THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoviNCE OF ST. J-OSEPH

Publishers:

VoL. XXI

The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.

APRIL, 1958

THOMISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND FREUD'S
PSYCHOANALYSIS

P

STATEMENT OF THE THESIS

REVIOUS to the last war there seemed to exist a certain
immisceability among the three major approaches to
the study of human nature: the philosophical psychological, the empirical psychological and the psychoanalytic.
This is not to say that every writer or researcher felt himself
obliged to remain within the confines established for his discipline, but only to acknowledge that a hard core of the practitioners of one approach labored in ignorance and even disdain
of the labors of those who used other approaches. Since the
war, the situation seems to have changed. As a result of
practical collaboration, psychologists and psychoanalysts have
begun to find common interests; as a result of the generally
felt need for broader contexts of thought, philosophy is be-

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ginning to win acceptance with students of a more empirical
cast of mind. This situation should be welcome to Thoinists,
especially to those who see no formal line of distinction between
the philosophical and 'empirical approach to any, object of
science. For them, any truth is grist for the mill, no matter
how or by whom discovered; a challenge to the integrating
power of the fundamental Thomistic principles and an opportunity to enrich their science by a further application.
Within this context, I should like to suggest that it would
be profitable for students of St. Thomas to investigate the
writings of Sigmund Freud. I do not mean this in the merely
superficial sense, that, because Freud is widely read and discussed, we also should know something about him, if only to
be abreast of current thinking. Nor do I mean it in the more
praiseworthy but still 1inadequate sense, that because the
Freudian methods of therapy have proved useful in curing
some types of mental disturbances, we should understand
enough of the matter to be able to use them or recommend
their use. I mean the thesis in a more formal sense, that,
namely, there are Freudian concepts which can be integrated
into the content of Thomistic psychology, where they would
provide valuable elaborations in the speculative order.
·
A number of objections immediately come to mind. In what
sense does St. Thomas' psychology need addition or elaboration? And if it needs some kind of development, why look to
psychoanalysis, and, if one must look to psychoanalysis, why
to Freud?
To take up the second question first, it would seem evident
that psychoanalysis, even as a study of human nature, has
made great contributions to our understanding of man, uncovering truths which were previously hardly suspected and
certainly greatly undervalued. If, then, we hold, as we do, that
there is no need to defend the profundity and accuracy of St.
Thomas' psychology, it would seem hard to believe that there
is no substantial area of agreement between the two points of
view, no intersection of their respective insights. For it seems

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hard to allow that there could be two profound penetrations
into human nature which were entirely disparate, entirely
unprofitable for speculative analysis and comparison.
This is not to assert that only psychoanalysis has provided
material interesting to the Thomist psychologist. It would
certainly be useful to integrate also the findings of empirical
psychologists, especially, for instance, Gestalt schools. However, since empirical psychology initially turned its attention
to the problems of external sensation, and even to the more
physiological aspects thereof, and has consequently effected its
greatest contribution in these areas in which philosophical
interest is relatively thin, while psychoanalysis has from the
beginning plunged into the areas of deeper perceptions and
basic motivations, in which areas philosophy is also more
intensely concerned, psychoanalysis seems to hold out at present
a promise of greater immediate rewards to the philosophical
investigator.
Granting, then, the value of a philosophical study of psychoanalysis, why Freud? For all his genius and influence, it is
widely admitted that Freud had some fundamental limitations,
even within the field of psychoanalysis itself, so that subsequent
psychoanalysis has found itself not only making substantial
additions to his theories, but also correcting them in basic
principles. It would follow, then, that a. Thomist, looking for
materials and insights in psychoanalysis, ought to look at
more contemporary forms of the discipline rather than at the
more purely Freudian position. There is no doubt that the
developments since Freud and aside from Freud cannot be
neglected, and simply because they present in toto a fuller and
more accurate picture than did Freud. Nevertheless there is
a certain justification in beginning the philosophical study with
Freud, not only because of his historical priority, but also
because his is the greatest single contribution to psychoanalysis,
and the basis of later developments, and also because, even
when a master has been corrected by his school, his original
insights often contain more than his followers have perceived.

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In one sense, therefore, ignoring later developments, it seems
not invalid to begin in the beginning with Freud's own theories.
To return now to the first objection, why and in what sense
can it be said that St. Thomas' psychology needs elaboration?
To answer this objection, it would be best to appeal to St.
Thomas himself. In his cominentary on Aristotle's De Sensu
et Sensato, he expounds his notion of a complete psychological
science, dividing the science into three stages of investigation. 1
In the first, the soul itself is treated more or less abstractly.
In the second, the living composite or animate thing is considered in general, and in the third, each species of living thing
is specially treated. Now St. Thomas himself wrote two ex
professo psychological works in the first stage, the Commentary
on De Anima and the Disputed Question De Anima. In the
Commentary, he consistently notes the points at which the
investigation is broken off, to be taken up again in other books,
as developments of the second stage. 2 He has also two
1 " And as diverse genera of sciences are distinguished
according to the way
in which things are separable from matter in diverse ways, so also in the single
sciences, and especially in natural science, the parts of the science are distinguished
according to the diverse mode of separation and concretion. And because universals
are more separate from matter, therefore, in natural science we proceed from the
universals to the less universal, as the Philosopher teaches in the first book of
the Physics. Whence he begins to treat natural science from those things which
are most common to all natural things, namely, motion and the principle of motion,
and then he proceeds through the mode of concretion, or application of common
principles, to certain determined mobile things, among which are living bodies.
Concerning these he also proceeds in a similar way, distinguishing this consideration
into three parts. For first, he considers the soul in itself, as in a certain abstraction.
Secondly, he considers those things which pertain to the soul according to a certain
concretion, or application to the body, but in a general way. Thirdly, he makes a
consideration applying all these things to each species of animal and plant, determining that which is proper to every species. The first consideration, therefore, is
contained in the book De Anima." St. Thomas, De Sensu et Sensato, lect. 1, # 2.
• "And he (Aristotle) calls it a 'history' (namely, his tract on the soul) because
he treats of the soul in a certain summary, not carrying it out to the final investigation of all that pertains to the soul itself in this tract. For this is the sense of
'history.'" I de Anima, lect. 1, # 6.
"Finally then he concludes with an epilogue what was said ' figuratively,' that
is, in a kind of summary, for each of the senses. For he determines these in a
special way in the book De Sensu et Sensato." II de Anima, lect. 28, # 550.

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in the second stage, the commentaries on De Sensu et Sensato
and De Memoria et Reminiscentia, and none in the third.
These, of course, represent by no means the total of his psychological doctrine, for he constantly expounds problems in psychology throughout his writings, and in some books, especially
in the Summas, in the Commentary on the Sentences and in the
De V eritate, he develops theses in psychology at great length.
Nevertheless, if we only consider the titles of the works of
Aristotle, which St. Thomas cites, in the Commentary on De
Sensu et Sensato, as developments of psychology in the second
and third stages, it will be immediately evident that there are
many subjects which St. Thomas did not treat explicitly, and
not hard to deduce that there are more. Thus he mentions
Aristotle's works on death and life, on health and sickness,
on youth and age and the causes of longevity, on sleep and
waking, on the causes of movement in animals and on the
habits and parts and generation of animals. 3 Many of these
subjects are, of course, assigned, in the modern scheme of
sciences, to biology or physiology rather than to psychology
properly speaking, but their relations to psychology have not
been overlooked, and they appear also in psychological texts.
In any event, they belong to psychology according to St.
Thomas' mind, although he did not treat of them except here
and there and in passing. For this reason it seems safe to say
that there are tracts of Thomistic psychology as yet unfinished,
and, having said this, we turn again to the material offered in
psychoanalysis to see if anything of value can be found.
It should be made clear from the beginning, as it will be
developed more at length shortly, that the psychologies of St.
Thomas and Freud are radically and essentially opposed, and
that, moreover, we are following St. Thomas. These two men
could hardly have been more in opposition, nor would it serve
"He (Aristotle) determines this (the organ of appetites) in the book De Causa
Motus Animalium. For in this book (De Anima) he intends to determine concerning the soul in itself." III de Anima, lect. 15, # 831.
See also II, lect. 9, # 349 and III, lect. 14, # 807.
• De Sensu et Sensato, lect. 1, ## 2-6.

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our purpose to neglect or misunderstand the nature of this
opposition. We can, in fact, hardly expect any benefit from
the work of integration until the shape of the dichotomy is
made clear. Therefore we must proceed in two steps, first, by
outlining the incompatibility, and then by studying the useful
compatibilities.
It should also be noted that the problem before us will be
fairly definitely limited in scope. What we desire to do is to
examine as precisely as possible the concepts of man, or of
human nature, as held by St. Thomas and Freud respectively.
For the sake of manageability we must exclude as far as possible
the greater part of their philosophy and theology, as well as
the use of psychoanalysis as a technique for investigation and
as a therapy. The burden of the discussion must be confined
to a comparison of what Freud called his metapsychology with
St. Thomas' notion of human nature.
THE CONTEXTS.

Nevertheless, the broader aspects of a philosophy cannot be
entirely excluded from consideration even when the particular
point at issue is deliberately confined, and especially if the
point is the nature of man. 4 For a philosopher's concept of
man is necessarily influenced by his general metaphysics, or
better, by his outlook on all reality, his Weltanschauung. His
concept of man is a part of a greater complex of thought, belief,
feeling, opinion and so on, and willy nilly gains or suffers from
this context.
We consider then briefly, first, the general outlook of St.
• We are not going to take seriously Freud's frequent assertion that he was not a
philosopher and had no desire to philosophize. In fact, although he exerted himself
enormously in the accumulation of data, and in this respect deserves the commendation of empirical science, he was also and perhaps more intently concerned with
the analysis of these data, in the investigation and determination of the causes
of the facts he uncovered and organized, constantly searching for more and more
exact theories to embrace these facts, and not adverse to extending a theory, once
he had evolved it, to the explanation of major problems in religion, art, ethics, etc.
Indeed it was largely for this penchant for speculation that his work was so long
criticized or disregarded by more strictly empirical psychologists.

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Thomas. For St. Thomas the fundamental division of the universe is in terms of act and potency. Act is that by which things
are, by which they are determined, formed. It is being in the
fullest sense, the prime requisite for action, and action itself.
Potency is that which is not yet, that which is therefore undetermined, as yet unformed, and therefore the principle of change
and motion in things. It is being in a tentative and possible
sense, the prime requisite for becoming.
Seeing potency in every part of the visible world, and understanding that potentiality is never realized except by and
through and for actuality, St. Thomas inevitably moves from
the visible world to the invisible, where the principle of all
things is found in the Pure Act who is God. All lesser things
must therefore have come forth from God; all things with
potentiality in themselves, and change and becoming, are
derived things. But by their very change and becoming they
may become more actual, approaching therefore more closely
to the Pure Act from which they first proceeded. The summation, therefore, of all truth is in this: that all things have come
forth from God and seek to return to Him, and this under His
guidance and by His inspiration.
In the material world, man is unique, in that he possesses
a spiritual principle, in virtue of which he is an image of God,
and in the strength of which he can make more and more perfect
this image, by God's grace, knowing and loving Him. In the
beginning, each man is potential in this respect-the clean
tablet on which nothing is written-but in the end, he is, as it
were, deified by his contact with God, and this is his God-given
destiny.
For Freud, the outlook is quite different. For him, the fundamental nature of the universe is that of a blind and purposeless
mass of energizing matter. Evolving through space and time,
the interactions of moving parts of matter have fortuitously
produced certain more or less unified masses of matter and
energy which we call living things. Among them are ourselves.
The basic law of these living things is the law of the material

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universe-to move, to discharge energy. In man this law
appears as the pleasure principle, for it is pleasurable to discharge energy and painful to contain energy undischarged.
Man is bound to the law of maximum pleasure, which is found
in the constant and unfettered release of the energies which
are constantly building up within him.
There is no purpose nor destiny to man, unless you count as
purpose the various twists and turns of human effort, by which
men try to avoid whatever hinders the discharge of energy.
But in the true sense of final causality, of destiny, there is
nothing-all causality is efficient, the propulsion from behind
seeking the path of least resistance.
Here, then, is the fundamental conflict between St. Thomas
and Freud. St. Thomas looks on the universe and sees God,
who created the material and spiritual worlds, and guides them
in every detail through His providence. In the world is the
ensouled animal, man, who is given a high destiny by God,
namely, to find his fullest unfolding and realization in the
return to God, by God's grace, through the knowledge and
love and service of . God, until he meets God face to face,
becoming thereby to a degree himself deified.
Freud sees no God and no spiritual being; he sees only
matter. There is neither purpose nor destiny, but only blind
and random release of material energies. Of this whole man is
no more than a homogeneous part, a product of the mass of
energizing matter not essentially different from any other part .
.ANTINOMIES

IN THE CoNCEPT oF HUMAN NATURE.

In the light of this basic dichotomy, it is small wonder that
the thoughts of St. Thomas and Freud seem entirely incompatible. Moreover, we' can spell out the opposition in more
specific antinomies within the limits .of the special point we
are considering, the nature of man.
Freud is, as has been said, monistic; he posits a monolithic
materialism in human nature. Man is matter and ruled by
material forces, wholly and entirely and indeed mechanistically.

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This is an outlook which Freud absorbed from his earliest
teachers and from which he never departed. Freud is also
voluntaristic, not in the sense that he posits the existence of
a will as a free spiritual faculty, nor even in the sense of positing
a will as any kind of distinct human faculty. He is voluntaristic
in the sense that the Germanic philosophy of his time was
voluntaristic, as positing motive energy, impulse to action, the
constant propl.llsion from within, as the essence of human
activity. And because he is a materialist with a mechanistic
bent, and a voluntarist in the sense described, he is also a
determinist, holding that each individual is necessarily and
ineluctably propelled in each single action and in the whole
course of his life span of activity.
St. Thomas, on the contrary, is a dualist, holding indeed for
an animality in man, but not denying the spirituality. And
while man must move in obedience to the laws of animal
nature on the part of his animality, he must also obey the laws
of spiritual nature on the part of his soul. Man's life, then,
is a tension and a balance, between laws and energies of two
sorts; a balance which should redound wholly to his advantage,
but which can also lead to stress and conflict. Furthermore, the
essence of human activity is not internal propulsion-St.
Thomas is not voluntaristic in this sense. For him there is
in man, besides the natural appetites which impel him from
within, the elicited appetites which follow perceptions and
are governed by them, and these latter appetites are the more
important ones. There are sense responses for sense knowledge
and spiritual responses to spiritual knowledge, and in this latter
field is found the appetite which can be called simply the
appetite of man, the will. Since the will, moreover, follows
reason, which is the highest power of perception in man, and
commands, all else being equal, the lower appetites, a unity
under reason is effected in man's activities, in virtue of which
man can rightly be considered as a predominantly rational
being. For St. Thomas, then, appetites follow knowledge both
in the sense of being elicited by knowledge and in the sense of

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being ultimately ruled by rational knowledge. Freud, on· the
other hand, speaks of appetites as things independent of knowledge, arising and developing to their full stature without reference to an eliciting perception, and only attaching themselves
to images and ideas after they have reached maturity, and
for the sake of easier discharge of their psychic energy.
As a consequence of his dualistic conception of man, and of
the realization that the appetites are governed by the perceptions which elicit them, St. Thomas can substantiate man's
sense of his personal freedom with sound arguments, for an
appetite ruled by a rational power, with its capacity to perceive and weigh universal values, is an appetite free to elect
among finite values. While Freud, then, leaves nothing in man
to chance and nothing to free choice, everything being predetermined by the force and direction of the basic impulses
arising from his biological substrates, St. Thomas holds that
much in man is of free election, some is from basic impulse and
some fortuitous.
St. Thomas, therefore, is hierarchic, for he defines an order
of specifically different powers and energies in man, some
ruling and directing others, some of more value than others,
and all clearly distinct one from the other even while all are
ordained to work together in a close harmony. There are the t
orders of spiritual and material, as have been mentioned, and
the orders of cognitive, appetitive and executive. In another
sense, there is the speculative order, ordained to contemplation
and admiration of the truths of things which cannot be produced, and the practical order, ordained to action and manipulation, in those things subject to man's disposition.
For Freud, on the contrary, there is no real hierarchic
diversity in man. There is only one basic energy, undifferentiated and indeterminate in itself, which suffers an accretion
of special "faculties "-if we can call them faculties-as reactions to external realities. There is, therefore, for Freud only
one real value-the release of the basic energy, in accordance
with the pleasure principle, by which man is oppressed and

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by whose pressure is constructed the illusory structure men
call values. For St. Thomas, of course, the structure of objective values is real, a hierarchy towards which men respond and
strive according to their several capacities; a hierarchy, indeed,
which corresponds, according to divine providence, with the
nature with which man has been endowed.
REcoNCILIATIONS

Enough has been said to show that St. Thomas and Freud
are not only basically in opposition in matters of religion and
ethics, as is generally presumed, but also in the fundamental
principles in which the nature of man is conceived. The dichotomy is radical, built up as it is on a series of flat contradictions.
And yet I should like to suggest and defend now the proposition
that St. Thomas would have found much in psychoanalysis,
and even in some of its fundamental conceptions, which would
not have sounded strange to him. To express this in another
way, I do not believe that Freud's valid observations necessarily
involve the philosophical positions in which he developed them,
but rather integrate, and even more effectively, into Thomistic
psychology. As a first step in the defense, I should like to
analyse some of St. Thomas' psychological ideas which do not
seem alien to psychoanalytic conceptions.
Let us take up first that element in human nature which
is today called the unconscious. It was Freud who first realized
in an adequate way the significance of the unconscious in man
and who first devised effective techniques for exploring it. How
did he conceive the unconscious? The basic notion, of course,
as the name indicates, is that of a part of man's psychic nature
which is totally impervious to introspection, to reflection or
consciousness. What goes on there is a sealed book, no matter
how significant its contents. What goes on there is unconscious
not only in the sense in which habitual knowledge and memories
are kept unconsciously, i. e., as latent, but in the sense that
there is ordinarily no possibility at all of resurrection or recall.

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a. The Id.
In this unconscious sphere is the Id. For Freud, this is the
primary part of human nature, the part man has from the
beginning and the part which governs all the rest; first, therefore, in time and nature. Within the Id arise continuously the
basic instincts, which are physical or physiological energies
transmuted into psychic impulses, which thereupon seek inexorably for release according to the pleasure principle. The
release is found through motor activities and motor activities
are associated with images and ideas. Thus it comes about
that appropriate images and ideas, i.e., those which have once
successfully effected a release of energy, and pleasure, draw to
themselves the basic psychic impulses, become "cathected"
with psychic energy. It happens, however, that some of the
methods used to obtain pleasure actually result in pain, if the
method used meets with opposition or punishment in reality.
The images then to which the instinctual impulses have attached themselves excite pain in the consciousness even in
anticipation, and are henceforth rejected from consciousness.
In these rejected images we find the beginnings of the true
unconsciousness. 5 Rejected images and ideas, still cathected by
psychic energies, are massed in the unconscious, where they are
thought-constantly
comcontinuously active-unconscious
bining and dividing among themselves, and displacing their
emotional charge from one to another, all for the sake of finding
some image which will be acceptable to consciousness and consequently able to constitute a mode for releasing instinctual
energies. The Id, then, is dynamic, constantly generating impulses; amoral or bestial, insofar as it seeks pleasure regardless
of the customs or morals obtaining in outside reality; extraspatial and extra-temporal, because the limitations of space
and time have no meaning to the basic impulses; and illogical,
containing even contradictory impulses simultaneously.
6 The affective elements in the Id, while not manifest to consciousness, are not
considered part of the unconscious, strictly speaking, because they are unknowable
in themselves. The unconscious in the true sense embraces those elements which
are knowable in themselves, the images and ideas, which have become unknowable
because of some psychic interference.

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Where can such a conception fit into St. Thomas scheme
of things? At first sight, nowhere. St. Thomas, has, of course,
a finely worked out notion of the nature of passions, but these
passions are responses to sense perceptions, susceptible to the
rule of reason and the imprint of virtue, and certainly available
to introspection. To the degree that this represents the whole
of his conception, it bears slight resemblance to the instincts
of the Id. But it is not the whole. In his Commentary on the
Sentences, 6 we find St. Thomas describing sense appetites in
another way, saying: "The irascible and concupiscible name
the sense appetite insofar as it is complete, and distinct in
different parts, and tending to reason; whence in man the
irascible and concupiscible obey reason. But sensuality names
the sense appetite insofar as it is incomplete and undetermined,
and more depressed; and therefore it is said that there can be
no virtue in it, and that it is perpetually corrupted; and from
its very indetermination it has a certain unity." Again he
says: 7 " Sensuality names the sensitive part insofar as it is
more depressed into the flesh, as it does not follow the rule of
the will, but moves by its own motion, and therefore there
can be no virtue in it." This is the part of man which is the
source of the actus primo primi, the fomes peccati, the part
of man from which erupt sudden and violent appetites. 8 This
same doctrine is repeated in the De Veritate. 9
Moreover, a likeness can be seen in the primary divisions of
sensuality, as seen by St. Thomas and Freud. St. Thomas
divided the sense appetites into the irascible and the concupiscible; Freud held for the libido, or life instinct, and the
destrudo, or instinct of aggression and death. St. Thomas even
uses the term libido in the precise sense of concupiscence
unsubjected to reason. 10
II Sent., d.
q.
a. 1, ad 8.
ad 8.
Ibid., q. 8, a.
8 Summa Theol., III, q.
a. 8. De Verit., q.
aa. 4-7.
• Ibid., a. 5.
10 "Libido
moreover signifies an inordinate concupiscence which is not totally
a. 8.
subjected to reason." Summa Theol., III, q.
6

7

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Finally, although Freud (while he denied it explicitly) often
treated the libido as nothing more nor less than sexuality, which
is a far cry from St. Thomas' notion of concupiscence, yet
St. Thomas acknowledges sexuality as the strongest and most
rebellious part of concupiscence, pointing out that even when
used normally and virtuously it overthrows the use of reason, 11
and that the generative organs are so unruly that they are like
separate animals in man/ 2 He speaks of no other part of
sensuality in such striking terms.
If we can accept, then, a substantial identity between the
sensuality of St. Thomas and the instinctual part of Freud's
Id, we can begin to elaborate that notion in Thomistic psychology, for Freud examined in detail what St. Thomas mentioned more or less in passing. We can, moreover, go on to
make a comparison between the conflict of sensuality and reason
which St. Thomas often notes, and the conflict between the Id
and the Ego of Freud. Not, of course, that Freud's Ego, with
its principle of reality, bears much comparison with St. Thomas'
concept of the power of reason. The Ego is a derivation from
the Id itself, superimposed, as it were, on the Id, drawing its
energy from the Id; its sole function is to devise or discover
means for obtaining the pleasure the Id seeks in ways compatible with external reality. This is a far cry from reason,
11 ".
• • thus
in conjugal intercourse, though the pleasure be in accord with
reason, yet it hinders the use of reason, on account of the accompanying bodily
change." Ibid., I-II, q. 34, a. 1, ad l. "Now there is a loss of reason incidental
to the union of man and woman both because the reason is carried away entirely
on account of the vehemence of the pleasure, so that it is unable to understand
anything at the same time, as the Philosopher says, and again because of the
tribulation of the flesh .... " Ibid., Suppl., q. 49, a. 1.
12 " As Augustine
says, it is in punishment of sin that the movement of these
members does not obey reason. . .. But ... we must consider the natural cause
of this particular member's insubmission to reason .... This is the case with these
two organs (namely, the heart and the generative organs) in particular because
each is, as it were, a separate animal being, insofar as it is a principle of life;
and the principle is virtually the whole. For the heart is the principle of the
senses; and from the organ of generation proceeds the seminal virtue, which is
virtually the entire animal. Consequently they have their proper movements
naturally .... " Summa Theol., I-II, q. 17, a. 9, ad 3.

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a power in its own right, superior to sense power, ordained
to grasping the essence of reality. But granting all this, the
conflict between the two elements is not dissimilar, as a conflict
between the impulses in the order of sensuality and· especially
of the flesh, and the rule of reason, or reality. Nor are the
effects of the conflict dissimilar, as each man recognized: distortion of reason, repression of appetite with the possibility of
sickness both mental and physical.' 3

b. Unconscious knowledge.
So much, for the moment, for the instinctual impulses of
sensuality; what about the notion of unconscious ideas and
••" Moreover, from the fact that the soul imagines something and is vehemently
affected towards it, a change takes place sometimes in the body, which leads to
sickness or health, without the action of the physical principles which naturally
cause sickness or health in a body." Ill Cont. Gent., c. 99.
" Since there is in man a two-fold nature, intellectual and sensitive; sometimes
man is such and such uniformly in respect of his whole soul: either because the
sensitive part is wholly subject to his reason, as in the virtuous; or because reason
is entirely engrossed by passion, as in a madman. But sometimes, although reason
is clouded by passion, yet something of the reason remains free. ·And in respect
of this, man can either repel the passion entirely, or at least hold himself in
check so as not to be led away by the passion. For when thus disposed, since
man is variously disposed according to the various parts of the soul, a thing appears
to him otherwise according to his reason, than it does according to a passion."
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 10, a. 3, ad
" In evidence of which it should be noted that according to the order of nature,
on account of the tying together of the powers of the soul in one essence, and
(of the union) of the soul and the body in one composite being, the higher powers
and the lower powers and the body overflow from one to the other whatever
superabounds in any one of them, and thus it is that the body becomes cold or
hot, or sometimes sick or healthy, and even dies, on account of some apprehension
of the soul; for it sometimes happens that death comes from joy or sorrow or
love. . . . And likewise a change in the body redounds to the soul. For the soul
joined to the body takes on the complications of the body, becoming insane or
docile and so on. . . . Likewise there is a redundance from the higher powers to
the lower ones; when a passion in the sensual appetite follows from an intense
motion of the will, and the animal powers are withdrawn or impeded from their
acts by intense contemplation. And on the other hand, there is a redundance from
the inferior powers to the superior ones; as when reason is clouded by a vehement
passion in the sensual appetite so that it judges as if simply good that thing which
affects a man by passion." De V erit., q. S6, a. 10.
"If, on the other hand, the strength of the evil be such as to exclude the hope

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images? Does St. Thomas have any place for cognitive elements which are formally unconscious, that is, strictly unconscious in Freud's sense? We are not, of course, speaking now
of principles quo, structural elements or cognitive instruments
by which man thinks or imagines, such as the faculties themselves, the impressed species, the active intellect-these are
all certainly unconscious. But can there be unconscious objects
of thought, actually existing in man unconsciously? Again, at
first glance, it seems not, for St. Thomas sees every act of
knowledge as the object of some other act, up to the act of
the intellect which is known by the intellect itself. Where then
is there room for unconscious knowledge, and hence for unconsciously motivated appetites and actions?
I believe that there is, in fact, ample room for these concepts
in St. Thomas' psychology. For one thing, while he establishes
a full range of consciousness in theory, he puts many limitations
on it when he considers it in actual operation. For instance,
any cognitive power can focus on only one element of its present
object clearly at one time; the rest is known only confusedly.a
Couple this limitation with the fact that an intense act on
the part of one power may impede even completely the perceptive power of other faculties, and the possibility of unconscious cognition becomes greater. 15 Moreover, it would seem
of evasion, then even the interior movement of the afllicted soul is absolutely
even
hindered, so that ·it cannot tum aside either this way or that.
so that a man becomes completely
the external movement of the body is
stupefied." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 87, a. 2.
u " Therefore it is to be noted that all intelligible forms are of one genus. . . .
For all refer to the same intellective power. And therefore all can be together
at once in potency in the intellect, and similarly in incomplete act .... In order,
however, that it actually understand, it is necessary that the species according to
which it understands be in perfect act, and therefore it is impossible that it actually
understand by diverse forms together at the same time. . . . It should be noted,
however, that a thing can be one in one way and many in another way, as the
continuum is one in act and many in potency. And if the intellect or a sense
bears on such things as they are one, they are seen all together; if, however, as
they are l;)lany, that is, each part being considered by itself, then the whole cannot
be seen at one time." De Verit., q. 8, a. 14. See also I Cont. Gent., c. 55.
10 " When tbe mind is intent, in its act, upon distant things whicla are far

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that the passions themselves are never known directly, but only
indirectly through the bodily commotion they cause, and this
commotion is known only to the sense of touch, which is the
least discerning of the senses. And finally, the acts of man
(actus hominis) are unconscious, and yet provoked by an
image.16
Another Thomistic thesis which seems to involve unconscious
thought or imagery to an even greater extent is the thesis on
habit formation. St. Thomas speaks several times of the process
by which a series of actions can become so " learned " that it
is performed unconsciously.11 Such a series of actions, however,
depends on a series of imperating passions, for the execution
of physical motion is through the sense appetites. There is,
therefore, either an unconscious pattern of images eliciting
these passions, or else they operate without images. Moreover,
what is true of habitual action is true also of habitual passion,
for the responses of the sense appetites are subject also to
removed from the senses, the intensity of its application leads to abstraction from
the senses•... " Summa Theol., II-II, q. 178, a. 8, ad 2.
" Or we may say that the reason why one power in hindered in its act when
another power is intensely engaged is because one power doeli not alone suffice
for such an intense operation, unless it be assisted by receiving from the principle
of life the inflow that the other powers or members should receive." Summa TMol.,
Suppl., 82, 8, ad 4.
•• " Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed
from deliberation of the reason, which is the. proper principle of human actions.
Therefore they have indeed an imaginary end, but not one that is fixed by reason."
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 1, a. 1, ad 8.
••" In a work of virtue, both election and execution are necessary. Now discretion is required for election; for executing whatever is already determined, promptness is required. For a man who is actually executing a work does not have to
think much about the work; for this, as Avicenna says in his Metaphyaics, wonld
rather hinder than help him, as is plain in the citharist, wl).o wonld be greatly
impeded if he had to give thought to touching each single chord, and similarly
for the writer, if he had to think about the formation of each letter. And hence
it is that passion preceding election impedes the act of virtue, insofar as it impedes
the judgment of reason, which is necessary in electing; however, after the election
is perfected by the
judgment of reason, a consequent passion helps more than
it hinders, because if it disturbs the judgment of reason in some way, nevertheless
it makes for promptness in action." De Verit., q. 26, a. 7, ad 8. See also II Phyaics,
c. 14, #268.

MICHAEL STOCK

habituation. But, as we know, passion affects judgmentunconscious passion, then, would unconsciously affect judgment
-and St. Thomas holds that this process can go so far as to
destroy man's apprehension of all but the primary laws of
nature. 18 If an opinion can be hazarded at this point, it would
be that the most promising openings to a Thomistic " depth
psychology " lie here.
c. The Super-ego.
Returning again to Freud, we find another important element
of the unconscious, the Super-ego, which Freud equates with
18 " ••• through the act of the sense appetite it happens that an animal actually
imagines those things which were previously stored in memory. Moreover, this
can· also happen in man through an act of the intellectual appetite, insofar as the
higher appetite moves the lower." De Malo, q. 16, a. 11, ad 4.
" Now it is evident that the apprehension of the imagination and the judgment
of the estimative power follow the passion of the sensitive appetite, even as the
verdict of the taste follows the disposition of the tongue: for which reason we
observe that those who are in some kind of passion, do not easily tum their
imagination away from the object of their emotion, the result being that the
judgment of the reason often follows the passion of the sensitive appetite. • .. "
Summa Theol., I-II, q. 77, a. 1.
" And through certain passions being aroused in the sensitive appetite, the result
is that man more easily perceives the m.ovement or sensible image which is brought
in the manner explained, (i. e., an image is aroused in the imagination by a bodily
change as happens in dreams) before the apprehensive principle, since as the
Philosopher observes, ' lovers are moved, by even a slight likeness, to an apprehension of the beloved.' It also happens, through the rousing of a passion, that
what is put before the imagination, is judged, as being something to be pursued,
because, to him who is held by a passion, whatever the passion inclines him to,
seems good." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 80, a. 2. See also De Verit., q. 12, a. 4,
ad 3; Summa Theol., I-II, q. 77, aa. l, 3, 7,
" So, then, this very inclination of sensuality which is called the fomes, in other
animals has simply the nature of a law . . . But in man, it has not the nature
of law in this way, rather it is a deviation from the law of reason. But since,
by the just sentence of God, man is destitute of original justice, and his reason
bereft of its vigor, this impulse of sensuality, whereby he is led, insofar as it is a
penalty following from the divine law depriving man of his proper dignity, has
the nature of law." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 91, a. 6.
But as to the other, i.e., the secondary precepts, the natural law can be blotted
out from the human heart, either by evil persuasions; just as in speculative matters
errors occur in respect of necessary conclusions; or by vicious customs and corrupt
habits, as among some men, theft, and even unnatural vices, as the Apostle states,
were not esteemed sinful." Summa Theol., I-II, q. 94, a. 6.

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conscience or the sense of morality. It would be too great
a distortion of St. Thomas' views to allow this equation. The
Super-ego is a badly eviscerated conscience, lacking the heart
of true conscience which is to make an objectively valid judgment of what is morally good to do here and now. The Superego is at once too objective, insofar as it is nothing more than
the wholesale introjection of some authority's expressed will,
and too subjective, insofar as it is a fixed formation unresponsive to personal criticism and evaluation. And yet, if we examine
St. Thomas' views on the generation of an act of faith, especially
on the part the will plays in this act, and apply these ideas to
purely human faith, considering how much is accepted as the
norm for action without any understanding of the proper
reasons, and how much the great emotional rapport of a child
for his parents may confirm' and solidify these norms in his
mind, we can see how, even in St. Thomas' terms, there is room
for an unreasoned and unreasoning ethical imperative heavily
charged with more or less unconscious emotion, and how this
might pass for conscience in many. In short, it seems possible
to recreate the Super-ego in Thomistic terms, even though it
would not correspond to conscience or morality. And if Freud's
insights into the operations of the Super-ego give us some ideas
about the genesis and nature of erroneous or badly formed
and childish consciences, we have gained valuable psychological
material for application to moral questions.

d. Other Freudian concepts.
Before concluding I should like to mention briefly some
other Freudian concepts which seem susceptible to Thomistic
interpretation. The idea, for instance, of sublimation, by which
libidinous energies which cannot be directly discharged in any
manner acceptable in the light of the prevailing ethics of the
society in which one lives, and which are therefore transformed
into the energies which produce science, art, politics, religion,
and so on, would not be valid as such to the niind of St. Thomas.
Nevertheless, the idea of the soul's energies being concentrated

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in one field of endeavor, and thereby weakened in another, is
quite in accord with his thought, as it is indeed with common
sense. The element of truth in the notion of sublimation is
a part of ordinary as well as philosophical tradition. 19 Other
ideas which have gained immensely from Freud's study and
interpretation, but which are not radically novel, are susceptible
to inclusion in any valid psychological system. Examples of
these ideas are the notion 'Of fixation, by which an object of
love or libido so attaches the energy of the psyche that the
further and normal development or maturing of the individual's
personality is impeded and stunted, and the notions of condensation, displacement and substitution, which do much to
illuminate the subleties of the imagination, especially the
creative imagination. The activity of censorship in the mind,
and the consequent repression of images and ideas, fits in well,
it seems to me, and gains a certain additional elucidation from
St. Thomas' idea of the redundance of appetites, especially
the redundance of the will to the senses. For when reason,
with its wider range of apprehension, sees the unacceptability
of some idea or image, and the will following reason moves in
repugnance to that idea and its derivatives, the sense appetites
respond with a concurring repugnance, and the normal associations of the imagination, which are strongly affected by the
passions, are necessarily impeded.
CoNcLusiON.

The ideas outlined above are offered by way of suggestion
and introduction, in the belief that the analogies between the
concepts of St. Thomas and Freud deserve to be studied. I
should like, therefore, to conclude in terms somewhat like these:
that many of Freud's observations and deductions about human
nature are valuable additions to our concept of man, even to
a concept which is essentially Thomistic, that many psychological theses which ,St. Thomas has presented in their general
10

The devil finds work for idle hands.

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principles can be enlarged with Freudian material. This does
not mean that Freud's concept of man was essentially correct,
and far less does it mean that his ideas on religion, morality,
art, politics, etc., were· valid or even valuable. It does mean
that Freud contributes to the rounding out of the concept of
human nature, and that he does this in a unique way. For
Freud gave emphasis to a part of human nature which was
largely undervalued before his time. He gave due weight to
the unconscious forces at work in men's minds, and, even more
importantly, offered ingenious and effective ways of exploring
this unconscious. He also detailed with remarkable insight and
thoroughness the interworkings of mind, senses and appetites,
and pointed out the often surprising influence of sexuality in
seemingly unrelated spheres.
While we surely regret the serious errors in his work, and
even more the harmful influence of some of these errors, we
cannot refuse to accept the content of truth, for such an
approach was no small part of St. Thomas' own strength.
MICHAEL STOCK,

Dominican HoUite of Philo6ophy.
Dover. Ma.1.

0. P.

THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE
The action by which man achieves his ultimate
goal is neither making, nor doing, but contemplating.1

T

HIS sentence makes the most important point to be
considered in any consideration of theoretical and practical knowledge. If it is true that man is ordered to
contemplation as his ultimate end, and if contemplation consists in theoretical and not practical knowledge, then the distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge is a
crucially important one. At the same
it is of equal
importance to appreciate the complementary relation also
obtaining between these two kinds of knowledge and to grasp
the consequences which follow from seeing one as ordered to
the other.
The distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge
is a fundamental matter and, to a certain extent, a simple
problem. Nevertheless, at the present time as well as in the
past, this distinction has been ignored, confused or denied. The
unhappy consequences which have followed have affected man's
understanding of the nature of knowledge itself, the divisions
of knowledge, and, by no means least important, the sort of
education which human beings should have if they are to be
developed in a truly liberal manner. It is of importance, then,
to examine precisely what theoretical and practical knowledge
mean and how they differ from each other. The point of
emphasis which I should like to make in particular is that,
although the two are differentiated from each other by the
two ends of knowledge and action, nevertheless the distinction
is not to be construed so absolutely that the two are viewed
1 The Saint. Xavier College Self Study.
A Progress Report.
p. 18.

146

(Chicago, 1958),

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as wholly in opposition. This opposition is sometimes carried
to the extreme of denying one for the sake of the other. It
is just such an extreme that tends to be revealed in the history
of philosophical thought on the problem. As a result of spirited
argument between strongly partisan advocates of one or the
other kind, it is not easy to tell whether practical knowledge
has more often been banished for the sake of theoretical knowledge, or whether concern for practical knowledge has been so
overwhelming that theoretical knowledge is dismissed as
struse, vain, and even meaningless.
Rash attacks are often made against positions rashly taken.
Exaggerated and exclusive claims for theoretical knowledge
were made, in one form or another, from Descartes through
Kant and Hegel to the present day. The primary aim of
Descartes in his Discourse on Method 2 was to apply to all
branches of knowledge a wholly a priori math{imatical method,
starting from an intuition and proceeding exclusively by deduction. This conception of knowledge would obviously suppress
all practical knowledge.
Immanuel Kant can hardly be charged with seeking to
eliminate practical knowledge from the domain of science. Indeed, there is some justice to the remark of Turner that " Kant,
whose express purpose was to deliver philosophy from scepticism, might well look back at Hume, the sceptic, and exclaim,
' There, but for the categorical imperative, goes Immanuel
Kant! ' " 3 But if Kant was aware to a great extent of the
distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge, nevertheless his understanding of theoretical knowledge had the
inevitable effect of severing its relation to the real order. Probably from Kant, as from no other single writer, arose the conception of theoretical knowledge as "speculation" in a pejorative sense of the term-a spinning of theories in the mind.
Kant himself, of course, sought to place theoretical knowledge,
• The full title of Descartes' work is DiscCYUrse on the. Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences. Cf. Descartes. Seleotions, edited by R. M. Eaton (New York, 1927), pp. 1-87.
• W. Turner, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1929), p. 548.

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particularly metaphysics, on an objective, critical basis, but
the effect was otherwise for many of those who came after him.
And they had some justification for their position in reading
in Kant sentences like the following: " Theoretical cognition is
speculative when it relates to an object or certain conceptions
of an object which is not given and cannot be discovered by
means of experience." 4
In Hegel, even more idealistic in the philosophical sense of
the term than Kant, the theoretical is elevated at the expense
of the practical. Despite Hegel's professed interest in areas
of practical philosophy, the theoretical approach is always
paramount and action is always subordinated to thought as,
indeed, it must be for one who claims " the rational alone is
real," and " all becoming is a development of thought." 5 Once
the utter primacy of the thinking spirit is asserted, the precise
character of practical knowledge with its ultimate relation to
action and appetite is hopelessly lost.
In contemporary times, the theoretical often continues to
vanquish the practical completely or, to say the same thing in
a reverse way, the practical has become theoretical. This
tendency has become particularly noticeable in the area of moral
philosophy, the domain of practical science par excellence. In
an influential work in the moral field early in this century,
G. E. Moore proposed an aesthetic contemplation, i.e., a
purely theoretical consideration, of goodness and beauty; as
a consequence, the analysis of the good became separated from
achieving the good in action, the end to which moral and
practical knowledge should be ordered. 6 Quite recently, J. M.
Keynes analyzed the effect Moore's doctrine had on Cambridge
students, remarking that "Nothing mattered except states of
mind .... These states of mind were not connected with action
or achievement or with consequences." 7 A. C. Ewing wrote,
• Critique of Pure Reason, trans. M. Miiller, Transcendental Logic, Second
Division, Book II, Chap. III, Sect. VII.
• Cf. Hegel's Introduction to The Science of Logic in The Philosophy of Hegel,
edited by C. J. Friedrich (New York, 1958), pp. 177 fl'.
• Cf. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (London, 1908).
• J. M. Keyneu, Two Mtrnoiu (London, 1949), p. 88.

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barely over a decade ago, that ethics " is a discussion of what
good is, not of what things are good, and it is therefore neither
an attempt to commend certain values (good things) nor to
give advice on the solution of concrete moral problems." 8 If
ethics cannot be understood as a practical science, distinct
from theoretical science by its object and mode, then there is
no recognition of the domain of practical science at all. This
tendency to conceive moral philosophy in terms of a purely
theoretical investigation has been intensified by contemporary
analysts who restrict the domain of practical science to problems of purely logical analysis and semantics.
But if in the minds of some all knowledge has become theoretical, in the minds of others no knowledge is legitimate unless
it is ordered to some practical end. This view, perhaps more
familiar to us in the United States, holds that purely theoretical
knowledge is at best an extravagant waste of time, and at worst
dangerously deceptive. This view is an ancient one, widely
held, for example, in early Roman philosophy, which was wholly
practical in aiip., subordinating theoretical inquiry to practical
problems of conduct. And early in the period of modem
philosophy, Francis Bacon tells us:
Although the roads to human power and to humanknowledge lie
close together, and are nearly the same, nevertheless on account of
the pernicious and inveterate habit of dwelling on abstractions, it
is safer to begin and raise the sciences from those foundations which
have relation to practice, and to let the active part itself be as the
seal which prints and determines the contemplative counterpart .
. . . Now these two directions, the one active the other contemplative, are one and the same thing; and what in operation is most
useful, that in knowledge is most true. 9

The continued empirical and often practical bent of English
• A. C. Ewing, The Definition of the Good (London, 1947), p. 2U. Ewing
seems to recognize that as a science ethics cannot be practical in the sense that
prudence is practical. But, like many others, Ewing leaps from the wholly practical order to the purely theoretical order, overlooking the precise sense in which
ethics, though dealing with theoretical truths, is still a practical science.
• F. Bacon, Novum Organum, Book IT, Aphorism 4. Cf. Burtt, The Engli8h
PhiloMJpher• from Bacon to Mill (New York, 1989), pp. 89-90.
.

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philosophers, such as Locke and Hume, are too well known to
dwell upon. 10
In contemporary times, John Dewey has been the apostle
of the practical ordering of knowledge. True enough, his
proximate philosophical antecedents in large part are found in
William James, whose pragmatism emphasized the purely utilitarian aspect of knowledge: ideas are true to the extent they
give us satisfaction in action. 11 Dewey pushes this utilitarian
approach to knowledge further, and it is not without considerable significance that his philosophy has come to be called
"instrumentalism." Knowledge is primarily, if not exclusively,
an instrument for dominating our environment, for achieving
practical results. 12
Dewey's discussion ·of theoretical and practical knowledge in
his Quest for Certainty shows little, if any, appreciation of what
theoretical knowledge properly is. Indeed, at times he views
man's attempt to engage in contemplation as nothing more
than a distrust he feels in himself, and as a desire to get beyond
and above himself. The fear of uncertainty has driven man
to retire within himself in pursuing purely theoretical knowledge. "Hence men have longed to find a realm in which there
is an activity which is not overt and which has no external
consequences. ' Safety first ' has played a large role in effecting
a preference for knowing over doing and making." 13
Dewey asks the question: " What is the cause and the import
of the sharp division between theory and practice?" 14 The
question is a good one in the sense that it implies that the
division between theoretical and practical knowledge has been
1

°Cf. especially Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section I.

Cf. W. James, The Meaning of Truth (New York, 1909).
Cf. Ferrer Smith, 0. P., " A Thomistic Appraisal of the Philosophy of John
Dewey," The Thomist, XVIII (April), 127-185. Dewey "dedicated his philosophic
life ... to the implementation and exploitation of the practical and the extirpation
of what he considered the obstructionist chimeras resultant upon any affirmation
of the speculative." (p. 128)
11 J. Dewey, Quest for Certainty.
Cf. Intelligence in the Modem World, edited
by J. Ratner (New York, 1989), p. 279.
" Ibid., p. 278.
11

19

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made too sharp, too absolute. Yet the question itself is a
theoretical question, not a practical one, and Dewey is not a
theoretical thinker. His answer is to subject theoretical knowing to practical considerations. "To say that the object of
philosophy is truth is to make a moral statement which applies
to every inquiry .... To assert that contemplation of truth
for its own sake is the highest ideal is to make a judgment
concerning authoritative value.'' 15 This observation has the
effect of turning a speculative interest in knowledge into a
moral attitude. And to the extent that Dewey envisages purely
theoretical knowledge, he contrasts it unfavorably with practical knowledge, regarding it as less adequate and even defective.16
What remains implicit and perhaps vague in the instrumentalism of John Dewey becomes explicit and thorough-going
in communistic philosophy, particularly in dialectical materialism as formulated by Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The
radical subordination of theoretical knowledge to practical
knowledge, of all knowledge to action, constitutes the basic
thesis of the philosophy of communism.
Engels remarks: " Communism, insofar as it is theoretical,
is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat
in this struggle (between the proletariat and the bourgeiosie)
and the theoretical summing up of the conditions for the
emancipation of the proletariat." H
•• Ibid., p. 802.
16 " What is sometimes termed 'applied ' science, may then be more truly science
than is what is conventionally called pure science. For it is directly concerned with
not just instrumentalities, but instrumentalities at work in effecting the modifications of existence in behalf of conclusions that are reflectively preferred. Thus
conceived the characteristic subject-matter of knowledge consists of fulfilling objects,
which as fulfillments are connected with a history to which they give character.
Thus conceived, knowledge exists in engineering, medicine and the social arts more
adequately than it does in mathematics and physics. Thus conceived, history and
anthropology are scientific in a sense in which bodies of information that stop
short with general formulas are not." Dewey, Experience and Nature, as quoted
by Ratner, op. cit., p. 945.
11 F. Engels, "The Communists
and Karl Heinzen," in Karl Marx, Selected
Works, prepared by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Moscow, edited by V.

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The extended essay of Engels, entitled Ludwig Feuerbach,
is perhaps the best single description of the doctrinal views of
dialectical materialism, containing an evaluation of Hegel, a
criticism of the materialism of Feuerbach, and an exposition
of the main tenets of dialectical materialism. 18 In the 1888
edition of Ludwig Feuerbach, Engels added, as an appendix,
eleven theses on Feuerbach written by Marx in 1845. The
content of these theses brings out clearly how Marx views
the complete ordering of all thought to action. The following
remarks are particularly relevant.
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism-that of
Feuerbach included-is that the object, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or contemplation but not as
human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectivity. Thus it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism-but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism
does not know real sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants
sensuous objects, really differentiated from the thought-objects, but
he does not conceive human activity itself as activity through
objects. Consequently, in the Essence of Christianity, he regards
the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while
form of
practice is conceived and fixed only in its
Adoratsky (New York, 1988), p. xv. To this remark of Engels, Adoratsky adds:
"The struggle of the proletariat cannot be successful without a revolutionary
theory which completely reflects and explains the whole complicated process of
historical movement and serves as a guide ill changing the world. Scientific communism includes practical revolutionary activity as an indispensable constituted
_ part. But this activity must be guided by scientific theory. Marx considers it the
task of science ' to reveal all the f9rms of antagonism and exploitation ' in order
to assist the proletariat to abolish them. Thus, in the hands of Marx, Engels and
Lenin, science serves the proletarian revolution; it accomplishes the greatest work
of history." (ibid., p. xv.)
18 In mentioning Hume and Kant in this essay, Engels observes that what is
decisive in their views has already been said by Hegel, so far as this was possible
from an idealist standpoint, and adds: " The materialistic additions made by
Feuerbach are more ingenious than profound. The most telling refutation of this
as of all other philosophical fancies is practice, viz., experiment and industry. If
we are able to prove the correctness of our conceptions of a natural process by
making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and using it for
our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end of the Kantian incomprehensible 'thing-in-itself.'"
(ibid., p.

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appearance. Hence he does not grasp the significance of " revolutionary," of practical-critical, activity. (Thesis I).
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human
thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question.
In practice man must prove the truth, i. e., the reality and power,
the " this-sidedness " of his thinking. The dispute over the reality
or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely
scholastic question. (Thesis II) .
But the most revealing line on the outlook of Marx's thought
is the last thesis: " The_ philosophers have interpreted the
world in various ways; the point however is to change it." 19
(Thesis XI) .
A revolutionary outlook is certainly a practical matter. If
one is planning a revolution, Marx, Engels and their modern
disciples are skilled guides to follow. With such an aim, it
is not surprising that all knowledge is to be subjected to action.
And within the limits of practical objectives, especially when
divorced from any measure by theoretical truths, it must be
acknowledged that in many respects the Marxist understanding
of practical knowledge is highly effective and powerful. It is
equally a thorough subordination of the theoretical to the
practical. But if man is not ordered primarily and ultimately
to a wholly practical end, to an utter transformation of reality
that involves a destruction of the natural order itself, then the
Marxist doctrine is fundamentally wrong and radically perverse.
The Marxist position, significantly coming as late in the history
19 These quotations
are taken from Karl Marx, Selected Works, pp. 471-478.
Stalin adhered to the same view: " Theory is the experience of the labor movement
in all countries, taken in its general form. Of course, theory becomes immaterial
if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in the
dark if its path is not illumined by revolutionary theory. But theory can become
the greatest force in the labor movement if it is built up in indissoluble connection
with revolutionary practice, for it, and it alone, can give to the movement confidence, the power of orientation and an understanding of the inner connection
between events; for it, and it alone, can help us in our practical work to discern
how and in which direction classes are moving not only at the present time, but
also how and in which direction they will move in the near future. Lenin himself
said and often repeated his well-known thesis, that: ' Without a revolutionary
theory there can be no revoluticinary movement.' " (ibid., p. xx.) .

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

of thought as it does, is the most thorough ordering of theory
to practice that human thought has ever advanced. It is the
logical consequence of all positions placing man's end within the
limits of his own practical manipulation. The ultimate consequence, which Marx and his followers have no hesitancy in
taking, is the denial of the transcendance of God and the order
of creation, and the accompanying effect of making man a
technological god and the order of creation a product of human
technological transformation.
The only answer to the thorough-going doctrine of Marxism
is to begin with a right understanding of the distinction between
theoretical and practical knowledge, to see a fundamentally
complementary relation between the two, and to grasp the sense
in which it is impossible, so far as knowledge is concerned,
to depart entirely from the theoretical order. Having given
a brief survey of what some notable thinkers have had to say
on the subject, let us now approach theoretical and practical
knowledge from as objective and analytic a position as possible.

*

*

*

The starting point is the recognition of the fact that human
intellectual knowing is conceptual knowing. It is impossible
for us to know anything intellectually except by the production
of a concept serving as the indispensable sign and likeness of
an 'object. 20 It is such intellectual knowing that is divided
into theoretical and practical knowledge.
As we have already noted, theoretical and practical knowledge are distinguished from each other in terms of their ends.
Aristotle remarks, simply, " For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action." 21
Basically, the distinction between the two amounts to no more
than this; nevertheless, the little excursion we have taken into
some history of thought on the matter suggests that we should
examine the distinction carefully and comprehensively.
•• I exclude, of course, the unique situation with respect to the Beatific Vision
in which the divine essence is united immediately to the created intellect without
the intermediary of even a concept. Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, q. 12, a. 9.
11 Metaphysica, Book II, 998 b 20. Cf. also On the Soul, Book III, 488 a 14-21.

THEORETICAL

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155

Let us approach this same distinction from another point
of view. Let us consider theoretical and practical knowledge
from the standpoint of the object known, a consideration that
leads to some far-reaching consequences.
In theoretical knowledge, the object known is a non-operable
one, which is to say that it is an object about which nothing
can be done in terms of any transitory activity. In such knowledge, the object is primary. In seeking to know what a flower
is, for example, I must study and analyze the flower itself. Contrary to Kant, I must seek to know whatever I can about the
flower in itself, and not merely know my knowing of it. The
flower as an object is the measure of my knowledge of the
flower; my knowledge is not the measure of the flower. I do
not impose my knowledge on the flower; in a literal sense, the
flower imposes itself upon me and I must submit to it in order
to know it. There is, in other words, a given order of reality
which I must accept and understand. Theoretical knowledge
consists in knowing this real order.
In practical knowledge, the contrary is the case. The object
is an operable one. As a knower, I am the measure of such an
object and the object must conform to me. If I wish to make
a chair, I have a certain idea of such an object and I impose
this conception on the appropriate matter. In the work which
is achieved, I am the measure and the cause, and the finished
product depends primarily on me.
In the Summa Theologiae St. Thomas discusses the distinction between theoretical or speculative knowledge and practical
knowledge in connection with the question on God's knowledge.
The essential doctrine on theoretical and practical knowledge is
thus summarized in the context of discussing God's knowledge,
and because the distinction is treated both formally and comprehensively, the major part of the article will be quoted.
Some knowledge is speculative only, some is practical only, and
some is partly speculative and partly practical (aliqua vero
secundum aliquid speculativa et secundam aliquid practica).
In proof whereof it must be observed that knowledge can be
called speculative in three ways: first, in relation to the things

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

known, which are not operable by the knower; such is the knowledge
of man about natural or divine things. Secondly, as regards the
manner of knowing-as, for instance, if a builder were to consider
a house by defining and dividing, and considering what belongs
to it in general: for this is to consider operable things in a speculative
manner, and not as they are operable, for operable means the application of form to matter, and not the resolution of the composite
into its universal formal principles. Thirdly, as regards the end;
for the practical intellect differs from the speculative by its end,
as the Philosopher says. For the practical intellect is ordered to the
end of operation; whereas the end of the speculative intellect is
the consideration of truth. Hence if a builder were to consider how
a house can be made, but without ordering this to the end of
operation, but only toward knowledge, this would be only a speculative consideration as regards the end, although it concerns an
operable thing. Therefore, knowledge which is speculative by reason
of the thing itself known is merely speculative (speculativa tantum).
But that which is speculative either in its mode or as to its end
is partly speculative and partly practical (secundum quid speculativa et secundum quid practica); and when it is ordained to an
operative end it is strictly practical.
In accordance with this, therefore, it must be said that God has
of Himself a speculative knowledge only; for He Himself is not
operable.
But of all other things He has both speculative and practical
knowledge. He has speculative knowledge as regards the mode; for
whatever we know speculatively in things by defining and dividing,
God knows all this much more perfectly ....
Because there has been considerable confusion on the distinction as well as the relation between theoretical and practical
knowledge, let us summarize in outline form the full division
of theoretical and practical knowledge as indicated in the article
in the Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas. 23

22 Summa Theologiae, I, q. 14, a. 16. The artide
is entitled ""Whether God has
a Speculative Knowledge of Things? " The translation is taken from the Basic
Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, edited by A. C. Pegis (New York, 1945). I
have added the Latin phrases in parentheses where I have thought the English
did not fully catch the original text.
•• Cf. also De Veritate, q. 8, a. S.

THEORETICAL

AND PRACTICAL

THEORETICAL

1. Theoretical absolutely

KNOWLEDGE

157

PRACTICAL

In no way practical

Theoretical on part of object,
of mode of knowing, and of end
of knower.
This is knowledge of an object which is non-operable with
respect to the knower, e. g., our knowledge of natural or divine
things.
2. Theoretical formally

Theoretical on part of mode of
knowing and of end of knower.

Radically practical
Practical on part of thing
known (object).

This is knowledge of an operable object by way of definition
and division (resolutive mode) rather than in an operable way
(compositive mode), e. g., an artist's knowledge of a house by
defining it through genus and difference.
3. Theoretical relatively

Theoretical on part of knower.

Formally practical
Practical on part of object and
of mode of knowing.

This is knowledge of an operable object in an operable manner-how to make or do something (compositive mode), but
purely for the knowledge, and without the intention of ordering
the knowledge to operation, e. g., scientific knowledge of how
to become temperate or to build a house.
4. In no way theoretical

Absolutely practical
Practical on part of object,
mode of knowing and end of
knower.

This is knowledge of an operable object, in an operable way,
and with the intention of making or doing something, e.
the
knowledge which an artist has when he proposes to make a
statue, or which a man has in performing a moral act. This
is the knowledge of art and prudence, and needs a principle of
exercise-intention.

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

In the article quoted from the Summa, it is important to
note that the knowledge God has of Himself is purely theoretical. God could :oot have a practical knowledge of Himself,
for He would have to know Himself as an operable object,
which implies the absurd consequence that He would have to
make Himself. This consequence, however, in effect has been
taken, as it logically must be by anyone who holds the primacy
of practical knowledge.
From this brief, but basic, presentation of theoretical and
practical knowledge in St. Thomas, let us note two fundamentally erroneous positions concerning the division of theoretical and practical knowledge.
The first position flows from an idealistic approach to knowledge. In an idealistic theory of knowledge, whether the knowledge in question is theoretical or practical, the knowing subject
is always primary and the object secondary. It is such a view
that provokes the unfavorable and widespread belief that theoretical knowledge is a form of a priori mental construction with
the consequent imposition of such mental construction upon
reality. In the idealistic approach to knowledge, there is a
radical confusion between the theoretical and practical kinds
of knowledge. The idealistic approach is theoretical by intention but practical with respect to mode of knowing and operation: the knower becomes the measure of reality. As Hegel
has insisted, the rational alone is real; all being is thought
realized and all becoming is a development of thought. 24
The second position is the Marxist approach, an opposite
extreme although similar in one important respect. The
thorough-going Marxist principle is to revolutionize the existing
world by transforming practically all existing reality. This, of
•• Cf. also Hegel's Introduction to The Science of Logic. For example: "Pure
science includes thought insofar as it is just as much the thing in itself as it is
thought, or the thing in itself insofar as it is just as much pure thought as it is the
thing in itself. Truth, as science, is pure self-consciousness unfolding itself, and it
has the form of self in that what exists in and for itself is the known concept,
while the concept as such is that which exists in and for itself." Quotation taken
from The Philosophy of Hegel, edited by C. J. Friedrich (New York, 1958), p. 185.

THEORETICAL

AND PRACTICAL

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159

course, is a completely practical ordination of knowledge and
an outright denial of the legitimacy of knowledge for its own
sake, which is to say, theoretical knowledge. Neverthelessand this is the respect in which it has a similarity to the
theoretical mode of procedure-Marxism recognizes the object,
to some extent at least, as a measure, for Marx and his followers
never cease to berate the primacy of the knower in any form of
idealism. Yet the object, for Marxism, is only a potential something, an indeterminate thing not yet formed. The end of
knowledge, therefore, is to make the object (reality) over in the
likeness of the knower. This is a radical paraphrase of the
knowledge of God Who creates reality in the likeness of Himself. The Marxist understands himself like a god, but a god
who has practical knowledge only. This is a mild way of saying
that, for Marxism, the existing order of things must be overthrown in a thorough revolution-and this order of things
extends from matter in its least formed state to man himself.
The technique of brain-washing and mass purges takes on
considerable significance in this context. In a word, the supremacy of the practical order in Marxism means that the given
natural order of creation is only matter for the art of dialectical
materialism, an art that does not imitate nature, but destroys
it in order to impose a perverted human reconstruction of
reality.
Let us conclude by emphasizing three important points
concerning the division of theoretical and practical knowledge.
First of all, from the standpoint of knowledge itself, theoretical knowledge is superior and more perfect. We know primarily
in order to know, that is, to understand what is true. Furthermore, all sciences either are theoretical or are ordered to theoretical sciences. All sciences, theoretical or practical, attain
theoretical truth. Consequently, we are educated, in the proper
and formal sense of the term, primarily to understand and not
to act. We may learn by doing in some respects but we do
ultimately to learn-to know theoretical truths. In a society
and culture largely pragmatic and practical in ordering and

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

outlook, such a view is not well received, but the truth of this
position does not depend upon a given cultural situation at
a given time; it depends upon the nature of human beings, a
nature that is essentially characterized by rationality. Being
rational specifies being ordered to knowledge. And just as the
ultimate end of all created things is their assimilation to God,
so for man this assimilation consists in knowledge of God.
This knowledge, natural or supernatural, can only be theoretical.
To suppose that such knowledge is practical is to suppose that
God is something to be made or somehow subject to our action.
Secondly, practical knowledge necessarily depends on theoretical knowledge and is ordered to it. Within the domain of
knowledge itself, it is impossible to leave wholly the theoretical
order, for even in a practical science we are still concerned with
theoretical truth and with what the natures of things are.
Practical knowledge is ordered to theoretical knowledge in the
sense that our final end is knowledge and not action.
Thirdly, the division of knowledge into theoretical and practical is not, however, an absolute division and can be easily
exaggerated. We should not suppose, as has sometimes been
assumed, that this division implies two orders of knowledge
absolutely distinct and wholly separated from each other. The
division of theoretical and practical knowledge is not a division
based on being as such, but is a division based on a finite way
of knowing. In God, there is no real distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge with respect to what He knows
of Himself; His knowledge is uniquely theoretical. In man,
while there is a division of knowledge into theoretical and
practical, it is a division manifesting the ordering of practical
knowledge to theoretical knowledge, culminating in the knowledge of God.
St. Thomas explicitly teaches, and the point is confirmed by
a sound analysis of knowledge, that all science is ordered to
theoretical science and thus to the knowledge of God.
Furthermore, that which is capable of being loved only for the
sake of some other object exists for the sake of that othe:r thing

THEORETICAL

.AND PRACTICAL

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161

which is lovable simply on its own account .... Now, all practical
sciences, arts, and powers are objects of love only because they are
means to something else, for their purpose is not knowledge but
operation. But the speculative sciences are lovable for their own
sake, since their end is knowledge itself. Nor do we find any action
in human affairs, except speculative thought, that is not directed
to some other end. . . . . So, the practical arts are ordered to the
speculative ones, and likewise every human operation to intellectual
speculation, as an end. Now, among all the sciences and arts which
are thus subordinated, the ultimate end seems to belong to the one
that is perceptive and architectonic in relation to the others. For
instance, the art of navigation, to which the end, that is, the use,
of a ship pertains, is architectonic and preceptive in relation to the
art of shipbuilding. In fact, this is the way that first philosophy
is related to the other speculative sciences, for all the others depend
on it, in the sense that they take their principles from it, and also
the position to be assumed against those who deny the principles.
And this first philosophy is wholly ordered to the knowing of God,
as its ultimate end; that is why it is also called divine science. So,
divine knowledge is the ultimate end of every act of human knowledge and every operation. 25

The distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge
is based primarily on a finite manner of knowing and in terms
of two basic kinds of objects: a necessary, non-operable object
and a contingent, operable object. This is the way things are
and the way we know. We exist ultimately to know, not to do,
and with respect to what we know, we. know ultimately in
order to know and love God. This truth is the basis for ordering
all knowledge to theoretical knowledge, and is likewise the basis
for all educational theory and practice. Thus we return to the
starting point, but perhaps with more understanding and
appreciation: The action by which man achieves his ultimate
goal is neither making, nor doing, but contemplating.
JOHN

A. OESTERLE

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana
•• Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, Chap. 25. Image Book Edition
York, 1956), pp. 100-101.

(New

VALUE AND "ESSENTIALIST

T

FALLACIES"

HE problem of value cannot be relegated to a pigeon
hole marked " ethics " and dealt with when philosophical questions considered more fundamental are already
settled. Failure to grasp the full bearing which the problem has
on all analysis largely accounts for the high degree of antipathy
to " essence " curiously shared by certain exponents of linguistic
analysis and certain champions of atheist Existenzphilosophie.
Books like Professor J. 0. Urmson's Philosophical Analysis and
G. Bergmann's The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism, reflect
our increasing awareness that earlier positions of the linguistic
movement were as metaphysical as the traditional philosophies
they attacked. The recent translation of Sartre's major work
L' Etre et le N eant into English may serve indirectly to make
it more clearly understood that contemporary linguistic analysis
still rests on metaphysical foundations (as sympathetic critics
have already been pointing out) . But much more important
is the hint given by Sartre's dubious handling of "essence"
and " value " that the metaphysical assumptions underlying
what Bertrand Russell has labelled "The Cult of Common
Usage" are self-stultifying and self-contradictory. L'Etre et le
N eant should be prescribed reading for those linguistic philosophers who prescribe most earnestly the therapies of Ludwig
Wittgenstein for dis-solving philosophical problems.
Both the admirers of Wittgenstein and the devotees of Sartre
have set themselves the task of exorcising superstitions about
" essence." But whereas the latter would decry an " essentialist
fallacy " as a tragic misunderstanding of the human situation,
the former would regard it as a tiresome, but very natural
misconception of the way words work. Sartre attacks thinkers
like Diderot for suppressing the role of God but retaining the
concept of a fixed, preconceived human nature; Wittgenstein
teases those who share St. Augustine's belief that all words are

VALUE .AND "ESSENTIALIST

FALLACIES"

163

the labels of ostensible entities. To call for a verdict of " essentialist fallacy " the Sartrian has to make open assertions about
the kind of world we live in; but many linguistic philosophers
hold they are simply pointing to facts that must, on reflection,
be admitted by sensible folk of any conviction. Let us take
three examples of the linguistic approach.
The slim volume Aesthetics and Language 1 claimed in all
innocence on its baby-blue cover to offer "a fresh, unbiased
scrutiny of the linguistic confusions of traditional aesthetics."
The first contributor, Professor W. B. Gallie, launches an attack
on Croce and Idealist thinkers. These, we learn, are typical
victims of " the essentialist fallacy " in presupposing that a
word like Art must stand for some one thing. The aesthetician's
only valid functions, he concludes, must be of a piecemeal
nature, like upholding the differences between the art forms
and assessing the applicability of comparisons and analogies.
Any budding metaphysicians who seek the essence of Art are
thus summarily dismissed. Mr. T. D. Weldon in his book The
Vocabulary of Politics claims that political theory, too, has
been vitiated by " the primitive and generally unquestioned
belief that words ... such as 'State,' 'Citizen,' 'Law' and
' Liberty ' have intrinsic or essential meanings which it is the
aim of political philosophers to discover and explain." (p. 11)
But actually " to know their meaning one need only know how
to use them correctly, that is, in such a way as to be intelligible
in ordinary and technical discourse." (p. 19) The assumption
that all words are proper nouns produces " the illusion of real
essences " and its uglier step-sister " the illusion of absolute
standards." And compare the famous statement of the later
Wittgenstein ('Philosophical Investigations' I's. 116) : " when
philosophers use a word-' knowledge,' ' being,' ' object,' ' I,'
' proposition,' ' name '-and try to grasp the essence of the
thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever used in
this way in the language game which is its original home?What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical
to their everyday usage."
1

Blackwell, 1958.

164

JOHN KING-FARLOW

The plausibility of these three examples rests on two foundations, one legitimate and one which the "essentialist" is entitled to challenge. First, it takes a desperately dogged ostrich
to deny that words like "art," "law" and "being" are used
in a wide number of ways. Second, (if I may adopt Mr. R. M.
Hare's pet pair of terms), it is all too easy to graft onto a
largely descriptive sense of "meaning"-" the way we do use
and understand words "-a largely evaluative sense with a
value something like this: " the way we should and would
understand words if our concepts were appropriate to reality."
Consider two examples of this latter sense. A brash Londoner
tells his country cousins: " You don't know what comfort
MEANS until you've lived in TOWN." A passionate convert
affirms he never knew what happiness, (or gratitude, or fellowship) , meant until a Billy Graham rally changed his way of
life. This sense hardly fits Weldon's 2 claim that to know words'
meanings it is enough to be able to use them " in such a way
as to be intelligible in ordinary and technical discourse." But
what ground is there for saying that, in effect, the three philosophers cited play on the evaluative connotation of " meaning?" Simply this: all three imply that once we understand
how we do use words, we already have the answer to the
question " how should we use them? " Otherwise they could
not conclude so confidently that once we understand the workings of our language we will have no right to claim that a
legitimate puzzle or mystery remains; hence that we will no
longer be justified in asking for the essence or the real meaning
of the word we queried. Rather similar chains of argument
have been employed against ethical "Naturalism," against
traditional Christian equations between goodness and being or
goodness and the real object of human desire, and against the
concept of God as an ens necessarium. Those who currently
• Weldon's confusion might similarly lead him to condemn Kierkegaard for
writing: " a precise and correct linguistic usage associates therefore dread and
the future. (Concept of Dread, p. Sl!). "Correct linguistic usage" for Kierkegaard
must mean here "a usage appropriate to reality." Fowler's "English Usage" and
Dr. Gallup are hors de combat.

VALUE AND "ESSENTIALIST

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H

165

purvey such arguments may claim the support of G. E. Moore
or Kant or Hume but their chief strength is to exploit the
ambiguity o£ "meaning" (and so derivatively of "logical"),
to dissuade us from the legitimate procedure of positing new
entailment relationships to meet levels of experience which
transcend the coarsest common sense. Not that all advocates of
linguistic therapy should be tarred with the same brush. Professor Gilbert Ryle, for instance, declines to play upon this
ambiguity, 3 and insists that philosophy is concerned with
" use" not" usage": "appeals to prevalence are philosophically
pointless." But Ryle's more overtly evaluative and teleological
sense of" use" hardly delivers him from the" liberal" dilemma
to be discussed later.
The charge of " essentialist fallacy " like the charge of
"naturalist fallacy" can, therefore, sometimes be met with the
simple retort: " but I am not looking for a meaning in the
descriptive sense you imply." Such a course would not have been
immediately open to Plato for he is often guilty of extreme
confusion about "meaning."
But take another analysts'
whipping boy, the target of positivists and crypto- positivists
from Carnap onwards. The appeal to metaphysical insight to
justify mis-usage would be far more open, for example, to
Heidegger-though he specializes elsewhere in obscurity on the
question of value-if someone made such a charge against his
essay On the Essence of Truth. For there he first expounds a
variety of popular and traditional meanings of " truth "
("Existence and Being," pp. 321-9l5), expounding what Wittgenstein would call their " family resemblances." He then
expresses himself dissatisfied with the inadequacy of popular
opinion and feels called upon to soar to heights of metaphysical
speculation in search of the essential meaning of truth. Perhaps
indeed the feature that makes leading existentialists most
repugnant to many linguistic philosophers is their typically
" essentialist " procedure-despite their dramatized rejection of
the role " essence " plays in systems like those of Plato and
8

"Ordinary

Language," Philosophical Review, 1953

166

JOHN KING-FARLOW

Aquinas. The analyst may complain that Plato's search in The
Republic for the essence of Justice was barely more philosophically primitive and linguistically inept than Heidegger's
redefinition of Truth; or than Kierkegaard's writings on Truth
as Subjectivity and on " Angst " as dread of nothing (closely
followed by Heidegger and Sartre); or than Camus' on the
Absurd or than Marcel's and Buber's on " Thou." 4 Indeed
the link with Plato is there. Not that they literally seek a
1TapaOetyjLa avaKEtfLEVOV EV rfi; ovpavfi; but, like Plato's Republic,
existentialist writers always imply and frequently assert that
the world we live in and our thoughts about it confront us as
a vocation and a challenge (evaluative terms) to reshape our
concepts and so reorientate our outlook. This implication and
the light shed by considering evaluative uses of meaning should
make it clearer that the "essentialist fallacies" of traditional
philosophy arise not always from misreading of the loom of
language but sometimes quite legitimately from the traditional
view of the world as a continuum of fact and value.
Michael Foster has spoken of a" humanist" view, 5 Miss Iris
Murdoch of a " liberal " or neutral view of the world as being
presupposed by most exponents of linguistic analysis. According to the latter view, as she put it in a broadcast talk on
" Ethics and Metaphysics," morality does not " adhere to the
stuff of the world." This would certainly explain both the
disjunction of is and ought in so many current analyses of
ethics and the obscuring of the evaluative connotations of
" essence." It would not, of course, justify the way some
analyses play on the ambiguity of " ethics " and " meaning "
in order to gain certain benefits from their " neutral " accounts
of these terms-a sleight of hand necessary to maintain the
appearance of talking about the same " morals " and "meaning " as the man in the streets.
• For an extreme example of "essentialism" cf. the pre-war Sartre's Husserlian
enquiry: "is the imaginary function a contingent and metaphysical specification
of the essence ' consciousness ' or should it be described as a constitutive structure
of that essence?" (The Psychology of Imagination, p. 201 ff.)
• Cf. Faith and Logic (edited by B. Mitchell), pp. 192 ff.

VALUE AND "ESSENTIALIST

FALLACIES"

167

It might, however, be thought to follow that there are two
self-consistent accounts of philosophy: 6 the traditional view
whereby man's indissoluble (but " transcendable ") bewilderment in the labyrinth of words reflects the value-ridden, vocational character of the world he meets in experience; and the
" liberal " view of a neutral world where philosophy progresses,
in Mr. Stuart Hampshire's words, towards becoming " a proper
empirical study of the forms of language." But though the
traditional view can at least be made self-consistent (while
it will remain unsympathetic and unacceptable to many), the
" liberal " view does suffer from an inner contradiction which
may without gross exaggeration be labelled an "essentialist
fallacy." There is a certain degree of analogy with the selfcontradictory procedures of atheist existentialists like Camus,
Sartre and Simone de Beau voir (or the Heidegger of Sein und
Zeit) who devalue the world but still cling to a vocational
account of philosophy. But there is more illumination in first
considering how and why Sartre openly entertains something
like an " essence " of man in the back parlor after loudly
proclaiming the defenestration of " human nature " into the
main street.
Sartre asserts in L' Etre et le N eant 7 (p. 76) : " il s' ensuit
que ma liberte est l'unique fondement des valeurs et que rien,
absolument rien ne me justifie d'adopter telle ou telle valeur.
. . . En tant qu' etre par qui les valeurs existent je suis injustifiable." Miss Murdoch in her book Sartre (pp. 47-48) discusses
his dubious shift from a technical, descriptive account of certain
value terms in Being and Nothingness to a highly evaluative,
popular account in his later works What is Literature? and
Existentialism and Humanism. But Sartre, (not so unlike the
most self-righteously "neutral" linguistic phiiosophers), has
already surrendered more significantly to objective value in
that earlier work. Miss Murdoch may be correct in saying
8 Certainly
Miss Murdoch implied that both are legitimate metaphysical competitors in her broadcast and in contributions to symposia in Supplementary Volume
XXX of the Aristotelian Society and in a special Oxford number of "The Twentieth
Century" for June, 1955.
• Being and Nothingness, p. 88.

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JOHN KlNG-FARLOW

that concepts like " etre-en-soi , and " etre-pour-autrui " are
hypothetical or mythological and do not constitute " a metaphysical theory of human nature." But what are we to make
of his frequent insistence on certain interpretations of empirical
phenomena as correct or incorrect, notably that man is to be
seen as a free agent however oppressive his circumstances 8
and that the self is to be seen as a unity and not a collection
of occurrences whatever some psychologists may say? 9 This
laying down of an interpretation or " seeing as" for man's
ambiguous self-experience as the right one is all too like what
is involved in positing an "essence." M. Naville replies in
the concluding discussion of Existentialism and Humanism that
Sartre has repudiated " human nature " but given almost
exactly the same job to the phrase "human condition." And
the stupifying expression " ontologie phenomenologique " does
not obviate the harsh reality that Being and Nothingness
repudiates " essence " and gives much of its job to " structure."
Indeed Sartre is here forced to objectify his value judgments
on the interpretation of experience in order to establish a basis
for philosophizing and to make his account of value as an
illusory aspiration sound at all plausible. For philosophy must
presuppose that our experience c;m be rendered to some extent
intelligible (evaluative term) and, as F. C. Copleston pointed
out: " the theory of forms presents us with a world which is
not simply and solely a Heraclitean flux but a world shot
through, as it were, with intelligibility." 10 Man can pose like
Sartre or Hare as the autonomous arbiter who allots value
(and so intelligibility) to the world: but in order to prevent the
chaos from overwhelming every basis for philosophy he must,
however implicitly, recognize his own free selfhood. And this
is to raise value to the status of fact, to realise "heteronomy."
• Especially Pt. IV, Ch. I, ii.
• Ibid., Ch. II, ii. Nor is the seeing-as of essence--value heteronomy avoided,
only made extraordinarily immediate, by posting a pre-reflexive cogito. (EN, 16 ff.)
The de-reified " process " of a so-called "non-egological consciousness," (Recherches
Philosophiques, 1936), would still seem a substance-in nonsensical disguise--to a
10 Aquinas, pp. 88-89.
Humean atomist. And rightly.

VALUE AND "ESSENTIALIST

FALLACIES"

169

Hume's greatest achievement was to show, not entirely wittingly, that the problems of causality and selfhood are value
problems, problems of right interpretation in a sense of right
that science cannot in principle discuss; hence that without
yielding ground to something like intuitionism and objective
value, philosophy is eventually driven from scepticism to hypocrisy or silence. The self cannot be descriptively " reduced "
to a "bundle of sensations" except by a presupposing a selfdeceiving self that performs such a reduction. The self cannot
be descriptively reduced to " freedom choosing freedom," to
a " concept," to a " working hypothesis," etc., because these
words presuppose, for their very significance, a stable self that
receives the attribute " freedom," or that conceptualizes and
hypothesizes. 11 Admirers of Hume and Nietzsche at their most
sceptical may protest against making the self an " instantaneous kernel " of heteronomy; but they are even more determined
than Sartre to have their cake and eat it, i.e., to go on talking. " Wovon man nicht sprechen kann darober muss man
schweigen ": 12 linguistic analysis has ignored, in its search for
"neutrality," the major insight of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.
What bearing does this have on the suggestion that the
"humanist" and "liberal" outlooks of analysts involve something which might be called an '' essentialist fallacy? " A fallacy
is likely to be involved when a metaphysical viewpoint is
simultaneously embraced as an integral part of an analytical
procedure and excluded by the procedure's corollaries. It is
typical that Wittgenstein in his long discussion of "seeing
as " 13 concerns himself with ambiguity and conceptual complexity-and not at all with ultimate justification for an outlook. It is typical of many analysts, but really suicidal, for
11 This point is illuminated by Wittgenstein's curious insistence in the Philosophical
Investigations that pots and roses cannot literally "think" or " feel " because, such
verbs depend for their significance on the background of human personality; by
Ryle's discussion of the "systematic elusiveness of 'I '" in The Concept of Mind;
and by Marcel's discussion of thought and intelligibility, Metaphysical Journal,
pp. 102-117.
11 Cf. Jacques Maritain's remark that the only legitimate course for sceptics who
deny all possibility of knowing any truth is absolute silence.
.. P. 1., n, xi.

170

JOHN KING-FARLOW

G. J. Warnock to write of Berkeley: 14 "He did not think of
himself as inventing simply a new way of looking at the world,
but rather as expounding the right way, the only way in which
one sees things as they really are. But this, I think, is only
to say that he, like other metaphysicians, had his illusions."
Foster and Miss Murdoch have made sound cases that the
approach of many linguistic philosophers is only compatible
with a " humanist " or a " liberal " outlook-but are such outlooks compatible with themselves? Of course, it follows from
the popular disjunction of fact and value that there is no right
way of looking at the world; yet, without positing a humanist
or liberal outlook as the right one, so many" analytical "chains
of argument are not even dubious; they simply cannot get
started.
Much as they might hate to be mentioned in the same breath,
certain advocates of linguistic analysis and atheist Existenzphilosophie are led by their denial of "essence" and objective
value into fallacies and tangles far more self-stultifying than
Plato's. If a Republic of Letters is to bear investigation, it
must cease to support itself by purveying what is officially
forbidden fruit on an unofficial black market. The traditionalist can afford to face the charge of " essentialist fallacy "
unmoved if he reaffirms the challenge of the world as a continuum of fact and value; reaffirms the Socratic challenge of
philosophy as vocation to reveal vocation; reaffirms that man's
indissoluble bewilderment in the labyrinth of words reflects the
essence of the created world he meets in experience. George
Herbert caught that essence more dearly than any philosopher
in his poem" the Pulley," where God says of man in the world:
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.
Duke University,
Durham, North Carolina
u

The Revolution in Philosophy, p. 122.

JoHN KING-FARLOW

"INTEGRATED"

KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE

I

N a previous article/ I discussed the relationship of the
philosophy of nature to natural science, considered from
a Thomistic standpoint. In that article, 2 I suggested the
possibility of an " integrated knowledge of nature," a knowledge
produced by the philosophy of nature in employing the natural
sciences as instruments with which to prolong its penetration
of the real.
The purpose of this article is to offer some general considerations concerning such " integration." The remarks made below
should be taken to apply primarily to modern physics in relation to the Thomistic philosophy.
Before any such integration can take place, it is necessary
to reflect philosophically on natural science in order to see its
intrinsic structure and its precise relation to the world of real
being. This is the task of the philosophy of science.
It is necessary, therefore, to see, in at least a summary way,
what the philosophy of science does: what are its problems?
what are some of its general conclusions? But because we
advance in knowledge, not by simply forgetting the old in the
face of the new, but rather by a process of organic growth, of
assimilation of the new into the solidly established whole of
knowledge that we already possess, we shall attempt to view
the philosophy of science in the framework of the traditional
Thomistic logic and metaphysics, so far as this is possible.

I.

THE NATURE AND DIVISIONS oF THE PHILosoPHY oF SciENCE

Let us first say that the philosophy of science is a philosophical analysis of scientific knowledge. By scientific knowl1 "The Philosophy of Nature and Natural Science from a Thomist Viewpoint,"
Tke Tkomist, XX, 8 (July, 1957).
9 Loc. cit., pp. 842-848.

171

JOSEPH

J. SIKORA

edge we here mean the knowledge of modern natural science
(physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc.). As we have
said above, we shall here confine our discussion to physics,
which is the heart and model of modern natural science.
Now scientific knowledge presents two aspects for our study.
Science is an ordered knowledge in the intellect. As such it
is the subject of logical analysis. But science also refers to
reality. As such it is the subject of metaphysical criticism.
What is the structure of scientific concepts, of scientific laws,
of scientific theory? How does reasoning proceed in science?
These are questions of logic. What does this structure of knowledge actually reveal to us about reality? This is a question of
metaphysics. The metaphysician, the wise man who knows the
causes of all things, is alone qualified to order all the sciences,
assigning to each its proper domain of being. 3
But the metaphysical criticism of scientific knowledge is of
necessity reflective. The first movement of the intellect is
toward being itself. This intellectual movement is not one
single deductive advance from the first principles of metaphysics to the last details of the physical universe. Rather,
we make several-many-movements,
none of which taken by
itself is adequate to exhaust the intelligibility of being. We
cannot deduce the laws of nature from metaphysics (but neither
can we grasp metaphysical principles by the study of a particular kind of reality, as Mr. Gilson has shown in The Unity
of Philosophical Experience) .4
Metaphysics can only wait until other sciences of reality
have already come into being before it can criticize them and
assign to each its proper domain of study in the whole of things.
Nor can we expect each science to perform a work of selfcriticism. Each science sees reality only through its own aspect
of reality. Physics has no vision of the human soul. Astronomy
does not see ethical realities. It is necessary for the science
• But this task of the metaphysician can only be accomplished if he knows the
science which he would order.
• New York: Scribner's Sons, 1954.

" INTEGRATED " KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

178

which studies being in itself, the being into which all reality is
ultimately resolvable, to accomplish this work of criticism.
This task of metaphysics has been described by Alfred North
Whitehead in the following terms:
Philosophy, in one of its functions, is the critic of cosmologies.
It is its function to harmonize, refashion, and justify divergent
intuitions as to the nature of things. It has to insist on the scrutiny
of the ultimate ideas, and on the retention of the whole of the
evidence in shaping our cosmological scheme.5
Just as metaphysical criticism is a work of reflection on
already existing knowledge, logical analysis presupposes that
we already have a knowledge to analyze: The logic of physical
science is not imposed on this science in an a priori manner.
Rather, it is discovered by a reflection on the actual movement
of the intellect in physics toward the reality.
To summarize, sciences such as physics are taken up with
the things, with reality. Reflection must come from elsewhere.
It may be the same man who is a physicist and a philosopher
of science, but we ought not to confuse his physics with his
philosophy, even with this philosophy of physics. The philosophy of science itself is properly a special part of metaphysics
and of logic, insofar as it is both a critique of scientific knowledge and a logical analysis of this knowledge.

II.

LoGICAL ANALYSIS

IN THE PHILOSOPHY

oF SCIENCE

There is a temporal priority of logical analysis over metaphysical criticism in the philosophy of science. For logical
analysis concerns the intrinsic order of knowledge, while metaphysical criticism concerns the extrinsic order of knowledge
with respect to reality. Since modern science exhibits two quite
distinct levels of knowledge in itself, as we shall see, it is well
to see first the intrinsic character of this knowledge before we
proceed to criticize it. Here would seem to be a deficiency in
what is undoubtedly one of the best treatments of modern
• Science and the Modern World. Mentor Books (New York, 1956), p. viii.

174

JOSEPH

J. SIKORA

natural science in the scholastic tradition, namely, that of
Jacques Maritain. 6 He is concerned chiefly with the metaphysical side of the philosophy of science, with, perhaps, insufficient attention to a preliminary logical analysis.
A reflection on the structure of scientific knowledge reveals,
as I say, two distinct levels of knowledge. At the base there is
always what we may call phenomenal insight. We have some
observations, some data, some phenomena. But linking these
phenomena into a unity of knowledge is the theoretical level
of physics. We may exhibit the interrelations between these
two levels in a diagram.

The p s here represent the various phenomena. Let the left
hand group represent the phenomena of falling bodies (as
observed by Galileo) . Let the right hand group represent the
phenomena of the motion of the planets (as known to Brahe
and Kepler). h1 then is the set of laws of falling bodies laid
down by Galileo. h2 is the set of laws of planetary motion laid
down by Kepler. Both h1 and h2 are beyond the phenomena
themselves. They represent a theoretical interpretation of the
phenomena. The actual laws of the phenomena are not h1 and
h2; these are only abstract idealizations and interpretations.
Finally, L1 is the Newtonian law of gravitation which links h1
and h2 togther. Again this is not itself an observable; it is
only a construction of the mind.
Such is the structure of physical science. But this structure
6 See Les Degres du Savoir
(Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1932); La Philosophie
de la Nature (Paris: Tequi, 1937) ; Quatre Essais sur L' Esprit (Paris: Desclee
de Brouwer, 1939); Scholasticism and Politics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940) ; "Philosophy and the Unity of the Sciences," Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association, XXVII (1953).

"INTEGRATED"

KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

175

poses serious logical problems. If the h and L levels are constructions of the mind, then it is quite possible that other structures are equally suitable for unifying the facts. The Newtonian
law of gravitation is then not a necessary inference from the
data. While the
constructions are so formulated
as to imply the phenomena that we actually observe, the phenomena that we observe do not necessarily imply the theoretical
constructions. Any attempt to reason from the phenomena
to the truth of the theory as some kind of description of the
nature of reality results in a fallacious reasoning of the following
type:
If T, then P.
But P.
Therefore T.
Reasoning of this kind would allow us to argue: If this man
has typhoid, then he has a fever. But he has a fever. Therefore he has typhoid. Nevertheless, in science our reasoning
is basically of this form. Quite apparently, the meaning of
" truth " as applied to a physical theory is not the ordinary
meamng.
The problem of assigning rules for such reasoning is the
central problem of the philosophy of science from the point of
view of formal logic. From the viewpoint of material logic, we
have many more problems. We may ask for the criteria for
the relevancy of data to the science in question. We may
examine the methods of concept formation-giving special
attention to the operationalist view of concepts in science 7 and
to the possible contributions of our own a priori attitudes 8 in
the formation of such concepts. We may inquire concerning
the methods of verification and the requirements of a good
theory. We may examine the relative place of mathematical
and physical models in relation to the deduction of phenomena.
We may seek to determine, from a logical point of view, pre• P. W. Bridgman. The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1927).
8 A. S. Eddington.
The Philosophy of Physical Science (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1949).

176

JOSEPH J. SIKORA

cisely what a scientific law is and what its place is in the structure of scientific knowledge. Other questions may, perhaps, also
be added.
But we cannot here discuss all these logical problems. In the
light of our distinction between the two levels within scientific
knowledge, we shall now move to the metaphysical criticism of
science.

III.

METAPHYSICAL

CRITICISM IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SciENCE

Before proceeding to a properly metaphysical criticism of
physical science, we should say a few words concerning the
inadequacy of the positivist critique. If, as we have said above,
a critique can only be properly made by a science which has
for its object being in itself, then the ignorance of this being
precludes the very possibility of a critique. But to know being
is to see, with the intellect, an intelligible depth of which the
sensible is only an appearance or manifestation. However, it
is precisely this intelligible depth which the positivist does not
see. Jacques Maritain has said:
If positivism, old and new, and kantism do not understand that
metaphysics is authentically a science, a knowledge of achieved
and completed type, it means that they do not understand that
the intellect sees. For them, sense alone is intuitive, the intellect
having only a function of connexion and of unification.9

Because positivism does not see this intelligible depth of
reality, its " critique " must end by simply distinguishing between the phenomena and the intellectual constructions which
unify the phenomena. Phenomena represent the ultimate term
of our" scientific knowldge and, indeed, of all our knowledge,
for the positivist. Theoretical constructjons are thus only our
own arbitrary devices for what Mach called an " economy of
thought."
But for the Thomist metaphysician the case is far different.
He sees that various levels must be distinguished from each

r

• Scholasticism and Politics, pp. 60-51.

" INTEGRATED "

KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

177

other in reality as well as in our scientific knowledge of reality.
The diagram that we saw above concerning the structure of
scientific knowledge must be supplemented in order to see the
complete picture.

}--''""

INTERPRETATION

h2

hl

A"' A""
s,""- /s,

P1P2Ps • · · Pn P1P2Pa • · • P"

0

WHAT IS IN

PHENOMENA

ANY WAY

SUBSTANTIAL

REALITY

NATURES
ULTIMATE

CAUSE

The phenomena which are at the base of scientific knowledge
are also the ultimate actuality of things. But these things
contain a depth of intelligibility which itself can be seen through
philosophical insight. The phenomena are manifestations of
substantial natures, which· in turn depend for their very existence on the Supreme Cause. The ontological dimensions of
essence and existence lie beyond the dimension of appearance,
and await the gaze of the philosopher.
Thus, what modern natural science studies is seen to be only
an aspect of reality, the sensible manifestation of reality in the
sphere of operation. Its concern is to construct theoretical
unities to link together the phenomena. It does not seek to
penetrate beyond the observable phenomena in the formation
of its concepts. Maritain calls this kind of knowledge, which in
the last analysis is restricted to what is observable, perinoetic. 10
The scientist as a man may be interested in knowledge which
is not so limited, but science itself is only interested in reality
10 This " perinoetic knowledge " is what
I called "phenomenal knowledge of
nature" in the preceding article cited above (The Thomist, July, 1957, XX, 8,
p. 841). In the present article, I have restricted the term "phenomenal" to apply
only to that level of perinoetic knowledge which is intuitive with respect to the
phenomena, as opposed to the non-intuitive theoretical level.

178

JOSEPH

J. SIKORA

as observable. The theoretical structures of sc1ence do not
constitute the essence of reality; in their construction we are
not looking into the ontological dimensions of the real.
But while both the phenomenal and theoretical knowledges
of modern science are perinoetic, they are so in entirely different
senses. Our phenomenal knowledge is an intuitive grasp of
reality-not in its intelligible depth but in its sensible appearance. But our theoretical knowledge is a construction of the
mind, and this construction is in itself non-intuitive with respect
to reality.
But when we consider this reality, the appearance of which
is being studied in modern science, from a philosophical point
of view, we may proceed in either of two directions. Either
we may concern ourselves with its existence and seek to discover
the principles of existence-here we are in metaphysics; 11 or we
may concern ourselves with its motion, its constant becoming,
and seek to discover the principles of motion-this is the
philosophy of nature.
IV.

SciENCE

AS AN INSTRUMENT

PHILOSOPHY

OF THE

OF NATURE

Now if it is true that the philosophy of nature studies the
principles of motion, of operation in the mobile universe, while
these modern sciences study the manifestations of mobile being
in the sphere of operation, then it is clear that metaphysics
will judge these modern sciences to be employable as instruments of the philosophy of nature in its penetration of mobile
being. Not that the philosophy of nature requires these sciences
in order to achieve its central core of knowledge about the
general principles of motion. This may be gained in complete
ignorance of the special sciences-all we need to have is some
evidence of motion, preferably some simple cases. See Aristotle's Physics, Book One, chapter seven, where matter, form,
and privation are explained with an analysis of some simple
cases of motion.
11 It is not the concern of this article to discuss in detail this highly controversial
question of the object of metaphysics.

" INTEGRATED " KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

179

But the philosophy of nature will use these sciences in
different ways, depending on whether we think of the theoretical
or the phenomenal level of science. Clearly, the manifestations
of mobile being in the sphere of operation can tell us more
about the principles of mobile being when these manifestations
are studied in a detailed way. But the corresponding theoretical
constructions represent nothing real in themselves and can only
" suggest " philosophical constructions, " myths " about the
detail of the nature of things. 12 I say " myths," not in· any
derogatory sense, but rather in the sense of "likely stories."
An historicai example of such myth is the Timaeus of Platowho unfortunately resorted to myths without even attaining
to the unshakeable philosophical knowledge of the nature of the
physical universe which was possible and which Aristotle
reached soon afterwards. Another example of such philosophical
myth is the treatise of Aristotle On the Heavens. Aristotle
unfortunately did not realize the mythical character of his
constructions here. He thought he was describing in detail the
nature of the physical universe. Today this book is regarded
as outmoded physics. It would be more proper to regard it as
an outmoded philosophical myth.
Thus there are two levels in the philosophy of nature. We
obtain unshakeably certain knowledge about the principles of
mobile being up to a point, and then we construct " philosophical myths." This second level of the philosophy of nature is
most precarious. It inevitably becomes necessary for us to
rethink our philosophical myths. 13 The philosophical myths
12 Such philosophical
myths, expressing what the real nature of things might be
lilce, must be carefully distinguished from the theoretical perinoetic constructions
of modern science, which have as their aim the unification and prediction of
phenomena without direct concern with the nature which produces these phenomena.
This is not to deny, however, that philosophical myth and scientific construction
may be and often are commingled in the concrete discussions of the scientist; for
the scientist is also a man, and to that extent also a philosopher. The distinction,
nevertheless, remains a key point in any philosophy of science which desires to
preserve the distinctive originality of modern science in its approach to the physical
world.
13 See Maritam,
La Philosophie de la Nature, p. 141.

180

JOSEPH J. SIKORA

appropriate to Newtonian physics are not appropriate to Einsteinian physics or to the physics of Heisenberg. Thus the
philosophy of nature is permanent in its essence, but it constantly elaborates itself in new mythical extensions.
Can we give some examples of the extension of the philosophy
of nature in and through modern science? First, we may point
out some permanent acquisitions, some additions which transcend the level of myth. We have become aware, through the
work of science, of an exceedingly fine microstructure in the
physical universe. The facts accounted for by the modem
atomic theories and by modem quantum theory also, when
viewed philosophically, point out that things in the universe
do not at all have the crude continuity ascribed to them in
the earlier period of the philosophy of nature.
Similarly, we have become aware of the presence· of life on a
much smaller and varied scale than the ancients had dreamed of.
Then too, the telescope has :revealed to us the fine structure
of the heavens. No more do we think in terms of some seventy
or so crystalline spheres. Now we see a diversity of galactic
and extra-galactic nebulae, of galactic and globular clusters, of
multiple stars, such as would astound our ancestors. Not that
we are at all certain as to what this diversity really is (we
often attribute far more certitude to astronomy than it really
possesses); but at least we know that it is there.
We have also come to see the dominant character of the
relative in the physical universe, the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of finding absolute standards with which to quantitatively measure physical reality.
Philosophical myths about the physical universe are becoming more and more difficult to construct, with the evolution
of more and more complex scientific theories. Where, not too
long ago, it was not too difficult to construct such myths on
the basis of mechanistic philosophy, it is extremely difficult to
do so now. On the other hand, Whitehead's suggestion that
now we need an interpretation of science in terms of a " phi-

"INTEGRATED"

KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

181

losophy of organism " 14 is full of meaning for Thomism. For
Thomism is a philosophy which recognizes the organicity of
matter on the level of living things as coming from a unitary
form from which will flow many activities. It is equally able
to account for an organicity on the level of non-living things if
we ascertain the presence of such organicity.
The modern physical models of the atom readily suggest an
application of the concept of organism. It is possible for the
Thomist _to construct an ideal essence from which would flow
just such an organic structure. This ideal essence would itself,
of course, be only mythical.
The diversity of parts of an organism is due to the naturally
diverse accidental dispositions of matter in the diverse parts of
the extended being. We may, perhaps, apply this notion of
organism even to the entire space-time continuum as visualized
in Einsteinian general relativity, a continuum which is constantly changing in the states of its diverse parts in space and
time. Indeed, matter itself might even be metaphysically
assimilated to this philosophically interpreted space-time continuum, in a way not yet explained, on the lower levels of
material existence. Once again, we are speaking of a mythical
essence.

v. THE CONVERTIBILITY OF MASS AND ENERGY FROM THE
VIEWPOINT

OF THE PHILOSOPHY

OF NATURE

Energy and mass are, of course, terms designating only
certain operational manifestations of mobile being. In themselves they say nothing about substance. The philosophical
difficulties which have arisen concerning the transmutation of
mass into energy and vice versa are due to a faulty mythical
interpretation of mass as corresponding to the substantial being
of things. This faulty mythical interpretation was made in a
background of mechanistic philosophy. We may leave it to
the mechanists to worry over the change of a substance into
an accident while we make our own new philosophical myth
14

Science and the Modem World, p. 65.

182

JOSEPH J. SIKORA

in which the ontological counterparts of the scientific" energy"
and "mass" will be peculiar properties of matter, which are
more or less correlative; that is to say, matter will possess one
or both, but never neither. Mass will designate a passive
potency and a resistance to change; energy will designate an
actuation of this passive potency, which tends to continue
receiving this actuation.
This latter is more properly termed kinetic energy. Potential
energy may be thought to be the operational manifestation of
a passive potency surrounded by actuating factors which are
not yet, however, fully actuated themselves. Since these factors
have not yet been fully actuated, they too will to this extent
pertain to the level of passive potency. Thus, this whole context
of unactuated potentialities will manifest itself as potential
energy. As we have indicated, the resistance to change inherent
in this passive potency will manifest itself as inertia on mass.
The actuation once received and tending to continue will manifest itself as kinetic energy.
Such philosophical interpretations of mass, potential energy,
and kinetic energy would allow us to account readily for the
operational transmutation of mass into kinetic energy, since
mass is here seen to be intimately related to potential energy.
Each is but one face of the same passive potency, potential
energy corresponding to the order of this potency toward act,
and mass to the resistance which this potency offers to actuation, because of the act that it already has.
Bnt what are we to say of the nature of these actualities and
potentialities? It would seem that the philosophical cause of
mass is some kind of passive quality, more or less receptive in
diverse things. The actuality which is operationally manifested
as kinetic energy may be regarded as a quality inhering in the
moving subject, or it may be regarded as the continuous reception of actuality from some other physical reality-a reality
operationally manifested, perhaps, as our space-time continuum,
but which would really be what underlies the real successive
and extended flux to which the concept of space-time continuum

" INTEGRATED " KNOWLEDGE

OF NATURE

183

is to be applied. The former interpretation of kinetic energy
seemed more consonant with Newtonian physics, the latter with
Einsteinian physics, the former again with quantum physics.
Perhaps, both interpretations may be employed, to account for
different physical processes.
But let us repeat that what we have said here concerning the
philosophical interpretation of mass and energy and their
equivalence should be ranked on the mythical level of the
philosophy of nature.

VI.

CAuTIONS IN THE UsE OF MoDERN SciENCE
BY PHILOSOPHY

As we have indicated above, modern science of itself is not
concerned with the real causes of phenomena. Thus in itself
it does not speak of the nature of things. Before it can be
used as an instrument to deepen our penetration of the nature
of the physical real, we must first possess that which will
sharpen and use it-we must first understand something of
metaphysics, of logic, of the philosophy of nature.
It is possible, but dangerous, to attempt this use of science
without deep philosophical insight prior to the work. This
would really mean the use of science as an instrument of our
spontaneous, unreflective, imperfect knowledge of common
sense. This would be to invite serious mistakes in the elaborated
ontology which we would evolve. Common sense is not cognizant of all the necessary fine distinctions between reality and
beings of the reason which are founded in the real, nor is it
clear about even the general nature of things. The proper use
of scientific knowledge for further speculation concerning the
nature of physical reality, even on the mythical level, requires
careful logical analysis and metaphysical criticism and a firm
grasp on at least the general nature of physical reality-the
meaning of matter, form, and privation, the meaning of motion,
of time, of place, etc.
JosEPH J. SIKORA

Loyola University,
Chicago, Illinoi8

GRAVITY AND LOVE AS UNIFYING
PRINCIPLES
If we were stones, or waves or wind or anything of that

kind, we should want, indeed, both sensations and life,
yet should possess a kind of attraction toward our own
proper position and natural order. For the specific gravity
of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried
downward by their weight or upward by their levity, for
the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit by love,
whithersoever it is borne.1

I

N contemporary science, and in popular conceptions, gravitational force accounts for a mutual attraction between all
bodies. It accounts for their natural movement towards
each other. However, it required the brilliance of Isaac Newton
to perceive that the same type force which accounts for a falling
leaf or a crashing waterfall also explains why the planets remain
in their proper heavenly orbits. 2 This latter problem is not
our concern here. On the other hand, in the contemporary
world love, as applied to the area of human relationships, to the
area of man's relation to the world and to God, accounts for
the attraction ·between things and for their coming together.
It does this in a very fundamental way, for it is the most basic
of all the emotions and it is more than an emotion. Attraction
toward an object and desire for unity result wherever there
is love. This is not disputed by modern science. Nevertheless,
to the modern mind love and gravity are basically different
concepts about completely distinct characteristics of objects.
Saint Augustine in the succinct passage I have quoted has
perceived the similar role the two ideas have in
explana1 Saint Augustine, The City of God, Bk. xi, !i!S, Translation by Marcus Dods
(New York: Random House, 1950), p. 878.
• Explaining the motion of the planets requires use of a) Newton's universal law
of gravitation and b) Newton's first law of motion.

184

GRAVITY

AND LOVE AS UNIFYING

PRINCIPLES

185

tions. In short, each explains the existence of attraction. They
cause diverse things to tend toward union with each other.
This is why the law of love, beginning with the early Greek
philosopher, Empedocles, and developing through Aristotle,
Augustine and Aquinas, was the universal law controlling
tendency toward union. It could apply as well to the inorganic
world, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, to man and
to God. At the same time they were clearly aware that; the
loves in all cases were not completely the same. Saint Thomas
summarizes the question in this manner:
Now in each of these appetites the name "love" is given to the
principle of movement towards the end .loved. In the natural
appetite the principle of this movement is the appetitive subject's
connaturalness with the thing to which it tends, and may be called
natural love: thus the connaturalness of a heavy body for the center
is by reason of its weight and may be called natural love: in like
manner the aptitude of the sensitive appetite or of the will to some
good, that is to say, its very complacency in good is called sensitive
love or intellectual love. 3

Again, Aquinas says:
Natural love is not only in the powers of the vegetal soul, but in
all the soul's powers, and also in all the parts of the body, and
universally in all things because as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. IV):
Beauty and goodness are beloved by all things; since each single
thing has a connaturalness with that which is naturally suitable
to it. 4

These passages occurring in the Thomistic treatment of the
emotions are deeply significant because they proclaim the
reality of unconscious love. This unconscious love exists not
only in the inorganic world and in the plant kingdom where
the beings in question have no consciousness but also this
unconscious love accounts for some of the activities of brutes
and men. Natural unconscious love accounts for a man's actions
at times when he is not exercising his highest powers and is
therefore not conscious of the motives for his actions.
• Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 26, a. l. English Dominican translation
4 Ibid., ad 3, emphasis mine.
York: Benziger Brothers, 1947).

(New

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JAMES F. o'BRIEN

Let us now consider briefly why Galileo, Newton and their
ardent followers of the seventeenth and succeeding centuries,
developed concepts of the reasons for motion which were so
radically different from those just cited. The reasons are numerous and complex and no exhaustive ·historical explanation will
be attempted here. Suffice it to mention a few significant points.
First, we may say that the mathematical method of Galileo
and Newton enabled them to say things about motion which
the preceeding analysis could not reveal. Newton could say
that the force of attraction between two bodies increased in
direct proportion to the masses of the bodies. He could say
that it decreased in inverse proportion as the distance squared
between the bodies increased. What is more, he could measure
the forces and assign numerical values to them. This ability
was indeed significant, for it enabled classical and contemporary
physics to make predictions about the movements of bodies.
It also was a significant starting-point for acquiring knowledge
of nature not merely for its own sake but also for controlling
natural forces.
Isaac Newton saw this, but he was also wise enough to
realize that his explanation of the forces in nature was leaving
something out. In fact, he realized that nothing was being said
about the very causes of his principles. Thus, ·Newton, himself,
says:
. . . to derive two or three general principles of motion from phenomena and afterward to tell us how the properties and actions
of all corporeal things follow from the manifest principles would
be a very great step in philosophy, though the causes of these
principles were not yet discovered. And, therefore, I scruple not
to propose the Principles of motion above mentioned, they being of
very general extent, and leave their causes to be found ouU

Newton was keenly aware that he was not revealing the root
causes of the motions or tendencies he was studying. It is
very unfortunate that most of his followers in classical physics
• Isaac Newton, Optics, as quoted by Dampier, History of Science (Cambridge:
The University Press, 1949), p. 170.

GRAVITY AND LOVE AS UNIFYING

PRINCIPLES

187

overlooked this defect which Newton perceived. The success
of their method in enabling man to predict future events and
control the forces of nature blinded them to the possibility that
the method was not as deeply rooted in reality as its success
might indicate. Newton knew he was leaving something out
of his explanations, but, at the same time, his limited knowledge
of Greek and medieval philosophy did not lead him to believe
these systems contained what he needed. To quote him again,
" To tell us that each species of thing is endowed with an
occult specific quality by which it acts and produces manifest
effects is to tell us nothing." 6 It is one of the objectives here
to show what was missing from Newton's explanation, and
how this missing element was present in Augustine and
Aquinas.
It is necessary to realize that these occult qualities which
Newton is blithely dismissing are precisely the appetites or
natural tendencies which Augustine and Aquinas relate so intimately to love. They are what make natural movements
possible and intelligible. The fact that these tendencies are
directed toward natural good ends which are loved is the only
thing which makes any action or movement intelligible in
traditional philosophy. This insight tells one nothing of the
numerical magnitude of love, but without this insight motion
is not intelligible.
Probably the greatest stumbling block for the classical
physicist is the fact that one cannot always, or even often, point
out in a precise manner where or what the ends of particular
things in the physical world are. The traditional philosophy,
despite this difficulty, still holds to its position firmly and with
justification. The alternative is to despair of the fundamental
rationality of motions in the external world. This is precisely
the despair of some modern scientists who examine the foundations of Newtonian physics. There are several reasons, however, why these difficulties are not felt by a greater number of
competent scientists. Perhaps the most significant one is the
"Ibid.

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JAMES F. O'BRIEN

ease with which an equation describing a motion can be confused with an explanation of why the motion is taking place.
Again, the complexity and difficulty of the equations themselves naturally diverts even the competent mind from the
other type of question. Also, many a scientist has faith that
the leaders in his field understand things which he does not
comprehend himself. Lastly, the practicing scientist often has
hope that things not fundamentally intelligible to him can be
made intelligible in the future by fellow workers in his science
using the same methods.
What Newton had lost, then, was more than he realized. He
had rejected the notion of intrinsic tendencies in things causing
those things to move toward natural ends which are good and
which are therefore loved either consciously or unconsciously.
This cannot be emphasized too much, because it is also a pivotal
point in our justification of natural law so important in ethics.
In fact it is the natural law. For the natural law is a law of
natural love for objects which are good and to which one has
a natural right.
A prime source of Newton's failure to realize that love could
explain tendencies and motions in the physical world was his
failure to realize the deep and extensive implications of the
metaphysical position which affirms that everything which
exists in the universe-every atom, every element, every compound-possesses goodness. It is the possession of goodness
which makes each object desirable in some measure to other
objects. It is this goodness of any object which makes the
tendency of other objects toward it intelligible. Though Newton could forget that everything in the universe possessed some
goodness, Augustine, having once perceived it, would never
forget it. This was the very point which was the source of
his battle with the Manichean heresy, for the Manicheans had
proclaimed the reality of truly evil beings in the world. Saint
Thomas succinctly says: " The essence of goodness consists in
this that it is in some way desirable." 7 What Newton eventu• St. Thomas, op. cit., I, q. 5, a. I.

GRAVITY AND LOVE AS UNIFTING

PRINCIPLES

189

ally said was that the strength of attraction between two bodies
is measured by the distance between them. What Augustine
and Aquinas affirmed was something quite different. The nearness or closeness of two bodies-say two people-is measured
by their attraction or love ;Jor each other. Two people could
be close whether they were in physical proximity or not. The
difference between the two positions can be humorously but
validly exemplified by comparing two popular maxims. For
the Newtonian thinker the phrase" out of sight out of mind"
indicates that t4e attractive force between bodies is inexorably
diminished as they are separated. For the Thomist the opposing
phrase " absence makes the heart grow fonder " can be proper
where there is true love.
Too often the traditional philosophers of the present day
have failed to apply the full power of explanation in their
system to the realm of the physical world. This is often because
of either limited knowledge of the ·significance of what the
physicists are saying, or fear of criticizing the pronouncements
of the physicist whose success was so manifested by a tremendously expanding technology. Today, many outstanding physicists themselves have seen the weaknesses of Newton's explanation of gravity and motion. The relativity theory of Einstein
and the quantum theory of atomic physics depart radically
from many of Newton's conceptions. This means that Aristotelian and Thomistic . philosophers may now criticize the
conceptions of classical physics without opening themselves to
the charge of being reactionary. One can say this without
arguing that the relativity theory and quantum mechanics are
completely compatible with medieval philosophy. There are,
however, many interesting points of similarity.

*

*

*

.Let us tum to another very interesting aspect of our problem.
The influence of Galileo and Newton on the seventeenth century
physicists was great. Their influence on philosophers such as
Locke and Hume was also enormous. Furthermore, their influence has continued to a considerable extent to the present

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JAMES F. o'BRIEN

day both in the scientific fields and among certain groups of
philosophers. The influence of Galileo and Newton, however,
did not stop here. I When they stripped from their explanations
of the physical world-from atoms to men-the notions of
natural appetite, tendency, love, end and good in the traditional
sense, the effect was enormous. Their ideas permeated to a
great extent the fundamental thinkers in economics, sociology
and experimental psychology, and to a lesser extent the fields
of political science and history. An example of this would be
the tendency in classical economic theory to minimize the
importance of discussing the ends or purposes of economic
actions. Finally, the Newtonian method of explaining motions
or changes of any kind has permeated to the level of the dayto-day vocabulary of the average man. This would account,
in part, for a naturally quizzical reaction to the juxtaposition
of the words gravity and love in any discussion. Such reaction,
I venture to say, would not be likely for Augustine or Aquinas.
The average man's thinking no more escapes the categories
of thought ground out by the deep scientific and philosophic
thinkers of the past, than his speech escapes the roots it has
in the early history of his language. This is true even though
he may lack consciousness of either influence.
Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of Augustinian
and Thomistic notions on natural appetites, love and good ends
occurs when these ideas are related, first, to problems pertaining
to the development of perfections in individual things and,
secondly, to the development of new and more perfect types
of things-in short, to their bearing on problems related to
development and evolution.
For Saint Augustine the problem of the development of a
particular type of thing, say a tree or a brute animal, toward
its full perfection is crystallized in terms of his views on the socalled rationes seminales. These are the seeds or seminal reasons
. or tendencies which cause things to develop according to definite
patterns and to perfect themselves. These seminal reasons are
·essentially the natural appetites we have referred to. Augus-

GRAVITY AND LOVE AS UNIFYING

PRINCIPLES

191

tine points out: " Of all the things which are generated and
corrupted in a corporeal and visible fashion, certain seeds lie
hidden in the corporeal things of the world." 8
To affirm the existence of these seminal reasons or seeds and
to give them natural tendencies to develop toward an end or
goal is, in simplest terms, to affirm a kind of love in them.
Thus, the plant has an unconscious love for water. It seeks
union with water and such union leads to the perfection of
the plant. Likewise, when the brute animal seeks to be united
with food it smells, or with any sensible good, love, but without
consciousness of motive present, again operates as a unifying
force.
In regard to this aspect of the problem and in regard to the
development of new and more perfect species it is, of course,
the law of evolution, rather than the law of gravity, which is
of primary concern. The important point in this case is that
evolutionary forces, too, are to be properly considered as unifying forces. They unify in several ways. Thus, in a higher
species, such as man, vegetative powers of lower organisms are
unified harmoniously with the distinct new powers. In the
overall cosmic view of Augustine and Aquinas these natural
tendencies which are the stimulus for evolution are indications
that the things in the universe are naturally tending back
towards union with God from whom they came. Needless to
say, the process does not occur without divine concurrence, for
the less perfect cannot become more prefect without outside
help. But just as important, and perhaps more important for
our purposes here, this concurrence of God does not preclude
the truly active unifying force of love in the developing things
for, in the view of Aquinas, if the things in the universe were
inert, there could be no intrinsic purpose for God to create
them. The existence of love intrinsic in things is, in fact, an
important basis for affirming that the universe in some measure
reflects the perfections of God.
The technical philosophical vocabulary for the discussion of
8

Augustine, De Trinitate, III as quoted in St. Thomas, op. cit., I, q. 115, a. i.

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JAMES F. o'BRIEN

the problem of love and how it exists at various levels in nature
is essentially the doctrine of the analogical nature of the concepts of goodness and love. It is a viewpoint which can satisfactorily, I believe, protect the position from what is perhaps
the greatest and most prevalent charge which is made by the
modem world. This is the charge that we have read into the
physical world concepts which are proper only to· human relationships. To use the term of modem psychiatry, we have
" projected " ideas applicable to ourselves into the realms of
physics, chemistry and biology. Nevertheless, the doctrine that
all things in the universe have goodness in a way which is
commensurate with their own nature and that each thing loves
in a way determined by its own nature is not a way of making
the atom and God completely like ourselves. It represents the
discovery that they are in some way similar to us.
It is important to realize that in this presentation there has
been no contention that for Augustine and Aquinas love is the
only force in the universe. The presence of strife between men,
the presence of conflict between man and his physical environment in the struggle for life, the struggles for existence which
are going on in the plant and animal kingdoms, and finally
the conflicts going on within each individual human all preclude
such an easy oversimplification. Strife was too evident to be
ignored then as it is too evident to be ignored today. Even
Empedocles, who proclaimed.the law of love, also proclaimed
the law of strife.
Nor has this article claimed that the physicists have. tried
to explain everything in terms of gravitational force alone. The
role of electrical and magnetic forces in explaining many things
is all too evident and presents interesting and important problems. The attraction of positive and negative charges towards
each other is a unifying force, but the repulsion of like charges
is a diversifying force. Yet, since even electrical charges have
mass, gravitational forces are always present.
Nevertheless, Augustine and Aquinas regarded love as a more
fundamental force than strife or hatred. This is evident in

GRAVITY AND LOVE AS UNIFYING

PRINCIPLES

198

Augustine's work The City of God, where he analyses the differences between the city of God and the city of man. Thomas
Merton sums it up concisely in his introduction to a translation
of The City of God:
The difference between the two cities is the difference between
two loves. Those who are united in the city of God are united by
the love of God and of one another in God. Those who belong to
the other city are indeed not united in any real sense: but it can
be said that they have one thing in common besides their opposition
to God: each one of them is intent in the love of self above all
else. In Saint Augustine's classical expression: these two cities
were made by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self unto
the contempt of God, and the heavenly city by the love of God
unto the contempt of self.9

This passage has a double interest for us here. First, we see
Augustine attributing much strife in the world to the more
fundamental notion of love. But it is a special type of love.
It is self-love, selfishness or pride. Secondly, here we see Augustine's insight into the spiritual nature of the deepest strife.
For it is the intellectual appetite or tendency which we call the
will which makes the choice between the love of God and the
love of self, and which, _therefore, generates either strife and
separation or love and union.
JAMES F. O'BRIEN
Villanova University,
Villanova, Pen11$1flvania

• Merton, introduction to Augustine, The City of God, op. cit., xiii.

NOTES ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS
MicHAEL STOCK, 0. P., S. T. LR., S. T. L., PH. D., a graduate of the Pontifical
Athenaeum Angelicum, is a Professor of Psychology at the Dominican
House of Studies, Dover, Massachusetts.
JoHN A. OESTERLE, PH. D., former Fulbright Research Scholar, is a member
of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
JoHN KING-FARLOW, B. A. (Oxon.), former Secretary and Librarian of
the Oxford Union, is a J. B. Duke Fellow in Philosophy at Duke
University.
JosEPH J. SIKORA, M.A., a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, is
a member of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University.
JAMEs F. O'BRIEN, PH. D., a graduate of The Catholic University of
America, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University.
DAVID A. O'CoNNELL, 0. P., S. T. LR., S. T. D., author of Christian Liberty,
is a Professor of Theology at Providence College.
DENNIS C. KANE, O.P., S. T.LR., S. T.L., is a Professor of Logic in the
Department of Philosophy, Providence College.
JoHN D. BEACH, PH. D., a contributor to THE THOMIST, is a member of
the faculty of DePaul University.
LESLIE DEWART, PH. D., a contributor to THE THOMIST, is a member of
the Department of Philosophy at the University of Detroit.
RT. REv. MsGR. WILLIAM R. O'CoNNOR, longtime Professor of Dogmatic
Theology at the Archdiocesan Seminary of New York, is Pastor of
the Church of St. John the Evangelist, New York City.

194

BOOK REVIEWS
The Freedom to Read. By R. McKEoN, R. K. MERTON, W. GELHORN.
New York: R. R. Bowker, 1957. Pp. 105 with index.
If a reviewer for The Thomist could use the approach and vocabulary of
The Freedom to Read, this is how he might begin:
An extra-legal pressure group, the National Book Committee, has sponsored this
attack on censorship. It was written with the help of a grant from the Fund for
the Republic, well known for its support of this type of agitation. This deliberate
attempt to influence legislation and government agencies, and public opinion as
well, poses an obvious threat to our democratic way of life. To expose the alleged
" errors " of those who defend censorship, this book builds upon basic assumptions
which are accepted a priori and not admitted to debate. We are convinced that
these censorious critics, representing private organizations, have exaggerated the
alleged dangers of censorship to our democratic institutions, and have here supported
their stand by fallacious argument.

The above is a sample in reverse of the whole tone of this book. The
National Book Committee describes itself as" a society of citizens devoted
to the use of books." It seeks as one of its objectives " to foster the
conditions in which diverse ideas and manners of expression can find both
publication and readers." In explaining the origin of this book the Committee says: " Recognizing that abridgments of the freedom to read pose
a serious threat to a democratic society, the Committee engaged Professors
McKeon, Merton and Gellhorn (distinguished philosopher, sociologist, and
professor of law respectively) as a special Commission to explore the motivations and objectives of the censors and the implications of censorship in
America. The Freedom to Read is the report of that Commission." These
statements contain no warning that here the professors have turned into
pamphleteers.
One of the authors, Dr. Richard McKeon, is from the University of
Chicago, and the other two, Dr. Robert K. Merton and Dr. Walter Gellhorn, teach at Columbia University. We have learned from The Hidden
Persuaders how in recent years the advertising agencies have been holding
consultations with psychologists and social scientists in planning campaigns. Now it would appear that the teachers are taking lessons from
the admen. To put it another way, this book looks as though it went to
the publishers from Morningside Heights by way of Madison Avenue. All
the standard techniques used to sell soap and cigarettes are here in abundance: testimonials from experts (here they wear the black gowns of pro-

195

196

BOOK REVIEWS

fessors, not the white coats of physicians), repetition of slogans, unproved
assumptions, appeals to prejudice and fear, and so on. In short, to revise
one well-worn gem of huckster genius, if you want a tract instead of a
treatise, read this book.
Though this purports to be an objective and scholarly study of an important and complex problem, bias is evident from the outset. The slanted
language of the propagandist is found in this sample from the second page
of the Preface, signed by the Freedom to Read Subcommittee, where the
study is described in part in this way: "An investigation into the two
broad views of freedom generally held by Americans today: on the one
hand, freedom as meaning complete liberalism (e. g., Holmes); on the
other, freedom as involving a commitment to certain values and fixed
beliefs (e. g., some church groups). Put another way: no limitation on
thought or expression, as against a priori acceptance of certain underlying
principles, which are not admitted to debate." (p. vi)
The " complete liberalism " espoused by the authors, of course, is far
from being based on undebatable a priori principles. Nor do they have any
"commitment to certain values and fixed beliefs," except, possibly, a commitment to non-commitment. And ih case anyone missed the point, these
two definitions of freedom are repeated later with the same slant. For
example, "Freedom, conceived as acting as one should, is developed in
moralities inculcated by precept and imperative. Freedom, conceived as
acting as one pleases, is developed in moralities of achievement and advancement in knowledge and values. The two moralities are fundamentally
opposed ... a morality of tradition and a morality of progress." (pp. 9-10)
It is just as easy to tell whom to hiss and whom to cheer as in any oldfashioned Western.
One loaded key word is " extra-legal," constantly used to describe any
private or non-official protest against dangerous literature. It sounds very
much like " illegal " when used to characterize so-called " pressure groups."
And if casual readers draw that inference from it, surely the writers are
not at fault, since they are learned men who choose their words carefully.
" Agitation " is the kind of activity pro-censorship people engage in, and
who can blame the authors if some of their audience find evil connotations
in this term. We might call the whole book a long display of" semantricks."
This report is divided into three parts: (I) " Censorship and the Freedom
to Read "; (II) " Some Needed Knowledge"; (III) " Some Immediate
Steps." Part I considers philosophical, political, social, legal, and moral
arguments for and against censorship, and t.he incidence and mechanisms
of censorship. In Part II there are recommendations for studies of the
psychological effects of reading, the social psychology and economics of
reading, and the sociology of censorship. The last part contains seven
recommendations for action now against censorship. A thirteen-page summary is appended.

BOOK REVIEWS

197

The heart of the book is in the first part, " Censorship and the :Freedom
to Read," so we shall concentrate our attention largely upon this section.
We first consider several major issues: (1) the authors' definition of
censorship; (2) their concept of freedom; (8) their arguments against
censorship; and (4) some of their suggestions for fighting censorship. Then
we will touch briefly upon some minor points, their use of the testimony of
John Milton, for example.
(1) The authors catapult themselves into a flying start by this description of censorship: " The term ' censorship ' has generally been used in two
closely related senses. In its original and strict sense, censorship is the
prohibition and prevention of statement, expression and communication ....
' Censorship ' is also used, in a large and popular sense, to include exercise
of police power and agitation of private groups to ban the circulation of
particular works or works of a particular kind, or to limittheir accessibility,
or to expunge portions of them. . . . Censorship, in the strict sense, is a
function exercised by an official. . .. Censorship, in the broad sense, is a
function assumed by an official or by a private citizen, usually at the
instance or with the encouragement of private groups, which use extra-legal
means to serve or support that action." (pp. xi-xiii, italics added) This
devious beginning needs close study.
Since one of the authors is a distinguished law professor and an author
of several books on legal problems, and since legal aspects of the censorship
are studied in later pages, we might have expected some attempt at a legal
definition here. The writers seem to have adapted their definition from
Webster instead. This might be acceptable if we did not note two significant variations. Webster. tells us (as do other authorities) the censor's
function is "to examine." The definition here restricts his work to "prohibition and prevention." A censor is not a censor when he approves, it
would seem, but only when he prohibits. This narrowing of the term is
underscored by the authors when they add, " The mark of censorship, in
this strict sense, is a negation-a book not printed, a play not produced, a
blank space in a news dispatch." (p. xii) A like definition of a teacher
would be " one who fails his students "; a judge would be " one who jails
people."
There are some who might construe this as a censoring of Webster.
But this would be unfair, because we all know that publishers and writers
never censor. They edit.
The second departure from Webster is one of omission, for nothing is
said of the wartime censor, "an official or a military officer charged in
time of war with examining letters, printed matter, etc., in order to delete
or suppress anything that might aid the enemy, injure discipline or morale,
etc." Perhaps the writers did not want to cloud the issue by suggesting
that the devil of censorship can cloak itself in a patriotic guise, and for
the sake of complete objectivity abandoned the useful dictionary at this

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BOOK REVIEWS

point. Besides, it would be of no help whatsoever in their all-out war on
censorship, and they may have thought it good strategy for their camp " to
delete or suppress anything that might aid the enemy, injure discipline or
morale, etc." In this book there is only one allusion, in passing, to military
censorship. (p. 34) If they do not openly attack it, they say nothing to
support it. In view of their principles, as we shall see, they would be hard
put to defend it, without inconsistency. But inconsistency seldom worries
liberals of this type, and we can be sure they would back up the government censor in hot wars, if not in cold. They are not committed, you must
understand, and their absolutes are all relative. Absolutely.
As for censorship in the broad sense, the " large and popular " sense, the
dictionary does not give it, possibly because it does not exist outside the
vocabulary of such propagandists and those who allow themselves to be
taken in by this ruse. There is a recognized legal distinction between
preventive or prior censorship (before publication) by government officials,
and punitive censorship (after publication) by government officials. If
these writers want to call the first, censorship in the strict sense, and the
second, censorship in the broad sense, perhaps they can justify the additional (and unnecessary) distinction they have invented. (This will create
for them the verbal inconvenience of calling the Church's Index censorship
in the broad sense only.) What they cannot justify is labelling the protests
of private individuals or groups as censorship, even in the broad sense. To
favor censorship laws does not make one a censor any more than to favor
the New York Yankees makes one an American Leaguer.
So when we analyze their explanation of censorship we find these writers
first subtracting from the accepted meaning of the term, and then adding
to it, tailoring the concept to suit their thesis. We need more than their
mere assertion to accept their statement that the word has been used
" generally " in the " closely related " broad sense. They cite no authority
but their own. Since this semantic stratagem is especially aimed at pinning
the tag " censorship " on organizations like the National Legion of Decency
and the National Office for Decent Literature, we quote the following
concerning these two agencies from the timely statement of the Administrative Board, National Catholic Welfare Conference, in the name of the
Bishops of the United States, November 15, 1957: "The function of these
agencies is related in character. Each evaluates and offers the evaluation
to those interested. Each sMks to enlist in a proper and lawful manner
the cooperation of those who can curb the evil. Each invites the help of all
people in the support of its objectives. Each endeavors through positive
action to form habits of artistic taste which will move people to seek out
and patronize the good. In their work they reflect the moral teaching of
the Church. Neither agency exercises censorship in any true sense of the
word. . . . Through these agencies we voice our concern over conditions
which, tolerated, merit expression of public indignation. But we assert

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199

that our activities as carried out by these organizations cannot justly be
termed an attempt to exercise censorship." (Italics added) The Bishops
have Webster on their side. Even those who disagree with their stand
must admit that the Bishops state their case without torturing the English
language.
It should be obvious that this is not a mere dispute about words, a clash
of arbitrary definitions. The authors' case rests heavily upon attaching an
unpopular label to a legitimate activity and drawing down upon it all the
odium the label invites. As the Bishops have noted: " The right to speak
out in favor of good morals can hardly be challenged in a democracy such
as ours. It is a long-standing tradition of this country that groups large
and small have given expression of their concern over injustice, political,
social and economic. . .. It is in full accord with this tradition that the
work of the Legion of Decency and the National Office for Decent Literature is carried on." Calling the exercise of this right by the name of
censorship (and also calling these groups "pressure groups") is rhetoric
pure and simple, and an appeal to prejudice and passion. If this trick
works, then the labor of the liberals is simplified because legal censorship
and private protest can then be attacked together. Considered separately,
these activities are harder to deal with, and two different briefs must be
filed against them. For one is a legitimate exercise of governmental authority, and the other a legitimate exercise of civil freedom.
In other words, even if their case against governmental censorship were
valid, the case for the private citizens' right and freedom to object would
still be intact.
(2) In their exposition of the meaning of freedom, these writers are
as misleading as in their description of censorship. For one thing, they
reduce a complex philosophical and legal term to an oversimplification.
We are told again and again that " freedom is conceived by some to consist
in the ability to do as one pleases . . . ; by others . . . in the ability to do
as one ought." (pp. 2-3) For each of these conflicting concepts half a dozen
philosophers are cited as authorities. We are expected to take the authors'
word for the accuracy of the listings since no sources are provided. We are
especially curious to know in what work and on what page Aristotle and
Jacques Maritain became advocates of freedom to do as one pleases. Support from such authorities as these two would give " the ability to do as
one pleases " a totally undeserved respectability, even hi some secularistic
circles. It is not difficult, however, to detach them from the strange company into which they are forced by these writers.
Dr. McKeon must have forgotten to tell his colleagues of lines like these
from The Basic Works of Aristotle (N.Y., 1941), which he edited: "And
in democracies of the more extreme type there has arisen a false idea of
freedom which is contradictory to the true interests of the state .... Men
think . • • that freedom means the doing what a man likes. In such

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democracies every one lives as he pleases, or in the words of Euripides,
'according to his fancy.' But this is all wrong; men should not think it
slavery to live according to the rule of the constitution; for it is their
salvation." (Politics, V, 9 1310a 25-36)
M. Maritain would not be shocked to find himself cited with Aristotle,
but for both to be teamed with thinkers like Mill and Dewey is something
far different. Maritain's writings contain repeated insistence on the distinction between initial freedom and terminal freedom (or freedom of autonomy, as he often calls it). The former is freedom of choice in the
human will; the latter is the will's development and perfection in the possession of good, as a result of the right use of freedom of choice. But this
book does not go in for necessary distinctions any more than it does for
enlightening footnotes.·
To set the record straight, here are a few lines from an essay on " The
Conquest of Freedom," which clarify Maritain's position: "It is not true
that the autonomy of an intelligent creature consists in not receiving any
rule or objective measure from a being other than itself. It consists in conforming to such rules and measures voluntarily because they are known to
be just and true, and because of a love for truth and justice. Such is human
freedom, properly speaking, to which the person tends as towards a connatural perfection. . .. Man is not born free unless in the basic potencies
of his being: he becomes free, by warring upon himself and thanks to many
sorrows; by the struggle of the spirit and virtue; by exercising his freedom
he wins his freedom. . . . From the beginning to the end it is truth that
liberates him." (Freedom: Jts Meaning, edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen,
N. Y., 1940, p. 639.)
At the risk of overdoing the exploration of sources, we must call attention
also to the way Aristotle is forced to testify against censorship. It is
another prize illustration of the Commission's methods. Aristotle, we are
told, " stated the principle of democracy as the conviction that the many
are better judges than the
expert in the arts and they have,
a fortiori, more virtue and prudence collectively than any individual; it
follows that freedom is both the end of society and the chief means of
achieving individual and common interests." (p. 4) Let us point out at
once that the inference is drawn by the professors; Aristotle stepped o:ff at
the semi-colon. The professors have summarized a few lines from the
Politics. (cf. McKeon, op. cit., Politics, III, 11 128la 40-bl5) How they
derived their conclusion is their secret. We will not pry. Perhaps the
semi-colon is the symbol for a profound sorites they will divulge in their
next book.
The authors provide no reference, but if one seeks out the passage in
Aristotle and reads on, he will discover this: "Whether this principle can
apply to every democracy, and to all bodies of men, is not clear. Or rather,
by heaven, in some cases it is impossible of application; for the argument

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would equally hold about brutes; and wherein, it will be asked, do some
men differ from brutes? But there may be bodies of men about whom our
statement is nevertheless true." (loc. cit., USlb 16-21)
We confine ourselves to three comments on this additional maltreatment
of Aristotle. (a) Aristotle is not discussing censorship, and the passage summarized by the professors is not ad rem. (b) Aristotle is misrepresented,
since his carefully qualified assertion is reproduced without the qualifications. (c) Aristotle actually favors censorship in a later chapter of the very
same work, where he speaks of the ideal education of young children in
the ideal state: " Indeed, there is nothing which the legislator should be
more careful to drive away than indecency of speech; for the light utterance of shameful words leads soon to shameful actions. The young especially should never be allowed to repeat or hear anything of the sort. . . .
And since we do not allow improper language, clearly we should also banish
pictures or speeches from the stage which are indecent." (McKeon, op. cit.,
Politics, VII, 17 1336b 3-15)
The question here is not whether Aristotle speaks correctly. The question
is whether the professors cite him correctly. And there are other questions.
Does their freedom to read include the right to take liberties with their
sources? Should they do as they ought when they use sources, or may they
do as they please? Is this review a form of censorship (in the wide sense,
of course, and extra-legal) because we protest? May we do as we please,
and quote The Freedom to Read as favoring censorship? Take this statement: " If virtue and truth are known, whatever contributes to error and
vice can be detected and should be prohiibted." (p. 3) Are we under
obligation to say that in the context that sentence describes a position the
authors reject? And if we are, why?
There must be some significance in the fact that none of the Founding
Fathers are named as partisans of freedom to do as one pleases. We might
inquire, too, where in these listings they would locate Jesus Christ, a
Teacher still regarded by many as an authority on questions like freedom.
He is not placed on either side, and never quoted anywhere in this book.
This is an appropriate place to register a general complaint about the
documentation of this study. There are hardly more than a dozen footnotes altogether, plus an occasional reference in the text. The citations are
chiefly for material favoring the authors' slant, especially legal writings
opposed to censorship and some investigations of the psychological effects
of reading. In a work which makes such a great show of scholarship, this
is hard to understand. The passages above from Aristotle and Maritain
may suggest to alert readers a possible explanation.
The two definitions of freedom (" to do as one ought " and " to do as
one pleases ") lead to a discussion of the philosophic arguments pro and
contra censorship, arguments based on both conceptions of freedom. This
is a very muddy stretch for the reader, as are the pages which follow

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wherein we find a summary of the political and social arguments pro and
con, and the legal and moral arguments. It would require another book two
or three times the size of The Freedom to Read to expose the half truths
and distortions, the unsupported assertions, the misleading hop-skip-andjump sketches of philosophical opinions and of political and social history.
Their major premise controls and colors every remaining page of this book.
Censorship, as they define it, is contradictory to freedom, as they define it.
We must concede that the professors get as much out of this premise as
they put into it.
One thing stands out clearly in this section: the concept of freedom as
" the ability to do as one ought" is equated with "the ability to do as
one must." These champions of freedom " to do as one pleases " always
paint " freedom to do as one ought " (sometimes justly described, but
not in this book, as " liberty under law " or " freedom under God ") as
i:f it were slavery. They defame it through the device of "guilt by association." The reason they have made this error is that in their simplification
they have stated only two philosophical positions instead of three.
There are three kinds of political freedom: the freedom to do as one
pleases; the freedom to do as one ought; the freedom to do as one must.
The first is liberalism; the third is totalitarianism; the second is the true
freedom of men, the kind which should be found in a genuine democracy.
(Maritain explains these three positions in Freedom in the Modern World,
N.Y., 1936, pp. 39 ff.)
This set of opposites is expressed in other ways, too: on the part of the
citizen we may have license or slavery as the extremes, true liberty in
between; on the part of the state we may have anarchy or tyranny as
extremes, a just government in the middle. We can also describe the
extremes as freedom without law or law without freedom, while freedom
with, and under, law is the golden mean.
Why have these writers, who are candidly ultra-liberal, equated " ought "
with "must? " A clue is found in this observation of St. Thomas: " The
medium compared to one extreme appears to be the other extreme, as what
is tepid compared to heat seems to be cold." (Summa Theol., I, q. 50, a. l,
ad 1) From the faraway point where they stand the golden mean looks
brazen.
The liberalism of this book is so excessive that ·any temperate position
on censorship seems like pure totalitarianism. It works the other way, too,
for a totalitarian writer would surely regard the American Bishop's statement, quoted earlier, as an ultra-liberal document. For the same reason the
temperate drinker looks like a sot to a prohibitionist and like a prohibitionist to a drunkard; the generous man seems miserly to a spendthrift, and
prodigal to a miser; the courageous man looks foolhardy to a coward, and
cowardly to a rash man.
Dr. McKeon will recall that Aristotle, whose political wisdom the Com-

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mission prizes so highly, expressed the same thought: "
. The extreme
states are contrary to the intermediate state and to each other, and the
intermediate to the extremes; . . . the middle states are excessive relatively
to the deficiencies, deficient relatively to the excesses. . . • Hence also the
people at the extremes push the intermediate man over to each other."
(McKeon, op. cit., Nicomachean Ethics, IT, 8 1108b 18-24) This explains
why the happy medium, freedom under law to do as one ought, makes
them so unhappy.
{8) One more question: How would the professors define "license? "
There is at least one sentence in this book we can wholly agree with: " We
have confidence in logic, but we are suspicious of sophistic applications."
(p. 68) The chief argument the professors offer against censorship lies in
their definitions of censorship and of freedom. Censorship, as they define it,
contradicts freedom, as they define it. By setting up this false opposition
between censorship and freedom they establish the major premise on which
their whole case is built. Anyone who goes this far with the Commission
must go the rest of the distance. But if either " censorship " or " freedom "
is not precisely what they say it is, or if both " censorship " and " freedom "
are not what the professors say they are, their major premise is inadmissible,
and their whole case collapses.
We have already shown how they misconceive and misrepresent both
censorship and freedom, and this suffices for rebuttal. By combining punitive censorship with something different, i. e., private protest, and by combining "freedom to do as one ought" with something different, i.e., the
totalitarian must, or slavery, they have concocted a principle which labors
under a manifold ambiguity.
We have to admit that the professors warn us against this, after they
have done it. This would serve to guard the reader against other books.
"All the fundamental terms of political discussion-' democracy,' 'law,'
'freedom,' and 'censorship' among others-are involved in equivocations."
(p. 18) We can agree that this is sometimes true {and the Commission
has capitalized upon it), but it need not always be so, since accurate
definition is possible. When the authors add, however, that the equivocations "disappear when the arguments are restated in terms of the concrete
meanings they take on in the institutions by which they operate," (ibid.)
we must disagree vigorously. Definitions are not of concrete singulars, but
of universals only. Dr. McKeon can explain to his colleagues why their
approach to the problem of defining is highly un-Aristotelian. But on the
other hand, the logic in which they have confidence may not be the
traditional logic.
It is a clear sign of the weakness of their thesis, prima facie evidence of
its falsity, that they must resort to such distortions at the very start to
defend it. The writers tell us that their purpose is to promote a reformulation of the question of censorship and a reconciliation of opposed positions.

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In view of the way they operate, to agree to these things on their terms
would be folly. As they tell us themselves, the reconciliation of positions
" cannot advance if suspicion and fear preclude the possibility of discussion." (p. 64) What single step have they taken in this book to dispel
suspicion and fear?
The weakness of their case is clearer still when we examine the other
pretexts for attacking all restraints. This argument, for example, is an
obvious sophism: " ... there is no practical way to distinguish the considered judgment of officials who are wise and good from arbitrary judgment of officials who are unwise and bad. Power tends to corrupt, in
censorship as in other modes of its exercise." (p. 8) We can presume that
this applies also to the unmentionable military censors in war time.
This amounts to the following syllogism: Whatever tends to corrupt,
should be eliminated; but the power of censorship tends to corrupt; therefore, the power of censorship should be eliminated. Here we have what
Aristotle termed the fallacy of accident. The error involves the confusion
of the abuse of power with the use of power. It is accidental to power
that it be misused. If the argument favored regulation, rather than elimination, of corruptible power, no one could justly disagree. But it is fallacious
as it stands, and opposed to the axiom: Abusus non tollit usum, " Abuse
does not take away use." The evidence establishes need for careful control
of censorship, and nothing more.
If this argument proves anything, it proves too much. Why stop at
censorship? The state's power to tax can be abused too. Should it be
destroyed? Other forms of power (extra-legal forms?) , the Fund for the
Republic's financial power, for instance, and the National Book Committee's propagandizing power, are subject to abuse, and. should be eradicated
if this proof were valid.
We are trying to give an exact account of the arguments, but this is not
always an easy book to follow. Here, for example, are two adjoining
sentences about problems relating to the incidence of censorship: " They
cannot be treated wisely or effectively by bandying large undefined terms
like 'responsibility' and 'freedom,' or 'public morals,' 'public order,' and
' the security of the State.' It seems to be clearly the case that some
publishers of newspapers, today as in the past, have shown irresponsibility . ... " (pp. 45-46) (Italics added)
Pronouncements like these terid to slow the reader down just a little
and make him think. He might even be provoked into thinking that, while
bandying may be unwise and ineffective, yet when it is called for, these
professors can bandy with the best. This suggests the difficulty of determining when they are bandying and when they are not. We dare not challenge their freedom to bandy or not, as they please. Yet this makes for
confusion when they do it without warning. They could have told us about
this earlier instead of half-way through the book. But we are grateful

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205

for the overdue admission that as far as they are concerned " freedom " is
a " large undefined term." That is the impression we had too .
. Unsupported assertions, sometimes guaranteed solely by "We are convinced " or " We are persuaded," are frequent. They tell us, for example,
that they are averse to pornography and other trash, and then add: '' we
are convinced that efforts to cut off access to such material stimulate
curiosity and have no other clearly marked effects on interest in obscenity
or immoral behavior." (p. 49) Why they are so convinced, they do not
say. We are also told several times that "One of the effects of arguments
for censorship in defense of morality, religion, society, and truth is to throw
suspicion on art and thought as such." (p. 48) If there is evidence for this
assumption, the Commission has suppressed it.
Yet the professors have doubts as well as convictions. They are convinced that censorship merely stimulates curiosjty and often leads to a
suspicion of reason and the arts. But they doubt that evil books encourage
immorality. They provide no proof for what they are convinced of, but
demand proof for what they choose to doubt. They say " the basic assumptions of censorship ... have seldom been examined." (p. xvii) (If we have
decoded the Commission's message correctly, it runs something like this:
" Our democratic, uncommitted, responsible group acts upon convictions;
that other group, an authoritarian, committed, pressure group, acts upon
assumptions. Our convictions are self-evident; their assumptions should be
examined and proved.") Empirical investigation is needed, therefore, because the professors " are dubious about the causal line which allegedly
leads from bad books to immorality." (p. 52) "We are not persuaded ...
that the suppression of books alleged to promote immorality, violence, or
subversion of the government is justified by existing knowledge of the
consequences of reading." (p. 35)
.
When the professors then assured us that the evidence that books can
be harmful " is at best thin and questionable," and that " more characteristically, it is entirely absent," (p. 67) the reader should remind himself
that others find the evidence far more impressive. As the Bishops' statement noted: "When a Select Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives calls pornography big business, a national disgrace and a menace
to our civic welfare; when the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges
attacks vicious and evil publications as a major cause of the change of
juvenile delinquency from the thoughtless and mischievous acts of children
into crimes of violence, armed robbery, rape, torture and even homicide;
when the New York State Joint Legislative Committee at the end of its
five-year survey assures us that by actual count trash and smut on the
newsstands have the advantage of numbers and that those same stands
reflect an acceptance of and growing concentration on Iedwness_:_in the
face of all this we can only say that we are confronted with conditions
which are fraught with peril."

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But the authors of this book are professed liberals, and consequently
could not be expected to think highly of the opinions of legislative committees. They reveal their attitude in such statements as: " In recent years
Congressional Committees have conducted investigations whose bearing on
legislation has been tenuous." (p. 58) The judgment of legislators, even
in teams, is always suspect; the judgment of professors, especially in teams,
is always preferable.
(4) This brings us to some of their suggestions for further study in the
fight against censorship. The authors ask for " objective studies of the
psychological and social effects of various types of books." (p. 68) This call
for research contains the implication that we cannot be really sure of anything until a team of social scientists has conducted extensive surveys and
reported with statistics and charts. In the meantime, we are expected to
suspend judgment as to whether bad books do any harm. Should we doubt,
too, whether good books do any good?
Another interesting research project is proposed this way: " It would be
useful, we believe, to conduct a study of censorship groups. . . . What is
the social composition of these groups? Who are most deeply engaged in
these activities, what are their motivations, the nature of their organization, the bases of their support?" (pp. 102-3) (The professors really mean
"pro-censorship" groups.)
Can we expect the Commission, in its concern for a square deal and the
American tradition of fair play, to suggest a similar study of anti-censorship
groups, their motivations, resources, and so on? We would welcome information, for example, about the social composition of the National Book
Committee as well as the National Office for Decent Literature. Perhaps
together with background material on Msgr. Thomas J. Fitzgerald, executive secretary of N. 0. D. L., we would receive a report also on Charles G.
Bolte, former executive director of the National Book Committee, who
served as _secretary to the Commission and edited this report for the press.
A study of the kind we suggest might also serve to dissipate the suspicion
of some that publishers are at times motivated by financial as well as
patriotic reasons when they attack censorship. Or would it confirm the
suspicion? J. Donald Adams, in a recent issue of the New York Times
Book Review (January 26, 1958) stated that the responsibility of book
publishers " is less heeded among us than in any other nation with pretensions to a place in the literary sun .... English book publishing, however uninspired, rarely sinks to the level frequently occupied by some of
ours. . . . unless a greater concern and watchfulness becomes apparent,
that level may well become a crowded thoroughfare. Book publishing in
this country-indeed, any kind of publishing-has become' an exceedingly
difficult business in which to make a fair return on the' investment, and it
is not surprising, and quite understandable, that, subject to the pressures
and problems which confront them in today's market, not a few houses

BOOK REVIEWS

occasionally lend their imprint to books of which they are secretly ashamed,
but which offer a reasonable certainty of financial reward. I submit this
is not a healthy condition or a happy augury for the immediate future
of ... literature." An investigation which would clear publishers of unworthy suspicions is one we would expect them to welcome, especially if
it were conducted under the direction of impartial, objective, competent
observers like Professors McKeon, Merton, and Gellhorn.
If anyone expected to find in this book a suggestion for self-regulation
within the publishing industry as an alternative to other restrictions, he
has underr-ated the vehemence of the authors' opposition to control. There
is nothing half-hearted about their hostility to every restraint upon books.
So sweeping is their condemnation of all regulation, they unhesitatingly
attack any self-discipline by publishers themselves. "Governmental and
private pressures, finally, sometimes lead to recommendations of selfcensorship as an alternative to legislation. We are persuaded by the example of self-censorship in other media of communication that this is· a
paralyzing form of censorship and one which, if applied to publishing,
would go far to restrict and negate the freedom of expression." (p. 66)
It would not be just as bad, they say; it would be worse. " The dangers
of police censorship are obvious; we are convinced that the dangers of a
code of self-censorship are even greater." (p.
According to a Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954,
pornography is a half-billion-dollar-a-year racket. According to J. Edgar
Hoover," Law-enforcement agencies of this country, both federal and local,
are in serious need of help on this problem." (This Week Magazine,
"Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket!" Aug.
1957) According
to Professors McKeon, Merton, and Gellhorn, the publishing industry must
not help. It must hinder instead, in the name of freedom to do as one
pleases. Steps should be taken immediately, they say, to test in court "the
debatable validity of state and local censorship laws " or at least to amend
them " in the public interest " by " the recasting of present statutes." (pp.
84-85) Federal censorship through postal and customs administration
should be evaluated, with the intention of diminishing its scope. (pp. 8586) Law-makers and law-enforcement officials can expect absolutely no
assistance from this quarter, but rather the strongest possible resistance
at every turn.
We turn now to points of lesser importance. First, there is the question
of John Milton's classic testimony in favor of freedom of the press and
against censorship. In the mythology of the liberals Milton is at least a
demigod, so no essay of this kind would dare omit a reference to Areopagitica and a few quotations about " a fugitive and cloistered virtue," and
so on. (It is sheer pedantry to call attention to the error, but Areopagitica

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was not " a speech delivered," as the professors say. (p 48) It was a
pamphlet written in oratorical form) .
Written in 1644 against the Licensing Act of Parliament, Areopagitica is
rather long-winded for modern tastes, and many readers never see more
than a few eloquent paragraphs. There is one passage we must quote now
for those who never found it in the anthologies they studied in high
school or college: "Yet if all cannot be of one mind ... this doubtless
is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open
superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so
itself should be extirpate . ... " (Italics added) (Great Books of the Western
World, Chicago, 1948, vol. 82, Milton, p. 410}
Someone has been " censoring " Milton, or editing, if you prefer, in the
anthologies, extra-legally. It was not the N 0 D L. We may reasonably
ask the authors whether they agree with the undoctored Milton, or the
doctored, And if the latter, how can they cite him as a supporter of
unlimited freedom of the press. One of their proposals is the preparation
of " a single volume compilation that would reflect the theoretical background of the freedom to read, its social and intellectual foundation&. . . ."
(p. 90) Milton belongs in such a book. Which Milton will they present?
Will they be just to the memory of this genius who never made a secret
of his anti-Popery and give us the man, or will they help to perpetuate the
myth? And will they include, in the biographical sketch, the fact that his
liberal principles were flexible enough to permit him later on to become
an official censor under the Licensing Act he attacked so vigorously and
unsuccessfully? This acrobatic flexibility is no reflection on his liberalism,
of course, since liberals are expected to be uncommitted. But it has some
bearing on· his credibility as a witness.
As another illustration of the hit-and-run, slapdash history characteristic
of this book, we offer these two sentences: " The historical origin of the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum is not known. St. Paul approved the burning
of bad books by the Christians of Ephesus (Acts 19 : 19) ." (p. 41) Why
the origin of the Index has to be so mysterious when the standard reference
works give its history in some detail, we can only guess. And anyone who
compares the second sentence with the text indicated in the Acts of the
Apostles .can learn that these Ephesians, in their enthusiasm for the faith
to which they were recent converts, voluntarily burned their own superstitious books. Why could the authors not tell us that this early " pressure
group " wa.S applying " pressure " to itself? But for propagandists the ·
important thing is that Catholics have been " book-burners " from the
beginning. Fuller explanation might spoil the effect. (Incidentally, we
are told that the books were valued at "fifty thousand pieces of silver."
Obviously these early Christians cared more for morals than money.
Liberals in the publishing field may prefer to imitate a pagan " pressure

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group," another set of Ephesians described in the same chapter, the prosperous manufactures of idols who staorted an uproar because Paul's preaching of Christianity would be bad for business. (Cf. Acts 19 : Q3-40) And let
those who look for symbolisms see what they can do with the fact that
the idols in question were images of Artemis, the fertility goddess.)
It would be pleasant to imagine that educated readers will easily discern
the slantedness of this work. But if the review in the Library Journal
(July, 1957, pp. 1767-1769) is a typical reaction, the writers need not
worry at all about palming this off as a splendid contribution to learning.
The
Librarian for one of America's oldest universities, tells us
that it is "above all a thoughtful, unemotional study. The reader who
wishes to feel himself stirred by a passionate, rhetorical defense of liberty
in communication had better return to his Milton. Yet in a curious way
the authors . . . by laying aside the rhetorical tricks of persuasion have
been more persuasive." The propaganda might as well have been subliminal for all the notice it received. The same reviewer says that the
book creates " an effect of first rate minds dealing honestly with a serious
and sometimes baffling problem," and he finds an " absence of partisanship
and passion" in "this really brilliant demonstration."
The Commission has taken the measure of our gullibility and neatly
fitted this book to it. Without question it is a clever book, that is, done
with great cunning. It rates A+ for salesmanship, and F for scholarship.
Despite the appearances, it is about as scholarly as a singing commercial.
It is frightening to think, however, that the Library Journal reviewer
might possibly be correct when he says: " This is the sort of formulation
which £nd its way into the decisions of the higher courts and which leaves
its mark ultimately upon the evaluation of public policy." There is some
evidence already that the book's title is developing into a slogan, and
" extra-legal " is coming into use as a smear term for groups opposed to the
distribution of trash. It may do very great damage.
The Freedom to Read is no credit to anyone. It most certainly adds
nothing to the reputation of the professors who produced it. It brings
further suspicion upon the Fund for the Republic, already the target of
heavy criticism for the kind of projects it habitually sponsors. It lessens
confidence in the National Book Committee, whose worthy objectives could
be promoted without going to these incredible extremes. Among the
Committee's members are many respected men and women who should
disown this parody of scholarship committed in their name. We suggest
that they will £nd in the American Bishops' statement of last November
a far sounder and more truly American basis for their program.
At one point in this book there is a warning about the efforts of organiza-

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tions which defend censorship. " These activities," we are informed, " are
dangerous because a small energetic group is able to impose the consequences of its judgments and prejudices on a community, frequently without the majority of the community becoming aware of what has happened."
(p. 37) The Commission could not have described more accurately what
it is doing.
DAVID A. O'CoNNELL, 0. P.
Providence College,
Providence, R. I.

Elements of Logic. By VINCENT E. SMITH, PH. D. Milwaukee:
1957. Pp. Q98. $3.50.

Bruce,

Dr. Vincent Smith of the University of Notre Dame Faculty has dared
to be different in writing a rather novel type of Logic manual for college
undergraduates. Well aware of the plethora of textbooks in Logic with
an Aristotelian flavor and not unmindful of the popularity enjoyed by
books on Symbolic Logic the past few decades on most college campuses
in the United States and elsewhere, the author has sincerely and successfully
incorporated some new features in· this textbook that should prove very
appealing to college instructors in, and college students of, Logic. Among
the many distinctive purposes of this book the paramount one was to
provide the college undergraduate with the ability " to form a fair off-hand
judgment as to the goodness or badness of the method of anyone presenting
an argument." (p. 20) This noble objective was to be accomplished by
making the Art of Arts " come more . alive for students by presenting it
in terms of case histories of logical operations " and by moving " considerably beyond the purely formal treatment of the syllogism and to
confront students with some modern applications of logic and the scientific
method." (p. vii, Preface)
This book has a number of outstanding features. It is very evident that
the author has spent many hours in the classroom teaching this subject, for
he has a pleasant way of anticipating and appreciating many of the difficulties that usually arise in the minds of college students. He is not
unaware, either, that very few college groups will be able in one semester
to cover the thirty-five chapters in a perfect way. He is honest enough
to suggest that certain compromises in emphasis be made by each instructor
according to the needs and abilities of the groups being taught, so long
as the primary objective is accomplished. "Case histories," based mostly
on crucial questions in our Western culture, are found in each chapter.
These quotations from some of the most famous savants of ancient,
medieval, and modern times are an innovation worthy of great praise. His

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ill

choice of texts from such varied intellectual traditions is remarkable .
and should significantly enhance the student-appeal of this textbook. Yet,
Dr. Smith urges instructors to make frequent use also of editorials in local
newspapers and weekly national magazines. All this is in harmony with
his main objective in authoring this textbook. His explanations of logical
entities will prove to be, in the mind of this reviewer, as intelligible as they
will be interesting to the ordinary collegian subjected to a course in the
science of correot thinking. Any omissions of traditionally-taught subjects
(e. g., obversion, moods of categorical syllogisms, reduction to the first
figure, etc:) have been reluctantly made only on the grounds that they do
not significantly contribute to gaining the primary objective of this book.
Though it would unfair for anyone to write a " scorching review " (p.
on this score, nevertheless, many Scholastic instructors will consider with
not a little justification that such omissions represent an unhappy decision
in light of the detailed treatment of other subjects that are strictly speaking
non-logical, as found in Part VI. His uncanny manner of relating to Logic
such a great number of realities in the humanities and sciences assures
the student-reader of how practical Logic really can be in everyday life.
Finally, one of the most worthwhile features of the book is the extensive
treatment of Induction and the popular " scientific method."
Structurally, this textbook is conveniently divided into seven major
parts, each of which is subdivided usually into three to nine chapters. There
are also fifteen invaluable pages listing the References for Case Histories
and a ten page Index. (pp.
The size of each chapter is prudently
geared to the reading and studying ability of the ordinary collegian. At
the end of most chapters there are many questions and problems proposed
to provoke the student to think.
Part I (pp.
consists of three chapters and smoothly introduces
the student to the intriguing world of Logical Forms with which one must
be well acquainted if one is to proceed in an orderly and facile manner
in any quest of truth. In the second chapter Dr. Smith shows that logic
is a liberal art directive of mental artefacts, highlighting here the salient
topics, operations of the mind and types of argumentation which will be
treated in subsequent chapters.
Part II (pp.
is divided into nine chapters which more than
adequately treat the first act of the mind, simple apprehension. After a
more or less traditional consideration of ideas and words in the order of
sign, the author in the fifth chapter provides the student with an explanation of the " universal " which is both scientific and satisfying. While he
does not neglect to point out the dependence of our minds on extra-mental
being, Dr. Smith gives noticeable emphasis to the truth that "universality
is in thought and thought alone." (p. 81) He prudently warns the students,
too, not to fall into the error of the Nominalists who are prone to identify

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a collf\ction with a universal. The " case histories " from Rousseau and
Berkeley, who were overly concerned with the perinoetical elements in
are very well-chosen and show the reason for the Nominalist
position. In chapter six he continues his analysis of the universal with a
simple treatment of comprehension and extension. This reviewer is of
Tree
the opinion that even a very brief reference to Porphyry and
and to Euler and his Circles would have been more satisfying to most
instructors, since very few texts in traditional logic omit the former and
very few texts in symbolic logic fail to mention the latter. In the next
two chapters he gives a more or less routine treatment of the predicables
as they are related to the formation of a definition. Though he is a bit
vague about the precise nature of the Logical Universal, his treatment of
the predicables is adequate. There is something very distinctive in his
scientific explanation and sober evaluation of the methods of defining so
common to the natural sciences: morphological, genetic, and taxonomic.
It is quite evident that he has a background in the natural sciences that
is not often possessed by logicians. It seems to this reviewer that in his
prolix explanation of " property," Dr. Smith, in his attempts to be more
appreciative of the scientists' mode of defining, has compromised occasionally
predicable. Perhaps here a " case
the pristine Aristotelian notion of
history" from the famous works of Carl von Linne (Linnaeus), who applied
Scholastic principles in his famous biological classifications, would have
been enlightening. In chapter nine the author's discussion of the categories
and especially their relation to the predicables (a problem curiously omitted
or vaguely explained in most Scholastic texts) is excellent and its presentation is well-geared to the collegiate undergraduate. After an interesting
apologia for the treatment of "division" by a logician, Dr. Smith in
chapter eleven exposes the essence of a genuine definition. Having emphasized the rigid demands that any worthwhile definition should fulfill, he
still insists that a good definition is not an impossibility. He is also well
aware that in the contemporary intellectual world there is a plentitude of
ersatz definitions but also that " definitions are much easier to criticize
than they are to construct." (p. 87) For a painstaking study of definition
that has been done superbly, Dr. Smith is to be commended, especially
since "good definitions are the foundations of good logic." (p. 88)
The noticeable brevity of Part III (pp. 93-116) which is concerned
with the second act of the mind was determined principally by the modest
aims the author had in writing the book. It contains only three chapters,
but they are very well done. He purposely omits the term " judgment "
in his descriptions of this mental operation of composing and dividing and
is perhaps more Aristotelian in consistently insisting on the employment
of the term" proposition." The clarity and simplicity with which Dr. Smith
explains the nature of a proposition should prove very beneficial to the

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218

student. But his treatment of the quality of categorical propositions is
very much run-of-the-mill and very disappointing to this reviewer in light
of the problems that can plague a student who is not able with ease to
determine a negative proposition. His exposition of the two more important
properties of propositions, namely, opposition and conversion, leaves little
to be desired. Chapters fifteen and sixteen should be most appealing to
students, though the one-sentence treatment of supposition on page 76 and
the complete omission of anything on obversion might prove disconcerting
to many instructors.
In Part IV (pp. 117-171} Dr. Smith enters into a splendid discussion
of the third act of the mind with a consideration of the nature and division
of argumentation (discourse). He does a superb job in chapter seventeen
in explaining the five rules to which any valid categorical syllogism must
conform. Nor is his exposition of the categorical and hypothetical syllogisms
less excellent as to method and as to matter. In chapters twenty and
twenty-one the author very objectively analyzes the Inductive Method
and alleges that induction is not genuinely syllogistic because it " lacks a
middle term." (p. 158) All readers will most likely be impressed by his
impartial and penetrating treatment of " induction by incomplete enumeration." This study in chapter twenty-one is rather an uncommon but pleasing
feature of a textbook in Logic that is so characteristically Aristotelian.
The author is extremely practical in Part V. which is for the most part
a detailed but interesting study of the various types of syllogistic argumentation. He makes it very clear throughout that the basisr of this
division is in terms of certitude and the nature of the middle term. Chapters
twenty-two to twenty-five inclusive are well digested by the author himself
on page 202: " This may be a convenient place to compare the literary
syllogism with demonstration, dialectic, and rhetoric. In any demonstration,
there is a necessity about the evidence involved so that the mind is compelled to accept the conclusion of the argument and thus acquire scientific
knowledge. In dialectic, there is less necessity, so that reason can reach no
more than a provable conclusion and must settle, not for science, but for
opinion. In the rhetorical syllogism, the evidence is so weak that reason,
in reaching truth, neeps the assistance of the will with its tendency to the
good. Finally, in the literary syllogism, the mind has almost run out of
discourse. In literature, there is so little appeal to rational evidence usual
in proof that the mind is led to accept a conclusion by the delightful or
loathesome way in which an object is presented to it." Dr. Smith concludes
this part by an informative tract on the precise nature of History in
chapter twenty-six and an expository study of the hierarchy among the
sciep.ces in chapter twenty-seven.
Part VI especially stamps this text in traditional logic as distinctive and
novel. He labels it Special Questions and it embraces seven illuminating

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chapters mostly about the " scientific method." After tracing the rise of the
experimental method to ancient Hellenist cosmologists, especially Thales,
he exposes its potency and impotency as a method of knowing. He gives
the student a sober evaluation of a body of knowledge that is exclusively
experimental and gained mostly under" controlled conditions." In a practical way he shows the student how easily one can be duped into accepting
as valid an hypothesis or scientific theory that is tainted by the fallacy of
affirming the consequent. In chapter thirty he shows the fecundity of
Analogy in any study, from Theology to Atomic Physics. But he is also
conscious that this method can be and has been misleading, especially
in the field of the natural sciences. Yet he blends these admonitions with
a vigorous exhortation to scientists to make even more frequent use of
this dialectical instrument for " reasoning by extrinsic analogy is one of
the only ways open for us in penetrating the dim or distant recesses of
our physical world." (p.
Then in the next chapter he states and
explains the famous five canons of Induction as proposed by the nineteenth
century logician, John Stuart Mill. His critique of Mill's principles is
both mild and positive. In the following chapter he discusses the value
of statistical reasoning in a way that should be intelligible to the undergraduates for whom it has been written. Finally, he concludes this Part
by a rather sketchy treatment of Symbolic Logic in two chapters {33-34)
which are entitled Truth Functions. Because of the omission of even a brief
history of symbolic logic, and an evaluation of its alleged or real aims,
and the nomenclature of the symbols used in the chapters (e. g., tilde,
wedge, etc.) , this reviewer was very dissatisfied. In the last Part (VII)
the author provides the student with a wonderful treatment of fallacious
types of speech and argumentation not previously considered in the book.
From a pedagogical point of view, this reviewer is of the opinion that
all the chapters concerned with Induction should have been put in one
Part and not scattered; that the chapters on the Nature of History, the
Sciences, Analogy, and Truth Functions be placed in the Part entitled
Special Questions; and that the chapter on Fallacies, now an orphaned
chapter, be given a home in the Part entitled Kinds of Argument. We also
think that in a textbook that has such an Aristotelian flavor, many more
quotations from the Stagirite's logical treatises would be appropriate. In
conclusion, the reading and reviewing of this textbook was a delightful
and stimulating experience. This book with its deep regard for scholarship
should occasion greater interest in the art and science of Logic amongst
undergraduates in all types of colleges, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
This reviewer enthusiastically recommends the Elements of Logic as one
of the best contemporary textbooks on the " art of arts."
DENNIS

Providence College,
Providence, R.I.

c. KANE, o. P.

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215

St. Thomas and the Future of Metaphysics; The Aquinas Lecture, 1957.
By JosEPH OWENS, C. Ss.R., M.S. D. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1957. Pp. 97.
For many years now the leading figures of the Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, have, in a quasi-collective effort, sought to
manifest the properly Thomistic insight into reality. Fr. Owens' Aquinas
Lecture presents the latest phase of this continuing endeavor. The position he takes could well have been anticipated. Its model is found in his
work on Aristotle's metaphysics (herein briefly sketched), principally with
regard to the non-objective character of conceptual knowledge and the
strict unity of common being. A suggestion of it was contained in his
unavailing attempt to demonstrate the principle of causality (The Modern
Schoolman, Vol.
, where he revealed a novel understanding of existence
as attained in the judgment. It was also foreshadowed by Etienne Gilson's
assertion, in Being And Some Philosophers, that, for St. Thomas, God and
being qua are one and the same. It is, moreover, a position openly stated
and defended by Fr. Gerard Phelan in an address before the ACP A on
the existence of creatures. However, in contrast to this candid approach,
Fr. Owens' exposition is marked by reticence.
The purpose of his lecture is to establish the unique qualifications of
Thomism for primacy among the varied metaphysical doctrines of past and
present. Needless to say, the claims entered in its behalf are grounded in
the primacy that it accords the act of existence. Thus the lecture is devoted to an analysis of the Thomistic teaching on this act. Many of his
judgments here would find ready acceptance-those, for example, that
posit the " accidentality " of the creature's existence, its distinction from
essence and, what will prove to be most relevant, its finiteness. We read:
" Being is other than essence. It is outside the essence, in the sense that
it is not contained within the essential principles of finite things .... In
this profound sense being is accidental to all things except in the unique
though as yet hypothetical case of subsistent being." (p. 44) And: "The
act or perfection of being is accordingly limited to and by the essence ....
As a limited perfection in creatures it certainly owes its limitation to the
finite essence which it actuates." (note 23)
Regrettably, other judgments of the author, viewed in their immediate
context, possess too great an obscurity either to demand assent or to
prompt meaningful dispute. For example, the statement that subsistent
being, or God, exists is said to be a "tautology." In explanation, he offers
an undoubted tautology: "To say that subsistent being is a real (sic)
nature is to mean that it actually exists." But then he adds: "Both
subject and predicate coincide in meaning in the statement: 'Subsistent
being exists.' " (p. 46, note 48) This judgment is, of course, quite different

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from the preceding one; but it, too, is apparently taken as self-evident
quoad nos, which would imply that our knowledge of the divine existence
is penetrating. This is significant in view of the fact that it is only of the
creature's existence that we have proper knowledge. Are we then to assume
that its existence and God's are seen as one? Equally puzzling is the
following argument concerning the distinction between the finite being's
essence and existence: " The Thomistic distinction . . . follows from considering the essence as of itself completely devoid of all being, real or
intentional, and then reasoning to the reception of that being from something else and ultimately from subsistent being. Only then has being been
established as a nature in reality, a nature that cannot coalesce in reality
with any other nature, and so when participated is always other in reality
than the nature which it makes be." (note 30) The difficulty here is
that the distinction in question appears to be simply equated with · that
between the finite essence and subsistent existence. The· proof begins with
a very real distinction between the creature's essence and its existence: the
essence is "completely devoid of all being." Yet this distinction is obviously seen as inadequate, because existence--presumably that with which
the reasoning process begins, the creature's-is not yet known as a subsistent act of being and thus as other than any finite nature. This would
imply that God is again taken as the proper existence of things. But, let
it be conceded, another interpretation of the author's words, one consonant
with the. actual teaching of St. Thomas, is possible.
This is not the case with what is undoubtedly the most important section
of his work. The discussion at this point centers upon St. Thomas' proofs
of God's existence. These are seen as concrete illustrations of the singular
contribution to human thought made by Thomistic existentialism. We are
told that the " Thomistic metaphysical principles . . .. give rise to a procedure that never has to make what critics of the demonstrations of God's
existence call the 'awful leap' from the finite to the infinite." The reason
for this is that the " Thomistic procedure does not start from a finite
nature." Rather, it "starts from the being of the thing,'' and from this
being " not as already submitted to the finitizing process of conceptualization, but as directly attained in the act of judgment." It then "establishes
being as a nature and thereby has already reached the term of the demonstration." There is therefore " no question on the precisely metaphysical
level of passing from a finite thing or a finite nature to an infinite one. The
entire process is on the level of being, which as a nature or thing is
infinite, though it is attained not as a nature or thing in the sensible world
but as the act of a nature other than itself." And so, " St. Thomas fails
to see I!DY difficulty in the objection that there is no proportion between
the finite and the infinite, as in any way militating against the possibility
of demonstrating God's existence. He answers that from any effect the
being of its cause can be manifestly demonstrated, just as though such an

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217

objection had no place on the level of being." The procedure followed by
St. Thomas is opposed to that in which " the demonstration of God's
existence starts from the notion of being as already conceptualized after
the manner of the original human concept of act, which is limited in its
intrinsic character quite as· it was in its Aristotelian equation with form."
When this other approaCh is taken, " St. Thomas is just as insistent that
no proof can be developed. The Anselmian argument is worthless in the
Thomistic framework." (pp. 46-48)
Here there is no mistaking Fr. Owens' true meaning. The decisive
element in his analysis of the Thomistic procedure is, of course, the distinction between the " two existences " attained by the hum'an mind-that
revealed in the concept and that seized in the judgment. The " conceptualized " existence is· finite and non-real; it is existence as known in relation to the finite nature of which it is the act; it. is actually the notion of
existence rather than extra-mental, concrete existence. It can thus give
rise only to the specious " ontological " demonstration of God's existence.
In contrast, the existence seized in the judgment is seen as both real and
non-finite-i.e., infinite. It is existence attained in all its purity, prior to
the falsifying, " finitizing " concept, before what would doubtless be called
the "essentializing" tendency of the mind comes into play. As such, it
disposes of the " awful leap " objection and permits a valid proof of the
divine existence.
The major difficulties in this account are closely related. One concerns
the text of St. Thomas (I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 8) to which the author refers in
support of his view. In it St. Thomas is interpreted as implicitly affirming
that the demonstration· of God's existence starts from the non-finitized
existential act of the sensible thing. However, his actual argument is to
the opposite effect. He first notes that " from effects not proportionate to
the cause no perfect knowledge of that cause can be attained." However,
he adds, the existence of the cause can be known with certitude-" and so
we can demonstrate the existence of God from His effects." But, he
concludes, " from them we cannot know God as He is in His essence." It is
clear from this that all the effects-with existence chief among themfrom which the arguments in question proceed are seen as finite (indeed,
the objection itself and Fr. Owens' reference to it would have relevance
only if this were the case). It would then follow, if the author's position
be correct, that these arguments are as worthless as that constructed by St.
Anselm. Far. from showing the unique force of the Thomistic procedure,
the author has so interpreted the "awful leap" objection (which actually
applies only if the demonstration is held to give knowledge of God as He
is in His essence) that the only possible proofs of God's existence must be
viewed as inadequate.
A variation of this same difficulty strikes more immediately at the
foundation of Fr. Owens' reasoning. Existence conceived as the actuality

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of a finite essence, " represented after the manner of the original human
concept of act," and thus "limited in its intrinsic character," is said to
be incapable of leading to a sound proof of God's existence. Yet the
existence on which the accepted demonstration is based, that seized in
the judgment, is itself " attained not as a nature or thing in the sensible
world but as the act of a nature other than itself." Accordingly, this
existence as well will be finite, and will lead only to an inefficacious demonstration of God's existence. In point of fact, it need hardly be said, the
very opposite is true: only if the existence of sensible things be the act
of a nature other than itself, and thus finite, could it serve as the principle of a valid demonstration.
Aside from these weaknesses, there is the author's unaccountable failure
to defend either the stated infinity of the sensible thing's act of existence
or its most important implications-the unqualified unity of all existence
and its corollary, the oneness of the creature's and God's existence. Indeed,
he does not even make explicit these consequences. Their necessity, however, is evident, for there can be but one infinite existential act. But
simply to assert that, through the deforming activity of conceptual knowledge, the creature's actually infinite existence is rendered finite, will
do.
Without an argument establishing the posited infinity and a careful st, dy
of its implications, Fr. Owens' task is incomplete and his work radically
defective.
The one approach he could take in the discharge of his obligations is
evident. He would have to maintain that, though joined to a finite naturethough the very actualization of this nature-the existential act retains
the purity proper to it as such, and this its infinity. The only finiteness
acknowledged would be that of the actualized nature. Now, with but
inconsequential variations, precisely this argument has been proposed by
the author's Institute colleague, Fr. Gerard Phelan. In the interests of
scholarship, this bold discourse should be considered.
Fr. Phelan proceeds from the principle: Esse autem in quantum est esse
non potest esse diversum; potest autem diversificari per aliquid quod est
praeter esse. (II Cont. Gent., c. 52. Not quoted are the words immediately
following these: sicut esse lapidis est aliud ab esse hominis. The significance
of this will be apparent.) Commenting on this, he states: "Diversity is a
meaningless term when applied to esse as such. This, of course, does not
imply that the Esse of God and the esse of creatures are identical, since
' identity ' is as meaningless as ' diversity ' where esse is involved. The
clause-' potest autem diversificari per aliquid quod est praeter esse'explicitly states that diversification proceeds from a principle that is not
esse. The statement: esse in quantum est esse non potest esse diversum
does imply, however, that the terms' diverse' and' identical' do not apply
where esse as such is discussed. To say that the mode in which the Creator
exercises esse is other than the modes in which creatures exercise esse, or

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that each creature exercises esse in its own way, is not to assert either the
identity or the diversity of esse as such, but to disclose the basis for the
diversity between the Ens, which is God, and the entia which are creatures. Beings (entia) are diverse, but not esse; nor are beings diverse by
reason of their esse but ' per aliquid quod est praeter esse.' " (Proceedings
of The American Catholic Philosophical Association, Vol. XXXI, p. 122.)
If valid, this argument would most surely supply for the deficiency
in Fr. Owens' work; we need merely substitute "finite " and " finitized "
for " diverse " and " diversified." However, the words of St. Thomas that
are employed to establish the non-diversity of the various existential acts
fail of their imposed purpose. Granted that the esse of the creature is
diversified by something beyond the esse itself, it remains that it is in fact
diversified and is thus of necessity diverse. The diversification per aliquid
quod est praeter esse is acknowledged by Fr. Phelan; when therefore he
states that "Beings (entia) are diverse, but not esse," he simply contradicts himself. The contradiction embraced by Fr. Owens is, verbally, more
immediate; for, on more than one occasion, he explicitly affirms the
finiteness of the creature's existence.
No greater consistency is maintained by Fr. Phelan when he seeks to
justify the implication of the position he shares with his colleague-the
unity of the creature's and God's existential acts. He writes: " ... God is
the esse of all things. 'Deus est- esse omnium '-not 'esse essentiale' but
the 'esse causale.' (I Sent., d. 8, q. I, a. 2, sol.) The esse essentiale of a
creature is the esse which all creatures participate, exercised aliquo modo.
The esse causale is the esse which all things participate, exercised omnimodo
or sine modo. And that esse which all things participate is the divine esse.
'Nihil habet esse, nisi inquantum participat divinum esse.' (ibid.) Creatures do not participate esse as, for instance, men participate humanity.
There is no ' common ' being in this sense at all. ' There is no being save
the divine being, in which all creatures participate.' (Et. Gilson, The
Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas, p. 360) . He continues: "If one must
talk the language of participation, I would say, also,
is no being,
esse, save the divine being, Esse, and all beings participate it.' This sounds
pantheistic only to the ears of those who still think of esse as something.''
(ibid., p. 123)
The difficulties encountered here come to a head with the denial that
esse is "something." For it is precisely that in the one ·instance that Fr.
Phelan is willing to acknowledge, that of the divine being, the esse causale.
Existence lacks this status only when it is the actualization of something
other than itself, when it is the esse essentiale of the creature. However,
the reality of this non-subsistent existence has been denied, for God,
though the one esse, is held not to be the creature's esse essentiale, not
to be " common " to all beings as humanity is to men. The result of this
second inconsistency, which also has as its function to forestall the charge

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of pantheism, is a clear nihilism with respect to creatures. On the other
hand, the position that the esse causale is not " something " involves a
total nihilism: without subsistent existence nihil habet esse.
These are the inevitable results of the attempt to soften the denial that
there are diverse acts of existence, the infinite and the finite. That this
denial should have been considered at all is incomprehensible. For it is
destructive of the very Thomistic existentialism that these scholars would
proclaim. Most immediately it is such in its perversion of this doctrine
into a hitherto inconceivable pluralistic monism, but in other respects as
well it wreaks havoc. For example, in the order of existence God could
not be held to exercise true efficient causality; he must be seen as simply
imposing Himself upon the finite nature, rather than as communicating
to it a distinct existential act. In addition, the analogy of being, which
involves a proportion between each essence and its existence, no longer
holds when infinite existence is said to be the one act of all things. The
accepted understanding of the distinction between essence and existence
must also be abandoned; within this scheme of things it is clearly a distinction between the divine and the created nature. Finally, despite innumerable assertions to the contrary, the existential act of the creature
has been " essentialized," for it is identified with that existence which is
also an essence. All this, however, would surely have been avoided had a
more careful textual analysis been undertaken. The teaching of St. Thomas
is stated with clarity in the very text from the Sentences upon which Fr.
Phelan drew for his argument. Its wording is particularly relevant to Fr.
Owens' formulation of their common position. It runs: Cum igitur modus
cujuslibet rei creatae sit finitus, quaelibet res creata recipit esse finitum et
inferius divino esse quod est perfectissimum. Ergo constat quod esse
creaturae, quo est formaliter, non est divinum esse.
JoHN D. BEAcH
2244 North Kemore,
Chicago, Illinois

Thought and Truth. A critique of philosophy: its source and meaning.
By M. MAISELS. New York: Bookman Associates, 1956. Pp. 359 with
index. $5.00.
In his foreword to Thought and Truth Mr. Maisels makes an interesting
remark: most of the work, he says, " was written during years of wandering, travail and seclusion which prevented normal exposure to the trends
of thought prevalent then and now as well. Any similarity, therefore,
between this work and that regnant thought is perforce incidental." And
Mr. Maisels explains that he records this fact because it may be "of

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some importance, ... for a meeting of minds, as it were, is perhaps valuable
to the general appreciation of the thought of a given period and of the
concepts which gained prominence in it." Mr. Maisels is quite right.
Indeed, if one wanted to understand the meaning of contemporary philosophy, one could not do much better than to turn to Thought and Truth. For
it presents, in isolation from the divisions of school and sect, a doctrine
which distills what is essential to the philosophical spirit of the midcentury. That, as I see it, is the great value of this work.
The very first observation which is the occasion of Mr. Maisels' reflexions
and from which arises the fundamental problem of Thought and Truth is
the observation of a phenomenon: it is the observation of that human experience which is philosophical activity itself; it is the fact that " man
seeks to evolve a world-picture which transcends the bounds of palpable
relationships and circumstances and to fix man's own place in that world."
Now according to the author, what is distinctive of philosophy is that,
unlike other human activities, such as art, and even unlike other intellectual activities, such as "[experimental] science," philosophy seeks "to
obtain that which is beyond the reach of sense-experience "; that is why
some distinction between appearance and reality is common to all philosophy. This is not true of "science." Indeed, Mr. Maisels shows in detail
that there is no " relation of continuity between the two disciplines." And
this distinction is important, because the contempt for metaphysics that
follows upon the breakdown of the modern philosophical experiment and
the success of the modern experimental philosophy, is simply the logical
result of the failure to recognize their distinction: philosophy may be
found wanting only if it is measured by the same standards as experimental
science. But why should they not both be asked to satisfy the same
criteria? If both claim to be true knowledge, should they not both
provide truth, equally, univocally and unequivocally? Perhaps; but if one
so holds, says the author, one could not but agree that philosophy fails
the test, for it is true that philosophy lacks the objectivity which is the
pride of science; e. g., "philosophy never asks questions. It begins by
answering, without posing any prior questions." How can philosophy have
any rational knowledge-value, asks Mr. Maisels, if it is true, as its history
shows, that " no matter to what extent philosophy attempts to disguise
itself with the trappings of logical reason, the uniqueness of any philosophic
system lies in the assumptions it makes before it ever launches its
arguments? "
The answer, he continues, is that the disjunction is false. Consider by
way of analogy, he asks us, the criticism which explains away primitive
religions. To attribute them to the fear of death, the uncertainty of life,
the wonder of dreams, the force of hallucinations-or, I might add, to the
cosmic inner magic of Totem and Taboo-would be fundamentally" erroneous and misleading," even though these explanations may have, and

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sometimes do have, quite " factual truth." The fact remains that these
religions are human facts. What needs to be noted, above all, is that man
is such that he produces those religions. What is not to be obscured is
that any religion is a manifestation of " man creating for himself a world
all his own in which to live." Moreover, note also that once this world
is created it seems to claim a certain power over man: it claims to be true.
Similarly with philosophy; indeed, identically so with philosophy, which
according to the author differs from religion only according to the kind of
"extra-natural beings" which are created thereby (e. g., causes rather than
personified forces). Philosophy, too, creates a world transcending the
senses, and once created that world comes to claim the power of truth.
There is, therefore, a real critical problem in 'philosophy, but that problem
is not how to bridge the gap between object and subject: that would be to
pose the problem as if philosophy were an experimental science. There is
a real critical problem concerning the relation between thought and truth,
an epistemological question concerning the nature and validity of philosophical knowledge, but it should be posed in these terms: 'What is man's
power enabling him to create a world, and what is the power of this created
world giving it dominion over man? In other words: What source, what
authoritative truth do the creations of thought possess? " This is the problem which gives its title to the work: these are the source and meaning to
which the subtitle makes allusion.
To begin his solution, Mr. Maisels reminds us of the Cartesian discovery:
the need for, and the possibility of, a point of departure for philosophy
which is critically justified; and " this starting point was man-' I think.' "
But Mr. Maisels also reminds us that Descartes makes use of this starting
point precisely as a starting point, that is, in order to proceed thence
outwards into" the world." It is Kant, taking advantage of Descartes, who
is the real discoverer of the modem view, for "unlike Descartes, he did
not spin his thread of thought from man outwards. He began at the point
of man and ended there.'' To be historically accurate one should add that,
paradoxically enough, this was beyond the original intention of Kant, who,
like Descartes, wanted to proceed outwards to the thiug-in-itself. Indeed,
he was sufficiently deceived to think that, if not by pure reason, at least
by practical reason, it was possible therein to succeed: so that even in
what is most original in Kant, namely, the discovery of " the fact of
personality or will, [for] contained in the very proposition 'I think' or
' I perceive ' is the fact of the I, ... this fact is not presented for its own
sake but for the sake of that which lies outside it.'' In any evellt, we are
indebted to him for awakening us to the fact that " together with senseimpression, which is man's point of departure towards nature, there is
another point of departure in man that leads to a world that is not of
nature." It was Kant who, willy-nilly, made philosophy awake to the
" self-sufficiency " of man. For the Cartesian dichotomy of man and nature,

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the last stronghold and the acme of the scission between appearance and
reality, is healed in the unity of the Kantian phenomenon; "Descartes'
' I think ' was simply a fact of man wherefrom the universe might somehow
be inferred; Kant's ' I perceive ' is simultaneously a fact of man and a fact
of nature. This is the fact of impression in man, which begins in sensation
and ends in cognition and science. ' More ' than this impression man does
not possess; he cannot overstep his own bounds and break through to
something beyond himself. But this impression constitutes his world, it is
the world, and there is no other world, even as man has no other kind of
cognition. This is man and this is his world." Which is, I think, a good
statement, as succinct and clear as they come, of the root significance of
the Kantian discovery upon which contemporary philosophy has seized:
I mean, the phenomenological identity of subject and object, of knower and
known, of mind and world; it is the merger of appearance and reality, of
thought and being, and of being and becoming into the transobjective unity
of the phenomenon. And as the divergence effected by abstraction is
transcended by human experience, the phenomenon undercuts the problem
of "man's self-differentiation from nature which occasioned the particular
understanding of nature involved in the concept of science." This "differentiation " is useful: experimental science rests upon it. But we have
tended to mistake its usefulness-power for its truth-power: hence we have
set up its objectivity as the ideal measure of truth to which philosophy
must conform. But if, as Mr. Maisels has just told us, the" differentiation"
is practical, whereas it is the identity which is true, then it should follow
that the truth of philosophy is the real truth, even though it is not the
' objective ' truth of science. What, then, is the nature of the truth of
philosophy?
Consider the outcome of the Kantian cogito. Does not philosophy, after
Kant, in rejecting the thing-in-itself, reject the objective? And why? Because it is untenable? Not at all: perhaps it is untenable, but that is
irrelevant. It is rejected because it is superfluous. And philosophy, as it
rejects the in-itself, does not find itself compelled to revert to a Humean
scepticism: indeed, it finds therein its true speculative value and its truth,
for it asserts thereby the completeness, the absoluteness of the phenomenon,
and the completeness, the absoluteness of the " self-sufficiency" of man.
For in the Kantian cogito the I is as primordial as the think. The ego
should not be and cannot be concluded to, reasoned out from prior knowledge: it is a fact; it is a brute, raw fact. In other words, the cogito is not
essentially essential, it is essentially existential, and man's dignity is
revealed to him by his self-consciousness: "man looks at himself and at
the world, and at himself as placed in the world, but in all this he sees no
existent-for-itself except himself." That is why "man's being for himself
is not a ' thing,' not even a ' thing-in-itself.' " It is precisely in order to
signify that the ego is not a thing, and perhaps also (but here I con-

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jecture) to signify the bruteness, the rawness, indeed, the inexorable simplicity and the absolute gratuitousness of the factuality of the I who thinks,
that Mr. Maisels chooses to prefer the term will to the terms I or ego. Is it
necessary to add that in this context will does not mean the rational
appetite? Mr. Maisels himself, perhaps a little clumsily, warns us that
" we must distinguish between wish and will." Will, in his acceptation, is
" the characteristic of man's being-for-himself." And again: " tke personal
will, tke pure will, is that whick constitutes tke identity of man's personality." Will is the existential ego; once it is, it is then given in experience, and as given, as datum, it makes man a something-for-himself. That
is why, Mr. Maisels astutely and quite consistently observes, the real
problem of freedom, for one placed in this perspective, is not that of
determinism versus indeterminism, or that of freedom ver8U8 " predestination." The mystery is, rather, that the observed fact of will seems to
involve an antinomy of will against being, or of man's being against time.
The difficulty is that man, as will, .transcends the present, whereas existence
or being is only in the present. The transcendence of will is plain for all
to see, for will is incompatible with " a state in which everything shall
have been attained and there shall be no more place for it, for will." In
brief, will is not basically will-to-an-end, but will-to-be.
Note, however"-and now we approach the crux of Mr. Maisels' argument
-that if will is not will-to-an-end, but will-to-be, because " man's personality throughout his life, in the very fact of its being, wills itself even
as it spins its own being, yearns and endeavors to be itself, to be only
itself,'' then will is not relative to an-other (i. e., an end) . And if not
relative, then it is absolute. More specifically: if will does not relate man
to the outward and to the extrinsic, then it only relates man to himself;
but a self-relation, or a relation of self-identity (and phenomenon is
identity) is, of course, a relation only logically: it is really a non-relation;
it is an absolute. Hence, will-to-be is an absolute: " Will, the wilier and the
willed are identical in man's personality, which consists only of such
identity." Now, on the absoluteness of will depends the solution to the
antinomy of human being and time. For if we ask " How can will be, if it
transcends time, whereas to be (as an in-itself) is only in time, in the
present? " the answer is that the contradiction disappears as soon as. we
remember that man's being is not being-in-itself. The absoluteness of will
means that we cannot measlJre human being by the standard of being-initself, for by this standard human being is not being. Nor could we
measure the in-itself, or " nature,'' by the being of will, for by this standard
it is nought. The contradiction of being and non-being depends upon an
abstract (i.e., relative, unreal, non-absolute) distinction between man and
nature: nature, to will, is non-being; will, to nature, is non-being. But
nature is being; being, that is, as things can be. And will, though not as
a thing can be, ie being: so much so, indeed, that it is will-tQ-he. The

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being of nature pales into nothingness besides the being of will, which is
to-be. In Mr. Maisels' own words: "insofar as will wills itself it wills
non-nature, it rebels against nature, sees the interference of nature as
subjugation, as outside [i. e., external] compulsion, as non-being by comparison with itself, even as its own being is non-being by comparison with
nature." And so, the being of nature is being (though as facing will it
is becoming), whereas the being of will (which as facing nature is becoming), is being: "will is active by its very being. It wills, and, by willing,
actualizes itself. It becomes through its own activities. And out of this
self-willing issues the willing of non-nature, that is, of the will's struggle
with nature." This, of course, is what makes man creative: artistically
creative when it exerts itself against nature as the in-itself; intellectually
creative, that is, issuing in knowledge (a "thought-creation")
as it exerts
itself against its own nature, the for-itself. And thus we may, therefore,
definitely answer the problem of the source and meaning of philosophy:
philosophy is a
its origin is in the will-personality or ego,
and its validity is based on its being willed or created: and what could
be more true or absolute if the will is will-to-be, and therefore absolute?
The source is the creativity or being of the will: its meaning, therefore, is
true and (unlike our knowledge of the in-itself, i.e., experimental science)
it is absolutely and not merely objectively true; it is so by the truth and
the absoluteness of man as will, the being-for-itself.
That is, in outline, Mr. Maisels' solution to his basic problem, on which,
for its being basic, I have chosen to concentrate. The problems which, in
turn, come out of this doctrine on the nature and validity of philosophy
depend for their solution, of course, on the foundations already laid: they
are equally well handled, with perceptiveness, fairness, consistency and
clarity; (if my account lacks the latter, may I assure the prospective reader
of Thought and Truth that the fault is all mine) .. But all that I must, less
than summarize or even sample, merely list. A second part of the work
applies the doctrine to .a re-interpretation of the history of man and his
" thought-creations " from " the emergence of man " through " ancient
cultures," the Greek world, Judaism, Christianity and " European Man "
up to the nineteenth century. A third part deals with "Man in Time":
not unexpectedly, if it is true that will is becoming and that therefore
being-for-itself is time. A fourth part, on " Man with himself," crowns the
work. It presents a doctrine--! hesitate to call it an ethics-of what man
must become conscious of if he is to be true to his nature. A doctrine,
let us say, of the fulfillment of man's authenticity. If I hesitate to say
ethics it is because, quite consistently, this fulfillment is not to be superimposed on, or better, superexisted by, man's nature: the fulilllment is
man's nature itself. And I say that this part crowns the work because it
is plain from the outset that if the author tried to lay a critical foundation
for philosophy, it is only with the intention of building thereon a practical

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doctrine, for " no philosophic system seems to us worthy of the name if it
does not obligate anyone to do anything."
But, however important these practical conclusions may be to Mr.
Maisels, there would seem to be little point in reporting them in detail
and in discussing them while the premises themselves remain open to criticism. As for that, it can be condensed in this: one's evaluation of Thought
and Truth would depend on what one thought of the nature and validity
of phenomenological analysis. For myself, as I have explained elsewhere
[THE THOMIST, XIX (1956),
I think it would be erroneous to
deny all legitimacy and validity to phenomenology; although, if it has any
place in philosophy, it is neither as a substitute for metaphysics, not even
as a foundation for metaphysics, and certainly not as a prolegomenon to
ethics. And if I confine these critical remarks to such generalities it is
because, if originality means novelty, then Mr. Maisels' work is obviously
anything but original. Mr. Maisels' insight leading to his doctrine of the
absoluteness of will is forceful and deep, but it is not novel. If I understand him and contemporary philosophy correctly, then I do not think
it would be in the least exaggerated to say that the creativity and absoluteness of his will-personality is not fundamentally different from the elan vital
of Bergson, nor from the inexorableness of the being of Sartre's hairy hands
with fat, ugly fingers, nor from the Zeitlichkeit of Heidegger's Dasein, nor,
for that matter, from that Behaviour which, ranging from interaction to
adjustment, is close to the heart of Dewey, nor, in the final analysis. from
the dialectics of History from Marx-Engels to Lenin-Stalin. Yet, I do
think that Mr. Maisels' work is of importance, but that is because originality need not be the same as novelty. For what is striking about Thought
and Truth is precisely that, as Mr. Maisels has told us, it is an independent
development which happens to coincide with " prevalent " and " regnant "
trends of thought. And I must immediately add that I do not mean to
identify those prevalent trends of thought with what is commonly known
as existentialism, a term which I have studiously avoided until this
moment. Nor, I believe, would Mr. Maisels do so himself: he uses the
term, to my recollection: nowhere in the book.
The reason, if I can divine his mind, is that he would see that which is
called existentialism only as a specific manifestation of a philosophical
development which may well have other manifestations different in temper
and detail. With that view I· would agree. For there is, I think, something
that binds together the threads and the wisps of contemporary thought.
Above the petty detail of the specific byways" which may be pursued, beyond the specific of the sometimes soporific issues controverted among
the schools, outside the differences which can be blamed on the closeness
of the climate, and the pervasiveness of one's culture and the concrete
concern of individual philosophers, there is a common spirit: and, more
than a spirit, a doctrine which commands consent, and this doctrine is the

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227

absoluteness of man. If contemporary philosophy needs a name, its name is
humanism. And not a mere humanism, lusty, arty, blushing and poetic,
naif, almost innocent in its blasphemy, as the humanism of the Renaissance.
I mean a humanism which is cautious and calculating, pale and indrawn,
self-conscious of its import, Promethean with a will and a vengeance,
aggressive, militant and unrepenting in its determination to steal for man
the very divinity of the Being of God. I mean a deifying humanism which
is perhaps most evident among the varieties of existentialism, but which
is also barely below the buff of pragmatism; it is present, I would say,
though secundum quid, least sophisticated and self-conscious, even in the
driest logicism and most logical positivism. Are there, then, no differences
among contemporary schools? Of course there are. Sein und Zeit, to
analytical philosophy, is "semantic salad." No one would confuse Dewey
with Sartre; are they, for all that, less at one? Are not both philosophies
built on and about the factualness of experience? Do they not both elaborate thereupon a moral-indeed, much less elaborate in Sartre than in
Dewey-in which the absoluteness of man guarantees that the only way
for him to work out his destiny (or, shall we say, his salvation), is out
of his own resources and within a finality which is man himself? Mr.
Maisels, too, conforms to the same doctrine. If there is any difference it
is that Mr. Maisels', precisely because it avoids the detail of the small
matter and because it was worked out in isolation, presents contemporary
humanism in what appears to me as a rather purer and less controversial
form. By comparison, Erich Fromm's Man for Himself is blemished with
the dross of neo-Freudianism. Mr. Maisels is more erudite, much more
philosophical, certainly less angry and perhaps incomparably more innocent: but if Thought and Truth had received its title not from its problem,
but from its conclusion, then Fromm's work would have been its onomastic
godparent. And Mr. Maisels' humanism is deeper and more urbane than
many: to Corliss Lamont's rather wild-eyed preaching, Mr. Maisels' delicate vigour compares as the prophet Isaias does to a street-corner gospeleer.
There is, I think, a telling index signifying the essential unity of contemporary philosophy: underlying all the controversies of the times there is
close to agreement in fact, and not only in words, though sometimes not
in words, in the very concept of what philosophy is. Philosophy is, for the
times, the absolutely ultimate "search for wisdom." And this wisdom, be
it scientific or not, be it rational or artistic, be it discursive or intuitive,
be it conceptual or connatural-for all those thing may be debated-is in
any event the kind of wisdom by which the hills are as wise as they are
old, though man is wiser, and the wisdom by which lore is wise to the
ways of nature, though philosophy is wiser. It is the apex of know-how, for
it is the know-how of survival in being; it is the Lifemanship of a scholarly
Potter who has lost his sense of humour. I mean, philosophy is practical
wisdom, and if there are any human problems-and none more pressing-

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the only and the last court of appeal is philosophy. Mr. Maisels, too,
conforms to that conception of philosophy which would identify it, in the
end, with the true, enlightened, natural, human, intelligent religion.
Is it necessary to defend the position that this is not a conception of
philosophy which does justice to philosophy itself and to its speculative
value? And would it be prudent to say that, therefore, Thought and Truth
cannot in the end be a truly philosophical work? And could one give for
a reason, therefore, that it is not a work of Christian philosophy without
fear of one's being thought a bigot and a jingo? But consider that it is
only in the Christian tradition-though even there, not always-that a
distinction has been made between reason and revelation, and the conclusion follows. For, paradoxically, only he who looks to grace and Its
Source for his salvation, rather than to reason and its work, is sufficiently
liberated thereby to be potentially impartial, disinterested and just in his
quest· for knowledge, whereas he who pins his only remaining hopes for
attaining his final end on what reason can discover, cannot, by definition,
follow reason wherever and anywhere it may rightly lead: only wherever
it is directed by one's prior orientation. If so, every problem will be a
function of human problems: whether the soul is incorruptible is a problem
because it matters to man; whether God exists is a problem because if He
does He should be worshipped. In brief, philosophy thus conceived is reducible to the dogma from which morals and cult are to follow. My point is
that this lands us in a contradiction. For philosophy, true enough, should
not be dogmatic. But only that philosophy of him who has a dogma other
than philosophy can be non-dogmatic: the philosophy of him who makes
it into a dogma must be dogmatic, if only by making non-dogmatism into a
dogma. Much of the impoverishment of contemporary philosophy-! mean,
the fact that so many philosophical problems are neglected or not pursued
to their end simply because the only thing that counts is the basic conclusion which might in tum be applied to other, ultimately moral, questions;
a poverty which exists side by side with the wealth of radically new discoveries and developments, phenomenology for one, dialectical analysis for
a second-may be accounted for by philosophy's vested, disordered, practical interest in its own outcome.
And yet, Mr. Maisels, I am sure, could easily defend this, his conception
of philosophy, because he has history on his side. In his search for wisdom
he is in good company: an<) thereby I mean not only some of the best
philosophers of our time, and not only those ideologies which stand out
among the best-and very good, indeed-that. hold sway over our century.
I mean, ultimately, Greek philosophy itself. For, typically with Socrates
and Plato, but not any the less clearly with the late Classical period
through Rome and up to Plotinus, perhaps much less so with Aristotle (is
the difl'erence in kind or in degree?) , Greek philosophy identifies itself with
the true religion. It is a way of life, the only way of life which avoids

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errors and superstition while preserving the dimly discerned truth of mythology and temple and adding to it the certainty and depth of reason. The
Phaedo, I think, would document this assertion: the condemnation of
Socrates is proof that the Greek world itself correctly saw philosophy as a
religious heresy. Thus Greek philosophy is a pagan philosophy. It is the
same pagan philosophy which, continued during the Empire, caused St.
Paul to write to the Colossians: "beware lest any man cheat you by
philosophy and vain deceit." The philosophy which, qua philosophy, is
neither Christian nor pagan, may find itself in the Christian state: in
Greece it found itself in the pagan state.
If I conclude, then, that Mr. Maisels' doctrine is a pagan humanism, I
would give neither scandal nor offence. For I do not mean thereby to
detract from his obvious sincerity nor from his sufficiently clear resources
of good will. I do not mean to deny the power of his intellect nor the
depths of his insight. Nor do I mean to ignore the value of his work, either
historically, as the most recent testimony to the fact that the Kantian
revolution is reaching the apex of its success, or in itself, as a document
which by reason of its completeness, thoroughness and lucidity stands as
one of the best statements of a humanism that is neither simple-minded
nor superficial. I mean simply that Thought and Truth is at once typically
contemporary and Classical in spirit as it harks back to the proto-gnosticism of the best Greek tradition: a double compliment that many would be
happy to own and which not all, as Mr. Maisels, so abundantly deserve.
LESLIE DEW ART

.St. Michael's College,
University of Toronto,

Ontario, Canada.

Lay People in the Church. By YVEs M. J. CoNGAR, 0. P. Translated by
Donald Attwater. Westminster: Newman Press, 1957. Pp. 483.
This work was originally published in French under the title Jalons pour
une theologie du laicat. It btrars a sub-title, " A study for a theology of
the laity," which sufficiently reveals its nature. It is a study of the laity
in the light of theology, natural and sacred, in order to determine their
position and function in the Church.
There is no question of the opportuneness of such an inquiry. Less than
justice has been done to the laity by those who think of the Church
exclusively in terms of the clergy and hierarchy. The laity in this view
are let into the Church only on sufferance: they do not constitute the
Church in any real sense of the term. This attitude is a reaction against
the opposite extreme which flourished in the sixteenth and succeeding cen-

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turies. The Reformers commonly looked upon the Church as the assembly
of the faithful, to which its presiding officials, the clergy, are completely
subordinate and secondary.
Father Congar attempts to establish the rightful position of the laity in
the Church, avoiding both these extremes. He draws upon a wealth of
learning and scholarly competence in Scripture, tradition, patristic and
medieval literature, liturgy, the history of theology, especially its modern
developments. That he has succeeded in rescuing the layman from " ecclesial" (a favorite word) outer darkness cannot be denied. We may
question at times whether the author has gone too far in his rehabilitating
of the layman in the Church, but we cannot question his good intentions or
his ability in a difficult field.
Far from regarding the laity as in any sense outside the Church or merely
an adjunct to it, it is necessary in the mind of the author for the Church
to have laity for the full accomplishment of God's plan. It is just as
essential to have some members who will do the work of the world as it
is to have others who are dispensed from the world's work in order to
dedicate themselves directly and exclusively to the work of God's kingdom,
such as priests and monks. Some of the finest pages in the book occur in
the last chapter where the problem of lay holiness is discussed. Those
whose lot lies in the world are not exempt from the benefit of a divine
vocation. Vocation belongs to all; in fact, everyone has at least two vocations; one in the order of creation (vocation in a wide sense) and another in
the order of grace (vocation in the narrow and more special sense). Father
Congar does not agree with those who would restrict vocation to the priesthood and religious state and refuse it to the lay life and states, such as
marriage.
The world is an end in itself, though always subordinate to our last end.
It is God's will that all who are in it should cooperate with the work of
creation (vocation on the natural plane) as well as with the work of
sanctification and salvation (vocation on the supernatural plane). Whatever may have been the reasons for a different attitude in the past, the
Church today recognizes the fact of a secular world and an order of
properly human and earthly values. She faces the task of developing a
suitable program for a God-centered humanism and a "Christofinalised"
human work on earth, a work which yet remains truly human and of this
world. (cf. p. 393) We may, add that the present Holy Father on many
occasions has not hesitated to speak of purely earthly callings as divine
vocations. Nursing, teaching, business, journalism, farming, all come under
this term; and we find him speaking of the natural vocation of women, of
parents, of industry, of the physician, of the lawyer, of the human being
as such, of one engaged in political life, without any indication that he is
speaking metaphorically. The call is God's will ordinarily manifested in the
inclinations one has acquired from his temperament, education, circum-

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fl81

stances of life, the invitations he receives, expressly or tacitly, from others,
and in other similar ways. (cf. p. 407}
Another valid insight in this connection is what may be called the
analogy of sanctity. In former times it was customary for a man to leave
the world to be a saint. Today many remain in the lay state, from choice
or necessity, and there endeavor to live a life of holiness. Every class and
occupation, trade, and profession has its dedicated men and women who
are bearing witness to Christ in the world. They cannot follow the old
methods in seeking holiness, methods which were more suited to the
cloister than to the world outside. Yet they too are called to be saints.
The ways and means may differ but the net result aimed at is the same:
spiritual union with God.
The greater part of Father Congar's book deals with the share the laity
have in the Church's priestly, kingly, and prophetical functions, in her
communal life, and in her apostolic functions. Here we meet what is evidently a basic postulate of the author: .the distinction between structure
and life in the Church. " By structure we understand the principles which,
because they come from Christ, representing with him and in his name the
generative causes of the Church, are the things in her, as her pars formalis,
that constitute men as Christ's Church. These are essentially the deposit
of faith, the deposits of the sacraments of faith and the apostolical powers
whereby the one and the other are transmitted. Therein resides the
Church's essence. By life we understand the activity which men, made
Church by the said principles, exercise in order that the Church may fulfil
her mission and attain her end, which is, throughout time and space, to
make of men and a reconciled world the community-temple of God."
(p. 249)
Christ builds his Church from above and from below. From above,
through the hierarchy and their sacramental and official activities. The
hierarchical, juridical mission given by Christ to the apostles and their
successors gives the Church its framework, its structure. The contribution
of the laity is on another plane altogether. They build the Church from
below and form it into a community of believers living the life of Christ's
Holy Spirit in the space between the Ascension and the Second Coming.
The clergy and hierarchy also help to construct the Church on this level,
the level of life; but they do so " according to their personal life and gifts
and, in that sense, as lay men," and not as ministers exercising power and
authority over the Body of Christ. (p. 812}
This distinction between structure and life basically accounts for the
difference between the priesthood of the clergy and the priesthood of the
laity (of which the author distinguishes ten different kinds). The one
priesthood of Christ is shared sacramentally by all who receive the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, which enable them to join in the
sacramental celebration of Christ's sacrifice. Only some share in his priest-

BOOK REVIEWS

hood sacramentally and hierarchically through the sacrament of Orders, in
order to carry out that celebration. Then, all are priests through their
spiritual life in Christ; this priesthood is spiritual-real, not metaphorical;
it is the only priesthood that will be exercised in heaven. (p. 164) The
priestly qualification of the faithful is essential to the Church, but the
exercise of acts of this priesthood does not properly belong to her structure;
it does not constitute the Church as an institution but as a living reality,
a holy community.
The same distinction between structure and life enables Father Congar to
find a place for lay cooperation in the government of the Church. The
Church is constructed hierarchically, it is true; but the life through which
she fulfils her mission presupposes the cooperation of the faithful. The
laity share in the Church's kingly function when there is a meeting and
a harmonising between an hierarchical communication from above and a
community's consent. (pp. 249, 250)
The prophetical or magisterial function of the Church likewise requires
the cooperation of the laity; again on the level of life, not of structure.
The hierarchy alone teach ex officio; the faithful consent and believe. Yet
a greater degree of apostolic teaching activity (exhortation and apologetics)
is open to the laity today, especially under the aegis of Catholic Action.
The chapter on the laity and the Church's apostolic function contains a
most enlightening account of Catholic Action in all its phases.
Turning now to a critical estimate of Father Congar's book, we must
confess, after making due allowances for its many ·excellencies, to a few
misgivings and difficulties. To come straight to the heart of the matter, is
the distinction between structure and life, with the clergy and hierarchy
on the side of structure and the faithful laity on the side of life, a valid
distinction to help us understand what the Church really is? This is a
theological question and in a question of this kind the proximate and
universal criterion of truth is the living teaching authority of the Church.
This is explicitly taught in Humani generis and repeated in the allocution
of May 81, 1954 on the teaching authority of the Church. The question
now becomes this: has the living voice of the magisterium said anything
on the structure of the Church that will help us answer our question?
We believe it has.
The Encyclical Mystici Corporis explains why the Church is called a
body: it is formed not by any haphazard grouping. of members but is
constituted of organs, which are members arranged in due order but
which have not the same function. The Church is called a body for this
reason above all that it is constituted by the coalescence of structurally
united parts and that it has a variety of members reciprocally dependent.
The Encyclical then goes on to say:
One must not think, however, that this ordered or" organic" structure of the body

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233

of the Church contains only hierarchical elements and with them is complete; or,
as an opposite opinion holds, that it is composed only of those who enjoy charismatic gifts. . . . That those who exercise sacred power in this Body are its first
and chief members must be maintained uncompromisingly .... At the same time,
when the Fathers of the Church sing the praises of this Mystical Body of Christ,
with its ministries, its variety of ranks, its offices, its conditions, its orders, its
duties, they are thinking not only of those who have received Holy Orders, but
of all those too who, following the evangelical counsels, pass their lives either
actively among men, or hidden in the silence of the cloister, or who aim at combining the active and contemplative life according to their Institute; as also those
who, though living in the world, consecrate themselves wholeheartedly to spiritual
or corporal works of mercy, and of those who live in the state of holy matrimony.
Indeed, let this be clearly undemtood, especially in these our days: fathers and
mothers of families, those who are godparents through baptism, and in particular
those members of the laity who collaborate with the ecclesiastical hierarchy in
spreading the Kingdom of the Divine Redeemer occupy an honorable, if often a
lowly, place in the Christian community .... 1

The Church herself, then, does not exclude the laity from her structure,
nor does she deny to the clergy or hierarchy the property of life except in
their capacity as laymen. The root of the trouble seems to lie with the
position Father Congar assigns the magisterium in listing his authorities.
In his study of the priesthood of the faithful he tells us that " positive and
definitive indications can be obtained from patristic and theological tradition, from liturgy and practice, and (last, but not least) from the actual
magisterium." (p.
That "last, but not least" speaks better than
volumes. He is also under the impression that the teaching authority is
not one but three: "We have then to keep our theological exposition in
line with the teaching of the magisterium, of the liturgy and of tradition."
With all due respect to so eminent a scholar, ultimately we do
(p.
not have to keep our theological exposition in line with any more than one
authority, the living magisterium of the Church. Liturgy and tradition are
sources and witnesses of revealed truth but the only authority that can
definitively tell us what that truth is, is the living magisterium of the
Church teaching either in her solemn or in her ordinary form.
A certain ambiguity at times makes it difficult to be sure of the author's
meaning. Mystici Corporis clearly pOints out the difference between the
mystical body of Christ and His physical body. The mystical body is a
society whose head and ruler is Christ. His physical body is something
different: it is the same body that was born of the Virgin Mary, that now
sits at the right hand of the Father, and that is also hidden under the
Eucharistic veils. (n. 60) It is disconcerting to read that "the eucharist
or sacramental body . . . shares the name of Body of Christ with his
fleshly body and his fellowship-body. This sacramental mystery ... is the
1

N. C. W. C. edition of the Encyclical, 1948, n. 17 (p. 9).

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BOOK . REVIEWS

bond between the fleshly body of the incarnate Word and his fellowshipbody .... (p. 155) Does the Eucharist share only the name of the body
of Christ? Is it an entity midway between the fleshly· body and the
mystical body, related to these two and linking them together? Is there
not a reminiscence here of Waterman's Eucharistic body and blood of
Christ distinct from his natural body on the one hand and from his
mystical body on the other?
By way of conclusion, in our opinion Father Congar's book will raise
more questions than it answers. Perhaps this is a good thing. Time alone
will tell. We regret that the work has not an index; it would greatly
increase its usefulness. The best compliment we can pay to the translator
is to say that it does not read like a translation at all.
WILLIAM R. O'CoNNOR
St. John the Evangelist Rectory,
New York, N. Y.

BRIEF NOTICES
Science Ver8U8 Pkilosopky, by F. G. CoNNOLLY.
New York, 1957. Pp. 90. $8.75.

Philosophical Library:

After all that has been said about the relationship between science and
philosophy, the interested student might still be looking for a brief summary of the different views and a convincing solution to the vexing problem.
In this little book there is a good statement of the various positions, together with the generous offer of a compromise theory, but no attempt at
demonstrating a conclusion. The author treats briefly of science in relation
to all the other disciplines; to philosophy both speculative and moral, to
mathematics, to the arts and the social sciences, to theology and even to
the supernatural virtues and gifts. The correlations which he points out
would be useful for the integration 'of knowledge if the various parts could
be united in an organized whole. All depends upon the theory, and this
is explained in the sixth chapter.
Here the author accepts the view that modem non-mathematical science
is entirely different from the philosophy of nature, because the analysis
typical of natural philosophy ascends toward intelligible being, whereas
the analysis in science descends toward sensory reality. He admits that
there is a limit to the analysis proper to natural philosophy, and that this
discipline is distinct from metaphysics. Moreover, he acknowledges that
we cannot differentiate between natural philosophy and science within the
order of intellectual knowledge. Hence he proposes that science is substantially of the order of sensitive knowledge achieved by the deliberative
imagination. This work of the imagination is called prophysical abstraction, and is the work of a sensory power, not of the intellect. In addition
to prophysical abstraction the author admits also physical, mathematical
and metaphysical abstraction, although in the last analysis he says that
one and the same light is involved in mathematics and in the philosophy
of nature.
While treating of these delicate matters, the author refers to various
texts in the writings of St. Thomas, and he accommodates them to the
requirements of his own theory. These Thomistic texts are taken entirely
out of context, and there is no effort to follow the method, the· principles,
or the major conclusions of St. Thomas in regard to the distinction of the
sciences. St. Thomas thought that the accidents and properties of natural
things which can be known through experience manifest the essences or
natures of these things sufficiently for the purposes of natural philosophy.
With this the author does not agree, and so he does not think that the

!il85

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BRIEF NOTICES

data of modern science can be assimilated by the principles of natural
philosophy. In place of the beautifully organized synthesis developed by St.
Thomas, we 1:1.re presented with a dismembered philosophy of nature, a
non-rational science of the common sensibles, and with mathematics which
share the light both of natural philosophy and of metaphysics. This theory
may not satisfy very .many readers, but the author's work does help to
show where the difficulties lie and why there are different views of the
matter.
WILLIAM H. :KANE, O.P.
Dominican HOUIIe of Studies,
River Forest, Illinois

Marriage and the Family. By ALPHONSE H. CLEMENS. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1957. Pp. 368. $6.00.
At a time when so many reporters of the American Catholic scene profess
to see only the inadequate and seamy sides of Catholic life in America,
there are optimistic notes sounding in the realm of marriage and the family.
The optimism stems from many indications. Not the least of these is
the fact that today, as never before, so many American ·Catholics have
come to appreciate the wisdom of knowing about marriage in some scientific
fashion in advance of plunging into the married state. More and more it
is recognized that there is precious little wisdom in a lengthy, sometimes
quite arduous, education for professional life while the more abiding thingmarriage and family life-is prepared for only incic;l.entally and incompletely, if at all.
·
CatholiCs have always had an exalted
of marriage. That is not
to say, however, that we Catholics have always organized our knowledge
and coorditlated the natural with the supernatural as an integrated study
of what is to be an integrated married life. This splendid book by Dr.
Alphonse Clemens, along with an increasing number of other worthwhile
Catholic works on the subject; indicates that here American Catholics .are
making substantial and encouraging progress.
The author of this volume js the director of the Marriage Counseling
Center at The Catholic University of America. He is a man trained in
economics and sociology, a marriage counselor of long and wide experience,
a married man himself and an optimist, this latter an item of no mean
importance. At the same time he has an adequate knowledge of philosophy
and theology, or at least is gifted with
who have such competence.
From this background the author has produced a book of many virtues
and few defects. The most obvious virtue is the degree to which Dr.
Clemens has integrated the varied material. on marriage. In his PrefaCe

BRIEF NOTICES

237

he says: "This book is religious in the sense that it is based on the Divine
Plan; it is scientific in that this Plan encompasses the social sciences as well
as the sacred sciences; it is integral in that it attempts to integrate the
supernatural with the natural; the sacred with the secular, the philosophic
with the scientific." (p. vi) In the main the author has achieved what he
set out to achieve.
There is a " Catholic viewpoint '' on marriage which is uniquely
Catholic. But there is a vast area of knowledge which we share with
others, which often enough has been developed as knowledge under other
than Catholic auspices. We are wise to use it and the author of this work
uses it wisely, recognizing that "every new scientific discovery al?out
marriage is a further revelation of the Great Design for it." (p. 836)
It is this Divine Plan which constitutes the main theme of the book.
Each chapter, no matter what the topic, end.s with a relating of the
material to the Divine Plan, e. g., " Family Economics and the Divine
Plan," " Personality Building and the Divine Plan."
Throughout the work Dr. Clemens is positive in his emphasis. Less space
is devoted to the problems of marriage, more to those positive elements
which might head off the problems. For example, while clearly indicating
conditions in marriage which might justify control of births, his chapter
on " Physical Parenthood " (ch. 13) is distinguished for its positive
approach to the dignity and advantages of parenthood and the desirability
of large families.
In an array of nineteen chapters, several can be singled out for their
particular merit, standing out as they do from the common run of treatment. Such are the chapters on" The Quality of Love," ·(ch. 4) "Selecting
a Partner,'' (ch. 7} "Marital Love," .(ch. 12) "Physical Parenthood," (ch.
18) "Educational Parenthood," (ch. 14) and "The Role of Recreation."
(ch. 16) . In all of this Dr. Clemens demonstrates the wisdom of linking
marriage and the family. If marriage is for the sake of the family, the
two should be linked; otherwise the treatment of marriage becomes a dessicated, unreal presentation.
Apart from content, it should be noted that the work is clearly written,
remarkably easy to read, and printed with unusual clarity and
In a book so generally excellent, there are still some noticeable deficiencies. Canon Law is an important reality for Catholic marriage and it
receives quite incidental and inadequate treatment. Again, while there is
a sufficient Index, there is no bibliography, only footnote references to
books and articles from which the author quotes.
.
One wonders, too, why the fine last chapter on " Design for Successful
Marriage," (ch. 19) which the author recommends should be read first by
"the deeply serious reader," was not placed at the beginning of the book
where it seems to belong, especially since it is a lucid justification of the
integrated treatment
the book represents.

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BRIEF NOTICES

Ordinarily a writer tends to ride hardest the horse he knows best, and
one is not surprised to find frequent use of statistical and evaluative
material from the neld of sociology in a book of this sort. Yet, in the
Appendix, Dr. Clemens has written on "The Unscientific Aspects of
Marriage Literature," casting generous cold water on the conclusiveness of
much of this study. And, while he writes that" an attempt has consistently
been made, however, to use them in such fashion that the reader would
realise that they are not conclusive findings," (p. 343) it is certainly not
evident throughout the book that he is taking such a cautious approach
to everything he uses and quotes.
This volume deserves a wide use and suggests a wide variety of users.
It certainly can be of profit to those who are keeping company, and to
Catholics already married. Although not specifically claiming to be a text,
it would seem to fulfill most of the needs of a marriage-course text for
Catholic colleges. While claiming to be " for Catholics," it is the sort of
work which one might profitably give to non-Catholics as well.
RoBERT

J. WELCH

School of Religion,
University of Iowa,
Iowa City, Iowa

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Ed. by F. L. CRoss. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1957. Pp. 15II. $17.50.
This comprehensive and handy volume is a valuable.addition to reference
works on religion. Not only the educated public as a whole, but priests
and ministers, theologians and historians will greet it with gratitude and
be glad to have it available. Furthermore, because Christianity has been
so intimately connected with more than nineteen centuries of secular history
in Europe and elsewhere, the book will have a wide relevance not merely
for students of Christianity, but for all serious readers interested in the
history of civilization and in the literature of Christian countries.
The aim of the Dictionary is to provide factual information on every
aspect of Christianity, especially in its historical development. It contains
over 6,000 entries ranging from a few lines to about 2,500 words in length.
Approximately 30 per cent of these are biographical, dealing not only with
saints, popes, bishops, monastic leaders, theologians and other writers, but
also with heretics and persecutors, secular rulers, philosophers, and many
other persons. Other articles deal with bodies such as national churches,
denominations, sects, religious orders, societies, and missions; others again
with the great Christian doctrines and with religious tenets and schools of
thought. Liturgical subjects, canon law, Christian institutions and customs,

BRIEF NOTICES

239

asceticism and devotion are included, together with places having special
Christian associations, councils, documents, and notable writings. There
is a wide class of entries explaining miscellaneous points of Christian
terminology and usage.
The volume is introduced by a preface explaining the scope, method, and
procedure of the Dictionary, together with a list of contributors and a table
of abbreviations. The contributors (a number of them scholars of high
distinction) are responsible for roughly half the entries, including most of
those of major importance; the others are the work of the Editor and his
immediate assistants. The entries are anonymous and the Editor has
exercised wide editorial powers in modifying and reconstructing the articles
to achieve uniformity and consistency in the work. The articles are also
interrelated through a system of cross-references, indicated by asterisks in
the body of the entries to mark pertinent or related information elsewhere
in the volume, thus sparing the reader the time and effort of searching to
see if there is further material on subjects connected with his immediate
interests.
Though the Editor and his associates have striven to give due and
proportionate attention to all the parts and aspects of the vast field they
have chosen to cover, of necessity, since history is a selective discipline,
some readers will probably feel that undue attention has been paid to some
subjects and not enough to others. Since the historical treatment predominates, the theologian, for example, may not always find in the entries
the extended doctrinal development that he might have wished. The Editor
points out that biblical subjects could not be handled, in the nature of the
case, with the fulness that a biblical scholar might demand. Nevertheless,
the doctrinal and biblical entries are adequate, considering the purpose and
nature of the book, for the needs of the general reader. The Editor also
calls attention to the fact that the Dictionary places greater emphasis on
Western Christendom than on Eastern Christianity, more on Christianity in
Great Britain than on that of the Continent of Europe or more distant
countries, more on the events of modern centuries than on those of the
early Middle Ages. This will explain why a Catholic reader might be
disappointed at finding less space accorded a pope he considers important
than to an archbishop of Canterbury he believes relatively obscure.
The entries are so written as to be immediately intelligible to the layman
and avoid technicalities in presentation; nevertheless, the specialist will
welcome them as up-to-date and reasonably comprehensive. He will be
grateful for the concise bibliographies, printed in smaller type at the end of
the articles, that give precise references to the historic literature of the
subject, and standard sources of information. They record the principal
works of primary and permanent interest and put the reader in possession
of a larger body of bibliographic material on the subject than is usually
available in works of similar compass. The bibliographies perform another

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BRIEF NOTICES

important service in indicating where original texts of important documents may be found, and as Napoleon's Organic Articles of 1801, papal
bulls, etc.
The Editor and contributors have made a special effort to be objective
and accurate. To judge from the necessarily limited perusal that the
reviewer has been able to make of the volume, they appear to have
succeeded to a high degree in realizing this aim. Considering that the
work is the product largely (though not exclusively) of Protestant scholars,
controversial subjects and matters touching the Catholic Church have been
handled very well. It is probably the Protestant of " low-church " persuasion who will be more dissatisfied with some of the entries. For this
reason it may appear ungracious for the reviewer to point out some discrepancies that have fallen under his eye. However, the Editor himself
acknowledges that perfection, particularly in a first edition, " is an unattainable ideal " and he " appeals to the goodwill of his readers to inform him
of points needing correction." It is in this spirit that we make the following
observations.
The article on the "Edict of Nantes" is silent about the political privileges that made the Huguenots practically a state within a state. The
notice, too, in recording Richelieu's occasional violations of the Edict might
have noted that the Cardinal respected the
provisions of the
document even after he had stripped away the political privileges of the
Huguenots. Probably an entry should have been devoted to the Penal
Laws enforced against Catholics in England, Ireland, Scotland, and the
American colonies from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. They
had an important bearing on the history of the Church, retarding its
growth, reducing its membership, nullifying its influence, and almost crushing it out of existence. There is a bare reference in the entry " Ireland,
Christianity in" (p. 701) to "the repressive measures of the 17th and
18th centuries " that helped consolidate rather than destroy Catholicism
in Ireland. The bibliography under " Christology " should probably have
included more wprks from Catholic pens.
The " Reformation " entry should have mentioned Henry VIII's marital
difficulties (p. 1145) in narrating the English break with Rome. Such
mention is made under " Henry VIII " (p. 6£4) and is noted as the
" occasion " of the English separation from Rome in the article " Church
of England." (p. 288) The entry " Henry VIII " makes the questionable
implication that Clement VII might have given more than a " conditional
dispensation for a new marriage " with Anne Boleyn had he not been at
the time prisoner of Charles V, nephew of Catherine of Aragon. Considering the Catholic position on marriage, Clement could not have gone any
further than he did. Under the circumstances his reply was extremely
favorable to Henry, who contested the validity of his marriage with
Catherine precisely .because he challenged the papal right to grant a

BRIEF NOTICES

241

dispensation from the impediment of affinity that presumably existed
between himself and his wife, owing to the fact that she had been previously married to his deceased brother Arthur. Now Henry was asking
such a dispensation from the affinity that had arisen between himself and
Anne Boleyn from his unlawful connections with Anne's elder sister.
The article on" Millenarianism" errs in stating (p. 901) that the opinion
has " never been formally rejected by Orthodox Christianity." A decree
of the Holy Office of the Catholic Church, issued July 21, 1944, stated that
Millenarianism might not be safely taught. (Acta apostolicae sedis, XXXVI,
1944, p. 212) Regarding the Inquisition, it is more accurate to call the
Inquisition- in the Middle Ages the Medieval Inquisition rather than the
Dominican Inquisition, (p. 31) since not only Dominicans but also Franciscans, Carmelites, secular priests, and others served as inquisitors. Likewise it is an over-simplification to attribute to Alexander VI the " prosecution and execution " of Savonarola. (p. 33) The trial and execution were
conducted by the Florentine government. Though Alexander claimed the
right to judge the accused, the government yielded only to the extent of
admitting two papal judges to the court which would pronounce sentence.
When the two judges arrived in Florence the trial was already far advanced
and the Florentine judges had made .up their minds. The article " Paul
III " gives the impression {p. 1032) that Paul had his "three sons and a
daughter " while pope, whereas these children were the issue of the extravagances of his earlier years. From the time of his ordination to the
priesthood Paul's moral life was exemplary.
The Dictionary is a handsome volume, accurately printed (the reviewer
has not found a single typographical error) on thin, strong paper and
stoutly bound in blue buckram. It maintains the fine typographical traditions of the Oxford University Press.
WILLIAM A. HINNEBUSCH, 0. P.
Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. 0.

Sociology: By JosEPH H. FICHTER. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1957. Pp. 463 with indexes. $5.00.
This volume by Father Fichter undoubtedly has much value as an
introductory textbook in the field of sociology. It has value, particularly,
because the author has struck upon a well-organized approach to his
subject matter. His technique is to "conceptualize" social behavior, i.e.,
to recognize that social behavior occurs, evidently, in the concrete order
and to abstract " ... essential generalizations from the concrete occur-

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BRIEF NOTICES

rences," (p. 3) in order that one might look at this behavior more easily
and understand it more readily. For example, generalizations or "concepts" are formed about patterns of social behavior, .about roles, about
institutions, about culture, etc. In each of the eighteen chapters of his
work, Father Fichter concentrates upon and elaborates upon a different
sociological conceptualization, analyzes it, defines it, shows its divisions
and peculiar aspects. Also, as a special feature in each chapter, he shows
how these conceptualizations pertain, in a practical way, to American
social life. Specifically, as an example, one can turn to chapter twelve.
There the author discusses what is involved in the concept of culture, what
culture is not, how culture is related to environment, what is meant by
culture "area," "lag," etc., and what the functions of culture are. After
this analysis of the general notion of culture, Father Fichter points out,
in the second part of the chapter, the distinctive features of American
culture. From the points of view of orderliness, lucidity and interest, this
technique should meet with the high approval of most sociologists.
Moreover, the general division of the text reflects a well-reasoned approach to the complex subject matter of a general introductory sociology
course. The volume is divided into three major parts: the first, entitled
"Person and Society," investigating the smallest unit of society, the
person, and indicating, in six chapters, the factors involved in the socialization process; the second part, under the heading of " Patterns and Culture,"
studying, for the next six chapters, what people do in society and analyzing
the culture pattern in itself and in combination with other social patterns
to bring about the " total culture "; the third section, called " Culture and
Society," bringing together the concepts of cultural habits and group life
and showing, in the concluding chapters, such aspects of social living as
values, social mobility, social control, deviations in society, and sociocultural integration. Thus, the ordering of the parts of sociology is ably
presented. It is noteworthy that in this detailed presentation of his subject
matter, the writer does not use one footnote, since he feels that it would
be ". . . pedantic to refer to sources of common elementary knowledge."
(p. v) However, the advisability of this omission in what is proposed as an
introductory textbook is certainly debatable. Moreover, the abstract
nature of the "conceptual" approach here proposed may offer a "roadblock " to the beginner in the study of the science of society-but surely
not an insurmountable one. A valuable aspect of the book, for both teacher
and student, is the inclusion of a list of discussion questions at the end of
each chapter, plus pertinent references for outside reading. In general,
therefore, by virtue of the subject matter chosen for treatment and by
virtue of the approach stressed, this volume merits interested appraisal
by those searching for an introductory text.
But one should not conclude this review without reference to a matter

BRIEF NOTICES

of much concern to many teachers in the field of sociology, relating to a
sense of values and to the general problem of the application of values in
sociology. Father Fichter's position in this matter is expressed in a forthright way. He writes: " This book avoids also the various value slants
that in a hidden or open way are lodged in most introductory sociology
textbooks. Above all, it does not moralize from any particular ethical
point of view." (p. v) Also, "From a scientific point of view, sociology is
not aligned with any particular moral system. Social science in itself cannot be democratic or totalitarian; it cannot be Christian or Mohammedan .
. . . If he (the sociologist) says that one system is as 'good' as another
or that some are ' worse ' than others, he is making a value judgment
which emerges from his moral role rather than from his scientific role."
(pp. 7-8) Thus, the tenor of the author's observations about values is,
clearl:y, that he is to avoid judgments in these matters as much as is
possible. In this conclusion, he must be prepared to answer many questions
proposed by those who would not side with him in this fundamental sociological problem. For example, he must respond to those who, with some
justification, say: Is a sociology " colored " by one's social philosophy
necessarily an inferior one scientifically? In the observation, description
and classification of sociological data can not one's social philosophy be a
definite asset in making evaluations about the social nature of man? Will
not the social scientist who brings into play objective and eternal truths
in his study of society and of human behavior be in a better position
than the social scientist who depends merely upon what has been described
as the " laboratory technique? " Since sociology draws from and depends
upon other subjects, such as economics, history and psychology, should it
not also express its dependence upon and make use of principles from
ethics and other phases of philosophy? Should not one attempt, in the
hope of integration, to relate and to unify the data of sociology with one's
philosophy and, ultimately, with one's theology? As noted in the opening
sentence of this review, Father Fichter's book has, admittedly, much of
value sociologically speaking; but his stand concerning " values " in
sociology, will, undoubtedly, evoke a spirited response from those who see
the study of human behavior in sociology as intimately linked and closely
interrelated with the higher sciences of philosophy and theology.
MICHAEL MuRPHY,

Providence College,
Providence, R.I.

0. P.

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BRIEF NOTICES

A History of Philosophy. By CARMIN MAsciA, T. 0. R. Paterson:
Anthony Guild Press, 1957. Pp. 513 with indexes. $5.00.

St.

The title of this book is somewhat misleading. A History of Human
Thought would have expressed its scholarly contents more accurately. If the
author had limited himself to recording the progress of truly philosophical
thought over the past twenty-five centuries, he might have produced an
excellent textbook on the history of philosophy. He might have, I say,
because Fr. Mascia's concept of philosophy leaves much to be desired.
And so it is doubtful that he would have excluded ideas which are more
proper to a history of religion or theology, of art or the experimental
sciences. This confusion of considering philosophy as practically co-extensive with human thought is especially unfortunate since the book is otherwise quite orderly. Before each chapter is a precise preview of its contents
and after the chapters a summary and bibliography. As the author says,
the light-face italics in the text are used " for the positive doctrines which
each school has contributed toward the development of truth " and the
bold-face italics are used " merely for general emphasis."
In the Introduction of the book, Fr. Mascia adopts the erroneous division
of philosophy first proposed by Christian Wolff. "Accordingly, metaphysics
is usually divided as follows: metaphysics
so-called (the study
of being as such), rational psychology (the study of man), cosmology
(the study of the material world), and theodicy (the study of God)."
This division is based upon the notion that metaphysics is all of philosophy
and not just a part of it. Such a metaphysicism would really destroy
natural philosophy (cosmology and psychology). And to treat so-called
theodicy as a discipline distinct from metaphysics " properly so-called "
is to cut off the principles from which we can draw our natural knowledge
of God as the First Cause of all being.
Part One of the book considers Greek Philosophy from Thales (624 B. C.)
to Plotinus (270 A. D.). The author calls the first period one of naturalism
in which he briefly summarizes the thought of the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, the Eleatic School, and of such Pluralists as Empedocles,
Anaxagoras and the Atomists. Because of his misconception of philosophy,
Fr. Mascia vainly attributes to Anaximander the search for a metaphysical
principle. The first Greek philosophers were at most natural philosophers
looking for an explanation of· the material universe. They were not metaphysicians who had penetrated to an immaterial object in reality through
the highest degree of abstraction. This, of course, does not deny that their
speculation paved the way for the metaphysical period which reached its
perfection in the philosophy of Aristotle.
In the Metaphysical Period of Greek Philosophy, Fr. Mascia considers
the Sophists, Socrates, the Minor Socratic Schools, Plato and Aristotle.

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245

Even here he tends to confuse an otherwise orderly treatment by trying
to make the principles of Aristotle's physics metaphysical. This can only
obscure the real contribution of Aristotelian metaphysics to the development
of truth. For, although metaphysics sheds additional light upon the other
parts of philosophy, it remains essentially distinct from them. In this
section while commenting upon Aristotle's psychology, the author misrepresents St. Thomas' teaching on the agent intellect. The Angelic Doctor
does not affirm that " the agent intellect is the same as the human soul ...
considered as capable of abstracting the universal forms from the individuating characteristics." (p. 84) He very definitely teaches that it is
a power distinct from the essence of the soul. (cf. Summa Theol., I, q.
29, a. 4)

The Ethical Period of Greek Philosophy includes Stoicism, Epicureanism,
Skepticism and Eclecticism. The history of this philosophy ends with the
Religious Period or the doctrine of Plotinus. In his conclusions on Greek
thought, Fr. Mascia points out both its perfection and deficiencies, and
gives a general indication of the contribution that Christianity would make
to philosophical thought.
Part Two, Christian Philosophy, begins with Christ and terminates with
the decadence of Scholastic Philosophy in the fourteenth century. Providing the term, Christian Philosophy, is understood to mean the philosophy
of men who are Christians, no confusion need arise from it. As the author
is careful to note, Christianity is essentially religion and so distinct from
philosophy. But his manner of distinguishing them is not completely
correct. These two entities are not so disparate that they cannot combine
in speculative theology in which the light of philosophical reason becomes
the instrument of Faith for the better understanding of Christian principles.
The superior light of revelation elevates reason to a consideration of truths
beyond its natural powers. The light of theology combines Christianity
and philosophy without confusing them. But any incorporation of Christian truth into a philosophical system that is not independently derived
from principles of reason alone is theologism, for it would be the use in
philosophy of a method that is purely theological. Only theology can
formulate arguments based upon the revealed principles of Faith. Therefore, not to see dearly how philosophy is used in the service of Christianity
in the science of Catholic theology, is to run the risk of designating theological concepts as philosophical. And this seems to be why the author
looks upon the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas as a philosophical treatise.
(p. 193) In this magnificent synthesis of Sacred Doctrine, philosophy is
found in a theological context and is elevated to become an instrument of
Faith. In other words, it is no longer really philosophy but a part of
theological truth. Now this in no way means that philosophy has not
received much from the Christian Religion and Theology, but only that

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truth is to be called philosophical which can be attained according to the
method of philosophy from its own rational principles.
The section on Christian Philosophy consists of the Period of Evangelization, Patristic Philosophy, and finally Scholastic Philosophy. If the author
had preserved more accurately the autonomy of philosophy as a distinct
discipline, he could have treated more completely the development of
philosophical truth during this most fruitful period. While there is a
philosophical thought to be abstracted from the theological treatises of an
Augustine or an Aquinas, the mystics do not warrant formal consideration
in a history of philosophy. Someone like St. Albert the Great ought to
have been considered in their place.
The historian of philosophy is also a critic of philosophy. He not only
records the ideas contained in the various philosophical systems, but also
evaluates their contribution to the advancement of philosophical truth.
The historian of philosophy, therefore, must be somewhat of a philosopher
himself. His own mind must adhere steadfastly to a coherent system of
philosophical concepts and principles as the criteria whereby he judges the
validity of the ideas set forth by other philosophers: On the basis of his
own intellectual conviction, he must make a choice. When confronted by
two systems that are mutually opposed in their very premisses, he cannot
be equally partial to both. Now Fr. Mascia, as a Catholic priest and a
scholastic philosopher, has made his choice up to a point. Certainly he
would pass judgment against any philosophical opinion that is opposed to
supernatural truth or the sound reasoning of Scholasticism. But Scholasticism, as the term is used, is quite broad. It is used to embrace two systems
as mutually opposed in their philosophical premisses as Scotism and
Thomism. It is not fair, either to Scotus or to St. Thomas, to treat their
systems as equally important in the development of philosophical truth.
Neither one used words indiscriminately. And traditionally, Scotists and
Thomists have interpreted their words to express philosophical principles
that are mutually opposed. The author himself records the differences, but
treats both systems as of equal value. In the introduction, Fr. Mascia
says: "As these difference do not amount to any contradictory consequences and as the controversy is still open, it has seemed advisable to
emphasize both positions." The fact of the matter is that their consequences
are radically different because they flow from concepts and principles that
are radically different. As an historian of philosophy, therefore, Fr. Mascia
should have taken his stand because two systems so fundamentally different
as Scotism and Thomism cannot have made an equal contrbiution to the
development of philosophical truth.
Part Three, Modern Philosophy, is the most valuable section of the book.
The author begins by contrasting modern philosophy with that of the
Greeks and the Christians and sums up its essential characteristics in the

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word immanentism. The absolutely first metaphysical principle is no longer
God, the ultimate cause who transcends all finite reality. The moderns have
tried to replace God with nature or man, a principle of immanentism.
In ·a word, the moderns have tried to destroy metaphysics. Therefore,
Fr. Mascia should not even use the word in connection with the philosophies
of Rationalism, Empiricism,
Kantian Criticism, Idealism,
Positivism or most of the Contemporary philosophies. One hesitates to call
many of these systems even philosophical. The author continually criticizes
the particular form of immanentism in these systems. His summary of
Kant's thought is done with special excellence. His appraisal of Blondel's
system of philosophy, however, as a "truly Catholic parallel to classical
Scholasticism but at the same time independent of it," (p. 460) is not too
convincing. Fr. Mascia completes his consideration of Modern Philosophy
with what he calls the Contemporary Philosophy of the Spirit in which
is included the Intuitionism of Bergson, Modernism, American and English
Neo-Realism, the Neo-Scholastic revival and the various forms of Existentialism. The conclusion of the book is a summary of the teachings of
Neo-Scholasticism which "has inherited the fundamental philosophical
truths of the past, and has enriched them by keeping in constant touch with
the discoveries of the present."
The main criticism against this book is that it has attempted to say
too much. Because the author has certain misconceptions on the true
nature of philosophy, too many ideas were introduced. Although the
philosopher has a definite relationship to the theologian, the artist, the
physicist etc., his approach to the understanding of reality demands a
distinct set of principles and ideas. In a history of philosophy these ideas
must receive almost exclusive consideration. I say almost exclusive consideration because there is room for other notions insofar as they provide
the raw material for philosophising. But the author has introduced too
many of these extraneous ideas, and has obscured an otherwise orderly
history of philosophy by his metaphysicism and tinges of theologism.
Realizing these facts, the reader of this book can learn much about the
philosophical thought of the past twenty-five centuries. And, with the
same qualifications, the professor might judiciously use the book as a text
for a survey course in history of philosophy.
MICHAEL JELLY,

College,
R.I.

o. P.

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Freud, Psychoanalysis, Catholicism. By PETER J. R. DEMPSEY, 0. F. M.
Cap. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956. Pp. 9.!04, with select
bibliography. $3.00.
In making a comprehensive comparison of broad systems of thought, and
especially of systems so broad that they constitute ways of life, one is
inevitably faced with problems of selection and omission, of level and
degree of analysis, of mode of expression, and so on. The fundamental
problem, that of point of view, is, of course, already settled for those who
possess a framework of basic principles in which they have lived and
thought for many years, as is the case with Fr. Dempsey, priest, religious
and Catholic scholar. The other problems he seems to have solved with an
eye to the brevity of the book and a prospective reading public which is
educated but not scholarly.
The book opens with a general conspectus of psychological positions,
necessarily cursory, with a certain emphasis on the notion of soul or spirit
in psychology. This is followed by a treatment of Freud's religion, not
so much of his theoretical concepts on this subject as of the personal
experiences which molded, even unconsciously, his religious outlook. These
sections form the setting after which the doctrine of psychoanalysis is
compared with Catholic thought.
The expository section of the book follows what might be termed a
topical outline of Freudian metapsychology, considering first the fundamental concepts-instincts, libido and aggression, Id, Ego and Super-ego,and then several subsidiary notions. Not much is said of investigational
techniques, of therapy or of the philosophical positions involved in or
deduced from psychoanalysis. Each idea is developed and compared with
Catholic thought on or around the same general concept, and naturally
judged on the strength of its comparative accuracy, richness, clarity and
coherence.
The final sections of the book purport to apply the ideas worked up in
the preceding sections to the field of literary interpretation, but would seem
to be more accurately described as an exposition of Aristotelian principles
of dramatic criticism with some apposite comments from modern authors,
particularly Freud and Jung.
Within the limits he has set for himself Fr. Dempsey has turned out a
readable and understandable book, a book which will appeal to the public
for which he is writing. He writes in the manner of a popular lecturer,
with the strengths and weaknesses which that implies. The language is
generally simple and non-technical, and the ideas are presented without
complications. However, the level of analysis is not consistent, veering,
sometimes confusingly, from the empirical to the theological to the anec-

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BRIEF NOTICES

dotal. Comparisons are sometimes made too abruptly, before the ground
has been sufficiently prepared, as, for instance, when libidinal impulses
are compared with the activity of charity, or phases of infantile development according to Freud with St, John of the Cross' descriptions of phases
in the life of spiritual beginners. It would seem that such comparisons of
analogous terms should not be made without painstaking care, lest the
similarities on which the analogies are founded should blur the perception of
the differences, which are fundamentally more significant. This problem,
of course, is one which must necessarily face the author who tries to
handle profound and intricate ideas in a few sentences or paragraphs.
Something is bound to be lost when the fineness of the analysis is governed
not by the nature of the matter but by the limitations of space. It should
be noted in this connection that the several mentions of Thomistic concepts,
e. g., the via cogitativa and the passions, would have been better omitted
than treated so briefly, and, in fact, deficiently.'
In general, however, it should not be denied that the work of the sort
that Fr. Dempsey has done is tending basically in the right direction. The
study of psychoanalytic doctrines and opinions .is bound to enhance a
psychological system, and eventually extend a good influence into many
parts of philosophy and theology. Granting that much must be done
to purify and refine the tenets of Freudian psychoanalysis (and that much
has already been done), it is also granted that a book which aims to
integrate them into Christian doctrine has a good aim. Moreover, such
work must be presented not only at the levels of serious scholarship but
also at more popular levels, pursuing, in a sense, the trails left by earlier
psychoanalytic writings. From such a point of view Fr. Dempsey deserves
the credits which go to trail makers.
MICHAEL

STOCK,

O.P.

Dominican HOU8e of Philosophy,
Dover, Maaa.

Logic and Knowledge. By BERTRAND RussELL. New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1956. Pp. 898. $4.50.
Logic and Knowledge is the philosophical profile of Bertrand Russell.
Thanks to an excellent editorial assist from Robert C. Marsh, this collection of ten Russellian essays, covering fifty years of writing (1901-1950),
gives us a superb insight into the mind of a world-famous mathematician
and an internationally known critic of faith and morals. Probably between
no other two covers are contained so much of Russell's serious philosophical
thought as that found in Logic and Knowledge.
Russell identifies himself as a logical atomist. By this he means all

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BRIEF NOTICES

things can ·be and should be subjected to analysis and broken down to
their smallest component parts. This is to be achieved through the instrumentality of that great tool which Russell did so much to popularize,
mathematical logic. Included in his logical atomism is the attempt to
reduce all thought to a few basic principles. Throughout his system,
Russell adheres to the reality of things as apprehended by common sense
and a dualism which is often agnostic but totally so as concerns God and
the immortality of the human soul. Russell does not deny the reality of
God or the spirituality of the soul but simply has not established them to
his own satisfaction.
As for knowledge, Dr. Russell does not set forth, in these essays, any
complete theory of ideogenesis. He does state flatly his belief in universals and their dependence on things. Indeed, one chapter is especially
interesting from the point of view of how a philosopher can back into the
theory without realizing it. Of course, Bertrand
Russell is by no means in perfect harmony with the scholastic concept of
knowledge or universals but he does, at least verbally, share many of its
doctrines.
In the process of expounding his own theory of knowledge, Russell
attacks Idealism and the Neutral Monism of William James. Also he takes
issue with many points held by the logical positivists, Dewey's Pragmatism.
and Watson's Behaviorism. Constantly Russell makes remarks about the
traditional philosophy of Aristotle. For Russell this .is a dead, discarded
system of ·thought. Although he has a knowledge of the syllogism and
some facets of the Greek school, nowhere does he indicate a direct knowledge of Aristotle. He does tell us of his readings in philosophy, and these
were extensive, but Aristotle and St. Thomas apparently were not among
them.
Bertrand Russell writes with humor and in Logic and Knowledge he
really spells out his philosophy. Anyone who would attempt a serious
critical study of Russell would have to read Logic and Knowledge. His
wit makes the reading very pleasant, and his apparent honesty makes the
reader sympathetic even though it is not always, o-r usually, possible to
agree with Russell's conclusions.
Further, nothing that this reviewer has read on mathematical logic, and
that includes the. Preface and Introductions of the second editiori of
Principia Mathematica, explains so well the purpose of that instrument of
thought as does Logic and Knowledge. One sentence is a real eye opener.
Russell is claiming for mathematical logic the perfection· of a near perfectly logical language. Then he adds: "A logically perfect language, if
it could be constructed, would not orily be intolerably prolix, but, as
regards its vocabulary, would be largely private to one speaker. That is

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251

to say, all the names that it would use would be private to that speaker
and could not enter into the language of another speaker." (p. 198)
For the Thomist, the weakness of Russell lies in the fact that he is
really not a philosopher at all but a student of philosophy. His first love
is mathematics and he never really abandons it. He simply wants to reduce
everything back to it and hopes all problems will be solved through it.
It is a vain hope but by no means a new one.
Russell was really overwhelmed by Ludwig Wittgenstein who was his
student in 1912. For the next ten years Russell is under a semantic cloud.
Being a realist at heart, Russell finds Wittgenstein quite fantastic, but not
being a genuine philosopher himself, Russell is unable to see the weaknesses in the position of Wittgenstein's attack on language. Russell absorbs
some of Wittgenstein's ideas, alters them to suit his own concept of reality
and then tries to adapt his system so that Wittgenstein's barbs will not
be valid against him. Essay after essay betrays this attempt by Russell
who in the end must admit that Wittgenstein exaggerated. Wittgenstein
himself would eventually admit the same and so only Carnap remains to
hold the torch against language.
Unfortunately, Russell jumped into philosophy without having some very
important notions clear in his own mind. Hence, he writes like one just
thinking on the problems for the first time and comes up with the answers
people usually do who philosophize for the first time. Russell confuses the
intentional and existential orders constantly; he ruins his treatment of the
universals and particulars by not distinguishing the particular from the
singular or individual; he is not clearcut on the difference between sense
knowledge and intellectual knowledge; unconsciously he tends to Idealism;
and he makes foolish errors, as for example, when he repudiates the syllogism Darapti, not realizing that the real mistake arises from the use of
four terms, a mistake which is ultimately traced back to his lack of understanding of analogy.
Also Russell's main thesis is not borne out in fact. He claimed that
mathematical logic would solve all problems facing man, not at once of
course but eventually. He then cites Whitehead's work, his co-author of
the Principia, as an example. In 1924 when Russell made the comparison
of his system and Whitehead's there was some ground for his optimism.
However, anyone who has read all of Whitehead and some of Russell knows
that their respective systems have little in common.
Finally, it might be said that Russell is not an unimportant figure in
philosophy. He should outlast many of his contemporaries. For one thing,
Russell presented the problems of thought clearly although his solutions
were not complete or acurate. He did see the problems and that alone
is a sign of genius. What he might have done had he been more sympathetic to the Aristotelian-Thomistic school is one of those "if's" of

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history. At any rate, he has left us a legacy of thought and perhaps his
own description in a note of gratitude to Robert Marsh puts it best as
regards Logic and Knowledge: " It is not for me to judge whether it is
worth while to perpetuate the record of what I thought at various times,
but if any historian of bygone lucubrations should wish to study my
development he will find this volume both helpful and reliable."
RAYMOND SMITH,

Dominican House of Philosophy,
Dover, Mass.

0. P.

BOOKS RECEIVED
A Symposium. World Crisis and The Catholic. New York: Sheed & Ward,
1957. Pp. fl31. $3.00.
Alexander, Ian W. Bergson. New York: Hillary House, 1'958. Pp. 109.
$2.00.

Anton, John P. Aristotle's Theory of Contrariety. New York: Humanities
Press, 1957. Pp. 26fl with index. $5.00.
Berkouwer, G. C. (tr. by David Freeman). The Conflict with Rome. Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1958. Pp. 319. $5.95.
Brightman, Edgar S. Person and Reality. New York: Ronald Press, 1958.
Pp. 379 with index. $6.50.
Bruehl, Charles P. and Campbell, William E. Psychology-The Study of
Man's Normal Mental Life. Villanova: Villanova Press, 1957. Pp.
394 with index. $5.50.
Channing, William E. Unitarian Christianity and Other Essays. New York:
Liberal Arts Press, 1958. Pp. 146. $.80.
Claude!, Paul. The Essence of the Bible. New York: Philosophical Library,
1957. Pp. 120. $3.00.
Cohen, Arthur. Martin Buber. New York: Hillary House, 1958. Pp. no.
$2.00.

Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. New York: Oxford, 1956. Pp.
362 with index. $1.75.
Connolly, F. G. Science versus Philosophy. New York: Philosophical
Library, 1957. Pp. 90. $3.75.
Cross, Robert. The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1958. Pp. 328 with index. $5.50.
Dachauer, Alban J. The Rural Life. Des Moines: The National Catholic
Rural Life Conference, 1958. Pp. 415.
Danielou, Jean. (tr. by Walter Roberts) God and the Ways of Knowing.
New York: Meridian Books, 1958. Pp. 249. $3.75.
Fowlie, Wallace. Claude!. New York: Hillary House, 1958. Pp. 111. $2.00.
Gardiner, S. J., Harold C. Catholic Viewpoint on Censorship. Garden City:
Hanover House, 1958. Pp. 192 with index. $2.95.
Goldwin, Robert A. {ed.) Toward the Liberally Educated Executive.
White Plains: Fund for Adult Education, 1957. Pp. 116.
Graham, 0. S. B., Aelred. Christian Thought and Action. New York:
Harcourt, Brace, 1958. Pp. 241 with index. $5.00.
Grene, Majorie. Heidegger. New York: Hillary House, 1958. Pp. 128.
$2.00.

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Guardini, Romano. (tr. by Isabel McHugh) The Lord's Prayer. New
York: Pantheon, 1957. Pp. 124. $2.75.
Hackett, C. A. Rimbaud. New York: Hillary House, 1958. Pp. 109. $2.00.
La Ravoire, Louis. My Catholic Faith. Kenosha: My Mission House,
1958. Pp. 429 with index. $4.00.
Lefever, Ernest W. Ethics and United States Foreign Policy. New York:
Medridiaii Books, 1958. Pp. 209 with indexes. $1.25.
Manheim, Ralph. (tr. by R. F. C. Hull) Man and Time. Papers from
the Eranos Yearbooks. New York: Pantheon, 1958. Pp. 429 with
indexes. $5.00.
Maritan, Jacques. Reflections on America. New York: Scribner's, 1958.
Pp. 205 with index. $3.50.
Mascall, E. L. Words and Images. New York: Ronald Press, 1958. Pp. 132
with index. $3.50.
Mircea, Eliade. Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Sheed &
Ward, 1958. Pp. 484 with indexes. $6.50.
More, Paul E. The Sceptical Approach to Religion. Princeton: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1958. Pp. 201. $3.50.
Noonan, Jr., John T. The Scholastic Analysis of Usury. Cambridge: Harvard Univ., 1958. Pp. 432 with indexes. $9.00.
Niebuhr, Richard E. Resurrection and Historical Reason. New York:
Scribner's, 1958. Pp. 188 with index. $3.95.
--; Williams, Daniel D.; Gustafson, James M. The Advancement of
Theological Education. New York: Harper, 1958. Pp. 246 with index.
$4.00.
Peirce, Charles S. Values in a Universe of Chance. Stanford: Stanford
University, 1958. Pp. 464 with Indexes. $3.95.
Ricciotti, G. (tr. by L. E. Byrne, C. R. L.) The Acts of the ApostlesText and Commentary. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1958. Pp. 431 with
indexes. $8.00.
Richardson, Cyril C. The Doctrine of the Trinity. New York: Abingdon
·
Press, 1958. Pp. 158 with indexes. $3.00.
Ridderbos, H. N. (tr. by David Freeman) Paul and Jesus. Philadelphia:
Presbyterian & Reformed, 1958. Pp. 155. $3.50.
Schorsch, C. M., Alexander P.; Sr. M. Dolores Schorsch, 0. S. B. Our Lord
and Our Lady. New York: Philosophical Library, 1957. Pp. 185 with
indexes. $4.50.
Sorokin, Pitrim. Social and Cultural Dynamics. Boston: Porter Sargent,
1958. Pp. 727 with indexes. $7.50.
Strothmann, F. W. (ed.) Saint Augustine and Two Cities. New York:
Frederick Ungar Co., 1958. Pp. 133. Cloth, $2.25; Paper, $.95.
Trochu, Francis. (tr. by John Joyce, S. J.) Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
New York: Pantheon, 1958. Pp. 400. $4.95.

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Tulane Studies in Philosophy, Vol. VI-Studies in Ethics. New Orleans:
Tulane Univ., 1957. Pp. 1:27. $2.00.
Van Noort, G. (tr. by John J. Castelot, S. S. and William R. Murphy, S. S.)
Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II-Christ's Church. Westminster: Newman,
1957. Pp. 456 with indexes. $7.00.
Voegelin, Eric. Order and History, Vol. II. The World of the Polis. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1958. Pp. 397. $6.00.
--. Order and History, Vol. Ill. Plato and Aristotle. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1958. Pp. 383. $6.00.
Weiss, Paul. Modes of Being. Carbondale: Southern Ill. Univ. Press, 1958.
Pp. 617 with indexes. $10.00.