morality to guide the selection is likely to prove more
damaging even from the moral standpoint. It might be better
not to teach it at all. But all this is another story and one that
would deserve a discussion all its own.
I might compare the Baudelaire-Rimbaud tradition to a
14

NouveUe Revue Franl}aise, VIII (1912), 570.

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L. S. BONDY

subterraneous passage, itself leading only to disaster but
ning parallel to the path that leads to light and to the ultimate
solution of all human problems. Here and there in some
terious way, a shaft seems to lead from the lower to the higher
level permitting escape from despair and even allowing the
experiences on the road of darkness to make for greater progress
on the road'of light. So Huysmans writes A Rebours for reasons
he never could explain even in the light of his subsequent
version. Bourget publishes Le Disciple, which even his closest
friends could hardly have foretold. Maritain reads La Femme
Pauvre and in the space of a few months finds his whole life,
as he says, turned inside out like a glove. It would be easy to
multiply these examples. Have you ever noticed that among
the many great figures of the Catholic Revival, nearly all are
converts or, what is even more strange, men who had
doned their. faith and who found it again. It is equally true
that, in the great majority of cases, the conversion does not
seem to have been due to the influence of Catholics but rather
to those whom Verlaine has called " les poetes maudits." I have
long been trying to explain this extraordinary phenomenon, and
so far have failed to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. One is
almost frightened to think that perhaps Leon Bloy was right
and that the famous page of Le Desespere may not be such an
exaggeration. It is addressed to the Catholics of the nineteenth
century but is not yet very
It is Voltairian childishness to accuse these Catholics of crimes.
The surpassing horror is that they are mediocre. A man covered
with crimes is always interesting. He is a target for Mercy. He is
a member of the immense flock of pardonable goats, that can be
whitened by salutary immolations .... But innocent mediocrity
upsets everything. It had been forseen, doubtless, but barely so,
as the worst torture of the Passion, as the most· unbearable of the
agonies of Calvary. It slaps Christ in the face in such a complete
way, and brings to naught so absolutely the divinity of the Sacrifice
that it is impossible to conceive a more beautiful proof for
anity than the miracle of its survival in spite of the monstrous
mediocrity of the majority of its faithful! Ah, it is easy to
stand the panic; the wild flight of the nineteenth century away

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC

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188

from the ridiculous God who is presented to it; and one understands
its fury! Yet it is very base, this wretched century and has little
right to be exacting! But precisely because it is vile, the monstrance
of the Faith should be extra-sublime and should shine like the sun.15
Even if we make allowance for the exasperation for which Bloy
is famous, this passage can still give us much food for thought.
It also adds a vigorous trait to the picture of Parisian life in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It was into this environment that Claude! was thrown at the age of fourteen, that
is, at the age when he was most likely to be deeply influenced
by it. He was born in 1868 in the little village of Villeneuvesur-Fere en Tardenois in the Department of the Aisne, the
Champagne district " between Racine and LaFontaine " as he
tells us: his birthplace being about midway between LaFerte
Milan and Chateau-Thierry. The scene of L'Annonoe faite a
Marie is laid definitely in this section of the country. A grand
uncle of Claude! had been pastor of the village church. Paul's
father was a civil functionary and the family moved rather
frequently. However the boy's education proceeds normally
and, when the family settles in Paris in 1882, he goes to Louisle-Grand where, in the judgment of his professors, he leaves an
enviable record. He does not return the compliment. He confided to Frederic Lefevre: " The lycee Louis-le-Grand turned
out for society a recruit whose instruction was mediocre and
whose education was a pitiful failure." 16 And again: " Those
years at Louis-le-Grand are a painful period to which my
memory does not like to return and which I should like to erase
completely from my life. I did not really begin to live till the
day when I escaped from the oppression of the classroom and
the school." 17 What brought about the complete abandonment
of his faith is not entirely clear. But we have only to recall
some of the facts already mentioned to realize that it would
have required a strong faith indeed to live in so uncongenial a
surrounding. This was the time when Gambetta and his colLe Desespere, pp. 228-224.
Fr. Lefevre: Les Sources de Paul Claudel (Paris: 1927), p. 118.
17 Ibid., p. 162.
15
16

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L. S. BONDY

leagues were determined to use the school system to the full
extent of their ability to take away from the youth of France
every vestige of Christian thought and influence. In a country
where ridicule is such a deadly weapon, every form of ridicule
was being hurled at. everything Catholic, from the pharisaical
ridicule of Ernest Renan to the increasingly corrosive brand of
Anatole France. It was humanly impossible for the boy to
resist the combined influence of playmates and professors along
with that of everything that counted in the literary and the
learned world. But when his eyes were forcibly opened, the
sentiment with which he turned on all these influences was
something akin to nausea. Of Renan in particular, he never can
speak without disgust. Recall the almost too powerful stanza
of Magnificat:
Restez avec moi, Seigneur, parce que le soir approche et ne
m' abandonnez pas!
N e me perdez point avec les Voltaire, et les Renan, et les
Michelet, et les Hugo, et tous les autres infames!
Leur ame est avec les chiens morts, leurs livres sont joints
au fumier.
Ils sont morts, et leur nom meme apres leur mort est un
poison et une pourriture. 18

If he had thought to find happiness in following the guiding
spirits of the day, young Claude! was soon undeceived and,
as in the case of Baudelaire, he soon discovered that this form
of life leads to a very real form of slavery and a peculiar kind
of blindness. He knew that he was in a dungeon but could find
no way of escape: " 0 les longues rues ameres autrefois et le
temps oit j' etais seul et un." 19 The discovery of Rim baud in
June 1886 came upon him as a sort of revelation and, under the
circumstances, might easily have made of him a disciple in the
direct line of the surrealists, a Laforgue or more probably a
Lautreamont. It was then that the most important event of
his life came to tear him violently away from this dangerous
path and set his face along the road that was to lead him to
the fame we know.
18

Oinq Grandes Odes, p. 108.

19

Oinq Grandes Odes, p. 79·.

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC

REVIVAL

185

Such was the unhappy child who, on December 25th, 1886, went
to Notre Dame to assist at the office of Christmas. At that time I
was beginning to write and it seemed to me that the Catholic
ceremonial, if considered from the vantage point of a superior
dilettantism, might offer me a stimulant appropriate to certain
decadent experiments. It was in such dispositions that, elbowed
and pushed around by the crowd, I assisted at High Mass with
mediocre pleasure. Then, having nothing else to do, I came back
to Vespers . . . and it was then that occurred the event that dominates my whole life. In an instant my heart was touched and I
believed. I believed with such force of adhesion, with such an
uplifting of my whole being, with so powerful a conviction, with
such certitude leaving no room for any kind of doubt, that since
then, all the books, all the arguments, all the chance happenings
of a busy life have been powerless to shake my faith or, in fact,
to even touch it. 20

But if the young man was so thoroughly convinced, he was to
find that the discovery of an ideal and its attainment are very
different things, that human habits and ways of life are sometimes stubborn things and will not suffer themselves to be dislodged overnight. "Discovery is nothing," says Valery, "the
difficult part is to add to ourselves what we have found." Four
years of bitter struggle were to pass before Claudel could bring
his new-found faith into his life in a practical manner. He has
given us a glimpse of those weary years especially in MaConversion and in Vers d'Exil. That he had to surrender he never
seems to have doubted for a moment. A very definite cleavage
had come into his life:
Ce lendemain n'est pas du jour qui fut hier. 21
It is the Hound of Heaven theme which he is now living and
which will occupy a prominent place in his dramatic work. The
voice that called him that Christmas afternoon in Notre Dame
gives him no respite:
Car un jour j'ai senti bouger dans l'epaisseur,
Sous l'homme et le plus bas ou le vivre se fonde,
La reclamation de l'entraille profonde.
Depuis lors je connais le desir sans douceur. 22
•• Ma Conversion, pp.

21

Vers d'Exil, I, p.

•• Vera d'Exil, II, p.

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L. S. BONDY

Until the day of the surrender came and the accumulated
influences that had drawn him away from his God were beaten
down one by one and completely banished from his life.
Tu m'as vaincu, mon bien-aimer Mon annemi,
Tu m'as pris dans les mains mes armes une a une.
Et maintenant je n'ai plus de defense aucune.
Et voici que je suisun devant vous, Ami!
Ni le jeune Desir, ni la Raison qui ruse,
Ni la chimere ainsi qu'un cheval ebloui,
Ne m'ont ete loyaua; et surs; tout m'a trahi!
Et ni mon lache creur ne m'a servi d'excuse.
J' ai fui en vain; partout j' ai retrouve la Loi.
Il faut ceder enfin! 0 porte, il faut admettre
L'hote; creur fremissant, il faut subir le maUre,
Quelqu'un qui soit en moi plus moi-meme que moi.
Ayez pitie de moi qui suis ici, cieux, spheres!
J'ai devance l'appel des Morts; je suis present.
Juste luge, Eternel, Dieu Saint, Dieu Tout-Puissant,
Me voici tout vivant entre vos mains severes. 23

If Claudel's conversion had not been so profound, it would
not have caused him so much anguish. There were not lacking
around him examples of people for whom their religion was a
private matter and whose lives were the sickly compromise that
so aroused the caustic ire of Leon Bloy. But with Claude! there
could be no such compromise. He had long dreamed of being
a poet. The ambition of his life now represented itself in an
entirely different light. If he were to be a poet, he would have
to be a Catholic poet; not just a Catholic and a poet. A discussion of the difficulties this involves would take us much too
far. In looking back over the field of French literature, or any
other literature for that matter, Claudel would find so few who
had realized this ideal to a degree that was completely satisfactory that he might well have serious misgivings. Like G. M.
Hopkins before and Mauriac later, he might well ask himself
if there was not some inner and inescapable contradiction
between the actual living of one's religious faith and striving
•• V ers d'E:cil, VII, pp. 287-288.

CLAUDEL AND THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL

187

after the material expression of the beautiful for its own sake.
If he asked himself these questions, Claudel happily found the
correct answer which is perhaps best expressed once more in
Mauriac's words. It is all a question of purifying the source.
The first requirement is to be a Catholic in the fullest sense of
the word; one who makes use of the means which the Catholic
Church places at his disposal to bring his life every day in closer
harmony not only with the precepts but also with the advice
of the Master. Then, if you are Maritain, you will be a Catholic
philosopher, if you are Gilson, you will be a Catholic historian;
if you are Mauriac or Bernanos, your novels will tend to be
Catholic novels. And if you are Paul Claudel you will not only
write beautiful poetry but you will invite your readers to a
realm where only the Catholic is at home, where only he can
really understand and fully appreciate.
St. MiehaeT:s College,

Toronto

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By MoRTIMER J. ADLER

I

I

CAME upon the work of Jacques Maritain during the
early years of my study of St. Thomas. I can express my
debt of gratitude to him as a teacher in no better way than
by saying that he taught me how to read St. Thomas formalissime.1 The manner and spirit of his discipleship to St. Thomas
shows that allegiance to an intellectual tradition need not blind
one to the limitations of the past, nor relieve one from facing
the exigencies of the present. Not merely by his insistence on
the necessity for stripping "the great truths of antiquity of
the errors which grow parasitically on them," 2 but by his own
re-thinking of traditional positions does he show us how to disengage philosophical truths from the adventitious imagery of
an historical culture, be it ancient or mediaeval, and how to
exorcise irrelevant errors of fact. 8
' " Rien de plus tragique que ces glissements de !'intelligence, quand elle passe
insensiblement d'un principe tres eleve formellement vrai a une application ou
materialization menteuse; on trouve beaucoup de ces glissements chez les Grecs,
c'est pourquoi les scolastiques disaient qu'il importe toujours d'entendre Aristote
fOT'I'Tl-Ulissime" (Questions de Conscience, Paris, 1988: p. 99).
9 Scholasticism and Politics, New York, 1940: p. 189.
8 " A sound philosophy
can dispense with the particular system of scientific
explanations of which it makes use in accordance with the state of science at a
particular epoch, and if that system were one day proved false, the truth of that
philosophy would not be affected. Only its language and the sensible illustrations
with which it clothes its truths would require modification. . . . From what has
been said we can understand why the purely scientific mistakes to be found in the
older statements of Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophy, statements which inevitably bear the stamp of the scientific beliefs of their period, do nothing to discredit the truth of that philosophy" (An Introduction to Philosophy, New York,
1980: pp. 120-!n). And he adds in a footnote on p. 122: "The 'crime' of the
decadent Scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was that they
believed, and made others believe, that the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas
was in this sense bound up with the mistakes of ancient science, of which it is in

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My study of the philosophy of St. Thomas began twenty
years ago with the reading of the question on God's existence
in the Summa Theologica. It was then that the vocation of
the philosopher first became clear to me-not irresponsible
poetizing, not system building, not the pretensions of a weltanschauung, but the plain hard work of demonstration. Unless
the philosopher solves problems by laying adequate analytical
foundations for demonstration and, in the light thereof, by
proving conclusions from self-evident premises, he does
nothing.
Though the major part of his own work was theological/
St. Thomas has been for me the exemplar of philosophical
method. Nevertheless, it seems to me that, in some instances,
more work remains to be done on proofs which St. Thomas advanced. A case in point is provided by his arguments for God's
existence. What once seemed clear has, in the light of fuller
study, become problematic.
I am aware that I am not the first to have encountered difficulties concerning the probative force of the five ways of demonstrating God's existence. Cajetan indicates some of the
difficulties by his contention that these arguments do not conclude directly to the existence of the God of revelation, hut
require interpretation in the light of analysis to be found in
questions of the Summa which follow the question on the existence of God. 5 Banez accepts this point of view, but only
reality wholly independent." Cf. Degrees of Knowledge, 1938: pp. 58-63, 74-5. Vd.
also Scholasticism and Politics, p. 207.
• Vd. Contra Gentiles, I, 2. Maritain observes that "in the Middle Ages philosophy was usually treated as an instrument in the service of theology. Culturally,
it was not in the state required by its nature. The coming of a philosophical or
profane wisdom which had completed its own formulation, for itself and according
to its finalities, responded therefore to an historical necessity. But unfortunately
this was accomplished under the emblem of separatism and a sectarian rationalism;
Descartes separated philosophy from all higher wisdom, from everything in man
which comes from above man. I am certain that what the world and civilization
have lacked for three centuries has been a philosophy which would have developed
its autonomous exigencies in a Christian climate, a wisdom of reason not closed but
open to the wisdom of grace " (from an essay contributed to Living Philosophies,
ed. by Clifton Fadiman, New York, 1939).
• Cajetan, in Summa Theol., I, q. 2, a. 3, n. II: " ... primae viae, ex parte

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with certain very definite qualifications. 6 At the same time he
criticizes Cajetan sharply for leaving the impression that St.
Thomas wishes these arguments to be understood in the unamended sense of Aristotle, especially the first two which
appear to be restricted to corporeal motions. 7 Yet Banez himself seems to raise a new difficulty when he remarks that the
factual sempiternity of contingent beings is compatible with
the third argument, as stated by St. Thomas. 8 Difficulties similar to these are reflected in the writings of more recent Thomists. 9 Because of their bearing on my own analysis, I wish to
motus, sat est quod inferatur, ergo datur primum mavens immobile, non curando
utrum illud sit anima caeli aut mundi: hoc enim quaeretur in sequenti quaestione.
Secundae quoque viae, ex parte efficientis, sat est quod ducat ad primum efficiens,
non curando an illud sit corpus vel incorporeum: hoc enim quaeretur in sequenti
quaestione. Tertiae vero viae, ex parte necessarii, sat est quod ducat ad primum
necessarium non ex alio, non curando an sit unum vel plura: hoc enim quaeretur
in questione xi . . . "
6 Baiiez, in I, q. !i!, a. 3, ad I. arg.: " ... licet omnes illae rationes simul sumptae
non probent immediate et explicite, Deum esse, et multo minus Deum esse illud ens
perfectissimum, quo perfectius quid excogitari nequit (hoc enim reservatur ad
probandum in sequentibus quaestionibus) nihilominus rationes illae efficacissime
probent quod in rerum natura reperiuntur perfectiones quaedam, et proprietates,
quae alteri quam Deo nequeunt eompetere; et ex consequenti virtualiter et implicite
probant Deum esse."
• Cajetan had said: "Et sic istae rationes habent plurimum disputationis: eo
quod prima
ut in I Contra Gent., cap. xiii, dicitur, non ducit ad motorem
magis immobilem quam sit anima intelleetiva; secunda autem, . . . non ducit nisi
ad corpus caeleste et ejus motorem; ... " (loc. cit.) . To which Baiiez answers:
" . . . si nomine motus solum intelligatur motus physicus, bene dicit Cajetanus quod
per illam rationem solum devenitur ad primum motorem, immobilem quidem per se,
per accidens tamen potest esse mobilis. Sed non debet sic sumi, sed ut comprehendat etiam motus spirituales et metaphysicos, qualis est quaevis operatio, et
etiam quaevis applicatio potentiae spiritualis ad suum actum; . . . " (loc. cit., ad
!i! arg.)
8 Banez, loc. cit., ad 4 contra tertiam rationem:
" ... ad demonstrationem D.
Tho. satis est, si res contingentes ex natura sua non possint semper esse, licet ab
extrinseco et par accidens id habeatur: nam ex se sunt indifferentes ad esse et non
esse: et ideo ut semper sint, oportet ponere causam necessariam, quae illas reducat
in actum."
• Vd. for example, Garrigou-Lagrange, God, His Existence and His Nature, St.
Louis, 1934: Vol. I. (I shall subsequently comment on the significance of the
appendix which is added at the end of this volume.) I should like to add here that
my problems concerning the argnments as stated in Summa Theologica, I, !i!, 3 and

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mention here specifically the views of Etienne Gilson and
Jacques Maritain.
Gilson has shown that there is no proof for God's existence
in Aristotle-neither in Book VITI of the Physics, nor in Book
XII of the Metaphysics. 1 The unmoved mover is not the Uncreated Creator, any more than the demiurge fashioning primordial matter, according to the "likely story" of Plato's
Timaeus, is the God in which Jews and Christians believe
through His revelation of Himself. In this connection it should
be noted that St. Thomas explicitly condemned " the error of
the ancient physicists . . . who say that God is not the cause
of the being of heaven, but only of its movement" (Contra
Gentiles, II, 15). St. Thomas also knew that the proposition
upon which Aristotle's proof depends (that motion is "eternal " in the sense of everlasting, or without beginning and end
in time) is neither self-evident nor demonstrable. 11 There is,
f)

in Contra
I, 13, do not arise from difficulties of the sort which Kant supposed to be insurmountable. Garrigou-Lagrange, it seems to me, has detected Kant's
error (vd. op. cit., p. fl99 :ff.), but in his own formulation of the a posteriori argument he does not explicate the reasoning in such a way that some knowledge of
what God is (including the note of necessity) is openly acknowledged to be prior
to the knowledge that God is, without undermining the a postmori character of the
proof. Cf. Maritain, Degrees of Knowledge, p. 276.
10 Vd. The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, New York, 1936: Ch. 1-111, and esp.
pp. 43-51; and also God and Philosophy, New Haven, 1941: Ch. I. Vd. ibid., Ch. II,
wherein M. Gilson reveals the difficulties which beset the usual rendering of the
Thomistic arguments.
11 In Contra Gentiles, I; 15, St. Thomas uses the word " eternal " both in the
Aristotelian sense of " without beginning or end in time " and in his own sense of
"absolutely timeless"; cf. Summa Theologica, I, 10, 3 and 4, which indicate the
incompatibility of these two meanings of the word. The so-called " eternity " of the
world or of motion is not merely contrary to religious faith (vd. Summa Theologica,
I, 46, 2); it is, according to St. Thomas, indemonstrable (vd. ibid., I, 46, 1); and he
cites an extraordinary passage from Aristotle's Topics (1, 2, 104b 10-17) which uses
the question, whether the universe is eternal or not, as an example of a scientifically
insoluble problem.
In view of all this, historical scholarship must try to explain why St. Thomas
chose to expand at greatest length in Contra Gentiles, I, 13, the first of the five
ways, which he derived from Aristotle's Physics, Bk. VIII. At the end of this unamended piece of Aristotelian reasoning, St. Thomas acknowledges that this argument " proceeds from the supposition of the eternity of the world, and among
Catholics this is a false supposition." Does the word " proceeds " here mea,n

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furthermore, ample evidence outside of Summa Theologica,
I, 2, 3, and Contra Gentiles, I, 13, to show that St. Thomas's
philosophy does not permit a strictly Aristotelian proof of God's
existence.
Maritain supports this insight when he points out in his
Degrees of Knowledge that
... whatever the way in which it is employed, the consideration
of intermediary causes is used in an entirely other fashion by St.
Thomas than it is by Aristotle. . . . The Pure Act to whom these
ways lead will be explicitly known as the creator, and the creation
of things admits of no intermediary (Sum. Theol. I, 45, 5). Thus,
from the beginning, if St. Thomas shared Aristotle's image of the
physical universe, his metaphysics is, on the other hand, from the
first line, free of that image.12
This is a crucial point in support of the thesis I shall try to
develop. If the proof of God's existence must be an argument
for the existence of a creative cause-or, more generally, a
cause of being-then it cannot proceed directly from the facts
of motion or of becoming, nor can it proceed through the dependence of secondary causes upon a first cause; for if God is
directly and without intermediaries the cause of the being of
things, then His existence should be demonstrable directly
from their being, which is His proper and unique effect. The
" follows as from a premise "? I shall try to show subsequently why ilie true
argument for God's existence must be compatible with the false supposition of the
world's eternity, but it obviously cannot follow from that supposition as a premise.
It is an historical, not a philosophical, question whether St. Thomas thought
better of Aristotle than Gilson does. The historian cannot ignore the fact that, in
his commentary on Physics, VIII (Lect.
#5), St. Thomas says: "Plato and
Aristotle arrived at knowledge of the source of all being (principium totius esse) ."
I trust the reader will be able to separate the philosophical from the merely
scholarly questions that are involved.
12 Op. cit., p.
fn. I, Maritain goes on to say that in "the conservation of
things, where created causalities have their part, our image of the physical universe fits better than that of Aristotle with St. Thomas's metaphysical doctrine
(Sum. Tkeol., I, 104, ." I shall presently try to show iliat if, according to the
text cited, there are secondary and instrumental efficient (not material) causes of
the preservation of the being of things, then no proof is possible for God's existence.
I hold that a proof is possible because I regard what is said in Sum.· Tkeol., I,
104, as inconsistent with St. Thomas's doctrine concerning causa essendi.

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problem about an infinite series of causes would seem to be
irrelevant because, in truth, there is no series at all, not even a
finite series having two members.
It may be said that the last two of the five Thomistic arguments do not appeal to the impossibility of an infinite series
and that, moreover, these are proofs which have little or no
lineage from Aristotle. This, of course, raises the question,
often debated by Thomists, whether there are five logically
distinct proofs. If there can be only one logically adequate
demonstration of any proposition that is established with certitude-which seems to be St. Thomas's opinion on the matter 18 -then we must ask whether the five arguments stated
by St. Thomas are five 1f)ays of stating the same argument, or
whether one of these is the valid proof and the others not, or
whether none of these as written is strictly a demonstration
but only an indication of where a demonstration might lie.
These are questions I shall not now answer in detail. The
analysis to follow does, I think, determine the answer which
must be given. 14
13 " In speculative
things," says St. Thomas, " the medium of demonstration,
which demonstrates the conclusion perfectly, is one only; whereas probable means
of proof are many " (Sum. Th., I, 47, 1 ad 3) . This logical rule applies to demonstrations quia as well as to demonstrations propter quid. It does not apply, of
course, to reasoning which establishes a conclusion as probable (rather than certain),
for the probability of a conclusion is increased by the number of independent lines of
proof corroborating one another. Furthermore, the fact that the same conclusion
may be capable of indirect proof (by reductio ad impossibile) as well as direct proof
does not violate this rule, for the indirect proof is imperfect: it is dialectical rather
than scientific, since it appeals to some proposition which the opponent himself
affirms, without certifying this proposition in itself. There may also be material
diversity which permits one and the same proof to be stated-for rhetorical purposes
-in several different ways, but such differences are in language and imagery
·and in the rhetorical order; they are not differences in the terms whose concatenation establishes the connection between the subject and predicate of the conclusion.
"Let me say here at once that the first and second of the five ways are obviously
reducible to one another; and that the third way is independent of the first two
071ly if it be interpreted, contrary to much of its language, to mean that the
existence of possible (i. e., contingent) beings implies the existence of a necessary
(i. e., purely actual) being. The actual steps of this argument, following Aristotle's
reasoning in Metaphysics, XII, 6, do not establish the causal nexus whereby we
must infer the existence of a necessary being as the efficient cause of contingent

13

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Before I begin that analysis, I wish to declare as explicitly
as possible my firm belie£ in God's existence and my equally
firm conviction that God's existence can be proved by reason
without recourse to faith. Though I am not a Catholic, I
would say that I hold these things by faith. It is not contradictory to say that I affirm by faith that God's existence can
be known to reason without recourse to faith; nor does it in
any way indicate a lack of such faith for an individual to admit that he does not yet know by reason what his faith affirms
can be so known. 15 St. Thomas's explanation of why the proposition "God exists" is both a rational conclusion and an
beings; furthermore, because it uses the word " necessary " to name the merely
incorruptible as well as the purely actual, the argument is forced to fall back upon
the impossibility of an infinite series of necessary beings, each one caused by
another. As it stands, this third way adds little to the first two. The fifth way
does not seem to me to be a demonstration of God's existence, but rather of God's
providence, as will be seen by a consideration of its terms in the light of Q.
on
the providence of God. The teleological fact that everything has an immanent
final cause of motion does not imply the existence of a transcendent final cause.
That wherever there is a nature, be it unintelligent or intelligent, there natural
appetite tends toward an end, does not by itself prove the existence of an efficient
cause of being or of natures. Unless it can be independently shown that the observed natures must be created, whatever characteristics follow from these natures
will not demand the existence of a creator.
Of the five ways, the fourth seems to me the nearest approach to a valid argument for God's existence. This argument will be found better stated in De Pot., 3,
5 than in Sum. Th.; I, 2, 3. It is this argument which Maritain rephrases, with
different imagery, in Degrees of Knowledge, pp. 274-6. But neither Maritain's
statement nor the statement in De Pot., 3, 5 faces the difficulties inherent in the
unstated major premise on which the proof rests,
The analysis to follow will show why, in terms of Thomistic principles, the
first two ways cannot be used to prove God's existence.. Since the proof must be
in terms of efficient, not final, causality, and from the causation of being, not of
becoming, the outlines of a proof can be drawn from some elements in the third
way combined with the basic insight expressed in the fourth way. The proof thus
outlined must then be tested by examining the truth of the major and minor
premises.
15 The Vatican Council declared that God " can
known with certitude by the
natural light of human reason, by means of created things," to which declaration of
faith, they added the canon: " If any one shall say that the one true God, our
Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human
reason through created things; let him be anathema." Vd. H. Denzinger and J.
Umberg, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Nos. 1785 and 1806.

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article of faith applies perfectly to the fact that the proposition
"God's existence can be demonstrated" is both a matter of
faith and open to reason's ascertainment/ 6
The faith that God's existence can be proved is needed by
those who do not yet know the demonstration and who, because believing in God's existence and benevolence toward
man, might wonder whether God created man with a natural
endowment for knowledge of divine things. It is also needed
by those who, thinking they have demonstrated a truth, nevertheless remember the fallibility and pitfalls of any merely human reasoning, and so have recourse to the certitude of faith
that what they have tried to prove can be proved, even if their
most elaborate and diligent efforts have, from some human
weakness, failed of perfection. But, above all, it seems to me,
faith that a proof of God's existence is attainable is needed to
sustain all those who desire to know whatever can be known
of God by natural reason in this life; it is needed to sustain
them in this most arduous of all intellectual efforts, to help
them to persist in pursuit of a proof, despite all the obstacles,
16 Vd. Contra Gentiles, I, 4: We must show, says St. Thomas, that certain truths
are fittingly proposed by God as an object of belief. "We must first show this
with regard to that truth which is attainable by the inquiry of reason, lest it appear
to some, that since it can be attained by reason, it was useless to make it an object
of faith by supernatural knowledge. Now three disadvantages would result if this
truth were left solely to the inquiry of reason. One is that few men would have
knowledge of God, because very many are hindered from gathering the fruit of
diligent inquiry, which is the discovery of truth." Here St. Thomas enumerates
three obstacles to the discovery of truth which operate ut in pluribus. " The second
disadvantage is that those who would arrive at the discovery of the aforesaid
truth would not succeed in doing so for a long time. . . . The third disadvantage
is that much falsehood is mingled with the investigations of human reason, on
account of the weakness of our intellect in forming its judgments, and by reason of
the admixture of phantasms. Consequently many would remain in doubt about
even those things which are truly demonstrated, through ignoring the force of the
demonstration, especially when they perceive that different things are taught by the
various men who are called wise. Moreover among the many demonstrated
truths, there is sometimes a mixture of falsehood that is not demonstrated, but
assumed for some probable or sophistical reason which at times is mistaken for a
demonstration. Therefore it was necessary that definite certainty and pure truth
about divine things should be offered to man by the way of faith/'

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despite all
controversies of men and the failures of the past,
despite all the apparent insolubilia. 11
In view of this, I hope that I will not be accused of undue
temerity because I here set forth the difficulties which it seems
to me must be overcome in any
philosophical proof of
God's existence. I shall first try to show the critical impact of
St. Thomas's own theory of causality upon the usual rendering of the arguments about God's existence. Such criticism, it
will be seen, everywhere appeals to Thomistic principles, and
never to anything extrinsic or foreign. Then I shall try to proceed constructively toward the statement of a proof which
satisfies all the critical conditions imposed upon the undertaking by
Thomas's own theory of causality. Since the best
statement I can make is not free from difficulties, I shall condude
a summary of what has been seen, and an intimaremains to be done.

II
For brevity's sake, let me present in outline form the several
critical points which impose antecedent limitations upon any
attempt to prove God's existence.
17 In considering
St. Thomas's actual statement of the arguments for God's
existence, we must remember two things: first, that in the cultural circumstances
of his time, he was the great polemicist for the genuine worth of purely philosophical
wisdom; second, that he himself, nevertheless, wrote as a theologian, not as a
philosopher. Vd. fn. 4 supra. The first fact may help to explain why he defended
Aristotle as the symbol of Philosophy, why he took arguments from Aristotle
which later criticism has questioned. The second fact is even more important, because it calls our attention to an insoluble rhetorical problem. The proof of God's
existence is a work of natural theology, and in the proper order of natural learning,
it can come only at the very end of metaphysics-it can be understood only after
much prior analysis has prepared the way. But in an orderly exposition of dogmatic
theology, according to the order of the articles of faith, the question about God's
existence must come at the very beginning, where an adequate statement of the
proof cannot possibly be made. If, by accident, anyone were to read Part I of the
Summa Theologica but skipping Question 2, and then were to return to Question 2
after having mastered the basic metaphysical points concerning being and becoming,
causality, etc., such a person would see at once why the proof of God's existence
could not be written-i.e., adequately expounded-in Q. 2, A. 3.

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1. For any given effect, there are the following causal possibilities.
a. Either one efficient cause only or many are productive of the
effect. (In connection with a posteriori reasoning, only efficient causes need be considered.)
b. If many, then
(I) Either the number is finite or infinite;
(2) Either the many causes are ordered to one another by
succession in time or they are simultaneously cooperative and, as conjoined in action, they must be coexistent.
c. We know at once that an infinite number of cooperative
causes is impossible, because an actual infinite, that is, an
infinite multitude of co-existent things, is impossible.
d. But we also must concede that an infinite number of successive causes is possible, for the possibility of such a series
is the possibility of an infinite time, time without beginning
or end, and this is a potential and not an actual infinite.
(Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 7, aa. 3, 4.)
e. I shall henceforth use the word " series " only for a plurality of causes ordered successively to one another; and I
shall use the word " set " for a plurality of cooperative
causes.
2. The possibility of an infinite series of efficient causes, each a
mover and a thing moved, or each a generator and a generated
thing, must be conceded because the proposition that the world
is " eternal" (i.e., of infinite duration) is neither self-evidently
nor demonstrably false. (Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 46, aa. 1, 2; II
Con. Gen., 31-38; esp. Ch. 38, wherein St. Thomas says: "It is
impossible to have an infinite number of active causes which
act together simultaneously, or an infinite number of simultaneous actions. Such are causes that are per se infinite, because
their infinity is required for their effect. On the other hand, in
causes which do not act simultaneously, this is not impossible,
according to those who assert that generation has always
been.")
a. Hence no argument for the existence of God is valid which
appeals to the impossibility of an infinite series of efficient
causes (or of movers and things moved) ; even as no argument is valid which rests upon the premise that the world
or motion is "eternal"; for the one falsely denies what is
possible, and the other affirms to be true what is neither
self-evident nor demonstrable.

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b. When it is said that " in efficient causes it is impossible to
proceed to infinity per se because there cannot be an infinite
number of causes that are per se required for a certain
effect" (Sum. Th., I, q. 46, a. 2, ad 7), it is suggested that a
plurality of essential causes cannot be infinite because such
causes must be simultaneous in action and co-existent in
being. (Vd. the passage from II Con. Gen., 38,cited above.)
This requires further examination.
3. The distinction between a plurality of causes per se and an accidental plurality of causes must be understood as a distinction
between a plurality of causes which differ from one another in
essence and a plurality of causes which differ only numerically
or accidentally.
a. In the potentially infinite series of fathers and sons, one
generator differs from another accidentally or numerically,
not essentially.
b. In the plurality of causes productive of an artistic effect, the
physical thing (e. g., the stick which moves the stone), the
living bodily member (e. g., the hand), and the psychic
powers (e. g., reason and will) differ from one another
essentially.
c. But the distinction between an essential and an accidental
plurality of causes is not identical with the distinction between a set of (cooperative) causes and a series of (successive) causes;
(1) For in a set of cooperative causes, some of the members may differ only accidentally, as, for example, two
sticks simultaneously used to move a stone;
(2) And in a series of successive causes, some of the members may differ essentially, as, for example, the man
who at an earlier time trained the dog to carry a
burden, that operation being performed at a later time.
d. Hence it cannot be said that an infinity of causes is possible because they differ accidentally, for that possibility depends not on their being accidentally different, but upon
their being serially ordered in succession; nor can it be said
that an infinity of essential causes is impossible, unless
these causes are ordered to one another as members of a
cooperative set. A particular series of causes may have a
finite number of essentially different members, but this does
not exclude the possibility of an infinite number. An infinite
regression is always possible in a series of causes-whether
these causes be essentially or accidentally different.

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e. It follows, therefore, that the impossibility of a plurality of
causes " that are per se infinite " must be understood as the
impossibility of an infinite set of causes-impossible because
as cooperative " their infinity is required for their effect."
4. We have seen that essentially differentiated causes may be ordered in two ways: either successively or simultaneously. This
fact determines a distinction between causes applicable only
to a number of ca.uses which are essentially different. That distinction is between higher and lower causes, each of which is a
principal cause of its own proximate effect, and higher and
lower causes, one of which is the principal and another the instrumental cause of their common proximate effect.
a. Wherever there is essential diversity, there is hierarchical
gradation. The words " higher " and " lower " are to be
understood in terms of such gradation.
b. In a series of essentially diverse causes (be it finite or infinite), a higher can be distinguished from a lower cause as a
primary principal cause from a secondary principal cause.
(Vd. Maritain, Science and Wisdom, New York: 1940,
pp. 193 ff.) Only if such a series is known to be finite, and
not from the supposition that all such series must be finite,
can it be said that there is a first principal cause. Here the
word " first " has its proper ordinal significance, meaning
that before which in the series there is no prior member.
c. In a set of essentially diverseicauses (always necessarily
finite), a higher cause can be distinguished from a lower
cause as a principal from an instrumental cause. Unlike
primary and secondary principal causes, each of which has
its own proximate effect, a principal and an instrumental
cause cooperate to produce one and the same proximate
effect.
d. In a set of essentially diverse causes, there may be more
than one principal cause, for any cause except the highest
or the lowest in the set may' be both instrumental in relation to a higher cause and principal in relation to a lower
cause. But the highest principal cause cannot be called a
"first cause" in. the same ordinal sense in which "first" is
said of the prime member of a series. Nevertheless, it remains true that just as we know there is a first principal
cause if the series of essentially diverse causes be finite, so
we know that there must be a highest principal cause in any
set of causes related as principal and instrumental, because
any set of causes must be finite.

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5. Our analysis so far has eliminated two possibilities of demonstrating the existence of God as a cause required for effects
known to exist; and we must, therefore, inquire whether a third
possibility that has been indicated remains tenable.
a. The first possibility was that in any series of causes, without
regard for the distinction between accidental and essential
diversity among the members, there must be a first or uncaused efficient cause. This was eliminated in 2. above.
b. The second possibility was that in a series of essentially diverse causes, there must be a first or uncaused efficient
cause. This was eliminated in 3. above.
c. The remaining possibility, indicated in 4. above, is that in a
set of essentially diverse causes, there must always exist a
highest principal cause, and this is God, whose existence
was to be proved. But, as I shall now attempt to show, this
possibility is not tenable either.
d. Before that can be shown, one further point must be noted,
namely, that all the distinctions among efficient causes
which we have been considering are relevant only to efficient causes of becoming (whether the becoming is sim.pliciter as in substantial change or secundum quid as in the
several accidental motions). In the efficient causation of
being (i. e., of existence itself) , there can be no plurality of
causes: there is neither a series of such causes nor a set of
such causes, and so there is no secondary principal cause of
being and no instrumental cause of being. Hence to argue
that God cannot be proved as a first cause or as a principal
cause is only to argue that God cannot be proved as causa
fiendi; it does not mean that God cannot be proved as

causa essendi. 18
6. That God cannot be proved as the highest principal cause of
any known effect in the order of becoming does not involve the
denial of God's efficient causality in the production of every
effect which occurs in the course of worldly motions and genera'"Neither can Aristotle's "prime mover" be proved to exist from the known
facts of motion, for the " prime mover " is a causa fiendi, and no transcendent causa
fiendi can be inferred. from the cognate facts of motion, or proved to exist by a
posteriori reasoning. Vd. #6 and 7 infra. Hence it is impossible to demonstrate
God's existence in two separate steps, the first of which proves the existence of a
prime mover as first cause in fieri; and the second of which proves that the prime
mover is really God as the omy cause in esse. This has an obvious bearing on the
efforts by Cajetan and Bafiez to interpret the first two of the five Thomistic arguments. Cf. fn. 5 and 7 supra.

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tions. After we know that God exists, and something of His
essence and power, we can learn of His operation in the occurrence of every event which happens in this world. But from
the occurrence of such events, from worldly motions and generations, we cannot infer God's existence as an indispensable
efficient cause, cooperating as causa fiendi with other causes of
becoming, and related to them as principal to instrumental
cause in the set of causes productive of each particular effect.
The reasons for this are as follows:
a. From the point of view of our knowledge, there are two
situations in which an effect is produced by the cooperation
of principal and instrumental causes.
(I) One is the situation in which all the causes are known
to us as cognate objects of knowledge, as, for example,
in the aetiology of an artistic product. In such cases,
our study of the causal nexus may instruct us as to the
order of the causes, which is principal and which instrumental, but since the causes are known or knowable to
us apart from the effect, we need not infer the existence
of any of these causes from the effect.
(2) The other is the situation in which not all the causes
are known to us as cognate objects. In this case, whatever cause is a transcendent object cannot be known to
exist apart from its effect-its existence being knowable only by inference from effects. Clearly God is such
a transcendent object, whose existence must be proved
by a posteriori inference from His effects.
b. Now when an effect is not the proper (i.e., unique, exclusive) effect of a single cause, but the effect of cooperative
action on the part of several causes related as principal and
instrumental, it is impossible to infer from the effect the
existence of any cause which is not knowable apart from
the effect.
(1) According to St. Thomas, natural agents are genuinely
efficacious as efficient causes of becoming. (Vd. III
Con. Gen., 69.) If this were not so, "all knowledge of
physical science would be denied to us " (Zoe. cit.) .
(2) But St. Thomas also holds that the same effect (in the
order of becoming) is both from God and from the
natural agent-" not as though part were effected by
God and part by the natural agent; but the whole effect
proceeds from each, yet in different ways, just as the
whole of one same effect is ascribed to the instrument,

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and again the whole is ascribed to the principal agent "
(ibid., 70).
(3) Hence since the whole effect can be ascribed to the
natural agent, as is done in the science of physical
things, we are not compelled to infer the existence of
God in order to give an adequate causal explanation of
the effect. But we can only know the existence of a
transcendent object if a known effect cannot be causally
explained without positing ·this object as its cause.
Hence we cannot infer the existence of God from any
effect (in the order of becoming) with respect to which
God is only the principal cause, but not the unique or
exclusive cause, as He is in the case of being which is
His proper effect. We cannot know that the natural
agent is related to God as instrumental to principal
cause in the production of a natural effect (i.e., a generation or a motion) until we know that God exists.
(4) With one exception, nothing that has here been said is
inconsistent with St. Thomas's whole theory of principal and instrumental causality. Vd. Sum. Th. I, q. 105,
a. 5; III, q.
a. 1; I, q. 45, a. 5; II Con. Gen.,
III,
69, 70; De Pot., 3, 7. The one exception is my insistence
that there is no instrumental cause of being, which St.
Thomas appears to contradict when he says that God
does not preserve the being of every creature immediately, but rather through the operation of subordinate causes. Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 104, a.
I shall
return to this point presently.
c. If it be objected that natural things do not operate except
in terms of their natures, which they themselves do not
cause, and hence the fact of their causal operation implies
the existence of that which causes their natures, two points
must be made in reply.
(1) God as the cause of the natures of natural agents is not
the principal cause of the effects of their action, for to
cause the nature of a thing, to give it its form, or its
form and matter, is to cause its being, not its becoming.
(On this, St. Thomas speaks plainly in Sum. Th., I,
q. 104, a. 1.) Hence though the facts of becoming may
lead us to ask whence comes the being of the things
which are both causes and effects in the order of becoming, this does not lead us to infer God's existence
as a principal causa fiendi.

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(2) That things exist (have being) as well as become (are
subject to change) may require us to look for the cause
of their essences and existences, as well as for the cause
of each becoming that occurs, but it remains to be seen
whether the existence and causality of God affords
the only explanation for the existence and natures of
things. That is precisely the problem of proving God's
existence, which remains to be solved.
7. The preceding analysis compels us to admit that God cannot
be proved as causa fiendi of known effects. We are thus
brought to the conclusion that the only way in which God
can be proved is as causa essendi--as the cause of the being of
things, not of their changes. Moreover, this way does not, like
the other ways, turn out upon examination to be unavailable,
due to the character of the causal nexus involved. This is confirmed by St. Thomas's insight into the character of being as
an effect.
a. We are told that being is the proper effect of God. Vd. Sum.
Th., I, q. 8, a. 1; q. 19, a. 5, ad 3; q. 45, a. 5; q. 65, a. 3; q.
104, a. 1; II Con. Gen., 6, 15, 17-21.
b. Primarily, we understand from this that to cause being is
to create, and that creation is neither movement nor change,
and that in creation there is no succession. (I shall subsequently consider the causa essendi as preserving being.)
c. Furthermore, in creation there are no intermediary causes,
no secondary principal and no instrumental causes. Hence,
to say that being is the proper effect of God means that
God is the unique and exclusive cause of being, as He is the
sole creative cause.
d. H these things be so, then it should be possible to prove
God's existence as the cause of the being of whatever needs
to have its being caused, for here we are dealing with an
effect which can have only one cause. Hence we should not
be involved in all the problems about finite and infinite
series, primary and secondary, principal and instrumental
causes, which arise wherever a plurality of causes is possible.
e. But all these points about the causation of being are made
by St. Thomas after he has offered arguments for God's existence, four of which do not seem to prove God as the
direct cause of His proper effect. If, because of this, these
arguments do not demonstrate God's existence, it may be
possible, nevertheless, to formulate the one remaining argument in such a way that it is valid inference from being as

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an effect to its cause. It is certainly not sufficient to try to
read into the arguments as written the force of the basic
insight that God is the sole cause of being, His proper effect,
for the notion of a proper effect, an effect due to a unique
cause, does not occur in the reasoning, and is violated by
every reference to God as a " first " cause, implying a
plurality of causes. (God can be called a "first cause" only
in the sense that being, as prior to becoming, is a first effect.
Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 19, a. 5, ad 3: "Since God wills effects to
come from causes, all effects that presuppose some other
effect do not depend solely on the will of God, but on something else besides, but the first effect depends on the divine
will alone.") Garrigou-Lagrange recognizes the crucial significance of the notion of being as God's proper effect, but
tries vainly to render the traditional arguments in the light
of this notion; whereas it is obvious that, in doing so, he
departs from the arguments as written and approaches the
formulation of a single proof which is none of the five ways.
(Vd. op. cit., Appendix, pp. 379-90.) I leave to the reader
to judge how nearly his approach and mine converge.
8. In attempting to prove God as the unique cause of the being of
things, it is necessary to remember that such causality is compatible with two possibilities, neither of which can be proved or
disproved: the possibility of an "eternal" world, and the possibility of a world which began to be.
a. If it were supposed that the only sense in which God is the
cause of being is equivalent to the usual meaning of " creation "-namely, causing the world to begin to be (vd. Sum.
Th., I, q. 66, aa. 1, 4, on the creation of time)-then the irrefutable possibili,ty that things never began to be would
entail the consequence that an everlasting world does not
have a cause of being. On the contrary, if things are contingent in being, it would seem that they must have a cause
of being, whether or not the whole order of contingent things
has or has not always existed. 19
19 The word " creation " is ambiguously used, when it is sometimes used to mean
both the causation of being and the definite origin of what is thus caused; and
sometimes to mean only the causation of being without specifying whether what is
thus caused to be ever began to be or always existed. When " creation " is used
with both notes, it is contradictory to speak of a "created eternal world," for if
the created is what has a definite beginning, it cannot also be everlasting or without beginning. When "creation" is used with only one note (omitting the notion

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b. Now if we assume the truth of the second possibility, which
is assuming that the world was created, there is no way of
proving God's existence, for we have assumed it, and the
same proposition cannot be both assumed and proved. The
fact of creation is inseparable from the fact of a Creator;
hence to assume the one is to assume the other.
c. Furthermore, the fact of creation (i.e., the fact of an absolute beginning of the world) cannot be proved, but must
either be assumed by reason or known to faith. Hence the
existence of a Creator (in the sense indicated) must either
be assumed by reason or known to faith. It cannot be
proved.
d. Therefore, it is necessary to proceed in terms of the other
possibility (i. e., a world without beginning), and show that
such a world, at every instant and in every particular, needs
a cause of its being, which is itself uncaused in being. This
procedure has two merits.
(1) St. Thomas says that " the most effective way to prove

or a beginning),

then the phrase " created eternal world " is not contradictory,
because an everlasting world, without beginning or end, may nevertheless be contingent in its being at every moment and so at every moment require the action
of an efficient cause of being.
For analytical clarity, it is absolutely necessary to use the word " creation " in
one sense, and one sense only. Despite the fact that scholastic theology has
always used the word ambiguously, playing back and forth from one meaning to
the other as the occasion demands, I am compelled to resolve the ambiguity in
order to avoid analytical confusion, and I shall do so by using the word with these
two notes in its signification: (a) to create is to cause being; (b) to create is to
cause to begin to be--understanding such "beginning," of course, as neither a
change nor a motion of any kind. There seem to me several good reasons for
making this choice. In the first place, the note of origin or beginning enters into
the usual theological sense of the word " creation " when, in the light of faith, God
is called " creator," for by faith it is known that God not only is the cause of the
world's being, but is also the cause of its beginning to be. In the second place, to
use the word "creation" with only the first note- (a) above--in its signification,
is to say that God is creating the world at every instant, and this does some violence to discourse. And in the third place, to use the word " creation " with only
the (a) note is to make the word synonymous with " cause of being," in which
case, it would be impossible to distinguish between God's creative and God's preservative action, for in both God acts as an efficient cause of being. Hence, in order
to use the word " preservation " with a meaning clearly distinct from " creation,"
I shall use both words to signify "cause of being" (this is their common note),
but I shall use "creation" with the additional and distinctive note-(b) abovenamely, to signify " cause of beginning to be." Iu terms of such verbal usage,
there should be no difficulty about understanding what is meant by saying that

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God's existence is from the supposition of the eternity
of the world, which being supposed, it seems less manifest that God exists" (I Con. Gen., 13). I would go
further and say that no other way is possible. And I
must also point out that the supposition of the eternity
of the world is not a premise in the demonstration itself,
as it is in the Aristotelian argument on which St.
Thomas is here commenting.
(2) Supposing the eternity of the world, the demonstration
abstracts from all temporal series, and proceeds to infer
God's existence as causa essendi directly from the present existence of a single contingent thing.
9. Finally, we must observe two ways in which an efficient cause
of being can act: CREATIVELY, by placing something extra nihil
and extra causas; PRESERVATIVELY, by sustaining in being whatever does not exist by its own essence. In either case, the effect
produced by the cause of being is the actual existence of a possible being, or of a series of such beings if they are the generable
and corruptible members of a species. (Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 65,
a. 9, ad 1 on annihilation vs. corruption.) This is important, because on the supposition of the world's eternity, we cannot
prove God as a creative, but only as a preservative, cause of
being. Therefore, we must overcome the difficulty raised by St.
Thomas's statement that in the preservation of beings God
operates through intermediate causes (vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 104,
a. 2).
a. H this were so, then the being of things would not be the
proper effect of God's action; and as we have seen the exGod can be the cause of being of either an everlasting world or a world with
beginning, but he cannot be the " creative " cause of an everlasting world, though he
can be its " preservative " cause, if it is the sort of world which requires a cause
of its being.
The analytical points that are involved remain exactly the same, however one
uses words. There are four: (1) that an everlasting world, may be either one which
is caused in being or one which is uncaused in being; (2) that a world which is
caused in being may be either an everlasting world or one with a definite beginning;
(3) that a world which is uncaused in being cannot have a beginning, but must be
everlasting; and (4) that a world which has a beginning cannot be uncaused in
being. We can never know by reason whether the world did or did not have a
beginning; but we can know by reason that the world requires a cause for its being
whether it is everlasting or had a beginning. We must, therefore, prove God's
existence without assuming that the world had a beginning, and in a way that is
compatible with the contrary· assumption.

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istence of a transcendent cause can be proved only from its
proper effect, the effect which it alone directly causes.
b. But there are many passages in which St. Thomas seems to
take a contrary position. In Sum. Th., I, q. 8, he says that
God is in all things by His power, causing the being of
things " not only when they first begin to be, but as long
as they are preserved in being." And "it belongs to the
great power of God that He acts immediately in all things"
(ibid., ad 3). In Sum. Th., I, q. 45, a. 5, he says that God
alone can create and therefore acts creatively without intermediary causes of any sort; following which, in Sum. Th.,
I, q. I04, a. I, ad 4, he writes: "The preservation of things
by God is a continuation of that action whereby He gives
existence, which action is without either motion or time."
Hence it would seem that just as God gives existence by
direct causal action (creatively) 'so, acting preservatively,
He sustains existence in the same way. But this is contradicted by the statement that " a thing is kept in being by
that which gives it being. But God gives being by means of
certain intermediate causes. Therefore, He also keeps things
in being by means of certain causes" (Sum. Th., I, q., I04,
a. 2, per contra) .
c. The contradiction could be easily resolved, were it merely
apparent and due to verbal ambiguity. In q. I04, a. I, St.
Thomas indicates two distinct meanings of the word " preserves "-one, to sustain in existence as such, the other, to
counteract causes tending toward a thing's corruption. In
the first meaning, to preserve a thing is to operate as causa
essendi, in the second, to preserve is to operate as causa
fiendi. But in q. I04, a. 2, St. Thomas, referring back to
both of these meanings, says: "In both ways, a created
thing keeps another in being." Since the contradiction is
not apparent, but real, we must resolve it by making a
choice between conflicting texts. In view of the fact that
the only relevant illustration given in q. 104, a. 2 is of the
action whereby corruptibles are preserved from corruption,
and in view of the greater weight of all the contrary texts,
I choose to take the position that only God preserves in
being, as only God creates, and that whatever action hinders
corruption, like any action affecting generation, operates
only as a causa fiendi. This is not to deny that, with respect
to corruption as with respect to generation, the Divine
power may cooperate with natural agents, or may appoint

MORTIMER

J. ADLER

secondary principal agents, to work an effect; but since the
effect is a change (whether produced or prevented) God
does not thus act as causa essendi. In what follows, I shall
always use the word " preserve " to signify the action of a
causa essendi, and never to signify the action of a causa
fiendi.
d. The position I have taken is confirmed by the distinction St.
Thomas makes between the work of creation and- the work
of propagation. (Vd. Sum. Th., I, q. 69, a. 2; q. 73, aa. 1, 2;
q. 74, a. 2.) With respect to things generable and corruptible, God creates the species, not the individual; only selfsubsistent things are created as individuals. Hence, since
the preservation of things in being is a continuation of God's
creative action, as the generation of new individuals is not,
God preserves in being only what He creates: self-subsistent
individuals, and . the series of generable and corruptible
things which constitutes the endurance of a species.
e. We can conclude, therefore, that a causa essendi, whether
it acts creatively or preservatively, acts directly in the production of its effect. Furthermore, whatever holds for the
creative action of a causa essendi holds for its preservative
action: thus, if it is true that no natural agent can create, it
must be similarly true that no natural agent can preserve
the being of either a self-subsistent individual or a species.
The fact that St. Thomas uses the prejacent matter of a
work of art as an example of causa essendi, in contradistinction to the artist's activity as causa fiendi (vd. Sum. Th.,
I, q. 104, a.1) does not violate this point, because the wood
is the material cause of the chair's being, as any substance
is the material cause of its accidents' being, and we are here
considering God as efficient causa essendi. Furthermore,
accidents need only a material cause for their existence,
though an efficient cause for their becoming, whereas substances need an efficient cause both for their being and their
becoming.
10. All this being so, it should be possible to prove the existence
of God, even on the supposition that nothing is created. That
possibility lies in the conception of being as the proper effect of
a unique cause, an effect incapable of being produced (whether
creatively or preservatively) by either a series or a set of
causes. If this conception is sound, then there will be no difficulty in showing that this unique cause is God, by whom everything needs to be preserved, since " not for a moment could it

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subsist, but would fall into nothingness, were it not kept in
being by ,the operation of the Divine power" (Sum. Th., I,
q. 104, a. I). But in that "if'' lies the problem of proving
God's existence. Is this conception sound? Is it true, in short,
that one contingent being cannot be the efficient· cause of
another's being?

ill
Nothing so far said provides the proof of God's existence.
Many propositions have been made about the Divine causality in fieri, but none of these can be affirmed as true by reason
until the existence and character of God as a cause is proved a
posteriori from our knowledge of the world. So far I have
merely set forth the conditions which 'causal theory imposes
upon a posteriori inference from cognate effects to a transcendent cause. Thus we have determined the several ways in which
God cannot be proved, and we have come at last to the one
possibility of a demonstration which satisfies all the prerequisite conditions.
That one possibility can be formulated in the following syllogism (hypothetical, as every a posteriori syllogism must be) .
IF anything exists whose continuation in existence requires the operation of an efficient cause at this very moment,
THEN a being exists whose existence is uncaused.

MAJOR:

DEFINITIONS:

(1) By "contingent being" I understand that which requires
the operation of an efficient cause for perseverance in
being at any moment, and this may be either a self-subsistent entity or the series of generable and corruptible
things constituting a species. Another name for contingent being is " ens ab alio," and ens ab alio is equivalent
in meaning to " caused being " which, in turn, is equivalent in meaning to " that whose essence is not its
existence."
(2) By "'necessary being" I understand, not an incorruptible
being, but an uncaused being. Another name for necessary being is, therefore, " ens a se " and this is equivalent
in meaning to " that whose essence is its existence."
(3) By " corporeal substance " I understand not merely ens
per se, but a corruptible individual, and therefore' an

14

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J. ADLER

entity which, participating in the contingent being of the
species to which it belongs, is ens ab alio.
(4) By" God" I understand a necessary being or ens a se.
MINoR: Corporeal substances do exist.
CoNCLUSION: THEREFORE, God does exist.

With regard to this, as with any other proffered demonstration, the conclusion remains problematic until the premises can
be affirmed. The problematic character of the conclusion can,
therefore, be understood in terms of whatever problems or difficulties attach to the premises. Let me outline the problems
which must be solved before the conclusion " God exists " can
be regarded as demonstrated.
1. With respect to the minor premise.

a. That a plurality of corporeal substances does exist is not selfevident to reason, nor is it evident to sensitive intellection.
That a numerical diversity exists is evident, but this evident truth will not function as the minor premise; for supposing all these to be accidents, the existence of one substance will suffice to explain their being. From ens per
aliud, one can only infer ens per se, not ens a se.
b. Furthermore, while it is true that ens per aliud implies ens
per se, so that if anything at all exists (which is a fact directly evident to our sensitive intellection), substance must
exist, it does not follow that there exists a plurality of individual substances, which as the generable and corruptible
members of a species show themselves to have contingent
being. From the existence of ·accidents, all that can be
proved is the existence of one f'lbstance and only one, which
will then be both per se and a se. This is the fallacious
reasoning of Spinoza; it results in the denial of a transcendent God, but it cannot be avoided if the ultimate fact appealed to is simply the evident existence of something.
c. The evident fact of motion or accidental change is the starting point from which, in my opinion, it can be proved that a
plurality of corporeal substances exists. The proof is too difficult to state here, but I think it can be validly made against
objections of the sort raised by followers of Spinoza, Hegel,
or Whitehead. Unless it can, God's existence cannot be
proved, because if we cannot prove the existence of cor-

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ruptible substances, we certainly cannot prove the existence
of incorruptible substances, and without knowledge that
there is ens per se et ab alio we cannot infer ens a se. Thus
we see how the fact of motion is relevant, not as the minor
premise in the proof of God's existence, but as the minor
premise in the proof of corruptible substances, which conclusion is the minor premise in the proof of God.
2. With respect to the definition of God.

a. The word " definition " is, of course, being used loosely, for
God is indefinable secundum se as well as quoad nos. But
in order to prove the existence of something, we must have
at least a nominal definition of that
must be able
to express with some definiteness the conceptual medium
through which the name signifies. Furthermore, we cannot
learn what meaning to attach to the name" God" from an
a posteriori demonstration of His existence. Unless prior to
the demonstration itself the name "God" signifies for us
a necessary being, ·one whose essence is its existence, we
cannot say, after we have proved that a being exists a se,
that this being is God. The name " God " may mean more
than this: it may mean for us an infinite, perfect, immutable, eternal being. If it be asked how we are able to " conceive " God by an enumeration of such notes, before we
have proved that God exists, and supposedly deduced other
propositions about His nature, the answer is that we conceive God by negation and remotion from corporeal things.
We know what such things are; we know that if God is, He
must be as unlike these things as possible, and so by negating the characteristics of things, we
abstract-a notion of God. Of the various negative notes
which enter therein, it so happens that only one is useful in
the proof of God's existence, for since the proof is from effect
to cause, in the sphere of being, one of the terms in the
major premise must be" uncaused being."
b. A difficulty arises here with the Kantian charge that if in
order to prove God a posteriori, one must first conceive Him
as a necessary being, a being whose essence is its existence,
then from such knowledge of His essence, His existence is
self-evident, and the ontological argument is covertly present, invalidating the demonstration. The objection can, I
think, be overcome in two ways: first, by pointing out that
a nominal definition does not give us knowledge of the Divine essence; second, by showing that the process by which
we attach. meaning to the name "God "-the process of

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J. ADLER

enables us to
constructing a notion negatively-merely
think of a possibility, even though that possibility is the
possibility of a necessary being. It is a logical possibility,
by which we mean that the constructed notion is not selfcontradictory, in which case it would be a logical impossibility. But although we know that a logical impossibility
cannot exist, we do not know that a logical possibility does
exist. Hence, prior to the proof that a necessary being does
exist, the existence of a necessary being is, so far as our
knowledge goes, merely a logical possibility. Should no
proof be available, the notion of a necessary being would
still remain a logical possibility, for while it is self-contradictory to say that a real being whose essence is its existence
does not exist, it is not self-contradictory to say that we do
not know whether there is a real being which corresponds
to our ideal construction. It should be noted, furthermore,
that the modality of our conclusion is assertoric, not apodictic: we cannot ever conclude an a posteriori argument
with a " must " proposition. This fact completely refutes
the Kantian charge, for if the ontological argument were
involved, the contradictory of the conclusion would be impossible, and hence the conclusion would be a necessary
proposition. But " a necessary being does exist " is not a
necessary proposition, as we know it.
c. There is one other problem here, namely, whether the other
negative notes in our understanding of God can be demonstrated once we have proved that a necessary being does
exist. An " unmoved mover" would seem to be an immutable being, but is a necessary being immutable, infinite,
unique? How do we know, for example, from our proof that
a necessary being exists, that only one such being exists?
And unless we know that, have we proved God's existence? I shall return to this problem presently in another
connection.
3. With respect to the major premise.
a. The inescapable problem here is presented by the dilemma
that the major premise must either be self-evident or demonstrable. But which? Let me consider each alternative
briefly.
b. A proposition is self-evident if its truth is known immediately upon an understanding of its terms. To test the
major premise for self-evidence, let me state it in such a
way that its terms are emphasized: " the existence of a
contingent being (ens ab alio) -implies-the existence of

THE DEMONSTRATION

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213

a necessary being (ens a se) ." I have italicized the word
"implies" to indicate that, even though I have avoided the
words " if " and " then," my proposition remains hypothetical: it is certainly not a categorical predication. Now
the terms to be examined are obviously " contingent being" and "necessary being."
(I) In order for the proposition to be self-evident, we
would have to understand contingent being as (a)
that which needs a cause for its existence and (b) that
which cannot cause the existence of any other thing;
and we would have to understand necessary being as
(a) that which needs no cause for its existence and (b)
that which can cause the existence of anything contingent. H both notes-(a) and (b)-are involved in
our understanding of these two terms, then it is selfevident that the existence of a contingent being, which
must be caused and cannot be caused by another contingent being, implies the existence of a necessary being
which need not be caused and can cause the existence
of a contingent being.
(2) But do our conceptions of contingent and necessary
being involve the note I have marked as (b) in each
case? (If not, the proposition is not self-evident.) The
question can be asked another way: what in our understanding of esse and causa essendi requires us to see
that ens ab alio cannot be causa essendi, that only ens
a se can?
(3) The metaphysical problem here envisaged is so difficult that I dare say only that I do not know the answer,
adding that if the answer is given by scholastic metaphysics, I am unacquainted with the texts in St.
Thomas or others, which contain the problem's solution. Obviously it will not do in natural theology to
appeal to knowledge by faith. We may know by faith
that God is Creator, and thus be enabled to see that
only the Creator can be causa essendi; but apart from
faith, and on the intelligible supposition of no creation
(i.e., no beginning of the world), the metaphysician
may not be able so to penetrate the mystery of being
that his understanding of esse and causa essendi renders
the major premise self-evident.
c. The major premise cannot be demonstrated deductively by
the direct method, for that would require antecedent terms
more intelligible than being itself; moreover, since it is for-

MORTIMER

J. ADLER

mally a hypothetical proposition, and irreducible to a categorical predication, it cannot be demonstrated by an ordinary syllogism through a middle term, which is thepredicate
of the minor term and the subject of the major term; furthermore, since it is not a proposition asserting the existence
of anything, but rather the statement of an intelligible connection, it cannot be proved by a posteriori reasoning.
Hence, the only mode of reasoning available is the reductio
ad absmdum-a showing that the denial of the proposition
leads to self-contradiction. (When the only method of arguing for a proposition is indirect, that proposition should be
self-evident.)
(1) Let us suppose to be true what must be shown to be
false, namely, that a contingent being can efficiently
cause the existence of another contingent being. Then
the existence of a given contingent being can be explained by reference to another contingent being as its
causa essendi. But a cause of being must co-exist with
its effect. The generator can perish without causing
the generated to perish; the moving ball can come to
rest while the ball it moved remains in motion; but
" the being of a thing cannot continue after that action
of the agent has ceased, which is the cause of the effect,
not only in becoming, but also in being" (Sum. Th., I,
q. 104, a. 1). Hence, if any contingent thing exists, all
its causes in esse, proximate and remote, must co-exist,
for if B is the cause of A's being, and C is the cause of
B's being, and so on to N, all must co-exist with A, or
A ceases to be. Now this set of causes cannot be infinite, for an actual infinity of co-existent things is impossible. But if it is finite (letting " N " represent the last
term in the ordered set), then either N's being is caused
by A, in a circle of efficient causality, which would seem
to be impossible, or N's being is uncaused, which is impossible by the definition of N ·as a contingent being.
Hence we may be able to conclude that if only contingent beings exist, the existence of all of them cannot
be explained causally. For at least one of them, the
existence of a necessary being (as its causa essendi)
seems to be required.
(fl) This reasoning is defective for the following reasons.
It does not show that one contingent being cannot
cause· the existence of another. It fails, therefore, to
operate as does the indirect argument against those who

THE DEMONSTRATION

OF GOD'S EXISTENCE

215

deny the self-evidence of the principle of contradiction,
for by that method Aristotle, in Metaphysics, IV, does
not prove the principle, but rather defends its selfevidence. Our indirect reasoning here fails to defend
the self-evidence of the major premise. Nevertheless, it
seems to prove what that major premise asserts,
namely, that if any contingent thing exists, a necessary
being exists. It shows that in a finite set of co-existent
things, there must be at least one whose existence is
uncaused. It does not show, however, that there cannot
be more than one, or that a necessary being causes the
existence of a given contingent thing immediately
rather than mediately. Furthermore, the reasoning depends on one proposition which holds in the order of
becoming, but may not hold in the order of being,
namely, that if A depends upon N for its existence, N
cannot depend on A for its existence. Since the causation of being is without time or the motion of matter,
the usual arguments against the possibility of A moving
N and N moving A at the same time and in the same
way, may not apply. I tentatively suggest that, in
order to see the impossibility of this circle, in order to
see this reciprocal causality as vicious, it may be necessary to understand esse and causa essendi well enough
so that we can see the impossibility of existence being
caused by a contingent being. But if we could do that,
the major premise would be self-evident, and there
would be no need for this mode of indirect reasoning.
d. Supposing for the moment that the major premise is either
self-evident or demonstrable, it still remains to show that
there can be only. one necessary being, for upon the absolute
uniqueness of the causa essendi proved to exist, depends our
right to say that we have thereby proved God's existence.
Nothing is more binding upon us than the requirement that
we use the word " God " as the proper name of a unique
being. But can we infer the uniqueness of an entity from
the necessity (or uncaused status) of its existence? I think
the answer is Yes on one condition, namely, that we can
truly assert that if there is no composition of essence and
existence in a thing, there can be no other composition in
it-no composition of potency and act, of matter and form,
of subject and accident; for then a necessary being would
not only be absolutely simple and immutable, but also infinite in being (since all limitation of being derives from the

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MORTIMER

J. ADLER

composition of really distinct principles of being) , and there
cannot be more than one infinite being. This, I think, can
be argued. But is the prerequisite condition of this chain
of reasoning capable of being satisfied?
(I) Is it self-evident or demonstrable that the several compositions are so ordered that whatever lacks the first in
order (essence and existence) lacks all the others, and
that whatever has the last in order (subject and accident) has all the others? Upon the latter fact would
depend our inference that whatever changes accidentally is generable and corruptible, and that whatever is
generable and corruptible is contingent in being. Upon
the former fact, would depend our inference that a necessary being is purely actual, absolutely simple, hence
infinite, hence unique.
If we do not somelww know that the identity of essence and existence excludes all other compositions, a
necessary being may exist with potentialities for accidental change. Aristotle and St. Thomas saw no contradiction in the existence of incorruptible bodies with
potentiality for accidental change. I say: either an
incorruptible moving body is self-contradictory, or a
changing necessary being is not. The contingent existence of spiritual substances which are not corruptible,
but which are capable of change and are also composite
of subject and accident, complicates the problem
greatly.
(3) In short, the proof of God's existence depends in two
ways upon knowledge concerning the order of the several compositions of really distinct principles of being:
(a) we need such knowledge to prove from the facts of
motion that a plurality of corruptible substances exist
and, from their corruptibility, that they are contingent
in existence; (b) we need such knowledge to prove that
there can be only one necessary being.
(4) I dare not say that such knowledge is lacking. I can
only say that I am unacquainted with any texts in
which this requisite knowledge is exhibited in a series
of propositions shown to be self-evident or demonstrated. If there are no such texts, then there is work
for metaphysicians to do on this problem, as there is
also work for them on the problem of the self-evidence
or demonstrability of the major premise which seems
to be required for the proof of God's existence.

THE DEMONSTRATION

OF GOD'S EXISTENCE

217

IV
In conclusion, I must add, as plainly as possible, what I now
know from all this reasoning-that no corporeal thing can
cause the being of another corporeal thing. I know this because I know that, among bodily things, every expression of
efficiency and every communication of energy directly or reductively involves local motion and time; whereas the causation of being is an act totally apart from time and motion.
Hence no corporeal substance can efficiently cause the being
of anything. From this, and from the existence of corporeal
substances, whose corruptibility implies their contingency, and
whose contingency in being requires a causa essendi at every
moment of their endurance, I know that there exists a cause
of the existence of the whole material world, and also that this
causa essendi must be a spiritual, i. e., an incorporeal, being.
But though an incorporeal being cannot be corruptible by the
decomposition of matter and form, it can be contingent in being by the composition of essence and existence. If that is so,
it too will need a cause of its existence outside of itself, even
though it has always existed. Furthermore, I know that if
more than one incorporeal, contingent being exists, the number
which do must be finite, for an actually infinite multitude is
impossible.
This brings me to the heart of the problem which remains
for me. It would seem possible for incorporeal beings, albeit
contingent, to cause the existence of corporeal things, since
spiritual action can take place without time or local motion.
It would also seem possible for one incorporeal contingent being to cause the being of another. How can I learn that this is
impossible, so that I may know by reason that a necessary being exists-the cause of the being of every contingent thing,
corporeal and spiritual? The answer would seem to lie in the
impossibility of a circle of causation in which, among a finite
number of contingent beings, each causes the being of another. If such circularity in causation is impossible, then a necessary being is required, for every contingent being must be
caused to be. 20 May I repeat once more that to see this last
ao We are obligated to remember that, in the sphere of becoming, intellect and will

218

MORTIMER

J. ADLER

impossibility is tantamount to seeing that a contingent being
cannot cause being, which makes self-evident the proposition
that if anything contingent exists, a necessary being does.
With the self-evidence of this proposition as a major premise,
the conclusion "God exists" can be demonstrated with
certitude.
One word more. Anyone who raises questions of the sort
I have propounded, in the face of a long and venerable tradition in which it is presumed that these matters are settled,
should acknowledge that his perplexities may he due to his
own incompetence, and should beg indulgence for all the errors he has made, on the ground that he is earnestly seeking
the truth. Because man is a social animal, the truth cannot be
sought in private. The intellectual life is a social one. Each
of us needs all the help he can get from his fellows in speculative work-that most difficult of all cooperative pursuits.
Therefore, he should be encouraged to say publicly, after protracted reflection and mature judgment, what he knows and
what he does not know, what he sees and what remains hidden, so that others can correct him where he has erred, and
direct him where he is blind. If my discourse about God's existence rests upon my erroneous dismissal of traditionally accepted arguments, or upon my ignorance of solutions already
available to remove the difficulties I have mentioned, then I
hope it will be taken as a plea for instruction. I have reason
to think that I am not alone in my difficulties. If they are due
to errors and ignorance, then the scholastic metaphysician who
is in possession o£ the knowledge has an obligation to expound
it in a more effective manner-contrived with greater sympathy for those gentiles in the modern world who desire natural
wisdom.
University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois
seem to be engaged in perfectly reciprocal causality, for each moves the other in the
production of a free choice. Furthermore, we must note that it may not follow
from the fact that a thing cannot cause its own being, that it cannot cause the
being of another, for, as we know, a generated thing generates others, even if it is
not able to generate itself.

CONTEMPLATION IN AMERICA
By JoHNS. MIDDLETON

J

ACQUES MARITAIN gives America and Americans hope
in their night of obscurity and bewilderment.
.
We all recall and perhaps admit the insight of the Scottish physician quoted by William James: "You Americans
wear too much expression on your faces. You are living like an
army with all its reserves engaged in action." 1 The dissipation
of a life dominated by all-out action can never be the foundation for a stable program of reconstruction after the irrational
and inhuman processes of history now in swift progress before
the nervous eyes of a frightened world.
The optimistic reflections of Jacques Maritain on another
aspect of American life enliven the drooping spirit of man and
alleviate his heaviness of soul at this time; He writes:
. . . There are in America great reserves and possibilities for contemplation. The activism which is manifested here assumes in
many cases the aspect of a remedy against despair. I think that
this activism itself masks a certain hidden aspiration to contemplation. To my mind, if in American civilization certain elements
are causing complaints or criticisms, those elements proceed definitely from a repression of the desire, natural in mankind, for the
active repose of the soul breathing what is eternal. In many unhappy creatures, good but wrongly directed, nervous breakdown is
the price of such repression. On the other hand, the tendency,
natural in this country, to undertake great things, to have confidence, to be moved by large idealistic feelings, may be considered, without great risk of error, as disguising that desire and
aspiration of which I spoke.
To wish paradise on earth is stark naivete. But it is surely better
than not to wish any paradise at all. To aspire to paradise is man's
grandeur; and how should I aspire to paradise except by beginning
to realize paradise here below? The question is to know what
paradise is. Paradise consists, as St. Augustine says, in the joy of
the Truth. Contemplation is paradise on earth, a crucified paradise, 2
1 Talks to Teachf!IT's, Henry Holt & Co., New York, p. 208.
"'Scholasticism and Politics. New York, pp. 192-193. By permission of The Macmillan Co., New York, publishers.

fl19

220

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

In his speech to the youth of the United Nations, the President of the United States made strong promises for the postwar world:
You are doing first things first-fighting to win this war. For
you know that should this war be lost, all our plans for the peace to
follow would be meaningless.
Victory is essential; but victory is not enough for you-or for us.
We must be sure that when you have won victory, you will not
have to tell your children that you fought in vain-that you were
betrayed. We must be sure that in your homes there will not be
want, that in your schools the living truth will be taught, that in
your churches there may be preached without fear a faith in which
men may deeply believe.
The better world for which you fight-and for which some of you
give your lives . . . will be made possible only by bold vision,
intelligent planning, and hard work ... 3
Living Truth! Bold Vision! Intelligent Planning! If Maritain
is right when he speaks of America's reserves of contemplation,
then these words of the President can make us confident. If
Maritain is wrong, the President's gospel of promises is unreal.
For contemplation is the " bold vision " necessary for " intelligent planning " and the finding of " living truth."
We should be able to turn to the educators of the country
for the verification of J\1aritain's optimism and the realization
of the President's promises. We must confess, however, utter
disappointment when we choose to look in this direction. Can
we find in the world-and-life outlook of our American scientists,
philosophers, and theologians a bold intuition of living truth,
and a capacity for intelligent planning? Have their reserves of
contemplative power encouraged men of action, men of affairs,
to turn to them for that vitally necessary guidance required by
the complexities of contemporary life?
The public was forced to read in the headlines of the press:
" Scholars confess they are confused." " Scientists and philosophers to bring 'men of affairs' to next Columbia Conference." 4 The formal statement of the third annual Confer8

September S, 1942.

• New York Times, September 1, 1942.

CONTEMPLATION

IN AMERICA

221

ence on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Their Relation to
the Democratic Way of Life is in substance a humble confession
of failure and inadequacy. It is not very heartening to be told
that scholars must be persuaded of their social responsibility.
The report reads:
The need is especially urgent to bring home to the world of scholarship and letters its share of the responsibility for the state of
contemporary life. The scholar, the artist, or the man of letters
cannot be permitted to think of himself as living in a vacuum,
engaging in creative thought solely as a means of self expression
and a source of personal enjoyment. . . . The man of letters, the
creative artist, and the philosopher not only hold the mirror up to
nature; they themselves are, to a degree, a mirror of the thought of
their age. Their work must therefore be assayed not simply in
terms of individual contributions, but as an expression of the social
mind and the social conscience, and must be used to diagnose the
state of the public mind and to prognosticate, if possible, what
that portends. 5
The statement uses such terms as "spiritual recovery,"
"life," "freedom," "truth," "responsibility,"
"moral and
spiritual values basic to human life," etc. And yet, the Conference would not accept the challenge of those who might look
to them for spiritual and intellectual leadership, to define these
basic notions. All admit with the scholars that
the Axis is waging its war, in part, through the spread of false
doctrines; its opponents must counter by defending themselves
with resort to the truth. . . . The fact that the confusions in the
intellectual world are much more subtle and difficult to grasp, and
that in the nature of things they are harder to overcome, makes our
problem only the more urgent. The price which civilized man pays
for freedom is the need for intense effort to organize his life. And
similarly, the price required for seeking the truth rather than being
satisfied with half truths or falsehoods is the need for greater concentration and more untiring devotion to our task. 6
All this is very good, but it merely is a public admission of a
radically disordered intellectual state. Those who encounter
the hard realities of living can only look with justifiable contempt on the soft scepticism of the academic world in America.
5

Loc. cit.

• Loc. cit.

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

"Men of affairs" will be invited to join the scholars. The
sense of objectivity found in the practically ordered ways of
men of affairs may be of some help to the scholars. But it is
difficult to see how the confusion of the learned world will make
life more intelligible and more livable for the men who deal with
the concrete realities of twentieth-century existence. It seems
to be another perversion of contemporary thought and life that
the agonizing insufficiency of the learned world should plead for
help from men whose life is principally in the practical order.
At least it seems evident that not much can be expected in the
way of guidance for reconstruction from the combined viewpoint of the scholars who assembled for the past three years at
the Conference under discussion.
The confusion confessed by the scholars assembled at Columbia is but another aspect of the radically unstable philosophy
of education that has tried to motivate our American schools
on all levels. The anti-metaphysical mentality that regards
Saint Thomas Aquinas as an Idealist, while pledging itself to
the inadequate realistic conclusions of experimental science,
can only result in an utter lack of principles and in an inhuman and depersonalized way of life. A typical example of
our intellectual sterility can be found in the following mental
mixture of one of the protagonists of experimentalism and instrumentalism in America. Referring to what he calls " the
commonplace, more or less idealistic viewpoint in America,"
he writes:
It is exhibited in skyscrapers that omit the thirteenth floor; in the
thousands who rush to a grave in Malden to find a magic cure for
their diseases; in the sects that oppose the distribution of birthcontrol literature because they believe all use of contraceptives to be
contrary to Divine commands; in fundamentalists whose belief in
an infallible book prompts them to pass laws prohibiting the teaching of scientific theories about the origin of man; in modernists who
attempted to dispose of complex social problems by telling us what
an earlier religious leader would do were he now here; in all of
those who cling to rigid moral codes, regardless of consequences; in
the ' Red ' hysteria; in censorship laws of all kinds; in the tenacious manner in which humanist leaders cling to the belief in a

CONTEMPLATION

IN AMERICA

golden age in the past and would have us return to it in order to
find there the norms and values for present experience; in those who
would follow immediate impulse and passing desire rather than be
guided by consequences critically evaluated; in short, this mentality
is found in all of those who for one reason or another, in one realm
or another, do not believe in the use of the experimental method' the method of observation, of experiment, of framing and following working hypotheses.' 7
Such conclusions obviously show the influence of William
James through John Dewey," America's foremost philosopher."
To put it briefly: " it is both useless and unnecessary to appeal
for support to something above and beyond experience." 8 As
Childs further expresses this outlook:
Obviously it involves a shift in the basis of authority. On this
basis, institutions and customs, religious creeds, moral codes, the
specialized findings of the particular sciences, and the pronouncements of both prophets and experts are all to be tested by the consequences to which they lead in ordinary experience. They are to
be judged in terms of their ' instrumental ' value. . . . Since experience is an ongoing process, this view also means that finality
and absolute certainty are impossible. Absolute dogmas must
give place to hypotheses. These hypotheses must be modified as
experience alters. This puts the issue squarely before education.
Can education so equip men and women that they can achieve a
satisfying experience on this experimental basis. 9
Or, as another author puts it:
Scientific Method has proved itself the only reliable means of discovering the realities of existence; it is the new authentic revelation,
inexhaustible in its possibilities but extremely upsetting in its
immediacy. Faith in God and in authority, ideas of soul and immortality, belief in Divine Grace, stable institutions, and automatic progress have been made impossible for the educated mind
of to-day. 10
7 Childs, Education and the Philosophy of Experimentalism, D. Appleton Century
Co., New York., pp. 88-89.
8 Childs, op. cit., pp. 45-46.
• Op. cit., p. 51.
10 Woefel, Molders of the American Mind.
By permission of Columbia University
Press, p. 119.

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

Can the following conclusions of Bertrand Russell be considered unfamiliar to anyone acquainted with the theory behind
American education?
That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the
end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes, are
but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no
heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the
noon-day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in
the vast death of the solar system; and that the whole temple of
man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris
of a universe in ruins-all these things, if not quite beyond dispute,
are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can
hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on
the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation
henceforth be safely built. 11

Acquaintance with the sixty wonderful years of Jacques
Maritain reveals him to be a man full of respect for the methods
and conclusions of natural science. His painful awareness that
experiment could never reach the deeper realities of being and
life occasioned his discovery and possession of the Realism of
Saint Thomas Aquinas. If the birthday anniversary of Jacques
Maritain should inspire the teachers of America carefully to
study the mental development of our Philosopher and so really
to understand the genius of the Realism of Saint Thomas
Aquinas, a real contribution would result for the post-war reconstruction of American thought and life. In particular, teachers might look to the Angelic Doctor for a true appreciation of
their responsibility and their dignity as masters in a weary
world. It can do no harm to anyone to reconsider the place of
contemplation in the teaching· office according to the mind of
Saint Thomas.
Saint Thomas asks himself the question: 12 are contemplative
Orders superior to active Orders? As he proceeds to answer this
question he gives us his doctrine on the dignity of the master's
11
12

Mysticism and Logic. W. W. Norton & Co., New York, p. 47.
Summa Theol., II-II, q. 188, a. 6.

CONTEMPLATION

vocation, the call to teach.
life he states:

225

IN AMERICA

Writing on the works of the active

There is one which springs from the flilness of contemplation:
teaching . ... And this is preferable to simple contemplation. For
just as it is a greater thing to shed light than to be full of light, so
it is a greater thing to spread abroad the fruits of our contemplation
than merely to contemplate.
Teaching therefore is a perfect life because it is the immediate
overflow of man's highest power-contemplation.
What is the subject matter of the contemplative life?
The subject matter of the contemplative life is the knowable
reasons for things upon which the contemplative dwells. . . . The
end of the contemplative life is the consideration of truth .... I
mean the consideration of uncreated truth .... In the function of
teaching we find a twofold act. One of its materials is the matter
which is taught; the other is he to whom the knowledge is given.
By reason of the first subject matter, teaching pertains to the
contemplative life; by reason of the second to the active life.13
Saint Thomas is clear in insisting that: "in regard to those
acts which take their subject matter from the contemplative
life, it is necessary that the active follow the contemplative," 14
and that " the contemplative life is the principle of teaching." 15
Since contemplation is the principle of teaching and contemplation examines the knowable reasons of things, we should
expect to find educators with intellectual virtue of the deepest
penetration. In a word, the true educator should share in the
philosopher's virtue--wisdom. Saint Thomas regards wisdom
as the highest of the intellectual virtues. It perfects the intellect
in its grasp of last causes. Demonstrating conclusions from
premises, wisdom uses a scientific method; arriving at ultimate
causes by the natural light of the human intellect it perfects
the scientific function of the mind.
Wisdom, therefore, is the virtue of the metaphysician who
finds the real beyond observed and observable objects known
by the methods of experimental science. It is true that the wise
18

De Magistro, a. 4., Corp.

15

H

Loc. cit. ad 2m.

15

Loc. cit. ad 4m.

226

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

man begiris with the experimentalist in sensible singular objects
but does not rest until he has gone as far as the human intellect
will enable him to go naturally in his investigation of the real.
The failure of the experimentalist to recognize the reality of the
metaphysical order of being is a root cause of our failure to
understand man as man. The oversimplification of the experimentalist has caused recent psychological research to treat man
as a thing or a brute, only to be aroused by the horrors of a
world at war, which acts as if the teaching of positivists were
true. The false concepts of human freedom that have arisen
from an anti-metaphysical approach to human personality and
human law end in the spread of murderous and suicidal
totalitarian tyrannies.
Thus Saint Thomas teaches:
Wisdom ... considers the highest causes as stated in I Metaph.
Wherefore, it rightly judges all things and sets them in order, because there can be no perfect and universal judgment that is not
based on the first causes. 16

Wisdom, then, as the highest of man's intellectual powers,
is a habit perfecting our mind in the knowledge of the highestnamely divine things. 17
The wise man knows that things have been made and ordered by
God, and that as a consequence, things are hierarchized by their
relations to their Ultimate End who is God. 18

The unequivocal anti-metaphysical mentality of American
educators does not seem to point toward an early actualization
of Maritain's optimistic hopes on America's potentialities for
contemplation. We grow even less optimistic when it becomes
clear that some of those educators who acknowledge the reality
of the metaphysical order and exalt wisdom act as if they did
not. Teachers are so few because the intellectual virtue of wisdom is so rare. Sometimes, under the pretext of caring for the
morals of students, the training in the intellectual virtues IS
Summa Theol., 1-11, q. 57, a. 2.
IV Contra Gent. 12.
18 Summa Theol., I, q. 14, a. 1, ad 2m; also, 1-11, q. 57, a. 8; I, q. 1, a. 6.

16
17

CONTEMPLATION

IN AMERICA

neglected. Learning is degraded to the memorization of
opinions. In truth, there frequently is no teaching because there
is no lea.rning in the true sense. Instructors do not teach because
they do not contemplate, and contemplation is the immediate
prerequisite of the magisterial office. Then too the exaltation
and promotion in the :field of education of so-called practical
men-shrewd administrators, fact-finding statisticians, ingratiating financiers, superficial efficiency experts, and the likehave turned education into a big business and our schools into
factories for mass production.
The result is nervous agitation among professors and students
as the wild chase for courses, credits and degrees becomes more
and more accelerated. The calm contemplative mood is destroyed. The habit of wisdom is seldom acquired. Men become
unfit for well ordered human action in the practical ways of
life. This is the tragedy of our times.
The horrors of inhuman war may shock us into the rediscovery of man, as man. Educators more generally may begin
to court wisdom. Order is born of wisdom and the tranquility
of order is peace. Jacques Maritain may be right. Otherwise,
the " living truth," " bold vision," and " intelligent planning "
of which the President speaks to the youth of the world will
prove to be vague verbalisms. Well may we all reflect on the
challenging conclusions of one who describes Jacques Maritain
as " one of the deepest thinkers of all times ":
Losing science will not give us philosophy. But if we lose philosophy itself, we must be prepared to lose science, reason and
liberty; in short we are bound to lose Western culture itself together
with its feeling for the eminent dignity of man. 19

Referring
continues:

to the decline of modern philosophy,

Gilson

Personally I even hope that it will soon cease to be at all. For
what is now called philosophy is either collective mental slavery or
scepticism. There still are men who hate both and who will not
lament the passing of that alternative. . . . Against the crude, yet
19 Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience, Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, p. 293.

228

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

fundamentally sound craving of Marxism for positive and dogmatic truth-the scepticism of our decadent philosophy has not a
chance. It deserves to be destroyed as it actually is in the minds of
many among our contemporaries who embrace Marxism bJcause it
is the only dogmaticism they know. Not something less rational or
less constructive but something more rational and more comprehensively constructive is required to meet its challenge. The time of
the 'As if ' is over; what we now need is a ' This is so,' and we shall
not find it, unless we first recover both our lost confidence in the
rational validity of metaphysics and our long-forgotten knowledge
of its object. Therefore, let the dead bury their dead, and let us
turn ourselves towards the future, for it will be what we shall make
it: either an aimlessly drifting wreck, or a ship holding a steady
course with a rational animal at the wheel. 20

One thing is certain: the wisdom of Jacques Maritain must
eventually prevail, but it requires the purification of a sacrificial
dark night. Has not he himself told us that " contemplation
is paradise on earth-a crucified paradise." Or, as better expressed in the reflection of his profoundly contemplative wife:
"When nameless sufferings have purified us, then only can the
breath of life, which is able to renew the face of the earth, blow
once again upon our misfortunes and our patience." 21
Surely this issue of THE THOMIST, dedicated to a layman
and to which so many learned laymen contribute, is a hopeful
sign. The host of admirers of Jacques Maritain in America are
grateful to have among us one who loves and lives Wisdom;
one who loves contemplation and contemplates to love; a good
educator because a real philosopher; and a real philosopher
because a philosopher of the real; a man who lives the truth he
expounds, as he exemplifies the ennobling humanism he defends.
We recognize him in his own words: " There is mud and blood
in the world, yet while our hands dabble therein our hearts
must be pure, and, if they are, they also purify." 22
St. Joseph's Seminary,
Dunwoodie, Yonkers, N. Y.
•• Ibid., pp. 294-295.
21 Raissa Maritain,
We Have Been Friends Together. Longmans, Green & Co.,
New York, p. 208.
•• Preface by Jacques Maritain to " The Layman's Call," by the Reverend
William R. O'Connor. P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York.

PROVIDENCE
By w. R. THOMPSON, ·F.R.s.

B

y Creation we mean, in the last analysis, the total depen-

dence of the universe on God. Providence is, broadly
speaking, merely an aspect or consequence of this dependence. But, taken in an exact sense, it refers to the government of the universe. Providence is the arrangement of things
with a view to the attainment of future ends. The provident
man is one who puts aside a portion of his income, so that he
may be able to live through a time when that income fails,
making an arrangement that safeguards in advance the wellbeing of himself and his family and insures its maintenance.
The necessity of providential action in the universe is much
more obvious now than it was a few decades ago. Owing to the
in:f:l.uence of evolutionary theory, scientific men were at one
time inclined to think that most of the other planets of our
solar system were inhabited by intelligent beings, or at least
by living organisms of some kind. But now that the delicate
and intricate characters of the environmental relations necessary to sustain life have been more fully realized, this view has
been very largely abandoned. The predominant opinion now
seems to be that the earth probably is the only spot in the
universe which is able to support life. The idea that intelligent
beings exist elsewhere is considered very improbable. In a remarkable address given to the Zoological Section of the British
Association some years ago, Dr. Julian Huxley went so far as to
claim that evolutionary progress "could, apparently, have
pursued no other course than that which it has historically
followed"; that "conceptual thought could only arise in a
monocotous mammal of terrestrial habit, but arboreal for most
of its mammalian ancestry"; and that " it could not have
evolved on earth except in man." He also asserted that if man
were wiped out " it is in the highest degree improbable that the
step leading to conceptual thought would again be taken, even
by his nearest relatives."

230

W. R. THOMPSON

The American biochemist, Professor Lawrence J. Henderson,
after a careful and detailed study of the physico-chemical
properties of the inorganic elements and compounds occurring
in the universe, concluded 1 that the connection between certain
properties of the elements, " almost infinitely improbable as
the result of contingency, can only be regarded, is in truth only
fully intelligible even if mechanically explained, as a preparation for the evolutionary process." We are "obliged to regard
this collocation of properties," he says, " as in some intelligible
sense a preparation for the process of planetary evolution."
Nevertheless, Professor Henderson, though recognizing that
this brings us "face to face with the problem of design," thought
that we must retreat from this problem and seek for safety in
employing " the vaguest possible term which can be imagined,
from which all implication of design and purpose has been
completely eliminated." Dr. Julian Huxley is of the same
opinion. " Any purpose we find manifested in evolution is only
an apparent purpose. It is we who have read purpose into
evolution, as earlier men projected will and emotion into inorganic phenomena like storm and earthquake."
The authors we have just quoted are to be complimented on
the way in which they have faced and stated the facts-though
Dr. Huxley has perhaps gone further than is necessary and
justifiable. A good many of their predecessors, like Professor
Ernst Haeckel in Germany and Professor Etienne Rabaud in
France, have attempted to get around the facts by depreciating
or denying the reality of adaptive arrangements, even in the
world of life. Dr. Huxley will have none of this. "It has been
for some years," he says, " the fashion to decry the study or
even to deny the fact of adaptation"; he believes that this is
" a passing fashion, and that, both structurally and functionally, every organism is a bundle of adaptations, more or less
efficient, coordinated in greater or lesser degree."
Nevertheless, the honesty and common sense of these two
scientists has led them into a position that is philosophically
untenable.
1

The Order of Nature. Harvard Univ. Press,

PROVIDENCE

Let us suppose that a paleontologist, digging in deposits
earlier than those in which any human relics have been discovered, finds a stone axe. We may say, without fear of contradiction, that he will instantly recognize it as such and refer
to it by this name. In so doing, he asserts, implicitly at least,
that the object discovered is a tool or instrument formed in a
manner that enables its user to execute certain definite purposes. A stone axe is a feebly characterized implement; this one
may differ somewhat from those previously discovered. In the
deposit examined, no such thing has hitherto been found.
Nevertheless the paleontologist unhesitatingly classes it as a
product of human design and the embodiment of a human
purpose. How prone he is to do this may be realized when we
recall the long controversy in regard to the flint objects called
" eoliths." These are pieces of flint found in strata of great antiquity, and are so shapeless that it has been possible to duplicate them from among flints removed from certain rotary
machines used in cement factories- flints due, therefore, to
forces acting at random. No definitely human remains were
found associated with them and their acceptance as human
products would have thrown back human origins to a time far
earlier than that to which the most primitive fossils were
ascribed. Yet the status of the eoliths as man-made implements was most energetically defended by competent scientists,
and still is.
The principal points at issue in this controversy are two.
The first is, whether the form of the eoliths is, in fact, that of a
definable tool, or, in other words, has a demonstrable relation to
a definite end. The second is, whether this form can have been
produced by inorganic factors acting at random and likely to
have operated in this case. If the eolith can be properly described as an implement, that is, as an artificial object designed
in respect to an end, then a designer is required. If the circumambient natural forces are demonstrably inadequate to the
effect produced, then an extraneous agent must be postulated.
These two arguments are taken as complementary, and though
the first really implies the second, it is considered as demonstrative in itself. Thus, the fact that the cement-machines

W. R. THOMPSON

produced flints resembling well-characterized implements of the
Magdalenian, or even Neolithic, type is considered by those
who maintain the human origin of eoliths to prove too much,
since implements of this character are generally accepted as
human products. 2 This is rather curious reasoning and shows
very clearly the tremendous compelling force of the argument
that leads from the appearance of design to a designer; for if
natural forces are adequate to production of the more perfect
tool, the possibility that they were in fact responsible for the
less perfect tool certainly does not seem to be diminished.
It is thus clear that whatever opinion they may hold as to
the validity of theological arguments, scientific men do, in fact,
constantly and forcefully argue from the appearance of design
to the existence of an actual designer, and this though the designer may be what Professor H. Dingle 3 would call an " unobservable." To this the usual reply is that, though we have
never seen and may never see even the fossil remains of the toolmaker responsible for the eoliths, we have actually seen makers
of somewhat similar though more finished tools, such as the
North American Indians; so that our argument does not take us
out of the field of experience. But Dr. M. C. Burkitt 4 in an
article on eoliths put the matter rather differently. He merely
ascribed them to "a tool-making animal" which he is content
to say was " probably man." This remark reveals the hidden
logical structure of the argument. It does not, as might be supposed, lead directly to some specific creature, but leads simply
to
general idea or concept of a "designer," the content of
this concept being simply that which is primarily and per se
required for the essence of the effect. This effect is not the material object. It is rather the formal relation discernible in it by
the intelligence, an intelligible order by which the multiplicity
of the material object is unified with respect to a certain end.
In short, what the argument leads to is the concept of an ordering or designing intelligence or reason. Conceptual thought or
an analogue of it is the immediate end-point of the argument.
2

8

Duckworth. Prehistorio Man. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Through Science to Philosophy.
• Encyclopedia Brittanica, 14th edition.

PROVIDENCE

233

It may, however, be objected that, though the argument
from ordered arrangement demonstrates the existence, past or
present, of an ordering intelligence, yet we have no experience,
since of such an intelligence except as manifested in material
organisms, and are indeed by nature incapable of such an experience because everything that is in the mind comes to it
through the gateway of the senses. Thus, though the argument is valid if its end-point is human intelligence, it cannot
possibly lead to any real conclusions involving anything
transcending the material world.
This objection misses the real point of the argument. The
thesis that an arrangement obviously designed in relation to a
certain end implies an intelligent designer does not involve or
require any additional knowledge of the designer, nor any
particular views as to his status and mode of being. The definition of designer to which it leads is simply: an intelligence.
An examination of the faculty of reason shows that its specific
and characteristic activity is the right ordering of things toward
an end, as we recognize when we say, for example, that such an
arrangement is reasonable, which means that it is one by which
a certain end can be achieved. When we detect reasonable
arrangements in things themselves devoid of reason we are
forced to conclude that reason presided over them and brought
them into being.
We constantly and rightly say that the ordered arrangements
created by man are reasonable and must owe their origin to a
reason, and that this reason, which is man, is himself a reasonable being, as he must be, since he could not reason were he not
something intrinsically constituted and ordered to this end. To
say this and then to say that behind this relative and contingent
reason there is no ultimate and necessary reason-that the
reasonable arrangement that is man is the product of essential
unreason-is to break violently and without rational justification the sequence of the argument and to discard at an arbitrarily chosen point the rational principles hitherto accepted as
valid. Man is in some sense a product of nature. The universe
that produces a rational being must be a reasonable universe.

234

W. R. THOMPSON

"The future of man," says Dr. Julian Huxley, "must be guided
by a deliberate purpose." But how can nature produce or contain a creature capable of purposeful deliberation, if natural
activities are entirely purposeless either in themselves or as
instruments of a transcendent cause? This idea involves contradiction. It is like saying that though the apple tree has produced apples it has not in itself the capacity of producing
ap:::>les. If all natural non-human activities are purposeful only
in appearance, then what we must really conclude is that human
purpose is also only apparent, in which case our talk about
purposeful deliberation and command of future evolution is
based on a delusion, and is as if the stone, as it rolls down the
hill under the influence of natural forces, were to speak about
its plans for reaching the bottom. Purposeful deliberation implies not merely movement toward an end, but a choice of the
end to which one moves. This implies freedom to choose. Freedom to choose means a genuine indeterminism in respect to
natural forces and the material world. It can only be postulated
on the assumption that human activity in some sense really
transcends the material order. But man as an object of zoological definition is merely a certain kind of animal, a material
object whose activities, in so far as they are the object of
scientific investigation, are material activities. Considered from
this angle, it is clear that man really belongs to nature, so that
if nature is purposeless, man is also purposeless. Man's body
is in some sense an assemblage of inorganic elements, belonging,
ex hypothesi, to an order essentially non-purposeful. How then
can the assemblage be purposeful, if neither the elements nor
their arrangement are purposeful?
This last point is worth a little more attention. It is clear
that the argument from the order discernible in human constructions to a constructive intention or purpose is generally
accepted as perfectly valid and convincing. There are some
who refuse to extend the argument to animal constructions,
maintaining that, though the jar on our breakfast table is really
designed to contain honey, the clay bottle in which the solitary
bee places the honey for its larva is a purposeless object, and

PROVIDENCE

235

that, while a fisherman's net proves design to catch fish, the
practical usefulness of the spider's net for catching flies is the
result of pure chance. This view will not bear examination.
That there is in the animal world an activity analogous to
reason, and that animals really perform series of purposeful
actions, is not generally denied. But the case of purely natural
products, such as the living organisms themselves, is rather
different. That the wireless set I have built is the result of a
purpose is a fact of which I have a direct and absolutely certain
knowledge. The bird's nest is something the bird can be seen to
build, and though here we merely infer purpose our inference
rests on a quite solid foundation. But we cannot see in nature,
any being responsible for the bird, or for ourselves, since the
process of generation is not a creative assembling, but merely a
kind of division.
This difficulty is merely superficial, arising out of a misunderstanding of the texture of the argument. We recognize instantly
that a chair is made to sit in. But suppose we merely have a
heap of the parts of the chair, prepared for assembling. This
may not at first sight convey anything to us, but as soon as we
begin to try to fit the parts together we perceive that they form
a chair and we are then quite certain that they were cut out
and shaped for that purpose. Each part is in a sense independent and can be considered in itself. Nevertheless, the properties of the parts really have a relation to a higher order to which
the parts are predetermined and in which their raison d'etre,
as parts, is to be found.
So it is with natural combinations. As Dr. Julian Huxley
truly and profoundly put it, evolutionary progress is measured
by its upper levels. Since the upper level is something perfectly
specific and definite, the number of ways in which it can be
attained is not limitless. Human beings can survive only within
certain environmental limits. They cannot survive even within
these limits unless the bodily mechanisms are of a certain
definite type. These--mechanisms could not be what they are
were it not for the properties of the organic compounds built
up by the organisms. These, in turn, would not form were not

236

W. R. THOMPSON

the inorganic elements predetermined to their formation. We
cannot live without oxygen; we cannot take in oxygen without our red blood corpuscles; the ability of the corpuscles to
take up oxygen depends on the presence of hemoglobin; the
properties of hemoglobin depend strictly on the properties of
iron; iron exists because the elements of the subatomic world
are predetermined to its formation. This argument could be
developed through innumerable channels. The upper levels of
nature exist only because the lower levels are predetermined to
their production. The upper levels, such as the human organism, require for their emergence and maintenance an infinite
multitude of delicate adjustments and coordinations, which are
possible only because the elements of the universe are predetermined to that end. Predetermination is another name for
finality. We can thus say that the final cause or object to
which the universe is predetermined is man, or as Dr. Huxley
puts it, conceptual thought; and that this predetermination is
fundamental, or aborigine.
But, though this much is granted, it may still be said that the
production of the world as we see it was not purposeful but was
due simply to pure necessity, so that it could not have been
otherwise. In that case, to enquire why things have proceeded
as they have is a futile question.
This answer is, however, inadmissible. Though the basic
elements of the universe are predetermined to combine and
thus generate new substances and though this will in a sense
account for systems of the most complex character, such
combinations can occur only in certain environmental settings which, as scientific investigation has shown, are very
precisely coordinated. If this coordination is not maintained,
the combinations produced will not persist, 5 because the substances that exist in the universe are mutually destructive,
except in certain constellations and concatenations. That the
correct set of circumstances should not only occur momentarily
but actually be maintained throughout the period during which
life has existed on the earth, by chance alone, is not merely
5

Aquinas, I Contra Gent., 18.

PROVIDENCE

237

improbable but impossible. If this could occur, we should
expect to find houses, automobiles, and wireless sets assembled
here and there by the random forces of the universe, as we find
ostriches and oak trees assembled by nature. We must insist
on this point, for it is fundamental. Either nature tends to the
production of certain coordinated assemblages and not to
others, and in that case their production is intentional, or it
does not tend to the production of any of them, which means
that they owe their existence wholly to chance. It must be
carefully noted that the latter hypothesis means the complete
elimination of predetermination. But chance means the intersection of two independent causal series, as when I meet a friend
by accident while he is going to the post office and I am going to
lunch. It is a by-product of finality, on which it is grafted. The
concept of a world absolutely without predetermination is thus
self-contradictory and unthinkable. A certain minimum of
predetermination must be introduced to get a world that is
thinkable. However, since it is necessary, for the sake of the
argument, to let the opponent have his cake and eat it, let us
suppose that the predetermination of things is very small: for
example, that there are only imaginary space and geometrical
points, endowed with random movements. In that case we
shall expect that the most likely configurations outlined by
adjacent points will be the most simple: for example, of an octahedron or some other complex figure, in which the mathematical coordination is a minimum, that the points will be situated at the corners of triangles of various shapes and sizes,
rather than the corners of equilateral triangles. If nature is like
this, then wheelbarrows or stone axes are far more probable productions than orchids or elephants, and ought to be enormously
more frequent in nature. Since they are not, it is evident that
nature tends to produce orchids and elephants and not wheelbarrows and stone axes, in spite of the infinitely greater complexity of the former, and this though forces adequate to the
formation of the axe and the wheelbarrow exist in nature,
needing only to be assembled to this end.
We must also observe that, though the elements of the uni-

238

W. R. THOMPSON

verse, if properly assembled, enter naturally into more or less
stable combinations, the prerequisite assemblage, or coordination, is something for which the individual elements, considered
separately, are not sufficient causes. The work of coordination
is not attributable to anything that science can discern and
define in nature. Yet, if the coordination of parts in a simple
thing like a wheelbarrow irresistibly dernands explanation and
reference to an adequate cause, how much more is this required
for the infinitely complex and delicate coordination necessary
for the appearance and maintenance of living things .
.l!"'urthermore, the properties and predeterminations of the
elements of the universe themselves demand explanation. Here
the invocation of chance is not merely vain, but altogether
unthinkable. Everything that exists in the universe results
from the combination of an odd hundred chemical " elements," 6
to which must be added the " isotopes." Some of these have, at
present, no assignable role; but other are of fundamental importance. If oxygen and hydrogen disappeared, there would be
no water and therefore no life, since life cannot exist without
water. The proof that this is so is to be found in the study of
waterless conditions. Wherever they are found, life is absent.
No other substance arises from the combination of other
elements to take the place of water; no organisms that can
survive without it come into existence. Water seems to be one
of the fundamental requirements of living things.
Now the question is, why should there be a substance like
water? It is clear-to go no farther back-that we might contemplate the properties of oxygen and hydrogen during an infinity and never know that when we pass an electric spark
through a mixture of these two gases they will combine to form
water. Water passes into the solid state at 0° C.; at 100° it becomes a gas. These things, like everything else water does, like
all the properties it exhibits under various conditions, cannot
possibly be discerned by the inspection of water. Experiment
alone reveals them. It is thus impossible to say that they are
• It is now clear that the so-called " elements " must be regarded as combinations;
but this does not alter the argument and may be neglected.

PROVIDENCE

289

necessary, as the properties of the triangle are necessary.
The properties of water are, of course, constant and definite.
But there is no necessary intelligible connection between.
the nature of water and the properties it exhibits. That this
particular combination of oxygen and hydrogen should freeze
at 0° C. and boil at 100° C. is not necessary, but contingent.
Similarly, the existence of the odd hundred existing elements
with the properties they actually have, enabling the production
of the world we see, is contingent. These elements, with the
properties they have, are not in themselves necessary beings,
whose non-existence is inconceivable. An infinite number of
other elements could exist without any infringement of the
laws of reason, and the universe could be one of an infinite
multitude in which no life nor progress is possible. The coordination and progressiveness of the universe is thus fundamentally contingent, and its progress is also contingent. But to be
contingent is to be dependent. We are thus forced to the conclusion that the existence, form, and movement of the universe
are not necessary in themselves but depend on a transcendent
cause which is both Creator and Providence.
To men of science the idea of Providence is often distasteful
because they think it implies a capricious interference with the
laws of nature. What is providential is opposed to what is
natural and believed to include simply that of which nature is
incapable. Professor M. Caullery, for example, adopts this
attitude in his book, Le Probleme de l'Evolution, suggesting
that the evolutionary explanation of organic adaptations eliminates the belief that they are providential. According to this
idea, Providence means inducing things to do what they would
not do were they left to themselves, as in the case of a farm
horse which pulls the plough up and down the field in obedience
to the plowman but would stand on the edge and eat grass if
allowed to follow its inclination. It thus implies an incessant
tinkering with the universal machinery, and if this is really
going on it is difficult to see how any genuine science could be
built up, since the possibility of science depends on natural
law, made objectively evident by the constancy of the properties and activities of things.

W. R. THOMPSON

This view of Providence is, of course, mistaken. A more careful examination of the example we have just given will show
where the mistake lies.
When we speak of" interfering" in nature, we must be careful to distinguish between interference with laws and interference with things. Though the laws of nature are, absolutely
speaking, contingent, as has been shown, they are, in a relative
sense, necessary. It is not absolutely necessary that the combination of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen
should have the properties it has. But being what it is, it will,
under given conditions, always be or do the same definite thing.
No matter what we do, we .cannot alter the fact that under
certain specified conditions water boils at 100° C. But what
we can do is to boil this pint of water and leave that pint unboiled. The natures of things are constant and immutable; but
the manifestations of these natures depend on the impacts between the individual things in which they are realized. These
impacts are interferences and this kind of interference is normal
to nature and included in it. Thus when the cook makes an
apple tart and bakes it in the oven she is not interfering with
the laws of nature, this being indeed impossible; she is simply
utilizing them. Utilization is achieved by interfering with
things, with the particular, individual situation prevailing hio
et nuno; this situation, since it is not a thing but merely a
complex of things, has no nature of its own and consequently no
radical resistance to alterations. A process in nature, resulting
from the interactions of things, may follow, approximately, a
certain mathematical law. This law, as formulated mathematically, is internally necessary, and any deductions from it
are certain to be true. Thus, if the echinoderm egg assumes a
spherical form its quantities stand in the relation expressed by
the equations for the volume and surface of the sphere in terms
of the radius, and everything else we can say about its quantitative relations can be deduced from these equations. But this
does not alter the fact that an individual egg may not be quite
spherical, or may not remain so. Mathematical laws express
the state of the interrelations between things, but physical

PROVIDENCE

laws actually rule the interrelations. The ploughman driving
the horse up and down the field is thus not interfering with the
laws of the horse's nature. The horse is really doing what is
natural to him, things being as they are. But the ploughman is
ploughing the land to prepare it for sowing. He is providing
what is required for this purpose. Providential action is therefore possible without any interference with the laws of nature
and, indeed, proceeds through the medium of these laws. The
task of science is the discovery and definition of the laws of
nature. Providential action therefore does not constitute, in
any sense, an obstacle to this task.
The actual history of the universe depends fundamentally
on two things: the specific natures of the things in the universe
and the individual contacts occurring between them. Providence, as we have seen, concerns not so much the establishment
or specification of the natures of things, but rather the contacts
or relations between them, from moment to moment. In other
words, it C<?ncerns the current of individual events. But this is
not matter for science, which deals only with the general and
for which the strictly individual is, as Meyerson says/ an " irrational." Providential action thus falls outside the field of
science.
It may, however, be objected that though the providential
action of creatures among themselves involves no interference
with natural law, this is not true of Divine Providence, since
God is outside the natural order. But as we have already said,
God moves every created thing in conformity with its'nature.
What it does, as moved by Him, under any set of circumstances,
is what it naturally does. Divine Providence works through the
medium of natural law, like the providential action of creatures.
The providential action of God thus does not constitute an
interference with the natural order of things.
·Since Providence concerns the particular constellation in
which events are to be found at any given moment in the
world's history, and does not imply any alteration of natural
laws, we can say that the temporal origin of the providential
• De l'Explication dans les Sciences.

16

W. R. THOMPSON

dispositions we observe is to be found in the particular constellation in which created things appeared in the first moment
assignable to the universe, not because the subsequent constellations are less providential, but simply because, in regard to us,
the initial constellation is, as it were, in a privileged position,
being the last point to which our science of created things can
lead us. We can thus say, making allowance for the "open
futures" of the free agents in the universe, that the providential
sequence of events was predetermined in the origin.
This does not mean that it was predictable at the origin, in
the sense that it could be foreseen in its causes. The world's
history is constituted by a current of contingent events, of
which we cannot say that they will be or will not be. This is
not only because the universe contains free agents like man,
whose choices are undetermined. It depends also on the fact that
the precise results of the contacts between material things are
unknowable, because the natures of these things are material
and therefore opaque to a created intelligence. Only observation
and experiment will tell us what material things really do under
given circumstances, and even after we have discovered what it
is the connection is only a factual, not an intelligible, connection. In the natural world-as contrasted with the experimental
world-the settings in which events occur vary from moment
to moment and are never twice exactly the same. Between the
real and the experimental situations there is therefore a great
gulf, which human effort can never span completely. The
real history of the world is therefore not matter for science, nor
could it have been foretold, even by an angelic intelligence or a
super-mathematician seeing in one vision and understanding, in
so far as they are understandable by a created intelligence, the
whole complex of factors existing at the world's origin, as
Laplace and Tyndall wrongly supposed. The idea of Providence
therefore does not in any way interfere with the requirements
and possibilities of science.
Another objection to the idea of Providence is that, if it
really existed, there would be no lapses or failures in nature, in
other words, nothing which is in any degree imperfect. But it is

PROVIDENCE

evident that nature is full of imperfection. It seems, therefore,
that Providence cannot exist.
The simplest answer to this objection is that God, though
He is omnipotent, cannot make another God, because this is
intrinsically impossible. God's omnipotence does not extend to
the intrinsically impossible; this would be contrary to reason.
But God is essentially reason and since what He can do depends
on what He is, essentially, He cannot do what is unreasonable.
It is evident that the idea that God might create another God
is contrary to reason. That which is absolutely independent is
on a higher level than that which is in any degree dependent;
but to be created is to be dependent. That which is created by
God cannot therefore be equal to him. But God is the only
absolutely perfect being. Created being must therefore be
imperfect.
On the other hand, since created being is limited being, the
greater the diversity of creatures in the universe, the greater its
perfection will be. A multitude of finite goods is preferable to
one finite good. Furthermore, if only one species existed in the
created universe, an indefinite number of other possible species
would be excluded and the universe would be the poorer for
their absence. Again, goodness is self-diffusive; a thing that can
increase the goodness of something else is better than a thing
isolated and self-contained; and this would not be possible if
the created universe did not comprise a diversity of creatures,
dependent one on the other. 8 We can see also that a universe
containing only one individual of each species of material thing
would be entitatively less rich than a universe in which many
individuals exist, because the species of material things are
diversified in matter. This man is stronger than that man, but
not so intelligent. In material things the perfection of the
specific nature is more fully manifested in a multitude of individuals than it can be in one alone. Humanity is greater than
any man. The perfection of the universe is thus best assured by
a multiplicity of species and individuals, not forming a chaotic
assemblage, but functionally interrelated. The arguments just
8

II C=tra Gent., 45.

W. R. THOMPSON

advanced in regard to this point are philosQphical and may
seem rather tenuous. But suppose, to take a concrete example,
that the universe was a solid block of one homogeneous and
unchanging substance, such as iron. In that case the disagreeable results that follow from multiplicity would no doubt be
avoided, but only at the expense of the almost infinite richness
and variety contained in the real world. This inert mass would
not be a field of conflict and death, like the real world; but it
would be infinitely inferior to it, and even the most pessimistic
philosopher would not prefer such a world to the one we inhabit.
If it be granted that the multiplication of species and individuals enhances the perfection of the universe, the necessity
of local and individual imperfection and failure becomes evident. The fundamental principle involved is well expressed in
the proverbs that tell us that we cannot have our cake and eat it
and that we cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.
Thus the attractive butterflies that decorate the landscape cannot appear unless their caterpillars destroy or injure the plants
they require for food. Unless the butterflies have an adequate
reproductive power, they cannot maintain their speCies throughout the variations in the environment. If this reproductive
power were not kept down to a low level, the caterpillars of any
given species would become so numerous that all their food
material would be destroyed, after which the species would
perish from starvation. This reduction in the number of the
phytophagous insects is partially effected by parasitic and predacious insects and insectivorous birds. The destruction of
their prey by these creatures is often cited as an example of the
cruelty of nature. But would anyone seriously propose killing
off all the beneficial insects and birds in order to allow the phytophagous insects to flourish? This would be a senseless proceeding. The world would be the poorer for it and it would
not achieve the result aimed at because the world is so constructed that the increase of any species beyond a certain point
automatically brings destruction on it. It is no worse for the
caterpillar to be devoured by an internal parasite or swallowed
by a tit than it is for it to die of starvation. Furthermore,

PROVIDENCE

though it is better to be and never cease to be than to be and
then die, yet no one can reasonably maintain that it is better
never to be than to be for a time and then cease. Existence is
a positive good and though much of it is better than little, yet
some of it is better than none. The existence of imperfections in
the universe is thus not incompatible with the idea of Providence. Providence does not arrange and decree the evil in the
world; what it decrees is the maximum amount of being that
this particular created world can contain. This can only be
secured by a multiplicity of beings in space and time. This is
only possible on condition that each individual being sacrifices
something of what it is or could be. This is not merely an
arbitrarily imposed condition of the universe. It is a rational
necessity. God is reason.
Imperial Agricultural Buroo:tJtiJ,

Belleville, Ont., Canada.

A DATE IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY
By GERARD SMITH, s. J.

L

T us agree, provisionally, to divide propositions as follows: 1. self-evident axioms, e. g., parallels in tri-dimensional space never meet; 2. evident or experienced truths,
e. g., John, George, etc., speak; 3. conclusions deduced from
self-evident axioms, e. g., the interior and exterior angles of
parallels are equal; 4. conclusions induced from evident truths,
e. g., man speaks; 5. postulates, that is, propositions which are
none of the above four, yet are not contradictory, e. g., parallels
never meet.
The source of these propositions may be further described.
For propositions of class 1, the source is our inability to think of
parallels in tri-dimensional space and also to think of them as
meeting; once we try to do that, we achieve a blank, we cease to
understand. Propositions of class 2 arise from our feeling
things, touching them, and so on. For classes 3 and 4 the source
is our inability to continue to think premises if we deny the conclusions therefrom. Propositions of class 5 have their source in
intelligibility, as have propositions of class 1; nevertheless the
opposites of such propositions are also intelligible under different hypotheses.
geometries exist. Thus, intelligibility gives propositions 1; experience gives propositions 2; a
necessary continuity between thinking an axiom or an experienced truth and another truth which is neither axiomatic (it is
deduced) , nor experienced (it is induced) , gives us propositions
3 and 4 respectively.
So far the matter would seem simple enough. But it is not so
simple to idealists and to realists of carious realism. These
philosophers feel called upon to raise the question why axioms
are axioms, why proof proves, why, when they see red, it is red
which they see. To them one might remark that if they do
succeed in finding such reasons, those reasons must necessarily

246

A DATE IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

247

fall under one of the five classes of propositions, and thus they
would be right back where they started, that is, if there be any
explanation of knowledge such as they are looking for, that
explanation must issue from a knowledge which is itself to be
explained in turn. Unless, therefore, we are prepared to engage
in a game of choosing up sides by overhand grips of knowledge
upon knowledge upon knowledge, etc. ad infinitum, with no
prospect of ever coming to the end of the bat-and of having
our game-we might as well never have started our inquiry;
that is, we might as well have admitted from the beginning the
validity of knowledge.
Such a remark might seem to arise from pure dialectic. That
is not so. Nevertheless, in order to avoid even the appearance of
smart talk, we may examine the root of the matter.
One way of baring that root might be as follows. Idealists
would dearly love, as who would not, to keep their feet on the
ground. They would like to talk of things which are or can be,
just as everyone else tries to do. Only, their scruple about
doing this seems to come from what is at least a dubious conclusion from a very true principle. The true principle is this:
only creative knowledge can give an object of knowledge. The
dubious conclusion therefrom is this: therefore, our knowledge
is somehow creative of its object. Now, if one urges against
that dubious conclusion another one, viz., therefore our knowledge is not creative of, does not give but rather gets, its object,
they will ask, " What, then, does give our knowledge its object?" If one answers to this that existents give our knowledge
its object, they will counter," How do you know, since knowledge of existents is not in propositions 1, 3, 4? And if knowledge
of existents is not in those propositions, why may not the situation in propositions 2 be exactly the same? Think them we
must, but whether or not the propositions are about existents
we do not know." At this point, huffing and puffing, a realist
might suggest that propositions 1, 3, 4, even though not forthwith expressive of knowledge of existents, nevertheless do express what subjects and predicates must be if they exist. The
idealist persists, " How do you know that? " " Because," a

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GERARD SMITH

realist must say," I know there are existents." "And how," is
the final inquiry of an idealist, " do you know that? "
Thus the issue is drawn. Do we, or do we not, know existents?
If we do, propositions 1, 3, 4 express what must be true if anything exists, because propositions 2 express what in fact exists.
If we do not, propositions of classes 1, 3, 4 express only what we
must think to be true, either because we do not know whether
class 2 expresses knowledge of existents-this is critical idealism, or because we know that they do not express knowledge of
existents-this is dogmatic idealism.
As to the issue itself, it is one whose resolution is anterior to
demonstration and self-evidence. It cannot be proved, disproved, named self-evident or a postulate. Either one must
admit from evidence that in propositions 2 we know existents
and hence may know what must be true, in propositions 1, 3, 4,
of existents if they exist; or one questions or denies that evidence, and thus questions or denies the validity of all knowledge
based upon existents.
It is to M. Etienne Gilson that we are indebted for enabling
us to see the issue thus. His books 1 upon the subject are a
date, ante Gilson, post Gilson, in the history of epistemology.
Having reported the issue, I shall now report its resolution.
A false start in the attempt to resolve the issue would ruin
everything. Two false starts are possible: one from the viewpoint of knowledge, one from the viewpoint of being. To take,
first, the false start from the viewpoint of knowledge: We
condemn ourselves to winding up at a dead end if we isolate the
kinds of human knowledge, sense and intellectual knowledge,
from each other and ask of either kind alone to explain itself
or the other as being human knowledge. True, we may isolate
and examine, analytically, sense knowledge and intellectual
knowledge, just as we may analytically isolate and examine the
soul and body of man. However, just as we may not say that
man is soul or man is body, so may we not say that human
knowledge is sense knowledge or human knowledge is intellec1 Etienne Gilson, Realisme Thomiste et Critique de la Connaissance, Vrin, 1939,
esp. CC. VII, VIII; Le Realisme Methodique, Tequi, esp. C. V.

A DATE. IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

249

tual knowledge. A man is both soul and body taken together.
Just so, human knowledge is both sense knowledge and intellectual knowledge taken together, a unit of distinct though inseparate factors. Human intellectual knowledge alone would be
knowledge of quiddities-if human knowledge were intellectual
only. Human sense knowledge alone would be knowledge of
sensibilia propria or communia - if human knowledge were
sensible only. Yet in human knowing neither sense knowledge
nor intellectual knowledge exists alone. They exist together,
forming a unit knowledge, which is human knowledge, quite as
soul and body form a unit which is a man. One must be as
rough here on Platonism as on sensism. Human knowledge is
neither purely intellectual nor purely sensible; not either,
purely. It is both. Rough we must be if we do not wish to cut
the ridiculous figure of starting out to talk about something, in
this case about human knowledge, and winding up by talking
about something else, in this instance about purely intellectual
knowledge. 2 Sensism would not even enable us to start talking.
Resigning ourselves to being less than angels, more than
animals, and not at all polyps, let us agree that "properly
speaking neither sense nor intellect knows, but man knows by
both together." 8 If we agree to that, we need not concern ourselves with the difficulty that intellect alone cannot know
existents since its object is quiddity, and sensible quiddity may
or may not exist. Nor need we concern ourselves with the like
difficulty, that sense knows only sensibilia propria or communia,
and these are not existence. Quite true. But these difficulties
lie along the road we have not taken. Putting sense and intellect together in human knowledge from the beginning, we
have made it impossible to ask how to relate the two. As if
sense and intellect were two halves of knowledge which we
must needs join in order to form a unit! Sense and intellect are
"The remark is St. Thomas's: Derisibile videtur ut, dum eorum quae nobis manifesta sunt, notitiam quaerimus, alia entia in medium afferamus, quae non possunt
esse eorum substantiae, cum ab eis differant secundum esse. . . . Summa Theol.
I. q. 84, a. I, resp.
• St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. it, a. 6.

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GERARD SMITH

not put together by us. They are not related by us. They are
together, given as a unit, from the beginning, all along, and at
the end of all human knowing. We have nothing to do about it
at all. So unified is the given unity of sense and intellect that
we cannot even separate the two and continue to talk about
human knowledge. Not only is it impossible for us to do this, it
is also- here is an anticlimax for the sake of sophists- nonsensical. The reason is: if human knowledge be given as unit,
a composite of sense and intellect, to ask then how to relate the
two is equivalent to asking how to relate conceptual knowledge
(which cannot exist in us apart from sense knowledge) to sense
knowledge (apart from which conceptual knowledge cannot
exist) in order that conceptual knowledge may exist apart from
that without which it cannot exist at all. This is nonsense, a
dead end.
Another dead end may be reached by a false start from the
viewpoint of being. The false start is an essentialist metaphysic. The fundamental persuasion of such a metaphysic is
that there are things which do not exist, a position in metaphysics paralleling the Platonic noetic we just saw. Essentialism adverts to the truth that the act of existing affects a subject
of existence. Instead of adverting to the equally true proposition, that a subject of existence would be as meaningless as it
is null unless it were of existence that it is a subject, essentialism goes on to philosophize upon those subjects as if they were
not subjects of existence. Thus, essentialism succeeds in talking
of essences as if their being, actual or possible, somehow " stood
up" stiff with reality, apart from the act of existing which
accrues or can accrue to it. The fact is, for a realist the act of
existing, to which essences are or can be related in order to be
even as much as essences-the act of existing is that which
makes essences jell, that which is the steel in their concrete, the
catalytic agent stiffening them into whatsoever reality they
have, the rope which rescues them from the abyss. When, however, an essentialist conceives subjects of existence it would
appear that he conceives them as cores around which is the skin
of existence. Now, you can pull the skin from the core and still

A DATE IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

251

have the core; just so, you can peel off existence and still have
being-essentialist being. A realist, though he does distinguish
subjects of existence from their act of existing, knows full well
that if the skin of existence, actual or possible, is peeled off from
his essences, there isn't anything left, not anything. 4 Whatever
factors there are in a realist's being-essences, matter, form,
and the rest of it, these factors are factors only because they are
existing or are so related to the act of existing that without
that relation they would be nothing. Essences are that according to which and in which a thing has being. 5 Apart from the
being to which they are actually or possibly related there are
not any essences.
It is now time to resolve the issue.
That issue, as we have seen, is at the apex where human
knowledge, undividedly one, meets being, undividedly one.
That apex is experience, knowledge whose object is known as
existing. If we described experience as purely sensuous, or,
alternatively, as purely intellectual; if we described being as
essences apart from their act of existing, or vice versa, as an
act of existing apart from a subject of existence, we should have
not one apex but at least four, none of which can be a judgment
of existence. Sense alone can meet existents, but sense alone
cannot know that they are existent. Intellect alone could meet
quiddities alone, but quiddities may and they may not exist.
Essences as taken quite apart from any relation to the act of
existing by which they are even so much as essences, are nothing. The act of existing as taken quite apart from the subject of
existence (unless that act be also the subject: the case of God)
cannot exist either. To keep the issue resolvable, therefore, we
must keep one apex, experience, the juncture of undivided
knowledge and undivided being.
The resolution is as simple as this: We know that there are
things because we feel them. To urge against this evidence of
feeling the phenomena of hallucinations, dreams, and so on,
is a pretty piece of sophistry. The sophistry consists in this:
'In Lib. Boet.de Hebd. I. fl. Et ideo, sicut possumus dicere.
De Ente et Essentia, C. 1.

5

GERARD SMITH

Since it is not evident that we feel things in dreams, or, if you
will, since it is evident post factum that we did not feel things
in dreams, therefore we do not feel or do not know we feel
things when we are not dreaming. The sophistry is quite like
that of one who maintains that because there are sound and
unsound hearts, as there are, and because we cannot tell before
examination whether a heart is sound or unsound, therefore we
are not sure or cannot tell at all even after examination. Obviously if one wishes to fabricate a class of hearts which are
neither sound nor unsound before examination, and then
identify such a fabricated class with the beating hearts, calling
them neither sound nor unsound, one surely may. But then a
sound heart will have to be defined as one which would be unsound if it were not sound-quite as Taine defined a true sensation: that which would be an hallucination if it were not an
hallucination, une vraie hallucination. Such is the reductio ad
absurdum of one who denies the evidence of sensation. The
difference between seeing this paper and not seeing it, or merely
thinking you see it, is measured precisely by seeing this paper.
This is evidence.
It is evidence not precisely to the senses alone; alone, the
senses feel only sensible qualities, and these qualities are not
existence. It is evidence not exactly to the intellect alone; alone,
the intellect knows only quiddities, and quiddities may or may
not exist. It is evidence to the composite knowledge, sensible
and intellectual, of the knower, man. The reason is that man
knows by his intellect that what he feels exists. Intellect alone
does not know that things exist; sense alone does not feel the
existence of existents. But since neither sense nor intellect is
alone, man's knowledge in the judgments of existence is both
sensible and intellectual. A man knows that which he feels exists.
Nor can he feel with evidence everything feelable without
knowing that what he feels exists. This intellectual knowledge
of the felt thing's existence is not a transmutation of sensible
evidence into intellectual evidence, a transmutation of propositions into propositions 1, 3, 4. Nor is it a transmutation of
intellectual evidence, propositions 1, 3, 4 into propositions 2. It

A DATE IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

is a knowledge by the intellect of the existence of sensibly
experienced existents.
Let us expand the point. All judgments other than those of
class involve actual or possible being in general, that which is
or can be. The judgment of existence alone, propositions
predicates the act of existing of its subject, the sensibly experienced existent. Now, being in general is not the act of
existing: it is that which has or can have such an act. We never
know immediately, that is, apart from proof, whether or not a
subject of existence has the act of existing unless we, say, punch
it. Then we know, and it is by our intellect that we know that
what we punch exists. If one cares to say the knowledge of
being is abstract knowledge, well and good. It is. But the abstraction of being in general, which being is involved in proposi.:
tions 1, 3, 4, is not the same as the abstraction of the act of
existing from the sensibly experienced existent in judgments
of existence. In this last case, two lines converge and meet
in the existential judgment: the line of unitary being and
the line of unitary knowledge. The line of unitary being:
because the act of existing is inseparate from the sensible quiddity, just as sensible quiddity is inseparate from its act of
existing. The line of unitary knowledge: because the intellectual knowing that a thing exists is inseparate from the sensible
experience of the existent, just as the sensible experience which
is evident is inseparate from the intellectual knowing of the
existent. Evidently experienced sensibles cannot be sensed
without their being known, intellectually, to exist; contrariwise,
immediate knowledge of an existent cannot be had without the
sensible experience of that existent. The meaning of " being
in general " can be known apart from actually knowing any
instance of it. As an abstraction from particular and common
sensibles (this flesh, flesh) , as an abstraction also from particular
and common intelligibles (ox, substance), "being in general"
retains that which is analogously true of anything from which it
abstracts, namely, that which is or can be. But being, as the act
of existing of whatever is sensibly experienced, abstracts, if
one must use the word, not from the sensibly experienced

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GERARD SMITH

datum; it abstracts in that sensibly experienced datum that
by reason of which the datum is felt, and that is the datum's
act of existing. We cannot remove, abstract, the act of
existing from the object which we immediately know exists,
because if we did there would not be any object left; nor can we
divorce the sense experience of an existent from the intellectual
knowledge that the sensibly experienced does exist, because then
there would not be any knowledge left, not any human knowledge at any rate. Thus there is on the side of being an ens concretum quidditati sensibili; on the side of knowledge there is, to
parallel the terminology of Cajetan, a cognitio concreta sensationi. (A modern might name human knowledge an osmotic
unit. St. Thomas knew about this osmosis; only, he calls it
quaedam refluentia). When the two, ens ... and cognitio
. . . , meet, the quiddity does not lose its being; if it did, there
would not be anything left; nor does the cognitio of the existent
cease to be concretised with sensation of it; if it did, there would
not be human cognitio left.
It is perhaps now apparent that though the source of all
knowledge in us is first principles, propositions 1 (" all our
knowledge originally consists in the knowledge of first principles ") , nevertheless, the source of first principles in us is
sensation (" but the knowledge of these principles arises in us
from sense") .6 Now, the source of sensation is an existent
" which according to its wholly complete being is outside the
soul, such as are the complete beings, a man, a stone." 7 Thus
existents are the origin of the origin (sensation) of the origin
(first principles) of all human knowledge. The act of being of
existents is the placental cord connecting both their factors
(sensibility and intelligibility); the act of their being is also the
placental cord tying them to sensation, sensation to the judgments of existence, these judgments to whatsoever else we may
know. If we regard propositions 1, 3, 4 as involving an hypothesis, viz., as expressing what must be so if anything is so,
propositions 1 posit that hypothesis by the experience of being.
• Summa Theol., I-ll, q. 51, a. 1.

• In I Lib. Sent. d. 19. q. 5, a. 1, sol.

A DATE IN THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY

255

Thus it is that experience functions in knowledge as God functions in nature. Without God there is no nature without
experience there is no knowledge.
If idealists persist in demanding how we know all this, we
must hasten to assure them with M. Gilson that we do not
know any of this without the evidence of sensation, and if one
still seeks the evidence of the evident, res sunt, we must resolutely refuse to pursue the inquiry.
Marquette University,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

DANTE AND THOMISM
By DANIEL SARGENT
" DANTE, are you a Thomist poet? "
Dante does not answer our question from the next
world, nor would he answer it were he in this, for he
never turned his head to foolish questions.
Yet some Thomists do crowd round Dante, and they will
ask questions. " I make a party by myself," he said, yet they
follow him as he goes off to be alone, and they have plenty of
questions in their hearts:
"He must be a philosopher, mustn't he? He has been to the
thirteenth-century Sorbonne. From his verses we can see that
he knows of our quarrels."
"Perhaps he is celebrating Thomism in his Divine Comedy?"
"At any rate, isn't he ours, our poet, for he is a living refutation of the claim of the men of the Renaissance that no Aristotelian could be a poet? They took the name of poet for each
and all of them, but the world has forgotten it. Dante took the
name, and the world still accords it to him. He defined Aristotle as the ' Master of those who know ' and the world quotes
even the definition as a verse of poetry."
So they discourse; and I would make a few comments.
Dante was not a philosopher. He cannot be patronized by
professional philosophers as one who might have made a name
among them if he had not failed and slunk off into
domain
of poetry where he could not be contradicted. Dante began to
" ragionar " in verse as soon as he could speak " per isfogar la
mente." He was a poet.
Nor was he a poet who did not know his vocation and in
false ambition wished to excel as a philosopher. He made it
very clear in the Divine Comedy that what he wanted was the
laurel wreath.
In fact, the title philosopher he accorded without much
ceremony exclusively to the unbaptized thinkers, the whole

256

DANTE AND THOMISM

family of whom he placed in Limbo. Their inability, in spite of
all their talents, to arrive anywhere without faith was something which he had carefully explained to him in Paradise. He
put in Limbo not only Democritus, who could find no rhyme or
reason anywhere, but also Aristotle, who detected a scheme
in things.
Dante had a high esteem for Saint Thomas Aquinas, so high
that he did not even call him a philosopher. He encountered
him in Heaven as one of the burning suns that around him
circled in a crown. He was grouped with Saint Bonaventure,
who was not a Thomist, and Siger of Brabant, who was even
less a Thomist. He was one of the wise, one of the prudent,
and the one of them of whom Dante asked the most questions,
and from whom he received an explanation of form and matter.
He inveighed against rash judgment. Yet he was not in the
highest sphere of Heaven. Above him were the courageous,
and higher still the just, and higher again the contemplatives,
Saint Peter Damiani and Saint Benedict.
Neither in his life nor in his poem did Dante show any predilection for the company of philosophers. In the Divine
Comedy he chose four guides from those personally dear to
him. They were Virgil, Statius, Beatrice, and Saint Bernard.
No one of these was a philosopher.
It might be claimed that he changed these characters into
philosophers in his poem. Virgil, for instance, is usually referred to by commentators as representing natural Reason, and
it can be conceded that he does become more of a moralizer in
the Divine Comedy than he is in the Aeneid; but he remains
even then the celebrator of the unbaptized yet to-be-baptized
Roman Empire, which Dante prized even over-highly, and in
the praising of it shows to Dante the way to celebrate the Eternal Empire, love-commanded, of which God is the Imperator.
Virgil did not become transmuted into a philosopher. Saint
Bernard, furthermore, became less of a philosopher in the
Divine Comedy than he was on earth. He became the poet of
our Lady," Vergine Madre."
Certainly Dante was not celebrating in his poem any system
17

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DANIEL SARGENT

of philosophy, as was Lucretius in his De Rerum Natura. He
was celebrating neither a philosophy into which fits Christianity, as Santayana insinuates, nor one which fits into Christianity. He was not celebrating a philosophy any more than a
writer who writes in good grammar is celebrating good grammar. He was not celebrating it even secondarily. Under God
Dante was celebrating Beatrice, who is usually interpreted to
be a Florentine maiden, Beatrice Portinari, whom he elevated
and purified into an embodiment of theology. The late Pere
Mandonnet believed that she had never been a :flesh-and-blood
maiden at all. She stood, so he maintained, for a priestly or
spiritual vocation which Dante had started on and then had
abandoned. But however that may be, Beatrice at least ended
as Theology and not as Thomism, not even Thomism turned
into Theology. Beatrice was constantly (in the Paradiso)
smiling, and Thomism as a philosophy does not smile, and is
not meant to smile.
But Dante was not only a poet, he was a man, and as a man
he could at times play the philosopher. When he played the
philosopher, was he a Thomist philosopher? Certainly not in
all parts of the De M onarohia, and according to Gilson he was
not so in the symbolism of the Divine Comedy. I doubt if he
himself knew quite what he was. He would have hung back,
I believe, from joining a Thomist or any other philosophical
party.
It might be well to go on in this fashion to show all the ways
in which Dante could be distinguished from Thomists, in order
to prove that no matter how far one went, there remained
plenty of reasons to group him with the Thomists. But the fact
is, the closer we scrutinize him in order to separate him from
them, the more unique he becomes to our eyes, and the more
Thomist because of that uniqueness.
For half-a-thousand years we have been used to intellectually
unoptimistic poets. At first they were seeking for a beautiful
unbelieved fable on which to write, leaving reality to the writers
of prose. In solemn moments they did celebrate what they held
true, but then they styled their verses sacred poetry, and they

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259

accepted its field as limited. Milton did try to revive sacred
poetry into a grand epic, but for sacred subject he could go
only to the Bible. Thus make-believe became the domain of
the poets, and they entered it as if ready not to have poetry
too important. But then when the new generations began to
take poetry a little more seriously, and when, especially in the
English language, they wished to find in it a religion, and were
too earnest to give delight by mere fable, they wrote poetry by
closing their eyes, or giving to their intellect an opiate lest it
break the spell. They would swoon into poetry, or forget how
much they knew. Matthew Arnold could scarcely find subjects
on which to write, so much bitter enlightenment he thought he
had. Wordsworth was appalled by the Deist's machine of
nature. He would not analyze with his intellect lest he see that
machine. He sought something stiller, sadder, a spirit under
it all, that would make him wise. He was anti-intellectual.
Dante did not fear Nature. Nature to him was no machine,
neither was it God. He looked at " Thomist Nature "-realitywhich had depth, which was rich in content.
Neither did he search for a fable, in which he did not believe,
on which to write. Nor would be become a truncated man when
he became a poet, nor a superman. He would be an entire man,
intellect and all. He was the Christian Humanist, the integral
Humanist after the Thomist pattern. Confident in himself as a
man he was, as far as his mere manhood would take him, yet
humble and ready in Purgatory to sleep at night till grace
prepared him for his next day's journey.
There was something brave about him, and optimistic. He
could find the meaning of things, and furthermore he could turn
that meaning into poetry.
" I will effuse myself like a season," said Walt Whitman, but
it was what Dante did not say, and would not have done. He
would not have done it as a philosopher nor as a poet. He had
had too much Scholastic training for that.
Dante never regarded himself as a season, and he would have
considered it unmanly to liken himself to anything so amorphous. Also it would have been disrespectful to the universe to

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DANIEL SARGENT

effuse himself on it; it was God's. He stood as a man with a
God-given intellect before a universe which God had made.
His mind was not something to throw away. It was the heroic
in him; it was his sword. He said of man's mind in Il Convivio:
"Per che e manifesto che per Mente s'intende questa ultima e
nobilissima parte dell' Anima." Dante's epic was to be the
story of what he could do with his sword, and of the victory
ensuing which would make his life not a tragedy.
"The Intellect is born to cut things to pieces," is not a
saying of Saint Thomas, but it is a paraphrase of lntellectus
natus est dividere ea quae secundum rem coniuncta est, which
he did say. And the Schoolmen were always saying "I distinguish," and were also ever distinguishing, splitting, splitting.
Dante was taught the value of cutting with his intellect, and
had some of the pride of a virtuoso simply in being able to cut
keenly. He divided Pope Boniface VIII from the office he held,
damned Boniface the man most ignominiously to Hell with his
legs kicking up in the air, and at the same time celebrated him
as Pope when, at Alagna receiving the buffets of the French, he
showed himself as a majestic figure renewing Christ's Passion.
The fame of this instance of Dante's cutting must not hide
the fact that it was everywhere that Dante was cutting with
the same nicety. In any single circle of Hell, where men were
condemned for a single sin, he did not set men who were merely
duplicates one of the other. He defined each circle of Hell by
putting in it the best that could be there, and the worst. In
the very first circle, that of carnality, there were Paolo and
Francesca, to whom he was drawn, and Semiramis from whose
vicious lechery he shrank.
In wielding his sword Dante also prided himself on not
letting its stroke veer through any private emotion. He separated Paolo and Francesca from Semiramis, but not the circle
of their damnation from that of Semiramis, not though he
swooned in anguish at the punishment of Paolo and Francesca.
Implicitly he was saying to himself: " I will not effuse myself
like a season."
Dante was relentless and constant with his sword. He separ-

DANTE AND THOMISM

.261

ated himself from God. He separated Hell from Purgatory,
and Purgatory from Heaven. He wrote his Divine Comedy by
making divisions, or, as some would say, by splitting hairs.
In the Divine Comedy he even shows his contempt for those
who do not cut. The damned in Hell were those who had lost
the good of the intellect.
Said Virgil:
Noi sem venuti alluogo ov'io t'ho detto
Che vederai le gente dolorose,
C'hanno perduto 'I ben dell' intelletto.
But there were others not worth putting in Hell. These were
those in Hell's vestibule-" sub-human liberals "-who would
not decide what the intellect should decide.
But cutting with the intellect does not provide a poet with a
poem, nor even with anything to write a poem about. Schol. astics after they have done their work are often blamed for
leaving nothing but abstractions-mere lifeless bones, motionless-the horror of poets. Dante was not horrified; he went on
and embodied these bones. No sooner had he faced the abstractions than, with the flash of his imagination, he clothed them
into existence, making them appear in the most concrete and
particular form. No dawn brightens in the Divine Comedy that
is merely a dawn; it is a particular dawn at a particular season,
on a particular date, in a particular locality. Homer has the
night come ever with a sameness, and the description of it
has the charm of a refrain. No two nights come the same to
Dante. He recreates a universe out of the most strilcingly
particular things he has ever experienced, out of landscapeslike the cliffs at La Turbie-which he· could not forget, out of
days as individual as that in the Alps when the snow fell and
there was no wind, out of human beings, whom he had faced in
history, or even more intimately in his streets of Florence. He
took the universe and turned it inside out till it stared at him
with its meaning visible in most particular symbols.
Certainly this was not all of it the work of a philosopher,
but it was based on a trust in philosophy.
It was not even reasonable for him to think that he could be

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DANIEL SARGENT

as sure of the virtues and vices of his fellow citizens as he was
willing to be. In his fierce particular judgments he most surely
was often unjust, as he in a milder moment acknowledged
might be the case-yet those neighbors who were unjustly
judged could glory in the immortality he gave them. At the
same time it was for the sake of showing the nature of the
universe that he chose such definite symbols, not for the sake
of personal vindictiveness. It emphasized the philosophical
truth that even the homeliest, most provincial neighborhood
was woven of meanings. There is no forgotten, insignificant
man in Creation, not even our nearest neighbor.
Thus Dante took his metaphysics so seriously that it aroused
his imagination to the creating of the most complete and vivid
of dreams. In it he saw people as they are, not as they merely
seem. Milton sang that the hypocrite was known to God alone,
but Dante could tell a hypocrite: he was walking in Hell, and
could be recognized by his robe of gilded lead, which Dante
saw so clearly that he could describe it as being of the cut of
those of the monks at Cologne in Germany. Yes, he could see
him in Hell, and so robed, even if he encountered him living in
Florence, and even though by courtesy and restraint he deferred, till the man's death, assigning him to his perdition.
We cannot fail to remark, in reading the Divine Comedy,
that Dante did not make his great tour through Creation as a
disembodied intellect, for in a dozen or more places he draws
our attention to the fact that he, different from the dead, had
a body. In the Inferno, he weighed down the boat of Charon.
He caused considerable consternation to a sheep-like crowd
trooping round the Mount of Purgatory by casting a shadow.
This not only adds to the drama on his journey; it emphasizes
that Dante thought he could approach God with an Aristotelian
body. The last thing he wanted to do was to become a hasty
angel.
To have a body does not mean to Thomists to bear a burden
of so many pounds weight, but to have the help of five senses.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante shows every consideration to
the five senses. In the Inferno it is dark and the eyes are

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268

inhibited, but touch, the lowest sense, has in this lowest region
an important work. On occasion he measures Hell's landscape
as an inchworm does, by sprawling upon it, climbing up broken
bridge-spans, belly to every stone of them. He even gropes to
the centre of the earth, clutching to the hairy thighs of headdown Lucifer.
As soon as Dante is out of Hell, he rejoices to be able to see
with his eyes once more. First there are the stars overhead
instead of a cavern, and then the oriental sapphire of the dawn
appears. From then on, especially after he has really climbed
to the terraces of the mount of purification, his touch becomes
less important. His weight does not force him down upon earth.
The ethereal sense of sight knows always where the sun is.
Colors and pictures are beautiful. But he is not dizzy before
such beauties. He is able still to be the keen astronomer.
When he comes to Paradise, he is so high as to be able to
dispense with three senses: touch, smell, and taste. Hearing
stays with him, but what it gives is but an accompaniment to
seeing. Seeing is sovereign. He becomes an eye. It is true.that
from time to time his eyes have to look to Beatrice's smile in
order to be able to see to a higher sphere. It is also true that
at the last thunderclap even sight becomes unnecessary in the
union with God, but nevertheless it is with his eyes that he
beholds the rose of the Church Triumphant. He will .not
relinquish his undizzy sight until he has to. Sight is given most
lordly honor.
This Thomistic respect for the clear-cut and definitely perceived had a Thomistic effect on the architecture of his poem.
What that effect is can be gathered by comparing the Divine
Comedy with Paradise Lost. Milton attains to the sublime by
calling in a vague hugeness. He hypnotizes us into immensity
by an organ music accompaniment. Who can therefore draw a
precise picture of Milton's angels? Or who plot the Miltonic
landscape without becoming trivial and grotesque? Dante on
the other hand measures the very stature of his demons, and
Hell is described so precisely that an engineer could make a
drawing of it as of a fortification. Purgatory too is as definite

DANIEL SARGENT

as any hill plotted by surveyors. In Heaven the altitudes of
the spheres are not mathematically given, but the proportions
are there. And every commentator on Dante draws a diagram
of his three-fold universe. Dante none the less attains to the
sublime, and he does it by showing the amazing relation of the
details one to another. Thus Dante's poem is not a baroque
basMica, but a Gothic cathedral, or a Sainte Chapelle.
Dante said to Virgil: " Through you I was poet, through you
a Christian." The Thomists can say to Dante: " Through us
you have written a poem that is as fresh and pristine as Homer,
and yet intellectually mature. You have not tried to go back
and forget. You have pressed forward to know more, in order
to make your poem the more beautiful. You are unique in that
respect among the epic poets for hundreds of years, for they
have been sophisticated and could not write anything simple
as an epic. But we educated you, and with your knowledge
you could sing. Surely your head, which we are glad to have
you hold erect and proud, can make a slight inclination to us."
South Natick,
Massachwe;tts

MATTER, BEATITUDE AND LIBERTY
By ANTON c. PEGIS
I
F all the frontier issues on the boundaries between Greek
and Christian thought, there is one problem which has
had an importance and an influence second to none. It
is a problem that is to be found somewhere near the very center
of the actual development of Greek philosophy, conditioning its
vision and producing its outstanding doctrines and problems
for over a thousand years of philosophical speculation. I refer
to the problem of matter, to its origin and reality, and to its
contribution to the intelligible ordering of the world. As everyone knows, in explaining the origin and the order of the world,
Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus make matter to enter as an extraneous cause into the intelligible structure of reality.
All three of these thinkers are united in being immaterialists
in their explanations of the origin of the world; but their immaterialism is based on the tacit assumption that the world of
sensible beings is entirely intelligible in the essences which it
contains but not entirely intelligible in the beings in which
these essences reside .. The question, be it observed, is not
merely one of distinguishing between an intelligible essence and
a concrete sensible singular. Such a distinction is the great
achievement of Plato and Aristotle, as St. Thomas Aquinas
regularly points out. 1 The present question is much more
serious than this recognition that there are substances in the
sensible world and that in these substances it is possible to
distinguish intelligible natures from the individuating conditions under which these natures are found within the realm of
sensible things. The most radical issue, however, which the

O

1 De Potentia, ill, 5; Summa Theologica, I, 44, 2; De Substantiis Separatis, VII;
De Spiritualibus Creaturis, X, ad 8.

265

ANTON C. PEGIS

immaterialism of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus raises is what
may be called the dilemma of composite essences.
I do not wish to raise this problem in all its generality, since I
hope to return to it in another discussion. I merely wish to
point to the issue as a background within which to consider the
Ethics of Aristotle. The issue can be seen more sharply, for
present purposes, if it is put in Christian terms, for then it may
be seen as a problem in the relations between the divine ideas
and creatures. To say that divine ideas are creative ideas is to
say that they are primarily ideas of individuals, including material individuals. 2 Because the divine ideas are creative ideas,
they are the causes of composite beings in their very compositeness. The world is intelligible even in its imperfections because
matter itself is a creature and enters from within, and not
extraneously, the ordering of the world by God. To say, therefore, that God creates the total reality of composite substances
is not only to reverse the Greek decision on the relations between being and essence, it is also to free composite substances,
man himself included, from that tragic and closed immobilism
which was the price that the Greeks paid for world order. For
if the Platonic Forms, the Aristotelian Species and the Plotinian
Thought-Essences are not-and they are not-creative divine
ideas, then not only is the order of the world a compromise with
the irrational forces of matter, but the very destiny of man is
threatened with the tragedy of this compromise.
I should like to illustrate this fact by proposing an interpretation of the doctrine of the end of man in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics which may seem to many venturesome in the
extreme. The interpretation is not at all new; but that is
another story. I propose it in the conviction that, if we made an
effort to see the Metaphysics, the Physics, the Ethics and the
De Anima as works which were written, however disjointedly,
by one and the same Aristotle,. then we could not possibly
undertake to ruin the Aristotelian Physics when we are concerned either with the theology of the Metaphysics or with the
"Cf. St. Thomas, De Veritate, ill, 5; ill, 8 R and ad 2; VIII, 11; Sum100 Theo-logica, I, 15, 8, ad. 8.

MATTER, BEATITUDE AND LffiERTY

267

doctrine of man in the Ethics and the De Anima. In short, just
as it is true that there are serious troubles in store for those who
have too easily translated the Platonic Forms into divine ideas,
so it is true that there are very serious troubles in store for those
who
too easily the world of Aristotle into the Christian
world of creatures. St. Thomas Aquinas, who has a very high
esteem for Aristotle, nevertheless refuses to accept the astronomical physics of Aristotle as much as he refuses to accept the
abstractionism of Plato. 3 And even where he does not openly
quarrel with Aristotle, the reason is not that he has unknowingly Christianized Aristotle. The Aristotelian ethics is a case
in point. Did Aristotle have a proper conception of the end of
man? And did St. Thomas think that the Aristotelian man
really escaped from the confines of the Aristotelian physics?
If St. Thomas admits that the order of the world is not for
Aristotle the product of a creative divine government, how
could St. Thomas admit that the Aristotelian man achieved a
destiny and a liberty which his very nature, and the nature of
the world in which he lived, denied to him? What is the end
of man-the fulfilment of the spiritual desires of the human
person or the perpetuation of an eternal human species under
the divine immobility of an eternal agent intellect? Let us, in
fact, look at this conflict between nature and person in the
philosophy of Aristotle: it is the point of location, within the
Aristotelian physicism, of a doctrine of intelligence in God and
in man which seeks, against matter, an explanation of the meaning of liberty and of beatitude.

IT
In order to state, in its most general terms, the issue with
which I am here concerned, let me approach it from the side of
God. Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus confront us with a doctrine
of God in which God is intelligent but not free and in which the
world, far from being a creature, is a limit to His divinity and a
challenge to His power. It may be difficult to imagine a situa• Cf. De Spiritualibus Oreaturis, V; De Substantiu Separatu, I-IV.

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ANTON C. PEGIS

tion in which liberty and personality are not essential aspects of
our idea of God. The Christian God is a Creator and a Father;
He loves the world freely and He has freely produced it; and
man is His creature and lives, as a free human person, under
His government. Nothing is more natural to Christians than to
think of God in this way as well as to think of man as living in
a world which is so ruled and by such a God. And yet, curious
as it may be, the very doctrines which give to the Christian
idea of God, of the world and of man their deepest significance
are exactly the doctrines which are missing in the classical
Greek conceptions of God and man; A God without liberty and
without personality is a veritable caricature in the Christian
world. Yet it is a fact that the divine liberty and the divine
autonomy are doctrines which are non-existent throughout the
whole history of Greek philosophy. The notion of liberty remains singularly undeveloped in Greek philosophy. Indeed, we
may say even more. We may say that Greek thought developed
towards the notion of necessity rather than towards the notion
of liberty, and towards the notion of stability rather than towards the notion of autonomy. In brief, Greek intellectualism
presents a doctrine of God and man which, in effect, resists the
development of the ideas of personality and liberty.
When we look at the God of Aristotle, for example-supposing always that we can speak of the Aristotelian God in the
singular, which is at least problematical-it is not difficult to
see that He is an intelligence, that He is thinking of the best
possible object and that in this consists His peace and His
tranquility. But where is the liberty of the Aristotelian God?
And why is there not a word in Aristotle about the will and the
power of God? The Christian God is no less an intelligent being
than is the God of Aristotle, and yet, unlike the God of Aristotle, He is a God of power and liberty, a God Who includes
within His perfection not only that He is most wise and most
good, but also that He is autonomous and omnipotent. Why
is the notion of the omnipotence and the liberty of God so
prominent in Christian thought, and why is such a notion so
completely absent from Aristotle?

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AND LIBERTY

269

Consider now the famous Nicomachean Ethics. Nothing
illustrates more sharply the nature of the Aristotelian world,
and especially its distinctively Hellenic character, than the
problem of the destiny of man in the Ethics. For just as the
Platonic man epitomizes the conflict between intelligibility and
matter from the standpoint of the origin of the world, so the
Aristotelian man epitomizes this very conflict from the standpoint of the destiny of the world. For the Aristotelian man is
divided in this destiny. He pays tribute to matter, even to the
matter of his own being, and in this lies his tragedy. It is not
simply that his life in this world is a precarious one. That is
true; but it need not be atragedy. Nor is it that a heaven of
beatitude is not the goal of his life. It is. His calamity is rather
that his destiny as a human person is at odds with his nature.
By as much as he is a man, he will always have one and only
one foot in his cherished heaven; and by as much as he achieves
his destiny he is no longer a man, indeed, he is no longer an
individual human person. This is in fact the paradox of the
Aristotelian man. But perhaps the paradox is itself a little
more paradoxical than is ordinarily supposed. For even the
Aristotelian heaven is paradoxical.
It does not seem that we have adverted sufficiently to the
problem of human destiny such as it is found in the Ethics. It
is ordinarily supposed that the Ethics of Aristotle is concerned
with the end of man understood as the ordering of human conduct in this life. This assumption is based on the more or less
implicit contention that since man has, in fact, no natural end,
and since Aristotle cannot be speaking of what he does not
know, namely, the supernatural end of man, he must be speaking of the only other possibility, namely, the ordering of human
life in terms of the hierarchy of goods that befit man's nature.
The Ethics would thus be a normative work in which Aristotle
lays down the principles that enable man to arrange his values
in the proper hierarchy and to organize his life in accord with
them. I cannot deny, and I do not wish to deny, that Aristotle
does this. The question is whether Aristotle is not also doing
something else, namely, laying down the conditions of what is

.ANTON C. PEGIS

for him the natural terminal end of man. The sort of happiness,
therefore, that man can achieve in this life is the only happiness
which he will ever achieve as an individual person; for this is the
only life in which he will be an individual person. In a word,
for the individual man, this earth is not only earth, it is also
heaven-the heaven of a human imitation of the life and the
beatitude of God. What thus renders the Ethics of tremendous
importance, according to this interpretation, is that it is a theory
of the only eternal life, and the only share in eternal life, which
the individual man will ever have. For Aristotle would not then
mean only that happiness in this life is precarious; he would
mean something infinitely more serious than this: he would
mean that man's share in his ultimate destiny, enacted here
and now, is itself precarious.
I shall not insist on the gentral characteristics of Aristotelian
ethics. They are both very well known and very enduring.
Aristotelian ethics is, first of all, teleological. Secondly, Aristotelian ethics is pluralistic. For Aristotle the good is immanent in
the diverse orders of being and, unlike the separate Good of
Plato, its meaning varies with the diversity of being. In attacking Plato in the first book of the Ethics/ Aristotle denies
not only the separation of the Forms, but also the very principle
of the participation theory itself. For it he substitutes a theory
of imitation which accords better with what may be called the
immane:p.tist pluralism of his own conception of the good. The
Platonic separatism had destroyed essences and their diverse
unities. The Aristotelian immanentism safeguards the conditions of essential unity within things. The question that remains
is whether immanentism does not close the good of man within
the limits of his essence: is the Aristotelian man trying to perfect his nature or merely to enact it? To look for the good of
man,-is that to seek a fulfilment of the spiritual openness of
his nature or is that merely to give man a budget to keep so
that he will achieve continually the best bargain of a mixed
nature? This is a crucial issue. Does the Aristotelian notion of a
closed nature dissipate, by being closed, the end and the good
• Nicomackean Ethics, I, 6, 10968 11 fi.

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271

of the human person? Now it is clear that happiness is the final
end of man. 5 But consider the conditions.
What does happiness consist in? A first answer, tentatively
given, is that the good of man consists in performing that work
which is peculiarly a human activity. The good of an artist is
to do the work of an artist. So with the carpenter and with the
shoemaker. So with every part and member of man. So with
man himself. Having a nature of a certain kind, he has a certain kind of work to do, and the pursuit of this work is his distinctive job as a man. Well, what is the work of a man? We are
looking for the distinctive work of man. Not merely to live as
do plants, therefore, nor yet merely to share in sentient life as
do animals, but to live in accord with the reason and to do as
perfectly as possible the work of the reason-this is the work of
a man, his end and his good. In this lies his happiness, to act
with the highest principle or part in himself in accord with the
highest manner of exercising that principle throughout a whole
lifetime. 6
But again, what is the life of reason in man? Here Aristotle
proposes two solutions which seem to be complementary to one
another. The highest life of man consists in contemplation. 7 It
consists in doing the work of being a wise man-such a wise
man as Aristotle himself was when he wrote the Metaphysics.
Thus understood, the highest life of man consists in being a
metaphysician and in studying reality in terms of its highest
causes and principles. The second best life for man is, not the
life of reason itself, but a life of moral virtue ruled and directed
by reason. 8 Aristotle invites man to achieve the highest life as
much as possible because contemplation is, of all human activities, the least dependent on circumstances and the highest
and most self-sufficient of human actions. In contemplation,
man is not only within the highest part of himself, and in this
sense distinctively himself; he is also as independent as possible
of the contingencies of human fortune. Aristotle admits, however, that this life of contemplation is intermittent, and that
• Op. cit., I, 7, 1097• 15 ff.
6 Op. cit., I, 7, l097b 22 ff.

"' Op. cit., X, 7, 1177• u ff.
• Op. cit., X, 8, 1178• 9 ff.

.ANTON C. PEGIS

while it is a life in which man immortalizes himself by being
like the blessed gods when he thus lives according to reason and
within it, yet it is a life which is' more than human."
What does this doctrine mean? Aristotle is saying that man
has two ends, a first best and a second best, that his highest
happiness consists in the first but that practically he must resign himself to accepting the second. More than this, however,
Aristotle is saying that the problem of achieving the best
possible life for man is a difficult one because Fortune may play
a man false even at the end of his life. Old king Priam of Troy
almost achieved the happy life. But the Trojan war had to come
along and his sons, Hector and Paris, had to die; and so, at the
very moment when Priam might have achieved the happy life,
Fortune upset his applecart. One swallow does not make a
spring; nor does one day make a happy life. Assuredly not, but
let us be sure we understand the extent of old Priam's misfortune. It was not merely that his life had an unhappy ending;
it was rather that Fortune had cheated him, during his only
existence, of some part of the sum total of his beatitude. Would
it not be strange, observes Aristotle/{) would it not be strange
for me to say that the dead are happy? After all, it is Aristotle
himself who makes happiness to consist in a certain activity!
Now what is the point of this irony? Or rather, why should
Aristotle think it so ironical for him to speak of the dead as
happy? Why cannot a man be happy in the end that he
reaches? There is point to the Aristotelian irony, and it ought
not to go unnoticed. On the one hand, Aristotle does not wish
to credit a man with a happy life until he can survey that liie
as a whole; on the other hand, when Aristotle comes to survey
that life as a whole, he looks upon it, not as entering into its
eternal destiny, but merely as surviving in the recollection of
others, and he looks back upon that life as having finished its
personal existence.
If this conclusion is in the right direction, the real Aristotelian problem is not that the earthly life of man is subject to
chance and to Fortune; it is rather that this Fortune which
• Op. cit., X, 7, H77b :24 ff.

' 0

Op. cit., I, 10, noo• 10 ff.

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278

enters as an evil deity into the lives of men can snatch from
them whatever share in immortality is rightfully theirs in terms
of their natures. In a word, the Aristotelian problem is that
Fortune challenges an individual man in the achievement of
his destiny and that the achievement of this destiny is something which does not lie entirely within the power of man to
control and to direct. In spite of how man lives, in spite of
being the wisest Socrates, he might, I say he might, be deprived
of whatever share in eternal life belongs to him in the name of
his nature.

III
Why should the life, indeed the very destiny, of man be so
subject to Fortune? Those who look at the present life of man
from the standpoint of his eternal destiny may possibly miss
the meaning of this question. Let us therefore leave aside the
various Christianized Aristotles that have been brought forth
in the course of history; let us ask merely whether such a mixed
destiny for man, such a combination of eternity and time, is not
in accord with the indestructible hierarchy of the Aristotelian
world. To a Christian, the world may be a sea of troubles, but
it is the world of time, not of eternity: he can still look to
eternity. And that, as it seems to me, is the issue. For how can
there be any sort of other-worldliness in tP.e Ethics of Aristotle if none is possible within the framework of the Aristotelian
Physics? It is because eternity and time meet in man's present
life that Aristotle is so worried about the vicissitudes of history.
Under the vault of heaven, man is the sort of being for whom
immortality consists in seeking the immobility of intelligence
as the true anchorage of a human nature which exists in history
only by expending itself through its individuals. In the best
sense of those misunderstood words, Aristotle can say (if I may
mix languages): Carpe diem! Heaven and immortality are passing away! How could it be otherwise? The Aristotelian Physics
of a divinized world, and therefore of a worldly heaven circulating in time, does not permit any other-worldliness. If man
looks to God, it is in and through this life: he approaches and
imitates, in his self-enclosed human way, the divine immobility.
18

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ANTON C. PEGIS

God is not for him-except as a distant ideal of world order, an
ideal to be imitated in the chiaroscuro of ari eternalized time.
The Ethics begins to be an exciting book when we see that it
is both a statement of how man should organize his earthly life
and a treatise on the only life of happiness that man as man
will ever have. Heaven itself is in the balance when Aristotle
fears the kicks of Fortune. Hence the real problem: what is a
destiny which is essentially not free of the danger of being
missed-even as with Priam, at that last moment in life, when
that last swallow did not come in?
In the Aristotelian fear of Fortune there lies, it seems to me,
an important answer to the problem of the unity of his thought.
For Aristotle to fear Fortune as he does is to fear that the
order of the world is, in principle, partly irrational and under
the dominion of a principle of irrationality. Both the disunity
which besets the Aristotelian man and the precariousness which
besets his destiny can be understood in terms of a division in
man and in the world, a division which is unavoidable in man
because it is radically imbedded in the world in which he lives.
The Aristotelian man lacks both unity and certainty with
respect to his destiny. He lacks unity because he can either
achieve a highest good, in which however he cannot share as a
man, since it is so exclusively the good of the reason alone that
when he achieves it he is no longer a man but a reason; or he
can achieve a good in which he shares as a whole man but which,
in that case, is not his highest good. He lacks certainty because
the disunity within himself exists on a much larger scale in the
world. In fine, just as matter within man is the cause of man's
disunity with respect to his destiny, so matter in the world is
the cause of the precariousness of his achievement of that
destiny. Once more matter is the great enemy, and once more
we are driven to ask the point of view from which this conclusion is an understandable one. It is more than curious that
the order of the world should be such that, though man might
escape the arrows of outrageous Fortune, there is no principle
which can free him entirely from Fortune and which can make
his destiny secu're and certain. But because the same thing is

MATTER, BEATITUDE AND LIBERTY

taking place within and outside man, we can begin to understand what it is that is at work here. Even after the life of man
is as ordered as it can possibly be, it is only imperfectly and
incompletely ordered: the ambiguity of human destiny indicates that. Even after the world is as ordered as it can possibly
be, it is only imperfectly ordered: the precariousness of human
destiny indicates that. We cannot possibly misunderstand this
compromise within and outside man; for it proclaims very
plainly that matter is an enemy to the destiny of man because
it enters his essence and the world itself as an alien to the
providence of God.
What ideal of God and of man can a philosopher have if
matter defeats the destiny of man and limits the government of
God? Why should Aristotle, who knows something about the
intellectual nature of man and of God, never have set the
achievement of a free human personality as man's goal? Why
must man be defeated as a person in order to be perfected as a
nature? And why should Aristotle never have considered liberty
and autonomy in God as the marks of divine perfection? The
fact cannot be doubted. Liberty and autonomy cannot be
ideals of the Aristotelian notion of intelligence either in God or
in inan. It is entirely natural that Aristotle should fear contingency and it is inevitable that his conception of a necessary
being should exclude every notion of contingency, For contingency is to Aristotle the sign of an enemy at work in the
world-matter.
Have we considered sufficiently the significance of such a
intelligence of man
situation? In the world of Aristotle
must, in its search for freedom, pass by the conditions which
matter introduces into the universe; and it must pass by these
conditions on the supposition that matter is not a creature of
God. We are thus dealing here with an ideal of intelligence
which includes within itself flight from matter and from the
conditions of matter as the means of achieving independence
from the irrationality which matter introduces into the world.
If God is somehow a self-sufficient being, and if He is a perfect
and necessary being, He is self-sufficient and perfect and neces-

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ANTON C. PEGIS

sary in the sense that He excludes from His nature and His
power every vestige of contingency. The Aristotelian God is
free in the sense that, so long as He stays within His own intelligence, He is as independent from the contingencies of matter
as he can possibly be. His freedom is a minimum thing. It is the
freedom of a God who, having fenced Himself off from matter,
does not suffer, because He does not know, the irrationality
that is constantly defeating His image in the world. He must
be an intelligence, therefore, in the sense that He must stay
within intelligence in order to avoid matter, even as the embattled Roman emperors were destined to strive to mend the
crumbling fences of the empire in order to avoid the barbarians.
God is free within intelligence, but by all means He is a prisoner
within intelligence. Thought is His life and only thought, but
that is because in the immobility of thought lies His freedom
from con-tingency. He must think on thought in order to stay
barricaded within His castle, and the only autonomy that He
knows consists in limiting Himself to thought in order to avoid
its enemies in the world. Liberty makes as little sense in the
Aristotelian conception of God as the barricaded ·God of Aristotle makes sense in Christian thought. Rigid necessity is His
great ideal, both in Himself and in the world: in Himself, in
order to be proof against contingency, and in the world, in order
to have contingency stay within bounds. Necessitarianism
must therefore be the ideal of the Aristotelian cosmology because necessitarianism is the only way of proclaiming the rights
of intelligence in a world where matter is an inevitable and
compromising opponent.
If a necessity which excludes contingency is the ideal of the
Aristotelian God, a stability which yields to contingency as
little as possible is the ideal of the Aristotelian man. He too
flies from the slings and arrows of Fortune, but, unlike the Aristotelian God, he is a target for them. Like God, he must try to
become as little subject to Fortune as possible; unlike God,
though this is his ideal, he can achieve it only in part and at a
price. He is not just an intelligence, he is composed of soul and
body, and to look to God as his ideal is by so much to leave

MATTER, BEATITUDE AND LffiERTY

his humanity in external darkness. Like a beacon on a hill, the
Aristotelian God is always there proclaiming to Aristotle that
he become as much as possible what is divine. But after all, the
beacon is only on the hill, and Aristotle is down in the valley of
the world trying to reach, in a human and piecemeal way, an
ideal which he never really achieves so long as he remains a
man and yet whose substance consists only in this piecemeal
achieving. Let me not call this a pessimistic view of man. Let
me rather say that it is a view of man which tries as much as
possible to be optimistic but which, because it fears matter and
contingency, breaks the destiny of man upon the wheel of necessity and confines God to the prison house of His intelligence in
order to keep Him above the storms of the world.

IV
I realize that such reflections concerning the Aristotelian God
are rather well known and perhaps widely accepted. We have
all become conscious of them at least in the last decade since
the publication of Gilson's Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy. But
I wonder whether it is not time for Scholastic thinkers to consider seriously the problem of the destiny of man in the Aristotelian Ethics. To say that the end of man which Aristotle proposes in the Ethics is a temporal end in the sense that Aristotle
either did not add or did not know a further destiny for man
is to suppose what is, in the light of the Aristotelian physics,
an impossibility. There is no evidence within the Ethics for
such an exclusively temporal and normative view of man. Nor
could there be. Riveted by his very nature to the indestructible
order of the world, how could the Aristotelian man dream of
being anything so humble as a creature? Within the eternity of
his nature, he includes a divine immobility because of his intelligence and a temporal mutability because of the matter that
he informs. Eternal by nature, he must yet strive to achieve
the immortality which is his because of his intelligence but
which he must work to realize in himself-€</>' .Oaov lv8€xerm
&Oavarl{:t:tv-againstand across the potentiality of matter.

.ANTON C. PEGIS

This is far from being a conclusion. In reality, we are here
only at the beginning of the problem of the relations between
soul and intelligence in the philosophy of Aristotle. The same
is true of the problem of immortality. Exactly in what terms
would the problem of immortality present itself in a totally thisworldly view of man? Beatitude and immortality are hereopen to man in the world of time because the world of time is
an inferior eternity. Now, to crowd eternity into man's present
life may be to have a poor notion of eternity; but, anyhow, it
enables us to see that if that is the case, the only condition on
which it is at all possible is that man be in part always in existence. And this must mean also that the problem of immortality
cannot be, for Aristotle, a problem of personal immortality.
St. Thomas Aquinas is not without having seen this sorrowful conclusion in Aristotelianism. I shall not say that this was
always his opinion on the question, for his thought is nowhere
more elusive than on the subject of Aristotle's psychology. But
at least in the Contra Gentiles he acknowledged openly the thisworldly rigidity which encompasses the Aristotelian soul. It
might not seem so. Having proved that the highest beatitude
of man consists in the contemplation of God,11 St. Thomas is
faced by the efforts of the commentators of Aristotle to add
to man, as he exists in this life, a vision of spiritual substances.
Now what did Aristotle think? At first glance, St. Thomas appears to free Aristotle from Averroes by asserting that in the
Ethics Aristotle lays down a theory only of the highest felicity
of man in this life: "Patet ergo quod opinio Aristotelis fuit
quod ultima felicitas, quam homo in hac vita acquirere potest,
sit cognitio de rebus divinis, qualis per scientias speculativas
haberi potest." 12
Let us not be too sure that this settles the question: we have
still two more hurdles to surmount. For, the highest felicity of
man is not found in this life.18 What, then, of Aristotle? Did
11 Contra Gentiles, ill, 87.-There
are difficulties of interpretation even within
the limits of the Contra Gentiles, as anyone who compares books II and ill will
discover.
1 " Op. cit., m, 48.
1 " op. cit., m, 44.

MATTER, BEATITUDE

AND LIBERTY

279

he or did he not speak of the ultima felicitas of man? Now observe the situation: St. Thomas poses to himself the Aristotelian objection that, in the present life, man cannot have more
than an imperfect happiness. Of course St. Thomas admits the
objection; but he admits much more. To the objector he admits
that according to Aristotle man can achieve only a human, that
is, an imperfect, beatitude in this life. He insists however,
that this does not touch his own demonstration. For to leave
the destiny of man in such a this-wordly and imperfect beatitude is to ruin the desire of man's nature by leaving it unfulfilled: esset autem inane naturae desiderium si nunquam
posset impleri. Now that is impossible, and therefore we must
say: est igitur implebile desiderium naturale hominis. But it
is a fact that this natural desire is not totally fulfilled in this
life. We must therefore say that this natural desire will be fulfilled in the future life. But again, what about Aristotle? As
between recognizing the imperfections of human beatitude in
this life and speaking of an ultima felicitas, where exactly does
he stand?
Aristotle knew, says St. Thomas Aquinas, that there is no
other kind of knowledge that man has in this life except according to the mode of the speculative sciences. So, because he
knew this, he held that man reached, not a perfect felicity, but
a merely human one. It is at this point that St. Thomas adds
that famous expression of compassionate sympathy for Aristotle
and his commentators. How their great minds suffered in the
grip of error! There now follows the liberating message: We
shall be freed from the suffering imposed by these errors, says
St. Thomas Aquinas, if we hold, in accord with the proofs given
ab9ve, that man can reach true happiness after this life; since it
is true (he adds by way of recalling the essential point at issue)
that the soul of ma11- is immortal. 14
10 " Quia vero Aristoteles vidit quod non est alia cognitio hominis in hac vita
quam per scientias speculativas, posuit hominem non consequi felicitatem perfectam, sed suo modo. In quo satis apparet quantam angustiam patiebantur hinc
inde eorum praeclara ingenia ... " " ... a quibus angustiis liberabimur, si ponamus, secundum probationes praemissas, homines ad veram felicitatem post hanc
vitam pervenire posse, anima haminis immortali ea:istcnte" [italics mine]. Ibid.

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ANTON C. PEGIS

What is St. Thomas really saying? Does he really mean that
Aristotle did not know or say anything about the immortality
of the soul? Scarcely that. Ambiguous and obscure as the
fifth chapter of the third book of the De Anima may be, it yet
speaks of separation, eternity and immortality in connection
with the human intellect. St. Thomas assuredly cannot be saying that there is no sense in which the intellectual soul of Aristotle knew or could claim immortality. He must therefore be
denying, for Aristotle, the personal immortality of the soul in
the name of the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and immortality of the intellect. After all, St. Thomas must be meaning to say not only that human beatitude is imperfect because
it is limited to this life, but also that the individual man crowds
into this imperfect beatitude all his personal expectations of
eternity. St. Thomas must mean that Aristotle did intend to
burden metaphysics with the task of being man's only heaven.
He even says so.
Nothing in this life, he says, is so like the perfect and highest
felicity of man as the life of those who contemplate the truth.
Therefore, he concludes-and this is our second hurdle-that
those philosophers who were unable to have a complete knowledge of the highest felicity of man placed the highest felicity of
man in that contemplation which is possible to man in thislife. 15
I repeat: this is not just metaphysics; it is the Aristotelian
heaven. And St. Thomas knew it.
Fordham University,
New York, N. Y.

16 " Hujus autem perfectae et ultimae felicitatis in hac vita nihil est adeo simile
sicut vita contemplantium veritatem, secundum quod est possibile in hac vita. Et
ideo philosophi, qui de ilia felicitate ultima plenam notitiam habere non potuerunt,
in contemplatione quae est possibilis in hac vita ultimam. felicitatem hominis
posuerunt " [italics mine]. Op. cit., III, 68.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND, 1540-1640
By JoHN U. NEF
I
N the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with the
weakening of the medieval barrier between the " servile "
and the " liberal " arts, explained so admirably by Professor Maritain in his Art et Scolastique, painting and eventually the plastic arts ceased to be regarded as " servile " occupations. They acquired an autonomy from the methods and
discipline of the ordinary craftsman's shop. They also acquired
some measure of autonomy from theology and Scholastic philosophy, as these had been transmitted by priests and others
in forms that even the unlettered craftsman could readily
comprehend.
In the Gothic age the methods and discipline of the craftsman's shop had extended to all work done with matter, including art. Art and craftsmanship had been inseparable. They
had been profoundly influenced by religion, for the common
religious worship of the age was hardly less essential to life
than bread and drink. The subjects of the European sculptor,
painter, and glazier had been determined in large measure by
Scripture, theology, and philosophy, as philosophy had been
rediscovered in the books of the wisest Greeks and Romans and
incorporated into medieval thought. The spirit in which the
sculptor, the painter, and the glazier approached and carried
through their work was derived from the same sources as the
subjects. Scripture, moral philosophy, and classical culture
were written into the marvelous beauty of the churches, abbeys,
and cathedrals of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
In the towns the citizens, together with peasants from near-by
villages who brought their grain or poultry to market, saw
statues of Homer, Aristotle, and Vergil alongside those of
Christ, his disciples, the Virgin, and the saints of the Church.

I

281

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JOHN U. NEF

Most of the scenes which filled the portals, formed the stainedglass windows, and embellished the outer and inner walls and
the pillars, conveyed some moral lesson. It was difficult for a
Christian to doubt that in the hereafter the wicked would
suffer and the good would be rewarded. In the plastic arts, the
form and the medium were determined mainly by the space
and position in the cathedral or monastery that the work was
designed to fill. Allegorical and distorted, rather than literal,
renderings of the subject were suited best to such settings.
They were best suited also to the abstract world of the mind,
fostered by faith and by theology and philosophy.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages and at the time of the
Reformation, the power of Scripture, theology, and philosophy
over the subject, the spirit, and the form of works of art,
diminished. In place of the Summa Theologica and the Divine
Comedy and scores of lesser literary achievements inspired by
the same forces of religious faith and philosophical universalism,
we get stories about the individual man or woman, like those of
Petrarch and Boccaccio. Profane subjects become more common in painting. In place of the great architectural scenes from
the New Testament and from Church history of Cimabue and
Giotto, we get the concert and the music lesson of Giorgione,
the portraits of Titian, and the rich middle-class interiors of the
brothers Van Eyck. Even though the painters of the Renaissance still frequently chose sacred subjects, they did not treat
them with as deep a religious feeling as the painters of the
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries had revealed.
The character essential to a work of sacred art, as Maritain
has remarked, is not determined primarily by its subject. It
must have as its objective the instruction of the faithful; it must
conform to the proprieties and regulations of liturgical usage
as defined by the Church; it " must proceed from an inspiration
which is not academic, nor formalist, nor archaic, nor sentimental, but truly and authentically religious." 1 Few paintings
of early modern times with religious subjects are examples of
1 Jacques Maritain, "Reflections on Sacred Art," in F. C. Lillie, Examples of
Religiuus Art, Chicago, 1986.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

sacred art in this sense. No religious painting of the fifteenth
or sixteenth centuries brings the spectator so close to the Savior
as Giotto's great picture of Christ appearing to St. Francis of
Assisi,. which once hung in the Louvre for all to see. St. Francis
is pierced by the rays of the Divine Presence at just those
parts of his body where Christ was wounded at the Crucifixion.
The same scene is the subject of one of Durer's woodcuts. 2 By
his time it had become a conventional subject that artists used
as an exercise. The woodcut is one of the least successful of all
those that Durer made. As the strength of religious inspiration
behind artistic expression waned with "the waning of the Middle
Ages," the churches and monasteries ceased to be the only
important settings for artistic works. Paintings and statues,
together with beautiful pieces in gold, silver, glass, and wood,
came to be fashioned for town halls, palaces of justice, and for
the private houses of nobles and even of financiers and
merchants.
During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries painting and sculpture, along with literature and music, were tending
to become still more independent of Scripture, theology, and
philosophy than they had been on the eve of the Reformation.
The old distinction between poetry, as work of the mind, and
painting, as work of the hands, was ceasing to be drawn, as the
medieval barrier between the " servile " and the " liberal " arts
was pierced at many more points. But painting; culture, and
the plastic arts were now coming to be sharply differentiated
from the labor of the ordinary manual workman, who made
shoes or woolen cloth. The artist who manipulated matter was
beginning to build a new kind of barrier between himself and
the craftsman or technical expert, a barrier such as had not
existed in the Middle Ages. At the same time the writer and
the composer of music were building new kinds of barriers
separating their arts from the other "liberal" arts. In the
creative intellectual life of Western Europe an independent
claim was being staked out for each of the arts, just as an in2 Willi Kurth,
The CCYm!plete W oodcuta of Albrecht lJii,rer (privately printed),
n. d., p. 194.

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JOHN U. NEF

dependent claim was to be staked out for each of the natural
sciences. In place of one distinction in the realm of creative
workmanship, the way was being prepared for many.
These tendencies away from universalism in the direction of
modern specialization were not equally striking in all European
countries. Between about 1540 and about 1640 the new tendencies toward individualism and artistic autonomy were much
more pronounced in England than in France. In France there
was an attempt, destined to bear rich fruit in the age of Louis
XIV (1643-1715) , to re-establish a harmony conimon to all the
arts. The movement centered about the court. It was bound
to the .Church through the new French conception of the divine
right of kings, and through the close relations of many
courtiers with priests and ecclesiastical foundations. The differences between the development of art in France and in England
at this time were important for the subsequent history of the
creative life in both countries. What was the nature of the
differences as they reveal themselves in architecture, the plastic
arts, and particularly in the art of painting? To what extent
and in what ways are these differences related to other contrasts
between the histories of France and England during these
hundred years?

II
England achieved the position of leadership in industrial
technology and the development of heavy industry, which she
held until late in the nineteenth century, largely during this
period. The period may be said to have begun with the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1536 and 1539, and to have ended
with the outbreak of the civil war, in 1642. At the time of the
Reformation the chief advances in heavy industry were accomplished in central Europe, Italy, Spain, and the strip of territory
between the Alps and the Flemish coast, much of which passed
from the possession of the Dukes of Burgundy to the direct
control of the Hapsburgs. Until after the twenties and thirties
of the sixteenth century, capitalist enterprise in most industries
had made greater headway in all these countries and even in

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

285

France than in England. The period during which the industrial
balance of power shifted most :rapidly from the Continent to
England began in the early seventies of the sixteenth century
and lasted until the great depression in English cloth-making
in the early twenties of the seventeenth. During this halfcentury an early industrial revolution took place. France did
not participate in it as she was destined to participate to some
extent in the world industrial revolution of modern times. Before the outbreak of the civil war, England had forged ahead
of her, and of all Continental countries, in mining and metallurgy and practically all the heavy industries-in output per
capita, in the use of machinery and large furnaces, and in
the scale of enterprise controlled by private adventurers who
were largely free from state interference. It was only in the
artistic and the luxury industries that France maintained and
increased the leadership over England which she had possessed
throughout the Middle Ages.
AU aspects of history, including the influence of the human
mind upon events and upon the development of institutions
and of the arts and sciences, are interrelated. Any attempt to
tear out two segments from the complex historical pattern and
treat their reciprocal interrelations is bound to be partial. When
we consider together the contrasts in the progress of industry
and of art in France and in England, and the connections
between these contrasts, we have therefore to be on our guard.
We have to remember that we are focusing attention on contrasts and neglecting resemblances. We have to remember that
contrasts in industrial history do not explain contrasts in the
history of the arts any more than contrasts in the latter explain
those in the former. The purpose of considering these contrasts
together is twofold. Such consideration contributes to an understanding of both. When combined with other comparative
studies of French and English history, 3 it may contribute to the
8 I mention the following essays of mine, not because they are at all adequate,
but in order to indicate that I have attempted to make other comparisons besides
those in this paper: "A
of Industrial Growth in France and England,
1540-1640," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. XLIV [June, August, and October,

286

JOHN U. NEF

knowledge of the complex pattern of history. When combined
with philosophy, such studies might conceivably help to guide
mankind away from what has been towards what ought to be.
III
The achievements of the English in literature in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were more glorious and
universal than those of any other people. The achievements of
the English in music during the early industrial revolution
compare favorably with those of the French. 4 . With painting
and the plastic arts, it is different. Here we are in the only
artistic realm where the work of the French from 1540 to 1640
overshadowed that of the English. Many persons have remembered the reigns of Francis I and his successors down to Louis
XIII for the lovely harmony displayed in the chateaux along
the Loire, in Berry, the Ile-de-France, and some other provinces,
or for the fine public buildings and the private residences of
wealthy traders and civil servants in towns like Rouen, Caen,
Poitiers, Toulouse, or Dijon. Elizabethan manor houses, fine
though they are, are less beautiful than castles like Azay-leRideau, Chambord, or Anet. Who would think of the town
house of John Winchcomb, the cloth merchant, at Newbury, in
which Henry VIII is said to have spent a night, as a satisfactory
artistic equivalent for the Hotel de Bourgtheroulde, at Rouen,
or the Hotel d'Escoville, at Caen, with their wonderfully ornamented courtyards and their perfectly proportioned rooms and
doors and windows? Contemporary England had nothing that
can be quite compared with the churches of Brou at Bourg-enBresse and of St. Michel at Dijon. She had nothing that can be
1986], pp. 289-817, 505-88, 648-66; " Prices and Industrial Capitalism in France and
England, 1540-1640," Economic History Review, Vol. VII [1987], pp. 155-85; lnd'U8try
and Governmemt in France and England, 15'40-1640,Philadelphia, 1940; "Industrial
Europe at the Time of the Reformation," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. XLIX
[February and April, 1941], pp. 1-40, 188-224; "War and Economic Progress, 15401640," Economic History Review, Vol. XI [1942].
• Considerations of space have made it necessary to leave literature and music
out of this essay. I have given some thought to both, and hope eventually to
publish the results of my studies.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

287

quite compared with the sculpture of Jean Goujon and the
artists of the Burgundian school. She had nothing that can be
quite compared with the beautiful pages and bindings which
came from the printing and publishing houses of the Estienne
family, or with the ceramics composed in the humble shops of
Bernard Palissy and his followers.
In France the sixteenth-century world of art fashioned with
matter is a world of splendor and richness, which owes a great
deal to the influence of Italian Renaissance models, and
directly to the work of such artists as Leonardo da Vinci and
Benvenuto Cellini, who left his trace on the beautiful entrance
to the castle at Anet. Much of what is best belongs to the
period before the religious wars (which made life difficult for
the artist after 1560) and even to the period before the death
of Francis I, in 1547. There was a decline in both the quantity
and the quality of French architecture and of the products of
the French plastic arts during the last half of the sixteenth
century. Yet the Elizabethan age in England, where conditions
were peaceful and tranquil compared with those on the Continent, produced in architecture, sculpture, or pottery nothing
as fine as the products of the old French craft arts, which were
dying out, or of the new French court arts, which were being
born.
The artistic inferiority of English building to Continental
was recognized by Englishmen of the early seventeenth century, some of whom aimed to instruct their countrymen in foreign methods. In 1624, when Sir Henry Wotton finally returned
to England at the age of fifty-six, after many years of travel
and diplomacy abroad, he published his Elements of Architecture. In the preface, he explained that he was "but a
gatherer and disposer of other men's stuffe." As the contents
show, the stuff was mainly Italian and French. The crudeness
of English taste is a recurring theme. Wotton speaks, for example, of the principle laid down by the French architect,
Philibert de l'Orme, that lime used in soldering should be made
of the same stone employed in the work. " It must be confessed," Wotton writes, " that to make Lyme without any great

JOHN U. NEF

choyce, of refuse stuffe, as we commonly do, is an English error,
of no small moment in our Buildings." 5

IV
During the Middle Ages, when France had been in almost
all ways a more advanced country industrially than England,
a1tistic craftsmanship was the principal objective of the workmen in a large number of industries. The French had excelled
the English in almost all kinds of craftsmanship, in almost all
work with the hands. The phenomenal industrial advance in
England during the lifetime of Shakespeare was in coal mining,
smelting, metal working, the manufacture of cheap cloth, the
making of alum (for dyeing) , soap (for scouring) , and sheet
glass, much of which went into the windows of ordinary houses,
where it shielded men and women from the elements rather than
stimulated their sense of beauty, like the glass of medieval and
Renaissance churches. The emphasis of English workmanship
was on the practical side. The English made knives to cut with,
and cared less than the French about the ornamental effects
of the handles. They made mirrors to look into, and were little
concerned whether the borders enhanced the charm of the
rooms where they hung. There was nothing in the early industrial revolution likely to lead the English to overtake the
French as artistic craftsmen. The chief demands for manual
laborers were at routine work on textiles and metal in stuffy
cellars and garrets, and as wage hands in mines, at smelting
furnaces, and in small factories producing alum, glass, soap,
paper, sugar, and copperas. With the dissolution of the monasteries, the interest formerly taken by religious foundations in
studios and workshops devoted to artistic craftsmanship ceased.
The demand for the products of such studios and workshops
declined. 6
Meanwhile the artistic crafts seem to have maintained their
prominent position in the chief French towns. This was cer5 Elements of Architecture, London, 1624, preface.
• Cf. C. H. Collins Baker and G. W. Constable, English Painters of the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries, New York, 1930.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

289

tainly true of Paris. We have lists of various craftsmen who
entered into contracts, often for marriage, under the jurisdiction
of the Chatelet, the famous royal tribunal on the Ile de la
Cite. The labor of most of them was of an artistic nature. When
we compare the entries for the period 1588-1600 with those for
the period 1637-1644, we find an increase in the proportion of
all craftsmen who worked at the arts-painters, sculptors, embroiderers, goldsmiths, etc. 7 In all these arts, they excelled their
English contemporaries, in spite of the great advances in
industrial technology which were made in England.
Why was it that, at a time when England was assuming the
leadership over all other European countries in industrial technology and in many branches of the natural sciences, the
country showed no comparable achievements in the plastic
arts? In the Middle Ages, when craftsmanship and artistry had
been combined in the servile arts, industrial and artistic technique had been closely related to each other. Even during the
Renaissance, when art was becoming more individualistic than
it had been in the thirteenth century, some of the greatest
artists-Leonardo and Diirer-were also important inventors.
But in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries technical invention and artistic creation were ceasing to be closely
associated, because the objectives of both were changing and
were becoming less complementary. The inventor, above all in
England, was more and more exclusively an engineer, bent on
constructing better machinery, finding the force to drive it,
discovering more efficient and powerful furnaces, devising
cheaper means of lifting heavy weights and of moving commodities. The artist was concerned more exclusively than in the
past with the actual piece of work on which he was engaged and
less with the preparation for artistic ends of the basic materials
that he used. The main object of the inYentor, above all in
England, was coming to be the production of consumable goods
in greater quantities at cheaper prices in manual labor. A
fundamental incompatibility was therefore arising between his
7

Archives Nationales, MS. Insinuations au Ohdtelet, Vols. IV, VIII.

19

290

JOHN U. NEF

object and that of the artist, which was to fashion beautiful
things to delight the senses and instruct the mind. A true work
of art must be unique. If it is recognized for what it is, it
may obtain a great permanence. The tool, the machine, or the
furnace, with which English inventors were coming to be almost
exclusively concerned, is made to be repeated, and to be replaced by one more efficient.
These differences in objectives have a great influence on form
and method. In the case of the artist, form and method are
determined mainly by considerations of beauty and instruction
in the single object created. In the case of the inventor, they
are determined mainly by considerations of serviceability and
cheapness in the multiple objects to be produced by means of
tools, machinery, furnaces, and other technical devices, or by
considerations of efficiency and speed in the conveyances for
transport. Such a division between objectives, separating
artistic from industrial technique, had always existed to some
extent. But the early industrial revolution made it sharp for the
first time in Western history. Industrial technology was ceasing,
especially in England, to be the consistent ally of art. The
growing division between the technique of art and the technique
of industry was destined in modern times to make the aims of
art and the aims of manufacturing ever more difficult to
reconcile.
In France the changes in the objectives of technology were
taking place much more slowly than in England. French inventors sought to solve mechanical problems by the application
of mathematical and particularly geometrical principles, at a
time when France excelled all other countries in the originality
of its mathematical thought. As some famous lines of Pascal's
should remind us, 8 the mathematical mind is inadequate to the
creation of very great art. But it can contribute to art far more
readily than the engineering mind bent mainly on the application of power, the increase in size, and the growth in efficiency
measured in costs of production. Pure mathematics emphasizes
" The reference is to the distinction between the geometrical and the intuitive
mind at the beginning of Lea Penseea.

.ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

291

elegance, balance, and proportion-all of which formed an
essential part of the rules of French classical art as they were
worked out in the seventeenth century. Technical improvements in French industry in the time of Henri IV and Louis
xm were.still designed more frequently to contribute to beauty
than to increase output, to produce fine wares rather than wares
which were simply serviceable. French industrial technology
did not yet seriously get in the way of artistic craftsmanship.
This helps us to understand the superiority of the French over
the English in the beauty of architecture and of the products of
the plastic arts.

v
These contrasts between the development of industrial technology in the two countries are not quite as helpful in. explaining the superiority of the French over the English in painting
between 1540 and 1640. In sixteenth-century Europe painting
was ceasing to be a craft. It was becoming a fine art. Like the
work of the poet and the prose writer, that of the painter was
acquiring a self-sufficiency which it had not possessed in the
Middle Ages. While the pictures of Giotto had almost always
been planned, like the statues and stained-glass windows of
his time, as parts of a larger composition, such as a monastery or a church, the pictures of sixteenth-century painters
were frequently hung wherever the patron or purchaser found
it suitable to place them. Many of them were painted without relation to any particular setting. The painter's task was
increasingly limited by the space between the four sides of
his canvas. His work ended when he had created with his
subject matter a harmony of color and design within that
space. Within that space his work was becoming freer and
more complex than that of the medieval master. He was much
less limited with respect both to subject matter and to form.
The age of individualism and materialism, in the sense of more
literal, more concrete treatment of the subject, was dawning in
painting as well as in literature.
The hundred years from 1540 to 1640 were perhaps as great a

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JOHN U. NEF

period in European painting as in European poetry and letters.
Yet Englishmen, who played a dominant part in the great
literature, played virtually no part in the great painting. Their
place was taken by the Spaniards, the Flemish, and above all
the Dutch. The position of Rembrandt in the history of painting resembles that of Shakespeare in the history of literature.
We, have in Rembrandt the whole world of painting just as we
have in Dante or in Shakespeare the whole world of poetry
and drama. If Western painting could be represented only by
its greatest painter, the choice of Rembrandt would be almost
inevitable. The only other possible choice would be Giotto.
In Rembrandt's greatest pictures, works like the "Christ at
Emmaus " or " The Good Samaritan," he created scenes made
up of elements that no other painter has ever combined with
the same intensity, the same power to move the spectator, to
remain in his memory and light his way through life. If we
consider Rembrandt's paintings and etchings and drawings
together, we find there all the force of satire that was to distinguish Hogarth and Daumier at their best; a substance in the
painting itself no less moving than that in the best Titians,
Tintorettos, and Cezannes; a beauty of line that is no less perfect than that of Leonardo or Ingres; a power of composition
with respect to the arrangement of the subject and the juxtaposition of colors equal to that of Giorgione, yet so different in
conception, so mysterious and profound, that the comparison
can hardly be made. Above all these qualities, there is embedded in Rembrandt's painting a sense of humanity, a sympathy
with and understanding of the depths of human suffering that
are lacking from the work of any other painter since the Renaissance. They are established through a religious feeling only
less compelling than that of Giotto.
As in the case of Shakespeare, the unique master was surrounded by many other artists of very great talent and by a
few of genius. The freedom from traditional restrictions and
the remarkable increase in the national wealth at the beginning
of the seventeenth century were conditions that Holland alone
among Continental countries shared with England. These con-

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

298

ditions were hardly less important for the great flowering of
the new, more individualistic painting than for the flowering of
the new, more individualistic literature. But the English did
not possess another condition indispensable for success in
painting-a remarkable aptitude for subtle work with the hands
and for the mixing and arranging of matter to produce artistic
effects. In the case of the Elizabethans the need for expression
felt by a people in the midst of momentous changes went almost
entirely into literature. Painting cannot be an accompaniment
to poetry as music can; so there was less in the Elizabethan age
to produce a distinguished school of painting than there was to
produce a distinguished school of music. Englishmen managed
to paint portraits which give us an excellent impression of some
of the chief figures of the age; but these portraits are not memorable as art. No Englishman born between 1500 and 1615
became a painter of renown, and English painting, unlike
English music, had no influence on Continental art. In fact
nearly all the Englishmen who painted the portraits that have
come down to us had names that suggest they were of Flemish
or Dutch origin. Great artists like Holbein and Van Dyke were
encouraged to visit England partly because of the lack there of
native talent. They did not come, as some musical composers
came, to learn from English artists-to draw inspiration from
the ruggedness, the freshness, the inventiveness, and the force
characteristic of English art. Foreign painters who came to
England, and Holbein in particular, made their mark on English
painting, but when they left the country they took away nothing they had learned from English artists. 9
VI
French painting was superior to English, as it has been in
every century before and since, but the hundred years following
1540 cannot be regarded as one of its brilliant periods. Until
the very end of this period France produced no painter whose
work even approaches in beauty the works of contemporary
• Cf. Baker and Constable, op. cit., passim.

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JOHN U. NEF

foreign masters such as Veronese, Tintoretto, Greco, Velasquez,
Rubens, Van Dyke, Hals, or Peter Breughel the elder, to say
nothing of Rembrandt. In French painting, as in French literature and French music, one era ended during these hundred
years and another began, and there was a wide gap between the
two eras, at the very time when English art realized in literature
and in music its greatest possibilities. We had in France, first,
an old art of the later Middle Ages that was declining, then
the beginnings of the new " classical " art of the age of Louis
XIV, without the full-bodied masterpieces of either art. The
greatest French painters were
Clouet, who was born
in 1522 and died in 1572, the third of a famous family of
artists of Flemish origin, and Poussin and Claude Lorrain, who
were born in 1594 and 1600, respectively. The work of Poussin and Claude, like the work of Corneille in literature, belongs
more properly to the reign of Louis XIV. Both of them spent
their younger, formative years in Italy, and it was not until
1640 that they were called back by Richelieu to become court
painters. So we do not include their work in this essay.
The French humanism of the Renaissance had an influence
on the painting of Clouet and his contemporaries,just as it had
on the poetry of Ronsard and the music of LeJeune. Sometimes
the work of the humanist painters is erudite. It consists in pictures of Roman scenes, with temples, obelisks, fountains, and
warriors in plumed helmets. Sometimes these painters give us
the pictures of famous courtiers. The portraits of
Clouet always show a skill in composition and a vitality that
marks them off from the numerous portraits by artists of the
In.st three decades of the sixteenth century whose names are
forgotten but whose works still clutter up the walls of some
French provincial museums. But compared with the wonderful
fifteenth-century work of Fouquet and the Maitre de Moulins,
the best paintings of Clouet are not. memorable. Mter his
death, in 1572, no French painter of even moderate distinction
in the history of art was born until 1589, when Henri IV had
ascended the throne. Apart from the work in pencil and charcoal of competent draughtsmen such as the Dumonstiers, the

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

best things we have between 1570 and 1615, when
of the new school reached manhood, are unpretentious attempts
to reproduce famous scenes like Admiral Coligny's siege of
Poitiers, or to portray Henri IV, his principal ministers, and the
ladies of the court. These pictures are valuable as historical
documents rather than as art. They are not superior to the work
of contemporary English portrait painters. In the entire history of French painting during modern times there has been
no other period anything like as barren as the forty-five years
from 1570 to 1615.
Painting in France was still attached to the crafts. It was a
servile art. It had not broken away from simple craftsmanship
nearly as effectively as in Italy, Spain, southern Germany, and
the Low Countries. Much craft art was dying in Europe in
the sixteenth century. By 1550 it was becoming plain that
neither the sculpture nor the painted glass of the late medieval
crafts had any future. In France the tendency towards individualism was weaker than in England or Holland. The tradition in art was still the craftsman tradition. Master craftsmen
were called on to supply works of art, much as they were called
on to supply ornamental locks and keys or iron railings, and no
line was drawn between the arts and crafts. The specifications
of the purchaser were generally detailed. We have, for example,
an order given in 1689 to a master embroiderer of Ninles by an
architect, who was apparently restoring the church and convent for the Sisterhood of Notre Dame de Pi tie in the little
town of Apt, about thirty-five miles east of A vignon. T. Bonnier,
the master embroiderer, was asked to embroider in satin, silk,
gold, and silver thread on one side of a banner of blue damask,
seven feet by three, a figure of Notre Dame de Pi tie with Christ
on her knees, with an angel on either side and the cross in the
middle. Maitre Bonnier, who was to receive seventy-five francs
for the work, was to be furnished with a design. Only the embellishment was to be left to his discretion. 10
This kind of order left the artist, as Maitre Bonnier was called
10

lnvtmtaire des Archives departementales du Gard, series E, Vol. ll, 458.

fl96

JOHN U. NEF

in the contract, little initiative. Painting in Europe had become
too autonomous an art to flourish under such a system. If
painting was to be successful, the emphasis could no longer be
placed on the function which the artistic work was to perform
in relation to some larger scheme; the emphasis had to be placed
on the work itself. Painting in France could not revive if it
rell1-aineda craft. It had to become an art like poetry or music.
It was likely to remain a craft unless it received the support of
the all-powerful court, for there were in early seventeenthcentury France hardly any groups of private merchants enthusiastic about art, like the new rich in England who participated
in poetry and music, and supplied an audience for the dramatist
and the composer. In France there were fewer openings for
making private fortunes. Wealthy merchants, who h_ad risen
from humble origins, were generally drawn into the service of
the crown.

VII
A change took place in the quality of French painting and in
the position of the French painter when the generation born
during the reign of Henri IV, between 1589 and 1610, grew up.
This reign gave France a number of painters whose work is still
thought worthy of exhibiting as art. Besides Poussin and
Claude, Georges de la Tour, Philippe de Champagne, Simon
Vouet, the three Le N ain brothers, and Le Valentin were all
born between 1589 and 1610. 11 All of them, except Poussin and
Claude, were at work in France during the greater part of Louis
XIII's reign, which ended in 1643. Under Louis XIII painting
was ceasing to be nourished by the old crafts and was coming
to derive its support from new painters' gilds, and from the
National Academy of Painting founded in 1636. Like literature
and music, painting was fostered by the court, which was
helping to control and regulate every form of work, and creative
work in particular.
11 It is possible that the eldest of the Le Nains, Antoine, was born in 1588.
Scholars have not yet succeeded in fixing dates for the births of the two older
brothers. The youngest, Mathieu, was born in 1607.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

Among artists and critics opinions differ concerning the creative powers of the painters of Louis XIIT's reign, but no impartial judge thinks of this as one of the great periods in
French art, in the sense that the age of Poussin and Claude, or
that of Watteau and Fragonard, or that of Ingres and Delacroix, or that of Cezanne and Renoir were great periods. The
verdict of the late Roger Fry on the French painters of the
early seventeenth century is too harsh. In commenting upon
the resurrection by picture dealers and collectors of the Le
N ain brothers, whose work was almost entirely forgotten during
the eighteenth and a part of the nineteenth century, Fry asked
himself where their pictures would rank if compared with
those of their contemporaries of the Dutch school. "They
would come," he answered, " so far below the Potts, Leduqs,
and Sweets that we should never bother our heads about them.
It is probable that before very long they will go back to their
place among the journeymen artists." We may grant that Fry's
comment was the product of a slight ill temper over the misguided attempt of some incompetent critics to claim that the
Le N ains were great artists. At its best their work often has a
charm which Fry ignored. The outdoor scenes of Louis Le
N ain in particular are pleasing; they are reminiscent of the
realism of Caraveggio (1569-1609). Some critics feel that they
contain a promise of the harmony that Corot sometimes
achieved so perfectly in his landscapes. In the same way, some
pictures of Antoine Le N ain, such as " Les petits chanteurs "
or " Les petits joueurs de cartes," may be said to contain a faint
promise of the eighteenth-century grace of Fragonard. But
there is no Le N ain that is nearly as fine as a good Corot or a
good Fragonard.
The pictures of all the Le N ains are less serious, both in subject matter and as works of art, than the pictures of Georges de
La Tour
and Philippe de Champagne
who was born in the Brussels where Rubens was busy with his
vast and varied and mighty art. The best paintings of Champagne and La Tour are arresting. La Tour's "La Madeleine
repentente " shows a very deep religious feeling, a feeling of

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JOHN U. NEF

intensity similar to that which characterized the life of Mere
Angelique, who did so much to establish the great ascetic tradition of the Jansenist Abbey of Port-Royal. There is a similar
sense of the deep meaning of religious experience in the best
portraits of Philippe de Champagne, such as his painting of the
same Mere Angelique or of Monsieur de Saint-Cyran, whose
influence at Port-Royal was almost as strong as hers. La Tour's
" The Sharper," once in the possession of Monsieur Landry of
Paris, is an extraordinarily lifelike impression of a scene at a
card table. Yet none of these works are creations of very great
artists. What holds our attention in the portraits of Philippe
de Champagne is the character of his models more than anything he has put into them. What holds our attention in the
pictures of La Tour, and more especially in the famous painting
of his lesser contemporary Le Valentin, the " Boy Cheating at
Cards " in the Dresden gallery, is mainly the drama of the
scene itself, faithfully portrayed, rather than what the painter
has created from the scene. Except in the best canvases of La
Tour and Philippe de Champagne we have not mounted very
many steps from the anonymous picture of Admiral Coligny' s
siege of Poitiers. Any French painting of the early seventeenth
century seems lacking in warmth and feeling, and above all in
depth and humanity, when it is put beside a masterpiece of the
contemporary Dutch school.
More important than any results obtained by the French
painters of Louis Xill's reign was the influence which these
painters exercised upon the future of French painting. They
were establishing rules for their art which were to serve their
successors much as the rules for the arts of poetry and music,
formulated at about the same time, were to serve later French
poets and musicians. Neither Philippe de Champagne nor La
Tour, the best artists of the reign, was the leader in this regulative movement. La Tour's work had little influence on his contemporaries and it was almost entirely neglected in the study
of French painting until our own time. Simon Vouet (15901649), a painter who achieved less satisfactory results than
either Champagne or La Tour, came nearer to occupying the

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

299

place in painting occupied by Malherbe in poetry and Guez de
Balzac in prose, as founders of classical French style. Vouet was
one of the greatest teachers of painting in French history.
Americans can gain an idea of what he taught when they visit
Thomas Jefferson's home on the high hill at Monticello, for
Vouet's work, unlike that of the Le Nains, was well known in
Jefferson's time. He brought back from France one of Vouet's
best paintings, " The Daughter of Herodias with the Head of
John the Baptist." In its dignity and classical draughtsmanship, the picture anticipates Poussin. It has an elegance of
form, because of the orderly arrangement of its subject matter,
that is lacking in the paintings of all the Le N ains, which are
rougher and more spontaneous. Anyone at all familiar with
painting can immediately recognize Vouet's remarkable competence, though it requires a greater sensibility and a longer
study to appreciate the qualities of La Tour. Vouet' s pictures
have an elegance that we miss in the work of the Le Nains, and
even in that of La Tour or Philippe de Champagne. But like
the poems of Malherbe and the letters of Balzac, which show a
similar technical perfection, they lack the essential elements
of aU very great art-a knowledge of the depths of human
suffering, combined with vitality, wit, and creative imagination.
Vouet seems to have had an incomparable gift for conveying
the technical principles he worked out to the younger painters
who studied in his studio. One of his pupils was Le Brun, who
became the master authority on painting and the arts of design
under Louis XIV, and who transmitted what he had learned
from Vouet to most of the artists of his generation. Le Brun
helped to found the Academy of Painting. Colbert made him
the director of the Gobelins works and he set about to teach
scores of apprentices to apply intelligently the principles of
artistic workmanship he had acquired to all the industrial arts,
now patronized by the court.
The new artistic tradition, cultivated in the time of Louis
XIII about the court, was enriched by contact with Italy.
Italian art was infused into French painting especially in the
works of Claude and Poussin. The tradition was enriched by

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JOHN U. NEF

contact with Flanders, especially through Philippe de Champagne, who settled in Paris as a court painter. His relations
with Port-Royal were also important. They helped to bring
to painting the high sense of moral discipline which became so
prominent an element in all French art under Louis XIV. At
the same time the emphasis on form and logic, derived partly
from Descartes and other French mathematicians, appeared
above all in Vouet and later in Poussin, and gave a new, if
somewhat rigid, harmony to painting.
The appeal of the new French painting of the period from
1615 to 1640, with its rigid form, its order, its morality, was
primarily to the intellect. Feeling and imagination were subordinated to reason and proportion. At the very time when
the English artist, like the English philosopher, was drawing
closer to the material world about him, the French artist was
withdrawing into the world of his mind, which, according to
Descartes, was a world independent of matter and sensation.
The old craft art was being replaced by a new and more autonomous art, unified and supported by the French court, and
subject, like literature, to reason. One of Poussin's greatest
achievements, according to Delacroix, was to break away from
" those affected schools in which the craft side of art was preferred to the intellectual side." 12

VIII
If we look at the century from 1540 to 1640, and more especially at the fifty years from 1570 to 1620, through the spectacles
of nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon political economy, and with
the new knowledge provided by the recent study of economic
history, we are arrested by the contrast between English prosperity and French poverty. It may he doubted whether the
volume of production in France was appreciably greater in
1620, after three decades of relatively peaceful conditions, than
it had been on the eve of the religious wars, which began in
Quoted Andre Gide, "A Few Reflections on the Disappearance of the Subject
in Sculpture and Painting," in Verve, Vol. I, No.1 (1937), p. 9.

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301

1560. The material standard of living among the French wage
earners apparently fell a great deal in most provinces during the
last forty years of the sixteenth century, and there was no
striking increase in the wealth or income of other classes to
compensate for this fall. Meanwhile, in England, a phenomenal
expansion in industrial production began in the seventies of the
sixteenth century. Within a generation the output of industrial
commodities, such as coal, metal, salt, paper, glass, and soap
increased several fold. The standard of living among members
of the middle class-shopkeepers, traders, and money lendersrose very rapidly. The gentry, most of them of mercantile
origin, who were skilful in exploiting the resources of their
country estates, gained almost as much as the town businessmen. Such farmers as held their land on secure freehold tenure
at fixed rents also greatly increased their wealth. Even wage
earners seem to have managed to maintain their standard of
living during the half century preceding the civil war, in spite
of a very rapid rise in prices. 18
An increase in the material wealth of a nation and in the income of its people is a tremendous achievement. It is always
the product of great human ingenuity and enterprise, and it
has often been accompanied by a flowering of the human mind.
The mistake which learning in the Anglo-Saxon countries has
frequently made is to assume that any improvement in the
material welfare of a nation contributes almost inevitably to
all the ultimate wordly values-to virtue, truth, and beauty.
The mistake Anglo-Saxon learning has frequently made is to
assume that the arsenals of scholarship and education can be
devoted almost exclusively to improvement in the production
and the distribution of measurable material wealth and to
the improvement of health, without any loss to values which lie
beyond the range of positive science. These mistakes are exemNef, "Prices and Industrial Capitalism in France and England, 1540-1640,"
(1937), p. 173. For evidence in support
of other statements in this paragraph, the reader is referred to other essays of mine,
cited above, fn. 3. See also R. H. Tawney, "The Rise of the Gentry, 1558-1640,"
Economic HistOT?J Review, Vol. XI (1941), pp. 1-"88.
18

Economic HistOT?J Review, Vol. VII, no.

JOHN U. NEF

plified in some remarks of Burke's, to whom an important essay
in this volume is devoted. " Why should the expenditure of a
great landed property, which is a dispersion of the surplus product of the soil, appear intolerable to you or to me," wrote
Burke in 1790, " when it takes its course through the accumulation of vast libraries, which are the history of the force and
weakness of the human mind; through great collections of
ancient records, medals,. and coins, which attest and explain
laws and customs; through paintings and statues, that, by imitating nature, seem to extend the limits of creation; through
grand monuments of the dead, which continue the regards and
connexions of life beyond the grave; through collections of the
specimens of nature, which become a representative assembly
of all the. classes and families of the world, that by disposition
facilitate, and, by exciting curiosity, open the avenues to
science?" 14
The early English industrial revolution did not interfere with
the cultivation of the ultimate values of human life to anything
like the same extent as the vastly more comprehensive industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, under the sheer
weight of which the world seems to be reeling in our time. 15 In
the kingdom of the arts, the early industrial revolution was
accompanied by the greatest creative movement in the whole
history of English literature. But it would be a mistake to
assume that great periods of material advance and of artistic
eminence inevitably go hand in hand. 16 What made the Elizabethan age unique in the history of English literature was not
the ·prosperity by itself (there have been other even more prosu Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790, Burke' a Works, Vol. V (London,
1808), p. 292; a reference for which I am indebted to Dr. Hutchins.
16 As I attempted
to point out in a paper entitled " The Industrial Revolution
Reconsidered," read at the third Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion,
held in New York City, August SO, 1942. As I suggested in that paper, the industrial revolution actually got under way rather later than is commonly supposed,
not until1784-85. Burke wrote his Reflections at just the time when phenomenally
rapid economic changes had begun, and some of his words in this and in other
documents seem to reflect the cbanges.
16 Cf. my The United States and Civilization, Chicago, 1942, pp. 286-44.

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

808

perous periods) but the momentous issues that were raised in
men's minds by changes of all kinds (of which economic progress was only one) concerning the nature and objectives of
human existence. In the dogmatic philosophy of the later
Middle Ages, material improvement and the scientific investigations likely to contribute to it were not given an adequate
place. The break away from that philosophy and the new
emphasis on material values, which the early industrial revolution encouraged, were not likely to interfere with the arts to
the same extent as a similar emphasis in recent times, when
material improvement is over-valued by learning. At the
turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, England was
of all countries the one in which the problems of human life
and human knowledge struck men most vividly and most intensely. There were a variety of reasons for that. Peace a,nd
prosperity were among them, because they offered men security
and leisure, which were lacking in France during the decades of
religious wars. The tremendous changes in the worldly horizons
open to men's minds were also among the reasons for the
flowering of drama and poetry, music and prose. The industrial
changes were not the chief changes, nor were they the basic
ones, in the sense that they caused all the others. Like the secret
of life itself, the ultimate explanation of beauty must always
elude us. Beauty is not subject to explanation by scientific
laws. All the historian can supply is a true, unbiased description of the setting in which great art appears-a description
which derives its significance from the relations it reveals between the setting and the art.
All the changes of the Elizabethan age, including the voyages
of discovery and England's emergence as a great power in
European political history after the Armada, were related in
varying degrees to the industrial changes. The emergence of the
"new," more materialistic, philosophy, the rise of experimental
science, the growing influence of the Puritans, the increasing
interest in parliamentary government, were promoted to some
extent by the rise of the mercantile class and the gentry,

804

JOHN U. NEF

brought about in part by the early industrial revolution. That
revolution has not yet been given the place in the general
history of England which it occupies. But it would be artificial
to regard it as the primary force in English history in the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It was itself the
product of many other historical changes. The effect of all these
changes, interacting upon each other, was to raise in a new and
sharp form a host of vital recurring questions concerning man's
existence, and to impress upon sensitive men .the imperative
need for an attempt to answer them.
It has been suggested by Professor J. L. Lowes that one of
the chief differences between the English and the French minds
is the belief of the English in the possibility of reopening the
deal with fate. Never have conditions in England so encouraged
the reopening of the deal as at the turn of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The chief motive power behind Elizabethan art was the need for expressing, in new and imperishable ways, great truths concerning human existence. Since the
content was of more importance than the form, the Elizabethans
chose first the most direct means of expression, and this was
language, and second music, as an accompaniment to language.
If the rise of industrialism at this time did nothing immediately to interfere with the cause of art, in the form of literature
and even of music, the same thing cannot be said about painting
and the other arts that have concerned us in this essay. For these
the subordination of the physical substances used to artistic
ends and the skilful employment of hand labor and imaginative technique in the cause of beauty, were indispensable. Peace
and prosperity were providing security and leisure in England
for industrial development, as well as for the composition of
fine prose, poetry, and music. But English economic conditions in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuriesthe pressing need for pumping water and raising coal and ore
from deep mines, for draining the fens, for dredging harbors,
for carrying bulky goods more cheaply by land and water, and
for inventing larger and more efficient furnaces to make possible
the substitution in manufacture of coal, which was abundant,

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

805

for wood, which was growing scarce-all these circumstances
pushed the English technician and financial adventurer toward
the discovery and development of machinery and other practical
devices designed to increase the volume and diminish the labor
costs of production. These stimuli all turned English ingenuity
and skill towards quantity and serviceability rather than towards quality and artistic splendor. The kind of industrial development that was taking place in England-in the direction
of power-driven machinery,
furnaces, and routine methods
of production-canalized manual dexterity and knowledge in
channels that had little or no connection with the aesthetic
problems of painting and the plastic art$ and did more to interfere with than to encourage true art.
France largely escaped this kind of industrial development.
That was partly because she had as yet almost no deep mines
and because she had in most provinces plenty of wood; partly
because there was no growth in population such as was taking
place in England, and no great pressure upon land and other
natural resources, including forests; partly because there was no
transfer of property from ecclesiastical to lay hands like that
brought about by the dissolution of the English monasteries
and the reduction in the number of the clergy. The old traditions of skilled artistic work with the hands, cultivated during
the Middle Ages, had been much more firmly established in
France than in England before the Reformation. The century
which followed was far less damaging on the industrial side in
France than in England to the persistence of such traditions
and to their revival in the arts surrounding the court. The
love of the French mind for abstract reasoning and for the order
and proportion associated with mathematics had contrasted
with the interest of the English mind in the study of matter
even as early as the time of Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon.
The contrasts between the economic development of the two
countries during the century from 1540 to 1640 increased these
differences to the advantage of painting and the plastic arts in
France. It was to some extent because she did not participate in
the early industrial revolution that France increased the leader20

306

JOHN U. NEF

ship in the luxury and artistic industries which she had always
held over England. That revolution helps us to understand the
inferior position of England compared with the Continent in
painting and the plastic arts throughout modern times.
There was another way in which the early industrial revolution imposed a less immediate, but ultimately a more general,
handicap upon the cause of beauty. The movement towards
reality and worldly romance which took place in Elizabethan
England was precious for Western art, because it provided fresh
content and awakened great new hopes for mankind here on
earth. Yet this movement, which is associated with the rise of
industrialism as well as with the discoveries, contained elements
of danger for Western art. The arts cannot do without form and
principles, any more than they can do without content and
imagination. When great emphasis is laid upon content and
imagination there is a danger that principles and form will
suffer. That was a danger against which French history from
1540 to 1640 provided a bulwark. The rules and principles
worked out for poetry, prose, music, and painting in early seventeenth-century France did not lead to the production of many
inspiring works of art before the accession of Louis XIV in
1643. Nor did they open the way for the French artist ever to
attain to what Mr.· Roger Rinks has called "the grandest
manner of all "-the manner of Shakespeare and Dante, Rembrandt and Giotto, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. But the
establishment of French classicism, with its emphasis on order,
balance, and proportion, has given France a longer and more
continuous artistic history in the grand manner-the manner of
Racine, Moliere, and Stendhal, the manner of Couperin,
Rameau, and Berlioz, the manner of Poussin, lngres, and
Cezanne-than any other Western country. The establishment
of general artistic rules and principles, depending on the subtlety of the free mind independent of the methods of modem
natural science and technology, combined with widespread
training in artistic craftsmanship in the use of matter, to make
art a more intimate part of life in France than in other nations
in modem times. Frenchmen find art in the things they make,

ART IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND,

1540-1640

307

in the thoughts they construct, in the sentences they speak.
More than any other Western people, the French have dwelt
with beauty.
Great art is something more than an ornament to civilization.
It embodies what is best in the experience of a people, puts it
in a universal and a beautiful form. Civilization cannot survive
without art-without the conditions which make art possibleany more than without philosophy. The historian would do
well not to commiserate with France for its failure to participate
in the early industrial revolution before counting the costs as
well as the profits of industrialism. One of the costs is likely to
be beauty.
University of Chicago,
Chicago,Illinoia

JOHN DEWEY AND MODERN THOMISM:
INTRODUCTORY

By WILLIAM O'MEARA

T

HE philosophy of John Dewey may be studied from
many different points of. view and if properly approached much profit is to be gained. In the present
paper, I should like to offer an interpretation of some of
Dewey's important teachings. On the basis of his leading conception, that of experience, as he chooses to term it, Dewey
presents an estimate of classical philosophy and of contemporary philosophy which adheres to the classical tradition. I shall
first explain his criticism of the leading schools of philosophy of
the older type. In the second part, his teachings concerning
"experience" will be interpreted. Finally, some suggestions
will be made concerning the relevance of Dewey's thought for
the contemporary philosopher in the Thomist tradition.
Professor Dewey's philosophy has been the object of widely
varying estimates and interpretations.
Outside the circle of
his professed disciples, his views have not been, in general,
either adequately understood or very favorably received. The
preponderant influence of Dewey has been among educationists,
with many of whom, it may be surmised, enthusiasm has frequently been more prominent than understanding.
At all
events, the difficulty of understanding Dewey's contribution to
philosophy, however extreme, is a commonly found factor whenever a new idea is offered for consideration. The usual sequence
of events on such occasions has been analysed by Dewey himself in his "introductory word" to Sidney Hook's The Metaphysics of Pragmatism. 1 The only remedy for those who would
understand before they comment and criticise is more diligent
1

Chicago: Open Court,

808

JOHN DEWEY AND· MODERN THOMISM

309

and objective study of the philosopher's writings. This, of
course, may be aided by interpretative and comparative studies
of Dewey's leading ideas. It is my aim in the present paper to
attempt such a study, which however brief it must be, may
prove. helpful to those who recognize the indispensability of
understanding the doctrines of major philosophers as a prerequisite to fruitful philosophical work.

I
According to Professor Dewey, that w4ich most importantly
and significantly distinguishes the new from the old in philosophy is the abandonment on the part of the former of all
belief in any Absolute Reality or in " absolutes " inbeing. The
acceptance of the reality of the Absolute or of " absolutes " in
being has lead, historically, to a division of being or "the
world " into the Real and the Apparent. This division Dewey
finds to be characteristic of all philosophies of the older type. 2
In some of them there is a higher level of existence, a really
real world, wherein perfection, immutability, security, absolute
truth, and fixed essences obtain. It is with this realm that
philosophy, the ultimate in knowledge, is alone competent to
deal. Set in invidious contrast with this realm is a lower and
less noble one: the ordinary workaday world· of common expe-.
rience, the characteristics of which are mutability, chance, and
insecurity. From this division follows the familiar exaltation of
a priori and immutable verities, the product of pure reason, at
the expense of the ordinary perfectible truths of experience
discovered by common sense and elaborated in the always approximate and perfectible teachings of the sciences.
Among philosophies of the classical type, we may select for
our present purpose three varieties, in order to explain Dewey's
position. The first is the sort just mentioned: those which have
explicitly developed and held such a notion of two realms or
levels of existence, distinguished as Dewey describes them.
• Reconstruction in Philosophy, New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1920, pp. 22-8.

310

WILLIAM O'MEARA

They are monistic philosophies in the rationalistic-intellectualistic tradition, including the great pantheisms. With gradations
in emphasis, we find this view among most philosophers usually
called rationalists; in modern times, I think it would be correct to say, all rationalists have held such a dualistic opinion.
Naturally, because of the greater development of epistemological considerations in modern philosophy, this standpoint is
most obvious so far as concerns the nature of knowledge. From
Descartes to the most contemporary idealist is found this characteristic distinction between a priori, rational, and certain
knowledge, and a posteriori, empirical, and probable opinion.
This distinction, as it did in ancient philosophy, leads to a coordinate distinction between the objects of the two types of
cognition and a consequent partition of reality into the world
of the really real and the world of appearance. This variety of
what Dewey calls organic metaphysics is typically exemplified
in the notion of an all-inclusive " Absolute " as held by postKantian idealists such as Hegel, Green, Bradley, and Royce.
Even this summary account should be sufficient to make clear
the bearing of Dewey's judgment in so far as it concerns this
one sort of classical philosophy.
The second kind to be considered is, on this view, essentially
a sub-type of monistic-organic metaphysics. It is the doctrine
of traditional scholastic theism. For Dewey, this doctrine, has,
of course, even less plausibility than more obviously monistic
teachings. In the face of a transcendent deity, described as
infinite, immutable, all-perfect, etc., the everyday world of
ordinary experience cannot but be mere appearance, more or
less ingeniously explained away, according to Dewey. Such a
doctrine does not have much standing even among philosophies
of the classic type; most modern philosophers would exclude it
from consideration because it is regarded as involving supernatural or theological prepossessions in no way amenable to
criticism of a properly philosophical kind. Theism is a variant
of organic metaphysics which Dewey would reject a fortiori
because of his rejection of the genus.

JOHN DEWEY AND MODERN THOMISM

311

Thus far the application of Dewey's conclusion as to the
falsity of all conceptions holding to an " Absolute " with their
corollary division of the world into two levels of existence is
fairly obvious. What is more striking is its application to what
he terms atomic metaphysics. This philosophy is exemplified
by atomists and mechanists in ancient and modern times as
well as by the various kinds of empiricists, realists and materialists in modern times. Although these philosophers are opposed to the conception of the " Absolute " taught by monistic
thinkers, according to Dewey they regard physical atoms, sensedata, " neutral particulars," or some such simple existents as
absolute and really real. It is in terms of these inherently unchanging existents that the atomist and empiricist explains or
perhaps explains away the ordinary macroscopic things and
organisms of experience. This view, professing empiricism, is in
fact, not genuinely empiricist at all, according to Dewey, and
for this reason he finds it necessary to use the term "experimental empiricism" 3 to signify his own doctrine on experience.
All forms of classical philosophy, then, in Dewey's opinion
are outmoded and to be rejected. Monists and pluralists, empll;icists and rationalists, all alike, have failed to read the lesson
of experience aright. For reasons which Dewey has explained
at length in many of his works, all philosophers of the past and
those contemporaries who still uphold the ancient tradition have
gravely misconceived the nature of reality. They have sought
to find, among existent things or in existence, something fixed,
perfect, secure. But in truth in existence there is nothing with
such qualities. There is no existence which is immutable. Hence,
the God of the theist, the God of the pantheist, Plato's world
of ideas, the species of Aristotle, the atom of Democritus and
his modern followers, the Absolute of the nineteenth century
idealists-to all alike must be denied existence. " A thing ' absolutely' stable and unchangeable would be out of the range of
the principle of action and reaction, of resistance and leverage
8

The Quest for Cl!ll'tainty, New York,

p. IU.

WILLIAM O'MEARA

as well as of friction." " Every existence is an event." 4 The
new and genuinely experimental empiricism teaches these important lessons.

II
Dewey's leading conception, in virtue of which he has reached
these conclusions is a theory on the nature of experience. The
meaning of this conception has apparently been extremely difficult for Dewey's critics to grasp. This is made clear in his rejoinder to the arguments of Santayana, Bertrand Russell, A. E.
Murphy, and others, in The Philosophy of John Dewey. 5 The
student may be grateful, however, to Messrs. Santayana,
Russell and Murphy, because the reply their adverse criticisms
called forth constitutes a paper of major importance for the
understanding of Dewey's thought. It is especially beneficial
in calling attention to important texts in earlier works. In view
of the difficulty and importance of Dewey's notion of experience
it is in order to attempt a statement in interpretation here.
Perhaps the most important point in Dewey's theorycertainly the one most frequently misunderstood-is that experience is not primarily an affair of cognition. " Consciousness
. . . is only a very small and shifting portion of experience.
In the experience ... are all the physical features of the environment, extending out in space . . . and . . . time, and the
habits and interests . . . of the organism . . . [The word
' experience '] means just an immense and operative world of
diverse and interacting elements." 6 Experience, thus conceived,
is the criterion of reality. Such realities as knowledge and consciousness, selves and not-selves, are in experience and are parts
of experience, not the whole nor the most important aspect of
it. Experience " is the entire organic agent-patient in all its
interaction with the environment, natural and social. . . . Experiencing is just certain modes of interaction, or correlation of
Experience and Nature. Chicago: Open Court, 1926, p. 71.
P. A. Schilpp ed., Northwestern University: 1939.
6 Essays in Experimental
Logic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916,
pp. 6-7.
4

5

JOHN DEWEY .AND MODERN THOMISM

818

natural objects among which the organism happens, so to say,
to be one." 7 Some interpreters have taken such texts as these
to commit Dewey to a holistic or monistic view of experience.
Dewey explicitly denies this 8 and indeed he has repeatedly
stated his pluralistic conviction. The only kind of pluralism he
is concerned to reject is that which asserts " an ontological
Pluralism of Ultimates: simple and independent beings." 9
Pluralism of this sort is denied because, if consistent it would
have to affirm that in existence there are immutable selfidentical elements.
One may quarrel with the appropriateness of the word " experience" as used by Dewey but once the sense is learned his
teaching is not exceptionally difficult. Experience, existence,
change, time, real interaction between agents and patients, both
personal and impersonal, are always found together. In reality
thus conceived there are all kinds of differences, all kinds of
similarities and all kinds of connections. But the differences
and distinctions among the things of experience-things always
being recognized as events-are not of the sort attributed to
atomic particulars by empiricist philosophers of the classical
type, nor are the similarities and connections which function in
the field of experience of· a kind which would lead to an absolutistic block-universe monism. Experience is a kind of continuum, but it is also a kind of aggregate, for Dewey. It is
evident that we are far from all subjectivistic or phenomenalistic views of experience. The particular and the general, the
existential and the ideational, the sensible and the intellectual,
are all ingredients in this single though not undivided experience. Experience involves " permanent and general objects of
reference as well as temporally changing events . . . " 10 In
existence there is an "intricate mixture of the stable and the
precarious, the fixed and the unpredictably novel, the assured
(by Dewey
• " The Need for a Recovery in Philosophy," in
and others), New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1917, pp. 86-7.
8 Cf. his rejoinder,
in The Philost:Yphy of John Dewey, pp. 544 f.
• "The Need for a Recovery in Philosophy," in Creative Intetligence, p. 15.
•• Experience and Nature, p. 60.

814

WILLIAM O'MEARA

and the uncertain
. . " He speaks also of the " combinedly
stable and unstable nature of the world." 11 On Dewey's view,
the difficulty felt by the classical empiricist in accounting for
universals and generality disappears. His teaching on this
point is reiterated throughout his major works, notably in The
Quest for Certainty. In his recent Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, he further clarifies his teaching concerning universals.
Ways of change and activity are constant and uniform.
Though not themselves singular they are exemplified in singulars.12 May we say, then, that, according to Dewey, there are
indeed immutable realities or " absolutes " though they are not
existential-they are ideational? Such a statement, it must be
emphasized, does not at all make fictions of universals. The
ideational is just as much an element of experience in Dewey's
sense as the existential is: both are kinds, so to speak, of reality.
The use of the word absolute in this col}nection may seem inappropriate or even shocking to many persons. But there is
warrant for its use. In Experience and Nature we read that the
existence of ways of being and having is " absolute, being
qualitative." 13 It is these " ways of being and having " which
are the structural components of experience (Examples are:
"Being angry, stupid, wise, inquiring; having sugar, the light of
day, money, houses ... " 14) There are no structures or forms
which exist per se and in themselves. Structure as constancy of
means is always" structure of something." 15 As an interpretation, consider the following. Structures are natures or forms
which have two existences: in things (events) and in intelligence. In the former they are of course affected by the mutability and contingency of existential singulars. In intelligence
form or structure is affected by the addition of the ideational
universality characteristic of intelligence. In this way, the
empiricism-rationalism dilemma is overcome. Hence the theory
cit., p. 59.
Logic, pp. 250-1.
18 Op. cit., p. 19.

11 Op.
12

"Experience and Nature, p. 19.
1 " Op. cit., p. 22.

JOHN DEWEY AND MODERN THOMISM

815

of experiential situations may be viewed as a middle way. The
insights of empiricism (of the classical type) and pluralism, on
the one hand, and of rationalism and monism, on the other,
whose significance was formerly misconstrued may be seen as
complementary rather than as mutually exclusive in virtue of
the Dewey view of experience. Of course, if monism and pluralism are defined as contradictories, a philosophic theory must be
one or the other. Thus considered, instrumentalism is a variety
of pluralism, as we have seen. As such it has been called" concatenism " which term is intended to mean a pluralism of
entities which do not exclude one another but are said to
" overlap." 16 Dewey approves the word " overlap " when taken
to refer to the fact that for genuine continuity of experience,
an experience however unique in its own quality must be seen
as containing " something that points to other experiences." 17
This brief examination of Mr. Dewey's thought on some
important matters may be summed up as follows: On the basis
of his " experimental empiricism " or instrumentalism, he has
rejected absolutism as held by organic metaphysics (monism)
and as held by atomic metaphysics (extreme pluralism). In
contrast with these older philosophies, he has developed a
doctrine which admits against pluralism the reality of universals and relations as ideational constants (ways of acting
and undergoing) and against monism the reality of individuals.
Both the " Absolute " and particulars conceived as absolute and
independent beings, existing as such, have been rejected. At the
same time, the members of experience and their ways of interacting have been recognized to exhibit and exemplify structural
constancy. Furthermore, his theory of experience as a field
(as this term is employed in physics) or as consisting of situations may be considered to play a role similar to that played by
the unquestioned or ultimate in earlier philosophies. This last
1

° Cf. William Savery, " The Significance of Dewey's Philosophy," in The Phi-

losophy of John Dewey, New York: Henry Holt and Co.,
11

pp. 488-9.
"Experience, Knowledge and Value: A Rejoinder," in op. cit., p. 545, n. !!9.

816

WILLIAM O'MEARA

interpretation has merely been suggested, not fully developed,
but I am confident it could be shown more fully. 18

III
What is the relevance of the foregoing for the contemporary
Thomist? The above considerations suggest numerous points
upon which comparison and contrast would prove interesting
but only a few can be mentioned in the present discussion.
Professor Dewey, as we saw, regards St. Thomas Aquinas as
essentially an" organic metaphysician," to be classed with such
philosophers as Plato, Spinoza, Hegel, et al. (Consideration of
Dewey's interpretation of Aristotle and of the affinities between
the two philosophers has to be omitted on account of limitations of space. On this point, consult the references to Aristotle
in The Quest for Certainty, Experience and Nature, Logic, and
J. H. Randall, Jr., "Dewey's Interpretation of the History of
Philosophy," in The Philosophy of John Dewey, P. A. Schilpp
ed.) This judgment, in my opinion, ignores some of the most important doctrines of authentic Thomism. 18 " In fact, St. Thomas
and his important contemporary followers deny just as emphatically as does Dewey any plurality of absolute beings. The
very essence of authentic Thomist teaching consists in the thesis
that there is and can be only one absolute actually existent
reality: God. Nowhere but in God does anything exist which is
fixed or immutable without qualification. Furthermore, unlike
that rationalism which finds it necessary to deny genuine reality
to the Many in order to affirm it of the One, for Thomism the
18 It goes without saying that I am not suggesting an interpretation
of Dewey's
conception of experience which would make him out to he a holist or monist, as
Bertrand Russell's criticism infers. Cf. "Dewey's New Logic," in The Philosophy
of John Dewey, p. 148, and Dewey's "Rejoinder," ibid., pp. 544-5.
18 " Dewey's assimilation of St. Thomas to philosophers of Platonic
or "essentialist " inspiration suggests that he has failed to appreciate the radical character of
the innovations worked out by St. Thomas in his metaphysics of the created and
contingent existential heing. It is outside the aim of the present paper to present
a more extensive analysis of Dewey's views on this point such as would be required
for any useful criticism.

JOHN DEWEY AND MODERN THOMISM

317

assertion of the existence of God does not require the removal
of real reality from creatures. According to Thomism, the
created world is one which consists of a real plurality of individual substances whose existence and efficaciousness in acting
is not explained away by any form of Platonic or occasionalistic
teaching concerning the everyday world of ordinary experience.
The usual " -ism " terms of the historian of philosophy are very
difficult of application to Thomism. In this doctrine the knowledge of the senses is no less necessary than the knowledge of the
intellect. The reality of matter, the world of ever-changing
corporeal substances, is affirmed just as strongly as the reality
of spirit. Thomism, too, is a via media between monism and
pluralism, and its theory of knowledge a synthesis of the
partial truths found in rationalism and empiricism. One could
go on to trace these parallels in greater detail, but for the
present these simple indications must suffice.
Enough has. been said, I think, to suggest the importance of
this kind of study. It is surely never wise for any student of
philosophy of whatever school to fail to explore with a view
to understanding the most important contemporary philosophers of other schools. Professor Dewey once wrote that one
factor interfering with a better understanding between the nonscholastic and those in the scholastic tradition was the assumption on the part of many of latter that scholasticism actually
was in possession of final and clear statement of all philosophical truth and that, consequently most modern philosophers
were in wilful error. 19 But contemporary Thomism, as taught
by Jacques Maritain, certainly does not claim to be actually in
possession of the one true philosophy in all its perfection and integrity. As Professor Maritain puts it: "We must be aware of
the perpetual novelty proper to philosophical wisdom, defend
the necessity for renovation and growth inscribed in its nature
. . . against the prejudices of systematically traditionalist or
immobilist minds." The modern Thomist does claim that
his philosophy is " a doctrinal organism founded securely as a
19

31.

ln Present-Day TMnkers and the New Scholasticism, John S. Zybura ed., p.

318

WILLIAM O'MEARA

whole on true principles," which has the task of progressively
realizing the virtual philosophy now divided in a plurality of
opposed systems. 2 ° From this point of view, Dewey's thought
is an instance of what Maritain calls " virtual philosophy " and
it is therefore a guide for work to be done in furthering the
vital progress of philosophy itself. It is only through mutual
understanding and the search for truth wherever it is to be
found that philosophy can advance as it should and must in
days to come.
FOTdham UniverBity,
New YOTk, New YOTk

•• Sept

sur l'etre, pp. 17-19; English tr., A preface to metaphyaica, pp. 12-14.

To Jacques Maritain:

ARTHUR LOURIE

DE ORDINATIONE

ANGELO RUM
MOTET FOR MIXED CHOIR
AND FIVE INSTRUMENTS
2 trumpets (C)
2 trombones
and tuba

Selection of texts by RAissA

819

MARITAIN

De ordinatione Angelorum secundum hierarchias et ordines
Dionysius ponit:
In prima quidem hierarchia Seraphim ut primos,
Cherubim ut medios,
Thronos ut ultimos;
In media vero Dominationes ut primos,
Virtutes ut medios,
Potestates ut ultimos;
In ultima Principatus ut primos,
Archangelos ut medios,
Angelos ut ultimos ....
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qui est Amor procedens;
cum quo affinitatem habet
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ab incendio amoris determinatus . . .
In prima hierarchia Seraphim, Cherubim et Throni;
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in ultima Principatus, Archangeli et Angeli.
(Alleluia) .
Dominus dicit de Sari.ctis
quod erunt sicut Angeli Dei in coelo ...
quod non erunt duae societates
hominum et angelorum
sed una
quia omnium beatitudo est
adhaerere uni Deo.
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A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES MARITAIN:
1910-1942
Compiled by RuTH BYRNs

T

HE first section of this bibliography lists the writings

in French and English of Jacques Maritain from 1910
to November, 1942. The arrangement is by years.
Directly after each annual heading books and parts of books
by M. Maritain are listed in alphabetical order according to
titles. Articles, also listed in alphabetical order according to
titles, follow the listings of books and parts of books. Prefaces
by M. Maritain to the books of other authors are then Hsted
according to the authors' names. Translations from French to
English are noted but the bibliography does not include translations of M. Maritain's works in the many other languages
into which his writings have been rendered. A small number
of his works which originally appeared in Spanish are included
in the bibliography.
The second part of the bibliography lists articles and other
works about M. Maritain for the same period. The arrangement of this part of the bibliography is alphabetical according
to the names of the authors. This part of the bibliography also
includes only (with a few exceptions) articles in French and
English.
Book reviews written by M. Maritain and reviews of his
books by others are not included in either section of the bibliography. Likewise, newspaper reports of addresses by M.
Maritain are not included in the bibliography nor are statements which he signed as a member of a committee or as one
of a group of signers.
Every reasonable effort was taken to make both sections of
the bibliography complete and accurate. The items were
checked with standard bibliographies and periodical indices as
well as with the bibliography of Maritain printed in The Catholic Library World, May, 1942, and with a selected, unpublished
22

345

346

RUTH BYRNS

bibliography of M. Maritain's writings prepared by Miss Lois
Byrns of the University of Wisconsin. Nearly all of the books
and nearly all of the articles listed were examined personally
by the compiler. In some cases it was not possible, at this time,
to secure a copy for examination.
However, in spite of this effort, it is likely-because of the
many difficulties in completing a bibliography such as this
one-that there are omissions and errors in this Maritain bibliography. Readers who discover omissions or errors are requested to send a notation of the missing items or the mistakes
to the compiler of the bibliography.
PART I
WRITINGS OF JACQUES MARITAIN
1910 TO NoVEMBER 1942

HHO
1. " LE NEO-VITALISME EN ALLEMAGNE ET LE DARWINISME."
de Philosophie. 6: pp. 417-441. 1910.
2.

"LA SCIENCE MODERNE ET LA RAISON."

6: pp. 575-603. 1910.
In Antimoderne,
See item

Revue

Revue de Philosophie.

pp.

1911

3.

DE M. BERGSON".

"L':EvoLUTIONNISME

Revue de Philosophie.

19: p. 467 f. 1911.
1913

4. " L'ESPRIT

DE

LA PHILOSOPHIE

MODERNE.

I.

LA

REFORME

Revue de Philosophie. 24: pp. 601-625. 1913.
La premiere des quatre conferences donnees sous ce titre en avrilmai, 1914, a l'Institut Catholique de Paris.

cARTESIENNE."

5.

"L'INTUITION.

Au SENS

n'INCLINATION."

" Fragment d'une des
philosophic chretienne."

6.

"LA PHILOSOPHIE

DE

CONNAISSANCE

INSTINCTIVE

OU

Revue de Philosophie.

DE

23: pp. 5-13.
sur la philosophic de Bergson et la

M. BERGSON

ET LA PHILOSOPHIE

CHRE-

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

347

MARITAIN

de Ia Revue de Philosophie

TIENNE."

Cours et conferences

l'Institut

Catholique de Paris, 1913.

a

" ... qui paraitront prochainement dans la Bibliotheque de Philosophie experimentale .... " See item 7, below.

1914
7. LA PHILOSOPHIE
Riviere, 1914.

BERGSONIENNE:

ETUDES CRITIQUEs.

Paris:

2ieme edition, revue et augmentee, Paris: Bibliotheque de Philosophie, 1930. See item 74, below.

8. " L'ESPRIT DE LA PHILOSOPHIE MODERNE. II. L'INDEPENDANCE
DE L'ESPRIT."

Revue de Philosophie. 25: pp. 53-82. 1914.

". . . la seconde des quatre conferences donnees sous ce titre en
avril-mai, 1914, a l'Institut Catholique de Paris."

9. "LALIBERTE INTELLECTUELLE." 1914.
In Antimoderne, 1922. See item 22, below, pp. 71-109.
1918
10. "LA PHYSIQUE DE LA QUANTITE ET LA REVOLUTION CARTESIENNE."
1918.
In Reflexions sur ['intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 1924. See item
36, below, pp. 174-201.

11. PREFACE to: Clerissac, H., 0. P. Le mystere de l'eglise. Paris:
1918.
1919
12. " SUR LA FORMATION DE LA PHILOSOPHIE HELLENIQUE."
de Philosophie. 26: pp. 627-657. 1919.

Revue

1920
13. ART ET scoLASTIQUE.
1920.

Paris:

Librairie

de I'art

catholique,

Nouvelle edition, revue et augmentee, Paris: Louis Rouart et :fils,
1927.
See: Item 53, below and item 60, below.
3ieme edition, revue, Paris: Louis Rouart et :fils, 1935. See item
120, below.
Translations: English. By John O'Connor. The Philosophy of Art.
1923. Item 28, below.
English. By J. F. Scanlan. Art and Scholasticism.
1930. Item 72, below.

348

RUTH BYRNS

14. "DE QUELQUES CONDITIONS DE LA RENAISSANCE THOMISTE."
Conference prononcee a l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie
de Louvain, le 26 janvier, 1920.
In Antimoderne, 1922. See item 22, below, pp. 113-156.
15. "REFLEXIONS SUR LE TEMPS PRESENT." 1920.
In Antimoderne, 1922. See item 22, below, pp. 195-223.
16. "LE soNGE DE DESCARTES." Revue Universelle, December,
1920, Appendice I, pp. 596-598.
In Le songe de Descartes, suivi de quelques essais, 1932. See
item 92, below.

1921
INTRODUCTION
17. ELEMENTs DE PHILOSOPHIE. Ier fascicule.
GENERALE A. LA PHILosoPHIE. Paris: Tequi, 1921.
Translation:

English. By E. I. Watkin.
An Introduction
Philosophy. 1930. Item 98, below.

to

18. THEONAS: OU, LES ENTRETIENS D'UN SAGE ET DE DEUX PHILOSOPHES SUR DIVERSES MATIERES INEGALEMENT ACTUELLES.
Paris: Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1921.
Translations: English. By F. J. Sheed. Theonas: Conversations
of a Sage. 1938. Item 105, below. See also item
121, below.
English. Freedom of the Intellect, and Other Conversations with Theonas. 1935. Item 121, below.

19. " ERNEST PsicHARI." 1921.
In Antimoderne, 1922. See item 22, below, pp. 227-266.
20. " LA NOUVELLE THEODICEE AMERICAINE." 1921.
In Refiexions sur ['intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 1924. See item
36, below, pp. 262-287.

21. PREFACE to: Driesch, Hans. La Philosophie de l'organisme ..
Traduction de M. Kollmann. Paris, 1921.
1922
22. ANTIMODERNE. Paris: Editions de la Revue des Jeunes, 1922.
Includes these essays:
"La science moderne et la raison," 1910, pp. 29-68. Item 2, above.
"La liberte intellectuelle," 1914, pp. 71-109. Item 9, above.
" De quelques conditions de la renaissance thomiste," 1920, pp.
113-156. Item 14, above.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

849

MARITAIN

"Connaissance de l'etre," 199.!92, pp.
Item 23, below.
" Reflexions sur le temps present," 199.!0, pp. 195-9.!23. Item :liii,
above.
" Ernest Psichari," 1921, pp. 227-266. Item 19, above.

23. " CoNNAISSANCEDE L'ETRE." 1922.
In Antimoderne, 1922. See item 22, above, pp. 159-192.

24. " DE LA METAPHYSIQUEDES PHYSICIENSOU DE LA SIMULTANEITE
SELON EINSTEIN." 1922-24.
In Rlflexions sur l'intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 1924. See item
36, below, pp. 9W9.!-261.

25. "DE LA VERITE." 1922.
In Reflexions sur l'intelligence et sur sa vie propre, 1991:4. See item
36, below, pp. 1-26.

1923
9W. ELEMENTS DE PHILOSOPHIE. lie fascicule.
PETITE LOG:IQUE.
Paris: Tequi, 1923.
Translation: English. By Imelda Choquette. An Introduction to
Logic. 1937. Item 142, below.

27. SAINT THOMAS D'AQUIN, APOTRE DES TEMPS MODERNES. Paris:
Editions de la Revue des Jeunes, 1923.
28. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART. Translation of Art et scolastique
(1920, first French. edition) by John O'Connor. Introduction by Eric Gill. London: B. Humphries, 1923.
See item 13, above.

29. "L'INTELLIGENCE n'APRES M. MAURICE BLONDEL." Revue de
Philosophie. Premier article, 30: pp. 333-364. Deuxieme
article, 30: pp. 484-5U. 1928.
Conference prononcee a l'Institut Catholique de Paris, le

avril

1923.

30. "PASCAL APOLOGISTE." 1923.
In Reflexions sur l'intelligence et sur sa vie propre. 1924. See item
36, below, pp. 149.!-159.
31. "LA POJ,ITIQUE DE PASCAL." 1923.
In Reflexions sur l'intelligence et sur sa vie propre.
item 36, below, pp. 160-173.

32. " LE RlTIALISM:E THOMISTE." Conference faite

1924.

See

a Geneve, sous

350

RUTH BYRNS

les auspices du Comite des Conferences universitaires,
mars 1923.
In Rlflexions sur l'intelligence et sur sa vie propre.

le 6
See

item 36, below, pp. 288-335.

33.

"LA QUANTIFICATION

DU PREDICAT ET LA LOGIQUE DE L'ECoLE."

Revue Neo-Scolastique.
34.

"LA VRAI NOTION

25: pp. 57-69. 1923.

nu SYLLOGISME."

Revue de Philosophie.

30: pp. 174-181. 1923.
"Ces pages sont
de la Logique que M. J. Maritain va nous
donner, comme second fascicule de ses Elements de Philosophie ... ."
above.
See item
35.

PREFACE

to: Deploige, Simon.

Le conflit de la morale et de la

sociologie. Paris, 1923.
1924
36.

REFLEXIONS

SUR L'INTELLIGENCE

ET SUR SA VIE PROPRE.

Paris:

Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1924.
de philosophie,
3e edition,
edition, Bibliotheque
Desclee, De Brouwer, 1930.)
Includes these essays:
"De la verite."
pp.
Item
above.
"La vie propre de !'intelligence et l'erreur idealiste."
pp.
Item 39, below.
pp. 78-141.
" La philosophie de M. Blondel.".
"Pascal apologiste."
pp.
Item 30, above.
"La politique de Pascal."
pp. 160-173. Item 31, above.
"La physique de la quantite et la revolution cartesienne." 1918.
pp.
Item 10, above.
" De la metaphysique des physiciens ou de la simultaneite selon
Einstein." 192.2-M. pp.
Item
above.
"La nouvelle theodicee americaine."
pp.
Item
above.
" Le realisme thomiste."
pp.
Item
above.
"Sur le langage philosophique."
Appendice I, pp. 336-341.
Appendice II,
" Sur !'expression ' Intuition abstractive.' "
pp. 34£-345.
"Sur !'interpretation de la theorie de la relativite."
1924.
Appendice III, pp. 346-371.

37. "A PROPOS DES CAHIERS DU R. P.
Thomiste. £9: pp. 416-425. 1924.

MARECHAL."

Revue

A

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES MARITAIN

851

88. " LE THOMISME ET LA CRISE DE L'ESPRIT MODERNE." Acta
Hebdomadae Thomisticae, Romae. 1924. pp. 55-79.
39. "LA VIE PROPRE DE L'INTELLIGENCE ET L'ERREUR IDEALISTE."
Revue Thomiste. 29: pp. 268-818. 1924.
1925
40. DE LA VIE D'ORAISON. (With Raissa Maritain.) Paris: Rouart
et fils, 1925, and Librairie d'art catholique, 1925.
Translation:

English. By. A. Thorold.
1928. Item 63, below.

Prayer and Intelligence.

41. TRois REFORMATEURs: LuTHER, DESCARTES,RoussEAU.
Plon-Nourrit et cie., 1925.

Paris:

Avee six portraits.
Translation: English. Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau. 1929. Item 67, below.

42. "LA PENSEE RELIGIEUSEDE DESCARTES." Revue de Philosophic.
82: pp. 78-86. 1925 .
.:Etude critique de La pensee religieuse de Descartes, par Henri
Gouhier. Paris, 1924.

48. " ST. THOMASAPOTRE DES TEMPS MODERNES."Xenia Thomistica.
1: pp. 65-85. 1925.
44. PREFACE to: Goichon, Amelie. Ernest Psichari, d'apres des
documents inedits. Paris, 1925.
1926
45. "THE CoNTEMPORARY ATTITUDE TowARDS ScHOLASTICISM."
In Present Day Thinkers and the New Scholasticism. pp.
185-195. St. Louis and London: B. Herder Book Co. 1926.
Edited and augmented by JohnS. Zybura. Second edition, 1927.

46. GEORGES RouAULT, PEINTRE ET LITHOGRAPHE. Texte de Jacques
Maritain. 4lithographs. Paris: Editions polyglotte. Frapier,
1926.
"Maitres et petits maitres d'aujourd'hui."
Translation: English. By Campbell Dodgson.

47. R:EPoNSE .A JEAN CocTEAU. Paris: Stock, Delamain et Boutelleau, 1926.

352

RUTH BYRNS

48. UNE OPINION SUR CHARLES MAURRAS ET LE DEVOIR DES CATHOLIQUES. Paris: Pion, 1926.
49. "ExPERIENCE MYSTIQUE ET PHILOSOPHIE." R.evue de Philosophie. 33: pp. 571-618. 1926.
"Notes, revues par l'auteur, de la conference donnee le 5 mars
1926 dans la serie des conferences sur la Doctrine catholique
d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin." See item 50, below.

50. " PHILOSOPHIEET SCIENCE EXPERIMENTALE." Revue de Philosophie. 33: pp. 342-378. 1926.
"Notes, revues par I' auteur, de la conference donnee le 5 mars
1926 dans la serie des conferences sur la Doctrine catholique
d'apres saint Thomas d'Aquin." See item 49, above.

51. PREFACE to: Bloy, Leon. La Femme pauvre. Paris, 1926.
52. PREFACE to: Levaux, Leopold.

QuandDieuparle.

Paris, 1926.

1927
53. ART ET SCOLASTIQUE. Nouvelle edition revue, et augmentee.
Paris: Louis Rouart et fils. 1927.
"On y a ajoute un supplement: Frontieres de la Poesie .... " See
item 13, above, item 60, below, and item 72, below.

54. CLAIRVOYANCE DE RoME. En collaboration avec M. V.
Bernadot, P. Doncoeur, E. Lajeune, D. Lallemont, F. X.
Maquart. Paris: Spes, 1927.

55. Grno SEVERINI. Paris: Gallimard, 1927.
See item 76, below.

En collaboration avec M. V.
Bernadot, P. Doncoeur, E.· Lajeune, D. Lallement, F. X.
Maquart. Paris: Spes, 1927.

56. PoURQUOI RoME A PARLE.

57. PRIMAUTE DU SPIRITUEL. Paris: les petits-fils de Pion et
Nourrit, 1927.
Translation: English. By J. F. Scanlan. Things That Are Not
Caesar's. 1930. Item 78, below.

58. QuELQUES PAGES SUR LEoN BLoY. Paris: L'Artisan du Livre,
1927. (Cahiers de la quinzaine. 10 cahier de la 18 serie.)
59. "DE L'oBEISSANCE AU PAPE." Vie Spirituelle.
757. 1927.

15: pp. 755-

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

853

60. FRONTIERES DE LA Po:EsrE. Paris: Rouart, 1927.
In Art et scolastique,
See item 53, above.

61. PREFACE to: Moureau, Leon. Catholicisme ou politique d' abord.
Lou vain, 1927.
1928
63. PRAYER AND INTELLIGENCE. Translation of De la vie d'oraison
(1925) by A. Thorold. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1928.
See item 40, above.

64. "LE THOMISME ET LA CIVILISATION." Revue de Philosophie.
35: pp. 109-140. 1928.
Conference donnee au Cercle Thomiste de la Faculte de Philosophie
a l'Institut Catholique de Paris, le 23 mars

65. "SAINT THOMAS ET L'UNITE DE LA CULTURE CHRETIENNE." Vie
Intellectuelle. I: pp. 46-74. 1928.
Lettreg a se8 filleuls, Jacques Maritain et Pierre van der M eer de Walcheren. Paris: Stock, 1928.

66. PREFACE to: Bloy, Leon.

1929
67. THREE REFORMERS: LuTHER, DESCARTES, RoussEAU. Translation of ·Trois n3formateurs: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau.
(1925) London: Sheed and Ward, 1929. New York: Scribners, 1929 and 1937.
See item 41, above.
67a.

" PHILOSOPHIE ET SCIENCE EXPERIMENTALE." In Cahiers de
Philosophie de la Nature, Melanges (Ire Serie), Paris, Vrin,
1929, pp. 159-211.

68. " IL ToMISMO E LA CIVILITA." Rivista di Filosofia N eoScolastica. 21: pp. 12-32. 1929.
69. "JEAN DE SAINT THOMAS: LES DONS DU SAINT ESPRIT." Translated by Jacques Maritain. Vie Spirituelle. 18: pp. 443-455.
1929.
70. "THOMAS VON AQUIN UND DIE EINHEIT DES ABENDLANDES."
Kath. Gedank. 2: pp. 11-30. 1.929.
71. PREFACE to: Bruno de Jesus-Marie.

Saint Jean de la Croix.

Paris, 1.929.
Translation:

English. Saint John of the Cross. 1982. See item
97, below.

354

RUTH BYRNS

1980
72. ART AND ScHoLASTICISM. Translation of Art et scolastique.
1927. By J. F. Scanlan. London: Sheed and Ward, 1980.
New York: Scribners, 1980.
" From the latest French edition, which has been considerably
revised by the author and has the addition of The Frontiers of
Poetry, An Essay on Art, some reflections on religious art, and
several other new notes."
See: item 18, above; item 58, above; item 60, above; and item 72,
below; and item 120, below.

78. LE DOCTEUR ANGELIQUE. Paris: Desclee De Brouwer, 1980.
Translations: English. By J. F. Scanlan. Angelic Doctor: The
Life and Thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 1981.
See item 82, below.
English. By J. F. Scanlan. St. Thomas Aquinas,
Angel of the Schools. 1981. See item 86, below.

74. LA PHILOSOPHIE BERGSONIENNE: ETUDES CRITIQUES. Paris:
Riviere. Bibliotheque de Philosophie. 1980.
2e edition, revue et augmentee (new preface, pp. v-lxxxvi) . See
item 7, above. See also item 84, below (Brd ed.).

75. RELIGION ET CULTURE. Paris: Desclee De Brouwer. 1980.
Translation: English. By J. F. Scanlan. Religion and Culture.
1931. Item 85, below. See also notation in item
102, below.

76. SEVERINI. (Peintres nouveaux, no. 40.) Paris: Gallimard, 1980.
See item 54, above.

77. "ST. AuGUSTINE AND ST. THoMAs." In A. Monument to St.
Augustine. London: Sheed and Ward, 1980. pp. 197-228.
78. THINGS THAT ARE NoT CAEsAR's. Translation of Primaute du
spirituel (1927) by J. F. Scanlan. London: Sheed and Ward,
1980; and New York: Scribners, 1980.
See item 57, above.

79. "CATHOLIC THOUGHT AND ITs MrssiON."
588-547. 1980.

Thought.

4: pp.

80. "DE LA NOTION DE LA PHILOSOPHIEDE LA NATURE." Philosophia
Perennis. 2: pp. 819-828. Muenchen: Habbel, 1980.
81. "DE LA SAGESSE AUGUSTINIENNE." Revue de Philosophie. 87:
pp. 715-741. 1980.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

355

MARITAIN

1931
82. ANGELIC DocToR: THE LIFE AND THOUGHT oF SAINT THoMAS
AQUINAS. Translation of Le docteur angelique (1930) by
J. F. Sc3:nlan. London: Sheed and Ward, 1931; New York:
The Dial Press, 1931; Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1931.
See item 73, above, and item 86, below.
83. DESCARTES: TEXTES SUIVIS DE DEBATS AU STUDIO FRANCO-RUSSE.
Paris: Cahiers de la quinzaine, 1931.
At head of title: Jacques Maritain et Boris Vycheslavzefl', "Reunions
du studio franco-russe: 12. Reunion, 27 janvier 1931."

84. LA PHILOSOPHIE BERGSONIENNE: ETUDES CRITIQUES. Paris:
Desclee De Brouwer, 1931.
3e edition. " Le texte de cette troisieme edition a subi quelques
corrections." See item 7, above, and item 74, above.

85. RELIGION AND CuLTURE. Translation of Religion et Culture
(1930) by J. F. Scanlan. Introduction by Christopher Dawson. London: Sheed and Ward, 1931.
See item 75, above, and see notation, item 102, below.

86. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, ANGEL OF THE ScHOOLS. Translation
of Le docteur angelique (1930) by J. F. Scanlan. London:
Sheed and Ward, 1931.
See item 73, above, and item 82, above.
87. "L'ACTIVITE DU PERE PEILLAUBE DANS LA FONDATION ET
L'ORGANIZATIONDE LA FACULTE DE PHILOSOPHIEA L'INSTITUT
CATHOLIQUE." Revue de Philosophie. 36: pp. 24-31. 1931.
88. "REJOINDER TOM. BELGION." Dublin Review.
136. 1931.

188: pp. 134-

89. "SAINT JEAN DE LA CROIX PRACTICIENDE LA CONTEMPLATION."
Etudes Carmelitaines. April, 1931, pp. 2n-240.
90. "SCIENCE ET PHILOSOPHIE D'APRES LES PRINCIPES DU R!DALISME
CRITIQUE." Revue thomiste. 36: pp. 1-46. 1931.
1932
!H. DISTINGUER POUR UNIR: ou, LEs DEGRES nu SAVOIR. Paris:
Desclee De Brouwer, 1932.
Translation: English. By Bernard Wall and Margot Adamsom.
The Degrees of Knowledge (1937) . See item 158,
below. See also, entry under item 179, below. See
also, notation in item 139.

356

RUTH BYRNS

LE soNGE DE DESCARTES, Survr DE QUELQUES ESSAis. Paris:
Correa,
See item 16, above.

93. " DE LA NOTION DE PHILOSOPHIE CHRETIENNE." Revue N eoScholastique. 34: pp. 153-183. 1932.
Text of Conference at University of Louvain, December, 1931.

94., "MoTHER OF CIVILIZATION: ExTRACT FROM Things That Are
Not Caesar's." The Catholic World. 134: pp. 727-728.

95. "NoTES SUR LA CONNAISSANCE." Rivista di Filosofia NeoScolastica. 24: pp. 13-23. 1932.
96. "SuR L'EGALITE D'AMOUR ENTRE DIEu ET L'AME APREs SAINT
JEAN DE LA CRoiX." Etudes Carmelitaines. January, 1932,
pp. 1-18.
97. PREFACE to: Bruno de Jesus-Marie, 0. C. D. St. John of the
. Cross. Translation of Saint Jean de la Croix (1929). London,
See item 71, above.

1933
98. AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. Translation

of Elements
de philosophie. Ie fascicule. Introduction generale a la
philosophie (1921) by E. I. Watkin. New York: Sheed

and Ward, 1933.
See item 17, above.

99. CATHOLIC LAYMAN: ON TEACHING. Pamphlet No.1. Toronto:
St. Michael's College, 1933.
100. CuLTURE AND RELIGION.
Michael's College, 1933.

Pamphlet

No. 2.

Toronto:

St.

101. DE LA PHILOSOPHIE CHRETIENNE. Paris and Bruges: Desclee
De Brouwer, 1933.
" Texte d'une conference prononcee a l'Universite de Louvain en
decembre 1931."-Preface.

102. Du REGIME TEMPOREL ET DE LA LIBERTE. Paris: Desclee D.e
Brouwer, 1933.
Translation: English. By Richard O'Sullivan, K. C. Freedom in
the Modern World. See item 135, below.
" Dans la ... seconde partie ... sont repris et developpes quelques-

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

357

uns des themes d'un ouvrage anterieur (Religion et culture}."Avant-propos. See items 75 and 85, above.

103. "LEs lLEs "-EssAis ET POEMES. Paris: Desclee De Brouwer,
1933. With Jules Supervielle and others.
104. SoME REFLECTIONSON CULTURE AND LmERTY. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933.
105. THEONAS: CoNVERSATIONSOF A SAGE. Translation of Theonas:

ou, les entretiens d'un sage et de deux philosophes sur diverses
matieres inegalement actuelles
by F. J. Sheed. London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1933.
See item 18, above.

106. UNE PHILOSOPHIE DE LALIBERTE. Fribourg: Fragniere, 1933.
See item 109, below.
107. "DE LA PHILOSOPHIE MORALE ADEQUATEMENT PRISE." Revue
de l'Universite d'Ottawa.
pp. 105-134. 1933.
See item 125, below.
108. "NoTE ON THE BouRGEOis WoRLD." The Commonweal. 18:
pp. 94-96. 1933.
H)9. " UNE PHILOSOPHIE DE LA LIBERTE." Nova et V etera. 8: pp.
1933.
See item 106, above.

110. "

FOR JusTICE: EXCERPT FROM Theonas: Conversations of
a Sage." The Catholic World. 137: pp. 603-605. 1933.

11 Oa. INTRODUCTION to: Bloy, Leon.
1933.

Lettres a veronique. Paris,

1934
111. EssAIS SUR KIERKEGAARD-PETRARQUE-GoETHE, ETC. Paris:
Desclee De Brouwer, 1934. (With T. Haecker and others.)
SEPT LE<;'ONS SUR L'ETRE ET LES PREMIERS PRINCIPES DE LA
RAISON SPECULATIVE. Paris: Tequi, 1934.
Translation: English. A Preface to Metaphysics: Seven Lectures
on Being. 1939. See item 177, lielow.

113. " LA PHILOSOPHIE DE LA NATURE: PHILOSOPHIE ET SCIENCES."
Vie lntellectuelle. 31: pp.
1934.

858

RUTH BYRNS

114. "LE THOMISME ET LE SENS DU MYSTERE." Revue de l'Universite d'Ottawa. 4: pp. 149*-161*. 1934.
115. "MisSION DE LA PENSEE CHRETIENNE." Vie Intellectuelle.
pp. 41-47. 1934.
116. "PERSONALITY, PROPERTY, AND CoMMUNISM."
Toronto Quarterly. 3: pp. 167-184. 1934.

University of

117. "PHILOSOPHIE DE LA NATURE ET SCIENCES EXPERIMENTALES."

Acta Pont. Academiae Romanae S. Thomae Aq. et Religionis
Catholicae. 1: pp. 77-93. 1934.
118. PREFACE to: Cayre, F. Les sources de l'amour divin. Paris,
1934.
119. PREFACE to: Cierissac, Humbert, 0. P. Le mystere de l'eglise.
Juvisy: Editions du Cerf, 1934.
1935
UO. ART ET scoLASTIQUE. Paris: Louis Rouart et :fils, 1935.
Third edition, revised and corrected.
See: item 13, above; item fl8, above; item 53, above; item 60,
above; item 7fl, above. See also: item 1flfl, below.

FREEDOM oF THE INTELLECT, AND OTHER CoNVERSATIONSWITH
THEONAS. Translation of Theonas: ou, les entretiens d'un

sage et les deua; philosophes sur diverses matieres inegalement actuelles.
By F. J: Sheed. New York: Sheed
and Ward, 1935.
See: item 18, above; item 105, above.
FRoNTrERES DE LA POESIE ET AUTRES ESSAIS. Paris: Louis
Rouart et fils, 1935.
Included in part in translation of Art et scolastique (Art and
Scholasticism, 1930) . See item 7fl, above; also item 120, above.
LA PHILOSOPHIE DE LA NATURE: ESSAI CRITIQUE SUR SES
FRONTrERES ET soN OBJET. Paris: Tequi, 1935.
LETTRE sUR L'INDEPENDANCE. (Courrier des tles, 7.)
Desclee De Brouwer, 1935.

Paris:

SCIENCE ET SAGESSE, SUIVI D'ECLAIRCISSEMENTSSUR LA PHILOSOPHIE MORALE. Paris: Labergerie, 1935.
Translation: English. By Bernard Wall. Science and Wisdom
(1940) . See item 192, below.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

359

126. "HISTOIRE D'ABRAHAMOU LA SAINTETEDANS L'ETATDE NATURE."
Nova et Vetera. 10: pp. 239-266. 1935.
127. "HUMANISME ET CULTURE."
94-130. 1935.

Etudes CaT'Tl'Wlitaines. 2: pp.

128. "LE CHRETIEN ET LE MONDE." Revue de Philosophie.
1-22. 1935.

35: pp.

129. "LETTRE: R:EPONSE AU P. J. M. RAMIREZ, suiVI D'UNE NOTE
DE CE DERNIER." Bulletin Thomiste. 4: pp. 553-556. 1935.
130. " L'mEAL HISTORIQUE D'UNE NOUVELLE CHRETIENTE." Vie lntellectuelle. 33: pp. 181-232. 1935.
131. " NOTES POUR UN PROGRAMME D'ENSEIGNEMENTDE LA PHILOSOPHIE DE LA NATURE ET D'ENSEIGNEMENT DES SCIENCES DANS
UNE FACULTE DE PHILOSOPHIE.". Bollettino filosofico. 1, n. 2:
pp. 15-31. 1935.

132. PREFACE to: Gardeil, Ambroise, 0. P. La vraie vie chretienne.
Paris, 1935.
G. La personnalite morale d'apres
Kant. Son expose, sa critique a la lumiere du thomisme.

133. PREFACE to: Gracanin,
Paris, 1935.

134. PREFACE to: Peterson, Erik. Le mystere des juifs et des gentils
dans l'eglise. Paris: 1935.
1936
135. FREEDOM IN THE MoDERN WoRLD. Translation of Du regime
temporel et de la liberte, 1933, by Richard O'Sullivan, K. C.
London: Sheed and "'ard, and New York: Scribners, 1936.
See item

above.

136. HUMANISME INTEGRAL: PROBLEMES TEMPORELS ET SPIRITUELS
D'UNE NOUVELLE CHRETIENTE. Six
l'Universite d'ete de Santander.

1934

a

Translation:

prononcees en aout
Paris: Aubier, 1936.

English. By Margot Adamson.
1938. See item 159, below.

True Humanism.

137. "CHRISTIANISME ET CULTURE." Causerie faite a Radio-Luxembourg, juillet 1936.
In Questions de conscience. 1938. pp.
See item 156, below.

360

RUTH BYRNS

138. "L'INTELLIGENCE ET SA VIE." Communication au Congres des
P. E. N. Clubs, Buenos Aires, 10 septembre 1936.
In Questions de conscience. 1938. pp. 239-257. See item 156,
below.

139. "REFLECTIONS ON SACRED ART." 1936.
In Examples of Religious Art, F. C. Lillie. Chicago.

1936.

140., "SciENCE ET PHILOSOPHIE." 1936.
In Quatre essais sur l'esprit. 1939. pp. 181-254. See item 179,
below.
" Cet essai sur la science et la philosophie est le developpement d'un
rapport presente au Congres thomiste de Rome en novembre 1936.
ll complete les
II et IV des Degres du Savoir.

141. PREFACE to: Briefs, Goetz. Le proletariat industriel.
Yves Simon. Paris, 1936.

Tr. by

193'7
142. AN INTRODUCTION TO Lome. Translation of Elements de
philosophie, IIe fascicule: Petite logique ou logique de la
raison correcte (1923), by Imelda Choquette. New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1937.
See item 26, above.

143. "AcTION ET CONTEMPLATION." Revue Thomiste. 43: pp. 1850. 1937.
In Questions de conscience. 1938. pp. 95-155. See item 156, below.
144. "LA CITE TEMPORELLE ET LES CROYANTS." Allocution a
l'Assemblee Generale de !'Union Civique des Croyants, 26
avril 1937.
In Questions de conscience. 1938. pp. 259-265. See item 156.
below.

145. "LE CONFLIT DE L'ESSENCE ET DE L'EXISTENCEDANS LA PHILOSOPHIE CARTESIENNE." 1937.
In Descartes: Homenaje en el tercer Centenario del 'Discurso del
metoda.' I: pp. :U-20. Universite de Buenos Aires, 1937.
Also in Congres Descartes. Travaux du IXe Congres International
de Philosophic. Publie par les soins de Raymond Bayer. I: pp.
38-45. 1937.

146. "LE DISCERNEMENT MEDICAL DU MERVEILLEUX D'ORIGINE
DIVINE." Etudes Carmelitaines. 22: pp. 95-104. 1937.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

361

OF JACQUES MARITAIN

147. "PHILOSOPHIE DE L'ORGANISME. NoTES SUR LA FONCTION DE
NUTRITION." Revue Thomiste. 43: pp. 263-275. 1937.
148. "R:EFLEXIONS SUR LA NECESSITE ET LA CONTINGENCE." Angelicum. 14: pp. 281-95. 1937.
149. "RIGHT AND LEFT." Blackfriars.

18: pp. 807-812. 1937.

150. "SANTO ToMAS Y HENRI BERGSON EN Los EsTILos DE LA
ETICA." Columna (Buenos Aires). 8: pp. 66-67. 1937.
151. " SCIENCE ET PHILOSOPHIE." Acta Pontificiae
Romanae. N. S. III: pp. 250-271. 1937.

Academiae

Acta Secundi Congressus Thomistici lnternationalis
a die Q8 ad QB Novembris 1986 celebrati.

. . . Romae

152. "SIGN AND SYMBOL." Journal of Warburg Institute. 1: pp.
1-11. 1937.
See "Signe et Symbole." In Quatre essais sur l'esprit. 1989. pp.
68-180.

Item 179, below. See also item 178, below.

153. "SoBRE LA GUERRA SANTA." Sur. 35: pp. 98-117. 1937.
"Texte espagnol (Sur la guerre d'Espagne) ."

154. PREFACE to: Siwek, Paul. Spinoza et la pantheisme religieux.
Paris and Bruges: Desclee De Brouwer, 1937.
155. PREFACE to: Thompson, W. R. Science and Common Sense:
An Aristotelian Excursion. New York: Longmans, Green,
1937.
1938
156. QUESTIONSDE CONSCIENCE: ESSAIS ETALLOCUTIONS. (Questions
disputees.)
Paris: Desclee De Brouwer, 1938.
Includes these essays and papers:
"L'eglise catholique et les civilisations." pp. 7-50.
"L'impossible antisemitisme." pp. 51-98.
"L'action et la contemplation." pp. 95-154.
"Action catholique et action politique." pp. 157-QOB.
"Laliberte du chretien." pp. Q09-QQ5.
" Christianisme et culture." pp. QQ9-Q87. Causerie faite a RadioLuxembourg, juillet 1986. See item 187, above.
"L'intelligence et la vie." pp. Q89-Q45. Communication au Congres des P. E. N. Clubs, Buenos Aires, 10 septembre 1986. See item
188, above.
"Extraits de l'entretien de Buenos Aires." pp. Q47-257.

23

362

RUTH BYRNS

"La cite temporelle et les croyants." pp. 259-265. See item 144,
above.
"Choses divines et choses humaines." pp. 267-272.
"L'evangile et I' esperance temporelle." pp. 273-279.

157. SITUATIONDE LAP.:>ESIE. With Raissa Maritain. Paris: Desclee
De Brouwer, 1938.
158. THE DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. Translation of Distinguer pour
unir: ou, Les degres du savoir. (1932) By Bernard Wall
and Margot Adamson. London: Bles, 1937; and New York:
Scribners, 1938.
See item 91, above.

of Humanisme integral: problemes temporels et spirituels d'une nouvelle chretiente.

159. TRUE HuMANISM. Translation

(1936). By Margot Adamson. London: Bles, 1938, and New
York: Scribners, 1938.
See item 136, above.

160. "AcTION CATHOLIQUE ET ACTION POLITIQUE." Nova et Vetera.
13: pp. 251-275. 1938.
161. "DE LA coNNAISSANCEPOETIQUE." Revue Thomiste.
87-98. 1938.
Communication presentee au Congres d'Esthetique
de l'Art. Aout 1937.

44: pp.

et de Science

162. "EL lMPOSIBLE ANTISEMITISMO." Revista de Colegio Mayor
deN. Senora del Rosario. (Bogota). 33: pp. 156-180. 1938.
See also, entry under item 156.

163. "FREUDISME ET PSYCHANALYSE." Revue Thomiste.
712-734. 1938.

44: pp.

See also, essay in Quatre essais sur l' esprit, 1939, item 179, pp. 17-60.

164. "LE CHRETIEN ET LE MONDE." Vie Intellectuelle. 56: pp. 3544. 1938.
165. "L'EXPERIENCE MYSTIQUE NATURELLE ET LE VIDE." Etudes
Carmelitaines. 23, voL 2; pp. 116-139. 1938.
See also, essay in Quatre essais sur l' esprit, 1939, item 179.

166. "LEs JUIFS PARMI LES NATIONs." Conference faite ... les
auspices des Groupes Chretiente. Paris: Editions du Cerf,
1938.
See also, Vie Intellectuelle. 55: pp. 9-53. 1938.

A BffiLIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

363

167. "LETTRE DE LEvY-BRUHL." Revue Thomiste. 44: pp. 482-483.
1938.
168. "L'INTELLIGENCE ET LA VIE." Etudes Carmelitaines.
42-45. 1938.

23: pp.

See also, entry in item 156, above.

169. "MEN AND MoRALs."

Blackfriars. 19: pp. 717-725. 1938.

170. "METAFISICA DE BERGSON; FREUDISMOY PSICOANALISis." Conferencias pronunciadas en la Facultad de filosofia y letras de
Buenos Aires, traducci6n de Manuel Augusto Berraz. Buenos
Aires, Instituto de filosofia, 1938.
171. "NoTES sUR LE FREUDISME (A. PROPOS DE L'OUVRAGEDE RoLAND
DALBIEZ) ." Etudes Carmelitaines. 23: pp. 128-139. 1938.
See Quatre
sur l'esprit, 1939, item 179, below, preface, p. ix.
172. " REMARQUES SUR L'INTUITION BERGSONIENNE DE LA DUREE."
1938.
In Miscellanea philosophica R. P. Josepho Gredt completis LXXV
annis oblata cura Facultatis Philosophicae Pontificii S. Anselmi de
Urbe. (Studia Anselmiana, 7-8.) Romae: Herder, 1938, pp. 73-80.
173. " SIGNE ET SYMBOLE." Revue Thomiste.
1938.

44: pp. 299-330.

See item 152, above; see item 179, below.

174. "WAR AND THE BoMBARDMENTOF CITIES." The Commonweal.
28: pp. 460-461. 1938.
1939
175. A CHRISTIAN LooKs AT THE JEWISH QUESTION. New York:
Longmans, Green, 1939.
Also published in London as Anti-Semitism, 1939; see item 176.
"The development of a lecture given in Paris on February 5, 1938
. . . under the auspices of the Groupes chretiente, and . . . delivered with some additions ... in New York on December 14,
1938 ... under the auspices of the National Conference of Jews
and Christians."

176. ANTI-SEMITISM. London: Bles, 1939.
See item 175, above.

177. A PREFACE TO METAPHYSICS: SEVEN LECTURES ON BEING.

364

RUTH BYRNS

Translation of Sept ler;ons sur l'etre et les premiers principes
de laraisonspeculative. (1934) New York: Sheed and Ward,
1939.
See item H2, above.

178.

LE CREPUSCULE DE LA CIVILISATION.

Paris:

Editions

Les Nou-

velles Lettres, 1939.
See item 204, below.

179.

QUATRE ESSAIS

SUR L'ESPRIT

DANS SA CONDITION

CHARNELLE.

De Brouwer, 1939.

Paris:

Includes these essays:
"Freudisme et psychanalyse." pp. :1.7-60. See items 163 and 171,
above.
"Signe et symbole." pp. 63-127. See items 152, above, and 173,
above.
"L'experience mystique naturelle et le vide." pp. 131-177. See
item 165, above.
"Science et philosophic." pp. 181-252. "Cet essai sur la science
et la philosophic est le developpement d'un rapport presente au Congres thomiste de Rome en novembre 1936. ll complete les chapitres
He et IVe des Degres du Savoir . ... " See items 91 and 158, above.
See also, item 140, above.
"Intuition et conceptualisation." pp. 255-266. " ... une courte
"
note, publiee d'abord dans Ies Studia Anselmiana (1938).

180. "I BELIEVE." In I Believe, edited by Clifton Fadiman.
York: Simon and Schuster, 1939, pp. 197-210.
Translation:

New

French. Confession de foi (1941). See item !i!Ol, below.

HuMANISM AND THE Cmsis OF MoDERN TIMEs."
Review of Politics. I: pp. 1-17. 1939.

181.

"INTEGRAL

182.

"JusT WAR."

183.

"L':EGALITE CHRETIENNE."

The Commonweal.

31: pp. 199-200. 1939.

Etudes Carmelitaines.

28: pp.172-

194. 1939.

l84.

"MENAcE OF RACISM."

The Catholic Mind.

37: pp. 505-506.

1939.
185.

"PAGAN EMPIRE AND THE PoWER OF Gon."

Review.
186.

Virginia Quarterly

15: pp. 161-175. 1939.

"PuRSUIT OF FREEDOM."

The Nation. 148: pp. 319-321. 1939.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

865

187. "THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND SociAL PROGREss." Foreign
Affairs. 17: pp. 670-685. 1939.
188. "To MY AMERICAN FRIENDS: Vmw oF THE IMPORTANCE oF
THE PREsENT CoNFLICT." The Commonweal. 30: pp. 551552. 31: pp. 117-118. 1939.
189. " WHo Is MY NEIGHBOR? "
40: pp. 166-167. 1939.

Homiletic and Pastoral Review.

1940
190. DE LA JUSTICE POLITIQUE: NOTES SUR LA PRESENTE GUERRE ...
Paris: Pion, 140.
191. ScHOLASTICISMAND PoLITICs. Translation edited by Mortimer
J. Adler. New York: Macmillan, 1940.
" This book contains the text of nine lectures which were given in
the United States during the autumn of 1988."-Foreword.

192. SciENCE AND WisDoM. Translation of Science et sagesse, suivi
d' eclaircissements sur la philosophie morale. (1935) . By
Bernard Wall. New York: Scribners, 1940.
See item 125, above.

193. " THE CoNQUEST OF FREEDOM." In Freedom, edited by R. N.
Anshen. New York: Harcourt, Brace. 1940.
194. "CHRISTIAN EQUALITY." Dublin Review.
1940.

207: pp. 160-177.

195. "EuROPE AND THE FEDERAL IDEA." The Commonweal.
pp. 544-547, 1939, and 32: pp. 8-12, 1940.

31:

196. "Goon WILL IN SciENCE." The New York Times. Section IV,
p. 7, August 4, 1940.
197. "JusT WAR." The Catholic Digest. 5: pp. 58-60. 1940. Abridged
from The Commonweal. 31: pp. 199-200. 1939.
See item 182, above.

198. "TEN MoNTHS LATER." The Commonweal.
1940.

32: pp. 180-182.

199. "WAR AND HuMAN FREEDOM." The Tablet.
1940.

175: pp. 77-78.

366

RUTH BYRNS

1941
A TRAVERS LE DESASTRE. New York: Maison fraw;aise, 1941.
Translation:

English. France My Country: Through the Disaster.
below.
1941. See item

201. CoNFESSIONDE FOL New York: Maison fran«;aise, 1941.
" Le texte frangais, revu et Iegerement augmente, d'un essai publie
d'abord en anglais, dans le recueil intitule I Believe (edited by
Clifton Fadiman) "-p. 7. See item 180, above.

FRANCE, IVIY CouNTRY, THROUGH THE DISASTER. Translation
of A travers le desastre. (1941) New York and Toronto:
Longmans, Green. 1941.
See item

above.

203. LA PENSEE DE ST. PAUL. New York: Maison fran«;aise, 1941.
Translation:

English. The Living Thoughts of St. Paul, 1941. See
item 206, below.

204. LE CREPUSCULE DE LA CIVILISATION. 2e edition ... Montreal:
Editions de l'arbre, Westmount, 1941.
See item 178, above.

205. RANSOMING THE TIME. Translated
New York: Scribners, 1941.

by Harry Lorin Binsse.

THE LIVING THOUGHTS OF ST. PAuL. Translation of La Pensee
de St. Paul (1941) by Harry Lorin Binsse. New York and
Toronto: Longmans, Green. 1941.
See item

above.

207. "CHRISTIANITYAND THE WAR." Dublin Review.
19. 1941.
208. "CoNCERNING A CRITICAL REviEw."
45-53. 1941.

208: pp. 12-

The Thomist.

209. "HuMAN EQUALITY." Interracial Review.
58, and pp. 71-72. 1941.

14: pp.

210. "IMMORTALITYOF MAN." Review of Politics. 3: pp.
1941.

3: pp.

57-

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JACQUES MARITAIN

367

211. "LA FRANCE LffiRE." Message. 1941.
212. "L'HUMANISME DE SAINT THoMAs."
pp. 174-184. 1941.

Mediaeval Studies. 3:

213. "ON AuTHORITY." Review of Politics. 3: pp. 250-252. 1941.
214. "RELIGIOus RENEWALS IN CoNTEMPORARYTHoUGHT." In Religion and the Modern World. University of Pennsylvania
Bicentennial Conference. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941. pp. 1-20.
215. "THE CoNFLICT oF METHoDs AT THE END OF THE MIDDLE
AGES." The Thomist. 3: pp. 527-538. 1941.
1942
216. "LEs DROITS DE L'HOMME ET LA LOI NATURELLE." New York:
Maison franr;aise, 1942.

217. ST. THOMAS AND THE PROBLEM OF EviL. Milwaukee:
quette University Press, 1942.
218. "ATONEMENTFOR ALL." The Commonweal.
219. "CHRISTIAN HuMANISM." Fortune.
220. "THE NATURAL LAw."
1942.

Mar-

36: p. 509. 1942.

25: pp. 106-107. 1942.

The Co·mmonweal. 36: pp. 83-85.

221. "ON ANTI-SEMITISM." The Commonweal.
1942.

36: pp. 534-537.

222. "RELIGION AND PoLITICS IN FRANCE." Foreign Affairs.
pp. 266-281. 1942.

20:

223. "THE END oF :MAcHIAVELLIANISM." Review of Politics. 4:
pp. 1-33.
224. PREFACE to: O'Connor, William R. The Layman's Call. New
York, 1942.
225. PREFACE to: Iswolsky, Helen. Light Before Dusk. New York:
1942.

368

RUTH BYRNS'

PART II
WRITINGS ABOUT JACQUES MARITAIN
To NovEMBER 1942
(AuTHOR NoT LISTED)

1. Biography. Current Biography.
2. Discussion.
The Commonweal. 31: 263-265. 31:
31: 305306. 1942.
8. Interview. The Commonweal. 29: 398-402. 29: 465-466. 1939.
4. "Jacques Maritain: Biography and Bibliography." The Catholic Bookman. I: 389. 1938.
The Tablet.
5. "M. ,Jacques Maritain and the War. English Excerpts."
174: 525. 1939.
6. "Maritain on Political Justice. English Excerpts." The Tablet. 175:
129-130. 1940.
7. "Maritain: portrait." Time. 32: 42. 1938. 36: 59. 1940.
8. "Re: Jacques Maritain." The Catholic Worker. 6: 3. 1939 ..
9. "Three Frenchmen's Churches." The New Republic. 63: 10-14. 1930.
W. "True Conservative."
The Catholic World. 146: 484-485. 1938.
CorrelOa. Archambault, Paul. "Jacques Maritain ou l'antimoderne."
spondent. Paris, 1926. Tome 303. (Nouvelle serie tome 267.) pp.
835-855.
(ARRANGED AccoRDING TO AuTHORs' NAMEs)

ll. Belgion, M. "Art and Mr. Maritain." Dublin Review. 187: 201-215.
1930.
12.
"Art and Mr. Maritain." In Human Parrot, 54-73. Oxford.
1931.
Rivista Rosminiana di Filosofia e di
13. Bo, C. "Note sur Maritain."
Coltura. 30: 240-246. 1936.
14. Borne, E. "De quelques procedes nouveaux de polemique philosophique." (A propos du livre de J. Desclausais: Primaute de l'etre, critique
de J. Maritain) . Vie Intellectuelle. 44: 501-511. 1936.
15. Bruckberger, R. · "Reconciliation par la sagesse (Une signification de
l'oeuvre philosophique de Jacques Maritain) ." Revue Thomiste. 45:
163-175. 1939.
16. Burke, K. "Allies of Humanism Abroad." In Critique of Humanism,
169-192. Grattan, C. H., editor. Brewer, 1930.
17. Carroll, P. J. "M. Maritain's Omissions: editorial." Ave Maria. 48:
340. 1938.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

369

1.8. Causton, B. "Maritain: issues underlying the French capitulation."
Nineteenth Century. 130: 173-176. 1941.
l8a. Cocteau, Jean. Lettre a Jacques Maritain. Paris: Stock, 1926.
19. Curran, C. P. "Jacques Maritain." Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th
series. 35: 14-28, 246-57. 1930.
20. Curtius, E. R. "Jacques Maritain." Die Literatur. 29: 1-7. 1926-27.
22. Desclausais, Joseph. " Primaute de l'etre." Tome I, Religion et politique:
critique et interpretation. Paris, Pion, 1936.
23. Dingle, R. J. "The Humanism of Jacques Maritain." Nineteenth Century. 125: 700-706. 1939.
24. Donnelly, F. P. "Where and Why of Beauty's Pleasure." Thought.
5: 261-271. 1930.
25. Eliot, T. S. "Modern Mind." In Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. 113-135. Harvard University Press, 1933.
26. Eustace, C. J. "Maritain Looks at Franco." The Commonweal. 27:
402-404. 1938.
27. Fernandez,R. "The intelligence and Mr.Maritain." In Messages. 261275. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927.
28. Gamble, W. T. M. "Some Recent Books on the Papacy." Catholic
Historical Review. 18: 352-367. 1932.
29. Gillis, J. M. "Holy War? Just War?" The Catholic World. 150: 513521. 1940.
30. Goosens, W. "Problemes temporels et spirituels d'une nouvelle chretiente. 'L'Humanisme integral' de M. Jacques Maritain." Collationes Gandavenses.
44-51 and 113-122. 1937.
30a. Hague, Rene. "Jacques Maritain." London Mercury. 20: pp. 487-496.
1929.
30b. Hamm, Victor M. "Literature and Morality." Thought. 15: pp. 268280. 1940.
31. Holguin y L. Cordoba. "Jacques Maritain y la Posicion de los Catolicos
ante los Problemas Politicos." Revista del Colegio Mayor de N.
Senora del Rosario. Bogota, 33: 184-193. 1938.
32. Hook, S. "Integral Humanism."
In Reason, Social Myths and
Democracy. 76-104. New York: The John Day Co., 1940.
33. Hough, L. H. "Voices from Contemporary Books." In Vital Control.
145-173. Abington, 1934.
34. James, S. "Some International Converts." Missionary. 45: 226-2128.
1931.
35. Kite, E. S. "Bloy and Maritain." The Commonweal. 26: Mll-433. 1937.
36. Lacombe, Olivier. "Du regime temporel et de Ia· liberte, par Jacques
Maritain." Revue de Philosophic. 34: 167-184. 1934.
37. Lawler, A. M. Discussion: "Maritain Looks at Franco." The Commonweal. 27: 498. 1938.

370

RUTH BYRNS

38. Little, A. "Jacques Maritain and his Aesthetic." Studies. 19: 467480. 1930.
39. McMahon, L. I. "Maritain Once More: an Impression." The Commonweal. £1:
1934.
40. Madaule, J. "Metaphysique et pm!sie." (Ouvrages recents de M. et
de Mme. Maritain). Vie lntellectuelle. 40: 322-329. 1936.
41. Maritain, Rai:ssa. Les grandes amities. New York: Editions de la Maison F:ranc;aise, 1941. (Translated as We Have Been Friends Together,
by Julie Kernan. New York: Longmans, Green, 1942.)
42. Masse, Benjamin L. "Jacques Maritain."
Moderr. Schoolman. 7:
11-12. 1930.
43. Maurin, Peter. "Twilight of Civilization." The Catholic Worker. 7:
3. 1940.
44. Maydieu, A. J. "Propos sur deux philosophes: J. Maritain et M.
Blonde!." Vie Intellectuelle. 42: 118-120. 1936.
45. Menendez-Reigada, G. I. "Acerca de la 'guerra santa.' Contestaci6n
aM. J. Maritain." La Ciencia Tomista. 58: 356-374. 1937.
46. Minot, H. Un programme reconciliateur propose par Jacques Maritain;
memoire pour pr6ner sa mise en pratique. Paris: Labergerie, 1937.
"Memoire, en reponse ala Lettre sur l'Independance,

de Jacques Maritain."

47. Monius, G. "Jacques Maritain tiber Thomas von Aquin als 'Apostel
unserer Zeit.' " Schonere Z1tkunft. 2: 837 f. 1928.
48. O'Meara, William. "Answer to a Reply." The Commonweal. 31: 281283. 1940.
49. Phelan, G. B. Jacques Maritain. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1937.
50 Ramirez, J. M. "De philosophia morali christiana. Responsio quaedam
responsionibus 'completis et adaequatis' Domini Jacobi Maritain."
Divus Thomas. (Freiburg). 14: 87-1£2. 1936.
51. Rauch, R. W. "Esthetic of Maritain." Thought. 6: £28-236. 1931.
5fl. Raybould, A. N. " In the Vanguard of Catholic Thought."
The
Catholic World. 137: 658-660. 1933.
53. Regis, L. M. "La philosophie de la nature: quelques ' apories.' " Dans
Ie Cahier de Philosophie (Ottawa). 127-156. 1936.
54. Renoirte, F. "La philosophie des sciences selon M. Maritain." Revue
neo-Scolastique. 35: 96-106. 1933.
55. Robbers, H. "Maritain als Cultur-philosoph." Studien. lfl9: 502-516
1938.
56. Sargent, D. "Word about Maritain." The Commonweal. 19: 567-568.
1934.
Discussion: The Commonweal. 20: 134, 289; 21: 179-80, 231. 1934.
57. Scherer, M. "Lettre ouverte aM. Jacques Maritain (A propos de la
Lettre sur l'independance) ." Vie lntellectuelle. 40: 11-23. 1936.
58. Schillo, J.P. Discussion: "Europe and the Federal Idea." The Commonweal. 32: 62. 1940.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY

OF JACQUES

MARITAIN

371

59 Schuster, G. N. "Jacques Maritain: Revivalist." Bookman. 70: 1-10.
1929.
60. Schwartz, B. "Jacques Maritain und die christliche Geschichtsphilosophie." Schweizer Rdsch., Einsiedeln. 37: 473-480. 1937.
61. Sheed, F. J. "Conversations of a Sage." In Sidelights on the Catholic
revival, pp. 54-55. Sheed and Ward, 1940.
62. Sheed, F. J. "Preface to Metaphysics." In Sidelights on the Catholic
revival, pp. 125-126. Sheed and Ward, 1940.
63. Sullivan, Daniel. " Two Humanisms." The Commonweal. 29: 258259. 1938.
63a. Sullivan, Malachy. "Contemporary Catholic Authors: Jacques Maritain,
Christian Humanist."
Catholic Library World. 13: pp. 259-266.
1942.
64. Tate, J. "Plato, Art and Maritain." New Scholasticism. Hl: 107-142.
1938.
65. Wynhoven, M. Wijsheid en praktijk. Hilversum: Brand, 1934.
School of Education,
Fordham University,
New York, N. Y.

INDICES OF VOLUME V (JANUARY, 1948)
INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE
ADLER, M. J. The Demonstration of God's Existence
188
ANSHEN, R. N. Jacques Maritain: Est, Est, Non, Non
79
BINSSE, H. L. Jacques Maritain: A Biographical Impression
5
BoNDY, L. J., C. S. B. Claude! and the Catholic Revival .
171
BRENNAN, R. E., 0. P. The Thomistic Concept of Culture
111
BYRNS, R. Bibliography of Jacques Maritain: 1910-1942
845
CHAPMAN, E. To Be-That is the Answer .
187
FINKELSTEIN, L. The Role of Dogma in Judaism .
108
GURIAN, W. On Maritain's Political Philosophy
7
HuTCHINS, R. M. The Theory of Oligarchy: Edmund Burke
61
LoUR!E, A. Motet: De Ordinatione Angelorum
819
McMAHoN, F. E. The Virtue of Social Justice and International Life
55
MIDDLETON, J. S. Contemplation In America .
219
NEF, J. U. Art In France and England, 1540-1640 .
281
O'MEARA, W. John Dewey and Modern Thomism .
808
OsBOURN, J. C., 0. P. The Theological Ingredients of P'eace
28
PEGIS, A. C. Matter, Beatitude and Liberty
265
PHELAN, G. B. Justice and Friendship .
158
SARGENT, D. Dante and Thomism
256
SIMON, Y. R. Maritain's Philosophy of the Sciences
85
SMITH, G., S. J. A Date in the History of Epistemology
246
THOMPSON, W. R., F.R.S.
.
229
INDEX OF ARTICLES
PAGE
Art In France and England, 1540-1640. JoHN U. NEF
Beatitude, Matter,-- and Liberty. ANTON C. PEGIS
Bibliography of Jacques Maritain: 1910-1942. RuTH BYRNS
Burke, The Theory of Oligarchy: Edmund --. RoBERT M.
HUTCHINS .
Catholic Revival, Claude! and the -- --. L. J. BoNDY, C. S. B.
Claude! and the Catholic Revival. L. J. BoNDY, C. S. B. .
Contemplation In America. JoHN S. MIDDLETON .
Culture, The Thomistic Concept of--. RoBERT E. BRENNAN, 0. P.
Dante and Thomism. DANIEL SARGENT .
Demonstration, The-- of God's Existence. MoRTIMER J. ADLER
Dewey, John-- and Modern Thomism. WILLIAM O'MEARA .

878

281
265
345

61
171
171
219

111
256
188
808

374

INDICES

OF VOLUME V

PAGE
England, Art In France and --, 1540-1640. JoHN U. NEF
281
Epistemology, A Date in the History of--. GERARD SMITH, S. J. 246
France, Art In -- and England, 1540-1640. JoHN U. NEF .
281
Friendship, Justice and --. GERALD B. PHELAN .
153
God's Existence, The Demonstration of -- --. MoRTIMER J.
ADLER .
188
Judaism, The Role of Dogma in--. LoUis FINKELSTEIN .
103
Justice and Friendship. GERALD B. PHELAN .
153
International Life, The Virtue of Social Justice and
FRANcis E. McMAHON .
55
Liberty, Matter, Beatitude and--. ANTON C. PEGIS
265
Maritain, Bibliography of Jacques --: 1910-194£. RuTH BYRNS
345
Maritain, Jacques --: A Biographical Impression.
HARRY L.
BINSSE .
5
Maritain, Jacques --: Est, Est, Non, Non. RUTH N. ANSHEN
79
7
Maritain's, On -- Political Philosophy. WALDEMAR GURIAN
Maritain's Philosophy of the Sciences. YVEs R. SIMON
85
Matter, Beatitude and Liberty. ANTON C. PEGIS .
265
Motet: De Ordinatione Angelorum. Music by ARTHUR LouRIE, with
texts from St. Thomas chosen by RAissA MARITAIN
319
Oligarchy, The Theory of --: Edmund Burke. RoBERT M.
HUTCHINS .
61
Peace, The Theological Ingredients of--. J. C. OsBOURN, 0. P.
23
Political Philosophy, On Maritain's ----. WALDEMAR GURIAN
7
229
Providence. W. R. THOMPSON
WILLIAM O'MEARA
308
Thomism, John Dewey and Modern--.
256
Thomism, Dante and --. DANIEL SARGENT .
To Be--That is the Answer. EMMANUEL CHAPMAN .
137
Sciences, Maritain's Philosophy of the--. YVEs R. SIMON
85
Social Justice, The Virtue of -- -- and International Life.
FRANCIS E. McMAHON .
55

END OF VoLUME V