Basic Writings of Saint Thomas

I ' REVIEWS 1'01· supposed sanctjons in Engli.sh . history, whtle retaining thos~ in Graec_ oRoman and VenetianJ and became the basis for the Oceana of Harrington and the Free Commonwe~lth of Milton. Associated·from the.earliest date with the notion of the mixed state was that of the ideal legislator, exemplin ~d in Lycurgus, who assumed absolute. power in order ~o establish it and, when he had done so, withdrew. For this r~le. ac~ording to Harrjngton Cromwdl was cast, and according to Milton, General Monk. Nothing in the book IS more illuminating than Mr. Fink's learned and closdy argued account o£ tht: evolution of MJlton's political thought. Among other things·. which it renders mo~e intelligible is the comb1nation in Milton.of arguments derived from che sovereignty of the people with an insistence on the actual rule of the enlightened, of an aristocracy of virtue and _ abjlity. Here · evidently other.patterns whose sources are religious, cross and concur with this o~e whose ·source is human istic. Such observations Mr. Fink leaves the reader to make for himself; but it confirms the ess 1097; xxxi1 1179. ·($7.50). 'lA Thomistic Bibliography1 covering che period 1920-401 published this spring by a graduate of the University of Toronto, Professor Vernon J. Bourke1 o( Saint Louis University, -lisrs nearly five thousand titks. 102 T HE UNIVERSITY OF TOROKTO QU.'\RTERLY dec1ded vigour and freshness of thought and, in some instances, high. literary merit. One need only mention the writings of Gilson and Maritain, names weJI known in Canada. Yet these very wri ters would be among the first to echo the exhortatiOn of Pope L=o XIII, ''that the wisdom of Thomas be drawn from its spring." For, the authentic source of ·a thinker's philosophy is his own writings; and the chief mem f books on his thought lies tn leading others to the fountain and mvitJng them to drink . . This is what Professor A. C. Pegis has endeavoured to do in editing Basic Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. A graduate of the University of T oronto, where he received his Doctorate in Ph1losophy in 1933, Professor Peg1s began h i~ academic career in the Department of Philosophy at M arquette University, M1lwaukee. Subsequently, he became P rofessor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York, and at the present time occupies the chair of History of P hilosophy in the Pontifical Institute of Med1aeval Studie~, Toronto. During the past ten years Dr. Pegts has p ui.Jlishcd numerous studies in the history of mediaeval philosophy, two of which, The Problem of the Soul in the Xlllth Cmtury and St. Thomas and th( Grulu have attracted particular notice. Basic Jl'ritings of Sai111 Thomas Aquinas is published in two large octavo volumes, each numbenng well over a thousand pages. Jn spire of this, the publishers have succeeded in making these volumes qu ite maniable. The books are :.trongly bound in black buckram and attractively adorned with the arms of the House of Aquino mounted on a DomJnJcan cross printed in gold and red on t he cover. 'v\'ere it not for war restnctJOn.~, a somewhat better paper would probably have been used, although the present paper in no way interferes w1th the legibility of the type. T he first volume, the general theme of which is "God and the Order of Creation," comprises the whole of the Prima Pan of St. T homas's Summa Thtologiac. The second treats oi " Man and the Conduct of. Life." I t includes the third book of the Summa Contra Cmtiles followed by the entire Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae, excepting the first five questions and the section 0n the P assions, and the treatise on Faith from the Secunda Secundae. A notable feature of this selecrion of texts is that it provides a fa1rly complete synoptic view of St. Thomas's thought and thus makes for contmuity in ·the expo.~i rion of his teaching, avoiding the disconnectedness and confusion which commonly accompanies a mosa1c of abbrev1ated texts. T he ed1tor set out to provide for students a useful and reasonably clear E nglish text of...