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282 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:~ APRIL 199 3 This is why he said [in Met.] 'it is easy to assemble many impossibilities...': they were assembled there [in On Ideas]" (98.~ a-24). Thus Alexander implicitly claims to be repeating (some of) the absurdities which Aristode had collected in On Ideas. We have no reason to reject his claim; and although he is no doubt paraphrasing rather than quoting, it is reasonable to conclude that in his On Ideas Aristode himself ascribed a theory of forms to Eudoxus. Was this the bizarre theory which Dancy ascribes to him? As far as I can see, the only reason for supposing that Eudoxus took forms to be physical ingredients in things is the fact that Aristotle couples him with Anaxagoras at Met. 991a16--17 . Aristotle refers slightingly to a theory which explains why, e.g., snow is white by supposing that white is "mixed" with snow, and he reports that this theory was advanced "first by Anaxagoras, and later by Eudoxus and some others." Now Anaxagoras is supposed to have thought of white as a physical stuff, one of the dominant physical ingredients in snow. Hence we are to infer that Eudoxus also took white--now construed as the form of white--to be a physical stuff. This inference is less than compelling; and it seems to me that Aristotle means only to ascribe to Eudoxus the vague thought that forms are somehow or other "mixed" with things. There is much of interest in Dancy's Studies. But his main arguments do not convince . Moreover, his book has been padded out to twice its natural size. He disarmingly confesses that "these two studies began as journal-length papers" (ix). That is the form they might better have retained. 6 JONATHAN BARNES Balliol College, Oxford Leo J. Elders, S.V.D.. The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Leiden-New York: Brill, 199o. Pp. 33 ~. NP. The author, Professor at the Institute of Philosophy "Rolduc," Kerkrade, Holland, who studied at the University of Utrecht, Harvard University, and the Universit6 de Montreal (Ph.D. 1959), has given us what may well be the most complete and accurate account of St. Thomas's philosophical theology (or philosophy of God) available in English. He prefaces the study of St. Thomas with some fifty pages of introductory historical material, such as a history of philosophical theology, the idea of God in Western philosophy, a history of atheism and agnosticism, the use of philosophical theology, etc. Some of these are uneven, but with occasional significant insights. 6A growl at the publishers. On the back of the book lan Mueller informs would-be purchasers that "Dancy... opens up new areas of research." He does not, nor does he claim to--on the contrary, and as his notes amply document, he is treading familiar ground. In the same place Josiah Gould informs would-be purchasers that "the rich documentation of source material" and the translations "will make this book a treasure trove for scholars." Nonsense: the documentation and the translations will indeed be--as Dancy hopes--a boon for students; but they are not treasure for scholars. The book is falsely advertised; and I wish that publishers would abjure the wretched practice of solicitingsuch puffs. SOOK RZVIZWS 283 In the treatment of St. Thomas's own teaching, he follows mainly the order of the Summa Theologiae, as might be expected. First comes a discussion of the philosophical evidence for our knowledge of God's existence, then the famous Five Ways of positively proving the existence of God, plus a helpful discussion of their place in the philosophy of St. Thomas and a comparison with the Triple Way of Pseudo-Dionysius. In all this the author sticks very close to the text of Thomas, and his interpretation of what the text actually means is consistently more accurate, it seems to me, where there is a divergence of opinion, than most other commentators proposing other interpretations . I had the impression throughout the book that he is thoroughly familiar with Thomas's thought and very careful to interpret it accurately. His many footnotes are also helpful and show he is well...

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