Separation of Church and State in the United States by Alvin W. Johnson and Frank H. Yost (review)

884 BOOK REVIEWS sible for the continued existence of its works. The analysis elaborates this theme with the full equipment of the author's scholarly impedimenta. It is lacking, if it is a lack and not a mere quibble of a perfectionist, in that it fails to correlate this notion with that of the Demiurgos of Plato or the Nature of Aristotle. Also a further insight into the operation of Nous might be gained by a fuller appreciation of the notion of prime matter as developed by Aristotle. This, I believe, would accord with the author's intention to present the mind of Anaxagoras rather than any historical figure of him. On the other hand, his brisk treatment of Aristotle's remarks about Anaxagoras seems to miss the context of these remarks. The label, polyhistor, which Mr. Cleve has used for Aristotle seems to be taken too inclusively. However, these faults, if they are faults, do not detract from the real contribution which Mr. Cleve makes. Lovers of Philosophy (since there are few if any Philosophers) will certainly not miss the opportunity to become acquainted with this latest addition. College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota R. A. KocouREK Separation of Church and State in the United States. By ALVIN W. JoHNsoN and FRANK H. YosT. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948. Pp. 283, with index. $4.50. The same moderate usefulness possessed by Johnson's original work, The Legal Status of Church-State Relationships in the United States, published in 1934, may be claimed for its present revision and enlargement. Recent issues, and relevant court decisions, are briefly treated. There is " no claim made that this study is in any way a definitive treatise on the subject " (p. i). And indeed it is not. The opening chapter, on religious liberty in the colonies and the background of the First Amendment, is deplorably inadequate; the second chapter, on the religious element in America's. first schools, is positively misleading in its account of the genesis of the public school system and the progressive secularization of public instruction . The remaining chapters are more useful in that they bring forward the leading cases on various controversial phases of the relation between religion and government, especially in the field of education. The two chapters on Bible reading in public schools illustrate the historical reluctance of Protestantism to admit that it should be separated from the state as educator. And the chapter on anti-evolution laws are illuminating in regard of the effect of the fundamentalist religious conscience on legislation. The discussion of citizenship and the bearing of arms throws BOOX REVIEWS 885 some light on the situation of pacifism in American life and law. And the whole book, rather contrary (I think) to the intentions of its authors, contributes to the impression that the famous wall of separation between church and state was not from the beginning the formidable piece of masonry that it is now represented as being. Similarly, one has the impression that the political philosophy embodied in the Declaration of Independence, with its definite religious overtones, is increasingly less controlling of legislation and court deci~ions; I take it that nothing could be more alien to this original American theory of state and society than contemporary secularistic and positivistic legal attitudes. No part of the book has any profundity, even from a legal point of view; there is, for instance, only the most timid handling of the problem involved in the transmission of the Bill of Rights to the states via the Fourteenth Aniendment. And the authors carefully avoid the jurisprudential chaos visible in recent Supreme Court decisions, in the Jehovah's Witnesses line of cases and in the Everson and McCollum cases. Moreover, there is no awareness of the altered situation of the problem of religious liberty in consequence of the profound sociological changes of the last half-century; one finds instead the old unconscious assumption that the only enemy of religious liberty is " government," and the somewhat new assumption that both religion and the state will flourish in direct proportion to the radicality of their separation. The value of the book therefore is simply in its assembly of...