BOOK REVIEWS

Abortion: the Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments. By Germain G. Grisez. New York: Corpus Publications, 1970. Pp. 570. Cloth, $15.00; paper, $6.95.

This is a major work that deserves wide reading and careful study. Grisez, a philosopher at Georgetown University, treats one of our most intensely debated moral and legal problems with outstanding completeness and depth. His work shows mastery of the vast literature on abortion: he discusses all the important issues raised in biological, medical, legal, political, sociological, psychiatric, theological, and ethical treatments of the subject. It is by far the most comprehensive and most penetrating discussion of the abortion question. Legislators, jurists, and scholars who have a responsibility to participate in the current abortion controversy should have this book.

The first three chapters are detailed analyses of the biological, medical, and sociological aspects of the problem. There is a wealth of factual information and a careful survey of all the most important interpretations and arguments based on the data. But this is more than an encyclopedia-type digest of a vast literature. Throughout intelligent criticism is bringing order and perspective to extremely complex questions.

A long chapter on religious views of abortion (pp. 117-84) is the finest survey that has been done on the subject. Grisez studies the attitudes of primitive religions toward abortion, and of Vedic, Zoroastrian, and Egyptian sources; the Old and New Testaments; the various Jewish traditions; the common Christian tradition and the later developments of the Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic communities. The roots of many major and minor differences in attitude are exposed. But even more impressive is the overwhelming witness of the Indo-European religions to the transcendent value of human life, extending to great reverence for prenatal life. For example, it is pointed out than in the Vedas abortion has been counted among the worst of sins, because it destroys a life so near to its divine origins and so rich in its possibilities. The Old Testament literature is shown to express a philosophy of human life (based on a personal relationship between God and the individual even before birth) that established an atmosphere in the Jewish community in which abortion could not and did not flourish.

But it was in Christianity that the notion of a person as a " bearer of immeasurable and inalienable dignity " grew. In early Christianity there was an intense and severe hostility to abortion. Confronted with

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the non-personal social philosophy of paganism, in which individuals were too exclusively subordinated to the welfare of the community, Christian teachers responded with emphatic insistence on the sacredness of each person. The teaching of the early Fathers (their thought is splendidly summarized on pp. 137-50) reveals their awareness of all the motives that move men to abortion even today (including a real fear of overpopulation) . But they reject abortion totally for basic reasons: " because it is a type of homicide that is especially cruel, since the parents should most especially love and care for the helpless life they have generated; and because it violates the work of God and ignores his providence; . . . because it is a form of discrimination against some of one's children in favor of others; because it is an inhumane and dehumanizing act." (p. 149)

The Protestant tradition, which was profoundly influential in shaping American legislation aimed at protecting unborn life, has its roots in this same basic Christian philosophy. But some recent Protestant statements take a sharply different position. Grisez shows that this trend implies a profound alteration of principle. Formerly, transcendent value was recognized in prenatal human life. Even in 1958 the Lambeth Conference insists that " The sacredness of (this) life is, in Christian eyes, an absolute which should not be violated." But later declarations (e. g., the American Episcopal House of Bishops in 1967, and a document-- Abortion: An Ethical Discussion, Westminster, 1967--from the Anglican Church Assembly Board for Social Responsibility; Grisez criticizes this latter document sharply on pp. 283-86) indicate that the value of the unborn is far from absolute. There are now a number of other values that outweigh human life in the unborn and justify taking their lives.

The history of Catholic moral theology on the subject has never been better treated. (pp. 165-84) Carefully chronicled here are the complex debates affected by the distinction between animated and non-animated fetuses until scientific developments secured the triumph of the immediate animation theory; the controversies about therapeutic abortion; and the major role consistently played by the Holy See in maintaining strong faithfulness to the basic principles involved. Grisez suggests that, if certain contemporary Catholic positions on the relationship between conscience and authority prevail, unified Catholic witness to this sacredness of life may also fail. (p. 184)

Chapter five treats the state of the legal question. The history of anti-abortion laws reveals a complex interplay between the religious roots of such legislation and the secular public opinion that was the immediate force behind the laws. Grisez shows that such legislation was not based simply on concern for the health of the mother but on a deep conviction on the inviolability of human life, now seen more clearly in the fetus.

(pp. 192-93) The Western liberal tradition on the dignity of human life indeed grew out of Judaeo-Christian sources. But the law followed secular opinion more immediately than theological inspiration. Acceptance of biological information revealing the humanity of the youngest prenatal life led to legislation protecting that life before theologians had fully absorbed the new data. And, though therapeutic abortion did not receive general theological approval, the laws often sanctioned the practice in cases where physicians judged it necessary for saving the mother's life.

Significantly, the nation that countered this trend and first gave broad legal support to abortion was a nation with a radically different philosophy of man from that of Christianity and the liberal West: Soviet Russia. Equally important is Grisez's study of the origins of the British and American abortion movements, which exhibited strong hostility to any supernatural religious faith. Soviet practice was consistent with its theory that the state need protect and foster individual lives only to the extent that they are valuable for the purposes of the community. Western atheistic humanism is perhaps less clear in its advocacy of abortion. It often asserts a utilitarian morality not calculated to support any inviolable rights of each individual human person when these seem to oppose alleged social advantages; yet it does not want to confess any open denial of such rights.

Excellent criticisms of the legal reforms proposed by the American Law Institute and the American Medical Association are given. The first seems particularly unsatisfactory. Its model legislation is replete with vague terms, which tend to give support for far wider abortion policies than American public opinion is willing to support. Grisez reminds us that polls consistently show that the vast majority of Americans oppose abortion for socio-economic reasons, or in cases in which the mother simply does not want the child. Other significant aspects of public opinion are pointed out: women disapprove of abortion more than men do; disapproval of abortion is strongest among those of deepest religious convictions, who attend church frequently--among these differences between Protestants and Catholics are not great; and the poor disapprove of abortion more than the prosperous.

Chapter six, " Ethical Arguments," is the most important chapter in the volume. Grisez packs much into its pages: a discussion of the most important contemporary approaches to the subject (as relativism, utilitarianism, situationism), a statement and defense of his own moral theory, and a detailed study of the morality of abortion in various circumstances. The positive exposition of his own moral philosophy is a splendid original expression of a realistic ethical philosophy. It presents a philosophy of practical principles in a sophisticated form, calculated to stand against the well-known contemporary objections to such a view; it is clear, consistent, and persuasive. (pp. 307-21)

Clearly a critical question is: Is the embryo or fetus a human being? Grisez insists on separating a factual question about humanity (" Is this embryo or fetus living, individual, and specifically human? ") from the more important metaphysical or religious question of personality (" Is this individual a person, to be treated as a subject of real rights? "). (p. 273)

The factual question is solved chiefly by reflecting on biological data. At every stage from fertilization to birth and maturity there is clearly present a reality that is living, individual, and distinctively human (biologically, genetically). Though problems about individuality arise from a study of, e. g., twins, the individuality of the zygote relative to the parent is evident from conception. Arguments against counting genetic evidence as sufficiently decisive for the factual question are carefully considered. Garret Hardin's analogy from blueprints (immanent possession of a genetic packet of information is said to make the zygote a human no more than a blueprint's possession of a house's structure makes it a young house) and Rev. Joseph Donceel's return to a rather outmoded Aristotelian view are shown to suffer, among other things, from a common defeat: failure to reflect upon the living, immanently directed, continuous development of prenatal life. (pp. 275-83)

Grisez does not attempt a positive metaphysical demonstration that every living individual human is a person. He is fully aware that in a pluralistic society no such thesis will achieve sufficiently general acceptance as to form a basis for practical policy. Rather, he first shows that suggested narrower determinations of personhood are inadequate when critically examined. For example, many prefer to take the adult as the paradigm for personhood and declare that personhood is present only when there is a developed capacity for reasoning, desiring, relating to others, and the like. But the intolerable consequences of this view are not honestly faced by its proponents. Such a view must classify born infants as non-persons also; and it tends very strongly to deny personhood to all those who in various ways lose significant possession of such capacities. Attempts to formulate a credible notion of personhood tailored to exclude unborn infants but include all other humans have not proved successful.

Then Grisez points out that the peculiar status of the concept of person forbids us to rule away the possible rights of candidates for personhood by the arbitrary decision to count only some humans as persons. It would be interesting to compare Grisez's argument (pp. 277-87) with the one R. M. Hare uses in the final chapter of Freedom and Reason against racism. Hare argues that a universal prescription is implied in every moral judgment. To test the presence of this formal requirement an imaginative experiment is sometimes helpful. For example, one who judges that some human individuals (as Jews or Negroes) do not count as persons or deserve full human rights must envisage himself in the role of

one of those whose contested rights would be disregarded if the judgment in question were applied. If he cannot honestly prescribe that others should then treat him as a non-person, as one without rights, he does not in fact hold his original principle as a moral one. Similarly, Grisez argues that we must take the point of view of the fetus and judge that the fetus would opt for personhood and the right to live. Certainly, he adds, no apodictic argument can be advanced to show that the fetus is not a person. In view of this (while we may have a right to hold any metaphysical theories we choose) we must in ethics treat the fetus as a person. For " to be willing to kill what for all we know could be a person is to be willing to kill it if it is a person." (p. 306) A certain terrible pattern has been followed many times in history. Those humans whose lives, property, or freedom have been the object of exploitation were first declared non-persons by the definitions of other men: Indians, Jews Negroes, infants that were to be exposed. Those who find it socially convenient and profitable to kill unborn children for the sake of other men are not clear heirs of a liberal tradition.

Admission of the personhood of the fetus does not prejudge the question of whether circumstances sometimes make it justifiable to perform acts that deprive them of life. Certain kinds of killing in self-defense or war, for example, have commonly been considered legitimate. But in facing this issue Grisez expresses the need to have a set of consistent moral principles concerning human life. Catholic moralists have often been accused of failing to express the same concern for the sanctity of human life when capital punishment or war are concerned as when abortion is being considered. Working carefully out of his basic philosophy of practical principles, and using a revised principle of double effect, Grisez seeks to spell out a fully consistent moral approach to the taking of human life (in a recent article he has developed this attempt more fully: " Toward a Consistent Natural-Law Ethics of Killing," American Journal of Jurisprudence Vol. 15, 1970, pp. 64-96). While consistency here is certainly essential, the very sketchy treatment of extremely complex issues like those of capital punishment and nuclear deterrence do not add strength to the book. For abortion and every other kind of killing, Grisez argues that only an indirect taking of human life can be morally justified. But he argues that operations considered instances of direct killing by most Catholic moralists (such as craniotomies) are really indirect.

A modification of the double effect theory, based on reflections on Thomas's classic treatment of self-defense (Summa Theol., II-II, q. 64, a. 7), is invoked to defend this contention. Grisez objects to the traditional requirement that " the evil effect must not (even physically) be the means to the good effect." Thomas, Grisez asserts, " does not make an issue of which effect (aspect of the act) is prior in physical causality." (p. 333)

In fact, Grisez sees the act of self-defense as often achieving its end only (physically) through the bad effect: it may be only the killing of the attacker that secures the defense. But that is not important. What is essential is that the human act itself should initiate an indivisible process leading to the good effect and that the agent intend only the good effect. The craniotomy, for example, immediately relieves a pressure tending to destroy the mother's life and immediately begins a process of healing; it also causes death. Because the action with equal immediacy initiates a healing process and causes death, one intending only the healing may rightly say that the healing is indirect, Grisez holds.

On the one hand, many advantages can be realized from this reform of the principle of double effect. The sharpest objections to a morality upholding any absolute principles and utilizing the principle of double effect have been largely based on an intuitive conviction that certain apparently necessary consequences of such a view are plainly wrong: that, for example, a mother must die, and perhaps die with her child, rather than have a craniotomy. (Cfr. J. Bennett, " Whatever the Consequences," Analysis, Jan. 1966, pp. 83-102.) Grisez escapes this difficulty. Moreover, his modifications do not labor under the same drastic defeats that he sharply criticises in the work of Peter Knauer, S. J., William van der Marck, O. P., and Cornelius van der Poel. (pp. 329-33)

But these advantages are perhaps bought at too high a cost. The old danger of justifying the doing of evil that good may come of it may lurk here, in spite of the author's attempt to avoid it. I fear that many more killings than those Grisez wishes to accommodate, and many other kinds of acts commonly held intrinsically immoral among Catholic moralists, may gain support from his revised principle. Abortions that simply promote a mother's health, physical or mental, and abortions in the case of rape, can be counted indirect according to this revised principle. Grisez indeed argues that these other indirect abortions would be immoral, because in his view it would never be reasonable to try to preserve one's own or another's health by an act that would cause someone's death. But that is far from evident. Were it true, a man would be morally obliged to endure a criminal beating from a criminal assailant if he could ward off the harm only by an act that has unintended deadly consequences.

The error in Grisez's position, if it is an error, arises out of neglecting an important factor in the self-defense example of St. Thomas. There it was not a question of performing any action whatever that simply happens to save one life and destroy another. It was precisely a matter of warding off an unjust assault. Certainly it is true that the same overt behavior might serve as a vehicle for different intentions and so serve as the physical basis of morally different kinds of acts (as burning a wound might be either cauterizing or torturing). But it is not " physicalism " in any bad sense

to say that different real contexts have major moral significance and that a proper directing of the intention is not sufficient for absolving the agent from direct responsibility for evils effected in all cases.

Thus, one who cauterizes a wound knows he is causing pain but knows also that he is not torturing. But one who performs a craniotomy knows that he is in fact killing an innocent person. And he wants to do this; not indeed as an end, but so that through this he may achieve a great good. The whole nature of an evil act remains immanent in the broader act of initiating a saving process. It is unlike the case of self-defense, where the killing of the assailant is not a necessary means, a stage on the way to the end. That killing in self-defense, if it is justifiable, is simply a consequence of an act of preventing an unjustified assault. But the killing in a craniotomy is deliberately done as an understood part of the saving process. Moralists certainly ought to examine Grisez's arguments here with great care. It is indeed true that the procedures in question are in fact virtually never required to save a mother's life; but the principle involved is of the greatest importance.

The final chapter, " Toward a Sound Social Policy," begins with a balanced treatment of the complex current debate of the relations between law and morality, largely growing out of the Devlin-Hart controversy. There follows an excellent series of studies on legal developments touching the rights of fetuses concerning property, the law of torts, and criminal law. In every instance a parallel tendency is seen. As scientific evidence for the humanity of the unborn from conception grows, recognition of their human rights in law begins to grow. Only when the special pragmatic interest of those favoring abortion becomes stronger does this liberal trend suffer.

Law suffers from many inconsistencies at present. Grisez highlights some of the intolerable consequences of counting the unborn as persons in some relationships but not in others. He realizes that law certainly need not define everything in a single way for all purposes. But when judgment on a plausible claim for full personal dignity is at stake, a clear and consistent position is essential. Grisez argues that " correct public policy for a pluralistic society is to accept the more comprehensive rather than an exclusive view." (pp. 418-19) A more comprehensive view, recognizing the legal rights of every living human, does not deny anyone's right to his own metaphysical or religious opinion. But it does give to each plausible claimant of personhood an equal hearing, and a recognition that could be denied only on the basis of restrictive dogmas devoid of real factual basis. It is noted that the Supreme Court in a recent quasi-definition of person (in Levy vs. Louisiana, 1968) proposed criteria fully satisfied by the unborn from the time of their conception: that they are persons who are " humans, live, and have their

being." The chapter concludes with a practical " Strategy in Defense of Life," for the use of those deeply concerned to act in defense of the rights of the most defenseless of humans. An epilogue discusses the nature and the deep roots of what should properly be called a prejudice of many against the unborn, a prejudice as dehumanizing as that of racism.

This review can only suggest the wealth of information and the richness of the analysis in Grisez's study. This book would certainly be a precious tool for any class in contemporary moral questions. It honestly faces all the terrible complexity of live moral debate and manages to escape a question-begging commitment on one side and scepticism or relativism on the other. No one seriously interested in the abortion controversy can afford to neglect this outstanding work.

Ronald D. Lawler, O. F. M. Cap.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

The Philosophy of the Church Fathers. Volume I. Faith, Trinity, Incarnation. By Harry Austrin Wolfson. Third Edition, Revised. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970. Pp. 663. $12.50.

The present controversy about the value of dogmatic formulas and the modern form to be given to the depositum fidei, to make it meaningful for today, has again raised the question of the " Hellenization of Christianity." Anyone interested in this problem should read Professor Harry A. Wolfson's book on Faith, Trinity and Incarnation which was published first in 1956 and has become a classic in the field. The recasting of Christian beliefs in the form of a philosophy and the producing of a Christian version of Greek philosophy is one of the most interesting subjects in the history of theology. While the work is primarily a study of the Church Fathers, chapters on the New Testament appear as background. Part One provides an investigation of St. Paul's allegorical interpretation as related to that of the Fathers. The faith theories of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine are given an excellent analysis. Part Two traces the origin of the Trinitarian formula and the differentiation of the Logos and the Holy Spirit ending with a study of the Logos and Platonic ideas. Part Three deals with three mysteries of the faith, the mystery of the generation, the mystery of the Trinity with the solutions proposed by Origen, Tertullian, Basil, Augustine, and John of Damascus, and the mystery of the Incarnation. Part Four presents an analysis of Gnosticism as an attempt to Christianize pagan

philosophy. The discovery of the papyri of Nag Hammadi has shed an entirely new light on this development.

Wolfson's book, here in its third and revised edition, forms volume I of the Philosophy of the Church Fathers. It is to be hoped that the other volumes will soon follow. Even if one does not agree with all of the author's conclusions, his book remains one of the most challenging of our times.

Johannes Quasten

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy. Edited by George F. McLean, O. M. I, and Patrick J. Aspell, O. M. I. New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1970. Pp. 352. $3.50.

The traditional introductory course in ancient philosophy threatens to become a true " dark night " for those who lecture undergraduates as we move into the tempestuous nineteen-seventies. Although some teachers will devise gimmicks--are Heidegger and Hesse, after all, so far removed from Hesiod and Heraclitus?--it will be difficult to do so without brooding over the fact that content has been sacrificed for contemporaneity.

The present anthology probably does as much as can be done to present one segment of our intellectual history for the college audience without attaching itself to a scheme which might attract attention at the expense of allowing the development of thought in the West to manifest itself. McLean and Aspell take us from the myth-like origins of philosophy to the " standard " pre-Socratics, and then through Plato, Aristotle, and the ethical philosophies of the so-called Hellenistic-Roman period, concluding with a substantial portion of Plotinus. This latter is especially welcome, since the mystical disciple of Ammonias Saccas has tended to get lost in the " intertestamental " period of Western philosophy. Besides, if gimmicks are to be shunned, the Enneads have considerable possibility for making ancient thought vivid for a generation increasingly taken up with transcendental thought and spiritualism.

The editors have contoured their selections into three parts marking the origin and growth of Greek philosophy, its maturation, and the shift from metaphysical speculation to ethical concerns under the practical Roman influence. Almost half the volume, Chapters 7 and 8, are devoted to Plato and Aristotle. This procedure is defended by the editors in such wise: " The acid test of time has unveiled Aristotle's philosophy,

along with that of Plato, as. . . the two major statements of classical Greek thought." (p. 173) This observation is typical of the introductory material found throughout the work; it is mainly factual and generalizations are so broad as to offend no one who would harbor a private thesis as to the relative significance of the ancients.

The Chapters are followed by series of study questions and a " Thematic Table " enhances the volume's value for college level courses. This latter is a valuable aid in relating the historical aspect of philosophy to the main divisions, as traditionally conceived, of the subject. The themes parcel out the texts found in the anthology under eight headings such as epistemology, psychology and theodicy; it would be a useful classroom task to run both historical and theme approaches, and in this case, at least, it would be feasible. The ten chapters are firmed up with extensive bibliography, quite up-to-date, although one would like to see included some of the more adventuresome interpretations of ancient thought, such as F. Clive's two-volume " The Giants of Pre-Sophistic Greek Philosophy " (Nijhoff, 1965).

John B. Davis, O. P.

The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, Penna.

A History of Western Philosophy: Volume II, Philosophy from St. Augustine to Ockham. By Ralph M. McInerny. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970. Pp. 401. $12.00.

To my knowledge this volume represents the latest effort of its kind in the field of Medieval philosophy; it also marks the second volume in a new series devoted to the history of Western philosophy. R. Caponigri and R. Mclnerny have joined efforts in producing a set of textbooks purposely aimed at promoting " the return of the history of philosophy to its rightful place of honor and usefulness in the academic program." (xiii) The fourth volume, Philosophy from the Romantic Age to the Age of Analysis, has not appeared. When it does, the series will compete with that edited under the general direction of E. Gilson (although one volume of that series is, I believe, lacking). A. Maurer authored the Medieval volume of the Toronto set; it is presently almost ten years old. Certainly a singular feature of Mclnerny's work is that it is not written on the Toronto bias. The author is not in sympathy with the Christian philosophy thesis of E. Gilson. In fact, he implies that the entire raison d'être of his work is to provide a history of Medieval philosophy which is willing to acknowledge in that period an independent and autonomous

philosophy. " If that phrase [Christian philosophy] accurately described the philosophical contribution of the Middle Ages, we would see little point in writing this present book." (p. 8)

Mclnerny's text is suitably done. He discusses everyone who should be discussed, although not everything; e. g., short shrift is made of the Condemnation of 1277 and so-called " Latin Averroism." Also I do find it a mark of disproportion that the author devotes only one paragraph (!) to Jewish thought in the Middle Ages while a whole chapter is devoted to " other ninth and tenth century figures " such as Heiric and Remigius of Auxerre and Gerbert of Aurillac. His style is clear but very academic: at times it languishes under the burden of the material. One questions the need for a " sustained look " of nine pages at Gundissalinus's De divisione philosophiae in a college textbook. While there is ample reference to the primary sources, the bibliographies placed at the end of each section are slim. The volume certainly does not qualify as a reference tool in the way that Gilson's classic, A History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, does.

In brief, the college teacher who wishes to have everything " right there " will find Mclnerny's work a handy instrument and certainly adequate for that purpose. The authors, however, plainly advise instructors to avoid " teaching this book " (xiv) but rather to use it as a guide for creatively planning a course. An alternative program I personally have found more successful for planning a college course in this area is the choice of any number of high quality paperbacks, many of which contain editions of primary sources with brief introductions. The truly creative teacher can present his students three or four more specialized volumes which cover the same material and afford a refreshing change of style, attitude, and approach to the field of Medieval philosophy.

Romanus Cessario, O. P.

Dominican House of Studies

Washington, D. C.

Contemporary German Philosophy and Its Background. By Fritz-Joachim von Rintelen. Bonn: Bouvier, 1970. Pp. 187. DM 26.

This survey of the German philosophical scene belongs in the respected tradition of the earlier accounts by Werner Brock and I. M. Bochenski. The author does not dig into the individual thinkers as deeply as did Brock and does not share Bochenski's concern for other European traditions. But brevity combines with sureness of touch to give a special

quality to Rintelen's book as a useful first introduction for college students. The careful organization of chapters and clear exposition of doctrines testify to Rintelen's long experience as teacher and author, as well as his firsthand acquaintance with American universities and the needs of students. The book is a revised version of lectures delivered originally at the University of Southern California.

The term " background " appearing in the title enables Rintelen to enlarge his scope to include the entire twentieth century. This gives valuable depth to the perspectives taken on each school so that some of its presuppositions can come into view. For instance, the reader will be able to find here some specific content for the much-used, yet vague term " Neo-Kantianism," which figures so prominently in discussions of the development of Husserl and Heidegger. Together with a general characterization, the book probes into the main men and philosophical issues distinguishing the Marburg and Heidelberg schools. The stress upon background also permits Rintelen to recall the work done by Dilthey in the field of historical understanding of cultural realities, as well as the contributions of Brentano to the phenomenological movement.

The five main currents presented here are: philosophy of logos, life-philosophy, essence-phenomenology, philosophy of existence, and philosophy of the living spirit. The first division is a rather uneasy unification of the Neo-Kantians and the logical positivists, taken together in virtue of their common interest in the formal analysis of science. But the Kantians tend to develop ethics and the human sciences, while the positivists move on to a new career in America as more pragmatic thinkers. Life-philosophy arouses interest mainly through Driesch, Spengler, and the inclusion here of Gestalt psychology. We come to the heart of German philosophizing in present-tense terms only with the last three schools. Rintelen is quite evenhanded in presenting the several phases of Husserl's phenomenology, neither contracting it to a logical methodology nor dissolving it in transcendental reductions without end. Having done good interpretative work previously on Heidegger and Jaspers, the author is specially lively in presenting them within their own atmosphere of problems. He also adds an interesting account of . F. O. Bollnow's efforts to move beyond the classical German existentialists.

Rintelen comes into his own territory in treating the philosophy of living spirit. Having criticized the existentialists (in a separate section) for not working out the relation between concrete uniqueness and the more comprehensive aspects of being and moral obligation to the world community, he seeks a synthesis of the existential and the phenomenological. " Hence there has come forth in Germany another direction of thought which could be called the philosophy of lebendiger Geist, of the ' living Spirit,' which endeavors to bring the existential and phenomenological

extremes together in a higher unity." The book culminates with an analysis of this unifying school, represented by Spranger and Litt, Leo Gabriel and Max Müller, Nicolai Hartman and Rintelen himself. The latter holds " that the order of values reveals a dynamic, vertical ' upward ' axis-of-meaning (Sinnachse) in which, however, the horizontal value form which is valid in this actuation should not be lost sight of." More of his realistic analysis of values can be found in Rintelen's article in International Philosophical Quarterly (vol. 4, 1964).

This is a well-informed, communicative, and generous-spirited invitation to the study of present forms of German philosophy. With its help, one can gain an initial orientation and can also appreciate why the questions of meaning, being, and human cultural unification are so central. With his brief mention of Ernst Bloch and Viktor Frankl, Rintelen leaves us with an opening toward other tendencies as well.

James Collins

Saint Louis University

Saint Louis, Missouri

The French Institutionalists: Maurice Hauriou, Georges Renard, Joseph T. Delos. Edited by Albert Broderick. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970. Pp. 395. $15.00.

The procedural framework of the legal system occupies a central position in recent studies of contemporary jurisprudence and the comparative philosophy of law. The processes of law, as Paul Freund recently remarked, rather than its particular judgments or results, offer insights which " may teach us to cope with the great antinomies of our aspirations: liberty and order; privacy and knowledge; stability and change; security and responsibility."¹

The legal enterprise, defined in Henry M. Hart's studies around the principle of institutionalized decision and settlement, is a creative force in society. Law serves persons in radical interdependence by procedures to duly direct and domesticate power. The legal order is a positive context for the developing interrelationships of rights and duties between individuals and organizations within the national state and the international community.

Focusing upon the centrality of a progressive and societal role of law jurists are increasingly turning from treatises preoccupied with systematic

¹ On Law and Justice (Cambridge: The Belknap Press, 1969), p. v.

conceptualization and codification to a methodology of interdisciplinary analysis. Illustrative of this trend are the recent studies of Freund, Lon L. Fuller's The Anatomy of Law, and two very significant studies of the judicial process, Alexander Bickel's The Supreme Court and the Idea of Justice and Schubert and Danelski's Comparative Judicial Behavior: Cross-Cultural Studies of Political Decision-Making in the East and West.

The present collection of essays taken from the writings of Maurice Hauriou, Georges Renard and Joseph T. Delos brings welcome light upon the American scene. Careful editing and meticulous annotation make this volume a valuable contribution to the analytic endeavor. An equally worthy translation serves to convey with clarity and precision the thinking of the great French jurists as they explored the dynamics of social interaction to establish law and right upon the institutional foundations of society.

Roscoe Pound classified the work of Maurice Hauriou, Dean of the Faculté de Droit of Toulouse in the first quarter of the century, as neo-scholastic sociological jurisprudence. What Kant attributed in the development of legal obligation to will, Marx to economic wants, Post to instincts, Weber to values, and William James to desires and demands in conflict, Pound says Hauriou ascribed to institutions.² Pound found this a dangerous shift of the basic legal unit away from the individual man. He feared submergence in the demands of the corporate state. Yet it is now clear that Hauriou compensated by a rich personalism which enabled him to strike a theoretical balance that Pound had failed to see.

Hauriou sought an explanation for the developing legal order that would avoid both an individualistic disintegration in the fictionalized citadel of contract and the denigration of legal personality by the equation of legal order with the state. For this reason he repeatedly criticized Léon Duguit, who he thought had used sociological theory in such a way as to jeopardize the very integrity of personal rights as a creation of the mass of consciences. This he thought would leave unprotected the rights of any dissident minority. But with equal vigor he opposed Hans Kelsen's pure theory of law as a formalistic construct unrelated to the dynamics of the social factor. Both extremes failed to account for the complexities or the evolution of positive law by reducing them to a single explanation, a " monism " as he termed it. The individual, Hauriou believed, is antecedent to both law and state, not in the privity of a shielded subjectivity but as a social being, as needing for growth and fulfillment the structure of institutionalized relationships.

Hauriou's studies of French administrative law, of which he is the acknowledged master, led him to the theory of institution. The integration

² Jurisprudence (St. Paul: The West Publishing Co., 1959), I, 342.

of custom, contract, and legislation in a processive and relational matrix of positive law has been further developed by his two most important disciples, Georges Renard, formerly professor of public law at Nancy, and Joseph T. Delos, professor of sociology and law at Lille. These have gone beyond Hauriou into a general institutional theory or philosophy of law. Of the three, Delos alone, who contributes a retrospective essay to this volume, is still alive.

Man in his natural sociability is the basic datum, the principal " social fact " in a galaxy of interrelated phenomena which supply the concrete concern for justice in positive law. In the view of the institutionalists, these social facts tend to coalesce in structured institutions under the influence of directive ideas. The rational element or guiding idea is the leading reason for cooperation in the formation of organizations and the vital, moving force of institutions. Hauriou defined institution basically as:

... an idea of a work or enterprise that is realized and endures juridically in a social milieu; for the realization of this idea, a power is organized that equips it with organs; on the other hand, among the members of the social group interested in the realization of the idea, manifestations of communion occur that are directed by the organs of the power and regulated by procedures. (p. 99)

The role of authority within any institution is to further the attainment of this organizing and directive idea. The exercise of authority, however, depends on the observable stage of ideational development, wherein the role of sociology is pivotal. Social facts supply the stuff of positive law, but the directing idea remains normative. Progress in society depends upon the rational development of basic ideas in the light of critical moral principles bearing upon the values of order, justice and liberty, and the need procedurally to balance power with power to compensate for human weaknesses.

The legal enterprise is thus the art of achieving the idea, the common personal and social objectives of interdependent men and institutions. In this sense law is preeminently practical. Hauriou cited favorably the definition of Celsus that law is an art, ars boni et aequi. Utilizing the data of the social and behavioral sciences law properly functions to the attainment of fundamental moral ideas for the common good of society. These moral ideas can be verified by the observation of the reality of men living in society.

As Delos remarks, this means preeminently a return to reality, to an objective natural law based upon the observation of human nature, not as an abstract notion or concept but as that which is " most real and most living in each one, the principle of all the instincts, vital forces, intellectual, moral or physical needs, that give birth to the life of society and provide it with its ends." (p. 265)

Social relationships are real. They constitute an "objective reality, exterior to the individuals who are the support and the terms of these relationships, and they are irreducible to psychological or interpsychological realities." (p. 233) Thus, institutions as unlike as the family and the organized international society have an incontestable natural foundation in an observable reality.

An institutional conception of law thus means . . . a conception of juridical reality that, applied to foundations and groups, brings out the fundamental role of the directing idea; applied to the study of the legislative act, emphasizes its nature as an " incarnate idea "; and finally, applied to contract, explains its true nature, shows that it is not a simple balance between two wills but that it too is institutional in nature and gravitates around an organizing idea. (p. 252)

Law is never merely the manifestation of will. Thus, an analysis of the realities themselves, a study of the internal structure of the juridical act, definitively casts subjectivism and voluntarism outside the domain of the philosophy of law.

Right and duty manifest themselves when reason fulfills its proper office and, considering the beings in question, judges what their reciprocal relationships should be in order to conform to their nature. Reason then discerns an order of natural balance, that is, an order of justice that is founded not on arbitrary subjective evaluations but on the objective value of beings. Law is born when reason is no longer content with simply verifying the nature of beings but draws normative consequences from them. The jurist is a sociologist who adds to his preoccupations a concern for order. (p. 261)

Positive law, Delos explains, is the normative expression of the social order of justice and balance. The order of justice is then truly a societal order, and every act of justice performed by an individual realizes an " element " of the social order.

The institutionalized conception of law is purposeful and dynamic. It sees positive law as intent upon achieving human group aims in a process of development. The juridical rule is neither a deductive concept nor the arbitrary and subjective decision of a judge. Rule and social reality are interrelated. Law develops from the society which takes priority to it and to which it is ultimately subservient. The rule of law is not a purely formal reality; it is a social form, a social manner of behavior expressed in positively juridical terms.

This brief outline fails to do justice to the profundity of legal analysis attained by the French institutional jurists. Time and again the perceptive insight of these men rises to be captured in application to contemporary problems of right and order, due process, judicial prospectivity, and rapidly expanding vistas of domestic and international law. One senses in agreement with the editor the similarity between Myres McDougal's

" goal-thinking " and Hauriou, while wondering about the influence of François Gény, Renard's dean at Nancy, on American jurisprudence through Benjamin Cardozo's frequent citation of him in the famous The Nature of the Judicial Process. Beneath the scholastic categories of Renard and Delos, matter and form, substance and accident, foreign to the ken of most American jurists, one discovers a concern similar to Freund's impatience with one-dimensional thinking and his aspiration that the courts serve as " the conscience of the country." ³

The evolution of legal rights need not only mean the explicitation of new demands upon society nor even the unfolding of natural law through progressive applications as " the evolution of human life brings to light new necessities in human nature that are struggling for expression."⁴ As Broderick himself has ably demonstrated, the insight of the French institutionalists may well transcend the naked individualism of Locke and also the static conceptualism of latter-day exponents of an objective natural law.⁵ Providing a broader empirical base of observation, it gives a more convincing legal analysis of the present scene.

The French Institutionalists appears as volume VIII in the Twentieth Century Legal Philosophy Series published under the auspices of the Association of American Law Schools. With glossary and comments by Jean Brèthe de la Gressaye, André Hauriou, Bernard Gény, and Marcel Waline, it will stand as an exemplary work of comparative jurisprudence.

William W. Bassett

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

The Paradoxical Structure of Existence. By Frederick D. Wilhelmsen. Irving, Texas: The University of Dallas Press, 1970. Pp. 175.

As Jacques Maritain wrote:

A deep vice besets the philosophers of our day, whether they be neo-Kantians, neo-positivists, idealists, Bergsonians, logisticians, pragmatists, neo-Spinozists, or neo-mystics. It is the ancient error of the nominalists. In different forms, and with various degrees of awareness, they all blame knowledge-through-concepts for

³ Op. cit., pp. 115 and 96.

⁴ John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), p. 313.

⁵ " Evolving Due Process and the French Institutionalists," The Catholic University of America Law Review, 136 (1964), 95-135; " Rights, Rhetoric and Reality: A New Look at Old Theory," ibid., 19 (1969), 133-157.

not being a suprasensible intuition of the existing singular . . . They cannot forgive that knowledge for not opening directly on existence as sensation does, but only onto essences, possibles. (Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Phelan, p. 1)

Maritain's list could now be considerably enlarged. Regrettably, among those included would be many who are otherwise realists; and not the least of these would be Frederick D. Wilhelmsen. This book is a well-written and learned attempt at a metaphysical synthesis which not only addresses fundamental theoretical questions but also confronts the contemporary spiritual crisis experienced by the human person. Central to the way in which Wilhelmsen has articulated the many valid insights found here, however, is his belief that " we humans simply cannot think the act of existing, cannot conceive in an idea that without which nothing would be." (p. 133) And what better reason could be offered for this belief than the description of conceptual knowledge given by Maritain? Concepts grasp " essences, possibles." Existence, on the contrary, is " the supreme and perfect act." (p. 50) Rather than being a possible, existence is the act of all acts, it is that which possibility is the possibility of. So for existence to be known by a concept would be a paradox of the highest order.

On the other hand, the main theme of this book is the paradoxical structure of existence itself. Since it cannot be known by means of concepts, existence cannot be treated as a logical " something." Consequently it cannot be the subject of affirmation or denial; it neither is nor is not. Things exist; existence does not. The principle of non-contradiction therefore operates at the level of essence, not existence. And because existence is neither affirmed nor denied, our metaphysical knowledge of it is best understood as an ongoing process of reasoning about existence which never ceases but is always leading to new reasonings.

A paradoxical metaphysics accepts the tensions resulting from existence's transcendence of the principle of non-contradiction. A dialectical metaphysics of the Hegelian variety tries to resolve the tensions in a higher unity. Hegelian metaphysics is the natural result of interpreting the act of existence as the object of a concept. In other words, Wilhelmsen attempts to deduce Hegel's errors from the fallacy of objectifying being conceptually. If the act of existing is treated as a " something," it follows that it must be identified with its conceptual opposite, non-being; the Hegelian dialectic is thus generated.

From the point of view of the paradoxical structure of existence, God can be approached differently from the way he is approached in the ordinary causal proofs. These proofs seek an explanation for existence seen as in things rather than seen as transcending the order of things and their natures. If the act of existing is that without which nothing is and if finite existence itself is not, there must be some act of existing which is.

The recognition that finite existence is not an " in itself " and so cannot be affirmed implies the recognition that finite existence is something completely relational to some existence that is an " in itself " and can be affirmed. For modern man who has experienced the non-identity of essence with its own existence, the only alternative to the recognition of the paradoxical structure of existence and the affirmation of God it implies is the fall back into the nothingness of essence stripped of existence. And the experience of nothingness implies that existence is taken as a " something " which can have a contradictory opposite. Furthermore, personality is a function of existence rather than nature. Not being a " something," existence is not to be considered identical with itself. It follows that persons whose essence is distinct from existence have being only in relation to, and find their identity only in, an existence which is identical with itself, God.

But if existence's inability to be conceptualized prevents us from either affirming or denying that existence exists, how are we able to affirm that pure existence, God, exists? This appears to be one of the paradoxical tensions that metaphysics must accept rather than attempt to resolve. " The affirmation of a non-affirmable existence is the affirmation of Being Itself, God." (p. 102) If Wilhelmsen can accept paradoxes such as the affirmation of God, however, why not the paradox of a concept of existence? In fact the proposition that God is and others like it show that we can know existence by means of a concept. As I have argued in this journal (July, 1970), paradox in indeed a permanent condition for metaphysics. There is nothing wrong with Wilhelmsen holding this. What is wrong is that he is not sufficiently faithful to his own insight; what is wrong is that he has conceptualized that insight improperly.

To admit that we can formulate and judge a proposition about a being that is its own existence is to admit that we can conceive the act of existing. As Wilhelmsen himself points out, we certainly do not have a vision of this being Who is existence. And when we formulate and judge propositions about this being, we are not doing the kind of thing we do in our external-sense-life which opens onto existence. In fact, how can we even entertain the question of whether there is a pure existence unless we are employing a concept of existence? What are concepts after all but instruments with which we formulate propositions so that we can then judge truth from falsity thereby knowing reality? (And to say that propositions are formed by means of such instruments is not to say that a judgment is a juxtaposition of concepts. Cf. pp. 164-5) While we are entertaining the question of a pure existence, we are not making any judgment regarding this existence. And though, while considering the question, we may be in a process of reasoning, reasoning employs judgments, and judgments concepts. Essential to the job that the distinction

between " conceiving " and " judging " performs both in ordinary and in philosophic language is the function of marking the difference in our state of mind when we have reached a decision on a question from our state of mind when we have not reached a decision yet know perfectly well what the question is about. Suppressing the term " concept " here would accomplish nothing more than to force us to invent another form of expression to do exactly the same job.

What now becomes of the theory that, since existence cannot be conceived, it cannot be the subject or predicate of affirmation or negation? Even if it were conclusive, the evidence Wilhelmsen presents for this (pp. 71, 95-96) would apply to only one kind of judgment about existence, judgments expressing the contingent fact that an existence exists or does not exist. No evidence he presents indicates in the slightest degree that we cannot make another kind of assertion concerning existence, assertions of a kind Wilhelmsen himself makes literally hundreds of times throughout this book. On page after page existence functions either as grammatical subject, e. g., " The act of existing encounters its identity, its ' Is,' in Him," (p. 104) or as grammatical predicate after the copula, e.g., "that 'plus' or 'excess' which is the act of existing." (p. 117) And whatever Wilhelmsen may say about existence transcending the principle of non-contradiction inasmuch as it cannot be conceived, I doubt very much whether he wants to exempt any of his propositions of this latter kind from the injunction against being simultaneously true and false.

If Wilhelmsen does not think he is employing a concept of existence when he formulates these propositions, what instruments does he think he is using? Perhaps the book does not contain an answer to this question; but on one interpretation it does. And except for the fact that it is consistent with the texts, that interpretation is almost beyond belief.

Metaphysics advances, not by the progressive expansion of concepts, but by ever-deepening insights into the paradox of existence. . . . It follows that the philosopher penetrates the mystery of being only by fashioning a symbolic structure through which he can read the paradox of existence. . . .

Ideas in a state of pure abstraction are impersonal, common, the universal property of the race. Therefore ideas are always banal. Judgements, however, always involve the whole man and are therefore personal. It follows that a penetration of existence, while rigorously scientific, is eminently personal. Since existence is neither affirmed nor denied, existence is never a (conceptual) presence to the human intelligence. It follows that existence can be " grasped " only in and through sensorial symbols. (pp. 134-5)

In other words, he appears to be doing more than giving sensorial symbols a role in our knowledge of existence; he seems to be giving them

a role that replaces the one mistakenly assigned to concepts. And that amounts to replacing an intellectual grasp of existence with a sub-intellectual grasp of existence. No wonder metaphysics has always had such difficulty if all along it has been using the wrong tool, if it has been using the intelligence when it should have been using the imagination.

Whatever may have been Wilhelmsen's intentions in these texts, the place he gives to sensory symbols leads him to devote a chapter to " The Philosopher and the Myth." The interesting comments made there on the relation between myth, symbol, and philosophy are somewhat obscured by his attempt to express that relation in terms of the traditional doctrine of the phantasm. He claims (p. 163) that, in his usage, " symbol " means the same thing that " phantasm " usually means. Consequently his theory of the dependence of philosophy on myth is presented as a valid development of the doctrine that all knowledge, including metaphysics, makes use of phantasms. But he goes on to describe these symbols as instrumental signs. "A symbol is a material action or thing consciously used to mean." (p. 167, see also 164) And the phantasm is represented not as the instrument of the agent intellect but as cause of the intelligible species in the order of specification. So his symbols are a long way from what is usually understood by " phantasm."

Still Wilhelmsen has a keen sensitivity for the dependence of intellection on the formation of adequate sense images; his appreciation of McLuhan is evidence enough for this. And like McLuhan, though going much further in his own way, Wilhelmsen sees this dependence not simply in terms of solitary images but in terms of whole patterns of sensory response and historically conditioned cultural and linguistic symbolic structures. As a matter of fact, he sees man's historical existence not merely as providing psychological conditions for philosophizing but as providing " an ontological experience which enters integrally into the act of philosophizing." (p. 132) So to fulfill its own nature, philosophy must include a penetration of man's historical existence.

Against this justification of the philosophy of history, on the other hand, it can be objected that science is of the necessary and unchanging whereas actual historical existence is contingent and fleeting. This is why many have felt that philosophy must deal with the order of the possibles and not therefore with the actually existing historical order. Conversely, Wilhelmsen feels that recognizing knowledge of existential act to be the goal of metaphysics both refutes the view that philosophy deals with being as possible and opens the way to philosophical reflection on history itself. At this point, then, let us take up the problem of possibility which was mentioned at the outset as a difficulty for the view that existence can be known by means of a concept.

In the writings of thinkers like Garrigou-Lagrange, Maritain, (and

Phelan), we find statements to the effect that the propositions of metaphysics bear indifferently on existence as either actual or possible; and since the possible includes the actual in its extension, it is enough to say that metaphysics is about existence as possible. So the phrase " about existence as possible " is intended as a description of a proposition, say (p) ; and it is intended to be used in epistemological sentences of the form " (p) is about existence as possible." Now our problem can be illustrated by substituting for (p) true metaphysical propositions about existence which seem to render it impossible for the science of existence to be a science about a possible. Such propositions could be that existence is what is most actual in anything, or that nothing can be in act unless it has existence, or that if existence could be a possible, nothing could ever be in act for nothing could actualize existence itself, etc. But the simplest form of such a proposition would be that actual existence is in no respect a mere possible.

Now this proposition, the proposition that actual existence is in no respect a mere possible, in its full and unadulterated truth is a perfect example of a proposition about existence as possible. It, and the other truths that were mentioned or could have been mentioned, could function as a paradigm case of what has been meant when the statements of metaphysics have been described as being about existence as possible. Substituting for (p) we get " ' Existence is in no respect a mere possible ' is a proposition about existence as possible." How can this be? The latter " possible " does not refer to the object of metaphysical knowledge taken in its extra-mental state, the state which is known in and by means of metaphysical propositions such as we are considering. Rather it refers to the object of metaphysical knowledge taken in its state as object of the mind. And the phrase " about existence as possible " makes an epistemological reference to our knowledge of what is true of existence extra-mentally; it does not refer to what is true (and known to be true) of existence extra-mentally. This point has been so often misunderstood, I will try putting it one more way. " Possible " does not refer to what metaphysics knows about existence in its extra-mental state; it refers to existence in its state as object of metaphysics, that is, the state belonging to it as a result of being known as it is in its extra-mental state.

In general, though something may acquire characteristics in its being apprehended by the mind which differ from those belonging to it outside the mind, this does not deprive us of an accurate apprehension of the characteristics belonging to the thing outside the mind. In the case of anything which is extra-mental prior to its being made an object, unless we had knowledge of what is true of it extra-mentally, it would not have acquired different features within knowledge; for it would not be

known. So the acquisition of characteristics in knowledge (in order for the thing to be known) differing from those possessed outside of knowledge does not imply any difference between what is true of the thing outside the mind and that which is known about the thing. To say that existence in its state as object of metaphysical knowledge is possible existence, therefore, does not deny that what such knowledge knows about existence is that in itself it is fully actual, the exact opposite of mere possibility.

But what is there about metaphysical knowledge which allows us to describe the status of existence not in itself nor in regard to what is known about it by metaphysics but in regard to the condition it acquires within intellectual apprehension in order to be so known, as that of a possible? Knowing a truth such as " Existence is what is most actual in anything " involves knowing that if something new should come into existence tomorrow, its existence will be act relative to anything else found in it. It also involves knowing that if something existed in the past, its existence was that without which there would have been no other actuality in it. We are inquiring about what characterizes the act of all acts insofar as it acquires the state of being present in metaphysical apprehension. Metaphysics yields categorical judgments, no doubt. But the same metaphysical apprehension of existence also gives us knowledge of the necessary truth of hypothetical propositions, propositions true with reference to the existence of things that no longer exist or that do not exist as yet. In other words, metaphysics deals with existence in such a way as to give us knowledge of propositions true of either actual or possible existence, " possible " being the more inclusive term.

If the propositions of metaphysics were not necessarily true, then it could be that tomorrow the act of existing would cease being the act of all acts, that yesterday essences were not distinct from their existences, that they will cease being distinct from their existences next Tuesday, etc. It must be emphasized here that the existence apprehended in necessarily true hypothetical propositions is exactly the same as that completely non-hypothetical act which holds all things outside nothingness and which is apprehended in contingent categorical propositions such as "A plot to kidnap Henry Kissinger exists." The same existence is known in these two cases; the only difference comes in the manner in which it, is known. And the manner in which existence is known is what the phrase " possible existence " is all about. One and the same existence can be known as the actuality of some contingent occurrence or it can be known as a subject which has a necessary connection with a certain predicate. Any difference between the existence known in the first instance and the existence known in the second lies entirely on the side of the status this identical object has qua object. In metaphysics existence

is made our object in such a way that we are able to know truths about it so necessary and so unchanging as to even apply to those acts of existence which have actualized beings in the past or will do so in the future. The fact that existence is made an object in this way is described by saying that the condition it acquires in apprehension in order for it to be so known is that of a possible.

If one does not grant the validity of the kind of distinction made here, it is difficult to see how he can handle analogous problems in other areas of philosophy. For example, we know what exists individually by means of universal concepts. What acquires the relation of universality in apprehension is (by the very definition of universality) exactly the same as what exists outside the mind individually. Likewise, that which exists in metaphysical apprehension as possible is necessarily some form of act, even that act which is the opposite of possibility. And notice that the concept individual is a universal concept. That fact does not prevent it from being an instrument for thoroughly accurate knowledge of individuals and of individuality.

Likewise, we often know positive modes of reality by means of negative concepts, the non-existence of modes of reality by means of positive concepts, simpler realities by more complex concepts; we know beings which are not the proper objects of our intellect by means appropriate to our proper objects, etc. In all such cases the fact that characteristics associated with our thinking conflict with those characteristics thought of does not prevent our thoughts from being accurate. The most important case is that of our knowledge of God. What is signified by concepts such as good and goodness can be predicated of God even though he transcends the manners, concrete and abstract respectively, in which these concepts signify their objects. Because of the distinction between what is signified and the mode of signification, we do not have to " abandon, suppress radically, the very conceptual structure of our own mind " (p. 39) when dealing with God. A fortiori we do not have to do this when dealing with the act of all acts even though it is signified in the manner of a possible.

The necessity for making distinctions between what is true of objects qua objects and what is true of them extra-mentally is the reason why a genuine realism must be a critical realism; it must be critical for the sake of the realism itself. If, for instance, this kind of distinction cannot be made in the case of existence, it should follow that we cannot have any knowledge of existence at all: for the conflict between what is extra-mentally true of it and what would have to be true of it if it were to acquire an intra-mental state would prevent it from ever becoming known. And, at certain places, Wilhelmsen can be interpreted as drawing precisely that conclusion. (See pp. 41 and 158, for example.) Such a

conclusion would, of course, reduce to absurdity the premise that philosophy is not about existence as possible. But it may be the most significant merit of this book that it exposes--by unflinchingly excepting them--the logical conclusions of doctrines such as the non-conceptualizable character of existence.

Whatever his views on the knowability of existence may be in the last analysis, Wilhelmsen sees the position I am advancing as banishing the actual contingent existence of things from the vision of philosophy. (p. 152) But what could this banishing mean? If it means the banishing of contingent existential propositions such as " There is a bone in my soup," why not? Metaphysics in not supposed to supply us with knowledge of that kind of proposition about actual contingent existence. Rather it is supposed to teach us necessary truths about contingent existence, necessary truths concerning the same existence grasped in such contingent propositions. That is what it means for contingent existence to fall under the vision of philosophy. (Here it should be noted that assertions to the effect that actual existence is known not by concepts but by judgments are true when " knowledge of actual existence " refers to knowledge of the actual exercise of existence on the part of some contingent being.)

Does Wilhelmsen think that the truths of metaphysics are necessary or that they are contingent? Your guess is as good as mine. In one place he tells us that the intelligibility seen by metaphysics is "understood apodictically and as therefore universally valid for all men and for all time." (p. 136) But later he tells us that in metaphysics we " pass beyond " the necessary-contingent distinction, that it " loses its relevance." (pp. 152-154) After all, for a system in which the principle of non-contradiction is transcended, the opposition between being able to be otherwise and not being able to be otherwise should not be an irreconcilable one.

If the distinction between that which is known about our objects extra-mentally considered and the conditions they acquire in the process of becoming known saves our knowledge of necessary truths concerning existence, does it accomplish this at the expense of the historical nature of human understanding? On the contrary, the fact that such a distinction, in the various forms it takes with reference to human understanding, must be made is the historical nature of our understanding. Of course, there must always be a distinction drawn between what is known and the relation of reason being known or being an object which thereby accrues to it. But only an essentially incarnated and historical intellect, one whose proper objects are the structurally complex natures of changing sensible things, knows its proper objects by withdrawing from actual existence, since it must abstract them from matter and therefore must signify existence itself in the same manner.

If one holds that the necessary is the object of philosophical inquiry,

does he exclude history as a field for philosophic reflection and interpretation? Wilhelmsen thinks that he must. But does the fact that mathematics deals with the necessary prevent it from being that which provides the illumination of the contingent situations in which engineers find themselves? Is a physician's knowledge of biology an obstacle to his discovering the medical significance of his patient's condition? As a matter of fact, if we want a good example of how a grasp of necessary metaphysical truths can serve us very well in an attempt to understand the meaning of the historical situation in which we find ourselves, we need look no further than this book. It has a lucid discussion of the contemporary experience of nothingness as deriving from the rationalistic focus on essence to the exclusion of existence. And Wilhelmsen criticizes thinkers such as Teilhard and Cox deftly, showing how the immanentization of human destiny reduces the person to a servant of temporal progress and how contemporary secularism has nihilism as its consequence. He describes such post-Hegelian gnosticisms as " reactionary futurisms," (p. 123) reactionary because deterministic and therefore implying that the future has already been settled by what is past.

This book definitely gives the lie to those who dogmatically assume that philosophers whose tradition is that of classical realistic metaphysics must not be addressing today's problems. But as I said at the beginning, Wilhelmsen's many valid insights suffer from the articulation (i. e., conceptualization) imposed on them by his denial of the concept as an instrument for knowledge these insights.

John C. Cahalan

Merrimac College

North Andover, Mass.

Discovery in the Physical Sciences. By Richard J. Blackwell. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Press, 1969. Pp. 255. $8.50.

Where is science? Since " science " has at least two widely different meanings, it may be found in at least two locations: libraries and laboratories. The former contain the completed and polished publications which are the product of science; the latter contain the efforts, usually unproductive but sometimes brilliantly successful, which are the process of science. One of the most profound achievements of twentieth-century philosophy has been in working out an understanding of the logical structure of science as product. But until the beginning of the last decade few philosophers ventured forth to analyze science as process. This was not unintentional, for scrutiny of the process of science soon raises

the question of the nature of discovery. And what Kepler and Kekulé said covertly in the accounts they gave of their greatest discoveries was said overtly by Sir Karl Popper in his Logic of Scientific Discovery (!) : " The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible to it."

Perhaps the late N. R. Hanson's 1958 volume entitled Patterns of Discovery marked a turning point, for since that time many authors have turned to the difficult question as to whether anything philosophical can be said about that seemingly mysterious event, scientific discovery. Thomas Kuhn, Michael Polanyi, and Stephen Toulmin, to name a few, have in the past decade attempted this task and philosophers have returned to previously neglected writings of Whewell, Peirce, and others to find new insights.

Recently Richard J. Blackwell of Saint Louis University has joined these workers with his Discovery in the Physical Sciences. As he points out repeatedly, much is at stake here for, if a philosophical analysis of scientific discovery were produced, it would greatly expand and enrich, not to say alter, the philosophy of science. But many are the problems, for the maximum thesis--that there exists a mechanical or automatic process for getting from data to hypotheses--is rejected by nearly all contemporary philosophers, whereas the minimal thesis--that history, psychology, and sociology can bring a measure of rationality to the act of discovery--leaves nothing to the philosopher.

In the first of his seven chapters Blackwell introduces the problem and sketches the major positions as well as building a prima facie case for the existence of a theory of discovery. Chapter II which distinguishes between various types of discoveries, especially between "discovering that " and " discovering why," combines with the first and third chapters, the latter of which compares the logical, psychological, historical, and epistemological approaches to the question, to set the stage for the central argument contained in chapters four through six. Herein Blackwell develops his " adaption theory of discovery." All too briefly this may be summarized by stating that Blackwell finds that there are " repeated epistemological patterns in the act of discovery. . ." which are intelligible when understood as produced through the interrelations of mind with the " dictates of nature." Blackwell carefully points out the differences between " discovery that " (e. g., a law of nature), which involves such processes as formulating a problem, " sorting out," " interrelating recognized components," and " integration with other knowledge," and discovering why," which may involve such activities as " idealization," " creative postulation," and " substitution through analogy." The final chapter diverges from the central thrust of the book but builds upon it by an analysis, showing a Whiteheadian influence, of the question of the ontological status of physical entities.

This work is clearly written and cogently argued; while the frequent repetitions of material may distract the professional reader, they surely shorten the book and increase its impact on the beginning student into whose hands the book may confidently be placed. Blackwell is both an able and fair guide into the literature of the problem and a somewhat successful creator in an area where " somewhat successful " is substantial praise. This reader would have been interested to find among the many important distinctions in the book some analysis of the difference between a methodology of discovery and an epistemology of discovery, and he wonders whether Professor Blackwell would ascribe normative potential to his description of the process of discovery.

Wherein lie the main sources of progress on the question of the nature of discovery? One of these is certainly the bringing to bear on the problem the insights of differing philosophical positions. Another, the potential fruitfulness of which is shown by the fact that many of the pioneering authors who have written most creatively concerning creation in science have also read deeply in the history of science, lies in the gradually increasing number of historical studies which tell not just of the verification of a new hypothesis but also search for the roots from which and the process by which it came to be. And lastly, progress will surely be aided if the many powerful distinctions, acute analyses, and leads for future research contained in Blackwell's Discovery in the Physical Sciences are studied and discussed by other humanists of science. The reader of this cannot leave it without a strong sense of the complexity of the problem, engendered by Blackwell's cautious approach, as well as a sense of the importance of this problem, the solution of which may become the chief task of philosophers of science in the last third of this century.

Michael J. Crowe

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, Indiana

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vols. IV and V: Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, 1966/1968. Edited by Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky. New York: Humanities Press, 1969. Vol. IV, pp. 545, $20.00; Vol. V, pp. 490, $16.75. Vol. VI: Ernst Mach, Physicist and Philosopher. Edited by Robert S. Cohen and Raymond J. Seeger, New York: Humanities Press, 1970, pp. 303, $11.50.

These three substantial volumes are the latest additions to the Boston Studies series, bringing to six the volumes now available.

The first title, Volume IV, consists of lectures given at the Boston Colloquium from 1966 to 1968 and represent a wide range of interests in contemporary philosophy of science. The topics treated range from the neurophysiology of perceptual and linguistic behavior, through the philosophy of mind and of language, the philosophy of history and of the social sciences, and studies in the fundamental categories and methods of philosophy, to the interrelationships of the sciences with ethics and metaphysics. Most of the twenty-two authors represented are philosophers, although there are essays of philosophical significance by a sociologist, an anthropologist, a political scientist, and by three neurophysiologists.

Philosophers of science have not sufficiently addressed themselves to areas of research in the life sciences that would influence analyses of perceptual and linguistic behavior. The contributions in this volume that attempt to supply for this defect include the first English translation of the classic and fundamental work on aphasia of Carl Wernicke (1848-1905), the guiding spirit of the Breslau School in neurology and psychiatry, which is accompanied by a lucid and appreciative guide to his work by Norman Geschwind. The latter author follows this by a detailed analysis, in the Wernicke tradition, of "Anatomy and the Higher Functions of the Brain," concluding with some philosophical reflections on the whole man, the unity of consciousness, the value of introspection, and language and thought. After this is a stimulating essay by another neurophysiologist, Robert Efron, entitled " What is Perception? " wherein the author attempts to show that a precise answer to this " abstract and philosophical question " is necessary to formulate a valid methodology for any study of the neural mechanisms that underlie perception, and that any attempt to conduct such a study " prior to an adequate definition or conceptualization of perception is doomed to failure." (p. 171)

The essays on philosophy of mind and language introduce American readers to the work of two Polish philosophers, Henryk Skolimowski and Boguslaw Wolniewicz. The first is an expert on the history of technology and the author of Polish Analytical Philosophy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967) ; his paper on " Knowledge, Language and Rationality " is commented on by Stephen Toulmin. Arguing against two opposed positions, the " semantic concept of knowledge " and the notion of " personal knowledge," Skolimowski opts for " the primacy of epistemology over linguistics " and attempts to demonstrate " that the so-called pure linguistic criteria of meaning are loaded with epistemological assumptions, that the criteria of meaning follow from an implicitly assumed concept of knowledge, [and] that the concept of language presupposes the concept of knowledge and is determined by it." (p. 174) His arguments depend heavily on the thought of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos and are treated somewhat favorably by Toulmin in his critique. Toulmin

allies himself with Skolimowski's Aristotelianism, while criticizing his presentation as " weaker than the occasion demands." (p. 199) The paper of Wolniewicz, professor at the University of Warsaw, is entitled "A Parallelism Between Wittgensteinian and Aristotelian Ontologies " and is inspired by a statement of Irving M. Copi to the effect that " Wittgenstein's objects are substantial in the later sense of substrata, and correspond more closely to Aristotle's prime matter than to his primary substances." (p. 217) The author expresses an indebtedness to the writings of Gustav Bergmann and his school, and he establishes an interesting Aristotelian interpretation of Wittgenstein which he claims is even more verified in " the variety of Aristotelianism represented by Thomism." (p. 215) This paper is adversely criticized by Henry Ruf, of Boston University, on the grounds that it proposes a peculiar interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, " which stands in conflict with the major themes " of this work. (p. 218) Concluding this group of essays is F. J. Crosson's " The Computer as Gadfly," which reviews the present state of the computer art in its attempt to duplicate human intelligence and points out some of the dilemmas that have been encountered in cybernetics, particularly in the field of simulation, with illustrations drawn from the areas of handwriting recognition and language translation. Surprisingly, all of the essays in this section have a strong Aristotelian cast and represent work in a direction that runs counter to the empiricist tradition that has hitherto been dominant.

The papers devoted to the philosophy of the social sciences include those of Lucien Goldmann on " The Subject of Cultural Creation," Gajo Petrović on " Dialectical Materialism and the Philosophy of Praxis," Leon J. Goldstein on " Theory in History," and Michael Martin on " Understanding and Participant Observation in Cultural and Social Anthropology," to the last of which are appended comments by Judith B. Agassi and Sidney W. Mintz. Goldstein's paper is a closely reasoned review of the recent literature in the debate over the " covering law " concept of historical explanation, wherein he shows quite convincingly that the methodological preoccupations of the opposed parties are quite diverse, and he illustrates this with a series of examples ranging from slavery in North America to the charge of the Light Brigade. Martin's paper is a philosophical inquiry into the importance and validity of participant observation as a methodology in anthropology. Basing his study on a semantic analysis of understanding and empathy, Martin concludes that " scientific understanding of a community is logically independent of being understanding toward a community " (p. 327) and that in the light of this and similar conclusions participant observation has limited value as an anthropological technique. Both commentators find much to criticize in this thesis.

The last group of essays purportedly relate philosophy of science to ethics and metaphysics. Abraham Edel writes on " Patterns of Use of Science in Ethics," and there are comments by Ruth Anna Putnam and John Ladd. The metaphysical contributions are more disparate, including an article by Putnam herself, " On Empirical Knowledge," two papers on causality (William Ruddick on " Causal Connection " and Edward H. Madden on " Causality and the Notion of Necessity "), and two fairly general papers, one lengthy by Joseph Agassi on " Unity and Diversity of Science " and the other a brief exposition by J. O. Wisdom " On Methods of Refutation in Metaphysics." Edel argues that moral knowledge does not differ radically in kind from the sort of knowledge one hopes to gather in modern science, and thus there is no a priori reason for denying the relevance of science to ethics; in fact, he seems to be implying that there are a posteriori reasons for affirming such relevance. Putnam's paper is an attempt to buttress the sagging foundations of empiricism, wherein she proposes an improved empiricist theory of knowledge that would preserve it as a valid philosophy of science against the interpretations (and seeming attacks) of Carnap and Kuhn. In his comments on this paper John Compton admits the importance of historical studies in reshaping contemporary understandings of the philosophy of science, and he proposes as a defensible position " that philosophy of science should become philosophy of the history of science." (p. 418) The papers on causality by Ruddick and Madden are both critical of the Humean analysis of causal connection; Ruddick, in particular, has some interesting insights that derive from his consideration, not of such " true causes " as has been customary with defenders of causality but rather of deceptive causes and common causal misjudgments, which enable him to work out a theory of congruity as the source of explanatory power in causal identifications. Agassi's paper is directed against simplistic views of the unity of science; it defends a Popperian theory of rationality as essentially a problem-solving methodology; within modern science, " solutions to problems offer the element of unification, and their criticisms offer the element of diversification." (p. 463) Wisdom's paper likewise draws on Popper and attempts to show ways in which philosophers might agree on what is wrong with outdated systems of philosophy, such as those of Spinoza, Berkeley, or Kant. (p. 523)

Like Volume IV, Volume V consists of articles based on papers given at the Boston Colloquium during the years 1966-1968 but differing from the previous volume in that they are concerned mainly with the logic and the methods of the natural sciences, including mathematical, physical, and biological topics. As in most writing on philosophy of science, the physico-mathematical essays outnumber by far those devoted to biology. In the latter category, however, there are two very good papers, one by

Milič Čapek on " Ernst Mach's Biological Theory of Knowledge " and the other by June Goodfield on " Theories and Hypotheses in Biology: Theoretical Entities and Functional Explanation," which is commented on critically by Ernst Mayr and Joseph Agassi.

In the realm of more formal analysis, as developed by the Carnapian and Reichenbachian schools, there are several substantial contributions. Adolf Grünbaum has a 150-page " Reply to Hilary Putnam's ' An Examination of Grünbaum's Philosophy of Geometry,' " which is an extensive rebuttal of Putnam's 50-page criticism of Grünbaum's account of physical geometry and chronometry, which appeared originally in Vol. II of the Delaware Seminar (New York: 1963, pp. 205-255) and in turn was a criticism of Grünbaum's " Geometry, Chronometry, and Empiricism," which appeared in Vol. Ill of the Minnesota Studies (Minneapolis: 1962, pp. 405-526). Putnam himself contributes a paper entitled " Is Logic Empirical? " where he argues that some of the so-called " necessary truths " of logic may be shown to be false for empirical reasons and therefore that " logic is, in a certain sense, a natural science." (p. 216) Other essays in this general category include David Finkelstein's " Matter, Space and Logic," and Bernard R. Grunstra's " On Distinguishing Types of Measurement." Articles that are less formal and possess a more metaphysical content are the following: Peter Havas, " Causality Requirements and the Theory of Relativity," with a comment by John Stachel; Aage Petersen, " On the Philosophical Significance of the Correspondence Argument " ; R. Fürth, " The Role of Models in Theoretical Physics " ; Mihailo Markovič, " The Problem of Truth " ; P. Roman, " Symmetry in Physics " ; and Wolfgang Yourgrau, " Verification or Proof--An Undecided Issue? " Only one article draws heavily on the history of science, and this is I. Bernard Cohen's excellent summary of his work, that has extended now over many years, on " Hypotheses in Newton's Philosophy."

Volume VI represents a departure from the editorial policy of the Boston Studies in that it includes contributions that were not presented originally in the Boston Colloquium but rather formed part of a symposium to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Ernst Mach. The symposium was arranged for the joint session of the History of Science Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Section L) held in Washington, D. C., on December 27, 1966. The published papers include some that were not presented at this symposium but were added by the editors to round out the coverage of Mach. All of the essays relate in one way or another to Mach's life, his work, and his philosophy. Of particular interest to readers of this journal will be Erwin N. Hiebert's " The Genesis of Mach's Early Views on Atomism," Robert S. Cohen's "Ernst Mach: Physics, Perception and the Philosophy of Science," and Gerald J. Holton's " Mach, Einstein and the Search for

Reality." Included in appendices are two articles by Philipp Frank on Mach's philosophy of science, one by Richard von Mises which has hitherto been unavailable in English, and biographical data and a complete bibliography of Mach's writings, including those that have appeared in English translation.

In sum, these three volumes contain a wealth of information on the current state of the philosophy of science movement. Like most collections they are uneven in the quality of their thought, in the level of their presentation, and in the philosophical background and presuppositions of the authors represented. This is not necessarily a disadvantage, since the movement has increasingly diversified within the last ten years or so, and the inputs from many different philosophical and historical traditions have contributed greatly to its vitality. In the ten years of the Boston Colloquium's existence, moreover, its discussions have aided considerably in this broadening of perspective, and Professors Cohen and Wartofsky can only be thanked for their untiring efforts to give all interested parties a hearing--ranging from voices within Communist countries that could all too easily go unheard to those of Aristotelians who courageously discuss contemporary scientific problems in terms of their roots in Greek thought. This reviewer has only two adverse criticisms, one probably beyond the control of the editors, viz., the prices of the volumes, and the other probably within their control, viz., the absence of an index of any type in Volumes IV and V. Volume VI has a helpful index of names at the end, and it is to be hoped that at least this minimal reference aid will be continued in future volumes.

William A. Wallace, O. P.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space. By Yves Simon. Edited by Gerard J. Dalcourt. Albany, N. Y.: Magi Books, 1970. Pp.206. $3.75.

The first word to be said of this book is that it is splendid, from every point of view. The analyses in all ten chapters are models of philosophical brilliance combined with didactic simplicity and historical exactitude. The editor has organized and polished this posthumous publication with a consummate skill; the publisher has produced a volume that is aesthetically pleasing and of high quality.

In his " Preface " Mr. Dalcourt modestly describes this book as one

" that should be of some value to the general reader and also, in some instances, to professional philosophers." (p. xiv) I agree with this description on both counts--except that I cannot imagine what the instances might have been in which Dalcourt thought the volume might not be of value to professional philosophers, for every issue touched on in this book is fundamental in any thorough philosophical reflection on the world and is treated with a scholarly competence at the service of philosophical genius, the kind of genius that puts one in the pure presence of philosophy itself.

The book is all the more amazing when one considers that it is composed of no more than the fragments of a volume which Yves Simon had planned as part of a comprehensive 21-volume Encyclopedia of Philosophy, to be published by the University of Chicago Press. Hardly had Professor Simon conceived and laid the groundwork for this monumental Encyclopedia than it was discovered that he was a victim of cancer that ensured an early death, much too early to afford any hope of his carrying through the carefully planned and extensive task of the Encyclopedia.

What response does a man make in the face of discovering that his lifework shall go uncompleted, cut off by a mindless and unstoppable perversion of nature itself? Yves Simon's response at least showed the stature of the man and the dedication of the philosopher who had written in his early days: " It is in order to know the truth that one establishes ideas, expresses concepts, constructs, discourses: when that has been realized, one is immunized against a great many of the false conceptions of the activity of the mind."

This present book, along with the several other posthumous volumes already published and still to come, is thus the product of a patient piecing together of notes and articles which, for all their brilliance and power, are but a shadow of what would have been had Yves Simon lived to execute himself the full task he had so well prepared. This fact is a monumental tragedy for the continuance and development of the philosophical tradition, monumental, because that was the scale of Simon's genius, and tragic, because it should not have been.

What we are left with, at any rate, thanks to the excellent intervention of Dr. Dalcourt, is yet one of the finest treatises on the philosophy of nature that is to be found outside the pages of Aristotle's own Physics, a treatise whose value, moreover, is doubled by the historical fact of coming at a time when the philosophical study of sensible nature, as a discipline distinct specifically from experimental science and metaphysics alike, is as little understood and valued as one could imagine. That we live in a dark age of the philosophic intelligence no one familiar with our university departments doubts. Perhaps the reason Yves Simon, like

his intimate friend, Jacques Maritain, devoted so much study and writing to the philosophy of nature, was because he perceived so clearly that a genuine renaissance of philosophy in the culture of modern man depends in the most crucial way on a re-establishment and vindication of the rights of the intelligence--not the manipulative intelligence of experiment but the intuitive intelligence of being as sensibly realized in itself--at the very base of our grasp of the world. For only by being assured of its grasp on the truth as well as the behavior of the physical can the mind then dare to hope and extend its grasp to metaphysical truths. Because modern philosophy misunderstood its own dependence on nature, it can blame none besides itself for the general reception now accorded its metaphysical claims as myths and high-flown speculations devoid of soundness.

To restore to philosophy, then, what of nature belongs to it, remarks Simon (p. 17), " you can see that . . . we shall have constantly to carry out an epistemological reflection on what we are doing. All that promises to be very difficult, but if we are only half equal to our task it should also be very interesting."

That is how Simon sets the stage for the main inquiries of his book. It is impossible to convey the candor and energy with which he pursues these inquiries. This is not a book with which one quarrels on particular points. The author is not interested in quarrelling but with sharing and furthering a pure philosophical inquiry. No better way and no better work could easily be imagined to overcome the ingrained prejudices of the professionals against the very idea of a proper philosophy of the same phenomena scrutinized by experimental science. If enough young students should happen to assimilate for themselves, and critically, Dr. Simon's elegant presentation of The Great Dialogue of Nature and Space, it might not be too much to hope that days of general acceptance of these by now hoary prejudices might at last be numbered.

It may be that, for all their relative incompleteness, these posthumous manuscripts may yet come to mark a decisive early step in the philosophical renaissance Yves Simon perceived, with all its surface improbability, as deeply possible--and necessary, if modern culture is not to lose the balance of its mind, and therewith its soul. All that promises indeed to be very difficult. But if we are even half equal to the task, it should also prove very fascinating. And enough is at stake to make the game worth playing to the end.

John N. Deely

Institute for Philosophical Research

Chicago, Illinois

The God of Evil: An Argument from the Existence of the Devil. By Frederick Sontag. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Pp. 183. $5.95.

The problem of evil and its implications for the existence of God remains an open question in theology. Attempted solutions take one of two directions: either they claim that God in his omnipotence freely chose this world among all possible worlds and that this is not the best possible world; or they see God from the viewpoint of process philosophy, as a God somehow perfectible, somehow acting and being acted upon by an evolving world, unable to make things better than they are at the present moment. Frederick Sontag in The God of Evil adopts the first and more traditional viewpoint. However, his principal concern is to show how God and evil are compatible, portraying God in existentialist fashion as one who decides among various possibilities against the horizon of Non-Being. Therefore, Non-Being or Evil are somehow within the range of God. For Sontag, if God and evil are reconcilable, the atheistic position is disarmed.

Sontag begins his work by pointing out that the concept of God must account for the existence of factors that argue against him. He wishes to describe a God that can exist in spite of destructive forces. (The term " Devil " is applied to the coalescence of the forces of destruction.) In fact, God must have intentionally designed atheism and the grounds for it. (p. 2)

Previous attempts to prove the existence of God have failed. For example, the five arguments of St. Thomas are oversimplified and do not give sufficient attention to the disorder in the world. Kierkegaard's God seems to stand or fall on the strength of Kierkegaard's personal faith; and Tillich's God being more mystical than metaphysical is unable to address himself to the evils of the world. Anti-metaphysical, romantic, and existentialist positions on God seem to lose validity as the times and circumstances change.

Sontag's thesis focuses on the observation that to question the existence of a being implies the possibility of its non-being. Man questions the existence of God and therefore there is nothingness in God, otherwise one would not raise the question. Just as human reality emerges as a particular being in the midst of Non-Being, so God's reality can only be understood by passing through nothingness. Man experiences anguish regarding God since God's being remains always in question. However, for Sontag to question God's existence really means that God does not create out of necessity but out of free decision. God's existence is always in question in the sense that the issue over what he will create and under what conditions he will do so is forever an open question. (p. 79) If God created out of necessity man would have an immediate mental link with God. Sontag declares: " The reasons behind his [God's] action are a

question to God and therefore his existence in this sense is constantly in question, since nothing in his nature leads him precisely or unavoidably to exactly this form of creation rather than that." (p. 80)

It is through God that nothingness comes into the world in the sense that he must question himself by holding up all the possibles before himself for consideration. In doing so he puts himself " beyond Being " and next to nothingness. Since God has a choice among alternatives, this is not the best possible world. God could have freely chosen a better world but decided on this one. He could have caused or speeded up the relief of human suffering and did not choose to do so. (p. 18) " He must then, be a God who does not faint at the sight of blood or lie awake because sufferers scream." (p. 22) Man's only choice is to make the best of the situation. Here, we see that Sontag by choosing the traditional viewpoint regarding God and the problem of evil comes up against its fundamental weakness: if God could have created a better world, why did he not do so.

However, it is in the midst of evil that Sontag sees an indication of God's existence. For, in view of the destructive forces in existence, we must ask what held these forces in check in creation. What power formed a world in spite of all resistance and holds evil within limits? In other words, if God did not exist we would be hard-pressed to explain the problem of good.

God sets our being adrift in a sea of Non-Being and we must decide for our possibilities. " To be " means to possess a power sufficient to sustain a concrete mode of being against its passage into Non-Being. Personality in God is more obvious in a contingent world rather than a necessary one. For, to actualize things requires a combination of will, power, and knowledge--all attributes of personality. The personality of God allows for man's freedom, something an impersonal principle is unable to do.

The God of Evil makes a contribution in showing that philosophizing about the nature of God is still a viable study. Sontag accurately portrays the present state of affairs and where recent philosophy has failed. However, certain root questions remain unanswered or not even addressed, granted the limited scope of the book. Sontag not only presupposes God's existence but speaks of him as complete in himself, freely choosing to create this world rather than several better ones. The question still remains, why should not an all good God create the best world possible. Sontag is critical of concepts of God which are waning in acceptance, but his God who gratuitously allows extraordinary evil is not too attractive. Secondly, positing a God who is the source of good among the destructive forces of evil does not seem to be an exhaustive explanation. Furthermore, Sontag seems almost Manichean in giving such a primary role to the

forces of evil. However, the most serious objection is directed against Sontag's thesis itself. Questioning the existence of a creature immediately involves its being as opposed to not being. One would expect that questioning God's existence would also leave God's being in jeopardy. But, for Sontag, God in himself remains untouched. Rather, questioning his being indicates God's decision to choose this or that possibility in the face of being. In other words, Sontag has shifted the issue from the existence of God to a declaration that God is a free creator rather than creating out of necessity. The fact that God creates freely and that limited being shares in non-being has already been clearly drawn by Scholasticism.

In conclusion, Sontag's work will not be successful in convincing atheists of the viability of God but can only show that there is nothing contradictory to his existence. Rather, The God of Evil can serve to quiet the spirits of the believer. However, the problem of evil remains and Sontag's God chooses to tolerate it when he could have done otherwise.

Seely Beggiani

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Was Jesus Married? The Distortion of Sexuality in the Christian Tradition. By William E. Phipps. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Pp. 243. $5.95.

A critic's first inclination in response to this study might be to deal with the innumerable objections and observations put forth by the author. Such an approach would, in fact, demand another monograph. This book does not deserve such a response. That is not to say, however, that this book should be allowed to pass without comment.

The extent of the author's survey and research are rather impressive (sexual attitudes in ancient Judaism, an exegesis of the Gospel texts that are related to Jesus' teaching on celibacy, the apostolic and Pauline witness to and teaching concerning marriage, virginity and sexuality, and the sexual attitudes of second-century Christianity, early Orthodoxy, and Roman Catholicism). At first sight, while such an undertaking might frighten any serious writer, such a study could certainly have added something of value to Christology and the place of sexuality in Christian morality and piety. At first sight too, it would appear that the author had done his research thoroughly. But unfortunately all this work was for nought, or at best a superfluous exercise. The issue of the investigation

was never in doubt--the subtitle should be moved to the title position in future printings.

The study of Jesus' teaching about sexual morality and of his own sexuality are certainly legitimate and even important topics. In addition, an investigation of the teaching on sexuality in Christian tradition could be instructive and might help to explain the almost neurotic preoccupation of Christianity with sexual morality and ultimately help to put this subject in the perspective that it needs. The areas and goals, then, of this study are not in question.

The objections to the book arise from the prejudice, pettiness, and lack of scholarship that mar almost every page. The prejudices and pettiness (almost unhealthy in their petulance) need not be documented nor do they deserve to be. But it is the vincible (?) lack of serious and stringent methodology for which the author must be held accountable.

The exegetical study of relevant Gospel texts gives no indication that the author is even remotely aware of Redaktionsgeschichte or the aspect of the Sitz im Leben der Kirche of the Gospels. The credentials of the author would lead one to hope that he might escape what is almost a crass fundamentalism (despite the reference to serious exegetical studies) . The exposition of Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 ignores the nuances of the Apostle's language of command, suggestion, and recommendation (and the work of S. Lyonnet).

The study of the Patristic evidence is vitiated from the beginning because, for the author, Hellenistic culture and thought have little or no redeeming features. The Hebraic mentality and tradition would have preserved balance and purity of vision on the topic of sexuality--Jesus' and the rest of men's. Justin is the bête noire of the Patristic scenario, but then any Father is scolded if his teachings do not fit the author's " hypothesis."

Furthermore, it would seem that even the most amateur reader of modern psychology is aware of the difference between sexuality and genital sexual expression and the relationship of both to the personality and maturity of a man. Here, the author's remarks range from the simplistic to the erroneous.

But the most serious methodological error of this study is the presupposition that Christian theologizing about the marital status of Jesus (and the resulting possibility of celibacy as one kind of imitation of him) cannot rest on a fact: Jesus was celibate. The author's evidence that Jesus was married (from ancient and contemporary Judaism) is not conclusive. The evidence for his position drawn from the Gospels is even less so. There remains the possibility that Jesus was not married, and it is possible that tradition witnesses to that fact. It need not be, as the author tries to show, that tradition felt a need to justify its own

bias by inventing something that is fictitious. But again the author's methodology is too limited and preordained to deal with this option.

Finally, the phenomenon of celibacy in its many forms past and present within the Christian community is a constant irritant for the author. His criticism of some of the theology on celibacy and its justification in the Christian lives of men and women is quite valid at times. But his contribution to the present debate is minimal. If those who seriously question the present discipline of the Church on this point need the support of this book, they could be in serious intellectual difficulty.

In conclusion, one wonders who the author has in view as the readers of his work. It seems impossible that he could expect any intelligent and knowledgeable reader to be satisfied with the feeble and offensive polemics of his study. And what is the value of appealing to those who already agree with him about the distortion of Jesus' life and morality perpetrated by the Church?

The author should be informed that a " celibate " is the author of this review (the word might be added to the list of pejoratives in the English language after its usage in this book) ; this may allow him to dismiss the preceding observations as Pavlovian responses to his conclusions. But I looked forward to more from this book; I am disappointed that it was much less than it could have been. The topic is too serious to be handled in the way in which it was in this book.

James P. Clifton, C. F. X.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Hervaeus Natalis, O. P. and the Controversies over the Real Presence and Transubstantiation. By Kenneth Plotnik. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 1970. Pp. 83. DM 9,80.

Once again the name of the Grabmann Institute is associated with a valuable contribution to the history of theology. This time, in connection with the Theological Faculty of the University of Munich, the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, and St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, the spirit of the Grabmann Institute finds expression in a study of medieval controversies over the Eucharist. Kenneth Plotnik reviews the positions of Hervaeus Natalis, O. P. and his opponents in the questions of the mode of the Real Presence and Transubstantiation, offering interpretations of important texts and evidence for possible reconciliations among the adherents of opposing schools of thought.

Plotnik addresses himself to a segment of the rational effort of medieval theologians to express the richness of the Christian doctrine of the Eucharist. Evident in his work are the strange interaction and interdependence of the medieval disciplines which forced commitments to set formulas and produced contrived philosophical positions ostensibly in defense of orthodoxy. However remote in time its subject might be from current Process Theology, this study provides a useful link between the simplistic presentation of New Testament doctrine and the expected complexities of the sophisticated theology common to speculative thinkers today.

The work is divided into three chapters. The first introduces the reader to the life of Hervaeus Natalis, his basic writings, and the character of the controversies over the Real Presence and Transubstantiation after the death of Thomas Aquinas. The second offers a brief treatment of the views of Aquinas and Hervaeus concerning the mode of Christ's presence, discusses in some detail Hervaeus's conception of relational presence, and considers the positions of Durand of St. Pourçain and Giles of Rome. It takes up the problem of quantity in the Eucharist and concludes with an overview of the relevant disputations between Hervaeus and Durand. The third chapter treats the question of Transubstantiation as decided by Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, James of Metz (through an anonymous commentator), and Durand; and the question of consubstantiation as decided by John Quidort of Paris and William of Occam.

Plotnik succeeds in presenting clearly the positions of the opponents, even though, at times, they appear to be over-simplified, and he sets in good historical perspective their textual bases. It is his purpose to bring to the attention of current theologians the variety of the Scholastic efforts made to come to grips with the mysteriousness of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. Granting to each exponent a measure of honest self-criticism and a passion for orthodoxy, he presents their various attempts to elaborate the elusive mystery central to Christian theology and explains the methodology used in the achievement and defense of each position.

In the doctrinal portion of the work the author gives a central posture to the teaching of Aquinas. For the Angelic Doctor, Christ is present by way of substance, and the matter and form, of the bread and wine are changed into the matter and form of Christ's body. This establishes a relationship between Christ and the Eucharist. In addition to the fact that Aquinas's own theories concerning the Real Presence were controverted, disputes arose over the explicitation of this relationship. Hervaeus Natalis, a generation after Aquinas, restated and defended the Thomistic views without greatly developing them. Employing the principle of incomprehensibility, Hervaeus neglected the Thomistic " mode of substance"

formula in favor of an emphasis on what the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not (non-local, non-positional) .

Other views are as follows: Giles of Rome held that the entire substance of the bread is changed into the matter alone of Christ's body; Henry of Ghent and the pluralists held that the matter of the bread is changed into the matter of Christ's body, but the form