Milton and the Puritan Dilemma

502 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY necessities of ~ts geographic~l and economic position. These defensive necessities,mll;st, by the law of survival, take precedence over considerations of either welfare or civilization so long as those int~rested 'in the latter neglect to universalize the rule of law through organization" (p. 267). But it is unfair to end on a sour,note. A Study of War will no doubt rank as a landmark in schol~rship in the social sciences. It is the most comprehensive study of ,war in English, probably i"n' any language , even if the last word has not been said 0"0 the subject. It will have wide intellectual repercussions first ,among social scientists, ultimately among a much wider public, 'even 'if the Jayman will be appalled bY ' its bulk. Its discussion of problems of method will have little 'less' influence than its findings on the problem of war. It will be a great quarry from which students and teachers alike can dig various ores, and, 'to change the metaphor, i t star~s a variety ofiritellectual game, which simply must' be chased, 'and no doubt will be, even if they lead off in many directions. MILTON A;ND THE PURITAN D~LEMMA* WILLIAM RILEY PARKER The first volume of "Studies and Texts" by the English Dep'ai-tment of the University of Toronto is a thorough examination of both continuity and revision in Milton's opinions between 1641 and 1660, interpreted in the context of "the changing climate of opinion among his Puritan associates." Milton and the Puritan Dilemma is an important book, an auspicious· beginning 'for a new series. Professor Barker achieves clarity and proportion by analysing Milton's ideas at successive 'stages instead, of considering" each separate pamphlet in chronological order. ' ,He also escapes the scholarly dilemma, in which some of his predecessors were caught, of either isolating and over-emphasizing Milton's, ideas, or else losing th,em in details of the intellectual history of hi's time. He gives us, instead, a coherent account of a developing pattern ,of, thought, kept always against the only background which enables us to evaluate it. Perhaps no book on this general subject can ever please all ' I readers. One steeped in religious controversy of the seventeenth I century will find Barker superficial in those very chapters where I *Milton imd IlJe Puritan Dilemma, 16;/w/660, by ARTHUR BARKER. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1942, $3.75. r. REVIEWS 503 another reader will find him profound. The idolatrous' will be offended by the candid exposure of Milton's' inconsistencies and muddled thinking) while the Liljegrens of criticism will dislike the . stout defence of Milton's fumbling sincerity. Still others may object that the final reward of any such study, a knowledge of the effect of it all on Milton's poetry, is, after 440 pages, left to the rea.~er. But this reviewer, for personal and,impersonal reasons, has no fault·to :find with a book that does only part of an important job, so long as that part is done' accurately and thoroughly. If anyone later improves upon Barker's work, he will find Barker indispensable to the process. The the'sis of Milton and the Puritan ,Dilemma is ·best stated in the author's own words: If the eye is fixed on r~formation, the liberty which follows will be of a par-ticular kind, to be exercised only within the limits of reform; if the eye is fixed on liberty, the reformation demanded will be of a kind calculated to permit the' liberty desired. So long as', the terms remained indefinite, as they were in the early 1640's, Puritanism exhibited a remarkable degree of unanimity.••• But the removal of antichristian episcopacy meant the end of unanimity. In its l~rger aspects, the history of Puritanism between 1643 and 1660 is the history of conflicting efforts to find definitions of reformation and .of liberty which would make possible the achievement of both. . Puritanism failed..•. In the end [Milton] was to achieve, for himself if not for his country, something like a solution ... In developing this thesis Barker refers to other...