The Meaning and Matter of History—A Christian View by Martin Cyril D’Arcy, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Meaning and Matter of History-A Christian View. By MARTIN CYRIL D'ARcY, S. J. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959. Pp. 309, with appendix and index. $5.50. " History started off under the protection of Clio, one of the Muses; it was under the inspiration of one who would give mortals insights into the meaning of man's drama.... "Today, books on the philosophy of history are constantly appearing, but they are all open to the criticism of trying to generalize and find laws of behaviour on insufficient data. Either they have to fall back on the broadest generalizations or they omit facts or force facts in applying their laws. It may be, therefore, that a philosopher should be more modest in his claims, that he should confess to the historian that he cannot compett> with him and has no intention of competing with him. He is an artist as well as a scientist, relying, if need be, on poetic truth to make an intelligible theme out of his vast material." The above quotations from the present work might well serve as a thumbnail review for they sum up what the author has been trying to do in this book. Fr. D'Arcy does not attempt to formulate a philosophy of history although he does suggest the lines that should be followed if a sane and solid " philosophy " of history is to be arrived at. The author himself does not like the term "philosophy " of history. He is more than doubtful that systems based upon reason alone, systems such as those contrived by Hegel and Toynbee, can provide a solution to the multifarious riddles of history and really bring order into the seemingly chaotic movements of man upon the earth. And he is certain that for the Christian no such philosophy can exist. Without certain concepts for the knowledge of which man must depend upon Divine Revelation, and therefore, Faith (e. g. the doctrine of original sin), any interpretation of the past or attempt to provide a possible pattern for the future, must be in vain. Therefore, in common with C. S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters) he prefers the term "historicism." But he does not use the word (as Lewis uses it) with overtones of contempt. In an introductory chapter to this study of the different systems which historicists have invented ranging from Thucydides to Toynbee, Fr. D'Arcy examines the nature of historical knowledge to determine what right history has to claim any truth at all. He refutes the arguments advanced by certain scientists that history can never arrive at truth but only an approximation to truth, since it is impossible for it to proceed by the methods used by the U5 126 BOOK REVIEWS physical sciences to discover truth. Fr. D'Arcy admits the obvious (although many historians do not) and concedes that while history can and does use the physical sciences as auxiliaries, it cannot itself make use of the methods of the laboratory in arriving at its own peculiar certainty which differs from the certainty of the theologian, the metaphysician and the physical scientist-but it is none the less certain for all that. It is, if you will, a moral certainty, but moral certainty as used in the philosophic sense. For the certainty of history is surely as valid as the certainty of the law courts, and the evidence of history is no less convincing than much of the evidence upon which cases are decided at law. Fr. D'Arcy thinks that we can know more about the characters of history than we can know about the people who live next door and we can judge the times in which they lived better than we can judge our own because our judgment is not fogged by passion. If you would call this " only moral certainty " Fr. D'Arcy has no quarrel with you as long as you realize that it is as good and as great as any man has in conducting his social life in the present. To the objection that the conclusions of history rest ultimately to a great measure upon human faith, Fr. D'Arcy would reply...