THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EmToRs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.
VoL. XI

APRIL, 1948

EXISTENTIALISM

M

AND EXISTENCE

I. AN HISTORICAL

FRAMEWORK

ODERN man, in the recent words of Max Picard/ is
a schizoid personality. The symptoms of his splitthe war of rationalism with religion, science with philosophy, the individual with the social, one economic class with
another-all are familiar themes for historians and philosophers
alike, from Hegel and Spengler to Sorokin and Northrop, from
Gilson and Dawson to Toynbee and de Reynauld. Contemporary philosophers-typified
by Russell, the logician, and
Nagel, the naturalist-end, when their strokes are followed
through, in a method without matter. The existentialists,
working up from experience to reason rather than, like scientific method, from reason to experience, never disengage a
method for their content. Being and truth, on the one hand,
are so far separated that they are no longer convertible; and
on the other hand, they are so tightly united that they cannot
1

Cf. Hitler in Ourselves, New York, 1947.

141

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

be distinguished. One group lays its whole weight on essence,
ignoring existence; the other never gets beyond existence. That
reality is a union of essence and existence-being is that which
is-fonns a balance between the extremes. But such a realism,
as both theory and practice today bear witness, is largely
ignored.
In a climate like that in America where the empirical method
is still dominant and where any other approach is regarded as
a " failure of nerve," 2 Descartes and Kant are seen almost
exclusively in the light of their formalism. But these two men
did much more than point the way to what Bergson labelled
"scientism."
They are also forbears of existentialism. The
split in man's present approach to existence, for whatever philosophical factors that aggravated it, is owed to them. Each is
a kind of fork in the road, inviting the traveller to go two ways
but taking him, at any rate, off the highway. Men like Hook
and Northrop still holding the torch of the Enlightenment
are appealing for more science to save man, more method to
cure madness. But in the words of Sartre, "We are travellers,
and we have lost our way." 3 Descartes and Kant, the essentialists, are as far from Descartes and Kant, the existentialists,
as the poles to which their forking branches lead. Scientism
and existentialism are not new directions but shnply new
distances on old roads.
The discursive tendencies of Descartes and Kant are too well
known to bear repetition. Scientism does not hesitate to claim
them as leading spirits. Descartes, describing a world of
original-though in his case created--chaos out of which order
was made, 4 stands like the contemporary physicist, accepting
nothing but what he can lead by his own hand from indeterminism, chaos, nothingness, into being. Descartes' use of
deduction was made possible by his discovery of cogito, ergo

•cr. his essay in Naturalism and the Human Spirit (ed. Y. Krikorian),
York, 1944, pp. 40 ff.
• No Exit and the Flies, New York, 1947, p. 65.
• Oeuvrea (ed. Adam and Tannery), Paris, 1897-1918, v. 6, pp. 45 ff.

New

EXISTENTIALISM

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148

sum, " the first principle that I was seeking." 1 His love for
mathematics, freshly primed by subsequent developments in
the problem of infinity, resulted finally in the substitution of a
mathesis universalis for a logic that begins inductively. The
Porphyrian tree was no longer vertical, sweeping man's thought
through a hierarchy. It was levelled like firewood, dead.
Descartes wrote a discourse on method, as though method
could be divorced from matter. Kant aimed to isolate for
study die reine Vernunft, reason purified of content. Maritain's
reference to the " delusive purism " 6 of the logical positivists
applies alike to Descartes and Kant. Kant stressed the categorical, the architectonic, the regulative, the systematic, and
other such methodological, discursive, formal considerations.
Randall's reference to Thomism as an "undynamic formalism " 7 applies in reality to Kant and the scientism which he
abetted, including naturally Randall's own approach.
But Descartes was not a mere essentialist, even by his formal
admission. Jaspers has argued that reality always seemed
ambiguous for Descartes. 8 A rationalist, he did not seem
finally content with mere rational evidence. In his first principle, the sum is an existential fact rather than an empty
thought. Descartes was moving in the cogito from representation to existence, form to matter. It is precisely the sum which
the existentialists emphasize. Descartes' notion of intuition is
likewise at variance with the larger lines of his philosophy. His
voluntarism does not blend with the primacy which his epistemology accords to method in the life of man. To view will as
wider in sweep than intelligence, to point to will as an indivisible sounds much more like existentialism than the doctrine
of the man who wedded algebra to geometry. 9
• Ibid., v. 6, p. 8!l fl'.
• " Science, Philosophy, and Faith " in Science, Philosophy, and Religion: A
Symposium, New York, 1941, pp. 170 If.
• Review of Education at the Crossroads by J. Maritain in Journal of Philosophy,
XL (1948) 8!l, p. 61!l.
• Descartes und die Philosophie, Berlin, 1987, p. 101.
• For the doctrine of will in Descartes, cf. Gilson, E., La Liberte chez Descartes
et la Theologie, Paris, 1918.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

A similar existentialist harmonic can be heard in Kant. It
was Kant who thrust the problem of the transcendental into
modem philosophy, the problem which occupies Heidegger,
Jaspers, and Sartre. Heidegger points out Kant's influence as
being even more specific: he injected the finite at the v:ery
beginning of the inquiry, examining knowledge first and attempting to solve at the very outset the question of epistemologicallimits.10 In a more general sense, Kant recognized
practical reason as being deeper and more ontal in force than
speculation. Hume had denied to reason the power of discerning causes, but Kant restores this force to will.11 The moral
law within Kant was worlds apart from the starry skies above
him. Knowledge is always mediate, a synthesis. Will is something immediate, to be trained into goodness for the sake of
good will itsel£.12 Kant's critical philosophy is static and
formal. His moral thought is concerned only with the faculty
at work. Pure duty, law for the sake of law, categorical im-.
peratives, the formalism of the Stoic virtue for virtu,e's sakethese are the principles in the ethics of Kant, a system that is
embodied today in the tendency of scientism to stress what is
called " open-mindedness," good will toward everybody and
everything, good will for its own sake because knowledge has
nothing to do with it.
Thus there are in the fabrics of the two most influential
philosophies of modern times some profound differences that
leave the mind unsatisfied and account in a broad historical
sense for the present-day opposition in philosophy between
scientism and existentialism. Hegel sewed a patch across the
two-toned opposition. He removed the contradiction by denying the principle of contradiction. He absorbed the existentialisms of his predecessors into their essentialism. The
essential is made to include the existential as one of its passing phases of development. The abstract universal is real, and
the individual is indeterminate within it. In the radical
. 1

° Cf. Kant und das Problem der Metaphyaik, Bonn, 1929 (passim).

11
12

Kant's Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1902-1915, v. 8, p. 871.
lbid., v. 5, p. 898.

EXISTENTIALISM

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dynamism of Hegel, all is mediate and the existing individual,
acting in a vital, " booming, buzzing confusion," has no meaning or value. Meaning is acquired only when the individual is
dissolved away by the dialectical process. In the vast contours
of Hegelianism, where opposition is supposed to be overcome
by a series of Aufhebungen, the essentialism of Hegel's predecessors really triumphs. 18
But contradiction is not explained by explaining it away. A
problem is not solved by denying its existence. 14 Efforts in
this direction become only a game, leaving the mind unquenched. The individual is explained in Hegelianism by being
subsumed and de-individualized. The being of the universe,
the locus of pleasure and pain, the heartaches and the thousand
natural shocks that flesh is heir to, is in reality so vague and
de-ontologized, the ordinary man is told, that it becomes
synonymous with the ens rationis of logic. But, the ordinary
man replies, as he does to the formalism of modem science,
that pleasure and pain, the ability to drive a car and to answer
questions in semester quizzes, are not just logical forms. They
are ontal facts. It is just such a reply which existentialism
gtves.
Existentialism can thus be understood by reference to the
Hegelianism which provoked it.s first expression in Kierkegaard.15 It recovers pre-Hegelian existentialism, pressing it to
its extremes. As Hegel wrapped existence within essence, as
modem science, kindred in spirit to Hegelianism, seeks to exhaust the concrete by reduction to logico-mathematical forms,
so in existentialism, essence, thought, and meaning are deemed
18 This is also the case with Communism which, however existential it may
present itself, is essentialist and theoretical at root.
" This is what the existentialists do: " The modern existentialists do not really
wish to solve the problem of existence; they wish to curb our right to raise the
problem." Blonde!, M., "The Inconsistency of Jean Paul Sartre's Logic, Tm:
THOMIST, X (1947), p. 897.
15 For a study of their relation, cf. Wahl, J., Etudes Kierkegaardiennea, Paris,
1988; also "Kierkegaarde's Critique of Hegel " by J. Collins in Thought, XVIIT
(1948), pp. 74-100. Cf. also Brunner, P., Uraprung und Grundzuge der Exiatenzphiloaophie in Scholastik, 1988, 2.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

illusory and existence alone is authentic. What this existentialism is, the following pages by analyzing themes from Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, and Sartre/ 6 will attempt to show
and then, in broad fashion, to criticize. Intending only to
illustrate the central notion of existentialism, this study purports to illustrate the typical ideas of each of the men treated,
without the completion, background-tracing, and fuller reference to their critics which reasonable space here delimits.
Though the criticalportion of this essay is comparatively short,
it is in reality the chief aim. As Lavelle has said, our aim in
studying other philosophers should not be to think what they
thought but to know what to think ourselves. 17

II.

KIERKEGAARD

Existentialism is a simple doctrine, simple almost to the point
of nihilism. Once its perspective has been grasped, its finer
lines seem like repetitions. In his familiar, personal mode of
expression, Sartre, the psychologist is often clearer than Kierkegaard. dominantly a. theologian, Heidegger, the metaphysician,
and Jaspers, the moralist. Reflection, according to Sartre,
cannot achieve the noble aim of self-knowledge preached by
Socrates. In the reflective process, the subject bends back on
his own experience but, by the very nature of bending back,
the moment of thought is posterior to the moment of experience, and hence the reality of experience eludes us. In another
way, this same prinCiple may be expressed by a familiar modem
contrast between thought and experience proposed by Locke
and dogmatized by Kant. Thought must remain outside ex18 The reason for grottping these four men is their obvious community of doctrine and their current popularity. The term " existentialism " is applied to them
without qualification. In other respects, it must be qualified. Thus no attempt will
be made to include the theological existentialism of Chestov and Berdyaev, the
spiritual existentialism of Lavelle, Le Senne, Marcel, the doctrines of Troisfontaines,
the personalism of Maurice Nedoncelle, and literary expressions like those of
Camus and de Beauvoir; one may even add Dostoievsky. Kierkegaard is included
because, though a theologian, his works swing largely through philosophy. The
so-called existentialism of St. Thomas is also not in question here.
17 Le Moi et Son Destin, Paris, 1986, p. 8.

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147

perience in order to grasp experience, existentialism says. Because thought is not the experience which it represents, it can
never tell what that experience is. The intellectual knowledge
of things, Kant has persuaded modem man, cannot tell us what
reality is, except as conceptualized, hence de-ontologized, deexistentialized, derealized.
Kierkegaard reacted against the extreme intellectualism of
Hegel who viewed all being as simply the Idea in development.
This plenary reality, Hegelianism goes on, discloses itself in history and is genuinely approached by fitting its various parts
into a system. Bradley and Joachim in England and, more
recently, Blanshard in this country, have well stated the coherence doctrine of truth that stems from Hegel. An idea is regarded as true not, as in traditional philosophy, when it conforms to the re.al,18 but when it can be integrated into an
"arrangement of ideas, self-consistent and complete." 19 The
highest fling of knowledge, the deepest reach toward value is
made, according to this view, as the mind tends to the more
and more universal, the more and more abstract, the more and
more logically architectonic, capable of achieving a wider and
wider vista of organization and system. But every individual
is unique. It does not fit nicely into a system. Only universal
and abstract principles can be systematized. 20
Kierkegaard insisted, and insist we must, that the individual alone exists. Roger Bacon said that one individual,
because it exists, is worth more than all the universals in the
world. Mere system does not explain this individual, the concrete, the existential. Systemism is a purely essentialist metaphysic. A policeman arrests a man not humanity in the bulk.
To give a universal rule to an individual is, to quote Lichtenberg, like giving a cookbook instead of food to a hungry man.
Kierkegaard discerned that a system can never be truly
u Cf. Ryan, J. K., "The Problem of Truth" in Essays in Tkomiam (ed. R.
Brennan), New York, 194!!.
10 Bradley, F., Appearance and Reality, London, 1898, p. 860.
1 ° For a critique of systemism, cf. Bennett, 0., Tke Nature of Demonstrative
Proof According to tke Principles of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, Washington,
1948.

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known and evaluated until it is completely formed. In Hegelianism, only the past can really be known, since the present
is still becoming. " Wesen," as Kierkegaard and Sartre repeat from Hegel, "ist was gewesen ist." Essence is what has
been. Thus, the ultimate meaning of history, always in dialectical ferment, transcends the individual thinker here and now.
The future, when it plummets into the past may loosen new and
revolutionary secrets of the real. As in scientific method which
has so many similarities to Hegelianism, tomorrow's discoveries
may make today's ideas seem archaic. Bradley insisted that
"thought is compelled to take the road of indefinite expansion." 21 Dewey, influenced by both idealism and the scientific
method, speaks of philosophy as providing a pattern " to lead
us ever onward and outward." 22
If the conclusion of the system is lacking, the whole structure
is open to question. For the characteristic of a system is that it
must be complete. If a coat lacks a cuff button, it may still
be worn, but with systematic science, where all principles are
universal and hence are equal to each other, the story is different. The missing conclusion, if it contradicts the architectonic of the developing system of ideas, has retroactive power
to destroy the whole structure. Madame de Stael once wrote
that the German language did not permit a sentence to be interrupted; the verb, the most important word, comes at the very
end, and interrupted sentences al"e'-meaningless. Hegelianism,
Scientism, Marxism are in the midst of a sentence that is always
being said. They never get to the last word.
Formally, Kierkegaard propounds two theses on system:
a) that a logical system is possible, and b) that an existential
system is impossible. 23 The first proposition can be gleaned
from a glance at logic itself. It prescinds from the existential,
with its living dialectic. It begins with the arbitrary and
abstract. As in scientism, the thinker is not an historical reality
21 Op. cit., p. 165.
os Experience and Education, New York, 1988, p. 112. Italics mine.
•• Concluding Unscientific Postscript (tr. D. Swenson and W. Lowrie), Princeton,
1944, hereinafter cited as CUP, pp. 99 fi.

EXIS'TENTIALISM

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on the march with history. He stands on the sidelines, watching history move by. It is as though a leader gave the command, " Whole battalion, about face! " but did not about face,
himself. 24 In systemism man becomes, in the language of
Descartes, a spectator looking at reality and not a part of
it/ 5-a passive, inert, purely logical entity himself or, as Kierkegaard dubs him, " a ghost." Raymond Lully long before
modem systemism, had envisioned a thinking machine that
would do for logic, if the right premises were fed into it, what
the modern comptometer does for numbers. But an existential
system is impossible, according to Kierkegaard. Systematic
thought, like reflection as Sartre described it, is wholly inadequate to the real. To penetrate reality, thought must abrogate
itself. It is thus no longer thought in terms of universals but
immediate experience, the communion of self with self. It is
untractable by systemism. The present instant is something
ineffable, an atom of eternity, and existence can only be met
in the experience of it. 26
When Kierkegaard attacked the historical approach to reality, he was still crusading against Hegel but under a different banner. Influenced by Hegel, who stimulated a universal interest in history, theologians of the time, like Martenson, were attempting to apply the historical method to theology itself. They tried to make faith a matter of reason, showing that historical evidence is absolute like the history which
Hegel envisioned. They attempted to argue from their present
historical moment to the Gospel narratives as though faith
were available to philosophical speculation which Hegel had
pictured. The rationalism of the nineteenth century, with its
historical direction that culminated in Strauss and Harnack
and later has come to regard as mysticism or myth whatever is
not statistically available, was already under way.
Once more Kierkegaard rose up with full steam against Hegelianism. Historical reality, he kept repeating, is not com•• Repetition (tr. W. Lowrie), Princeton, 1941, p. 187.
•• CUP, p. 141.
•• Ibid., p. 107.

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mensurate with eternity and eternal happiness. There is no
proportion between cause and effect. Aristotelianism could not
understand man's ultimate end as the beatific vision because
itcould not see the proportion between man's finite acts and the
reward of seeing God. It was Aquinas who completed Aristotle
by showing that grace is a participation in infinity, rendering
man capable of beatitude. Kierkegaard, another Aristotle
rising up against a nineteenth-century system of Platonic universals, stated that historical research could only approximate
the past and " an approximation is essentially incommensurable
with an infinite personal interest in eternal happiness." 27 Historical research does not bear on either the infinite or the personal, and as James, a later reaction to Hegel argued, it is
disinterested.
Reason, Kierkegaard insisted, can .only approximate faith.
The schoolboy who rated sixty-nine in his examinations instead
of the required seventy still failed. The pedestrain, who almost
got across the tracks in front of the streamliner, was still struck
and killed. Thus it is with history as opposed to faith and
eternal happiness. No matter how much scholarship may be
invested in pure history, there is no continuity. between faith
and reason. Reason does not taper off into faith, like a polygon
increasing the number of its sides indefinitely to become a
circle " For nothing is more readily evident than that the
greatest attainable certainty with respect to anything historical
is merely an approximation." 28
Who or what is this existing individual, so disproportionate
to the Hegelian abstract universal? As Kierkegaard, though
pretending to oppose romanticism, puts it:
Existence constitutes the highest interest of the existing individual, and his interest in his existence constitutes his reality.
What reality is cannot be expressed in the language of abstraction.
Reality is an in·ter-esse between the moments of that hypothetical
unity of thought and being which abstract thought presupposes.
Abstract thought considers both possibility and reality, but its concept of reality is a false reflection, since the medium within which
n Ibid., p. 26.

aa Ibid., p. iii.

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the concept is thought is not reality, but possibility. Abstract
thought can get hold of reality only by nullifying it, and this
nullification of reality consists in transforming it into possibility. 29

A possible being is not one that exists here and now but one
that can be. The emphasis is not on be but on can. If thought
de-existentializes the real, transforming it into possibility, then
Kierkegaard can invoke the old maxim: ab posse ad esse non
valet illatio. The existing individual, possibilizing his being by
thought, can never know himself. To know his own individuality, to think it universally, as pure intellection must do, he
must abstract from this existing individuality. Thus a contradiction is involved. This is really the critical doctrine of existentialism. Once this light is seen, the whole of existentialism
becomes its monochromatic reflection.
Hegel and modern systemism extol only what Kierkegaard
calls "objective " knowledge. As Heidegger will argue, we must
first examine the questions which we put to being to determine
by the nature of the question what kind of answer is possible.
Kierkegaard, though not as extreme at least by intention,
argues a similar case. Disdaining as he did the " objective,"
Hegelian approach which could not, because of its universality,
include the most important entity in the world, the uniquely
existing individual, Kierkegaard stands for an approach to
existence by existence itself, an immediate approach to the
immediate.
Every individual is an original being islolated from the guiding voice of universal principles unaided by thought and speculation which are on a vastly different level from individuality,
compelled to lead his life by an abrupt movement which he and
he alone can deploy. If thought is our guide, Kierkegaard asks,
must be first recognized before action can occur, an
if
infinite regression must result. Let us take the case of reflection. We reflect, it is said, on ourselves. But to know that we
are reflecting, we must in turn reflect on the first reflection,
and so on. Since reflection cannot stop itself-for it would be
using itself in the very process-how does the series of reflec2"

Ibid., p. !l79.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

tions end? It ends, Kierkegaard declares, by a resolve of the
reflector, by an act of will, by a decision that;. Sartre will later
term completely gratuitous and radically contingent. It is
thus the subject who stops the reflection, not being or the selfevidence of being. It is this absolute, abrupt, spontaneous act
on the part of the individual which conditions his whole life,
his whole philosophy, his whole moral view.
Being is discovered to the human mind in the actualization
of the mind's own thinking of reality. Louis Lavelle, in a different setting, speaks of act accomplishing itself. 30 Being is
grasped, philosophy is born, in that process, Kierkegaard would
hold, by which the thinker's subjectivity comes to consciousness of itself. It is, as it were, a thought of a thought, where
thought and object, self and self, are indistinguishably united.
Schelling and Fichte are here suggested. Marcel has defined his
existentialism as a " second reflection," a reflection on reflection
itself. 31 What Bergson called the natural metaphysic of the
human spirit centers on things thought about, not thought
thinking. Yet in the process of thinking about things, thought
may be considered as a being or event under way. The
dynamism in that process is what Kierkegaard wants to underscore.
A final approach to this view may be made through the
terminology of consciousness. A distinction may be made between two kinds of consciousness: concomitant, when associated with the event taking place in the psychic structures of
the individual as being itself con-known with the object at the
very moment when the object itself is known, and reflex, when
it is consciousness of a· psychic event as an object or thing.
Existentialists hold that experience, if it is known at all, must
be disclosed in concomitant consciousness. Such an experience
is pre-ontological, pre-reflexive. In the words of Guthrie, meta•• Lavelle, in contrast to the existentialists here studied, views this act not as an
annihilation but as a participation in a being, viewed, in somewhat Cartesian
fashion, as providing the finite being power to pose itself. For a study of his
thought that comes to direct issue with existentialism, cf. De l'Etre (2nd and
rev. ed.), Paris, 1947.
81 E. g., Etre et A voir, Paris, 1985, p. 28.

EXISTENTIALISM

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physics and logic are blended. 32 Since subject and object cannot be separated, the meaning of the experience slips away,
unknown.
What produced this event, associated with pre-ontological
concomitant consciousness, which indeed in the absence of distinction between subject and object, is pre-ontological consciousness? The decision of the subject itself. Hegel held to
an infinite mediation between one reality and another, one
reflection and another, reflection and reality. But the original
decision of the Kierkegaardian subject is unmediated and hence
isolated and absolute. Here in the decisive resolve of the individual, in his own subjectivity, is the mystery and meaning of
reality. It is this aloneness which leads Kierkegaard to his
concept of anxiety.
In such a light, it is logical that Kierkegaard should make
the highest task of the existing individual that of becoming
subjective, of realizing and repeating what he is from within,
realizing and repeating through this non-cognitive, pre-ontological confronting of self with self, this act accomplishing itself
in process. Every human being, he writes, has a specific gravity
to tend toward what he is not. 83 Kierkegaard would have
man strive to become what he is, to realize in the utter dynamic
sense of that word his own subjectivity. Thus he says:
I should suppose that education was the curriculum one had to
run through in order to catch up with oneself, and he who will not
pass through this curriculum is helped very little by the fact that
he was born in the most enlightened age. 84

Man must will decisively to be himself. At the fulcrum of
concomitant consciousness, the emotions, will, and intellect are
delicately united, and here is realized that infinite personal
interest in eternal happiness which was incompatible with the
historical, approximative, systematic approach: " Christianity
is spirit, spirit is inwardness, inwardness is subjectivity, sub89 Introduction au Probleme de l'Histoire de la Philosophie. La Metaphysique de
l'individualite a priori de la Pensee, Paris, 1987, p. 81.
•• CUP, p. 499.
"'Fear and Trembling (tr. W. Lowrie), Princeton, 1944, p. 65.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

jectivity is essentially passion, and at its maximum an infinite
personal interest in one's eternal happiness." 85
For an abstracting Hegelian type of thinker, truth is objectified and existence abrogated. But for the genuine hero, truth
is the probing of one's own inwardness. The purely objective and universal scientist is indifferent to the existing individual who can only recover and recognize himself from within.
Kierkegaard's view of truth may again be etched out in terms
of process. Thought may be described, even in traditional
philosophy, as an appropriation of the real. It is an apprehension, an assimilation, of the object with this object remaining
objective while yet being known. For Kierkegaard, the secret
to the real lies in the appropriation as a subjective process.
Truth is the personal mode of appropriation, a realization
within the individual; the less he depends on an object to
mediate the realization, the more perfect does his personal truth
become. This subjective dynamism is of interest to the individual; he is passionately interested in it, as opposed to the
de-ontologized and dehumanized Hegelian, whom Kierkegaard
describes as a ghost. All men, Kierkegaard says, need not think
of the same object; they need not have a common faith or an
organized religion. The only important reality is this mode
as a mode, this process as a process.
Readers will recognize Kierkegaard's thought as suggesting
that general tradition of Protestant theology which stems from
Luther and thrives on the Kantian morality of formalism, categoric imperatives, and the autonomy of the human will. The
tremendous role of inwardness, passion, subjectivity, process,
secrecy, individuality, and the absolute character of man before God, unmediated by objective agreements, objective practices, and objective ethical precept, suggests both vocabulary
and form for the so-called Evangelical Theo1ogy of northern
Europe, for Barth, Brunner, Tillich, and for Niebuhr and
Keane. 36 Kant's notions are almost literally translated in the
•• CUP, p. SS.
•• No attempt can be made to deal here with these interpretations nor with the
interpretation of Kierkegaard by such Catholic thinkers as E. Przywara T. Haecker,
and R. Troisfontaines.

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statement that " there is an absolute duty toward God; for in
this relationship of duty the individual as an individual stands
related absolutely to the absolute." 37 Works, it is apparent
from Kierkegaard's standpoint, do not matter. Faith is justification. Sin could be overcome by faith as Luther himself
had suggested. 38 But Luther had ninety-five theses, Kierkegaard said. He in tum had only one: subjectivity, spirit, passion, interest, faith-in a word, existence.
Recurrently, Kierkegaard alludes to existence as a type of
striving, a thought that Lessing had previously emphasized.
Kierkegaard agrees with Lessing that truth lies in the search
for an object, not in the object searched. If God held truth in
one hand and the eternal pursuit of it in the other, He would,
Lessing stated, choose the second hand. 39 But if we are constantly occupied in immanent striving, how are we to reach
a knowledge of a transcendent God, Whom traditional thought
declares to be known even by reason? Lessing and Kierkegaard declare, typically enough, that there is no bridge between
the historical, finite knowledge and God's existence and nature.
This gap can only be bridged by a " leap." 40 Faith is a completely irrational thing, and yet it is, paradoxically enough, the
highest duty of a Christian. Because it is an infinite act of
resignation, it is blind and completely decisive. There is an
unmediated and completely a-intellectual belief, much like that
of Kant's proof for God's existence. Natura non facit saltus,
Leibniz said. But faith, according to Kierkegaard, must do so.
There is no mediator between God and man, nothing like a
Church, historical revelation, or tradition. Every individual
must make this leap for himself. Faith has neither rational
content nor motives of credibility. It is not an act of the intellect commanded by the will. It is completely in the will, in the
decisiveness, inwardness, the infinite interest of _the subject.
There is a complete, abrupt, irrational discontinuity between
""Fear and Trembling, p. 65.
88 Sickness unto Death (tr. W. Lowrie), Princeton, 1944, hereinafter cited as
SD, p. 18!!.
18 0UP, p. 97.
40 Ibid., p. 9rt., ;

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

religion and everything else. That is why Kierkegaard finds
it contradictory to speak of a " Christian world." 41 Man was
to reach God by an act of inwardness, husbanding all of his
forces into an intensive unity of a pure, an infinite decision. 42
The task of being a Christian is always the task of becoming
a Christian, becoming subjective. There is no public censorship in this highest act, man is his own censor, greater than the
censor of the Republic of Rome. In pure becoming, we really
become nothing since the dynamism is only terminated by the
sin of man. Becoming something, holding out for ourselves, is
sin. Christianity is thus always a paradox. It is an existential act and an existential transcendence. Credo quia absurdmm. It is an either-or relation in which man is nothing versus
being. It must sacrifice the temporal completely or it is false.
It is the quest of historical knowledge and the attention to
historical events which are sin.
The notion of the leap is an occasion to bring forward the
problem of anxiety or dread. This is not fear in the ordinary
sense. Fear is always fear of a definite object, recognized and
menacing. Anxiety is the fear of ourselves. It is the fear of
nothing.
What is it that produces the first psychological state in each
individual, that puts him into the parade of history with a
personal part to play? What is it that awakens him to a consciousness of himself and of the world about him? In empirical
physics, where the law of inertia reigns, the thinker is always
envisioned as being acted on rather than acting. Knowledge
is here not the act of a subject, seizing the real, becoming it.
Quite the contrary, man is inert, determined by outside influences like Morris' buzzer. 43 In this view, man becomes a purely
passive being, like the Hegelian ghost. But experience indicates
the inadequacy of such a view. There comes a point in the
knowledge relation where man reacts, where he is awakened.
Since the object cannot act on him inertially ad infinitum, he
"Attack upon Christendom (tr. W. Lowrie), Princeton, 1944, p. 81.
•• Ibid., p. 81.
•• Signs, Language, and Behavior, New York, 1946, passim.

EXISTENTIALISM

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157

really awakens himself. He is conscious, so to speak, before
experiencing knowledge. He is something in his own right before things act on him. But how do we explain this process by
which self awakens self to consciousness? Here is where the
notion of anxiety or anguish makes its appearance.
Anxiety is defined by Kierkegaard as " inexplicable nothing " 44 and again as " the alarmng possibility of being able." 45
Before actual consciousness of any object, there is possible consciousness of it. Since this awakening could not take place
inertially through the action of the objective world on our
consciousness, there must be an absolute, qualitative " leap "
by which we bring ourselves, as it were, into conscious existence.
Why must this be a" leap?" Simply because there is no continuity between possibility and existence, any more than between reason and faith. It is this isolation of the individual,
this state where, unguided and unmoved by anything that is
outside of him, he must bring himself to consciousness and
existence, that discloses anxiety. Kierkegaard even speaks of
this sentiment as being anterior to possibility. 46 It is a state
of recognizing, as it were, that our possibilities depend for their
actualization on us and us alone. It is this pristine state,
escaped by no individual and faced by him in total solitude,
that forces us to shoulder the responsibility for our own existence. But it is not a pristine experience only. It hounds man
through his whole life. Every decision must eventually be made
in that utter isolationism of existence which only a leap can
transcend: " One may liken dread to dizziness. He whose eye
chances to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy.
But the reason for it is just as much his eye as it is the precipice.
For suppose he had not looked down." 47
Sartre, inheriting the notion of anxiety from the Kierkegaardian tradition, illuminates this example. Fear would be
occasioned by the possibility that someone would push us down
into the precipice. Dread is felt by the fact that we might hurl
"The Concept of Dread (tr. W. Lowrie), Princeton, 1944, hereinafter cited as
CD, p. 58.
•• Ibid., p. 40.
•• Ibid., p. 80.
"Ibid., p. 55.

2

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

ourselves down into the abyss. It is ourselves who are the
restraining force. Unaided, the restraint must involve the
qualitative " leap." Since the leap is irrational, gratuitous, it
might just as well have prompted a contrary decision: to plunge
ourselves down. 48 Sartre likewise has the following example:
A soldier, loading shells into his cannon, might have fear of
being under fire the following day. Dread would be associated
with the fact that the responsibility for what he does under
fire, the decision where to retreat or where to dig a foxhole,
rests with him alone. 49
Anxiety is thus alarming: " there is the egotistic infinity of
possibility which does not tempt like a definite choice but
alarms and fascinates with its sweet anxiety." 50 Anxiety is
thus the fear of nothing, the fear of ourselves. Possibility cannot force us into action from the outside because it is infinite
nor, from the inside, because it is possible only. Anxiety is
the sealing sentiment of our subjectivity and inwardness. There
is no fleeing from it, and no seeking of it. To flee or to seek
would be decisions fermented by anxiety itself. Anxiety is
essentially ambiguous, isolating man and proposing an infinity
of possibility. It gives a range of choice in which there is no
reason for going in one direction rather than another.
As a theologian, Kierkegaard was greatly concerned with the
problem of sin which Lutheran tradition solves in a peculiar
way. What is it that made Adam sin? It was not the concupiscence of a fallen nature, birthmarked by sinfulness; Adam
had no such dispositions. Adam's sin was original in the etymological sense of that word. This sin, Kierkegaard attempts to
explain by the concept of anxiety. Sin came into the world
not by simply multiplying sinfulness but by a qualitative leap.
It was possible for Adam to sin, but this sin became an actuality through the intermediary of anxiety. What else could
mediate between possibility and actuality in the Kierkegaardian dialectic? Sin occurs in general because every man
•• L'Etre et le Neant, Paris, 1948, pp. 69 ff.
•• Ibid., pp. 69 ff.

••ov, p. 55.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

159

tempts himself. He is alone with himself. Never by a quantitative increment of sinfulness do we have sin. Every sin
involves a leap. Anxiety, the possibility of possibility, the
alarm produced by nothingness which surrounds and isolates
the individual, brought and brings sin into the world. It is
responsible for every sin since Paradise. " The possibility of
freedom announces itself in dread." 51 Sin, a leap, cannot be
explained; it is always original.
God is discovered, Kierkegaard says, by turning toward
our guilt. Essentially depraved, every individual must first
experience guilt psychologically, and so "if the finite spirit
would see God it must begin by being guilty." 52 To posit
guilt is to eliminate dread and attain repentance. The conscious interruption in the dynamic striving to be what we are
and to intensify our subjectivity entails sin in the broad sense.
The recovery of that dynamism, the decisiveness of the leap
which is faith, is the salvific experience.
But does Kierkegaard ever come to a
of God?
It was apparent to him that the subjective selfhood which he
so championed was never realizable. Man can never become
completely himself simply because he is never completely
inward. He is always dependent on objects. He is always
interrupting his march toward God by looking at the sidelines.
False to his destiny, he is always frustrated. He commits sin:
" So regarded man is not yet a self." 53 Defining subjectivity,
Christianity, faith as the relationship of self to self, Kierkegaard writes: "For despair is not a result of the disrelationship
but of the relation which relates itself to itself. And the relation to himself a man can never get rid of, any more than he
can get rid of himself, which is moreover one and the same
thing, since the self is the relationship to one's self." 54
This relationship may be simply stated to mean that man
is not knowingly related to himself except as far as he knows
other things. There is thus no pure mode of appropriation but
always a tertium quid which is the object knqwn and appro" 1 Ibid., p. 66.
•• Ibid., p. 96.

•• SD, p. 17.
•• Ibid., p. 24.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

priated. Man is not a pure relation. All of his relations require
both subject and object. Despair is thus the sickness unto
death. The more we flee it, the more conscious of it do we
become. Moreover, the price for attaining God is our own
annihilation which True, a French critic of Sartre, has compared to that of Hindu philosophy. 55 We cannot remain ourselves and know God.
Thus the final significance of Kierkegaard, despite his intentions and the pleas of a number of critics, is despair. The high
ambitions which he vaunted for subjectivity and for Christianity have emerged from his final philosophical synthesis as
irrealizable. Man, gloomy, guilty, and disintegrated, must
tramp the earth in vain: " Hence the self in its despairing
effort to will to be itself labors into the direct opposite, it becomes really no self. In the whole dialectic within which its
acts there is nothing firm, what the self is does not for an instant
stand firm, that is eternally firm." 56

III.

HEIDEGGER

A student of Husserl, Martin Heidegger applies the method
of his master to the problem of existence. For Husserl, to put
it briefly, the world, prescinding from its existential status, is
described as it appears to pure consciousness. 57 In Heidegger,
this transcendental describer becomes being-thrown-into-theworld. At the end of Heidegger's twist to phenomenology,
Kierkegaard is met, but it is a Kierkegaard who is likewise
twisted, wrung dry of all theological implication. Of Heidegger
it could surely be said, as Marcel said of Jaspers, that his
thought is a religion laicized. 58
In a manner that Sartre is at even greater pains to show,
Heidegger admits no distinction between appearance and reality. Appearances, phenomena, are themselves being, 59 and
•• True, G., De J. P. Sartre a. L. Lavelle, Paris, 1946, pp. !l5 fl'.
•• SD, 110.
•• For the best study of Husserl cf. Berger G., Le Cogito dans la Pkiloaopkie de
Huaserl, Paris, 1941.
•• Du Refua a l'Invocation, Paris, 1940, p. S!l5.
•• Sein und Zeit, Halle a. d. Salle, 1985, hereinafter cited as SZ, pp. 29 fl'.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

161

so sign and signified turn out to be the same thing. Describing what appears, phenomenology thus lacks a medium to give
meaning to what is ultimate since there is no ultra-ultimate to
render it.
Sein und Zeit, Heidegger's major work, 60 would charge headlong into the question of the meaning of being, which he proclaims to be his avowed and unrelenting purpose. But in the
very beginning, the subject discovers himself inhabiting the
house which he set out to build. In asking the question, he
finds that he has already answered it. The thing with which
the question deals, the source from which the answer is sought,
the questioner himself not to mention his question-all are
beings. 61 It would seem then that the question of being involves
a vicious circle.
The existence of the circle, Heidegger admits, but he denies
that it is vicious. In phenomenology, no attempt is made to
deduce being, he argues, and so the formal fallacies of logic
are superseded. What actually takes place, according to
Heidegger, is more of an exposition by pointing, 62 working at a
pre-scientific and pre-ontological level. Ontology deals with
truth as attained through judgment, but what of the foundations of judgment which are pre-judicative, pre-predicative? 63
What is the reason for the principle of sufficient reason? 64
Existentialism insists that these ultimates be explored and that,
since the questioner conditions the answers to his questions, his
own nature be examined first. Leibniz declared: Nihil est in
intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu, nisi intellectus ipse.
But what is this intellectus? Kant, Heidegger says, was plod60 This work is acknowledged by the author as the first half of his ontology, the
prolegomenon to a positive philosophy of being which has been reported alternately
as partially completed and abandoned. That the latter alternative is probable will
be seen from the critical remarks below which show no room for positive expression
on the ruins left by the earlier book.
61
p. 5 ff.
62 ••• aufweisende Grundfreilegung.,
Ibid., p. 8.
63 Vom Wesen des Grundes in Jahrbuch fiir Philosophie und Phiinemonelogische
Forschung (Festschrift E. Husser!), Halle a. d. Salle, 1929, hereinafter cited as
VWG, p. 76.
•• Ibid., pp. 76-79.

sz,

162

VINCENT EDWARD. SMITH

ding over the right road by examining knowledge first, moving
from criteriology to metaphysics. 65 But what is the Kantian
a pripri prior to entering action? What is a priori to the
a priori? These are the types of questions which existentialism
poses. In such an adventure, Heidegger and later Sartre say,
no circular demonstration is entailed since the very nature of
reflection consists of the unity between subject and object.
Phenomenology, as Heidegger sees it, reduces to describing the
nature of the human reality, the Dasein. 66 Measurement
can be made only when we have previously calibrated an
instrument.
Existentialism is blocked in its quest for the pre-conscious
status of the Dasein because, when this status is considered,
the Dasein must already be conscious. Already under way in
asking questions about its origin, it can never be stationary
to take a fix. In the ontological setting which Heidegger prefers to the psychological, the Dasein is never pure being but
being-in-the-world. This simply means that the world is always
" there " with the Dasein, never thought away. Preoccupied,
if one may use de Waelhens' rendering of Bes(YT'gen,61 man's
knowledge always presupposes an object as Brentano insisted.
We cannot
ourselves as others. see us. Likewise, in the
notion of the world, as we possess it, there is always the fact
of our presence in it, our in-dwelling. 68 Otherwise the thinker
could not think of it. This might be phrased by showing that
a frame of reference must be located somewhere to locate
•• Kant und daa Problem der Metaphyaik, passim.
SZ, p. 486. ,Dasein, " being there," has the wider meaning of existence as
opposed to essence in German. But Heidegger, it will be seen, describes man in
terms of existence, and hence man and Dasein become equivalent. To preserve the
originality of Heidegger's thought we shall follow the convention of his critics by
keeping the word Dasein in its German form, since its etymological sense, being
there, does not have a one-word equivalent in English. Also at this point, it should
be noted that Heidegger is not radically phenomenologic8l. He is positing being
at the beginning and describing it as his second logical movement.
•• La Philosophie de Martin Heidegger, Louvain, 1946, p. 87. This is by far
the best exposition of Heidegger's thought to appear in any language. Gabriel
Marcel remarked that philosophers of the future will be reading it, rather than
Heidegger, to see what Heidegger said.
88
p. 46.
88

sz.,

EXISTENTIALISM

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168

another object. But the in-dwelling is not to be taken in the
strict spatial sense. It has more the meaning of colo, habito,
and diligo. 69 Nor can it be held that the world is a determination of the Dasein since the two cannot be distinguished. 70
Heidegger emphasizes, redolent of Husser!, that he has
undercut the problem of idealism versus realism. To distinguish the two orders would presuppose a standard in terms of
which the inner and outer world could be lined up. But such
a measure there cannot be since it would likewise suffer from
the absence of a yardstick to define it. To pose the question
of idealism and realism presumes an abstraction from the
in-the-world character of the Dasein, an abstraction that is
fated to failure. 71 Instead of asking about the existence of the
external world, the philosopher should search out why such a
question is asked. 72 The inquiry about being thus spirals
inward, suggesting the Scotism which early captured Heidegger's interest, to an analysis of the Da.
Heidegger sharpens his dialectic to argue that the Da, opaque
and irreducible, can only be for its own sake. Sartre expresses
the idea by declaring that man is radically contingent. If
what is ultimate :in man is irrelational, it is gratuitous, spontaneous-spontaneous in the etymological sense of sua sponte,
coming from the self.73 Only what is related has responsibility,
and every Dasein is related only to itself, responsible to itself
and itself alone. "Dasein is existence, to which as being-in-theworld existence is for itself." 74 Yet to exist for its own sake
does not entitle the Dasein to egoism; it simply determines that
the decision to be egotistic or altruistic comes from the Dasein,
alone in its thereness and ·hence moved only by itself. Honing
down intelligible content until analysis leaves only the Da.,
Heidegger states that man's very substance is his existence. 75
The Dasein, as already under way within a world and never
outside of it surveying the implications of itself, is called Sichschon-vorweg-schon-sein in-einer- W elt. 76 This notion of beforeness-tempus est . . . secundum prius et posterius-explains
•• Ibid., p. 54.
•• Ibid., p. 64.

Ibid., p. 205.
.. Ibid., p. 206.

71

78

VWG, p. 102.

.. sz. p. 148 .

•• Ibid., p. 212.
•• Ibid., p. 192.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

why Heidegger, as it will be shown more clearly, seeks the
whole meaning of the Dasein in terms of temporality. Sichvorweg,
(Ge'llXYrfenheit), man is abandoned. Abandonment, de-jection, is the Dasein in its character
as Da/ 1 hopelessly isolated from guidance. Who can help man,
Sartre says, unless he spontaneously accepts, spontaneously
seeks such counsel? In Nietzsche's language, man is here
beyond good and evil. " I can no longer distinguish right from
wrong." 78
The disclosure of man's isolated character is the meaning of
anxiety. 79 Abandoned before a destiny that he did not create
and cannot control, man is always a being with ... , a being
in. . . . He is not first on the diving board and then in the
stream. From the start, he is plunged into the world. He
cannot localize, as in fear, an object that threatens. Unique, he
must discover everything else in the ultimate analysis as absolutely strange (das Unheimliche) .80 He trembles not in the
face of definite objects of the world but in the face of the world
as such, the world as globally worldly and not as a pointalism
of objects. In this infra-visible spectrum, his abandonment can
be defined anew since, confronting the world as world, there
is nothing not included in the anxiety-causing object from
which he could seek help. Likewise, since there is nothing outside of this world for which he could be anxious-it would only
be discoverable on the premise that the problem of this world
is first faced and solved-man is anxious only for himsel£.81
This is another way of saying that the Dasein is for its own
sake, 82 the spontaneous combustion of nothingness. In a more
generic sense, the Dasein is essentially care. 83
But why does man fail to realize what existentialism declares him to be? Before coming to consciousness of himself,
man leads a purely work-a-day life (die Alltiiglichkeit) .84 He
is in the world but not conscious of his being there in all of its
77
78

Ibid., p. 185.
No Exit and the Flies, p. 119.

•• sz, p. 192.
80

Ibid., p. 188.

81

Ibid., p. 187.

•• Ibid., p. 286.
88 Ibid., p. 198.
•• Ibid., p. 146.

EXISTENTIALISM

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165

In this earthy form, there are two possisubtle substructures.
bilities that invite him constantly, 85 proper existence existentially recognizing its own isolation and improper existence in
which man chooses to remain in a kind of Alltiiglichkeit. A
person in this commonplace mode should be represented by
the impersonal pronoun" it" (das Man). Das Man is bound
up in the world of affairs, plunging himself out of himself,
searching and always alienating his true being, overthrowing
himself. 86 He is neutral, an average more than an individual.
He is not an act but a phenomenon, indifferent, passive, the
slave of illusion, an object among objects.
The Dasein takes hold of itself by an act of transcendence.
The logical question is: what is transcended? For Heidegger,
it is das Seiendes, a term that may be taken to include all
modalities of being that are not the proper existence of the
Dasein. 87 In this transcendance, the Dasein is constituted as
a sel£.88
But what is the other term of transcendance, apart from the
transcending Dasein? It is the negation of all other-ness, as
abandonment and anxiety starkly display. Like the chaos of
sensations described by Plato, the point of departure for the
structuring of the Dasein, the source of intelligibility, is the
unintelligible (Grundverbargenheit) . Transcending this chaotic existence (das Seiendes), the Dasein sees itself in the
world. 89 What it really sees is its character as Da/ 0 a relation
of self to self,91 spontaneous and contingent. Only through
transcendence is the Dasein with its presence in the world, the
first and indeed the last word in Heidegger's dialectic, awakened
to its own evidence. 92 Whereas a more orthodox view would
describe the knowable in terms of intimacy and identity, Heidegger defines knowability as transcendence, and so the mind
of man remains in absolute darkness. 93
But what is absolute darkness? What transcends pure exis88 Ibid., p. 178.
87 Ibid., p. 280.
Ibid., p. 48.
Wll8 ist Metaphyaik, Bonn, 1929, hereinafter cited as WM, p. 20.
•• VWG, pp. 97-98.
•• Ibid., p. 98.
•• Ibid., p. 82.
81 Ibid., p. 104.
•• Ibid., pp. Bi-BS.
85

88

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

tence? It is nothing, and here anguish once again frames the
picture of man. Anxiety is not directed to a thing. It is the
fear of nothing, the experience of nothing. 94 In this experience,
everything glides away from us, even a determinate ego.95 With
ourselves absolutely alone, everything else must be absolutely
other, and the absolute other is nothing. 96 Everything else is
annihilated so that existence might exist, being might be. 97
" In the structure of abandonment . . . resides essentially a
nothingness .... " 98
To say that man is abandoned is to say that he is but a project of himself (Entwurf) ,99 emerging spontaneously, i.e., from
himself/ 00 To project is to be vor-weg. In the effort to understand itself, the Dasein builds itself from its own possibility.
If the Dasein must emerge from nothingness, beginning in that
experience of the naught that is dread, then it is obviously first
possible and afterwards actual. The naught makes us aware
of our possibility. To understand it is to understand ourselves.
Hence, understanding is defined as a pro-jection. Already Kant
had stated that we understand what we make. 101 " The
Dasein," Heidegger writes, " determines itself as being, from
its very possibilities. This is the formal sense of the existential
grasping of the Dasein." 102 Man's primary meaning as a being
that makes itself and exists for its own sake is the future. 103
As the title of Heidegger's major work suggests, the sense of
being is to be found in time, more precisely in the temporalization of the Dasein by itself. De Waelhens 104 has rightly reproached Heidegger for stacking the cards in his own favor by
a preconceived notion that the Dasein is to be understood in
terms of time only and then, to fit this
defining
the Dasein in terms of temporal modalities like abandonment
and pro-ject. Heidegger's whole dialectic on the Dasein, the
sich-schon-vorweg, has been an ingenious playing on the no"'WM, p. 17.
•• Ibid., p. 18.
•• Ibid., p. 19.
•• Ibid., p. !l6.

100
101
10 •

•• sz, p. !l85.

108

•• Ibid., p. 148.

10 '

WG, p. 102.
Kant, op. cit., v. 8, p. U.

sz, p. 48.

Ibid., p. 827•
Op. cit., p. !l44.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

167

tions of before and after which would obviously be indistinguishable and inexpressible in the monotone of existentialist
premises, were it not for an arbitrary note which Heidegger
sounds from the backstage. Pro-ject, the thrust toward the
future by which the Dasein comes to itself (Zu-kunft), is temporalization. Time always involves the whither (das Wozu) .m
C. I. Lewis, in a parallel circuit of scientism with the existentialists, has recently stated that the primary sense of knowledge is in the future. 106 Heidegger reduces this Wozu to another
index that the Dasein is for its own sake. The future is a principle of organization, giving sense, purpose in the dynamic
sense, to what is past. Discovery is thus a moment of the past,
the awareness of abandonment; understanding is an affair of the
future. 107 The Dasein has a past only because it is sick vorweg,
ahead of itself. Between these two moments of abandonment
and pro-ject, is the meaningless passing of the present, disclosing man as Da, irreducible and irrelational. Man is thus
outside of himself, sich-schon-vorweg, abandoned, pro-jecting,
present as radically there, hence not really in himself. Heidegger construes this exteriority as absolute "ek-stasis," 108 in
the ancient meaning of the word. There is a standing out from
being, a nothingness. It is but" the possibility of a free being
for its proper possibility." 109
Time is more fundamental than space. The union of points
in space is made possible through time. 110 But since space
cannot be understood without reference to beings that are
spatialized, a more specific analysis of Heidegger's world is
needed.
Of supreme moment in such a description is the difference
between being at hand as a tool (das Zuhandenes) .and simply
being present (das Vorhandenes). The second is discovered in
terms of the first by a Dewey type of instrumentalism. There
is in fact, a third kind of being which Heidegger calls the
106

sz, p. 48.

100

·Analyais of Knowledge and Valuation, La Salle, Dl., 1946.

107

SZ, p. !WO.
Ibid., p. 8!!9 :If.

108

100
110

Ibid., p. 144.
Ibid., p. 417.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

worldliness of the world, the world as world, 111 disclosed as pure
exteriority. This is the condition for discovering everything
else.
The Vorhandenes is what does not present itself; it is a kind
of An sich in being. 112 The Zuhandenes, on the contrary, is the
world at man's service, conquered and controlled. The V orhandenes, not taking its measure from the Dasein, has more
the character of a hard and unyielding datum; when the Zuhandenes appears with " givenness," obtrusiveness, persistence, it
takes on the character of the V orhandenen. The more given
the world, the less Zuhanden it is. To say that a hammer is
heavy is to advert to the Zuhandene, the impression made (in
11tatu viae) on our muscles. To generalize, announcing that
eorporeal being is heavy involves a leap, the lacuna-let us
say-which induction must hurdle in moving from a limited
range of experience to the whole. What accomplishes the leap
is care (Sorge), standing at the border where transfer from the
personal reference of the tool to the general fact of nature is
accomplished, care as that ubiquitous attitude of man toward
the world which mediates man's constant plunging into the
unknown.
Zuhandenheit is intelligible only with respect to V orhandenheit, the term (terminus ad quem) of the tool. That the world
is not reducible to Zuhandenheit is apparent from the fact that
in the attitude of care the Zuhandenes vanishes, and only the
Vorhandenes, bulking large and opaque, the world as world,
remains. 113 What happens in the reduction of the V orhandenes
to Zuhandenen as a possible solution to the mystery of being?
It is true that the V orhandenes in time changes into the Zuhandenes-science and civilization reflect man's conquest over nature. But darkness again prevails, for the Zuhandenes is in
turn at the service of the meaningless, irreducible, existing
Dasein.114 " The pure ' that it is ' discloses itself, the whence
:and the whither remain in the darkness." 115
Ibid., p. 88.
Ibid., p. 75.
118 Ibid., p. 75.
111
11s

"' Ibid., p. 78.
110 Ibid., p. 184.

EXISTENTIALISM

169

AND EXISTENCE

But what is it that calls the Dasein to come into existence?
The answer is the Dasein itself. It is the voice which calls to
its own self. It is already in existence, anguishing in its abandonment. Yet it is not in existence. It is the conscience of
man, pro-jecting a pattern to be realized.us The voice calls
being to its own possibility. 117
From all this, it is apparent that the Dasein is autonomous.
Radical freedom is its birthmark. Will is thus not ordained to
reason. It is absolute. Spontaneous, the Dasein is utterly unaided and unmoved from without in its lonely transcendence.
In fact, transcendence is freedom. 118 " In the choice of a choice
does the Dasein make possible in the primary sense its own
possibility." 119 Freedom thus is labelled " the ground of
ground." 120
The Dasein relates itself only to itself. 121 The scan of will
which traditional philosophy declares to be as wide as universal
good turns out here to be radically finite and particularized.
Free only to choose itself, the Dasein-understanding the world
as radically other-is free at the same time to choose the world.
"The pro-jecting-abandoning imposition of choice by the world
is freedom." 122 The simultaneity of imposition and radical
freedom, the necessity of freely choosing, at once constrains and
liberates man. 123
Such a strait-jacketed freedom, typical of Heidegger's dialectic which unites contraries and even contradictories, is explainable by the principle of simultaneous origins (Gleichursprunglichkeit) . The past, present, and the future are united by the
Da; abandonment, project, evidence are at one; discovery,
understanding, and discourse are indistinguishable. 124 All being
is projected with ... the Dasein (Mitentwurfen) .125 The irreducible thus does not exclude the manifold.
Another interesting problem in Heidegger is his theory of
our knowledge of others (the Mitsein). For the alltiigliche
118
117

Ibid., p. 277.
Ibid., p. 278.

VWG, p. 109.
119 SZ, p. 268.
118

120

VWG., p. 109.

m

Ibid., p. 104.

u• Ibid., p. 102.

118

Ibid., p. 101.

msz, p. 161.
m

Ibid., p. 815.

170

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

man, Mitsein is but a tool, an object among objects. But the
Dasein finds others to be ,something much more, cooperators
at its own level. M itsein is given. The Dasein finds the notion
of Mitsein included in its being, for only in such a light can
fault and failure be explained. 126 One can only fail for a Mit,flein, when complexity-mit-is introduced. In himself, man is
not mit or complex. The Dasein simply is.
Others when understood at all are understood not in terms of
relations but in terms of care, this time care for . . . (Fursorge) •
Discerning readers will note here that Heidegger, even though
not discussing the Dasein in all purity, is introducing a modification of being which he has previously put into the opaque
realm of the unique and irrelational. He has introduced a complexity that is important in assessing his work. In fact, he
speaks of knowing others as a kind of projection of ourselves
into their being, recognizing that: " Other is a double of the
self." 127 This is a crucial admission that will be later led to a
rather crucial conclusion.
A final idea that cannot be overlooked in dealing with Heidegger is his notion of death. He has defined meaning in terms
of pro-ject. The "whither" (Wozu), in the efficient order,
relations conceived in the sense of " wherefor " form our only
hope of knowledge. Death, the final destiny of man, must in
this view become the final arbiter of life (its terminus ad quem).
But death turns out to be unrepeatable. Everyone goes
through it only once for himself since the deaths of others
are events which he observes rather than acts out himself from
within. Hence, the unicity, irrelationality, meaninglessness of
death is the final seal of the meaninglessness of life. H philosophy is a meditation on death, as Socrates says, then philosophy likewise is nonsense. Man's proper attitude should be
to keep himself free for death. It is after all, the most personal
and genuine type of freedom, structured into our being as a
possibility and permitting liberty its absolute autonomy; freedom is thus limited by nothing. For a man, keeping himself
free for his final end, death is not the accident or disaster that,
118

Ibid., p. UO.

117

Ibid., p. 124.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

171

psychologically and metaphysically, it usually becomes. Only
by recognizing nothingness as our final end are we free, just
as nothingness was found to be at our origin. Time is absolutely finite.
The following theses apply to death: 1) there is a not-yet
character to every Dasein which makes it always incomplete;
2) what comes to an end has the character of no-longer; 3)
coming to an end involves the unrepeatable. 128 Since only in
terms of the complete, the present, the repeatable do we have
meaning, death makes the life that precedes it a meaningless
answer to a meaningless question.

IV.

JASPERS

Karl Jaspers is in many ways the most searching and provocative of the contemporary Kierkegaardian type of existentialist. His spirit is certainly the most synthetic, uniting into a
single expression ideas scattered through Kierkegaard, Hegel,
Kant, Nietzsche, Schelling, Max Weber, and Plotinus. Whereas
Heidegger is interested in the problem of being, Jaspers focuses
more on human existence, its place and meaning. Heidegger, by
intention, leans more toward the metaphysical, Jaspers toward
the moral.
By the divisions of his huge three-volume work, Philosophie,129 Jaspers suggests a blueprint for presenting his thought:
first, the problem of man's orientation in the world (Weltorientierung); secondly, the clarification of existence (Existenzerhellung); and thirdly, the study of transcendence ..
That the philosophy of W eltorientierung is carved largely out
of Kierkegaard's attack on Hegel, Jaspers would be willing to
acknowledge. Philosophy is not a detached review of a passing parade. It is a daring. It is an awakening of one's self
Not the study of an object, it can
(Selbstvergewisserung).
Ibid., p. 242.
Berlin, 1982. Except where otherwise indicated, citations below are taken
from this work. For a very competent study of Jaspers, cf. de Tonquedec, J.,
L'Existence d'aprea Karl Jaspers, Paris, 1945; cf. also Pareyson, L., La filosofia
dell'eaistenza e Carlo Jaspers, Naples, 1940 and Collins, J., "An Approach to Karl
;{aspers," in Thought, 20 (1941), pp. 657-691.
128
119

172

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

be best defined as the realization of an inner act. 130 It grounds
the authentic existence of the individual, 131 clarifying while producing, realizing while being transcended. The place of man in
the cosmos, to use Scheler's phrase, reveals him as fenced off
from the ultimate around him and the intimate within him,
reduced like Nietszche's Jasager to pure striving rather than
purposeful existence in a value-laden world.
Cosmic orientation shocks man toward limits that must be
transcended if meaning and value are to be reached. The meditations on existence show that these limits are irremovable and
that only the unconditional can surmount them. In the third
stage, where the transcendent is discussed in terms of the
ciphers in which it is embodied, the problem of deciphering the
existential code, ambiguous and antinomic, is confronted. 131
Jaspers' attack on systemism is of shattering proportions.
The system, as Kierkegaard said, must be complete to be meaningful. It is utopian rather than historically keyed, 132 abstract
and arbitrary in its attitude to existence. On the other hand,
existentialism is much harder. "The existence philosophy cannot attain to a perfect figure in art nor to a decisive completion
for the being of a thinker." 133 Imperfect, the various historical
world pictures are not compelling because the first principles
are relative to the system-maker; they are postulates. Only
existence is compelling and imposing. 134 Systems are constantly disagreeing; there are different theories in science, different parties in politics, different guesses in the face of the
unknown. 135 The placid, static character of systems is at variance with the dynamic core of existence and life. We live in a
world of ontology, not of logic, a world where the individual is
unmistakably more striking than the universal. Systems all
end in symbols, in external substitutes for reality. They involve the infinite regression, the relative, the indeterminate. 136
:Even Descartes, in the end, found rational evidence inadeEziatenzphiloaophie, Berlin, 1988, pp. 66-67.
Die Geiatige Situation der Zeit, Leipzig, 1981, hereinafter cited as GSZ, p. U7.
181 v. 1, p. 79.
180 v. I, pp. 109 ff.
181 GSZ, p. 145.
188 v. 1, p. I98.
1 "' v. I, pp. 8911.
180

181

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

178

quate. 137 He seemed forced to an existential fact, thought in
action, the sum of an existing thing. But the overall tone of
Cartesianism resonates with the modern emphasis on logic; pure
method without content is as meaningless as the Kantian reine
V ernunft. Method without metaphysic is a random thing. 138
Cosmic orientation, by its breakdown, brings man to his right
senses, to the possibility of his existence through transcending
the world. " The world picture is incomplete, it end with directions, ideas, intentions; it is not yet the whole but is becoming
the whole." 139 But in this very failure there is revealed the
reality of the existing subject whose continued questions have
brought the failure to pass and who, in obstacle, becomes conscious of himself. 140
The Weltanschauung is found to be unverifiable because it
cannot verify its own self. This is the beginning of wisdom.141
What remains from such a failure is no longer a world in which
orientation can take place but a self who can
an immanence that can transcend. The wires that would unite reason
with this existential world are clipped away. For there is no
dipolar relation of subject and object. There is, rather, the
confronting of self with self and the realization, through an act
of faith, 142 not of reason, that this positing of the self can only
be achieved through the transcendent and obviously Plotinian
One. The search after the meaning of life and nature thus goes
first into the world to orient itself, discovers the call toward
possible existence, and moving like Nietzsche from the negative to the positive, 143 opens the way to transcendence. The
world is thus a totality, existence is an origin, and the One is the
transcendent. 144
To give meaning to life, appeal is often made to religion,
Descartes und die Philoaophie, hereinafter cited as DP, p. SO.
v. 1, p. 185.
189 Paychologie der W eltanachauungen, Berlin, 1925, hereinafter cited as PW,
p. 149.
""v. 1, 145.
" 1 v. I. p. !l46.
... v. 1, p. !l40.
us Nietzsche, Berlin, 1986, hereinafter cited as N, p. 101.
1 " V. !l, pp. 27-28.
137
138

3

174

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

seience, and art. But all these are inadequate, Jaspers says.
Prayer and cult bear upon another world, not the one, he declares, where life is led and challenges engaged. Revelation,
he goes on, is an objective deposit, given once and for all and
not adaptable to subjective, existential acceptance. Revelation is pictured as objective, whereas man moves from within.
Revelation speaks in terms of objects and universals, Jaspers
finds. Likewise, organization, a corpus mysticum, is said to be
at variance with the existingly valuable individual. 145
Science Jaspers thoroughly discredits. It extols the merely
mechanical, moves from particular to general, lacks a taste for
the obvious unity in our world, soars away toward the conceptual, is unable to examine itself, is abstract by contrast with
life's concreteness. 146 With every step forward in science there
comes not completion but new problems and unsuspected
tasks. 147 Science is formal, ideal, logical, whereas existence is
striving. Thought lies outside of being. It is not being but
about being. At every moment when I make myself an object,
I am indeed at the same time more than this object, namely
an essence that can objectify itsel£.148 I can never be unconditional and, simultaneously, know this fact. Knowledge would
itself be a condition. 149 Philosophy is not algebraic knowledge
but passion. It acts without end, wills without knowing. 150
Art offers the highest hope. It is existential. Instead of
transporting man to a different world, Jaspers holds, it deepens
and reveals the world that is.151
In the second stage of Jaspers' thought, it is argued that
philosophy reaches existence by rendering the subject conscious
of himself. 152 Ontology, the categories, Weltorientierungen
u• v. 1, pp. 294 fi .
... v. 1, p. 216.
" 7 GSZ, p. 47.
us Vernunft und Exiatenz, Groningen, 1985, hereinafter cited as VE, p. 47.
109 Ibid., p. 89.
100 Ibid., p. 110.
... v. 1, p. 840.
••• It is in this sense that Exiatenzerkellung is to be taken. Cf. de Tonquedec's
note, op. cit., p. 7.

EXISTENTIALISM

175

AND EXISTENCE

prepare the way. 153 They give the philosopher a choice, a
descent to that skepticism which Nietzsche termed a disease or
the clarifying of his existence by reducing certainty to the
present of self-certainty, by making all knowledge-Socrateslike--self knowledge. When such an identity occurs between
knower and known, knowledge becomes a deed rather than a
formal thing, a matter of inneren Handeln. 154 There is really
not a choice between one world outlook and another but between to be oneself and not to be.155 This choice brings us to
the decisive
of ourselves. " For where man is
totally himself in a matter, there is for him an either/or, and
then no compromise. He wills to drive things to the limit in
order to come to a decision." 156
Philosophy is thus a daily self-experience. It is lifting ourselves by the proverbial bootstrap to transcendence. 157 The
emphasis is not on thinking as content but thinking as an act,
a note that is redolent of Fichte. This decision, this innere
Handeln is not universally known but historically experienced
through a concrete participation in the historical process. 158
Such a concretion has been depicted variously by others as
libido, anxiety, preoccupation, will to power, fear of death,
tendency to death. 159
What I really am, Jaspers says in parallel with Heidegger, is
·possible experience that is detef!Ilined through my own concrete act of liberty. Man must be alone at his origin in order
to acquire power and originality. 160 He must produce himself,
as it were, if he is to be free and independent. 161 Man is neither
a vacuum nor a part God.
The so-called vicious circle in the analysis of this second stage
of the wise man's career is avoided as in the case of Heidegger.
To know and to know that I know are identified. What is
logically nonsensical is existentially real. Existence is not an
object but an origin from which objects, thought, action, come.
Thought is thus posterior to existence, privative rather than
v. 2, p. 28 If.
VE, p. 20.
, .. v. 2, p. 418.

GSZ, p. 44.

103

150

1 "'

Uf V.
158

uo v. 2, p. 12.

!t, p. 826.

110

v. 2, pp. 11-U.

111

VE, p. 84.
N, p. 182.

176

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

enriching. Existence in tum gets its steam from transcendence; 162 it is simply engaged by the individual. Without
€:iXistence,life becomes an empty formula, vacuous, abstract, a
tabula rasa.168 However, this awakening to existence cannot
come through pure thought. Rather there is a trembling in
a situation where a decision must be made ex nihilo, without
the help of counsel or even of forethought. There is no mediator between man and himself. He is truly immediate. Involved thus is a Kierkegaardian leap, a movement of self by
self in a relation that is absolute. 164 Yet existence is not to be
taken as subjectivity. It is found much more in that relation
between subjectivity and objectivity, the dynamic totality of
subject and object. 165
Existence can be clarified by the limits which hem it in. 166
1rhe notion of Grenzsituation (limit-situation) , plays a leading
role in Jaspers' thought. Situations are discovered in our first
questions about reality, since such questions arise not out of
a, vacuum but out of a pre-existing set of circumstances. In
thinking of a situation, as Kierkegaard said, I must prescind
from it. What is thought, schematized, universalized is not
this immediate, black-bodied, ontal frontier. Hence the surges
to transcend these limits are checked (Scheitem) .167 What
then is the significance of these situations? As facts, they are
realities for an interested Dasein, circumscribing its freedom. 168
1\ilotion, with its resistances, gives ample evidence of constraining as well as motive forces. Situations are imposed on us,
hut we can create new ones. All we can never do is escape them
completely.
Grenzsituaticmen in the proper sense of the term are those
which force us into struggle and suffering. They are fast, hard,
unyielding. Unprotected, we cannot help but take a stand
toward them. 169 Death is an example of such a situation. It
is as a barrier beyond which we cannot see, cannot act, cannot
v. !Z, p. IS.
18 " v. !Z, p. SS7.
181 v. S, p. 220.
VE, p. ss.
1"' v. !Z, p. 41.
188 VE, p. SO.
188 v. !i!, p. !i!OS.
188 PW, p. !Z!i!9.
Cf. Marcel's penetrating study of the Grenzaituation in Du

180

188

R..efU/1 a l'lnvocation.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

177

will. Unrepeatable and unique, it cannot be clarified from
other grounds. 170 Another Grenzsituatian, absolute and recalcitrant, is suffering. Man is not an absolute. To get away
from suffering, he must represent it as an object, a number, a
formula. But suffering is not relieved by logic. Man, not
being absolute, -cannot think his suffering out of existence.111
Suffering is the price of limitation. Guilt is a third important
Grenzsituation. Man is responsible for his finitude. He is produced from his own liberty. Through this decision taken, guilt
is born into a reality m-as unremitting as our shadow. It is
a wound 178 that cannot be healed. Nietzsche and Kierkegaard
are at one in affirming that man cannot return into a reflectionless immediacy. 174 Even not acting, even returning to this
immediacy could not be achieved without destroying the very
agent himself.
In the face of these Grenzsituatianen, the existing individual
is called on for bravery. Such bravery is the only attitude that
is without disillusionment. It is the attitude of the Jasager,
recognizing that his life depends on incompletion. Nothing
that is complete, achieved, can live. But man cannot help but
strive toward completion and death by striving itself. 175 No
other attitude is realistic. Paradoxical, this portion of Jaspers
is in phase with the Kantian antinomies.
The Grenzsituationen reveal the reality of existence as a
polarity between order and disorder in history, subject and
object in knowledge, individual and society, person and person.176 There is no worldless egQ or egoless world. Neither of
these opposite poles can describe human existence. The solution of life's antinomies will be offered in the third phase of
Jaspers' thought.
Existence is a consciousness of existence, not a knowledge of
it. Existenzerhellung is not to be discussed in the light of the
clear and distinct idea. On the contrary, existence
is not thinkable, experimentable, transferable. It is as nothnov.!!, p. !!OS.
171 v. !!, p. !!15.
... v. !!, p. 196.

178 v. !!, p. !!47.
"' VE, p. 11 .

... v. !!, p. !!!!8.
... v. !!, p. 40!!.

178

VINCENT. EDW.ARD SMITH

ing.111 It is marked much more by frustration than by success.
" I am in the world only as my situation which, in the ruins
of the knowledge of the world as a knowledge of being itself,
awakens me to myself as possible existence." 178 Jaspers, it
may be repeated, condemns the philosophy of objects. His is
an experience from within.
In searching out the backgorunds of this experience, Kant
naturally forges to the foreground. Being is its own oughtness. There is a kind of moral autonomy, good will for its own
sake. Sollen is something unconditional. 179 The autonomous
act, Handeln, by its unconditional character, is an expression
of self-consciousness, self-possession. In this deed of the individual, in that inner act by which he becomes himself/ 80 lies
the final sense of philosophy. This innere Handeln is its own
evidence, its own production, its own motion. 181 Self-becoming
is also self-giving, the giving of self to self.
of this unconditional character is the pheAn
nomenon of anxiety. All anxiety comes from anxiety over
death. The Dasein stands before the possibility of its own
nothingness. At any moment, death may come, death that
not only means to be no longer Da but no longer to be at all.182
Without this anxiety, without death, there would be no freedom. The nothing-ness of the future detaches freedom from
conditions that would limit it. Even knowledge and certitude
must be posterior to freedom. Pre-existing, they would limit
it.188
Entailed in the dialectic of will as found in Jaspers, the view
of will not as a liberum arbitrium but in terms of indivisibility
and immediacy, is the very same problem that beset the theologian Kierkegaard, the problem of belief. Belief is called the
outward expression of love.184 It is a groundless belief, the
ground of all else in the life of man. It is not posited as an
object but is much more to be depicted in terms of consciousness. It is a trust, an imperishable hope. Belief, communicav. !!, p. 885.
DP, !!5.
1 8S v. !!, p. !!65.

v. !!, p. !!66.

v. !!, p. !57.

180

181

v. !!, p. 65.
1 ,. v. !!, p. !SO.

181

18 ' V • !!, pp.

1"
178

!!78 fl.

EXISTENTIALISM·

AND EXISTENCE

179

tion, love, and the inner deed that makes one he--all of these
are not placidly possessed. They are a matter of constant
struggle where momentary success is followed by failure. The
Dasein contends undyingly in an effort to clarify itself, express
itself, reveal itself, and in that very struggle indeed lies its
final meaning, its sole attainable goal.
Existence may be amply set forth in terms of freedom. As
de Tonquedec puts it, liberty 185 is the axis about which Jaspers'
whole philosophy revolves. Only in freedom do we have the
absolute where every man is an exception. 186 Indeed, in seeking to comprehend myself through freedom, I grasp my transcendance by its recession.187 Freedom is pure movement, cut
away from all content and conditions. 188 It is immediacy, decision, activity. "I must will," Jaspers says," for willing must
be my last aim, if in the end I wish to be. In the fashion however in which I freely will can transcendence be revealed to
me." 189 Freedom discloses itself not through insight but
through action. Only a free man can understand freedom.
Even law is free since I can follow it or not.
Transcendence is the_ source of existence, and freedom is its
language. 190 __
cannot overcome its situations. But
in these situations, it gleans by a kind of via negativa a dim
suspicion of the beyond. Transcendence must be present whereever it is sought, for it is itself the power to seek and the
ing. In the cosmic orientation, being is treated as an object; in
existence, it is felt from within; transcendence, a Pyrrhic trophy,
is achieved only by defeat, failure, frustration. 191
Transcendence is real only in the present which passes before
it can be grasped. 192
stands in that no man's land between
being and nothingness. Transcendence shows possibility as the
identity of reality and necessity since it is attained by an utterly
indivisible act. Furthermore, transcending myself, I think of
freedom and nature as identified through the instant. Once
more
proves itseif to he a philosophy of KierkeOp. cit., p. 26 11'.
SO.
1 n v. i, p. 199.
1aa DP, p. 16.
185

188

188 N, p.

180
181

v. t, p. 197.
Eziatemspkiloaopkie,p. 71.
v. s, p. s.

1•• PW, p. 114..

180

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

gaardian paradoxes, if indeed it does not attempt to unite contradictory realities. The transcendent being is not only being
but also something else; the other is darkness, ground, matter,
nothingness. 192
Jaspers' final position in theodicy would be, by intention,
agnostic. The transcendent is not grasped, not revealed and
proved. God remains hidden. Transcendence is visible only
in its footprints and is here always ambigious. 198 Whether this
transcendent principle is God we do not know. Man attains to
possible " vestigia dei not God Himself in his hiddenness." 194
The ambiguities alleged by Jaspers have been elaborated into
a major section of his philosophy. Existence, in relation to
transcendence, can take an attitude of defiance or obeisance,
rebelling against the enigma of its own existence or yielding to
the incomprehensible through quietism. A second antinomy is
that of degeneration and resurrection on the part of the individual. A third is between day's law and order and the darkness, the passion of night. 195
Existence cannot deny these antinomies. They are evident
realities that it must face existentially despite all the niceties of
·logic and system. 196 Existence in fact lies precisely in the
polarity between the branches of the dilemmas, between, it
would seem, the two Bergsonian sources of morality-school
and natural growth, morality and originality, form and inspiraSuch a tension, while not
tion, convention and
self-satisfying in the sense of providing an object to grasp, is
the way in which the metaphysic of act can be realized. 198 A
full integration is impossible in time since there is no concrete
either-or on the one hand, 199 and no possibility of an essentialist
Hegelian Aufhebung on the other. So the Dasein swings between opposites which, even when they are negative like
defiance, degeneration, and suffering, presuppose the transcendent without which all would be indifferent. 200 Thus pinned
by the tight dilemmas of existence, the " concrete situation
requires action, it becomes deepened through the experience
188
18 •

v. s, p. 67.
VE, p. 110.

185
186

v. S, p. 69.
PW, p. 286.

187
198

Ibid., p. 240.
v. s, p. 71.

198
200

v. s, p. 81.
PW, p. 240.

EXISTENTIALISM

181

AND EXISTENCE

of the antinomic in the development of man." 201 What is
genuinely required is a will to unity, a daring, a process without rules and without possessiveness, a refusal to vanish into
either horn of the dilemma and the discovery of the transcendent by oscillating between both. Thus it can be said
that in momentary flashes, while the lights of the world are
turning on and off between the positive and negative terms
of a polar relationship, God is manifest. But this transcendence,
it should be repeated, is not grasped by thought. It is not
repeatable like an experiment. It is a reference point to which
I am either moving or receding with never the final assurance
of a concept. 202 The polarity of the antinomies is but another
way of translating anxiety.
Transcendence is disclosed to man when he reads its ciphers.
Incapable of capture in the narrow-mindedness of a concept,
transcendenc;e requires openness, a straining toward the possible, a recognition that the ultimate cannot be measured by
possessiveness but is more to be signaled by despair, destruction, the passions of darkness, renunciations, and the like. 203
All beings are ciphers of transcendence. This is not a formal
relation in which one being is found behind the other. In
reality, Jaspers would hold, it is a logical impossibility to think
something as one without thinking of other-ness, a proof that
concepts fall far short of the absolute. When I think of the
one, I cannot but think of the other, and there can be no
thought of the other without reference to the one. Transcendence is detected in the passage from the one to the other.
A cipher is a metaphysical object. This is not the transcendent but rather its language. It may be best described not
as an object but as a manner. 204 In reality, there are three such
languages, each of which is a cipher-bearer in its own right.
First, there is the immediate experience of transcendence. What
is immediate is not expressible, metaphysically provable; there
would have to be something better known from which it could
be deduced. Secondly, there is the universal language of communication. In images and thoughts aimed at reaching others,
201

v. 3, p. 83.

••• PW, p.

••• VE, p. 94.

••• v. 3, p.

182

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

I experience transcendence-a fact in statu viae. Finally, there
is the speculative language. This bears on the possible rather
than the realized. It involves memory and prediction. 205
Bergson marshalled such activities in support of his theory of
the vital elan. All three cipher languages bring transcendence
into the world without making it an object, without making
existence a subject distinct from it. 206 To read the ciphers cannot be planned, methodical, principled. There is nothing more
immediate than immediacy. Cipher-reading is unwilled spontaneous. It is a gratuity.
But to speak of the enciphered language and its deciphering
by man may be misleading. It is not a language where symbol
and symbolized can be segregated. There are no signs, metaphors, comparisons, models, distinct from the signata. Because of this strange alphabet in which it is translated, transcendence is always a-conceptual. The ciphers are thus ambiguous since there is no standard by which to judge them. Yet
they are the sole expressions of meaning, and the philosopher,
on the trail of this meaning, cannot help but remain on a
pendulum that arcs between opposites. Understanding everything, we understand nothing. Once more, Jaspers has descended below the level of the intellect. The ciphers are grasped
more by freedom than by thought. I persuade myself that I
am what I am because I so will it. Yet I receive everything
that I choose.207 Thought is at
service of freedom rather
than its guide.
There is nothing that cannot be a cipher. Everything has
an indeterminacy and yet, somehow, an expressiveness. What
is said is always said questionably, ambiguously. Like Plato's
shadow-world, what we grasp on earth is almost an occasion.
Transcendence, to labor the obvious, transcends it. Concepts
thus hold man aloof from reality. They are intervening experiences, fixed symbols that attempt to reduce a dynamic
universe. 208 Reality is not to be found by seeking what is

••a v. 8, p. 129.

••• v. 8, p. 155.

••• v. 8, p. 187.

••• v. 8, p. 175•

EXISTENTIALISM

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188

distant but in the here and now, in loyalty to one's self, one's
work, in a readiness toward the present. 209
Man's fate in the universe of Jaspers may already be suspected. It is failure, defeat, Sckeitern. Jaspers' affinity to
Nietzsche, already apparent on preceding issues, is now fully
forged. Striving against insuperable odds, man cannot help
but be completely checked. In Jaspers' thought, as in Nietzsche's, the hero is the man who fails genuinely. Such a failure
is not one where the individual disappears, absorbed into the
bosom of a logical system. Genuine failure is a plunge into
darkness. 210 The antinomies are not two ways between which
I choose. They are occasions for a leap.
Thus what is ultimate is failure. 211 This comes about in the
W eltorientierung, as it was already noted. Man fails in the
clarification of his existence, for " where I am properly myself,
I am not only myself." 212 Man cannot be himself alone.
Courage is required for a man more than truth. Failure is
not the excuse to cease failing. It challenges man to confront
it. It can be said that in itself nothing fails but that I simply
let failure take place in me through the manner in which I
recognize the failure and face it. 218 Once more greatness is
found to consist not in the possession of an object but in a mode
of bearing.
Only in the inevitable check do we discover ourselves, the
world, reality. "He who really sees what is appears compelled
to gaze into the stark darkness of nothingness." 214 For what
is transcendent is closed off to a creature who is essentially
limited and, at his highest, indivisibly himself through freedom.

v. SARTRE
Jean Paul Sartre is closely related to Heidegger. Applying
the analytic of Cartesian ·rationalism to the problem of existence, Sartre starts from the direction of psychology to work
out an original existentialism that springs from the clash bev. 8, p. 175.
... v. 8, p. 110.

" 01

111
112

v. 8, p. 2!i!O.
v. 8, p. 220.

Ill

v. 8, p. 200.

... v. 8, p. 228.

184

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

tween being and nothingness more than from the apparent
antinomies of time. He has driven Heidegger to his logical
conclusions, super-imposing on the dialectic of his German
master, his own personal intuition of being as "haunted"
rather contrasted by nothingness. The Sartre prototype of
man is not only anguished; he is nauseated. 215
Being cannot be disclosed by its appearances, according to
Sartre, for the appearances themselves are beings. Etre est un
paraitre. An aspect of an object is itself an object. There can
be no metaphysics of experience since metaphysics itself is an
experience, thus begging the question. How then is a plenum
to be averted? How can questions be asked? The answer is
to be found, according to Sartre, in the non-being.
Suppose that I have a rendez-vous with Pierre in a cafe but
that Pierre does not appear as scheduled. I search for him,
looking at every table, every chair, every person. In such a
perception, there is, against the foreground of what I see, the
background of an absence. The cafe is organized on a backdrop of nothingness, annihilation (une neantisation). Pierre's
absence is also a form against this negatively organized perspective, a seqond nullity in the experience. It is these negativities, to transliterate Sartre, which serve as the basis for the
judgment, " Pierre is not here." Thus, Sartre says, it is not
·the judgment of negation which inserts the non-being into
things. It is the non-being which serves as the basis for the
judgment of negation. 216 " The condition necessary that it be
possible to say no is that the non-being be a perpetual presence,
in us and outside of us; nothingness haunts being." 217 If my
carburetor stops functioning, I think immediately that there is
something wrong-a negation-in the carburetor. There is
thus a pre-judicative grasp of the non-being.
By a phenomenological examination of distance, destruction,
cyclones, pillagings, other-ness, repulsion, regret, distraction, it
21 " This is the significance of the title of Sartre's novel, La Nausee, Paris, 1938.
For a good critique of Sartre, cf. Marcel's essay in his Homo Viator, Paris, 1944.
216 L'Etre et le Neant, hereinafter cited as EN, pp. 44 ff.
017 EN, pp. 46-47.
Despite Sartre's intention, later developments will show that
the expressions " non-being " and " annihilation " must be taken literally.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

185

can likewise be shown, Sartre says, that at the very heart of
reality, as the necessary condition for its appearance and being,
the naught is experienced. 218 In like fashion, man emerges
out of nothingness. Posing being, he must transcend it, and
the only thing outside of being that can so transcend is what
is not being. Since man experiences himself as not being pure
and simple existence, since he is not the being of the world
which he discovers around him, the no is spun through the
very web of what he is. 219
In a more technical and somewhat Hegelian terminology,
Sartre calls the human reality being-for-itself, le pour-soi. This
is contrasted with being-in-itself, l' en-soi. The pour-soi is the
en-soi, negated, the en-soi into which an alien element has been
introduced, that of consciousness. The en-soi is a plenum, filled
with itself. In speaking of this en-soi, the following propositions can be enunciated: a) being is; b) being is in-itself; and
c) being is what it is. 220 The en-soi is an undifferentiated, prereflexive state. It is in seeking to ground itself that the en-soi
gives place to the pour-soi. 221 But the pour-soi is distinguished
by its nothing-ness since it lies outside of that which is. Consciousness, reflection, self-possession are thus defects in being
rather than its perfections. Consciousness implies a certain
distance from the object; 222 far from self-presence, it is marked
more by absence. Mathieu, the chief character in Sartre's
trilogy," always felt as though he were somewhere else, that he
was not yet wholly born." 223 That is why, for Sartre, there
can be no God. In order that a self exist, the original unity,
ineffable and simply existing, must be ruptured, ruptured
indeed by nothingness. The pour-soi can exist only in so far
Ibid., pp. 57 ff.
Ibid., p. 54.
220 Ibid., pp. 30 ff.
221 It is through man, however, that nothingness comes into the world, as Sartre
has said in the citation of n. 219. But man originates form the en-soi, as Troisfontaines says, and hence this en-soi must likewise bear the nothing in its being.
The en-soi thus acts like the pour-soi, a gross contradiction in Sartre's logic.
Troisfontaines, R., Le Choix de J. P. Sartre, Paris, 1945, p. 39.
222 EN, pp. 106-107.
223 The Age of Reason, New York, 1947, p. 64.
218
219

186

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

as it does not coincide with itself. Did it so coincide, it would
be the enrsoi, unconscious and involuntary. 224 Man· is an
annihilation. The poo,r-soiis a being that is not what it is and
is what it is not. 225 It is an incongruity with oneself, a contradiction, an absurdity in the heart of things.
The enrsoi is opaque, unintelligible. It is what it is, and
since intelligibility would be added to it, the addition could
only be nothing. It is neither an appearance nor a reality in
the conventional post-Kantian meaning of these terms. It is
simply massive. 226 Its density is infinite. 227 It has no laws, no
secrets, no meaning, no reason for existence. The pour-soi is a
" hole in being," a fall, a perpetual degradation. 228 Only a _being
which is lacking in being can be intelligible; only a being which
is lacking in being can be intelligent.
Consciousness is a" decompression" of the density. 229 Reminiscent of Heidegger, Sartre defines a conscious being as one
" for which there is in its being a question of its being in so
far as this being implies a being other than itself." 230 It is in
taking consciousness of ourselves that we elongate ourselves
from what we are. In Sartre's view, this consciousness is twofold, pre-reflexive and reflexive. Scholastics make such a distinction in speaking of concomitant and reflex consciousness
but accord a valid status to reflection. The pre-reflexive cogito
the identity of self with self immediated by knowledge. It
is the condition for reflection, for the Cartesian oogito. Sartre
would prefer to write not consciousness of self but consciousness-self, or, as he also expresses it in the wake of Husser!,
consciousness (of) self. The "of" implies duality. In the
pristine pre-reflexive state it is not there. He argues to this
identity from psychology. The consciousness of pleasure is
indistinguishable from the pleasure itself, he says. Similarly,
when I have an eye-ache, the only evidence for saying this is
the eye-ache itself.231 There is no standard outside of achiness
and outside of the eye that makes the eye-ache conscious,
meaningful, identifiable. It is this pre-reflexive consciousness
••• EN, p. 121.
••• Ibid., p. 108.

••• Ibid., p. SS.
••• Ibid., p. 116.

SIS Ibid., p. Iii.
••• Ibid., p. 116.

••• Ibid., p. 29.
••• Ibid., p. 298.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

187

that holds the secret to whatever there is to the human reality.
It defines the being of consciousness. It reveals a modality of
being. If we would ever understand ourselves, it is to this fact
that we must come. But we cannot come to this fact with
understanding. Understanding implies the wedge of nothingness and cannot render that perfect coincidence of self with
self, since it cannot enter into this unity without disrupting it.
Thus Sartre can say, I am forgotten; I see only the empty and
the naught. 232
On this same point, Sartre renders his meaning otherwise by
employing an Hegelian terminology. Pre-reflexive consciousness is, he says, nonthetic, non-positional. Only what is posed,
past, a thesis, can we understand. W esen ist was gewesen ist,
Hegel declared. Reflection is thetic, positional. It grasps what
no longer is and hence feeds on what is not. Alain was right,
Sartre finds, "to know is to have consciousness of knowing";
" to know is to know that one knows." But a foreign body has
been introduced. What originally is known is withdrawn behind
the curtain of the second knowing, reflection, reflex consciousness. Thus a Sartre character muses that " it must seem strange
to him to feel behind him an unknown act which he has already
almost ceased to understand and which will turn his life upside
down. All I do, I do for nothing." 233 Being is not reached
across a vacuum. True knowledge is impossible. Reflexive
consciousness falsifies. Reflexive consciousness must be consciousness of what lies outside of being, a consciousness of nothing.234 It is this consciousness which constitutes the ipseity, a
degree of negation more advanced than the negation involved
in pre-reflexive consciousness. 235
Sartre is thus led to his curious thesis that existence precedes
essence. Man exists first and ineffably. It is only afterwards,
by knowledge and action that he defines his essence, indeed
that he acquires an essence. The object-world, known when it
is known at all as tools which man uses for ends, is rendered
intelligible through these goals, just as Heidegger related
••• La Nausee, p.
••• The Age of Reason, p. 395.

••• EN, p. 558.
""EN, p. 148.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Zuhandenheit and V orhandenheit. Where the object of an
action, the end of an agent, are in play, essence has priority.
But man knows himself in terms of subjectivity. He begins
with the sum of Descartes' first principle, moving to an essence
by the cogito.286 Thus, Sartre writes:
This simply means that man is first and that only afterwards he
is this or that. In short, man must create his own essence; it is
by throwing himself into the world, by suffering and fighting in it
that little by little he defines himself. And the definition always
remains open; one cannot say what this man is before he has died,
or what mankind is before it has disappeared. 327
Knowledge always implies a presence, the presence of nothing. Presence always implies an absence. What is present to
me is D;Ot myself but what is other. 238 Reversing the traditional
maxim, Sartre writes that we are not what we know. 239 Knowledge implies rather the nothingness, and complete knowledge
can only be had by complete annihilation. The parenthesizing
of the world proposed by Husserl is impossible, for the world,
to be known, must be related to a real consciousness. True
fictions are incapable o£ existence. " Knowledge is nothing but
the presence of being to the pour-sui, and the pour-soi is the
nothingness which realizes this presence."
Knowledge is
always "ek-static" in the original sense of the word. It lies
outside of being. The pour-soi is likewise " ek-static." It exists
out of, by virtue of, the nothingness. Sartre speaks of " the
inappreciable distance that reveals things to me and sets me
apart from them forever. I am nothing. I possess nothing." 241
Reflection can be described in terms o£ a check. The poursoi, it was said, attempts to ground itself. But in attempting
to dominate itself, it becomes more and more self-consciousness.
The pour-soi wishes, while remaining the pour-soi, conscious
••• L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme, Paris, 1946, hereinafter cited as EH,
pp. 17fi.
237 " What is Existentialism?"
in Foreground I (1946), p. 119.
••• EN, p.
••• Ibid.,
••o Ibid., p.
"' 1 The Reprieve, New York, 1947, p. 868.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

189

and self-possessed, to return to the en-soi, dense and massive.
The result is to try to make an intelligible object present to an
intelligent being, a relation that is not the return to the en-soi
but the presence o£ the pour-soi to the pour-soi. Deeper reflection only deepens the internal negation by which the human
reality is constituted.
" The being which wishes to ground
itself in being is nothing else but the very foundation o£ its
own nothingness. The ensemble thus remains the en-soi
annihilated." 242 Reflection, knowledge implies the separation
o£ the subject £rom the object rather than their identification.
Knowledge not only implies that coincidence between subject
and object which would be unconscious and impossible in practice. In addition, there must be the assumption o£ a viewpoint
by the knower, thus closing him off £rom seeing the object
wholly and as it is.243
It can readily be seen that, as in the case o£ the other existentialists, the critical problem does not arise in Sartre's dialectic. This is the sense o£ his book, £'Imagination. How can we
distinguish sensations £rom images without a prior judgment
transcending both subjectivity and objectivity, assigning to
each its proper place? 244 Holding it meaningless to speak o£
things before they act on consciousness, he rejects realism.
Idealism is likewise rejected because pure subjectivity cannot
pose an object which transcends itself. The coincidence of
knower and known demanded in existentialism does not allow
the consideration o£ subject; without object or object without
subject. Man is a monotone. The projected symphony o£ his
life never gets beyond the initial tuning note o£ the violin.
Indeed, the string snaps, reducing man to a negation.
In the hopeless insularity o£ a being that is simply there,
simply £or its thereness, haunted and hounded by the non-being
wherever it turns, which leads Sartre to his doctrine that man
is the victim o£ bad faith. Consciousness is not what it is; it is
what it is not; far £rom becoming other things, as true knowledge implies, consciousness can never even become itself. It
••• EN, p. 200.
••• EN, p. 208 .
... L'lmagination, pp. 98, 101, 128, 148 ff., 162.

4

190

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

seeks what Sartre, following Heidegger calls facticity and seeks
also transcendence: facticity because it would like to be itself,
a fact alone; transcendence because it would like to know itself,
know its facticity. But the juncture of these two poles is forever unattainable. Facticity cannot be and be known without
altering its being. Transcendence cannot know facticity, it
transcends it. 245 "A unique, unmatchable lightning-flash would
light up the bridge and the Seine." 246
Sincerity itself is a case of bad faith. A sincere person
would be what he is, but he wants to be so with consciousness
and deliberation. Any virtue of this order implies, after all,
the will. But conscious, the sincere person loses his sincerity.
With knowledge superadded to what he is, he cannot coincide
with himsel£.247 "Thus, the essential structure of sincerity does
not differ from that of bad faith, since the sincere person sets
himself up as that which he is in order not to be it." 248 We
know that we believe. Hence believing is not believing. Pure
belief is impossible. 249 We wish to reconstitute ourselves in our
original indifferentiation, but doing this consciously, we only
differentiate ourselves the more. It is a play of mirrors. Man
is conscious of his natural failure to attain his ends. 250
Our attitude toward others likewise distills the utter failure
that is man. Love is a contradiction, because it would set up
two absolutes, as a mutual love, and then ask these absolutes
to be relational, relative. Hatred of others likewise fails because it can never destroy its object. It has existed. Sadism
and masochism run headlong into an impasse because they
would make objects and instruments out of liberties, subjects,
the pour-soi. The pour-soi cannot be attained as pour-soi
through considering it as a facticity. Desire is impossible of
fulfillment also because we cannot possess another consciousness. " In fact we could be able to take a consistent attitude
toward others only if they were simultaneously revealed as subject and object, as transcendence-transcending and transcendence-transcended, what is in principle impossible." 251
••• EN, p. 95.
••• The Reprieve, p. 364.
""EN, p. 103.
us Ibid., p. 105.

••• Ibid., p. 110.
••• Ibid., pp. 106-107.
""'Ibid., p. 479.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

191

The discerning reader will want to know how the existence
and nature of others can be posited in Sartre, and it is this that
is one of the more salient points on which he differs from
Heidegger. His theory has practical moment in view of the
fact that he has attempted to make a humanism out of his
existentialism, 252 to tum his thought into a philosophy for democracy because it renders men equal, undifferentiated in existence, and secrets unto themselves/ 58 and has engaged in
contraversy with Marxism/ 54 after once allegedly belonging to
the Communist party. 255
In regard to knowledge of others, Sartre finds that the realistic position is inclined to solipsism. Realism, it is said, holds
that experience is a mediator between ourselves and others.
We note certain attributes in organized form, positing an organizing center behind them. We think of a centricity radically
different from our own, an ego which is not the ego. A subject
is thought in the manner of an object. But what entitles us to
place that center of organization behind the appearances? 256
Sartre rejects Husserl's solution of this problem by reducing
it to Kantianism. Pure consciousness cannot know an ego
which is radically other, for in the very knowing it would detach
itself from pure consciousness, projecting it outward toward
others. Hegel, Sartre finds, likewise offers a specious answer
to the question. Others are known before we know ourselves,
according to Hegelianism. It is others, their opposition to us,
that make the cogito possible. But this solution likewise runs
aground. It is idealistic, too universal. The problem must be
posed in time and must depart from my own being, the being
that must do the recognizing. Heidegger speaks of Mit-sein.
Others involve not an opposition but a team. Why this is so,
Heidegger does not say, making his answer gratuitous, according to Sartre. To speak of " being-with " as a structure of the
••• EH (passim) .
••• Reflexions sur la Question Juive, Paris, 1946, pp. 75 fi., 116 fi.
••• EH, p. 10, pp. 104 ff. " What is Existentialism?" art. cit.., pp. 119 fi.
""" True, op. cit., p. 44.
••• EN, pp. 276 fi.

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VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Dasein is to smack of Kant and to pass over the concrete,
psychological dimensions of the problem. 257
In place of all these solutions, Sartre proposes that we recognize others from the sentiment of being seen. It is the look of
others that awakens us to their reality. "In a word, that to
which my apprehension of another as being probably a man
refers is my permanent possibility of being-seen-by-him, that is
to the permanent possibility for a subject who sees me to be
substituted for an object seen by me. ' The being-seen-byanother' is the truth of 'seeing another.'" 258 Another is not
seized as a mode of knowledge but as a mode of being. 259 In
Sartre's example, let us suppose that a man peeping into a
keyhole is caught in the act by someone else. He cannot define
himself alone as looking into the keyhole because he escapes
himself as the victim of bad faith. He is not what he is; he is
what he is not. But in the sentiment of being detected there is
identified the existence of others who detect. A typical senti·
ment in this context is shame. Shame is the most revelatory
emotion with respect to social values. It is shame that makes
the keyhole-peeper not simply to know but to live the situation of being seen. " I feel you there in every pore. Your
silence clamors in my ears." 260 Shame establishes my objectivity for others. It is the mediator between one self and
another and also the revelation to myself of my own real being
which appears. 261 The keyhole peeper recognizes his character
of facticity, en-soiness, posture. By his shame, fear, rage, pride
he assures himself of his own reality and the reality of the
other who sees him. 262
The look of another makes man spatializing-spatialized and
temporalizing-temporalized.
He sees himself as an object,
while reaching as it were to the subjectivity of others. In the
phenomenon of being-seen, the other is not an object. To
objectify him is a kind of defense-action which frees man from
the status of being simply for someone else and makes the other
Ibid., p.
Ibid., p. 316.
259 Ibid., p. 319.
257
258

No Exit and the Flies, p.
Ibid., pp. 319 ff.
262 Ibid., p.
260

261

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

193

a quasi-object, another pour-soi existing. The presence of
others is thus not simply a projection by an idealist, a deduction from dead objectivity that there is a consciousness other
than mine. "It is, and I cannot derive it from myself." 263
The discovery of otherness is the third in a series of ecstasies.
The first is the break in being in which the en-soi becomes the
pour-soi. The second is reflex consciousness which is consciousness of the first consciousness, a futile effort to recover and
reconquer reality in its massive depths. The third ecstasy is
in being for others, a fissure in time and space. A 'recognition
of an ego which is not myself, is an internal negation which
further annihilates the pour-soi. Our first thought is to resorb
this being who has discovered our secret to recover our absoluteness in a Feuerbachian "Horrw h(YTJ1,ini Deus." But bad
faith intervenes, it was seen; love and hate and all of their
secondary manifestations only fail man when he seeks their aid.
Time is a modality of the pour-soi. As in Heidegger, the
human reality is before itself in the world, helpless and abandoned. Temporality is a mode of this being who is thus outside of himself, at a distance from himself, a creature that exists
through its nothingness. 264 The annihilations involved in temporalization can be rendered more precise: First, the being of
the pour-soi is discovered as being behind it; it existence
precedes its essence; its being is discovered as abandoned.
Secondly, it recognizes itself as a defect in being, a lack that
is the source of its own lack, and in the concept of lack there
is a reference that makes necessary the future. Finally, the
pour-soi is a perpetual escape from itself, a perpetual flight, the
present that is always vanishing. 265 What had no duration
would be merely a datum. What endures has an internal
negation that is its very nature.
Jieidegger emphasized the future. He remonstrates that
man is his own projection. Sartre believes that this emphasis
is a mistake and that the secret to time lies in the present. It
is in the present that the annihilation of self takes place; it is
here where the pour-soi is constituted and hence where the
••• Ibid., p. 821.

••• Ibid., p. ISO.

085

Ibid., pp. ISS.

194

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

answer to the problem of time must be, if not found, at least
sought. 266 The .
is what it is not, is not what it is,
finds itself in perpetual motion between the moments of
But what, to return to Kierkegaard, is the meaning
of " between-ness? "
The present is unintelligible. Ineffable, it has nothing outside of it in terms of which it can be rendered. " There shall
be no next time." 268 The present is, and that is all. The past
is always with us. It is the essence that our actions have looted
for us. It acquires its sense from the way in which it is
oriented. 269 The future is not yet experienced. It can only
be represented by thought, generality, and abstraction rather
than as my future. 270 Alone it makes no sense.
The place of liberty in Sartre's thought could already be
definitely settled. We not only have freedom; we are it. 271 It
precedes the essence and makes it possible. " Outside the world,
outside the past, outside myself: freedom is exile, and I am
condemned to be free." 2 u Man makes himself to be what he
is by his liberty. Cut off from counsel and command, he cannot but be autonomous. 278 He does not exist first and have
freedom afterwards. " First " and " after " are terms created
by freedom itself. 274 His first act is spontaneous, gratuitous;
" ... it -is the absolute, as a result perfect gratuity." 276 What
liberty really is is the naught at the core of being which forces
man to make himself what he is. To be is to choose to be.
Because of the spontaneous character of the free act which
urges man's thought into action and thus determines the
answer that thought will reach, liberty becomes the source of
all values. 276 Values like liberty are thus radically contingent,
unjustifiable. Man is a " nobody from nowhere in particu••• Ibid., p. 188.
Ibid., p. ISS.

187

sao EH, p. !lS.

••• No Exit and the Flies, p. 110.
.. 0 EN, p. 169.
sn EH, pp. 87, 82. Cf. Marcel, G., "M. Sartre's Conception of Liberty," in
Thought, XXII (1947), pp. 15-18 .
... The Reprieve, p. 868.
,.. La Naus6e, p. 167 .
... EH, pp. 89 ff.
178 EN, p. 76.
, .. EN, p. 566.

EXISTENTIALISM

AND EXISTENCE

195

lar." 277 Existence must arise brusquely, ex nihilo, or it is
nothing at all. 218
The supreme value that man actually seeks is to be an en-soi
while remaining a pour-soi. To have everything and yet, while
being conscious in addition to this universal possession, to have
nothing. 219 Value is beyond being; it is con-substantial to the
pour-soi and is thus as gratuitous as man himself. 280 It is a
source of no amazement to find Sartre concluding that man is
unjustifiable. There is nothing from which he is founded and
derived. He is superfluous because he is outside of being. In
truth, he is a" malady of being."
Yet man is also responsible, responsible for himself and for
the world. For he not only makes himself. With his own
emergence from nothing, the world and other men likewise
come into existence. 281 Never for a moment can this responsibility cease. It is involved in every thought, deed, word since
the world is the condition for their existence. Not to act is
also to act. It is as though man were forced inescapably into
action from his abandonment, and yet he is free. Even suicide
is a mode of being in the world. 282
Death is the end of man. For Heidegger, where death is a
possibility structured into the Dasein itself, authentic existence
decides to die and projects itself deathward. For the Dasein is
nothing but pro-jection. Death, because it terminates, provides meaning to the life of a person. When a continued story
is still going on, we do not know its ultimate turn. But Sartre
finds that Heidegger uses death to individuate the Dasein and
then uses the Dasein to individuate death. Both are ·unrepeatable, requiring the self to perform since no one can live
for us or die for us.
,
But death is not one of our anticipations, Sartre holds. It is
the result of any one of the infinite and hence unknowable factors operating around us. Chance decides the character of our
death, the terminus of life; in so deciding, it decides the mean•n The Reprieve, p. 444.
La Nauaee, p. 168.
... Ibid., 528.
118

••• Ibid., p. 186.
181 Ibid., p. 689.

"""Ibid., p. 641.

196

VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

ing of our life as well, the last installment of the story. Death
is not my possibility but a possibility. It has nothing to do
with pro-ject but rather emphasizes, as the sense-bestowing
final score of life, that I am powerless to give my life a meaning
since I do not invest it with its end. "That's what existence
means: draining one's own self dry without a sense of thirst." 288
Death should neither be sought nor taken lightly. In either
attitude, it will come when it will. It is random like existence,
liberty, and value 284 which it terminates.
VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Catholic University of America,
W askington, D. C.

(To be ooocluded)

""" The Age of Reason, pp. 60-61.

'"'EN, pp. 616 ff.

THE BASES OF THE INTERNATIONAL
MILITARY TRIBUNAL'S AUTHORITY

T

HE judgment of the twenty-two defendants at Nuremberg by an international tribunal definitely marks a
milestone in the history of international law. The importance of the trial arises from the fact that it established
several juridical precedents which have occasioned as many
controversies among jurists and moralists concerning their
legality and morality. The conviction of the majority of the
defendants on the evidence of captured recordings, films, and
documents leaves no doubt that the Germans were guilty of
atrocious war crimes. Doubts have arisen, however, as to
whether or not an international tribunal had the right to try
and to sentence the statesmen, generals, and economic leaders of
the German nation. Grave questions have been raised regarding
the origin of the tribunal's right. Where did the International
Military Tribunal get its authority? Under what law were the
defendants punished? Was the law created by the tribunal's
charter or did it exist prior to its institution? I£ the charter was
merely declaratory of existing law, what is the nature and
binding force of that law?
The importance of the problem is gleaned from the many
repetitions which have been made in defense of the trial and
the many attacks leveled against it by members of the legal
profession. Defenders of the tribunal's charter maintain that
the solemn agreements and pacts made since World War I
reestablished principles of international law which had been
forsaken by the jurists of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. This fact was indicated by the Allies, they maintain,
in the numerous declarations that were issued periodically
throughout the war in which they manifested their intention
of punishing those persons who were responsible for the com-

197

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JOHN P. KENNY

mission of war crimes. Opponents of the charter claim that it
represents an abandonment of existing international law and
the rejection of a universally recognized principle of modern
crimmallaw, namely, that there can be no punishment without
a law that already existed when the act was committed. The
defense attorneys' motion to dismiss the indictment, made on
the opening day of the trial stressed this point. The defense
contended that count two of the indictment, the crime of
planning and initiating wars of aggression, had " no legal basis
in international law but is a procedure based on a new penal
law; a penal law created only after the act." 1
Many American jurists have expressed themselves as being
of the same opinion. On the .other hand, there are some whose
opposition is based on the fact that an international criminal
law has never existed. The following statement was made by
Frederic R. Coudert, president of the American Society of
International Law, two months before the promulgation of the
International Military Tribunal's Charter:
Endless discussion of a learned, subtle and rather Byzantine character has been carried on by those interested in international law
as to what law or laws could be applied to such crimes. On this
subject there has been little general agreement, as there is no recognized general international criminal law. International law deals
with the relations between nations and has little direct relationship
to individuals. Nations have, however, through usage and convention, recognized some general rules applicable to warfare as it
is supposed to be waged among civilized people. The United
States has such a code. . . . There are also the rules agreed upon
in The Hague Convention, but these, if applicable, do not meet
many of the worst atrocities. 2

Thus even among the members of the legal profession there is
found a diversity of opinion regarding the legality of prosecuting individuals before an international tribunal for the commission of war crimes. Briefly, these opinions concerning the
1 " Text of the Defense Motion to Dismiss the Indictment
against the German
War Criminals," New York Times, November 22, 1945, p. 8.
a Frederic R. Coudert, "Letters to the Editor," New York Times, June 8, 1945,
Sec. IV, p. 8.

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199

tribunal's authority can be summarized as follows: (a) the
charter reestablished principles of international law; (b) the
charter abandoned fundamental principles of international law;
(c) the charter established its own penal law since international
criminal law did not exist.
The solution to this problem cannot be given with a simple
affirmative or negative response. Certain distinctions must be
made. Before attempting to evaluate the legality of the Nuremberg Trial, however, three prerequisites are necessary. First, an
examination of the statements of those associated with the
International Military Tribunal must be made in order to
ascertain what, in their estimation, are the bases of the tribunal's authority. Second, contemporary theory and practice
of state sovereignty must be presented in order to determine
whether or not the above-mentioned bases are consonant with
the principles of modern political philosophy. This will also
entail a brief presentation of the historical background of the
doctrine of sovereignty. Finally, the principles of solution must
be established so that the International Military Tribunal may
be accurately evaluated. The subject matter of the present
study is concerned only with the first point, namely, a statement of the tribunal's bases by those who assisted in the
formulation of the charter.
The Charter of the International Military Tribunal. Many
of the subsequent statements regarding the tribunal's authority
refer to the charter of the International Military Tribunal as
the source of jurisdiction. This charter was annexed to the
agreement which was signed by the representatives of the four
allied nations on August 8, 1945 and which formally established
the International Military Tribunal. The extent of the tribunal's jurisdiction as laid down in Article 6 of the charter is as
follows: " The Tribunal established by the agreement referred
to in article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major
war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power
to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the
European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members

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JOHN P. KENNY

of organizations, committed any of the following crimes." 3 The
charter then enumerates a threefold classification of crimes as
being within the jurisdiction of the tribunal: (a) the crime of
waging a war of aggression that is" in violation of international
treaties, agreements, or assurances"; (b) crimes that are" violations of the laws or customs of war"; (c) crimes against
humanity, such as religious, racial, or political persecutions. 4
Thus the International Military Tribunal was empowered to
try the major war criminals in virtue of its Charter which, in
turn, emanated from the agreement drawn-up by the four
major Allied powers "acting in the interests of all the United
Nations." 5
Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel. The numerous
statements of Justice Jackson reveal several significant pronouncements regarding his conception of the bases of the International Military Tribunal. Shortly before his appointment to
the office of Chief of Counsel, Justice Jackson delivered an
address before the American Society of International Law in
which he stated:
I have no purpose to enter into any controversy as to what shall
be done with war criminals, either high or humble. If it is considered good policy for the future peace of the world, if it is believed th!lt the example will outweigh the tendency to create among
their own countrymen a myth of martyrdom, then let them be
executed. But in that case let the decision to execute them be
made as a military or political decision. We must not use the
forms of juridical proceedings to carry out or rationalize previously
settled political or military policy. 6

Thus, Jackson was of the opinion that the Allies, as victors,
possessed the right to execute the Nuremberg defendants without juridical proceedings provided, however, that it be made
as a military or political decision. He reiterated this opinion in
8 " Charter of the International
Military Tribunal," Trial of War Criminala
(U. S. Government Printing Office, Wash., D. C.), p. 16.
•Ibid.
• Ibid., p. 14.
•" The Rule of Law Among Nations," American Bar Association Journal, XXXI.
!W!l, June, 1945.

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201

the first report to President Truman in which he declared that
" we could execute or otherwise punish them without a hearing." 7 But such a decision, made without a trial, he warned,
"would violate pledges repeatedly given, and would not set
easily on the American conscience or be remembered by our
children with pride." 8 He concluded that the only alternative
" is to determine the innocence or guilt of the accused after a
hearing as dispassionate as the times and the horrors we deal
with will permit, and upon a record that will leave our reasons
and motives clear." 9
What law would justify an international trial of war criminals?
The answer, according to Justice Jackson, was international law.
Speaking on the origin of international law before the French
Bar Association, he stated:
There is something fundamental about the basic relations between
legal right and wrong which changing governments-save for the
ruthless experimentation of the Third Reich-do not try to change
and cannot change any more than they can change time or tide.
I believe that in international affairs as in domestic affairs, we
can from time to time discover these basic relationships which
must be respected if we are to have an international order of peace
and justice.10
He expressed the belief that the gradual incorporation of the
"basic relationships" into an international common law "will
provide means of settling grievances and will reach and punish
crimes against peace." 11 Moreover, in his opinion, the International Military Tribunal contributed toward this goal by the
establishment of precedents in the field of international law.
In Jackson's conception of international law, more than
abstract and immutable principles are included. Treaties and
agreements between nations together with universally accepted
customs also contribute to its development. Pacts among the
Report of Robert H. Jackson to the President," The Nurnberg Case, p. 8.
Ibid.
• Ibid.
10 " The Trial o£ War Criminals," American Bar Association Journal, XXXTI,
820, June 1946.
11 Ibid., p. 821.
7 "

8

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JOHN P. KENNY

various governments of the world bring about revisions and
innovations in international law. Thus, by adapting its fundamental principles to present circumstances, the law of nations
grows. Justice Jackson stated that: "Unless we are prepared
to abandon every principle of growth for International Law,
we cannot deny that our own day has its right to institute
customs and to conclude agreements that will themselves become sources of a newer and strengthened International Law." 12
Jackson and those associated with him in the framing of the
charter proceeded on the assumption that certain treaties and
agreements, to which Germany was a signatory, did actually
change the status of international law. It was maintained that
these pacts (at least implicitly) empowered the society of
nations to punish those of its members that menace international peace. Jackson declared that any attack "on the
foundations of international relations cannot be regarded as
anything less than a crime against the international community,
which may properly vindicate the integrity of its fundamental
compacts by punishing aggressors." 18
If, as Justice Jackson maintained, crimes against the international community were subject to punishment by international law, what was his norm of criminality? This question
was discussed at length in his first report to President Truman.
He stated that, in general, " those things which fundamentally
outraged the conscience of the American people " were criminal
acts. 14 In explanation of this general rule, he declared that
these " acts which offended the conscience of our people were
criminal by standards generally accepted in all civilized countries." 15 Moreover, these atrocities were" offenses against that
International Law described in the Fourth Hague Convention
of 1907 as including the' laws of humanity and the dictates of
the public conscience.' " 16 He also pointed out that the Ameria" Report of Robert H. Jackson to the President," The Numb6'Tg CaJJe, p. U.
13 "Report of Robert H. Jackson to the President," The Numberg CaJJe, p. 16.
u Ibid., p. 10.
10 Ibid., p. 11 •
.. Ibid.

INTERNATIONAL

MILITARY TRIBUNAL's

AUTHORITY

can conscience considered as criminal and punishable, the manner in which the Nazis "flagrantly violated the obligations
which states, including their own, have undertaken by convention or tradition as a part of the rules of land warfare, and
of the law of the sea." 17 Justice Jackson concluded: "I believe
that those instincts of our people were right and that they
should guide us as the fundamental tests of criminality. We
propose to punish acts which have been regarded as criminal
since the time of Cain and have been so written in every
civilized code." 18
Therefore, according to Justice Jackson, the proximate basis
of the International Military Tribunal's authority was its
charter which he described as " an organic act which represents
the wisdom, the sense of justice, and the will of twenty-one
governments." 19 The basis upon which the provisions of the
charter rest was international law. In response to the objection
of Dr. Robert Ley, made at the time of the indictment,
son declared: " Our case rests squarely on the provisions of
the charter based on international law." 20 The specific aspects
of international law which were violated were outlined by the
Chief of Counsel in his report to the President. This threefold
analysis manifests his conception of the ultimate basis of the
tribunal's authority. First, wars of aggression were classified as
crimes against the peace of the world on the grounds that they
were in " violation of International Law or treaties." 21 Second,
atrocious acts committed in prosecution of the war were deemed
punishable because they represented "violations of International Law, including the laws, rules, and customs of land and
naval warfare." 22 Third, the persecution of minority groups on
racial or religious grounds deserved punishment by the family
of nations since these offenses violated " the principles of
Ibid., p. Ii.
18Jbid.
11 "Opening Statement," The Numberg Caae, p. 80.
2 °Cf. AP dispatch, New York Timea, October !!I, I945, p. IS.
21 "Report of Robert H. Jackson to the President," The Numberg Caae, p. IS.
UJbid.

17

!04

JOHN P. KENNY

criminal law as they are generally observed in civilized states." za
Moreover, Jackson pointed out, these "principles have. been
assimilated as a part of International Law at least since 1907"
when the Fourth Hague Convention decreed that belligerents
shall be protected by " the principles of the law of nations, as
they result from the usage established among civilized peoples,
from the laws of humanity and the dictates of the public
conscience." 24
Finally, Jackson maintained that culpability for these violations of international law must be placed on responsible persons.
Punishment of the nation, as such, was not held to be a sufficient sanction. The basis for this opinion is found in the
following statement: "We do not accept the paradox that
legal responsibility should be the least where power is the
greatest. We stand on the principle of responsibile government
declared some three centuries ago to King James by Lord Chief
Justice Coke, who proclaimed that even ·a King is still' under
God and the Law.'" 25 '
Lord Wright, Chairman of the United Nations War Crimes
Commission. Lord Wright enuntiated opinions similar to those
of Justice Jackson regarding the legal basis of punishment for
war criminals. In an article, written before the establishment
of the International Military Tribunal, he speculated on the
manner by which the Nazis might be punished. He stated
that war criminals might be triec:fby specially created military
courts. Such a court, he declared, " is well recognized in international law. The court is held under the authority of the
Commander in Chief and acts on the principles of international
law.'' 26 It is to be noted that the tribunal, established by the
allied agreement, was termed a " Military Tribunal " and acted
by the authority of the Commanders in Chief of the four Allied
nations.
"Ibid.
••Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 8.
"That the Guilty Shall Not Escape," New York Times Magazine, May IS,
1945, Sec. VI, p. 84.
18

INTERNATIONAL

MILITARY

TRIBUNAL'S

AUTHORITY

Various international conventions were also cited by Lord
Wright as constituting the legal basis for an international court.
He specifically mentioned, as did Justice Jackson, the provisions of the Hague Convention. He said:
Early in this century great efforts were being made to humanize
as far as possible the inevitable horrors of war. Various international conventions met and deliberated and published rules and
regulations which were acceded to by almost every nation, including Germany. In particular, there was The Hague Convention of
warfare on land which set out a code of rules and declared that the
inhabitants and belligerents were to remain under the protection
and governance of the principles of the law of nations derived from
the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of
humanity and from the dictates of the public conscience.27
Moreover, he asserted that the declaration of the Hague Convention was intended to bestow rights on individuals and to
impose responsibility on those who violate these •.J-ights. Breaches
of the rights of belligerents and of the rules for the conduct of
war, in his opinion, "constitute war crimes and expose the
guilty criminal to punishment if the offenses can be proved and
the offenders identified." 28 Punitive action, he maintained, is
not a question of revenge but rather of justice. In another
article written after the establishment of the International
Military Tribunal, Wright declared:
Let it be established now that there is a rule of law among nations
even in the launching and conduct of war and that there is legal
machinery available, wherever it is necessary, to vindicate that
rule. Let us sweep away the pseudolegal or legalistic rules that
have no basis in the common conscience of mankind, which is convinced that there is a common law of nations and a legal machinery
to enforce it so that it has teeth. 29
Therefore, according to Lord Wright, international law is the
basis of the Allies' right to establish a 'military tribunal. Inter27 Ibid., p. 6.
•• Ibid.
•• "For Crimes Against Humanity," New York Times Magazine, October 28,
1945, Sec. VI, p. 8.

5

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JOHN P. KENNY

national law, in turn, is founded principally upon the various
international conventions and is ultimately derived from the
usages of civilized peoples, the laws of humanity and the
dictates of the public conscience.
Murray C. Bernays, Associate of Justice Jackson. Murray
C. Bernays, a military adviser to Justice Jackson, assisted in
the formulation of the basis of the war crime trials. He has
presented his views on this subject in an article which appeared
in Survey Graphic.aQ In his discussion of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, he laid down a fundamental principle that
" assault and murder are felonies in war as in peace." The
provisions of the Hague Convention, he asserted, guarantee
certain rights to prisoners of war and to the citizens of occupied
countries. For example, a commander has the duty of trying
for murder any soldier guilty of murdering a prisoner of war.
Bernays declared: "That is traditional law among nations of
undisputed force. It is law, though not so specified in the
Hague Conventions." He then stated that this fundamental
principle, " by common and universal acceptance," also applies
to those who hold positions of command: " They can be tried
for these felonies not only if they commit the crimes themselves
but also if they order or willfully countenance them." Moreover, by a still further application of the principle, in his
opinion, even the head of a government may be tried for these
crimes. As a proof of this belief he cites both the United States
Field Manual on the Rules of Land Warfare, and the German
Military Code. The Manual provides: " Individuals and organizations who violate the accepted laws and customs of war
may be punished therefor .... The person giving such orders
may also be punished." " The German Military Code recognizes the same rule: 'If the execution of a military order violates the criminal law, then the superior officer giving the
order will bear responsibility therefor.'" 31 Thus, concluded
••" Legal Basis of the Nuremberg Trials," Survey Graphic, XXXV, 5-9, January,
1946. This article in slightly different form appeared in Reader'11 Digeat, February,
1946, pp. 56-64.
11Jbid.

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207

Bernays, all the atrocities enumerated in counts three and four
of the indictment " were felonious under accepted international
law. Under that law, the guilty are liable to trial and punishment, without regard to their station."
The prosecution at Nuremberg charged that the crimes
enumerated in count four of the indictment were " violations
of international conventions, of internal penal laws, of the
general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal
law of all civilized nations." 32 Regarding the violations of
internal penal laws, Bernays declared: "This furnishes another
-well-settled ground of prosecution, because, under the instrument of unconditional surrender which Germany signed, the
occupying powers exercise all juridical authority in the occupied
land." 33 He pointed out that the military tribunals of the
victorious Allies had " full jurisdiction to try " Germans who,
at any time, had committed offenses against other Germans or
who violated the German laws. 34 It is to be noted that during
the Nuremberg Trial the prosecution emphasized the criminality of racial and religious persecutions-many of them
against German nationals. In fact, of the eighteen defendants
who were indicted on the fourth count, sixteen were found
guilty by the court.
According to Bernays, the basis for punishing crimes against
peace is the law of nations as established by international agreements. The aggressive wars initiated by the Nazis were
treacherous acts " committed in the face of treaties of friendship, arbitration, and nonaggression, and in violation of recent,
repeated, and solemn assurances that they would not occur."
Moreover, in the opini_on of Bernays, the "fact of treachery,
standing by itself, is enough to condemn these wars as unlawful under the law of nations" because a war so begun is not,
"under the law of nations," war at all; it is simply brigandage.
Citing, as did Jackson, the various international treaties and
•• "International Military Tribunal Indictment Number 1," Trial of War Criminals, p. 60.
•• Bemays, op. cit., p. 8.
•• Ibid., p. 8.

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JOHN P. KENNY

agreements, Bernays insisted that aggressive warfare was outlawed. He declared that the Kellogg-Briand Pact "made
aggressive war unlawful." Thus, he concluded, " What has
happened at Nuremberg is revolutionary. But let us be clear
as to the kind on revolution it is. It is not a revolution in the
law. It is a revolution in law enforcement." 35
Sheldon Glueck, Associate of Justice Jackson. In the United
States, the most articulate exponent of the problems arising
from the trial and punishment of war criminals is Dr. Sheldon
Glueck. 86 His opinions regarding the basis of the International
Military Tribunal are important to this study because he was
associated with Justice Jackson during the preparations for the
Nuremberg Trial and because he held membership on the Commission on Trial and Punishment of War Criminals of the
London International Assembly, League of Nations Union.
In several instances throughout his writings, Glueck voices
the opinion as did Justice Jackson, that the United Nations
could have executed the Nuremberg defendants without resorting to any juridical procedure. He repudiated the idea
that a victorious nation is 'obliged to observe all the technicalities which accompany the peacetime administration of justice.
In discussing the problem of a peace treaty, he declared that
" it should be emphasized that a victorious belligerent state
can impose any terms it deems proper on the vanquished. It is
simply a matter of power." 87 Again, he stated: "The fact
that the victorious United Nations could, if they chose, impose
any conditions on the Axis States-including the surrender for
execution without trial of a long list of leading militarists,
••" The Legal Basis of the Nuremberg Trials," Reader's Digest, XLVIII, 64,
February, 1946.
•• Sheldon Glueck, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at Harvard University, was an adviser to Justice Jackson during the London negotiations in the
summer of 1945. The foreword of his work The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive
War was written by Justice Jackson, who declared: "When I was appointed as
Representative and Chief of Counsel for the United States, he (Glueck) became
an Advisor during those negotiations," p. vii.
n Sheldon Glueck, War Criminals: Their Prosecution and Punishment, p. 12.

INTERNATIONAL

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politicians and industrialists believed to be involved in the
murders, lootings and other crimes-is of basic importance. 88
According to Glueck, the imposition of a peace treaty on the
vanquished is limited only by " a decent respect for the judgment of history and fear of later reprisal." 89 These views were
again expressed in his treatment of the various types of juridical procedure that could be used in the prosecution of war
criminals. He believed that the heads of state together with
their " chief henchmen " could be executed without a trialby " proclaiming them to be criminals and outlaws, they would
be put in the position of fugitives from justice, and subject to
summary execution when captured or surrendered." 40 With
the characteristic caution of a member of the legal profession,
he continued:
As was stressed at the outset, there is very little fimitation on
what a victorious nation can do with a vanquished state at the
close of a war. . . . But the common law of nations probably requires a fair trial of offenders against war law as a prerequisite to
punishment for alleged offenses; and the Geneva Convention so
prescribes in·the case of prisoners of war. But in the final analysis,
a decent respect for the opinion of mankind and the judgment of
history is, in effect, a victorious belligerent's main limitation on
its treatment of the surrendered at the close of a war; and this is
self-imposed.41
Another aspect of this " will of the victor " doctrine was voiced
by Glueck in his consideration of the principle of liability for
heads of state. He asserted that the prosecution, before a court
of justice, of the" Nazi-Fascist leaders is justifiable as a morally
legitimate exercise of a political policy on the part of the civilized nations of the world, a policy of expediency enforceable
by the will of the victorious United Nations." 42 Even if such a
legal basis was not recognized by some international lawyers,
the procedure, declared Glueck, " is simply a question of expediency, a prerogative to be exercised by the victorious bel88 Ibid., p. IS.
•• Ibid., p.
' 0 Ibid., p. 77.

u Ibid.
'"Ibid., p.

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JOHN P. KENNY

ligerent or not, as he may judge fit; ' a high exercise of executive
and conquering force submitting itself to the judgment of
history.' " 43
Similar doctrines were expressed in his second work on the
subject, The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive War, which appeared a year after the cessation of hostilities. He prefaced
his discussion of aggressive warfare by insisting that the Nuremberg defendants could have been executed without trial. In
his opinion, the law" of an armistice or a treaty is, in the final
analysis, the will of the victor ... compulsion is to be expected
and is an historic fact in the case of international agreements
imposed by a victorious belligerent State upon the vanquished." 44 On the basis of these quasi "principles," Glueck
deduced the following conclusion: "The United Nations could,
then, have disposed of the Nazi ringleaders summarily by
' executive ' or 'political' action, without any trial at all and
without any consideration whatsoever of whether the acts with
which the accused were charged had or had not previously been
prohibited by some specific provision of international penal
law." 45
An example of this non-juridical or political action was
provided, Glueck believed, in the exile of Napoleon to Elba
and his subsequent imprisonment on St. Helena. 46 But, he
declared, since the United Nations decided to proceed in a
civilized manner, the defendants were given the benefit of a
trial. The charter of the International Military Tribunal,
according to Glueck, was another manifestation of the " will
of the victor " doctrine. He asserted: " There is no question
but that, as an act of the will of the conqueror, the United
Nations had the authority to frame and adopt such a
Charter.'' 47
Before proceeding further with the presentation of Glueck's
views on the particular bases of the Tribunal, it should be
noted that in his second book he reversed his previous opinion
•• Ibid.
"Sheldon Glueck, The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive War, p. 8.
•• Ibid., pp. 8-9.
•• Ibid., p. 9.
" Ibid., p. !lS.

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211

concerning the criminality of aggressive warfare. Glueck originally believed that the criminal liability of the Nazi leaders
could be sufficiently established by the provisions of the Hague
and Geneva Conventions so that " it seemed to be an unnecessary and dangerous complication to resort to prosecution for
the' crime' of aggressive war." 48 He said:
During the preparation of my previous book on the subject of
war crimes, I was not at all certain that the acts of launching and
conducting an aggressive war could be regarded as " international
crimes." I finally decided against such a view. . . . However,
further reflection upon the problem has led me to the conclusion
that for the purpose of conceiving aggressive war to be an international crime, the Pact of Paris may, together with other treaties
and resolutions, be regarded as evidence of a sufficiently developed
custom to be acceptable as internationallaw. 49
Therefore, Glueck's conception of the bases of the tribunal's
right to prosecute crimes against peace will be culled from the
more recent work. First, however, the question of war crimes
and crimes against humanity will be considered. It should also
be noted that although Glueck did recognize a distinction between acts that are technically called war crimes and crimes
against humanity in the charter, he included all these offenses
under the general heading of " War Crimes." In explanation,
he declared: " The gruesome murders and greedy lootings are
in this work designated ' war crimes ' only for convenience, since
they were committed in preparation for or during the progress
of a war upon helpless civilians in the clutches of ruthless
military and political officials." 50
Based on the Nazi conception of total war, Glueck's rather
lengthy definition of war criminals is as follows:
... we may legitimately define war criminals as persons--regardless
of military or political rank-who, in connection with the military,
political, economic or industrial preparation for or waging of war,
have, in their official capacity, committed acts contrary to (a) the
' 8 Ibid., p. 6.
•• Ibid., pp. 4-6.
•• Sheldon Glueck, War Criminals: Their Prosecution and Puniah'TIUmt, p. 46.

JOHN P. KENNY

laws and customs of legitimate warfare or (b) the principles of
criminal law generally observed in civilized States; or who have
incited, ordered, procured, counseled, or conspired in the c&mmission of such acts; or, having knowledge that such acts were about
to be committed, and possessing the duty and power to prevent
them, have failed to do so.51
Two determinants of criminality are contained in this definition,
namely, "the laws and customs of legitimate warfare" and
"the principles of criminal law generally observed in civilized
states." Since Glueck, at the time of writing, was of the
opinion that the waging of aggressive war was not a crime, the
violation of solemn treaty obligations was not included among
the principles of liability in his definition. He explained that
the" chief malefactors ... can readily be prosecuted for violations of the laws and customs of legitimate warfare and of
criminal law which they have committed during the course of
the conflict." 52
What are the fundamental bases of these two principles of
liability? The sources of law involved in the first principle
(i.e., violations of the laws and customs of war) are the
written and unwritten rules of war. Glueck listed four conventions as the chief sources of written law: the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and two conventions signed at Geneva
in 1929. In the opinion of international lawyers, Glueck pointed
out, the provisions of these conventions oblige only the States
and not the individual subjects. But the exception to this
traditional theory is also noted. "However, when a State has
' implemented ' its international obligations by domestic law
(i. e., statutes or, as in the case of the American Rules of Land
Warfare, rules having the force of law) , it has ' converted '
international law into municipal law; and, thereafter, violations
of such domestic law by its own or enemy soldiers are punishable as offenses against its own sovereignty." 53 Unwritten
(customary or common) international law is also a valid directive norm the violation of which constitutes a war crime. Quoting the War Department's Rules of Land Warfare, Glueck
"'Ibid., p. 87.

•• Ibid., p. 88.

""Ibid.

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213

asserted that written agreements are merely " declaratory of a
vast body of unwritten" international law. He pointed out
that those who framed the Hague Conventions recognized the
existence of a common international law based on the principles of humanity and justice. The elements of the unwritten
law of warfare were summarized by Glueck in the following
manner: "Part of this unwritten law of warfare consists of the
basic principles of military nece8sity, ... humanity, . . . and

chivalry." 54
Domestic penal (civil) law is the source of Glueck's second
determinant of criminality. He held that acts which are contrary to "the principles of criminal law generally observed in
civilized States " are punishable war crimes. He cited numerous atrocities committed against racial and religious minorities
as examples of crimes " which have nothing to do with legitimate warfare." 55 These acts were not only violations of tbe
rules of warfare but were also contrary to civil penal codes.
Glueck, quoting the opinion of the German Supreme Court in
the Leipzig Trials, declared that lawfulness "requires the acts
of the soldier to be legitimate not only under domestic criminal
law, but also under the law of nations, which all states and their
agents are bound to obey." 56
Therefore, concerning the crimes described by the charter as
war crimes and crimes against humanity, Glueck concluded:
... apart from being violations of the prohibitions of any particular
State's military or criminal law (triable in domestic courts) -the
majority of the outrages committed by the Germans and Japanese
and their satellites are also contrary to the provisions of three
bodies of law legitimately cognizable by an international tribunal:
(a) conventional or" written" international (war) law, (b) common or" unwritten" international (war) law, (c) the prohibitions
common to the great majority of civilized penal codes. 57

Glueck's second book, The Nuremberg Trial and Aggre8sive
War, is an exposition of his new-born thesis that crimes against
peace may be considered international
54
55

Ibid., p. 42.
Ibid., p. 45.

56
57

crimes.

Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 46.

The contents

214

JOHN P. KENNY

of the book are concerned with the solution of two questions,
namely, whether the initiation of aggressive warfare is an international crime and whether the rule of liability is applicable
to the individual nationals of an errant State.
Dr. Glueck, in maintaining that aggressive warfare is an
international crime, established his opinion on a different basis
than that of Justice Jackson. Glueck's thesis, as has already
been mentioned, is that " the Pact of Paris may, together with
other treaties and resolutions, be regarded as evidence of a
sufficiently developed custom to be acceptable as international
law." 58 He quotes from Sir Frederick Pollock and from the
Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice to support his opinion that prevalent custom may be considered as a
legitimate source of international law. According to Pollock,
international agreements subscribed to by a majority of the
civilized nations, may" become part of the universally received
law of nations within a moderate time." 59 Writing in 1902,
Pollock also believed that some of the provisions of the Hague
Convention of 1899 "may sooner or later ... be adopted as
part of the public law of civilized nations by general recognition
without any formal ratification." Article 38 of the Statute of
the Permanent Court of International Justice decreed that:
" International custom," may be considered " as evidence of
a general practice accepted by law." 60 Having cited these
authorities, Glueck declared:
If, therefore, a reasonable amount of .proof can be adduced of a
customary recognition among nations in the modern era that
aggressive war is a crime, it need not at all be claimed that the
violations of the Briand-Kellogg Pact or of any of the other treaties . . . in themselves constitute international crimes, in order
to hold Germany, Japan, and other Axis nations liable for crimes
against the Community of States as protected by international
law.61
•• Sheldon Glueck, The Nuremberg Trial and Aggressive War, p. 5.
•• Ibid., p. 85.
•• Ibid., p. 26; cf. also John Eppstein, The Catholic Tradition and the Law of
Nations, p. 509.
81 Glueck, op. cit., p. 26.

INTERNATIONAL

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According to Glueck, proof of this " customary recognition
among nations " is abundant in the numerous international
agreements which have been entered into during the past fifty
years. He then enumerates these solemn international pronouncements and cites pertinent quotations from many of them.
These pronouncements, he asserts, " greatly re-enforce whatever inference ... is derivable from the Briand-Kellogg Pact,"
and, in toto, they manifest a customary belief in the criminality
of aggressive warfare among the civilized peoples of the world. 62
Therefore, Dr. Glueck concluded:
The prosecution at Nuremberg under count two of the historic
indictment, " Crimes Against Peace," . . . is, then, strictly speaking, not based upon proof of the breach of any specific provision of
any particular one or more of the above-mentioned international
treaties or conventions. It is rather based upon violation of customary international law-a system of law that is as obviously
subject to growth as has been the law of any other developing legal
order, by the crystallization of generally prevailing opinion and
practice into law under the impact of common consent and the
demands of general world security. Acquiescence of all members
of the Family of Nations is not necessary for this purpose. All that
is needed is reasonable proof of the existence of a widespread custom; and the numerous multilateral anti-war treaties, agreements
and resolutions, as well as the statements and writings of experts
in connection with such international pronouncements, comprise
such proof.63
Having established that the initiation of aggressive wars is
an international crime, Glueck discusses the other important
question, viz., whether the rule of liability extends to individuals. He noted that the principle of personal liability was
proclaimed in the numerous statements issued by the Allies
during the progress of the war and was enunciated in both the
agreement and the charter of the International Military Tribunal. Nevertheless, Glueck points out, certain objections to
this principle have been raised by conservative international
lawyers and publicists. They have claimed that" international
law is a body of norms applicable only to the actions of sov•• Ibid., p. 84.

""Ibid., pp. 86-87.

JOHN P. KENNY

ereign states and, in the second place, it provides no sanctions
of a nature applicable to individuals, no punishment for natural
persons." 64 Dr. Glueck does not concur with these opinions.
Citing several cases from the records of international law in
support of his views, including the opinion of the German
Supreme Court in the Leipzig Trials, Glueck declares that the
law of nations is obligatory upon individuals. Thus he stated:
The authorities cited and others amply support the conclusion
that the relevant principles of the law of nations may and do
obligate individuals; and that there is nothing in international law
itself that necessarily prohibits the direct application of its relevant
prohibitions to natural persons, if a state chooses to do so.65
Traditionally, violations of the law of nations are punishable by
the particular nation concerned. However, in the opinion of
Glueck, by reason of the international scope of the Nazi atrocities the nations involved may cooperate in the prosecution.
He said:
Consequently, when the great majority of civilized States, after
due warning to the Axis leaders, united in prosecuting individuals
for violating the tenets of international law they were doing no
more than could have been done had each of them proceeded individually. Indeed, they are doing a service to the Family of Nations
and its international law, in combining their individual jurisdictions
into a single agency speaking on behalf of world law and order. 66
In answer to the second objection, that international law
provides no sanctions, Glueck declares that it, too, is open to
question. Quoting Grotius and other authorities, Glueck's
opinion is based upon, or rather deduced from, the traditional
punishments which are meted out for violations of the laws
and customs of war. The same principle, he declared," would
apply to breaches of any other prohibition of international law
capable of being violated by individuals, including a breach of
the peace of the world by the initiation and conduct of an
illegal and criminal war." 67
•• Ibid., p. 60.
•• Ibid., p. 65.

•• Ibid., p. 66.
" 7 Ibid., p. 69.

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217

The preceding conclusions of Dr. Glueck concerning the bases
of the International Military Tribunal's authority can be briefly
summarized. First, he firmly believed that the United Nations
had plenary power with respect to the vanquished German
nation. The "will of the victor" doctrine was applied in explanation of the- United Nations' jurisdiction regarding the
terms of the peace treaty, the drafting of the charter and the
mode of juridical procedure to be followed in the prosecution
of war criminals. Second, war crimes are punishable by an
international tribunal because they are violations of " the laws
and customs of war" and "the principles of criminal law generally observed in civilized States." Fundamentally, the bases
of these two principles are: (a) written international law (the
provisions of the various conventions concerning the rules of
warfare); (b) unwritten international law (customs founded
on the principles of justice and humanity); (c) civil penal
law of civilized nations. Third, the initiation of aggressive warfare violates customary international law and therefore is
punishable as an international crime. Fourth, on the basis
of customary international law the rule of liability extends to
the responsible persons of the errant nation.
It should be noted, in conclusion, that the persons quoted in
this study by no means constitute an exhaustive catalogue of
those who have expressed themselves in defense of the Nuremberg Trials. However, these
are representative
insofar as they were all intimately associated in the formulation
of the International Military Tribunal's charter. The addition
of other sources would merely. result in the multiplication of
repetitious statements. The bases of the tribunal, as expressed
by Justice Jackson and the other authorities, represent a comprehensive enumeration of the fundamental bases as conceived
by those who were associated with the creation of the International Military Tribunal. These fundamental bases will be
analyzed and evaluated in a later study.
JoHN

Dominican House of Studill8,
Wa8kington, D. 0.

P. KENNY, 0. P.

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION OF THE
VIRTUES

F

EW points in moral doctrine have been given more
importance by theologians writing on the virtues in
general than the connection of the virtues and few points
have caused greater disagreement in the interpretation, acceptance, and defense of St. Thomas' teaching. The Angelic Doctor
has definitively expressed his doctrine in the Summa Theologica
(I-II, q. 65) where he studies, (1) the mutual connection of the
moral virtues, (2) their connection with the theological virtues,
and (3) the connection of the theological virtues with one
another. The first of these considerations is philosophical and
depends upon the right notion of the terms of quality, " habit "
and " disposition," terms wl:lich were not completely understood by St. Thomas until he came to write his Summa. 1 The
second consideration has not been properly accepted and so
has been misinterpreted to suit pessimistic views; we shall
attempt to give a correct interpretation, optimistic though it
may be. The third consideration is not always aptly shown,
but as everyone accepts it we shall comment on it only briefly.

I. MoRAL VmTUEs
In considering here the mutual connection of the moral virtues, we limit ourselves for the moment to the natural virtues.
Such connection as the supernatural or infused virtues have
is had through charity; consequently, such a consideration
belongs in the third part of this study.
Virtue is a habit, an operative habit, and an operative good
habit. As habit, virtue differs specifically from an inclination or
1 On the Thomistic distinction of habit and disposition Fr. Ramirez, 0. P., has
written a most important paper, Doctrina S. Thomae Aquinatis de distinctione inter
habitum et dispositionem, in Studia
VII-VIII, Miscellanea Philosophica
Patri Gredt Oblata (1938), pp. 121-14!!.

218

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

219

disposition, whether innate or acquired by acts. 2 A habit is a
quality not easily changeable of itself; disposition is a quality
easily changeable of itself. Therefore, a disposition can not
attain the perfection of a habit, and so it is called an imperfect
virtue. But, while a habit is a quality not easily movable, and
disposition is a quality easily movable of its nature, we can
think of habits that are easily movable and of dispositions
which are not easily movable on the part of the subject. Thus,
the habit of science obtained from a single demonstration is firm
in its object and weak in its subject. On the other hand, the
habit of opinion, which is based on merely probable reasons and
lacks immobility of itself, can be so tenaciously held as to be
almost impossible for the subject to change. In the first case,
the habit is in the state of disposition; in the second, disposition
is in the state of habit. 3 Consequently, a virtue which would be
a habit by essence, but in the state of disposition by reason
cf its subject must also be called an imperfect virtue. A perfect
virtue, therefore, means a virtue which, besides having the
essence of habit, also has the condition of habit; that is, it is a
quality which is,movable only.with difficulty both by its nature
and on the part of its subject. 4
Natural moral virtues, if acquired by acts, presuppose a
great number of these acts. Because these acts deal with particulars and thus with the variable according to manifold circumstances, they are not essentially in a person unless they are
in him in the state of habit. Thus, whenever such virtues are
• In the writings which preceded the Summa, St. Thomas did not teach that
habit and disposition are essentially different. Consequently he admitted that a
disposition could become a habit.
3 In the same way we say that under the Old Law, a law of fear, people were in
the state of servitude, while in the New Law, a law of love, we live in the state
of freedom. But this did not prevent some of the just of the Old Testament from
having the spirit of the New Law, just as it does not prevent some of the
Catholics today from having the spirit of the Old Law, as St. Thomas remarks.
(1-ll, 107, 1.)
• The terminology, in the different authors, is far from being fixed. Some would
call a perfect virtue that which is very intense; others would call perfect only
infused virtues, or the virtues, acquired or infused, which are accompanied by
charity.

PETER LUMBRERAS

present, they are present as perfect moral virtues. 5 Consequently, we consider inadequate both the opinion of Cajetan,
who admits an acquired moral virtue which is imperfect, that
is, in the state of disposition; 6 we disagree also with John of St.
Thomas, who holds that firmness on the part of the subject
belongs to the very essence of the moral virtues. 7 The moral
virtue considered here is begotten, as has been said, by many
acts. But, there are virtuous acts which frequently occur in all
men, as, for example, the acts of the cardinal virtues, so-called
because human life hinges upon them. 8 There are others, on the
other hand, which do not occur frequently, at least in all men,
but only in some in a given condition of life. Thus, for example,
the virtue of magnificence has no chance to be exercised by
those without an abundance of earthly goods.
Imperfect m(YJ'al virtues are not mutually connected. Some
men have an inclination or disposition, innate or acquired, to
the act of one virtue, for example, justice, and have no disposition or inclination to the act of another virtue, such as
temperance. Moreover, when it is a question of innate inclination, he who is disposed to fortitude is rather indisposed toward
5 Cf. Bernini, Le virtu morali acquisite neUo stato del peccato mortale sec. S.
Tommaso, in Divus Thomas PI., 43 [1940], p. 428 sq.
6 The great Commentator
of the St. Thomas was the first to distinguish two
dispositions and two habits: a) a disposition in the state of disposition, which
lacks firmness both of itself and in its subject, e. g., a momentary state of health
or disease; b) a disposition in the state of habit, which, being easily changeable of
itself, is firmly rooted in its subject, e. g., that condition of physical well being
which challenges all kinds of temperature, or that poor physical condition which
resists all cures; c) a habit in the state of disposition, which is not easily movable
of itself but easily movable in its subject, e. g., charity in a recent convert; d)
a habit in the state of habit, which, besides being not easily movable of its
nature, is also deeply rooted in its subject, e. g., the charity of a holy man. But
Cajetan holds that an acquired moral virtue might exist in the state of disposition
while having the essence of the habit. (Cf. Cajetan, Comm. in 1-11, 65, 1)
• Cursus Theol., ed. Vives, t. VI, q. 62, disp. 17, a. 2.
8 " Cardinalis a cardine dicitur, in quo ostium vertitur,
secundum illud Prov. 26,
14: Sicut ostium vertitur in cardine suo, ita piger in lectulo suo; unde virtutes
cardinales dicuntur in quibus fundatur vita humana." (QQ. DD. de virt. card.,
a. 1); "Virtus aliqua dicitur cardinalis, quasi principalis, quia super earn aliae
virtutes firmantur sicut ostium in cardine." (QQ. DD. de virt. in comm., a. l!Z,
!Mm)

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

221

meekness. Furthermore, one who chooses a work of justice
on account of the special goodness of justice might lack strength
and thus be led to omit or renounce the act of justice because
of the danger that threatens from the pronouncement of a just
sentence. In the same way a woman might consent to fornication, not because she is attracted to the sexual pleasure, but
because of the financial gain she acquires by the act. 9
Perfect cardinal virtues are so mutually connected that he
who has one also has the others. This second proposition is
easily demonstrated if we take the four cardinal virtues as four
general conditions of virtue/ 0 since in that case prudence stands
for discretion, justice for rectitude, fortitude for firmness, and
temperance for moderation. It is evident, as St. Gregory points
out, that, "There is no true prudence unless it be just, temperate, and brave; no perfect temperance that is not brave,
just, and prudent; no sound fortitude that is not prudent, temperate, and just; no real justice, without prudence, fortitude,
and temperance." 11
0 A particular
motive, namely, of justice or chastity, is altogether insufficient for
the constant and perpetual acting according to justice and chastity.
Thus an
imperfect virtue, though it inclines toward good, does not do so as to establish
and strengthen the soul against every impulse. Since by its formal object it is
easily movable, this imperfect virtue is essentially a disposition, not a habit.
10 " These four virtues are understood
differently by various writers. For some
take them as signifying certain general conditions of the human mind, to be found
in all the virtues: so that, to wit, prudence is merely a certain rectitude of discretion in any actions or matters whatever; justice, a certain rectitude of the
mind, whereby man does what he ought in any matters; temperance, a disposition
of the mind, moderating any passions or operations, so as to keep them within
bounds; and fortitude, a disposition whereby the soul is strengthened for that
which is in accord with reason, against any assaults of the passions, or the toil
involved by any operations. To distinguish these four virtues in this way does
not imply that justice, temperance and fortitude are distinct virtuous habits:
because it is fitting that every moral virtue, from the fact that it is a habit,
should be accompanied by a certain firmness so as not to be moved by its contrary: and this, we have said, belongs to fortitude. Moreover, inasmuch as it is a
virtue, it is directed to ,good which involves the notion of right and due; and this,
we have said, belongs to justice. Again, owing to the fact that it is a moral virtue
partaking of reason, it observes the mode of reason in all things, and does not
exceed its bounds, which has been stated to belong to temperance." (Summa Theol.,
I-II, q. 61, a. 4.)
11 Cf. Summa Theol., lac. cit., ad lum.

6

PETER LUMBRERAS

Even if the four cardinal virtues are taken as distinct virtues
according to their determinate matter, the proposition is equally
susceptible of proof because no fortitude, temperance, or justice
is perfect without total prudence. Total prudence, on its part,
presupposes a perfect fortitude, a perfect temperance, and a
perfect justice. Since prudence is the " right reason of things
to be done," and since things to be done are all singulars, for its
practical syllogism 12 prudence needs not only a major premise
of universal proposition (" evil must be avoided ") but also a
minor premise or particular proposition (" this act is evil.")
I£ the major is given by the habit of synderesis, the practical
truth and evidence of the minor is given only by the appetite
which, of itself undetermined or indifferent, is rectified or
determined by the moral virtues. 13 For example, no one sees
promptly and with ease that fornication is simply bad for him
unless he is well disposed toward the matter of temperance,
the matter of justice, and the matter of fortitude. Thus he
would not be moved to commit fornication either by the love
of sexual pleasure, or by the love of money, or by the fear of
death. Otherwise, we would have to call that woman chaste
who would not consent to fornication for the love of sexual
pleasure but would consent to it for the love of financial gain or
12 " Reason directs human acts in accordance with a twofold knowledge, universal
and particular: because in conferring about what is to be done, it employs a syllogism, the conclusion of which is an act of judgment, or of choice, or an operation.
Now actions are about singulars: wherefore the conclusion of a practical syllogism
is a singular proposition.
But a singular proposition does not follow from an
universal proposition, except through the medium of a particular proposition: thus
a man is restrained from an act of patricide, by the knowledge that it is wrong
to kill one's father, and that this man is his father. Hence iguorance about either
of these two propositions, viz. of the universal principle which is a rule of reason,
or of the particular circumstance, could cause an act of patricide." (I-II, q. 76, a. I)
13 "Perfection
and rectitude of reason in speculative matters depends on the
principles from which reason argues: just as we have said above that science
depends and presupposes understanding, which is the habit of principles. Now in
human acts the end is what the principles are in the speculative matters, as stated
in Ethic. vii. Consequently, it is requisite for prudence, which is the reason
about things to be done, that man be well disposed with regard to the ends: and
this depends on the rectitude of his appetite.
Wherefore, for prudence there is
need of a moral virtue, which rectifies the appetite." (I-ll, q. 57, a. 4)

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VffiTUES

fl23

through fear of ill treatment. So, too, we would have to admit,
against Aristotle, 14 that a man who steals in order to commit
adultery is not more an adulterer than a thief, but rather an
adulterer and no thief at all. Total prudence, therefore-and
this is the only true prudence--presupposes, in this case, not
only the virtue of temperance, but also fortitude and justice.
The ends of these virtues are the principles of prudence. As
prudence is one, it is mortally wounded if a mistake is made
about any of its principles. 15
The perfect '11WTal virtues are all mutually connected so that
he who has one also has the others, at least in intention, or in
proximate potency. The reason adduced for the connection of
the cardinal virtues is valid for all those virtues whose acts
might occur in an ordinary life, because unless prudence presupposes all those virtues, that is, the appetite rectified with
regard to any matter concomitant to an act, it would be unable
to regulate this act according to the canons of reason. 16 Thus
" 5 Ethic., c. 2, n. 4; St. Thomas, lect. 8.
See our De vitiis et peccatis, n. 150 sqq. "Unitas prudentiae est centrum in

15

doctrina S. Thomae de connexione virtutum. lam in Commentario ad Ethicam duce
Aristotele expressis verbis ad earn revocat: Propter prudentiae unitatem omnes
virtutes morales aunt conexae (in 6 Ethic., lect. 11). Negata totalitate prudentiae,
tota doctrina de connexione virtutum rueret, sicut apparet apud omnes praedecessores S. Thomae, qui regulationem universalem tantummodo prudentiae perfectae
concesserunt, admittentes respectu materiarum particularium prudentias imperfectas,
quas ut veras virtutes habebant . . . Artes diversae respiciunt singulares fines, e
contra prudentia ordinat actus propter unum finem, seu ex una ratione formali,
scilicet propter ipsum esse secundum rationem, in quo consistit perfectio humana,
et quod est finis virtutum moralium. Licet in virtutibus moralibus sit diversa ratio
boni, est tamen una ratio veri, secundum quam omnes diriguntur: Obiectum ration-is
est verum. Est autem eadem ratio tJeri in omnibus moralibus, quae sunt con-

tingentia agibilia, unde est una sola virtus in eis dirigens, scilicet prudentia. Obiectum autem appetitivae virtutis est bonum appetibile, cuius est diversa ratio
secundum diversam habitudinem ad rationem dirigentem. (I-II, q. 60, a. 1, ad 1m)
Licet ergo sint diversae rationes practicae materialiter consideratae, inquantum alia
rectitudo est in temperantia, et alia in iustitia, etc., tamen in omnibus est una
formalis ratio veri. Prudentia enim, cum sit ratio virtuose proponens, unicuique
virtuti ita format medium, quod respiciat non tantummodo materiam illius virtutis
in se, sed etiam in comparatione cum omnibus aliis, secus oriretur difficultas ex
materia neglecta, in qua forsitan homo nondum est firmatus in bono." (UTz, De
conexione virtutum moralium inter se, 1987, pag. 110 sq.)
18 Although, due to the fact that different materials are often presented, it is

224

PETER LUMBRERAS

they are all actually present. As Fr. Utz says, "Because St.
Thomas places the formal reason for the connection of the
acquired virtues in prudence, he holds that all those virtues
are present in us that are required to constitute and rectify
prudence. Besides prudence, therefore, one needs to have as
many virtues as are necessary to his total and perfect moral
rectification." 17
With regard to other virtues whose material is lacking in
the lives of certain people, such virtues as magnificence in a
beggar or virginity in a married person, actual connection is
unnecessary since prudence is preserved in such people without
these virtues. Since the beggar and the married person lack
the matter of these virtues, the integrity of their reason is not
endangered by the absence of such virtues. Nevertheless, such
virtues can be present in intention (in proposito) in that their
matter might occur in the intentional order. Thus, for example, a woman might reflect on the danger of death or the
loss of money with which she might be threatened by refusing
to consent to fornication. In such circumstances, not real but
only apprehended, she might elicit internal acts by which she
would prefer virginity to life or to riches. In the same way, a
beggar might elicit the intention of building a church, if he
should obtain the necessary money, and a woman might will
the preservation of her virginity if it were fitting for her. By
internal acts, these people would have the virtues of magnificence or virginity, in intention. 18 If the materials of certain
very difficult for anyone to have exercised many acts of a moral virtue without
having exercised at the same time acts of other moral virtues, and although, as a
consequence, it can be said that no one practices temperance without practicing
justice and fortitude-for example, the unjust or the timid would have yielded to
intemperance and thus hindered the generation of temperance-St. Thomas does
not call upon the exercise of all virtues, but only upon the unity of prudence in
proving the connection of the virtues.
17 Loc. cit., pag. ll8.
18 St. Thomas
(II-II, q. 152, a. 3) speaks of virginity as to its formal element,
and this formal element he sees in the purpose of keeping virginity, should it be
fitting for some even married person to do so. He speaks also of magnificence
in preparedness of the mind. To avoid confusion, we prefer to say in intention,
since where there is no matter of a virtue, it is impossible to perform its act, and

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

225

virtues are not present, even intentionally, the virtues can be
possessed in proximate poteooy in that the other virtues are
actually possessed. This is so because the generation of a virtue
is so much easier as the dispositions of the subject are better
Thus, one who is liberal in giving of the little he might possess
would easily distribute larger amounts if he should acquire
abundance; so, he would easily practice the virtue of magnificence. In the same way, a married woman who is chaste in
marriage would easily be chaste in widowhood.
As a first corollary, it should be pointed out how virtues are
begotten. By synderesis the reason dictates that the honest
good is to be pursued and the will, by natural inclination, is
somehow affected by this good. When a practical case arises
regarding a concrete honest good the reason, after consideration
and counsel, can judge that this good is to be pursued; the
will can choose it and the reason, under the will's election, can
command its execution. Judgment, election, command, and
execution will be less prompt, easy, and pleasant, the more the
agent is dominated by the contrary vice, but they are not on
that account impossible. Vices do not destroy human freedom
and do not eliminate synderesis or the natural inclination to a
rational good.19
By the repetition of right practical judgment and command,
man generates the virtue of prudence, and by frequent good
consequently to exercise that virtue and to begin its generation. Only where it
comes to the mind, it is possible to form a real purpose or resolution about it.
19 " It must be observed that there are two ways in which something
is said
to be natural to man; one is according to his specific nature, the other according
to his individual nature . . . In both these ways virtue is natural to man
inchoatively. This is so in respect to the specific nature, in so far as in man's
reason are to be found instilled by nature certain naturally known principles of
both knowledge and action, which are the seeds of intellectual and moral virtues,
and in so far as there is in the will a natural appetite for good in accordance with
reason" (I-II, q. 63, a. 1); "The good of nature, that is diminished by sin, is the
natural inclination to virtue, which is befitting to man from the very fact that
he is a rational being; for it is due to this that he performs actions in accord with
reason, which is to act virtuously. Now sin cannot entirely take away from man
that
that he is a rational being, for then, he would no longer be capable of sin.
Wherefore it is not possible for this good of nature to be destroyed entirely."
(I-II, q. 85, a. 2)

226

PETER LUMBRERAS

election and execution he generates in himself the moral virtues.
In the beginning, he has these virtues by way of disposition;
that is, he has partial prudence and imperfect moral virtues
which are not mutually connected. After long exercise in the
acts of these virtues, there will come a time when one more act
will suffice to generate the virtues by way of habit. As soon
as this act is exercised, the man will have total prudence and
perfect moral virtues. 20 This ultimate act, which means a new
command, a new election, and a new execution, by its own force
and the force of the previous acts, perfects not only the moral
virtue by which it is elicited but also the virtue of prudence
and the rest of the virtues connected with prudence. The subsequent right judgment, command, good election, and execution
will come from the virtue, and hence they will be performed
with promptness, ease, and pleasure. If, because of many evil
acts or the generation of a contrary habit, a moral virtue falls
away from its perfection or is corrupted as a habit then,
simultaneously, total prudence and all the other perfect moral
virtues are corrupted. 21
As a second corollary it follows that, while imperfect virtue
possesses neither the condition nor essence of habit but inclines
toward the good of reason, perfect virtue inclines to perform
the good and perform it well, as befits virtue. Virtue by its
essence differs from simple disposition or inclination because
20 " In agibilibus, quia operationes animae non sunt efficaces sicut in demonstrationibus, propter hoc quod agibilia sunt contingentia et probabilia, ideo unus actus
non sufficit ad causandam virtutem, sed requiruntur plures; et licet illi plures non
sint simul, tamen habitum virtutis causare possunt; quia primus actus facit aliquam
dispositionem, et secundus actus inveniens materiam dispositam, adhuc earn magis
disponit; et tertius, adhuc amplius; et sic ultimus actus, agens in virtute omnium
praecedentium complet generationem virtutis, sicut accidit de multis guttis cavantibus lapidem." (QQ. DD. de virt. in comm., a. 9, 11m)
21 It is continually
a question here, as stated in the beginning, of acquired
virtues, and thus of acquired prudence. To these vice is directly opposed; and
not only tci perfect virtues, but even to the natural inclinations toward virtue
(cf. our De vitiis, etc., nn. 5-14). The fact that vice lacks firmness from its
object-repugnant to reason-does not deny it the power to corrupt virtue; even
the omission of acts suffices to corrupt some habits.
(1-Il, q. 58, a. 4) The
acquisition and loss of infused prudence and infused moral virtues will be discussed
in the next section.

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VffiTUES

227

these, lacking regulative prudence, can be turned to an evil
use. St. Thomas notes that" the greater the natural inclination
is toward those things that pertain to virtue, the more dangerous it proves to be unless discernment of reason is employed.
In this way, the faster a blind man runs the more seriously
he gets hurt." 22 On the contrary, no one abuses virtue by
using it as the principle of an evil act. 23
Moreover, virtue in its condition of habit differs also from
virtue existing in the condition of disposition since it connotes
firmness in its subject. The subject, in addition to the constancy expected of virtue in any circumstance, performs virtuous acts with promptness, facility, and pleasure. If delay,
difficulty, or disgust are experienced, they come from obstacles
which are not directly contrary to the virtue and certainly are
not from inclinations opposed to the virtue. 24
II. MoRAL AND THEOLOGICAL

VmTUES

Virtue is a habit that inclines toward good; good is twofold:
real and apparent. Virtue, therefore, can stand for a true virtue
which inclines toward real good, and for an apparent virtue
which inclines only toward fictitious good.25 True virtue has
sa In 8 Sent., dist. 86, a. 1.
•• " One can make bad
of a virtue objectively, for instance, by having evil
thoughts about a virtue, e. g., by hating it, or by being proud of it; but one cannot
make bad use of virtue as principle of action, so that an act of virtue be evil."
(l-11, q. 55, a. 4, ad 5m)
•• " Ubi est maior habitus oportet quod sit
actus secundum inclinationem
habitus. Potest tamen esse in homine aliquid vel impediens vel disponens ad
actum, quod per accidens se habet ad habitum; sicut habitus scientiae impeditur
ne ad actum procedat propter ebrietatem" (QQ. DD. de Virt. Card., a. 8, 12m);
" llla diflicultas quam experitur in suis operationibus iustus in caritate exsistens
oritus ex passionibus, quae non directe et formaliter opponuntur caritati: immo
vero etiam si perfecta caritas sit infusa subito peccatori paenitenti ex magna contritione, non statim passiones appetitus sensitivi profligantur aut omnino sedantur;
manet tamen homo cum potestate moderandi passiones insurgentes." (Bafiez, in
II-II, q. !lS, a. 4; ed. 1586, col. 540)
•• "As Augustine says (Contra Julian., iv) the prudence of the miser, whereby
he devises various roads to gain, is no true virtue; nor the miser's justice, whereby
he scorns the property of another through fear of severe punishment; nor the
miser's temperance, whereby he curbs his desire for expensive pleasures; nor the

228

PETER LUMBRERAS

been distinguished as perfect and imperfect, inasmuch as it
inclines to doing good well or to doing good but not well. On
the part of its subject the former has the condition of habit.
the latter the condition of disposition. Finally, perfect virtue
might be perfect philosophically, if it inclines to performing·
good acts within the limits of the natural order; it might be
perfect theologically if, under the extrinsic command (imperium) of charity, it attains the supernatural order with its
good act. 26
The theological virtues are three: faith, hope, and charity.
As will be shown, faith and hope can remain without charity
and charity is impossible in this life without faith and hope.
But the only connection to be considered at present is that of
moral virtue with charity and of charity with moral virtue. 27
miser's fortitude, whereby as Horace says (Ep. i) he bravea the sea, crosses
mountains, and goes through fire, in order to avoid poverty." (Il-11, q. 28, a. 7)
•• " Quilibet artifex iudicare debet secundum proprias sui generis causas, medicus
quidem secundum humores, astrologus secundum astra, etc.; diversa est ratio
sermonis apud theologos et alios. Theologus siquidem, cuius obiectum est Deus,
et hominem bonum constituit' solum in ordine ad finem ultimum simpliciter, qui
est obiectum caritatis, distinguendo dicit quod perfectio virtutis est duplex, in
genere et simpliciter; et quod sine caritate et fide etiam sunt virtutes perfectae
in genere, sed non simpliciter. Philosophus autem, qui hominem bonum constituit
in ordine ad ultimum finem naturalem, nee superiorem novit finem, virtutes humanas
sine fide et caritate veras et perfectas virtutes simpliciter dicit. Nee propterea
contradicunt: sed imperfecta notitia philosophiae de hominis bonitate in causa est.
Quod enim philosophus vocat perfectum simpliciter, quia non est eius altiorem
finem considerare, theologus vocat perfectum in genere et imperfectum simpliciter,
quia eius est altiorem finem co9-siderare. Et si haec bene notaveris, et sciveris applicare, cum reverentia suscipies dicta theologorum,. et philosophos non spernes "
(Cajetan, in II-II, q. 28, a. 7); "Cum virtus sit quae hominem facit bonum et
opus eius bonum reddit, ilia est virtus perfecta quae perfecte opus hominis bonum
reddit, et ipsum bonum facit; ilia autem est imperfecta, quae hominem et opus
eius reddit bonum non simpliciter, sed quantum ad aliquid. Bonum autem simpliciter in actibus humanis invenitur per hoc quod pertingitur ad regulam humanorum actuum; quae quidem est una quasi homogenea et .propria homini, scilicet
ratio recta .... Ad rationem autem rectam attingit homo per prudentiam" (QQ.
DD. de virt. card., a. 2); In order to avoid the confusion which easily arises after
having called a perfect virtue that which is a virtue simpliciter or has the perfection of a habit, it is better to distinguish this perfect virtue according to the
aforesaid twofold consideration of the philosopher and the theologian, calling it,
not simpliciter and secundum quid, but philosophically and theologically perfect.
•• If there is a connection between the moral virtues and faith or hope, it will
become evident from what will be said.

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VffiTUES

As moral virtues have been divided into natural or acquired
and supernatural or infused, they must all be considered in this
section.
Natural apparent virtues can be without charity and charity
without them. In fact, since they incline toward that which is
not good in reality, no matter how good it may appear to be,
they have no need for charity which inclines toward real good,
that is, toward a supernatural final end. Moreover, charity
excludes such apparent virtues since they incline to something
contrary to the final end or, at least, to something incompatible
with it. If some of these are not excluded by charity, they are
not demanded by it, as charity can not direct their act toward
the end which is its peculiar object.
True natural imperfect virtues can be without charity and
charity can be without them. These virtues, indeed, are at
tjmes given by nature as specific or individual properties, and
nature does not give charity. Likewise, those inclinations or
dispositions which are begotten by acts do not demand charity,
as they do not demand it when converted into habits, as will
be shown immediately. Nor does charity, on its part, need
them. Charity is found in baptised children who have no
natural virtues; it is also infused into adults at the time of
justification regardless of their natural good inclinations, and
therefore even into those who have acquired no natural virtues
through the repetition of good acts. Besides, in its ordination
to the supernatural end charity is sufficiently provided for by
the infused moral virtues.
Charity can be without natural virtues, which, on their part,
though not attaining the theological perfection of virtues without charity, ,can be, without charity, true and perfect virtues
philosophically speaking. We have just seen that charity does
not .need natural virtues as mere inclinations or dispositions.
A fortiori, it does not need them as they are in the state of
perfection of habit, which is the complement of those dispositions .. It is also evident that only by charity are those virtues
ordained towards the ultimate supernatural end. 28
•• Ista.e virtutes

(morales acquisitae) non constituuntur

in essse virtutis secun-

i30

PETER LUMBRERAS

Concerning the second part of the last proposition a great
controversy has been waged among theologians, even among
Thomists. It is first necessary to demonstrate that natural
virtues_ can remain after charity has been lost. 29 An act is not
directly opposed to a habit, consequently an acquired habit is
not corrupted by an act. A grievious sin of intemperance does
not corrupt either acquired temperance or acquired prudence.
St. Thomas is explicit: " Venial sin does not destroy virtue,
while mortal sin destroys infused virtue, by turning man away
from God. Yet one act, even of mortal sin, does not destroy the
habit of acquired virtue, but if such acts be repeated so as to
engender a contrary habit, the habit of acquired virtue is destroyed and the destruction of it entails the loss of prudence
. . . and consequently all the moral virtues are destroyed as to
the perfect and formal being of virtue, which they have in so
far as they partake of prudence." 30 Even these virtues can be
acquired by one who has no charity, who is in the state of
mortal sin, because such a one can perform many naturally
good acts by which he forms first a disposition, then a habit.
The Angelic Doctor says: " It is possible by means of human
works to acquire moral virtues, in as much as they produce good
works that are directed to an end not surpassing the natural
power of . man. When they are acquired thus, they can be
dum essentiam, nee secundum statum, per caritatem, aut aliquid eius: sed dum
imperantur ab ea, ab superiorem ordinem referuntur" (Cajetan, in I-II q. 65,
a.4, n.6)
"" For the negative position cf. Maritain, De la Philosophic Chretienne, 1988,
p. 105, and Science et Sagesse, 1985, p. 25!t sq., and Garrigou-Lagrange, L'instabilite
dans l'etat de peche mortel des vertus morales acquises (Rev. Thomiste, 1987, p.
255 sqq). For the affirmative cf. Ramirez, De philosophia morali christiana
(Divus Thomas Fr., 1986, p. 98 sqq.); Deman, Questions disputees de science
morale (Rev. des Sciences Phil. et Theol., 1987, p. !t78 sqq.).
•• I-ll, q. 78, a.1, ad 2m. As Fr. Deman points out, nowhere does St. Thomas
teach that a man deprived of charity necessarily multiplies these evil. acts. " If
indeed charity, were an acquired habit dependent on the power of its subject, it
would not necessarily be removed by one mortal sin, for act is directly contrary,
not to habit but to act. The endurance of a habit in its subject does not require
the endurance of its act, so that when a contrary act supervenes, the acquired habit
is not at once done away." (II-II, q. 24, a.l2)

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

without charity." 31 Thus to the objection: "According to the
Philosopher (in the Bk. of Ethics) virtue is corrupted and
generated by the same cause, but virtue can be corrupted by
the free will. Thus by the free will (without grace) man is able
to generate virtue," St. Thomas answers: " The Philosopher is
speaking about political virtue, which is acquired by acts, but
not of infused virtue." 32 Finally: " The good of a social virtue
is commensurate with human nature and consequently the
human will can tend thereto without the help of sanctifying
grace." 33 These virtues existed de facto in many pagans or
gentiles. Explicitly St. Thomas says: " They were in many of
the Gentiles." (I-II, q. 65, a. 2) So he has nothing to oppose
to the objection: " Some heathens are related to have endured
many hardships rather than betray their country or commit
some other misdeed. Now this is to be truly patient. Therefore
it seems possible to have patience without help of grace." 34
Thus without charity there can be acquired moral virtues
mutually connected, even if man, turned away from God as
31

I-ll, q. 65, a. 2.

QQ. DD. de veritate, 24, 14, 6m.
33 II-II, q. 136, a. 3, ad 2m. It cannot be opposed that man in the state of sin,
32

deprived of grace and charity, is unable to avoid for a long time new mortal sins
(cf. I-II, q. 109, a. 8) because to the objection: "Sin and virtue are contraries, so
that they are incompatible. Now man cannot avoid sin except by the grace of
God . . . Therefore neither can any virtues be caused in us by habituation, but
only by the gift of God," St. Thomas himself answers: " Mortal sin is incompatible with divinely infused virtue, especially if this be considered in its perfect
state. But actual sin, even mortal, is compatible with humanly acquired virtue,
because the use of a habit in us is subject to our will, and one sinful act does
not destroy a habit of acquired virtue, since it is not an act but a habit, that is
directly contrary to a habit. Wherefore, though man cannot avoid mortal sin
without grace, so as never to sin mortally, yet he is not hindered from acquiring a
habit of virtue, whereby he may abstain from evil in the majority of cases." (I-II,
q. 63, a. 2, ad 2m) And just because acquired virtues make us abstain from evil
in the majority of cases (ut in pluribus), it loses nothing if now and then (ut in
paucioribus) someone falls into evil. St. Thomas has said: "Virtus infusa facit
quod nullo modo oboediatur concupiscentiis peccati; et hoc facit infallibiliter ipsa
manete. Sed virtus acquisita deficit in hoc, licet in paucioribus, sicut et aliae
inclinationes naturales deficiunt in minori parte." (QQ. DD. de Virtut. in Comm.,
11, 4m)
"'II-II, q. 136, a. 3, arg. 2.

PETER LUMBRERAS

the author of grace, is not converted, in the present state of
mankind, to God as the author of nature. It suffices that he
keep total prudence, a virtue which is not corrupted by one act
of imprudence, because prudence links all the perfect moral
virtues, which are not corrupted by one contrary act. Therefore
St. Thomas says: " The virtues are mutually connected in their
proximate principle, namely in the principle of their genus,
which is prudence (for the acquired moral virtues) or charity
(for the infused moral virtues); but not in their remote principle,
w·hich is God." 85
Infused moral virtues cannot be without charity, or charity
without them. Being real virtues, 36 they cannot be without
total prudence, because the mover and the movable must be in
the same line and thus prudence directs and commands the
moral virtues only on account of the moral virtues themselves,
as has been explained. As total prudence cannot be without
moral virtues, so infused prudence cannot exist without charity.
The reason for this a fortiori is that in ahy essential order, no
one can be duly ordained to the proximate ends unless he is also
duly ordained to the ultimate end. The proximate ends belong to the moral virtues, the ultimate end, to charity. It
follows that infused prudence dictates the acts of the moral
virtues not only as means to their proximate ends but also as
means to the supernatural last end. It presupposes, then, a
35 QQ. DD. de Virt. in Comm., 2, Sm. "Rectitudo
naturalis circa ultimum finem
naturalem stat dupliciter: uno modo perfecte, ita ut ametur Deus ut Auctor naturae
super omnia secundum suam peculiarem rationem explicite; alio modo imperfecte
et confuse in ratione boni honesti naturalis. Prima non manet in homine lapso,
seclusa gratia et caritate, quia per peccatum indirecte recessit ab Auctore naturae;
secunda manet quia naturaliter inclinatur in bonum honestum et ipsum potest sub
hac ratione super omnia diligere; et haec sufficit ad virtutes acquisitas in ratione
virtutis, prout cadit sub consideratione Philosophi moralis." (Ferre, Tract. Theol.,
in I-ll, tr. 7, q. 4, n. 685)
38 They have their firmness from their very cause, namely, God, who infuses
all of them by one single act; they also proceed from habitual grace, as the potencies
of the soul proceed from its essence, and man who is in the state of grace can
avoid, even for a long time, not only every mortal sin, but even all mortal sins.
Lastly they are informed by charity, and the smallest charity suffices to overcome
any temptation. But these infused virtues may have in their subject the condition
of dispositions.

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

good disposition both toward the proximate ends, through the
moral virtues, and toward the ultimate end, through charity.
That charity cannot be without the infused moral virtues is
shown from the fact that it is not the proximate principle of the
acts of these virtues, though it is their first principle; it commands those acts, but does not execute them. It is, therefore,
necessary to have those proximate principles in order to exercise
the acts commanded by charity.
As a corollary it is commonly held that the infused moral
virtues are connected, not only in prudence, like the acquired
ones, but also in charity. Both prudence and charity are the
forms of the infused moral virtues, charity, besides, being also
the form of faith and hope. By every mortal sin charity and
prudence are corrupted directly, as they are special virtues
in essendo, by a mortal sin of hate or imprudence, indirectly,
as they are universal virtues in movendo--that is, in commanding-by any mortal sin, such as stealing, lust, etc., and
consequently all the infused moral virtues are corrupted. But
infused moral virtues, although stable by reason of their cause,
are not necessarily stable by reason of their subject, Because
they are generated, not by a succession of acts, but by one
single act, they can be accompanied by the contrary disposition
of the subject. These contrary dispositions lose their condition
of vices, no matter how rooted these may be in the subject, in
as much as the subject, heretofore vicious, retracts his former
vices, which, on this account, cease being voluntary-because
justification does not take place in adults without an act of detesting past sins. The justified, also, is powerfully inclined by
the infused virtues to the acts contrary to those vices. 37
37 " Ex doctrina
D. Thomae colligitur in recenter iustificato manere habitus
vitiosos, non in ratione habituum, sed in ratione dispositionum; non quia habitus in
dispositiones quoad substantiam transierint: cum enim habitus specifice a dispositione differat, in veriori Thomistarum sententia, non potest ille transitus fieri; sed
quia licet vitia remanentia sint habitus quoad substantiam, non tamen remanent in
habituum ratione quoad modum, sed induunt modum dispositionum, et quod ratione
inclinationis ad bonum, quam praestat gratia et virtutes et praedominii in
subiecto, manent in via corruptionis, et consequenter facile a subiecto amovibiles."
(Godoy, Disp. Theol. in I-ll, disp. 15, n. 19)

234

PETER LUMBRERAS

m. THEOLOGICAL VmTUES
As a habit for the practice of good, virtue stands for a constant inclination toward a good act in its particular matter.
It may happen that a given virtue cannot perform its act
without the help of some other. In such a case, no one possesses
the one virtue without the other. Thus, since moral virtue,
acquired or infused, must execute the medium rationis, which
medium is determined only by prudence, moral virtue needs
prudence and therefore cannot essentially exist without the
coexistence of prudence--acquired or infused, this being in the
subject by way either of habit or of disposition, as has been
said. But if without the help of another a virtue can perform its
good act, but cannot perform it well, that is with promptness,
ease and pleasure--as befits habit-then it is a real virtue without the other and does not depend on it essentially; it is dependent only as to its state or condition of habit. Thus it is
not a perfect virtue without the other.
It is commonly said that faith and hope can be without
charity, but without cluirity neither of them is a perfect_ virtue.
As for the first part of the statement we have some pronouncements of the Church. The Council of Trent defined: " If anyone should say that by losing charity on account of a mortal
sin faith is also lost, or that the faith which remains is not real
faith, although not living; or that he who has faith without
charity is not a christian, let him be anathema." (Denz. 838)
Clement XI condemned the proposition of Quesnel: " Everything is lacking in a sinner when hope is lacking; and there is
no hope where there is no love of God." 88 The reason is that
not every mortal sin is contrary to faith and hope as it is to
charity; consequently, although corrupting charity, it does not
necessarily corrupt faith and hope. In fact, faith and hope, even
without charity, ordain their subject infallibly to a good act:
38 Denz. 1407;-As
Banez (in II-II, q. 18, a. S) points out: "Non est tam
certum manere spem sive secundum habitum sive secundum actum eiusdem rationis,
sicut de fidei habitu sive actu. Probo. Quia de fide definitur in concilio Tridentino
(sess. 6, can. !i!S) quod manet vera fides in peccatore; non est autem de spe tam
expressa definitio; ergo non tam certum; quamvis esset temerarium id negare."

NOTES ON THE .CONNECTION

OF THE VIRTUES

235

faith ordains to the good of the intellect, which is truth, namely
to the truth backed by God's authority-as God cannot deceive nor be deceived; hope ordains to the good which is eternal
happiness, attainable secondarily by personal merits, but chiefly
by the help of God, in whom, according to the council of Trent,
"all must place and repose a most firm hope." (Denz. 806)
An objection can be raised on the part of the prudential judgment presupposed to faith and hope, since infused prudence, as
has been said, is destroyed by any mortal sin. For faith always
presuposes a prudential judgment of credibility, and hope a
prudential judgment by which one estimates that there are
sufficient motives to tend efficaciously toward the real attainment of glory. But in the first case, the prudential judgment,
although having a prudent object, namely rational credibilityor credibility in conformity with reason-is not an act of
prudence, since it belongs to the speculative intellect; consequently, on account of that judgment it does not follow that
faith is connected with prudence. In the second case, the prudential judgment is elicited by faith, which is practical by
extension; and thus hope requires faith, but not necessarily
prudence.
There is a stronger objection against the preservation of faith.
A heretic, by the fact of his refusal to admit a particular dogma
of faith, loses the habit of faith, though he might retain other
dogmas and persevere in their belief; 89 but anyone who commits
any mortal sin seems to deny faith in a particular dogmatic
proposition; consequently, faith is lost by any mortal sin. For
instance, a man who commits fornication does not commit it
except after judging fornication to be good, while according to
faith fornication is not good, but evil.
The question has been studied by St. Thomas with regard to
•• " It is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an
infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things
taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he
chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an
infallible rule, but to his own will. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with
regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion
in accordance with his own will." (II-II, q. 5, a. S)

236

PETER LUMBRERAS

a special sin, namely, despair. 40 And his solution, extended to
other sins, amount to this. The will is not moved toward fornication except after a judgment of the intellect; this judgment
must be practical, for it is ordained to acting, and must be
particular, as all our actions which have to do with the singular,
and must be actual, that is, actually applied to directing the
will. Thus a speculative judgment does not move the will; my
will is not moved toward something because this is good in
itself, but because it is good for me. A practical but universal
judgment does not move the will; my will is not moved toward
all fornications, but toward this one. A practical and particular
but habitual judgment does not move the will; I might habitually deem this particular fornication, at this time, in these
circumstances, to be an evil for me, and still consider it good
for me at the moment when temptation arises.
Now a practical, particular, and actual judgment can be
wrong (as, for example, the judgment that this fornication is
right now good for me and worth committing) without any
harm to the right speculative judgment (fornication is of itself
evil and worth avoiding) and without any harm to the practical and universal judgment (e. g., every fornication is evil for
••" Unbelief pertains to the intellect, but despair, to the appetite: and the intellect is about universals, while the appetite is moved in connection with particulars,
since the appetitive movement is from the soul towards things, which, in themselves, are particular. Now it may happen' that a man, while having a right
opinion in the universal, is not rightly disposed as to his appetitive movement, his
estimate being corrupted in a particular matter, because, in order to pass from the
universal opinion to the appetite for a particular thing, it is necessary to have a
particular estimate (De anima, iii), just as it is impossible to infer a particular
conclusion from an universal proposition, except through the holding of a particular
proposition. Hence it is that a man, while having right faith, in the universal,
fails in an appetitive movement, in regard to some particular, his particular estimate
being corrupted by a habit or a passion, just as the fornicator, by choosing
fornication as a good for himself at this particular moment, has a corrupt estimate
in a particular matter, although he retains the true universal estimate according to
faith, namely that fornication is a mortal sin. In the same way, a man, while
retaining in the universal, the true estimate of faith, namely that there is in the
Church the power of forgiving sins, may suffer a movement of despair, to wit,
that for him being in such a state, there is no hope of pardon, his estimate being
corrupted in a particular matter. In this way there can be despair, just as there
can be other mortal sins, without unbelief." (II-II, q.

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VmTUES

237

me and has to be avoided by me) and without harm to the
practical, particular and habitual judgment (e. g., while habitually I deem that this fornication is an evil and has to be
avoided by me). Consequently, I might commit this particular
fornication, by judging it to be good for me now, without any
harm being done to the universal judgment of faith: fornication
is an evil or a sin.
We must admit that a man who is tempted by fornication
might consider this under two different aspects, as a moral evil
and as a physical, delectable, good. If under the temptation,
he judges fornication or even this fornication not to be a. sin,
we can see in this judgment a proposition more or less contrary
to that of faith: every fornication is a sin. But if under temptation man does not compare fornication with sin, his judgment
is not: fornication, even this fornication, is not a sin, and consequently his judgment is not necessarily
to the judgment of faith. In fact one who consents to fornication is wholly
under the impression of the pleasure of the act; while it is
appealing to him and occupying all his attention, he compares
it with pleasure, and, seeing that it is pleasant he yields to it.
But the judgment: " Fornication is pleasant," is by no means
opposed to this other: " Fornication is a sin." And this is why
St. Thomas, following Aristotle, says that the syllogism of both
the continent and the incontinent-who are habitually determined to avoid sin-has four terms: on the part of the reason:
'"Every fornication is to be avoided"; on the part of the passion: " Every delectable thing is to be pursued." While the
continent would subsume under the major of the reason, the
incontinent subsumes under the major of the passion. 41
41 " Tam continens quam incontinens dupliciter movetur:
secundum rationem
quidem, ad vitandum peccatum; secundum concupiscentiam vero, ad committendum.
Unde uterque utitur syllogismo quattuor propositionum, sed ad contrarias conclusiones. Continens enim syllogizat: nullum peccatuum est faciendum, et hoc proponit
secundum indicium rationis; secundum vero motum concupiscentiae versatur in
corde eius quod omne delectabile .est prosequendum. Sed quid indicium rationis
in eo vincit, assumit et concludit sub primo: hoc est peccatum; ergo non est
faciendum. lncontinens vero, in quo vincit motus concupiscentiae, assumit et
concludit sub secundo: hoc est delectabile; ergo est prosequendum. Et talis proprie
est qui peccat ex infirmitate. Et ideo patet quod licet sciat in universali, non

"'

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PETER LUMBRERAS

Though without charity both faith and hope are real virtues,
they are not without charity perfect virtues. This is, as has
been said, a common doctrine. But not all theologians give to
it an identical interpretation. Some hold the condition of faith
and hope without charity to be like that of any moral virtue
without charity; they lack their ordination to the last end
and their acts are not meritorious. Of course, since infused
moral virtues are so intimately connected with charity as not
to exist at all without charity, the parallel can only be understood in speaking of acquired moral virtues. But we have
already proved that acquired moral virtues can exist as habits,
and thus as philosophically perfect virtues, without charity.
Consequently we cannot accept this explanation. 42
Some others say that faith and hope without charity are like
temperance and fortitude without prudence. St. Thomas himself has a few expressions that seem to favor this understanding.43 But we have shown that no moral virtue reaches the very
essence of a habit without total prudence, and thus, without
prudence, they are not essentially habits; they are simple dispositions, which are essentially distinct from habits. St. Thomas
explicitly holds that one and the same habit of lifeless faith
is that of living faith. 44 Being specifically the same habit, it is
necessary to say that even lifeless faith has the essence of a
tamen scit in particulari; quia non assumit secundum rationem, sed secundum
concupiscentiam." (QQ. DD. de Malo, 8, 9, 7m)
•• As Cajetan says (and we have already given a part of his text): "Aliter se
habet caritas ad fidem et spem; et aliter ad morales acquisitas. Istae enim non
constituuntur in esse virtutis secundum essentiam, nee secundum statum, per
caritatem aut aliquid eius: sed dum imperantur ab ea, ad superiorem ordinem
referuntur. Dlae autem ex caritatis praesentia sortiuntur perfectionem status."
(in I-ll, q. 65, 4, n. 6)
•• " If a man does what is just, what he does is good: but it will not be the work
of a perfect virtue unless he does it well, i.e. by choosing rightly, which is the
result of prudence; for which reason justice cannot be a perfect virtue without
prudence. Accordingly faith and hope can exist indeed in a fashion without
charity; but they have not the perfect character of virtue without charity. Faith
may be without charity, but not as a perfect virtue, just as temperance and
fortitude can be without prudence. The same applies to hope." (I-II, q. 65, a. 4)
•• "Living and lifeless faith do not differ specifically, as though they belonged to
different species. But they differ as perfect and imperfect within the same species."
(11-ll, q. 4, a. 5, ad Sm)

NOTES ON THE CONNECTION

OF THE VffiTUES

fl39

virtue. The only thing missing, then, would be the perfection of
a virtue, the status of a habit; it is a habit by essence, but in
the state of mere disposition. And this is why St. Thomas (in
QQ. DD. de Veritate, 14, 7) says that living faith differs from
lifeless faith as to the mode of acting, as sight differs according
to a more clear and less clear vision, as chastity which acts with
more or less promptitude; and thus, he adds, faith with charity
and faith without charity are not specifically distinct habits,
but differ according to perfection and imperfection. 45
In fact faith implies an assent of the intellect coming from
the motion or affection of the will. Since, in order to be perfect,
an act coming from two principles needs both principles to be
perfect, a perfect assent of faith calls for the perfection not
only of the intellect-by the virtue of faith-but also of the
will-by the virtue of charity. We trust our friends more
quickly than our enemies; we more easily believe what we love
than what we do not like. If by faith we believe God (oredimus
Deo) and believe in a God (credimus Deum) and believe in
God (credimus in Deum), it is evident that with promptness,
ease, and delectation we believe God as a friend, and in a God,
whom we love, and in God, to whom we tend, while being in
charity. Thus, as Cajetan rightly observes, 46 the act of faith
with charity is even intrinsically more perfect than that without
charity; and though that act, as compared to the intellect, be
not simpliciter more perfect, the perfection added by charity is
•• " In potentiis vel habitibus, ex duo bus attenditur diversitas: scilicet ex obiecto
et ex diverso modo agendi. Diversitas autem ex obiecto diversificat potentias et
habitus essentialiter; sicut visus differt ab auditu et castitas a fortitudine. Sed
quantum ad modum agendi non diversificantur potentiae et habitus per essentiam,
sed secundum completum et incompletum: quod enim aliquis clarius vel minus
clare videat, vel opus castitatis promptius vel minus prompte exerceat, non diversificat potentiam visivam, vel habitum castitatis; sed ostendit potentiam et habitum
esse perfectiorem vel minus perfectum. Fides autem formata et informis non differunt in obiecto, sed solum in modo agendi. Fides enim formata perfecta voluntate
assentit primae veritati; fides autem informis, imperfecta voluntate. Unde fides
formata et informis non distinguuntur sicut duo diversi habitus; sed sicut habitus
perfectus et imperfectus. Unde cum idem habitus qui prius fuit imperfectus possit
fieri perfect us, ipse habitus fidei informis fit formatus."
•• " Licet credere prout spectat ad intellectum non sit perfectius simpliciter,
tamen non est perfectius per accidens, ut actus opinionis in habente caritatem, sed
per se: quia est actus per se pendens a voluntate." (in II-II, q. 4, a. 5, n. 5)

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PETJ!llt L UMBRERAS

not per accidens, but per se, because it is a question of an act
depending per se on the will. By hope also we strive to attain
eternal happiness, based chiefly on God's help and secondarily
on our merits; and thus hope is perfect as to its state-namely,
prompt, solid, and easy-where there is a guage or a condignity
with regard to that happiness, where the help is expected from a
friend/ 7 and where the merits are actual, rather than merely
intentional; but a guage or condignity is given by grace, which
is always accompanied by charity, and charity means friendship
between man and God and is the source of supernatural merit.
Finally, witlwut faith and hope charity is impossible in a
wayfarer. For charity, again, stands for a friendship between
man and God, and friendship bespeaks a mutual benevolent
love based on something common. (II-II, q. 28, a. 1) Thus it
is necessary for man to believe that he has something in com- .
mon with God, and that, having laid the foundation, God, who
is faithful (I Cor. 1, 9), will not fail to complete what He has
begun to build.
There is little more to be said on this important, disputed,
and at times poorly elaborated question of the connection of
the virtues. There is no need for a special consideration of the
intellectual virtues, since it is most evident that some can have
the virtue called intellectus and lack that of science or have
one science but not other; although he who has the virtue of
science needs also that of intellectus. It is also clear that some
of the intellectual virtues are not necessarily connected with
moral virtues. There are people who possess justice, fortitude,
or temperance and lack the mathematical, the physical, or the
metaphysical sciences; though prudence cannot be without the
moral virtues, nor moral virtues without prudence. It is, finally,
obvious that the intellectual natural virtues are not necessarily
connected with the theological virtues; even among pagans
there were many illustrious philosophers, who had neither faith,
nor hope, nor charity.
PETER LUMBRERAS, 0. P.
CoUegio Angelicum,
Rome, Italy.

•• " With the advent of charity, hope is made more perfect, because we hope
chiefly in our friends." (II-II, q.17, a. 8)

BOOK REVIEWS
The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities. By F. C. S. NoRTHROP.
New York: Macmillan, 1948. Pp. 416, with index. $6.00.
The new book of the distinguished philosopher of Yale is not a presentation of the logical principles underlying the work of either science or the
humanities; insofar, it cannot be compared to such treatises, for example,
to the parts of the Handbuch der Philosophie by Weyl and Rothacker
respectively. Professor Northrop prefers to unite several essays, some
previously published and all dealing with his subject, yet not integrated
into a consistent text. Repetitions and gaps result. Particularly, the
name " humanities " does not refer here to the whole field it usually denotes; the author is more concerned with normative disciplines than with
elucidating the procedures of, say, linguistics or history.
In meeting the world in which he finds himself, man encounters problems
of many kinds. These he desires to solve and his endeavors result in
inquiry. The most important and most difficult task is to initiate inquiry
in the right manner. In a passage reminiscent of the opening lines. of the
De Ente, the author declares that the consequences of a false start cannot
be compensated for later by whatsoever rigor of procedure. Contrary to
the opinion of many, it is not the method which determines the problem
but is determined by it. The false view leads to the rejection of legitimate
problems as " pseudo-problems," simply because they do not allow the
use of some definite method. Particularly necessary of realization is that
besides factual there are also normative problems. Normative social
theories are indispensable; without them the idea of bettering the world
becomes meaningless. Yet, problems of this kind cannot be handled by
the methods of science.
The treating of every problem, says Dr. Northrop, proceeds in three
stages: analysis of the problem, collection of relevant facts (inductive
stage), and designation of relevant theories. At this point the value of
the book would have been enhanced by discussion of the varieties of
problems; the reader would appreciate knowing especially whether the
author considers the method of science as adequate to all factual problems
and inadequate only to those of a normative nature, or whether he is
willing to concede that facts are so differentiated among themselves that
other than strictly scientific methods must be devised.
The question of an eventual diversity of methods within the empirical
disciplines is important, today perhaps more than before. Some branches
of knowledge which have enjoyed respectability would definitely lose their

fl41

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BOOK REVIEWS

standing should the scientific method solely validate factual observation as
reliable knowledge. There are many who are desirous of achieving " scientific " standards for their special disciplines and who further believe that
this can be done only by assimilating their methods as far as possible to
that of science proper. There are others, however, who feel that the
" humanities " and even psychology, all that have lately been named
"human studies" (as a translation of Dilthey's Geisteswissenschaften by
Professor Hodges of Reading University) demand a methodology of their
own,, not fashioned on the pattern of physics. The question, although of
great interest, is not brought within the scope of the present book.
Facts, as studied in the second stage of inquiry, are first "immediately
apprehended " and, by being brought under concepts, become " described
facts." Professor Northrop calls this the stage of "natural history." The
immediately given is ineffable; it can be apprehended and pointed to, but
not stated. In commenting upon this feature, Dr. Northrop arrives at a
rather startling conclusion. He claims ineffability to be " the defining
property of the mystical "; he also declares that therefore " the purely
factual . . . positivistic component " of knowledge is the mystical factor
and that the " pure empiricists are the mystics of the world, the Orientals."
It is regrettable that the precise meaning of" mystical" is not made clear.
As it stands, the sentence is hardly acceptable. Ineffability may be one
feature of the mystical; it does not follow therefrom that everything
ineffable is to be labelled mystical. Ineffability is primarily linked with
individuality while all predication is effected by means of universals.
Insofar, the individual item is irrational; yet it cannot, for that reason
only, be subsumed under the heading of the mystical.
The immediately apprehended is, according to the author, not a thing.
Sense awareness, he believes, conveys to us but colors, sounds, odors, and
so on, but not a thing like a table.
the ineffable continuum of
aesthetic qualities is _given, not an external material object. The pure
datum resembles, according to Professor Northrop, more a painting of the
impressionistic school than one by a classical artist; impressionism, he supposes, renders the "aesthetic continuum," presents only sense impressions
and omits the external object.
Both contentions, of the non-giveness of things and concerning impressionism, are open to serious objections. An older psychology conceived of
" sensations " as the crude material of all our awareness of things; these
sensations were taken as meaningless, as being just this shade of blue,
this f sharp, this fragrance of a rose. Of course, as sensations they would
not be either blue, or f sharp, or refer to a rose; they would be nothing but
simple present data, without belonging to anything or pointing at anything.
The awareness of a thing was thought to result from association or some
similar integrating process. Dr. Northrop's view is not indeed so simplistic

BOOK REVIEWS

9l48

as that of such a psychology. Yet, it rests on the same supposition, that
the niind is supplied, through the senses, with indefinite data, something
like the " chaos of sensation " of which Kant speaks, and that it is by
some sort of theoretical interpretation that the mind transforms the'
ineffable aesthetic continuum into separate, definable things. The notion of
the aesthetic continuum has to be examined carefully because it is fundamental to the whole conception. Therefore, also the remark concerning
impressionism has to examined. Just as, on the one hand, the view that
we have primarily such an aesthetic continuum is not countenanced by
experience, but it is rather probable that simple sensory data result from a
subsequent, if unnoticed, analysis of the complex whole given immediately;
so, on the other hand, Dr. Northrop's view does not seem an adequate
statement on impressionism if this school is supposed to render the aesthetic
continuum. An impressionistic painting, if the name is taken as used by
the school itself and in the history of art, looks like such a continuum
(e. g., in a so-called pointillistic technique) only if the spectator places
himself so close to the canvas that only colored patches are seen. But,
envisioned from some distance, the painting presents real and definable
things. The definition of the impressionistic work has been given by Zola:
un coin de la nature vu a travers un temperament. Such a " comer of
nature," however, is not a piece of the aesthetic continuum but an assembly
of things, related to one another and definable. French impressionism did
not " give the pure fact without an interpretation." What the author has
in mind is better called " expressionism," or the kind of art often characterized as " abstract." The name is revealing; such art is,
truth, the
result of a transformation of the immediately given in the creative mind,
so that pure colors and shapes appear as expressive of something, rather
indefinite, and capable of evoking in the mind of the spectator some sort
of experience of merging in an indefinite " aesthetic continuum." Such a
work is the product of a secondary elaboration.
Further, the tendency in contemporary psychology, represented particularly by the school of " confi.gurationalism " or the psychology of Gestalt, is
directly opposed to the conception submitted by the author. The experimental and other evidence is of considerable importance and rather convincing; it is somewhat astonishing that no reference is made to these views.
All this is not tantamount to a claim that the experience of the aesthetic
continuum does not exist. It does; but not as a primary experience, rather
as one resulting from a complex transformation. One may indeed merge,
in some state of mind occasionally called the " natural mystic," with the
given, lose oneself in it, disregarding all " thingness " and live, as it were,
in a stream of impressions without attempting any grouping, ordering, or
synthesis of the data. However, this is not the primordial attitude; it is
one that is highly artificial or, at least, one in which there is made intentionally an "abstraction" of certain obvious features of that which is,
under average conditions, the immediately given.

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As in his The Meeting of East and West, so also here Professor Northrop
stresses the facts of art. Art appears to him, justly, as one revelation of
the spirit of a time or a civilization. It is equally true that no civilization
can be adequately comprehended unless, besides literature and philosophy,
art is considered. This manner of looking at things human is not, indeed,
new. Students of civilization, of cultural anthropology, and of art have
repeatedly endeavored to develop a comprehensive interpretation of a whole
civilization or an age. Yet, it is of merit that this be pointed out anew
and as forcefully as does Dr. Northrop.
The mind, in dealing with the given, passes beyond the aesthetic continuum, collects evidence in the stage of "natural history," and then proceeds to " fruitful and relevant hypotheses." Therewith emerges scientific
knowledge with its characteristic concepts and methods. The concepts may
be of " intuition " as referring to immediately apprehended facts, and hence
either of sensation or of introspection. Or, they may be arrived at by
" postulation," that is, dependent upon the postulates of the deductive
theory within which the interpretation of the inductively collected material
is attempted. If these concepts cannot be verified by inspection of the
given, that is, when they are of "intellection" (e. g., the four-dimensional
space-time continuum, the tensor-equation of Einstein) the identification
with facts is no longer possible. The concepts are then related to the facts
by what Dr. Northrop calls the "epistemic correlation." Metaphysics not
less than physical science can form such concepts by intellection and
epistemically correlate them to facts. The method of metaphysics is not
less scientific than that of empirical disciplines.
Professor Northrop is not, however, willing to concede to metaphysics
any independence of empirical knowledge. All postulates and theorems
must be ultimately related to facts (that is, the salvare apparentia must
be strictly observed). But, argues the author, this invalidates all metaphysics of the past, since the postulates and theorems expressed were
correlated to facts which we hold today not to be facts. The old metaphysics is " outmoded " because it lacks " the deductive fertility to give
rise by way of epistemic correlations to all empirical data." New times and
new science demand new metaphysics. Aristotelian physics does not do
justice to facts; hence Aristotelian metaphysics must be abandoned.
The latter thesis is linked with that of the aesthetic continuum. Since
things and facts are not simply given nor immediately, but result from a
theoretical, if prescientific interpretation, this interpretation depends-such
apparently is the author's argument-on the general knowledge, the totality
of accumulated principles of interpretation. These principles in turn depend
on all we know, hie et nunc, of empirical facts.
In other words: metaphysical speculation must progress and change
parallel to the progress and change of empirical knowledge. It seems that
much could be said against this thesis. First, it is questionable whether

BOOK REVIEWS

245

metaphysics does indeed depend to such an extent on empirical, especially
scientific knowledge. It is not an a priori inacceptable position to claim
that metaphysics, by operating on the same basis, may be able to render
an account of facts which were unknown when this particular metaphysical
system was proposed. The ultimate problems of metaphysics remain the
same whatever be the status of empirical knowledge. Reality and appearance, truth and error, the question of the wherefrom and why of anything,
the problem of the intelligibility of being, the problem of being itself: all
these and many other problems remain identically the same. And, it is
difficult to conceive of any stage or status of empirical knowledge that might
contribute decisively towards the solution of these problems. Secondly,
it is
question of the history of ideas whether the dependence on the
scientific views of an age truly determines to such an extent, as is claimed,
the nature of metaphysics. One can conceive of a Kant redivivus who
would arrive at much the same fundamental propositions and nonetheless
be not indebted to Newtonian physics. The same is true, maybe to a
higher degree, of Aristotelian speculation.
Further, the position taken by Professor Northrop endangers one of his
own doctrines, that of the methodology of normative disciplines. If philosophical speculation is concerned, as it seems, exclusively with the theory
of physical, biological, and psychological facts, where is there place left for
values? These form equally part of common-sense experience, although
they may not pertain to the aesthetic continuum. It is our vision of goodness which determines the norms in which we believe. If the " humanities," that is, in the author's parlance, the normative disciplines, in economics, sociology, and so on, if these humanities are to possess a logic of
their own, by what criteria can the efficacy of this method be gauged,
when all views have to change with a changing science? To claim that
such a method of normative disciplines exists, which is surely true, and
to make the disciplines themselves at the same time dependent on the
continuously changing state of science, because the underlying philosophy
is so dependent, seems to imply a contradiction.
At least, it opens wide
the way for an excessive relativism in regard to values and norms. Relative norms, however, cease to be norms and become simple practical rules,
to be abandoned when they no longer suit the mind of an age.
The discussion of a logic other than that of science would have gained
had the author seen fit to refer also to non-normative disciplines. There is
indeed an interesting essay on "The Functions and the Future of Poetry."
Poetry too cannot fulfill, we are told, its function in the modern world
unless it becomes imbued with the new spirit of this world and expressive
of it; the new spirit being mainly that fashioned by science. Unlike poetry,
modern art appears to the author in some of its trends as an adequate
expressron.
The foregoing remarks summarize but imperfectly the ideas of Professor

a

246

BOOK

Northrop. The general background of his work seems to be a keen awareness of the need of our times that there be brought about a new integration
of all the various facets of human life. In this, one cannot but agree with
him. One may, however, doubt whether the strong emphasis laid on the
scientific aspect will prove very helpful. There is no truly cogent reason for
assuming that the common principles underlying human existence and the
world wherein man lives can all be stated, as long as they are not normative, in terms of science. Also, one may doubt the statement that philosophy changes because of a different scientific outlook, whereas one must
agree that changes in philosophy condition changes in man's whole attitude in regard to society and values. The question then arises whether
it is of the nature of values to change; if there are goods which remain
such and retain their place in the valuative order under all conditions, then
the changing philosophy appears more a threat than a part c;>f real progress
towards a better state of the world. Ultimately, Dr. Northrop's concepThat such a. conception
tion is tributary to a relativistic interpretation.
can be the means of reconstructing the world is questionable, if not
impossible.
This relativistic attitude and over-emphasis on the actual state of science appear the fundamental weaknesses in Professor Northrop's position.
His book contains much that is excellent. Yet, beyond the fundamental
error, there are some minor imperfections: the manner in which the Aristotelian conception of intellectual operations is presented is inaccurate
(p. 89) , and the notion of entropy as given (p. 59) is, to say the least,
misleading.
Nevertheless, a work which arouses criticism and proves inacceptable in
its basic tenets may be useful and important. Professor Northrop has
attempted to envision the present situation and the plight of man from
all sides and to draw a picture of man's state and future tasks. His
attempt deserves recognition as a voice warning against easy complacency,
the disregard of the manysidedness of human existence, and as a serious
search of conscience. His work is noteworthy also in this that he stresses,
as in his earlier writing, the fundamental unity of human nature, the
different roles allotted to different peoples and civilizations in the one
march of mankind towards a dimly seen better world.
RunoLF

Catholic University of America,
WtUhington, D. C.

ALLERS

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247

Foundations of Democracy. By F. ERNEST JoHNSON, ed. New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1947. Pp. 288, with index. $2.00.
Unity and Difference in American Life. By R. M. MAciVER, ed. New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1947. Pp. 168, with index. $2.00.
The volumes under review are products of the contemporary American
concern for national unity. Though manifest in some form during most of
our history as a nation, such a concern has assumed new and critical
significance as greater international responsibilities have been thrust upon
the United States. Movements in " intercultural education " and " intergroup relations " have grown considerably. Typical of some educational
efforts in this regard are the addresses and courses offered by the Institute
for Religious and Social Studies founded at the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America through a gift from Lucius N. Littauer. The present collections
include addresses given before the Institute during 1944 and 1945. They
are as the third group in the Religion and Civilization Series.
Unity and Difference in American Life follows two volumes in this series
which have presented discussions of intergroup antagonisms and conflicts.
Though the editor in a foreword promises that the contributors will show
how group differences are related to national unity, few take up this theme
directly and-undoubtedly because of the popular level of presentationmost seem content to survey existing prejudices and to urge their elimination. E. Franklin Frazier's analysis of the racial issue may be singled out
as a clear and compact summary of the esssential character of interracial
relations and of the growth of militancy among Negroes. In contrast to
the dominantly descriptive emphasis in this book is the concern for doctrine
in Foundations of Democracy, which social philosophers are likely to find
more interesting, if chiefly as a handbook of current notions on the subject.
Historical and philosophical discussions of democratic origins make up
approximately the first half of the work, while the second half comprises
attempted applications of democratic principles to economic, educational,
and religious matters. The range of views presented is wide, with liberal
Protestantism predominating, but with representation of Jewish, Catholic,
and secularist philosophers. Since the interpretations are so varied, perhaps
the critical comments offered here will have most worth and the contents
of the books will be noted sufficiently if attention is directed toward certain
central issues raised rather than toward a separate examination of each
contribution.
National unity, as the term is used in most current literature of this
kind, refers to the unity of the American nation-state. In a theoretical
discussion it would be important to distinguish between the unity of the
nation and the unity of the state, since these are actually two different social

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BOOK REVIEWS

groups. Their identification in the modem world has been the result of
nationalism, a sentiment which tends to exalt the nation-state as the
supreme value. Unity achieved principally through the cultivation of
nationalism is thus founded upon a myth which has brought disaster to
those people who have been its conscious ardent champions. Carried to its
logical conclusion, it is a conception in which persons and groups are
regarded ultimately as segments of a monolithic state, without any autonomy except that granted by the state. This is as true of nationalism in a
democratic country as in any other, when democracy is linked with the
absolutism of majorities, though the tendency to substantialize and hypostatize the state has been carried farthest under contemporary dictatorships.
A proper realistic view, .on the other hand, recognizes in the state, as in
any social group, a unity of relation, real indeed but accidental (predicamentally), distinguishable from its members but not separate from them.
True unity is attained through the right ordering of all the social goods by
the state, though these goods are not produced but presupposed by it, and
protected, enhanced, and distributed through its agency. Seen in their
relation to the state, persons and groups are parts of the whole, since their
actions must be ordered to the common good, but they can never be wholly
contained in the fabric of the state. The person always remains primary,
the common good essentially subsidiary-in other words, the good which is
achieved by common action flows back upon the members of the state,
serving them ultimately.
Applied to the particular problem of intergroup relations in American
society, this conception might be said to be pluralistic. Accepting the
political structure of the United States, and confronting the diversity of
ethnic, religious, political, economic, and other groups in the country, the
sensible citizen would seem well-advised to presuppose differences, rather
than attempt to deny or suppress them. What is required is a principle of
accommodation on the basis of which all groups can pursue their own
legitimate interests and the common good at the same time. Professor
Maciver, in his conclusion to Unity and Difference in American Life, makes
the point in these words: "We are not seeking uniformity and we are
certainly not seeking coordination. We do not want simply agreement
between groups or even within groups. What we want is that these disagreements, these differences shall not tangle and balk our co-operation in
our common concerns." (p. 15!il)
The wisdom of frankly recognizing differences does not always get the
emphasis it deserves, in view of the widespread tendency of Americans to
expect conformity in individual and group traits. Where divisions exist,
especially in politics and religion, it is too often considered polite to act as
if they were unimportant.
An editorial writer in a great metropolitan
newspaper recently opined, apparently without his tongue in his cheek,

BOOK REVIEWS

" If all the children of the world could, from the time they came into the
world, live and play and work with each other, without the differences of
skins and features and religions and political divisions being called to their
attention by their elders, they might grow up believing that there were no
fundamental differences among human beings." It seems to escape the
numerous well-meaning people who reason in this way that such an eventuality would be an irreparable tragedy for the children. Human life cannot
be reduced to play and work! Granting that difference of color and features
are significant only because some people think them so, the pretense that
differences of religious faiths or political and social outlooks are also intrinsically unimportant is the poorest basis for group understanding. Its source
is blindness.
None of the contributors to the books at hand ignores differences in this
naive manner. Some go so far as to advocate their positive encouragement.
Lawrence K. Frank, for example, interprets current social confusion as a
concomitant of democratic growth, since it results in part from the fluidity
and uncertainty of status systems in the modern world. Rather acutely, he
observes that there are " two insecurities " which plague modern man, the
insecurity of the former dominant groups and the
of the former
submissive groups. There is anxiety because the old patterns which
channeled status relationships have been broken and men are grouping for
new norms of social intercourse. We face, according to Frank, "the
relatively new problem of how we are to conduct our interpersonal relationships with others as persons, as individuals" (Unity and Difference in
American Life, p. 37). A sweeping reorganization of our social order is
seen as imperative: " ... it is a question, not merely of tolerating, but of
encouraging diversities, recognizing the different cultural traditions and
their meaning for different groups and likewise recognizing the idiomatic
personality of individuals. We can build a unity around such diversities to
the extent that we accept this common belief in the value of the individual
and the equality of human needs and develop the patterns of nonexploitive,
nondominanting human relationships in all the varied activities of living."
(Ibid., p. 39)
The ring of the language in this formula gives it a certain appeal, but
its validity hinges upon Frank's conception of personality, of human nature.
Where does he find the basis of man's dignity? What are its social implications? If social order is not given as a part of nature but must be
achieved and maintained in human conduct, how are its norms derived?
Convention seems to be the only source alluded to in the text. Simple
historical evolution has presumably brought us this far on the road to
democracy. Man's inherent rationality and the freedom consequent upon
it are not brought into the discussion, to say nothing of man's dependence
upon his Creator. A clue to Mr. Frank's position is found in his statement

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that the concept of individual rights and personal freedom did not really
emerge until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He ignores the whole
tradition of Christian thought which recognized the existence of a natural
moral law, presenting itself to the human intellect and will, and indicating
rights and duties termed " unalienable " in our Declaration of Independence. Instead the individual is made a law unto himself. Is there not
perversity in the paradox that we should be asked to recognize the fundamental similarity and equality of all men, yet deny the existence of a
universal moral law founded in a common human nature?
Without the conception of a universal rational human nature, a " common
belief in the value of the individual " is wholly inadequate as a basis for
social unity. It is easy to write that the democratic approach" is essentially
that of achieving order by orchestrating the widest diversities of individuality on the common theme of human needs and values." (Ibid., p. 84)
By all means let us preserve individuality! But unless the " human needs
and values " are adequately conceived and seen as common, the social effect
of this approach must be atomistic rather than solidaristic. Social unity is
possible only where there are enough shared values to produce at least a
minimum of" likemindedness." When these values are conceived as purely
subjective-and in our society they tend to be dominantly sensory and
material-they become self-limited or group-limited, so that the struggle
for their attainment sets men apart instead of uniting them. Because
modern secularists are skeptical about objective norms they cannot agree
upon what " the value of the individual " really demands in social life.
Their own confusions spawn reactions against freedom. Arnold Lunn has
pointed to the result in a recent issue of the London Tablet: " The trouble
about the toleration which has its roots in scepticism and disillusion is that
it is the most ephemeral of phenomena. The Age of the Enlightenment led
directly to the fanatic persecutions of the Jacobins, and the revolt against
orthodoxy among Russian intellectuals to the Bolshevist tyranny. Our
modern tolerance of perverse doctrines is preparing the way for the servile
State. The Periclean maxim, "We have no sour looks for our neighbor if
he enjoys himself in his own way," commends itself to our modern humanists until the neighbor is a Hitler who enjoys himself in-his own way by
putting the tolerant humanist into a concentration camp. The only hope for
the world is the tolerance which has its roots not in scepticism but in that
respect for human personality which finds its rational justification in the
faith."
Division on the foregoing issue is apparent among the contributors to
Foundations of Democracy. Horace Kallen, secular humanist, presents
brashly the philosophical position which is mostly implicit in Frank's
remarks. For Kallen the Declaration of Independence marks not only the
birthday of democracy but " a definite break with the entire tradition of

BOOK REVIEWS

the Western world." (p. 71} Before 1776, he maintains, all political and
ecclesiastical establishments operated on the assumption that man was made
for government, not government for man. Such a supposed state of affairs
was purportedly rationalized by the idea of God as the source and sanction
of power {an invention of kings and popes}. Jefferson is credited with
repudiating all this and, in effect, with founding a new faith; his religious
views, Kallen holds, were " alone consistent with the prepositions of the
Declaration of Independence." (p. 75; italics supplied) Henceforth man
should be the measure of all things, finding in himself the rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and even unmasking God as his own
creation. Kallen rejoices that the Man he deifies and substitutes for God
"is plural, not singular, multitudinous, not totalitarian." {p. 82}
This exposition-based as it obviously is upon a most singular and
arbitrary reading of the history of philosophy, religion, and politics-need
not detain us further. There is some satisfaction in noting rather general
agreement in the other historical contributions to this volume upon the
existence of a classical and medieval heritage for American democracy.
Thus, Irwin Edman outlines the Greek ideas of man's inherent sociality,
equality before the law, government by consent of the governed, and
distributed property, and the Roman conception of law. Rabbi Louis
Finkelstein goes back to Genesis where it was written that man was made
in the image of God, and, in discussing Hebrew developments, draws
democratic significance from the controversy between the School of Shammai
and the School of Hillel concerning the possibility of immortality for
"righteous pagans." He takes his stand with the latter as more democratic,
and also stresses the growth of lay scholarship and its increasing influence
in the synagogue, and especially the tolerance for deviations which developed
among the Jews. George N. Shuster emphasizes that man's freedom is
inherent in his nature, as medieval scholastics understood, and further,
shows the significance of the liberation of Church from State which Christianity introduced and the bearing of Christian virtues and education upon
the social order. Classical and medieval contributions are also recognized
by John T. McNeill whose essay on the Reformers is chiefly an evaluation
of their teachings from a democratic point of view, rather than a claim for
the distinction of their political thought. In a chapter on "The Founding
Fathers," Father Moorhouse F. X. Millar, S. J., urges appropriately a
general reappraisal of our history to show the recognition of natural law
and the ethical notion of the state in the founding of this nation, and the
relation of these concepts to divided sovereignty and the principle of
majority decision, developments based upon medieval and not French
Revolutionary thought.
It is not an exaggeration to remark, in conclusion, that the tensions in
intergroup relations within the United States seem in certain respects much

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BOOK REVIEWS

less destructive of unity than some of the principles advanced to reduce
them. Perhaps a distinction may be made between the immediate aspects
of the problem and the ultimate philosophical basis for unity. American life
has embraced wide cultural diversities chiefly because a framework of law
and convention and an open class system have facilitated the interaction of
different groups and permitted each to make its unique contributions to the
common good. It has been possible, as it is still, to appeal to the historic
tradition against racial injustice, religious bigotry, and economic greed.
With the common good of the body politic as the goal, action programs can
be initiated by churches, communities, schools, unions, and all other interested agencies. Catholic and secularist, Republican and Socialist, capitalist
and laborer, educator and lawyer and politician, all may cooperate at this
level for the civic welfare. The unity which is attained will be short of the
ideal, tensions will never be fully resolved. but necessary accommodations
can be made.
When it is a question of exploring the basis of the principle of accommodation itself, other tests must be applied. The secularist creed has been
subjected to criticism here because of the deficiencies in its logic and its
weakness as a foundation of unity. By asserting that man's rights come
from himself, not from God, the objective basis of liberty and authority is
denied, and not reason but force is finally enthroned. Just as self-centered
individuals grow frustrated and neurotic, beset with conflicts, so human
society centering upon itself and denying an Ultimate Good must become
morbid and divided within. The modern world, permeated by secularism
and relativism, has seen the increase, not the diminution of antagonisms.
Nor is there a prospect for real improvement, since the very values which
are exalted do not inspire a common struggle for their fulfillment but contentions and wars for their exclusive possession. The continuing spread of
these values is the real threat to national unity. Under threat of attack
from without, modern nations have bought their unity at the price of
anachronistic nationalisms and statism.
For peace within and among nations there is only one sure foundation,
as Pope Pius XII reminded the world in his first encyclical; it is " that law
of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our
common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus
Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful
mankind."
C. J. NuEssE.
Catholic Unive1·sity of America,
Washington, D. C.

BOOK REVIEWS

Evil and the Christian Faith. By NELS F. S. FERRE. New York: Harper
and Bros., 1947. Pp. 169, with index. $2.50.
Dr. Nels F. S. Ferre, Abbot Professor of Christian Theology at Andover
Newton Theological School, has given us a book which is stimulating but
marred by. obscurity and error; a book concerned with the problem of evil,
which the author calls " my central problem " and to which he brings a
solution containing the "very heart of my theology."
The vecy heart of Dr. Ferre's theology is in Appendix A: The Christian
Faith. One should read this section of the book first (along with Appendix B: Faith and Reason) to do justice to the author's thought. His
interpretation of the Christian Faith: it is essentially Agape, " the kind of
love which. God is, which received conclusive expression in Jesus, and
which lives ever as the central and controlling reality wherever there is
genuine Christian fellowship" (p. 140). This conception of Agape, the
author carefully distinguishes from the highest reaches of the Greek mind
and of Judaism and of any pre-Christian religion (pp. 140-142). There
follows a brilliant synthesis of the richness of Agape: that God is Agape
("Ultimate is not a principle but a person," p. 148); that Agap is the full
and final principle of explanation of any problem (p. 149); that Agape is
Holiness and the raisond'etre of the sufferings of Christ and of all the saints
(p. 150); that Agape is active love and that the central action of God in
history was the Crucifixion (p. 152) ; that Agape is perfect wisdom and
power and freedom (pp. 158-155); that Agape is perfect beauty (" beautiful is the face of God drawing our weary earth-stained eyes away from our
selfish preoccupation. . . . The beautiful is the still overflowing of the
harmony of God's eternity spilling over into our confused self-seeking,"
p. 156).
The conclusion of Appendix B: Faith and Reason is that "all of us
inescapably live primarily by faith " (p. 167) . But what is faith? Essentially, it is selection. "The only adequate faith is found in the most
high. . . . To live in truth as far as one can is thus to keep deciding from
within our best knowledge far beyond our best knowledge where the content of faith at the same time both fulfills and yet also denies the best
that we can know" (p. 167). "The historic content of right religion, the
pivot of faith, must not only be selected in terms of the right knowledge
of our process as a whole, but also be assessed and certified in relation to
it " (p. 168) . " The most high is thus to be discovered by being selected
existentially out of a dynamic synthesis of faith and reason " (p. 169) .
In his Introduction, Dr. Ferre points out that the problem of evil is a
supernatural problem and must be solved in terms of the supernatural; he
furthermore warns against partial, as well as mixed, perspectives in attempting a solution to the problem. These perspectives are carefully analyzed
and criticized.

8

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BOOK REVIEWS

a) The Problem of Evil cannot be solved on the level of historic fact (a disjunct,
concrete event in our history). No one single historic fact is self-explanatory; nor is the whole historic process self-explanatory. The historic process
is not the whole of reality and evil itself is only. a 'part of, or an aspect
of, some becoming.' Part cannot explain part (pp. 5-8).
b) The Problem of Evil cannot be solved merely on the aesthetic level-where
the parts of the historic process might be in continual cacophony, and their
symphony apparent to, and appreciated only by, God. Such a solution
supposes a distorted view of God, arisinJl from an erroneous theology (e. g.
of Calvin) or from a hazy physico-mathematics
(e. g. of Whitehead)
(pp. 15-19).

The Problem of Evil must be solved on the personal-spiritual level, because I) only persons can appreciate process and the place of evil in
process; 2) only persons can see the fallacy of the pleasure-principle in an
attempted solution of the problem of evil; 3) only spiritual persons can
see what "makes the cross of Christ, with all that it symbolizes and stands
for, the central means for the effecting of the best"; and 4) only spiritual
persons are capable of actual and ideal selection of the best in historic
process (pp. 20-3I).
Evil, therefore, in all its ramifications must be viewed from the personalspiritual level and " in terms of the reflective superspective, the necessary
synthesis of faith and knowledge" (p. I3) or, in other words, in terms of
" God in Christ as the embodiment in history of the divine Agape " (p. I9) .
This objective principle to which the author frequently refers is nothing
else than the " very heart " of his theology. The reflexive superspective is
both explanatory and existential (p. I23 and following) : I) explanatory
or merely abstract, rational knowledge of evil, based on what is actual and
possible in evil itself; 2) existential or "the struggling with and under God
against evil." "The solution lies in the living synthesis of the explanatory
and the existential perspectives made effectual only through deepened
concern and trust within the family fellowship of God " (p. I25) .
In the moral sphere, evil is sin, " the perverted thwarting of our most
basic needs and of our most serious longings" (p. 44). Indirectly, it is
the refusal to treat others and nature as we know God would have us;
directly, it is defiance of God's will for us. Sin is therefore bound up with
time, not with eternity. Though a thing to be deplored, the denial of, and
rebellion against God, implicit in sin, is a necessary condition both for the
full development of our freedom and of our adoption as " sons of God "
(pp. 34-35) . " Sin is our wronging God by refusing His fellowship, which
alone can fully satisfy us. It is simply wrong, it is, indeed, to wrong God,
to think that He holds the finite creature responsible for the infinite law,
that he attributes infinite guilt for finite infraction, that the relative can
sin absolutely, even though of relative capacity in wisdom and will, simply
because the sin is against the absolute. Finite transgression merits a finite
guilt; finite capacity involves a finite responsibility; finite wrong deserves

BOOK REVIEWS

finite retribution " (pp. 44-45) . There follows that an eternal hell is
unthinkable. An eternal hell would argue against God's Agape and would
involve an eternal frustration of God's plans for creatures (p. 117 ff.) .
In the physical sphere, evil is either our precarious environment or the
sufferings of animals or the death both of animals and men. The relative
constancy of our environment makes for initiative, responsibility and creativeness; while its inconstancy and instability makes for our cooperation
with one another and for our dependence on God (pp. 55-56) . Although no
full solution of animal pain may be ours (since the problem of pain in the
animal world must not be treated from the perspective of intensive human
sensitivity), nonetheless we can affirm that even in that world there is
more pleasure than pain, more zest for life than fear of life (pp. 59-61).
This much we can say, the rest is mystery and surmise. Neither is there
a full solution for the greatest of all physical evils-death. But the death
of animals does not seem to be ultimate destruction. " Are the lion and the
rabbit, the snake and the mosquito, the horse and the wren," Dr. Ferre
asks, "actually in us, not in a general life stream, but individually, finding
in us their fuller fruition and eventual individuation in a more permanent
form? " (p. 62) " Death is the bright hope of God's fuller history for each
man according to His wonderful wisdom, and perhaps for each generation,
or for each history as a whole. Though the soul dies, the Spirit lives.
The natural man, the capacities and the contents, that is, of his consciousness, perishes. No one is naturally immortal. The Spirit is given
new life by the grace of God " (p. 105) . " The separateness of our present
kind of individuality may not characterize the future life. There may be a
degree of freedom and of creative individuality which is also different in
kind from our present state " (p. 109) .
Dr. Ferre's work fluctuates between light and darkness. His reflections
on Agape (p. 139 ff.) are among the most refreshing and most beautiful
in recent Protestant literature (although one wishes the author had not
expressed doubt about the Epistles of St. Paul, who wrote so lucidly and
glowingly of the Divine Agape) . Similarly refreshing is the note of
optimism struck on the consideration of each kind of evil; that the evils
which assail us are ultimately for our good. Rightly, he says that all our
woes must be referred to the Cross of Christ, where they find their full
and final meaning.
The obscurity of the work centers principally about the principle which
is used as a solution to the problem of evil; the " reflexive superspective."
What can Dr. Ferre possibly mean by faith and reason as human interpretations and responses being flooded over their banks by revelation; and that
revelation is the summation of insight and of intimate fellowship relations
between our small i's and God's great Thou? (p. 168) , How can genuine
faith be at once precisely what the word implies (the acceptance of truth
on the authority of one revealing) and a selection? What are the respective provinces of faith and reason?

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BOOK

The most glaring error in Dr. Ferre's work, from the viewpoint of logic,
is that he assumes the very attitude he so severely criticizes in others: that
of using a partial perspective to solve the complex and knotty problem of
evil. The full and final solution is indeed Agape, but God's love must not
be considered in utter isolation from His other attributes, notably His justice. "Christian Faith," says the author, "is not on the level of God's
justice" (p. 45). Logically, Dr. Ferre does not believe that God's love is
consistent with an eternal hell. This is because his perspective of sin is
inverted and his perspective of God's love is partial. He views sin primarily as a " wounding of our deepest self in our deepest affections and
desires" (p. 44) where he should view it primarily with respect to God
who is offended. Under this aspect, the sin of a finite creature is infinite;
and a violation of the eternal fitness of things. It therefore calls for eternal
punishment. An eternal hell is compatible with God's just love and God's
loving justice. To bolster his position of a non-eternal hell, Dr. Ferre
quotes from St. Athanasius. Now the work from which this quotation is
taken ("The Incarnation of the Word of God") is a forgery. This book
really emanated from some Apollinarist heretics and was attributed by
them to St. Athanasius (Cfr. Bardy, G.: The Greek Literature of the Early
Christian Church, London, p. 99). Because hell is eternal, heaven does
not therefore become a place of mourning, for the saved identify themselves with the just wishes and designs of God, and not with the lot of the
lost. God indeed wishes all to be saved but in view of the prerogative of
freedom which He has given to His intellectual creatures, He permits some
to be eternally lost through the wilful abuse of that freedom.
Dr. Ferre affirms the divinity of C!-trist (p. 163) but it is obvious he does
not understand all that the unique Divine Personality of Christ implies.
For the author expresses uncertainty as to whether or not Christ " actually rebelled sinfully" against His Heavenly Father. "Whether or not he
(Christ) ever defied ... God's full will we cannot know " (p. 35) . Underlying Dr. Ferre's confusion is his misunderstanding of the nature of freedom, even on the existential plane, and his misunderstanding of the temptations of our Lord in the desert (p. 34 ff.) . "Freedom," he says, " to be
real involves evil, at least the evil of temporary estrangement " (p. 36) .
On the metaphysical (or psychological) plane, the term of freedom is
action; on the spiritual plane, the term of freedom is virtue. It is difficult
to see how rebellion (the abuse of freedom) can make for a fuller freedom,
even in a spiritual sense. The limbs of the body are not perfected by abuse
but through their co-natural activities. Again, Christ was never tempted in
the same way we are; the temptations of Christ were factual but external,
ours are factual but affect our internal faculties. It was metaphysically
impossible for Christ to commit sin.
Dr. Ferre is somewhat confused, too, about a future state for man (pp.
105-109). Is Spirit the third physical component of man, over and above

BOOK REVIEWS

257

his soul and body? It does not appear to be so; rather, Spirit is capable of
separate existence. Spirit might be that into which the individual man is
elevated in the after-life; it might be that into which many men or all
men are elevated in such a way as to lose their distinctive individuality to
take on the individuality of Spirit. Thus the author. Not a very bright
prospect for individual men and women, struggling from the grip of this
world's travail.
Dr. Ferre's book, however, is worth reading for one who already has an
unshakable grasp of orthodox principles. It is not an easy book to read
but it is, in many ways, delightful. " Evil and the Christian Faith " is part
of a series. Possibly, Dr. Ferre's thought will have matured by the
publication of his next work.
IGNATIUs FoRMICA, C. P.
St. Ann's M011aatery,
Scranton, Pa.

Fearful Symmetry.
A Study of William Blake. By NoRTHROP FRYE.
Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. Pp. 462, with
notes and index. $5.00.
This, the most significant study of the English poet and artist William
Blake (1757-1827) that has appeared in some years, may perhaps be
considered as an extension of Mr. S. Foster Damon's earlier work, which
Mr. Frye admires greatly. Mr. Damon and Mr. Frye have both attempted
a synthesis of Blake's thought, especially as it is expressed in the prophetic
writings, to which little extensive and serious study has been given by
other Blake critics, at least with a view to essaying a sympathetic exposition
of Blake's system. M. Denis Saurat, whose study is far more antagonistic,
and in some senses more critical, does, however, have the disadvantage,
pointed out by Mr. Frye as common to most Blake critics, of considering
Blake almost entirely as a product of his sources.
Mr. Frye has bent his energies chiefly toward expounding Blake as he is.
It is rather astonishing to discover that Mr. Frye is himself a real disciplethat he believes Blake's view of life, art, and religion to be true, or at least
profoundly significant. This complete partisanship, combined with his
strong conviction that Blake's thought cannot be explained wholly in the
light of his sources, produces a work valuable for readers who have the
ability to make their own critical judgments.
Basic to Mr. Frye's study is his instructive and certainly correct belief
that the key to Blake's thought is an understanding of his position as a
rebel against the tyranny of Locke and the Deists. In support of this
Blake went chiefly to Berkeley, and opposed to the materialism
and rationalism of his day an extreme idealism which saw everything as

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BOOK REVIEWS

existing in the mind of man. Blake went further into subjectivism even
than Berkeley, and identified the mind of man with the mind of God. It
is here that Cabalism enters into his system, so obviously that even Mr.
Frye cannot deny Blake's acceptance of its strange hypotheses. Before the
Fall, goes the Cabalistic myth, all men were one man, who was God. The
Fall caused creation, and the dispersal of the one man into many, and
therefore creation was evil.
Such a monstrous concept of God and creation is so basically and obviously false that it is strange to find an intelligent critic such as Mr. Frye
seemingly impressed by it. He appears especially delighted with Blake's
hatred of all orthodox religions, which Blake believed to be part of the
evil brought about by the fall, with their insistence upon law, reason, and
morality. These he held to be somehow tied up with the fallen universe,
and not necessary to the truly redeemed man. Blake is led by this belief
into unfortunate blasphemies, in which God in His Old Testament aspect
as a God of law and punitive justice is called "Nobodaddy" and sneered
at as a creation of Pharasaical Judaism. It is unfortunate that Mr. Frye
should so often cheapen his work by adding his own sneers-far more
personal and petty-to Blake's unpleasant but rather more grandiloquent
contempt.
Of the myriad ramifications of Blake's involved but fascinating and vital
system, especially as adumbrated in the long and to most readers very
tiresome prophetic books, little can be said here. Mr. Frye does, however, make us see that Blake's intent in opposing materialism and rationalism was excellent, that he seized intuitively upon their most inhuman
errors, whose disastrous effects are still being felt in our own time. The
attempt of man to improve his condition by scientific rationalism, the
sadistic tyrannies whether of an irresponsible ruling class, as Fascist dictator, or a "dictatorship of the proletariat," which spring from extreme
rationalism and materialism, from the failure to understand the true dignity
of man, are bringing today evils which are more devastating than the
"dark, Satanic mills" of eighteenth century England. Mr. Frye makes
it easy for us to see why Blake has had a special influence upon Catholic
thought, since in many respects it was the Church's battle he fought,
though he certainly was completely unaware he was doing so.
Blake's reverence for art, his belief in creative as opposed to mechanical
artistic theory, his view of art as spiritual rather than naturalistic and
merely sensory (his hatred of the Renaissance was perhaps more profound
than that of any other English writer) -all these mark him as unique in his
own time, a.great seminal forerunner of the Romantic movement, of PreRaphaelitism, and thus even of the English Catholic revival and more
recent Catholic thought. His theories on the art of the Bible as the type
of all poetry, on its great allegorical significance, his love for communal
art and the beauties of medieval painting and architecture, his conception

BOOK REVIEWS

of history as the great spiritual drama of fall and redemption stamp him as
an artist astoundingly perceptive of the truths his own age had denied.
This is not to minimize in any way the grave errors into which Blake
fell. In addition to those already mentioned, there must be added countless flaws, stemming largely from the unreasoned, intuitive character of
his approach to things and the very violence of his reaction against a false
reasoning, an inhuman concept of order and justice. Because he craved
consideration for the human person, he cursed all governments, all churches,
all law human and divine. Because he knew that sex is spiritual as well
as physical, he glorified it to an absurd and antinomian degree. Because
he realized that art was a God-given, creative power, he considered the
artist superior to the mystic and saint, and believed the artistic imagination (by which he obviously meant the intellectual aspects of the creative
faculty and not simply the physical power) to be the only valid means of
attaining truth and goodness. It is the chief failure of Mr. Frye's work
that he does not discriminate between these excesses and the very real good
that there is to be found in Blake for those strong and mature enough not
to be carried away by him. We can be grateful, then, only up to a point
for Mr. Frye's penetrating, comprehensive, but overenthusiastic and often
uncritical study.
JosEPHINE NicHOLLs HuGHES
Riggs Memorial Library,
Georgetown University.

Leon Bloy-Pilgrim of the Absolute. Edited by RAissA MARITAIN, with an
introduction by Jacques Maritain. New York: Pantheon Books, 1947.
Pp. 458, with index of sources. $3.50.
In her autobiography, Raissa Maritain has already recounted the story
of Leon Bloy's profound influence upon her husband and herself. She here
presents the life and thought of this extraordinary and uncompromising
spirit in extracts from his own voluminous works. Well-chosen selections
describe his moral and physical self-portrait, his views on art, poverty, the
bourgeois spirit, sanctification and suffering, history and the sense of
mystery. Jacques Maritain's introductory essay, adapted from Quelques
pages sur Leon Bloy,
sets forth Bloy's significance as a man and as a
thinker.
Estimates of Bloy vary considerably. People great and small, of all
walks of life, have acclaimed him as their spiritual father. Some critics,
like Fr. Fulbert Cayre, A. A. (Patrologie et histoire de la theologie, III,
588) , regard him as a powerful genius who manifesfed signs of exalted
illuminism but gratuitously attributed to himself a mission of reformation
in the name of the Holy Ghost. Karl Pfleger, in Wrestlers with Christ,

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confesses that he was alternately attracted and repelled by Bloy, and then
came, in maturity, to revere him more and more.
Those who witnessed Bloy in life and at the hour of death, says Maritain,
know that he was a truly humble Christian. Maritain provides perhaps
the best explanation for Bloy's alleged uncharitableness, and for his antiintellectualism. According to Maritain, Bloy dwelt in a sort of fourth
dimension of the spirit and envisaged human beings as pure symbols of
devouring spiritual realities. Attacking Mr. Jones by name as he did, he
really saw through Jones to Pride or Avarice. This explanation does not
seem completely satisfactory. I cannot recall or conceive of any of the
Church's canonized Saints (I do not say that Bloy was not a saintly man) ,
who would heap such fearful invectives upon actual individuals (who
would call Benedict XV "Pilate XV," or rejoice when "bourgeois Catholics" were burned to death at the charity bazaar).
Much more satisfactory is Maritain's explanation of the wisdom of Bloy.
The Pilgrim of the Absolute had no taste for rational discursus; using reason according to an experimental rather than a demonstrative mode, his
powerful gifts of intuition were reenforced by the theological virtues and
the organism of the infused gifts. Steeped, not in systematic theology or
philosophy, but in Sacred Scripture, Bloy gave utterance to doctrines which
should be understood mystically and not literally in a scholastic sense. His
true place, then, is more with writers like Saint John of the Cross than
with Saint Thomas. (Mantain observes that he is contemporary with
Tertullian and Origen rather than with the mediaevals). I would add
that, to the extent to which a Bloy is not a Saint John, his reliance upon
intuition may lead to extremely subjective judgments. Bloy could, he tells
us, think only "in the Absolute" (a favorite nineteenth century term,
strangely echoing from the lips of this " hurler of curses " at the bourgeois
nineteenth century), and found anyone who did not speak in the Absolute
incomprehensible. Sometimes one suspects that this " Absolute " is measured by his own feeling about it, a feeling opposed not only to the lukewarm feeling and relativism of the bourgeois, but not seldom to the
vehement feeling of other absolutists. Who is to ·judge between a Bloy and
a Peguy?
What, then, is the significance of the Pilgrim of the Absolute? Thomist
philosophers must surely be impressed by the fact that the man who
despised philosophy is so revered by an eminent Thomist. (May it not be
said that Maritain himself, whose personality shines through all his writings,
attracts some people and not others, precisely in those respects in which
he is akin to his godfather? Compare his youthful cry-V ae mihi si non
thomistizavero? To me, this enthusiasm, flowering in solid speculative
thinking and unselfish seal in social action, has always been most inspiring) .
Saint Francis de Sales teaches us that there are some saints, like Simon
Stylites, whose lives provide more matter for admiration than emulation;

BOOK REVIEWS

some, like Saint Francis of Assisi, whose lives cannot be imitated literally
by all Christians but can be followed to some degree by all; and some, like
Saint Louis, who can be emulated, especially by those living in the world.
In this saintly wisdom is the key to the life and thought of Leon Bloy. We
are not all called to take up his way of life literally; many of us have been
habituated to think in scholastic and not in "absolute" terms. We can all
be inspired by him as a seer and as a personality absolutely dedicated to
Christ. In one's more mature as well as one's youthful years, Bloy is able,
as few others can, to inspire one to be more a pilgrim and more in love
with God.
DoNALD A. GALLAGHER.
Marquette University,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

De Gratia. Praelectiones Scholasticae in Secundam Partem D. Thomae.
By PETER LuMBRERAs, 0. P. Rome: Editiones Arnodo, 1947. Pp. 191,
with index.
In this small volume, the reverend author has given us his notes on the
tract " De Gratia," which were evidently written to assist those who
attend his lectures at the Pontifical Dominican College, the " Angelicum."
Many learned tomes of commentary have been written on this part of the
Summa (1-11, qq. 109-114), and to treat the subject adequately, as well
as briefly relate the many conflicting opinions, would require a much larger
volume. The author has avoided this by solving most intricate and disputed questions in a few words. Thus, on page
in speaking of whether,
for a person in the state of mortal sin, a supernatural grace is necessary to
overcome a grave temptation, the proof of his affirmative position is as
follows: " Quoniam tentatio gravis supponit validum incursum simul atque
debilem voluntatem; hanc igitur si Deus muniat naturali tantum auxilio-ad voluntatis dispositionem et exigentias-lapsus indubius." While such
a statement may confirm the opinion of one who is already convinced of
this, it would hardly be sufficient, even with the long accompanying footnote, to shake the confidence of a theologian who holds the contrary
opinion. Thus Tanquerey in his Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae, a commonly used text in American seminaries, treating the same question says:
"Non negamus hominem lapsum propriis viribus posse levibus tentationibus
aut etiam alicui gravi tentationi seorsim spectatae resistere," and in a footnote adds: " Quidam theologi asserunt quidem hominem lapsum non posst:,
sine gratis, ullam tentationem gravem vincere, sed vel loquuntur de tentatione quae tam diuturna est ut pluribus aequivaleat, vel suam opinionem
ex fontibus revelationis probare nequeunt, ut recte animadvertit Pesch,
nn. 157, 164: 'Nunquam enim hi fontes loquuntur de aliqua particulari

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tentatione, sed de generali ilia pugna, in qua homo undique difficultatibus
obsessus sine gratia non potest non superari.'" (Vol. 3, ed. 1930, p. 144.)
By far, the best and most completely developed part of the book is that
which treats of sufficient and efficacious grace (pp. 71-98) . Here, the
author with clearness and force states the Thomistic teaching, buttressing
this position with many quotations from Scripture and tradition. But he
does not stop here; painstakingly, he summarizes adverse opinions, and
with clearness and logic explains away the difficulties of those who oppose
the traditional Thomistic stand. Had the same tactics been used in other
portions of the book, in the opinion of this reviewer, the book would have
increased not only in length, but in value.
In speaking of the dispositions necessary for justification, on page 106,
the use of the disjunctive " sive fidei, sive spei, sive amoris, sive paenitentiae" can be misleading, even though it is clarified later (pp. 120-138) in
speaking of these preparatory acts in detail. Whether or not an explicit
act of each of the virtues mentioned in the Council of Trent (Denz. 798)
is required for justification, warrants a clearer and more detailed exposition
than the footnote on page 130.
To the author's interpretation of q. 114, a. 3, on whether a man in the
state of grace can merit eternal life condignly, many theologians will prefer
the explanation of Sylvius or John of Saint Thomas as quoted by Billuart
(De Gratia, Diss. 8, a. 3). Here again, by curtailing his exposition, the
author has failed to be convincing.
The publication of class notes can be a real boon to the student who
faithfully attends the daily lectures. Authors should remember however,
that many who read the published notes will not have the advantage of
the accompanying lectures. Consequently, the published work should contain as complete and lucid an explanation and commentary as the lectures
themselves provide, as well as supplementary reading for the benefit of
both students and readers.
RoNALD MURRAY,

C. P.

Passionist Monastery,
West Springfield, Mass.

A Scientist's Approach to Religion. By CARL WALLACE
York: The Macmillan Co., 1947. Pp. 127. $2.00.

MILLER.

New

Professor Miller's approach to religion is a purely natural one based
upon the sclentist's criterion of fruitfulness. His book is an earnest plea
for the conservation of our spiritual heritage and for its more extensive
application to the problems of progressing mankind. In a series of nineteen meditations the author weaves the warp of scientific theories and
findings with the weft of religious belief and practice. The fabric is intended

BOOK REVIEWS

268

to clothe those who have been stripped of the comfort and solace of religion by a progressive impoverishment of their spiritual ideals. Unfortunately the fabric will not wear. It lacks strength not by faulty weaving
but because the cross-threads themselves have been completely devitalized.
The author has chosen to disregard the vital basis for accepting the tenets
of religion, their unassailable truth. He proposes in its stead the benefits
that accrue to humanity through devotion to Christian ideals, benefits
which are temporal for the individual and which acquire immortality by
their influence upon future generations of mankind. Unhappily, the few
heroes who would keep faith with these ideals under such sanctions could
not produce results commensurate with Dr. Miller's hopes. If the fertility
of religious principles is their raison d' etre, then by this criterion they are
doomed.
The general tone of the book is one of kindly tolerance. There is no
attempt to grapple with the cross-purposes of science and religion. Scientific theories are introduced as illustrations of the religious topic considered.
Since there are no necessary correlations drawn between the findings of
science and the Christian principles to which they are applied by way of
exposition, the author is free to make comparison and elaborate as he wilt
Considerable thought and frequent beauty of ideas are to be found in the
development of such topics as the Concept of God, Love of Neighbor, Good
and Evil, Prayer, and Christianity and Education: " ... this obedience to
moral law is in reality the stamp of human greatness." (p.
"The fact
that the irreversible tendency of natural processes toward chaos, as recognized in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is balanced in God's providence by a practically limitless supply of energy in the ordered structure of
the atom, should give pause to the prophets of doom in the spiritual as well
as in the material realm. May not man's congenital rebellion against moral
law and his proneness to choose the broad way of evil be similarly balanced
by the inexhaustible sources of spiritual power? " (p. 56) " Much has been
said, and truly, about the necessity for a high level of education in a democracy, but it is far less important than the maintenance of respect .for
virtue and moral integrity." (p. 114)
Whatever beauty and inspiration may be found within the pages of this
little book are rendered ineffectual by the ignorance of Professor Miller
with regard to the teachings of Chirst and therefore of Christianity. Many
examples of serious error permeate the text. Of these, but a few are given
here: " If the fate of an individual soul can be forecast, even by the
omniscience of a supreme deity, the idea of free will become an empty
fantasy, and we are back to a world of unadulterated determinism. No one
can be expected to struggle toward the strait gate if he believes that the
result ·of the struggle is preordained." (p. 106) "The objection is often
raised that by removing the sharp line of demarcation between the nature
of Christ and other members of the human family it somehow diminishes

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BOOK REVIEWS

the authority which attaches to his teachings. . . . It may seem to a
thoughtless person that loss has been suffered in substituting for the vaguely
defined ecclesiastical idea of a unique divinity a vital concept that is
capable of embracing any sincere individual." (p. 49) "It was the social
emphasis in the teachings of Jesus that led to inevitable conflict with the
more prosperous elements in the society of his day." (p. 64)
According to Professor Miller, religion is progressive; Christianity represents the best of man's evolving efforts to ennoble his existence. And in
its present state of organic development there is no need of supernatural
truth divinely revealed, of redemption, of salvation. By the dazzling light
of modern scientific achievement, we now can distinguish the moral and
spiritual idealism embedded in our history from the entranched superstitions of our dark past and must carry the emergent best of our religious
heritage to heights as yet unrealized.
The similarity of Dr. Miller's outlook for religion and science is striking.
Beneath this surface resemblance there exists a more fundamental accord.
The philosophers of science, confronted with great basic deficiencies in the
scientific method such as the relativity and indeterminacy principles, have
fallen into the Kantian error of identifying principles of knowledge with
principles of being. Nothing exists unless it is known (i.e. in harmony
with experimental facts). Truth is created by human genius and must
serve its master by being fruitful. Religious truths are no exception.
Knowledge and being are identical in God. In man, being precedes
knowledge and is independent of it. We know by becoming the object not
by creating it. Even those mental constructs, which produce such startling
results for the physicist and which, though having no counterpart in the
realm of experience, anticipate experimental findings, can be traced to
realities which individually have become known.
There is a desperate need among men of science for an epistemology
that will bring order to the chaos which has resulted from unassimilated
advances in material progress. A satisfactory epistemology will be selfconsistent, embracing the best of scientific theory and the commonplaces
of our daily existence. In such a system of knowledge religion assumes its
primacy because of the truth it teaches. Grounded in truth, the fruitfulness of religion is enhanced, for its role is more than that of a guide to a
more abundant life for the individual and for the species; it prepares us
for the perfect happiness which is eternal.
J. W. HAcKETT, 0. P.
Providence College,
Providence, R.I.

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265

On Understanding Science. By JAMES B. CoNANT. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947. Pp. 157.
This book must not be considered another of the scientific works that
have appeared since the atom bomb focussed public attention upon the
rapid progress made in atomic physics. It is a professedly popular
approach, written by a scientist and educator, to clarify for the layman
the meaning of science and its method of development.
Dr. Conant's purpose in understaking this work is the assimilation of a
scientific spirit of knowledge into social and political life. When that has
been accomplished, and when we no longer fear the discoveries of science,
we shall have been led one step nearer to peaceful living. In the Author's
3) :
own words (pp.
When what we now roughly designate as science has been fully assimilated into
our cultural stream, we shall perhaps no longer use the word as we do today.
When that time arrives, as I have no doubt it will, the subject of t!his book will
be fused into the age-old problem of understanding man and his works: in short,
secular education . . . My argument, therefore, runs as follows: we need a
widespread understanding of science in this country, for only thus can science be
assimilated into our secular cultural pattern. When that has been achieved, we
shall be one step nearer the goal which we now desire so earnestly, a unified,
coherent culture suitable for our American democracy in this new age of machines
and experts.

The immediate necessity of such an assimilation is found in the pressing
problem of international control of atomic energy. Since national policy
rests ultimately upon the people, and since a government should be guided
by its citizens rather than by a handful of scientific experts, the people
should have an understanding of science when faced with a future largely
dependent upon the advance of science.
The method of this work is by far its most interesting feature. For
Dr. Conant, understanding science means understanding the advance of
thinking in the field of science. Hence, understanding science does not
mean understanding the contents of the physical sciences as much as
understanding the evolution of scientific thinking. In order to clarify his
point, and in order to avoid technicalities difficult to the layman, he adopts
an historical explanation. He shows how scientific thinking proceeds by
way of a dialectic, namely, the dissatisfaction with an old theory or
hypothesis, the toying with an alternative, the investigation of the alternative under the compelling force of new data accidentally discovered or
planned experimentally. He illustrates his history by three case histories:
(1) the evolution of the water pump into the vacuum pump, involving
entirely new concepts of the weight and resiliency of air;
the transition
from Galvani's 'animal magnetism' to the Voltaic pile; (3) the overthrow
of the ' Phlogisten ' theory of combustion. In this section, the book is
especially interesting, written in a clear and limpid style. It flashes with

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BOOK .REVIEW.,S

·humor when Dr. Conant shows the historian's tendency to read into
history and to score the scientist's natural reluctance to abandon an old
theory. Of atomic physics, the author has little to say, since his purpose
is to avoid technicalities rather than to investigate them.
On this point, it is, perhaps, necessary to differ with the author. Taken
in connection with other popular presentations of science, it has value as
an exposition of specialized, scientific thinking. In itself, however, it
adds little to man's information about science. The every term ' science '
connotes content-value, knowledge of things in their causes and principles,
not merely a method of reasoning which, after all, is as common to the
mechanic as to the scientist. If some of the scientists at work on the
Manhattan Project have been able, successfully, to present a popular
understanding of nuclear physics, surely this work, if it is to give an understanding of science, and if it is to contribute to the education of the ordinary
layman in an atomic world, should have more of a content-value than
three case histories.
Furthermore, when the author includes in the purpose of the book aid
in clarifying some of the spiritual problems of the world, he should have a
deeper approach to human problems than this work offers. When he
makes a knowledge of science the answer to many ethical and spiritual
problems, we must again disagree with him. It is true that much contemporary distress has been brought about by the substitution of technocracy for culture. Yet that· is not the fault of the contents of science, but
rather the fault of those who have substituted materialistic values for
spiritual and ethical values. Better science is not the answer to a problem
that is deep within man himself. History has shown us that unscrupulous
men can take advantage of scientific discoveries to bring about evils.
Scientific discoveries have their own intrinsic value, but it is the use which
men make of them that makes the difference between good and evil,
spiritual satisfaction or spiritual distress.
,In such light we must question Dr. Conant's basing his work and his
point of view on Emerson's Law of Compensation-a principle which states
that for every good wrested from the universe, nature demands a price.
We cannot convert that proposition-if it is true-into saying that for
every price demanded by nature we shall receive a good. Nor can we
state that law to be a necessary law of nature. If we investigate the
historical precedents of that law we will find that the case is not that of
nature demanding a price as much as men abusing the secrets wrested
from nature. How to use scientific discoveries for good or for evil is not
in itself a scientific question to be automatically settled by a deeper
knowledge of science, but a question of the proper use of things, by man's
action, for an end. Such has always been and always will be a question of
ethics, rather than an understanding of science.
LEo C. FoLEY

Catholic University of America,
D. C.

BRIEF NOTICES
Europa'ische Philosophie der Gegenwart. By I. M. BocHENSKI. Berne:
A. Francke, 1947. Pp. 304, with index. 11.50 s. fr.
Philosophy has long stood in need of a single-volume. work that would
sift through the welter of contemporary trends, reducing them to an order
for study by the professional and for presentation to college students, who
are preparing to face present-day problems with the Thomism of their
classrooms. The claim to fulfill this need is not made by the author of
the present book. But his work, even though confining itself to European
philosophy, seems almost tailored for the tremendous need in Thomistic,
indeed in all philosophical, literature today.
Dr. Bochenski's book can lay claim to unusual character if only because
it is the sole book of its type now available. When its general excellence
is totalled with the fact of its uniqueness, the combination is inviting to
all thinkers who are interested in the modern problem. Such a problem
makes a special appeal to the Thomist. It is in the essence of Thomism
to deal with all other philosophies not in the spirit of a priori dismissal that
St. Thomas' thought so often receives from present-day adversaries but
to sift out its truths, signalize its errors, and assimilate the result in a way
that cannot but make Thomism more conscious of itself, of its rich progressive, and strictly modern-because perennial-character.
This book opens with a concise background chapter on the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Its ambition is to explore the European
period between the two wars. Considering space requirements and the vast
dimensions of the material to be surveyed, a truly remarkable map of
modern thought has been plotted out. The chapter subjects run like this:
the philosophy of matter, including the doctrines of Russell, logical positivism, and dialectical materialism; idealism, a treatment of Croce, Brunschvicg, and the branching German schools after the first war; the
philosophy of experience, including Bergson, Pragmatism, and German
historicism; the philosophy of essence, a discussion of Husserl and Scheler;
existentialism, including Heidegger, Sartre, Marcel, and Jaspers; the philosophy of being, a study of Whitehead, Hartmann, and the Thomists.
Each chapter is followed by a succinct summary and a swift critical
estimate. The end of the book boasts a chronology of modern philosophy
year by year from 1900 to 1943 and a classification of contemporary European philosophers according to schools-seventeen such schools are listed.
There is an index of important contemporary journals and a bibliography
on all the important men treated in the text. There are two indices, one
of topics and the other of names.

267

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BRIEF NOTICES

Dr. Bochenski admits in his preface that the history of philosophy cannot be written as one would describe a work of art. A viewpoint is essential, and Bochenski's is that of Thomistic realism. Such a viewpoint does
not maim the thoughts of the men being treated. It simply provides a
pattern of organization, a reference system. After all, Thomism is a realistic philosophy, and to assess othl!r thought in its white light is like
comparing these systems with reality itself.
Unfortunately the author does not do justice to the philososphie de
l' esprit movement in France which was even stronger before the war than
now and which has contributed two of its members to leading philosophy
posts in French university life. To emphasize where emphasis is due, a
special section might have been in order on the philosophy of method
which is. even more important for Russell and the logical positivists than
their views on matter. But such criticisims are likely to be flooded out
by the otherwise outstanding merits of this book.
Modern philosophy is unusually unfamiliar except to those who make
special efforts to understand it; in fact the understanding requires the time
and patience of the professional philosopher. Hegel boasted at the beginning of his Logic that philosophy, unlike science, was too deep, abstract,
and complicated for the ordinary mind. Today, those tables would be
turned. It is science and the philosophers who repeat it for their philosophy which remove thought from ordinary experience, and it is genuine
philosophy that can maintain contact with the familiar world. Modern
philosophy, in the twentieth century especially, has grown in irregular rows
of seasonal twigs in contrast to the perennial branches of Thomism which
take deep root in common experience and immutable reason. As a guide
through the irregularities of the modern wilderness, this book will prove
invaluable.
The men treated will need further study from their own works, but
their essential doctrines have, it
included in all cases. The
result cannot escape· being of considerable aid in organizing survey courses
and in treatments of the introduction to philosophy.
It usually happens in the history of philosophy that men do not receive
adequate critical treatment until after death has silenced their answers.
This, in philosophy, is a great misfortune. How much of the treasure of
St. TD.omas' work was due to his struggle against Siger, for example! It
is usually their contemporaries that men influence most actively, and it
is of contemporary problems that they treat. Such efforts as Professor
Bochenski's will help to make philosophy more of a vital debate by contemporary men on contemporary problems instead of the historical treatment, which it often becomes, of the way in which past philosophers faced
past problems.

BRIEF NOTICES

269

Existentialism. By Gmno DE RuGGIERO. New York: Social Sciences Publishers, 1948. Pp. 96, with index. $2.50.
This little book, of which, when the preface and supplementary material
are counted, only fifty-three pages are devoted to an exposition and
critique of existentialism, is the first of its kind to appear in English. Such
a dearth of
is by no means alarming. Existentialism is not a
major problem in America, and so the subject has historical appearances
rather than a vital meaning. It takes a long time for thought to cross the
ocean in either direction, as modem philosophy from Kant down to James
and Dewey attests by its travel. Considering the puzzle of American
thinkers as to what current existentialism is and how what they call its
absurdities could take hold, a rather simple digest of the movement was
in order.
Those who, in such a confronting of what is wholly alien to the
present-day American mind, open Ruggiero's book are not likely to be
disappointed. Though not
in his formal philosophy elsewhere,
Ruggiero unfolds on his present subject his undoubted synthetic talent;
seeing and setting forth the spirit of existentialism with a simplicity of
thought that is matched by incisiveness of phrase. His book will be of
service as an expose of existentialism and as a critical display of what
are not only its intellectual errors but its practical evils.
Notable is the theme that existentialism is a nihilistic answer to man's
problems, an irrational and morbid use of his noblest powers, a splitting,
as the book's subtitle suggests, that may well be labelled the " disintegration of man's soul." It used to be an argument against a false doctrine
that it was at variance with experience. But with those who believe, after
Hume, that experience is an illusion, reason cannot help striking a total
retreat into its absolute absurdity. Existentialism leads the present-day
retreating army; it is an absurd answer to the absurd.
Ruggiero proceeds with an introductory chapter on existentialism in
general and a meaty twenty-six pages of explaining Kierkegaard, Heidegger,
Jaspers, and Marcel. The inclusion of Marcel is not a happy climax to a
a discussion of the others. His thought runs sufficiently at a slant from
that of Heidegger and Jaspers to exempt him from the fury of criticism
in the next and final
on evaluation. The absence of Sartre from
the book is not so serious. For all of his undoubted talent, he is simply
Heidegger, translated, when the broader issues are summed up.
Those familiar with existentialism are not likely to be engaged deeply
by the historical summaries of the four samples which are here selected.
For those who have not found it possible or even worthwhile to study
existentialism, this book is of genuine expository merit. Completion of treatment has managed to keep place with the author's simplicity in a way that
9

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BRIEF NOTICES

stands in contrast to the tomes which the existentialists have found necessary to plead their thought.
The chapter on evaluation will be read with interest by those who
believe that philosophy is not merely an arbitrary game but a realism,
capable of rigorous evaluation. If one is unduly alarmed over the irrationalities which the existentialists advocate, the author's historical parallelisms
will be of interest. He finds existentialism prefigured in the ancient sophists
and in the German romanticists, even though, it may be added, this latter
group was opposed by Kierkegaard. The author might have profitably
alluded at this point to the debt of Heidegger toward Dilthey, especially
in the questions of time and of history. It is difficult to understand
Ruggiero when he holds that Heidegger's analysis of time " will remain a
lasting contribution to philosophy " (p. 86) . The realist will want to
know exactly what positive philosophical contribution Heidegger has made.
More decisive is the author's criticism of existentialists for holding to
being's abrupt emergence out of nothing; for their doctrine of pure becoming with no subject; for degrading life into a mere death-directed
absurdity; for putting nothing but leaps in place of the continuity required
for thought; for vitiating reason; and for lowering the person to a life of
misery and despair.
Of noteworthy interest in this book is the long preface of Rayner Heppenstall in which is included pertinent historical and critical materials on
existentialism that forms a worthwhile study in itself.
Technically, the book is interspersed with frequent subtitles that definitely enhance its readability and its value for reference.

Dreadful Freedom. By MARJORIE GRENE. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1948. Pp. 150. $2.75.
This book is like a neon sign in that darkness of the city of man which
existentialism advances as the authentic human homeland. Unfortunately,
the sign turns on and off. More unfortunately still, the dark periods are
annoyingly long by comparison with the flashes of brilliance which Mrs.
Grene displays. It is as though-especially in the later chapters of the
book-she were focusing on the consequences of existentialism rather than
its premises. A reader not previously alerted to these premises is likely
to find the matter of the book more as an assembly of curious facts rather
than as an array of problems. In favor of Mrs. Grene's approach, there is
something to be said from her title, if we take freedom as a psychological
or moral reality and hence a consequence of metaphysics. But her subtitle
announces: " A Critique of Existentialism." This would lead one to expect
a view of existentialism as a whole.
Mrs. Grene, according to the jacket of her book, studied Kierkegaard

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271

in Denmark and was a student of Heidegger and Jaspers during two years
as a German exchange fellow. Though her book has many critical features
to recommend it and displays an occasional greatness of thought and
phr&se, its final dimensions reflect a concern with non-essentials where
simplicity of insight might have been more satisfying to the reader.
After an introductory chapter in which some highly interesting parallels
are traced between existentialism and American pragmatism, there is a
treatment of the Kierkegaardian endeavor to restore the concept of self
against the depersonalized system of Hegel. This chapter reflects a patient
scholarship but neglects some of the passages where Kierkegaard is clarifyingly Kierkegaardian.
The critical comments in the final section are
eminently worthwhile. Kierkegaard's friends may be provoked when they
find their master labelled as a small man in a small world. But Mrs.
Grene's judgments remain on the whole convincing. If Hegel was too broad
in his system, Kierkegaard was too narrow in his selfhood.
The second chapter, dealing with freedom in Heidegger and Sartre, would
lead one to believe that atheism is a premise which prompts the two
thinkers to reduce their philosophy to a study of the merely human. It
may be questioned whether this is true and whether atheism is not the
fruit of the exclusive concern with the finite rather than its seed. In the
same context, Mrs. Grene apologizes for the rejection of Aristotle's doctrine on the fixity of essences by pointing out its variance with modern
transformism. But if this logic holds, then how could St. Thomas hold
to creationism and even spontaneous generation while maintaining that an
essence is what it is? In brief, it is obvious that Mrs. Grene is not familiar
with the Thomistic doctrine on essence and existence developed out of
Aristotle. Other reasons for rejecting Aristotelianism, Mrs. Grene declares,
are modern developments in physics and in the psychology of the unconscious. A careful distinction between empirical and philosophic science
settles such difficulties as these. Scientism and existentialism can be
paralleled as easily as pragmatism and existentialism, and Mrs. Grene
becomes involved in the very position which she would reject by according
an ontological status to the theories of science. In this same chapter
(p. 48), professing a failure to understand the identification of appearance
and reality in Heidegger and Sartre-a reflection on Husser! might have
clarified this matter-the author decides to neglect " the aims and achievements of existentialism as a metaphysical revolution." But this is the very
nucleus of existentialism, and without knowledge of it, the reader can expect
difficulty in following subsequent chapters.
There is a chapter devoted to our knowledge of others, as Heidegger and
Sartre depict it, and a chapter on the revolutionary character of existentialism: This theme is an aspect of existentialism of which American critics
are not generally aware, and Mrs. Grene's exposition is a genuine contribution. Of particular weight is the criticism (p. 114) that Sartre's philosophy

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BRIEF NOTICES

of "perpetual revolution" must, when his free society is established, entail
a revolution against freedom itself. This is a capital point. Indeed, a
philosophy of absolute revolution, Sartrean or Marxist, must always be
destructive rather than progressive, suicidal rather than emancipating.
The treatment of Jaspers and Marcel in a chapter entitled "The New
Revelation " does not do justice to either and dismisses both for a failure to
probe their principles to their bedrock of dread. The reader of their
works is likely to find them of much larger spirit than those of Heidegger
or Sartre whose virtuosities often consist in punning rather than philosophizing. The so-styled refusal of Jaspers and Marcel to elaborate "a
precise and vigorous method " is not historically documented by Mrs.
Grene. There can be serious doubt whether this refusal, if it is :really
true, is not the sign of a deeper method than that of the aprioristic
descendents of Kant who make method a prolegomenon.
In the final and critical chapter, Mrs. Grene takes existentialism to task
for denying the Kantian moral maxim of treating other men as ends, not
as means. The attack argues that existentialism denies the public character of morality and would thus make community impossible. The existentialists would, of course, let this volley bounce off their armor with the
reply that their philosophy of transcendence (which, as it was said, Mrs.
Grene does not develop), is immune from attack by principles of the
derivative, empirical order. More realistically, it can likewise be asked
whether we can, as Mrs. Grene would seem to suggest, set up what is
demanded of a morality before examining the beings who are to be moral.
God did not make morality for man but man for morality. More accurately, man and morality cannot be considered apart from each other. At
any rate, morality is not a conventional and arbitrary goal that we construct. It is· found by examining man. Such an examination the existentialists undertake. But in their analytic they do not see the whole
man, whose duties are the basis of his rights and whose nature must be
considered before his preferences. On what does Mrs. Grene rest her
pattern of morality?
Systems like pragmatism, scientism, and even Marxism profess to be
philosophies of consequences and could be forcefully rebutted by analyzing
the real consequences to which they lead. But existentialism, for better
or for worse, is a metaphysic, " a fundamental ontology " in Heidegger's
language, and it cannot be dismissed without treading metaphysical ground.
The typical American habit for the practical cannot cope with existentialism's challenges. Mrs. Grene shows, throughout her book, an appreciation of the metaphysical and has made distinct contributions to the
understanding and criticism of existentialism. But her work should be a
second volume after a first one that would search into the metaphysical
substructure of existentialism. It is to be hoped that Mrs. Grene with her
fine background and the philosophical talent which she shows in this work
might eventually supply American philosophy with this companion volume.

BRIEF NOTICES

Court Traite de L'Existence et de L'Existant. By JAcQUES
Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1947. Pp. 289. 90 fr.

MARITAIN.

Jacques Maritain is one of the leading spirits in the work of keeping the
timeless organism of Thomistic philosophy in touch with the timely. His
has been the genius of finding that, and indeed how, the partial approaches
of modern thought could only gain the completion of meaning and of life
in the perennial, universal vitality of Thomism. Such a spirit, after all, is
the Thomism of St. Thomas.
But whether Maritain has always been successful is another matter. The
present volume in bulk is a development of earlier ideas on the emphasis
which a genuine philosophy must accord to existence as distinguished from
essence. The urging of this point in modem Thomistic circles is owed
largely to Maritain and Gilson.
The first chapter of the book treats of the fecundity of existence in
being; the second concerns action, which is likewise dominated by existence-in particular by the existential faculty of man's will. There are
provocative chapters on man as subjectivity; on premotion; and on the
prospects of philosophy especially in the wake of modem existentialism.
Maritain has driven some tremendous shafts in a short space, but there is
question as to whether the shafts have been thickened enough in reference
to reality to be followed by lesser men than Maritain who like to buttress
their philosophy on the ordinary world.
Despite its obvious riches which recommend the book to all philosophers,
there are two theses that will no doubt be challenged within the Thomistic
tradition. The first is the doctrine that being is intuited. The second is
man's intuition of his own subjectivity.
Readers who are confused by Maritain's definition of intuition in earlier
works are not likely to be any further satisfied by the present treatment,
even though it stretches over twenty-three pages. In Sept Le(}ons sur l'P:tre,
the intuition is said to grasp the transcendental and analogical character
of being (p. 52) . But in view of the mode of existence of the transcendental and analogical, can we venture to say that being as being is intuited?
In Maritain's earlier words, he is opposed to the Bergsonian intuition. But
the same difficulty turns up in his intellectual intuition as in the Bergsonian
aympathie. The concrete is singular. How can we intuit the general,
transcendental, analogical? If such an intuition did occur, it would solve
no problem for criteriology since account must still be given of the way in
which we move away from it toward the abstract. Maritain's views, on
earlier evidence, would seem to involve the anomaly of intuiting a concrete
abstraction or, if one prefers, an abstract concretion.
In a long footnote of the present work (p. 50), -Maritain says of the
intellect: "n atteint ainsi l'actus essendi (en jugeant)-comme il atteint

274

BRiEF NOTICES

I'essence (en concevant) -par la mediation de la perception sensorielle."
The following difficulties occur: Does the " is " of judgment yield the object
of our intuition and, if so, how do we get it into stride with intelligible
content, as characterizing the subject and predicate? If the whole judgment is necessary to complete our knowledge of being, as St. Thomas
seems to hold, then is judgment intuition? Finally, if by the mediation of
sensory perception we intuit the act of existing, how do we avoid being
limited to this act of existing, intuiting the individual but by that token
forbidden to say that we have a knowledge of being in general? Can we
intuit the analogical? If the intuition depends on judgment and sensory
intuition as Maritain states in the same footnote, the difficulties apparent
from his Sept
sur l'P.tre recur, namely, the problem of bridging
between the abstractions of the intellectual order and the concretions of
sense.
In discussing the second form of intuition, that of our subjectivity,
Maritain seems to hold that it is simultaneous with our intuition of being
but that it is an existential intuition which does not inform us of an
essence (p. 114). It is difficult to see what this means. Maritain goes on
to say that such an intuition is knowledge that is not according to the
mode of knowledge, the kind of knowledge involved in the practical intellect and in mystical intuition. But how can we speak of subjectivity at all
unless we have some more contentual approach to it than 1\Iaritain is
willing to accord in this pure existentiality?
These may not be grave objections to those who understand just what
· Maritain means by intuition, being, subjectivity.
But they are at least
obscurities, leaving the conclusions which Maritain draws from such premises to remain unsatisfying.
The section on premotion is noteworthy. Balthasar has recently revived
the discussion of this point also. In the post-war disillusionment which is
recruiting for the existentialist camp, it is·interesting to note that realistic
thinkers have found. it necessary to recur to the genuine facts of God's
causality in the world as an answer to the cry that man is abandoned.
Maritain's ideas on premotion are expressed in original form that will be
value to all those interested in the controversy.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Compendium of Theology. (Translated by Cyril
Vollert, S. J.) St. Louis: Herder, 1947. Pp. 886, with index. $4.00.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, How To Study.
(Translation and exposition by
Victor White, 0. P.) Oxford: Blackfriars, 1947. Pp. 48. $ .80.
Barnes, H. E., An Introduction to the History of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. Pp. 976, with index and notes. $10.00.
Bishop, C. H., France Alive. New York: McMullen, 1948. Pp. 288, with
bibliography. $8.00.
Bochenski, I. M., Europaische Philosophie der Gegenwart. Bern, Switzerland: A. Francke, 1947. Pp. 804, with index. 11.50 s. fr.
Ciurnelli, D., La Filosofia di Anassagoria. Padua: Cedam, 1947. Pp. 77,
with index.
Cohen, M. R., The Meaning of Human History. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court,
1947. Pp. 804, with index. $4.00.
Cory, H. E., The Significance of Bemtty in Nature and Art. Milwaukee:
Bruce, 1947. Pp. 248, with index. $4.00.
Cuninggim, M., The College Seeks Religion. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1947. Pp. 829, with index. $4.00.
Dempf, A., Selbstkritik der Philosophie. Vienna: Thomas Morus Presse
(Verlag Herder), 1947. Pp. 857, with charts and indices. S 46.80;
18.00 s. fr.
De Ruggiero, G., Existentialism: Disintegration of Man's Soul. New York:
Social Sciences Publishers, 1948. Pp. 96, with index. $2.50.
Di Napoli, G., La Filosofia di Pasquale Galluppi. Padua: Cedam, 1947.
Pp. 310, with index.
---, Tommaso Carnpanella. Padua: Cedam, 1947. Pp. 589, with
index.
Milwaukee:
Doronzo, E., De Eucharistia. {Tom. 1: De Sacramento.)
Bruce, 1948. Pp. 864, with indices. $10.00.
Eckardt, A. R., Christianity and the Children of Israel. New York: King's
Crown Press, 1948. Pp. 240, with index. $8.00.
Fausti, G., Teoria dell'Astrazione. Padua: Cedam, 1947. Pp. 191. L. 500.
Ferm, V., ed., Religion in the Twentieth Century. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948. Pp. 490, with index. $5.00.
Garrigou-Lagrange, R., The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus. St. Louis:
Herder, 1947. Pp. 405. $4.00.
Giacon, C., Il Divenire in Aristotele. Padua: Cedam, 1947. Pp. 202, with
index.
Gollancz, V., Our Threatened Values. Hinsdale, Ill.: Henry Regnery,
1948. Pp. 218. $2.50.
Gregoire, F., Aux Sources de la Pensee de Marx: Hegel, Feuerbach. Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1947. Pp. 204,
with index.
275

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Grene, M., Dreadful Freedom: A Critique of Existentialism. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1948. Pp. 160.
Hammerschmidt, W. W., Whitehead's Philosophy of Time. New York:
King's Crown Press, 1947. Pp. 118.
Harrison, M., The Everyday Catholic. Oxford: Blackfriars, 1947. Pp. 384.
10j6.
Hendel, C. W., Civilization and Religion. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1948. Pp. 88, with index.
Johnson, F. E., ed., Wellsprings of the American Spirit. New York:
Harper, 1948. Pp.
with index.
Johnson, H. J. T., The Bible and Early Man. New York: McMullen,
1948. Pp. 159. $2.25.
Kerwin, J. G., The Great Tradition: The Democratic Idea. New York:
McMullen, 1948. Pp. 91. $1.50.
Landreth, H., The Pursuit of Robert Emmet. New York: Whittlesey
House, 1948. Pp.
with index. $3.75.
Little, A., Philosophy Without Tears. Buffalo: Desmond and Stapleton,
1947. Pp. 186.
Lucien-Marie de S. Joseph, ed., Les Oeuvres Spirituelles du Bienheureux
Pere Jean de la Croix. (Cantique spirituel, Vive flamme, Opuscules.)
Bruges, Belgium: Desclee de Brouwer, 1947. Pp. 909, with index.
Maritain, J., Court traite de l'Existence et de l'Existant. Paris: Paul
Hartmann, 1947. Pp.
90 fr.
McCormick, M. J., Thomistic Philosophy in Social Casework. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1948. Pp. 158, with index.
McGurrin, J., Bourke Cockran. New York: Scribner, 1948. Pp. 376, with
index. $3.50.
McSorley, J., Meditations for Everyman. St. Louis: Herder, 1948. Pp.
Neff, E., The Poetry of History. New York: Columbia University Press,
1947. Pp.
with index. $8.50.
Neider, C., The Stature of Thomas Mann. New York: New Directions,
1947. Pp. 510. $5.00.
Pius XI, Pope, Social Justice in the Modern World. (Encyclical on Reconstructing the Social Order, with outline and index by F. J. Brown.)
Chicago: Outline Press, 1947. Pp. 84, with index. $.50.
Pouget, W. and Guitton, J., The Canticle of Canticles. (Translated by
J. L. Lilly.) New York: McMullen, 1948. Pp.
with bibliographical notes. $8.00.
Simon, M. R., The Glory of Thy People. New York: Macmillan, 1948.
Pp. 156.
Vann, G., The Pain of Christ. Oxford: Blackfriars, 1948. Pp. 75. 3j6.
Weaver, R. M., Ideas Have Consequences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948. Pp. 195.
Zacharias, H. C. E., Proto-History. St. Louis: Herder, 1947. Pp.
with index. $4.00.
Zimmerman, C. C., Family and Civilization. New York: Harper, 1947.
Pp. 841, with indices. $6.00.