Editorial

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH Publishers: Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City VoL. V coMPLETE JANUARY, 1943 EDITORIAL T HIS present issue of THE THoMIST is dedicated to Jacques Maritain on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday . M. Maritain's outstanding position in the field of philosophical letters, his tireless labors and courageous thought, merit much more than can be given him by any such tribute. Nevertheless, THE THoMIST is honored to be the instrument of that tribute; and its readers will understand and share that honor. Obviously, not all the authors contributing to this issue are Thomists; but all the contributors, Thomists and non-Thomists alike, have had the same aim, that of paying tribute to a Thomist in the one way that is at the same time a recognition of and a compliment to the goals of Thomism: by studies that play their humble part in bringing men closer to the perennial goal of lasting truth. * * * * * Though the tribute of the present contributors to THE THoMIST is primarily a personal one, it is, at the same time, very much more than that, for this tribute has been built by minds too widely separated to be commanded merely by a striking personality. At the very least, this tribute is a mark 1 EDITORIAL of keen interest in the fields of M. Maritain's labors, the sources of his thought, and the fruits of the years of work he has spent in those fields inspired by those sources. In other words, these authors, in striking variety, have paid a tribute to Thomism, as it lives and breathes in the twentieth century, as well as to a living Thomist. There is no mystery about this particular Thomist's claim to such a tribute; but there might very well be much mystery, even in the minds of those who have paid the tribute, about Thomism's claim upon the interest of non-Thomists of this age of ours. * * * * * Yet the mystery is by no means insoluble if we take the very small trouble to place Thomism and our times side by side. Perhaps the one characteristic that immediately emerges as a common denominator is that of turmoil, the roar of combat and the confusion of battle. Historically, at least, Thomism has been a child of battle. Thomas's whole career was a fighting one that demanded every ounce of his prodigious strength and every item of his incredible genius; the Thomism he left behind him, wherever it has deserved the name, has never been out of the battle zone. There has been one hard-won offensive after another as the forces of error and falsehood slowly gave way, yielding another outpost of truth to be fortified while the advance forces pushed relentlessly on. Often enough the fight has been bitter; more often, it has been won with a discouraging slowness; always, it has been a fight without compromise or negotiation. Defensively, the battle has been no less constant. Guerrilla warfare, that constant sniping that is more an annoyance than a threat unless it be disregarded, has been measured only by man's capacity for inaccuracy and his fear of truth, and the mysteriously dark attraction of truth's perversion. Here and there, down through the ages there have been all-out battles, waged with a ferocity born of a full recognition of the final character of the fight; battles where the issue was a matter of life or death for truth. * * * * * EDITORIAL Men of our time are immersed in a war of the world. It is a war of ideas as well as a war of bullets, and the roar and confusion is not confined to the war of bullets. Sometimes both have been defined as wars to determine whether those fundamental principles which are truths will survive at all. At other times, the issue has rather seemed to be a determination of what principle the world will live by, a false one or a true one. The bitterness and universality of the struggle has been seen as the result of a clash of principles that...