Books Received

108 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY sion or negation, the epic and dramatic forms in favour of the lyric, and who assumes the priority of suffering over craftsmanship in the artist? Considered in this light, each work of art is a unique irreducible psychological event, "a poem is a poem is a poem" (p. 225) , and criticism is inevitably reduced to something very like an act of contrition . And even if we agree to disagree on these points, it is hard not to boggle at the claims Professor Whalley makes for art when he asserts that "only in art can eternal truth ever be expressed" (p. xxxi) or that "art claims to engage the whole person and to make the person whole" (p. 10); when he quotes with approval Herbert Read's analogy between the quality of poetry and a state of grace (p. 13), and concludes that only poetry can " 'body forth' reality and Being" (p. 224). One does not have to be either philistine or puritan to complain of this aesthetic deism. But the texture of this book is so dense that it is perhaps damaged by citation of proof texts, and besides Professor Whalley is under no obligation to convince me or anyone else. He says in his preface that an inquiry of this kind "marvellously sharpens the wits" of its author; I will add for him that it should do the same for his readers. BOOKS RECEIVED CAPONIORI, A. ROBERT. Time and Idea: The Theory of History in Giambattista Vieo. London: Rout1edge and Kegan Paul Ltd. [Toronto: British Book Service (Canada) Ltd.]. 1953. Pp. viii, 226. $4.00. CURTr, MERLE, ed. American Scholarship in the Twentieth Century. With essays by MERLE CU'RTI, Louts WIRTH, W. STULL HOLT, RENE WELLEK, WALTER R. AGARD, ARTHUR E. MURPHY. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press [Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company Limited]. 1953. pp. xii, 252. $5.85. DORWART, REINHOLD AUGUST. The Administrative Reforms 01 Frederick William I of Prussia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press [Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company Limited]' 1953. Pp. xx, 250. $5.25. FAIRBANK, J OHN KINO. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports 1842-1854. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press [Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company Limited]. 1953. Pp. xiv, 494. $9.75. HAMELIN, O. La Thlorie de l'intellect: d'aprls Aristote et ses commentateurs. With Introduction by EDMOND BARBOTIN. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. V,in. 1953. Pp. 98. HOOVER, BENJAMIN BEARD. Samuel johnson's Parliamentary Reporting: Debates in the Senate 01 Lilliput. California: University of California Press. 1953-54. Pp. xii, 228. Cloth $2.50, pap« $1.75. HUTCHISON, JOHN A. ed. Christian Faith and Social Action. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons [Toronto: S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company Limited]. 1953. Pp. x, 246. $4.25. WATKINS, FREDE'RICK, trans. and ed. Rousseau: Political Writings. Containing The Social Contract, Considerations on the Government of Poland and Part I of the Constitutional Project for Corsica. Edinburgh and Toront~: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. 1953. Pp. xlii, 330. 10/6. WILBY, PAUL L. Conrad's Measure of Man. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. 1953. Pp. vi, 228. $3.85. ...