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BOOK REVIEWS 653 master pattern is the Word-Son" (458). These "impressions" derive from Aquinas's commentaries on Aristotle, in this case, the Metapbysics and Posterior Analytics. From the first, we are directed to "Aristotle's inquiry into the most appropriate way to come to know the nature of things" (459). Here, it seems, every relevant form of inquiry is demanded, though all need to be sifted; poets have their place as well, though it will be relativized. What counts, of course, is the act of sifting, which Aristotle identified with the dialectic of Plato. From the PosteriorAnalytics, we are treated to the vexing issue of foreknowledge needed to come to know anything-the famous "Meno-problem, which leads us into the presumption dear to both Aristotle and Aquinas, of a "profound harmony between the steps of reason and processes of nature" (466)-yet one for which Aquinas's creation-centered scheme can more effectively account. Finally, also from the Posterior Analytics, we note how one must recognize "wisdom as a habitus for first principles" (468), and we are invited to link this commentary on Aristotle with Aquinas's commentary on John, where "Christ is explicitly designated as the unique principle of science" (479) as, of course, the Word though whom the universe is created. So this work mimics the journey of discovery which is the Summa, and does do by detailing for us the manner in which it has explicitly been constructed, and the relevance such construction has to our efforts to understand in these arcane arenas. Such a rediscovery of Aquinas's genius for literary composition can return us to an attentiveness which conceptualist modes of thought had all but obscured, and reawaken our appreciation of the literary challenges that constructing an authentically analogous mode of discourse will pose. Caveant scriptores, yet accomplishments like this one can display the fruits of genuine apprenticeship to a literary master ofphilosophical theology. We are promised two successor volumes, to carry this thesis into more explicitly philosophical and then theological domains. The second has been completed, and the third is in process. Ad multos annos! University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana DAVID B. BURRELL, C.S.C. The Very Rich Hours ofJacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life. By RALPH MCINERNY. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. Pp. 235. $32.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-268-04359-0. The Very Rich Hours ofJacques Maritain is a relentless statement of the relationship between philosophy and faith in the man whom Yves Simon called the only genius in Catholic philosophy in three hundred years. It is also Mclnerny's testimony to the sanctity of Maritain and the magnificent e~ple 654 BOOK REVIEWS he was for Catholic students of philosophy during the golden years of twentiethcentury Thomism, which supported philosophizing in an atmosphere of faith. The intriguing title shows that the real biography of Maritain is a spiritual biography, which Mcinerny divides according to the liturgical day. Using the hours from Matins to Compline as the frame for the birth-to-death events of Maritain's life and work, Mcinerny begins the book with an "invitatory": an account of the visit of Edith Stein in 1932 to the Thomistic Study Circle at the Maritains' home in the Paris suburb of Meudon. Mcinerny uses her visit to illustrate the spiritual as well as intellectual attraction of the Maritains' lives and thought, in this case an appeal felt by a brilliant young philosopher who would one day become a saint. For those who have read much of Maritain, this book may disappoint, for it is not a thorough treatment of the Maritainian corpus. Neither is it an intensive examination ofJacques's spiritual life in the typical way of spiritual biography, whichwould have required more personal details about his life in Paris, Toronto, etc., and included correspondence with spiritual intimates and testimonies from friends. The real audience for the book is persons wanting a provocative account of philosophy as found in a Catholic thinker whose fundamental interest was faith, sanctity, and union with God. Mcinerny repeats the factual elements of Maritain's life, ones familiar to readers ofMaritain and to be found in other works, including Raissa's...

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