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~38 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35: ~ JANUARY ~997 and on whether it is accessible to all or only to a select few. The function of the intellect and the will in relation to each other is another point of divergence, as is their respective account of limits in human virtue. But these are related to two other philosophical differences concerning matter and the soul. Unlike Maimonides, Aquinas maintains that the soul, qua intellect, is a selfsubsistent , immaterial being. But in its powers it is intellective in that it is directed towards the order of being and appetitive in that it is directed towards the order of good; likewise, it is active in relation to being and passive in relation to the good. This account leads Aquinas to argue for an essential relation between intellect and will, for locating evil in free choice, for a view of human perfection that is both speculative and practical, for multiple agent intellects, and for individual immortality available to all human beings--conclusions that do not readily derive from Maimonides's premises. In the thought of Maimonides, matter is necessarily related to evil and marks a discontinuity between the lunar and sublunar spheres. In the thought of Aquinas, by contrast, there is no such discontinuity, nor is matter the source of evil, because of a participation in goodness as well as being. In other words, matter, for Maimonides, is an ontological principle in the composition of contingent beings but one that has a disruptive influence because it subjugates forms. It poses a barrier to intellectual apprehension and therefore impedes the realization of human perfection, consisting ultimately in a knowledge of God. For Aquinas, matter is not only an ontological principle but also a moral principle. As privation, matter is basically good because of its inclination towards an end and active because of its role in the actualization of forms. Rather than impede human perfection, matter provides an impulse towards it because of a natural desire to an ultimate end, namely, the knowledge of God. The underpinning for these contrasts, as Dobbs-Weinstein shows, is a metaphysics of the Good alongside a metaphysics of Being. It is the former that allows Aquinas to elucidate providence in terms of a participative relationship between creatures and God in a much more explicit and comprehensive way than Maimonides can. Although the study is rich in detail, it is also compact in argumentation and occasionally dense in style. I am surprised that previous work of the author, although clearly evident in several chapters, is neither credited in the endnotes nor listed in the bibliography . Notes are inconveniently compiled at the end and numbered consecutively across all the chapters. Nevertheless, there are few studies comparable in scope and depth. (The most recent is the study in French by Avital Wohlman, Thomasd'Aquin etMa~monide [Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1988].) Dobbs-Weinstein's study is, therefore, a welcome and significant addition to both Maimonidean and Thomistic scholarship. JOSEPH A. BuIJS St.Joseph's College,Edmonton Genevieve Rodis-Lewis. Descartes:Biographie. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1995. Pp. 371 . Paper , FF t5o. In her comprehensive biography of Descartes, Genevi/~ve Rodis-Lewis tells the story that has come to be called the legend of Descartes. There is his father's little philosopher, the BOOK REVIEWS t39 adolescent prodigy allowed to sleep late in a single room at his Jesuit college, the soldierphilosopher meditating while the Thirty Years' War rages about him, the chivalrous disarming without injuring a rival for a young woman's affections, the private interview with Cardinal Bdrulle who directed his life, the meeting with Beeckman in front of a placard announcing a mathematical problem in Breda, the intellectual love affair with Princess Elisabeth, his library containing a dead sheep, the ballet Queen Christina made him write because he wouldn't dance, and his last hours full of acts of continuous piety and devotion. Rodis-Lewis follows Adrien Baillet's Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes (1691) with corrections based on later work, most recently that of Vincent Carraud, Faenestra de Leyde (Nouvelles de la R~publique des Lettres, 1988), Jean-Robert Armogathe (Theologia Cartes /ana, 1977) , and Theo Verbeek (La...

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