Abstract

The highest praise to be given this book is that it has merited publication as a paperback almost three decades after its first appearance. All too often books in the history of ideas tend to become ‘dated’ soon after their appearance, but this work is still delightfully readable and in most respects as relevant to the problems of our own day as to those of the past. For those unfamiliar with it when it first appeared in 1939 it is an extremely informative and scholarly work dealing with some of the less well known theologians and philosophers who were concerned to defend the French Catholic tradition and religion not only against the philosophes but also against some of the religious extremists of the 18th century. A citation of some of the chapter headings will reveal the kind of problems the author deals with: ‘Nature and Grace’, ‘History and Tradition’, ‘Soul and Mind’, ‘Creation and Causality’, ‘Obligation and Liberty’. The author is an historian rather than a philosopher but he has not only a good acquaintance with philosophy but also an excellent understanding of Catholic theology.