Philosophy

486 tq LEITERS IN CANADA: 1959 chapter suggests the need for a study ofactual communicative behaviour (pragmatics), without which general semantics will remain crude and naive, as it presently is. The greatest value of this book is in the questions that it poses and the humility with which it approaches the present state of knowledge. It should contribute to mutual understanding between language students and logical analysts. Its interest to logicians and mathematicians is apparent. (DONALD F. THEALL) The reader's attention must also be called to a work of scholarly importance which is not of a nature to be reviewed at length in a survey such as this: W. A. C. H. Dobson's Late Archaic Chinese: A Grammatical Study (University of Toronto Press, pp. xxviii, 254, $15.00). Apart from its significance as a contribution to Chinese studies, the book itself is an excellent example of the editorial scope and typographical resources of the University of Toronto Press. PHILOSOPHY OfGeorge P. Grant's Philosophy in the Mass Age (Copp Clark, pp. x, II7, $3.00) one might almost say that it should be heard but not seen. The book consists of talks given over the C.B.C. radio network, and although they have been edited for publication much of their oral (and aural) quality remains. Furthermore, since the talks were designed for a general audience, they were quite properly kept at a popular level. Hence the book does not purport to be, and is not, a scholarly piece. It is rather a series of laysermons on twentieth-century society, its historical background, its defects, and its need to recover a belief in an absolute foundation for morals. Professor Grant develops the theme that our society is a secular culture which seeks to dominate nature by means ofscientific technology, and which regards human reason as a mere instrument rather than a faculty for apprehending truth. The various institutions of our society "express the way in which one lot of men dedicated to certain ends impose their dominance over other men. Our society is above all the expression of the dominance that the large-scale capitalist exerts over all other persons." (P. 4.) This situation has developed historically as man has become increasingly confident of his ability to guide his own destiny without reliance on a supernatural power whose dictates must be obeyed. The result is moral relativism, the worship ofmaterial success, conformity HUMANITIES tq 4-87 to the mores of a mass culture, the absence of any significant direction in most human lives, and so on. What is the cure for these ills? Rather surprisingly, Professor Grant finds it in the notion of "natural law," which is "the assertion that there is an order in the universe, and that right action for us human beings consists in attuning ourselves to that order" (p. 28). This is recommended as the metaphysical ground for absolute moral standards. But since the notion ofnatural law has long been suspect in many quarters, the question arises whether clear, cogent reasons can be given for believing that it is a reality and not a fiction. Unfortunately Professor Grant provides no such reasons in his book. "I must rest in simple assertions," he says, "without attempting to justify them" (p. 4-3). In that case what is presented, no matter how edifying, does not merit the title of "philosophy." Nor will it carry conviction among those who hold that only reasoned solutions to man's problems can be ultimately effective. The bearing of certain aspects of contemporary culture on religious ideas is explored in C/lOllenge and Response, edited by R. C. Chalmers and John A. Irving (Ryerson, pp. x, 130, $3.50). Like its companions, The Heritage ofWestern Culture (1952) and The Light and the Flame (1956), this book is a collection ofessays by Canadian scholars on topics ranging from archaeology to theology, or perhaps one should say, eschatology. The opening essay is a masterly account by Ronald J. Williams of major archaeological discoveries which have influenced Biblical interpretation from the start ofthe nineteenth century to the present. This is followed by Northrop Frye's "Religion and Modern Poetry," a paper characteristically striking in...