An Historical Introduction to Modern Philosophy by Hugh Miller (review)

516 BOOK REVIEWS Newman's sympathy for Catholic tradition with his awareness of modem problems, his subtle mind coupled with a genius for clear expression would have made him a magnificent Thomist. But it is hardly good Thomism to waste time in vain speculations on "might have been." Newman is what he is, and he is great. Writer, preacher and thinker he is preeminently an apologete. And presupposing truth, the ultimate criterion of any apologetic is determined by its effectiveness. Newman's apologetic has been effective in his day, and it is still effective in ours. More than one modem problem is an outgrowth of the Liberalism Newman fought. History ·is not disparate, but continuous and causally connected. The Atomic Age is not cut off from Victorianism by an iron curtain. It is true that our times have their peculiar problems, and therefore have need of special apologetics. One great apologete of our day proposes an apologetic of the passions for the Freudians. Several converts have found their way through Aristotle and St. Thomas. And there is no doubt that many, led astray by a secularist philosophy, reading Newman would be led to question the validity of principles they had regarded as self evident. Should they pursue the question long enough and sincerely enough they might join that number of souls, who under God owe their faith to the work of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Dominican Ho'U8e of Studies, Waahington, D. C. URBAN VoLL, O.P. An Historical Introduction to Modern Philosophy. By HuGH MILLER. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Pp. 615, with index. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I read the following statement from the pen of this responsible author, professor of philosophy at U. C. L. A., that Saint Thomas was a Benedictine monk, who therefore was interested in upholding authority! Not a major point, but if anybody said Aristotle was a Spartan or Descartes a Dutchman, he would be dubbed an ignoramus; we would drop his book and go to a reliable source. How long are stupid blunders about even the greatest figures of the Middle Ages to be tolerated? Should we drop the book, or proceed? Let us be doubly fair and see what the author has to say. In fact, as it turns out, what he has to say is instructwe in more ways than one. He is endeavoring to provide a synoptic view, not so much of the history of philosophy, as of philosophy itself in terms of history. This is necessary, he thinks, to grasp the historical , and hence the philosophical, significance of two tendencies-the rationalist and the empiricist-those well-known pivots around which the BOOK REVIEWS 517 history of philosophy turns. Deeply empiricist, Miller feels, nonetheless, that the empirical tradition cannot be really fruitful unless it assimilates the insights of the rationalist tradition, particularly through its representatives in ancient times. When this assimilation is accomplished, the philosopher should be able to integrate philosophy in terms of political faith and the passion for justice, and in terms of an evolutionary doctrine which does not spurn rational necessities. Professor Miller admires the Greeks, especially for their scientific attitude and their thorough-going intellectual honesty. Because ,Plato and Aristotle are deeply intellectualistic, and inclined too much to " absolute verities," the emPiricist cannot accept their doctrines today, but at least these thinkers are not narrowly rationalistic, like the " clear and distinct " rationalists of the Cartesian era, and we desperately need to recapture their insights. Miller, one suspects, admires Plato the most of all the Greeks, and admires him not least because of his passion for justice. The contemporary historian, as evidenced by every book of this sort published in the past few years, including Mr. Russell's History of Western Philosophy, can hardly avoid devoting some space to the fifteen hundred years between the Hellenistic Schools and Rene Descartes. What proportion of space does Hugh Miller, in his tum, give to this period? He devotes eight chapters to the Greeks, in the section entitled " The Great Beginning ." Twelve chapters are given over to the modems from Descartes to Marx, while chapters nine and ten of the same section, " The Antecedents of Modem...