THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

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

XIII

APRIL, 1950

No.2

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH 1
The philosopher and the poet are
alike in this: both have to do with
the wonderful.
-St. Thomas, In I Metaph, 3, 55.

ILOSOPHY must be queen or slave; she is queen over
science when she is handmaid to faith, but when she has
the audacity to pose as mistress to faith, she must become
slave to science; this is the thesis of Max Scheler in his essay
On the Nature of Philosophy. Philosophy lifts the spirit to
touch the realm of being; it attempts to pierce the veil that
hides the deepest in things, and leads to a loving participation
in their essence by the way of knowledge. Philosophy is knowing and the philosopher a knower, Scheler writes, but to say,
1 This essay is a chapter of a book on certain aspects of the philosophical and
:religious thought of some contemporary philosophers of Jewish origin, which will
be published by Devin-Adair under the title of "Walls Are Crumbling."

135

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

as is the vogue, that its dealings are merely with the knowledge
of things and that their essence is none of its concern, rests on
no intellectual ground. It is pride, he asserts, which makes a
philosopher maintain that philosophy can never lead into the
precmcts of essence, for he fears that there he would have to
recognize that the nature of the Prime Being may demand
another, and a more adequate, way of participation than
knowledge. Indeed, it might happen that the strict consequence of his philosophical thinking enjoins upon him a free
subordination to this higher way; he may even be bidden to
bring himself, with his inquiring reason, a willing sacrifice to
this fuller but non-philosophical sharing which the Prime Being,
by its very nature, might claim. Only pride can say that, no
matter what this nature may prove to be, it will refuse this
sacrifice; only prejudice can assert that all being has the character but of an object, and that knowledge alone can partake
of it. 2
True, for Aristotle God was the " Thought of Thought," and
the philosopher therefore the perfect man, his path the highest
of human existence. But Christ came, and no longer could God,
the Prime Being, be seen as a mere object of thought, for He
acts, He loves, His Being is creative and merciful goodness.
Hence acting with Him, loving 'with Him, became the gate to
participation in the Prime Being, and philosophy, loyal to
logic, rejoiced to minister to faith in Christ, in whom this participation was perfect, was union. The sage had· to move to
second place, below the saint, and the philosopher to subject
himself to the lover of God. Over and above its ancient dignity
as queen of science, philosophy gained a dignity far more
excellent, that of willing handmaid to the Saviour, a blessed
handmaid, for " blessed are the poor in spirit." 3
But today philosophy is no longer seated thus between faith
and science, Having broken this true relationship, it has set
•" Vom Wesen der Philosophie und der moralischen Bedingung des philosophischen
im Menschen (8rd ed.; Berlin; Der Neue Geist Verlag,
Erkennens," Vom
1988)' pp. 66-79.
• Ibid., p. 74-77; Matt. V, 8.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

137

itself above religious truth only to bow low before scientific
hypotheses. This reversal, an instance of a general overturn
of values, Scheler calls the "revolt of the slaves in the intellectual realm." It seems a paradox that when philosophy
limited itself it was unlimited; now that it admits no confines,
it has no territory of its own. When it was preamble to faith,
it knew it could penetrate to the roots of being, but now that it
is subservient to one or the other science-geometry, physics,
psychology-there is nothing it is sure of seeing. This is as it
must be, says Scheler, for truth is such that it' falls prey to the
darkness within man unless it humbles itself before the Primal
Light. 4
In philosophy Plato saw moving the wings of the soul,
Scheler recalls, the soaring upward of the whole of the human
person. To the great philosophers of antiquity, philosophy was
a lifting of the spirit, implying a moral approach: the conquest
of merely practical-that is, ultimately, selfish-attention to
the world. Scheler's view is close to this when he says that it
is always our willing and doing which underlie our mistaken
values; that it is always, somehow, wrong practice which drags
down our consciousness of values and their ranks to its own
leveL We must learn to will and to do what is good, more or
less blindly, before we can see the good and will and do it with
insight. 5
It is characteristic of man's natural view that he takes his
little world for all the world, his immediate milieu for the
universe. This milieu may be the particular surroundings
an individual, of his race, of his people, or the general surroundings of natural man as part of his species. That his mind may
rise above them and participate in being as it is in itself, says
Scheler, the philosopher must relinquish, in principle, all that
is merely relative to life or to himself as a living creature. Only
by forsaking his milieu, the tangibles and intangibles of
day, can he :reach philosophy's true domaino Scheler insists
that there can be no philosophical knowledge without love,
• Ibid., pp. 78-79.

" Ibid., pp. 66, 88-89.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

humility, and self-mastery. The love of the whole spiritual
person for the Absolute Value, the. Absolute Being, breaks
through the shell of his surroundings. The humiliation of his
natural ego leads man from accidentals to the whatness of the
world. His mastery of the many impulses that go hand-in-hand
with his sense-perception looses the fetters of his concupiscence
and leads him from mere opinion towards an adequate
knowledge: 6
Scheler's insistence that the purity, measure, strength, and
growth of our philosophical knowledge are tied to virtue, that
the theoretical and moral worlds are essentially and eternally
knit together/ continues the line of Christian philosophy. St.
Thomas indicts pride as a hindrance to knowledge, for the man
who delights in his own excellence soon tires of the excellence
of truth. 8 And St. Augustine, though speaking of religious
knowledge, says that those who do not seek truth with all
their hearts can not find it, but that from its lovers it can not
hide. They must heed: " Ask and it shall be given you, seek
and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you," and:
"Nothing is covered that shall not be revealed"; in all this
quest, it is love that asks, love that seeks, love that knocks, love
that unveils the eyes, and love it is that gives perseverance in
the truth. 9 Again he says: "Let love be in you, and the fullness of knowledge must follow." 10
I
Much of Scheler's work shows the love for the Absolute and
the humility before the objective world which he demands. His
was an unusual mind, to which all things spoke; so awake was it
that every and any circumstance served and stimulated his
thought. He was a philosopher not only in the study or the
classroom but at all times; every remark of his, whether in the
• Ibid., pp. 102-108.
"Ibid., pp. 99, 108.
8 Summa Theol., II-II, q. 162, a. 3 ad l.
9 De Mor. Eccl. Cath. XVII, 31 (PL 82: 1824).
Cf. Matt. vii, 7; x, 26.
' 0 In Ps. LXXIX, 2 (PL 36 : 1022).

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

189

coffee shop or at a ball, in the theater or on the street, bore a
philosophical note, betraying a genius that went directly to the
uniqueness of every situation and lifted out its general
significance. 11
Socrates called himself a" gadfly" and a" midwife"; Scheler,
to describe his way of thinking and of presenting his thought,
called himself a puppeteer. He had his philosophical equipment
-the world and his·
with him, as a strolling
player his cabinet. The vagrant mummer needs no preparation,
no atmosphere, none of the appurtenances of the big theater,
nor did Scheler require any special setting; given an ear, he
became creative and set his ideas dancing. He might be seated
with a companion, his head canted to the side, watching on the
unfolded stage of his spirit the drama of the world. He looked
aslant at his puppets' play, which was his own, and always with
half an eye for the listener--or better, the spectator. And again
and again, by an interjected Wie? or Nicht wahr? he assured
himself of his companion's attention and of the effect of his
play. It was truly magic; in an instant he could transform his
surroundings and fill the room with his ideas; he made present
the things of which he spoke and visible what is often called
"abstract." What he evoked fr9m the realm of spirit came,
and now and then there gleamed in his eye an unchastened
joy that he was so obeyed. 12
However, what made Scheler so powerful also made him vulnerable; his genius was his weakness. His spoken word had
strength and freshness,. the dew of the spirit was on it, but his
written style was often clumsy and overladen, so that he said
of himself: "I have the word, but not the sentence." 13 He was
indeed lavishly gifted; ideas came to him without labor, flaming
in his mind like lightning, and it was this immense fecundity
that persuaded him to neglect, even to disdain, intellectual toil.
He would not spend the effort to verify his sources, to sift and
11 Dietrich
von Hildebrand, " Max Scheler als Persoenlichkeit," Zeitliches im
Lichte des Ewigen (Regensburg: Josef Habbel, 1932), pp. 368-369.
12 Ernst Kamnitzer, Erinnerung an Max Scheler (unpublished memoir).
18 Ibid.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

weigh his thoughts, to examine and test them oil every side,
but rather moved on to new problems. For instance, some of
his intuitions on love were profound, but his presentation is
never complete, never rounded, giving always only one aspect,
almost to the exclusion of others. He showed little care for
his sources; quoting, for example, the words of St. Paul: " Beggars enriching many, paupers possessing all things," 14 he attributes them to St. Francis of Assisi.15 He had also little concern
for the consistency of his own thought. In his Formalism in
Ethics he says: " Knowingly to will evil as evil is entirely
possible," and adds that he does not " subscribe to the saying of
Thomas Aquinas, ' We will all things under an aspect of good '
(Omnia volumus sub specie boni) ." 16 (The pairing of these
two sentences ·suggests that Scheler did not fully understand
this principle; indeed, not a few of his objections to St. Thomas
are based on misunderstanding.) Some years later, however,_
in an essay On the Task of German Catholics after the War
he said, and without accounting for his change of mind: " Evil
is but a consequence of a free act of the will performed sub
specie boni." 17
Here is another example of his inaccuracy. In Sympathy, its
Essence and Forms he writes: " St. Francis was a swom enemy
of Scholasticism and its doctrine of the aristocratic-hierarchic .
order of being." 18 Nearly every word in this sentence is wrong.
St. Francis' awe for wisdom found expression in his child-like
reverence for the written word. Whenever on the road he found
a scrap of writing, he picked it from the dust and preserved it
with care. Once when he was told, partly in jest, that a paper
he had thus saved wasfrom a pagan author, he replied that it
"2 Cor. vi, 10.
15 Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (2nd ed.; Halle a.
d. 8.: Max Niemeyer, 1921), p. 278.
18 Ibid., p. 608.
17 " Soziologische-Neuorientierung
und die Aufgabe der deutschen Katholishen
nach dem Krieg," Schriften zur Soziologie und W eltanschauungalehre,III/I (Leipzig: Der Neue Geist Verlag, 1924), p. 204.
18 W eaen und Formen der Sympathie (2nd ed.; Bonn:
Friedrich Cohen, 1928),
p. 106.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

141

mattered not, for all words, of pagans or of others, stemmed
from God's wisdom and spoke of God, from whom are all good
things" It was his very love of wisdom that made St. Francis
abhor learning for its own sake and the universities of his time
as seats of haughtiness and error. 19 This hostility to learning
as a ware Scheler distorts into enmity to Scholasticism, to
which alone he ascribes a doctrine held in the Church long
before Scholasticism was born. Moreover, the context of
Scheler's remark seems to indicate that he had in mind Aristotelean thought, which, at the time of St" Francis, had not
become part of Scholastic philosophy"
Many a page and many a thought of Scheler are marred by
such deficiencies. His want of discipline is all the more startling
in its contrast with the virtues he knew necessary for the
philosophical act. This discrepancy was rooted in an inner
disharmony, a discord not to be understood save through the
reverence every soul merits" He saw, and saw again, and saw
anew, where others passed blindly; inundated with impressions, he was always tempted to trust them too far, to surrender
to them, and it was often their novelty that appealed to him,
who in a way stayed always a child. His relationship with the
world remained too much one of wonder; it was essentially
knowing, learning it. But infinitely more is asked of us-to rest
and persevere in the known, to be permeated by truth and given
to it lovingly, to mortify ourselves for its sake, to conform our
wills and adjust our lives to the light we see. All this was
difficult fo:r Scheler, for in his early youth he had been indescribably spoiled; he had, as he said himself, never learned to
wilL Dietrich von Hildebrand, long a friend of Scheler, applies
to him Lessing's word, so telling of modern unrest: If God
were to offer him eternal and absolute Truth in one hand, or the
everlasting desire for it in the other, he would grasp desire and
say, Truth is for Thee alone. Scheler's philosophy at its best
totally disavows this choice, and yet, deplorably, it .does corre10 Father Cuthbert,
0. S. F. C., Life of St. Francis of Assisi (London:
Green and Co.,
pp.
154.

Longmans,

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

spond to a trait of his character, a deep restlessness which
darkened his life.20
Max Scheler was born in Munich on August 22, 1874, the son
of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father, who, for the sake of
marriage, had adopted Judaism. Thus Scheler was born a Jew,
but he grew up with no religious formation. His first acquaintance with the spiritual world was through the Catholic maids
who served in his home, but it was not until, at the Gymnasium,
he met the priest who taught religion, that it gripped his
interest. In him he met a world different from the pagan which
surrounded him, the world of the Absolute. 1n his priestly
character, his dedication to God, Scheler must have glimpsed,
as through an opening door, the world of grace and divined the
phenomenon of holiness, of which in later years he was to speak
so strongly. And he must also ·have sensed the motherly arms
of the Church, her peace, to which he turned at the age of
about fourteen. After completing his work in the Humanities
at the Gymnasium, he studied in Berlin, where Dilthey, Stumpf,
and Simmel set the intellectual tone; from there he went to
Heidelberg and later to Jena to study under Eucken, and
stayed on as a University lecturer. In 1907 he returned to
Munich to teach at the University, where the most significant
period of his life was to begin. His constant intellectual communion with the "Munich School "-the followers of Lipps
who had attached themselves to Husserl-and later in Goettingen with Husser! himself inspired him to truly productive
work and encouraged him, by temperament a teacher, to
write and to make his great and specific contribution to the
history of thought.
From the time he left the Gymnasium until· his transfer to
the University of Munich, Scheler's life had been under a dark
shadow, which seems never to have been entirely lifted from
him. He entered a civil marriage with a ·woman, divorced and
much older than he, who tried, first to dominate, then to ruin
him. But back in Munich he freed himself from this bond,
•o Von Hildebrand, "Max Schelers Stellung zur katholischen Gedankenwelt,"
op. cit., p. 86i.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

148

which brought him pain and unhappiness from the first moment.
A few years later he was to say: The more guilt grows, the
more is it hidden from the guilty; but the more humility increases, the more visible becomes even the smallest trespass. 21
This had been his own experience. Having broken the chain of
sin, his remorse grew; stronger became his sorrow for having
forfeited the life of grace and greater his longing to regain the
mercy. of God. In these years, he often visited the Benedictine
Abbey in Beuron, which he had known while he was still at
Jena, to breathe its peace, and it was there, in 1916, that
Scheler returned to the faith of his boyhood. "I have made
my confession; I have come back to the bosom of the Church,"
he rejoiced. "I am infinitely happy, and I know I owe this to
the Blessed Virgin.'' Maerit Furtwaengler, whom he had married a few years before and whose love had borne him, followed
him into the Church. Though his dl;!sire to be a full member
of the Church was at that time genuine, nonetheless he was
never more than an enthusiastic and admiring onlooker, to
whom the sacramental order, for instance, was an object of
the greatest philosophical intere&t, but nothing he could live
for long. With his heart remaining restless and divided, he
embodied the ill of modern man. And yet it was Scheleranother sign of the contradiction he was-who was the relentless critic of modern man, who " groaning, walks beneath a
burden of his own manufacture, his mechanisms; his limbs
heavy and only the earth before his eyes, he has forgotten his
God and his world.'' 22
Unsparingly Scheler castigates him who, having lost the great
confidence in being which is part of his wholeness, is by creed
a skeptic, meeting the world with a priori distrust. He is without boldness and generosity, he makes achievement and usefulness the measure of persons and things and never ending
activity disguises the void of his soul, he replaces love of
creation and joy in its riches with anxiety to defeat it as his
"Reue und Wiedergeburt," Vom Ewigen im Menschen, p. 40.
"Versuche einer Philosophie des Lebens," Vom Umsturz deT Werle (2nd ed.;
Leipzig: Der Neue Geist Verlag, 1928), Vol. II, p. 190.
21

02

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

enemy. While the integral man looks at the objective world
with undisturbed and love-led devotion, knowing that the
human mind, created by God, the fount of wisdom, can grasp
the essence of things, modern man doubts the powers of his
mind as a matter of principle; driven by a deep-seated hostility to the world, he considers it a terrible " mush," out of
which his activity must make sense. He uses it for purposes
of his own and determines it quantitatively, never ceasing to
comP.are and striving to surpass. For all that his thinking
seems so complex, he has in truth relapsed into the primitive.
Never before have his motives been so infantile; the biggest,
the fastest, the newest, the most powerful, are his ideals. These
are the things a child enjoys: the giant in the fairy tale, the
spinning top, shoes shining and conspicuously new, the drum
that beats the loudest; and these are also the things the crowd
seeks after, for it is a bigger child. With modern man allowing
the crowd to shape his soul, the end is a state in which all
copy all.23
Alive to man's integral and rich humanity, Scheler was enraged by the caricature of him that had been rising on the
historical scene since the end of the thirteenth century. At
times Scheler's speech had a passion almost prophetic, and had
he been true to his insight, he would have earned the title
" prophet against the times." Every Christian has a prophetic
vocation, he said, but the prediction of the true prophet is not
absolute, because he will not lose sight of man's freedom. True,
he cries: I foresee judgment; come it must, save you repent and
turn to God, and He in His mercy turn His judgment from you.
The prophet cries out, but it is the historic reality that preaches.
In the blood and misery of the times, he hears the warning voice
of God, and refuses to predict ease, to hold out dazzling visions
of paradise. He is perforce a prophet of grief, of doom, but not
of despair. Time and again the prophets of the Old Covenant
spoke of a remnant to be spared, from which would spring new
••" Die christliche Liebesidee und die gegenwaertige Welt," Vom Ewigen im
Menschen, pp. 180-181; "Der Bourgeois," Vom Umaturz der Werte, Vol. II, pp.
271, 276.

:MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

145

life, and this promise of a remnant is rekindled whenever the
days of a culture grow short. So St. Benedict, when Christian
life was imperiled by the great city, went from Rome to
Subiaco; while outside ancient culture was being ground under
foot, he preserved within his monasteries its noble fragments,
together with the ideal of Christian perfection. 25 In his best
years it was Scheler's desire-indeed, it was his calling, though
fulfilled but in part-to undeceive modern man, who thinks he
has fared well in this world; to show that the day of wrath is
upon him unless he change heart; and implicitly, to call on the
remnant to carry the true values over the abyss into which man
is about to throw himself.

IT
Strange to say, for his dissection of the modem ethos in his
essay on The Role of Ressentiment in Moral Systems 26 Scheler
uses the blade Nietzsche forged: his emphasis on ressentiment,
which Scheler defines as a self-poisoning of the soul caused by
systematic repression, as opposed to moral conquest, of hostile
emotions like hate, spite, envy, jealousy and revenge, and leading to a more or less permanent deformation of the sense of
values. Only there, says Scheler, will ressentiment grow where
aviolent emotion goes hand-in-hand with a feeling of impotence,
deriving from some physical or spiritual weakness, or from fear
of those against whom the emotion is directed. It springs up
most readily, therefore, in those in subordinate or inferior
positions, in those who are dependent, who are ruled, who serve.
A virus malignant and most contagious, it may, however, spread
widely and infect many others. 27 But we must add that every
man, dependent on God, is tempted to kick against the goad of
His authority and is thus open to the bitterness of ressentiment.
If, says Scheler, the resentful man is unable to lift his oppres•• " Prophetischer oder marxistischer Sozialismus? " Schriften zur Soziologie und
Weltanschauungslehre, III/2, pp. 17-18, 28-24.
28 1912, revised 1915.
••" Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol.
I, pp. 51-62, 55-66.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

sive feeling of inferiority by action, he seeks another outlet for
his painful tension in falsehood. He drags down the values that
depress him in others, or else blinds himself to them; furthermore-and this, Scheler points out, is the main work of ressentiment-he either falsifies values as such or pretends they
are illusory, for if their validity or existence be denied, there
can remain no high qualities to depress him. Or he may come
to say that the good is that which he wants, the offspring of
desire. The depreciation of values to the level of one's desires
or abilities is by no means the normal fulfillment of the sense
of values; it is, on the contrary, the chief cause of moral blindness, deception, and illusion. The possibility of resignationthat a man, having lost the power to obtain a good, can yet
acknowledge its worth, proves the sense of value independent
of ability or desire. 28
"There is no refuge from another's excellence save love,"
Scheler quotes Goethe, 29 and takes care to state that it would be
utter folly to think that in a given situation an individual is
forced to succumb to ressentiment, a phenomenon which cannot be understood without understanding the process of :repression. For, as Scheler might have said, the further the soul
departs from the realm of the spirit, which is the realm of freedom, the more subject it is to laws approaching the purely
biological. Strongly felt weakness, depression engendered by
impotence, anxiety, and intimidation: these are the repressive
forces which make the hostile emotions shun the clear light of
day. Having first inhibited their expression, fear and frailty
push the emotions from the conscious plane into darkness, so
that the individual or group stirred by them is no longer aware
of their secret work. The inhibition finally spreads so far that
the impulse of hate, envy or revenge is crushed the moment it
wishes to arrive at our inner perception. On the other hand, the
store of buried emotions draws each fresh emotion, incorporat28 Ibid., pp. 70-74.
•• Wahlverwandschaften, ll, 5.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

147

ing it into its mass, so that each repression eases the way for
the next and speeds the whole process. 30
In this process of repression, the image of the original object
of hostility is, as it were, blotted out. I may hate someone, and
know the reason very well: the act that harmed, or the feature
that pains me. In the measure that I repress my hate-which
is, of course, something totally different from overcoming it by
moral energy, in which case my hate and its object are both
fully present to my mind and any hostile emotion is checked by
virtue of a clear ethical judgment-it detaches itself more and
more from its specific ground, and in the end from the person
hated. It aims :first at any of his qualities and actions, perhaps
at his way of walking or laughing, or his taste in music, at anything which expresses his personality, and further, at people,
even at things and situations, associated with him. Finally, the
impulse may break away altogether from the person who hurt
or oppressed me, and become a negative attitude towards
certain qualities, no matter who bears them, or where or when,
and whether he treats me well or ilL Thus I may come to hate
a whole group or class or nation. I may even come to hate or
torment mysel£.31
Having thus examined the phenomenon of ressentiment,
Scheler asks what it can contribute to the understanding of
value-judgments, whether those of individuals or of periods, and
towards the understanding of entire moral systems. It is
evident in itself, he says, that from it there can never spring
genuine judgments, but only false and deceived, for true morality rests on an eternal hierarchy of values. There is an ordre
du coeur (Pascal) which moral genius uncovers in the course of
time piece by piece; its grasp and gain are historic, but never
the order of moral values itself. Far from being the source of
value, ressentiment is that of revolt, of the overthrow of the
eternal order in man's mind. Nietzsche himself, the skeptic and
30 " Das Ressentiment
im Aufbau der Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol. I,
pp. 88-89.
81 Ibid., pp. 89-9!i<l.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

relativist in ethics, implied as much, Scheler asserts, when he
sppke of falsification of the tables of value through ressentiment,
for falsified tables presuppose true ones.32
With this we return to Nietzsche, who declared ressentiment
to be at the root of Christianity, which he denounced as the
"revolt of the slaves in morals." The Jews, he said, sought
revenge on their enemies by overthrowing the " aristocratic "
_morality, the prerogatives of the "fair" and noble, the strong
and aggressive, and exalting in their place the poor and lowly
as the good, the mournful and suffering as the blessed. With a
contempt that was the cover of his own anxiety, he wrote:
"This Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate gospel of love, this
'Redeemer' bringing salvation and victory to the poor, the
sick, the sinful," was Israel's most sublime revenge-it repudiated him before all the world and nailed him to the cross, "so
that all the world, that is, all the enemies of Israel, could nibble without suspicion at this very bait." 33 Scheler repelled
Nietzsche's assault on the Gospel; at the same time he saw that
in pointing to ressentiment as the root of a moral system,
Nietzsche had made a veritable discovery. His error was in
thinking that it was Christian ethics, whereas it was bourgeois
morality, which had grown fr,om it. 34
Scheler proves him wrong by contrasting Christian love,
which Nietzsche called " the triumphant crown of the tree of
Jewish revenge and hate," 35 with the love of the Greeks, who
were to him superior beings, overflowing with gratitude towards
life.8il For all ancient thinkers and poets, love was a movement
of the lower to the higher; in it the imperfect tended to the

•• ibid., pp. 98-94.
88 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, I, 7, 8, 10.
••" Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen," V om Umsturz der W erte, Vol.
I, pp. 106-107. Cf. Yves de Montcheuil, S.J., "Le Ressentiment dans la Vie Morale
et Religieuse d'apres Max Scheler," M elangu Theologiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946),
J. M. Oesterreicher, "Ressentiment, Christianity and the Modem
pp.
Mind," to be published in the Centennial Volume of Manhattanville College of the
Sacred Heart, New York.
•• Nietzsche, op. cit., I, 8.
•• Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, m, 49.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

149

perfect, the unformed to the formed; in it appearance moved to
·essence, unknowing to knowing, poverty to possession. Between each pair it was the mean; 37 it was only a methodos, a
way. Even to Plato it remained always on the sensible plane, a
form of desire, of want or need, alien to perfect Being. For
Aristotle, there was in all things an urge towards the Godht;:ad,
the N ous, the Thinker blissful in himself, who moves the world,
not as one who wills and communicates himself, but rather
draws and lures it, as the beloved moves the lover. 38
Christ, however, says Scheler, gives love a course entirely
new. Rather, should we say, He gives love as desire its full
meaning and true goal, but over and above this, He adds to love
a new direction. In and after Him, love reveals itself in the
bending of the noble to the ignoble, the hale to the sick, the
rich to the poor, the fair to the foul, the good and holy to the
evil, the Messias to publicans and sinners. Now it moves
boldly, a challenge to Greek thought, and bends without the
antique fear thereby to lose nobility, but on the contrary,
certain of gaining, in this very losing, the highest: likeness to
God. No longer is God seen only as the goal of all things' desire,
a goal eternally still like a star-He is One who cares; not
merely the Prime Mover, but the Creator who made the world
out of an infinity of goodness; but not merely the idea of the
good nor perfect order-He is Person. What antique man could
not have conceived save as a contradiction in terms, an impudence and sin, is now the joyful message: God is a loving God;
and more unthinkable still: He came down to man as a Servant
and died on the Gross as if He had not served wel1.39
From that hour, Scheler declares, to say that one should
cherish the good man and despise the bad, love the friend and
hate the foe, is hollow and meaningless; all are worthy, for God's
love makes them so. Love is of all good things the best, not
for what it may achieve but in itself; its achievements are
Symposium, !'<!02-204.
Physics VIII; Metaphysics XU. Scheler, "Das Ressentiment im Aufbau del'
Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, VoL I, pp. 107-110.
89 Scheler, ibid., pp. llO.lU.
37

38

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

merely symbols and proofs of its presence. This also is truly
novel-it is not part of the sense-world. Acts of the senses use
themselves up in reaching their desired, not so love; love waxes
in loving, its deepest reward is in itself and not in what"it wins.40
Its gifts are rich: it helps us discover great things, it makes us
see. with the eyes of God, it gives strength and fervor-its gifts
are many; there is no term to them. Still, love's greatness is not
in them but in itself. Scheler's vision is confirmed by these
words of St. Bernard: " Love is sufficient of itself. Of itself it
pleases and for its own sake. It is itself its own merit and its
own reward. It seeks no motive, no fruit beyond itself. It is
its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love. I love
in order that I may love." 41
Such is the tremendous change from the Greek concept to the
Christian reality of love, and it was not ressentiment, not the
revenge of the weak on the strong, that caused it; far from it, it
is the mark of a superhuman strength. Scheler distinguishes
true condescension and its counterfeit. In the first, the strong
bends down to the weak because inner wealth urges him; in the
second the hollow man flees his inner dearth. The sources of
true. condescension, he says, are stability, a strong sense of
protection, an unconquerable abundance of life, and hence the
consciousness of being able to spend of one's own. He sees it
as a spontaneous overflowing of strength, accompanied by joy
and peace, for he thinks readiness to love and sacrifice natural
to man, and all egotism, even the urge towards self-preservation, signs of obstructed and weakened life, life being essentially
growth and unfolding and self-preservation a mere epiphenomenon.42 Here as elsewhere, Scheler is like Lot's wife. Led
out of Sodom, she could not tear her thoughts away; about
to be freed, she could not free her heart. Though Scheler's main
thesis is the complete demolition of Nietzsche, still he remained
captivated by him. His Christian here bears the features of a
•• Ibid., pp. 111-118.
41 St. Bernard, Serm. in Cant. LXXXIII, 4 (PL 188 : 1188) .
••" Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol. I,
pp. 118-116.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

151

god, but the Christian's bending down is more than a spontaneous overflowing of strength; it may spring from a heart once
crushed under a burden of sin or sorrow, for its source is not in
itself but in heaven. The Christian is driven by grace; he dwells,
in the words of Scheler, in the castle of ultimate being, which
Christ called the Kingdom of God, 43 and to abide there he must
die each day; he must be crucified in order to rise, a mystery
and the quintessence of the life of perfection, which Scheler
often tends to forget. What exalts the infused virtue of supernatural love over natural love is that its acts may be summoned
by the will and yet be unforced, that it is given to all who
seek it, can be had for the asking.
If the Christian comes to the aid of the poor, the ailing or
the ugly, it is not, Scheler emphasizes, as Nietzsche might have
thought, from a desire to plunge into the phenomena of poverty,
illness or ugliness, but rather for the sake of what is sane and
sound in the afflicted. That St. Francis kissed the festering
sores or hospitably suffered vermin to remain on his body might,
if viewed from without, appear a perversion. It was nothing of
the kind, no lack of natural sensitivity nor pleasure in the
loathsome. His was a conquest of loathing by the strength of
a fuller life, the entire opposite of the :resentful attitude of
modem " realism " in art and literature, with its ostentatious
preference for the small or its obsessive digging in the sordid.
These artists, says Scheler, see in aU that lives something buglike, while St. Francis saw, even in a bug, the sacredness of
life.44
Love as Jesus meant it, Scheler continues, and sees in it a
mark of true condescension, helps and helps energetically; still
it does not consist in helpfulness-good will and good deeds
are but its fruits, and never can profit be its measure, only the
heart of the one who loves. The world might profit greatly
and yet there be little or no love, and profit little where love is
great. The widow's mite was more in the sight of God, not
because her gift was small, nor because the giver was a widow
•• Cf. ibid., p. ns.

"Ibid., pp. H8-U9.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

and poor, but because her deed betrayed more love. Love is
not one among many forces promoting the welfare of society;
rather is its excellence the wealth it showers on the person who
loves. It is not a means but an end, no philanthropical institute
-what truly matters is not the amount of welfare in the world,
but that there be the maximum of love among men. The rich
young man was bidden to give his goods to the poor, not that
the poor might gain, nor that society might fare better through
a more equitable distribution of property. He was bidden, not
because poverty as such is better than riches, but because the
act of relinquishment, with the inner freedom and fullness of
·Jove it bespeaks, would enoble him and make him infinitely
richer than before. 45
The primacy of love pervades also the bond between man
and God, once a contractual, now a filial. The love of God,
says Scheler, ought not rest only on His works, on our gratitude
for what He gives us hour by hour; all these should .but guide
our gaze back to their Author. He ought not be loved for His
heaven and His earth, they should be loved for Him; because
they are the works of a Lover should they be cherished. Antiquity thought the love in the universe limited, and therefore
demanded that it be spent sparingly, on each according to his
desert. But when one knows, as does the Christian, that love,
has its source in God the Infinite, in never ending Bounty, then
it must be lavished on every man, just.and sinner, kinsman and
stranger. Summing up his test of Christian condescension,
Scheler exclaims: " There is in it nothing of ressentiment, only
a blessed courtesy and the power to condescend, flowing from
a superabundance of strength and grandeur." 46
The counterfeit, however, springs from want, and Scheler
rightly calls it a euphemism for flight from self. In true love,
a man turns away from himself in response to a positive value
he has seen, but here the turning away is his original intention.
Love of neighbor becomes a guise for self-hatred. Lest he see
his own wretchedness and have to face all that is within him,
'"Ibid., pp.

•• Ibid., pp. 122-124.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAI'l,'H

153

he devotes himself to something not himself, to another just
because he is another. 47
If one attends to Scheler's remarks, not to the consonance of
words but to their meaning and. atmosphere, one breathes at
once a different air, one enters an entirely different world, on
going from Christian love to modern humanitarianism. The
modem love of man is a concept born of protest and suckled
on polemic. It protests against the love of God, and with it,
against the Christian .oneness and harmony of love of God,
self, and neighbor; it wishes to love, not the divine in man, not
man's full stature in and through Christ, but man only insofar
as he is a member of the species. The mankind it dotes on is
no spiritual whole, embracing also the dead, and ordered according to an aristocracy of personal values; this mankind is merely
a biological phenomenon, something earthly, visible and limited,
living for the moment. Hence the modern love of man is without piety for the dead, without reverence for the men of the
past, aggressive against tradition, and the place of the individual, who alone represents the personal depth of humanity, is
now taken by man as a collective. Characteristically enough,
the Christian word is not love for "mankind"; its cardinal
concept is love of neighbor. 48
With the object of love, its essence too has changed. The
modern love, Scheler states, is not an act of the spirit, a movement of the soul, as independent of the. physis as thought, but
a feeling caused by the senses' perceiving in others exterior signs
of pain or joy, and transmitted by " psychic contagion." Prostrate before the idol of ;t mankind happier merely in the world
of the senses, man's entire experience has changed, and thus
philosophical theory has reduced the phenomenon of love more
and more to a mechanics of necessary deceptions. Love is
wrongly held the outcome of sympathy, and sympathy in tum
is traced back to an artificial putting oneself into the state of·
another; to a reproduction of one's own earlier reactions to circumstances now experienced by others; to a being tugged into
.. Ibid., p. U5.

•• Ibid., pp. 150-152.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

the feeling of another, a kind of hallucination, as if one suffered
within what one saw without; or finally, to the mere psychic
accompaniment of impulses having their origin in man's primitive history. These impulses are said to have become fixed
because of their usefulness to the species, ·so that in the end
sympathy becomes the consequence of a herd-instinct, existing
even in the animal world. The theory of love has thus sunk
gradually from its height; what was once sign and symbol of a
supernatural order, even the stream of power flowing through
the Kingdom of God, has been turned into a refined and intricate development of animal impulse, originating in the sexual
sphere.
The changes of object and essence are by no means all; also
the esteem accorded modern " love " has changed. Its value is
not the salvation it works in the souls of the lover and the
beloved but the furtherance of the " general welfare." However, none of its social implications and effects constitute love's
worth, and in the best world, not general welfare but love
abounds; the greatness of love, say!' Scheler, is not that it may
be useful but that it is blessed/ 9 The modern notion of general
welfare is something entirely different from the Christian idea
of the common good. Perhaps nowhere is the difference more
striking than in their evaluation of a life dedicated wholly to
the loving praise of God. Whereas the advocates of general welfare consider the cloistered life selfish and unproductive, a complete waste, St. Thomas says that it belongs to the bonum
commune that there are men who give themselves to the life of
contemplation. 49 "
That ressentiment is the hidden core of humanitarianism is
betrayed by the fact that in spite of its protestations, mankind
is not at all the immediate object of its affection; it is only
played against something else, which is detested. This modern
love is above all repressed rejection of God, a guise at times
even of hatred-a situation masterfully portrayed by Dosto•• Ibid., pp. 158-157..
••• Cf. IV Sent., :xxvi, 1, 2; Summa Tkeol., 11-11, q. 88, a. 8, ad 4.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

155

yevski in The Brothers Karamazov. What is most revealing, it
often insinuates itself with the plea: There is not enough love
in the world to squander on a being other than man; or with
the exclamation: When every man is fed and clothed, then
will be the time to care for someone else. Its first sentiment is
always unwillingness to bear One who sees all things, rebellion
against God as the source and unity of all values with their
dominion over man, bitterness against the Sovereign Lord; the
" loving " condescension to man it parades is secondary. It
condescends to him only as a being in whose many sufferings
it hopes to find arguments against God's good and wise Government. Even for the unbeliever, all higher values are, through
the power of tradition alone, anchored in the idea of God; hence
his " love " inevitably turns to what is lowest in man, to what
he has in common with the animals. 50
The name " altruism " given to the modern substitute for love
is another proof of its resentful center, Scheler proceeds, for
Christian love is devotion, not to the other as other, but to the
person in its spiritual essence, be it the person of the lover or
that of another, which makes it sinful for the Christian to surrender his soul's salvation for another; "Love God, and thy
neighbor as thyself," 51 is his precept. To this, modem man
takes exception; Auguste Comte, the champion of altruism,
accused Christianity of supporting "egoistic impulses" by its
commandment to have heed for one's own salvation, and wished
to substitute for it a new Positivist command to love others
more than oneself.52 But it is hard to understand how the
"other" merits devotion, just because he is another, for if I am
not worthy of love, how should the other be, as if he were not an
" I " to himself and I an " other " to him. 53
Whereas the idea of Christian love is a formative principle
50 "

Das Ressentirnent irn Aufbau der Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werle, Vol.

I, pp.

Cf. Luke x, 27.
Auguste Cornte, Catechisme, Conversation 10.
53 " Das Ressentirnent irn Aufbau der Moralen," Vom U1n11.turz der Werte, Vol.
I, pp.
51
52

156

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

which, little though it claim the advancement of life as its purpose, is nonetheless an expression of " ascending " life, modern
love, says Scheler, the soft undiscriminating sympathy for the
"other" solely because he is an "other" is, on the contrary, a
leveling principle, disintegrating to human life, for all that it
expressly claims the advancement of life as its purpose. In degrading itself to a mere means for general welfare, in insisting
that it has only a technical value, humanitarianism falsifies to
an unprecedented degree the tables of values; it subordinates
the excellence and bliss of love to each and any sensuous pleasure, and that divorced from the person who enjoys it. Hence
the great men, even the holiest figures in history, those who
love the most, in whom is visible the kingdom of God, are no
longer the exalted models by whom mankind orients itself ever
anew, who give it meaning and dignity, but servants to increase
the pleasure of its masses. This, says Scheler, is quite literally
the slave-revolt in morals: the lower values have overthrown
the higher, those that ought to serve have usurped the places
their masters. 54
Having stripped humanitarianism of its pretensions, Scheler
cites some of its consequences, certain characteristic shiftings of
value. His criticism is impulsive, lacking clear distinctions and
moderation,
this is, in brief, what is good in it. There is,
he says, first the rule, so decisive for the bourgeois- ethos, that
moral value belongs only to qualities which the individual man
acquires and to actions he performs through his own strength
and labor. Consequently it recognizes no innate aptitudes to
be of moral worth, nor special gifts of grace such as vocations
or infused virtues, which place one man on a higher level than
another; it knows no original sin, no inherited guilt nor good in
any sense. 55 Ailing from the neglect, even contempt, of the gratuitous and unearned, our time has torn from its heart any
understanding for the things that are given. Two phenomena
so disparate as the Marxist theory that labor alone produces
value and the doctrine of modern Christian sects which divests
Baptism of its sacramental character, so that rebirth IS no
•• Ibid., pp. 168-169.

•• Ibid., pp. 183-185.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

157

longer something that happens to man but something he
achieves, corroborate Scheler's observation.· They bespeak the
same worship of effort, the same ressentiment against the
bestowed, the communicated, and with it, against rank and
hierarchy.
If intolerance rather than unenvying, ungrudging acceptance
of the more highly gifted becomes the prevailing attitude, if the
gaze at objective values is deflected to the subjective effort
with which they are acquired, then moral value, Scheler points
out, will be accorded only to what everyone can do, and it will
be the lowest common demoninator that is the standard. As
a further consequence, the solidarity of man in guilt and merit
will be denied, and with it that " all sinned in
" and that
all who have been " buried with Christ " are "
with him," 56
that the merits of the friends of God are shared in the communion of saints, and that the Poor Souls are helped by the suffrages
and works of the living. This denial results from the attitude
which, in a common phrase, says: I don't want charity, or: I
don't accept gifts. This exclusive esteem for the man-made and
the self-acquired leads, according to Scheler, to another principle of modern morality: egalitarianism. Behind the demand
for " equality " there often hides ressentiment which can not
regard superior values cheerfully and would decapitate those
who bear them. 57 Long before SchelE(r, Kierkegaard, in his The
Present Age, pointed at envy as its leveling principle. 58 Indeed,
egalitarianism would more and more eliminate the many differences which give the human world color and zest, which make
up its riches and beauty, though they mean struggle and sorrow as well-till it creates the robot.,.man. Men are not " equal "
before God and His grace, for God does not love all with an
equal affection, but each with an infinite love.
There is another important transposition, that <Jf the useful
and the pleasant. Everything that can truly be called " useful ''
•• Col., ii, 12.,
••" Das Ressentiment im Aufbau de:.: Moralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol.
I, pp. 185-189, 192-198.
68 Sjllren Kierkegaard, The Present Age, tr. A. Dru (Oxford:
University Press,
1940), pp. 15, 26-47 passim.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

is so, Scheler says, as a means to something pleasant, or, we
should add, something higher than the pleasant. The meaning
of every civilization, insofar as it produces what is practical, is
at least the enjoyment of what is agreeable. The final worth
of useful things depends, in short, on the capacity for enjoyment
on the part of their users; if the work needed to produce them
lessens this capacity, it is not worth the trouble. One can and
ought subordinate enjoyment to higher, above all, to religious
values, but to subordinate it to the useful is an absurdity; it is
to subordinate the end to the means. Yet it has become a rule of
modern morality that useful work is better than the enjoyment
of the pleasant. Again it is ressentiment, against a keener sense
for enjoyment, against a richer life, which drives modern man
so to exalt the functional. A vastly complicated mechanism
is set up for the production of the pleasant, requiring for its
maintenance never-ending toil, but disregarding its final enjoyment. 59 It may be objected that there has been no other age
in which pleasure and enjoyment were so much to the fore, but
reflection on the use to which some modern inventions have
been put proves Scheler right. The automobile, which was to
open the world to man, makes his roads impassable. Radio,
which was to bring recreation into every home, pours out a din
that deafens the ear and deadens the mind. The printing press,
which was to enlighten the many, has blocked their view of the
world, their pursuit of truth, and is now a tool that delivers
them into the hands of the dictator. Such, says Scheler, is the
tendency in modern civilization: to heap up pleasure on pleasure
for the benefit, eventually, of no one. 60 But, to speak in the
words of Pius XII in his Christmas message of 1941: "It would
be a wrong interpretation of what we have said against materialism to deduce a condemnation of technical progress. No, we
do not condemn that which is a gift from God. From the first
days of the creation He has hidden in the bowels of the earth
treasures which the hand of man must draw forth, both for his
needs and for his progress."
59 "

Das Ressentirnent irn Aufbau der IVIoralen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, VoL

I, pp.
60

Ibid., p. !i!O'i.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

159

These are some of the shiftings of value, but modern morality
has not and could not have stopped with these. The common
ground of all modern theories is that values in general and moral
values in particular are subjective, and that apart from man's
consciousness they have neither meaning nor existence. This
denial of objective values has led either to the justification of
complete anarchy in moral judgment, in which nothing is certain, nothing lasting, or to the acceptance of one or the other
surrogate for stable values, of, for instance, a so-called " mind
of the species," which is credited with general validity and
allegedly asserts itself to the individual with a commanding
" thou shalt." 61
The impulse behind this attitude is again ressentiment. A
man oppressed and tormented because he does not measure up
to the objective order of values will, if he gives in to ressentiment, " devaluate " the idea of value itself. He says, as it were,
to those justified by the objective order of values: Your values
matter no more than mine, which are my own creation; yours
are no better; down with
values are
The
man who speaks thus began with the intention, natural to every
man, of directing his will to the good, which he deemed, for he
was as yet uncorrupted by the wish to deceive himself, objective
and eternal, independent of human wit and whim. However,
the less successful he is in his pursuit of the good, the more he
tends, if he gives way to envy, to divest good of its property, to
degrade it to the mere mirror of a momentary desire. Driven
by the knowledge
his sinfulness and nothingness, in vengeance against the idea of the good before which he can not
stand, he dynamites the beautifully ordered universe of values,
and says that they are merely relative to man, race, people, etc.
But soon he feels the need of finding norms. For the man of
ressentiment is a weakling, unable to stand alone with his conviction, the complete contrast to the one who pursues an objective good, although he may be alone in seeing it and against
a wodd of resistance. 62
61

Ibid., pp. 194-195.

" 2

Ibid., pp. 195-196.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

Hence "currency" takes the place of objectivity for the
man of ressentiment in any age and particularly in our own,
when almost everyone breathes in the ressentiment of generations._ The resentful man does not inquire into what is good,
but seeks his support in the question: What do you think?
What do people think? What is public opinion, what the general tendency, what the wave of the future? In what direction
is evolution moving, so that I may align myself with the current? It is strange indeed: what no single person is able to see
is suddenly seen by all; by heaping zero insights on one another,
there is achieved a positive insight; what could never be good
of itself becomes good because yesterday it was the accepted
thing or because it is the wave leading to tomorrow. What the
herd thinks, or the class, or the age, takes the place of objective good; what, at any given moment, is generally held,
must substitute for truth. 68

III
The shifting of values is the work of man, but not the values
themselves and their order. There is, says Scheler, in his Ordo
Amoris a world as
mighty, rich, and harmonious as
that of suns and stars, the world of values, which is the most
fundamental sphere of reality, and which would continue if
man ceased to be, as would: two times two is four. It is fully
independent of man, but it is given to him; his heart is a replica,
an ordered likeness of the cosmos of goods worthy of love. Our
age has come to look on the heart as mute and subjective, without meaning or direction, a chaos of blind sentiments, but this
is a consequence of generations who elected to be slovenly in
matters of feeling, who lacked seriousness about what is profound. " Le coeur a ses raisons," Scheler quotes Pascal; the
heart has sure and evident insights not known to reason; it owns
a logic in its own right, and laws are inscribed in it-the Nomos
Agraphos, the unwritten law of the ancients-which derive
from the plan by which God built the world.64
•• Ibid., p. 197.
••" Ordo Amoris," Schriften aus dem NachJass (Berlin: Der Neue Geist Verlag,

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

161

It is not man's preference but God's All-Love that creates
what is worthy of love in things; the task assigned to man is to
acknowledge their objective challenge, to surrender to the hierarchy of values, through which God's sovereignty speaks. Our
inclinations and disinclinations may be in harmony or discord
with this hierarchy, one with or divorced from the love with
which He loved the universe before He created it and maintains
it every instant. It is our perfection to love things, as far as
this is possible to man, in the order God loves them, and to
know that in our act of love, divine and human love coincide.
When, therefore, a man overthrows this order of values, be it
in thought or deed, he overthrows, at least intentionally, the
divine order, and in overturning it, the world as an object of his
knowledge, as a field of will and work, tumbles after. 65
The scale of worth exists in itself, but it speaks to man and he
is ordered to it; who has the ordo amoris of a man has the man.
It bespeaks him as the crystalline formula tells the secret of the
crystal. It makes him transparent, so that his soul can be read,
as far as a soul can be; so that its simple lines can be seen
through all exterior manifoldness and intricacy. The ordo
amoris of a man is the hidden source which feeds the rivers of
his soul, the great determinant of his life, of his moral milieu,
his fate, the sum total of all that can happen to him and to
him alone.66
That there is an objective hierarchy of values, not to be
1938), Vol. I, p. 244. A mainly negative criticism of Scheler's ethical thought is
found in Michael Wittmann, Max Scheler ala Ethiker (Duesseldorf: L. Schwann,
1923); P. H. Lennerz, S. J., Schelers Konformitaetssystem und die Lehre der
katholischen Kirche (Muenster in Westfalen: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1924); and A. Rohner, " Thomas von Aquin oder Max Scheler," in Divus
Thomas (1923, 1924, 1925). A markedly positive evaluation is given by Pere A.-D.
Sertillanges, Le Christianism6 et lea Philosophies (Paris: Au bier [1989]) . An
attempt to see much of Scheler's thought in the light of Protestantism is made by
Harald Eklund in his Evangelisches und katholisches in Max Schders Ethik
(Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln, 1932) . The idea of .value is clarified
and its significance brought into focus by the works of Dietrich von Hildebrand,
among others, Die Idee der sittlichen Handlung (Halle: Niemeyer, 1916), and
Sittlichkeit und ethische W erterkenntnis (Halle: Niemeyer, 1921) .
•• Ibid., pp. 228, 239.
•• Ibid., pp. 228-229.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

altered, is an old Christian heritage. Christ said to those who
fretted over their material needs: " Is not life itself a greater
gift than food, the body than the clothing?" 67 He warned the
Twelve: " Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the
souL Rather fear him who has the power to destroy body and
soul in hell"; 68 and when the demands of salvation clashed with
the strictures of authority, the Apostles replied: "We must
obey God rather than men!' 69 Scheler, in his book on Formalism in Ethics, in the main a critique of Kant's moral philosophy,
attempts to determine the scale of values. The great difference
between what is agreeable and what is significant in itself is
not brought ouL Also some of his other distinctions are not
sufficiently precise and elsewhere in his writings vary. His main
thought, however, is this.
Lowest in the hierarchy are the large groups of values relating
to the senses, to man's comfort, to all that is useful and agreeable, such as wealth, of the individual or of the nation. Trade
and industry, the economic and technical worlds with all they
produce,
place here. The next step is biological
values, like health, vitality, physical courage, and further, all
that serves the welfare of the person or of society. When life is
in danger, a man of sound heart will relinquish aU exterior possessions to save it, because at that moment, with non-essentials
stripped away, his heart clearly senses life to be above any
material good. Higher than the realm of life is that of mind,
the values proper to man's intelligence, those that specifically
constitute culture: politics, pure science, fine art, philosophy;
the order of justice and law, the region of the beautiful, the
sphere of the true. A scientist who risks his life for the sake of
a truth, an artist who prefers hunger to deserting his art, a
Socrates-all these exemplify their import. And as material
goods serve life, and life is subordinate to mind, so the intellectual ranks below the moraL Plato had no doubt that all
ideas submit to the idea of the good, and Kant that the categorical imperative calls
the abandonment of all inferior
07

Matt., vi,

68

Ibid., X,

•• Acts, v, 29.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

HlS

values; indeed, every man uncorrupted by the betrayal of the
good feels and knows that it is of all these values the highest.
But towering above it and above all is the domain of religious
values, the holy, for in the realm of values, which mounts like
a pyramid, God the holy is the summit. Of all things deserving
love, He is at once the goal and the source, the beginning and
the end, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Him/ 0
The world of values is infinite, but people today often dwell
in a narrow
This narrowness, however, Scheler stresses,
rises not from any subjectivity of values, but in part from a
merely instinctive outlook and in part from a certain attitude
characteristic of our civilization.
The "natural" man is
tempted to recognize only values which meet his physical urges.
Failing to live the life of a person, he blinds himself; he despoils
and impoverishes the world. "Slave to his belly," his vision is
confined to those goods which serve, and only insofar as they
serve, his vital needs. He is inclined to overlook the beauty of
an apple, its harmony and architecture, even more its reflection
of a higher beauty; its fragrance and color are nothing more to
him than indications of use and pleasure. But not only the
dominion of instinct, also the spell of modern civilization
renders the world smalL Many a man, shadowed by the spirit
of competition, values only the rare, that which is held by few
or which requires toil for its production. He esteems goods that
can be possessed, particularly when they can be possessed in
greater quantity by one than by another. Haunted by a need
for comparison, he gives less attention to what he has than
to what his neighbor has and he has not. 71
If a man but lifts his head above the fog of our times, Scheler
exclaims, he will see that values a:re real, independent of himself. To acknowledge that they are abiding, founded on truth,
he must give his attention to the intrinsic. worth of things; he
must ask not what they mean to him but what they mean, not
what they yield but what they are. He must not look for hap•• Der Fcmnalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, pp. 103-109;
"Ordo Amm·is," Schriften aus dem Nachlass, Vol. I, p .. 24!il.
n Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, pp.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

piness, for it is a free gift, something " thrown in," to be had
without asking, and the only way to seek it is not to seek it.
He must force envy out of his life; he must esteem most highly
those goods which are the least to be possessed, and of those
which can be owned, those like earth, air and water, which are
so abundant that to one's own joy in them is added the joy
that others can rejoice in them. As this shared joy opens the
soul to the realm of values, so much more thanksgiving. The
religious man gives thanks for light and sound, for movement
and breath; where others find only indifference, he sees values
or their contraries; everything becomes peopled with them,
replete with meaning. The universe of values, says Scheler, is
unlocked in its entirety to none but those who live St. Paul's
antithesis: "Beggars enriching many, paupers possessing all
things." 12

IV
Scheler was not a thinker who could be coldly indifferent to
the modem mutilation of man, and he could not be taken in
by the fantastic theories which make of man a machine grinding
thoughts and emotions out of the raw materials fed to it, a
mixture of chemical compounds that would one day be produced in the laboratory, or at the most an educated animal, for
behind them all he saw ressentiment. Only eyes shut to reality
as a whole could see nothing but nature, and still regard man
as its crown, observes Scheler in his Formalism in Ethics
(1913-16) . Man is the most dependent of all living forms, and
therefore the most vulnerable, the most menaced. Viewed biologically, he is rather an" animal afflicted," and his intelligence,
compared with instinct, a poor device for biological progress.
He requires elaborate and variegated apparatus merely to keep
himself alive. What the animal achieves with its simple equipment, man must do with his complicated nervous system and
thereby violate all the rules of economy. Beside an animal, he
is like an Alpinist beside a mountain lad, who cuts himself a
72

Ibid., pp. 259-2(10, 276-278. Cf. 2 Cor. vi, 10.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

165

wand and walks the mountain lightly and unburdened, while
the Alpinist loads himself with spikes and cleats, hooks and
ladders, axes, ropes and goggles. But for all this the lad is still
the better, and so also would the beast be superior were not
man's greater differentiation given him that he might realize
values higher than the struggle for existence. 73
Biologically, man is inferior, and to see in hin;t the highest
beast, the apex of evolution thus far, would be hardly more than
infatuated self-worship. Man is superior, but those who admire
him as the animal-made-wise presuppose, whether they will or
no, other and higher than biological values. He is superior because he sees and embodies values not rooted on earth: the
intellectual and the holy; he transcends himself, his life and all
life. The newness that bursts out in him is, biologically
measured, a superabundance of the spirit. Through him as
through a rift, there appears the personal order, whose values
excel life and whose bond is justice and love; through him there
shines the idea of God and His Kingdom 1 and save in this light,
he cannot be understood. Man is, says Scheler, the movement,
the tendency, the transition to the Divine, the corporeal being
directed towards God; 74 and to this he adds, in his essay On
the Idea of Man, he is the one who prays or the prayer of life,
through whom the universe reaches towards its Creator; he is
the one who seeks God, nay, the one whom God seeks.75
St. Thomas Aquinas said: " Man, in a certain sense, contains
all things," 76 and called man: " a kind of horizon and COJ.ltainer
of corporal and incorporal things." 77 In him are, in a way, all
things; he is a limit between two worlds, as it were a horizon in
which earth and heaven meet. In its union with the body, his
soul is measured by the flux of time; in itself, as a spirit, it is
measured by etemity. 78 In its relation to the body, as its form,
73 Der Formolismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertetkik, pp. !294-!296.
•• Ibid., pp. !298-299.
76 "Zur Idee des Menschen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol. I, pp. 295-296.
•• Sum. Tkeol. I, 96, 2c.
77 11 Contra Gent., !'l, 68.
•• De Pot., lll, 10 ad 8.

166

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

it can be defined, but in its relation to God, it is indefinable. 79
Thus far Scheler parallels St. Thomas, but intoxicated by his
vision of the mystery of man, he makes his indefinable character his he-all and end-all. Seeing man move towards God, he
almost forgets that he is. The cut for him is not between man
and animal but between the God-seeker and the philistine, between the re-born and the Old Adam. A difference not of kind
but of degree separates homo faber from the beast; the essential
cleavage, he maintains, is between homo faber and the child of
God. 80 In this Scheler ,contradicts his own thought: were the
tool-making man and the beast something of the same sort,
either the man would have as little chance as the beast, or the
beast as much as the man, of moving closer to God. It is true,
there is a tremendous chasm between a life confined to the
lowest values and one which brings to full fruition the highest.
But the quality which marks man out is precisely this: that he
can change and be converted, that he is the creature who
repents.
A similar discrepancy is found in his early thought on the
person. 81 Wishing to stress that the person is not a thing, he
defines it, in his Formalism in Ethics, as "the concrete unity
of all its possible acts," and goes on to say that it " exists only
in the accomplishment of its acts." 82 Later in the same book,
however, he says that the essence of the person is the foundation
of all its various acts:.83 and in its preface he states -as its most
important thesis that " the ultimate meaning of the universe
is to be gauged by the pure existence-not the achievementsof persons, by their unfolding, their highest possible goodness,
their beauty and harmony, and towards them all the forces of
the cosmos converge." 84
•• De Anima, 7 ad 16.
80 "Zur Idee des Menschen," Vom Umsturz der Werte, VoL I, p. 802.
81 Cf. Eckhard
J. Koehle, 0. S. B., Personality:. A Study according to the
Philosophies of Value and Spirit of Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann (Newton,
N. J.: Catholic Protectory Press, 1941).
82 Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale W ertethik, p. 24.
83 Ibid., p. 898.
•• Ibid., pp. xii-xiii.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

167

Man is an " epiphany of God in the stream of life," Scheler
exclaims, and adds that calling the idea of God an anthropomorphism is one of the most foolish notions of the modern mind.
He finds it amusing that this charge should be leveled by just
those who recognize nothing higher than man, for whom meaningful and meaningless, true and false, good and bad, are but
accretions laid on in the course of natural evolution, adaptations
of man's brain to his milieu. To speak of anthropomorphism
is of point only if man is not the measure of all things; the very
thought can be conceived only by one who has the idea of God
at the back of his mind. Nothing could be further from the
truth; it is not God who is an anthropomorphism, but man who
is a" theomorphism," His image and likeness. 85

v
A philosophy awake to this dignity of man, to the kingly
state and privilege of the person, cannot ignore, says Scheler
in Models and Leaders, the prime role of the person in the
genesis and growth of all human groups. Not Kant's law of
reason nor Hegel's person-less Idea, not Marx's economic tools
and trends nor the dark power of blood, determine history; no
anonymous forces, but great men. Following the" law of the
smaller number" (v. Wiesen), the influence not of the many
but of the few is weightiest in human affairs; it is· always a
minority of men, those who lead and those who inspire,. who
most strongly shape man's personal and social life. But while
leaders merely move our wills to act, models raise our souls
and mold our inner dispositions even before we come to will.
To leaders we submit, but models we love, and in loving, become akin to them. 86
· History is commonly seen as a series of external events, but
its soul is rather the ideals of its several ages, and at the center
of this soul are the models, the men who embody these ideals,
who draw and possess us. To them, personal exemplars, says
8"
88

"Zur Idee des Menschen," Yom U'TfUiturz der Werte, Vol. I, pp. 296-299.
"Vorbilder und Fuehrer," Schriften aua dem Nachlasa, Vol. I, pp. 158-168.

3

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

Scheler, must be traced, ultimately, all ideals, norms and laws
which men obey and disobey. Corresponding to his five ranks
of values, which in this essay he gives, somewhat differently
as the agreeable, the useful, the noble, the intellectual and the
holy, he lists five kinds of models: the "artist of living," the
" civilizer," the " hero," the " genius " and the " saint.'' There
are, of course, men who can claim at once more than a single
rank; there is the genius-saint, the civilizer-hero, and others.
Moreover, all these types assume different hues and tints in
different times and places. The ideal of the man to whom living
is an art varies from the English " gentleman " to the French
honnete homme, from the Japanese samurai to the Italian cortegiano. For the peasant, the townsman and the knight, for
the doctor, the engineer and the soldier, the hero wears a
different garb. Even the genius and the saint are not fully the
same in the East and in the West. 87
The lower in rank, the more dependent is the model on the
social structure; the higher, the freer of outer circumstance. It
is highly improbable that one destitute should be a connoisseur
of fine things; a slave will scarcely be a hero and rarely a genius
-but a saint may be slave or king. There is yet another law
which shows the freedom of the homo religiosus: all the other
models, from genius down, are directly or indirectly dependent
on him. For religion is prior to science, art, philosophy; it is at
work before a culture is thought of, and still at work when a
culture is forgotten. It precedes its birth and outlasts its
dying. 88
Unlike the genius and the hero, the original saint, or what is
commonly called the founder of a religion, is: within his train,
never one among others; he is, says Scheler, always the one.
Great minds do not necessarily dislodge one another, playing
a part that is not exclusive but
Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe-they may all be
cherished at once. Within any group, however, an original
saint can only dispossess another; he can never admit him as
87

Ibid., pp. 168-169.

88

Ibid., p. 174.

SCHELER AND THE FAITH

169

equal. He must say: " He who is not with me is against me," 89
for the claim of religion, by its very essence, permits no rival.
When the saint's message is his, not by illumination nor by
revelation, but by His oneness with God, then His claim is no
longer singular merely within certain historic limits, but universal and absolute, true for all the future as for the present
and the past. Hence Christianity, says Scheler, is not the most
perfect, but the absolute, religion. 90
The uniqueness of the original saint is also manifest in his
immediate presence to his posterity. The hero influences future
generations through his deeds, which have to be recounted; the
genius bears upon them through his individuality,
his work; but the saint himself lives among his descendants. He
lives in those who follow after him and reproduce his person
ever anew; he is also present through authority and tradition,
an authority and tradition determined through this immediate
personal link. To tie the " vision " of him to the knowledge
of a book means to degrade the founder of a religion to the rank
of genius, for the scriptures that speak of him are rather sign
and fruit of his indwelling in his followers. He himself leaves
behind no writings to make himself known to the world, nothing
like the painting of the artist or the score of the composer, no
work divorced from its master, making his influence subject to
the chances to which all matter is exposed. What he leaves
behind is himself; what he carves is not wood or stone but man.
The human person is the matrix in which he creates, and he is
therefore present in and through persons. 91
The arm of the original saint reaches as far as love. The realm
of the hero is a nation or people, that of the genius the earth,
but the realm of the saint extends throughout and above the
world, as far as the brotherhood of those who love him, and
beyond that to God, the origin of all things. Followed after in
the freedom of love, the saint is superior to fame. He is not
•• Matt. xii, 80.
••" Vorbilder und Fuehrer," Schriften aus dwm Nachlass, Vol. I, p. 176.

"'Ibid., pp. 178-188.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

admired the way a genius is nor worshipped like a hero, but in
his heart all have sanctuary, seeking their and the world's salvation. It is evidence his presence, Scheler observes, that not
to remember him, not to bear him in mind, is impossible. He
can be " forgotten," but this " forgetting " is unwillingness,
more or less beneath the conscious mind, to acknowledge the
presence that is felt; it is an instinctive turning away from its
challenge. One can repress the thought of him, but not to think
of him at all can not be done, so mighty is his presence. 92
Scheler's analysis of the models of man is a purely philosophical attempt, but it is interesting to note that in discussing the religious model, he can speak only in Christian terms. He speaks
of the " saint," of " indwelling," " following," and " communion
of love," all names of phenomena genuinely Christian; whatever
may seem to correspond to them in the non-Christian sphere
is a shadow, a faint analogy. Thus he shows that religions can
not, as a modern folly would have it, be compared on an equal
footing; they can not be appraised without a yardstick. In
applying Christian language to all religious models, Scheler
proved his assertion that once the voice of Christ is heard, it
is remembered.

VI
Man's choice is not between belief and unbelief, but between
faith and idolatry. Scheler holds this to be an exactly demonstrable thesis of the philosophy and psychology of religion, and
equally the intimate experience of every man. On examining
his heart, everyone knows himself to be so closely bound up with
some good that in effect he says to it: With thee I shall stand
and fall; without thee I can not live, I will not live, I ought not
live. The religious act, Scheler says, is a dowry of the soul so
essential that the only question which can be raised is whether
it finds its adequate object, or crowns a finite and contingent
good with the nimbus of the holy, the absolute and divine. Reason and heart so naturally tend to God that if man does not believe in Him, he makes a god of that in which he does believe.
•• Ibid., p. 184.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

171

Thus the agnostic deceives himself when he says there is nothing
in which he believes-rather he
in nothing; the religious
act is not lacking from his soul,· but the thought of nothingness
has captured it. Hand-in-hand with his innermost quest for the
One who Is goes an unnatural clinging to the surface of things, to
their appearances. 98
Religious experience, says Scheler, in his Problems of Religion,
is original and underived, and calling aseity, infinity, all-efficacy
and holiness the formal attributes of the " divine," those which
constitute and demark the sphere of religious objects, he maintains that they are not won from any pre-religious experience
by way of abstraction, idealization or analogy, that they are
rather known by an immediate .intuition. Whether its object
be imaginary or real, a fetish, Apollo, or the true God, the religious act belongs to a sphere of reality and value independent
of others. There is, no doubt, a rich and manifold religious development, but Scheler emphatically states, it is a development
within the religious realm, not an evolution towards religion.
It is therefore pointless to investigate the origin of the religious
object in man's soul, and there is. as little sense in the search for
the historic genesis of religion as in a search for the origin of
reason or language. They are given with man; they are part of
his nature. 94
The formal attributes of the " divine " are, according to
Scheler, known immediately, but not so the positive attributes
of God. Only in the measure that man lives in the spirit and
not by the belly can he know that God is spirit, and further,
that He is Creator, Omniscience, All-Goodness, Mercy; only in
love enlightened by revelation can it be known that He is
Person. No man can arrive at the knowledge of the Creator,
All-Mighty and All-Good, unless he is guarded by humility and
awe. Awe makes us see the secret of things and their depth,
preserving horizon and perspective in the world of values;
without it, the universe is flat. It is akin to the sense of shame;
••" Die christliche Liebesidee und die gegenwaertige Welt," Vom Ewigen im
559, 563-564.
Menschen, pp. 197-198; "Probleme der Religion," ibid.,
•• "Problem der Religion," Vom Ewigen im Memchen, pp. 396-400.

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

it is modesty become spirit. Modesty is at once hiding and
unfolding, the manifestation of beauty by its very veiling. And
so in awe we are suddenly aware that our nature is tremendously inadequate for the knowledge of the highest and yet is
called to it; the infinite appears in the midst of our finitude and
poverty. The proud man, bound to himself, lives in a darkened,
desert world and walks towards hell, which is want of love; the
humble,
has an open soul-humility, a way of love,
breaks the walls around the ego and readies the soul to give
itself and serve. 95
What sets off the religious act from all others is: first, it
transcends the world, all the world, including oneself; second,
it is accompanied by an insight that it cannot, by its very
essence, find its fulfillment in the world or in any finite object.
In the religious act we think being different from finite being;
we tend towards a good whose place no temporal good, however lovable, can fill; we seek a bliss which, we know clearly, no
progress of mankind nor any increase of inner or outer good
fortune can give; we experience a fear not related to some concrete danger but to the frailty of contingent being, to its dependence on a power abo-ve it; we hope for something which no
eye has seen nor can see, a hope, then, not grounded on calculation nor on vital confidence; and in religious thanksgiving we
render thanks for a gift of which the favor we have received is
but a symbol, and to a Giver beyond our imagination. In all
these, in love, fear and hope, thanksgiving and praise, marvel
and worship, prayer and adoration, the spirit transcends not
only this or that finite good but the
essence of the finite,
and seeks an object which, though most positive, can be expressed only in such "negative" terms as incomparable, inindescribable, ineffable. 96
The third distinction of the religious act_ is its demand for
an answer, a response on the part of the object to which it tends,
which shows that religion in the strict sense exists only where

a

""Ibid., pp. ·401, 415, 681-682, 421-422; "Zur Rehabilitierung der Tugend," Vom
Umsturz der Werte, Vol. I, pp. 17-82, 82-42 passim.
·
•• "Probleme der Religion," Vom Ewigen im Menschen, pp. 529-585.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

178

the object is personal. It receives the truth it intends and the
salvation it seeks. The religious act and, in its broadest meaning, revelation, are correlated. Neither God nor even the idea
of God can be constructed, for the intellectual power of construction is the greater the more relative an object is to our consciousness; it is null in regard to the Absolute Being, who is
dependent on nothing and on whom all else depends. All knowledge of God is necessarily knowledge from God; the object of
the religious act is at the same time its cause. This is man's
experience in his religious life, and it is the impossibility of
accounting in any other way for his religious disposition that is,
for Scheler, the surest warrant of God's exstence. All rational
proofs are to him merely verifications of God already found. 97
Scheler's philosophy of religion says at times too much and
at others too little. It is true that for men as they are, born
with the light of reason darkened, the will weakened, and for
modern men in particular, bred in an atmosphere of resistance
to God and objective truth, the rational proofs of God's existence may often lack force; and that for reborn men they are
only another evidence of God already found, possessed and
loved. But this in no way detracts from their full validity.
The soul is drawn to God, desires the infinite, has an inkling of
the absolute; this seed needs the sun and dew of grace but will
not spring up and grow unless it is cultivated by the labor of
reason, the work of the will-indeed, the whole man is engaged
in the assent of faith. Scheler, however, wishing to emphasize
the uniqueness of the religious act, claims for it an autonomy
which almost isolates it. Furthermore, were he to say that only
love can fathom the meaning of " God is Person," he would be
right, but that God is Person can be known without revelation.
On the other hand, the soul may long for God's mercy, but
that He who is Mercy seeks the sinner, must be told by Him.
To let St. Thomas speak: By nature the soul is gratiae capax,
able to receive grace, but only by grace is the soul capax Dei,
able to receive God. 98
97

98

Ibid., pp. 585-587, 545-54.7.
Summa Theol., I-IT, q. 118, a. 10; cf. St. Augustine, De Trin. XIV, 8:11 (PL

:1044).

174

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

What led Scheler to assign to the metaphysical proofs of
God's existence no other role than that of verification were certain faults in his theory of knowledge. He rightly opposes the
common notion that love obscures the mind, that genuine
knowledge is to be gained by rigid abstinence from all emotions
and by indifference to the values of its objects. He quotes
Leonardo da Vinci's "Each great love is daughter of a great
knowledge," and Goethe's " One comes to know only what one
loves." Both, he says, assert the intimate tie of knowledge and
love; though for one knowledge is the parent of love and for the
other love of knowledge, both defy the specifically bourgeois
belief that love blinds, rather than opens the eyes. For Scheler
it is love that presents values to us, makes them " flash up " in
our minds; love" feels" (erfuehlt) them, and reason's only part
is to verify what love has found. He further holds that " an
emotional contact with God in the love of God, a feeling of
His presence as the Summum Bonum, a stirring of the' sense of
the Divine,' must, as their source material, precede all proofs of
His existence." 99 Scheler is entirely right in that the soul must
seek and hearken in order to know truly; it must be animated
by interest and concern. But his error is in taking this longing
and reverence for full and true love, in giving the disposition
the title and power of the fruit. The best expression of the
interplay of knowledge and love is perhaps St. Augustine's:
"One does not love what one does not in some way know, but
when one loves what one in some way knows, love works that
one knows it better and more perfectly." 100
The experience that comes with spiritual life, loving contact
with God, the feeling of His presence, are, no doubt, often inner
evidence of His existence and nearness. They lead to a deep
knowledge of God, but they are definitely not the source material for all the knowledge we have of him, as Scheler would
99 "Liebe und Erkenntnis,"
Schriften zur Soziologie und W eltaru;chauungslehre,
Vol. I, p. 110; Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, pp. 176-177; "Vom Wesen de:r
Philosophie und der moralischen Bedingung des philosophischen 'Erkennens," Vom
Ewigen im Menschen, p. 93.
100 St. Augustine, In Joann., 96, 4 (PL 35: 1876).

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MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

have it. What in Scheler is confused is ordered in St. Thomas; he
often shows an aversion to St. Thomas' theory of knowledge,
but he never knew and understood it entirely. At once humble
and rich, St. Thomas' thought gives the senses and reason their
full due, but at the same· time acclaims a knowledge far surpassing all that reason can attain, a wisdom fruit of love. The
wealth of his thought is shown by some of the terms he used to
designate the various ways in which knowledge is acquired.
There is discursive knowledge, lmowledge gathered by the use
of reason, by rational inquiry, by study and teaching, or by
argumentation; and contrasted with these are affective lmowledge and experimental awareness, knowledge gained by inclination, by way of the will, by connaturality, or through love. And
among the ways in which the soul is led to the knowledge of
God, there are knowledge arising from the innermost self or
attained in the manner in which we understand first principles,
that is, intuitively, or through the contemplation of the soul
made God-like by grace, through her affinity with the Divine,
by divine instinct or sympathy with divine things, and the
knowledge given through the soul's union with God, and, as
it were, through touch and through taste. 101 In the place of
Scheler's over-simplification, there is in St. Thomas a real
abundance of life, natural and supernatural.
Pere Paul Ortegat, S. J., called Scheler's presentation "the
most remarkable cont,ribution to the religious problem by the
phenomenological school," 102 and all its flaws do not invalidate
.'"'Victor White, 0. P., "Thomism and 'Affective Knowledge,'" Blackfriars,
XXIV, £74 (January, 1943), pp. 8-16. Cf. Blackfriars, XXIV, £77 (April, 1943),
Cf. also Marin-Sola, 0. P.,
pp. 1£6-131; XXV, £94 (September, 1944), pp.
L'Evolution homogene du Dogme catholique (£nd ed.; Fribourg,
p. 363.
102 Paul Ortegat, S. J., Intuition et Religion; Le Probleme existentialiste (Lou vain:
Editions de I'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1947), p. ll. For a thorough
analysis of Scheler's religious contribution, see Erich Przywara, S. J., RdigionsBegruendung: Max Scheler-]. H. Newman. For valuations from their own points
of view, see Hafkesbrink, " The Meaning of Objectivism and Realism in Max
Scheler's Philosophy of Religion: A Contribution to the Understanding of Max
Scheler's Catholic Period," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, II, 3
and Josef Wohlgemuth," Grundgedanken der Religions(March,
pp.
Philosophie Max Schelers in juedischer Beleuchtung,'' Festschrift fum· Jacob Rosenheim (Frankfurt am Main: J. Kauffmann Verlag, 1931), pp. 19-76.

..

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

this judgment. Amid the mediocrity of contemporary writers
on religion, his thought stands out as a testimony to the singularity and absoluteness of religion. Against those who would
make of it a means for the adornment of life, for the thrill and
enthusiasm of the soul, he affirms that God is the absolute
end. 108 And against those who would make it an adjunct or
supplement to culture, a mere aesthetic or moral factor, an
educational force or an agent of synthesis working towards the
betterment of human relations, he affirms its" independence";
its claim does not derive from the service it renders. The very
thought of a Kingdom of Heaven tells that it is the ultimate
expectation of the soul and that nothing can rival this Kingdom
and its King; compared with them, all human culture, actual
and possible, is peripheral and vain. 104 To think " God," the
Eternal Being and Supreme Good, existing above all contingent things, is to· see that there is no measure to take of Him;
He is the Judge, He can not be judged. If a man says " God,"
if he utters His N arne and does not stifle mind and heart, he
enters another world; he is, like Moses, on holy ground.

VII
The immortality of the
without which the Christian's
hope in everlasting life would be vain, is not a problem we need
wait for death to solve-now, if ever, we are immortal. Day
by day, instant by instant, the answer is offered us. Constantly
I feel, I see, I grasp, that I am a being who is master of his
body, lord and king in a desert of dead things. I feel, I see, I
grasp, behind the few fragments striking my senses, the scraps
falling to eye and ·hand, in each of my brethren a person, center
of a whole world, a something extending into depths my love
and understanding can never exhaust. How then, asks Scheler,
should I, should my brother, not survive death? 105
Philosophical inquiry confirms this common experience that
"Probleme der Religion," Vom Ewigen im Menschm, pp. 5!U-522.
Ibid., pp. 648-654.
105 "Lehre von den Drei Tatsachen," Schriften aus dem. Nachlass, Vol. I, p. 407.

108
10 •

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

177

the person, in all his acts, goes beyond the confines imposed by
his body, the bonds of space and time and the limited content
presented by his senses. Even seeing and hearing surpass the
work of eyes and ears, and surely remembrance and expectation,
memory and hope, transcend the hour in which the body dwells.
My friend and I can feel with one. another the same sorrow,
the same joy, a thing impossible .in merely physical pain and
pleasure, which are tied to the body or even to a part of it; in
feelings of the spirit, the person leaves the body, as it were,
to meet another. If it is proper to the spirit, here and now,
to swing out beyond the boundaries of the body, will it not be
so in the act of dying? Since the spirit is independent of the
body in the body's lifetime, so it will be in the body's decay. 106
With Bergson, to whose argument Scheler's is akin, he asserts
that it is the doubter who staggers under the burden of proo£.101
Scheler was not content to assert man's immortality; in his
essay on Death and Survival he searched out the reasons for
the modern waning of faith. The general contention is that
cerebral anatomy and physiology have shown the life of the soul
so dependent on the nervous sy'stem that the conclusion is
forced on us: with the death of the tissues, the life of the spirit
must end. Modern psychology has done away with· the unity
and simplicity of the ego, and thus immortality has become
past saving. But the facts, or to be exact, the observations of
scientists, compel no conclusion, he says. The view which regards the soul as compounded of sensations and needs, and not,
like immediate experience, as one and simple, is by no means
the fruit of experiment; it is rather a bias which itself conducts
the tests. And all discoveries about the brain are well accounted
for if the soul is understood as an independent substance,
related to the body as the pianist to the piano. 108
The reason for man's failing faith are not scientific, for science
says Scheler, is powerless to harm religion; it is a modern superstition to see it at the root of every spiritual change. Far from
Tod und Fortleben," ibid., pp. 40-48.
"Lehre von den Drei Tatsachen," ibid., p. 404.
108 " Tod il.nd Fortleben," ibid., pp. 5, 6, 89.

106 "
107

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

Higher Criticism, for example, shattering the credibility of the
Bible as the word of God, it was lack of awe-that is to say,
want of depth, a mediocrity which pulls all things to itselfwhich made Higher Criticism possible. When a religious belief dies, it is not science that caused its death; all it can do is
dig its grave. The ultimate reason for modern man's changed
attitude towards immortality is not the progress of science but
his changed attitude towards death. Because he no longer lives
in the sight of death, and because by his way of life he pushes
back the inner certainty that he must die, he does not prize
immortality. 109
Scheler claims that, quite apart from external events which
teach that all living comes to an end, man has an intuitive
certainty of death (which, he says, must not be confused with
its anticipation in illness, nor with longing or dread) . In every
moment, we feel something hastening away, something drawing
near; past crowds on future, and life already lived grows at the
expense of life yet to be lived. This is the phenomenon of aging,
not to be found in the inanimate world. Death, he says, is not
an accident, not like a wall we run into in darkness; it is part
and parcel of life, an act of the living creature itself, whatever
may occasion it. 110 Indeed, it is-it ought to be-the supreme
act of life, for all time embodied in the words: "Father, into
Thy hands I commend My Spirit." 111
Whether we be more impressed by the ephemeral character
of life, or by its richness and breadth, this certainty is present,
vary though it may from one period of history to another,
ignored though it often is in a kind of metaphysical lightness,
in a carefree unshouldering of its burden. Altogether different
from this more or less normal shelving of the thought that death
is sure and grave, is its utter absence in modern man, whom
Scheler never tires of describing: His labor is not an answer to
his needs; it is an urge, giving him no rest. Where he rules,
might follows wealth, not wealth might. He begets children
not through desire, let alone love; procreation is rather linked
109

Ibid., pp. 4, 5, 8.

110

Ibid., pp. U, 15, 17, 19.

111

Luke, xxiii, 46.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

179

with the .economic structure. He sees life as a " borderline
case," a complication of dead matter, and calls" real" what is
calculable. Wares are exchanged for money, no longer money
for wares. The world is an object of lasting dread, no longer a
chance to be seized boldly and joyfully, no longer contemplated
and loved, but merely dealt with. 112
Modern man's unlimited urge to work and profit, says Scheler,
is his narcotic against remembering death. He no longer fears
it because he has" feared" it away. He has repressed the idea
of death in favor of an endless going-on, and found a surrogate
for eternal life in progress, progress without meaning or end,
progress for its own sake. He can not help but reckon with
death, and insures himself against it in a thousand ways, but
he can no longer visualize it. Death is no more a youth with
lowered torch, no more the grim reaper with hour-glass and
scythe, no more the skeleton dancing the living to the grave,
no
nor the bright angel knocking at the door. Modern man
symbol for death, for he does not experience it, because he never
dies himself; it is always the other, and when his time comes to
die, he will die as another in the eyes of others. As an embroiderer lays upon her pattern silk of many colors, so the full
man builds his multitude of instants into the entirety of his
life, present to his mind; he lives with death before him, that
death which forms and judges, outlines and orders his life. But
modern man lives for the day, till suddenly, no new day
arrives. 113 His repression has robbed him, not of his immortality, but of his faith in it.

VIII
It is sin, not death, that threatens the spiritual life of the
person. It is frightening indeed, says Scheler, in his essay Rue
and Rebirth, that we can re-win life once lost only on a road of
pain, the road of contrition, but the glory is that there is a road
to life at all. Modern theories on contrition see in it something
112 "
118

Tod und Fortleben," Schriften aua dem Nachlaaa, Vol. I, pp. !H-25.

Ibid., pp. 25-27.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

negative, superfluous, even wasteful. Some say it is a fixation
on the completed and unalterable past; others a trickery of the
mind which deceives us into thinking that what we could now
omit, or so we imagine, we could have omitted in the past.
There is the theory that contrition is depression following on
indulgence, nothing but a " hangover."
(So many modern
For
theories, Scheler remarks, seem to be "nothing-buts.")
Nietzsche it was the inward turning of aggressive impulses
whose free flowing society had dammed. It is thought of as a
self-inflicted punishment for having acted against one's own
interests, or a conditioned reflex: having previously experienced
punishment, one expects it always, but if one lacks knowledge
of the when, the where, the what, the who, of the punishment,
fear becomes vague :remorse.114
For most of these explanations, contrition is at the least
without meaning or purpose, if not an actual hindrance to life
and action. Scheler retorts that the very opposite is true, that
even if religion is left aside and contrition seen purely in the
moral sphere, it is a means of restoration, the only way in which
the soul can regain its lost integrity; in it, the soul is healed.
Viewed religiously itis still more: it is a gift God has bestowed
on the soul that after straying. it might return to Hi.m,115
The chief reason for misconstruing the nature of contrition
may be, says Scheler, a false notion of the structure of the life
of the spirit. Were our personal existence like a stream, rushing
along in the same objective time as the events of nature, it
would be quite correct to say that no part of it could turn back
and affect the past, that what is done can not be undone. The
time of nature is one-dimensioned, one-directioned, and knows
no present, past or future; but the human person has, marvelously, present to him at each moment of his life the whole of it,
by perception, recollection or expectation, Therefore the meaning and value of his entire life (though not, of course, its
events) are, at every instant, within the sphere of his power,
'""Rene und Wiedergeburt," Vom Ewigen im Menschen, pp. 52, 6-ll.
11 " Ibid,, p. a.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

181

and until· his death, the past keeps asking him what he will
do with it. 116
Because something that occurs in objective time becomes our
past, it is ours, subject to us as persons, and the extent and
manner of its effect on our lives is left to us. Every historic
event, be it of an individual, a nation or mankind, is therefore
incomplete and in a way redeemable. Recollection is the begin,..
ning of liberation from the dark night of the recalled, so that
history known frees us from the power of history lived. But
what recollection faintly foreshadows, contrition fulfills: far
from being a futile beating against the immutable, to repent
something in the past is to imprint on it a new meaning, to
change the unchangeable. Whoever doubts his .freedom need
but repent and he will experience that it frees him from the
onward rush and sweep of guilt, that it breaks the iron link
of cause and effect by which an old guilt causes a new. He will
find that it makes possible a fresh start, the virginal beginning
of a new sequence of events, that it works rejuvenation. 111
The readiness for contrition lights up the past, letting us
see and remember what would otherwise remain forgotten.
Suspending the power of repression, contrition breaks the pride
which allows only what satisfies or justifies it to cross the
threshold of memory, and so becomes a vehicle of truthfulness.
Unrepentant, we are imprisoned in the here and now, but contrite, we look beyond the self. If there were nothing else in all
the world from which we could draw the idea of God, contrition
alone would suffice, for it is an accusation, but before whom do
we accuse ourselves? It is a confession, but to whom do we
confess? It is an acknowledgment of guilt, but of guilt before
whom? It arraigns us before a law which it senses to be holy,
and absolves us from the punishment that law demands, but
who is the lawgiver, and who else but he can withhold its
penalty? It leads to the awareness that our guilt has been wiped
out, but who has taken it away, who has forgiven it? It gives
new strength of resolve and, it may be, a new heart out of the
118

Ibid., pp. 13-15.

1"

Ibid., pp. 15-18.

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.JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

ashes of the old, but where is the well of this strength, and on
what model is this new heart built? Each movement of this
great moral process, if not diverted by some glib interpretation,
limns before the spirit, says Scheler, the mysterious contours
of an Infinite Judge, an Infinite Mercy, and an Infinite Power,
and Fountain of Life. 118
But all this, he stresses, is the finding of his philosophical
inquiry and not a specifically Christian thought, much less a
doctrine resting on revelation; it is Christian only in the sense
that the soul can be said to be a Christian by nature. He adds,
however, that when these findings are compared with Christian
doctrine, it is clear that contrition is given its deepest meaning
and import only in Christianity, and within it, in the Catholic
Church. This new significance he sees in two things: first, that
linked to and empowered by the redeeming Passion of Christ,
contrition leads man into a communion with God holier than
the one he would have enjoyed had he not fallen and been
raised, so that the Church can sing: " 0 truly needful sin of
Adam, which was blotted out by the death of Christ! 0 happy
fault, which merited such and so great a Redeemer!" 119 And
second, Scheler sees its greater significance in the new :relationship of contrition and love. It is God's love, ever knocking at
the soul, which makes it aware of the ideal life it ought to live
and the wretched life it does; and again, after it has repented,
it knows that the strength for it came from God, so that what
first appeared to be man's love is then seen to be an answer
to His. 120
Contrition is not confined to the faults of the individual soul
but has a historic task as welL It was, Scheler says, by its
never-drying tears of contrition that young Christianity renewed dying antiquity, hardened in its greed for pleasure,
power, and fame, and no other :remedy can help our dying age.
Too long have we been made fools by the fantasy of continual
Ibid., pp. 20-21, 51-52.
Exsultet, Holy Saturday.
120 " Reue und Wiedergeburt,"
Vom Ewigen im Menschen, pp. 52-58.
118

119

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

188

progress, which hides from us the more beautiful law, including
all true progress, that in order to live we must die. Too long
has modern man allowed the guilt of centuries to grow, till he
can not muster the courage to atone, even to feel or face it,
until with the aid of a vast scientific apparatus, he ascribes
everything to the objective power of" conditions." Would he
but tear down the mask of " conditions,'' guilt would appear
and the road to rebirth become free. 121

IX
"As rue bears within it the infant goodness, so," says Scheler,
" does disappointment a ray of insight." 122 We must admit
that our civilization has not brought about what it promised,
that with the growth of comfort man's happiness would grow,
and we must allow our disappointment to unveil idols and false
values; we must resolutely return to the very first end of all
civilization: freedom from the many things for the one thing
necessary. Referring to the ancient Jewish legend that before
God created the world, He made, that it might not perish, the
turning of the heart, a voice crying: " Return, ye sons of
men," 123 Scheler sees in conversion our only
Modern civilization is far from a fount
To be
sure, it has created and constantly creates a wealth of comforts
and satisfactions, but they delight the skin rather than the soul,
the fringes more than the center of our life. Our sensitive organization, by the aid of things and gadgets, frustrates man's
design to reach happiness for it is far lazier when it comes to
pleasure than to pain. The range of intensity it allows discomfort is greater than that it accords enjoyment; our sensation of pain mounts more swiftly as the, irritant increases than
Ibid., pp. 44-49.
, .. " Vom Sinn des Leides,'' Schriften zur Soziologie und W eljamchauungslehre,
Vol. I, p. 108.
128 Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia:
Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1938), Vol. I, p. 3; Vol. V, Note 1, p. 3.
124 " Vom Sinn des Leides," Schriften zur Soziologie und W eltamchauungslehre,
Vol. I, p. 60.
121

4

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

does our sensation of pleasure with a growing stimulus. We
accustom ourselves more readily to comforts than to miseries.
Furthermore, pain is the more stable, not normally turning into
pleasure; on the other hand, there ceases to be pleasure where
there is pleasure in excess, for it may become tedium and it
may even become pain. 125
The organizations and devices man has contrived for the
advance of happiness have so entangled his soul that their goal
has often fallen into oblivion. The world of tools he has established was to minimize the elements of chance and surprise, of
drudgery and danger, but he has succeeded in weeding out one
set of evils only to sow a new crop. The technical world to
which he has subjected himself has no regard for the person,
but has a logic of its own, overriding man's direction and desires; it has pushed itself between him and his fellow, nature,
God, and is in a way more demanding and unpredictable than
the world before, so that at bottom he suffers more from the
remedy than from the ill. Civilization is worth its woe only if
it ends in greater love.126
The relation of suffering and civilization is a frequent theme
with Scheler, and most specifically in his essay On the Meaning
of Suffering, in which he first points out the place of pain in the
organic world. He has no doubt that pain has an objective
meaning. It is commonly said that pleasure and pain are
intended as inducement and warning, inviting the organism to
certain activities and cautioning it from others. However sound
this is, says Scheler, it can not give a full grasp of suffering, a
grasp which can be had only in the light of sacrifice. The true
sacrifice is personal; in it a person abandons what is truly a
good for himself to attain a good more nearly perfect, more
significant and sublime. But there is a suggestion and shadow
of personal sacrifice wherever a good of higher rank is born of
the death or diminution of a lower ranking good or of the sufferance of a lower ranking evil. Rank is in question, not quantity. Whoever admits no hierarchy of values, whoever knows
.,.. Ibid., p. 65.

126

Ibid., pp. 65, 66, 70.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

185

only degrees of what is welcome and what adverse, can have no
vision of sacrifice but merely a " calculus of pleasure and pain."
When we prefer a greater pleasure to a smaller, one long-lasting
in the future to a brief one now, when we choose a lesser evil
rather than a greater, or put a greater pleasure before a smaller
pain, we are just counting costs-sacrifice allows no such arithmetic. True, it is always for the sake of something, yet it seeks
not amount but height, not more but the better; it is the
abandonment of a good of lower dignity for one of higher. 127
The sacrificial pattern is woven into the texture of the universe. We see its trace in the circle of the seasons, of night and
day; " unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies,
it remains alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." 128
To Scheler, pain is the subjective reflection of the sacrificial
motif, a motif which governs the tie of the part to the whole.
An organic whole is before its parts; it lives and works in them.
The parts, however, not only live in but for the whole, as the
organs for the body, the members for the group. If the group
is a herd of deer or a flock of swa;llows,then the individual exists
that there may be the kind, the species; the human person, however, is not absorbed into the life of the group. His personal,
that is, his spiritual, existence excels the worth of all human
communities, natural or man-made. It is only qua member that
he serves the group; it is only as citizen, and not as person, that
he is subordinate to the state. 129
In a merely mechanical world, a world of additive constitution, no pain, no suffering would be possible; the parts, without
link to the whole, knowing no solidarity, would live for themselves. But in our world, the individual dies for the preservation of the species and the organ ails that the body may be well.
Death and pain-a " little death," its image and reminderare wedded to life, the more so as the whole grows higher and
the parts, with their functions, more diverse, as hierarchy sup127
128

Ibid., pp. 44-45,
John, xii,

109 "Vom Sinn des Leides," Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschauungslehre,
Vol. I, p.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

plants uniformity. The pangs of birth, of growth, of death,
are inescapably bound to fellowship and ultimately to love.
Throughout the universe, the lower is given for the higher; the
part suffers and dies for the whole, that it may be saved, maintained, prospered or enhanced. The suffering of the part, all
suffering, is vicarious and anticipates, as it were, the need of
the whole, the common weal. All love is sacrificiaU 30
One can not, Scheler says, have one without the other: no
fellowship, no growth, without pain and death; no sweetness
of love without sacrifice-an insight which, learned with the
heart, may, more than the thought of pain's purposefulness
alone, reconcile us to its existence, In sacrifice life seeks a
higher state, greeting the new and taking leave of the old, In
it weeping and laughter, pain and joy, are wedded. This is fully
evident in the most perfect form: the free sacrifice of the loving
person, who experiences at once the bliss of love and the
anguish of relinquishment; there, loss and gain are one. Only
where our peripheral existence, our sensitive nature and nothing more, is affected, do pain and pleasure greatly diverge, but
the more they touch the center of the soul, the deeper do
suffering and joy penetrate one another. And this spiritual
experience,
which the freedom of the person comes to full
fruition, casts its light on the involuntary suffering in nature,
so that the pains of all the realms beneath the spirit are pervaded with its splendor. 131
Scheler follows his discussion on the meaning of suffering by
examining man's various attempts to meet it. The first way is
the indifference of Buddha, for whom suffering is anchored in
being itself, its cause desire. When things seem to say to us:
We are; we are as we are, and without your leave; we exist,
whether you know us or not! it is, he teaches, a phantom, spawn
of our craving. Desire alone invests with discreteness, with
individuality, and it is desire that leads us on the road of restless wandering. The circle of our existence is shown by this
equation: to desire = to be = to imprint with individuality = to
••• Ibid., pp. 52, 55, 57.

131

Ibid., pp. 58-59.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

187

suffer. Hence the first Noble Truth of Buddhism is that existence, even apart from the pleasure and pain it awakens, existence itself, with its rise and fall, with all its mutations, is
suffering. "Redemption" is then not the fulfillment of man's
deepest yearning but the expulsion of all desire; not the positive
bliss of the spirit nor salvation of the person, but submersion
in the quiet which annihilates all thirst, all action, all individuality, aU suffering. Buddhism and the modern way of life are
not so far apart as they appear, Scheler remarks. True, they
differ in this: m?dern man burns to abolish suffering whereever it can be found, whatever its cause, by hygiene, engineering, organization, in brief, by action on the world, while Buddha
would annul the misery of existence by an intense interior action
that ends man's thirst. But however opposed their methods,
both Buddha and modern man, whether he live by Smith or
Marx, Freud or Wells, agree on one basic attitude: for them,
there is no difference between noble and ignoble suffering; all
and any suffering is bad and should be ended. 132 But a word
may have to be added to Scheler's thought. Buddhism prompts
kindliness and pity but ignores the dignity of suffering because
it is blind to the splendor of being.
Spinoza and Goethe also teach a technique of isolation, a
setting of suffering outside oneself. What in their opinion pains
us are the emotions, to them but confused and hazy thoughts;
we must therefore penetrate the world by reason, disentangling
our emotions, as a telescope resolves a star-cloud into a mosaic.
There is some truth in this second approach; often our distress
will be lessened if we look it full in the face. Reason may
help us discern a scale of evils, distinguish an annoying trifle
from a true grief, see our sorrow in proportion to that of others.
On the other hand, Scheler points out, not only is its theoretical
basis false, for emotions are not thoughts in a tangle, but this
way can not lead very far. To see one's sorrow as if it were
external may even work harm, for suffering may then accumulate at the bottom of the soul, and from there diffuse throughout
132

Ibid., pp. 72, 73, 77, 82.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

and poison every hope. Scheler asks whether the groWing pessimism of Indian thought is not the outcome of such age-long
technique. 183
There is a third way-the flight from suffering. Its Greek
prototype, Aristippus of Cyrene, says that he strives, not for
riches, friends or lovers, but for the pleasure they give; that
only a fool seeks things, a wise man seeks satisfaction. He would
not ask if his beloved
him in return, for when he eats fish,
he does not ponder on how Aristippus tastes to the fish but only
on how the fish tastes to Aristippus. Aristippus is the fool,
counters Scheler, for he takes away, never noticing, the soil,
from which springs the flower of happiness: free and loving
devotion to the realm of values. He transforms the world's
abundance, its content and meaning, with its gratuitous accompaniment of happiness, into a makeshift, a wretched stage on
which .to produce pleasures for his lonely body, unaware that
true joy is given only when, not the joy, but its bearer is
" intended." He fails to see that the happiness of love rests in
turning from one's self.and in the abandonment in one's beloved.
Happiness, says Scheler, does not come about if it is made our
conscious goal, and suffering comes the surer the more it is
avoided. In fact, the more we avoid it, the more sensitive we
become, the more we are affiicted when it strikes us, for happiness outspeeds its huntsman, while suffering is neare.r its fugitive
the faster he flees.134
The classical attitude of ancient Greece is a fourth way, the
stance of the fighter against the suffering sent by the gods and
by fate, to which the gods themselves are subject. The antique
hero does not flee suffering; he makes a quest for it and woos it
amid adventure and peril, searches for it as for a knightly
enemy, worthy to measure his strength. In combat and perseverance, he overpowers his foe and asserts his value to himself
and to others; his motive is fame, to be known as a conqueror,
and the benefits his heroic deeds may bring to others he regards
as accidental. As he lives, he likes to die, with calm, composure
and firmness, with a declamatory gesture, features of which not
188

Ibid., pp. 88-89.

18 '

Ibid., p. 90.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

189

even the death of Socrates is free. His fight, Scheler says, must
fail before the deeper sufferings which elude the grasp of the
will. But out of pride which will not confess his limits, the hero
maintains his brave display, pushes his grief to the hidden
recesses of his soul, and thus for his renown as a conqueror of
external evils, all too often pays the heavy price of a hardened
heart. But in any case, he remains altogether dependent on the
figure he cuts in the eyes of others, or at least, in his own.135
Wherever this conquering attitude fails, there appears a fifth
way, represented by Epictetus, the asceticism of the blunted
heart, which deadens not only the sensibilities but the capacity
for joy. The ideal of apathy aims at a shadow, for if ever
completely realized, it would founder at once; the man who
achieved it would lack that leadership and guidance which the
interplay of feelings provides for the souL Scheler cites a patient
at Charcot's clinic who had lost the feelings of time and duration, of hunger and satiety, knowing neither appetite nor loathing, neither fatigue nor sympathy for her own children. She
had to look at a clock to tell five minutes from two hours, to
know mealtime and bedtime, and not sympathy, but the judgment that her children were her own, moved her to maternal
care. She was like a specter dwelling among graves; her consciousness of existence had shrunk almost to a cogito, ergo sum,
and with a shudder she viewed her being as that of another.
This unfortunate woman, who needed all her powers of reason
for the simplest task, for the merest continuation of her. existence, gives an approximate notion of what the ideal Stoic would
be like, could there be one.136
Still another way known to the Stoics, the denial of suffering,
assumes various forms in the course of history. One is a metaphysical optimism, which claims that the image of evil rises
from our egocentric and narrow view; we stand too near the
world and like one who, too close to a painting, sees no meaning
but only daubs of color. A metaphysics in which evils are so
blended into harmony that they appear unreal, Scheler criti185

Ibid., pp.

186

Ibid., pp. 93-94.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

cizes as wicked because it stifles the initiative to combat them.
His criticism, however, ignores that such metaphysical optimism but misreads the truth that evil ultimately serves the good.
Others hold that suffering does not exist, save in and through
the imagination, and that right and energetic thinking can, by
suppressing this fantasy, eliminate pain. Modem Christian
Science, as well as the later antiquity, wish by autosuggestion
simply to throw out of the world all evils, pains and woes. It is
perhaps fear of death and unrest of social conscience that begets
this delusion in Christian Science; in ancient Greece it was deep
despair. Its symbol, says Scheler, is Laocoon; in him antiquity,
encircled by the cold horror of the universe, made its last and
futile attempt to free itself from the coils of the serpents. 137
But then Christianity entered the world. The Old Testament,
says Scheler, had spoken of suffering as divine retribution, as
due punishment for guilt, of a man or of his fathers or of a
whole generation heirs to sin. In the Psalms, however, and
most movingly in the book of Job, and anew in Ecclesiasticus,
the suffering just raise their voice against this dread indictment,
which adds to the woe of any suffering, however guiltless, the
woe over sin committed, sometime, somewhere. The thought
may seem harsh, continues Scheler, to a man of our day, that
the Lord chastens the very ones He loves, that He chastens
them, not to punish but to cleanse, to lift them out of this
world's fray to religious fidelity-to unhappy Job, it was the
warm and gentle voice of redemption. 188 Yet it was not this
thought from the books of Wisdom, which did not unfold its
full power till Christian times, that gave Israel strength, says
Scheler; it was rather the glow of Israel's Messianic hope, walking before it like a sheaf of fire, which ripened its endurance, so
often tried, so often confirmed. Indeed, the Christian answer to
suffering begins in the Old Testament, in the love of its saints,
in the love with which Job stammered: "The Lord gave, and
the Lord hath taken away. As it hath pleased the Lord, so is it
done. Blessed be the N arne of the Lord." 139 The Christian
, .. Ibid., pp. 95-96.
188 Heb., xii, 6; Prov., iii, U; Wis., xii, !l; Ecclus., xxx, 1.

189

Job, i, 21.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

191

message is at once the pole, the complete overturn, of the
antique genius that would dry the sea of suffering by interpretations, medicines, techniques, narcotics, and the fulfillment of
Israel's wonder at the ways of God.140
The New Way wrought first a release of strain which must in
itself have been a redemption: now man could be truthful,
simply acknowledge, artlessly express his grief. The New Way
banished the antique haughtiness, which boasted of suffering as
the measure of a man, and it ousted the pride that concealed
suffering from the sufferer and others beneath a facade of
equanimity, beneath the rhetoric of the dying sage. The cry
of the wounded creature, so long withheld, could once again
sound freely through the world. On His Cross, Jesus speaks
openly the deepest suffering: " Why hast Thou forsaken
Me? " 141 No longer was there any evasion: pain was pain and
joy was joy; neither positive bliss, nor surcease of sorrow, was
the highest good. No longer was the heart dulled, but quickened to compassion and girded for fortitude; its new well of
strength was a higher order of things, unveiled to those who
love, know, and do the truth .. Purification became the new
meaning of endurance, God's merciful love sending suffering,
not necessarily as punishment but as a friend of the soul. Because it revealed this new source, Christianity could give
suffering its true place in the order of the world and of redemption, without either evading its gravity or denying its evil, and
still change it from a dreaded foe to a welcome counselor. The
great paradox of the Ol,d Testament, the suffering just, disappears before the infinitely greater paradox of the suffering
Just One. Here a Man, guiltless, suffers for others' guilt-a
Man who is at the same time God·, and who calls upon all to
follow Him on His Way of the Cross. Through the divinity of
the Sufferer, suffering has gained a wondrous dignity. 142
140 " Yom Sinn des Leides," Schriften zur Soziologie und W eltanschauungslehre,
Vol. I, pp. 96-97.
141 Matt., xxvii, 46.
142 " Yom Sinn des Leides," Schriften zur Sociologie und W eltanschauungslehre,
Vol. I, pp. 97-98.

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JOHN Mo OESTERREICHER

The purification Christianity extols is, Scheler continues,
something higher than mere moral improvemenL It disperses
the mist that darkens the inner eye to the light and leads the
soul where it can be wedded with God. But it is not suffering
as such which brings us nearer Him-this is Greek or neoPlatonic rather than Christiano Suffering is not an end but a
means; the end is love, and suffering is its cup and its overflowing. The Christianqdoctrine of suffering demands more than
patient bearing; it demands, rather, it reveals, a blessed endurance. Only a blessed and blissful man, a man buried in God, can
endure suffering aright, can love and if need be seek ito What
makes the martyrs undergo their torments with gladness is not
merely a world to come, but the other world in them, not only
the expectation of a future bliss, but a present bliss in possessing
a gracious Godo Such tranquillity in the midst of tribulation,
such peace in the midst of woe, shows by contrast the shallowness of the hedonisL It is dissatisfaction at the center of his
soul, want of bliss, that drives him to seek a substitute in some
peripheral pleasure, and so blind is one who lives for his appetites that he does not see his own despairo Conversely, happiness at the soul's foundation makes light and even sweet the
burden of outer paino External affliction offers the soul an
opportunity to retreat to its inner castles, where it can welcome
a higher world; hence it comes to love suffering as merciful
blows of the mallet with which the divine Sculptor carves the
ideal self out of an existence lost in the maze of mattero 143
The hedonist seeks pleasure and finds tears. The disciple of
Christ has found bliss and welcomes pain that he may come the
nearer to the true good. To the antique man, the outer world
was gay and bright, but its core was dark and sad; behind what
is called sunny antiquity yawned Moira, eyeless Fate; behind
its sparkling shell lay in wait the goddess Chance. To the
Christian, the outer world is a dark night full of suffering; its
heart, however, is rapture, untainted bliss, and this is the ring
of his gladness in suffering: Having renounced the way of
""Ibid,, pp,

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

193

escape from suffering through his own reason and self-centered
will, the way of struggle, of the heroic stand, and the way of
Stoic spite, the Christian opens his soul through Christ to the
power of God and commends himself to His mercy-joy comes
to him, making him bear with gladness suffering as a symbol of
the Cross, and while he greets the God-sent guest, the sureness
of his joy mounts higher. Thus all power of endurance wells
from a deeper happiness, and all suffering seats happiness deeper
stilL It is love in Christ-not reason nor :resolve nor resentment-that leads the Christian to sacrifice, and the bliss of
love is ever greater than the suffering to which it leads. 144

X
Christ brought the world, says Scheler, not a new knowledge
of God, in the sense that .Buddha or Plato did, or even Moses
and the Prophets, in whom God spoke. He did not simply say
that there is a loving and gracious God; that He is loving and
gracious, this new knowledge of Him, is revealed by a loving
deed, His Epiphany in Christ. Without losing sight of the differences between the thought of Scheler and St. Thomas on
knowledge and love, one is nevertheless reminded of St. Thomas'
Verbum spirans A morem; the Son is the Word, not any sort of
word, but One who breathes forth Love. Although one of the
many gifts of His overflowing presence is the perfecting of the
intellect, He is sent, not to bring this or that perfection to the
intellect, but to illumine the spirit, so that it breaks forth into
love. 145 Christ is Teacher and Law-Giver, the Model of man,
says Scheler, because and only because He is the divine Redeemer, the Incarnation of God and of God's loving wilL There
is no idea, law or reason higher than He against which He can
be measured and with which He has to conform in order to be
called holy. He does not possess the truth, He is the Truth; His
words and works are true and good because they are His.
Christianity is therefore not belief in an idea, such as that Christ
t« Ibid., pp.
145

Cf. Summa Theol. I, q. 43, a. 5 ad

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

is the Son of God; that He is the Son of God is believed because
He said so. It is primarily belief in the Person of Christ, who is
the Way, the Truth and the Life, and in His lasting and living
presence in the world and in history .146
Confronted with the reproach that Christianity is bankrupt,
Scheler says-he is writing at the end of the first World Warfirst, that Christian ideals, norms and measures no longer govern
the soul of Western man, so that what betrays its failure ill the
anarchy of the times is the modern mind, hostile to Christianity.
There has been at all times a wide gap between the world as it
is and the Christian ideal, but not only does this not condemn
the Christian message, it proves its truth, for Christianity has
never lied; rather has it, from its beginning, pointed out the
discrepancy between the Gospel and man's fallen nature. But
it has at the same time demanded that men not grow weary
and that the ideal be not conformed to the "reality," but the
" reality " to the ideal. Christianity may appear old compared
with other institutions, but it is ·new and young to those who
have understood the lasting and unchanging character of religious values. Only one who has not grasped· in faith the
stature of Christ, the exalted Model of every heart, can indulge
in talk of bankruptcy. 147
Christ lives, He lives forth in the Church. Influenced by
Newman's The Grammar of Assent, Scheler argues: it is in the
nature of things, that is, the infinite distance betwem finite and
infinite that man by himself can never arrive at the knowledge
of God's Fullness, can never conceive the personal and spiritual
God as He is unless He, in His freedom, reveals Himself. Hence
the aU-good God can not--or rather, will not-leave man without revelation. But when He manifests Himself through the
saint par excellence, the saint possesses absolute authority, and
the truth he teaches is absolute, invulnerable and open to all
106 " Liebe und Erkenntnis,"
Schriften zur Soziologie und W eltanschauungslehre,
Vol. I, pp. lSI-ISS; "Vorbilder und Fuehrer," Schriften aus dem Nachlass, Vol.
I, p. 177.
107 " Die christliche Liebesidee und die gegenwaertige Welt," Vom Ewigen im
Menschen, pp. 129-IS5.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

195

men, whatever their origin or blood, their education or temperament. This being so, he must also have made provision that
the goods of faith be preserved, administered, and offered to
all. He must have founded an institution, bearing his seal,
exercising and perpetuating his authority, an institution able to
formulate and dispense the knowledge he brought, so that it
may be saved through the ages unharmed by the ever-changing
currents of thought, by the intellectual arrogance of, for instance, the lettered and the learned, or by the special interests
of other groups. This authoritative ministry, that is, a universal church infallible in matters of salvation, is for Scheler
inextricably linked to the idea of an AU-Loving God, and he
adds: "Who does not believe absolutely does not believe in
Absolute Being. Who does not believe in the idea of an allembracing institution to save men and its lasting possession of
truth does not in all earnest believe in the AU-Goodness of
God." 148
The Church is the trustee of salvation, not a mere sum of
individual believers, says Scheler, and what leads men to obey
her are love and confidence, a confidence based on an insight of
her dignity. She possesses this dignity not because of the personal qualities of her ministers, but because she and her offices
are the creation of the Holy One of God. The absolute confidence in her- authority, so essentially different from relative
authorities, such as that of the state, is a continuation of the
spiritual attitude which the saint par excellence demands by his
very nature and existence: the readiness to believe simply because it is he who speaks, Truth-made-flesh. Only because he
remains the invisible head of his visible foundation and is mystically present in her, may the Church be given such devotion,
and only because of this may she demand, and none but she,
the highest, most noble and perfect sacrifice a man can offer:
the free sacrifice of his intellect.
All that stalks about today under the guise of " autonomy of
reason " or " freedom of conscience " cries out in revolt against
108

"Probleme der Religion," Yom Ewigen im

p. 701.

196

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

this sacrifice as an " outrageous violation of man's integrity."
But what modern man calls (with an eagerness that gives him
away) "childish subservience" or "despicable slavishness,"
the Christian, Scheler writes, considers not at all a grudging
act wrested from him by want or fear, nor a necessary evil, but
quite the contrary, something kingly. This subordination of
his intellect is for him a free and joyful giving up of a good
he cherishes; it is a sacrifice higher than that of life or honor,
one that could not be offered did he not prize his reason as the
lumen naturale, the divine light that shines in every soul. He
is not led astray by immaturity and consequent submissiveness
of mind, nor by a herd-instinct; on the contrary, he is aware
that in reason he possesses a precious gift, and he has confidence
in its power. He does not abandon its objective principles, the
logos which informs and penetrates all things; what he surrenders with gladness is the subjective, individual, fallible
faculty of grasping this logos. Knowing himself capable of
error, and that man has fallen, he also knows himself inclined
to error and delusion, and this the more the higher in the
hierarchy of values the object of his knowledge. He realizes
that true knowledge of divine things can be won only within
the religious communion, where there is a continuous inter:flow
of love, for the road to God is not that of the single soul, proud
of its isolation, but that of the " together-ness " of all men, in
knowing, believing, loving, worshipping and adoring Him. 149
Christianity is the true and absolute religion, says Scheler;
there can be no new religion, and the man anxious for one errs,
as does the heretic, not only because he asserts what is materially wrong, but necessarily, because his formal disposition
towards God contradicts the nature of the divine, and therefore
the possibility of religious knowledge. He is at fault not only
in the end, in his thesis, but in his beginnings, walking as he
does not by the bridge of brotherly love but on a solitary road,
and even where he appears momentarily to be right, he is and
must be wrong, because he has severed himself from the comu• Ibid., pp. 696-707.

MAX SCHELER

AND THE FAITH

197

munity of salvation. It is hard for the modem mind to grasp,
much less to accept, Scheler concludes, that in all matters of
religion, the Church must be heard and obeyed, that her knowledge must be preferred to what the individual thinks he knows.
Her knowledge is supreme because love is supreme. 150

XI
For years, this was Max Scheler's thought. In it, many essential truths were reconquered for our time; values were
restored to their objectivity and hierarchical order; man was
given his rightful place; contrition, suffering and love were seen
in splendor; virtue was welcomed back into philosophy-virtue,
which " makes a good deed like a bird moving its wings with
full freedom"; 151 in it, Christianity was paid the tribute that
is its due. Although Scheler's thought was frequently tainted
by his temperament, so that Pere Yves de Montcheuil, S. J.,
had to say: ., If he possesses ardor and penetration, he lacks
serenity. . . . Marvelously exciting, his work is never a sure
guide," 152 it did become a signpost to the Church. 153 Many,
searching for truth, having separated the precious metal of his
philosophy from its dross, found that it was the light of the
· Church it reflected, and a number of Catholic thinkers, like
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Romano Gua:rdini, were in various
ways inspired by and remain indebted to his thought.
In 1922, however, Scheler completely reversed his philosophical position. Until then, he held the " Roman Church " divine,
the unerring guardian of Christ's message, a communion bound
by sacrifice and love, in which alone was possible a true knowledge of God and His mysteries; he wrote: « She was above
nations and her faith universally valid even when she was still
a mustard seed. And now that the mustard seed has become a
150 ... Die christliche
Liebesidee und die gegenwaertige Welt," Vom Ewigen im
Menschen, p. 135.
151 "Zur Rehabilitierung
der Tugend," Vom Umsturz der Werte, Vol. I, p. 14.
152 Yves de Montcheuil,
S. J., Melanges Theologiques (Paris: Au bier, 1946),
p. 225.
153 Pyzywara,
op. cit., p. 10.

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

mighty tree, who dare estimate its powers of life that await
the future of history." 154 He said in 1917: "Only a return to
Holy Church and the Christian idea of community, which she
alone fully knows and administers, can save Europe." 155 But
after 1922, she was no more to him than one" of the spirituai
powers still able to form and direct society ... the most effective
and wholesome in its educational influence." 156
Before 1922, there was no doubt in Scheler's mind that nature
bears the imprint of its Creator, that the heavens show forth
the glory of God; 157 that the person is His highest revelation in
the natural order/ 58 and that the spiritual nature of man, his
freedom and immortality, are so evident that only ressentiment
could try to blacken them. Before, he hailed as part of " the
leaven Christianity brought into the world" the teaching that
each and every soul is a subsistent, substantial reality; that it
is God's immediate creation and called to the supernatural and
mysterious goal of seeing Him; that each and every soul is
responsible to its Creator and is put into this world to praise,
love and obey Him/ 59 Before, he took the fall of man to be a
truth also of the metaphysical order; 160 with Newman, he said:
"The world is out of joint with the purposes of its Creator.
This is a fact, a fact as true as its existence; and thus the doctrine of what is theologically called original sin becomes to me
almost as certain as that the world exists, and as t._he existence
of God," 161 and he added: " The world needs redemption; the
world sighs after redemption." 162 Before, he exclaimed: " 0
marvelous mystery of condescension-God comes to the wife of
164 "Soziologische-Neuorientierung und die Aufgabe der deutschen Katholischen
nach dem Krieg," Sckriften zur Soziologie und W eltansckauungslekre, III/I, p. 78.
166 "Vom Wesen der. Philosophie und der moralischen Bedingung des philosophischen Erkennens," Vom Eu:oigen im Menscken, p. I88.
156 " Vorrede," Sckriften zur Soziologie und Weltansckauungslekre, III/I, p. vii.
157 " Probleme der Religion," V om Ewigen im M enscken, pp. 567 ff.
158 Ibid., p. 481!.
169 " Die christliche Liebesidee und die gegenwaertige Welt," ibid., pp. I67, 11!5.
160 " Probleme der Religion," ibid., p. 504.
161 John Henry Newman, Apologia pro Vita Sua, chap. 5.
1 .. " Probleme der Religion," V om Ewigen im M enscken," pp. 50!!-00S.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

199

a carpenter, descends into the dark prison of her womb! 0
marvelous birth of God in a stable! How greatly these mysteries
of Christian faith correspond with the expectation of our reason,
once God unlocks the deepest secret of His Nature! " 163 But
afterwards, he spoke of the creation of man by a Personal God,
of his original justice in Paradise, of his Fall and Redemption,
of the personal and spiritual nature, the freedom and immortality of the soul, of resurrection and judgment, as " the well
known myth ... entirely without significance to an autonomous
philosophy and science." 164
During the most productive decade of his life, Scheler professed, in terms not to be mistaken, his faith ·in God as the
Ens a Se, the One not made, not composed, utterly independent,
the One who has not become but is, whose very Nature is to be,
who revealed Himself to Moses as " I am who am." 165 He said,
for instance: " God is not potentiality, which must realize
itself in time, which makes itself explicit in history, but absolute actual being." 166 But afterwards, he denied the existence
of an All-Powerful Personal God, who is Spirit. His God was
an unfinished, a becoming God, one who rises from the Urgrund
and becomes aware of himself in man, as man in turn assists in
his begeting-to the measure that spirit and urge interpenetrate one another. 167
What could have brought about so catastrophic a change?
What made Scheler assume a " becoming God," a concept he
had once called " entirely crude," " utter nonsense " and " a
contradiction in terms? " 168 What could have driven hiJ;U to
worship a pantheistic God, of which he had said, with such
felicity of expression, that .. he is amenable to reason, open to
'""Ibid., p. 690.
"Mensch und Geschichte," Die Neue Rundschau, XXXVII,
(July-December,
pp. 453-454.
165 Exod. 8:14.
166 " Probleme der Religion," V om Ewigen im M enschen, pp.
161 Die Stellung d88 Menschen in Kosmos (Munich:
Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1947), p. 84; Bildung und Wissen (Frankfurt a. M.: Verlag G. SchulteBulmke, 1947), p. 37.
168 " Probleme der Religion," V om Ewigen im M encchen, pp. 43<!J, 508.
16 '

5

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JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

advice, more than is befitting to a God; he falls in with the
changing currents of history " 169-and, we may add, to the
shifting tides of personal life?
The answer is not, as Nicolai Hartmann would have it, that
" the world is not without contradiction," and that Scheler but
mirrored it. 170 True, the world is full of opposites hard to
reconcile, full of mysteries difficult to solve, and an honest
thinker will acknowledge them. But the world, for all its riddles,
does not tell today: God is, and tomorrow: God is not. The
answer to Scheler's spectacular contradiction lies rather in his
own restive soul, so unwilling to abide in contemplation, so
fearful of continuity. In his younger years he expressed this
trait when he said that he would like to awaken each morning
with fresh images in his mind, knowing nothing of the past.
And in his last years he wrote that " compared with the animal,
whose existence is philistinism embodied, man is the eternal
Faustus, the bestia cupidissima rerum novarum, never contenting himself with the reality encompassing him, forever avid
to break through the barriers of his here and now and who, forever striving to transcend the reality surrounding him and with
it his momentary self." 171
This, Scheler's new definition of man, is really a self-analysis.
In it his former definition is decapitated, for man no longer
tends towards God; in it only movement counts and not the
goal, dynamics are everything, avidity for new things is the·
mainspring of man's intellectual life, and in it is expressed not
the desire to be oneself, pure and perfect, but almost the desire
to be another. All this corresponds to an unfortunate bent in
Scheler's soul. Throughout his life, he was driven by a fearsome
force which would not let him hold to the good he had and made
him seek ever new experiences. He also found it hard to master
his vitality, to withstand its urging and to submit it to God's
dominion. In so many ways a genius, in others he remained a
child, and was often so rapt in his wishes that he was almost
Ibid., p. !!97.
Nicolai Hartmann, "Max Scheler," Kant.-Studien, XXXTII (19!!8), p. xv.
171 Die Stellung des Menschtm in Koamoa, p. 5!!.
169

110

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

201

certain facts must conform with them; hence, when in 1921,
Scheler wished to remarry, he imagined he could have his marriage declared nulL When he saw that he was unable to obtain
an annulment, he not only ignored the dogma of the indissolubility of the conjugal bond and married civilly, but, to suit
himself, declared that in it the Church misinterpreted Christ's
teaching on divorce; he then maintained that this misinterpretation had infiltrated into her thought late in her history,
though giving no account of when and how it happened. This
was only the beginning of his self-justification. In order to
guard his delusion, he had to go further; its logic demanded that
he divest of their power first the Church and then God. His
new philosophy was a protest against them, against whom he
had sinned, before whom he could not stand. Unwilling to
endure the feeling of guilt, he tried to do away altogether
sin and :repentance, with the Sovereign God, with Christ and
the Church, of which, in 1920, he had said: "I want to live
and die within the Church,, which I love and in which I
believe." 172
As was to be expected, Scheler's pantheism arrayed itself to
his eyes as progress and not as retrogression. But at times he
must have seen through this self-deception, for he had concluded his book On the Eternal in Man with an emphatic" No"
to the so common search for a new religion. There can be no
new religion, only a renewal of the old, he said; truth has long
been found and aU that is asked of us is to seize it, ancient and
ever new. 173 It was not, as is sometimes asserted,
he passed
through and beyond the thought of his Catholic years; he broke
it is true that he had left loopholes in it,
with
through which he was later to slip out, such as certain of his
ideas on the person or his over-stress on vitality, or as his teaching that there is no obligation, in the strict sense, of faith or
love, only of preparing oneself for them. 174 Here and elsewhere,
he wanted, as it were, the spirit of the New Testament without
Von Hildebrand, "Max Scheler als Persoenlichkeit," op. cit., p. 384.
Probleme der Religion," Vom Ewigen im Menschen, p. 7!il3.
170 Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die m,ateriale Wertethik, pp. 21!4 ff.

272

173 "

JOHN M. OESTERREICHER

that of the Old, the freedom of the children of God without
the discipline of the Law. He had an aversion to the Law, to
the Just God who punishes and rewards, which seems to have
been all along a defensive measure, enabling him to reverse
himself with a certain plausibility. However this may be, he
himself disclosed the secret of his volte-face when he said: "It
is always our willing and doing which underlie our mistaken
values; it is always, somehow, wrong practice which drags down
our consciousness of values and their ranks to its own level."
There has hardly been another philosopher who refuted himself
so effectively beforehand as did Scheler when he described the
workings of ressentiment.
.
In 1928, Scheler went to Frankfurt to assume the Chair of
Philosophy. For some time, his heart had been failing, under
the burden and sorrow, it seems, of the last few years, and on
May 19 of the same year, he died suddenly of a coronary stroke.
As strange as was his life, so was his end. Although he had not
retracted his later disbelief nor given any signs of a change of
heart, he was buried with the blessing of the Church, for the
priest who imparted it did not know of his lapse. " You know,"
he said to Dietrich von Hildebrand, in a humble hour years
before his death, " I seem to myself like a naughty child who
runs again and again to a precipice and whom God, in His
infinite mercy, brings back each time just before he falls into
the abyss. And still I run away from God's mercy time and
again. But I have a terrible premonition that one time
patience will be exhausted, and He will not draw me back but
let me fall." Von Hildebrand, repeating these words, adds that
his latter years, as we see them now, seem to justify this premonition, but that we know God's mercy to be infinitely greater
than Scheler could imagine or we comprehend, and that we hope
it saved him from the eternal abyss. 175 On another occasion he
writes: " Thus Scheler departed from us still entangled in the
darkness of his flight. His sudden death cut off the peaceless
171 Von Hildebrand, "Max Schelers Stellung zur katholischen Gedankenwelt,"
op. cit., p. 863.

MAX SCHELER AND THE FAITH

208

and shattered life of this abundantly endowed and noble mind
before, as far as we can see, he stopped in his impotent flight
from Him who knows our sitting down and our rising up. We
trust, however, that the Lord over life and death mercifully
halted him and led him into the light which, reflected in this
world, he saw so often with such clarity." 176 And the aged Dom
Anselm Manser, 0. S. B., who in 1916 received Scheler back
into the Church and who remembers him daily in his prayers,
recalls his gentleness with all and hopes that much will be forgiven him, because he loved much. 117 Max Scheler's judgment,
as that of every man, is in the
of God, and what it is we
do not know, but this we know: though in his last years he
denied his former thoughts, they remain what they were, for
truth is always greater than the man who holds it.
JoaN M. OEsTERREICHER.
Manhattanville College,

New York, N. Y.

ue Ibid., "Max Scheler als Persoenlichkeit," pp. 886-887.
Private communication from Dom Paulus Gordon, 0. S. B., Beuron.

117

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

D

OES the desire of union with God spring from the theological virtue of hope or charity or from neither? We
do not intend to speak here of the natural desire of
the vision of God and of St. Thomas' classical doctrine on this
point. We have in view the love of desire for God traditionally
distinguished in Scholasticism from the love of benevolence, the
amor concupiscentiae as opposed to the amor benevolentiae,
corresponding broadly to the " interested " and " disinterested "
love of modem spirituality, without however understanding
"self-interest" in a pejorative sense. We consider this interested love of God as supernatural and theological, that is,
as a self-regarding love of God which originates from grace and
not from nature alone, and which has as its formal object God
Himself and not some created goodness as would be the case
for an interested love of God in which the primary moving
reason would be inan's own happiness. Desire of God, if
deprived of this theological character, cannot indeed arise
from any of the theological virtues.
Of this theological love or desire for God we ask the question:
Is it an act of hope or an act of charity? Or can it exist without
either hope or charity? 1 As is well known, all three possible
answers have been proposed by Catholic theologians. One
school, beginning with Scotus and popularized by Suarez, holds
that the interested love of God belongs to hope. This would
1 The third alternative
mentioned, paradoxical though it may seem to say that a
theological act would exist without any theological virtue, refers to the imperfect
desire of God presupposed in hope, as will be explained presently.-For recent
studies on hope and charity we mention especially the following: C. Zimara, Daa
Wesen der Hoffnung in Natur und Ubematur (Paderborn 1988), and the Article,
"Charite" (by various authors) in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite !l, (507-691).

204

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

seem to be the more widespread opinion to-day. The hope of
possessing God in heaven is the desire of heaven. Another
school refers the theological desire of God to charity of which
it is an essential though secondary act, the primary act of
charity being the love of benevolence for God. In this conception, interested love of God, when it is theological, can not
exist without theological charity and without sanctifying grace,
nor can charity exist without the desire of union with God.
This was the position of St. Augustine, and of the ancient
Scholastics down to St. Bonaventure and, it would seem, _to
St. Thomas; it is Scotus who first made a departure from this
traditional view. The third solution, namely, that the desire of
God is neither hope nor charity, also has found its advocates.
In order to explain that some desire of God is presupposed to
hope, as all admit, these theologians conclude that this desire,
in its imperfect stage at any rate, can exist before hope or
charity and is, therefore, different from both. 2
Which of these three answers is the correct one? Which is
the answer of St. Thomas and of the Thomistic tradition? Is
it correct to say that St. Thomas was an innovator in his
conception of charity by restricting charity to the friendship of
God and excluding from it the love of desire? In St. Thomas'
conception, " there would be no longer room within the structure of charity for that love which seeks God from the motive
that He is the supreme Good which appeases man's desire for
beatitude; this love can exist along with charity, but it does not
originate from charity." 3 The question is not without important practical implications. H the desire of union with
God is essentially an act of charity, then it necessarily supposes
the state of grace. If it is an act of hope, or different from
hope or charity, then it can be found without sanctifying grace.
From a Thomistic viewpoint the question whether St. Thomas
2 Cf. E. Harent, "Esperance,"
Zimara, op. cit.,
3 Zimara, op. cit. 174.

in Diet. de Theol, Cathol. 5 (1913) 605-76; and

i06

P. DE LETTER

does or does. not include in charity the desire for God has a
bearing on his conception of love and of being in general. His
answer to our problem characterizes the finalistic tonality of his
philosophy and theology. 4
If we wish to get 1 true insight into this theological problem
and into St. Thomas' answer to it, two points require study:
The nature of the act of hope in its relation to the desire of
union with God; the nature of charity in connection with this
desire.5 To illustrate St. Thomas' position, we shall consider it
within the history of the doctrine and examine each of the two
mentioned points (1) in the Catholic tradition before St.
Thomas (2) in St. Thomas, and (3) after St. Thomas.

I. PRE-THOMISTIC

TEACHING

1. THE ACT OF HOPE

The Scriptural foundation on which the Catholic conception
in both the Old and the New Testament.
of hope is built is
In the Old we may point to the Messianic hope and expectation
and to the confident and trustful hope in God expressed in so
many Psalms. 6 As to the New Testament, G. Kittel 7 summarizes the New Testament concept of hope as follows:
" When hope is directed to God, then· it comprises in its unity
• For the import of the conception of love for philosophy and theology, cf. M. C.
d'Arcy, The Mind and Heart of Love (London 1945).
• We restrict our study to this particular question: whether the desire of God i'l
hope or charity. When examining this limited object we shall have to refer to
several problems that are raised in connection with hope and charity, but these
will be taken into account only insofar as they have a bearing on our particular
point.
• On Messianic hope cf. M. J. Lagrange, Le Meaaianiame chez lea Juifa (Paris
1909), and Le Juda'iame avant Jeaua-Chriat (Paris 1981). Cf. Paalma, vii, 2; xii,
6; :xxiv, 20, etc.
• Theologiachea Worterbuch sum Neuen Teatament, 2 (Stuttgart 1984) s. v.
iJ1.1rltw, 'EX,.ls, 515-81, p. 2527. An example of each of these three meanings:
expectation, Hebr. x, I; confidence, 1 Cor. xv, 19; 2 Cor. i, 10; 1 Pet. i, 21; patient
waiting, 1 Cor. xiii, 7.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

207

three elements: expectation of something to come, confidence,
and patience in the waiting; one or other of these three motives
can be stressed or drawn in relief." He finds no trace of a desire
in the primeval Christian concept of hope. Zimara draws the
same conclusion from .a, brief survey of Scripture; in both the
Old and the New Testament hope is conceived as confidence,
reliance on another, not as desire or wish.8
Against this Scriptural background it is not surprising to see
the early Christian idea of hope develop this same element of
trust. One of its manifestations we find in the symbolism of
the anchor in which the reality of the Christian hope is expressed. In drawing out the text in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(ix, 16), both Christian archeology 9 and the early Fathers
commenting on or alluding to the· text, conceived hope as the
anchor that fixes us in God, as a reliance on God in order to
attain the promised reward of eternal life. But not as .a
desire of God; this idea seems foreign to the anchor symbol.
Independently of this symbolism, indications are not lacking
in both the Greek and the Latin
to the effect that they
see in hope mainly a confident expectation of the eternal reward
from God. They do not, naturally, explicitly ask or answer our
question, nor can we find in them a treatise on the formal object
of
But when they speak of the second theological virtue,
they do so in such a way as to leave no doubt about their idea.
We may mention, among the Greek Fathers, St. Justin, St.
Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Basil, St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, St. Gregory of N azianzen, St. John Climacus, St.
Cyril of Alexandria, St. Isidore of Peluse, St. Nilus, Theodoret,
Procopius of Gaza, St. John Chrysostom, St. Maximus. 1{) Their
8 Op. cit. !!86.
• Cf. C. Kirsch, "Ancre," in Diet ..de Liturgie et d' Arckeologie, 1, 2 part. (1907),
1999-2081. Of the Fathers he quotes: St. Ambrose, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. John
Chrysostom, Rufinus of Aquila; op. cit., 2001, n. 1.
10 -St. lrenaeus, Contra Haereses, 2, 28, S (MG 8, 975; cf. Introduct., Ibid., 864,
" certa in Deum fiducia ") ; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 2, 9, " expectatio
bonorum vel absentis boni bona speratio" (MG 8, 975); Origen, Comment. mEpist.

208

P. DE LETTER

passmg references and descriptions of the act of hope point to
a radically identical idea. Hope is trust, gives confidence for
the future, erects the soul, gives courage, strength, steadfastness. " 'What is hope? " asks St. John Damascene who concludes the Greek patristic tradition. And he answers: " to take
heart for the coming things." 11 The teaching of the Latin
Fathers does not sound differently. St. Hilary, St. Ambrose,
St. Zeno, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Prosper of Aquitaine,
St. Leo, St. Gregory, 12 when speaking of hope, ignore the idea
ad Rom. 7, 5, "per patientiam expectamus" (MG 14, 1118); St. Basil, Homil. in
Pa. 45, !!, "toti pendeant ex Deo ... fiduciam" (MG 29, 417): Epist. 174,
"expecta auxilium Dei" (Ibid., 82, 652); St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Oatech. 2 de
paenit., "expectat, sperat" (MG 88, 889); St. Gregory of Nazianzen, Orat. !!7, 2,
"in angustiis rebus medicina ... " expectabam (MG 85, 966; cf. ibid., 1151); St.
John Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum lapsum, 2, " anchora sustentaculum, ducem ";
{MG 47, 279); St. Cyril of Alexandria, In Isaiam 8, 1, "probe turris defensa" (MG
70, 568); St. Isidore of Peluse, Epist. I, "turris firmus; spes vitae anchora" (MG
78, 17); St. Nilus, Epist. 1, 40, "bona expectatione confirmata" (MG 79, 101);
Theodoret, Epiat. 18, "optatissimam spem praestolemur " (MG 83, 1198); Procopius,
Oomm. in Numer. "hilaritatem in nobis spes efficit" (MG 87, 809); St. John
Climacus, Scala par1,1disi, "non apparentium divitiarum divitiae" (MG 88, 1159);
St. Maximus, De Oaritate, "patientia et longanimitas" (MG 90, 961).
11 In Epiat. ad Rom., " futuris fidere."
(MG 95, 507) It has been pointed out
that we find in the Fathers the three degrees of the spiritual life characterized by
the attitude of servants, mercenaries and sons, who are guided by fear for punishment, hope of reward and charity or love of God respectively. (Cf. J. Farges, M.
Viller, "Charite " in Diet. de Spir. 2, 535-86). Would this imply that hope is
desire? Some Fathers may seem to have expressed it that way, v. g. Clement of
Alexandria, Strom. 4, 7, " desiderare " (MG 8, 1264-65). But it is sufficient to say
that they consider as mercenary the degree of perfection that expects the reward
(which expectation presupposes desire). Moreover these Fathers, Clement of
Alexandria for example, have been quoted above as stating that hope is something
different from desire.
12 St. Hilary, Fragmenta, 1, " Spes ... fiducia expectationis suae " (ML 10, 628);
St. Zeno, Tract De ape, fide et caritate, 2, "possibile hoc spe fit " (ML 11, 26970); St. Ambrose, In Pa. 118 Expos. v. 28, "confidentia" (ML 15, 1419); St.
Jerome, Comment. in Isai. 14, 51 v. 10, "innitatur super Deum" (ML 24, 481);
St. Augustine, Enchiridion, 1. 8, " Spes bonarum rerum est, et ad eum pertinentium qui earum spem -gerere perhibetur. Spes esse sine amore non potest" (ML
40, 235); St. Prosper of Aquitaine, Lib. sent. ex August. delib., "quaerit Dei
auxilium" (ML 51, 489); St. Leo, Sermo 74, 1, "spes non fluctuaret (ML 54, 897);
St. Gregory, Moral. 6, 21, "aeternae vitae fiduciam" (ML 75, 749).

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

fl09

of desire but bring out the element of confidence. St. Isidore of
Seville summarizes the Latin tradition in the formula: " Hope
is the expectation of future things," an expectation which" lifts
up to higher things and raises to joy!' 13 It would seem well
warranted to conclude that, generally speaking, the Fathers,
inasfar as they have expressed their views on hope, do not
propose its act as a desire of union with God or of life eternal,
but as trust in God, reliance on Him from whom we expect the
reward of the future life. This trust makes the soul stand up,
gives it courage and firmness.
This conclusion is confirmed in the treatment of hope we find
in pre- and early Scholasticism. In close connection with the
teaching of the Fathers, often merely collecting their pronouncements (sententiae), the first and rare teachers of the seventh to
the tenth century repeat what they found in the Fathers. St.
Taio (end of 7th century), Alcuin, Halitgarus of Cambrai, 14
work in that line. Paschasius Radbertus, who is the first to give
us a treatise in three books on Faith, Hope, and Charity, views
the second theological virtue as the safe anchor of the soul, and
:repeatedly identifies hope and trust. 15 In the eleventh century,
Othlo the Monk expresses in verse the same idea, and St. Bruno
Astensis repeats the traditional definition: " Hope is the expectation of the future things."'""
The twelfth century brings more definite and explicit state13 Differentiarum Liber, S, 86, 139, " spes est bonorum
expectatio futurorum "
(ML 83, 92); Cf. Etymol. 8, S, 5, "spes vocata quod sit pes progrediendi " (ML
82, 296); cf. "ad alta subvehit" (ML 83, 363); "ad gaudium erigit" (ibid., 603).
><St. Taio, Sent.libri 5,
"spes ad maiora audenda erigit" (ML 80, 817, 18);
Alcuin, De virtutibus et vitiis, 4 De spe, "spe ad solatium supernae pietatis currendum est" (ML 101, 6Hi); Halitgarus of Cambrai, De virtutibus et vitiis. 5, S, 4,
"per patientiam expectemus" (ML 105,
16 Paschasius Radberlus,
Tractatus de fide, spe et caritate,
l, anchora ainmae
tuta (ML l!W, 1435-36) confidentia (ibid., 1448), 2. 5, confidit, sperat (ibid., 1446),
confidentia peJ:Veniendi (ibid., 1449) .
16 Othlo the Monk, De doctrina spirituali, 6 de spe caelesti; stas confidenter in
ipso (Christo) (ML 146,
St. Bruno Astensis, Sent. libri 6, :!.
futurorum
bonorum expectatio (ML Hl5. 906) .

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P. DE LETTER

ments about the nature of hope, and they all point to the same
meaning. We may quote St. Anselm, Hugh of St. Victor, the
Summa Sententiarum, St. Bemard. 17 Peter Lombard, the
Magister sententiarum, provides the definition that will be the
classical starting point for the great Scholastics: " Hope is the
certain expectation of future beatitude, coming from God's
grace and from the merits that precede either the hope itself
(which in
order of nature comes after charity), or the hoped
for thing, that is, the eternal beatitude." 18 Here, as with the
Fathers, the idea of a desire of God is absent from the description of hope. This is confident expectation of the happiness
to come.
Of the great Scholastic Doctors, contemporaries of St.
Thomas, we mention only two, his master St. Albert the Great
and his Franciscan friend, St. Bonaventure. St. Albert has an
extensive commentary on Peter Lombard's distinction De Spe.
He endeavours to determine and circumscribe more accurately
the act of hope, which, he says, is not fully expressed in the
notion of expectation: " Hope does not signify expectation but
' hoping,' and this means something more; because he who
hopes, just as he who believes or loves, reaches out in his own
way to the hoped for thing, and he possesses it in his own way,
just as he who believes or loves." 19 Further, " Hope resides in
17 St. Anselm, Monologium 74, "Spes pertingendi"
(ML 178, 1695); Hugh of
St. Victor, De fructibua carnis et spiritua 17, "Spes est animi motus immobiliter
ad ea quae certa ratione expetit accipienda suspensi " (ML 176, 1004) ; Summa
Sententiarum, Tr. 1, !! De spe, "Fiducia· futurorum bonorum" (ML 176, 48); St.
Bernard, Lib. de modo bene vivendi !!, "Per patientiam expectamus" (ML 184,
1201). We may note here the particular idea of hope of Abelard who makes of it an
intellectual virtue (species generis fidei), v. g. Epitome Theologiae Christianae I,
"Spem autem in fide, tamquam speciem in genere, comprehendi existimo. Cf. C.
Zimara, "Quelques idees d'Abelard au sujet de I' esperance chretienne," in, Revue
Thomiste, 1985, 87-47.
18 Peter Lombard, Sententiarum Libri 4, 8 d. !!6 " Est spes certa eXRectatiofuturae
beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei gratia et meritis praecedentibus vel ipsam spem quam
natura praeit caritas, vel rem speratam, id est, beatitudinem aetemam."
10 St. Albert the Great, In 3 Sent. d. !!6, a. 2, ad 8.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

Ul

the irascible potency of the soul " (and it is therefore not a
desire, which arises from the concupiscible power), ''and its
act is not only to expect, though this is more proper to hope
than to any other virtue. . . . Its act is rather to reach out to
the hoped for thing through some sort of expansion of the
soul." 20 Hope, then, is not a mere passive expectation: " Three
elements enter into the proper act of hope, that is, the disposition of the agent and this is fixation in the place from where
he reaches out, this is called expectation; secondly, that the
agent with magnanimity reaches out to the eternal goods; and
thirdly, the object of hope which is the obtention of eternal
beatitude." 21 St. Albert, obviously, does not include in hope a
desire of union with God. Hope is something different from
desire.
St. Bonaventure is still clearer and more explicit. " Hope is
a gratuitous virtue, for by making the soul expect what is
beyond all human estimation, and what the divine liberality
has promised, it causes the soul to trust fully and to rely on
that supreme and immeasurable bounty, just as faith makes
one assent to the First Truth, and charity makes man adhere
to the supreme Goodness." 22 Hope, then, is trust, confident
expectation. " Hope itself, which trusts in, and relies on the
immeasurable and never failing divine liberality, expects all
that God promised would be rendered to it in the future." za
Hope appears still more clearly as trust where its object is
explained: "The object of hope is something good, but not
under the aspect of goodness, but rather under the aspect of
difficulty or greatness. Hope indeed has a double act of which
one is the principle and source of the other; hope causes trust,
•• Op. cit., a. 8 ad 1, "Extendere se in rem speratam amplitudine quadam animae."
01 Op. cit., a. 8, 8d 4: "Tria ... expectatio ... , ut extendatur in aeterna .•.

obiectum est amplexio aeternitatis et beatitudinis."
• 2 St. Bonaventure, In 3 Sent. d. !!6, a. 1, q. 1, " ... facit omnino confidere et
inniti summae et immensae largitati."
•• Op. cit., a. 1, q. !!, "Ipsa spes confidendo et innitendo immensae et indeficientissimae largitati divinae . . . expectat .... "

P. DE LETTER

and by making one· trust it produces expectation." 24 We find
a
confirmation that hope is not desire, when St.
Bonaventure indicates its subject or seat: "No doubt, hope
resides in the affective power, for it is in the irascible power
which is a part of the affective potency"; 25 whilst desire is
seated in the concupiscihle part of the appetitive power.
These scanty historical notes suffice to show that the Catholic
tradition prior to St. Thomas did not conceive hope as a desire
of God, hut as a confident expectation, as a reliance on God
with a view to obtain from Him the eternal reward promised to
the just. From passing and casual indications in the Fathers
of the Church we are gradually led to more developed and more
detailed analyses. By the time St. Thomas starts teaching in
the thirteenth century this is the accepted traditional doctrine. 26
2.

CHARITY AND DESIRE OF GOD

If the desire of union with God was not conceived as
belonging to hope, was it then included in charity? A cursory
glance at the pre-Thomist tradition will reveal the answer.
The biblical notion of charity, rather undefined in the Old
Testament, takes on in the New the explicit connotation of a
filial love for the heavenly Father. The reward of charity will
he to have a place in the Father's house. For St. Paul, the love
of Christ and of the Father is inseparable from the desire to
he with Him. The Spirit that is given us produces in. our hearts
the filial spirit, a newness which turns our desires towards union
with God. St. John is possibly still more explicit; through
charity we enter into communion with the Father and the Son.
It seems beyond doubt that Christian charity, or the love for
God and for Christ, does not abstract from or neglect union with
•• Op. cit., a. 2, q. 4, "Spes facit confidere, et faciendo confidere facit expectare."
•• Op. cit., a. 2, a. 5, "Spes ... est in irascibili."
•• This conclusion will further be confirmed when it will be shown that the traditional doctrine conceived the desire of union with God as belonging to charity.

HOPE AM> CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

218

Him; it rather lives by this union. 27 Could then charity exclude
the desire of union?
The Fathers, according to the documented study of F. Farges
and M. Viller/ 8 "if they are agreed that charity is the love of
God for His own sake, are also agreed in saying that charity is
the desire to see God and to possess Him, to enjoy Him for His
sake. Its love stops at God as at its final term, its goal and its
motive." 29 It is not difficult to substantiate this statement.
We could cite here, among the Greek Fathers, St. Clement of
Roma, St. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Basil,
St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. John Climacus, St. Maximus. 8 ° For
all these, to have charity means to possess God; charity is union
with God. The pseudo-Dionysian conception of love and
charity, which will make its way throughout the medieval
tradition includes union with the beloved in the very essence
of love; love is essentially a power of union. 31 The Latin
patristic thought, like the Oriental, is explicit both about the
disinterested character of the charity for God 32 and about the
21 Cf. F. Prat, " Charite dans la Bible/' in Diet. de Spir. 2, 508-2S; and Kittel,
op. cit., art. 'A-y<i'lr'll, a"(a'lra"'. Would St. Paul's wish to be anathema for the sake
of his bretheren (Rom. ix, S) go against this idea of charity? We may refer here
to what will be said later on about the " impossible desires " of the Saints, and
even grant that St. Paul does not envisage the question we are studying here in
any explicit way.
••" Charite ekes Perea," in Diet. de Spir. 2, 52S-69.
•• Op. cit., 588.
80 St. Clement of Rome, Epist. ad Cor. 19, " Deo agglutinat"
(MG 1, S09); St.
henaeus, Contra Haeres. 4, 12, "amicitia Dei" (MG 7, 1018); Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4, 7, "propter suam in Deum dilectionem, propter suam salutem"
(MG 1154-55); Origen, In Cantic. cantic. homil. 2, 8, " adhaeret Deo " (MG IS,
54); St. Basil Sermo S de Charitate, "Qui habet chantatem Deum habet " (MG S2
1152); St. Gregory of Nyssa, In cantic. cantic. homil. 4, "per charitatem sponso
coniuncta " (MG 44, 847) ; St. John Climacus, Scala Paradisi, SO, " similitudo Dei "
(MG 88, 1156) ; and passim: " charitas = desiderium "; St. Maximus, De caritate,
centuria 1, "animi amore et desiderio incessanter incumbit" (MG 90, 961).
81 De divinis nominibus, 4, Amorem . . . unitivam quamdam et concretivam intelligimus virtutem ... Cf. A. Stevaux, La doctrine de la charite dans lea commentaires
des f3entencea de Saint Albert, de Saint Bonaventure et de Saint Thomas, in
Ephemerides Theologica Lovaniensea, 1948, 59-97; especially 7S and 77.
•• Cf. J. Farges et M. Viller, op. cit., 5S6-87, particularly about the impossible
suppositions of separating love of God and the eternal reward or the union with
Him.

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necessary reward of charity which is given in the very union
with God. We find this idea in Sto Ambrose, Sto Leo, SL
Gregory, Julian Pomerus, Sto Caesarius of Arleso33 But it is St.
Augustine, the Doctor of charity, who states most unequivocally that union with God, and desire of this union, are included
in charityo Three texts of his, which are classical in the matter,
make this position clear
I define charity as a motion of the
whose purpose is to enjoy God for His own sake and one's
self and one's neighbour for the sake of God." 34 (The Augustinian frui means "to ding to some object with affection for
its own sake," as opposed to uti which is " to employ what we
have received for our use, (in order) to obtain what we want,
provided that it is right for us to want it") o35 Further, "Thou
art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion
forever " (Ps. I xxii, 26) The heart has become chaste, God
then is being loved without recompense, no other reward is
asked from Himo He who seeks a reward from God and for
that reason wishes to serve Him, sets more value on the gift
than on the Givero
then? Is there no reward to be
sought from God? No, no reward, except Himselt God's
reward is God Himselt That is what the chaste heart loves and
cherishes; if it loves anything else, its love will not be chasteo" 36
0

"

0

33 St. Ambrose,
De Abraham lib. 2, 8, 47 " ... sine aliqua mercedis humanae
remuneratione "; De interpretatione David lib. 4, ll (ML 14, 476) " non praemio
ducitur ad perfectionem, sed perfectione consummatur paremium (ibid., 849); St.
Leo, Sermo., (92. 3) "nulla maior expetenda remuneratio quam ipsa dilectio (ML
54, 454-55); St. Gregory, Homil. 25 in Evang. 2, "ardere iam ex desiderio coepit
... " (ML 76, 1191), Homil. 31, l, "Qui ergo mente integra Deum desiderat,
profecto iam habet quod amat. Neque enim quisquam potest Deum diligere, si eum
quem diligit non habet." (ibid., 1Z20); Julian Pomerus, De vita contemplativa, 3,
15, l, "concipere fruendae visionis eius (Dei) affectum " (ML 59, 496); St.
Caesarius of Aries, H omil. Hi, " Da ergo Deo in terra ut accipias in vita aeterna,"
(ML 67, 1077).
34 St. Augustine,
De doctrina christiana, 3, 10, 16, "Caritatem voco motum animi
ad fruendum Deo propter ipsum et se atque proximo propter Deum " (ML 34, 72;
trans!. J. J. Garrigan, in The Fathers of the Church, Writings of St. Augustine
vol. 4, p. '!.30).
35 Ibid., 1. 4. "Frui est amore inhaerere
alieni propter ipsum."
•• Enarrat. in Ps. 72, 26, 82, " ... gratis amatur Deus, non ab illo petitur aliud
praemium. . . . Praemium Dei ipse Deus est" (ML. 36, 928); Cf. Sermo 33, 3,
"Hoc est Deum gratis amare, de Deo Deum sperare" (ML 38, 1469).

HOPE AND CHARITY IN STo THOMAS

215

And finally: "If then God is man's supreme Good, and this
you can not deny, it follows without doubt that to seek this
supreme Good is to live well; thus to live well is nothing else
but to love God
one's whole heart, one's whole soul, one's
whole mind"" 37 For St. Augustine, then, charity is the love of
God as man's supreme Good sought for God's sake. In other
words, the volition of God as man's last End is identical with
charity" To love God for His own sake, propter ipsum, means,
to look for no other reward than God Himself. To seek to
enjoy God, frui Deo, is the proper act of charity. It could not
be more explicitly said that the desire of union with God
belongs to charity.
This Augustinian conception makes its way through the
Middle Ages down to the great century of Scholasticism" In
the early medieval times the florilegia Patrum merely repeat
and collect St. Augustine's or St. Gregory's texts. 88 Paschasius
Radbertus, in his treatise De fide spe et caritate, bases his teaching about charity on St. Augustine's idea: God, the supreme
Good, is the only one we may love with a view to enjoy Him. 39
Other names to be mentioned are, St. Benedict of Aniane, St.
Bede the Venerable, Halitgarus of Cambrai, Raban Maurus,
St. Peter Damian. 40 The twelfth century 41 witnesses in early
37 De moribus Ecclesiae, l,
46 " ... summum bonum appetere est bene
vivere." Cf. Confess. 13, 9, 10, "Pondus meum amor meus ... " (ML 32, 849).
38 Cf. M. Viller, "Charite:
le Haut Moyen-Age, in Diet. de Spir., 2, 569-70, with
detailed references to the pre-Scholastics.
39 Paschasius Radbertus,
De fide, spe et caritate, 3. 7, "Illae quibus fruendum est,
Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus est" (ML 120, 1470).
40 St. Benedict of Aniane, Admonitio ad filium spiritualem, 8, " ... dilige Deum
... semper in nobis inhabitet, et nos permaneamus in illo" (ML 108, 686-87); St.
Bede the Venerable, Expos. in S. Joann. evang. 16, " ... Dei donum est diligere
Deum. Diffundit enim charitatem in cordibus nostris amborum Spiritus ... " (ML
92, 867); Halitgarus of Cambrai, De paenitentia, lib. 25, " charitas est recta
voluntas . . . iuncta Deo inseparabiliter . . ." (ML 105, 673) ; Raban Maurus,
Homil. 45, "in ipsa (charitate) beatitudinem veram habituros vos esse sciatis"
(ML 110, 84); St. Peter Damian, Sermo 26, " ... amemus dulciter, sapienter et
fortiter, ut ad Magistrum Petri intercessione pervenire valeamus" (ML 144,
647-49).
"Cf. F. Werner, "Charite, le Xlle siecle," in Diet. de Spir. fl, 670-7ft.

6

216

P. DE LETTER

Scholasticism an abundant speculation on charity and in it a
double current, later developing into the physical and ecstatic
theory of love. The first, which is by far the predominant one,
continues St. Augustine's conception of charity, "a motion of
the soul whose purpose is to enjoy God .... " 42 We find it active
in William of St. Thierry, the school of Anselm of Laon, St.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard,
Peter of Capua, Odo of Tournai, Ralph the Ardent, William of
Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor. 43 Perhaps the most representative of this traditional theory or, at any rate, the one exerting
. most influence on the speculation of the great Scholastics is
.here again Peter Lombard. In his dictinctiones on charity St.
Augustine's text is his constant guide, and with the Doctor of
grace he excludes from charity only the desire or intention of a
temporal reward. " He who takes charity for his goal, takes
God Himself as his goal." "Here (Augustine) says openly that
we should not fix unto ourselves two goals, but one only,
namely the kingdom of God." 4f4 Next to this traditional
doctrine an ecstatic theory of love and of charity, which tends
to exclude from the third theological. virtue all self-regard,
originates. with Peter Abelard, and finds passing expressions in
the words of some medieval mys:tics, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux
and William of St. Thierry. 45 But it will have to wait for a
•• Cf. A. Landgraf, "Charite, Conception physique et extatique de Ia charite,"
in Diet. de Spir. i, 578·79.
•• William of St. Thierry, cf. M. Davy, "L'amour de Dieu d'apres Guillaume de
Saint·Thierry," in Revue des Sciences Religie'U8es, 1988, 81946; Epistola ad fratres
de Monte Dei, i. 2. 10, "cum fruitur, caritas est" (ML 184, 848); Anselm of
Laon, Enarrat. in Cantiea, !l; St. Bernard of Clairvaux, De diligendo Deo, 7.17,
"Non sine praemio diligitur Deus, etsi absque praemii intuitu diligendus sit . . .
Habet prli.emium, sed id quod amatur ,; (ML 182, 984); Hugh of St. Victor, De
Saeramentis, 2, 18, 8, "Quid. est enim diligere nisi ipsum velle habiere? Non aliud
ab ipso sed ipsum, hoc est gratis " (ML 176, 584) ; Peter of Capua, Summa aurea,
i, SO (cf. Diet. de Spir., "Charite," 579); Odo of Tournai, ibid.; Ralph the Ardent,
homil. 26," toto desiderio ad coelestia tendunt" (ML 155, 1760); William of
Auxerre, Summa aurea, 2. tr., 1, 4, "caritas, sive sit concupiscentia sive amicitia ,.
(cit. Diet. de Spir., "Charite," 577); Philip the Chancellor, Summa de bono, cit.
Diet. de Spir. 579, "diligit Deum et se diligit."
" Peter Lombard, 8 Sent. dist., 88, 4, " Qui ergo caritatem sibi finem ponit,
Deum sibi ponit finem . . ."
' 8 Abelard, Exposit. in Epiat. Pauli ad Rom., 8, 7, "Si Deus qui me diligit

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

217

systematic exposition until much later, after SL Thomas' lifetime.
The common Scholastic teaching of the pre- Tho mist Middle
Ages, then, seems to have remained faithful to the Augustinian
idea that the desire of union with God is included in charity.
We find it also in the thirteenth century, with St. Albert the
Great. " There is a reward," he says, " which is nothing else
than God Himself and what unites us with Him; charity does
not exclude the intention of this reward, but it does not envisage
it under the aspect of reward, but as the beloved whom it
desires to enjoy." 46 St. Bonaventure's answer to the same
objection that charity does not look for a reward, reads as
follows: " If you object that charity does not look for a :reward,
we must answer that this is to be understood of a created
reward; of the uncreated reward it can not be said in truth,
because the greater the charity, the more ardently it desires to
be united with God and to possess God." 47 And further he
states clearly that, " the love of friendship includes in some way
a love of desire; ... charity adheres and makes one adhere to
the supreme Goodness; this is it's first and only act, from which
spring and in which are involved both love of desire and love
of friendship ... , That charity's chief act is to adhere to God,
Augustine says explicitly enough in his book De moribus
Ecclesiae (1, 14, 24) ." 48 St. Bonaventure gives us what is
perhaps his most expressive and unequivocal definition of
charity in the phrase, "In charity man wishes the same
supreme Good now to God, then to himself, then to his
diligam, et non potius quidquid mihi faciat, talis est qui super omnia diligendus est,
dicitur de me ilia Veritatis sententia: Si enim di!igitis qui vos diligunt, quam
mercedem habebitis?" (lVIL 178, 89Q!); St. Bernard, De diligendo Deo, 10, 27, "Te
enim quodammodo perdere . . ." ; William of St. Thierry, Epist. ad fratrtM de
Monte Dei, 2, 18, " cohumiliari summae maiestati, compauperari Filio Dei " (ML
184, 350).
•• St. Albert the Great, In 3 Sent. d. 1!!9, a. 4, "Est merces quae nihil aliud est
quam ipse Deus .... "
47 St. Bonaventure, In 3 Sent. d. 26, a. l, q. 1, ad 5, " ... maxima caritas maxime
desiderat uniri Deo et habere Deum."
•• In 3 Sent. d. 27, a. 1, q. 2, ad 6, "amor amicitiae quodammodo includit amm·em
concupiscentiae ... "

218

.P. DE LETTER

neighbour." 49 Could we find a clearer expression than this to
say that the desire for union with God is charity? Both the
Seraphic Doctor and St. Albert agree that the disinterestedness
required for charity does not exclude from it the wish to
possess God or the desire of the uncreated reward. Rather the
opposite: this desire grows with charity. The propter ipsum,
for His own sake, required for charity, means for them what it
meant for St. Augustine: non ·propter aliud, that is, not to
gain from charity another reward than God Himself. From this
rapid survey of the Catholic tradition on hope and charity it
seems certain that the desire of union with God was not considered as hope but as charity. As to the third position, that
it· would be neither hope nor charity, no traces of it seem to be
found.
II.

THE TEACHING

OF ST. THOMAS

1. HOPE ACCORDING TO ST. THOMAS

St. Thomas dealt with the nature of hope in several of his
writings and at different times of his Jife. His conception of
hope we can clearly discern where he treats .of the two main
questions: 1 o the deduction of the three theological virtues:
here we see which role he assigns to hope; 2° the definition or
description of the formal object of hope. Bearing in mind that
the precise problem we are studying is whether the desire of
union with God belongs to hope or to charity, we have to study
the texts that expose the answer to these two questions.
The deduction of the three theological virtues occurs twice
in the Commentary on the Sentences: first (III, d. XXIII, q. 1,
a. 5) where he proves that there are three and only three theological virtues; secondly (III, d. XXVI, q. 2, a. 3), when he
refutes the opinion that " hope is not a virtue distinct from the
other theological virtues." 50 The first text reads as follows:
"The answer is, as we have said, that the theological virtues
'"In 3 Sent. d.
a. 1, q. 2, "Istud summum bonum aliquando homo per cari-.
tatem optat Deo, aliquando sibi, aliquando proximo."
5 °Cf. Abelard's opinion noted above and the Opinions alluded to by Scotus.
below.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

produce in us an inclination towards the end, that is, towards
God. Now, in every agent who is acting through his will in view
of an end, two conditions are required in his attitude towards
the end before he acts for it, namely, the knowledge of the end
and the intention
reach it. . . . But to make this intention
possible, two conditions again are necessary, namely, that the
end is attainable, for no agent moves himself towards what is
impossible; and that it is good, because we strive only after
what is good. And for this reason faith is necessary which
causes the end to be known; and hope which inspires trust in
the obtention of the last end as in a thing which is possible
for the agent; and charity which makes the end appear as a
good for the agent who strives after it, inasmuch as it causes
man to desire it; otherwise he would never strive after it." 51
The idea seems to be clear and unmistakable. From the very
nature of the theological virtues which adapt us to the supernatural end, it follows that there must be three of them: one
to give the knowledge of this end, faith; and two more to make
the tendency to this end a reality, of which the first makes the
end attainable and inspires trust that its obtention is possible,
hope; and the second makes the end desired, charity. In this
light hope appears to be trust, and not desire. 52
When he has to show that hope is a virtue distinct from faith
and charity, St. Thomas repeats the deduction of the theological
virtues as follows: "The answer to the first question is, 'as we
have said above, that the role of the theological virtues is to
direct us towards the last end. Now, if any one is to
acting in view of some end, he must first know that end, and
secondly desire it. But because the will can desire possible and
impossible objects, and because no one really strives after what
is not attainable for him even though he may desire it, for these
reasons it is necessary for the will, if it is to begin to act, that it
should tend towards its object as to something possible. And
61 3 Sent. d. !!8, q. 1, a. 1, Ill Sent., d. XXIII, q. 1, a. 1, "Etideo requiritur ...
spes, secundum quam inest fiducia de assecutione finis ultimi quasi de re possibili
sibi."
•• Cf. loc. cit. ad 5, " ••. habeat fiduciam de
finis."

P. DE LETTER

this inclination of the will which tends to the eternal good as
made attainable for the will by grace is precisely the act of
hope. Hope, therefore, is something distinct from faith and
charity, because faith produces knowledge of the end, in as far
as it shows the end to be good, and in this manner the ·act of
charity arises; but inasfar as it shows that the end is possible,
it is the act of hope that originates, because faith is the foundation of all virtues, preceding them all in the natural order
of their acts." 53 Hope, then, is the inclination of the will
towards the last end as towards an attainable object. It is the
victory by grace over the difficulty inherent in the attainment
of the final end. Hope makes the arduous object attainable.
And in this it differs from charity, that it views its object under
the aspect of arduousness, not as charity does, under the aspect
of goodness.54
The Summa also gives twice the deduction of the theological
virtues, in a similar context and without any essential difference
from the teaching of the Sentences. In the first place, the only
new element is the explicit parallelism between man's natural
potencies and the supernatural quasi-potencies by which he
strives after the end whose obtention is bliss. "I answer that,
as stated above, the theological virtues direct man to supernatural happiness in the same way as by natural inclination
man is directed to his connatural end. Now the latter happens
in respect of two things. First in respect of the reason or intellect. . . . Secondly, through the rectitude of the will. . . .
Consequently in respect to both the above things man needed
to receive in addition something supernatural to direct him to
the supernatural end. First ... faith. Secondly, the will is
directed to this end, both as to the movement of intention,
which tends to that end as to something attainable- and
this pertains to hope- and as to a certain spiritual union,
whereby the will is, so to speak, transformed into that
""Ibid., d. XVI, a.
a. 8, ad 1 um. " ... Ideo oportet quod voluntae ad hoc
quod operari incipiat tendat in illud sicut in possible. Et haec inclinatio voluntatis
tendentis in bonum aeternum quasi possible sibi per gratiam est actus spei."
•• Ibid., ". . . inquantum est altissimum arduum, est obiectum spei."

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

221

end, and this belongs to charity." 55 Hope, therefore, is the
movement of the will towards the supernatural end as to an
attainable object, whilst charity bespeaks union with, or transformation into, the end.
In the second place, where St. Thomas again answers the
question whether hope is distinct from the other theological
virtues, he proves a real distinction between them by proposing
a deduction of the three virtues which at first sight is different
from his previous ones: " I answer that, a virtue is said to be
theological from having God for the object to which it adheres.
Now one may adhere to a thing in two ways: first, for its own
sake, secondly, because something else is attained thereby.
Accordingly charity makes man adhere to God .for His own
sake, uniting his mind to God by the emotion of love. On the
other hand, hope and faith make man adhere to God as to a
principle wherefrom certain things accrue to us. Now we derive
from God both knowledge of truth and the attainment of
perfect goodness. Accordingly faith makes us adhere to God,
as to the source whence we derive the knowledge of truth,
while hope makes us adhere to God, as to the source whence
we derive perfect goodness, i. e., insofar as, by hope, we rely
on the divine assistance for obtaining happiness." 56 Charity
unites man to God for His own sake, not to obtain something
else from Him; faith and hope unite to God as to the principle
of truth and happiness. What does this mean for hope? Not
that hope is the obtention of this happiness or the desire of it.
It is said explicitly, hope is the reliance on God's help to attain
this beatitude. IIope is essentially trust in God, and the union
with God it produces is exactly this confidence in God's helping power. 57 But, as will be explained further, hope is connected
•• Summa Tkeol., 1-11, q. 6!!, a. 8, "Secundo vero est voluntas quae ordinatur in
ilium finem et quantum ad motum intentionis in ipsum tendentem sicut in id
quod est possible consequi quod pertinet ad spem."
•• Ibid., 11-11, q. 17, a. 6, "Spes autem facit adhaerere Deo prout est nobis
principium perfectae bonitatis, inquantum scilicet per spem .divino auxilio innitimur
ad beatitudinem consequendam."
facit tendere in Deum sicut in quodam bonum finale
•• Cf. loc. cit., ad 8,
adipiscendum, et sicut in quodam adiutorium efficax ad subveniendum." That is,

P. DE LETTER

with a love of desire for God, yet it is not itself a desire. The
notion of hope has not changed.
In his last deduction of the theological virtues, St. Thomas
answers the question whether the virtues are distinguished
among themselves. Of the theological virtues he says: " In
order that we may be led to the
in the right way, the End
must be both known and desired. But the desire of the End
requires two things: namely, confidence in the obtention of the
End, because no wise man strives after what he can not attain,
and love of the End, because only what is loved is desirea.
For this reason there are three theological virtues, namely,
faith by which we know God; hope, by which we liope to attain
Him; and charity by which we love Him." 58 Here again hope
is conceived as the virtue which makes God, the last end,
attainable. It is trust in God who makes it possible for us to
attain Him as our final Goal. It is not desire.
The study of the formal object of hope will confirm and
explicate this conclusion. St. Thomas dealt with this subject in
four different works whieh we must examine in their chronological order and see what he answers to 'the question: What is the
formal aspect under which God, the supernatural End (Object
of all three theological virtues), is viewed and attained in hope?
In the Commentary on the Sentences, the question about the
formal object of hope is not asked ex professo, but many
fragmentary considerations about the proper act of hope are
given which clearly point to its formal object. In one place
St. Thomas
of hope, first as a passion of the sensitive
appetite, then as a virtue. As a passion, he says, " Hope relates
hope regards the obtention of the last supernatural End (its material object; this
it has in common with the other theolqgical virtues); and its proper characteristic
as a theological virtue, or its own way of uniting to God, is to rely on God's help
in order to attain the last End.
58 Q. Disp. De Virtutibua, a. Ill, "Desiderium
autem finis duo exigit, scilicet
fiduciam de fine obtinendo, quia nullus sapiens movetur ad id quod
non
potest . . --et ideo . . . est spes qua ipsum nos obtenturos speramus." It may be
noted that desire is taken here to designate the complex attitude of the will before
the last End, a broader meaning than that which will be examined below of the
desire presupposed to hope.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

to a good that is attainable and yet is hard to atta:i.l:l;for that
reason it is called arduous." 69 It resides in what is called the
irascible power of the sensitive appetite. On a higher level, in
the intellective appetitive power, hope designates "a simple
operation of the will striving spiritually after some arduous
object." 60 When considered as a virtue, hope is the infused
habit which regards eternal life, an arduous object that is above
the power of nature. 61 Its act is not mercenary, for, "though
hope expects a reward, it does so, not in so far as it is a reward,
but as some supreme arduous object." ·62 Hope is a theological
virtue, for it is the gratuitous gift which· inclines the will
" towards the arduous Object that is beyond the power of
nature but which man is able to attain through grace, namely,
God Himself, as He is our beatitude." 611 The act of hope is
not desire or love, but it mediates between desire and love:
"Hope presupposes a desire and is intermediate between love
and desire." 64 Hope is certain, that is, " because hope supposes
the power to reach the End, which originates from God's
... the certitude of hope is caused
liberality and' man's
by God's liberality who directs us towards the End, and also
by the inclination given by the other virtues, and further by
the inclination of the habit (of hope) itself." 65 The object of
hope, as theological virtue, is therefore God considered as
the supreme arduous Object, attainable through the God-given
power of this virtue.
The Summa states the formal object of hope explicitly. In
the study of the passion, we read that, " in the object of
1

•• Ill Sent., d. XXVI, a. 1, a. 2, "Spes secundum quod est passio est in irascibili."
60 Loc.
a. 5.
61 Loc. cit., a. 2, a. 1, ad !!.
62 Ibid., ad 5.
•• Loc. cit., a. 2.
64 Loc. cit., a. 8, ad 12 urn, " Spes praesupponit desiderium et est media inter
amorem et desiderium." The desire of which this text speaks is evidently taken in
a narrower sense than as noted above (fn. 9). There, the desire, as a complex
attitude, was said to comprise both hope and charity; here it is presupposed in
hope and love. What this desire is, will be examined later.
•• Loc. cit., a. 4.

P. DE LETTER

hope, we may note four conditions. First that it is something
good .... Secondly, that it is future .... Thirdly that it must
be something arduous and difficult to obtain ... in this respect,
hope ljiffers from desire or cupidity, which regards the future
good absolutely; wherefore it belongs to the concupiscible, while
hope belongs to the irascible faculty. Fourthly, that this
difficult thing is something possible to obtain .... It is therefore
evident that hope differs from desire, as the irascible passions
differ from the concupiscible." 66 This fourfold formality of the
object of hope will be found also in the virtue. When answering
the question " whether hope is in the apprehensive or in the
appetitive power " and refusing the opinion, noted above in
Abelard,r which placed it in the cognitive faculties, St. Thomas
explains, '' Hope is a movement of the appetitive power ensuing
from the apprehension of a future good, difficult but possible
to obtain; namely a stretching forth of the appetite to such a
good." 68 Consequently, he grants that hope is confidence, when
answering a difficulty based on this assumption: " When a
man desires a thing and reckons that he can get it, he believes
that he will get it; and from this belief (fides) which precedes
in the cognitive power, the ensuing movement is called confidence." 69 He explains in what sense hope is expectation:
"properly speaking (a man) is said to await that which he
hopes to get by another's help as though to await (exspectare)
implied keeping one's eyes on another (ex alio spectare), insofar as the apprehensive power which precedes, not only keeps
its eye on the good which a man intends to get, but also on
the thing by whose power he hopes to get it." 7{) Keeping in
mind these indications about the passion of hope, we can now
66 Summa Theol., I-ll,
q. 40, a. I, "bonum ... futurum ... arduum ...
adipiscible. Sic ergo patet quod spes differt a desiderio, sicut difl'erunt passiones
irascibilis a passionibus concupiscibilis."
6 ' Cf. fn. I7.
68 Loc. cit., a. 2, ". . . extensio appetitus
in huiusmodi (i. e. bonum futurum
arduum possible adipisci) obiectum."
69 Ibid., ad 2 . . . " et ex tali fide in cognitiva praecedente, motus sequens in
appetitu fiducia nominatur."
•• Loc. cit., a. I, ad 2.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

read what St. Thomas says about the formal object of the
theological virtue of hope.
We read: " The hope of which we speak now attains God by
leaning on His help in order to attain the hoped for good. Now
an effect must be proportionate to its cause. Wherefore the
good which we ought to hope from God properly and chiefly is
the infinite Good. . . . Such a good is eternal life, which
consists in the enjoyment of God Himself. For we should hope
from Him for nothing less than Himself, since His goodness
whereby He imparts good things to His creatures, is no less
than His essence." 71 That is, hope attains God as its material
object, since it is a theological virtue. The aspect under which
it regards this object is reliance on His help in order to attain
eternal life or the enjoyment of God Himself. This reliance on
God's help makes us lay hold of God in the way proper to hope:
'' Wherefore, insofar as we hope for anything as being made
possible to us by means of the divine assistance, our hope
attains God Himself, on whose help it leans." 72 Because of this
particular way of attaining its Object, hope is different from
love: ". . . love and hope differ in this that love denotes union
between lover and beloved, while hope denotes a movement or
a stretching forth of the appetite towards an arduous good." 73
It is in the very victory over the arduousness of its object that
hope unites with God. Hence follows its theological character.
St. Thomas explains this: " ... hope has the character of virtue
from the fact that it attains the supreme rule of human actions:
and this it attains both as its first efficient cause, inasmuch as it
leans on its assistance, and as its final cause, inasmuch as it
expects happiness in the enjoyment thereof." 74
This looking up to God's help explains the element of
expectation proper to hope: "The expectation which is
mentioned in the definition of hope does not imply delay, as
n Ibid., q. 17, a. 2, "Spes ... attingit Deum innitens eius auxilio ad consequendum
bonum speratum."
•• Ibid., a. 1, "spes nostra attingit ipsum Deum, cuius auxilio innitimur."
73 Loc. cit., a. 4, " spes autem importat quemdam motum sive protensionem appetitus in aliquod bonum arduum."
•• Loc. cit., a. 5.

226

P. DE LETTER

does the expectation which belongs to longanimity. It implies
a reference to the divine assistance, whether that which we
hope for be delayed or not." 75 It also throws light on the
proper arduousness of the object of hope: ". . . hope, as a
theological virtue, regards something arduous, to be obtained
by another's help, as stated above." 76 Hope presupposes an
imperfect love or desire, but it is not itself a love or a desire:
" ... Hope and all movements of the appetite flow from love ... .
Now there is a perfect and an imperfect love. (Perfect love .. .
as a man loves a friend; imperfect love, . . . as a man loves
what he desires). . . . Hope pertains to the second love, since
he that hopes, intends to obtain possession of something for
himself." 77 We shall consider later the apparent difficulty
suggested in this text; we only note here that hope is not said
to be a love or a desire, but only to flow from it. Its specifying
object is the following: "Now hope takes its species from its
principal object, even as other virtues do ... and its principal
object is eternal happiness as being possible to obtain by the
assistance of God. . . . Since . then the arduous possible good
cannot be an object of hope except insofar as it is something
future, it follows that when happiness is no longer future, but
present, it is incompatible with the virtue of hope.'' 78 For that
reason hope is voided in heaven. For another reason, because
its object is no longer attainable, hope is also absent from hell:
" (The damned) cannot apprehend happiness as a possible
good. . . . Consequently there is no hope ... in the damned.'' 79
God's help is needed to overcome the special difficulty inherent
75 Ibid., ad 5.
"Expectatio quae ponitm: in definitione spei ... importat respectum ad auxilium divinum."
76 Ibid. ad 4.
77 Loc. cit., a. 8, " Spes, et omnis appetitivus
motus, ex amore derivatur ... Spes
pertinet ad secundum amorem (imperfectum) ." We must note here already which
relation St. Thomas places between hope and the imperfect love, or love of desire,
that precedes hope. As will be remarked still later, neither here no elsewhere does
he consider desire as identical with hope. From this text it is clear that, " spes
pertinet ad secundum amorem ex amore derivatur."
78 Ibid., II-II, q. 18, a.
"Obiectum principale eius (spei) est beatitudo aeterna
secundum quod est possibilis haberi ex auxilio divino."
•• Loc. cit., a. 8.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

in the object of hope. What is this help? " Hope does not
trust chiefly in grace already received, but in God's omnipotence and mercy, whereby even he that has not grace, can
obtain it, so as to come to eternal life." 80 This precision was
needed to explain that hope can exist without charity.
From these different aspects of the formal object of hope,
no mistake seems possible in concluding: Hope relies on God
to make the attainment of man's final end possible; His help
brings into play His omnipotence and mercy. Hope itself does
not regard this end under the aspect of goodness, although
this goodness is presupposed to it. It is not a desire of God,
although it presupposes a desire.
This teaching of the Summa is taught elsewhere by St.
Thomas. We read: "The hope of attaining eternal life has a
double object, namely, eternal life itself for which man hopes,
and the divine help from which he hopes. . . . Hope has the
character of virtue from the very fact that man relies on the
help of the divine power in order to attain eternal ]ife." And
further: " Thus also is the formal object of hope the help of
the divine power and loving kindness, on account of which the
act of hope strives after the hoped for goods which are the
material object of hope." 81 That is, eternal life or union with
God is the material object of hope; its formal object is the
divine help. It is this reliance on God's assistance which makes
of hope a virtue: " Insofar as hope regards its formal object,
that is, the divine help, that far it is a disposition of the perfect
man, for man's perfection consists in this, that he adheres to
God." 8;2 If hope is a virtue, it can not be desire, because,
" desire is no name for any virtue." 8 .3 Because of its formal
object, hope, as the other theological virtues, does not consist
80 Loc. cit., a. 4, ad !!, " Spes ... innititur principaliter ... divinae omnipotentiae
et misericordiae."
81 Q. Disp. 'De Spe, a. 1, "Spes habet rationem virtutis ex hoc ipso quod homo
inhaeret auxilio divinae potestatis ad consequendum vitam aeternam ... ita formale
obiectum spei est auxilium divinae potestatis et pietatis, propter quod tendit
motus spei in bona sperata, quae sunt materiale obiectum spei."
8 • Ibid., ad 4.
88 Ibid., ad 6, " Nee desiderium nominat virtutem aliquam."

228

P. DE LETTER

in a mean; " ... from the side of its formal object, which is the
divine help, (hope) does not consist in a mean, for no one can
rely too much on the divine help." 84 The trust that is hope
already possesses God in a way; " ... hope causes the hoped for
thing to be present in a way, that is, through the confidence
that it will be obtained." 85
With this clear and explicit teaching on the formal object of
hope there may seem to be a difficulty in reconciling what he
states about the love and desire which precedes hope. Before
entering into this we must recall what St. Thomas teaches
about the relation of hope as a passion to love and desire.
About the passion of hope he notes that " ... hope presupposes
desire; just as all the irascible passions presuppose the passions of
the concupiscible faculty." 8'6 And when answering the question,
" whether hope is the cause of love," St. Thomas speaks of a
mutual causality between hope and love, in one aspect, that :is" as hope regards the good we hope to get, it is caused by love,
since we do not hope except for that which we desire and love."
But
another aspect, that is, "
as hope :regards one
through whom something becomes possible to us, love is caused
by hope and not vice-versa." Which is the love that is caused
by hope? Which is the one that causes hope? We read in the
same article: " Because by the very fact that we hope that
good will accrue to us through some one, we are moved towards
him as to ou:r own good, and thus we begin to love him." This
is to say that hope causes love of the person from whom we
hope or on whom we rely to obtain something. "Whereas from
the fact that we love someone we do not hope in him, except
accidentally, that is, insofar as we think that he returns our
love," 87 in other words, it is not the love of a person, but the
love or desire of some good that may come from him, which
is cause of hope.
These two kinds of love, namely, love of a thing which is
cause of hope and love of a person which is caused by hope,
•• Ibid., ad 7.
•• Ibid., ad Ul.

86
87

Summa Theol., I-II, q. 40, a. l.
Loc. cit., a. 8.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

he treats again, but transposed to a higher level. In answering
the question, "whether hope precedes charity" (as in the
Summa, 88 where a similar question was asked, " whether
charity precedes hope ") , St. Thomas distinguishes a double
love, one perfect the other imperfect. Love is imperfect, " when
some one loves a thing not so as to wish it good in itself, but so
as to wish the good of the thing for himself "; it is perfect,
" when the good of another is loved in itself; ... this is the love
of friendship whereby some one is loved for his own sake." 89
Of the perfect love it is said that it is charity: " Charity is not
any love of God, but perfect love by which God is loved in
Himself." 90 And the imperfect love is placed in relation with
hope but, characteristically enough and consistently with what
the Summa and the Sentences taught, it is not identified with
hope: " ... as for the attainment of some goods, hope belongs
to the love of self which is a movement tending to acquire
something, as we said." 91 This is very nearly textually the
teaching of the Summa. There also, the imperfect love of God
was said to be the one to which hope pertains, that is, in the
context, from which hope springs. 92 Both here and in the
Summa, hope pertains to the imperfect love of God because it
is derived from it. In the order of generation of the virtues,
what is imperfect precedes what is perfect. Hope is imperfect
compared with charity because it originates from an interested
love (not because it is an interested love, for hope :is not love),
whilst charity is a disinterested love of God. Hope precedes
and prepares charity: " ... hope leads up to charity by the very
fact that some one who hopes to obtain some good from God
•• II-II, q. 17, a. 8.
Q. Disp De Spe, a. 3, "Duplex amor, unus quidem imperfectus ... alius
perfectus."
90 Ibid., " Caritas non est quicumque amor Dei, sed amor perfectus, quo Deus
secundum seipsum diligitu:r." What this secundum seipsum means, .and in what
sense the amor imperfectus is excluded from charity, will be examined later in the
study on charity.
91 Loc. cit.,· " Pertinet
ad amorem sui spes, qui est motus ten dens in aliquid
adipiscendum." Ct fn. 77.
•• Cf. II-II, q. 17, a. 8.
89

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P. DE LETTER

is led to love God for His own sake." 98 What the first article
of the question De Spe taught about the formal object of hope
indicates how we have to understand here in the third article
that " hope ... is a movement tending towards the acquisition
of something, as we have said "j namely that hope tends to
attain its object, " relying on the divine help which is the
formal object of hope." 94
St. Thomas's last treatment of hope, in the -Compendium
Theologiae, adds no new elements to his teaching on its formal
object. Perhaps more unmistakably still he brings out that
hope is above itll trust in God's help in view of the attainment
of eternal life. Faith follows hope: " the act of hope by which
man enlightened by faith can attain with God's help the good
that he naturally desires." 95 The reasons fpr the certitude of
the confidence that our hope is we find exposed in the fourth
chapter: Because we are God's handiwork," man must have
hope in God that he may be governed by Him rightly .•.. But
this trust ought to be most certain ... , since no deficiency can
affect God ... and for. that reason the hope by which man has
confidence in God does not disappoint him who hopes." God
takes special care of His rational creatures," which are marked
out with the dignity of His image and are able to arrive at
knowing and ·loving Him. . . . They therefore ought to have
confidence in God . ·.. that they can also acquire' merit before
Him." A
reason of their confidence:; grace has made men
sharers in the divme nature and sons of God," buthaving been
made .sons, they may rightly hope for the inheritance." 96 No
that our trust will be disappointed. It is true, " for the
•• Q. Disp. De Spe, a. S '' ... dum aliquis per hoc quod sperat se aliquid bonum
a Deo consequi, ad hoc deducitur ut Deum propter se amet." Cf. I-II, q. 40, a. 8,
on the relation between the passion of hope and love.
" lnnixa auxilio divino quod est obiectum formale spei."
•• Loc. cit. a, 1 and
The above solution wijl be further completed in what follows on the love of- desire
that belongs to charity.
•• Comp. Tkeol., P. ll, c. 1. We need not enter here on th;e question of the
natural desire (quae naturaliter desiderat) of the supernatural goods. This accidental mention would leave the meaning of our text unaltered if left out.
•• Op. cit., c. 4. fiducia.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

confidence of hope it is not enough that he on whom our hope
relies be willing to help, if he has not the power to do so." 91
But God is all-powerful. Finally," hope presupposes a desire,"
-for, "three conditions are required that something may be
hoped for: first, that it is desired ... secondly, that what is
hoped for, is considered as attainable; this is what hope adds to
desire ... thirdly, that what is to be hoped for is arduous .... " 98
This analytical survey of St. Thomas' texts on hope places
beyond doubt that for him, as for the common Catholic
tradition before, hope is essentially trust, or reliance on God's
help. It does not include, but it presupposes, the desire of
uniqn with God. What this desire exactly is, will be examined
later. Nowhere do we find hope identified with the imperfect
love of God, or with the love of desire for God, though it has
a necessary relation to this. The desire of God, for St. Thomas,
is not an act of hope.
DESIRE

OF GOD AND CHARITY

Is, then, the desire of union with God an act of charity? To
find St. Thomas' answer to this question, we shall examine the
following five points: (I) the role and the place he assigns to
charity in the deduction of the three theological virtues;
the formal object of charity; (3) charity considered as love of
friendship: does it or not exclude the love of desire for God?
(4) charity and its reward: may charity have a reward in view?
(5) how does St. Thomas understand thephrasepropterseipsum
(for His own sake), when it is said that in charity God is· loved
for His own sake? From all this it should appear what is for
St. Thomas the disinterested character of charity, and thus
what he answers to the problem we are studying: Is desire of
union with God, if not hope, then charity?
1. The Role of Charity Among the Three Theological
Virtues. We briefly recall, in their chronological order, the
texts wherein St. Thomas deduces the three theological virtues.
The common role of the three is to adapt man to the super•• Op. cit., c. 6.
.
•• Op. cit., c. 7, "Spes desiderium praesupponit ... "

7

P. DE LETTER

natural end, God, to whose possession he has been called.
Faith makes this end known; hope makes it attainable. What
of charity?
According to the Commentary on the Sentences, " charity
(is necessary) which makes the end appear as good for the
agent who strives after it, in the sense that it causes man to
desire it: otherwise he would never strive after it." 99 Charity
produces desire and love of the end. And further, "faith
produces knowledge of the end inasfar as it shows the end to be
good and in this manner the act of charity arises," 100 that is,
the act of charity is the movement of the will tending towards
appears as good.
the end
In the Summa, charity is said to be a union with God: " the
will is directed to this end . . . as to a certain spiritual union,
whereby the will is, so to speak, transformed into that endand this belongs to charity." 101 Charity is union with God for
His own sake: ". . . charity makes ·us adhere to God for His
own sake, uniting our minds to God by the emotion of love." 102
What does this mean? Without anticipating what will follow
propter ipsum, we may add: ". . . Charity
about the
attains God Himself that it may rest in Him, but not that
something may accrue to us from Him." 108 :It is then clear
that charity unites with God and finds rest in this union; it
does not seek for something other than God Hinlself, but it
does seek God Himself.
The Quaestiones Disputatae teach the same idea of charity.
•• III Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 8, "Et caritas (requiritur) per quam finis reputatur
bonus ipsi tendenti inquantum facit quod homo afficiatur ad finem: alioquin
numquam tenderet in ipsum." As will be pointed out later, the desire here said
to belong to charity, is not the same as the. imperfect desire presupposed in hope;
though even this, in a way, comes from an inchoate charity.
100 Ibid., d. 26, q. 2, a. 8, sol. 1, "Fides facit
de fine, inquantum
ostendit finem bonum es.Se, et sic insurgit motus caritatis."
101 I-II, q. 62, a. 8, "lnquantum
est summum bonum, est obiectum caritatis."
102 Ibid., q. 17, a. 6, "Caritas
facit hominem Deo inhaerere propter seipsum,
mentem hominis uniens Deo per affectum amoris." The meaning of the propter
seipaum will be studied below.
103 Ibid., q. 28, a. 6, caritas attingit ipsum Deum ut in eo sistat, non ut ex eo
aliquid nobis proveniat.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

" The desire of the end requires . . . love of the end, ·because
only what is loved is desired, and for that reason (there is)
charity by which we love Him." 104 Charity is the love of the
end that we desire. And this love is a perfect love, or love of
friendship, by which He is loved for His own sake: " Charity is
not any love o£ God, but perfect love by which God is loved in
Himself. . . . This is a love of friendship whereby some one is
loved for himself." 105 In a word, charity is the right disposition
before the last end, God: " through charity man is placed in the
proper disposition towards the last end .... " 11) 6 Whilst, therefore, faith makes the last end known, and hope makes it attainable, charity constitutes the actual striving after or union with
the last end. To unite man to God as to his last goal, actually
possessed or longed for is, for St. Thomas, the essential function
of the third theological virtue.
2. The Formal Object of Charity. Under which aspect does
charity view and attain God, the last supernatural end? The
divine or infinite goodness, which is last end, is
formal aspect
under which charity attains God, according to the
on the Sentences. "Since charity loves principally God and all
other objects only insofar as they are God's, it is clear that
charity receives its unity from the unity of the divine goodness
which it considers primarily: it is one virtue!' 107 This goodness,
"which is the last end," 108 "is the proper and principal object
of charity," 109 for, "the reason for loving God is the divine
goodness." 110
The Summa views the same formal object of charity from
different angles. God's goodness or the last end possessed in
the beatitude is the aspect under which charity attains God.
Q. Disp. De Virtut., a.
Q. Disp. De Spe, a. 3.
106 Q. Disp. De Caritate, a. 4, "Cum per caritatem
homo disponatur ut bene se
104
105

habeat ad ultimum :finem."
107 III Sent., d.
q.
a. 4, sol. l.
108 Ibid., ad
109 Ibid., sol.
" Obiectum enim caritatis proprium et principale est bonitas
divina."
110 Ibid., q. 3, a. 4, "Causa ... diligendi Deum divina bonitas est."

P. DE LETTER

" Charity is not any kind of love of God, but that love of God
by which He is loved as the object of bliss." 111 Further, "The
divine good, inasmuch as it is the object of happiness, has a
special aspect of good, wherefore the love of charity, which is
the love of that good, is a special kind of love." 1112 Still,
" Charity tends towards the last end considered as last end:
and this does not apply to any other virtue." 113 If this is so,
and if charity seeks God as man's last end, union with God and
fruition of Him are essential features of charity's formal object.
This appears in what St. Thomas says of the third and highest
degree of charity: " Man's third pursuit is to aim chiefly at
union with and enjoyment of God:' this belongs to the perfect
who desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ." 114 Again,
when the formal object of the charity of the neighbour is
pointed out, this essential desire for union with God appears:
"Now, the aspect under which our neighbour is to be loved,
is God, since what we ought to love in our neighbour is that he
may be in God." 115 Or, "Charity extends only to such things
as have a natural capacity for everlasting life." 116
" ••• Now
fellowship in the full particiation of happiness ... is the reason
of loving one's neighbour." 117 If charity is friendship, as we
shall see it is, it seeks union, for " the friendship of charity is
based on the fellowship of happiness." 118 " The love of charity
tends to God as to the principle of happiness in the fellowship
of which the friendship of charity is based." 119
Lastly, St. Thomas calls the formal object of charity the
divine good, to be possessed in the beatitude; " Charity
111 Summa
Theol., I-II, q. 65, a. 5, ad 1, "Caritas non est qualiscumque amor
Dei, sed amor Dei quo diligitur ut beatitudinis obiectum."
112 Ibid., II-H, q. 23, a. 4.
113 Ibid., q. 26, a. I, ad 1, "Caritas
tendit in ultimum finem sub ratione finis
ultimi; quod non convenit alieni alii virtuti."
114 Ibid., q. 24, a. 9, "Ut Deo inhaereat et Deo fruatur."
115 Ibid., q. 25, a. 1.
116 Ibid., a. 3, ad 3.
117 Ibid., q. 26, a. 5.
118 Ibid., q. 25, a. 12, "Amicitia
caritatis super communicatione beatitudinis
fundatur."
119 Ibid., q. 26, a. 1.

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

285

siders as its formal object the divine good." 12° Charity is " the
love of the supreme Good ... insofar as it is the object of the
beatitude which surpasses the whole capacity of the created
nature." 121 " Charity therefore has some special good as its
proper object, namely, the good of the divine beatitude!' 122
And "to love that good (which is shared by the blessed) for
itself, that it may be lasting and be spread, and that nothing
be done against it, this manner of acting places a man in the
right disposition towards the fellowship of the blessed, and that
is charity." 123 In the De Spe, St. Thomas speaks of the object
of charity thus: " (Man) can love God above all things in
another way, insofar as God is object of the beatitude and as a
kind of rational fellowship of the mind with God is established
through some spiritual unity; this love is the act of charity." 12•
We may conclude: St. Thomas consistently taught that the
formal object of charity is God as man's last end or supreme
good, union with Whom is essential to the very life of charity.
8. Love of Friendship and Love of Desire. St. Thomas
conceives charity as a love of friendship for God, as others did
before Him, for example, St. Bonaventure. Does this mean
that he excludes from charity the love of desire for God? 125
His analysis of friendship and of its connection with the desire
of God, gives, it would seem, an unequivocal answer.
We read in the Sentences, "The love (of charity) includes
the desire of the Beloved by which his presence is longed for ...
Charity is a friendship of man with God whereby man loves
God and God loves man." 126 Or," Every friendship includes a
120 Q. Diap. De Caritate, a. 2, ad 5 "Caritas respicit ut formale obiectum bonum
divinum."
101 Ibid., a. 1, ad 16, "Amor summi boni . . . prout est obiectum illius beatitudinis."
122 Ibid., a. 7; cf. a. 10, "Obiectum caritatis est summum bonum."
101 Ibid., a. I.
1 .. Q. Diap. De Spe, a. 1, ad 9, " ... diligere Deum super omnia, secundum quod
Deus est obiectum beatitudinis, et secundum quod fit quaedam societas rationalis
mentis ad Deum quadam spirituali unitate."
""As stated by Zimara, Das Wuen der Ho!Jnung.
106 Ill Sent.; d. 27, q. 2, a. I, "Amor (caritatis) includit concupiscentiam amati
qua desideratur eius praesentia."

236

P. DE LETTER

desire or concupiscence, and speaks of something additional to
this desire." 127 And again, " True friendship desires to see the
friend and to enjoy his conversation; friendship exists chiefly
for the friend, but not in such a manner that the pleasure
derived from the friend's presence and enjoyment be considered
as the end of the friendship, as is the case in a friendship based
on . pleasure." 128 So, because charity is a true friendship, it
seeks the presence of the Friend and union with Him; though,
because it is a true, and not a pseudo-friendship (as e. g., one
based on pleasure) , it does not seek this presence mainly for
the sake of the enjoyment. St. Thomas states this explicitly:
". . . Because a happiness is promised us in which we shall be
similar to the angels and which surpasses the power of man
and angel alike . . . a happiness which is connatural to God
alone ... for that reason it is necessary, in order to attain this
divine happiness that man share in the divine life. . . . And so
there ought to exist some friendship with God whereby we live
with Him: and this is charity." 120 This friendship supposes
that " we be made similar to God through some participation
in spiritual gifts, and that we seek Him as He can be p:uticipated in by His friends in glory." 130 It seems dear: charity is
a friendship that seeks to share God's own happiness: it can not
but seek His presence.
According to the Summa, which treats the friendship of
charity in a systematic way, the love of friendship for God, of
its nature, seeks the return of love: " Charity signifies not only
the love of God, but also a certain friendship with Him; which
implies, besides love, a certain mutual return of love, together
with mutual communiono . o" 131 It implies mutual benevolence
or well-wishing, God's initiative establishing the communion
0

127 Ibid., ad I, "Amicitia
quaelibet concupiscentia et desiderium includit, et
aliquid super earn addit."
128 Ibid., ad n.
129 Ibid., a. 2.
••• Ibid., ad 4.
131 Summa Theol., I-II, q. 65, a. 5, "Caritas
non solum significat amorem Dei,
sed etiam amicitiam quamdam ad ipsum, quae quidem super amorem addit mutuam
redamationem cum quadam communicatione mutua."

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

287

which enables us to love Him in charity: "Accordingly, since
there is a communication between man and God, inasmuch as
He communicates His happiness to us, some kind of friendship
must needs be based on this same communication. . . . The
love which is based on this communication, is charity: wherefore· it is evident that charity is a certain friendship of man
for God." 182
Charity, then, of its nature,. means union with God: " Now
charity is love for God, whose good is unchangeable, since He
is His goodness, and from the very fact that He is loved, He
is in those who love Him by His most excellent effect, according
to St. John (I Epis. iv, 16) : 'He that abideth in charity, abideth
in God, and God in him.' " 188 The friendship of charity causes
consequently it implies a love
a man to love all that is
of self: " Hence, among these other things which he loves out of
charity because they pertain to God, he .loves himself out of
charity." 134.- The friendship of God seeks union with God, yet
this love of desire of God, although essential to charity, is
subordinate to the love of benevolence. " That a man wishes to
enjoy God pertains to that love 'which is love of concupiscence.
Now we love God, with the love of friendship more than with
the love of concupiscence, because the divine good is greater in
itself than our share of good in enjoying Him. Hence out of
charity, man simply loves God more than himself." 135 Both
loves, however, originate from the same habit: "The same
virtuous habit inclines us to love and desire the beloved good,
and to rejoice in it." 136 The subordinate character of the love
of desire appears in St. Thomas' answer to the query," Whether
18 "Ibid., ll-ll, q. 28, a. 1, "Cum ergo sit aliqua communicatio hominis ad Deum
secundum quod nobis suam beatitudinem communicat, super hanc communicationem
oportet aliquam amicitiam fundari."
188 Ibid., q. 28, a. 1, " Ex hoc ipso quod amatur, est in amante ... "
1 .. Ibid., q. 25, a. ·4.
186 Ibid., q. 26, a. S, ad S, "Magis autem amamus Deum amore amicitiae quam
amore concupiscentiae, quia maius est in se bonum Dei quam participare possumus
fruendo ipso."
138 Ibid., q. 28, a. 4, "Habitus virtutis idem est qui inclinat ad diligendum, et ad
desiderandum bonum dilectum, et ad gaudendum de eo."

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P. DE LETTER

to be loved is more proper to charity than to love.'' He
teaches: " To love is more proper to charity than to be loved,
for that which befits a thing by reason of itself and its .essence
pertains to it more than that which is befitting to it by reason
of something else." 137 But it remains that well-wishing alone
does not constitute charity. Return of love is essential to it,
and hence the wish for this return can never be excluded from
charity. "Accordingly, to love, considered as an act of charity,
includes goodwill, but such dilection or love adds union of
affections (inasmuch as the lover deems the beloved as somewhat united to him, or belonging to him, and so tends towards
him) ." 138 What, therefore, the Summa taught us to be essential
to charity when considered as the volition of the last end, God
(in the deduction of the theological virtues), namely, the wish
of union v;,rith God, that again is required by the very nature of
charity conceived as a friendship between man and God.
Friends can not but wish their mutual union. 139
Little is to be added to this from the De Caritate. We find
there the physical conception of love applied to charity, « It
is of the nature of love or charity to unite in affections, namely,
this union is to be understood in the sense that man considers
his friend as another self, and wishes him good just as to himself." 140 So, communion in bliss is essential to all love of
charity and it is the :reason why all are to be loved. •• There137 Ibid., q. 27, a. l. Cf. ibid., ad 2, "Magis pertinet ad caritatem velle amare
quam velle amari." To love flows from charity itself; to be loved supposes the
return of the love by another. Hence the latter is subordinate to the former, but
without it a love of God, of mere benevolence which .is not mutual, would not be
charity.
138 Ibid., a. 2, " In dillectione, secundum quod est actus caritatis, includitur quidem
benevolentia, sed dilectio sive amor addit unionem affectuum."
••• We note now that the love of desire included in charity is different from
the imperfect love of desire which precedes hope, since it is a perfect love, " formed "
and enlivened by grace, whilst the desire antecedent to hope (in one not, in a
state of grace) is "inform," not perfected by charity. The love of desire included
in charity is what provokes the answer of mutual benevolence or well-wishing
which completes charity as friendship. Cf. G. Gilleman, S. J. "E1·os ou Agape,"
Nouvelle Revue Theologique, January and February, 1950.
140 .Q. Di&p. De Cariwte, a. 2, ad 6,

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

289

fore, out of charity we
to love Gqd, as the source of
beatitude, but ever;y man must love himself out of charity, that
he may share in that beatitude, and his neighbour as a companion in that bliss, and his own body inasmuch as bliss is
extended to it." 141
It seems certain then, that St. Thomas considers the wish for
union with God as inseparable from and intrinsic to the friendship of charity. Provided, 'of course, the desire of sharing
God's bliss be a theological act, whose formal reason remains
God Himself, and not a self-regarding love that is purely
human in its motive, the love of desire of God is charity. It
is not its principal, but only its subordinate act; yet it is essential and inseparable from the friendly well-wishing towards
God which is the chief and fundamental act of divine charity.
The union of both loves, of benevolence and of desire, realised
in mutual communion, properly constitutes the friendship which
expresses the true nature of charity. 142
4. Charity and its reward. May then charity have a reward
in view? The love of God which is charity should it not be
disinterested? We remember St. Bonaventure's answer to this"
question: Charity may not seek a created reward, but the
intention of seeking the uncreated reward, God Himself, is
not against the purity of charity. St. Thomas faces the same
objection in the Sentences: "It would seem that ill the love of
God there may be no regard for some reward." His answer is
different from St. Bonaventure's, and brings in a distinction
taken from the viewpoint of finality: " He who has charity
not have an eye on a reward, in the sense that he makes
of anything the end
the Beloved, that is, of God, for this
would be against the nature of charity as friendship, nor in the
sense that he makes of any temporal good the end of his love
itself, because this would go against the nature of charity as a
u'lbid., a. 7.
••• The Summa stresses perhaps more that the De Caritate the subordination of
the love of desire to the lo'l[e of benevolence. But it insists as much on the idea of
communion in bliss. Moreover this difference in stressing divers aspects leaves
unaltered the plain fact that the desire of union with God belongs to charity
and that without it charity is not charity.

240

P. DE LETTER

virtue. He may, however, have an eye on a reward, in the sense
that he makes of the created beatitude the end of his love, but
not the end of the Beloved, for this is neither against the nature
of friendship, nor against the nature of a virtue, since the beatitude is the end of the virtues." 143 Charity, then, does not seek
a reward in the .sense that it does not make of the beloved a
means to an end (that is, to what would be sought as reward) .
This would go against the very nature of the love of friendship;
a friend is loved for what he is, and not as a means to an end.
This is truer when the friend is God Himself, the last end in
every respect, who evidently can never be subordinated to anything else. Charity does not intend either any temporal reward
or profit as the aim of its love of God; this would make it
mercenary and would go against the virtuous character of
charity. This answer ofSt. Thomas is similar to St. Bonaventure's -answer about the created reward. But charity may have
in view the created happiness which its love produces, not,
evidently, to make of the beloved a means to this end, but
subordinately to the love of the Friend/ 44 that is, as a help
to this love of friendship. This is not against the nature of
charity as friendship, and after what we saw about the union
this is easily understood.
which friendship must needs
God is not referred to anything else; He is the last end and is
loved as such. This reward can not go against the nature of
charity as virtue, for the end of all virtues is precisely the
attainment of beatitude.
This text shows well, in St. Thomas' conception, what the
disinterestedness of charity is and what it is not. It does not
mean to abstract from or to forget about the happiness which
the love of God implies and gives. It does mean that God is
ua Ill Sent., d. 29, a. 4, "Habens caritatem non potest habere oculum ad mercedem, ut ponat aliquid quodcumque finem amati, scilicet Dei . . . Potest tamen
habere oculum · mercedem ut ponat beatitudinem creatam finem amoris, non finem
amati ... "
"' This, in other words, is what the Summa teaches about the necessary subordination of the love of desire (here, the intention of the beatitude found in
charity or in the union with God) ·to the love of benevolence (here, God not made
into a means to the created beatitude, but willed as last end) .

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

loved for what He is, the last end who
deserves to be
loved for His own sake and who alone can give that happiness.
We do not find this teaching of the Sentences repeated in
the Summa from the same point of view. Here St. Thomas
speaks of the reward of charity only in passing and not from
the viewpoint ·of disinterestedness. Yet his passing indication
strengthens the position of the Sentences. In the Summa, we
read, in answer to the question, " Whether it is more meritorious
to love one's neighbor than to love God," the following statement: " The love of God is the more meritorious, because a reward is due to it for its own sake, since the ultimate reward is
the enjoyment of God, to whom the movement of the Divine
love tends; hence a reward is promised to him that loves God." 145
Charity bears an essential connection with the substantial
reward of merit, that is, with the enjoyment of God, for the
love of God tends to this union which has been promised to
all who love God. If this reward necessarily follows on charity,
can then its desire intention be contrary to the nature of
charity? In the Summa, howeve_r,St. Thomas does not examine
ex professo the interested or disinterested character of charity
as a reward, but under the aspect of its motivation.
5. Charity, love of God for His own sake. How does St.
Thomas conceive the love of God for His own sake which is
essential to charity? The traditional phrase which states that
in charity God is loved for His own sake (propter seipsum) · can
be and has actually been understood in two different ways:
either (1) so as to mean, not for the sake of something else
(non propter aliud) in the sense that nothing else than God
Himself is sought or intended in charity, though the possession
of God is actually desired and obtained in charity, or (2) so
as to exclude from charity all self-regard on man's part who has
to abstract from his own good, even from the possession of God
and the enjoyment found therein. The :first meaning, as we
have seen, is the Augustinian conception of charity and was
""Summa Theol., 11-11, q. 27, a. 8, "ffitima merces est frui Deo, in quem tendit
divinae dilectionis motus."

P. DE LETTER

traditional in the Catholic teaching until after St. Thomas.
The disinterestedness or gratuituousness of charity was so conceived as to exclude from it all desire or intention of a reward
except God Himself, but the desire of God was taken as an
intrinsic element of charity. The other, as we shall show later,
is the proper Scotist and Suarezian idea, and it is perhaps the
more often implied in modern conceptions of the disinterested
love of God --which is said to be identical with charity. In
which of these two meanings does St. Thomas understand the
propter seipsum? In the Augustinian sense or in the modern
sense? His texts should give the answer.
In the Commentary on the Sentences we find sparse indications, but no express treatment of the point at issue. We
read, for example, " True friendship wishes the sight of the
friend and finds joy in mutual conversation. . . . It does not,
however, make of the pleasure it derives from seeing and enjoying the friend the end of the friendship." 1416 That is, though the
pleasure of a friend's presence and conversation be not the end
of the friendship, yet it is not excluded from it, but is a connatural concomitant of a true friendship. " For his sake," not
expressed but implied in our text, means " not in order to
acquire something else than the friend." Another indication:
" Although to every one, that is lovable which is good for him,
yet there is no need for the loveable object to be loved for the
very reason that it is good for him, and be directed to him as
to its end, since friendship also does not twist back to itself
the good it wishes another." 147 This means: friendship, as any
other love, loves only what is good for the lover, but it does not
place in the good of the lover the end of the friendship. In
other words, only that kind of self-regard is excluded from
friendship (and from charity) which makes of the lover's good
uo Ill, Sent. d. 27, q. 2, a. 1, ad 11, "Amicitia desiderat videre amicum ...
non autem ita quod delectatio ... finis amicitiae ponatur.''
147 Ibid., d. 29, a. 8, ad 2, " Cum etiam amicitia non retorqueat
ad seipsum
bonum quod ad alterum optat.'' Cf. ibid., ad 8, "Amicabilia quae sunt ad alterum
venerunt ex amicabilibus quae sunt ad seipsum, non sicut ex causa finali, sed ex
eo quod est prius in via generationis."

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

248

the end of the friendship, and of the friend a means to this
end. The phrase " for His own sake " when applied here, would
mean that the final cause of charity is God Himself so that in
the line of finality He be not referred to any other end. 148
The Sum'ma explicitly asks the question, " Whether out of
charity God ought to be loved for Himself." St. Thomas solves
it by saying: " I answer that, The preposition for denotes a
relation of causality. Now there are four kinds of cause, viz.,
final, formal, efficient, and material, to which a material disposition also may be reduced, although it is not a cause simply
but relatively .... Accordingly, as regards the first three ways,
we love God not for anything else, but for Himself. For He is
not directed to anything else as to an end, but is Himself the last
end of all things; nor does He require to receive any in order to
be good, for His very substance is His goodness, which is itself
the exemplar of all other good things; nor again does goodness
accrue to Him from aught else, but from Him to all other
things. In the fourth way, however, He can be loved for something else, because we are disposed by certain things to advance
in His love, for instance, by favors bestowed by Him, by the
rewards we hope to receive from Him or even by the punishments which we are minded to avoid through Him." 149 From
this important text we can see that in charity God is loved for
Himself, that is, not for something else, or that He is the last
cause of the love of charity in the line of a threefold causality.
First, He is not a subordinate end which, although loved as
end and thus to some extent loved for its own sake, yet is
referred to another or made dependent on it (as every created
love is subordinate to the love of God); still less is God loved
as a mere means to an end. The aim of charity is to attain
God in Himself and nothing else. Secondly, God is the last
cause of charity in the line of formal causality, that is, since He
is the embodiment of goodness or of the perfection which is the
"" The moderns would no doubt say they subscribe to this doctrine of St.
Thomas, exposed so far; it is only in the Summa that we find clearly the Thomist
(Augustinian) sense of the propter seipsum.
"" Summa Theol., ll-11, q. 'n, a. 8.

244

P. DE LETTER

formal reason of love, He does not derive His lovableness from
anywhere else.150 Thirdly, God is the last cause of the love of
charity in the line of efficient causality, in the sense that He is
not loved because He would be the effect of some cause, as
sons can be loved for the sake of their father; God is the
Creator and the first efficient cause of all that exists. He can
therefore not be loved as an effect. From this threefold viewpoint God is loved for His own sake. Yet, no opposition is
insinuated here between this pure love of God and the desire or
the intention of union with Him. Rather, this union is necessarily willed in charity, since God is sought as its last end, for
His own goodness, because He is what He is. Moreover, inasmuch as this union with God means an enrichment of the man
who loves God in charity, it belongs to the fourth kind of
causality: the disposition on the part of the lover. Now,
precisely from this viewpoint, St. Thomas states that God may
be loved for something else, that is, men may be led to love
God for His own sake (in the sense of the first three causes)
by something else than God Himself. The disposition of love
of God for Himself may be produced in man by subjective
motives of different kinds. It is immaterial for the nature or the
purity of the love of charity whether these motives look straight
up to God, or only indirectly, through His mercies and gifts.
The propter seipsum does not apply here.
Since this is so, then the love of desire of God, or the will
of union with Him, which St. Thomas elsewhere (and even
implicitly here, in its first causality) showed is included in
the friendship of charity, is not barred by the disinterestedness
expressed in the traditional phrase, " for His own sake." That
desire properly regards the disposition of the subject of charity,
of the lover, and here St. Thomas does not require that God
be loved for Himself. Can we have a clearer proof to show that
the modern meaning of the propter ipsum lies outside the
horizon of the Angelic Doctor and that he does not see any
15 °Cf. II-II, q.
a. 5, ad
"Sola ratio diligendi attenditur in caritate, scilicet
divina bonitas, quae est eius substantia."

H6PE AND CH...UUTY IN ST. THOMAS

!l45

opposition between love of God for His own sake and the will
of union with Him? Accordingly, here as elsewhere, St. Thomas
understands the traditional expression, " for His own sake," in
the Augustinian sense, that is, charity loves God for Himself
so that nothing else is sought to be acquired by charity but only
God Himself. The gratuitousness or disinterestedness of charity
does not require, according to St. Thomas, that man should
leave aside or forget his need and desire for union with God. 151
In the De caritate, an interesting explanation of the propter
ipsum illustrates and completes this teaching. It reads as
follows: " To love some one for himself can be understood
in two ways. One way, so that some thing is loved as last
end, and in this manner God alone is to be loved for His own
sake. Another way, so that we love him to whom we wish well,
as in the case of a virtuous· friendship; but not as we love the
good which we desire for ourselves, as happens in a pleasureful
or useful friendship, where we love a friend as our own good,
not because we desire usefulness or pleasure for the friend, but
because we seek our own use and pleasure from the friend ....
But when we love someone in a virtuous manner, then we wish
him good, and do not wish him for ourselves. This is especially
the case in the friendship of charity." 152 What, therefore, is
excluded from all virtuous friendship where a friend is loved
for his own sake, is the love of desire which seeks something else
than the friend himself, that is, which does not go together
with the love of well-wishing that is essential to friendship or
to the love of a person. All the more is this excluded from the
151 Perhaps some moderns would say that psychologically one can not and need
not leave aside his desire of union with God, but that ontologically it has nothing
to do with charity (but, no doubt, with hope) . To this St. Thomas would not
have agreed. The radical differences between the two conceptions lies in this:
a8 can be seen from the text just quoted St. Thomas does not look for the purity
or disinterestedness of charity in the subjective dispositions or in what leads or
disposes a man to love, but on the deeper ontological level where the real finality
plays. The modern Conception, on the other hand, considers the interested or
disinterested character of charity in its psychological motives.
152 Q. Disp. De Caritate, a. 8, ad 16, "Diligere aliquem propter se potest intelligi
dupliciter. Une modo, ita quod aliquid dicitur finis ultimus; et sic solus Deus .•.
Alio modo, ut diligamus ipsum cui bonum volumus ... "

246

P. DE LETTER

love of charity where God is loved for His own sake and as last
End. But the union with the friend is not opposed to friendship;
it rather fosters and constitutes the :friendship. " Charity
ignores a difference of degree between the lover and the beloved,
because it unites both." 153

Conclusion. How does St. Thomas conceive the disinterestedness of charity? From all these texts we may conclude: The
Angelic Doctor conceives charity as being essentially the love
of God, man's last supernatural end. The volition of this end
is identically the act of charity. It inseparably unites two
aspects of love: the aspect of the object, God, who is willed for
the lover, wishes well and
His own sake and to whom
surrenders himself; the aspect of the subject, man, who wills
the union with the last end and the possession and enjoyment
of God.
Charity, the friendship of man with Gotl, necessarily implies
mutual love of benevolence or well-wishing. It can not, therefore, but wish for the return of the well-wishing. It can not but
wish for union with the Friend. Charity necessarily involves,
as an intrinsic constituent element of friendship, the love of
desire of God. Charity, then, does exclude from man's supernatural friendship with God the non-theological love of desire
of God, that is, that love of desire which aims at some profit or
enjoyment other _than the union with God Himself, or which
seeks ar reward other than God Himself, or which does not
really seek God as last End. In this sense charity is absolutely
and totally disinterested. But charity can not but wish :for
God. And the .more intense and perfect charity becomes, the
more intense also and deeper grows the desire of union with
God. For this union is in reality more truly and more deeply
a self-surrender to God than an acquisition or possession of
enjoyment of Him, for the last end is always loved more in
itself than is
what is acquired of it. St. Thomas' conception of charity remains faithful to the Augustinian tradition.
153 Ibid., a. 9, ad 3, " Caritas gradum nescit amantis ad amatum,
quia unit
utrumque."

HOPE AND CHARITY IN ST. THOMAS

His answer to our problem is that the desire of union with God
(when it is theological) springs from chal'ity and not from hope.
What then about the desire of God which is presupposed in
hope? According to St. Thomas' explicit stateme:J;!ts, both in
the Sentences," Hope presupposes desire and mediates between
love and desire"; and in the Summa, " ... Hope pertains to
the second (imperfect) love, since he that hopes, intends to
obtain possession of something for himself." 154 Hope is only
possible when a desire of God is at its root. Is this love of
desire for God charity? Since hope can exist in a soul without
charity, although only as an imperfect virtue (informis), the
desire of God that precedes it, can
apparently, be an act
of charity.
St. Thomas himself does not clearly answer this particular
question. But we seem to be in the line of his thought when
we say, with Fr. de Lanversin, 155 that this desire is an incipient
charity which prepares the soul for its full entrance into it. The
adherence to God by desire, even when only beginning and
imperfect, is a move of charity. This explanation will seem less
surprising if we remember that the same idea has been applied
to the pius credulitatis afjectus, the affection which is at the
source of faith itself; this also would be a beginning and an
anticipated effect of charity. 156
Several other explanations have been proposed by theologians and disciples of St. Thomas, which have been collected
by Zimara in his study on hope. 151 Some say that, in men who
are in a state of grace, the desire which precedes hope originates
from charity (Medina, Petrus of Aragon, the Salmanticenses,
Billuart); but when charity is absent from a soul, an actual
to hope possible (Medina,
grace makes the desire
Contenson, Gonet, Billuart). Others hold that no habit is
mIll Sent. d. !,'l6, q.
a. 3, sol. Summa Theol., 11-11, q. 17, a. 8.
Charite" in Diet. de Spir.,
609.
156 We
suggest a comparison with the famed diligere incipiunt of the Tridentine decree on justification; cf. Denziger. Enehiridion, 798.
157 Zimara, op. cit.,
:If.
155 "

8

248

P. DE LETTER

necesary as principle of this desire, since it is an easy act
· (Vasquez, Gabriel of Valencia) . John of St. Thomas attributes
the imperfect love of desire which precedes hope to the habit
of the pious affection from which springs faith and, through
the medium of faith, hope. But he does not call this affection
an inchoative charity. 158

P. DE LETTER, s. J.

St. Mary's College,
Kuraeong, India.

(To be concluded)

168 Op.

cit., 218-14.

PLATO AND THE POETS
"A tribe of imitators"

(Tim. 19) *

HE apparent contempt in which Plato held the poets
had slight apparent effect upon his influence over them
in the history of human culture. Many a poet has drawn
inspiration from the philosophy of Plato or justified his art
along Platonic lines. On this score, it might seem that Plato's
attitude toward the " tribe of imitators " has been misinterpreted. He does quote profusely from the poets and more
than any other great philosopher uses the vehicle of the poetic
art for the expression of some of his profoundest philosophical
ideas. Yet, as a moral philosopher, he presents a reactionary
attitude of unmitigated hostility to all poets and urges a complete subordination of their art to the good of the state. It
might well seem, then, that his attitude is fundamentally contradictory or perhaps that he is both a poet and a philosopher.
It is the purpose of this paper to develop the thesis that
Plato's attitude was a consistent one and that he is at all times
a philosopher even though he often poeticizes his philosophy.
In the development of the thesis we shall run over briefly the
criticism that Plato offers of the poets, the justification of this
criticism in the light of his own philosophy, and finally the
resolution of the apparent contradiction of his position as
philosopher and poet.
We may note briefly the criticism of the poets by Plato
without attempting any complete and exhaustive abstraction
from his writings. With respect especially to the ethical content
of the poetic art we might cite some of the examples from the
Republic which are familiar to all readers of Plato. Thus, the
* All citations are from the Jowett translation of Plato, Random House edition.

250

JOHN A. MOURANT

attempt of Simonides to define justice is shown by Plato to be
The opinions of· Homer and Hesiod,
inadequate (Rep.
that virtue is painful and vice pleasant, and that the sins of
men may be easily atoned and expiated by proper sacrifices to
the gods, are condemned (Ibid. 364). The poets must not
resort to any descriptions of the immoral behavior of the gods
(Ibid., 378 ff.) , they must not give us false representations of
the gods (Ibid., 386 ff) , and they must not tell us that the
wicked are happy (Ibid.,
. And all passages in their poetry
which conduce to the intemperance of you:th will be prohibited
(Ibid., 390) .
For Plato, all such descriptions of the poets about the gods
and heroes, their virtues and vices, their way of life, must be
censored and purged of any element that contradicts the standard of the good as conceived by the philosophers for the training of the citizens of the perfect state. Not only must the works
of the poets be censored in this way, but in all their writings
they must conform to the standard of art which Plato will
impose upon them. The form as well as the content of their
poetry must be controlled, for the poets use certain forms in
presenting their art to us. They may resort to the narrative or
imitative style, or a combination of both such as is present in
the epic. The controlling principle in the art form here is that
of imitation. And imitation in every instance must be brought
under the standard of the good (Ibid., 395 ff) . This does not
mean that all forms of poetry or the poetic art will be excluded
from the perfect state, but it does lead to such a fairly rigid
control that Plato, when speaking of those poets who carry
imitation to an excess, is led to say:
And therefore when any one of these pantomimic gentlemen, who
are so clever that they can imitate anything, comes to us, and
makes a proposal to exhibit himself and his poetry, we will fall
down and worship him as a sweet and holy and wonderful being;
but we must also inform him that in our State such as he are not
permitted to exist; the law will not allow them. And so when we
have annointed him with myrrh, and set a garland of wool upon his
head, we shall send him away to another city. For we mean to

PLATO AND THE POETS

251

employ for our souls health the rougher and severer poet or storyteller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow
those models which we prescribed at first when we began the
education of our soldiers (Ibid., 398).

Although these pantomimic artists may bring great pleasure
to the spectator, we can not make pleasure our standard for
measuring the value of poetry. The imitative arts are accompanied by pleasure and in a sense pleasure may be the measure
of excellence, but only the pleasures of the well educated (Laws,
659) . Here the real criteria of imitation will be the true, the
beautiful, and the good (Ibid., 668) .
The maintenance of this strict control of the poets is necessary and significant in another way, for the poets are responsible
or can be responsible for the disorders and revolutions that may
convulse the state. Plato notes this very emphatically when he
says: " this is the point to which, above all, the attention of our
rulers should be directed-that music and gymnastic be preserved in their original form and no innovation made .... for
any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state,
ought to be prohibited (Rep.
The same point is made in
the Laws (657), where Plato praises the Egyptians for their
statesmanship in preserving over a period of ten thousand years
fixed forms of art expressive of true virtue. He also comments
on the possibility of the poets introducing disorder into the
state and notes that when the poets were able to submit their
work to the pleasure of the spectator instead of the director of
public instruction, "they introduced the reign of the vulgar
and lawless innovation" and in this manner were responsible
for the development of a" theatocracy" (Ibid., 700). To prevent such lawlessness in the arts and in the state, Plato will
plead for the supremacy of the law and" demand that the poet
shall compose nothing contrary to the ideas of the lawful, or
just, or beautiful, or good." (Ibid., 801) .
We may mark next another basic criticism of the poets by
Plato. Not only do they lack a fundamental knowledge of good
and evil and, for this reason, may threaten the good of the state

252

JOHN A. MOURANT

and the individual with the evils which have been described,
but the poets also lack true wisdom and their claim to such
wisdom and the method of attaining it is severely attacked by
Plato. In the Apology Socrates informs his judges (by way of
explaining the declaration of the Delphic Oracle) that he went
to the poets to discover why the oracle had said that he,
Socrates, was the wisest of men.
And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now
you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took some of the most elaborate passages in their own
writings, and asked what was the meaning of them-that they
would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost
ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly
a person present who would not have talked better about their
poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by wisdom
do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they
are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but
do not understand the meaning of them. The poets appeared to
me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon
the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the
wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise (22).

The theme here-that the poets can not give us wisdom, that
the whole of
that is a task for the philosophers-dominates
Platonic thought. The method of achieving such wisdom is
explicitly set forth in the Republic where Plato describes the
education of the guardians. We shall comment later upon the
noetic discipline which Plato prescribes; at this time we need
remark that poetry is rejected as a way to wisdom because
it does not submit itself to such noetic discipline, but rather
relies, as Plato points out, upon a " sort of genius and inspiration." The nature of this inspiration and its use is brought out
very vividly by Plato in the Ion where Ion has been describing
to Socrates the effect that Homer has upon him as a rhapsode
or interpreter of Hom.er. Socrates says:
The gift which you possess of speaking excellently about Homer
is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an inspiration; there is a
divinity moving you, like that contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but which is commonly known as the stone of

PLATO .AND THE POETS

Heraclea. This stone not only attracts iron rings, but also imparts
to them a similar power of attracting other rings; and sometimes
you may see a number of pieces of iron and rings suspended from
one another so as to form quite a long chain: and all of them derive
their power of suspension from the original stone. In like manner
the Muse first of all inspires men herself; and from these inspired
persons a chain of other persons is suspended, who take the inspiration. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful
poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed ....
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no
invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses,
and the mind is no longer in him; when he has not attained to this
state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles (534).

The remainder of the dialogue is an attack on the art of the
rhapsode and by indirection upon that of the poet. Ion is
persuaded to admit that his art has no unique subject matter
of its own and that when Homer speaks of military strategy, of
medicine, of prophecy, music, and other arts, that Homer, and
Ion his interpreter, have no art of their own for they are less
qualified than the artist of the particular subject at hand. The
conclusion of Socrates then is that Ion may be inspired but
that he is not an artist, for he is unable to state what knowledge
his art deals with.
Even more pointedly Plato notes the. relation between what
he terms the "divine madness" and poetry in the Phaedrus.
Here he describes the four kinds of divine madness and after
noting that the first is prophetic inspiration, the second religious exaltation, he comments on the third:
The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the
Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, and there
inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these
adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of
posterity. But he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in
his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the
temple by the help of art-he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted: the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into
rivalry with the madman
.

Two points deserve notice here. First, there is the distinction

JOHN A. MOURANT

drawn between the individual who possesses inere poetic skill
and the individual who has been touched by the divine madness.
The mere ability to versify is not sufficient as a criterion of
true ·poetic art, for this the poet must possess inspiration.
Second, there is the implied distrust of the poetic vision based
as it is on " the touch of the Muses' madness in his soul." The
inspiration the true poet possesses lacks the sane, sober, and
serious approach of the philosopher to the eternal truths. The
very " madness " of the poet makes him suspect. Whether and
to what extent the poetic vision can attain the truth of the
philosopher we shall defer for later consideration. It is time now
in the face of this indictment of the poets, to consider next what
possible defense Plato can make of a position that has always
shocked and rendered incredulous the lovers of poetry.
The extreme position taken by Plato in, the Republic and
the Laws is defended by him on the basis of his own ethical
ideals. Convinced at least of the possibility of realizing the
ideal state and the rule of the philosopher king, he will impose
the philosopher's vision of the good upon his state for the purpose of attaining the common good. The attainment of such a
good entails legislation governing all the activities of the citizens, and a rigid and detailed educational program embracing
the training of the youth from their earliest years to maturity,
for the virtuous life depends upon the subordination of the
passions and appetites to the rule of reason. Education is to be
the primary instrument in guiding the actions of the youth and
bringing them under the rule of reason. By inculcating good
habits in the youth, we enable them to achieve a virtuous way
of life. If the wise man alone has the true vision of the good,
then it is obvious that we must accept the rule of reason from
him, for his laws will embody this vision of the good and the
educational program he sets up will be an expression of these
laws and the only true guide to the attainment of the good for
the state and the individual alike.
From this it can be readily seen that the arts, comprising only
one aspect of education, are subordinated by Plato to the idea
of the good which is the controlling principle of the whole

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255

educational program. It is in this way that Plato justifies on
ethical grounds the subordination of the poetic art to a higher
ethical standard. The definitive requirement of the art of the
poet is that it be good, but the poets cannot determine what is
good-this is a function of the philosopher king. So strong is
Plato's conviction that the art of the poet must be subordinated
at all times to the ethical standard, that it leads him at one
point to demand that the poets chosen to celebrate the victors
in contests should be men of good character even though their
poetry might be inferior (Laws, 829).
To appreciate more fully the defense that Plato makes of his
condemnation of the poets, it should also be noted that he is
severely critical of what he considered their pretence to know
all things. He indicates that he is willing to overlook Homer's
(or any other poet's) lack of knowledge on matters of technical
skill, such as medicine, or any of the other arts, but " ' Friend
Homer,' then we say to him, 'if you are only in the second
remove from truth in what you say of virtue, and not in the
third-not an image maker or imitator-and if you are able to
discern what pursuits make men better or worse in private or
public life, tell us what State was ever better governed by your
help.' " (Rep., 599) . The caution that Jaeger advises here will
explain much of Plato's attitude. He (Jaeger) states: "We
can not understand Plato's criticism of poetry unless we remember that the Greeks thought it was the epitome of all
knowledge and culture, and that the poet's utterance was a
standard for all men to admire." 1 Plato himself takes note of
this attitude when he refers (Rep., 606) to Homer as the
educator of all Hellas.
We have already noted the conviction of Plato that the arts
and, above all poetry, are capable of evil as well as good, and
that the poets by their innovations can actually introduce a
reign of disorder in the state and contribute to its overthrow.
In light of what we have said, it is little wonder that Plato is
so firm in dealing with the poets when he believes that their art
is capable of corrupting even the best of states.
1

Jaeger, W. Paideia (Oxford, N. Y., 1943), Vol. II, p. 9!14.

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JOHN A. MOURANT

Another and a more basic defense by Plato is based on his
contention that the poet's function is at best representative.
Here he is taking a somewhat wider interpretation of mimesis
and
from it the idea of mere imitation or copy. Just
as the painter in relation to the carpenter merely represents by
a painting what the carpenter has manufactured, so the poet
does not perform nor create the actions of the hero; he merely
describes or represents them. Both artists, Plato says, are
thrice removed from reality. For the carpenter produces or
makes particular instances of the universal idea (e. g., bed)
which is the work of God. And the painter merely represents
for us the particular production of the carpenter. Likewise,
the hero in his actions is but an instance or particular example
of the universal idea of courage, goodness, or whatever universal
idea the hero is striving to particularize. And the poet, like
the painter, merely represents for us the particular production. Thus the poet like all artists portrays for us merely
a semblance of reality; he is concerned like the prisoner in the
cave with the mere shadows of images and not with the real
objects as they are in themselves. Or, as Plato puts i:t, the poet
and the artist are concerned with a particular that is thrice
removed from the universal. (Rep., 597)
To observe more clearly this removal of the poet from reality,
we should relate this whole problem to Plato's description of the
divided line (Rep., 509 ff.) where it may be said that the poet
or artist is concerned with the lowest form of cognition in the
ascent toward the Good. The poet apparently will possess mere
conjecture rather than belief which is the higher stage of cognition in the world of appearances, or knowledge which is characteristic of the intelligible world.
The philosopher guardians alone can attain the highest
knowledge. This highest knowledge or truth, that of the Good,
cannot be attained by any ordinary intuition or perception, but
can come only as the end result of a long process of education
in which the future ruler moves upward from the sensible world
to the intelligible world, and here he progresses gradually
through a mastery of the sciences and mathematics and by a

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257

study which is increasingly abstract the higher he goes, to the
most abstract level of all-dialectic. Then after a rigorous training in dialectic lasting over a period of five years, plus fifteen
years of practical administrative experience, he is prepared by
this discipline of knowle.dge for that last step on the divided
line-the intuition of the Good. By this means he attains
truths which will enable him to unify all knowledge, understand
the ultimate nature of reality, and with this wisdom be in a
position to know the good and to guide men through legislation
in the good life.
Here I believe we have the basic reason assigned by Plato for
the superiority of philosophy over poetry, for the poet's intuitions are not preceded by any such rigorous noetic discipline.
The poet as an artist, as an imitator, can give us merely representative copies of the ultimately real; dealing with particulars
as he does, he has no real grasp of the true nature of things, i.e.,
of absolute beauty, justice, goodness, and truth. Yet this need
not lead to the complete exclusion of the poets from the ideal
state and Plato does not propose to effect the education of his
guardians without some consideration of the function of the
arts. In the early education of the guardains the arts can play
a very important role, and poetry here is capable of great good
as well as evil. If then, we can retain the good and persuade the
poets to conform to the standard of the philosopher, we may
admit them to the state and make use of their particular virtue.
As Jaeger puts it:
And yet he never suggests for a moment that poetry ought to be
abolished altogether as an educational force and replaced by the
abstract knowledge which is philosophy. On the contrary, the bitter
energy behind his criticisms arises ultimately from his knowledge
that nothing can replace the formative power of the masterpieces
of music and poetry which have been admired for hundreds of
years. Even although philosophy may be able to find the redeeming knowledge of a supreme standard for all life; Plato would still
feel that half its educational task remained unfulfilled until the new
truth put on the vesture of new poetry, like a soul which gives form
to a body;2
• Op. cit., p. !2!M.

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JOHN A. MOURANT

Yet as Plato remarks, truth will be the final criterion for the
admission of the poets: " let us assure our sweet friend and
sister arts of imitation that if she will only prove her title to
exist in a well-ordered State, we shall be delighted to receive
her-we are very conscious of her charms; but we may not on
that account betray the truth " (Rep., 607) . He concludes that
poetry may be defended and admitted to. the state if there is a
use as well as a delight in it, but that it must never be seriously
taken as truth (Ibid., 607) .
It may be objected that this is all a very good defense, on
Plato's part, for his rejection of the poets and their pretence to
the attainment of truth, but that to conceive of the function
of the poet solely on the basis of this principle of imitation and
its relation to Plato's theory of knowledge is to do the poet an
injustice. The poet might well contend that there is another
way to tr)lth. And he might say that Plato himself has taken
specific recognition of this other way to truth when he spoke of
the poet as possessed of a divine frenzy. Although Plato seems
to mock this method by speaking of it as a form of madness,
may not the poet argue that by this divine madness or inspiration, the poet too has his intuition of the truth? Does he not
have a true grasp of the universal nature of things, when
through his inspiration he is able to communicate to others his
feelings and his vision of the ultimately real?
It seems that Plato's defense here would be that, although the
poet is inspired, his inspiration lacks the content of true knowledge which is the result of the metaphysical vision of the philosopher. He would contend that the poet's vision is all too
often vague and that the mere possession of a frenzy or inspiration is not in itself any criterion of truth. The great virtue of
the poet is the fact that he is able to communicate his feelings
to others, to inspire them with a belief similar to his own regarding the nature of things; but mere feeling alone falls short
of the ideal of true knowledge. The vision of the poet may be
persuasive through the medium of an aesthetic experience, but
it is not persuasive noetically.
Yet if we suppose that the poet has attained the same truth

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259

as the philosopher through this poetic vision of his, can he not
say that through inspiration he has attained an intuition of the
universally real, and that he differs from the philosopher only
in the way of attaining such truth? And does not Plato himself
seem to corroborate this when he says: " For indeed, in these
verses and in what he said of the Cyclopes, he speaks in the
words of God and nature; for poets are a divine race and often
in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the Graces, they
attain truth" (Laws, 682)? Plato's defense, probably would
run along the following line: Poets often attain the truth which
philosophers have secured by the more laborious noetic discipline. Yet by avoiding this noetic discipline they lose all possibility of verifying their insights. And their margi:p. of error here
is great. "His art being imitative, he is often compelled to
represent men of opposite dispositions, and thus to contradict
himself; neither can he tell whether there is more truth in one
thing that he has said than in another." (Laws, 719)
Inspiration cannot tell the poet that he has attained the
truth, for inspiration is not an adequate criterion of truth. Any
reliance upon the passional or emotional nature of man will be
ineffective for the attainment of truth because the poet's imitative art is too far removed from reality. Only reason can obtain
an adequate imitation of reality, and it is by means of reason
that the philosopher is brought into relation with the divine
pattern of things and thus can imitate reality directly. The poet
would seem to be committing a double fault here. He is under
an illusion that because his passional nature is stirred, he is
possessed of a divine frenzy and is in immediate contact with
the ultimate reality of things, transcending reason in this way
by the emotions. From an ability to imitate the shadows of
things, to delineate in fine fashion all the sensuous imagery of
the sensible world, he makes an unwarranted leap into the
upper regions of the intelligible world and confuses his frenzied
inspiration for an apprehension of the truth, just as on the lower
level he confuses his imitative ability and right opinion for
knowledge. Then, on the upper level, he fuses this imitative
ability with the frenzied feelings that possess him and arrives

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JOHN A" MOURANT

at the illusion that he is no longer thrice removed from reality
but is imitating directly the divine pattern and thus is fitted
to impart truth to mankind" Like the false philosopher he is
concerned with opinions, not with knowledge, and thus he is
easily seduced by the multitude (whom he has charmed by his
fine phrases) into a belief that he is a divine creature and can
speak authoritatively on all matters"
Inspiration then is no adequate criterion for truth" And based
as it is on the passional nature of man, it will result only in an
inversion of the true hierarchy of the souL In the Republic
Plato teaches a tripartite division of the soul: reason, passion,
and appetite" In the individual, as well as in the state, order
must be preserved, otherwise we get a disordered and unhappy
individual-the unjust man, and a disordered and unhappy
state-the unjust state. True harmony or order within the
individual as well as within the state will be best preserved
only if reason continues as the controlling principle over passion
and the appetites. The fault of the poet lies in the fact that he
disrupts this order and, subordinating his :rational nature to his
passional nature, mistakes his feelings for an intuition of the
truth" The more intense his feelings, the more convinced he
becomes that he has been touched by the muses and thus
confuses further the divine frenzy which possesses him as a sign
that he has obtained truth.
By communicating his feeling to others through his imitative
art, the poet, "awakens and nourishes and strengthens the
feelings and impairs the reason " (Rep., 605) . After showing
in some detail how poetry leads us to give way to our feelings,
Plato concludes: " And the same may be said of lust and anger
and all other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which
are held to be inseparable from every action-in all of them
poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them
up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if
mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue" (Ibid.,
606) "
For this reason poetry has a power of harming even the good
(Ibid", 605). How, then, can we accept the teachings of the

PLATO AND THE POETS

261

poets and believe that they can instruct us in order, harmony,
truth, and beauty, when they subordinate in this manner
reason to passion in themselves and in others? How can the
poet have a true vision of the beautiful when there is no inward
beauty in his own soul? He lacks the tranquillity of the philosopher, who subordinates the appetites and passions to reason,
possesses an ordered soul and an inward beauty and goodness,
and through the activity of the noblest part of his nature can
imitate the divine pattern and thus attain that vision of the
eternally true, beautiful, and good.
For he, Adeimantus, whose mind is fixed upon true being, has
surely no time to look down upon the affairs of earth, or to be
filled with malice and envy, contending against men; his eye is ever
directed towards things fixed and immutable, which he sees neither
injuring nor injured by one another, but all in order moving according to reason; these he imitates, and to these he will, as far as he
can, conform himself. Can a man help imitating that with which he
holds reverential converse? (Ibid., 500)

Turning now to the last major theme of this paper, we may
consider what has appeared to some as a contradiction in the
attitude of Plato toward the poets. Plato constantly refers to
the divine nature of the poets, he admits that at times the poet
attains the truth, and above an his own writings possess a
poetic quality which has endeared him to many.
We have shown that for Plato the content of poetry has no
justifiable claim to truth, that the inspiration which accompanies the poetic expression has no inherent claim to truth and
as a method of attaining truth is inadequate. But may it not
be contended that the philosopher may use the poetic art as a
means to supplement his basic philosophical convictions and to
make the truth known to those who lack the conviction or the
insight that the philosophical discipline ought to bring? This,
it seems, is the justification that Plato would give for his employment of the poetic art. This role of Plato as philosopherpoet is implicit in many of his. writings and constitutes an important means that he uses to persuade his readers of the truth
of his doctrines. It appears in a twofold manner throughout

JOHN A" MOURANT

much of his work. First, there is the figure of Socrates who,
as much by the magic of his words as by the effectiveness of
his dialectic, is able to weave a spell over his listeners. As
Alcibiades expresses it in the Symposium:
When we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, he
produces absolutely no effect upon us, nor not much, whereas the
mere fragments of you and your words, even at second-hand, and
however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every
man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of them ... and
I am conscious that if I did not shut my ears against him, and
fly as from the voice of the siren, my fate would be like that of
others,-he would transfix me, and I should grow old sitting at
his feet (Symp., 215-216)"

If the effect that Socrates had upon Alcibiades is typical of
the experience of the youthful Plato in his association with his
beloved master, we have here a motive which led Plato to use
Socrates as the central figure in the majority of his dialogues.
Through the medium of the dialogue as an artistic form, Plato
is able by his own artistic skill to create philosophical conversations similar to those which he experienced with Socrates.
Through the spell of his own words and dialectical ability he
achieves an effect upon the reader similar to that described by
Alcibiades and his " voice of the siren." Has not Plato perhaps
felt that just as Socrates possesses a divine voice within him,
so too, he Plato, possesses within his soul a similar quality that
will enable him by the sheer beauty of his prose, his dramatic
instinct, his irony and wit, and the story-telling ability which
is expressed time and again in his myths, to entrance his readers
and inspire them with a belief in his philosophy? Does he not
tell us that in early youth he fancied himself a poet and had
written many dramas only to burn them after he had come
under the influence of Socrates who first taught him the superiority of the philosophical vision? Yet his dialogues show us
that this original poetic impulse was never destroyed but remained a forceful vehicle for the expression of his philosophy.
A more overt means of persuasion used by Plato is his
employment of myths. There is of course, much diversity of

PLATO AND THE POETS

263

opinion on the interpretation and function of the myths in the
Platonic dialogues, and no claim to finality of judgment is
intended here. But everything points to Plato's use of myths
as a means of poetic persuasion to enforce and supplement what
he regards as the truths attained by a philosophical vision and
based upon the noetic discipline. The myths may be regarded
as enabling those who fail to follow the dialectic argument, to
achieve the truth by " reasons of the heart," to use a phrase
of Pascal. But, unlike Pascal, Plato would never admit the
supremacy of the heart over :reason. His analysis of the soul
shows only too well the relation of mind to spirit or passion,
and hence it is evident that any appeal to the " :reasons of the
heart," to the passional nature of man, is purely supplemental
for Plato to the metaphysical vision of the philosopher.
In Plato's philosophy, the value of the myth as a supplemental instrument for the revelation of truth can be seen in
many ways. For one thing, it utilizes the basic principle of all
poetic art of communicating a feeling to the reader or listener
through the sheer beauty of the artistic medium. The myths
Plato possess this aesthetic quality and, although we may not
be equally impressed by all the myths he employs, the beauty
of several is outstanding, and they convey to the reader through
the beauty they possess the conviction that the author has
attained a true insight. Thus toward the close of the Republic
(608 ff.), Plato submits proofs for the immortality of the soul,
and then as though realizing that argument alone is insufficient,
he proceeds to tell a very moving and beautiful story of the
journey of Er, and he hopes in this way to captivate his readers
into conviction. He endeavors to achieve in this way what
Housman considers the function of the poet: " And I think
that to transfuse emotion-not to transmit thought but to set
up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was
felt by the writer-is the peculiar function of poetry." 3 (And
note here Ion, 533,)
Again, toward the close of the Phaedo in which we have an
3

Housman, A. The 'Name and Nature of Poetry (Cambridge, 1933), p. 12.

9

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JOHN A. MOURANT

even more expanded and detailed argument for the immortality
of the soul, Plato resorts to myth. At the conclusion of his
philosophical argument for the immottality of the soul, Simmias is asked for his reaction and replies:
But I have nothing more to say, replied Simmias; nor can I see
any reason for doubt after what has been said .. But I still feel and
cannot help feeling uncertain in my own mind, when I think of the
greatness of the subject and the feebleness of man.
Yes, Simmias, replied Socrates, that is well said: and I may add
that first principles, even if they appear certain, should be carefully
considered; and when they are satisfactorily ascertained, then, with
a hesitating confidence in human reason, you may, I think, follow
the course .of the argument; and if that be plain and clear, there
will be no need for any further enquiry. (107)
Then, as if to bolster this hesitating confidence of Simmias,
Plato proceeds with his myth of the life of the soul in the world
to come, and concludes the myth with the statement:

A' man ought not to say, nor will I be very confident, that the
description which I have given of the soul and her mansions is
exactly true. But I do ·say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to
be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of the kind is true. The venture is a
glorious one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these,
which is the reason why I lengthen out the tale. (114)
But it is not the myth alone that moves the reader of this
dialogue toward a willingness to accept the beliefs of Plato.
Moving with all the splendor of a Greek tragedy toward the
close of the life of the great Socrates, and concluding with those
memorable words: " Such was the end, Echecrates, of our
friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men
of his time whom I have known he was the wisest and justest
and best," (118) even the sceptic may be moved momentarily
to accept the words of Socrates:
Wherefore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who
having cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as
nEen to him and working harm rather than good, has sought after
the pleasures of knowledge; and has arrayed the soul, not in some
foreign attire, but in her own proper jewels, temperance, and
justice, and courage, and nobility and truth-in these adorned she

PLATO AND THE POETS

is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her hour
comes. (115)
In addition to the myths we have just cited there are several
others scattered throughout the dialogues in which similar
counts are to be found concerning the nature and life of the
soul in its immortal existence. Not only does Plato strive in
this manner to persuade us of his doctrine of the soul, but very
often at the same time and in the same myths he endeavors by
this medium to convince us of the truth of his theory of knowledge as recollection and of his doctrine of Ideas.
The last named deserves a little more comment because of
the signal ilnportance it has in the philosophical system of
Plato and on that account for the additional weight it may give
to our thesis. The theory itself, the reasoned arguments and the
attempted demonstrations are sufficiently well known and need
not be repeated here. We need only note that although there
is some persuasiveness to them, the demonstrations have not
been accepted as valid from the time of Aristotle to the present.
Plato seems to have experienced some difficulty himself with
the doctrine (see his Parmenides), but it represented a fundamental belief on his part and when he failed to establish the
doctrine satisfactorily along logical lines he resorted to myth as
a medium for expressing this belief and endeavoring to persuade
others of its truth.
Singling out some of the best examples of Plato's shift to the
poetic medium, we might observe that in the Phaedrus (246 :ff.)
we have a highly colorful account of the journeys of the soul
throughout the heavens in her pre-earthly existence and of the
vision of the soul of the ideas of beauty, goodness, justice, and
truth. Here Plato seems to combine two kinds of divine madness, poetic inspiration and love, to set forth his doctrine of
ideas. In the myth which he relates he is apparently endeavoring to
to us by means of feeling and imagery his
belief in the Ideas. The culmination of this poetic flight in
the vision and love of Absolute Beauty might seem to indicate
that perhaps the vision is primarily a poetic one and that Plato
has abandoned the role of philosopher for that of poet. Some

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JOHN A. MOURANT

credence is given to this possibility when Plato speaks of the
rebirth of souls and notes that " the soul which has seen most
of truth shall come to birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some
musical and loving nature!' (248) . Yet he will go on to say
that the soul of the poet has seen truth in the fifth degree. And
he remarks that in the return of the soul to the plain of truth,
only the soul of a philosopher or the "soul of a lover, who is
not devoid of philosophy " is not subject to judgment and can
make the return in three thousand rather than ten thousand
years. (249)
In view of the account give:rr in the Phaedrus, it is difficult
to credit Plato with a second and radically different theory of
art which would raise the poet or the artist to a higher level
from which he might be said to attain trutp through a vision
of the eternal essence of Beauty itself. Such a vision is reserved
for the philosopher alone, for only he has the ultimate wisdom
.to know the truly beautiful. Some of the confusion and seeming
contradiction that may arise from a reading of the Phaedrus
apparently results from Plato's use of the sort of poetic imagery
that may help him to explain his doctrine of ideas. He remarks
that beauty has its tangible counterpart here on earth and the
vision of such tangible beauty enables the soul to recollect true
beauty. So when he speaks of the love of the beautiful and the
recollection by the soul of the essence of beauty, he enables us
through an imagery that is based upon something as tangible
as sight and earthly beauty, to obtain a clearer insight into
his doctrine of ideas. For the other ideas as he notes would be
equally as lovely if they had their visible counterparts. We
should also observe here that the love of true beauty is not the
result of poetic inspiration but of that fourth and highest type
of divine madness-of that madness of love " which is the
greatest of heaven's blessings." (PhaedrutJ, 245) Finally, it
might be noted that Plato has been compelled to use these
poetical figures because Phaedrus would have them (Ibid., 257).
In the Symposium, the greatest dramatic achievement of
Plato, the myth of Diotima develops again the theme of the
vision of absolute beauty by the soul. In a remarkable manner
1

PLATO AND THE POETS

fl67

this tale brings together the dialectical method of the philosopher with the vision of the poet and the religious inspiration of
the prophet. As a matter of fact, all four kinds of the divine
madness mentioned in the Phaedrus may be said to culminate
here in the tale of Diotima, for the story told by Diotima is the
creation of Plato's poetic genius, Diotima is possessed with
prophetic inspiration, the reader or hearer ostensibly receives
an experience of religious exaltation, and the subject of the
entire discourse is the " Love by which ·the immortal soul is
winged for her flight to Heaven." Yet Diotima assumes the
role of philosopher, and by means of the dialectic method,
reveals to Socrates the eternal truth. That truth does not seem
to be any poetic vision of the Beautiful, but rather-and essentially-the metaphysical vision of the highest and eternal reality, presented here under the aspect of Beauty and in the
Republic under the aspect of the Good. In either case the vision
does not come easily and is attained only by the philosopher.
The parallel between the two dialogues on this point is
markedly close. In the Republic the ascent of the soul toward
the Good is subjected to a rigorous noetic discipline based upon
the philosophical exposition of the divided line. This purely
philosophical exposition is immedately followed by the famous
allegory of the cave in which Plato's poetic art is used to render
more concrete, clarifying, and persuasive the difficult philosophical analysis that precedes. The poetic account here is a
mere interlude. Once the analysis of the Ideas and the ascent
of the philosopher toward the Good has been taught by means
of allegory, Plato returns again to his more strictly.philosophical
exposition and in the remainder of Book VII gives a detailed
analysis of the various levels of the intelligible world culminating in dialectic which lifts upward the eye of the soul. But note
that the discipline of education imposed by Plato upon his
future rulers is a difficult one. Ten years study of the sciences
and five of dialectic are not sufficient to achieve the vision of the
Good. To education must be added experience of life covering
a period of fifteen years--only then does the process of knowledge reach consummation and" The time has now arrived at

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JOHN A. MOURANT

which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light
which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good."
(Rep., 540)
A reading of the Symposium (210-212) , will reveal essentially
the same thesis, although the expression here is entirely poetical
and in place of education, knowledge, dialectic, and the vision
of the Good, we have the imagery of the Love of Beauty. The
Symposium, of course, is a much briefer dialogue. It presents
several different themes on the nature of love and develops only
by way of a climax the significant discourse between Socrates
and Diotima, in which is compressed in a few pages a reiteration
of Plato's teaching on the nature of the soul, the ideas, and the
vision of truth. But, although the essential doctrine is much
abbreviated, there is the same emphasis on the vision of eternal
reality, here presented as Absolute Beauty. It is attainable only
by a long and arduous process of ascent from the perception
and love of concrete and individual forms of beauty to the perception and love of universal beauty, from the beauty of laws
and institutions, to the beauties of the sciences, until " at last
the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the
science of beauty everywhere." (210) Or again:
And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things
of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards
for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and
from going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from
fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions,
until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty,
and at last knows what the essence of beauty is (211).
And note that this final grasp of' true Beauty is with the eye
of the mind just as in the Republic it is the eye of the soul that
grasps the Good.
The imagery of Love and Beauty in the Symposium should
not detract then from the central thesis of P to, which is the
same here as in the Republic, that the visio of eternal reality,
whether under the guise of Beauty or the ood, is essentially a
noetic process, difficult of attainment
d reserved for the
philosopher. The imagery that is used
both dialogues, or in
any of the dialogues that touch on
theme, is used to

uJ

PLATO AND THE POETS

269

clarify, to' suggest, and to express more persuasively the central
ideas of Plato's philosophy. It will be a matter of opinion
whether Plato's poetic genius reached its height in the Symposium, but few will deny the fact that in the ·tale told by
Diotima we have a brilliant example of that use of concrete
imagery to suggest and enable the mind to recall that knowledge
of the eternal ideas which it formerly possessed. Is not Plato
attempting here, and perhaps even more vividly in the Phae- ·
drus, not merely to clarify a philosophical analysis by resorting
to poetic description, but also to justify his whole theory of
knowledge by maintaining that through this apprehension of
the particular and tangible we may be able to recall that former
knowledge of the abstract and universal which we possessed
in a previous existence? And the better the imagery, the more
vivid the story, the greater the appeal to feeling, the more successful does his enterprise become and the more inspired the
faith of the reader in the truth of his story and his philosophy.
The opposite effect seems to be achieved in the Timaeus.
Here we no longer have the high poetic qualities of some of
the earlier dialogues; the writing has become dull, confused, and
obscure. There is an allegorism present that virtually obliterates the philosophical insights. As a consequence, in this
dialogue which ought, by its very subject matter, to have
completed the metaphysics of the earlier dialogues, we find an
obscurity that tends to confuse and weaken the metaphysical
·structure of Plato's thought. A hazardous guess might be that
Plato has been deliberately obscure simply because he was not
sure of his ideas, or that he became so entangled in the allegorizing trend of his thought that the poet almost displaces the
philosopher. There is an irrationalism and a dogmatism here
that is missing from the other dialogues. These deficiencies
are revealed not only in the obscurity of the thought but also
in the manner in which the dialogue develops into a monologue.
Dialectic is abandoned and with it the usual effort toward
philosophical clarification. In this dialogue the use of allegory
and the myth does not yield any poetic insight into truth and
it weakens the metaphysical insights. Clearly the Timaeus is
not as persuasive as the Symposium and the Republic.

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JOHN A. MOURANT

We might continue in this manner to analyze all the myths
as well as the- allegories, parables, fables, and other forms of
poetic expression Plato uses, but a sufficient number of instances have been given to establish a reasonable thesis: Although Plato often assumes the role of poet and appears to
possess a poetic vision of the truth, he is always first and
foremost the philosopher and what appears to be a poetic vision
on his part is in reality a metaphysical vision expressed at times
for the purposes of persuasion and conviction in the poetic
medium.
Finally, to those who would still cling tenaciously to their
interpretation of Plato as supremely the poet in such dialogues
as the Symposium and the Phaedrus, it should be shown that
we must judge Plato on the basis of all his writings and not
merely on those which please us most. Thus there is much in
the Republic and the Laws which may be displeasing to the
poetically minded, but it would be illogical and prejudicial to
dismiss the greater bulk of Plato's writing, and his sincerity in
such works, to judge the man solely on those works which
appeal to our own fancy or belief. On the relation of the poet
to the philosopher, T. S. Eliot says," I believe that for a poet
to be also a philosopher he would have to be virtually two men:
I cannot think of any example of this through schizophrenia,
nor can I see anything to be gained by it: the work is better
performed inside two skulls than one .... A poet may borrow a
philosophy or he _may do without one. It is when he philosophizes upon his own poetic insight that he is apt to go wrong." 4
We may paraphrase the last line here with respect to Plato and
say that it is when he poeticizes upon his philosophical insight
that he is so apt to persuade us of the truth of his convictions.
Yet even when he resorts to poetic expression he is never " two
men"; his insight and his attitude is fundamentally that of the
philosopher.
JoHN A. MoURANT
Pennsylvania State CoUege,
State CoUege, Pa.

• T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry (Harvard University Press; Cambridge, 1988),
p. 90.

BOOK REVIEWS
The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy. By
H. J. PATON. London: Hutchinson, 1947. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1948. Pp. 288, with index. $4.00.
This book, by one of the foremost Kantian scholars of our day, is a
most valuable addition to the already extensive literature dealing with
Kant's moral philosophy. The author, who is White's Professor of Moral
Philosophy at Oxford University, has already treated of this subject in
his The Good Will, and Can Reason be Practical, and has dealt authoritatively with Kant's theoretical doctrine in his well-known Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. The present work is the fruit of some twenty years
of reflection, and is far from being a repetition of what he has already
written. It treats principally of the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of
Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten), in which Kant seeks
to discover, formulate, and justify the supreme principle of morality in so
far as it can be gathered from an analysis of the moral judgments on
which good-living men seek to act. The main purpose of Prof. Paton's
work is to help the reader to understand Kant's text and arguments; and
if this were his sole purpose, his book would be as opportune as it is successful. But he found that " a whole series of misinterpretations has become
traditional and stands in the way of an unprejudiced approach " to the
text (p. 15) , so that his book has the added aim of defending the thought
of Kant against such misconceptions. " Thus Kant is commonly supposed
to maintain that no action can be moral if we have any natural inclination towards it or if we obtain the slightest pleasure from its performance;
and again that a good man must take no account whatever of the consequences of his actions but must deduce all the manifold duties of life from
the bare conception of moral law as such-without any regard for the
characteristics of human nature or the circumstances of human life (ibid.) ."
Prof. Paton sets out to show that such views, though they may find some
support in a cursory reading of the text, are not advanced by Kant. Other
criticisms may be levelled against him, and Prof. Paton does frequently
draw attention to flaws in Kant's arguments, but he cannot be accused of
views so contrary to morality and common sense. " Such interpretations
are a distortion of his actual teaching, which is always reasonable, even if
it may not always be correct (ibid.) ."
The great value of this work as an exposition of the Grundlegung will
perhaps be fully appreciated only by those who have tried to understand
Kant by direct and unaided study of the text. Reading Prof. Paton after

271

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such an experience is like 'being presented with a key after having tried in
vain to open a locked door. I do not know of any other treatise which
presents Kant's doctrine with such clarity and objectivity, and with such
detailed references, not only to the text, but also to the other works of
Kant. This is a truly scholarly work, in which the author draws on that
extensive knowledge of Kant's whole system which only a lifetime of study
can give and which is indispensable for the proper understanding of particular works. Thus, from this book alone, the beginner would acquire
quite a comprehensive outline of the Critique of Pure Reason, and many a
more advanced student will find new light thrown on several of the knotty
problems of Kant's theoretical philosophy. The first chapter is an admirable
description of the critical method as employed by the founder of Criticism;
the function of reason is clearly explained (pp. 96-102), as also are analytic
and synthetic propositions (pp. 120-128), the spontaneity of mind (pp.
143, 4), the function of schemata (pp. 143, 4; 158, 9) and the meaning of
laws of nature (pp. 69, 146 ff.). Chapter 22, in particular, on the intelligible world, and the following chapter on membership in this world,
have much to say on the relation between intellect and sense, between
noumenon and phenomenon, on inner sense and knowledge of the ego, as
well as of apperception. To complete the setting of Kant's moral doctrine,
Prof. Paton adds some remarks on the historical background and personality of Kant (pp. 195-198). For the benefit of the English reader, Prof.
Paton, who follows the text of the Berlin Academy edition, adds the
corresponding references to Abbott's translation, which he does not hesitate to correct when, in his opinion, it does not faithfully render the
original.
The work is divided into four parts. The first, " The Approach to the
categorical imperative," corresponds to section one of the Groundwork, and
deals with the fundamental. notions involved in
moral judgments,
namely the good will, duty, the maxim of morality, reverence, and the law,
and ends with a consideration of the misunderstandings of Kant's real
views. Kant's second section is covered by books two and three of Prof.
Paton's work. In the second he treats of the background of the categorical imperative, considering practical reason and its principles, both
subjective and objective, the notion of good, and finally, imperatives in
general, ending with a statement of the problem to be faced in Kant's final
section. In the third book, he discusses the categorical imperative in its
various formulations which he reduces to three, with a subordinate formula
for its first and third statements. These subordinate formulas are
scribed
more precise determinations of the imperative with a view to its
application to practice. The fourth book, corresponding to the final section
of the Groundwork, treats of the justification of the categorical imperative
by means of the idea of freedom as necessarily presupposed in connection
with membership of the intelligible world. These considerations allow us

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278

to explain the possibility of the categorical imperative and to defend the
doctrine of freedom without which morality is both impossible and unintelligible. Though Kant's arguments are often very involved, and the line
of his thought difficult to follow on account of his habit of passing brusquely
from one consideration to another, Prof. Paton succeeds admirably in
keeping the main trend of the argument before his reader, and his brief
recapitulations of the various stages of the ·argument are extremely. helpful
in this respect.
The exposition and interpretation of Kant's thought in this book are
undoubtedly authoritative. However much one may disagree with Kant's
teaching, one can seldom; if ever, object to Prof. Paton's statement of it.
Where the meaning
ambiguous, he tries to determine the genuine
of Kant either in the light of passages in other places or in other works,
or by conjectures that are always well-founded and in keeping with Kant's
system as a whole. The Professor rarely enters into controversy on such
points, and is content to state his reading and the reasons for it. It is
clear that he himself accepts Kant's position in general, and regards the
main line of the argument as valid; and he maintains that the traditional
misunderstandings have arisen primarily through failing to remember the
limited purpose which Kant set himself in the Groundwork and in the
Critique of Practical Reason. He is there concerned with discovering and
justifying the supreme principle of morality on which rational beings
should act; he is not concerned with the application of that principle, or of
its various formulations, to particular and changing circumstances. The
method of such application is treated in the neglected M etapkysic of
Morals; but even in the Groundwork there is evidence that Kant, in such
application, does take into account the " desires and purposes and potentialities of man, and indeeed it is on a teleological view of man and the
universe that his application of moral principles ·is based " {p. 17) . A
short resume of Kant's argument may help to indicate how such misunderstandings could arise and why they are to be corrected.
Accepting the common judgments of men on the morality of actions,
Kant seeks to formulate the supreme principle on which they are based;
justification of this principle will then be the justification, of such common
judgments of morality. He maintains that only a good will can be absolutely and in all respects good; and that a good will, for men at least, is
one which acts only for the sake of duty, not, for instance, in order to
satisfy desire or inclination. A fully rational being, without a sense complement to its nature, would spontaneously and necessarily be good without the obligation which we experience. The moral value of an action does
not therefore depend on the results sought or attained; it is due to the
fact, that it is done in conformity to an a priori and formal subjective principle, or maxim, the maxim of duty, as opposed to the material maxim
of inclination. On the emotional side, this means acting purely out of

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reverence for the law. Thus the motive of the good man is to obey law as
such, law that is universal, valid for all and objective. His morality is
formal, in the sense that universality is the form of law; he endeavours to
make his actions conform to law as such, in so far as he seeks to be guided
by principles that are universal and objective and valid independently of
the particular actions they may enjoin. We can thus formulate the
supreme principle of morality in a general way: never act except so as to
be able also to will the maxim of your action to be a universal law. To
act thus is to act reasonably, because it is to act for the sake of acting
reasonably, according to the purely formal principle of following universal
law as such; the action is good, not because it has this or that as object,
but because this objective and unconditioned principle is embodied in it.
Such a principle is in fact the unconditioned of practical reason.
From this summary it is easy to see how Kant can be accused of
formalism and legalism; and Prof. Paton's attempt to defend Kant on
these charges seem to us to be the least successful of his criticisms of the
common misunderstandings. Before treating of that, however, it may be
well to speak of other no less common interpretations which he does, with
success we think, show to be false and unfounded. Kant is supposed to
maintain, for instance, that an action can have no moral worth if any
inclination to perform it is present, or if any pleasure results from the
satisfaction of this inclination or from the consciousness of doing one's
duty. What he does, in fact, teach is quite different. He insists that for
an action to be moral it must not merely accord with duty, but must be
done for the sake of duty; and that if it is done only from inclination, or
from desire of happiness, that as such it has no moral worth. He does not
say that an action is not moral if inclination is present as well as the
will to do one's duty; but he does say that we can hardly be certain that
duty alone is our motive except when inclination is absent, since the inclination can be present without any definite end in view of the agent. In
other words, he teaches that even when inclination is present, the motive
as determining factor of our action should be duty alone. Neither are
we called upon to renounce our natural inclination to happiness; we have
a right to pursue our happiness so long as it is not incompatible with the
moral law. In fact, my happiness is included in the complete good which
it is my duty to seek. And as regards the pleasure and satisfaction that
sometimes accompany action, Kant holds that action performed merely
for their sake would be self-centered and immoral, but that they are quite
legitimate if they follow on the recognition of acting merely for the sake
of duty. The moral life does normally bring its own peculiar satisfaction
and inner content (cf. pp. 48-50, 56, 57). These misinterpretations arise,
says Prof. Paton (p. 50) "from misunderstanding two quite different
doctrines of Kant: (1) that virtue is most easily and surely recognized
where duty is opposed to inclinations, and (2) that inclination must not
be taken into account when we are trying to determine what our duty is."

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275

Another common interpretation of Kant is that in determining our duty
we must take no account of the results sought or attained by our action,
that we must not consider the consequences of our actions. In fact, however, as Prof. Paton points out (pp. 49, 56, 76, 182, 188), Kant's formulation of the moral law supposes that we consider the consequences, just as
it supposes that inclinations are to be taken into account. Morality
means acting in accord with subjective maxims which we can at the same
time will to be valid as universal and objective laws. In reality, every
maxim has regard to an action that has certain consequences and that is
suggested by our inclinations, so that our sensuous motives are lifted up
into our maxims, which in turn are drawn into the rational volition of
law as such. Neither the inclination nor the consequences should be the
motive for acting; we must act for duty alone, and this we do when we
determine our action by asking if our maxim can be willed as a universal
law, binding others as well as ourselves. To answer that question we must
know, to some extent at least, what the consequences of our action will
be. As Prof. Paton puts it, " in judging any particular case it is always
well to consider the concrete action, to formulate the principle manifested
in it, and then to ask whether this principle can be regarded as a moral
law or a moral code. . . . In dutiful action, the material maxim, which
may embody both consequences aimed at and motives for arriving at
them, is present at the same time as the formal maxim. The formal
maxim is present if we would have rejected the material maxim had we
thought it incompatible with universal law (p. 186) ." We cannot accuse
Kant of being unreal and absurd on these heads in his moral teaching;
we may indeed reproach him for not having provided us with a set of
rules governing the application of these principles to concrete cases, but
to do so is to forget that Kant, in the Groundwork, is treating only of the
formal principle of morality, and that he postpones the question of application for consideration in a later work.
As remarked above, one of the commonest accusations levelled against
Kant is that of formalism and legalism, of subordinating activity to a vague
abstraction called the law, which we are called on to reverence and to
prefer to all else. Prof. Paton seeks to justify Kant against this charge,
by pointing out that his treatment is necessarily formal, since he is dealing
with the form of morality; that he does not deny that action must have
matter as well as form, an empirical element as well as an a priori one,
an object as well as a subjective principle, since all actions aim at a certain end or result. Moral action is that which, while aiming at certain
results, is an embodiment of the moral law, and in which we take an
immediate interest, so that it is not just a means towards an empty
abstraction called the law (pp. 74-76). This reply, however, does not
touch on the formalism of which Kant is accused, at least by many
moralists. It is not an accusation-one which would be absurd-of con-

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centrating on the form of morality, but of making morality consist formally
in agreement with the mere form of law, and of treating the moral law
as a pure form, independent of all objects proposed to the will and of all
empirical elements. We may adapt Lord Nelson's famous phrase to
express this morality, and say: "Kant expects every man to do his
duty." The moral law which he sets at the basis of morality is an empty
form, abstract and ethereal, demanding obedience in virtue of itself alone;
and we maintain that this cannot be the ultimate ground of morality.
We may omit the arguments drawn from the insufficiency of this formula
to determine the morality of countless individual acts, as outside the scope
of the Groundwork, although 'such consideration is of great practical importance, and concentrate on the essence of morality as taught by Kant.
The main criticism is that the Kantian law really presupposes morality,
and so cannot constitute it. We have to distinguish clearly the con.sciousness of the fact of obligation from the recognition of the fact that it
is good to do that which the law enjoins. However imperatively a law
may impose itself upon our conscience, man does not obey it just because
it is a law, but because it is good to submit to law. Prof. Paton seems to
recognise this, saying that " goodness is more fundamental than obligation.
Apart from some kind of goodness there is no kind of obligation" (p. 116).
This pre-eminence of goodness over obligation is not confined to completely
rational beings, as he seems to suppose, but is universal, for one does not
submit to law unless he regards the law as good and obedience to the law
as also good. And is Prof. Paton not inconsistent when, having stated
that goodness is more fundamental than obligation, he goes on to say:
" this general principle holds in the case of moral obligation. The moral
imperative enjoins moral goodness: it bids us to act morally-that is, as
we have seen, to act for the sake of the law or for the sake of duty"
(ibid.) . If goodness is more fundamental than duty, it can scarcely be
made to consist in acting for the sake of duty; it must mean that we act
for the sake of duty because it is good to do so, that is, because it is
moral to do so. If my supreme duty, in the practical order, is to act
morally (p. Ul) , then it can hardly be affirmed that to act morally is to
act for the sake of duty. The Kantian formalism is precisely this, that
it bases morality on the supreme duty of doing one's duty.
The various formulations of the categorical imperative do not enable us
to escape this formalism; in fact, they also presuppose the morality which
they are meant to establish. We are to act only on maxims that can at
the same time be willed as universal laws valid for all rational beings.
But when we ask how we are to determine those maxims in particular
we find that the answer given by Kant really presupposes morality. There
is no reason why a man cannot act on a maxim which is evil, and which
he at the same time desires to be valid as a universal law; he could, for
instance, wish the destruction of
human society, including himself. If

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we ask why he should not desire such maxims to hold as universal laws,
we are told that actions performed according to them would conflict with
human nature, or with the harmony of human society, or with the dignity
of persons as ends in themselves. In other words, we are told that such
actions are immoral because their consequences are harmful to man; and
this supposes that there is an obligation to seek the conservation and perfection of human nature, so that morality is reduced to an ontological
foundation, in human nature. Prof. Paton tells us that " in judging any
particular case, it is always well to consider the concrete action, to formulate the principle manifested in it, and then to ask whether this principle
can be regarded as a moral law or a moral rule " (p. 186) . One must
always do that; but we can only decide whether it can be regarded as a
moral principle by considering the object and effects of the proposed action,
thus basing the morality on the object, on the objective relations between
beings. We fully admit, with Prof. Paton, that we must distinguish the
object from the motive; but the object of the internal act of the willwhich alone is formally and intrinscially moral-is precisely its motive or
end, which need not necessarily coincide with the object of the external act.
Kant seems also to be guilty of inconsistency in supposing us to be able
to judge of actions through knowledge of their consequences on human
nature and society, while his Critique of Pure Reason denies us all theoretical knowledge of nature in itself. Prof. Paton realises this difficulty, and
admits the obscurity of Kant, who seems to fall back on some kind of
intuition of the moral worth of actions. It helps very little to invoke
some kind of conviction, as Prof. Paton himself does (p. ISS) , for a conviction that is not rationally founded cannot serve as a basis or criterion of
rational morality. Nor is it sufficient to set before ourselves the harmony
of men in society a8 the ideal that may serve as a criterion. For if we
consider
that which actually promotes such harmony we cannot avoid
an empiricism and utilitarianism as insufficient as those which Kant himself
denounces; and if we ask what men should ideally strive after, what the
conditions of society should be ideally, we again presuppose morality since
men should strive after only that which is good.
Prof. Paton's answer to these, and similar objections that might be
urged against the doctrine which he defends, is that the categorical imperative is an unconditioned moral law, similar to the ideas of pure reason (pp.
249, 250). "If we suppose that we can understand a necessity only by
stating its condition, then manifestly we cannot understand an unconditioned necessity: to explain it by stating its condition involves us in
direct contradiction. . . . Those who ask why we should do our duty are
falling into this contradiction. . . . They are asking what is the condition
under which we should obey an unconditioned imperative." But this is
not " merely to deny that there can be an unconditioned imperative," as
he asserts. It is one thing to decide what the supreme basis of morality

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is, once we accept the Kantian critique of pure reason as valid. On that
supposition, one would have to agree with Prof.' Paton that "it is manifestly impossible to deduce moral obligation from purely metaphysical or
epistemological considerations which have nothing to do with morality"
(p.
. It is an altogether different thing to establish the principles of
morality on a realistic basis, on a metaphysics radically different from
that of Kant, and according to which the supreme principle of morality is
neither an a priori idea of practical reason, nor an assumed unconditioned
necessity of the purely subjective order. We can fully agree with Prof.
Paton that such an ethics is the only possible one on the basis of Kant's
speculative philosophy, and that Kant has gone nearer than any other
philosopher towards establishing an independent ethics. In fact, the
Thomist can accept the Kantian ethic up to a certain point, in so far as
it enshrines principles and ideas of morality drawn from common sense
and the Christian tradition. He would admit the essence of Kant's doctrine as stated by Prof. Paton: " the primary aim of the good man is
not to satisfy his own inclinations, however generous, but to obey a law
which is the same for all, and only so does he cease to be self-centered
and become moral " (p. 77) . But he would not rest content with Kant's
foundation or justification of that law. Kant's ethics seems to be a transposition of the Christian morality to the subjective order, where it is made
to center round the bare idea of law. For us, morality centers round the
objective, because it centers on God. We obey the moral law because it
is God's law; and we obey God because He is infinitely perfect, and worthy
of our love and obedience. He alone is absolutely and in all respects good;
the will is good through its attitude towards Him and His law, and
towards other things in ·relation to Him. The difference between Kant's
formalism and our ethics based on natural theology and ontological principles is fundamentally a difference between conceptualism and realism,
and a discussion of this is obviously beyond the scope of a review.
From these remarks it should not be thought that Prof. Paton accepts
Kant's teaching in its entirety, or regards it as flawless. He draws attention to several defects, such as his hedonistic conception of happiness
(p. 85), the failure of the attempt to connect free will and law through
the concept of causality (p.
and the difficulty of explaining evil
actions performed freely if acting freely means acting in accord with
rational principles (pp.
. He moreover stresses the inconsistency
between Kant's denial of the power of speculative reason to know reality
in itself and the rather complete knowledge which he here assumes us to
have of the idea of absolute goodness (p. 85) and of the intelligible world
To this we would add the surprising knowledge which he sup(p.
poses us to have of human nature, of the nature of our acts and their
effects, and of human persons as ends in themselves. His main criticism,
however, turns on Kant's attempt to justify the moral law through the

BOOK REVIEWS

independent .presupposition of the idea of freedom. Having shown that
the categorical imperative is expressed in the principle of autonomy, that
morality implies autonomy, he shows that autonomy implies freedom and
is derived from it. He then claims to prove that a rational agent must
necessarily conceive himself as acting under the idea of freedom, and thus
freedom is the third term which connects the extremes of the synthetic
a priori proposition: every rational agent ought to act in accordance with
the principle of autonomy. This justification of morality, however, is not
valid, since Kant makes the presupposition of freedom rest on the necessity of man's conceiving himself as a member of the intelligible world, and
hence as acting under laws which are principles of reason and of which he
is the author; while at the same time he states that it is because we know
ourselves as free that we can consider ourselves as members of the intelligible world. Further, as Prof. Paton points out (p. 245), Kant is trying
to justify a synthetic a priori proposition by means of the assertion that a
rational being must as such think and act under the presupposition of
freedom. This itself is another synthetic a priori proposition, and requires
a third term; and if this is sought in membership of the intelligible world,
we still have to connect rational being and the idea of membership in
the intelligible world by means of another idea, and so on ad infinitum.
Prof. Paton's treatment of this question (pp. 21-24) is very instructive,
and throws much light on Kant's grounding of morality, especially in relation to Kant's later work on the same subject, in which he reverses his
position and bases freedom on the independent presupposition of morality.
If we cannot claim an independent insight into our membership of the
intelligible world, we cannot justify freedom apart from morality, nor
would the idea of freedom itself suffice to justify morality. For Prof.
Paton, the required justification of morality rests on the self-consciousness
of reason in its own activities, whether theoretical or practical. We have a
rational insight into the principles manifested in the activity of reason as
such, and therefore into the objective principles of practical reason in
accordance with which a rational agent, qua rational agent, would necessarily act if reason had full control over passion (p. 220). We must conceive ourselves as capable of acting in accord with ·those principles, and
we must conceive those practical principles to be valid for all rational
beings as such. " To say this is to say that a rational agent as such will
necessarily act on a principle universally and unconditionally valid for all
rational agents as such. This principle is identical with the principle of
autonomy (p. 245) ," so that we have an independent and necessary presupposition of the categorical imperative. Morality is thus justified
through rational insight, and freedom is inferred from morality. This is
the position adopted by Kant in the Critique of Practical Reason, and the
only one consistent with itself and with the conceptualistic basis of his
theoretical philosophy, and is well summarized by Prof. Paton on pp.

10

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Q6£-264. This summary, moreover, allows us to understand why Kant
has been accused, not without reason, of being fundamentally an empiricist
in his ethics, though that is obviously not the view of Prof. Paton.
There are many other points of doctrine in this book on which the
Thomist differs from both Kant and Prof. Paton which cannot be touched
on here; but there can be little difference of opinion on the value of this
book as a presentation, explanation, and defense of Kant's basic moral
position. Prof. Paton is always clear, learned, and thought-provoking, and
brings to Kantian studies a freshness and a common sense that are very
much absent in so many commentators. His commentary will be of great
service to all, be they Kantians or not, who are concerned with establishing
and defending the foundations of morality and who regard this task as
one of the most pressing duties of our day.

A. McNicHoLL, 0. P.
Collegio Angelicum,
Rome, Ituly.

The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus. By REGINALD GARRIGOULAGRANGE, 0. P. Translated by Sister Jeanne Marie, 0. P. Vol. I.
St. Louis: Herder, 1947. Pp. 399. $4.00.
The Three Ages of the Interior Life. By REGINALD GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE,
0. P. Translated by Sister M. Timothea Doyle, 0. P. Vol. H. St.
Louis: Herder, 1948. Pp. 657, with index. $7.50.
In the early pages of The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena it becomes
immediately evident that God wanted this energetic mystic to learn two
basic lessons. Those lessons were summed up in a pair of definitions
inexhaustibly profound-" I am He Who is; thou art she who is not."
Father Garrigou-Lagrange has a predilection for these pages of the
Dialogue. He refers to them in both the volumes being reviewed. And
understandably so. For this great Thomist's theological writings are constantly reaffirming the utter gratuity of God's grace, the far-reaching
efficacy of divine causality, the sheer supernaturality of the life of faith,
and the inevitable necessity of passive purgations before the Christian
soul can have that humble self-knowledge which is a prerequisite for the
savory contemplation of God. Intent upon disclosing the full significance
of the traditional formula," grace is the seed of glory," the learned Dominican sees the Christian life as a prelude to the beatific vision and, while the
goal of the interior life is the perfection of charity, the goal can never be
gained without an ever more searching knowledge of God and an ever
more revealing knowledge of self. This twofold knowledge comes to the
Christian soul through the revelation of faith and the contemplation of the

BOOK REVIEWS

mysteries of God, as Our Lord Himself indicated when He said to His
.Father on the night before He died, "Now this is eternal life: that they
may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast
sent" (John 17:3).
The first volume of The Love of God and the Cross of Jesus aims at
giving us a deeper insight into the nature of God's love for us and the role
of the cross in our return of love. Inasmuch ·as God's love for us was
most perfectly manifested in the redemptive death of His Incarnate Son
and is increasingly communicated to us through the indwelling of the
Blessed Trinity in the souls of the just, Father Garrigou-Lagrange offers
provocative chapters on the mystery of the cross and on the divine
indwelling. Then mindful of his initial contention that " it is only by the
royal road of the cross that the Christian soul truly enters into supernatural contemplation of the mysteries of faith and lives lovingly and
deeply by them," he investigates the need for active purification, or mortification, and lays the groundwork for a better grasp of the traditional thesis
that only passive trials can complete the purging of egoism which remains
in the wounded nature of man even after Baptism.
If humility is the foundation of the Christian's spiritual edifice, as St.
Augustine has so forcefully reminded us, it could hardly have a better
safeguard than the mysterious Thomistic principle: "no one thing would
be better than another did not God will a greater good for one than for
the other" (S. T., I, q.
a. 3). Ul,llike a human lover, He does not find
goodness in us and love us for what we are: He puts it there and loves
us for what He has made us. As Father Garrigou-Lagrange puts it, " All
that makes us lovable in God's eyes comes from Him and is given to us
only by His sovereignly free and gratuitous love. . , . Even what seems
most exclusively .our own-the free determination to choose good rather
than evil-comes to us from Rim" (p. 41).
And this love of God for man, which is the source of all our good, did
not content itself with remaining inaccessibly aloof from the beneficiaries
of its mercy. It would not let itself be lost on a mankind too overawed by
God's majesty to understand His love. It would express itself in terms of
human self-immolation which even short-sighted humanity could grasp and
understand. " He chose to descend, in a sense, to our level that He might
lift us up to His. . . . He willed to empty Himself," so St. Paul put it,
" that He might be found according to our measure " {p. 43) . In so doing
He not only taught us the splendor of humility, but His "excess of love"
became forever the pattern of every truly Christian love. For every truly
Christian love must bear the stamp of authenticity; it must' be imprinted
with that " folly of the Cross beyond and above reason " which is " the
remedy for another very real folly which falls far short of reason, the folly
of sin " (p. 44) .
Just as soon as we mention the " folly of sin," we are in a position to

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understand that Christ was not laying down an arbitrary condition for
discipleship in His school of wisdom when He said, " If any man will come
after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow
Me" (Luke 9:23). Our Lord did not bring the cross into the life of man;
He simply gave it a new meaning. The cross is as native a possession of
fallen man as his head or his heart; and just as inevitably his, as long as he
is still only on his way to heaven and not already there. Father GarrigouLagrange puts this truth under penetrating light when he assigns four
reasons for the _necessity of mortification. It is necessary "(1) to destroy
the consequences of original sin in us, (2) to do away with the resulis of
our own personal sins, (3} to subordinate our natural activity perfectly to
the life of grace, never losing sight of the infinite sublimity of our supernatural end, (4) to imitate Christ crucified and be associated with Him
in the work of redemption " (p. 263} .
In thus tracing the necessity of the cross to fallen man's own interior
conflict and to the demands of supernatural charity, our Dominican guide
is following in the footsteps of St. Paul and St. Augustine, who with the
Angelic Doctor, are his chief masters after Christ. The plight of our nature
still wounded with ignorance, malice, weakness, and unruly desire could
hardly be described more pathetically than the Apostle put it when he
wrote, " For the flesh lusteth against the spirit; and the spirit against the
flesh; for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things
that you would " (Gal. 5: 17} . And commenting upon the Apostle's remark that they who belong to Christ must crucify their flesh with its passions and desires, the great Bishop of Hippo wrote, " On this cross, indeed,
throughout the whole of this life which is spent in the midst of trials and
temptations, the Christian must continually hang. For there is no time in
this life to draw out the nails of which it is said in the psalm, ' Pierce thou
my flesh with the nails of fear; ' the flesh is the carnal concupiscence; the
nails are the commandments of justice; with the latter the fear of the
Lord pierces the former and it crucifies us as an acceptable sacrifice to
Him " (PL, 38, 1039} .
Again it is from the pen of Augustine inspired by Paul that we find a
beautiful expression of the idea that the cross in Christ's life and ours is a
symbol of the demands of supernatural charity. The Apostle prayed that
the Ephesians " may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth, to gain, that is, an idea of the
love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge" (Eph. 3: 18-19-Spencer
Translation} . And St. Augustine, alert to find a significance in every detail
of God's marvelous revelation on Calvary, wrote, "By it (the cross) is
rightly understood to be symbolized that which the Apostle speaks of,
' what is the breadth and length and height and depth.' . To be sure it is
broad in the transverse beam on which the hands of the Crucified are
extended, and thus "in its breadth is signified the good works of charity; it

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288

is long from the cross-bar to the ground on which part the body and the
feet are fastened, and so in its length is signified perseverance even unto
the end of time; it is high in the top piece by which the upright extends
above the cross-bar, and it signifies the lofty end whither all the works
are referred. For all things that are done well and perseveringly by the
breadth and the length ought to be done for the sake of the loftiness of
divine rewards. It is deep in that part by which it is fixed in the earth;
there it is certainly hidden, nor is it able to be seen, but all its eminence
arises therefrom; so too all our good works proceed from the profundity
of God's grace which is able neither to be comprehended nor thoroughly
discerned" (PL. 35, 1949-50). To love God and the things of God universally, perseveringly, supernaturally, and with a humility grounded in
the mysteriousness of divine election is the purpose of every Christian's
earthly existence; and in the face of the seemingly perennial hardiness of
self love and all its deceits, such an existence is inevitably a career on a
cross.
When Father Garrigou-Lagrange sets out to dissect and analyze the
various species of naturalism which can ruin the splendor of this supernatural charity, he shows himself a keen student of souls who has observed
the foibles of spiritual men too long to be easily fooled by tricks of temperament masquerading as fruits of the spirit. Here we encounter some of
the shrewdest observations in his book.
But perhaps the most illuminating pages in this work on the Love of
God and the Cross of Jesus are those which deal with the redemptive love
of Christ and the harmony within His holy soul which was simultaneously
steeped in grief yet caught up in the flawlessly blissful joy of a beatified
Saint of saints. To this reviewer it seems regrettable, however, that the
renowned theologian occasionally (pp. 49, 188,
uses phraseology which
suggests too close a kinship with the penal substitution theory of redemption. Even a cursory glance at his De Christo Salvatore will be enough to
assure one that his orthodox meaning is certainly beyond questioning, but
no aid toward a better understanding of the redemption can be gained
from saying that Christ was " covered with our sins " or that " the sins
we have committed have been transferred to our Saviour's head." Not
even the energetic language of Isaias or St. Paul can ever make such
phraseology desirable, especially in view of the rhetorical and oratorical
exaggerations which have befogged popular notions of the redemption since
the days of the Reformation.
English readers are indebted to Sister Jeanne Marie for an eminently
readable and almost uniformly accurate translation of this volume of
L'Amour de Dieu et la Croix de Jesus. It is unfortunate that for seemingly no reason at all there is an occasional omission of valuable footnotes
contained in the French text. Apparently too, either Sister Jeanne Marie
or the publishers do not share Father Garrigou-Larange's enthusiasm for

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the pedagogic value of italicization. For most readers the failure to carry
over the kindly guidance of Father's suggestive italics will, I think, be
a real loss.
It is significant that on a very early page (p. 5) of his second volume
of The Three Ages of the Interior Life the eminent Dominican author
quotes one of his favorite passages from St. Thomas' Commentary on the
Epistle to the Hebrews. It is a passage in which the Angelic Doctor with
beautiful clarity gives utterance to the law of accelerating motion in the
realm of the spirit: "A natural movement," he writes, " (e. g., of a falling
stone) increases in proportion as it draws near its goal. The opposite is
true of a violent movement (e. g., of a stone hurled into the air). Grace,
moreover, inclines by a sort of analogy with what nature does; therefore
those who are in the state of grace ought to grow so much the more as they
more nearly 1!-pproach the end" (In Ep. ad Hebraeos, 10:25). The life
of grace consequently ought to follow a normal pattern of growth; supernatural love, which St. Augustine called " the weight that draws me,"
ought to carry the soul toward God with such an unswerving flight that
death would enable it to gain immediate entrance into heaven. So it is
fitting that Father Garrigou-Lagrange should recall this profound Thomistic
law of the spirit at the very beginning of this second volume of his masterful work on the interior life; for therein he delineates the pattern of
growth and traces the course of love as it moves the proficient and the
perfect soul to become increasingly Christlike in the practice of virtue. In
line with the traditional thesis that infused contemplation is the normal
culmination of the Christian life, he explains why the passive purifications
of sense and spirit are aimed at making the Christian undergo his purgatory
here on earth while meriting, rather than after death without meriting.
And he so harmonizes the teaching of St. John of the Cross with the doctrine of St. Thomas that it becomes clear that the trials described so
graphically by the mystics are attributable to the merciful actualization
of the gifts of the Holy Ghost by Him who is the Guest of our souls and
the Moulder of Christian holiness.
In face of this spiritual law of gravity enunciated by St. Thomas, one
naturally wonders why " spiritual growth often resembles the slowing
motion of a stone thrown into the air." Father Lallemant, S. J., whom
Father Garrigou-Lagrange quotes with admiration, gives the answer thus:
" The reason why some reach perfection only very late or not at all is
because they follow only nature and human sense in practically everything.
They pay little or no heed to the Holy Ghost whose appropriate work is to
enlighten, to direct, to warm " (Spiritual Doctrine, Principle 4, ch. 2,
art. 2).
This neglect of the Holy Ghost and preponderance of naturalism is the
baneful formula for producing a stunted soul. The early generosity of
religious life gives place to a calculating egoism which lives by the prudence

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285

of the :flesh. Father Garrigou-Lagrange expresses the plight of such victims
of faintheartedness when he writes, " They neglect a number of their obligations and gradually, in place of the radical simplicity of a gaze that was
already lofty, a simplicity which should become that
contemplation,
they find themselves in the quasi-learned complexity of a waning knowledge " (p. 27) .
Such knowledge was never meant to wane. And the very waning of it
is the earmark of a spiritual monstrosity. Following the great masters
of spirituality, Father Garrigou-Lagrange adduces three reasons to fortify
his contention that a distinctly mystical knowledge is the ordinary outcome of a soul's fidelity to the gentle yet firm leading of the Holy Spirit:
I) "the basic principle of the mystical life (characterized by infused
contemplation) is the same as that of the common interior life, namely,
the grace of the virtues and the gifts," 2) " in the progress of the interior
life, the purification of the soul . . . is not complete except by the passive
purifications," 8) " the end of the interior life is the same as that of the
mystical life, namely, eternal life or the beatific vision and the inadmissable love resulting from it" (pp. 819-821).
· Theoretically this is an optimistic thesis. Why is the author of " The
Three Ages " less enthusiastic when he looks for the results of this optimistic theory in the lives of average religious or ordinary Christians? He
would agree wholeheartedly with the answer given by The Imitation:
" There are found so few contemplative persons because there are few that
know how to sequester themselves entirely from perishable creatures " (Bk.
III, ch. 81) . But the realism which faces the fact that God's work is
slowed up in our souls by our own negligence and pusillanimity does not
degenerate into a pessimism which sees such retardation as inevitable. And
while one might maintain, as Father Garrigou-Lagrange does, that " the
full normal actualization of the gift of wisdom deserves the name of infused
contemplation, properly so called, and that without this contemplation the
full normal actualization of this gift does not exist" (p. 889), a distinctly
mystical knowledge proceeding more immediately from the lesser gifts is
nonetheless compatible with :many human shortcomings which a soul might
go on battling for a long, long time. Hence the author's emphasis on the
fewness of those souls who reach the normal heights of contemplation held
out to them should not be mistaken for a denial of St. John of the Cross'
encouraging observation, " The night of the sense is common, and the
lot of many: these are the beginners" (The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I,
ch. 8) . And even these beginners taste a transient contemplation which
proceeds according to the superhuman mode characteristic of the gifts of
the Holy Ghost. Father Garrigou-Lagrange says of them, "The soul will
then receive, at least for a time, a greater facility for prayer. Not infrequently there is at this stage the infused prayer of quiet in which the will
i11 captivated for a short time by the attraction of God. Persons dedicated

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to the apostolate have also in this period a greater facility to act in the
service of God, to teach, direct, and organize works" (p. 70).
Pages which deserve careful reading in view of current discussion of the
relativt: merits of the " purely contemplative " and of the " mixed " life are
those in which the author treats of the influence of infused contemplation
on the perfect apostolic life and the life of reparation (pp. 489-510).
Using St. Thomas' principle that the end of the apostolic life is contemplari
et contemplata aliis tradere, he defines his terms with unmistakable precision and clears the air of the not infrequent confusion occasioned by those
who treat contemplation as a means to action rather than as its "eminent
cause." Hence those who overstress apostolic activity to the detriment of
contemplation are reminded that " there is nothing more sublime on earth
than union with God through contemplation and love." And those who
overstress the merit of a " purely contemplative " life come face to face
with the wise Thomistic thought that it is better to illuminate than simply
to be enlightened.
It is impossible in any review to suggest the wealth of profound spiritual
guidance available to souls in a work of this calibre. If true knowledge of
the things of God is a matter of integration and unification, then suffice it
to say that we owe a debt of gratitude to God who inspired Father
Garrigou-Lagrange to produce this great synthesis of spiritual doctrine
and guided Sister M. Timothea Doyle, 0. P. in the exacting labors of her
competent translation.
AuGUSTINE P. HENNESSY, C. P.
St. Mary's Monastery,
Dunkirk, N. Y.

Family and Civilization. By CARLE C. ZIMMERMAN. New York: Harper
& Bros., 1947. Pp. 839, with index. $6.00.
The Family of Tomorrow. By CARLE C. ZIMMERMAN. New York: Harper
& Bros., 1949. Pp.
with index. $3.50.
Known earlier for studies in rural sociology, Professor Zimmerman of
Harvard wrote his first book in the sociology of the family: Family and
Society, in 1935, in collaboration with M. E. Fri!Jllpton. This work was
distinguished by the presentation of the theories of the outstanding nineteenth century Catholic sociologist Le Play, whose influence is evident in
the types, and familism ideas, of these two later volumes.
Family and Civilization strikes a new and welcome note in the long list
of recent publications for college " marriage and family " courses. The
interest is clearly sociological rather than the giving of advice on matrimonial behavior, which distinguishes so many current works. The

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287

purpose is to provide an analysis of the various family systems in western
civilization from early beginnings to the present day, with an eye to
predicting the family type of tomorrow.
Having demolished in the first few chapters the earlier theories of the
evolution of the family, unilinear and otherwise, most of which have not, in
any event, been held by scholars within recent years, Zimmerman proceeds
to advance a theory of his own. This is, that his extensive study of history and literature from early Greek civilization to the present day shows
the western family system to have moved in cycles through three family
types: the trustee family, the domestic family, the atomistic family. The
idea of cyclical change in terms of three is no novelty to the philosopher or
sociologist; Zimmerman's types resemble respectively LePlay's patriarchal,
quasipatriarchal, and and individualistic categories, and were graphically
1948 issue of Life; but his
portrayed in their modern form in the July
sequence of types seems to be wholly original.
In the trustee type there is extensive control over the individual by the
family, which assumes much of the responsibility for the individual's guidance and protection now taken over by the state and public agencies. The
family is considered perpetual, family solidarity is important, the head of
the family receives authority as family head, not as of personal right. In
time, this type, in Zimmerman's theory, develops into the domestic family,
the middle type, where the trustee family's functions are considerably abbreviated or changed, where members have a certain amount of mobility
and freedom though at least a minimum of familism or family influence
remains over the individual. The atomistic family is the type in which
the individual is very largely freed from the family; it is " essentially the
one found in societies where law and custom bring the individual, as far as
possible, out from under the couvert, the manus, the potestas of the
family and make him the agent of the government, the one responsible
directly to the law, and bound least to family obligations" (p. 187).
Zimmerman ends his Family and Civilization with the idea that the
decay of family life which he sees in our modern civilization can only
be averted by "scholarship and teaching." He says: "There is a greater
disparity between the actual, documented, historical truth and the theories
taught in the family sociology courses, than, exists in any other scientific
field," and he concludes that the answer to this great family social problem
is to recreate the conception of familism and its basic meaning to society
not by legal means but by the voluntary " making of familism and childbearing the primary social duties of the citizen. . . . The solution will
prove to be not in fides alone but in the strong union of proles-fideschildren and familism" (p. 810). Catholics will immediately miss the important Sacramentum!
There is a vast display of erudition in both books l).nder review. Yet it is

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BOOK REVIEWS

not always well organized, nor does one get from these works a clear understanding of the reasons for Zimmerman's conclusions. At times he seems
very confused, and the amateurish illustrations by his daughter in the
second work, The Family of Tomorrow, do not add any clarification to his
strange mixture of erudition and prophecy.
The purpose of The Family of Tomorrow is to " seek t.o show tomorrow's family by explaining the immanent principle between family and
civilization and by giving the backgrounds and thoughts of prominent leaders who have contributed most to the understanding of the process and its
control " (p. x) . The " great men " singled out by Zimmerman as instrumental in shaping our family system are Augustus, Livia his wife,
Theodora the wife of Justinian, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Jovinianus the
monk, Erasmus, Luther, and Milton. Erasmus is given especial importance
as having initiated our modern family system (p. 179) • The decay of
family systems is said to be demonstrated from the writings of Jerome,
Justinian, Erasmus etc., and the experience of the past shows the direction
of the trends of today. Yet Zimmerman thinks that precisely because of
the history of the past we do not have to drift. Just as his nine great
leaders were largely responsible for the development of family influence
and organization, so we in our time can re-create and impress family value
· systems. We cannot make people civilized, he says, but we can tell them
how to make themselves civilized. By this he means especially the reintroduction of familism. He ends The Family of Tomorrow with a plea
for the financing of an American Family Institute, both by large contributions from the well-to-do and by small contributions from the " many
who believe in the family but who, possibly because they have families to
raise, can not give in large amounts " (p. i45) .
One cannot always agree with what Zimmerman says in his somewhat
confused manner, but Catholics will welcome his attempt to understand
Catholic family thought in both books, and they will wholeheartedly endorse any foundation formed for the purpose of understanding trends in
family· life and considering methods of helping to establish worthwhile
family aids of all kinds. Sociologists will raise eyebrows at many points,
including such terms as Jovinian's and Milton's "Family Sociology."
Cultural determinists will be opposed to any idea of the possibility of consciously turning trends in any direction which might seem desirable, but
those whose belief in man's intelligence and free will causes them to be
less wedded to a pessimistic mechanistic viewpoint will see the good points
in Zimmerman's theories, even though they will hardly subscribe to all that
he seems to be trying to say.
EVA J. Ross
Trinity College,

Wtuhington, D. C.

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289

Immortal Diamond: Studies in Gerard Manley Hopkins. Edited by
NoRMAN WEYAND. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1949. Pp. 4lH,
with indexes. $5.00.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Study of Poetic Idiosyncrasy in Relation to
Poetic Tradition. By W. H. GARDNER. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948. Pp. 304, with index. $4.00.
Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Critical Essay towards the Understanding of
his Poetry. By W. A. M. PETERS. New York: Oxford University
Press, 194.8. Pp. 213, with index. $4.50.
Immortal Diamond, a phrase drawn from one of Hopkin's poems, is a
collection of studies by, eleven American Jesuits. It is a very uneven book
not in the sense that some of the chapters are sound while others are superficial, but in the sense that the separate studies are suitable to different
levels of readers. Several of them serve as an introduction to the poet for
those making a first acquaintance while others presume an audience which
is already initiated. Herein lies both the strength and weakness of
Immortal Diamond.
Among the very general introductory studies is, for instance, a biographical sketch of Hopkins in his relation to the Society of Jesus which in
a very rounded and balanced manner gives the story of his life from the
time of his conversion until his death. It draws heavily on primary
materials, especially on the letters, as indeed it should. Occasionally there
is some facet which needs illumination. When, for instance, Hopkins at
Oxford was considering Rome he wrote in his diary: "Note that if ever I
should leave the English Church the fact of Provost Fortescue is to be got
over." This is quoted but without any attempt to determine just what
"the fact of Provost Fortescue" was, and it·would seem to be a not unimportant hurdle in the story of his conversion.
From the essay we do learn one very important new fact: that Hopkins'
spiritual diary which has not survived was mistakenly returned to his
family after his death and that acting on instructions written on the :flyleaf, his two sisters burnt the diary without reading it. For the past two
decades critics have speculated-and sometimes very wildly indeed-as to
its whereabouts or the reasons for its destruction, and it is good to have
the matter finally settled.
A further general essay is d!lvoted to Hopkins as a poet· of nature
and of the supernatural and still another to him as a poet uf ascetic and
religious conflict. The writer of the latter does not underestimate the
gravity and acuteness of such " conflict " but he concludes that all sad
portraits of Hopkins cramped by the stern discipline of Jesuit life and
living out dismal days of broken hearted frustration among the Jesuits

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may be viewed with a smile of gentle, not to say profound, incredulity.
In contrast to these introductory essays is such a study as that entitled "Greco-Roman Verse Theory and Hopkins" which presupposes far
more than a superficial knowledge of the theory and practice of classical
prosody. Hopkins believed that there were strong similarities between his
rhythms and those of the Greek choruses. The writer's thesis is that
Hopkins' misunderstandings of Greek and Latin rhythmic usages, which
derived for the most part from mistakes of scholars of his age, led his
speculation on classical meter over unsafe ground. The essay is challenging
and can finally be evaluated only when one takes into consideration Hopkins' own experiments in Greek poetry which were very recently-certainly
too recently for them to be considered here-printed for the first time in
the third edition of his poems.
The longest study-some eighty pages-is also one of the most valuable.
In " Sprung Rhythm and the Life of English Poetry " Walter Ong attempts to account for Hopkins' sprung rhythm and his practice against a
general pattern of development in English verse. Aware of the tremendous
intricacies of the problem, he demonstrates very persuasively that interpretive or sense-stress rhythm demands alliteration, assonance, internal
rhyme, dramatic suppression of words, telescoping of grammatical structure
as invaluable and necessary helps in bringing out the intended meaning.
One concludes that all these devices were not mere adventitious ornament
but the stuff which " gathers to a greatness " to form the substance, the
organism which is Hopkins' poetry. The essay has many other important
things to say, and it is one of the very best in the volume.
Three of the studies are devoted to the kind of analysis which is especially
helpful for the beginning student of Hopkins: careful exegesis and explication of individual poems, " The Windhover," " The Loss of, the Eurydice,"
and" The Wreck of the Deutschland." The first is the most detailed and
takes into consideration the numerous critical studies which have been
made of that poem.
In an appendix the various newspaper accounts and press reports relating to the historical basis of "The Wreck of the Deutschland" and
" The Loss of the Eurydice " are reprinted and made available for the
first time. They suggest that in the hands of a very sensitive. critic a
significant study might be made of the transmutation of these materials
into Hopkins' poetry, just as a contribution could be made by studying the
creative process through an examination of the materials in Hopkins' NoteBooks and Papers in relation to his actual poems.
An interpretive glossary of difficult words, rather than being placed
among the appendices, is located at the center of the book for the convenience of readers who may wish to keep this section open while reading
Hopkins' poems. Two factors especially render Hopkins' diction difficult:

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coinage of new words and employment of provincial or dialectical usage.
These are especially indicated in the glossary and several interesting conclusions emerge: what appear at first sight to be archaisms are not
usually so. They are but borrowings from the living dialect of the common
people of particular regions of whose speech Hopkins made booty in his
eager search for the precise, the living, the more colorful word. They are
very seldom studied revivals of truly archaic langauge.
The glossary is not absolutely complete (for instance, "random" certainly has a special meaning as Hopkins uses it ill " Felix Randal ") , and
sometimes the explanations do not explain (as in the case of" unchancelling" from "The Wreck of the Deutschland.")
Probably the greatest
difficulty is that when Hopkins uses a word he often intends it to mean
several things at once; "leafmeal" (from "Spring and Fall") is here
defined as " leaf by leaf " by analogy with " piecemeal." But does not
Hopkins also intend the sense of the autumn leaves being· ground underfoot
into meal, " leafmeal "? The glossary is perhaps too exclusive in the
meanings it gives in such cases. It remains, however, an extremely needed
and useful aid for the beginner as well as the person who thinks he knows
Hopkins' vocabulary well; even the latter will discover in Hopkins a
precision that he may have missed.
The volume closes with a chronological Hopkins' bibliography which
is presented as comprehensive but not exhaustive. Without being completely definitive, it is easily the most inclusive bibliography of Hopkins
in print and it forms, as its compiler says, a working basis for further work
in Hopkins' bibliography.
Immortal Diamond is enhanced by a frontispiece which presents for the
first time a newly discovered photograph of Hopkins toward the close of
his life. It is far superior to the other portraits which we have.
Because of its varied nature, Immortal Diamond offers something of
significance to the general reader as well as to the more advanced student,
and the book fulfills therefore a diversity of need.
Hopkins in a letter to Coventry Patmore once wrote:
Every true poet, I thought, must be original and originality a condition of
poetic genius; so that each poet is like a
· in nature (not an individuum
genericum or specificum) and can never recur. That nothing should be old or
borrowed however cannot be.

It is the object of W. H. Gardner to study the revolutionary and traditionary elements in Hopkins. His purpose is precisely-if somewhat
awkwardly-indicated in the subtitle of his book: Gerard Manley Hopkins:
A Study of Poetic Idiosyncracy in Relation to Poetic Tradition.
In chapters devoted to his "two vocations " (those of poet and priest),

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"The Wreck of the Deutschland," sonnet morphology, diction and syntax,
themes and imagery, his critics and reviewers, and finally his relation to
modern poetry, the author seeks to show that Hopkins, at first sight so
odd, eccentric, even revolutionary in matters of style and rhythm, is actually
and eminently as legitimate an offspring of the great European tradition
as any English poet before him.
This purpose is carried out with varying success in the different chapters
of the book. Some of them are more closely related to the central objective
of the volume than others. Indeed some of them tend to break off and to
become brilliant individual critical essays which only peripherally touch on
his central thesis. The chapters, in other words, need to be more carefully
integrated to make this a single study rather than a collection of studies.
One of his most valuable contributions is his chapter on sonnet morphology in which his thesis may be seen worked out in detail. Gardner
holds that Hopkins' most significant contribution to English verse forms
consisted in the number of variations played upon the traditional Petrarchan
or Italian sonnet-form. Hopkins called the majority of his poems sonnets
and his object was to infuse a new spirit into the old form without destroying its identity.
What Hopkins was really trying to do was to produce sonnets more
like the qriginal Petrarchan sonnet than the other English sonneteers who
thought they were following Petrarch. " The main reason," he held, " why
the sonnet has never been so effective in England as in Italy I believe to
be this: it is not so long as the Italian sonnet; it is not long enough. . . . "
Such iconoclasm Hopkins supported by an analogy from architecture: in
the Doric order, the Parthenon is the standard of perfection; its proportions
are the typical proportions. But wrote Hopkins:
H a building is raised on a notably larger scale, it will be found that these proportions . : . must be changed or the Order abandoned. Now if the Italian sonnet is one of the most successful forms of composition known, as it is reckoned
to be, its propositions, inward and outward, must be pretty near perfection.

But although the English sonnet proper conforms to the Italian type in
all other respects, the English decasyllable is shorter than the Italian
endecasillabo, not by one syllable only, but frequently by three or four,
owing to the slurring of final and initial vowels. Hopkins also remarks that
in the Italian the syllables themselves are longer. The English sonnet,
therefore, suffers from want" not of comparative but of absolute length."
By various means, therefore, Hopkins aimed at extending the English
sonnet to the size of the Italian. When he rejected the iambic decasyllable
in favor of his own counterpointed, outriding and sprung rhythms, he did
so not in ignorant caprice but in the full knowledge of what he was doing.
He wanted the maximum length and weight of the Italian sonnet.
In this way Hopkins' sonnets, which appear to be so unconventional and

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such a break· with tradition, are shown to be in truth far more traditional
than those of Wyatt or Surrey or Milton. The same may ,be said for his
sprung rhythm, his prosody, his diction, themes, and imagery to which
Gardner devotes separate chapters.
His book, therefore, reverses the common critical opinion that Hopkins'
work is that of one who broke almost completely with the past and brings
the body of his poetry into a finely balanced synthesis of the old and the
new. The writer has promised a second volume which every student of
Hopkins will eagerly await.
The sections on the Scotist elements in Hopkins {pp. 21-31) are not
entirely satisfactory. The most serious error-which I take to be an unintentional slip-is the statement: " Scotus offered the poet an aesthetic
sanction and the priest a moral justification for his inordinate attachment to
poetry and the other arts. That is perhaps why Scotus so swayed his
spirits to peace." It would seem difficult to see how Scotus-or any one
for that matter-could justify an " inordinate " attachment. Fortunately Gardner has made revisions in the American edition (the present
volumes) which does not rely for support, as does the English edition, on
citations from Scotus' De Rerum Principia as quoted in C. R. S. Harris'
rather unfortunate Duns Scotus (Oxford, 1928).
W. A.M. Peters in his Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Critical Essay Towards the Understanding of His Poetry makes the Scotist element the
master key to all of Hopkins' poetry. Hopkins himself referred to inscape
as "what I above all aim at in poetry," as "the essential and only lasting
thing," and as " the very soul of art."
One may thus well believe that inscape is the key to all his art, and
Peters finds in it the explanation for all that is baffling to the ordinary
reader of Hopkins.
The Jesuit poet nowhere defined exactly what he meant by the term
" inscape " but Peters formulates very· carefully-and I think accuratelya definition drawn from all the instances in which the poet employs the term.
Inscape is, then, the unified complex of those sensible qualities of the
object of perception that strike us as inseparably belonging to and most
typical of it, so that through the knowledge of this unified complex of
· sense-data we may gain an insight into the individual essence of the object.
Hopkins was never satisfied unless he had caught the inscape of things
and it led him to deviate from the generally accepted practice of writing
poetry. His was therefore no irresponsible playing with language, no wilful
destruction.
·
Peters works out his· thesis in great. detail, with an abundant wealth of
illustration, and with a closeness of reasoning that throws fresh light on
many aspects of the poetry of Hopkins.
Hopkins was faced with a difficulty at first sight insurmountable. In-

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scape is individually distinctive and unique, and as such it cannot be
expressed in words which, with the exception of proper names, by their
very essence as lexical elements of the given language are universal terms.
How is he to express the individual in terms which are representative of
universals when inscape is a denial of universality? He resorted to a
number of methods. He was driven towards impersonation, a personifying
that is, of irrational selves so that, identifying individuality and personality,
he presents irrational objects as persons. Indications of impersonation are,
for instance, the frequent absence of the article which has the effect of
making the common noun into a kind of proper name, or his habit of addressing the objects he contemplates, or his constant attribution of activity
and life (each mortal thing" deals out that being indoors each one dwells.")
His coinages clearly point to his intense awareness of what is individually
distinctive in every object and to his consciousness of the objects as independent in being and activity.
His new compounds (making generic terms into specific ones), his reformation of such compounds by splitting them up, taking them to pieces,
and then reassembling them, his use of long adjectival groups in frontal
position to fulfill a restrictive rather than merely descriptive function, his
frequent employment of homophones, even the omission of the relative
pronoun-all these are modes of inscaping and it is inscape that accounts
for both the matter and the form of his poetry.
The language used by 'the poet must have the same individualizing
touch as the matter of his poetry. The poetic experience, no matter how
distinctive and how " selved " will lose its individuality if it is expressed in
conventional form.
The book is very carefully ordered and the progression is very logical.
Its chief difficulties come at those points (as on pp. 64-65 for instance)
where the enthusiasm of the author is so great that he insists that inscape
be the explanation for everything in Hopkins and as a result he sometimes
forces his material into the pattern of his thesis. But that the thesis is in
general sound no reader may easily doubt and all future students will have
to rely on this study even it is to be qualified it by relating it to other
elements in the sensibility of Hopkins.
The author sees, as do other critics of Hopkins, that the reason why the
philosophy of Scotus attracted him even more strongly than that of
Aristotle or St. Thomas is given by Hopkins himself in a passage in his
diary where he says that the inscape of things made him think of Scotus.
This argues that Scotus' philosophy gave the philosophical basis to his
inscape. Even more than the epistemology of Scotus it was his theory
of individuation that made Hopkins tum to him, for inscape covers what
Scotus called haecceitas, of which inscape is the sensible manifestation.

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Hopkins' own theories found, then, a philosophical justification and
firmation in the system of Scotus.
Of course Peters is aware that Hopkins was in a sense a Scotist before he
was aware of it; he practiced Scotism, so to say, before he knew the
system of Scotus. Many of the instances of his use of the term inscape
in his journal date from before the time he first picked up a volume of
Scotus in 1872 (indeed he first used the term in 1868 in connection with
Parmenides). Yet Scotus did exercise a decided influence on him, for once
he had found that his own views paralleled so nearly those in Scotus'
philosophy, he adhered to them with an added confidence.
The Scotist elements in Hopkins' thought bring up a host of important
problems which should be further explored. As Peters presents the view
of Hopkins, it would seem that he made every existent thing into a separate
species, that in a sense the world for him was peopled by nothing but
angels. Or another way of stating this would be to say that the unity of
the species is sacrificed in order to protect the particularity of the individual. Yet when one reads the poetry of Hopkins he is aware that this is
not entirely true. Indicative is Hopkins' own exegesis of his sonnet on
Henry Purcell who " uttered in notes the very make and SJ;>ecies of man
as created in him and in all men generally."
But before such questions should be taken up it would seem that even
more fundamental historical problems must be treated. Preliminary to a
study of the Scotist element in Hopkins would have to be a careful study
of exactly how and what philosophy was taught in the early 1870's when
Hopkins was in the Jesuit seminary. What theory of individuation, for
instance, was taught? What were the texts and textbooks? Was it the
theory of Suarez? Of St. Thomas? If the latter, how was it presented?
What aesthetic was to be found in the books which he studied?
Hopkins, of course, did not have a good text of Scotus-we know the
edition he used. In 1874 he made the acquaintance of David Lewis and
Brande Morris to whom he referred as the " two and I suppose the only two
Scotists in England." It would be interesting-and I think significant-to
know the extent to which Hopkins' own interpretations of Scotus were
valid.
Further, an artist is not always so consistent with his own theory as
Peters suggests. This was often true of Hopkins because he frequently
theorized after the accomplished fact and hunted for parallels in a kind of
process of rationalization.
Eventually there must come a time for an assessment of the strength
and weakness of an aesthetic which would derive from the metaphysics
and epistemology of Scotus.
I do not wish to imply that Peters should have attempted answers to
all these problems-and a number of others that will suggest themselves.

11

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He defines carefully his plan and pursues it with tenacity. But I am suggesting that there is still work to be done on the Scotist element in Hopkins and that further study of it will bring forth answers to questions which
are very relevant not merely to a final evaluation of Hopkins hut to the
very nature of poetry and art itself.
Marquette University,
Milwaulcee, Wis.

Le Sens de l'Histoire. By NICHOLAS BERDIAEFF. Paris:
Montaigne, 1948. Pp. 221.

Aubier, Editions

Meaning in History. By KARL LowiTH. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1949. Pp. 267 with index. $4.00.
The chapters of Berdiae:ff's book consist of lectures delivered by the
author at the Liberal Academy of Spiritual Culture in Moscow during the
first days of the Soviet regime (1919-1920). To these chapters are added
two later lectures: "Vouloire-vivre et volonte de culture," and "Histoire
et eschatologie." This French edition is not of great importance for the
English reading scholar, inasmuch as all the above material except the
lecture on "history and eschatology" appeared in English in 1936 under
the title The Meaning of History. The lecture on history and eschatology
was delivered by the author to a French audience in 194£ and published
here for the first time. Berdiaefi's preface to the French edition, written
shortly before his death, is a neat summary of what he has tried to
accomplish by his writings on the philosophy of history.
This book, Berdiaeff tells the reader, is an attempt to treat of "the
fundamental problems of the philosophy of history." His contribution to
our understanding of history is now well known: his distinction between
culture and civilization; his insistence on the religious element in man's
life and in history; his " personalism " with its stress on human freedom
and the dignity of man; his presentation of the unique contribution made
by Christianity to Western culture; and his analysis of the decadence of
the West in modern times. In the preface to this French edition, Berdiaefl'
explains that his " philosophy is permeated more and more with personalism," and that he has become more and more convinced " of the necessity
of defending the dignity and the freedom of man," of developing a Christian humanism in the face of modern positivism and materialism.
His chapter on " History and Eschatology " restates his basic theory
that modern theories of progress are secularizations and perversions of the
Judaeo-Christian concept of salvation and the coming of the Kingdom of
God. Any meaningful philosophy of history, Berdiaefi insists, must necessarily be messianic and eschatological. Its end must lie outside history,

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297

not in it, for aalvation is not found within history. He therefore dismisses
the modern theories of progress for seeking the end of history at some
future time within the historical process. In this chapter Berdiaeff also
makes some enlightening, though for him not new, remarks on the other
two " capital problems " of modern philosophies of history: time and
freedom.
The contribution of the late Nicholas Berdiaeff to our thinking about
the philosophy of history is best summed up in Le Sens de l'Histoire. The
single new chapter in the French edition reviewed here, however, adds
nothing new to the Berdiaeff literature already in English.
Whereas Berdiaeff's thought on this subject has been brought to a close,
Karl Lowith's promises to be just beginning. His Meaning in History is
his first work to appear in English, but he has done several studies in
German in this general field. Lowith uses the device of analyzing critically
the thought of masters in the field from early Christian times through the
nineteenth century, but this method does not prevent him from presenting
his own ideas effectively, both in his introductory and concluding chapters
and in his analysis of each of the, fourteen " philosophers of history " he
treats.
Meaning in History is curiously organized. Because the author sees in
modern historical thought " a more or less inconsistent compound of both
traditions [classical and Christian)," he thinks it well to start with modern
thinkers and work backward through history to " the Hebrew-Christian
understanding of history by faith." Thus he starts with Burckhardt and
works through Marx, Hegel, Proudhon, Comte, Condorcet, Turgot, Voltaire, Vico, Bossuet, Joachim of Floris, Augustine, Orosius, and the Bible.
These are all well-known names except for Joachim and Orosius. Lowith
included the former, it would seem, in order to have one millenarian in his
study-for the problem of salvation assumes an even greater importance
with him than it does with Berdiaeff. It is not so easy to justify the inclusion of Augustine's pupil Orosius, who differed from his master only in
adapting himself better to the new barbarian element in the Roman
Empire.
In this single volume the author can devote only from ten to twenty
pages to each thinker he analyzes. Generally speaking, his study on each
individual is penetrating. This is the most valuable and the soundest
part of his work-especially his comments on the eight figures selected
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The most important part
of the book, however, is Lowith's own thesis, found principally in the introduction, the chapter on the Biblical view of history, and the conclusion,
but also scattered through his other chapters by way of tangential discussions.
The sub-title of Meaning in History is" The Theological Implications of
the Philosophy of History." This is significant, for Lowith holds that a

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philosophy of history is impossible, inasmuch as the ultimate meaning of
history cannot be found immanently.
" The problem of history as a whole is unanswerable within its own perspective.
Historieal processes as such do not bear the least evidence of a comprehensive and
ultimate meaning. History as such has no outcome. There never has been and
never will be an immanent solution of the problem of history, for man's historical
experience is one of steady failure. . . . As a transcendent principle, the will of God
can never become the subject of a systematic interpretation, revealing the meaning
of history in the succession and fortunes of states or even in the history of the
church."

Lowith therefore maintains that the ultimate answers to the questions
history raises can be given only by faith. For the " meaning " of history
to him is its end, which lies outside history, and can therefore be understood only through a non-empirical approach to the problem.
Lowith agrees in the main with Berdiae:lf in his critique of modern
philosophies of history. The classical view of history was cyclical or
circular, he claims, with the idea of eternal recurrence based upon the
classical knowledge of the universe and the seasons. Judaism and Christianity, however, took a linear view of history, seeing it as progression from
creation to the coming of the Kingdom of God. The doctrine of salvation,
therefore, became the basis of the Christian view of history. Modern
theories of progress, with Lowith as with Berdiae:lf, are a secularization of
the Christian doctrine of salvation, but " salvation " to the moderns is
made an immanent thing, realizable within history. The definite, transcendent goal of the Christians has been replaced by the moderns with an
indefinite, future, immanent goal. Thus, modern " progress " theories of
history are derived from Christianity and turned against it.
The author of Meaning in History sees all modern thought on this
subject as a combination of the classical circular theory of eternal recurrence and the Christian linear theory of creation and salvation. Thus, he
sees Spengler's organic theory of growth and decline as patterned on. the
classical tradition. Thus, he sees Toynbee " much more under the spell
of naturalistic and secular thinking than he realizes." Lowith errs here
in not wanting to see what Toynbee is about, for it the old story of the
theologian condemning the philosopher for not being 'a theologian. "Toynbee," he complains, " is neither an empirical historian nor a good theologian."
Meaning in History sets up a sharp distinction between the "history of
salyation" on the one hand and "profane history" on the other. He
holds that the latter is meaningless except in terms of the former. In this
respect he differs from Berdiaeff, who uses Christian knowledge to interpret and to give pattern to the history of human beings living their lives
in the world. Berdiaeff is thus more helpful to the historian who seeks

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guidance from the philosopher and the theologian in finding the ultimates
in history, which historical data of themselves cannot give. Lowith reacts
quite properly to the historicism of men like Dilthey and the fatalism of
" philosophers of history " like Spengler and Marx; but his reaction seems
too strong, insofar as secular history is treated as a profane subject that is a
useless, even dangerous, study.
Lowith is right in claiming that history cannot answer the problem he
raises of "the meaning of history," which is properly a theological problem. The general tenor of his book is to dismiss " philosophies of history "
as illegitimate studies. This is too slick a trick. One can agree with
Lowith that only a theology of history can answer the question of the
end of history, and of individuals, but one can still have room for the
sort of thing Berdiaefi and Toynbee have done-which is generally referred
to by that loose phrase "philosophy of history."
The problem of salvati!)n, which is the central concern of Meaning in
History, is twofold. There is the problem of the end of each historical
person, of each man who lives in history. There is also the problem of the
end of society, of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Both of these are
theological rather than historical problems, and both of them are realized
outside the course of history. Li:iwith handles them well, but he creates
a certain amount of confusion for the reader by not keeping distinct these
two " salvations." It is the wise historian who will agree with him in
admitting that the ultimate meaning of history must be found in theology
rather than in history. But Lowith has not presented a convincing case to
show that the antithesis between the Christian view of history and any
conceivable " profane " history is necessary.
THOMAS

P. NEILL

St. Louis University,
St. Louis, Mo.

Whitehead's Philosophy of Time. By WILLIAM W. HAMMERSCHMIDT.
New York: King's Crown Press, 1947. Pp. 108. $2.00.
Those who are interested in Mr. Whitehead's philosophy of Space-Time
will find in this study a very helpful and scholarly collection of material.
The intention of Mr. Hammerschmidt is to "give a reader a manageable
basis for a criticism of Whitehead's writings on Space-Time" (p. 1). He
traces faithfully the philosopher's thought on the subject through three
general periods. The first extends from his earliest publications through
It will be remembered that Mr. Whitehead joined the faculty of
Harvard University in the department of philosophy in that year. The
second period is the transitional one starting with the publication of Science
and continuing to the appearance of Process
and the Modern World

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and Reality {1929). The publication of the latter book introduces the
final period of Whitehead's thought.
The arrangement of the book is calculated to make the reading as easy
as possible. Chapter headings are significant, sub-headings are expressive
of the material contained in the smaller sections, and at the close of each
chapter the writer summarizes the thought analyzed in that chapter.
Notes and references are accurate. The glossary of terms is a necessary
aid to those who are unaccustomed to the terminology of the philosophy of
organism, although the definitions sometimes are as difficult to understand as the terms defined. For example, a mental pole is defined as
" that aspect of an actual occasion which includes an aim at an aesthetically
and morally harmonious nature as the result of the self-creation of the
actual occasion." Of course, it is not the fault of Mr. Hammerschmidt that
he must give such a defintion. He is only repeating the words of the
philosopher. To criticize him on this point is to show a lack of appreciation of the monumental work which he has actually accomplished-a
ably coherent presentation of a system of thought which is not in itself
noted for coherence.
There are four chapters in the book. The first is a preliminary account of time and nature. It includes a study of the general aspects of the
philosophy or organism in relation to those topics. The second chapter is a
consideration of " Temporal Transition and Atomic Events." This is a
description of Whitehead's polemics against simple real points of Time and
Space. As might be expected, Mr. Whitehead is opposed to the theory
that Time and Space are made up of simple, indivisible points. For him,
the characteristic flow of time is best explained in the flux of becoming.
After considering Whitehead's doctrine that all real entities are extended
in space and time, the author in the third chapter examines the extended
aspect of events in the light of the theory of Extensive Abstraction. This
leads to the study of the order of Durations in the following chapter. The
last chapter is a very instructive estimation of the reality of Space-Time
in Whitehead.
In any reasonable consideration of truth and being, a writer is using as
his instrument a mind, the proper object of which is being. He necessarily
speaks in terms of being, of substance and accident. According to Mr.
Hammerschmidt, Mr. Whitehead rejects the Newtonian theory that Time
is " self-subsistent,'' real in its own right, involving no dependence on
matter or substance, and in itself something rather than an aspect of something {p. 75) . One can readily agree with him that time is not a substance but an accident of a substantial being. He then continues with the
thought that time is the intrinsic expression of the sole reality which is,
creative advance in nature (p. 85) . This doctrine comes very close to the
assertion that there is an absolute time which is the actual existence of a

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changing being. It is necessarily expressed in the terminology of being,
implying that time is an accident. Mr. Hammerschmidt wisely notes that
" Whitehead's insistence that time must inhere in real entities is equivalent
. to saying that a theory of absolute time, in which time is a set of unsupported relations, occupied by eternal objects, would not give a satisfactory
account of nature " (p. 76) . Mr. Whitehead had too much native good
sense not to avoid a lapse into a doctrine which he explicitly rejects in his
philosophy of becoming.
Probably the greatest problem which faced Mr. Hammerschmidt in
writing his summary is the lack of coherence in the very system itself.
He realizes that any explanation of nature and reality will necessarily
depend on the theory of creativity (p. 74). This creativity generates
time by a series of successive and contiguous epochal durations (p. 27) .
In Process and Reality· (p. 30) "the conception of an actual occasion
represents Whitehead's final effort to merge creativity and the creature.
To him an actual occasion is an act of self-creativity, the creativity
creating the creature yet just an aspect of the creature.''
The contradiction inherent in the last sentence· is obvious. The
present problem, however, is to understand what creativity is. The glossary
gives a definition taken from Process and Reality: " Creativity is the
pure notion of activity; that ultimate notion of the highest generality inherent in all actuality." Mr. Hammerschmidt does his best to make the
concept clear. In fact, he makes it more understandable than it is in Whitehead. In Process and Reality (p. 42) , we find the remarkable statement
that creativity is Aristotelian "matter" divested of its passive receptivity.
This can mean that it is in no way potential but actual. It comes close to
the affirmation that creativity, the matter of Aristotle, is pure act! In the
same book (p. 302), creativity is incapable of receiving a form. Yet
every entity is a particular form capable of infusing its own particularity
into creativity. The latter must, therefore, be passive, at least in the sense
that it is capable of receiving this particularity of form. In Process and
Reality (p. 42), Mr. Whitehead denies categorically that creativity can be
characterized but it is found under conditions and is " described as conditioned." He writes (pp. 317-318) that God is the "aboriginal condition " which qualifies the action of creativity and the primordial character
which characterizes what he has previously called uncharacterizable what
is only described as conditioned.
In the light of such statements we might well marvel that Mr. Hammerschmidt has managed to make such an understandable summary of Whitehead's notion of Time and Space. He is to be congratulated upon his painstaking and scholarly synthesis of a very difficult subject.
EDWARD

Nazareth CoUege,
Rochester, N. Y.

J. LINTZ

BOOKS RECEIVED
Allport, G. W., The Individual and His Religion. New York: Macmillan
Co., 1950. Pp. 158, with index. $2.50.
Alluntis, F., Problem of Expropriation. . Washington: Catholic University
Press, 1949. Pp. 178, with index.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, In Aristotelis libros: De Sensu et Sensato; De
Memoria et. Reminiscentia. Torino: Marietti, 1949. Pp. 130, with
index. 500 lire.
Aquinas, St. Thomas., In Decem Libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum Expositio. Torino: Marietti, 1949. Pp. 6ll, with index.
1800 lire.
Aquinas, St. Thomas (trans. J.P. Rowan), The Soul. St. Louis: Herder,
1949. Pp. 299, with index. $4.00.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Opuscula Omnia. t. I: Opuscula Philosophica. Paris:
P. Lethielleux, 1949. Pp. 640, with indexes. 1500 fr.
Armstrong, A. H., Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. Westminster:
Newman, 1949. Pp. 257, with index. $3.25.
Baudry, Leon, Guillaume D'Occam: sa vie, ses oeuvres, ses idees sociales et
politiques. Paris: J. Vrin, 1950. Pp. 316, with index.
Born, M., Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1949. Pp. 222 with index. $4.50.
Bressolles, Mgr., Saint Agobard: Doctrine et Action Politique. Paris:
J. Vrin, 1949. Pp. 134 with index.
Calandra, G., De Historica Andreae Victorini Expositione in Ecclesiasten.
Rome: Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1948.
168 with
index. $2.00.
Carro, V. D., Los Dominicos Y El Concilio de Trento. Salamanca: 1948.
Pp. 227 with index. 30 ptas.
Dawson, C., Religion and the Rise of Western Culture. New York: Sheed
& Ward, 1950. Pp. 202 with index. $3.50.
Duffy, F., Psychiatry and Asceticism. St. Louis: Herder, 1950. Pp. 132
with index. $2.00.
Elder, E. E. (trans.) A Commentary on the Creed of Islam. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1950. Pp. 219 with index. $3.75.
Ferm, V. (editor), Forgotten Religions. New York: Philosophical Library,
1950. Pp. 403 with index. $7.50.
Garrigou-Lagrange, R. (Trans. B. J. Kelly), The Mother of the Saviour
and Our Interior Life. St. Louis: Herder, 1949. Pp. 338 with index.
$4.00.

Gillet, M. S., Thomas D'Aquin. Paris: Dunod, 1949. Pp. 282, with index.

BOOKS RECEIVED

303

Hazelton, R., Renewing the Mind. New York: Macmillan Co., 1949.
Pp. 201 with index. $2.50.
Heidegger, M., Existence and Being. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1950.
899 with notes. $5.00.
Hesburgh, T., God and the World of Man. South Bend: University of
Notre Dame, 1950. Pp. 826, with index.
Hunter, H. L., Miracles of the Red Altar Cloth. New York: Exposition
Press, 1949. Pp. 218. $8.00.
Le Boutillier, C. G., American Democracy and the Natural Law. New
York: Columbia University Press. Pp. 210 with index. $8.00.
Lepley, R. (editor), Value-A Cooperative Inquiry. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1949. Pp. 496, with index. $6.00.
Lewis, E. L., The Individual and Society. New York: Exposition Press,
1949. Pp. 111. $8.00.
Lynch, R. K., Whither Goest Thou? Westminster: Newman, 1949. Pp.
871, with index. $4.75.
Maciver, R. M., The Ramparts We Guard. New York: Macmillan Co.,
1950. Pp. 152, with index. $8.00.
McEwen, W. P., Enduring Satisfaction. New York: Philosophical Library,
1949. Pp. 898 with index. $4.75.
Meschler, M., Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Louis: Herder, 1950.
Fifth Edition. Vol. I-Pp. 565, with map; Vol. II-Pp. 569, with
index. $12.00 the set.
Mohan, R. P., Thomistic Philosophy of Civilization and Culture. Washington: Catholic University Press, 1949. Pp. 147, with index.
Nelson, B., The Idea of Usury. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1949. Pp. 279, with index. $8.00.
O'Brien, P., Emotions and Morals. New York: Grune and Stratton, 1950.
Pp. 244, with. index. $3.50.
Pastorak, J. B., Sermons for the Forty Hours' Devotion. St. Louis:
Herder, 1949. Pp. 859, with index. $4.00.
Pattison, A., Assignment to Rome. New York: Jos. F. Wagner, 1949.
Pp. 128.
Paul, L., The Meaning of Human Existence. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1950. Pp. 259, with index. $8.00.
Peguy, C. (trans. Julian Green), Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc.
New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1950. Pp. 216. $8.00.
Pope, H., St. Augustine of Hippo. Westminister Newman, 1949. Pp. 487,
with index. $4.00.
.
Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1949. Pp.
880, with index. 12/6.
Regamey, P. R. (trans. R. Sheed), Poverty. New York: Sheed & Ward,
1950. Pp. 191. $2.50.
Rzadkiewicz, A. L., Philosophical Bases of Human Liberty According to St.

804

BOOKS RECEIVED

TIWmas Aquinas. Washington: Catholic University Press, 1949. Pp.
194, with index.
Schumacher, L. S., Philosophy of Equitable Distribution of Wealth. Washington: Catholic University Press, 1949. Pp. 148, with index.
Schlipp, P. A. (editor), Einstein, Philosopher and Scientist. Evanston:
Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949. Pp. 796, with index. $8.50.
Sheedy, Chas., The Christian Virtues. South Bend: Notre Dame University Press, 1950. Pp. 872.
Stauffer, R. C. (editor), Science and Civilization. Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1949. Pp. 225, with index. $2.50.
Symposium, Goals for American Education. New York: Harper and Bros.,
1950. Pp. 569, with index. $5.00.
Symposium, The Nature of Man. New York: Church Peace Union, 1950.
Pp. 120, with index. $1.00.
Symposium (edited by UNESCO)., Human Rights. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1949. Pp. 288, with index. $3.75.
Von Rintelen, F. J., Von Dionysos Zu Apollon. Metopen-Verlag, Wiesbaden. Pp. 122 with index.