Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES A History of Social Thought. By PAUL HANLY FURFEY. New York: The Macmillan Company, Jl.942. Pp. :riii + 468. $2.75. Father Furfey gives two reasons for attempting to summarize the whole history of social thought in a single volume. The first is that social thought is an enormously important subject, both theoretically and practicaUy, and no one has previously written the history of social thought so broadly conceived as it is in this volume; and secondly, even among those works which have given the subject a narrower definition, none has been written from the Catholic viewpoint. These are excellent reasons, and ample justification for a book ambitiously conceived and painstakingly written. According to the author, the history of social thought is "the crystallized social experience of the race." It may be either formal o.r informalthe formal embracing books written with the conscious purpose of discussing society, the latter including "aU social thought which is not explicitly labeled as such," as a code of laws, literature, a campaign speech or international treaty. This concept of social thought at once sharply differentiates the history from others bearing a like title, and obscures, by its very enormity, the field of investigation. The criterion of selectivity is the historical importance of the doctrine; those doctrines are included which have influenced a considerable number of human societies through the course of history. Beginning with primitive social thought as reveal.ed in the dim light of prehistoric archaeology and ethnology, Dr. Furfey surveys the ancient Near East, examines the social doctrine of the Old Testament, the Far East, Greece and Rome, the New Testament. After a too brief treatment of the thought of the Church Fathers through the medieval synthesis in St. Thomas Aquinas, the author treats the rise of bourgeois and scientific naturalism, the Age of Reason and the Revolutionary Epoch, Democracy, Nationalism, Industrialism and the Era of" Progress," to attain contemporaneity with chapters on the rise of academic sociology and the period of "The Great Disillusionment" (1914-1939). A very helpful bibliographical essay concludes the book. Is Modern Culture Doomed? By ANDREW J. KRzESINSKI, Ph. D., S. T. D. New York: The Devin-Adair Co., 1942. Pp. xiv + 158. $~.00. The author points out the coexistence of two cultures which underlie the surface of modern Western CiviXization. One of these, tra- BRIEF NOTICES 288 ditional culture, finds its highest development in Christianity; the other, anti-traditional or materialistic culture, is fundamentally different since it discounts all spiritual values and seeks the enjoyment of earthly goods as the sole aim of human existence. The author then reviews briefly the historical development of materialism from the ancient Hindus to the belligerent materialism of Communism. The major portion of his work then follows and endeavors to clarify the characteristics of materialistic culture. The features of modern materialistic culture as discoverable by an analysis of modem man with reference to himself are: 1. anthropocentrism; 2. autonomism; 8. individualism . Consequent upon man's relation to reality they are: 1. limitarianism , by which the author designates modem man's phenomenalism or lack of transcendentalism; 2. mechanization, which is seen to be detrimental to man; 8. atheism; 4. egoism, which is the chief cause of the social problem and the hostility of nations towards each other; 5. solidarity or collectivism, which is caused by man's recognition of his individual weakness and his attempt to fight against the menacing individualism of the powerful and wealthy. The ·ideals of modem man reveal the following features: I. scientism; 2. realism in literature and art; 8. the cult of money; 4. the cult of the body; 5. hedonism; 6. sexualism; 7. the cult of collectivism; 8. the cult of nation. The psychic state and mental disposition of modem man are characterized by I. inconstancy; 2. dissatisfaction; 8. lack of joy. Modem materialistic culture is in an extremely critical condition, despite the apparent progress as measured by technological developments, because it has deprived man of his spiritual and moral values. So tragic is its predicament that many philosophers such as Spengler see only a complete collapse and place their hope for the future in the culture of the Far East. The...