Tommaso Campanella Bernardino M. Bonansea, O. F. M. (review)

694 BOOK REVIEWS social encyclicals is given with the historical context which called for special emphasis. The author rightly remarks that "Rerum Novarum outlined the basic standards for a free industrial society. Other documents of the Church have built on them but little that is new has been added in the way of principle. Such was the achievement of this great encyclical, the Magna Carta of the Church's social teaching." There is a special chapter on the response of the Magisterium to the international discussion on the cold war, the arms race, and aid to underdeveloped countries. A wisely devised comment follows on two contemporary problems, racism and political cynicism. Finally, there is a most helpful appendix on the authority of the social encyclicals. St. Charles' Seminary Nagpur, India JEROME TONER, 0. P. Tommaso Campanella. Renaissance Pioneer of Modern Thought. By BERNARDINO M. BoNANSEA, 0. F. M. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1969. Pp. 43!'!; $14.50. " The journey through the maze of Campanellian writings has not been an easy one," says the author of this substantial work, and we can well believe him. Campanella's literary output was enormous; much of it is still imperfectly edited; and as a philosopher he is not only highly original but, to our way of thinking today, often extremely bizarre. Part of this oddness in his subject is indeed avoided by Fr. Bonansea, for he hardly touches on Campanella's philosophy of nature, which was saturated with astrology and magic, and says relatively little about his fantastically theocratical politics. What he gives us in the main is a very clear and wellconsidered critical exposition of the Campanellian theory of knowledge and metaphysics. These two topics occupy the main body of the work, (pp. 46-247) being introduced by a section on Campanella's life and philosophical background and followed by fifty pages on his moral philosophy and politics. There are nearly a hundred pages of Notes, inconveniently placed at the end of the book but in themselves of the greatest value and interest, since they largely consist of copious extracts from Campanella's writings (which very few readers will have read for themselves, at least as regards the more important ones, the Metaphysica and the Theologia). There is an excellent bibliography (to which, however, the following items may be added: P. Mandonnet's article-for its time a good one-in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, II, col. 1443-7; D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella, London, The Warburg lnsti- BOOK REVIEWS 695 tute, 1958; F. A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, ch. 20, London, 1964; E. Gilson, Etudes de philosophic medievale, Paris, 1921, pp. 125-45) . There is a name-index, of course, but unfortunately no subject-index. The author keeps his exposition distinct from his critique by inserting three purely " evaluative " chapters after the sections, respectively, on Campanella's theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and ethics. The expositions are scholarly and objective; every important statement is carefully and sufficiently documented. As for the critical part, some may find it excessively Thomist. The Thomist point of view is never indeed explicitly adopted, but it seems implicit everywhere, and it becomes quite evident in the evaluation of Campanellian metaphysics. This is not, of course, a defect as such, but in the event it has, I venture to think, resulted in a certain restriction of intellectual sympathy-not precisely because Fr. Bonansea reasons like a Thomist (or better perhaps, an Aristotelian) but because on some important points his understanding of the relevant Thomist thesis seems rather unsubtle and unimaginative, as I hope in part at least to indicate. I could not help wondering at times why a Franciscan should make so little use of the great thinkers of his own Order in evaluating this most " Franciscan," in a sense, of Dominican philosophers. Scotus is mentioned from time to time; the use Campanella makes of his " formal distinction ex natura rei" is well brought out in the discussion of the Campanellian structure of all being in terms of the three " primalities," power, knowledge, and love. But Bonaventure is conspicuously absent, his name appearing only twice, and...